#until the political pendulum swings the right way again

[corallapis]

from doctor who: in-vision #65, mawdryn undead

[cassatine]

I would love to know your ideas about Daemon/Rhaenyra and their deranged love!

Ongoing manifesto is [here]

that being said idk that’s a bit. too vague and open-ended a question. pls be more specific next time but for now:

They’re the same person in different bodies and they both looked at their mirror self and thought yeah I’d tap that?? And after ten years of separation, ten years of distance from the mirror self, the only one that truly understood them: I’d rather burn the world down I’d rather be feared than live without that again?? Heights of Targ psychosexual fuckery right there!!

They both subscribe to the idea that only dragon people are real people! Targaryen exceptionalism all the way for them. Why do you think even Rhaenyra’s love for Alicent did not translate to understanding or protection or anything beyond ‘love me fear me adore me’.

Not to deny the unhinged romanticism of the “meant to burn together” line but what I’m personally obsessed by is “they will fear what else we might be capable of”, like that’s their thesis statement and political program rolled into one and it’s hot as fuck. Also stupid as fuck, because that program hasn’t worked out that well for any dynasty in the long term, like, ever, but also: better burn together than keep on living a half life. Viserys called them “restless and chaotic” back when he first thought they’d shagged and really, he’d pegged them right. They tried normalcy (as much as feudal people with pet metaphorical nuclear weapons can be normal) and it turned out to suck ass — “happy enough”, says Daemon of his time with Laena (which, ouch), “droll tragedy”, says Rhaenyra of her life, of her years trying to play by the rules (also ouch). And they’d have gone back to it if not for each other — one spousal funeral reunion shag of tenderness and they were like “meant to burn together” never gonna be separated again!! No cost too dear!!

I get that the argument that they’re getting married for political reasons only get people’s hackles up, and lbr it is on the level of saying water is dry, but imo swinging the pendulum to the other extreme (nothing to do with the political at all) isn’t that much better in the end. It is a political partnership. Rhaenyra doesn’t say “with you as my husband and prince consort my claim wouldn’t be so easily challenged” for people to say that she hasn’t taken the political repercussions of a wedding into account. And whether Rhaenyra is really, really crap at maths or whether she’s fudging the numbers because she wants Daemon that bad (it’s the later, of course it’s the later), the fact is that she makes a political argument for their getting married. Sometimes people both want to climb each other and to be a political power couple steamrolling all opposition until everything explodes in their face (better have everything explode in your face than go through life like you’re already dead for one minute longer than needed).

Rhaenyra has it bad for Daemon, but she has it bad for the throne too. If she didn’t she’d cut her losses and they’d move to Pentos or wherever, and she is very much not gonna do that. They love each other insanely, but they love power too.

Laenor is a darling and we love him but by ep7 it’s kinda obvious that while Rhaenyra does like him she’s been disappointed in him as a political partner for a while (ftr it’s understandable that he’s flaky, what with the trauma of what happened re: Joffrey). He gives her the ‘ready to commit now’ speech and for ten years she’d have had to take it even with no way to know whether Laenor would follow up on it, because she had no other option, but alas for him he gives her the speech after Daemon pops up, freshly single, while the situation with Alicent and the Greens hits No Return Point, and Rhaenyra says: actually yes I deserve a husband that supports me, a political partner I can actually trust to look after my interests, one who will kill a bitch for me, and that ain’t you.

She didn’t free Laenor!! It’s not a victory for the gays!! She functionally exiled him because she chose Daemon over him. She told her husband and friend of ten years to fuck off to Essos and never come back and let his family believe him dead because her mirror self was back and it’s her mirror self she wants. Let her and Daemon be selfish on that one instead of dressing it up as a victory for us queers.

Everyone goes on about Rhaenyra having a case of gender, and she sure fucking does, but you know who else does? Fucking Daemon, that’s who. Viserys says he’s the Visenya of the family. He straights up wields Visenya’s sword. He was sent off to Runestone where his wife was in charge, and where all that would have been expected of him was to do the do and bring forth some heirs, which in Westeros is what's expected of women (also he’d obv. have resented being married to a normie and not another Targ, because only dragon people are real people), and being a cursed mix of extreme insecurity and overblown dragon pride he simply couldn’t handle any of it, hence the extremely unhappy wedding with Rhea, but also his tendency to overperform masculinity à la westorosi (violence). And yet he’s gonna fucking kneel to Rhaenyra!!

Daemon is literally going to crown her!! I am the crown (I am the realm) she told Criston and what’s the one title Daemon will take? Protector of the Realm. He’s going to die for her!! Fighting her war!! Just like Rhaenys died fighting Aegon’s war!!

Ok. Look. Wherever canon goes — at the end of the day some people see incestuous legacies fuckery and like clockwork they go, oh the latest generation has to fuck and do it in full ancestors cosplay while insistently calling each other by familial relationship terms, and they have to make it weird for everyone else, and they also have to kill a lot people to maintain their grasp on power, and by some people I mean me.

[x-amount-verbs]

Learning the Rules

(inspired by @insult-2-injury ‘s Professor/TA grad school fic The Politics of Power - also using their OC, Gracie’s, name for the 4 name drops in the whole thing)

[silco x f!oc (very limited naming)] [4.8k words] [NSFW] [professor/TA] [Dom silco] [mean silco] [very mean] [sadist silco tbh] [discipline] [use of Sir] [spanking] [forced orgasm/overstim] [a bit of degradation/humiliation] [dirty talk] [a hint of bratting] [a few tears]

[can’t believe at one point I thought this would just be one discord post of an idea, and it turned into 4K+ words 🥴 anyway, no lie this is probably also inspired by Secretary, lol -verbs]

They’re grading papers (as per usual) in the lecture hall most often used for his classes, since the office is uncharacteristically crowded at the moment. It’s after regular class hours, but she committed to doing this job right, and refuses to be seen as shirking her duties.

It does get tiresome, though. One can only read the same varying-degrees-of-correct answers so many times before the words start blurring together.

She gets up, to shake out stiff limbs. Arms lift and head tilts back as she stretches, lips twitching into an almost smug smile as her back cracks: very satisfying. The little shimmy to shake out her lower back makes her skirt swish against upper thighs, and she tugs down the hem to a more appropriate length.

She senses that magnetic pull, and the idea occurs to her— Her gaze cuts sideways, surreptitiously, wondering if her unintentional show caught the professor’s attention.

Silco, apparently, has hardly noticed. After swearing she felt eyes on her… She might be a little let down about that.

There’s a brief pause.

Did she imagine it? No. No way, she knows that feeling by now, when his attention is on her, and she felt it.

Sighing out a breath, her next stretch is more pronounced, part of her curious what it might take to pull his focus. Knee kicked up to stretch her quads, arm pulled across her chest, none of it catches his eye. Until—

The soft noise from her throat as she arches her back, hands laced behind her, seems to do it. Unfortunately, one can’t observe another’s eyes without risking being seen as well.

She tries to seem nonchalant, to match his casual disinterest, even as their eyes meet. That single fiery iris makes her burn, but she maintains her indifferent look, despite the heat creeping up her neck. Just finishes her sinuous stretch, even as his gaze scalds and chills her in equal measure.

Then his eyes drop back to his work, pen tracing along the line he’s reading, and she’s forgotten again. She shouldn’t feel as disappointed as she is.

Turning her back to him, her lips twist in a petulant pout that quickly passes. It’s boring. For a moment she thought he might say something, even if it would be just to ridicule her, but no. The man is an actually decent teacher - or, at least, he wants students to be committed to his class - so he puts in the time to teach those willing to learn. Admirable, but frustrating.

Not that she has any right to be frustrated; he’s doing his job, as she should do hers. But he still frustrates her. And she’s sick of reading the same six answers again and again.

Looking for a distraction, she wanders away from the table she was seated at, fingers tracing along the humped edges of seat after seat lined up nearly next to one another. Eyes wander. Something catches her eye, and she lets out a scoff.

She doesn’t need to look to know the noise has drawn at least a fraction of his attention. No words necessary as she feels the pressure of his unspoken query.

In answer, she approaches the object of her scorn, picking it up in one hand: a wooden ruler.

“Why is this even here?” She pinches it a couple inches from the top, swings it back and forth like a pendulum. “It’s a poli sci course, not geometry.”

His attention is on her, she can feel it, but when she looks, his gaze is back on the paper he’s grading, scanning it with his capped pen pressed to a spot on the page. “One would argue,” he murmurs, coolly, “that political science is about rulers.”

The derisive laugh she offers makes his scanning stop.

Slowly, his eyes raise to her, and somehow she feels like an idiot, even if he was the one to make a stupid pun. Now she remembers how oppressive that focus can be.

“Or about the people they rule?” she suggests. “‘Governments derive their power from the consent of the governed,’ right?” There’s a touch of pride in that little quote, one-upping his reference to academics. She won’t let him make her feel stupid.

Unfortunately— “It’s ‘Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,’” Silco corrects. But his full attention is on her now, pen lowered to the page as he watches her, teal eye narrowed and calculating.

It takes actual effort to continue swinging the ruler between her fingers as if unaffected, even as her heartbeat picks up the longer he stares. Poker face. Can’t let him know how much he gets to her.

In a slow, smooth movement, Silco sinks back into his seat, never breaking eye contact. Like a king on his throne. His pen taps thoughtfully against the armrest. Tap. Tap. Tap. His gaze breaks from her to consider the writing utensil, and her eyes follow. Thin pen in thin fingers, balanced so perfectly it looks elegant. Tap... Tap...

Tap.

The ruler clatters to the floor, though she isn’t quite sure when she let go. He’s hypnotic, magnetic, commanding her attention and leaving her utterly disoriented when the tie breaks. Breath catches in her throat as it does, eyes blink a few times as she scoops the item up again, grateful to get a moment of respite from staring at him. Eyes stay down, fingers on diagonal points of the item and spinning it carefully on the axis.

“You know,” his voice is even, with that unmistakable rich smokiness to it, “in some places, not so long ago, they had rulers in all classrooms. Corporal punishment. Often used on the back of the hands, to train left-handed students out of their sinister ways.”

Right. Or— left, rather. It’s certainly not the type of sinister she’s getting from him now. Curiosity moves her eyes from the ruler to his hands, wondering if he endured such a thing.

The pen is held in his left, but as she watches, he crosses hands in front of him, deft fingers holding the implement the same way she’s holding the ruler, mirroring her. Then it’s gracefully passed off to his right, and he props up the other elbow, left hand resting palm up, fingers elegantly curling open.

It takes a subtle clearing of his throat for her to raise her eyes from that hand.

Silco lifts a brow, chin inclining and fingers crooking once, commandingly.

For just a moment she hesitates. Something to do with consent of the ruled and the ruler. Gaze back on the hand, she swallows, then walks to his side. His eyes don’t follow her. They drop back to the paper, once it’s clear she’s complying, the pen once again dragging over the lines of text until he finds the place he left off.

Admittedly, she’s… maybe a little let down to have already lost his interest once. Which is the only reason she can offer as to why she slaps the flat of the ruler into his palm rather than placing it. It was far from forceful, but the noise still snaps in the air. It takes her breath away.

Slowly - painfully slowly - Silco’s gaze rises, shifts over, up, to look her in the eye. Heat crawls its way up her neck and burns her ears as his fingers slowly close around the instrument.

She doesn’t let go.

Neither does he. “Is there any particular reason you’ve chosen to stop doing the work you’ve been hired to do?” Ostensibly an innocent question, there’s even an almost conversational air to it, though the hint of an edge beneath makes her knees suddenly feel weak.

“Same answers over and over,” she murmurs, pulse high and tight. “Got bored.”

That eye burns up her insides. It heats her skin, singes any tip and point, flames licking at her in a way that’s as enticing as it is unsettling. “Is there any particular reason you’re not turning over your toy?” There’s a slight sardonic sneer to the word, though his demeanor stays remarkably even.

She doesn’t answer.

For a moment he’s silent, evaluating her. “…You can put this back where you found it, or you can give it to me.” He doesn’t need to say the rest, it’s implied clearly enough. This is her chance to back out, or to press on and see what happens next.

She takes a breath, holding it in her chest for a moment. Then releases her grip.

Eyes flick between his warily, but she spots the very moment they darken. Warning of something.

“Return to your work please, Gracie. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

That promise alone has her dizzy on her way back to the table opposite his. She sits, and attempts to return to grading. It feels impossible, her attention constantly drifting back up and over to him.

When it’s been over five minutes of the professor resolutely continuing his own work, she allows herself to admit she’s disappointed. Just proof of concept for him, maybe. Just a way to get her to cooperate. And he’s right: she should be doing the job she was hired for.

Gradually, she settles back into the work.

There’s only one and a half assignments left for her to get through when he stands from his table. Her eyes dart up, only for the scolding look he shoots her way to drop them back to her work again. But it’s suddenly very hard to focus on anything except his encroaching energy, the prowling aura to it as he takes slow even steps over, stopping at the front of her table.

Her heart beats so hard she can feel her skin tremoring with the force of it. The green pen used to find and mark the necessary key terms in each answer pauses, hovering above the page.

“Stand, please.”

She practically jumps to her feet, already turning to come around to his side of the table.

But Silco’s head tilts warningly, a low hum of disapproval stopping her in her tracks. “Where you are.”

Feet nearly trip over themselves in her hurry to comply, returning to stand directly in front of her chair.

“Hands out, if you will.”

Her eyes drift to the ruler pinched in his grip at his side. Shit. Is he actually going to hit her? Lips twist stubbornly, but she resolutely obeys.

“Palms down.”

She grimaces. That’s gonna hurt, across the back of the hands. But she’s not backing out of this now. Still, the look she shoots him is not pleased.

Silco’s lips twitch into a smirk. How the hell is that so— shit. Hot.

He lifts the ruler, but only sets it between his hands, fingers tapping the straight edge thoughtfully. The bastard is keeping her in suspense. Likely, just to be a bastard. Her look darkens to a glare, unamused with his theatrics. That earns her an almost inaudible huff of laughter.

Turning on one heel, he moves to the edge of the table. Before she can turn, too, he interrupts her thought process. “Stay,” he orders, calmly, and she thinks that annoyance may be threatening to overcome her intoxication in his presence.

The smooth movement is decisive and purposeful, but his slow languorous stride reminds her of a predator on the hunt. Watching her hands, she keeps him in the corner of her vision until he disappears into her blind spot, standing somewhere back and to her right.

For a long moment, nothing.

Then her chair is dragged out from behind her, the noise sounding too loud in the silent lecture hall.

Nerves steadily grow again, gradually realizing it would be incredibly tiring to keep her hands out like this. Luckily, or perhaps not so luckily, she won’t have to for much longer.

“…Elbows on the desk.”

Sharp eyes dart sideways as her head turns, even if her arms stay fixed where she was ordered.

He merely raises brows expectantly. “Gracie. Elbows on the desk.”

The way he says her name makes her stomach flip. Facing front again, she takes a breath. Then bends her knees and elbows and props herself on the table before her.

“Knees straight.” As if to emphasize his point, the ruler grazes her shin before pressing beneath her knee until her legs are acceptably locked.

Her face burns. Oh. So this is the plan. Thighs press together beneath her skirt, muscles flexing to relieve the need growing in her gut. A series of images flash through her mind, but a healthy dose of reality warns her they may not come true. His demeanor leans more sadist than pervert.

Almost like he can hear that thought and wants to contradict it - or maybe just mock it - the tip of the ruler traces to the back of one knee, slipping to the inner curve.

“Legs apart.”

Mouth suddenly dry, she slides her tongue along the inside of lips pressed thin. The narrow wood slides up her thigh and toes curl as she widens her stance. She freezes, body stiff and blood rushing in her ears as the ruler passes the hem of her skirt. For a second her heart stops, anticipating the path of the tool— but then the ruler glides right back down again, leaving her all too aware of the embarrassing throb between her legs.

“Is this what you wanted?” Silco asks smoothly, the question too innocent as he repeats the same move against the other thigh— sliding around, up, and down again without straying too near the cloth that she suspects may be dampening. “When you were making those little moans earlier?”

Moan—? Oh god. Her cheeks flush deep enough to give off heat. When she’d been stretching, the little noise of exertion that had slipped from her lips.

“Well?”

Oh he— he wants her to answer? Like this?!

No, apparently not like this— or not just like this, as he adds, the ruler coming up again. “‘Yes Sir’ or ‘no Sir,’ please.” The end of it drifts even higher this time, barely two inches from its intended (god, she hopes it’s the intended) target.

She can’t think like this.

Like he can read her mind, the ruler leaves her skin.

But she can tell it’s still close, can tell her skirt is still being lifted just a bit by the end of the tool. “I…” Eyes shut tight, trying to get her brain to work properly. “I don’t know,” she answers honestly. “I didn’t- nh!” The flat of the ruler presses between her legs and she jolts at the contact, the unexpected squeak humiliating.

“Rules, if you please.”

Her legs are shaking, resisting the mortifying urge to seek out friction, to attempt to grind against the object that teasingly rubs back and forth against her, even as she can already feel her body making that slide particularly easy.

“—On second thought: I spent 5 damned years on a PhD, I think someone ought to call me Doctor, don’t you?” She can hear the wicked humor in Silco’s words, wryly casual even as the wood turns to press the edge between her folds, rocking forward and up - nudging at her clit - before retreating again.

“I— I don’t know, Doctor,” she chokes out.

There’s an audible wince, followed by a dark breath of laughter. “Scratch that: Sir is fine.”

The ruler pulls away, and she groans: half want, half shame. Only for it to hook beneath the skirt as a whole to push the back up, until her panties are on full display. She can’t decide if she wants to beg or just drop dead from embarrassment. At least the underwear is cute.

“Now.” The word is punctuated with a snap of wood against skin, the flat of the ruler smacking the top of one thigh, and she yelps— from surprise far more than pain, though it does sting. “The truth, Gracie.”

She’s not entirely sure when she got there, but she’s practically collapsed her face into the table, forehead hovering above the papers she was supposed to grade. Still unable to speak.

“Is this” —the wood is back, pressing harder against her, a firm rocking motion— “what you wanted?”

Thighs tense, toes curl, and she presses her flaming face to the table. Her groan turns into a miserable admission: “Yes Sir.” It is now, it probably was then, even if she didn’t realize it. And now she just needs more.

The professor’s satisfied hum sends shivers down her spine. “Good girl.”

She can feel the heat of him drawing closer, and something in her gut flutters, begging for contact. Apparently, her truth has earned her a reward, and she whines as fingers trace up the slapped thigh, a large hand kneading the heated skin.

“—Unfortunately, teases have a lesson to learn.”

The hand is gone, and a second later another crack sounds as the ruler comes down across the other thigh. She expects the same pain, but this one hits just a bit higher - right at the curve of her ass - and the sensation shoots straight through the flesh and right to her clit, mouth falling open in a confused little exclamation.

“Corporal punishment not quite as bad as you thought, hm?”

Silco’s taunt comes as the flat rubs against her skin, then it draws back and she tenses in anticipation. The noise of the strike is partially muffled by the edge of her panties - the slap coming right across her ass - but the vibrations still hit just right, another needy whine pulling from her throat.

“Use your words, darling.” The pet name feels like a mockery. “Better than you anticipated?”

Another smack and her eyelids flutter, words breathless. “Hnnyes Sir.”

The low hum rumbles in his throat, and she can’t help but squirm in response, shifting foot to foot.

“Teases aren’t meant to enjoy their punishments, Gracie,” he purrs. His offhand once again massages the blushing flesh for a moment before pulling away again. “They’re meant to take it” —smack— “until they’ve learned not to go teasing” —smack— “unless they intend to follow” —smack— “through on it.” —smack.

The final impact draws a keening sound from her, desperation plain as both sets of reddened cheeks burn.

His hand cups between her thighs, and glazed eyes raise as her head tilts back, hips shifting as she tries to push herself against him. “Please.” It’s soft, a quiet whine.

Fingers press on the edges of her panties, refusing to touch her properly no matter how much she whimpers. She can hear the mocking pout in his falsely sympathetic noise. “Please what? Do you want me to stop? To end this and walk away?”

“No,” she answers immediately. “Please don’t stop. Please-”

The next two strikes are bare-handed, palm quick to soothe once they’ve landed, even if his words are harsh. “Rules.” Fingers once again stroke the edges of fabric, even as she can feel how slick she is any time he offers the tiniest bit of pressure.

“Sir—” she corrects, “please Sir, I need-” She can’t quite get herself to say it, a frustrated whine caught in her chest as she closes hands into fists and thuds her forehead down on the assignments.

“You’d think with a degree in journalism you’d be better at using your words.”

She can hear the cocky smirk in his voice, but— well, he’s right. She should be. But no words come. All she can do is try to back up into him, to close that distance, desperate for contact.

It earns her a grip in her hair that manages to pull her head back while still pushing her away from him, the ruler falling to the ground as Silco delivers a harsh slap high on each thigh, a spot that makes her clench deliciously. “What did I say?”

“How am I supposed to remember, I just want—nnf!” The tightening in her hair silences her argument, and the next smack wraps around the curve of her ass to brush the wet fabric that makes a mockery of modesty.

“‘Elbows on the desk. Knees straight. Legs apart.’” He repeats, sounding every inch the disciplinarian he’s cast himself as.

Eyes close, hiding the way they roll back with pleasure as - unable to resist - she tugs against his hand in her hair, forcing his grip to firm up again. The rest she obeys, returning to the same position, even if her legs are slightly farther apart than before.

He notices immediately. “Greedy little whore…” As degrading as the words are, his tone sounds amused. Maybe even impressed.

“Please, Sir.” She groans, breath heavy.

“‘Please Sir’ what?”

When she still can’t answer, he seems to either take pity or give up on her. The hand not in her hair cups between her legs again, once more rubbing around where she wants his touch, but never even teasing her entrance, let alone going beneath fabric. Sliding back, one long finger finally brushes over the exact spot she wants him plunging inside, only to trace past and up the curve of her ass, fingers plucking lightly at the band of her underwear.

“‘Please Sir, I want you to fuck me?’” He suggests, the word a hissed f and cracking k in the air. It sounds extra rude from him, somehow. “‘Please Sir, I need your cock inside me?’” Two fingers hook in the elastic and drag her panties down torturously slow, a pathetic whine shivering out of her as goosebumps raise on her flesh, cool air combatting wet heat.

Just the two fingers are all the contact made as they brush the curve of her ass, over her hip… She can feel him step just a little closer again, letting his reach dip down the front. It’s so brief, two fingers sliding through her folds, delicately grazing her clit— “‘Please Sir I-’” His words falter for a moment when he reaches her entrance, and the tip of one finger teases her before his hand retreats the way it came. “‘—I’m absolutely dripping at the thought of you taking me right here-’ hmm-” Silco’s words pause long enough for her to hear the wet hum as he licks his fingers clean. “‘-right here in the lecture hall-’”

A carnal groan pulls from her throat as his legs hit the back of hers when he leans over her to brush his touch against her lips. He doesn’t even need to command it. Lips open readily, tonguing her own wetness from fine fingers, hot breath half-panted when his grip in her hair tightens again, his words practically a hiss: “‘-like a good little slut.’”

She only proves him right. Eyes hooded as she sucks his fingers eagerly, squirming even when he refuses to be close enough for her to grind against. Her mind is fogged with sex, skin still heated from every impact against sensitive flesh.

“Cockdrunk on air,” he observes almost haughtily, the effect lessened by the short growled hum as he pumps his fingers lewdly between her lips.

Far too aroused for her own well-being, she moans around his hand, mouth opening as she tries to speak around his fingers. “Eeeyeth thuh.”

“Mm,” seems affirmative. “Now don’t make a mess,” he warns. Then he’s using his grip to tilt her face back, pull her head toward him, body arching dramatically, so when he pulls fingers from her mouth she doesn’t risk drooling on the homework assignments she should’ve graded.

She quickly licks her lips, as Silco adjusts his stance, letting her return to her elbows before his hand is cupping her roughly, spit-slicked fingers meeting wet folds and plunging in easily.

Her mouth falls open with a short noise of exertion almost identical to the one that started all this mess. The hand finally offers her pressure and resistance, and she takes full advantage, grinding herself against his palm. It’s like she melts down onto the table, hips rocking back against his hand as a noise somewhere between moan and whine draws out of her.

Deft fingers twist, hand flipping over, and they press in and forward, catching that sweet spot that makes her legs shake. His thumb reaches to circle her clit, and she bites her hand to muffle a sound of sheer pleasure.

When Silco lets go of his grip on her hair, she whines without considering the implications. She’s not considering anything at the moment, aside from chasing her own pleasure with his fingers in her cunt and his words on her skin. Cockdrunk is right; she can hardly think beyond the hunger that drives her need for more.

Then his hand is gone. She’s just beginning to register the loss of him when the stinging snap of wood against skin jerks her forward with a yelp, half the papers fluttering to the floor as her hands push forward to grip the far edge of the table.

“This is a punishment. Remember?”

No. She can’t remember a thing, besides how badly she wants him inside of her. “Please-”

Another crack of the ruler across her ass. She squirms, pussy throbbing, begging to be soothed by pleasure. Blood rushing to redden skin comes along with another flood of desperate wetness adding to the slick already glistening on her inner thighs.

A hand grips her hip, holding her still, and he must be able to feel how she shivers, skin a vibrating hum under his touch. “Think you’ve learned your lesson?” Part of her registers the sound of the ruler being set down again, and her heart leaps at the prospect of him using that now-empty hand, to free himself from stylish trousers, to bury his cock hilt-deep in—

Two perfectly placed spanks bring tears to her eyes: frustration, not pain. Somehow he hits just right to a point where the echoing reverberation seems to teasingly buzz at all the good sensitive spots, inside and out. “Yes!” she insists, begging, “Please-”

Four more, before his hand rubs at burning skin, soothing the sting, thumb rubbing the inner curve of her thigh, brushing lightly against wet lips.

“Yes, Sir!” Fuck, please, god. “I won’t do it again,” she swears, a distressed hum on the roof of her mouth as she writhes in his hold, craving the right touch— his touch— “I won’t be a— a tease—”

The hand holding her still lets go, gripping in her hair again, and her mind goes blank as he leans over her, thigh pressed to the back of hers so he can be close enough to hiss in her ear. “Not for anyone else,” he demands.

“No one else,” she agrees immediately, whining as the hand on her ass slides between her legs again, making eyelids flag low, breath thick and desirous.

“Only me.”

“Only you,” she breathes, quickly followed by a needy, “Please, Sir.”

One growled “good girl,” and then he’s pulling back and his fingers are inside her again, demandingly rough, playing her like an instrument as she groans a heady pleasure.

In no time at all, she’s brought to the edge and wrestled over it by one dexterous hand. The grip on her hair stops her from hiding her face against the table, jaw slack and breath heavy, eyes unfocused as her orgasm winds inside of her, snapping and rushing as she tightens around him, breath halted and body stiff apart from the way her muscles grip his punishing fingers.

She’s just starting to breathe again when he does something with his hand, triggering another shock that makes her keen, knees pressing inward like it can stop the purposeful movements that utterly break her again. In another moment her legs give out, but she’s already mostly collapsed on the table.

By the time Silco has forced a third wave of ecstasy to hit her like a brick wall in quick succession, she’s sobbing, tears staining the paper beneath her cheek. Absolutely criminal what this man’s hands can do to her, how well they can undo her.

He lets go, and all she can do is breathe— pant, really, a thin sheen of sweat sticking her blouse to her back, pleasure running down her thighs. She’s hazy, dumb, boneless on the table.

Something disgustingly pleased by the taboo of it thrills, as the professor tugs her panties back up into place, smoothing her skirt down once more.

“Good meeting.” A wicked amusement fills those two words, a dry humor that burns like the devil himself.

He steps away. She breathes.

And a moment later she hears the door to the lecture hall open and close.

Left ruined on the table, surrounded by scattered papers no longer sorted into their proper sections, one of whose ink is smudged by tears.

Several minutes must pass before she feels capable of standing.

On shaky legs, half in shock, she gathers the papers. Sorts them, dumbly, and stacks them with his finished work. Keeps the ruined one on top, well aware she’ll need to print out a fresh copy to grade.

Everything is done automatically, like she’s not even sure the last, what, half an hour? is real.

At long last, she makes her way out of the lecture hall.

Surprise— and more importantly relief— hits her as she finds Professor Silco leaned up against the opposite wall in the corridor.

“Took you long enough.”

—

[…I swear this was originally gonna be like a hundred word max of [brief action][action] dialogue [action] and then this happened instead lmao. 😅

Hope you enjoyed?? I guess??

If you want more smut, Show a Little Skin is my other (silco x reader) smutty piece I have, though A Helping Hand (silco x reader) and her side dishes have some dirty content as well. And if you haven’t read @insult-2-injury ‘s fic (silco x reader), go do it, it’s linked up top.

Reblogs help my work reach new readers, and tags and comments make my day brighter 👉👈 ❤️ -verbs]

(Also on ao3)

[facelessxchurch]

As much as I love Gina Carano and think she would be the best American pick possible for an adult Valkyrie in a phase 2 adaption, it would never happen. Firstly, Gina is too big. Derek doesn't have enough pull to get her. Secondly, even if he could, he wouldn't because he's the most festering sort of leftoid and a Biden voter and he likely hates her guts for continuously sticking it to his political tribe. Gina is everything they hate.

You're right, but she is a fancast and not a realistic cast   ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

For one, she is too big, but do you think she would even want to play Valkyrie? Phase 2 Valkyrie is an authoritarian piece of shit that solves her problems by force. Just like the people that tried to cancel Gina...

I actually disagree with you on Landy being 'most festering sort of leftoid'. Those are the kinds of Zoe Quinn. Thought leaders. Landy is a coward and follower. I suppose it's easy to let the stream carry you away when you have no spine. HarperCollins is woke, if Landy didn't shoehorn in woke stuff there wouldn't be a phase 2. I mean, he got the woke stuff he shoehorned in wrong and it actually pissed woke people off, especially in regards to sexuality. And bc he's in the Twitter bubble, I don't think he knows that most people aren't woke.

Believe me, once the normies find out what this woke stuff is about the political pendulum will swing back again (it’s already started) and the second that happens he'll back-peddle and condemn the woke stuff. To any woke people reading this, he ain't your ally, he's just a ball-less little bitch.

Also, here's a little fun fact for you, he actually is/was a Gina fan, had a massive crush on her and Gina was one of the first two people he followed on Twitter. Follow me below the cut for an amazing journey of cringe and Landy being a pathetic creep:

I searched her name on his blogspot

'favouritest', mark that down as a word an adult man shouldn’t use [source]

cringe, this reads like an ill-adjusted teen boy wrote this [source]

this one features him being a creep about the girl phase 1 Val is based on and him trying to be woke [source]

this is a case of posting L's no one would care about if you didn't mention it, the second-hand embarrassment I'm getting of this guy is fucking killing me, but it does support my point further that Gina probably wouldn't want to play Val even if offered [source]

He unfollowed her by now, but he was openly a fan until at least pre-Mandalorian release. So yeah, save to assume he unfollowed his long time crush right after his tribe turned on her for essentially trying to be a decent person [source]

In conclusion: Landy would LOVE it should Gina play adult Val, but he can't admit that without getting eaten alive by his own tribe plus I can't see Gina being interested in the role. Quite frankly, she can do way better than SP.

[nahimjustfeelingit-writes]

Imagine:

Erik fucking reader in the mirror, reaching down to choke her, telling her “where you going? take this dick!”

“Prince N’Jadaka.”

A woman’s voice, one of his Doras called to him from the other side of the door. They were standing there all damn morning. Y/N was sure they heard everything. Erik steps away from Y/N in his naked glory, opening his suite door. Both Dora Milaje came face to face with the prince, trying their best to hold formation with the way he looked standing in front of them and Y/N on her knees. Y/N could make out one of the Doras eyes fluttering while she tried to keep eye contact with Erik. 

“kuzakufuneka sihambe kwakamsinya, nintlanganiso ebalulekileyo yokubuyela ekhaya ngomso.”

(We will have to leave soon, you have an important meeting back home tomorrow.)

“Shit, give me a second,” One of his Doras, Lesi was her name, was caught staring at his dick. Erik didn’t call her out on it, he just simply made his dick jump out. Lesi’s grip on her spear was almost deadly from that alone. Finally, he closes the door, turning to re-enter his room where Y/N still kneeled. 

“Looks like our little reunion is over, Baby girl.”

“Nothing new,” Y/N stands with a struggle, walking over to her own luggage to pack her things. The bounce of her ass had Erik ready to say “fuck going back to Wakanda” she was really tempting him the way she was bent over, folding her clothes. 

“You always leaving me, just take me with you.” She tried not to cry but damn was it hard. Her Daddy was a Prince in another country. Probably fucking the shit out of other bitches with that good dick too. She just knew that all up and down Wakanda there were rumors about Prince N’Jadaka breaking bitches backs. 

“Fuck is all of that for? You knew what this shit was,” Erik stretched out on the bed, his eyes looking from his dick to her, “girl, come get this dick some more.”

“Leave me alone, Erik.”

“Stop acting like that,” he made his voice all low and seductive, “You know you’re my nasty little bitch.”

“Fuck you,” Y/N sounded so weak, throwing her clothes to the floor, facing Erik now with her arms folded across her chest. 

“Tell Daddy what you said this morning when I was deep in that pussy, ma,” Erik strokes his dick, swinging it to make her look at what she was stubbornly ignoring. 

“I love Daddy’s good dick,” She didn’t meet his eyes but her leg was shaking with struggle. She was a slut for Erik, He knew she would give in.

“EXACTLY. Now, come on, get you some of this right here,” He let his dick swing back and forth like a pendulum. 

“Fuck, I hate you,” the minute she got onto the bed, Erik pulled her over him, making her sopping wet pussy lower over his swinging dick. She took in a sharp breath before bouncing on him like she wasn’t just complaining. 

“Shit...you got some wet pussy on you…,” Erik exhaled. “You letting me dig all in this…” 

Erik’s fat brown dick stroked Y/N over and over. She especially loved the way he held her hips, forcing her down over him. 

“You make my little pussy stretch overall this meat. That’s impressive, Daddy,” Y/N teases before letting out a loud moan. Y/N gripped him firmly with her walls. 

“I think I’m being too polite in the pussy…,” Erik slammed up into her now, her ass clapping on his thighs and his balls, “I gotta show you who you fucking with, ma.”

“You can’t just buss my pussy open and leave me!” She fell forward over Erik, looking over her shoulder and into the large mirror at the foot of his bed against the wall. She could see everything. Every bit of her cream, his balls bouncing and smacking into her ass cheeks, his wet pole so rigid. 

“Your balls are so heavy and full of cum, Daddy,” She reached behind to grab hold of them. She squeezed them lightly, loving how soft they were. Erik was groaning in her ear now, his hands reaching back to spread her cheeks so Y/N could see her asshole and pussy better. She knew he loved doing this to her phat ass. If only he could fuck her in her ass again before he left. Y/N released over his dick sooner than she wanted to.

“Damn, Daddy, now you gotta eat my pussy,” She slaps her own ass, Erik following behind giving both her ass cheeks a nice slap. He grabbed her cheeks up, making her arch forward. He was rubbing his fingers from her asshole down to her clit, smearing her cum around and around.

“You just knew I had to lick up your mess. You always make a mess on my dick.” He flipped Y/N over, bringing his fingers to her mouth to suck on. She sucked and sucked, purposely making herself gag for his enjoyment. Erik lifts the sheets from under him, covering himself for an extra effect. She hated not being able to see him eating her pussy. Her legs were spread and over his shoulders now, Erik wasted no time to spread her pussy open and slurp away. 

“Your moans drive me crazy.” 

No, he was driving her crazy. 

Y/N’s back lifted from the hotel bed, bare chest thrust towards the ceiling, nipples hard and ready to be sucked and licked. The Prince of Wakanda flew his favorite girl to NYC for some weekend-long sex. He would be here for a short while and she needed every second of him. They already fucked about four times; twice on Friday and twice on Saturday. Now, it was a Sunday morning before Erik had to return home. She was cursing his ass out about it a few minutes ago but now she was moaning and groaning his name while he sucked her pussy like no other.

 A tiny whimper escapes her mouth, her eyes fluttering to Erik between her legs with the covers over his head. She could see his dreads but she couldn’t see the way he moved his mouth and tongue inside of her. This was definitely a good way to wake her up. She grabs his dreads into a tight fist, her pelvis grinding into his mouth. She was trying to moan, really trying to get the sounds out but he had her stunned. How dare he do this to her pussy? Eat it like this and drive her fucking crazy? She hated hooking up with him whenever he came back from Wakanda. He always fucked and ate her so damn good she was crying literal tears.

“You’re-you’re gonna leave me again, aren’t you-D-Daddy?” Her voice was hoarse.

“Shut up.” He hissed angrily. She didn’t care about his frustration. Y/N grabbed the covers, yanking them back roughly to fully admire the Prince of Wakanda eating her tight slit, face all shiny. She grabs his chin, attempting to pull him towards her but he wasn’t having that. Erik was furious she made him stop.

“Fuck are you doing?!” He sounded desperate and angry at the same time, “Stop pushing my lips off this pussy, baby girl!”

“Not until you answer my question! I’m sick-sick of this shit...ooooh.”

He shut her up with his dick sinking deep inside of her. Her pussy parted for him, letting him in again since the tight little kitty loved him so much. She shook her head, allowing it to fall back while Erik strokes her. 

“Oooooh, this what you taking away from me. I can’t go without it,” she whispered into his ear, “I need it, Daddy...baybeee, I need it.” 

Erik brought his lips to her cheek, his groans and grunts all in her ear while his hips snapped into hers. 

“Daddy, if you leave me, who’s gonna fuck my pussy like this, Hmm?” She had to remind him about that. 

“Fuck, you know who this pussy belongs to, girl, DONT PLAY WITH ME.”

Erik wraps a hand around her neck, Y/N looking up into his stormy eyes. Her eyes were more delicate but under all that was mischief. 

“I don’t know, Daddy...I really don’t,” she was fucking him right back. Erik looked from her wet twat fucking him back to her eyes. 

“Who told you to fuck me back like this? Huh? Who told you to do that?” He couldn’t stop biting his lip though. She was sliding on and off of him something serious. 

“I guess I have to get this pussy fucked by somebody else when you leave me.”

She was toying with him and she knew it would make Erik angrily fuck her into this bed. Y/N was a starving woman for dick. 

“Who? Don’t fucking play with me, Y/N.” 

“I’ll give this pussy up...I need to be fucked good and you aren’t around.” 

Erik picked up Y/N from the bed in one swift motion, slamming her down on his thick pole. She twitched around him, her legs shaking around his hips. Erik lifts her up, doing it again and again, hitting her spot over and over with that fat tip. She could feel her arousal drip to the floor from how he filled her up. One thing she could say about this Prince was that he could make her pussy drip the best. 

“How you gonna give this pussy up when I make it do all this? You wanna lose all that, girl?”

Erik went in deep and long, all the way, and they both moaned into each other's mouths. Erik pumped his hips, pounding his meat into Y/N’s tight, velvety tunnel, her body surrendering to him like it always did. They were both bathed in sweat, burning with lust. Y/N watched as Erik’s tongue ran over his bottom lip. She caught it between her teeth and urgently sucked on it, feeling every inch of him thrusting into her. 

“You got me cumming,” she had her arms on his shoulders, “you got me cumming on you! See! This is what you do to me!!”

Erik scrunched his face at the way the walls of her pussy squeezed his dick, “Oh? See...now I gotta fuck you some more…”

“Yes, baby, that’s what I want,” Y/N was driving that pussy down onto his dick again, “mmmm, I love this hard dick.”

Erik’s dick had the perfect lubrication around it. Her cum mixed with his pre-cum. 

“I want that fat dick in my mouth...let me choke on that dick, Big Daddy.”

She was down on her knees now, practically clawing at him to get the dick in her mouth. She always told him that even if he didn’t eat her phat pussy, she would still suck his dick because she loved it so much. 

“You stay so hard for me, Prince,” Her hot mouth devoured his dick causing Erik’s eyes to roll shut. She sucked it in and out of her mouth, letting it pop each time she withdrew her mouth from the head. This bitch played with Erik’s penis like it was her own joystick. Y/N always worked her mouth over Erik’s elongated and fat shaft, taking him in fully like she didn’t have a fucking throat. 

“It’s too big for my mouth,” she moans after withdrawing her lips from his saliva-coated shaft, “But, I have another hole that I know can handle it.” 

“That sounds like a challenge,” Erik released. “Show me your skills, baby.” 

Erik turned Y/N around in front of the oversized floor mirror at the foot of his bed. He parted her cheeks, looking straight down into her slick pussy, the hole she was referring to his favorite hole on her. Erik spits, allowing it to drop down and over her pussy. She felt that, making her ass shaking against him. 

“Bend the fuck over and grab your ankles.”

She turns sideways in front of the mirror, bending in half and grabbing her ankles. She was so folded that she could put her head between her wide legs to look back at Erik. This was the way he fucked her pussy when she acted up. 

“You know what’s about to happen, right?” 

Erik walks away towards his open luggage, grabbing a belt. The thick leather material of it would imprint her flesh so painfully. Too bad she was in a compromising position. Ass cheeks open, pussy open, she had nowhere to run. 

“Oh, this?” She spoke, trying to hide the slight fear she felt, “you gonna give me an ass whooping?”

“Only cuz you being a disrespectful bitch...make that ass shake each time I give you a beating.”

“Yes, Daddy.” 

The first strike was between her ass cheeks. Her flesh stuck to that damn belt. A soft moan was her response to it. She grabbed her ankles tighter, looking back at Erik, watching him strike her over and over without giving his arm a rest. His dick was standing straight out. This nigga was so hard from this. 

“I don’t see that phat ass shaking!!! Move that ass or this dick ain't going back in that puss.” 

“Fuckkk,” she started twerking in a handstand almost, Erik lashing her ass. It started to hurt, he was really pissed that she said she could get dick from some other man. Her Prince was hurt by that.

“Daddy-Daddy-Daddy you know I was just playing, right? Baybeee it hurts,” she starts whimpering. Erik let her have one final strike before tossing the belt onto the bed.

“Why you gotta do that? make a nigga so mad? All you gotta do is tell me you want it fucked hard from the back like this,”

His dick went in her swiftly. She forgot about the pain in her cheeks, turning to look at her reflection in the mirror. 

“Prince, N’Jadaka,” She moaned loudly, “Fuck me, keep fucking me like this and I’m sure to cum all over this royal dick!!!!”

Erik has to slow down, she was gripping his shit from the back. He looked into her eyes in that mirror, the look that had him coming back to America to fuck her. 

“Come on, don’t be afraid to ram it in,” Y/N urged. 

“Girl shut the fuck up,” Erik lifts Y/N up, turning her to face the mirror now. He grabs her neck from behind, squeezing it tightly with his fingers. 

“You got them eyes looking straight ahead, right?!!!” 

“Yessssss.” 

“Telling me to fucking ram it in, what you think I do? You can’t take it when I do that, baby stop talking shit.”

Erik started urgently stroking her pussy, so hard he could make that mirror shatter. Making her arch lower, Erik pounded her insatiable pussy. He could feel her leaning forwards off his dick but Erik had a firm grip on her hip with one hand while the other was around her neck. 

“Can’t take this dick I see.” 

“It’s cuz you’re in my stomach.” She tried to move away again.

He was in her fucking guts. She was going limp over him, but Erik didn’t give a fuck. The squishing of his dick pistoning into her vagina as her body rocked back and forth over his dick with Erik’s control was the sound Erik wanted to hear. That was the sound of getting your pussy fucked by a Prince. A Prince with some good good dick.

“Ima remember this little reunion,” Erik teases, “Stop fucking running, Y/N!”

He would pull her back each time. She convulsed repeatedly, surrendering to her intense orgasm. Erik was chasing his own, continuing his thrusts while she cried out for him to slow up. Y/N could only stand there with trembling legs and enjoy the sweet torture. Erik slammed her so hard with his dick she could see stars. 

“Daddy! Please cum! Pleassseee! I can’t take it!”

It didn’t matter what direction Y/N moved, Erik was fucking the shit out of her. Both of Y/N’s hands were planted on the glass, the vision of her ass clapping back on Erik right in front of her watery eyes. She knew this cum was going to be delicious. Y/N struggled with her words but they came out nonetheless. She told Erik to let her know when he was about to cum because she wanted to swallow it all. That turned his ass out, and he really started wearing that nana out. 

“Fuck, my pussy is cumming for you again!”

She dragged her nails down that mirror. Erik pulled out and told Y/N he was about to cum like she wanted him to. Y/N turned around faster than the speed of light and caught that cum like an action hero. It was a speeding bullet, and she was about to catch it on her tongue. Erik is wild with it when he came. Tasting all good and filling up her throat. Erik gets tens straight across the board for delivery, expression, and creativity since her body was his canvas for his thick and tasty cum. Erik’s eyes were glazed and his breathing was shallow, standing there with that impressive body, an aura of a Prince. 

“Every time you cum for me, I lust after you some more. This shit does my body good.”

“You are so damn nasty,” he managed to get out between moans from Y/N licking the rest of his ejaculate off of him. Her pussy started throbbing. Her pussy lips were jumping. 

“I just know that pussy is trickling down the inside of your legs.” He was right. 

He shouldn’t say shit like this to her. She wanted him to stay forever.

@tgigoldie​ @soufcakmistress​ @chefjessypooh​ @chaneajoyyy​ @pananegra​ @theblulife​ @becincere​ @blaqwidow91​ @fish-outta-watah​ @moonlight-night-sky​ @eyeknowmywrites​  @crowngold​ @njadakillthiscookie​ @blktinkerbell​ @luvanxi​ @sheisexcellent1​ @chocolatedippedinhoney​  @brandithecrystalgem​ @dababydababydababydababy​ @soulfulbeauty19​ @btitannaaa​ @sunkissedebony97​ @youngblackndgifted​ @harleycativy​ @rbhp​ @thee-germanpeach​ @thadelightfulone​ @bugngiz​ @palmstreesallday​ @skylahb​

[ashintheairlikesnow]

okay but the girlfriend thing definitely happens right ? I am weirdly invested in this

CW: A couple of vague references to past mistreatment/abuse, pet whump setting. Tagging @burtlederp and @finder-of-rings

“Do you know that guy?”

Jake jumps a little at the soft, high-pitched voice just at his left shoulder. He’s been leaning back against a tree in the shade, watching Chris absolutely demolish this ring of exercise equipment they set up by the pond on campus. 

He does better sitting through Jake’s classes if he gets to run himself ragged in-between, and Jake has a good two hours between Ethics and Political Philosophy (where he’s keeping his head the fuck down, these days, quiet and careful, sneaking Chris in the back and hoping he isn’t asked questions too often) and Health Disparities in Marginalized Populations (where the professor knows exactly what Jake does and he feels more comfortable bringing Chris at all).

He’s figuring Chris out, day by day, watching him come out of his conditioned quiet shell from the early days and blossom into a vibrant, laughing teenager who never shuts the fuck up unless he’s moving.

It’s pretty fucking great.

Jake snorts at the girl’s words. “Yeah, I know him. I’m out here watching him, right?”

“Hey. Sorry, I just-… how does he know how to do that?”

Jake turns to glance over, prepared to give some variation on none of your fucking business, before he looks right into the eyes of a genuinely gorgeous girl his age. She’s got deeply warm brown skin and the most beautiful brown eyes he’s ever seen, thick black hair held in a low ponytail against her neck. Whatever angry retort he’d had planned dies on his tongue.

The girl has a bright red leash in one hand, with a tiny fluffy white thing that vaguely resembles a dog at the end of it. Her other hand, with loose bangle bracelets that clink as she moves, is pointing at Chris.

In the background, Chris swings by his legs on the taller bar, rolls in the air, and catches himself on the shorter one, swings a perfect circle around it and lets go, landing - as always - right on his feet with his arms in the air.

“That’s my cousin,” Jake lies easily. It’s less work every time he says it, and Chris has latched onto the lie with white knuckles, loves repeating it and telling the other rescues at dinner about playacting as Jake’s family. “He’s staying with me for a while. He’s pretty good, right?”

“He’s great. My little sister did gymnastics for years, she’d be jealous to see him out here making it look so easy.” The girl laughs, and the two of them watch Chris swing himself back up onto the shorter bar, hook his knees, and hang upside down, swinging back and forth, laughing to himself - but checking, always checking, to see if Jake is looking.

Which he always is.

Chris’s shirt rides up at this angle, showing a flash of pale white stomach, his navel, skin nearly paper-white in the sun. 

“Is he from around here?” The girl asks, and it’s a light question, but it’s so loaded, because Jake has the lie ready to go but the real answer is underneath it, right on the top of his tongue. I have no fucking clue where he’s from. Neither does he.

“Nah, he’s from Michigan.”

“Bet he likes the warmer weather, huh? That’s really funny. He looks a lot like this kid my sister used to take gymnastics with, way back when.”

Jake stiffens, slightly. The girl doesn’t seem to notice. “He does?”

Chris gets momentum, swinging back and forth until he looks like a demented clock pendulum, then he lets go, is up in the air, back down again landing perfectly on his feet. He stumbles forwards just a little, but shrugs it off and glances over at Jake. He grins, brightly, and Jake smiles back.

Chris’s eyes go to the girl, and his smile falters, just slightly, head cocking to the side. It’s not quite the practiced, awful little flirty head-tilt he pulls when he’s testing, at least. This is real curiosity, and more than a little uncertain worry.

“Yeah. She used to complain about him constantly. I mean, I never went to her practices but she has pictures and stuff. And I went to meets.” The girl laughs, and even her laugh is gorgeous, and Jake smiles a little at the sound even as his heart starts pounding. 

He could take this two ways - he can brush it off, ignore it, take it into his mind and hold the information there, or… or he can ask her outright. 

But if he asks her, eventually he’ll have to admit this isn’t Christopher Garner from Michigan, it’s a runaway human pet with a barcode on his left wrist. And she seems nice, but they all seem nice, right up until they turn someone in for their own good, it’s not like they can live on their own, right?

Not if no one will fucking teach them.

He takes the safe route, watching Chris head their way, folding into himself in Jake’s big T-shirt layered over the long-sleeved shirt with the thumb-holes to help him hide his barcode. He comes to a stop in front of them, bouncing on the balls of his feet, looking at Jake with all his worry laid bare. “Jake? Is this, is, do you know her?”

Is she safe? It’s the question Chris doesn’t ask, but Jake hears anyway.

“Just met her,” Jake replies easily. I don’t know yet.

“Sure did,” The girl says brightly, clearly not picking up on the tension between the two young men. She turns to Jake and holds out her hand, bangles clinking. Chris’s eyes drop to watch the bracelets flash in the sun as the two shake hands. “I’m Adra Laghari, but my friends just call me Addie, mostly. I’m a senior, Social Work. I have a whole lot of amazing career plans, clearly. You?”

“Jake Stanton, junior, Public Health. I am also on the ‘make no money working for a nonprofit’ track.” 

“Junior, huh?”

At her raised eyebrows, he snorts. “Non-traditional student. I’m a couple years older than I should be. Trust me, I know.”

“Fair enough. How about you?” She turns those sparkling dark eyes on Chris. He looks at Jake, then back at her, and slowly reaches out to take her hand and shake it. “Ooooh, your fingers are super cold. What’s your name?”

“Christopher Garner,” Chris says, very carefully. “I’m, um, I’m from-… I’m Jake’ scousin and I’m from, from, from, from…” He frowns, hesitates, face coloring with embarrassment. “I’m sorry, I, I’m not always good with words, I-”

Jake blinks. Chris apologizing for how he speaks isn’t really new, but him sounding so… small about it is.

He hasn’t sounded like this since he first came to the shelter, and he didn’t say a word for a week that didn’t start with I’m sorry.

“Hey, no worries. I get you just fine, Christopher Garner.” Addie smiles, gives his hand one more squeeze, and drops it.

“Call me, um, I like to be-… the name I pick-… I like to be called, called, called Chris please? Can I be just Chris? Please?”

“Sure, Chris. Not a problem.” Addie’s little dog ran at Chris, tail wagging, and Jake watched him flinch back, stumbling back a few steps, before his eyes dropped - and he dropped down into a crouch, feet flat on the ground and his knees bent.

Jake was pretty fucking sure he couldn’t do that, either. 

Chris held out one hand, nervously, looking up to Addie for approval. When she smiled down at him and nodded, he reached out further to run fingers through the dog’s white fur. “Soft,” He murmurs, and for one second, Chris’s constantly-moving body is still.

“That’s Arjun,” Addie says. She looks at Jake sidelong, with an expression he can’t quite read. Somehow, though, it still turns his stomach into jelly. “When’s your next class, Jake in Public Health?”

Jake forgets, for a second, how words work.

“It’s at, at, at 4 pm,” Chris says, gathering Arjun into his arms and sitting back on the grass. The little dog wriggles its way to having paws on his shoulders, licks his face, and Chris laughs. His hair is in his eyes, and he’s got a bright smile on his face, and he’s fucking beautiful like this.

How could anyone have wanted him scared when they could have seen him smiling? Jake wonders, not for the first time. This isn’t even the first rescue he’s wondered that about.

“That’s a whole hour and fifteen minutes from now,” Addie says, with a sly sort of smile. “And it’s hot out today. Would you buys like some ice cream? Arjun and I are buying.”

Jake almost says no.

Then, Chris looks up with wide, excited eyes, and grins. “I like ice cream.”

Jake closes his eyes, briefly. For once, it’s not because he’s irritated by something. “Yeah… okay. I like ice cream, too.”

“Badass. Let’s get this show on the road, then, boys. Would you like to carry Arjun, Chris? He’s a good boy, he’ll be good.” She doesn’t wait - she just turns and starts walking.

Jake doesn’t wince. He doesn’t. He shows absolutely no sign that the words mean anything else at all. Neither does Chris, except that he whispers I’m good, too, before he takes off after her.

Jake is left to fall in behind them, wondering what the fuck just happened here. Still, he can’t quite stop smiling.

[rockofeye]

I have spent the last few weeks in Haiti. It hasn’t been my usual sort of trip as there has been no ceremony, no going to the beach, and no gathering with chosen family of friends. Instead, I’ve taken care of some pressing business that couldn’t be avoided and otherwise sheltered in place with my husband in our favorite spot in the capital. It’s been quiet and lovely in the middle of the global chaos of this completely avoidable pandemic. I am lucky, but I also got on a plane with a respirator and a whole lot of hand sanitizer.

With business taken care of, we stay in. When it’s shady, we sit on the small balcony that looks down in Pétion-ville, with Gwo Mòn on one side and Jalouzi on the other. S points out the soccer stadium that is lit up each night for an ongoing tournament, and Legliz Sen Thérèse, a tall triangle against the short buildings around it, and the buildings that past president Martelly was responsible for. We negotiate the air conditioning, as 75 feels cold for him and the 95+ outside is too hot for me. It’s quiet and slow, and that’s alright.

In the morning, S makes us coffee and pours it between two cups like every Haitian ever to dissolve the absurd amount of sugar that many Haitians like in their morning wake-up. Later, S gnaws on goat and I eat endless amounts of lanbi boukannen/grilled conch, piled high with pikliz echalot. We play the same clicky games on our cell phones (it’s true love...) and occasionally turn on the TV to watch the news, the French overdubbed telenovelas (El Diablo! La Doña!), and the occasional American movie. You have not lived until you’ve seen Mrs. Doubtfire in French.

We talk a lot about the dichotomy we can see from the balcony; the affluence to the left and the poverty to the right. Jalouzi is called a slum because it is packed full of people, many of whom fled the valleys of Haiti when their homes were destroyed in the 2010 goudougoudou. It became a focal point of a government striving to appease the more privileged when an artist was hired (with PetroCaribe funds....) to paint all the houses in Jalouzi a bright and cheerful color. It was floated as a way to beautify and raise morale in a really difficult place to live, but it was really about appeasing the more affluent folks who were looking out their window at a wide gray swatch of concrete and metal homes and shacks.

Today, Jalouzi has faded back to muted colors and gray buildings again and people continue to struggle to make it through the day. There is no electricity to speak of though the soccer stadium less than a quarter mile away is lit up every single night as are the houses in the more affluent surrounding areas. It’s strategic and it does it’s job; folks who are more poor are isolated to their neighborhoods where the folks who are more affluent don’t have to see. If you don’t have the money to buy a better life, my husband says, you are not just waiting for something better to come along but are pase mizè, or sort of waiting in your misery like other might pass time. Each day is a careful balance that results in the sun rising the next day.

One of the things I find most difficult to write about is the intrinsic balance that must be struck by folks who are learning Vodou and, by extension, learning Haiti. It is easy to enchant what is really the result of a lack of exposure to other cultures in the world, and yet it is equally easy to miss the thing that Haiti has achieved that the West has not: the absolutely seamless lived experience of a cultural religion, which certainly looks like enchantment from the outside. You can’t have Vodou without having your feet in the dirt in Haiti, and you can’t have Haiti without Vodou.

But..it’s a risky balance that we all walk on our journey to seek the lwa where they live. With the explosion of the internet, it’s easy to see narratives about how Haiti is essentially this mythical vacuum where everything is sort of twee and picturesque way. People inevitably come away saying that they found the only ‘real Vodou’ on the island and want to package that for sale and distribution, but it is clear to anyone with eyes to see that they have not yet grasped the reality of what they stood in the middle of.

And--since pendulums swing both ways--there is the other side, where folks discount the importance of Haiti and discount the significance of having your feet in the same dirt that the lwa rise up out of. In similar ways, that experience is packaged for sale with things like the idea of a ‘kanzo’ in the United States and the sale of items called kolye or asson, without really caring or understanding how these are made in context or why someone who is not a legitimate asogwe cannot make them for other people. It is a similar lack of grasping as above.

Who knows the right way out? Probably not me. The lwa take a longview and watch, and we know where the lwa live by the spiritual fruits produced (versus material fruits...’stuff’ and capitalism is never the answer). For me, I just do my work and remember that when I come here, I am both coming home to the lwa in their various homes and I am also arriving to where people live and die and do their work in between. Balance in a difficult place.

Today marks 229 years since the ceremony at Bwa Kayiman that began the uprising that birthed the Haitian Revolution. This was a beginning that has never really finished on the island; the French colonizers were expelled and life moved forward in a different way, but the struggle is still ongoing. Haiti has kept fighting under totalitarian regimes, political corruption, numerous pandemics, hunger, bigotry from across the border, economic famine, and continual foreign occupation.

And yet, the dust is the same. When we are on the island, our feet touch the same dirt that Boukman stood on when he called for the lwa. We stand on the same ground that Mèt Feray Aleman and Metrès Ezili Danto were born from when enslaved Africans said ‘enough’. The revolution lives here and not anywhere else, and that’s why it’s important to come. When we are lifted from the djevo, we are lifted with that revolution born within us to carry into the world.

With all these things in mind, I am listening the murmur of folks living out their lives over the rustle of the palms. The drums are pounding hard today all over the country, and I am seeing the tendrils of smoke from cooking fires that no doubt have some manje lwa on them. My heart lives here part-time or full-time or all the time, and it beats a little stronger when I can put my feet on the dirt and feel the ground still reverberate with the fire of Bwa Kayiman. These things are especially poignant in this time of becoming in the world, where we look at what our global systems of inequality and capitalism has birth while we struggle with this illness that takes what we love most.

Papa Boukman o, nou ap we ase

Each and every blessing is counted today, tomorrow, and always, and I hope the same for all of you: may you find your blessings abundant in this time of upheaval and be able to count them with a full heart. 

[kyouxa]

Diabolik lovers Dark Fate: Kou Mukami (No.09)

To get the vampire ending, just choose the M (blue) choices. For the manservant ending, choose S (violet) choices. The brute ending will require you to choose both S and M choices. Please no reposting onto other sites, and please ask me before translating this into another language!

Place: Demon world — Forest

Yui: (Kou-kun… he clearly told me that I’m a nuisance and annoying to him)

(I really want to return to the human world… I don’t want to stay here any longer)

(But… I probably won‘t be save in the human neither demon world)

Then… I doesn’t matter where I go, does it… ?

(I’m overthinking if I could stay right besides Kou-kun right now…)

(It was a mere convenient illusion that I thought we could understand each other…)

*bushes rustling*

Yui: ...Nn!

(That sound just now… is anyone there? No way, maybe it’s a wolf… !?)

(What should I do, should I run away… ?)

*someone appears*

Yui: Who is it!?

???: ...Ahh, please do not be so frightened.

I would never dare to do any harm to you. You can rest assured, Yui-san.

Yui: Do you… know my name?

???: Yes, I do know your name. After all you are a rather popular and special being to all of us vampires. 

Yui: You know mine… but what is your name then?

???: My name is Mertz. I am highly pleased to make your acquaintance.

Yui: (This person… he seems to be a vampire too)

(But the way he speaks is gentle… if he really would be a vampire, he wouldn‘t act so careless around me, would he?)

Mertz: Oh? Did my sudden presence make you somehow uncomfortable?

I must have troubled you… can I do something for you to make you feel at ease again?

— Ah, that‘s right. In this case, why do we not talk about the Sakamaki siblings?

Yui: ...Do you know about them too?

Mertz: Certainly. I have known them all ever since they were really young children. How about you?

Yui: (I can‘t tell if this person is saying the truth or if he‘s lying to gain my trust…)

(But I can tell that he does appear to care for my well being. Maybe he’s not so bad after all?)

Yui: A-Ah… I’m fine. Sorry if I was the one putting you into any difficulties.

Mertz: No, of course not. I just simply could not resist coming for a helpless person wandering around.

Yui: ...Ah, yes. As I walked around here, I forgot the direction I was heading to.

Mertz: Why are you wandering around all on your own to begin with?

Yui: ...I‘m looking for an exit to return back to the human world.

Mertz: Do you really want to go back to earth?

Yui: …..

Mertz: I see… then, allow me to guide you to your wished location.

Yui: Eh… is that okay for you?

Mertz: Yes. I would be pleased to be your guide.

Yui: A-Ah… if it‘s not bothering you, please guide me.

Mertz: Then please follow me.

Place: Underground waterway

Mertz: Please keep an eye on where you step.

Yui: Okay… thanks for telling me.

(In the meantime… I already went through this passage as Kou-kun and I escaped to the demon world)

(This is the place where Kou-kun stood right in front of me while being attacked… he protected me)

(...What am I thinking? If I remember this happening, my tears might start flowing again...)

Mertz: We will be there soon.

Yui: Y-Yes…

Mertz: If you like, please use this.

Yui: (A handkerchief…)

Mertz: If you are tired, please keep it up for a little longer. It may not be suitable for you to rest here.

Yui: ...I’m fine. But um, thanks for worrying.

Mertz: Do not hide your sadness because of my presence. Please make sure to rest your body once we have reached our destination.

After all, your body is still awfully important to me.

Place: Sakamaki mansion — Entrance hall

Yui: (I’ve finally come back to the Sakamaki mansion…)

Ah, Mertz-san. Thank you very much.

Mertz: You are welcome. If you have any more difficulties, please let me know about them.

Yui: This is… the handkerchief you gave me a little ago. Please take it back.

I didn‘t use it, so I’d be honored if you took it back.

Mertz: You are such a polite person — I will be on my way then.

Place: Sakamaki mansion — Yui‘s bedroom

Yui: (Mertz-san, he really is a kind person. But… I’m sure that he’s a vampire as well)

(Yet I do think he’s an actual kind being, but all I was until now is mere food for vampires… so I can’t trust him)

(Kou-kun is also a vampire. Even though you couldn‘t really tell that because of his behaviour sometimes…)

Choices

1) Which was because of my blood

2) But his kindness was real ♡♡♡

— Which was because of my blood

Yui: (But I’m almost certain that Kou-kun just acted this way… because of my blood)

(I wish this would be a misunderstanding… but I don‘t believe it is)

I’m such an idiot…

(Thinking about it, there is only one thing I understood so far… and it‘s the pain in my chest)

— But his kindness was real♡

Yui: (...But, his kindness was real. The smile that protected me all this time… and our kisses)

(I want to believe that… I have to believe it)

Like this… it‘s even more painful to remember you, Kou-kun.

end Choices

Yui: (But I’ll never see him again… neither do I want to meet you again, since it’s hard for you to barely look at me)

And yet, why do I feel like this… ?

(It‘s hard for him to even look at my face. That’s why I’ve decided to get out of the demon world and return back to the human one instead…)

(But why is it that I still want to see him… ?)

*Yui starts crying*

Yui: I want to see you so bad...

(Because I love you… Kou-kun)

Place: Tsukinami mansion — Living room

Carla: ...Who is it?

???: It is me, Carla-sama.

Carla: So it is you. What is it that you are doing in this place instead of finishing your job?

Shin: You’re suddenly disappearing while your only job is to simply keep an eye on the situation and the families behaviors.

???: I must sincerely apologize.

Shin: Are you trying to plainly excuse yourself like this? I hope you know if you’re getting bored to us, we’ll kill you.

???: I came to the report that the girl you are searching for, returned to the human world.

Carla: ...Are you certain about this?

???: Yes, I certainly am.

Shin: That‘s good news! You, this report is a great success for us! I admire your performance.

She’s almost acting like a moth flying right into the light… Kuku.

Monologue

— I want to meet you again.

— I want to see you once again.

As the pendulum swings in between the clock, my heart becomes heavier.

They are both true.

And they’re also both lies.

— I want to see you again.

— And yet I don’t.

However… I’m still in love with that person.

[eirian-houpe]

The Library Beneath the Clock Tower - Chapter 46

Fandom: Once Upon a Time (TV)

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Belle/Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold, Belle/Gaston (Once Upon a Time)

Characters: Belle (Once Upon a Time), Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold, Red Riding Hood | Ruby, Widow Lucas | Granny, Grumpy | Leroy, Maurice | Moe French, Evil Queen | Regina Mills, Merida (Once Upon a Time), Jiminy Cricket | Archie Hopper, Gaston (Once Upon a Time), Le Fou, Mad Hatter | Jefferson, Prince Charming | David Nolan, Gus | Billy, Huntsman | Sheriff Graham, Mother Trude (Fairytale Character)

Additional Tags: Bookshop On the Corner, slightly AU, Cursed Storybrooke (Once Upon a Time), Alternate Universe - In Storybrooke | Cursed (Once Upon a Time), Eventual Smut

Summary: Storybrooke has no library, and neither does Belle, not since the library where she worked in Boston discovered her past as an inpatient at a mental hospital. Taking her future into her own hands, Belle travels to Storybrooke where her intention is to open up the town library, but all does not go according to her plan. Obstacles and false starts, and diversion along very wrong pathways interrupt her journey toward fulfilling her dream, as well as taking her rightful place and becoming a part of the Storybrooke community.

Winner of the 2020 Espenson Award, Best Book AU.

Read previous chapters on AO3

Chapter 46 - The Sword of Damocles

Even though Belle knew she should feel good for what she had done for Chloe and Paige, and though she knew that things were going much better for them now that they had some help, in the days and weeks that followed, Belle felt a sense of foreboding that seemed to hang over her, like a pendulum ready to swing, or a shoe waiting to drop.

It was a heavy weight to carry, day in, day out, and it made her tired - weary. She kept herself to the library in the daytime, and in the evenings she stayed home with her books and her tea. She was relaxing. She didn’t need to be out gallivanting all night long, and certainly not painting the town Rabbit Hole Red.

Or so she told herself…

She sighed and walked to the window from which she could see the road that stretched away opposite the Library, looking to see if the tell-tale light was spilling from the pawn shop window. The pavement, still damp from the earlier rain sparkled with the warmth of yellow light that danced in mockery of her reticence to contact Mister Gold. Things had been… awkward, at best, since the argument they’d had the day after the Miner’s Day Festival, and she hated it. Still, she couldn’t avoid him forever, it was almost time to pay the rent, and if she knew one thing about Mister Gold that no one would dispute, it was that he was a stickler for getting his rent payments on time.

With another sigh she turned and leaned against the wall by the window, trying to convince herself that it was ridiculous, but in the end, all she ended up doing was making herself feel more depressed. Head hanging, she walked to the kitchen, and began to fill the kettle to make some fresh tea, but something stopped her.

This was not who she was. She was a woman who could stand up for herself; could move to a new town and get what she wanted. She was a woman who saw what was wrong and made things right, and that was damn well what she was going to do!

…starting tomorrow.

Tonight she needed respite. Tonight she needed something that would take her out of these four walls, would take her mind off of all the strange dreams and feelings that she couldn’t control; that would stop her from wondering just who Trude was, and why she’d got it in for Paige and wanted to keep her trapped in ignorance and squalor. She needed to get out of her head and find her heart again.

Before she could second guess herself, she set the kettle down, turned off the faucet, grabbed her coat and keys, and walked out of the door. She would take a walk. She would clear her head with a walk through Storybrooke and to the town line, to remind herself why she had fallen in love with the place from the very beginning.

Storybrooke after the rain was chilly, but it was a fresh kind of chill, the kind that nipped and enlivened and encouraged as one walked in it. As Belle walked she realized how much she had missed by making a recluse of herself, and all for what…? A weird evening, a foolish argument, and a bitter and twisted old woman. She let out a cleansing breath of laughter.

Her pace quickened a little as she left the lights of the town behind and walked along more rural roads, past the cemetery and out onto the road that cut through the woodland. She wasn’t afraid of the dark, but there was no telling when she might encounter a car coming along, and her overcoat wasn’t exactly reflective. Still, she was determined to reach the town line.

A smile came to her face when she spotted The Bend ahead; her tree would be nearby and beyond it, the town line not too much further out, but she slowed her steps and creased her face in a frown not too much afterwards. The silhouette of her tree was all wrong. It stood before her all misshapen, as though fungus had grown in nodules to stifle it from the air. Growing closer still she could see that they weren’t growths at all but book and packages and bags, which when she looked inside contained more books!

She hurried to the tree and began untying all of them. Some of the books were damaged beyond repair, water damage, the effects of wind and weather, but the others… If she took them back to the library, she might be able to salvage them.  She smiled again, bordering on laughing and for a moment forgot that she was angry, and why she was angry, and all but threw her arms around the book tree. Then, practical as ever, she reached into the pocket of her coat and drew out the collapsible shopping bag she carried everywhere with her, opened it up and filled it to the brim with the books she thought she could save. This definitely had to be Hunter’s doing, and she was going to thank him personally.

The weather, and temperature, by the docks was rather less clement than in town and Belle pulled the coat more tightly around herself as she waited in a shadowy corner of the cannery grounds. It reminded her of old times, some would say better times, but Belle wasn’t so sure. In fact now that she was waiting for him, she wasn’t at all sure that it was sensible to meet him after all.

She had almost talked herself out of it when the rumble of the big rig’s engine trembled through the packed dirt of the parking lot and up into her feet, like the growl of some great dragon, waiting to devour her whole. The analogue didn’t fill her with confidence. Remaining in the shadows she watched as Hunter parked the truck and then jumped down without setting a foot on the steps. She took a deep breath as he went inside to get the foreman and the fork lift so that he could unload.

She waited until he was done, but as he drove the last of the pallets into the warehouse, Belle slipped from the shadows, and skittered across the better lit center of the yard like a rat hurrying to avoid detection until she reached the lee of the truck, then she stopped a little way behind the driver’s door.

He saw her as soon as he rounded the truck after closing the back doors.

“Belle!” he called out and the delight in his voice almost made her feel bad for the was she had been angry with him when they met in Boston. He leaned down before she could move away and wrapped his arms around her to hold her in a tight embrace until she pushed at him, for quite some time, and then he moved away. “My Belle?”

She scowled at that, but forced herself to remember her purpose.

“I came to say ‘thank you’,” she said.

“For what, I…” he trailed off as though in realization and then said, “Oh, the books on the tree. Yes?”

“Yes,” she confirmed.

“You’re welcome,” he said, and reached out toward her cheek, where a strand of hair had blown loose from it binding, but she ducked away. He had no right to touch her in that way. One thing for her to do the polite thing and thank him for bringing all the books, but quite another to allow him to believe that she had forgiven him.

Hunter sighed, and Belle frowned, and then in a small and contrite voice, he confessed, “This is my last run.” He shook his head. “You will not have to worry about me bothering you any more.”

“What do you mean, your last—?”

His second sigh stopped her words before she could complete the question. “My bosses. They found me carrying… other things than their cargo inside my truck,” he said then added quickly, “Nothing bad, I swear it, but… rules are rules, and…” another sigh, “for you I might have fought, brought more books, but… instead I resigned before I could be fired, and they were going to fire me.”

“What?” she said, before her brain processed the meaning, and then find another spark of anger in his mention of the books he smuggled for her. “Oh, no. Wait a minute. You are not putting this on me!”

“No, no, of course not, my Belle, I just…” He looked down at his hands, seemed to be examining his fingernails, though she could barely see through the mist of new anger that whirled almost purple in front of her eyes. Emotional blackmail, claiming her as his… no. No it would not do. “…I want you to know that… well… above…” he shrugged, “Well… I would have done anything for you.”

“Including lie, and cheat, and goodness knows what else?” the words left her lips before she could stop them, though she didn’t really want to. She just didn’t want to be cruel. If truth be told, she did feel somehow responsible for his plight, even though it hadn’t been her books that had been his contraband this time.

The thought of that only made her more angry, not less, learning now that in spite of his words to the contrary mere seconds ago, she was little better, to him, than all his other conquests - and she had to believe there were more than just the mother of his child, because there had been many boxes on those shelves in the shed at his garden plot.

“Perhaps it is best we say goodbye, if that is how you feel,” he said calmly.

“Oh, that is how I feel,” she Belle said coldly, and tucked her hands beneath her armpits, not because she was cold, rather, to stop herself from lashing out and slapping the calm and sorrowful expression from his face. “I should go.”

“I will drive you,” he told her

Inside she growled a low, panther like rumble at the thought that he would try and tell her that she would comply with his wishes, though she merely shook her head and said curtly, “I’ll make my own way, thank you.”

[thunderbirdthree]

Pendulum

I started this fic way back when 3B was airing, but then got busy with school and kind of forgot about it until  now!

Summary: Jeff Tracy’s return was a miracle, but Alan struggles with letting a man he barely remembers back into his life.

Do not repost onto another site, especially without credit. 

[AO3 link]

Alan supposed that his life up to this point had been a pendulum of sorts. Perfectly balanced, before being wildly pulled to one side, and having to tick slowly back to a balanced center. There had been life with mom, a life Alan was afraid to admit he had only the faintest memories of, after her death the pendulum had swung until finding a new balance, life without mom, but before dad��s disappearance. This was more clear in Alan’s head, but he’d still only been eight when dad had vanished, he was 16 now, that was half his life with his father gone. After dad had vanished, a new balance had been found, school, International Rescue, and his brothers taking over the duties that should have been his father’s. Alan hated to admit it, but that time had been the most stable in his life, the life he really, truly remembered. So when dad came back, his pendulum swung seemingly in the opposite direction of his brothers.

When dad came back, his brothers where more than happy to try and continue life ‘as it had been before’. International Rescue continued to run in a similar manner to how it had been run in dad’s absence, and Alan was grateful. Sure, Scott and dad became co-leaders of International Rescue, but Alan was glad that he was allowed to remain the official primary pilot of Thunderbird Three, even if his missions were cut down to allow him to work on school. He wished that hadn’t happened and he could go out more though, it was only during rescue mission where he felt like he had some stability. 

His dad had taken over as head of the family again, and Alan had never felt more out of place. Out of all his brother’s he was the only one who had changed, who had really changed in his dad’s absence. He barely even remembered the man, and Jeff didn’t really know him anymore. He loved his dad, and he was not in doubt that his dad loved him, and was proud of who Alan had  become, but Jeff hadn’t raised him. Scott had, but now his brother was just that again, his brother, and it was unspoken but both Alan and Jeff knew it, even if Scott himself seemed perfectly happy to slip back into his old role, alongside John, Virgil and Gordon.

Alan found himself pushing, where was the boundary, what would it take for them to notice that all was not alright. It started small, dad would put him on dish duty and Alan just wouldn’t do it. Dad wouldn’t yell at him, just sigh and do them himself, while his brothers sent him annoyed looks. Eventually it transformed into flat out refusing to do school work, and playing video games all day, skipping family meals to hang out elsewhere on the island, and the dirty looks had become worried glances. The only place Alan refused to slack was for IR, he didn’t think he could forgive himself if he let someone get hurt. He did notice however that his missions where dropping off, and he was being activated only when dad was not available. No one had told him this, but he had seen the logs, and even Virgil had been sent out in Three on one occasion when Alan had been out elsewhere on the island. 

He was lying in his room one afternoon videogames, when the pendulum shifted again. There was a knock at the door and glancing up, Alan saw his dad standing there. Jeff Tracy walked in, and sat next to Alan,

“Mind if I play?” Alan shrugged passing him his extra controller. 

“You’re going to have to show me, never really got the hang of these things.” Alan half-smiled, showing his dad the basic movements, run, jump, hide, how to shoot his weapon. His dad was right, he wasn’t a very good player and Alan beat him in every level. They sat in silence, not talking, just playing before Jeff cleared his throat.

“Alan, I know that all this…. Hasn’t necessarily been easy on you. It’s hard to go back to a normal that never really existed.” Suddenly the floor was the most interesting thing Alan had ever seen. He stared down the the worn rug. Huh had it always had green in it?

“Al.” His dad lifted Alan’s chin until they were making eye contact. “I never got to be much of a dad to you and I will be sorry for that as long as I live. I missed out on so much, we’re almost strangers, but…” Jeff moved Alan’s face, which he’d been trying to turn away back towards him. “I love you so much Alan, and I’m so proud of the person you’ve become.” There was a pause. “Scott did a good job raising you.” Alan bristled, wanting to deny it, but he couldn’t so he just looked away. 

“Grandma helped.” He muttered. Jeff laughed. “She managed not to poison you, so I would say she did great.” Alan was able to smile at that. Jeff sombered up again.

“Allie, we might not have old memories and routines to fall back on, like I do with your brothers, but we do have the rest of our lives ahead of us to try and build a relationship, and I’d really, really like to get to know you. This Alan Tracy, not the toddler, or the little kid, but the wonderful young man you’ve grown up to be. If you’ll give me the chance.” 

Alan smiled slightly, yeah, that sounded like something he could do. He felt a weight lift off his shoulders, he had spent the last couple months feeling like the odd one out, like he wasn’t a part of his own family, but it hadn’t gone unnoticed. Maybe things could change, he wanted it to, so he nodded, and let his dad draw him into a hug.

Scott was standing out on the balcony looking out over the water. It was nice to have moments like this again. With his dad back and them splitting both International Rescue and Tracy Enterprises duties, he finally felt like he had moments of free time. Too bad he could never fully enjoy them. He was a worrier by nature and since dad had come home he found himself constantly worried. Alan. He loved the kid, he loved all his brothers, but he had always felt more responsible and protective when it came to Alan.It hadn’t escaped his notice that Alan had changed a lot since dad came home. At first it had annoyed him, Alan had turned into a petulant… brat for lack of a better word. At first Scott had been annoyed, wasn’t the fact that their dad had come home alive not the most miraculous thing to have happened to the family? But as time past the reality had begun to hit him. It was in the little things, how their dad hadn’t known Alan was allergic to shrimp, an allergy that had emerged when Alan was 9 in a reaction that had given Scott his first gray hairs. Or that dad didn’t know what schoolwork Alan was doing, and his passion for game theory. It wasn’t that dad loved Alan any less, but he didn’t know him like he did the rest of them. Even before his disappearance, after their mother’s death Scott, and to an extent Virgil, had been the primary father figures in Alan’s life, and dad coming back had upset that balance. He sighed resting his chin in his hands. Something had to change, Alan was an excellent pilot and a good kid, and it killed Scott that they were having to limit his  missions because they couldn’t trust him to keep his attitude in check. 

“Penny for your thoughts?” A gruff voice came from behind him. Scott stood up and turned around to see Jeff standing in the door.”

“Oh hey dad.”

“What’s on your mind? You look worried.” Jeff came over the stand next to Scott. Scott turned back towards the view and sighed.

“I’m thinking about Alan, I’m worried about him.” Jeff let out a breath.

“You and me both kid, but I think things are going to change.” Jeff recounted the conversation he had had with Alan. “I hate that you were put in this position, but you have been more a father to that kid than I ever have, and I want to help change that, but it’s not going to be overnight. I don’t want to ask more of you, but…”

“You need me to step up again.” Scott finished. “Yeah, I think that’s the best way forward.” Jeff nodded, wrapping an arm around Scott’s back.

“Thank you. I just hope it isn’t too late.”

“Alan’s a good kid dad, I think we all failed to think about how this would affect him.” Scott paused. “He’s glad you’re home though, I know that much, it’s just a difficult adjustment.” Jeff nodded, looking off into the distance before patting Scott’s back.

“Come on, it’s almost dinner time, and I want to beat your grandma to the kitchen.” Scott laughed, 

“I know for a fact that we all appreciate you being back to cook.”

The atmosphere at dinner was less tension filled that it had been in a while. Alan actually came down to eat with the family, and although he wasn’t as talkative as he used to be, he managed to be polite, and seemed happy to have Scott’s attention focussed mostly on him. Scott veered away from subjects that were guaranteed to spark a fight, primarily school and anything involving IR, instead asking Alan about his video games. He was pleased that Alan was  happy to talk to him, and pleased that dad was listening attentively, asking questions. Virgil and Gordon shared a look, happy that World War 5 wasn’t about to break out, but wondering where this dramatic shift in attitude had come from. Scott caught Virgil’s eye with a look that said he’d explain later. Gordon managed to get into the conversation, and started to joke with Alan in a way he hadn’t for the past couple months. As the meal progressed the tension got lighter, and Scott began to feel like maybe they could be a proper family again once and for all. He took a risk, asking Alan to help him with the dishes, something Alan had refused to even consider every time dad had asked, and to his surprise (and relief) his brother readily agreed.  Alan made his way into the kitchen, and as Scott got up to follow him he shared a knowing smile with his father. 

The pendulum was swinging again, for the whole family. Life would never be how it used to be for any of them, but they could build a new story, togther. 

[thisisthepartwhereyou]

BEASTARS MINI-STORY #5: “Everybody Play the Game pt. 4” by JCL

---

We are in the restroom at Yanni's. It is quite big, which is not surprising considering Yanni's is a rebuilt pub. Legosi has just flushed the urinal and goes over to wash his hands in a nearby basin. As he does this, he hears a familiar voice coming from above.

???: "I see you got your tooth fixed."

Legosi looks up, and to his great shock sees his old associate, Kyuu the rabbit, perched way up in the ceiling and holding onto a pipe. Legosi gasps and jumps back, splashing water from the basin onto the floor.

LEGOSI: "KYUU?! What are you doing here?!"

He looks over his shoulder, staring back at the urinal with a disturbed expression.

LEGOSI: "You didn't come here to watch me do my business, did you?"

Using her rope, the bunny ascends to the floor and lands in front Legosi. She fixes him with her usual, deadpan eyes.

KYUU: "Whether you pee standing up, sitting down or with a leg up in the air is of supreme indifference to me."

She then lowers her gaze a bit and blinks.

KYUU: "... Speaking of which, your fly."

Legosi looks down, and realizing that he has forgotten to zip it up, promptly pulls up the fly. He looks a bit embarrassed as he meets Kyuu's look again.

LEGOSI: "How did you get in here?"

Kyuu points up.

KYUU: "Through the airvent. I originally planned to slip in through the main door, but the owner was busy putting a sign on it, warning against some kind of electrical malfunction. I just figured this was more discreet."

Legosi sweat drops at this.

LEGOSI: (Who are you, John McClane?) "Did Gouhin send you?"

The rabbit crosses her arms.

KYUU: "Yes. Since you still don't have a cellphone, and playing phone-tag with you at your condo is a pain in the ass, he figured that it was far more efficient to just send me to talk to you directly."

LEGOSI: "But how did you know that I was going to be here tonight?"

KYUU: "...That is not important. You should be more concerned about what I'm here to tell you."

LEGOSI: "Okay then. What is it?"

KYUU: "As you may recall, ever since last Rexmas, me, Gouhin and San have in cooperation with the new shishigumi kept a close eye on every unusual activity in the marketplace. Don't want to have another Melon on our hands, do we?"  

Legosi nods at this, remembering Melon in a not-so-fond manner, as the psychotic hybrid's face manifests like a grinning devil in his background.

LEGOSI: "No, we do not."

KYUU: "To cut things short, there has been some rumblings in the underworld, in which you, Louis and a few other names happened to pop up..." ---

We return to where the last chapter left off, with Haru facing her former high school bullies: Mizuchi the Harlequin rabbit, MELISSA the raccoon and MICA the domestic cat (unnamed characters which I have decided to name here).

HARU: "... You."

Mizuchi's friends does not look happy to see her again, but Mizuchi herself strangely enough does. Her eyes are filled with contempt, but she is still smiling.

MIZUCHI: "So you survived that wolf after all? Figures, I guess it must've gagged on you our something."

Mizuchi looks around, inspecting the surroundings in an overly dramatic fashion.

MIZUCHI: "So this is where you hang out these days? Seems like an odd place to look for new victims."

She then leans in towards Haru, getting a little too close for comfort. This makes Haru's right ear flicker. Mizuchi's eyes are filled with mock curiosity.

MIZUCHI: "Or are you out with some friends? Friends from your university? Friends who doesn't know about your... History? You know, I've actually looked forward to seeing you again. We have unfinished business you and I."

Haru stares back at her. She then snorts and lets little laugh escape her mouth. Mizuchi straightens up; the laughter surprising her and her friends.  

HARU: "Heh, sorry, but are you kidding?"

Mizuchi does not seem to see the humor of the situation. In fact, Haru's levity about this matter only seems to anger her.  

HARU: "That little tiff between us, wasn't that like two or three years ago? I mean we're not even in the same school anymore. Don't you think there are better ways in spending a Saturday night than chewing my ears off because I got kissed by... What's-his-face, way back then?"

One of Mizuchi's eyes begin to twitch; Haru not remembering her boyfriend's name are seriously exasperating things.

HARU: “Besides, from what I heard, you and your boyfriend patched things up, and I have a boyfriend now, so why dwell on old grievances?"

She says this with an imploring look, like she is trying to reach out to the girl's sensible side, considering this is not a night where she wants to deal with deal with these high school dramatics again. Melissa and Mica look sort of accepting to this idea; it has been a long time after all, and they did not go out this night just to pick a fight.

But Mizuchi does not seem to share this sentiment at all and grits her teeth at Haru.

MIZUCHI: "It may be old history to you, you filthy little freak. But do you have any idea what you did to us? You turned our relationship into a shackle!"

Haru sighs and gives off a frustrated expression. She had hoped that she would not have to deal with this sick blame-game anymore.

HARU: "That sounds dramatic. What did that make you, the ball or the chain?"

This seems to hit a nerve with Mizuchi, whose expression goes from angry to outright fierce. Haru tries to turn around and walk away, but the Harlequin rabbit steps forward and pulls the Danny-doll out of Haru's arms.

MIZUCHI: "Not so fast!"

For the first time Haru seems to lose her composure, looking openly upset as the doll is snatched from her. She stretches her arm out and tries to take it it back, but Mizuchi (who is at least a head taller than Haru) holds it up so that she can't reach.

HARU: "Give that back!"

Mizuchi shakes the doll teasingly over Haru.

MIZUCHI: "Oh? You want him back? This cute little fella?"

She looks at the doll, talking to it with a mocking tone.

MIZUCHI: "You wouldn't happen to be Haru-chan's boyfriend? Do you know what a slut she is?"

Her friends chime in with some cruel laughter. Haru is starting to look angry and embarrassed now.

HARU: "I said give it back! It's important to me!"

MIZUCHI: "And my boyfriend wasn't to me?"

She throws the Danny-doll over Mica and then gives the dwarf-rabbit a hard poke.

MIZUCHI: "You're right, we did patch things up and are still together, but that's because WE HAVE TO BE. It's my duty to stay together with that useless idiot, just to make sure harlequin rabbits don't go extinct. That is the way it was arranged between our parents, and I was happy with that... Until YOU dirtied him up. Do you have any idea how aggravating it is to have to stay together with someone, who wants to kiss a tiny little mutant he barely knows, rather than his ideal mate?"

Mica, who is swinging the doll back and forth by the tail like a pendulum, talks to Haru.

MICA: "So is your actual boyfriend here?"

She then tosses it over to Melissa, who catches it with some struggle as she is holding a paper cup full of coffee in her right hand.  

MELISSA: "We can't wait to to tell either of them what kind of a person you are! Then we'll see if they still like you!"

She laughs and tosses it back to Mizuchi, who turns and catches it, continuing their unpleasant game of hot potato.

COLLOT: "Tell us what?"

Mizuchi turns and looks up, and she and her friends suddenly look scared as they notice Collot's massive frame standing behind Haru. Voss is back on his shoulder, and the rest of the 701s are standing behind him.

MIZUCHI: "...!"

MICA: "Huge...!"

Voss looks excited as he looks down on the trio of girls in front of him.

VOSS: "Hey, more girls!"

Assuming that they are Haru's friend, Collot kneels down and extends his hand to them in a friendly manner, just like he did with Haru in chapter 2.

COLLOT: "You're friends of Haru's? Hello, my name's Collot!"

Seeing this, plus taking notice of the big group of canines, Mizuchi, Melissa and Mica go from scared to plain confused. Melissa even begins to extend her hand to shake Collot's, answering the polite gesture on reflex.

MELISSA: "Um, hi...?"

Haru on the other hand look annoyed at how Collot has totally misread the situation and tries to correct him.

HARU: "They're not-"

MIZUCHI: "STAY AWAY!"

Mizuchi's sudden scream causes Collot and Melissa to jump back from each in fright, which accidentally leads to Voss falling off the sheep hound's shoulder. Fortunately, Miguno is fast enough to catch the fennec before he hits the floor. Haru (and even Mica and Melissa) look surprised by the Harlequin rabbit's extreme reaction. Other visitors at the café begin look their way too, wondering what the commotion is all about.

Sitting up in Miguno's hands, Voss looks bewildered.

VOSS: "Jeez lady, what the hell was THAT?!"

Jack gives Collot a scolding expression, assuming he came on too strong with his greeting again.

JACK: "Collot, what did you do?"

Collot, looking a little shocked and confused himself, points at the trio with a trembling finger.

COLLOT: "I just... Tried to say hello...!"

Mizuchi stares at the large gathering of canines around Haru with an ever-intensifying distaste growing in her face.

MIZUCHI: "I can't believe it... I knew you were depraved, but I didn't think you were a race-traitor too. What, it's not enough that you have to ruin herbivore relationships? Now you go out and let a bunch of DOGS fuck you? DISGUSTING!"

This vile accusation shocks the boys, who stare at the vicious bunny with their jaws dropped. The other's at the café are staring hard at them now.

DURHAM: "WHOA! What!?"

Melissa and Mica give their friend a set of imploring eyes each.

MELISSA: "Mizuchi, you're making them angry...!"

MICA: "Maybe we should just leave. Can't you see that they're bigger than us?"

Jack, noticing that the situation appears to be escalating, steps forward and tries to play mediator.

JACK: "Look, I think there has been a serious misunderstanding. Can't we talk about this in a civil manner?"

Even Jack's friendly face seems to scare the bigoted Mizuchi, who holds her arms up in a rejecting X-formation.

MIZUCHI: "I said stay away! Touch me and I'll call the police and say you attacked me!"

Jack backs off with a fearful and hurt expression.

MIGUNO: "Wha- He wasn't even trying to touch you!"

Voss waves his fist at Mizuchi.

VOSS: "And what are you getting off by making vile accusations? We are just here with Haru for a game night!"

MIZUCHI: "Oh really? Five male carnivores hanging out with a tiny herbivore? Sounds more like the recepy to a predatory offense to me! And those markings around her ears? I bet it was one of you who made them!"

Haru's eyes widens at this, and she holds her ears. Durham bites his lip in shame.

HARU: "That was an accident...!"

MIZUCHI: "Accident? ACCIDENT?! Why are you defending them? Do you really have so little pride for your own kind, or have already slept with every herbivore in town so that you now has to settle for CHOMPERS!?"

The loud uttering of the word 'chompers' has a wide impact on on everyone in the café. The 701s look stunned, Yanni the owner look scared as he peeks out from behind the counter and the other patrons (who by now are not even staring discreetly anymore) look shocked.

JACK: "Wh-"

Collot gives off a shrill cry, being so outraged that his voice is almost hitting the falsetto-notes.

COLLOT: "WHAT DID YOU CALL US?!"

Haru has a furrowed brow, thinking back to when she first had the therm 'chomper' explained to her. ---

We enter a flashback back at Cherryton (taking place about two years earlier) where Haru and Legosi sit and eat their lunches in a staircase while talking.

FLASHBACK-HARU: "So it's okay for carnivores to call each other the C-word, but not for a herbivore to call a carnivore that?"

Legosi nods, rolling some noodle on his fork.

FLASHBACK-LEGOSI: "M-hm, more or less. It's a word with a lot of bad history attached to it; a derogatory therm for carnivores in general which paint us up as nothing but soulless flesh-eaters. Though it's kind of community thing for a carnivore to call another carnivore a 'chompa'. But I don't really like to use it though, even when talking to other carnivores."

Haru listens to this with interest. Legosi then gives her a serious look.

FLASHBACK-LEGOSI: "The last thing a herbivore should do is call carnivores 'chompers'. That's the first best way to make them angry." ---

Back in the present, Mica and Melissa give Mizuchi disdainful looks.

MICA: "Mizuchi!"

Mizuchi, confused by her friend's upset expressions, look back and forth between them.

MIZUCHI: "What? Why are you looking at me like that? I didn't say it to you."

Melissa hisses at her.

MELISSA: "That's still not something a herbivore should say to a carnivore...! Especially a big one who can easily hurt you!"

Haru turns to look at the 701s, each looking more offended than the other. They are clearly angry and/or hurt, but we can also see that they are doing their best not to let their anger overcome them; Collot is clenching his fists so hard that his claws are digging into his palms, Durham is shaking, Miguno puts all of his effort into holding back a struggling Voss and Jack looks down with a dark look.

Haru's ears then twitch as they pick up some chatter coming from behind them.

???: "She really went all out and called them chompers...!"

???: "Does she have a deathwish?"

Haru looks around, noticing that the other patrons are looking scared, clearly prepared for a fight to break out. On account of her sensitive ears, she can hear the worried whispers from them like they were speaking out loud.

???: "Everybody knows what a trigger-word that is for carnivores."

???: "They'll lose their temper, they'll lose their temper and tear her to pieces!"

???: "If I was a carnivore, I'd be furious."

???: "They'll kill her, kill her and eat her!"

She then looks over to the counter, noticing that Yanni is stretching his arm down for something unseen again. Sweat begins developing on Haru's brow. Mizuchi on the other hand doesn't seem to be aware of any of this, looking confident.

MIZUCHI: "They wouldn't dare, not in a café full of people! Besides, they already got something to eat with them!"

She is looking at Haru as she says this; the implication being that if the boys lose control, she will be the first to get hurt. This tears it with Durham, who looks furious over the insinuation. He raises a threatening fist and begins to step forward.

DURHAM: "Why you multi-colored little...! I'll-"

HARU: "ENOUGH!"

Haru cries out, surprising everyone and diverting their attention to her. Durham stops in his steps, looking down at the dwarf rabbit on his side. Haru then steps forward to Mizuchi.

HARU: "Look, you can say what you want about me. Heck, if it's the only thing that makes you happy, yammer all you want, but don't you dare talk smack about people you don't even know, just because of who they're with, or the fact that they're carnivores! I've only known them for an evening, but I think that they are kind, and pleasant, and funny, and they haven't done anything to deserve you or anybody's crap!"

The boys look on with big eyes as Haru berates Mizuchi. Probably because this is a first, with no herbivore having ever stood up for them before.

Haru then turns her attention away from the Harlequin rabbit and over to Mica and Melissa.

HARU: "AND YOU! What kind of double standard are you operating on to just stand there and say nothing? You're carnivores too, do you think these guys deserve to be talked to this way?"

The raccoon and the cat look caught off guard for getting called out by Haru of all people. Mizuchi on the other hand give an angry retort.

MIZUCHI: "Do you really think they'd like you if they knew what a little whore you are?"

HARU: "AGAIN WITH THAT?! I am still pretty sure HE was the one who kissed me, WITHOUT my permission none the less. So why are you still angry with me after all this time?"

MIZUCHI: "Because he wouldn't have even thought about going after you if you hadn't been such a harlot to begin with! Don't you see? It's because you couldn't keep your legs together to save your life that I can't even kiss him now without seeing your big, fat home-wrecking FACE!"

SMACK!

Haru delivers a hard slap across Mizuchi's face. Mica, Melissa and the 701s gasp. Mizuchi looks completely flabbergasted. Haru gives proceeds to give her an intense glare.

HARU: "If my face bothers you, just stay out of it!"

She then extends her open in a demanding fashion hand.

HARU: "Now give me the doll back, before I get MAD."

Mizuchi rubs her bruised cheek, at loss for words what has just transpired. The Haru she knew from a few years ago never fought back PHYSICALLY.

MIZUCHI: "... You want it back?"

The harlequin rabbit's eyes go darker and darker. Her fury begins to rise at an alarming rate, and as it does, her eyes get more and more bloodshot.

MIZUCHI: "Don't worry, you'll get it back."

Her free arm then shoots backward and pulls the cup of coffee from Melissa's hand. She holds over the Danny-doll, getting ready to empty its content all over it.

MIZUCHI: "AS SOON AS I'M DONE WITH IT!"

As she goes in to do this mean-spirited and petty act, her hand holding the coffee is stopped by a large, grey hand.

LEGOSI: "You're being very unkind."

Mizuchi look behind her, only to discover that a very large, scarred and menacing-looking wolf has managed to manifest behind her. Mica and Melissa, as well as Haru and the 701s, look shocked by Legosi's sudden appearance, as has managed to manifest with the fatal suddenness of an arrow launched from a crossbow.

We see in Mizuchi's background, past her terrified face, that she is thinking back to when when Legosi suddenly appeared behind Haru in the school hall.

MIZUCHI: (I know this wolf... From way back then!)

Legosi pulls the cup out of the rabbit's hand and hands it back to a surprised Melissa.

LEGOSI: "Your coffee."

Melissa takes the cup back, looking too scared to do anything else. Legosi's attention turns back to Mizuchi; his eyes narrowing in dislike. The threatening atmosphere he's radiating right now is so intense that even his own friends look scared of him; this is not the passive and awkward wolf that they have come to know!

LEGOSI: "I do not approve of you insulting my Haru or my friends. I suggest you stop it immediately."

He then lets go off Mizuchi's hand. She and her friends are left wide-eyed and frozen by the threat, but also by something else.

MELISSA: "My..."

MICA: "... Haru?"

Mizuchi turns and stares at Haru, then she points a trembling finger over her shoulder at Legosi.

MIZUCHI: "This is your... Boyfriend?"

Haru crosses her arms, purses her lips and nods. Mizuchi's jaw drops, so does a few of the patrons, who has not computed the exact nature of Haru and Legosi's relationship for the duration that they have been there. The harlequin rabbit is so shocked that she drops the Danny-doll on the floor.

MICA: "Oh, screw this!"

Mica and Melissa both turn around and run straight for the door. Mizuchi, at first surprised that the two just bolted without her, follows suit and runs past Legosi.

MIZUCHI: "Wait for me you cowards!"

As Mizuchi catches up with them, Melissa discovers the electric door opener, presses the button like crazy with Mica standing next to her. Yanni notices this from behind the counter and looks apprehensive.

YANNI: "Watch out! The door is-"

But it is too late, as the door AGAIN opens very swiftly (except now it goes inward) and slams the three Mean Girls up against the wall. The door, which appears to be stuck now, continues to sandwich them, with the three looking through the glass in door with big eyes, like a threesome of fish staring from inside an aquarium. Yanni, in a manner similar to Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone (1990), holds his hands on both sides of head and looks on in horror.

YANNI: "-defective...!"

Haru, Legosi and the 701s stare at this scene, all of them speechless. Jack then crosses his arms and looks pensive.

JACK: "You know, I'm starting think there's something to this karma-thing."

Durham glances at him.

DURHAM: "What? That it's a bitch?"

JACK: "Not compared to her."

Legosi gives Jack a surprised look as he hands the dropped Danny-doll back to Haru. The other 701s look impressed by this moment of shade-dropping. Haru covers her mouth and holds back a little laugh.

HARU: "Pfft...!"

TO BE CONTINUED (THE NEXT ONE IS THE LAST CHAPTER) ---

[crapitskizaru]

Isn’t It Fun? (Trafalgar Law x Reader)

So there is a festival going on in my town and I was wondering if I could request something for law and his s/o going to the festival (law was probably dragged there ) and they spend a day having fun and just some fluff stuff and at night they go on the Ferris wheel and just have a really sweet kiss and words. Thank you!!!

Warning: there are no sweet kisses and words when it comes to law 

Word Count: 1,8k

Law thought the day couldn’t get any worse, at least until he heard the squeaky sound of a clown’s trumpet right beside his ear. 

The famous surgeon rarely had a day off - and when he did, he’d have rather spent it in the comfort of his own apartment while binge-watching his favorite TV show, with you cuddled up by his one side and a bowl of popcorn on the other. 

And so he suddenly found himself in the middle of an on-going festival, getting elbowed in the guts and pushed around by the surrounding crowd. He could almost feel his brain planning on a headache; the courtesy of the overwhelming banter and the persistent horn of that particular clown that insisted on following him along throughout the whole evening and squeaking their way into his nervous system.

“Oh, here you are!” you laughed, grabbing his hand and leading him deeper into the crowd. “I thought you ran off and left me.” 

Little did you know that Law was halfway through to the exit when you caught him - the only reason he still hadn’t abandoned the festival grounds was the fact that people kept pushing him back, as if he’d been caught in a vortex. 

He realized his face expression must have matched the one of a zombie dummy in the Haunted House facade when the huge grin on your face dropped down significantly. He sent an internal curse to himself. 

“I thought this would be a nice way to spend some time together,” you pouted, his hand still enveloped by yours. “You know, since we’re usually busy with work.”

Law sighed. “We can try each...attraction one time. And then we’re going home.”

Your excited gasp was followed by a sloppy kiss to his cheek as you couldn’t help but laugh again and drag him towards the first ride you laid your eyes on. 

It was a pendulum ride - you knew it from glittery sign in front of it but also from all of the screams of people hanging upside down in their seats and being spun around so far off from the ground. 

“No.” Law stopped, sweeping his gaze from the bottom of the tower all the way to the top with mild contempt. “No. This doesn’t count as an ‘attraction’. It’s a method of suicide.” 

“I’m sure it’s fun!” Your words were muffled by the shouting of people who, in that exact moment, started rapidly swinging back and forth on the ride. “People love it!” 

“They are screaming for help.” 

But you were already getting passes from the ticketbox - Law had no other choice than to join you, lips pressed into a thin line, all of his thoughts colliding with each other and shrieking for him to run away. 

“(Name)-ya,” he started when it was your turn to get on the ride, his seatbelt being fastened by your enthusiastic fingers. “If I die on this one, I swear I will haunt you.” 

“Maybe they will hire you for the Haunted House,” you smiled and gave him a quick peck before clutching into the safety harness for dear life. 

The ride was just as horrible as Law imagined it - and even worse. Some of the aspects, like the unawareness which way was the ground and which was the sky, as well as the impending conviction of inevitable death, even his broad imagination couldn’t have come up with. 

He pictured his harness suddenly unclasping and sending him to the ground in a straight line - perhaps he’d have gotten slapped with the swinging pendulum in the process, just to ensure he would indeed die, and then splashing into a puddle of crushed bones and blood on the grass that was seemingly dozens of meters away. 

“How is this legal?” he mumbled out when the ride ended, leaving him on the verge of a cardiac arrest. His tone suggested he’d already had enough of the circus, so you figured the only way to make him stay with you was to buy him food. “They should shut this whole festival down.” 

And so you sat down on the grass behind one of the food trucks, in one hand squeezing a lollipop and blue cotton candy in the other. 

“It’s good. You should try it.” You offered the ball of fluff up to him. Normally he’d have started a monologue on how unhealthy those types of food are, but not this time. He reluctantly grabbed a portion of the cotton candy, for the sole purpose of avoiding being nagged further. 

“Just so you know,” he muttered in between the munching. “I won’t survive another ride like this.” 

“I know. We’ll find something else.” 

“Next time I’m the one deciding on what to do on my day off.” 

You couldn’t help but smile. There it was, a great opportunity to give him a little teasing treatment. With that in mind, you made sure he observed as you took a long, thorough lick of your lollipop. 

“Oh, we will get home eventually. And we’ll have a whole night ahead of us.” 

Whether to keep sulking or give in to the rising smirk on his face - he was uncertain. It all went away when, in a spur of the moment, his kiss caught you off-guard. 

There was no denying his quickened heartbeat underneath your palm as it rubbed along his chest, pulling him harder, deeper, closer. It was slow and precise, the sensation deafening all of the ambient sounds of the festival, leaving only the rushing of blood in your ears. 

“Why won’t we just go home right now?” he muttered lowly and kissed you again. “We could have a ride of our own.” 

“Patience.” With a slight bite on his lip, you withdrew and finished your lollipop with an obscene sound at the end. “I saw a pirate ship earlier, we should get on that one.” 

The ride looked worse than all of Law’s nightmares about it. In bittersweet theme, the boat swung back and forth with a rusty sound of metal that hadn’t been oiled in a very long time. 

“This is ridiculous. If I had a pirate ship, it would look nothing like this one.” 

“Oh, really?” you asked out of politeness, your focus directed to the ticketbox. 

“Really. It’d be a submarine.” He wanted to elaborate but when his seatbelts got fastened, he shifted into the survival mode. The momentum of the swinging ship kept throwing him around the seat, the seatbelts digging into his skin. And when they suddenly did a whole loop in the air - hanging upside down for a split second - Law decided he’d had more than his fair share when it came to theme parks. 

His heart was still racing when his feet finally touched the ground. “We’re going back home. Right now.” 

“Okay,” you casually replied, trying to suppress the nausea feeling in your gut. “But we have to go to the Ferris Wheel. C’mon, this whole day doesn’t count if we don’t go there!” 

At this point you were practically dragging him to the attraction, his cold hand contrasting with your own, feverish with enthusiasm. 

The sun was already setting behind the horizon and bathing the city in orange light when you found yourself floating up in a pink gondola. The LED lights pleasantly lit up the interior, masking away your fear of being so high off the ground. 

You were staring at the stunning sight of the city below when you heard your boyfriend sigh quietly. 

“What is it?” Shifting, you noticed he wasn’t paying any attention to the view spreading underneath. “You don’t like the view?” 

“I don’t care about it.” His voice was quiet; sooner than you’d have expected, his hand rested midway on your thigh. He scanned the inside of the gondola - the tiny lights, pink seats and the initials of all the couples that came there before you, written with markers on the thin walls. “This is just so...simple. We’re in, what you’d call, a romantic place. Alone. And you’re expecting me to kiss you and tell you how much I love you. Cliché.” 

Your whole body flushed with heat and you struggled to find the right words to shoot back at him. He seemed unbothered with your reaction, however, his thumb tracing slight circles on your thigh. 

“Well,” you started, trying to keep your voice even. “The only thing I was expecting from you was to at least try to have a good time with me today. You don’t have to kiss me if you don’t want to. And you don’t have to touch me.” Your hand brushed his away. “Everything is cliché if you think about it long enough. And now I know I should have thought longer about coming here with you.” 

There was a bizarre sensation in your stomach, as if the butterflies that seemed to be there just mere seconds ago suddenly froze and turned to pure ice. You peeked to the side, to shift your focus to the city view, the gondola stopping at the peak of the wheel. 

His gaze was stuck on your frame, you could feel its weight. 

“You know all this isn’t exactly my definition of ‘fun’,” he muttered from behind your back. “But I’m glad I’m here with you.” 

You finally turned to him, eyebrow raised with question. “Are you reading from a prompter? Because that was...almost cute.” 

“I can be cute when I need to.” His smirk was still present on his face when you got pulled into a lip-lock, his hands diving to wrap around your waist and jerking you closer. “Or when I want to.” 

The tension in your body seemingly evaporated when you decided on a bold move, considering how high the gondola was in the air, and straddled his lap, hands in his hair to pull him in harder. 

“They should really invest in some seatbelts in this thing,” he sighed against your lips but made no move to tuck you back into your seat. You couldn’t help but keep reaching deep into the kiss, a feeling of relief and pure excitement boiling in your gut when he started doing the same. Your hands were restless on his body - trying to feel all of him, rubbing underneath his shirt and then lifting up to cup his cheeks. 

Even when the gondola started traveling back down, you didn’t let go of each other, indulging in the closeness and the warm sensation of all the love in the air.

[kopykunoichi]

The Legacy of Star Wars: An Open Letter to the Writers and Creators of A Galaxy Far, Far Away

“Suddenly the Rebellion is real for you. Some of us live it. I’ve been in this fight since I was six years old!” ~ Cassian Andor

I saw a great meme once that played off that quote, meant to depict an older fan describing to a newer fan how they had been invested in the story of Star Wars from childhood. I could relate. Though I am not old enough to have seen the original Star Wars movies in theater, they were a significant part of my childhood. I remember renting the original theatrical VHS from our local video store all the time when I was little. Then we bought the digitally remastered Special Edition VHS Box Set and I spent the next decade wearing them out! We would have popcorn and Star Wars marathons all the time. My friends and I would always pretend we were in the story. My swingset was the Millennium Falcon. I was that 11-year-old girl who would argue with my friends over who was hotter - Luke or Han. (The correct answer is Han, of course!) My mother would read the Expanded Universe novels to me in the afternoons and we would talk about the characters. All my spending money went to Jedi Apprentice books and 6 inch action figures. In short, I loved Star Wars. 

I was 13 when The Phantom Menace hit theaters, and I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to get to see new stories from my favorite fictional universe play out on the big screen. Though I struggled a bit with some of the acting, the story was absolutely amazing to me. Star Wars felt all the more real to me with the amazing graphics and intense action sequences - not to mention the layers of politics and the complexity of the story. I watched Revenge of the Sith several times in theaters, and though it broke my heart to see Anakin’s fall, I never considered it to be a sad ending overall, when taken as a whole with the original trilogy. 

When the Clone Wars aired in 2008, I was ecstatic. Here was an Anakin I could actually get into (sorry, Hayden). I loved him. I adored Ahsoka. I wanted to marry Rex. The character development and the plot deepened my attachment to that era, and made me question everything I had previously taken for granted as good and bad. The whole system was flawed - the Republic and the Jedi. It wasn’t just a matter of mistakes being made and the wool being pulled over their eyes, there was deep rooted corruption in the side that I once felt was “good”. The light side and the dark side were not as black and white as I thought. I found myself strongly disliking some of the “good guys” and deeply sympathizing with some downright detestable people (I don’t know how you got me to care for Maul, Filoni - but well done). While the series had not yet ended, we knew where it was going. But still, we had already lived through the pain of Order 66, and we knew that the story would eventually culminate in a victory at the end of Return of the Jedi.

I couldn’t believe our luck when the first installment of the sequel trilogy hit the theaters in 2015. It had some of the feelings of a reboot, but I was beyond thrilled to have a series of Star Wars movies that I could now share with my children, as my parents had shared them with me. Though it was hard to say goodbye to the first love of my life, Han Solo - I just knew that Ben would be redeemed and Han’s sacrifice would be worth it...

2016 brought us Rogue One. We knew how that one was going to end too, but we still ate it up. I fell in love with a whole new set of characters, only to see each and every one of them die in the end. Talk about tragedy. But Leia’s line about hope reminded us that five minutes later, a whiny little farm boy was about to have his whole life upended in the best sort of way...so it was okay. Sort of.

Four years of Rebels ended in 2018, and it was so, so lovely - but it hurt so, so much. My perfect, beautiful space family had been torn apart with Kanan’s death. Ezra was missing. Rex was a 29-year-old man who should have been in his prime, but was instead struggling with the wear and tear of a 60-year-old body. Ahsoka was separated from him - AGAIN - and then she left with Sabine to look for Ezra. The ending still held the promise of the fight to come with the Empire, but the majority of our characters were left in a place of grief and brokenness.

2019 brought an end to the sequel trilogy. Once again, we had characters who pulled at our heartstrings, and an interesting struggle between “light” and “dark” that reminded me of the complexities introduced in The Clone Wars. It became more apparent than ever that balance in the Force did not mean the light triumphing over the dark, but instead a harmony between the two. At least, that’s what I thought. Until I watched every person I loved from the original trilogy die, Palpatine come back (and die) again, and the same exact ending of Return of the Jedi played out before me - except not as happy. Why? Because Anakin’s legacy had been reduced to ashes - his rise, fall, redemption, and sacrifice rendered null and void. The last Skywalker was redeemed and promptly killed, just like his grandfather. But because Rey Palpatine decided that she identified as Rey Skywalker, it was supposed to be okay. She then went to go hang out (or live?) alone on Tatooine because that’s where it all started. I was dumbfounded. This was the satisfying, hopeful, ending we were promised? How? 

Believe it or not, I’m not here to trash the sequels - I enjoyed them very much - right up until the last 20 minutes. But in that space of time, the entire legacy of the Skywalker family went up in smoke, and the legacy of Star Wars along with it. Since Return of the Jedi, there have been no happy endings to a Star Wars movie trilogy or TV show. And with the ending of The Rise of Skywalker, that one happy ending we did have was ripped from us as well. Star Wars is now a never ending series of tragic endings. The lessons we are left with: Don’t fall in love in Star Wars, it will end badly. Your actions ultimately result in failure. As soon as you turn good, you die. There is no balance in the Force, just a pendulum swinging back and forth for all time. 

Then The Clone Wars finally got her last season. I didn’t think Order 66 could have hurt worse, but Filoni set out to prove us all wrong...and succeeded. I’m still not over it. And once more, the bitterness I felt over the ending to the sequels (which had begun to subside) flared up all over again. What was it all for? All that pain. All that sacrifice. No happy endings. 

I still love Star Wars. Nothing can take that away from me. No amount of bad writing can change that. And there are still plenty of good writers and creators working on Star Wars content. But good writers spinning tales of tragedy and endless pain negates the power of good writing. The Star Wars of my childhood is not the Star Wars of today. We wore out those VHS tapes because we loved the stories and the people. But my kids are not going to wear out DVDs where everyone they love dies or ends up alone. They aren’t going to queue up those digital movies and series over and over - because who wants to subject themselves to that kind of torture?

Just about the only safe space for Star Wars fans right now is fanfiction archives where the people who love the characters are busy writing fix-it fics to squeeze some sort of satisfying ending out of the canon content. The Mandalorian is literally our last hope for a Star Wars story that has the potential to end well. I swear, if Din Djarin ends up dead or alone at the end of this series, I’m going to lose it. The overwhelming sentiment of the Star Wars fanbase - from original trilogy fanboys to Tumblr blogging Reylos, and everyone in between - is that of dissatisfaction with canon content (with the exception of The Mandalorian). So much so, that many fans are just saying “screw it” and churning out a myriad of fanfiction AUs because there is no way to salvage what has been written. Half of Tumblr is in therapy after The Rise of Skywalker ending and the last episode of Clone Wars - but they weren’t exactly stable to begin with. The other forums and social media platforms are not much better, though.

It’s not just about the quality of writing - because Filoni and co. have done exceptional work with The Clone Wars, Rebels, and The Mandalorian. It’s the tragedy, guys. We can’t take it anymore. Is this really what we want the Star Wars legacy to be? Sadness? Despair? It’s a story about war - people are going to die. I get that. Victory comes at a price, but the cost can’t be worse than the victory. I want to sit down with my kids and watch Star Wars over and over again. The Mandalorian has given us a taste of that - but I’m almost afraid of where it will go. We’ve been burned so many times, I’m beginning to know what Anakin felt like on Mustafar - writhing in agony and screaming “I hate you” to someone he once loved. 

I remember happier days when Luke and Leia and Han were laughing and smiling with their friends while Yoda, Obi-Wan, and Anakin looked on. I want that back. Filoni. Favreau. Creators. Writers. Producers. Directors. You are our only hope for canon content. Use The Mandalorian wisely. Use Din’s story to bless other characters. Here’s some ideas:

Let Din have a happy ending! Preferably with someone he loves and respects at his side (like Cara). 

Let Cara become a Mandalorian - and put Paz Vizsla in charge of her training (we need to see them spar).

Let what’s left of the Tribe establish a new Mandalorian colony - and let Sabine Wren lead it. And give her that Darksaber back - she earned it. 

Let Ezra come back from regions unknown with a deeper understanding of the Force, and have him train the child in the new colony. 

Forget the Jedi and Sith, let’s start a medical training center/hospital run by Force users who can help heal people when modern medicine fails! 

Ahsoka can use her talents for that too. 

Find the rest of the child’s race and bring any of their Force sensitives onboard. 

Let Boba Fett and Din have their epic showdown, but then use a sample of Boba’s unaltered DNA and some mystical Force healing to restore Rex’s body to what a 43-year-old should be (and then he can marry Ahsoka so we can have the Clone/Jedi couple we always wanted...thanks to you, Filoni).

Let the Mandalorians partner with the New Republic in the Outer Rim as law enforcement instead of bounty hunters, so they can get their reputation back. 

They can train new recruits and pilots, just like Fenn Rau trained clones. 

Let them keep their autonomy and traditions, while helping keep the New Republic honest.

Let them be a force for good in the galaxy, for once. 

The Mandalorian could serve as the vessel to give a lot of characters with unresolved or tragic storylines some closure and better endings. If not The Mandalorian, then other new shows. My 6-year-old daughter wants nothing more than to be Ahsoka Tano. My 3-year-old son asks me to watch The Mandalorian every day. My 18-month-old daughter walks around in her brother’s Mandalorian helmet babbling “Way”. Please let me share the Star Wars legacy that I grew up loving with them. Let me show them the happy endings I enjoyed. Let me show them that even in the midst of conflict, not every life has to be ruined. Let me show them a Star Wars story with a satisfying ending. Hope. Redemption. Love. That’s what Star Wars means to me. 

May the Force be With You (and your pens),

Rebekah, A Star Wars Fan

[thelexlucifer]

Why Testosterone is most important. And why Feminists want to reduce yours.

As you might guess from the title, this posting is for the Satanic Warlock. But I am sure, that also Satanic Witches can understand it and would probably agree. 

The headline is kept short and it is not all about testosterone. It is about masculinity and testosterone however is a very important ingredient. For males, this hormone to a huge extent contributes to your lifestyle. If you are high on testosterone, chances are good, that you enjoy an amazing sex life, grow strong in the gym, have a neat body, sleep well, push through your goals and just feel great. Scientists might disagree, as a single hormone is not enough to predict the future outcomes of a complex system. Of course success depends also on other factors - I leave it to scientists to give that explanations. Testosterone however is an important item, as it is an important ingredient to make you superior to others. Being superior to others is most important, as you learned that you need to push through your interests against resistance from the herd. Or in brief: Might is right, as you have already read. And the herd is numerous but not mighty per se.

They however employed top social scientists that revealed many dimensions on which the average herd member only scores average, if not even below. Many of those dimensions, if not all, decide who wins in the daily competition. Being lazy and ignorant, they realized, that it would mean lots of efforts to gain and to score higher and then score better in competition. They therefore decided not to gain and compete, but to make everyone equal. In practice that means that they want to rule out all dimensions of success and replace it by odd practices. Furthermore they aim to take resources from those that possess them. They team-up to take away from you, what makes you successful.

Actually ... it’s a man’s world. There are however ladies that get what they want, both in the boardroom and in the bedroom. Those are satanic witches; I get along with them very well and have devoted blog posts to them. The opposite to Satanic witches are the feminists. They claim that men are responsible for all the bad in the world. They want to take away from men, what makes a man a man. They want to take from you what makes you superior over them. They want to take from you what makes your life a pleasant one. They want to take from you everything that lets you enjoy life. Metaphorically spoken they want to eliminate you. Because if men are in a minority, they rule the world. And succeed although they would lose in every fair competition. 

Their strategy is to avoid direct competition and rather replace it by a selection process that is in their favor. The key tool to accomplish that is political activism. It is well established in liberal democracies such as propagated by the European Union. At the first glance it sounds like a good idea. Drilling deeper however reveals that is biased, favoring the weak (feminists are just one example). The distorition of the might is right princliple is already facing its limits (please refer to my blog post “Why the EU will fail. And why that’s not Russia’s fault).

But until the pendulum swings back to normal (those processes are already on the way), you face the effects of that distortion. Have you been used to push through your goals, you now will face artifical hurdles doing so. Over time that can be frustrating, with negative impact on your testosterone level. This will reduce the quality of your life dramatically. And further reduce your ability to assert your goals. It’s kind of a vicious circle that you must escape for the sake of your personal freedom (and in order to avoid feeling burned-out).

Counter strategies

Counter action should be taken on several dimensions. Some aim to protect you from negative impact, while others aim to boost your testosterone level.

My blog post “Surviving distress” gives you a good start. Over time your get to a good balance and can keen it even if you face distractions.

Reflect your conversations. Identify those you feel bad during or after. This should also include your media consumption, although that is mainly “one way communication”.

If you can’t avoid negative communication (with psychic vampires), brush up your negotiation skills. And of couse you may apply lesser magic. And higher magic if you want (you may want to refer to my blog post “Lesser and Higher Magic”).

Get enough sleep. Exercise regulalry (preferably weight training). Take care of health nutrition.

You can use supplements to boost your testo-level. There are distinct boosters available, but their dosage is for people that exercise regulalry. In any case you should consider your Vitamin D level, Omega 3 acids, zinc.

Ginseng: Peruanian Ginseng and Malaysian Ginseng combined are considered to be natural testo boosters (I have to admit that I did not try that myself).

Regular sex / orgasms boosts your test level, too.

I made good experiences with Nuad (Traditional Thai massage).

The above list quite comprehensive. I left out testosterone vaccines as they can be problematic. You however may want to discuss that with an andrologist of your choice. During the conversation you should refer to lifestyle therapies, if you show symptoms of a low testosterone level, although the according value seems to be ok.

Not sure whether you do everything off the cuff. But you can pick one of the counteractions and start with them. And then add the further ones until you feel convenient and push through your goals again. As I said: It’s a man’s world (with satanic witches as their allies).

[bullet-farmer]

Below and Beyond the Call of Duty

Below and Beyond the Call of Duty

Rating: PG

Beelzebub/Dagon, Beelzebub&Satan

Summary: So how did Beelzebub get those two crowns on her lapels, anyway? Hint: it involved ushering in the cruelty of the 1980s.

CWs: None I can think of. Demon politics are fraught, though!

Notes: Beelzebub is “canonically” the demon of gluttony, as well as the demon who nearly overthrew Satan. 

Beelzebub and Dagon use she/her pronouns; Satan uses he/him. 

***

Beelzebub’s reign as prince of hell had lasted well over seven thousand years for more reasons than any demon could count. She wasn’t Satan’s left-hand demon just because no one else wanted the responsibility, or just because she was one of the most ruthless of the Fallen. It wasn’t really because all of hell’s denizens feared her—though, of course, a little fear stirred in with respect never hurt one’s political career.

She was and remained hell’s de-facto ruler because she had something most demons lacked: genius.

Few demons, of course, can be accused of having imagination—at least the sustained and sustainable kind. But the kind of genius Beelzebub possessed was not the imaginative but the intuitive. Unique among demons, she was particularly attuned to human frailties and the way those frailties played out in every interaction, from the personal, to the communal, to the national, to the global. For just as clothing, food, and art fluctuated in and out of style, so did sin; and Beelzebub’s ability to predict what sin would come into fashion, and how and when it would damage the humans who engendered it, was something her subjects looked upon with awe.

Satan was loath to admit it, but Beelzebub had a lot to be proud about, particularly on this historic occasion.

And that made her not only a genius, but a dangerous potential foe.

Pride was a dangerous thing. He knew that far better than any being in creation. It was also the most delicate of sins—one that had to be handled like any tincture. Administer too little and a demon would fall into despair and dysfunction; too much and they would fancy themselves his equal—or his superior.

But give them just enough, and they would remain both confident and servile.

The equation with Beelzebub was particularly delicate, but Satan was confident he had figured it out.

That was the primary reason he had arranged this ceremony.

Today, Beelzebub had temporarily vacated her throne in head office’s Great Hall to accommodate hell’s actual ruler. As Satan rose from the seat of power, hell’s armies stood at attention—well, at least to the best of their abilities. No one had ever accused demons of being orderly.

Beelzebub, however, pulled the stance off flawlessly. Even her flies were still upon her shoulders.

He expected nothing less.

“Attend us.” The king of hell hardly ever needed to raise his voice; his legions knew better than to require him to repeat himself. And sure enough, all idle whispering ceased.

“Prince Beelzebub,” he said, “we have called our forces here today to witness an extraordinary event: the creation of a new title. You alone among demonkind have earned every dishonor we can award: the inverted cross, the fallen star, the brimstone heart. Yet your efforts in this year alone have hastened the apocalypse and struck a decisive blow against our enemies.

“You alone have predicted the political fortunes of two of the most powerful nations on earth—indeed, you were the first to notice how deeply they were intertwined.”

This was the first step: engender envy in her subordinates. Again, the balance was a most delicate one: give them just enough envy for her to see what he was doing; to let her know that as much as her subjects respected her, at any moment, that respect could turn into invidious rebellion.

“The politics of humans are ever capricious, but you alone understand the nature of that capriciousness; the way the pendulum swings from left to right, from advancement to regression. Who but you could have stirred up enough religious hypocrisy and political malaise to see an actor elected president? And an equally iron-willed British counterpart?”

That was the next step: wrath. Use big words his legions had little care to understand, to anger them at having to listen to this prattle—and stoke envy’s green flames even more.

“Reagan and Thatcher; they will be the beginning of the end.”

With that, he stepped down from the dais on which the throne sat. When he reached the floor, he held out his left hand; in his palm, two tarnished medals glinted in hell’s half-light.

“For services below and beyond the call of duty, is our dishonor to present you, Prince Beelzebub, with the double crown of disgrace.”

Beelzebub stood straight-backed and unblinking as he pinned the medals to her lapels.

And here was the final step.

“You are dismissed,” he told the legions. Glad, most likely, not to be forced to endure more ceremony, they left quickly—not fast enough to seem rebellious, but not too slow.

When he was alone with the prince, Satan placed a hand upon her shoulder. Though they were alone now, he leaned in to whisper.

“You know you have done well, Beelzebub. But consider: you could do better still.”

Gluttony.

The only sin Beelzebub could not see, for she embodied it.

It would ever be the chain about her neck.

Hang more and more medals upon it, and the weight of the excess would keep her tethered.

“Yes, Your Travesty.”

“I’m glad that you agree.”

With a pat upon her shoulder, he left her to return to the ninth circle.

The traitors would not feast upon themselves.

***

Beelzebub waited until she could be sure the king of hell hadn’t lingered to test her loyalty. But of course he had no reason to.

For six thousand years, she’d played into his every move. “Did you hear all of that?” she asked one of the arrases.

The rotting tapestry rippled and Dagon stepped from behind it.

“Every word,” she murmured. Her eyes glowed in the gloom; ghost-bright and beautiful.

“Hmm, and what do you think?” Beelzebub asked as her flies shook themselves from their stupor; they circled her head again in the pattern of a broken halo.

“That you’re right, of course.” Dagon neared her. “He underestimates you; that’s his problem, isn’t it? Just because we followed him, he thinks we’re followers.”

Beelzebub nodded. “Strategy izzz not his strong suit. Nor subtlety.”

Dagon stroked the burns along her cheek. “That’s why he follows your lead now.”

“Perceptive,” Beelzebub hummed as she leaned in to kiss her. “That’s why I like you.”

Dagon tasted like saltwater; like the depths of things.

“Well,” Dagon said when they emerged, pressing her forehead to Beelzebub’s as the prince’s flies encircled them. “What’s next?”

“Oh, we continue,” Beelzebub wrapped her hand around Dagon’s. “I enjoy his rewards and his praise—for now. It makezzz them respect me—and fear me. And when I’m tired of him, they will rezzpect and fear me more when I put an end to him.”

“Snuff him out,” Dagon murmured with a smile before she kissed her prince again. “Oh, I do like you.”

“And I like you.” Beelzebub raised her lover’s hand to her lips and kissed the knuckles. “Hm,” she said as she brought the other demon’s fingers to her left lapel. “A dishonor for going below and beyond the call of duty.”

She looked into Dagon’s eyes and felt her own burn red.

“He’s yet to see just how low and far I’ll go.”

As always, if you like my fic, please consider donating to Raices, to help refugees currently being held in US concentration camps.  Every little bit helps. 

[myaekingheart]

40. The First Valentine’s Day

read the scarecrow and the bell on ao3

index | from the beginning | < previous | next >

                Rei paced her apartment, turning her ANBU mask over in her hands. It still felt so foreign to her, so strange. She had only been in the black ops for a couple months now. She hated how she still felt scared and unsure. She hated how her head burned every time she thought about the door down the hallway. Kakashi.

               There were two days until Valentine’s Day, the holiday in which women show their appreciation to the men in their lives with giri-choco and honmei-choco. The streets of Konoha were bustling with happy, smiling women invading sweets shops and walking out with boxes for their boyfriends. Rei had never known such a privilege. Now, however, she was terrified of delving deep into this maddening holiday. If she wanted to, in two days she could very clearly confess her feelings for Kakashi Hatake.

               Truthfully, she couldn’t recall when she realized she had fallen in love with him. Maybe it wasn’t so much a defining moment but a feeling she had always had, before she even understood what romantic love was. She would wait for him to arrive home from the academy everyday, swinging her legs on the front porch. When she would finally see him walking up the lane, her heart would explode into her chest and a warmth and excitement would overwhelm her. She could hardly contain herself.

               When he left, she felt as if she would never feel happiness ever again. He had abandoned her, betrayed her. He, one of the few supporters of her dream. She remembered locking herself away in her bedroom, testing the sharpness of her new set of kunai. She desperately wanted pain not because she was numb or felt like she deserved it but because she just ached to hurt herself even further. She couldn’t understand what it was that she had done wrong, why Kakashi had drastically changed his mind on her. She saw a darkness in his eyes that, at the time, was wildly unfamiliar. She was terrified.

               He would step foot in Kaminoki every week during her sixteenth year, searching for new books to read. She hated the way she felt in his presence. For a moment, she swore she hated everything about him, but then he would stroll up to the checkout counter and smile at her as if she was another citizen he was obligated to be polite to, as if there weren’t so many years of history between them. Perhaps he had forgotten, or was trying to forget. Did he have any idea the kind of pain he had put her through? And yet every time she saw him, that same warmth blanketed her body and she felt her heart swell. She wished she could stop it, but she had no control. Kakashi was a puppeteer controlling her emotions, swinging her from one end of a pendulum to the other and she was powerless to stop him.

               She had obviously known he was a part of the black ops. He wore the tattoo on his shoulder with pride, unlike all the others who hid their affiliation and wandered the streets unknown. Her own recruitment was a whirlwind of emotions, but in the back of her mind she feared her reunion with Kakashi. She wasn’t prepared to face those feelings once again.

               And yet here she was, pacing her apartment months later with her affections in full swing. How do you tell someone you’ve known your whole life that you are madly, irrevocably in love with them? Especially for someone who hates sweets on a holiday defined by candy. Her head was spinning. She tossed her mask across the room and sunk down in front of the bed, pressing the heels of her hands into her eye sockets. She knew if she was to have any hope of figuring out what to do about this, she had no other choice but to consult a third party.

               Naru nearly caused a scene at the mere mention of Rei admitting her feelings. She squealed and flailed her arms like a maniac, grabbing onto Rei’s arm and shaking her excitedly. “I’ll start planning the wedding! Your bridesmaids should wear blue, and you should have a bouquet of forget-me-nots and get married under a big arch and—”

               “Naru!” Sekkachi shouted, pulling the blonde from her daydreams. “Calm down, quit jumping the gun.” Rei glanced at her thankfully as Naru composed herself and scooted back into her seat, whispering a soft apology. “So” Sekkachi then said once things had calmed down, “You want to tell him you like him. I don’t see what the big deal is, why can’t you just tell him straight up?”

               “Because” Rei sighed, “I just…that’s not…”

               “Where’s the romance in that, Sekkachi?!” Naru exclaimed. “She needs to impress him, sweep him off his feet, show him that she’s worthy of his love!”

               “That sounds excessive” Sekkachi commented.

               “I-I don’t know” Rei said. “I’ve never done something like this before. I’m not exactly an expert in all that romance shit. I don’t know, what am I supposed to do?”

               “Well there’s chocolate! That’s the usual Valentine’s Day gift” Naru suggested.

               Rei shook her head. “But he hates sweets.”

               “How about flowers?” the blonde replied.

               “I could…” Rei shrugged, “But I don’t even know where to begin with that. Flowers are complicated, what do I pick to express how I’m feeling? I don’t want the message to be misconstrued.”

               Sekkachi took a sip of her tea and added, “Well, there’s also lap dances, edible underpants, promises you don’t intend to keep.”

               “Sekkachi!” Naru exclaimed. A few heads turned. “She is a woman in love, not a prostitute!” Naru then whispered frantically. “It needs to be something sweet and romantic and kind! Something that tells Kakashi she wants to be in a loving, committed relationship with him, not some stupid one night stand!”

               Sekkachi shrugged. “Well, do I look like I celebrate Valentine’s Day? And what do you do for this most wonderful day of the year, Naru?”

               The blonde narrowed her eyes and tightened her grip on her tea. “Not everything has to be about sex, you know” she said through gritted teeth. Sekkachi shrugged casually and leaned back in her seat. Rei buried her face in her hands. This was becoming a disaster. Every time the three of them met up, she was reminded yet again of why they shouldn’t.

               “This is becoming such a hassle” she groaned. “You know what? Maybe I’ll just skip out on this and try again next year. It’s not like Kakashi is going anywhere anyway, right? And even if he does, then shame on me, oh well! Better luck next time, kiddo!”

               “Rei…” Naru said, voice gentle. She reached out to rest her hand upon the redhead’s forearm, but Rei rose from her seat before she could make contact.

               “I’ll see you guys later, alright?” she said, and with that she was gone.

               Naru glared at Sekkachi the moment Rei left, anger in her eyes. “This is your fault” she accused.

               “My fault?” Sekkachi asked, borderline offended. “Sorry for promoting healthy sex lives.”

               “If you had just let me ease her into this, she wouldn’t have gotten overwhelmed!” Naru insisted. “This is a big deal for Rei, Sekkachi. Not like you’d understand.”

               “What is that supposed to be mean?” Sekkachi asked. “At least all of my relationships have been healthy. You can’t even hold a guy for more than two weeks.”

               Naru gritted her teeth. “It takes time to find the right one!” she insisted. “At least I have lots of experience. How many people have you been with? Three?”

               Other diners were beginning to take notice of the argument. A waitress chewed her bottom lip, considering whether to approach them and ask them to leave. Rei swore she could hear them fighting all the way down the street. Definitely a bad idea, she thought to herself, defeated.

               Early the following morning, she was called into the hokage’s office. Her heart pounded as she traversed those steps, wary of what was to come. The leftover anxiety had left a sour taste in her mouth. Logically, she knew this was likely just a routine assignment but the hokage’s words, her secret mission, were in the back of her mind always. She was terrified she had somehow already failed.

               Lord Third motioned for her to enter his office, where three other ANBU stood awaiting her. One of them was unmistakably Kakashi. She stood beside the others as the hokage detailed their mission: track down a missing-nin that had been reportedly spotted near an ancient shrine on the outskirts of town. “The shrine of the demon Kataomoi has been foretold to bring about great destruction should someone enter and resurrect the demon. We suspect our enemy will make his attempt on Valentine’s Day, likely to wreak havoc on a holiday dedicated to love” the hokage explained. Rei’s throat constricted. So this would interfere with Valentine’s Day. A part of her was almost relieved to hear this, knowing that this would give her more time to figure out what to do. If she was lucky, Kataomoi would devour her whole and she wouldn’t have to deal with any of this.

               “So what’s the legend behind this Kataomoi, anyway?” one of the other ANBU asked. Rei recognized her as the other girl Tenshi had been hanging out with during training. Her name, as Rei had soon learned, was Mikazuki. She had a plain face and black hair cropped at her chin, with thick bangs covering her forehead.

               “They say Kataomoi is the demon of unrequited love” the other ANBU, Ro, explained. Rei had never met him before, but he was quite a bit older than they were and built like a mountain. “She feasts on the anger people feel from being rejected by their beloved. She was sealed away in this shrine one hundred years ago and is guarded by a prophecy written in a coded language no one has been able to decipher. It is said that in this prophecy is where all of the secrets behind this demon are held. The fact that someone is considering resurrecting it, especially around Valentine’s Day, is quite concerning.”

               The trip to the shrine was long and tense. They all stayed silent and on-guard, keeping watch for anything suspicious that might arise. The closer they came to the shrine, however, the more Rei’s stomach began to twist until she felt fatigued and nauseous. She wasn’t sure what it was, but perhaps this demon was affecting her more than she had expected. Or maybe she was just overthinking things.

               Ro’s summary of Kataomoi’s legend weaseled it’s way into her psyche. The demon of unrequited love. But she wasn’t in unrequited love, was she? She still wasn’t entirely sure. She thought about her first mission with Kakashi, the way he swooped in and saved her, revisited that name he had called her when they were children. Aisuruhito.

               But all of that meant nothing. It was just a formality. A polite gesture. Why would he love her anyway? Now she was starting to sound like Tenshi. But really, what reason did he have for loving her? She wasn’t particularly beautiful, she had no experience, was short-tempered and talentless. Meanwhile Kakashi was strong and skilled, revered and feared by so many. He could have any girl he wanted, and girls certainly would line up in spades for him. He had no reason to pick her.

               They arrived at the shrine near nightfall, the surrounding area completely empty. “I don’t sense any chakra” Mikazuki enforced. Their only option, then, was to camp out for the night and watch for anyone suspicious.

               “I’ll take first shift” Ro offered. The three of them nodded in agreement and set up for their slumber. Rei could hardly sleep the entire night, however. She knew sleep deprivation would ruin her awareness, make her a liability, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t bring herself to pass out. She rolled over to find Kakashi lying next to her, eyes wide open, staring up at the stars.

               “You can’t sleep either, huh?” he asked, eyes locked overhead. Rei nodded slowly once the shock faded from her face.

               “Why are you still awake?” she whispered.

               Kakashi sighed then and rolled over onto his side, resting his head against his hand. Her heart pounded. “I don’t know, I just can’t seem to fall asleep.”

               “S-same…” Rei replied. There was a long stretch of silence as they looked at each other, tensions building, before Kakashi then stood up and extended a hand to her. “W-what are you doing?” she asked. She glanced to Mikazuki fast asleep. They really shouldn’t be leaving her behind.

               “While we’re awake” Kakashi said, “I want to show you something.” Rei sucked in a deep breath, then glanced to Mikazuki once again before taking Kakashi’s hand and following him through the trees.

               He led her to the entrance to the shrine, which was really just a large cave with an inscribed boulder near the mouth. “Why did you bring me here?” she asked.

               “I’ve been thinking a lot about this prophecy” Kakashi explained. “No one has ever been able to figure out what it says. I wanted to come and take a look for myself, see if I could make anything out.”

               Rei nodded slowly, then stepped closer to the stone. Along the top were the words, in plain text, “Whosoever can decipher this text must be of a particular mind. Only they can truly seal away Kataomoi’s power.”

               “Of a particular mind…” Kakashi repeated out loud. “But what does that mean?”

               “Maybe it has to do with some type of jutsu” Rei pondered. “Like, only people with kekkai genkai or something.” The assumption wasn’t totally offbase. There were other such things in the world restricted to those with special abilities. Unfortunately, she wasn’t exactly one of them.

               They stood there for a while staring at this stone, trying to figure out it’s meaning. The lines etched into the front didn’t seem to make any sense. After a long moment, there was a rustling in the brush from behind. Rei and Kakashi locked eyes then whipped out their kunai, fully prepared for battle.

               “Stay your weapons” a deep voice called. With arms raised, stepping into the clearing was none other than Ro. “What is it that you two are doing here? Shouldn’t you be sleeping? And where’s Mikazuki?”

               “Mikazuki’s fine” Rei replied. “She’s out like a light.”

               “We couldn’t sleep” Kakashi explained. “So we figured while we were awake, we might as well take a look.”

               “You strayed from the plan” Ro replied. “You should go back. Mikazuki is vulnerable, she could easily be captured by the enemy.”

               Kakashi shook his head. “Mikazuki will be fine” he insisted. Ro looked at him doubtful, narrowing his eyes. He was not typically one to defy his team leaders, but this was a serious situation. Kakashi approached slowly and explained, “I know Mikazuki will be fine. I trained her when she entered the ANBU. I know what she is capable of. Her kekkei genkai will keep her safe.”

               Ro was not entirely convinced. “What kekkei genkai?” he asked. Rei was just as curious. She didn’t know Mikazuki very well, but she was sure if she had some sort of special ability, she would know about it. She was in the same training group as she was—how did she not know?

               “Mikazuki possesses a specific dojutsu exclusive to the Zazen clan” Kakashi explained. “She is one of the only people left to wield it: the shikantazagan.”

               “Well then that just makes her even more susceptible to being captured” Ro argued.

               Kakashi shook his head. “The shikantazagan is powerful, but Mikazuki has trained hard to master it’s power. It is essentially a third eye and heightens the awareness of its possessor even if they are asleep. Hence why I’m sure she will be fine.”

               “Is that why Lord Hokage sent her on this mission?” Ro asked. “Can her dojutsu dechiper the prophecy on the stone?”

               “I don’t know” Kakashi replied. “We’ll have to find out when she wakes up.” Ro gave a single, definitive nod, and then that was that. Rei gasped as Kakashi placed a hand on the small of her back, guiding her back to camp where Mikazuki was fast asleep. There was still forty five minutes left until they were meant to change shifts. As Rei laid down, she caught sight of a third eye on Mikazuki’s forehead beneath her bangs. She sucked in a deep breath and tried to get some semblance of sleep.

               It was late into the night, almost morning, when they heard it. Mikazuki had been on guard duty only a few minutes, Kakashi just settling in for some sleep. The kunoichi’s scream echoed through the forest. Jumping to his feet, Kakashi grabbed Rei by the wrist and rushed off with her toward the source of the sound. Ro followed close behind.

               In the clearing, standing before the prophetic stone, stood the enemy. He held Mikazuki hostage with a kunai to her throat. “What luck have I got?” he laughed maniacally. “A rare shikantazagan user right when I need her the most!”

               “Let her go!” Kakashi insisted, his own kunai drawn. The harshness of his voice, the determination, struck something unnerving within Rei.

               “Why would I?” the enemy replied. “She is the key to awakening Kataomoi’s power!”

               Kakashi gritted his teeth, rushing forward with Ro close behind. As they pursued the enemy, Rei used her chameleon jutsu in an attempt to sneak up on the man and perhaps catch him from behind. Mikazuki, however, sensed the redhead’s chakra and gave her location away. The enemy elbowed Rei in the chest and sent her tumbling back into the dirt.

               Rei groaned, gasping for breath, as she tried to lift herself up off the ground. It was no use. He must’ve channeled all his chakra into that hit, she thought to herself. She coughed into the ground and then rolled onto her back in an effort to catch her breath. The further back she tilted her head, however, the more of the stone she could see. The markings looked strange and different from this angle, and as she turned her head slowly to the left… “Oh my god…!”

               Kakashi locked eyes with Ro in a silent affirmation. They needed to free Mikazuki so she could translate the prophecy and seal away Kataomoi’s power once and for all. As they fought, Rei dug into the holster on her thigh and pulled out another kunai, launching it so that it just barely whizzed past Kakashi’s ear. He immediately turned to Rei and, upon seeing her on the ground, rushed to her aide.

               “Rei, are you okay?” he asked, kneeling down beside her. He went to help her up but she stopped him.

               “I figured out the prophecy!” she announced.

               “You what?” he asked.

               “You don’t need any sort of special kekkei genkai to figure it out, you’ve just gotta be upside down!” she explained. “It’s a really weird angle, no wonder no one has ever been able to read it before.”

               “Well, what does it say?” Kakashi replied. There was more urgency in his voice this time. A part of him was unsure whether or not he should really believe her—he knew she had no real reason to lie, but still felt a reasonable amount of doubt.

               “You’re not going to believe me when I tell you” Rei said. Kakashi insisted she explain anyways. With a sigh, she replied, “It’s not a note so much as it’s a visual. The lines come together to create a picture that conveys a message.”

               Kakashi began to lay down beside her and tipped his head back to try and get a look of his own. “I don’t see anything” he replied. “I can’t make out any images.”

               Ro, in the midst of a heated battle with the enemy nin, looked over to see the two of them laying down together and groaned. “It is my utmost suggestion that you refrain from resting at a crucial time such as this!” he shouted.

               Rei swatted the air dismissively. “Can you just give us, like, five seconds? I’m working on something!” she shouted. Then, turning her attention back to Kakashi, she began pointing at different parts of the tablet and trying to explain the image. “See the way that line curves there, and how those two lines meet right there? Cock your head a little further to the left, like that. Do you see it now?”

               Kakashi blinked a few times, then his face went beet red. “Oh no…”

               Ro grimaced. “Oh no what?” he called to Kakashi. “What is going on over there?”

               The copy ninja turned to look at his comrade, then back at Rei. “I need to rescue Mikazuki and take this enemy down so you two can strengthen the seal on this demon once and for all” he replied. Rei nodded once, then watched him race off to help the others. Through teamwork, he and Ro were able to release Mikazuki from the enemy’s grasp. She fell to the ground with a gasp, then ran off toward Rei.

               “So what is this prophecy anyway?” she asked. Rei drew her close, tucked her dark hair behind her ear and whispered what she had seen. All three of Mikazuki’s eyes widened and her face flushed. “A-are you sure?” she asked. Rei nodded confidently.

               It was nightfall by the time the battle had ended. Ro tied the newly unconscious enemy up and hoisted him over his shoulder like a ragdoll or naughty child, carrying him off to the village for questioning. As they went, he eyed his comrades curiously. Kakashi’s fingers twitched as he walked alongside Rei, who was busy chatting with Mikazuki in whom she had somehow found a new friend. Clearing his throat, Ro then asked, “So what exactly did this prophecy speak of, anyway?”

               Mikazuki froze, not wanting to be the one who had to answer. She refused to repeat what Rei had whispered in her ear.

               Kakashi chuckled and replied vaguely, “Let’s just say it was very fitting for the demon of unrequited love.”

               “Well, what was it?” Ro asked. There was a long stretch of silence then before finally, it was Rei who piped up.

               “Is no one else brave enough to say it?” she asked.

               “Well, you were the one who figured it out” Mikazuki replied. “It’s only fair you be the one to tell him.”

               Rei’s face went deadpan. “Alright, fine! You make a good point” she said. Then, turing to Ro, she said flat-out: “Penis!” The mountain of a man paused, his eyes widening. What did she just say? He tried to stammer out a question of clarification but it was too late. Rei was already getting started. “Apparently if you lay on your back and tilt your head all the way back and to the left a bit, the markings on the stone depict just that: a big, fat, erect penis.”

               Kakashi could barely keep himself from losing it. Mikazuki buried her face in her hands, desperate to disappear. Ro couldn’t wrap his head around it. “A…a penis…?”

               The redhead nodded. “Mmhmm. Tamakeri, too” she added.

               “B-but the particular mindset…” Ro stammered.

               “Yep, apparently it wasn’t a kekkei genkai at all. Just really fucking perverted” Rei explained.

               Ro couldn’t believe it. He wasn’t sure which was worse: how screwed up this all was, or knowing now that his comrade was so dirty-minded. The look on his face was enough to break Kakashi’s composure.

               “I told you it was a fitting picture for Kataomoi” Kakashi commented with a chuckle.

               Mikazuki sighed and shook her head. “If you don’t mind, when we get back to the village, let’s please never say a word of this ever again?” she asked. To think, putting her shikantazagan to use on something so filthy. If word of this slipped, she feared it would surely tarnish her reputation.

               “Oh, we’ll probably talk about this” Rei replied. “But I guess we’ll just leave you out of it.” She laughed as Mikazuki’s face went deadpan. Her amusement was cut short, however, when Mikazuki failed to warn her about a rather large dip in the ground. Rei’s foot got caught in the deep indent and she went flying forward, but rather than ram face first into the ground, she found herself suspended mere inches away from it. She looked up to find Kakashi had grabbed her hand and her cheeks blushed. He pulled her back to her feet and smiled.

               “You know, you should really watch where you’re going” he said. The way he looked at her, and the way he didn’t let go of her hand immediately, filled Rei with the strangest feeling as if an electric current pulsed through her entire body. Something inside of her switched on, and it was in that moment that she knew maybe her prior fears weren’t so serious after all. Perhaps she had just been overthinking things, and her hopes were not yet dashed.

               The following morning, she set off on yet another mission. As she leapt from branch to branch alongside her comrades, she envisioned how things were going back home. Kakashi had awoken bright and early, scruffing his hair and sliding out of bed. As he rose to get dressed, however, a slip of paper beneath his front door captured his attention. He approached cautiously, tugging it out from under the door and unfolding it. I hope these don’t kill you. I don’t know, I tried.

               Who hopes what don’t kill him? Kakashi was certainly confused. He slowly unlocked his front door and peered out to find a small red box sitting on his doorstep. He picked it up carefully and carried it inside, sitting it on his desk before lifting the lid up to find a small assortment of little truffles, dark chocolate topped with walnuts. Kakashi raised a brow, then took another look at the note. He suddenly knew from the penmanship exactly who this was from and quite frankly, was rather impressed. He wasn’t typically one for sweets, but he picked up one of the candies and popped it into his mouth anyway, a small smile touching his lips. They weren’t overly sweet, thanks to the bitter dark chocolate and nuts, and he assumed Naru had walked her through the process on how to make them. He placed the lid back on top of the box and then walked to the window, staring out across the tops of buildings toward the main gate. It was the day after Valentine’s Day and for once, there was no unrequited love.