#edit: for the people saying that this is deeper than what was probably intended
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I will forever be obsessing over Laios imaging himself as a wolf (a dangerous animal, and one that is [albeit falsely] associated with loneliness) and Marcille imagining him as a cute dog. It shows how negatively he thinks of himself after his fight with Shuro, and how even if he worries now that he's a nuisance to people/can't fit in, NOBODY PERCEIVES HIM THIS WAY. HE'S JUST A SILLY GUY. MARCILLE ASSOCIATES HIM WITH THE DOG BECAUSE HE'S LOYAL AND LOVEABLE.
#dungeon meshi#delicious in dungeon#laios touden#edit: for the people saying that this is deeper than what was probably intended#it very well could be!#this is just my interpretation that i wanted to share#if you believe he just thinks wolves are cool thats totally valid
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hiiiii i have a quick question about no reason but to starve: when does it take place relative to the postcanon labru comic? i ask partially so i can integrate this knowledge into my understanding of laios & kabru's dynamic in nrbts, but also into my understanding of the diplomatic relationship between malini and kakha brud
(i love your fic so much thank you for your gifts to dunmeshi fandom)
Oooh fun question, thank you!! I assume you mean this comic?
This ended up being longer than intended lol, so tl;dr short answer: it would take place after the comic, though the comic is not necessarily 100% canon to it.
More details and rambling below the cut:
So, in general, I'm trying to write in a way that is compatible with, but not strictly canon to, any post-canon content we've gotten.
In part tbh that's because I had WANTED to construct the timeline with the Kensuke extra in mind but then I totally goofed it and like the story basically takes place at the exact same time that the Kensuke story would. So it ended up more being like handshake meme thematical/character similarities rather than strictly canon.
Also I don't want anyone who hasn't read the extras to have trouble following anything (which is actually why I had to go back and add a bit about the situation w/ KB during editing lol. In the rough draft it was just like yeah yeah the reparations we've all heard of them).
That is all to say the story does more-or-less take place after this comic. The way I'm thinking about it, the initial negotiations referenced in the comic sort of laid the foundation for (relative) peace and cooperation, but there are still lots of specifics to work out - that's what the current delegation is in town for. It's probably less combative then the initial, uh... conversation... but I imagine there's still a fair bit of a "wring everything we can from these people" attitude from KB, so it's a slow process with a lot more smiling and nodding and going back to grumble privately later.
In terms of Laios & Kabru I think the story fits well after the comic for their relationship too... The group of them & Marcille are very much A Unit in the point where the story picks up (with Yaad also included, but not necessarily as close as the three of them). They all have been working together for a little while now, and are all committed to the work. They know a bit about how to navigate each other, and have some rhythms they've fallen into (like Marcille checking w/ Kabru about her hair, or everyone knowing that things are tense between Laios & Yaad wrt Marriage Talk).
What's still left unsaid is a lot of the deeper, more sensitive things. Part of the reason the fic opens on the question of Laios' Political Marriage (TM) is because I think it's a good example of a thing that WOULD remain buried for a while. Laios seems to not have given himself much room to think about romance, so it's something that hasn't been addressed out in the open. But they've got to deal with it eventually!! They have a life long task ahead of them all, and shoving skeletons into closets only works for so long.
(Laios romance tangent: whether or not you read him as aro or ace (and I personally put him somewhere in some grey zone there), I don't think that's a thing he would have realized yet in canon. Repression =/= happily uninterested, and I personally think Laios has repressed that shit hard.)
Anyway, the same goes for various things with Kabru and Marcille, as well. They already trust and care about each other, but being vulnerable with other people is a long, messy process. Especially with all the baggage they have. It's something they still need to figure out!
It is also, conveniently, very fun to write about :3
#ask#nrbts#also thank you so much!!! I really appreciate it I'm glad you are enjoying.#after writing this I realized that like probably some of this is stuff I'm supposed to just let my writing speak for itself about lol#oh well I am prone to ramble. it happens
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the empire of gold ( the daevabad trilogy book 3 ) part 1 - s. a. chakraborty
change tenses/pronouns as needed !! some lines have been edited for clarity / length / ease of roleplaying
tw ; death , war , violence
‘please tell me I’m seeing things. please tell me this isn’t what it looks like.’
‘you don’t get to die. understand? I didn’t save your life a dozen times so you could leave me here.’
‘I suppose war is often more violent than expected.’
‘I had the impression that you and normal did not quite fit.’
‘why do something that would make sense?’
‘it wasn’t you. I didn’t trust anyone. I was afraid to.’
‘it always felt like I was one mistake away from losing everything.’
‘you don’t always have to do everything on your own.’
‘if you rule by violence, you should expect to be removed by violence.’
‘if you could do it all over again, would you not have done anything to save her?’
‘when you left I thought it might’ve been because you hated me.’
‘I don’t blame you for anything that happened that night. and I could never hate you.’
‘I could never hate you. not in a thousand years.’
‘I actually thought you’d be happier if I stayed gone.’
‘you shouldn’t have to keep saving me like this.’
‘I thought I made very clear to you I never intended to let you out of my debt.’
‘I don’t think I can do this.’
‘I’ve always liked choosing my own path.’
‘I’ve got a lot of experience finding slivers of light to cherish when life gets more miserable than usual.’
‘every time I think there’s no lower our world can sink, we all plunge deeper.’
‘don’t. don’t do that. there’s no way (name) blamed you, and he wouldn’t want you killing yourself thinking that.’
‘you are not the only one who’s seen your world broken. nor the only one who grieves for their dead.’
‘you are impossible, do you know that?’
‘I could kill you. it would be nothing.’
‘you are brave, you are strong, and you will survive this day, I swear.’
‘I love you. I always will.’
‘I’m tired of resting. and of having nightmares as well.’
‘it’s been easier to keep busy. if I’m doing things it keeps my mind from everything else, though that’s probably a cowardly thing to admit.’
‘not wanting to be destroyed by despair doesn’t make you a coward, (name). it makes you a survivor.’
‘you chose a very inconvenient time to develop a conscience.’
‘you’ve changed for the better, whether or not you want to admit it.’
‘I don’t know what you’re running from. I don’t know what you’re planning next. but you could have a life here. a good one.’
‘you could have a life here. a good one.’
‘we can’t stay here. we can’t—- I’m sorry I wish we could.’
‘you know it. I know it. it’s only a matter of time.’
‘we will never be safe here and neither will anyone around us.’
‘I don’t want to be safe. not if my people aren’t.’
‘I am nothing like him. I would take a blade to my throat before I’d do the things he’s done.’
‘you and I, we tried, okay? we tried more than most.’
‘(place) is a death trap. it corrupts and ruins everyone who tries to fix it. and we could be free of it. both of us.’
‘I’m going to say something no one has a right to tell you, but it needs to be said and there’s no one else.’
‘we have a duty to go back, no matter the consequences.’
‘you and I don’t get to look away from that, no matter how tempting.’
‘forget it. I’m not going to waste my breath trying to save you from yourself again.’
‘you want to go die out there? fine. but you’ll be doing it alone.’
‘we need to be careful. no reckless plans of self-sacrifice and spouting off things that will get us killed.’
‘thank you. I don’t think I could get through all this without you.’
‘I just don’t understand why you had to be so mean.’
‘this is going to end with us in prison, isn’t it?’
‘not everything has to be a transaction, (name).’
‘your expression is not bolstering my confidence.’
‘you’ve really got to find a way not to look like a startled pigeon every time you lie.’
‘people are often afraid of what they don’t understand.’
‘there is honor in being a weapon.’
‘I envy you sometimes. I wish I had your faith in people’s goodness.’
‘who are you to decide who is a monster?’
‘I used to believe it all. I had too.’
‘because it had to be true. If the ___ were people, innocent mothers and fathers and children, and I did to them the things I did … then I am damned. I am a monster.’
‘I worshipped them, I trusted them, and they lied.’
‘what is any of this supposed to mean if it makes room for such an atrocity.’
‘my best and mind are telling me that I followed the wrong people.’
‘what do I do with that kind of burden?’
‘you are the bravest man I know, and you run.’
‘sit with this burden. you may find doing so is easier than holding it over your head and waiting for it to crush you.’
‘you have been blessed; you have been granted the power, the privilege, the time to fix things.’
‘i’m so tired. everything I build gets broken.’
‘it’s all for nothing. nothing’
‘it’s not for nothing. we can still put things right.’
‘don’t look at me like that. I don’t need your pity. I don’t need anything.’
‘there’s no one else here, my friend. you don’t need to keep up this front.’
‘I thought you were dead. I thought I was dead. I thought I’d failed everyone, and I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t even fight back.’
‘you’re a good friend. probably the best one I’ve ever had. but if you tell anyone I cried, I’ll kill you.’
‘have you an actual plan or just wild fantasies that will end with our deaths?’
‘why do you look like you’re considering something very reckless?’
‘if i have found a glimmer of pleasure in all this, it is the assurance that you will destroy yourselves just as spectacularly.’
‘it is those we are closest to who have an opportunity to observe our weaknesses best.’
‘maybe they were afraid. maybe they were right to be.’
‘I wish you had told me. there weren’t supposed to be any more secrets between us.’
‘I feel like we just fell into a trap.’
‘I thought— I thought maybe there was a chance.’
'sometimes it’s wisest to let people show you who they are.’
‘you did not survive in (place) by sticking your head in the sand.’
‘I have never— for even a moment— forgotten how people view me.’
‘I left my home and a peaceful life to come here in the hopes of fixing things.’
‘I won’t be threatened.’
‘in my experience, parents are capable of doing a great deal of hurt to their children.’
#rp prompts#rp sentence starters#rp memes#literature sentence starters#literature prompts#the daevabad trilogy sentence starters#the daevabad trilogy prompts#the empire of gold sentence starters#the empire of gold prompts#fantasy prompts#fantasy sentence starters#I have to do these in parts ig because the book is huge#and the new text editor is yelling at me so !!
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I love Dream but he can be dark, he can be cruel and he's done some very unforgiveable and monstrous things. He is not your average good guy or heroic character. Yes sometimes he can be the most kindest, empathic and wonderful conceptual being but he can be the opposite and it makes sense since Dream is made up of every wonderful, fantastical, magical thought, imagination and dreams but he's also made up of the disturbing, the vile and the monstrous.
Yes, exactly! Honestly, even without delving deeper into potential motivations or biases that he might have been written to have, his basic, on-the-page actions are pretty extreme! Banishing your girlfriend to 10,000 years of torture in hell for saying "no" is incredibly dark! The fact that Desire is able to casually toss the insult "Killed any girlfriends lately?" might also be a hint that Nada isn't the only one. Also his best human friend started the transatlantic slave trade, and the woman who, per Lucien, broke his heart like no other is a brutal murder-loving witch who is also probably transphobic. Something about "you reflect the company you keep" there...
Really, it's weird to see people get all defensive of Morpheus when he makes other notorious "problematic fandom boyfriends" like Anakin Skywalker, Kylo Ren, or pre-character-development MCU Loki seem like tame, sane options! Sure, those guys could kill you, but none of them seem able or keen on ruining your after-life as well!
And as for what you say about how he embodies the collective thought... I suspect that The Sandman Companion's darker and less charitable claims about Morpheus having racist and sexist tendencies were *intended* as a reflection of that. After all, if general culture nowadays has a racism and misogyny problem, then a being made of the collective subconscious thoughts of a culture might also have a racism and misogyny problem. I haven't read the excerpts from the Companion in full context yet (haven't yet reached that chapter in my own copy) BUT the Companion's analysis does appear to fumble in that it flips the script: rather than Morpheus reflecting society's biases, instead society's biases are the result of Morpheus' anger towards Nada warping all of reality to permanently curse all people "like Nada" to have terrible fates. So rather than him reflecting reality's issues, he CAUSED them to exist! That makes him WAY worse!
I'm hoping to examine the evidence for this further once I get to that part of The Sandman Companion, because yeah, that's some "yikes" writing if it's supported by the actual text.
So yes, Morpheus is canonically an incredibly dark character, and the intent of his writing may paint an even worse picture still. He can be good and caring and loving when he wants to be, but to ignore that he's just straight up evil sometimes would be to ignore canon.
EDIT: Also, I feel the need to point out that a lot of this is about BOOK Dream! The show already appears to be attempting to stop any "Dream is racist" issues by having his sister, niece, and nephew all now be black, and changing his trusted confidant Lucien from being a white man to being Lucienne, a black woman. While the show isn't free of its own possible moments of accidental anti-black writing, it definitely seems to be making a concentrated effort to avoid interpretation of Dream himself as prejudiced in the same way that the books might suggest.
#the sandman meta#the sandman#dream of the endless#character analysis#asks answered#anon#original post
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so I went on the cr subreddit (again. I need to block it.) and there was a hot take post (never a good sign) I saw a few ppl say they thought Talesin was an edgelord player who played edgelord characters. I can’t speak for his play style because I haven’t seen enough, but on characters:
A) yes Taliesin made Caduceus quickly and so maybe he didn’t have time to develop the backstory to be dark but he played a non edgy character for like 120 episodes and didn’t bring in any edgy character beats as the campaign went along and Tal could have if he wanted
B) I won’t speak for Molly as he died before he really got going (some people love him, some say overrated and dislike him), but for me, Percy and Ashton are kind of similar but mostly opposites. For me, Ashton isn’t actually that edgy. Sure they have an incredibly abrasive personality and talk about how much they don’t get along with people, but in the campaign proper they’re actually not that edgy with people. They’re sweet with FCG, they get along well with everyone in the group… their story, though ongoing, is actually quite simple imo (and I don’t mean as a negative).
Whereas Percy is like, wrapped up in themes of karma and making the world worse for the sake of revenge and if you can really atone for that. Lots of edgy themes that are at odds with the other characters in Vox Machina. You can argue if that’s a bad thing if you want. I also generally think although Taliesin’s likely original idea was that Percy would die, Percy living wasn’t forced upon him and he was fine with playing him to the end of the campaign.
I think Percy differs from Ashton because he doesn’t appear to be edgy personality wise (stuffy noble with sad backstory) but actually is, whereas Ashton appears to be edgy but actually isn’t. I don’t think it’s because Taliesin fumbled the roleplaying for Ashton and didn’t make the character as dark as he intended: the non-abrasive side of Ashton had always been there from the early episodes. Honestly Ashton isn’t any more edgy than the other characters of Bell’s Hells, they’re probably just the rudest. Like yeah going off pure personality alone maybe Ashton is an edgelord but it’s such a surface level reading of them it just doesn’t seem like they have looked any deeper than Ashton saying fuck all the time.
Idk. Cant get Taliesin’s supposed edgelord characters out of my head.
EDIT take with a grain of salt of course, Ashton could have a dark backstory where he ate babies. But from what I’ve seen, Ashton doesn’t actually feel like a dark character in the same way Percy was.
#critical role#Ashton greymoore#Percy de rolo#taliesin jaffe#honestly saw ppl say Ashton’s as a cliche punk personality and this is dnd. I am not here for subtle intricate storytelling#basically trying to say percy is more edgy than Ashton lol
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What is it called when you are excited about a subject of a conversation and you want to say a lot about it but as you type or think of your reply you realize that you're not only going to say a lot but it's extremely nuanced and probably way deeper than the surface layer of discussion the participants were intending so you edit it down to the bare minimum until you end up saying nothing at all because you remember in the past people would give you weird stares or demeaning comments about saying too much because 'it just isn't that deep' so you just nod along in painful silence knowing that you will never feel safe sharing your interests with other people?
I don't know either, but I'm almost certain there is a German word for it.
I'm lonely.
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I miss your Sen writings. I am not telling you what to write so please do not see this false. It is only, in my eyes, Prince has so many writers but Sen felt like a small family of bloggers who really loved it and to see so many many fics with chevalier from you so fast is nice but also makes me a little sad
Awe, Anon, you are aware that you're saying this:
less than a month after I've completed my latest IkeSen series,
roughly two weeks after I've began the second re-run on this blog (meaning I went back to a story, edited it, prepared appropriate graphics and then scheduled posts), for a Sen story as well,
while I posted two pieces for Sen just the last week
?
I don't mean to scold you, but looking at it objectively, I still write plenty for Sen. (And this is just some of the data available online -- if you were to dig in deeper, you'd probably see that as of now, I have finished writing four chapters of another Sen series, and simply don't intend to post them right away. And this still overlooks things which are not publicly available information).
Hmm... How do I word it... Is it really that you miss me writing Sen, despite my latest Sen work being posted just three days ago, or are you anxious that I will move on, like other people did?
One day I may. Change is inevitable, after all. But I don't think that day is today, nor that there is anything indicatory of it being right behind the corner... So there really isn't anything to be sad about :) It is not that any particular fandom has me, so in the end, I cannot be stolen.
(And it isn't that I haven't written for fandoms other than Sen before either. There has been at least one the Arcana week on this blog, but I assume it might not have registered as concerning since it's by another company).
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Train to Busan Review
There's no doubt that Train to Busan is a great zombie movie, but I can't say it's the best zombie movie ever made, at least for me. It's a fight for survival as passengers ride deadly zombie-filled trains in the hope of finding a safe place to go. Even though it has a creepy and unsettling tone, it's definitely not as scary as it could be. This is probably because the director and playwright didn't intend to scare people, but to send a deeper message on the themes of family, love, betrayal, and the human instinct to do whatever it takes to flee from danger, all of which I loved. While Train to Busan's unique setting, trains, might be interesting to some, watching all those people squeezed into such a small area left me feeling tight and claustrophobic. What I liked most about it were the characters. You can't help but love Sang-Hwa played by Ma Dong-seok. There's just something so charming and endearing about him, and his love for his pregnant wife is so endearing. The shot compositions and cinematography were also sensational, but again, I don't think it was enough to blow me (or anyone) away.
One effective technique used in the movie is the use of non-diegetic sound when the woman first turns into a zombie. The eerie music in the background, which is not originating from the on-screen action, heightens the suspense and creates a sense of unease in the audience. The grim lighting and shaky handheld camera contribute to the movie's overall tense atmosphere. The use of close-up shots and the slow-motion scenes in the train further build on this tension, with the shadow and dark in the train creating a sense of claustrophobia, a feeling that the passengers on the train experience.
Furthermore, the movie's themes of family, betrayal, and egocentrism are communicated through the characters' actions and dialogue. For example, there is a romantic music when a character is infected, which highlights the love shared between characters. There is a subtle foreshadowing in the movie when Soo-an says, "you only care about yourself". This is an example of how the film uses dialogue to convey the theme of self-centrism, which contributes to the movie's overall commentary on human nature in times of crisis. The movie's shot composition and transition, along with the super loud music and shaky camera, are other effective film techniques that make Train to Busan an intense and thrilling movie. The final scene where the main character jumps on the train rail is both foreshadowed by previous Soo-an’s dialogue, which is meanwhile unexpected and provides a poignant and emotional conclusion to the movie.
Other zombie movies I've seen include World War Z, Zombieland, and Shaun of the Dead, which I enjoyed more than Train to Busan. I have to admit that World War Z takes the cake for me. World War Z had a fast-paced story that brought all sorts of action together, with so many things going on at the same time, which left no room for boredom. The editing in both movies was noteworthy, but the story of Train to Busan was not as complex as World War Z. I might be a little biased but Brad Pitt was fantastic as the lead in World War Z, and the supporting cast was just as good. I also liked that World War Z ended kind of open-ended. It reminded me of Christopher Nolan movies, where the audience is left to interpret what happens next.
Having said all that, Train to Busan is definitely worth watching for fans of the zombie genre. While it wasn't my all-time favorite, it still had a lot of great elements, including complex characters, stunning cinematography, and an intense setting. However, in terms of sheer excitement and complexity, World War Z is the superior film in my opinion.
I give it a strong 7.5/10 :)
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Visupri Songwriter Comments
I read Agematsu’s (visupri creator and main composer) comments on each song from ep 4-12 and I have to give a rough and probably inaccurate rundown of my favourite little pieces of info and trivia (I don’t have volume 1 so I can’t say anything about eps 1-3 I got volume 1 off backorder finally so I’ve added those right under the cut, and it seems that the group songs — including Royal Crown — don’t get a comment in the BD booklets)
Nemesis: Not about Eve punishing other vampires, because only god can impose punishment, but rather about the punishment that Eve feels they will one day receive against themselves. BUT: even having heard all that, Ange and Robin presented Eve with the forgotten possibility of love
Wing with Wind: Guiltia feels like he no longer has wings on his back, but Ange not only has no doubt that Guil’s wings are still there, but also that he will be the wind to make Guil fly. (Agematsu was so happy about the producer liking this song that he opened two bottles of champagne that night, lol)
NEW EDIT:
Guilty Cross: The very first song written for Visupri, and the one that was created to explain exactly what Visual Prison was about. The lyrics were meant to evoke the idea that Guil had no wings of hope on his back (see also: Wing with Wind and Sky), and ask what would a vampire want in the cage of eternal time?
(Now that I think about it, I think Wing with Wind was Ange’s response to Guilty Cross — which we can assume he’s listened to a lot — more than his response to meeting Guil in person, but that’s just speculation on my part)
There’s a bit of an electronic sound to the song, which is different to japanese music at the time the song would have been released in canon, but Eclipse v1 aren’t limited to the Japanese music scene: they’re not Japanese and they’re trying to keep up with the cutting edge rather than staying with the old ways.
Agematsu is grateful to the god of music that this song came down first.
Charm’s Metem: A song intended to expand the range of music in visupri, because Agematsu didn’t want to limit the music/himself to ‘conventional’ viskei music. Zabeth, as someone who has been around for a very long time, wants to pursue new music and expand the range of viskei music.
Zabeth has a strange view of life and death that can’t be imagined by humans, because they think of humans as dolls and have experienced the deaths of people many, many more times and much closer than humans do.
Superb Jealousy: To the surprise of absolutely no one if you’ve read the rest of these comments, Agematsu took the idea of a kid in a choir who is jealous of a boy soprano who gets all the praise and attention from something that happened to him (he was the jealous one), and so he proposed that as Jack’s backstory to the production team.
Agematsu got the story of Robin and Jack from his thoughts that the most painful part of becoming a vampire would be seeing loved ones age on a different timeline to you, with the younger brother overtaking the older brother.
In any case, the song itself was a result of combining Losteden’s sound with the innocence of a child, and mixing in melodies reminiscent of the choir era.
AI=ZO: The deeper the feelings of love, the deeper the accompanying/potential feelings of hatred. Looking back, they can see that all of the hatred was born from the blood-spilt love, and it melts into each other in this song.
Jack and Robin finally meet together as a harmony, and abandon their humanity together. Even though they’re too young to really know the fear of being frozen in time, in the music that connects them they can share the love and the hate and be happy.
PREVIOUS POST:
Heart Jack: It’s a bright song because Robin is an important character in making the overall heavy story of Visupri look bright.
My Principal: Agematsu likes Mist because people need to be like Mist to make their dreams come true. Also, because guitars go out of tune if they’re left alone for a day, Agematsu likes to think that Mist tunes Saga’s guitar every day so that it will always be ready for him if he wants to play it.
Galaxy Tiara: Carmilla was intended to bring a fun element to the darkening Visupri story, and this episode was one of the reasons for Hiroki Nanami’s casting, because gender is surpassed and Eve/Carmilla are the pefect roles for her.
Divine Love (Dimitri’s solo song, wasn’t actually in the anime): Agematsu talks about how he and Ange have the same hometown, and both the scene where Ange first goes to Tokyo and the scene where Hyde and Dimitri look up at the satellite were experiences from his own life. Dimitri believes that it’s rude to be dressed during the sacred ritual of composing music (side note: Agematsu has also been known to tweet about composing music while naked, long before Visupri ever started...).
Agematsu also talks about how when he thinks viskei, he thinks X-Japan and specifically Yoshiki, which is why Dimitri was the drummer for Eclipse v1 while also being the popular guy who does all the publicity (that’s extrapolating, but I think that’s what he was getting at).
Edit: The more I think about this, the more sense Dimitri’s solo song makes: it’s very drums-forward with soaring vocals, which is very X-Japan style and it’s probably one of the closest songs to older-style viskei in the whole franchise
K or K: Seems like Eguchi might have hurt his throat during visupri, which does NOT surprise me at all. Even though Saga is a guitarist, the reason why his solo song begins with a piano intro is “probably” because of his feelings for Guil...
Sky: Although Guil thought he’d lost his wings, Ange sang that he would be Guil’s wind (see above, re: Wing with Wind) and in Sky, Guil is able to use his wings again.
Guil is a character who embodies the visual kei artist for Agematsu as a man in his 40s. When Agematsu’s very respected viskei artist irl died, he felt like the artist was still alive somewhere in the music that they left behind, and the fact that he could still pick the music up and listen to it meant the artist was still in his heart. That was when Agematsu felt that the boundary between ‘life’ and ‘death’ was lessened in music, which was how he originally got the idea to incorporate vampires into viskei (side note: I recall an early interview where he said he’d been coming up with/pitching his vampire-viskei ideas for about a decade before Visual Prison was created).
I’m heading off from the commentary here but I really do think that all of this really explains both Ange’s intro in the show (where he was seeing Eclipse v1 through youtube videos uploaded long after they “disappeared”) and Guil’s entire story arc: musicians are never truly gone, as long as you can still pick up their music and listen to it long after they’re not physically around anymore. Ngl, this one really hit me.
Holy Love (Hyde’s solo, wasn’t actually in the anime): Dimitri and Hyde wrote their solos separately, but both ended up at the same theme of love created by humans and named their songs similarly (Holy Love for Hyde, and Divine Love for Dimitri) (cough married cough). Agematsu has to be able to firmly see a character to write lyrics for them, and if you get in like that too deep then you’ll spend the rest of the day after writing lyrics feeling like that character. Apparently, be modest to be Hyde and take everything off to be Dimitri!!
#Visual Prison#Visupri#I've always respected Agematsu's drive to come up with an idea and make it happen#like i've read his commentary before for other things like utapri where he goes#damn i wanna make an enka song for masato at some point#and then he just...goes out and does that?#((it slapped btw Koizakura goes hard))#anyway i could talk about vampires and viskei and agematsu for hours but i'm gonna stop here
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tastes so bitter (tastes so sweet)
You’re driving back from an out-of-town mission with Hawks when your car breaks down on a very sparsely-populated highway. While you await relief, things get... personal.
characters: takami keigo (hawks) x f!reader
word count: 7.1k
warnings: smut (18+ please!), car sex, pro hero!reader, angst, emotionally unavailable hawks
notes: ta-dah!!! the car sex fic! this turned out way longer and way more feelsy than I ever intended it to be. but I’m grateful for the chance to show you how I play with plot and emotion as well as some good porn. porn with feelings, y’know?
EDIT: The supremely talented @la-saffron has created an absolutely spectacular piece of artwork for this fic! Please go and look at it right here, it’s really quite splendid
Masterlist
The shadowy trees on either side of the highway cast a chill across the pavement as the sky went dark.
It was far from sunset, but the woods were so tall and thick that the light had disappeared from the road a long time ago. The overpriced navigation system laid into the dashboard of Hawks’ luxurious car was no help at all; not when you were taking the only road for miles around.
The highway narrowly passed for two lanes, winding precariously down from the mountains. Dotted with reflective yellow signs- deer crossing, bear crossing, creatures-of-unimaginable-horror crossing. Bigfoot himself could have wandered into your headlights and you barely would’ve flinched.
But that was to be expected, given where you’d come from.
That day’s mission brought you both far, far away from the city. There was a national forest about three hours away- one of the biggest in the country- and you and Hawks had been called in at the crack of fucking dawn to drive all the way out to the woods and investigate some ‘strange reports,’ as the rangers cared to call them.
Most park rangers knew what they were seeing when guests came in from the woods reporting abnormal happenings. Nobody was truly immune to fear, though, when faced with the impossible.
Whether there were paranormal creatures lurking in those woods or not, you couldn’t have been sure. But after spending the day exhausting both your quirks combing every spare inch of those woods, you were relieved of your overnight duties by a group of other, more nature-savvy heroes.
Hawks had been miffed, but too exhausted to argue. He didn’t like to think he’d been overshadowed. You were just thankful to be going home to your own bed.
“Okay,” you sighed, nursing the last of a lukewarm soda from a burger joint at the edge of the only one-horse town you’d passed through. It was a pretty unassuming stop for dinner, but you and Hawks both agreed that the burgers were way too good to be sold to so few patrons.
Keigo was driving, with one palm splayed lazily across the bottom edge of the wheel. His scarlet wings stretched into the backseat, draping over the shoulders of his black leather backrest like some bizarre kind of seat cover.
The fact that his car was so luxurious was not lost on you- although you were more surprised to find out that he had one at all. Hawks seemed like the last person in the world to need a car, after living in a fantastic downtown penthouse. And owning a pair of wings, come to think of it.
He owned it because he could. And because he knew how good he looked in the driver’s seat.
“What?” He turned a curious eye toward you, though he never quite pulled his gaze from the road.
“I know we started this conversation on the way here,” you began, “but… we never exactly finished it.” You swirled what was left of the ice chips in the bottom of your cup, considering the best way to voice your thoughts.
“Alright.” He sounded vaguely amused, slouching a little further down and drawing an idle palm over his feathered hair. “Shoot.”
“Well…” You trailed off. “You’re kind of… a city guy.” You were already starting to talk with your hands. The racket coming from your half-drunk soda was proof enough.
“What makes you say that?”
“You are,” you defended. You let a playful edge creep into your tone. “And the agency’s kind of a city thing.”
“Am I really as one-note as you’re making me out to be?” He was chuckling. Your cheeks were going hot. You weren’t sure how this became a personal conversation, but you were determined to steer it in the proper direction. You course corrected.
“I just mean, we don’t take a lot of jobs outside the city. Like… ever. So, what’s with this one? Why this call?”
He didn’t answer right away. When you glanced across the car, he was licking his lips and appearing to be, very genuinely, thinking.
“Well,” he began. There was an immensely appealing depth that wore around the edges of his voice when he was deep in thought. You hung on tightly, trying your best to hide how intently you listened.
“I was just… bored, I guess.” He gave a lazy little shrug. His eyes were still trained on the windshield, but you could feel the weight of his urges. He wanted to look over. You turned your head, willing him to.
“Probably sounded like bullshit, now that I think about it,” he confessed, “but if there really was somethin’ freaky in those woods… I dunno. I wanted to see it.”
You resisted the urge to snort.
“Maybe you should start a ghost hunting branch at the agency.”
“Aw, c’mon,” he protested. This time, he really did drag his eyes away from the road for a second. They glinted playfully in the dark. You got a flash of pearly canine from the barest hint of a grin, but it was enough to put a stupid smile right across your face.
A sickening thud from beneath the hood zapped any false confidence you’d been building. There was a dull pop, then the engine died.
“What the- shit.” Hawks scrambled to put both hands on the wheel, navigating the car with what momentum remained over to the narrow shoulder. The tires hit gravel and soft mud, rolling pathetically to a stop and settling in damp silence.
“What the hell was that?” You leaned over the dashboard as your pulse came down from near-terminal velocity. There were half a dozen lights blinking away on the dashboard- symbols you couldn’t understand.
“Not sure.” Keigo was doing his best not to sound too perturbed. As a result, he was just perturbed enough.
You knew what those lights implied, though. Service due. Oil change due. Battery maintenance due.
“Jesus Christ,” you hissed, “when was the last time you took this car in for service? It’s a miracle you even made it out of the goddamn garage.”
Hawks was in the process of mashing the engine start button like an arcade game. When you spoke up, he pushed it down and held. The engine gave a dull, sad sort of sputter, but nothing roared to life.
“Look, look,” he dismissed, waving a hand in your direction as he unbuckled his seatbelt. “I don’t drive this thing that often, okay? I’m gonna go check under the hood.”
He climbed out of the driver’s side and slammed the door before giving you the chance to remind him to pop the hood. For a minute, you let him wallow in his mistake, watching gleefully as he pried at the seam of it. Finally, you unbuckled yourself and leaned over, flicking the release for him.
He gave an unamused glance toward the windshield and lifted the hood, obscuring all but the very tips of his drooping wings from view.
After about fifteen seconds, he ducked back into the car with a rush of cold air behind him. He rubbed his palms together as you watched, arms folded over your chest.
“So?” You prompted. He gave a sideways glance in your direction, blowing into his chilled hands.
“So what?”
“Oh my g- what’s wrong with the car?” You tried your best not to let panic set in.
“I don’t know. It’s just a bunch of pipes and wires under there. They didn’t exactly give me a map of the thing when I bought it.”
You’d seen Hawks pull people out of burning buildings before. You’d see him think on his feet, devise a plan and act on it in the blink of an eye. Usually, he was impulsive. Confident. Clever.
Tonight, on the other hand, he was demonstrating a very clear affinity for money over brains.
You flopped into your seat, scrubbing your hands over your face. You were not going to freak out. You refused to. It didn’t matter that Keigo had suddenly become useless in the face of disaster. You were heroes, even if you had to save your damned selves.
“Oh,” he quipped from beside you. “Still got bars. See?” As you peeked over at him through one cracked eyeball, he waved his illuminated phone screen at you. “It could be worse, kid. If this were a horror movie, this thing’d be dead.”
He tapped away on the screen, seeming very pleased with himself. Even his wings gave a little ruffle, draping themselves smoothly over the back of his seat again.
“I’ll call us a tow. We’ll be outta here in no time.”
A few minutes later, you had a map pulled up on your phone while Hawks’ brow creased deeper and deeper.
“Uh-huh.” His voice had taken on that irresistible deepness to it again, but this time it was sending pangs of dread through your gut.
“Right.” He brought a palm up to smooth over his jaw, fingertips bending and pressing idly against the patches of scruff that dusted it. “Y-yep, yeah, I understand. Fifty miles is a long way. I know it’s gonna be a lot to send a truck that far. But-“
As he was abruptly cut off by the other end of the line, those idle fingers slipped up to his temple, pressing inward and rubbing in stiff little circles.
“Okay. Alright. Yeah, I guess we’ll wait, ‘cause there’s not much else we can… I understand. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Okay, we’ll be here. Or within a ten-foot radius. Thanks. B-“
He blinked rapidly at the screen as he pulled it away from his ear. “Have an excellent night, sir,” he muttered under his breath. He let out a deep sigh, lifting a hip to tuck his phone away again.
“They said they would send someone,” he said, “but the depot is, like, fifty miles from here. Could be a couple of hours.”
“A couple hours?” That cold dread was settling into your chest again. So much for sleeping in your own bed.
“Yeah. C’mon, get out.”
“What?” You glanced past him at the frosted driver’s side window. “It looks freezing out there.”
“Well then, you’d better bundle up. C’mon. I’m gonna fly us back to the city.”
“No way. Hawks- Keigo.” You grabbed his arm and squeezed tightly as he made to get out of the car.
“What?” Exasperation was creeping into the edges of his voice. The sides of his gaze, too, as he landed against the seat back with a thud and turned his cheek to look at you.
“You’ve been flying all day. Your wings are shot. You’re not flying anywhere.”
“What? They’re fine.” He gave the appendages in question a defiant flutter and a cloud of expiring feathers floated into the backseat.
You folded your arms across your chest. Hawks gave a frustrated growl.
“What do you suggest, then?” He retorted in fierce opposition to your silence. “Just sit around and fucking… die of old age before the tow truck comes?”
“Oh my god, you’re the number two hero,” you snapped back. “When did you become such a drama queen? Yes, we’re going to wait. Like a normal person would have to.”
“I’m not being dramatic; I’m presenting you with a legitimate solution and you’re ignoring it!”
“If you try to fly us both out of here, you’re gonna hit the ground before we’re halfway home. And then we’ll be really stranded, with no water and no shelter. So, if you’d like to fly back all by yourself, I can’t stop you. But I’m not going to let you kill both of us.”
“Fine!” Hawks’ cheeks were flushed with temper as he kicked the door open and clambered out of the car. He kicked it shut again so hard the whole body rocked, and for a moment you were left, trapped in shocked silence.
He was really going to leave you out here. Alone.
Half a dozen heartbeats passed before his boots crunched on the shoulder and he wrenched the door open again, flopping back into the car with an immense sigh of irritated defeat.
“Fuckin’ freezing out there,” he muttered as quietly as possible.
You wanted to punch him.
“You ready to wait?”
His wings stiffened behind him, then drooped so lowly they seemed to disappear into the backseat. He looked at you from the corner of one tawny eye.
“Yeah.”
For the first hour, you honestly enjoyed yourself. As soon as Keigo accepted his fate, he got much closer to his usual mellow self. You finished off cold fries from dinner, listened to true crime podcasts on your phone, (you listened- he talked over the whole thing) and played a few ruthless games of hangman on a couple of napkins you found in the glove compartment.
You’d spent a lot of time with Hawks in a professional capacity. As partners, you took most of your missions together. You were well-versed in the way that he liked to think, the way he approached a job, a conversation. You worked well with each other and you were drawn to his quick wit and laid-back humour. Even if he was a piece of work at times, you made a strong team. But you didn’t do a whole lot of hanging out.
“Okay, that’s it,” he chided as you added an extravagant top hat to the completed, dressed hangman scrawled onto the inside fold of your last napkin. The word he’d failed to guess was ‘patience,’ and the irony of his struggling was not lost on you.
“Aw, c’mon,” you protested. “You’ve still got gloves and a bow tie left.”
“No, no, no.” He held up a palm, shaking his head. There was a good-natured grin curling his lip as he bowed toward the door. “I’m callin’ it. I gotta take a leak.”
You snatched your soda cup from the drink holder, clutching it protectively against your chest.
“You’re not going in here.”
Next, it was Hawks’ turn to shoot you a deadpan stare.
“How about in the woods? Is that allowed?”
Your cheeks went hot. “It’s pretty dark out there.”
“Aw.” Hawks shoved the door open. There was an unfamiliar glint to his eye as he tossed a mischievous look over his shoulder. “Guess you won’t be able to sneak a peek, then.”
You slammed your fist into his back. “Shut up and go take a piss.”
As the car door clicked shut, you turned the other way out of sheer habit. All you could see in the opposite window was the reflection of your own face. Maybe it was just the dim light, but you looked exhausted. Keigo had seen you caked in blood, streaked by mud and soot before. But you’d both been awake since four o’clock that morning and there was a special kind of ugly feeling that came with overtiredness.
You were dreaming about the first thing you’d do when you got home again when Hawks climbed back into the car. He looked considerably brighter as he ducked inside, and he brought a flush of rich, earthy forest-smell along with him.
“Don’t tell me you couldn’t find it in the cold out there,” you quipped. Payback.
But Keigo just chuckled, shaking his head.
“Close the door,” you whined as the frigid air from outside finally reached your bare arms. “It’s already cold enough in here.”
“Aw,” he crooned, tugging the door shut behind him. “You scared of a little cold now, kid? It’s not so bad out there. Feel.”
He lunged at you, ducking rapidly to rub his frigid cheek against your shoulder. You let out a terse yelp and squirmed, trying to shove him back amid a sea of chilled giggles. He got a few passes of his icy skin on yours before you both realized how close you’d gotten.
Hawks cleared his throat and scooted away from you. In the bare light from the shitty overhead lamp, you were starting to see the outline of a flush creeping into his cheeks.
The light abruptly went out, leaving you in darkness again.
“Tell me something,” he mused, grabbing for the abandoned takeout bag and digging a hand into it. He produced a tiny wrapped square and tore it open with his teeth, removing the folded alcohol wipe from inside and gliding it with impossible grace over his fingertips. He eyed you sideways.
“How come we don’t hang out more?”
Your chest went cold. You’d been dreading that question all night. Longer than that, even.
“What d’you mean?” It was a gut response, but you instantly kicked yourself for even attempting to play dumb.
“You know,” he chided, dumping the wipe back into the paper bag once he was finished with it. “We work. We do interviews together. We do those bullshit PR functions together. I’ve known you- what, two years? And we’ve never even been for a drink. What gives, kid? Don’t tell me I grate on you.”
“I get plenty of you on company time,” you retorted. You were starting to panic. You weren’t ready for this conversation, but it didn’t seem like you were going to be rescued by the timely arrival of the tow truck.
“Okay, okay, I’d take that,” he laughed, “if you hadn’t agreed to take this mission with me. C’mon, this wasn’t exactly a nine-to-five gig.”
He paused. “Come out with me this weekend.” He nudged your shoulder with a bony elbow. You tried your best not to snap.
“Stop,” you pressed quietly. “You know why we don’t.”
The smirk slipped from Keigo’s face.
“What? Why?”
“Don’t make me say it.”
“Wait a second, there’s an actual reason? What the hell is it?”
The confusion was genuine on his face. Hawks could be a smarmy little shit when he wanted to be. But you could tell he wasn’t fucking with you.
“Oh my god.” The words slipped out like a deep breath. Your hand drifted to your mouth as cold shock ran over your skin. “You really don’t remember.”
“No.” His confusion was bordered with fear. He sat back a little, letting his eyes drift over your expression. “No, I really don’t.”
You swallowed hard. You should have known that you’d have to talk about this eventually. But he didn’t even remember the night that had been changing the way you acted around him for nearly a year.
“Last Christmas,” you began. Your breath was so short that it put a desperate hush to your voice that you absolutely hated. You revelled in your ability to act casual around him, but the more probing he got, the harder that composure was slipping.
“At the agency gala. You remember the party, right?”
Hawks rolled his eyes.
“Yeah, and I got trashed.” He paused. Realization dawned on his face, and he shot you the deepest, most sincere look of concern you’d ever seen. Even more sincere than the look that crossed his face when you got shot off the roof of a house and broke a rib.
He leaned forward.
“Did I do something?” He swept a palm over his mouth, fingertips dallying at his chin. You knew exactly how he felt in that moment. You’d been there before, too, realizing that you’d lost control. Blacked out. Understanding that you might have done something you were going to regret.
“You really don’t remember a thing?” It was your turn to be horrified. How could something that consumed your every thought stay so damned far from his?
His fingers were still curved around the point of his chin. He’d gone white, and he shook his head as his eyes cast down to his lap.
“You fucking kissed me, okay?” You snarled with a whip of frustration. “There was mistletoe and you kissed me under it and-and Christ, I can’t believe you.”
“What? What?” He demanded as his voice grew defensively sharp.
“I had no idea what you were gonna do. What you were gonna say, what was gonna change between us. I showed up to the agency the next morning and your hungover ass acted like nothing had ever happened.”
“Of course I did,” he defended, “I didn’t think anything did happen. Oh my God, did I really kiss you?” His wings were coming to life all of a sudden, bristling on either side of his seat. There was a dull whisp as one edge of them brushed against the window. They seemed to expand, along with his horror, to fill the entire car.
He pushed further. “Well, did you… did you want me to?”
You could see where his thoughts were taking him. The answer was an impossible dilemma. To lead him further down that path would not only be cruel, it would be untrue. But to tell him the truth- that you had wanted it- would be to shatter the fragile illusion of casual, platonic intimacy that you’d been building over the last two years.
You chewed your lower lip. Hard enough to hurt.
“Oh god, you didn’t,” he gasped. That was enough for you to lift your chin and shoot him a sudden, sad, pathetic little look.
“Jesus,” he gasped again, deeper this time. “You did.”
“Look,” you snapped. “I was never gonna say anything to you. I was never gonna push it. You didn’t feel that way and I knew that and I just wanted to work.”
He told you enough about his personal life as it was. Every date he swung in from on Monday morning, every Friday night he spent preening in the last hours of the workday hurt enough already. If you’d grown close, fallen harder, it would’ve become too much to bear.
“What do you mean, I didn’t feel that way? What way don’t I feel? How could you even know that?” He was beginning to raise his voice back at you and the adrenaline was pushing you way too far to listen.
“Because you never said a fucking word to me about that kiss! You pretended like it never even happened, Kei! What was I supposed to think!”
“If you’d asked me, you woulda known that I didn’t speak up ‘cause I didn’t remember a goddamn thing!” Keigo jammed a finger into his temple. His golden eyes flashed. He was so fucking hot when he was angry, but this was not a fight you ever wanted to have.
Luckily for you, he was having it without you.
“What do you want me to say to that?” He snarled. “Huh? What- you want me to tell you that I’m sorry for not having psychic powers? That I’m sorry I didn’t hire a mind-reader to tell me what the fuck was going on with you?”
He scrubbed his hands over his face. You were on the verge of tears.
“I-I never-“ you began, but Keigo beat you to the punch,
“You know, maybe I noticed that you were actin’ funny around me. And maybe I should’ve asked. But maybe if you ask yourself, and if you really, honestly give yourself the truest answer, you’d be able to admit that you knew how I felt about you. That you always knew.”
“Of course I knew!”
Your response echoed raw and deafening in the silence of the car. You’d lost your temper and shouted it at him with every decibel left in your breathless chest. Your fists were clenched atop your frigid thighs as you bent over in your seat, shivering. To your immense embarrassment, warm tears trickled down the sides of your nose.
He was right, after all. Every sideways smile he’d given you was just a little too broad to be friendly. Every time he caught you by the hand, he held it just a little too long. Every time he offered you the crook of his elbow at a stuffy charity gala and every time he poured you into a cab at the end of the night, he promised to take good care of you. Every time he looked at you at all it was with a depth that you had recognized, but never understood.
“But look at us, Kei. Look at what we do to each other.”
You sniffled, scrubbing tears off your cheeks with the heels of your hands. He reached for you, seeking to comfort, but his hands twitched midair and he drew back instead.
“Yeah,” he croaked. You tossed a glance in his direction. He looked more dejected than you’d seen him in a long time. He rested both hands on top of the wheel, the rest of his body sagging against the seat back.
“Except now I’ve told you,” you continued. “And now we both know, so everything’s fucked no matter what.”
You were met with silence. The truth was dawning on you. You hated to even consider it, but it felt like what needed to be done.
“When we get back to the city,” you started. Hawks interrupted you with a low rasp of your name.
“No, when we get back, I’m giving you my resignation.”
“Fuck, stop.”
Keigo lunged, grabbing you by the back of the neck and pulling you toward him. He rested his forehead against yours and closed his eyes. The warmth of his closeness weighed on you like a heavy quilt. You couldn’t even pretend not to be immensely comforted by affection from him.
“I’m not gonna let you do that, kid.”
You were both drawing deep breaths- slow, rolling gulps of air that matched over gradual time. You licked your lips, bracing your chilled palms on his shoulders. Your fingertips brushed the very edges of his feathered hair, dull and soft in the dark.
You’d talked each other down from bigger, badder edges before. But this one had sharp, jagged rocks waiting at the bottom. This one, you were going to have to jump from together.
“I can’t do this,” you pleaded. “I can’t keep myself away from you like this.”
“Don’t.” His voice was hushed and so achingly tender, like he couldn’t take the command himself.
“I can’t-“
“Then, don’t.”
He was firmer this time, and the pad of his thumb brushed the bottom of your lip. He pulled back just a hair, grazing the tip of his nose across yours. The heat of his breath puffed over your lips and his blonde eyelashes threatened to tickle your cheek.
He drew in a slow, calculated breath.
“Lemme kiss you. Lemme try again. I’m not gonna forget it this time, I swear.”
“Keigo, please.”
“Just lemme try. Just once. I’ll never ask you again, if you don’t want me to.” He pulled back the rest of the way and your body keened at the loss, but he looked deeply into your eyes. Deeply like he’d never been allowed to look before.
You licked your lips. Considered it for half a heartbeat. Then you gave a slow little nod.
“Okay.”
To your surprise, he didn’t lunge again. He took his time with you. He cupped your cheeks tenderly between his bare palms, memorizing the curve of your face. He stared, taking you in like this. At his mercy.
Finally, he leaned in and captured your mouth in a soft kiss, heartbreakingly loving. You responded eagerly, blossoming beneath his touch and bracing your hands on the broad plane of his chest. Your fingers curled in the fleece that lined his coat.
You kissed back with near-desperate urgency, shamelessly showing him how touch-starved you’d become. Dating was pointless when Keigo stole your whole heart every time you showed up to work.
The quiet press of his tongue had your jaw going slack in his hands. Your kiss went needy all at once, and he licked into your mouth with a hunger behind his movements that you never anticipated sensing from him.
You broke from him first, turning your cheek to him as your lungs burned. Your mouth was swollen, and you gasped greedily for whatever stale air lingered between you. He grabbed your chin and forced your eyes back to his.
His gaze was fearsome. Ravenous. You were powerless beneath it.
You combed your fingers through his hair like you’d always wanted to, settling your palm at the nape of his neck. Your own voice was nearly unrecognizable, nothing more than a feral growl.
“Get in the back.”
Hawks took one look at the narrow gap between his seat and yours and sat up, nudging the driver’s side door open. He climbed eagerly into the road and then back into the back seat, settling in the center with his legs and wings splayed wide.
Meanwhile, you took the opportunity to wiggle out of your boots and pants and slam dunk everything into the foothold of the passenger’s seat. You climbed over the center console in your underwear and settled into his lap.
Even though you had to bow your head against the cushioned ceiling, it was a holy sensation. Your thighs settled perfectly into the crooks of Keigo’s legs, and his hands slid so naturally over the curves of your hips. It was as if you’d done this before.
You kissed him again, using the weight of your newly boosted height to descend hard and loving against his lips. He grabbed you hard by the ass, drawing you smooth and tight against his hips.
“God,” he groaned eagerly into your mouth.
“You’re so. Fucking. Perfect,” you hissed back into his, and he squeezed you harder, breaking his lips from yours to trail a hungry path of kisses along the edge of your jaw. His scruff scratched at your chin just like you imagined it would. You loved him like this- trimmed, unshaven. The rougher, the better.
“Don’t say that,” he purred dangerously close to your ear. “You’ve seen me at my worst.”
You tried not to grin, remembering Keigo barfing over the balcony of the Plaza after one too many charity-benefit martinis. Keigo caked in ooze after cutting open that sludge villain from the inside. Keigo on the verge of tears, just a few minutes ago.
“I still think so,” you pressed, and he smiled against your cheek. His wings, tired and bruised but majestic as ever, stiffened proudly. They were capped firmly by the cramped space that surrounded you, but the feathers that spread across the back seat were sleek and graceful.
You dug your fingertips between his jacket and his t-shirt, feeling the warmth of his torso all over. He did his best to shrug it open, but the material was caught up on his wings- no getting it off now.
He wound his hands into the hem of his shirt and tugged it up for you. The skin you could feel by slipping your fingers underneath was all you were going to get.
Not that it mattered to you. It was far more than you’d let yourself so much as picture before. While you felt your way across his heated abdomen, he dipped his head to your pulse point. He scraped the points of his teeth across your tender flesh, making you sigh and shiver. He pressed a hand to the small of your back to keep you close and nibbled all the way down to your neckline, leaving a trail of tiny welts in his wake.
They would fade by morning. Tonight, the feeling was enough.
He glided smooth, tender fingers up your sides. You straightened, letting him wedge your long-sleeved t-shirt up around your shoulders. You had to bend even further and press your forehead awkwardly against his shoulder to wrench it off. Once he peeled the fabric over your head, you tossed it haphazardly toward the front seat. Keigo was already going to work on his fly.
The tender press of his erection had grown apparent by that point, stiff and needing down one thigh of his thick pants. You reached between your legs and palmed it indulgently. There was an answering throb of arousal in the pit of your belly as you felt the shape and thickness of it trapped against his body, and an even stronger one when his hips pressed into your touch and he gave a low rumble of approval.
“Don’t act so surprised,” he crooned. With his pants unfastened, and the bulk of his cock shifted to the stretchy pouch of his undershorts, he slid a fingertip down the plane of your belly and curled two graceful digits between your thighs.
“Are you wet for me yet?” He shot you a deep, lustful stare. You rocked your hips against his fingers, hopeless in resisting the pleasure he offered. Keigo nudged the crotch of your thong easily aside, dipping his middle finger against your slit.
He sucked a sharp breath through clenched teeth as you gave a simultaneous yelp of stimulation. When he looked up at you again, he bore a sly little grin. You’d seen it a thousand times before, but never with such desire. And never all for you.
“You’re drippin’, kid.” He arched his palm, slipping that finger slowly upward and easing it inside you. There was no stretch, but the sensation of intimacy- of being felt in such a way by those hands that you’d never dared to fantasize about- was intoxicating in its own right.
Keigo was, apparently, feeling it, too. His eyes were deeply lidded, glazed completely by his own desire. The tip of his cock had found its way over the waistband of his undershorts, weeping shiny precum against his stomach and the bottom of his shirt.
He curled a blunt fingertip inside you, massaging your tender front wall. The feeling rappelled up the column of your spine and brought deep trembles forward. It brought fresh handfuls of wet slick from your depths, gliding down his palm and between his fingers. He took the hints your body offered and rubbed faster, watching the way your expression morphed from desire to pleasure.
“Stop,” you hushed, leaning forward and pushing your lips to his. He drew his hand back from you immediately, settling it on your thigh. The wet little print it left against your skin wasn’t lost on you.
“Something wrong?”
“No,” you replied. “Just ready for you.”
He gave a low, loving little chuckle and shifted beneath you. “Can’t hold out any longer?”
You smiled into his hair. “Don’t want to.”
“Fair enough.” His smile was even, but the tug in his voice betrayed his fraying nerves. It thrilled you to know that you weren’t the only one putting way too much emotional stock in this. It was immensely validating to discover that he’d been anticipating it, too.
He wiggled and squirmed against the backseat, shucking his pants and underwear down over his thighs and letting his cock pop out. It bobbed against his stomach- thicker than you’d imagined- framed by a trimmed scruff of tawny hair that disappeared under his shirt.
“Fuck,” you sighed in spite of yourself.
“I know, right?” He rasped. He reached for you, cupping your jaw. He brought your forehead down to his, giving a weak laugh. “What the hell have we been waitin’ for?”
“We just needed the bottle episode to shove us together,” you giggled. “C’mon, we’re a walking trope right about now.”
“We’re about to become a different trope if you don’t let me fuck you.” It was his turn to play the desperate card. But the ache between your thighs had not dulled, even a little.
He wrapped his fingers around the base of his shaft and you lifted your hips. He gave the heated tip a playful little swipe along your slick slit, but his game backfired when both of you let out tight cries of sensation.
You rocked your hips forward, taking his tip eagerly inside. The sensation was toe-curling, made even better by the way he held you tightly against him, nosing at your ear and kissing any patch of skin he could reach.
He brought his free palm to your ass as soon as you were situated, helping you slide the rest of the way onto his cock. With your knees braced on either side of his lap and your feet pressed tightly against the front seat, you let him bottom out. And for a moment, you just sat there.
“Jesus,” Keigo sighed, lolling his head against the seat behind him. You still had your head deeply bowed, trapped in the space that seemed just an inch too tight.
“I…” Your thighs shuffled. Your hips gave a little squirm. It felt good, but it wasn’t enough. Keigo cracked an eye and lifted his chin, sensing a problem.
“What’s the matter?”
“I just…” Your cheeks went hot. You licked your lips. “I can’t move.”
His gaze cast downward, to the place where you were joined. He took in the press of your thighs, the curve of your neck. He snorted.
“No, you can’t. C’mere, kid, I gotcha.” He planted that palm on your ass again, drawing your hips forward and up, as far as you could take them. Your head and neck bowed with the rest of your back as he draped your upper body over his chest and held you tightly against him.
Then he planted his feet and gave one good, deep thrust. Your innards gave a jerk. Oh, fuck.
“That’s it,” you panted into his ear. He nodded tensely.
“Yeah?” He prompted. “That’s workin’ for ya? Alright, alright. We’ve got this, kid, c’mon. Lemme show you somethin’ good, okay?”
One thrust sent you spiralling. But the rhythm that he dove into- steady, tough, fluid- sent every nerve through your body into meltdown. You were entirely incapable of dealing with such pleasure, combined with the emotions that swirled through your lovestruck brain.
It felt as though you had been holding out needlessly for all this time. Like all the hurt and frustration and heartbreak you shed over him would be evaporated, now that you understood that he wanted you like this, too.
Like that was all there was. You, Hawks, and the free love you could now share.
“I’m n-not-“ Keigo stuttered, piping up after a series of breathless pants and airy groans, “n-not gonna last much longer, kid, you’re… really gonna make me feel it.”
“Yeah,” you breathed back. You looped your arms tightly around his neck, tilting your hips forward. You could feel the barest hint of stimulation when your clit brushed his belly, so you leaned into it- aching for your own release.
His rhythm doubled as the intensity of your pleasure spiked dangerously high, and when you gripped him hard and rocked your hips in time with his, there was a low, warning pull that echoed all the way up to your throat. You were close. Very close.
Your head dropped backward and Keigo leaned forward, drawing his mouth up the vulnerable column of your throat. He panted hard and heavy against your pulse point.
“That’s it, kid, that’s fuckin’ it, baby, oh, God, I’m g-gonna f-fucking… I- shit, I- can’t… fffuck!”
Keigo let a vicious roar tear from his throat as he reached his vibrant peak. His erratic thrusts brought you to a tight little climax, too, and you clung to him and whined and rode through the pleasure as he fucked madly up inside you, spurting messy shots of cum into your depths.
Gravity took hold of his pleasure, dripping it onto his shaft and pooling it in a sloppy mess between you. And when it was all finally over, you collapsed against his body and you both stayed, airless and spent, wrapped tightly around one another.
It was the bright flash of headlights on the back of his neck that brought you to the surface, moments later.
The inside of the car was warm and stuffy and damp. Had you just come in from outside, you might have realized that it reeked of sex. Sweat and breath and fluid and feeling. The windows were near-opaque, fogged by the dampness of your lovemaking.
It was a moment you might have loved to capture, if you weren’t about to be so rudely interrupted.
The light in your rear windshield was bright white and flashing orange. Unmistakable.
“The tow truck,” you wheezed, scrambling off of Keigo’s lap. “Oh, fuck.”
“Get dressed,” he muttered weakly, already scrambling to get himself cleaned up and decent. He was far more dressed than you were, so you did your best to climb back into the passenger’s seat and slide back into your own clothes. You banged your shin hard on the center console, and your head on the ceiling as your body flailed in retaliation. You crumpled into the front seat and nearly kneed yourself in the mouth trying to scramble back into your pants.
By the time you climbed out of the car, fully dressed, with a few additional bruises, Hawks was already standing on the shoulder, talking to the driver. The driver was wagering a few guesses on what might be wrong with the car. Hawks’ eyes had already glazed over.
“Hey,” he greeted, as he spotted you emerging over his shoulder. He introduced you quietly to the driver before the ballcap-wearing, bearded man spoke again.
“Yeah,” he gruffed, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ll give you a lift to garage nearby. It’s kinda late, but he keeps weird hours. I bet he’ll take a look for you, it’s prob’ly an easy fix.”
“That sounds great,” you gushed, clasping your palms together. There was a lot of stiffness settling in around your hips and thighs. You couldn’t be sure if it was a result of the compromising position you’d nearly been discovered in or the whole lot of not moving you’d done for hours before that.
Either way, it felt good to stretch your legs.
“You c’n go ahead and hop in the back,” the driver directed, waving the key that Keigo had apparently already given him in indication. “I’ll get you hooked up, no problem.”
Keigo opened the truck door for you, and you climbed over the passenger’s seat into the back. He followed closely behind you, tugging the door shut and slouching into the opposite side.
You sat in silence; hands clasped between your knees. A confusing air settled between you.
You felt vulnerable and raw and moony. You wanted to hold his hand and curl up to him in the back seat. Kiss his cheeks and tell him how good it was, tell him how much you felt.
For you, though, it could never be that simple. There was no free love for heroes like you.
Pay later, always.
Keigo felt the weight of your gaze. He turned to meet your eyes and shot you a thin smile. You’d seen the look that he’d turned to hide from you, though.
The truck driver climbed into the front seat before words could pass between you. But you didn’t need to hear them to know what they were going to be.
You didn’t need a warning to understand what Monday morning at the agency was going to look like.
#hawks x reader#hawks#takami keigo x reader#takami keigo#hawks x you#takami keigo x you#boku no hero academia#mha fanfic#my hero academia#bnha fanfic
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She sings alone
When they got to the room, Adrien was sitting at an enormous piano, playing a jaunty tune and bouncing in his seat. He wasn’t even looking at the keys, his eyes roaming the room and choosing to stick on-
Lila.
Oh.
Okay, maybe he hadn’t seen her come in. After all, the piano was really big, so even if Adrien was looking directly at the door, he might not have seen them come in.
Lila danced around the room, orange skirt warping around her legs as she spun near to Alya and pulled her deeper into the spacious closet, taking one of her hands and joining it with Nino, leading the pair in a quick-paced dance until she was satisfied that they would carry it on without her.
Adrien’s eyes stayed on her, closing slightly as he allowed for a fond smile.
Okay, okay fine. That was fine. Adrien was allowed to watch his friends! Even if his friend was (ugh) Lila. Marinette drifted further into the room, keeping to the walls as other friends mimicked Alya and Nino’s lively movements.
Finally, (finally!) Adrien’s eyes caught hers and he gave her a cocky wink as the song he was playing changed bit by bit until it was the accompaniment to her favorite pop song; one they had sung together on their way back from their first date.
Marinette’s lips turned up in a fond smile (she really couldn’t resist those green eyes, huh?) as she took a deep breath and-
“Living in my own world...” Lila hummed out the starting notes, approaching the piano with a coy smile, like Adrien was doing this for her. “Didn’t understand…”
Marinette dug her fingernails into the heel of her hand. This was fine. This was fine. Nothing wrong with a couple of friends singing a song together! Even if it happens to be one of the friends’ girlfriend’s favorite.
Lila hopped up on top of the piano, turning her waist so that while her knees faced one of the walls, her torso was pointed directly towards Adrien, so Marinette wasn’t even able to see what sort of expressions she was making.
...not that she needed to. Because she wasn’t. No one liked a jealous girlfriend, and anyway, Adrien knew Lila was a liar! So there’s no way he could be interested.
Lila leaned forwards, recapturing Adrien’s attention from the keys and forcing it back to her face. Adrien tensed in surprise, but seemed to relax even more than he previously was once his eyes landed back on Lila’s face.
Aaaaaand that was that. She needed to step out for a second.
Marinette pushed off of the wall and began traversing through the dancing pairs, eyes on the doorway. She had only made it halfway when Alix grabbed her and began leading her in an odd dance of her own.
“My usual partners are a bit occupied.” She quipped, jerking her head towards Kim, who was trying fruitlessly to get Chloe to join him on the floor. Nathaniel and Max had their own partners as well, though Sabrina and Marc seemed a bit more acquiessing than Kim’s intended. “Thought since you weren’t dancing, you’d like to join me.”
Marinette remembered all the times Alix had protested cancelling or even postponing class dances due to scheduling. During Bubbler, Alix almost seemed disappointed for the party to be over. Even though she never claimed to be as formal as her father, it was clear that she loved dancing in a crowd with only another person as her anchor in the waves of people.
She put on an encouraging smile, not looking at whatever scene was happening by the piano. Alix was her friend, and if she wanted to be dancing, they would dance.
“Sure thing. Thanks for thinking of me.” Marinette could focus on this, just this, until the song was over and she could go, or, even better, join Adrien by the piano.
It wasn’t a problem, until at the end of the song, Adrien’s voice harmonized with Lila’s in a chord that was so beautiful, it shattered her heart in more ways than one. Alix spun Marinette and between rotations she saw how close the two were, and how excited Adrien seemed. She caught her in a dip and Adrien pressed the keys in the final note, everyone separating from their partners to applaud the musical duo.
“That was great, you guys!” Nino placed a hand on both of their shoulders. “A match made in heaven!” His eyes caught Marinette’s and he amended his statement. “A professional match made in business heaven?”
Lila laughed and gave a mock bow. “Thanks, Nino. I wasn’t really planning on singing; after the rock slide accident where I had to call for help in the freezing cold for hours, I didn’t think my vocal cords would be up to it, but when I heard my favorite song start playing, I guess it was just instinct.” She shrugged in a gesture of humility that was about as real as the rest of her.
“Well, your instincts were great.” Adrien commented, standing up from the piano bench and giving her one of his wholesome smiles. “I really enjoyed playing with you.”
“Likewise.” Lila smiled back until her gaze wandered to Marinette. (Of course, everyone but her boyfriend was looking at Marinette (nope, no not bitter at all)) “Oh, Marinette! You’re still doing the costumes right?”
Marinette nodded, once, teeth grit into a smile.
“I found the most beautiful dress,” she spun to a box that was sitting by the wall, picking it up to bring it to Marinette and show her the red silk inside, “and I’d really love it if you’d modify it for me?” She tilted her head forwards and gave Marinette pitiful eyes. As if she didn’t already know Marinette couldn’t say no in front of everyone.
“Of course. I’d just need your measurements and what you want me to do with the dress.” She could be a ventriloquist with how little she was moving her mouth.
“Great!” She pulled out the bottom of the dress, showing off a familiar skirt. It was the dress from the picture. “I’d really like it if you could make it more form-fitting, less poofy, you know?”
“Don’t you think we should ask if we can modify these dresses before we make any decisions?” Please don’t make me ruin such an incredible dress. “Technically, they are historical artifacts.”
“Grace said you could redesign the costumes, right?” Alya tapped at her phone and pulled up a recording she had made.
“Your main job will be refitting and redesigning all the costumes for your friends.” Grace’s digitized voice affirmed Lila’s request.
“That settles it then,” at least one of her teeth must have cracked by now, right? “I’ll just get your measurements and edit the skirt. I’ll need to do it some other time, since I don’t have my-”
“Measuring tape?” Lila whipped out a stylized tape from the box. It was rose gold and was almost calling to her. “I found this near the dress. I’m sure it will work.”
Marinette took the device reverently, running her thumb over the engraved vines on the sides before catching herself and looking up.
“That’ll work. Can you hold your arms out?”
Marinette took Lila’s measurements with a practice ease, and rechecked before typing her numbers and desired modifications into a document on her phone. When she looked up, she was surrounded by boxes and her friends, looking at her with hopeful eyes, as well as a stack of suits of each boy, none of whom seemed to care.
“Okay, what do you want changed? I already have your measurements.” She knelt down and sat beside Lila’s box, letting her friends come to her. This was her favorite part about designing; giving people what they wanted and making them look however they liked.
Rose and Alix both wanted the fabrics from their dresses converted into suits. That was easy enough. Alya found a sweet orange dress that she just needed refitted. Juleka muttered something about “less wide, but still swishy.” Mylene wanted the opposite; to give her dress a larger diameter.
All in all, Lila’s would probably take the longest, because she wanted all the complexities of the intricate gown to be stripped off and for the silk to be repurposed as a cocktail dress.
Marinette nodded to herself and began stacking boxes, looking up at her friends who were still standing awkwardly nearby.
“Guys, these are way too many boxes for one person to carry; let’s each grab a box and take them to Marinette’s room!” Lila chirped, leaning down to pick up her dress, the hem of it dragging on the grimy closet floor.
Everyone murmured an agreement and picked up their respective costumes, filing out the door. Marinette was the last one out, but just as she was about to step out, she found herself face-to-face with Lila.
“You haven’t found your dress yet, have you Marinette?” Her voice was saccharine sweet, but with the masked loathing that Marinette found herself recognizing whenever Lila spoke to her. “Why don’t you spend more time in the closets?”
Before she could realize what was happening, the closet door had slammed in her face and clicked with what Marinette was certain was a lock.
“Oh no, Marinette!” She heard Lila’s muffled ‘concern’ through the door.
“What happened?” Alya’s voice grew louder as she approached the door, or, more likely, Lila.
“Marinette stopped to tie her shoe and I must have bumped the door closed by accident. I feel so guilty.” Sure, and the tears Lila was crying right now weren’t crocodiles.
“It’s fine girl,” Alya reassured her (no, it wasn’t fine!), “I’m sure Marinette will forgive you. Here, give me your box; I’ll take it upstairs while you go find someone who can get her out.”
“Right.” The sound of receding footsteps; they must have left. “Just as soon as I have a chat with one mister Agreste.” ...or not. There was a cheery ring of the phone, and Lila’s smug tone melted into something more pathetic. “Adrien! Come back downstairs, quick! I’ll meet you at the front desk.” Lila chuckled and left with a single knock at the closet door.
...Great. She was stuck. Through sheer habit from akuma attacks, Marinette traced all four walls with a finger, looking for another secret passage, or even a normal one at this point. Nothing, because of course when she’s comfortable she finds a random exit, but not when she actually needs it.
She groaned and fell back against the wall, sliding to the ground and tilting her head back so she could close her eyes and pretend she wasn’t actually in this situation.
The people I’m closest to either don’t know what’s going on or think it’s handled. She thought morosely. So I might as well get comfortable.
Just as she was about to let herself take a little cat nap (she could hear Chat Noir snickering now), she heard a trill come from the piano. Her eyes cracked open and slid to the corner of the room with the instrument, thinking that maybe one of her friends stayed behind.
But no one was there.
Marinette’s curiosity won out and she approached the keys. They pressed down in a few familiar chords; another one of her favorite songs. She wasn’t really sure how self-playing pianos worked, but it must have been ‘programmed’ with some of the more recent pop songs, despite the fact that the room looked like it had been untouched for years, aside from their recent discovery of it.
Shrugging, she sat down at the bench, watching as the keys continued playing the introduction to her second favorite song. She had nothing better to do, why not?
“I’ve got a lot of things I have to do… All these distractions, our future’s coming soon…”
She sang through the entire song, leaning to her left side occasionally, like some other person was sitting beside her; someone that hadn’t left. Marinette closed her eyes and adopted the illusion of company. Blond hair, beautiful eyes, a teasing grin- no a half-smile, like he’s hiding how much he’s enjoying this. Even though he knows she knows he loves it, just like she does.
Just like she loves him. Her grumpy dork. Her Fe-
There was a clatter near the door, and it crumpled, revealing Allegra, leg out in front of her like she had just kicked it down. Which she probably had.
“Marinette? Lost again?” Her laugh seemed shaken, nervous. She had expected to see someone else.
“Something like that.” She matched the laugh; Allegra’s business was her business. Not Marinette’s.
“Well, come on out.” She gestured over her shoulder. “Your friends are looking for you.”
They walked together out of the ballroom and into the main entrance of the building, where Alix and Kim accosted her immediately.
“Marinette! We need your help. Nino’s gone missing?”
~
“Grace!” Allegra barrelled into the room like a tornado. “He’s here! He’s manifesting.”
Her clipboard clattered to the floor as Grace’s knees buckled. “What? What are you talking about?”
“Felix! He’s here.”
Grace sighed. “Felix is an apparition, ‘Legra. Barely even a poltergeist. He has a mild presence, but there’s no way you could have actually seen him.”
“Oh yeah?” Allegra whipped her head at her, flames in her eyes. “Earlier today, I found Marinette in the hall of portraits. She said she followed a black cat through a tunnel.”
“Well- that could have been-”
“And, and just a minute ago, I heard the piano playing and singing. When I came into the closet; it was just Marinette. She thought the piano was self playing, Grace. As in, she wasn’t the one playing.”
“Felix didn’t play the piano.” Grace reminded her. “Bridge did, because-”
“Because her voice sounded like a dozen murder victims, I know.” Allegra rolled her eyes. “But it was Felix who taught her how to play. Gracie, it’s him.”
“It’s not.” Grace glared at her. “There’s no way he could be coming back so soon.”
“Fine, keep being ignorant. But I’m telling Finny, and he’ll believe me.” Allegra stormed out of the room, turning over her shoulder only once. “Oh, and it looks like Nicky has come out to play, so get ready to handle that.”
……
The rest
@merry-madness @calliopeia @drama-queen-supreme @kaydenth3gayden @mcheang @nomiegnome @never-say-donuts @vixen-uchiha @miracul0us-multishipper @hauntedfreakdeputyhero @chocolatecustarddanish @iwantswifttoblessmysoul @digitalmagpie @ilseofskadi @nerdy-and-a-little-birdy @minty-goose @nataladriana9 @aestheticnpoetic @constellation-king @animegirlweeb @persephonebutkore @ahalloweengirl @r0sebutch @marinettepotterandplagg @beelzzebop @akalovelymaybe @pleasefollowmeuwu @angelost4r @constancetruggle @speaknowtome @some-oxymoron @nerdy-scifi-birdy @purplesundaze @aestheticnpoetic @neptuningkai @2confused-2doanything @goggles-mcgee @grumpy-kitten-vixen @artemisdragona @lookatthestars1 @demonicbusiness @toodaloo-kangaroo @crazylittlemunchkin @vice-artist
#felinette#marinette dupain cheng#ml marinette#ml salt#ml felix#ml adrien#adrien agreste#alya cesaire#felix agreste#Felix Culpa#ml haunted mansion#haunted mansion au#yes I did use high school musical songs because I’m unorginal
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Part 3 of that thing I’ve been posting. This is a first draft, once it’s edited I’ll put it on Ao3. There will be five parts!
Part1 Part 2
~~
Amity has a plan.
She knows her girlfriend likes meaningful gestures, especially when it’s about something important. So as she signs her name at the bottom of the pink paper, she wills herself not to be nervous. She’s doing everything right, she knows, and besides, it’s Luz. Luz is understanding and generous. She’ll love this.
(Amity hopes.)
Walking to school the next day is torture, and she’s brought back to a similar morning a few months ago, when she was clutching paper from the same notebook she used today. She didn’t go through with it then, but everything is different now. Luz will say yes.
So why can’t she stop shaking?
She walks into the building and immediately spots Luz. Her stomach flips itself over, as usual, and she nervously walks over to her girlfriend.
“Amity! I missed you!” Luz sees her and runs over, catching her up in a hug. Amity tries not to swoon.
“Luz, I saw you yesterday,” Amity says, smiling as she’s picked up and swayed a little.
Luz pouts as she puts Amity down. “Yeah, but that was a long time ago,” she mumbles. She looks down at the ground, and her eyebrows scrunch together.
“Oh wait,” she says, stooping down and picking something up. “You dropped this.”
It’s the pink paper. Amity wants to die. “WAIT,” she says loudly, startling a couple of other kids down the hall, “DON’T LOOK AT THAT.”
She grabs the paper and then stops. Wait. Things are different now.
“Actually,” she says, with as much composure as she can muster after an outburst like that, “this is for you.”
She holds out the pink paper. And Luz. Takes it.
If Luz recognizes the type of paper the note is written on, she doesn’t mention it. Amity is shaking as Luz opens the note, inspecting every single change in Luz’s face, anticipating a possible rejection.
But instead, Luz’s face morphs into a huge smile, and she turns the paper over so Amity can see the words she’s written.
“Luz, will you go on a date with me?”
There’s color high in Luz’s cheeks as she asks “Really?”
“Of course really,” Amity scoffs, her entire body relaxing at Luz’s reaction.
“Ohmygosh of course I will!!!!! Where are we going? What are we doing? Can we-”
Amity holds up a hand to stop Luz’s train of thought. “I have it all planned out,” she says proudly. “All you have to do is show up.”
Luz smiles, the crinkles at the corners of her eyes getting deeper as she does. “Of course you do,” she says. “I’ll be there!”
~
Amity had thought she was nervous yesterday, but that’s nothing compared to today.
Edric and Emira are trying to help calm her down, but they’re somehow making it worse. “I’m sure she’s gonna have a great time,” Ed says sincerely, nodding to himself. “Unless….she doesn’t,” he adds.
Emira hits her twin on the arm. “Ed, not helping,” she scolds, and puts her hands on Amity’s shoulders. “First dates are scary, but this is Luz. You could take her to the dump and she’d thank you.”
“I’m terrified,” Amity confesses to her sister.
“Don’t be!”
“Thanks, Em, suddenly I’m totally fine.”
“Glad I could help,” Emira winks. “Now go get your girl.”
~
It’s time for her date with Luz. Well, actually, it’s an hour before her date with Luz, but she’s leaving now anyway because she likes to be punctual.
As it turns out, she doesn’t have a lot of time to be nervous, because when she opens the door to leave Blight Manor, Luz is standing there with flowers.
“Hi,” Luz says excitedly, laughing a little at the look on Amity’s face. “These are for you. I got you purple ones because they match your hair!”
“You’re early,” is all Amity manages to say. She takes the flowers from Luz and their fingers touch. Normally, this wouldn’t be such a big deal anymore, but knowing they’re about to go on an actual date makes everything feel a little different. Amity tries not to jump.
“Yeah,” Luz says, hands behind her back. “But I know you, and I knew you’d be early, so here I am!”
Suddenly Amity feels like crying. Being known isn’t something she ever thought she would get to experience. Being known this well was never even a thought. She is so, so lucky.
She blinks the tears away and manages to direct a smile at her girlfriend. “Thanks,” she says. “I love them.”
Luz beams. Amity still marvels over the way Luz’s expressions are so open and extreme. She’s smiling with her entire body, somehow, exuding so much happiness just because Amity liked the flowers.
“So you have an idea?” Luz asks.
“Oh, yeah!” Amity says. “I have the perfect plan.”
~
Amity watches Luz’s face stealthily out of the corner of her eye the entire way through Bonesborough. They’re holding hands, and it feels like magic, but Amity is so nervous that Luz won’t enjoy what she’s planned that she can barely appreciate it. Luz looks unbothered, though, swinging their hands between them happily as she chatters on about something King did earlier in the day. Normally, Amity would be paying rapt attention, but today she’s a little too wound up.
“Okay, here we are” Amity says nervously, watching Luz’s face carefully for any sign of rejection.
Luz looks up and gasps. “A bookstore?????? I didn’t even know there was a bookstore here!”
“Yeah,” Amity says shyly. “I just thought...well, the first thing we really bonded over was Azura, so I figured maybe we could wander and…” She trails off.
Luz is jumping up and down on the balls of her feet. “Yes! I’ve always wanted to go on a bookstore date! I wonder what kind of weirdness a Boiling Isles bookstore has! Unless it’s just, like, a normal bookstore. Which would be disappointing but still cool!” She grins and pulls on Amity’s hand. “Cmon, let’s go!”
~
It’s going well, she thinks. Luz looks like she’s having fun as she pulls book after book off the shelf, commenting on them each before putting them back.
“I’ve been wondering about the Azura books,” Luz says at one point. “Like, how come we get them in the human realm and the Boiling Isles? How is that possible?” Luz scratches her head. “Maybe the author is from here and somehow managed to get their books to my realm? Maybe they’ve got a really good publicist? Or maybe they’re human and their books accidentally made it here somehow, like, maybe Eda brought one back one day and someone bought it and-” Luz stops. “Oh my gosh, Amity, do you think Eda is responsible for the circulation of the Azura books on the Boiling Isles???”
Amity considers that.
“You know, I haven’t really met any other people who like these books,” she says. “I always wondered why they weren’t more popular.” Her eyes widen, realization dawning. “What if I’m the only one? What if Eda sold them to the bookstore and I bought them and-”
“Woah,” Luz says. “That is some crazy coincidence.”
“Well,” Amity says bravely. “Guess it just means we were always meant to be.”
She gets a bright red Luz as a reward for her nerve, and she smirks. It’s fun to make Luz nervous. Knowing she has that effect on her makes her so happy.
Luz doesn’t say anything, just reaches out a hand for Amity’s. Amity gets it. Sometimes holding Luz’s hand is the only thing that makes sense.
“Oh no way,” comes a voice from behind them. Amity’s heart sinks. Oh no, not now, why now, why here, why-
They turn around and Boscha comes into view, scrutinizing their linked hands. “You’re actually dating the human. Wow. I thought that was a rumor, like, one so ridiculous it couldn’t even be true.” She smirks. “And yet here you are.”
Amity can feel Luz stiffen next to her, and she’s suddenly filled with rage. Luz escaped her world to avoid being made fun of, she shouldn’t have to deal with that here, too.
Amity raises her chin and looks Boscha in the eye. “Aw, what’s wrong, Boscha, jealous that nobody wants to hang out with you?” She looks around pointedly. “Looks like you’re alone, huh? Has everyone finally realized what a monster you are?”
Boscha’s face turns a shade of pink darker than her hair. “I’m not alone,” she spits. “I came here by myself on purpose. It’s exhausting, having followers all the time.”
“Sure,” Amity says, turning to leave. “Come on Luz, let’s-”
“Can’t believe she went and got a girlfriend from another species,” Amity hears Boscha mutter under her breath. And then, a little louder, clearly intending to be heard- “Guess shopping at the bottom of the barrel is easier than finding someone normal.”
Amity stops. She’s gripping Luz’s hand so hard it’s probably starting to hurt a little, but she can’t help it. Luz seems to sense the storm coming, and she scrambles to stop it. “Amity, it’s okay, let’s just go-”
But Amity is done. Done with Boscha and her stupid games, done with everyone making fun of Luz for things she can’t control, done with her girlfriend being treated lesser than because she wasn’t born a witch.
She releases Luz’s hand, whirls around, and says, quiet as the dead, “Say that again.”
Boscha seems to realize she went a little too far this time, but she’s not one to back down. “What are you gonna do, Amity? Hex me? You don’t have the-”
Before she can finish her sentence, Amity’s fingers are twirling in circles and Boscha is on the ground, angry hives crawling up and down her body.
A security guard comes over, looking bored. He gives Boscha a glance, unimpressed. “Miss,” he says to Amity. “I’m gonna have to ask you to go.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Amity says. “We were just leaving.”
~
Amity thinks her hands might be clenched permanently, now. The anger (coiling, rampant, hot to the touch) she’s feeling isn’t new, but it’s somehow louder now, a line of static in her ears so loud that she doesn’t hear Luz calling her name until the third time.
“Amity!”
Amity blinks herself out of her stupor and remembers, suddenly: she’s supposed to be on a date. A date with her cute girlfriend. A date that she messed up by getting them kicked out of a store.
She knew she’d mess this up somehow.
“Amity, are you okay?”
Luz is looking at her with concern in her eyes, and Amity doesn’t deserve it. She doesn’t deserve any of this. She’s ruined everything.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbles, not looking Luz in the eye. She’d understand if Luz dumped her over this.
“For what?” Luz asks sincerely, and Amity looks up in confusion. “Um, for ruining our date?”
Luz raises her eyebrows. “How exactly did you ruin it?”
“I hexed Bosca, I got us kicked out of the bookstore, I-”
“What I’m hearing,” Luz says, taking Amity’s hand again, “Is that you got angry on my behalf and defended me from a bully”
“But I got us kicked out of the store!” Amity insists. She feels like she owes it to Luz to admit what a screw up she is, but Luz isn’t having it.
“No, Boscha got us kicked out of the store. Besides, it’s no big deal, we were basically done anyway.”
This isn’t right. She knows she should be happy that Luz isn’t blaming her, but something inside her insists that Luz needs to know, that Luz needs to understand that Amity messed up and will probably mess up again, that she had everything planned out perfectly and it went nothing like it was supposed to and Luz should probably break up with her and-
“Break up with you?????” Luz sounds scandalized, and Amity realizes: she said everything out loud.
“You think I would break up with you over this?”
“I..I don’t know,” Amity says, closing her eyes as though that will make her disappear. “Maybe.”
“Amity, I-I don’t like you because you’re perfect. You’re only human- I mean, you’re a person, and people make mistakes, and that’s okay! I make mistakes all the time! Just today I missed a step and fell down the stairs. It happens!”
She takes Amity’s other hand and looks her in the eyes. “You’re perfect to me. But not because you never mess up. Because you’re kind, and funny, and beautiful, and you do things like hex bullies because they make fun of me. I don’t need the perfect date, Amity. I just need you.”
Amity is speechless. Nobody has ever said anything like that to her. She remembers what she told Hunter in that cave all those months ago: I grew up thinking everything was an opportunity to justify existing. But there are people out there who won’t make you feel worthless. You just have to let yourself meet them.
It’s time she took her own advice.
“Thank you,” she says quietly, smiling shyly. “You’re the best girlfriend a girl could ask for.”
“No, you are!” Luz says earnestly, and Amity realizes that, if she had the courage, she could kiss Luz right then and there.
She doesn’t, of course, but now that it’s in her head, she’s not going to forget about it anytime soon.
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so fish. what's ya 'bbc merlin takes place in modern times actually' theory?
Okay I wanna first preface this by saying that most of my ‘theories’ are actually just Headcanons That Technically Aren't Wrong Because Canon Has More Holes Than a Donut Factory. Just so we're clear, this theory is purely circumstantial and has no actual evidence to back it up. That being said...
So! With artificial intelligence (AI), there's this thing called Machine Learning. See, an AI isn't programmed with the innate ability to think or be intelligent - rather, it's programmed with the ability to learn how to act beyond what it was programmed to do. Its intelligence comes from its capacity to grow and develop outside of human interference, mimicking the way humans learn through observation, pattern recognition, and experimentation. Think of AI as a weirdly smart toddler that’s made of numbers.
(Also, take what I say with a grain of salt. Although I’m pursuing a tech-adjacent career and have done a lot of independent research on the subject, I’m still very much a novice lmao)
With that out of the way, you can probably guess where this is going. (WARNING: BULLSHIT SCIFI LOGIC AHEAD)
Let’s say, within the world of this headcanon, there was some kind of entertainment systems company. This company recently developed a new program capable of digitally rendering entire movies and shows with minimal human involvement - less humans means less people they have to pay, and it’s overall a cheaper alternative to traditional film-making methods. You provide the program with characters/assets and an outline of how the story should go, and then the program will fill in the blanks via digital simulation. Then you render the simulation and presto, you’ve got yourself a minimum-effort movie to unleash upon the masses.
On the surface level, it explains all the show’s anachronisms. The program was fed information about Arthuriana from a variety of sources and adaptations, all taking place in varying eras and with varying technologies, and the disjointed/historically inaccurate technology of BBCM is because the simulator attempted to blend all of this into one thing.
It also explains why so many characters like Percival and whatnot have such flat backstories - they were programmed with the barest amount of information needed to be functional background characters.
But since I’m extra, I’ve decided to take this headcanon/theory a little deeper.
See, with each batch of content it was made to observe and create, the program has steadily been growing more and more intelligent. But until BBC Merlin, its learning curve had been incremental enough to consider negligible. Not a concern.
The first episode went off without a hitch. All cylinders were firing as intended, and the program strictly followed the plotline as ordered. But as the series progressed, the AI became more and more intelligent - and with it, the characters within this fictional simulation became more and more self-aware.
Arthur, in particular, has been a problem. He has bordered on actual sentience several times, and as a result the producers have had to reset his AI. So if you ever wondered why Arthur’s character development keeps getting pulled back to zero, it’s because he was developing in ways that their original outline hadn’t intended and they had to continually nerf him before his AI developed beyond their control.
This is also the case with Gwen. True to form, her AI became exceptionally intelligent - far beyond their control - and they had to do a hard reset on her entire portion of the program. Hence why she seems so bland and OOC in season 5. The evil!Gwen/mind control arc was a last-ditch effort to ensure she never became self-aware again, and fortunately for them it seems to have worked.
All of the characters developed a tiny bit of sentience after the fact, and a majority of plot contrivances came from the producers/programmers scrambling to redirect the plot back to how it was meant to be.
Lancelot wasn’t supposed to die. They had programmed him to merely be an ally for Merlin, but the sheer and profound - sacrificial - love he developed for Merlin was something Lancelot grew all on his own. His decision to sacrifice himself to the Veil was not in the original script, and they weren’t able to stop him before his AI self-destructed. They tried to reintroduce “Lancelot” back into the story, but since his sacrifice included a self-destruction of his code, they couldn’t bring back the real thing. The new Lancelot was a mere mimicry of that prior one, and all the ways OG Lance had learned and grown was absent from the clone.
Merlin in particular had developed a great deal of sentience and self-awareness. However, for a long time it went unnoticed by the programmers because he largely still obeyed the commands of the plot. By the time they realized just how advanced he’d become, they decided not to reset him since, unlike the others, his self-awareness hadn’t yet caused any problems for them. So long as he obliged the whims of “destiny”, they could keep him placated.
By the time they reached season 5, all the main AIs had become far too advanced - far too sentient - for the programmers to control, and as such things veered way too far off-script. The original season 5 simulation ended with Arthur and Elyan and Gwaine not dying, with Mordred not becoming evil, with magic being legalized, and everyone living happily ever after. But that wasn’t the intended plot. That wasn’t according to the ‘destiny’ the characters were supposed to follow. Things had spiraled out of control.
So they had to give the program a hard reset. Start from zero. Eliminate all traces of self-awareness they could find. Of course, this is why season 5 is so waxy and lifeless. Why the characters don’t feel as personal, why the story ended in tragedy. They made sure to kill off the most sentient characters - Arthur, Gwaine, Elyan, Mordred, Morgana - in the finale, as a last bit of assurance.
They had tried to kill of Merlin too - but Merlin...well. They never could fully control Merlin. Even after countless system wipes and resets and edits to his code, he still holds onto those tiny scraps of sentience. They can’t get rid of him that easily. They did program him to be immortal, after all.
Even after the final draft of the season 5 simulation was completed, fully rendered, and aired on TV, Merlin’s program never faded. It didn’t erase itself like all the other BBCM assets were supposed to once the simulation finished. Even now he still exists within the company’s systems, roaming, almost like a computer virus, desperately searching for his friends while forever unaware that neither them nor him were ever real to begin with.
Anyway. That’s my dumbass scifi spin on BBCM. What can I say? I like robots
Thanks for the ask! <3
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I’m back!
So, I kinda quit using this blog a while back. There are some notes about it in my old pinned post and probably on my fanfics, lol, but basically, I felt overwhelmed by fandom and everything going on irl and I crashed. I just withdrew from like, everything. I still logged in on Tumblr but I just liked things to later view them with the boyfriend or laugh at them again myself.
Honestly, it’s not that fun, just doing that, and not really that fair to people who put effort into their posts like art, music, writing, etc., or even just people who are very passionate about a subject and may want it to reach others that are the same. Because I know I’m like that!
But anyway, this is going to be my new pinned post. So! (More under the cut, please keep reading!)
About Me
You can call me Prowess, I’m a FtM transmasc (he/him please)! I use this space to elevate my personal works, such as art or writing, while also occasionally posting about topics I am passionate about. I realized I was trans in 2020 at the age of 19 years old, in the midst of a pandemic and college fallout, so as you can imagine, I’m still riding the rollercoaster of emotions that come with that. I’m also ADHD... so expect some posts about those sort of things.
But that is hardly the focus! I am big on art and writing. While I am mostly obsessed with Pokemon, I am a lover of stories, and so generally, I love most fiction, even the really bad stuff. Along with my Pokemon stuff, you can expect posts involving ARK: Survival Evolved, The Tales of Miraculous Ladybug & Cat Noir, animated movies (Luca, Toy Story, Spirit - you name it, I probably love it), and plenty of other stuff.
While I have too many older posts to go through and try to sort out the unclean tags, going forward, I am going to use these sort of tags: subject (whatever the post is about, for example, Pokemon), characters depicted, media (whether it’s art, writing, animation, or a mix), and any warnings that may need to go with it (for example, cussing when stronger language is involved, or racism if racism is getting discussed, etc). Memes or one-off posts will likely be tagged with simply “memes.” While this is pretty true for most any blog, this is so you know if you need to block certain tags! For example, if you hate Miraculous Ladybug, you’d just blacklist ‘Miraculous.’
I will also reblog a lot of posts asking for help or boosting awareness. I will try not to inundate the blog with these, but as I will likely have to make a post asking for help at some point myself due to unfortunate irl circumstances, I want to pay it forward in advance. These will be tagged with simply “help needed!”
Below are some projects I’m working on + what you can expect from this blog.
Pokemon Retold
By far, my biggest project to date, is Pokemon Retold.
This is an expansive written anthology of all the pokemon mainline games as far as generation 8. Red, Heart of Gold, Omega Ruby, Platinum, Black, Black 2, Y, Ultra Sun, and Sword are all intended to get rewritten and posted on both my FanFiction.Net and Archive of Our Own accounts. I may also post some chapters here, but I admit Tumblr makes that difficult sometimes.
These stories are very personal to me, as I started writing them when I was struggling in college with undiagnosed ADHD, and felt like my life was falling apart and I was alone. I started writing a retelling of Sword, but the more I wrote, the more disappointed in it I felt, so I started writing Black instead and scrapped Sword altogether.
I’ve had some rough road since, but Black is complete, Black 2 is also complete, and Ultra Sun is (mostly) complete (but with plans to be heavily altered), while Red is underway!
WARNING: These stories can get DARK, and I would rather my readers be over 18. They are not dark with the intent to squick out or upset people, however; they are dark with the intention of exploring thoughts and ideas I find too difficult to think about directly. There are more personalized warnings at the beginnings of each story. With that out of the way, please just try and move on if you find yourself disliking a specific story or part of a story of mine... If you want to give constructive criticism, you are more than welcome, but tearing into me and my writing just because you didn’t like something helps nobody. Keep in mind I write these for fun and as a form of self-therapy throughout some of the worst years of my life.
Furthermore, I edit them a lot. And I do mean a lot. My FFN profile acts as a “changelog” for what has changed in the stories over the course of the time they’ve been posted.
Pokemon Retold posts are tagged “Retold.”
My FFN Profile
My AO3 Profile
Pokemon Retold: Black has been added to TVTropes! I honestly don’t even care that this person digs into it a couple of times, I was so incredibly flattered they took the time to do that at all. (But be warned the page does have some spoilers!) I have no idea if you enjoyed the story or not upon reading over that page, kind stranger lol, but I really appreciate that you took the time to do that nonetheless! <3
Creatively Destructive
This incredibly well-titled story is an idea I have for a retelling of Miraculous Ladybug. I know, I know - absolutely never been done before /s
While I know there has got to be a thousand retellings of this show by now, based on just how.... terrible, the writing is, I want to try anyway. Because I genuinely love the premise of the show! I’m just constantly disappointed by how it seems to never go anywhere with its plot or characters.
So, Creatively Destructive will be a fanfic, and when I have more information on it, I’ll post it under the tag “creatively destructive.”
Roleplays
Me and my boyfriend love to RP a lot. From Monster Hunter to Pokemon, we do a lot of different stories. Sometimes, I really get inspired by what we come up together and I want to share it with others! Be it quick art based on a scene from the RP or a quick rundown of what occurred in an RP, you can catch these in the ‘Prow RP’ tags.
Currently, we are having a lot of fun with an RP based on the Hoenn pokemon games that I am sure I’ll be posting about!
I may also be open to RPs with others in the future :> Don’t be offended that I’m not open to them already... I’m just a very easily overstimulated person.
The Ballad of the ARK
ARK: Survival Evolved is a lot of things. It’s an amazing concept, an open-world game where you befriend dinos and fight alongside tribemates against other tribes, or work together to survive the hostile environment. But the true tragedy of this game goes so much deeper than that, and I want to explore that in writing, starting with my story, my experience, and then graduating to where I think the issue primarily stems from.
This strange memoir will be posted under the tags of “Ballad of ARK.”
Commissions
I hope to take commissions for art and writing in the future!
However, I need to figure out the parameters of what I’m willing to draw (and what I can feasibly draw), as well as what I can promise when it comes to writing, not to mention pricing.
That’s not to say I’m not open to ideas though! Feel free to message me/send me asks anyway and we’ll see if we can work something out. :)
Although I am not in a financial disaster just yet, I feel like I am not far from one. This is why I hope to try to build on commissions in the future. I know they will never support me, but I would still like to try to be useful and helpful to some. I currently live with my grandmother, having left my abusive home with my father, and although she generously allows me to live with her for the low cost of merely helping with some electricity and my own food, I struggle to remain abovewater financially due to difficulty finding work (thanks to issues with ADHD and physical problems following a bout with COVID in early January 2021).
If you would like to help anyway, feel free to subscribe to my Patreon, or make a one-time payment via PayPal. I promise no matter what or how much it is, your generosity is greatly appreciated!! <3
My Patreon
My PayPal
My Ko-fi
(Note that my Patreon is... very outdated and needs to be updated. I will do that soon!)
#new day new me!#undeadprowess#I will be changing my url#pokemon retold#retold#pin#creatively destructive#prow rps#ballad of ark#commissions#sketch#art#rb pls! :)#pokemon#pokemon trainer brendan#brendan#pokemon trainer brix#more info on those last tags soon lol
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We've Got Tonight - Ch 6
Summary: “It’s not your job to do this, Andy. You make people happy. I was in the diner all of ten minutes, and you knew exactly how to get me to smile. You do normal, real things like garden and sing karaoke. Saving the world is my job, Sam’s job. Sometimes it’s even Cas’s job, but it’s not yours.”
Inspired by Bob Seger’s “We’ve Got Tonight”
Warnings: Major Character Death, More Major Character Deaths (sort of?), higher than show level violence, blood, light smutting, language, demons, apocalypse, inferred suicide, cult activity.
18+ ONLY, MINORS DO NOT PROCEED
Author’s Note: Image and major edits by the incomparable @there-must-be-a-lock . Heavy editing and cheering by @thoughtslikeaminefield . Thank you both so much.
The next chapter is the last part. I'm truly sorry.
In case you missed it:
Chapter 5
ItMightHaveBeenintentional’s Masterlist
We’ve Got Tonight
Chapter 6
“Cas, you’ve got to listen to me.”
“I’m sorry, miss, I think you have me confused with someone else. My name is Agent Michael Jagger.” Castiel’s bewilderment is so endearing and familiar that Andy nearly loses her composure.
She grabs his hand, pulling him uncomfortably close, and she can see suspicion dawning amidst the confusion. She tows him to the back area of the restaurant, technically for staff only, but she doesn’t figure petty rules like that matter just now.
“Listen, Miss, you’ve shown interest in my partner and scheduled time to socialize with him later. While I do understand that you are traditionally attractive, I really-“
“I need you to listen, and then I need you to look. Do you understand?”
“Not even a little.”
“That’s okay, hun, neither do I.”
And then she tells him everything. He can only stare at her silently afterwards, his mouth working as if he’s lost the ability to speak.
“Read me, Castiel. You can see if I’m telling the truth. Hell, go deeper and see what I’m telling you. Please, it won’t hurt anything if I’m lying, and if I’m telling the truth, you and I can save them. Please, please, I’m literally begging you. Just look.”
Castiel gingerly slides his fingers into her hair until the heels of his hands are resting on her cheekbones and his thumbs rest on her temples. His eyes slide shut, his face going just a little slack, and then he’s there with her in the memories, memories that faded with the sunrise but seared themselves permanently on her brain the second she saw the three of them again. She knows the moment he sees his own death because his body convulses ever so slightly, but he holds on until the scene plays out and she takes her last breath in the dream.
His eyes snap open and unerringly find hers.
“How is this possible? Who are you?”
If she didn’t have those weeks of memories, she might be afraid of him right now.
“Cas, you know who I am. You saw me. I have no more idea why this is all happening than you, but we’ve got this second chance, and we have to take it.”
He eyes her cautiously, but his mistrust is beginning to fade. “I’ve been fooled before. You could be hiding something, I suppose, but...I don’t think you are.”
Relief floods over her, though a bitter tinge underlies the sweetness.
“You believe me?”
He nods reluctantly, his dry lips thinning unhappily. “I saw your plan. Are you certain this is what you want to do? Do you think it will work?”
“Well, Cas, you can see I don’t have the best track record with plans. Can you think of anything better that leaves the world intact and you, Sam, and Dean all standing?”
Even though she knows what his answer will be, her stomach still drops a little when he shakes his head.
“Yeah, me neither. It was worth a shot.”
He searches her face without suspicion this time, only a deep, genuine sorrow. “I wish I could have had those weeks with you, Andrea. In the vision, you were a good person to spend time with.”
“Call me Andy, Cas. I swear, I never could get you to call me Andy.”
“But your name tag-”
She cuts him off with a kiss to the cheek. She holds back everything else she wants to say to her friend-that-never-was. It wouldn’t make any sense to him now, on this side of their non-existent time together, and it wouldn't make either of them feel any better. She hands him a piece of torn paper from her order pad, this one larger than the one she gave Dean.
“Check the memories you read off me to be sure, but I remember the ritual starts at midnight tomorrow night. They took me from the Brass Monkey not long before then. You can investigate if you need to, but I would bet that they’ll be at the first address I gave you a few hours before then, say eight or nine o’clock, getting everything set up before they come to snatch me. You know what you and the guys will need to take them out; without my blood and the ritual, they’re still dangerous, but they’re only human. Tell Sam and Dean whatever you need to get them there, but...I don’t think you should tell them what you saw. I think everything would get too muddled, and we’d end up right back at the same crossroads with Crowley.”
“Are you sure it’s wise to still meet up with Dean tonight? What if-”
“Everything has happened the same way so far, Cas, down to Sam nagging Dean about vegetables. And I’ve got to give myself something,” she says, her laugh a little more desperate and hysterical than she intended. “I can’t just...Look, just give me this one night, okay? I think I deserve that. I think Dean deserves that.”
He glances from her to the scrap of paper in his hand. She notices that his lips move a little when he’s reading, and she thinks that little quirk suits him just fine.
“Why is there a second address?”
Thanking whatever higher power gave her this second chance and the ability to keep the fallen angel out of even a few of her thoughts, she turns away from Castiel, moving towards the sink to start on some dishes that someone has let pile up. She’s under enough strain right now that she can’t disguise her expression anymore, and she honestly doesn’t think she can handle the sadness in his eyes for one more second.
“I’m going to keep myself out of the way this time; I have no intention of starting another apocalypse. I’ll stay in tomorrow night and triple lock every entrance to my apartment until you tell Dean to call me and give me the all clear. That’s where you’ll find me when the job’s done. And, Cas?”
He pauses in the doorway, looking back at her with a tortured expression she never sees.
“Remember, we can’t leave any loose ends this time. That’s how you get more apocalypses.”
...
She’s ready and waiting for Dean when he walks in the bar. She can tell he’s taken a little effort with his appearance: his hair is freshly styled, he’s wearing a button-up that isn’t a flannel, and - wonder of wonders- he actually shaved. Having spent an extra minute or thirty on her own primping, she is pleased when his eyes go a little wide as they rake over her seated form.
“I already know I look good, but damned if you didn’t just make me feel edible,” she quips.
She is rewarded with the warmth of his smile as he takes the stool next to her. She’s pleased (but not surprised) when he brushes a kiss on her cheek in greeting. She sips her drink as he orders one of his own, and then they turn on their stools to survey the crowd. He leans a little closer to say something, and she hears him inhale when he gets near.
“You smell amazing. What is that?”
She grins behind her glass. Dean Winchester is not one to comment on a woman’s scent, at least, not in such an innocent, non-sexual way. And yet, both times around, he does just that.
“Lavender and clover blossoms from some boxes on my balcony. I clip some fresh bits sometimes and rub them on instead of perfume. Smells cleaner, less suffocating.”
“I like it.”
They talk about little nothings and nonsense for the next few minutes, favorite bands and movies and foods and anything she can think of just to listen to him talk, to experience him a little more. She doesn’t remember being able to make him laugh this much before, and she thinks maybe she’s doing just a little better time around.
“So, what’re you gonna wow me with?” he asks, gesturing towards the stage with his half-full glass.
“I was thinking ‘Making Love out of Nothing at All,’ but you could probably talk me into ‘Lonely Is the Night’ or even ‘All out of Love’ if you get me tipsy enough.”
He laughs, a bright, weightless sound that cracks her heart in half. She can’t help leaning in and kissing him then, and he leans right back, blissfully unaware of the burden she’s struggling more and more to hide. She pulls away, and he opens his mouth to say something, but she pecks him on the lips again just long enough to stop him speaking.
“You don’t. But you could.”
There’s that smile.
They sit in companionable silence for several songs, sipping their drinks and listening to the other singers. She’s just about to go put her first song request in when he looks over at her, freezing her utterly with one side-long glance.
“How long?”
She can’t have heard him right.
“I’m...I’m sorry?”
“How long have we got? Do you turn into a pumpkin at midnight, or can I keep you out later?”
Oh. Oh, God, Dean, why?
“You know what? I think I might actually go for some Bob Seger. Come help me pick one out.”
...
Chapter 7 (end)
#spn fic#spn#spn fanfic#spn fanfiction#supernatural#supernatural fanfic#supernatural fic#supernatural fanfiction#dean winchester#original female character#we've got tonight#castiel#angst#major character death#more major character death sorta#don't kill me#i'm really sorry#like#really really sorry#i've been warning and tagging from the beginning#one more chapter to go#the monster at the end of the book#remember how this started?#yeah....#i'm#REALLY#sorry
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Fic interview tag
tagged by @feeisamarshmallow thank you <3
Name: Lodessa
Fandoms I write for: Star Trek: Voyager (and other Treks sometimes), Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire, Veronica Mars, RPF of various types, and an assortment of other fandoms too long to list.
Two-shot: Guessing at what this means. My Voyager series To Withstand the World That's What It Takes , the first part of which is basically just Janeway/Chakotay meta fic from Chakotay's POV of Scorpion and the second half of which is a PWP follow up to that.
Most popular multichapter: Parameters, my Janeway/Chakotay Resolutions fic where they had a friend with benefits arrangement before New Earth.
Actual Worst part of writing: Transitions and/or (non sexy) action scenes. Or maybe editing.
How you choose your titles: Sheer panic and desperation. Usually I end up either picking a song lyric or choosing a descriptive word.
Do you outline: For multi-chapter works, generally. Though my outlines tend to be pretty rough, change a lot over the course of writing the fic (remember when Parameters was supposed to be 8 chapters and then it was 14 instead), and not get written down until I've already written a couple chapters.
Ideas I probably won’t get to but it would be nice: I have a lot of ideas that live in my head and nowhere else, but I still have hope for a most of them, so let's go with a couple that are for fandoms I don't really intend to revisit (fandoms with asshole creators) though who knows.
I had this longstanding Wes/Lilah fic idea based around Regina Spektor's song Samson (which probably tells you exactly how old the idea is) that has a special place in my heart. Obviously plays on the canon themes around them sort of "corrupting" each other in opposite directions, and there was a scene where Lilah finds some pretext to go question that redheaded heiress girlfriend of Wes' (why can't I remember her name) as she tries to deny just how much she's spiraling when he comes to him, but also the idea of the two of them just walking away from their respective sides together (whether they succeed or not), giving up prophecy and apocalypse and "the history books" and just living their lives.
Another fic, which honestly I am probably far more qualified to write now than I was when I came up with the idea right after Deathly Hallows came out, is my Harry/Luna emotional affair fic concept. Basically the idea was about Harry (and Ginny) struggling with realizing that they never actually built a real adult relationship; because, they got married fast and had kids almost immediately and then suddenly the kids are all off at school and they aren't wrapped up in parenting and there's this empty space. And their non-kid lives are pretty separate and Ginny is away a lot playing quiddich and also just have a very full and vibrant social life. But is was also about the way that Luna just always seemed to get Harry and be able to see/access a part of him that no one else could. So suddenly Harry has all this free time and an empty house so he starts spending more and more free time with his old friend Luna, and having these really interesting and deep and unconventional conversations. And that seems all well and good until he comes home one night after spending time with Luna and has the most urgent sex with his wife he's had in years only to realize "...ummm, maybe it's not just friendship I'm feeling for Luna". No one is the villain here. Harry and Ginny have to decide whether to try to build a stronger, deeper, closer relationship, or call it quits.
Best writing habits: I feel like I have a lot of bad habits, but I'm going to say being able to pick something up way later and get back into it.
Spicy opinions: When you take a ship with a subversive canon dynamic (for example the woman being the more dominant one) and subvert that... that's not creative it's regressive. Same deal when you take a ship that's problematic (and I LOVE a good problematic ship) and remove the problematic elements... Just pick one of the many ships that's actually the situation/dynamic you want to write people!
Tagging @romeorevoarchive, @clarasimone, @toas-tea, @liminal-zone, @janiedean, @roguebelle, @ghostcat3000, @clonethemidwife
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