#when will war be over??? honestly consequences of my own actions there rip me | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

whirlybirbs · 3 years

Text

( another gif by @unearthlydust from this beautiful set ! )

✪ — VACANT MIRRORS ; B.B. | 3/?

summary: you find out about bucky’s past, he finds out about yours.

pairing: bucky barnes / f!reader

tags: set before & during tfatws, friends to lovers, therapy positive, trauma healing techniques, ptsd mentions, the normalization of anxiety disorders, and a good ol’ slow burn

word count: 6.4k, va va voom

a/n: oh look out here comes the plot, charactization, and growth between to pals who are maybe starting to feel a little something begin to take shape. but ignore that, there’s danger afoot. no spoilers for tfatws here!

( PREVIOUS | AO3 | MASTERLIST | NEXT )

“You know I have to ask these questions. It’s part of the check-in.”

“Yeah,” you fire back, flat enough to warrant Dr. Hart’s scowl to grow. You can’t see it over the phone, but you know the way her words whip around you means she’s upset, “I know.”

“If you’re not following the action plan set out by the judge,” she begins, leaning forward as her tone drops into a scalding hot sort of seriousness on the other end, “You will go to prison. You know this. So, do you want to spend ten years of your life behind bars? Are you trying to get yourself locked up? Come on.”

You can’t look up from your computer’s screen. Or maybe you can, but right now, there’s a dangerous mixture of anger and guilt and frustration boiling under your skin.

“I’m trying.”

“Trying isn’t good enough for the GRC,” Dr. Hart snaps, “You know this. They’re giving you a chance — they know you’re talented. You have the ability here to go straight, to earn a living, to finally make up for those years of blackhat work.”

“Everything I did,” you fire back, ripping your eyes up to meet Dr. Hart’s, “Was for others. I didn’t get a fucking penny.”

“You’re not Robin Hood,” she shakes her head as her tone softens, “We all make mistakes. But, everything has a consequence. You know this. And this conversation isn’t even considering the other charges.”

“You know the extortion case would never hold up in court.”

Dr. Hart sighs raggedly. “And I don’t intend on ever seeing it play out in court, because you’re going to follow the conditions of your pardon.”

“The GRC is a bunch of fascists—”

“Enough,” she snaps, “If you want to go and appeal your case with the judge, be my guest, but I can almost guarantee you’ll be perp-walked out of that Federal courtroom in cuffs.”

She’s right.

Dr. Hart is right.

Your knee is bouncing, up and down and up and down. You’re wound up around yourself, arms crossed tight, brows knotted. With a shaky exhale, you just nod. You breathe, and you remind yourself that she’s right. She’s right, she’s right, she’s right. It’s not worth it. Dipping yourself back into that world, the layer of the web beneath the surface, isn’t worth it.

The GRC is your way out.

Just be a good little girl and do as you're told.

“So, I’m going to ask you again,” Dr. Hart begins, pen clicking alive on the other end of the phone call, “...Have you engaged in any illegal activities online in the last seven days?”

◦ ◦ ◦ ◦

Inessa Sidrova’s photo stares up at him from its place on the speckled marble counter, stacked neatly next to his notebook where her name is scrawled in chicken scratch — between two other names: Zemo and Henrikson.

His laptop, technically on loan from the FBI, sits beside both.

(When Barnes had agreed in that closed doors meeting to the conditions of his pardon, a certain FBI agent by the name of Jimmy Woo had been rather insistent that Barnes needed a personal computer in order to carry out his portion of the conditions insofar as tracking down the remaining HYDRA pawns in the States. Woo had also insisted, to the agreement of Dr. Raynor, that a personal computer would help better acclimate Barnes to the new world he’d been dropped into.

Woo was even nice enough to take an hour of his own time to show Bucky enough to get started — but was whisked away for some investigation out in New Jersey.)

Bucky rubs the cold vibranium of his left palm into his eye, then exhales long and slow.

He’s done all he can. And still, no leads on the woman.

Rounding the kitchen island, he digs his cell from his pocket. He goes back to staring at that text — the one he’d laughed out loud at the moment it lit up his phone — and he can feel that ol’ bite of anxiousness creep into his arms. His fingertips tingle.

On the television, a laugh track plays over a clip of The Three Stooges. Blue eyes flick upward, and he partially wishes a ladder would put him out of his own self-induced misery.

Outside, the antics of a Saturday night in Brooklyn roll on.

In the last few days he’s parsed through his thoughts enough to realize it’s not telling you that scares him — no, it’s telling you the truth. The whole truth. All of it. After all, the good comes with a lot of bad; the sort of bad you chain in a chest and sink in the ocean. And Bucky finds that, even still, the good is questionable at best. The good is… small. Microscopic. Completely and totally tainted by the fuckin’ decades of brainwashed, war dog bullshit.

He groans and drops his head back against the wall.

He tries, for the next twenty minutes, to formulate some sort of reply to your text message. But, half the battle is figuring out what to say, and the other half is actually typing it out. This whole flip phone purchase was really starting to sting like regret — and as much as Bucky loved technology back before the war, and all the magical possibilities it held, he can’t help but feel like an ornery old man now.

It’s the change. Steve was right. Too much change.

He can’t find the space button and he can’t figure out how to delete the random 3 he’d accidentally punched in — so, with a grumpy huff of disapproval, Bucky simply dials your number.

You pick up on the third ring.

“Don’t you know it’s Saturday?” your voice is a welcomed sound, “The History Channel is running a bunch of old war documentaries you might enjoy, grandpa.”

Bucky snorts, fiddling with the hem of his hoodie. “What makes you think I’d wanna watch that shit?”

“Everyone knows that old men like two things,” your voice is light, half-distracted from the sounds of it, “World War Two, or grilling. And honestly, you don’t strike me as the grilling type.”

“I like a good burger.”

“Yeah?” you snort, and Bucky can hear you shift your phone from one ear to the other, “Is that why you called? To hint at being hungry?”

“No,” he exhales, looking out the window, “No, I was trying to reply to your text but I can’t find the fuckin’ space button. Calling is easier.”

“Oh my god—”

“Shut up,” he barks with a laugh, sitting up, “Don’t even start — are you hungry?”

“Almost always, why?”

“Got any plans tonight?”

“... You do know who you’re asking, right?”

Bucky grins, a little boyish and a little tired. “Good point. Loser.”

“Oh, shut up. You’re the one calling me to hangout,” you snort, leaning to prop your feet up on your desk and lean back. Your chair wheels backwards, far enough for you to get a good look down the street. It’s a nice night, cool enough, and it seems like the whole borough is awake, “But, I’m only hanging out if you tell me what the fuck is up with court mandated therapy. I can’t wait another three days.”

Your anxiety has been pricked the last few days over it.

“... Do I get to pick the place?”

You roll your eyes. “Fine.”

“Great,” he exhales tightly, “I hope you’re in the mood for sushi.”

◦ ◦ ◦ ◦

Izzy’s is busy, but there’s privacy in the bustle.

Bucky had buzzed your apartment’s ringer and you’d flown down the stairs, looking… alive. The sort of alive that was new — like a fresh bud beginning to bloom in spring. It had made him grin, and he’d watched you push a tress of hair behind your ear as you decided it was warm enough for no jacket tonight. The light of the crosswalk sign lit you up like a star.

He was sweating.

Dr. Raynor was right — that was it, of course it was — that it was getting too warm for his usual outfit. So, he’d settled on the next best thing: a sweatshirt that was big enough and black enough that he could bury himself in it. His hands are tucked neatly into the pockets.

No gloves tonight.

He feels naked.

He shoulders the door and holds it open with the toe of his boot as you duck towards the back of the restaurant. There’s a booth in the back by a large bamboo plant — you weave through the place with a new found confidence. There’s anxiousness in your shoulders but it melts when you look back at Bucky. Like a watchful guard dog, he nods.

You settle into the booth, toss your jacket in the corner, and smirk.

“I get out sometimes,” Bucky remarks before you can even say anything. He shifts in the booth and reaches up to scratch his cheek with his right hand, “Not often, but I do.”

“I didn’t say anything...”

“You were going to,” he nearly smirks back, his brows raised as he adjusts the chopsticks on the table, “I know that look.”

You snort, nudging his boot under the table. That works a huffed little laugh out the man across from you. Almost immediately you can sense anxiousness rolling off him — it’s the tightness in his mouth that gives him away, the way he’s fussing with the soy sauce dish and trying to get it to line up perfectly with the marbling on the table. Worry flashes in your eyes.

“Bucky.”

He raises his head.

“You alright?” you ask quietly.

“You have to promise not to flip out.”

Your brows knot tightly — but before you can even question what the fuck he means, he’s casually dropping his other hand onto the table.

And you almost don’t notice at first. Your brain fills the gaps in, figuring it’s his glove. But, then you blink and his hand catches the light and you realize it’s not leather. It’s glittering obsidian, garnished with gold, and it’s moving. Flexing. Seams bending and warping and there’s a gentle hum coming from the appendages and you squint because he’s tapping his fingers on the table and there’s a metallic tik-tik-tik that meets your ears.

Then, your eyes jump to his face.

He looks pained.

You’re confused.

And then you’re not.

“You’re —”

You slap a hand over your own mouth. You have to promise not to flip out. Your eyes are eighty miles wide and your jaw is falling open and you’re leaning forward, whispering in a rushed tone because what the fuck.

“You’re that Bucky?!”

Oh, you feel stupid.

The hostess appears, suddenly. You snap backwards in the booth, Bucky tucks his hand away, and you both muster forced smiles to the waitress. She’s young. Pretty. Her name-tag says Sarah.

She asks about drinks.

Bucky gets a beer.

Slowly, you knock your knuckles against the table and drop your head into your hand. The look on your face is exhausted. “Do you guys have Mai Tais?”

The answer is yes. And you’re glad. Because you’re going to fucking need it.

The two of you are quiet until the drinks come — avoiding one anothers gazes for completely different reasons. Bucky is sheepish, a bit mortified, like he always is when people recognize him. It’s why he shaved his fuckin’ head. It worked well enough but… the arm was usually a dead giveaway.

Meanwhile, you’re wondering if you could shave your own head and disappear. Because there’s no easy way to explain the weird elation swirling in your chest right now.

Bucky’s first to speak. His beer is in his good hand. He inhales quickly, eyes darting to you as he leans forward and whispers incredulously. He speaks quickly and his words are pointed with an edge of curiosity.

“...What do you mean ‘that Bucky’?”

“Y’know, I knew there was a reason you acted like you needed a senior citizen discount. And you know exactly what I mean,” you rush out all while waving your Mai Tai and jabbing the side with the umbrella towards him, “Listen, this is a lot to take in, Mr. Avenger.”

“I am not an Avenger—”

“You helped reverse the Snap. You’re the Winter Soldier. That makes you an Avenger—”

Bucky’s shaking his head, eye screwed shut tightly because the sudden equation to his past self being considered a hero is like being socked in the mouth. He stutters over his words and shakes his head more vigorously, like he’s trying not to hear what you’re saying.

“I am not the Winter Soldier. Not anymore. And it’s not like I’m not on the fuckin’ roster, doll—”

You hold a finger up, stopping him there, and take a long sip of your sunset colored drink. You swallow. You exhale. Bucky swigs his beer.

“One, don’t call me doll,” you say curtly, then raise a second finger. You lean in and squint, “Two… Christ, the haircut really makes a big difference, doesn’t it?”

“That’s what everyone keeps saying,” he sighs raggedly, dismissing your scrutiny.

You puff your cheeks out and exhale. Leaning back in the booth, you try not to feel so fucking insane.

“...I can never have you over now.”

Bucky’s brows narrow quickly and his eyes snap to yours. “What?”

“I can’t have you over,” you explain slower with your eyes rooted to the soy sauce in the corner, “Because I don’t think I could ever handle you seeing my signed and framed Captain America poster from his USO tour in 1943.”

Bucky’s face is deadpan. “You’re kidding.”

“I really wish I was,” you gripe, “It’s an original.”

“...You’re a Cap girl,” he says suddenly, leaning back with this look in his eye. It’s less of a question. You can’t pin it down. It looks like he's damn near traumatized.

Bucky thinks — honestly — that this is the cherry on top. Every girl back then was a Cap girl, too. It figures, now, in this new century where he’s making new friends that… as per usual, Steve gets the cake. That fuckin’ pint sized bastard.

He’ll have to tell him about this.

You yank your eyes up to Bucky’s face. His mortification is shifting to surprise to amusement. You’re fast to sit up, mouth opening to fire a retort — but Bucky’s suddenly really enjoying the look of pure horror on your face at the insinuation. He’s smirking. Plain as day. He swigs his beer.

“No, no—” you raise a finger, “No, stop it. Don’t make it fuckin’ weird, Bucky, it’s not like I have his name tattoo’d on my ass. And I knew a girl in college who did.”

His brows rise sharply and you’re finding you’re regretting everything that’s coming out of your mouth.

“Stop looking at me like that,” you guffaw, gesturing for him to show you his hand again, “I wanna see.”

Bucky sighs and plucks his hand from his hoodie pocket.

With a sort of tenderness Bucky wasn’t prepared to handle, you take his metallic hand into your own. There’s an immediate twinge — one that’s procured by flashes of violence from years of being a walking weapon. He breathes, and he reminds himself that this arm is not the same that tethered him to HYDRA all those years ago.

This arm is his, it is not him.

The sensation is different. He isn’t used to anyone touching him like this; he’s used to the feeling of flesh on the other end of a punch, or a throat caught in his palm. Not the gentle pass of your fingers, delicate and purposeful, over his knuckles.

You turn over his hand, eyes alight with curiosity — and Bucky, desperate to stamp out the hotness growing in his gut, moves quickly to flick your nose.

“Ow—”

“Don’t stare,” he says coyly, “It’s rude.”

The waitress is back. His hand is tucked away, and you wrestle the stupid expression off your face long enough to order a plate of assorted maki rolls and some fried tofu. Bucky orders what seems like his usual — shrimp tempura and spicy tuna rolls.

The waitress, Sarah, disappears with a smile.

You’re grinning.

“So… Does this make me the sidekick?” you whisper playfully.

“Shut up,” Bucky laughs, his lips almost darting into a smile.

You cock your head, pushing your chopsticks across the table with a horribly coy look on your face. It’s comical. “...I think this makes me the sidekick.”

“It — stop it — it does not make you the sidekick,” Bucky says slowly as he sips his beer and pins you in the booth across from him, “I’m not a hero. You’d have better luck asking Cap on that one.”

You grow silent. There’s a question hanging on your tongue. You’re wrestling with yourself — Bucky can see that much. He frowns.

“Spit it out, Goose.”

You blink. “Was that a Top Gun reference?”

“You wanted to be the sidekick.”

You wave it off, blinking into your Mai Tai. Your voice is quiet. Even as you speak, there’s a hesitancy akin to walking on eggshells. “What happened to Cap? Is he… alive? He’s gone off the grid. It’s, like, this massive conspiracy theory online.”

“He’s upstate.”

You blink.

“That’s ominous.”

Bucky shrugs. “Someday I’ll take you. It’s… nice.”

You go quiet. You freeze, drink halfway to your mouth. Bucky can’t help but smirk at that. His laugh is more of a scoff than anything.

“Relax, Miss America.”

“Shut up — do you mean that?”

“What, that I think you’re in love with Captain America?”

“No, you bastard, that you’ll take me. To meet him.”

Bucky’s words are easy. They roll off his tongue without a second thought. He feels… okay. Like this part is okay. Not as bad as he thought it could be. His anxiousness isn’t as heavy now. He feels like he isn’t losing you. But then again, he hasn’t gotten to the bad part yet.

“He’s my best friend,” Bucky explains plainly, “And so are you.”

The admission is warm. As easy as breathing. Two months in the making.

“Your only friend,” you say quietly, offering the joke as a cover for the softening tone that dances over your words. It’s affection, you realize, as you mimic his shrug, “But, go on.”

“Thanks for the reminder,” Bucky chirps, “But, yea, I mean it. He’d like you.”

You raise your chin, wiggling a bit in the booth. It’s pride — and as much as Bucky likes the look of it, he can’t handle the ridiculousness that comes along with it. But, it’s sort of comforting. He knows this playfulness, this easiness, it’s all because he’s him. You trust him. In.a way, it strikes Bucky with guilt. There are wall of his still built up high. Maybe they’re slowly coming down, but… he’s like a stray dog, slow to trust.

“Safe to say,” you breathe, “I have a few questions.”

“I figured as much.”

You sip your drink and swallow. You raise a hand. “But — I wanna know the boundaries. I don’t want to… I don’t want to pry about shit I have no business knowing, alright? It’s your life and even if we are friends, I don’t need to know everything.”

The relief is almost immediate. He thumbs the label of his beer.

“Ask anything. But I can’t promise I’ll be able to give you the answers.”

“And I’ll leave it at that,” you say sternly, propping your elbow up on the table and offering your pinky finger, “Until you want to talk about it. Promise.”

He crooks his pinky in yours, squeezing gently. You smile.

Sarah comes back with the food, and then Bucky offers his usual half-exhausted, half-amused smirk.

“You get three questions now. Then, we shut up and eat.”

You fold your hands neatly over themselves, eyeing your food as you try your best to sort out what questions come up with the most urgency. There’s… a lot. I mean, everyone knew about the Avengers — and everyone had their opinions. The Sokovia Accords, Lagos, the Blip… and SHIELD. Years of bullshit culminating around those who were considered the heroes. The kickback usually ended up on everyday citizens like you. After the initial amazement, the reality of it all set in.

But, to Bucky’s point, he wasn’t really an Avenger.

Nowadays, there really wasn’t a team at all. No up-state compound, no leader, no Stark and no Rogers.

You’re sure the GRC will try — that the military will try. Morale and hope and blah, blah, blah.

You narrow your eyes. “How old are you?”

It’s quick. “One hundred and six.”

“How’d they keep you alive that long?”

There’s a wince that flashes across his face like he’s been stabbed with a white hot poker in the ribs. You see a twitch of irritation bubble across his lips. Not with you. No, it’s that this question is still hard for him to answer. Bucky exhales sharply.

“Next question.”

You feel a pang of guilt flare in your chest. You move along.

“Who kept you alive that long?”

“The Russians. HYDRA, if you wanna get specific.”

You exhale and settle on the fact you now have more questions than answers. But, you nod and snatch up your chopsticks. Enough of the twenty questions game.

In all honesty, it’s not like Bucky’s existence was common knowledge. The Winter Soldier was known mostly, sure, to those who had floated in the same circles as him when he was nothing but a rabid cur on a choke chain. He can’t help but be a bit thankful for the minor erasure of his new self — sure, in the eyes of the U.S. government he was a high-level threat to be reintegrated as soon as possible and surveyed at all times. But, to the average New Yorker, he was just another person. Everyone was so used to seeing the heroes in their costumes with their bigger than life personas and…

Bucky was just Bucky.

Even he didn’t really know who that was. He was starting to.

His pardon had come with some flak from some of the more political news outlets but… somehow, the details of the Winter Soldier’s exact crimes were being kept silent. Probably to avoid panic. And, even then, the connection between the newly alive James Buchanan Barnes and The Winter Soldier hadn’t been made yet in the public eye. He was glad.

The haircut definitely helped.

It’s like he was a walking classified redaction.

Bucky has a sushi roll in his mouth when he finally speaks. “For such a Captain American fan, I’m surprised you didn’t recognize me.”

“Oh, you’re really not gonna let that go, huh?” you say as you chew, covering your mouth. You swallow and waggle your chopsticks at him, “Listen, it’s been a while since I’ve… y’know, had my Avengers phase. That was years ago. It was at its peak when I worked for SHIELD. And besides, you’re kinda new to the whole superhero scene.”

Bucky frowns. “You worked for SHIELD...?”

“For a year,” you say tightly, “Back before the collapse.”

“Only a year?”

“It was for my graduate program,” you wave it off, “I won out on the most competitive internship NYU had to offer. I was working within their cybersecurity division. I will say I spent more time trying to sort of email phishing scams than anything else, though. I’m sure they saw my record and wanted to keep me away from the juicy stuff.”

Bucky squints.

You offer a sheepish shrug.

“I got into trouble when I was younger,” you sip your drink and sigh, “I always liked computers. I used to spend all my time on forum sites just… reading and talking to people and figuring out how these sites actually worked, so learning how to write my own code was just the next step. When I was fifteen, I learned how to tap phones. At sixteen, I was hijacking my neighbor’s internet conenctions and remotely controlling his laptop.”

“Sounds like a good time.”

“Yea, well, he was a sitting Senator who was having an affair with the nanny,” you mutter, “And I was stupid enough to try and blackmail him for cash. I wish I could say I learned my lesson.”

Bucky exhales long and hard at that, like he knows where that snap of misguided judgement goes. It’s not like he’s passing judgement onto you, but… like he knows the feeling. And you manage to not feel so small, then — telling him this is easy. It’s not your favorite part of your life by any means, but Bucky is listening. Really listening.

He fiddles with the paper wrapper of the chopsticks.

“So, less a Goose and more a Kevin Poulsen type, huh?”

You snort. “For an old man, I’m surprised you know who that is. But, I wasn’t hacking into the Pentagon at seventeen. I was too busy doing community service.”

“HYDRA had their eyes on him in the 90s,” Bucky mumbles through a bite of spicy tuna, the memory popping into his mind and flying out before he can stop it, “I remember… I thought his username was stupid.”

“Oh, you didn’t like Dark Dante?”

“Like I said,” Bucky chortles, “Stupid.”

“You wouldn’t have liked mine, then,” you smirk lightly, “It’s worse.”

Bucky raises his brows, somehow doubting that entirely. “Really?”

“...I was hackrabb1t for a long time. Y’know, with a ‘one’ for the ‘i’,” you cringe, “People kept thinking I was a furry.”

There’s a pause. Bucky’s face is set in an unreadable emotion. It’s confusion mixed with amusement mixed with… something else. When he speaks, he clears his throat and tilts his head.

“It’s clever. But,” a pause, “What is a furry? I’ve been seeing that word all over PlentyOfFish.”

Your jaw flies open. You raise your hands as your head reels around. Bucky has a look on his face like he knows, he knows he shouldn’t have asked and he definitely shouldn’t have given you enough context to know where he’s seen that phrase before, because now you’re looking at him like he has seventeen heads and they’re all on fire.

“Y’know what, nevermind—”

“—Oh, no, no, there’s way too much to unpack here,” you lean forward, “You’re on PlentyOfFish?”

“ChristianMingle wasn’t really my speed — stop laughing.”

“Shut up — stop it, stop — this is too much,” you say with a high voice, “If you get catfished, I’m not helping you track the person down…”

“—What the hell is a catfish?” he nearly cries, raising both hands in a desperate shrug, “I don’t even know what any of these words mean.”

“Oh, you sweet, naive, innocent, man—”

“No, no, no, no,” he chirps, raising a finger with a deadly look of seriousness on his face, “No, I am not naive or sweet or any of the above. I’ll take ‘cute’, sure, but none a’ those.”

“Is that what the furries call you on PlentyOfFish? Cute?”

He drops his head back against the booth and stares at the ceiling.

“Our friendship was a mistake, rabbit.”

You choke out a laugh. “Shut up, you walking claw machine.”

You’re both laughing now — quieter but sustained and everytime you think you’ve calmed down enough to sip your Mai Tai, you just have to look at the distraught, scruffy man across from you to break into another fit of muffled laughter. Finally, after what feels like forever, you both manage to calm down enough to finish the plates in front of you.

There’s a warmth that’s settled in Bucky’s chest — it’s eaten away at the usual jitter in his legs, the anxious twitch of his fingers. It’s a different emotion. Acceptance, maybe. Comfort. Affection.

Then, while you’re piling the last bit of sushi rice into your mouth when your phone, set on the side of the table, begins to go off. It hums erratically, dancing in a circle, and all you do is stare at the name flashing across the screen. You’re smiling, hugging her. It’s from Jaimie’s wedding — out in some big, wide open orchard with the sun setting behind you. The picture there is old; you were both different people then.

Before… everything.

MOM Morristown, NJ

You scowl and stare.

Bucky blinks.

“You gonna get that?”

Quickly, you snap out of it. You reach and silence the buzzing with two quick taps. Quietly, you offer up a somber sigh.

“I never do.”

Bucky frowns again, this time with a worried look that digs deep into his eyebrows. You ignore it on purpose, pushing your plate away and leaning back in the booth. He knows what you’re doing — you’re avoiding his gaze, and therefore his own questions.

“Rabbit.”

“Oh, is that my new nickname, then?”

“It fits,” he chirps before crossing his arms, strategically hiding his metallic hand, “What’s up?”

You grow quiet — then it spills out.

“I can’t talk to her.”

“Why?”

You chew your lip. You bite your tongue and you hold back on the finer points of your anger — ones dredged up by the still present sting of your check-in with Dr. Hart this afternoon.

Here it comes.

“As a part of my pardon, I was ordered no-contact with my family,” you exhale, controlling the level of your voice, reciting the court papers you’d read over and over and over, “It was deemed that further contact would impact my progress towards reformed behavior and judgment.”

Bucky’s eyes are wide. His jaw is tight.

“What the fuck do you mean ‘pardon’?”

It’s your turn to cross your arms now, to ignore the sting of his look. It’s the kind that screams disappointment more than anything. You hate that you’re getting it from Bucky of all people.

“Like I said, I didn’t learn my lesson when I was a kid,” you shirk, “Last year I was arrested on a number of counts — I’d been evading the FBI, CIA, all of them, for years. I was doing it all for people like me. The ones who got left behind.”

Bucky’s tone is flat. It’s serious. His next sentence is less of a question, more of an order. The cadence is rhythmic and it reminds you of your brother the night he found out about the first time you’d been arrested; you decide, then, that Jaimie and Bucky would have gotten along.

“What did you do?”

“Whatever I could,” you wave your hands, “Identity theft, falsified documents, insurance fraud. Anything. There were people, like me, that in a blink, lost everything. Accidents, deaths, evictions and no one did anything for us. The insurance agencies wouldn’t cover damages related to The Snap. Life insurance policies, social security… It all got snatched up by people at the top while the system collapsed around us. I had to pay for my brother’s funeral out of pocket. And there were hundreds of thousands of people just like me, just trying to get by. And everything failed us.”

Bucky is stuck in silence. It’s like mud, dragging him to the bottom of a pond — the sort that’s dredged with misery. In an instant, his veins are on fire with an anger he hadn’t felt in a while. It manifests itself in the tightening of his jaw. He rubs his face and props his elbows up on the table.

“Why won’t they let you see your family?”

You fiddle with your napkin.

“My brother… His wife was on maternity leave when she disappeared in the Blip,” you mutter, “She came back to no job, a dead husband, and no home. Their apartment complex had been abandoned. She’s trying her best to make ends meet. She lives with my Mom in our old home. Neither of them can find work. They… The court thought that I’d be influenced to do something if I was around them.”

“What, like help?”

“They see me as a criminal,” you manage, “But I’m useful, so they’re keeping me around.”

Silence falls between the two of you once more — and the sad look on your face makes Bucky’s chest tight. He can see anxiety beginning to spill over; you’re wringing the napkin, fiddling with the edges. Suddenly, Bucky realizes you’re feeling exactly how he was an hour or so ago.

Your voice is soft. “I’m sorry. I was going to tell you.”

“Looks like we’re two birds of a feather,” he says, knocking the toe of your sneaker with his boot, “Listen, we all do stupid shit. I’ve got a lot worse weighing me down. I get it.”

You look up, sadness glistening in your expression like sun off a lake. It’s harsh. He wants to look away.

He doesn’t.

“... So, that means you’re good with computers?”

◦ ◦ ◦ ◦

That’s how you find yourself in Bucky’s Brooklyn apartment at almost midnight, wandering behind him in the long halls and watching curiously as he digs his key from his pocket and shoulders the door open.

It’s a small apartment. One bed, one bath, a kitchenette and that’s really it.

For its size, it’s hardly lived in.

You suppose it makes sense — Bucky didn’t have a lot of personal belongings, and with the hints he’d dropped about his life before The Blip, you were beginning to understand that he may have never really had that much to begin with.

There’s a blanket on the floor by the television and a single couch pillow. It’s tucked in the corner, behind a small sofa. There’s a chair in the living room, one from an old dining set. At the kitchen counter, there’s a stack of papers and a single laptop. Even though all the kitchen’s wares are older models, the bones of the apartment are good. Bare, but good.

You stop in the doorway to the bedroom and stare at the untouched bed. The sheets are tucked tightly in the corners — there’s something militaristic about it. Across the hall is the bathroom. It’s small. You can see a few amenities scattered across the sink’s top.

Being in here feels something like an open wound.

It was lonely. Quiet. Cold.

“We need to make a trip to HomeGoods,” you mumble as Bucky flicks on the lights, “I get the whole minimalist thing, but sheesh.”

“I don’t have a lot,” he says, kicking off his boots by the door and shrugging off his jacket, “And I don’t need a lot either.”

You watch as his shoulders sag a bit, like he can finally let down his guard just a little in his own space. It’s endearing. You perch yourself up on the kitchen counter as your eyes follow him; he moves to fling open a cabinet and grabs a mug. Then, he hesitates.

“You want tea?” he asks over his shoulder.

“Tea?”

“Dr. Raynor said,” Bucky reaches for a container of tea bags from the top shelf. His henley lifts enough to flash a bit of skin along his lower back and you swear you see a scar, “It would help with my anxiety.”

You swing your legs a little. “Then sure.”

“You can use my Captain America mug,” he chirps, laughing a little to himself, “Seeing as you’re such a big fan…”

“God, I regret even saying anything to you,” you spit as you hop down and lean around him to get a look at the mug, “Did you seriously buy that?”

“It was a gift.”

“Bullshit.”

Bucky snorts as you shake your head and wander backwards, eyeing the rest of his apartment with a bit of astonishment. It’s really nothing impressive — but, you suppose it makes sense. Whatever meager disbursement that the government was willing to give Bucky for his efforts in fixing the Snap was better than nothing.

Your gaze hangs on the blanket in the corner.

He watches you; and he notes the sore sadness that dissolves your posture at the sight of the nest in the corner. A bit of shame colors his cheeks as he heats up the water. When Bucky speaks, it’s slow.

“The bed was too soft. I couldn’t sleep on it,” he shifts from foot to foot and focuses on taking the tea bags out and methodically wrapping the strings around the handles, “Dr. Raynor said that’s a typical thing for soldiers to experience when they come home from war.”

You’re quiet for a while after that, only speaking when he rounds the counter with your tea. He offers it up with a tilt of the head.

“You never got to come home, though, right?”

“No,” comes the short reply as you both watch the lights outside the window, “No, I didn’t. Not until now.”

You nudge his arm with yours. You lean a bit. Bucky leans back.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he manages after a sigh and sip of the tea, “I can’t just feel sorry for myself anymore. I’m trying to fix the wrongs I did — and that’s why I need your help.”

You quirk a brow. He reaches around you and grabs the stack of papers on the counter. With a steady grip, Bucky presents the photo of a woman who looks strikingly familiar. You can’t place her face, but there’s something about her that feels like a slap across the cheek. She’s young here, in a faded photo with tattered edges. Beside her is a man who is laughing. The photo is candid, and they’re both beautiful. They’re both wearing a uniform — but you can’t place the era or location.

You turn to Bucky for answers.

“Back in the 70s, at the height of the Cold War, HYDRA was working in tandem with the Russians to spy on American forces,” he offers easily, staring out the window, “The American HYDRA cell hadn’t yet been planted. This man, Andrei Kuznetzov, was a spy. He was feeding the Americans information on the Russian nuclear program. His wife, the one in the photo, was ordered to kill him. She refused.”

Bucky’s fingers twitch.

His words are soaked through with pain.

“I,” he continues, “killed him.”

You hold your breath. Then you spare him a mournful look.

“Inessa Sidrova went on to help form the same HYDRA cell that ended up taking over SHIELD here in America,” Bucky mumbles, “She’s dangerous. There’s others like her, ones who I helped create, all over the world. But, she’s my top priority. I just haven’t had much luck tracking her down.”

“That’s why you need my help.”

“I’m 106 years old,” Bucky deadpans, “The microfiches at the library were getting a little tedious.”

“But,” you chirp with a sly smirk, “You figured out how to set up a PlentyOfFish account?”

He shoulders you again as you sip your tea and laugh.

“Shoulda never said anything,” Bucky grumbles, “Dr. Raynor thought it was a good idea. Y’know, to get back out in the world.”

“I can promise you,” you say with a stern shake of the head, “The metal arm will get you plenty of chicks and dudes in due time.”

“Good to know,” Bucky replies as his words lilt with a playful sort of questioning that you purposefully ignore. You’re not feeding his ego today. Maybe tomorrow, after you take a crack at figuring out where this woman is.

It’s going to be a long night.

#vacant mirrors #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes x you #winter soldier imagine #tfatws imagine #bucky barnes #marvel imagine #bucky x reader

1K notes · View notes

carelesswispe · 3 years

Note

Yo! Could I get an angst fic with Hubert, where the reader has lost an eye in battle?

Losing an eye in battle

Uwaa~ this was more fun than I thought it would be! Thank you so much for requesting! I had to rewrite this a couple times because I think I misread your ask or smth at first haha idk whats up with me--anyway,, I hope you enjoy it ><

>genre: mostly angst

>pairings: hubert x reader (gn)

>warnings: mentions of blood, injury, fighting, the reader losing an EYE and implications of death (tell me if i missed any !)

‘You can do this, (name), after all, you’ve made it to the final stretch’ you hyped yourself up as you marched into the battlefield beside Hubert. The both of you were stationed at the back of the battalion to focus on supporting the front liners. Were you scared? Most definitely. Although this wasn’t your first battle, there was something nerve wracking about this battle being a huge step towards an end to this bloody war. But no matter how much you try to convince yourself, you couldn’t shake the sinking feeling in your gut that told you that something was going to go wrong.

Hubert, your ever reliable classmate and the man you adored, noticed the tense expression on your face. He clears his throat, loud enough to catch your attention. “As we approach this big hurdle in achieving Lady Edelgard’s goals, let’s keep up the good work” although it was awkward, you could tell that the man was trying to encourage you and it definitely helped to clear your noisy mind, even just a little.

You flashed the man a small smile, a determined look shining upon your eyes. This gesture made a rare smile play on his lips as well, the corners of his eyes softening slightly. As you watch the brunet’s broad back move farther into the battlefield, you realise that he too, was feeling anxious about this battle. And as strange as it sounded, you were comforted by this fact, hastening your steps to join him in the battlefield.

The first few battles were pretty tame, supporting Professor Byleth from behind, covering the professor whenever there was the slightest bit of an opening in the professor’s movements. But after a while, maybe it was because you weren’t paying attention but you found yourself separated from the professor.

Mumbling a curse under your breath, you survey your surroundings to find yourself in a torrent of dust and smoke. You feel dread pool the bottom of your stomach as you see a large silhouette approaching you.

You assume a defensive stance as the figure becomes clearer and clearer as the ring of dust and smoke settles, a chill creeping up your spine as you see a head of blond hair coming into view.

Dimitri’s gaze upon you hardens as you retain your defensive stance. Although the two of you certainly weren’t close, the thought of having to kill a person he used to be schoolmates with left a bitter feeling in his mouth. “...I have to do this...to stop this senseless killing. I will stop you from taking away another life here and now!” and with this, his resolve hardens and the air around him shifts. You steel yourself as you prepare yourself for the man’s next course of action, taking a deep breath.

His slow strides quickly sped up and he began charging towards you at full speed, his weapon raised up in the air. You were slightly taken aback by the man’s speed and you scrambled to avoid him and made a pathetic attempt to injure him before he reached you but whatever you tried seemed to have no effect on him as he continued to charge towards you.

As a last resort you used up whatever energy you had left in you in an effort to widen the distance between the two of you and it worked, so you thought. Although you managed to put some distance between you and your assailant, it was futile as the prince flung his javelin in the air with surprising speed, aiming for your head.

You didn’t register the javelin flying towards your right eye quickly enough, only noticing it when it was too late. Almost immediately, you feel a blazing hot pain blooming from the right side of your face, spreading all the way down to your neck. A shout rips through your throat as you fight to clutch the right side of your face in favour of clutching onto your weapon as you continue to attack.

You felt dizzy from the amount of blood you were losing and you could feel your consciousness slip away with every movement you willed your body to take. You honestly had no idea how you had the strength to continue swinging your sword and you didn’t know how long you could keep it up.

In a last ditch attempt, you mustered all the strength you had left to shout at the top of your lungs in hopes of attracting the attention of others. As the battle went on, so did the throbbing of your head, screaming at you to lay down and stop moving. Gritting your teeth, you desperately latched onto whatever consciousness you had left.

Just as you were about to take another blow from the prince, you felt a strong wave of magic strike down from where Dimitri was standing. And with this, you felt hope surge through your veins as you looked around the battlefield with urgency. A growl leaves Dimitri’s grit teeth as his eyes land on Hubert.

Hubert, however, didn’t relent in his attacks, not giving the blond a chance to recover from each of his spells. Eventually everyone else gathered to fight against Dimitri and at that point, any resistance the prince put up was futile against the whole army. But still, he continued to fight until the very end. And before you knew it, it was over. The battle has been won and all there's left to do is to put a stop to Rhea and the remaining soldiers of the church.

All the adrenaline from the battle had faded and you had become more faint with each step you took. This did not go unnoticed by Hubert. He hurriedly excused himself from Edelgard’s side, something the ever loyal servant would never do under normal circumstances and walked towards your weakening figure.

“(name)!” Hubert called out to you, worry evident in his panicked voice. The sound of Hubert’s shout brought you out of your daze, making you snap your head towards the source of the voice. You wince at the dizziness your sudden movement brought you and suddenly, your body couldn’t take anymore and your knees buckled from underneath you. The only thing you could hear as your consciousness faded was the sound of hurried footsteps towards your person accompanied by someone’s worried shouts.

When you came to, you were laid on a soft bed with a killer headache, unable to see out of the right side of your eye. In a panic, you sat up from the bed and assessed your surroundings the best you can as your blurry vision slowly clears up. You felt a sharp pain in your head, particularly at the right side as a result of your sudden motion. A pained groan escapes your lips as your hands instinctively shoot up to clutch your head. You feel for your right eye only to feel bandages wrapped around the right side of your head.

You remember now. The javelin, heading straight towards your right eye as you failed to do anything about it. It’s gone now. Your thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a door creaking open slowly, a black shape emerging from it. “You’re awake.” a certain classmate’s voice of yours came out of the blurry figure which you came to recognise as Hubert’s as your vision focused on it and you could properly make out its features. He was carrying a tray which contained a bowl of soup and a glass of water which he placed on the table at the side of the bed.

“...How was your rest?” Hubert asks with a tone you’ve rarely heard from him. Turning your body to face him, you could see that he wore an expression of worry, his brows furrowed and his normally sharp eyes were soft.

You opened your mouth only to close it again. You didn’t know what to say. On one hand, you wanted to lie and say everything was fine but you knew there was no way in hell you could say that. Especially not with how you no longer had two eyes to look through. Hubert knew that and yet he couldn’t do anything but watch as you sat on the bed with a bitter expression.

“I prepared some soup for you. I feel regretful for having to keep it light since you are still in the midst of recovery but rest assured, I will prepare something better once you recover.” Hubert spoke, breaking the tense atmosphere. Gently moving a tray table over your lap, he places the tray of soup on it.

Watching as you simply stared at the food in front of you, Hubert felt a pang of guilt hit his heart seeing your dejected state. He knew all too well of the consequences of war but all this time he thought that it was okay, as long as it was for her lady Edelgard but now, all he wanted to do was end this war as fast as possible, as naive as that sounded. If only he had gotten there more quickly, and then maybe you wouldn’t have to lose an eye. Then maybe you needn’t have suffered.

Clenching his fist tightly, Hubert drops into a curtsey “Get some rest” he couldn’t do anything for you right now but offer you his silent support. And right now, you need time to yourself. As he left the room, Hubert threw you one last glance, his heart tightening at the way you aimlessly played with your food, a blank expression on your face

okay i know this was a bit short but i might make a part 2 on my own time. im not too experienced in writing fight scenes so i feel that the fight scene was a little wonky >< i will try my best to improve so please tell me some of your opinions on it ! any sort of feedback is very much appreciated and i will try my best to take them to heart in order to improve my writing

#hubert von vestra #hubert von vestra x reader #fe3h x reader #fe3h headcanons

97 notes · View notes

battlinghurricanes · 3 years

Text

DEIPHOBUS TIME!

I'm honestly not entirely sure how I got such a deeply involved concept for his character and motivations, but I definitely did. I just feel like he fits into an especially interesting place in everything and that there's a lot of great potential with him.

Shout out to @petalveinedwarrior for enabling me and also I'm very sorry for being incredibly long winded. My bad.

Also DISCLAIMER! I am NOT an expert on the Trojan War and all its surrounding mythology lol. This is just for fun, based on my own fairly limited knowledge of the myths (though I think I pretty much cover everything that’s relevant to this). These are just my headcanons woven with some details from various myths. Sorry if anything’s missing or inaccurate!

SO!

First and foremost, I headcanon Deiphobus as the oldest of Priam and Hecuba’s children after Hektor.

Hektor calls Deiphobus the dearest of his brothers, and to me, this is why. They are the closest in age and they were the closest growing up, best friends when they were young. They also get the closest to being on equal footing which means a lot to Hektor, who often feels distance between him and his other siblings because of being heir to Troy.

Despite the relatively equal ground and Deiphobus treating Hektor with a very casual familiarity, deep down, he idolizes him. Deiphobus adores and admires Hektor, ever a younger brother in how he looks up to his strength and intelligence and reliability but close enough in age to not feel the same envy as so many of their younger siblings.

Deiphobus is aware that he is next in line to inherit the throne of Troy after Hektor, and the possibility of that is more real to him than to the rest. He doesn’t envy or want the responsibilities Hektor has to bear being the first son and admires him for it rather than resenting him. He never wants the weight of Troy on his shoulders.

Additionally, as close as they are, Hektor confides more openly in Deiphobus than the rest of their siblings. Consequently, he has a more realistic idea of both the burden he bears and also the ways he struggles to manage it like any human would.

Deiphobus holds Hektor in the highest regard- he means the world to him. It is a strange and unique combination of relating to and understanding Hektor exactly as he is and then loving him so dearly for how remarkably he seems to do in all of it, all that Deiphobus adores and strives to be like.

Hektor calls Deiphobus the dearest of his brothers, but Deiphobus would never need to say the same of Hektor, that much has always been obvious.

Deiphobus himself is ferociously loyal, boastful and fiery proud, wild and energetic, and always quick to smile and laugh with a sharp sense of humor. He’ll defend his own with tooth and nail, Hektor first and foremost, and they make a well balanced pair. Hektor’s level headed sense of responsibility softens many of Deiphobus’s rough edges, and Deiphobus’s enthusiasm breaks through many of Hektor’s more anxiously formed reservations.

Deiphobus would do near anything for Hektor, to a concerning degree in the eyes of some, but Hektor, by his nature, isn't overly controlling. He doesn't want Deiphobus to change how he is. Mostly, the only place Hektor truly pushes him is on moral grounds, for better rather than for worse.

Deiphobus hates to spend time overthinking anything, which benefits him in some ways, but also frequently has him following the example of those around him without considering what might lean towards cruelty. Hektor never tolerates hurtful and needless rudeness or otherwise, and their friendship doesn’t spare Deiphobus his reprimands.

Hektor's needling, though, has him step back and reexamine his actions and the second look is generally what he needs to correct his missteps. Admittedly, he’ll sometimes act better in some way solely to please Hektor, but far more often than not, he’ll come to recognize why it’s best with time and continue that way from his own compulsion.

(He grows and his conscience sounds irritatingly like Hektor.)

Deiphobus is actually one of the best of his siblings at not holding a grudge. He might for drama or humor’s sake, but once a squabble is past, he’ll easily set it aside in favor of having fun with whoever he fought with.

Regardless of his flaws, Deiphobus is amiable and of the opinion that it’s never worth passing up a good time over some pettiness. He’s never one to ignore the value of little joys, no matter how fleeting they are.

Before the war, when he is still younger, there is Antheus. He’s the pretty son of Antenor, and both Deiphobus and Paris are quite taken with him. Paris’s involvement rubs him the wrong way, but he elects to ignore it as best he can. It doesn’t sit right to consider policing Antheus’s actions. He can hardly demand he stop seeing Paris while still insisting on his company, after all.

Besides, he can’t really complain. Antheus favors him with his presence often, laughing at his jokes, stealing off his plate when they share meals, tumbling with him when they wrestle. And when Antheus lifts his hand to idly toy with his lower lip as he smiles slyly at him, Paris is the last thing on Deiphobus’s mind.

Hektor teases him sometimes when he turns up ruffled from some exchange turned overzealous, but his flustered frustration pales in comparison to his excitement, so Hektor gets away with it. Oh, he loves Antheus and the feeling is so heady, better than the most potent wine.

Then it all shatters when some men rush into the palace with Antheus’s limp body carried between them. He was in the gymnasium with Paris, they learn. One throw from Paris with a warped discus and Antheus was gone. Deiphobus stares at the blood soaked in his lovely hair.

Deiphobus is ready to rip Paris apart, but when his brother is guided in after, there’s just no room for it. He’s in complete hysterics, shaking all over as he hyperventilates, and screaming would have gotten through to him no more than their family’s vain attempts to calm him down.

Paris is inconsolable afterwards. He retreats in on himself, though without any attempt to defend himself, first to give himself the blame. He makes for a pitiful sight, and at first, Deiphobus can’t stand being in his presence at all, to take his anger and grief out on him or otherwise.

It doesn’t take that long for Deiphobus’s anger to grow more painful than cathartic anyway and, well, it is hard to lash out at someone acting exactly how he feels. He feels the same heartbreak and pain he sees in Paris and he can’t find it in himself to rage against him when he’d rather just sit and cry himself.

Paris does take it upon himself to face Deiphobus after a time and claim responsibility for what happened that day. Deiphobus doesn’t forgive him, doing that feels... off, but he manages to convey that he won’t turn on him for the accident with Antheus. He thinks that might make Paris feel better but he can’t truly tell.

It all still hurts then, even as they try to get things to settle. Nothing but more time can do anything more to heal those wounds.

And time passes and then Paris returns from Sparta with Helen, and, well.

The brewing war doesn’t drive a rift between Deiphobus and Hektor, but it does force a new distance between them. The pressure on Hektor spikes and never eases, and the time he has to spare becomes exceedingly rare.

Much of the time the two would have spent for themselves together now shifts to working together to manage the complications that come with this new conflict; Deiphobus has new responsibilities to shoulder himself. More work, less play, but the mutual affection and respect between them remains just as strong as before.

Deiphobus can’t help but feel a certain bitterness over having the casual companionship of his brother taken away from him, but he does all he can to set it aside. He refuses to let it be another source of stress for Hektor, so often too caring for his own good, and he doesn’t hold it against him anyway.

As always, Deiphobus remains aware that these tasks could easily have been his and, privately, he feels woefully inadequate in the face of that possibility. And truly, it just serves to make Hektor even greater in his eyes, handling it all with grace he can’t imagine. He knows he’s not perfect, yet still, it’s hard to imagine that anything could ever truly bring Hektor down.

And so, Deiphobus helps his brother in the ways he can and loves him as ever, always ready and eager to fight at his side.

Deiphobus leads a contingent himself, and does it well. It comes easier to him to manage a smaller group like that. He does as directed and guides his men through the fighting. One can say what they will about his ability to lead, but his capability as a warrior is undeniable.

Things shift between Deiphobus and Paris as well. Much of Troy turns on Paris, some faster than others. Deiphobus ignores the greater dramatics which, in his opinion, help nothing. Still, it is often tempting to berate him for his flippant disregard of the battles so he does, which is, admittedly, not entirely unwarranted.

However, Deiphobus and Paris share a mutual, unspoken understanding that they simply cannot focus on the war at all times. Sometimes it must be set aside. This is more often true to Paris than to Deiphobus, but that invites Deiphobus to keep Paris’s company when he can no longer bear all the stress.

In turn, when Deiphobus approaches him like that, Paris can trust not to be reprimanded as he so often is, as that gets ignored along with the rest of it. So there are times during the war where the two can be found together affably, chatting about nothing important. Their personalities can still mesh in such moments.

And, well, it’s shocking how steady things can stay over nine years of war, but they do. Death and loss become far too familiar companions, but they can do nothing but keep fighting through that, and things proceed much as they have been.

Until, of course, Achilles.

With all the cruelty of fate, it of course follows after they get the closest to driving away the Achaeans as they ever have. Such a brief, amazing hope. In his unmatched fury, Achilles slaughters their soldiers, butchers many of his brothers, escapes Scamander’s rage through the grace of the gods, and drives the army behind Troy’s wall with his advance, except for-

Then-

Hektor is dead.

Deiphobus tastes blood in his throat screaming at the sight behind the chariot.

In a way, it’s a blessing that it takes twelve days to get Hektor’s body and another twelve to bury it. With his death, command of Troy and her allies has passed to Deiphobus, and he could barely lead his own horse after losing Hektor, much less an army.

Deiphobus falls to pieces. He can barely process it, losing the one he held in the highest regard, held every confidence in, believed in to his core. Hektor was the best of all of them and now he’s dead, leaving him shattered. Deiphobus is hysterical, wildly heartbroken.

In this time is when Priam first turns on his remaining sons. He lashes out at them as he prepares to ransom Hektor’s corpse, degrading them as the most worthless of his sons. Still half blind with tears of grief he can’t hold back, he thinks that it’s true in the same moment he thinks of how he will now have to take Hektor’s place, worthless ruin though he is.

Most often, Priam refrains from speaking of his remaining sons after that, and in rare, fleeting heartbeats he almost seems contrite over cursing them. Neither is enough though to keep him from savagely reproaching them in unpredictable instances as Troy continues to spiral towards its doom. Deiphobus shakily chokes down his father’s abuse without a word.

Of course, he returns to the battlefield once Hektor is buried, coming to truly learn the crushing weight of his new role. How did his brother bear this? Every day feels like one failure after another; he’s not strong enough, not smart enough to do this. He tries anyway, each day more taxing than the last.

Deiphobus can hardly bear Paris after Hektor’s death. A large part of him hates him for it, desperate to pin the blame on someone despite knowing deep down that he’s not responsible. Though, even then, part of him is drawn to Paris, broken same as him, shaped by a sort of desperation to grieve for their brother with him. Misery loves company.

His anger burns hotter, but now he can’t bring himself to berate him even in the way he did sometimes before all this. He never confronts him with his hatred, such that it is. He simply avoids Paris entirely, knowing that if he indulges in the impulse to curse him for what happened to Hektor, he would fall apart at the seams.

Even now he can’t face the truth of what happened and keep going. It is all he can do to try never to think about it.

And then, with the aid of Lord Apollo, Paris kills Achilles.

The undecided limbo of Deiphobus’s feelings towards Paris topples into something like affection the moment he hears of it, connecting them once more. Paris has destroyed Hektor’s murderer, avenging him, and that matters to Deiphobus more than anything else.

That night, the two of them drink together until it half kills them, close enough to keep knocking shoulders as they revile Achilles with the worst profanities they know. It’s the only celebration they can muster after everything, but they’re both laughing for the first time since they lost him.

(When the night grows damnably late, Deiphobus’s attempt to laugh turns into retching and Paris collapses to the ground when he tries to get up to help. They suffer the agonizing morning together.)

They make a strange pair from then on. Friendship would be a generous word given the still unavoidable tension between them, but they somehow manage to maneuver around that and share a certain closeness. They maintain it despite differences that grind against each other. Sad as it is, it’s one of the only things either of them have left.

Paris and Deiphobus also weather Priam’s spontaneous tirades together. Usually wordlessly, but there is something to be said for the company of someone enduring the same pain you are. It is a quiet solidarity, but a significant one.

They talk of the war far more often now. Every day it devours more and more of their lives, always harder and harder to ignore or set aside. On rare occasions, they do still manage it. Those conversations make for a breath of fresh air, though that does little to stave off the feeling of drowning.

And then Paris takes a poisoned arrow and dies.

Deiphobus doesn’t wail and sob in the same way he did for Hektor. He’s too numb for it now. It hurts in an unnatural, distant sort of way. All he can muster is a ugly, stilted feeling of shame for letting himself come to care for him in the first place. Of course he would die like the rest, he should know this by now. He crumbles further.

After Paris’s loss, there's only two reasonable options for what to do with Helen. Either they need to return her to Menelaus or arrange a new marriage and keep her in Troy.

Helen pleads to be returned to her first husband but Deiphobus competes with Helenus to be the one who weds her. Troy does not stop them. There is a quiet but tangible tension to the city and he doesn’t think their people would tolerate Helen departing. He competes with everything he has left and he wins. And they marry.

That first night, Helen stares at his back while sitting in her new place on his bed. She expected to be treated like a piece of meat, a feeling she's grown well used to through living her life under the eyes of men, but he's barely even looking at her. He fought for her hand with an undeniable, feral sort of desperation. What was it for if he doesn't even want her?

"Why?" she asks him. "Why bother going through every effort to marry me only to be so cold now? What do you want?" Her voice would cut razor sharp if only she wasn't so tired.

He turns to face her with bloodshot eyes narrowed in a glare, riddled with barely restrained anger and grief. "I'm not letting you leave," he forces out and Helen pushes down the urge to scoff because that much is obvious.

"It has to be worth something," he continues. "There has to be something we fought for. If we just let you go back, then it won't have been worth jack shit." He paces, not looking at her again. "I won't allow that. Don't think you can avoid all this so easily now that Paris is gone. There has to be a point. My brother is dead because of this shit! If you're gone, then what would be the fucking point?!"

His brother. He means Hektor. He means Paris. He means every last one of them, so many dead. He means Hektor.

Helen doesn't reply. There is nothing she can say to that. For all that it doesn't make a difference, what he's laid before her is something she knows well. She's spent so long now berating herself and blaming herself for all that's come to pass and she understands. She hates this, all she wants is to go home, but she understands him.

She knows that they both hate each other and themselves all in equal measure. What a wretched pair they make, Helen thinks.

Not that they make much of a pair at all. They're rarely ever together. Deiphobus camps outside whenever he can, and when he can’t, he goes out of his way to avoid her. Helen accepts it as the best she can expect from the truly miserable situation this has become. The war drags on, but the truth hangs in the air that Troy is losing.

Then the horse.

The people, starving so desperately for peace, bring it inside the walls. Deiphobus tries to be cautious. He tries to think of what Hektor would have done. He commands Helen to walk around the horse, calling out in the voices of the Achaeans' wives. If there's some wretched spy or invader, let them show themselves. He'll kill them.

No one answers. Deep down just as desperate for peace as them all, he breathes a sigh of relief and leaves the damn horse.

He hopes the Achaeans filled their mouths with blood, biting their tongues as hard as they must have.

Troy is burning. The Achaeans fill the streets with slaughter; they are everywhere. Reunited with her husband after so, so long, Helen tells Menelaus where Deiphobus is. And so, Deiphobus dies alongside Troy.

(Deiphobus and Hektor meet again in the Underworld and Deiphobus tries to apologize for his failure to keep Troy safe. Hektor will hear none of it, refusing any of the anger he has every right to put on him. Still, a long time passes where Deiphobus silently and anxiously wonders if that was a lie, if Hektor truly does hate him for what happened.

Hektor keeps throwing him tense, unsettled glances sometimes when he thinks he’s not looking, even though he never says a thing. Each one worms further and further underneath his skin and he starts to squirm under the conviction that he’s done something wrong. Something Hektor holds against him.

When it finally grows so unbearable that Deiphobus confronts him about it at last, Hektor flinches and doesn’t disguise his fear and upset. Deiphobus braces himself. But then, mangled in with confusing, ashamed apologies, Hektor recounts for the first time how he died.

Athena luring him to his death in Deiphobus’s shape, speaking in his voice. How he turned to face Achilles believing he had support. When he called for a spear from his brother, he was alone.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I think of it at all, I’m so sorry I let you believe I was angry with you because of it. I’m not, it had nothing to do with you, you shouldn’t have to know of it at all. I just- remember it sometimes. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Deiphobus feels nauseous. Hektor looks even more so.

“If I had actually been there-”

“No! Don’t do this. Achilles would have just killed you too.”

“We wouldn’t have died alone, then.”

They clutch at each other, these battered remnants of their souls, carrying with them the wounds of their lives.)

#the iliad #deiphobus #hektor #hector of troy #paris of troy #and misc others i wont tag lol #trojan war #greek mythology #my writing #goal: make everyone else have thoughts and feelings about deiphobus too #hes my randomly selected emotional support child of priam #and hes perfect for my favorite thing #weird little character studies #hopefully this was at least somewhat interesting to read #its been a long time since ive done a post like this #an unsurprisingly it is way too long lol #sometimes it really is just all or nothing with my headcanons #i also think about the version where achilles is going to marry polyxena and deiphobus grabs him while paris stabs him in the back #inchresting

39 notes · View notes

enternalempires · 4 years

Text

Downfall of a Liar

This is a Lukanette fic. Some fluff, some angst, a lot of salt and Luka being a King of Revenge. You all get to see the more conniving part of our snake boi. Hope you enjoy! Haven’t figured out how to use links yet but my Ao3 username is the same. Basically, Lila Rossi has gone too far and Luka Couffaine is going to do something about it. He is, after all, a Couffaine… a little chaos never frightened him.

Marinette came to him on a Friday afternoon with sad eyes and tear-stained cheeks. Her knees were bleeding and her wrists were bruised, hair messy and lip busted. Her dress was ruined with an ugly paint smear and her stockings underneath were ripped.

“I fell down the stairs,” She told him, looking away. “I didn’t mean to. I must’ve fallen into some paint.”

Luka didn’t believe this.

The wobble in her voice and the unsteady way she had stumbled right into his chest when she saw him was not the actions of a girl used to her own clumsy feet. Marinette was a strong girl and he knew how much of a burden was placed onto her shoulders. She did not crack easily and she did not do it over being a klutz or smudged paint. She did not cry over repairable things, over broken nails or washable clothes. She did not come to him looking upset and watery-eyed without feeling one step from breaking.

These were things he knew.

So, after calming her down and getting her to take a shower, offering her clean clothes and a warm bed, and letting the girl he fell in love with fall asleep on his chest to the sound of his heartbeat, he did some digging.

He went to his sister first and found out the real story.

Marinette was in the art workshop, Mrs. Bustier having set up a lesson in there during the last hour of the day, with the other members of the band as she helped Nathan and Marc on their story.

She was honestly just being nice— as Jules explained— then the bitch, his sister’s respective name for Lila, sauntered into the room and started to wail about how Mari was only helping the two co-creators because she wanted the credit for their work.

The girl he fell in love with defended herself, and her friends did the same but with most of the Akuma class— excluding the band members and Nathaniel— having fallen for her tails of woe and amazing, yet false, life experiences, they sided with the liar instead of Mari.

Then, throughout the rest of the class, the bitch found ways to terrorize Marinette (going as far and tripping her and cutting her dress with scissors, dropping her paint onto her, pushing her into things, or slamming different objects onto her wrists) and then blame her for getting in the way.

Juleka and Rose had helped Marinette calm down a little as the girl broke into tears as soon as they were away from the rest of the Akuma class but she just kept panicking— and ran away. They didn’t know where she ended up until he texted them and asked.

Then Luka asked for Alya Cesiare’s phone number and made an unsettling discovery.

Marinette and the blogger were no longer best friends.

And, horrifyingly, she had been accused of being a bully, a liar, and a manipulator. Lila painted his melody in the way that everyone should view her instead.

Finally he created a group chat with a few allies he could trust.

He contacted Adrien Agreste (because even if the boy had been painfully oblivious that Marinette had once been in love with him, he would do anything for his lady), Kagami Tsurigi and her girlfriend and spoiled brat, Chloe Bourgeois, the boyfriends Marc and Nate, and then the rest of his band.

He named it ‘The Marinette Protection Squad’ and, just like that, the war was on its way.

*-*-*

Lila Rossi was waiting in the back of the school by herself when Luka arrived. He found her hidden between one of the walls and a thick oak tree and he didn’t bother to hide himself as he crossed the grounds over to her.

She saw him, surprise lighting her features for a second before it shifted into a— what he would guess, if it wasn't on someone so repulsive— a seductive smile.

“Luka!” She squealed, sauntering up to him and stopping a few feet away. “How are you, sweetheart? It’s been forever since we saw each other, since your last year in Lycee, right?”

“I don’t care,” Luka took a step back, face emotionless as he looked down at her. His eyes gave away nothing as he shoved his hands into his pockets. “You’ve made a lot of people angry, Lila.”

“A-Angry?” She stammered, feigning innocence by putting her hands over her heart with too wide of eyes to be real. “Why would they be angry with me?”

“Because you’re a liar and you hurt the people they care about— you hurt the person I care about.”

“Oh,” Lila straightened her back. “You must be talking about my bully.”

“Your bully?” Luka scoffed, less than amused. “Sure, I’ll play along for a minute. Who is your bully.”

“She’s... s-she is Marinette,” The liar sniffles. “And she says such horrible things about me and they’re not true! She pushes me and, and she rips up my homework and she insults me. Whatever you heard isn’t true, I swear!”

“Are you done?” He sighed out, shrugging his shoulders to make them relax more. “You’re a lying bitch, I get it. I’m not here to let you try to sink your claws under my skin, not that it would work, I’m here to warn you.”

“Warn me about what?” Lila asks, voice going a bit nastier than she probably intended.

What a two-faced bitch.

“That you should watch your back,” He says simply, turning slightly to walk back to his house. “You pushed a lot of people into your enemy list by threatening Marinette and now you’re about to face the consequences. It’s only fair to give you a head’s up.”

“Marinette,” she shrieks, “is nothing but a liar and a horrible person—”

“Marinette Dupain-Cheng, no matter what anyone says, is the kindest person you will ever meet,” Luka snarled, whirling on the sausage-haired girl so fast that she stumbled back, unprepared. “And I’m hers. You hurt the wrong person, you egocentric bitch, and you’re going to pay for it.”

Lila gaped for a second before she forced an innocent look on her face, mouth opening to say something but the musician just continued, eyes hard and narrowed and angry, mouth drawn into a tight line.

He was a generally calm person, he could handle a lot before ever blowing a fuse. Because he was also a Couffaine at heart. He thrived in chaos where others wither and when it came to those he loved, nothing would stop him from protecting them.

Especially when the one he loved and had to defend was the girl he fell in love with.

“She is thoughtful and compassionate and selfless and astounding in how she will push herself to the knife’s edge just to make sure her loved ones are okay. She is a cinnamon roll but the fiercest ally you could ever have. There is no stopping her, there is no convincing her to step down when she’s standing up for something that’s right— when she’s standing up for someone, unless that someone is herself.”

He took a step closer and, well, that must’ve been pretty intimidating because she scrambled to take one back, causing a humorless chuckle to leave his lips.

He was his mother’s son but he had enough of his father in him to leave others terrified.

“And you want to convince me that just because you have the Akuma class, Mlle. Bustier, and M. Damocles so far up your ass that people will hate her? Really? Let me tell you something, sweetheart," He gave a cruel smirk, voice mocking as he repeated what she called him earlier. “This isn’t you and all your puppets against Marinette, it’s now you against the entire school. You might pretend to rule this place but she is the one who everyone looks up to and loves. She’s their sunshine child and leader and she has connections everywhere. She knows people that could make your life a living hell and it is her kindness alone that has spared you in the past. And you should have cut your losses when you had the chance because I, however, am not as kind. You declared war, Mlle. Rossi, do not be surprised when your downfall comes knocking on your door.”

With that and smirking at the ugly glare on her face, Luka saunters away, whistling a happy tune despite how tightly his fists are clenched inside his pockets.

It’s a week later when they make the first move.

Ivan and Rose, because despite her size she puts up one hell of a fight, are Marinette’s bodyguards during school. They prevent her from getting hurt while Mylene, Marc, and Nate make sure to record anything and everything Lila does that’s incriminating towards her reputation.

Juleka is on sabotage duty during school to make sure any plans backfire onto the bitch while Adrien is the distraction. Both were excellent at their job. Almost scarily good.

Outside of school Kagami and Luka strategize and come up with plans to make sure anything Lila says can be used against her. They organize groups and make sure that Marinette and her family doesn’t get bothered by Lila or any of her followers.

One by one more people in the school help. Marinette’s friends from different classes going from the highest grade level to the first year students at Lycee all jump in when needed— when they overhear a lie and debunk it by pulling up proof or contacting the people involved directly (Marinette isn’t the only one with contacts).

One by one Lila is getting more isolated, one by one she’s losing her power.

And it’s so satisfying to see that Luka goes to sleep laughing.

It’s not even a full month before the Akuma class had fully left Lila’s side, the last to turn was Alya— the reporter so distraught over how she realized she had been treating her former best friend that she had a mental breakdown.

It was a month on the dot when Honeybee and Ryuko got video footage of Lila snatching one of Hawkmoth’s butterflies from the air with a wide grin and a “What can I do for you today, boss?” and it was a week later when her life got ruined.

(Marinette was so overjoyed that the constant terror— in her civilian— life was going away that she kissed Luka until their lungs ached and, just like that, Luka got revenge and a girlfriend in one sweep.

And that girlfriend was very, very grateful for it too. Most nights he went to bed with bruise-kissed lips and a beautiful girl in his arms. Marinette looked happier than she did in years and all the planning and frustration melted away when he saw her wake up with a smile.

He couldn’t protect her when she was fighting an Akuma but he’s proved more than enough times that he could protect her when she goes back to having two left feet.)

First she got expelled from her Lycee for false accusations, thief, bullying, and cheating.

Then her lies— ever last one of them— were exposed and her mother was informed about what her daughter was up to and even waved her daughter’s diplomatic immunity— being absolutely disgusted with her daughter’s behavior— when the court cases of people suing her for fraudulence, harassment, threats, attempted murder, and acts of terroism.

Last, but not least, Lila was banned from Paris and all the cases stacked up against her were moved to a different court within France so they wouldn’t even have to see her again.

Though they did see her screaming and shrieking and snarling towards Luka as he joyfully waved at her when the bitch was getting dragged to the back of a cop car, “You! You did this! You made this all happen! I’m going to get you back for this, Couffaine, I swear I’m going to get you!”

She seemed absolutely insane, drool going down her chin from how hard she had been yelling, eyes frantic and face flushed and she jerked like a wild animal trying to get out of her cuffs and the officer’s hands that held her back from attacking the young musician.

He was a Couffaine and this chaos made him delighted to witness.

After all, it’s not everyday you get to see the downfall of the bitch who made the love of your life miserable.

Luka just laughed and sent her a cocky wave, “I look forward to it, sweetheart.”

Well… you can’t say she wasn’t warned.

#lukanette #lukanette fic #salt #fluff #revenge #miraculous ladybug fanfiction #mlb fanfic #marinette dupain cheng #luka couffaine #cute #luka x marinette #chaos #mlb #miraculous ladybug

229 notes · View notes

sinsbymanka · 3 years

Note

Hey. I'm sorry. So. Your post about sunseekerknight is really long and it seems out of date. I thought everything had been resolved and she promised to make amends but this all started back around again and it sounds like your issue isn't solved. Can you update me real quick? Sorry.

Thanks for being polite and coming to me. I’ll try to summarize things to the best of ability while also noting this is kinda a clusterfuck. It got long, so it’s under a cut.

In March 2020, I commissioned @sunseekerknight (I’m blocked so I can’t actually @ her) to do a Tarot Card commission of my Inquisitor for $80. I sent the money via PayPal friends and family as she requested which is something I no longer do for artists, even though I’d done it before with no problems.

The main post goes over my initial experience really well - the repeated attempts at contact and missed deadlines. This post was made on June 18, 2020 and blew up. I informed Ada that day I was making the post and she told me she’d be doing so as well.

I’d already filed the PayPal claim which was ultimately denied because I’d sent the money via friends and family, despite SSK’s assurances she’d help me resolve it in my favor.

I didn’t hear from SSK after this and I didn’t contact her. My father passed away on June 20th and I was busy dealing with the personal fallout of that (he’d been in the hospital the whole month of June as it was) so my priorities swung towards processing my own grief and planning what happens next.

On July 10th, my PayPal claim was denied. I forwarded the claim to SSK with the following message:

I want to inform you that PayPal has indicated, due to the way you asked me to send the funds (friends and family), they are unable to provide any sort of refund based on their policies. It is your responsibility to make the refund.

Because of the history of fraud I've uncovered, I will be pursuing this further. I am, in particular, asking PayPal to mark this account as one used for fraudulent transactions and scamming money before closing it. My hope is that this account is in your real name and that getting this account marked for fraud has real consequences you have to live with.

I honestly didn’t expect to hear from SSK again, but I did on July 12th:

Oh, I see. Now the difficult situation has become even more difficult. I'm sorry to say this, but, as I said earlier, I had only two offers for people affected by my actions - a PayPal dispute or finished art. And since PayPal is useless in this situation, all I can offer you - is art. I’m still ready to finish your commission because I don't want you to be left with nothing. I would like to return the money, really, but it will take time and I don't know how much, considering the current situation on Tumblr. I still want to resolve this issue peacefully, despite what is happening now. I know that you don't trust me, and I understand this, as well as the fact that you are disappointed, angry, etc., but still I want to do at least something so as not to leave the situation as it is now. But if this is your final decision, then okay, I understand and accept it.

This message struck me as victim blaming. I am, after all, responsible for the situation on Tumblr which means she can’t get commissions. I reacted with some venom and my tone is not great here, but I do ask you to understand the frame of mind I was in here on July 13th:

I don't think it's fair to claim that PayPal is being unhelpful in this situation when it is you who are refusing to refund money for a service that was purchased and not completed. I think it would make me feel better if you started phrasing the "situation" in a way that took responsibility for it. Such as: "I cannot refund the money to you myself, because I spent it before delivering what you paid for, and I cannot get your dispute resolved through PayPal because I asked you to send the payment a specific way that precludes disputes."

I also feel hurt that immediately after I sent my email on Friday, you blocked me from Tumblr and turned all your social media accounts private. I can't think of why you would do this when you claim to still want to resolve this and when I have been more than kind. I find it difficult to believe that you didn't know what my review would cause - it sounds to me like this is something that has been brewing for awhile. Frankly, I'm amazed it took three years. I would also appreciate if, instead of blaming the "situation" on Tumblr for your inability to receive new commissions, you began taking responsibility for that as well. May I suggest: "My actions in the past three years have harmed many people and they are angry about it with good cause. Because I have damaged my reputation to a great extent, I will probably not receive many, if any, people willing to pay me money for commissions."

I fully expect to receive nothing from you: art or my money returned. When speaking with PayPal on Friday, they advised the only way to shut your PayPal account down is if I file a criminal complaint with the IC3, which is the US's Internet Crimes division of the FBI. I did so and sent them the screenshots I have of all our conversations, your posts on Tumblr, and links to the posts of other people who publicly came out regarding the same behavior they experienced. I'm uncertain I can withdraw my complaints from both PayPal and the IC3, and if I could I don't think I would. I'm sure this isn't something that is high priority for them, but I assume eventually they will contact you to discuss your actions. The way I see it, you have three options at this point in time:

Find some way to issue a refund to me, and any other customers you've wronged. If I am contacted by investigators, I will say a refund was eventually issued in my case.

Deliver the art you promised to me, and any other customers. If I am contacted by investigators, I will say a product was eventually delivered in my case.

Continue to ignore what you've done and hope that no real consequences come of it.

As to the art, I don't want it anymore. It has been tainted by this awful experience and I will not enjoy it. I will, however, accept it if you choose to do it to lessen whatever consequences you may end up facing because, truly, I'd rather you learn from this than end up with financial or legal consequences that are even more burdensome.

Honestly. I never expected to hear from SSK again. But I did because this is the drama that never ends. On July 20th:

I must apologize for the long silence. Sorry, I just got home from an unexpected vacation with my family, and I followed the advice of my parents and friends - spend these days away from work and the Internet to feel better. As I said, I understand you. You sound reasonable and you are totally right - it is my responsibility for that. And I'm trying to work it out, even if these are rather strange ways. And it wasn't about you personally. This was part of another problem with a friend I was trying to protect, and I followed the advice to keep the accounts private during the "war" and block some people on the tumblr during this time to avoid any collisions. But still, I was available for correspondence via email, and now all my accounts are again freely available. I know how it looks like, especially for you, when you have really been more than kind to me, and I cannot apologize enough to somehow change and improve this situation. I just fucked up on all fronts and I admit it. And I see, yes. I don't mind returning your art or money, it's just a matter of time. These are not days, these are weeks or months, and it is solely a matter of your patience. If you do not mind waiting, then I will try to return the money to you, since you no longer want art for obvious reasons. I understand and accept it, and it's okay. If you're willing to wait, I'll keep you informed of the refund situation and will do it as soon as I can.

You’ll note earlier I told you I can’t tag SSK cause I’m blocked. I’ve never been unblocked since July despite her saying she would. This is also the last email I got from SSK. I’ve had no communication since to my knowledge.

At this point in time I was tired. Really tired. It was bad news I got this email exactly a month after my father passed because I just didn’t want to do it anymore. This is my second to last email to SSK in response also on July 20th:

Please feel free to do what you need to do to manage the situation. For my part, I have said and done all I can. I have asked for a refund for a service you have been unable to provide in a reasonable time frame, and thus you are legally obligated to return my money in the same reasonable time frame. That time frame has passed already.

When I am contacted by authorities about this matter in response to my complaints, I will tell them you have promised refunds but have not delivered. The only thing you could do to change this answer is to issue a refund before I am contacted.

This exchange is draining and unhelpful for me. I ask that you please do not contact me again until you are ready to issue a refund.

On September 25th, I was informed SSK had successfully opened commissions on Twitter and Instagram. This spurred me to send one final email:

I've been informed you recently reopened commissions to buy yourself something and met your goal, even though you only advertised on Twitter and Instagram.

I would like to remind you that I'm still owed a refund AND you shouldn't spend that commission money until you deliver on that art. Please do not rip and entire new group of people off.

There are other people, in the notes of the original post, who can attest to terrible experiences similar to mine. In particular, @starsandskies, @vorchagirl, and @charlatron have all come forward to talk about what she’s done and their experiences. Her pattern seems to be to open commissions, deliver a few, have the rest dragged out of her, and then to not do other ones. I drew the short straw this time.

I don’t know if she’s reading this - if she is, at this point all I really want is an apology, a list of people who are waiting for art/refunds from her, and a plan as to how she’s going to make it right. If she doesn’t do those things, I suspect I’m going to keep getting dragged back into this cluster for awhile to talk about my experiences.

If you’re waiting for artwork Non, open PayPal disputes and file complaints if you need to. The sooner the better.

#manka answers asks #sunseekerknight #this again #I'm tired of it again #sorry guys

93 notes · View notes

yandere-daydreams · 4 years

Note

alright, but consider this: Yandere Ares. He’s a towering man who knows his own strength a little *too* well and will break both of your feet if you try to run away

I’m not Ares’ biggest fan, but… damn, he’d just such a *perfect* Agressive-Possessive. In terms of jealousy alone, really. It’s just how Gods of War are, and Ares certainly isn’t going to make ane effort to be any different.

TW: Implied Kidnapping and Physical Assult.

Ares was an imposing man. If nothing else, you’d give him that. He towered over mortals and Gods alike, his weapons always sharpened and his armor always polished, despite those eyes being enough to make most of his enemies crumble faster than the cities he demolished. His rage could be felt across a continent, and even the gentlest of touches would leave their recipients sore. He was strong, all-encompassing, his presence alone becoming suffocating after more than a second.

You weren’t imposing. You weren’t strong or impressive and you couldn’t make someone surrender just from looking at them the wrong way. But, you were scrappy, and luckily, that seemed to be the one tactic Ares didn’t have a strategy to defend against.

Even after weeks of the same routine, months of it, you could still hear him tripping over the decorative spears you’d torn off the wall, stumbling to avoid the tables and statues you’d overturned to slow him down. Evasion wasn’t an option, not when Ares knew his fortress better than the back of his hand, but you’d never had a problem with slipping out of your restraints and reeking havoc until he managed to catch you. Of course, you wanted to escape properly, to find the court of the nearest peaceful kingdom and beg for hospitality in a place where Ares had no power, but that hadn’t been your goal since the first time you failed to do so. Making his life a little harder was good enough.

Making him suffer meant you were good enough.

But, all good things must come to an end. As you rounded another corner, a pitch-black wall replaced empty space, the hall forking into two distinct paths with little warning. You froze, instinctually, wondering which you should choose and where you’d taken a wrong turn, but even the smallest of hesitations was enough to seal your fate. Just as you broke into a sprint, strong fingers rooted themselves in your uncut hair, pulling you back just as quickly as you’d started to run. You were jerked in front of him swiftly, Ares’ grip iron-clad and unwavering despite how deeply your nails were embedded into his skin, or the small slivers of it you could get to through copper gloves, rather.

“I told you to behave,” He grunted, his breathlessness becoming apparent as soon as he started to speak. You couldn’t help yourself, smirking proudly, the fact that you’d exhausted an Olympian filling you with a well-warented confidence. But, Ares was quick to wipe the expression off your face, another light tug forcing you onto your toes. He seemed to want to tear your scalp off, but you’d grown used to the constant threat. “I could snap your ankles like twigs, I could break your neck in a moment.” He paused, sighing, shaking his head as you failed to react. “You know how forgiving I’ve been, don’t you? Any pathetic, lesser deity would be honored to take your place at my side.”

“And yet, I don’t see many candidates lining up.” The comment slipped out easily, not that you made a considerable effort to stop it from doing so. Ares’ glare refocused, but you knew better than to meet it, averting your gaze to the ceiling with a light shrug. “I suppose I could count Mrs. Aphrodite, if I’m being generous, but she hasn’t been around lately. Did you manage to drive her away too?”

There was growl, guttural and fierce, but you didn’t give-in. Ares was as fond of your stubbornness as he was every other part of you. “I should have you thrown into Tartarus--”

“What you should do, what you could do… you’re always talking about possibilities, aren’t you?” He faltered, baring his teeth at the words, but the moment of hesitation allowed you to slip through his plated armor, your nails soon burrowing into a soft spot near his wrist and ripping through his skin, blood washing over your fingertips as Ares released you, more out of reflex than pain. You regained your footing immediately, but you didn’t run, your stance remaining passive as you continued. “We both know you’re not going to hurt me, Ares. You’re not going to touch me, and do you want to know why?”

“Because I’m merciful--”

“Because you’re a coward.” This time, you didn’t try to keep your tone calm or compliant or civil, gritting your teeth and taking a step forward. You were tempted to stab at his chest, to make a grab for the sword strapped to his waist, but you crossed his arms to suppress the urge, settling to let him fester instead. “That why I’m here, right? Because you’re scared of people you can’t control, and that makes you need to feel big. You probably thought I’d be too busy trembling to ever see through your stupid little show. Or, were you just hoping I’d be too meek to call you out?” He opened his mouth, but you only scoffed, gesturing to your chest and daring him to try something. “Go ahead. Maim me, scar me, send me to Hell. Even a pit full of monsters would be preferable to spending one more minute putting up with your bullshit--”

You didn’t get to finish, a fist closing around your throat in the blink of an eye. You were off the ground in a moment, back slammed into the nearest wall and windpipe all-but crushed by the metal suddenly weighing down on top of it. You kicked and struggled and writhed, attempting to hold yourself up by his wrist, but Ares only grit his teeth and dragged you further up, uneven stone tearing at your tunic as he did so. He didn’t stop until you were at his height, forced to meet his stare. Aversion wasn’t an option, not when he was practically breathing down your neck. You wondered if he’d go through with it, if he’d finally, finally end you, but he didn’t.

You knew he wouldn’t. The would be too kind for Ares.

The remaining air in your lungs disappeared as he leaned in, Ares sparing no brutality as his teeth lodged themselves in your jugular vien. You could feel the puncture wounds form, the bruising start, blood beginning to drip over your collar by the time he pulled away. The pain was minimal, but your own apparent helplessness was agonizing, red stains soon forming on white cloth, the blots carrying an uncanny resemblance to the eyes boring into your own. “For my hand,” He explained, as he pulled away, his lips stained with the carnal color. “I hope you think twice before doing something so disrespectful again.”

You moved to respond, to curse him out or spit something vile, but all it took was a flex of Ares’ hands to silence you, his grip smothering any words that could’ve formed on your tongue. “You’ve never been respectful, have you? Always running your mouth, running away, always making me look like a fool. But, that might be my fault.” Ares rolled his eyes, tapping his index finger against your jaw. “That’s why I have to do these things. You see that, don’t you? I never taught you to respect me, and now I’m dealing with the consequences. We both are.”

He dropped you unceremoniously, letting you fall into a heap, gasping and gagging and rubbing furiously at the marks he’d left, each attempt to clear the carnage only making the injury sting more. If Ares noticed your panic, your distress, he didn’t seem to care, a grin breaking out on that horrid face as he crouched in front of you. His hand returned to your hair, but there was no roughness, this time, no unfeeling cruelty. Only gentle, careful strokes, each one dripping with more patronizing affection than the last.

It might’ve scared you more than his former actions had, honestly.

“Clearly, you need a proper lesson. We should start right away. There’s no point cleaning you up for a task so dirty, is there?”

827 notes · View notes

anarcho-smarmyism · 3 years

Text

open letter to fenrir wolf: plague edition

Wolf, if you can hear this, it’s 2021, and it’s a plague this time around. my first letter was supposed to be an offering, not a goddamn invitation.

I remember the weekend before quarantine began, dancing (badly) with my Freyan friend at a pub last saint patrick’s day, the band joking about the elephant in the room, saying that everything was fine, they were all the way up on the stage, they wouldn’t get anyone sick. I had been thinking about the previous saint patrick’s day, but even then, even through my drunken haze and bitter memories, I thought I could hear a note of desperation in the singer’s voice; I remember the tremble of quiet dread. I told myself to stop being paranoid. everything’s always a false alarm, until one day it isn’t. this saint patrick’s day, against my better judgement, I went to a bar alone because I’d just bought a red dress, and honestly, because I needed to be away from my in-law’s house for a little while longer. I sat down and took off my mask once I’d entered one of the few places you’re allowed to irresponsibly have your mask off in, and it feels weirdly intimate to let people see my face in public by now; back when all I had was a black bandanna, I used to pretend I was an Old West outlaw, and wonder if I’ll ever grow out of pretending to be a cowboy from the movies…or if I I’d have the opportunity to. I had a couple beers, wondered for a few stupid moments why everyone was wearing green and shamrocks, and made idle small talk with the bartender while I stared blankly ahead and wondered how it could be a whole year, and also how it could be only one year, and how it is that all the world’s people let the rich and powerful shovel us by the millions into our graves.

when it started, they told us not to buy masks. everyone was panic buying everything else, and they wanted to make sure they didn’t run out for hospital workers and such. i was able to get some bandanas for me and Tyr’s kid before they ran out, while the TV was still discouraging us from buying them if they mentioned it at all, not to mention the current president’s rabid followers screaming at you in public for defying their leader’s lies that the virus is a hoax and the mass graves in italy and new york are fake news. he rolled his eyes at me at the time, but now the party line is that everyone ought to be wearing two masks if you can. no one seems to remember stuff like this; but then why should they, when the news is showing the last head of state’s supporters storming the capitol? panic buttons had been ripped out; someone refused to call the national guard over and over again, while the racist mob built a noose outside, breached the perimeter, and went looking for politicians to kill because they weren’t going to let their god-emperor stay in power. for aspiring revolutionaries, i must say they weren’t very ambitious; they killed a cop and got shot just to do nothing but take selfies once they got in and found no one inside to kill; they even walked obediently in line between the little velvet ropes on their way in. the only saving grace is that, since their god-emperor has spent 8 months telling them anyone who wears a mask is a pussy and a communist, they all left their hoods at home and many were identified. reports of off-duty cops being among the attackers trailed in. I worked customer service for 9 hours wondering if I was wasting precious time I’d need to look into getting a passport.

it almost worked, Wolf. Just like the nukes almost flew in the 80’s and the climate change is almost certainly going to reach the point of no return within a decade. how many almosts do we have left? Will we keep going from reckoning to reckoning of our own design, playing chicken with nature instead of trying to throw off these shackles and just live, until one day our luck runs out? I suppose that always was the plan on some scale, but I hoped we’d at least get to walk on another planet first. How can this be the end of history, with that great ineffable blanket of stars above us that we haven’t yet explored?

It was only a month or so ago that a blizzard hit Texas -not just where I used to live, where blizzards are rare but fierce and we build our houses to withstand them, but deeper south where a light dusting would make local news for weeks. the strain was too much for the grid; the politicians had made sure the state’s not connected to the rest of the nation’s infrastructure, so entire cities lost power…the poor parts of the cities, anyways. people were circulating infographics on how to resist hypothermia along with pictures of icicles forming on ceilings of their apartment buildings. then the stories started pouring in. children found huddled in their trailers around their younger siblings to try and keep them warm, dead of hypothermia. old ladies’ frozen bodies found by family who’d seen her alive and well mere days ago. families trapped in their houses, built to stay cool in the brutal desert heat, buried by the snow and unable to eat, stay warm, dig their way out, or call for help. some politician lost his job for telling people to stop asking for help because “the strong will survive”. the masters of our world, the ones that stand smugly guarding the gateways from this world to a better one and slaughtering all who approach, really think that surviving because you’re rich and powerful, because you struggle so little that life itself is something you take for granted, is the same thing as survival of the fittest. i saw my peers laughing and saying Texans deserved it for voting the wrong way, and I think something broke inside me, because when that rage erupted from that ugly hidden place that is always burning my hands shook and I wanted to howl until my throat started to bleed and I could’ve summoned you with all the hate that came over me, and who’s to say I didn’t, the way things are going? and this is the new normal, for the rest of my life if not for the rest of our species’. we are guaranteed so little time, and yet we throw it over our shoulders with both hands so we can make the numbers on our ATM screen go up. i feel like i would do anything to guarantee the survival of my species, but I can’t deny some part of me believes we deserve this.

because if this is really it, Wolf, people will blame you, but we are the ones who built this world. I wont bore you with more politics, but the scientists knew how to prevent the worst of it from day one. all we had to do was shut down industry for a few months -and oh, how I remember thinking I could almost hear you laughing as I watched them talk about it on TV as though they might actually try and save us, knowing deep in my bones that the movers and shakers of our species consider it no contest at all, between sacrificing billions in profits and millions of lives. they may be lying bastards, but their devotion to greed is as eternal and sincere as was your promise to make the ones who bound you pay -and they have no qualms about paying the same abominable price. My anger is making me reckless, and I know it, and I know that they always say you shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds you -and maybe it’s true, but it’s also true that they’re only feeding us at all because they know hungry people may swallow them whole. how can I blame the plague or the storms or the riots for our doom, when the extent of the death they’re causing are only the consequences of human actions? how can I hold my livid need to get back at the bastards with my duty to my own humanity in the same body, when they crash against each other like two asteroids headed in opposite directions?

we just heard that vaccines are available in our state, right when I was halfway through writing this. I’m sure it’ll be weeks until we can breathe without fear, Wolf, and even then, the storms and the riots, the coming famines and wars, means that reprieve will be small and bitter and filled with irony and dread. I’ll be sure to give you some raw meat and take a shot of that godawful whiskey so you can laugh at the face I make. sometimes I wonder if you’d be on my side, help me and my friends break their haughty power, reclaim the world, and start rebuilding the forests we squandered in our ignorance and greed, were you given the opportunity. I’d like to think so, and it seems like the kind of thing you’d be into -but then, we’ll never know, will we? Despite all I’ve said, I still hold out stubborn faith that one day humanity will learn that so long as one of us is imprisoned, none of us are truly free. We're not like you, so you'll have to take my word for it: humans need mercy like wolves need to hunt. Just because we can technically stay alive in these chains that force us to forget that the humans' only true strength was always only their cooperation with each other, doesn't mean it's good for us to live this way. If we can learn that we are strong enough if we stand together, we can take them down before they take us and countless other species down with them. People have been certain the world would end before; and they’ve all been wrong so far. perhaps it’ll take more than this to kill us.

-but that’s the thing, isn’t it? more is coming. it always has been.

But I really, really want to thank you for dancing 'til the end You found a way to break out You're not afraid to break out

#death tw #idk how to tag triggers on this it's kind of a lot #processing covid trauma in this one be careful #spilled ink #smarmyanarchist #the song at the end is also an absolute bop about the apocalypse which is oddly cleansing. just trust me janalle monae is always right

10 notes · View notes

clansayeed · 4 years

Text

Bound by Circumstance ― Chapter 19: No Sympathy for the Bloodwraith

PAIRING: Nik Ryder x trans*M!MC (Taylor Hunter) RATING: Mature

⥼ MASTERLIST ⥽

⥼ Bound by Circumstance ⥽

Taylor Hunter (MC) has made it good for himself in New Orleans; turns out moving to a new city fresh out of college to reinvent yourself isn’t as hard as people make it out to be. Things only start to get confusing when he finds himself the target of a malevolent wraith. Good thing someone’s looking out for him though — because without Nighthunter Nik Ryder as his bodyguard he definitely won’t survive long in the twisting darkness of the supernatural underworld he’s tripped into.

Bound by Circumstance and the rest of the Oblivion Bound series is an ongoing dramatic retelling project of the book Nightbound and the rest of the Bloodbound series. Find out more [HERE].

Note: Circumstance only loosely follows the events and plotline of Nightbound, and features a separate antagonist, different character motivations, and further worldbuilding.

*Let me know if you would like to be added to the Circumstance/series tag list!

⥼ Chapter Summary ⥽

Cadence recounts one of the worst events in the Council’s history as the bloodwraith’s motives are brought to light. Taylor’s new empathy turns into both a helpful gift and a terrible burden.

[READ IT ON AO3]

New Orleans, 1921

“If you think the entire Garden Coven unwilling to march on you without hesitation, then you’re far more a fool than you’ve already proved yourself to be.”

The Nighthunter rounds on him with stake in hand. Even as unofficial allies his intent is clear: I will use this.

But Cadence doesn’t step back because he fears the weapon. He fears the man using it.

Has seen that wild look in his eyes elsewhere — though never in a human. It is the look that watches his every step, that hoards the limp limbs of their meal closer, that seeks only to gorge on thick veins and will not be sated until red ichor spills from their lips they are so full with it.

In a reversal of fortune it is the human who looks at the vampire with the gouging claws of bloodthirst and madness.

Any creature of sound mind would fear Reimonenq now.

“They can’t touch me,” the sneering reply, “those damn Accords keep y’all from actin’ as a faction!”

“Those same Accords demand the same of you!”

“It’s different for me an’ you know it, Smith.”

“No—honestly I don’t. You’re just as much a part of this community as any of us. You’re beholden to the Accords just as we are!” But the thing he’s still struggling to grasp, the thing that leaves him gaping even as Derek Reimonenq resumes shoving his things into a ratty sack, is far worse.

“Even with the legality aside — you just murdered three young women in cold blood.”

If any vestiges of warmth remained in his once-alive body they are dashed in the moment the man’s cruel laughter reaches his ears.

“Trust me when I say there weren’t nothin’ cold about it.”

A blind fury consumes him. Sends him rushing at the man with preternatural speed to pin him to the wall; the same grasp capable of turning concrete to powder wrapped around the mortal’s neck.

“You think this is funny?!”

“What it is, damn bleedin’ hearted fool, is justice!”

Derek shoves him back; only succeeds when the vampire is too stunned to speak or hold his ground. “You storm in here spoutin’ all yer high-horse shit about them Accords but you think I’m the only one what broke ‘em? You think those devil-whisperin’ freaks didn’ bend they’re own rules just the same?

“Those girls were unnatural. Even for they’re kind. I been at this all my life Smith — I know how to suss out the ones who ain’t got no hope a’goin’ anywhere but bad.”

“You killed them before they even had a chance. You’re no seer Reimonenq, you can’t possibly think you’re justified on a hunch!”

Derek’s upper lip curls. Cadence is almost surprised he doesn’t glimpse fangs.

“A Nighthunter’s job ain’t easy an’ it ain’t nice an’ it definitely ain’t simple. I already compromised every-damn-thing I believe in when I joined in on ya damn Council. But Come Hell an’ high waters if I stop makin’ this city safe for me an’ mine.”

Like a creature in her own right there comes a small hollow noise at the door. Low and center — the tap-tapping of child’s knuckles. The men break their brawl to watch — to wait.

The knuckles tap-tap again. Firmer this time.

Derek wars with himself for only a moment — opens the door and smooths the kind eyes of a father over those of the beast before.

Cadence knows it isn’t his spectacles that cause him to see a familiar child; not the honey-eyed daughter of Reimonenq but the wild ginger mane of Meredith LaPointe’s youngest. Her face frozen in terror as it will always be; carved behind his eyelids and in his soul.

Even in a town like New Orleans some hauntings have nothing to do with the supernatural. Some are personal.

The little girl stands with her nightshirt bunched in impossibly tiny fists. Wide eyes shining at the sight of her father before realizing he isn’t alone. When her lower lip begins to wobble the vampire realizes his mistake and averts his unnatural ruby gaze.

“You’re supposed to be in bed baby girl,” croons the same man who had burned three girls mere hours ago.

He picks his daughter up and tucks her in close. Cadence wonders if she can smell burned flesh and hair on his old army coat. “Where’s that momma’a yours…” Doesn’t look back to his guest even as he closes the door behind him, ventures deeper into his slumbering home.

Now alone the towering man begs for an answer only he can give — the same thing he had thought with the sunset a looming enemy at his back on the steps of Reimonenq’s domain.

Why is he here?

He has no stake in the Nighthunter’s life. In fact they’ve run afoul of one another more than most. For a man apparently so dedicated to upholding the tenets of the original Nighthunters he sure found himself in debt to the creatures he should so despise often enough. They’d met that way — another payment to Cadence’s three year debt to Carlo in strongarming the money that was promised.

And fucks sakes… there’s nothing redeemable about a man who would hold his daughter with hands still stained with the soot of a witch pyre.

The Council will come for him. There’s even a likelihood the vampire himself would be one of the men tasked with bringing him for his trial.

Maybe he just has to accept that there isn’t a reason for confronting Reimonenq alone.

Maybe he just wants to understand.

Monster to monster.

“What foul…?” He catches another whiff of burned flesh and a shudder rolls through him. He wonders if it should remind him of the battlefield. Still so strong even with thin walls between them — like Reimonenq hadn’t even left the room.

Curious.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees the lumped and dark shadow of the hunter’s sack. Ready to cut and run even with a family awaiting his return on the city’s outskirts.

Cadence doesn’t have a family — or if he does he doesn’t know where to find them. Are they waiting for him? Are they just as ignorant to the truth?

All his unanswered questions and here the other man is almost eager to abandon it all. Jealousy is an ugly thing.

When he reaches for the bag it’s because he’s angry; because he wants to delay Derek as much as possible. Not just to face the consequences of his actions but so he knows what the fuck he’s leaving behind. Has to dial down his strength lest he send a myriad of Nighthunter’s essentials hurtling through the thin drywall.

Stakes clatter to the floor. A medieval crossbow lands arm-down and snaps the archaic metal off like shattering glass. Bare essentials of fabric tumble out and reveal the prize he had wrapped within with care and greed both; what remaining skin was peeled from muscle tissue and bone from the flames that had consumed them starts to flake off and settle on scuffed wooden floors.

One cooked finger snaps off and rolls under the nearby bed. The rest are curled up and in like spiders after they die of starvation.

He’s caused his fair share of bloodshed but this—

Trophies…

Cadence’s tears gather and the world goes blurry at his eyes. From rage, from disgust, from incredulity…

He rips his glasses off and shatters them in his fist.

To the Elders of the Garden District Coven, Carlo de la Rosa was at the center of the city’s vampire community. If they weren’t of his blood they owed him in one form of another — Cadence is proof of that.

He was old, powerful, and connected. He had to go.

To the malevolent specter of Derek Reimonenq, Carlo was a threat. Not just as the leader of the vampires of New Orleans but on a personal level as well. In the months following his death Reimonenq’s wife and daughter inherited more than his legacy — they inherited his debts too.

He was as remorseless as he was undead. He had to go.

The Elders witnessed firsthand the rapid rise to power of Denna Ostrowski; a shapeshifter rumored to have had over a hundred forms under her pelt. To the mundane world she was new money investing in the rich history of Louisiana. And money opens many doors — even among the supernatural.

She had her hands steeped in the cauldrons of both worlds. She had to go.

Only Denna came to town long after The Bloody Hand had been dealt with — near forgotten.

That didn’t stop her from learning as much as she could about the history of the Council; from allies to enemies. Learning where they lived, where they died, and where they had hidden every rotten putrid trophy hand.

It was a part of the past best left forgotten yet that didn’t stop Denna from destroying them all the way down to the bone. And for that her days were numbered.

Though they didn’t know it the Elders and their ghoulish pet saw eye-to-eye when it came time to level that gaze on Tonya Reimonenq. They called her Lady Smoke because those who ran afoul of her always disappeared without a trace.

Poof — gone like smoke.

She never asked for her gift; the Reimonenq Curse. But she took it and she used it without shame or guilt. Made a show of keeping her touch under expensive wrappings but everyone knew the truth.

She liked having such power; control over who lived and who died. And despite being of Derek Reimonenq’s decaying flesh and molded blood, Tonya had turned herself into a target — made herself a creature more than she ever was a human being.

“I was the one who brought him in front of the Council,” Cadence says without regret, without remorse; “I kept him from going into hiding. If I hadn’t gone to him that night the Garden Coven may very well have never found him.”

Cal frowns. “I thought you said he couldn’t be accused and punished. Which I still can’t make a lick’a sense of.”

“In the eyes of the Accords both sides were at fault — for different things, but equally guilty of knowing the laws and consciously choosing to break them.”

“What did the Coven do?”

The vampire shifts in discomfort.

“The girls Derek burned weren’t born into the families that made up their ranks at the time. The Elders back then had plans to blood them fully — sort of like an initiation you can’t back out of — but they were brought into the city from outside covens before it was done.”

“To put it plain they brought enemies onto Quarter soil,” explains Katherine with a tired rub of her eye.

Cal throws his glance back to Taylor and Vera and matches their confusion.

“I’m missin’ somethin’. ‘Cause no offense but I can’t see a guy like Elric agreeing to put kids to death over bein’ somewhere they shouldn’t’ve.”

“You’re right — Elric knew the girls were smuggled into town. The whole Council did, actually. Given the circumstances they agreed to turn a blind eye.” When he’s met with a silence that screams for him to keep going Cadence does, though the reluctance is clear on his expression.

“Listen — I never met them personally. I only know what I do from rumor and that’s putting it lightly. But one person heard from another who heard from God-knows-who-else that the girls all shared the same power—could do the same thing in the craft, you know?

“It was said they could remove free will. I don’t know how, or if it was wild speculation or the truth watered down. Even I laughed when the story reached far down enough to my rung on the ladder. Nothing of the natural world — be it magic or sensation or psychic connection — can truly take away all resistance to command. Even my kind, while connected to our Makers on a deep and intimate level, can resist their influence if we do so with all of our being.

“None of this mattered though. The Coven may have concealed their nature but everyone could put two and two together.”

“No one thought they were gonna try somethin’ shifty?” asks Nik. Cadence shakes his head.

“One of the Elders had a natural gift of his own; he could sever the witch from their ability to practice the craft. It was clear that was their plan — that the city didn’t have to worry. They just couldn’t do so until after being blooded into the Coven.

“I think most of us just felt sorry for them.” Doesn’t stare at the carpet underfoot but through it; both in the room with them and some place he thought he had left far behind. “I did. All around the country young men had been sent off to war and returned home empty husks, if they returned at all. There was a sort of cultural agreement that didn’t need words: children and their innocence was worth protecting.”

Kathy’s hand hovers over his before making a decision, offering contact to ground the man to the present. But the smile he gives her is hollow. The memories still haunt him — maybe they always will.

“Derek Reimonenq didn’t agree,” he continues to everyone’s surprise, “not that anyone expected him to. Neither did the Bayou Alpha but the war didn’t even give her back a body to bury, so she fell in with the rest. Everyone figured he would air his grievances and follow through as he usually did… bottle in hand.

“It’s the only time I can remember that the Council tried to find a flaw in their own laws. They wanted to convict him — everyone was demanding justice. But rather than two trials and needless punishment on the side of the Coven the only solution they could all agree on was a clean slate.”

“Which didn’t sit well with the witches,” Vera rests her hand on her racing heart like that will help — it doesn’t, “so they Cursed him. And all the Reimonenq blood ‘longside.”

Cadence nods tight-lipped; has said more than he thought he would have to and more than he wished to if his tension is anything to go by.

“Makes sense, now.”

Nik’s fingertips are warm on Taylor’s scalp. They card through his hair as if to remind them both they are here; that it’s all come down to this.

“Those Elder bastards were targetin’ power in the city but somehow usin’ Derek’s spirit gave it an agenda. Carlo for the past, Denna for revenge on his stuff — can’t say I blame it for hatin’ Smoke but —”

“And how exactly did I piss off ‘The Bloody Hand?’” Taylor asks in bewilderment. Nothing about the casual way the man shrugs reassures him.

“Dunno — you were convenient?”

“And we’re back to that now.”

“Sometimes a spade is a spade is a spade,” his mouth twists with deep thought, “though now we know why it wasn’t houndin’ on us the second you were outside a ward. They gave it a hit list but it chose the order.”

No one responds — what is there to say? Sure it’s satisfying to finally know, to understand.

But does it change anything?

It has to. Otherwise The Fate wouldn’t have led him on this; the altered path.

“This is good — this is a really good thing.”

The incredulity and judgment that bears down on Katherine isn’t personal — she knows that. More than that she doesn’t care. Not with the wry look she’s sending Ryder’s way. “Damn,” she laughs dryly, “it might actually be the only time in all this weird crap that things might work in our favor.”

“How d’ya mean?”

“You said it yourself; a spade’s a spade. Think about it, Nik — finally this is just a job like any other. Just creatures following their nature.”

A look of understanding comes over his weary features. “So maybe it’s time we follow ours, you mean.”

Like she’s reading his mind Vera speaks up where Taylor still struggles to connect the dots; “For the class, guys?”

Kathy’s smile is a rare thing. Rare and unnerving.

“We do what Nighthunters do best; we hunt.”

Even with everything he’s seen and endured the sight of rusted cemetery gates still form knots in his belly; dread and memory all tied up with the knowledge that at the end of the day he’s just as vulnerable here and now as he was that first night.

And you know what doesn’t help? Being in the Garden District again; that doesn’t help.

Being so close to their enemies — those literally plotting to kill them with more than one attempt under their witchy robes — that doesn’t help.

But it must be done. “It’s a risk we’ll have to take,” Katherine had said while hoisting a rusted toolbox from its shelf in Cadence’s office, “since it’s proven already it can attack us anywhere — wards or no.”

“There aren’t any protection measures we can take?” Vera had asked; though they were all sure that if there was an answer they would have found it by now.

“Find a god and pray.”

That the cemetery is largely untouched is a miracle. Not for fear of ghosts and the scary stories tour guides like Tilly tell but for the fact that tourists usually just don’t give a damn.

Then again this is the closest cemetery to the Coven. That has something to do with it no doubt.

Cadence leads them through the dark and winding paths — Cal bringing up the rear. “No flashlights,” the vampire had insisted, “the moment we trespass is the moment the mundane authorities become just as much a threat as the witches.”

Lucky they have a vampire and a werewolf on their team then. Precision hunters pretty much known for their ability to see at night.

They keep close-knit ranks but let’s be honest; they’re about as subtle as the Scooby Gang would be in this scenario.

A joke he will not be saying within earshot of Cal if Taylor values his life.

Though the vampire insists—almost too much—that he hasn’t been to the Reimonenq crypt since Derek was put there almost a century ago he sure knows his way easy enough.

“Are you sure you’re okay with us doing this; vandalizing your family crypt?” Taylor asks Vera, because this just feels awkward especially with her here. And if she says stop you better know they will be stopping.

But nope; it’s all good. “I’m only frustrated I can’t get us in myself.”

They come to a stop — abruptly, like jostled dominoes — in front of an old stone grave.

Any other day Taylor would have walked right by it; dismissed it for another piece of city history made illegible from erosion over time. But through the greenish muck and years of wear, maybe because he knows what he’s looking for, it’s there.

REIMONENQ “Mourn not the dead, but those burdened to continue living.”

His heart sinks at the inscription beneath Vera’s family name — chances a glance her way, ready to offer what little comfort he can.

Her eyes scream of hatred but he can feel beneath the surface. All that anger stemming from a place of hurt, of loss; of regret. Hatred at the bones they hope to find within and regret for every life that could have been spared in the aftermath of him.

Cadence motions for Cal to help him strongarm the front slab.

“Wait,” says Vera through the stones in her throat and the tears in her eyes she refuses to shed, “gimme a second.”

Katherine holds her breath — thinks better of pointing out that they may not have a second to spare. They know; Vera knows.

But she also deserves this.

She removes her left glove while approaching the crypt. They step back, give her a wide berth and not just for her sake.

Fingers stretched as far and forward as they’ll go Vera lays her palm on the surface. Pushes with a fruitless effort but it probably isn’t the physical barrier she’s forcing back. At least that’s not what Taylor feels in her soul.

“When I was a lit’le girl Momma told me we didn’ have the luxury of choosin’ whether or not to be killers. That day I vowed to myself to be the first — to keep the Touch from ever takin’ a life so long as I held it.

“I was fifteen when she tricked me into usin’ it on a man — staged it like I was savin’ her life by taking another. And I’ll never forgive her for it.”

Taylor feels his heart begin to crumble, then crash into a deep dark sea in chunks as tears roll down her cheeks.

“But she proved something to me that day —” she continues, “— she proved she was right. That so long as we had the Touch we would be killers whether we wanted to or not. She may have tried to make me a hero but no one who can do what we do could ever be one.

“But here—lookin’ at this grave, knowin’ what I know and all that The Bloody Hand did? I don’t feel guilty anymore. I finally realize that I really never had a choice.

“It was always gonna be in my nature.”

Cal’s knuckles crack hollow in the silent cemetery. Cade averts his ruby eyes, swipes his tongue over the hint of a fang.

If anyone here can understand her, it’s them.

“That’s what makes him so evil,” Vera tugs on her glove with jerking frustration; and not for the first time turns her back on the name REIMONENQ, “he had a choice an’ he chose to kill. And I ain’t gonna forget that — no matter how ‘tortured’ his soul is supposed to be.

“Those Elders ain’t in the right in what they’ve done but he wouldn’t have been their weapon had he not chosen to do great evil first.”

Not a rallying cry or solemn eulogy — but her intent is clear.

No sympathy for the bloodwraith.

No sympathy for Derek Reimonenq.

Ryder insists on proceeding with caution—still a statement Taylor’s trying to wrap his head around to be honest—and earns Katherine’s grumbled agreement that they should at least check for remnants of the Elders’ visit.

Cal spots a couple of markings drawn in chalk by the base that set teeth and fangs on edge but ultimately Kathy concludes they’re nothing more than lay-hexes; the witch equivalent of spitting on someone and cursing them to burn in Hell. A bit ominous but not meant to guard the abandoned tomb.

Which, frankly, leaves Taylor more than a little unsettled.

“If they saw no need to enchant it, does that mean there’s nothing inside we can use?”

Nik shakes his head and steps back, allows the two creatures among them to really give in to that nature of theirs and pry the weathered granite from its seal.

“First thing any hunter does when dealin’ with the hereafter is t’learn about the life of the haunting dead. We got the life story and we got how he died —”

“Step two is consecrate whatever bones can be found.” Katherine finishes.

A groan of resistance cuts off with a loud THUD, the noise bouncing from crypt to crypt definitely more than loud enough to awaken the dead. Nice timing to start regretting not bringing Ivy along.

Cade props the front plate on the side of the structure, waves his hand at the irritating dust and sand set off from their force.

It must be nice not to have to breathe, Taylor would say — if he wasn’t hacking his lungs out and praying there isn’t any powdered body on his tongue.

When it settles and they can properly peer inside — the good news is that aren’t any corpses that might make him lose his nerve. One more fainting spell and Taylor might just have to live in shame in the backwoods of the Bayou.

The bad news, though, is also that there aren’t any corpses; rather a large black hole stretching into a void. Darker than the night around them, practically made of nothing.

The vampire sighs and pushes up his glasses. “It’s a small stairwell,” then looking back to Vera, “I know you aren’t to blame in the least but… there’s a reason no one has a basement in Louisiana.” Judging by the look she throws his way it’s better that she takes the high road and doesn’t comment.

“I can’t smell any water rot,” Cal sniffs the air again and the face he makes might as well curl the ends of his hair, “but there’s definitely dead things below.”

“Wow, dead things in a crypt, who would’a guessed?”

“Hey Ryder?”

“Yeah Kujo?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

There’s only enough space for them to go one at a time; and even that is being generous. Taylor can’t help but try to imagine the dignified Elder Daniels in her power-suit crawling into this muck — or Elder Vion hobbling through like a bag of bones.

Kathy volunteers Cadence to go first — an act the vampire looks like he objects to strongly. “Tall people aren’t really made for small —”

But it isn’t his height the huntress is concerned over; a revelation spurned by how she shoves him through the passage—crawlspace, really—and holds her breath as if waiting for something to happen.

Nothing does. “The inside isn’t bespelled. You can come out now if you want.”

If Cade could turn his head he would no doubt be glaring wildly. “Why bother, I’m already inside!” He seethes but takes cautious steps into the tomb, then into the earth.

Vera goes next, and of her own volition.

“Anyone else worried about the amount of oxygen down there?” And it’s such a clear opening for Nik to take a shot at the werewolf but Cal does have a point — while also looking a little green in the face.

So he and Katherine stay up top to guard the rather obvious and gaping hole in what should be a sealed grave. And for the sake of conserving breathing room, can’t forget that.

Nik’s hand is warm, solid as it coaxes him at his lower back. Only a few steps in he feels the drop of the descent. Waits until what little light from outside is obscured by the bodyguard at his back before he begins the journey down.

Down into the not-so-final not-quite-at-rest place of Derek Reimonenq.

Cal was right; there is a body down here.

But—and he’s just spitballing here really—he’s like… a little pretty-damn-sure it isn’t the guy who’s been dead for 98 years.

Ninety five, ninety four percent certain.

As he finishes igniting the last of the half-burned candle circle Cadence pockets his lighter and stands — doesn’t even have to hunch over. It had felt like they were walking for an hour in the pitch black but maybe he wasn’t that far off.

It’s not a tomb like anyone buried would have a tomb; more a room made sturdy with brick and mortar to do one purpose — and not even for forever. The candles have to be a new fixture courtesy of the Coven Elders and whatever hellish ritual they performed. Even the ground beneath them still holds traces of their visit; looks like Elder Daniels got her heel stuck in some as-yet unpacked dirt.

Derek Reimonenq’s body is probably supposed to be on the waist-height stone slab in the middle. Only it isn’t.

But someone’s is.

Ryder’s hand ghosts over yellow chalk marks on the walls. He pulls back a fingertip of the powder residue and gives it a little sniff; instantly regrets it with a recoil.

“Sulfur,” and he smears it back on the brick feeling desperately unclean.

Cadence joins Vera in looking up to where something large catches the reflection of the flames. He’s just tall enough to reach and brush the surface with a touch. “Looks like a quartz geode… I think I’ve read somewhere that halite can be cast to ward away weathering.”

“Explains why this place wasn’t swallowed up in Katrina,” agrees Nik.

There’s a long moment of silence before Taylor just can’t take it anymore.

“Is no one else gonna mention the dead corpse?”

Cadence snorts. “As opposed to the living one?”

Not what he meant.

But as the rest of the room’s oddities had been deduced the only logical progression was to the young woman laid to rest in a grave that isn’t hers. Maybe wasn’t supposed to be.

That she hasn’t shown any signs of decay isn’t even the strangest thing. No, that would be the pile of bleached-white bones serving as her funeral bed. Definitely more than what one human body should be made up of — but who says it’s human?

The almost medical distance with which Nik studies the long gash across her throat—not scabbed over but not bleeding, either, simply open—has Taylor looking away in discomfort.

While Vera may not have been initially as shocked as he, though, she keeps her distance beside him. “She’s so young…”

“Eighteen, maybe a tad less,” Cadence shrugs off the way they stare at him, “I tried out medicine a ways back, I think I can date a body.”

“Then how long has she been dead?”

“That’s the misleading part — but I think we have the halite ward to thank for that. Context included—I’d say she died the same night as Carlo de la Rosa.”

Vera sucks in a breath. “It killed her, too?”

“No, she doesn’t look like the other bodies.” Nik grunts and stands, wipes dirt from his palms and grabs one of the bones from under the girl’s knee to study it closely. “Conjuring the wraith — pulling Reimonenq’s spirit from the Veil, that’s some heavy necromancy, the kind you have to have in your blood. It could be one of the Elders but I’m gonna go out on a limb and say she’s our born Necromancer.”

Why is it that with everything he’s seen Taylor still has a hard time looking into her face, soft and so very still, and imagining her bringing that much evil into the world?

Ryder uses the bone to drag a wide circle around the dais in the dirt; follows the path just inside the candles and forces the other three back against the walls. “The Elders stood in a triangle — see the concentration of steps — and she did the summoning over the altar. When they were done… she wasn’t of any use to them and and had to go.”

“But she was one of their own,” Taylor protests, “they keep talking about how they’re trying to protect their Coven — she had to have been one of them right?”

It’s a heavy thought. Makes the air in the room feel a little thinner. Cal was right there isn’t enough for them down here.

“Come Hell and High Waters,” says Cade; and he probably means well but those words make him feel sick to his stomach now — some of that ends justifying the means bullshit.

“A sacrifice of one for the survival of the many. I wonder if they told her… that what she was doing was the right thing.”

“The right — they murdered her. There’s no way that’s right.”

“You’re questioning their morality now?”

Taylor falters. He has a point.

There’s just so much grief building up inside his chest he feels like his lungs might burst out of him. A terrible loss; losing himself, losing faith in something, losing trust and truth and…

And where the hell is this coming from?

I can’t breathe. Clutching his hand to his chest, heart seconds away from giving out, that familiar burn of breathing in too hard—too much. “I can’t breathe.”

Before he can collapse Vera helps ease him down to his knees, Nik suddenly at his side hands hovering — unsure of what to do, how to help, but filled with the desperate need to do something because feeling useless is a thundercloud gathering overhead.

“Rook—Rook breathe. I — what’s wrong? Can you talk? Talk to me Taylor, please —”

“Give him some space, Ryder.”

“Do you not see him having a panic attack?”

He gathers enough energy to rasp out only once; “Hey—huff—Nik—huff—backthehelloff!”

And because he can’t say it again he just waves Vera away with heavy slaps of his hands. He doesn’t mean to hurt her. Only to get his point across.

The breathing room they give helps a little. Not enough. Doesn’t stop the feelings he’s feeling or the confusion about those feelings.

They wait in silence while his panic subsides. Maybe it wouldn’t take so long if he understood what had caused it; but he’s met with nothing but patience and a whole lot of concern on Nik’s end.

When Taylor reaches out with a shaky hand it’s immediately grabbed; his entire being tethered to that one act. Nik squeezes first, he squeezes back.

His gaze drifts over the leather-clad shoulder to the body on the stone slab and… and he understands.

“I’m feeling her.” The aching grief twisting in his gut like a rusty knife, the purposelessness, the betrayal. “It—she—is everywhere in here. She’s suffocating.”

“She’s dead, Rook.”

“I mean her emotions—her soul. She wants to be known. She wants to be grieved.”

“So grieve her,” Cadence says, “however you can, you must. If you’re feeling that strong of an empathic connection there must be a reason why. It could tell us something we don’t know—something crucial.”

Taylor hopes to see some sort of confident support when he looks to Nik for help — but the worry is staggering. That makes it better, somehow; genuine.

“You don’t have to do anythin’ you don’t want,” his voice is quiet; hiding the scratch of emotion in his throat where his Adam’s apple bobs.

If only it were that simple.

On shaky legs he stands, makes his way to the altar where Cadence gives him a wide berth and waves for the others to do the same. Nik looks ready to stand by his side no matter what happens. He will, too. But he shakes his head, whispers “it’s okay,” and lets their touch linger until he’s too far to reach.

There’s no manual on this kinda crap — hopefully he doesn’t need one. He doesn’t think he does.

No… he doesn’t feel like he does. Which is apparently different now; a thing to worry about later.

Taylor inhales and brushes a trembling touch along the soft curve of her copper cheek.

“You swore a sacred oath to your Coven in blood, dear girl.”

Elder Vion’s voice rasps in his ear. Makes Taylor want to recoil out of a bygone terror. He’s half a step back when he remembers Nik is there and the Elder is not. And stands still.

“No one else would have you Cassiopeia. We took you in, gave you our protection.”

“We gave you a family — a home.”

Then an unfamiliar voice among them; young and trusting and tired—so very tired, dragged out of her bed in the middle of the night.

“Of course, Elder Millet, a-and I’m grateful! Please, please…”

“All of these things without expectation of repayment. Because our kind must stand together — must straddle the worlds of both dark and light and know balance in them.”

“You have been cursed, darling girl. But today we will turn that curse into a blessing.”

“But you made me promise —”

Then the feeling changes — grows old and damp and determined to do good by those who took care of her, by those who loved her.

The bones of a persecuted witch. Of three. The last three to fall victim to The Bloody Hand and the ones to call him forth from the hereafter.

They bind him in torment, in hellfire unseen.

The sight of them, knowledge that she could be one of them, makes her skin crawl.

Elder Daniels watches ever-present at her back as Elder Vion finishes the rite of conjuring; sprinkles the last of the dry spell over the bones. The mandrake powder tickles her nose. She holds her breath and prays not to sneeze.

The ochre within stains the bones her favorite shade of orange; the burned hue of a Bayou sunset. But combined with the flakes of iridescent mica that catch in the candlelight — the spell takes hold of the bones and claims them for their use. Leaves them a bright, almost bleached white as the powders are absorbed into the long-gone marrow.

Cassiopeia looks to her left for Elder Millet’s familiar motherly smile. It gives her calm and hope — reminds her of all the other fostered witches they are acting in faith for tonight.

This is what she was born for. This is why she was abandoned; because the Garden Coven was meant to find her.

She’s meant to do this; use her curse. This is how she’s going to repay them for all they’ve done for her.

“Cassiopeia, sweetheart,” Elder Millet doesn’t move—can’t move—from her spot in the triquetra; coaxes her forward still with a nod of her chin, “whenever you’re ready.”

A hasty nod; then she takes one final moment to steel herself and her nerves.

She’s meant for this.

The sulfur powder itches at her palms but Cassie resists the urge to scratch. Spreads her fingers wide and hears a pop in her thumbs as she reaches over and above the ritual bones.

On the other side of the altar comes the thud. thud. thud of Elder Vion’s walking staff on the ground a this feet. The candle flames around them flicker — almost to death.

Then comes the slow and throated chanting of Vion’s native tongue. The flames begin to grow.

The young witch buries that last shred of doubt way deep inside and trusts her protectors.

“Claw and blood, claw and bone. Bloodied flesh, endless stone…”

A whispered wind overcomes them. Fills the room warm near her toes and chilly to the touch.

Around the crypt it circles round and round — and grows.

“Soar with the zephyr, shriek with the crow. Life renewed I now bestow…”

She can’t quite tell if the shaking in her hands is the growing itch, her nerves, or the power of the spell. Nothing worth the reason to stop.

“My darkest will with blackened vein Unto this rotted soul I chain.”

“Again!” Elder Daniels commands. A tone that takes none but obedience.

“Claw and blood, claw and bone. Bloodied flesh, endless stone. Soar with the zephyr, shriek with the crow. Life renewed I now bestow. My darkest will with blackened vein Unto this rotted soul I chain!”

“Again!”

“I—I’m trying!”

“Try harder! Millet!”

“Cassiopeia you can’t break the chant. You can do it, I know you can!”

The whirlwind threatens to catch her voice and steal it from her lungs. Rattles the bones that stay together because they cannot imagine being apart — even in death. Hands stained with the sulfur’s ire and Cassie squeezes her eyes shut to keep it from getting in her eyes.

“Claw and blood! Claw and bone! Bloodied flesh! Endless stone!”

“It’s working! Jean—the knife!”

“You’re doing so good Cassie—we’re almost there!”

“My darkest will with blackened vein! Unto this rotted soul I chain!”

Taylor chokes on his own air; can feel the icy bite of the blade dragged across his throat. Sharp—so sharp it’s barely a pinprick but the wound left in its wake spills warm and wet down his front into his clothes soaking the ground taken in by the dirt and given a home here, below, in this awful place.

Ichor of the innocent to bind and control.

Before he can fall backwards Nik is there; familiar and solid and so so steady against the violent shaking that overcomes him.

He can still feel her— forces everything inside him to will himself not to see what happened next. Knows what was born from her spell, her devotion to the Elders, and her sacrifice.

Cassiopeia.

“She trusted them,” the words hang thick and dry on Taylor’s tongue, “she trusted them and they told her she was doing something good… she felt like she owed them.”

“And repaid that debt with her life…” Vera looks away; suddenly can’t stand to look at her.

Nik helps him back on his feet, brushes a hand through his hair and he leans into the warmth of it. Feels so cold now that the hot sting of Cassiopeia’s anguish is gone from him. Pulled out as if by a rusted hook embedded in his gut.

“Was it Reimonenq that did this to her?” asks Cade, who drags his finger along the curling edges of her wound.

“No, no… Elder Daniels, I think, was the one who sacrificed her.”

Nik frowns. “Why would you sacrifice the one doin’ the damn ritual?”

“The power in a ritual is beheld by the caster, obviously. With her death the entire thing should have been rendered null. But we all know that not to be the case.”

A strange look comes over the vampire’s expression for a moment; lips pursed thinly. He doesn’t look up from the body as he waves towards Vera. “Can you come here a moment? Take your glove off.”

“What? No!”

“Relax, you won’t be Touching me. I need you to Touch the witch’s hand.”

She looks between them all, Cassie’s body included, as if hoping one of them will speak up. “I won’t be Touchin’ anyone because I won’t do it. It’s too risky, especially here all… all cramped.”

“Please.”

Vera pleads at him silently. Taylor can feel her panic icy and crisp at the back of his throat. So he asks; “What do you think will happen?”

“If I’m correct,” whether he steps away from the altar and simply gestures, giving Vera space, is for her sake or his own is a mystery, “then nothing will happen at all.”

That it’s a risk he’s willing to take on behalf of Vera—that he isn’t the one doing the Touching and is all the more insistent anyway—is worrisome. But he’s their friend; they’re all in this together.

That—and the fact that if Katherine were down here she’d already be tugging Vera and her cursed hand forward without hesitation.

Curiosity, survival; whichever wins out it doesn’t matter. Not that it keeps the unfortunate inheritor of her family name from doing so slowly. As if trying to talk herself out of agreeing up until the last second.

“Which hand?”

“Either one will do,” then when her fingertips are a hair’s breadth away— “I seem to recall Derek wasn’t picky.”

Taylor wonders—quietly, in his head, and very much to himself—when the last time Vera actually touched another human was. Was there some sort of coming-of-age trigger for the curse? Or could she have been putting all the other toddlers on the playground at risk should she have decided to pull off her gloves and play tag?

Too long ago, the obvious answer. Obvious when Vera covers Cassiopeia’s hand first in fingertips — then her entire palm.

They wait. Nothing happens.

She shakes off her wrist—like this is something she’s at fault for—and tries again. Pushes this time enough to jostle the poor young sacrifice.

Again, nothing.

There’s a collective sigh of relief. All eyes on Cadence for answers, explanations, anything?

Nope. He just nods, as distantly academic as ever.

“So what does this mean?” Nik finally asks.

The last time he started rolling up his sleeves, Taylor witnessed Cadence’s transformation into some kind of merciless brute; a monster. Is it any wonder the hairs on the back of his neck stand up when he sees it again?

“It means I’m going to need something that can cut through bone.”

#nightbound #choices nb #playchoices #nik ryder x mc #nik ryder #cal lowell #vera reimonenq #katherine nightbound #oc: cadence smith #nightbound mc #mc: taylor hunter #oblv: bound by circumstance #oblv: new chapter #; my fics #cassiopeia

4 notes · View notes

sophfandoms53 · 5 years

Text

Endgame Talk

This little discussion is gonna have massive spoilers for Avengers Endgame. This is your warning if you have not seen the movie. If you haven’t seen it, just scroll all the way down as fast you can. If you have seen it or you don’t care about spoilers, then welcome! As for the rest of you, you have been warned.

Okay so. I know we’ve all got our own opinions on Endgame, the way the plot works, the way certain characters were treated, and especially with its ending.

I’ve read a lot of reviews and reactions about Endgame the past few days and in all honesty. There isn’t much I disagree with. A lot of the critiques given to the film are valid critiques. Some are just nitpicks that don’t really matter. But over all, the criticism is pretty fair.

In regards to the time travel, I barely understood how it worked in the film. All I know is that it worked and everyone came back. All I needa know lmao. I didnt understand time travel in back to the future, I didnt understand it in gravity falls, I didnt understand it in TMNT, I didnt understand it in Power Rangers, and I don’t understand it during this movie.

Time travel is a very difficult thing to figure out with story telling as every move made has its consequences. Which is why when I see people saying “The time travel in this movie created plot holes.” It makes me laugh because uh duh it’s time travel, of course it creates plot holes. We have yet to see any creator or writer do time travel and not have it cause plot holes or confusion. This doesn’t excuse said plot holes but it clears up that Endgame isn’t the first victim of the trouble time travel has on its story.

Okay let’s talk about Tony and Steve’s endings.

Oh boy.

I’ll start with Steve because right now I ain’t ready to talk about Tony.

Steve went back in time to put the infinity stones in their proper places before the team originally went back to bring everyone back and he was suppose to come right back to the present (or future in their case) but he doesn’t. Instead he stays in the 70’s (which is when he and tony got the Tesseract) and forms a relationship with Peggy and when we see him again in present (future) time he’s the age he would be if he was never frozen back in the 40’s.

Now, while I do agree this causes a lot of confusion in regards to events in Civil War and such but. That’s our timeline. What happened with Steve staying back in the 70’s was that he created an alternate time line where, all the events we all saw still exist, but he was able to live a happy marriage with Peggy. Or at least that’s how I saw it honestly. Steve staying in the 70’s didn’t change or alter anything in the main timeline. We know this because we saw that nothing changed.

Also. Steve never belonged in this time period anyway. In The First Avenger, Steve is fighting in WW2 and it’s a soldier. He was meant to be in the 40’s but he made a sacrifice that caused him to wake up in modern day. And while Steve did a lot as Captain America, that doesn’t change that this isn’t where he belongs. He watched as everyone in his past was either changed (Bucky being mind controlled) or lost (Watching Peggy die). Steve’s entire past kept coming back to haunt him. Which is why he took the opportunity to stay in the 70’s with Peggy. To give himself a happy ending. This was something foreshadowed throughout the film as well.

Now. Lets talk about the big one.

Tony Stark.

Firstly.

UM OW????? MARVEL YOU LEGIT RIPPED MY HEART OUT FROM MY CHEST AND STEPPED ON IT AND THREW IT IN THE STREET TO GET RUN OVER BY A CAR! HOLY SHIT THAT HURT. AND LIL BABY PETER PARKER CLINGING TO TONY DIDNT HELP NONE. GAH MY HEARTT. IM STILL CRYING OVER THIS

Okay. Now that that’s out. Lets talk Tony Stark.

Imma be real. The minute Morgan Stark (whom is adorable and needs absolute protection) popped out of the tent, I knew Tony’s fate. I had a huge feeling Tony wasn’t gonna make it out. And it hurt that I was right.

However, as much as it hurt to see Tony die, to see him make the last sacrifice, it makes sense both for story telling and within Tony’s arc as a character.

We’ve watched Tony grow from an arrogant man who didn’t really care for the world around him but his industry, to someone who wants what’s best for his family, who became a mentor of a young kid with a lot of potential to the point that only Tony really believed in him and who wants to protect the world.

We saw Tony go through this arc from beginning to end.

Tony’s never had it easy in his life. He lost a lot, he fought a lot, and he stressed a lot. Tony, throughout these films, has never had a proper time to relax and appreciate what he has because he was always fighting to protect himself, the ones he loves and the world. It got to the point in Iron Man 3 that Tony began losing sleep and could not rest because of all the torment he has been through.

Keep in mind Iron Man 3 takes place The Avengers and what happened in Avengers? Loki and a huge attack on New York that only they could stop. And who sent Loki on this attack?

Thanos.

It always comes back to Thanos.

Joe Rousso confirmed back during Infinity War that Thanos and Tony have connection.

In the sense of story telling, Thanos acts as a foil to Tony.

In an interview, one of the Rousso’s said:

“It’s all the heroes. I think he has the most specific connection to Tony because Tony is a futurist, and he has predicted a threat like Thanos. It’s lived in his brain even though he couldn’t name it. Tony is the most desperately driven, down to the core, to react against something like Thanos, although all the heroes will face a threat, no matter who it is or where it comes from. But I think this is intrinsic to Tony’s psychology, and because Tony started it all with Iron Man, he has a special connection to the threat that’s facing him."

Despite not meeting until Infinity War, Thanos and Tony have always had a connection. Thanos was the one that kept Tony restless. The reason he stressed everyday. Thanos was the reason Tony has to witness the loss of all his allies and surrogate son.

It’s all been Thanos.

The reason I call Thanos Tony’s foil is because of this connection.

Thanos and Tony have similar goals. They both believe what they’re doing is the greater good for the world. There’s a connection between them because of how they both think and operate. It’s why Thanos tells Tony he has respect for him in Infinity War. Thanos understands Tony’s view. And because he understands, Thanos serves to show Tony, and the audience what Tony would’ve become had he not grown and became obsessed with “balance” instead of the greater good.

In doing so, Thanos couldn’t live in a world without Tony and Tony couldn’t live in a world without Thanos.

Now I know some of you are probably like, “But Tony did live in a world without Thanos. He spent 5 years without Thanos around.”

and you’re right.

Technically, you’re right.

However.

Even within those 5 years, Tony was still haunted by what Thanos did. How Thanos won and that they lost. We saw throughout Endgame that Tony never forgave himself for what happened and especially for what happened to Peter.

Despite Thanos being dead, Tony is still haunted at the memory of Thanos and all the damage he created.

Hence why Peter was Tony’s main motivation throughout the film. When the team attempts to ask Tony for help regarding time travel, Tony declines as he says his too risky and because he doesn’t want to lose what he has now. Which is Pepper and Morgan.

His wife and daughter mean more to Tony than anything. We’ve seen Tony’s love for Pepper grow and we saw how much Tony loves his daughter. I love you 3000!

He got 5 happy years with them. Tony had his happy ending for as long as he could. Until once again, Thanos’ actions came back to haunt him. Seeing, remembering, that Peter was one of the people that were lost during Infinity War, the kid Tony grew to love as a son, and looked over and mentoured, Tony never stopped working on trying to bring Peter back. Without Peter, Tony felt like he failed.

At the end of the day Tony wasn’t worried about himself, he wanted Peter safe and sound. He wanted the world to be saved.

Tony needed closure. He needed to know the evil that haunted him for years was gone. He needed to know that his family and friends were safe. He needed to know that he fought until his end. And he did just that.

Tony Stark never ever stopped fighting. Ever.

Which is why Tony makes the ultimate sacrifice.

Using the stones and losing his own life.

Yes it hurt. A lot. It affected us and the characters in the film. But that’s how Tony’s arc was suppose to end.

It’s why Pepper said, “You can rest now.”

Tony fought Thanos non-stop for years and years on end. He never thought he could be at peace. But when he saw all his loved ones around for him, especially Pepper, his loving wife and Peter, the boy he risked everything for, and that they were officially safe and the monster that haunted him could no longer harm his family. He go be at peace.

He could pass on peacefully.

Tony Stark learned to love. Learned to care. Learned to grow. Learned that you’re not always alone.

Tony Stark learned all that he needed to in order make the final sacrifice in order to kill Thanos.

Tony Stark put the world’s protection before his own life.

Tony Stark is the true super hero.

His final words,

“And I... Am Iron Man.”

Were that for a reason, not just as a call back to he ending of the first film.

Those were his final words because Iron Man is not Tony Stark.

Tony Stark is Iron Man.

Tony Stark is the hero.

It’s the lesson Tony taught Peter with the phrase, “If you’re nothing without this suit than you shouldn’t have it.”

It’s not the suit that makes the superhero, but the person who wears it.

Tony Stark wears the Iron Man armor.

Tony Stark is the hero, not Iron Man.

Tony Stark’s arc has concluded.

There is no denying the pain and tears that were felt and shed during Tony’s death. But it was his time to go.

It was Tony’s time to rest.

Tony Stark fought and lived hard.

Tony Stark died happy, at peace and as a hero.

~We love you 3000 Tony~

Thanks for reading this far if you did. This is just my take on the film. Don’t take it as fact alright. What did you guys think of Endgame?

#avengers endgame spoilers #avengers: endgame #endgame spoilers #tony stark #iron man #robert downey jr #steve rogers #captain america #chris evans #peter parker #spider man #tom holland #thanos #josh brolin #marvel #mcu #marvel cinematic universe

136 notes · View notes

mdelpin · 5 years

Text

The Red Dragon - Chapter 18

AO3 | FF.Net | Tumblr: Ch1 | Ch17

Chapter 18

Igneel had been prepared for a great many things as he flew toward the meeting. But he’d never once considered Deliora would betray them all just for the sake of revenge.

What did he possibly think he would gain from this treachery? Any truce he might have negotiated with Acnologia was obviously doomed to fail. The renegade dragon slayer had lost his mind a long time ago, but the one thing he’d always been clear on was his hatred of all dragons.

Acnologia wouldn’t be satisfied until there were no more dragons left on Earthland, he’d said so on many occasions. If he managed to kill them, Igneel had no doubt Acnologia would turn on Deliora, there was no other possible outcome.

Then again, Deliora had always been incredibly short-sighted. Like most hellfire dragons, he’d always let his emotions control him. They fed his flames and his magic but kept him from being able to devise elaborate plans.

Atlas had been the exception. His interest in magic from an early age had forced him to gain control of his emotions, allowing him to cast ever more complicated spells.

Atlas’ eyes widened in what Igneel easily recognized as horror before propelling himself towards Acnologia with almost deranged determination. And suddenly, it was as if everything were moving in slow motion.

Atlas’ hellfire blazed with his fury, his snout distorted with a hatred that seemed wholly out of character for him. He roared at the renegade dragon slayer that had been responsible for so many dragon deaths, and for once, those feelings resounded deeply inside of Igneel.

Ever since Porlyusica had died, Igneel had felt detached from the world. He went through the motions as best he could, trying to fulfill his duties. But outside of the longing for someone that was just outside of his reach, Igneel could only seem to muster feelings for Atlas and Natsu.

Even though he’d managed to defeat Deliora all those years ago, his efforts had been halfhearted at best. He should have killed Deliora then, as Dragon Law demanded, but he’d decided to be merciful instead, hoping that Deliora would come to see the error of his ways.

He hadn’t stopped to consider the consequences of that action, and that one choice had led them here. Now, as he watched Deliora let their greatest enemy attack his brother, the dragon he’d once considered his best friend, it was more than Igneel could stand.

He thought back to the reports they’d received of the large numbers of dragons killed by the renegades of late, and he knew without a doubt that had been Deliora’s doing. He’d willfully sacrificed his own brethren to further his lust for power, and that was something Igneel could never forgive.

The Fire Dragon King was suddenly filled with an intense rage. It brought him back as nothing else before had managed to do. He hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d told Natsu he’d been a great fighter a few hundred years ago. And now, as he began to feel that familiar battle lust claim him, he could once again see clearly.

Everything around him seemed sharper, brighter, full of vibrant colors that had been absent for far too long, and he welcomed them. The sights, the smells, the clarity. Igneel knew what he had to do.

He covered himself in his flames and prepared to join his brother, ignoring Deliora for the moment. It had been a while since he and Atlas had fought together, but the rhythm was not something easily forgotten. One way or another, this would end today.

Acnologia must be destroyed at all costs.

Igneel crouched, his wings flaring slightly, his tail whipping in agitation as he watched Atlas leap back and up, out of the reach of Acnologia’s maw. As the slayer rose to his hind legs, unfurling his wings to take to the air after Atlas, Igneel suddenly launched forward. His massive form was a blur as he closed the 100 meters in the blink of an eye.

He wasted no effort on magic or fire, knowing Acnologia would be unfazed by either. Instead, Igneel rammed his shoulder into Acnologia’s chest, launching the startled beast backward and attempting to snake his head around and bite at one of Acnologia’s wings.

The two tumbled, gouging furrows in the ground as they snapped and clawed at each other in a frenzy. Igneel ended up on his back, and Acnologia attempted to clamp his jaws on Igneel’s exposed throat while pinning the red dragon’s forelegs to the ground. His eyes gleamed with malevolent glee as he saw the opportunity for a quick end to the battle.

Unfortunately for Acnologia, in his narrow focus, he forgot to account for the other participant in this brawl. Igneel suddenly thrust his hindlegs upward, momentarily lifting Acnologia’s haunches into the air, well above the black dragon’s head. Acnologia’s tail flailed high in the air to prevent him from tipping over.

The timing of this maneuver was perfect for Atlas, who leveled out from the steep dive he’d been in, clamping his jaws onto the middle of the black dragon’s tail. He tucked into a roll and, with a twist of his body, hit the ground just past Igneel’s head, facing the opposite direction.

He took the significant speed and momentum of his dive and transferred it onto Acnologia. Hauling the tail around and flipping the slayer completely about, ripping him off his perch atop Igneel, and sending the black dragon careening wildly into an outcropping of rocks, reducing them to rubble and a cloud of dust.

Atlas turned to watch his foe right and extricate himself rather gracelessly from the rubble. Igneel rolled to his feet and stood beside his brother. Both of them shared a fierce grin at the thrill of battling together. They launched themselves at the black dragon, this time with Igneel going high, and Atlas charging along the ground.

Acnologia crouched and tracked Igneel’s path through the air, but as Atlas leaped in what was intended to be an interception of Acnologia’s launch into the air, the black dragon dove to the ground instead. He twisted at the same time and thrust his claws up to rake deeply across the bared underbelly of Atlas as he sailed overhead.

Atlas roared in anguish as he took his own spill into the pile of rocks Acnologia had just left. Crimson blood splashed across the boulders from the furrows in Atlas’ chest, but he quickly rose and prepared to re-engage.

0-0

The smell of blood filled the air pushing Natsu and Belserion to reach the meeting spot at full speed, each desperate to reach Igneel and Atlas. They hadn’t been sure what to expect, but they both stopped, admiring the rare sight of Igneel and Atlas fighting together. Natsu, in particular, was in awe, having never seen his father fight before.

He was so transfixed that he didn’t notice Acnologia studying him even as he fought.

“Who’s this?” Acnologia asked, not even sounding winded as he continued to battle against the two fire dragons.

Natsu remained silent, knowing there was no point in answering. If Acnologia could smell him, he would figure out his identity soon enough. He heard Belserion roar out a warning next to him and noticed Deliora trying to slink away while the attention of the red dragons was on Acnologia.

As much as Natsu wanted to deal with Acnologia, the second he saw Deliora, his dragon instincts took over. It happened so quickly he almost didn’t notice it. Images of Gray played through his mind as he was consumed by a bloodlust stronger than any he’d ever experienced before.

His fault!

It was Deliora’s fault that Gray had lost his parents at such a young age. That Gray hated dragons, and Natsu couldn’t tell his mate the truth about himself. His fault the war continued long after everyone wanted to go home.

And now, he had committed the worst sin of all, the one for which Natsu could never forgive him. Deliora had betrayed all dragons by allying himself with Acnologia.

Deliora had to die, that was all there was to it.

Natsu tried to fight through the haze. To take control back from the instincts that were screaming at him to kill Deliora. He was terrified of what it could mean if he let them consume him, but they were too strong for him to overpower. Natsu surrendered, reminding himself he’d long ago decided to go after Deliora if he ever got the chance.

I will avenge Gray’s family, and I will correct my father’s mistake. Deliora will never hurt anyone ever again.

His body and soul vibrated in anticipation, and Natsu could feel all reluctance fading away until there was nothing but a flicker of apprehension left inside him. Soon, even that was gone.

“I will destroy you!” Natsu roared, leaving Belserion to waver between aiding his father and uncle in their battle or going after Natsu.

Natsu coated himself in his hottest flames as he veered towards Deliora, who seemed honestly surprised to see the hatred on his face.

“Igneel, you’ve been holding out on me,” Acnologia leered at the King of the Fire Dragons as he sniffed the air. His eyes narrowed in interest as he peered at Natsu.

“There was another one,” Acnologia’s muzzle widened into a sickly grin, “I wonder, will he be a challenge?”

Those words decided Belserion, and he joined Igneel and Atlas in their fight.

Natsu chased after Deliora knowing the dragon would be immune to his breath attacks. That didn’t mean his fire was completely useless against him, he could still use it to power up his other attacks. He roared as loudly as he could, giving voice to the rage and loathing he felt.

Acnologia’s vile laugh rang out as he watched Natsu close in on Deliora while the traitor darted back and forth, looking for a way to evade Natsu’s approach.

“You shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss us, Acnologia,” Igneel advised, taking advantage of his distraction to slash Acnologia across the chest with his claws, barely earning a grunt from the Black Dragon in response.

Deliora determined there was no way to evade Natsu, and he braced himself for the young dragon’s attack. However, Natsu hit the ground just in front of Deliora and dug his front claws into the ground, wheeling about.

His hindquarters and tail lashed out, the narrower end of his tail moving faster than could be seen. It struck Deliora across the jaw, and the force of the blow spun the overbalanced dragon around, sending him reeling and seeing stars.

Natsu immediately leaped into the air again, looping and diving down from directly above Deliora, who had just started to clear his head and was looking from side to side to try to spot his foe. A moment later, Natsu crashed into the huge dragon’s back with enough force to make the ground shudder as Deliora’s legs gave out and he collapsed to the ground, frantically squirming to try to shake Natsu off as the young dragon raked his claws at Deliora’s wings and bit at his neck.

Acnologia laughed once again, this time with a mirth that sickened everyone present, “That’s a fine son you have there, Igneel. Deliora is clearly outmatched,” he paused for a moment, thinking as he continued to fight with the three dragons.

“While I wouldn’t mind seeing him kill Deliora, I think I’d rather challenge him at full strength.”

Acnologia made a disconcerting noise, and three additional renegade dragon slayers exited a nearby cave, instantly transforming into their dragon forms and taking to the air. The Black Dragon laughed at the dismay on the faces of the red dragons.

“Come now, you didn’t actually think you were the only ones clever enough to think of bringing backup, did you?”

As soon as his dragons were close enough, he disengaged, leaving them to fight in his stead as he took off in the direction of Deliora and Natsu. All three dragons converged on Igneel, attacking him from all sides as Atlas and Belserion tried to figure out the best way to help him.

Igneel whirled and leaped frantically, avoiding leaving his back turned to any of the three enemies for more than the briefest of moments. The slayers darted in and out constantly, trying to bite or claw exposed flesh as it was presented to them and keeping a healthy distance from Igneel’s deadly teeth and flames. Even with his considerable skill and ferocity, Igneel was quickly accumulating more and more small wounds, slowly soaking the ground below him with blood.

The maneuvering dance broke up as Atlas and Belserion entered the fray. Dragons and slayers took to the sky as they squared off in pairs. The dragons seemed to have a slight advantage in flight, but the slayers were still formidable, and it took several minutes before there was any noticeable shift in the battle.

Atlas peeled away from the slayer he’d been engaged with and suddenly dropped just above one that had been trying to bite Igneel’s wing. Atlas exploded in a nova of hellfire, scorching and stunning his target who fell limply out of the sky, trailing smoke from all over his body. Atlas wheeled and re-engaged with his previous foe, who looked much warier at getting as close to the fire dragon.

In unspoken accord, Atlas and Belserion took advantage of the momentary reprieve as a chance to get Igneel away to safety.

The King of the Fire Dragons was leaking blood from several wounds, but Atlas knew there was no time to cast any healing spells. They had to get back to the cave so Grandine and Wendy could work on him.

Atlas heard the uncertainty in Natsu’s battle roar as he was suddenly faced with Acnologia. He forced himself to drown him out, even as he felt terrible about it. He had faith in Natsu’s abilities as a fighter and his determination to protect his father at all costs. He had no doubt Natsu would be able to hold his own long enough for them to get Igneel out.

Any other course of action at this point would only lead to their destruction, and that would be disastrous to all the dragons who were counting on them to restore the peace.

He could see Igneel begin to respond to it as well, instinctively trying to move towards his son.

“Not this time,” Atlas murmured sadly, casting a spell on his brother that made him nearly weightless.

He grabbed on to him, using his magic again to speed himself up. Atlas needed to get Igneel to safety no matter what. He couldn’t let him die, not before that blasted abomination.

“Belserion,” Atlas yelled, but the dragon was already trying to keep the renegades from following them. Two of them managed to get away from him, promptly giving chase.

Their dragon forms were smaller than both Atlas and Igneel, but they moved swiftly in the air. Both dragon slayers kept up a constant barrage of attacks that Atlas needed to evade as he dragged Igneel along with him.

Just a little longer...

Atlas knew there were other dragons ready for just this eventuality, he just had to get to them, and everything would be fine. He looked down at Igneel worriedly, focusing more magic into his speed spell even as he pushed his wings as hard as he could.

He tried not to think about how he had left Natsu behind, knowing his nephew would have wanted him to save Igneel. He couldn’t help but worry, even though Belserion, who was a considerable fighter, had stayed behind to help. Part of him couldn’t help but hope that the two of them could take out Acnologia once and for all.

Atlas winced as he was pelted with yet another energy blast. His grip on Igneel loosened in response, but he was able to grab him quickly and keep going.

He didn’t have to look back to know the third renegade had joined his pursuers. The additional set of attacks alerting him to their presence. He fretted about what that could mean to the other fight that he hoped was still ongoing, but there was nothing he could do to help. Not until he got Igneel to safety.

Natsu, don’t give him any openings...

He caught a whiff of blood in the air and wailed upon recognizing it, his instincts screaming at him to turn back and join the fight. But he couldn’t, no matter how much he wanted to. If Igneel died as he was now… no, he couldn’t think about the consequences. He just had to hurry.

“Leave me,” Igneel struggled against him, pleading in a broken voice, “You have to go help him.”

“Stop it,” Atlas snapped, even as he fought every instinct he possessed not to do precisely what Igneel was demanding, “Natsu will be fine.”

He has to be.

0-0

“What the hell is going on?” Gajeel muttered, although everyone around him could hear him, “Someone should have returned by now.”

Metalicana grunted his agreement, extending his senses as far as he could. “Something’s wrong.”

“Skiadrum?” Metalicana glanced over at the dragon that was standing next to him, his dragon slayer on his back.

Without a word, the dragon took off and instantly disappeared from their view as Weisslogia and Sting gazed worriedly at the spot where they had been.

A large group of dragons and dragon slayers were converged at the edge of their territory, waiting for the red dragons to return. There was hope that a truce had been accomplished, but they were ready for a fight nonetheless. Most of them had been fighting for years now.

They were a ragtag collection of all different races of dragons. The only real gain they had managed during this war was that the previously solitary dragons had learned to coexist somewhat peacefully. They had come to rely on each other in combat and had even managed to forge friendships. There were some exceptions, of course, but for the moment, they were all willing to stand together. They had seen enough death.

The minutes dragged on in tense silence as they waited for Skiadrum to return with a report.

“Atlas is coming in fast with Igneel, but they’re being pursued by three renegades. There’s no sign of Natsu or Belserion. We must hurry, they need our help!” Skiadrum suddenly reappeared, shouting urgently even as Rogue somehow managed to remain impassive, his expression giving nothing away as to what he had seen.

Metalicana and Weisslogia had already taken off before Skiadrum had finished speaking, and Irene began belting out orders to the dragon slayers who climbed on their assigned dragons and took off.

“Stay back!” Skiadrum yelled at Weisslogia, “This is no place for you, I told you before.”

“And I told you, these are my friends. I will not sit back and do nothing,” Weisslogia glared at his mate before flying past him.

He could feel Skiadrum’s anger at his defiance flooding him through their bond. It mixed in with the worry and ever-present guilt that were such a large part of their relationship now. He ignored it. He was tired of feeling helpless, and he was tired of being needlessly treated as an invalid by his mate.

Ssstubborn fool

Weisslogia shook his head at the intrusion and flew on, refusing to answer even as he extended his senses to try to locate his friends. Soon he could make out a red blur in the distance, and he readied a spell.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Sting asked, keeping his voice steady as he petted his father, knowing how hard it was for him to go against Skiadrum’s wishes.

Weisslogia snorted, “You’re one to talk.”

When he felt his son tense, he relented, “We must do what we feel is right, they will understand eventually.”

“Are you up to a fight?”

“We’ll find out, won’t we?”

With that, there was no more talk as they both readied their magic and focused on finding a way to help Atlas and Igneel.

Irene had deployed an assortment of dragons and dragon slayers. They would charge the renegade dragon slayers, freeing the Talos dragons to go after Belserion and Natsu once Igneel was safe.

“That bastard!” Metalicana roared in unbridled anger.

“Listen up!” Metalicana broadcast in his loudest roar, “Igneel says Deliora made some sort of deal with Acnologia. They tried to kill off Atlas and Igneel. Natsu and Belserion are fighting them now. Igneel wants us to take him, so Atlas can lead us back to help them.”

“Atlas isn’t going to like that,” Skiadrum muttered, knowing how protective Atlas was about his brother.

Several dragons cursed in disbelief, but Weisslogia wasn’t really surprised at Deliora’s treachery, it was what they had anticipated after all. Although to ally himself with Acnologia against his own kind was certainly unexpected and unforgivable.

Deliora had just signed his own death sentence. No matter what their particular stance on humans might be, no dragon would ever join him again.

“We can discuss this later. For now, we must focus on the fight that’s ahead of us,” Irene’s yell interrupted Weisslogia’s thoughts, and he silently agreed with the dragon slayer.

Weisslogia could hear grunts of agreement and battle cries rise behind him at her words, and he turned his attention back to his mate.

“It’s Natsu we’re talking about, he’s probably torn up as it is. He won’t put up a fight. I’ll take Igneel and get him back to Grandine, the rest of you follow Atlas back to Natsu and Belserion.”

“Weiss, you know—” Skiadrum began, but Weisslogia cut him off immediately.

“I can do this, Skia.”

Please believe in me...

Weisslogia could feel the battle raging in Skiadrum’s mind, but he could also feel the pride his mate felt, and he vowed not to let him down.

“Be careful.”

Weisslogia nodded and waited for Metalicana to use his telepathy to tell Igneel of their plan. A group of dragons zoomed past him, launching an attack on the renegades, and Weisslogia didn’t hesitate to head over to Atlas.

As he’d predicted, Atlas didn’t look happy, but he also didn’t put up a fight, handing Igneel over before whispering in a pleading tone.

“Weiss —.”

Weisslogia was already flying back when he shouted, “I will protect him with my life, go bring Natsu home.”

He tried to ignore the deep gashes he’d seen on his friend, or the tiredness in his eyes, knowing Atlas would do everything in his power to protect the nephew he loved as a son.

Weisslogia flew back to the cave as fast as he could, knowing every second could mean the difference between life and death. He held on to the bigger dragon tightly, grumbling whenever he heard Igneel grunt in discomfort.

“Is he going to be alright?” Sting asked quietly, his voice sounding tremulous, and Weisslogia could hear his own doubts reflected. He knew his son’s question was not limited to the dragon they were carrying.

Sting was worried about a great many things at the moment. Weisslogia wished he could give him some comfort, but he’d never been one for empty words. The fact was, they had no idea what their loved ones would be up against.

“They are all very strong. They will do their best, just as we are doing now,” Weisslogia looked down at Igneel, wanting to reassure himself that the red dragon was still with them. He wished he hadn’t, he’d never seen Igneel look so despondent before.

“We’re almost there, I can smell Grandine,” Weisslogia announced, pushing himself as much as he dared. The strain on his body was tremendous, but he knew he couldn’t rest until he got Igneel to the healer. As the cave entrance loomed tantalizingly closer, he called upon the last of his energy to bring Igneel home.

0-0

“Natsu, watch out!”

Natsu stopped mid-attack, heeding the tone of Belserion’s shout more than the words themselves. He forced himself to study what was happening around him. His eyes narrowed when he saw Atlas rushing away with Igneel, noticing straight away that Igneel was not flying on his own power.

His dismay intensified when he saw two renegade dragon slayers chase after them, barraging them with attacks. Belserion had his hands full with a third while Acnologia was flying straight towards him.

Natsu made a split-second decision. He let go of Deliora, determined to help protect his father as he had come here to do. Deliora immediately took off away from Natsu, not even bothering to look back.

“You were lucky today,” Natsu fumed as he called out to the fleeing dragon, “But I promise you this, I will be the last thing you ever see.”

Natsu steeled himself to face off against Acnologia, hoping in doing so, Belserion would have a chance to defeat the remaining renegade and follow after Atlas and Igneel.

Natsu’s initial reaction to being one on one with the dragon from his nightmare was terror. The malice Acnologia had exuded in his dream was nothing compared to what it felt like to be in his presence. The fear tried to inject doubts and insecurities into Natsu, urging him to flee, but he fought it off. He couldn’t afford to have Acnologia go after his father as well.

He had to fight, even though he knew this renegade dragon slayer was not only incredibly powerful but also completely insane. The madness reflected in his cold blue eyes brought this point home as nothing else could. Acnologia was lethal, and Natsu could not afford to underestimate him, not when he had managed to best all the dragons that had taught Natsu how to fight.

Natsu’s terror was soon replaced by rage as he thought of all the dragons that had fallen to Acnologia. Some of which Natsu was sure had not only trusted him but might have even considered him a friend. His rage boiled through him, heating his blood and bonding with his magic, magnifying it until Natsu felt drunk with it.

He was well aware that dying by this creature’s hand was a possibility, one he must avoid at all costs. It would destroy Gray to learn he’d been killed by a dragon, and he would do anything to keep that from happening.

Acnologia, however, wasn’t interested in fighting him yet, seeming content to size Natsu up as the sounds of Belserion and the renegade’s fighting continued behind them.

“There is something different about you,” Acnologia finally spoke, “You smell of Igneel but…also something else,” He shook his head in confusion, seemingly trying to figure out the puzzle.

For a brief moment, there was a lucidity to his eyes that hadn’t been there before. It disconcerted Natsu, who didn’t know what to make of the creature in front of him.

He stared at Acnologia open-mouthed, his breath catching at the Black Dragon’s words. How had he been able to tell when no dragon had yet been able to?

The moment was short-lived. Acnologia’s eyes quickly lost their lucidity as his maw stretched into a sickening grin. “Kind of small, aren’t you?” Acnologia taunted, and the similarity to Gajeel’s words snapped Natsu out of his temporary daze.

“I don’t need size to kick your ass,” Natsu replied with feigned bravado.

Thanks to Atlas’ constant experimentation, Natsu had been surrounded by magic his entire life. It didn’t take him long to recognize that Acnologia possessed many different kinds of magic, including his beloved fire.

Natsu banished all extraneous thoughts and feelings from his mind, he couldn’t afford any distractions. His survival would depend on being able to stay a step ahead of Acnologia.

Natsu feinted, but Acnologia didn’t flinch in the slightest. He charged, stopping a short distance in front of the slayer, digging his foreclaws into the earth and spinning his hindquarters around as he whipped his tail out at the slayer’s head.

Natsu’s tail moved faster than the eye could follow, but it was as if Acnologia knew precisely what to expect with the move. His jaws lunged forward, biting down right where he predicted the tail would be.

Natsu heard the familiar whip-crack of the tail attack, but instead of a strike against the slayer’s head, he felt a jolt like a shock of lightning as half a meter of his tail was bitten off by the black dragon.

He stifled a short howl of pain as he completed his spin, facing the slayer again. The young dragon struggled to control the pain and keep his composure. He watched Acnologia tilt his head upward and gulp down the piece of tail in his mouth with exaggerated delight and smacking.

Natsu channeled the shock and pain into fury and charged again. He veered to the right, tucking his left wing tight against his side to make it less of a target as he leaped and attempted to rake both of his foreclaws down Acnologia’s side and back, aiming for the root of his right wing.

The slayer crouched low, dodging the claws, and his jaws snapped at Natsu’s hindleg. Natsu sensed the attack, however, and used his tail to smack the top of Acnologia’s head, knocking it off target and temporarily blinding the slayer with the blood that continued to well out of the ruined tip of his tail.

Natsu spread his wings and took to the air. He wheeled about and immediately dove, trying to take advantage of the superior position before Acnologia could also get airborne.

He breathed a tremendous gout of billowing flames. He knew they couldn’t harm the slayer directly, but they did momentarily obscure his sight. Using this to his advantage, Natsu tucked his head, barreling through the flames and straight into his foe.

He pushed the slayer back, immediately slashing out with tooth and claw, trying to draw blood from the less armored underbelly. One claw struck home, but Natsu stayed in motion, attempting to get behind the slayer, biting at his tail and slashing at his wings with claws.

Acnologia leaped away from Natsu, spreading his own wings and gaining altitude. He turned and launched a series of breath attacks at the young dragon, but Natsu evaded them with dexterity, trying to close the distance to the slayer.

As Natsu neared his foe, he suddenly spiraled above the black dragon. Planting all four feet on the slayer’s back, he flexed his talons to dig in momentarily, then shoved down hard, launching himself higher and forcing Acnologia to pump his wings to regain control of his flight.

The two dragons flew away from each other for a moment, then wheeled and began speeding toward one another for another clash. This time, the slayer simply overpowered the smaller fire dragon. He pushed Natsu past vertical until he was upside down, slashing Natsu’s neck with a claw. The young dragon cried out in pain and fury, losing considerable altitude while he struggled to regain control of his flight.

0-0

Belserion did his best to keep the renegade pinned down, but after hearing yet another howl of pain from Natsu, he knew he had to do something. He had no doubt Atlas would be returning soon, and for this, he was glad. Natsu would need healing, but right now, more than anything, he needed help.

Even though the young dragon was holding his own, Belserion knew that Acnologia was still only feeling him out. Acnologia enjoyed a challenge, and Natsu was a dragon he hadn’t come across before, and that was becoming increasingly rare for the renegade.

When Belserion heard Acnologia begin to cast the spell he’d used against all his friends, the one that had the power to reap souls, he panicked.

Oh, no, you don’t!

Belserion flew as fast as he could towards Acnologia and Natsu, lunging to place himself in the way of the spell.

Acnologia’s frustration resounded around them as Belserion thwarted his attack. Belserion felt pride surge in his chest at the thought that he’d managed to protect the dragon he’d come to think of as their future. He was hundreds of years old, strong enough to survive the spell, but he wasn’t sure Natsu would have.

There was no denying Natsu’s strength or determination, but he was still young and a hybrid. Taking a direct hit from that spell had almost killed Weisslogia, who was much older. Probably would have killed him if he hadn’t been mated to Skiadrum.

Belserion was mildly amused at the shock registered on Natsu’s face as the hit he’d expected never came. Although it was quickly marred by the sorrow he recognized in Natsu’s eyes. Belserion tried to smile for him, even as the pain ripped through his body.

“You need to go, Natsu, this isn’t a fight you can win at the moment,” Belserion advised, keeping his voice even so as not to cause him any further worry, “I will buy you some time.”

“I won’t leave you,” Natsu protested, “How can you ask that of me?”

“You must.”

Belserion had hoped Natsu would have grasped the logic in his plan, but he hadn’t really expected him to agree to a retreat. Not when there was so much at stake.

He took stock of his condition as the air around him heated up to increasingly uncomfortable temperatures until it was almost like having Atlas nearby. For a brief moment, Belserion hoped the heat signaled the arrival of the other dragons, but it was only Natsu, looking angrier than Belserion had ever seen him before.

Belserion struggled to get up quickly, deciding that if today were his last battle, he would go down, giving it his all. He had sworn his allegiance to the Dragneels a long time ago, and he had never regretted it once. He would use whatever power he had left to fight alongside Natsu. He spared a thought to his dragon slayer, a woman both brave and wise, and he was filled with sadness.

Goodbye, Irene, please forgive me…

0-0

Watching Belserion stand beside him, even though it was obvious how much it pained him fueled Natsu’s determination even further. He wasn’t sure what that spell had been, but he had the nagging suspicion it was the one that had reaped the souls of his family to varying degrees.

That thought angered him beyond anything he’d ever felt before. Belserion had likely given up his soul to protect him, and Natsu would do his best to see that sacrifice not be wasted.

Acnologia roared in fury at being deprived of his magic’s intended target. He raced forward, aiming at Belserion, but was forced to dodge as Natsu closed on his flank, and the young dragon attempted to bite the slayer’s tail.

Natsu struggled to keep Acnologia’s full attention. It was evident that Belserion was significantly weakened by the reaping. Despite this, he fought on, looking for any opportunity to lunge in and attack while Acnologia was distracted. Unfortunately, it was only a matter of time before the weakness and exhaustion slowed Belserion enough for Acnologia to take advantage of it.

Belserion lunged to attack the slayer’s flank as Acnologia wheeled to chase Natsu after their latest clash. The fire dragon failed to notice that Acnologia’s head was curled back, carefully watching Belserion’s charge. When he was close enough, Acnologia raised his tail and smashed it down on Belserion’s head, stunning the dragon who went limp and plummeted to the ground with a crash.

Natsu wheeled and roared in anguish as he saw Belserion’s form crumpled on the ground below. The young dragon channeled his magic into his four legs, each blazing like a comet as the fire pushed him to an incredible speed.

The gap between Natsu and Acnologia closed in moments, and Natsu spiraled, briefly rising above the black dragon as if going for his back again. At the last moment, while Natsu’s legs were above him, he fed another pulse of fire magic through them. He pushed himself suddenly lower to pass below the slayer, where he had an open shot at his vulnerable chest.

Natsu stretched his jaws and clamped firmly onto Acnologia’s left arm. He used all his momentum and magical thrust to wrench violently at the arm. Natsu felt a jarring shift in their struggle, and he righted himself moments before hitting the ground, flaring his wings to manage a landing instead of a crash.

Natsu’s teeth were still clamped onto the arm he’d managed to rip from Acnologia. Euphoria coursed through him at Acnologia’s muffled roar of pain, but it was replaced by curiosity as he felt a surge of weakness.

Natsu looked down to see a gaping hole in his side, leaking what seemed to be a river of blood. He looked up with confusion, and his vision wavered, his focus stretching out as if he were looking down a tunnel that was rapidly growing longer and darker.

At the far end of the tunnel, he saw Acnologia, definitely missing an arm, but with a huge mouthful of flesh in his jaws, dripping hot blood that steamed in the cooling air. Natsu’s legs lost their strength, and he stumbled but managed to keep his front legs locked upright, sinking into a sitting crouch.

Still, there was fear in Acnologia’s eyes, and Natsu reveled in it even as the Black Dragon spit out the chunk of his flesh before glaring down at him. Natsu could hear Belserion yell out his name urgently, but he couldn’t seem to focus on anything but how cold he felt.

Natsu laughed. The idea of a fire dragon feeling cold amused him. He called on his magic to warm himself up, and though he still felt plenty of it, it refused to respond to his beckon.

Belserion continued to call out to him, and Natsu closed his eyes for just a moment, trying to think of what to do. He felt himself begin to drift away, but an image of Gray assaulted him almost immediately, refusing to let him give up, his voice pleading with him.

I need you

Natsu’s heart ached, and he reached out with his arm trying to touch the vision of Gray that had appeared before him. Gray looked sad as he begged him….

I can’t lose you to them too!

And Natsu found himself repeating the words he’d said before leaving Gray in their field.

You’ll never lose me... I’ll see you soon, Princess.

Come back to me, Natsu...

Natsu opened his eyes once again. Even as everything continued to fade to utter darkness, he stubbornly called out again, not sure if the call was to his mate or his magic. And as his awareness dimmed, he felt that warm spot he was calling to turn its attention toward him, responding to his call.

A/N: I am terrible at writing fight scenes so I enlisted the help of my husband once again, since he actually enjoys writing them. He was given the skeleton of the chapter along with “stage directions” of what I wanted to overall have happen. I think he did a great job, even if he surprised even me with how far he was willing to go! Thank you very much, love. :)

I have enjoyed fleshing out the dragons more than I thought I would (I really liked Belserion in this chapter) and while I would love to go more into some of the things that will happen, I know it’s getting to be time to move on. The next chapter should wrap up the war portion (and setup other things) and move us back to Talos.

#fairy tail #gratsu #ftlgbtales #fairy tail big bang 2018 #update

6 notes · View notes

soobadnoonecanstopher · 5 years

Text

Only the One You Love, part 7 (A Kyungsoo Series)

Genre: Angst / Romance

Characters: You X Kyungsoo

Only the One you Love[M]: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8

“Are you scared of me now?”

Kyungsoo always saw too much.

It wasn’t even like you could deny it. He could feel it in the distance you kept during the kiss. He probably bumped up against the stout wall you had installed around your heart when he got close enough to be classified as a minor threat.

But this was something you could handle. You had prepared for this much at least. You knew that in coming to Korea, the chances of running into him again were very high.

You hadn’t quite figured out a plan of action in the off-chance that a casual run-in turned into a drunken hookup and subsequent morning-after love confession with whimpering apologies from both sides, but what you knew for certain was that you weren’t about to fall again.

You wouldn’t let yourself be put into the position to be hurt again. If you had to keep him at arm’s length to make that happen then that’s simply what you would do. The softness you saw in his eyes when he looked at you; the hurt you could read like a graphic novel on his oversized features could poke and prod at you all it wanted; you would not waver. You had survived the last six months, what was a few more minutes with him close enough to hold; close enough to touch; close enough for the warmth of his lips to leave a lingering tingle?

You took your time answering his question. It was a heavy one — Were you scared of him? — your tongue felt too dry when you finally coaxed some motion from it.

His eyes glanced down at your lips when you spoke.

“I would say,” you inhaled with the words as you searched through your vocabulary for the right one and midway through the exhale you continued, “I’m smarter now.”

Your answer sent him moving. His eyes fell from your face and his hand lifted to tap fingertips in an absent-minded drift over his furrowed eyebrows and he blinked fast with the harsh lighting from your bathroom vanity reflecting a flickering wetness in his eyes.

“I think I’m just going to focus on being more careful with myself from now on.” And with my heart — but, you held the word back.

“Because you’re scared of me,” he spoke again, repeating the same words as before only this time his hand fell over his eyes as he closed out the world for a moment. It wasn't a question this time. Your response had solidified in his mind the real reason for your reluctance for closeness. The real reason why you were so desperate now to get him out of your home. Kyungsoo could feel it and he was reeling as he took a step back.

His shoulder hit a door frame and he was out of places to go. This bathroom was tiny, just as the rest of your apartment was tiny and you listened to the sounds of the water from the shower behind you, running down the drain. There was a very slight mist in the air from the steam the hot water produced. It was hardly enough to fog the mirror even. Kyungsoo’s reflection looked clear enough for you to easily make out the pained lines on his face that his hands rubbed over. You could see the tremble in those hands and when he dropped them, his head sagged forward.

“I’ll,” he swallowed roughly and the words were interrupted by the breath he pulled, “fix it. I can fix this, please...if you—”

There was a war inside your chest. You hated the admission. You hated this truth.

Yes. You were scared.

“—if you just let me try—”

You were terrified. You were so frightened that he would reach out and rip the last bits of your heart out that you wanted nothing more to do with it. You wanted him to leave. You wanted the temptation of the warmth and kindness in his eyes to vanish so you wouldn't have to resist him any longer. How much longer could you possibly say no to him before the single syllable changed to ‘well… maybe.’

Kyungsoo’s focus was on you again and you caught a flash of movement in his posture. A shift of his balance that made him surge forward. It was minimal in depth yet when he moved you moved; only your legs carried you in the opposite direction. Away from his advancement. You stepped back as he stepped forward and he noticed it.

And he stopped.

Your ears were humming. The thick steam that poured from the shower clouded your peripheral vision and Kyungsoo lifted both of his hands to cover of his nose and his mouth as he gasped once softly and shook his head in a shallow rocking motion.

“You,” the hands muffled his words, “don't want me here. You don't want me close to you at all.” He sounded close to tears to finally know this ugly truth about you.

No. No, this was vulgar. This beautiful human before you should not feel such pain; you could feel the shards of your heart scraping and clawing inside of your rib cage and it begged and it pleaded for some way to comfort him but your mind would win with its common sense and timer that ticked down the minutes until this whole ordeal was over, the knowledge that he would leave and take with him every last chance you had at a love so painful and all-consuming — your rationality held on fast and you stood stubbornly on your own two feet, curled into yourself with arms wrapped tightly around your stomach to keep your insides from spilling out all over the floor. You had to try your hardest to keep yourself together right now. You were the only one you could count on for this.

“Kyungsoo,” you spoke over the sound of the running water and your heart and your mind were at war, “I just... I can’t.”

“You can’t what? You can’t be with me? You can’t forgive me? You can’t be in the same room as me?”

You felt like your voice had been snatched away and you hated this look on his face. It crushed you. It destroyed you. How had you gone from so determined... to this?

He still had your heart and all of the power of such an absolute ownership. But you had what was left of your pride and it would have to do.

The steam was beginning to thin now. The hot water was gone and nothing at all had been accomplished with it. What a waste.

So much time had passed that you were certain a few more minutes here and he would miss his second flight. The consequences of this were beginning to stack; mounted up high as each moment brought with it more and more real-life dangers. Greater than just the damage to your silly little heart.

“Kyungsoo, your flight.” You whispered it like the filthy word it was and you felt like a coward or calling upon such an excuse.

“I’ll go,” he said with his eyes wide and trained down at the floor below his legs. It was trance-like, the way he responded. “I’ll go because you want me to go, but I’m still going to fix this.”

When he looked up into your face you could see the clarity of the room written all over his face. And he was looking into your eyes with a different look; different than before. It was brazen and it was oddly strong. A new aura you hadn’t seen all morning was bursting through his big brown eyes and he aimed them in your direction.

“Look, I made a mistake. That was me...my faults, my insecurities— I’m the one that fucked this up. You said that you’re smarter now but there wasn’t anything dumb about falling in love and honestly when I thought that I’d never see you again...it fucking killed me.” He held you in his gaze as he spoke to you, legs no longer standing within the doorway of your bathroom. He had already taken several steps away from you the moment he noticed you flinch away from him.

“And I know you haven’t said it yet—” he was leaving as promised but your heart held onto him and pulled hard. It had no effect. His feet kept on retreating and he was leaving now. Just as you had wanted. Right?

“—but I know you still love me. You’re hiding it — trying to be strong or ..or stubborn—” His vision sharpened and he lost some of his gumption on the word stubborn when the mention of such a bratty word made your lips pull into a frown and you did not fight the urge to roll your eyes. As if this was mere stubbornness. As if a broken heart could be labeled with such a word. Stubborn was something a petulant child was. You had been nearly destroyed. You were trying to live now.

“—or whatever it is but it’s still there, I know it. You still love me too...you just have to remember it.”

As if you could ever forget. You were biting down on your bottom lip with such a force that it was beginning to feel sore between your teeth. Your arms were crossed over your chest so tightly your muscles felt the strain and he wasn’t waiting for any more of a response from you. He was leaving. You held him in your sights until he simply was not there anymore.

“I’ll see you in Japan.” He called out from the living room and you felt the forceful exhale of the breath you had been holding send your body downward as your legs sank and your used up body leaned against the bathroom wall.

The soft click of your front door closing was the final sound to come from outside of your bathroom and you took a full five minutes of existing in your own skin before you pulled your bones back up with your own muscles and pulled the T-shirt roughly from your body.

You leaped into the ice-cold stream of running water and your lungs gasped as the freezing cold inundated your every cell. You sputtered and you shook and withstood the shock of it until your persistence began to pay off and you could feel your body becoming numb to it. Growing used to the pain until you hardly even noticed it anymore. It was an excellent metaphor for your existence up until this point in Korea and if you could take this, then you might just be able to withstand whatever other bullshit was coming next.

Your rescheduled flight to Osaka was easy enough to arrange and by the time the wheels touched down on the runway you were beginning to feel the strong clutches of that morning’s hangover headache finally beginning to fade.

The headache medicine you picked up with the emergency contraceptive pills at the pharmacy on the way to the airport helped ease you into your recovery and with a little food in your belly, you actually began to feel like you might just live to see another day.

You didn’t usually travel alone on work assignments. Perhaps this slip of your memory had one benefit; your flight was peaceful. Not that you wanted extra time to sit and stew inside your own head particularly, but at least you didn’t have to converse with anyone in a language that took just enough effort to become exhausting after a while.

It was probably because you lived here now, in Korea, but lately, you’d been feeling more and more fatigued with the language. Not the translating itself, that was fine and only sporadically demanding, but spending day after day talking to so many people had begun to make you feel rather worn down. It hadn’t been like this before moving here and you attributed it to the change in your job. More responsibilities, more stress — that sorta thing.

Your mind wandered in the taxi to the hotel and you recalled the phone calls in the beginning. The long video calls with Kyungsoo in which you’d go on for what felt like hours about your day. The days when you came to visit him and you’d spend entire nights up late with him just talking and talking about anything and everything you could both think to talk about. The last thing you had longed for was peace and quiet. You craved his words and he pulled yours from your own lips with open-ended questions an insatiable need to know everything you possibly had to share with him. You’d never grown tired of it. Not like now.

It had to be the move. It had to be the full and total immersion in a new country and the demands of your new job.

When you arrived at the hotel you keyed a quick text to the manager in charge of on-location staff assignments and you were instructed on your reporting location to begin your preparations for the fan meeting. There were scripts to go over for final approval, teams of staff members who approached you for small tasks and larger tasks, and all at once you were back into it. There was a rush. This felt hectic just like it had felt with EXO in Europe last year and you felt at times that a single translator on staff might not be enough for all of the work. If only you could split your body into two and handle two of the tasks at once then perhaps you could sign off on these interview questions while simultaneously monitoring the group chats of which you had multiple notifications flashing; all of them needed your attention.

Time was moving too fast and you limped along trying to catch up with the rush of work your late arrival had piled upon you. You’d had to pee for the better part of an hour and you couldn't even think about sitting down to eat something. There was simply so much work and not enough time. There was equipment to wear; an earpiece and mic that would feed your voice into the ears of select staff and group members for you to provide real-time translations as the show progressed.

The hosts spoke and you spoke, usually reading along from the already pre-approved script of questions and commentary, but careful to pay close attention for ad-libs and changes and when it came time for you to translate for the members as they addressed the audience, the sensation of hearing your own voice echoing throughout the entire arena to raucous applause and screams was about as surreal as it could get.

Your performance was far from perfect. You stumbled on a few words and especially upon hearing the sound of your own voice over that crowd, you could feel the pressure mounting inside of your chest. Your mind blanked on a few words and you had to scramble while still trying to sound as professional as possible to find another way to say things. The whole experience left you feeling hot in the face and flustered as hell and you have never been so happy to witness the final reluctant goodbyes at the end of an event in your whole life.

The members waved their hands and blew their kisses and the fans in the crowd screamed and cried and you felt like you might just collapse from the genuine relief that it was actually finally over.

You had done it. It was done. Bumbles and mistakes had been made. There was nothing you could do about that now. It was over. You pulled the wiring from around your neck, removing the earpiece carefully as you unplugged yourself and handed off the equipment to the member of staff who was collecting mics to carefully catalog and place into rightful locations and you honestly could feel a cold sweat all over your skin. Your hands were shaking and you felt just a little nauseated. You needed some downtime. You still had to pee but also you needed to sit in complete silence in a bathroom stall and not have to say another word to another human being for at least a few minutes. An hour was out of the question; your phone was already vibrating with message notifications.

You left your phone inside your back pocket and made your way toward the bathrooms. It could wait. Whatever it was could wait for five minutes.

You found the bathrooms and your bladder was screaming as you pushed through the stall door, quickly pulled down your jeans and heard the sound before you felt the rectangle piece of technology that you had very thoughtlessly left in your back pocket vanish with a clunk and splash combination.

Shit.

Fuck.

Shit and Fuck!

You stood in a flash and turned to look inside the toilet bowl; every single wasted wish and hope you had used up from the falling stars and blown out birthday candles mocking you as you spun to look. Please, please, please no, not your phone. Not in the toilet, not the 3-year-old treasure you held closest to your heart that was so full of your entire life you never even considered going through the trouble of replacing it. It was an older model. Definitely not waterproof and there it sat at the bottom of the toilet bowl. Tiny bubbles were rising from the corner and you leaped into action.

Fuck hygiene, this was an emergency. You reached into the water and pulled it out and it dripped and dripped as the water drained from the inside pouring back into the toilet bowl. You scrambled for some paper. For anything to dry it, anything to save this and it was so blank and so black and so dead looking and it was still dripping.

You pressed the buttons on the side. You pressed the home button, you held buttons down, you shook out the rest of the water from somewhere inside the bottom speaker and the toilet paper stuck to your fingers when you tried to blot and dry as much as possible.

Your messages. Your photos. Your whole life.

The phone had soaked up that water like a sponge and you could feel the stress from the day mounting over your head because you still had to pee, goddammit!

You stared down at the phone, sitting motionless on a pile of wet paper and even the relief of emptying your bladder could not have any sort of significant impact on you now.

You had the pictures with him in there.

There was an entire folder dedicated to him. Dated pictures that documented every single visit, every single dish you both made together, every single gift exchanged. Super secret folders with passwords to protect them with pictures you both took together. A kiss on the cheek, a sweet smile on his face. A giggle when his eyes disappeared completely. The video you snuck while he slept one night and you were elated to capture the sound of your name mumbled in his sleep.

All gone.

You sat on the toilet in silence. This wasn’t the kind of silence you craved a few minutes ago. And yet you were bathed in it now. With filthy feeling hands and a useless and broken phone and a useless and broken heart inside your chest and your emotions mounting the longer you sat here remembering everything that had been on that phone.

It was gone and he was gone too.

The burning began in your eyes and it only lasted a second before you felt the tears cresting and spilling down your cheeks. Your nose stuffed up almost instantly and you felt consumed by loss.

At least you were alone. Your lungs trembled and stuttered and you breathed through your mouth as the tears fell endlessly down your face and you cried. You cried for the memories, you cried for the love and for the disappointment of it all. You cried for yourself and you cried for Kyungsoo and you cried and you cried alone in this bathroom in an event venue in Osaka, Japan when you really should have been finding some sort of solution to this.

Maybe you could save it. Maybe you could open it up and dry it with a hotel blow dryer, or maybe you could find a kitchen and find some rice to soak it in overnight, you had heard once that that was the way to fix wet phones.

You couldn't just cry about this. You had to get up and out of here and do something to fix this. Weren’t there people who could fix these things? Cell phone repair shops who dealt with water damage and data recovery who would go into your phone and find your super secret photos of your super celebrity idol boyfriend and you locked in a fucking selfie kiss and possibly take that photo and spread it all over the internet and cause a career-ending scandal?

Fuck.

Still, you were up and out of the stall. Still, you were washing your hands and shaking every last drop of water from out of your phone as you attempted to somehow cleanse the outside of it with paper towels because of disgusting toilet water and all the potential bio-contaminants that involved.

You were thinking of e-coli and botulism and Ebola and any number of other things that could possibly attach to your face if ever you held this thing up to your ear once more.

You wrapped it in the paper towels and held it just a little more carefully away from you as you moved and a quick glance in the mirror told you that while it did look like you had been crying, your makeup had been waterproof and your face had an after-crying glow that honestly didn’t look too bad. At worst you looked a bit drunk maybe.

You vacated the bathroom in search of some solution.

What you found was a dressing room with the letters EXO on them and you knew you would encounter plenty of staff members inside to at least help you brainstorm your next move. Perhaps they had a stash of staff phones they could let you use for the rest of this assignment so you could log in to the messenger program and continue your work duties.

On the other side of the door was a flurry of movement and activity. Staff worked to de-wardrobe, label, and organize items and bodies were moving in all directions as people did their jobs quickly so they could be done with it and finally get to close out this day’s schedule properly.

A pair of eyes caught your own and having finished changing his clothes he looked up from his seated position on a sofa in the center of the room with a genuine double take at your state.

Had you really looked that upset? You were probably a damn mess. You could feel the remnants of your emotions sitting at the back of your throat and Sehun stood up and took strides in your direction with a question on his eyebrows.

“Hey...you okay?” his head dropped close to your level and you shook your head back and forth as you held your hands out to show him your dead phone carefully wrapped in several brown paper towels from the bathroom.

It hadn’t occurred to you that he wouldn't know what you were showing him. Something hidden inside paper towels. He reached forward, ready to receive your terrible offering and you pulled it back quickly, not wanting him to catch a public toilet disease by touching this thing with his bare hands.

“I dropped my phone in the toilet.” You spoke through gritted teeth but you could hear the whining complaint on your own voice.

Saying it though, out loud, with your own mouth was so much worse than the incredulous repetition you had been replaying in disbelief inside your head.

Sehun snorted instantly and his hand flew up to cover his mouth and he didn't try that hard to hide the laughter that was very obviously shaking his shoulders.

“Oh...my god,” he whispered with a dramatic pause between the words for emphasis and you groaned and stomped your foot that he would dare laugh at you in your time of complete and utter disaster.

“Sehun,” you whispered harshly but it was no use reprimanding him because he had already covered his face with his open palms and he openly laughed so much harder when you scolded him.

“I’m sorry,” he said between big gasps for air, “It’s just...the way you’re holding it seemed like you found a dead bird or something.”

“Oh shit, are you really crying?” His laughter quieted down when your lips frowned down into the saddest pout at your terrible, terrible luck and you were about to leave this useless man in search of someone else — anyone else who could actually help you when a second face appeared beside the, now concerned, Oh Sehun.

His face was equally concerned to see you sniffling and wiping stray tears from below your eyes and you were trying your best to control this. The more attention your quiet sniffles garnered, the more you wanted to turn and run out of the room.

The wide eyes of the man standing beside Sehun turned on him and you flinched when a hand reached up and roughly smacked the taller man on the shoulder.

“What the hell did you do?” Junmyeon, the leader of the group was hissing angrily at Sehun and you lifted your phone up quickly to protest. But more faces were appearing beside Sehun and Junmyeon now and there was a bit of a circle gathering. Oh god, you were a spectacle.

“I’m sorry for whatever happened, but sometimes our Sehun, he seems very mad or angry but really,” Junmyeon addressed you with a nervous smile on his lips and reached his own hand up to wave over the length of his own face, “he has a sleepy bitch face. That is just his face.”

Sehun’s expression had shifted at being blamed for this and he lifted his head to toss it back in annoyance. A loud sigh vacated his lungs and he rolled his eyes hard.

“Resting, Junmyeon. It’s a resting bitch face. God, how many times...”

“Sehun didn’t do anything. I’ve...dropped—” you lifted the phone toward the center of the circle of faces that had gathered. The commotion was already set into motion and Minseok had joined in the investigation of what exactly Sehun had or hadn’t done to make you cry.

Only Minseok had noticed that you held something in your hands and your words were out of your lips just after he had grabbed the brown paper towel wrapped phone from your hands.

“—my phone in the toilet.” The paper towels had fallen open enough for Minseok’s hand to grip around your phone briefly and it took him a good three seconds to register what you had actually said. The motion must have shaken some more drops of water from the inside.

“Oh my god, it’s wet. Why is this wet? Why is my hand wet right now?” His voice had risen by octaves and he quickly opened his hand to send the phone falling back down where it missed your hands holding the paper towels and clattered down onto the floor between everyone’s legs.

Heads looked down.

“I dropped it in the toilet,” you whispered with your voice thick with shame and your face felt like you’d been lounging in the fire pits of hell.

Minseok was green. He was waving his hands up and down rapidly and making gagging sounds and you frowned down at the now cracked phone screen of your dead phone.

“Why is Minseok freaking out?” Jongdae had arrived at the circle and stood beside Manager Lee and Manager Park who both looked down at the device with matching disinterested expressions on their faces.

“Put it in some rice,” Jongin chimed in from the sofa he seemed to be glued to, “I’ve dropped lots of phones in water. You put them in rice and they wake back up.”

“Where is she going to get rice right now?” Sehun asked Jongin who rolled his eyes as he looked up from his phone screen for a moment.

“Uhh...this is Japan, Sehun. She can just, like, go outside and get some rice on the street,” and as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, he held his hands out like a game show hostess showing off the fancy prizes up for grabs. “We are in Japan.”

“Did you pee on it?” Chanyeol’s baritone chimed in and you shook your head vehemently with your eyes as wide as could be. He gasped softly and he leaned in closer to you. “Was it the other one?” Chanyeol held up his fingers in a V shape, quietly asking about the other bodily function that might have happened with the phone inside the toilet and you wanted to just die.

You wished for a hole to climb into. Everyone was talking at once. This was a terrible situation that was becoming worse with each new witness who arrived to gawk.

“Toilet water on his hands,” Junmyeon responded to Jongdae’s question and the later wrinkled his nose in disgust, “She dropped her phone in the toilet and Minseok picked it up...got it on his hands. He’s going to be washing for hours tonight.”

Jongdae clicked his tongue and shook his head back and forth.

You crouched down on your ankles to grasp the phone within the paper towels again and cradled it between your parted knees with great care; as if all of the damage that could come to the device hadn’t already occurred.

“It looks kinda old, maybe it was time to replace it.” Sehun offered as he joined you down on the floor where you sunk down to sulk.

“It had everything on it, Sehun. My whole life. Pictures, videos...work. I have so much work I still need to do and I need my phone to do it. How will I get through the fanmeeting tomorrow without a phone? Do you know how much work gets done while I’m on the move?”

“Maybe you can use a replacement for now and we can take that one to get fixed when we get back to Seoul...Hmm?” Junmyeon was speaking down to you like you were an upset child he tried to pacify. He bent in half at the waist to join the pow-wow on the floor and you looked around to see that most of the half-interested parties to witness the spectacle had lost interest by now and wandered away. Minseok had disappeared quickly and you were certain that the running water you could hear coming from the dressing room bathroom was him scrubbing his hands.

“Does anyone have a spare phone on them? Baekhyun you have two phones right?” Junmyeon was asking the room and several faces looked away as soon as the question was raised.

Baekhyun, who had been sitting on a nearby sofa with his head tossed back in half nap, half exhausted coma lifted his head for a moment.

“Why is this an our problem and not a her problem?” Junmyeon stood and leaned in Baekhyun’s direction with his jaw clenched and his face pink.

“Because she’s the one that Sehun li— knows. Sehun knows, h-his friend. She is his friend so she’s our friend. Why are you like this?”

“I need my phones,” Baekhyun said dismissively, closing his eyes up tight as his head fell back into place to rest against the back of the sofa.

A hand appeared. A hand holding a phone, and you stared down at that hand that held the phone out for you to take. The owner of the hand spoke and you jumped at the low voice that coated your eardrums and your heart and your entire existence in warmth.

“Here,” he said and the phone in his hand illuminated with the movement.

“I have two. Use this one for now.” Kyungsoo spoke beside you and you looked at the phone he presented you with. The phone he offered was the kind of familiar that singed your skin and prickled your memory and you could feel the protest on your tongue long before you followed his arm up to his shoulder to look into that calculated and blank look on his face that he kept controlled as he interacted with you in front of the others.

“Oh good. This will work for now. So you can get your work done, right?” Junmyeon was smiling wide at the obvious display of teamwork before him — a valuable member of the group taking care of another member so they could get their job done, for the good of everybody involved, for the good of EXO (We Are One) — you could see the relief and pride written all over Junmyeon’s face as he looked at Kyungsoo.

“K-Kyungsoo, I don’t think—”

“It already has the apps we use. You can just log in and see all of your messages and emails and everything. You won’t be able to get a replacement phone by tonight and tomorrow will be too busy. Just use it.”

He was waiting for you to take it.

Sehun, Junmyeon, Jongdae, Chanyeol, and Jongin all waited for you to take it. Even Baekhyun from the sofa peeled an eyelid open to watch you take it.

Manager Lee clapped his hands once and the members' heads turned to listen as he announced 15 minutes before the vans left for the hotel and people were on the move again rushing to pack up belongings and finish last minute activities and you reluctantly reached for the phone that Kyungsoo still held in his hands.

He watched your face carefully as you gripped it and there was a slow motion blink of his eyes that made a wave of heat travel through your chest.

He stood on his legs and reached down to grab your hand and pull you into a standing position and then he leaned close to whisper into your ear, careful to drop your hand from his as soon as you were in an upright position.

“Password’s your birthday.”

He pivoted on his feet, leaving you here in the center of the dressing room with his own personal phone, the one he’d used to call you with late at night when you dated him. The one he’d texted you with and video called you with and the one who’s screen he’d kissed many times when he couldn’t kiss you in person because of the distance.

The one he’d used to break up with you.

“Kyungsoo,” you called toward his retreating back and he spun to look at you with raised eyebrows behind his round glasses. “I’ll give it back as soon as we get to Seoul.”

He shrugged his shoulders, “Keep it as long as you need it,” he said with a concealed smile inside his eyes.

“I won’t look at anything in it either,” you said much quieter this time and with just a bit of sarcastic notes in your voice.

“You can look at all of it,” he said and the smile in his eyes was gone, “You already have the password for everything.”

Your looming work deadlines overshadowed your sense of danger. It didn’t mean you couldn’t feel it, but you honestly didn’t have much of a choice. Kyungsoo was the only person in the entire room to offer you a solution that wasn’t soak the phone in rice and pray and he had already left for whatever task he had been in the middle of when you had barged your crisis-having, weeping self into his dressing room.

So you turned to the phone — Kyungsoo’s phone — tried your best not to be too annoyed by the all of the unread messages and waiting texts and missed call notifications you saw all over the damn thing (what was wrong with him?) and you logged him out to log yourself in where you needed to be.

The messages had piled up. Had you really been offline for a whole hour directly after a high profile event in your target language where you were required to vet a huge amount of official statements and articles that represented the company, the group, and the brand of EXO? You were glued to the phone for the entire ride back to the hotel and paused only for a moment to search for your room key so you could get to your laptop and finally close out the last of your tasks from today’s fan meeting. You had planned on showering and having a quick in-room dinner before final script approvals for tomorrow’s event.

Your self-control was impressive if you didn’t say so yourself. Although being so busy that you didn’t even have time to go to the bathroom without taking your laptop with you probably helped fuel the self-control.

Kyungsoo’s phone — it had its own tempting little voice that called to you from the coffee table — had been left completely and surprisingly unexplored by the time you signed off on the final script translations and you’d watched it sitting there out of the corner of your eye as you grabbed the remote control and flipped on the tv. The phone lit up a few times as non-urgent group chat messages arrived for you and then a longer buzz sounded out. And it didn’t quit.

Oh shit, it was ringing. Kyungsoo’s phone was ringing. You looked at the screen and read the word Mom on the illuminated screen and that single word sent a wave of tension through your body that started at your head and landed somewhere deep inside your belly.

You shouldn’t answer it, right? Your hands were on the phone and your grip was faltering on the second ring.

What would you even say to her?

You did suppose that you could simply explain how you, a vetted S.M. employee, had his phone for the time being and her son was unavailable but you’d be sure to let him know she called.

That was the professional thing to do. It was the kind thing to do also. It was your fault that he didn’t get to speak with his mother right now after the schedule had been completed for the night and he would have had enough time for a talk with his mom. You knew how busy he was and how rarely he got to actually connect with her. Your guilt multiplied the longer the phone rang.

The call had rung it’s third and fourth ring and you watched as the phone went silent in your hands. The screen went black and after a few seconds of staring at the blackness, the phone buzzed again briefly indicating that she had left a voicemail.

What if it was something important?

What if something was wrong?

You no longer hesitated. A trek through his contacts brought up a sparse list. Mom, Dad, a couple of managers and some of his actor friends. Slithering by down the list was his dog sitter Sunny— as pretty a thing as she was annoying (ugh), and your frustrations magnified upon the realization that he did not have his work phone number saved in this phone. But then again, why would he? What reason in the world would he have to call himself?

What he did have saved was your name with a little red emoji heart trailing behind it.

You glared at the heart and the heart glared back at you.

And then your fingers were moving.

It was that damn heart. How could he still have that damn heart?

You jumped to his text messages and scrolled through the chains searching for the color red. It was far down on the list but it was there. The final messages exchanged with each other weren’t angry. They weren’t bitter or harsh. You scrolled and you scrolled and you saw kindness. You saw sweetness and splashes of love. Like a relic frozen in time — the unearthed bones of a pair of lovers — buried alive and in their final moment, their last breath was a kiss.

You hadn’t been able to delete them either.

You closed out of the text messages. You were already in this deep. Hadn’t he given you permission to look anyway? There wasn’t even a ceremonial pause in your movements where you second guessed yourself. How far had you fallen now?

His photo gallery was organized in folders and honestly, it was mostly pictures of food. Very few personal pictures despite the careful labeling system he used for his photos. You honestly felt disappointed. Your gallery had been full of pictures. Personal pictures and pictures of places you’d traveled for work. The really personal ones though...the pictures that stabbed and burned when you looked with your weakest moments to blame; those were in hidden folders with passwords for extra security.

He…would not have done the same, would he? His phone was a bit different than yours, but your snooping had unearthed what you were certain was a hidden folder within his photo gallery. A little trip through the phone settings and you were prompted for a passcode. It was four digits this time; different than the six-digit passcode to unlock the phone and you typed in the month and date of your birthday.

It did not work.

You tried once more with the same numbers; perhaps you had entered it wrong.

It still would not open and you sighed out in frustration that he would trick you like this. He said you had his permission to look and he said you had all of the passwords to get in, and yet you sat here now, trying every single four-digit number combination that you could think of feeling like a damn fool and a little bit like a bumbling novice phone hacker without a single bit of savvy to get the hacking job done.

Your frustrations mounted when the phone alerted you that after whatever number of failed log-in attempts you would now be required to wait 30 seconds before trying again and you tossed it angrily down on the table in front of you.

You had tried your birthday, his birthday, your birth year, his birth year, some bastardization of both of your birthdays combined, the last four digits of your phone number, even the last four digits of your passport number, which he had absolutely no way of knowing in the first place; you still tried it and came up completely empty as you stared at the stupid numbers on that phone counting down for your chance to stoop to even lower levels than you had already stooped.

This number couldn’t have to do with you. There was no way you were meant to view the pictures in this secret photo album of his. You really should just give up. What if there wasn’t even anything inside the folder? What if this was some elaborate Kyungsoo-esque prank designed to tempt and then torment you when you couldn't crack it?

You regretted taking the stupid phone from him in the first place.

Your timer was done and you felt like a trapped animal, unable to free yourself from the snare you were caught in simply because you were unwilling to let go of the tasty treat you held on to. If only you put it down, you would be able to remove your hand from the trap and get up and just walk away.

Now you were convinced that the passcode had nothing to do with you, you still aimlessly cycled through dates you remembered. Landing somewhere around the date the European tour began last year, the first time you saw him in person, the day you were running late to the introductory meeting and he claimed you as his own personal translator, refusing to allow you to leave with any member of EXO unless it was him, that date...the day you first sat down to eat with him in Paris.

Paris was first. Paris was the start; the romantic city you both explored together before even having shared a first kiss. The date of the start of the tour did not work to unlock the folder but your heart seemed to tingle as you sat up straighter and thought to try something new. What if it wasn’t a date?

It was a long shot; 7274 using the numbers on a telephone keypad would spell out the word for Paris in Korean. Pari when romanized.

You tried it and jumped to attention when the password was correct. 7274...Paris. His secret password was Paris.

The message on the phone informed you that all hidden folders would now be unlocked and viewable and your hands were trembling as you returned to the spot you had been so disappointed to find filled with only pictures of food before.

And...oh.

Oh — Do Kyungsoo, you frustrating, beautiful, stubborn man.

The change in content was staggering. You could hardly move your hands to scroll with how they trembled and shook from what you saw in the thumbnails.

He had plenty to hide. He had more than you had in your phone. It was like a shrine.

Pictures of you; your own smiling face, your silly faces, your sleepy eyes, your pouted and puckered lips, images captured in person, images saved from your facebook, screenshots from your Instagram (which you did not even realize he followed), pictures of you alone, pictures of you with your friends, pictures of you with his dogs during your visits. Pictures you hadn’t realized he was taking, but he must have taken them because there you were, asleep on his couch with a furry black poodle curled up high around your neck and a second grey poodle curled behind your knees. It was all here. He hadn’t deleted a single thing since meeting you and he seemed to compulsively save them just as you did.

More shocking than the old pictures were the newer ones. The picture of you with a forced smile as you posed with friends a week before moving to Korea. It was here too.

Apparently, you weren’t the only one who kept up to date even after the break-up. You weren’t the only one who did not understand the meaning of letting go.

Do Kyungsoo was in love with you. You knew this already, but the evidence of his feelings was so obvious — it was obscene.

If he was going to be this way; if he was going to refuse to let you go, then why had he done that? Why had he done this to the both of you if he was just going to have his stupid heart broken like this?

You had to close it down when you got to the screenshots he had saved from your chats. He had circled things you said, put in little finger drawn hearts around the words, or hand-drawn short commentary like so cute or pretty and saved them that way. Why?

Why.

Damn it.

Your heart was beating too hard. You stared ahead at the tv playing in your room, completely unaware of what kind of program might be playing. You were technically looking at it, but nothing registered.

It came back to you like a flood; the reason why you had ventured into his phone to begin with.

Why you hadn’t just gone to the messaging app to begin with instead of searching through his contacts was glaring evidence of your idiocy.

You found his name from the EXO members & staff group chat and opened the direct message chat window beside his name.

‘Your mom called.’

A minute passed before you saw the number beside the message change and you knew he’d read it.

Another minute passed before you saw the three dots appear beside his name that told you he was responding and your heart was in your throat by the time his one-word answer arrived for you.

‘Oh?’

… Really, Do Kyungsoo? It definitely had not lived up to the anticipation. You wanted to scream and flail about the familiarity of this feeling.

‘I didn’t answer but she left you a message. I did not listen to it.’

You could feel your own awkwardness as you offered up too much information when he hadn’t even asked for any of this. Yet his frustratingly short reply grated on you and you wondered how he ever got to any of his schedules on time or at all if this was how he communicated with people.

‘You didn’t answer?? :/ What am I even paying you for?’

He was joking. You were burning alive and he was playing with the flames.

You did not respond. You couldn’t open up that type of communication with him. Playing and joking with each other was definitely in the Don’t column of your Do and Don’ts of Do Kyungsoo.

Your adherence so far had been spectacularly bad; what with the sleeping with him last night and snooping through his private picture gallery that had felt like reading a diary. You didn’t need to add the fuzzy feelings that inflated your chest with warm air when he said something that made you laugh.

‘You can listen yourself. Room 228’

You’d expected him to knock on your hotel door after a few minutes of travel time. What you did not expect was an emoji response [o.O!] and literally seconds later the sound of a knock coming from somewhere else within your room; from a direction opposite of the door of your hotel room.

You’d never had reason to, or paid much attention to the inner door of your hotel suite. It was the kind of door that had double doors, with locks on both sides that you knew could be used to access an adjoining hotel room.

You stood up from your sofa and the disbelief had reached new levels because, literally, what the fuck.

‘That better not be you.’

‘!!!,’ Was all he said in response and he knocked again; three quick knocks to mirror the three exclamation points he sent you.

You unlocked the door and pulled it open slowly and Kyungsoo stood on the other side wearing his usual black on black on black with sock-covered feet and his black hair laid flat over his forehead and black round rimmed glasses on his face.

His expression was one of genuine surprise and the combination of his wide eyes and parted lips behind those glasses was almost enough to make you close the door just as soon as you had opened it up.

You pushed it a bit, in fact, and you felt the tiniest bit of resistance on the other side. He had already moved into the gap and you must be squishing him.

“Wait, why are you closing it?” He complained from the other side but there was a bit of brevity on his voice as he did it.

“I changed my mind,” you said, “you can’t come in with those glasses on.”

“Ahh...this again,” he murmured and you pulled the door open to peek around the edge.

“You’re wearing them to disarm me.” You were pouting. You were being irrational. You were very, very tired from the very long day and he was watching you with his big round eyes and with that adorable expression on his face and you would rather slam this door shut with every ounce of strength in your body than let him inside here with those glasses on his face. Were they new? God, they were nice.

“I’m wearing them to see you,” he countered and you scoffed, knowing better.

“I just want to call my mom.” His tone drifted into lower, more sincere waters. “She’s been sick lately and...and she stayed up late to call me tonight after the schedule. She’ll be worried.”

You gave up instantly; dropped your hands from the door and letting it swing open wide with a step back. You were being unfair to him and to his mom and he had done you a huge favor after all. He’d saved your ass really, the amount of work you were able to get done tonight because of his help would make tomorrow downright bearable.

“Sorry, sorry. I’m just...really tired,” you were retreating back into your room, toward the sofa where you had left his phone and he followed quietly behind, reaching down for the familiar, now shared device. “I hope nothing bad happened,” you whispered as he held the phone up to his ear to listen to her message.

His face was blank as he did it and he focused ahead on the opposite wall where the clock told him it was well after one in the morning and everybody in this room probably should be asleep instead of doing whatever it was they were doing right now.

He was moving; swiping on the screen and holding the phone up to his ear and you heard the voice on the other end of the phone answer before he began speaking to his mom.

You did not want to pry. You did not think you had the right to, but he was sitting here in your hotel room talking to his mom about something that was going on with one of the dogs. You heard the word for veterinarian and a dreadful feeling was growing in your belly. Was one of the babies sick? Had the youthfully beautiful Sunny finally neglected them to the point of illness and would soon be replaced with some sweet but friendly old man who was passionate about poodles and did not use every opportunity to touch the poodle’s owner liberally and flirtatiously to a soundtrack of forced laughter as over-the-top as a faked orgasm? [You hated her laugh about as much as you hated her face.]

You had been lost in your own thoughts by the time you came-to and realized that Kyungsoo had already disconnected the call and was just watching you standing here with your arms tightly crossed over your chest and your jaw clenched down so hard it ached around your earlobes.

“You okay?” He said once your realization shifted to him and away from the darkness of your own thoughts.

Okay? You hardly knew the meaning of the word anymore.

“Are the puppies okay?”

He was looking down at his phone as if something caught his attention on it, but he glanced up once at your question.

“Yeah, they’re just getting shots tomorrow. I said that on the phone. Your Korean’s getting rusty, baby. Should we work on it?”

Baby? How dare he. He had a look on his face. There was almost a fiery glare in the depths of his eyes and it was very late. You were very tired. He was very tiring. You should not have let him in wearing those glasses.

“I was trying not to listen.”

“You can listen,” he said before holding up the phone in his hand which was open to the unlocked gallery of images which had once been so shocking to discover and already looked so damn familiar to see in his hands. “You can know it all,” he added quietly with his eyes back down on the phone again and his ears bright pink with the truth on the table for everyone to see.

“Kyungsoo,” you began. You felt worn down. He should sleep and so should you. In your respective hotel rooms of course.

“Why did you cry? What did you lose on your phone that made you cry so hard?”

You did not continue with where you were headed; to tell him it was time to sleep and so you could both rest enough for tomorrow's work. Instead, you found your words lost somewhere along the pathway to your lips.

“You can talk to me, you know. I’m still Kyungsoo. I’m still the same person.”

You bit down hard on your lip. It was a dangerous topic to approach this late at night. Especially with this person.

“Was it us? Was it our pictures that you lost? You didn’t save them anywhere at all? Was that why you cried?”

His prodding was soft and gentle, begging you to unfold and show what you hid inside of yourself. You had to look away from the softness you saw in his eyes and the urge to answer the many questions he had asked you burned in the back of your throat.

You had to speak. You needed it said like you needed oxygen.

“It’s like...like it never even happened now. At least before, I had something concrete that I could go back and see with my own two eyes. At least with that, it seemed like maybe it was real. We were really happy once.”

With each new word you spoke the room grew darker and colder and the thickness in your throat was coating your vocal cords. You spoke through it, but it was evident and obvious. You weren’t looking at him. You could not. You felt the burning return to your closed eyes and wetness built up and threatened the riverbanks and the well-being of the towns folks nearby.

And where it grew cold and where it grew dark came a warmth that encased around your bones.

You could smell him before you could feel him; strong and enveloping you entirely within his arms.

Kyungsoo had stood, closed the distance between your bodies and he was hugging you. His arms wrapped completely; his hands flat against your back did not rub in comforting circles, he was still and he was strong and he held on firmly and when you pulled much needed oxygen into your lungs you smelled the fragrance of the skin on his neck where your head had naturally tucked in. It felt like a dream.

His voice, this make-believe voice that narrated into your ear; using the voice of the man you loved.

“We can take more pictures. We can start again. Please, don't cry. We’ll make more memories together. We can do it again...right this time. I really loved you and you really loved me — that was real.”

He spoke with so much conviction, you longed to believe the fairy tales he told — all sorts of stories and your heart begged for you to believe them all. “It was real then and it will be real again. I promise you...I promise.”

Only the One you Love[M]: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8

324 notes · View notes

theritualofourexistence · 5 years

Text

#CancelStudentDebt

You. Guys.

Background: Bernie Sanders and Ilhan Omar have called, on Twitter, for users to briefly state how their lives would be different without student debt, using the hashtag #CancelStudentDebt. It’s part of a campaign recently launched by Sanders that would instantly eliminate the $1.6 trillion dollars of student debt currently hefted by American citizens.

Even with that plan, I’m still not sure I’m voting for Bernie.

And if he somehow wins, I still don’t actually believe he’d be able to just poof away my student loan debt.

For the sake of the “what-if,” however, I chose to tweet along with the hashtag... just a simple statement about how my life would be different if I didn’t have student loan debt.

This is the exact text of my tweet:

“With no student debt, I’d be planning a future that included children, supporting my parents, and pursuing my dream job. #CancelStudentDebt”

I went on to say in a few follow-up tweets that I’m still pursuing my dream job... just much more slowly than I could without the debt I already have. I briefly explained what that dream job is (having my own practice and providing therapeutic services to those incarcerated or recently released) and that I have three jobs now that I’m using to work in that direction... but that I still feel the pressure of my loans every day, every time I choose to spend money on anything.

That tweet seems pretty harmless to me. Despite that, it has launched quite a shit storm. One that I was definitely not expecting.

First, I am a nobody. I have very few followers on Twitter. I basically use it to follow sports, a handful of celebrities, and whine to no one about the stuff I struggle with daily.

The good: this tweet now has 200 likes. WHAT?! I think the most likes I’ve gotten on a tweet before capped out at like 25, at the MOST. It also has nearly 30 retweets. So folks relate. I approve.

The shit storm: over 60 mostly middle-aged white dude trolls were sitting on that hashtag, waiting for a simple little tweet like mine to come along so they could jump on it and rip it to shreds.

In the last eight hours I’ve been called stupid and lazy more times than I can count. I’ve been told over and over again that I shouldn’t have taken out loans if I didn’t want to pay them back, that I should have picked a different major in college, that I shouldn’t have gone to college, that I should have gone to a cheaper school. I’ve been called a socialist (yeah, okay, not denying that), I’ve been called evil. As of 5pm, I’ve been called a cunt... by strangers... at least three times.

I never intended to start an argument about the benefits and or downfalls of eliminating student loan debt.

I was simply saying that, without it, my life would be different. And easier.

I was raised to chase my dreams. I think a lot of people in my generation were. But our parents, likely the same dudes shit-posting on Twitter today, were well-meaning when they told us to dream big and to have the courage to chase those dreams. I don’t think they could predict the world we would inherit... and just how hard it would be to actually pursue those dreams.

I don’t think my dreams are outlandish. I don’t think they’re irrational. And trust me, I know what irrational looks like.

Do I think my student loan debt will magically disappear? No, I don’t. Would it be nice? Yeah. It would. Would things be different and easier? Yes, definitely.

I can’t go back and pick a cheaper college. I can’t go back and pick a different major. I can’t go back and decide not to switch fields. I can’t go back and un-sign the loan papers I signed when I was 18 years old.

I was 18 years old. Maybe. I honestly could’ve been 17 because I’m a summer baby. And I have absolutely no memory of signing loan papers. I knew enough to know I’d have to pay them back. But I also knew that getting loans was the only way to pay for the program at the college that I thought would be best for me.

Turns out, 18-year-olds don’t know shit.

Maybe we shouldn’t let 18-year-olds make decisions about thousands of dollars.

Anyway, here I am now, unable to undo any of the decisions that saddled me with my current student loan debt.

Today I was called stupid, lazy, evil, and a cunt, just for having a dream.

What a weird thing.

Some suggested I join the military. Maybe I could make that work... but let’s be honest, the military isn’t a nice place to be for pacifists. Also, enlisting when we’re on the brink of war with Iran just seems, objectively, stupid.

What do people get out of insulting strangers on the internet? None of the people who responded know anything about my life. Many of them told me to get a job and work to pay off my loans. Well, I’ve got a job and I am working and that’s not really enough. Many of them accused me of seeking handouts. Of never working for anything and expecting to be carried through life.

Those people don’t know how hard I’ve worked. But that didn’t stop them from calling me names.

I often forget that not everyone understands empathy the same way I do. It’s why I feel the way I do about a lot of socio-political issues. If you told me that my taxes would go up ever so slightly but that I’d be able to help millions of Americans achieve financial stability, I’d say sure.

I don’t understand why people with a comfortable life--a home, a family, a steady income--feel so mad about other people wanting a chance to have those things too.

All I want, really, is to be comfortable enough to feel like I can give back. To repay my parents for their constant support, to donate to causes fighting the good fight, to provide affordable therapeutic services to people in need with limited access.

Today, right now, I’m pretty sure I will die childless and still with debt. That’s the reality that I face every day. I work hard, despite that. And I dream, despite that. But the idea that maybe that isn’t my future is certainly nice... no matter how immediately unrealistic it may be.

What did all those angry white people get from telling me to quit bitching and get a job and deal with the consequences of my actions? What good does that do? Who does that help?

What good does it do to tell a fat, poor, anxiety-ridden 28-year-old that her dreams are stupid and unattainable and that she’s a lazy idiot for having them?

What synapses are firing in your brain to make you think that that action has any kind of value?

Remember, folks, that even if you’re looking at a computer and not a face, that screen-name is connected to a real ass person. I may have silly dreams but at least I am committed to not treating other people like garbage. I don’t have any interest in hurting anyone’s feelings, and I’m adult enough to choose my actions accordingly.

Today, I sent a simple tweet out into the universe, and, in return, strangers called me names for hours. HOURS. It’s literally still happening.

Who does that serve? Calling me an idiot isn’t going to change the reality that forgiving student loan debt would change my life. That’s not an opinion that can be corrected, it’s simply the truth.

So, regardless of who is elected and what happens with student debt... Regardless of whether or not I pay off my loans some day... Regardless of whether or not I die childless with debt still left to pay... think about how you interact with others.

Hurting people for no reason is sick.

I’m a strong girl, because of all the hard work I’ve put in, of course; so I’ll be okay. But you don’t get anything from insulting others on the internet... so why spend the time and energy to cause that hurt when there’s nothing at all to gain from it?

Here in America, if we’re lucky, we’ve only got 80-some years to dick around on Earth.

For the love of God, please just use that time to be kind to one another.

#cancel student debt #student loan debt #debt #student loans #twitter #trolls #be kind

10 notes · View notes

ergomaria · 4 years

Text

Miles to Go Before I Sleep - Ch. 11

"Excellent. I suppose we'll be seeing each other quite soon." While Bastila's comment was supposed to be friendly, it somehow sounded ominous.

"Right. Over and out." Clipping her comlink back to her belt, Meetra drew a steadying breath as she continued her march through the canyon. Atton was a few paces ahead while the rest of her crew trailed behind, giving her a little too much space to think as she moved through the wasteland of her own making.

But was she the one to blame for this devastation? All of the old outrage and resentment that the former Consular assumed had burned away during her self-imposed exile was swiftly surging back to the forefront of her mind as the crew trudged past the evidence of her slaughter. 'This was all necessary,' she told herself even as the words grew increasingly meaningless beneath the weight of her regret. 'Revan thought it was necessary and he's the tactical mastermind. He made it sound so simple.' She hadn't been lying when she told Vann that the decision to use the Mass Shadow Generator was entirely hers, but recognizing her own culpability didn't quell the bitterness that simmered in her heart.

All of those thoughts were swirling through Meetra's mind when her group reached the rendezvous point. Vann was waiting for them, his tension palpable, though whether it was caused by his partner's recent injury or the planet itself was difficult to discern. His concern only deepened when he spotted his former co-commander. "Are… Are you okay?"

"No. I'm back on this planet and the Sith are trying to conquer the Republic yet again." Meetra tried to force a smile, but her face wouldn't cooperate. "It's a little difficult to be cheerful."

"You don't have to be on the surface. If Mira is willing to exfiltrate you, I sure as hells wouldn't mind having your eyes in the air." The complicated thing about Revan, and later Vann, was that his violent temper was counterbalanced by a great deal of compassion. These traits gave him the courage to be an unquestionable hero who frequently utilized the tactics of a villain. It could be infuriating.

The old animosity that stemmed from all of Meetra's unresolved feelings towards the war exploded unexpectedly. She honestly thought that she was better at controlling her outbursts, but she had believed several things upon arriving on Malachor V and so far none of them had been true. "I didn't tell you this before, but I spent years being angry at you over the Mass Shadow Generator. You were the one who had the idea for a superweapon, the one who made it sound like it was the only option we had. And I believed you because your tactics always felt like the best course of action. It helped that you had all of the facts and figures ready. Hells, you even warned me that there were risks, that being close to so many deaths might reverberate into the surrounding Force with unexpected consequences."

Vann didn't seem surprised at this confession, as though he'd been expecting it for quite a while. "I'd like to believe that I would never order someone to use a kriffing superweapon if they didn't know all of the potential dangers."

"The problem wasn't what you said, it was how you said it. You made using the weapon sound so simple. And maybe for you, it was. After all, there's nobody in the galaxy who understands war the way you do. I don't know what your thoughts were when you gave me the orders to use the Mass Shadow Generator, but maybe you assumed that I could manage any potential repercussions just as efficiently as you would have. But I didn't."

"Don't blame him." Alek was imposing as he straightened to his full height. "You made a choice and all of this is the result. You're the one who ripped a hole in the Force after I warned you that using a weapon of mass destruction was a bad idea!"

"I did it because he made it sound like our only option!" Gaze growing distant, Meetra couldn't stop the memories from rushing back. "He said it was necessary, just like accepting seventy percent casualties provided we won the day. Or embracing just a little bit more darkness because it would allow us to see things more objectively."

"Yeah." Wincing, Vann muttered, "That all sounds like something I would say."

The blunt acknowledgment only fueled Meetra's long-contained outrage, mostly because the only thing she currently wanted was the reassurance that she'd always depended on Revan to provide. She needed to confess all of her doubts so that he could explain them away, soothing her worries by assuring her that their actions were entirely necessary. During the war, his conviction that they were on the right side of history had given others the strength they needed to keep fighting. But right now, he just seemed lost. It shattered the last of the former Consular's self-control and she couldn't stop herself from lashing out in frustration. "What, you're not even going to defend yourself? Maybe throw all of my former positivity back in my face? Say something, dammit! Defend the orders that you gave!"

"You know that he won't and you also know exactly why!" Glaring sternly, Alek challenged the blonde to contradict him.

But she said nothing because they were both well-aware that Vann had more guilt about the past than the rest of them combined, an emotion exacerbated each time he was presented with proof of his penchant towards unmitigated violence. Beneath the exterior of the shiftless mercenary and calculating commander lay a person who was deeply insecure about every choice he'd ever made. It wasn't that he lacked the darkness he'd possessed in the war, the rage that sometimes turned his eyes sickly yellow was proof of that, it was merely that he kept witnessing the results of his decisions without any recollection of why he'd originally made them. He didn't remember enough of the past to recognize what they'd gained, all he saw was everything they'd lost.

"If the person who gave the original orders can't defend them, how am I supposed to continue justifying my actions? I've spent seven years convinced that this was the only way to win the war. But… was it?" Gesturing to the broken landscape, Meetra's tone cracked as she pleaded, "How is this any better than seizing control of the Republic to defend it against an even greater threat?"

Alek pointedly refused to answer those questions, even as his expression softened. Instead, he repeated the same words that he'd offered a hundred times at the beginning of the war when the former Consular was still mourning each casualty that paved the way for their victory. "What do you want to hear? What do you need me to tell you so that you can keep moving forward?"

Just like during the war, Meetra found herself pouring out her hopes and fears. "For years I've been assuring everyone, myself included, that I turned this planet into a graveyard for some higher purpose. Tell me that I wasn't wrong. I'm already a murderer, don't make me a liar too."

"If you didn't stop the Mandalorians, we wouldn't be fighting the Sith today because they would have already won. I don't know if the Mass Shadow Generator was the right answer, but it was the solution we found. And to be perfectly honest, I didn't hear anyone else coming up with anything better." Atton stared at the three former Revanchist leaders as he slunk beside Meetra. "I learned a long time ago that living with your past isn't about believing that you were right. Sometimes it's about accepting that you were wrong and trying to learn something from it."

It was an answer, even if it wasn't exactly what the former Consular wanted to hear. But she'd asked him to tell her the truth. "And what am I supposed to learn from this?"

"That right and wrong are too complicated to divide into neat categories? Maybe that even the best leaders are still fallible? Or you can just be glad that we won the kriffing war. It's like you said, one Malachor is still better than a dozen Serrocos."

"That doesn't feel like enough."

"And maybe it's not." Atton shrugged. "We all made choices, now the hard part is living with them."

Meeting the former assassin's gaze, Meetra pleaded, "How do you do it?"

"One slow, painful, gut-wrenching step at a time." The wry smile that Atton gave her was one of the most heartfelt gestures he'd ever displayed.

"We should keep moving." The flatness in Vann's voice was alarming, as was the defeated hunch of his shoulders and stiffness in his gait. Though his Force presence was carefully shielded it wasn't hard to read his current mood. A myriad of emotions was hidden behind his emotionless mask, the same as during the war. Bastila was already rushing up to offer gentle encouragement, even as he brushed her away.

Guilt welled up in Meetra. She'd released her frustrations on the easiest target even though the person she was really angry at was herself. "Vann, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have…"

"Don't." As he waved off Bastila's lingering attempts to coddle him, the former mercenary drew both of his lightsabers as he stoically stated, "I sense the academy up ahead, which means that they probably know we're coming. There's a lot of Sith inside. Be ready for a fight, because this is going to be a hard one."

READ THE WHOLE CHAPTER ON FANFICTION AND AO3!

#kotor 2 #kotor 2 fanfic #the jedi exile #female exile #revan #male revan #atton x exile #carth x revan #my writing #Miles to go before I sleep #not perfection but completeness

1 note · View note

amaanfr-blog · 6 years

Text

There was no one

(Spiderman homecoming, Irondad)

Waring: Suicide attempt, happy ending.

Summary:

My take on what was going in Peter's head when the warehouse collapsed on him, how he coped with it and what Tony Stark did about it.

"I just wanted to be like you,"

"and I wanted you to be better."

...

Well then. If Tony Stark could come out of a terrorist cave with shrapnel at his heart, wear a suit and save the world then the universe could damn well expect Peter Parker to get a measly building of his back.

But it hurt. The last bits of his courage collapsed with the warehouse. When he realized that his attempts at dodging the vulture were nothing. Then came the orchestra of broken bones, followed by gushing blood.

If only he had the suit. If he just had Karen for a few seconds. Anybody or AI that would listen.

"Help! H-help! please!" His voice broke. "Anybody! please...I'm down here, I'm stuck-I'm stuck I can't move I can't-I can't..."

And yet, there was no one.

He wondered if Mr. Stark would be more disappointed or embarrassed if he saw him right now. He wasn't doing this for Mr. Stark though, or Liz, or to get his suit back.

He was going to survive this and stop the vulture. So that innocent people don’t get hurt when Avenger level weaponry goes into the hands of people who would do anything for money.

Was he going to cry under a heap of concrete or get back on his feet and stop an aircraft hijacking, Spiderman-style?

“come on Spiderman, come on Spiderman, come” he groaned when something pointy grazed the slash on his leg. “come…on Spiderman”

Where lifting the rubble took every drop of physical strength he had, it taught him something priceless in return:

He didn’t need a suit to be Spiderman.

...

Did Mr. stark get nightmares too? every time Peter closed his eyes, the concrete came back, laughing at him, mocking him. was he trying to be a superhero? he was an insect who survived being squashed. Nothing more.

He'd wake up crying, and his tears were nothing like the blood that kept gushing that night. tears were transparent, blood was red. Just like his Spiderman suit. just like Mr. Stark's armor.

Did Mr. Stark cry himself to sleep too?

...

The suit had grown on him, swinging out the window, he sat on the highest roof in eyesight, the moon was silver, not red like Ironman, or Spiderman, or his blood. it wasn't transparent like the tears of a teenage crybaby. It was a beautiful shade of silver.

If Mr. Stark found out he was crying on a random roof because of something that happened years ago, he'd definitely take his suit away. Peter immediately ripped the suit off, it had started to sting.

Thank god he was wearing something underneath.

He cocked his head and looked, down. Cars buzzing away and litten apartments and busy hotels. So many people were under him.

There was no one at the warehouse. One tear. he screamed, another tear, no one listened, he tried not to whimper.

No one would listen. No one ever listens. If he jumped, would people listen? they do say actions speak louder than words.

Would they care if their friendly neighborhood Spiderman suddenly disappeared?

Of course not. People remember the suave guy who saved all known and unknown worlds. not the kid who helped some old lady cross the fucking road. Do even you remember the name of the last guy who opened the door for you?

With that in mind he stood on the edge, how metaphorical, he had been on the edge for the past three years, this was just in a more literal sense.

He leaned forward, he was falling, no web following him, no safety buffer, just as he closed his eyes, May came to mind. Oh god, what was he doing, she'll be destroyed after this, first his parents then Ben, oh god please he'd do anything for May not to care about him. Ned, MJ, the Churro lady was going to hate him for this! Then Came Mr. Stark.

"And if you died, I feel like that's on me, I don't want that on my conscience" he didn't have his web shooters he was gonna die, why did he leave them up there-wait he should've hit the ground by now.

Then he realized the pair of red metal arms holding him up. But Ironman wasn't moving, just floating, shaking.

Peter definitely fucked up.

"M-Mr. Stark-"

"One word, kid, one. Why?"

Peter couldn't see his expression with the Ironman mask on. It was so much more terrifying.

They were back on the roof, now.

Peter quickly dismissed another roof from his mind, another day, another disappointment.

"Why?!" Tony screamed. Mr. Stark hardly raised his voice.

"The warehouse" Peter was uncharacteristically quiet. Tony’d do anything to exchange this for a never-ending Star Wars marathon with his kid.

Honestly, he expected him to experience all the trauma Avengers went through, no matter how hard he tried to throw that fact to the back of his brain.

Because he caused this. Tony Stark practically kidnapped a minor, lied to his aunt, threw him into a multi-million dollar suit and made him fight captain god damn America. then came saving ferries and fighting vultures.

But what warehouse?

the very fact that he didn't know something that caused his kid (*this kid) to attempt suicide made his insides turn to stone.

"What warehouse?"

Peter looked up at him, his brown eyes swirling with panic.

Tony glared at him. "What made the friendly pg thirteen Spiderman jump off a building?"

The kid visibly curled into himself, instinctive. defensive. Damn, Tony couldn't do anything right.

"When, when you took the suit away, I went to thi-this this" the tears were flooding, messing with the kid's audio quality. "warehouse, and the vulture was there and did you know his wings are very strong? and they can cut through walls and that's what they did and and I was-"

Tony wished he was an idiot. he wished he was oblivious. Ironman wished he wasn't so painfully overconfident. he wished he didn't finish Peter's words.

"You were in there. and the building collapsed" Peter nodded, staring at the ground.

Tony felt sick.

What had he done?

-the end-

(lol nah, i’m not that evil XD, continue reading, love)

Peter had given up not crying a long time ago, but the boy still had the audacity to look away and hide his tears behind his hand. As if that could stop those moonlit streaks and drops to haunt Tony forever.

Without thinking, he hugged the weeping kid in front of him. Said kid chuckled. “That’s not a hug”

“I’m just opening the door for you” Tony finished with a melancholic smile.

Peter sat down, legs hanging above Queens. For some reason, Stark knew he wouldn’t try jumping again.

Peter sighed and looked up at him. “First, I’m so sorry, second, this isn’t your fault, third: I’m not suicidal”

Tony pulled off his helmet. “That’s a little hard to believe taking into account that you just jumped off a building without your web shooters.” Ironman sat beside him.

There it was again, the panic in Peter’s eyes. “No, please no, what I did, I wasn’t thinking and now that I am, I know that I don’t want to go I won't leave you or May or Ned or Mj or the churro lady, nightmares aren’t supposed to-”

“Nightmares?” Tony narrowed his eyes, everything slowly falling into place. This kid was battling demons the size of his own.

Peter nodded, and He sighed. “Know how you like a song? and you listen to it over and over again?”

The teenager frowned, confused, but nodded again.

“And then you start hating it, it doesn't even sound like music anymore? Try that with your nightmare”

“Sorry, Mr. Stark, but what?”

Tony reigned in the urge to sass the kid in front of him. “Play the nightmare in your head, over and over again. Painful, scary, a bit crazy but trust me, kid. I get nightmares too.” He slowed down a bit. “Play it until you get tired of watching yourself getting crushed and getting back up again. Get tired of hearing the voices repeat the same things over and over again. And you’ll see it for what it is.”

Peter cocked his head at him and grinned. How the kid still maintained that attitude was beyond him. ‘Mr. Stark, this is all sweet and Dumbledore-y of you but what exactly am I supposed to see it as?’

The billionaire rolled his eyes. “Don’t make me say it, kid,”

Chuckling Peter looked below, so many people were living their lives under him, yet the one who came to rescue him flew here from god knows where. “How did you know I was going to jump”

Tony looked straight into his eyes, no helmet. “You get a little suspicious when your kid takes his suit and swings to a roof, in the middle of the night, every night And this time decides to take it off”

Peter held his head in his hands, sighing dramatically. “Oh god, Mr. Stark. This is a whole other level of helicopter parenting” Tony glared at him and they waited in the midst of the tense silence before bursting into fits of laughter.

A/N:

YOU! YES YOU! are reading my first fanfic on tumblr, and it would make this girl Hela happy if you press the heart thingy and reblog because I SPENT 2 WEEKS ON THIS GODDAMNIT. I need a beta reader, so if you want to help me out then message me.

Just some clarifications:

1) i am not promoting suicide, at all. This oneshot came to be when i realized having a building drop on a 15 year old and have no one offer him a hand would mess with their brain, and have consequences, something marvel ignored in homecoming.

2) Just because we end the oneshot with both of them laughing, that in no meaning of the word means they’re “ok” But they will, eventually. (want me to write some fluff? ;) )

3) THIS WHOLE THING IS FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF PETER AND TONY. I IN NO WAY AM SAYING THAT PETER IS A WORTHLESS INSECT OR THAT TONY SHOULD BE BLAMED FOR EVERYTHING. I tried my best to think up how their perspective, and this is it.

4) This ain’t Starker, period.

Bai.

104 notes · View notes

thelazyeye · 6 years

Text

War Dogs - Chapter 8

Summary:

All of Richie’s walls are falling down around him. Every defense he’s ever made has weakened in this single conversation. Everything leading up to right now – the Barrens, the nightmares, the fight – has chipped away at Richie. He has no more Voices to hide behind. There are no more sideways smiles, no more jokes, no more shenanigans.

Read it on A03

Tag List:

@tinyarmedtrex @richardtoz @aizeninlefox @bonehex @chocolatemangoose @godtozier

----------------------------------

There really are no words to capture the exact way one Richie Tozier is feeling other than by categorizing it as complete fucking shit. He is currently laying on the couch in his empty house. His parents were gone by the time he mustered enough strength to come downstairs and have a bowl of cereal. His stomach is in knots, his head is pounding, and his arms and legs are covered in small scrapes and scratches from attempting to chase after Eddie through the brush in the dark. It was for nothing, though. He never caught up to Eddie. He’s lying on his back, facing the ceiling with his eyes closed hoping the darkness will ease the pounding in his head. He fucked up in so many ways. He couldn’t get the sight of Eddie red faced and yelling out of his mind. His words kept ringing in his ears over and over again. Selfish. Yeah, he was. He was selfish for taking his dad’s vodka. Selfish for never asking Eddie how he was. Never asking any of them how they were. He never even asked Stan how he was. All he was good for was distraction and reckless fun. And hurting his best friends apparently. His best friends that were in love with him. Fuck. Eddie looked so upset. Eddie was so upset. And he was right to be. He sighed heavily and tossed himself over onto his side, staring blankly at the wall. When he turns his entire world spins, tilting in front of him. Eddie probably hates him. Eddie probably never wants see him again. Not after last night. Not after how bad Richie fucked everything up. Richie could feel the pity and shame rising up from the pit of his stomach. He could feel it working its way through his chest, his throat, his… oh wait. That’s vomit. He leaned over the side of the couch, reaching desperately for the trashcan and dragging it over just in time to catch this morning’s breakfast. Richie isn’t really sure what feels worse: the hangover or the emotional consequences that came with his choices. Probably the latter. His body feels like a war is waging inside of him. Every time he moves his stomach cramps, every time he opens his eyes pain shoots through his head. The only comfortable solution is to lay as still as possible with his eyes closed. It doesn’t take much longer for Richie to fall asleep. When he wakes up he feels considerably better. Well, physically. He can now stand up, which he does, and he can now hold down a glass of water, so he drinks one. It takes him a couple minutes to make his way around the kitchen, bathroom, and upstairs to his bedroom to put on a fresh set of clothes. He opts for loose cargo shorts and a ratty Depeche Mode shirt Stan got for him second hand at Christmas. After he changes and starts to feel maybe kind of like a person again, he debates calling Stan. He lingers on the idea for a while. Today is Stan’s morning for therapy which means he’s likely at home now. This also means Bill is with him. He could still call. He could explain to them what happened at the Barrens and maybe they could help him make sense of everything. Maybe they could tell him how to fix things with Eddie. But that would mean he would have to tell them everything that happened. The drinking, the midnight breakout. The confession. He couldn’t do that. The confession. Fuck. Eddie was in love with him. What the fuck was he going to do about that? In the roughly twelve hours it’s been between their fight and Richie standing in his bedroom, he hasn’t had time to really sit and think about anything that happened. He was trying not to, honestly. He was trying not to think about the tone of Eddie’s voice and the way it cracked on certain words. He was trying not to think about how Eddie screamed at him. Like, really screamed. He doesn’t think Eddie has ever yelled at him that seriously before. He was trying not to think about the look in Eddie’s eyes. He couldn’t give it one emotion. It wasn’t just anger, or hurt, or any one thing. It was everything Richie has ever tried to avoid. Eddie looked desperate, he looked destroyed. Richie did that to him. His stomach turned again, threatening another round of bile. He swallows it down and walks downstairs to the phone, picking it up and punching in the numbers on autopilot. The phone rings several times before a cheery voice comes over the line. “Marsh residence, Beverly speaking!” “Bev, hey.” He’s not sure why he called her. He isn’t sure what he wants from her. Did he want to talk about what happened? Was he looking for a distraction? “Oh. Hi.” she cuts, tone falling flat immediately. “Uhh, it’s Richie,” he tries, caught off guard by the immediate change in her tone. Maybe she doesn’t know it was him. A rock settles in his gut. “Yeah. I know.” “Uhh, okay. Listen, I was wondering if we could hang out. Maybe hit the bleachers?” His voice softens at the end. Bev is never this cold with him, never this standoffish. Its silent for a beat and Richie things about offering to buy Bev her own pack of cigarettes when the line cracks and he hears her speak again. “I don’t think so, Rich,” she says cooly. Not the answer he was hoping for. “Oh. Okay. Well maybe tomor-” “Listen, Rich,” she cut him off, “I’m not mediating for you and Eddie. You need to fix this shit yourself.” Well fuck. Looks like she knows. And judging by her tone, she knows everything. He’s quiet for a moment before beginning, “Bev-” “You hurt him, Rich.” Her words send a jolt through his chest. It’s sharp and painful, originating from deep within his ribcage and spreading down into his lungs. It makes breathing harder and nothing seems okay anymore. He knows he hurt Eddie, he fucking knows it, but to hear her say it makes it so much more real. Before it was only inside of him. It only existed in his head. Bev put it out there into the world. She made it a real, tangible force that could reach into his chest and rip his heart clean out of his body. “I didn’t mean to.” Richie croaks out. He didn’t even realize how close he was to tears until they were threatening to spill out over his eyes. She seems to soften at this, the hard edges of her voice melting away into the reciever. “I know, Richie. But you have to fix it.” “I don’t know how,” comes out in nothing but a broke whisper. “You’ll figure it out.” It isn’t what he wants to hear. He wants her to tell him what to do, to tell him out to fix it with Eddie but this is all he gets from her. He’ll take it. It’s better than the venom from before that’s still working its way through his system. They exchange quick goodbyes and then he’s standing in his living room listening to dead air through the phone. He knows he has to figure this out. He has to fix this with Eddie. If he doesn’t, he could lose him entirely. Richie doesn’t know what he would do if that happened. All the Losers, yeah they’re great. But Eddie? Eddie completes him. Them. Eddie completes them. They’re lucky seven, not lucky six. If Eddie and Richie have a major falling out it’ll throw off the group’s dynamic. It’ll ruin their whole vibe. They’ll never be able to hang out together as a group again. No more movie nights at Bill’s house. No more group hangs in the Barren’s. No more secret Santa. No more cuddle puddles. No more throwing Eddie over his shoulder. No more pinching Eddie’s cheeks. No more falling asleep together on the couch. No more reading comics with Eddie in his room. No more climbing through his window in the middle of the night. Everything Richie has built his life around will come falling apart. And then what? What will be left? He has to fix this. He has no idea where to start and he knows that if he marches up to Eddie with no plan of action he’s going to make things worse. Eddie. Eddie, who’s in love with him. Eddie, who probably has wanted to kiss him for longer than he knows. Eddie, who’s late night cuddle sessions probably meant more to himself than Richie. Eddie, Eddie, Eddie. Richie slips his shoes on and heads in the direction of the Derry Public Library. He knows he’ll find someone there who can help him. When he walks in he looks around, searching for a familiar face. It takes a moment but he sees them. Sitting in the back corning, several books splayed around in front of them, were Mike and Ben. He made a beeline for the table, pulling a chair out and sitting himself down. He caught them mid-conversation, something about interstates and highways or some shit. They stopped when he sat down, looking up at him curiously. “Hey Richie. What brings you all the way out here to this fine learning establishment?” Mike implores, a smile dancing on his lips. Richie levels him with a lopsided grin. “Mikey boy, I felt my heart calling out to you. It brought me here. And you know I’d never set foot in this place without a damn good reason.” Ben snorts beside him. “Bullshit. We all know who your heart really belongs to.” Mike laughs, slapping Ben on the shoulder and grinning over at Richie. “Oh, we sure do!” Richie’s grin falters. This is the part where he is supposed to make an Eddie joke. Or a Mrs. K. joke. Neither of them feel right in his mouth. He rolls all of the possible responses around on his tongue before going with a simple, “Haystack gets off a good one,” with less tenacity than his usual banter. “Everything alright there, Rich?” Mike asks, eyeing Richie cautiously. Ben looks over now, too, concern replacing his previous expression. Richie hesitates again. He was tempted to cover it all up. He could do a voice, joke it off, talk about being bored with good ol’ Mrs. K. and wanting some new fresh MILF to bang. But isn’t this the whole reason he came here? He knew he would find Ben at least, the hopeless romantic. “Oh yeah, Mike. Don’t worry about lil ol’ me. Just casually falling apart at the seams,” Richie said in a damsel-in-distress type voice. His eyes were locked with Mike, a smile dancing on his lips. Mike, being Mike, took the bait. “Well, little lady. What could a nice young man such as myself do to stitch you back together?” Mike drawls, leaning across the table and resting his head in his hands. “Well, it seems I’ve made a mess of damn near everything!” Richie cried, leaning hard into a southern accent. This earns him several stern looks from nearby patrons. Ben glances around nervously before shhing them softly. Neither of them seemed to notice because they continued on. “Well, why don’t you tell Mikey here what’s wrong. Maybe I can fix it up real good for you.” Mike’s voice is honey sweet, dripping slowly from his lips. Richie’s smile falters, only for a second, and he opens his mouth to reply. Before he can, though, Ben stands up, gathering his books and motioning for them to follow him with a simple, “We’re not doing this here. You guys are too loud.” Together they leave the library and walk across to McCarron Park. There they sit in a small triangle, Mike to Richie’s right and Ben to his left. Ben is sprawled out, leaning back on his side and staring up at the sky. Mike, however, has his eyes trained on Richie. They started this thing and Mike wasn’t going to back down now. “So, little lady. Tell old Mikey here what’s ailing you.” He’s soft, but firm. Mike leavesYe no room for argument, no room for running away. “Well, you see,” he starts, drawling the words out. “My knight, sir Edward, is mighty mad at me,” “And why is that?” “I’ve made a mistake, Mikey.” Richie whines, “A terrible mistake. I’ve gone and outdone myself. A little bit too much of my sweet, sweet, spirits and sir Eddie has gone and got all of his panties in a twist over it.” It isn’t the absolute truth, but how else was he going to get his point across? “Tell me, Rich.” “That’s a long story mister Michael,” Richie warns. He starts ahead anyway. Mike and him bantered back and forth in their fake southern accents, both playing the part they had given themselves. He tells Mike of how he went down to the barrens to partake in a little bit of late night fun. He talks about how Eddie came down and found him. He talks about their dancing and how much fun they had together. He spends a good chunk of time talking about that. He would rather talk about the good parts. He would go back to that moment again if he could. He would give anything to be able to sweep Eddie back into his arms, hold him, sway with him, tease him. But he can’t and it’s his own damn fault. Eventually, after a sharp look from Mike, Richie falls into the most important part of the story. Mike watches him carefully. He looks at Richie like he’s studying him. Like he’s trying to read in between the lines for some hidden meaning Richie hasn’t figured out yet. Ben was now sitting up, staring at Richie, too, and occasionally sparing a glance at Mike. Richie paused, hesitating when he got to the climax of their fight. He has two options here. He can tell Ben and Mike the whole truth. He can tell them about Eddie. He can tell them what Eddie said and how he told Richie he loved him. Richie knows he can trust them. Mike and Ben are steadfast in their loyalty. He can tell them about how he doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know how to fix it. He can’t fix a broken heart. He’s Richie Tozier, he can’t even fix his own broken head. Or. Or, Richie can omit that part. He can tell them that Eddie stalked off into the night and was now furious with Richie and Richie wasn’t sure what to do. He wasn’t sure how to approach Eddie like this. Eddie has never been this angry at him before. He’s never been this serious. Eddie has never been this hurt. “Eddie said he hated me and then he left.” Richie whispers, his Voice lost back in the depths of his confessions. It falls from his lips involuntarily, like an automatic prayer. It isn’t the truth and he knows it. Mike and Ben know it, too, because the look they share is short but skeptical. Ben is the first to speak up. “I’m sure he didn’t mean that, Rich. You know how Eddie can get. He’s all emotion sometimes.” “Yeah, Benny boy. I know he is. That’s why I think he really did mean it this time.” Richie responds. “What about you,” Mike says next. He talks slow and carefully, picking his words like strawberries from a field. “How are you feeling in all of this. Do you hate him, back?” Richie’s voice catches in his throat and he hesitates. Mike is staring him down with meaningful eyes. His gaze is burning a hole through Richie’s head and suddenly everything begins to clock into place. It isn’t quite there yet, but the cogs are turning in the machine. Mike knows something. Mike understands Richie and this whole situation better than Richie does himself. Mike is better at reading between the lines than any other Loser. He understands the nuances, he sees the real meanings. “Of course not, Mike. I could never hate Eddie.” “Then how do you feel?” Ben asks, coming back into the conversation. Ben’s always been quick on the uptake and Richie has no doubt in his mind that he understands now, too. “I don’t know.” All of Richie’s walls are falling down around him. Every defense he’s ever made has weakened in this single conversation. Everything leading up to right now – the Barrens, the nightmares, the fight – has chipped away at Richie. He has no more Voices to hide behind. There are no more sideways smiles, no more jokes, no more shenanigans. “I think it’s time you figured that out, Richie.” Mike hums. His voice is calm and gentle but final in that way that only Mike is. Richie simply nods, thanks them, and picks himself up off the ground. He starts slowly towards home. That wasn’t what he went there for. He wasn’t sure what he wanted from Mike and Ben but he was sure as hell that wasn’t it. He was hoping for a quick fix. He wanted them to give him more advice other than figure it out, Richie. He can feel that inner machine whirling. He’s on the brink of something but he doesn’t know what. It’s frustrating to no end. Nothing is making sense. Why did Mike and Ben only ask about Richie and not Eddie and what happened? If they really knew like they seemed to, they would have asked Richie all about it. He knows he would have. He would have grilled any one of them for details. What happened? What did he say? Are you sure he likes you? Do you like him back? What are you go– Wait. Do you like him back. “Then how do you feel?” Ben asked him that. Was Ben asking if he liked Eddie back? Fuck. Richie can’t remember what he had said. He has no idea. He said doesn’t know. Why did he say that? He doesn’t know if he likes Eddie back? This is something he should know. But if he didn’t, the answer would be simple, cut and dry. If he didn’t like Eddie back there would be no confusion. Somewhere in the distance a clock strikes three. The sound of a gong echoes through Derry once, twice, three times. At the same moment the gears inside of Richie click into place.

#Em posts #my writing #war dogs #Reddie #it 2017 #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #fanfic #richie #eddie #richie x eddie #it novel #stephen king #it fanfic #reddie fanfic #reddie fan fiction

10 notes · View notes