#there's something so [clenches fist] about vincent's result because. he just wants to live. he has always just wanted to live i'm OGH

[crypticcodexcreations]

"Quiet me" for the ask game :)

Finally here with this! It's long, so I'm gonna put it under a cut with a couple of warnings TW: very light violence, mind control

Glass shards scattered as Giselle came down the stairs, one sliding across her cheek, just barely missing her eye. Vincent snarled, snatching another vial and throwing it across the room, scowling as it shattered. Giselle frowned as she strode across the lab that she had allowed him to set up in her basement.

“Vincent?” He glared at her as she spoke, not quite meeting her eyes, but stopped himself before throwing something else.

“I don’t want to listen to you pretend to care right now! Get out!” He pulled away as she gently put a hand on his cheek, glaring holes into the floor.

“I do care, Vincent. What happened?” She tried to meet his eyes, but he kept his gaze away as he snarled at the floor.

“The same thing that’s happened before! I went to show them my research and it was all gone! This can’t be a coincidence anymore!” Giselle tried to put her hand on his shoulder, but he slapped it away turning his back to her and crossing the room, trying to put some distance between them. She sighed.

“I don’t know what else it could be, Vincent. How else would all your work be vanishing if not happenstance?” She watched the muscles in his back tense as she spoke. He snarled, eyes now glued to the wall with a look that should have melted it.

“Only two people can access this lab and once I leave there’s no time for anyone else to be tampering with it! You’re sabotaging me, I know it!” Giselle laughed as the accusation left his lips. [9:35 PM] “Why would I fund all of this, feed you, house you, and then sabotage you, Vincent? What would be the point?” She watched as his hands clenched into fists, a death grip on nothing but air.

“Our deal was you funding me in exchange for me going to those parties as your date. I don’t know who those people are, but I’ve seen the way they look at me, the way YOU look at me around them!” Giselle’s eyes widened slightly as he spoke.

“You’ve become paranoid, Vincent. Please, calm down, talk to me.” She took a few steps towards him, but that just pushed him to shift even farther away from her.

“No! I’m some sort of pet to you! Some filthy animal you picked up off the street to clean up and show off! You said you needed a date, but that’s not what I am! I’m just as much of a joke to you as I am to everyone else! And you, oh, you know that I can’t leave if no one else takes me seriously! That would leave me homeless and penniless so if anyone else were to see the results of my research, you’d lose your little pet! I refuse to be treated like some animal any longer! I won’t stay here while you ruin my life, Giselle!”

She started to reach out a hand to him, but he bolted for the stairs, a mistake that he didn’t even seem to realize was a mistake. Giselle caught him in seconds, pulling him into her arms where he quickly started to panic as he realized that something was wrong. No human of her build should be this strong.

“What are you?!” In his panic, he looked up and met her eyes, not knowing that was the worst thing he could do.

“Shhhhhhhhh… Calm down and listen to me, OK sweetheart?” As her voice washed over him, and their gazes locked, he stopped struggling, going limp in her arms.

“I’m listening, honey…” As those words left his lips, she smiled softly, starting to relax.

“Good. I’m not sabotaging you because I want you to fail, Vincent. It’s just not safe for my kind if humans go snooping into our lives, OK? Just forget about what’s going wrong. Just forget any of this ever happened, OK?” Vincent nodded and she gently pet his hair.

“That’s a good boy. You’ve had a long day, so I’m going to carry you to bed now. In the morning, it’ll be like none of tonight ever happened.” Vincent nodded, relaxing against her chest. She scooped him up into her arms, carrying him up to his room and tucking him into the blankets. She sighed, looking back at him from the doorway as he slept.

“Please don’t make me do this again, Vincent. I don’t like scaring you…” The door clicked shut as she left to clean up the mess he had made.

[ruvviks]

>> oc god quiz

was tagged by @strafethesesinners and @adelaidedrubman to take this test for my ocs, thank you so much!! tagging @awful-roffle, @coffeebucko, @radioactiveshitstorm, @dieselsardine, @coyote-skull, @henbased, @memaidraws, @shellibisshe, @bluemojave, @turbo-virgins, @necro-hamster, @eurodynamic, @reaperkiller, @aartyom, @morvaris, @arklay, @steelport, @ianeiras, @aelyosos, @swordcoasts, @cultistbase, @faarkas and anyone else who wants to do this :D <3

gust god

you were born free! as free as the grass grows! you could go in so many directions right now you might pull yourself apart trying. there are kites to fly and wheat to whip through and birds to knock around and- oh no, you've tornadoed an old woman's garage sale sign away. go pick that up!

force of flood

it's torture. you feel every blade of grass, every kitchen tile, every little set of running feet as you consume the land. you don't mean to! you're so angry! why do they treat you this way!? you were an ocean spirit once, calmly sending waves and rains inland. the people were happy, you were pristine. now every summer they have only built more, dumped more, stole more from you, why couldn't they be happy with the rains and grasses? "i will wash away your roads! i will sooner wipe you from the earth than succumb to your slow poisoning!", you bellow from roiling brown flood plains

god across the pond

you often appear as a small green light, constant as the north star in the eyes of longing souls. there you are across the bay that separates lovers. there you are, a faint green landmark on top of a mountain, inexplicably radiating a great ache for 'home'. many have tried to find your source and all have failed. it saddens you that you must leave before they reach you, but you have yearnings of your own. you are looking for your lover, looking for your home, every night

[reddogcollar]

Troubles

You think Drew was gonna be okay the entire time? No.

First/Prev/Next

When Drew knocked that morning, Hector was busy sorting books. He rarely put books back immediately after he was done with them, and he rarely read one at a time. It resulted in a lot of piles of books to trip over.

He'd fallen flat on his face immediately after he woke up, in fact. It wasn't as uncommon as he'd like it to be.

Drew stepped in, and Hector looked over his shoulder to greet him. He looked more like a wilted flower than a man at the moment though.

"You doing alright Drew?" He asked, pausing midway through sliding a book on etymology back onto the shelf.

"Just tired, don't worry about it." Drew said, sitting down at the table and resting his head in his hand. "How are you?"

"It's.. A quiet day, so far." He answered, sliding the book fully into place and picking up another.

The room was lit, and the viles had given it a rest. For the morning at least. They did that sometimes, getting bored with him. It was nice, but it always reminded him of Vincent and Icegarden. Made his skin crawl.

"Alright, then?"

"Quite alright." He nodded, looking at Drew while grabbing a book off the table to put away.

He looked distracted, and worried.

Hector set the book aside.

"What's on your mind, Drew?" He asked, taking the seat next to him and resting his hand on his shoulder.

Drew sighed.

"The situation in Bast is getting no better, and I worry it won't get better before something happens to my friends from the arena." He explained, slouching over the table.

"There's nothing I can do for them, I've been disallowed from fighting. If I lose someone else to some megalomanic war..." He trailed off, leaving his breathing as the only sound. It was heavier than usual.

Hector realized he had nothing to say, though he really should. He hadn't been good with emotional wellness in a very long time.

"Your friends from the arena," He started, uncertain, "They'd spent years fighting for their lives before you met them. Surely they can handle themselves."

"War is hardly about experience, its all luck that any of us survived." Drew muttered, barely making any effort to be heard.

"You'd say all your fights were won on luck instead of skill?"

"Skill didn't save Drake, or Red Rufus, or my father. And it was bad luck that did them all in." Drew sat up a little straighter. He didn't sound angry, even though he was glaring. "Even the most skilled swordsman will die if he trips on a battlefield."

"War is more than luck, you should know that first hand. Its strategy and wit as much as it is brute force and good fortune." Hector squeezed Drew's shoulder for emphasis. "Stormdale was won with strategy, and Gretchen's Harriers shouldn't have stood a chance, yet they still won out against Krupha and Vorhaas because of a good plan."

"You're friends will be alright, they sound equal parts smart and lucky." He added, after a moment of thought.

Drew sighed, slouching back over the table with his head in his hands.

"I shouldn't doubt them, I know. You're right. There shouldn't be anything to be afraid of. I just am." He said, quietly, before pushing himself back up to look at Hector. "Let's not dwell on it. Has Bergan been by?" He changed the subject.

"No.. Why, should he have been?"

"Two days ago I talked to him about you. He said he'd be by to talk to you. I suppose that'll be a while, though. He's been busy with summer drawing closer."

Hector tuned out the last half of Drew's comment, clenching his fist, gripping a fist full of the other boy's cloak.

"What... What will he be talking to me about, Drew?" He asked, voice coming out strained.

He didn't want to believe Drew would tell Bergan about the viles. Having to tell Bergan what he saw was vastly different from blurting it out to his friend when he was sleep deprived.

"Told him you should be let out of the Garrison tree. He said he'd talk to you and decide for himself." Drew explained, stunning Hector.

"I- You think I should be let out?" He asked, unclenching his fist and letting his hand lay there, limp.

"No reason to keep you locked up all summer, is there? You should at least be able to take a walk." Drew said.

"This isn't about the other day, is it?"

"In part, I suppose." He shrugged, not seeming to get the point.

"Drew" Hector started, taking his hand off Drew's shoulder, "I don't want you to vouch for me out of pity. I want you to trust me, not.. Feel bad for me."

"Of course I trust you, Hector." He sat up fully now, looking confused.

"Do you?"

"You haven't given me any reason not to. I'm not advocating for you out of pity, I think you deserve to be let out. And Bergan is reasonable, even if he's stubborn. He'll think you deserve to be let out too, I'm sure." Drew said.

It was enough to make Hector's eyes water, to think he was being trusted like that. And to think Drew thought Bergan would trust him the same.

It took him a second to get his emotions under control.

"Thank you, Drew."

Drew nodded, hunching back over the table and leaning fully on his elbows. Closer and in the light, Hector noticed the dark bags under his eyes.

"Did you get any sleep at all?" He asked, freshly concerned.

"Did two nights ago." Drew muttered, seeming spent of all energy. It was a little hard to understand him.

"Brenn, that bad?"

"Worse than it had been all month. I was getting better and now I'm a wreck again." He sighed, rubbing his eyes and clicking the White Fist's claws against each other.

"Wasn't like this during the war. I could sleep then, even if I was always about to die." He muttered, thinking aloud, "Maybe that's all I was ever supposed to be. A soldier. Maybe now I'm completely spent."

"You're more than a soldier, Drew." Hector said. That one was easy for him. Drew was far more than just a soldier.

"Yeah?"

"A brother, a son, a friend, a moral compass..." He started, not sure where he was headed. "A soldier is far down the list of things you are, Drew."

Drew didn't respond, seeming to slouch further over the table. He was practically laying on it.

"You can lay down, if you want." Hector offered, motioning to his bed. It would be better than a table.

"I don't have time to sleep, even I did I don't think I could." Drew said, though he didn't bother to sit back up.

Hector nodded, and stood up, looking for his old bag. There were still some useful things in there, though most of it's contents had been used for necromancy. Those tools had all been destroyed, and he hadn't touched anything else in the bag since.

Soon, he dragged it out from under his bed and pulled out some dried herbs.

Skullcap and lavender.

"These are so old now, and typically you're supposed to make tea out of them, but just eating them will help you sleep well enough. I can wake you when you need to leave."

He handed him the herbs. Drew set them on the table.

"I'm supposed to be keeping you company, aren't I?" He asked.

"You've helped me, let me help you."

Drew looked back at the dried herbs, staring at them for a moment.

"Thank you, Hector."

He took the herbs, making a face eating them. Certainly not as pleasant as tea. They did the trick though, knocking him out the second he laid down.

Hector stood up, kicking the bag back under his bed. It was mostly empty now anyways.

Trying not to dwell on the past, he kept sorting books until it was time to wake Drew.

[leonawriter]

To Change A Sombre Morrow (chapter twelve)

Read it on AO3

Fandom: Final Fantasy VII

Characters: Genesis, Yuffie, assorted others.

Summary: Time travel is that one kind of thing where it’s the plot of figuring out who you are in the dark, because the only ones watching are either ghosts, or memories. Genesis is working on it. It’s taking time.

...

The most irritating thing about being put into a war you no longer had any interest in fighting for, Genesis had to say, was the fact that there was no longer any sense of interest in it.

There was nothing holding him there, and when accosted by Wutaian soldiers it was sometimes hard to remember to take things seriously.

Especially when the last thing he wanted was to accidentally tell his entire contingent that he didn't even want these people dead. 

Well, no, strictly speaking that would be a lie; after long enough with what often felt like hardly an hour passing without yet another Wutai spy or soldier crawling out of the woodwork like ants or lice...

His patience was getting thin enough that if they hadn't been in the middle of a forested area, the next one who tried to attack them on the sly would have ended up with a face full of fireball. The last one had come close. It had only been the result of Genesis' own not inconsiderable ability to control the strength of his spells that had resulted in one shocked and singed Wutaian, and a few scorched but otherwise unharmed trees.

His unit was currently only approximately a mile away from Fort Tamblin, and he himself was perched up in a tree some distance from the perimeter of the town Shinra's forces had taken over a few months back, not even caring about what the reactions would be to the hole in his coat opening up again when it had been threatening to do so for some time now, and if his wing hadn't undone all of that hard work, then the sharp branches and bark of the tree he was in would have done the trick.

All in all, the peace and quiet away from inquisitive troops was something that he'd been in sore need of. The one thing that made things less than perfect had to be the sheer amount of things that seemed to think that just because he had feathers and wasn't currently feeling like moving, it clearly meant that he was free real estate to be crawled over and to be used as a hiding place.

Not for the first time, he flipped his PHS open, and thumbed his way into the spam folder of his messages. Knowing the sorts of people who could potentially hack into his phone if they decided that they wanted to, he had long since decided that it was hardly worth the bother of attempting anything too blatant of an attempt at keeping secrecy. 

The last mail from that particular number flashed up on the screen.

You've been quiet.

The message was dated several days ago. 

If nothing else, they'd come to the decision that if the Turks were going to find out that Genesis was having discussions with someone that bordered on treason, then they'd also find out a few interesting home truths about the company they were paid to be lapdogs for.

As yet, no one had. Despite the part of him that was relieved for it, there was another part that was almost disappointed in them.

I've been leading a squad into an active war zone. Which isn't entirely new territory for me, but it has been some time. 'Quiet' is the last word I'd use to describe it.

He hesitated for a moment, before sending. 

It wasn't wrong for him to say that it wasn't new territory - he had done this sort of thing before. Many times. He, along with Sephiroth, Angeal, and many others - some of whom had survived, while others had not - had led troops onto the field of war, living up to the name of SOLDIER. It was where their other titles had come from, those of General and Commander. Ones that... well, perhaps they didn't hold the same official status as First Class, but anyone who'd been involved in the war at all came away knowing that while there were plenty of SOLDIERs of any rank, there was only one General, and there were only two Commanders. 

It was easy to forget when he was surrounded by Shinra propaganda again, how the idea that he had become known as the Crimson Commander because of his hair, his coat, and his sword was not strictly true-

His PHS chimed. Only a few minutes since he'd sent his reply, and there was a response already.

Anything to be concerned over?

In another timeline, several hundred or so people would be dead or as good as by now. Several of whom had been showing concern over him in the past few days.

No.

It was the truth, after all.

I have a plan.

There was movement underneath him, and it took all of his willpower to stay still, not twitch, and not shake the feathers of his wing to get rid of the itch that was starting to form. In the time it took Vincent to respond, he'd sent a quick mail to one of the Seconds to inform them that Wutaian forces had been spotted some distance from their camp.

Your last plan resulted in you almost dying. I'm tempted to bring a fire extinguisher.

He rolled his eyes, and pointedly chose not to respond to that.

You can't change anything if you're dead. Remember that.

...

The first time he'd met her, she had thoroughly ignored him. 

Genesis had walked through the door of Seventh Heaven behind Cloud, Weiss a dead weight in his arms. A dark haired woman in black had sat behind the bar, talking animatedly to a younger woman with shorter dark hair, but they'd looked up at the intrusion.

Cloud had explained, in short, who Genesis was, introduced Tifa, and what was going on. About Weiss. 

The one he had been told was Tifa had narrowed her eyes at him, but then put all of her focus on Cloud, asking him what was needed, and if they should be contacting Reeve - a name that had struck him as familiar, yet he hadn't thought at the time that it could possibly have been the executive he had once only seen in tedious meetings. 

The other one, however, he wouldn't find out much more about until later, and the most he was given at the time was her name, when Tifa had asked after her, apparently concerned about something.

Yuffie, he had learned. And filed the information away for another time, deeming it unimportant, and he had summarily ignored her just as she had him.

After all, he had other matters to attend to, higher priorities. Anything else was easy to brush aside, especially given how he had still been recovering from mana depletion and his fight with Cloud.

He hadn't thought it odd, at the time.

Later he would hear her name again, and wonder why it sounded vaguely familiar, but then get distracted with something else - something more pressing, something more important than someone who didn't seem to want anything to do with him.

The pattern had continued. The girl seemed plenty animated enough with the others, but the moment he would walk into a room, she would trail off or pointedly ignore his presence entirely.

Cloud would twitch for his sword every time he saw Genesis' wing unfurl from his back. Tifa would watch him closely, enough to make him wonder if he'd run into her at some point before to draw her ire, but she never said anything, and he preferred not to poke at sleeping guard dogs. Shelke, dressed in normal clothes and slowly acclimatising to life outside of Deepground herself, had rarely gone out of her way to interact with him, aside from the calculating looks she had sent and the one time she had told him, bluntly, that he wasn't quite so impressive as the files and  reports that she had managed to find on him had suggested.

Compared to all of them, Yuffie's avoidance was nothing out of the ordinary, especially when she wasn't even always around.

And then, the monster attacks had started. 

Even if he wanted to, Genesis could no longer remember what had started it, but someone had suggested that he and Yuffie should go together to investigate. 

Yuffie had refused.

"Oh, this should be real interestin'," he'd heard Cid mutter darkly as everyone's attention had begun to focus in on the two involved.

Cloud had shrugged, eyes narrowing in a familiar way.

"Next to me, you're the one who knows the most about materia. And Genesis knows more than both of us." Ordinarily he would have preened at the compliment, even as matter of fact as it was, but something about the incident had been holding his attention. "We need to find out what's going on, and if it involves materia, then you're the ones best suited to figuring that out."

Despite the praise that had also been aimed her way, Yuffie had merely crossed her arms defiantly, expression stony.

"You think I don't know how good he is with materia? I do, and I don't care! I'm not working with him, and you can't make me!"

Something had struck him about her wording, a sudden sense of urgency in the back of his mind telling him that there was something that he had needed to remember, but it had merely made him frown. Regardless of whatever issue she had with him, there were such things as priorities. 

"Yuffie-"

"Don't 'Yuffie' me! He might be acting nice, but he's nothing more than a monster!" 

Old wounds ached, and Genesis' fist had clenched, leather creaking at the word. He had spent years believing that what she was saying was true. In many ways, it still was, with his inhuman wing garnering stares whenever it came out.

But he had come face to face with the Goddess and come away rejected but alive, and he had made promises, to himself even if to no other, and held other words close, or tried to. That SOLDIER... didn't mean monster. It was something to live up to, at least.

"Yuffie, that's enough."

Cloud's voice had snapped him back to reality, and he had breathed in with a hiss, his jaw clenched.

"You want to know what they called him? Do you? They called him 'the Crimson Commander'. When he was destroying my home. They'd burn villages and crops and kill people and then they'd go back home and get called heroes." A part of him had wanted to refute that, say that it had only been Sephiroth who had been lauded as the hero, but he'd held back. And then, for the first time, she had turned to him, looked him in the eye in the midst of the silence. "You can't even try to deny it, can you?"

He couldn't. It wasn't as though she was wrong.

"That was a long time ago," he said instead. "People change."

The one thing that he would never forget about the entire exchange, was how Yuffie's face - so often open while around other people, full of confidence and immaturity - twisted with anger and ugly hatred. 

"You," she had said, hands gripping her upper arms and voice barely holding in her emotions, "will never be a hero."

...

The fact that he's cleaning blood from his sword with a dark frown as he walks back into camp might contribute to the way that he notices that the SOLDIERs and infantry alike give him a wide berth for a while. It makes his jaw tense, the way that some of them look at him, but he consoles himself with the fact that it's probably safer this way - safer that they're keeping a distance while he's in a foul mood and lost in old memories of places and people now lost to him.

One of the Wutai soldiers had waited around instead of going with the others.

Having been on his own, it shouldn't have been that big of a deal; he could have encouraged the man to leave, planting the idea that he had motives that were separate from Shinra's orders.

The world, however, was far from perfect. Genesis had only seen that there was anyone else still there after he had come down out of the tree he had been sitting in, his wing still on full display as he used it in order to float effortlessly down.

Dead men didn't speak - especially dead men who weren't called Sephiroth. Not dead men who had no trace of Jenova, and no connection to any Ancients.

That was all the Wutai were, when it came down to it. 

Ordinary people, with no real power, and no connection to anything that would give them that power. They would be crushed under Shinra in any and every timeline because of this, because no matter how hard they fought, compared to SOLDIER they had no chance. None at all.

Blood stained the cloths he was using to clean Rapier crimson, and Genesis knew that it was going to take more than that to clean his sword.