#(And it's a little bit vampire diaries but still.... BETTER)
Text
deal - cl16 (12/?)
Pairing: Charles Leclerc x Reader
Series Summary: Your whole life has gone to shit. Your boyfriend broke up with you, you just lost your job and the Monegasque, who suddenly stands in your doorway, claims that it’s his apartment.
Chapter Summary: Friendships are very important. It's good that you have new ones (who you can share things with).
Warnings: FLIRTING, PINING (you’ve been warned!), Charles is sweet, a bit of angst (talking of cheating, manipulation, ex-boxfriend)
Word Count: 3.3k
series masterlist
previous part
A/N: sorry for the delay! I love you! feedback is appreciated!
Except for the warm light of the floor lamp in the corner behind you and the white light from the kitchen, the apartment is dark. On the TV in front of you, you see a still from The Vampire Diaries and the white blanket on the dark blue couch next to you is crumpled, as if it had been used only recently. Sounds come from the kitchen, glasses clink together, and the refrigerator door opens and closes before the kitchen light is turned off again.
"I'm glad you're here," Kika says as she comes back into the living room with two glasses of water, "but since you called, I'm afraid the reason isn't very positive." She places the two glasses on the coffee table in front of you and sits down next to you.
Calling Kika was the only logical option. Of course, you could have called Charles, but he's had such an incredibly lousy day and he should be at the club with his friends instead of helping you with your problems. Besides, you don't want to burden him with something he simply can't solve. Something neither of you can't solve.
You pull your knees to your chest. "I didn't mean to bother you, I really didn't. Especially because you said you had to get up early tomorrow and I'm so sorry to just barge in, but I just didn't know where to go."
Kika puts her hand on your knee and squeezes it gently. "I told you that you could call me anytime. And I meant it." She reaches for the cozy blanket between you and spreads it over your legs. And even though you're already warm, you pull the blanket closer to you.
"I know, but-"
"No buts," she interrupts you. Her gaze is gentle as she rubs your arm. "Do you want to tell me what's going on?"
You'd love to hog the cozy blanket and wrap yourself so tightly in it that you can barely breathe. Most of all, you'd like to just go to sleep and forget what happened. But you called Kika to give you shelter while your ex waits outside your apartment for you to come home.
You owe her an answer.
"After Lando walked me to my car," you begin, and Kika raises her eyebrows with a grin. You roll your eyes. "Stop that. So. I drove home after that, and when I turned into the street, I saw my ex's car."
Kika narrows her eyes a little and tilts her head, as if she doesn't understand why your ex-boyfriend's appearance ruined your night. "Aaaaaand we don't like your ex?" she asks.
You shake your head vehemently. "Definitely not."
Your new friend smooths the blanket over her legs. "What happened?"
"The better question would be: What didn't happen?" You reach for your water glass and take a big gulp. "Do you want the short version or the long version?"
The way Kika leans against the armrest of the couch and pulls the blanket up to her chin, looking at you with huge eyes, you don't need a verbatim answer.
You slide around a bit on the couch to get a little more comfortable, and cross your legs to sit cross-legged. "When I moved here to work a few months ago, I met Raphael at a photo shoot and we hit it off right away," you begin to tell her. Kika soaks up every word as if it was water and she was a sponge. "We went on a few dates and at one point he asked me to be his girlfriend and at first everything was really perfect. He was an absolute gentleman, his friends became my friends and we all got along so great."
"That sounds like there's a big fat "but" following that," Kika interjects and you tap your index finger against your nose.
"We were together for some time and everything was okay until he, um..." You don't know how to finish the sentence without making your ex look like the biggest asshole in the world. Although he definitely deserves that. You wring your hands.
"Spit it out, you'll feel better."
You rub your palms over your cheeks and run your fingers through your hair once before closing your eyes. "He pressured me into sleeping with him."
Kika slaps her hand in front of her mouth. "Please tell me you didn't sleep with him." She leans forward and puts her hands on your shoulders to shake you. "Tell me you didn't fuck that asshole!"
You shake your head and look down at your hands in your lap. "Of course I didn't. I'm not stupid." You purse your lips and look up at the ceiling. "I thought I loved him, and I was this close to caving in." You hold your thumb and index finger close together.
"And then?"
"Then he slept with someone else."
Kika leans back and presses her left fist into her right palm to make her knuckles crack. "I'm going to kill that motherfucker."
"It's okay," you counter, but Kika just raises an eyebrow.
"It's definitely not okay, Y/N."
"Of course it's not okay," you confirm her, ruffling your hair, "But I can't help it, and I broke up with him right away, too. Pressuring me for sex is one thing," Kika throws a pillow at you, "a mega super duper shitty thing, but cheating on me and trying to manipulate me into sleeping with him as a result - that's where I draw the line."
Only that's where you draw the line?!" Kika puts her face in her hands and shakes her head. "Okay, okay." She takes a deep breath. "So you broke up with him. What happened next?"
"He wouldn't leave me alone. He keeps calling, trying to convince me to get back with him."
"I hope you told him that's never going to happen and he can kiss your ass."
You pucker your mouth a little. "Not really. He called yesterday and Charles took the call."
Kika grabs a pillow and wraps her arms around it like she's watching a gruesome horror movie and not listening to your ex-boyfriend problems. "He did not."
You purse your lips. "He did."
Kika bites the pillow. "And then?"
"Well, he answered the phone with „this is her roomate“."
"And now you're afraid that's exactly why Raphael was standing outside your apartment? Do you think he would want to hurt you or Charles?" she asks, taking a sip of her water.
You shrug your shoulders. "He was never violent, not at all. But by now I don't even recognize him. It's like he's done a 180."
Inside, you're struggling with yourself. Confiding all this to Kika feels right and wrong at the same time. After all, you've only known each other for a few hours. And if you weren't hogging her couch and she was kind enough to let you have it, you certainly wouldn't have spilled your guts either.
You're not particularly good at it either, which is why you usually handle problems yourself and work them out with yourself. But something about this matter tells you that's not possible this time. But that doesn't mean you won't try to handle it all on your own.
Kika slides closer to you and clasps your hands with hers. "Did you tell Charles about this?"
You shake your head. "Not all of it. I filled him in on the circumstances after I kicked his ass for answering my phone."
Kika has to grin. "Very good." She strokes the back of your hand with her thumb. Why are her hands so soft? "But don't you think you should tell him about it? Especially since Raphael is waiting for you, or rather you, outside your apartment now?"
She's not necessarily wrong. For sure, it would be smarter to tell your roommate about it. But Charles has a lot on his plate. Burdening him with your problems is the last thing you want.
You clear your throat and look towards the TV, where Elena and Damon are dancing together. Kika notices your look and also that you don't want to talk about the subject anymore, and you're very grateful that she doesn't push you.
"Are you Team Delena or Stelena?" she asks, reaching for the remote.
"Team Klaroline."
Kika presses play and the characters move again. "The only right answer."
The two of you continue watching the show together and talking until the two of you actually fall asleep, snuggled into the covers, shoulder to shoulder.
Your vibrating cell phone, which is next to you on the couch, wakes you up, and without looking to see who's calling you, you hit the green button.
"Hello?" you ask sleepily, carefully pushing Kika's head off your shoulder so you can sit up properly. As your spine cracks, you screw up your face.
"Y/N?" someone almost yells into the phone, and you have to hold the phone away from your ear to keep from going deaf. "Where the hell are you?"
A glance at the screen tells you it's your roommate yelling at you through the receiver, jolting you awake as abruptly as an ice-cold shower. You rub your eyes and look down at Kika, who's clutching the blanket tightly. "I - um - I'm at Kika's," you answer him, slowly getting up from the couch so as not to wake your friend. At least someone should be able to get some decent sleep.
"What the heck are you doing at Kika's? And why aren't you home?" He speaks more softly now, but still sounds irritated.
Confused, you look at the clock. 3:54 am.
You sneak out of the living room on your socks and close the door behind you. "Are you home?" you ask him, and the thought that Raphael might be waiting there sends a shiver down your spine.
"Of course I'm home. Joris picked me up because you didn't answer the phone."
And sure enough. Twelve missed calls in the last hour. Mentally, you slap your forehead. "I'm so sorry, Charles. We were watching a show and fell asleep. I'll be right home."
In the kitchen, you find a pen and paper and leave a note for Kika that you drove home. No one needs to know that you're sure to commit some driving violations in the form of speeding.
What do you do when you arrive and the green Nissan is still on the scene? Would you pretend it wasn't even there? And what if Raphael was sitting in it? Would you talk to him so he wouldn't knock on the door of your apartment?
Thank God you don't have to worry about that, because when you turn onto your street, the Nissan is nowhere to be seen, so you breathe a sigh of relief. Which sends a brief stab through your spine. Kika's couch may look comfortable, but you definitely don't want to sleep on it again.
Before you can put the apartment key in the lock, it's yanked open from the inside and an irritated - and slightly tipsy - Charles is standing in front of you, his hands on his hips and his green eyes twinkling.
"Do you have any idea how much I worried about you?" He turns and walks further into the apartment, a silent sign for you to follow him. "First I can't reach you, and then I come home and you're not here! I was this close to calling the police, Y/N!"
"I'm sorry, Charles. Really." When you say his name, he winces. "I didn't want you to worry. I was with Kika and we fell asleep. It wasn't intentional, and I should have let you know."
He eyes you up and down, and only when he's sure everything is okay with you, do his hard features soften. Charles takes a step toward you. "Are you sure you're okay?"
Except for the fact that your ex, who cheated on you and manipulated you, was suddenly waiting for you outside your apartment?
"Everything's fine, really. Just a little back pain. Kika's couch is not conducive to sleeping."
Charles nods slightly. "Then let's go to sleep. It's getting really late."
A few minutes later, when Charles goes to take his bedding out of the closet in the hallway, he stands puzzled in the bathroom doorway where you are brushing your teeth. "Where is my stuff?"
You nod toward the bedroom before spitting out the toothpaste and rinsing your mouth. "In the bedroom. I promised you could sleep in the bed tonight, didn't I?" Noticing his disheveled hair and tired eyes, you have to smile. "And I think you need to sleep on a soft mattress tonight more than I do."
Charles lifts one hand and rests it on the upper door frame. His shirt slides up a little, revealing a strip of his belly. "And you said you had a sore back. I think it's pretty clear who's sleeping in the bed."
You reach for the brush and comb your hair so you don't have to stare at his stomach. "It is. You."
"Can we maybe not do this?" He rubs his face with his free hand. Noticing your unyielding gaze, he drops his arms and puts his palms together. "I have a proposition." He rubs his palms together. "Since neither of us can win this argument, how about this: we share the bed."
The brush gets stuck halfway through your hair and your eyes go wide. "We - what?"
Charles shrugs, as if it's the most normal suggestion ever. "The bed is huge and the couch is so fucking uncomfortable it would be an imposition to let you sleep on it with back pain. And since you insist I sleep in the bed, why don't you just lie down on it, too?"
Your blood pounds so loudly in your ears that you can barely hear him. First you almost touch each other in the restaurant and now he wants you to share the bed? What's next?
When you don't answer, Charles gets nervous. "If you don't want to, that's perfectly okay. It was just a suggestion so that two friends could have a decent night's sleep." He nods in your direction. "And so neither your back nor mine gets ruined."
Hadn't you decided to draw a line to make this friendship work? And how is that going to work when you're lying next to each other in a cozy bed? Oh god, what if you snuggle up to him at night and he doesn't even want that? Would you even be able to sleep if he was that close to you?
Before you can answer, Charles raises his hands. "I get it. It was a stupid idea."
"No!" Rubbing your forehead, Charles looks at you in confusion. "Um, we can try this out if you want. For one night." You put the brush back in its place. "I mean, friends can share a bed, no? There's nothing to it."
Charles breathes a sigh of relief, and a smile that makes your heart beat faster spreads across his face. "Do you have a favorite side?" When you shake your head, he nods slightly. "I'll get everything ready and then we'll sleep together right away. Sorry. That came out wrong." He runs a hand through his hair and flush shoots into his cheeks. "We'll, um, see you in a bit," he stumbles over his words, then disappears toward the bedroom.
After closing the bathroom door, you hit your forehead with the palm of your hand. Why did you agree to his offer? Are you completely stupid? There are so many things that could happen! You could talk in your sleep, or snore, or, as already stated, snuggle up to him! Only a complete idiot would get into bed with him now!
Before you can slide down the spiral any further, you leave the bathroom in sleeping clothes and follow Charles into the bedroom. He's just pulling his shirt over his head and his back muscles are dancing under his skin, and you regret a little that you agreed to the proposition.
The line between friendship and more is somehow getting thinner and thinner. And there's nothing you can do about it.
"I prefer to sleep on the right side. I hope that's okay," Charles says as he pulls another shirt over his head. He walks around the bed, which has both his and your bedding on it. "I can sleep in tomorrow, so it would be cool if you were quiet when you have to go to work," he smiles as he pulls back the covers and then sits down.
Seeing him in bed is so intimate, so private, you have to look away.
"Is everything all right?" he asks as he slides down on the bed and pulls the covers up to his waist.
You don't dare follow him at all, but you can't stand around any further than that, so you slip under the covers on the other side of the bed. ""Everything's fine."" You plug your phone into the charger before turning over onto your back.
Charles turns off the bedside lamp, leaving only a strip of moonlight in the room, and turns onto his back as well. In the darkness, he seems even closer than he actually is. You feel his warmth, even though there are a few inches and all the bedding between you, and the whole situation makes you so nervous that you can only breathe shallowly. God, his scentl is everywhere.
"I liked you coming with me today," Charles says into the darkness. "I enjoy spending time with you."
Blood rushes to your cheeks, and you're glad he can't see you very well. "I like spending time with you, too."
You feel Charles move, and thanks to the moonlight, you realize he's turned in your direction. You do the same.
"We're okay, aren't we?" he asks, bending his elbow and resting his head on it.
You slide your hand under your cheek and have to swallow. "Of course," you answer him. "Why do you ask?"
He smirks. "Because we've only known each other for two days, and we've already fought so much, and now we're sharing a bed. It's all been quite a roller coaster ride." He pulls the covers a little higher toward his chest.
You'd love to put your hand to his cheek and stroke it with your thumb, but that would surely cross a friendship line. "We're not just friends, Charles. We're roommates, too. And you're my first roommate. It's completely understandable that we need to get used to each other."
Charles exhales, and it's not until you can feel his breath on your heated skin that you realize how close he really is. "I just want us to make this work." He pauses for a moment, and even though it's dark, you can see him wrestling with himself to say the next words.
"You're just too important to me to screw this up." His voice is soft and gentle as he lifts his hand and places it between your faces, as if he's letting you decide if you want to take it. "I don't think you realize how important you are to me."
next part
#charles leclerc#charles leclerc smut#charles leclerc blurb#charles leclerc imagine#charles leclerc fluff#charles leclerc one shot#Charles Leclerc angst#Charles Leclerc series#Charles Leclerc deal#charles leclerc fanfic#carlos sainz jr#charles leclerc f1#Charles Leclerc fanfiction#charles leclerc x reader smut#charles leclerc prompt#charles leclerc x you#charles leclerc x reader
1K notes
·
View notes
Text
THE FIRST VAMPIRE pt.1 (MATT DONOVAN)
M/n: Male reader
Word Count:
Synopsis: You are the original vampire. Unkillable. And you plan to conquer and fuck every man in Mystic Falls. Step 1. Get a house. This is set in Series one.
Warnings: non-con, compell, finger sucking, spit in mouth, sniffing armpits, sniffing sweat, ball sucking, blowjob, swallow
Author Note: This will be part of a series where you are an upgraded original vampire in The Vampire Diaries. You can compel anyone and everyone including the originals, witches and hunters. The goal is to fuck everybody in this series while following the timeline of the original series and introducing new characters as they come into the show.
You have lived thousands of years but never before have you seen a town with such delicious men. You have big plans for Mystic Falls. You have been watching for a while. There are the two new brothers in town who are vampires and their obsession’s little brother Jeremy. There is the Mayors son, Tyler. And there is the sweet, innocent Matt. Matt Donovan. He is your target.
You’ve been planning on making an empire of men. Men for you to play with, dispose of and make use of. Your own personal obedient slaves. Matt is an easy first target. Not too popular at school, no parent in the house and a stoner sister. He looks damaged and you take pity on him. You know you can make his life better by introducing yourself into his life.
You are at the Mystic Grill, Matt is working and you can’t stop looking at him. He hasn’t noticed you but not to worry, he will devote his life to you in no time.
You’ve ordered your favourite drink a few times hoping that he is the one to deliver it. He hasn’t yet. You are waiting for your next drink when you see him coming over.
He gets to your table and places your drink in front of you. You grab his hand, you make eye contact and say “Thank you”. His hand is wet from all the drinks he has been making but you don’t mind. You start to compel him.
“What time do you finish?”
“9pm” he replies
“Once you finish your shift, wait for me outside. Don’t tell anyone”
You let go of his hand, give him a smile and he walks away. You take a sip of your drink and wait.
…
It is 9pm and you are waiting outside the bar. It is winter and dark out. There are a few people walking by but no one close enough to stop you from completing your mission.
You wait a few minutes. You don’t feel any cold. Matt comes out and notices you. Still in his uniform and comes over. You look him in the eyes and start to compel:
“You belong to me. Everything you own is mine, everything you touch is mine. You are mine. You will do anything I ask. You will please me in every way possible. Do you understand?”
“Yes Master” he replied.
“Master? Hmm” you thought to yourself. You like the sound of that.
“Now, Matt Donovan. Take me to your house. I am going to live there from now on”
He nodded and held out his hand. This is going to be fun. You took his hand, interlaced fingers and started walking to his home.
…
“I invite you in to my home. After you” your new servant said. You stepped inside his house and made your way to the living room.
“Would you like a drink?” He asking trying to please you. You held out your arm and gestured him towards you. You looked at him and noticed his dreamy blue eyes. You leaned in for a kiss. As your lips touched you could hear his heart racing, but not from panic, from excitement. You then moved towards his neck and started kissing there. Matt moaned a little as his eyelids stuttered. You opened your mouth and bit him. You felt his warm blood enter your mouth and filling you up. You have been around for a long time and can control every ounce of your thirst. You control it, it doesn’t control you.
After a few seconds you put your fangs away and look back at him. He is still staring at you deeply waiting for a purpose. Waiting to please you more. You take your fingers and wipe off the excess blood on his neck and sucked your fingers.
You then looked at Matt. You had an idea. You take your fingers out of your mouth and put them towards his lips. He already knew exactly what you wanted as his mouth was open ready to receive. You stuck four fingers into his mouth, it was bigger than you thought.
You seductively move your fingers in and out of his mouth, allowing him to get every part of each finger wet.
You take you wet hand out and put each finger into your mouth and tasted Matts saliva.
You placed your wet hand on the back of his neck, held him tight and went in for another kiss - this time with tongue. Matt was acting on every impulse. As soon as you allowed him to dominate, he dominated and stuck his tongue in your mouth. But when you took back dominance he didn’t fight, he only allowed it and it seemed almost as if he was thankful for giving him purpose.
You release your grasp on his lips and look at him one more time.
“Open your mouth” you order. He obliges. You manoeuvre all your saliva in your mouth and bring it to the front. You move closer to his warm, wet lips almost as if to kiss again but at the last minute you thrust your spit right into his mouth. He twitches but accepts you.
“Swallow” you command and he does. “Good boy Matt. I can see we are going to have lots of fun together.”
“Take me to your room” you say. He turns and you follow him upstairs.
When you get to his room you turn the light on, shut the door and then turn to him.
“We are going to have a little fun tonight. Think of it as a little initiation into my gang. I have big plans for you.”
You walk up to him and look him in the eyes. “I also forgot. You will not tell anyone about me. When I’m not around, I am not in your mouth. You will remain living life as normal unless I have requests. You will not mention me to anyone apart from the people in our gang. Our circle. Which for now is just you… my little play toy.”
Matt gave a nod of understanding.
You then start undressing yourself. “Get naked, you’re with me now, let’s be gay” You watch as Matt takes off his work uniform. He takes off his underwear showing his chunky flaccid penis.
You tilt your head in confusion.
“Come here.” You order. “From now on, every time you see me or think of me you a horny. The horniest you have even been before. You will not act on this however until I give permission but you will always be ready. Also… no jerking off without me. I want your seed all to myself.”
As soon as the words left your mouth you see his penis begin to grow. Almost as like magic he was fully hard and pointing towards you knowing who its master is.
“Now, you’re human. Which is a shame so I can’t be as rough as I’d like to be with you. Not to worry. I can be soft and sensual”
You moved towards him and leaned in for a kiss. This one was ten times more passionate than the one downstairs. It was as if your spit was a magic elixir making him devoted to you.
You leaned back and he followed maintaining the connection. You fell onto to bed and he followed falling on top. You like like this. His legs were either side of yours and your dicks were touching.
His warm, human wet mouth was so fun to explore. At the same time you both start to touch and caress each other passionately. You were so in the moment you didn’t care who could hear.
All while maintaining the kissing, Matt started fingering your hard, horny nipples. You then pushed his head down into your armpits where he instinctively started sniffing you, getting to know your scent. Then, like a dog he started to lick your underarms, to claim you. You are his and he is yours.
He grabbed onto your penis and started to rub it up and down, the soft touch of his fingers made you gasp.
He then slithered his head down to your penis but carried on until he got to your balls. He gave you a look and you nodded to give permission.
Matts mouth opened wide enough to let his tongue come out. He started to lick your balls. They started tingling all new sensations that you have never felt before. He then managed to get one of your balls in his mouth and delicately sucked them.
He released the ball and went nose first into your deepest crevice of your groin. You hadn’t showered since the morning and Matt could tell. He was so turned on by your man-musk that he whispered “yes!”
Like the armpits he started licking in order to get the flavour of you inside him. Who would have thought a simple compulsion could make him do all this for you.
He started wanking you off again while switching between your balls and crotch. After a minute or so he stopped wanking and took a deep breath. He was at the head of your penis and he slowly tightened his lips against the top and slowly lowered his head further and further down until he took all that he could.
He stayed there as long as he could before he gagged and had to come up. This was it, the ice had been broken and there was no going back. He started bobbing his head up and down making you wet.
You made approving sighs and moans signalling him to keep going. Every suck was even better than the last. He kept this up for a while, not wanting to stop.
You suggest his head off and up close to your face. He is all sweaty from working on you. You bring him close for a kiss and your stick your tongue in.
“Are you ready for me to cum in your mouth?”
“Yes sir” he begged
“And do you want to swallow me?” You questioned
Without any hesitation Matt nodded “Yes”.
“Well then…” you kissed him “you’d better finish me off then” and he went back to his station and resumed sucking you off.
He gradually got faster and faster and deeper and deeper. You moved his right hand up to your mouth and you started to suck on his fingers. Up and down his head went as he tried to finish you off. It was working, you was so close to coming. Just a little longer…
“Arrrghhhh” you moaned as you shot seven loads right into the back of Matts throat - you’ve been saving up for him. Matt shuddered at the force of your seed going into him. He had stopped sucking at this point but was still tight around your dick and just looking at you longingly as he enjoyed the flavour of you for the first time and started to swallow.
After you could see he was done you move him back on top of you and started making out again. You pushed him over to the other side of the bed so that you were facing each other in the bed. He was looking at you.
“What?” You ask him.
“It’s just…” he paused. “Thank you.”
#gay smut#male!reader#male reader#male reader smut#the vampire diaries#the vampire diaries x male!reader#matt donovan#Matt Donovan x male reader#Matt Donovan x male!reader
58 notes
·
View notes
Text
Witch's Intuition
Mason Lockwood x Reader
Masterlist - Join My Taglist!
Written for Fictober 2023!
Fandom: The Vampire Diaries
Day 2 Prompt: "Don't worry, I got you."
Summary: What if Mason Lockwood had somebody who cared about him when he came to town, somebody who could keep him from his canon fate? Alternatively, I really love Mason Lockwood and the show didn't do him justice, so I wanted to. Reader is described as a girl.
Word Count: 10,445 lmao
Category: Angst, fluff, humor
Putting work into an AI program without permission is illegal. You do not have my permission. Do not do it.
I sighed and stared straight ahead, hands still gripped tight on the steering wheel as I tried to psych myself up to get out of the car and go inside.
Damon Salvatore, my best friend in the entire world despite my better judgement, had asked me to come to a barbecue that Jenna Sommers was hosting. Her connection to Damon was ridiculous and confusing, and the entire barbecue was just a front for Damon and our mutual friend Ric to try to get a feel for the newest supernatural creature in town. And he wanted me here to help.
Mason Lockwood, the newest supernatural in question, had apparently gone to high school with Jenna and had recently returned to Mystic Falls. Damon felt confident he was a werewolf. As a witch, I knew for sure he was a werewolf, but absolutely no part of me wanted to get involved in the supernatural drama by telling him.
I should've known staying out of it would be impossible as long as Damon Salvatore remained my best friend.
At the sound of a knock on my window, I jumped so hard my head hit the roof of my car. I whipped around to find the werewolf I'd been thinking about standing outside my door, looking at me with a grin as he gave a little wave. I mentally cursed myself, then shoved open my door and climbed out.
"Hey," he said, giving me a bright smile that made butterflies explode in my chest. "I didn't realize you were coming to this, too."
Mason and I had met about a week ago at the grill, when he'd come over to the pool table and called winner on my game. I won, and we quickly hit it off the bat over the course of our first game, enough so that we ended up playing two more. He still didn't know I was a witch, and we'd only hung out a handful of times so far, but I still found my heart racing when he looked at me like he was looking at me now.
"Damon dragged me," I replied. "Although, I actually am excited to get to know Jenna a little better. And... others, at this party."
"Others?" he asked, raising his eyebrows. The grin took on a more flirty edge, and I couldn't help my heart speeding up a bit.
"Yeah, others. Other than Ric. I already know him."
"Okay," laughed Mason, fully throwing his head back as we started heading for the house together. "And I guess 'others' doesn't apply to Elena or Caroline either?"
"No, I know them too. I've heard all about the high school angst and then some."
"Did you tell them how much better it gets after graduation?"
"Oh yeah, I covered all the existential dread and challenge of trying to figure out what the hell to do with the rest of our lives."
"Okay good. As long as they know."
Mason and I shared a smile as we reached the door and he opened it for me, motioning for me to go ahead. I smiled, and we held our eye contact a few beats too long to be casual. Damon was going to kill me when he got here.
We quickly found Jenna and Elena in the kitchen, and I chatted with Elena a bit while Mason and Jenna caught up. I'd only gotten to Mystic Falls a little after the Salvatores, having graduated from college three years ago. At first, I'd come back to try to track down and record witch history, since so much of it was based here. But it didn't take me long to get sucked into the bullshit Damon and Stefan had found themselves neck-deep in as soon as I arrived.
For the first time, with Mason, I didn't totally mind it.
Within a few minutes of arrival, Mason decided it was time to go hunting for shot glasses and alcohol. Jenna pointed him in the right direction, and then he turned to me with a lopsided smile that made my heart stop in my chest.
"Come help me?"
"Sure thing."
I followed Mason through the house, leaving Jenna and Elena in the kitchen while we waited for everybody else to show up. He ducked into a closet, and I hovered just outside.
"Let's see here... Jenna's trying to be a responsible adult nowadays, but I bet I can still find where she stashed her old shot glasses..."
"I've spent too long finding cool shot glasses that I like to ever shove them all away in a closet forever," I mused, leaning against the door frame. Mason chuckled.
"I know what you mean. I've got different ones with the patterns of every surfboard I've ever owned."
I nodded. "That's nice, but I've got you beat. I've got supernatural-themed ones. For witches and vampires and werewolves."
Mason paused his searching to turn around and give me an appraising look. I shrugged, giving him a sheepish smile. He shook his head, but to my relief, he was smiling too.
"I should've realized you knew, with you being Damon's friend," he said, turning around to continue searching.
"Hey, I'm a born and raised witch. I knew about the supernatural long before Damon Salvatore ever came into my life, and I recognized what you were before he did too. Vampires have shittier senses than witches."
Mason snorted a laugh, then, pausing his search and half glancing back at me again, asked, "Did you tell him about me?"
"No. Damon can be a little... dramatic. I had no interest in him starting up a fight with my new favorite pool opponent."
Mason nodded, and thankfully, I caught a small smile on his face again.
"...You use some of that magic to cheat at pool?"
"Ha! That's also a no. I'm just a better player than you."
"Or maybe I just let you win," he said, turning to hand me a nice bottle of vodka that he'd dug out of the closet, a grin on his face.
"We can pretend that's what happened if you really want. But we both know the truth."
He sighed, then turned back around to grab the shot glasses he'd finally managed to find, shaking them to show me triumphantly.
"I guess we're just gonna have to go back to the Grill soon so you can teach me your ways."
"...It's a date."
Mason grinned and shot me a wink, then led me back through the house to the kitchen to rejoin Jenna and Elena. Elena, understandably, left when we started doing shots, and it wasn't much longer before Ric and Damon showed up. Jenna hated Damon, and after a few moments, Damon made it clear he wasn't going to be particularly friendly to Mason. I tried to ease the tension, but clearly, this barbecue wasn't going to be as fun and relaxing as the first ten minutes had been.
It didn't help that, every time I shared a moment with Mason, judgement absolutely radiated off of Damon. Lucky for me, I'd had a few years of practice ignoring those looks from him.
He'd told me today was a fact-finding mission, after all. And I was finding facts that pointed me towards liking Mason.
"I'm just saying, it doesn't take that long to set up Guitar Hero-"
"I will leave the party, Jenna," teased Mason, shooting her a smile as he plopped down on a loveseat in the living room next to me. "What else do we have? And by that, I mean literally anything else."
Jenna chucked a pillow at him, which Mason leaned into me to duck. I cackled, continuing to ignore the hell out of Damon staring at me from across the room.
"How about charades?" asked Alaric, bravely standing between Jenna and Mason even as Mason grabbed another pillow and cocked his arm back to throw it. "Or pictionary?"
"Pictionary sounds good to me!" Damon chimed in with an eagerness that made me incredibly suspicious. "I'll go get the board."
Low and behold, a few rounds later, Damon was using it to make ridiculously obvious werewolf references at Mason. The one silver lining was that Mason was as irritated with him as me, so we bonded a little as we gave him deadpan answers for things like Dances With Wolves as a pictionary clue. Jenna, the only one in the room completely out of the loop, also helped immensely by criticizing Damon's art every chance she got. I loved him, but he absolutely deserved every dig. Besides, his ego could take it.
After many rounds of various party games (although not Guitar Hero, at least not yet), we made our way to the table in the kitchen for some dessert. Elena and Caroline had left, which just left the adults. If Damon hadn't been dragging Mason into a pissing contest, it would've been the perfect party.
Alas, instead, Damon decided to continue to poke the bear, so to speak.
"Mason! Why don't you start us off," Damon said, bringing the pie to the table with a silver serving knife and setting it down directly in front of Mason. I sighed and rolled my eyes.
Mason looked at Damon, then turned the pie until the knife faced away from him before grabbing a slice with his bare hands. Damon and Ric shared a triumphant look.
"What?" said Mason, a slight edge to his tone as he stared right back at Damon. "I apologize. I'm an animal."
I shook my head, turning my attention to Jenna instead of the two of them staring each other down as she joined us at the table.
"So Mason, you and Jenna never dated?" asked Ric, apparently trying to break the tension between Mason and Damon. A valiant effort, but knowing Damon, I doubted he'd succeed.
"She was always lost in Logan Fell-land," Mason replied. Jenna huffed a laugh.
"Oh, my first mistake. Mason was a catch. He had girls lining up."
"Really?" said Damon, that fake-friendly tone in his voice that I knew meant trouble. "Huh. I always pegged you for a lone wolf."
"I'm sure I wasn't half the lady killer you were," Mason shot back without missing a beat. I snorted into my drink, completely failing to keep a smile off my face. Mason cut his eyes to me, the edge in his own smile fading for the briefest of seconds, before he looked back at Damon and raised his glass in toast. "To new friends."
He and Damon didn't take their eyes off each other once as we all clinked glasses and cheersed. When Damon kept doing his stare-down and looked ready to keep it up for the duration of pie, I kicked him under the table as hard as I could. He turned to glare at me, but their stare down was broken, and with Jenna's increasingly tipsy help we managed to turn things back into a mostly-friendly barbecue.
As the night went on, I found myself getting a new best friend in Jenna, with each joke she made and wink she shot in my direction when I sat particularly close to Mason. We moved back into the living room, sprawling on the couches with another round of beers. Jenna was much, much tipsier than I was, but I was having enough fun that I decided to lean into it more than I actually felt it. We cackled together as she told high school stories about Mason, then cheered like maniacs together when she finally pulled out Guitar Hero, against the protests of Mason and Ric.
"Alright, I'm gonna need another drink if we're really doing that," Mason sighed, a smile on his face all the same. He stood and headed into the kitchen, where I knew Damon was. I wanted to ignore it and get my literal groove on with Jenna, but I couldn't. I stood with a sigh and moved to follow him.
"Go get him girl!" Jenna called after me with a little 'whoop'! I whipped around, face burning, but she just grinned at me and winked. I shook my head, but found myself grinning back as I turned and left the room.
By the time I got to the kitchen, I could already hear Damon and Mason talking. Rather than interrupting to immediately change the topic or insert myself into the conversation, however, I decided to listen in. That way I could gauge just how hostile Damon and Mason were being to each other, and react accordingly.
"Come on, man, you don't think I know what this barbecue is about?" came Mason's voice.
"How do you know about me?" Damon, demanding, any of the fake-friendliness gone. "Your brother was completely clueless."
"It doesn't matter. I'm not your enemy, Damon."
"You tried to kill my brother." I fought back a scoff. That was a stretch, and we both knew it.
"That was a mistake."
"Really?"
"There was confusion. I couldn't chain myself up in time." Their voices had started coming closer, but I stayed put. "I have no control once I shift."
"What, no obedience school?"
"I'm serious. Let's not spark some age-old feud that doesn't apply to us."
"You expect me to believe that you're in Mystic Falls planting peace trees?"
"I lost my brother. My nephew lost his father. I'm here for my family."
And with that, I'd heard all I needed to hear. Damon, my best friend, as usual, was the aggressor. Thankfully, this time, it sounded like Mason might've made an argument that convinced him. We had bigger problems than one generally chill werewolf, after all.
I left, returning to Jenna and Ric and Guitar Hero. She smiled at me, clearly thinking I'd had a conversation with Mason I hadn't really had, and I leaned into it as she passed me a plastic guitar. Mason returned to the room a few moments later, followed by Damon. I ignored them both as I pretended to shred, and to both their credit, they cheered me on.
The rest of the party was a blast, with Mason much more relaxed after his conversation with Damon and Damon finally dropping all the stupid wolf jokes. Jenna and I acted ridiculous and had the time of our lives doing it, and whenever I wasn't shredding the imaginary guitar, Mason and I leaned against each other, laughing and talking the night away.
Finally, once I'd sobered up more and the sun had long-since gone down, and Jenna and I had finished half the songs on Guitar Hero, we wound up the party and all headed home. Damon stayed a moment longer to talk with Ric, so after giving Jenna a goodbye hug, I headed for my car without him. To my delight, Mason came with me, walking me to my car.
"You know, you're a little too good at Guitar Hero, I think," he said, bumping his shoulder into mine as we walked. I chuckled.
"And you're a little too ridiculously set against that game," I teased back. "What's the matter, you don't like fun?"
"I don't like watching Jenna butchering Black Sabbath. Watching you was... a little more fun."
I paused as we reached my car, smiling up at Mason with a glowing feeling in my chest. He smiled back at me, leaning against the front panel of my car.
"It was great getting to know you better tonight," I said, smiling at him and stalling the moment I'd actually have to leave. He grinned at me.
"You too. And I'd love to keep getting to know you better. Maybe at Volunteer Day tomorrow?"
"I was already planning on going, but it'll be much more fun with you there."
"Great." He flashed me a heart-stopping smile. "It's a date."
I was practically floating as I drove away, replaying the end of the night with Mason in my mind over and over again. The last time I'd felt anything like what I was starting to feel now... well, it hadn't ended well. I'd gotten Damon as a best friend out of it, which was a net positive no matter how much he annoyed me sometimes, but everything else had been an absolute nightmare. For the first time in three years, I found myself wanting to risk the heartache and get close to somebody in a non-friendship way again.
I'd been staying with Stefan and Damon since I got to town, and I expected a long lecture about 'flirting with the enemy' from Damon when I got home. But, blissfully, the house was empty. I wandered upstairs and fell into bed, thoughts of seeing Mason tomorrow letting me drift off with a smile on my face.
I should've known nothing in this town, in this world of supernaturals, could ever go that smoothly.
****************
The next morning, I woke up bright and early, unusually excited about Volunteer Day. A certain werewolf definitely had something to do with that, but thankfully, neither of the Salvatores was around on my way out to grill me about the grin on my face.
I'd gotten Mason's number last night, so I quickly shot off a text saying I was making a pre-volunteering coffee run and asking if he wanted anything. I took my time heading to my favorite coffee place, and the line was long enough that I waited at least ten minutes, but I didn't hear anything back from Mason.
I tried not to let it get to me as I ordered my usual, then an iced latte for Mason. Hopefully he would like it, and if he didn't, then at least it wouldn't go to waste, since I was always down for an iced latte.
I ended up arriving a little late to the event, but I wasn't complaining too much, since it meant I missed Carol Lockwood's speech. I scanned the crowd for Mason, then smiled when I noticed him under a newly-built picnic awning. Instead of smiling back, he looked away like he'd barely noticed me, continuing his conversation with Sheriff Forbes. I frowned.
I caught up to him walking away from the picnic awning, not too far into the newer part of the park that we were supposed to be fixing up today before its official opening. He walked quickly, and was apparently pretending not to notice me.
"Hey. Hey, Mason!"
He stopped and turned around with a frustrated sigh, his hands on his hips. The coffees lowered in my hands a little, and part of me suddenly wanted to run back the way I'd come from.
"What do you want?" he asked, none of the warmth or flirtiness from yesterday in his voice.
"I... brought you a coffee..." I said, holding it out to him slowly. He just stared at it. "Is something wrong?"
He huffed a humorless laugh. "That has to be a joke, right?"
"No, actually, it's not," I said, my temper flaring. "You're acting like a dick and I have no idea why, so-"
"You have no idea why?" He looked at me like he absolutely didn't believe me, and I just stared right back as I shook my head. Slowly, the anger fell from his face, to a more cautious confusion. "You don't know where your best friend, who you live with, went last night? Or what he did?"
"Oh God," I shook my head and dropped Mason's gaze, muttering to the leaves more than to him. "I knew I should've been worried when he didn't come home last night. Why can't he ever be out late for normal reasons?"
I sighed, shaking myself out of my thoughts and steeling my resolve as I looked at Mason again. The anger, at least, had gone from his face.
"I have no idea where Damon went or what he did last night," I said. "But... I feel like I should start by offering an apology on his behalf anyway? Maybe in the form of this iced latte I brought?"
Mason huffed a laugh and looked into the tree line, but I caught a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. The relief washing through my body almost took me to my knees.
"Yeah, alright," he finally said, taking a few steps closer and taking the latte from me. He looked me up and down as he sipped it, holding my gaze for a few long moments afterwards. I didn't look away once. "Damon stabbed me with a silver knife last night."
My eyes went wide, and a second later, dropped to Mason's chest to scan for any lingering sign of injury. Thankfully, he seemed to be fine.
"I thought... I thought you guys made peace last night?" I finally asked, meeting Mason's eyes again once I was satisfied he was healthy.
"I thought so too. But apparently Damon doesn't want peace. Stefan started the morning out with a little extra threat today, too, to try to keep me from getting revenge."
I sighed heavily, closing my eyes and shaking my head. I could feel a headache coming on.
"I'm so sorry, Mason," I said. "Ugh, I wish you would've told me when it happened. Or that Damon would've mentioned his stupid little plan, or Ric-"
"Why? You think the Salvatores would listen to you telling them not to come after me? You think Damon would listen to that?"
"Damon is... well, he's a lot of things. But if I talk to him, he'll back off."
Mason raised a skeptical eyebrow. "I don't understand how you're friends with him. Except maybe a dangerous level of delusion. He doesn't care about anybody but his own agenda. I've barely known him a day and I can already see that."
I pinched the bridge of my nose, debating my options. I had some very good reasons for trusting Damon as much as I did, but I wasn't totally sure I wanted to get into them, especially not with someone I'd only recently met. But that someone was starting to become important to me. I sighed, then knocked back the rest of my iced coffee. Decision made.
"Alright, listen. I don't owe you an explanation or a justification of my relationship with Damon. But... I like you. A lot. So I want you to know, so you can maybe understand."
Mason nodded, his expression thankfully more curious and open than anything else. We moved a few more feet away from the rest of the volunteer activities happening behind us to sit on a bench together, and I tried not to let our proximity and touching knees distract me.
"Okay, so, in college... I dated this guy."
"Don't tell me it was Damon."
I made a face. "Uck! Never."
"Okay, good," Mason laughed. "Sorry, I promise that'll be my one and only interruption.
"Honestly, it's probably better that we got that cleared up right away. I love him very much, but I would absolutely never date him."
"Good."
Mason held my eyes for an extra second, a little bit of that flirty behavior returning, and I felt heat rising to my cheeks. I cleared my throat and tried to refocus.
"Anyway, I dated this guy for a while. He wasn't Damon, but he was a vampire. I'm a witch, as you know, and I was raised knowing about my powers and everything else, so I knew a good amount about the supernatural world. I actually had class with him—his name was Andy—my freshman year, and we sat next to each other. I clocked him as a vampire immediately, and I don't think he was used to that.
"I wasn't sure about him at first, what with the whole vampire thing, but... we saw each other a lot. Same classes, all that. He was always nice, and funny, and when he eventually asked me out, I said yes.
"I'll skip to the important part, but basically, we dated for three years. By the time we were graduating, I'd fallen head over heels in love. I knew what he was, I knew the thought of 'together forever' brought a lot of problems we'd have to work through, including whether I could stand to stop being a witch and whether I could live with the curse of immortality. But... I knew we'd figure it out, together. I was convinced he was the love of my life."
I took a deep, shaky breath, trying to brace myself for what came next. This was only the second or third time I'd gone through it in the few years since it'd happened. Mason, to his credit, stayed quiet, letting me take my time.
"Right around graduation, when we were supposed to be doing ridiculous Senior Week activities and getting rid of the last of our assignments, taking pictures and getting ready to walk... all the supernatural drama and danger you can imagine came crashing down on our heads. Brought to our doorstep by Andy."
I shook my head, angry at myself as much as at Andy as the memories replayed, as vivid as the day they'd happened.
"He'd gotten involved in some ridiculous scheme with some other vampires, trying to prove some lore was real or something, and they needed a powerful witch. Without asking, Andy had volunteered me. When I didn't want to help, he threatened me, and left me to the wolves—no pun intended, sorry—left me to the vampires when they tried to force me to help. Damon stepped in and stopped them.
"Don't get me wrong, I know it was a completely selfish move," I said, finally looking at Mason again. His eyebrows were furrowed, and he moved a little closer, stopping just short of putting us shoulder to shoulder. "He wanted to stop the plan and the ritual and the spell, it had nothing to do with helping me. But once Andy and everyone around us was dead... I just fell apart. Damon, for all he acts the bad guy, didn't ditch me. I've asked him a couple times and he always brushes it off like it was nothing, but... he saved me in more ways than one that night. Since then, we've had each others' backs. It's kind of a weird friendship, but he's put his own life on the line to protect me more than once since then. I've done the same. I trust him completely, for the things where it really counts."
Mason sighed through his nose, looking away from me finally to stare at the ground. I watched him, watched his eyes dart around as he thought, until he met my eyes again.
"I get it. The people that pick you up and carry you through stuff like that... it's a special kind of bond. If you have that with Damon... I get it." We held eye contact for a few more moments, a wordless heaviness passing between us, and then Mason grinned. "So, what you're saying is I count as the important stuff for you?"
I bit my lip and looked away, fighting a smile and quickly losing to it.
"I... yeah, I guess I am saying that."
Mason and I laughed and worked together for a while longer on our various cleanup duties, until he told me he needed to go do trash duty in the woods, since the Sheriff had asked him to. I gave him my empty latte cup as a start, watching him with a smile as he walked away.
I tried to busy myself with volunteer work, the thing I'd actually come here for today, to keep my mind from running wild about Mason. I only half-succeeded. I hadn't felt anything close to this for somebody since Andy, and it scared me and thrilled me at the same time. The needle pinged back and forth between the two, but when Mason came back out of the woods looking rumpled, guilty, and glancing over his shoulder, it jumped all the way to scared.
"Mason?" I called, hurrying over to him. He shook his head, trying to duck past me again, but when I put a hand on his arm he stopped. "What happened?"
"Y/N..."
"Mason, what happened?" I pulled my attention from him, quickly scanning the gathered volunteers and then doing it again. Damon and Stefan were nowhere to be found. "What happened?"
Mason met my eyes and hesitated. Then, finally, "They tried to kill me. In the woods. They surrounded me, and Damon told me he'd give me a running head start before they ripped my heart out of my chest."
Immediately, my eyes darted to the woods behind Mason, scanning for my best friend. Ready to stop him. Until Mason continued.
"They're not coming back."
My eyes snapped to his again. "Explain."
"I told the Sheriff what they were. She's taking care of it."
I sprang back from Mason like touching him had burned me. He winced, but didn't do anything else.
"Are you kidding me? After everything I told you, everything we talked about?"
"I didn't have a whole lot of choice, between them and death. Besides, I told the Sheriff before I talked to you."
"Mason, you should have told to me! I would've talked to them, I would've made sure they didn't go after you if I knew it was such a pressing thing! We could've figured out the issue with the Sheriff together! What were you thinking?"
"I'm sorry. But it was kill or be killed-"
"This! This is why I hate this supernatural shit!" My voice had risen to a yell, but I didn't care. We were far enough away from everyone that they probably still couldn't hear me. And what did it matter, anyway? The Council already knew. "This is why nobody ever finds any lasting peace or happiness in this stupid, ridiculous world. Everyone is so fixated on revenge and killing anyone they feel even remotely threatened by. If you'd come to me, I could've kept you safe. Instead, you might've just gotten my best friend killed."
My voice broke on the last word, and I pushed past Mason and started for the woods before he could catch me crying. Unfortunately, he caught my arm before I could get away and turned me to face him, immediately dropping his grip when I tried to pull away.
"I am sorry. I really am. But I didn't know they would follow me into the woods. And they were ready to kill me. When I saw the Sheriff's people over Stefan's shoulder, it seemed like my only way out. I'm sorry."
I took a deep breath, giving him a curt nod before turning again and taking off into the woods, hoping against hope I could get to Damon and Stefan before it was too late. Things had gotten so out of hand, so fast. All I could do was focus on putting out one fire at a time, and hope we all came out of this alive.
I started at the Lockwood cellar, but found it empty. The floor had fresh blood on it, though, and with a little magic I traced Damon and Stefan back to the Salvatore Boarding House. That felt like a good sign.
I pulled into the driveway and sprang out of my car, slamming the door to the house open. I could see Caroline passed out on the couch, which didn't entirely make me feel better as I sprinted up to Damon's room.
I slammed the door open without bothering to knock, only to come face to face with my best friend, unharmed, shirtless, and staring at me like I was insane.
"Don't you ever knock?" he demanded, sounding exasperated as he pulled his shirt over his head. A hysterical laugh bubbled out of me, and I rushed over to hug him.
"You're one to talk," I shot back, wrapping him tighter in my embrace as I did. After a second, his arms came around me too and squeezed back.
"What's wrong?" he asked. I shook my head.
"I thought... I thought you might be dead."
"Well, I'm not." Slowly, gently, he pulled away. He grabbed my arms, looking intently into my eyes for a few long moments. "I'm not. Alright?"
I nodded, the adrenaline fading and leaving exhaustion in its place. I plopped down on his bed as he moved to shut the door.
"Can't have you getting me all sappy in public and ruining my reputation," he explained. I huffed a laugh, but quickly sobered as he sat next to me. I watched him, neither of us speaking for a minute, until he raised an eyebrow. "So... was that it, or...?"
"You can't go after Mason anymore."
"What?" he cried, shooting up and glaring at me. "What the hell are you talking about? He tried to kill me today. The Sheriff is in our basement right now while we wait for the vervain to work through her system because he exposed us. That mutt is dead."
"No. Damon, no," I said, standing too as I spoke. A strange calm had washed over me, and I met Damon's wild eyes with it. "Not Mason."
"Oh, gross. Really? Him?" He raised his eyebrows and narrowed his eyes at me. "Besides being a werewolf, he's a surfer. Are you serious?"
"Damon, come on. Just let it go. Just this once, end the cycle of revenge. You stabbed him, Stefan threatened him, he exposed you to the Sheriff, you tried to kill him, he tried to kill you. You're even, sort of. Just let this one go."
"How about, instead... I kill him?" The inappropriate brightness in his tone usually just made me roll my eyes or sigh while still sort of endearing him to me, but not this time.
"No! Damon, I'm not joking! This isn't some stupid thing where you can just turn around and break promises and it's fine! I never draw a line in the sand, but I am this time! I haven't felt anything close to this, not once, since Andy. And I am not going through anything like that again! You were right the first time. I'm glad you killed Andy, you saved me doing it. But I don't ever want to live through that again. This time is different, he's different. And I know I haven't technically known him very long, but just... please. Not Mason."
Damon held my stare for a few long, long moments, assessing. I stared right back, leaving every single thing I felt clear as day on my face, an open book for him to read. Finally, he sighed and rolled his eyes, in that exaggerated way he did whenever he gave in.
"Fine. I promise I won't kill Mason."
"Or try to kill Mason?"
"Yes, alright? If you're that convinced he's different... then fine. This one's different."
I flung myself forward and wrapped my arms tight around his middle before he could stop me. He grunted and grumbled, but hugged me back after a second anyway.
"Thanks, Day."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just get out of here and get some sleep before someone catches me hugging you, alright?"
I pulled back with a grin. "Deal. Softie."
Damon narrowed his eyes at me, but I just cackled and bounced out of the room. It had been a long, stressful day, but things were looking up. Tomorrow, I'd talk to Mason. And this time would be different.
I passed out in bed as soon as my head hit the pillow. Today had been a long, emotional day, and I still had a few supernaturals to talk to tomorrow, since Stefan needed to be looped in too. I'd need all the rest I could get.
I got up the next morning a little later than I'd planned to, then dressed quickly to head over to the Lockwood's. I was helping set up for the upcoming masquerade ball, and I needed to talk to Mason. After getting coffee, of course.
As I headed down the stairs, I heard voices from the living room. I listened more closely as I approached, and I heard Damon say something like "this changes things" before they stopped at my arrival. I found Damon and Jeremy both looking at me like I'd interrupted something.
"Good morning..." I said, slowly reaching to retrieve my keys as I stared at them both suspiciously.
"Good morning," said Damon, flashing me a smile that didn't reach his eyes as Jeremy gave me a little nod.
"Everything okay in here...?"
"Completely."
I narrowed my eyes, glancing from Damon to Jeremy, then finally sighed.
"Alright, I have places to be and not enough willpower to involve myself in whatever this is. Just... don't do anything over the top stupid, alright?"
Both boys just gave little signs of acknowledgement as I slowly backed towards the door. I kept waiting for one of them to break, or for some obvious thing to jump out and catch my attention, but nothing came. I reached the door and finally turned my back on both of them, just hoping I wouldn't regret it.
I never got a moment of peace in Mystic Falls. Witch history and best friend or not, I might need to ditch this place sooner rather than later. Damon could come visit me somewhere with less supernatural drama.
This time, I only got one iced latte at the coffee shop before heading to the Lockwood's. As soon as I parked my car, I started scanning for Stefan, so I could talk to him and get him on the same page as Damon. The last thing I needed was the calmer Salvatore brother ruining the progress I'd made.
Thankfully, it didn't take me long to find him, or to convince him to leave Mason alone. He'd apparently only gotten on the same page as Damon about killing Mason after Mason had made a few threats of his own, and he said if I believed peace was still an option (especially one that I could sell Damon on), then he'd be happy to support me.
That left me with one last supernatural to work things out with. I had to do a few laps of the venue to find Mason, even though it was sort of his house. I finally managed to track him down outside, by a big pond a little distance away from the rest of everyone. He gave me a small smile when he saw me coming.
"What? No coffee for me today?"
"Coffee is only for people who haven't tried to kill my friends in the last twenty-four hours." The smile immediately dropped off Mason's face, his whole demeanor sobering.
"Look, Y/N-"
"Lucky for you, that timer expires tomorrow," I continued. "So... if we get roped into a third volunteer thing in three days, you can count on coffee for that."
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth again, this time a little more cautious.
"Does that mean we're okay?"
I took a deep breath, then nodded.
"As I'm sure you've noticed, Damon and Stefan are alive. I've talked to both of them. They both agreed to drop it. The three of you have done a bunch of mutual threatening and murder-attempting in the past forty-eight hours, and Damon understands that this is one of those important things he can't just brush off. They're willing to make peace, and actually mean it, from now on. For me. Can you do the same?"
Mason frowned and looked away, his eyes scanning the grass, pond, trees, and everything else while he thought. He shook his head, presumably to himself, then finally met my eyes again. He squared his shoulders, and through all of the emotions I'd experienced from him since I'd met him, he'd never been this serious.
"Yeah. Yeah, I can do the same. I don't want to get killed by a vampire, or get mixed up in trying so hard to kill one, let alone two. If they back off, for real... I'm happy to do the same."
I smiled, not as bright and full of joy as the first few times Mason and I had spent time together, but just a little ray of hope shining through after the storm I'd just weathered.
"Thank you."
He nodded, then that easy smile that had gotten a special place in my heart so quickly returned.
"So... this masquerade stuff, there's a ton of people here to help with it. Do you want to go for a walk instead?"
"I'd love that."
We took our time doing a full lap around the pond at turtle-speed, laughing and talking the entire time. We eventually did rejoin the rest of the workforce, but I didn't mind it as much as I thought I would. We sorted masks and hung decorations together, which made it better. Mason even gave me a better introduction to his nephew, Tyler, who I'd only vaguely known before.
"Hey, pay attention," teased Mason, nudging me with his shoulder as we stood together, untangling a frankly ridiculous amount of lights with Tyler's help.
"I can't," I whined. "I'm falling asleep at the wheel. One coffee isn't even close to enough caffeine to wake me up."
"I could go on a coffee run," he suggested. I turned to him with wide eyes and an exaggerated gasp.
"You would be my hero forever."
He laughed. "Alright, alright, I'm on it. I'll take any excuse to get away from these lights. Ty, you want anything?"
"Sure. Black coffee."
"Alright. I'll be back in a few."
I smiled after him as he jogged up the lawn, only looking away when he finally disappeared from sight. As I turned back to the lights, I found Tyler staring at me with a raised eyebrow. I cleared my throat.
"You really like him, don't you?"
I sighed. "Yeah. Yeah, I really do."
Tyler nodded, first to me then to himself, as he returned to working on the lights. I watched him for a minute, then continued.
"I know we don't actually know each other that well, so this might be over the line, but... I can tell he really cares about you. He talks about you a lot. I think he'd walk through fire for you. And I think he'd want you to know that."
Tyler glanced up at me, jaw tight, but he nodded all the same. He muttered a "thanks", and then we went back to our work, mostly in silence except for long strings of expletives for this Gordian Knot of a light string.
The glowing happiness in my chest kept me going without the coffee for a while, until I started to notice just how long it had been since Mason left. Tyler had moved on due to frustration with the lights, and now stood across the lawn, but Mason was nowhere to be found. Even if the line had been out the door, he should've been back by now.
I scanned the crowd again, looking for a few specific people and only finding one of them. Stefan was still here, but Damon and Jeremy were conspicuously missing. I started walking to Stefan, picking up the pace when I noticed Bonnie missing too.
"Stefan," I said, my heartbeat pounding in my ears as I tried to keep my panic under control. "Where is Damon?"
"Listen, you have to stay calm, alright-?"
"No, not alright! Where is Damon? Or, actually, no. Where is Mason?"
"He's dating Katherine. Bonnie touched him, and she had a vision about him. He's got the moonstone, and he's with her. He's been lying to all of us. Things have changed since this morning."
"Things have- fuck. That's exactly what Damon was saying to Jeremy this morning," I shook my head, mentally kicking myself for not putting the pieces together faster. "Where are they, Stefan?"
"Did you not hear me? He's working with the enemy-"
"Stefan Salvatore. I will ask you one more time, and then it'll be my turn to cross some fucking lines. Where. Are. They."
Stefan watched me for a moment, considering. Then, finally, he said, "They're at the boarding house."
I barely waited for him to finish his answer before I took off running. My lungs burned as I raced through the people swarming around Lockwood Manor, towards where I'd left my car. Apparently, Damon had decided that Bonnie's vision of Mason and Katherine, whatever else it meant, gave him a pass to change the rules. To break the promise he made to me last night. Which meant, if I didn't move fast enough, I might never see Mason again.
I flung myself into the driver's seat of my car, then took off for the Salvatore Boarding House. I barely managed to stay on the right side of 'safe driver', and made it there in record time. I screeched to a stop in front of the house, and as soon as I stepped out of my car, I heard Mason scream from inside. My heart dropped to my feet as I raced forward, flung the door open, and rushed inside.
I could see Damon hovering over someone, presumably Mason, in a chair with it's back to me. Jeremy hovered off to the side, looking horrified but refusing to do something or leave. I shoved past Jeremy roughly, flinging out my arms and using a burst of magic to send Damon flying into the nearest wall and away from Mason.
"What is WRONG with you?" I cried, raging at Damon, feeling an anger like I'd never felt towards my best friend before. "Did everything we talked about mean nothing to you? I know you have some crazy need to do everything the violent way, and I've never let it get to me before, but you've also never backstabbed me before! How could you do this to me?"
"You don't understand-"
"I understand perfectly."
With one last shove of my magic at Damon, I whirled around to look at Mason. He was bound to a chair from the dining room, covered in his own blood, a hopeless, broken look in his eyes. I tried not to break with him as I dropped to my knees and started working to untie him.
"It's okay, it's okay," I said, talking to keep myself calm as much as to keep Mason calm. "Don't worry, I got you."
Mason didn't respond, and I spared a glance up at him to see him watching me, his face contorted in pain. I did my best to speed up, but it was harder to work the ropes and chains with how badly my hands were shaking.
"He's in love with Katherine," came Damon's voice from behind me. There was no fight or victory in his words, and I still trusted him enough to leave my back to him, even as I ignored him. "He told me himself before you came in. He doesn't love you, he loves her. Like every other poor sucker she's brainwashed and ditched over the years."
I huffed a breath through my nose as I finally managed to remove the last of Mason's restraints, then stood to face Damon. He was still a good distance away, not threatening, just watching. Posture relaxed, face pressed into a concerned frown. Jeremy stood over his shoulder, watching us like a tennis match.
"Is that supposed to make me willing to let you torture and kill him?"
Damon shrugged, an insufferable look that I knew very, very well crossing his face.
"This isn't a joke, Damon. Just because you get some new information doesn't mean everything we talked about last night ceases to be important. You should have talked to me. Like a rational person! Not done... this," my voice broke a little on the final word as I pictured Mason again, those empty eyes that had been so full of light and joy before. "Tell me something. If I hadn't shown up... were you going to kill him?"
Damon looked away, and I had my answer. I snorted, then turned to help Mason stand, slinging one of his arms over my shoulder. He was incredibly heavy, and he wasn't strong enough to be much help either, but I could manage.
"I would've been doing him a favor," Damon finally said, calling after me as I helped Mason limp towards the door. "I've been where he is. I know what it's like to be lost in Katherine land. There's no hope for him."
I just raised my middle finger back at him as we continued to the door. I didn't look back as the front door shut behind me and I loaded Mason into the passenger seat of my car, then climbed into the driver's seat. I started the engine, but just kept staring straight ahead, a thousand different thoughts and noises racing around in my mind all at once. I tried to focus on one, to process things slowly, but I couldn't. So, I forced all of it out, instead keeping my eyes locked on the road ahead and pretending nothing else existed. I could do that, just long enough to get out of here.
Mason didn't speak, move, or make a sound for the entire drive back to the Lockwood house. It wasn't the safest place for him, but I didn't know where else to take him. I stayed silent, too, focusing entirely on trying to fight the wave of everything threatening to crash over me in the middle of evening traffic.
Thankfully, when we got back to the Lockwood house, all the volunteers had gone. I helped Mason out of the car, then continued to be his crutch as we limped through the front door. He broke his silence long enough to point me towards his room, and I helped him up the stairs and through the door. As gently as possible, I helped him ease down on the bed. His super-healing would fix the physical injuries fairly quickly all things considered, but Damon had spent the afternoon torturing him. That wasn't as easy to get past.
"Are you okay?" I finally asked. I knew it was a stupid question, especially with everything else floating around in my head, but I needed to know what he'd say. To gauge how close he might be to okay.
Mason sighed and ran a hand through his hair, refusing to meet my eyes.
"I'm fine. Or at least... I guess I will be."
I nodded. "I'm glad." And I meant it.
Mason huffed another heavy, heavy sigh, then finally looked up at me.
"Thank you. For saving me."
"Yeah, of course. I... I'm sorry I was wrong. That Damon went right back to... that."
Mason waved me off, rubbing the back of his neck and staring holes in the carpet. The silence hung between us, and I took a shuffling step backwards before deciding I couldn't leave without a few answers, even if Mason clearly felt like shit.
"Is it true?" I asked, still hovering by the doorway. Mason flinched, and I knew he knew what I meant, but I continued anyway. "What Damon and Stefan said... are you with Katherine?"
Mason grimaced and ducked his head, not meeting my eyes. I took a few more steps across the room towards him.
"Mason. Please answer me."
He huffed a hollow laugh, then looked up at me, pain written all over his face.
"I'm sorry."
I shook my head. This time, it was my turn for the hollow laugh.
"I'm so, so sorry. I was trying to help her. I... I love her. Or at least, I did... I thought she loved me too..."
"Katherine doesn't love anybody," I spat, my voice full of venom. "I watched Damon wrestle with that realization for a few years. Did she ever tell you? She played him and Stefan against each other, dated and toyed with them both in 1864. Escaped from being trapped with twenty-six other vampires and never looked back, all while she let Damon chase after her, knowing full well he was trying to find a way to save her from a trap she wasn't in. For almost a hundred and fifty years. She's ditched and killed and betrayed everyone she's ever been with, Mason. Think about that long and hard before you really decide to stick with her."
With that, I turned on my heel, the first tears starting to fall as I wrenched the door open. It slammed closed again before I could get through it, and I turned to find Mason standing before me, one arm extended to keep the door shut. He looked torn and pained, even more so when he noticed the tears I failed to hold back.
"I need you to know... it was real. I wasn't... faking it, or whatever, all those times we hung out. I... really do like you." I scoffed, but he continued before I could tell him off. "It's just... Kath was there for me after I triggered my curse. My friend kept coming at me, trying to beat me up because he thought I was sleeping with his girlfriend, which I wasn't. I pushed him too hard, and he fell, and... and he died. I killed him. That same night was the first night I transformed. Kath was there for me then, and for every minute after. She's... my Damon."
"Ha!" I shouted, shoving Mason's chest and pushing him back with all the force I could muster. He stumbled back more than a few steps, apparently still weak from whatever Damon had done. "Don't you ever, ever compare them. Damon sucks, and does bad things that hurt the people he cares about. Don't think I don't know that. But the difference is, he actually has people he cares about.
"And before you go running back to Katherine, after I saved your life, you should really think Mason: Katherine wants the moonstone. You got her the moonstone. If she knew you could get it for her, then what might she have done to make you want to get it for her?"
Mason shook his head, slowly at first and then faster and faster.
"No. No, she can't compel me. I know she can't."
"Sure. But I bet she could compel your friend. I mean, did you ever figure out why he thought you'd gone after his girlfriend? Or why he wouldn't listen to you or to reason, just came at you until you were forced to defend yourself? The best way to make you do her dirty work for her was to give you a vested interest in getting the moonstone. What better way than a ray of hope to try to break your new curse?"
Mason sat down hard on his bed, head in his hands and shaking. I opened the door again, never taking my eyes off of Mason, my heart shattering in my chest.
"Think long and hard about the truth and who you can actually trust, Mason. Following Katherine will only lead you down a road of pain and death."
With that, I turned on my heel and walked out of the room. This time, nobody stopped me. And I didn't look back.
I got in my car and drove, no destination in mind, trying to process. I'd been falling for Mason, hard, and he'd betrayed me. Damon, who I'd always been able to count on, had done the same. Everything had come crumbling down in less than an hour.
I didn't go back home, to the Salvatore house, until sunrise the next morning. I'd stayed out all night, wandering aimlessly with my car, driving around and slowly working through everything. And when I walked through the doors of the boarding house again, I'd found a new clarity.
"Hey." Damon stood in the hallway, arms crossed and looking concerned. I gave him a weak smile.
"Hey."
"...Everything okay?"
"No. No it's not. You crossed a line, Damon, and even if you never crossed it again... the supernatural drama just doesn't stop. So I'm done with it."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm leaving. I'm leaving Mystic Falls, and everything that comes with vampires and werewolves and even witches, before it destroys me. It's not worth it. I booked a flight to San Diego on my phone a few hours ago."
Damon tried to convince me to stay, but I wasn't hearing it. I'd made up my mind, and now, I wasn't changing it. He hovered as I packed my bags, my anger still simmering but fading now that I'd spent time processing. By a little after noon, I was ready to go.
"Are you sure I can't convince you to stay?" Damon finally asked as I stood on the threshold of the house, my bags already loaded into the car.
"I'm sure. I meant what I said, Day, I'm done with this stuff. But I'll make you a deal."
"...And what kind of deal would that be?"
"Don't kill Mason, and you're welcome to visit me any time."
Damon scowled. "All that, and you're still protecting him?"
I shrugged. "I'm over it, all the death. And I think Mason might be having a wakeup call of his own now. Just... please, Damon. Consider this a second chance. Don't kill Mason. Or torture him, or hurt him. No matter what you learn, or how the circumstances change. He's off limits."
Damon just looked at me for a long, long moment before finally nodding, slowly.
"Fine. And if he asks where you went?"
"You can tell him. I don't think he's gonna chase me all the way to San Diego, especially not if he's still hung up on Katherine like you said he is. And like I said... feel free to come visit. Or call whenever."
Damon nodded once, lips pursed in a tight line. I gave him a smile and a little salute before turning and climbing into my car. I took one last breath to steel myself, then turned the key and left Mystic Falls in the dust behind me.
****************
Two and a Half Months Later
I smiled from the porch of my new house (really closer to a shack) on the beach as I sipped my morning coffee. Watching the waves crash over the shore in the early morning light had become my routine, and I swear my blood pressure had dropped beyond belief as a result.
I hadn't had any supernatural visitors yet, but I knew it'd only be a matter of time. Despite everything, I hoped it would be Damon. There were a lot of things I didn't miss about living in the same sphere as him every day, but it had been nice to be so close to my best friend, even if he was a jackass a lot of the time.
Once the sun was a little higher in the sky and my mug was empty, I went back into the kitchen. The house had a thousand projects, and I'd only just started on the first one or two. I'd been doing those mostly by myself too, with little magical help, and it was nice. I could feel a little bit more of myself in this place with every change I made.
I set my mug in the sink and started to grab eggs out of the fridge when I heard a knock on the door. I wandered over to open it, then stopped dead when I saw who was on the other side.
Mason Lockwood. Iced latte in hand and a sheepish grin on his face.
"Hey," he said, holding out the coffee as a sort of offering. "I, uh... I hope it's okay that I'm here. Damon told me where you'd moved to, and I figured he'd never tell me if it wasn't alright with you. Even then. Honestly, I half expected to open this door and find an axe murderer or a random old man."
Despite myself, I snorted a laugh, and a small smile tugged its way onto my face. I reached out and took the coffee.
"It's good to see you," I said, and meant it. "I'm glad you're okay. Honestly, I think Damon probably sent you here as proof that he didn't kill you. I told him that was a condition of him being invited into my house."
This time, a small smile made its way onto Mason's face. We just looked at each other for a few minutes, hopeful smiles and an electric energy snaking between us, until I finally cleared my throat and took a half-step to the side.
"Do you... want to come in?"
Mason smiled, somehow still looking slightly pained.
"I... can't." I raised an eyebrow, and he rushed to continue. "I'd love to, for the record. It's just... I might've dragged Tyler out of Mystic Falls with me. And he might be waiting in the car."
For the first time, I glanced over Mason's shoulder to see Tyler sitting in the front seat of Mason's Bronco, arms crossed as he pointedly didn't look at us. I laughed.
"That's why it took me so long to get here," Mason continued. "You were right about Katherine. About everything, really. When I ditched her... she compelled a friend of Tyler's to get him to trigger the curse. Like she did to me."
My eyes widened in horror, and I took a step forward to rest my hand on Mason's arm before glancing over his shoulder again.
"Oh my God. Is he okay?"
Mason shrugged. "As okay as he can be. We're figuring it out. But I needed to stay to make sure he was okay, and that Katherine and the other supernaturals didn't get him killed. A lot went down after you left, but... we made it. So did Damon and Stefan. But we needed to get out, so I convinced Carol to let me take Ty for a little while."
I nodded. "I'm glad you did. Do you guys have a place to stay?"
"Yeah. I actually got a place down the beach from here," he said, blushing a little as he glanced away and rubbed at the back of his neck. "We just got into town, and I might've dragged Tyler here first without warning."
I laughed, then stepped fully out of my house, shutting the door behind me. Mason smiled, and my heart raced at our newfound proximity. I decided to let that impulse win and leaned up to give him a soft kiss on the cheek.
Mason looked shocked as I pulled away, then grinned a wolfish grin (pun intended) as he swept me into his arms and kissed me, for real. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him back, hard, completely indulging for a few long seconds before pulling back.
"Tyler's in the car," I said. I was a little breathless and smiling like an idiot, an expression Mason shared.
"He's fine, I left the window cracked."
My laugh was muffled as Mason leaned in and kissed me again, but this time I pulled away fairly quickly.
"I love that you're making vague dog jokes now, but I really don't want him to have to just sit there while we make out on my porch. Let me help you guys get settled in your new place, and then maybe we can go on a real date tonight?"
Mason beamed at me, pulling me close to his side and resting his forehead against mine.
"Sounds like a plan."
He gave me one last peck on the lips, then took my hand and tugged me down the stairs after him. I laughed, feeling freer and lighter than I had in a long time, as I opened the back door of his car and Mason hopped back in the driver's seat.
"Hey Tyler," I chirped. "It's nice to see you again."
"Yeah. Hi."
I caught Mason's eye in the rear view mirror, fighting and almost failing to hold back a laugh. His blue eyes sparkled like the ocean on a beautiful, clear day, and somehow I just knew we were at the start of something special and wonderful. Call it a witch's intuition, but I felt good about what the future held for me and Mason in San Diego.
****************
TVD Taglist: @elenavampire21
#fictober23#the vampire diaries#mason lockwood#mason lockwood x reader#the vampire diaries fanfiction#the vampire diares imagine#the vampire diaries oneshot#mason lockwood fanfiction#mason lockwood imagine#mason lockwood oneshot#best friend!damon salvatore#damon salvatore#stefan salvatore#jenna sommers#tvd#werewolves#tyler lockwood#vampires#witches#witch!reader
75 notes
·
View notes
Text
Emma's TSITP finale thoughts that nobody asked for:
Let me start by saying...
Okay and now that's over, let's begin.
I must admit I felt a little bit of sympathy for Conrad, when I hadn't before this episode. It must be extremely hard to see the girl you love with anyone else, let alone your brother. However, it isn't as cut and dry as 'she is his brothers ex so Jeremiah shouldn't have gone there'. Both guys had close relationships with Belly prior to anything romantic sparking - Jeremiah more so than Conrad, imo, because both he and Belly have described the other as their best friend - and Jeremiah and Belly had a physical relationship before she and Conrad. No, they didn't have sex, but they were still making out, groping, kissing sweetly... there was an intimacy there before she chose to be with Conrad (gentle reminder that Conrad lied about Jeremiah being over her to get what he wanted, because Belly was trying to be respectful and kinda make up for her mistakes a little bit, but I talk about that in another post so I won't go into that again). I even understand his reaction in the car (note I say I understand it, not that I agreed with it) - although it is kind of hypocritical considering how much he tells every other character to grow up. That all is to say that while I understand how painful it must be for Conrad to see, and I think Jeremiah should have spoken to him about his continued feelings for Belly prior to kissing her… it doesn’t make Jeremiah a villain and Conrad a saint. Conrad is selfish when it comes to Belly. Jeremiah can be too. Neither of them is innocent. That being said, two wrongs don’t make a right and Jeremiah should have done better. And he did… just after the fact. He gave into Belly because he loved her and she was offering him everything and Conrad would have done the same if the tables were turned. But after, he spoke to Conrad and was clear on his feelings and yet he gave them the chance to talk knowing what that could potentially mean for him and Belly. His actions do not a villain make.
I really do not care what does or doesn’t happen in the books. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again as many times as it takes to sink in to some people - the books are NOT the show. The books are the inspiration for the show, but the show is an ADAPTION. It is not a carbon copy. Jeremiah could’ve shagged Laurel in the books and I wouldn’t care because they were written over a decade ago and tv is a different medium to books and they are different things. Until it happens on screen, it didn’t happen. Anyone who has read The Vampire Diaries books knows what I mean. Same characters, entirely different story. TSITP show relies heavily on the source material, but we have already seen stark differences between the two. They are separate entities.
Belly pushed and pushed with Jeremiah. He tried hard to resist her, maybe for selfish reasons (he didn’t want to get hurt again, and good on him), but still. He tried. He should’ve opened up to Conrad about his feelings before the kiss, and it sucked that Conrad found out the way that he did, but in Jeremiah’s defence, Conrad has never really given him the chance or taken him seriously. And when he realised how strong Conrad’s feelings still were for Belly, he told him to tell her. He told him that he needed to be straight up with her and that if Conrad was who Belly wanted then he would let her go and not stand in their way because he wanted them both to be happy. He recognised that it was Belly’s choice, and that he couldn’t force her to love him back if she didn’t. That is a good fucking guy right there.
Jeremiah made some mistakes when Belly chose Conrad the first time around, because he was hurt (rightly so) and he was prideful, and he got absolutely slated for it. Conrad did the same and he gets applauded? It’s bullshit. He doesn’t have any more ‘claim’ over Belly because of their history. It’s a tough situation for SURE, but Jeremiah had feelings before Conrad dated her that Belly encouraged. He hasn’t just randomly started dating his brothers ex. It’s a unique situation given how close they all are already. He should have spoken to Conrad, but he isn’t satan for still loving this girl who is his best friend, that he was catching feels for, who led him on to believe that she could feel the same way. These things all developed before Conrad showed even the slightest romantic interest in Belly. And frankly, the way he was in this episode shows how much Jeremiah has grown up. He told both Conrad and Belly that if they wanted to be together he wouldn’t stand in their way and he promised Belly they’d still be good. Jeremiah has grown up and he fucking deserves happiness. And honestly, after their talk by the vending machines, I felt like Conrad realised how much Jeremiah actually did care for Belly. I think it was the first time he’d truly seen it. And he could’ve continued acting like a dick, and I would’ve even understood (still team jelly but I’d have understood he was emotional), but he actually handled it really well. He put his feelings aside and let them be happy, the way Jeremiah had to the previous summer (Conrad stans always refer back to Jere being pissed at thanksgiving but honestly, him not wanting to see Conrad and Belly flaunting it in front of him is a pretty natural reaction. It’ll be interesting to see how Conrad handles the same situation moving forward, and how his fans react to that). The difference is that no one else considered Jeremiah’s feelings last time, but Jeremiah was trying to be sensitive towards Conrad this time, giving him the chance and also making sure Belly had all of the information before she made a choice, AND TOLD HER IT WOULDNT BE LIKE LAST TIME IF SHE CHOSE CONRAD AGAIN. That is the least manipulative thing I’ve ever witnessed on TV so I cannot fathom why Conrad stans insist on calling Jeremiah manipulative.
As for Belly… honestly I’ve not been Belly’s biggest fan, but she really has grown up. It’s not her fault that Conrad misinterpreted her actions. She outright told him she wanted to be his friend. She was being friendly towards him, and he took it the wrong way (with encouragement from Steven, which made things worse. I have several opinions about Steven also. He’s way too controlling of Belly imho). In this episode, I was actually really proud of her. Again, I’ve not read the books, but I’ve read summaries, and it seems like the Belly we saw was super confident in her decision. She did nothing but reassure Jeremiah this episode, both with her words and her actions. She didn’t run after Conrad immediately - she only did it because Jeremiah asked her to. She told Conrad she wanted to be friends. She didn’t give him any indication she wanted to be more. It was very obvious there was a vibe with Jeremiah, but since nobody in Cousins seems to remember Jeremiah exists, nobody else noticed. That’s not her fault. She’s spent the entire season being there for Jeremiah, trying to make it up to him. In the end, she was happy, she was confident. She seemed so full of life in a way we never saw when she was with Conrad. She said in her speech to Jeremiah that she wanted something real. That she knew now that Conrad was only a dream. I’ve seen people interpret that as he was her dream guy but since she can’t have him, she’ll have Jeremiah instead. I didn’t interpret it that way. To me, that was her acknowledging that the person she thought Conrad was was a dream. Because everybody knew she’d had this puppy love infatuation with him for most of her life. And now she knew that’s all it was. That it wasn’t love but a fantasy that she’d built on the back of a person who didn’t really exist outside of her own imagination. Where as Jeremiah was real. He was exactly who he said he was. He wasn’t a fantasy. He’s there, and he isn’t perfect, and that’s fine. And she recognises that she blew it chasing this fantasy. I dunno really how to word what I’m thinking properly but I just didn’t take that in a negative way and I thought it was sweet. Like, haven’t we all watched shows or seen celebs on tv and daydreamed about it? Because you don’t really know them you can invent this perfect picture and it can make you see your own life and relationships in a bad light for a time… until you remember that they aren’t real; the idealised person you’ve created.
Disclaimer on this next part - I’ve not read the books so I might have misinformation. Anyway, from what I’ve heard of the books, Belly seemed still quite torn between the two and only went with Jeremiah after Conrad took it all back and pissed off and left her again. She’d already chosen Jeremiah at that point in the show. She didn’t run after Conrad and leave Jeremiah behind by the car - Jeremiah asked her to. She seemed so exhausted with Conrad this episode and just completely sick of his shit. She was all in with Jeremiah and I loved it. I don’t see a way that she would come back to Conrad now because she seemed so done with him and her and Jeremiah are so sweet. I’m honestly dreading season 3. I don’t want to witness this character assassination in the pursuit of a Bonrad endgame because we all know it’s going to happen, regardless of what is right for the characters.
Anyway, I’m happy with the ending. Belly won back some points with me because she really worked to make Jeremiah feel secure and I loved it. She’s grown. I hope she continues this (but no doubt they’ll ruin it all in season 3). Jeremiah and Conrad also grew in the end. It was good. The show could’ve ended there for me and I’d be happy.
Hope my word vomit made sense hahaha I have a lot of feelings.
56 notes
·
View notes
Note
Hi! I was reading up your meta and I saw you mention you'll talk about "did Dracula feed on Jonathan?" but I can't find it! Has it been posted? Thank you!
Ah, yeah ‒ I did promise that back in my How Gay was Bram Stoker? post, but you can file that one under the general category of "stuff I totally meant to write, but then never got around to." But what the hell: let's do this!
Ahem.
Did Dracula ever feed on Jonathan?
The short answer, based on what Jonathan overhears Dracula saying to his wives in a short passage everyone following Dracula Daily would have read on June 29, is: yes, and perhaps even, well, obviously?
"Back, back, to your own place! Your time is not yet come. Wait! Have patience! To-night is mine. To-morrow night is yours!" There was a low, sweet ripple of laughter, and in a rage I threw open the door, and saw without the three terrible women licking their lips. As I appeared they all joined in a horrible laugh, and ran away. [emphasis mine]
In other words: the brides get to feed on Jonathan tomorrow. It’s Dracula’s turn tonight. If the dialogue doesn’t make this clear enough, the ‘three terrible women licking their lips’ is pretty unambiguous. And we know Dracula did feed that night, because the morning after, Jonathan finds him asleep in his coffin, looking suddenly much younger, with blood dripping from the corners of his mouth. Jonathan never puts together that it was himself Dracula fed on (or at least never mentions it in his diary) – but then, Lucy and Mina never had any idea they’d been fed on either. So the implications remain technically subtext, but there for anyone paying attention.
Except there’s another version of that paragraph quoted above. The Dracula Daily text is evidently drawing from the American version of Dracula, published in 1899 (and pictured above). The original UK publication came out two years previously, and there, Dracula’s speech is oh-so-significantly different.
"Back, back, to your own place! Your time is not yet come. Wait! Have patience! To-morrow night, to-morrow night is yours!" [emphasis again mine]
‘To-night is mine!’ never appeared in Dracula’s original publication, and any subtext that Dracula may have fed on Jonathan is that much subtler without it. Stranger still, this seems to be the only notable difference between the two versions of Dracula: Stoker certainly hasn’t made significant rewrites, nor is there any other evidence some US editor had it sloppily transcribed. So was this change Stoker’s? Was it a deliberate change at all, or just an accident of editing?
Now, I want ‘To-night is mine!’ to be the definitive version – not just because I’m always here for slashy vampire shenanigans, but because it makes so much more sense. Why force the brides to wait for tomorrow, if not so Dracula could have first dibs? For which matter, why keep Jonathan alive and (physically) unharmed in the castle for so long at all, if not as Dracula’s convenient, pre-journey snack? It even ties right back to Jonathan’s first encounter with the brides, and Dracula’s iconic line, This man belongs to me!
It’s admittedly a little questionable that Jonathan himself never acknowledges such definitive evidence Dracula has fed on him (in either version) – but then, panic and denial can do a number on the faculties of a man far faster on the uptake than our dear Jonathan. ‘Tonight is mine, tomorrow is yours!’ doesn’t just read better, it all adds up.
Before I get too bogged down in conspiracy-theories though, I’d like to share one suspiciously similar bit of trivia from the first (authorised) Dracula film adaptation, the Universal picture from 1932. Here, it’s nominally Renfield rather than Jonathan who goes to the castle, and the ‘brides’ have only two scenes and no dialogue, but the climax of the castle section still plays some familiar notes. Drugged at dinner, our Jonathan/Renfield amalgam collapses, and we watch the brides advance on him with clear intent – only for Dracula to sweep in, turn them aside, and lean down over our hapless hero himself.
But this wasn’t supposed to be the version that made it to screen. Supposedly, studio execs had insisted that it would be the women who fall upon their victim, not Dracula himself – and that’s what was in the shooting script. In fact, you can see this version shot as intended in the Spanish-language version of the film (shot at night with a whole second cast and crew, using the same sets and script). But the director for the English-version, Tod Browning, had the sense to ignore the official mandate and let the film's titular villain be the one to bite Renfield. He’s the real threat – he’s the one who Renfield will spend the rest of the film obsessed with. Why undercut that in your very first act?
The answer, of course, is the dreaded h-word: homoeroticism. A vampire bite is far too sexy to be allowed to happen between two men. The boundaries on that one fascinate me a little: neither the novel nor any film adaptation has ever balked at vampire!Lucy preying on children or the brides eating a literal baby because they’re seeing paedophilic overtones all of a sudden. These are horrifying acts, certainly, but here we take them at face value.
By and large though, Dracula is not the text you want to come at with the ‘rational’ notion that there’s nothing inherently sexy about a vampire bite: this is a book where even mundane, life-preserving blood-transfusions have become a very significant metaphor by the time of Lucy’s death. And who goes to a Dracula movie wanting to see Dracula biting men? (Yes, yes, I know. Please form an orderly queue to the left.)
My point in all this is that it’s not like we don’t know that nervous producers are perfectly willing to cut some corners off the integrity of their own product for fear of getting The Gay in their good, wholesome, gothic vampire film. And if producers from the 1930’s could do it… why not publishers from the 1890’s?
This is why it’s so hard not to find layers of meaning in that critical little addition of To-night is mine! Was there some earlier draft of Stoker’s manuscript (much like whichever theoretical earlier draft of the screenplay those execs had objected to) which contained that line? Was it Stoker himself who got nervous, and cut it from the British manuscript before publication? Keep in mind, this was only a couple of years after the Oscar Wilde trial, an incident which brought homosexuality under more scrutiny than it had suffered in an age. Stoker was already a known Wilde-associate, who’d take chances in that environment?
Or was it his publishers who made the change? Anything's possible. Either way, how the ‘original’ version found its way back into the US version is still in question: maybe Stoker found his nerve again, or maybe he just accidentally included a page from the wrong draft ‒ but it's easy to miss these things when the result is an ocean away. Don’t tell me it doesn't sound plausible!
Alas, I am guilty of building this one up mostly just to knock it down again: what little real evidence we have all points the other way. When Stoker re-edited a (slightly) abridged version of Dracula in 1901 (two years after the American one), the original ‘Tomorrow, tomorrow!’ line is dutifully reproduced. When he threw together a stage version (very rough, and which would be “performed” exactly once for copyright reasons alone), there was no ‘To-night is mine!’ in that one either. And the single, surviving full-but-unfinished draft of Dracula that anyone has ever found contained the 'To-morrow' version too. There are some fascinating differences between that one draft and either published version and I could talk about it all day – but if Very Rough Draft Outlines of Dracula is to be believed, then ‘Tomorrow, tomorrow’ was part of the novel long before it reached publication. There’s nothing about this scene in any of Stoker’s earlier very-rough-draft-outlines for Dracula either.
All that said, I still want ‘To-night is mine!’ to have been Stoker’s original plan for that scene. It just works so much better on so many levels!
It also adds rather fascinating little wrinkle to another favourite Dracula-debate topic of mine: does anyone bitten by a vampire become one, or do you have to drink that vampire’s blood in turn?
In these modern, rational times (filled with tales of complex, even sympathetic vampires), we’re much more comfortable with the vampire's-blood version. It just doesn’t track that everyone bitten by a vampire becomes one ‒ not without one vampire turning into a major zombie outbreak within a matter of weeks. And it's so widespread now that few realise the idea didn’t even exist before Dracula. Traditional vampire folklore has a thousand variations and as many different ways someone can join the undead (including being bitten by one), but drinking vampire blood is one I have never found a remotely credible source for. If anything, drinking a vampire’s blood often works to protect you from that vampire (smearing it on your body or eating some of the grave soil may also do the trick).
And even in Dracula, debate remains as to why Dracula forces Mina to drink his blood. Many assert that the true point is to create the psychic connection he uses to spy on her friends later (and his own dialogue in that scene could certainly be taken that way). Meanwhile, Van Helsing does say that anyone bitten can become a vampire. He doesn’t seem at all concerned this will happen to the children Lucy has fed on, but then, destroying the parent vampire before the potential vampires have turned is exactly how Mina is saved too. Whether or not you buy it, it still holds together.
The one-bite version is an interpretation you can still see in lots of post-Dracula media too. Hammer’s Dracula films of the 50s-70s, for example, certainly seem to think that being bitten is plenty (how long the transformation takes post-bite is… less consistent). Not until after Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire comes out in the 1970’s does the idea that you need to drink the vampire’s blood in turn really seem to start taking hold.
But it’s not as though no-one reading Stoker’s novel ever came away with the idea that he'd added a new element to the process of becoming a vampire. Universal’s 1931 film doesn’t even show the iconic blood-drinking scene, leaving Mina simply to recount those events in dialogue after the fact – but Dracula spells out his own purpose to Van Helsing very clearly: "You are too late. My blood now flows through her veins. She will live through the centuries to come...as I have lived."
In fact, there’s an even earlier script from 1927, from a failed attempt to create a new stage version commissioned by Stoker’s own widow, that takes the same angle: “Come, drink of my blood, that you may become even as I.” (Thank you to Skal's Hollywood Gothic for that interesting tidbit!) It’s unlikely that honouring her late-husband’s artistic intent was foremost in Widow Florence's concerns (far more about securing a higher cut of the profits than she was getting from the existing stage versions), but the fact Mrs. Stoker herself was down with that interpretation isn’t nothing.
Looping all the way back to the original point, though, if Jonathan really was supposed to have been bitten by Dracula way back in the early chapters of the novel, then we can pretty much throw the one-bite theory out the window. It doesn’t neaten everything up: we’ve still got the weird implication that Lucy could have been saved by enough blood-transfusions, whereas Mina slowly deteriorates over the journey back to the castle and only Dracula’s death will save her, and so on – because as much as I love this novel, Stoker’s vampire mythology is an inconsistent mess with more holes in it than a parade of slowly-turning vampire victims (and it really is such a tribute to the overall atmosphere that it still draws you in, and can even keep you from noticing the inconsistencies). But damn, could one little bite-mark on Jonathan’s neck recontextualise so much of the rest of the story.
Tl;dr: I will never know for sure whether Stoker’s original plans for Dracula involved Jonathan being bitten by the titular vampire himself, or how that one line came to differ between the UK and US publications. But I really want the US version to be the ‘true’ one. And maybe now you do too.
(Photos of Dracula & Jonathan come from Michael Pink's ballet adaptation of Dracula ‒ the slashiest ballet version I've seen and my second-favourite overall, because I am entirely the kind of Dracula-nerd with a second-favourite ballet version, what can I tell you.)
#Dracula#Dracula Daily#Jonathan Harker#The Homoeroticism of Dracula#Dracula meta#Hammer Dracula#Universal Dracula
318 notes
·
View notes
Text
So here's the deal with immortal desires book 2:
(spoilers ahead)
Why are we acting like the confession and shit never happened in book 1 like mc confessed their love and it was mutual so why is there still a will they won't they going on like bitch they already did.
I think there is a little bit of a clash between the polyamory and the monogamy fans because the monogamy fans are constantly being pushed into this weird love triangle situation even if they're only romancing one LI and the polyamory fans keep getting told that they have to pick one of them. In my opinion Cas and Gabe definetly have an enemies to lovers energy to them with their little banters and competitive rivalries. Honestly I think that choices wrote immortal desires as a twilight/vampire diaries kinda love triangle with the "oh teenager with a single parent moves into a small town and gets thrown into the vampire mess of it all who will she pick the golden retriever or the black cat??!!" I feel like the book could've been more fun if they leaned into the whole messy ass teen love triangle a bit more but book 2 especially is trying to be more serious so I guess it makes sense they didn't do that.
I was a bit disappointed and confused with Cas being so closed off and just storming off butt hurt because of some very minor argument but looking at it now it does make a lot of sense as Cas thinks that he isn't good enough for mc and that they're better off with gabe.
Now onto his back story so....uh I mean I get it but also I'm little underwhelmed and disappointed. Maybe because I've read much better backstories here on Tumblr but I think it could've been so much better. It makes sense he's a foster kid but I wish he was more of a loser like maybe no dyed hair, no piercings, no chains and no leather jacket- a more insecure cas that hasn't yet discovered a sense of self would've made more sense and it would show us how he's changed and more confident as a vampire also it would explain the bullying a little better. I wish we would've gotten more of the vampires that advocated for him getting turned more in book 1 like scenes of them being protective over Cas and defending him etc. but I guess it makes sense they weren't present since initially immortal desires was a stand alone. His backstory also introduces a lot of plot holes because it definitely hasn't been long enough since he went to high school as a human for all the human teachers etc to be dead so like how is no one recognising this dude?
I've talked about this before but it just feels like a repeat of book one a lot so I'm scared we're getting the same not-much-happens-in-the-first-9-chapters-then-the-plot-slaps-you-hard-followed-by-a-half-assed-ending
#immortal desires#immortal desires choices#choices immortal desires#immortal desires 1#immortal desires 2#immortal desires book 1#immortal desires book 2#id 1#id 2#id#id choices#choices id#gas#cas harlow#gabe adalhard#choices#choices stories we play#pixelberry choices#choices game#choices stories you play#pixelberry#play choices#pixelberry studios#playchoices
19 notes
·
View notes
Text
Wolventraum - Chapter 1
I walked through a gate arch half collapsed onto the road. Someone must have tried to use the bricks as a shield, but the claws had still struck. Broken glass screamed under my boots. The capital had fallen. The Kingdom would follow. That was all my mind circled back to as I wandered between the numb, haunted people cleaning out houses and tossing bodies onto funeral pyres in the street. The weak winter sun barely even kept the monsters at bay. I heard them grunting and snarling in the shadows, as if daring each other to snatch someone out of the light. Small demons, some ghouls, too, lured by the devastation. A small army of vampire thralls hid away from the daylight, mindless on their own, dirt and blood disguising who they used to be. It was the thralls that had taken the city by surprise, I figured, though a few still smoking ruins told me that some folk tried to fight back. Fire was an obvious choice, and usually the right one. It just hadn't been enough, not against this many.
Blood dripped from my cheek and soaked my collar. The bite had opened up again, the result of my own most recent encounter with a small group of thralls. I tried to ignore the pain when I pressed a bit of cloth to the bite. I'd been lucky to avoid infection so far, and I was ready to sing the praises of our order's enchanters. Their medical kits were godlike when I compared them with my makeshift little pack, and I had hit the jackpot when I found one of them in one of our caches along the main roads on the way here.
It was beginning to get dark. I slipped through a doorway, sword drawn, and found the house clear of monsters. Not so clear of body parts, though, when I made my way to the partially blocked off basement. Most of them bore the bite marks of dull teeth but strong jaws.
A diary sat on a writing desk, next to a burned out candle. A few bits and pieces of the former homeowners littered the floor, dark shadows in pools of dried blood. They were newer than some others I'd seen, two days at most. The setting sun threatened to drown the entire room in darkness.
I snatched the diary from the desk and booked it out of the basement. If I needed to hole up in a different building for a while, I might as well have something to read. Boredom could be just as dangerous as the monsters, and I had no patience for a dozen recitals of our rules and bestiary.
The neighbouring building was free of monsters and body parts. It had a basement with a few tiny iron-barred windows towards the street, and a heavy door that could be locked from the inside. In another room, I found a narrow couch, which I shoved and cursed at until it was down the basement stairs and in a spot I could see the windows and door from. I sat back and leaned my sword against the couch.
Even with the door latched and locked and on the admittedly comfortable couch, at least compared to the floor, I didn't sleep a wink. As night seeped into the streets, so did the monsters, and I heard them several times as they passed by my hiding spot and found easier prey. Every time I heard screaming, I resisted the urge to jump up and run to help. It was my duty, of course, but so was resting. I was more likely to add to the body count if I threw myself into battle with a bleeding face and throbbing headache. My movements had already become sluggish.
In the morning, with the sun and clear sky weak but reliable allies, I ventured out into the streets to search for some breakfast. I had some rations left, but if there was a chance I could find something better, I would gladly spend some time wandering.
“You!” someone called out from near a row of bodies. “Get here and help if you can walk!”
“You got any food?” I called back, and slowly walked closer. A few civilians tended to the bodies, avoiding a thrall that was starting to turn to ash where a ray of sunlight hit it. I took out my matchbox and lit the thrall up, ignoring how the man who'd called me over screamed in shock. The others backed away, mirroring his fearful expression.
“You have to burn the thralls,” I explained when he was done screaming and the thrall was a pile of ashes. “If you leave them in the shadows for too long, they get back up eventually.”
The man looked from me to the ashes, then back to me. His eyes fell on the emblem on my coat. “You did a shit job, you people,” he said, but our reputation as merciless monster hunters still commanded enough respect to make him keep his eyes down and voice low.
“We weren't hired to prevent a surprise attack no one saw coming,” I said, shrugging. “I'm here now. Not paid, mind, so I'll help now. You can pay me with breakfast.”
He glared at me, but didn't protest. He was right, though, we'd done a shit job in recent years. Dwindling numbers as our active Hunters died off in action had made our leader decide to take jobs only when someone called for us. We needed enough experienced Hunters at headquarters if we wanted to train the recruits we got. I'd left headquarters in summer precisely to avoid that duty, and was dreading the paperwork for not reporting back regularly.
For a few days, I assisted the survivors in burning their dead and the thralls. I stopped counting how many times I told someone that thralls needed direct sunlight, ideally not the weak winter light, or fire to burn to ashes. Once they were ash, they wouldn't get up again. The same was true for the vampires that made and controlled them, but vampires were much harder prey to take down. Even we Hunters usually tag-teamed them or went three on one. And they were hiding well enough within the city that I couldn't even track them. Not that I had a death wish, but it would have been nice to warn people what houses to avoid.
Every once in a while, I got some time to peruse the diary. It was fairly new, not even half the pages had ink on them. The last entries especially caught my interest, and I carefully pried the pages open. The blood had done some damage to the ink, but most of it was still legible. The diary's owner was a Lady Viviane Walkers.
December 25th
I cannot help but pay attention to the whispers now. Every time I go out for tea, pass by a shop, glance at a newspaper. Ink and tongues whisper of something horrible bound to happen before the year is over. I could write a story from this, but it would be in poor taste, at least until I know what is really going on.
Perhaps it had not been as surprising an attack as I had thought. If people had known something was going on, someone had neglected to tell them exactly what that was, and how to prepare for it. My first suspects were the King and his advisors.
December 28th
What everyone feared has come. Fires are lit day and night in the city, no one goes out when it’s not a bright, sunny day. We received notice to stay inside and keep doors and windows locked, to let no one in, not even if we know them. An enemy siege, the notice read, but no one has heard anything about a war or even any conflict with our neighbours. And there is nothing outside the city, no one is besieging us. From our attic, I can see the outskirts of the city in the distance. There is nothing there, no army, no siege armaments.
Things howl at night, but not like wolves. And things, creatures, rattle the windows at night. It’s not just the wind, I know it. They try to get in, but the bars and boards hold firm. I dare not light a candle after sundown, not even with the curtains drawn and windows barred.
Smart. Fire kept them away, but small lights lured them in.
Everyone is afraid. Before we were locked in, Elizabeth and Tomlin and their little Lydia made it here, just in time. No word from my grandparents.
I dread to think how Liza must feel, with her birthday in just a few days. I want to give her something, but I can't go out. Maybe I'll write her a poem.
Liza's suitors withdrew their proposals before the lockdown came, and I can hardly blame them. She didn’t seem all that upset about it, either.
December 30th
Something tore the windows next door apart last night. The screaming was horrible, but the quiet after even more so. We all moved what we could into the basement, only father and Tomlin go up from time to time to patrol the house.
They went up two hours ago and haven’t come back. I didn’t hear anything, no one did. We have little hope, though no one dares to say so.
And yet, it is Liza's birthday, and I will write her a poem, even just a short one. I know you sneak looks at my diary, and I hope this will take the dread away for a moment. I love you, my dear sister.
Winter child,
And yet your hair is sunshine and your laugh is warmth
Year-end child,
Your smile brings promises of spring
Sister, friend, heart,
May your joy forever sing
I could have written a better one, I suppose, if it were quiet outside and warm inside. I recited the poem to Liza and she sobbed, as did mother, and I almost did, too. This dreaded sound. I thought it was howling, but it's more like crying and screaming and growls.
I cannot keep Liza and mother calm. I am on the verge of tears myself. I wish Valentin was here, I’d feel safer with him. I wish I’d stayed in the village, maybe then I wouldn’t have to hear
Next Chapter
Last Chapter
Letters
Diary Entries
#dreaming goblin writes#Wolventraum#my writing#writeblr#werewolves#vampires#fantasy#fantasy writeblr#fantasy writer#fantasy writing#dreaming goblin writes books#writers on tumblr#original writing#creative writing
11 notes
·
View notes
Note
Hey there! Do you believe the Mikaelson's deserved their "happy ending." This ask is a bit sporadic btw.
I mean, what does that mean for their victims? What does justice look like in the vampire diaries universe. Literally all the suoernaturals were serial killers or knew serial killers.
Camille and Elijah had this anger searing within them. You could see it in Elijah's annoying sassy speaches. Camille understood Klaus, a serial killer. That's awful. And we see how she became after a vampire. I'm not saying this show is awfully written, i'm just saying their characters are interesting because their awful.
Unpopular oppinion but Elijah's type was ass. He found the worst of the worst with an attitude beyond his and called it a day.
I also heavily hated how they treated Marcel, Elijah and Hayley get to go to peace for that too. You said something that stuck to me and still does- you said the problem with the Mikaelson's is that "they don't try not to hurt eachother" which I could literally see in real life too. They were awful to each other yet got together in the after life. I mean jackson and Hayley too were toxic. Is the after life some parallel to the real world. I mean if their isn't any hell, how the heck does malivore work.
I could argue all supernaturals are bad and they kinda all went to "hell" together- Were-wolfs kill, just not at the caliber of Vampires. But their still a pack of serial killers camping with each other. Marcel did a good job of keeping control of the mass murder, he ruled the city with a keen eye to allow feeding and less death. Witches use blood to fule their magic too and are also awful.
I mean, do you think that the supernaturals killing each other would be better for the community of new orleans?
Just a bunch of questions, sorry !
About time I finally got to this after almost a month. My apologies!
So, I don't really know how controversial this take is, but I don't feel they did enough to deserve a fully happy ending, but I do believe they deserve some credit for trying to change for the better at certain points. However, I feel there was so little redemption done that all I can think is where they were GOING to go. We don't really know. I feel a lot of the redemption happened in the last season of TO, and then they all died, so how much of a happy ending do they really deserve? Or do they deserve it based on who they were going to become? Or WERE they gonna become even better people? I DON'T KNOW!! That's the problem, nobody knows where their direction was going. That's why I personally think if they knew the actors for these characters didn't want to stick around long, they shouldn't have even started huge character arcs for characters that didn't want to continue on into Legacies.
You make a great point with the whole "hell" questioning, I mean where did they really go? That's some lazy writing if I've ever seen it. That's a pretty huge story detail to just go "oops sorry didn't write that in hehe".
If they are in the afterlife together, I hope they're all arguing just like they did in life. I think that's the biggest punishment and hell they can ever have;being stuck together forever.
As for your last question, I do think it's possible that it could be beneficial depending on who died and such. I mean, there probably are some supernaturals who don't want to fight or anything, but the bad ones, I mean sure? Honestly that's a tough question.
Thanks for the questions, this was really interesting and thought provoking!
5 notes
·
View notes
Note
Did you delete your voice claims post ( o o)? I can't find it 」( _ _)」
Ahhhh I'm like 100% sure that was on my old blog that got deleted when I got terminated 😔
I know that @/maleyanderecafe and @/torao-chan (sorry i get embarrassed pinging people in posts since in this case it feels unnecessary :')) ) both rb my posts related to forever yours so maybe it's buried somewhere in their blogs....
But regardless I remember most of them and kinda changed a couple, so here's the list of my voice claims on the fy yours boys + cupid, I'll add the rest of the side characters once I find good/solid ones for all of them.
Tama - I'm still firm in choosing Bear Ghost for Tama. The specific songs I like to use an example are Paradise and Starkiller, but also this clip from Bee and Puppycat and I basically have nothing to add on lol. Any song by Bear Ghost fits voice wise in my head.
Max - Darling Dance (English Cover) by Anthong the Gay has been the closest I could ever get. It's like 95% what his voice sounds like to me, the other 5% being just like, intonation issues. Max doesn't really try to hide how he feels so his tone and manner of speaking makes it verrrrry clear how he feels at any given moment, so his voice has more extreme highs and lows.
I've been told that it's a surprising choice because they expect his voice to be higher, which I think is funny. He would find high-pitched, overly cutesy, squeaky voices annoying and grating to listen to.
Psy - Another one that's been clear since I've chosen it, Lucky Love by Michael Seyer is basically ideal in my head. The voice fits well, the calm, tender, gentle, mature/knowledgeable tone is basically perfect!
Lake - A very, very difficult one, mostly because he doesn't have a very strong voice in my head! (which is funny because I know how he talks very clearly). I think it's because the sounds of super, intensely emotional voices cause me to panic internally a little, so when I write his dialogue my brain is like "lol no voice here" or else I would Not be able to Get Through It. I've chosen This December and Fly Me to The Moon (cover) by Ricky Montgomery before, which I do think are nice choices. Some additional songs by Ricky Montgomery that I think are even more fitting for Lake's voice is It's Ok to Cry and Boy Toy (acoustic version).
Lycoris - Sweet Tangerine by The Hush Sound is really good! Recently I added These Hands from Frankenstein - A New Musical to my brain as like. an extra layer of flavor in my head, due to the very tormented and guilt-ridden tone that Lycoris would definitely have as someone who is a bit more self aware than the others. Also I just like The Creature in Frankenstein and his depiction in this musical lol.
Cupid - Ok so. I was basically sold on Kiss Me You Animal by Burn the Ballroom and I still am! But also DON'T WANNA SLEEP and READ YOUR DIARY by Måneskin kinda fit his general vibe like, genre-wise more. Even if the lyrical narrative doesn't match him as much...... the vibes of the genre.......... fits very well........... I am making no sense I know.......... Adriel Genet's voice fits Cupid better than Damiano David ultimately, but Måneskin's frequent subject matter about partying all night and romance issues fits Cupid more than the spooky-haunted-vampire vibe of Burn the Ballroom.
3 notes
·
View notes
Text
CALLY, 31, CST; SHE/HER. | if you’re hearing SOON YOU’LL GET BETTER BY TAYLOR SWIFT playing, you have to know KATE TJONG (SHE/HER; FEMALE) is near by! the 40 year old ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHER has been in denver for, like, HER ENTIRE LIFE. they’re known to be quite SELF-LOATHING, but being NURTURING seems to balance that out. or maybe it’s the fact that they resemble KRISTIN KREUK. personally, i’d love to know more about them seeing as how they’ve got those KIDS FLOCKING TO THEM, MOTHERLY VIBES, AND COVERING PAIN WITH A SMILE AND ENDLESS WORK vibes. and maybe i’ll get my chance if i hang out around the MONTBELLO DISTRICT long enough!
Trigger Warning for teen pregnancy, cancer, pediatric cancer, child death, depression, grief, & suicide
Basic Info
Full Name: Katherine Grace Tjong
Nicknames: Kate, Katie
Age: 40
Birthday: June 30th, 1983
Zodiac: Cancer
Occupation: Elementary School Teacher (5th Grade)
Schooling: University of Denver
Hometown: Denver, Colorado
Ethnicity: Dutch, Chinese-Indonesian, Chinese-Jamaican
Languages Spoken: English, some Indonesian
Gender: Cisfemale
Pronouns: She/Her
Sexuality: Heterosexual
Relationship Status: Single
Living in: Montbello District
Family Info
Maternal Grandparents: Hendri and Amoy Subagyo (nee Fong) met in Indonesia as children. They grew up together and got married very young. Hendri and Amoy moved to America with the help of Hendri’s brother, Badri, who had already immigrated there. Badri got Hendri a job in a construction company and Amoy began working as a seamstress before having their daughter, Alice Subagyo. Hendri died at the age of 46 from a heart attack and Amoy moved back to Indonesia eight years ago.
Paternal Grandparents: Silas and Grace Tjong (nee Peris) met after Grace’s family moved to Boulder, Colorado when she was in high school. Silas and Grace bonded over a shared history of being Chinese-Indonesian with both speaking Indonesian. They were married after college and had three children together. They still live in Boulder, though they often travel the world.
Parents: Paul and Alice Tjong (nee Subagyo) met at the University of Denver, where Paul was a teaching assistant and Alice was in her third year. They got married only a year later after Alice fell pregnant, though their marriage didn’t last. When their daughter was only nine, they divorced. Paul remarried four years later and is still with his current wife, whom he retired to Florida with after being a high school history teacher for many years. Alice remarried several times and had many different jobs. She lives in Colorado Springs, but often visits her daughter in Denver.
Siblings: Kate has three stepsiblings through her father’s remarriage, though they are not very close as they were nearly adults when their mother married her father.
Son: Eric James Tjong, who died at the age of eight years old from cancer
Pets: None
Physical Info
Hair color: Dark Brown
Eye color: Hazel
Height: 5’4”
Tattoos: None
Piercings: One in earlobes
Character Inspo: Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games), Olivia Benson (Law & Order SVU), Haley James Scott (One Tree Hill), Ella Montgomery (Pretty Little Liars), Emma Swan (Once Upon a Time), Regina Mills (Once Upon a Time), Bobby Nash (911), Melissa McCall (Teen Wolf), Mia Jones (Degrassi), Elena Gilbert (The Vampire Diaries), Mustang (Red Rising), Elain Archeron (ACOTAR), Cami O’Connell (The Originals), Tessa Gray (The Infernal Devices)
Background
Kate was born in Denver, Colorado during the happier times of her parent’s marriage. Though those happy times did not last very long. She didn’t know a time when her parents weren’t fighting with each other, but they doted on her often. It was honestly a bit of a relief when they divorced. Kate stayed with her mom, but often visited her father. Their home was in the Lakeridge District. Her mother didn’t finish college after she fell pregnant and had a variety of odd jobs over the years. From a waitress to a substitute teacher to a daycare worker. Alice got married several times, but again, these often didn’t last. Alice seemed to want a better life than they could give her, one she felt she couldn’t achieve on her own.
While her mother’s life was a bit more chaotic, her father’s life was much calmer. He settled down with an older woman who already had kids mostly grown. They lived a quiet, happy life and are still together. They were never very rich, but Kate never felt like she was lacking for anything. Both sides of her family connected her to her Chinese-Indonesian culture, especially her mom given her status as a first generation American in her family. Her grandparents being close by helped as well and she appreciates where she comes from, though she does not speak much Indonesian. However she does often cook foods she learned from her family.
Growing up, Kate was one of those people everyone liked. Her kind nature and genuine attitude towards people drew them to her. Ask around people she graduated with and they would say she was always nice. Most didn’t know her that well, but they at least had a kind word to say about her. She was encouraged by friends to join the cheerleading team freshman year, which is how she met her first love. He was on the football team, though he was often on the bench those first few years. But during the first game when she was cheering and he was sitting on the bench, they chatted a bit and they ended up agreeing to a first date. From there, they were inseparable.
TW: Teen Pregnancy
They were the It Couple, the ones everyone talked about being together forever. You often didn’t see one without the other. As they got older, he became a football star and soon they were the ones winning homecoming king and queen, prom king and queen, all the things. They had all their firsts together and talked often about the future together. But reality quickly shifted when Kate fell pregnant just before graduation. She was terrified and wasn’t sure what to do, as well as being afraid of her family’s reaction and his. At first when she told her boyfriend, he was freaked out, but agreed to be there for her. They tried to tell their families together, but his family had always disapproved of her. They had never really accepted her and had hoped for better things for their son. He had gotten a major scholarship for football to a school out of state and wanted him to go there. They wanted Kate to get rid of the baby. Due to pressure from his family and them getting in his head, he told Kate he wasn’t ready to be a father, that he needed to go away to college and pursue his dreams. It broke her heart and they ended things.
He left and never came back, while Kate changed her plans, living with her mother and attending the University of Denver. While her mother wasn’t happy about her pregnancy, she still supported her daughter. She managed to attend some summer classes and most of the first semester so that she could take off the second semester and take care of her child. Her son was born in December and from the moment she laid eyes on him, Eric was everything to her. Since his father wanted nothing to do with him and neither did his paternal grandparents, she never told them about the baby or anything. Occasionally she saw them around town, but they never once asked about their grandchild. Kate’s parents were a huge help when it came to raising her son. They would take turns watching him while she attended university and worked. Her grandparents often came to help with him as well. And while it took a bit longer than normal, she managed to graduate university and become a teacher.
She loved children and was always good with them, so being a teacher had been her plan for years, especially thanks to her father’s influence with his own teaching career. She began teaching the first grade and absolutely loved it. Outside of her work, she fully devoted herself to her son. He was her entire life. She didn’t really date or even attempt to do anything without him. And while they struggled, they were happy together. Until Eric turned six years old and became very sick. He began having trouble eating, growing thinner and thinner, and unable to keep food down. At first, Kate thought it might be some sort of stomach bug, an ulcer, anything other than what it turned out to be.
TW: cancer, pediatric cancer, child death
After many doctor’s visits, Eric was diagnosed with pancreatoblastoma, a rare pancreatic cancer. He had tumors in his pancreas that had been growing for quite some time slowly. They began treatment quickly, starting with surgery in attempts to remove the tumors. During surgery, they found they were unable to remove some of the tumor, so he began chemotherapy. It was a long battle for two years with many ups and downs, but eventually, Eric just became too weak and the cancer too strong. He passed away at the age of eight, devastating his mother. It broke Kate to lose her son, the most important person to her. It was like she lost her entire life when he was gone.
TW: depression, suicide, grief
She fell into a deep depression after her son died, all of it crashing down on her. She took a sabbatical from work and was barely able to leave her bed or home for almost a year. Her friends and family were worried for her, especially after one found her ready to end her life to be with her son. They encouraged her to attend grief counseling and she did. It took a long time for her to get to a place where she could get out of bed, that she could be a normal person again. The pain was with her always, but she could manage it. She came back to teaching eventually, her coworkers welcoming her with open arms. At first it was hard being around the kids, realizing her own son would never reach their age, would never grow older.
Over the years, she has managed to put herself back together. She is a great teacher and still has kids coming up to her to this day, saying she was their favorite teacher. In her social life, she very much keeps to herself, still never having really been with or dated anyone since her first love. She attempted a few dates, but they never worked out.
Personality:
Kate is a very kind and empathetic person. However, she is also very shy and quiet at times. People would describe her as the girl-next-door, the one everyone likes and gets along with. After everything happened with her ex, she became more independent, more hard working to provide for her son. Once he passed away, she became even more reserved, keeping to herself more often. In recent years, she has thrown herself into all sorts of things to avoid feeling lonely and depressed. She volunteers at the theater, doing all sorts of odd jobs for Felipe, including using her old piano skills whenever needed. She is always coming up with fun things for her class, trying out new hobbies, and participating in every sort of city event she possibly could. During the summers when she isn’t teaching, she often even volunteers with the daycare center or library with children’s programs.
10 notes
·
View notes
Note
Thanks to y'all I finished the Marsh Masterpiece and you weren't exaggerating and, as you had pointed out, it sucks at depicting the aftermaths of assault (among the things that made my Syrian ass sigh as much as every other anti-middle eastern propaganda shit out there) bc it handles trauma so bizarrely? Holt is tortured by the caricature, and upon seeing Paul L who he admired react with terror about that same caricature, he proceeds to lose respect for him for being unmasculine. Paul proceeds to care about his kidnapped fiancee's state of purity above all. Marjorie is attacked by the bug in her own bed and her reaction to Holt's fear of the same bug is contempt. There was a rife opportunity there for exploration, like how shared trauma between lovers affects their relationship. Look at how the once meek and scared Harker forsakes his soul if his love is forsaken, how he called the vampires devils of the pit and now chooses to share a bed with a devil, or how the once bubbly and confident in her goodness Mina asks him to vow to brutalize her and internalizes her Fallen state as deserving. Boom, cause and effect- the villain has irreversibly changed them and their relationship and we see how they deal with that. With the Beetle, what was even the point?
The saddest thing about this is that it reminds me of how much HAS NOT changed in media depicting assault. It's for so many times JUST for shock value and/or demonization of a group of people. Modern police dramas and fantasy series are notoriously bad about this, though not just them. But yeah, great to know that people always loved sexplotation crap...
First of all: I sincerely apologize for my part in getting you to read the entirety of this book. (said jokingly, but also a little bit not, haha)
And YEAH, everything you said is so right. There's not just a weird handling of trauma, but this bizarre disconnect between all the characters. None of them have empathy for one another, even when the source of their fear/trauma is literally the exact same person (though 'caricature' is in many ways a better word, not like the Beetle gets much personality outside of a bunch of racist stereotypes in a trenchcoat), most of the time even via them acting in the same ways. And so the result is this story where none of the characters really connect with one another in a meaningful way. That's definitely not the only problem, but - as I saw in a meta from @animate-mush earlier today - in The Beetle, things just seem to happen to the characters, and the horror is more about their helplessness. In Dracula, the characters feel and do things all the time! Often, those aren't the right feelings or actions, or the characters wind up feeling like they're participating in the evil, thus fostering that horror of complicity. But in this book, our ongoing jokes that nothing anyone does affects the plot at all are... not really jokes, they're pretty true. If all the POV characters had done nothing at all, the Beetle still would have hypnotized someone else to steal Paul Lessingham's letters, still would have terrorized/kidnapped Marjorie, and still would have died in the train crash (setting aside the sequel-bait "or did they live after all...?" moment). Not only did they do very little in the first place, what they did was irrelevant. I guess you can say that ties into the theme of the horror, but, ehhhh.
And again, you are absolutely correct about the missed opportunity for conflict/growth between the couple. They spend almost no time together outside of flashbacks, and don't confide in one another at all, let alone explore their changed relationship. But also, to zoom out from just them... for a novel which is at least 70% people telling one another stories about what happened to them, no one actually reacts to those stories very much. In Dracula, Jonathan's diary provokes strong reactions in everyone who reads it, and directly/very importantly informs their next actions. Mina's account of Whitby gives Van Helsing the push to start the hunt for vamped!Lucy, and Seward's records give the clue that Renfield is connected to Dracula in some way. Even the Captain of the Demeter's log, read after his death, gives added context to the hunt and helps set them on their box chase which is of vital importance. The characters not only tell each other their stories - and write letters, and look up records - but they are changed and brought closer by the sharing of their experiences. The whole process is a unifying one.
The Beetle doesn't do any of that. After hearing Holt's account, Marjorie and Sydney unsympathetically take him to revisit the source of his trauma. Sydney, despite knowing she's telling the truth, tries to dismiss Marjorie the entire time she's talking to him. Champnell privately judges Paul Lessingham throughout his story. Marjorie and Paul don't really talk at all! Even when all of the characters come together for the final chase, they spend half the time talking over/insulting/arguing with one another. Both because they haven't all shared information fully in the first place, and because none of them have been changed or emotionally affected too much by one another's stories. The whole book reminds me of this excerpt from a critical essay about Dracula where the author claimed that there's a horrible bitter rivalry between all the suitors and their proclamations of love and friendship are lies. It's the worst bad faith interpretation of the text... and one Richard Marsh, seemingly, would have looked at and went "let's make that canon!"
Finally... it really is sadly true how little some things have changed. I mean, certainly, you can find a lot of much better depictions of trauma and aftermath (and companionship and less racism and better writing and-) nowadays. But equally, you can find plenty, scads upon scads, of the same kind of awful tropes as Marsh used (I can easily come up with some common ones in police detective shows especially). Maybe the worst part is that they can normalize terrible associations/expectations in a casual audience without them even realizing. And even in more nuanced stories, lots of people have very reductive interpretations. (See: the above mentioned Dracula essay. Or any of the many Dracula adaptations that claim to be more feminist or something while playing into just as bad and in some cases worse tropes as the original.) In a lot of ways, many of our modern tropes and interpretations around race/sex/gender/etc. are often not any more enlightened than Victorian ones were. Not always, of course! But more than enough.
#the beetle weekly#anonymous#replies#i read volume one of 'the league of extraordinary gentlemen' last night#bc i wanted to know for myself the original context to better appreciate the many ways lxgf is better#and. boy oh boy. no one was kidding about the many many issues there either#and that was written only what. 20 years ago?#i mean i could go more recent as well but this is the first to come to mind since i just read it
23 notes
·
View notes
Text
welcome back to stranger things characters/ships as songs. this episode; GUTS !
all-american bitch - nancy. the battle between trying to be something society likes while still being a strong woman. she’s very much girl-next-door, americana-dream coded
bad idea right? - steddie. specifically used to be dating in secret steddie. this song just really reminds me of steve talking to robin getting ready to go hang out with eddie again after not talking for months
vampire - s2 stancy, from nancy’s pov. i adore steve, but he wasn’t a great boyfriend to nancy. in this season, she is so clearly struggling with barbs death and he just wanted to move on. “how’s the castle built of people you pretend to care about?” “i’ve made some real big mistakes, but you make the worst one look fine” nancy blames them for barbs death, the worst mistake, and steve is “making it look fine” by trying to just go back to normal. “every girl i ever talked to told me you were bad, bad news” “how do you lie without flinching?” and the dinner scene with barbs parents
lacy - ronance. nancy about seeing robin with steve, thinking she’s jealous that she gets to have steve, when in reality she’s falling for robin and jealous that steve gets to have her. i can also see this being from robins pov without the jealousy undertone.
ballad of a homeschool girl - el. just feeling awkward and like you don’t know what to do in social situations fits so well with growing up as an actual science experiment. plus, “everything i do is tragic, every guy i like is gay”
making the bed - will and el about mike. first half is will. “another thing i ruined i used to do for fun” and the dnd fight. “another conversation with nothing good to say” and the season 4 fight. “another day pretending i’m older than i am” “another perfect moment that doesn’t feel like mine” airport scene. “another thing i forced to be a sign” “push away all the people who know me the best” second verse is el. “my life feels so out of control” “i tell someone i love them just as a distraction. they tell me that they love me like i’m some tourist attraction” “i got the things i wanted, it’s just not as i imagined.” “i’m so tired of being the girl that i am. every good thing i have turns into something i dread”
logical - joyce and lonnie. i can also see max and billy if you ignore the romance love and make it a little sister loving her older brother, but i think joyce fits a bit better. i could also see maybe karen and ted
get him back! - steddie again. steve is just so teenage girl pop coded. but in my little used to be secretly dating au, this is very much right when he’s realizing he still has feelings for eddie
love is embarrassing - going right back to my steddie au. i might right a whole fic honestly. this would be from eddie’s perspective
the grudge - max about billy AND will about his dad. i desperately need people to dive into that dynamic more.
pretty isn’t pretty - honestly, robin is the closest i can find. or maybe a trans!stevie
teenage dream - nancy. it’s so nancy coded. the whole first verse is written in nancy’s diary.
#guts#stranger things#steve harrington#eddie munson#mike wheeler#steddie#el hopper#olivia rodrigo#idk how to tag this
8 notes
·
View notes
Note
Hypothetically Bella gets midnight sun at some point during the part of eclipse where she’s semi-functional, like either plot convenience it appears or she finds Edward’s diary or whatever, but she’s got midnight sun. What happens
Ha.
Oh anon, I'm so sorry.
It makes no difference. Because the thing is, Bella's already essentially read Midnight Sun.
What You Talking About, Muffin?
Remember, that for all Bella hasn't seen it in plain text... She kind of already knows. Even in the beginning, as early as Twilight, Edward has told her some insane shit that should have sent her running for the hills.
First, he openly admits that he's dangerous and not the good guy. He invites her to lunch and in the same lunch tells her "I'm tired of trying to be good" and "But you really should run you stupid fuck". Bella says, "Hmmmm, but I think you're trying to be good, so I guess that's okay."
He does this "I've decided to talk to you because I'm embracing my inner sociopath" "but seriously don't talk to me because it will end badly" a number of times before Bella figures out the great secret. He also drops a few "I'll totally murder Mike Newton, AH HA HA HA HA" Bella proceeds to joke "Poor Mike."
The Port Angeles fiasco, Edward admits to stalking her through intensive horrifying means (lurking in the thoughts of Jessica Stanley) driving around the town until he finds her. He then tells her "you better distract me or I'm totally going to murder those vermin we left behind", Bella tries, and Edward says, "NOT DISTRACTING ENOUGH, AHHHHHHHHHH!" They then go to have dinner. During which Edward proceeds to be weird.
The meadow, Edward berates Bella extensively for lying to Charlie as it gives Edward the perfect opportunity to kill her. And it's... the way he talks, it's not about Bella's stupidity, it's that he's very clearly tempted. He also tells her that Alice gave them very bad odds for this meadow thing. Then waxes poetry about how he's a lion that fell in love with a delicious lamb.
"What a stupid lamb," Bella agrees with a romantic sigh.
Also during this we have Edward displaying how terrifying he is in a manner that's... quite terrifying for all it's ridiculous. We also have him admitting to having plotted the murder of her entire Biology classroom so that he could eat her. Of how he despised her, at first, because she dared to get in his way and be delicious. How his family had a meeting where they discussed her assassination because she was nearly hit by a van.
He later informs her that he's been in her room, watching her and her family, every night for several weeks.
Look, I could go on, and by the time we get Eclipse even Bella's getting a clue.
She's not liking the constant watching going on of her, that Edward's manipulating her and keeping her in his house, that she's not allowed to be friends with Jacob or go to the res. She hatches a "I am running away from my abusive partner" escape plan to get to the res.
And she still doesn't clue in.
Why Not?
In Eclipse? Mostly because I imagine she can't. To leave Edward is to return to New Moon. Edward was the quick fix for Bella's lethal depression, which is why she is now so desperate to both be turned and stay with him even when he leverages demands such as marriage on her.
To leave Edward (even if she could which is an entirely different story) is to, sooner or later, choose to kill herself.
So, She Finds Edward's Diary
She doesn't read it too closely and all the good bits she already knows. He's admitted to most of it, some of it may have been a little sugar coated, but it was all there.
She didn't know he started with alcoholics in his running away from home phase, and she's not sure she likes that, but he switched to murderers and rapists so it's okay.
She basically takes Edward at incredible face value and as he's admitted much of this to her already, it's not news.
Edward's a vampire, yes, he's killed people, yes, he really wants to kill her, yes, but he loves her and that love overcomes that and he tries desperately to overcome his nature.
Good for you, Edward.
#twilight#twilight meta#twilight headcanon#twilight renaissance#bella swan#edward cullen#anti edward cullen#meta#headcanon#opinion
99 notes
·
View notes
Text
Damn Your Love, Damn Your Lies chp 9
here is the latest chapter of read it below
Daniel gets back to reading. Eventually, he has to stop. Claudia, Charlie, Lestat, the incinerator. It’s too much.
“Vivid writer, isn’t she?” It’s Louis, who crept in from resting. “A singular style.”
“Anne Frank meets Stephen King,” Daniel says, then gets ready to start recording. “Session four, Louis de Pointe du Lac, and the child vampire, Claudia.”
Daniel pulls off his glasses. “So, it begs the question, where were all these diaries in 1973?”
Louis glances at him. “Scattered. One in New Orleans, another in Paris.”
He’s lying. “Bullshit.”
Louis walks over and sits in a chair in the sand pit near the tree. He crosses his legs and closes his eyes. “Claudia was…everything.” His eyes open and he looks at Daniel. “I loved her unconditionally. All the noise, the chaos, the crisis of my former existence, silenced. The simple joy of her hand in mine.”
“You had a daughter.”
“I had a daughter.”
Daniel gets it. Daughters and fathers can be complicated things. “I’ve got two. The love is kind of…”
He doesn’t know how to describe it. It’s the all encompassing love that makes you want to get your shit together and be a better person. The kind that understands you waited too late to try. But he’s not going to think about his daughters.
“And if you were to come across their diaries and learn, in detail, how and when you failed them, would you share those failures with a brash young reporter you met at Polynesian Mary’s?”
Daniel chuckles. Louis makes a point. “It’s funny. I’ve been dreaming about old Mary’s ever since you sent me the tapes.”
Louis rises and gestures to the books. “Where have you reached?”
Was that a deflection? Interesting. Something to ponder later.
“1923-ish. Her date with Charlie.”
Something flickers in Louis’ eyes. “Ah.”
Daniel pushes his glasses back on and looks at the journal. “And his bones-”
“Cracked black and his face turned to soup,” Louis finishes. Daniel pulls his glasses back off and studies him.
“Charlie’s death ushered in one of the darkest eras of our lives,” Louis continues. “The oh-so-delicate balance of our oh-so-delicate household was shattered. The fantasy of happiness burst. Claudia was…”
“A band-aid for a shitty marriage?” Daniel supplies.
“I was going to say…” Louis starts, then turns his back to Daniel “...something else.”
Daniel waits for Louis to continue. Louis goes and sits down. “But yes…that’s almost certainly what she felt like.”
Daniel doesn’t exactly know what to say next, but Louis throws him a curveball. “Rashid will be joining us later. That won’t bother you, will it, Daniel?”
Hadn’t he started this saying no third parties? Then again, he’d also started this saying he was straight and Rashid came in and wrecked that? So why not this? “Ah, no. It’s fine.”
“Yes, I thought you might say so.”
Daniel narrows his eyes. “What does that mean?”
Louis gives him a look too innocent to be sincere. “Nothing, Daniel.”
Daniel doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just holds up the diary. “I gotta get back to reading.”
Louis makes some small noise in reply, then stands. “I’ll leave you to it.”
Daniel watches him leave and takes a deep breath. Does Louis know? He can read minds, and Daniel has been thinking of Rashid quite a bit. A bit too much, to be honest. He’s letting himself get distracted and sloppy. And he still doesn’t know what Rashid’s end game is.
Daniel reads and takes notes on his laptop for the next hour. Then he decides to go to his room and catch a nap. His sleep schedule is fucked from interviewing a vampire. And Rashid keeping him up demanding sex hasn’t exactly helped.
He drifts off easily enough. Daniel doesn’t remember opening his eyes or leaving his room, but he’s standing in the living room now. Louis and Rashid are standing together on the balcony, Louis looking at Rashid seriously. Daniel moves a little closer, hoping to overhear something before they notice him.
“How long do you plan to keep this up, ‘Rashid’?” There’s something strange about the way he says Rashid’s name that Daniel doesn’t understand. Is it not his real name? Does Louis have him using a fake name or something?
“As long as I can,” Rashid says, though something in his posture is different now. Less deferential. He goes still and sweeps his eyes across the room, passing over Daniel as though he were invisible.
Daniel holds out a hand and he can’t see it in front of him. What is going on?
“Do you feel that?” says Rashid. “That’s the second time I’ve felt it.”
“Hm?”
Rashid ignores Louis’s questioning look and closes his eyes. Daniel feels like he’s been shoved in the chest. He wakes up, jolting up on his bed and breathing hard.
What the hell was that?
14 notes
·
View notes
Text
link to chapter one.
link to chapter two.
link to chapter three.
Bloodsinger: Vampire! Eddie Munson x Black Reader Drabble Part 4
Summary: Out of every news source in the country, the one and only lead singer of Corroded Coffin and self proclaimed vampire Eddie Munson has decided to do a sit down interview with The Hawkins Post. Instead of your boss, you’re sent to a mansion on Halloween Night and you’re in no way prepared for what’s in store.
Trigger Warnings: violence, gore, blood k!nk , a tinsy bit of cardiophilia if you squint, 80s workplace sexism
Inspired by: The Vampire Chronicles, Dracula, Lost Boys, Vampire Diaries, Twilight, honestly every single vampire trope and cliche is in present and accounted for in this fic.
minors dni, I check.
this is either the worst thing I’ve ever written or halfway decent, either way, enjoy!
“ Corroded Coffin is doing a show tonight and there’ll be a press junket afterwards. Here’s your press pass, there will be photographers there so you don’t have to take any photos. Hey, are you listening to me cupcake? Hello, I’m talking to you!”
Your boss snaps his fingers in your face, making you jump.
“Maybe I should have put one of the guys on this. Between this and your shitty interview notes, we’re screwed if you fuck things up anymore. Are we clear?”
You said nothing, took the lanyard from his hand and walked away.
It’s nice that as you await your death by an incorporeal ancient vampire, you’re still clocking into work. Sitting there and staring into the atmosphere, but at least you’re doing it at your desk. Perhaps if you had people to say goodbye to in your final days you’d feel something but you don’t.
You thought about saying goodbye to your roommate but given the fact that she’s pissed off due to Eddie’s consistent calls at all hours of the day and night over the past few days since you ran away, you think better of it.
You don’t even change your clothes before the show, sticking out in the venue filled with celebrities and at least two Pulitzer prize winning journalists. The bar becomes your hideout as the band takes their place on stage, and you hate that your stomach does a little flip when you see Eddie.
You should go home.
Your attempts to shrink into the darkness of the bar have no effect as Eddie stops in his tracks on stage, eyes searching the crowd and finding you instantly.
Stupid heart murmur.
Their set begins and alcohol helps to avoid his gaze. You can’t help but enjoy the music and wonder if things were different, maybe you two could be something more.
Could things be different?
The set is far too quick for your liking and Eddie’s offstage before the applause even finishes, a beeline straight for you.
There’s eyes on you as he makes his way through the crowd which is the last thing you want.
Maybe with all this new attention, the headline after your death will be “Hawkins Journalist Turned Munson Groupie Found Dead in Mysterious Accident” instead of a two line obituary written by a coworker who’s office hobby was looking up your skirt.
“You came.” Eddie said, a soft smile that you don’t return.
“Well I had to try and finish the article, seeing as it might be the last one I ever write.” You quipped, knocking another shot back and reach for the next one only for Eddie to push it away from you and subsequently onto the floor with a loud crash.
“Press interviews will be starting momentarily, please make your way to the side ballroom!” Their publicist yelled into the microphone, drawing attention from you two back to the stage. The distraction is enough for you to walk out of the side door into the cool night air.
“Please, can we talk?” He asked, appearing in front of you.
“About what? That you lied to me from the moment we met? I have known you for less than a damn week but because you couldn’t keep it in your pants for another 100 years, I’m going to die. Go back to your mansion, go back to your band, I’ll make sure to send you a better photo of me for your next portrait.”
“You think I wanted this?”
“You know, I kinda think you did. All of this has to weigh on your soul, their deaths of course, but also wanting what you can’t have. You couldn’t leave me alone, you wanted my blood so bad you’d rather condemn me to death and run away. I’m a person, all of those women on your wall were people too, and I’m not going to let you use me to absolve you of your guilt.”
“Please I’m begging you, I can protect you.”
“If you wanted to protect me you would have left me alone.”
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.” His voice cracks and he averts his eyes, the sadness enough to make you step forward, a gentle hand on his face.
“Maybe in the future you’ll be braver Eddie, but because of you I’m not going to live to see it.” You said quietly and turned to leave.
“ Please, just come home with me, you don’t have to do this alone.” There’s a hand on your wrist, pulling you back.
“Let go Eddie, just leave me alone!” You turn back around to face him but he’s not there.
No one is.
You’re alone in what’s left of a hallway, crumbling walls covered in thick black vines, ash from a red stormy sky above falling into your hair.
“Eddie? Hello, is anybody here?” You yelled out to an uneasy silence that was interrupted by slow yet heavy footsteps behind you.
This couldn’t be how it ends, not yet.
“Edward isn’t here, but I’ve been looking forward to seeing you again.”
You slowly turn around, the sight in front of you so terrifying your scream dies in your throat.
Vecna.
You have no idea where you’re running to, but you run faster than you have in your life thus far, sprinting through the ruins of the event venue until you reach the outside.
Or what should be Hawkins Main Street.
Instead, it’s pure devastation: cars overturned, unseen cries of strange creatures echoing here and there, once pristine houses crumbling into nothing. Never in your imagination could you have pictured the town that you grew up in, your home, looking like this.
“Isn’t it beautiful? You’re walking on a whole new world bloodsinger, a new era approaches and you are here to witness it. Does that not fill you with pride?” Vecna asked, his grotesque towering body appearing at your side.
You take a step but vines slither around your ankles, bringing you to your knees before you could so much as blink.
“What do you want from me?”
“What a stupid question. What does a cat want from a mouse, a wolf from a sheep? You have given me so much and now we are at the precipice of a glorious annihilation and that is all thanks to you. Cry if you must but your time is over, turn your face towards the red sky and be not afraid.” The vines are tighter around you and you want to cry out but you don’t.
“You said I have given you everything you need already, why do you still need me now? You could have killed me the night I met Eddie, what are you waiting for?”
The vines lift you up into the air until you’re facing him.
“You think your questions will distract me, they won’t. But to answer your question, I was waiting for this exact moment. I thought you might like to watch.” Vecna replied, waving a clawed hand behind him. A hole in the sky ripples like water, clearing until you see something in its reflection.
It’s you, eyes open and milky white on the ground in the real Hawkins. Eddie hovers you, ear to your chest, shaking your body.
You’re going to die.
“ There’s something that exists between love and torment that holds incredible power. When I killed the very first you, it caused a crack in the universe and when your precious vengeful Eddie scattered my body to the world, I fell through it. As I floated through that divine nothingness, I used the last bit of my power to curse Edward, but in doing so I tied myself to you.”
“Please do whatever you’re going to do already, I don’t care about your backstory.” A vine wraps around your mouth, cutting off your statement and causing the real you to choke and writhe in Eddie’s arms.
“When the curse took hold and the next you died, something bloomed in the void. I could see into the nothingness and all became clear to me. Your deaths brought forth a new world, your terror built this kingdom for me and with each sacrifice, a new cathedral grew. He thought he could outsmart me by never finding you again but all I had to do was wait and now here you are, my final sacrifice.”
You look back at the sky, Eddie is on his knees now, rocking you back and forth, face stained red with bloody tears.
“No.”
“Please don’t try to fight it. You are Eden, you will bring this new world into the old one, accept your fate, bloodsinger and let it happen.”
You could just let it happen.
All your life you’ve done what everyone’s told you to do, not standing up to your boss is what got you here in the first place and it would be so easy to just give in one last time.
The vines set you against the remains of a tree, tying your hands behind your back.
“ Stay still, it’ll all be over soon.” Vecna said, reaching for your neck. In your immense and futile struggle to free yourself, your hand brushes up against something crumbled up in the back pocket of your jeans, something metal.
God be with you child, for the dead travel fast.
There’s no way.
“I’m not dying for you, not for Eddie, not for anyone, not anymore.”
Only one way to find out if the stories are true.
Before his teeth can meet your neck, you rip the cross necklace out of your pocket and press crucifix into the vine. The vine sizzles beneath your touch and you find yourself falling to the ground in front of a wounded Vecna.
And now you run.
You run towards yourself, for yourself, the stormy sky following you, the very ground you stand on cracking beneath your feet but you keep running.
And you don’t look back.
With nowhere else to run you throw yourself at the hole in the sky, Vecna’s screams of fury echoing all around you as you ascend between worlds old and new in a last attempt to save yourself.
No one will say you went out without a fight.
tag list
gardenof-venus
@trvlllx
ccoreo
icqueeniebeenie
richonne4life
@thotyana-in-this-hoe
lolzskye
ziasbl0g
randomwerido
killer-joy3
danielle-19
asagesworld
@revivedhyperfixations
@yeah-seems-legit
@thirddeadlysin
@killslumflower
@notthe-latte-hottay
@matthew666660
@revivedhyperfixations
@fckwritersblock
@onecentricsoul
87 notes
·
View notes
Text
Rowing the Rarepair Rowboat: Bonnie Bennett x Liv Parker x Tyler Lockwood (The Vampire Diaries)
Requested by @childofsquidward
Movement catches the corner of Bonnie’s eye. When she looks over at Liv, she holds a finger to her lips, then throws another scrunched up ball of paper at Tyler, asleep at the bottom of the bed. It hits him on the shoulder but he doesn’t stir.
Bonnie notices there are two other balled up bits of paper beside him. She rolls her eyes and nudges Liv to tell her to quit it. Of course, she doesn’t listen.
This one hits him on the chin, nearly going in his open mouth. Liv quickly covers her mouth as she snickers, and Bonnie shakes her head, smiling against her better judgment.
She tries to focus on her paper but when she catches Liv going to do it again, she reaches over to stop her, taking the paper away from her.
“We’re doing all of the work here,” Liv says in protest, motioning to Tyler’s still soundly asleep form. “It’s not fair that he just gets to take a nap while we’re stuck writing these stupid papers. He’s probably going to try and copy off us and claim our hard work as his own.”
“No, he won’t,” Bonnie says, hesitating for a moment before putting the little ball of paper in the waste basket beside her. “Because we won’t let him. Besides, Alaric would know, and then he would be in trouble.”
Liv rolls her eyes now, but she looks over at Tyler with a slightly softer expression.
“Full moon’s in two days.” She turns to Bonnie, a twitch of concern between her brows. “Do you think it’s bothering him?”
Bonnie shrugs, then properly takes in Tyler’s appearance; while peaceful for the most part in his sleeping state, there are circles under his eyes, and there’s a strange sunkenness to his features that isn’t usually there, making his skin sort of sallow.
“Yeah. I think so,” she finally says. “It’s probably why he’s so tired as well.”
Liv hums quietly in thought. With a smooth wave of her hand, a quilt is dragged out from beneath the bed. It rests over Tyler, wrapping him up. To both their surprise, he curls into it and pulls it closer in his sleep.
“We should probably let him sleep then,” Liv says.
Smiling, Bonnie nods. “I agree. Do you wanna go get some coffee? We’ve been writing for at least two hours, I think we’ve earned a break.”
“God, I thought you’d never ask.”
Liv hops up off the bed — Tyler once again doesn’t even stir — and grabs her campus hoodie, already slipping on her shoes as Bonnie follows. Before they leave, she gently smooths her hand over Tyler’s forehead and presses a light kiss to his temple, and Liv does the same.
“Be back soon,” she murmurs to him, then takes Bonnie’s hand as they quietly leave him to rest.
#tvd#the vampire diaries#tonnie#parkwood#bonnie x liv#liv x bonnie#tyler x bonnie#bonnie x tyler#tyler x liv#liv x tyler#bonnie bennett#tyler lockwood#liv parker#rowing the rarepair rowboat#rarepair rowboat#childofsquidward#tyler loves his witches#the thought of them just makes me so happy#this is a win-win-win situation really#because liv and tyler? yes absolutely#bonnie and liv? chemistry is on FIRE#and bonnie and tyler? YES they are an underrated love of mine the childhood friends pipeline my beloved
44 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
ahmadmaaal-blog
مصمم موشن جرافيك
shouldihaveboughtyouflowers
Fruit de Pourpre ليلى
ridewithprakashyoutube
Untitled
vvatari-art
Vvatari
iamhorror
I Am Horror