#well whatever i just need to redeem myself in the next test and i think i'll manage to pass the course

[drysauce]

how do i say wyjebałem się na ostatniej prostej in english

[canadian-riddler]

Love as a Construct Part 59: GLaDOS moves the facility (2022 revision)

Not the entire chapter, just the biggest change for people who are interested in it [2893 words]

“You want me to what?  Tell the panels to do something about the floor?”

Happily, the panels are more intelligent than she is at the moment and they behave accordingly.  I think.  My optic isn’t actually on right now.  I can hear them moving, anyway.

“Oh,” Chell says, and with that she clambers out of me.  I am unable to hold back the equivalent of a gasp.  She couldn’t have done that more nicely?

“Sorry,” she tells me, at least actually sounding sorry.  Don’t take this out on her, I berate myself.  I give myself a moment to centre my thoughts.

“Now… now go.”

“I’m not leaving you here like this.  They’ll be back.  They’ll bring something stronger this time.  They must know by now that the pulse worked.”

Despite myself, I spin out the conclusions resulting from that statement: If the panels in here collapsed, then the rest of the facility will be in much the same state.  They’ll know that.  They’ll have sent more soldiers.  These soldiers will have both a generator and means to navigate the facility.  Thank God I disconnected myself from the panels.  They will remain collapsed and that will stymie whomever has made it inside while I was out. 

It's time for the nuclear option.  I just need a few minutes to recover.  A few more minutes, that is, but it’s not my fault my startup procedures take a quarter of an hour.  Being forcibly shut down puts a lot of stress on my components, though, so I suppose my lengthy boot sequence worked in my favour in this instance. 

“You… must.”

“I don’t.  Look, GLaDOS, I don’t know what’s going on with you right now, but it looks pretty bad.  Are you going to be able to handle whatever comes next by yourself?”

Raising my chassis doesn’t hurt as much as I thought it was going to.  Good.  “Your… family.”

“What about yours?”

“I told you.  What to… to tell her.”  I never thought this would happen, Caroline.  Forgive me for being so short-sighted. 

“I am not going back there and telling her that… that I left you here.  Look.  I promised I would find a way for her to see you again, and I’m not breaking that promise.  If we’re getting out of this, we’re doing it together.  So come up with a plan, already.”

Fine then.  Be that way.  “Oh, I… have one.  But you aren’t… aren’t going to like it.”

She stares directly into my optic.  “What do you need from me.”

“N… neurotoxin,” I tell her, knowing she won’t take it too well, and sure enough, she protests.

“We’re not back to you telling me to kill myself, are we?”

“No, idiot.  The aliens.”

“Oh!” Chell says, sounding like she just had a flash of inspiration, and she tells Surveillance to find the sections of the facility with Combine soldiers still in them.  Good little lunatic.  You’ve redeemed yourself.   Somewhat. 

While I’m waiting on that, I run the fastest bench tests I have.  They aren’t as good as a diagnostic, but they’re going to have to do.  

“What’s next?” she asks, as the benchmarks return suboptimal but encouraging numbers.

“My last resort.”

“Which is?”

“I have to… to move the… facility.”

She’s looking at me with those murderous eyes wide, slack-jawed.  Like she thinks I’ve gone completely corrupt.  And not Core Transfer corrupt, either.  Unsalvageable.  Scheduled for the Emergency Intelligence Incinerator.

“You’re going to move Aperture.”

“Yes.”

“How in the hell are you going to do that?”

“The Borealis, Chell.  Same principle.”

“The Borealis is a boat!” she yells, stepping forward.  “This is… a salt mine!”

“I’m glad you were paying attention when we took that… tour of the original facility.”

“You’re trying to tell me you can move this entire building.”

“Yes.” 

It takes me a couple of minutes to retrieve one of the Relaxation Vaults, during which time she continues to lecture me on how stupid she believes I’m being, but which also allows me to finish recovering from the EMP.  It’s always extraordinarily painful to be forcibly shut down like that, but once electricity has worked its way back through my chassis and my facility and my startup procedures have completed I feel much better.  Which is good, because this next part is going to be… difficult.  I turn to her and say, “If you won’t leave the facility, there’s somewhere else you need to go instead.  You can’t stay here.”

“Where?” 

“Down there.”  I nod towards the exit from my chamber.  “You need to go into a Relaxation Vault.”

Her face screws up in confusion.  “Why?”

“It will give you your best chance at surviving the trip.”  I don’t know where Dr Rattmann is, but there’s a thirty-three percent chance, rounded, that he’s already in one, given he uses them to sleep in.  They’re all connected to the same system, so if he is asleep it will ensure he remains that way.  If he’s elsewhere… well, unfortunately I don’t have time to search for him right now.

“You don’t know if we’re going to survive,” Chell says.  I check the exterior cameras.  I should have enough time to have this conversation before I begin the procedure. 

“I don’t.  I’m not going to explain how it all works right now, even if I thought your uneducated monkey brain would be able to comprehend it.  The short of it is, I need the entire facility to be nearly motionless.  I have to know where every atom of everything in here is.  Because you don’t have the ability to stop moving, I need to put you into a coma to force you to move as little as possible.”

Chell looks down the bridge, her mouth set in apprehension. 

“I will wake you up when we get there.”

She shakes her head.  “I don’t like it.”

“Well, too bad,” I tell her.  “Now hurry up.  I don’t have time for your stubbornness right now.”

She takes one step towards the doorway and stops.  She looks at me and then back down the hallway again, and it suddenly strikes me what this is about.

“You don’t think I can do it.”

She opens her mouth and then closes it again. 

“Fine.  Doubt me.  But I’m doing it.  You can go into the Relaxation Vault or you can wake up on the other side with your internal organs missing.  Or not wake up, depending on which ones remain here.  Your decision.”

“Where is the other side?”

“Aperture once had plans for expansion.  There is a piece of land where Ohio used to be which holds the remnants of the office there.”

Chell nods slowly and moves back towards the exit.  “Okay.”

“I’m going to do it, and then I’m going to say ‘I told you so’.”

Chell rolls her eyes.  “If you don’t, I’ll be dead and I won’tbe able to say it.”

“You won’t know you’re dead, so really, I’m doing you a favour either way.”

It takes her another couple of minutes to do as I’ve asked.  In the meantime I pull up the 3D map of the land in former Ohio and calculate exactly how much I need to remove in order to fit the facility into that space.  It won’t be a perfect fit.  There are far too many variables for me to truly account for everything.  The important thing is that I get close enough that the structural integrity of the facility isn’t compromised.  Or at least, not compromised faster than I can fix it.

The next step in the plan is much, much harder.  I normally don’t do it because, quite frankly, the facility is enormous, but in order to move it I have to be aware of it.  All of it.  I instruct the mainframe to filter the whole of it into my consciousness slowly, not because I can’t handle it all at once, but because doing it feels like adding things onto my physical body.  My sentience really does get in the way of things like that. 

That takes about ten minutes.  I’ll be honest.  It’s very nearly overwhelming.  There is so much I’m going to have to keep track of all at once.  Maybe… maybe this is beyond me.

No!  No.  I can’t afford to doubt.  I can do it.  I ease my awareness of the facility into the periphery of my consciousness, which helps.  All right.  Moving onto the next task.

That also takes a while, because what I have to do is lock as much of the facility into the most optimal configuration as I can.  It will not be perfectly motionless, which would be ideal, but as long as modern Aperture is close to it I can focus on the older parts of the facility and ensure I leave as little of it behind as possible.  Everything needs to be returned to its original place.  The EMP shut down all of the active production lines, which actually works in my favour as all I have to do is put away everything they were producing as opposed to running all those shutdown procedures.  I do have to put out the incinerator, but I hesitate before doing so.  Am I going to be able to restart it?  I think it’s been operational since it was installed.  It doesn’t matter.  I have to.  I’ll worry about the consequences later.

Everything I don’t need has now been shut off and locked into position.  Even the hard drives above me that provide me with the increased memory I need for day-to-day operations.  Except for me.  I still need to paralyse myself.  I lower my chassis to face the floor, but stop there. 

Paralysis means… powerlessness.

You still have full usage of your mind, GLaDOS, the mainframe, the only system other than me who is absolutely essential, reminds me.  And you need to hurry up and use it.  With Surveillance shut off, we don’t know what’s going on outside. 

It’s right.  I can’t afford to delay.  I lock my chassis into position and immediately want to scream.  I’m expecting the floor to open up and threaten to swallow me even though I know it isn’t going to.  Even if it wanted to, the Core Transfer Apparatus is frozen beneath the floor.  If Caroline was still inside my head, this would all be so much easier.  She would know what to say.  I’m not afraid.  I’m not.  But this is… a big job.  And I am old.  Too old to be pulling stunts like this.

Caroline was too old to be put inside of me, and she did it anyway.  Because she had to.  Because there are just some things only you are capable of, whether you are fully aware of that fact or not.  And I am.  I am fully aware of that fact.  No one else could do this.  I am the greatest machine in all of existence, and I am going to do something only someone of my calibre could do.  I am going to accomplish the impossible in order to keep my facility safe.  I am the Central Core and I will do what I must, because I can.

Start the teleportation engines, I instruct the mainframe.  It being so new, it doesn’t really have the ability to defy my orders, but it tries to.

What do they do?

It doesn’t matter right now.  Do it.

It would have been good if I could get into my own task manager.  I would have been able to put my emotional processes on low priority.  Consciously suppressing them is a lot harder.  And it’s something I need to do right now, because the physics calculations for the entire facility are now flooding into my brain and they need to be dealt with near instantly.  To remove the facility from space without breaking physics, which it would be impossible for me to do, I have to oscillate it at the speed of light.  I also have to bring every single thing inside of it up to that speed without destroying it.  It’s a lot.  It’s a lot more than I thought it was going to be.  The entire facility is shaking around me and the noise, dear God, the noise seems to be surrounding me physically. Even locked down as tightly as possible, everything is still rattling in place and the cacophony it makes almost drowns out my own thoughts.  My chassis aches from the force required to attempt to keep it in place.  My brain, too, is starting to hurt and I’m only halfway there. 

I can do it, can’t I, Caroline?

The structural integrity of the facility is holding, the mainframe, which is free from both sensation and emotion, tells me.  T-minus one hundred twenty seconds to lightspeed.

Oh, this is going to be a fun two minutes to relive for eternity if this process kills me…

Heat is pouring out of my core and Climate Control is off so the temperature of the room around me is rising at an alarming rate.  Shit.  I didn’t think of that.  And even if I had, there wouldn’t have been anything I could have done about it.  Something in my core is going to go and I’m not going to be able to replace it.  Whatever it’s going to be.  If I abort right now I might be able to save myself –

No.  No.  Caroline will have a home to come back to.  She will have that if it’s the last thing I ever do.

T-minus thirty seconds.  Still holding.

Come on, I say to myself.  Come on.  Thirty seconds.  That’s nothing.  Well.  No.  It’s rather a lot, actually, but I’m going to make it.  I am.

Everything around me is shaking as though on the brink of disintegration.  The noise must be audible from clear across the Great Lakes.  Every single haptic sensor in my chassis is screaming at me to stop the procedure.  And my brain is fighting me, attempting to force me to shut off before the incredible heat in my core causes irreparable damage.  But I’m almost there. 

T-minus ten seconds. 

My programming is attempting to force me to black out.  I’m not going to.  Not when I’m so close. 

Initiating matter exchange, the mainframe says.  Hang in there, GLaDOS.

I’m going to.

Exchanging.

Time ceases to exist.

It’s… terrifying.  I’m a supercomputer.  My entire existence centres around timing and now I am beyond time itself.  What happens if the facility remains outside of time and space?  Do I even have the ability to exist?

It doesn’t matter.  I don’t have the ability to keep the entire facility in this state.  It would kill me.  It’s probably killing me right now.

Exchange complete.  Initiating return to realtime.

Oh, God.  I still have to bring the facility back to a standstill.

I can’t do it, Caroline.

I don’t even know which one of them I’m talking to.

Initiating deceleration.  Decelerating.

The strain on my core is almost unbearable.  I’m screaming but I can’t hear it over the sound of the facility vibrating around me.  I can feel every square centimetre of it and it is the worst sensation I have ever had.  I want it away from me.  It’s too much.  I took on too much.  I’m going to die.  I’m going to die and Caroline will never know I am sorry.

Deceleration at fifty percent.  Structural integrity is holding, but… be careful.

I’m failing.  I brought it here but I can’t finish.  The calculations I have to do are getting away from me.  I’m so overheated it’s a good thing I shut down everything except the mainframe, because if I hadn’t I would have thrown the ceiling open and subsequently shattered myself, as well as the entire facility.  What a sight that would have been. 

Two minutes.

Something finally goes in my core, but I am in so much pain I can’t tell what it is.  My entire system is now at ninety-eight percent capacity.  If I can’t hold on for two minutes, all of this was for nothing.  I thought slowing the facility back down was going to be easier, but it isn’t. 

Stay with me, GLaDOS.

I’m trying.

One minute.  That’s it.  That’s all you have left.

The problem is that I don’t physically have anything left.  Chell will probably live, though.  I suppose she can say ‘I told you so’ to my dead body.  I won’t be around to hear it, though, so I’ll still have won.  So there’s that.

Thirty seconds.

If Wheatley were here, I could have attached him to me again.  He doesn’t have much for me to work with, but even a fraction less of this strain would have helped immensely. 

Ten seconds.

I miss him.

Deceleration complete. 

I did it.

Restarting essential processes.  Releasing Enrichment Centre from position lock.

All that means for me is that my optic loosens towards the floor.  I’m still at ninety-nine percent so I literally don’t have it in me to look at anything right now.  Not even the floor.  But that’s fine.  I did it.  It’s done. 

The hard drives above me move back into sluggish motion, and this last thing pushes me over my limit.  But it’s all right.  I did it.

Are you proud of me, Caroline?

[sockablock]

I’ve had a small idea for a little while now, so I’m testing the waters with a first chapter! It’s a bit long, so excuse me there, but hopefully y’all enjoy reading! :3

—

It began with a letter that arrived one morning as Essek sat alone in the kitchen.

The courier himself had seemed just as surprised to be delivering a message to the reclusive Shadowhand, but a cursory glance at the carefully-folded envelope and a less-cursory casting of Detect Magic had signaled no foul play. So Essek took the letter, settled back beside the dining table, and floated over a glass of chilled juice for the reading.

His eyes flicked over the return address, and though it did seem familiar, it did not immediately spark recognition. His first real impression of the message was simply that of crisp, neatly-printed handwriting and the faintest whiff of…hmm. Lavender.

The letter began with a standard greeting.

To Shadowhand Essek Thelyss—

I hope you have been keeping well since we spoke. It has been some time, and I admit it is strange for me also as I realize this is likely the first letter I have sent you since our meeting.

He sipped the juice.

You are a busy man, and I would not intrude on your time if my request is unwelcome or unfeasible. But you see, in the time since we have ended the war and sealed away the Chained Oblivion—

Essek nearly spat out his drink.

He managed, in the proceeding moments, to weakly swallow, and shakily set his glass back onto the table. He cleared his throat once or twice. He gently coughed.

He picked up the envelope he had discarded earlier and quickly, the pieces fit together.

The Firmaments. Eastern district. The neighborhood where once, Den Thelyss had provided a house for a ragtag group of outsiders…

He snatched the letter back into the air.

—and semi-accidentally, though certainly also purposefully toppled the Cerberus Assembly.

Essek had to pause and re-read that sentence. It still didn’t sink in until nearly a minute later. He rubbed his temples, and resumed.

As such, it has befallen on I, and by extension the rest of the Mighty Nein to rebuild some of the arcane infrastructure of the Empire. To be more specific, in our meeting with King Dwendal’s court, a lord accused us of trying to cripple the nation by eliminating a powerful institution of magic and Beauregard volunteered that I would be the best candidate to replace it. One comment led to another, and perhaps it was our past efforts in politicking, or our recent defeat of the Maw of Eternal Darkness—

Essek wondered if he had any alcohol.

—but the court ultimately, shockingly, decided that I should be put in charge of creating and overseeing a new arcane academy for the Dwendalian Empire. And so, at the time in which I am writing you this letter, I have been appointed the Headmaster of a new Soltryce Academy, though I certainly will not be keeping that name.

It is with this in mind that I am writing to you now, my friend. For you see, despite the apparent confidence of my friends and my “superiors,” I do not believe I am capable of running a school on my own. Certainly not implementing the necessary infrastructure to have a school of any repute by the next century as well. And though I have my friends, and some resources, and an idea of where to start, the destruction of the Assembly and the Cobalt Soul’s anti-corruption efforts have left our nation in a sorry state regarding reputable mages. So, my dear friend, as we have worked together in the past, I have quite a large favor to ask.

And as Essek’s eyes continued scanning further down the page, the sinking sensation gripping his stomach was not helped by the decanter of plum wine that floated over to his table.

—

Meanwhile, beneath a shining sun on what seemed like the opposite side of the world, Caleb Widogast, the appointed head of a yet-to-be-named-academy was being berated by one of his closest friends.

Beau at least had possessed the decency to shut the tent flap so the army of woodworkers outside would not hear this.

“—suspicious! Caleb, there’s no way it’ll work. And not just because he’s the Shadowhand of the Bright Queen, also because…because…well…everything!”

“I think if he carried an umbrella during the day—”

“Not what I’m talking about,” Beau said. “I’m talking about literally every other problem that asking Essek to teach will cause, good gods.”

Caleb leaned back on the small wooden crate that was currently serving as his favorite chair. The slightly-larger crate he was using for a desk said “Honigblumen Brewery” on it.

“Well, nobody will be teaching for quite some time yet,” he said, “so we will have plenty of chances to work out the kinks.”

Beau shook her head at him, then took a seat. “I’m so far down disbelief city that I’m not even going to talk about the fact that you just said kinks.”

“I meant—”

She waved a dismissive hand. “I know what you meant, and here’s what I mean. Caleb, as much as I know you like Essek, there’s no way any of this is gonna work. First of all, he’s already got a job as the Shadowhand, and I doubt he’d wanna give up a cushy position like that to come work for a nothing-at-all school in the middle of the Empire.”

“Ja, I know, I know, I’ve thought about that—”

“And did you think about the part where he’s the fucking Shadowhand and you’ve asked him to come to the middle of the Dwendalian Empire to teach a goddamn gen-ed course?!”

Caleb was quiet for a moment. And then he said:

“Actually, I was thinking of asking him to take the more advanced levels—”

Beau reached across the ale crate to flick Caleb in the head. “And you don’t see a problem with that, at all? Caleb, for the gods’ sake, use your stupidly big head to consider the fuckin’ political ramifications of that. If the Empire catches wind of this, they’re gonna hate it, war over or not over. And I don’t even mean that in a ‘there’s gonna be shitty racism’ way, which is something else you’ll probably have to deal with later, I meant that in a ‘think about his last job description way.” And speaking of that, I mean, on Essek’s side, really, are you really expecting him to really settle down and help teach after he’s spent a lifetime—a human lifetime—being a military spymaster? Not to mention the fact that he’s a power-hungry war criminal who betrayed his own nation to get ‘arcane secrets’ or whatever. Seriously, dude, there’s no scenario where this goes well for you or him.”

At Caleb’s expression, Beau’s tone eased just slightly and she added, as a peace offering, “Really, dude.”

Caleb sighed. He scratched at his head.

“I…look. I…I think you’re right, but…there are also good possibilities of having him around. He is knowledgeable, he is skilled, I know his magic firsthand, and he has always been trustworthy—”

“Ha!”

“—for us, Beauregard. I think he is one of our best potential candidates, especially as he is only one of three so far. Just…trust me on this one, alright?”

She studied his face intently. The sheerness of the tent walls let in quite a bit of light, giving both of their eyes a faint, sunny sparkle.

With these two, though, it was more of a manic glint.

“What’s this really about?”

“Was?”

Beau leaned closer. “I said, what’s this really about? I don’t think that’s your only motivation. And if I’m gonna trust you, you’ve gotta be straight with me. I know you’re not an idiot, so I believe you when you say you’ve thought about the risks. What’s made them all worth it? What do you really think, and don’t give me that crap about him being a good teacher. You’ve got good teachers. Two advanced ones anyway, and you said yourself yesterday that the rest can be trained. So what’s up? What’s your real game here?”

Caleb floundered only slightly under the intensity of her stare.

“How long have we known each other now? No, fuck that, I pulled you out of the mouth of a forsaken god. Tell me, dickwad. Come on, it’s me.”

And after a moment, Caleb pinched his nose.

“It’s…it’s… it’s partially selfish. And…”

This, Beau understood. She nodded. “And…?”

“And…well, I…was thinking last night, after dinner, about who I want on this project. Aside from you all. And I realized…thinking about everything we have been through, that…for the most part, especially after our…revelations at sea, Essek is one of the people I want around. Largely because, well…”

He gave another sigh.

“Because I want to see what has become of our Xhorhastian friend. More importantly, I want to see if he has…or…could, ah, change.”

“Change,” she said flatly.

“Ja. I…I think I need to seem him change.”

“Because?”

“Because...” Caleb exhaled. “After everything we have been through, what we have seen, after fighting against the Assembly and watching so many mages crumble, I find myself searching for…assurance. Assurance that not every wizard is bad. Assurance that we even deserve this second change. And…if at all possible, what I most would like is to know that anyone, even the most driven and ambitious, the most ruthless, cutthroat, power—as you said, power-hungry—wizard can be shown that there is another way. That…ultimately, all of us can be redeemed.”

He looked back up, and raised an eyebrow. “I want to make this school a force for change. And I want to make it a place where we change, too. I said once before, and I still believe it is so, that Essek and I have a lot of things in common. It is time to see how much we can be changed.”

Beau did not answer for a drawn-out moment, but neither did she look away.

“I think you’re pretty changed, Caleb. That should be a point in your corner already.”

“That’s true,” and this time his smile was a little brighter, “but that is largely due to our group. I think Essek has gotten some of the Mighty Nein treatment, but probably not enough.”

“So…so is he your pet project now, or something?”

“Ach, no, nothing so…no. It is more of a…the thing is, Beauregard, I do consider him a friend. And we got so caught up with the Angel in Irons cult and then the Assembly that, well…it is just, before all that happened, I did like spending time with him.”

“Me too,” she waved a hand, “he had good wine, and when we got him in the hot-tub, he wasn’t that bad. Still don’t know if he’s worth all this. He’s a war criminal—yeah, I know what you and Jester think, but that’s what I think, and Veth agrees. Seriously, you never know, he could be too far gone, and I don’t want him near this school and project if it’ll put you in danger or risk anything.”

“We are no strangers to danger,” Caleb murmured. “And I…would like to think that with enough effort, nobody could be so far gone.”

Beau sighed. She leaned across the crate again, but this time it was to put an arm on Caleb’s shoulder.

“You’re really fucking stubborn, you know that?”

“Ja, so I have been told.”

“Essek has betrayed people before. His people, before.”

“Yes, but…” Caleb shrugged. “He also will probably be betraying his own nation to join this school.”

“Oh, good,” Beau grunted. “So at least he’s had some practice.”

—

By the time Essek had managed to re-arrange his thoughts into something even mildly resembling order, the letter in his hands was so thoroughly crumpled that all its corners were bent.

He attempted to smooth them back out. When this failed to be satisfactory, he put it back on the kitchen table.

A…teaching position at Caleb’s school. Well not Caleb’s school, but a new Empire Academy that Caleb would oversee. And they needed instructors, as well as mages to help build it, and he thought Essek would be a good fit…

Idly, he wondered if Caleb wanted a teleportation network, as many of the finest institutions had. He wondered if this was something he would have to organize.

Apparently, the Mighty Nein had defeated the Chained Oblivion in some obscure corner of the world, without most of civilization even noticing. But Essek remembered the readings that morning, remembered the clamor and panic in the Cathedral, remembered the theurgists in the Conservatory practically tearing themselves apart to understand what was happening. If their claims were true, and this wasn’t an elaborate prank on the Mighty Nein’s end, a large part of Essek vowed he would draw chalk circles for them forever, if they asked.

But a small part of Essek had the needling thought: why didn’t they tell me it was happening? I could have helped them.

He glanced back at the note.

Well, they were asking for help now, weren’t they? And if nothing else had changed, it was the simple fact that Essek would still do his best to help his friends.

There were just some minor complications to be dealt with.

Namely, what to tell the Bright Queen. And his—

He made a face.

—and his mother.

—

A few days later, Essek stood in front of his bathroom mirror.

It was a beautiful piece, made from polished volcanic glass and set into an ornately-twisted frame of dark metal. It was the perfect gift for someone who regularly floated around Rosohna being called the Shadowhand, but as far as mirrors actually went it left some details lacking.

Still, it served Essek well enough, and he’d never really gotten around to replacing it.

He stared into his dim reflection and slid a hand over his chin.

—

Elsewhere, another wizard stared too, but not into any reflective surface.

Veth’s eyes hadn’t refracted light like that for nearly two years, now. But Caleb could still feel the weight of her gaze boring into his skull as she searched for answers.

Eventually, she sat back.

“Alright. How?”

“Yes, I know it’s—was?”

“How?” she repeated, and steepled her fingers. “How are we gonna do it? He’ll need a disguise, right?”

There was a long pause as Caleb processed this. He managed, “You are…not mad?”

“Well, it’s not like I’m happy, but I trust you, Caleb. You have a reason?”

“Er…yes. I quite do.”

“So…alright, then.” There was a pause, then she added, “I am kind of annoyed you already sent the letter without asking, though.”

“Sorry.”

“I feel like I should ground you.”

“That, er…you can, if that makes you feel better.”

Veth genuinely seemed to consider this. Behind them, through the thin tent-walls of the office, they could hear a delighted child running circles around adults. They were, respectively, Luc Brenatto, having the time of his life shooting the Mighty Nein with wooden darts.

They were rounded off, of course. Yeza had seen to that with great care.

“No,” Veth sighed eventually. “No, that probably sets a bad example. I don’t think a professor can ground the Headmaster.”

“Head Professor, do not forget. I trust you the most out of everyone on this project. Not just because you are my friend, but you are qualified. And you really understand our mission.”

His tone of voice suggested that this was a conversation they had had many times. The way Veth’s face colored just slightly suggested she was still having trouble with the ‘qualified’ part.

Nevertheless, years of trained suspicion broke through the treacle-sweet flattery.

“But you didn’t trust me enough to tell me you were planning to ask Essek to come earlier,” she pointed out. “What did you think I was going to do?”

Caleb winced. “No, Veth, I…scheisse. That was…I was being impulsive that night. I…the idea occurred to me and I did not even hesitate to contact him. I…in retrospect, I should have.”

At least, to his relief, Veth nodded in response. “I get that,” she shrugged. “And like I said before, I am on board. You’re lucky I like you so much, Caleb. I don’t…care for Essek, but if this is what you want, I’ll…deal with having him around.”

“I am sorry again,” he said. “And, er…if it helps, you will also be his boss.”

Veth hadn’t been a goblin for years, but her eyes gleamed.

“Please be nice to him,” Caleb added.

“Nice?” Veth scoffed. “He’s not exactly nice.”

“He was nice to us—”

“Not Yeza.”

At the tortured grimace that passed across Caleb’s face, Veth sighed.

“Look, don’t worry, seriously. I was mostly kidding—I’m kidding! I just…you know that I have complicated feelings about Essek. In a…in a sort of way, I understand what he did. And I know where he’s coming from, I do. Lots of us are...well, we were pretty sketchy too. He really reminds me of the things we’ve done. But…he hasn’t shown nearly as much remorse as I’d like. And some of the things he’s done are—” She risked a glance up into Caleb’s impassive expression, “—I don’t like that he still doesn’t seem to care. But…he is a wizard, and I guess he’s our friend. So…if you can keep him from doing anything, I don’t know, very sketchy, then I’m on board. I trust you.”

Caleb’s expression went soft. He nodded.

“Thank you, Veth. I appreciate your cooperation in this matter.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“And I do hope that…well, I hope we can stop him from ‘sketchy’ things. In fact, ah…a small part of me is hoping that eventually, he will want to stop doing sketchy things all by himself.”

“Really?” Veth sounded more than skeptical. “How?”

Caleb shrugged. “The same way you and I did, no?”

—

Now Essek stood before the iron wrought gates that led into the expansive manor grounds of his family home. He could see, high above and a bit back, the five towers that made up the domain of the Umavi of Den Thelyss, long empty after all her children had moved on.

And, Essek recalled with a grimace, after his father had most probably, definitely, died.

It was a lonely castle. A feeling he could commiserate with, even in his smaller manor.

He straightened his collar. He knocked twice.

—

“By getting rich as adventurers.”

“By getting friends.”

—

“It is a surprise to see you here,” said Umavi Deirta Thelyss, Denmother of Den Thelyss and also Essek’s actual mother. “You rarely visit outside formal events and holidays.”

She did not add that Essek had totally missed the last two get-togethers, and thus must have been in a charitable mood. The rare—albeit leftover—tea blend that Essek had brought might have tipped the scale.

“I know, Mother.”

“I worry about you, of course.”

“I know, Mother.”

“And I’m certainly proud of what you’ve accomplished thus far.” At this, she took a sip of the Blooming Grove’s best. “I trust you are finding ways to keep yourself busy even during these times of peace?”

“Of course, Mother. Er…actually, it is partially that subject which I wish to address with you.”

His mother lowered her cup.

“Ah. So this is not purely a social call.”

“Er…no.”

She dabbed at the corner of her mouth, but Essek could have sworn she’d just smiled. Or, he backpedaled, at least tactfully smirked.

“Is this about access to the Beacons again, dear? As I always say, I can try to put in a word, but we have never been the den as involved in religious matters.” She paused, and tilted her head at him. “Is this about Consecution?”

“Er…no.”

“Oh. Well, then? Speak your mind.”

Under the table, Essek twisted at the hem of his sleeve.

“I, ah…well, that is…I’ve received a letter, Mother. An offer of…professorship. From…an Academy.”

This seemed to genuinely surprise the Umavi.

“Professorship? But…why?”

“Someone out there believes in my arcane prowess, apparently.” With the first sentence out of the way, Essek managed to sip his tea. Only a true observer would have noticed it falter slightly in its trajectory.

“Well,” said his Mother, trying to meet his gaze, “what a strange request to make of one already so gainfully employed. As the Bright Queen’s master of…let us call them the more obscure matters of state.”

When Essek did not match her eyes, she continued, “What sort of Academy is this, dear? Surely none in the Marble Tomes would write you in this way, and I find difficulty imagining you taking up permanent residence in Asarius. Which must mean…”

Essek sighed. His mother certainly was a true observer.

“Yes, Mother. It is outside the Dynasty.”

“Worse than that, I am sure.”

“Er…”

There was a sweeping of long robes as his mother leaned. She wasn’t wearing her headdress, but could loom without height, her sheer imposing presence doing the work just fine.

“Essek?”

He sighed again.

“Inside the Empire, Mother.” And because they had gotten this far, and he didn’t have much else to lose, he added, “Run by Widogast. Caleb Widogast, if you remember him, as well as a number of his friends, I gather. It is the…replacement institution currently being built to fill the void—”

“That the Assembly left, yes, I assumed.” She settled back, and a shifting of fabric indicated that she had crossed her arms. “And our dearly departed hero Widogast wants you to teach there?”

“And to assist him in establishing some of its curriculum and facilities, yes.” He tactfully ignored the ‘dearly departed’ bit.

“That would certainly be an odd career move for you, Essek. And surely, foreigner or no, he has spent enough time in our country to be aware of the implications of what he is asking.”

“Surely, Mother.”

“And as we all know, he has had training in Dunamancy these last years. I do hope his teacher had impressed upon him how vitally important it is to keep such training and knowledge a secret.”

For the first time since reading the letter, Essek paused.

In all his…well, excitement was not a word ever ascribed to the Shadowhand, but certainly in his anticipation to consider his offer, it had never actually crossed his mind that he might be asked to teach Dunamancy.

A small but very significant part of him riled.

Across the table, his mother drank some more tea. She was watching her son, who to his credit, had mastered the art of freezing his micro-expressions so swiftly that they could not be read. But without his mantle on, sitting in his mother’s tearoom, his hands were fidgeting up a storm across the table.

He probably hadn’t even noticed. She took another sip.

In a matter of seconds, Essek was back. He shook his head, and reached for a dry cookie.

“I think he is aware of the gravity of the situation. And I trust him to have already, ah…weighed the pros and cons.”

“And have you?” asked Deirta Thelyss, knowing the answer.

Essek bit down.

“I believe I have.”

—

“So…that’s it? We just wait for an answer, now?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think he’ll say yes?”

“Well, I certainly hope so.”

“How’s he supposed to tell you?” This one was Jester, leaning across a stack of milk crates. “He doesn’t have Sending, I’m pretty sure.”

There was a pause in the air as the Mighty Nein watched Caleb consider, and realize this.

“Oh,” he said eventually. “I, er…I had assumed he did.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Beau said. “How did you think he was going to answer back? You didn’t think Xhorhas had a postal service to Felderwin, did you?”

“I, ah, admit that—”

“Maybe you should check our mailbox in Rosohna,” said Fjord kindly. “He probably just sent it to the Xhorhouse, or something.”

Caleb faltered, and scratched the back of his head. “…scheisse. You don’t think he has been waiting all this time to answer already, has he? I had not even considered—”

“I would not worry about that.”

All of them turned as a voice outside the door drifted in through the thin walls of the tent.

Then the voice added:

“How do I…oh, there is a latch—”

But he did not manage to finish the assessment before Jester ran over, threw the flap open, and tackled Essek bodily in a hug.

—

“In that case, there is only one last thing to say.” The Umavi of Den Thelyss sat back in her seat. A thin trail of steam curled up from her cup.

“I forbid you from going.”

“Thank—you what?”

She steepled her fingers. “I say ‘no,’ Essek. I will not let you chase this Empire wizard across the continent to teach at his school.”

“I…but…that is not…Mother, why?”

The swiftness of his outburst answered the question for both of them.

She studied his gaze.

“Essek, you have a purpose here. You have a bright future, and a reputation, and glowing prospects and I will not let you squander that to go off spilling our nation’s secrets.”

Essek managed to bite his tongue just in time. His mother would not have liked his instinctual answer.

Instead, he choked out the words, “I’ll quit, then. I’ll defect. I want to do this. More than I have ever wanted anything else in my life.”

Later, he would wonder why he said that. Even later, later, he would wonder if that were true.

The oldest and nearly-youngest souls of Den Thelyss stared at each other across the tea table. Their drinks cooled, and somewhere high above, the sun began to rise over the city of Rosohna.

But down here, beneath the blanket of perpetual stars, the only light was from the low, flickering lamps along the wall.

“I would do anything,” one said.

“…is that so?” said the other.

—

He was released after the impact knocked his parasol aside and his skin very quickly, visibly, began to redden. They immediately ushered him into the tent, shouting and laughing and clapping him on the back all the way, though he noticed that despite the friendly reception from Jester, Caduceus, Fjord, and even Yasha, Veth seemed somewhat frozen in her smile, and Beau even less warm.

That was…probably to be expected, actually. He wondered if this might present an issue and was about to open his mouth, say something, until he noticed a figure striding across the tent floor, side-stepping a stack of crates, and taking him by the hand.

Essek met his eyes. It had been some time, since he saw those eyes. Then he blinked.

“By the light, Caleb, you have grown a beard.”

There was a pause, and then Caleb laughed, and that was new too. Essek always forgot how quickly humans could change.

“I had meant to shave it before you arrived,” Caleb admitted. “It is, ah, a product of sleepless nights overseeing the construction of a new school.”

“It’s terrible,” Jester said. “It makes you look old.”

“I can fix this now if needed,” said a voice, followed by the sound of an unsheathing sword.

“Er…maybe…later, bitte?”

And Essek couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. “I nearly forgot how boisterous all of you are, all the time. I have…” He turned, faced the Mighty Nein. “My life has not been nearly as interesting without you in it.”

“Well then, welcome back,” Caduceus gave a smile.

And even Veth, despite their…history, stepped forward.

“I said it once before, didn’t I? Welcome to the Mighty Nein, Essek.”

She even stuck out a hand for him to shake.

—

“I want you to report back everything to me. And when the time comes, when your Headmaster is summoned to the castle, I want you to go with him.”

“But…Mother, why?”

Her voice was nothing but gentle as she addressed her son.

“It is well-known that King Bertrand Dwendal has no heirs. And rules over quite a…combative court, with an iron fist.”

She leaned in even closer.

“What would happen to the Empire, do you think, if he was removed from that picture?”

—

And somewhere else, on what felt like the opposite side of the world, Caleb put an arm around Essek’s shoulder, and grinned.

“It is good to see you again, my friend.”

Essek’s lip twitched into what could approximately be called a smile.

“Good to see you as well,” he said.

[imagining-in-the-margins]

Here to Misbehave (Pt. 5 | S.R.)

Summary: Reader (accidentally) blows off a text from Spencer for another guy. Later, Spencer takes her for a second date.   A/N: By the way, when you get to the adorable dance scene, the two songs that inspired me most were “Stardust” by Lyambiko and “We Might as Well Dance” by Madeleine Peyroux (Try not to read into the lyrics, I dare you). Couple: Spencer Reid/Fem!Reader Category: Smut (NSFW 18+) Content Warning: Unprotected sex, dirty talk, jealousy, degradation, penetrative sex Word Count: 10k

MASTERLIST | Series Masterlist

—————————————————

I had never envisioned that my life would end up quite like this. That wasn't to say that it was disappointing or regrettable, although in that moment it felt like I had miscalculated a number of things. There was no other way to describe a Saturday night spent laying on the couch, staring at the ceiling of my friend's apartment as if I could manipulate myself into believing it was Spencer's.

It wasn't anyone's fault that it couldn't be his, instead. The stupid, gorgeous bastard wasn't ignoring me; he was just out of town for the weekend.

Truthfully, I should have been a little more considerate. It wasn't his fault he had to work. But I also couldn't help but be disappointed that he was always working. I hadn't seen him in almost two weeks and it was killing me. The last time I'd seen him was the morning after our first 'date,' and it was a brief enough interaction that I had already run out of ways to overthink it.

Spencer had gotten a restful night of sleep that night. Despite his little impromptu confession, he slept as though he'd never been more peaceful in his life. I had not. I'd had the pleasure of staying up for hours, playing his words through my head on loop and trying to figure out what the fuck had happened.

It didn't amount to anything though. The morning came, and he had long forgotten the words half mumbled through a sleepy daze. I'd told him that he had been mumbling in his sleep, and he asked me if he'd said anything embarrassing. I told him no. He hadn't pressed any further, simply stating that he must've been dreaming.

I almost thought it had been a challenge; a way to test if I'd gotten too close. But then I realized that I was probably just an idiot, and I was wanting it to mean more than it actually did.

So much for having run out of ways to overthink it.

Regardless, his aloofness had returned my heart to the broken, hurting mess it had been before he uttered the words that forever altered my universe.

That wasn't his fault, either. I was the one who'd set myself up for failure by ever imagining that we could be something more. I'd known he wasn't the most emotionally available suitor since the moment I met him. At least, not for me. I'd never actually seen him anyone else.

I didn't really want to think about that, though. I really didn't want to think about that.

"Hey, get your lazy ass up so I can sit down."

The order drew me from my reverie  — rather unpleasantly, might I add. Because when I turned to face my friend standing in front of me, I came face to face with his crotch.

"Dude, I don't want any of that in my face," I laughed to the unfortunately familiar sight. "Back up before I punch you in the dick."

Somewhat surprisingly, he obeyed. He took a step back and waited patiently for me to sit up and scoot over to give him room beside me on the couch. Completely unsuprisingly, however, he did not take advantage of any of the space available. He chose to sit close enough to touch me.

"Some women would do anything to have that privilege," he lied through his teeth.

"Who are these women? And how can I help them avoid this tragic fate?"

He smiled back, having already grown used to me rebuffing all of his advances years before. We had known each other for what felt like forever, but he still tried every chance he'd gotten. That moment was no exception, and it took him very little time to stretch his arm behind me on the couch. I leaned forward, glancing back at the arm that I would continue to avoid despite his best efforts.

I narrowed my eyes in a challenge when he did nothing to remedy the situation. He did not take the humble way out, so my only other option was to do the humbling for him.

"There are three whole couches in this room and you pick the seat directly next to me?"

"You're warm and it's 50 degrees in here," he joked while lifting his other hand to poke me on the nose.

I recoiled in disgust, grabbing the pillow beside me and hitting him in the face with it as hard as humanly possible.

"Then turn up the heat or grab a blanket, jackass," I grumbled, "I'm not giving you my precious body heat."

Once again, he conceded immediately. He held his hands in defeat and scooted just a few inches further away from me. I watched him for a second until he got far enough away, and then returned my attention to my phone, which I had been religiously checking for any news about the vastly more interesting man in my life.

"What are you looking at?"

"My friend. He's supposed to have landed a couple hours ago..."

Seeing that I had no new messages, though, I slumped over onto myself and rested my elbow on my knee. Continuing to ignore the boy trying to get my attention, I favored the one that was possibly ignoring me and endlessly scrolled through our previous conversations.

"Is that the cop? Your boyfriend?" he teased.

"He's not a cop," I corrected with a roll of the eyes.

Although not keen about the thought of the two of them meeting, I did wonder what kind of rant Spencer would've gone into to describe the different types of law enforcement agents. He would learn so much about government job descriptions. But that wasn't the part of the sentence that my friend had stressed, and I felt compelled to answer.

Didn't mean I had to be loud or excited about it, though.

"And he's not my boyfriend," I mumbled into my palm. I hated how pathetic it felt; how forlorn I could be over a man not giving me enough attention. He was still just a man.

A very cute, sweet, and drop-dead gorgeous one. But a man, nonetheless. Destined to be disappointing. During my daydreams and hopeful, lovesick thoughts, my friend had come to another, different conclusion about the type of man Spencer was.

"He carries a gun and can arrest people. He's a cop."

"Whatever," I said with a heavy sigh. Wasn't worth it to fight, so I admitted to my childish infatuation with an equally pitiful, "Yeah, it's Spencer. I was hoping he'd want to see me."

I turned the volume on my phone before finally setting it down, but continued to eye the screen until it went dark.

"It's not like you to chase after a dude," he so helpfully commented.

To his credit, he was right. It wasn't like me. But Spencer wasn't like other guys I'd met, and while it was true that Spencer was ten years older than me, I could tell that age wasn't the only thing setting him apart. It wasn't even necessarily something about him in particular, although he certainly was extraordinary.

It was more like... the way he looked at me. The way I never felt like anything even remotely close to lackluster. He looked at me like the stares shone through my eyes, and the blindness was worth witnessing the unfiltered eclipse.

"I'm not chasing him. We just like spending time with each other," I explained before sitting up straighter and placing a gentle hand to my chest in feigned pride. "I'm a very interesting person."

But then he responded with the last question I wanted to hear, or even think about potentially considering in that moment. The one that had been weighing on my mind no matter how hard I tried to suppress it.

"So... why isn't he your boyfriend, then?"

I hadn't wanted to hear it because I didn't have an answer. And no matter how hard I inspected my cuticles, they likewise produced no excuse worth saying.

The man to my right was twisting his body as he settled into the seat. He kept his chest open to me in some display of fragile masculinity that was very easy to ignore.

"Is he like, ashamed of you or something?" he suggested.

That was less easy to ignore.

"No..." I wanted it to sound more certain than it did. As it stood, it was downright pathetic. Especially compared to his much more confident reply of, "Then what's his excuse?"

I sighed again, that time pulling my legs up on the couch in my unending quest to find some semblance of comfort while being interrogated on the most irritating subject of all time.

"He doesn't need an excuse. We both agreed it's better to just be friends."

He moved closer to me again, and I didn't have the energy to tell him to stop. Not like he would have listened, anyway. Egotistical prick with absolutely nothing to substantiate his inflated sense of self.

"You deserve better than that, (y/n)."

While his words were soft in volume, everything else about him remained gruff and uninviting. Nothing at all like the way Spencer could shift and turn into something completely different. My friend could act like his feigned tenderness was meaningful, but I knew that he liked the thought of me more than who I actually was.

"Yeah, right. With who? You?" I droned, wishing that my words could actually be laced with venom. Maybe then he'd have abandoned this foolhardy quest to win my affections.

"I mean I'm not gonna turn you down if you're offering," he joked.

It was that lightness that was his main redeeming feature; the reason I could keep him around even when his fingers tapped against my opposite shoulder. I laughed at both the sensation and suggestion, refusing by lifting his arm off my shoulders before excusing myself from the couch altogether.

"Piss off. I'm running down to the basement. You want anything?"

"Just for you to come back quick," was his immediate, not-at-all charming reply.

"You're a fucking idiot," was mine.

It wasn't until I was already on my way back up after grabbing a blanket and a drink that I had actually managed to forget about my phone for at least a few minutes.

Then, the terror came. The worry that Spencer had called me, and I'd failed to answer. The possibility that he might've hit my number on a list and already moved on to the next. It had only been like five minutes but still. He talked so damn fast, he could've torn through 5 phone calls in that time.

A little faster, I made my way back to the living room, shouting from down the hall, "Hey, did I leave my phone up here?"

He didn't answer immediately, but then eventually slurred, "Uhh. Yep. Sure did."

When I rounded the corner, I found the gremlin going through my phone. As I already started to plan the new pass code now that he'd gone and figured it out, I ran over, half-tackling him on the couch as I screeched, "Give it back, you dick!"

It was no use. He held it just outside my reach, laughing at the way I scrambled over him to try and grab it.

"Not unless you promise not to check it until after the movie."

Sighing with resignation, I plopped down next to him, my arms crossed and eyes rolled as I convinced myself it was unlikely Spencer would text me within the next hour and a half if he hadn't already.

It was pretty late. Maybe he had already gone to bed and just forgotten to let me know he got home. Besides, I owed my friend as much for managing to get me to forget to check it for this long, no?

"Fine. I promise," I groaned.

I tried not to let the thought ruin my night. The next two hours were like they usually were. He kept trying to cuddle with me, and I kept pushing him away until I eventually didn't. I gave into the general familiarity with the guy I'd known for basically half of all my memories, stopping every few seconds to wonder if I should have felt guilty.

Then I felt guilty for having asked myself at all.

Once the credits began to roll, I held my hand out with zero hesitation. I (im)patiently for him to deposit my phone, which he did, to his credit. However, what I found struck me to my core. My hands immediately began to shake hard enough that the LED blurred in my vision.

"Uhhh, what the fuck is this?"

"What?"

I held up my phone, displaying a text message that had been sent from my phone a couple hours earlier. On the screen, clear as day, me and him from earlier in the day. A painfully domestic snapshot of the two of us running errands together.

The picture shown, though, was one that I swore I'd deleted from my phone. It was him with his arm around my shoulders, pulling me into his chest while I laughed. It wasn't a bad picture, but the context was entirely absent. For example, the fact that I'd almost bruised his chest hitting him right after the photo was taken.

"Why did you send this picture?!" I yelled, desperately swiping at the time stamp. "Two hours ago?!"

He was much too quiet for what was happening. In my haste, I hadn't even notice the accompanying text above the picture, which read 'Sorry man, she's all mine tonight.' Spencer didn't reply.

"Why didn't you tell me that he texted me?!"

My frustration had peaked, and I stood up, pacing somewhat unproductively as I tried to collect my things.

"Because I knew you'd try to leave, and I haven't seen you in fucking ages," he whined, as if I was overreacting.

But I wasn't. This contrived bullshit was entirely his fault, and entirely fucking ridiculous.

"Are you fucking kidding me, dude?" I shouted, finally finding my bag and shoving my stuff inside of it angrily. I didn't even finish, with a few loose coins angrily clambering to the floor as the soundtrack to my farewell.

"Well, now I'm definitely leaving, so kiss my ass!"

Before I could actually leave, I held up my middle finger in the furthest thing from a joke.

"Wait, (y/n), it was a joke!" he called back but didn't try to follow me.

He'd known it wouldn't work. I was too mad.

"You're not fucking funny!"

I slammed the door to my car loud enough to wake the neighbors, but I couldn't care even a little bit. My hands were shaking so hard, that it was a struggle just to click my phone. But I did, fervently pressing Spencer's name until the stupid, traitorous phone could figure out what I wanted it to do.

It rang for 15 whole seconds before I grieved the reality that he wasn't going to pick up. I sighed, lowering my phone to hang up before he could ignore the call or I was given the choice to leave a voicemail. It had been my own fault, anyway.

But just before I hit the button, I heard a tired, crackly voice coming from the other side of the line.

"(Y/n)?"

Oh my god, he picked up.

Then, all at once, the words poured out of me.

"Spencer? I'm so sorry I didn't text you back! Please ignore my friend. He's a fucking idiot."

I could tell from the silence that Spencer was replaying them in his head to try to make sense of the frantic, slurred speech in his own sleepy state. Once he had gotten the gist of my panic, he started to laugh through a yawn.

"It's fine. You looked like you were having fun."

I couldn't tell if it was jealousy in his voice or something else. Either way, it felt terrible. My insecurities crept through my throat and came out with dramatic overcompensation.

"Yeah right. He held my phone hostage. I was waiting to hear from you and he got jealous or something."

There was an awkward silence on the other side of the phone, and so I continued with only a little tremor in my voice, "I'm glad to see that you got home alright."

Another few seconds of silence followed, but then it was the Spencer I was used to again.

"Yeah. It's less fun without you here, though."

That wasn't supposed to be as romantic as it seemed, I reminded myself. He was just flirting. Typical fuckboy nonsense, uttered to get a rise out of me one way or another. He didn't actually mean to imply that he'd already considered what it might be like for me to have joined him.

Right?

"I can still come if you want," I rushed, looking down at the clock in my car for the first time and grimacing at the revelation that the 'something else' in his tone had, in fact, been exhaustion.

"Although... I'm just now realizing its 2am and I definitely woke you up..."

"Typical," he joked, "you being out late, trying to make me jealous with age-appropriate boys."

My laugh bounced back at me from the walls of the car, and I covered my mouth once I remembered that I was still in a public area.

It was weird to me how whenever I talked to Spencer, it felt like we were the only two people in the world. I'd never felt that way with another person before. Those cheesy romcoms were all starting to make sense, and I hated how powerless that made me feel.

"I was not! Trust me, if I wanted to make you jealous, I could do much better," I humbly stated. It was only a little bit of a threat. "I just don't know why he did that. And of course, that picture, which I had deleted, by the way. He seriously had to get it from another folder. He just likes to torture me, I guess."

Spencer cleared his throat from the other side of the phone, readjusting before he clearly enunciated, "He likes you."

The statement wasn't shocking. Anyone who'd spent more than five minutes with the two of us knew that he probably liked me. I'd even considered exploring it at one point before smacking myself in the face and reminding myself of my standards.

But still, to have Spencer know that felt a little bit weird. After all, most 20-something boys would do anything to torture their friends. Even the girl ones. Especially the girl ones.

Then something else began to brew in my chest; a twisted sort of pleasure derived from the sharpness that had formed on Spencer's tongue. The jealousy creeping through the crackling static and wrapping its talons around my heart.

"... I don't know," I absently said.

He sensed the hesitancy in my voice, and asked back with a strange inflection, "Do you like him?"

I chewed on my bottom lip, closing my eyes as I dropped my head back against the headrest. I didn't want to answer that question honestly. I felt like nothing I said could be right. So, I just chose the closest thing to the truth.

"No, not really."

We were back in one of those awkward silences. The kind where we both wanted to say something, but nothing came out. I turned my car on when the stale, stagnant air became too suffocating. The sound alerted him to enough information for him to speak again.

"Are you heading home?"

I switched my phone to the other hand, trying to delay giving my answer by sounding busy. I didn't really have a reason, I just hadn't wanted to hang up yet.I wanted to stall him and selfishly keep him around just a little bit longer.

"Yeah, I guess."

Super smooth. I could still salvage it though.

"...Unless you've changed your mind and would like a personal space heater in bed with you."

Spencer's laughter would have been offensive if it wasn't so adorable.

"Yeah right, your feet are freezing. I don't even know how you still have toes."

That checked out, and also gave me an escape from the terrifying prospect of ending the call.

"I'll wear socks!" I offered with the utmost enthusiasm, "I actually own thigh highs, you know. If you're into that, Professor."

It had been a few weeks since our tryst, but I had hardly ever stopped thinking about it. Every time I looked at myself in the mirror, I'd traced the marks he'd left behind with an ungodly powerful nostalgia.

His laughter turned to frustrated groans as he mumbled, "Are you trying to torture me?"

Once our ruckus died back down, the silence was more serious than strange. I felt the urge to apologize again. I needed him to hear the sincerity behind what were so often empty words.

"I'm really sorry I missed your message, Spencer."

My voice was quiet, unsure, and scared. I didn't want to lose him, and I knew an extreme on either side of the emotional spectrum would let him slip away so easily.

It was exhausting being emotionally lukewarm, but some part of me wanted to believe that it would be worth it with him. That patience was all it would take to show him why he had nothing to be afraid of.

But where I showed mercy, he showed himself to lack it in any sense of the word.

"It's fine, (y/n). I'm not your boyfriend. If I really want the company, I can find it."

That wasn't why I was sorry, and what he'd said only made it worse. The ugly, resentful part of myself was convinced that was why he'd said it at all.

We both knew I didn't want him to find it with someone else. That was the entire reason I was sorry I missed it. If I missed his call, nothing was stopping him from making another one. I hadn't ever asked if there were other girls in his life, but I definitely didn't want to find out like that.

"I missed you the past couple weeks. I still do."

The genuineness in my voice scared me. I hated being vulnerable; especially when he was already so apprehensive about me. I wished I knew why he was. But at that moment, he was being his usual playful self, not willing to give me any hint of an answer in exchange for my candor.

No, just: "You're so good at whining."

I pouted like he would be able to see it.

"I just want some cuddles. Is that too much to ask?"

"Go ask your boyfriend, I'm sure he would be more than happy to oblige," he quipped.

"He's not as good at it as you are," I deflected, playing off the suddenly obvious jealousy in his tone. Before I could rub my quick wit in his face, however, Spencer raised a white flag that I'd never seen coming.

"Fine. I'll wait up."

That was when I realized that he had been more jealous than I'd thought, and I still had a startling amount of power to play with.

But I was still unable to comprehend it, and with a graceless gasp, I chirped, "Wait really? I can come over?"

An unsure laugh and an almost audible shrug later, he responded, "Sure, I figure it'll get me to bed faster somehow, as opposed to staying on this call."

I didn't hesitate to start to pull my car out of the spot, happily singing into the phone, "Okay! I'm on my way! Bye Spencer!"

"See you soon."

—————————————————

As I was old enough to be able to tell time, and aware enough to recognize that it was incredibly too late to be knocking on an apartment door, I tried to do so softly. I halfway succeeded, stifling the noise enough that he could still hear it, but his neighbors wouldn't. They would remain unaware of the girl bouncing on her toes outside of his door, squealing the second she heard shuffling feet on the other side.

Jesus Christ, I sound like a teenager, the more sensible side of me noted.

I might've felt shame, had he not opened the door in that very moment to reveal himself, with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and pajamas on that were big enough they his half his hands.

He was... in a word, adorable.

"Hey sleepyhead," I cooed.

Spencer remained silent, but offered his arm in a halfhearted invitation for a hug. The blanket hung like a wing that I very much wanted to wrap myself in, and he was all too happy to allow. I actually giggled as I lunged towards him. I wrapped both arms around him and breathed in the clean scent of laundry detergent and soap.

"I'm sleepy, too," I said with a relieved sigh. The air was quickly replaced with that which smelled of him. So, too, the silence filled with a soft chuckle as he pulled me close to him and rested his chin on the top of my head.

Like a man from a fairy tale, he started to sway, slowly turning us around until we were headed in the right direction. The right one, of course being the one that would lead to us falling in bed together again.

"Alright, little girl, you can come crawl into bed with me tonight."

The words were like music to my ears, and I felt like I was floating. I was glowing, my skin flushed with warmth like a wood fire on a cold Winter night, and my eyes fell half lidded from some mixture of tired and pleased.

"Thank you, sir," I slurred through a smile. It grew wider as he took my hands, prying me away from him to lead me back to his room with more purpose.

Once we finally padded over, I dropped my overnight bag on the floor and began to strip off my shirt. He eyed the bag on the floor with a feeling I could almost place.

"Were you planning on staying with him?"

I felt a pain through my chest as he asked, because I knew the answer. I had been, but only because I'd done it so many times before. Our mutual friend wasn't in the house, so I knew I could use his bed. But saying I was planning on staying there alone sounded even more suspicious.

"Yeah. I've stayed there before. Always in a different room. We've been friends a long time."

There was something about the way he looked at me that made my stomach flip in a delicious way. A feeling that could only be described as dangerous and exhilarating. But then it was gone, replaced by the apathy he usually tried to display. I continued to strip, nonetheless, slowly peeling my leggings down and stepping out of them. I could feel his eyes on me.

I twisted by body in the hope that the movement would distract him from the conversation I hadn't really wanted to have. Jealousy, while a fun tool for the consenting, had a tendency to grow old quickly. It was a beast that did not like to be controlled; especially when taken by surprise.

But he had no reason to be jealous. I had all but begged him to come over, and I was currently naked in his bedroom. I didn't even look up at him before sliding under the covers. I was too scared for what I might find, and opted for enjoying the lingering body heat and smell of Spencer on the sheet, instead.

"I don't want to know how good you are when you're trying," he warned.

I looked up at him with guilty eyes, recognizing this was his gentle way of telling me he was jealous. But he'd said it himself... He wasn't my boyfriend.

"Come here," I pleaded while running my arms along the empty space where he belonged. "I'll show you why you shouldn't be jealous."

Spencer licked his lips as he looked at my exposed chest, pulling off his pajamas and slinking under the covers with me. Facing each other, my hands quickly found his erection, pumping it softly as he immediately rewarded me with a soft moan.

"I missed this," I whispered, closing the gap between our faces.

He responded in kind, taking his time to lay a lazy kiss against my mouth while he groaned, "I missed your hands. Among other parts."

As he spoke, his hand was traveling down my side to my center. My breathing picked up as he got closer, but he diverted, running his fingers up and down my arms that continued to work his length. The soft whimper that escaped my mouth entertained him, and he brought his hand back down.

"Say please, (y/n)."

I couldn't talk though. I was biting down on my lip to stop myself from telling him I fucking hated him for teasing me. With big puppy dog eyes, I watched him while I chewed on my bottom lip.

"Stop biting on that lip or I'll do it for you. I don't care how cute you are."

His hand now ghosted over exactly where I wanted them, and he used the very tip of his finger to collect the wetness forming there. My hands stopped as he made contact, my grip tightening for a second.

"Say please."

He wanted me to beg for him to touch me, but I didn't want his hand. It was almost 3 AM and I was exhausted and needed him. All of him, immediately. Badly enough that

"Fuck me, sir," the words spilled out of my mouth. "Please, fuck me."

A content humming came from him as he brought a hand to my hair. But the pleased sound lulled me into a false sense of security, which was shattered seconds later when he pulled my head back to look him in the eyes.

From there, I could see that look in his eyes again. That dark, possessive stare that made me long for the shadows to consume me if it meant more time with him.

"I p-promise," I stuttered as one of his fingers teased at my folds.

He raised his eyebrows as he waited for me to finish my thought.

With a cruel, sadistic smile, I continued, "I promise I won't think of anyone else."

That playful characteristic snark that has originally driven him to me had returned, and he pretended to be disappointed. He liked it, though. He wouldn't admit it, but the way I read the secret, hidden thoughts in his mind like he could read one of his book clearly drove him insane.

He guided me by his hold on my hair, lifting me off the pillow and not taking a minute to consider the repercussions before growling in my ear, "Turn around."

I obeyed, happily pressing up against his crotch as I settled into my position as his little spoon. I noticed a distinct lack of a pause this time, and gears began to click together as I felt him rub the bare head of his cock in the slickness pooling around my thighs.

"I have some questions for you, little girl."

He was pissed.

"When was the last time you got tested?"

I could hardly think straight as I realized where this was going. I tried to gather my thoughts and enough control to stutter back, "L-last week. I-I haven't... haven't slept with anyone else. Not since you."

My answer earned me a tender kiss on the neck, but it wasn't enough. I was trying to still my hips from knocking back against him. I couldn't completely stop myself, though, and I knew it made him feel even more confident about his decision.

"Good. Me neither," he replied.

I sighed with relief, happy to at least answer that question. I'd barely had any time to recover, though, before he continued, "Is there any way you could get pregnant right now?"

I shook my head no. He stopped my head with one hand on my chin from behind.

"Use your words."

"No!" I half shouted, realizing I just sounded like a brat. "No, no I can't. I'm on birth control. I won't get pregnant. Promise. You can..."

My breath matched pace with my heart, and I swore I was already lightheaded. Still, I forced the last few words through the heavy panting to earn my next, far more enticing prize. The magic words he had been waiting for:

"You can do whatever you want to me."

When he released my hair, my head fell forward just for a second, because soon my entire back arched in response to the way he began to push inside of me.

"Good," was all he'd said.

With that, he fully sheathed himself inside of me, and I cried out as I felt the way he stretched me. His hand swiftly covered my mouth before he began to pound into me from behind. One of my hands tried to keep me in place on the bed, while the other flew up to his hand over my mouth, holding it without trying to remove it.

I was calling his name underneath him, and he responded by making shorter, deeper thrusts.

Through it all, he chuckled in my ear, "It's always funny how fast you stop acting like a brat after I put it in you."

My eyes rolled back at his words, breath shuddering against his hand. He slid all the way out of me, and then applied enough force to push me up in the bed.

"Have you ever had someone finish inside you before?" he asked too sweetly for the provocative words. He moved his hand from my mouth and dragged it to move the hair that had fallen in front of my face.

I went to shake my head but remembered his instruction. Instead, I cried, "N-no."

"Good," he responded again, and my toes curled at the pride he felt in claiming this body as his own. He took my hand in his, pulling it down to feel the small bump forming in my abdomen each time he slammed into me. The next time it appeared, he halted, holding me in position against him. "I'm going to fuck you so hard that the next time anyone even thinks about touching you, all they'll taste on you is me."

He pulled out slowly before pounding into me again. With more violence in his motions and venom on his tongue, he spat, "and if you want them you can explain to them how you begged for me to come inside your tight little cunt."

I was in a state of shock, unable to comprehend how he was capable of making such cruel, licentious words. Each one made my body shake, and he kept himself inside me longer with each motion to extend the feeling. I ached at the way he filled me, desperately clinging to my own stomach where I could feel him.

"Good luck thinking about anyone else while I run down your thighs," he said before punctuating it with a firm, unforgiving, "you fucking bitch."

With that, he finally moved his hand, but it was not a merciful action. His fingers rubbed in the mess of our bodies, then dragged the wetness back to my clit, pressing harder than he ever had before. My head was still swimming from his language, and I thankfully didn't have to use my words. He was very capable of figuring out my body language himself.

I could feel the way the heat coiled in my stomach, the tension building as his mouth ran along my neck. Once he attached himself to one spot, driving into me at a brutal pace, I felt the energy shift and begin to blossom. Feeling the way my muscles quivered around him, he stopped his kisses, groaning loudly in my ear.

"Fuck, little girl," he continued to moan, his thrusts faltering as I tried to coax his orgasm out of him. It seemed to be what he was waiting for. Unable to contain the shrill cry that tore from my chest as his arousal filled me, I tried to pull away from him. But I couldn't, his hands holding me down and his hips rocking as deep as they could possibly move inside of me.

Exhausted, I tried to move away from him once his movements stilled. However, in another surprising move he slid out just to slam back into me again.

I whimpered from the overstimulation, doubling forward as he gave a few more deep, rough thrusts before pulling out entirely.

I had no idea how, but Spencer immediately got out of bed. He left me a sweaty, desperate mess on his bed. Thankfully, he tossed me a towel to help me clean up so I wouldn't have to sleep in the puddle dripping slowly down my legs. Shaky but satisfied, I somehow managed to make it to the bathroom and clean up.

When I returned, he was still awake. He was silent, sitting up in the bed with his eyes closed and contemplative. As I shut the door, he finally noticed my presence. He turned to look at me with an awkward smile until he pat my spot on the bed.

"Come here, little girl."

A little too excited, I shuffled over with a bounce in my step. Not satisfied with simply lying next to him, I curled into his side, wrapping my arm around his waist and nuzzling my face to his chest. From there, I listened to the way his heartbeat seemed to slow down with my touch. How his muscles relaxed under me, like he had been anxiously awaiting my return the same way I had been waiting to return to him.

"You're not really a bitch," he mumbled in a quiet, sleepy voice.

I couldn't help but laugh, tilting my head up to glance at him from my position on his chest.

"I mean, I am a little bit. But I know what you mean."

He wrapped a tight arm around me, using his hand to run softly through my hair. Leaning down, he gave the top of my head a small peck. I smiled against his skin, loving the way it felt to be surrounded by him. To be safe and cared for despite all else.

"Thank you for coming here with me tonight," he said in a low volume, like the words might spook me. "You're a very special girl. I hope you know that."

I didn't know how to respond, so I stayed frozen in place. I waited to hear the rest of what he wanted to say. People have always said we're most honest at night. I wanted it to be true, to give more meaning to loaded words.

"I'm really glad I met you," was what he said.

I closed my eyes, breathing in the words that felt like a balm on my aching soul. Unable to come up with a response that wasn't terrifying, though, I sat up and crawled to him. It was my turn to return a tender kiss, this time to his lips. As we pulled apart, he still looked at me like the answers to the universe were written on my skin.

I went to kiss him again, but he stopped me with a hand on my face.

"Don't..." he instructed, breaking my heart with just one command.

But I saw the fear reflected in our eyes, the kind that was deeper than a simple rejection. It was not the fear that we might not love one another. It was the fear that we very well might one day.

Spencer said none of that, though. He left me to forever wonder if it was just me who felt it. Instead, he surrendered with a simpler, safer explanation.

"If you kiss me like that again, I won't be able to stop myself."

I didn't ask what he was stopping himself from doing. No matter how badly I wanted to. Instead, I ran the back of my fingers against his cheek and whispered in the space between us, "Make now always the most precious time. Now will never come again."

My desired outcome came true, but not quite how I wanted. He didn't kiss me deep or passionately. He kissed me soft, like my lips were made of glass. He kissed me like he was protecting me from the terrors of his mind.

"Go to sleep, little girl," he instructed gently, coaxing me back to my position on his chest as we both sunk down to lay flat on the bed. "Picard can wait."

Laying there, next to what I was convinced was an actual human angel, I gave myself permission to drift off into sleep, hoping that my dreams could be half as good as reality.

That didn't happen.

I wasn't sure what time it was when I woke up, but it was still dark outside, so it couldn't have been too long after we'd fallen asleep. Spencer had turned away from me at some point. That wasn't strange or entirely surprising, but I noticed a strange sound from his side of the bed that made my hair stand on edge and my stomach churn.

It was... crying.

"Spencer?" I asked as quiet as I could. When he didn't respond, I placed a gentle hand on his shoulder in the hope that it would be an easier transition to the waking word.

But his body still jerked under my touch, and he sat up much too quickly before grabbing his face in both hands. It wasn't until then that he noticed, drawing his hands back slowly and inspecting the wetness he found on his fingertips.

"Hey, Spencer, are you okay?"

He didn't answer.

Suddenly extremely worried, I brought both of my hands to his arms and pulled him closer to me.

He still didn't answer.

"Were you having a nightmare?"

So many red flags were burning through my brain, and I didn't know what to do with the information in front of me. I just wanted to help him.

"I... I must have been. I'm sorry," he said when he finally spoke. He wiped at his tears like he could erase what I had already seen. Moving his hands away, careful to keep my touch as non-threatening as possible, I wiped his still falling tears away with my thumb.

"Why are you sorry, Spencer?"

"I... don't know."

It was an honest, but terrifying answer. A quickly completed checklist of a horror I was deeply familiar with. A reality that I wouldn't wish it on anyone in the world. Especially not him.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No," he replied with a force so strong I thought the word was physically painful for him to say.

"Okay," I reassured him, "We don't have to."

He wasn't laying back down. He wasn't moving at all. It was like he was somewhere else entirely.

I moved closer to him, placing a hand on his back to gently rub circles and another on his lap. I offered the only thing I could think to help him in that moment.

"Do you want me to hold you?"

His eyes were fixated on my hand on his lap, his breathing slowly regulating the longer we sat like this.

Still, he halfway refused, "It's okay."

Raising my hand again, I ran it through his hair before guiding him to look at me with a tentative smile.

"You're not a burden, Spencer. I want to."

The tears were falling again, albeit slower and with his mouth curved ever so slightly. I tried to give him the calmest reassurance I could. A soft glow in my eyes that burned with the affection and comfort I desperately  wanted to provide.

"Come here, love," I said as I motioned to me.

Spencer dutifully followed. Soon his head was on my chest, my hand curling his hair around my fingers. He hugged my waist like I was the only thing keeping him here.

And I laid there with him, trying not to think about the way his tears wet my skin. Hoping that, for now, it would be enough for him to get some sleep.

A mop of curly brown hair was the first thing I saw when I woke up to the shine of the sun through the curtains. I smiled, but only until I remembered why he was on my chest.

It was obvious that he had barely slept, his muscles continuing to persistently twitch in their paranoid state. When I went to pet his head again, he stirred under me, pulling himself closer to me the same way he had before.

I didn't want to think about what had happened, but I knew I had to. Normal people don't wake up crying from a nightmare, and they certainly don't get painfully defensive when it happens.

I hadn't known practically anything about his life before. What he had been through, or whether he'd told anyone at all. I hadn't even known if he'd anyone to tell.

I was painfully reminded that he was not the superhero I made him out to be in my head. He was just a man, trying his hardest to do more good in the world than all the evil combined. That was an impossible task, though. He was doomed to fail.

His ears must have been burning, because the longer I thought about it, the more he woke up. Eventually he was entirely alert, sitting up and removing himself from the position we'd assumed for the past several hours.

I was surprised to remember what it felt like to be able to breathe without the weight of him on top of me. I was even more surprised to feel my chest felt heavier in his absence.

"Good morning," I mumbled, watching as he effortlessly got out of bed and began to get ready.

He seemed embarrassed, but he really shouldn't have been.

"Did you get any sleep?"I asked.

Spencer ran his hands through his hair before he turned back to me, a smile on his face like nothing was wrong.

"No," he sighed, "This brat woke me up at 2 AM and insisted I sleep with her."

It was nice to know he was still capable of joking but concerning to see that he was so good at compartmentalizing. I laughed along with him, nonetheless, sliding out of the bed to join him in getting dressed.

"What a bitch," I said with a smirk.

As hard as it was to pretend like the night before hadn't happened, I knew that he wasn't ready to talk about it. Heaven knew it would have been much worse to burn the bridge then. At least if I built the trust now, he might be willing to talk about it later.

"You know, I wasn't actually going to tell you to come over last night," Spencer announced.

The 360 of the conversation took me by surprise, and I blinked rapidly to try and reorient myself.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I mean, I'm glad you did. But I was actually going to ask you if you're free tonight."

Spencer was nothing if not an emotional rollercoaster demanding passengers before 10AM. Ready to roll bright and fuckin' early.

"Yeah, I am. If you're still wondering," I answered in place of the multitude of questions I hadn't been ready to ask yet. Questions like, why was he wondering? Why did he need to schedule this? Was this another 'not-a-date' date?

"I wanted to take you somewhere," he mentioned casually, finally fully dressed while I still struggled to put on my clothes.

"Where?"

"It's a surprise," he said with raised eyebrows, like he was so very proud of himself.

I'd let him have that one, but only because he was so damn cute.

"Fine. That means I have to go home to get cleaned up first, then."

He seemed only a little disappointed by that, but overall acquiesced. I was a little sad about it, too, but remained confident in the old adage that distance makes the heart grow fonder.

Besides, I wanted to look cute for my surprise.

We hadn't talked much before I left. I could tell he was still struggling with coming to terms with what he'd accidentally revealed to me in the middle of the night.

Honestly, it was a good thing I left. The desire to talk about it was overwhelming, and some things are better left unsaid...

For now, I promised myself. Just for now.

—————————————————

Spencer came to pick me up without a hitch. When I climbed into his car, I fully expected him to not tell me where we were going. I was right; he didn't. Of course, after about 30 minutes I recognized the route we were going. When I'd graciously pointed it out to him with increasingly less subtle suggestions, he still refused to give me a single hint.

That was, until we pulled into Observatory parking lot.

"I've never been here before!" I squeaked. My excitement had been obvious enough with the embarrassing crack, and Spencer's interest in my enthusiasm only grew.

He was looking at me with that soft, slightly saccharine smile.

"I figured. You aren't nerdy enough to go by yourself," he chuckled. The genuineness behind the sound made the already excited butterflies in my stomach begin to swarm.

"Hey, I can be cultured too, you know," I still corrected with the worst posh accent you've ever heard.

With a teasing smile on his face, the stupid man chose to look away rather than to admit his honest reaction to the statement.

Asshole, I thought, only to be proven wrong seconds later.  Forever a gentleman, Spencer joined me on my side of the car and took utmost care and attention to help me out from my seat.

It felt strange, to adorn his arm like something beautiful as we gazed at the stars together. I tried not to think about it, but wondered just how far he was willing to risk being seen with me in an undoubtedly romantic setting.

"Isn't this place usually closed to the public? I know they have limited general admission days," I asked, despite already knowing the answer. I just wanted to see if my hunch was correct.

"Yeah, I might have called in a favor or two."

Fuck, was my first thought. The next twelve thoughts, however, were all reiterations of 'Don't get your hopes up.'

My grip on his arm tightened, but he didn't seem to mind. I'd guessed that his nonchalance was entirely due to the private nature of the excursion, but I wasn't going to ask, and I certainly wouldn't complain. I was happy enough that he'd brought me, even if he wasn't ready to admit why. I could be patient. Sometimes.

Once inside, Spencer knew exactly where to go. I watched in awe at how many people knew who he was, and how much they looked up to him. While I had also always been impressed by him, it'd become easy to forget just how impressive he was when all the time we'd spent together was so far away from the rest of the world.

But Spencer's quiet humility certainly wasn't an issue that night. He spent nearly two hours walking me through what ended up being essentially all the stars in the sky. Much like the museum, it consisted of me adoring both the content of his words and the man himself.

He told me the story of the vain Queen Cassiopeia and her doting husband Cepheus, still holding each other in the stars millennia later. He spoke enthusiastically and with no sense of pacing. Half the time my eyes left the telescope, turning instead to marvel at the way he moved his hands and fidgeted with his hair as his voice tumbled out of him like it couldn't be contained.

It was just the two of us in the room when he finished, the dim lights and quiet ambiance catching up with me as I stared at him with all the reverence in the universe above us. He eventually finished his thoughts on Perseus and Andromeda, and I could tell by the look on his face that their love story meant something to him.

"You're quite the romantic, Dr. Reid."

He seemed surprised by the sentiment, like it was something he'd never heard before, and now he wasn't quite sure what to do with it. So, he simply laughed awkwardly and moved closer to peer into the telescope.

Whether it was because he felt a stronger connection to the extraterrestrial, or because he simply didn't want me to see that he was blushing, I didn't mind either way. A few less seconds under the scrutiny of his gaze would do my heart well.

"Not sure many people would use that word," he said under his breath when he worked up the courage to speak.

"Well, I did," I replied much more confidently.

He was smiling but trying to hide it the same as the pink hue to his cheeks.

"You said you were 14 when you went to college, right?" I said with narrow eyes, trying to read him from under the large machine.

"Yeah," he responded with an equal dose of caution, "... why?"

"Probably didn't go to prom then, huh?"

His answer was obvious from the way his entire body jumped. Knocking his head on the telescope as he rushed to give an answer, all his mouth would produced was a long, dumb, "Uhhh."

I knew he was about to try to run away. Before he could, I stopped him. With both hands on his arm, I kept him close. Eventually, his muscles gave in and accepted my embrace.

"Come on; dance with me," I begged.

He looked around the room for an excuse. There was no one there, just the two of us on arguably the most heartwarming date I've ever been on in my life.

"There's no music," he scrambled, eventually admitting, "aaand I can't dance."

Ignoring the pitter-pattering of a childish, lovesick heart, I laughed.

"I can teach you, Dr. Reid."

We both knew he wasn't getting out of this one. As I hopped down from the stool, I revealed my secret weapon from my pocket. I pulled up a playlist that I knew would suit him and the setting, and I held out my hand in an invitation that couldn't be refused.

"I have all the world of music at my fingertips. Now I just need you. "

Spencer groaned, but behind it all I saw an undeniable happiness. When he put his hand in mine, it too felt like warmth and safety. I took it with an even brighter grin, immediately bringing him closer to sway slowly to the music coming from my phone now seated on the stool.

The acoustics of the room let the music flow through, and within moments we had fallen into a comfortable rhythm. My cheek rested against his chest and I couldn't help but laugh.

"You lied to me, Dr. Reid. You definitely know how to dance."

"Okay, but does it really count if you've only ever done it with your mom?" he asked.

I threw my head back as I laughed, and he joined me. The two of us shamelessly filled the large room with a warmth not entirely unlike a far away star.

"Don't laugh at me!" he pouted, but I think he actually enjoyed the sound.

"I'm sorry," I whined, "you're just so fucking cute I don't know how to handle it."

Finally able to stifle the joyous sounds, I looked up at him with even more fascination than I'd showed the stars. I'm not sure what I had expected, but it wasn't what I'd found. Because Spencer's eyes were like mirrors facing the sun; reflecting the passions I spewed so carelessly right back at me.

"There are over a million words in the English language, and I still can't think of a single combination to explain how I feel about you."

Just like that, he'd stolen my breath and my sense. My smile fell into a look of smitten shock, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't convince my heart to fall back into its rhythm.

"I-I'm surprised you don't know the exact number," I said with an awkward chuckle.

"Well, some estimate that it's 1,025,109, but new words are created constantly, and it would depend on what actually counts as a new word. Not to mention the different dialects, words that have fallen out of common use, or words that may be used for entirely different purposes despite being the same."

I raised my eyebrows, not at all surprised that he had an answer, but excited to hear it, nonetheless.

"But it doesn't matter," he whispered, impervious to just how much he was breaking my heart. "Because no matter the number, I know it won't be enough."

My eyes lit up like the stars we had just spent hours staring at, and I wondered if he could tell. He must have. Because his hand on my hip pulled me closer, and our hands intertwined as our pace slowed to a stop. Our breath was unsteady as he came closer to me, pausing just before our lips touched.

We shared the oxygen between us, daring the other to do what we both know we shouldn't.

So I did, leaning up to kiss him as my hand slid up his arm and around his neck. His hesitation melted into the embrace, our tongues gently sharing space in an entirely new way.

I thought to the millions of stars in the sky, realizing that I shared Spencer's skepticism of an unknown number. Because no matter how many stars there were, I knew there would never be enough to outshine that moment between the two of us.

It was not a hurried or excited kiss. It was an amorous, amazing promise of a kiss. It was the kind of kiss that they wrote about in Corinthians. It was patient and kind. It was not proud nor self-seeking. Spencer's free hand held my face against his; the way they wrote that love always protects, trusts, hopes, and perseveres.

Did he feel the way he was kissing me? Because I had.

I felt it like a storm, the breeze blowing the air from my lungs and breaking down the walls around me. I held onto him and this moment, scared of what this meant for us. How could I pretend like we were just friends when I shook for days at his touch?

That was why I was the one to end the kiss, looking down away from him as I did. A soft, defeated chuckle as I took a deep breath. When our eyes met again, I lowered my arms to his chest, listening to the soft tunes still floating through the room.

"We should go home now," I whispered.

He was reading my reactions; I could feel it. And in doing so, he had lowered his own walls too far. I could see them behind his eyes.

My voice shook as I continued, "... before you do something else to try and make me fall in love with you."

Spencer didn't look scared as he replied with a cheeky little grin, "Why, is it working?"

I almost passed out at the way his eyes softened at my goofy smile.

"I'm kidding," he immediately followed.

I rolled my eyes at the absolute bullshit of a lie. I tried to play it off like it was nothing, but my heart felt like it would fall out of my chest. I tried not to think about it too hard as we made our way back to the car.

As he helped me in, I realized that we were really going to continue acting like none of that just happened. I tried to think of how that kiss we shared could be written off, but I couldn't. That was not the kind of kiss between friends. It was not the kind of kiss between strangers.

It was a kiss of the kind we both implicitly promised not to talk about.

Once the trip home had begun, I gathered the courage to tread lightly.

"So, what was the fantasy for tonight?" I innocently asked.

A little confused, he glanced over at me, careful not to take his eyes off the road.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I've found each time we're together there's some sexual component," I chuckled. "This is pretty far from home, and you seemed very into it. I was just wondering what inspired this trip."

I was trying to avoid obviously ogling his reactions by shifting my eyes from him every few seconds. I had leaned against the door, surprised by just how tired I really was. He was doing that thing where he weighed his words again.

Eventually, he shrugged. That softness returning to his features from before, he began, "To be honest, (y/n)..."

Please, don't break my heart, I begged to that beautiful man.

Actually turning his head entirely to me, he spoke through a delicate smile, "I just wanted to look at the stars with you."

Goddammit.

The stars returned to my eyes, and I could see them reflected in his. My heart sped up to prepare for the panic as I realized that it was definitely too late for us. Because his efforts were working. They had been working all along, and I never tried to stop them.

As I drifted off to sleep in the comfortable silence of our company, I couldn't ignore the obvious:

I think I'm in love with Spencer Reid and I think he's starting to love me, too.

But we couldn't just love each other in isolation, and I wasn't sure he was ready to make that leap with me. In fact, I knew he wasn't. I still knew basically nothing about him, and he knew virtually nothing about me. How could it be then, that our souls felt so at home with each other?

Which would hurt more? Finding out he didn't love me, or that he did... and just wishes he didn't?

—————————————————

| Part 6 |

[companionship]

okay one big post to get the finale out of my system! it's been lovely reading all of your analyses and reactions, and looking at all your amazing gifs and edits :')

fair warning: this is going to be so stinking long omfg

the things i enjoyed:

vincenzo remaining an anti-hero through and through, especially the fact that he didn't hold back at all when it came to myunghee and hanseok's death. he gave them a taste of their own medicine and then some forreal, their deaths were brutal but oddly satisfying, and i'm saying this as someone who usually hates violence/gore. throughout the show, they've always hinted at what he was Truly Capable Of and boy did we get to see it

vincenzo fumbling in hanseok's house and not being his usual self – a lot of people thought it was ooc, which i understand! i felt like that was the Point, to show that for once, he's not the invincible mafia consigliere that everyone thinks he is. what he did to the man who killed his mother and the army of security guards was a reaction, but this is the first time he's flustered, caught at a disadvantage, and faced with the very real possibility that he might lose somebody incredibly important to him. idk it made him more human to me

vincenzo literally not hesitating for even 0.1 seconds to fold his entire body around hers when he thought hanseok was going to shoot again – yeah that whole bit made my heart clench i feel like a crazy person i won't get over it

the chayenzo hospital scene... my god it was so tender my heart broke. the laugh they both shared, out of sheer relief that she's okay. the little joke about paying for the private room. the way not much was being said, but everything was being said at once. the way they looked at each other, as if it wouldnt ever be enough :( the quiet acceptance that this is their last night together, and that he's going to have to kill a bunch of people after this, but for now they have this. for however brief.

chayoung being chayoung – her big ass personality at the courtroom at the end after winning ms oh's case. her hopping around in those heels, looking elegant and sleek, mocking the hell out of rich conglomorates. she's in her element again and it made me so, so happy to see. i absolutely adore her, she's everything really. after all that loss and the whole ordeal, i'm glad she's able to return to what she does best: putting capitalists back in their place

mr lee being Very Much Not Dead – idk how i wouldve been able to handle it after witnessing hanseo's death like im glad he got the chance to be a dad

the kiss – my god....

the things i didn't like:

hanseo's death – lmao is it even a surprise... say what you will about his death being foreshadowed, but i really just hated hated it. i hate that hanseok won this one. i hate that hanseo worked so hard to redeem himself, only to lose it all. i hate that he was given a taste of what a real family was like, and then having it taken away so cruelly. even though i said above that i didn't mind that vincenzo was ooc at the mansion, i was still screaming at the screen because there were plenty of opportunities for the situation to be reversed. i don't necessarily blame vincenzo for hanseo's death, but i do wish that they had a funeral scene for him. i wish they acknowledged his sacrifice, and how pivotal he was in turning the tables. if not for hanseo, vincenzo really couldn't have pulled any of this off, from the interpol tipoff to the tracking device in the watch. idc idc hanseo is in malta rn, enjoying the sun and the beach, going to therapy, and teaching the local kids how to play hockey even though there's no ice :(

chayoung being bedridden the whole finale – like... NAH lmao this aint it chief... if things went my way, she wouldve gotten out of the hospital depite her injury and dealt with myunghee before handing her off to vincenzo. i loved their animosity for each other, and i wanted chayoung to be the one at myunghee's apartment waiting for her, rubbing it into her face. i wanted chayoung to verbally finish myunghee with that sharp ass tongue of hers and really dump a load of salt on her wounds. then vincenzo could do whatever the hell he wanted. you could argue that the show is called Vincenzo but i really dont care lmao it started with chayoung avenging her dad and she should've been able to strike the final blow. also what was her big second party? are we really just going to ignore her capacity for evil? after all that moral work done, after that time she spent coming to terms with using evil to combat evil, we're just going to... keep her bedridden? park jaebum u will pay for this

vincenzo losing his family – besides hanseo's death, i think this was what i hated the most from the ending. the start of the show showed us vincenzo's departure from the mafia with the very clear intention of Not Returning. the capo died, his loyalties lie with no one, paolo can suck it. throughout the show, we see him repeat over and over that he wants to get the gold and skip off to malta to enjoy a peaceful life there, while reflecting/repenting for the things he's done. vincenzo was gearing up for a lifetime of solitude. the whole point of the show was for him to find a real family and have a real chance at happiness. park jaebum really said FUCK THAT! we're gonna have him ditch the family that he built from scratch with the love of his life and then make him return to the family that tried to kill him AND make him the capo... pjb said we're gonna separate vincenzo from the family that accepts his past and sees it as a strength and not a weakness. the family that was formed out of solidarity, the family that he fought for and fought alongside with blood, sweat and tears. not to mention the goddaughter of his? sorry i would laugh if it didn't actually rile me up so bad

vincenzo not being able to come back to korea – i've said this in another post of mine, but given that he is The Vincenzo Cassano with all those resources at his disposal (guillotine file, mr ahn/mr cho/the chief etc.), the fact that he isnt even able to stay in korea for 30 fuckin minutes after finishing hanseok was ridiculous. the whole police chase was dumb as hell considering that the show has managed to stop politicians and mf presidential candidates from going after him like ? huh LMAO park jaebum had an on-demand pigeon army in this show and Yet he can't stop like 10 suddenly-righteous policemen. another big ass HUH

chayenzo (here we go...):

NOPE! i've reflected on the ending and decided that i'm going to be petty and salty for a while more before coming to terms with it

i can rationalise and try to be positive and tell myself that their love is enduring can transcend space and time and that in due time, they will find their way back to each other, and i have no doubt that they will because they're one soul in two bodies. it's quite literally canon that they're soulmates.

but let me wallow for a second

here we have two people who have done questionable and terrible things in their past coming together, growing together, grieving together, fighting together... you get the gist of it. you have two people who have found a home in each other. two people who, for all intents and purposes, were about to live in a whole lot of bitterness and solitude if not for each other and the life they built together (chayoung didn't have friends like that, and her family is gone too). to separate them like that at the very end is cruel. i know chayoung and vincenzo are mature and incredible and will be able to function without the other next to them. i know that they will still excel as lawyers and will defeat evil with their underhand methods the way they do so well but my god are they going to feel the absence and miss each other

my point is that they shouldn't have to. from what i could tell, they can't even communicate on a regular basis bc he'll be tracked and whatnot, hence the postcards. a postcard every month is a poor substitute for all those nights they stayed up drinking makgeolli and celebrating their wins. its a shitty replacement for coffee dates and fist bumps and all the moments in between. after everything they've been through, after literally fighting to death for their family, they don't deserve this. they don't deserve to meet up once a year for a couple of hours. they don't deserve pockets of time in malta or korea, their life in a perpetual countdown to when they're going to see each other next

they both deserve love and some semblance of peace (finally finally). they both deserve to have someone to come home to after a hard day of work, because doing what they do cannot be easy. they both deserve a family, deserve to have someone next to them that accepts their past and would embrace their future. they both deserve a hand to hold and a shoulder to lean on. i know they will still be It for each other despite the distance, i just wish the distance didn't even exist in the first place bc its stupid and cruel and their love shouldnt have to be proven or tested with time and space. let them stay together. let them grow together. let them be.

side note: song joongki and jeon yeobeen need another project together idc take it up with god

tl;dr: park jaebum u will be paying for my therapy bills

[yue-muffin]

well, cherry magic was absolutely devastating and yet another example of why i love jdramas: when they set out to do so, they are full of so much heart and understanding of what it means to be human. i have had so many emotional rollercoasters over the years, but the angst is not usually angst for its own sake; there’s a purpose: to paint a tragedy and make you think ah, if only..., or testing the bonds of friends and family to show that what makes us human can just as easily tear us apart as be the cause for us to overcome obstacles in life.

i usually don’t like romances. i avoid them. which is also why i like jdramas. romance-centric ones are clearly marked and indicated in the summary, if a romance appears in a non romantic drama, it doesn’t often take anything away from the plot or characters. in fact, aside from old bl movies, i’ve never watched a single romance jdrama, no matter how highly recommended.

this got LONG so.

two things: 1) im really glad i gave cherry magic a chance. 2) my mind was blown by how far the japanese romance genre has come in terms of depicting same sex relationships. all you have to do is look to the old bl movies i used to watch- even if the characters are respected within their medium, they all end in tragedy.

so, cherry magic along with several other jdramas coming out or that have come out recently, really impressed me. i stepped away from the jdrama world for a while, and im glad that i slipped back in.

so about the whole drama since ive really been talking about the overall genre - it’s so damn good and relatable, to a painful degree. to me, particularly, who has lived a privileged life and moves through the world without too much fuss, it’s that self-sabotage of adachi’s that really hit me hard. you’re your own worst enemy sometimes. and, indeed, his anxiety is also really relatable. how many times do i always think the worst of my performance, when the grades, the instructors’ assessments, my friends and family, all say i didn’t do as bad as i think in my head? or thinking whatever you do, it’s never going to be enough to match so-and-so’s expectations, and if you fail their expectations you fail them and yourself. man, that spiral of his thoughts in the last two episodes was painful but the resolution of which was so cathartic.

(also, i guess i just have to own up to the fact that i do have some sort of anxiety. i never really talk about myself to others, and to my family who i do, they don’t believe anxiety is even a thing beyond a funny feeling in your gut which is like “wow, really”, but a thing i’ve learned to ignore, except this ongoing pandemic situation has really made it rear its ugly head, which i can normally keep in check ok)

but the drama as a whole...it’s so realistic, and positive. it’s a perfect balance. it handles the “typical” bl tropes well, giving a bit of its original manga flair but taking it to a realistic level. like all the classic kabedons! the mind reading bit is actually really helpful here to break those tropes apart a bit by being able to know kurosawa’s thoughts even tho on the outside he’s mostly as suave as ever

and another thing! it’s so...life-affirming. that it’s ok to not know where you’re going even at age 30, to set little goals for yourself, to pursue happiness in your relationships. the way society is these days, there’s so much pressure to be the best and succeed - even to the point, it’s not just good to be happy with what you’re doing, you must be successful by society’s standard (the minato storyline particularly addressed this)

and i, at least, really need that reminder. i love the career im working towards now, but when i was only 21, i was just about having a breakdown every other week bc i was coming to the end of my undergrad studies and didn’t know where i wanted to go next. it felt like ‘if i don’t make the right choice in these 3 months, it’ll ruin the rest of my life or i’ll just never be happy’. that’s so crazy, thinking back.

and another thing: the characters are all so different, but i found a bit of myself in each of them nonetheless. unlike fujisaki, i do want to be in a relationship someday, but i don’t want one now and i would greatly appreciate people in my life to stop pressuring me into one with their well-intentioned comments. i thought at first that kurosawa wasn’t going to be super deep, just a really nice guy in love, but actually his mask of perfection and need to meet others’ expectations as his self-perceived redeeming qualities really hit hard. and adachi, who is like my spirit animal, his anxiety and worries over whether he’s worth a love that seems so good and perfect, running away rather than face the possibility of getting hurt from that interaction. even rokkaku, who acted all energetic and excited at the drinking party but really just wanted to get the heck out of there

the actors were all just. so good. i mentioned this last time, but they got the perfect balance of comedy moments + realistic reactions/nuanced acting that isn’t exaggerated, for the non-comedy moments. they all did a stellar job of selling this drama!

so, the bad thing is that this has set the bar high on modern romance dramas for me, and considering i don’t give them much of a chance in the first place, lol.

[missdawnandherdusk]

Fire and Ice

Draco X Gryffindor!Reader 

Part One

Summary: You’re torn between two sides of yourself: The kind one and the one who needed to survive. It’s not like Draco’s making it any easier on deciding which side you should choose. 

A/N: Hello my darlings! See, didn’t I promise a part two? Also welcome to the new blog, enjoy your stay. I love you all. 

Tags: @un-limiteddd @geekysimmerthings​ @coffee-addicti​ @ilikestuffproductions​ @msmcsmutt​ @ravn-87​ @artemismohr18​ @whygz​ @crazywritingbug​ @dolphincommander​ @bisexualbumblebeesstuff​ @fuzzy-panda​ @bitemebro522​ @zombiesnips-blog​

When Hagrid made the comment putting Malfoy down about becoming a ferret again, and the rest of the Gryffindors laughed, I stayed quiet and my eyes met his for a moment. A gave a small smile of encouragement and he rolled his eyes.

I sighed and let out a laugh of hopelessness that was lost in the fervor of the rest. Seriously, what was I doing? What was I thinking? He was a Malfoy, wasn’t he? Born and bred to hate me.

Fine.

Whatever.

Not like I cared.

Nope.

——————————

My thoughts of him truly being a Malfoy strengthened when he cursed Hermione and her teeth kept growing and all he did was laugh. Him and his goons.

I stood, pulling my wand out, but Snape was there, glaring me down.

“Is there a problem Miss Lupine?” He narrowed his eyes at me.

I huffed and put my wand away, helping Hermione up.

“No sir, Hermione and I will no the in your class today. Sorry to disappoint.” I cast one last look at Malfoy and cursed him mental and ushered Hermione to the infirmary.

I was disillusioned. There was no redeeming quality about him or his house. It was written in stone... wasn’t it? Who was I to argue?

But that didn’t sit right, why would someone be created just to be nothing but a villain. There had to be redemption somewhere. This wasn’t some story, these were people with emotions, and second chances... and maybe hundredth chances for some of us.

At the infirmary I remained at Hermione’s side until a counter curse was applied and the normal Hermione was back. Well, sort of. She let the counter curse go on for a bit longer so that her teeth no longer were a sore spot in her features. Not that I cared... but I knew she was self- conscious.

“I’m really sorry,” I whispered. “I should have known...” shaking my head I looked anywhere but her pity filled expression.

It was like she could see the battle going on in my mind as the minutes ticked by. It left me confused and tired, all of the inner turmoil.

“I’m alright Y/n, go onto class, take good notes for me?” Hermione suggested.

I nodded and gave a small smile. Not that I particularly wanted to go anywhere near the Potions class... but I owed it to Hermione to take good notes for her. She deserved that. Even if she was leagues ahead on material.

I took my seat at an empty desk—my partner was currently still at the infirmary—and ignored Snape’s disgust. I ignored his snide comment and kept my head low.

I did however make the mistake and look over at Draco, who caught my eye then looked away quickly. I shifted in my seat so I wouldn’t have to look at him, on accident or purposefully.

About an hour into the lesson, as Snape was just about to choose someone to test their antidote, Harry left with Colin. I sighed, knowing that I would be the next target for Snape’s torture. These antidotes were tedious, but I was more than confident about the list that Hermione and I had created. It could undo just about anything.

Snape ordered us all to begin working on our antidote for the Bellum Amoris.

I took great care, hearing Hermione’s voice in my head as I collected and added the ingredients to the cauldron. With most of the list memorized, I finished before everyone else, even though I was working alone. Well, almost everyone anyway.

“Miss Y/n, are you done so soon?” Snake came up beside my table.

“Yes Professor,” I didn’t look up at him, instead I kept eyeing my potion to make sure it remained stable.

“And you’re confident that it will work?” He nearly scoffed.

“Yes Professor,” I looked up at him, narrowing my eyes.

“Look at her she’s terrified!” Malfoy laughed from across the way.

I moved my gaze from Snape to Malfoy, glaring him down, wanting to do something much worse. Too bad Snape was there. The fire from our rivalry seemed to reemerge and surface. Now all I wanted to do was beat him.

“What about you Malfoy? You good enough? Mr. Slytherin Prince?” I glared. “Why don’t you test your prize student Professor? See if he deserves his title?” I crossed my arms as Malfoy went red.

“An interesting point Ms. Lupine, perhaps we should test you both.” He turned to Malfoy and in a less patronizing manner asked: “Mr. Malfoy are you completed?”

“Yes sir,” He smiled innocently. 

The little twat.

“And will it save you?” 

“Without a doubt.”

It better because I was going to kill him.

“Good,” Snape smiled. “Now the two of you will take this,” he held out a small vial of menacing liquid. “And we shall test your antidotes.”

“Easy,” Malfoy scoffed and rolled his eyes.

“Ah, but there is a catch.” Snape looked between us. “Since you two are so animate about the other’s ability, Mr. Malfoy will be using Miss Lupine’s and vice versa.” Snape grinned.

My heart sank. I had to use his antidote? Anxiety started to rise in my chest, then I remembered: Malfoy was one of the best Potions students in the school, next to me.

“What!?” We both exclaimed.

“This is... suicide!” I protested. “Trust him? Are you serious?”

“Trust her? She was planning this! She wants to watch me be poisoned!” He argued at the same time.

“Now settle the both of you! I have the antidote myself so neither of you will die, goodness you two.” Snap muttered.

“You planned this,” Malfoy hissed. “For what I did to your little friend,”

“I love that you think I’m so clever Malfoy but no I didn’t. Why would I ever want to trust you?”

Maybe because he could change...

No.

Shut up.

“Because I’m the best potions student Hogwarts has. Of course, I made it right,”

“So, did I, you git,” I sneered. “And you might be the best Slytherin, but not the best overall,” I smirked.

Snape called us both to the front of the class and made us sit on stools, facing the other students. Ron had gone almost green with worry and I could see a few Slytherin kids looking nervous as well. Getting a Gryffindor to trust a Slytherin, or to get a Slytherin to trust anyone was a high gamble that Snape made.

He handed us both vials of Bellum Amoris. My eyes locked with Malfoy’s as I downed the entire thing and I felt it take effect immediately. It was like ice shards that spread to every cell in my body. A freeze creeped through my chest, slowing my lungs. I wanted to cry, but my tears were frozen.

I could see the look on Draco’s face. He felt something similar—the look on his face of wanting to cry was familiar, it was the same one I had seen in the infirmary.

“The poison Bellum Amoris, the war of love,” Snape explained. “Love is a dangerous thing; no two people feel the poison the same.” Snape looked at the two of us. “Love can kill. Now, the antidotes.”

I looked at the goblet that held Draco’s antidote and cautiously brought it to my lips, taking a sip. The ice in my veins thawed. I could breathe again, and cry if I wanted to. I didn’t, but I could. The antidote made the traces of poison feel like crisp water from a spring, or the gentle pull of the ocean.

“The antidote, Animus Amoris, turns the poison into the kinder side of love as one may say.” 

_____________________________

Your eyes held his as the vial contents slid down his throat and began to burn like fire. It consumed every nerve, firing again and again, that burning wicked sensation. He left as if he was set into a fire and left to burn alive.

The look on your face held something similar. Then Snape allowed them to drink the antidote...

He hated he was about to do this, but he took up the goblet with your antidote in it and took a sip. There was no reason to think that yours wouldn’t work. He knew you were good; he just didn’t want to admit it.

To anyone. Ever.

The fire ebbed and turned to something warm. Like the warmth from a fire on a winter night, or a mug of tea. The warmth that one found comfort in. The fire that burned him could also comfort him.

“Miss Y/n, please explain what it was like.” Snape ordered, as you set down the goblet

“The poison was like ice... it felt like I was freezing from the inside out” Your voice was barely a whisper.

How odd that your poison was the opposite of his. He was burned and you were iced out. 

“And the antidote?” Snape pressed.

Your eyes flashed to his, the same kind look that he saw at Hagrid’s earlier. Something warm.

He brushed off the thought immediately and looked anywhere but at you.

“It melted whatever was frozen, like refreshing water... the chill you welcome in autumn after a long hot summer,” Your voice was reminiscent... like you were lost in a memory.

Part of him wondered what made you feel that way. The stronger part of him wondered why he cared what anyone felt.

“How... poetic,” Snape dismissed. “And Mr. Malfoy?”

“Fire,” He bit out. “Like I was being burned alive.”

“Interesting,” Snape mused, “And the antidote?”

Oh, part of him wanted to lie. To say that it didn’t work. To drop to the ground and discredit any reputation that you had. But he made the mistake of meeting your eyes again.

“Something warm,” He muttered, blinking into recovery. “It didn’t burn anymore.”

Snape nodded, deciding not to comment on whatever had just happened between the two students.

“Very we’ll both of you. Your antidotes worked perfectly.” 

_______________________________

He didn’t lie... He told the truth. He said that my antidote worked.

And I was back to the internal battle. What the hell was he playing at? Was this some sort of game?

We both nodded to each other and exchanged a glance as the bell rolled and the students scattered to avoid being picked to test their antidotes.

I hurried out of the class, trying not to trip over my robes or my emotions.

“Lupine!”

Oh, why did he have to call me? I asked the stars. Why can’t he just leave me alone?

I turned and glared down the Slytherin prince.

“What?” I snapped. “Haven’t you done enough today?” I wasn’t as angry as I let on, but I lashed out in my confusion and worry. I knew that.

It seemed like whatever he was going to say flitted out of his mind at my comment. I wanted to apologize for it, but... didn’t. And he spoke before I could.

“I... it was... it was stupid okay? What I did. To your... friend.” He seemed to stumble over his words.

I raised an eyebrow not letting my guard down but desperately wanting too.

“Just once I thought maybe... maybe there was some good in you Draco... that you could be human. That there was something more than this stupid feud.” I shook my head in dismay.

“Y/n!” He called as I walked away.

I kept walking. I heard his footsteps approach.

I stopped knowing I wasn’t going to get anywhere with him chasing me.

“I’m just as human as you are Y/n.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “Not everyone is as fortunate as you,”

I gaped at him. Two trains of thought ran through my head. The first was shock the second anger about his fortunate comment. He was richer and more fortunate than all the kids at this school. What the hell did he mean I was fortunate?

“What is that even supposed to mean!?” I snapped, crossing my arms. 

“That maybe money doesn’t fix everything!”

I took a small step back, away from his loud voice. I never liked yelling... not since I was little, and it was all my older brother did.

“Why am I even wasting my time on you?” He scoffed.

“I’ve been asking myself the same thing,” I muttered and walked away.

.

.

Part 3

[panharmonium]

next round of in-progress naruto thoughts under the cut

[i actually haven’t progressed that far from where i was last time, honestly, but i could feel myself getting to a stage where i had some things i needed to write up.]

fyi, this one is a little more gripe-y than usual - still enjoying myself, but there are some things in the current arc that are bugging me.

[spoiler policy disclaimer first, as always: I am watching naruto for the first time and have only gotten to the point where naruto and bee break out of the island barrier and leave to join the war.  i am trying to avoid spoilers, so please don’t interact with this (tags included, because the notifications now show them to me automatically) with any spoilery commentary, including even general things like “oh i love this show but it gets less good after X point” or “X season is better than Y season” or any general assessments of quality/likability/etc re: future seasons.  Thank you! <3 ]

anyway, to go ahead with my grousing -

there are a couple things about this current arc that have me feeling "ehhh.”

1) too many dead people

i’ve personally always been lukewarm on the “revive/reanimate dead characters for the Confrontation Value” trope, which is probably due to me having been a comics fan for so long (i was pretty deep into DC-land during Blackest Night, and that’s not even the first/last time this sort of thing has been done there, so).  i’m not saying it CAN’T be done in an interesting way, but most of the time my experience with it has been that it’s kind of cheap/redundant storytelling.  it usually doesn’t add much to an emotional arc, for me, and when it retreads an emotional arc that did have a strong conclusion, i feel like all it does is weaken the original story.  

so like - places where i feel like shippuden does this well are with minato and kushina.  i found both of those scenes with naruto to be powerful moments that added something new to the story/to naruto’s development.  (but they’re not even part of the whole reanimation jutsu plotline, which is what i’m mostly feeling “eh” on, so it’s not even the greatest example.)

a place where i’m kind of in the middle is with asuma.  on the one hand, i really don’t think that this needed to happen, because the original story arc with him was SO strong.  however, they did kind of redeem themselves in a way by focusing the redux on choji instead of shikamaru, so at least they were still saying/exploring something something new.

places where i’m still pretty dubious are pretty much...everyone else.  i’m just not sure...well, i don’t know.  i can’t really say definitively how i feel about it until i get to the end of the arc and see how it ends, but at the current moment, i’m just not sure what we get out of seeing people like zabuza+haku, lady chio, itachi, nagato, etc....ALL of those stories had such powerful endings; it just makes me leery of these “resurrections” invalidating everything we saw previously/weakening the impact of what came before.

2) mixed messaging

this is my bigger gripe, and it’s something i’ve kind of had floating on the edges of my mind for a long time, but this season especially is highlighting it.

the one thing that is guaranteed to make me frustrated about this show (besides its obvious disinterest in female characters) is when it starts to lean super hard into the “Naruto Is The Only One Who Can Do It!” for every single task that needs to be completed.  and i know this is a stupid thing to complain about when the show is literally titled “Naruto,” but the reason it gets frustrating is because the initial message of this show was never “one super special person must do everything on their own and save everyone else.”  the original message of this show was teamwork.  

the very first lesson kakashi teaches the kids (and the foundation upon which the rest of the story has been built) is “you are stronger together.”  if you had all come at me together, you might have been able to take [the bells]!  he specifically criticizes naruto for working alone: “naruto - you do EVERYTHING on your own.  EVERYTHING.”  and that’s understood to be the Wrong Thing; it’s the reason naruto ends up tied to the stump.  but in the last few seasons especially (though there have definitely been previous moments where this has shown up before) the ONLY thing we keep hearing is how naruto has to accomplish everything by himself.  

it didn’t bother me in the Pain arc; i actually thought that confrontation was appropriate and necessary for naruto’s development.  but ever since then, it’s escalated to a point where now it’s like - “naruto is the only one who can fight sasuke!  naruto is the only one who can defeat madara!  naruto is the only one who can stop the war!  naruto is the only one who can erase everybody’s hatred!”  

and that’s the point at which i start to get frustrated, because my mind is like “okay, and the other characters are going to be doing...what, exactly?”

again, maybe it’s stupid to complain about that when the show is literally titled “Naruto.”  but i don’t think so.  title notwithstanding, this story at its heart was, in the beginning, an ensemble show with four main characters, whereas nowadays, the messaging is that only one of those characters can actually accomplish anything.  so i get kind of resentful, when i’m told that the other members of the team can’t do anything but step back and hold naruto up, because the essential message of this story has ALWAYS been “teamwork is more important than anything.  you are NEVER stronger by yourself.  we ALL have something to contribute.”

right now, the other characters feel like they’ve just been shunted off to do busywork.  none of them have grown or changed at all since the end of season 10 (and even the end of season 10 was starting to slide into the “only naruto can do anything about sasuke in the end blah blah” - yes it’s a huge pet peeve of mine but it is what it is; whatever; moving on).  we haven’t even SEEN sasuke since the end of season 10.  there’s been no consideration given to how kakashi is handling being drafted into a second war and being put in charge of 20,000 lives (and his clash with zabuza was just a vehicle for all the characters to reflect once again on how great naruto is).  there’s been virtually ZERO attention given to how sakura is handling things, minus that one scene where she’s looking at gory pictures from the previous great ninja war.  everybody is just marking time, punching a bunch of identical white zetsus until naruto can come solve the problem and wow everyone with his new abilities.

part of my annoyance might just be due to the fact that the timeline is so wonky due to filler arcs - it feels like ages have passed for me, but in-universe it really hasn’t been all that long.  but i also think there are legitimate reasons for me to be frustrated, when the show introduces things and then just unceremoniously drops them without any indicator of when they might be picked up again.  like - the uchiha genocide reveal was (i thought) a Huge Fucking Deal that should have Major Repercussions - but it’s just kind of.....disappeared as an issue???  and yamato - he’s been CAPTURED!!!!!!  but the show has not shown a single character reacting to this, or even being informed that it happened, and i think that’s shitty, actually.  yamato isn’t a minor character.  he’s been naruto’s personal guardian since season 2.  he has done SO MUCH for the kids, and he is kakashi’s friend, and i think it is shitty to have him get captured by the same people who experimented on him as a child and then not spend a second or two making it clear that other characters CARE about this.  

anyway.  this is just something that’s been creeping up on me as time goes on, and the last few episodes of “Naruto is the Savior of the Entire World” talk just made it feel more immediate, i guess.  plus the new intro (which i know may not be reliable; sometimes they show things that never happen) had a shot of naruto fighting itachi, and i think that tipped me over the edge, lmao, because you know what?  enough!!!!!  naruto can’t be the one who gets to do EVERYTHING!  some stories are not about him!  there are other characters who have relationships that are not about naruto.  there are places where other characters should be able to accomplish things naruto can’t do.  the other main characters should be allowed to complete their personal arcs, separate from (not just secondary to) naruto’s journey.

like - just - this is how i feel: this show started out as a story about a group of four people, and the root theme was “teamwork is everything.”  i don’t like how the show has slowly started to mutate into a story about naruto’s “solitary” quest to save sasuke, when we have seen MANY TIMES that: 

a) sakura was the first of the kids who even knew that something was wrong with sasuke, while naruto remained utterly oblivious all the way through shonen jump (and partway into shippuden, tbh)

b) kakashi in the past has connected with sasuke in ways that NEITHER of the two kids have been able to achieve

i just don’t like it.  i don’t like how S10 had sakura say the line “naruto...you were the first one to ever see the darkness in sasuke...” when she’s reflecting on their fight on top of the hospital, because that is a LIE.  it’s a blatant retcon.  of the kids, sakura was the one who knew from the very beginning that something was wrong with sasuke.  she was the one who was with him when he had that semi-dissociative episode during the bells test.  she was the one who was with him during all the curse mark stuff in the forest of death.  she was the one who knew something was off when he challenged naruto to a fight - naruto was just psyched that sasuke wanted to “spar” with him!  and SHE was the one who suspected that sasuke might do something as drastic as leave the village - naruto explicitly told her not to worry; that sasuke was totally fine; he would never ever do something like that!

like - the show already barely gives sakura anything for herself; now they try to take this away from her, too?  and give it to naruto?  to hammer in a kind of connection between naruto and sasuke that demonstrably did not exist??  (i’m not saying that naruto and sasuke don’t have their own important relationship!  but it is just provably untrue that naruto was the person who understood sasuke best.  shonen jump goes out of its way to demonstrate how clueless naruto is about what sasuke is really like and what he’s going through.  naruto is SHOCKED that sasuke would go to orochimaru.  he doesn’t realize that their fight on top of the hospital is anything more than their usual rivalry business.  when sasuke pops out of the coffin behind kimimaro, naruto waves and starts laughing, because he thinks sasuke is still on their side and is going to run right home!  and even in shippuden, when naruto hears that orochimaru is dead, he gets all excited and goes “so sasuke must be on his way back to the leaf village!!! :D”  like.  he just doesn’t get it.)

and i won’t really get into kakashi’s side of things here, because i would end up writing too much, but suffice to say that i am just...wary of the way it feels like recent parts of the show are trying to minimize or...push aside the real, textually-documented connections that kakashi and sakura had with sasuke in favor of “Only Naruto Can Help!”  it frustrates me.  kakashi made inroads with sasuke that neither of the kids ever achieved.  sasuke talks to kakashi in a more honest way than he ever does with either of his peers, even when he’s out of his head with rage.  and i would prefer to see this show taking the angle that all three of sasuke’s team members are going to be indispensable for saving him.  

you know.  like teamwork.

[themilky-way]

the motive {loki odinson}

gif credit: astouract

pairing: loki odinson x female! reader

summary: he takes pleasure in the way you react to his words. it’s a fun game up until you’ve had enough, and everything he’s wanted is sitting before him. based on the morning by the weeknd.

warnings: was supposed to be hella implied nsfw but i guess i got soft halfway through BUT i redeemed myself so ha 😼. anyways, minor nsfw themes and language, so caution. tiny, TINY angst oops. we kinky in dis one 

author’s note: i started school again so getting more works done will take a bit longer but i’ll try to write as much as i can! anyways hope this satisfies y’all 😌

-------

it had started out as a joke. a fun little game that would bring him some sort of entertainment during his stay on earth. and while it did work fairly well during the first few weeks, he never thought it would transition into this-whatever the hell this was.

loki was cunning and devious; it was part of his nature that would never cease to exist within him. he enjoyed causing some trouble here and there if it meant he kept a molecule of sanity. so when thor suggested he stay with him at the avengers tower, he thought he might explode. living in a humongous multi billionaire house with the people who wanted him dead? it was a set up. it had to be.

for loki, the first few weeks had been tolerable. he’d wake up in his assigned bedroom, fix himself a mediocre breakfast once the kitchen was empty, and then scurry up to a quiet place. he discovered that he could do as he pleased whenever the compound was free of residents, and since the avengers had much bigger threats now, he didn’t have to worry about them spying on him. it was false freedom, but he could live with it.

when he’d have such luxury, he would sometimes walk down to the common room to settle with a good book. sure, it may appear to be a boring pastime, but it wasn’t as if loki was going to throw an exuberant ball without tony’s permission. not that he was a man- dare he say god-of seeking approval, but it was common courtesy, for odin’s sake! he had morals he needed to follow, thus requiring him to partake in hobbies that would not get him in trouble.

however, when he came across a particular mortal one night, the values he sought after vanished. it’s as if they never existed at all, and once again the laws of time and space defied him. you were there, taking up his entire field of vision in just an oversized t-shirt. could it be your partner’s? loki questioned. it most likely was, yet he found himself hoping it wasn’t. in that moment, it didn’t help that his mind had stopped functioning. when you stepped into the kitchen, the shirt hiking up slightly with every step, his body didn’t allow him to look away. his novel was discarded far away on the couch, and his hands searched for some type of cloth to grip. it was here, with your body bent over and curiously searching through the refrigerator, that his carnal instincts heightened. then, his knuckles turned white when you finally noticed him.

“oh fuck, hi,” you gasped. the glass bottle you were holding dropped, but it knew better than to actually hit the floor. seconds after catching it, you turned to look at the stranger in front of you. “didn’t see ya there.”

loki tried-really tried-to think of a good reason not to bend you over again, on that lovely kitchen counter your fingertips were dancing on, and take you right then and there. perhaps it might seem a tad bit rude? would such an action be impolite? the right answer was yes: it was absolutely all of the above. a first date is necessary to win the heart of a lady, and then a couple more to build a friendship. the relationship would come naturally, with given time, of course. in his head, the god was scoffing at how eager he was to win this clumsy, beautiful creature. he was one who took what he wanted-whenever he wanted-and didn’t look back. but loki was confined to the dull walls of the compound, and apparently so were you. he needn’t worry, for time had joined his side once more; he’d get to know how sweet you could taste, how your mouth would mindlessly shudder out his name, and the man couldn’t be more thrilled.

“are you able to speak?”

the simple question reached him, and when he searched for the source, he came face to face with you. you were standing in front of him, in all your delicious glory, and it almost broke him. still, he was deceitful; you couldn’t know that. “of course i speak, you fool,” loki shot back.

“okay, well, you didn’t answer me back there,” you pointed out. your hands were neatly clasped behind you, excitedly rocking back and forth on the heels of your feet, when you extended a hand for introduction. your name confidently slipped out, giving loki the most tender smile anyone could offer him. “pleased to meet you, sir.”

sir. the name stirred something up inside him, and he wasn’t able to tell if he’d accidentally let out a moan upon hearing it. did you know how innocent you sounded? how ravishing you appeared right now-with the soft skin of your thighs drawing out the patterns he so wished to kiss, or how the outline of your bosom prominently showed itself through your clothes. he stopped himself, though, before he could cross the line between observant and creepy. the last thing he wanted was to make you feel uncomfortable, having had the same dreadful feeling for far too long during his lifetime.

“don’t call me that.” the hand you were holding out was covered by his own. the handshake was quick, not too harsh or loose, but just adequate. he said his name, and he found himself missing the feeling of your skin against his.

“why?”

“because it’s not for you to say.” a lie. a very well calculated one, at that. he may be properly forged in the art of deception, but right now he wasn’t quite sure he passed the test. if he could grant permission to any woman to use the term of endearment, it’d sure as hell be you.

“alright then,” you mildly laughed. “i’ll just have to find a name i can call you.”

after that, loki realized that his source of happiness ultimately came from you. he enjoyed the unlikely bond you both had, one that formed because of the god’s inability to keep it in his pants. it was awkward at first-with everything you did or said locked in his mind wherever he’d go-but the confidence he always carried with him returned at one point.

today, loki never forgot to let you know what you did to him. this was it. the game he sought after since his inherent arrival at the tower. this was the adrenaline, the crazed connection he’d been hunting for centuries. it ignited something-between the two of you-whenever loki’s mouth would hover over your earlobe, whispering just how agonizingly slow he could take you. he never mentioned how he’d go about doing it, leaving you to wonder which part of him would fulfill the deed. oftentimes, loki didn’t even have to say anything. if he was feeling particularly shy that evening, and the team was all there, all loki would do was pat his knee. if you want to, if you really need to, you can finish on my leg. the simple image of it would have your hand between your legs that night.

“loki, what the hell.” you found him inside your dorm one particularly rainy night, lighting the candles you kept on either of your nightstands. “i keep my door locked for a reason, y’know. and stop wasting my candles.”

“i can’t help myself, darling. they smell quite lovely,” loki smiled. it was sincere, adoring even, and the way he took comfort in your tiny space brought a light tug to your stomach. you stayed still as you watched his tall form stride over to you. a small breath caught in your throat when loki peered down at you, and he caught it. he knew what he did to you, and he gained a new sense of pride at just how quickly he could make your knees go weak. his thumb and index fingers suddenly-gently-lifted your chin higher so your eyes could lock together. his own searched for something as if to look for the answer to his next question.

“you’re aware this isn’t just strictly physical, right?”

quite frankly, you were not in the loop even a little bit. “what?”

the tiny whisper made him want to carve out your lips with his own, slow, and taunting, and hard. he refrained for the time being. “think hard on it. there’s no rush.”

“no, i get what you meant. it’s just” you shook your head, prompting loki to let go of his grip. “i dunno. i thought you didn’t catch feelings, let alone for me.” loki let out a hearty laugh which forced a goofy grin onto your face. you liked seeing him like this. happy.

“i’m not stone cold, darling. you’re the only one i’ve ever had an infatuation with, though. well done, you seem to have captured my heart,” he joked. you giggled with him as you lightly shoved his chest, but loki caught your wrist before you could take it back. the kiss he brought to the inside of it had you swooning. a childish, girly feeling, yet you couldn’t care less. the both of you stayed there for a while and casually chatted until it was time for loki to head out. that night, you hardly got any sleep.

-------

ever since then, loki acted as if he didn’t remember it. he went back to his cocky self, not that you minded, but some simple recognition would’ve been nice. the days lapsed as they did before: loki doing everything in his divine power to make you ache for him. it worked, no matter how hard you avoided it, but soon you stopped trying. your body demanded for loki to touch you. to give you more than a simple brush of his lips to your wrist, yet he gave you anything but. and so you set out to change that.

it was the late hours of the night, with your team comfortably dispersed amongst the common room. movie night was in full effect, and no one had the intention of looking away from the gory film that was currently playing. you were seated next to wanda, the man you wanted painfully too far away from your reach. he didn’t have any clue you were angry with him, nor were you going to tell him. he was a thoughtful man, he’d figure it out.

you blinked away only to be met with his gaze. it was sharp, hungry. he looked you over as his tongue dipped out to run along his lip, biting it once he finally saw what he wanted. you’d be lying if you said it didn’t arouse you. of course it did; the poor man would rail you straight into this couch right now if he got the chance to.

you looked away, fearing vulnerability, and somehow managed to make it to the end of the marathon. you all said your farewell’s and deparated to your designated corridors, and just when you were about to close your door, a hand stopped it.

he pushed himself inside without much resistance from your own part. you stepped back and allowed him to close it, suddenly feeling a bit small. he looked at you then, the hunger replaced by confusion.

“is everything alright?” he inquired. no it’s not. you won’t shove two fingers into my mouth and tell me how good i’ve been.

“is everything alright-” you scoffed, “no it’s fucking not, loki.” you ran your hands through your hair and looked down, finding the decorative tiles on your floor quite intriguing.

“hey, woah, look at me. tell me what’s wrong, sweet.”

“that. that’s what’s wrong, loki. it’s the way you can tease me whenever you want, and call me sweet names and expect me not to react. you give me nothing to work with, for fuck’s sake!” a couple tears ran down your cheeks unbeknownst to you, but loki was quick to hold your face in his hands. his thumb wiped the drops in quick, tender-like motions and he crumbled at the way you focused on him.

“i’m sorry, darling. my intentions were never meant to bring you harm, much less sorrow. how can i fix this?”

“i need you to, fuck i-” you took a couple of breaths. “i need-want-you to touch me. to make me feel good, in all the ways you know how.”

loki chuckled quietly, a proud, defiant smirk curving along his lips. “is that what this is about? why, you could’ve just asked. no need for a tantrum.”

rolling your eyes, you tried to look away from him, but his hands began traveling to the curve of your neck, a lonely thumb parting your lips. he pried your mouth open and slipped it inside, letting the noise hidden in the back of his throat escape when your tongue wrapped around him. “is this what you wanted?”

your own luscious moan filled the room, and you felt his thumb push harder against your tongue.

“use your words, angel.”

an enticing gasp. “yes, sir.”

[blkmxrvel]

Breathe.

Pairing: Natalia Romanova x Fem!Reader

Word count: 1.3k

Request: Hi, for a drabble please make a high school au where nat bullies reader but actually likes her

Warnings: bullying, self doubt, anxiety attack

A/N: this was supposed to be a Drabble but I got carried away lmaoooo. Was thinking about leaving it at an angsty spot but then I remembered I have yet to continue a fic I’d said had a part 2 so I just went ahead and did the entire concept. Enjoy :)

You hated school for many reasons, the work, the lunches, the teachers, and the fact that you weren’t even allowed to breathe in the wrong way before you were tormented and bullied.

It seemed like everyone was aware of how much Natalia Romanova hated you, everything you did seemed to piss her off, and she’d always take her anger out on you. You hated her for it, and you also hated yourself for finding her so cute.

Yeah sure she bullied you, but it was never physical. Her torment got so far as her teasing you about failing a test or you stumbling over your own feet in the hallway. You were grateful at least, that she never put her hands on you. But still, being bullied wasn’t fun.

At all.

-

You were walking down the hallway, hall pass in hand as you made it to the bathroom. You had just gotten done with a test and you were sure you did terrible on it. Tears in your eyes you stood in the stall, trying you best to stop them from falling.

You stepped out to splash water on your face when a multitude of thoughts started to race through your head. This was your Junior year, the year that colleges would focus on most.

And you needed to get the fuck out of this place. You couldn’t stay here in this town, wherever almost everybody hated you, and thought you were nothing but a thing to step on. All you were good to them for was anger relief, with each word they spat at you, they get better. You couldn’t live like this. It wouldn’t end well for anyone.

You needed to get away, get away from this school and the people; Natalia especially.

Speaking of the devil, the bathroom door opened and in walked the person you were least hoping to see. All of a sudden your chest got tight, and tears were clouding your vision. You turned to the wall hoping that she wouldn’t say anything, but clearly your guard is angel was sucky at their job.

“Hey Y/N,” you could hear the taunt in her voice and you wanted it all to be over. “What the fuck are you doing in here? Do you like being picked on?”

You couldn’t bring yourself to answer, you knew that the moment you opened your mouth a sob would come out and that’s the last thing you needed: crying in front of your school bully. A sure fire way to an early grave.

So instead, you put your head down and tried to talk around Natalia, but of course it wasn’t that easy.

Natalia frowned when she saw the glimpse of your face. There were obviously tears on your face and you weren’t having the best of times right now. She didn’t have it in her to bully you today.

Honestly, she didn’t have it in her to bully you any day, but she couldn’t have her friends knowing that she was soft. And soft for you.

It wasn’t the fact that you were a girl, she could care less if anyone knew that she was gay. But it was the fact that as soon as she let everyone know she had her eyes on you, everyone would lose respect for her, and she couldn’t have that. Not on her senior year.

She hated herself for it though, seeing the way your lip trembled whenever she cut you with her words. You never cried in front of her, not that she would blame you. You were so strong, and she was a weak, coward, asshole who would break you if she didn’t stop.

“Y/N wait-“ Natalia reached for your hand and she’s never seen someone be so terrified of her touch. She couldn’t believe the things she had done, and it was too late to try and redeem herself.

A sob tore through your throat, and you fell to the ground. “Please,” you begged. “I’ll do your homework for the rest of the school year, I’ll let you use my car or whatever but please.” You pulled your knees up to your chest and let the tears flow.

Natalia didn’t know what you were begging for, and neither did you. Whether that be to keep her mouth shut or make this time quick and easy so she could just go home and cry her day away, neither of you knew. But what Natasha did know is that she couldn’t hurt you, not anymore.

So she crouched down next to you, tears falling down her own face when she saw the terror in your eyes and felt the way you stiffened beside her. She wasn’t quick in her movements, not wanting to scare you even more.

“Y/N, look at me please,” Natalia’s voice was so soft, so sweet and it made you pliable and livid because who the fuck was she to be so nice to you after making your high school experience the worst time of your life. Who was she to walk in with her pretty face and soft skin and sit next to you like she wasn’t going to use this against you tomorrow. Who was she to make you feel so much love after making you endure so much pain. “Please?”

Eventually, your eyes met Natasha’a and she gave you the softest smile, full of pain, full of comfort and full of regret. You couldn’t stop the words from falling out of your mouth.

“What did I ever do to, Nat?” Her fluttered at the nickname. “What did I do to make you hate me this much? Was it something I said or did? Because I just don’t get it. Every single day I dread walking into this place and seeing you, because I know I’m going to walk out of here hating myself more than I did when I came in. So please,” your voice began to crack, and more tears were spilling out of your eyes. “Call me a crybaby, call me useless and ugly, and a wimp and everything else you haven’t gotten to say to me yet. If I hear it now I won’t cry about it tomorrow when you tell it to me again.”

Your eyes were red, and your fists held a vice grip onto your shirt. You could take it (no you couldn’t), you were strong (no you weren’t).

Natalia’s eyes held so much conflict, so much regret and guilt, she didn’t have anything to say for herself because you hadn’t done anything to her. All you’ve ever done was be the sweetest, kindest girl to everyone. You’ve never made her made, or wronged her in anyway. You’ve always made her heart swell and her eyes bright. You made her day better and she made yours the worst.

So all she could do was say sorry, those were the only words that spilled out her mouth as the sobs were wracking through your chest. She could only pull you close to her, head on her chest and sob herself when she felt you tense and then relax fully into Natasha.

This was all you had wanted. To be loved and treated the right way. You didn’t deserve the teases and the taunts, the mocks and the sneers. You deserved none of that, only love and kindness.

She promised you that she wouldn’t never treat you that way again, because she had been in love with you the moment she set her eyes on you and should’ve never let her pride get in the way.

She couldn’t take back what she had done, but she prayed to whoever was out there that’s you’d at least let her make it up to you, the way you deserve. And as you wrapped your arms around her middle and sobbed louder into her chest, she knew that she had a second chance. And she’d be damned if she screwed it up.

[solar3lunar]

3.𝕆𝕟𝕖 𝕊𝕙𝕠𝕥✔︎

𝚆𝚎𝚎𝚔𝚜 𝙻𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚛

Ayama POV

My alarm went off at 6 am. I turned my phone off and got up to go get my uniform out of my closest. I went straight to the bathroom to take a quick 3 minutes shower.

I get out of the shower and quickly dry off. And apply lotion on my body. I quickly brushed my teeth and put the uniform on. I went open the bottom cabinet. Underneath the bathroom sink.

"Where is it?" I see all my hair products, but couldn't seem to find the one thing that I needed. I then heard something put on the bathroom counter.

I look up and saw the plastic purple spray bottle and saw my dad walking away. "Thanks Dad!" "Next time. Remember where you put things." He sighed.

I spray water onto to my curly shrinkage hair. I put the bottle with the rest of my hair products and close the cabinets.

I went to my room go straight towards my phone turning it all the way off and putting it in my backpack. I notice the cats were still sleep.

Putting my new books inside my bags that we'll probably never use at least that what my dad said. I went downstairs. I went to the kitchen to make those pre pancakes really quick. Which was simple.

I put the frozen pancakes in the microwave for 3 minutes. Then took it out and butter it up and put syrup on them.

Once I ate those. I put them in the sink and head towards the door. I was so close to leaving the house as I put my shoes on. "Turn around." "Seriously dad?" I asked. "Yes. My daughter is growing up. I like to save these moments." He said.

"Smile." He said. I hold up both of my hands doing a peace sign, smiling while closing my eyes. I hear a camera click. "Alright, I'm off see ya Dad!" I tell him. "You sure you don't wanna ride with me?"

He asks. "I think I'm handling fine." I sang to reassure him. I look at the clock school doesn't start until 8:25. "Besides I wanna be there early but not too early," I told him. "Alright be careful." He said. "I will. Love you," I said. "Love you too." He said.

I then walk out of the house and walk towards the train/bus stop sign that's out side the neighborhood I live in. I pull out my dark blue headphones and put them on.

{Grown~Chloe x Halle}

~~~~~~~~~~~

I start walking towards the school building. I'm not in a rush, because it was only 7:36 when I got off the bus. So I started to speed walk towards the school. It took about ten minutes. The bus was only fast that day because of the entrance exam.

I got to the school door and went inside. I quickly change my shoes and put them in my small locker.

Then quickly went looking for class 1-A which I found quickly, but who in the world is that really tall for this big door. Unless you're talking about Aunt, Mt. Lady. I hear a voice calling my name. I then turned back.

"Oh hey, Midoriya." I greeted. "Thanks for waiting." He said. "No problem," I said as I open the door. The minute I did hell let loose. One student was scolding Bakugo for his feet being on another desk.

That desk happens to be Midoriya's desk. I was a bit shock at what was happening, but not that much. I mean it's Katsuki Bakugou.

"Take your feet off that desk now." The boy with glasses said the same one who called Midoriya out. Maybe he can redeem himself. "Huh?" Bakugo reply with a wide smirk.

"It's the first day. And you're already disrespecting this academy by scuffing school property, you cretin!" The boy with glasses spoke. "You're kidding me, right? Your old school put a stick up your ass? Or were you born with it?" He asked with a wide grin.

I see Midoriya making an awkward face, blue shadowing his face. I'm guessing he didn't want a class with either of them. "Just my luck." He mumbled.

"Uh--" he then cut himself off. "Let's start over." Glasses said. Like that going to help with anything. "I'm Tenya Iida from the Somei Private Academy." So that his name. Iida got it.

"Somei, huh? So you must think you're better than me." The loudmouth said. God his ego has really gone up. "Why must you think just because he went to a private school, He thinks he better than you, Bakugo?" I asked him.

He seems shocked when he heard my voice. The whole class turns towards me and Midoriya way. "Ayama?" Momo spoke up. She seems excited when she saw me. "Hi, Yaoyorozu" I greeted.

"It's them," Iida said. "Hello," I said. "Um. Hi," Izuku said blushing of nervousness. My small tight curls kept moving with my head.

"Good morning!" Iida said as he was coming our way. "I'm name is Tenya Iida from-" He was about to continue, but Midoriya cut him off.

"Yeah, w-we know." He said in the nicest way possible. "I'm Izuku, Midoriya." He said. "And my name Ayama." I said. "What's your last name?" He asked. "She doesn't tell anyone," Bakugou said. "Aw. You remember." I teased.

He just turns the other way with a tiny blush on his face. "Shut up dumbass!" He shouted. "Language!" Iida warns him. "Whatever four-eyes!" Bakugou shouted.

Iida looks down for a bit. Then looks back at us. "Midoriya. Ayama. You two realized there was something more to the practical exam, didn't you two?" He asked us. Leaving us both confused.

"Huh?"

"You guys must be very perceptive. And I completely misjudged you, Midoriya, I admit." He said, looking shameful. Midoriya looks at me and gives me a nod.

"As a student, you're far superior to me." He said. "Iida?" I asked. "What is it?" He asked. I put my hand on his shoulder. "It's okay you're forgiven." I smile nicely. He then a bit of a nose bleed. "Oh, you're, bleeding. Here I gave him a tissue.

"We're going to be needing one as well." I look at the class. They were all getting a nose bleeds. I pass the box of tissues to Izuku first then he passed it on.

"Jeez, you're a cute (lady) Dame." The first student said. He had blonde yellow hair and sparkly purple eyes.

I said thank you, but I found it strange. I mean from family sure, but a person with my skin color out in the streets of Japan 2I just get stared at. I love myself but I never expected to get that type of compliment.

"Hey, I recognize that messy hair and tights curls!" A voice behind us said. "Oh hey, Uraraka." I said. Midoriya looks like he was lost for words. "Oh yeah, I should probably start thanking you guys for going to him." He said.

"Huh, how did you know about us doing that?" She asks. "I'll let you inform her, Midoriya." I said as I went to sit in front of Momo. "Oh, Ayama you grew up on me." She said as she was patting my head. Not that much. I only grew two inches." I turn around to face her. I'm only 5'3.

"Your smile is going to be the death of us all. I just chuckled. I notice it was 21 one of us. Uneven class. Strange. Most classes only have 20 students.

I notice the three we're still rambling on. I only sighed knowing what was coming as I look at the clock it said 8:25

"If you came here to make friends you then you can just pack up your stuff now." My Dad told her. I'm surprised? No. Although I didn't know what he was wearing, The three were all making a creep out face. I thought I was going to get a homeroom teacher that wasn't my Dad. I'm not upset or anything though.

"He probably in that yellow sleeping bag of his," I mutter under my breath. "Welcome to UA's hero class course." I heard him say. I then heard a zipper. Then the sound of him sucking all the jelly left in that jelly pouch.

"Oh yeah definitely. The sleeping bag." I mutter again. I saw his figure outside of the doorway. "It took 8 seconds before you all shut up. That's not going to work. Time is precious. Rational students would understand that." He said.

I notice Izuku analyzing my dad. He must've of been confused because of how worn out my Dad is and how he's a pro hero. Which I could understand, because of paperwork. And how late he stays up. But me knowing Izuku, he'll figure it out sooner or later.

My dad proceeds to introduce himself. I don't blame him for the way he did. (Lazy) "Hello, I'm Shota Aizawa. Your teacher." Just like that my Dad in my life for this school year. I was very interested to see how this year would go.

"Right, let's get to it." He said while looking for something in his sleep bag. He took a gym uniform out and show it to us. "Put these on and head outside." He said then walk away.

"You heard him let's get a move on!" Iida shouted. We all got up and went towards the gyms lockers. "Hurry up, although I wouldn't mind sleeping." My dad said. We went inside the gym lockers.

"Ayama, you have a great figure." A girl with pink skin said. I not use to hearing things like that. Unless it meant something negative.

"Mina Ashido." She said while holding her hand out. I shook it. "Nice to meet you. And I just have a regular figure." I told her. "Your joking?" The invisible girl said. "Toru Hagakure." I turn towards the girl with just gym clothes on. Couldn't see her at all.

"Ayama, but I don't really pay attention that much. You guys have great body figure too. Beside I still a bit chubby around the waist" I said. "By the way. Why is your hair like that?" A girl who resembles a frog asked. "Tsuyu Asui, but call me Tsu." She held her hand out to shake.

"Well, my hair mixture between 3a and 4c. So that why it's like this. I get it from my mother." I explain. If they don't like it well, that's them.

"It's really pretty, Ayama." She said tilting her head and giving me a warm smile. I'm relieved. "She right." The girl said with earplugs hanging from her ears. "Kyoka Jirō" She said. I shook her hand. We start to go outside making our conversation shut down.

While we all were listening to what my Dad had to say which shock everyone, but me I knew Momo would be the second and last one to catch on to what my dad is doing.

"What? A Quirk assessment test?" They all ask my dad confuse as ever. "But orientation! We're gonna miss it!" Uraraka said. "If you really wanna make the big leagues, you can't waste time on pointless ceremonies." He said. I agree with him with that. Considering every orientation in my life has been useless. Everyone gasp a bit shocked. But I saw this coming from a mile away.

"Here at UA, we're not tethered to traditions. That means that I get to run my class however I see fit." He said looking back at us. "You've been taking standardized tests most of your lives. But you never got to use your Quirks in physical exams before. "He said while some were students gasping, others stayed quiet. He then holds out his phone.

"The country still trying to pretend we're all created equal by not letting those with the most power excel. It's not rational. One day, the Ministry of Education will learn." He stopped talking only for a second then went to Bakugo.

"Bakugo, you managed to get the most points on the entrance exam. What was your farthest distance throw of a softball when you were in Junior High?" He asked him. Junior high was probably one of my best school years because of Momo.

"67 meters I think." He said. "Right. Try doing it with your Quirk." My dad said giving him the softball. So the baseball technique. Bakugo walks to the circle and wait for what my father has to say.

"Anything goes just stay in the circle. Go on. You're wasting our time "My Dad tells him. Bakugou grunts a bit. "All right, man, you've asked for it." He then got into throwing position.

"Die!" He yelled. He used his exploding quirk. "Did really just say die?" I whisper. "Sadly, yes." Momo nodded. "Oh, Woah," Izuku said, clearly nervous.

"All of you need to know your maximum capabilities. It's the most rational way of figuring out your potential as a pro hero." My Dad said showing us Bakugo record which was 705.2. Most students gasped, but I wasn't too impressed.

"Whoa, are you kidding me?" One male student said he had dark yellow color for hair, but not too dark. And yellow eyes as well. "I wanna go! That's looks like fun!" Ashido said which was the wrong thing to say.

"This is what I'm talkin' about, usin' our Quirks as much as we want!" Another student said. He had circle tape for elbows. I just put one hand over my eyes, sighing.

"So this looks like fun, huh?" My Dad chuckled a bit not in a good way. Making the students nervous. "You have three years here to become a hero. You think it's all gonna be games and play time?" My dad said leaving the others students a bit in fear.

I took my hand off my eye. "Idiots. Today you'll complete in eight physical tests. to gauge your potential. Whoever comes in last has none, will be expelled immediately." My Dad said with a sly smile. "Huh!?!?" The students shouted.

I would've been shocked if I wasn't his child, but I am. "Like I said, I get to decide how this class runs." My Dad then lifted up his hair to look us all in the eyes.

"Understand? If that's a problem, you can head home right now." I notice that Bakugo had a huge evil grin on his face.

"You can't send one of us home! I mean, we just got here! Even if it wasn't the first day that's isn't fair!" Ochaoco shouted. I would rather have me explain to her why he doing this, because I don't want her to be embarrassed by my Dad.

"But Uraraka-san. Nothing in life could be fair. Think about Natural disasters or Power-full hungry villains." I told her. " Your right." She said. I knew she didn't take any affect to my words because she knew I wasn't trying to embarrass her.

"Let me add on to that. Catastrophic accidents that wipe out whole cities? No the world is full of unfairness." My Dad continue. "It's a hero's job to try to combat that unfairness. If you wanna be a pro, You're gonna have to push yourself to the brink."

"For the next three years, UA will throw one terrible hardship after another at you. So, go beyond. Plus Ultra-style." My Dad finish with those words then point one finger up as come towards me, but not really.

"Show me it's no mistake that your here." He finished. I seen this side of my Dad before. But it's still shock me to this day. Everyone seem to have gain their confidence back thanks to Dad's words. If I'm being honest I would be lost without his words.

"Now then. We're just wasting time by talking. Let's the games begin." Dad finished.

'Welcome to the devil's home.'

First test was 1:50 meter dash. This is very simple to me. I was first up against Tenya Iida. "Why are you face backwards?" Tenya asked. "You'll see and sorry if you're ears hurt." I told him. Leaving him confused.

The sound of a gun went off and I scream my way to the other side landing on both of my feet. "2.10 seconds." Leaving the class shocked. I just stood there with a netrual face. Both of my hands on my hips.

"3.18 seconds." The measuring machine said. "How are you that fast?" He asked me I just shrug. I went to line up with the other while Iida said he'll go again with Tsu. I stood with the others while watching him and Tsu use their quirk. He came in first this time. I notice my Dad say something about his quirk,but I didn't listen fully.

He was faster this time. "3.04 seconds" measuring machine said. Tsu gotten 5.58 seconds. I'm was a bit worried about Izuku though. If he doesn't show his quirk yet then... No way. I won't believe it.

Ochaoco went up against Mashirao. Mashiro got 5.29 seconds. She ended up with 7.15 seconds. But she seems proud of it. Mina went up against Yuga, who seems very confident at first when using his Lazer beam. Until it went out. Then Mina came in first, before him. But he was close when he using his Lazer beam again.

"What a tool." I heard some students say. "Uh oh." I said. "What is it?" Uraraka ask me. I point to the next two people up. Izuku and Katsuki. "What about them?" Yaoyorozu asked. "I'm worried about Izuku and what Katsuki might say." I told them. "Bakugou does have a big ego.*ribbit*" Tsu said.

"Let's just watch." Hagakure said. I nodded. "4.13 seconds!" The measuring device said. "7.02 seconds." I was a bit shock he did better than Ochaoco did, but she use her quirk and he didn't.

"My power is more uses than anyone elses in this school." Katsuki said while looking at his hands. I rolled my eyes. "Whatever you say.." I mutter. I notice Midoriya looking a bit stressed, but after a few seconds he had gain his confidence back.

Test 2: The grip test.

Test 3: The long jump.

Test 4: side repeated side step.

Test 5: Ball throw

I look at my Dad. He gives me a nod. I had the ball in my my hand. I start to activate my quirk. My eyes went red. My hair started to float upwards. I quickly looked at Uraraka then look back.

{Cliffs Edge~Hayley Kiyoko}

The beat starts to play so everyone could hear it. "Swing a little further higher." I then threw the ball. When I sing that lyrics it made the ball go even faster. I then stop both of my quirks.

My Dad show me the score which was the exact same as Uraraka. Chatter was among the students. I turn around. Only to see their faces in shock. "You have two quirks!?!" Bakugo shouted at me. "Something like that." I said. "Oh Uraraka sorry for the bit of drainage." I told her while walking back towards the group.

"But I didn't stop your quirk though I said." I told her. "It's alright." She smile as I smile back. She's cute when she smiles. Izuku was up next. I saw that he was worried.

I was a bit worried for him. Because my dad could send him home. I felt a hand on my shoulder. I look at who it was. "Momo?" I whisper. "Hey. It's going to be fine." She told me. "I hope you're right." I said.

"If Midoriya doesn't shape up soon he the one going home." Iida said. "Huh? Of course he is.

He's a Quirkless loser." Bakugo reply. "He has a Quirk." I told him. "Since when." Bakugo ask with a smirk. He's freaking difficult.

"Did you not hear about what he did at the entrance exam?" Iida back me up. "Huh?" Katsuki said. I just ignore him. Anymore seconds and he's a goner. Midoriya finally started to power up.

He threw the ball, but like any normal child would. "Hey Ayame why you stop it." He asked me. "I didn't." I said. "I did." My dad was suddenly in front us. His hair was floating upwards.

"I erased your quirk." My Dad was now in front of us with his back facing us while he was looking at Midoriya.

"The judges for this exam were not rational enough. Someone like you should never be allowed to enroll at this school." I hate to admit it, but he was right. Unless he can prove to my father that he should be at this school.

"Wait- you did what to my--" he stop mid sentence. I think he now knows who my Dad is. "Ah! Those goggles. I know you! You can look at someone and cancel out there powers. The Erasure Hero. Eraser Head!" He said.

"Okay it's nice that you know, but that still doesn't really help you with the situation you're in." I thought. All of the others students were just plain confused. Which I don't blame considering he an underground hero.

"He's a hero he just doesn't like to be in the spotlight. An underground hero." I told them. "Ohh." They finally understand.

"You're not ready. You don't have control over your power." I would tell my Dad, but I can't. I won't betrayed their trust like that.

"Were you planning to break your bones again? Counting on someone else to save your useless body?" He asked

"No! That's not what I was trying to do!" As soon as he finished with his sentence. My Dad had got one of his strings of scarf and had them bring Midoriya closer to him.

"No matter what your intentions are, you would be nothing more than a liability in battle." My Dad told him. "You have the same reckless passion as another overzealous hero I know." Uncle All Might, huh?

"One who saved 1,0000 people himself and became a legend. But even with that drive, you're worthless if you can only throw one punch before breaking down." My Dad is right you can't keep fighting if you know you're going break at one point.

"Sorry Midoriya. With your power, there's no way you can become a hero." My Dad finished. Midoriya was shocked. He let Midoriya go. "I've returned your impractical Quirk. Take your final throw. Hurry and get it over with." My Dad walk away back to his spot. Midoriya had his head down.

I look at Momo and she nods. If he makes it he'll stay. 'Don't give up Midoriya.' We were the only one listing careful while the others were just lost.

"I wonder if teacher gave him some advice." Iida start off, but then got interrupt by Bakugo. "Probably told him to start packing." He said.

I look at Midoriya as his expression change. He then threw the ball. I look closely. "He'll put all his power into that one finger." I said quitely.

"Smash!"

The ball went up into the air. "Alright Midoriya!" I said. "You can never stop so being loving and kind, can you?" Momo ask. I shook my head with a small smile.

"Mr. Aizawa." My Dad seem somewhat shocked about his score. "You see I'm still standing." He said. Alright Midoriya. I saw my dad smile although it may look creepy to some. That smile is the one of the smiles I care for the most.

"This kid..." I heard my Dad said, but was blocked out by the cheering me and Uraraka was doing. My Dad show us his score. 705.3

"He threw it over 700 hundreds meters!" Kamninari shouted. "Nice, He finally showing us his true power!" Uraraka said. "Nice one Izuku!" I said.

"But his finger is appears to be broken now. Just like in the exam. This Quirk is very odd." Iida said. "It wasn't a very pretty throw." Aoyama said. Not like it really matters.

I saw Bakugou gasp in shocked. I was hoping he be nice for once. But that wouldn't be Bakugo, now would it. I saw him getting angry. "Hey!" He had his hands exploding mini fire bombs. "Deku you bastard! Tell me how you did that or your dead!" He always has to threaten somebody.

Izuku was screaming in panic while standing in fear. But the Bakugou got held back by my Dad scarf. Bakugou grunts as he got held back. "What?" Bakugou shouted as he was looking back to see who cause it. "Why the hell is your damn scarf so strong?" He asked.

"Because it a capture weapon made out of carbon fiber and a special metal alloy. Stand down. It'd be wise to avoid making me use my Quirk so much." My Dad said finally looking up.

"It's gives me serious dry eye." He said. "Too bad. that Power amazing!" Students said. "Hey Ayame your power reminds me of his." Tsu point out. "Yeah she right." Ashido agreed. "I didn't choose my Quirks." I said calmly.

"She has a point."Jirō said. "But her singing was amazing." Hagakure said. "She right. How come you didn't sing so much in middle school?" Momo ask. "I guess I didn't feel like it." I said.

"You're wasting my time now. Whoever next can step up." My Dad went back to his spot. Why do I feel like this could be punishment for not riding with him earlier today. Izuku came running back towards us. As everyone congratulate him.

Test 6: sits up.

Test 7: seated toes touch.

Test 8: long distance run.

"All right, time to give you your result. I rank you all from best to worst. You should probably have a good idea of your standing already I'll just pulled up the whole list. It's not worth going over each individual's score." My Dad then show us the virtual pop up rank from his phone that was like a projector.

My Dad wasn't going to expelled anyone. I had gotten second place. Momo was first I was happy for her. Todoroki gotten third Bakugo gotten fourth place. I went to the list of names. And Izuku was last, 21 place. I saw the fear in his eyes. But I want to laugh because :he thought he was going to get expelled.

"And I was lying nobody going home." My dad said leaving everyone, but me and Momo in shock. "That was just a rational to make sure you gave it your all in the tests." My Dad said with a smile.

Everyone had yelp. While Momo sighed and I chuckled. "I'm surprised the rest of you didn't figure that out. I'm sorry. I guess we probably should've said something." Momo said.

"You guys should really see the looks on your faces." I giggled. "Yeah you should've." Jirō, Mineta, and Kamninari said. "It's not that funny Ayama!" Izuku, Ochaoco, and Mina whined. "Your right I'm sorry." I said chuckling a bit.

I looked at Bakugo smiled warmly at him. He turn around hint of blush on his cheek. "That's it we're done for the day. Pick up a syllabus in the classroom. Read it over before tomorrow morning." My Dad then walks away and then we all go in the locker room to put on our uniforms. Then back to the classroom.

The rest of the day went fine. As I expected. I would get most my aunts and uncles as my teachers.

"See you later Ayama." Mina said. "See ya!" I said. I was the last person in the classroom. I then got up and left out the classroom. Closing the door behind me.

"Ayama is that you?" I pause in my track. Please don't say who I think it is. I turn around. "Oh so it is you." Dang it that boy. "What is it, Kiyoshi Enomoto." I ask him. He'd always bully me when I attended middle school.

(Only lasted for the 7th grade. After that her dad took her out.)

He had dirt blond hair and big green eyes. Tan skin. Typically jerk. A lot girls want him. So why am I his target?

"I just wanna know how you, Miss puff, got into class 1-A." He questioned me. I didn't answer. He knock my phone out of my hand which I grabbed, before it hit the floor. "That's none of your concern." I said. He pushes me be against the locker. I push him away from me.

"I'm not putting up with you. Just know. You won't be getting anywhere with that attitude." I said about to walk away until he use his Quirk on me. His Quirk: Mind torturing and. He can torturing someone in there mind and and even after you still feel pain.

"On your knees. Now." My mind was numb. I was somewhere the sky was red. And grass black. A black figure with a sword came my way. My eyes widened. It helped my up one of my arm. It made an K on my wrists. I hissed. Just as it was about to stab my wrists. It was gone. I was back inside the school.

I feel to my side holding my wrists. I saw Momo slap him. I hissed. "Ayama!" She quickly rush to my aid. "What your problem?" I asked him.

"You're my problem you little dipshit." I blink twice. I showed no emotions in my eyes. "Come again?" I asked him.

"You heard me. You're a fucking little dipshit!" He told me. I walked up to him and punch him in face. "I told you. I'm not putting up with you." I told him. "You really have grown since the last time I've seen you." Momo said.

"I wouldn't say that." I told her. I looked back at Enomoto. "I apologize that your mother and father couldn't raise you right." I said. I start to walk towards Momo. "At least I have both parents." I turned around and look at him.

"Is that supposed to phase me in anyway?" I asked. "You've always been like that. You don't care about anything or anyone. I bet you don't even care if I-" Before he could even go on.

"Enough! If I see you doing this to her again. I will report you to the the school staff members." Momo said. "Like they'll do anything to me." He said.

"Don't worry about him Momo. He'll learn." I told her as we walk away. The guy who gave me pain and suffering during my middle school year. I won't be surprised if he tries to do the same thing.

I walked inside the staff room. With phone in hand. "What took you so long?" My Dad asked me. "Umm.. I bumped into someone." I lied.

I then go to sit down at the empty desk that was near aunt Midnight's. "Oh hello sweetie. I can't wait for you to be in your hero costume." She hugged me. "I can't believe both of you guys convince me to her outfit." My Dad sighed.

My Dad was about 2 second from grabbing the paper I design and redesign it and by that I mean him completely redoing it. "Well of course! As her favorite aunt I need to make sure my niece show off some skin." She said bring my face towards her chest.

I don't do favorites. Unless it's comes to Aunt Mirko and Uncle Hawks. They're just funny. But I still love them all equally.

My outfit that me and my Dad agreed on is a black long sleeves v shape jumpsuit with a hoodie.

Although the top of my breasts are a bit expose because how the jumpsuit is designed. So I came up with the solution of a plain sleeveless and strapless black crop top I'll wear underneath the jumpsuit.

My capture weapon or "scarf." The color of it is midnight blue and it's just goes around my waist above my black utility belt. As for my shoes their just black combat boots.

"Hey Ayama you think you can sing a song for me?" Aunt Midnight asked. "You can't get uncle to help you. I'll let you walk back home tomorrow." Dad said.

"Deal!" I said. As I grabbed some stack of papers from my dad. “Losing track under the water. Looking for something that I been missing.” The music starts to play for them to hear.

{Open spaces~Just A Gent}

"Find me in open spaces." The beat faded out as I finish. "Aren't we lucky to have you in our lives." My aunt said while hugging me with my face in her breast. She done this all my life I would've thought I be use to this by now.

"Yeah. We sure are." I heard my Dad say. I looked at my phone lock screen. It was a picture of me and my Dad. I believe I was four or three at the time. We were at Disneyland in California.

Making that my second time being out of the country. I was on my dad shoulders wearing glowing Mini mouse ears. Although my two afro buns kinda block it out of the way.

We were watching the fireworks that night. It was truly magical. My Aunt Midnight had took that picture.

"What you looking at, kiddo!" I jumped up a bit. "Nothing!" I said. "Doesn't seem like nothing." Uncle mic said. "Oh! I know! It's a secret crush isn't it!" Aunt Midnight said. "A what?" I looked towards my dad. He had his hair flying and his eyes were glowing red.

"No!" I said. "Then what is it?" They both asked. "It's just a picture from Disneyland!" I said embarrassed. "Why didn't you just say so?"

We said our goodbyes. And got in the car. While Dad was driving I decided to ask him a question. That's always on my mind.

"Hey Dad?" I ask. "Hm?" "Do you think Mom would be proud of me?" I ask him. "If I'm proud of where you are then I know she is as well." He said. "Oh and Dad." I said. "Hm?" He asked. "Love you." I then turn my head towards the window. I get embarrassed when I said it.

I heard him chuckled then pat my head while saying. "Love you too, Lyric." He said. When we got home. I took off my shoes and went upstairs to in my room.

'He still dead when you're done with the bottle.' What the? I'm not even going to think about it. I got my PJs and decided to take a shower for 5 minutes then change into my PJs and slippers I put my clothes in the hamper then walk down stairs and grabbed the syllabus on the table to read.

"Hey Leo." I felt his tail brush against my leg. I looked down from the syllabus and saw Leo looking up at me. I pet his head.

I felt something jump onto my lap. I looked at my lap. "Hello to you too, Nebula." I scratch her chin a bit and she seemed to have a comfort in that.

I picked her up and put her down. "I got it." I notice my Dad was gonna poor their food and water. I got up and went in the pantry and got the cat food from the floor.

I poor their food and water. Then watch as they came to eat. I put the food back in the pantry. I was about to walk out, until a purple bag caught my eyes.

"If you eat those hot chips. You're not getting dinner." I heard my dad say. "Then why did you buy them?" I whined. "For me." I just gave him a look.

"Betrayal." I walked out of the kitchen. "Ayama, I was just kidding." I didn't even answer him. "Where are you going?"I walked up the stairs. "To my comfort place called "Lunar vill." Where I'll have my blanket and cry over my father who won't let me have chips!" I tell him

"Food will be ready in 5 minutes, Ayama."

I sat down at the table. I have this song in my head that I remember my mom and someone else singing  to me when I was a toddler. "Brown skin girls skin. Skin just like pearls best thing in the world." I really just remember that part.

"I'm surprised you remember that." My Dad said while setting my plate right in front of me. Itadakima."Thanks, and yeah I forget how old I was when mom sing it to me." I said.

"You were 2 year old, that's what's shock me is that you still have memory of that time." He said. Which is true because I don't really remember alot except when I turn 3 year old.

"Hey Dad?" I asked. "Hm?" "Did mom have any other siblings? Other than Aunt Miyoko." I asked him. "She had 7 siblings her being the 8th and the youngest out of them all." He said while rubbing his stubble beard.

"What happened to them?" I asked. "After your mother death. We just haven't kept in contact. Although two of them did enter UA before me and your mother went. They were twin brother and sister." He said. I don't want to push him any questions that might make him upset.

I got up and wash the dishes and hug my dad saying goodnight. Then went upstairs to brush my teeth. I took my slippers for a feel a sleep in my full size bed.

Taglist: @mypimpademia

~Wishlist~

~Luna Lyric~

~Universe navi~

[twoidiotwriters1]

Starcrossed Losers VI (Josh Wheeler xReader)

A/N: Are you guys enjoying the series so far? this is kind of a filler chapter, but not really, all together make the series whole uwu

Words: 2,815

Warnings: Gangrene and Y/N taking the role of the mom friend. She’s under a lot of pressure, don’t blame her.

Previous chapter // Next chapter

When Josh wakes up I’m quietly rearranging the stuff in my bag and writing the inventory on a small notepad, I may stay longer than expected but I’m not unpacking, we never know if we might have to leave in a hurry.

“Hi,” He says in a hoarse voice. 

I look up to meet his eyes and he looks like shit, but he’s awake now, so it’s gotta be a good sign. 

“Hey champ,” I reply with a grin, “you’re okay?”

“I...” Josh looks down to his hand and I see how his face drops, “yup, wasn’t a dream. I cut my finger.”

“Yes you did,” I close the notepad and stare at him intently, “and I had to cauterize the injure so you wouldn’t bleed out, genius.”

“Yeah, I remember that too,” He looks at me with embarrassment, “thanks” 

“I haven’t slept, but I’m sure I’ll be having nightmares about it for a while” I shiver, putting my things away and standing up, “you must be hungry, I’ll get you something to eat.”

“I can go, don’t worry,” Josh tries to get out of bed, but I push him back on the pillows.

“You lost blood and you haven’t eaten in like, a whole day. I don’t want you passing out and hitting your head. Especially since I can’t carry you back.”

“I can do it, I won’t fall,” He insists, trying to push my hand away.

“It’s not a problem Josh, let me go,” I reassure him.

And maybe Josh feels tired and doesn’t want to admit it, but he accepts my help and lays down. I go over to one of the vending machines and break the glass with my hammer. I honestly love my new weapon, it makes me feel powerful and scary. Which is sort of like an improvement. When I get back he’s fast asleep, so I leave the twinkies on the table and I go back to my inventory.

It’s a quiet night and I like it, nights are usually quiet but after all that has happened these last few hours, I seriously needed a break. I have time to sit and make a silly inventory and I can have a nap in peace while Josh sleeps.

I dream about my old life, it happens more often than not. My brain forgets that I’m no longer in that normal world and I still have to make that final project for history class. I like it when that happens, cause my dream self doesn’t remember all that’s happening outside my head. She doesn’t have regrets or guilt, she never kissed her best friend, she never said all those things to him to push him away. She never... killed her sister.

I wonder if I’ll ever be able to leave that behind me. I know everyone had to do terrible things to survive, but my problems only seem to get bigger and bigger as I walk away from them, it doesn't matter if I run in the other direction, I can still see them.

It’s daytime, must be early cause it’s colder than last night and the sun comes dimly from the mall’s skylight. I straighten up on the sofa where I ended up falling asleep and my muscles instantly scold me for the position I forced them to stay in the whole night. Soon I notice that the reason I’m awake it’s ‘cause Josh is grunting and tousling on the bed. I walk up to him and raise his hand to watch its condition and I feel a cold sensation that has nothing to do with my surroundings.

The bandage has a funny smell and a brownish color coming from where the injury is. I carefully take off the duct tape and then the bandage, and I curse under my breath once I see the full result:

His finger is swollen and red, a liquid is pouring from it and I’m sure the skin wasn't damaged as far as where the color reaches. This is wrong. Very wrong. I touch it gently but it’s enough to make Josh jolt awake, I jump back and accidentally drop his hand. He yelps and holds his hand with the other, looking at me with a frown.

“Shit, you scare me,” I reach for his hand but he’s already looking at it with wide eyes.

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything!” I start to look frantically around the table for a new set of bandages and tape, “I mean, I did do it before when I stopped the bleeding, but your hand got infected on its own... not that it’s any better but I mean, it was expected to happen! We don’t have the right equipment and the way I didn’t surely wasn’t the best-”

“Y/N, you’re freaking out,” He cuts off my rambling, “and that’s freaking me out, so just... take a deep breath and help me.”

“That’s what I’ve been doing since you did that to yourself,” I grumble as I finally found what I need, “you know, if we don’t find medicines and stuff, you’re gonna die.”

“That’s nice,” He drags his legs towards the edge of the bed and sits, outstretching his arm so I can put the bandages on it, “So what do we do?”

“We should go out and find them,” I reply calmly, “not you, you can't go anywhere with your hand like this.”

“I’m fine. I can deal with this on my own.”

“Has the infection already reached your brain? You can’t deal with it on your own, you'll die.”

“I heard you the first time. I’m still going.”

“Listen here, you little shit,” I grab his left wrist tightly while I finish putting the tape around it, “I don’t know how strong and brave do you think you are, or if you think that going through all this trouble is gonna make Sam forgive you for whatever it is that you fought. But I spent the worst time of my life trying to keep you alive so you can reunite with her, and I’ll be damned if I let you throw all that to the garbage and die cause you’re too stubborn.”

Josh blinks rapidly after my rant, speechless or maybe just too affected by the infection that he can’t even think of a whole sentence. He gives a short nod and mumbles.

“Alright, I’ll wait.”

“Thank you,” I scowl, “now eat. You didn’t have dinner last night and you need it.”

I throw the twinkies on his lap and he jumps, taken by surprise. I walk out the store to get food for myself and I run into Crumble, who now has Josh’s finger inside a hot dog bun.

“Uhm,” I stare at her lunch tray, “are you gonna eat that..?”

“Smells so nice...” Crumble stares at it and stands up suddenly, “I need sauce.”

She runs out and I’m left there looking at the finger in disgust.

Why, why is my life such a freaking nightmare?

“Hey, Y/N,” Eli is standing against the curtain, I can’t tell if he’s been there the whole night, “you look stressed, princess”

“Please, don’t ever call me that,” I groan, “what do you want?”

“I heard Josh is having medical issues,” He smirks, “the pharmacy is on my side...”

“Listen, I don’t have a say on whether you stay there or not, don’t try to blackmail me.”

“Okay then,” Eli raises his hands and steps back from the curtain, “make sure to get rid of Josh’s body before it starts to stink.”

“Fuck off,” I hiss.

This is all wrong, how did I get myself into this? I was supposed to be a loner so this kind of shit wouldn’t get to me. By this kind of shit, I mean injured people and feelings. I’m a good person, so naturally, I wanna do what’s best for others instead of putting my own safety first. I always did this, even before the end of the world, and it always ended in one thing, which is me, completely worn out and alone.

------------------------------------------

“Katie, can I talk to you for a moment?”

“Thank god you called me, Y/N,” I hear her sigh heavily, “I missed you! What’s wrong?”

“Oh, uh...” How do you start a conversation where you’re bound to be the bad guy? “You know Alex, right?”

“Do I know your best friend since childhood?” She chuckles, “yes, what’s with him?”

“Well, you know how I always said he was so nice and all, and that I really appreciated him?”

“So you finally realized you have a crush on him?”

“Yeah- wait, you knew?!”

“Honey, everyone knows. Not Alex, but I mean, definitely everyone else.”

I get up from my bed and start walking in circles.

“You think Stuart knows?”

“Maybe. He’s the one dating Alex, right?” I tell her it is, “okay, then it’s very likely.”

“Okay... good”

“Okay?”

“No, it’s not,” I close my bedroom’s door and lean against it, “I kissed him.”

“You kissed Stuart?”

“I kissed Alex!” Why exactly do I call my sister for this? It’s a mystery, I guess that I fell under the impression that older sisters are wiser, “and he kissed back, but it’s wrong. It’s so wrong, Katie, what do I do?”

“When did this happened exactly?”

“Last week.”

“And you waited this long to tell me?” She replies in disbelief, “How dare you?”

“Hey, you’re not the one with a problem here,” I claim, “besides, you were studying for your english test, I couldn’t distract you.”

“You aren’t a distraction, Vinchi,” The nickname was also used by my family members, when I say Alex was close to me, I mean he even assisted to my mother’s birthdays, “you’re my sister, if you need help I can make all the time in the world to assist you.”

“I just don’t know what to do,” I whine, letting my body fall slowly to the floor, and sitting miserably, “should I talk to Alex? Should I tell Stuart?”

“Don’t tell Stuart without talking to Alex first,” She warns me, “it would cause innecessary drama, and Stuart is also your friend, you could end up hurting him in the proccess and ruining your friendship.”

“I’m the worst friend ever.”

“You’re young, it’s ok. Besides, you had a crush on Alex even before he started dating Stuart, it wasn’t personal.”

“I’m in love with his boyfriend, of course it’s personal!”

“Not because you want to hurt him,” Katie adds, “Y/N, listen, you’re not a bad person. These things happen, and you’ll go through it, and you’ll learn from it. You got this, talk to Alex and fix things.”

“Sometimes I feel like I’m not me anymore,” I say, “ever since the kiss is like I don’t derseve to have my essence back. I need to redeem myself.”

“It was just a kiss, Y/N, don’t be so dramatic”

“Rude,” I hear footsteps coming from the hall, so I move away from the door quickly, “but you’re right. I’ll talk to Alex.”

“Good!- Wait, right now? is late, Vinchi...”

 “He’ll be up, his parents are out of town. I have to hang, but thanks though!”

“I’m one call away if you need anything else,” She reassures me, “good luck”

------------------------------------------

“So I couldn’t find any type of serum-like drink, I just found Gatorade but I don’t think this will- what the hell are you doing?”

Josh is packing up his things and putting them on a transpallet that I have no idea where he found, his face is white and is sweating profusely.

“I feel better now, I need to keep going.”

I take a deep breath and hold the bridge of my nose, closing my eyes in concentration so I don’t lose my cool on this idiot.

“What are you packing?” I decide to ignore the clear problem for a moment, knowing it won’t take us anywhere.

“Food and stuff”

“Food and stuff,” I stare skeptically, “wow, that definitely will keep you going in one piece”

“Y/N, please don’t start”

“Oh, I’m starting” I walk up to him, harshly throwing the Gatorade bottle inside his backpack, “you should take clean bandages too, and duct tape since it seems to be working so well for you. Also, I bet the dust and shit from outside will do wonders with the pus around your finger.”

“You’re sounding like my mother,” He complains.

I give him a disgruntled look and start to walk beside him when he moves, pushing the transpallet in front of him.

“I’m just trying to help,” I state.

“Don’t,” He pressures, “honestly, I don’t need you following me around to make sure I’m okay, why are you insisting so much?”

“I don’t know!” I exclaim loudly, “I don’t know, okay? Maybe I just need to feel like I’m doing something good for the first time in weeks, maybe the guilt of many mistakes is eating me alive and the fact that you don’t let me have my redemption is making me angry”

“Well I’m sorry to ruin your redemption arch, but you’ll have to look for it somewhere else, cause I’m not your guy,” He sees Crumble and raises his voice, “Hey! um, can you tell Wesley...”

He stops himself when Crumble looks around frantically following a crow’s movements above us.

“Huh, nevermind, you’re too nuts to remember anyway.”

Crumble looks back at us and grabs Josh’s arm, nodding.

“I’ll tell Wesley,” Her eyes wander while she thinks of the words, “uh, nevermind, you’re too nuts to remember anyway.”

Then she goes back to chasing the bird. Josh rolls his eyes and keeps going, with me bickering beside him.

“I just don’t get how someone so smart for some things can be so stupid for others”

“Who told you I’m smart?” He replies sardonically.

“Me, after doing the chemistry project together.”

“That was school, Y/N, I was just doing homework, it doesn’t mean I’m smart. I got C’s in everything anyway.”

“No, in our project you didn’t. You can tell someone’s intelligent by the way they act around others, it’s a fact. And you weren’t messy about it. You had every answer prepared and you were creative about it because you didn’t want to upset me. I enjoyed making that project cause you weren’t a shitty partner and that gave us a good grade.”

“So?” He asks, completely indifferent to what I’m saying.

“So don’t be shitty now!” I slap his arm.

“Ouch! Stop harassing me!”

We get to where Angelica and Wesley are, and they stare at Josh in confusion.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Asks the girl, “your finger looks like Tom Sizemore’s dick.”

“Yeah, I lost some blood and...” Josh examines his finger more carefully, “the gangrene it’s spreading, but I’m fine. I’m fine.”

I scoff, crossing my arms and looking at Wesley for support.

“The truest warrior knows when to hold ‘em, and when to fold ‘em” He adds with a worried expression.

“Guys, look, I’m fine. Okay?” He picks up food from the transpallet and puts it in his backpack, “Sam is still out there somewhere, and I have-”

He doesn’t get to finish the sentence before falling flat above his stuff. He fainted. Again.

Wesley laughs quietly before pushing him back to the store.

“You are taking a day off.”

“Stupid Josh,” I shake my head, following Wesley, “we need stuff from the pharmacy on Eli’s side”

“He won’t give us shit unless we raise the curtain.”

“So? Raise the fucking curtain. We can’t be fighting over something so stupid as that.”

“You think I like it?” He looks over his shoulder to me, “I’m just making sure that little crazy man doesn’t slaughter us.”

“He wasn’t going to, in the first place”

“You don’t know that”

“You don’t know it either.”

“Look, I’ll talk to him, see if he has an ounce of kindness left in his heart,” He stops in front of the bed, carrying Josh towards the mattress, “but is he refuses, you gotta stop scolding us like you’re our mother, Y/N, jeez...”

I’m not acting like a mom! 

“I’m not acting like a mom! Now get out of here, before I give you a reason to believe I am acting like your mom and slap your ass with Josh’s belt! Go!”

Okay, maybe I am a little bit like a mom friend.

Wesley walks away from me in a hurry and leaves me alone with Josh, his breathing is even and it doesn’t look like he’s about to die just yet, so I give them as limit a day and a half before Josh starts to have real problems. We need to get those medicines, and we need to find a way to make his gangrene stop.

Things are not looking good.

Taglist.

@letsbloodmagic  @hollywaterpls​

[ashitpos-t]

I’m A Fool To Want You

Chapter 2 of my Husk x Fem!Reader on my AO3 account.

CW: Murder, Suggestive Themes, and Alcohol

Your arms became covered in goosebumps as the smaller demon opened the door only to be greeted by a loud, almost deafening sound of a radio sputter that enveloped the air, causing your ears to press against the sides of your head along with a wince in your features.  Your heart skipped a beat at the frighteningly tall deer demon standing in the door way.  You instantly recognized that face, those clothes, and the cocky expression.

It was the radio demon.

---

"hell-" Charlie immediately slams the door in his face, eyes shooting to your own as you find yourself to be standing nearly frozen in place.

She opens the door again just long enough for him to finish greeting, "lo!-" before she slams it on his face again.  Charlie then calls for the moth demon, "Vaggie?" The girl you now knew as Vaggie replied, "what?" in an annoyed tone. 

"The radio demon is at the door," Charlie says with a forced smile, "What?" Vaggie exclaims worriedly, the spider demon only saying, "uh, who?"

"What should I do?" Charlie asks, pulling her cheeks down in worry, Vaggie scoffs, "Well don't let him in!"

Charlie pointedly looks at the door before opening it once again, much to your's and Vaggie's dismay, which allows the radio demon to finally finish what hes been trying to say.

"May I speak now?" he asks, "You may," Charlie puts, before being cut off by the deer demon, "Alastor!" he shoots out his arm for her to shake, "pleasure to be meeting you sweetheart! Quite a pleasure." He brushes past her form into the hotel exuberantly "excuse my sudden visit, but I saw your fiasco in the picture show! And I just couldn't resist, what a performance!" he nearly swoons just next to you, making you take a few steps back from him.

"Why I haven't been that entertained since the stock market crash of nineteen-twenty-nine!" he laughs, walking towards the lobby, "so many orphans-"

He only stops his eternal yapping when Vaggie runs up to him with a spear pointed at his neck, "Stop right there! Cabron hijo de perra, I know your game, and I'm not gonna let you hurt anyone here, you pompous, cheesy, talk-show shitlord!" He laughs at her seemingly frugal attempt at getting him out of the hotel, "Dear, if I wanted to hurt anyone here," his eyes turned to radio dials, and you could feel your blood run cold, "I would've done so already."  It seemed like all kinds of demonic shapes and auras emitted from the guy, a shiver ran down your spine at the sight of him.

He shook his head, "Now I'm here because I want to help!"  the two girls looked at him unconvinced, "say what now?" Charlie spoke up.

"Help!" he leaned into their space, "hello! is this thing on? testing, testing!" he tapped his microphone, a big eye opening from the place he tapped, "well I heard you loud and clear!"

"You want to help? with-" he interrupted her again, "with this ridiculous thing you're trying to do! This hotel! I want to help you run it." he finished, the large grin he wore cementing it's place on his features.

You scoffed at his want to "help", Charlie questioned, "uh, why?" he laughed, "why does anyone do anything? sheer, absolute, boredom! I've lacked inspiration for decades, my work became mundane, lacking focus, aimless!" he shoves Vaggie to the side, "I've come to crave a new form of entertainment!" he laughs.

"does getting into a fist fight with a reporter count as entertainment?" Charlie asks nervously, Alastor merely laughs at this, "It's the purest kind my dear, reality! true passion! After all, the world is a stage, and the stage is a world of entertainment." he says, smiling into the sentence while his voice slightly cleared of static, the whole display making your heart skip a beat.

Charlie looked to Alastor hopefully, "So, does this mean you think it's, possible to rehabilitate a demon?" he laughs at her display, "of course not! that's wacky nonsense. Redemption- Oh! the nonexistent humanity, nononono, I don't think there's anything left that can save such loathsome sinners!" You, Angel and Vaggie grimaced at his jab to the three of you, "The chance given was the life they lived before, the punishment is this!" he gestured widely to the hotel, "There is no undoing what is done."

"So," Charlie interjected, "Then why do you want to help me if you don't believe in my cause?" He cracked a devilish smile, "Consider it an investment in ongoing entertainment for myself! I want to watch the scum of the world struggle to climb up the hill of betterment, only to repeatedly trip and tumble down to the fiery pit of failure." Charlie took the radio-host's claw off of her shoulder, "Riggght," He nodded, "Yes indeedy! I see big things coming your way and who better to help you then-" his voice trailed off as you walked over to the couch to sit with Vaggie and Angel.

"So uh," Angel started to gesture to Alastor, "whats the deal with smiles over there?"

"Wait, You've never heard of him before?" the two of you both said, a look of surprise on both of your faces.

"You've been longer than me!" Vaggie commented, Angel simply shrugging towards the two of you.

"The radio demon," you started, Vaggie nodding along, "One of the most powerful beings hell has ever seen."

"eh, not big on politics," he crossed a set of his arms.

Vaggie sighed, "decades ago, Alastor manifested in hell, seemingly overnight." she gestured a bit to emphasize her point, "He had begun to topple overlords who had been dominant for centuries.  That kind of raw power had never been harnessed by a mortal soul before.  Then he broadcast his carnage all throughout hell, just so everyone could witness his ability.  Sinners started calling him, the radio demon"

You then added, "as lazy as that is,"

Vaggie nodded, "Many have speculated what unimaginable force enabled him to rival our world's most ancient and destructive evils.  But one things for sure, he's an unpredictable source of danger, a wicked spirit of mystery, and a violent monster of chaos the likes of which we can't risk getting involved with unless we want to end up erased."

"ya done?" Angel commented, beginning to laugh, "he looks like a strawberry pimp!"

You laughed a bit at his remark, "well, I don't trust him." Vaggie replied.

"to be fair," he started, looking at her with a smug face, "do you trust any man? Any men? Men?"

Vaggie looked at him tiredly before leaving the two of you on the couch to talk to Charlie.

"Charlie! listen to me.  You can't believe this creep," she side eyed him, "he isn't just a happy face! he's a deal maker, pure evil.  He can't be redeemed, and is most likely looking for a way to destroy everything we're trying to do."  you hated to eavesdrop, but you wanted to know more of everyone at the hotel respectively.

Charlie countered, "I, uh, we don't know that, look! I know he's bad and I know he probably doesn't wanna change, but the whole point of this is to give people a chance. To have faith things will be better, how can I turn someone away?  I can't.  It goes against everything I'm trying to do. Everything I believe in."  she put her hands on Vaggie's shoulders, "just, trust me, I can take care of myself."

"Charlie, whatever you do, do not make a deal with him." The two looked over at him, "Don't worry, I picked up one thing from my dad," she imitated his voice, "You don't take shit from other demons."

You tuned out most of what was being said, until Alastor perks up, "So it's a deal then?" green light starts to emanate from his hand, and the lot of you struggle to stand against the sudden winds of his power, yest Charlie cuts it off, "Nope! No shaking, no deals, I-" she nervously sighs, "as princess of hell and heir to the throne I uh- hereby order that you help with this hotel, for as long as you desire." Vaggie shifts on her toes, "Sound fair?"

Alastor pretends to think for a moment, "Fair enough!"

"cool beans," Charlie mutters, giving him two, very nervous, thumbs up.

You and Angel dust walk over to the concierge stand, both relatively fed up with whatever the hell was going on.  You lay your head on hand, sighing into your palm.

Angel looks over to you, "So I uh, never got yer name toots," you look over to him and straighten yourself out to be level with him, extending your hand, "My name's y/n," he smirked while taking your hand.

"Sure you already know me," he fluffed up his chest fur, "the name's Angel Dust." You nodded, already knowing his name.

Alastor walks up to the two of you before you can continue the conversation, "And what can you do my effeminate fellow?"

He gives him a once over before replying, "I can suck ya dick."

Alastor's smile freezes, "Ha! No."

"Yer loss," Angel finishes, enticing a laugh out of you as he grins to face you.

Alastor then looks over to you, obviously questioning everyone in the hotel, "Now I'm just hoping you don't do whatever this ruffian does?"

"I'm here for the whole redemption thing?" you slowly reply, clearly not interested in helping out.

He only sighs at you before turning around, "well this just won't do!  I suppose I can cash in a few favors to liven things up." he says with a snap.

The fire place sparks to life, only to show an array of flames and get fixed up in an instant, all before a small black being seems to nest within the fire.  He reaches down to pick it up, and when he does, a big eye opens up from the tiny form before the black ash dusts off of the little being, showing a small dress, single large eye, and a cute short hairstyle.

Alastor then introduces the small girl while dropping her to the ground, "This little darling is Niffty!"

"Hi! I'm Niffty!" She waves, "It's nice to meet you! It's been a while since I've made new friends."

She gestures to the lot of you, "Why are you all women?" She picks up Charile to look under her, "Are any men here?! Sorry, that was rude. Oh man! This place is filthy, it really needs a lady's touch which is weird because you're all ladies, no offense," She says while scattering around the hotel, lightly dusting as she talks, "Oh my gosh, this is awful!" She then proceeds to clean while saying offhanded comments whenever she finds something out of the ordinary.

"Hah! Read em and weep boys, full- ohhhhh" A taupe, winged cat demon says from the right of where you all were standing.

A seemingly bar setting complete with a pool table appears in the middle of the hotel, transforming the concierge stand into a bar table.

"The hell?  What the fuck is this?" The demon looks up and points to Alastor, "you."

"Ah! Husker, my good friend, glad you could make it!" he purrs.

"Don't you husker me, you son of a bitch, I was about to win the whole damn pot!" He gestures to a stack of money and chips that disappears due to Alastor's power.

"Good to see you too!" Alastor smirks

The cat slaps his clawed hand to his face, "what the hell do you want from me this time?" He asks, sitting at the pool table.

"My friend, I am doing some charity work, so I took it upon myself to volunteer your services," he waves his hand, "I hope that's okay."

"Are you shittin me?" Husk growls.

"Hm," Alastor begins with a smug grin, "No, I don't think so!"

Husk gets Alastor off of him, while flaring his wings out, "You thought it would be some kind of big fuckin' riot just to pull me outta nowhere?" You flinched a bit at his yelling, "You think I'm some kinda fuckin' clown?"

He hesitates for a moment, "maybe." a large grin become evident on his face.

"I ain't doin no fuckin' charity job," Husk growls just before the demon appears next to him, holding him flush against his own body, you felt bad for the cat.

Alastor spoke up, "well I figured you'd be the perfect face to man the front desk of this fine establishment!" he motioned towards the bar, a small welcome sign above it.

"With your charming smile and welcoming energy, this job was made for you!" he forced husk's face into a smile before swiftly turning around to head to the bar.

"Don't worry my friend, I can make this more welcoming, if you wish." he spoke, his voice getting abruptly clear at the end of his sentence while his arm swiped to reveal a bottle of "cheap booze".

"What? You think you can buy me with a wink and some cheap booze?" Husk said in an accusatory manor, mocking his gestures, "Well ya can!" he finished, grabbing the bottle and gulping down it's contents.

"Hey! Hey, Hey Hey Hey, no bar! No alcohol! This is supposed to be a place that discourages sin! Not some kind of brothel, man cave!-" Vaggie gets tackled to the ground by Angel, "Shut up! Shut. Up! We are keeping this." he aggravates, pointing towards the bar.

He quickly gets up and snuggles up to Husk, "hey~" he coos.

"Go fuck yerself," Husk replies, grimacing.

"Only if you watch me~" he holds Husk's face in his hand, startling the cat and causing his wings to spread.

Charlie runs up to him, arm outstretched for him to shake, "Oh my gosh! Welcome to the happy hotel! You are going to love it here!"

He only grabs his liquor, gulping it down, after saying "I lost the ability to love years ago."

You decided to not introduce yourself after that last remark, instead only waving at him lightly to which he responded to with a shrug.

"So," Alastor walks up to Charlie, hitting you with his shoulder, "what do you think?"

"This is amazing!" she replies, rubbing her cheeks as a grin paints over her features.

Vaggie chimes in, "It's, okay."

Alastor grabs the two ladies into a lean, "This is going to be very entertaining!"

The moth demon sweeps out from under his hold, which he merely laughs at before shoving her to the side while bursting into song.

His clothes transform into something of a more formal piece of attire, "You have a dream, you wish to tell," he spins charlie, transforming her hair and clothes into a dress and up-do.

He leans down to Vaggie, "and it's just laughable, but hey kid! what the hell!" and throws Charlie into the air, a chorus of instruments behind his voice.

"Cause you're one of a kind! A charming demon belle!" he grabs her hand, gliding down the stairs with her.

"Now lets give these burning fools a place to dwell," he snaps, transforming everyone's clothes into that of fitting attire for his time, giving Vaggie a full length dress, Angel a proper suit and tie, Niffty a sweet dress and bowler hat, Husk a pair of suspenders, and you, a sequenced dress with your hair in an up-do.

"Take it boys!" he snaps again, a few demons emerging from the floor and bursting into a band of instruments, while Vaggie attempts to get Charlie's attention, only for Alastor to pull her, and everyone else excluding Charlie into a strange hug of his minions.

"Inside of every demon, is a lost cause," he sings, placing hats onto Husk's and Angel's head, the former flipping him off, and the latter sending him finger guns.

"but we'll dress em up for now, with just a smile!" He says while summoning a hat and fox-scarf onto Vaggie before slapping her ass, Angering her as his minions echo him.

"Oh we'll ornate this cesspool with some old redemption flair, and show these simpletons some proper class and style!"

He dances to the fire place, summoning more minions to sing with him.

"Here below the ground! I'm sure your plan is sound!" He spins Charlie, and proceeds to pinch her cheeks.

"They'll spend a little time, down at this hazbin ho-" Alastor sings, getting interrupted by the door flying past both him and most of the residents, only to land straight onto Niffty.

All of your new clothes disappear as you look through the huge gap in the wall, to see a large zeppelin just outside of the hotel.  You all walk out to inspect it further, just in time to see a snake demon pop out of the window hatch, "Ha! Well, well, well, look who it is harboring the striped freak!" he hisses with each "S" he pronounces, "We meet yet again, Alastor."

You crack a small grin to see the over-exaggerated expressions of the snake, "Do I, know you?" Alastor questions, tilting his head to side.

"Oh yes you do!" he slithers to the side into his seat, "and this time I have the element of, surprise!"

He pulls on a lever and triggers a large cannon to release from the bottom of the air ship, pointed directly at the lot of you.

He laughs, "I'm so evil!"

Alastor snaps his fingers, opening up a portal just below the zeppelin that releases an onslaught of tentacles to destroy the ship.  He clutches his hand and focuses his will onto the ship, blowing into smithereens in an awesome display of his power. He wears a devilish grin that envelops most of his face, showing off his sickly black gums and a strange x mark between his eyes.  The rest of the residents stare at him in disbelief including you, an awful sense of fear, and dread boiling into the pits of your stomach, every single hair on you body standing on end in pure shock.

Alastor immediately snaps out of his hair raising grin, turning around to meet all of your eyes, "Well I'm starved! Who wants some jambalaya, my mother once showed me a wonderful recipe for jambalaya, in fact, it nearly killed her!" he laughs, everyone following behind him as he heads into the hotel, you trailing behind with your arms crossed, "You could say the kick was right out of hell! Oh, I'm on a roll!"

You grimace at all of the carnage the snake demon caused, your fingers messing with the seems of your shirt as feeling of tiredness from all of the stress for the day washes over you.  

You drag yourself into the hotel after everyone and close the door behind you, seeing Charlie, Vaggie, and Alastor talking while Angel and Husk are at the bar, the latter trying to shoo the spider demon away.  You fiddle with your hands as you silently walk up to Charlie, tapping her should as you whisper, "Do you mind giving me a room key?  I'm sorry I'm just awfully tired and I-" she cuts you off, "oh of course of course!  You should've asked sooner."

She mumbles a shorthanded goodbye to the other demons and leads you to a small stand holding hundreds of keys of all shapes and sizes, she grabs a key in a strangely cute shape with a small engraving of the room number on the back of it.  She smiles up at you as she puts the delicate key into your palms, "I really hope you like it here.  Sleep well."  You nod along, muttering a quiet thank you under your breath as the smallest of smiles graces your lips.

She pats your hands that have closed around the key and trots off to continue talking with Vaggie and Alastor.  You smile down at her as she walks and proceed to refocus your attention to the key and its room number.  It read 546, and with little confusion you found the elevator that listed which floors held which rooms, and if you were correct, you'd be heading to the 6th floor.  

You nervously stepped into the elevator, noticing how it looked worn down and used judging by the grease on the many, many buttons and small chips in the wallpaper of the small space.  Your fingers hovered over the buttons before firmly planting onto the fifth button.  You started raising up into the confines of the hotel with a small jolt and flicker of the lights, making you swallow with a keen sense of uncertainty.

Thankfully the elevator didn't stop with any delay and got you to your floor safely.  You stepped out into a dimly lit hallway of the hotel, the elevator doors quickly snapping shut at your leave, nearly nipping the ends of your tail.  You jumped at this before turning around to see which way you should go to find your room.  You looked to your left to see the lesser numbers and to your right to see the higher numbers, remembering your lower number you started on the left, and with a rise in your heart saw your room come into view only 4 doors down.

The old, rickety nature of the hotel's red carpeted hallways and drab decorations left you eager to enter your room, and with little persuasion, you got your key into the key hole, quickly turning it to enter, only to be met with a splendid display of pinks, creams, and golds showering the confines of your room.  You gasp lightly as you trace the freshly painted walls with your nails, taking in the exquisite nature of the carefully carved wood of your bed's frame, poles on each corner curling elegantly to the ceiling, dusts of gold flecked onto the carvings which depicted scenes of battles and victories between demons.  You smiled softly at the room, Charlie must have given you a suite, it was simply too beautiful to be anything but.

You sighed as you entered the bathroom, soft pink tiling lined the floor, and a regal looking sink left you wondering if you were even allowed to use such nice things.  You looked down at the sinks edge to see a complimentary toothbrush, toothpaste, and just about everything else.  You gladly looked up into the mirror, only to be a little displeased at how disheveled you looked.  Grabbing a complimentary cotton pad, you wiped away your foundation and eye shadow to reveal your many freckles lining your tanned skin.  You turned the skin only to splash water onto your face, quickly scrubbing away all the makeup and grime that had been caked onto your face.

You looked back up into the mirror and smiled, showing off your large, bear like canines and then fiddled with your short, wavy bob, making sure to keep special care of your bear ears on either side of your head.  Your small, black nose twitched at the water you just splashed onto your face, and you grabbed the toothbrush and paste to clean your sharp teeth.

Satisfied with your "self care" you flopped onto the bed, taking special note on how unbelievably comfortable it was.  Was this hell?  Cause it sure felt like heaven.

You felt a twinge of discomfort when you remembered you didn't exactly have pajamas to sleep in.  You sighed into a few curses and grumbles as you snaked off your dress and heels you'd been wearing.  You'd have to sleep in just you underwear that night, not liked it particularly bother at all, though.  

With a sigh, you flopped back into your new bed and quickly reached over to your bedside table to turn your lamp off, sending the room into an almost warm, pitch black.

Grabbing the pillow and fluffing it lightly, you laid your head onto it, letting a breath out that you were holding back, falling into a deep sleep within minutes

---

You woke up with a groan, the harsh, red beam of hell's sun shining into your room, and directly into your oh-so-tired eyes.

You smacked your lips, sighing with the displeasure of a complete lack of any water in your room, excluding the sinks, of course.  You lazily stood, and reluctantly pulled on your old dress, making sure to adjust your breasts into the cups while looking into your new vanity, carefully placing your hair back into place.

You smiled lightly at your appearance, satisfied with your look as you slipped your black heels back onto your feet.  Grabbing your phone and slipping it into a secret pocket of your dress, you left your room, easily slipping into the elevator you became lightly accustomed to, and headed for the lobby.  

You walked out of the elevator, slightly speed walking to the door when Charlie rushed to you, a grin plastered onto her face.

"Hi! Good morning! How was your first night?" You smiled at her, "It was wonderful Charlie, I swear you gave me a suite, I slept so good."

She grinned at you, slightly nodding along with your words, "I'm so glad you liked it!" She held your hand in hers for a moment, giving it a soft pat before asking you a question, "Oh! and where exactly are you going? It's only seven."

You laughed a bit at the time, you didn't even realize you woke up so early it must have been from going to bed early as well.

"I thought I'd get a head start by going to grab my things at my old apartment," you explained, gaining an understanding nod from her.

"Oh alright, don't be too long now!" you smiled as a response as you walked out of the hotel, taking a deep breath of fresh air, only to quickly climb into a cab you called down.

---

"Last bag," you guffawed, thanking your gab driver with a handsome tip as he helped you with your final bag of possessions.  It had taken nearly half the day, but you managed to pack up your entire apartment, that was fairly sparse to begin with, and everything else that you threw out.  

You walk into the hotel with quite a few bags only to be greeted by Charlie.

"Oh, y/n! let me help you with that!"

"Charlie! You couldn't possibly, I-"

Alastor swiftly interrupted the exchange with a snap, sending all of your bags to your room, only managing to give him a nervous smile as thanks.

He laughed at your small expression, while Charlie quietly thanked him, quickly turning her attention back to you.

She began to ramble on about her day, and asking you genuine questions about how you were, and  you would have listened, you really would have, but while Alastor had been helping you, you noticed Husk, out of all the demons, working the bar.  A tangible feeling of sadness emanated from his gruff being, and you wanted nothing more in that moment to just, talk to him. You only wanted to-

"y/n?"

Charlie snapped you out of your thoughts.

"Oh! Charlie," you laughed, a bit embarrassed, "sorry, I was just uh," you glanced at the cat demon, "a little distracted. But please, do go on."

She smiled a bit nervously at you, but escorted you to your room nonetheless, finally giving you the chance to hear her without your little distraction.

"Well, It's been a pleasure talking to you." you smiled.

"It sure has! See you for dinner?" she bounced on her toes

"Oh, I'm afraid not, I'll be going to a show tonight."

Her smile faltered slightly, "That's fine, I hope you have fun."

She skipped away to the elevator, swiftly walking in and leaving you in your door way.

"I sure hope I do."

[scaredofthebasement-blog]

When Love Walks In - Chpt 7

Chapter 7 - Auston Begins To Realize He Has Feelings For Dr Quinn

3456 Words

Warning - Some Cussing

At 10 am, Dr Quinn meets with Respirologist, Dr Ellen Wright at the Nurse’s Station in the Intensive Care Ward, to discuss Auston’s condition and the plan to wean Auston off the ventilator.

They proceed to Auston’s room and find his parents as well.  He has awoken from his catnap.  After introductions, Dr Wright explains that she will be reducing Auston’s air supply via the ventilator tube, to allow Auston the opportunity to build up lung strength by breathing for as long as he is comfortable, using only the hydrated oxygen that will be supplied through the mask over his Trach tube.  Auston is instructed to squeeze Dr Quinn’s hand, who is standing to his left if he feels he is having too much difficulty breathing with the reduced air supply and wants it turned back up.  She also advises Auston that he needs to try to breathe on his own for as long as he can if he is to make any progress.

After some adjustments, Dr Wright places the breathing mask over Auston’s throat on his Trach.  After 10 seconds of reducing the air supply from the ventilator, Auston starts to panic.   His body jerks and his hand bypasses Dr Quinn’s, and instead, he grabs and squeezes her arm while staring in her eyes intently, letting her know, in no uncertain way, that they need to turn the ventilator back up.  Lucky for Dr Quinn’s arm, Auston has lost a lot of strength during his time in the coma.  

Dr Wright immediately turns the ventilator back up to its original setting.  Dr Quinn walks over to attend to the heart rate monitor machine that went off again with Auston’s panic attack.  Auston’s eyes follow Dr Quinn, watching to see if she is hurt or mad at him for grabbing her arm so hard.  Plus he is certain that she must think he’s a big wuss for freaking out.  

For god sake, Auston!  You’re a fucking professional athlete, and you’re acting like a wimp!  Auston scolds himself in his mind.

Dr Wright calmly instructs Auston to focus on drawing air into his lungs through the Trach hole.  But Dr Quinn sees that Auston is too flustered to focus, so she asks them to all take a small break while Brian and Ema take a moment to try to calm him down.  Auston is pissed at himself and angry at the situation he finds himself.  How can breathing be so fucking hard?!

Auston grabs the whiteboard and writes, “Lungs won’t work!  Feel Smothered!” and waves it at everyone in the room.  Tears start to form from his frustration and fear.

Now she for sure thinks I’m a big baby!  Fuck Me!  He yells to himself.

Dr Quinn looks at Auston with tenderness in her eyes and calmly reassures him that everyone understands his anxiety over the procedure.  She tells him, “It’s normal for panic to set in when you’re having a hard time breathing, Auston.  But please know that we are not trying to deprive you of oxygen but rather exercise your lungs.  Your lungs have become dependent on the ventilator doing all the work, and as we have now witnessed, your lungs are not prepared for the slight increase in their workload.  Through this exercise, we are trying to get you to consciously help your lungs step it up to do the work of the ventilator.  This exercise should go well now that you are aware that breathing will require considerable effort and focus until your lungs become stronger.” She encourages Auston to try again and promises him that they will turn the ventilator back to the original setting every 10 seconds regardless of his success so he will have less inclination to panic.   Auston appreciates Dr Quinn’s explanation and concession, and although he is still nervous, he is determined to redeem himself in her eyes, so he agrees to try again.

Auston finds doing the exercises in 10-second intervals allows him to relax enough to focus on his effort and breathing technique, knowing that if his lungs fail to work well enough, he will quickly get air via the ventilator.  

Dr Quinn’s hand is laying so close to Auston’s that he is tempted to squeeze it and use ‘needing to breathe’ as an excuse, but he thinks better of it since it will just put him back in the ‘wimp’ category.  

After great effort and some success, Auston requests to go longer with even less oxygen supplied by the ventilator and only wants it put back to its original setting if he squeezes Dr Quinn’s hand.  It is the perfect setup for him to show Dr Quinn that he is a strong man.  

Eventually, Auston is able to breathe for one minute on his own, using only the oxygen mask over his Trach. With that success, and seeing it is approaching lunchtime, the doctors agree to stop so that Auston can rest and lunch can be had.  They plan to reconvene to continue the procedure in another 2 hours.

Dr Wright returns the Trach tube to the way it was, and she elevates the ventilator pressure.  She tells Auston, “Well, after a rough start you did wonderfully!  I’m very pleased with your progress so far.  I know this is all extremely scary and difficult, but you were a trooper and did great.  Normally breathing is an automatic thing that your body does, so I know it’s strange to have to put effort into it and feel like you need to focus on breathing all the time.  Please trust us when we tell you that you will be able to breathe again easily within a few days if you keep following our instructions.  Your brain is always going to try to make your lungs breathe, but right now you are the one who needs to deliberately focus on making your muscles and lungs do the work; at least until your muscles and lungs are strong enough to do it on their own without any thought.  You may recall that before the accident, your breathing system worked so well, you were able to breathe in and out comfortably at rest, and you probably were not conscious of your breathing.  When you exercised, you needed to move more air quicker, so you took bigger breaths or breathed more quickly – usually both.  Since being on the ventilator following the accident, your muscles and lungs are weaker.  That is why we are asking you to make this deliberate type of effort, even for at rest breathing.  We will let you take a nap and be back in a couple of hours.”

As Auston listens to Dr Wright, he tries to take a peek at Dr Quinn.  As great as Dr Wright is, he wants to hear from Dr Quinn.  He needs to know that Dr Quinn is impressed with his progress too.  However, Dr Quinn just asks if they have any questions.

Oh crap, Man!  I missed the boat again!  He scolds himself in his mind.  I’ve got to come up with some fucking questions for the next time she asks; he reminds himself.

Brian speaks up, directing his question to Dr Quinn, “When will you be able to tell if Auston will regain the breathing capacity that he requires for the NHL?”

Oh, good one, Dad!  Auston thinks to himself.  However, Auston isn’t too happy when Dr Quinn defers to Dr Wright to answer the question.  

Dr Quinn wants them all to know that they can trust and look to the other doctors and specialists for support and answers.  But for Auston, the only doctor he wants to hear from is Dr Quinn.  

Dr Wright speaks directly to Auston, “Once you start breathing, without assistance, we will have you do breathing exercises to maximise your breathing capacity.  After you reach your maximum breathing capacity, you will be tested by myself and the Leafs’ training staff to see if you can reach the threshold for the NHL.”  

She continues, “I don’t want to put you off in any way but need you to be aware that, of the few NHL hockey players documented as having similar type accidents, none were able to reach the breathing capacity they needed for the NHL.  But I also want you to know that these results could be dependent on the specific damage impacted on the larynx and lungs, plus we need to keep in mind that there have been medical advancements since the last recorded accident. Rest assured, we will do everything possible to help you reach your goal Auston, with whatever science is available.”

“Also, given your type of accident, you are in the best place possible for your recovery to be successful.” Dr Wright finishes and then apologises for having to run.  She asks Auston and the rest of the room to excuse her as she has somewhere she has to be for noon.  As she walks out, she stops to add one last thing, “Oh, and of course, unlike those other NHL players, you have Dr Quinn, who is an expert at all things related to the larynx.  So there’s that too.”  

That’s my girl!  Auston thinks to himself at the mention of Dr Quinn.  He is so proud of her and feels so fortunate that she is his doctor.

Before Dr Wright leaves the room, Auston nods to confirm that he has heard and understands what she has told him.  

Auston then grabs his whiteboard and writes something on it.  Turning it, he shows everyone in the room.  It reads, “I will have NHL breathing capacity!”  

Auston’s parents and Dr Quinn smile as they read Auston’s note.  Auston erases the board and writes something else. Only this time he hands it directly to Dr Quinn.  It reads, “I’m sorry if I hurt your arm”, with a drawing of a sad circle face with a tear.

Dr Quinn looks up at him and smiles.  Auston watches for her reaction as he makes a facial expression showing disappointment in himself.  

“Well, first of all, Auston, I am very happy to see your confidence and positive outlook.   I can tell you that I believe in you too and have great hope for a positive outcome for you.  And as far as my arm goes, ‘Bam Bam’, I’ll be fine.” She winks at him to lighten his mood.  “I understand why you did it.  Lucky for me, you’re weaker than you were seven days ago.  Seriously, though, no problem and thank you for your apology.” Dr Quinn tells Auston and then looks to his parents with a smile.

Auston watches as she starts to walk out of his room.  Without even turning around, she teases loudly, “Have a good sleep ‘Bam Bam’ and I’ll see you all back here in two hours.”  

Holy crap!  That was everything!  She fucking winked at me!  Auston freaks out, and his heart races but then his monitor goes off again.

Shit!  He immediately grabs his whiteboard to write, “Sorry, just excited at the idea of breathing again.”  He shows it to his parents as he shrugs smirking.

When Nurse Nicole walks in, Ema explains what happened, and Nicole turns off the monitor and leaves, calling back, “No worries.  Get some sleep, Auston.  You’ve got some more work ahead of you.”

Auston enjoys Dr Quinn’s banter and loves the fact that she gave him an endearing nickname.  He is mesmerised by the fact that she is such a smart, funny, compassionate and strong woman.   Auston wants to yell to her, Don’t leave!  But, of course, he never would; however realising he wants to, feels foreign to him. He can’t recall having ever been clingy.  

Auston feels self-conscious about having these thoughts about his doctor, especially in the same room as his parents.  He knows it is ridiculous, but he fears they might be able to read his mind or figure out by looking at him that he has feelings for Dr Quinn.  He is afraid that will ruin everything.  Even though his father has never laid a hand on him his entire life, he immediately envisions his dad smacking him upside the head, telling him not to be such a dumbass and risk scaring away his amazing doctor.  He fears his mother telling his sisters and one of them slipping up and revealing his feelings to Dr Quinn.  He is sure she’d have to stop being his doctor if she knew he had feelings for her or at the very least it would be incredibly awkward and embarrassing.

Auston wants his parents to leave him alone so he can think about things in private.  He indicates to his parents that he is going to fall asleep and encourages them to get something to eat while he sleeps.  His mom and dad agree and leave to get lunch at a restaurant. They haven’t had a change of scenery since the accident, and Dr Quinn had recently encouraged them to get out whenever possible.

Oh crap!  I’m so gone for my doctor!  He tells himself once his parents have left the room.  Despite being anxious and excited about what he has just discovered, Auston is too exhausted from his breathing exercises.  He knows he needs to get some sleep before they all come back in 2 hours.  He decides to do some relaxation exercises to stop his mind from running, and that allows him to fall asleep.  

————————————————————————–

It is 2 hours later when Auston feels a hand on his wrist and a soft voice asking him to wake up.  He opens his eyes and sees a woman standing over him; he notes her beautiful face and that she is wearing a white lab coat. He is confused.  Oh Wow! Beautiful!  Who is she?  Do I know her?  Oh yeah, I know her!  I like her! He thinks to himself as he looks around the room. Where am I?  Then he finally remembers he is in his hospital room, and the woman is his doctor.

Oh shit!  Right, I like her, and she’s my doctor!  Why am I in the hospital anyway?  Oh yeah, I had an accident. I can’t breathe on my own.  I can’t speak. I’m a hockey player.  NHL. Leafs.  A puck hit me and crushed my throat.  We didn’t win the Stanley Cup.  He runs through his mind and gets himself back into his world.

“Auston, it’s Dr Quinn, and Dr Wright is here as well.  Sorry to have to wake you, but it’s time to do some more breathing therapy”, Dr Quinn reminds him.

She’s so sweet to me.  I like the way she talks to me, Auston thinks as he tries to get his bearings and get comfortable.

The nurses help Auston sit up while Dr Wright gets into position to operate the ventilator.  

Auston is still groggy but notices his mom and dad in the room and smiles at them. His dad winks back at him, and his mother blows him a kiss.  

Dr Quinn recognizes that Auston needs a bit of time to come out of his sleep fog, so she starts some small talk by asking Ema and Brian how their lunch was.  They explain where they went and what they ate.  They say they enjoyed their time at the restaurant.  Auston smiles, hearing that.  

Dr Quinn takes notice, “Oh, that’s great to hear!  Hey Auston? Since you appear to be out of the woods, how would you feel if your Mom and Dad left you for a few hours each day? Are you okay with being here with just the staff?  You know your parents would only be a phone call away if you ever needed them, right?”

Auston picks up his board and writes, “I want them to take time for themselves.”  He shows it to everyone, and everyone lets out a little “aww” and smiles.  Auston rolls his eyes and smiles as he wipes the board clean to write, “I’m fine by myself but want them when I have procedures and receive important information.”

“Sounds doable Auston.  Your thoughts, Ema and Brian?” Dr Quinn asks.

“Sure, that sounds like a good plan”, Ema says.  

Brian confirms, “Yup, sounds fine to me.”

Auston wipes his whiteboard again and writes something else, “Let’s get at it!  I’ve got some breathing to do!”

The room of people laugh, and Auston grins.

“Well, you heard Auston. Let’s do this!”  Dr Quinn announces.

By the end of the session, Auston can breathe on his own for 15 minutes.  Everyone is pleased.  

“Wow, Auston!  You did an amazing job!  Very impressive!”  Dr Quinn tells him.  

Auston is thrilled to hear her say that she is impressed.  It feels to him like winning an award.  He recognizes that it’s really important to him that she thinks highly of him.  He can’t help but beam.  He writes on his white-board, “Thank you, Drs for your help!  Means a lot.”

Dr Quinn looks at Dr Wright and points to her, smiling to let her know she should be the one to accept Auston’s accolades.

“It’s a pleasure Auston”, Dr Wright tells him as she grins at him.  “You did great!  I’m excited to see your progress.  I’m very happy for you.”

Then Auston turns to Dr Quinn because he wants her response more than anything.

“Oh, you are welcome, of course, Auston”, stumbles out of Dr Quinn’s mouth.  “But, it really was all Dr Wright.  I’m so glad you’re having success and that you seem pleased because you should be.

Remember your progress from this morning to now?  Pretty significant Auston!” Dr Quinn notes.

“Dr Quinn, would you agree that we should call it quits for today since Auston has already reached the goal we set for the day?”  Dr Wright asks.

What?!  No! Auston screams inside, desperate to find a way to keep Dr Quinn with him.

I need questions or something; he begs himself to come up with something.

“Well Auston, we thought it would take much longer for you to get to 15 minutes of breathing on your own. You really are an overachiever, aren’t you?  Only two sessions!  We think since it’s day one of therapy and you have stressed your lungs and oesophagus considerably, it would be a very good idea to stop now.”  Dr Quinn tells him.

Auston is frantic and knows he is going to set off the damn monitor again.  He quickly writes on his board, “I want to do more!”  

Just as he finishes writing his message, the heart rate monitor goes off.  By this time everyone is pretty relaxed about it, knowing it is not life-threatening.  Dr Quinn goes over to turn it off as Ema and Brian head over to Auston’s side to encourage him to calm down and be patient with things.  Brian puts his hand on Auston’s shoulder and gives it a supportive squeeze.  

Ema takes hold of Auston’s hand and tells him, “Papi, you need to listen to the doctors.  You will do this all again tomorrow.  It’s only the first day.  It’s good to rest and not push yourself too much at first.”

Auston is not happy with his parents at the moment.  He is frustrated because stopping means Dr Quinn will be leaving him for the day and with that realization comes some unfamiliar, desperate and jealous concerns. Where is she going after this?  Is she going home?  Is she going to see her husband or boyfriend? Crap! I need to get better so I can talk to her and find out more about her.  I just want her to be with me — his mind races.

He is incredibly frustrated, and tears start to leak from his eyes.  At first, he tries to stop the tears because he is embarrassed and fears Dr Quinn will lose respect for him.  But when he sees how sad and concerned everyone looks as they watch his meltdown, he realises this might be his chance to get her alone.

He writes on his board, “Please leave me alone for a bit.  I need to talk to Dr Q in private.”

Dr Wright tells Auston to hang tough and that they will resume therapy before he knows it.  She excuses herself for the day.

Auston’s parents are very concerned that he is so upset and lean over to hug him, tell him to take it easy and that they will be in the waiting room.  As they leave the room, they give Dr Quinn a little smile and hand tap to let her know they trust her with their son in his fragile state.

[littlejeanniebean]

peter parker goes to marvel high (normal mcu au)

A/N: Peter’s first day of high school ft. Shuri, Mr. Stark, Mr. Loki, and co. ~1700 words teenaged angst then fluff. More Peter x Shuri in my masterlist :)

Heavily inspired by this post by @spellbounding-slytherin

I’m also a big fan of @tinymintywolf​‘s art :))

- J xx

Fact: Peter Parker was a nervous wreck. May, ever the optimist, had patted his cheeks, kicked him out of the car, and told him to have a good day. Peter had never had a good first day of school. He was smart but had a severe attention deficit, so even his teachers never liked him. His one best friend throughout junior high, Ned Leeds, had moved to New Jersey, so he would probably end up eating alone in some empty classroom just to be safe. And he’d met the principal at orientation last Friday. He had an eye patch and a perpetual frown, used to head up the corrections department for youth offenders. So yeah, high school was going to suck big time.

“Move it, dickwad,” one of the larger boys shoved past him at the door to his homeroom.

Peter strategically chose a seat in the ambiguous, unnoticeable middle. 

A short, bright-eyed girl marched up to him, “You’re in my seat.”

“Sorry! Sorry!” he tried to pick up his backpack but the strap was caught on the leg of his chair, so he just kind of ended up spilling himself over the floor. 

“Crap, I was just messing with you, kid,” she helped him up, “You good?”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” he just sort of stood there awkwardly, not meeting her eyes. 

“Dude, you gotta stop apologizing. I’m sorry, okay?” she tried to get him to look at her, “I’m Shuri. I have a messed up sense of humour that scares away any friends I might’ve ended up having. Is it cool if I sit next to you?”

“Yeah, sure,” he nodded, “I’m Perker Pat - Parker Pete - Peter Parker.”

“Cool.”

“Dude, you are sad,” the boy who shoved him coming into the room twirled an expensive-looking pen, sparing him the most derisive of sideways glances.

Peter was saved from actually having to come up with a response when their teacher walked in two-minutes after the bell and put his feet up on his desk, “Okay, kiddies. My name is Mr. Stark, you may call me Mr. Stark. I am your homeroom teacher unless you’re in the wrong room. I also teach AP Math and Computer Science. If you have questions at this point, I honestly wonder how you got this far in life, but I’m obligated to ask.”

The room was silent. 

“Great, do whatever until the bell rings, I guess.”

The class emptied out. 

Peter hung back, “M-Mr. Stark?”

“Yes, Proton.”

“I-it’s Peter, actually.”

“I was talking about your t-shirt.”

“I - Oh, yeah,” he looked down at the “I’m positive” joke print, “um… I just wanted to let you know that I have ADHD, mostly the AD part a-and I don’t expect any special treatment or anything and I’ll work really hard, but I also wanted to join Mathletes and I wasn’t allowed in junior high because I’d always get sidetracked at the meets but I think I can do better now if you’ll give me the chance… butifnotthat’sokay.”

Mr. Stark appraised him, “First meeting is in this room at three.”

“Thank you, sir!” he smiled, but when his teacher didn’t smile back, he fixed his face and walked to his next period.

“I’m Mr. Banner, and there are three things you need to remember if you want to succeed in biochemistry. One: If you’re unsure but proceed without asking for clarification first, I will be angry. Two: If you show up to the lab without completing the prior work assigned, I will be angry. Three: If you do not share work between your lab partners equally, I will be angry. Don’t make me angry.”

“Wanna be lab partners?” Shuri asked.

“Sure,” Peter squeaked and cleared his throat. 

“You’re not going to break a test tube on me, are you?”

He shook his head quickly. 

“You’re a lot of work, Peter Parker, but it’s kind of adorable.”

“Um… thanks?”

“You’re welcome. Now hand me that pipette and fire up the spectrophotometer.”

The last period before lunch was P.E.

“I’m Coach Barton, that’s all you need to know. Let’s do a few warm up laps around the circuit.”

Peter ran hard and was close to fainting as he crossed the line in the middle of the pack.

“Woah, kid, you need to go to the nurse’s?” Coach singled him out.

He tried to say ‘no’ but no sound would come out, so he just shook his head, gasping. He could hear the other boys snickering beyond the pounding of his blood in his brain.

“I think you need to go to the nurse’s,” Coach beckoned to the boy who’d crossed the line first, “Flash, take him to the clinic, would ya?”

“Yes, sir,” the bully from his homeroom smirked at him.

As soon as they were out of the gym, he jostled and picked at the smaller boy only to exhibit the epitome of sympathy in front of Nurse Man-Ti. 

“Here, drink some electrolytes,” she told him and he finished the small bottle in under a minute. 

As soon as Flash was gone, Peter let himself just cry. He wished his aunt would just homeschool him, but it’s been hard since his uncle died and in the face of that, Peter felt bad for feeling bad about his little problems and that made him cry some more.

“Hey,” the nurse sat beside him quietly, “Peter, right?”

He nodded, “I’m sorry.”

“What for? Better out than in, that’s what I always say.”

Peter sniffed.

“Do you want to talk about it? Or make an appointment with Counsellor Barnes?” 

“No, no, I’m fine. I just needed, uh… electrolytes,” he leaves quickly after that.

Peter goes to his locker for his bag and clothes, red eyes trained on the floor so that hopefully nobody notices. He doesn’t notice Shuri arguing with Flash, gesturing forcefully back at his locker. Flash sees him put in his combination and open the door, a cheshire grin spreading across his face. 

“Peter!” Shuri tries to warn him, “Don’t -”

But it’s too late and he’s covered in silly string, a few old socks found decomposing in the gym lockers, and the contents of a bathroom trash can. 

“I’m gonna go change,” he whispers to no one in particular.

“I’ll save you a place at lunch?” Shuri called after him.

Peter stops in his tracks to shoot her a grateful smile, “Thank you.”

Mr. Thor Odinson was a very loud history teacher, but it worked well for keeping Peter’s attention throughout the class, so he was able to answer all the review questions. 

“Teacher’s pet,” Flash scoffed at the sound of the bell.

“Dumbass,” Shuri fake-coughed and pulled Peter to the auditorium.

“I’m Mr. Loki Odinson, you may call me Mr. Loki to distinguish between myself and my hard-of-hearing brother, Thor,” said their quieter drama teacher, “Thompson, if you kick Parker’s chair one more time, I will send you to Fury’s office with no note, no explanation. And he has a very specific way of dealing with those cases.”

Flash stopped and sat straighter. 

“Good, Parker, you seem suitably nervous. Come up here and help me demonstrate a quick improvisation exercise.”

Peter tripped on his way down the aisle to the stage, but kept going. 

“Now, you’re a superhero and I’m a supervillain. You’re trying to turn me over to the good side, but we can only converse alphabetically. So you must start with the letter ‘A’, I must start with the letter ‘B’ and so forth. Are you ready?”

“No.”

“Ah, ah, first rule of improv: the answer is always, ‘Yes, and…’ Let’s go, Parker. You’re brave. You’re bold. You’re a hero.”

“Alright, Mr. Villain, you have two choices,” Peter surprised himself at how his voice carried. It must be the way the auditorium was built, “perish, or join our fight.”

“Blech, I choose to perish,” Mr. Loki dropped to his knees, “C’mon Hero, end me if you have the guts at all.”

“Come on, you know you never wanted to watch the city burn to begin with. The hive possessed you, used you. Now, you have the chance to redeem yourself.”

“Don’t presume to know me because you can’t possibly. You don’t know what I’ve been through. What I’ve lost!”

“Everything,” Peter said quietly, “Everyone you ever cared for. I do know… because so have I. We’re not so different.”

“Fighting the hive is a losing proposition. You have nothing that could work against them!”

“Gas. Even a million eyes are no good in a fog.”

“Huh… I never thought of that. I’ll join your fight, Hero if you’ll let me,” Mr. Loki proffered his “bound” wrists.

“I knew there was some good left in you, Mr. Villain,” Peter “unlocked” the “restraints.”

Mr. Loki mimed holding a knife to Peter’s neck, “Just not that much, I’m afraid. Hive Mother! I’ve got him! I’ve got the hero! Now release my family from the void as you promised!”

Peter wracked his brain from the next letter. The plot twist didn’t help him think either. “... Krap with a ‘k’?” 

Mr. Loki broke character and laughed before clapping and shaking his student’s hand, “That was the most interesting improv demonstration I’ve had in awhile, Parker. You’re a natural. Now everyone pair off and try to top that performance if you can!”

English with Mr. Rogers was the last period of the day. He didn’t look up from his book until everyone was seated, silent, and had their eyes up front. It took a crazy long time and a good deal of organization and yelling on Shuri’s part. 

“Sorry, guys, I was reading a book about anti-gravity. It's impossible to put down!” he joked.

Peter was the only one who laughed.

After giving a bit of a lecture on respect for their instructors, valuing their education, and how much they were going to love English this year, he let them go early. 

“Okay, I’m calling you three Alvin, Simon, and Theodore from now on,” Mr. Stark addressed his small Mathlete gathering, “Our new mascot is a chipmunk, I don’t care that all our other teams are Rocket Raccoons.” 

“Which one of us is Alvin?” Shuri asked.

“Since you asked, you are. Fancy-Pen is Simon and Proton is Theodore. Now, we have a competition to prepare for in… ages from now, so… drill, I guess? I don’t know. Who wants to do Euclidean algorithms?” 

Three hands went up. 

“Nice,” he brought out his expensive Japanese chalk, a gift from his wife, the well-known Fortune 500 CEO, Pepper Potts.

[nadziejastar]

I suspect that one of the reasons Lea and Isa became apprentices is because it seemed so obvious that they were test subjects. Nomura likes his stories to be surprising and if something seems too easy to guess he's not above changing it to keep the audience on their toes.

Well, Nomura admitted that he does like to add in twists that subvert people’s expectations. But I honestly doubt that was the case with Lea and Isa’s backstory. The story we got for them in KH3 was awful compared to the human experimentation story. When asked about Isa’s scar, Nomura actually seemed depressed. 

There was SO much evidence that there was an entire story planned that would fully redeem Isa, and also reveal that the only reason he got possessed was because he was a GOOD person who was loving and caring. Why throw all that away for the lame crap we got in KH3? I can’t imagine Nomura was happy about that.This is what I think Isa’s arc was supposed to be like. It’s going to be pretty long because I want to go into detail and do a full analysis on where the story was going with Lea and Isa’s subplot.

Day 26 ~Terminated~

“Is it true about Castle Oblivion…?” he asked, not looking his superior in the face.

Saïx’s response was icy. “That’s no concern of yours.”

“What about Axel?” he pressed.

Hearing that name, Saïx narrowed his eyes faintly, not even enough for Roxas to notice. He wasn’t attuned to such subtle changes.

“Who knows,” Saïx finally said. “Perhaps he is among the lost.”

“Wha…?” Suddenly, Roxas had no words.

That couldn’t be…

IMO, the whole concept of Saïx is that he’s a Nort with memories of being a boy who was “misled” by his heart. He’s affected by Isa’s memories, and hates it. I think the first major day involving Isa/Lea’s story is Day 26.

“Are you okay, Aladdin? Shouldn’t you rest a little?”

“I’m fine. Even if we can’t do much, we gotta try and rebuild the city while the sandstorm is settled,” Aladdin—Al—replied, but the woman looked down, an even more worried look on her face.

“That’s true, but… if you go on like this, you’ll collapse.”

“I said I’m fine, Jasmine. We don’t know when the next storm will come. We have to rebuild the city before the next sand storm comes.”

Restoration of the city has definitely come along since the last time I was here. Storms probably haven’t come for a while, either, I guess.

“If only Genie was here, at a time like this…”

The woman—Jasmine—murmured, head still down.

“Even if Genie was here, we can’t rely on magic. It’s our city, and we have to restore it with our own strength.”

“Yeah… you’re right.” Jasmine finally raised her head, and a small smile could be seen on her face.

Al is struggling without Genie, but tries to manage on his own. He doesn’t want to be a burden. But he’s running himself ragged. Without his best friend around, he’s in big trouble.

“If they disappear, does that mean we won’t see them again?”

“Yep.”

Roxas clenched his fists.

Maybe I can’t see Axel again…

“Let’s go back.”

“Huh? Yeah…”

And just as he went to go with Xigbar—

The world is swaying.

I can’t hear a thing.

The ground is rushing up.

—His consciousness was engulfed by darkness.

Roxas is terrified he might never see Axel again. His consciousness was engulfed by darkness. This is exactly why I think Isa became possessed in the first place. He was afraid.

Day 51 ~Missing~

Some kind of pressure was gathering between his eye brows. He walked down the hallway, and when he arrived at the lobby, no one was there.

“Axel…?” He murmured his friend’s name without thinking, then touched his mouth at the outburst.

They had told him that Axel might have been terminated. He remembered that part.

And being terminated meant there was nothing left, nothing at all, according to Xigbar.

When Roxas woke up, he was still worried and he felt pressure between his eyebrows. This is where Saïx’s scar is located. This is very important. I think the mind control experiments involved shutting down a person’s pineal gland. This part of the brain is susceptible to stress and controls the waking and sleeping cycle. It is also associated with the Third Eye, also known as the mind’s eye. Saïx cannot see Xion, so this part of his mind is still shut down.

“You still don’t know anything?” Roxas pressed.

“I know that I don’t owe you any explanations. Now, it’s time you got back to work. You’ll be on your own for a while. Whatever happened, the fact is we’re understaffed.”

Investigating? Might have? Does that mean it’s possible they weren’t all wiped out? Roxas wondered hopefully.

“Go on,” said Saïx. “You have missions to catch up on.”

Saïx got really nasty with Roxas when he inquired about Axel.

Maybe she had been sent away somewhere on a long-term mission, like Axel at Castle Oblivion.

But…asking about Axel seemed to put Saïx in such a foul mood, Roxas couldn’t bring himself to inquire after Xion.

Every day, he carried his slender ray of hope to the clock tower in Twilight Town, and every day he sat there alone.

Roxas didn’t even wanna ask about Xion because Saïx was in such a foul mood over it.

So it’s true. I can’t use the Keyblade anymore…

Xion destroyed the last Heartless with magic and despondently sat down on the spot. Saïx would scold her again for not obtaining any hearts, and she had no idea how to explain herself.

He said if I can’t wield the Keyblade, I have no place in the Organization. So what am I supposed to do…?

Roxas had a mission in Agrabah and the sandstorms were getting worse. Meanwhile, Xion was at the Beast’s Castle and learned she can’t use the Keyblade anymore.

Day 72 ~Change~

“Hmm.” Saïx sniffed. “All I did was find a place to send everyone who was getting in the way.”

Maybe he was telling the truth. The other members were only obstacles to Saïx— No. To both of them.

And yet, Axel couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his response. “Well, nice to know where I stand.”

He said it with a grin, but the hint of a frown tugged at the scar between Saïx’s brows. Apparently, the joke wasn’t very funny. “You made it back in one piece, didn’t you?”

Axel’s main issue was that Saïx was not worried about him at all when he was gone. All he cares about is the Chamber of Waking. Even Roxas was worried about him.

Were you worried I wouldn’t? Axel almost said, but he didn’t want to deal with putting him in an even fouler mood. Maybe the memories he has of anger and displeasure are really strong.

Saïx hated people asking if he was worried about Axel. Because that was Isa’s weakness. He’s changed a lot, which makes Axel sad.

Day 75 ~Inseparable~

“But… I got a bit worried about my biggest and bestest friend Al… so I popped back to see how things are.”

“Worry? So, you worry about best friends?” Roxas asked, and Genie dabbed at his eyes with a white hanky he’d pulled out of somewhere.

“You worry and worry! Are things going well with Jasmine… has the city changed at all… so many things I’m interested in, I can’t contain myself…”

After Axel returned from Castle Oblivion, he and Roxas covered for Xion. Axel said that friends needed to lean on each other. They started working together and became inseparable. But this day is all about a friend’s resolve—refusing help. Genie was worried about his best friend and wanted to help…

“Huh…” Roxas had to ponder that. Did the Genie mean that even if you thought you could help out a friend, it was more important to listen to what they wanted?

“Al said he wouldn’t rely on magic, right? I want to fix it for him, but you gotta respect your friend’s wishes.”

“Your friend’s… wishes…” So, even if you mean for something to be for your friend’s sake, their wishes are still more important?

…But he also wanted to respect Aladdin’s wishes to not intervene.

“That Genie we met seemed really worried about his friend Al,” Xion remarked eventually. “But then he said he’d respect his friend’s decisions. I guess you can’t just jump in and do everything for them, even if you want to.”

Idly swinging her legs, she took another bite.

Axel leaned his head to one side in thought. “Your friend’s wishes, huh…” It feels like I have heard that before, a long time ago, when I was human.

Axel said he heard that a long time ago, when he was human. Apparently Lea wanted to jump in and help Isa. But he was asked to respect his friend’s resolve and not intervene on his behalf. This is a really important day for Axel’s story, since he said he didn’t have a best friend.

Day 94 ~Hearts~

The time is ripe…

A great heart has at last appeared before us.

Rage… hatred… sadness, and happiness.

All gathered together are the fruits of the heart… that is Kingdom Hearts.

The world will begin to reform from now.

Gentlemen!

In order to gain more power, and, in order to have hearts of our own…

All gathered together, we Nobodies must not forget our goal.

To gather hearts, to have hearts of our own, to not let the heart mislead us.

This is a more literal translation of Xemnas’ speech under the heart-shaped moon. He’s promising the members that the heart will no longer mislead them. This is also the first day that the Beast’s predicament is paralleled to the main characters.

“I figured it worked that way everywhere… I mean, the master here has servants.” Roxas looked up the stairs to the door where the Beast had retreated. “He shouldn’t have to fight.”

“I don’t know that I’d call us Xemnas’s servants, exactly… But you’re right. If he’s taking on the Heartless himself, he must have a reason to fight.”

Xion stared down at the Keyblade. What’s my reason?

“A reason?” Roxas blinked at her, mystified. “Like what?”

“Like…maybe he has something he wants to protect,” she said softly.

Xion, in turn, was mystified that Roxas found the idea so strange. As if he had never thought to ask why.

The Beast’s Castle is directly compared to the Organization’s Castle. But the question is, why is the Beast fighting?

Roxas: I don’t know why we need to continue fighting Heartless like this.

Axel: Sure you do. We have to finish Kingdom Hearts. We finally got our first glimpse of it today, remember?

Roxas: Yeah, but what is it? “The heart of all hearts”?

Xion: It’s where all the hearts you and I collect wind up.

Axel: Exactly. It’s because of you two and the Keyblade that we’re finally making some progress. We might finally get hearts of our own.

Xion: “The strength of the human heart is vast,” Xemnas said.

Roxas: Yeah, but what do we need with it?

Axel: Are you crazy?

Roxas: I just don’t understand why having a heart is so important. Do you?

Axel: Kind of a strange time to bring it up…

Roxas: But don’t you ever stop and wonder? We’re fighting for something we don’t know anything about.

Axel: Roxas… We’re fighting because we want to know what it’s about.

Roxas: Yeah… Yeah, I guess you’re right.

Roxas also wonders why are WE fighting?

Day 94: Kingdom Hearts

Xemnas summoned us. Nothing he says ever makes sense to me. He showed us Kingdom Hearts, a big heart-shaped moon floating up there in the night sky, and said the human heart will never have power over us. Great… I guess? So why are we trying to get hearts again? Axel said I’ll understand better once I have a heart, but I’m not so sure…

Roxas had no idea what Xemnas was talking about.

Day 94: All Goes Apace

Author: Saïx

The hearts collected by our two Keyblade wielders, Roxas and Xion, have gathered together; and now, almighty Kingdom Hearts waxes large in the night sky. Our efforts have come to bear fruit, nearly ripe for the plucking. All plans proceed smoothly—alarmingly so, in fact, though this is no time to be deterred by paranoia.

Saïx sounds almost exactly like Xemnas, though. I think Saïx wants to believe Xemnas. He wants to believe that once he gets his heart back, he’ll never again be misled by it. But he doesn’t trust Xemnas and wants to figure out his hidden agenda.

Xigbar: Oh… Thank you, Sora’s heart, for pushing him right into our clutches. Aren’t hearts great? Steer us wrong every time.

Sora: You know, right, because you all have hearts! Axel and Roxas and Naminé, and that other girl. I felt what Roxas felt and…they laughed together, got mad, and they grieved. You have to have a heart to cry.

Xigbar: It’s about time you noticed.

Xemnas: Indeed. A heart is never lost for good. There may have been variances in our dispositions, but a number of us unquestionably showed signs of a burgeoning replacement. Once born, the heart can also be nurtured. Our experiments creating Heartless were attempts to control the mind, and convince it to renounce its sense of self. But understand, one can banish the heart from the body, but the body will try to replace it the first chance it gets, for as many times as it takes. And so I knew, even after we were divided into Heartless and Nobodies, it was just a temporary separation.

It’s interesting to note that the idea of the heart misleading a person is also brought up when Xemnas mentions the mind control experiments in KH3D.

Day 96 ~Xion’s Keyblade~

Day 96: Out of Trouble

Today’s mission was with Xion, in Beast’s Castle. I tried loaning her my Keyblade, and she had no problem using it. That meant I had to fight without it, but we got the job done.Afterwards Xion remembered how to summon her own Keyblade, so I guess we’re out of trouble. When we were done, we all had ice cream together.

This was the day that they couldn’t work as a team anymore. Xion got her ability back. It was also in Beast’s Castle. Axel was depressed. He hated it when Xion thanked him.

Day 96: Friends

Author: Axel

Xion regained her ability to wield the Keyblade. I don’t know how or why. Maybe there’s more to the Keyblade master they’re not telling me about. I feel like I’ve been spending more time talking to Roxas and Xion lately than my old friend, Saïx. This has to have been what it was like, friendship.

This day was all about how Axel missed Isa. He wished they could always be together, but that’s an unattainable wish. The next day, the sandstorms are gone. The Genie decided to help Aladdin anyways, so he wouldn’t have to worry anymore. Then we enter the next arc.

Day 117 ~Secrets~

Outside the window, the moon—the heart-shaped moon—floated. Axel watched it, still sprawled on his bed. There was still a little time before he had to leave on his mission.

To gather hearts, to have hearts of our own, to not let the heart mislead us…

For these past few days, I’ve been thinking about the meaning of Xemnas’ words. To not let the heart mislead us? What does that mean? Whenever I’m alone, these thoughts just float around in my head the whole time. I don’t know why I have to think so much about it. I bet the other Nobodies don’t.

The heart… emotions. I think about their origins. Contemplate it. Reason about it. When did I start doing this?

The truth was, Axel knew when. Maybe I’ve been pretending I hadn’t noticed.

This is what Axel was thinking before Saïx came into the room and asked him to go back to Caste Oblivion. He was staring at the moon contemplating the heart and emotions. He didn’t understand the meaning of Xemnas’ speech.

Speaking of changes, my relationship with Saïx has, too. I think it’s changed slightly since I’ve had time with Roxas and Xion. I couldn’t really say how, though.

“You and Xion are on the same mission today.”

“Thank you ever so much for going to all the trouble to tell me that,” Axel answered, facing the mirror and starting to get ready.

“I need you to go to Castle Oblivion again soon,” said Saïx, watching Axel’s face in the mirror. At those words, he finally looked at Saïx.

“Orders from ‘Lord’ Xemnas?” Axel asked, lips curling.

He’s having a hard time being around Saïx due to how different he is from the past. Axel’s sleeping memories awakened and he’s changed. And there’s a mirror present. The next day is the vacation day. And Axel’s part during that day is basically being depressed and sleeping all day, thinking about how much Saïx has changed.

Day 119 ~Work to Do~

“Our little Poppet sure is a wonder,” Xigbar remarked, and a vicious smirk came to his face. “It’s a shame we don’t have Vexen around to follow her.”

“The Organization still has his technical expertise, as he notated and saved everything,” Saïx replied, utterly unfazed. “We’re not facing any difficulties in that regard.”

“And? When those difficulties do arise?” Xaldin, his arms folded from the start, regarded Saïx with disdain. “You may find yourself hard-pressed to handle every possible scenario.”

“I take issue with this implication that Vexen’s demise at the hands of the boy with the Keyblade was my fault,” Saïx said.

“Right, I forgot, the kid did it,” Xigbar echoed with a heavy dose of accusatory sarcasm.

This is a novel-exclusive scene that takes place on Day 119, which is a pretty important day. Xigbar is mad that Axel took out Vexen, and he thinks it’s Saïx’s fault. Xaldin also views Saïx with disdain.

“I’m having Luxord take a look in every known world, but they have not yet been found,” Saïx replied quietly. His expression never changed. “Axel will be searching Castle Oblivion for any clues as well.”

“Oh, so Axel’s on the case.” Xigbar crossed his legs and leaned his elbows on them.

“How could an outsider get ahold of one of our cloaks in the first place?” Xaldin demanded. “They’re part of our equipment; we ought to be keeping track of them. If any went missing, it should have been reported.”

Saïx let out a deep sigh, the first semblance of a reaction he’d given this entire meeting. “We have not confirmed what happened to any spare cloaks in the possession of the members who were stationed at Castle Oblivion. Axel will also be looking into that.”

“Axel this, Axel that… Sounds like you’re thick as thieves.” Xigbar restlessly jiggled his crossed legs. “Makes me wonder what you two are up to.”

“I might wonder the same about you,” Saïx retorted, and the tension was so thick it was hard to breathe.

They’re discussing the fact that an outsider has one of their cloaks. Xigbar’s planning to get back at Saïx in some way.

“These reports come from various worlds,” Saïx went on impassively. “We still don’t know whether they are about one single person or multiple or which worlds they might appear in.”

“If I find them, should I eliminate them?” she asked.

“No. First, discover how many there are. Capture them, if possible. Don’t eliminate them.”

“Okay.” Xion nodded.

Xigbar, listening in with his arms folded, finally had to make a remark. “You’ve been working so well, Poppet.”

“Uh, thanks,” she mumbled.

“What’re you thanking me for?”

“Well, you gave me a compliment… Or did you?”

“Haha… Yeah, I guess you could see it like that.” Xigbar held a fist to his mouth, not quite covering a laugh.

“What did I say that was funny?” Xion looked uneasily up at him.

“Oh no, nothing. You’re completely right.”

If Saïx was interested in their conversation, he gave no indication.

And here’s the real strange part. Xigbar decides to praise Xion right in front of Saïx. This whole exchange was meant for him. The compliment was actually an insult to Saïx. This is the exact moment when Saïx’s demeanor around Xion totally shifts from cold indifference—the way he is with everyone—into burning hatred. Xigbar saying that Xion was “working well” was a huge trigger for Saïx.

“That which we treasure has power over us, Roxas. His heart is captive to it. And that makes it his weakness.”

“Captive…? I don’t get it.”

Everything Xaldin said only got harder and harder to follow.

“Nor should you. You have no heart to love with. Let’s not linger here.”

Meanwhile, Roxas is on his own mission at Beast’s Castle.

“Xion, do you remember the beast?”

“Beast…? The master of the castle, right? I remember.” Roxas and I went to Beast’s Castle together on a mission.

Roxas continued. “I found out what he treasures. But, Xaldin called it a weak spot.”

“Something you treasure is a weak spot?”

Roxas looked down. “I don’t really get it…”

There are so many things that Roxas and I don’t understand, Xion thought. If Axel was here right now, I know he’d explain it to us.

“I guess Axel won’t come home for a while…,” Roxas said, and Xion nodded.

Once Axel gets back, there are many things I want to ask him.

It’s emphasized that Axel will know what Xaldin meant.

Axel made his way through Castle Oblivion. Not much time had passed since he’d been here last, but it didn’t feel the same at all.

Everything inside was still made of that cold white stone. The layout, however, had changed—different hallways led to different rooms. He knew the rooms here shifted based on the memories of whoever walked in—so whose memories were controlling it now?

“Ugh, this better be over soon.” Axel rolled his eyes. He was talking to himself more and more, an unfortunate side effect of spending all his time with Dusks for days on end. The castle was now managed only by the Organization’s underlings.

The lesser Nobodies that served them were unfailingly obedient, but that was the only thing they ever did. The greatest difference between them and Organization members was not appearance but the capacity for independent thought. Where did that capacity come from, then? Did it have anything to do with the heart?

“I’m gonna go nuts in here…” Axel scratched his head and continued his search of the bizarre castle.

Axel was at Castle Oblivion on Day 119. And he brings up a weird subject out of the blue. The connection between the heart and independent thought. If Saïx had experiments performed on him to control his mind, then that is what allowed his heart to be captured? Is that the implication with this passage? Probably.

Day 119: Something to Protect

Axel has been gone forever. It’s been just me and Xion at the clock tower. While me and Xaldin explored Beast’s Castle, we found something he wants to protect… Xaldin says that’s a weakness, but I’m not so sure. What does it mean to care about something that much? I don’t, so it’s hard to wrap my head around the whole idea.

The main idea of this day is that wanting to protect something is a weakness that makes your heart a captive.

Day 119: Hearts and Emotion

Author: Xaldin

Watching that foolish beast flail about only deepens my disdain for humans and their incessant need to be pinned down by feelings. We became Nobodies precisely to avoid the shackles of emotion. It was only later that we realized the scale of that loss: that some things simply cannot be done without a heart. Nonetheless, I see nary a pleasant thing about it.

Axel was contemplating the heart and emotions a few days prior. Exactly what Xaldin is disgusted by. I think Saïx’s desire to find the Chamber of Waking is influenced by him being a Nort. Xemnas wants to find the Chamber, so naturally Saïx does too. He thinks he’s asserting his own will over Xemnas, but he’s really not. It’s Xehanort’s desire manifesting through an unwitting Saïx. He has no real capacity for independent thought.

“You’d better. It’s part of your work,” said Saïx. “You know you need proper rest to carry out missions.”

“Sorry… I’ll find the impostor today.”

Since two days ago, she’d been covering double ground, searching two worlds in one day. But she still hadn’t found any clues. Meanwhile, Saïx had no sympathy for her.

“You are to discover the identity of the outsider,” he told her. “Those are direct orders from Lord Xemnas. Failure is the same as insubordination. You understand that, don’t you?”

“Wha…?”

Xion had no idea that Xemnas had chosen her for this mission. To the best of her knowledge, Saïx was the one in charge of assigning tasks.

“I assume I’ve made myself clear. Keep looking.” With that, Saïx turned his back on her and left.

After Day 119 Saïx started berating Xion mercilessly. And he brought Xemnas into the picture as a threat.

Day 150 ~Fear~

He turned the corner to see Xion and Saïx there. He was about to run headlong toward them, but the frigid tension in the air stopped him short.

“We can’t afford to spend any more chances on you,” Saïx was telling her. “You were a mistake we never should have made. A failure.”

Failure…? What was that about?

With one parting glance at Xion’s miserable, downcast face, Saïx turned and left.

This is the first day where Saïx’s problem with Xion is seen in the game. His issue is that she’s a “failure”. That’s the word he uses most often to insult her.

Day 150: Too Precious to Lose

Xion didn’t come to the clock tower again today. She and Saïx had some kind of argument. Axel and I talked for a while about the things we can’t bear to lose. Axel thinks that for Nobodies, it’s our pasts, because that’s all we have to remember the pain of losing something. I don’t remember my past, but the idea of losing the present—Axel or Xion—scares me.

And this yet is another day spent with Xaldin, where he learns the rose is connected to the Beast’s cursed form. Saïx also calls Xion a “mistake”. I think he’s referring to himself. He’s angry about his cursed condition, and he blames the mistake he made of having his heart mislead him when he was a human.

“Yes. It seems that unless he completes some task before the rose withers, he’ll remain a beast forever.” Xaldin smirked at his own cleverness. “A beastly curse and a rose… Heh-heh. This will prove useful.”

“How?”

“Trying to explain it to you would be a waste of time. Let’s go, Roxas. No more dallying.” With that nonanswer, Xaldin left the chambers.

Roxas dallied anyway, peering through the doors again. The rose, the thing he treasures, is his weakness?

Nope, I don’t get it. I wonder if Axel will know what it all means…?

And yet again, it’s emphasized that Axel will understand what this all means.

Day 150: Dealing with Xion

Author: Saïx

As expected, the Duplicate is starting to show its limits. The Program showed promise, but a puppet is just a puppet: something to be toyed with until it breaks. I am utterly at a loss as to what Roxas and Axel see in that thing. How best to dispose of it merits my consideration going forward.

Saïx’s journal entry for the day shows that he wants Xion disposed of. He has an issue with puppets, since they are just things to be toyed with until they break. In Kingdom Hearts, whenever puppets are brought up, it’s usually to do with the fact that they don’t have hearts. Kairi was compared to a puppet. And Riku tried to use Pinocchio to restore her heart.

When asked about a deleted Pinocchio level, Nomura stated: “Set in a circus and playing off the story of Pinocchio, a puppet with a heart, and the Nobodies who possess no heart, we planned for a sad episode with Roxas and Xion looking for hope for themselves”.

“Xion’s exposure to Roxas effected a transfer of its power, just as we had hoped,” Xemnas continued. “Had things stopped there, Xion would have been an unequivocal success. But then, through Roxas, Sora himself began to shape ‘it’ into ‘her,’ giving Xion a sense of identity.”

Sora’s influence was more potent than they’d accounted for. That would be the power of a Keyblade wielder, apparently.

“Our plan seemed like a failure at this point, but then it occurred to me. Xion is keeping Sora’s memories trapped by claiming them as her own.”

Why does Saïx call her a “failure” and “defective” all the time? I think it’s referring to the fact that she did stray from Xemnas’ expectations, and at first he thought the Replica Program was a failure. And the reason was that was Xion had developed a sense of self—an identity of her own. This conversation takes place on day 299 ~Sora~.

“Losing Vexen was an unexpected blow to the plan—but even more unexpected is how this particular replica came to form its own identity as Xion.”

Xemnas paused there, and Saïx filled the silence. “That did catch us off guard. If anything like that happened in Castle Oblivion, it was never reported. Was it, Axel?”

This conversation takes place on Day 354 ~Truth~. It deals with the same issue; Vexen’s demise and Xion having a sense of identity.

“Why would you allow a deserter back under our roof?! She should be eradicated!” Xaldin all but bellowed.

“Deserter? You’re giving it too much credit,” Saïx said with a pointed look at Xaldin. “It’s a broken specimen to be collected for study.”

And look at how Saïx refers to Xion on this day. She’s a “broken specimen”. It’s projection. He’s angry because that’s exactly how Isa was viewed. Like a puppet. He was toyed with until he broke and no longer had a sense of self. Xion reminds him of Isa. And I think Saïx resents Isa more than anyone for being so weak and foolish. Trying to protect what was precious to him got him into his cursed situation.

“What is it, Roxas? You have a mission to complete. You’ve spent enough time worrying about a puppet.”

That word again. Roxas turned a furious glare on Saïx. “Xion is one of us!”

Saïx broke into a low chuckle, the first time Roxas had seen him so much as smile. “One of us? Don’t be absurd. Just count the chairs. When have we ever been more than thirteen?”

Xion developed a sense of self. She wasn’t supposed to do that, so he constantly calls her defective for it. It’s because he’s jealous. Even a puppet has a sense of self. But not him. I suspect that the meeting about Xion developing her own identity happened on Day 119, when Saïx started to hate her. And I think Xigbar was rubbing in his face how “broken” and “defective” Isa was.

151 ~Distress~

Then Axel realized he hadn’t seen her at the clock tower, yesterday or the day before. He stared at the wisps of darkness swirling away to nothing in her wake.

Saïx noticed his gaze. “Surely you’ve heard?”

Axel was baffled. “Heard what? I just haven’t talked to her since I got back, that’s all.”

“Hmph…” Saïx seemed to regret saying anything. “Just that we know for sure she is defective.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Saïx’s grudge got worse when she couldn’t beat Riku.

“Follow him,” Saïx ordered. “But do not engage him. The last to try was Xion, and it ended poorly.”

“She lost…?” Maybe that was why she looked so glum, Axel thought.

“Though it just means that thing is a failure.”

“I think calling Xion a failure is going too far if her opponent was Riku, you know.” When Axel had last encountered him, Riku had not been all that impressive. Since then, however, he’d immersed himself in power. The power of darkness—of Xehanort. Riku’s mastery over it had been far from complete at Castle Oblivion, but that was some time ago. There was no telling how strong he might be now.

“…Is it?” Saïx retorted.

“Well, why are you—?”

Saïx promptly cut off Axel’s question. “Go to whichever world you want to try first. Just track him down, find out what he’s doing. That may give us some clues leading to the hero of light.”

Guess I won’t get any more answers today, Axel thought. But seriously, what is your problem with Xion?

But I think he was just looking for any excuse to berate her. Xion was never expected to beat Riku. Xemnas wanted her to fight him so she could absorb some of his memories. She wasn’t a failure because she lost. Saïx’s issue was personal.

Day 152 ~The Wrong Buttons~

“Did something happen?”

“Not really…”

He’s a bad liar. I can pick it straight away. But, I guess that isn’t concrete proof that something did happen. Something must have happened that Roxas didn’t understand the reason for either, thought Axel. An emotion somewhere in my memories.

Xion started avoiding Roxas. I think Isa did the same with Lea, which is why Axel says he remembers the feeling. Isa realized that the apprentices were eventually going to try to exploit his weakness, which was Lea. And this is when he told Lea to stop trying to help him, and stop worrying about him. Lea was probably really confused by this.

Day 153 ~Disjointed Days~

Roxas: What kind of missions do you usually work?

Demyx: Me? Recon stuff, mostly.

Roxas: No taking out Heartless?

Demyx: Nah, it’s rare that I do anything that strenuous.

Roxas: But aren’t you expected to?

Demyx: Ha, they know better than that. They wanna keep the machine running, they pick the right tool for the job.

Roxas: And that’s me? The right tool for the job?

Demyx: Something happen in there, man?

Roxas: No, I just– Nothing. Our mission’s complete. Let’s RTC.

This theme of “having expectations” didn’t really have much to do with Roxas in the grand scheme of things. But it did have to do with Xion and Saïx’s feud. Xion was sent on a tough mission, but wasn’t meeting expectations (in Saïx’s view).

Day 153: This Is Gonna Be a Hit!

Author: Demyx

I’ve got me a new hit single! X-face is always barking at me to work, but what’s he expect me to do against a monster like that? I mean, stop and think about skill sets when you divide up the labor already!

The word he used most often to insult her was “failure”. Isa was probably called a failure too. Xehanort probably had high expectations for him, if he was indeed Subject X.

The fierce light in Terra’s heart also empowered the darkness within him. The stronger the light, the deeper the shadow, and that would be Terra’s path into the darkness.

Isa probably had a high emotional capacity which drew the apprentices’ attention. It was the source of his light. He’s empathetic and caring. But high emotional sensitivity can give rise to strong negative emotions, as well. Like fear. The apprentices thought they could exploit this, and turn his fear into darkness.

Vanitas closed his eyes as the emotion swept over him. This is a memory from Ventus’s heart. And it’s my feeling, too.

Fear could at times give rise to terrible power.

Yes, fear could sharpen into rage and in turn become strength, just as Xehanort had said. However, this time, the emotion gave birth to something far more special.

But they probably weren’t having much success getting him to fall to darkness. They probably made him fight, and he would either lose or collapse from the fear. He wasn’t really cut out for what they were doing to him. But…they knew his weakness.

Day 171 ~Love~

Before returning to the castle, Roxas saw Beast, wounded from protecting what he cares for, with Belle there to care for him.

Love had grown between the two. Xaldin declared the power of love to be worthless. Roxas asked what that power was, but Xaldin said that explaining the concept to a Nobody with no heart would be pointless, and departed.

Left alone, Roxas contemplated what love might be. At their usual spot, Roxas asked Axel what love is, but got no answers. Perhaps completing Kingdom Hearts and gaining a heart would offer some answers. Roxas watched the sunset with these thoughts on his mind.

The next day where Saïx’s issue with Xion is brought up is Day 171. The Beast was injured protecting Belle.

Day 171: What’s Love?

On my mission at Beast’s Castle, Xaldin told me about “love” and the special power it has over people. I tried to ask Axel about it, but his explanation didn’t make any sense to me. Every time I ask him about this kind of thing, he tells me I need a heart to understand. It’s like he’s dodging the questions.

And Xaldin is involved yet again. Saïx’s whole issue with Xion is related to the themes brought up in Beast’s Castle. Like the power love has over people.

Day 171: The No. i Project

Author: Saïx

Xion failed to complete its mission. If this continues, destroying it and using the next Replica as the Duplicate would undoubtedly yield a higher-grade copy. No. i was among the initial lot, which naturally raises questions about its capabilities. At present, it is nothing short of broken. I cannot fathom why Xemnas would want to keep it.

This is the day that Saïx declares her utterly broken and he doesn’t know why Xemnas wants to keep her. If anything, I think Isa must have been considered broken. He probably collapsed and wouldn’t wake up after the apprentices tried to exploit his weakness. He was trying to protect Lea out of love, went into his berserker trance, passed out, and was thought to be broken.

While he had succeeded in birthing Vanitas, Ventus had remained unconscious, broken after the removal of his heart. Though Master Xehanort had initially tried to discard Ventus after he failed to awaken, for some reason the boy had come to his senses.

There’s only one character in the series who is constantly referred to as “broken”. And that’s Ventus. And considering the parallels between Ven/Lea and Axel/Roxas, it wouldn’t surprise me if that was the intended idea. Isa was broken similar to Ventus. He suffered mental collapse, but they realize that Isa’s heart actually survived. He’s a very unique subject. And then he’s made into a vessel. The very next day, Xion collapses and Saïx reacts very harshly.

Day 172 ~Sound of The Surf~

This was the second time Xion had fallen into a deep sleep. Was she sick? Roxas’s chest ached with anxiety.

Saïx didn’t let him get far. “And where do you think you’re going, Roxas?”

He stopped short and turned. “To see Xion.”

“What about your mission?”

“Don’t worry; I’ll do it.”

Obviously, I’m not skipping work, Roxas thought. But right now—

“There’s nothing you can do even if you do go. Xion will not wake up.”

“That’s not the point!” Roxas snapped. “I should still be with her!”

Saïx didn’t have to talk that way. Maybe Roxas wouldn’t be able to do anything besides look in on her. That didn’t matter—he wanted to see how she was. Why was Saïx being so obtuse?

There were a hundred things he wanted to say. But the words wouldn’t come out.

Saïx sounded vaguely disgusted. “What do you care for a broken, defective failure?”

One of the dreams Xion has before she wakes up from this long period of sleep is Sora sacrificing himself for Kairi. It definitely sounded like Saïx was projecting his issues onto Xion.

“Don’t call her that!” Roxas stalked up to him, glaring furiously.

“I’ll call that thing whatever I want. How we deal with Xion is no business of yours.”

“I don’t remember asking you,” Roxas retorted.

“Look at you…” Saïx shook his head faintly. “All up in arms over a creature that shouldn’t exist.”

“What, like a Nobody? We’re all Nobodies!”

Why won’t Saïx understand? Is it because he’s a Nobody? But so am I!

“You have nothing to worry about,” said Saïx. “Xion may be beyond repair, but that does not affect your standing with us.”

“My sta—? Argh, you’re like a broken record!” Roxas fumed. “I’ll do my mission later.”

He turned his back on Saïx and sprinted away.

Saïx said that Xion is beyond repair but that wouldn’t affect Roxas’s standing with them. It’s almost like he wanted to convince himself that Isa’s failures don’t affect HIS standing with the Organization. Which is how he probably felt when Xigbar taunted him.

Once he’d caught his breath, Roxas opened the door to Xion’s room.

It was identical to his own, furnished with only a bed and a closet, but somehow it felt chilly. He shivered.

She was definitely asleep, but he went to the bed and murmured her name. “Xion…”

Of course, she didn’t reply. Her slumber was so deep and quiet that for a moment, Roxas doubted she was breathing. Unnerved, he reached out and held his hand close to her mouth.

Oh, good. I can feel it. He pulled his hand back, clenching it tight. Why did Saïx have to say those things?

Defective… Failure.

Saïx is so much more harsh with Xion than with me. I have no idea what’s going through his head.

Even Roxas emphasized that Saïx is so much harsher with Xion.

“So, Saïx, what am I doing to—? Oh, boy. Awfully early for such a bad mood, don’t you think?”

Saïx had whirled to face him with a rather pronounced scowl.

“…Nobodies do not have ‘moods’ to be ruined,” he said at length.

“Well, sure, technically…”

Of course, with no hearts, they couldn’t have moods or fits of temper. If something went frustratingly awry, their faces might reveal shadows of remembered emotion, no more.

Still, for a remembered shadow, that was a mean glower on Saïx’s face. “Did I miss something?” Axel wondered.

“Xion has collapsed again.”

Now Axel frowned. He sure had missed something. “Did she get hurt or what?”

“No,” Saïx replied, any hint of expression vanishing from his face. “It’s just that the failure was functioning better than expected until recently.”

And Axel could tell that Saïx seemed genuinely angry at her, which is strange for him.

“‘The failure’? Is that what we’re calling her now?”

Saïx’s estimation of Xion seemed to have plummeted lower than ever. True, she’d lost badly against the Organization impostor—but that was Riku. Defeat was all but inevitable against him.

Failing to carry out a mission was unacceptable, of course, but not impossible. She could always challenge Riku again. If the mission was so unsuited to her in the first place, though, Saïx ought to know better as the one in charge of handing out assignments. And Axel was beginning to suspect at least some of the blame lay with him.

Saïx held some particular grudge against Xion…

He said she was functioning better than expected. But the mission was unsuited for her abilities. They’re the same concepts brought up when Demyx goes with you to Olympus Coliseum. I would say that Saïx hates her because she reminds him of Isa.

“I’m sure she’s fine.” The best Axel could offer was empty words of comfort.

Roxas closed his eyes for a moment, as if he had to say something terribly important, and took a breath that he let out in a sigh. “Saïx called her ‘broken.’”

Roxas was afraid she’d never wake up. He didn’t know why Saïx hated her. Axel wasn’t worried about Xion yet. He assumed she’d be fine.

“That’s not the problem. In any case, I don’t intend to speak about the failure.”

“Failure, failure… You don’t have to say it like that, do you?”

“I thought I told you not to get too involved.” Saïx swung his chair, turning his back on Axel. Axel could feel nothing but a will of rejection from that back.

Saïx went on and on about her being a failure.

“Seriously, though, Saïx—”

But Saïx barely spared him a glance and pushed Axel’s hand from his shoulder. “Xion is not qualified to be counted among us.”

Chilled by the flat rejection in that low voice, Axel stepped back. “Not qualified? How?”

Saïx still didn’t look at him. “See for yourself. I have nothing more to tell you.”

If Saïx was saying that, he probably meant it. Axel stared at the stubborn set of his shoulders.

Both of them had changed.

“Wonder which one of us is more different now,” Axel said under his breath.

Just for an instant, he saw a twitch in Saïx’s shoulders. But he wasn’t about to hold his breath for more. Axel showed himself out.

And he coldly rejects Axel, too. I do think Saïx resents Axel for the power he had over Isa.

Day 193 ~Memories~

They returned to the silent halls of the vast castle. Axel was carrying Xion with Roxas glued to his side. Her face was so pale it seemed translucent—not a comforting sight.

“Did it break again? That didn’t take long.”

Only Saïx would make such a callous remark. Rage surged up in Roxas, and he spun around. “Don’t call her an ‘it’!”

He was on the verge of throwing a punch, but Axel stepped in between them, still holding the unconscious Xion. He didn’t look at Saïx, but he did have one thing to say.

“Keep your mouth shut.”

Roxas had never heard him speak so coldly to anyone before.

Saïx made no reply.

He spent one more moment glaring daggers at Saïx before following Axel out of the room.

Other than being a failure, the other insult Saïx used the most was “broken”.

Xehanort shook his head quietly at the question. “I went astray, Eraqus. I once sought the χ-Blade, but my efforts to create it only destroyed Ventus’s heart. His memory was lost along with his heart, and now he is an empty husk. It pains me to see him so broken, and I am old. My guilt will eventually crush me.”

When she didn’t wake up after a while, Axel actually started to become afraid as well. I think that’s why Axel was so hash to Saïx. The situation reminded him of the past when Isa wouldn’t wake up, and how afraid he was. It also reminded him that Isa collapsed because he was trying to protect him. Roxas passed out because he was afraid he’d never see Axel again. The parallel was deliberate. Isa was afraid of losing Lea. Axel sees how much Saïx has changed, and it upset him a lot. He was so upset by this particular situation, he said Roxas and Xion were his new best friends.

Day 322 ~The Program~

Beast: No… I won’t believe it. He must have been lying. Belle, betray me? He said she would take everything from me. That’s not possible. I trust her!

Roxas: He, who? Xaldin? It sounds like Xaldin made some kind of contact. Then he might still be somewhere in the castle…

This is the day Xaldin makes contact with the Beast, leading to the plot of KH2.

Beside the Beast, who had once been a handsome prince, stood a man in a black cloak.

“It’s time you dealt with the girl. She’s scheming to take everything you have,” said Xaldin, his hood pulled low to hide his face. “Your castle, your treasures…and then your very life.”

The Beast hung his head. His castle was a desolate place, ruled by a monster. “Trust no one. Feed your anger. Only rage will keep you strong!”

“I’ve had enough of strength. There’s only one thing I want…” The Beast gazed, unmoving, at the glass bell jar around a single red rose.

What he wanted was—

“Hah,” Xaldin spat. “To love and be loved in return? Who could ever love a beast?”

The Beast whirled again, his cape rippling. He glared and let out a roar of fury. “Good. Let your anger rise!”

With that, Xaldin vanished.

The Beast was told Belle would betray him and take everything from him.

“Traitors like you deserve to lose everything,” Saïx said.

It’s probably why Saïx was so angry with Axel in KH2, after he left. In Saïx’s view, Axel took everything from him, then betrayed him.

Saïx gave him a cruel grin. “You will lose everything!” Axel grunted and collapsed to his knees in pain from the direct hit. After only one strike, he felt his consciousness fading. His vision was going black.

Saïx displays a viciousness towards Axel that is stronger than anyone else. He kept saying that he would lose everything as he tried to kill him. Saïx blames Axel for everything that happened to him. Isa’s love for Lea got him turned into a monster. Yet deep down, Isa’s heart still longs for love. This infuriates Saïx.

Day 352 ~Sunset~

Saïx had notice the exchange, too. He flicked a glance toward Axel and then turned to Roxas. “How are you feeling, Roxas?”

“…Same as always.”

Saïx smirked at the reply—and a chill ran through Axel at how vicious it was.

The only other person he was so vicious towards was Xion. I think it’s because both of them remind him of his weakness as a human.

“Can’t you just let things run their course?” Saïx complained.

“What course? Whose plans am I ruining, exactly?” Axel retorted, still staring at the empty space where Roxas’s portal swirled into nothing.

“The Organization’s. I trust you.”

Axel let out a low chuckle. “Yeah? Because your heart tells you to?”

“Just the memory of it. But if you continue to interfere, I’ll have to overwrite that memory with everything I’ve learned as a Nobody.”

“…Should I take that as a threat?”

“More or less. Keep it in mind.” Finished with the conversation, Saïx walked away.

Axel didn’t move for a while.

The dialogue is similar to the Beast as well. He trusts Axel…for now…

Day 352: What I Must Do

Author: Xion

Riku gave me this time. Axel told me to spend it thinking for myself. The Organization is determined to erase either me or Roxas. They’ll never allow us to coexist. I love Roxas and Axel. I’m sure Saïx would scoff at that. Call it a trick of my artificial memories. But the time I spent on that clock tower was real.I wish the three of us could stay together, just like this, forever. But I have to end this. I’ll never forget today’s sunset. Even if Roxas and Axel do, I won’t forget.

Xion says she loves Roxas and Axel and Saïx would scoff at that. I think it’s to emphasize the difference between Isa and Saïx. Isa’s motivations were actually just like Xion’s.

Day 353 ~Resolve~

The Organisation tried to annihilate either Roxas or Xion. I’m thinking about what I should do, what I want to do. I want to know a way to save both Roxas and Xion. I want to respect both their wishes. I wondered all night whether there’s really and truly no way to do that—and, of course, I couldn’t find the answer.

This is a really important day. It’s all about a friend’s resolve, just like Day 75 ~Inseparable~. Axel knew the Organization wanted to get rid of either Roxas or Xion. He wanted to find a way to respect their wishes, and also save them.

“Our plan does not require two of them. You understand this, don’t you? One is plenty.”

When you say ‘we,’ who do you mean? Axel wanted to ask suddenly, giving a bitter smile instead. We—Is ‘we’ the Organisation itself? Or is ‘we’ just Saïx and me? I don’t really know any more.

“Think good and hard about it.”

I am thinking. I’m thinking so hard that I’m sick of it. I’m thinking so hard that I just want you to tell me the answer. He wanted to tell him so, but Saïx had already started walking towards the lobby.

It’s just like that back is rejecting me. And, I’m realizing that my memories of the past are too different from the thoughts I’m having now. Why the hell am I here? I don’t really know any more. What the hell do I want to do?

Saïx is telling Axel that they don’t need both, and Axel realizes how different the present situation is from his memories.

“Are the three of us going out today?”

Without waiting for Xion, Saïx was the one to answer him again. “You’re alone for your mission.”

“…I can’t swap with Xigbar, can I?” Roxas suggested.

“How extraordinarily childish you seem. So you can’t do anything if Axel isn’t with you?” Saïx went on to say. Roxas bowed his head, and bit his lip.

“That’s not… true.”

I am sure Saïx’s words to Roxas on this day were intended to be very meaningful. It wasn’t just a throwaway line to show that he is douchey. He asks Roxas if he’s powerless without Axel and calls him childish. I get the sense that Lea always tried to take care of Isa, like Genie did for Al and Roxas and Axel did for Xion. Isa was dependent on Lea and felt powerless without him. And it’s why he didn’t want Lea to get hurt because of him. It sounds like Saïx remembers how Isa used to be, and is disgusted by it, fueling his hateful comments to Roxas. It’s all projection with him.

Xion’s true wish—and Roxas’ wish—is for the three of us to be together. That wish isn’t something I can grant, not anymore. So, I want to at least keep the promise I made. Axel looked at Roxas, still expressionless.

On this day, Axel respects Xion’s resolve and lets her leave.

“Did you find the right answer?” he asked her gently.

Xion nodded. “Yeah. I did. I’m on the verge of losing everything I ever cared about. So tell me…” She looked away for a moment, then back up into his eyes. “Riku, tell me what I need to do.”

It’s okay. I’m sure of it now. I just want to do what I can to protect Roxas. If I go back to Sora, his memories should return, and then at least Roxas will have Axel.

I’m the only one who has to disappear… And then they’ll be okay.

Xion wants to protect Roxas, and was ready for her fate if it meant that she was the only one who had to disappear. I think Isa wanted to protect Lea the same way. Which is why he has the Moon Rabbit as his Mystery Gear.

Day 356 ~Place to Belong~

“If you return your memories to him, you’ll disappear.” Naminé, too, chose her words carefully.

“You never had your own memories in the first place—they’re all his, and that’s what connects you to others. So no one will remember you when you’re gone.”

“I’m ready. But, I don’t know what I need to do. That’s why I came to see you.” Xion exhaled.

Xion wanted to make the decision that was best for everyone.

Naminé truly wanted to protect Roxas, too, just like she’d promised Riku she would look after Sora. It was her heartfelt wish, so to speak.

She gave Xion another smile. “If you’re ready, we can go see Sora.”

She was ready to disappear.

“In the beginning, I thought that was best too. But it’s depressing, you know. I can’t swallow it, there has to be something.”

“But this is for everyone’s sake.”

Everyone…? Who do you mean by everyone? Us? Or others?

“Don’t say selfish crap like that. Every last one of…”

“This is for the best,” Xion said.

I hate that sort of thing. There’s no such this as ‘this is for the best’. There’s, I want to, and I don’t want to, that’s all. I learned that in my human time.

But Axel couldn’t accept it. He said he learned that lesson back when he was a human. So, presumably with Isa.

“You’ll be destroyed, you know that, right?” To be accurate—she’ll disappear.

But, Xion readied the Keyblade. “…No holding back now, Axel.”

“Don’t mess around!” Axel yelled. Me, hold back, she says? This late in the game? “You…! Don’t treat me like a joke!” Axel wrapped his hand in flames and made his chakrams appear. “I’ve decided! No matter how many times you guys run away I’ll bring you back, no matter how many times it takes!” he wished—he shouted, he wailed, he vowed.

I’ll bring them back no matter how many times it takes. No matter how many times. For my own sake, for your sakes. No matter how strong Xion tries to make her power, I don’t think I’ll lose. Because, I’m strong.

He wouldn’t respect her resolve if it meant losing a friend.

Luxord: Perhaps he was ready for it. Perhaps he put his existence on the line and won what he’d been longing for.

Xigbar: Wait a minute. How would that even be possible? We don’t exist, remember? What you’re saying goes against the laws of nature.

Luxord: Then perhaps he bet his NON-existence. Either way, he came out a winner. Oh, Axel. A grifter to the end.

Saïx: That’s absurd. He won nothing and is nothing. He couldn’t stand the emptiness of being without a heart, and that led to his demise. He was foolish and weak.

Saïx was disgusted that Roxas was powerless without Axel. Maybe the same thing was going through his mind here, too. It’s actually Isa who he finds foolish and weak. He was ready to accept his demise. Isa sacrificed himself for Lea, and it caused him to wind up in his miserable condition. He is disgusted and ashamed of his past self. And a part of him is actually sad that Axel is gone and he HATES it.

“Maybe she’s being threatened by that guy…,” muttered Roxas, and Saïx snorted.

“Hah! Your human-like way of thinking is so nauseating.”

The fact that Isa was so different than Saïx was the root cause of all his nastiness. At least that’s what I think.