#they were clearly pain-induced nightmares

[crimeronan]

i woke up after horrible nightmares earlier and could walk without limping and was like "sweet! i'm cured!" then after eating food and being awake for like a half hour i couldn't keep my eyes open and accidentally fell asleep for another 7 hours and had more horrible nightmares. my first 19 hour painsleep binge in a while. recovery is not linear sometimes this happens two steps forward one step back etc etc etc but. Girl.

[dreamlandcreations]

Chapter 1 • Faded dreams

Feyd x Atreides!Reader

Summary: You risk your life to find out what your dreams mean...

Warnings: space drugs (🙈), near death experience, mention of blood and death and war, no dialogue, no Feyd yet (well...), this is basically a prologue

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Your dreams were getting worse and it was getting more difficult to wake up each time. They seemed so real, yet they fade away each time within seconds as you finally jolt awake from the nightmares. All that remains is fear and a knowing that you are seeing the end.

You tried to ask your mother for help, well, more like tried to ask for information without telling her what's going on. Paul's own dreams were a good excuse to justify your curiosity but it also limited your options of inquiring about your specifically maddening problem. Because, of course your brother gets to dream about a pretty girl while you drown in a bloody nightmare every night. If only you could see more clearly, the not knowing of what these hazy images mean is almost worse than the death you witness each time.

You can't tell your mother though, or even Paul. They would try to stop you from making this utterly stupid decision that will probably result in your death. They wouldn't be able to understand that that possibility cannot be worse than this slowly driving you into insanity.

It was not as difficult as you thought, tricking a mentat, a doctor and a Bene Gesserit to give you little doses of spice to try. According to your careful research, with what you were gifted by Lady Fenring on her last visit, it should be enough to induce the process.

You waited until nighttime, until you knew everyone went to sleep. It was an unnecessary precaution as it turns out because Paul in the next room startled awake as soon as you took the spice.

With your last coherent thought you were thinking that getting hit by lightning must feel something like this. Only the energy didn't just hit you once, it was trapped inside your body, wreaking havoc in the very essence of your being. It was tearing you apart, and the pain was unbearable.

For a long while there was nothing but the pain, you did not really feel or sense anything. Then the first thing you were aware of was screaming, it took you a moment to realise it was your own, just before you had another wave of power rushing through you and you lost every bit of control over your body. The screaming stopped and you faintly heard your mother for a few seconds before the dreams drew you in.

No, not dreams, visions. You see everything all at once, and at first none of it made sense then you felt... time, in a way it couldn't be explained in words. The connections, the possibilities, the what ifs... like the branches of a tree... too many variants for even a mentat to handle and you were only half-trained at best. Yet, you understood, no, you felt, you sensed, you became a part of each version a little, living in a million moments at once, spread apart and yet still whole beneath that... like the branches of a tree...

The tree, your ancestry, you have to get to the other memory to finish the trial. You try to look within yourself, slightly distracted by regaining some of your physical sense and weakly trying to fight off the poison of the spice.

At the end of the spiral you see a figure, a source of all the death and misery that haunts you. A familiar, yet strange face that seemed to look into your soul. There is that rage and madness you started to see in your own reflection, only this gaze, this unnatural blue scared you more than your own demons.

Well, she is your demon in a way.

With that thought the spice floods your mind again, taking you where you wanted to go, forcing you down on the line of your ancestors, their knowledge and experience becoming a part of your consciousness but you know something is terribly wrong when your mind takes a path that no Bene Gesserit has before. You see your father and his entire line, both female and male members of your extended family tree on his part. And it comes surprisingly easy to you, too easy.

Your mother's line stops with her, there's something horrible beyond that which your mind cannot deal with and it almost shatters you.

On the inside you struggle to get out of the darkness that pulls you in. On the outside your body crashes, your heart stops, and so does your breathing.

You hear Paul's yell to the doctor to do something, followed by your mother's command, using the Voice to order you to breathe. With your last bit of strength leaving you, it feels like what you would call your soul starts to leave your body. It is quite peaceful actually, there's no more pain or worry, only a calm nothingness but unlike the previous cold and twisted darkness that came from within this feels right and you almost slip away from existence when you feel something, someone catch you and practically drag you back.

There's a voice, a command of a simple "No!" comes with the force that knocks you down and holds you in this world. The tone is unfamiliar, the raspy voice with the obvious rage laced into it sounds more like a growl than anything else and it is followed by a similarly angry, yet so much louder order, "FIGHT!"

The presence is gone as soon as it came but you are tethered to your body again, feeling how it shuts down sparks a sudden defiance in you. Not really knowing what you're doing, you will your heart's muscles to move, to pump the remaining spice through your body and your cells absorb it, sparkling to new life, then you slowly and now consciously start to sort of reboot your system with this new strange energy.

When you are done you just rest, unable to truly sleep but too tired to move too, you think. Going through the visions again and again, you start to see a pattern. As soon as you understand the reasons behind the events, it all comes together, all the previously possible paths become clear until a certain point.

Hours go by as you lie there, practically trapped in your own body but there's no fear in you anymore, you are too busy planning your next move. And the next, and the next.

You might have failed getting through the Spice Agony and it's a miracle you are alive but it doesn't matter, it wasn't an unnecessary risk after all, you know the truth now. There is only one person who's decisions changed the end game, all the others who you thought had enough power to be key persons could only influence the path, not the outcome. So you know, your mother can never set foot on Arrakis and if you have to take her place in the story, so be it.

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[adventuretimeconspiracies]

Is Jake dead? Fionna and Cake ep.4

I think that the clear implication that the first four episodes of Fionna & Cake has given us is that yes, by this point in the story, Jake has died.

Our estimation based on Finn's current design is that it's been 15+ years since the finale.

Finn and TV talk about Jake's love for the Fionna and Cake books in the past tense. "He loved that series"

Bearded, depressed Prismo watches video of Finn and Jake, and Prismo tells Fionna and Cake that Ooo is special because it "had [his] favorite guy" (implied Jake)

F&C-era Finn has the Jake chest tattoo that was seen in Obsidian (which has been widely interpreted as an in memoriam gesture). But, importantly: Prismo's flashback at the beginning of F&C ep3 shows Jake and the chest tattoo coexisting simultaneously. So what gives? What do we know?

The circumstances of Jake's death are unknown--just, in Together Again it's confirmed that Jake's death preceded Finn's death, when Finn was an old, old man.

We're going to observe Finn's known designs in an attempt to narrow down at what point in the narrative Jake dies. Between Adventure Time and Obsidian? Between Obsidian and Fionna & Cake? After?

AT finale end credits montage: Finn and Jake welcome ships of humans to Ooo.

Obsidian: bearded but skinny Finn shows up to help out PB. The Jake tattoo is here.

Fionna & Cake flashback: medium beefiness, hair contained

Fionna & Cake modern age: buff boy fullbeard, full-Mertens mane.

And then there's Together Again, death-aged Finn.

With that established, let's return to what very little we know about Jake's death. The first scene of Together Again, features a monster-induced hallucination where Finn loses Jake "again". Curiously, Finn's design in this sequence is his familiar teenaged design from the main series.

So, with teenaged Finn losing Jake "again," should we conclude that Jake died while Finn was teenaged? No. It's a mistake to take Finn's appearance in this sequence at face value. For starters, Finn has both arms here. This is old Finn's nightmare, and in order for him to feel the pain of losing Jake again, it's required that he thinks he's experiencing a time in his life that he and Jake coexisted.

The "Not again" line is preceded by a quick flash to old Finn's actual face and surroundings. Old Finn is the one saying "not again", scrambling to hold onto the dream of hanging out with Jake in his youth. It doesn't mean that Finn was that age when Jake died. His arm is proof this sequence can't be taken at face value. Jake outlived Finn's arm. We know this.

Our next piece of evidence that Jake died before the events of Fionna & Cake is the existence of the Jake tattoo. But, again, Prismo's flashback at the beginning of F&C ep3 shows Jake and the tattoo coexisting.

Soooo........? Is the tattoo not actually a memorial tattoo? I'm pretty sure that events played on Prismo's screen are just straight up supposed to be taken at face value. The scenes are totally divorced from the linear timeline. In ep 4, when Prismo says Ooo is special because it "had" his favorite guy, we see this scene with Jake and teenaged Finn. This is clearly the past.

The evidence would seem to suggest that Jake dies somewhere before Obsidian. Finn got the memorial tattoo. He never appeared again. Everyone talks about him in the past tense.

But there's that one pesky scene on Prismo's screen where he's alive during Finn's 20-somethings, concurrent with the tattoo.

So I will posit a few theories to you:

No body, no death. Jake is alive. He's living in a different universe now and that's why Prismo says Ooo "had" his favorite guy. Now Jake lives in the Crystal Dimension with Lady Rainicorn but can return to Ooo from time to time. Remember: rainicorns are native to the Crystal Dimension. We've even pointed out previously a pretty undisputed fan theory that Crystal Dimension rainicorn pup descendants were featured in Graybles 1000+. It makes sense that Jake would seek a future there. And I don't think it's out of character that Finn would get that tattoo as a sign of devotion to Jake when Jake makes that big decision to set off on his own. Jake will die later.

Jake has become displaced from time and had an unspecified number of adventures in future eras. (i.e. Jake is extracted from the timeline before Obsidian and presumed dead, but then appears sporadically at other times throughout Finn's life, like in the scene shown on Prismo's screen). @uncivilizedelk posted a video analyzing the F&C intro and concludes that time shenanigans are probably incoming.

Theory 3 would be that Jake died via normal means after the scene on Prismo's screen but before the events of Fionna & Cake. And I'm sorry, but I don't buy it.

The whole thing screams red herrings and misdirections. I'd wager Jake appears alive at some point during this series in a large fan-pleaser moment.

Jake's death has been foreshadowed in this series for so long I just cannot imagine they'd let us off easy and have him die offscreen. We'll see it someday. Some way.

[ga-yuu]

~PROLOGUE~

------Welcome.

This is a world where everyone's dreams come true.

Now, what dreams shall we have?

For instance, a dream about eating the best food in the world.

...........

Oscar: "Delicious!!"

Everyone else: *gasps*

Oscar: "The magical sight that induces intense hunger, the exquisite texture that makes you ecstatic..."

Oscar: "The taste of the ingredients, the selected supreme flavours come together in your mouth and harmonizes with each other."

Oscar: "Truly....a gastronomic festival packed with all the delicacies from around the world!"

Oscar: "....This is what the ultimate ingredients and an ultimate chef can do. My dream of what looks like the ultimate gastronomic experience has now been fulfilled."

Cui: "Yayyhhh...!!! I did it! I did it! I finally got it!"

Kuchen: "Hahaha. You did it Cui. Who knew it would turn out so good, right?"

Rissh: "Mm....Cui nii-san is the best! He's the coolest! Also Kuchen is a genius!"

Oscar: "We have taken over gastronomy of the world. Gastronomy Guild has become the ultimate gourmet guild."

Oscar: "Everyone, please continue to work hard without being complacent. All for the sake of gastronomy----"

Kuchen, Cui, Rissh: "Yes sir!"

........

Or a dream of getting rich in casinos.

........

Seven: "........"

Ymir: "So...?"

Seven: "............"

Victor: "Oh my gosh! I'm getting so excited!!! I'm dying!!"

Seven: "........"

Ren: "Get'em, Seven!"

Camus: "6 - 4, Player wins."

Victor and Ren: "He did it!!!!!!!"

Ymir: *whistles~*

Victor: "I can't believe it! He won 10 BILLION gold!!"

Ren: "Hahaha...that's such a ridiculous amount of money...I can't stop laughing.."

Camus: "Next game. Bet please."

Seven: "........"

Camus: "Do you wish to continue? or do you want to withdraw? It's already enough to last you several lifetimes."

Seven: ".......Don't be silly."

Seven: "10 billion gold. I'll bet the whole amount."

Ymir, Victor and Ren: *gasps*

Camus: "Fufu....I see."

........

Or a common everyday dream.

........

Kai: "That's-what-I'm-saying. Mine is bigger! Mine is the biggest one!"

Zion: "Are your eyes for decoration? Clearly, mine is bigger than yours."

Ghee: "Ahaha...both of yours pumpkins are big enough....it's a draw, so I guess you guys...can stop...fighting?"

Kai: "I won the giant pumpkin contest."

Zion: *sighs* "First you forced me to compete with you, you lose and now you're whining. Seeing you being delusional makes me want to cry."

Kai: "Are you asking for a fight, you bastard!?"

Ghee: "G-Guys..can you HEAR ME~....!?"

Est: "Both of you are amazing! You've exceeded my expectations. Fufu..You have a great nose as a teacher."

Ghee: "Please teacher...don't laugh at this time..."

Est: "It's fine. They say 'the more we fight, the more we care' right?"

Kai and Zion: "I'll....keep fighting you!"

Ghee: "Fufu...it seems so."

...........

This world is full of dreams.

"No.."

This world is full of white hope.

"No...that's strange."

Why do you think so, seeing all this happiness?

"Because in this world..."

"They are not..."

...........

??: "....Emma."

??: "Hey, can you hear me!? Stay strong!"

Kuro: "Ah! Can you see me, Emma?"

Emma: "Was I....dreaming?"

Kuro: "Were you having a nightmare? But then again..."

Noah: "The scene happening in front of me right now is also a nightmare."

Itsuki: "Eden..."

Grandflare: "Eden! Why...?"

Kuro: "Eden is trying to make his dream come true. But...that's the same for us."

Rouge: "Yes yes. Everyone is so selfish, huh?"

Kuro: "Yeah. For each other's selfish dreams..."

Kuro: "Let's give it our all! Eden!"

..........

....

........

Kuro: ".......I'll make it happen, I promise."

Kuro: "Even if you disappear from this world."

Eden: "Heh. I see."

Eden: "Then....come at me."

...........

The world is full of shining dreams.

Sometimes, we seek it and know the pain of not getting it.

So what? I'm never gonna let go of your hand.

Let's go, to fulfil our precious dreams.

[uvobreakmylegs]

GEEZ this complete lamp of the body story was such an amazing and sinister read!

The two main theories I had going into Dark Light Within were either a) nightmares were caused by residue nen leftover in the eyes after the death of one of the kurta victims or b) nightmares caused by Chrollo himself tormenting reader for some unforeseen but necessary purpose (at the time I assumed, the suffocation might have been a troupe member or chrollo himself trying to pin down reader due to the process of implanting the eyes being potentially very painful and/or traumatic. And the reason the pain and nightmares kept continuing, I assumed, was due to Chrollo needing to constantly use nen or some convoluted/agonising procedure in order to make sure the eyes wouldn't 'reject' their new host since they're the body parts of such a unique and isolated ethnic group).

In the end, I was halfway right on both parts, but even so, I didn't expect the reason for Chrollo to be doing all this to be so callous. Because wow, this was definitely one of the cruelest Chrollo's fics out there! I was lulled into a sense of false security in part 1 due to how soothing and considerate he behaved (albeit still controlling and manipulative) but fuck, here? He was absolutely merciless; partly shown in how violently he fucked the reader, but ESPECIALLY in the way he deceives and violates her so deeply with literally zero remorse or regret during his POV. Like god, he's such a selfish bastard. The cheek! When I first read the line about him smiling after reader confirmed they'd never leave him, I definitely thought he'd felt genuine relief that she'd never abandon him. But lol, now? All I can think about is how smug and smarmy that smile must have been because his sneaky ass knew DAMN well how codependent reader was – he said it himself, he didn't even need Pakunoda to see how distressed she was without him. And yet, he had the gall to act like he was legitimately worried over her leaving him. Classic husband crying tears for sympathy when they abuse their spouse technique and he's not even ashamed about it.

And UGH... The fact he was so focused on the eyes when fucking reader... it really gave the impression he was objectifying her so deeply, roughly treating her like a breathing fleshlight in the pursuit of getting off to the radiance of the scarlet eyes, a body part that doesn't even belong to her, like her own actual physical beauty has diminished in the light of the kurta eyes next to them. Like her actual body was, at least in that moment, just a tool for Chrollo to indulge in an old unearthed obsession. The fact he so insidiously objectifies both this poor dead kurta clan victim AND reader, both subjects of his viciousness and abuse in completely different ways, and gets off to the fact that one of his murder victims is being forced into a form of intimacy with him after he literally snuffed them out... This poor kurta clan member can't receive any rest or peace or dignity even in death... Just horrible. Not to mention the fact he was completely unbothered by the fact that hunting for the eyes for so long was inducing so much pent up anxiety and stress in reader, especially considering she'd just suffered such a deeply isolating and traumatic accident. The fact he feels zero guilt in torturing/tormenting reader for months on end both awake and when she was asleep, completely vulnerable, even though the night terrors and panic attacks clearly traumatised and debilitated her. His callous usage of her for his own curiosity/sadistic pleasure escalates to the point he becomes so audacious he chokes her during a moment where she's genuinely lucid! He doesn't even care anymore that he's strangling her whilst she's wide awake! And the worst part is she's just too deferential towards him to legitimately confront it.

Which leads to the saddest person in the fic: poor poor reader. Honestly, when it comes to stories like this, I feel like people tend to believe aggressive readers that are combative and fight back are the ones who suffer the most since their obviously resistant behaviour tends to inspire rage in the yandere in question and severe punishment as a result. But I've always felt like readers such as this one, readers who are overly generous and submissive are amongst the most tragic of all, because by being so forgiving and boundary-less, they allow insatiable yanderes like Chrollo here, to take more and more and more of their dignity, their identity, their personhood... They're so profoundly mutilated from their own self-worth they just let things like this happen, their lack of sense of self/independence and the normalisation of their abuse is so ingrained it feels like even daring to fight for their own worth and dignity would be arrogant, selfish ... almost even petty. It's like watching a prey animal just lie down and do nothing whilst it's being eaten alive by a tiger, completely giving up on themselves and their own existence, giving in completely to the unrelenting oppressiveness of their environment. Though, having said all that... I do have to wonder if Chrollo may have shot himself in the foot here. Because those scarlet eyes still have nen in them, given how they interacted, if only fleetingly, with reader. I wonder if being attached to a living body now, and being activated to glow scarlet so often, especially by their own personal killer, will inspire that nen to grow, and lead to a subtle growing resentment/bloodthirstiness in reader that Chrollo won't see coming, especially from so 'servile' a victim. It would certainly be a very ironic and very deserved case of hubris if that were to happen, made even more poignant by the fact that it would be ushered into motion by one of Chrollo's past victims empowering the current. Like his victims are somehow uniting, empowering, uplifting each other, in whatever small ways they can, even after death, to gnaw at the chain of Chrollo's iron abuse.

Just amazing, I had a hell of a time reading this fic – left me thinking on ever since it was posted, thank you so so much <3 🩷❤️

First off, thank you so much for sending this! It was a lot of fun to read over all of your thoughts regarding my fic❤️❤️❤️

I had a lot of moments while writing this where I thought to myself of just how awful Chrollo was being to both reader and especially the unknown member of the Kurta Clan. You're absolutely correct when you say that they can't get any peace or dignity in death. Chrollo is just too selfish and greedy

Poor reader really should've stayed home that day and dealt with being a lil lonely while she waited for Chrollo to come back😭

I'm very glad that you enjoyed the fic! It always makes me happy to hear when people enjoy my work! And thank you again for this detailed message. It was very nice to see when I opened up my inbox today🥰🥰🥰

[threepoint14art]

Well, since you so kindly offered: I want to know about your OCs! Their names, their animals, anything you feel like sharing.

WOHOO THANKS FOR ASKING! IM HONORED IM HONORED! first of all sorry for just posting about my ocs lately I am clearly going through it </3 im gonna put all the long explanations under the cut so I don't clog anyone's feed!

But in a general not that long way: those girls were The salvaged they have a group name because we designed them around the idea of them being rivals to the nightmares! Fun fact, their names apply to the other group better than to themselves! The nightmares just like in source material all got saved or salvaged by Deuz. While the salvaged over here are a nightmare! just generally! In our AU the nightmares 1) are older and 2) Are a bit more dangerous than just school bullies (thought onnie still does that and has beef with literal children lmao), so we decided to give them mortal enemies!

This will include a bit of infodump on the nightmares too since I realized we haven't really explained the changes we made to them, and also trigger warnings for mentions of abuse, though I'll try to not get too into it it's always worth warning

Actual explanation time let's go I'm sorry for word vomiting on you multi I'm so hyped you ask it's unreal thank you so much for asking yet again:

Bébe

She is the redhaired one! she is based on scrap baby! not to be confused with the normal baby animatronic! We made her as a foil to our Deuz. Just like Deuz she is the leader of her group, but unlike Deuz she isn't the "strong, takes all the burdens, looks menacing, defends the others" type of leader, but rather just the one who sort of controls the others, more of a "you wouldn't expect this one to be in charge" sort of leader. Hence the little animation I did with her saying "I know what you want" Gives the others what they want to keep them near her since they are her " strength" her "ammunition" to put it some way. Giant dangerous insanely built bear vs a silly crow who wins She is baby faced (haha word pun) and just generally looks a bit harmless, we made her a crow because we made her main strength being creepy and offputting, inducing paranoia and all that since we already made Deuz generally paranoid, crows can make some WEIRD sounds and copy voices so it felt fitting for her bother people like that. We don't have that much of her backstory figured out just yet, mostly because she feels like a pipebomb to try and make sense of, opposite to Deuz who opened up to the nightmares about most stuff, she is a complete mistery to the salvaged. She is simply creepy, always smiling, keeps people close to her by being an enabler since she doesn't think they'll stick to her and defend her otherwise, she makes Deuz feel incredibly paranoid!

Scarlet

I would have made her name white if that was readable! I'm going by order of how they appear in my little animation, so shes the one with white hair!

She is based on molten freddy, she has a lot of issues. The main thing she wants and needs is just constant appreciation and people near her, the reason why is really horrible we are so mean to her.

Unlike bebe, we have her backstory pretty developed. She was really sick as a child, and her hospital expenses took her parents into debt, her dad was still incredebly understanding and of course mourning his daughter was in so much pain, her mom wasn't like that. She got kinda frenzied by their financial instability and blamed Scarlet for all of it, saying that she wasn't even her real daughter anymore, that the sickness already killed her daugther so that she could just kill the sickness, and tried to literally murder her! Both her parents went to jail because even though her dad literally tried to stop her from dying, the justice system is always horrible and it counted it as assault against his wife. So sickly child in extreme chronic pain feels like no one loves her! She needs that constant reassurance a lot because she's very understandably very traumatized from that.

She parallels Maggie in the most like, mean way I could have conjured up. Scarlet is and always has been ill and in pain and it her family abandoned her because of it, while Maggie in our Au is the biological brother (we trans man beamed him) of Meg, and he abandoned them and ran away because he was tired of the abuse in the system and shitty forster families, but also tired being treated as a full time caretaker who always had to protect Meg. So they kinda parallel eachother in the abandoned and the one who abandons.

She drinks a lot because it numbs the pain she's constantly under, and it also lessens the fact that she's always constantly itchy (why she scratches herself in my animation). And she is a sheep because she was "a lamb to the slaughter" as a little kid! her mom tried to kill her! A sacrificial lamb to rid you of your burdens. Raquel The fact that there was no nightmare chica irked us two a lot so we just made one haha epic. She is a cockatiel! She used to date Onyx (How we call Oxy) but little kids in relationships do stupid shit and she cheated on him which gave him a life-long grudge since he's insane about infidelity (divorced parents, thinks that if they were still together he would still have a home since when he came out as trans he already lived only with his dad and he got kicked out, thinks his mom could have defended him if she didn't cheat and ruin everything, normal stuff)

She is incredebly annoyed by the fact that he hasn't moved on, and honestly I'm annoyed too boy you were both like prepubecent fleas. She also is really quickwitted and subtle given that she pickpockets a lot of people, while Onyx is more hardheaded (haha why hes named onyx, rock) and really blunt since he has 0 need for being subtle.

She got kicked out of her home for just being a hoarder! A kleptomaniac and a hoarder to be exact. Since birds do have that thing where they nest and get a bunch of stuff and put it on a nest we upped it to a thousand here, she just steals stuff and hoards it to the point where it was genuinly unbearable for her parents so off she goes. This also ties with the fact that she's also incredebly money hungry for the sole reason of just having money, seeing a lot of money together scratches her brain. Bebé just straight up enables this girl to keep her unhealthy habits.

Back to parallels, her parents kicked her out for her own good, trying to stop a self destructive habit. While Onyx's dad kicked him out for just being who he is. Similar yet different yada yada

Mar

Ourhghghg I've already posted art of Mar on here before, she is the snake girl (specifically now a hoop snake, she had a nother snake before but we changed it) who is incredebly normal about her mom. If you trusted me on that post I'm sorry but I lied to you shes not normal ever.

Her full name is Marisol, she shortens it to Mar to be cutesy and because her name meaning Sea matches pretty well with Avani's (next to be discussed) name meaning Earth. She is a contrast to Onnie since in here we gave them both really really bad homes. They got physically abused and they both did not come out sane out of that, but while Onnie wishes he killed his dad and takes it out on everything and everyone. Mar actually killed her mom.

Cool fact about Mar, she is related to shadows! But it's not exactly like Freddy and Fred. Summarizing incredebly hard, in our AU shadows are born from empty people, If someone who is just fundamentally empty as a person walks too close to a place where people have felt a lot, were their feelings overflew out of them, they get a shadow. Freddy has fred because the little guy was just fundamentally empty as a kid (every "freddy is bland" joke ever now has real consequences/j), But Mar is a bit different, since she is the shadow.

Think of Freddy having no personality (/j) and up it to a thousand, thats what the "original" marisol was like, literal empty kid who would not cry or scream or yell and it pissed her mom off to no end, till boom, Mar appears. Since they aren't omniscent and they too don't really understand what shadows are, Mar thinks she is the orignal, and the remainder of the other girl got renamed as lake (haha matching, bodies of water), who unlike fred or freddy, who while not in the body are people shaped, is presented as just a snake.

(if you want to ask about the shadows give us 5 business days since we are still establishing how it works/lh)

So basically, Mar was a really lonely kid thanks to alcoholic mother who was inhumane towards her, she had 2 friends for most of her life. The snake she imagined who she thought was literally just the ghost of a snake who died by the road or something, and Avani, childhood friend who was her neighbour, she is insanely attached to her.

She just like Onnie suffered a LOT because of her home situation, but unlike Onnie she at least did have moments of peace at school and with Avani (Onnie was also brutally bullied at school, woups, guy got no break ever). She kept growing up time kept passing things at home were exactly the same. She met Bébe she met the salvaged and she just started doing crazy stuff simply because "it made her happy" she had an outlet and it helped her. Sadly, things at home out of nowhere aren't the same miserable mess but just somehow turn worse and worse and worse, probably because it was obvious that she was much happier with being more and more away from home and hanging out with people. Eventually she just had enough, and with the help of insane people over here (mostly Bébe) they make a plot to literally murder the woman.

Basically, since she was an alocholic and never tended to the house ever, they just turn the stove on and close all the house down and so she dies of monoxide poisoning and they pass it off as her being negligent and leaving it on on her own.

Literally as that's happening, Mar goes to her school councelor and does some fake tears of feeling like a danger to herself to get send to a psych ward, which doesn't surprise the councelor since it was pretty obvious her home life was awful and that she's a little gone since she talks to the air sometimes, she eventually gets back from it, gets the news that she passed away, does some more fake tears, and boom, surprisingly easy. Onnie wishes he could do that.

Due to her mom dying and being sent away for a little and all of that she missed wayy too many clases and got held back a year, then they tested her to see her academic level and see that she was doing even worse than they thought so she's held back another year, and boom this derranged 18 year old is in a clasroom with the 16 year olds, she scares me. She is based on nightmare marionette which is why we wanted to give her something shadow related, and also why she has scales on her face that sort of form a tear pattern!

Avan

I'll admit. I was incredebly self indulgent with her. She's based on nightmare balloon boy, but I used Loon as reference (quien lo invitó? pinche chamaco), since our version of loon is a holed up guy who just sort of rots away in his room and doesn't intend on being a functional part of society. Avani is a prodigy who graduated way too early and is already both studying and working, literally never spends time home and is always busy.

We also made her an asian ladybeetle since they are often regarded as the "evil" counterpart of a ladybug!

That's her basis, and now for parallels, I also have to explain how I was incredebly self indulgent here: She's meant to be a parallel for Spring "but spring isn't a nightmare" I know, and she also isn't a salvaged. We made spring and the nightmares friends (insane decision I know), and so both Spring and Avani interact with their respective group out of just being friends with them instead of actually being part of the group who does insane things. Spring works at a gas station and never finished his education and doesn't feel ready to be an adult at alli(we made him 24 woups), while avani has an office job and reads like a fully functional adult (she isn't) while being incredebly young.

Like was said before she is Mar's childhood friend, And she is a prodigy in all sense of the word, she too was an incredebly lonely child and only ever got along with Mar, She was always said to be too boring and somewhat creepy for remembering seemingly inconsequent stuff. She has an insane memory and an insane brain in general, her parents realized that and just fully commited to pressuring her to do better and better and better, "Pressure makes diamonds" after all. So while at first they were in the same class, Avani kept skipping grades because she was incredebly gifted academically. She still kept contact with Mar of course since both of them are horribly attached to eachother (in the animation they have matchin jewerly! Mar with the necklace and Avani with the earrings), but she literally graduated at 14, that's crazy, girl should have been watching mlp or something.

As she grew she kinda thought about herself as only that, only a prodigy only the smart one that needs to keep getting smarter and needs to be a functional adult already since if she's not its just "a waste". Her parents also didn't help with that, treating her as if she was 100% self sufficient when she was a literal kid. And as soon as she turned 18 she got kicked out to be a full fledged adult.

She got an office job and also is studying MEDICINE and also keeps active contact with a friend. "how does she have time for that" she literally doesn't, This woman is sort of a walking zombie, her being labeled a "genius" made her think she should just shoulder ten billion things at once.

Anyways the day that Mar was getting out of being in the psych ward and already was angsty and nervous she went to visit Avani at her job to calm down a little. Woupsies! Boss is a creep! Woupsies Mar just launches herself at him and beats him up and now this girl is jobless. Awesome.

She has a bit of a crisis because without a job she can't pay for her apartment and she has nowhere to stay and Mar just tells her to go stay with them, which the others don't necesarely agree with but also can't outright refuse since they are very well aware of how important this girl is to Mar.

Basically, "functional" adult stays with insane people, and none of the others understand her. A girl who should 100% have some sense of moral superiority against them just seems way to out of mark with what they expected, she's sort of way too chill with they stuff they do, seems way too nonchallant about Mar literally killing her mom, seems way too bored of everything and only ever thinks of work and studying and work and studying and Mar, it doesn't seem like she literally has any other desire than work like an animal till the end of her days. They can't figure her out! Hence the question marks in the animation! That's,,, that's all I have. Multi if you read all of this you literally deserve like an award, tysm for asking again <3 ^^ I promise I'll do more stuff with actual canon characters soon, I just had a moment ToT, if you (or anyone else who read this) Have any other doubts about them or anyone at all always feel so free to ask!!

[another-clive-blog]

I'm thinking so much about Claire going ah fuck gotta save Clive

Did he realise who she was? Did he knew?

I'm also so fixed on French version Claire saying to luke that she's an angel who got down with her wings and not a witch. I think concussed Clive would remember her as such((or for more symbolism as a white dove- who depicted to be peace-bringers))((((also personal hc that Clive got few ribs broken))))

THIS. Omg this- when I first noticed the difference I went "...Oh", like that was so mean and for what ?? Claire you are killing me why would you say that

Btw I wrote a little something based on that, it starts angsty but quickly becomes funny because Clive and Claire are the comedy duo of the time trio (Dimitri and Clive are too, but it's not intentional lol). I hope it's okay with you !! Also if you want to talk more about the French version I am here for it. =) Literally like please do.

Writing under the cut !! Usual TW for mention of death, injury and discussion of injury (still no graphic description)

Clive didn't know where he was. His vision was blurry, his ears ringing, his everything hurting. The pain was overwhelming to the point where he couldn't even pinpoint its origin- his chest maybe ? God, he could hear the professor or Luke say something stupid, something like 'it's your heart that's hurting actually'.

They wouldn't say that though, mostly because none of them were even here with him. Or, well, Clive hoped so, at least : he hoped that they were far, that they wouldn't look back for him.

They probably wouldn't. He didn't think he would have.

He tried to sit up, but it seemed impossible with the ground moving under him. Ah- yes, right... he was in the fortress. Had been... working. And then he got hit by... whatever.

Had he lost consciousness ? How long had he been out for ? Where was everyone ?

He couldn't stand on his own, but patting the ground, he felt his fingers graze against the bottom of the control board. After that, it was really a matter of holding onto it, and then pushing himself up, come on, get up-

He was panting as he leaned on the panel, using it as support but standing nonetheless. He was up and he hoped that his arms wouldn't let go of the panel on their own, that his legs would stop shaking so hard.

He forced himself to focus on the outside instead.

The control room was a mess. Pipes resting on the ground, broken shards of glass everywhere and- wait.

He narrowed his eyes.

Oh. That was the Laytonmobile, somehow- flying away from here. He didn't know it could fly. Funny.

He was definitely having hallucinations, then.

Clive let go of the control panel, swaying for a moment but not falling back down : he brought his hands to his head, trying to- to what ? Hold his head, supposedly. Massage his temples. Contemplate his misery. What was left to do after all ? They were all gone by now, flying away or dying or whatever, if any of this was even real.

Maybe he was dying, or hallucinating, or dreaming. Oh, maybe all of this had just been a- a fear-induced nightmare after that one stupid lab incident. Maybe none of it had been real. Who could say ? It sounded crazy after all, to have one man successfully level the city just because he had the spite to try to do so.

He heard a crunching sound, and it took him a few seconds to locate its origin, raise his head, focus on it enough to see clearly what had caused it : when he did however, he saw Claire standing in front of him.

She looked serious, upset- concerned maybe ? She looked like a million things, but real wasn't one of them. Of course it wasn't. If Claire was ever here, she would have left with the professor. She wouldn't have stayed or- or come back for him. She hated him for using Dimitri, or something.

"Wha- What's going on ?" He asked, because even though this was an hallucination, he would actually really like an answer to this question.

She took a step closer. "You're hurt," she said as if she was just assessing the situation. "I think you may be concussed."

"...Oh," he simply said. That actually did explain the hallucinations and the pain. "What- what about you ?"

He saw her perplexed face as she looked for an answer, at least he thought she was perplexed, he wasn't sure anymore- and then everything went sideway.

Claire yelled as she caught Clive right before he plummeted to the ground : she herself hit the floor and hissed in pain. To say she saw white wouldn't be a lie, as her unstable body lit up with the shock of it, quite literally glowing.

Clive was so out of it that he didn't even react to any of that.

"This- is an hallucination," he said matter-of-factly, ignoring how Claire rose an eyebrow in surprise. "Am I dying ?"

She gently placed him on the ground, turning to look out of the window. No sign of Hershel yet. Good- then she had time to fix whatever was wrong with him and her.

"I don't think you are. These injuries shouldn't be fatal : at worst, you may feel great pain and dizziness." She explained patiently.

"And the hallucinations ?"

"No hallucinations."

"You're glowing," he snapped back.

Claire almost answered with the truth, but stopped herself. She... wasn't sure that this was the concussion talking. Did he know about her situation ? She couldn't remember him ever witnessing this before.

Maybe it was better to just... not tell him. Especially in that state. "Alright, I am an angel who came down on Earth to save you."

For someone meeting an angel, Clive's reaction was really underwhelming. "I think you're still a bit too high up. London is down there and people might need you more than I do."

"These people need the hospital. You need guidance and a slap on the back of your stupid head."

He narrowed his eyes. "Guidance ? I think it may be a bit late for that."

"It's never too late to start over. The energy and ideas- and quite frankly money, you put in this plan could be used to do so much good instead !" She said, honestly a bit frustrated. Why was she always surrounded by hypocritical men who only cared about themselves ?

Except that she saw him consider it, his unfocused eyes staring up at the ceiling. Or maybe this was the concussion.

"I am just going to jail," he finally said.

"You can still do plenty while in jail."

His gaze moved from the ceiling to the window, carefully avoiding eye contact with her : she had a feeling she was glowing a bit too brightly for his eyes right now. "Maybe I've done enough." He said.

Ah, he was being difficult. "Well, I think you should do all that you can to right your wrongs. And if you can't do much, then maybe doing what little you can do is good enough in your case." She wasn't talking to him anymore. She- she just wished she had more time. She hoped she had used it wisely, at least. She hoped she had made a change, meant something, before it was too late.

He chuckled slightly. "You know, I'm starting to believe that maybe you're really an angel."

It was pleasant talking to him when he was being calm and reasonable like that. It was such a shame that he never cared enough to make this effort, instead behaving like an insufferable child. "Don't expect me to fly us out of here," she joked.

He only hummed. "Constance would always make that joke."

Const- ah. Hershel had talked about Constance Dove, Clive's caretaker.

She didn't want to think too much about his childhood. "She seemed like a fun lady," she simply said, hoping he wouldn't talk about things she couldn't change.

He didn't. "A dove would be too on the nose," and with that nonsense he closed his eyes. Claire immediately showed concern, because she was no longer glowing so it couldn't be the light bothering him.

She should get him out of there, and fast.

When she turned around, she was relieved to see the Laytonmobile appearing in the distance.

[xxiamtiebrousxx]

Euphoria (Jotaro x Reader Oneshot | This Bizarre World)

A/n: Also known as "The Scent That Stole Jotaro Kujo."

Euphoria: noun. A feeling or state of intense excitement and happiness.

Fear: noun: fear; plural noun: fears. An unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.

Euphoria and Fear were two gasses I could produce with the help of my Stand, (favorite song). I used them more than the other gasses. I could produce many gasses with different smells and effects. Euphoria created a vision of pleasure and happiness while Fear created a vision of horror and nightmares. They were basically like hallucination inducing drugs. I could pick and create the vision, make it whatever I needed to help me when the battle. The only downside is that (favorite song)’s effects didn’t last long. I would have to reapply the gasses every few hours. Another way to break free from my powers was to receive fresh air from me or just breathing in natural air. I didn’t just produce gasses you know. 

As a Stand User, I usually found myself fighting others. Stand Users are bound to meet eventually. That’s exactly what happened to me. I found myself before DIO, a great and powerful Stand User who promised me power. But I could only get power if I did a small task for him. I was to bring him Jotaro Kujo so that DIO could kill him. The Joestars and friends were on their way to kill DIO. Of course, I couldn't allow that since he was my path to greatness. I agreed to bring Jotaro to DIO once he arrived in Egypt. It wasn’t long until Jotaro got here. It was my time to strike.

“Yare yare daze (good grief) Jiji (old man), why do we have to stop and smell the flowers?”

“Because it’s an actual flower shop, JoJo,” Joseph Joestar replied. “I’d like to bring some flowers home once we defeat DIO. I think your mother and grandmother would like them.” 

“Geez old man, they’ll rot before we even get on the plane,” Jotaro retorted. I stalked them from afar. I hid behind a telephone pole. It was just Jotaro and Joseph. The others had gone off to find a hotel to rest at. This was my chance! I crept up behind Jotaro as Joseph entered the shop. Jotaro sighed and pulled his hat down to cover his face. I quietly made my way to him. The plan was to keep quiet and act normal. I pretended to examine the countless bouquets in the boxes. I rubbed my fingers together, releasing a Curiosity scent. I reached out and wrapped my fingers around some flowers near Jotaro. He didn’t notice. Jotaro was too busy lighting a cigarette. Hmm, that could work, I said to myself. I replaced the Curiosity scent with Euphoria. I waved my hand towards the smoke. The gas returned to the source and reached Jotaro. He took a good whiff of the gas. He started coughing and nearly fell back. (Favorite song) came out and caught him before he fell. Jotaro’s eyes were covered in a pink, glossy mist. I smirked. He was under my control.

“What do you see?” I asked. “What do you smell?” Euphoria, as well as the other gasses, smelled differently depending on the victim. I was curious and always asked.

“I see my mother,” he answered. Hmm, that’s a new one. No one else has ever mentioned seeing their mothers in their visions. All my victims usually dislike their mothers. “I can smell her cooking in the kitchen. Jiji’s cologne floats through the air. It’s very strong. I can smell the ocean.” 

“That was very detailed,” I said. “Now, will you please follow me?” I grabbed Jotaro’s hand, but he roughly pulled away.

“I can’t see you clearly,” he replied. “How do I know where to follow you?”  I sighed. 

“Right,” I answered. “(Favorite song), can you please alter his vision so he can see me and our surroundings?” I asked. (Favorite song) nodded and snapped their fingers, releasing another gas that Jotaro inhaled. “Thank you,” I said. “Now do you see me?”

“Yes,” he replied. “Where am I?” I groaned. Most gasses could cloud the victims’ minds and make them forget certain things. This was one case. 

“You’re in Cairo, Egypt,” I plainly said. I struggled to come up with a lie. I needed Jotaro to follow me. “I’m taking you back your… your mother! Yes, that’s right. You got lost and I know the hotel she’s at.” I grabbed his hand again. “Follow me please.” It was only a day’s trip to DIO’s castle by foot. It wasn’t that far, but with a dazed, drugged up Jotaro, it was. We could’ve gotten there in a few hours but fate said no. He kept wandering away or stopped in the middle of walking. He kept asking me questions and complimenting me. It was like handling a distracted child. I cared for the Mannish Baby and he was easier to handle than Jotaro. The great Jotaro who defeated so many of DIO’s minions was holding my hand and kicking a rock down the path. He had come down to this. Such a pity. It seemed like a long day, even though we were walking for ten minutes. The rest of his friends would be coming for me soon. “Hey Jotaro,” I said with a fake smile, “how about we go take a taxi to the hotel? It’s better than walking.”

“Sure,” he answered. “I took a quick glance behind me and saw Joseph in the crowd.

“JoJo, where are you?!” he called out. “Jotaro, answer me! Where are you?”

“Oh we’ve got to go,” I replied. There was no time for a taxi. We would have to hide in another hotel until I could get Jotaro far away. I ran across the streets with Jotaro in hand and into the nearest hotel. “I need a room for two please!” I yelled, slamming down my credit card. “Please make it quick!” The receptionist looked at me.

“Uh, okay,” he hesitated. It took a while but I was able to get the room. It came with two beds and one walk-in shower. I plopped down on the bed, sighing. I covered my eyes with my arm.

“Can we swim in the pool?” Jotaro asked.

“No,” I answered.

“Can I get room service?” he asked.

“No,” I replied. Suddenly, I was grabbed harshly by my wrists and hoisted off the bed. (Favorite Song) appeared behind me and raised their fist. Star Platinum let go of one of my hands and protected himself from my attack. My hand cracked from the collision. “Geez!” I exclaimed, pulling back my fist. “What are you? A wall?” Jotaro grabbed my collar.

“What did you do to me?” he harshly asked. 

“You were under my control,” I answered. “I made you see what you wanted to see. Or what I wanted you to see at least.” Jotaro pushed me onto the bed.

“What’s your name?” he asked. “I’d like to know so I can put it on your grave.” My heart did a little flip. Was that a threat? My mind didn’t seem to think so.

“My name is Y/n,” I said. Jotaro scoffed, turning around. “What? You don’t think it’s a nice name? I think it’s a nice name.” I got off the bed. “Now if you excuse me, I need to get going.” Star Platinum pulled me back. “Hey!” I exclaimed.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Jotaro said. (Favorite song) appeared and punched Star Platinum. His user flinched. I smirked. I raised a hand full of Euphoria. Jotaro must’ve recognized the scent because he moved back. I chuckled.

“What? Are you scared?” I laughed louder. “Oh JoJo, are you really scared of me? Well, you should be. I could poison you with a toxic gas mixed with a vision inducing scent. You’ll die having the happiest moment. Would you like that, JoJo?” Jotaro pushed me against the wall. He didn’t push me hard. A bit of air was pushed out of my lungs.

“Don’t call me JoJo,” he said, slamming his hand on the wall. “That’s a nickname reserved for people I actually like.” I blushed a little.

“So I can only call you JoJo if you like me?” I asked. I crossed my arms. “Well, it seems you’ve made a challenge for me?” Jotaro backed away. His face showed shock. I grabbed the door’s handle. “If you excuse me JoJo, I’m off to make myself a person you’ll like.”

“W-what?” he stuttered. I smiled.

“You heard me right,” I answered. “I’m off to become a person you’ll like. I’ll come back when we’re both ready.” Jotaro blushed a little. He covered it up by pulling down his hat.

“Yare yare daze (Good grief),” he said. “I’m gonna let you go so I can see how far this goes. You can follow my friends and I, but just know, I won’t hesitate to beat you to a pulp.” I smiled.

“I think we’re going to have fun with this challenge, JoJo,” I replied. “I’m starting to like you already.”

[shall-we-go-far-away]

okay, okay ep. 5 & 6: holy shit that was one hell of a ride wasn't it? (maybe whoever is reading this also saw my panicked posts from wednesday, yes I was losing my mind)

I'll try to do this as structured as possible but I can't promise anything so prepare for it to be just as all over the place as wednesday's episodes.. get ready, buckle up I have a lot of things to say:

first and foremost: FUCK YOU TAEHYUNG!! I was trying to be nice last time giving him a second chance and all because yk, I thought maybe just because he was annoying once, doesn't mean he has to be all the time but fuck was I wrong.. is he genuinely so stupid that he doesn't realize how his words affect jaewon or does he just straight up choose to ignore it?? or is it simply the mixture of both because wtf dude?? this guy is so blinded by his jealousy it's crazy like bro, how about you try and make it less obvious?? and considering how angry and uncomfortable he makes me (and jaewon) I was sooo glad jihyun and aeri were there and so happy to see they quickly picked up on how jaewon reacted and then decided to team up against taehyung (rightfully so)

especially jihyun (my cute little bean) was so attentive the entire time he really took one look at jaewon and immediately recognized something was off.. and because he was watching him so closely his reaction to jaewon slamming his hand on the table came almost naturally

moving on to aeri, I still think she's a bit much but that's probably because I'm introverted as fuck and she's clearly not.. I do really like her and jihyun's dynamic and loved their little class-skipping-shopping-sequence like you go besties!!

back to the junior-senior get together: that cut to jaewon being absolutely wasted was kinda scary and really shows how much he's struggling with everything and that he doesn't know how to properly cope with it.. and this little part of dialogue really stuck with me so once again props to jihyun for this simple yet very deep response

"you're not acting like yourself."

"hey, what is 'acting like myself'?"

"that's up to you."

I just feel like jaewon never heard something like this, he always had to fit into this box that the people around him created for him so someone saying who you are is up to you is complete news to him

harsh cut to jaewon waking up and the flashback with his brother: that shit hurt!! for some reason I expected his brother to be closer to him age wise (not that this would make him dying any less horrible) but when I saw jaewon with this little boy that just shattered me and jaewon just sitting there sobbing and desperately trying to put the camera back together was so painful to watch

skip to the beginning of episode 6: the scene of them in the car was also kinda hard to watch seeing jaewon so out of it like he wasn't even fully there (a quick round of applause for lim jisub who portrays this haunted look very well) apart from that I really liked that even though jaewon didn't answer jihyun's question he didn't let go and kept asking until eventually he gets an answer from jaewon

and now we're at a point where things started to get a little confusing for me:

while watching I felt like something was off, I couldn't pinpoint what it was (most of the time my brain has all the pieces of information but I can't put them together) but the episode felt different and then I saw a post on here (I tried not to read too much because I wanted most of this post to be my own impression) that said we might be seeing everything from jaewon's blurry, medication induced view which is why some things don't seem to add up and I think that's true or at least somewhat close to what was happening

I was actually debating which route to go with because so many possibilities about what was actually happening in ep. 6 came to my mind at first I actually thought jaewon might've overdosed in the car and ep. 6 didn't happen at all but were a hallucination or nightmare (what made me think that was the weirdly bright lighting and everything looking kinda blurry which always was an indicator of a dream or something unreal happening in any sort of media I've ever seen) but I don't think so anymore I would actually go with what I mentioned above and this blurry look comes from jaewon's medication

OOOR they chose this lighting to show how this entire trips feels like a dream because it's only jaewon and jihyun, completely separated from other people and far from their actual lives so of course that feels somewhat dream like

what I'm trying to say is: I don't think the entire episode was fake

I think making it all fake would be a waste of an episode and judging from the rest of the show so far it doesn't really seem like something the creators would do.. I think?? (maybe that's why I want some of the theories here to be true so bad because I don't want this episode to be wasted as a dream or whatever)

I would also agree with others that jihyun is probably fine, maybe a little shaken and scared but not physically hurt.. I think we see the accident happen from jaewon's pov and he's imagining it way worse than it is

nonetheless that shit scared me, how the entire mood switched and went so dark all of a sudden and then jaewon screaming jihyun's name.. I think the worst part were the silent credits and damn, that silence was loud.. let's just say, I cried..

alright, I think that's it.. I kind of lost focus in the end so idk if I actually said everything I wanted to but I think I covered most of it

[lailyn]

Heaven Is A Bucket of Prawns

Whumptober Day 8: Everything Hurts & I’m Dying/Stomach Pain

"You're quiet."

"Your power of observation astounds me as usual," Loki said listlessly.

Stephen was not fooled. He could read Loki's deflections almost as well as his silences, and his sort-of boyfriend's silence tonight was of the suspicious kind, if not a little alarming.

Was it the movie? Had he chosen the wrong one to watch?

But Just Like Heaven's a classic! An inside voice argued. Why wouldn't Loki like it?

"We can watch something else if rom-coms aren't your thing?" Stephen suggested for the second time that night; he never did receive Loki's answer the first time he asked it.

"The movie's fine," Loki said vaguely.

"Well, what is it then?"

Loki abruptly stood. "I need to go to the bathroom.”

Stephen tried to suppress a sigh but it exited his nose instead, inadvertently coming across more irritated than he intended. It was typical of Loki, avoiding conversations when clearly something was up.

The bathroom visits became a repeat occurrence, and soon, Stephen became too distracted to focus on the movie. When Loki returned to the couch after his third trip to the toilet, Stephen pounced.

"What's wrong?” Stephen asked, noting the poorly concealed look of distress on Loki’s face. “Are you okay?"

Loki sighed, digging his fingers into his waist. "Something I ate isn't agreeing with me."

Stephen watched Loki swallow compulsively like someone trying hard not to be sick. His boyfriend sure looked green around the gills. "Did you throw up?"

"I tried," Loki huffed. "It mostly hurts.”

A pang of déjàvu hit Stephen like a freight truck. It had been a little over a month since Loki’s brush with death, and no, Stephen was not being dramatic. He still had the occasional nightmares about it. “You…it’s not that thing again, is it?”

“What are you on about?” Loki mumbled, trying to make himself comfortable but no amount of fidgeting was helping.

“Peptic ulcers have a recurrence rate of up to thirty percent within the first year, even with religious use of PPIs.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Well, you aren’t exactly religious.”

Loki gave a derisive snort. “Now there’s a marker of a date night going well. You start throwing statistics around and flaunting your conscientiousness.”

Stephen grabbed the remote control out of Loki’s hand and pressed the pause button.

A weak protest, “Hey, I was watching that.”

“No, you weren’t. This isn’t the nineties, we can replay it anytime,” Stephen said. He pushed himself, and all the cushions, off of the couch. "Lie down."

As expected, Loki's stubborn streak reared its head. "I'm fine."

"I'll be the judge of that. Lie down."

"You can't tell me what to do," Loki said petulantly.

"I can when the last time you told me you had a stomach ache, it turned out to be an ulcer and you almost bled to death on my operating table."

Loki averted his eyes. "I didn't tell you anything.”

"My point exactly." Stephen said. "Abdominal surgery is the most common cause of adhesions, and adhesions cause more than half of small bowel obstructions."

"You're being paranoid, you know that? Paranoid and overbearing," Loki complained. "It's unattractive."

"Ballpark figure is seventy percent," Stephen continued his rant. "We can talk about my looks later."

"Strange, I can tell the difference between food poisoning and a bowel obstruction. I'm not an idiot."

"No, you're absolutely the smartest person I know, coz now you're going to let me have a feel, okay?" Stephen pleaded. He patted the armrest. "You were right. I am paranoid. Humor me."

"Honestly!" Loki threw himself back onto the couch with a huff, followed closely by a soft, pained ‘Damn’ when the movement induced a wave of cramps that rippled across his abdomen. “Ow, ow, ow…”

Stephen could only follow with worried eyes as Loki shot out of his seat and staggered for the bathroom again. When he returned a few minutes later, he was a few shades paler than normal and sweating lightly, his hair clinging to the sides of his head like a crown of thorns.

Loki crawled into Stephen’s lap on his own volition, a testament to how utterly wretched he must be feeling. It was an awkward position, and hardly the most ideal to conduct a proper examination in, but at least Loki was horizontal enough that Stephen could slip a clinical hand in to feel his belly.

It felt warm to the touch as though Loki was running a bit of a temperature, but it was soft, with no one part more tender than the other. A turbulence rumbled beneath Stephen’s palm, a cacophonous borborygmus that hinted at a more innocent, but no less worrying, cause of Loki’s suffering.

He fished his stethoscope out from under the coffee table.

"You keep your stuff in the most random places," Loki observed critically. "How did you even know it was there?"

"One’s allowed to be messy, as long as one knows one’s own mess," Stephen said, shrugging. He pressed the diaphragm of the stethoscope to Loki's belly and listened for a good ten seconds, before presenting his findings to his patient.

“It sounds like a circus in there," Stephen commented. "I think the shrimps and the fish tacos are duking it out."

"Please," Loki groaned, gripping his stomach tighter. "Don't mention food. I don't think there's anything left in me to evacuate."

“Yeah, a bad case of Montezuma’s revenge will do that to you,” Stephen winced in sympathy. He nodded at a glass on the table. "Do you think you can keep down some fluids? I can put you on a drip if that's easier."

Loki allowed Stephen to help him up and accepted the glass, eyeing the effervescent, radioactive-looking liquid with dread. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

Stephen took one look at the back of Loki's white, shaky hand and changed his mind. "Not gonna be easy, with your veins all collapsed like that. Drink up, you need to replenish your electrolytes."

Loki glared at his boyfriend over his Hydralyte. “You and your electrolytes."

"What can I say? It's my love language," Stephen deadpanned.

Loki almost choked, electrolyte water spurting out of his nose and quite possibly, from his eyeballs too. "You fucker."

"Seriously, what did you think it was? The takeout tasted fine, and we both ate the same thing," Stephen said.

"Not at lunch, we didn't." Loki grimaced at the memory. "I think the prawn cocktails they served at that drug talk today were dodgy."

“Drug talk?” Stephen’s forehead furrowed into a thousand creases. “But Merck & Co always do great lunches.”

Loki shook his head, looking nauseated all of a sudden. “Pfizer.”

“Yeah…they can be a hit-and-miss,” Stephen clicked his tongue in disapproval. Then his eyes narrowed. "Wait. Were you feeling sick before you came over?"

Loki fixated on something very interesting on Stephen’s ceiling. “You should get that crack checked out. There, in the corner right there - ”

“Odinson,” he growled.

“Give me a break, Strange. It’s my first night off in weeks!” Loki’s voice dropped to a sullen mumble. “Yours too.”

Understanding finally dawned on Stephen, as did an avalanche of exasperation and a flight of fluffy, fluttery butterflies. “Loki, if you’re sick, you’re sick. These things happen.”

“Yes, but why always to me?” Loki mourned.

“Doctor Masterson would beg to differ,” Stephen said, referring to the female lead character in the movie they had just half-watched. “All that time spent working herself to death only for a car accident to do her in when she’s on the verge of finding love. I told you, you gotta listen to your body when it’s trying to tell you things.”

Loki sniffed. “You do realise you’re feeding me philosophical advice from a movie.”

“It’s a good movie, apparently,” Stephen said. “My scrub nurse recommended it.”

“Let me guess. She’s into Mark Ruffalo.”

“Everyone’s into Mark Ruffalo. I think it’s all that hair.”

Loki broke into a chuckle, but it was cut short when his stomach seized again, this time with a cramp so horrendous it left him prostrated in Stephen’s lap and shaking like a leaf.

"God, this fucking hurts," Loki moaned into Stephen's thigh. "I think I'm dying."

Stephen rubbed comforting circles on Loki’s back. “There's nothing more reassuring to me than you admitting that you feel like shit. You'll live."

Loki could sense Stephen fussing over him but he hardly registered it, so thoroughly consumed by the raging pain in his stomach.

A few excruciating seconds later, the cramp passed, and Loki unfolded himself gingerly. He clasped a hand over Stephen’s, only now realising it had been there the whole time, massaging the knots in his belly.

“Are you okay? Should we go to the ER anyway?”

“And let people see me like this? We’ll be the laughingstock of the whole hospital.”

“I don’t give a shit about other people.”

Loki heard the sick anxiety in Stephen’s voice and was instantly overcome by guilt. “I’m sorry, Stephen.”

“What the hell for?”

For coming over. For being a bother. For noticing the prawn had smelled a little funky and eating it anyway.

“Did you know E. coli smells like Worcestershire sauce?”

“You can’t see, smell or taste E. coli,” Stephen said flatly.

Loki could do without seeing the worry in Stephen’s eyes. It was terribly ageing on him.

“I’ll be fine, Stephen,” he said firmly. “I’m tougher than I look, you know.”

A look of sadness fell over Stephen’s face. “Yeah, I know.”

Loki sighed; he could not help feeling sorry for himself. “This wasn’t how I imagined tonight was going to be.”

“How did you imagine tonight was going to be?”

Loki shrugged. “Certainly not you giving me a belly rub like a five-year-old.”

Stephen’s face softened. “I don’t mind it.”

“I ruined our movie night.”

“It’s just a movie,” Stephen said. "There's always next time."

“You're right," Loki mumbled. "There'll be more things to ruin next time."

"That's the spirit," Stephen said fondly. He ran his fingers through clumps of Loki's lank hair. "You idiot. Why couldn’t you just tell me?”

“I took a couple of Imodium from your medicine cabinet.”

“That’s not an answer, Loki.”

Loki was quiet for a while. “Maybe I don’t have one. Not yet, anyway.”

He braved a glance upward. “Is that…okay?”

Stephen slowly bent and gave Loki an upside down kiss. “Silly Loki. Do you really have to ask?”

A rumbling sound emanated from somewhere in the region of Loki's midsection.

“Should I go get a bucket?” Stephen whispered huskily. “I should go get a bucket.”

“Yes, oh yes.” For how could Loki refuse? It was the most romantic offer of a bucket Loki had ever received in his entire life. “You most definitely should.”

[k-asternix]

ahh hiii

can you write a little watcher grian drabble/oneshot about how the watchers keep tormenting him and sending him nightmares about s@m and also about how he thinks they are going to try to invade/destroy hermitcraft soon and in the end he goes to scar for comfort because desertduo my beloveds

Your wish is my command! Thank you very much for this prompt! I had a blast writing it!

Please note: This fic has been cross posted onto AO3

-

Grian is curled into a ball on the foot of his bed. His head is tilted upwards, he tries to keep his focus on the glittering night sky above him.

It's been…close to five days since he last had a proper night's rest. He knows he's going to have to fall asleep eventually. And it's going to be sooner rather than later if the foggy feeling in his head is anything to go by.

Grian digs his nails into his skin. A final, ditch effort to keep himself conscious.

It doesn't work.

Grian is running down the corridor of his old school. Sam is behind him. Sam has a knife.

Grian is losing air faster than he's able to regain it. His chest hurts. Badly. Grian keeps running, heaving with every breath.

Pain burns through Grian's body with each step.

His legs are going to give out on him. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when.

The exit is so close, Grian can see it, it's right there. All he needs to do is reach the door—

Black spots fill his vision. He can't see, he can't move his legs. Sam is still behind him. His feet catch on themselves and Grian's body slams violently to the ground.

Sam's footsteps grow closer. Grian can't move. He can't breathe. His vision is still clouded with black spots. Grian writhes around, like a fly that's been caught in a spider web.

"You put up quite the fight, Gree-on."

Sam presses the tip of his knife to Grian's back. He yelps.

Sam laughs, his voice warps into something else, something deep and sadistic until it hardly sounds like Sam's voice at all "Did you really think you could escape? That's funny. You'll never escape."

Grian jolts awake. It's still dark out. Sam's words echo in his mind 'You'll never escape'. His whole body aches.

Only those weren't Sam's words, were they? Those words were fighting words, a threat that has yet to be acted on. A promise to Grian that nothing is ever over. Those words came from someone else. They came from the watchers.

The average person might not know how to tell the difference between a regular nightmare and a watcher-induced nightmare. Grian has become somewhat of an expert at it.

That one was watcher-induced. No doubt about it. He can practically taste their lingering aura.

It's been happening so often lately—they keep trying to send him messages. It's terrifying. No doubt they have some kind of plan.

The fact that he's been getting more and more of these dreams mean that they must want to take him again, they must be waiting to pounce, ready to invade Hermitcraft at a moment's notice.

Grian doesn't want to go back. He can't go back. He stands. His legs seem to move on their own, before his brain has the chance to think. He wanders, directionless, until he finds himself in Scarland. Grian hadn't consciously been seeking out the man but now that he's here, he really hopes to find Scar. He keeps waking, down main street.

"Scar!" He calls, between panicked breaths.

"Grian?" A tired voice answers back.

Grian turns. He spots Scar sitting on a nearby bench. Scar pats the spot next to him, inviting Grian to join him. Grian does.

"What are you doing wandering around so late?" Scar asks, clearly not comprehending the gravity of the situation.

"The watchers are coming back. They want to invade Hermitcraft—they keep sending me nightmares to warn me. Scar, we aren't safe!"

Scar is quiet for a moment. Then he speaks, his tone soft and cautious as if he were soothing a scared animal. Grian feels a bit like a scared animal.

"Are you sure that's true? Xisuma has a pretty good barrier set up around the server."

"But I saw them in my dreams! I felt their essence!"

"Hm. Grian I have a question."

"Yeah?"

"When did you join Hermitcraft?"

"Season six."

"And what season are we on now?"

"Season nine."

"So, don't you think that if the watchers were planning to invade Hermitcraft they would have done it already? Why would they waste their time taunting you about it? If they were going to invade wouldn't they just… do it?"

Grian sighs, long and hard. It isn't often that Scar acts as the voice of reason between the two of them but he's right in this case. The only way the watchers can hurt Grian is if Grian allows himself to be scared by them. They'll never be able to invade the server.

Grian wraps his arms around Scar, his breathing slows. He'll be okay, he just needed a reminder.

"Thanks Scar."

"Anytime, my friend!" Scar grins, a mischievous glint in his eyes "Now, that'll be ten diamonds!"

"Scar!" Grian shouts, barely holding back laughter.

[aressida]

My entry: "Keeping the faith and won." - Aressida. 13.8.24.

I managed to get about 5 hours of sleep, just until sunrise. My phone buzzed with a text from my father-in-law, saying he’d be at my door in 10 minutes to beat the morning traffic and get to the hospital by 8. Before that, my sister-in-law had texted me, letting me know that he’s awake but tried to pull out the tubes keeping him stable. They had to restrain him and put him back under sedation.

When we arrived, they were waiting for us to be there before they started waking him up, hoping some familiar faces would help.

He was finally weaned off Ketamine, Fentanyl, Noradrenaline, Adrenaline, Propofol, Hartmann's solution, and a couple of other IV meds. I cannot stand those intubation and induced-coma drugs.

Watching the process, seeing them remove one tube after another, was painful, but I was ready for it. I was so relieved to see him waking up, slowly gaining consciousness, and alive, though a bit disoriented.

‘Welcome back,’ I said as he looked at me, clearly confused. His first question was, ‘Where am I?’ I told him, ‘You’re in the hospital,’ and he started to piece it all together, realizing it was not a dream.

He had been intubated for 27 hours.

It took him a while to adjust, slowly becoming more aware of what had happened. When the doctor asked me to tell him that he had a cardiac arrest, he was shocked. I added, ‘And your heart stopped for 8 minutes. You died and came back.’ His eyes widened, and he started to remember. The last thing he recalled was kneeling on the bathroom tiles, struggling to breathe. He said he blacked out after that and did not remember anything.

I shook my head slightly, feeling a shiver as I relived those moments. What actually happened was, during his blackout, he stood up, gasping for air, and turned pale. Then he collapsed. I caught him and lowered him down, ready to start CPR. The paramedics arrived just in time and took over. Then, 7 more paramedics and firemen arrived.

Standing in the corner of the ensuite, watching them perform CPR, was horrible—an absolute nightmare. I had to step out to give them more space and went to my girls, who were devastated. ‘Don’t you die on me, Dad!’ they cried.

All 9 of them were in our bedroom, working on him. We waited for what felt like an eternity, maybe 30 to 40 minutes, before they finally got him stable enough to transport him to the hospital.

I contacted his parents, and my mother-in-law rushed to the hospital. My sister-in-law came to pick us up, and we all went together.

It was chaotic. That’s what happened.

He apologized to me, but there was nothing to apologize for. As he gradually got better and was able to breathe more on his own, we all took turns hugging him, having conversations, just relieved to see him alive.

Tomorrow, I will be bringing the things he’s requested because the hospital can be such a boring place, with all the waiting, interruptions, and stresses when he should be focusing on recovering.

After today, we talked on the phone about everything that’s happened. He’s been diagnosed with pneumonia. His brain and heart scans came back clear, but his chest/lung scan is where the issue lies. There will be a review meeting with the doctors and nurses in the morning.

With all that, there are a few questions I need to ask them:

Pneumonia—Is it bacterial, viral, fungal, or parasitic?

If it’s viral, could it infect others? None of us in the family are sick. What else could it be?

Is it possible he has 'walking' pneumonia instead of asthma?

I’ve learned that there are four stages of pneumonia: congestion, red hepatization, grey hepatization, and resolution. Which stage is he currently in?

Why has he had occasional breathing problems and needed hospital visits more often this year?

The puffer—fluticasone and salmeterol type—is this meant for short-term or long-term use?

Fluticasone—wouldn’t that cause magnesium deficiency, and isn’t that a concern given his current condition? What about the side effects?

It’s been a crazy time, I’ll tell you that.

Now I can get some sleep.

[romadine]

To Conclude a Long-time Nightmare

Summary:

Ichika was unable to sleep that night.

Her thoughts began to drift away from herself to her brother and the Black Bulls.

Post-birthday fic that I wasn't able to upload.

To read the Oneshot:

Ichika was unable to sleep that night.

The moon was obscured with clouds, faintly illuminating a dreadful color of black and grey. The chirping of insects wasn't a great help at all. They used to sound like a lullaby, yet it now felt like a chaotic buzz plaguing her ears. 

Blanket tossed aside, she sat up and recalled what had transpired since then.

She and Sukehiro were able to make amends, hence she started visiting him at least once a year. That was the goal. Somehow, for the past few months of her recurring visits, they could make up for the time they lost by bonding through sparring, eating, and bickering. Those reminded her of the good ol’ days. Now that she had returned though, her living quarters felt palpably foreign to her despite being gone for only a month. 

It was difficult to find sleep, especially when one dreaded it the most. Ichika hugged her knees closer and bowed her head. She tried to be fine really. She kept convincing herself that and sometimes it worked. She was able to have a good time with her brother and had a serious talk with him. However, being fine shouldn't involve suddenly zoning out in the middle of the party. Being fine shouldn't feel suffocating especially at night. Being fine shouldn't involve a bloodied katana and lifeless corpses flashing before her at unexpected times. Being fine shouldn't bring forth nightmares after another. Being fine was what she wasn't good at.

She felt as if she deserved this. Innocent people were gone because of an irrefutable mistake, a drug-induced rampage. She mourned for what future they've lost, for what they could've gained. Loneliness crept its way into her heart and she'd lost count of the times it won. Such a moment included this night, lying in a fetal position.

No one should know of this. This was her burden to bear. Hers to carry. Her brother shouldn't be held down any further just because of her. But on rare occasions like this night, she desperately wished for her dreams of the past to whither and leave her alone. Who would want to be haunted by that incident? She was nothing short of her father. She was a murderer. Would it help if she repeatedly chanted that she didn't want any of that?

She was drenched in cold sweat, her palms being a little shaky, and her throat parched. It made her recall that fight against a stupid Boogeyman. Only this time was the lesser evil and that she could move by breathing evenly.

Wanting to divert her attention, she raised her eyes to clear her blurry vision until her gaze landed on a specific item. 

Ichika crawled towards it without even turning the lights on. In an attempt to see clearly, she rubbed her eyes only to find out tears soaking a part of her robe, perhaps those were the drops she felt earlier. Putting that realization aside, what she she stumbled upon was a mini komainu replica statue placed on what seemed like a wooden table. She bought it from the market. A merchant advertised it as a great gift for warding off nightmares. 

Slowly, she was able to see its whole form. She was no artist so she couldn't help but critique it. It was like a dog carved on a stone. Nothing impressive, just expensive if she was to be honest.

"You're not doing your job." Her voice was hoarse as she reprimanded it for its uselessness. She shouldn't have been enticed to buy it. Looking back made the idea of having it even more absurd. 

She slowly stepped back away from it but for whatever forsaken universe there was, her toe got hit against the corner of the table's feet. She hissed in pain, falling a bit and hitting her elbow next.

Everyone who knew her was aware that if there was something Ichika wasn't, it was being clumsy. She might not be as elegant as the higher authorities were, but she was surefire graceful as hell. Spending time with the Black Bulls made her careless, it seemed.

Thinking of which had her spotting a clueless-looking box at the side. 

"..."

She remembered this. This was where she placed the souvenirs Sukehiro had given her. Pain forgotten, she went for it and latched it open. 

Inside was a set of Speed cards, 

a frozen cupcake (how the hell that didn't expire?),

a delicate newly transformed brush (she was sure it used to be a mirror before), 

a small wand with a blue dragon emblem on it, 

a dead stink rainbow-colored bug,

a portrait of Marie,  

a miniature wine,

a green flower, 

a bird feather, 

a toy house shaped like a bull, 

a girl version of delinquent glasses... 

The list of weird stuff went on but nothing could beat the last one. Ever. It was a terrifying doll that was supposed to resemble her.

While Ichika silently concurred that she was intimidating, she couldn't bring herself to be that horrendous. The right eye looked as if it would burst any given moment soon, the lips were sewn on a thin thread line, and the hair... Oh don't even let her get started on the hair.

It was eerie looking that it would undoubtedly scare even the most heinous creatures in the underworld. It was quite amusing really. Ichika smiled at the thought. Heh, it would probably be more useful in scaring unwanted thoughts and memories away.

She took the doll referred to as tiny-friendly-Ichika-san, and placed it on her small tabletop. 

There.

It sat there as if it had intentions of biting her head off should she plan to approach it. Was she like that? Okay, maybe the doll really seemed like her, not that she would openly admit it.

Granted it was dark and the moonlight was all too faintly dispersed, a few shadows emerged reminding her that light still existed albeit appearing unlikely. Funny how she managed to find deeper meaning of what supposed to be a regular occurrence. It reminded her of a certain someone, who just like her was also struggling against his demons. How was he now anyway?

A hit of nostalgia hit her. 

Memories of working with the Seven Ryuzen, being useful to others, and helping bring about a change to reuniting with her brother countered her feelings of nausea and void. 

Ryu-sama told her that she tend to forget what she gained and have in the midst of her silence. No one could replace her dead clan, but the people she met along the way cleared up the path for her. She wasn't a mushy person but she knew the feeling do being adored and loved by someone. She had her brother, her friends, her career. Reminiscing those moments felt like a summer's embrace. All wrapped up in a warm sensation. Her lips quivering at the thought of never meeting them had she continued to waste away, drowning in sorrow.

She wasn't alone this time.

Against the tides of horrid pasts.

Of second chances and redemption.

To slumber at ease whilst wishing for the departed to rest in bliss.

That night, it was quite symbolic that a mere peculiar doll guarded her from the onslaught of traumatic pasts. No talisman, no yoryoku, or whatsoever.

To conclude, on top of buried trash laid the komainu.

A/N: For you who have lost someone or something dear to you, you are not alone.

[solomons-finest-rum]

“Hold On” — (Alfie Solomons x Edna)

SUMMARY — Alfie and his wife. Healing had surprisingly nothing and everything in common with falling in love.

AUTHOR’S NOTE — The season finale stirred all sorts of contradictions within me (when I tell you Alfie being married in canon pushed me into mourning for two days straight...) but then the inspiration came to embrace his wife in my own way, in my own fashion ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ so here they are, Alfie and his feisty wife, the way I see them. Please of course note this is full of spoilers!

WORD COUNT — 2,121

Masterlist

She was a peculiar kind of nurse, that was obvious from the very beginning. Of course, in his laudanum-induced state, Alfie could clearly think of very little, but the few coherent thoughts he could gather somehow still mysteriously circulated around the woman.

Edna, she said her name was; now why was he so convinced it wasn’t real? Perhaps as used to never trusting anything living and breathing as Alfie was, he had become overly suspicious. Or maybe it was that somewhere at that beach he had lost his touch—along with pints upon pints of blood. But regardless… He couldn’t quite figure her out. And Alfie didn’t like not being able to figure people out, he really didn’t. Especially while spending most of his days in bed, unable to focus long enough to even read, reduced to pass the time in the doubtfully joyful company of his own mind.

“Enough of that,” Edna had announced to him one day, just as he was about to take his daily dose of tranquilisers and fall into oblivion for the rest of the afternoon.

“Leave me be, woman,” Alfie barked at her then, in hopes that he could scare her off by his usual sunny disposition.

Edna, as it happened, couldn’t care less. She had taken the bottle from him as easily as one would from a baby, and to Alfie’s sheer and utter outrage she left him like that to be alone with his damn head.

As he lay there thinking, he came to the conclusion he was either going weak or the woman was exceptionally strong. Truthfully, either perspective didn’t leave Alfie particularly optimistic.

As soon as she had taken him off the medication, however, something within him switched; namely, said “it” awakened and told him to keep going. It was of course followed by a rather painful phase of withdrawal, during which the “it” twisted, screamed and turned, driving Alfie even more insane than Tommy Shelby had.

For the next couple of weeks, all he remembered was withdrawal pains—which in turn took his mind off of the other pain he was feeling all over his face. All in all he wondered if that might have been a perverted form of medical therapy the damn nurse had subjected him to. If he could speak, he would have surely asked her if that had been the plan all along. Insane if perfectly capable, the woman was—of that he was certain.

Alfie felt himself going insane many times, in fact, during which he had reached for the gun, but with every reach, he found his bedside table mysteriously empty. It was as if the blasted woman had reached inside his very soul and steered his thoughts with those steady hands that changed his bandages every evening.

It wasn’t as if Alfie had developed a particular liking towards said hands, mind you, it was just that they were constantly there.

And so, finally, after the opiate-induced nightmares, his regular nightmares returned, three hurrahs for the king. Even the memory of those times was thoroughly drenched in sweat, and nothing could really take his mind off of it without the laudanum.

Edna wasn’t moved by that in the slightest. She just washed his sheets.

From the perspective of several months, however, Alfie decided the nurse had been worth every penny. She put him back together with what he thought were three full sentences spoken between them in six months’ time, followed by steady touch he came to associate just with her. Nothing delicate or hesitant ever came from Edna, most certainly not towards his person, which Alfie appreciated very much. The last thing on Earth he could have wanted was unfounded affection.

When his mind cleared and his face healed, Alfie’s mind sharpened and so he started to pay more attention. Having one eye function and the other keeping it company out of sentiment helped with that immensely—a thought he had shared with Edna one day when she caught him downstairs, reading the newspaper.

“Will you be needing your glasses then, sir?” she asked him, the cheeky creature, which Alfie refused to dignify with an answer.

Edna stood there a while and took his silence like a seasoned soldier, before finally retreating to the kitchen to do whatever she deemed necessary to perform when her employer wasn’t watching.

Judging by the smells, it was either laundry or a poison brewing, either accepted by Alfie with his newfound attitude of absolute indifference.

Said indifference continued, and the silence between them too, which surprisingly enough brought Alfie more peace than any assurances ever could. He broke it first, that silence; the decorum so worlessly and efficiently agreed upon many months ago. Whatever consequence followed, though, was nothing compared to the sensation Alfie felt when he found his nurse, sitting by the kitchen table and smoking a pipe.

“Put that out,” he barked at her immediately, which caused the woman to do exactly nothing.

She was reading a book and instead of even acknowledging her employer with a glance, she checked her pocket watch.

“Did you hear me, woman, or are ya deaf?” Alfie chastised her again, or at least tried to, since apparently Edna had either developed a serious condition overnight, or he had died in his sleep and returned as a ghost.

Since Alfie found both options entirely fucking inconvenient in the current state of things, he resolved himself to the sole remaining solution.

He grabbed Edna’s wrist. Hard.

Two things happened then, in that exact order: she looked at him the way a cat might at a mouse that dared to come within the vicinity of its claws. She didn’t flinch, though, nor did she put the book down. She didn’t utter a word; instead, she blew out the smoke through her nostrils, completely disregarding whatever Alfie might have thought about her smoking in his kitchen, and replied:

“It’s my day off, Mr. Solomons.”

Taken aback by her steady tone and the glint in her eye, Alfie finally let go. Still steady as a rock, Edna returned to her book like nothing happened.

It wasn’t his own pipe she was smoking, Alfie realised some time later, but it was one of his books she was reading. Utterly outraged, he picked one himself and didn’t stop reading until it got too dark out to make his solitary charade worth the effort.

The thing was, he never remembered giving the woman any days off of any kind, but it seemed unwise to deny her this basic pleasure simply out of spite. That, however, Alfie came to revise the very next day when Edna brought him his tea in the parlour and said:

“You could do with a walk, Mr. Solomons. The weather is nice enough.”

Alfie glared at her in hope to let her know exactly what he thought of the prospect, until his mind connected with his vision and promptly short circuited in unison.

Edna was wearing trousers instead of her usual blouse and skirt; a vision Alfie was sure wasn’t meant for him, because why would it—for a woman such as herself—unless of course he counted in the fact she was right before him, in his house, in his employment.

And apparently waiting for his answer.

“Nah,” was all he said, but then looked her up and down just to make sure his only seeing eye wasn’t playing tricks on him. He wouldn’t put it past it.

“It stopped raining,” Edna replied smoothly. “It’ll do you good.”

Alfie stayed stubbornly silent, then watched her cross her arms over her chest and look him up and down herself.

“No,” he told her firmly, really hoping to be done with the conversation, preferably at her earliest bloody convenience.

It seemed like these days everything around him was closely connected to Edna’s approval or lack thereof, because instead of obeying him, she went to the hallway to put on her boots.

“Mr. Solomons, I mean it,” she announced to him as she walked back into the parlour, with her coat and umbrella tucked neatly under her arm. “Your muscles need exercise, it’s just a fact. Being cooped up in this house is not doing you any favours.”

Alfie put down his cup and looked at her with the most formidable scowl he could muster.

“Right. An’ such is your medical opinion, sweetie?” he sneered.

“Yes,” Edna replied without missing a beat. “It is. Please get up.”

Alfie never took his eyes off of her and was waiting for her to finally give up…

And she never did.

She was standing there, arms crossed, trousers still on and forming all sorts of notions within him that he couldn’t possibly dignify with any acknowledgment. Alfie then went through all his options, most of which were closely connected to the immediate employment of a more timid, obedient nurse, until finally he got up with a grunt and walked up to her slowly, his steps deliberately heavy.

“You goin’ out like that?” he asked, thoroughly enjoying his last bit of advantage that was towering over a woman barely over five feet tall.

Edna scoffed and put on her scarf, not even pretending to feel threatened.

“Like what, Mr. Solomons?” she sighed. “Do you propose I march through the sand and mud clutching my skirts?” She then shook her head to let him know how ridiculous she thought the idea, which left Alfie thoroughly absorbed, mulling the image over and over in silence.

“No,” he said finally, though more to himself than to her.

“Mr. Solomons, please.”

“I’m tired.”

“You’re tired because you don’t move,” she informed him firmly. “Please. Let me—”

“I ain’t goin’ nowhere with ya.”

She looked at him then the way she had after that unfortunate pipe incident and for a moment there Alfie really did think she was about to extend her claws and bite into his aorta.

But all she did was take off her coat, and her scarf, and the boots, and unfortunately nothing else, and then stomp into the kitchen to start dinner.

Now, was Alfie really opposed to the idea of a walk? He realised very quickly he wasn’t. It was her defiance he found thrilling, alongside her attire, which later on he developed a truly Pavlovian response to.

The next time Edna proposed they go for a walk, Alfie was almost willing to agree—but she wasn’t wearing the trousers, which was not at all what he wanted. They fought for a good couple of minutes, during which she presented him with sound medical advice and he in turn proposed she go to hell, until Edna relented as before and retreated to the kitchen. A few moments later, Alfie noticed a whiff of tobacco in the air, but decided to say nothing about it.

He let her win on the third attempt, which Alfie considered his own victory, really, and never for a moment bothered to suspect it had been Edna all along, connecting the dots and concocting her own agenda against him.

But they did go for a walk, with her marching briskly through the mud and the sand like she was born for nothing else, and Alfie following closely behind, his dark coat billowing in the wind and his expression thoroughly fooling the woman into thinking he was enjoying exactly none of it.

Which didn’t seem to bother Edna in the slightest, Alfie soon came to notice, since she smoothly started to incorporate their afternoon walks into their Sunday routine, until it somehow became their Friday and Sunday routine, only to be followed by them walking every single day.

Not a fan of walking, Alfie decided, and not a fan of sand in the least; an opinion which he thought couldn’t be influenced by any extenuating circumstances…

Until one day Edna tripped in the sand, but he caught her arm just in time to prevent the fall. He held her close for a good couple of seconds that really could have been hours if anyone asked him, and Edna… Instead of pulling away with disgust like he expected her to, she leaned in closer. Alfie held her firmly with one hand and with a curious smirk, Edna’s hand travelled up the sleeve of his coat to feel the muscle. She looked at him with something a lesser man might have confused with a keen interest. Alfie found the tension unbearable and finally let go of her first.

But then she of course had to have the last word—the witch—and as they continued their walk, she took his hand in hers. Ignoring the entire orchestra of spiralling contradictions it caused within him, Alfie let her.

[skellebonez]

Cotton Tails and Borrowed Time: Chapter 2

Edited (and planned) with the help of my friend Bucky! Couldn't do this without you!

AO3 link.

In hindsight, Tang wasn’t really proud of his reaction. After all, he had his own phone and grabbing Mei’s out of her hand really wasn’t necessary. But the second he heard what she said, he felt the need to grab the nearest reflective object and use it as a mirror.

He stared.

Then he stared a little longer, wondering if his eyes were playing tricks on him. When it became clear that they were not—that the little dots of freckles were now indeed on his face and not a trick of the light or dirt on Mei’s phone—he reached up and gently wiped at his face.

Freckles.

Freckles that were not there not even five minutes prior.

Were this under any other circumstance, Tang would have thought they were cute. He’d never had freckles before and, honestly, he thought they looked nice. Even cute on him, actually! He was a very confident man when it came to his appearance. But having freckles... just showing up?

Maybe Mei was wrong. Maybe they were on his face and the... the... the shade hid them...

Just thinking that he knew that was a lie. Something was clearly wrong. His hair changes? That he could come up with reasons for, both together and alone, in his head. This? Combined with the hair?

Something was VERY wrong.

And once that ran through his head...

Tang was also not proud of his second reaction, and he would apologize to the both of them when he had the chance. Really, he would! But in the moment, all Tang could think to do was gently hand Mei’s phone back to her, turn around with a “I’m going to go back to sleep”, and book it down a shortcut where MK and Mei would not be able to follow in the tuk-tuk.

Their voices followed him down the alley, but if they made chase before going to pick up Pigsy he never knew. He just knew that only ten minutes after he locked his front door he heard their knocking and Pigsy asking if he was ok.

They finally left him alone after he sent a text to Pigsy saying, “Just let me get some more rest, I will be fine I promise!”. Probably in just the right amount of time, too, because they would have incurred him a noise complaint from his neighbors if they continued.

Slumped against the door, Tang hears the sound of footsteps walking away. He sighs.

~

He wanted this to be a dream. Perhaps even an exhaustion-induced hallucination.

But after splashing water on his face for the hundredth time and pouring over texts for anything even remotely close to what was happening to him for the hundredth, Tang knew he had to be awake. Which meant everything was real.

Fortunately. Or unfortunately.

It depended on perspective, he supposed.

“It’s fine, everything is fine!” he said as he wiped his face dry and made his way to his bedroom. “Sure, I look nothing like how I did when I got up! It’s fine! I’ll go back to sleep, I’ll wake up, I’ll be completely fine. Everything will be fine!”

He curled up under the blanket, pulling it over his head to drown out the light of the streetlights that had turned on and were just slightly shining through his curtain. Normally they would be a comforting bit of soft light, but now... there was something about them shining into his room that felt... wrong. He couldn’t quite put his finger on why, but it made him uneasy. Twitchy almost.

As he attempted to clear his mind his thoughts, as they usually did, drifted to something else. Someone else...

Tang quickly shook his head.

No! No, nope, not thinking about him. No. I just need to sleep.

He only barely noticed the burn in his ears as he finally drifted off.

~

There were many ways to wake up.

Slowly. Slowly and then all at once. Jolted from a nightmare. Shaken by a loved one. The pain of rolling the wrong way, or even off your bed.

Tang woke up to a sharp tug on his ear as he rolled over and he immediately knew something was wrong.

Very, very wrong.

In addition to everything else that was wrong of course.

He should have been awarded a gold medal for the speed at which he ran to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. And then back to his bedroom to grab the glasses he had forgotten so he could actually see himself.

His neighbors should probably have invested in earplugs to dampen the scream he let out upon seeing his reflection in the mirror. Or, rather, the newest addition in his reflection. Two moderately long, fuzzy, attached to the sides of his head additions.

He reached up, not wanting to believe what he was seeing. But they were there. He could feel them, not only through his fingertips but he could feel his fingers through the hair.

No.

The fur.

He could feel his fingers as they touched the soft, almost velvety fur of the short lop rabbit ears that had, somehow, sprouted from his head where his normal human ears used to be.

He gripped them, gently at first and then tight to give them an experimental tug.

The scream of shock and pain at the action earned him a thump from his nearest neighbor and a “UNLESS YOU’RE DYING, SHUT UP!”

Rude.

Tang wasn’t sure if he was dying, but at that exact moment he felt like he just might if he didn’t talk to someone. Someone else. Someone he could trust.

He’d never gotten ready faster in his entire life, forgoing a shower for other means of washing off in the fears of what water would do to his ears. You weren’t supposed to get them wet, right? He didn’t know, he had never had a rabbit before let alone have rabbit ears! The scholar shoved on the nearest set of clean clothes, chugged some water and shoved a piece of fruit in his mouth. He was in such a hurry that he barely tasted the fruit; it could have been a peach or an orange for all he knew.

It was only when he got to the door that Tang finally paused.

No one would look at him oddly for his appearance if they didn’t know him. He looked normal to outsiders, even with the rabbit ears. Humanoid demons with only a few nonhuman features were a normal thing.

But if they did know him...

Tang ran back to his closet for the one thing he had that could possibly help.

~

His ears were burning under his hat.

Tang wasn’t the kind of man to wear a hat in normal circumstances, so to don something as heavy and weather-inappropriate as a heavy and thick trapper hat? It was miserable.

But it was the only thing that kept his ears hidden.

All three inches of them.

Six if you combine them.

What in the world was happening? This was not simply a case of using a new shampoo, unless he was trapped in a children’s horror book from the 1990s. People turning into demons out of nowhere was completely unprecedented. Though, as Tang thought about it, there were multiple cases of seemingly human individuals undergoing partial transformations due to previously unknown demonic heritages. It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence in the modern day, but Tang was pretty sure it wasn’t that. At least... he thought it wasn’t... Maybe it was...

He wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

The only thing he was sure of was that he needed to talk to someone much less excitable than Mei or MK. And literally anyone, ANYONE, who was not Pigsy. He just...

He did not want the chef to see him.

Not right now. Not until he figured out what was going on. Not until—

“Mr. Tang!”

Never before had those two words sent so much fear down Tang’s spine. But he knew that voice, and he knew that he couldn’t just brush off the greeting. That would be rude.

...Maybe he could be rude just this once? He was genuinely in a hurry. And panicking.

...

“Is that you, young man?”

Shit.

“Good...” Tang discreetly pulled out his phone, double checking the time. “Morning, Mr. Jiang! It’s not every day I see you outside of your usual lunch break!”

On any other day, seeing a regular as nice as Mr. Jiang would have been welcome. The dock worker had been getting the same bowl of noodles—either in the shop or delivered by MK—every day for almost three years at that point. He had amazing stories of seafaring life, the other countries he had visited, and the days he spent out at sea before he retired. Tang genuinely enjoyed his presence every time they saw each other.

Too bad he caught Tang on this day, of all days.

“You’re not usually at the docks at this hour,” Mr. Jiang replied as he adjusted the boxes of supplies in his arms. If Tang were to hazard a guess, the spark plugs and the fuel on the man’s boat meant he was going to do some basic maintenance that morning. “What brings you down here?”

“Oh, just going to see a friend,” Tang chuckled nervously. “I, uh... I-I’m kind of in a rush, actually, so I’m sorry that I can’t stick around.”

“Oh, please don’t stay if you’re in a rush! It’s just not every day that I see you out and about without your boyfriend,” Mr. Jiang said with a smile. “Have a safe walk, Mr. Tang!”

“I will, thank you!” Tang said quickly as he turned and started back toward Sandy’s boat. “And he’s still not my boyfriend! Not that he would ever agree to that..."

As Tang muttered the last bit to himself, he felt his hat tighten around his head. His ears gave off that same soft and subtle burn as the night before.

"Ohyouhavegottobeshittingme—”

~

“Sorry about just showing up at your door like this,” Tang said with a sigh. “Or, uh... your boat.”

“You know I’m always happy to have you over, Tangy,” Sandy replied with a chuckle as he made his way back into his living room. Or what counted as one on a houseboat. Did houseboats have living rooms? Tang’s brain was trying to think of literally anything else but the heat of his now longer ears under his hat. “You look like you could use someone to talk to."

“You have no idea,” Tang muttered as Sandy handed him a cup of tea before sitting across from him.

Tang sighed almost immediately as his hands wrapped around the cup. It wasn’t too hot, nor had it cooled down too much. Sandy had narrowed tea making and calming people down to a science almost. No, more like an art. One he was good at.

The scholar was a little jealous of that, if he really got down to it. Pigsy was a great and accomplished chef. MK was the Monkie Kid and a great artist. Mei was a skilled racer. Sandy could practically run a therapeutic cat cafe if he wanted. And Tang?

He was... the smart one.

But he didn’t feel smart sitting there with this stupid hat on his head.

“What’s up?” Sandy asked in that soft but casual tone that only he could pull off. “Did something happen?”

“You could say thaAH!”

Tang’s words were cut off when he felt some kind of pressure on his head. A jolt of fear and anxiety coursed through him for a second as he thought something else was changing. But it settled when he realized the pressure was coming from something outside of his hat. And that something was moving. Four somethings, Tang discovered after a moment. Sharp kitten claws poked through his hat.

One of Sandy’s new foster cats had kittens not that long ago. This must have been one of them.

“Uuuh...”

“Sorry,” Sandy said with a laugh. “She’s a climber, I should have warned you. I can take your hat if you want? She’s probably not gonna let go of it anytime soo—”

“NO!” Tang yelped, perhaps a bit too quickly judging by the look on Sandy’s face. “No, it’s okay. I find it... relaxing?”

Holy shit, that was the worst lie he’d ever told.

Sandy clearly seemed to agree, based on the raise of his eyebrow and his frown, but he chose not to say anything about it. At least he hadn’t brought up—

“Is this about Pigsy?”

Oh, damn it all.

“No, I did not come to talk about Pigsy,” Tang responded. And it was the truth! He did not come to talk about Pigsy. He did not want to talk about Pigsy. Right now he didn’t even want to think about Pigsy. He wanted to talk and think about the other thing he didn’t want to talk and think about which somehow was much better than Pigsy. “I came to ask you for some advice.”

“Hmn...” Sandy rubbed his beard, looking at Tang for a moment. “It’s just... It’s kinda kind of obvious that you’re stressed and if you—”

“Not about that, Sandy.”

“Tang.”

“Don’t.”

“Tang, come on.”

“Don’t say it, I know that tone of voice. Don’t you dare.”

“I just think if you told Pigsy your f—”

“I don’t need to tell him anythiIING WHAT THE HELL!?” Tang jumped up, pain shooting up his spine as he tried to turn in his seat. “Do you have KNIVES in your couch or something!?”

Sandy MUST have had knives in his couch, he MUST have. Or a cat was hiding in there. It made absolutely no sense, but what else would explain the pain? Tang hadn’t fallen on his back the other day so it couldn’t have been an injury. So—

“Tang?”

“WHAT!?” Tang snapped, immediately feeling bad. “Sorry... Sorry I...”

“...There’s something moving under your clothes,” Sandy gaped in shock. At least Tang assumed it was shock.

The fact that Tang felt something behind move instantly after Sandy said that horrified him.

He spun around, grabbing the loose fabric behind him to move it aside.

But at the same time, well...

The hat slid off surprisingly fast.

Really, it seemed almost too fast for the weight it was.

Maybe his ears growing made the hat now fit poorly.

Maybe the weight of the kitten was just a bit too much.

Maybe Tang was just an unlucky man.

Ironic.

Especially now that he was standing there with a full six inches of ear on either side, fur for hair, and a brown and white poof of tail jutting out from the hole it had ripped in his pants.

And he thought rabbits were supposed to be lucky.

He thought he had no idea what was happening.

It didn’t take a college professor to put the pieces together, he felt so stupid at that moment for not recognizing the pattern before. It was the only explanation, the only thing that connected everything! The hair, the freckles, the ears, the ears again, the tail! Every time he had been thinking about Pigsy before he changed!

Sandy was yelling something at him when Tang snatched his hat up and rushed out of the boat. But the scholar couldn’t understand it through the rushing thoughts in his head. The blood rushing in his ears made the thumping of his heart that much more powerful.

This was a mistake, this was a bad idea, he should have stayed home until he figured out what this was, he should have never come here.

Distantly, he heard the gasp and yell of concern from Mr. Jiang as he ran past.

It was only then Tang remembered to shove his hat back on.

~

He made it home faster than he thought he would. He was never this fast before, so...

No, don’t think about that, just need to climb the stairs and get to the front door and then when you’re safe inside your apartment you can worry about thinking. Worry about what was happening, worry about what WOULD happen. Worry about making sure no one talked to him, he couldn’t risk them talking to him about THAT again, not when he knew that was the connecting factor.

Tang finally reached his door, breathing heavy as he went to twist the knob.

As long as he didn’t think about it or have someone bring it up he could figure out what was happening on his own, he was sure of it, he—

“Tang?”

...That was Pigsy’s voice. Coming from the stairs on the other side of him.

Oh... Oh, no. But how?

“Mr. Tang?” MK’s voice joined in. “Sandy called us, said you were, uh...”

“Freaking the heck out,” Mei offered. Great. Just great. A trio of people to question him, just what he needed right now. “We came to check on you.”

He turned the knob, hoping to open the door before they could find him.

It jiggled.

Because of course it would.

“Tang?” Pigsy’s voice again, closer, and when Tang whipped his head to the side he saw all three of them had made it to the top of the stairs and were staring at him. “Are you ok?”

“No!” Tang found himself answering honestly despite himself. “No, I’m not, but if you leave me alone I will be.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Mei muttered as she looked at MK with concern on her face. “Tangy—Mr. Tang, Sandy sounded really worried.”

“He also said he thought only Pigsy was there and we shouldn’t have heard what he said for some reason,” MK offered. Ah. Of course.

Lucky Rabbit his ass.

“Well, you should have listened to him!” Tang said with a laugh as he turned toward them to hide his back. His tail was moving behind him—why was it moving, please stop—and it took everything he had not to scream. “Because I’ll be fine! You really didn’t need to worry about me or come all this way. Everything is A-OK! Or will be. OnceIgetthisdooropen.”

“Okay, Tang, you gotta tell us what’s up,” Pigsy said softly as he stepped forward. “We’re worried about you.”

“I am fine,” Tang argued, jiggling his door knob again. Locked.

Of course it was locked.

Why wouldn’t it be locked?

HE LOCKED IT.

“Hey,” Mei said softly, stepping closer and putting a hand on his arm. Tang absolutely did not jump at this and Mei did not pull back in surprise. At least that’s what he told himself. “What happened at Sandy’s?”

“Nothing!”

“Kids, maybe we should give him some air,” Pigsy said as he stopped MK from moving forward. He nodded as Mei stepped back and Tang had never felt more awkward and afraid of having three people staring at him. Why was he so afraid? “Is it something I did?”

“Wh-no!” Tang rebuffed instantly. “Why would you think that?”

“Sandy mentioned you panicked when you brought me up,” Pigsy said, and the tone of his voice made him sound heartbroken. “And Mei and MK mentioned what happened yesterday, and you seemed antsy at the shop with me.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Tang assured, and somehow he felt... better. Better than he had in the last two days. “I just—”

“Oh, please tell me he’s finally going to confess,” he heard MK mutter.

And before Tang could voice his rebuttal, his entire body suddenly felt like it was on fire.

[bitsandbobsofwriting]

A rogue Druid’s “please join us” speech to Merlin triggers a few things:

Gwaine tries to commit regicide, Leon confronts his (understandable) fear of Dragons, and Merlin has a full on mental breakdown.

The knights are left to pick up the pieces and all of them consider following Gwaine’s lead.

ANGSTY ANGSTY 

TW: Blood, death, nightmares. Physical and verbal abuse. A very brief implication of potential suicide/self harm.

Everyone notices the sudden changes within the group, it would be hard not to notice.

No one has any clue what happened though.

One day, everything is fine. If they think back, they realise Merlin had seemed a little... nervous? Maybe? But other than that, everything was fine, normal.

But the next day? From then until now, a month later? Everything was different.

Arthur seemed much angrier. He flew off the handle over the smallest mistakes, he worked the knights so hard in training that at least three of them had to go to Gaius for treatment everyday, and he didn’t seem like he planned on letting up any time soon. He snapped at everyone, even Gwen and Gaius, which was unheard of.

Merlin seemed... quieter. The knights, Gwen, and Gaius barely saw him, but when they did, he flinched at even the slightest noise; his eyes constantly darted around, looking for a way to escape, and he wouldn’t let anyone touch him.

They were worried, but Arthur was so constantly furious that no one dared bring it up with him, and the one time they tried to ask Merlin, he came up with some ridiculous excuse and ran away. They thought they had barely seen him before, but after that they didn’t see him at all for at least four days.

They also noticed how both of their worrying moods seemed ten times worse when they were with each other. Even just being in the same room, made Arthur angrier, and Merlin... they didn’t want to think it but... more scared.

After three weeks of this, they gathered together, and put into place their emergency plan. Leon would speak directly to Arthur, and Lancelot would speak directly to Merlin.

Of all of them, they were the most trusted by each target, and were the most likely to get answers, and the least likely to get a bad reaction if answers were refused.

They were... pretty wrong. Merlin reacted in the same way as he had to the group two and a half weeks ago. Which is odd, because he normally tells Lancelot everything, and not only did he not tell him, he lied and came up with excuses.

Leon was much worse for wear. He showed up a while after Lancelot, pale and miserable. Arthur had just yelled at him a bunch and assigned him extra patrols.

A few days later, they were all still struggling with what to do when Arthur informed them of a quest that was to be undertaken. They were... nervous, to say the least. Going on any sort of dangerous trip with Arthur in this state was bound to go badly, but they could hardly refuse, and they definitely couldn’t bring up the issue again.

So they resigned themselves to it. Gwen wished them luck, and made sure to give Merlin an extra tight hug before they left, and Gaius slipped a few extra medical supplies in each of the knights packs, just in case.

Apparently, patrols of Camelot Knights kept going missing. Whole groups of soldiers, in one very specific area near the border, were just not coming back.

Arthur could hardly justify sending more patrols out, so despite his foul mood, and his desperation to stay away from everyone, he took himself, his five best knights, and his manservant.

Elyan could’ve sworn he heard Arthur mutter something along the lines of “As if I’d leave you here unsupervised.”, to Merlin, the tone far less jesting that it might’ve been a month ago, but he kept it to himself. They were travelling and camping together, there would hardly be an opportunity to share without Arthur and Merlin there.

And like they were all expecting, the trip was hell.

Awkward silences that not even Gwaine could fill, Merlin looking close to tears the whole time, and Arthur constantly looking like he’s considering extreme violence.

Merlin even rides at the back of the group (unheard of), doesn’t complain even once about anything (even more unheard of), and the few times he does speak, he addresses all of them by their titles (down-right panic inducing).

They, of course, realise it had been a trap far too late, and before they even had time to shout and draw their swords, the camp fades around them.

~

When they wake an indiscernible amount of time later, they have been stripped of armour and weapons, and have been shackled.

They appear to be in a circular, one-room hut, the knights spaced equally and chained to the wall. Their cloaks remain, but any chainmail or armour they had been equipped with was gone, leaving them in the thin clothes they wore underneath, completely unprotected.

Merlin stood in the middle of the room, looking very confused. Once he noticed the knights stirring, he tried to take a step towards them, but frowned when he realised he couldn’t get within a arm’s reach of them.

Once the knights came around fully, they realised that whilst Merlin couldn’t move all that much, they couldn’t speak.

Arthur looks to Merlin with fury written all over his face, and pulls violently on his chains. Merlin flinches back and gasps out:

“This has nothing to do with me, I swear!”

Before the rest of the knights have time to change their expressions to one of confusion, a man walks through the door. Everyone’s gazes turn to him quickly, and they take in his appearance.

He looked like a Druid... but not quite right, like he hadn’t actually been to a camp in a while. He wore neutral colours, browns and greens, but despite his calm demeanour and gentle face, he looked a little crazed.

Where Druids stand calmly and walk softly, this man rushed in and fiddled with his hands, eyes darting around the room at everyone’s faces.

When Merlin goes to demand he introduce himself, the Druid holds a hand up, silencing him (no magic, just a gesture), and begins to speak:

“Who I am, does not matter. But I do know who you are, Emrys. I shall explain it your friends first, so they don’t get too lost.-”

The Druid smiles sadly, and turns to the knights, all of whom (apart from Lancelot) stare on in confusion at the melancholy resignation on the Druid’s face, and the dread on Merlin’s. Still unable to speak, and with very limited movement, they reluctantly resign themselves to listening to whatever speech the villain of the week had come up with.

“-Emrys has been being seen in prophetic visions for centuries. Whilst Uther Pendragon was destined to start the purge, Emrys, or as you know him: Merlin, is destined to stop it. He is said to be the most powerful Warlock to ever walk the earth, past present and future. He can bend the very elements of the world, bring down armies, turn cities to ash with a flick of his wrist. But destiny also foretold of The Once and Future King. Most have accepted that Arthur Pendragon, is said king.-”

Merlin was stiff but panicky during the Druid’s explanation, having realised that for whatever reason, he didn’t have access to his magic right now.

He could feel it buzzing under his skin, but every time he tried to pull it forward, it abandoned him, burrowing deep into his soul and hiding.

Merlin was tense and angry, angry that the chance to tell his friends the truth himself had been taken away, but his statue-like stillness is broken as he frowns and flinches slightly at the thinly veiled disgust in the sorcerer’s voice as he says Arthur’s name.

The Knights look confused, and very much shocked, their gazes flickering between the Druid and Merlin, but he refuses to meet their eyes.

“-Together, Emrys and the Forever King are destined to bring harmony and peace to the world, to restore magic’s place alongside the non magic, to inspire compassion, and stop the unjust genocide that Uther started.-”

Arthur and Leon shuffle uncomfortably at the mention of the late King and his sins, but are more focused on the other shocking revelations. The other knights (again, bar Lancelot, who is staring at Merlin apologetically) seem invested in the story, though they’re clearly confused.

Arthur was made aware of Merlin’s magic a few weeks ago, but despite Merlin’s choice to tell him willingly, he had reacted badly, and in his rage, hadn’t allowed Merlin to explain himself. The other knights were, of course, unaware of this, though they quickly put two and two together.

Despite Merlin’s best efforts, Arthur had stayed in the dark about the whole Emrys-prophecy-destiny thing.

The Druid gives each knight a short assessing gaze, seemingly to make sure they were paying attention.

He turns his attention back to Merlin, who is trying very hard to keep his expression blank (and failing) as he listens:

-”And how long have you waited, my friend, for Arthur to play his part in destiny. Ten years, of having the prophecies shoved down your throat by idealists, being told that you have no choice but to serve a man who would see your head on a spike should he know who you truly are. Ten years in the service of a man who has caused you nothing but pain, given you nothing but nightmares.-”

Merlin flinches and looks away. Every magic user in, or even near Camelot shares the same nightmares, all caused by the Pendragon Reign. There’s no need for a discussion about it, no need for a denial. 

“-His father ripped your family apart. He himself stood at the grave of your best friend and told you he was evil, he himself killed the woman you loved-”

Arthur frowns in confusion at this. Merlin had never been in love. But he quickly doubts himself when he hears Merlin gasp quietly, and looks to him to see a tear slip down his cheek. 

Fury flashes quickly across Lancelot’s face, obviously knowing the story, but he covers it quickly, and no one is the wiser to the anger slowly growing in his chest at what this so-called Druid was putting his friend through.

The Druid speaks his next words quietly, though still loud enough for everyone in the room to hear, as he lifts a soft hand and gently wipes away Merlin’s tear:

“-I know what you see when you close your eyes. I know why you are so exhausted. But do they? Have you told them?-”

The Druid nods his head in the direction of the knights, but doesn’t break eye contact with Merlin, who sniffles slightly before looking to the floor in shame. 

“-Of the smoke and flames that you choke on when you sleep? You dream of pyres built just for you, built by the people you care most about. Even when you are awake, every second you have your eyes closed, every time you blink, you are forced to picture your so-called King with a sword at your throat, as if the scene were painted onto the back of your eyelids.-”

His voice had risen as he spoke and he had begun to pace, anger growing at the pain his Lord had gone through. He practically spits the word “King”, like just saying it disgusts him. 

Merlin remains quiet, but he has a steady stream of tears down his face as he looks back at the Druid with despair. The knights watch on in anguish as they see the way he is suffering. 

Arthur stops feeling angry and confused, and starts to feel a little guilty. Not that he would let it show; he stares on blankly.

Everyone wanted desperately to believe that the Druid was lying, manipulating them, that Merlin would deny it. But he didn’t. And that told them all they needed to know.

The Druid stopped his pacing, coming to a stand still in front of Merlin and cupping one of his cheeks softly with his hand. The knights pretend not to see Merlin lean into it slightly as his tears continue to fall.

The Druid begins again, speaking softly once more:

“-Were those fears unfounded? Were those nightmares irrational? I see the terror in your eyes. I see how petrified of your King you are.-”

Merlin lets out a shaky breath and glances quickly to Arthur, before looking back at the man in front of him.

The King is taken aback, and the knights are furious at the flash of fear on Merlin’s face when his gaze had momentarily met Arthur’s.

“-What did he do, when he found out? When you bared your soul and gave him nothing but honesty, and undeserved apologies. What did he do?-”

Merlin lets out his first audible sob, and the Knights pull at their chains slightly, desperate to comfort their friend. Arthur slumps back, remembering his actions as if they were mere hours ago.

One of Merlin’s hands lifted to cover his mouth as he chokes back a second sob, but the other lifts subconsciously to tug at the scarf around his neck.

The Druid lets a single tear escape his eye as he waves his hand gently, the scarf disappearing with the gentle golden glow of his eyes.

Merlin seems too distraught to notice; and moves both hands to clamp tightly over his mouth as tears stream down his face. His shoulders hunch, but not enough for any of the knights to miss what the Druid had clearly been trying to expose; a thin, barely healed scar along the base of his throat. As if a sword had been pressed there.

The Druid’s eyes lose focus slightly and he frowns as he ghosts a finger over the scar, seemingly asking the next question to himself:

“-Nightmares on the back of your eyelids, or visions of the future, hmm?-”

His eyes refocus, and he cards a hand through Merlin’s hair, trying to calm the man’s heartache as the knights stare on in horror. 

Arthur resists the urge to look towards his knights, not wanting to see the disgusted glares he knows they’re sending his way.

The Druid pauses for a moment in his speech, waiting for Merlin to calm slightly before he quietly continued:

“-And what has he done since then? Has he allowed explanation? Has he seen the error of his ways and tried to understand? Or has he called you a liar, and a traitor. Has he called you a monster, whilst demanding that you continue to serve him?-”

Merlin’s breathing grows deeper as he struggles to control his sobs. He lowers his hands to be clenched at his sides, shaking, as the Druid softly places his hands on his shoulders.

His next words are spoken even quieter, though the knights can still hear him and the deadly anger that’s barely concealed in the man’s tone:

“-Has he laid hands on you, and called you a beast, while you cowered in fear, knowing that if you defended yourself he would see himself proven right?-”

Merlin let’s out loud, gasping sobs once more as the Druid’s hands travel softly down, from his shoulders to his wrists. There, he looks down, sorrow on his face as he carefully lifts Merlin’s sleeves, bunching them around his elbows.

The knights decide then and there they are going to protect Merlin no matter what, no matter from whom, as they each see the handprint shaped bruises littering Merlin’s arms.

“-He has hurt you, over and over and over-”

As he speaks, the Druid hovers his hands over the bruises, his eyes glowing softly golden as they heal.

“-And you despair, believing yourself worthless-”

Merlin flinches, and his sobbing grows more intense as his face is taken in soft hands.

“-waiting on a Golden Age that he refuses to bring. He is cruel, and unjust, how many more times must he hurt you? How many more of our people will the Pendragon line slaughter, out of misguided hatred? How much more sleep must you lose? How many more nightmares must you endure? You have stood loyally by his side for a decade, and had to stand and watch as he continued his father’s legacy, forced to believe it was destiny.-”

The Druid says “destiny” as if he hates the taste of the word in his mouth, the bloodshed of the past almost thirty years clearly having made him lose faith in the prophecies.

Merlin’s breathing has calmed slightly, and the knights aren’t sure whether to be relieved or frightened, as the Druid desperately continues, clutching Merlin’s hands in his own:

“-Too many lives have been lost, too much innocent blood spilt. Haven’t you yourself been forced to kill your own people to protect this False King from the consequences of his own actions?-”

The knights think too soon as Merlin’s breathing and sobs grow erratic once more. The manservant almost falls to the floor, his eyes clenched desperately shut, and only the Druids hands on his shoulders keeping him upright:

“-I was young, and naïve once. I too, believed in Arthur Pendragon, I believed in the prophecies, I believed he would a great king and a good man-”

He leans forward, pressing his forehead to Merlin’s as he gently says:

“-but he is not. He has failed you, and failed our people.-”

The Druid steps back, but still holds Merlin’s shoulder tightly as he gives him a pleading look.

The knights know what’s coming before it is said, and with the anguish and desperation and grief on their friend’s face? After they learned what their benevolent King had done? Well... they wouldn’t have blamed Merlin for saying yes.

“-I ask you to join me, Emrys. I know it’s difficult, to give up on a man you gave so much of yourself to, but there is too much Uther in him. It’s time, and you know this, to rewrite destiny. Dig your own path, liberate your own people, bring magic and compassion and harmony back to the world yourself.-”

Merlin, though distraught, still looks doubtful, and the knights hold their breath as the Druid continues, becoming more and more furious at their inability to speak. 

All of them have tears in their eyes, if not falling already, even Arthur, though he has remained still and blank through the tears.

“-I know the flames you fear, the sword’s edge, the gallows’ drop, the axe’s fall. Do not let our kin continue to fear those things, do not stand by, waiting for the Pendragon tyrant to change, and allowing sacrifices to be made in the mean time.-”

Merlin’s sobbing begins again, and the Druid kisses him softly on the forehead before kneeling to the floor, gripping Merlin’s hands and looking up at him desperately:

"-You are Emrys, Lord of the Druids, and Conduit for all magic of this world. Not some servant that an entitled brat can toss around and treat lesser than the dirt he walks on. You are my King, our King. Not him.-”

He stands again and grips Merlin’s arms tightly, most likely leaving more bruises in place of the ones he had healed.

Merlin doesn’t notice the pain, but shakes his head stutteringly, still crying.

“-Do not let your people lose you to Arthur, as Arthur lost himself to Uther. To give up on him is painful, but the screams of your kin, burning for their gifts, echoing in your skull day and night?-”

The Druid’s hands move up to grip the sides of Merlin’s head, and he shakes him ever so slightly, his tone frantic and pleading:

“-That is worse. That is pain he will never understand, and certainly never care for. Join me, please my Lord I beg you, for our people.”

One of the Druid’s hands slides lower, to softly cup Merlin’s cheek again, but the other drops entirely.

The knights have never resented being magically gagged more than in this moment. They could do nothing but watch on in horror as the man summons a dagger behind his back.

The Druid is clearly waiting on his response, and Merlin is too distraught to notice the consequences of a wrong answer, tears flowing quickly down his face and ugly sobs forcing their way out of his throat.

Arthur watches in terror, knowing that this was his fault, that every shitty, selfish decision he had ever made had to led to this point. And the knights knew it too.

All they can do is pray to every deity they know the name of, that Arthur has done enough damage for Merlin to say yes. And oh, what a terrible thing to pray for.

The Druid softly strokes Merlin’s cheekbone with his thumb as the Warlock takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself. He looks up, meeting the gaze of the man opposite him before croaking:

“I... I can’t. Arthur is a good man, I have faith that he will-”

Before he can finish his sentence, the dagger is thrust up into his chest, his words stuttering to a stop and his red-rimmed eyes growing wide at the sudden, agonising pain spreading throughout his body.

Merlin is vaguely aware of the knights pulling roughly at their chains, but he pays them no mind as blood gurgles up his throat and he frowns, struggling to hear what the Druid was whispering in his ear:

“Then you have forsaken your people, and so I shall forsake you. Traitor.”

With that, Merlin is dropped roughly to the floor, dagger still imbedded in his chest as he lands on his side. Blood spills from both his mouth and the wound, eyes unfocused but heavy as the tears continue to overflow.

The knights are silently screaming, thrashing against their chains as their friend chokes, but Merlin ignores them in favour of smiling gently at the soft feeling of nothing, growing outwards from his chest.

He frowns once more, as though remembering something, and his eyes go glassy as two words escape from his mouth, barely a whisper:

“I’m... sorry...”

An apology to whom, no one knows, but with those last words his body goes completely still, the pool of blood still expanding beneath him, and his eyes unseeingly staring just to the left of The King.

No one in the room can tear their eyes from Merlin’s pale corpse, face now a mess of tears and blood.

The Druid looks down at him with an odd mix of contempt, and genuine sorrow. He had obviously waited long enough that his resentment of Arthur had bled into his feelings for his so-called saviour, but still grieved for what could have been.

The Knights look at him in horror, all understanding that they had never been lucky, they had just had Merlin. He had never asked for thanks, or recognition, or reward. He had kept them all safe, at great expense to himself, and now he was dead.

Lancelot seems the... calmest, though he still cries like the rest of them. He had, in theory, known of the pain Merlin was in, but had he known it was plaguing him to this extent... well perhaps he wouldn’t have been so loyal to Arthur.

Arthur himself stares at Merlin with nothing but terror and agonising grief. He had done this. If he had just let Merlin explain, if he had just given him five minutes, instead of bruises and nightmares and fear, then he would still be alive. 

If he hadn’t been so selfish and cruel, perhaps hundreds of people, just like Merlin, just as scared and innocent as Merlin, would also be alive. 

Merlin had spent his entire time in Camelot trying to convince Arthur that he wasn’t his father... and Arthur had gone and proven him wrong at every turn. And even then Merlin still had faith, still called him a good man.

The silencing spell still has hold over the knights, so they cry and scream and thrash soundlessly as the Druid finally rips his gaze from the body at his feet.

He steps carefully around Merlin to stand in front of Arthur. The sorrow clears from his face, leaving only contempt and rage left to be directed at the man in front of him. Arthur does not look up, keeping his tear stained face focused on the floor, even as the Druid begins to speak:

“You see what you have done, Arthur Pendragon? You think magic is the thing that corrupts, but it is not. It is you. Emrys was meant to be a saviour, a God, a guiding light to help our people to safety, but you tainted him, reduced him to nothing more than a sad, scared boy, and then reduced him further, to a corpse. My hands are clean of blood Pendragon, but yours?? Oh, yours are drenched in it.”

Arthur slowly lifts his distraught gaze to the Druid, but quickly widens his eyes at what he sees.

Merlin stands behind the Druid, eyes glowing golden, tears once more streaming down his face as he grips the handle of the dagger, still buried in his chest.

The bloodstains grow even larger as he grimaces slightly and pulls it free, before wordlessly forcing it through the Druid’s back.

The man lets out a sudden gasp, and looks down to see just the tip of the blade poking out where his heart should be. He gargles something, words that no one can make out, before Merlin pulls the dagger out again, and his body crumples to the floor.

The knights and Arthur can feel the silencing spell release them, but none of them make even a noise as they stare in shock at their tormented, but very much alive, friend.

Merlin drops the dagger from his hand and it lands with a splash in the mixing puddles of blood, before he himself falls harshly to his knees.

The others finally break out of their stupor, once again pulling towards their friend. Their cries and shouts of his name can be heard by everyone but him as he leans forward, placing his forehead against that of the lifeless Druid.

His cries grow erratic again as he whispers apology after apology, and every heart breaks even more at the sight before them.

They know why he apologises, they know why he grieves, even over a man who had tried to... had succeeded in killing him. The death of yet another of his own kind who was sick of waiting, who was rightfully angry, was not something to be celebrated.

They had thought, at the beginning of this, that they would get through whatever the Druid threw at them, they always did. But this, the brokenness of one of their dearest friends, was not something that looks fixable.

Merlin finally sits up again and he sobs louder, still deaf and blind to those around him. Lancelot has just enough time to yell at the others to cover their eyes, as a gut-wrenching scream escapes the Warlock.

They’re almost blinded, even with their eyes tightly shut and their arms thrown up. The scream is the loudest, and most anguished they’ve ever heard, and the force in which Merlin releases his magic completely eviscerates the hut they had been chained in.

Each of them is thrown violently backwards, and their chains crumble to the floor with the rest of the building as they try to find purchase on the ground. None of them are hurt too badly, and they’re grateful for the fact that even in this state, Merlin’s magic seems incapable of really causing them any damage.

The scream ends, and the knights look up to see Merlin sat in the middle of the crater he had created, staring blankly into the middle distance. Tears still stream down his face, but he doesn’t move and he makes no sound, just kneels there with his blood soaked hands on his lap, palms towards the sky.

It takes a few moments for the knights to regain their senses, but once they do, all hell breaks loose.

Gwaine immediately gets to his feet and makes a rush towards Arthur, fully intending on throttling him, screaming obscenities as he went, but Percival and Elyan jump forward, grabbing an arm each and dragging him away as he curses the King and the Sky and the Gods.

As much as Percival and Elyan were not impartial to killing Arthur right now, Merlin was the priority, and as much as he may have deserved it, Merlin would never forgive them if they hurt the King.

Arthur seems to be unaware of the attempt on his life made by one of his most trusted knights, and just stares blankly at an equally blank Merlin.

Lancelot and Leon make a bee-line for the Warlock, but stop just short of touching him, not knowing how he would react. 

Leon nods gently at Lancelot, clearly having picked up that this knight had already known at least part of the story. Lancelot returns his nod, before moving forward slowly. The body of the Druid lays untouched at Merlin’s knees, and the knight removes his cloak, laying it over him, before reaching a slow hand towards Merlin’s shoulder.

He finally makes contact after a little hesitation, whispering his name as gently and as comfortingly as he is able with tears still leaking from his eyes.

Merlin doesn’t react at all to Lancelot’s touch, not even when he takes his bloody hand, or shakes his shoulder slightly; just sits and stares and cries.

Leon gulps before reaching forward himself. He grabs the dagger from besides Merlin and tosses it behind him (he didn’t like to think about that action too much. He has no idea what state his friend is in right now, best to not have any sharp instruments within his reach when he came to.) before lifting his hand to wipe away the man’s tears.

Arthur stares upon all of this in horror from his position sprawled on the floor a few metres away.

Elyan and Percival have just about managed to calm Gwaine, and they begin making their way to Leon, Lancelot, and Merlin, but before they get even halfway there, Arthur finally speaks.

His voice breaks, and is barely audible, but everyone hears him nonetheless as he murmurs:

“I did this...”

Gwaine makes another run at him, regaining his anger, and Percival and Elyan just about manage to grab him before he commits regicide.

Lancelot and Leon look up at him sharply, but when Lancelot lowers his gaze and continues to try and rouse Merlin, Leon holds the King’s gaze, and says strongly:

“Yes. Yes you did, My Lord.”

Arthur’s face crumbles even more, and Leon glares at him with venom for a few more seconds, before giving Lancelot a soft pat on the back, and walking towards the other three.

He mumbles a few harsh things that only Gwaine can hear, who responds at first with more anger, but then resignation. The First Knight gives the man a pat on the back and nods knowingly at Elyan and Percival. No one, not even Gwaine, pretends to miss the meaning of “be ready to catch him again” in the gesture.

Arthur stays in his position on the floor as the four of them walk softly towards Merlin and Lancelot, but before they get there, everyone’s gazes are drawn to the shadow in the sky, getting closer and closer.

It moves with an alarming place, and their anger at Arthur is momentarily forgotten as he scrambles up and screams:

“DRAGON!!”

Gwaine, Elyan, Percival and Arthur rush forward to stand between the beast and the other three. They have no armour or weapons, but like hell were they just going to let it get to them.

Lancelot looks up to see the white, horse sized beast land heavily in front of The King, his eyes widen and he jumps up, rushing forward to push between the others.

Leon moves to hold a still unresponsive Merlin behind his back protectively, but frowns in confusion when Lancelot yells at Arthur (who had been about to run at the beast):

“NO! No don’t hurt her! She’s Merlin’s, don’t hurt her!”

Everyone looks at him in confusion and fear as he slowly approaches the Dragon, she had been growling lowly at first, but seemed to perk up when she saw Lancelot.

Lancelot gives her a small smile, and holds his hand out, allowing her to come to him, before quietly saying:

“I’ve never been more glad to see you, Aithusa. Merlin is over here.”

He turns back towards the others, and calmly, but forcefully says:

“Move. She needs to see him.”

Gwaine nods after a moment, trusting Lancelot, and moves out of the way. Arthur goes to argue, but Elyan and Percival roughly shove him to the side, clearing a path to Merlin and Leon for Lancelot and the new, slightly terrifying, arrival.

Leon looks up fearfully, still in front of Merlin protectively. He stares at the Dragon for a few moments, breathing deeply, before looking up at Lancelot. Lancelot gives him a weak smile, and a nod before saying quietly:

“He’s a Dragon-Lord. She can help him, it’s ok.”

Leon gulps, before nodding, and stepping out of the way. He doesn’t move too far, obviously still affected by his last encounter with a Dragon, and watches with unconcealed suspicion as Aithusa prances around Lancelot at his nod.

The others crowd closer as well, looking on in confusion, awe, suspicion, as Aithusa slowly approaches Merlin.

She lays down at his side, gently pressing her head onto Merlin’s hands, still in his lap. Her mouth opens and Leon gasps as she blows a gentle mist up into his face. Merlin’s back straightens and the knights can see his eyes come back into focus as he blinks.

They all stare with bated breath as he gulps, and begins to notice his surroundings; looking in fear at the crater around him.

Merlin is broken from his growing panic as Aithusa chirps softly from his lap, and his head whips down, only now noticing her.

The knights let out a collective breath as he smiles, very slightly and very briefly, but still; after what they had just seen him go through they would take anything. He leans his head down, and wraps his arms around the creature. She chirps once again, louder this time, as she uses her tail to push away the forgotten Druid’s corpse. 

She curls her body around Merlin protectively, and he collapses even further into the semi-embrace she’s giving him. The knights smile slightly, relieved that Merlin seems responsive, and safe, before they take slow steps towards the two of them.

She whips her head up quickly and growls at them, digging her front claws into the ground. They take in sudden breaths and stop moving, wary, but she stops growling when she looks to Lancelot.

The others stare on in shock and confusion as she tilts her head slightly, and Lancelot nods as he quietly says:

“They’re friends, it’s ok.”

The creature seems to nod, and the others follow behind Lancelot as he begins moving towards Merlin again.

He crouches down, and gives Aithusa a well-received scratch on the chin, before he gently places a hand between Merlin’s shoulder-blades.

Percival, Elyan, Gwaine, and finally Leon follow suit, sitting carefully next to the Dragon, but unlike Lancelot, they don’t touch her, or Merlin. She may seem safe and loving and on their side, but she was still a Dragon.

Arthur moves a little slower, not sure if he’s welcome (he’s not) but when he gets within five feet of the group huddled on the floor, Aithusa lifts her head and growls again.

Elyan and Percival are shocked at the sudden movement, but Gwaine smirks, and Leon nods his head approvingly (though he’s still understandably... nervous). Lancelot looks back at a shocked and still tear-stricken Arthur, and speaks. His voice is quiet, but his tone is vicious:

“They have a mental link; she sees what he sees. It might be best, Your Majesty, for you to stay away.”

He doesn’t bother to watch Arthur’s reaction; he turns back and begins carding a soft hand through Merlin’s hair. He flinches only slightly before relaxing under the soft ministrations, and Aithusa gives Lancelot an affectionate lick on the arm.

The other knights do see the way that Arthur flinches, before he gives a shaky nod and takes a few steps back. He goes to say something, but the tears in his eyes overflow, and he turns to walk away.

Gwaine’s smirk grows slightly before he drops it entirely and turns back to the others, no longer caring what Arthur got up to. He is the first of the knights, other than Lancelot, to be brave enough to reach a hand forward and stroke Aithusa gently.

Elyan and Percival hesitatingly follow his lead, and Aithusa chirps happily at the attention. Leon’s gaze follows Arthur as he walks towards the horses.

They were far away, well out of the way of Merlin’s blast, but even with the distance Leon could see they were shaken. Thankfully they had been tied to the trees, otherwise he’s certain they would have bolted.

Leon finds it only slightly surprising that he feels no sympathy for the King. There’s only so much you can forgive a man for. When Arthur finally reaches the horses and begins untacking them, he looks away, back to Aithusa and Merlin.

Everyone can tell that Camelot’s First Knight is still rather shaken at the presence of the Dragon, but when Merlin looks up slightly to see him still sat there, unwilling to leave him, his heart swells a little.

Leon meets his gaze and gulps, but returns Merlin’s shaky smile.

The other knights smile as well, glad that Merlin was feeling at least a little better, and Percival speaks quietly, not wanting to spook him (or the Dragon):

“Hey, there’s our lucky charm.”

The other knights give him questioning looks but Merlin just chuckles slightly, before sitting up properly, and focusing his attention on running his fingers over Aithusa’s scales, picking out grass and mud.

Percival looks indignant before replying, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world:

“What? You honestly thought that tree branches only fell if there was a fight happening, and then only fell on the enemies?? The rock-falls? The fires even when it was pouring with rain?? The miraculous solutions to end-of-the-world type problems?? Come on, guys.”

The others look taken aback at that, but Lancelot just smiles knowingly. They all look to Merlin, who has managed to wipe the blood from his face with his sleeve, and he just shrugs slightly.

The rest of them, bar Leon, let out small huffs of laughter, and continue to stroke Aithusa, knowing that Merlin almost certainly isn’t ready for an actual conversation yet.

Merlin looks at Leon’s pale form assessingly, before a look of realisation crosses his face. The knight is tense, and staring at Aithusa’s sharp teeth with worry, but his gaze is quickly drawn to Merlin when he reaches a shaky hand towards him.

Merlin gives him an understanding smile, and crooks his fingers, encouraging the curly-haired knight to take his hand. Leon does so, and his breath hitches as Merlin lowers their intertwined hand to rest on the top of Aithusa’s head.

Leon lets out a slow breath as he feels Elyan’s supportive hand on his back, but relaxes fully when he sees the sparkle in Merlin’s eyes. Anything to make their Warlock happy in this moment. And forever, probably.

Gwaine looks at Leon out of the corner of his eye, and says lowly:

“I’m fairly certain I’m going to try and kill him if I look at him again, so what’s the King up to?”

Merlin tenses slightly, but Leon squeezes his hand and he relaxes again. Lancelot raises and eyebrow and before Leon can reply, he says:

“What, no princess?”

Gwaine narrows his eyes before gruffly saying:

“Princess was an affectionate nickname, and I’m not feeling all that affectionate towards him right now.”

The others nod knowingly, turning their attention back to Merlin and Aithusa. Leon leaves his hand in Merlin’s, but looks at Gwaine before saying lowly:

“He went to deal with the horses. Now we know we no longer need a quick get-away, they need untacking and feeding and watering. They were pretty spooked by... they were pretty spooked.”

Leon looks back at Merlin when his hand gets squeezed, to see him frowning slightly. Leon catches his eye and gives him a small smile, but Merlin just gets teary-eyed again, before sniffing and muttering:

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to I just... I’m sorry.”

Only a single tear has time to fall before Lancelot has his hand on Merlin’s shoulder again (comfortingly), and Elyan has his hand on Gwaine’s shoulder (forcefully). Leon shakes his head softly, and responds in a gentle voice:

“You don’t have anything to apologise for Merlin, we are the ones who should be sorry, for not being able to protect you.”

Merlin’s frown deepens, and he goes to retort, but Gwaine beats him to it, obviously trying to keep the anger out of his voice:

“From the so-called Druid and from him. We should have done better.”

Leon can feel Merlin’s hand begin to shake, so he squeezes it once more as Merlin shakes his head and speaks, his voice sounding stronger already:

“It’s not his fault. He was just shaken and scared and I should have-”

Gwaine clenches his jaw, struggling to keep control of his rage, but Elyan grips his shoulder tighter in warning, and replies in his stead, interrupting Merlin:

“There’s no excuse Merlin. All of us have been attacked by magic, but equally, all of us have been attacked by swords. I mean look at Leon, giving Dragons a second chance after what happened. I would perhaps understand brief anger, but there is no way to justify laying his hands on you in such a way that leaves bruises, and certainly no justification for putting a blade to your throat.”

Merlin frowns, and looks like he wants to argue, but once again, a knight beats him to it, Lancelot this time:

“No, Merls. We know how much he means to you. But what he did was wrong, there’s no rationalisation. We all know that you’ve already forgiven him, and that’s why we can’t yet. Probably not for a while.”

Merlin sighs, looking pained, and Leon uses his other hand to tilt his chin up:

“Not to say that we won’t ever forgive him. But someone has to be angry at him for what he’s done, and Lord knows you aren’t gonna do it. Consider us your stand-ins.”

Merlin smiles slightly, and Leon considers that a win, returning the smile and nodding slightly to himself, before looking back down at the Dragon, now seemingly asleep, and purring, on Merlin’s lap.

Elyan releases the death grip on Gwaine’s shoulder, when the now much calmer knight, with a smile on his face, says:

“So... you have a Dragon??”

Merlin chuckles fondly, before looking to him and saying quietly:

“Yeah. Her name is Aithusa. I’m surprised she came alone, Kilgharrah usually doesn’t like it when she runs off.”

Lancelot winces slightly as the other knights look shocked, before Percival says:

“Kil-what-now? There’s another one??”

Merlin grimaces slightly, before looking to Leon worriedly and tightening the grip on his hand:

“Uhh... yeah. Kilgharrah is the name of the Dragon that... attacked Camelot a few years ago.-”

Leon straightens his back and gulps, but doesn’t remove his hand from Merlin’s, nodding at him to continue:

“-I didn’t have control over him until right at the end. I told him to leave and never come back, unless I called him-”

Lancelot makes a noise of realisation as he nods, and interrupts Merlin:

“That’s probably why Aithusa came alone. You didn’t call for her, and technically we’re still within Camelot’s borders. He couldn’t come even if he wanted to. Poor sod is probably clomping around at the edge of the border freaking out.”

Merlin looks to Lancelot and nods, satisfied to feel Leon relax a bit, before looking back to the First Knight apologetically:

“-He does feel really bad at that. He just wanted to get back at Uther for the whole... genocide thing I guess. But that’s no excuse. I just didn’t want to be the one to be responsible for killing the last Dragon, even if Kilgharrah personally might’ve deserved it at the time. That was all before Aithusa came along.”

Everyone nods in understanding, before focussing their attention back on Aithusa. She really was like a giant puppy, even if they had to be wary to avoid her claws as she twitched in her sleep.

Merlin sighs, looking forlorn once again as he realises how exhausted he is, knowing that they’re going to have to get up and make camp at some point. 

He can cope with an awkward, tense silence between him and Arthur easily enough, that’s what the last few weeks had consisted of. But an awkward and tense silence between everyone? Elyan and Percival inwardly fuming? Gwaine outwardly fuming? Leon and Lancelot being all protective? He’s not sure he can deal with that.

At Merlin’s sigh, Lancelot tilts his head to catch his eye. His brow creases as he says softly:

“What is it, Merls?”

Merlin looks up, still squeezing Leon’s hand, before quietly replying:

“Nothing, I’m just tired. We have to re-make camp at some point and I’m not sure if I can deal with everyone being so...”

He waves his free hand around loosely, and Lancelot huffs out a laugh, before kicking Gwaine, getting everyone’s attention:

“We have to go make camp. But Merlin is exhausted, and doesn’t want to deal with any of this shit tonight, so we’re all going to have to play nice for the time being.”

Gwaine growls, and quickly retorts:

“Like hell am I gonna treat him with-”

Lancelot kicks him again, harder this time, and Elyan replaces the harsh hand on his shoulder before forcefully saying:

“Right now, it doesn’t matter what Arthur deserves. Merlin needs peace and quiet, and that’s what we’re going to give him.”

Gwaine grumbles, but begrudgingly nods, and Merlin gives him a grateful smile. 

The knights all stand up, and Merlin shakes Aithusa awake, giving a small chuckle when she stretches like a cat.

Once she takes her weight off of his lap, Merlin follows the knights to stand, almost falling over at the weakness in his legs. Leon and Lancelot catch an arm each, steadying him as he shuts his eyes tightly, willing the dizziness away.

He feels a hand wipe the hair from his forehead, and opens his eyes slowly to see Percival checking him over with an assessing gaze:

“I’m fine, just tired, a little dizzy.”

Lancelot nods in understanding, humming slightly:

“Hmm. I’m not surprised, you haven’t done anything this big in a while, and I doubt you’ve slept well in the last few weeks.”

Merlin gives him a sheepish look as he shakes his head, but it’s Elyan’s questioning gaze that Lancelot responds to:

“I found out by accident when I first met him. Our Warlock isn’t very good at keeping secrets.”

He says it with a small smirk as he looks back down to Merlin, who’s looking indignant:

“Hey! I managed to keep everyone else from finding out.”

Gwaine looks guilty as he raises his arm quietly:

“Actually uh... I knew. I mean not about the whole Emrys, prophecy thing. But the magic stuff, yeah.”

Merlin looks at him, shocked. The other knights share his expression for just a moment before they laugh at the look on Merlin’s face:

“How?!”

Gwaine puts his arm down and laughs again:

“Mate... we met in the middle of a tavern fight, in which shit started literally flying about the moment you joined in.-”

He shrugged, before casually continuing:

“-I figured you would tell me when you wanted to. Until then, it wasn’t my secret to know. You also have me to thank for backing you up every time The Prick asked if I saw you at the tavern.”

Merlin laughed and nodded his thanks, before looking over to where said Prick was setting up camp, a few metres beyond the edge of the crater.

His face fell slightly and the others follow his gaze, tensing slightly in anger when they saw what he was looking at. Merlin takes his arms from Leon and Lancelot, finally feeling steady on his feet, before quietly saying:

“Come on, we might as well get this over with. I’m starving, and tired, and Aithusa will get bored if we don’t start entertaining her.”

Everyone turns around to see Aithusa (now she was sure that her Lord was ok), prancing about in the crater; chasing birds and digging holes.

Merlin raises an eyebrow and everyone else chuckles slightly. Gwaine pushes Lancelot out of the way and takes Merlin’s hand, beginning to walk determinedly towards camp. Everyone catches up quickly, Leon taking Merlin’s other hand when the man had reached out to grab his cape.

Gwaine looks down at Merlin, seeing how nervous he is, and says:

“So. How long until she’s big enough to be ridden? I want you to take me flying, Merlin.”

Merlin chuckles, and looks back to see Aithusa happily trailing them:

“Not for a while. Dragons grow slow, so it’ll be another few years at least. Plus she’s got some issues with bone growth that we’re still trying to fix. She’ll be fine in the long run, but her development is taking a lot longer than normal. She still can’t speak.”

Everyone stops at that, and Merlin’s arms get yanked back when he continued walking. He turns to see Leon giving him an incredulous look:

“Dragons can speak?!”

Merlin tilts his head in confusion, before laughing and tugging them forwards again:

“Yeah. I forget that Uther basically erased all knowledge on Dragons, but they’re just as intelligent as we are. Kilgharrah would like to think that they’re more intelligent, but he’s always been a cryptic, egotistical bastard.-”

The others follow his pace and nod, but the mood darkens as they almost reach the camp. Merlin continues faintly, but quickly:

“I’ll tell you everything I know when... when we get back.”

Leon squeezes his hand, knowing that he was about to say “if”, assuring him that “when” is the right word.

Arthur looks up at the group and gulps from his place next to the fire. He straightens up, the anxiety showing clearly on his face, but before anyone can say anything, Aithusa jumps in between him.

He falls back at the sudden movement and she begins to growl; he widens his eyes as she stalks slowly towards him.

Gwaine smirks again, the others managing to keep their faces blank, but Merlin looks shocked, before he jumps forward and puts a hand on the Dragon’s back:

“Aithusa no. He’s a... friend. It’s ok, he’s-”

Arthur jumps to his feet and interrupts him:

“No, no it’s fine. I’ll... go... sit over there.”

He gestures behind him, and walks quickly away from the fire, sitting just within the fire’s light, the evening dimming around them.

Aithusa tilts her head, snaps her jaws at him once more before completely changing disposition. She begins bouncing around the fire, chirping happily and playfully trying to catch floating embers in her claws.

Merlin smiles slightly and the other knights (bar Gwaine, who is glaring very pointedly at Arthur) chuckle at her antics, before they all sit in a semi circle on the opposite side of the fire to Arthur, Merlin in the middle.

The Warlock is once again wedged protectively between Leon and Gwaine, and he fiddles softly with Leon’s cape in his lap as he stares fondly at Aithusa.

Elyan moves to the packs, unloading food and water and cooking pots. Merlin gets up to help, but Gwaine pulls him back down by the hand and holds on firmly as he says:

“You’ve been through enough. We can put up with Elyan’s shitty cooking for a couple nights.”

Merlin tries to pull away with a “But I can-” but Leon grabs his other hand, holding him down and interrupting:

“Absolutely not. You said yourself that you’re tired. If Elyan needs help, he can ask one of us.”

Merlin huffs sulkily and Leon laughs, stroking the back of his hand protectively.

Leon had known Merlin just as long as Arthur had, and whilst they had virtually nothing to do with each other the first few years, they were still friendly acquaintances, even then. Leon knew full well that it was Merlin who would have a hot meal left in his room after a late patrol, and Merlin always appreciated how Leon kept as many weapons in the armoury in as good nick as possible, so Merlin didn’t have to deal with it.

Besides, even before they knew each other’s names, Leon always found Merlin’s reactions to Arthur’s stupidity funny. He could hardly say it out loud, being the Perfect Knight and all, but he always thought it was a good thing that Arthur had someone at his side keeping him humble, and calling him out in ways no one else would.

Of course they had gotten much closer over the years, as did all of the knights, thanks to Merlin. Currently, Leon was feeling just a tinge of regret at being so grateful for Merlin’s presence at Arthur’s side; he had never really thought about how difficult being that man’s babysitter would be, especially now he knew Merlin had magic. And some sort of destiny.

Time passes fairly quickly whilst Elyan cooks, the others taking to heart what Lancelot had said and trying to keep a quiet, but easy conversation going.

They ask Merlin various questions about Aithusa, Kilgharrah, the Druids, the weird name that he had been called. He answered them all easily enough, but they notice the way he hesitates when they ask about his magic specifically or the prophecies, so they steer clear of those topics.

They’ll definitely want to know the whole story eventually, and they’re practically buzzing with desperation to ask Merlin to show them something magical, but they know that now is not the time.

Dinner is finally served, and despite Gwaine’s statement, it wasn’t actually that bad. Mainly because every time Elyan went to add something to the pot, he would look back desperately at Merlin, and took into account the shakes and nods of his head with a grateful smile.

He did struggle to cover the scowl on his face when he delivered Arthur’s bowl to him, replying to The King’s quiet “thank you, Elyan” with an even quieter “don’t mention it” .

Dinner was eaten quickly and in silence. They hadn’t been unconscious for long, and hour or two at most, but they had all worked up an understandable appetite, Merlin especially. He would never ask for seconds, but knowing that, Elyan gave him an extra big serving without a word.

They entertained themselves after dinner by throwing the last scraps of meat to Aithusa, watching her jump and flip and fly about the camp. Merlin had objected at first, but gave in when he saw the small grin on Leon’s face, and heard the way the others were laughing. The City was only a few days ride away, they could always hunt on the way back.

It didn’t take long for her to tire out and curl up at Merlin’s feet to sleep. Like Merlin had mentioned, Aithusa was developing slowly, and she normally couldn’t fly very far; it must’ve taken a huge amount of energy and effort for her to get all the way here. But like the Knights, she was very protective, and there was no way she could not check on her Lord, after she and Kilgharrah had felt the anguish he was in.

As Kilgharrah once again crosses Merlin’s mind, he sighs, and makes mental note to call him in the morning, when he had more energy.

Merlin is distracted from his thoughts when the camp goes silent all of a sudden, and Gwaine reaches over to squeeze his hand. He looks up in worry, to see that Arthur had stood, and walked a little closer, though he made sure to stay the other side of the fire.

Merlin tenses slightly. He tries not to let it show, but he can knows that he failed when he feels Leon’s hand firmly in the middle of his back. Hidden from the others, but a silent reassurance.

Arthur gulps, obviously nervous, but he meets Merlin’s gaze, flinching at the slight fear in his eyes:

“Merlin, I know nothing I say will-”

He’s interrupted by Gwaine growling and standing suddenly, stepping in front of Merlin protectively, but it’s Lancelot’s harsh words that cut him off fully:

“Not tonight, Arthur. We’re all tired and angry so just... not tonight.”

Arthur clenches his jaw, and blinks away tears before nodding:

“Yes, I... I understand.”

With that, he sniffles slightly before taking a step back. He looks to the floor as he mumbles something about checking the perimeter, before slowly walking away from the camp, into the night.

Merlin lets out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding, and relaxes slightly as Leon runs his hand over his back. Gwaine stares after Arthur for a few moments, deliberating on whether or not to follow him (and presumably, kick his ass). Merlin reaching up to take his hand and pull him back down makes his mind up, and he settles back into his seat, Merlin’s small hand clasped between his two larger ones.

Percival speaking up breaks the tense silence:

“It’s late and Lance is right, we’re all tired. If we want to make quick work of the journey home, and have time to hunt, then we should get some sleep.”

Murmurs of agreement float up around the group, and Gwaine, voice still tense and angry, says:

“I’ll take first-”

But he’s quickly interrupted by Elyan, softly laughing:

“Absolutely not, Gwaine. If you’re left alone we’ll all wake to find the King dead in the morning.”

Gwaine raises a challenging eyebrow, not denying anything, and Elyan huffs, Percival muttering:

“Fine. But I’m taking it with you so you don’t get a chance to smother him.”

Gwaine gives a sarcastic looking smile, before ruffling Merlin’s hair fondly and walking towards the fire. He adds another log, grabs his bedroll, and settles down against a tree, Percival sitting at his side.

Everyone else gathers their rolls, and whilst normally they spread out, they all seem rather desperate to stay as close to Merlin as possible.

Normally he would complain, they all snore, and Merlin is definitely expecting nightmares tonight, but he can’t find it in himself to send them away, and to be perfectly honest, he's certain that they would just move back the moment he closed his eyes anyway.

The Warlock finds himself tucked under Lancelot’s arm, with Leon a respectful distance away on his other side, though still within arm’s reach. Elyan settles somewhere below his feet, and for the first time in weeks, Merlin finds himself fully relaxed. 

Aithusa sleepily moves from her spot by Merlin’s feet, to curl up with Gwaine and Percival, and Merlin smiles at the thought that she not only trusts his friends in general, but trusts them enough to leave Merlin in their care. Dragons are protective and possessive creatures, and that trust speaks volumes.

Merlin is still a little miserable, and he almost resents himself for still being scared of Arthur despite his obvious regret, but... with all that happened... well. You can’t really blame him.

He’s got a gaggle of very protective knights around him, one of which he can vaguely hear trying to persuade another to commit regicide when no one was looking.

He has time to huff out a small laugh as Lancelot pulls him closer, before he drifts off; much quicker than he thought he would. He was comforted by the warmth behind him, the presence at his feet, the guardians watching over him, and the hand reaching towards him in the dark, just about close enough to lay fingers over Merlin’s heartbeat.

No nightmares plague him that night, and he doesn’t even wake to the warning growls sent Arthur’s way when he eventually returned to camp.

The next few days, hell, the next few months would probably be difficult, but he finds himself not as anxious now he knows he won’t have to face it alone.

~

THE END

I don’t think I’ll write a part two to this, but if someone wants to extend it, feel free, same as normal: credit and tag me :)

I’ve had the whole speech written out in full in my phone notes for like two months, but only recently got round to actually turning it into anything. I hope ya’ll enjoyed it!! I wanted to write something hella angsty so....

I’m fairly certain whatever I write next will be the dead opposite of this (FLUFF fluff) but honestly who knows.

Let me know if there’s anything specific you want my thoughts on :)