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yesistolethisurl · 2 months

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Chapters: 1/1

Fandom: Baldur's Gate (Video Games)

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Characters: Tav, Original Male Character, Scleritas Fel, The Dark Urge

Additional Tags: Tav and the Dark Urge are separate characters, Vertigo Symptoms, Implied Cannibalism, Imprisonment, Captivity, Memory Loss, Nail Injury, Disturbing Themes, Warning: The Dark Urge, The Dark Urge does not appear but their presence is felt, no beta we die like my honor run, Tiefling Tav, Wizard Tav, BG3FicFeb, Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, Loose interpretation of 5e rules

Summary:

A man awakens in a cell with a splitting headache, acute vertigo, and no memory of who he is. This is, unfortunately, not the worst part of his tenday.

"What was Tav doing when they were abducted?"

Stale, musty air coated his tongue and clung to his face as the man felt consciousness come back to him. Vertigo still spun his vision, but he pushed himself to sit up. Dug his fingers into the rags he had been sleeping on, still damp with sweat.

Deep breaths, he told himself. One, two, three, four.

Hold, two, three, four.

Out, two, three, four.

Deep breaths, then move.

Focus came more readily to him as he opened his eyes. Beyond the cell bars, torch light shimmered off an assortment of jars and flasks that lined the opposite wall. In front of them, a table of some kind, with strips of leather folded neatly on it. Tucked away in the corner beyond, a sparse desk. A quill in a drying ink pot its only decoration.

His own cell was even more stripped back. A pile of rags that he was now sitting on, and a bucket that didn’t seem to have been emptied for some time. No windows were visible, but next to the desk, a doorframe peaked out of the shadows.

The man stilled, listened.

There were footsteps, a faint rumble of conversation, then fading off into nothingness.

The man called out, then flinched. He tried again, and a croaking, wheezing, thing answered instead. Once more, shouting this time, and no words would come from him. He gripped the bars and shook them, rattling the iron.

Help me, he thought. I’m in here, please help me.

A deep breath, and then another cry, bouncing off of the stone. Thought would not connect to tongue. He collapsed forward, palms smacking against the floor.

The vertigo was back. Cold sweat crawled down his neck. The room swung around him counterclockwise before resetting, then turning again, again, again.

The man lowered himself back onto the rags, biting back a self-pitying groan. No patter of footsteps reached him, no whispers from the other side of the door. Only the occasional crackle and pop from the torches filled the air. He shivered, wishing he could take one down from the wall and warm his hands.

He closed his eyes, and the spinning slowed. He saw no point fighting sleep, the strength he’d mustered melting away. The sound of the torches snapping and crackling, like patrolling guardsmen calling to each other in the dark, faded into the background.

Someone must have lit them, the man thought. Someone would be back to light them again.

Sleep proved to be a temporary balm. He didn’t know how long it had been, but his awakening had been heralded by a needle-fingered pain, at first taping, then prodding, then gripping its knuckles through his skull.

He pressed his forehead against the floor, stone grinding against his horns. The undercurrent that had been spinning the room earlier had graduated to a riptide, pulling him along in whichever direction it deemed fit. The man tried to swear, growling in frustration at the word-gunk that came out instead. He clutched at his rag bed, and begged his lungs to breathe.

One, two, three four.

The room lurched in a new direction.

Hold, two, three, four.

The needle-fingers turned to a vice.

Out, two, three, four—

It was like a synapse snapped back into place. The man gasped, eyes watering. The pain relinquished it’s grip, fingers dragging in lingering shivers down the nape of his neck and along his jaw. The rotation of the room slowed, not unlike a millstone grinding to a halt. The man rubbed his eyes and looked around. Details that had evaded him earlier now readily presented themselves. His bed was not simply rags, but the remains of shirts, trousers, blouses. No level of quality or sizing seemed to unite them, other than their present condition. Scraggly, shredded golden brocade lay together with rough spun gray in the same heap. Possibly the same material as his threadbare tunic. The smell of stale sweat clung to it all.

His hand came away tacky and grime covered as he brush some strands of hair from his face. His hair was shorter than it should have been, his beard patchy and unevenly trimmed. What was most startling, though, was the state of his claws; cracked and caked with dried blood, they’d been shorn down to the finger, almost to the nail bed in some places. On the wall next to him, scratched in lines marred the rock, all at seemingly random lengths and orientations. He pressed his hand against the wall, his own blunted claws visible in what dim light there was. Traced every single line, the repetition of the ritual settling easily into the muscles in his fingers.

Keys rattled in the dark, and the man turned in time to see the wooden door sliding shut, then stopping. The one who had entered was almost goblin-esque in stature, perhaps a bit taller than average. His shoulders were slopped forward, setting his posture at curve, hands held behind his back. His livery was shredded and restitched in various places, a mangled and sleeveless overcoat draped over him, the outfit completed by a feathered top hat wreathed by what could be mistaken for a snakes skeleton. Torchlight flickered against his gaunt features, showing the cracks in the chalk white of his face.

The steward caught his gaze, sneering, before slamming the door shut. He flinched, and the creature made a hacking sound that he realized was amusement. He’d never heard so much venom in a giggle.

“Do you still not care for your slop?” the steward said. “The masters rules are not optional, wretch. You either eat, or you starve.”

He watched the creature work for a minute, meticulously wiping dust away from some of the jars lining the wall. The liquid inside them clouded, obscuring the specimens within. The man gathered himself, then spoke.

“Who is your master?”

The steward stopped and turned back to him, dropping his grin.

“Who do you serve? I'm assuming they're the owner of this laboratory?”

The steward didn’t respond, only creeping closer to his cell, beholding the man like he might lash out. He could see now that “gaunt” had been a generous descriptor. There was hardly a spare inch of skin on the creature’s face that wasn’t hewn against bone, save for around his mouth, where dead skin had begun to peel away. He clapped suddenly, then snapped several times, as if to see if the man would flinch again.

“Gracious me,” the steward murmured as he turned away. “Gracious, gracious me. To have dared to doubt the master’s brilliance, oh, even for a second. So much to do, scalpels to blunt, bindings to sharpen, so much to do!”

“Wait, please. I don't know why I'm even in here. Have I done something? Was there some sort of trouble?”

The steward turned back to him, something foul and vicious twinkling in his eyes.

“I dare say there has been trouble, and you're in the thick of it. But not to worry, dear fellow, for the Master will enlighten you to your purpose here. And then the game shall begin again.”

The man gripped the iron bars of his enclosure.

“Why not start the game again now? You and me.”

“Oh, but I would not dream of denying my master the pleasure! And it would hardly be sporting. Why, you’ve scarcely recovered enough of your brainmatter to retain your previous title.”

“What title? What are you talking about?” The steward didn’t respond, simply picking up a rag as he began to polish one of the many flasks on the back wall again. “At least tell me your name, or my name. Give me something to go off of,” the man called out.

“Oh, I'm certain it will come back to you in time. Best enjoy your meal while you think on it. A hungry mind can only do so much thinking before it begins to eat itself.”

The steward blew out the torches before he left. No prodding, pleading, or fawning had won the creature over. His loyalty was at least commendable. Whatever master he served, the steward was adamant that they be the one to answer the man’s questions. His attempt at a threat had only earned him another malicious titter before the steward slammed the door shut, keys rattling all the while.

The man’s tail curled and un-curled, flicking in irritation. Too many questions swam in his head, too many unknown variables. He’d been here long enough for the steward mock him with some sense of familiarity, but how long? And where, where was he? A compound? A fortress? A prison? The constant sound of dripping water and the damp stillness of the air suggested it was somewhere underground, but beyond that? And the steward knew something of him, a title, his title, he’d had one. Gone with all other sense of memory, no anchor beyond this wretched cell, no name, nothing and no one—-

Deep breaths, the man told himself. Deep breaths.

The steward had made one good point; the gnawing feeling in his stomach was effecting more than just his physical capabilities. He hadn’t thought to give the bucket more than a cursory glance when he…came back to consciousness? He wasn’t certain how to describe what had happened, but his mind felt clearer for it. Or at least it had, before hunger made itself impossible to ignore.

It did beg the question, though; if that bucket had been for his meals, what exactly had he been using as a privy?

The man chose not to dwell on it, and pulled the bucket closer. A wooden spoon sat limply inside, sticking out of some great, big lump of…something. Even with his heightened sense of vision in the dark, it was difficult to distinguish what exactly was in the bucket. It smelled of rotten cabbage and mud. Certainly something organic, then.

He jostled the lump with the spoon, gagging at the renewed smell. Had he eaten any of this? He couldn't have for a while, if the pain in his gut was any indication.

He poked at the mass, turning it over.

Molars.

Three gray and yellow molars, still attached to a fleshy segment of jawbone. The middle glinted, a gold cap still clinging to the crown.

The bucket hit the wall with a loud ‘thunk’ as he shoved it away, covering his mouth and nose with both hands, as if it could protect him from the contents. The man pressed himself into the corner, rattling the cell partition.

He looked down at his bed of rags and repressed the urge to retch.

He wasn’t certain how long it was until he pried his hands away from his mouth. His breathing still wouldn’t slow, wouldn’t slow, wouldn’t calm down, gods above and below—

The man threw himself against the bars and shook them with all of his might. He howled and begged, please, dear gods, I’m here, I’m here, don’t leave me in here, please. His voice finally giving out after what felt like hours, but what must’ve been mere minutes. The drips of water, and the occasional scuttle of rodents feet were his only reply.

He knelt, pressing his head against the bars, spent. The room began to tilt as he caught his breath, the sense of some numbing fog hanging at the edge of his senses. Something clinked against his knee, and his fumbling hand reached out for it.

A small, straight splinter of iron that must have chipped off of the gate. Too small to use in the lock, but as a component it could—

Component.

Spell components.

Hands shaking, the man set the splinter down as gently as he could. He cupped his hands together through the bars.

“Fiat lux,” he whispered.

Blue flame sprung into hands, at first small, then rising to the size of a flamebolt before settling. A soothing warmth swelled with the flame, the scents of the room more muted now. He held the flame close as he could, only surrendering it to lie down when his eyelids began to droop and his focus began to fade.

In his sleep addled state, he could imagine the various hands that had passed over the scraps he now lay on, wondered if their previous owners had had any inkling of where their clothing would end up. Whether they’d been granted ignorance, or had been his forbearers in this cell.

The man’s hand tightened into a fist. Pressed the sliver of iron into the meat of it. If this “master” had wished so badly to play some game with him, they should have cut out his tongue first.

At the rattle of keys at the door, the man shoved a fist full of rags over his scratched in writings in the stone. No more time for calculations. The plan would move forward.

The steward staggered in, eyes downcast as he snapped his fingers to light the rooms torches. All of the care he’d put toward the containers lining the shelf had seemingly evaporated overnight, as he grabbed one haphazardly and swilled down it’s contents.

“Well? You have anything to say for yourself?” he slurred towards the cell.

The man blinked at him uncomprehendingly and grunted. The creature stared before his face twisted in rage, and flung the flask at him. Glass shattered against the cell door, scattering in every direction.

“Mongrel. A pox on you. A pox upon this day, and all that follow,” he spat, grabbing two more and plopping himself down at his desk. Through the liquid, the man could see swollen shapes squish against the glass. The man watched him, rolling the sliver between his fingers. He had been planning to lure the creature over, but perhaps he could preserve his strength a little longer. The man brushed what glass he could away from his rag pile, and lay back down.

With his back turned, he could hear the steward sniffling piteously, the occasional weeping muffled against the desk. He flexed his hand into a fist, relaxed, flexed. Patience.

The man loosened his posture, kept his breathing soft and steady, until the steward began to snore, slumped over his desk.

He crept close to the cell door, and stretched his arm through the bars.

“Veni et iuva me,” he whispered.

A spectral blue hand appeared in the empty space. When the steward did not stir, he motioned for it to get closer. He could see the ring of keys, sitting tidily under the steward’s waistcoat.

He inched the hand closer, meticulously untying the knot that held them in place.

In a second, the keys began to droop. The man twisted his wrist, and the hand snatched them before they could hit the floor. His heart was hammering in his ears, twisting in his gut. The man recalled the mage hand, and the apparition snapped back too quickly, hitting the cage door.

The keyring clattered against the iron.

He froze, eyes locked on the figure at the desk.

The steward snorted in his sleep, then resettled.

Hands shaking, the man took the key ring from the hand before dismissing it, then lay them down on one half of the rags. He raised the other up, exposing the ritual circle he’d carved. He murmured an incantation, and the cell, the steward, and the rest of the room was rendered completely still.

Ten minutes. Ten minutes of silence, if he could stretch it. Ten minutes to complete his work.

He felt the lock grind open and gave the door a cautious push. It scrapped in deep grooves against the floor, but made no noise. The man stood, took a deep breath, and then moved.

No surgical tools, nor any other implements were in the room, despite the stewards instructions to himself. Not even a pen knife for the desk. He could see now that both the desk and table were stained with a rusted brown, even as the stewards spittle added to the mixture. The steward let out a silent hiccup, hat tilting ever so slightly off of his head.

The man pictured running back to the cell, fashioning a shiv from the glass and the rags, ending this loathsome creature here and now.

The wooden door unlocked, swinging easily on the hinges. Quicker to lock the steward in here, at least for now. If it came to that…well, then it would have come to that. He gave the steward a final look, then snapped the door shut behind him. Eight minutes remained.

The smells of the laboratory were, blessedly, fainter once the man was outside of it, though not completely absent. Indeed, the air seemed more humid out here than in his cell. Veins of water seeped out from between the stone, leaving puddles in the crags of the hallway. The torches in the hall sputtered, struggling to stay lit with the extra moisture in the air.

Underground it was, then. But underground where? For all he knew, he may as well have been locked in some section of the Undermountain. The man moved carefully, testing the rock underfoot occasionally for any vents or pressure plates. With his luck, he probably was.

The hallway turned and twisted, but never once split. The man could feel the Silence spell still hold, despite however far he’d walked. Five minutes left.

As he crept along the wall, the man felt something bump into to his shoulder. He looked to the wall, the same pattern of stone and brick mixing together. He pressed his hand to it. In the same instance that he felt the brick outline of a door frame, the illusion came apart. A crude iron door with a small, barred window now stood before him. He looked in, half expecting to see another poor soul in a cell. Instead, there was a rust stained work bench laden with various items, arranged in a row.

The man went for the key ring, but to his surprise, the door creaked open with the faintest nudge. The steward must’ve been too drunk to remember to lock up. Beyond the arrangement, the objects on the table didn’t seem to have much in common. A weathered napsack. A purple drawstring pouch, faintly smelling of fire quartz and balsam. The paw of a rabbit, or rabbit-like creature affixed to a small pewter chain. An old robe and boots, haphazardly patched together. At the end of the table, scattered pages interrupted the neat arrangement, ripped out a stained tome, whipped around in every direction and spilling onto the floor.

The man gathered some of the fallen pages up, then paused. Whoever had torn this tome apart had only gone after the back half of the book. Not that it’s author had been much tidier. Just looking at a spare scroll for a firebolt spell, the script was slanted, ink splotches staining the surrounding paper, as if written in a hurry. He gathered the pages together in the tome, felt the heft in it in his hands. He’d held this book before.

He looked back to the other items on the table. Had they all been his, or were they an amalgamation of trophies?

A door screeched on it’s hinges in the distance. No time for guesswork, he’d spent too much time here as it was. The man swept the remaining items into the sack, foisting it over his shoulder. Two minutes. The silence still held, he could feel it. Had the steward awoken anyways? Another door jutted out, the frame wider than any he’d seen yet. Beyond it he could here whispers. He slowed to a crouch, listening around the corner. Two voices, masculine, upper city from the accents.

“Be quick about it. Lady Orin wants this place cleared before any of the Banite’s men come sweeping in,” the elder speaker said.

“You think they knew about this place?”

“From the way the mistress told it, there wasn’t anything the fallen one wouldn’t have surrendered to him.”

A pause, the sound of tools twisting against miniscule gears. The place was trapped, then.

“Was it true, then? That the previous chosen was, um. Of favored heritage?”

“For all of the good that it did. And Lady Orin is “of favored heritage,” so learn to bite your tongue, novice,” the elder snapped.

The man pressed an ear closer to the door, brows furrowed. Patriars did as patriars pleased, usually gracelessly, but what would one want with him? Had one of their number decided that they didn’t play with the lives of their neighbors enough? And ‘chosen,’ chosen for what? Something that would put them at odds with Bane worshipers, evidently. Of all the gods who could be arrayed against the Black Hand, to approve of a ‘chosen’ setting up shop down here…

A sickening chill settled into him. Humanoid sacrifice was outlawed, even with the city’s permissive policy towards religious tolerance. Putting a citizen of Baldur's Gate to death, even in the name of a god, was still a capital offence.

That hadn’t stopped certain patriars from trying to get away with it.

The click of a lever, the stretching of fiber.

The sound of a crossbow being loaded.

“Mind yourself,” the elder voice said. “There could still be those loyal to the fallen hiding here.”

Thirty seconds left on the Silence. The man snatched the tome from his bag, praying that the incantation he needed was there. His finger stopped over the page near exactly.

The door creaked open.

In that moment, the iron splinter slipped from his grasp.

“Wait. Did you hear—”

The man slammed his hand down on the iron. “Non movere!”

Spectral, blue chains danced around the men, and a skin of arcane energy froze over their bodies, leaving the two locked in a twinned look of astonishment.

No time to celebrate. The man shot past them, the snarls behind gritted teeth following him. Within seconds, he felt the spell slip from pure distance. Pain gripped his limbs, his lungs ached. He could swear he could hear three enraged voices behind him now. Even slicked with moisture, the cobblestone ground against his bare feet. The walls and floor blended together now, dashing and darting forward, ever forward.

A metal ladder stuck out of the darkness so abruptly, the man had to keep from running into it. He grasped the farthest rung he could and started up, two rungs, four rungs, six rungs, getting closer every second.

Something thudded into his shoulder. Warm wetness trickled down his arm as it began lose its feeling. The man looked down, saw the fletched end of a crossbow bolt sticking out of him. Saw the one who had fired it. The younger of the pair was scrambling up. Even armored, he was gaining on him now. The man locked his legs and elbows around the ladder rungs.

“Fulgur!” he screamed.

Electricity coursed through him, every nerve ending in him set ablaze, his jaw locked so tightly he feared his teeth would crack. He heard the younger man howl, then go silent as a metallic clang hit the stone below.

Burning nerves warred with the wave of numbness that was now spreading through his chest. The man pealed his hands off where they’d near melded themselves to the metal, pulling himself up and up until he reach a metal covering overhead, the plate refusing to budge. Forward, forward, forward was all that mattered. The cover gave way, finally, and he clawed his way higher, up and out.

Lantern light dappled cobble stone streets in the distance, while cool, stone walls encircled the street around him. A back alley, then, probably lower city. No light decorated the windows above, but the stars, the air, gods, how sweet the air was.

No time for that now. The man shoved the manhole cover back into place, then dragged a barrel full of trash from the alley corner on top of it. The sounds of drunken slurring and enraged sobriety echoed against the stone, melding into a single cacophonous melody. Even at this elevation, the smells of Grey Harbour wafted over him. By the nine, he never thought he could miss the smells of rotting fish so.

The man looked up, then looked again in disbelief. The stars were gone. Not covered by clouds, but something else, some vast shape of darkness moving to cover the stars, one by one. An alien groan filled the air, and the shape began to unfurl. Began to reach downward.

He tried to run, force his legs to move faster as every muscle of his body burned and cried out from disuse. Something slammed into his back, and a thousand prickling pins shot through the mans nerves before turning to a swaddling numbness. He felt himself fall, landing against some slick surface, and then fell into unconsciousness.

“Tell me; who are you?”

#bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #bg3 spoilers #bg3 tav #bg3 oc #scleritas fel #bg3 fanfic #BG3FicFeb #my writing #baby's first published fic!#I only completed one prompt out of this challenge but I'm still proud I actually finished something #Atavian Katabast

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jomamaofficial · 3 years

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You should have said something pt.10 (Bakugou x fem!Reader)

A/N: Ello there besties, thank you for being patient with me. Thank you so much for your lovely comments and I’m so glad you guys can feel the sadness, pain and frustration from my writing, it’s all I have ever wanted. Edit: Part 11 TW: Domestic Abuse, Knives and Nooses. Masterlist Tags: @spicy-therapist-mom @speedmetalqueen @silentw-lkr @loki-an-idiot @clickbait-official @captainchrisstan @kamalymaly @idk-sam @runrabbitrun3 @power-house-fan12

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“I’m home Ei.”

Eijiro slowly tilted towards him. His hero, his everything, his lover seemed so distant now. It didn’t matter that Suki spent the day and the night at his place. Eijiro was foolish to think that it was fine.

It was suffocating to be near the same man he could kiss for hours without ever pulling away.

“Ei…” Katsuki faltered in his steps, lingering beside the door frame.

“What’s wrong Ei?” he edged on, prying in his lover’s eyes, trying to get an answer.

“Did you get hurt? Did something happen on duty?”

Kastuki was on the verge of getting desperate, ready to leave his things on the floor and get a response out of the silent man looking ever so slightly at him.

Eijiro shuffled underneath his sheets, chewing on his lips, looking anywhere except for him. The golden rays peaked through. Katsuki’s blonde locks were glowing a halo behind his head, the light highlighting his well-trained arms casting a warm shadow on their bedroom floors. He looked like an angel from heaven, strong and righteous.

Looks can be deceiving though. A hero he was indeed… but not for everyone.

His angel was killing someone, day by day.

The same man who locked his lips with Ei’s and told him he loved him was using those very lips to berate you and tear you down. It didn’t matter even if it was to the point where you couldn’t find support to build it back again. His words twisted everything because he was never wrong. He could never be wrong. It was all you and everyone believed it.

Suki, Ei’s angel would caress his lover’s face in the night and pull him close with the very hands he made your blood run cold with.

Sobs. That’s all he heard from your mouth. Broken breaths and whimpers. It was all a façade, that smiling when your husband touched him the way he was meant to touch you.

“I’m not hurt.” Eijiro paused to look at him, his heart aching at the sight of his hero. His heart ached because he wasn’t a hero to you, he was the villain.

“But I know they are, Y/N.” Eijiro held a breath, averting his gaze from Katsuki’s building rage. He wasn’t scared. At least he wasn’t as scared as you would be if you saw his knuckles white from clenching them, the smell of smoke wafting from his hands.

“You have one minute to explain yourself, Eijiro.”

Wincing at his own boyfriend wasn’t a proud moment for the one and only Red Riot. Eijiro… He let out a scoff, a bitter grin resting on his face.

I’m Eijiro to him now.

“They made dinner for us, Suki. They did all that even when you fucking came in the door, called them a bitch and kissed me in front of their eyes.”

There it was, that blank face again. He wasn’t angry, he was genuinely confused as to why Eijiro was sputtering all this out, guilt swelling his throat.

“I can’t do this anymore Katsuki. I can’t be the reason for why Y/N…” He tapered off, his emotions overpowering his words. He didn’t even want to look at Katsuki because he knew, he knew he wouldn’t understand. He knew he’d be disappointed and Eijiro couldn’t bear seeing anything but love and care in his eyes.

“Take your stuff, please” his tears felt cool on his skin, “we can’t see each other anymore.”

“Are you breaking up with me?” Katsuki yelled, his neck straining, veins painfully visible.

Kirishima bit down on his lips, his head throbbing as he fought the tears back.

“I’m sorry…” His sniffles were the last thing Bakugou wanted to hear.

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softpine · 4 years

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editing evolution tag by @hallucinosims (you didn’t name it so i did sjdks) cracks knuckles lets get into it

1. april 2018

can we talk about how i didn’t know how to use light leaks so i literally just took a brush and colored the corner yellow???? no blur or anything just yellow blob. 4/10 because this was my first post, but i had eyeballs

2. june 2018

i discovered reshade.............. and clearly knew how to use it very well. 5/10 again bc i was learning

3. january 2019

WHO LET ME DO THIS???? this legit hurts my eyes. i am so sorry. -1000/10

4. march 2019

i tried something new here.... but it just looks like pure chaos and you can’t even tell what’s happening. 7/10 for effort

5. april 2019

i thought this post was BOMB. i loved it sm. i still love the coloring, but the mxao is so dark and it all just looks a little... idk crispy? but i’m giving myself extra points for this scene setting because hello??? imagine getting all this shit on your bday. cara is the best 8/10.

6. may 2019

the framing? A+. everything else?..... i don’t wanna talk about it.... WHY is it shaded like that? it’s so yellow? i can’t tell if i tried to draw the shadows myself or like... IDK 4/10 i knew better than this

7. june 2019

i was very very very proud of that blue light from her phone... but this looks so crispy and.... just dark in a bad way... like i know it’s nighttime but why are the shadows Like That... 7/10 for trying out a new effect

8. november 2019

i um.................... drew hair....... can’t you tell? doesn’t it look like hair? BYE i hate that i did that for their WEDDING... 2/10 never take risks when the stakes are this high

9. february 2020

holy shit that lighting. i know green tint is my Thing now but uhh... 4/10 someone should’ve told me

10. april 2020

i had big plans for this post... i wanted it to look like he was laying in the rain for a while, i tried drawing hair (see november 2019...) and i tried making his clothes look wet but after 3 whole ass real hours i finally threw in the towel and slapped a rain overlay on... i have regrets. but i made those poses myself from scratch so that’s cool. 3/10 could’ve been so good :(

okay sorry for this huge post jksjds this was really fun!! it was so hard for me not to include pics that i’m still proud of today (like cara being born, i still stand by those posts and they were from july 2018) and i’m sure i’ll look back at what i’m doing right now and be like what.... so yeah lmao always keep trying new things!!

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youarejesting · 4 years

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Quarantine.22

[Masterlist] Pairing: BTS x reader Friends2Lovers But as slow as you can go until the anticipation kills us all… Genres: friendship, drama, romance SLOWEST OF BURNS BUT IT WILL BE BURNING AN ETERNAL FLAME!!! Rating: PG-13 and above Summary: Your brother works with a few BigHit dance teams and whilst having permission to accompany him at work the city shuts down banning anyone from stepping outside for a whole WEEK while they disinfect the streets. If you step outside you might get arrested, shot or poisoned by the chemicals they are emitting through the city. Words: 1.k Announcement: I again haven’t edited this yet I tried to look at the other one and tried to fix a few obvious mistakes but I really hate looking back on my work haha only forward. This chapter is dedicated to @seesawsmin-flower who left some really funny and positive gifs on my last chapter. Things are actually going down these next chapters so prepare yourself or perish.

[Part 1] [Part 21] [Part 23] [Tag Yourself Here]

Once you were certain that Myunghee was safe until morning you suited up and raced back to the health clinic. The doctor was unpacking and repacking your bag, explaining what you should do to help Jungkook when you see him. You were watching him, it was strange after the boys had broke you down it was like all the color had been stripped from the world and you were in a black and white universe, but slowly the colors were returning. After helping deliver your new goddaughter Choonhee, the world appeared to have tiny flecks of color if you concentrated hard enough.

“Are you listening?” The doctor asked looking at your face, you couldn’t help hugging him. He had done so much for you and you were truly grateful. “Are you okay?” “Thank you Doctor Chang Min-Jun, for everything, You helped me so much” “I am not dying” he laughed awkwardly patting your back and started explaining the steps again.

He sent you off with a pat on the head and a smile, he didn’t know what had changed your demeanor but he wasn’t going to question it. Taking off on the bike you headed through the city wishing to feel the wind in your hair but unable because of the suits. You radioed your position to the BigHit building before you took the turn onto the street and began speeding towards the entrance.

Passing dark shadowed figures in the street who started yelling and radioing. Thankfully they had opened the glass door covering their faces as you rode in on the motorized scooter pulling the wagon behind.

You stripped out of the suit and looked at them, they seemed tired it was almost three in the morning and there was still another hour before the sun rose. “Where is he?” Speaking entirely in Korean had them shocked and you had to stifle a smile. They gestured to the elevator dumbstruck and you walked over the staff racing after you confused.

As the elevator doors closed you couldn’t help but stare at your reflection, it looked a little gaunt compared to a week ago. The dark circles under your eyes were not a good match for your complexion, appearing like deep bruises. You kind of wished you had taken a shower and perhaps brushed through your hair, but you reminded yourself you were beautiful and unique and you don’t need to impress anyone. Because if you want someone to truly like you for who you were, it wasn’t about playing a role and changing for them it was about being yourself and being accepted.

The doors opened and you headed into the hall your feet already leading you to the BTS meeting room only to find it empty, the staff were confused. It was a strange pull in your chest, an inkling or dare you say, hope that pulled you back to the elevator and press the button for the basement. The doors closed on the staff and you headed down until you reached the familiar white corridor.

The fluorescent lights are a cool tone and the slight burn your eyes as you step out into the hallway, you head along feet feeling heavy. Biting your lip nervously, what were you supposed to say, how would they act you weren’t sure. “Just act professional, you can do this, this is your job”

Before you could even grab the door handle you heard them talking, “Jungkook is still in the shower, should we get him out?” If you said you didn’t miss RM’s voice you would be lying, even laced with worry, it was still deep and smooth and eloquent as you remember.

“It is probably best to leave him be, the cold water is numbing his shoulder” Seokjin sighed, he sounded tired the complex nuances in his voice were too hard for you to decipher without seeing his expressions.

You knew you should definitely go in there and announce your arrival but you just didn’t instead you turned to the bathroom and stepped inside, walking down the line of stalls until you reached the shower cubicle. Quickly peeking to see if he was naked before you barged in. Jungkook was standing there in his dark jeans under the jets of cold water, his fingernails and lips had turned blue and his body was shivering. “Jungkook, are you okay? I have some morphine, it will help your shoulder” you whispered and he turned looking down at you through wet bangs, he looked like he was on the verge of tears.

Taking out your things you started prepping the morphine the doctor gave you one small bottle which would be equivalent to two doses so you gave him exactly one dose. He looked at you and you smiled at him trying not to appear nervous but he held your free hand and ran his thumb over the knuckles. You took a deep breath and did exactly what the doctor had taught you in your advanced first aid. Doctor Chang had been super nice even when you blew two of the veins in the back of his hand and on in his inner elbow before you got it correct. He didn’t wince and the vein didn’t balloon so you took that as a positive sign.

“You should feel it start to work within two minutes and it should peak at twenty, if by any chance you fee-” He pushed you against the tiled wall under the rain of the freezing cold shower. His lips pressed to yours, you shivered against him, trying to warm him up by wrapping your arms against him. As much as you told yourself to stop him, you thought perhaps this was how he was coping with the stress and if it kept him calm while the medication started working you were happy to assist him. Kissing Jungkook was like you were floating it was like an underwater paradise and you were completely submerged by the emotion he was revealing to you. He rolled his hip forward moaning quietly into your mouth and your eyes flew open, you were suppose to be professional. Not kissing your patients. You gently moved him back careful of his arm.

“Jungkook, we have to get you dressed so I can take you back to the clinic and have your shoulder fixed” You walked into the nearby stall, in the bottom of your bag you always carried a spare outfit, a tip from doctor chang, in case you have any unwanted spills or fluids on your clothes. Once dressed you led him to the elevator. Again you knew you should let the boys know that you were taking Jungkook but right now, with his cold hand holding tightly to yours, he became your top priority. The elevator ride was full of awkward stares he opened and closed his mouth but was unable to form a coherent sentence. You guided him into the suit, avoiding any strain on his dislocated arm and helped him lay down in the blue wagon.

You took off out the door and up the street, you took a different escape route and headed to the clinic. You tried to make the journey as smooth and quick for Jungkook as possible. A shot fired past your ear and you swore moving faster and heading down a side street. You were glad Jungkook was in the wagon and not sitting behind you on the scooter. You couldn’t imagine him in pain, it hurt you too much.

There were more shots sounding off, none of them reaching you, but definitely in your direction, you parked quickly in the clinic garage and pulled Jungkook inside quickly.

[Part 1] [Part 21] [Part 23] [Tag Yourself Here]

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austennerdita2533 · 6 years

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Summary: Bad blood and violence seem to pop up for the Mikaelsons everywhere, but this time it shows up in the form of unhinged!amnesiac Elijah. Caroline tries to hold him off while Hayley disbands of Greta, and Klaus ushers Hope to safety. Madness ensues in the fight to keep the Nazi vampires from procuring who, and what, they desire.

Can Caroline keep a morally-corrupted Original at bay? Will Klaus be able to protect everyone he cares about? What will they gain; what may they lose? (TO 5x06 AU + Amnesiac!Villain Elijah vs. Klaroline + Angst)

**WARNING: Hayley still dies. Threats. Mild Violence**

A/N: Tagging @arrenemris and @childoftimeandmagic, because you lovelies were interested in a part 2. Here is the whole 5.2k word (edited) enchilada if you want to read it. (No pressure!)

Honestly, idk what I’ve created here...

Enjoy!

(A03) (FFnet)

xx Ashlee Bree

Everybody Bursts Into Mad Flames Sometimes

Before her stands a stranger—a stranger she once knew.

Dark hair, shaved chin. Aviator sunglasses tucked into a scooped white collar. Rugged blue jeans. Terse lips curled in impatient distaste. Two whittled fence posts peeking out from underneath too-long sleeves. A leather jacket - simple, black, no designer or brand name anything. It hangs loose from his shoulders to offset two cold, umber eyes which used to pierce the world with such sagacity, with such innate sophistication and reasonability, but now appraise everything around him with something worse than hate, or scorn, or disapproval too marked to miss: apathy.

It’s the last thing Caroline expects to see right now; he, the last person. (Especially in freaking jeans, are you kidding?) And she barely chokes down her surprise fast enough to block his path to the house which perches on a small hill behind them.

“Can I help you?” she says in half-chirp. Tilting her head to the side, she side-steps in front of him, warning him back with a sharp smile. “You look a little lost and I’m a concerned citizen willing to turn you back around.”

“Move,” the man growls.

“Now, now,” she raises her hands half in defense, half in taunting, “I know your memory’s been swiped, Elijah, (along with your entire history of familial and platonic feeling), but I thought you of all people would still bother with civilities in any diseased incarnation of yourself? There aren’t any dangling on your lips now, though, huh? Shame. A true shame.”

“I said move!”

“Wow, really? No Miss Forbes? No ‘it’s nice to see you again,’ Caroline?” She wags her finger and tuts, still shuffling her feet; still refusing to let him pass. Determined to give them more time to escape to safety. “I know my face jars something in you, faint and faded though the recollection may be given the circumstances.”

“You talk too much.”

“Hey! That’s rude,” she says tartly and pouts. “I’ve always considered you to be the only Mikaelson with any manners, but man, oh man! What a disappointment you are today, I’ve got to say.”

“Stop. Tell me where he is, where he’s taken them,” Elijah says while his knuckles whiten and his jaw ticks. His fingers curl into fists around one of the stakes, itching to strike. Stab. Silence. And he’d do it, too - oh, he wants to do it - to know how her fire and sugared spice will bubble against his teeth after a fatal bite - but he resists because she holds the missing pieces. She’s the only one here who knows how to procure what he and Antoinette still need.

“Pfft, yeah, like I’d tell you anything in your state.” Caroline laughs like the idea is preposterous. Insane. Like it’s the funniest joke in the history of the world. “I mean, I deserve at least a please for that kind of information, don’t you think? For old time’s sake and everything.”

“I’ve had enough of these idle games, Little Miss Sunshine. Where is he?” Elijah snarls again. This time with patience fraying into vein-pulsed rage and fangs descending. “WHERE!?”

Caroline’s shoulders straighten here, and her eyes burn so hot they almost hiss at him when she digs her heels into the grass to offer him a pert quirk of her mouth in opposition; her voice swapping out joviality for severity in the smoothest of transitions.

“As I said already, Señor Impolite,” she says with a click of her tongue, “I won’t reveal a single damn thing to you about your brother’s next location. Not here, not when you’re like this. Nor will I won’t inconvenience the other people you still love somewhere in that thick, muddled skull of yours by making this mission easy for you. Whatever it is. So put that on a discarded daylight ring and smoke it!” she adds with a huff and a cock of the hip.

“Fine.” A stake loosens from his sleeve. He brandishes it in his hand; twirls it like a baton on his palm. The movement is slow and practiced because whether or not he’s aware of his Original history, he’s wielded weapons like this one for centuries. “If that’s how you wish to play it.”

“Likewise.”

Elijah pauses to scratch a thumb across his jaw. Then he sniffs before he raises harsh lashes to her face,

“Take it from a man who’s wasted centuries: you will not triumph,” he says. “That man - my so-called brother - will bleed you of any goodness you possess; he’ll stifle any happiness you find, so do yourself a favor and free yourself from his tyranny now. He is not worth an ounce of your time or protection. And he never will be.”

“You’re wrong. You don’t truly believe that,” she shakes her head and sighs. “You’re so wrong I just—I don’t know how you’ll recover from all the regret and guilt that’s bound to follow once you regain your old attachments again.”

He remains impassive. Unmoved.

“Let me by, Caroline. He must pay for his crimes.”

“I said -” her teeth clench; her features darken, “- no!” A blur against the sky, she vamps across the yard to block each and every one of his advances. She shoves against his chest, swipes at his athletic kicks with her boot heels, and snaps out with her fangs like a guard dog to keep him back. Away.

“His worth is mine, and mine alone, to decide. You got that, E?” she says in an obnoxious way that mocks his new nickname pointedly, unapologetically; her veins rippling across her cheekbones for extra measure. “It’d be best for you not to forget it. You know - like, ever.”

“Well, then—” He takes a step back, his forehead pinched in mounting irritation. “I guess we have nothing further to discuss, do we?”

“Nope.”

After a shrug and a look of pity, “I’m afraid this pretty little blonde of yours has left me no choice here, Hybrid,” he announces in a loud, reverberating voice.

Elijah speaks to the air, to the clouds forming shapes over their heads, but his eyes sweep across the property. His ears prick as if they wait for his brother’s howled outcry to sound on the wind in the seething, murderous way he’d once been so accustomed to hearing, and also to preventing. There is no movement anywhere except where the sun crests over the hill, however. All the purples and oranges dancing with shadows to tint the land like a bruise. There’s no sound besides the screeching tires of a Camaro on the highway ten miles distant. There’s nothing else around besides a dirt road, a decrepit house, and a stubborn, sassy girl poised between them.

Thirty more seconds pass before Elijah’s gaze settles back over on Caroline. It’s another thirty-five seconds after that before he’s rife enough with detached predation, hunger, and resolve to act.

He levels his chin once he decides. And as he charges forward with a stake positioned for the spot where two rings dangle against her chest, above her heart, the next words to leave his throat burst forth in grave monotone,

“Time to die,” he says.

Bad blood and violence follow Klaus everywhere.

It’s a foul shadow chomping at the base of his achilles heel hoping to munch its way through to destroy all he cherishes because he’s a man forged from sin, dark magic, and bones of adaptability. A combination which shouldn’t be allowed to exist in this world unless it’s broken - purged - from the outside in with all the dominion he possesses slit from his tendons by his foes in fury. Greed. Fear. Hate. Or envy. It’s a javelined spear which spills his loved ones’ blood onto cobblestone paths or fried country grasses in red river rain because he somehow arrives too late to keep the bolt from striking, the lightning.

His worst fears flood the land as a result. Thunder rumbles overhead to plunge everyone’s lives into peril at once, pellets of hail dropping like canons. Erupting the earth to widen the crossable distance between them. The sky is a jaw full of teeth which drools something about abominations, or about purity that must crunch all twisty tornados dead in their tracks.

A storm of hell descends while he’s distracted and struggling against his enemies’ vengeance, limbs extended in four different directions; his arms flying while eyes hybridize with focus, anger, so that someone who matters is always left exposed. Vulnerable. Like a flapping thread which spools from the corner of a whirlpool.

It’s simple math for him, truth be told. It’s even simpler science. There are too many holes, and Klaus cannot defend them all on his own. It doesn’t matter how hard he tries because somebody always slips over a ledge and falls flat into physics’ grasp. Gravity claiming what he’s dropped, who he’s lost. And it’s all his fault.

His fault, his fault, his fault.

The rising tide of everyone’s screams and taken or deflected blows creates a wave of horror Klaus cannot climb over with blood-drenched hands, with slippery soles, and it makes it impossible for him to catch every person he cares for before they sink, before they drown to the bottom of a gorge he’ll never be able to breach with one arm extended. He needs more time, more time, more time. He needs more bloody time! Please.

But what happens if there isn’t any? What comes after the world fissures open with the intent to swallow up the good in everything? What then, what does one do next?

Klaus clamors, he claws his way over to them.

He packs his unconscious daughter into a car seat next to Roman and Marcel then watches the SUV disappear down the lane, its wheels screeching as it ushers two people he loves toward home and security. He turns back to the house afterwards to collect the two women he’s left idling on the estate five miles away, who each scan for more threats in his absence as they wait, only for the back door to splinter wider the closer he roams. It chips next. Before, finally, it busts open with a loud crack to shoot wood and body parts loose.

Debris launches forward with such force that his arms shield his head in reflex while he rolls to the left to avoid a collision with an airborne Hayley. A fate Klaus escapes, but barely.

He pushes up onto his elbows. When he does, the heat from her near-miss manages to singe some hairs on the back of his neck, chafing them down to stubs of red. A hammer thuds loud in his ears as he blinks in the nightmare which unfolds before him: the mother of his child sailing through the backyard tangled in rods of fire. And Greta. And a self-sacrifice too awful to believe.

It’s bloody horrifying to behold, truly.

The sunlight pours over Hayley’s skin like gasoline, and she’s suddenly a molting phoenix: red fades to orange, and orange dwindles to gray which then darkens to black. All of her life’s color draining in seconds until she’s gone. Dust. Dead.

And there Klaus is left to witness it all.

There, on a frayed patch of yard, beneath the stark midday sun, Klaus lies agape in the filth of his own making yet again. A Father of Cinders. An Usher of Ruin. The smell of Hayley's charred flesh quickly becoming another orange stink he must learn how to breathe in and out of his nostrils like flame, like ash—the crispest of all things he’s failed to save for his family’s sake.

Sure, why not add another disaster to the ever-multiplying list, he thinks? Why not shoulder all the responsibility for a tragedy from which Hope will never recover? Elijah, either, if he returns to himself someday. How can he not assume the blame for this?

His fault, his fault, his fault.

The temptation to remain crumpled on his knees right now is as potent as the bourbon Klaus needs to slick his throat, to numb the ache in his head, but a faint voice gusts into the clearing at that moment which is equal parts sonorous and soft when it chokes out defiance, strength, and fortitude into the air; and the sound causes him to scrabble to his feet with the speed of a cheetah to pursue the last hope here he knows he can’t bear to lose. Let alone whom.

Fifty paces hence takes mere seconds, but they feel like decades.

Her still-ticking pulse becomes the drumbeat each of his strides produces as he dashes to the front of the house in a blur of alarm. It’s what keeps him breathing. She’s what keeps him moving when his panic thumps so strong he grinds the enamel on his molars off clean.

The world collapses and narrows until her loudening voice is all Klaus hears, until her golden head snaps in his direction again because she’s the only thing he wants to see. She’s the balm to all his monstrosity, to his debilities, and he needs her. He needs her alive more than anything.

Still, a roar from the wolf deep in his chest is not enough to convey all the emotion he feels. There’s no lid to quiet the pain. There’s no coffin to smother it…all of that rage.

Caroline will not be torn from him, too. No, no, no. Never. Not today she won’t, not in a hundred million more lifetimes if he can prevent it. And he bloody will—

Even if it’s the last thing in this life he’s meant to do.

Dust and blood coat her slacks after some minutes of vampire vs. vampire tousling. Prone on her back with gravel stuck in her hair, Caroline fends off her attacker with another boot kick to the groin followed by a swift clonk to the jaw.

“You know, I should be pissed about how many of you asshole Mikaelsons have tried to kill me over the years, but do you know what? I’m no damsel,” she says, tumbling into a squat. “I’m not too dainty to fight back. So go on—” Her words are clipped, her breath heavy with exertion. “Go on and hit me with your best shot, you Wrangler-wearing amnesiac!”

“Interesting choice of last words.”

A stake gripped firmly in each of his fists, Elijah swings down with the right one. It rips off a small patch of her skin with her black sleeve. Since she evaded the more direct hit by wheeling to the right, however, the wound heals quickly.

Caroline laughs. It’s a taunting, corrosive sound.

“You wish those were my last words, buddy.”

“Chatter all you want, girl. But know this,” he says in a tone as equally dispassionate as it is menacing,“I’ll still kill you to help my family dispose of the Mikaelsons’ mixed blood. We will rid the world of their plague one way or another.”

“God, will you listen to yourself right now!?”

Using her shoulders as leverage, Caroline pushes up to slug him across the face for a second time. Elijah spits blood from the corner of his mouth after the blow knocks him backwards. Still standing, however, his jaw taut, he looms forward again in seconds.

“Those people are not your family,” she says. “You’re freaking brainwashed!”

“No. What I am is free.”

“Great. So you’re deluded, too, apparently. That’s freaking fantastic,” Caroline grumbles. Scooting upwards onto her elbows, she strikes out at his ankle with her heel but misses it by inches.

“Luckily for me, your family’s long range psychosis (your real family, I mean) is well-worn and likely to flare every now and again, so I’m used to this kind of thing. I’m stronger because of it. Smarter, too,” she adds as her fingers coil beneath her. Looking up, her lips twitch before she hurls a handful of gravel into Elijah’s face without warning.

Even though he blocks most of it with his forearms, some of the rubble stings his eyes long enough for her to lurch for one of his weapons, which she promptly deposits into his gut. The action drops him to his knees in momentary agony, cursing.

“That may be so,” he grunts, his tongue licking over his mouth roughly, “but I’m afraid even with all that expertise, and despite all of your self-proclaimed Mikaelson experience—”

Elijah’s quicker to recover than Caroline anticipates. He grabs her by the hair before she can flash away, throwing her against the porch railing with a loud smash.

“You’ll never be able to beat me.” It’s whispered almost like a caress. “You can’t win this fight,” he says.

“Then I suppose I’ll have to die trying, won’t I?” Caroline fires back.

“Die?” Elijah snickers. Blood - his blood - drips from the spike he’s dislodged from his ribs. He angles it at her chest again. “Oh, die you will.”

With him towering above her once more, his fangs out, sharpened with fatal purpose, he sneers as Caroline crab walks backward to the first step, which she then uses as a ledge to erect herself back onto her feet with fluid grace.

“Pardon the intrusion,” a voice cuts in at that moment with a low growl, not sorry at all, “but I wouldn’t underestimate that one if I were you. She’s made of the sweetest flames."

“And I’ll roast you for one false move, pal,” Caroline pipes in with a huff.

Squinting, Elijah regards her like she’s a cockroach.

“Death would suit you rather nicely, I think. Yes,” he hisses, “imagine the silence I’ll achieve with it soon.”

She raises her chin to fix him with a look of incredulity at this. It’s a look that, for all its azure ferocity and resistance, would impale his eyeballs to the nearest fence post if it could; but also would like to bludgeon open his head with the plume of a feather to reinstate all his emotional memories first.

“Enough!” the intruder exclaims. He grabs the Original by the shoulder at the same time Caroline rips a spoke free of the railing. “Threatening her life would be ill-advised for anyone under normal circumstances, but this…why - this is—are you bloody insane?"

“Come, come, why not watch while I suck the last visage of light from her veins? A few slurps is all it’d take to silence her forever,” Elijah says in the voice of a stranger, in the voice of an adversary. His lips curl in sinister delight. “What a lovely thought that is.”

“I said enough!” the trespasser growls again. Louder this time. Zooming closer, he’s a ball of temper and anxiety as he clutches the other man by the leather lapels.

“There are limits to the wrath I am able to contain even for you…” he draws out the last bit for emphasis, the vein in his forehead throbbing as Caroline tucks the weapon into her jacket, “brother.”

“Does this girl mean so much to you, Hybrid?” Elijah says.

In answer, Klaus hurls him like a dart at the barn doors across the yard, “Do. Not. Test. Me,” he howls.

Dropping over top of him in a flurry of color, and darkness, and fury that’s hardened his eyes into an inferno of hybrid gold, he kicks through the wreckage until he reaches Elijah’s prone form beneath a heap of crumpled lumber. He lifts him up by the throat. Then he slams his head hard against a lone standing beam, thrusting a finger into his face.

“There has been enough blood spilt here today, Elijah. Too much.”

“Tell me,” he answers with a strangled cough and a blink, “am I supposed to care?”

“Klaus, stop, you can’t talk to him. He’s wily and unhinged like this. A morally skewed prick. Just look at his dragging hems, for crying out loud!” Caroline says as she approaches from behind. “That’s proof enough he’s been mentally and magically corrupted by them.”

“Our family has been fractured beyond repair,” Klaus continues without hearing her. He looks a little crazed as he shakes his brother in place like it’ll somehow refasten those loose screws in his brain. “Hayley’s gone - the mother of my child, the woman you loved…is dead. Dead! You let her fall straight into our enemy’s lap!”

“But so help me, I will wring your wretched neck—“ His voice grows thick; heavy, and it hurts to swallow, “I will chain you inside a box (which is something I swore I’d never do to someone in this family again) before I allow you to take Caroline away, too.”

It’s in that moment, just as the sun eclipses behind a cloud to dim the atmosphere like an omen, the wind punting flower petals through the air like knives which sting when they kiss a piece of exposed skin, that Elijah’s features contort into something worse than inscrutable. They refashion, instead, into something aggressive and deranged.

“Her shrieks will sound so much more delicious to me when you fail to save her now, Hybrid,” he says. “I admit I can hardly wait for the symphony.”

“Screw you!” Caroline shouts back.

That’s when he lurches forward to grab Klaus by the elbow. With unimaginable force, he yanks. Fracturing it with a violent twist.

The action frees his two legs, which had been dangling in the air where he was tacked only seconds ago, so that he’s able to kick out at his foe’s knees. Unbalancing him enough to bite his shoulder and push backwards against his chest. Elijah nearly shirks the arm which is swinging back at him in retaliation, but not quite.

Hybrid claws catch his face even though he ducks. Like hooks, they dig and pry into his skin because he’s still within range and Klaus is livid, monstrous beyond legend; leaving cursive track marks from Elijah’s eyebrow all the way down through the white of his collarbone.

Still, the other man’s wide-arced punches leave Elijah with an advantage in the end. One carries too far to the left and exposes his side. Before Klaus can stop him, therefore, and before he can recover in time to parry the attack, he upends him with a knee that breaks his nose and reduces his vision to black dots and sprouting stars. It gives him ample time and opportunity to pin him to the ground with the loose barn beam at his feet. Piercing it through his kidney.

That’s how Elijah leaves him, too: sprawled, writhing, raging, helpless.

It’s why he turns his attentions back to Caroline with keener insight. There’s a patient but exacting grin on his lips as he lays chase again because it’s her vs. him for a moment, and there’s a fierceness blooming across her face that says ‘you’ll pay for that dearly, jerk face.’ It feeds his muscles with adrenaline; it plies his mind with rigor. He craves the rush like heroin.

For it’s here, after everything, that he truly understands Caroline won’t leave Klaus under any circumstances. For, no matter how damning the danger grows, and no matter how stacked-against the odds are in her favor, he sees she’ll leap straight into hell itself if it’ll offer her the slightest chance to reach him again.

How could he have missed this? How could he not have noticed the jewel she’s concealed behind her incessant prattle?

His worth is mine to decide, she’d said to him earlier. Mine.

Her words reverberate with too strong a connotation to demarcate their connection into anything less significant than lovers. Lovers. It makes Elijah feel like an imperceptive fool.

That’s why it doesn’t matter how her death happens now, he’s decided.

He’s realized it’s not important whether he skewers her pink flesh into shoelace peels with his teeth, or detaches her bouncing blonde head from her shoulders with the branch of a tree. It matters not if he cuts through her innards, roasts her in the sun, sucks out her sweet flames through her carotid artery, or wraps her wagging tongue around a heart that no longer beats. All that’s necessary is for her life to end here. Today. All that’s required is for Klaus to be parked in a front row seat, powerless and wretched because he’s piked through the torso, watching—

Watching as Elijah wrenches this girl away from him irrevocably.

The thought makes the elder Original smile.

What is better retribution, after all? What could be better justice for the man who’s already tried to snuff out the love which exists between he and Antoinette? The selfish, sabotaging man. How much easier will it be to extract what they need from him afterwards? Once she’s dead.

Ah, the glory of it! The honor! Punishment for both the Hybrid’s meddling and his impurity will be much more satisfactory to achieve now that he knows the best way to inflict it—personally.

“Listen for the crescendo, will you? I believe it’s my favorite cadence of killing,” he says, glancing at Klaus over his shoulder to add drolly, “brother.”

“No more of this! No more of this, damn you!” he replies as his fingernails bruise the land where he’s still impaled.

“Klaus! Listen to me, please!”

Like a whip, Caroline’s voice cracks at the same moment gray rain begins to spit on top of them from stratus mouths. The wind gusts so hard it vibrates with staffs of yellow and blue and shatters all the remaining windows in the house. The space around them transforms into a whistling hellmouth of tension and grief, of anger and estrangement, and of terror too palpable to bear, in seconds.

And what’s worse, is that the worst of it all feels tragically possible now because Elijah’s all coup de force with shards of wood flying everywhere as his skewed morality and loyalty to the wrong family helps to move his feet like a rabid beast’s. Meanwhile, Caroline’s zooming forward through a fang-bared maze and cycloning storm with eyes that scream out, then pour into the beam stuck in Klaus’ back almost in elegy.

The inflamed blue of her eyes drenches his soul in any number of ways, because what if he can’t shatter this obstacle soon? What if he doesn’t…what if she…how can he not save her? How?

Leaping over Klaus’ arms at that moment, she flashes away with Elijah on her haunches. Then, without breaking stride, she reaches into her jacket pocket before she glances back at the prone Original long enough to demand for him to understand. Pleading for him to place faith and trust in what her words mean, “The jeans, Klaus! The freaking jeans!” she yells as she jets in front of him one last time.

“So wasteful,” Elijah says as he nearly hooks an arm around her neck in victory, “since those truly will be your last words this—”

Trip

Stab

Snap

He’s unconscious and face-first on the ground in seconds. A railing spoke from the porch jabbed between his two shoulder blades.

“I think not as much as you’ll regret being brought down by your own poor fashion choices. Compel yourself a tailor next time. I mean, really,” Caroline says over his body with a triumphant hum, cuffing up his baggy pant legs. She pops up from a crouch to take Klaus’ offered hand with a weak smile afterwards.

“That was inspired thinking on your part,” he says.

“Nah, not really. Legally Blonde obsession simply served me well today is all.”

“Elle Woods has nothing on you, love. Believe me.”

“Yeah, well, no way was your brother getting away with saying I talk too much. No man would. Besides,” she continues with a snort, “you did warn him not to underestimate me.”

“That I did.”

After they tie Elijah to a tree out of sight with the vervain chains in her trunk, intent on keeping him subdued until their non-Hollow’d reinforcements arrived to take him away, they amble back toward the house.

“Thanks for the tripping assist, by the way,” Caroline says.

Shrugging, Klaus slinks an arm around her waist like it belongs there, “It was the least I could do.”

“Come on, teamwork suits us. Don’t deny it,” she says with a bump of her hip.

“I’m not.”

“What’s wrong?” she asks suspiciously, her heightened senses on red alert again because of his abstract demeanor. “Is there another—”

“No,” he cuts in, his thumb hooking more firmly into her belt loop, “it’s nothing.”

Caroline rolls her eyes at his flat, disgruntled tone, at the way he sighs before disappearing into the enigmatic labyrinth of his mind where she can’t follow, so she stops them on a seared patch of sidewalk. Then crosses her arms.

“Look, I know me being the one to stab him wasn’t ideal,” she says, feeling his growing intensity, “but with the beam already starting to splinter in your back like that, I knew if I ran him close enough you’d be able to topple him so I could—”

Klaus shuts her up with a kiss.

The timing of it is bad. (Couldn’t be worse, really.) It’s totally inappropriate considering how fraught the past twenty minutes have been with the threat of magic and wolf-binding, with a rescue of innocents that’s succeeded but still reeks of flesh and bloodshed, of muck, and of family wreckage that will never be able to be repaired because it’s been ripped off the hinges. It’s burnt to shreds with a house and a barn that’s no longer standing upright.

There’s so much to discuss, too. There are so many decisions to be made about what to do next…

Hayley? Hope? Elijah? New Orleans?

Do they collect the girl’s ashes before they leave; and if so, in what? How will Hope react once she awakes? What all did Roman know about this? Can they find a witch/Marcel team to fix Elijah’s mind, or is it hopeless to try now that so much of him has been magically reconditioned? Should she call Bonnie, or would that cross some kind of line? And, like, could the sky stop weeping blood already because - Mikaelson curse or not - who the hell needs all this staining and stickiness on their designer clothes?

…And on and on and on the questions flow!

The biggest problem now, though, is that Klaus’ kiss is so hot and crushing with feeling that it’s halted the million-and-a-half thoughts buzzing through Caroline’s head which still need solving. She’s too distracted, too lost to the sweet but scraping taste of his tongue in her mouth.

He makes love to her lips in a way no one but an artist knows how. There’s an array of color, meticulousness, delicacy, and swooping claim to be laid down on her wherever she allows him to paint with his kisses. And before she knows it, before she can locate her sense of rationality long enough to steady her pulse again and stop this, her fingers are burying themselves into the curls at the nape of his neck to draw him closer, and closer; the giant butterfly flip in her stomach telling her only one thing:

Screw it. Let the questions wait for awhile.

So she does.

They do.

#klaroline #klaroline drabbles #klaroline fanfiction #half agony half hope #hopefully elijah doesn't feel too OOC #but my aim was to show he's morally skewed rn #and to allude to how/why #re: i tried #i got in some omniscient POV too #woot!#ashlee bree's writing endeavors

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fxngsfxgarty · 7 years

Text

jughead-centric writing practice

out of practice. trying again. not edited, word-dump. tagged and left here anyway. cw: death talk, finale spoilers, general angsty BS

character: jughead jones time: post-season canon-compliant?: yes

Jughead hasn’t seen the north side of Sweetwater River in weeks. Riverdale High, little more now to him than another maze of white walls and dirty floor tiles. No different to South Side, except at South Side, people seem to actually care what his name is, what his story is. People don’t fear the Serpents here; they live and work alongside them, and don’t cross the street to avoid them. Rather, Jug finds, when he walks as one of them, people make a point to notice. To say hi, to smile. The boys at school actually want to sit at his table. One of them has developed a frankly irritating habit of snatching his hat just to ruffle his hair. He has to reach up to someone taller than him and jump to grab it back at least once a day. He considers not wearing it any more. But they’d never do more than take it, laugh and give it back. They’re afraid to.

He is, after all, FP’s son, through and through. They can all see it, in the gazes and glares that bring to mind the near-identical ones of his father. Even Jughead himself can see FP in his own reflection. Before South Side, he’d never noticed it. Or perhaps he’d just never looked too long. Becoming his father frightens him, though that’s one of the things he’d never admit. He may wear the brand of his people, and spend his evenings in a bar he should never be allowed into, riding on the coattails of the Jones name and legacy. But he doesn’t want to be FP.

FP Jones may not have killed someone, but he lied for a killer. Protected a murderer. Cleaned up someone else’s messes, and landed himself a couple of piled-up long sentences in jail for his trouble. Jughead still wishes he’d found out why, why his father chose to do something that, in a small town like Riverdale, was bound to get uncovered eventually. Mysteries don’t live long in small towns. Let alone a murder, a coverup story, a body in a freezer and then a lake. Jason Blossom’s murder was a mystery always fated to be solved, to be told as a warning for future generations.

But Jughead stopped writing about it long ago. He stopped writing about everything. His laptop lies mostly untouched under his bed in the foster family’s house, Words documents untouched since FP’s arrest and incarceration, or even before. There’s nothing more to write about Jason Blossom. He is dead. Cliff Blossom is dead. Thornhill is a shell, if he believes what the whispers say. Dead trees, dry grass, surrounding a burnt-out husk of a troubled home now burned to the ground. Another mystery - they say nobody knows who did it. The remaining Blossoms - Cheryl, Penelope, old Nana Rose - don’t breathe a word. But, anyone who lives a spell in Riverdale knows, mysteries don’t live long in small towns.

Riverdale, as Jughead knew it, is dead.

Everything he thought he knew. His friends, his classes, the familiar, dead school halls draped and painted in the blue and gold he’d grown up around. Even his relationship with Betty, beautiful, smart, passionate Betty, who’d told him she loved him and kissed him for real, for the first time, all at once. Dead and gone, she hasn’t spoken to him in weeks. Ever since that night in the trailer, when she’d watched him shrug on the weight of the snake embroidery his father had borne before him, she’d been acting off. Uncomfortable, like every moment she spent around him only made her more willing to leave. The last thing he remembered her saying to him was “I don’t know you any more, Juggie. And that makes me afraid.”

He’d never meant to make her fear him. He’d honestly never imagined she could, or that anyone could. Used to growing up in the shadows and fearing others, it was unfamiliar, alien, to think he could incite fear in anyone. And that, alone, shook him almost to the core. The thought that people could ever be afraid of the boy he still saw when he looked in the mirror made no sense, because all he saw were childlike curls and eyes as full of fear as always. He didn’t know what he was afraid of any more, but that fearful look never went away. The Serpents had started to comment on it, in the lightest ways they knew. A nudge to his shoulder as he stood in the doorway of a bar he never should have been near, the teasing “you look like you’ve seen a ghost” comments he got…

Ghosts. Why did everything come back to the constant, overhanging thought of death? Ever since the Blossom murder, death had clung to Riverdale, to Jughead, like cigarette smoke to his hair and his favourite sweaters. The bar was always full of smoke - the Serpents would chain-smoke indoors like it was nothing, and the air seemed constantly thick with tobacco and worse, different smells that Jughead had no interest in investigating. No amount of cycling through all the settings on the washer could really get that ingrained smoke out of his clothes. He didn’t know if he’d ever get used to it always being there. Just another thing to get used to in this weird new way of living.

He couldn’t say he missed Riverdale. Life had been monotonous to the point of pain up until Jason’s disappearance and subsequent death. It had been morbid to even consider the thought of a murder as livening the place up a bit. That was why he’d never said it out loud.

And considering that, not days after he’d left, another murder had taken place, he was real glad sometimes he’d never said that out loud. Archie would have found a way, in his grief, to turn an offhand comment into an attack. Jug could hear him now, spitting the words back, making them sound twisted, as though he’d really had the conversation he’d imagined a hundred times, with his once-best friend in a sanitary, bleach-white corridor.

In reality, he hadn’t been to the hospital at all.

Had missed the funeral, too. Too afraid to see them all again, after he’d left, and stopped returning their calls, and in response, they’d simply ceased to try.

Night after night, in the Serpents’ bar, Jughead waited with his phone in hand, typing out messages and letting his thumb hover over the send button, before backspacing them all and exiting conversations and waiting for contact that never came. He’d gotten so used to pulling away

and being chased that he’d never imagined they’d just… stop chasing.

It hurt, but he couldn’t allow it to hurt. It was just a shame the aching inside tended to hang around longer than the blood on his knuckles.

It had never stayed long in Riverdale. Now he couldn’t make it go away.

#riverdale #jughead jones #jughead #rd #riverdale fic #writing #creative writing #writing practice #writing task #angst #jj #rywrites

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