#cried like anything and put some stuff on her stone and wished I could hear her talk | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

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i've been keeping a list of possible prompts for you and there's one i have no memory of adding that just says "courtesan nmj????" so i guess that's the prompt you're getting lmao

What Does the Fox Say - ao3

“Second Madame Nie!” a disciple shouted, rushing into her little garden. She didn’t recognize him, but he was solidly built and well-muscled like most of the others – truly, the Unclean Realm was a rapturous feast for one with eyes to see it. Yum, yum. “Second Madame Nie, I have bad news!”

Boo. She hated bad news: bad news meant she’d have to do something, usually, and right now she was seated very comfortably in a pleasant piece of sun in the garden path that’d been made up just for her and to her preferences, with her feet up on a chair and a full plate of fruit from the kitchen on the table in front of her just begging to be devoured, morsel by delicious morsel.

Her schedule was packed!

“I regret to tell you, but your husband has been killed!”

“Oh,” she said, frowning slightly. “Has he? How obnoxious of him.”

How unreliable. Men.

She sighed.

“Second Madame – Second Madame – you don’t understand!” The disciple was all red-eyed and weepy, which was a look she liked, especially in big, stout men like this. The salt added a bit of spice to the whole thing. “You must flee at once! He was killed by Sect Leader Wen in an act of outright aggression – Sect Leader Wen has declared war – the Wen sect is invading!”

She nodded and picked up another lychee to start peeling it. She’d get around to fleeing in her own time. As long as this Wen sect or whatnot was being led by a man, she wasn’t terribly concerned.

“They intend to wipe out the inheritance of Qinghe Nie! They will rip out the child in your belly!”

She hummed noncommittally. Really, how attached was she to having a child of her own? Really?

“They will slaughter civilians – execute Nie-gongzi –”

Her hands stilled.

“What,” she said, and the disciple took a step back automatically, proving that he, at least, had something more of a survival instinct than her late husband did. “Hurt my little meat bun? My darling rice roll? My savory zongzi?”

She stood up, diminutive height and over-large belly and frilly clothing doing absolutely nothing to diminish the vaguely menacing aura that darkened the sky around her. She bared her teeth.

“Who does this upstart Wen dog think he is?!”

The disciple blinked owlishly, but nodded, seeming relieved that she’d finally accepted his concern, though she could see on his face that he was thinking that her reasoning was – characteristically – a little strange. But then again, and she could see this thought process on his far too honest face, it was well known that the second Madame Nie been quite strange ever since Sect Leader Nie had found her in some lonesome place with no family or background and brought her back to be his new wife nevertheless.

Such a charming man. Pity about his loss, really.

“You have to flee at once, we can’t possibly fight so many people,” the disciple said once more, and this time she nodded in agreement. “We can escort you to a hidden exit –”

“No!” a little voice called. “We can’t go.”

She turned to look, and there was the little pork-and-shrimp dumpling himself, chubby-cheeked and earnest-eyed, looking as delicious as always.

“What do you mean, fish cake?” she asked. “Of course we have to go. Didn’t you hear what this strapping young man said? This Wen person wants to kill you!”

“If Father is dead, then I’m the sect leader,” her stepson said. He was serious and solemn in a way that made her want to pinch his cheeks and bury her face into his belly to blow raspberries, and also possibly to eat him right up, flesh and marrow and gristle and all. “That means it’s my responsibility to preserve the Nie sect.”

“Nie-gongzi, no!” the disciple cried, throwing himself to his knees in a dramatic display of loyalty. “You would only die – far better for you to run, and live!”

“Then isn’t the same true for everyone else?” the tasty little dish asked, crossing his arms over his chest and pouting. Possibly he was trying to put on a fierce expression, maybe, she couldn’t quite tell sometimes. He was so cute. “Why should I live, and them not? I refuse to buy my life with their deaths!”

“But – Nie-gongzi –”

Her charming little honey cake shook his head and held up a hand to stop the disciple, turning to look at her instead.

“Second Mother,” he said, and he had that wholesome trusting expression again that was such a perfect little one-shot-kill to the heart, ugh. “You always said you’re the best at hiding. The best in the world, no one better among all the gods or demons!”

She was, too. She couldn’t help but preen a little, proud.

“– can’t you do something?”

“Oh, darling cabbage bun,” she said, not without fondness. “I can hide myself from even the net of Heaven itself if I so choose, from gods and demons alike, and I can most certainly hide a small group from any mortal eyes that dare to look, if you don’t mind being a little tiny bit dishonorable about the business. But an entire sect? That’s a bit much, even for someone as talented and skilled as me.”

Her stepson looked up at her, all straight-steel sincerity and upright righteousness wrapped into a perfectly edible little snack-sized package. “If we split them up, the sect could be small groups,” he said eagerly. “Couldn’t you do something then?”

He was so cute, and he trusted her. He trusted her, believed in her, felt that she could perform miracles with a wave of her sleeve if only she so wished.

It was awful.

She couldn’t bear it.

“Oh all right, you nummy little slice of roast pork belly,” she said, yielding. “But I’m telling you now, it won’t be the least bit honorable! There’s only so many excuses you can come up with for having a lot of strong men with wide shoulders and women with thick thighs hanging around, and not a single one of them has the slightest bit to do with what you people consider to be appropriate.”

“That’s all right. Preserving human life comes first, always.”

The disciple looked between them, clearly completely confused. Clearly all his effort had been spent on developing the muscles in his arms (quite nice) rather than his brain (quite slow).

“What?” he said. “What’s happening?”

“We’re saving the sect,” Nie Mingjue announced happily, clapping his hands together. Too precious, too precious entirely; she’d have to make sure no one else even thought about going near her darling little snackling. “Tell everyone to prepare to evacuate.”

“That will take too long,” she said, and smiled, with teeth. “Let me call some friends to help.”

When the Wen sect arrived at the Unclean Realm, they found the gate open.

That was unexpected enough, but when they entered, they found that the entire place had emptied out – not just of people, but of everything else, too. There wasn’t a single intact chair or table in the entire place, not a scrap of cloth nor a bit of food, like it’d been swept clean by locusts or wild monkeys come to pilfer whatever they could.

Even the paving stones where arrays had been laid out by the Nie sect’s ancestors had been pried up and carted away.

Sect Leader Wen ordered a search, but there wasn’t any trace of it – of the people, of the stuff, anything.

No one ever found out what happened.

Jin Guangyao despised social events, he’d found.

It was one thing when it was something he’d planned himself, where the work was interesting enough to distract him, but when he was an honored guest for someone else…miserable. Utterly miserable.

The only thing more miserable was when the host was his erstwhile father, from whom he’d forcefully extracted recognition. With Wen Ruohan as his backer, indulging his favorite torturer as if a beloved pet, there wasn’t much Jin Guangshan could do to refuse, and neither could he force Jin Guangyao to do anything on his behalf, either. And so Jin Guangyao, sitting as always by Wen Ruohan’s side, right beneath his sons, was now an honored guest at his father’s house, getting offered his pick of prostitutes as if the man had no notion of the irony.

Maybe he didn’t. Jin Guangyao couldn’t quite tell if his father had just forgotten his origins, thinking his bastard son too unimportant to remember the details of, or whether it was meant as a deliberate insult – who could tell?

“Oh, right,” the simpering idiot in front of him, a nephew or cousin of some sort to the sect leader, said. “Our dear Jin Guangyao is known not to like the gentle flower queens, even when they come from the finest houses in Lanling. Isn’t that right, cousin?”

Jin Guangyao’s fists clenched. A deliberate insult, then.

Despite that, his face remained neutral. Instead, he chuckled and said, “The appeal is limited. After all, I have seen the best of them.”

Beside him, Wen Ruohan nodded and smirked. He appreciated Jin Guangyao’s devotion to his mother, though Jin Guangyao suspected it was because he thought it funny that Jin Guangyao would bother to honor such a lowly woman – but what he thought didn’t matter, not really. All that mattered was that he let Jin Guangyao pay his respects to her to his heart’s content.

“Well, you’re in luck!” the idiot Jin Zixun said, looking absurdly smug. “We have something of a different flavor than the usual tonight – we’ve invited entertainment from the local branch of Splendid Spring.”

Jin Guangyao barely managed to avoid rolling his eyes.

The Splendid Spring Palace was a series of brothels that had popped up fully formed just about everywhere some years back, with madams and girls and musicians and bodyguards of all sorts. It was so patently a political move that Jin Guangyao had barely bothered to pay attention to it once he’d become actually powerful, and Wen Ruohan hadn’t paid attention to it at all. After all, in the unlikely event that the business really was backed by a cultivation sect that didn’t care about its face any longer, anyone who needed to use such a façade to gather power was clearly beneath notice.

Jin Guangyao had paid only very little attention, but to different and unusual aspects of the place: by all accounts, they were surprisingly decent employers as far as places like that went. They didn’t steal girls or accept unwilling goods – they had some connection with the merchant caravans, or at least one of the companies that helped coordinate routes and provide protection to such things, and they were as meticulous about checking things over as they were about seeking refunds if they were dissatisfied – and they did accept married girls fleeing unhappy marriages, which not everyone did. They did buy up all the girls in the local markets wherever they were, but they swept them away and brought them back transformed, even the ones that wouldn’t sell because they were too ugly; Jin Guangyao assumed that meant they had people who were talented in make-up and clothing, since the usual rumors of the girls being blessed with a yao’s enchantment were obviously ridiculous and nothing more than the usual marketing gimmicks that brothels since time immemorial had tried.

Even once they had the girls in hand, the places were pretty decent: they had physicians on staff to help with the usual side effects of the business, made sure their girls were clean and healthy, and were said to even limit the number of customers a girl would be obliged to take on in a given evening…honestly, knowing as he did the brothel business, Jin Guangyao sometimes wondered how they’d managed to bespell enough people to even make money in the early days. At any rate, whatever they’d done, it’d worked, because by now they had a solid enough reputation to trade on.

In short: a decent enough place, far better than the usual run of the mill. Once he’d had the ability to do so, he’d even pulled a few strings and arranged for the better of his mother’s old compatriots to end up there, since he couldn’t convince them to leave their old professions behind entirely.

Anyway, if they also seemed to have a sideline in information brokering and assassinations, well, let them. In the cultivation world, where the only thing that mattered was strength, real strength.

A little thing like that wouldn’t make any real difference.

Or so Jin Guangyao had thought.

He found himself re-thinking that, though, when the entertainment in question came out. There were the usual set of attractive (albeit in a wider variety of shapes and sizes than usually seen) dancers, dressed up in silks that seemed actually high quality, and plenty of strapping young men carrying sabers – dancers as well, once assumed, to provide some spice to the entertainment, and implicitly on the offer for men who cut their sleeves or women with more flexibility, like widows or ones with especially permissive husbands. Wen Ruohan’s wives were in that latter category, and they were already whispering to each other excitedly, looking at them.

They’d even brought in the local madame, who was…

Well, she was actually breathtaking, even by Jin Guangyao’s extremely jaded standards. She had hair that fell almost all the way to her ankles, shimmering in the light, and dark eyes shining with liveliness, a smooth and ageless face that simultaneously suggested youth and health but also winked at knowable experience, the features characteristic of what his mother’s employers had called the ‘fox-face’. As if to emphasize that, the lady was wrapped in fox-fur and draped in embroidered brocade, with little stylized foxes running up and down the hems of her clothing and along the gazy silk draped on her shoulders.

It ought to have looked absurd, looked gaudy and overwrought and overdone, but it didn’t.

She was a thousand dreams of wealth and beauty and power and sex appeal all wrapped up in one, and even Jin Guangyao – who was in his personal preferences quite firmly a cutsleeve – couldn’t help but intrigued by her, wondering what it might be like to touch the hem of such a glorious creature.

And next to her…

The lady was accompanied by two men that seemed completely different from each other. One was a slender and winsome young man, fluttering his eyelashes from behind a fan with a charming smile, emanating the appeal of softness and weakness, ready to be indulged. While the other…

Jin Guangyao swallowed.

He was the exact opposite of the first man. Clearly strong, muscular and powerful, and tall to the point of towering, with wide shoulders and a narrow waist, a chest that you could lean your head against and an ass that begged to have someone’s hands on it – and there were his hands, big and broad, perfect for holding someone down or up if they so wished and of a size that was very promising as to what was only hinted at under his clothes. His face was hidden behind a veil as if he were a woman, marking him, like his comrade, as one of the available courtesans of the Splendid Spring, but his body was visible under clothing clearly cut to put it to the best advantage.

And oh, what advantages it had…!

“It seems we found something to the tastes of dear cousin Guangyao after all,” the idiot said mockingly, sniggering and snorting like the pig he was, and for once Jin Guangyao didn’t even care.

“Who’s the woman in front?” Wen Ruohan asked, ignoring their interplay. He seemed utterly fascinated, almost spellbound, and Jin Guangyao couldn’t blame him one bit. If this woman had been at the same brothel as his mother, there wouldn’t have even been room for jealousy or shame; his mother would have gone straight up to her to ask for some tips. “She seems…familiar, somehow.”

“That’s the madame of the Splendid Spring,” Jin Zixun said proudly, as if he’d done anything at all in relation to this – nonsense, of course. Everyone know which brothels were backed by the Jin sect, and Splendid Spring wasn’t one of them. He was acting as if he deserve a pat on the back just for the introduction! “That means she’s not for sale.”

His smile faded a little, twisting in a small bit of bitterness. “Or so she told my uncle, anyway…although I’m sure if it were Sect Leader Wen asking, the answer would undoubtedly be different.”

Probably because Jin Guangshan couldn’t slaughter prostitutes with impunity if they said no to him, whereas no one could stop Wen Ruohan from doing any damn thing he pleased.

Wen Ruohan grunted, pleased by the answer – he was a possessive man, in the rare events that he did exert himself in the realm of women, and there had been more than one instance where he’d stolen away some girl his sons had been eyeing first just for the joy of having had her first – and raised a hand, catching the lady’s eye and gesturing for her to come over, which she did.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

She laughed. “You can call me Hu Jiuwei. With the ‘Hu’ being the character for fox.”

Jin Guangyao tried not to choke. There were false names and then there were false names – the lady’s theme was already clearly related to foxes, given her fox-face and fox-fur lining and the foxes embroidered onto her robes. Was the over-the-top name really necessary?

“It’s a fake name,” she added, unnecessarily.

“I see,” Wen Ruohan said, sounding a little choked himself. Possibly it was the woman calling herself ‘Foxy Ninetails’ and then kindly reassuring them all that the name was false as if she thought them too dumb to figure it out that was tripping him up a little. Jin Guangyao couldn’t tell if she was doing it deliberately in order to make her frankly inhuman beauty a little less frightening, or maybe she was blessed with so much beauty that she hadn’t bothered to cultivate her brain at all. “Are you our entertainment for the evening?”

She smiled, and any complaints Jin Guangyao (or indeed Wen Ruohan) might have had about her intelligence faded away at once.

It was that type of smile.

You could wreck nations with that type of smile. Jin Guangyao couldn’t help but wonder: how had a woman this extraordinary ended up in a brothel, of all places? How had no one snatched her up to keep her all for himself before now?

“My sons and I –” she gestured at the two behind her, “– would be more than happy to provide you with all the entertainment you could possibly want.”

Her smile widened.

“We’ve been hoping for an opportunity like this for a long time.”

#mdzs #nie mingjue #second madame nie #jin guangyao #wen ruohan #my fic #my fics #what does the fox say

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nastybuckybarnes · 3 years

Text

In a Heartbeat - Epilogue

Pairing: Fireman!Bucky X Reader

Summary: You’ve always been careful with your heart. With your condition, you don’t exactly have any other choice. The last time you let someone in, you paid the price. A price you don’t plan on paying again. Until Bucky comes in and shatters your carefully crafted world.

Warnings: Angst, Language, Minor Fluff

Word Count: 1.2K

A/n: Grande finale! Oof plz don’t kill me but it’s so cute I loved writing this series so much and low-key I’m sad it’s over but it was so fun to write. If y’all have any ideas for anything you want me to write in the future, send em my way!

Series Masterlist

~*~

The wind is crisp, biting at the exposed skin of his face, his fingers.

He doesn’t mind too much though.

The sky is gloomy, like it might rain later in the day. The clouds are a deep grey colour and there's sorrow on the wind. He can’t help but feel like it’s fitting.

“I uh, I’m not sure what to say, I guess. Bonnie said it would be good to come swing by for a little while but uh I’m not sure if she was right.” His voice is shaky and he closes his eyes, hating the silence that meets him.

“I got you flowers. Didn’t wanna get roses cause it didn’t feel right, so I got you some carnations. Nat said that they last a while too which is nice. They’re real pretty. A light yellow type. Maybe peach is a better description of the colour but-” he cuts himself off with a laugh, shaking his head.

“Here I am, trying to describe the colour of the flowers to you when I’m sure you’ve got other things you wanna hear about.”

Deep breath in, deep breath out, just like the two of you always practiced.

“She uh, she turns two in a few weeks, but you know that. I don’t know if I can do it though. Not without you.”

A cold drop of water splashes against his cheek and it’s only then that he notices the warm tears falling down his face.

“I miss you, doll. Every day it feels like it gets harder, and Bonnie says that’s normal, but I don’t know. I feel like it should get easier with time.” He huffs a breath and squeezes his eyes shut.

“Doesn’t help that Beccs is the spitting image of her mom, that’s for damn sure. But you knew that from the first moment you laid eyes on her. You were all smug about it too, said you gave her all the good genes.” He chuckles softly and shrugs his shoulders, “you were right about that.”

He stuffs his free hand into his pocket, rocking back on his heels and trying not to break down right then and there.

“She’s beautiful, (Y/n). Absolutely gorgeous. She’s stubborn, just like you. Real talkative too. I asked Steve when to expect this kinda stuff but he says each kid develops at a different speed.” He clenches his jaw tightly, trying to swallow the lump in his throat.

“I miss you so fucking much. So damn much. I wish... fuck...” He stops, wiping away the tears and leaning his head back to allow the rain to clear his thoughts.

“I wish you were here. This whole ‘parenting’ gig would be a lot easier if you were here to do it with me. I feel like I can never do it right. And Beccs needs her mom. She’s got Nat, but she needs you.” He sniffles and wipes his nose on the back of his hand.

“I’m not saying this to make you feel bad, doll, I swear. I just... I can't keep it in. I feel like a failure. I need your help.” His bottom lip trembles and he makes the split-second decision not to hide it. No, he opens the floodgates and he lets the tears fall.

“Her uh, her favourite word is still ‘mama’. Got her sayin’ ‘dada’ though. And she absolutely adores Tommy. That’s her partner in crime.” He chuckles once, thinking about how the two interact.

A fresh wave of sorrow washes over him and he drops his head, looking down at the ground and letting out a shaky breath.

“I uh, I still can’t sleep in our bed. Steve says I should try but... I can’t. I need you there and I can’t sleep without you. I stay on the couch most nights. Nat gets worried but I think I’m okay. Yeah... I think I’ll be okay.” He lets out another pained breath then shakes his head and falls to his knees, eyes squeezed shut tightly.

“I miss you. I fucking miss you so much. And some days it just hits me so damn hard that I’ll never see your smile o-or hear you laugh. You won't be there t-to see Becca on her wedding day... you won’t hold your grandchildren... you won’t be there when she graduates and we won’t grow old together. No, you won’t see me all gross and wrinkled and old and you won’t tease me when I can barely lift my own damn body. Fuck, I’d give anything to have you back. I would give absolutely anything to see you again. I miss you so much and it’s so hard to live without you.”

He puts his face in his hands, shoulders shaking with sobs as he finally lets himself break.

And break, he does.

He shatters there on that gloomy Thursday morning, heart out for the gods to see, to pick apart. He bears his goddamn soul and he cries. He sobs and he all but screams out his sorrows.

It’s agony.

Living without you has been the hardest thing he’s ever done.

He’d lose his arm ten times over if it meant he could see you again.

When you died you took a piece of him with you, and he knows he’ll never get it back.

“I love you, Doll. So damn much. To the fucking moon and back.”

He kneels there for a long time, long enough for the rain to come and go, the sun peeking through the clouds and the birds emerging from their hiding spots.

He kneels there until his tears have run dry and his heart has stopped aching, his shoulders lighter even if the bags under his eyes are heavier.

“Daddy!” He glances over his shoulder, a wet smile spreading on his face as Rebecca bounds over to him clumsily.

He opens his arms and she runs straight into them, giggling madly and pushing her hair out of her face.

“Do you wanna give mommy the flowers this time?” He asks, handing her the bouquet of carnations. She nods eagerly, sliding out of his grip and gently placing the flowers down in front of the headstone.

“Love you, mommy,” she says quietly, pressing a kiss to the polished granite.

A gentle hand pats Bucky on the shoulder, and he looks up at the source.

Nat stands over his shoulder, a sad smile on her face.

“You’ve been here for a while. Thought we should come check up on you.” He nods, pushing himself to his feet and taking a deep breath.

“I’m okay now. Therapist said I should really talk to her, not just... lay down the flowers.” Natasha nods, pulling the man into a hug.

“We all miss her, it’s okay.” Bucky huffs out a breath, trying to fight the tears but they fall anyway.

“I want one too!” Rebecca exclaims, tugging on his pant leg. He chuckles and pulls away from Nat to pick up his daughter, holding her tightly to his chest and trying with all his might to keep it together, if only for her.

“C’mon. Let’s go get ice cream. My treat,” Nat says, ruffling Becca’s hair then leading the way to her car.

Bucky follows after, pausing for a moment and glancing over his shoulder, eyes tracing over the writing carved into the stone.

(Y/n) (Y/m/n) Barnes.

Beloved Mother, Daughter, Wife, and Friend.

Always on our minds.

Forever in our hearts.

~*~

Fin

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mermaidxatxheart · 3 years

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Better Together Chapter Seven

Chapter 7 already? I must really love you guys. I hope you enjoy. If you'd like to be added to my tag list, send me an ask. My work is not to be reposted under any name or anywhere else. Reblogs and comments, however, are always welcome.

Pairing: Poe Dameron x Reader

Warnings: trauma, probably language, descriptions of violence, torture, blood.

Word Count: 2k

Series Master List

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

The sunlight is bright and you twist your face into Poe’s chest, trying to hide from it. You feel him chuckle under you and it’s only then that you realize he’s awake already.

“Morning.” He says softly.

“What time is it?” You mumble.

“Early, about six.”

“How can you sleep with the sun shining in your eyes like that?”

“I like getting up early.” His fingers trail lightly over your arm and he pulls you tight against his side.

You’re quiet for a long time, but it’s not because he’s lulled you back to sleep. You feel bad for waking him up so late last night. “I’m sorry I woke you up.” You say finally.

“It’s okay. I’d rather you wake me up if you need me than suffer by yourself.” He brushes your hair back behind your ear. “I don’t sleep much anyway.” He admits.

“Because of dreams?” You ask, twisting your head back to look up at him.

“Among other things, yeah.”

You squint and he smiles softly. If you had to pick which is brighter, the sun or Poe’s smile? Poe’s smile wins by a landslide.

“Here, roll over.” He urges, guiding you onto your other side. He turns behind you, wrapping his arm around your waist.

“This isn’t any better.” You huff. His chest shakes behind you as he laughs. You lift his arm and roll back over so you’re facing him. His soft brown eyes are watching you, amusement sparkling in them as you shift.

“Now you’re facing the window again.” He points out. So, you tuck your face into the crook of his neck and take a big, satisfying breath. “G-good now?” He asks quietly.

“Yeah.” You whisper, eyes already drooping shut again.

***

“I can talk to Leia, you don’t have to do the report.” Poe says.

“I told her I would. She said I could take time but I was petty and angry at the time and said I would have it for her by today.” You tell him, pushing yourself up from the bed.

“So that means you can still take your time.” He says, catching your wrist gently. “Stay.” He whispers and you turn back to him. “Please?”

“Come with me. You can get some food. I know you need caf. I kept you from doing your usual stuff all morning.” You say, kneeling on the bed. This feels dangerous. It feels like flirting, like crossing a line. But you meant it when you said that Poe is the easiest person to be around.

“You should get food, too.” He says, pushing himself up closer to you. One little inch and you’d be almost touching. You could kiss him. You could feel his lips on yours, tell him how much you…

Your eyes close and he pulls back. You should have expected it. But that doesn’t stop you from feeling like the floor is falling out from under you. Suddenly, you don’t want him to go with you. You straighten up, feeling dizzy and unbalanced. You feel numb, you can’t feel your pulse, can’t hear the way you’re breathing too quickly.

“I just remembered. It’s been a while since I’ve showered. I should do that first.” You mutter, already turning for the door.

“Y/N,” he calls, but the door is already shutting behind you and you squeeze your eyes shut. You deserved that. Why would you think he would want to kiss you again?

Poe can only be your friend. Nothing more. He doesn’t want anything more from you. And honestly, count yourself lucky that he even wants that much.

You hurry off to your room, locking the door behind you. You just want to be alone. That’s what’s best for everyone. Painfully, you peel off your clothes, wincing as every move causes you pain.

You shower quickly, blindly, taking no more time than is absolutely necessary. It would be so easy to just let yourself cry, pretend it’s the water dripping down your face instead of salty tears, but you can’t go there. You can’t let yourself feel sorry anymore. You made this mess, ruined a perfectly good friendship, cheated on your boyfriend and now you have to deal with the consequences of that. You’re in your comfiest clothes, settled at your desk to start your report. You wish you had thought to ask how much detail Poe had put in his. He clearly exaggerated about your part in what happened.

Your hands hover over the keyboard, waiting for your brain to tell them what to type. The longer you wait, the more they start to shake. You yank them back against your chest, squeezing them painfully to get them to stop. You welcome the pain, it somehow serves as your penance for what you’ve done.

Your door tries to open and there’s a muffled curse outside, startling you. You quickly unlock it and outside is Bryce. He holds out a caf silently and your eyes widen and you realize you promised him you’d be in the med bay after his shift.

“How was it?” You ask, taking the cup and backing up to let him in.

“Boring as always. I hate post work. Nothing ever happens.” He grumbles, following you and flopping on your bed. “What happened?” He asks, balling up your pillow and stuffing it under his chest to rest on.

“Um,” you clear your throat, scrambling for an answer that wouldn’t start a fight. I went to sleep with the guy you hate would definitely start a fight. “I couldn’t sleep. Kept waking up. Then I just said screw it. Been trying to work on this stupid report of what happened.” You gesture and he nods, understanding. At least, understanding your words. You know he doesn’t understand what you’re feeling. Nothing bad has ever happened to Bryce.

“What did happen?” He asks, tilting his head to look at you.

The blood drains out of your face and your hands start to shake. Your stomach falls to your feet and your knees get weak. “I-I don’t… I don’t really wanna talk about it.” You mutter, sitting back down before you fall down. You take a sip of the caf and try not to blanch. He never makes it how you like it and every time you forget.

“Well, you’re gonna have to talk about it. People are gonna wanna know.” He says, his voice gentle like he’s trying to be kind. But it feels like a punch to the gut. Why would people need to know what happened to you? Before you can protest, there’s a knock on your door. Bryce glares at it before looking at you. “Expecting someone?” He asks pointedly.

“No. I wasn’t even expecting you.” You stand up and press the release, even more surprised to see Snap on the other side.

He looks nervous as shit, holding out a bag of food from the commissary, and a caf. He has never ever brought you food before. “P…” he cuts off and glances down the hall. “Pando in the lab wanted me to remind you that he needs your help analyzing those plants you brought back.” He says, rolling his eyes at the name.

You frown in confusion, taking the bag. “Pando?” You repeat.

He narrows his eyes and slides them to the right, back down the hallway where he looked the first time. “Yeah. Pando. That’s what he told me. He needs your help.”

The name is entirely unfamiliar. As far as you know, it’s not even a name at all. “Alright… well, if you see… Pando, then let him know I’ll be there in a while. I have something to finish.” You say and he nods. Abruptly he turns and walks down the hall to your right and you blink. Maybe Snap is losing it? Too many missions? Flying too close to the sun? Maybe his ox-mask isn’t operating at full capacity. You poke your head out to watch him, wondering if he’s okay, and a figure darts from view before you can catch a good glimpse.

“That guy.” Bryce shakes his head.

“He’s a good dude. Just under a lot of pressure.”

“Who’s Pando?” He asks, taking the bag of food from you and rolling over onto his back.

You have a feeling you know who Snap was talking about, but why would he lie? Do you keep up the lie? Something in your gut tells you that telling the truth would be a bad idea. “Just one of the guys from the science division.” You shrug.

Bryce digs into your food and you frown. “I thought I knew all the freaks you work with.” He tilts his head, biting into a yacba fruit.

“They’re not freaks.” You snatch your food back. “And you don’t know everything about me. I have work to do.” You say and he rolls his eyes.

“So? Do it. I’m not stopping you.” He sighs, stretching out and laying back.

You want to hit him with something, that rage burning through your veins again. To save your holopad, you grab it, the bag of food, and the caf from Snap and march out of your room. You’ll find somewhere to eat in peace and then go to the lab and find this Pando.

There’s an observation tower on the outskirts of the compound that isn’t used anymore. You climb to the top, leaning against the stone post overlooking the woods. Finally, peace and quiet.

While you eat, you try to get as much of the report done as you can. You decide to be vague on the method of interrogation, instead focusing on what they wanted to know.

The lack of horrific details in your report doesn’t stop you from remembering them.

Hours. He has been asking you questions for hours. For every one unanswered, he slices at your best friend, nicking his skin all over. His face, his hands, his arms, his chest, his legs. There isn’t a body part left unscathed.

For his credit, he never wavers, never gives any sign of weakness, never cries out. He just clenches his jaw, and squeezes his eyes shut.

You, on the other hand, can’t stop crying. You’ll keep your promise, but seeing your best friend in so much pain hurts more than anything you’ve ever experienced.

In the back of your mind, you wonder how he knows about being tortured. As far as you know, he’s never been captured. He’s an excellent soldier, always on guard, always alert. He knows his shit, he’s good at this.

Until he goes on a solo mission with you.

And then you kiss him. And he drops his guard. Now he’s being hurt.

The trooper grunts in dissatisfaction and sets his blade down. “Seems like you rebel scum like pain.” He says, starting to take off his gauntlets and gloves.

Your stomach tightens, nerves spiking as you watch his movements warily. Is he going to give Poe a break, and turn on you?

“Nothing’s as painful as living in the world of the First Order.” Poe replies calmly.

Before you can see it coming, the trooper throws his fist, slamming it into Poe’s solar plexus. Poe doubles over as much as he can, coughing hard and gasping for air. You press your lips together to keep from crying out as your tears spill over. The trooper rains down blow after blow all over his body. His lip splits against his teeth, blood dripping down his chin. Around his eye, his cheekbone, along his jaw; you can hear his ribs shifting, maybe cracking.

Your heart breaks for him. You want to do something to help him, but you’re useless against your restraints.

“Ready to give up your precious General?” The trooper sneers, grabbing Poe’s thick hair and pulling up on it to see his face.

“Who?”

The trooper drops his head unceremoniously and turns to you for the first time. “You can stop his pain.” He taunts. “Just give us the location of your base.”

You straighten yourself as much as you can in defiance. “What base?” You ask coldly.

He grumbles and grabs his gloves, stalking from the room. Poe lets his head sag, breathing hard. You don’t dare speak. Blood drips from his mouth slowly, pooling on the floor.

You twist your face away so you don’t have to see your handiwork, crying silently. You can only hope that for the next session, they turn their attention to you instead of Poe.

He deserves so much better.

Chapter 8

Everything Tag List

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tinyboxxtink · 3 years

Text

"Weird Secret Friends" *Chapter 8*

Chapter 7

Chapter 9

I know, I wait almost 4 days and now you gotta go through this bullshit. I can already hear your cries of anguish and suffering.

I love it so much. MWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

That being said I promise regular chapters for the rest of the week! Okay I don't promise but I promise to do my best.

Note: Alright it's a fanfic people, alternate universes and all that. So you know what we're saying that all the Carisi sisters are younger, and Sonny was the big bro. Kay? I can't deal with all the continuity stuff.

Tag List

@madamsnape921

@lolliepopsicle

@chasingeverybreakingwave

@milkshqke

@wanniiieeee

@word-scribbless

@gibbs274

@sassyada

@aprildecker-blog

@bookishfanfic

@stars-in-the-skies-world

@stars-trash-18

@omgsuperstarg

@objection-argumentative

@thatesqcrush

@shittanyy

@mrsrafaelbarba

------------------------

Sonny was watching TV with Amanda when his phone went off. He paused the movie and answered the phone:

“Barba it’s kinda late--”

“What's wrong with your cousin?” he flatly said.

“Excuse me?” Sonny asked. “What kind of question is that?”

“Just answer the question, Carisi,” Barba insisted.

“Well it's a loaded question, Barba.” Sonny replied.

“Okay then just answer me this,” Barba sighed. “Why did I come back to my apartment to find her halfway through my once full bottle of vodka and pouting on the couch. Oh, after she had gone through all of my things of course,”

“Aw shit,” Sonny muttered under his breath. “That's kind of on me, Barba,”

“One second babe,” He muttered to Amanda, while he got up and went into his kitchen.

“Babe?” Barba asked.

“It’s just Rollins,” Sonny dismissed it.

“So you have feelings for me, but you’re fucking Rollins?” He asked in a snarky tone.

“What, are you jealous or somethin’ Barba?” Sonny smirked.

“No, don’t be stupid,” Rafael rolled his eyes. “Why is it on you?” He changed the subject.

“I should have never filled her head with doubts and suspicions and then sent her back to your place; when I should have known that you would keep a full bar in your apartment,” Sonny sighed as he ran his hands through his hair.

“Well of course I would keep a stocked bar in my apartment Sonny, I entertain people and I'm a grown man,” Rafael scoffed.

“Yeah, again it's on me,” Sonny repeated.

“Okay so what is wrong with your cousin?” Rafael asked.

“I think that pretty much answers it, don't you think?” Sonny asked in a “duh” tone.

“... I see,” Rafael glanced at his bedroom door wearily.

“Where is she now? Did you send her away? Please tell me you didn't send her away,” Sonny begged.

“No I didn't send her away, she's sleeping it off in my bedroom,” He got up and walked to his bedroom door. “I didn't want to just kick her out because she was upset. I'm not that big of a dick,” He whispered as he watched you sleep. You looked so calm and peaceful, that’s the girl he remembered.

“ You know, this should probably be better explained in person,” Sonny walked back into his living room where Amanda glanced over at him. He motioned for her to get her stuff together.

“Can I come over?”

“Yeah okay, not like I have anything else to do,'' he rolled his eyes as he shut his bedroom door and walked back to his living room.

--------------.

Sonny showed up to Rafael's apartment with a loaded head and a semi heavy conscience. He knocked on the door and Rafael let him inside.

“Okay so what kind of long story is this,” Rafael asked while he poured himself a glass of scotch. He noticed Sonny giving him a weird look.

“What? It's not like she's in here now,” he rolled his eyes.

“True,” He nodded. “Do you have beer?”

“Yes, dark or light?” Rafael made a disgusted face while he asked. He couldn't stand the taste of beer but he always had it on him just in case he had barbarians over such as Sonny.

“Shiner Bock, if you have it,” Sonny requested. Rafael nodded as he went into his ‘party fridge’ and handed him one before sitting on the couch across from him.

“Alright so where do I start?” Sonny thought out loud.

“Well I guess first of all I wanted to say I don’t wanna say I told you so, but this is exactly why I didn't want you and Y/N to get involved in the first place. It had nothing to do with my feelings for you. It’s because I know that you tend to keep relationships with guys and girls chill and casual, but Y/N is a special case and special to me,”

“Yeah.. I wish you had expressed that before,” Rafael groaned.

Well what was I supposed to say in front of her, Barba? ‘Oh hey by the way, you probably shouldn't get involved with my trainwreck of a cousin? Sonny asked defensively.

“Maybe? I don’t know…” Rafael sighed as he put his head in his hands.

“Look, Rafael,” Sonny put a hand on his shoulder. “It��s not like she’s some kinda degenerate junkie,”

“Oh well, that’s great--” He started to roll his eyes.

“I’m serious Rafael!” He pounded the table.

“Okay okay, I’m sorry Sonny,” He finally used his first name, trying to be as soft with him as possible. He could see how much you meant to him, and it was really endearing. “Go ahead,”

“Alright,” Sonny sighed, ready to tell your life story. You would probably kill him later for it, but there was no hiding your...issues now, he might as well get the whole context.

“Well, first of all-- her dad died before she was born, overdose,” He began. “Then she was stuck with her junkie mother, my auntie. Who by the way at this point, nobody had heard from in years,” He took a sip of beer.

“So anyways,” He began again. “One day, she showed up at my mom’s doorstep with Y/N, and told her that she can’t take care of Y/N, or that she didn’t want to,” He sighed. “She was three years old by then, I don’t even wanna think about what happened before then,”

“Jesus…” Rafael muttered.

“I was eight years old at the time, my sisters were even younger. My mom and dad had enough on their plate with just us. So, I kinda took her under my wing,” He went on.

“We became so close, she wanted to go by “Sunny” just so she could be like me. I told her it would be confusing for the two of us, so I called her Sunshine, Sunny for short. That way if I’m calling her sunny, then obviously it’s not myself,” He chuckled. To this day, he still called you Sunshine.

“But as she grew up, she just...kinda had a rough go. She didn’t really interact with kids her own age, she was really defensive and untrusting with anybody but me. Not even my parents. And then we got the call that her mother died, and it ripped me up inside to see her body at the funeral. It was so fucked up, she was so fucked up. That’s why I-- I think something really bad happened to her when she was with her mother, Rafael. Like-- really, bad.

“Fuck..." Rafael muttered while glancing at his bedroom door. He didn't want to imagine what you had been through at such a young age. He wanted to run in his room right now and just hold you, but he kept his composure.

“So then I went off to college when she was ten years old, just about to start junior high. She begged me to stay, but I told her she had a good family and that my parents and sisters loved her as much as I did, and to stay out of trouble. But...kids are cruel. They made her harder, and harder. Without me there to be her-- I dunno, her guiding light or her-- protector, she just kinda fell into a bad crowd by the time high school rolled around,” He sighed while taking another swig of beer.

“...Right,” Rafael nodded.

“So when i came home from school my mom told me she was going to kick Sunny out. I asked her why, and she went on and on about how she had gotten in with these local girls who were like, I dunno some kinda girl gang, and they’d knock over liquor stores and then get drunk and stoned. She said she was never around anyway, unless it was to steal money out of her purse; And she just didn’t wanna deal with her anymore,”

“...But she was only fifteen at the time,” Rafael was stunned.

“Yeah, and that’s what I told her!” Sonny exclaimed. “Look Barba my mom is the salt of the earth, but like I said she had a lot on her plate and my dad wasn’t around a lot-- and she had three other daughters to watch out for,”

“Three of her OWN daughters,” Rafael clarified with a judgmental tone.

“HEY,” Sonny warned. “I know how it sounds. And maybe-- maybe you’re right, maybe that’s why she washed her hands clean of Sunny. Because she was just a by-product of her fucked up sister. But I-- I’m not gonna condemn her for it. And you sure as hell don’t get to judge her,”

“You’re right,” Rafael nodded while sipping his scotch.

“So I took Sunny in,” Sonny finished his beer as he wrapped up his story. “I took her in while I went through the police academy. I made sure she got sober, quit hangin’ out with those girls, I got her to do well in school, hell I got her to graduate high school!”

“And…?” Rafael pressed.

“...And when I started bouncing around precincts, she was finally a productive member of society so she started living on her own. She had a few jobs, but never really going anywhere. So once I got placed here in SVU and started making better money, I started helping her out with rent and her car, as long as she promised to start going to community college. Which she agreed to because she really does wanna make something of herself,” He half smiled thinking about how far you had come and how proud he was to call you his cousin now. You were so full of life with dreams and ambitions he never saw in you as a scared little kid.

“Okay so-- how does all of this lead to what happened tonight?” Rafael leaned back and crossed his arms.

“Because she’s still an addict, Barba!” Sonny tried not to yell, but didn’t understand why Rafael was still so flippant about you.

“Just because she got her life together-- I got her life together, doesn’t mean that she just got ‘better’. She’s on a daily see-saw of sobriety. I do weekly ‘drop ins’ just to check on her. It’s gotten a lot better as time goes on, and the less and less I worry about her, but--” He took a breath and looked at the floor.

“....Deep down she’s still that little girl with all of her walls and her distrust. She doesn’t have friends, I really don’t think she’s ever had a stable ‘boyfriend’ or ‘girlfriend,’ I mean she-- she doesn’t, talk to people,” He paused before looking up and into Rafael’s eyes.

“...Which is why it has been yankin' my chain tryin’ to figure out just why in God’s name she was so-- open, to you,” He finally admitted. “She’s never been that close to anybody else but me, not in her entire life,”

“Wait,” Rafael put a finger up. “So...you haven’t actually been jealous of Y/N this whole time, you’ve been jealous of me?” He half laughed.

“I mean, it’s a little of both,” He shrugged with a small smile, able to joke about his feelings now. “But I meant what I said when I first got here, I know the main thing that Y/N needs in her life right now is stability. And you-- you are not stable, in the least,”

“Oh I’m the unstable one?” Rafael raised an eyebrow.

“Relationship wise, yeah,” Sonny pointed out.

“....Fair point,” Rafael nodded as he finished off his scotch. He knew the longest relationship he had ever had was with the cute barista he saw every morning who knew how to make his coffee just right. And that relationship only took him five minutes a day to maintain.

“So…” Sonny knocked Rafael from his thoughts.

“So...what?” Rafael quirked an eyebrow.

“So, I think that--” Sonny took a deep breath, knowing you might hate him for this. But it was for the best, and it needed to be said.

“I think that if you care anything about her, or me for that matter, that you let me take her home, and forget about this whole weekend,”

“....I mean…” Rafael rubbed the back of his neck. He didn't want to let you go. Well, he didn't want to let go of the girl he had met at Forlini's. The girl who made him laugh, who he could be his true self around, the girl he might---

“Look the bottom line here Barba is that Y/N is-- a lot of work. I should know, I’ve been taking care of her for 19 years. But I don’t mind it, because I love her more than anything else in this world. Well, her and the rest of my family. But still-- I love her,” Sonny now stood up.

“And I get that you like her, but she--- she has gotten way too serious about you way too fast, and way too hard. And this?” He gestured around the room, referring to the whole night. “This ain’t even the tip of the iceberg with her, if she’s really fallen off the wagon,”

“...God dammit,” Rafael stood up and began to pace in his living room. He thought about every single second he had spent with you since he met you; you had never seemed so...broken, as Sonny was describing you.

“What I’m saying is, unless you’re ready to-- ‘deal’ with her, and everything that comes with that, please for the love of God, just walk away now,” Sonny pleaded.

“Because she won’t listen to me if I tell her to stay away from you. And if things get too ‘real’ for you, you’re just gonna freak out or-- or get bored, and throw her away. Her self worth will drop to shit. And if that happens, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get her back from that,”

“I would never just throw her away, Carisi,” Rafael rolled his eyes.

“You can’t say that, Barba,” Sonny debated.

“And why the hell not?” Rafael narrowed his eyes.

“Because you’ve never NOT just ‘thrown away’ someone,” He chuckled. “That front door might as well be a garbage chute,”

“You son of a--” Rafael started to yell at him but Sonny cut him off.

“Tell me I’m wrong, Barba. Look me in the eyes and tell me I have no idea what I’m talking about, and I’ll leave here and let you deal with her the way you want to,” Sonny looked at him pensively. Rafael looked at him for several seconds, then softened his glare into a sad concession.

“....Take her,” He muttered softly while looking at the ground.

“Thank you,” Sonny mumbled softly as he turned to go retrieve your passed out self from the bedroom. However, he was instead met with the most unsettling sight:

You were standing in the doorway of the room, glaring at the two of them.

“...H-Hey, Sunshine--” Sonny tried to appease you with an awkward smile.

“Don’t,” You growled, stomping into the living room and began packing your bag.

“Y/N, what are you--” Rafael went to put a hand on your bag but you snatched it away before you shot fire out of your eyes into his gaze.

“Oh, I’m sorry, did I misunderstand what you just said?” You barked at him with tears in your eyes. “Because I’m pretty damn sure I heard ‘take her’. You know like I’m some sort of defective Amazon package,”

“That’s not what I meant---” He softly spoke, the guilt of his words being heard by you was quickly eating him alive.

“No I know what you meant, Rafael,” You zipped your duffel shut angrily.

“I heard the whole god damn spiel. Which, by the way, thank you so much for detailing my entire little sob story, cousin,” You glared at Sonny as you started walking towards the front door, shoulder checking him.

“But neither of you have to worry about anything anymore, okay? You’re released from your ‘duties’. This trainwreck is leaving the station, so you can relax,” You looked at the both of them with pain in your eyes, tears cracking your words.

“Sunshine--” Sonny started after you.

“DON’T,” You glared at him while putting a finger up. “Don’t ever call me that again,”

“At least let me drive you home--”

“No,” You shook your head. “And you know what, cuz? I didn’t realize I was such a financial burden, so you know what? Cut me off. Because I’d rather be homeless again than take any more money from you,”

“What did I do?!” Sonny was now angry. “All I did was come over and try to protect you, that’s it!”

“I don’t need your protection!” You screamed. “This whole time...this whole time, I thought you were proud of me. That you trusted me,”

“I do trust you--”

“You don’t!” You stomped your foot while tears streamed down your face. “Y-You think that if . one single thing like a boy not liking me is gonna set me off, like I’m some kind of bomb you’ve kept from detonating for years. My life is not your responsibility anymore, Sonny! I don’t think it ever was!”

“Well who’s else was it gonna be?!”

“NOBODY’S!!!!” You finally dropped your duffel bag and kicked the wall, leaning your head against it. You were strangely quiet for a long pause before you spoke again in an eerily calm voice.

“...Do you know why my mother “dropped me off’ with your mother?”

“Because she couldn’t take care of you--”

“No I heard what you said,” You sniffled with a sad smile. “Because she didn’t want to,”

“Sunshine--”

“But leaving me with your mother, was her plan b,” You cut him off, still looking at the floor.

“What do you mean?” Sonny asked cautiously while looking at Rafael who had a terrified look in his eyes.

“She didn’t want to ‘burden’ her sister with me, but she had to when I wouldn’t die,”

“...W-What?” Rafael almost choked on the words in disbelief.

“She tried to smother me with a pillow, but I wouldn’t die. I kept screaming and crying, and I guess it touched her strand of humanity, so she stopped,” You rolled your eyes with the same sad smile.

That memory was forever imprinted in your brain. The terror of being woken up in blackness, unable to breathe. The smell of the cigarette smoke covered pillow being shoved into your throat and nostrils. Your mother crying and telling you it would be over soon, just to let go. And finally her sad, pathetic whimpers and sobs when she finally lifted the pillow from you, disappointed in herself that she couldn’t do one good thing in her life. That now she was going to have to pass you, her problem, onto her sister.

“Y/N, baby girl--” Sonny stepped towards you again.

“I wasn’t supposed to be raised by anybody, Sonny. I’m not even supposed to be alive!” You stomped your foot again while tears continued to flow.

“That’s not true!” He ran over and grabbed you in a hug. “You are not a burden,”

“Really?” You laughed sarcastically into his shoulder as you pushed him away from the hug. “You just said your mom didn’t even want to deal with me. Nobody did,”

“I did!” He argued. “I do,”

“Yeah well, maybe I’m my mother’s daughter. I don’t wanna be your burden,” You picked up the duffel and opened the door.

“Okay well you have no choice in that so you’re gonna have to let that go,” Sonny grabbed your hand before you could walk away.

“Fine,” You finally conceded with a blank expression.

“Guess I’ll just have to let a lot of things go, won’t I?” Your voice cracked as you looked at Rafael one more time with the saddest eyes.

He stared back at you with a stone cold face. He wanted so badly just to go and hold you in his arms, telling you how you didn’t deserve any of what happened to you, and that you deserved everything good and all the love in the world. But Sonny’s pleas were still in his head.

He didn’t know if he wanted the responsibility of your entire self worth and happiness, let alone your sobriety on his shoulders. He didn’t even like to get close to clients with that many issues, the pressure was too much. So instead he just stood there, trying not to show how much this was killing him, sending you away like this.

“Come on Sunshine, just-- let’s go, okay?” Sonny pleaded with you softly, pulling at your hand. You didn’t answer, you just nodded and started walking down the hallway towards the elevator, leaving Sonny at the door.

“...Thank you, Barba,” He mumbled softly, nodding at Rafael. Rafael barely nodded back before Sonny closed the door.

As soon as it was closed, Rafael dropped on his knees and began to cry. He didn’t know why exactly, was he crying because he felt horrible for all the shit you had gone through? Was he angry at himself for not being able to get over his own bullshit to actually open up and care about someone for more than a week? Was he really that big of a hypocrite, showing empathy to clients all the time but shutting out the one person he felt he might-- he couldn’t even think it. He wouldn’t let himself think it. He just composed himself and poured another scotch while turning on the TV, trying to forget what just happened.

His NETFLIX menu popped up; it asked him if he wanted to continue watching Bojack Horseman. He closed his eyes and muttered obscenities in spanish while memories of the night before flooded his brain, making him cry angry tears once more. He finally decided just to go to bed, maybe his brain would release him from torture if he could turn it off.

He wasn’t sure he could ever turn it off now.

#rafael barba #rafael barba angst #rafael barba x you #rafael barba x reader #law and order svu fanfiction #svu fanfiction #sonny carisi #weird secret friends #rafael barba imagine

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gwynposting · 3 years

Text

Justice (Ch. 1)

This is the start of an alternate ending for Cyberunk 2077, focused around Judy as she tries to help V rid herself of the relic without also shedding her soul in the process.

AO3 Link

The feigning scent of nicotine clouds leftover from the trapped remnants of Maiko’s cigarette sent itching pulses of desire through V’s body. The activation throughout her body startled and scared her. She didn’t smoke. She hadn’t puffed a stick in her life and yet she eased into it like she was sitting in a favorite chair. More than once had she caught herself reaching for a cigarette from Evelyn’s pack before swiping the inner thoughts of Johnny away.

The clack of Maiko’s stilettos began to fade into the background, “Maiko, hold up. Give us a lift?” Roxanne called out.

“Only if you don’t talk to me,” Maiko responded bitterly, “I feel a migraine coming on.”

She’s not the only one, V thought to herself. It almost felt like the cigarette fumes had been a trigger for it - like her brain was trying to associate the smell to memories that she’s never experienced before, that never existed. Flashes of seething bitter hatred and insecurity and jealousy pulsed through her veins came and went.

It took the breath out of her, and V had to brace herself with both hands to remain upright.

“Oh shit,” Judy said as she siddled besides V, “I’m scared, V.”

Judy looked down to her lap before continuing, “Speakin’ of gratitude… stuff I’m askin’ you to do, well - usually comes with a price tag, I know. You wanna help, I get that. But I’m more’n happy to pay your fee in full.”

V shifted her weight to her right arm so she could wave Judy away with her left, “C’mon Judy, you serious? Out of the question.”

“Bu-” Judy tried to make her case.

“Ah ah ah,” V tutted, “Not… not a word,” dizziness began to set in - her head began to swim and V found it difficult to even complete a sentence. She tried to provide a smile of assurance, but by the expression on Judy’s face, she wasn’t buying it.

“You okay V?” Judy reached out and placed a hand on V’s knee.

V looked up to meet Judy’s concerned eyes, which she could only meet with her own - unfocused and strained. “Don’t worry ‘bout me, just a long day.”

“How ‘bout I call a cab then,” Judy soothed.

“Preem,” V replied, before placing both hands on her knees and trying to lift herself up from the couch. “Thanks -” she began before what felt like electricity shot through her nervous system.

V clutched her head in agony as if it would stop the cosmic force tormenting her from using her skull as a sharpening stone. Every scrape and slice caused by another memory overwriting her brain, another one of her memories lost to time as one more of Johnny Silverhand’s took its place.

RELIC MALFUNCTION DETECTED

V’s legs gave out from under her. She reached out for the couch’s siding to fall back onto.

But she was far too weak to support herself, and her legs began to give out from under her until she collapsed on the cushion below.

“V? Are you okay?” Judy’s voice sounded distant.

She barely even heard Judy. She was breathless, her heart raced. She was staring down the barrel of Dexter Deshawn and he had just put a bullet through her skull.

“V?” Judy’s words became more desperate, “Talk to me.”

It sounded like V was underwater and all she could hear were the muffled desperate cries of Judy, until finally Judy reached out and shook her shoulder.

“V,” Judy stressed, “please.”

But as quickly as the searing pain shot through her body, it soon dissipated. Yet she continued to stare forward, past Judy and into the distance - she still stood down the barrel of Deshawn’s .22.

“S-sorry to scare you like that,” V attempted a smile. Her cheeks were a deep scarlet, whether flush from the pain moments before or from the embarrassment of having Judy bear witness to one of her episodes.

“W-what the fuck, V,” Judy’s voice had a hint of shakiness, “are you like… sick?”

“Something like that,” V said with a gruff. She still felt in a sort of daze, her muscles struggled to keep herself upright. “How much you wanna know?”

Judy tilted her head, “Only what you want to, V. I just want to know if you’re okay.”

V looked off to the side before her eyes rested upon her lap, “Well,” V said with a choke that even caught herself off guard, “Might have bad news for you.”

She attempted to look Judy in the eye but faltered under their piercing worry, “You know the heist that Evelyn hired us for, the relic I was gonna klep?”

“Couldn’t forget that in a million years,” Judy said somberly.

“I’ll spare you the gritty details but… in short the chip we stole’s stuck in my head. The chip is keeping me alive, but it’s also slowly killing me.”

Judy seemed taken aback, “You bein’ serious?”

“Sounds like a lot, I know. Truly wish it was all bullshit, believe me.”

“Fuck,” Judy muttered under her breath, “Anything at all you can do?”

“One can hope,” V withered.

Judy gave a sad smile, “It’s late, you’re tired. You can crash here for the night if you’d like,” Judy gave a reassuring pat on the knee to V.

V could only nod in return, “Thanks, Jude.”

Judy stood up and walked back to her room while V took the opportunity to kick off her boots and lay down on the couch. There wasn’t a pillow to lean on, but V couldn’t care less - she was already half asleep by the time her cheeks touched the couch.

“I got some pillows and a blanket for -” Judy cut herself off as she saw V fast asleep on her couch, arms splayed out and face straight down. She couldn’t help but smile, “Pssh, fuckin’ gonk.”

Judy shifted her weight to the balls of her feet, creeping up to the sleeping merc. With as careful a touch as she could, she cradled V’s head in one hand as she slipped a pillow underneath. She then took the blanket and splayed it atop her body.

Judy looked down upon V’s form and found it hard to take her eyes away. To see such a force of nature so vulnerable, so…

Adorable…

It sent butterflies to the pit of Judy’s stomach.

But in the same moment those butterflies turned to boulders, sinking within as she felt the gravity of the emotions within - vulnerability.

Of course she’s fucking dying, the dark thoughts appeared in Judy’s head. And while they were immediately beaten back down by conscious thought, she wasn’t able to push down the underlying fear that she’d open herself up to someone once more, only to lose them to the inevitable grind of Night City’s heel. But her mind was no more hostage to her first impulse as she was to her second - there was an ever present war taking place within her.

How could I be so selfish? She’s fucking dying and I immediately make it about myself.

Judy hadn’t even realized she’d reached for the pack of cigarettes in her pocket until her other hand failed to locate her lighter. Deciding she didn’t want to bother having a fight with herself on a nicotine-deprived brain, she waited until she was back on the roof of her building, lit cigarette in hand, staring out to the NC skyline.

Is it too much to ask for just one thing to go right, she asked herself.

Yet Judy quickly reminded herself, You’re acting like she’s your girlfriend already.

Judy cursed herself at even the thought - she didn’t even know if V was even into women. She took a heavy draw from her cigarette before flicking it off the balcony.

***

Judy’s gaze lingered on V’s sleeping form. Maybe she was looking a bit too close - her eyes focused on a couple strands of hair drooped over V’s face. She had the overwhelming desire to sweep them back over the merc’s ear, but ultimately decided not.

“Goodnight, V.”

***

Sharp cracks raced through the air. Although used to the familiar tenors, V shot up in an instant - her hair raised on end, breath rapid, and heartbeat racing. More gunfire sprung forth, followed by the screeching squeal of rubber against pavement. The gripping roar of motorcycles soon began to fade into the streets of Kabuki.

V clutched her chest as she tried to calm herself down. She was fine.

For now.

But as the adrenaline began to fade, the throbbing headache leftover from last night’s attack took its place. V groaned in pain as she began to feel her own heartbeat through her head.

“Mornin’, sleepyhead.” Judy called out.

V turned to see Judy in the kitchen making breakfast. She tried to match the energy Judy was bestowed but could only manage a pained half-smile. “Helluva alarm clock.”

“Things have been getting hot between Maelstrom and the Tyger Claws lately,” Judy sighed, “it doesn't help that I live on the border of their territories.”

Judy paused what she was doing and instead took a mug from the cupboard and filled it with coffee from the pot. She also grabbed a pill bottle and doled out a couple in her hand and brought them both over to V.

“Coffee and,” she held out her hand for V, dropping its contents into her hand, “ibuprofen. And I hope you like ham.”

“Wow,” V replied, “thanks, Judy. And yeah, I love it.”

“Least I can do.” Judy said with a smile before returning to the kitchen.

Least I can do, she repeated in her thoughts.

V tossed both tablets in her mouth and washed it down with several large gulps of coffee. The scalding liquid coating the inside of her mouth was the least of her concerns, she needed caffeine inside her ASAP.

When Judy was finished, she brought over a fresh ham sandwich. V took it and scarfed it down, only to blush as she realized what a messy eater she was being.

Wiping her lips clean, she looked up to see Judy sitting on the couch a ways away looking vaguely concerned, “Sorry I uh, freaked you out last night.”

“Does that happen a lot?” Judy asked.

V rubbed her neck, not wanting to lay it all on Judy at once, “It’s not usually that bad.”

“C’mon, V. Cut the shit. What’s really going on?”

“No gettin’ around this, huh?” V asked, but really it was more a statement of fact, knowing Judy.

Judy gave a half smile, but it gave away her underlying fears and doubts, “I’m worried, V.”

Something deeper pierced V, she couldn’t pinpoint it. All she knew was she couldn’t deny Judy this request, “You want the long version, then?”

“Call it a thanks for breakfast,” Judy smirked.

“Might want to get comfortable then. Because well, shit, where do I begin?” V thought for a moment before continuing once more, “So, my choom and I, big guy named Jackie, tangled with this hotshot fixer, Dexter Deshawn.”

“He’s the one who put you in contact with Evie?” Judy asked.

V nodded, “Mhm, as well as make us run some errands,” V said with a scoff, “but anyways, the job was to hit Konpeki Plaza, right? Klep some biochip that the son of ‘Saka was stealing for himself.”

“Which is why you came in for the braindances,” Judy affirmed.

“Exactly. But the job went wrong, as you know. I lost Jackie getting out of Konpeki. And…”

“...and?” Judy said, softly, not wanting to sound too impatient.

“I died, Judy. I fucking died.” V shuddered at the thought.

“Are you… are you joking right now?” How are you alive?” Judy leaned forward in disbelief.

“Remember that chip we were stealin’? Well, the container got busted when we were escaping. The next best place to store it was hooked into one of our brains, apparently. Jackie took the honors initially but… well….” V shook her head, “So I slotted the shard in myself after Jackie died.”

“I’m sorry, by the way. Truly,” Judy soothed as she scooched closer across the sofa so that she was now in touching distance between V.

V could really only offer a smile of acknowledgement in return, for she felt nothing but agony when she looked inward. “Guess the biochip was my saving grace - Dexter Deshawn double crossed me, put a bullet in my skull. I died then. But the craziest part is that the chip restarted my brain, god knows how much later. And I woke up to find myself in a junkyard in the badlands, covered in filth in debris.”

“J-Jesus fuck, V.” Judy’s voice hitched, “But I guess you made it out, all things considered.”

V nodded, “Got back only to realize I had the engram of a terrorist in my brain - Johnny Silverhand.”

“Woah, woah,” Judy waved, “engram?”

“Think of it like some digitized psyche, like if someone downloaded your entire brain and saved it to memory. His psyche is on the chip inside me.”

“Okay okay, so like the ‘Saka commercials just… just in your brain.”

“Yeah, something like that. But I guess when it restarted my brain, the chip began erasing me and writing in Johnny.”

“Fuck,” Judy stuttered. “So you’re becoming Johnny Silverhand?”

“Yeah,” V’s voice cracked, tears began to form on high cheekbones. “In a few weeks’ time, I’ll be someone completely different. I won’t even exist.”

Judy instantly moved to V’s side and wrapped an arm about her, pulling her close. “I wonder what it’ll be like to die for a second time,” V pondered dryly.

“Is there really nothing you can do?” Judy almost pleaded.

“There’s a few leads. I’m waiting to hear back from a fixer that can put me in touch with the Voodoo Boys, and I still need to look into finding the lead researcher for the biochip.”

“Ok,” Judy breathed deeply, “Alright. Then you focus on that, okay? And listen, I know you said you’d help out with Clouds but this is your life on the line here, V, I’d completely understand if you back out.”

“I said I was helping Judy, and that’s final.”

V’s assuredness sent a shiver down Judy’s spine - her unwavering voice, despite cracked with emotion moments before, her steadied eyes, still reddened from irritation and tears yet firm in their conviction, and the almost offended expression on her face to even suggest that she’d go back on her promise.

“Then... keep me posted? About how it goes... If you want,” Judy stumbled over her words. “I want to help if I can.”

“Of course, Judy. And thanks,” V smiled in appreciation.

Even the slightest gesture made Judy’s heart flutter. This gonk will be the death of me.

#cyberpunk 2077 #judy alvarez #judy x v #female v #v x judy #Justice2077

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dizzydancingdreamer · 3 years

Text

Death | Peter Parker

So I wasn't expecting to post this today (or anything today). I wasn't expecting to have to work through my feelings with death today— to have to try to understand why people die and why they die young— but life hits you when you don't expect it, you know? You don't expect the people you know— especially when they're your age— to die. I don't, at least. And I wasn't sure where to turn to— or even how to say how I was feeling— so I chose Peter— because I'm sure if someone gets it, it would be him. I don't know if this piece will make any sense— but I guess that's fitting because neither did the death. A., you can rest now.

Synopsis: Peter doesn't understand why Death seems to follow him around.

Characters: Peter Parker, May Parker, Ben Parker, Stephen Strange, Tony Stark, Pepper Potts

Warnings: Angst, Heavy mention of death (literally the title), mentions of plane crashes, mentions of animal death (his dog dies), mention of funerals, Endgame references, sadness

Word count: 1.5k

➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶

Sometimes Peter Parker feels like Death follows him around.

It starts when he’s six years old. It starts peacefully. Maybe Death is trying to give a child a break— maybe Death knows it shouldn’t have to happen (both his parents dying on that plane, that is). That’s what he likes to believe anyway— how else does a six year old cope with death?

He doesn’t remember much beyond the long service (which now that he thinks about it was probably only forty-five minutes and change) and the starchy, itchy suit that May stuffs him into between his questions about death and cake. Yeah, he’s focused on the cake— how else does a six year old cope with funerals?

It isn’t much harder when his dog, Stomper, dies a few years later. He cries more— at least he remembers crying more— but then again he’s now ten and he understands more about Death. He understands its meaning— and the way it makes him feel— but not it’s permanence. Maybe that’s just Death yet again looking out for the likes of a child, though.

At ten years old he still allows himself to believe Death is nothing but an entity working a job— that Death doesn’t want Peter’s family to leave him just as much as Peter doesn’t. He tells himself that the proof of this (of Death’s humanity, if ten year olds even understand the concept of humanity) is that Stomper died of old age. His proof is that it was his time and that Death gives people— and dogs— as long as possible.

If that isn’t proof enough, then maybe there’s some more proof in the fact that May still doesn’t answer all of his questions— like why he isn’t allowed to see Stomper one more time. How else does a twenty-nine year old woman explain the intricacies of cars and dogs to a ten year old?

It isn’t until Peter is thirteen that he begins to wonder if Death is as kind as he’s been telling himself. It hits him as he places a rose on top of a shiny metal casket that maybe Death is a little cruel too. It hits him when he sees the initials B.P. carved into said shiny metal casket. His uncle Ben’s shiny metal casket. They had tickets to see the Dodgers next weekend— surely Death would have known that. He’s sure baseball is still revered in the afterlife, so what’s the deal?

He reiterates to May that exact question. This time when he asks her about death, she answers a little more truthfully.

“Why did he die? “

“He got shot— it was an accident.”

“How do you know it was an accident?”

“All death is an accident, Pete.”

“So Death made a mistake?”

“Yeah maybe. Maybe Death made a mistake.”

“How could Death make a mistake?”

She drops the mug in her hand when he asks that one (a mistake too he supposes) and the sound of the porcelain breaking as it hits the tiles around her feet sounds a lot like the home run alarm.

“I don’t know— I don’t know how. We all make mistakes.”

It’s at this point that he realizes that maybe May knows just as much about Death as he does. He would have preferred it didn't happen then— It’s a pretty big revelation for a thirteen year old who’s just had his second dad ripped away from him— but by now he’s starting to realize that, like Death, Life doesn’t work on his schedule either.

Still, at thirteen he has some hope left. Enough to try again, at least.

“Why did he die?”

“He got shot. I told you it was an accident Pete.”

May is bent over picking up the pieces of the broken mug (he’s too smart to think about the metaphor in that).

“Why did he die?”

“It was an accident.”

May tries again, still not looking at him— her hands are shaking now.

“Why did he die?”

She drops the pieces— she’s given up.

“He was shot.”

This time it isn’t an accident (maybe Death doesn’t make mistakes).

However maybe it is (maybe Death does) because at sixteen something happens that makes him revert back to how he was at ten. He starts thinking that maybe Death is on his side after all— that maybe mistakes happen but that it’s okay because they’re made with good intentions. After all, how else does a sixteen year old cope with his own death if he doesn’t believe that Death is kind?

Death must be kind because how else would be here, alive, if it wasn’t?

“Did I die?”

He asks— this time May isn’t here.

“I don’t know, kid.”

May may as well be here by the way Stephen answers.

“Did I die?”

He doesn’t know if he’s asking Stephen again or if he just can’t keep the question from leaving his lips but Stephen answers anyway.

“I think so.”

That’s not the answer May would give— it must be the wrong answer.

“Did I die?”

“Yeah kid— you died. We both did. But we’re back now so you’ve got to stay alive.”

Stephen doesn’t say it but Peter hears it— the relief. They’re alive— they shouldn’t be alive but they are. So yeah, maybe Death is kind after all. Maybe Death makes mistakes. Maybe Death corrects it’s mistakes.

Maybe that’s just the hope, though, because at sixteen (Peter doesn’t want to think about how he should be twenty-one and not sixteen) he stops wondering about those questions. Not because he isn’t curious about the answers anymore— he was just asking Stephen less than half an hour ago if he had died— but because they’re all, in fact, answered.

Peter doesn’t so much see Tony snap his fingers as he does hear it. In fact, he doesn’t know it’s Tony who’s snapping his fingers until the alien with his grimey hand around Peter’s throat dissolves. Kind of like how Peter had. Like the mug— he doesn’t think too hard about that (how else does a sixteen year old cope with an existential crisis?).

When Peter makes it back to Tony at sixteen with his hair matted to his forehead and his face covered in ash, his questions are answered.

“Mr. Stark we won, did you see—”

Peter stops, his eyes drifting to the blood at the corner of Tony’s mouth (he knows by now that his questions are answered but he doesn’t listen— he doesn’t know why). He watches as his lips curl up one last time (he tells himself that it’s not the last time— he doesn’t know why). He tries again (he has hope— he knows why).

He has to have hope (how else does a sixteen year old cope with watching someone they love die?)

“Tony we won— we won.”

He doesn’t get a response, only a hand on the shoulder as Pepper coaxes him to the side. Peter can’t hear what she says to Tony, his ears are ringing too loud. Eventually the light on Tony’s chest goes out— eventually Pepper’s lips stop moving (he doesn’t know why). They won but it doesn’t feel like they won (of course he knows why). Yeah, at sixteen all his questions are answered, even if he doesn’t think about them until he’s back in the starchy, itchy suit.

May’s hand feels like lead on his shoulder but he doesn’t have enough energy to tell her to move it as he watches Pepper lower the arc reactor into the pond. He’s trying to pay attention— trying not to cry— but his thoughts keep drifting (does he know why?). This time he’s not thinking about cake.

He’s thinking about Death (is that how sixteen year olds cope?).

It’s how he copes (finally putting answers to questions).

Death doesn’t make mistakes— how could it when Tony knew what the stones would do to him?

Pepper is crying now— he thinks maybe he is too. He can’t feel anything anymore though, not even May’s hand. All he can do is think.

Death isn’t kind— if it was then it wouldn’t have taken his third dad.

Peter is starting to hate thinking.

He wishes he had never acknowledged Death at six years old. Now he knows that it will never stop following him. He wishes he didn’t have so many questions still. He knows that May won’t answer them— she won’t know the answers. He knows Stephen won’t answer them— even if he knows the answers he won’t be around to tell Peter them.

He blinks, watching as the people around him begin to move. A couple of them stop when they pass, squeezing his arm or patting his shoulder, but he doesn’t move. He can’t.

No, Death isn’t kind, but it sure is persistent.

He doesn’t know why (maybe that’s the last kindness Death does him— giving him a new question to ask).

#Peter Parker #Spider Man #Peter Parker Angst #spider man angst #peter parker fic #peter parker drabble #spider man fic #spider man drabble #mcu #marvel cinematic universe #mcu fic #mcu angst #mcu drabble

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fiddlepickdouglas · 3 years

Text

To The Wick - Bobby’s Birthday

Disclaimer: I’m not usually a fic writer, I tend to stick to original stuff, but I just felt like I had to write this for Bobby today. I definitely wrote this in one go and did no proofreading, so I’m very sorry for that.

Summary: 2.3k wd. Bobby celebrates with Rose and Ray while still dealing with survivors guilt. Lots of fire imagery and comparisons.

WARNINGS: deals with death, symptoms similar to anxiety or PTSD, funeral mentions, survivor’s guilt

Staring at the flame, he fought every impulse to snuff it out with his fingers. For a moment, he contemplated on its gentle flickering, not unlike himself at this time. Every moment of its existence a fight against very strong currents, against all but one element surrounding it. All it knew was heat and the need to grow outward, but not being able to without the permission of exterior forces.

The words to the Beatles’ birthday song drummed on his ears, but his mind was in the back of the cavern where the music could only echo at a distance. Shaking his head and pulling his mind out of the depths of the cave, Bobby let a small smile loose for Rose and Ray and blew out the candle on the cupcake before him.

His friends cheered and they all bit into their own homemade cupcakes. Rose had been perfecting her recipe, and so far these were the best.

“You’re going to open a bakery,” Bobby told her through a mouthful. “And I’m going to be your most faithful customer.”

“But I get to do all the taste-testing, right amor?” Ray teased, earning a hand messing up his hair from Rose.

“Mi abuela didn’t pass this down and I didn’t tweak it so you could eat it for free all the time,” she said in a sassy tone, kissing his cheek.

Ray raised his eyebrows. “Noted,” he replied with a smirk.

Bobby finished his cupcake, entertained by the two lovebirds.

“So,” Rose started saying. “Now it’s time to open gifts!” She leaned away from her seat and grabbed an object from the counter a few feet away, then handed it to Bobby.

Tearing apart the purple wrapping and blue ribbon, he looked down at the small stack of CDs. Meditation Sunrise, The 7th Chakra, and Celtic Wind sat in his hands like rectangular dumbbells, each weighing heavier on his heart than he cared to admit. Suddenly, Ray was draping something over his head, and as he looked down he found himself wearing a necklace of prayer beads.

“You guys!” he chuckled, trying to sound genuine. It was his birthday, he was supposed to enjoy all of this. The gifts were actually great, too. “Thanks, this is awesome. You’ll both have to join me in a session, you know.”

“We were thinking we could do it with you today, if you wanted to,” Rose told him.

Bobby sat back in surprise.

“O-okay,” he stammered. He caught the look in her eyes that was hoping this wasn’t too much, to which he gave her a small smile of assurance. It was impossible to blame them for anything he felt today, especially when she and Ray were putting in so much effort to make it full of the joy and happiness it was meant for. It didn’t mean he hadn’t subconsciously stuck his hand in his pocket to where he kept a lighter. Just to feel that it was there, of course.

“Is it okay if we do it later tonight?” he asked. “I just have a quick meeting with my producer and a couple other things afterward to do. And I can pick up some incense while I’m out.”

“Great plan!” Ray exclaimed. He didn’t elaborate, but Bobby could guess that all the eye contact with Rose meant something he needed no part in. He got up from the table and grabbed another cupcake for the road.

“Say we meet back at, like, eight or nine?” he asked, grabbing his leather jacket and keys.

Rose looked up from being halfway embraced with Ray, barely paying attention. “Sounds perfect!”

********

“So, after talking with Jedd we decided we wanna cut out the second repeat of the chorus in Long Weekend. It makes it easier to put into radio time.”

Bobby stared at Callum, his producer, in disbelief.

“But we can just do a radio edit, then, why cut it off the album track?”

Callum blinked condescendingly.

“You think you’re just going to get radio edits out like that before you have an album out, kid?”

“Have you listened to it?” Bobby challenged. “That album is gonna shoot through the charts and I know you know that.”

“Tch,” Callum acted like he’d been shot by a Nerf gun. “That’s a bold statement from a guy who didn’t write these songs.”

A fireball seemed to form inside his chest, and Bobby wished he could open his mouth and shoot it toward the man. He clenched his teeth.

“You signed the deal, you recorded these songs, and you are getting this opportunity from us. We - need I say this - are professionals. Trust me, I’ve dealt with music written by dead people before. You’ll thank me in a few years.”

He was trembling to keep the fireball from burning down the entire room, and clenched his fists. Focusing on a stupid paisley design on the carpet, he avoided eye contact with Callum. There was no way he was letting Luke’s songs go any different than what they had played together for so many years. He had read the contract well enough, hadn’t he? It was hard enough not crediting the rest of them, but it was honor Luke with letting his music connect to people or honor Luke by letting him keep his songs to the few who heard them from the source. Not to mention Alex and Reggie being equal parts in that equation.

“Fine,” he forced out. “Make the cut. See how it does. I’ll bet you that when I make a remaster in twenty years with greater freedoms because I’m a respected artist, fans will ask why you cut it to begin with. I’ve got better people to see than you right now.”

He only saw Callum shaking his head out of the corner of his eye as he pushed through the door of the studio, flipping the bird behind him. It would’ve been nice to simply say over my dead body, but he was already bulldozing over his three best friends and it wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t fair that he could walk along the street, get into his car, and drive off in a huff. Not fair that he could go to the abandoned grocery store parking lot and yell until his lungs were sore. It was absolutely inadequate that he remained on this earth, soul inside his body, light in his eyes, breath and blood and bones and all. He screamed in that parking lot until he was dizzy.

Bobby laid in his seat, exhausted, until twilight approached, and then started the engine again. The route was so well-known now that he knew exactly when the lights turned so he never had to make a stop. He came to the right stop and parked on the shoulder, looking wistfully out the window.

So far, he hadn’t managed to set foot on the grounds again after the funerals had passed. Still, he came and made sure his line of sight at the closest angle to get a proper look at them. They were all in a row, even though only two stood vertically. Reggie’s parents had cremated him and only gotten a stone plaque that acted as a placeholder while they kept his urn with them at home. It was nice of them to at least contribute to keep the three together.

Today still wasn’t the day he was going to venture closer to them. Bobby wasn’t going to handle it well after the conversation he’d just left. He pulled the lighter out of his pocket and flicked it off and on. It hadn’t really been a habit he had before, but there was something weirdly comforting about it. For something that couldn’t think, it really understood him. He didn’t want to use it on anything, he just wanted to watch it exist before disappearing. The fire was them. But he could control it.

Taking in a deep breath, he went to get some incense.

********

Mats were spread in the backyard with tiki torches and a camping lantern in the center, more paper lanterns hanging from the tree above. Bobby had gotten a nice incense burner a few weeks back and was excited to put it on display. Ray was in his swim shorts, already seated with his legs crossed and repeatedly going “oommmm” and breaking it with giggles when Rose swatted at him playfully.

“We’re not doing that kind, tontoroso,” she teased.

“Pero me quiero - ah!” Ray cried as she accidentally thumped him with the boombox she’d been carrying out.

“Oh, lo siento mi amor, me desculpes!” she cried, setting it down to address the minor bump now forming on his head.

Bobby sat patiently as they babbled for a moment ensuring that Ray wasn’t harmed too much, smirking a little. He didn’t really mind being the third wheel on his own birthday - it helped take away from some of the guilt.

“Okay!” Rose said finally, standing and adjusting the bottom of her tank top. “I think we should try the Meditation Sunrise, so it will guide us through every motion and we don’t have to think.”

“Agreed,” Bobby nodded, with Ray doing the same. “The less thinking the better.”

Rose pressed play on the first track as all three of them sat in their assumed meditative positions with their eyes shut. Calm, synthesized music floated out of the speakers of the boombox, with light chimes twinkling here and there.

“Welcome to Meditation Sunrise. This first exercise is to help you free yourself from resentments and embrace forgiveness. Listen to my words. Focus on my voice and soon you will be free of anything that stirs up anger. This can be anger toward another person, anger toward a higher being, or even anger toward yourself…”

Bobby felt his heartbeat increasing and strained to keep his eyes closed. He tried to sit up straighter so that he could breathe in even deeper. He could hear Ray and Rose exhaling, sounding so calm and relaxed, and let out his own breath hoping it came out the same way.

“Forgive faults. Resentment comes from Latin, meaning ‘to feel again’. We all have these feelings, and they all visit us from time to time. Sometimes we hold onto things in the past that have caused harm. These things were painful. Letting these feelings continually visit us repeats that pain. In this exercise we are here to let it go…”

Taking a careful peek through his eyelashes, Bobby checked to see what Rose and Ray looked like. They sat close together, holding hands with the remaining ones shaped in circles. Rose had her head tilted back, so free and open to the sky, so light from the weight that wasn’t sitting on her chest. The flames from the tiki torches flickered and Bobby squeezed his eyes shut so he wouldn’t focus on them instead.

“Now we are going to envision that we have a shovel in our hands. We’re going to dig. Get that shovel deep into the rich soil and lift it up. Set the soil to the side. Smell the fresh, upturned earth. If you want to, you can kneel down and take some into your hands. Let the soft, rich earth be cool to the touch. Let it calm you.

“Imagine you are digging in a garden and planting a seed. It’s a seed of happiness. It’s small right now, but will grow as we continue through our meditation. We just need to go a little deeper into the ground…”

Bobby’s mind was transported back to the cemetery he’d visited earlier. It travelled all the way to the funerals - open ground, lowering cheap wooden boxes. His hand filled with a small amount of dirt.

“Stop,” he muttered, eyes remaining closed. Rose and Ray were still entranced.

“Stop, stop, turn it off, I can’t -” He felt his breathing get uneven, and Rose was already in front of him, cradling his face and wiping away tears that he didn’t realize had escaped. He jerked away from her touch. Ray rushed to stop the playback on the CD.

All he felt was heat rising everywhere. In his veins, all over his skin, the fireball growing like a small sun in his chest, and apparently tears could be hot, too. There was too much rage building up inside. Bobby let out a frustrated cry and kicked over the incense burner, the camping lantern doing down with it. Turning, he almost hit a paper lantern and he whacked it off the tree as he headed back inside the house.

Rose caught up to him and frantically tried to block his path.

“Bobby, I sincerely apologize, I did not know it was going to be like that,” she placated. He paused as she stood before him, pleading. “If you need me to, I can get you a different present, I just wanted to do this because you had seemed interested and thought we would have a fun night together - Bobby, I am so sorry!”

Looking back at her, he sighed heavily and placed a hand on her shoulder.

“You don’t need to get me anything else,” he told her solemnly.

Ray had joined them and put an arm around each of them. A twinge of reminder came to Bobby as he recalled Luke doing the same thing for him. But coming from Ray, it still had the warmth and love connected to it that he needed. He looked between the two of them.

“That was a bust,” he said. They all chuckled a little, albeit with heavy hearts. “But having you guys still made it a good birthday.”

His friends both muttered an “aw” and they came together in a group hug. Bobby sighed as they both squeezed him so tightly before breaking away.

“So what do we wanna do, then?” he asked.

“We could watch Wayne’s World,” Ray suggested.

“Baby,” Rose objected, giving him a look.

“What?” he lifted his hands defensively. “I could make a dip, we could grab some tortilla chips, you know I love dips.”

“But Bob -”

“No, I like that idea,” Bobby interrupted. “Ray makes some good dip, I’ll give him that. I think we can hold off on the meditation for now. Wayne’s World it is.”

#julie and the phantoms #jatp #bobby #bobby wilson #fanfic #happy birthday bobby #birthday celebration #tw: death #tw: anxiety #tw: ptsd #tw: funeral #tw: survivor's guilt

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some-dr-writings · 4 years

Text

Gundham and Kokichi get Hanahaki

Gundham Tanaka:

· Gundham stared down in disbelief at what he had coughed into his hands. No longer was it flower petals but full, pink, camellia blossoms… longing. His loyal generals scurried about in panic. “Hmm, so the curse you sensed on me. Is this it? … not just Hanahaki but these blossoms... their meaning…” He wanted to keep denying it like he had been for the past month but no longer could he.

· He had heard of Hanahaki before, but he thought it was but a rumor. He knew of the only three cures, death, a surgery that removes that wretched plant at the price of the feelings it bloomed from, or confessing… He bitterly chuckled which swiftly morphed into that booming laughter. “So the world now seeks to end me by any means necessary. Whether it be by my body, or my spirit…” Clenching his fist he crushed those soft pink petals. “Fine! Let it try, for all those efforts will be in vain. I’ll carry on these emotions and live! I shall not sacrifice my life in this world nor lose my spirit in doing so.” Immediately after that hacking started up again as he felt that irritable scratching crawl through his throat and lunges. Concerned, his generals cuddled up to him, wanting to help him in some way.

· As he was lacing up his boots that winter morning, he heard a knock, knock, knocking from his door. “I’ll be but a moment my Emperor!” He called out, hopping on one foot towards the door, making that last knot. Swinging the door open he was happily greeted by your pale smile. “Running a little late I see.” “My apologies should I have kept you waiting for long.” “No, no, it’s fine. I’m just used to you being ready before me. Like, seriously, how do you get all that makeup done every day and be ready before me?” He smirked seeing your genuine curiosity. “Ibuki helps Gundham get ready on date day!” “Ibuki!” The girl merrily slipped past you and Gundham. “He always goes on and on about ‘not keeping his beloved waiting’ how ‘on the days of courting rituals he must be as presentable as possible as to-” “ENOUGH IBUKI!” His face was absolutely flushed as he began to chase after her. She dashed away wishing he and you well. “I-ignore those words. They were but nothing!” You had your arms crossed, a sharp smirk creasing your lips. “Suuuuuuuure. Absolutely nothing. Heh.” “E-enough! We must get our ritual started.” Still chuckling you took his bandaged hand and lead the way. How was it that even thinking of your laugh send his heart a flight.

· He strolled down that path, getting absorbed in the light sound of his footfalls against the stone. It was a particularly hot and muggy day, not helped by there not being a single cloud in the sky, allowing the sun’s harsh rays to beam down in it’s full glory. Sighing, he loosened the scarf around his neck. Holding up his hand to shade his eyes just a bit from those rays, his gaze lingered on the dull red and black bandana tied around his wrist.

· “Are you sure you’re feeling well enough to wander around like this?” “I’m fine! Don’t worry so much! I got permission from the doctors and everything!” You trotted on ahead down the trail, spinning around loving the fresh air. You had been cooped up there for far too long under observation. It was good to see you out and so lively at that. All too quickly you got winded and started to collapse. Gundham dashed to you, cradling you against his chest. “My Emperor don’t be so demanding on your body right away. You’ve yet to be released fully. This is but a day to get fresh air.” “I know, but… I want to enjoy being out… even if it hurts a little. But I won’t do anything stupid!” Snow gently fluttered down and Gundham pulled you closer. “All I ask is you be careful.”

· Sitting under a lone tree he felt that awful sweltering heat suffocating him. He felt his heart beating just a little faster than usual. He looked out to the lake, the blue sky reflected on it’s surface. Mindlessly he fiddled with the ends of that bandana.

· “… Gundham.” “Yes?” “What do you think it means to survive?” He looked to you, raising a brow at the question. He was intrigued why you’d ask such a thing, but his own questions could be saved for later. He looked out to the horizon to ponder, though an answer had already sprung to mind. “To survive is to do anything and everything in your power to stay in this realm. To survive in some cases may even mean to allow your own life to extinguish so the majority may live on and prosper even in your absence.” “… Is there a difference between surviving and living?” “Surviving and living you say… Hmm.” He shivered as the cold wind rolled past. “… Living is making the most of each moment you have. Even if it’s something small like being awake in a dream or merely being near a cherished one. Living is appreciating the moment.” “So… can you live and survive?” “… That depends on the circumstances.” “If you had to choose one, which would it be.” “Me?... I’d choose survival.” “I thought so.” “And you?” “… Don’t know. I… I think it depends on the circumstances.”

· Survival…

· Placing a hand on his propped-up knee, he tried pushing himself onto his feet. Even merely standing up caught his breath in his throat, those accursed blooms clogging his windpipe. He desperately tried repressing those blooms, keeping it all in, even covering his mouth with his hands. He couldn’t let them out. Not just yet.

· “Hey, there’s a street market! Let’s go check it out.” As the two of you entered you were immediately hit by the wafting sent of fried food and incense. Hand in hand the two of you wandered from stall to stall, admiring the unique items. In one such stall as Gundham was looking at some plain furin bells you approached him. “Hey, I got you something!” “Oh? What sort of charm have you procured?” “Hold up your not bandaged hand.” Obediently he did as told. “I thought this’d look good on you!” You then tied the bright red and black bandana around his wrist. “Hmm, you have a good eye. I can already feel the power you transferred into it, radiating brilliantly!”

· Sitting at one of the stalls Gundham ate a tin box of jam and powdered sugar covered aebleskivers with a small paper bag of newly bought items. He watched as the thinning crowd almost dissipated entirely as the midday heat made being outside too unbearable. He watched as the wind rustled the leaves of the trees. Unable to take it anymore he took off his scarf and instead tied it around his waist. He reached for his wrist, flinching, feeling the fabric. He felt that cough seemingly puncture his throat.

· As he walked, he slowly came to a stop. For a moment, he looked to the hospital that stood just across the street. He continued to walk. Down the street, down the sidewalk, up the hill, across the road, past the temple and into the large, lush green forest. The wind seemed to howl the deeper he went. The cool air and shade complimented the calm of the forest. His eyes wandered from the treetops to the moss-covered stone walls. Off in the distance he heard, assumedly a monk, playing a tibetan bowl. The stone pathway was neatly cleaned, hardly even any dirt on it, clearly well cared for. Down the stone stairs he had but needed to take a left to arrive at his destination. As he offered incense, he couldn’t keep it in anymore coughing and hacking up pink, bloodied camellia blossoms between raspy gasps for air.

· Shaking he fell to his knees before the snow-covered stone.

· He clutched a hand on his chest that prickling pain seemingly wanting to burst through and break his rib-cage. He managed to force himself up, ladle out water on the grave from a wooden tub.

· His eyes blurred only seeing a haze of gray and white when he poured the water.

· He placed a hand on the grave.

· He…

· “It’s not winter, but summer.” Looking to the dates he sighed, only for that coughing to start up again. Taking a deep breath, he put his hands flat together in prayer. “It’s been a year and a half since you’ve passed on my Emperor.” His scratchy voice began to crack. “I… I’ve come to you today to apologize. I wish to live, but more so to survive. I can no longer confess my love for you, for your everything over and over as I once had done when you were beside me in this world. Even if I continue to do so in my dreams this curse won’t leave me be… so… it seems…” His breath trembled just as his body did, tears streaking down his cheeks. “My… my Y/N… I thank you, for spending your time with me when you were here. I… I love you so much, even now that you’re gone and can no longer love me back, I love you… And… goodbye… for… forev-…” He couldn’t bring himself to finish that last word. Hiccups, raw sobbing, gasps, and coughing got in the way.

· On unsteady feet he dragged himself away. He couldn’t be late.

· As snow drifted down past the window, entering the room he saw how longingly you looked to him. “Gundham… I… don’t worry about me, please.” “How dare you say that! I always shall!” “No, Gundham. Look at me. I’m withering away here. All this stuff is just prolonging the inevitable. No cure is just going to suddenly appear! It’ll be at least ten if not more years before there’s even anything close to a cure. I don’t want to just sit here and wait to die!” “… W-what are you saying?” He clutched you hand tightly, interlacing your fingers. “I was told that I can give my body to research, but… I… won’t be here…” His eyes widened, staring at you in abject horror. “no. NO! Y/N YOU CAN’T! PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME!” Tears cascaded from his eyes as he hugged you. “Y/N I… You… please…” He sobbed even harder feeling you hug him back, hearing your own cries. “I… I understand why, but… my Emperor, Y/N…”

· Taking a deep breath, he wiped the tears from his eyes before entering the hospital. That oppressive summer heat seemingly choking him.

· The surgery was successful with no complications, so he was able to leave right away. After collecting his belonging, he swiftly left, wanting to make sure his creatures were properly cared for in his absence.

· Without a second thought he tossed his bag of items onto his bed to be placed away later. He needed to care for his creatures.

· It was late into the night when he finally got the chance to put the bag of items away. His zodiac generals scurried up to him, bucking the bag and nuzzling into him.

· The last item he had taken out was a worn out red and black bandana…

· He hated this.

· This was ridiculous. His vision blurred, and he hurt. He hurt knowing looking at the cloth no longer hurt him so deeply. It meant nothing to him now… that’s why it hurt so much… because he still knew it used to mean something to him… but not anymore.

Kokichi Oma:

· The moment he felt that tingling in his throat and he coughed up petals Kokichi already knew what had befallen him.

· Hanahaki.

· This… was a very cruel thing to pull on him, especially considering his situation. He thought it stupid that the universe or his own body or whatever made Hanahaki happen decided to set this into motion. He was content, even happy with the way things were and he didn’t care that you didn’t love him, as long as you were happy, he was fine. So, though he was fine with this, something he thought most people would not be, whatever made this happen forced him into the position of dying or getting rid of his feelings all together!? Those were the only options, he never even considered confessing to you. At heart, Kokichi was a clown, all he wanted was joy and laughter, confessing would only hurt you, so it was not an option to him.

· Immediately he set to researching what accursed plant was entangling and clogging up his lungs and throat.

· Scilla meaning loyalty and constancy… Truly the irony was palpable with this flower choice.

· Sighing he flopped onto his bed, letting the sketchpad, papers, crayons, and colored pencils momentarily hopped up. “So… what am I to do now… Die, or throw away my feelings?” He stared up at the ceiling before gleefully hopping off of his bed. “I’ll make a game out of this!”

· Having bought his bouquet, he skipped out of the flower shop. He mindlessly hummed to himself plucking the petals of one of the flowers. Then the next. Then the next. And the next, and so on. That was till he was down to the last flower. “… Die, live, die, live, die, live, die, live, die, live, die, live, die, live, die, live, die, live, die, live… I guess I’ll live. Maybe. No I will!” Dumping the stems and wrapping in a garbage can, Kokichi smiled, reminding himself that when lying to anyone you must be confident! No room for doubt.

· Well, if he were going to live, he was going to have to get the surgery, to entirely remove his feelings for you… You were his best friend. He was not sure if his friendship with you was entirely removed from his more romantic feelings for you. If he were to remove his feelings, would you two still be best friends, or friends at all? You were very observant, it was one of the many things he loved about you, because of that, you’d likely notice he was acting differently. Maybe your friendship would end up breaking apart… He might end up hurting you because of that. he couldn’t bear that thought. So… by removing his feelings he decided to end your friendship while he still loved you. He wouldn’t actually end the friendship though, just make some excuse as to why he would be far away for the rest of his life and how you and he could only have very minimal contact. Yeah, something like that. You wouldn’t get hurt that way, the worst of it would be missing him, but nothing more.

· Now that he had finally come to a decision, he had some planning to do!

· He gathered all of D.I.C.E. at their headquarters in order to plan this out. He needed this to be perfect. They spent hours and hours on end planning, only taking short tea breaks for rest.

· Kokichi was surprised at how quickly his condition had worsened in only a week. What had been single petals had already evolved into closed blossoms. He needed to hurry.

· He had boiled down everything to two plans.

· Plan A. Make you hate him so you wouldn’t care about him. There were… several problems with this plan. Even the mere thought of actively hurting you, to the point of getting you to loath and detest him, to not caring he no longer was your friend… He’d have to hurt you, but at least if you weren’t friends, you’d never miss him… But he was a clown. Even the mere though of this plan sent him into an awful wheezing, coughing fit. Tears would percolate in the corners of his eyes from all of the pain. He knew he’d act on instinct and rush to your side and make a fool of himself. He’d do anything to make you laugh and smile…

· To hear that beautiful bubbly laugh that sent his heart a flight with fantasies of always being by your side, of no matter come what may, being there to make you happy after you indulged in the pain accepting whatever happened.

· … He could never hurt you.

· So all he could do was go for the other plan.

· Plan B. Make a giant show for you. Endless pranks for an entire day and by the end tell you he was moving very far away, maybe to Prague or something he still hadn’t decided where he was going yet, and tell you all these pranks were to make up for all the lost future time together. You’d likely hurt from missing him, but it wouldn’t be anything major…

· Maybe even after a while you’d forget about him. Then you wouldn’t care at all. You wouldn’t get hurt… Maybe… Maybe that would be for the best. Even if it made him feel sick, terrified even… maybe it would be what was best for you.

· He just wanted you to be happy. He was determined to conceal you in a kind happy lie, surely it was better than a painful truth.

· Reading over his plans his vision began to blur. That awful scratching pain clawed up his throat, erupting into that hacking and coughing. He shut his eyes, clutching a hand to his chest. Keeling over he gasped for breath. This was certainly the worst fit by far. Slowly opening his eyes his vision cleared. There were the full blue blossoms, red dripping from them and dyeing the pages beneath. “Already? I thought I had more time…” he then noticed which page got covered in red. Plan A. “Heh, plan B it is. Guess I’ll have to put this plan into action tomorrow.”

· All through the night he made calls and plans with D.I.C.E. to have everything prepared for endless pranks. He needed this goodbye to be perfect. It was the last time you’d be seeing one another after all, and he wanted his last memory of you to be happy, smiling, and laughing. As long as you were happy, he’d be okay, no matter what.

· Till the early morning hours, he and D.I.C.E. was running about preparing pranks in any and all locations you frequented and could possibly even go to, even if it meant breaking into your bank and some other places. It was no big deal, it was for very good reason after all, the best goodbye ever!

· As he and two other D.I.C.E. members were trying to break into a rather stubborn vending machine, he got a call from another member saying you had left your place, awfully smiley in the way you only were when Kokichi pranked you. “Yes! Keep an eye on them! We need to know where they’re going!”

· Dashing after you, he managed to catch up rather quickly. You were sitting at a park bench. He was about to run up and tackle you when he suddenly stopped himself and instead hid in a tree. You promptly stood up, running to your partner, hugging them… He desperately tried repressing that coughing. It hurt. It hurt so much. Just everything. The one thing that made you even happier than being surprised by Kokichi’s mischief or seeing him playing the fool or him telling you an off-hand joke was your partner. Your partner was the light of your life, what Kokichi wished he was. You were always so undeniably happy with them, you didn’t want anyone else.

· … This was fine, this just meant he’d get to see more of your smiles on this last day together. He just had to pull back on the pranks as to not be overbearing and annoy you and your partner.

· Kokichi’s plan had now changed slightly. There were still pranks through the whole day but now he and D.I.C.E. decided to help out the date.

· When things were getting dull they’d add in a prank. When things were getting romantic, they start playing a beautiful song adding to the mood. They’d separate you from crowds so you could more easily steal a kiss. They’d dim the lights around you and place spot lights on you. They made sure you always had something fun to do. And with each time they intervened you’d catch a glimpse of Kokichi somewhere smiling that toothy grin, giving you a thumbs up. Little did you know that the moment your gaze shifted back to your partner, when they were the center of our world, capturing all of your attention Kokichi hid away, the pain of those cuts slicing deeper and deeper into his heart, lungs and throat came bursting out of his mouth as bloodied flowers, tears streaming down his cheeks as he clutched his chest. Yet moments later even with the red staining his lips and petals clinging to his chin he smiled, knowing he was helping to make this day great. After all, he was a clown. Clowns make others happy at their own expense, even if it hurt them. As long as others were happy, if you were happy, he was happy too. Perhaps, that was the one solid truth he had never lied about in any capacity to others or himself. One could lie just about anything, but that was the one undeniable truth that could never be obscured no matter how he tried, even if he wanted too.

· And thus, the day went on, joyously, as it should have. Till you heard it. From his hiding spot under the bridge where he and D.I.C.E. set off fireworks for you, you heard that horrendous hacking. Kokichi crumpling over clamped his hands over his mouth. Just a little longer he had to keep it all in. But… he couldn’t breathe, no matter how he gasped, he couldn’t get anything. His vision was darkening and blurring. Everything was suddenly so cold. Even his hearing was muffled as if he were underwater. “Kokichi!” Suddenly he was in your arms, cuddled against you… You were crying. You… you had said something else but he could only clearly hear his name, everything else was a blur, like how only you were clear and everything was a haze. “s-sorry… I… want to… to leave you with… a smile… n-not this.” This was the first and only time he truly broke down before anyone, not trying to hide or obscure anything at all. All the pain and heart break was etched into his every feature. You screamed something… he thought… it was hard to even think.

· … Even in the end he was a liar. He had to lie to himself to do this. He was a clown, it was in his nature to only make you smile, but… this was his only choice. He was loyal to himself and you alone. He would never throw away his feelings for you. It was simply not even an option he truly considered, even if he lied to himself saying he would. “hey… it’s… okay… you shou… laugh… i… want you too… it’s what I do… you’re alright… live happily… that’s… all I ask… and… that’s…… not…… a……… lie”

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yzkhr · 3 years

Text

Part two of the Love Language miniseries!

Once again, I dedicate this to one of my favorite Shinran authors, @meitanteisachi

Part three might take a little while since I'm in my lazy mode. So please forgive me if the next part will be late 🤧

Warning: Probably my longest fic ever. So long that I need to divide into two parts. I kinda got carried away.

Receiving Gifts-You feel loved and appreciated when your partner or someone gives you a gift. It doesn't need to expensive, just something sentimental and thoughtful.

She was seven when Ran received her first memorable gift from Shinichi.

She remembered how It had been a month since her mother moved away, turning her life upside down. At a young age, Ran forced herself to be responsible; learning how to cook without burning the food, doing household chores that her father never knew how to do, and taking care of both a child who's too young and a grown man who's too immature and broken to live on his own.

It vastly made a growth and development in her character. Teachers and classmates alike noticed the way she had matured, from the way she handled her emotions—always putting on a smile and being the bigger one in the petty fights— to her mannerisms and gestures that resembled an older sister.

To them, her mother leaving became somewhat a good thing, with her maturity blooming early.

If only that were true.

No one knew that as soon as she opened the door of the empty detective office, Ran would be filled with her mother's presence; Hearing her voice, seeing her face, and even missing her scolding. Instead of saying anything to her father however, she brushes it off, puts on a facade, being a mother, a wife, and a daughter all at the same time to a drunk and emotionally unstable man.

But at the end of each day, entering her room and not crying was impossible. Her eyes watering at the sight of the empty bed that used to be filled with her mothers' scent, all gone. And like the child that she was—that she should be— she would sobbed and whimper silently, until exhausted enough to close her eyes and unaware that there's no one beside her just to sleep.

Ran was sure no one knew or was even remotely aware of her secret. After all, her smile shined and eyes glimmered in school so different from the distraught face she wears each night since last month.

But she had underestimated him.

On the day of her birthday, everyone greeted her with their own set of trinkets and gifts. Most were letters and drawings, filled with gratitude and love through the used of poorly executed writings and simple but meaningful pictures. Ran was happy to received all of them, whether they were small—like a piece of her favorite candy— or expensive and big, such as the dress given to her by Sonoko.

But unlike all her other birthdays, she didn't feel as contented and satisfied. There laid a gnawing feeling inside of her, aware that she'll never have what she truly wished for.

As they walked home from school, Ran expected Shinichi to give her at least some sweets. So, when he invited her to come by his house she agreed with a nod, genuinely having no idea.

So, she stood for a few minutes outside the mansions' gates, reading out some letters to pass time. She became so engrossed at reading that she didn't even notice him go outside until he was finally in front of her. Catching a set of feet just in front, she looked up. Her eyes widened as soon as she saw a fairly large and fluffy inanimate object in Shinichi's hands, holding it out to her.

"Here you go, Happy Birthday, Ran." he greeted, tilting his head on the side behind the cute teddy bear grinning from ear to ear. Instinctively, Ran accepted his gift and brought it close to her chest, feeling it's soft synthetic fur.

She slowly scrutinized it, it's features somewhat reminding her of...

"M-mom?" whispering incredulously, she glanced at Shinichi. Still wearing a smile, he nodded.

"That's right. Even if you don't talk about it, I know you miss your mom. You've been crying a lot too--"

"I wasn't crying!" she denied, but her mask slipped a little when he deadpanned.

"Yes you were," he stated calmly, as if he saw her doing so. She glared.

"How would you know? I never cried in school!"

"I'm sure before we go to school you do. Your eyes were always a little red and puffy when entering the class after all." he argued back. Instead of being embarrassed, Ran found something more important to point out.

"You were watching me?" she questioned, eyes curious. She didn't know why, but the thought of Shinichi watching and observing her made her smile(and a little nervous).

In an instant, gone was the confident and composed childhood friend of hers, image being ruined by his immediate coughing as if he swallowed a huge thing, cheeks flushed a healthy red, and a stuttering mess as he negated her claim.

"B-Barou! Those were just coincidences!!" then he slightly looked away, seemingly afraid to meet her violet orbs. Scratching his still blushing cheeks, he changed the topic.

"W-Well, Happy Birthday. You can use that stuff animal when you feel, you know, lonely." he dazed off, then glanced over her shoulder. As if realizing something significant, his eyes widened.

"It's already sun down! You gotta go home now or Occhan is gonna scold me!"

Ran followed his advice right after. As soon as she arrived home, she found her father in a sober state, and was even the one who tried to cook dinner for the both of them. Eri called later that night, which made Ran happy. She still asked her mother when the woman will come home and Eri would always reply with a vague answer. She didn't pressure her mother anymore, not wanting to ruin both their day.

That night as she entered her room, strangely enough, Ran didn't feel lonely. She also didn't feel the need to exhaust herself, now having a sweet stuff animal to comfort and fill her warmth. She settled on her soft bed, hugging the teddy bear tightly. And for the first time since her mother's moving away, Ran didn't cry.

They were thirteen, she recalled, when she received her second most thoughtful gift from him.

"Hey Ran, did you find the kitten?" Ran glanced up, hearing her name from Sonoko. She shook her head as an answer.

"It's still missing. I tried asking around but they said they never saw it." her bestfriend looked at her worriedly, knowing what she was thinking.

A few days ago, her, Sonoko, and Shinichi found a little ball of fur on their way home from school. They all took pity, Ran specially. So, the three teenagers took upon themselves to look after it until just a week ago, it disappeared. They searched everywhere around the area, trying to spot a little black kitten with huge and round green eyes. Unfortunately, they never succeeded.

Seeing Ran's mood depleted, Sonoko patted her back as comfort, grinning.

"Don't worry about it! I'm sure it has found an owner by now." Ran smiled, being reassured but still a bit dissatisfied. She decided to adopt the kitten after all but it was still nowhere to be seen.

To lighten the mood, Sonoko changed the topic to new shops, magazine, and gossips. Since the teacher was late, the Suzuki Heiress was unstoppable.

Rans' attention was grabbed however, when a certain someone entered the classroom. He was yawning, not bothering to hide his sleepiness. Rubbing his blue eyes languidly, she noticed how the dark circles under them became even more pronounced than before. Her eyes also became aware that there were some lines seared into his skin—scratch marks.

As if conscious that someone was watching him, Shinichi turned his head around, meeting weary blue with observing violet. It only lasted for a second, with the former looking away and going straight to his desk.

Shinichi had been acting weird lately. It started a week before, with him telling Ran that he would be late and she can just go ahead without him. True enough, he always came late ever since, which normally rarely happens.

Another thing to note would be his physical state. He looked restless, eyebags so obvious along with the constant yawning and even sometimes sleeping through an entire period. The last part wasn't new, but Ran heeded how easily he fell asleep, unlike back then where he needed to toss and turn his head for a comfortable position.

The last thing to caught her eye would be the little scratch marks. She would've been convinced that it was another case but seeing the scrape from his arms threw her off guard. They were shallow, but it didn't wave off her suspicions any less.

So, Ran decided that after class, she would visit him, whether he liked it or not.

The day went by rough, with Ran not being able to focus thanks to a sleeping classmate who looked far too exhausted for a normal student. Sonoko, looking at her stressed friend, ask her out to eat that sounded too appealing but she had to refused, knowing that if she didn't find out the reason for her best friend's odd behavior, she'll be the one to act weird next.

Knowing Shinichi's detective instinct, Ran knew better than to follow him on the get go and get caught. She waited an hour around the area, before making her way to the Kudo Mansion. The only problem now was how to enter without being seen.

She treaded through the stone path, finding the gate unlock. The middle schooler shook her head, both thankful and a little scared. What could he be so busy about for him to forget closing the gate?

Once Ran reached the front door and checked, that's when the immense feeling of worry kicked in. Shinichi also forgot to close the front door!

'What's happening to him? Is a case stressing him this much? Did something terrible happened? Why isn't he telling me--'

Her thoughts were abruptly stopped when the sound that something metallic fell reached her ears, making her anxiety increased tenfold.

Wasting no time and completely losing her initial target, Ran rushed in like lightning, fear evident in every step.

Upon reaching the kitchen and thoughts of her bestfriend in danger flooding her senses, she barged in.

Only to find the great detective Kudo Shinichi rubbing his head, and a couple of pans and plastic bowls scattered around the tiled flooring.

They gaped at each other, unable to register the current scenario. Ran was broken out of her trance however, when she noticed a light bump growing on the top of his head, which he was rubbing a while ago before he froze.

Previous distress setting in once again, Ran hurried by her childhood friends' side, helping him to stand.

"What happened?" she asked, examining and touching the bump. As if electrified by their contact, he flinched and backed away slightly, eyes a bit hazy.

"R-Ran, what are you doing here?" he seemed more concern of her presence than his own well being which made her glare.

"You've been acting weird this past week!" she accused as he treaded away from her, a bit too cautious. She took note of how his left hand slid behind him, fully intending to hide something away from her sight.

"Weird what, me? Barou, I've been perfectly normal. You're just overacting." the response didn't sound so convincing when he was literally sweating and avoiding her scrutiny.

"Yeah, then why were you always late this week?" the interrogation began.

"I was busy with a case Megure-keibu presented me, that's why." gaining his composure, Shinichi answered in a confident manner but that didn't drop any of her suspicions.

"Then what about you being constantly tired these days?" Ran pressed on, ambulating near her suspect. he kept his ground, so sure she was the one who was weird, not him.

"The case was so hard that I couldn't find time to sleep." he casually said, looking bored and done with the questioning.

She kept on walking towards slowly and when she was finally in front of him, she smiled innocently.

"Okay then, I have one last question to ask," he smiled, thinking he won. Then, feigning obliviousness, he consented.

"Fire away."

With those words as her signal, Ran forcefully yanked his left arm that he had been so carefully shielding and him having no time to react, she succeeded, revealing the scratch marks as her last piece of evidence and a.... kitten!?

Silence ensued. Until a mewl came out fromm the little ball of fur. Ran examined the little thing, coming to her conclusion.

"Please don't tell me this was the little kitten that's been missing since last week." she quietly pleaded for him to deny, but all he offered was a gulp and a weary nod.

Anger and bewilderment filled Ran, as she shook her head as an attempt to calm, but seeing the kitten that she had been desperately looking for, for the past few weeks made her burst.

"Why didn't you tell me you had the cat!? You knew that I was looking all over the neighborhood! I even told you I was going to take care of it--"

"That's exactly why I took it!" he interrupted, his excuse perplexing her thoughts even more than before.

"What?" he sighed and put the little kitten down gently, moving to the counter and sitting on one of the tools.

"Well, remember when you first tried to take it home? It was really aggressive, wasn't it?"

She did remember her hand getting scratch and almost bitten when she endeavored to adopt it. So, she gave a nod.

"Well, knowing what you were planning to do, I decided to take it to a friend of mom's who happened to be a vet and get it checked just to make sure. She said it was fine but it seemed a bit violent to humans so she advised me to take care of it so that it will get used to the environment. Knowing you, you would've been dumb enough to just take it without any examination and might get yourself really injured." she tried to refute his last statement but decided against it, knowing he was probably right.

But there was one thing that didn't made sense. "Then why didn't you tell me about it? If I had known I wouldn't have wasted my time, you know." hearing her question made him clearly uncomfortable, eyes now travelling anywhere but hers and cheeks tainted a light pink. They kept quiet, him contemplating while Ran patiently waited.

Knowing his loss, the detective whispered but she still heard it. "I was planning to give it to you next week. I just wanted it to be a surprise."

For some really unexplainable reason, Ran felt her heart beating faster than normal that she might die, face heating up, and even having a stampeding elephant on the pit of her stomach.

"Shinichi..." she uttered, not knowing what to say. Still looking the other way, he misinterpreted her calling as scolding.

"I know, I know. I shouldn't have done that. I should've told you properly and you wouldn't have to put so much effort into finding--"

His next lines were suddenly gone when she wordlessly went in front of his sitting figure and patted his hair softly, just like petting a feline. He stammered and tried to speak but found himself to be voiceless by her next words.

"Thank you, I really appreciate it..." she wanted to say more but was being suffocated by the swarming butterflies in her stomach, not allowing her to do so.

"You better be..." he mused, trying to lighten the mood and to calm his racing heart. As if by magic, he felt a sudden urge to close his eyes and lean on her posture, loving the way she stroke his hair so gently. And so he did.

Ran was taken aback by the unforeseen intimacy but didn't complain. They stayed like that for a few minutes, until she felt almost all of his weight on her, coupled with his heavy breathing that she concluded he fell asleep.

Slowly, she moved him to the sofa of the living room, all the while trying to not burst at the feeling of his breath on her neck. Succeeding, she grabbed a pillow and a blanket from his room, finally setting him down on the couch.

Ran couldn't help but feel guilty, finally figuring out that she was the reason of all his strange behavior all along. It explained his worn out expression throughout the entire week, having to take care of an aggressive kitten without having any prior experience must be exhausting, and it showed through his sleepless nights and lack of energy at everything in class.

Then, her eyes travelled to the little scratches and wounds all over his arms. They were nothing serious, but they must have at least sting. Wanting to at least alleviate the pain, Ran brought the first aid kid from his room and tenderly tended to all of the gashes and marks, and him not even flinching one bit despite being supposedly a heavy sleeper, became proof of how much time and effort he put for her surprise.

Ran went home that day, carrying his gift with her. She knew that he was supposedly giving this next week, but the teenager was pretty sure that Shinichi wouldn't be able to handle another week of torture like that. So, she left a note to make sure he didn't worry.

Years passes after that, but Ran would never forget the kitten he gave her, and the inexplicable giddy feeling with it. Sonoko would remind her how happy she was that she couldn't physically stop smiling for a while that it weirded many out but personally for Ran, it was worth it.

(Has a part 2 because it's so unnecessary long)

#Minisseries #Love Language #Shinran #detective conan #Part 2.1/5

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subject-v · 3 years

Text

subject five (whumptober no. 1)

Iovita has fun with her newest test subject.

Masterlist

TW: torture, noncon touching, dehumanization, knife, cutting, waterboarding, restraint, thanking whumper

1500 words

“Don’t touch me.”

The woman moves her hand from the back to my neck to my skull, weaving her fingers around my hair and curling them into a fist to force my chin up from behind. “Or what?”

I swallow and the tip of her dagger digs deeper into my neck.

“That’s what I thought.” She releases my hair, though the knife keeps my head up, and moves around to face me head on. A thumb brushes a bruise on the curve of my cheek, making my skin crawl. “Do you have a name?”

“Nike.”

She clicks her tongue. “Not anymore. From now on, you will respond to subject five and nothing else.”

I frown. The name wasn’t even mine to begin with, so this is hardly a problem to me. “Okay?”

Fast as a viper, she slaps me across the face, more loud than hard, but so surprising I yelp. “You will not speak unless invited to, subject five.”

“Oh, sorry.”

She slaps me again, harder than before, and my arms strain against the chains automatically, trying to touch my face, to cool some of the pain there. At the sound of the metal clinking, she smiles. “Enjoying your new lodgings, I take it?”

We are in a small room, stone walls and floor, with a table at the far end and no windows or fireplace but plenty of metal loops embedded into the walls for purposes I cannot imagine. Even though I’m pretty sure it’s the middle of the day, it’s freezing. “They’re fine.”

Again, her hand cracks across my face, and this time, she has to grab my shirt to keep me from falling over.

“You asked me a direct question!”

Another slap. “You aren’t very quick on the uptake, are you, subject five?”

My head is ringing, but I still look her in the eye as I say, “If you care so much, maybe you should gag me.”

I’ve already flinched in preparation but she steps back to take me in, smiling as she twirls the knife. “What an idea, subject five.”

My hands curl into fists, pressed against the edges of my manacles.

“Do you have much experience with torture?”

“No.”

She holds up two fingers but otherwise ignores me. “My goal is not to cause you pain or to bring myself pleasure. I wish to change you, remake you, forge you. How easy would it be for me to click my fingers and order ten men in here to chain you to my table and stuff your mouth until you can’t move your tongue?”

“I’m guessing easy?”

Three fingers this time. “Exquisitely so. But torture has nothing to do with physical pain. Torture is up here.” She steps forward to tap my forehead and even when she backs away, I can feel where she touched me like a brand. “The true master does not need to lay a finger upon her victim to get her desired reaction. So I could gag you, subject five, but that would leave you with only the physical humiliation of being unable to speak. Far worse, don’t you agree, is the psychological pain of knowing you could speak, but will not, because you fear the consequence?”

“Am I allowed to answer that?”

“No.” She smiles, not unkindly, and grabs my arm, twisting until the wrist is up. Then, with expert precision, she carves four thin lines into the skin with her knife, ignoring my cries of pain and only holding tighter when I try to pull away. “I will permit you that mewling for now,” she says when she’s finished. “Though in future, it will be punished like speaking.”

I open my mouth, shape it into a curse, and a drop of blood slides down my arm and into my palm. I let my mouth close.

“Good. You’re learning.”

Oh, she’s right, though. It is worse. My cheeks burn and I’m sure she can tell as she slips a key into the padlock hanging off my waist and lets all the assorted chains fall to the floor.

“Lie down, if you would.” She gestures to the table, which has a lot more chains and straps than a regular table, now that I’m looking at it. At my hesitation, she tilts her head to one side. “You know I can have someone make you lie down. Isn’t it easier to obey?”

Wordless, I follow her across the room and sit down, massaging my wrists where the manacles have rubbed them raw and trying not to look at the four symmetrical cuts on the left side.

She presses the tip of the knife against my forehead, not with enough pressure to draw blood. “I said lie down, did I not? Good. In future, I will expect you to handle this part yourself. For today, I shall show you.” By my feet, I hear chains clatter and despite myself, I prop myself up on my elbows so I can see her wrap straps around my ankles and tug them tight to the corners of the table.

I decide, all at once, that I do not want to be tied down flat on this table. Anything else is better and I lunge for a strap. She catches me by the hair and slams my had back down so hard, I momentarily lose the ability to see. Gasping for breath, I cannot struggle as she ties my hands above my head and suddenly, I am helpless.

“Very excitable, you are,” she coos, walking her fingers down my shoulder and across my chest. She pauses at the hem of my shirt, pulling it down so it covers the exposed skin there and continuing her way along my leg until she’s reached my feet. “If you’d cooperated, I might’ve let you pick, but I’m in the mood for some water play.” The tip of the knife scrapes gently across the bottom of my feet, making the toes curl automatically. “That’s a fun reaction. We’ll play with that later.”

A damp cloth lands on my face and she adjusts it to cover my mouth and nose fully. It’s not a gag, not that I need one, and I crane my neck back to try and see what she’s doing behind me. Metal creaks as she pumps a foot pedal and then water spills into the room. A bucket? Why?

“We’ll start with fifteen seconds,” she announces. Without further explanation, she begins to pour water over the cloth, backwards so it crawls up my nose, stinging my sinuses. Automatically, I try to cough it out, but as I inhale, I pull the cloth snug against my mouth and no air comes in. Water does, though. Water spills into my lungs, making my chest heave. I gasp again, pull the cloth closer, pull more water in, thrash my head, ignoring the pain as it slams against the table, just trying to get that cloth loose, to get away from the water in my lungs, and then she puts the bucket down and removes the cloth.

I cough until my throat is sore, my eyes squeezed tight shut so I can’t see her reaction, even though I know she’s looking down at me with that sad smile, like this isn’t her fault.

Her hand finds my hair, ruffling it gently. “All done?”

“Screw you.”

“Oh, subject five,” she laughs. “I didn’t know you could talk.”

The cloth is back before I can say anything else and it’s enough to shut me up. Not again, not again, I can’t do it again. It’s just a body, not even my body, it shouldn’t matter what happens to it, it shouldn’t, but it does, it hurts, and I love breathing, I need to-

She adds a fifth cut to my left wrist and despite myself, tears well up in my eyes. Better that than more water.

“A choice for you, subject five. We can go another fifteen seconds or you can thank me and it will be over.”

Fuck that, and fuck her for suggesting it. I open my mouth to say as much but she presses a hand against it before I can speak.

“Take a moment to consider. You didn’t seem to enjoy that and we don’t have to do it again, if you don’t want.”

I swallow, my chest still heaving from the last session. It doesn’t matter what I say, it doesn’t mean anything, and when she removes her hand, I look her in the eyes and say, “Thank you.”

It does mean something, more than I intended it to, but as she places the bucket on the ground, far from me, I start crying and realize I’d thank her again in an instant.

#whumptober2021 #no.1 #bound #oc #fic #torture #noncon touching #dehumanization #knife #cutting #waterboarding #restraint #thankinf whumper #defiant whumpee #immortal whumpee #lady whump #iovita #five

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halothenthehorns · 3 years

Text

TLTNL- VERITASERUM

Harry startled back into this living room as he heard a whispered conversation in two other ghost voices. He'd been remembering those spectrals so clearly because of this last chapter, that hearing Sirius and Remus speak without some sort of echo like the others startled him out of the warmth that was his actual living parents embracing him, and blinking around in startled confusion, some little blip going off in his brain saying their voices shouldn't have even come out of that spell-

He hissed and blinked, going cross eyed as he stared at his very alive godfather and his seatmate, who was now watching him with even more concern than before, but he quickly let go of the moment even he didn't understand, not wanting to break away from his parents attention for any longer than he could.

He looked back at them to see his Mum crying softly, still trying to flatten his hair with her gentle nails, while his dad was more still and silent than Harry had yet seen him, and he didn't need to know him long to know that wasn't a good thing. He tried in vain to babble out something, "I, thank you doesn't really cover it, but I don't know what to say, I'm sorry I never-"

Lily gently shushed him, never stopping her comforting motion. "It's all we've wanted since we found out what would happen to us, to be of help to you just for one moment, now we have. Don't ruin it with silly little things like that, we know."

James had to struggle a bit more to get out anything coherent, "if that's all the time you ever get got to spend with us before now, than I can't say it wasn't well used."

Sirius muttered something, his natural rebellion forcing the words out of how he still planned on this never being the case, not so long as he lived, but James must not have heard him right as he said, "we can keep going, I know this can't be much more fun for you two to be watching."

Remus was quick to wave his hands in protest, saying, "Wha-, oh no. We, erm, were trying to slip away actually, just leave the rest for tomorrow. I know I can't handle anything worse than that tonight."

Lily rubbed furiously at her streaming eyes, but said in a steady enough voice, "don't be ridiculous, it's hardly even late enough for dinner." Food was honestly the last thing on anyone's mind, but the patient and also fast pace of cooking always did help her, but sadly she couldn't even claim that distraction yet. "Stewing on this all night will help nothing, and no offense love," she gave Harry's ear a little tweak, "but I'm quite done with your fourth year, I'd like to see it be over already."

Harry had to clear his throat to agree, failed anyways, and just nodded.

"Besides," James got out in a much stronger voice this time, "it's not going to look any better in morning light, Harry's still going to go back to the castle and have to recant everything." His eyes lingered on Sirius in the worst way, he couldn't imagine how his best friend was going to react to the news of his ghost, but if they heard that sooner rather than later, at least James wouldn't have all night to dwell on what his best friends reaction was going to be. He was still fearing Sirius would do something far worse than be framed for a killing spree when Sirius realized how involved that rat had been in all of this. "Plus, I know I'm not going to be able to think of much else until I know the blackered who got Harry into this mess in the first place, and now we know he's at Hogwarts. With any luck Dumbledore'll figure it out, somehow." He finished with more optimism than he felt, he was just trying to find something happy to linger on even as he insisted they continue with bad.

Remus didn't really agree, he thought the three of them were trying to put up too much of a strong front for the two of them, but he wasn't going to argue anymore either. Sometimes you just needed a good cry, but if the thought would linger in them that everyone else would know about it, none of them would indulge. Best to get this bloody book over with and then let them have the rest of their night alone. So Remus scooped up the discarded book, and began heavily.

Harry slammed back into the grass, and moved no more. The cool handle of the Cup in one hand, Cedric's body still clenched in the other, all he could concentrate on was not letting go of either one, lest he slip away forever.

Lily would later regret letting her nails dig into Harry so hard, but for now she felt the same way as he had then. If she let go of her hold on him, for even an instant, he'd be torn away from her now when he needed her most. They didn't even have confirmation yet he was back safe at school. How did that...ghost of her husband (even thinking it nearly set her into tears again) know this would get Harry back safe?

In the throes of the shock, exhaustion, and suspension of waiting for something else to change, all the while his scar continued to burn.

James felt himself tucking closer into Harry all the time, knowing he wouldn't feel safe and at ease with any of this again until his son was back around Sirius for starters. Every jealous moment he'd had over the past few days felt all the more ridiculous to him now, when he was instead all the more grateful someone was still out there that he could trust.

Sound was encroaching his ears, first cautious footsteps, then murmurs of fear, which grew quickly into screams. Still Harry couldn't move, inhaling the grass and waiting for a nightmare to end.

Harry shivered while still safe in his parents hold, the echo of that noise from the second task coming back to him clearer than ever. He knew it wouldn't have helped at all to remember sooner, Cedric's death would still be eating away at him and no amount of warning could have softened the blow.

The first to reach through him was Dumbledore, flipping him towards the stars to meet those blue eyes.

Remus finally felt some relief bleeding back into his voice, brushing out the tense and still clogged words from before. Dumbledore was there, everything had to be alright now.

His silvery beard swam in and out of focus for a moment before Harry collected himself, whispering that Voldemort was back.

Sirius felt a low whine in his throat, what he wouldn't give for that not to be true. He'd take hearing about Azkaban and that basilisk all over again, because at least that stuff felt manageable in the aftermath. This! They were still trying to figure out how to get rid of Voldemort the first time, now they had to do it all over again, with Harry in the center!

Dumbledore had not a second to react, Fudge was there and hissing at Dumbledore that the Diggory parents were pushing through the crowd, they should be warned before they saw their son's body. Dumbledore tried to break Harry's hold on him, but Harry refused, insisting he had to get him back to his parents.

Lily was still shivering non stop beside him. Her baby wasn't even a year old yet, she'd spent these first few months of his life in bliss as she nurtured him, she didn't even want to imagine it coming to an end before her's, let alone what the Diggory's were about to witness.

Dumbledore murmured words of comfort, that Harry had done just that as he pulled the two apart, then helped Harry to his feet. His injured leg barely held him in all the jostling going on around him, the cries of the night still drowning out most noise of how Cedric Diggory was dead.

James was getting jittery as he tried to convince his fingers to loosen their hold on Harry even a bit, but it wasn't working because all he wanted to do was pull his son away from that watchful crowd, get him somewhere safe so that he could just think for a moment instead of being yet another spectacle in everyone else's life.

Fudge was being insistent, he and Dumbledore had to go meet the Diggory's before they could get over here and see this for themselves, and Dumbledore agreed while telling Harry to stay right where he was. Harry could hardly process a word, everything was flickering around him.

Sirius' mind had desperately been flicking around to anyone who could possibly be trying to come forward, to help Harry right now, his useless arse couldn't be because he was still up in those mountains being a waste of space. Instead he was left wondering where Molly was, but that would only hurt more when the mother who shouldn't be arrived. In fact Sirius wouldn't be much help either. No, the two Harry needed were beyond a grave still.

He felt more than heard someone trying to lead him away, muttering about the hospital wing while referring to him as son.

James was worried he was going to snap bones soon. Either his own hands from clenching his fist too hard, or this unseen persons who was both referring to his son that way at this moment, and actually trying to do what James knew he should be doing.

Harry tried to resist, saying Dumbledore had told him not to move, but he was so unfocused with his blurry vision it wasn't possible not to follow along.

"Dumbledore can come see you when you're in the hospital wing love," Lily murmured gently into his ear, "this person's got the right idea, you need to be looked over."

Harry though shook his head, he still knew this wasn't a good thing.

The person was being persistent, and Harry was taken from that crowd and those screams, towards the castle, and only when he heard the distinct clunk clunk of the peg leg traveling through the stone corridors inside did Harry register Mad-Eye Moody.

Harry watched those around him relax even more at the news, the only one they would have hand picked better was McGonagall.

While Harry was starting to feel nauseous all over again, wishing he had fought his way free of Moody, to run and call for help. This was bad, why was he the only one thinking this?

Upon Moody's prompting, Harry tried to explain what had happened, how the Cup had been a Portkey to take him and Cedric to that graveyard,

Harry still felt every part of him clench up at that word.

and Voldemort had been there, Lord Voldemort.

"I'm sure there aren't enough Voldemort's around the self proclaimed title needed to be distinguished," Remus muttered under his breath before he could stop himself.

Sirius caught his eye and gave him a grin for the remark, they'd all be needing a sense of humor back eventually just to get through this.

Moody prompted further about the Dark Lord,

James cocked his head to the side, finding it odd Moody would refer to him like that, he'd only heard Death Eater's do the same. Normally Moody just referred to him as You-Know-Who like everyone else.

and Harry whispered how they'd killed Cedric.

Remus wasn't sure why Harry said they, instead of he, but he was grateful all the same, knowing he could not get out that curse of a name without biting his own tongue off in that moment, not while seeing what it did to Harry.

The repetitive clunking noise of every other of Moody's steps was the only noise except Harry telling how the Dark Lord had returned, the Death Eaters had come, and then they'd dueled.

"And kicked his scaly but," Sirius agreed in a too high pitched voice, but the eerie silence as Remus got this retelling out was starting to make him nervous. He was rewarded by at least Harry meeting his eyes fleetingly and giving a soft smile, which didn't last as his face at once went back into closed off and in pain. That was usually the look he adopted when something bad was fixing to happen to him, but what else could be worse!?

He finished by whispering how his wand had done something odd, and he'd seen his parents...

Harry's bad feeling of whatever was fixing to go on around Moody most likely would have spilled over into a full blown migraine by now if he wasn't still half focused on that, wishing he could be telling his parents all of this instead of merely thinking of them from beyond.

Harry was temporarily cut off as he was finally led inside a room, told everything was going to be alright as he drank something.

Harry was still very sure though that alright was not the word he'd use for whatever was fixing to happen to him...

There was a scrape of a key in a lock before Moody was back, helping the cup into his hand as Moody prompted for exactly what had happened.

"Can't Moody bleeding wait," James sneered, he was already in a torrent of other moods, and Moody was pushing in a new one. "He's going to have to relive this for Dumbledore again as is."

"I doubt Dumbledore will let Harry get away with these meager details," Sirius agreed with a heavy scowl. "He'll want to hear everything, and not from Moody. He's not doing him any help with this."

Harry had to swallow hard to fight back saying that Moody wasn't intending to help anyone in that castle, least of all Dumbledore.

Harry's throat seared as the liquid went down, but he could finally focus properly on his surroundings again, most notably the old Auror staring hungrily into Harry's face as he prompted Voldemort being back, asking how it had been done.

"Whoa," Lily yelped, "he really called him Voldemort that time?"

"He did indeed," Remus agreed, watching the page curiously like he expected the print to change before convincing his eyes to move on.

Harry whispered the three ingredients.

In order to not rip this book in half and burn every page as kindling for that horrific sentence existing, Remus instead forced his mind to picture something different, the opposite of that foul little trader. He thought about little baby Harry, honestly having missed his company lately as just a small spot of life during this, and how peaceful he always looked sleeping against his father's chest.

Now that his eyes were working again, he began looking at his surroundings, and found himself in Moody's office.

"Office?" Lily demanded, she was the one trying her hardest to move past that rat having been mentioned again. "I thought he was taking you to the Hospital Wing?"

Remus sighed as he reread that himself, indeed wanting to give Moody a piece of his mind now. Was getting all of this out of him really more important than Harry getting checked over? For that matter, while Lily and James did want to see him under the matrons care, it was still rubbing Remus the wrong way Harry had been removed from Dumbledore's eyesight to begin with. Moody should have followed Dumbledore's orders, which had been clear in Harry staying right where he was. Why was this starting to make him feel so uneasy?

The echoes of the screams from the Quidditch pitch could still be heard from the window.

Moody kept his attention by asking what exactly had been taken from Harry, and he explained his blood, glancing down at his torn sleeve where Wormtail's dagger had struck.

James hadn't been aware that knife stabbing him in the back even since he'd learned about his involvement could hurt any less, but what he'd done to Harry trumped it, and that was all the worse.

Moody had a twisted look on his already disproportionate features as he insisted Harry continue, asking about the Death Eaters, asking if he forgave them?

"Is that really a priority?" Lily demanded, her brows shooting up furiously the longer this carried on. What was Moody thinking, doing this to Harry now?

Something else in Harry's mind flicked then, realizing this should have been the first thing he told Dumbledore! There was a Death Eater at Hogwarts!

"While the first thing you told him was a bit more of a priority," James shook his head, "I agree that should have been second on the list, but I'll excuse you for your lapse. You're telling Moody now, that's what's important since you've been through a bit." His face twitched, that didn't nearly cover what Harry had been through and it felt terrible to downplay it for even a second, but Harry caught his eye and smiled at him all the same.

Moody waved that off, saying he knew who the Death Eater was.

Remus blanched a bit as he got that out, that wasn't exactly encouraging that Moody claimed to have known this all along and had done nothing to stop it.

James nearly went on a rampage right there, he was already past his end today, and now to find out Moody had known all of this and hadn't even warned Harry! Or he had warned Dumbledore who hadn't warned Harry! Either way, Moody's whole head was coming off when this mess was done!

Harry's first guess was Karkaroff,

"Why did you blame Karkaroff before Snape?" Sirius demanded. Harry was honestly surprised not to see blood swimming in his eyes, his voice was filled with enough of it.

"I'd hated Snape longer, but you'd given me more reason to distrust Karkaroff this year," Harry reminded.

but Moody gave an odd laugh, telling how Karkaroff had fled the moment he felt his Dark Mark burn. He wasn't expecting a welcome return, with all he'd put in Azkaban. He wouldn't stay gone long though, the Dark Lord had ways of tracking his enemies.

Remus wasn't sure how he felt about that news. Pleased enough that Karkaroff had fled because he feared his cowardly choices, but in a twisted disappointed way as well he wouldn't get to hear about him going back to Azkaban at least any time soon.

Harry didn't understand, if he'd left, then who'd put his name in the goblet?

"Why would you draw that conclusion?" Lily asked. "I can easily picturing him making a run for it after his job was done of getting you there."

Harry had to concentrate on her words in the here and now to explain, "the way Voldemort mentioned his faithful servant at school, I just thought that he wouldn't be such a coward as turning tail the moment his mark burned like that."

Moody stared at Harry for a long time before whispering it had been he who had done that.

A moment ago, Remus had been convinced there wasn't anything else this book could do to him that would be harder to process than hearing about James and Lily having to help Harry escape Voldemort as ghosts. Why did he keep getting proved wrong?

"I-you-what now?" Sirius leaned over and glared at the little print like he was expecting Moony to have played some dumb joke.

Harry should have felt too exhausted mentally and physically after the turmoil of Voldemort's return had all come back, but he had no say as the feeling slammed back into him full force, one he was all too familiar with now. The pain of an important returning memory, how his breaths began hitching and he groaned, "he's not lying, but he's-" he cut himself off with a noise of utter frustration before he could go too far and keep hurting himself more.

James first instinct was to argue, to tell Harry that he'd misheard Alastor Moody claiming to have been any part of this, but James quickly shoved that part of him back down because he knew he'd always believe Harry first. If his son was actually remembering that somehow, someway the acclaimed Auror had gone Death Eater, James would just have to find some way to wrap his head around this as surely as he had done for Peter, because how could Harry be so wrong about something like that. James quickly waved a stunned Remus on, because in spite of the fact none of them could think this for even a moment of yet another Order member, let alone this one, Harry was in pain, and the only way to make that better was to hear the details why.

Harry heard, but did not understand. He tried to protest, but Moody assured it had all been him. His normal eye was fixated on Harry, as well as his wand, while his magical one still lingered on the door.

Harry could feel his brain thudding against his skull in pain and confusion. His eyes hadn't been deceiving him, Mad-Eye Moody was aiming a wand in his face for the express purpose of causing him harm, to kill him...but not! This was by far the most confusing moment he'd ever been faced with yet, because everything in him had been trying to warn him something was bad about this, and yet at the same time he wanted to scoff and say there wasn't a better Auror. His skull felt likely to split in two all over again at such conflicts.

Moody was still focused on the Death Eaters, demanding to know if they'd really been forgiven? Those that had escaped Azkaban?

"Least I can vaguely see why Moody would be pissed about that," Remus muttered, just trying to find one little bit of anything he could wrap his head around, all the while as tense as a board at having to hear about a teacher attacking Harry for the fourth bleeding year in a row!

Harry couldn't do anything but gape now, sure this was all a bad joke.

"No, Vernon's Japanese Golfer Joke is a bad joke, this is-" Sirius was rubbing the heel of his hand into his forehead in frustration for lack of words for what this was.

No one could deny Harry that claim though, they were all still wishing this was somehow a bad joke, that Snape was hiding in the corner and using the Imperius Curse on Moody to make him say all of this, anything seemed more plausible than what they were hearing.

Moody repeated his question, demanding if Voldemort had really forgiven those scum had been forgiven when they'd run from his Dark Mark in the sky.

Harry was more confused than ever, because he was as confident it hadn't been Moody to do such a thing as he had been about Winky...but somehow this still felt like the truth as it settled back inside of him...he was starting to tremble all over again at all of these conflictions.

Harry was still trying to feebly protest all of this, while Moody barked that he'd told Harry so. He couldn't stand a free Death Eater, those who had turned their backs on his master when he'd needed them.

Lily had thought Peter referring to Voldemort as his master had hit her limits of unbelievable, but if there was one person she never would have thought it any more capable of calling Voldemort master, it was Alastor!

He all but begged Harry to tell how they'd been punished, his face now alight with insanity.

"That about covers this situation, insane," James was nodding his head so hard he was likely to snap his own neck, just for some movement that was still familiar and ordinary and not making his world shatter with every new thing Harry was dealing with lately!

When Harry still refused to believe this, Moody went on a rampage of how all of this had been his hard work! He'd tricked the Goblet of Fire and put Harry's name in under a different school.

Sirius was getting tired of monologues. First Voldemort, now this gone off the rails hero of the Order, Sirius wasn't going to be able to take much more of all of these people explaining themselves before he lost it and tried shoving his head in the fire, without floo powder, just for some relief from it all.

He'd frightened away every person who'd stood in the way of Harry's winning.

"Great, now I'm picturing Moody chasing Malfoy down the hallways to stop him bothering Harry this year," Remus sighed under his breath, well aware there was some hysteria bleeding into even that whispered comment for his even pretending this was normal and something to be made fun of.

He'd convinced Hagrid to show Harry the dragons, and helped Harry how to get past them!

Lily was opening and closing her mouth repeatedly like that would somehow make understanding this easier. It wasn't.

Moody's magical eye had now left the door. It was fixed upon Harry. His lopsided mouth leered more widely than ever.

At this point Sirius was just trying to work it in his head that this wasn't Moody at all! Maybe he'd lied about receiving that eye injury just so he could have it in this school, and this was an imposter...but no. That didn't explain a damned thing except to try and convince his mind not to melt coming to terms with all this.

Moody begroaned how hard his task had been guiding Harry through all of this. He'd had to use every last shred of cunning he had not to be found out and make Dumbledore suspicious, as he couldn't let Harry have too easy a time.

"Well then your plan worked great, since Harry hasn't had an ease of any of them!" James proudly got out with only minimal continued hysterics.

But so long as Harry had made it to the maze, preferably with a head start, then Moody knew Harry would get there once he got the other champions out of the way. Still, he'd had to deal all year with his stupidity.

Harry was sure that warmth was the last thing he'd ever be feeling while his life was being threatened by a madman, but there was indeed a slight smile on his face watching the others huff indignantly at calling Harry stupid at a time like this. Considering the circumstances he'd been forced into, they were all beyond impressed at his ability to cope with all of this. Harry's smile didn't linger long enough to erase the pain of his internal body at war trying to understand everything he was hearing coming from Moody's voice, but so wrong in every other way, but for just a moment he was reminded of where he was and it helped.

The second task had been the worst and he'd had to slip him a hint, using Cedric for that.

"I really wish I could have sat in on that conversation," Remus sighed, "I just can not imagine how that was worded to make...Mad-Eye innocent of offering help." It felt odd referring to him as that for the first time, but calling him Mad-Eye was somehow different enough from the Moody he knew it made the sentence tolerable.

He'd known Cedric would return the favor, as decent people were so easy to manipulate.

Lily felt like she was fixing to snap any moment, still so tensed and stressed from Harry having to be in front of Voldemort this night, now yet again her world view had been kicked to the curb with yet another trusted friend acting like a complete and utter lunatic, and still it all revolved around Harry. Why couldn't he have just been able to go to the Hospital Wing before all this madness around him had to kick in again, just give him five minutes of peace!

It had been maddening to watch Potter struggle through this challenge, when he'd planted the clue from the very beginning, having given Longbottom those books about Magical Water Plants of the Mediterranean.

Harry groaned and let his head flop back against the couch, entirely sick of all those little details he knew he should have been paying attention to getting passed over through his swiss brian. Yet even now he wasn't kicking himself as much as he normally would have, because somehow mentioning Neville was pushing Harry more firmly every minute into believing something wasn't right with this. Something about Neville, and this man...but Moody had never done anything to Neville, of that he was sure...

Moody had been so sure Potter would be begging everyone for help, and Longbottom could have told him in an instant, but that stupid streak of independence had nearly ruined everything.

Sirius hummed in agreement with that, but unlike Moody he hardly found it a fault. The Marauders had been the same way, hardly discussing anything outside their group of friends, at least things of such importance as this. Even in the Order, they were reluctant to share at group meetings, preferring to only tell Dumbledore, and Sirius was now quite thankful for that, it was starting to feel like he couldn't trust anyone who wasn't in this room.

Instead Moody had improvised, remembering Harry mentioned his house-elf friend at the Yule Ball, so he'd summoned Dobby to where he and McGonagall had been speaking about the next task, and wondering if Potter would use gillyweed.

James nearly broke his glasses he was rubbing so hard at the bridge of his nose in frustration, remembering back and realizing they'd never even questioned that too much, just the natural act of house-elves hearing everything that went on in that school, and now just feeling like a fool for missing yet another thing.

Moody's wand was still pointed at Harry's heart, while over his shoulder his Foe-Glass was taking shape.

Remus felt his voice finally pick up just a tiny fraction of hope again. He just couldn't process yet another trusted person from the Order doing this to them, but one thing he could get behind was however the hell Harry had gotten away from this. Any enemy to Moody who was moving around in that Foe-Glass could only be a good thing for Harry, right?

Moody was still talking about the second task, how long he'd been in the water and nearly ruined everything, but thankfully Dumbledore had marked him high for that nobility and Moody had breathed again.

Moody had breathed again.

"Don't worry, I'll fix that very soon," Sirius snarled under his breath. Moody was going to lose a lot more than an eye and part of a nose when Sirius got his hands on him no matter how much it hurt him to try and figure out what the hell had happened to the famous Auror.

Then he slid into chatting about the next task, telling Harry he'd had a very easy time in there thanks to him. He'd been using his magical eye to wipe out anything in Harry's way, and he'd Stunned Fleur, while also using the Imperius Curse on Krum to take out Diggory.

Harry muttered something harshly under his breath about his stupid, useless brain. He'd been right before, wandering around those hedges and thinking how this was too easy, and yet never could he have predicted this.

"How did nobody see him doing that?" Remus snarled, only feeling slightly better they clearly hadn't been the only ones who hadn't seen one tiny bit of this all year.

Sirius quietly reminded Moony of nonverbal spells, it wasn't that hard to picture Moody keeping as out of the way as possible and sneaking all of this in while all attention had been focused on the champions, most likely Harry and Cedric. As for how the spells had gotten through that hedge...well that could be argued about later when they weren't having to hear about this madness.

Harry couldn't understand how any of this was possible, how Dumbledore's friend the famous Auror could be a Death Eater...

"Of that we can agree," Lily murmured, running her hand up and down Harry's spine to chase away the goosebumps she could feel there. Harry was clearly in monumental pain from remembering all this, and she couldn't blame him, it was too much of a shock to still be real.

Instead of having to watch those horrifying mismatched eyes, Harry again glanced at the Foe-Glass, where three shapes were clearly moving now. Moody saw none of this, both eyes still fixated on Harry.

Remus groaned and muttered something under his breath about how the Moody they knew would never have stood for this. Even flipping around to this twisted version of the Order's backbone shouldn't have caused him to become so careless.

Moody dragged his attention back by whispering that if the Dark Lord had failed to kill Harry, then he'd have that honor.

"Well he's never going to, so he can just chalk up that loss right now," James snarled, if there was one thing he could still believe in every time, it was that his son would win this.

Dreaming to himself the rewards he'd get when his master found out.

"Actually I imagine he'd be a wee bit pissed," Sirius snapped, "considering he told all his other Death Eater scum not to do the same."

"Here's hoping Harry doesn't have to sit in on that conversation," Remus shuddered, it was vile enough trying to picture that rat hanging around Voldemort, Moody doing so truly was far past unthinkable.

Moody had done the best of them all, he'd delivered Harry Potter. He'd be treated like a son!

Harry could feel his head swimming in a detached kind of way...something about a son, it had seemed very important to him he remember something about a son all year...

Moody continued in this way, whispering about how much he and the Dark Lord had in common, both of their fathers had been so disappointing.

James could feel the ice permeating his brain making him think a few moments later than he should have that this didn't sound right, Moody had emulated his father in every way- but by the time it registered how odd that sentence was Remus had kept going, and James put it down to one too many curses had driven Moody as insane as apparently the Longbottoms had become.

Both of them had suffered the indignity, of being named after their fathers.

Sirius ruffled up his brows, thinking that Moody's dad had been named David,* not Alastor. So unless Moody was simply badgering on about having to share a last name, he really had no idea what that raving bit could mean.

And both of them had the pleasure of killing said fathers.

Lily could feel her mouth stretching wide without understanding, but horror. She didn't know much about Moody, but she never could have imagined anyone who wasn't as loony as Voldemort saying that with any kind of pleasure.

Moody cackled then, raising his wand to strike at last, and while Harry plunged his hand into his robes for his own wand-

Remus was so tense and uneasy by the end of this he was sure his voice was going to fail from overuse any second. This was just too much back to back madness for all of them to not be considering running from the room any moment now screaming.

but never got the chance as the door was blasted open using Stupefy.

James shook his head hard to forcibly rid himself of the image of Moody holding a wand to his son's face like that, and instead just watched that stupid little book desperately so that he could finally hear something good happen.

The door of Moody's office was blasted apart -

Lily was more concerned than anything Harry hardly seemed relieved his rescue had arrived, he was still watching nothing of this room, his eyes far away and something so clearly wrong with his visage she just knew something else was fixing to happen.

Moody was thrown into the wall, and Harry watched Dumbledore, Snape,

Sirius didn't even have enough of himself left to make a snide comment about Snape being there.

and McGonagall enter.

Harry watched his headmaster with a look of awe, for the first time understanding why Voldemort would fear this wizard. He carried an aura Harry had never seen before, a fiery presence that radiated the whole room.

Remus nodded absently to himself. He'd only seen that expression once himself when Dumbledore had been in combat, and it was something you didn't forget.

Dumbledore and Snape came towards the other teacher, while McGonagall flitted to Harry's side.

Lily forced herself, muscle by muscle, to relax again. Finally thinking Harry was going to get out of there, McGonagall would see to it he'd get looked after, surely she hadn't gone off the rocker as well!

She tried to coax Harry to his feet, whispering about the hospital wing while blinking back tears-

The worst part for James was that he wasn't even sure what had finally pushed his old head of house into that, he knew he could count over a dozen things that he could feel trying to leak out of his eyes right now.

but Dumbledore cut her off with a no.

"No?" Lily repeated just as sharply, but with a lot more promise of violence. "What does he think he means, no? Hasn't he been through a bloody enough already, does he really need to interrogate him right now!"

Remus sat there in fear for his own life, Lily really needed someone to take out her anger and frustration on and he was the one holding the book, but surprisingly enough Harry cut her off with a gentle arm around her shoulder, his eyes vacant as he whispered, "trust me, it's a good thing I stayed, it'll mean something here in a moment."

Lily deflated, not convinced one bit about this, but willing to hold herself back and see why Dumbledore at least wanted to detain Harry a little longer from some actual help.

McGonagall tried to protest he'd been through enough-

There had been several moments where James had wanted to go hug his old transfiguration teacher, and now was certainly one of them. He'd always made sure to give her less hell whenever she showed that compassionate side to Remus, letting him skip his homework that week because he'd been too sick to even attend class that day.

but Dumbledore insisted he needed to understand what had just happened, only then could he truly recover.

"Okay, yes, I'll give Dumbledore that one." Remus said mostly to himself as he could see the logic in that, even if his first instinct as well was to haul Harry out of there already and somewhere actually safe.

Harry tried to tell what Moody had told him, but Dumbledore replied this was not Alastor Moody.

James felt his face squidge up with absolute confusion, and relief. What on earth could he mean, not Moody, but also, thank Merlin! He didn't even care what the reason was anymore, finally something that didn't feel like his future was hell.

Alastor Moody would never take Harry away at a time like this, so Dumbledore knew something had been wrong, and followed.

Sirius could feel himself tensing up in confusion and unease at that, wondering at Dumbledore and just how long he'd been following Harry, how long he'd known he'd been in danger before he struck...and what on earth Dumbledore was even talking about. The real Moody? How could anyone switch places with Alastor Moody and get away with it? And this had to have been happening on and off all year, which meant that somehow both a fake and real Moody had been going around school and no one noticed? This was getting as confusing as a Death Eater Moody!

Dumbledore turned to his true teachers and asked Snape to go and fetch his strongest Truth Potion, and Winky.

"What on earth does he want Winky for?" Lily demanded as she ran her hand through her hair. In combat it certainly made sense to follow orders without question, but couldn't he explain why while telling them?

Then asking McGonagall to go to Hagrid's where a black dog was in the pumpkin patch,

Sirius perked up with interest at that, no one needed to ask who that could be referring to, but it was an interesting side point that Sirius was in Hagrid's garden of all places. Could that possibly mean he could hear the screams and shouts going on in the Quidditch pitch? What on earth was going through his mind right now, this was even worse than him being in the mountains and having no clue, because a Sirius who heard screaming and could think for even a second his godson was in trouble was a dangerous Padfoot.

and asked the dog to be escorted to his office, then to return here.

If either Snape or McGonagall found these instructions peculiar, they hid their confusion.

"Does McGonagall know about you then?" Remus cocked his head to the side. Sirius really wasn't the most important part of what was going on, but this was certainly a new enough development it warranted questioning. "You think Dumbledore told her everything?"

"I like to think so," James sighed, "one more person who wouldn't kill him on sight is certainly a good thing."

"Thanks Prongs," Sirius muttered, but it did indeed put a small smile on his face for even a moment that she didn't think all that terrible stuff of him anymore.

They left, and Dumbledore turned his attention to the unconscious man now, riffing through his pockets and coming up with a key ring. He moved to the trunk which had seven locks, and fitted the first key into place, opening it to find old spells books, and broken Sneako-scopes. He closed the lid, put another key in place, and opened it again to find an Invisibility Cloak.

"Cool," James muttered to himself. He'd heard about trunks like this, but normally people hid the individual keys in several different locations so one person couldn't have access to the full trunk. It was yet another slip on this carless, imposter Moody that James was going to enjoy for as long as it lead him to what was really going on.

Dumbledore continued this way until he reached the last lock, and when he threw it open this time, Harry was looking into a pit which contained Mad-Eye Moody.

Remus had to pause there. Of all of their disbelief and confusion at what Moody was doing, this was still somehow weirder even while they all let out a collective sigh of relief that they had been wrong. Who on earth had been able to do this, and how had they been getting away with it for any length of time? Remus would have happily sat around and dissected this for hours, but Lily was already recovering her shock and waving him on frantically, she'd let herself feel the best relief when Harry was finally being taken care of properly. He'd seen enough in one night to last him a lifetime.

Harry stared from the one on the floor to the one in the trunk, the latter of whom was clearly unconscious and heavily starved with a bald patch in his grizzled hair. Dumbledore removed the cloak from the one on the outside, and lowered himself to the other, covering him and checking him over. Stating he was unconscious, but in no immediate danger.

He came back out and went to the first Moody again, this time finding his hip flask, which he dumped on the ground to find what looked like mud. Dumbledore realized it was Polyjuice Potion.

"Merlin's pants," James just kept shaking his head like that would help all of this to make sense. The one question he just couldn't get over was how anyone had done this? To another person, to Alastor?

Dumbledore murmured to himself how ingenious the plan was, this imposter had been taking it frequently and no one would be the wiser, Moody was well known for his hip flask. That's where the bald patch on the trunk Moody came from, this man would have had to keep him on hand to continue using his hair for the potion. Perhaps though, with the excitement of everything tonight, he had not taken his hourly dose...

Harry could feel himself finally starting to understand where all of his confusion had come from, if perhaps he'd ever met the real Moody of course his brain would have trouble understanding the difference between the two, but the relief was short lived as his mind kept insisting the biggest surprise was still yet to come. He was also trying to suppress the urge to retch at the idea of doing that for a whole year, taking one dose had been an absolute pain on him.

The time passed in silence, until finally the change began. His skin began bubbling, and then smoothing over so that it was no longer the lined scared features. The leg regrew, popping the peg free. Instead of the grizzled hair, it smoothed and turned fair, the nose filling out, as well as the eye popping out of socket.

"Ew," Lily crinkled her nose at the thought of wearing a fake eye in general, now she realized it was someone else's!

Harry was looking upon Crouch's son from the Pensive.

"No way," Sirius had his head cocked to the side and eyes narrowed in unease at the book. Sirius had claimed to see this very same person die in Azkaban, surely he wasn't so mad he couldn't have exaggerated that distinction. If he had broken out in some other way, it most likely would have been mentioned, it's not as if this mystery person was wearing two layers of enchantments to conceal his appearance.

Snape and McGonagall had returned then, both yelping in shock upon seeing Barty Crouch.

Harry finally felt the release of pain he'd been feeling all year, could finally see and understand and felt that huge weight lift off.

"What-no-Crouch vanished ages ago, this is-" James eyes nearly fell out of his head as he repeated to himself, "the kid who was named after him, no way!"

"That's what he meant earlier," Lily shook her head in disbelief, "whoa, so does that mean, did he actually kill his own dad?"

Sirius was just sitting there like a stunned fish, none of this was making any sense to him. That guy was supposed to be dead, there was just no way he could be out and about doing all of these terrible things to his pup, and apparently for months!

Remus was selfishly glad Dumbledore had kept Harry around for all of this now, he'd be going crazy if he didn't get some kind of details about how all of this had been done, and hoped Snape would get on already with whatever that truth potion had been for.

Behind them, Winky confirmed as much by shrieking in shock about what Master Barty was doing here?

"Yeah, he should be dead," Sirius repeated aloud what he kept thinking in his head, there was just no way he could have gotten a detail so wrong.

She slumped to the floor and began sobbing about how they had killed her Master!

"Sadly we haven't gotten to that part yet," James sneered, this was still the man who'd been doing all of these terrible things to Harry, and while James was happier than anyone it wasn't actually Moody, he still wanted someone's head on a spit for putting his son through this.

Dumbledore soothed her he was just stunned.

"Why is she even there?" Lily asked of no one, "she hasn't seen him since before, Merlin I don't even know at this point if he ever was dragged into Azkaban or what's going on, but I can't see why her being there is helpful."

"There's a lot of explaining that needs to be done," Remus agreed.

Snape stepped forward then and handed Dumbledore a small vial full of clear liquid, the Veritaserum which he'd threatened Harry with.

James muttered some foul comment under his breath about how even that had felt like a simpler and more bearable problem than what they'd been listening to these past few hours.

Dumbledore force fed this to Crouch, and then used Enervate.

Crouch came back to life in a calm state, his voice monotone when he answered Dumbledore's question he could hear them. Then he was asked how he'd gotten out of Azkaban?

"Starting with the important stuff at least," Sirius shivered at the mention of that place again, his mind still floundering to understand why this hadn't been front headline news.

Crouch's voice remained flat as he stated it had all been his mother's doing. She was dying, and as her last wish she'd begged her husband to save their son, he'd agreed. They'd come to visit him with Polyjuice Potion, and swapped places.

"He, Crouch- no way that he-" Lily could feel something restricting her mind from getting out a full sentence of disbelief at Crouch having done this for his son, for his wife. There was a good cause somewhere in there of the parents saving their child, but clearly this Jr. shouldn't have been given it, considering the way he'd been speaking of Voldemort moments ago, there was no longer any doubt in her mind that he had in fact deserved where he'd been.

any doubt in her mind that he had in fact deserved where he'd been.

Winky was sobbing harder than ever, begging Barty to stop, he was getting his father into trouble.

"I'm going to strangle that elf myself if it doesn't shut up," Sirius snapped, in no mood to hear an elf try to protect its master with whatever loony thing they had done.

She was ignored, as Crouch told how the blind dementors had not known the difference. They'd sensed one healthy and sick person leaving, and entering. Even the prisoners had never watched the swap, didn't know the difference.

James couldn't help it, he felt another blow torment him as he realized he would have done the same thing for Sirius in a heartbeat to get him out of there, but this scumbag of a Death Eater had been granted this while Sirius had no one.

His mother had died in that place, she'd brought just enough along to pass in there and been buried as him.

Everyone's mouth flopped open in horror as they realized just how long Crouch had to have been out of there then, not even as recently as just this year!

The joke slid out of Sirius' mouth before he'd even processed it, "wait, so I'm not the first one to get out of there then?"

Remus slapped him upside the head, hard, for that one. Giving him such a nasty look for the poor joke Sirius didn't even complain as he rubbed at the spot.

Then his own mother's funeral had been staged, her casket an empty grave. The house-elf had nursed him back to health.

"I still can't get my head around- how long ago did this happen?" Remus demanded of no one as he tried to figure out how much damage Crouch had done by supposedly helping his child.

Lily felt her throat trying to force out an insane giggle, her arm tightening around Harry more every second as she gasped out, "oh my goodness, do you realize what we're even hearing? Crouch, bloody Bartemius Crouch, went and did the most illegal thing I've ever heard of in my life!"

"I think I preferred him with the stick up his arse," Sirius sneered.

Then he blinked in concern when he watched James temper snap as he howled in outrage, "are you telling me Crouch got his son out of Azkaban, after what he did to Sirius! To all of those people he threw in that place, but he bloody turned into the definition of a hypocrite and smuggled that demented little spawn out!"

Remus was growling low in his throat as he realized what all James meant. They'd realized Crouch had been playing by his own rules, deciding who should and shouldn't be allowed certain privileges and dishing out uses of the Unforgivable curses being done while punishing anyone who did the same without his permission. This was a far worse step up in Crouch taking the law into his own hands! It was disgusting that such a man had ever been allowed to go this far, but with the safe comfort in mind that thankfully Crouch hadn't gotten away with this yet, Remus forced himself to keep going past all the terse mutters of outrage.

Then Jr. had to be put under control so that he couldn't return to his old ways.

James felt the cruel joke curling his tongue about how he'd have let him go crawling back to Voldemort, see what kind of reward he'd get. That trial was playing over in his head again, about how pathetic that kid seemed now trying to desperately prove he hadn't been a part of anything and all his comments about how he hated those Death Eaters who had escaped Azkaban when he'd been forced in as well blubbering like a baby. See how Voldemort took that kind of dedication!

He'd used the Imperius Curse,

"I see now why he was so lenient on letting Aurors use them," Lily sneered, "he clearly had no moral problems of using them himself."

and now lived under an Invisibility Cloak so that no one would ever know of his existence. The house-elf became his keeper, and she'd been kind to him, always trying to persuade his father to give him treats.

Winky was still trying to protest every bit of this, telling him to stop getting himself into trouble.

"Glory how I wished I owned Winky right now," Sirius' lip was curling in the worst way, "she'd look lovely with my mother's others." He'd hated his own house-elf the most for a long time, but any creature so willing to help this piece of work was at least on level with his own. Winky was clearly doing her masters work with pride, helping out this monster who had done harm to so many.

When he ended there, Dumbledore asked if anyone besides his father and Winky knew of this?

Crouch's eyes gained a small flicker of life as he whispered Bertha Jorkins.

"You have got to be kidding me," James dead panned as suddenly so much of that made sense.

"This is the memory charm that was placed on her that screwed up her memory," Sirius shook his head, "and Crouch put it on her, to hide his bleeding kid. Is there anything illegal this one hasn't done?"

"I'm picturing him talking about his law abiding ancestors who respected carpet laws all rolling in their graves," Remus agreed.

She'd come over one night to get Crouch's signature, but had instead heard Winky talking to the invisible Jr., Bertha had gathered what it all meant, and Crouch had placed a powerful memory charm on her to forget it all, but it had permanently damaged her mind.

Lily was shaking her head pitifully at all of this, disgust with Crouch waring with what had happened to Bertha. She hadn't done a thing to deserve being the foil of so many more powerful wizards treating her like that. At this point she really couldn't see how Crouch was any better than the Dark wizards he claimed to be putting away.

Dumbledore switched topics to the Quidditch Cup.

"How did he know about that?" Remus' eyes narrowed shrewdly, "Crouch mentioned that before Dumbledore got there."

"Either he was listening at the door," Sirius had a frown in place as he didn't like that option one little bit, it implying Dumbledore had actually been standing by while this had been happening to Harry. Surely at least McGonagall hadn't stood for that- "or he put it together himself somehow." He finished his first thought out loud to force himself to stop that depressing trail.

Both options left much to be desired, but it was all they could think of right now, when all they wanted to be thinking of was this night being over for Harry already. They still would claim they would have waited for these answers when Harry was less vulnerable.

Crouch's monotone voice continued explaining how Winky had convinced his father to go, he'd been under the spell for years now and his mother hadn't died for him to remain in prison. He finally agreed,

"Crouch's empty seat actually was filled by a Crouch," Remus muttered to himself, though it didn't help one bit that he grasped this mere moments before he'd be explaining it himself. It did slightly help that no one could have seen this coming! Who on earth would suspect a dead person of these deeds! Especially Crouch's son of all people.

and Jr. took Crouch's supposed seat in the Top Box while the man himself didn't make an appearance. What no one knew was that Jr. was growing stronger, and starting to fight the Imperius Curse.

Harry shivered in disgust, he didn't want to imagine how long it would take a man to have to be under such a powerful curse to begin to fight it off, but it did stump him slightly as he realized that the same man who had been so magically gifted to Confound an object like the Cup couldn't throw this curse off sooner than years. Still, Harry was finally breathing easy again, at having all of this explained to him. Not at peace, he knew he wasn't going to be getting anywhere close to that feeling again for some time, but his mind was certainly more bearable to be in now.

He'd had a moment of clarity that night, seeing a wand stick out of a boys pocket, and he'd taken it.

James buried his face in his fingers now, never having believed he could hate a Quidditch World Cup like he was this one, where seemingly nothing good had come of it! Their one true moment of adolescent fun this year even seemed to be sour when looked back on.

Winky had seen nothing with her face hidden the whole time.

Winky was murmuring into her fingers now about what a bad boy he'd been.

"Bad boy?" Lily parroted in disbelief. "I think he deserves a bit more than that!" She was steadily growing more red in the face with anger the more she heard about everything Crouch's son had done all because of his father. He could have gotten Harry into real trouble even before his plot to kill him!

That night when the other Death Eaters had been out Muggle baiting, he'd thrown off his curse entirely. Those were the ones who'd evaded Azkaban, who had the gall to be free and not seek their master.

James snarled in disgust at hearing this little scum prattling on about those other Death Eaters not being as good as him. He never could even imagine wanting to please Voldemort, but the idea of so many of his followers treating this like a contest of who could gain him more favor made the idea almost laughable in the worst way.

So Jr. had forged out of the tent with the purpose of doing something about it, but Winky had tried to stop him, dragging him into the forest instead, the duo struggling the whole way through the trees.

Harry was muttering obscenities under his breath about that night, about all of this and how he should have put all of this together, to warn those around him. If only he could have just gotten something more than a bad feeling, he could have warned them of so many things to come.

Instead what he'd done when he realized he couldn't get away from her, was use his stolen wand and cast the Dark Mark. When the Ministry had arrived, the Stunning Spells had gotten him, and the bond between he and Winky had been broken.

"And Crouch found his kid under the invisibility cloak where Winky was," Sirius groaned as he rubbed at his temple. Merlin this was the sneakiest thing he'd ever heard in his life, such a complicated plot that honestly made him want to go back and relook at the whole thing just to see what other details they'd missed, and hit himself over the head with every one. How many times had that fake Moody probably let slip what was really going on, and they hadn't caught a bit?

Winky had been sacked for the near miss, and Jr. had been put back under the Imperius Curse.

"That does make getting rid of Winky all the more confusing though," Lily cocked her head to the side. "It's not her magic that was holding the Imperious curse, it was his. Was he really blaming her for his magic beginning to slip."

"Clearly he'll blame his mistakes on anyone but himself while trying to bury them in the process," James scoffed.

Then it was just the two of them when his master came.

Harry shivered at the idea, of Voldemort showing up on someone else's doorstep all because Wormtail was helping him along at that point, because Wormtail had gotten another innocent person killed and now Crouch's son was free and Voldemort would return.

He'd arrived with Wormtail,

At this point Remus was full of so much hatred for what he was reading he was having a hard time finding any more for just speaking the name of that vermin. Maybe it was finally acceptance for what had happened to him and some way to move on, but more likely he was just so consumed with everything else going on he'd go back and hate on him in particular later.

because he'd gained all of Bertha Jorkins information. His father had been the one to answer the door.

James wrapped his hands around the back of his neck, straining his muscles to their breaking point as he tensed up in pain for having to relive all what had happened to her again, all because of what Peter had done. Still he couldn't help but wonder if he felt anything for what he'd done to someone he'd once known? Bertha hadn't deserved a moment of the amount of torture she'd endured to be the key to this plan any more than Sirius had deserved to serve his crimes all those years ago, and still he was right at it.

Now a smile really was lighting his placid features, while Winky began rocking in place but now too appalled to speak.

Lily was too, but for a completely different kind of appalled at everything that had gone into nearly getting her son killed.

Like the flip of a switch, Crouch had been placed under the Imperius Curse, and the real servant was free to act how he'd always wanted to. His master had commanded Crouch to go back to his daily life as if nothing had happened.

"Irony," Remus nodded absently to himself, as every instance of Crouch being sick suddenly made him realize he was just at home because Voldemort couldn't make that Imperius curse believable enough to Crouch's normal behavior. It even occurred to him in that moment that, when they'd all believed him to be sick and creeping around the castle in Snape's office, that had in fact been this other Crouch with the same name. He began offering up charms and ways to improve their map in the back of his mind as he forced himself to keep going so this mistake wouldn't happen again, it was easier to be thinking about than having to read the ravings of this madman.

Dumbledore quietly asked what Voldemort had asked him to do?

"I think at this point it's obvious," Sirius snarled, sick of listening to this psychopath having gone on for so long now, and just wanting to usher Harry out of there.

He'd been asked if he was ready for the hardest task of his life, and Jr. agreed at once. It had been his life's ambition to serve such a purpose for his master.

Sirius felt bile sitting in the back of his throat, just waiting to come loose the second he tried to make some comment about this mess no matter how much he wanted to mock any being delusional enough to think all that.

He'd been told the plan, how his master needed a faithful servant at Hogwarts to make the year's events come to pass. First they needed one other person.

Lily began twirling a strand of hair around her finger again tight enough to make it hurt as she remembered back to all of their comments, teasing and poking Remus that he should have been there again this year, and suddenly selfishly grateful it hadn't been him. She had no clue what would happen if someone tried to use a Polyjuice Potion on him, but it was clear he would have been attacked and in some way removed, possibly worse, for this to have happened.

Dumbledore agreed they'd needed Alastor Moody. Even while he'd been listening, his eyes were ablaze no matter how calm his voice.

"I think Dumbledore's pissed this was going on under his crooked nose all year," James nodded to himself.

"You can not possibly blame him for this one," Remus shook his head in disbelief, "even with all of these details I can't begin to put together the insanity of this plan, let alone it actually working. The lengths Crouch's son had to go to to make all of this believable, and managed to dupe everyone for a whole year."

The others nodded their agreement, this was not the fault of anyone but Crouch, the pompous ministry git who better hope he stayed gone and mad. It was almost ironic as they realized what had really happened to him, he'd somehow broken his own Imperius Curse and come running for help, but he'd gone mad in the process of throwing off the magic. Most likely he really had wandered back off into the forest and been eaten...but then who attacked Krum? And when exactly had Junior killed his father?

They were getting too far ahead of themselves, and now hoping Dumbledore would think to question about all of this, Remus forced himself to keep going.

Once Jr. had assumed his new personality as Moody, tucked the real one away, and tricked Arthur Weasley into believing the whole thing that day, it had been easy enough to continue the farce. He'd stolen ingredients whenever he'd been running low for his potin, nicking the boomslang skin and when confronted, merely saying he'd been told to check the office.

Dumbledore asked what of Wormtail when he'd left, and Jr. explained he and his master had stayed in his father's house.

Hearing repeatedly about his role in this wasn't making it any better to say, let alone hear for any of them!

When Crouch tried to end again, Dumbledore prompted that Crouch had escaped.

Jr. kept going, explaining that he'd too thrown off his curse and tried to run for help, to warn what he'd done.

Sirius remembered back to how blood thirsty any mention of the rat made him, not hard as it was still lingering in him now at everything he'd still done to Harry this night, but suddenly wished for the first time he could find a way past it and work it under control. Maybe then he would have realized sooner past that rats name and understood what he'd done, how it could have been considered and helped them to understand a bit better.

His master had warned of the escape, and so he'd used the map he'd taken from Harry Potter to keep an eye on the castle.

"Bloody hell, that Death Eater is not using my map!" James snarled in outrage as he jumped to his feet. He'd been still too long, felt too many emotions for too long. He was storming around the room now as he reached a new level of rage, the pride he'd felt when he thought Moody had complimented him suddenly as tainted and twisted as everything Peter and he had ever done. His vision was starting to blur, this was too much in one sitting, to much to have to deal with day after day.

"I know Prongs," Remus commiserated with him, his mind working in the same wavelength and realizing every instance they'd ever appreciated having Moody around this year was tainted red because of his true purpose. Merlin's pants a Death Eater had been the first person to use that Imperius Curse on Harry! Then his mind really realized that it had been in fact this same bleeding Death Eater that helped Harry throw off the curse when faced with Voldemort. While Remus at least appreciated that, he saw how close he was to being done, and knowing they all needed to vent and get away a little because of too much information overload, he tried to soothe his friend by promising he was almost done and then he could scream and rant about this all he wanted.

Dumbledore was confused at the mention of the map,

"Hey look, I didn't tell Dumbledore about that last year," Sirius muttered to himself, remembering he was currently up in Dumbledore's office probably having his own panic attack up there because Harry still wasn't safe in his arms. He wanted this done as much as anything just for Harry to be free of this environment.

and so had to be explained of Potters map that saw everything, that nearly ruined everything. Potter had seen his name one night when he'd been in Snape's office, and so Moody had to trick him into why he'd really been in there, and Potter had never realized the name swapped.

"Don't you even," Lily whispered in Harry's ear as she saw how frustrated he was at having been so behind on all of this. "Not a damned thing of this is your fault, how were you to know better? In all honesty, I still would have believed that part was true even in light of all this new."

Harry sighed, not particularly agreeing this all wasn't somehow his fault. It was still his presence in school that had a Death Eater there this year, that had gotten Cedric killed...but for now he nodded to his mother and just waved for it all to be over.

When it did happen, he'd had the forewarning of that map to go down and try to catch his father first. He'd stunned Krum and killed his father.

"Whoa," Sirius did a double take on that one. "He actually killed killed him?" He hadn't realized this meant he'd literally struck the curse.

"He wasn't any more use to them," Remus was scowling down at the pages hatefully, if a little regretfully that's how he'd died without his crimes being shown for all, but loving the taste of this irony even more than the last. The person Crouch had gone to such lengths to get him out of Azkaban had been his own death in the end, as much as he deserved.

Winky began sobbing uncontrollably now, insisting this couldn't be so!

Sirius shook his head in disgust, he kept forgetting that stupid elf was there, that she'd had a hand in all of this all because she'd blindly followed along with whatever her master told her to do because she was too stupid to have a moral compass of her own and realize this was wrong. In fact a lot of this could be blamed on her, she'd been the one to get Crouch's kid discovered by Bertha for having such a fat mouth, she'd been the one trying to 'reward,' the bleeding lunatic by letting him go to the Cup. Winky's idiocies and lengths she went to help her masters truly was the downfall of this generation of wizards because it had all in a roundabout way given Voldemort his return.

Dumbledore asked what had been done with the body, and Jr. explained he'd hidden it away, then circled back and claimed Snape had sent him down there in the first place.

"Hey look, we got our answer to that!" James threw his hands up in exasperation. At some point all of these answers had clouded together in his brain and he couldn't process anything more than wanting to break someone's face already.

Then he'd come back and transfigured the body into a bone, before burying it in Hagrid's lawn.

Lily let out a squeal of disgust, scrambling back in her mind and trying to remember when Harry had been playing with the nifflers in Hagrid's yard, and how close her baby had been to another dead body! Having to watch Cedric's had been horrifying enough, but if his had happened twice in one year?! She only marginally relaxed, though the disgust still lingered, as she recalled this had all happened to Harry later in the day, after Hagrid's lesson.

Dumbledore wanted this completed, asking about tonight and that Triwizard Cup.

Jr. agreed he'd turned it into a Portkey,

Remus realized he had a few nagging questions and suspicions about the meaning of that, though he could think of a few answers offering themselves, he'd want to go over those in detail if he could ever think freely again.

and his master's plans had worked. He would be honored to his wildest dreams!

"Oh I'll see that you're honored alright," Sirius scowled hatefully.

That insane smile still lingered on his features as Winky wailed.

"Done," Remus moaned as he gave the book a nasty toss away from him, well beyond done with this day's events, and there still seemed to be some left to go.

HPHPHP

I've decided to add the 'discussion' of this book into the next chapter, Sunday. They really are going to want a break before the last 'bad' thing happens this book.

*Sorry that's the best kind of Dr. Who reference I could slip in. David Tennant is the name of the Dr. who, pun not intended there, played Jr. in the movies...

#HP #Harry Potter #fanfiction #reading the books #GoF #Marauders #Jilly #Remus Lupin #Sirius Black #James Potter #Lily Potter

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stanbillyhargrove · 3 years

Text

Demons - The Rewrite

Chapter 16: Please Don't Make Me Beg You To Stay

Tw: eating disorders, purging, drugs

Steve’s POV

The party raged around me, bodies moving all around me and music pounding so loud I could feel it in my chest, replacing the beat of my heart. Nancy has been acting weird lately, distant and cold, and she’d decided not to come to this party, leaving me to drink with my friends. We were having a pretty good time, getting drunk and joking around for a while.

But it didn't feel right.

I wandered away to the makeshift bar near the kitchen. I was mixing myself a drink when a girl walked up behind me and ran a hand over my shoulder. I turned around to meet her drunken gaze.

“Hey there, pretty boy,” she slurred.

I tried to turn her down, tell her I had a girlfriend, but the girl just kept babbling.

I tuned out her constant talking when I saw Cat stumble into the other side of the kitchen, holding her head as she slumped against the counter. I didn’t think anything of it when a guy I’d never seen before followed her, just someone she met checking on her I thought. When she slumped to the floor I watched the new guy join a couple other guys, all of them sneering to each other. They were like a pack of wolves, snapping their teeth as they watched their prey fall. A couple people paused to talk to her but I couldn’t hear what they were saying.

I knew I should go to her but I didn't, just threw back my drink and turned to find another.

“She’ll be out any second,” a voice behind me sneered.

The pack loomed, staying far enough away from their leader to not startle the prey. Cat was starting to fade against the counter, struggling to keep her eyes open. When he hoisted her over his shoulder and started upstairs with her hanging limp, dread settled heavy in my gut. I quickly scanned for a head of blonde curls but didn’t see Billy anywhere near me.

Cause he hadn't been there.

I tried to walk away from the girl but was grabbed by the arm as she started to cry. I watched them all disappear upstairs and felt my mouth go dry. I desperately hoped for Billy to appear but knew he wouldn’t. It took a while for me to shake off the drunk girl to run up the stairs after them. When I worked up the courage to open the door my blood ran cold, like ice. The leader was on top of Cat, sliding her pants down her thighs. The pack loomed, salivating over their catch.

I announced my presence with a meager, “leave her alone.”

They turned on me, ready to devour me too.

“Hey man, private party,” the leader growled.

“She doesn’t want this, leave her alone,” I tried again.

One of the pack lept forward to shove me, “why don’t you fuck off? You don’t know what she wants.”

I bristled, squaring up to challenge them, “I know that she can’t walk or tell you what she wants when she’s passed out.”

The leader slid off Cat and met my challenge, offered a worse one, “we’ll let you join if you keep your fucking mouth shut.”

I gaped at him, “are you fucking serious? No! Get the hell out of here, you fucking assholes!”

He glared at me and reluctantly backed down.

“Whatever man,” he spat, “you can fucking have her.”

He shouldered past me, his crew all taking a turn to shove me as they followed him out of the room. The interaction left me feeling dirty, like they had left a mark on me that I would spend the next few days scrubbing at. I crossed the room to the bed and grabbed Cat’s shoulders to shake her. She didn’t respond, her entire body was limp in my hands.

Too much to drink, I thought.

I gently wiggled her pants back up her hipbones, over the scars and scabs that littered them. Scooped her up and carried her back downstairs, past the leering pack and out to my car to bring her back to my house to sleep it off.

I woke up with Cat curled into my side. When I looked over at her and saw her sunken, frail frame, I realized that I had been dreaming. Dreaming about what I wished had happened that night instead of what actually happened. A weight settled over me. A weight dragging me down into an endless ocean.

An ocean of should of's and could of's.

Of guilt.

Because it's my fault.

If I hadn’t been so caught up in myself I could have done something, I could have stopped her from being drugged in the first place. I should have tried harder to keep an eye on her. I failed Cat when she needed me most and I was failing her now as she got sicker and sicker.

I dont know what to do anymore, how to help, how to quit being a failure.

I woke again later in the morning to Cat rummaging loudly through a box just outside my bedroom door. I could just barely see her, sitting in the doorway pulling on strings of lights.

"Cat?"

She scrambled up, "oh! You’re awake! Did I wake you up? I was trying to be quiet."

"What are you doing?"

She smiled, holding up a string of lights, "I found some lights, I thought we could hang them up over the bed. It'll be cute."

I nodded, slightly confused, "yeah..okay, I can do that..where did you find those?"

"I made breakfast too! Get up so we can go shopping!"

"Shopping?"

"Yeah," she skipped and jumped to sit on the edge of the bed, "remember? For the dance?"

I nodded, sitting up, "right. Yeah, okay."

"I've never been in the city," Cat beamed, looking at all the stores lining the street.

I pulled to the side of the road, in front of a little boutique. Large windows boasted racks full of dresses and suits.

"Can we get coffee, Stevie?" Cat asked, pointing at the little Cafe across the street.

"Did you eat anything this morning?"

"Yeah, before you got up."

For a second, I could look at her smiling and let myself believe her.

She was running across the road before I could answer. Didn't look for cars, just dashed out.

"Cat!" I yelled.

"Come on, slow poke!" She yelled back, laughing from the sidewalk.

"Young Mr. Harrington," a woman beamed when we walked into the boutique, "how's your father? I haven't seen him in a while."

I smiled tightly, "he's fine, Tam. Busy."

"Good, good," she nodded, coming around the counter, "what can I help you with?"

Cat linked her arm in mine, "looking for a dress. And Steve here needs a new shirt."

"Will this be on your father's account?"

"No, I have money," Cat protested.

"Put it on his account. I need my jacket tailored too," I held up the jacket in my other arm.

Cat spun to me, "Stevie, I can-"

I shook my head, "really, it's okay. He doesn't care. Probably won't even notice. Lead the way, Tam."

Tammy nodded, leading us through the racks. Rows upon rows of billowing tulle and shining sequins. Soft silks and delicate lace.

Cat loaded her arms with as many dresses as she could carry and eagerly followed Tammy to a changing room.

Tammy pulled the curtain closed and came over to me, "another brunette, you certainly have a type."

I scrunched my eyebrows, confused, "huh?"

"I like this one, she's pretty. Much nicer than that last one I saw you with. What was her name again? Nina? Natasha?"

"Nancy," I answered, dryly.

"Nancy! Yeah, she didn't seem like a very nice girl. Not right for you."

I was about to protest when Cat called from the change room, "zip me, please?"

Tammy hurried behind the curtain and Cat walked out a moment later in a bright red dress. Tulle poofing up from her shoulders and layering down the skirt. It engulfed and swallowed Cat like flames.

"What do you think?" Tammy asked, smoothing her hands over the offending fabric.

"It's...something," I murmured, trying to control my expression.

Cat turned and burst out laughed looking at herself in the mirror, "oh no, this is terrible," she clapped a hand over her mouth, "I'm sorry! It's just not good on me!"

Tammy smiled gently, "don't worry, sweetheart. I'm not the designer. Let's try a different one."

An hour later we were on our way home, a new shirt, dress and shoes wrapped in boxes in the backseat.

-- a week later

"You sure you don't want to come pick up my jacket with me?" I asked.

Cat smiled and shook her head, "I'm okay, I'll spend some time with Rocky. Maybe go home for some stuff."

"Okay, I'll be back in a couple hours."

I came back to find a quiet house and a half eaten chocolate cake in the kitchen.

"Cat?" I called, tossing my suit jacket over a chair.

A fork with smeared remnants of icing gleamed next to the paper box.

A distant, painful retch perked my ears. I followed it through the house. Through the shadows of my parents unlit room. Following the thin strip of yellow light coming from under their bathroom door.

"Cat?"

Another retch and a sobbed, "fuck!"

I pushed the door open, "are you sick?"

She was kneeling in front of the toilet, one arm bent to brace herself and choking on the middle two fingers of her other hand.

I froze for a moment, "what the?"

"It won't come out," she cried, "it's stuck."

Her fingers were raw and irritated from being pushed down her throat.

"It won't come out, I can feel it."

She was shaking, fingers trembling against pink, slick lips. Tears sprung to my eyes, disappointed, angry and confused. My mouth opened and closed, lost for words. She pushed her fingers forward, gagging when nails scratched the back of her throat.

"Don't," I whispered.

She hesitated, "I can feel it, I need it out. I didn't mean to...I was so good."

Broken eyes met mine. Shameful before they scrunched closed and she dry heaved into the toilet. I shut my eyes tight, turning away from the door and leaving my parents room.

I hadn't moved from my spot near the pool. Just sat staring into the crystal blue water. The way it lapped lightly at my ankles. The way the stars reflected on the surface and danced when a stray tear fell.

The patio door slid open and shut behind me. Soft feet padding out onto the stone. I sniffed and wiped my nose with the back of my hand.

"Stevie," she rasped.

A new round of tears burned like acid.

"What the fuck was that?"

"I..I don't..."

I whirled around to face her, splashing water when I hurried to stand. Her eyes hardened when she flinched.

"What the fuck was that!" I yelled, "how could you do that to me! You were fine yesterday, what the hell happened?!"

"N-nothing."

"Nothing?" I scoffed.

"Yeah, nothing," she ground out, chin wavering even with her teeth clenched.

The lying stung almost worse than the truth.

"How can you stand there and lie to me?!"

She looked away, lips tightening.

"It's like you're trying to fuck this up."

Cat stood quiet, swallowing thickly.

"Is that it? You want to be sick? You want to push everyone away so you can pretend nobody cares and try to kill yourself again?"

Her eyebrows twitched, angry. Nostrils flared while she searched for the words to hurt me.

"I don't love you."

I was taken aback. Confused and hurt.

"I don't love you, Steve. And we're not in a fucking relationship," she spat venom, closing off, "I know you think you're my knight in shining armor but you can't save me."

"Fuck you," I growled.

"Your parents left, Nancy left. Nobody stays. Do you ever think maybe it's your fault?"

Yes.

All the time.

I hold people too close until they suffocate and leave.

I scoffed, sharp words falling from my lips before I could think, "tell me again where your parents are? You pushed Billy away. I'm the only one you have left. You need me."

"I don't need you. I never needed you!"

"Then leave!" I shouted, "my life would be a lot fucking easier!"

Hurt flashed behind her eyes before she turned and stomped away.

Tommy’s POV

Booze flowed, bottles passed and plastic cups emptied. Cigarettes and joints created a blue haze above us all. Flashing lights and thumping music disoriented the senses further.

Sweat dripped down foreheads, mixing into the sticky floor.

White powder covered a table in the middle of the room. Dusted noses.

Glimpses of familiar faces made it through the haze. Carol laughing, wild and free. Dancing out of sight. That girl I saw with Steve, Billy's girl. Cat? Chugging from a clear bottle. Leaning over the table.

"Tommy!" Carol yelled, snapping me back to reality.

I was in the backyard, lying face up in the grass. I smiled lazily up at her.

"You look beautiful," I mumbled.

Pink bloomed in her cheeks, "Tommy, you've been gone for hours. What happened?"

I laughed, "hours? Wow.."

"Tommy," she snapped, "get it together. We have a problem."

“Hall?” Billy grumbled over the phone.

“What?

He huffed loudly, “keep an eye on her until someone gets her?”

I sighed, “yeah, sure, okay.”

I hung up and looked back at Carol, "he can't get her."

"Fuck, try...try Steve maybe? I'm gunna try to talk to her."

I led Steve through the house to the bathroom upstairs, furthest from the noise.

"Carol pulled her away from a bunch of creeps, brought her up here to calm down a little."

Carol leaned against the bathroom door, knocking loudly.

"Carol? What's going on?"

"She flipped. Pushed me out and locked the door."

Steve sighed, "thanks, guys. I'll take care of her."

@charmed-asylum

#billy hargrove #stranger things #fanfic #billy hargrove fanfiction #billy hargrove fic #stranger things fanfiction #billy hargrove series #steve harrington #stranger things fanfic #billy hargrove fanfic #fanfiction

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ddarker-dreams · 4 years

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I could see Scarlet Ribbons’ stand cry being something like “BOWBOWBOWBOWBOW” cuz like.. ribbons... make bows and stuff.... sorry I’m bad at this 🤪

OKAY THIS IS ACTUALLY REALLY CUTE THOUGH... i’m going to make a list of possible stand cries, and this is gonna be added on it!!

anonymous asked: Is scarlet ribbons willing for a smooch 🥺🥺

but of course!! i’ve pictured scarlet ribbons as being a very affectionate and playful stand, since that adds even more Possibilities of the stand acting up around everyone. scarlet ribbons definitely wants to give ppl hugs and stuff, showcasing how affectionate and :D!!! the user is.

anonymous said: lmaooo imagine the entire bucci gang's reaction when scarlet ribbon's user/reader end up with someone from la squadra XDD in the au where everyone lives of course

it’d be a battlefield... i guess if they weren’t fighting against one another like they were in the anime, it might be slightly better? but i can’t imagine it going over real well, since everyone would be v wary of la squadra. if reader is happy that’s one thing, but there’s going to be a lot of investigation going into it. they need to make sure she’s safe and sound qwq

anon said: Okay so if i got it right Scarlet Ribbon's attack can be a good way to escape out of GioGio's estate after his kidnapping, you know, like Spider man but in stead of spider web/beam it's cutesy pinky rope of ribbon 😂as for the ocean surrounding the island reader can coagulate their ribbons into a small boat and row themselve back to civilazation 👏😂👏 im thriving for independent reader pls don't mind me 🥺 again, much love + appreciation for you to came out with this awesome concept💓💘💓❤💓💕

ohh so like a yandere version of the SR verse? i’ve definitely given it some thought, since i write 99% yandere content (or smth close to that at least, math was never my best subject). anyways i think that it’d be chaotic for any yanderes to deal with scarlet ribbon darling, seeing as having a stand that versatile gives plenty of opportunities to escape! giorno has the added benefit of being able to track darling down using his own ability, but it’d be a game of cat and mouse for a while. i’ll definitely write a yan version of it one day...

anon said: hi lock!! I just wanted to pop by and say that I love your Scarlet Ribbons series so far ♡ such good food.... u spoil us.... :') that being said, what was your motivation behind it? why did you want to take a fluffy route as opposed to your usual yan content? ty and have a nice day!!

hello anon <3 i’m happy to know that you’ve been enjoying it!! trust me i’ve been having way too much fun fleshing everything out too, it’s been a Mega Muse . i still love writing yandere content the most, but i guess picturing a normal universe felt interesting in its own right. more possibilities open up. i had thought about it being everyone going yan, but i scrapped it when i realized that’d just lead to bucciarati’s team killing one another. i’ve given some thought to individual yandere’s in the universe though!

i think that exploring different types of content is what helps prevent burnout!! so that’s why i’ve channeled some energy into a more normal universe, just so that when i want to write fluff/more humor based stuff i have an outlet for it. u vu...

anon asked: :eyes: what was rooming in with bruno like? how did he feel when reader went to room with fugo? what is rooming in with fugo like? WHAT RIVALRY DID THESE DORKS DEVELOP OVER THE ISSUE??hdknld i can imagine fugo preening when reader's with him and bruno is lowkey .__.)

THE INITIAL ROOMMATE ... boy bruno was pretty excited! i picture reader waking up early some mornings to make him breakfast/coffee, as a way of saying thank you. reader would be very grateful and feel indebted to bruno for all the kindness he’s shown, especially since he’s not even charging rent for staying at his place! it all has a nice, domestic feeling that bruno never realized he longed for. i’m sure he knows it won’t last forever, as nice as that sounds.

even with all the times he reassured reader that money isn’t a problem, the thought of imposing on someone who has already given reader a lot is hard to get past. bruno had a bit of a stone face when reader mentioned becoming roommates with fugo, but ultimately wouldn’t want to monopolize her time or anything. he still gets to see her everyday! though he’s going to miss the special talks, and breakfasts ... :((

bruno probably picks up on fugo’s treatment towards reader before fugo even realizes how he feels lmao. he’s just hoping that no Funny business goes down, semi hypocritical as that may be. acting as a team leader means making scarifies for the well being of the group, and having to put his wants on the back burner. this is definitely one of those instances.

anon said: Hey thank you for posting about scarlet ribbons, I’ve been having a very rough time mentally ( Rn I’m confined to a 3 mile radius of the house for medical reasons) and this brought me so much joy, I want to share my goth makeup tips with Leone and tend to my collection with GioGio, your characterisation of fugo has also totally changed my mind on him I didn’t even think he was cute before your writing! I hope you are doing well

aaaa i’m sorry to hear that you’re going through a difficult time. this is definitely a comfy type of series, so it makes me happy to know that it’s brought you some happiness!! i’ll be posting about it plenty, since i have loooots of ideas for it!! leone would love talking about makeup with you, since everyone else before trish is clueless on the subject. he’d likely surprise you with eye shadow palettes or lipstick that you’ve been wanting! in a very lowkey fashion, just kinda shoving it towards you and saying he saw it on sale and it’s whatever. on the inside he’s screaming though lmaoo

giorno is another person who, when isn’t focused on his dream and such, would be Dying for some reader one on one time. it’s cute, he tries to make his interest seem as organic as possible. he manages to pull it off well!

I LOOOVE FUGO... once i got a more solid characterization for him down, i wanted to write for him a lot. i really wish we got to see more of him in the anime, but purple haze feedback gave lots of good insights to him as well! i think that while he’s more of a serious character, he’s been shown to have some snark as well.

#answered #scarlet ribbons #<333 #love yall <33 #scarlet ribbons lore

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thealexxa123 · 4 years

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Calming Winds - a Venti x Xiangling fanfiction

Third-person POV

Venti starred at Aether and Paimon talking about a certain restaurant he's never heard of.

"And the food there is amazing! Paimon likes that restaurant!" Paimon yelled in an excited tone.

"Me too Paimon." Aether said in a calm tone, unlike Paimon.

"Uhhh...guys? What are you talking about?" asked a really confused Venti.

"There's this restaurant in Liyue and it's AWESOME!" Paimon explained.

"Do they serve dandelion wine there?" asked Venti.

"They don't have it on the menu" Aether explained calmly. Venti sighed.

"But wait!" Aether screamed loudly which confused Venti more.

"What?" asked Venti. Aether smiled smugly.

"The main chef will prepare you anything even if it's not on the menu!". Venti gasped when he heard those words which made Paimon giggle.

"So...are you gonna come with us when we visit Liyue, Tone-deaf Bard?" Paimon asked smugly.

Venti suddenly lifted himself up. Aether and Paimon stared at him in confusion. Venti smirked at them and whispered softly.

"I'll be going on my own right now.". Hearing those words, Aether and Paimon starred at each other while having the most "what the fuck" looks on their faces.

Venti then proceeded to run away to a teleporting waypoint so he could teleport to Liyue. As soon as he teleported he realized he forgot to ask Aether and Paimon where the restaurant is located. He decided to ask people where the restaurant is.

"It's close! I'll show you!" a random man said and showed Venti around. As soon as they reached the restaurant Venti thanked the man and went inside the restaurant.

Venti saw a cute waitress giving out food to people and blushed. He sat at a table and the waitress approached him.

"Oh look a new face in my restaurant! What do you want to order?" the waitress asked Venti who took a look at the menu.

"Uhm.....I would like a bowl of spicy ramen please!" Venti said. The waitress nodded and quickly went to the kitchen.

Venti waited for 4 minutes and as soon as he was about to lift himself up to go outside, the waitress returned with a big bowl of ramen. Venti drooled while looking at the ramen.

"Enjoy your meal!" The waitress said and ran away quickly to take other people's orders.

Venti started slurping the ramen. Because he was used to eating spicy food he didn't flinch when he felt the spicy feeling on his tongue. After finishing the bowl the waitress came to his table again.

"Want anything else, sir?" the waitress asked. Venti then wanted to ask for a glass of dandelion wine but he was left out of cash. He could only pay for the ramen.

"I wanted some dandelion wine but I'm out of money." Venti explained and sighed sadly.

"Dandelion wine?" the waitress asked confused. "That's a thing?"

"Yes, it is. In Mondstadt, my hometown." Venti told her and then decided to show her how to prepare some. "I'll show you how to prepare this wine!"

"Thank you, sir! That's kind of you!" the waitress thanked.

"Oh, by the way, my name is Venti! Getting called sir is.....weird." Venti said, a bit uncomfortable.

"And my name is Xiangling! Nice to meet you!" Xiangling said in a cheerful voice.

Xiangling then dragged Venti to the kitchen. She had lots of dandelions there that she used for decorating food. Venti started preparing the wine while explaining to Xiangling how to do it.

"So, did you get it?" asked Venti. Xiangling nodded while writing the recipe in a book.

"So can we taste it now?" Xiangling wondered. Venti nodded and put some of the wine in a small glass. Xiangling took a sip then drank the remaining wine from the glass.

"IT'S SO TASTY!" she yelled which made Venti chuckle.

Venti looked out the window and saw that the sky started to get darker. Before he went away Xiangling gave him a bottle of wine as a thanks.

"Thanks a lot!" Venti said while holding the bottle in his hands. Xiangling giggled and hugged him then quickly let him go.

"Bye Venti!" Xiangling said in a cute tone. Venti waved and went outside. He's never had so much fun ever since he got to help Aether and Paimon fight off monsters, which happened about a year ago.

He quickly went to a teleporting waypoint and teleported back to Mondstadt. He found his way to the tavern where he lived and got greeted by Diluc.

"Hey there Venti! Where have you been?" Diluc asked. Venti explained everything while blushing.

"And then she gave me this!" Venti said, showing Diluc the bottle of wine. Diluc chuckled, which really confused Venti.

"She seems to like you." Diluc said to which Venti blushed.

"B-BUT WE BARELY MET!" Venti screamed, his face red as Diluc's hair.

"All lovey-dovey things aside...you should go to sleep. It's late." Diluc said while giving Venti the key to his room.

"Goodnight, master Diluc!" Venti said loudly. Diluc waved at Venti and then went to sleep. Venti did the same and fell asleep quite easily.

The next morning Venti woke up feeling really rested. He went downstairs so he could ask Diluc to make breakfast for the both of them but noticed Diluc was still sleeping.

"Guess I'll go somewhere else to eat..." Venti said disappointingly while sighing.

He went outside and ate some food from "Good Hunter". After eating his food he decided to pay Xiangling a visit. He went to a teleporting waypoint and teleported near the restaurant. He went inside and as immediately as Xiangling saw him she ran to him to hug him tightly.

"Hi Venti!" she said while hugging him tightly.

"Hey, Xiangling!" Venti said back while hugging Xiangling back.

Their friendship went like this for a few months, until Venti and Xiangling actually started having feelings for each other. Venti fell in love with her after she saved him during a fight against a horde of Hilichurls and Xiangling fell in love with Venti after he defended her from Dvalin, who tried to attack her.

A few customers of the restaurant noticed the close friendship and decided to make a ship cult. They called it the "VenLing cult" (which they created by mixing their names together) and they would gather at the restaurant once a week and plan stuff like fanart and fanfiction.

One of the members was Diluc. Since he knew Venti would hang out for about 2 hours at Xiangling's, he would write fanfiction while Venti was gone, as he couldn't draw.

The whole cult thing has been going on for months, and for some reason, Xiangling and Venti didn't know anything about it, even if almost 90% of Liyue shipped it.

One day, Venti and Xiangling had a fight because Xiangling wanted to "improve" the dandelion wine recipe by adding slime condensate, which angered Venti.

"You're not adding slime in the dandelion wine! Understood!?" Venti screamed furiously.

"But I'm a chef that improvises! I have to try my idea!" Xiangling tried to defend herself.

Venti's anger made him slap Xiangling's face. He gasped after he did it and tried to excuse himself but Xiangling had enough of him.

"Out! Out of my chicken! I MEAN KITCHEN! OUT!" Xiangling screamed while crying a river of tears. Venti immediately went outside, without looking at Xiangling or caring about her feelings. That really hurt Xiangling's feelings and it made her cry more.

Venti started regretting it but he decided to go home and cry to himself. He teleported near the tavern and as soon as he went inside the tavern, Diluc put down something he was writing.

"What's that, master Diluc?" Venti asked curiously. Diluc hid the paper and grinned.

"It's nothing Venti!" Diluc said, trying to hide the fact that he was writing Venti x Xiangling smut.

Venti took the paper in his hands and read what was written on it. He blushed at the details and then broke the paper in pieces. Diluc wanted to say something to Venti but Venti rushed outside and, without teleporting, went to Liyue on feet, by gliding and by swimming. He entered in the Wanmin restaurant all wet and tired. Xiangling saw him and asked him politely to go outside, because he was getting the floor wet. He dragged Xiangling with him outside and explained the whole thing to Xiangling.

"I already know of this thing.....Now leave and never look at me!" Xiangling screamed at Venti and pushed him away. Venti was about to leave but Diluc came in, hiccuping from the alcohol he drank.

"Master Diluc, what are you doing here?" asked Xiangling, confused by the man's sudden appearence.

Diluc didn't say anything and just pushed Venti, making him kiss Xiangling's soft lips. Venti gasped but before he kissed Xiangling she broke the kiss and ran inside. Venti regretted making her sad and started crying. Diluc hugged his friend and pat his back.

"Wait I got an idea!" Venti screamed with an excited tone and then ran to someone selling flowers from Mondstadt.

He brought a few flowers and waited behind a bush for the closing hour at the Wanmin restaurant.

As soon as Xiangling got out, Venti got out and surprised Xiangling with the flowers.

"I just want to say that I'm sorry for being rude to you and that...I love you Xiangling!" and as soon as he said that, he kissed her. Xiangling's eyes widened but then she closed her eyes, and started kissing Venti back.

Xiangling broke the kiss and teared up. She hugged Venti tightly and cried on his chest.

"I love you too you idiot!" she said between sobs.

Venti kissed Xiangling's hair and started crying as well. They sat there like that for a few minutes before breaking the hug.

"You know what? You can add as much condensate in the dandelion wine as you wish! I bet it will taste good!" Venti said while smiling dorkly.

Xiangling took him back to Mondstadt and when they reached the tavern, Xiangling kissed Venti's cheek as a goodnight then left to a teleporting waypoint that was nearby. Venti then went to sleep and he sighed as he took a stone off his chest by confessing to Xiangling.

And that's how Venti and Xiangling got together!

The end!

#props to my buddy Ted for coming up with the fanfic title and the idea!#genshin impact #genshin #genshin venti #genshin xiangling #rarepair #fanfic #genshin diluc #:)

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hello-mojo · 3 years

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[Ok so the following is a story, (Rise Above This was was a working title) I was working on this completely on my own and I was quite excited about it. I actually had tried to plot out the progression and main plot points, and a few other notes for things I needed to look up and research to mesh the timelines a bit better. I hadn't gotten around to it though and now... well I don't know if I'll ever bring myself to write fanfiction anymore. I loved this story premise though and had such Hope's for it... ah well. The first chapter was completed but there was supposed to be so much more.. Frances having accidental magic and then getting sick and Healer Harry to save her... ah well. If you like the fic let me know, if you want to adopt it, comment.

Oh one other thing... not all the songs are actually nirvana songs, there's a pearl jam song used too but I was looking for songs in the right genre that seemed to work for the plot. It's all fair in fanfic right?

Anyhooty... I doubt I'll post the stories that were completed on my main profile as I orphaned them and they can still be viewedon archive just look up my old. Penname CagedNTorn.

For unfinished stuff I had oh let's see... 3 different charlie/Draco fics I was working on, one that was all but complete... I had a draco/spike crossover fic, plus there was the sailormooon/Harry Potter crossover... that was actually a Drarry fic too, there were a bunch of things that I'll likely never finish. So I'll post them by and by.

Do let me know if there's a better place to post the plot bunnies that are up for grabs.

Now I've blathered enough so here's the first chapter of Rise that can be adopted if someone is interested in finishing it.]

Rise Above This

Draco was backstage at the place he was playing that night. He sat tuning his guitar wearing ripped jeans and a white long sleeve thermal t-shirt with thumb holes burnt in and also a mohair sweater he was particularly comfortable in. Western Washington state was wet and cold pretty much all the time.

This didn't really bother the English man though as England had similar weather. He'd grown his hair out and had it cut shaggy and it hung in his eyes perpetually now but he didn't care. It drove his mother nuts whenever she came to visit.

Narcissa still hadn't quite gotten the hang of blending in with muggles but she was getting better. She was sitting nearby chattering about her trip to France. She was wearing faded bluejeans and a fitted corset top that she'd bought in paris. She also had a posh cashmere sweater on where most of the kids were wearing flannel and converse sneakers, just like Draco.

She had her long blonde hair pulled up into a ponytail. Draco smiled at her as she nattered-on about wines and the latest runway fashions. At least he still had her. Pansy was floating around somewhere too, probably flirting with someone.

"I just don't understand why you have to look so scruffy though darling. You have such a lovely face! Can't you at least comb your hair back?" Narcissa was saying. Draco rolled his eyes at her but gave her a shit-eating grin.

"Because I like looking scruffy. It pisses off the establishment. Even if it didn't, I'd still do it. Hiding myself away is comfortable." Draco said, handing his guitar to a stagehand.

"Besides, this grungy war refugee look suits him. He's ridiculously hot." Pansy stated with a grin as she sidled up to accompany Narcissa out front to watch the show. Draco could already hear the crowd cheering as the lights went down. Draco and the 2 other blokes, 1 squib and one muggleborn, all cast outs of the wizarding world lined up off stage. They formed a circle and everyone put a hand in and they shook them, clapped and cried out their chant.

"Music and ass, gas or grass. We're here for a good time, not here for a long time. Lets do this!" Draco led the chant the guys all cheered and then took the stage. Dave went first and started a drum beat, Krist was next and began the base-line. Then Draco, carrying his electric guitar, went to the mic. He never looked at the audience. He wasn't here for them, not really. He was here for himself. Because he had something to say. Even if no one really understood him or interpreted his messages clearly.

"Come as you are, as you were

As I want you to be

As a friend, as a friend

As an old enemy

Take your time, hurry up

Choice is yours, don't be late

Take a rest as a friend

As an old memoria."

He strummed the chords and sang the song not really looking at anyone. He was trying quite unsuccessfully not to think about a certain messy haired brunette.

After the war he'd had every single door slammed in his face. Even the most menial of jobs wouldn't hire him. Potter had kept his word and put in a good word for him and his mother but the blonde on stage really didn't know why he'd bothered. No one in the Wizarding world wanted him or any other Slytherin around. Dave was a muggleborn Slytherin in the year below Draco and had also been chased out.

"Take your time, hurry up

Choice is yours, don't be late

Take a rest as a friend

As an old memory."

It was hard not to think of Potter when he sang this song because it was about him, at least mostly. There was always a thinly veiled anti establishment opinion mixed in. The fans loved it though and he didn't really mind. It’s not like Harry would ever show up and hear it. He was too busy still saving the world, having babies and whatever else it was that heros did. Not Draco. His long shaggy hair hung in his face as he sang the chorus, and shook his head. Just one word. Memory. His best and worst thing. His respite and the source of his nightmares.

He finished off the song and they hit a heavy chord progression into the next song.

"Load up on guns, bring your friends

It's fun to lose and to pretend

She's over bored and self assured

Oh no, I know a dirty word"

The kids surged forward jumping up and down and shaking their heads as they raised their fists in the air and sang along.

Draco had worked with Dave to put his thoughts on the war into muggle terms. He thought they'd done pretty good honestly. Even if they hadn't, the teenagers in Seattle and California couldn't get enough. He screamed the chorus and the kids screamed it with him.

"With the lights out, it's less dangerous

Here we are now, entertain us

I feel stupid and contagious

Here we are now, entertain us

A mulatto

An albino

A mosquito

My libido

Yeah, hey, yay"

Five years ago Draco had left the wizarding world and his mother behind. Narcissa was more than able to take care of herself. Draco wasn't concerned about her in that respect. His father had been a lot of things but stupid had never been one of them. Misguided certainly, but not stupid.

Luscious had moved money around in various accounts all over the world. He'd taken Draco with him on nearly all of his business trips. Draco had had many private tutors growing up and could speak French, English, Russian and German fluently. He could read in several languages. His father had insisted. Draco learned to balance a ledger when most kids were learning to ride a bicycle.

When the ministry had seized their accounts in Gringotts, they hadn't even seized a tenth of the true fortune. Draco hadn't needed to work. He'd wanted to. However no one would let him. So he'd packed a duffle bag of casual clothes, taken his muggle id and cards and left for America. He'd covered his accent fairly well he thought, and if he came off sounding like a stoned southerner at times… no one pointed it out.

He met Dave hanging around kings cross station panhandling. The two 18 year olds decided to strike out together. Draco and Dave were sitting together at some boardwalk in Seattle, Washington when Draco flipped his skateboard and saw a kid playing guitar near-by. He'd been hooked from the first chord. He'd bought them instruments and they taught themselves to play.

"I think you'll all know this next one."

Draco hit the distinctive chords and the kids in the audience squealed with delight. This was more personal, more singing than the growly screaming. More about his feelings than anything else. He hid in his hair not seeing anyone. In his mind he tried to be back in that skatepark with scraped knees, just him and Dave.

"What else should I be?

All apologies

What else should I say?

Everyone is gay

What else should I write?

I don't have the right

What else should I be?

All apologies."

He sang the words not looking at his mother, not caring about her reaction to that statement. He'd forgotten she hadn’t heard this particular song before. Well she had to find out sooner or later he supposed.

"I wish I was like you

Easily amused

Find my nest of salt

Everything is my fault

I'll take all the blame

Aqua seafoam shame

Sunburn, freezer burn

Choking on the ashes of her enemy."

Draco finished the song and the kids were crying out various songs they wanted to hear while cheering and clapping. Draco loved it. He lived for it. They only had one more song to play. It would end the show on a high note before the next band took the stage. The next song he was about to play was about a lot of things. Various parts of the war, Tom Riddles beginnings, the discrimination in the Wizarding world, his own parents a bit. In hindsight, Draco realized that he likely should have adjusted the set list a bit when he'd found out his mother was coming to the show. 'Too late to do anything about it now.' He thought to himself. Maybe they'd finally have a real conversation for a change. He set his guitar in a stand nearby and took a deep breath.

"At home

Drawing pictures

Of mountain tops

With him on top

Lemon yellow sun

Arms raised in a V

And the dead lay in pools of maroon below."

He shook his head, hiding in his hair and not seeing anyone. Only Dave and Krist, only his guitar. The kids screamed and jumped and sang along. Draco thrashed around stage with them, just the microphone cord wrapped around his hand.

"Daddy didn't give attention

Oh, to the fact that mommy didn't care

King Tommy the Wicked

Ruled his world

Tommy spoke in class today

Tommy spoke in class today"

The guys backed him up intermittently on the chorus and the base thumped throughout the song, a steady heartbeat. Draco couldn’t let himself worry about hurting his mother's feelings. He sang what he needed to say. He knew nothing was ever simple. There were at least two sides to every story and a variety of contributing factors.

"Clearly I remember

Pickin' on the boy

Seemed a harmless little fuck

But we unleashed a snake

Gnashed his teeth

And bit the recess lady's breast."

Draco knew the words painted a vivid picture. He didn't care. Maybe people would learn that bullying others for shit beyond their control was stupid and had far reaching consequences. There were certainly a few chapters in his story that he'd like to rewrite.

"How could I forget

And he hit me with a surprise left

My jaw left hurting

Dropped wide open

Just like the day

Oh, like the day I heard."

There was no possible way he could make up for some of the shit he'd done. He knew that. He tried to just pass on the lessons. Hoping that if he could even reach just one person, it'd be worth it. Exile in the muggle world. They weren't so bad really. Their fashions were quite fun, and much more functional than robes. He missed making potions, doing magic. It was a particular skill set that he was good at. There was no place in the muggle world for magic. He had to be even more careful now that they were getting really famous. People were always watching him. Hiding in the bushes, trying to sneak into his hotel room, everyone wanted pictures of him to sell to the press. He couldn't risk anyone seeing him perform magic. He did little things like casting stasis charms or heating up a hot beverage, or casting a cooling charm on himself and the guy's. He knew his mind was spiraling away from the uncomfortable conversation with his mother that he was anticipating after this.

"Daddy didn't give affection, no!

And the boy was something that mommy wouldn't wear

King Tommy The Wicked

Ruled his world

Try to erase this (try to erase this)

From the blackboard."

He knew his parents had loved him. They had been very cold, and reserved in all things though. His mother could be formidable when she wanted to be and his father was doting yet terrifying. That was something about Tom Riddle's life that Draco had been able to understand. Feeling alone, as if no one cared, no one understood you. He knew how cruel kids could be, because he had been the one leading the mockery in his day.

He'd never once thought about what it might feel like on the other side of it. Until he'd been on the receiving end of such mockery, ridicule and unfairness did he begin to re-think his actions as a snotty young man. The crowd was going wild.

Draco stood as the lights came up and he bowed with the guys. They all smiled and waved to their fans. Off stage, he saw his mother standing with Pansy. Narcissa looked a mixture of hurt, worried and angry. A reporter from MTV was there, shoving a microphone in his face. Draco smiled his small smile, just a turning up of the corners of his mouth really. He answered all of the questions asked in a rare and rather lengthy interview, glad for the temporary reprieve from his mother for the moment.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a familiar set of green eyes and messy black hair, accompanied by none other than Hermione Granger and a regular. Analese Taylor was no stranger to Draco. She had been a fan since the band's boardwalk skate park days. Now that they were famous, she was their number one fan. The way Granger was clutching her arms, the strong resemblance between the two women, Draco could slap himself for not realizing what was so familiar about the girl. She had to be related to Granger, no other explanation.

Before he could really panic about the three familiar faces another familiar set of arms was thrown around his knees and a very delighted

"Daddy!" Rang through the room as his daughter Frances threw her arms around him. Draco glanced around for his soon to be ex wife. He spotted her nearby with arms crossed, looking furious. He sighed deeply as he scooped his daughter into his arms. The child was his whole world outside of his music. Draco glanced back towards Potter and Granger as his wife stormed over as the press and other onlookers were cleared out by Pansy.

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