#so. anyway. i can send him my copy of awakenings but i was hoping to find another one bc it might be nicer

[ssa-dado]

0 - Symposium, definitely not Platonic love.

Aaron Hotchner x bau!reader (I hope I tagged it correctly woops)

No use of Y/N!

Summary: Hotch, after seeing you reading a book on the jet, picks it up out of curiosity. Late-night texts with you evolve from work to teasing philosophical banter about love, deepening your connection. Through this dialogue, Hotch reflects on both philosophy and his feelings for you, as the conversation subtly flirts with deeper emotions.

Genre: fluff, sapiosexual fluff.

Warnings: Implied alcohol consumption ; Reader and Hotch being completely blind yet marvellously insightful ; Philosophical discussions, I tried my best to make them as user friendly as possible ; Sir kink if you squint, although it's not intended in that way at all ; The story is set around season 3/4 before the team found out about Strauss' drinking problem, I feel so bad anyways.

Word Count: 2.9k

Dado's Corner: be kind this is my first ever Hotch fic and overall first fic I've written in English (yes, I indeed am a real Italian stallion) so there might be some mistakes, bear with me.

next part - set when they first ever met.

Hotch sits on the couch, the soft glow of the lamp casting shadows across his living room, the house is so quiet, he briefly interrupts his late night reading session as he swears he can almost hear Jack’s light breathing from across the house. Those sweet thoughts, mixed up with the muffled night traffic almost lullabies him to sleep while the weight of another long week at the BAU settles into his bones.

His eyes immediately gaze down to his hands, firming holding opened the slim book: Symposium by Plato—a book he wouldn’t normally pick up on his own. The corners of his mouth quickly turn up as he recalls how he’d seen you reading it on the jet a few cases ago, sitting cozily and crossing your legs alone in a seat in front of him, strategically shielded from the table seats occupied by playing the rest of the team, including himself, busingly playing cards.

Every now and then his gaze automatically lingered on your stillness, the only movements coming from the swift air you moved while turning the page or adjusting your pose to be more comfortable, this sight intoxicated him. Your focus was so intense you didn’t even flinch at Derek standing up from his seat and leaning forward, while his hands gravitated towards the doctor’s bare neck after the latter just killed him off the game because oblivious of yet another variation they all added so it would make it easier to beat Reid. An attempt that ended tragically.

In that abrupt mess - from JJ laughing at the ironic hilarity to Reid using the highest-pitched voice his vocal chords could ever produce to defend himself from Derek's accusation of cheating - Hotch only remembers how your statuesque figure slowly had revived itself again as you glanced up to make sure no harm was done to the doctor. You made eye contact with Hotch and and you immersed yourself back to the slim book as soon the Unit Chief signed you not to worry and that he would tackle the situation himself. In a matter of fractions of seconds all your surroundings had disappeared again.

As soon as the Unit Chief was back into his office, curiously reminiscing about your hypnotic serenity, he’d ordered a copy.

Now, as in the comfort of his living room slowly turns the pages, his phone vibrates with a message from you awakening him from his trance, immediately wonders why you would message him so late at night.

“Hotch, quick question: about the profile for the Winger case—should we revise the victimology section?"

…Of course, he almost started to hate how his role as Unit Chief always seemed to ruin his brief-lasting delusions.

He robotically types a response, a straightforward answer to your work-related question but as he presses send, his gaze lingers on the book in his hands. There’s somehow a temptation on his side to share the weird coincidence, to see how you might react.

"Good catch. I’ll review it tomorrow.” He writes.

“Wow that was quick, I didn’t expect you to still be up, did I interrupt your late night reading session?”

He quicky blushes, how could you know him so well?!

“You did. Don’t worry about it. By the way, I’m reading Symposium tonight." He blurts out

There’s a pause, and he can visualize your surprised reaction, how the sight of your smile would always warm his heart; almost immediately, his phone buzzes again.

"Wait, really, Symposium?!”

A small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. He wouldn’t smile so much if you were standing in front of him, thankfully, the shield of communicating through texts allowed him to put down his.

You continue. “Not to raise your expectations too much, but that’s my all-time favorite book, just so you know!"

He swears he can hear the intonation of your voice reading that text, visualizing how you would face your palms towards him and raise your shoulders, trying to keep that non-chalant expression of yours and not perk a soft smile to him.

Entitled by that fateful coincidence, Hotch feels brave enough to decide to tease you - just a little - hoping the text doesn't sound that much so out of character for him as much as it does in his head, although he shrugs, sending it before he starts overthinking it.

“Your all-time favorite? A book about love? I should’ve known."

He pauses, imagining you raising an eyebrow, maybe with that knowing smile you wear when he’s teasing you. And even though he’s playing it off as a joke, part of him can completely see how you, could actually have a natural flare for romance - even if you never openly admit it and always tried the best you could to suppress that side of yours.

He decides to blame it on the years spent at the BAU when it was just the two of you along with Rossi and Gideon; At how you were recruited as soon as you turned 21, while the youngest person you worked with on the team and could relate to the most was Hotch himself, even if he was late in his Jesus year.

He quickly remembers how you would always overwork yourself - you both still do nowadays, that's why you're having a conversation at past 2 AM - He could see how you were always trying to prove your worth more to yourself rather than to your co-workers or even to the sketchy police officers and detectives somehow still stuck in the 1400s.

He had always admired you for your intelligence and acute instincts, and so does your nowadays team, immediately entrusting you with the nickname of "Prehistoric Reid" only because because you had started working at the BAU back when they still didn't provide the jet so you all had to move using the trains. Even if you already have 9 years of experience in the field, yet you were the 2nd youngest - still no eidetic memory though - this desire to always prove yourself never fully went away. One day you were the youngest, the other they assume someone way more genius than you were so you can't stand out anymore for merely for your intelligence.

You finally respond: "Well, it’s more than just a book about love. It’s actually quite of a concrete example of Plato’s take on philosophy - the whole thing told through dialogues, like a discussion among friends. But I won’t bore you with all the technicalities"

Hotch chuckles softly, picturing you downplaying your passion, trying not to sound too academic. What you don’t know is that he could listen to you talk about philosophy for hours - especially tonight, about philosophy’s take on love, no less. He doesn’t dares to say that, though.

"I wouldn’t say you’re boring me. In fact, I’m starting to see the appeal. But really, all-time favorite?"

He leans back into the couch, waiting for your reply.

You told him back when you first met that your first ever degree was in philosophy, and now recalling that specific information he's been wondering why exactly a barely-reaching-100-pages-long book holds such a special place for you, out of all the others he’s seen you passionately read during the years. A part of him is genuinely curious, the other part is trying to stretch as much as possible this conversation with you.

"Absolutely. I mean, think about it: a bunch of people crashing at their friend's house, sitting around, getting drunk, each giving their take on love while they feast at a banquet." You continued. "It’s almost like when we’re at Rossi’s, except instead of love, we’re all talking about criminology and cases while stuffing ourselves with his Italo-American dishes".

An image of Rossi pouring wine wearing an ancient greek costume - fake long white beard included - while everyone at the table delves into some intricate discussion about a case flashes through his mind, Hotch immediately chuckles at the comparison. He's sure you've imagined the exact thing too and he can almost hear you suggest hosting a real Symposium next time, his profiling skills never fail him as soon his phone buzzes again.

"Imagine if we recreated the Symposium at Rossi’s. Each of us giving our take on love. I can almost hear Reid's speech delving into the psychology of affection and its variations throughout the various cultures"

Quick on his chubby fingers, after laughing at the scenario, he types the continuation "In stark opposite, Garcia would follow him and pull out her tarot cards and read each of our birth charts, telling us who we're most compatible with based on our stars alignements"

While waiting for you, he stands up and makes his way towards his home bar, reaching for the scotch bottle, swiftly filling up his glass, silently blessing Plato for making this the longest light-hearted conversation you haven’t had in years. You were both either too focused on your work or actively suppressing your romantic feelings and ignoring each other. After all this time he would almost forget how the two of you were first and foremost very good friends. As the liquid burns the back of his throat, his phone buzzes again.

"That's actually really fascinating yet so intimidating, what about Rossi though? Of course he's hosting all of us but I feel he would totally blurt out some old-scool stuff he only understands. I know I'm not the only one who doesn't get his references, but I really feel bad whenever I don't."

He almost chokes himself after your other reply

"So, big boss, have I convinced you with giving us the free week-end or should I extend the invite our lovely friend Strauss? I fear that after a few glasses of Rossi’s wine all that angst towards you might turn into some ol' sweet love. I would watch out if I were you, Unit Chief"

You loved poking fun at him using his rank; It all started a few years ago to jokingly shrug away the awkwardness caused from how the co-worker you always used to joke around, spend the nights together in the same room, sharing your theories about the unsub and building up the profile with suddenly turned into your superior. As much as you both didn't want to admit it, something in your relationship had shifted since this happened, not to mention to the fact that it's much more awkward to admit to your boss you've been having a crush on your him for almost 9 years rather than to your co-worker.

Now Hotch, encouraged by the slight booze, further teases you "And what do you think my take on love would be?"

This was the closest he could ever come to flirting with you, walking on that fine line and never pushing himself further. For Hotch, the gesture of basically asking you to profile him in a moment in which he was so vulnerable, breaking his golden rule of "never profile your coworkers" was the most romantic declaration of love he could ever think that of.

Your text brings him back down to Earth:

"Hmm, I imagine you’d give a thoughtful, analytical speech something with a lot of depth but surprisingly subtly humorous. You would wait for everyone to finish their own speech so you would be last, acknowledging all of us completely busted, only because you have self-control."

You feel the need to add something else, even if you know already he would read into it, at the way how you reserved a mere sentence to describe that scenario involving your teammates. On the contrary, you could write a whole book about him and all his hypothetical remarks, meticulously poiting out every small gesture or expression - or the lack of - of him. Since truth lies in the middle, you decide to dedicate him only another lengthy paragraph.

"You would start with something along the lines of ‘Love is a complex system of emotional responses influenced by myriad factors…’ as if you were delivering a profile, definitely using that same tone as well. You’d probably have us all analyzing every possible nuance and you enjoy watching us slobber, trying to quickly sober up to keep up with your impeccable remarks. Of course we would miserably fail at being analytical whatsoever, but you love whenever we make a fool out of ourselves."

He chuckles "You do know me too well"

He probably hints at the possibilty of having a weekend off with his next text "And since now you're making me think I might have to start prepare my speech about love, it wouldn't hurt to also include a few practical applications for the BAU team’s dynamics."

Ha. You wish he showed you what those practical applications consisted of. Hotch although interrupts even the possibility of recycling this genius quick witted remark with him, making sure to replace yourself with his archenemy section chief Erin Strauss, to not weird him out.

"Jokes apart, your take on love would be fascinating, I'm looking forward to hear it", he says.

"Only if you’re ready for philosophical debates after a few glasses of wine. Though, I’ll warn you - I take my Plato very seriously."

Hotch smiles at that, apparently he took his Plato quite seriously as well. What you're not aware at all is that the late-night session of Symposium you had interrupted wasn't his first.

"I’ll keep that in mind. But honestly, I’ve been finding parts of it… enlightening."

He had actually finished it for the first time less than a hour before you texted. What you actually interrupted was Hotch helplessly going back through certain passages that reminded him of you. He hypothesises your take on the subject of love, trying to gauge how you view it without revealing feelings he’s kept carefully hidden for a long time.

"Enlightening, huh? So you’ve gotten to the part where Socrates explains how love makes us better people?"

Hotch remembers that part well enough, but he hasn’t revealed just how deeply he’s been thinking about it - how, in his own quiet way, he’s been trying to connect those ideas to his life, and to you, so he chooses his next words carefully.

“Not yet." He lies, knowing that the part you appointed to would only come much later in the book "But I’m guessing you’ve got some thoughts on that?"

He imagines you smiling on the other end, maybe a little amused at how he’s obviously deflecting, although you don’t press him, but your next reply doesn't lack a subtle challenge.

"I do. But I think you'd find it pretty relevant, Hotch. Phaedrus talks about how lovers fight better together - how love gives them courage."

He quickly smirks and reminds himself how much he loves when you put him in the corner with the choice of your words, there was no way he could deflect that, since Phaedrus’s speech comes first, he couldn't say he hadn't read that yet.

Hotch's eyes flicker toward the book again, remembering Phaedrus’s discourse: the idea that love could make people fight harder, be stronger… it strikes a chord, reminding him of the strength he’s seen in you, in the unique way you both handle the intense challenges of your work when paired up together. He types, his words more deliberate now.

"Phaedrus might be onto something. Love as a motivator, as a way to push people to be better. What about you? Do you see it that way?"

There’s a slight pause before your next message, and he can almost sense your careful consideration, you’ve never been one to answer these kinds of questions lightly.

"Yeah, I think so. I mean, love isn’t just about being close to someone, it’s about making each other better, pushing each other forward. But that is not easy at all. It takes patience, discipline… and maybe a bit of faith."

Hotch’s expression softens as he reads your words. He admires your thoughtfulness, your ability to cut straight to the heart of something that most people shy away from. He finds himself thinking about how true those words are, how they seem to apply not only to love, but to the way both of you approach life and work. He types slowly, his words carefully chosen.

"Patience, discipline, and faith. Sounds a lot like what we do every day, maybe we’re already living it."

As he sends the message, he sets the phone down beside him and glances at the book again. He’s aware of the irony - that for all the deflecting, all the jokes, he’s learning more about you through this conversation than he would have if he had simply asked.

The words of Plato, the discussions on love, seem to take on a new meaning - one that feels personal, one that makes him wonder if he’s been missing something between the lines all along.

"You know, this conversation feels a bit like Socratic dialogue. Just without the wine. Maybe I’m learning about love through you and Plato’s dialogues in a way Socrates might’ve appreciated."

He sends the message, a small smirk on his face. He knows how much you would appreciate the unexpected extra philosophical remark about Socrates even if he knows little to nothing about him apart from that his idea of love in Plato's book. To impress you he totally forgets how only just a few moments before he stated he hasn’t read his discourse yet. A few moments later, your reply comes through.

“No way! Aaron Hotchner now delves into the Socratic dialectics?!"

Now you smell the lie so to make sure you trick him with the next text "Well, maybe you should read something by Socrates next, he was quite the conversationalist, you would rely a lot to him, especially after all of this philosophical banter"

"Any recommendations?" He naively takes the bait

"That’s the thing, Unit Chief - Socrates didn’t write anything. He relied on his students to record his thoughts. It’s all oral and dialectical. The dialogues are his legacy, not written works, maybe that’s why it’s such a rich experience—like having an ongoing conversation with someone through the ages."

Hotch leans back, wishing these moments would linger forever, hoping the words you exchanged could be eternal just like those exchanged by the men he was reading about, now printed with black ink on the paper resting in his hands. He's surprised he doesn’t feel the tiredness of the week anymore or neither the need to sleep. Damn, he has so much energy he's sure he could run a whole marathon, but only if you’re out there watching him.

"Well, if our conversations end up like Plato’s dialogues, I think I’m in for a rewarding challenge. Just don’t make me drink too much wine before our next discussion."

"Unit Chief I thought you had self-control and didn't need to be babied like us mortals"

His phone buzzes with another message from you.

“Sorry if I ask, I’m curious - what got you interested in Symposium all of a sudden? I didn’t think philosophy was your usual reading material."

Hotch takes a moment to think, considering how to respond without revealing too much.

"You know, it’s funny. I saw you reading it a while back and it piqued my interest. I guess I wanted to see what you found so engaging about it. And honestly, I’m finding it pretty compelling - there’s a lot more depth to it than I expected."

His cheeks turn into a light shade of pink at your last response. "Unit Chief, do you believe you might need some professional insights on that speech you needed so urgently to write?"

"I definitely might need a hand - if I'm not wrong you do have a philosophy degree, don't you?"

Symposium might just become Aaron Hotchner's all-time-favourite book as well, after all.

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

Okay I'm ready to elaborate on this post now

ㅤ

So, I found this post on pixiv a while back:

In succession there's an image of gijinka Tails wearing Maria's outfit followed up by an image of mobian Shadow and a Maria with fox ears and twin tails. These images plagued my brain until my brain formed a concept, and so I'm going to talk about that concept now.

ㅤ

Now, I don't know if any of you have seen the second Avatar movie (not atla), but there's a plot point in it involving mechanics from the first movie. Whenever people assumed the body of their avatar, the machines they'd use (if I remember correctly) would automatically create a backup of their memories just in case anything happened to them and they died. And so in the second movie it kind of was just revealed that there was a space station or shuttle of some sort (please keep in mind I watched this movie one time) where they'd been growing Avatars. And so some time after the events of the first movie, once the Avatars matured, they woke up with the memories of guys who'd died at the end of the first movie. Essentially, the avatars were grown with their dna in mind, and then after they died, all of their stored memories were backed up into these avatars, making this a sort of "the avatar is their primary body" like Jake Sully while also being more along the lines of a clone thing.

Anyways, with that in mind, what if Gerald did something like this.

Gerald was doing a great deal of research on the Ark, and he dabbled in everything from ancient civilizations to aliens to chaos energy. We know he was hoping that Project Shadow 's success would be something that would lead to curing Maria of NIDS.

But what if Gerald created a bunch of backup plans? What if, as time went on and he feared the cutting of his funding or the closing of the project, he tried to create other ways that Maria could continue to live. While these methods would not be best case senario, they would still allow her to either prolong her life a bit more, or to live in some sort of fashion after her body expired

And so what if one such experiment was to create a mobian avatar. It would be an artificially created and yet organically grown mobian form, a vessel meant to inheret Maria's memories (a very copy of her soul) in the event that she died very suddenly.

And so, Maria sends Project Shadow to Earth, she gets shot, and Gerald gives Shadow the Hedgehog his mission of humanity's destruction. Despite the backup plans and alternate ways of saving his granddaughter, Gerald had no way of knowing if any of them succeeded. He had no way of knowing whether she really, truly died on the ark. And so Gerald Robotnik still crafts his plans with thoughts of avenging her, and he is still executed.

Now, another facet to this au concept. Maria is a closeted trans masc. While he'd never picked any names for himself or especially indulged in it while he was alive and human, the situation I'm about to explain gives him the ability to assume a new identity and figure things out.

So, when the ark was raided, an additional pod is ejected from it. This pod contains the growing mobian avatar and the final backup of Maria Robotnik's memories before death. And so, many years later (at least a few decades), the pod (which sadly was a bit damaged from the damages the ark had sustained after everything that had happened (even before GUN raided the place)) returns to Mobius, crash landing somewhere.

And so Maria Robotnik, when the pod is opened, awakens as a twin tailed mobian fox. Due to the unfortunate circumstances surrounding the last memory upload at/around time of death, and complications with the pod itself, the fox awakens with minimal if any memories of himself. And when eventually asked his name, can only remember a bit how the name sounds, that it started with an M.

He does not remember much of anything, barely a semblance of his own name (and quite possibly lingering feelings with no source), and so it's the first mobian(s) to take him in in any capacity that give him the name "Miles Prower".

ㅤ

So, in short, what if an au where Maria became Tails?

[sgtjbbhasmyheart]

Drunk Texting Is(n’t) Bad for Your Health- Chapter Four

Series Summary: Talk about your unconventional meet-cute! Bucky receives a text by mistake requesting he prove he's not Reader's sister. The easy dialogue between Reader and Bucky sparks a natural friendship, but could it lead to more? Bucky still deems himself unworthy of any form of affection or love. Reader is hellbent to prove him wrong. With the help of some (meddling) friends along the way, Bucky may get his happily-ever-after after all.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Word Count: 2960

Warnings: Itsy bitsy amount of angst, bad language words, mentions of phone sex and masturbation

A/N: divider credit- @firefly-graphics

DO NOT copy or replicate without my permission

“James?”

You held your breath after you uttered the name into the phone’s speaker. Your heart galloped at the thought of actually speaking to him. You’d be lying if you had said you hadn’t imagined how his voice sounded. You pictured something deep and raspy but drawled and sweet.

In the last five days, you’d imagined many things about James. Not just the sound of his voice, but his laugh, too. Rich and soothing. And of his scent- distinctly his own or a fresh, citrusy cologne of bergamot and tangerines. You imagined his rough, calloused hands sliding over your skin in slow motion.

And how he kissed. You daydreamed about that, too. Often. You couldn’t count how many times you’d stared at his sorry excuse for a selfie. You found yourself drawn to it daily. It was only part of his face, but what you could see was ruggedly handsome. His lips looked soft and delectable. You pictured yourself nibbling on his bottom lip, deepening its color to blush pink.

A sharp sigh escaped through your nose as you waited for his reply. Maybe he hadn’t heard you the first time? “James?” you asked again. “Hello?”

No response.

You pulled the phone away from your ear to make sure you were still connected. The call-time counter ticked ominously second by second on the screen. You tucked the device back under your hair to find the call was still active.

Did he get cold feet and change his mind last minute? He hadn’t hung up yet, so you weren’t exactly sure why he was waiting. Maybe he was tongue-tied? Or hadn’t expected you to pick up?

“Did you butt-dial me, James?” you laughed, trying to dispel some of your anxiety.

You heard a muffled “ shit” and two beeps. You glanced at the phone’s screen again, and call ended flashed in bold white.

Ignoring the hang-up, you immediately re-dialed James. The line rang and rang. And rang.

You weren’t confident you were going to speak with James, the longer the rings continued. He wasn’t ready to talk to you yet, and that was okay. It had only been five days.

Five days wasn’t long enough to build a bond over stupid Would You Rather? questions or form a simmering crush on a stranger that made your stomach flip whenever he sent you a funny cat meme. Nope. Five days was much too short of time for anything.

A generic voicemail greeting clicked over and rudely beeped at you. You took a deep breath and quickly thought of a reason to be calling someone who didn’t want to talk. “Hey, James. Just calling you back. It’s (Y/N), by the way. I’m not sure if you meant to call the first time or if sneaky ninjas have accosted you and somehow did a crazy pocket dial. Y’know, because of the whole military-trained assassin athlete mchottie thing. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay. And no pressure! If you’re not comfortable talking on the phone, I completely understand. I’m sweating bullets just talking to your voicemail box.” You chuckled nervously. You were starting to babble.

“Anyway,” you continued. “I hope you’re well. And don’t leave me hangin’. I really wanna know if you’d rather sneeze every hour or burp when you saw a pretty girl.” You laughed again. “Goodbye, James.”

You mashed the end call button and face-planted into one of the throw pillows on your couch. You groaned loudly into the fabric, chastising yourself in your head. If he didn’t want to talk before, he most definitely wouldn’t want to now. You shook your head in disbelief. Sneaky ninjas, seriously? What. The. Fuck?

Hours later, while in the middle of a Say Yes to the Dress marathon (dammit Robyn!) and a self-induced diabetic coma of ice cream and chips, your phone vibrated. You swat at it on the coffee table with a foot, only to realize you lack the limberness or the dexterity in your toes to retrieve the phone. As a result, it tumbled to the ground as you groaned in displeasure. Cursing your luck, you bent forward to pick it up. Awakening the phone’s black screen, a text popped into view.

James Sorry

Your heart lurched for a moment. With every second that had passed since you’d left your voicemail for James, the least likely you’d felt he’d call back or even respond. Hence the pity party with Ben & Jerry and Cool Ranch Doritos.

James My so-called “friends” grabbed my phone from me and led to accidentally calling you.

Ahh, the old “invade-your-friend’s-privacy” maneuver, you thought, shaking your head.

James I didn’t want to hang up on you, but I’m not quite ready to talk yet. I like what we have.

Your heart flopped. You liked what you had, too, but a small part of you- a dumb part- wanted just a little more.

Shaking off the feeling of longing churning your insides, you thumbed over the screen to reply.

You No worries, James. We can go at whatever speed you like.

It was weird to have the guy, for once, want to take things slow. Usually, it was always you pumping the brakes in the relationship. Was this even a relationship, though? Were all the texting and personal questions leading somewhere? Or were you bound to end up friends with an interesting story to tell your other friends?

Not allowing your negative thoughts to curtail the joy of finally texting James again, you quickly punched out:

You I’m just glad you’re okay and not being held for ransom somewhere.

James It would take a whole horde of ninjas to take me down.

You giggled at the confidence contained in this one text, but talking to a girl on the phone threw him for a loop. We are definitely back in junior high, you thought.

You You sound awfully confident for a man who wouldn’t talk to a friend on the phone.

James You don’t want to talk to me.

You pinched your eyebrows together in frustration to form a crease between them. Was he serious?

You Sure, I do. I have a bet going with myself on how your voice sounds. Is it deep and masculine or high-pitched like you sucked in helium?

James Which are you betting on?

You pulled your bottom lip in by your teeth, biting softly. You smirked as you thought of the two options. The former would be nice, but the latter would be pretty damn funny.

You I mean, deep and masculine is very desirable. Listening to the low timbre of a man’s voice is very relaxing for me. But, considering the ridiculous “selfie” you sent me, I’m placing my money on high-pitched.

James What was wrong with my selfie?!

Somehow, you knew that would get him worked up.

You Well, for starters: I can only see, like, part of your face! Did a blind person teach you how to take them??

You And secondly, there clearly wasn’t enough “Blue Steel.” With cheekbones and pouty lips like yours and a chiseled jaw, I’d be blue-steeling the shit out of all my selfies!

A wave of remorse washed over you once you hit send. Had you really compared him to Zoolander? Not only had you objectified him by mentioning how aesthetically pleasing he was (let’s face it- he’s really, really, really ridiculously good looking), but you may have criticized him for his terrible selfie abilities. At that moment, as you waited for the inevitable “fuck off” text to come through, you wished for a giant sinkhole to appear under your apartment and swallow you whole. What were you thinking?

James First off, I’m a selfie amateur. My past line of work limited my contact and/or exposure to the outside world. I didn’t learn what a selfie even was until recently. Remember, I’m also a man of mystery. I’m trying to keep up appearances and can’t reveal too much.

James What is “Blue Steel”? I’m not very pop-culture savvy unless it happened before 1944.

James Did you just call me pretty??

Your cheeks flushed with the heat of a thousand suns. He called you out as you expected him to do.

You Uh...

You Are we gonna talk about the fact you said you didn’t know about pop culture after 1944?? You are a grandpa!

James Nice try with the subject change! Admit it- you think I’m pretty.

You rolled your eyes. Of course, that would be the thing he focused on out of the whole conversation.

You I have no idea what you’re talking about.

If all else fails--deny, deny, deny.

James Right. Sure about that, doll?

Your pulse spiked.

You never did like pet names before you met James, but doll had a goo-ing effect on you for some reason. Everything seemed to turn to mush whenever he mentioned the word.

You Absolutely. I have no reason to believe that if you weren’t a military-trained assassin athlete mchottie, you’d be a male model. None what-so-ever.

James Uh-huh. I’m going to pretend that you aren’t lying through your teeth and getting back to our scintillating game of Would You Rather?

James I’d burp every time I saw a pretty dame, by the way. I wouldn’t want to take my chances with sneezing in my sleep. Would you rather eat only fruits or vegetables for one year?

Several nights after the voicemail incident, you were sitting in Penelope with Robyn after work. She wanted to meet up to decide which centerpieces worked best for the reception. Scattered across the table were three samples she and Kevin had narrowed it down to. With your thumb, while playing with a corner of the hand-drawn example closest to you, a sigh escaped your nose.

Your sister’s talent mesmerized you. Each storyboard showed the intricate detail of the flowers and candles themselves and what the tables would look like next to each other with every centerpiece. You were in awe.

“These are so good, Robbie! They must have taken forever to put together,” you said, admiring a different sample on the table.

“Nah,” she replied, brushing the compliment aside. “Just an afternoon’s time last week.”

“Well, shit. I hope they’re paying you the big bucks at work.”

She quirked an eyebrow devilishly as she reached for her drink. “You know it,” she jested before taking a sip.

You laughed at her cheekiness. Robyn had always been a go-getter. One of the many attributes you loved about her. Never took no for an answer.

“Soooo,” she drawled as she set her glass down. “How have you been?”

You looked up swiftly, eyeing her suspiciously before returning your gaze to the storyboard in your hands. “I’m still alive if that’s what you’re asking.” You set the drawing down to take a drink from your glass. “Haven’t been murdered yet, but the night is still young.”

Robyn rolled her eyes at your petulance. “You know I worry about you. Are you still texting James?”

You smiled sweetly. “Each day that goes by, you act more and more like Mom. You know that?”

Robyn scoffed. “I do not!”

She could deny it all she wanted, but Robyn was turning into the spitting image of your mother. You laughed again. “You do too. Even down to the eye roll.”

She folded her arms over her chest, waiting for you to answer her question.

Two could play this game.

You wiped the corner of your mouth with your napkin unhurriedly. “If you must know, yes, James and I are still texting.”

“Has he sent any dick pics or asked for nudes?” Robyn asked earnestly.

“Yup. We engage in wildly pornographic phone sex every night.”

Robyn glanced around the restaurant with eyes wide as saucers, making sure none of the other patrons heard you. “(Y/N), I’m serious! Has he propositioned you?”

You huffed a small laugh. “Nope,” you admitted. “In fact, he’s the one that wants to take things slow. He accidentally called me the other day and hung up from jitters.” Robyn didn’t need to know the full truth.

“The jitters?” Robyn queried.

“Yeah. I even called him back, but he let it go to voicemail.”

“Then, he must be weird or ugly.”

You grimaced at her assumption. “Ew, Robbie. Don’t be gross,” you chastised. “He’s the opposite of ugly. I might even go as far as to call him handsome.”

“How? You don’t know what he looks like,” Robyn questioned.

You took a quick sip of your drink, holding up a finger. “Au, contraire mon frère. He sent me a selfie in the very beginning.”

Robyn looked at you, perplexed. “You know you just called me your brother, right?”

You waved a hand at her to dismiss her accusation. “Ma soeur just doesn’t have the same ring to it.” You pulled your phone out to offer proof.

“You can barely see his face!” she exclaimed. “What if he’s horribly disfigured on the other side? Or missing an arm?”

You shrugged. “Then, he’s missing an arm.” You got a distant look in your eyes as you recalled the last ten days of texting with James. “He’s different, Robbie. He’s smart and funny and caring. Polite. It feels like he has an old soul. He calls me doll for chrissakes!”

“Are you sure he isn’t some crusty, old man?” Robyn gagged at the thought.

“No, I don’t,” you chuckled in response. The faraway look returned after a moment. “To me, he’s just James.”

Realization dawned on Robyn’s face, lighting her up like a light bulb. “Oh, my god. You like him.”

“Well, yeah,” you acknowledged, “he’s my friend.”

“No. You like him like him.”

Your face reddened quickly with the awareness of your feelings. They weren’t real, were they? Shaking your head, you replied, ”Nothing will happen, Robbie. It’s just a crush.”

Skeptically, she agreed, “Uh-huh.”

“What?”

“I believe that as much as I welcome a cold sore on my wedding day.” She scrunched her nose at the thought of a gross, red blemish on her face for her big day.

“Fine,” you acquiesced. “If I fall head over heels, madly in love with James by your wedding day, I’ll owe you a hundred bucks.”

Robyn raised a sculpted brow in interest. “I’m listening.”

“One hundred dollars. End of negotiation,” you stated. “I don’t have a spare hundred bucks, so it will be a motivator not to fall for James. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.”

She smiled smugly, shaking her head in disbelief. “Uh-huh.”

“Will you stop saying that?” you said, throwing a piece of lettuce at her face. “You definitely sound like Mom.”

Robyn huffed in annoyance, back-handing your shoulder softly. “Shuddup! I do not!”

You chortled heartily at the mini tantrum she was throwing about becoming Mom. You’d say anything at this point to get her to forget about you and James.

In all honesty, there was no you and James. Not really. You were friends, but could you move past that?

He was hiding something.

Something big.

And it wasn’t part of the whole “man of mystery” persona, either. James was holding back.

He had a hard time giving up anything personal to you that went beyond his likes and dislikes, which led you to believe he had found it difficult to trust.

It angered you deeply without really knowing why. Something in his past had sparked the inability. You only wish you knew what.

Deep down, you could really see yourself falling for James, and that scared you to death.

Breaking you from your reverie, Robyn piped up, “You know, James is probably jerking off to your voicemail.”

“Oh, absolutely!” you retorted, both of you dissolving into a giggling fit.

After leaving Robyn with a clear choice for centerpieces, you made your way back home. After a fifty-minute subway ride, you popped into the corner bodega for some essentials for the coming week.

Sauntering up the stairs to your third-floor walk-up, you steadied your armful of groceries with each step. It had been a long week, and now with the revelation of how you felt about James clouding your mind, a glass of wine, ice cream, and a bubble bath sounded good right about now.

You could barely see over the bags and juggled them precariously. As you stepped onto your floor, you recognized the voice of your next-door neighbor down the hall. He was talking with someone, but you couldn’t tell with whom or what about.

Blindly, you called out, “Hey, Peter? Can you be a lifesaver and help a neighbor out?” You heard the scuffle of footsteps over tile rush toward you.

Sighing in relief, you relinquished two bags to the arms reaching out. “Thanks, Pete! You’re a pe-”

You stopped mid-sentence when your view was finally cleared. Your sixteen-year-old neighbor wasn’t standing before you but a tall man with chestnut hair tied in a knot. Your lips parted slightly as your eyes widened to take in the figure’s full breadth holding your groceries.

Your eyes flicked to Peter as everything came back to focus. He was adjusting your other two bags in his arms.

“Miss (Y/L/N), this is Mr. Barnes from my Stark internship. He’s a friend. He was helping me with some history homework,” Peter explained, gesturing to the hulking man standing outside your apartment door.

“Peter,” you admonished, “how many times-” Last names weren’t meant to be spoken by friends slash neighbors.

Peter winced. “Right! Sorry, (Y/N)!” he apologized. “This is Bucky.”

Recognition crossed your face at the name. Smiling, you stuck out your hand in front of you. “Bucky Barnes, it’s nice to meet you.”

Bucky shifted one of your bags in his arms to reach out his hand. He smiled softly, “ Li-likewise.”  

Chapter Three | Chapter Five

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[xenosgirlvents]

the final tally

for some weird reason my purchased e-copy of psychic awakening: pariah could already be downloaded midday today, rather than saturday morning as it typically does (also, for most of the day, when hitting the download link for it, it downloaded ravenor: pariah instead, so i got that free out of this, weird).

i can now do something of a tally of how psychic awakening’s gone over all. to be blunt this isn’t a strong series, i don’t think anyone thinks this was handled particularly well, and narratively it’s an enormous step down in quality from vigilus. it also really wasn’t epic, since 3/4 of the books often dealt with meaningless, tensionless, conflicts with no resolution. off the top of my head the only books in the series which could, even a little, be called ‘story important’ would be: phoenix rising, ritual of the damned and pariah. saga of the beast doesn’t count because the actual plot important event there, ghazghkull’s humiliation and subsequent return, doesn’t even happen in the book, so it’s excluded.

anyway, of course, the more clear thing is; holy crap these books shit on xenos. i mean they shit on chaos too, but chaos gets out a little better. pariah is definitely the best handled of the xenos books, easily, because it at least understands for an enemy to be a threat they can’t JUST lose, so the very first fight of the book is a major necron victory. of course, from there, both follow-up battles are necron losses, one embarrassingly so because they only lose because szeras has now shown himself to be an eldrad-level idiot, but it’s better than blood of baal, the greater good or the absolutely fucking awful rise of the phoenix and saga of the beast.

so let’s look?

Phoenix Rising: Within this book Asuryani do some pointless border scuffles and win one fight against rando-Daemons (the favoured enemy of all Aeldari because Daemons are such universal chaff even Aeldari are allowed to beat them). Is second to the tied Ritual of the Damned, War of the Spider and Pariah for the clearest narrative. In the overarching narrative of the book the Ynnari discover their hope of the Seventh Path is crushed already, the efforts of all their greatest heroes can barely compete with a glamour of Shalaxi, and both Yvraine, and now again Kyganil in Pariah, declare Phoenix Rising to be a crushing, hopeless, defeat. Death Masque all over again, because GW doesn’t seem to think Aeldari can ever succeed at anything.

Faith and Fury: No Xenos. Focused on Chaos and Imperial forces, mostly the less important Space Marines, it showcased us three inconclusive battles and was a step-up from GW’s normal method of ‘Imperium wins everything’ by instead just going ‘nobody wins, it’s ongoing’. A naïve me might have hoped they’d stick to something like this so at least the non-Imperium factions don’t lose constantly, but I was stupid as always.

Blood of Baal: Followed Faith and Fury’s style of a warzone and three battles chosen from it. Of course these are Tyranids so they just lost two of the battles outright and the third was ongoing. Yay. Blood Angels, of course, lost nothing.

Ritual of the Damned: Very story driven, as was War of the Spider (skirmish of the Spider, seriously, war? It was a grand total of one battle and an ambush against like 50 dudes) and Pariah, Ritual of the Damned taught us that 200 Marines was all it took to lead a successful direct assault on the Thousand Sons’ stronghold, break right into their inner sanctum, kick their shit in, and successfully withdraw in good order. It was awful. 

The Greater Good: Faith and Fury part 2: Boogaloo. The Greater Good gave us a warzone, three factions, and had each of three battles end on an inconclusive ‘ongoing’. I guess Shadowsun is still a Xenos so now she isn’t even allowed to beat randos anymore, as she fails to successfully conquer an unknown, random, planet with no known characters on it.

Saga of the Beast: Six meaningless battles focused almost purely only on the Space Wolves’ perspectives with, in most, there not even being Orkish characters with names at all, it presented us a mix of stalemates and Space Wolf victories with the only Ork ‘victory’ being one battle where they teleported out of the battle before it could finish. Yay. Humiliatingly this is the best the Xenos do till Pariah.

Engine War: More focused, but lacking clear direction, this was a small, scant, book focused almost purely on rando Knights and Magi attacking a single fortress on a single Chaos Knight world. Technically the outcome is mixed, but it’s a closest to an outright win Chaos manage. The overarching Chaos scheme, a machine that could slingshot Warp Storms, is destroyed and foiled, but the Daemons released as a result do wipe out the Adeptus Mechanicus fleet entirely and send the remaining Imperials running from the planet, so they don’t hold it.

War of the Spider: Why does this even exist? Nothing happens in it? War of the Spider is a pointless, short, story in which Fabius has none of his more detailed or interesting characterization, in which Typhus is a cowardly idiot who loses one fight when he lets himself be ambushed by a warriors 9000 years younger than him and loses his second fight when he pisses himself at the sight of Custodes and abandons his entire honourguard. so veterans of the long war who’ve fought with him for millenia, to die as he runs away with his tail between his legs. The Death Guard lose. The Shriven lose. The Custodes technically win as they set out to destroy the Shriven and they do, and Fabius wins because his ‘win condition’ is basically just that he doesn’t die so by that metric he always wins. The battle, though, is of course won by the Imperium. Again. It’s also nonsensical. Where told the Shriven fleet could wipe out the Custodes fleet, but they land to kill them in a land battle. Then the Death Guard show up and destroy the Shriven easily, so by that metric their fleet should destroy the Custodes fleet easily too but...instead Typhus just runs away from them? Is he that scared of Custodes? What an absolute loser.

Pariah: Probably the most competently written of the books because it follows, like, literally the most basic of story telling conventions. We are introduced to a threat. The first engagement with the threat, Mesmoch, ends with the Imperium retreating in defeat. Then a second battle lead by Stern ends in victory. Then in a third battle a super-secret-special-awesome team of characters infiltrate to the Villain’s evil lair to steal a McGuffin and succeed in doing so. 

[when can we have a campaign where xenos just win? taros has now been invalidated, so when are we getting a campaign where xenos actually beat the imperium for once?]

Of Psychic Awakening the Imperium wins a whopping 9 (of these it should be noted Space Wolves and Blood Angels alone constitute more than half) battles. Asuryani come in 2nd place with 2. 2. Chaos gets 1-2 (debatably?), Necron get 1, Orks get 1 (debateable again) and that’s about it.

In terms of winning ‘campaigns’ as most of these are ongoing there aren’t too many of those. That being said the Imperium wins outright in both Ritual of the Damned and in War of the Spider.

Beyond that the only other people who can claim to have won ‘campaigns’ are Fabius Bile and Chaos Daemons, but it is a little more shaky. As I said Fabius does in War of the Spider ‘win’, because he escapes with his prize, but whether this should matter when he’s really not a military player is up for everyone to decide for themselves. Daemons are also possible because I’m pretty sure at the end of Engine War THEY don’t care that the Warp Storm machine is now destroyed, they just enjoyed wiping out the Mechanicus force attacking Ordex-Thaag, so I’d submit these two are the only other options for actual ‘wins’ in books.

To fucking no-one’s surprise Xenos don’t manage to win a single campaign. 

[fantranslatorbychoice]

Kakuriyo no Yadomeshi Volume 6 Intermission 1 - Another Worthy Opponent

T/N: Hey there Kakuriyo fan-fams, how are you doing so far? Anyway, here's the first intermission of the volume, as an o-make/bonus for everyone, before this month ends. Thank you for noticing this blog, I appreciate it very much. I wouldn’t know if this has notes though, my tumblr app is basically non-functional anymore so I just get surprised when I login. Anyways, I hope you have fun reading.

As always, I mostly didn’t translate some of the names of the ayakashi/youkai, as well as the proper nouns because uhm... They’re basically nouns. It’s like how some translated manga are done. It’s my style, I guess. Links to references at the end of the post.

Also if you like this translation, you can heart it, share the link, reblog, I just respectfully ask that DO NOT REPOST ELSEWHERE. This is my contribution to the scant English content of this fandom, and I worked really hard to finish this thing, it’s not like I just copy-pasted everything. I even had to build the kanji in Jisho one by one. Try it and you’ll see what I mean.

You can rave about this, rant about this, but if possible please link back to this page. If you’re unsure how to do that, just copy the web address of this page. If you’re on a blogsite just insert the web address as a hyperlink as a link back to here. Honestly if this light novel was officially-published in English, I wouldn’t even be doing this right now... And if it did, I’d take this offline to support the publishers and Yuuma-sensei. Creators support creators, is what I believe in.

As previously-mentioned in earlier chapters, if you stumbled upon this one, the two seasons of the anime covered volumes 1-5, so other than the extra details, you didn’t miss much stuff.  OK, this intermission is a fun and light chapter. Not much food though. I want some pizza lol

P104 I, Ginji, the Young Master of Tenjin-ya whom it was entrusted to, with regards to the Autumn Festival activites at the end of October, have finally accepted the fact that I couldn't think of anything else to include in the programme and this time I don't know what to do anymore. Odanna-sama suddenly called for me, and I immediately went while I was in the middle of work. "Really, Ranmaru is coming to Tenjin-ya?" "Yes. It's because Aoi succeeded in the matters at Orio-ya, he's coming here to pay back with rewards. He just accepted Byakuya's unreasonable payment demand as it was. If Aoi hears about it, she'll surely be horrified. Regarding that payment." "Hee hee. Even now, Aoi hasn't realized the magnitude of her doing the ceremony in Orio-ya, hasn't she?" According to Odanna-sama, the fruits of Aoi-san's rewards, after covering the losses and deficits due to Tenjin-ya's prolonged break, there's still probably enough to deduct for Aoi-san's bonus commision. Naturally, it seems that the remainders will be alloted to repay the debts. "Wah, is that true?" After reading out the detailed particulars, it caused even me to unconsciously react. P105 Byakuya-san, how on earth were you able to negotiate such sums? No, it's not that but, as even I was involved in the ceremony at Orio-ya many times and I understood why, Aoi-san going there for us, the achievements of what remained to be done were enormous. Surely, Ranmaru seemed to be aware that the reward was reasonable. "By the way, Odanna-sama. Yesterday, how was your date with Aoi-san? Although called as such, it probably wasn't one." "It's not like that. Aoi was worshipped by the mountain's Kaku-zaru, we conspired with the extermination of bandits... The plans to make the fruits all around us to make a heartwarming date progressed into a disaster, but thankfully we were able to gain some information. Moreover, Aoi made cooking seem fun. We acquired ingredients from the mountain that we rarely have, it was delightful. Aoi's obsession for cooking is probably her greatest cure." "Ah, ahaha. That's Aoi for you. Anyhow, in any case, I'm relieved that you were safe." Odanna-sama just said, "Yes, I guess," and smiled so happily. Sighing, his smile just looked so youthful. I just suddenly thought it was. "Alright Ginji, your brother is arriving very soon. It's a rare opportunity to meet up with him, you’re gonna be with him." "Really, is that fine?" "You're too formal with Byakuya and I. When you're not around, it becomes deathly quiet."

P106

"Is... Is that so? I mean, yes, it is." Although Tenjin-ya and Orio-ya combined their strengths to get through difficulty, there's still a sense of tension. It's for this reason that there's still a business competition, anything that happens as a result of the rivalry, surely when imagining as such, it can lead to painful stories. No, but my worries are probably unnecessary. "Wahhhh! It's been a long time, Tenjin-ya! It's summer since we last came? Today we brought a lot of souvenir gifts-- Now where is Ojou-chan**? I want to have something to eat--" "Hattori, you're being too boisterous! Shut up--" "What the heck Ranmaru-- I just brought you here--" It seems that Hatori went along with Orio-ya's Ranmaru. Surely, due to their extreme inability to read the atmosphere, I wonder if they can fulfill their roles this time. Perhaps... Ranmaru has become like Odanna-sama, and probably doesn't like it when it gets quiet? "We appreciate you coming from so far a distance, respected Head of Orio-ya.** We welcome you." "Whaat. You're damn heartless to talk, Tenjin-ya's Master. But we want to immediately return the favor. For disturbing you lowlifes**, we apologize. Hey, Hatori." "Hey, hey" T/N: Hopefully, by this time it's easy to pinpoint out who's calling Aoi. If there's no honorrifics, it's Odanna-sama, or O-ryo. With -kun, it's Byakuya. With -san, it's Ginji, and everyone else lol Hatori calls her Miss=Ojou-chan yeah you probably get it now lol Yeah Ranmaru is technically not the master of Orio-ya's he's more or less the chief officer for operations, but he's still under Ougondouji-sama, the original founder of Tenjin-ya. Odanna-sama is more or less the chief executive officer or everything because Ougondouji-sama left Tenjin-ya in his care. Something like that. This part was explained in the anime too, before the start of the Orio-ya arc.

Also I didn’t choose to translate temee -  てめえ  for what it really is, I find it too harsh so I just went along with the more milder ones lolol Ranmaru is a potty mouth guys P107 Hatori-san pulled out his bag. It is totally wrapped in mystery, and our chief accountant Byakuya-san solemnly accepted it, and his sharp-sightedness was surely awakened by the contents. "Yes, it is good..." After that, the chief accountant and Odanna-sama, who do not exempt a lot of things other than this, stamped the magnificent receipt with Tenjin-ya's very important golden seal. "After this, we need to make a written report to Aoi-kun.  We also have to include her bonus commision with it." Byakuya-san's sour mood seemed to have lifted somehow. The large payment was deserved, and opening his fan, he leisurely looked up. "This is Aoi-san's first commision, isn't it? She'll be ecstatic--" Once she learns that the bonus has been given, she'll be very surprised. I could imagine her shocked face, and I could only laugh about it silently in my head. "Young-master, can you hand this over? That girl can finally embezzle a lot of ingredients--" "You can't say that.." Odanna-sama couldn't help but say it with a sarcastic laugh, and bizaarely showed it to Ranmaru and Hatori-san. The two looked at each other with a side-glance. P108 “Also, Tenjin-ya's Odanna-sama. Ougondouji-sama, did she came to Tenjin-ya sometime ago?" Ranmaru decided to cut off the conversation, and changed its direction. Odanna-sama immediately shook his head. "No... I wanted something returned to the girl, and I was thinking of getting in touch. I couldn't get the whereabouts of that person, that's why it wasn't easy." "Wanted something returned?" While sipping some of Tenjin-ya's tea, Hatori went "What could that be?" "The Tengu's Uchiwa Fan.** At present, that is Aoi's property, and Ougondouji-sama should bring it here." "Ah, that, yes, yes." It seemed that up until now, Hatori-san seemed to have forgotten about it, and asked Ranmaru about it with his gaze. His eyes read "Hey, what should I do?". Ranmaru kept quiet for a bit, and opened his mouth. "Ougondouji-sama, she said that she was going to the North-western Lands." "The North-western Lands?" Odanna-sama and Byakuya-san's facial expressions changed. The North-western Lands. It is also called the Land of Bun-mon, Scholarly Gates. In that knowledge gate metropolis, there are multitudes of academicians and doctors. Really, they send out so many civil officials, there are just so many politicians in charge of that place, even inside the Hachiyo's centers and nearby areas, that land is said to have strong political powers. T/N: OK, so this explains why Aoi didn't just use the uchiwa-fan to get rid of the bandits. The leafy fan wasn't returned yet. OK, so if you're wondering too, there you go. P109 "Likewise, that place hates anything-that-is-easy-to-understand." Byakuya-san nonchalantly said that in distaste. "Ahh. In Youto's imperial court, the political authority has swayed, it's under the territory of the Minister of the Right, Ieyasu. Anyhow, Ougondouji-sama traveling to the Northern Lands must be related to her calling out for something, but it doesn't seem likely that the Tanuki would easily get moved. She probably doesn't know how to handle that." Odanna-sama placed his hand on his jaw, and let out a long exhale. "It's connected to the Northern Lands. Two days ago, even I heard the stories of the people living the mountains of the Northern Lands. For a long time there, the Great Old Sage has been a go-between in ruling that region, but that person has been bedridden with an illness and no one has been elected to be the successor. It's because of that it seems, that the insurgent forces have increased." "That grandpa, he hasn't died yet?" Hatori's lack of reading the mood appropriately went out with just a few words, and Ranmaru stared at him sternly. Hatori just pretended to be ignorant by whistling.** "I daresay Ougondouji-sama went to the North-western Lands for the sake of resolving the chaotic situation in the north. There's also the issue of opening up a vacancy in the Hachiyo ranks. There's a chance for the aristocrats in the imperial court to increase their power and influence. Currently, owing to the Hachiyos' command, each of the eight districts's sovereignty were held together by each Hachiyo, but there have been calls to abolish the Hachiyo system, and the supremacy of the Central Government will become absolute, as more people will have to make the decisions." After Ranmaru finished talking, he huffed a bitter smile after thinking, and brushed up his hair. T/N: Hatori is such an adorable dumbass, srsly, I wanna be annoyed at him but he's a sweetheart inside, apart from flirting with anybody, I mean ANYBODY lololol Also Ranmaru is such a softie with Nobunaga, I just can't - gahaha you can't stop me you all P110 "Tenjin-ya's Odanna-sama, have you ever imagined that we will be talking together like this?" "Certainly. Surprisingly, your edges have been trimmed off and you're now softer**, Ranmaru." "Tch... Leave me alone!" "Gyahahahaha--" Hatori-san started laughing. After that even Odanna-sama did too, and the intense atmosphere was flipped over, and as everyone around started making playful faces, Byakuya-san cleared his throat and silently glared at Odanna-sama. Don't destroy your dignified attitude, was what I could read from his wordless plea. Even Odanna-sama considerably had a cold sweat vibe. "I give up, can we get over with the tiring conversation? If so, let's talk about more delightful things. Here's a joyous report from Orio-ya. As a matter of fact, our Young Master and Young Mistress have been engaged, somehow." "Really, aren't they Hideyoshi-san and Nene-san**?" Up until now my calmness levels have been fine, but because Hatori-san abruptly revealed an auspicious news from my old stomping grounds, I unconsciously reacted spite of myself. Hideyoshi-san is a goblin monkey Ayakashi, and his position in Orio-ya is Young Master. Nene-san is a fire rat Ayakashi, and is Orio-ya's Young Mistress. T/N: This literally was written like "your horns/corners have been taken out and you're now rounded" but again, probably a pun because maru=round and well, Ranmaru has MARU in it. Oh well. And yeah I ship fire rat girl and monkey boy lol canon shipping ftw P111 During the time we worked together in summer, I didn't feel that kind of atmosphere around them... I saw that Nene-san especially admired Ranmaru, but this awakening of one's love is probably an exceptional case. "But, isn't this development happening too fast?" I was stunned, in reality the time period that elapsed since the engagement happened was at most, two months. "That dumbass Hideyoshi is different, he's a late bloomer." "Whaa... But in your dreams you wouldn't say something like that to the dog you're raising, won't you Ranmaru?" While Ranmaru was smirking, the profound meaning in my words propped him up, and he thoughtlessly replied. "Nonetheless, I heard it from Nene-chan, who was the aggressive one!" "Really?!" What on earth is up with that two...? "That definitely happened, when the two went back to their hometown, during the break after the ceremony." "Oh well, since the beginning those two have been comrades in their old hometown, and having surpassed the ritual, likely they were drawn towards each other. But it was a good thing for Orio-ya.  If the connections between the managing staff gets stronger due to having more trust, then it's going to be more rock-solid." P112 Both Ranmaru and Hatori-san were receptive to the engagement of the two trustworthy management staff. Especially Ranmaru, his face may not show it but his speech and his demeanor shows that he's happy. Even I realized that. "Gahaha-- Well, I told Hideyoshi to mess about some more. But he seems earnest of only one way. Because he was raised in the countryside, he only knows that when you decide to get together with someone, then you get married. Even Nene-chan too, one way or another says that if it's Hideyoshi, then it's good. If it fits, then it must be suitable." "Not playing around is definitely the opposite of what you are, Hatori." "Geez, I think you're absolutely stabbing me. Leave me out of this, Odanna" Hatori-san just destroyed himself. But Odanna-sama was smiling, then he just dared to speak calmly. "Ah, I get that. From now on, it's wonderful that as employees they will be giving their best to gain happiness. But in Tenjin-ya's management staff, ever since Kikuno’s marriage, nobody has ever been married. Also, there's nobody who wants to...**" "..." Kikuno-san was Tenjin-ya's former Young Mistress, and was also doubtful about O-ryo being the current Young Mistress. It's a fact that ever since her marriage, there has been no other celebratory news from Tenjin-ya. Even hints, there's mostly nothing... Anyway, nobody was saying anything, and it got awfully quiet. "Speaking of someone, aren't you dumbasses instantly forgetting about that Shirou's granddaughter's marriage?" T/N: This is just funny AF, salty boi is salty lol but seriously if this ogre-boi just stopped messing around with Aoi maybe he's gonna be the next one to get hitched lololol well IDK what do you think y’all P113 ".. what?" Although Ranmaru pierced through and broke that silence, Odanna-sama's laughing face got frozen stiff. "If that was easy, shouldn't I be working this hard? But since I couldn't do just that, I am in trouble right now." Everyone in here went "ohhh..." and greatly understood what he meant. Guys, right now Aoi-san's thinking about that. It seems that the girl's personality and Odanna-sama's huge efforts can be easily understood in 10 minutes. "Ahahaha-- Odanna, you dumbass can't handle a young girl by yourself, that's an amusing story. It's hilarious--" "Well, that IS about Shirou's granddaughter. That Ojou-chan, no matter how often she falls, she just stands up again. Kakuriyo hasn't been more enlivened by that before." Ranmaru and Hatori-san kept hitting their knees as they laughed. Afterwards, for some time there was chatting about public news, as well as exchanging information about Kakuriyo's affairs, and apart from Orio-ya's payment contract, all sorts of souvenirs and presents were given out. Those were Orio-ya's pride, the famous products from the Southern Lands. Of course there was seafood, Kiseki beef that has a little fat and is famous with the ladies, mangoes that only grow in Kakuriyo's south, and other snacks like that. Lately there has been additional efforts in growing what is called an "avocado" and other fruits from Utsushiyo. P114 I think that with regards to Aoi-san, she'll be happy with these, but Odanna-sama and Byakuya-san seemed to be annoyed by it. "Lately, the topic of interest about Orio-ya is that your souvenirs and products have increased, and we're jealous." "Then Tenjin-ya has to quickly produce and release new products and souvenirs. People asking about old and ancient products are dwindling, you know. With regards to that aspect, Orio-ya has strength. Although we're still continuously on the road to improvement, it's because we're changing to become your worthy competitor." Byakuya-san whispered to me "Even if so..." "Young Master-dono, I have heard your plea that you haven't thought of what to prepare with regards to the Autumn Festival, have you formed any plans right now?" "About that, I think that what we usually have annually aren't interesting and fun. This year, we'll use agricultural produce of the Land of Ogre's gate, such as rice, sweet potato, and pumpkins**." "P... Pumpkins?" Odanna-sama's face became unusually disgusted. "About that.. Odanna-sama doesn't like the texture of pumpkins." "It's sweet, but can't you think of anything other than side dishes?" While we were seating together in the banquet, Odanna-sama, Byakuya-san and I were thinking about it a lot. T/N: Goodness Ginji, no wonder your catering business got whacked. I adore you but really... just hire Aoi in the creative department lol Also if she gets to make Odanna-sama eat pumpkin I really can't say so much about her now lol P115 There weren't any other things that he didn't like, and though Odanna-sama appears to be a flawless ogre, when there's boiled pumpkin I have seen that he casually places it on Byakuya-san's plate. "...Pumpkin, is it..?" "Ginji, why is your expression that of an evil fox's?" "It's not that, Odanna-sama. I just thought of something after a bit." "Ohhh, that's wonderful!" "Whooo.. Those are the words of our genius planning department manager, Young Master-dono. That is certainly going to be a fun plan!" What on earth, Odanna-sama and Byakuya-san were they hounding me for such a plan right after that. "That, uhm..." After the banquet we huddled in a circle and sneakily talked about the scheme. The three people in the management staff planned together in hushed voices, and silently laughed. Chiaki-san, the doorman in charge of footwears, after looking at the night scenery, went by and we must have made him say "Well, that's scary".

End of Intermission 1, Volume 6. Previous - Chapter 3   Next - Chapter 4

References:

Wonderful site for the youkai references

Other stuff I used to do this: Kodansha Kanji Learner’s Dictionary (you can buy here, I’m not sponsored btw). I was about to buy the older edition but then the newer one came out 2013 so I bought that instead. Worth buying since I was able to find nearly all of the words I needed just by stroke pattern alone.

Merriam-Webster's Japanese-English Dictionary (the red-covered 1996 version is apparently out of print right now). This is what I have been using for a very long time, I bought it when I was still a fetus (yes I am old so what lol), and after so many years, when compared to newer editions, I still prefer this one since its entirety is Japanese-English, the English to Japanese gloss are just 16 pages tops, so you get more Japanese words for your buck. But that’s just my opinion, maybe other people prefer the Jap-En x En-Jap IDEK.

Basic online dictionary, Jisho. Knowledge of verb conjugations  and other words are necessary since not all have entries.

If you can read Japanese, you can buy the whole set in Amazon Japan, they’re shipping worldwide now, I think.

[diffractor]

I was thinking back to childhood memories, and just realized that the gba game “Sonic Battle” I played a very long time ago was plausibly a subconscious motivating factor for finding AI safety to be an important thing to work on. Said game is a Sonic fighting game, with a hell of a story, though it only really clicks once you do a second playthrough with enough context to see what’s actually going on there. So, this is the plot with full context (and filling in tidbits of info that you only get on the second playthrough), and I’m doing it from memory so there may be some inaccuracies. Once upon a time there was the 4th great Civilization. Key word, “was”. The thing that wiped them out was that they made a very specific robot, as a weapon of war, named Emerl (though that isn’t the original name), and... it didn’t go so well. Emerl’s ability was to be able to copy any attack or weapon used against it, or that it observes. This manifests in the game as Emerl not having a fixed moveset, you can splice together whichever moveset you want from the moves of all the other characters you’ve fought against. Just stitch the best healing and the best movement speed and the best attacks and best projectiles and a “self-destruct after you die” special ability together from all the different characters, and plow through the rest of the cast. Anyways, it was built as a weapon of war, and the creators didn’t last too long after that, though it isn’t specified precisely what happened. Eggman’s father (or grandpa, maybe?) is tasked by the military with creating weapons of war. He doesn’t really want to do this, and so tends to make freely willed things that can reject being a weapon. One of which was Shadow the hedgehog, and also, as his logs show, he found Emerl on an archeology trip too, and kinda freaked out when he realized exactly what that particular robot was. He wasn’t able to completely override the original programming, just put in some modifications. Later, Eggman gets a hold of Emerl somehow, and after a bit of testing and using it to make crappy knockoff robots, deems it a useless pile of trash and certainly not the civilization-ending weapon it’s supposed to be and throws it away on the beach. Sonic finds the abandoned robot, and shows off his moves. Emerl bonds with him (read: follows Sonic around and obeys commands and if Sonic tells Emerl to obey someone else then Emerl has a new master), because one of the things it’s programmed to do is to obey someone who displays sufficient power. It can barely talk, isn’t that good at fighting, and Tails is trying to figure out what the deal with it is. It seems to be attracted to Chaos Emeralds, and after getting the first one, there’s a notable boost in its ability to copy things, fight, and talk, going from “barely able to talk” to “low-quality chatbot trained on a corpus of sonic and tails talking” to “gpt-2 trained on sonic, tails, knuckles, and amy” to “gpt-3 trained on the whole sonic cast” as the game progresses and you acquire more. There’s a bunch of adventures which are mostly pointless, by my estimation, with a bunch of characters trying to use Emerl for their own ends, and getting into shenanigans, and fighting off Eggman, while nobody seems to realize they’ve got a civilization-destroying weapon on their hands. The only sane character worthy of any respect in this entire shitshow is Shadow the Hedgehog, who knows what Emerl actually is and is trying his best to kill the damn thing, while everyone else unreasonably insists on getting in his way and feeding Emerl more Chaos Emeralds because he’s their friend. Idiots. We get to the Shadow arc. Apparently Shadow and Rouge have found Eggman’s (dad’s? grandpa’s?) logs, and apparently when it gets all 7 Chaos Emeralds, it will awaken to its original form. And he managed to set things up so if you say the password “bring hope to humanity” upon Emerl fully waking up... it gets sealed again, and acts as just a friendly Sonic character with free will again, having fun with the rest of the cast. Shadow gives Emerl the last Chaos Emerald and does that, after some meaningful chats. And then the Emerl arc, the final one. Eggman has apparently made some villainous spaceship floating in the sky and being ominous, and the sonic crew sends Emerl up to give Eggman an ass-whooping, which he does. And then Eggman reveals that it was a trap, fires the big spaceship gun (which apparently wipes out some stars, but I reject this because physics and my headcanon is that it just made a big new crater on the moon), and reveals that there’s one last bit of knowledge that nobody knew about. Emerl will always make a bond with anyone that displays overwhelming power, far in excess of what has previously been shown. And all the happy-go-lucky friendly robot nonsense is wiped away, and the ancient weapon of war (which Emerl always was, Shadow should have turned it into scrap) awakens at full power, and starts gathering energy. Eggman tries to direct it (and fails). It aims the big spaceship gun at earth, and Eggman is quite put out by this, because he just wants to rule the world, not destroy it. But, y’know, if you play around with civilization-destroying robots, your civilization might end up destroyed, who would have thought. Emerl beats Eggman up. Sonic takes the Master Emerald (capable of controlling the Chaos Emeralds) and teleports onto the ship to try to use it to reign Emerl in, as their last hope. The heroic victory at the last moment. Emerl unceremoniously smashes it before it can be used. 30 seconds until end of earth. Shadow chooses to go out with a few edgy lines about “the final voice of the last war machine” and “natural result of ignorant human desires” Cream chooses to go out with “are we all... going to die? :(” Tails chooses to go out frantically advising Sonic on how, if he can inflict massive damage on Emerl, since Emerl has too much power stored up and is highly unstable, it should be able to take him out. Sonic chooses to go out fighting Full Power Emerl entirely equipped with blink-fast 2-hit-ko attacks. And then you defeat Emerl and he suffers but shuts down back to normal and looks like he’s gonna live... And then beeping. Apparently Eggman’s grandpa put in a self-destruct safeguard. Emerl dies via self-destruct, and everyone is sad, and I cried a bit as a kid, and they talk about making a better world... And (it may just be me), there’s one last note of discontent in your mind after beating the game. You didn’t beat Emerl in 30 seconds. In fact, I don’t think it’s even possible to beat that final battle in 30 seconds. If the situation had actually happened, there wouldn’t have been a heroic final victory after Emerl shattered the Master Emerald. Sonic would have had his ass handed to him, or not won in 30 seconds, and the Earth would be destroyed thanks to Dr. Eggman and everyone involved in waking Emerl up and thinking they were helping, and Shadow failing at killing the robot early on, and that would be that. You now probably see why this old gba game could be a subconscious motivator.

[shadowphoenixrider]

(Wrote this on a bit of whim. It’s some Katla/Nanu stuff as part of the OT4, and canon to their story. I’ve been more laissez faire with the games. Hope you enjoy!)

No secrets between us, Katla thought as she lingered at the doorway, watching the scene before her.

Kahuna Nanu had stretched his long body out along his blue couch, focused entirely on the tricks he was performing on his kendama, and not on the Alolan Meowth scattered about him - such as the three staring at the red ball, one slightly crouched as if debating whether to swat it.

It was a peaceful scene, and not one the trainer wanted to disturb, especially not with the topic she needed to discuss. It was easier to copy the Meowth and watch her lover’s skill instead.

That was until a soft ‘thump’ and the click of claws across a wooden floor drew Katla’s attention to the large Persian padding her way over, her curled tail lifting as she approached.

“Perr~” The Classy Cat announced softly, her headbutt knocking Katla back a step, a guttural purr rumbling out almost as soon as the trainer’s hand sunk into her thick grey coat.

“Hi Perla.” Katla murmured softly, stroking down her muscled back as the feline rubbed past her.

“There a reason you’re hiding back there, Kat?” Nanu asked, the sound of his kendama slowing.

Katla took a breath. You gotta do it. You can’t leave him out of the loop. Perla chirruped, looking up at her expectantly.

“No, not really.” The trainer said, stepping out of the doorway. “Just thinking.”

The kahuna’s red gaze shifted to her as soon as she came into view, Perla padding past her. He said nothing, the only sound being the clack of ball and cup.

“I need to tell you something. From my past.”

Clack.

The silence ticked on for a couple of seconds, his face inscrutable as ever. She would never challenge him to a game of poker.

“You don’t have to listen right now if you don’t want,” she said eventually. “I-I didn’t want to disturb you-”

Nanu sat up, scattering his small feline audience as he swung his legs down and causing a loaf-Meowth further down the couch to glare at him.

“Sit with me, Kat,” he said, although it was more an order than a suggestion.

She felt his stare follow her as she settled next to him. It made her slightly uneasy, and yet it also didn’t. Perhaps it was just a by-product of him being a police officer.

The trainer took a breath. Here we go.

“You know I started out with my Pokemon in Hoenn, right?”

“Yeah. Born in Galar, registered in Hoenn,” he said, winding the string around the kendama’s handle. “I remember.”

Katla smiled briefly - of course he did.

“Great. Uh, I know this is kinda out of left field, but do you remember there being a big storm in Hoenn about ten years ago or so? Had something to do with a Team Aqua?”

Nanu's steady gaze didn’t shift from her, but she did notice a crease appear between his thick eyebrows.

“I remember that name,” he began, sentence hanging for a moment before he looked away. “Some gang of pirates?”

“I guess?” Katla scratched her head. “They certainly dressed the part. But they’d graduated into eco-terrorists when I met them.”

The kahuna’s eyes slid back to her, his eyebrow arching.

“What is it with you kids and taking on criminal gangs that would make most adults think twice? Although,” a smirk pulled at the corner of his lips, “you don’t seem to know what danger is.”

Katla rolled her eyes.

“Ha ha, very funny, Officer.” She blew out a sigh through her nose. “If I’m honest, I would have preferred to avoid them. I was just a little kid on her first adventure with Pokemon, I didn’t need...I didn’t need what came next.”

Her gaze drifted to Perla, now lying on the window sill, oblivious to the two smaller Meowth playfully batting at her hanging tail as it swayed back and forth.

“They said they wanted to expand the oceans to make more homes for water-type Pokemon,” Katla continued, interrupted by an amused snort. “Yeah, that was my reaction too. The oceans are big enough without help. Anyway, in order to do that, they decided to find and awaken Kyogre.”

“It’s been a long time since I last went to Hoenn, but isn’t Kyogre one of the Pokemon deities there?” The kahuna asked, one eyebrow arched.

“Yeah, Kyogre is the God of the Sea.” The trainer sighed. “They thought they could control it. You can imagine how well that went.”

"Hmm.” She felt Nanu’s gaze linger on her. “So, where did you come in?”

Katla managed to suck in a breath, her heart beginning to beat a fast tattoo.

“There is a place called the Cave of Origins, said to be where life began. It contains a power that could cause something called Primal Reversion. Basically, Kyogre went to claim that power and become every bit as much as of a God as the legends make it out to be.” She explained. “The plan was for someone to intercept and defeat it whilst it was still just a powerful Pokemon and not ‘the Almighty’.”

She finally turned to meet Nanu’s eyes. “That someone was me.”

There was a long, long pause.

“An eleven year old girl.” The kahuna spoke slowly. “Hoenn had a Champion back then, didn’t they?”

“Yeah, Steven...Stone? He was there, he helped me get permission to enter the Cave. But I went in alone.”

Nanu said nothing, but she sensed his mood turn in an instant, his jaw tightening and the crease reappearing between his brows. She realized then that she’d never seen Ula’Ula’s kahuna truly angry. Annoyed, irritated and sometimes upset - nothing that held a candle to this. Even the Meowth were now eyeing their patron warily, ears twitching.

She felt uneasy about continuing her story, but they’d gotten this far:

“I...I didn’t make it in time, either. I had front row seats to see Kyogre attain its Primal form.”

Suddenly Nanu was on his feet, striding away with his back straight, sending Meowth skittering away in his wake. Perla lifted her head, her ears folding backwards as she watched her trainer.

The kahuna stared at a point outside, letting the uneasy silence drag on until a single, cold word passed his lips:

“Alone?”

Katla swallowed.

“Yeah. I just had my Pokemon with me. No-one could get to where I was anyway-”

“You shouldn’t have even been there.”

Nanu’s words were fiercely sharp - she had been subject to his taunting barbs during his Grand Trial, but these threatened to draw blood.

He kept his back to her, the only indicators of his expression being his clenched fists and every inch of his full height.

“The Champion - the strongest trainer in Hoenn. But won’t take on a deity Pokemon - instead palms it off on a child. A child that he didn’t even back up.”

There was a sharp intake of breath, his shoulders lifting. One second, two, three, and his breath hissed out again, relaxing. His fists uncurled, fingers flexing. It took another couple of seconds before Nanu could speak again.

“I guess you must’ve won, since you’re here to tell the tale.”

“Yeah.” Katla glanced away, forcing her voice not to peter out into a mumble. “I almost didn’t, though. Primal Kyogre was so powerful, the only reason I managed it is because of Latias. I befriended her when I rescued her from being harassed by Team Aqua thugs, and she joined my team in thanks.”

The trainer took a breath. “When she was Mega Evolved, she was strong enough to at least take a few hits from it. More than what could be said about me.”

Katla shrugged off her black and red jersey, revealing the whorls and stretched scars that patterned her forearms. Time had faded them, but they were still as clear as the day they’d healed.

“Kyogre’s Origin Pulse attack was so powerful that its energy scorched my skin. Most people mistake them for fire burns, but those who specialise in Fire types can tell the difference.”

“I did wonder about them, our first night.” She glanced up to see Nanu standing over her, his expression back to its apathetic default. But his crimson eyes were soft, almost hurt. “Knew better than to ask, though.”

“Thank you.” She ran her hands up her arms, the skin crawling under his gaze. “I would have lied to you anyway.”

“Figured as much.” He dropped to a crouch, studying the marked flesh. “Same as Kabu and his undershirt, then.”

“Kinda. I think that’s more because his scars aren’t pretty, though.” A wry smile pulled at Katla’s lips as the kahuna snorted derisively. “I just...don’t want to answer the awkward questions.”

“Hmm.” His eyes met hers, and it seemed like he wanted to say something, his jaw working. Then he looked back down at her arm. “Uh, they don’t look great - must’ve hurt like hell. You get any pain from them now?”

“Sometimes.” The trainer nodded. “They usually react to powerful or legendary Pokemon.”

“Hm?” Nanu’s eyebrow arched.

“Yeah. When Tapu Bulu appeared in our Grand Trial, I felt my scars tingle. When they use their powers, they tend to hurt.”

The kahuna pulled back slightly.

“Wait. If that’s the case with the Tapu, then the same must have happened with Eternatus.”

“Mmhmm.” Katla nodded. “And the legendary dogs. But Eternatus was the worst. Especially whatever unholy Dynamax it turned into - as soon it started attacking, it was agony.” Her arms prickled at the memory. “I managed to hide it from Hop, but it hurt so much-”

“Hey hey, enough of that.” Nanu rumbled softly, shifting closer, hand hesitantly moving to rest on her shoulder. There was a moment or two of silence before he spoke again: “So. You defeated the God of the Sea with the help of an Eon Pokemon. Now I understand what Kabu meant when he said it wasn’t your first rodeo.”

“He told you?” She looked up at him with alarm.

“No. He let it slip that Eternatus and Zacian weren’t the first legendaries you’d encountered.” The kahuna smirked, rising back up to his relaxed stoop. “Clammed up tighter than a Cloyster and told me it was something I’d have to ask you about.” He tilted his head, smirk becoming a smile. “Figured it was better to let you open up about it on your own time.”

She couldn’t help but smile back.

“Thanks, Nanu. I’ve told him and Stela about what happened, and I couldn’t leave you out of the loop.”

“That’s kind of you, but you didn’t have to,” he said, sitting back down beside her. A Meowth cautiously approached him, sniffing his hand.

“I didn’t want there to be any secrets between us.” The trainer explained. “And mine is...kinda important.”

The small feline purred loudly as Nanu scratched its cheek, its other fellows beginning to cluster around them again.

“I see...” His murmur was so quiet Katla almost missed it. After a long silence, she spoke again:

“So yeah. Eleven years old and I’d fought and beaten a deity Pokemon at full power. And all I got were these lousy scars and nightmares for the rest of my life.” Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Nanu’s expression get decidedly sour. The Meowth hopped down from his lap. “Then I went and became the Champion.”

His gaze snapped to hers, eyebrows arching up almost to his hairline.

“Say again.”

“Several weeks after the Kyogre incident, I challenged the Elite 4 and Steven. And won.”

The kahuna just stared at her, surprise clearly written over his face, yet the trainer had a feeling he was turning things over in his head - he was looking through her, not at her.

“Before you ask, no. I’m not Hoenn’s Champion any more. I gave it up after a while.” She sighed, resting her arms on her knees and staring at her boots. “It was all...all so quick. First Kyogre, then somehow I was the Champ, then the meteor, and it was all so much, too much-”

“Hey. Take it easy.” Nanu spoke, his voice quiet and steady. There was soft ‘shff’ of fabric as he scooted closer. “You weren’t much older, were you?”

“No, still eleven.”

Another breath hissed out of his nose.

“Guessing no-one helped you for those, either.”

“Not... not really.” Katla met the eyes of a particularly petite Meowth that came to sit between her feet. “I mean, Steven was there, but he was more directing me where to go, leaving a list of things I had to do. Not really...doing anything to help.” The Meowth made a sound almost akin to a beep, reaching up to her. The trainer reached down to pet it, making sure to avoid its charm. “The only ‘people’ that helped me were my Pokemon...”

A quietness fell between them, filled only with soft purring and the beginnings of rain on the Police Station roof.

“Kat,” Nanu’s voice was softer than she’d ever heard it, and she glanced up to him. There was a naked vulnerability to his face that made her heart skip in surprise. “You do have parents, right?”

Her brows furrowed for a moment.

“Yeah, I do, I thought I...told you...” She trailed off, hearing the real question underneath it. It took her aback for a moment, taking the Meowth’s insistent headbutt to bring her back.

“I do, I do - they do care for me, a-and they did their best. This- this isn’t one of those stories.” A quick glance at Nanu and the creases deepening in his forehead showed he disagreed. “They love me, they do. They just...I mean, what’s the manual for helping your kid deal with all...all of that?”

He grunted.

“Take your word for it.”

A part of Katla bristled, yet she let the anger ebb. No point quibbling now, after the wounds had been made and healed. Mostly.

“What’s this about a meteor?” He asked, mercifully pivoting away from the previous subject.

“The giant meteor over ten years ago? Was gonna smack into the planet and ruin everyone’s day?” She arched an eyebrow at him.

“Oh, that one.” Nanu leaned back, crossing his legs. His own eyebrow raised in a mirror to hers. “Didn’t know you were involved in that too.”

“Yeah, well.” Katla snorted. “I thought saving the world was kinda a Champion’s job.”

“Can hardly you blame you for thinking otherwise, considering your predecessor.” Nanu drawled. His gaze lingered on her, his eyes twitching slightly back and forth. “Better or worse than Kyogre?”

“Better. I mean, this time the Pokemon wasn’t actively trying to kill me. But it still wanted a Pokemon battle.” She crossed her arms over her knees, watching the Meowth curl around her feet.

“Long story short, apparently this meteor had been foretold by an ancient group of people called the Draconids. They said the only way to stop it was to summon Rayquaza - the Hoenn deity of the Sky - and petition it to destroy it.”

“Wait, how is this different from Team Aqua summoning Kyogre?” Nanu asked. “Maybe they’re asking more politely, but you’re still asking a god to do your bidding.”

“I think the difference is in what was asked of them.” She explained. “That, and Kyogre was asleep.” She arched an eyebrow at the older man. “Sure you can relate to that - woken up in the middle of deep sleep and then just ordered to do something, no ‘please’ or ‘thank you’."

“Yeah. No wonder it acted out.” The older man grumbled, scratching the back of his neck. “Still, what made them so sure Rayquaza would listen to them anyway?”

”According to the legends, it has form - if a prayer to it can be amplified by some powerful artifact or location, it tends to respond. Unlike the other two Hoenn deities, Rayquaza has a closer connection to humanity. Mostly because it seems to be the only Pokemon than can get Groudon and Kyogre to stop fighting each other.”

“Huh.” Nanu leaned back. “Well, considering we’re still here, I’m guessing you succeeded?”

“Pretty much.” Katla nodded. “Got to Sky Pillar, called Rayquaza. It answered, I somehow beat it in a battle and it went and destroyed the meteor. World saved. Again.” She sighed, gaze drifting to where Perla was dozing on the window sill.

“I quit not long after that. People were insisting I stay on, or that they couldn’t believe I wanted to walk away, but...I was a mess. The nightmares, flashbacks, I-I couldn’t even look at dark water without-”

“Hey hey hey.” Nanu murmured, sliding an arm around her shoulders. “You did the right thing. Lot of people talk as if they know your mind better than you do.”

“Yeah. It was as if everything that happened to me wasn’t a big deal or anything.” She leant into him, resting her head against his chest. The slow, comforting boom of his heart was soothing, as was the kahuna’s gentle, almost furtive petting of her hair.

He hummed his agreement, the sound rumbling through his body. A couple of seconds of silence ticked by, the Meowth settling around them before he spoke again.

“I appreciate you opening up about this, Kat. Lot of things make much more sense now.”

A wan smile pulled at her lips.

“Suppose they do.” She looked up at him, her heart skipping a beat when she noticed he was watching her. “Thanks for listening to me vent, too.”

“I meant what I said last time. I’m here for you, just as much as Stela or Kabu.” His gaze was intense, not shifting even for a second. “I like a heads-up when you can give it, but don’t feel like you can’t come to me with things.” He gently brushed a lock of curly hair off her cheek. “I know I’m not the most...easy to get along with. But I care for you, Kat.” He opened his mouth to say more, but closed it again, shaking his head. “Wish you didn’t go through what you did.”

“Thanks.” She replied. “Could have done without the reprise in Galar, but here we are.”

“Mmm.” Nanu hummed, frowning for a moment. “You’ve got some nerve, though, going straight into the fray after all that. I thought you trying to scale Po Town’s walls was reckless enough.”

Katla lifted a shoulder.

“Had to be me. Didn’t want someone else to suffer the same things I went through. Besides,” a smile pulled at her lips, “this time I wasn’t alone. I had Hop with me.”

"And Kabu.” The kahuna murmured.

“Yeah...” She nodded, letting her mind wander back to a different time, a different place. Yet she’d been in much the same position, nestled against the chest of a man she loved as she’d tried to come to terms with what just happened.

“You’re not alone any more.” Nanu spoke, voice rumbling against her. “We won’t let that happen to you again.” His arm tightened around her for just a second.

The sound of the rainstorm filled the silence between them, before a Meowth yowled impatiently.

“Cripes, you can’t be hungry already?” Nanu groaned, answered by chorus of meows and one elegant ‘Perr~’. “Alright, alright. I’m coming, you bottomless pits.” He flashed Katla a weak smile before he got up, somehow managing to summon every Meowth in the station to cluster around his ankles within two steps. Perla joined them, albeit at a more sedate pace, taking the time to stretch luxuriously after descending from her perch.

Left alone for the moment, the trainer leaned back against the couch, letting out a deep breath. Thank Arceus. That went better than I expected.

[oh-theatre]

Objection!: Chapter 15

Chapter title: I Get So Emotional

A/n:  Me: Make it angst Also me: But what if he's fine? Also me: More characters to hate?? ANYWHO, I’m love all of them so much? Sorry, it took an extra day! I needed some time! Also, I am seriously regretting this slow burn because I have so many good ideas but they have to be together and I just- fojdosjldjs argh! ALSO, I REALIZE I MIGHT NOT HAVE GIVEN YOU ALL THE LETTERS SO I JUST GAVE THEM TO YOU NOW. Anyway! I hope you enjoy and please do leave me some comments!!

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words: 4973

summary: The precinct runs amok after the discovery of a tense situation

pairings: Eventual logicality, eventual prinxiety, platonic demus, romantic remile

warnings: Murder mention, child murder, Law and Courtroom, swearing, blood, murder, gun mention, guns, hinted abuse, LIAM AND BAD PARENTS, Angst

Ao3 Link  

It was the soft brushing moment, the brief touch as they walked into the courthouse, silent as they connected just for a second. The twins slept peacefully in their stroller, the amber sky yet to awaken to the fresh blue tides. It was a short and quick shock, as the energy from their fingers transferred to one another. The soft giggle escaping his mouth as he pushed the doors open. Not a single word spoken, not that there needs to be.

“Good morning Lo” Patton greets pushing the twin's stroller further in, Logan holds open the door making sure all three members escape the chilly air brought from the November wind.

“Patton” Logan returns, it's almost coy as if the pair share a secret. He turns his attention to the huddled twins, smiling at their sleepy demeanor. “Need a hand?” He offers watching Patton balance quite a few items easily, even so, he wishes to help.

“Oh! I'm alright thank you” He responds, the redness gathering upon his skin subject to Logans offer, although he will claim it was simply the cold extremities. Logan hums in return as they make their way to the desk to check-in, a brisk conversation with Jenny. “What's on the docket for today?” Patton asks, the pair wander down the hallowed halls, the early morning court proceedings spreading a gentle murmur.

“Well, we…” He gives a side glance as he includes Patton, Patton pays no mind simply listening “Have a few hours until the trial...I was wondering if you would want to work on...our case?” They turn the corner towards the offices.

“That sounds wonderful!” Patton pauses “Well not wonderful but good, t-that we are working on it ya know? Together and it-” Patton rambles

“I understand Patton” Logan takes his hand stopping him. A grateful glance is administered while the pair continue walking, Logan leads now making their way to his office. The twins shuffle but ultimately prove to be fast asleep, charging through their dreams with delight. Once they arrive Logan mimics an earlier movement, holding open the door for Patton, allowing him to just barely squeeze the stroller through. He places the twin carefully next to his chair before sitting down across from Logan as he had done so many times.

“Hmm” He hums as he rocks the twins slowly back and forth, Logan watches a small smile spread across his face. Feeling more comfortable than usual, the prolonged time they had been spending together no doubt the cause.

“I have questions” Logan prompts, Patton meets his eyes, his brow furrowed with curiosity. He smiles returning to the soft rocking of the stroller.

“I might have answers” He replies, Logan deems this satisfactory and uses this as an invitation.

“The twin's mother-” He stops himself wondering if that's the right term, it implies the woman had anything to do with raising them which would not be fair to Patton. “Uh…”

“Maya” Patton responds “Her name was Maya, she was very kind” He informs, Logan nods.

“Maya did she...was she…” Logan begins to realize he might not have been as thorough or organized as he had hoped. Patton takes a deep breath, his gaze still fallen on the twins.

“She was very very kind” Patton begins, Logan looks towards him allowing him to push forward “She didn't want kids however and well...I did.” Logan had mastered how to take notes quickly and hidden, it was useful. “She picked me right away and it was…” Patton sighs, his eyes stay planted on twins. Logan accounts for the singular perspective, no ‘we’ or ‘us’.

“Did she name them?” Logan wonders, he knows some details but the circumstances surrounding the day they were born were always a little cloudy. Patton laughs carefully, oozing sweetness.

“Oh no no...Maya was very sweet but she didn't want anything to do with them. Not in a malicious way, of course, she simply just didn't want children. I named them” Logan can picture it perfectly. “I miss her sometimes, she was so sweet. We wanted to stay friends but we agreed that we didn't want her to be apart of their life.”

“You know you haven't mentioned Liam once” Logan reminds, Patton gives a coy smile, a glint of pride in his eyes. “That's...I am proud of you Patton” Logan declares, Patton finally meets his eyes. A slight tint of red spreading across his freckles.

“I am too” He agrees

“He isn't...technically-”

“No, he has no legal claim over the children. He ...well he refused to sign the papers which I am grateful for. It made the split a lot easier for them” He explains “I have sole custody over the children…” Patton trails off, he purses his lips “Lo, show me your notes” Logan coughs, tapping his chest lightly.

“W-what...I” Patton continues his stare, it's one he uses on his children. Logan sighs handing his notepad to the lawyer, Patton smirks as he reads them, his words scribbled on the page.

“You could have just told me it was for the case, I did come to you for help” He assures, Logan bites his lip taking his notes. “Although, I don't think the twins will be a pivotal point, as I said, there was no issue with them. He can't claim custody or parental claim over them” He hates to admit it but sometimes Logan forgets Patton himself is a lawyer.

“True but even so…” Logan hands him a couple of files, opening his own copy on his side. Patton skims through recognizing them instantly. “He has tried to fight you for custody before”

“Yes he has, and lost almost immediately” Patton leans back, melting into the chair. “I see your point however, do you mind?” Patton asks hovering over the pens, Logan gestures allowing him to take one, they continue looking over old files for a while somehow ending up slightly fiddling with each other's fingers over the desk. It's soft, almost playful... However, the twins soon become restless as their minds itch for a taste of reality. Remus wakes first, sitting up grouchy on his side of the stroller. Patton wishes he had seen it coming, the little pout that forms...it always leads to-

“Dada!” Remus cries sniffly tears run down his cheek. Patton bounces out of his dazed state recoiling his fingers from Logans touch, a disappointment to both. Remus continues crying, Pattons used to it. Valerie was better about it but something always set the little boy off. He always awoke to a bad dream, rushing for his father's comfort.

“I've gotcha” Patton strains as he lifts Remus out of his stroller, cradling him in his arms. He wraps his small arms around his father, crying gently into his shoulder.

Logan awaits on the side, he understands. He once read a study that thoroughly described the many reasons that a child might wake up crying. ‘Inappropriate’ sleep onset associations, as explained by Doctor Ferber deemed that a child might become used to sleeping circumstances that are not later present causing them to feel unfamiliar. A set schedule is another reason, a child has had the same sleeping schedule for too long and it no longer fits their needs, causing them to feel uncomfortable. And finally, environmental factors. Doctor Ferber described how things in the environment can unsettle a child, a TV, various noises, the temperature, etc.

Logan expected the crying to stop or falter, he didn't mind but he would like to see Remus happy. However, it continued, possibly growing louder. Patton sighs rocking Remus back and forth, clearly trying every method that usually works. Remus mumbles incoherently and Patton does his best to listen but nothing seems to soothe the child.

“Patton” Logan gains the lawyer's attention, he extends his arms cocking his head slightly. Patton hesitates for a moment before placing Remus into Logan's arms, the lawyer takes him not sure how to hold him at first. It doesn't seem like he’ll need to figure it out as Remus takes his cue to adjust cozily in Logan's arms, he sniffles as Logan begins a careful hum. Patton stops his body sending a striking shiver down his spine, he’s heard Roman sing and heard his own musings but this was different. The voice was so quiet, an angelic tune carried, not that he noticed through his entrancement but Remus slowly fell calm. Logan finishes stroking Remus's cheek lovingly as he does so.

“That was amazing Logan” Patton compliments, if hearts could pulse from his eyes they would. “You have a beautiful voice” He admits, Logan stares up at him.

“My mother used to do that for me, while my mom was at work” Logan recalls, Patton nods listening, he had met Logan's mothers before. Patton adored them, and though unknown to Patton, they loved him. “Is this a frequent occurrence?” Logan ponders

“A little lately, I think he's just been having some bad dreams,” Patton says reaching over the desk to hold Remus’s hand as he makes silly faces up at Logan. “I wan-” He wants to finish his sentence but the door swings open quite abruptly, three figures overshadowing the desk. Patton turns to face them his face drops in dripping fear. “Mom? Dad?” He whispers

“Hello Patton” They confirm

~~~

“Morning Emile” Virgil yawns his greeting as the doctor slumps his way into the precinct. He turns facing Virgil's desk now, his eyes darting around Remy's area. “You ok?” He checks

“Have you seen Remy? I called him last night but that was about it. I thought he might be here with you, or still working on the case” He rambles checking his watch. “We have a pretty important lunch today” Emile accentuates, Virgil nods. He's known Emile long enough, he was less worried about the lunch and more worried about Remy.

“Why don't we go ask Carlton? He was the last person to see Remy” Virgil suggests, the room is quiet as the department awakens to the sound of fresh coffee and early morning perpetrators. Though not part of his plan, Haley striding by was also a good option. He stops her gently grabbing her arm, she turns disheveled, her eyes sunken. “Hey uh...you good?” She purses her lips, Virgil rushes “We were looking for Remy, do yo-

“You haven't heard, have you? No makes sense, we just got the news” Emile fidgets harders as Haley's words fall from her mouth.

“Haley” Virgil questions, his face darkens as the possibilities race through his mind. Imprinting themselves into his brain. He shakes them out, they couldn't be that bad, they just couldn't.

“We have a hostage situation” Haley mutters, Virgil's grip loosens but he can't hear anymore. Just simple mumblings as Haley describes something even worse. Virgil picks on a few words, each making his blood boil. “Carlton...mole...Remy...crime scene...Emile!” Virgil spins just in time, catching a very pale Emile. He regains his posture fanning himself, whispering a very timid apology.

“I want to help, please” Virgil begs, Haley bites her lip, clicking it.

“Fine, but I'm warning you, Virgil. You cannot get emotional” Haley threatens, Virgil nods about to follow her towards the conference room. As though a chain, he feels his arm grabbed. “Emile?” He fears knowing what he will have to decline.

“Please...get him back” Emile begs, Virgil's eyebrows raise, his face softens. He isn't...he doesn't...he pulls Emile into a brief hug. Something they both needed. “Make that son of bitch pay” He jokes sadly through tears, Virgil nods as they pull away. Virgil gives him a last glance before rushing into the room, the clamoring of people would typically overwhelm Virgil but he has more important things on his mind.

“Alright, where do you want me?” He asks Haley adamant to do anything, the captain finishes her conversation turning to the detective. Her face drops slightly, Virgil understands.

“Look, I'm letting you help but you can't be apart of-” Virgil taps impatiently, Haley continues “I want you to unscramble these goddamn letters. They might have something in them” Haley moans, handing him a board with neatly printed letters.

“Well, guess I should tell Patton his clients innocent” Virgil sighs, a dry laugh caught in his throat. Haley tilts her head pulling out her phone.

“This doesn't take George off the table” Haley declares, she opens up her phone clicking play. Virgil was not prepared to hear his voice.

“So...its you” Remy's voice, though muffled, remains calm.

“Not necessarily” Carlton replies, his voice dripping with evil. Not to be dramatic of course. “I had to, unfortunately, take care of a few...bodies. But fret not, I'm no killer” The line goes dead and Virgil can't help but smirk.

“Fucking brilliant” He marvels “His call with Emile, he added you on didn't he?” Virgil questions, Haley joins his smirk nodding.  “So George could still be guilty but have Carlton do some of his dirty work?” Haley shrugs unfortunate “Alright, letters” Virgil snaps, he races towards his desk, avoiding looking through the window in Emile's office. He just can't look at him, not now. He will look at him when he can cause a smile to spread, pointing him towards the direction of a hopefully unphased Remy. He returns fast setting up magnet letters upon the board, ordering them alphabetically first, nothing proves of them so in order of how he got them.

“E, L, I, T, A, L, W, S, L, I, A, A” Dylan lists, Haley had instructed he help Virgil. “It's like a really dark game of scrabble” Virgil's eyes widen, he turns to Dylan aware of the slight murderous look on his face.

“Not Latin, not secret code, no it's simple” Virgil mutters, Dylan will admit, he's frightened. “It's so so simple” And he sets off for the next moments no one could see what was happening. Virgil works quickly rearranging the letters in every possible way. Some words appear, but nothing, nothing makes a sentence, nothing gets him a step closer. The frustrated grunt he releases confirms his failure. Not like it matters, he was sent on a fool's errand, a distraction. He knew this from the moment Haley asked him to do it, the letters, while they might provide something, were not relevant. Remy would disagree.

“But what if they reveal the name of the murderer? Or the final murder? Or why he's doing it?” Remy rambles, clearly recovering from a coffee high. Virgil moans, plopping his head into his arms. His desk feels cold, like the pillow once turned over.

“Or maybe you've been watching too much-

“Don't! I have not! I have not! Nopety nope!” Remy bounces scrambling the letters they have once more, Virgil groans spinning in his chair. “Bet you twenty bucks it's gonna reveal something!” Remy shoots out his hand awaiting Virgils.

“I'll take that bet, I think it's just a final message or a game” Virgil shakes his hand, instantly regretting it as his hand bounces. “Oh my god, can we go now? I'm exhausted and Dam-

“Shush! I'm having an epiphany” Remy decides, he sits on the ground crossing his legs. His eyes shut as he begins to hum.

“No darling, you're having an energy rush” Emile points, Virgil thanks him with a gesture. The doctor leans over kissing his partner on the forehead softly, he takes his reluctant hand leading the detective away. Virgil waves them farewell with a smirk.

“Hey! We got it! We found our entrance!” Haley calls, Virgil turns towards her, she sighs…”Detective Tormine, you coming or not?” Virgil claps delighted, grabbing his things.

~~~

“What are you...doing here?” Patton stands, Logan can not read his face. Its morphed so much in the past few seconds, Logan stands with him. He clutches tighter to Remus as he stares the figures down. He had met Patton's parents a few times, but they never said much to him. And honestly? Logan had a hard time staying around them for a long time, he cant listen to them talk about Patton in such a way, which seemed to be the only way they talked about him. Remus yawns squirming softly in Logan's arms.

“Oh, he's precious” Patton's mother, Gloria, compliments. “Is he yours?” She wonders Patton releases a desperate breath.

“No, he's...he’s mine” Patton begs, Glorias sighs recoiling, disappointed. Logan struggles to restrain himself, he baffles at the two of them. “Mom?” Patton's voice is so soft, he can't manage the words.

“Patton, don't get emotional” Gloria warns, Patton flares his nostrils, the phrase was spoken so much it was seared into his mind. “I didn't recognize your son, it is not a big deal” Logan...needs to walk that off. He can't fathom…

“Yeah guess that happens after five years doesn't it?” Patton quips, finally another voice pipes up. Liam stands behind Patton's parents, he laughs a sickly smile across his face. Patton laughs regretfully, a scoff escapes. “You called my parents? Are you five? I-” He stops himself “I'm not doing this in front of my children” He declares

“Why is this man holding your child?” Patton's father, Arlo, questions. Logan wonders if he really doesn't recognize him or if he's being petty. Logan goes to speak but Patton's ready.

“His name is Logan and he is…” Liam peaks over, a knowing coy smile “Doing more than you have ever done” Patton claims staring pointedly at his former partner, Logan asserts his posture. “Lo?” His voice shifts instantly, it's quiet and gentle. Logan would've swooned had he not been staring daggers, at...certain people. Logan understands however, he moves around the desk placing Remus carefully into the stroller, assuring the boy is secure. He starts to roll away stopping in front of Patton who takes his hand. “Thank you” He whispers, Logans not sure how to express how he would do anything in a heartbeat. He squeezes Patton's hand, lingering only slightly as they pull away. He pushes past the trio without giving them a single look, leaving his office he decides to settle in Patton's office, knowing the twins would be able to play there.

“I'm disappointed in you” Gloria hasn't moved, her hands stay crossed in front of her, her gloves in her hand as she takes a less than happy look around. “And is that man your new boyfriend? Is that what you chose?” She insults, Patton ignores it, he’d rather not go into what he...feels for Logan at the moment. (Or the fact that she would ever degrade him in such a way when he means...everything...)

“Oh, that's new” Patton replies dryly “Moms disappointed everyone! Gather around while she tells you everything wrong with you” Patton mocks, he realizes how much he's bottled up. Five years has caused so much and staring in the face of the woman who has caused more agony than should ever be set upon a person. “Oh! And don't forget the yelling match she’ll have with dad later while you and your sister cower in fear” Patton adds, Gloria's face might as well have been dipped in red.

“Patton Hart, you will stop right now” Gloria demands, Arlo nods warning his son.

“Five years mother” Patton states, he keeps steady, precisely picturing images of his children smiling, Logan doing his rare laugh, Roman and Virgil and…

“Yes I see that that was not a good decision now” Gloria looks around, Patton hates how she views his office. Logan's office was one of Patton's favorite places, how dare she see it with such contempt, what right does she have? “Patton you're going to come home with us, Liam is going to help you through this and-” Patton almost laughs, almost.

“Uh, that's super interesting mom” Patton smiles nodding a little to ecstatically “That's great, you know, I'm just gonna squeeze by you and go uh...anywhere else” He decides pushing past his parents, nudging Liam maybe a little harder than needed. Ignoring the seized calls for his name he marches through the courthouse. He stutters a breath before walking faster until he lands outside his office. He knows it's his, but he was programmed to knock. If his parents refused to teach him anything about kindness, he was going to stay up, sleepless nights, learning about what to do.

“Come in?” Logan supposes, Patton trembles over the knob before turning it open. Logan stands as he enters closing the door behind him. “Hi” Logan whispers, Patton gives a small wave, his eyes falling on the twins in the corner. They play excited with their toys, building mountains and palaces.

“Hi” He smiles at them, they smile back demonstrating their talent. He feels an overwhelming sense of warmth wrap him, the room becomes brighter. He allows the moment to work its way into his lungs, his breathing matches the steady pace of the world. It's ok, take a breath, it's ok. The twins return happily to their game sending Patton to sit across his desk, Logan watches frozen.

“Are you alright?” He checks, its the standard question something he's been asked many times. Its starts something, it gives way for Logan to continue without misinterpretation or danger of making it worse.

“I just wish...things were easier” Patton admits, Logan gives a soft laugh “You know that's the first time they've seen the twins, in person?” His voice is hushed, allowing the children sleepy serenity. It's also the first time Patton has seen his parents in five years, besides elongated silent calls and the sparse photos online, it's been distance.

“And they thought he was mine” Logan recalls, Patton taps his fingers on the desk, a smile hinted. “Not that I'm complaining” Logan adds, Patton gains a small twinkle, barely visible behind his glasses.

“Neither am I…” Logan being seen as the twin's father was far from bad, it hurt that it was his parent's own mishap. “I think they should adopt Liam” Patton sighs firmly, Logan releases a scoffed laugh, a glint of amusement upon his face.

“Ah, I don't think you should do that to Barbara” Logan retorts, Patton snaps his fingers lazily “It wouldn't be fair to her, what a downgrade, might I add” Patton chuckles, a sweet smile across his own lips. “Not to mention, Marcy would implode” Logan brings up many good points and many good distractions. And yet again, somehow, the pair meet across the desk. As if the only thing they can hold on to is one another, the soft twiddling of each other's hands and fingers, the excitement of the tickle.

“Oh! That's my phone, sorry” He pulls away, not expecting to feel so cold as their fingers part. “Patton Hart!” He greets, his face turning quickly sullen. Logan braces for the worst, his position becomes alert. The call finishes, Patton lowers his phone. “Its Remy”

~~~

“Carlton its been a day, I'm exhausted” Remy moans, he's tempting fate but if he's right…”Either kill me or let me go or get me food or coffee” His eyes widen at the mention of caffeine, anything to feel a buzz.

“I always found you so strange” Carlton muses, Remys impressed. He's been holding the gun almost all night, directed at Remy. Neither has dared move, but both felt the agonizing sore all over themselves. “More so, your partner” The same all night, he was looking, aching for a reaction. Emile seemed to be his way in but Remy used that, its fuel that he's going to get the hell out of here.

“You can't kill me can you?” Remy quips, Carlton tilts his head craving more “Waiting for mommy to give you permission?” Remy pouts mockingly, he hopes his chest emanates a steady pace.

“You got a death wish Nyx?” Carlton questions, further assuring the position of the firearm, Remy can't help but wince. Far from it, he thinks. He feels his heart pulsate in his ears. He takes a heavy breath, allowing his lungs to restart, it's harder than he thought it would be. A new trial as he stares down his death, hard to breathe, stay conscious.  

“Just a little longer” He whispers while Carlton checks his phone for what seems to be the umpteenth time. He can feel his knees grow weaker under him, the need to buckle growing only as time goes on. “Hey, what's my letter gonna be?” He asks, quickly shaking his knees before Carlton turns back.

“Are you kidding?” Carlton faces him, Remy smirks now feeling an entire breath released from his body.

“Nope, I'm stalling” He states dropping to the ground. The door swings open as cops pile in, he can hear shots fired but he feels himself intact. Incoherent shouting bruises his soft ears as something grabs him, a moment of panic sets in until he's hoisted into a hug. “Virgil” He barely whispers, tightening his grasp. Now, in the arms of his best friend, he just allows himself to fall away. Tears stream down his cheeks, staining his cheeks in permanence. He pulls away being led out of the apartment into the hall.

“Are you ok?” Virgil questions checking every inch of his friend, Remy lifts up his shirt revealing a small bruise, Virgil traces it. Remy expects the cold hands, but not the seized chill causing his body to vibrate into itself. “Did he…?” Virgil inquires, his eyebrows furrowed, a pinch of anger.

“I got cocky” Remy admits shrugging, Virgil sighs, a smirk on his face. They make their way to Virgil's car, heading to the precinct. Meanwhile…

“Emile!” Patton cries running towards him, the doctor accepts his hug instantly. Anything to stop him from chewing his nails down, until there's nothing left. “Are you alright?” He checks once they've separated, Logan catches up giving him a light squeeze.

“I think so” Emile stutters a breath, Patton keeps his hand on Emile's shoulder “I just really miss him” He admits with a sweet smile, Patton nods understandingly. “Distract me, please,” He asks softly, Patton coughs but agrees.

“Um...my...parents are back?” Patton tries, Emile looks at him clearly interested. “They want to take me- I'm sorry, Em are you ok?” Patton continues feeling awful doing so, Emile laughs dryly waving him off.

“Please, I just-” His eyes widen quickly, he slithers out of Patton's brace rushing towards something. Patton and Logan spin quickly, both faces light up as their eyes befall unto the pair hugging. “Remy!” Emile cries burying his head into the detective's shoulder. Remy falls into the hug quickly, grasping his partner tightly. He moves his kisses all around the cheek, Emile giggles through his tears. Virgil pats his friend on the back before joining the others. The pair pull away “Are you ok?” He whispers, cupping his face as he checks his partner.

“Em, I'm ok” He assures taking Emile's hands in his own, Emile sighs content landing a kiss on his lips. Remy gasps quickly, hitting himself on the forehead “The lunch! I missed the lunch, god I'm sorry” He rushes, Emile laughs wiping away his tears.

“Only you, my darling” He states shaking his head “I called the people, they understood and we rescheduled” Remy smirks, Emile shoots an ever grateful glance towards Haley and Virgil as he leads a slightly shaken Remy to his office, closing the door behind them.

“You alright Virgil?” Logan checks, Virgil releases a pented breath but nods.

“I've heard that question so many times today...but I'm good. I'm just happy he's ok” Virgil says watching the pair through the window, his eyes emanating adoration. Patton releases a squeal, Logan nudges him softly, it's playful.

“Excuse me, Mister Hart? Mister Tolentino? Mister Tormine?” The trio turn, they nod as their names are recited. “I apologize for the interruption” The man states, he holds out three golden letters, each beautifully imprinted with their names. Patton takes his, bouncing on his heels. Virgil, approaches warily, taking it nonetheless. He groans reading the insignia in the corner, Logan sighs as he reads his.

“Eek! The gala!” Patton squeals reading his invitation. Coyly he reads the letter. “Dear Mister Patton Hart” He pauses looking to Logan “That's me!” Logan's resilience crumbles away as the bright figure smiles up at him. “We cordially extend our invitation to you for this year's annual Cordenza Court Gala” He does a quick shimmy as he reads it, Virgil scoffs happily. “We hope to see you there, yours truly” He finishes, the mystery hangs with the name.

“I hate the gala” Virgil groans, Logan tilts his head in agreement.

“You just don't want Roman to ask you” Logan slips, both his and Patton's eyes go wide.

“Logan!” Patton exclaims, hitting him carefully on the shoulder. Logan sucks in a quick breath, Virgil turns to them, they can't tell if he's mad or shocked.

“What?” He starts slowly. Patton giggles awkwardly.

“Nnnnnothing, we were just talking about-” Virgil furthers his glare and Patton stomps his foot pouting. “Romans planning to ask you to the gala” He moans disappointed in himself, Virgil joins his moan shutting his eyes tight.

“I can't do this right now” He sighs waving them off as he retreats to anywhere else, Patton waves goodbye weakly. Logan turns to him, a dry smile upon his face, Patton pouts, his fatherly side apparent.

“Forgive me?” Logan hopes a slow smile spreads across the opposing lawyer’s face.

“Fine…” He says unable to continue his pout. “Now come! Preparations to be made!” He incites gallantly striding away, Logan sighs following him. Knowing he would do just the same no matter the situation. At this moment, he wishes he had Romans confidence…

Would you...like to…

He pauses watching Patton make his way out of the precinct.

Come...to the..gala...

“Lo? You coming?” Patton asks holding the elevator open for him.

...with me?

“Yes, of course”

[amorphousfurrysnakething]

So I have a fursona now

Despite being an incorrigible furry for over a decade now, I’ve never actually managed to get a stable-ish fursona sorted out ‘cause I’m indecisive (and didn’t realise how my fluidity was interacting with that). But now I have and want to froth, so:

Name:Ráðsviðr Náttfari ("Rath") Species: Garden Tiger Moth (https://www.ukmoths.org.uk/species/arctia-caja/) NB Masculine, he/him, pan (masc preference) Appearance: A moth, he has eight limbs (four arms, two legs, two-ish wings) and is covered in a soft fuzz of fur. Lean build, but looks bulkier due to fuzziness. Red body, brown and red spotted wings. His wings have arcane text written across them and close inspection reveals that they're made up of lots of very thin pages. Job: Thaumozoologist (Lives in a pseudomodern fantasy setting)

Powers: Scrivened Wings: Has dozens of very thin wings, which when at rest or when being used as wings look like a pair of normal moth wings in shape. These wings are covered in text copied from books, to absorb text, he must read the original. The character can read any of the text on their own wings by concentrating on them, and others can read them like a book. Although he can fly with his wings, it's fairly undignified fluttering and he doesn't like going too high. Wizard: A dabbler in the arcane, he favours spells of healing and others that interact with animals and living phenomena, as well as general utility spells.

Because I can't draw and don't have the funds right now to commission a ref sheet off someone, I instead wrote some horny which I'm going to put behind a cut.

(NSFW, Contains fingering, pet play, teasing and denial, casual nudity, bondage and an unreasonably buff lion)

  There's a knock at my door, and I start. I'm not expecting anyone, and I'm currently sprawled, topless, on my sofa. I cast about for a jumper, my society might not have a problem with casual nudity, but I have enough body image issues to do so. I don't manage to turn one up before the knock comes again, and its insistence calls me over to the door on instinct. I mutter a quick spell, opening a window through the thick wood, and smile as I pull the door open.

"Hiya, Marcus."

The lion grins down at me. I'm not short, but Marcus is massive. He's a head taller than me, and in contrast to my skinny build, he's broad too, and exudes easy confidence that I'm both jealous of and so very gay for.

“Hey, Rath, need to pick your brains.”

“Sure, come in.”

I try not to blush as my sometimes-boyfriend strides into the room, and it's made harder when his tail gently brushes against my stomach. He's been running, and isn't wearing much more than a pair of shorts that show off his legs as he brushes the mud off his paws. He's probably flirting with me, again.

“Can I grab a drink?”

“There should be a clean glass by the sink. What do you need?”

He tosses me another grin. “Looking for information on thaumic mutation in plants. There's a nest of something nasty up by Silver Beck and it needs clearing before some hiker stumbles into it.” he calls over his shoulder as he heads for my kitchen.

While he's busy filling a glass, I start looking for the books I'll need. My library might not be huge, but I've thus far failed to maintain anything beyond the most rudimentary organisation, and by the time Marcus comes back in I'm fluttering near the ceiling, glaring at a row of computing manuals that should be arcanobotany references. Or at least, could be, after the first three locations were, in order: empty, the 4th edition of Thaumaturgic Encylopedia, and the complete Judge Dredd collection.

“Any luck?”

“Nope.”

I descend quickly, trying to salvage some dignity by getting my feet back under me. It's...not entirely successful; moths are not known for being elegant fliers. While I'm distracted, Marcus slips behind me.

“I'm sure there's something on these wings of yours.” the husky whisper in my ears coincides with a firm rub between my shoulderblades, the leonine pads sending jittery tingles through my body. My wings flicker, the arcane text flowing across them dancing in my brain. “You remember the safeword?”

“Banana.” I'm not trying to whisper, but my breath has left me.

“Good boy.” he purrs. I can feel his arms wrapping around me, and at the corner of my eye I see the contrast of his golden fur against my red fuzz. “Now, then. Do you have what I need?” The magical text scrawled across the layers of my wings dances behind my eyes, and I nod.

“Very good boy.”

He gently guides me to my bedroom, and I have no desire to stop him, simply enjoying the feel of his muscle and fur against my body, and the hard warmth where his groin rubs against my back; the absence when he lets go is almost painful. He pulls my box of toys out from under the bed, his bent posture putting his tail and arse on full display in front of me.

“Enjoying the view?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You're hot too, you know.”

This time I do blush, and though it's barely visible through my natural colouring, Marcus' smirk tells me he sees it. The smile turns a little ironic, as he stands back up, and my vision goes dark as he wraps a blindfold across my eyes.

“Good lad, now get yourself naked while I get my reading table set up.”

I hesitate, but a squeeze to my arse that is both reassuring and warning suppresses my reservations, and as I hear him moving around I quickly strip off my clothing. Once I'm done, I suppress the urge to cover myself again, and my unpleasant brainworms are silenced by an appreciative noise from Marcus.

I know he's done when his lips meet mine, pulling me into a passionate kiss while his paws explore my body, as they've done so many times but never seem to tire of. He draws me close, his clear arousal heightening my own.

After a few minutes, he pulls away and a needy whine escapes me.

“I know, lad, but I do need that info.” His own lust is clear.

I'm guided over to the bed, and gently pushed onto it. With a firm hand, he straps me facedown and spread-eagled, at his mercy. He settles himself over me, kneeling across my lower back, the light pressure of his body delightful as he bends over, rubbing again at that spot between my shoulderblades. A brief, ecstatic spasm leaves me limp, and I can feel the leaves of my wings begin to separate out, becoming the pages of the book they are.

“Very good. Now, you know what I need.”

The text on my wings, scrawled across the eigengrau filling my eyes, runs rapidly through my brain, and the thin pages of my wings flip and blur. A cool wind brushes across my antennae until I find what is needed.

Marcus gives a pleased pet to my head, and leans back against my abdomen, and for a few minutes I am nothing. A pleasant calm of the cool and warm and dark, with a background scratch of Marcus' pen as he takes notes. Occasionally, the peace is punctuated by the soft pleasure and pressure as he turns a page.

“There we are.” He scritches the base of my antennae, and I purr without meaning to.  “You're adorable. Now, I think I'm going to order us some dinner, if that's OK with you?”

“Yesss.” I'm so relaxed that I don't manage much more than a soft hiss, but Marcus knows me well.

“Well, sit tight.”

I can feel the weight shift as he gets up and leaves me alone. I know it won't be long before he comes back, but I wriggle impatiently anyway.

“Patience, lad”

Marcus punctuates his return by running his paw across my crotch, which only causes me to struggle more, whining with need.

“We've a few minutes before it arrives, so...”

He lays his erection against my arse, and I push back as far as my binds will let me, hungry for more, but Marcus knows me well, and he leaves me desperate as he takes his pleasure, rubbing his body against mine with only the briefest, but expertly chosen, touches to  my most sensitive areas. His early growls turn to ragged pants as his orgasm approaches, and I grind my body against him, trying to increase his pleasure in hopes of reward, as well as an instinctive act to attenuate the sensations he's so skilfully denying me.

“Pleasse...”

“Good pets don't talk.”

His admonishment is gentle, but unyielding, though quickly unnecessary as words are lost in a pleading whimper.

“Good...good...” the intended compliment is abandoned as his climax comes, and he roars in delight, splattering his cum across my back and wings. It's a long minute before he's able to catch his breath again. “Good boy.”

I moan plaintively, feeling my own unfulfilled arousal drip out across my bed, but he just gently pats my arse and gets up, going into the bathroom to clean himself up and leaving me to stew in the frustration in a most delightful way.

He's barely done when the doorbell goes, and his brief negotiation with the deliverer ends in curry smell awakening an entirely different hunger in me. I hear him plate up the food, and he unbuckles my restraints, though he doesn't let me free, quickly binding my arms and legs doubled over, denying me my hands and forcing me to crawl to the bowl of curry he's left on the floor. Leaving me to sort myself out, he sits in a chair with his own dinner, smirking at my fumbling.

By the time I've managed to empty my bowl, he's long finished, enjoying an eyeful of my raised rear. As I rock back, licking the last of the sauce from my lips, he gets up, stalking towards me and pushing a finger into my still-wet pussy.

“You're really desperate, aren't you.”

Remembering the earlier command, I don't respond verbally, trying to fill my voice with as much desperation as I can as I whine in acknowledgement. Marcus chuckles as he adds more fingers, one by one. He knows his business, and I'm soon panting as his movements send waves of pleasure through my body. After a moment of particularly masterful attention to my clit, he bends low against me and whispers.

“Do you want to cum?”

I nod again, and with a his long experience, he quickly brings me to a shuddering, screaming orgasm, the waves of pleasure turning into a tsunami that crashes over me.

As I lie there, recovering, he strips off the bondage gear, murmuring gentle praise that ends with us both curled up in my bed.

[hm-best]

The Letter // Hana to Jun

Years had passed and Hana, though still finding herself in her late 20s and near 30s, felt different at her core than the woman she was at twenty five. She often thought about her conversation with Jeremy a few years ago, the one where she sat across from him and heard him talk about his relationship with her brother. The loneliness that he lost from finding someone who made him grow made her contemplate the state of her own comfortable, quiet life she had accepted as her end. Her face had flustered with the warmth of realization, with the temperate lone tear drop that had slid down her cheek, and she thought: I am already lonely. 

It was a month later that she had asked Parker, after thirty days of deliberating, to move in with him. He had picked her up with Suki, Jae, and even Vincent who despite his original disinterest showed up to help Hana commit to collecting her things and leaving her boyfriend. The man had stood in the kitchen they’d shared for six years, furious and full of adrenaline. Standing with his hands on his head, watching Hana incapable of looking him in the eye. She remembers being angry that Parker showed up with everyone, made it a family affair, but she understood why he did it. Even she knew that right down to the last second there was always half a chance she would stay, and she almost did, watching the man she had stayed with for years look at her with fire in his eyes but knowing better (what with four people ready to pounce on him) that this was a fight he was going to lose. Hana, in a rush to end the overwhelming situation, feeling her chest start to grow heavy and her breath cutting short, only took one record with her. It was a recent one, one of the first ones Jun had ever bought for her. 

She had stayed with Parker and Jeremy for a few months before getting a small studio apartment where she lived for seven months following that. Her and Suki had gone on a few trips and sometimes Jae even came along, and she was spending so much of her time writing. For someone who spoke very little about her inner feelings, being able to put things on paper allowed her to express herself in a way she hadn’t previously considered. She had even gone to therapy, therapy! While it was a lot, it really helped her, though she stopped a year after (and is considering going back, as she finds low points will always come, and mental health care is a life long commitment). Regardless, she’d spent the last five months in Japan doing freelance copy writing for menus and websites for some of Jer and Emiko’s work. Yes, she was in Japan this whole time. Suki had visited her a few weeks earlier and asked Hana a question she wasn’t quite ready to consider. 

“Have you heard from Jun? You know he lives here, right?”

Hana pondered, her eyes fluttering down at the restaurant food before them as Suki obnoxiously dug into her bowl. “Have not, no.”

“Suspicious.”

“How is that?”

“I mean, you’ve been single for years Hana, aren’t you like ready to catch a dick already? Might as well be with someone who wanted you to put out so bad he sent you secret packages.”

“He didn’t want me to put out.” was all Hana got from Suki’s chattering, her voice was straight but soft as always.

“He’s a man, that’s all they ever want.” Suki rolled her eyes, lounging back on her chair with her legs crossed, pulling off her hot pink sunglasses and laying them on the table. “Fine then, you don’t even want to be his friend? I mean, I don’t blame you, it’s just curious.” she shrugged.

“Do you want to be Haruki’s friend?”

“That’s complicated.”

“Isn’t everything?”

Suki pursed her lips. Her sister was her best friend, despite their troubles and drama and past, despite all their differences and even despite the way Suki had treated her on occasions. Hana never made her feel bad about her lifestyle or choices, and Suki owed her that much. “So you want me to drop it?” Suki suggested, pulling her glass of wine to her lips. She was proud of how far Hana had come in her own self discovery and independence, even through the bad points. She herself was content with a life of being her own lover, she could respect that for Hana too.

Hana shrugged, and spoke before finally bringing the fork to her mouth to eat, “You have more things to say, I know you’ll say them regardless of what I ask from you.” 

Suki laughed, “Fuck you.” She looked around at the city she was visiting and had come to know well and love, “I’ll drop it.” she said matter of fact, a quick pause between the two of them before, “But like, what’s going through your head? You think about him?” 

“Sometimes.” Hana smirked at Suki’s outburst. 

“Okay. That’s all I wanted to know.” Suki looked smug, but continued eating.

Weeks. Two weeks she thought about it non stop. She missed Jun’s friendship. She missed the conversations they would have about art and literature and the world, discussions and debates, he seemed so interested in her mind in a way few people were. It felt good. It felt good to have someone interested in your mind. Hana did feel a bit guilty, living in Japan for months and not having reached out. She took out a piece of paper and drafted a letter four times. Sending it off in a cream colored envelope with his old address hand written on it and a vintage floral stamp, not sure if he still lived there and not sure if she wanted him to. This is what she settled on:

Jun Sakurai, 

Hello, this is Hana Seung from London. It’s been quite a period of time since any exchanging of parcels between us, though I accept that as my doing and hope you don’t remain angry toward me for it still. A lot has happened in the past few years, a lot of scary things but mostly good ones. I am no longer living in London. That is to say, I am no longer seeing the person who was keeping me there, and have not been for a few years now. I got a new job as well, and have been a few different places, but I’ll be honest and say I haven’t enjoyed every trip and I’m still adjusting years later to living on my own. Sometimes, and I stress that this occurs only on occasion, I still freak out when the fire alarm battery needs to be replaced, and all I can hear is the relentless and infinite beeping in the back of my head growing louder. I have had plenty of bad nights. I really do hope you have had less. 

Anyway, I think I’m really happy now, but I don’t know how anyone can ever be so sure of that. This whole letter is really not making any sense is it? Can you believe I consider myself a writer now? Please, this is not my best work, do not judge me on behalf of it. 

I thought I would include more details in this letter but I truly don’t know what to say and have settled on aimless ranting about things that probably don’t make much sense to you. Mind you, my first draft of this was “Hello Jun, hope you’re doing well, I’m in Japan. Have a nice day!” Somehow, I think it may actually have been the right way to send instead of this one!

I was rereading this novel you sent me a while back, the one with the bluebird on the cover, do you remember? I had a question I don’t believe I ever asked you about the protagonist in the seventeenth chapter, where he sees the villain for the last time, the one where he decides not to kill the villain. I have thought a lot about this, and I extend it to you, why? If so many stories are centered around the demise of what appears to be evil, why does the good guy decide the bad guy is worthy of life? Does he believe that, despite the mistakes the villain has made in their life, he is still capable of change? The villain spent his entirety alone in his lair, stuck only with his own thoughts, so angry about things he could not change that he would not open himself to anything different. Is it in the end loneliness that causes us to misbehave...and also, awaken? Maybe, I’ve been thinking, is the power of loneliness greater than the power of fear? Or is it the fear of loneliness, the fear of anything, that drives people out of their slumber? Anyway, I was really interested in your take on the matter. I have been thinking a lot about it.

Anyway, again, long story short I suppose: I have been in Japan for a short while. I’m not sure if you still live here, but I thought it would be nice to hear from you and see if you’re doing well, should you remember be given the time we shared as friends was not long. I would be interested in meeting for a cup of tea and catching up or something. You can tell me all about the wonderful things you’ve done these past few years, I’m sure. I have something as well I’m interested in getting your opinion on, but it’s not crucial. I hope this letter finds you well, and that you are healthy and content. 

Hana

(PS: Suki is no longer in town. Thought you would be happy to hear.) 

[quicksilversquared]

Lost Heart: Chapter 20

The Holiday Spirit

Magic can be a dangerous thing to play around with, particularly when that magic is tangled up in a curse. When Nathalie Sancoeur experiments with magic that she doesn’t fully understand, it sends her on a path to become Paris’ most dangerous supervillain and tips the balance between superheroes and supervillain.

But which way will the balance fall?

links in the reblog

Marinette honestly Could Not Wait until she got her free time back to herself.

She and Adrien had been meant to get together after school on Wednesday to hang out, after she finished with her visit as Ladybug with his mom and he finished up whatever he was doing, but by the time that she had finished talking with Mrs. Agreste (who wanted to take up her old mantel of Paon in the final battle, even though she was still recovering) and then visiting Master Fu with Chat Noir to update him on, well, everything, and then get a bit more training with defensive spells, it was time for dinner and Adrien wouldn't have been able to come over anyway.

It was a good thing that she wasn't having any trouble with the concepts that she was getting tested on, because she hadn't had that much time to study before it was time to go to bed so that she could get a decent amount of sleep before her next day of exams. Then it was time to get up again, go to school, push through a couple more exams and her group presentation with Adrien, run an errand for Master Fu at lunch (Duusu was still inhaling mountains of fruit, it seemed, and Mr. Agreste had sent another shipment that she then had to deliver to its actual destination, part by part, and then he had needed her to pick up a couple ingredients for another potion after that), go back to school, do one more test, remind everyone that the holiday party was the next day and please remember to sign up to bring treats if they hadn't before, and then she had to give Adrien another excuse about why she couldn't hang out after school before running off with Chat Noir to accompany Jade Turtle to the Tsurugi home.

She and Adrien had yet to talk about their accidental kiss and if it had meant anything. It hadn't been in front of anyone (at least not on purpose) to "prove" that they were actually dating, and hadn't been at all staged. Marinette was tempted to read into it, to think that maybe Adrien saw her as more than a friend after all, but it just wasn't the right time for that. The final confrontation was creeping closer and closer, and as soon as it was over, his father and Nathalie would both be taken to jail. He wouldn't have the additional surprise of getting his mom back at the same time- after all, he had known about her for a good chunk of the week now- but it was still a lot.

...she had really liked kissing Adrien. It hadn't been a long kiss, and she had still been giggly from his kissing attack, but it had been really sweet, and his nose kiss afterwards?

Adrien was too cute, he really was.

But now wasn't the time to think about that, when the two superheroes and Jade Turtle were transformed and approaching the Tsurugi house. Master Fu had called ahead and Madam Tsurugi knew they coming (and Kagami was still at school, so they didn't have to worry about her overhearing their conversation with her mother), but Ladybug still had to have her head in the game.

After all, they had a lot of questions for Madam Tsurugi. Some were about how the curse had interacted with her diminishing eyesight, of course- Jade Turtle was particularly interested in making sure that the curse hadn't kept spreading after her eyesight was entirely gone- but they also wanted to find out how she had ended up with the Miraculous in the first place, and also, well…

"Mrs. Agreste mentioned that you would have known about both the Peacock and the Butterfly being in her possession-"

"Emilie?" Madam Tsurugi sat bolt upright, clearly startled, and Ladybug frowned at Jade Turtle. Perhaps Madam Tsurugi had asked why they had come and it was a bit weird that she hadn't ever approached the superheroes to tell them about who Hawkmoth was, but there was no need for Jade Turtle to lead in with such an aggressive statement. "She's- is she awake? The last I heard, Mr. Agreste told me that she was getting worse!"

Jade Turtle smiled slightly, watching Madam Tsurugi carefully. "Yes, well, there has been an interesting turn of events lately. It might be difficult to explain everything that's happened, but in summary, Mrs. Agreste has been awakened, Mr. Agreste has surrendered to us but hasn't handed himself over publically yet, Ms. Sancoeur had been using Heart to transform with the Peacock, and now she's snatched the Butterfly and we have recovered the Peacock and removed the curse."

"Just like that, huh?" Madam Tsurugi asked, frowning. "Emilie and I tried so hard and didn't make a single dent in that curse. But I suppose we didn't have the knowledge to manage it." She sighed. "But yes, I did know that she had the Butterfly. And it didn't take a genius to figure out who had taken it."

"And you didn't tell anyone," Jade Turtle prompted. "Was there any particular reason why?"

Madam Tsurugi looked uncomfortable as she shifted in her seat. "Well, at first, I just wasn't in the country. My daughter and I have been in Japan for the past couple years, trying to get a blind fencing group established there. I didn't keep up with the news in Paris that much, because all I really cared about here was Emilie and my old fencing academy. Once we moved back to Paris, I heard enough about Hawkmoth to figure out that the Butterfly Miraculous was involved. I confronted Gabriel, but he told me about his plan to use the two main Miraculous to get a wish- a wish to change the timeline, for the curse to be removed from the Peacock before either Emilie or I used it."

"So your eyesight would not have deteriorated faster than normal," Jade Turtle filled in. "I see."

"I didn't tell anyone anything, as the akumas seemed annoying but largely harmless enough. I was a rather irritated when my own daughter was akumatized shortly after we arrived, of course, but Mr. Agreste claimed that he only got impressions of feelings when he akumatized people, not names." Madam Tsurugi sighed. "Shortly after that, I signed a contract with him. He promised to do his best not to akumatize Kagami or I, as well as ensure that his wish would remove the curse before I used it. In return, I would not tell anyone about his secret identity. I only realized after the fact that the contract was entirely for his benefit- it was not a steel-bound promise to not akumatize us, only that he would try to avoid it, and once the timeline was rewritten, the contract would vanish and I would have no memory of it. He could set the time that the curse would wear off to simply happen before Emilie took over, and I would never know the difference."

"But he had the contract to hold over your head, then," Chat Noir filled in, looking more interested now. "If you went to the police, he would get arrested, but he could get his revenge by showing the contract to the police and saying that you had known for a while and kept it secret because it would benefit you."

Madam Tsurugi nodded sharply. "Precisely. And I know exactly how publicized that would be. Our family honor would be destroyed."

Ladybug winced, thinking about what (admittedly little) she knew about Kagami and her family. Family honor was a pretty big thing, one that was Not To Be Messed With, and Mr. Agreste had taken full advantage of that to pinch off a threat at the roots.

Thank goodness Mr. Agreste hadn't been anywhere near as crafty of a supervillain as he was a businessman. They might have actually been in trouble then.

"Of course, it might have looked better for us had I simply ignored the possible repercussions and gone forward myself," Madam Tsurugi added. "Now, I've said nothing. I sat back and allowed a supervillain to run over the city, even after I knew that the attacks were getting more dangerous. I let my fear about the repercussions of reporting Gabriel and Nathalie silence me, and now public opinion will destroy me."

"If he bothers to pull out the contract," Jade Turtle told her. She scoffed.

"The police will find it. There were multiple copies, and I don't doubt that he scanned it and has copies on his computer as well." Madam Tsurugi sighed. "He won't think to destroy them. And I suppose I deserve it. I prioritized my desires over what the city needed, and that was an action unbenefitting to a former superhero. I can only hope that my punishment will be a reprimand and nothing worse."

"We can hope." Jade Turtle glanced towards the superheroes, then back at Madam Tsurugi. "That wasn't the only question we had. We have talked some with Mrs. Agreste about what the Peacock was being used for and why and where it came from, but she still tires easily and we don't want to risk being seen near the place that she's staying while the Purple Lady is still active. So we were wondering, well… about everything."

Madam Tsurugi nodded. Her shoulders relaxed slightly- clearly she had expected more of a scolding from them. "Yes, well, it is a odd story, and I might as well start from- from the very start. As I'm sure you know, I am a champion fencer. I trained from a young age and showed good promise- and this was coming from a champion family. Soon enough, I had my life's goal- to beat my uncle's record number of championships. He was legendary, and I wanted to be, too."

Ladybug listened, attentive. She could see where this was going, honestly. Losing eyesight on its own…well, that already had to be hard. With what was starting to sound like a lifelong goal to beat a legendary relative's record, a goal that extended family members were no doubt aware of…

"I was a champion, getting sponsorships so that it could be my job and I could focus all of my energy on training. And then I started losing my peripheral vision. I had needed a fair amount of correction prior to that, but black on the edges of my vision- that was new." Madam Tsurugi sighed, her shoulders slumping ever-so-slightly before she caught and corrected herself. "I was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, which is genetic and progressive, tunnel vision closing in. I was crushed, but I wasn't going to let it slow me down. Fencing helmets do obscure vision and it's not as though we're really going to get attacked from the side."

Ladybug nodded. She could remember that, from her brief brush with fencing. Having the helmet had been pretty disorienting at first, since she was used to fighting with nothing obstructing her vision, but it was easy enough to work around when she only had to deal with attacks from the front.

Madam Tsurugi continued, emotion making her voice waver ever-so-slightly. "I kept winning despite the handicap, even when I was pregnant with Kagami. I gave birth to her between championships and gave myself no recovery time. The black was creeping inwards, and so I had to fight while I could. I moved to Paris after a number of years, because my trainer in Japan was doubtful about how long I would be able to fight with reduced vision and I had heard about a different trainer in Paris, one who had won championships but who also had trained blind fencers at his school before- not competitively, or at least not competitively at the level that I was at- but I figured that he might have some ideas for me to work with my decreasing vision."

"And that was when the portals started opening?" Jade Turtle inquired. Madam Tsurugi nodded.

"Correct. Shortly after I moved to Paris, the portal first opened."

Ladybug listened intently as Madam Tsurugi detailed how she had become the Royal Peafowl, getting the Miraculous and the associated book and scrolls from a Chinese friend of the family who knew that they were magic and had protective properties but hadn't known specifics. Shortly after moving, she had met Emilie, with her talent for languages and cryptograms and other word puzzles, and they started the slow process of deciphering the book, starting with a page that- thankfully- had pictures of the creatures that they had dubbed demons. They found a spell to make people forget about both the tear in the sky and the sentimonster, which perhaps was a little unnecessary but seemed like a good idea, to reduce public panic…and then realized that using the pin seemed to be speeding up the rate of Madam Tsurugi's tunnel vision.

Like, quite a bit. Her doctor had expressed concern, but at that point…well, the Royal Peafowl had become a duty, even if she was only needed a couple times per year.

They had stumbled across the idea of feeding the pin after that, completely by accident after Mrs. Agreste had set a banana down next to the pin and had watched as it immediately vanished by chunks. They tried that for a bit, and then Madam Tsurugi decided to pass the pin on to Emilie, since she didn't have any pre-existing conditions for the curse to latch on to. Using the pin had made her a little tired at first, even though she was feeding it as often as she could, but it didn't seem like anything to worry about. Emilie had largely hidden how the Miraculous had affected her after several years of use, which was made easier by distance- Madam Tsurugi had moved back to Japan after retiring from competition. The decision to end her competitive career had come after another eye condition had sprung up, taking the center of her vision and leaving her with only a fuzzy ring of vision between the black creeping in from the outside and the black spreading out from the middle. While she could still fence, it would not have been at the same level and she had wanted to go out on a high.

A high which, unfortunately, had come one title shy of tying with her uncle's record.

"I had started teaching fencing well prior to that, thankfully," Madam Tsurugi told them. "So even though I no longer had my sponsorships as a steady source of income, I did still have a job- and yes, I am still teaching now, even though all of my sight has gone. I can demonstrate moves, and we use blind fencing as a teaching tool, even with fully-sighted fencers. Since the helmets obscure some vision, we take that to the extreme to teach our fencers how to use other factors in their environment to tell them where their opponents are and where they're likely to move."

Chat Noir blinked in surprise. "I- I've never heard of that training technique before."

"I'm not surprised. It's not a common technique. Many people, I've found, underestimate the value of using training designed for blind fencers when they themselves can see." Madam Tsurugi's smile was thin. "Their loss."

"Indeed."

"At any rate, Emilie was looking for solutions for the problem, as she did not want to continue dealing with the threat forever," Madam Tsurugi continued, picking her story back up. "The tears were getting more frequent, we could tell that much. Emilie talked to my friend who had given me the Miraculous in the first place, and between the two of them, they managed to track down the Butterfly and buy it off of someone, maybe a month or two before her last battle. The idea was for her to learn how to use the Butterfly in place of the Peacock. We had suspected that, given the pictures in the book, there was something wrong with it. But Emilie learned about how the Butterfly worked right before it got shipped to her, and, well, she had concerns about sending a person- even a person with superpowers- up against the demons. It seemed like there was a very specific set of powers she would have to give her superhero, too, for them to be able to accomplish the same thing as her sentimonsters had."

Jade Turtle hummed in confirmation. "It would be harder to get the Butterfly's powers to be as effective as the Peacock's against that particular threat. It could be done, of course, but it would be hard."

"So Emilie didn't even try using the Butterfly, to the best of my knowledge, and instead focused on finishing her translation of a spell that would fix the tear for good." Madam Tsurugi sighed. "She had told me, of course. We were excited about it. She was going to give the brooch more food than ever to try to keep it from affecting her too much. The next thing I knew, I heard that she had fallen into a coma. One power use and two spells were too much of a power draw, and the demon appearances had gotten too close together. She hadn't had enough time to recover. I figured that she would recover soon enough, since the worst of the tiredness- to my knowledge- usually vanished pretty quickly. The fact that she didn't…"

"Ah, I might know what went wrong now," Jade Turtle said, a small smile on his face. "Mr. Agreste didn't know about the food for the pin. If he had, it's possible that she would have been out for a couple days before waking up again. Or perhaps not, it's impossible to tell how much exhaustion she was hiding."

Madam Tsurugi was frowning. "But why- why wouldn't she tell him about that? Emilie is smart, she would have known that something new like using two spells instead of one could be dangerous. And I wasn't in the city when that went down, of course, and I wasn't meant to come visit for months. I understand not telling everyone, but I had figured that Gabriel at least knew about the food! That he was trying that, at the very least!"

"Well, she's awake and well out of danger now," Jade Turtle soothed. "We were able to undo what the curse did to her, and she's recovering."

Madam Tsurugi leaned forward at that, suddenly intent. "You said- I hadn't caught it before, but you didn't just wake her up, you undid the effects of the curse? Would it be possible- I mean, I always knew that I was going to lose all of my vision and I've accepted that and have figured out how to keep teaching, but I had expected a bit more time with my vision before it went completely...and it's been several years since I've been able to see my daughter fence at all, and I've heard that she's made great progress. I know it's been years, but might it be possible to- to undo the curse's effects on me?"

Jade Turtle considered her, his expression softening. "Well, we can certainly try. But I must warn you- with the curse getting tangled up in a preexisting condition, that could make things more difficult. I don't know how it will respond to the cure. It may not help, it may return you to the vision you had before using the Peacock, it may end up where you would have been without the curse's interference, it might just fall somewhere in between." He paused for a moment, then spoke up again. "If you don't mind me asking, how far along should your blindness be, given the rate of progression prior to when you started using the Peacock Miraculous?"

Madam Tsurugi's brow furrowed as she thought, fingers tapping against her legs. "Approximately? It's hard to say, of course. Before I used the Peacock, my tunnel vision was about….so." She held up her hands, curved, to illustrate the boundaries of her vision.

Ladybug exchanged a glance with Chat Noir. Madam Tsurugi's hands were maybe a shoulder's width apart, held about the same distance out in front of her face. Thinking of fighting with that much peripheral vision gone…

It couldn't have been easy. And Madam Tsurugi had been fighting at a very competitive level even with her vision like that, and even for years past that. That was incredible.

"Now, if I remember correctly, I would be more like….so." Her hands moved closer, just wider than her face. "Or even narrower, I don't remember. And of course, it's hard to estimate when I can't, well, see, and of course that was only their best guess."

Chat Noir leaned forward, expression curious. "Was your vision like that, then, when you did your last championship? Just out of curiosity."

Madam Tsurugi managed a small smile, bringing her hands together a fraction more. "Like so, if I had to estimate, and even with the strongest correction available, what was left of my vision still wasn't clear- legally, even if I still got shapes and colors and could do without a cane in public- I was blind."

Ladybug and Chat Noir exchanged another look, and Ladybug was pretty sure that her jaw was on the floor. That- that was incredible. No matter how else she felt about Madam Tsurugi and her somewhat morally grey involvement in this whole mess, there was no denying that the woman was a serious role model, particularly when it came to not letting handicaps hold her back.

"That is quite impressive," Jade Turtle said, his smile clear in his voice. "You are quite the powerhouse to be reckoned with, that's for sure. And we'll certainly see what we can do about the curse's effects on you."

Madam Tsurugi inclined her head, the picture of steely composure. "I greatly appreciate it."

"Ladybug, Chat Noir, I thank you for your time and for accompanying an old man," Jade Turtle told them, smiling at the two superheroes. "It is much appreciated. You may take your leave now, and if you can spare the time, ma'am, I'd like to try a few spells to try to get a better picture of how the curse interacted with you."

  Adrien and Marinette practiced their presentation for Madam Mendeleev's class one last time over a warm breakfast of quiche and freshly baked bread, spread with plenty of butter. They had it down pat now, their timing absolutely perfect and no delays as they tossed the presentation back and forth between the two of them.

They made a fantastic team, they really did.

"Last day before the holidays," Adrien said cheerfully as he tucked the thumb drive with the presentation on it into his bag. "One quiz, one presentation, and a whole lot of lazing about and talking about holidays plans. Fantastic."

"It'll be fun," Marinette agreed. She carefully placed the Yule log cake box into a bag and set it near the rest of her things by the door. "You absolutely went overboard with the number of chips you're bringing, I just want you to know that."

Adrien laughed. "I didn't buy them myself, you know. My father had the Gorilla get them for me, and he just asked what kinds of chips people liked. I gave him a short list of examples, and he, uh...decided to get them all. Or almost all, at least."

Marinette grinned. That was pretty funny, actually. She knew that there was a reason why she liked the Gorilla.

It didn't take long to bundle up and carry both food and party supplies across the street and to the school. Marinette set her cake box and Adrien's bag of chip bags into the large box behind Ms. Bustier's desk, placed the receipts for the party decorations in front of Ms. Bustier's computer, as their teacher had requested, and then started setting out the supplies for making their snowflakes and other decorations on the folding table that Ms. Bustier already had set up. Adrien helped, unpacking her bags and opening packages of construction paper so that it didn't take so long to set up. The result was pretty impressive, really, with four shades of blue paper, one white, one black, and a variety pack, plus a whole slew of glitter glue and a few skeins of wintery-colored yarn.

"I'm going to get markers, colored pencils, and scissors from the art room," Marinette told Adrien. She had asked the art teacher about borrowing the supplies as soon as she and Adrien had come up with their first few ideas for the party, and he had agreed right away. "Want to stay here and make sure that the food doesn't walk away? We had problems with that a couple years ago."

"Really? That's terrible!" Adrien planted himself in his usual seat, sitting up straight. "I'll guard the room."

Marinette nodded, then dashed out of the room and down the hallway. Mr. Ross would be there by now, and he would no doubt have the supplies ready. Then she could grab them, get them set out, and then write down what was going to go on- when they were going to actually eat the food, for one, and when they had to be cleaning up the art supplies- on the whiteboard.

Chloe had never done nearly as much for their holiday parties, but for most of the years when she was class president, they were too young for her to be put in charge of planning anything. Then, for the last year of her class president run, she had her butler plan and bring in everything. It had been a very nice party, to be fair, but it felt a little too formal for a school party.

"You're doing such a good job, Marinette!" Tikki told her, popping her head out of Marinette's purse. "The party should be a lot of fun!"

"I hope so," Marinette said, thinking about all of the rushing and frantic planning that had gone into pulling the party together. "I really, really hope so."

  "Alix, Kim, stop using the glitter glue as face paint! That is not its intended use!"

The four of them exchanged amused looks as Ms. Bustier hurried up the classroom steps to try to regain order in the back of the room. The class was hard at work, most busy cutting snowflakes and making little snowmen. Ivan and Max were working together to hang up the silver garlands around the room and to zig-zag some of the yarn back and forth between the outer windows and the hallway windows so that people could hang their finished snowflakes up in the air instead of just on the windows and blackboards. Nathaniel had brought his window paints and, with both Ms. Bustier's and Mr. Damocles' permission, was painting a winter scene on the outermost window while chatting with Rose, Juleka, and Lila.

It looked very wintery and festive. Minus, of course, Alix and Kim and their "winter warrior paint", aka glitter glue smeared across their faces. Marinette wasn't sure that Kim had thought things all the way through when he had painted the glitter glue over his eyebrows. Something told her that he was going to have a bit of a painful time getting it out again.

"My sisters would have an absolute field day with all of these supplies," Alya said as she smeared some silver glitter along the edge of her snowflake. "They love glitter glue. They've got an entire shoebox each filled with the stuff." She grimaced. "They need to be heavily supervised with they use it, though, or they'll end up with it in their hair and all over their clothes."

Nino grinned. "She's still bitter about it because the last time she was babysitting, her sisters got into the glitter glue without permission and decorated their clothes. And because she hadn't been paying attention, she got to do all of the cleaning."

Alya scowled at him. "Okay, it wasn't entirely my fault that they got into the glitter glue. Nora put it away too low, so they could actually reach it. And I had to get that article done for the Ladyblog tracking how the akuma attacks were getting more dangerous. I should have been able to do that without worrying about them. It's not like I took the glitter glue down and then ignored them."

Marinette winced in sympathy. She could only imagine how difficult it would be to get glitter glue out of clothing. She had said before that Alya's family needed a locked arts and crafts chest, like she had had when she was younger (and still kept, to lock things away when Manon came over), but apparently nothing had come of that particular suggestion.

"So d'you think that your father will be better about the holidays this year?" Nino asked Adrien, changing the subject before Alya glared a hole in her bottle of glitter glue. "I think you said something about him being a little less of a recluse lately, right? So he might actually come out and celebrate with you on his own without you running off?"

Marinette paused mid-cut, glancing over at Adrien. She knew why Mr. Agreste was coming out more- with Nathalie's heart pretty much gone, he couldn't send her out, and he wanted to get a break from her and that had the side effect of him spending more time with Adrien- but Adrien didn't know that. He had to suspect that something was up, though, considering that suddenly he wasn't seeing Nathalie at all and his mom was back under really strange conditions. Adrien's face was carefully neutral, though, giving nothing away.

"It's hard to say with him," Adrien said at last. "I'm not going to get my hopes up about anything, that's for sure. And I'll not run off this year, I just- I just had to get out of the house last year."

Marinette slid a hand over, bumping it gently against Adrien's thigh in silent support. He flashed a smile over at her, curling his fingers around her hand and giving it a light squeeze.

He would have his mom this year, she knew at least that much (and Alya and Nino did not). However, he might not have his father. It would stink for him to have his father go to jail so close to Christmas, but if Duusu recovered by then and the Purple Lady attacked, they would take her down.

It would be lovely for Paris to have their supervillain taken care of before Christmas. It would be less lovely for Adrien.

At least he would have his mom. She had to focus on that.

"Well, if you gotta get out this year- seriously, just call one of us up," Nino told him, gesturing to himself, Alya, and Marinette. Then he grinned. "Though I suppose that I don't even need to guess who you're going to go to first- what do you bet, Alya, that Adrien would go to his girlfriend first, or little old us?"

"Well, there's only one person who can give Adrien Christmas kisses, and it's not me," Alya said, grinning widely. "Or you. So I'm going to guess that he's going to go for the Dupain-Cheng place first. By the way, guys, when were you planning on telling us that you've worked your way up to kissing, hmm? Or were you going to keep that secret, too?"

Marinette could only groan.

Their last day before break went by in a rush. The single test that they had went smoothly, the presentation that she gave with Adrien went off without a single hitch. They had lunch, one more class, and then their last gym class of the semester.

She could have done without the dodgeballs. It was a relief when the clock on the wall marked the class as half over and she, Alya, and Adrien could leave to set up the table of food. Nino opted to stay and keep playing, which was probably for the better as Mr. D'Argencourt looked less than pleased about the three of them leaving.

"Party time!" Alya trilled as they walked into Ms. Bustier's room. "Oh, man, look at all of that food. I hope no one ate too much at lunch, 'cause we're gonna need people to bring their appetites."

Ms. Bustier laughed from her spot at her desk. "I've already had to shut down the proposal of an eating contest between Alix and Kim, Alya, please don't encourage it. Leftovers are fine."

"And Alya, while you're over eying up the food, can you grab the tablecloth?" Marinette called. "That and the clips. Once the tablecloth is on and secured, we can set all of the food out."

Alya nodded, diving into the box of food. She came up seconds later with the plastic tablecloth. "More snowflakes! There's a distinct lack of red and green going on this year, I noticed."

"Yeah, well, not everyone celebrates Christmas." Marinette accepted the tablecloth and started unfolding it, tossing one side to Adrien so that he could help spread it over the table. "And I tried last year to keep our party from being specific to any particular holiday, but all it took was a little bit of red and green and a picture of a Christmas tree and all of a sudden everyone was calling it a Christmas party. So I wasn't going to give an inch on that this year."

"And it worked, I think," Adrien chimed in. "Everyone is calling it a holiday party. Or a winter holiday party. Or just a winter party."

Ms. Bustier was smiling. "That's very thoughtful of you, Marinette. I know several people in our class celebrate other holidays instead, and it's nice for them to feel fully included in the class celebration."

Marinette couldn't hide her pleased smile. It had maybe taken a bit of work to ensure that all of their activities would be fully winter instead of suggesting Christmas at all, but it had been worth it. Both Nathaniel and Sabrina had seemed very happy without all of the Christmas imagery hanging over them.

"Unfortunately, I don't think everyone who brought food quite got that memo," Alya called from where she was digging in the food box. "We have Christmas tree-shaped sugar cookies."

Marinette sighed. Those, she knew without even looking, were from Rose. Still, Rose had meant well. "At least it's just the one thing."

"And gingerbread men, too."

"To be fair, I don't think those can be considered strictly Christmas unless they're frosted like Santa," Adrien pointed out. He snagged the packet of tablecloth clips from where Alya tossed them, giving the tablecloth one last tug to straighten it before starting to clip it in place. "They're regular winter holiday cookies, just like the Yule Log cake."

Marinette laughed. "I'm starting to think that your definition of 'not specific to any holiday' is more based on what your stomach wants to eat."

Adrien's exaggerated pout in response made her laugh even harder.

Slowly, the table filled up. Bags of popcorn were combined into one large bowl, bags of chips were set up, platters of cookies were uncovered and arranged, and the punch bowl was brought out and filled up. Plates and silverware- proper ones instead of paper and plastic, thanks to Chloe and her father- were stacked at one end of the table, and cups for the punch went at the other end. The Yule log cake was the last to go out, sitting proudly at the end of the table. Shaved chocolate for the bark dusted the top and sides, and smooth chocolate frosting covered the cake itself.

It looked fantastic.

"I can't wait to eat that," Adrien said, arranging the last of the discarded packaging in the now-emptied food box before coming over to stand next to Marinette. He slung a casual arm over her shoulder and Marinette leaned into his side, relishing in his heat. It was perhaps a little chilly in the building and Adrien- well, Adrien was warm. He also had a very snuggly sweater on. "All of this looks delicious. And the classroom looks great, too."

"Yeah, people really did a good job with the snowflakes." Marinette glanced around, smiling at the snowflakes hanging from the yarn strung across the classroom. They were all sorts of sizes and colors, ranging from delicate and lacy (thank you, Rose and Mylène) to large, chunky, and haphazardly smeared with glitter (a la Kim). "And Nathaniel's snow scene looks great."

"It really does," Adrien agreed."Speaking of our classmates, I think people are coming up. I hear a distant rumbling of feet."

Sure enough, there was a chattering in the hallway that was slowly getting louder. The first of their classmates started coming in, Rose wielding a bag of party games that she had no doubt hidden in her locker as she trotted in at the head of the pack. There were a lot of excited faces in the group, especially as they caught sight of the spread of food. Alix and Kim still had glitter paint smeared across their faces as they came in (and Kim was missing a chunk of one eyebrow- based on the somewhat scrubbed appearance of the glitter glue around it, she suspected that he had tried getting the glitter off and failed), and several other people had pulled on holiday sweaters. People started serving up right away, excitedly opening the bags of chips and piling their plates high. Nino bypassed the line to set up the playlist that Marinette had asked him to make, the wintery music filling the room within seconds. Rose started singing along, and it wasn't long before several other people chimed in.

Looking around, Marinette couldn't help but be pleased at how the party had come together. Everyone seemed to be having fun, the classroom looked amazing, and it - well, it was well worth the last-minute hassle of putting things together. If she took a step back, ignored everything else going on in the other side of her life, and stayed entirely in the moment, well...

It was really starting to feel like the holidays.

[nevergiveupneverrun]

Bodyguard - Chapter Forty-Two “The price of my promise”

Hello everybody, how are you? Here is chapter Forty-Two of my Story Bodyguard. I’m sorry I didn’t post for a decade but I had a lot of work to do... Now, the new chapter is ready so let’s go!

I’m sorry in advance for the mistakes… English isn’t my first language and I do my best. Here is the link to the previous chapter: Click Here.

I hope you will enjoy this chapter :) 💛

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Eighth awakening in the chalet of my childhood.

But a particular awakening because it will be the last: I had decided the night before that it was time to go down to Seattle, Nathan having found an apartment with all the necessary security features. 

The feeling that greets me for this day is a mixture of apprehension and regret.

The return to Seattle was inevitable, we could not hide here indefinitely especially that officially Amelia had left to relax after the death of Richard. The threat to her was still unknown to the general public and the media, and a prolonged absence would have been difficult to justify. 

To return to Seattle was to find the “playground” of the crazy: his observations, his messages… even his actions. The last one was quite tragic so I would be twice as alert and focused. I was hoping for one thing only, the next time he acts, I’m here at the right time to stop him or play my role as protector… until the end.

Regret was also mingled: regret to leave this soothing and quiet atmosphere that offered us this remote locality of Canada.

Who had offered me a bubble of serenity that I had been deprived for many years… not to mention the complicity that was created with Amelia.

Our relationship was no longer the same.

The barriers had fallen.

The barriers are visible first of all with this familiarity that now reigned in our exchanges. 

And the barriers that are less easy to detect but which are present in more frequent, more natural contacts… until this unexpected kiss of the day before.

I tried to chase these seconds of my mind but it is clear that this moment came back to me regularly. And stirred up a whole series of questions about myself and Amelia… but I buried this event in the back of my mind, putting it on the account of spontaneity. Reducing it to a gesture where I did not have to read any particular meaning…

I close the wardrobe of my room by removing my leather jacket.

I take a last look in this room that has marked many memories of my childhood.

A burst of light then captures my gaze on my coffee table.

I go forward and my fingers automatically draw the piece of metal in question.

I slide my fingers on the chain on which this object was clinging.

I watch it for long seconds.

I had always left it on this small piece of furniture.

At this place.

Having never had a reason to change it. To use it.

Until now…

A smile spontaneously appears on my face, as I place the object in my jean pocket and I leave the room closing behind me.

I quickly perceive noise in the living room and go down the stairs.

I see Amelia back leaning over the coffee table.

She is dressed in jeans and a white lace tank top.

I notice clothes on the couch behind her while a lively sound of tape echoes in the room. 

- Do you need help? I asked as I came up to her while posing my jacket against the edge of the sofa.

She had just closed a box and a second was open in front of her, ready to be filled. As we travel by motorbike, we had to leave with few belongings, a backpack at most. I had told Amelia that she could make boxes with the clothes and things she wanted to bring back to Seattle. Boxes that we would send to Nathan’s office to avoid any leak on the new address of Amelia… we are never too careful…

- Yes, if you want. Can you write the address on the box while I fill the second? She suggests to me in a smile.

- No problem. I’m doing this for you.

I move the box on the side of the coffee table and get the marker pen next.

I write the address that I knew by heart while watching Amelia fold clothes to place them in the second box. I recognize a dress she bought at the market and the sweater she holds in her hands captures my attention. What she immediately notices.

- Uh…yes… I wanted to ask you… in addition to the two dresses that I have already worn, I spotted this sweater and two tops that belonged to your mother, she said showing me the clothes in question. Do you allow me… well… I mean, it doesn’t bother you… I understand you want them to stay here and nobody wears them…

She is obviously embarrassed by asking me: her gaze flees mine and her words are hesitant. She was particularly touching in those moments. 

- You don’t need to ask me for permission. If you like them, take them…

- Are you sure? You might want someone else to benefit?

- And who would you like me to reserve these clothes for? You’re the only person who knows this place… and who saw my mother’s creations… except for Rosie.

She looks at me for a moment, as if she still doubts her gesture.

To support my words, I decide to go beyond the words and gently take the sweater she holds in the hands and I put it in the box by raising the eyes directly to her in a smile.

- Thank you, she whispers, smiling back to me.

She focuses on the clothes on the couch and puts them in the box on the coffee table.

- You’ll have those two little boxes to send?

- Yes, just those two. I don’t really have the dressing of a princess you know, she replies in a laugh.

- You’ll quickly fix that back in Seattle.

- I don’t really need it anyway. Especially when I see the wonders that I will be able to carry thanks to the talent of your mother… perfectly to my size. It’s amazing, chance makes things right.

- Chance or something else, I whispered.

Amelia scrutinizes me after my remark but I remain immersed in my thoughts.

I never really believed at the chance: for me, everything happened for a reason.

The death of my father, it was a trial to punish me for my lack of gratitude and my carelessness. Just like my mother’s. Trials that had made sense to me for my life: giving my life for others. For my country first of all. Then for people in danger by protecting them. And all that had revealed to me our stay in this place so important to my past had given me a certain conviction: my meeting with Amelia was not trivial…

- Something else? She finally asks me after a few seconds while closing the box in front of her.

- Do you believe in destiny Amelia?

She looks at me with big eyes and then laughs weakly.

- Destiny? Are you serious?

- Well, I have my answer, you’re not a fan of the concept, I answer, smiling slightly.

- Saw my story you know, I don’t really want to tell me that all the misfortunes and all the difficulties that I lived were planned in advance. It would mean that someone up there, is really annoyed with me or plays with a little voodoo doll to my effigy.

- Should I include myself in the difficulties that you quote? I asked with a teasing air.

- No… of course not… she resumed quickly while I make her a false look shocked. You, it’s… different… I didn’t want to hurt you.

- I’m kidding Amelia, I answer laughingly.

- You’re making fun of me, she said, tapping my shoulder. You take a lot of liberties, Mr. Hunt, I think, you would never be allowed you to do that to me a few weeks ago.

- And you preferred before Miss Shepherd?

She looks down at the box, then takes it off with a big smile.

- No, I prefer a thousand times… now, she says. But watch out for yourself! And for the trouble, you’ll tape up me this box and put the address, she adds while slipping into the kitchen in a slight laugh.

I watch her go away while smiling.

I end up looking down at the box in front of me: I tape it and write the address as she had asked me.

I put the two boxes next to each other and join Amelia in the kitchen.

She is facing the bar, a glass of orange juice in her hand which she takes a sip.

- The boxes are ready. Do you have other things to finish?

She puts her empty glass in front of her before answering me.

- No, I already filled the backpack with two, three things I wanted to take.

- Okay, so you’re more or less ready to take the road?

- Yes, I am ready, just my jacket to recover. Even if…

I approach her by putting myself directly to her side, intrigued by this remark that she doesn’t finish.

- Even if…what?

She remains silent for a few seconds, eyes down and then finds my eyes.

- I would like to stay here, she finally whispered.

- Amelia, you know we can not stay here indefinitely…

- And why not? She insists with a touch of defiance in her eyes.

- Because your life is in Seattle…

- I can change my life, she announces without hesitation. 

- Your music and your career, it can not be done here… you’re not going to tell me that you want to stop the music anyway?

She stares at me but doesn’t respond directly… a shock for me.

- Amelia? You don’t seriously consider what I ask you?

- No, but I think about it sometimes… and more and more with what happened…

- But it would show him that he won if you did that. So we’ll go back to Seattle and you’ll go back to your life, your career, go on stage and prover to him that you are the strongest.

- But… I was fine here…

- And you can come back. And when you want, when this story with this crazy will be over…

- I would not bother you…

- You will not bother me because you will be free to come… without me…

- Without you?

I smiled at her before plunging my right hand into the pocket of my jeans and removing the object I had installed a few minutes earlier before leaving my room.

I take hold of Amelia’s left hand and slide this object into her open palm.

- With that, it will be more convenient, I explained.

She lowers her eyes to her hand, then instantly looks up at me.

Wide-eyes. As stunned.

- It’s…it’s a key to the house?

- Yes, it’s the third key of the chalet. I have one. Rosie has the second. And instead of letting this copy sit idly on my coffee table, I thought it would be more useful to you.

She listens to my words, but I have the impression that she doesn’t hear me.

Her face is gradually falling and watching this key in her hand.

- The house is not entitled to so many visits, and it will be good if there is a little more life.

A silence settles between us and the fact that I don’t distinguish her face makes me uncomfortable. This proposition was ultimately perhaps a bad idea, given her lack of reaction.

- I thought you liked it a lot here, that’s why I thought you might want to come back but you don’t have to take it…

I felt a little stupid at this moment, to justify myself and then try to go back on this idea that had seemed perfect a few minutes earlier… when the face of Amelia reappears.

Unveiling a completely unexpected image with bright eyes where I detect nascent tears.

- Hey… I didn’t want to make you cry…

- Excuse me… it’s stupid, but I’ve never… been lucky enough to have a special place like this… where I know I can take refuge, rest… it was only when I was an adult that I had a “real” home, but it was still different, because I was quickly in the spotlight, not really in anonymity… so this key that you offer me means a lot to me… but I’m not sure I can accept…

- What would stop you?

- It’s your story, Owen… your house… not mine…

- Well, you know this story, you know this house and you knew how to appreciate it and I would like you to take refuge there if you need it. So do me a favor and accept that key, okay? And above all, feel free to come back here whenever you want…

She wipes the corner of her wet eyes with her fingertips and then makes her look back and forth between this key and my face.

She ends up passing the chain around her neck, letting the key slip under her tank top, while placing a hand against the piece of metal now in contact with her skin.

- I’ve never been offered something like that… something so strong… whereas I’ve never had the pleasure of having a real family, and there you offer me almost that…

- I told you that you had to get used to living new things, right?

She nods, while approaching a little more of me, until invaded my space a few millimeters in front of me.

- That’s what scares me… I get used to these things too easily with you…

I watch her in front of me, my attention fixed oddly on her mouth as she speaks.

She moves her head a little more towards me and then speaks again in a weak voice, almost like a whisper.

- You told me that the moment you should let me sound as obvious… but the problem is that I don’t even consider this moment… because it is your presence near me that is become obvious… my dependence…

Given her proximity, I feel her breath near me, her smell fills my nostrils, the warmth of her presence shine in front of me.

- What makes me deserve such attention?

She looks at me intensely.

Her question echoes in me, but I can not think of the last answer.  As if my brain was paused, paralyzed by the stimuli that resonate all around me.

Her eyes support mine and I almost felt she was trying to read inside me, to find that answer that I did not express her.

I suddenly feel her right hand shyly pose on my shirt against my chest, then slide gently back against me.

I see her face erase the millimeters that separate us, get dangerously closer to mine.

But I am incapable of the slightest movement, as hypnotized by her, and by the slightest gesture that she initiates.

And when the softness of her lips falls on mine, I welcome her without résistance. 

Captivated by this contact that awakens the stealthy sensations of the day before.

But this time, they do not disappear as fast: our mouths are connected for several seconds… several seconds during which they guess and then activate slightly.

I forget all the surrounds me except for that sensation of her lips which constitute my only reference point in the real… a reference that I want to prolong… that I do not want to lose.

The ringing of the entrance sounds suddenly and my conscience is revived immediately… violently…

I pull myself away from Amelia, surprised to notice that one of my hands slipped on her back to hold her against me during this moment.

The reality of what just happened between us strikes me in the face.

I avoid her gaze and rush towards the front door.

I breathe a big blow before opening as if to get a grip on myself.

It’s Rosie revealing herself behind the door.

- Hello Owen, you’re still here, I was afraid you were already gone! She exclaims, taking me in her arms.

- Hello Rosie, I answer weakly.

- I see you’re on the start, I arrived on time, I wanted to make you a kiss… Owen?

She looks at me with big eyes, I must have looked completely in the clouds at the moment.

- Yes… uh, actually we will leave in the next few minutes, it’s nice of you to be here.

- And where do you hide Amelia? She continues smiling.

- I’m here Rosie, announces Amelia advancing in the room.

- Hello Amelia, Rosie answers by kissing her.

Rosie detaches herself from Amelia for a few moments, then stares at her.

- You have a fabulous mine this morning, sweetie… I see that the stay has done you good…

Rosie’s remark leads me to look at Amelia naturally, who observes me in return.

- Yeah, this stay will remain unforgettable, she says, staring at me.

- This house has always worked miracles to demonstrate to all who live in it how beautiful life is, says Rosie.

Rosie’s last words bring me back to the promise I made to April as I notice Amelia nodding at her words.

Did I actually succeed and honor my promise?

But at what price?

Tingling runs through my lips.

The memory of the kiss that had just been exchanged.

At what price?

At the price of a different relationship between us.

Incredibly dangerous.

Destabilizing the bodyguard and completely cracking the man I am.

As a new test of destiny…

                               –––––––––––––––––––––––

Thank you for reading. Tell me what you think and have a great weekend 💛

[utapriyanderes]

BLOOD SPLATTER PARTY-☆! - Yandere! ST☆RISH x Reader x Yandere! Quartet Night

Alternative Title: I Will Be The Only One To Have Your Heart

~~

Warning: Yanderes and everything that follows.

~~

(Quick Note: I did copy and paste this from my Wattpad account since it was originally a request and so you will see the same Author’s Note down below with me just editing out a few things. The reason why I’m posting it here as well is since it fits the blog’s theme so I thought you all would like it, and since I haven’t really done anything in awhile. So~, please enjoy!)

~~

   The sky above me is dyed in a red that's terrifying. I'm nowhere, but somewhere. I peel my attention away from the horrifying rain clouds above me to stare at my blank surroundings. It's like I'm trapped in a dense fog and all around me is grey and red. Even the grass from under me is like a grey-ish red. In front of me I see a shadow.

  It's shaped like a person. They are walking in the fog, towards me. Just looking at it scares me. As though this person is dangerous. So much that I want to run away. Except I can't. It's as though I'm paralyzed to this spot.

  I can't even close my eyes from the person approaching. They just keep coming, yet I can't see who they are. Before they take their first step into view… I'm back, staring at that red sky. The red sky that is now crying crimson tears. Staining everything in view that same color.

~~

  I awaken with a start and a cold sweat. I feel shivers go down my spine as I take in what I was dreaming about. I couldn't do anything once I noticed someone walking towards me. I pull my covers around me tighter. I've never felt so afraid before.

  It was definitely something I've never experienced before. The shadow coming closer to me with each step, and right before I'm able to see him, my vision turns red? Part of me really hopes that this was just a bad dream. The worst one I've ever had. I hope that it means nothing towards this reality.

  I huddle against my blankets, face pushed into them as I ignore the morning rays flooding in through the dorm's window. I rock gently back and forth but find myself jumping at the small touch of a hand.

  "(Y/N)-senpai, is everything alright?" My heartbeat lowers as I hear Haruka's gentle voice. I let out a breathy sigh as I move my head to look up at her, putting on a fake smile.

  "I'm fine Haruka! Just wanted to stay a bit longer in bed, but I'll get up now," I tell her. It's not my best acting job, but she seems to buy it. She looks at me and gives me a small smile and nod. As I get out of bed she leaves our shared room so I can use it.

  After getting myself ready and presentable for the day, I go ahead and look in the mirror. It's obvious I look distressed, but if I smile then I won't look so bad? I plaster on my face a smile to see how it looks. Still look horrible, but it's better than before. I move away from the mirror to go to the door. I take a few deep breaths to ready myself for the day before I put on another smile, and leave that nightmare behind.

~~

  Both groups are in the dining room today. Haruka is sitting with Otoya, Masato, and Natsuki today. The three of them look up at me directly at the same time it seems. They flash me smiles and waves, something I do back to my Kohais, ignoring the glazed eyes of Otoya and Natsuki. I go over and grab a small breakfast not finding much of an appetite.

  Food in hand I make my way over towards QUARTET NIGHT, until I'm stopped by a hand holding my wrist. I look over to see that it's Masato. A light blush is on his face but he still speaks without a stutter.

  "(L/N)-senpai. Is it alright if I tie up your hair?" I'm surprised by Masato's question and find it unlike him. I'm even more surprised that in his free hand he holds a royal blue hair tie. I find myself unable to respond to him.

  I try to think of an answer to tell him, but it's during that time where I notice the dense atmosphere around us. I break eye contact with Masato and look around. Everyone except for Haruka is looking at the both of us. Some are glaring and some aren't, but almost instantly as though it didn't happen everyone is doing their own thing again. Which also means, that I'm back deciding what to say to Masato.

  Thankfully though, Reiji comes to help me out.

  "Hey there Masarin~! Do you mind if I take (N/N) off your hands?" Reiji puts his arm around my shoulder as he starts leading me away. When I look at Masato though it's as though something inside of him just broke. I've seen that look on him before, and he starts to get agitated as well. Normally it ends with him going to wash his hands or going to the waterfall.

  I place my attention back over towards Reiji and the Quartet, shrugging off Masato's uncharacteristic behavior. It's probably due to the stress of being an idol anyway. At the table I go and sit down, smiling to everyone.

  "He didn't bother you too much, did he?" Ranmaru speaks to me, nodding his head over towards his still distraught kohai. I shake my head at him, "It's fine. Nothing to worry about."

  I start to eat my one item, but before I do I stop myself by feeling watched. I look back up to see the four males looking at me.

  "U-Umm, is there something wrong?" I ask them getting a bit flustered underneath their stares.

  "Yes," Ai speaks.

  "You don't seem 'happy' today," he finishes. I close my mouth from taking a bite and swallow hard. I place what I took on the table. Suddenly, I don't feel hungry at all anymore. I look back up to see all four of them staring at me again.

  Quickly I look away. I should be able to tell them about my dream, by being beside them for so long. Except, they shouldn't have to worry about it. They are too busy with their idol careers to try to help me with my problems. So, by plastering on another fake smile I look at them.

  "Oh? Did I seem unhappy? Well, it's nothing to fret over… you guys probably have work soon too, don't you?" I try to speak to them casually and hope that they have work to go to today.

  "You can tell us. We're off today," Ai answers again.

  "W-Well, what if I have work today?" I say to him. He shakes his head at my words.

  "All of us are off today except Nanami," he rebuttals. I drop my head at his words.

  "It's okay kiddo! You don't have to tell us about it if you don't want too! Just know that you can come to me anytime alright~!" Reiji tries to lift my spirits and it does a bit. I look up at him, but notice the rest of the Quartet sending him glares. This isn't the first time they sent him glares like that, but if looks could kill, then rest in peace Reiji.

  "You can come to me as well. Don't let this rare opportunity go wasted," Camus tells me. I smile a little and nod my head at his words. I go ahead and stand up from seat and reach out to grab my leftover, uneattened food.

  "Wait! We'll take care of it. Just go do what you have to do!" Reiji stops me. I look over to him and give him a small smile with a nod.

  "Okay, I'll leave it to you four then. If you need me I'll be in music room eight," I tell them leaving to go to the location I said I was going to be in. As I walk down the hallway Tokiya, Ren, and Syo join me.

   "Hello Lady. Where are you going all by yourself?" Ren asks me flirtatiously. I tell the three of them where I'm heading and they decide to join me.

  "Oh? Did Haruka leave already?" I ask them.

  "Not yet, but she'll probably leave soon!" Syo says to me. I nod my head at him.

  "(Y/N), was something wrong earlier? It looked liked our senpais put you in distress," Tokiya speaks to me.

  "No, not at all actually! I'm fine, so please don't look down on your senpais because of how I acted!" I reply almost instantly. I don't want him to think that his senpais were the ones that made me sad. Instead it was just due to me not doing a good job controlling my emotions.

   "If you say so. I'll believe you then (Y/N)," Tokiya says back to me reassured. I smile at him happy he understands. When we reach the door I go ahead and open it. To my surprise, Cecil is sitting on the piano bench.  

  Behind me the three males that followed me don't look so happy that he's here.

  "Cecil, are you using this room?" I ask him as I approach the piano. He looks up at me and then behind me.

  "Hmm? Tokiya, Syo, and Ren are here as well?" Cecil speaks surprised but confused as to why they are here. I hear Syo mumble in discontent.

   "I was expecting to have you all to myself," Cecil tells me, staring directly into my eyes. How Cecil is staring at me makes me uncomfortable so I look away. Suddenly Ren stands in front of me.

  "You do know that's cheating. Right Cesshi?" Ren speaks coolly over towards the prince. I don't think I've ever heard him speak like that before, but what does he mean by cheating? How could spending time with me alone be cheating?

  "It won't matter soon enough. It's time to head back," Tokiya speaks now. The four of them look at me and tell me that we all should go to the lounging area. I try to ask them why but they refuse to tell me, leaving me no choice but to follow.

  When we reach the lounging area everyone else is already there, except for Haruka of course. On sight of seeing me everyone walks to form a horizontal line in front of me. Including the four I came with. STARISH is on my left while QUARTET NIGHT is on my right.

  "W-What are you guys…" I'm left speechless as I try to comprehend why they are lined up like this. Suddenly all of their eyes are on me.

  "(Y/N), we all have a very important question to ask you," Masato tells me.

  "We spent a long time planning a day like this! I'm so excited to hear your answer!" Natsuki enthusiastically tells me.

  "No matter what we'll respect your answer, okay?!" Otoya talks about respecting my decision, but what am I deciding exactly? Then suddenly all eleven of them stare at me seriously.

  "(Y/N)... Which one of us have captured your heart?" They all ask me in unison. I feel my heart stop beating along with my breath. Did they really just ask me something like that?!

  Slowly but progressively my breathing and heartbeat starts back up. I try to calm myself down and try to find any sense in all of this.

  "W-What?! What do you all mean by that?!" I yell at them under the pressure of their intense stares. As I look into each of their eyes it's obvious that they aren't joking around at all. They are completely serious about this.

   My expression most likely shows a face of disbelief and confusion. Otoya is the first one to step out of line.

  "Come on (Y/N)-chan! All you have to do is choose one," Otoya tells me with a soft almost loving smile on his face. His hand is reached out and he starts to move closer to me. Except, before he can reach me… A sharp blade pierces through his chest.

  That loving gaze is crushed by pain. He starts spurting out blood from his mouth in coughs. I'm frozen to the spot at the sight of it. I can't do a single thing except watch this horrific sight in front of me. That silver blade, dyed red pulls out of the red headed puppy, making him fall to the floor. All life leaving his eyes, dead.

  "That was cheating Ittoki-san," the voice in front of me belongs to someone I would never expect. I look up from Otoya's corpse to see Masato wiping off some blood on his cheek.

  "M-Masa…" I can still barely comprehend what just happened. I don't want to process what happened. Did I wake up from a nightmare, just to go back into another one? I can't stay here. I can't look at this.

  I give one last look at Otoya on the floor in a puddle of his own blood. I shake my head and run away.

~~

  I didn't have a destination in mind and just ran to whatever room I felt was far enough. Which ended up being music room eight. As soon as I entered the room I left the lights off and placed myself in the darkest corner I could find. I bring my knees up to my chest and start crying. I didn't even realize how much I was shaking before.

  The sunlight coming in from the windows gets dimmed, but I'm too scared to notice. I stay in this position for I don't know how long. I just know I jump when I hear a knock at the door.

  "(Y/N)... Are you in here?" It's Syo.

  "(Y/N), I'm going to come in okay? I won't hurt you I promise!" I huddle deeper into my corner at Syo's words. How can I trust his words? Especially after what Masato did?

  I hold back another sob as I think about earlier. I hear the door open and hear him walk in. It takes less than a minute for him to notice where I was hiding. He comes over and crouches down in front of me.

  "Hey, (Y/N). It's alright I'm here now. I'll protect you from everyone alright?" Syo speaks to me gently but I still refuse to look up. He touches me lightly making me squirm back and look at him.

  All over his outfit is blotches of blood. His knuckles are red and bloody as though he just got into a fist fight. His face and hair is a little disoriented as well. How he looks terrifies me. Yet his eyes scare me the most.

  That same loving gaze as Otoya. Tears flow out of me again at the thought.

  "H-How… can you… not… be, upset?" I try to get out my question as best as I can, without fully breaking down. Syo looks at me with a tilt of his head looking a tiny bit taken aback.

  "Why would I care about what happened to him? You're all I care about (Y/N). I'll do everything to protect you," Syo's words to me feel cold and heartless. How can he not care about his best friend's death? I'm about to yell at him, but someone stumbles harshly into the door frame.

  "You're… such a fighter… Shorty," I look over at the door to see Ren standing there. He's leaning against the frame, but smoothly pushes himself up. He's covered in blood too. Just like Syo it's like he got into a fist fight. Syo's face turns ice cold as he looks back at Ren. He clicks his tongue.

  "Try all you will! I won't give her to you! She needs to be protected from men like you!" Syo yells at him. He's sitting in front of me as though I'm the most precious gem in the world.

  Ren looks at him with a sly smirk and chuckles painfully to himself.

  "You know I can't have that Shorty… She belongs to me after all," Ren coughs up some blood right before getting all of his strength to throw a dart into each of Syo's eyes. Syo crys out in pain and I jump back. A evil smirk gets placed on Ren's lips as Syo moves to stand.

  "Hmm? It seems I've missed… my target." As Syo gets into position to charge at him. Ren takes out his hidden knife and throws it directly into Syo's head. Syo staggers back towards me making me move. He hits the wall and slowly sinks down.

  I bring my hand over my mouth. As I look at the corpse of Syo Kurusu. The darts in his eyes squirt out blood and I can still see some white from his eyes mixing with it. The knife stuck in his skull trails blood down the rest of his face. I get up from my spot ready to run.

  Except instead, I run straight into a broad bloody covered chest. I hear another chuckle from up above me. I shake as I'm entrapped in his arms.

  "I knew you would come to me in the end... Lady," Ren speaks smoothly and deeply. I'm frozen. My ear is pressed against his chest and something in it sounds wrong, sounds broken. Even his breathing is irregular.

  "R-Ren… I-I think, s-something is w-wrong," I try to point it out to him, so maybe he would let me go. His breathing stops for a split second. He was going to reply but a whole coughing fit of blood stops him. He let's go of me but continues to hold my wrist. He hunches over as the blood keeps coming.

  "Heh… Shorty really... messed... me up… good," Ren says between harsh breathing and blood coming out of his mouth. I try to free myself but his grip is too tight. It isn't until there is too much blood, to hard to breathe. He lets me go and falls to the floor. The same process continues, all until he is breathing harshly in his own pile of blood.

  He looks over towards me trying to flash me a dashing smile, "L-ady… Yo...u'll… sta..y?"

  I stare as I watch the life leave his eyes. I shake but peel myself to look away. I have to leave, I have to go. With all my might I pass Ren's corpse and run. I'm too scared to notice the storm clouds brewing, to completely notice that I'm running in the dark with the windows as my light, to notice… the metallic smell of blood all around me.

~~

  I run through doors and end up falling on the cool floor. The source being due to a patch of blood. I sit up and look down at my clothes. Blood is on it due to Ren and now where I fell. I want to just sit there and cry.

  Cry over what has been happening, cry over the loss of friends turned mad. The only thing that stops me from doing this is the harsh clatter and clanking I hear from the other side of the room. On hearing it I crawl over to hide underneath a table.

  "A dandelion head like you doesn't deserve to have such a majestic ruler like her at their side!" I can hear Camus' booming voice from all around the room.

  "Tch, cut it with the crap already! All you're good for is ruining good things! I won't let you ruin her like you've done with everything else!" Ranmaru is on the other end.

  "Don't compare her to your Bananas peasant!" Camus verbally strikes back. I close my eyes as I hear them go back and forth. If no one died and if I wasn't covered in blood while hiding underneath a table. Then I would've thought about it as any other argument. Except it's not. I am in that situation, they are fighting seriously, I'm the center of their fighting.

  How did it get like this? I cover my mouth with my hand to stop myself from sobbing loudly.

  "Stop hiding behind cheap metal! ...If you refuse to fight me head on, then that means I'm bound to win," Camus' voice reaches my ears again. The clanking is getting frequent and louder. Ranmaru doesn't even try to make a come back. Instead he lets his grunting be his reply.

  I bring my knees to my chest and bury my face in them. I hear one last clang to the floor before I hear blade meeting flesh. Just like with Otoya I hear blood sputter out of his mouth. Once the blade gets removed he falls to the floor.

  I have to bring my other hand up from sobbing full out.

  "Hmph, I was right," Camus says nonchalantly. I can hear footsteps now approach my table but turn in the direction of the door. I hear the double doors open and close. I don't move from my spot until I can no longer hear his footsteps. When I do get up I debate on looking at Ranmaru or not.

  I probably stood there for a good five minutes before I decided against it. Even though I should, it's just hard.

  The double doors in front of me open before I could hide or react to it. Is it Camus coming back? Except it's not. Instead, I am greeted by Reiji.

  "H-Hey there kiddo!" Reiji speaks unsure to me, but he's trying to raise either my mood, or his. I look at Reiji to see blood on his person. Though I think I'm starting to get used to it. Reiji at least seems somewhat normal to me, but before I could say anything back.

  "(Y/N)!" Tokiya comes rushing in. He is also covered in blood. Except something is wrong. His left arm is completely severed off.

  "Ah, Toki. D-Did Masarin do this?" Reiji talks of Masato. Did Tokiya and him get into a fight? Tokiya looks at Reiji sternly.

  "Yes. That is correct," Tokiya replies bluntly. I feel myself freeze at Tokiya's words. Tokiya notices.

  "It's alright (Y/N). Let's go to the hospital and get the police," Tokiya speaks normally as though he wasn't crazy. I can't believe him though. How can he not be freaking out right now? How can he not show a hint of emotion except calm?!

  I think if I was alone with him I would've believed him, and I do feel sorry about his arm. Reiji is here though, and I can't even trust him completely!

  "Toki, it's easy to tell when you're lying," Reiji speaks to Tokiya almost like he was back to normal. Without Tokiya noticing Reiji moves to stand in front of me. I look at Tokiya. His normal calm expression drops. Instead a look of deep emotion gets placed.

  "Hmm, what do you mean Kotobuki-senpai? Even if it was, it's not like you are going to do anything to stop me," Tokiya shows a wicked smile over to Reiji. I look at Reiji and start to back myself up from them.

  "You're right Toki. I don't want to hurt you," Reiji seriously speaks to Tokiya. Tokiya laughs loudly to himself.

  "So, you're not 'serious' yet it seems. Mikaze-senpai was right. You are a coward. You don't deserve her," Tokiya talks as though Reiji is a piece of dirt on his shoe. I hate it. I hate how it's always because of me.

  Tokiya punches Reiji harshly across the face with his fist. Reiji stumbles back.

  "I know you have a knife in your back pocket. Use it. Fight me Kotobuki-senpai." Tokiya leaps on Reiji before he even has a chance to reach for it. He keeps sending that same punch to Reiji's face. I feel defenseless as I watch this happen.

  "...Tokiya! Stop it!" I yell out to him. Tokiya's crazy expression comes up to meet my eyes. I stumble back as he gets off of Reiji to come towards me.

  "T-Tokiya.. H-How about we go t-to the h-hospital… y-yeah?" I try to calm him down by bring up what he said earlier. He staggers over to me and cups my face. Stuck on the end of a table I'm forced to accept it. He smiles almost normally to me.

  "So you agree then. Alright let-"  blood. He got interrupted by a slash of the throat. He removes his hand and tries his best to cover his throat. Blood comes out his mouth like the others. He looks up to me, desperate. His eyes roll to the back of his head and he falls to the ground. Motionless.

  My mouth drops open like it has so many times today. I look up to see Reiji. His eyes hold almost a crazed gleam to them.

  "I'm sorry my girl. But I wouldn't allow him to have you! You should be mine and mine only~!" I slap Reiji. I had to will every bone in my body to do it.

  Why? ...Why?! I didn't want this. A day like today. Why?! Why would he do that?! Fresh tears come out of me as Reiji rubs his cheek. He looks down at Tokiya's lifeless body.

  Reiji looks at him with saddened eyes, but he doesn't cry. Instead he just picks him up.

  "R-Reiji!" I yell to him, but he stops me from continuing.

  "Come on (N/N). Let's talk hmm?" I don't reply and instead decide to follow him. He leads me out of the room as I stay somewhat closely behind him. Covering most of the walls and floor is blood.

  It doesn't even feel like I'm in the Master Course anymore. After a while of walking we come into a very familiar room. I don't follow him in at first. I don't want to go into this room again. I know who's in here.

  Reiji stops a few feet ahead of me and turns back around. He gives me a small but grave smile. He nods his head as I shake mine.

  "Come on kiddo. It will be alright with your big brother here to protect you!" Reiji still tries to lighten my mood despite what's going on, despite what he did. I suck in my breath and look down at my feet. There is so much blood right under my shoes.

  It might be better to look at the blood, instead of who's in that room. Slowly I walk in the room I only take a few steps in and continue to look at the blood stained floor.

  "Alright. Look up (Y/N)." Reiji tells me to look up but I shake my head refusing to. I hear Reiji walk over to me and pat my back with his bloody hands. Despite me not wanting to look up, I decide to anyways.

  I shake at the sight, no, I fall to my knees at the sight. I cover my mouth as I feel all the tears I've had well up inside me again. I close my eyes and lower my head at the gruesome sight. In this once happy lounging area. Everyone who died except Ranmaru is in here.

  All sitting on a big couch beside each other. Tokiya is on the right sitting by Otoya. Otoya is also sitting by Syo, who is also sitting by Ren. All of them still look the same as when they died, except now you can start noticing how dead they all are through the short amount of time except Tokiya.

  The wave of the rotting, metallic air makes me cover my nose. It's horrible and I'm now just noticing it? I cry to myself as I hear Reiji walk away and sit on something.

  "R-Reiji… W-W-Why…?" I try to voice out how I feel about this as I sob. Reiji spends time not saying anything at all. Until he does.

  "I don't know either. It just seemed nice to have everyone together, right (N/N)?" I don't reply to Reiji's question. I hear a small sad chuckle come from his lips.

  "I'm sorry for my Kohais… but at least none of us have left yet." I think about how Camus killed Ranmaru right before Reiji came. I cry a bit harder at the thought. I was close to the Quartet by being there composer afterall. We spend these next few moments in sad silence and loud sobbing.

  As soon as I've calmed down and let everything out I stand up to move towards Reiji. I stare at the floor the whole time, and then at the couch we sit on.

  "(Y/N)," Reiji says my name gently. He moves his hand out to touch my shoulder, but pulls back. I look up at him. In the corner of my eyes I catch a glimpse at the four corpses. I shut my eyes.

  "Reiji… what happened… when I left?" I ask him quietly. Reiji looks down at the bloodied couch with me.

  "Do you really want to know?" He asks me quietly. I know he's asking this to look out for me, but I'm the reason this started, that this even happened. I have to know.

  "Yes, tell me Reiji." I feel Reiji look up at me. I go up to look at him as well and see a flurry of emotions in his eyes. He takes in a shaky breath before speaking.

  "You choose no one," Reiji tells me this one line. It takes a minute for me to fully understand what he means.

  "Y-You mean…?" I talk quietly to him. As though they could hear me. Reiji looks at me seriously.

  "Even before you ran away… We all decided that if you couldn't choose someone. Then the last one stand-"

  "No! Stop it!" I cut Reiji off. I don't want to hear it. Why would they even decide something like that?! I turn away from Reiji's saddened eyes.

  Why does all of this murder have to happen because of me?! I stand up from the couch.

  "My girl-" I don't listen to him. I didn't want this to happen. I didn't want this at all! Not being able to stand another minute in this room I run out. Like I did once before.

~~

  The wrecked brunette looks at the girl's retreating form. His eyes glaze over as his head swarms with all of the things he should've done.

  "Our girl was right in your grasp and you left her go?"

  "You could've locked her up to make sure she never escaped like he did."

  "Except you just care too much about your kohais, about your group."

  "Idiot, she was the one! She was our number one girl!"

  "You really are a coward, Reiji."

  That last voice snaps him out. That one wasn't in his head at all. He turns his head over towards the source.

  Ai.

  Reiji smiles up towards the younger male. Yet the younger male holds no smile or emotion at all.

  "You've given up haven't you," Ai continues to speak to him.

  "You always give up. I thought you would be serious about this, but it seems it's the same." Reiji knows that this isn't the sweet Ai-Ai he knows! Though he does nothing to fight back.

  "Reiji, you've always been weak. I can't have someone like you be with her. This is the end." Ai doesn't have a weapon but he already knows how he plans on killing him.

  Ai wraps his hands around Reiji's neck and squeezes tight. Reiji closes his eyes causing tears to fall down from his glassy eyes. A smile is placed on his face.

  "Ai… I'm… sorry," the only words Reiji was able to breath out, right before he died.

~~

  I turn a corner and find myself stopping short. It's Camus and Cecil. They are fighting in the hallway.

  “You won’t be able to cherish her like I can!” Cecil is using his magic against the knight. Camus is trying with all of his might to pierce the prince with his rapier. A huge glass window is right behind Cecil.

  Camus is about to say something back to him, until he spots me. I freeze meeting his gaze. He flashes me a smirk before standing straight up. Cecil smiles as he relaxes. His face shows that he must be winning.

  I close my eyes. With a brief swish of Camus’ hand frozen air entraps Cecil, freezing him. Then with another swoosh, air comes and pushes Cecil, right through the second story window. Right after I hear the crash of the glass, a second later, another glass shattering crash follows.

  I hold in a cry for Cecil as I open my eyes. Camus is walking straight towards me, confidently. I back up slowly before I run again. Back down the staircase, through multiple hallways. Until I’m finally, outside. The first thing I notice is the storm clouds up above me. I instantly find them familiar.

  They’re just like in my dream, except not red. I hear Camus’ footsteps from behind me, still in the building. I run again, the master course is surrounded by a forest, so there must be somewhere!

  Yet, I’m left running to an open field. I stand in the center of it and try to decide on where to go next. Heavy breathing I decided to continue to go straight. I ready myself, but stop. Masato comes out covered in a lot more blood than I saw out of everyone else.

  “(Y/N),” Masato lets out a calm breath and smiles at me. It takes him a few seconds to fully notice the blood covering me. His brows furrowed and he steps closer.

  “W-Who touched you?” Masato’s voice comes out in worried tones. He continues to move closer to me, but before he touches me. He gets tackled to the ground. I jump at the sudden movement. Masato gets a furious punch.

  “How dare you hurt Natsuki! Are you going to hurt her now as well?!” It’s Satsuki. A stab wound can be seen right above his abdomen, gushing out blood. Masato gets another punch, blood clearly coming out of his nose and mouth.

  “I, would never hurt her… Unlike you, Satsuki.” Another punch. Satsuki pulls him up by his collar.

  “What was that...?! ...You can’t do anything without that rapier you stole! At least I can protect them both... you can barely protect yourself!” Satsuki grabs hold of Masato’s neck. All I can do is watch as he suffocates him, except it’s worse than that. Satsuki almost effortlessly rips Masato’s head completely off his body.

  I have to cover my mouth from throwing up at the sight. You can see the tissues and muscles coming apart. The blood starting to gush and form all over the green grass from under them. The crack and breaking of bone. Masato’s screams as it happened. Then to see his eyes rolled back right before Satsuki throws it to the other side of the field.

  Satsuki gets up from Masato’s body and swiftly pulls me into a hug. I don’t move a single muscle. I don’t even breath. He doesn’t say anything. He just holds onto me tightly.

  His grip tightens when we hear rustling from behind me. He looks up.

  “Satsuki coming out was to be expected,” I hear Ai’s voice. I try to turn around and look at him, but Satsuki makes sure to hold my head in place. I hear a “hmph” in reply and know that it’s Camus alongside him.

  “Unhand her and I’ll let you go this once peasant!” I know for sure as soon as I hear his confident voice.

  “Like I’ll let you have her? She’s all that Natsuki wants! I won’t disappoint him!” Satsuki’s voice rings in my ear from being so close.

  “You fool! You won’t win against me!” Camus shouts and I hear something drop. Suddenly I am surrounded by a cool wind which goes in between me and Satsuki. The wind was strong enough to pull us apart. The wind pushes me all the way over towards Camus and Ai.

  Ai grabs hold of me. I look over towards Satsuki and see him trying to run towards me. Camus keeps building up the frosty wind using one hand. He then raises up his other and creates ice crystals. He then uses those ice crystals to pierce Satsuki in his heart, then his head. Satsuki falls down onto his knees. Before he falls over onto the ground, you can see his face turning softer, gentler, as though Natsuki just came back to him.

  I’ve should’ve gotten use to seeing my friends die, but right now this sadness is the only thing making me feel sane. I thought it was over, but it’s not. When Camus drops his hands to come face me and Ai. Ai leaves my side and picks up something from the ground. I see a flash of silver before Camus’ head completely comes off in one swift cut.

  I see his body fall to the floor and his head roll. Ai looks at Camus’ body in, what seems to be, content. He moves his attention over towards me. He smiles happily to me with a loving glaze over his eyes. From behind him I see Camus’ frosty wind settling as a fog around us. Ai is the only person, only thing, I can see. Besides the rain clouds up above.

  “(Y/N)... You’re mine now.” Ai starts walking over towards me, I take a step back.

  “(Y/N), I won’t hurt you. I love you.” I shake my head at him as I start to tremble.

  “A-Ai… t-that isn’t l-love,” I say to him. He shakes his own head at me and smiles. He walks faster and pulls me into a hug, dropping the rapier.

  “Don’t you get it (Y/N)? I Will Be The Only One To Have Your Heart,” Ai speaks honestly to me. I don’t like it one bit. This isn’t Ai! This wasn’t any of them!

  “Ai! Snap out of it! This isn’t you!” I can hear thunder in the distance. Ai cups my face and makes me stare deeply into his eyes.

  “(Y/N), you need to snap out of it. I’m right here beside you giving you all my love. This is love isn’t it? So become mine for eternity already.” The rain pours. The blood from Masato, Natsuki, and Camus stain it red. The blood from me and Ai does as well. My lips quiver and my eyes gloss over. Slowly Ai pulls my head towards him until our lips meet in a unsavory kiss.

  Even if I try to fight it will be no use. He’ll still chase after me and try to win me over again and again. I’m tired by today’s events. I don’t want anymore people to be killed! Even if I have to be a prisoner to him...

  Tears mix in with the rain. My nightmare was true. If only I never woken up at all.

~~END~~

~~Extended Ending~~

  Haruka never came back that day. No one came back to the Master Course at all. Shining didn’t contact us and we were left by our lonesome. I still had hope Reiji was alive, but that quickly vanished as soon as I saw his corpse on the couch I left him on. When we came back that day Ai advised me to take a shower and get some rest, which I did.

  Sometime during the night Ai joined me in my bed. Looking at his sleeping face he seemed almost normal. As though the previous events have never happened. I ended up falling back asleep somehow but I would always get reawakened by nightmares. Nightmares of that same day.

  Ai always reassured me. When the sun would come up he would always greet me warmly and give me breakfast. He didn’t want me leaving my room until he was done with everything. I don’t know what he was doing, but it had to of been cleaning up everything. What else could there of been?

  Months went by before I was able to come out. Ai gave me a happy and content smile as he held my hand. He showed me around our new house. Every bedroom of theirs was now bare. No more blood or corpses. The window was even fixed.

  Ai told me how great this place was for us. It was far enough away from people and it had everything we needed. Eventually Ai also got rid of Haruka’s stuff and replaced it with his. We would go on dates in the forest, and that empty field turned into a garden. We would also have tea out their together sometimes as well. We even got married out there.

  Everything was nice and calm.   Everything was perfect just like how he wanted. I was by his side forever. It will always stay like that.

~~END~~

~~Extended Extended Ending~~

  I awaken with a start. I tremble and shake. I look down at my hands gripping at the bedsheets on top of me. Hot tears stream down my face as I try to figure where I am, who might be with me.

  “(Y-Y/N)?” The familiar voice makes my head shoot straight up. A new set of tears well up in my eyes.

  “(Y/N)-chan! You’re alright!” The sunflowers he brought drop to the ground. Otoya comes rushing up to me and gives me a big hug.

  “O-Oto-” I can’t even fully say his name before I burst out crying. Not hearing more people come in.

  “(Y/N)!” I hear my name said in unison with six voices. I open my eyes and look behind Otoya. The rest of STARISH is there all with smiling faces and tears in their eyes. I cry harder as me and Otoya let go. Behind them QUARTET NIGHT enters.

  I can barely see them as my vision is blurry. It’s so nice to see everyone like this. Even Ai. To see him and everyone normal. QUARTET NIGHT comes to both sides of me and greets me with smiles with tears from Reiji.

  “...I ...missed… all… of you,” I try to make out through my sobbing. Reiji pats the top of my head.

  “We did too kiddo.”

~~END~~

A/N

I do have a few things to talk about on this oneshot.

The first thing is how I feel like some characters are out of character. (I also don't mean that by them being yanderes. I mean just in general.) I thought a lot about everything regarding this and fixed a lot of stuff up when I went to proofread. Yet I still don't feel fully satisfied by some chosen words of dialouge and stuff, so I'm apologizing about it now.

On another note I did logically choose the winner based on how I view their Yandere stereotypes and characters in general.

Also, I think this is pretty obvious, but just in case. I do want to mention how no one should want a Yandere in real life. If this oneshot already wasn't apparent about it enough, then I'm saying bluntly now. Get the police if someone acts like this around you or a friend/family member.

I try to make my oneshots in general light and happy and enjoyable for everyone, so I'm sorry for anyone who doesn't feel that in this oneshot and authors note. (It feels a little depressing to me to be honest. Though normally I don't like heading in this direction (in my author notes) but I guess it's a must for this one.

Continuing on that I accept any and all complaints about this oneshot.

Thank you all who read this long oneshot and author's note. I appreciate it!

[klashta-neali]

Wen Ning and Wei Wuxian roleswap AU.... I have....... a lot of ideas

(with potential for ningsang, wangxian, or ningxian. nothing set in stone yet)

Introducing Wen Ying, known by most as Wen Wuxian, the prodigious brother of the just as highly regarded doctor Wen Qing.

And also introducing Wei Ning, sometimes known as Wei Qionglin, the meek martial brother of Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli.

Jiang Yanli is very protective of Wei Ning, and defends him whenever possible, but he receives little attention. He's just a servant's son, even though Jiang Fengmian still spoils him. His timid nature makes it difficult for Yu Ziyuan to be so furious at him, seeing how he really does his best to avoid trouble.

Wei Ning's cultivation skills aren't too bad, but it's certainly below Jiang Cheng's level. The only thing he's better at than his shidi is archery, where he shines at competitions due to Jiang Cheng's encouragement.

Things that are different: Wei Ning and Jiang Cheng have a much better sibling relationship, even though Jiang Cheng is still sometimes jealous of how his father coddles and spoils him. But he himself can't help but want to do the same for Wei Ning. There is much less competition, and they're simply good friends. As well, Wei Ning would act as a damper for Jiang Cheng's temper, instead of aggravating it like Wei Wuxian does.

Meanwhile, Wen Wuxian catches the attention of Wen Ruohan and even some people outside of the Wen sect. Because of this attention, Wen Qing gets even more recognition. The two of them are like a power sibling duo: the prodigious healer and the prodigious young cultivator. Wen Ruohan is quick to harness Wen Wuxian's power for his conquering plans. He is made to lead armies and given similar ranking power as Wen Xu and Wen Chao. But soon, after seeing the carnage that Wen Ruohan wants him to further cause, and coming from a healers' branch, he boldly tells Wen Ruohan that he is quitting the battlefield. He summararily gets kicked out of the Wen sect.

Meanwhile, when they go to study at Cloud Recesses, Wei Ning still goes with Jiang Cheng. His cultivation level is significant enough to be allowed to go. I imagine that he possibly either was discouraged from, or was not very encouraged to do a lot of cultivation practice in canon, so being so close to the main family this time, he could have a higher cultivation level. After all, he would've spent less time learning healing and medicine from Wen Qing. I think he would've instead learned a lot from Jiang Yanli, like cooking.

Anyway, there's definitely no attraction from Lan Wangji. Instead, Nie Huaisang is the one that falls for the sweet Wei Ning of Yunmeng Jiang, Wei Ning who is far too innocent to indulge Huaisang's dirtier interests, but would gladly listen to him talk about art. Wei Ning makes a completely opposite impression on Lan Qiren: what a perfect guest disciple of the Gusu Lan Sect! He never once punishes him to copy rules. Instead, he and Nie Huaisang study together, and while Wei Ning indulges Huaisang's more innocent artistic interests, he encourages him to study hard too. Huaisang would confess a lot of his family troubles to Wei Ning, who would do a bit of the same. They become easy friends, and if the relationship ever moves further, I imagine it would happen in the trope style of "but he's my best friend; I can't tell him I have feelings for him or it'll ruin the friendship" on both sides.

Back to Wen Ying, a now kicked-out Wen Wuxian escapes to Gusu Lan Sect for refuge......

He's refused at first. He was not the one that burned down Cloud Recesses, but certainly, that did happen. But eventually, he is accepted when he proves his sincerity and well, there's also the fact that he's already kicked out of the Wen Sect.

That reminds me, Xuanwu cave...... Wei Qionglin would not aggravate Wen Chao like that, but he would protect and defend Mianmian. He'd probably manage to escape with the others, and thus no one stays behind nor slays the Xuanwu.

ALTERNATIVELY (I like this version better), Wen Wuxian is sent in place of Wen Chao (if this is before he protests and gets kicked out). Wen Chao (along with Wen Zhuliu) are sent elsewhere. The prodigious Wen Wuxian is thought to be enough without needing Wen Zhuliu. Wen Wuxian follows along with Wen Ruohan's orders for the most part, but clearly reluctantly. (note: yes, Wen Chao's girl is still with Wen Chao and not here in this case. there's no replacement. it's just Wen Ying with some other Wen cultivators.)

He doesn't want to be leading the other cultivators to the Xuanwu cave without their swords either. But at least he still has Suibian (I imagine Wen Qing could've helped name it in this case). When the beast awakens, he actually leads the other cultivators to try and defeat it. "Even if you don't have your own swords, we can still try our best!" he insists, and it's here that Lan Wangji first meets him. He's a Wen, and Lan Wangji hates him at first. But he sees his reluctance, his heroic nature, and when, some months later when Wen Ruohan's orders become too cruel for Wen Wuxian to go on and he shows up at the entrance to Gusu Lan sect......

Well, we all know wangxian is just destined to happen, isn't it.

But meanwhile, there's ningsang, look at the ningsang!!

When the Wens destroy Lotus Pier (Wen Ying had already defected by then), Wei Ning finally becomes tougher. It was like a wake up call. Despite it certainly not being his fault, he's convinced that if only he was stronger, he could've done more to stop this. As Jiang Cheng clings to him in a hug and sobs and grieves, Wei Ning vows to do better, he vows to protect his shidi even at his own expense. Jiang Cheng can't hate Wei Ning, can't blame him, because look at him, how could he? He was the opposite of a troublemaker.

Anyway I'm kinda skipping around but, archery competition. Wen Wuxian wins first place, earning much prestige for the Wens despite them having no one else who scored even in the top 10. Wei Ning, who certainly has no nervousness when shooting since his shidi actually encouraged this talent of his, wins 4th, beating Jiang Cheng who lands sixth.

(the ranking was Wen Wuxian, Lan Xichen, Lan Wangji (who didn't forfeit this time), Wei Qionglin, Jin Zixuan, Jiang Cheng. This earns him a bit of ire from Jin Zixuan...)

I like to imagine that, since Wei Ning would be very close with Nie Huaisang from when they studied together, at some point he might even seek refuge with the Nie sect. I'm not quite sure where/when this fits in yet, though....

Wen Wuxian might still be the one to invent demonic cultivation. Furious at him for defecting, Wen Ruohan sends Wen Chao and Wen Zhuliu after him, and he still gets thrown into the burial mounds.

On the other hand, I haven't decided on a lot of things for this AU. Who saves Jiang Cheng when he runs back to Lotus pier and gets his golden core destroyed? Wei Ning would go look for him, but well, would Wen Wuxian still be there? And how would Wen Wuxian know Wei Ning, even if he is?

I'm not sure. This is a really wild idea but I wanted to see where it goes and now I'm stuck.... I'm not even sure who'll invent demonic cultivation anymore. Could Wei Qionglin be the one to do it? I don't know. I really don't know, ahaha! Speaking of which, I'm also hoping to have more NHS interactions in this AU! I promised ningsang after all~!

[jeroro456]

Flame amidst fear

The screams were back again. Somewhere from beyond the walls, something was screaming into the into the storm,  drowning out even the sound of the thunder and the rain as it crashed down onto the roof of the tiny one room home I live in. She was used to the storm but this set her teeth chattering and awakened a primal urge to run deep in her body. By my reckoning, which I am beginning to doubt, it had been 3 days since the screams had first come, drawing the citizens out of their homes to look and listen and to ask the matriarch, my grandmother,  what it could be. Yet she had no answer, giving no response beyond “Keep the boundary stones piled high. Quickly!” and pushing anyone who came to see her out as soon as they had come. 

No one had left the town in decades and she either could not or would not explain. At first, they had all been reluctant to act and trusted in the strength of the walls of both steel and magic to protect them. Before the next tolling of the bells however, the fires that supplied the magic energy throughout the town had started to grow cold and those with any sense for the magical felt a growing threat mounting against the walls. So it was decided that the words of the matriarch would be heeded and an expedition party of the bravest among us was selected to investigate. Yet of the 7 who had volunteered to go, only 3 returned, carrying with them the severed arm of Halia and his crystal necklace that had been said to guard his family from evil for generations. Usually it shown with a fierce golden light but that light had dimmed.

With my parents lost to illness sometime ago and her grandmother unwilling to truly take charge, she had become the sole authority in the town and yet all my experience and skill had come to nothing. I had tried to question the survivors about what happened but it was as though they were unable to hear me. They reacted to my movements but otherwise remained silent and entirely unresponsive to anything I said. Then she had tried to rekindle the fire and yet, for all my prayer, magic and pleading, it had stubbornly refused to grow and I felt as though she had been infected by whatever cold plagued it. Defeated, I returned to her home to think and yet she had come up with nothing. There was a chill in my bones that sapped my energy and the screaming had left me to unfocused to truly plan.

That had been a day and a half ago and the screaming had grown more frequent. No one, not even Tam’s newborn baby, had been able to sleep longer than an hour and a silent panic was beginning to take hold throughout the town. Rather than riot and let their fear drive them to cruelty, the citizens of the town had become reclusive and sullen. The streets were unusually quiet, with nothing save the sound of rain and the occasional blinding flash of lightning.

I had been just sitting in my home, watching the drops of rain go by, wishing she could be free as the water that constantly covered everything. After an amount of time I was not sure of, for I had neglected to wind the clock that hung on her wall, there was a brighter flash of lightning than usual accompanied by a deafening roar of thunder and then, seemingly immediately after, a frantic knock at her door. In stood up slowly, wincing as my muscles stretched from their previous stillness and stumbled over to open the door.

I had to stifle a gasp when she saw the many who was at her door. It was Daneil, a guardsman and warrior who had been a member of the expedition party. His face was pale and  he had an odd expression on his face, full of determination but also a deep shade of red around his eyes as though he had been crying. I winced. Of course. He had been Halia’s husband. I quickly pulled him inside and sat him down on a cushion in the center of the room before speaking, unsure of what to say.

“Are you okay?” It felt like a silly question given that she new the answer but she felt she had to ask. Daneil was shaking his head immediately as she began to speak however.”No. Truth be told, I don’t even know how I’m alive. I remember nothing but leaving the north gate and then the sound of ripping flesh,a cry of pain and a sense of complete terror and silence overtaking me. Next thing I knew, I was laying by the fire in the center of the village, with Halia’s” He paused and let out a sob here before continuing “Halia’s necklace just barely touching my leg, glowing faintly.” Clearly making an effort to hold back tears, he continued speaking. “I lay there for...I don’t know how long before picking up the necklace. When I did, I felt I had to come here. That you would be able to help.” She saw for the first time the necklace glowing in his hands, what little light that remained to it blinding her eyes.

He reached out and clasped my hands in his, the necklace touching her and sending a warmth up her arms. “Please, Lanai, I know there might be nothing we can do but we have to try something. I want revenge on whatever it was that killed my husband.”  I stared down at the floor, letting my hands fall from his. “But it’ll be pointless. You know as well as I do that if we go out beyond the walls, we will be killed.” He let out a sound that was half sob, half shout of anger. “Fine. if you won’t help me, then I’ll just do it myself.” He pushed himself to his feet and hobbled out the door. For the first time, I noticed that he was carrying a sword on his back. It was old and worn looking but it seemed to thrum with power and had a tracery of fire down the center of the blade. As he slammed the door behind him, it occurred to me that it must be his family’s sword, though it had likely not been used for generations.

I sat there in stunned silence before snapping to a sudden realization. The warmth from the necklace had spread up through my entire body and it was though I could think clearly once more. I could not very well let him meet his death alone. If he was going to die, well, it would be with me at his side. I slowly pulled the door to my home open, picking up the longbow that rested nearby. I had always been a good shot and I had to hope that it would be enough to save both our lives. When I made my way on the empty main road, I saw Daneil just in front of the east gate, waiting for it to open. There was no sign of the guards usually present there. Worried, I broke into a sprint and managed to catch up to him, right as he crossed the boundary. He heard my footsteps, kicking up water and loose stone and turned to face me. “So you decided to come after all.” I nodded. “I do not want anyone else to die.” He shook his head. “Unfortunately, I think we may both we be dead. But thank you. I am glad you came.” He then marshaled his face into an expression of grim stoicism and marched out through the gate as I followed.

As soon as we were through the gate, it slammed shut behind us. I looked back nervously while Daneil kept resolutely marching ahead. He had put on the necklace and its faint light glimmered like a beacon in front of me. His sword was drawn and his eyes scanned from horizon to horizon, clearly alert for danger. The screams had died down but soon started up again and they dampened all light and quieted all sound for their duration. With every step we took, I felt a mounting chill on the back of my neck. Daneil seemed to feel it too but kept marching forward anyway.

Soon, the walls of the village faded out of sight behind us, obscured by the rain and darkness. Daneil stopped from a moment and held the sword upright in front of him. He traced his finger down the blade and murmured a word that I could not make out. For a moment nothing happened and then an orange ball of blinding light dripped off the tip of the blade and hovered in the air in front of him. He flung it upward with the blade and did the same with two more balls of light that appeared. I jogged forward to catch up with my him, my feet beginning to sink a little into the ground as it turned from paved roads to mud. “I was not aware you knew magic.” He looked back at me and grinned as his usual cheer returned just for a moment. “It was a trick Halia taught me. I used to keep warm and wake as I would watch for trouble on the walls.” He kept his grin for a few more seconds before it was replaced by a grim expression as he looked skyward. “I suppose you’re still watching out me even from death, huh? I wish I could have had the chance to say goodbye.” He wiped his eyes and murmured “I love you.” As he stood still for a few seconds, I reached forward and put my hand on his shoulder, starting to ask if he was okay when he shrugged it off and started marching forward again at a more rapid pace. “I am fine. LEt us keep going. We will die if we dawdle here.”

The two of us walked in silence for a time, until we came to a strange pile of rocks, laid out in what looked like a deliberate but incomplete fashion. The air around us felt unnatural, as though something malevolent swirled around us. Daneil spoke. “This must be one of the boundary stones your grandmother spoke of.” I hesitated. “If that is the case, we should fix it. But how?” Daneil looked around for a moment before pulling out the necklace. The light was still dampened but it illuminated our surroundings enough to make out the rocks in more detail. He spoke up “Look.” He pointed. “It looks like something is missing there.” I looked to where he pointed and saw that he was correct. There were several markers that seemed to denote where something should be placed and the right side seemed to be incomplete while the left side was intact.. “Interesting. It seems like they are supposed to be symmetrical. Perhaps if we copy the design of the left side opposite it, it will be fixed.” 

Daneil nodded before looking around our surroundings. He held out the necklace and walked forward, then bent down. When he stood up, I could see he was holding a large rock and that there were several others scattered about him. Following his lead, I picked up another rock and placed it on the pile where the markers where. It was hard work, but the two of us were soon almost finished. Daneil was just placing the last rock when there was a shriek from somewhere beyond the stones and I saw him dragged by a darkness that eclipsed all else to somewhere outside the radius of the stones.

“Daneil! Daneil!” I chased after him but stopped when I realized I could not see where i was going. I stood helplessly for several seconds before I saw bright flashes of fire in the distance. “It must be Daneil’s sword!” I charged off in the direction of the light, knocking an arrow as I did so. I arrived just in time to see Daniel desperately parrying the attacks of that seemed to blend it with the darkness and the rain but was encroaching on him from all sides. As I watched, an arm of darkness got around Daniel’s guard and rushed straight towards his face. Without even realizing I’d done so, I let the arrow I had nocked fly and it struck the beast’s arm transfixing it mere inches away from Daniel.

I ran towards him as the darkness seemed to abate somewhat and we stood back to back. There was a momentary reprieve before he yelled “Duck!” and as I was doing so, whirled and put his sword above and front of me, sparks flying as it came into contact with a tendril of darkness. I let another fly in the direction the attack had come from. There was no reaction except for more tendrils of darkness striking out at us. Daneil parried and severed them as I ducked and weaved, let loose arrow after toward where I felt the creature’s presence. After what felt like an eternity, the attacks stopped and the darkness seemed to abate permanently.

Daneil and I collapsed on the ground, both breathing heavily. “Thank you.” he said “I would be dead without you.” I took a deep breath in. “Do you think we got it?” he shook his head. “I do not know. I hope so.” The necklace grew bright again and he placed it on his neck. “I think Halia can rest in peace now.” He pulled me to my feet. “Come on. We should head back.” 

The two us slowly returned, weary and dead on our feet. When we arrived back in the town, it was bustling and the unease upon everyone seemed to have lifted. We were immediately taken to the town infirmary and checked for injuries. After we were allowed to leave, Daneil and I held a quiet funeral for Halia. He still wears the necklace to this day and credits it with his good health. His children are teenagers now and I often help take care of them, in Halia’s absence.

We never did find out what it was that threatened our town then and I hope never to do so.

[theliterateape]

The First Call

By Wayne Lerner

THE QUIET ENVELOPED HIS MIND AND CALMED HIS BODY. Early morning time in the office was his favorite. No appointments on his calendar. No interruptions from unwanted visitors, no commotion in the hallways, no complaints from the medical staff, at least not yet. Just the opportunity to think and enjoy his first cup of coffee. 

David cradled the steaming coffee like it was his only source of heat on a cold and snowy day. The bitter french roast, infused with high levels of caffeine, awakened his groggy mind. His favorite mug, a gift from his daughter, held his magic potion. Without the coffee, he found it impossible to jumpstart the day. 

The motto on the mug reminded him how to approach the challenges which confronted him each day. Everything will be fucking okay, it said. 

No way. This job’s killing me. How will everything be okay? I’m supposed to be in charge. Bullshit! Most days, I feel like a puppet whose strings are being pulled by everyone here. 

He slammed his palm against his desk. The stinging pain brought him back to reality. 

Oh, stop feeling sorry for yourself. Be a big boy. 

This is what you asked for, so deal with it. 

David looked at his calendar and cringed, then smiled. 6:30 dinner meeting with the employee advisory committee to discuss how to make the organization more patient friendly. That would be the only event he would enjoy that day. 

Of course, there are assholes but there are good people too. They’re the ones who need your guidance and leadership. If you’re so fed up with the situation, then leave. Walk away. Find another place that suits you better 

He opened his desk drawer and looked at his pay stub. 

Can’t, huh? The golden handcuffs got you, don’t they? 

And the rep of the place gives you creds others would just dream of. 

With the good comes bad shit. It’s right there in the job description. Remember that. Have balls, would you? 

The ringing of the phone reverberated throughout the office. You can tell who’s calling by the ring, whether it’s a good call or one which foretells disaster. The phone knows. Its voice sends you a message, You have to be smart enough, open enough, to understand its language. 

When his Mother died, the ring was soft and sorrowful. When his wife called to tell him the results of her pregnancy test, after so many tries, the ring was loud and exuberant. When the ring hesitates and then continues, like a heart which skips a beat, it’s someone you don’t know, a wrong number or a salesman. 

Today, the ring was jarring. The sound bounced off the walls of his office. It was an ominous ring. He knew there was bad news coming. Not just bad news, catastrophic news. The phone’s voice entered his body, pounding his head and hurting his ears. 

His eyes locked on the caller ID and recognized the name. Linda was the chief legal officer, a holdover from the previous administration. Linda made it known to everyone that she didn't like him. Her pipeline to the Board Chair was a well-known fact. His quietude was over. And maybe, with it, this time, his career. 

“Good morning, Linda,” he said in the cheeriest voice he could manufacture. “What can I do for you this glorious morning?” 

This isn’t a social call. She never calls unless there is something wrong. And, with Linda, there's always something wrong. 

“You got a call from the Feds! This morning? What did they want?” 

He could see her face as he spoke. She was a dour woman who loved to zing him any time she could. If she was ever happy, he never saw it. Since she only saw the darkside of life, he knew this call meant something horrible was about to happen. 

“They said they received an EEO claim against one of our senior officers? Which one?” “No, it can’t be true. We’re already investigating him for how he spent the funds in his budget.” 

We’re just about ready to hammer that bastard with the evidence Linda and the forensic accounting firm compiled. 

“Copies of the claim have been sent to the Board Chair as well! OMG! I don’t have enough trouble with him. Now this shit is happening!” 

“I’m sorry. I'm not shouting at you. It is not your doing.” 

“What do you mean it's mine? Gary was a holdover from the prior administration.” Just like you, you witch! 

“And the Board likes him or at least they did.” 

“What? There’s more?’ 

“The claim’s for sexual harassment? And the victim’s a person of color!” 

Jesus Christ! It’s not even 8:30 yet. The shit keeps piling up. 

“What do you mean, man up. You don’t need to tell me that there are no good days for a CEO, just acceptable ones.” 

Linda reminds me almost everyday. If there's crap on the floor, it's mine, so pick it up. 

His heart and breathing began to race as he felt himself losing control. He tried to slow everything down by practicing yoga breathing but nothing seemed to work. 

The end of the line’s in sight. Now, my alleged supporters will rejoice! 

David’s predecessor had been given a seat on the Board when he was cajoled into retirement. He wasn't thrilled with David and neither was the Board Chair. They wanted someone with a different background but David was the choice of the search committee. 

“Linda, I have to go. The Chair is on the other line.” 

“I’ll loop back with you when we’re done. Then, you and I can plot a strategy to deal with the EEO suit.” 

“Yes, there will be fallout from the financial investigation. It’s not going to be easy but I’m sure we can find a way to minimize the damage.” 

He heard Linda chuckle under her breath as she hung up 

David’s shoulder and neck tensed as he picked up the phone. He knew this was going to be yet another miserable call. 

“Good morning, Sam. How’s your merger negotiations going? The reports in the papers have been quite positive.” 

“Yes, I know all about the call from the Feds and the letter we received on the investigation. I guess Linda must have called you, huh?” 

That bitch! She has made it her life’s work to fuck me over. 

“She and I will be meeting with our outside counsel in an hour. I’m confident we can settle the issues with little public fallout.” 

“You heard about it this morning on the train?” David paused. “If I may ask, from whom?” “No way. I can’t believe there’s such a gigantic leak in the organization.” 

“How do you think he heard about it?’ 

“His brother works for the government?” 

So much for confidentiality. 

“Yes, I’ll call you just as soon as Linda and I are done with our meeting.” 

“Yes, I know this is embarrassing for you and the organization.” 

“Yes, I know we are getting ready to go out with a big fund raising drive.” Christ! Being interrogated yet again. 

“Yes, I know this will make the ask much harder.” 

“We’ll have to control the message to remind them of all the good we do here.” “No, I’m not minimizing the impact bad PR can have. We’ll fix this, I assure you.” “Sam, Our biggest admitter’s on the other line, I’ll call you later. OK? Thanks.” “Hi, George. What’s going on in the Ortho world these days?” 

“What do you mean you're leaving the hospital?” 

You can’t leave, you asshole. 

You're the chair of the department and just signed a new contract. 

“We didn’t breach our agreement. We gave you everything you wanted and more! We’re building a separate building for you and have doubled the number of staff you can recruit.” 

“We did not permanently reallocate your operating room time to general surgery.” 

“There was no one on your room schedule at the time that a series of emergency cases hit the ER. We both know they take priority. That’s why we gave the surgeons permission to use the operating rooms, just this one time.” 

“Yes, I know we should have called you first but this was an emergency. I thought you wouldn’t have an issue helping out a fellow surgeon and his patients.” 

We can’t allow the ORs to lie fallow until you need them, you slime ball. You know that. You’re making a stand anyway. I wonder what you really want. 

“This is what you mean when you say we breached your contract?” 

“Sure, have your lawyer call me and I’ll connect him with Linda.” 

“Don’t do anything rash, George. This misunderstanding is not one to take an action all of us will regret. It will be fixed.” 

David slammed the phone down and tried to gain his composure. His administrative assistant came in at the sound of the noise. 

“Jean, would you please cancel my next few meetings? I have a slew of problems to resolve and don’t know how long this will take.” 

“Yes, get Linda on the phone. I need to start with her.” 

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” 

“Gail from Spencer Stuart called when I was on with George? Do you know what she wanted?” 

Gail calls me when she needs a reference on someone or to jump the line to get in to see a doctor. 

“Oh, she wanted to talk with me, said it was personal. I hope she’s ok. I’ll call her back before I deal with Linda.” 

“Gail? It’s David. Yes, I’m doing fine. What can I do for you?” 

“Can you repeat that?” 

“Where’s the job opportunity? Can you tell me what I’ll be walking into?” 

Neither you nor I knew the real lay of the land when you recruited me here. The Search Committee and the Board were not truthful with either of us, it turned out. 

“Yes, you can’t manage an organization when your revered predecessor is looking over your shoulder and reporting every action you take to the Board Chair.” 

I don’t want to jump from one fire to another. I need to make sure I understand the real culture of the organization, not the PR version. 

“This place thrives on internecine warfare, Gail. You don’t know who is going to stab you first.” “Sure, I’ll meet with you. Tomorrow will be fine. Your office? 10am? I’ll be there.” 

It's only 9:15 and I’m exhausted. Well, let’s get on with this circus and see if we can save it from itself. 

“Jean, please get Linda on the phone and tie in our outside lawyers. Thanks.” 

He reached for his mug but the coffee had gone cold. He rose to get himself a refill when the phone rang. Jean was on the other line so he reached to pick up the phone. 

This time, the sound was quiet and smooth. Its voice entered his soul like Barber’s Adagio for Strings does every time he hears it. His heart rate slowed down and he began to take deep, cleansing breaths. 

David picked up the phone. 

“Yes, I’m the CEO. What can I do for you?” 

The mug was right.