#human beings who have probably been through all kinds of shit and have some unhealthy coping mechanisms/communication habits/behaviors like
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To Hug a Porcupine
A/N: I remember getting so much hate and having to go through so many conversations about how much of a walking red flag I am literally with everyone I know and love. I know a lot of us can relate, and we get along so well with those who tolerate us so much, it’s so unhealthy. Let this story be a homage to those who have been so patient with us, and love us so dearly despite it being so difficult. The metaphor is just so beautiful and I can’t help but reflect!
PAIRING | Sim Jaeyun (Jake) x reader
WC | 3.2k (again, wth Alice?)
GENRE | angst, fluff, everything’s sfw y’all is it even me if it’s not?
WARNINGS | explicit language (pardon my French, I can’t help it) mentions of sex, alcohol consumption, attachment issues, and all that teen angst
SYNOPSIS | You’re hard to love. That’s it. That’s the plot.
—
“That’s it?” he breathed, “two years worth of my life and you’re going to throw it all away because “you can’t take it anymore”?”
Looking around the field you finally pluck up the courage to nod.
“Yes.”
It was about 10 more seconds before he picked up his backpack and left you sitting on the bleachers by yourself. It was the first break up of your life and you thought it would be more eventful, tearful, and painful, but the reality was that it was pretty straightforward and simple. Maybe it was the build up you’ve been feeling for a while, or maybe this wasn’t the kind of love you thought would have you begging on your knees. He was your first boyfriend and you thought that this break up would feel a lot more meaningful than this.
You stay there alone for a while.
“So how did it go?” you finally feel the presence and warmth of a human being. “Did he cry? Oh my god please don’t tell me he cried.”
“No, Jake he did not cry.”
You moved from where you sat making room for him and his huge gym bag. Judging from his wet hair and pink cheeks, he probably just got out of football practice and just couldn’t wait to hear the news from you.
“Man, I wish I could have made it on time before he left. The guy could have used some comforting.”
You snorted, “You didn’t even like him that much.”
“Because he was totally jealous of me! He even asked you to avoid me at one point. He didn’t deserve you.”
“I actually think that it was me who didn’t really deserve him,” you countered albeit reluctantly, “Jay was a good guy.”
Jake could only nod slowly.
“And besides, it was me who woke up one day and realized I just didn’t like him anymore.”
You sighed, getting lost in your thoughts trying to dig deep into your feelings to get an answer as to why you did not feel an ounce of regret or longing for any comforting yourself. It wasn’t every day you get to break up with your first boyfriend after all.
Jake knew exactly why though. He’s been your best friend since childhood and witnessed you grow into the woman that you are now. The extrinsic changes were present and evident, but he knew who you were deep inside so everything you ever did or every decision you’ve ever made was still somewhat predictable to him. He will never tell you that, but you were hard to love, not because you were a bad person or because you treated others like shit. But because you were so fiercely loyal, strongly assertive, and undeniably rational. You wore your emotions up your sleeve but never put up with other people’s shit. This was especially because you had the patience of a driver stuck in rush hour traffic, and had absolutely no tolerance whatsoever.
You were a walking red flag and even you knew it. And for some “unknown” pathetic reason, Jake tolerates you anyway.
The very reasons why you were hard to love are the same reasons why it’s easy to fall head over heels for you.
You looked at him, and he looked at you. You both smiled when he said, “Let’s get outta here.”
—
You were now in college and you’d think that the break ups would get harder over time because you learn to understand and feel for others even more. They do still get a little difficult, especially with how invested people become when they fall in love. However, as you grew, things got a lot more complicated and the more that you’ve been pouring your feelings onto someone else, the thinner your patience got as time passed and it became easier, a lot less regretful for you to leave someone behind.
“Heeseung told me you broke up with him.” Jake sat next to you on the couch as you mindlessly flipped through the Netflix shows you and him saved to watch together over the summer.
You shrugged, still tapping on the remote.
“Yeah, it was only a few months in, I didn’t think it was a big deal and— hey!!”
He snatched the remote away and you were forced to face him. He looked at you with piercing eyes. Like, he had been angry with you before but you always hated having to confront him with these things.
“Y/N, seriously. Tell me what happened.”
You sighed, rolling your eyes and finally caving in only because you thought that he would never let it go, and you wanted to watch your movie.
“Things got too serious too fast. You know how easily overwhelmed I get.”
“What did he do to overwhelm you?”
“He told me that he loved me.”
You both paused. Jake witnessed the many boys that went after you but none of them had ever dropped the L-word knowing the kind of girl that you are. This was foreign territory for him too, but now that he knows what your reaction would be when someone tells you that for the first time, he suddenly felt the need to be more cautious, to be more careful of the things he might end up saying.
“Oh.” he finally spoke.
“I told you it was overwhelming.” you muttered, stealing back the remote from him.
That night, he didn’t feel the need to pry even more. It was enough for him to know how sensitive you were about being told that you were loved. Nonetheless, he felt a small ache in his heart knowing that someone beat him to it.
—
It was the night after graduation and instead of rejoicing over the milestone and celebrating with your friends and family, you were crying on the rooftop, burying your face into your arms as you wept. It was the first time you ever cried over a boy this hard, and you didn’t think it would hurt this bad.
You heard footsteps nearby and a familiar warmth surrounded you. Jake cradled you in his arms and rubbed your sides as you continued to hide your face from the cold night air.
“He said I was controlling and that I had too much of a chokehold on him,” you broke down, “he said that he felt like he was losing himself through the course of our relationship and that he allowed me to make all the decisions for us way too much.”
“There, there. It’s not your fault.” he whispered, “you did your best to love him in a way that you thought he wanted to be loved.”
“No, Jake, just no!” you lifted your head up and Jake swore that he heard his heart crack at the sight of your tears. “I loved him in my own way. I loved him because that’s how I wanted to love! It wasn’t how he wanted to be loved!”
Jake felt the urge to just get up and punch Beomgyu, the boy who made you cry, in the face and make him regret that he ever broke your heart. However, he didn’t find it in him to argue, so he pulled your head onto his chest and let you cry and cry. This time, he finally witnessed you fall hard and actually admit it, and it awoke something in him. He was always on the fence about how he felt because you were best friends, but this time it’s decided.
Sadly, he knew you weren’t in the right headspace. He knew he wasn’t ready. He will tell you when he’s ready.
—
“You ghosted him?!” Jake put his beer down firm and loud, it made your dog jump in surprise. Poor Cookie.
“He was getting clingy, and you know that that can’t be for someone who’s struggling to obtain a law degree. School’s demanding, you know that.”
You took a sip of your own beer nonchalantly.
So this was boy number four for you. Soobin.
Okay, maybe number five because you couldn’t stand the guy you hooked up with twice a year back. Yeonjun was great, but he was also a law student and all you ever talked about after sex were your professors, subjects, and just law school in general. It was like sleeping with a coworker and you didn’t want that.
“Soooo… you don’t like nice guys, you don’t like guys who say I love you too quickly, you don’t like it when they don’t allow you take control, but hate it when you have too much control.” he took a deep breath and continued, “you don’t like clingy, but you don’t like distant either.”
God he sounded like one of your classmates reciting important provisions, it almost gave you a headache.
“I can’t help but be myself.”
“You’re so hard to love.” he groaned.
Letting out a squeaky laugh you sang, “You love me anywaaaaayyy~!” and moved closer to him.
Jake choked on his beer and looked at you with panicked eyes. He knew that you were just playing and didn’t mean it in a way that’s past the boundary of being friendly. Well in your case, best-friendly. Still it made his heart skip a beat.
You lift your feet up to fold your knees and made yourself comfortable on the couch next to him. It was always weird that you never felt any tension between you and Jake despite being so close to each other. You had nearly maximum skinship and spent more than half of your lives together and yet the relationship between you two was always tiptoeing the lines between romantic and just friends. It was the perfect trope, however, you knew Jake so well and loved him despite his lack of bitches and possession of so much negative rizz.
He was so undeniably attractive yet never opened up to you about any girl. You always thought that maybe he was just picky but as the years passed you couldn’t help but wonder if he’s being too invested in you or is spending way too much time on you. Just the thought of those things being the reasons why he might not be getting any girlfriends made you cringe.
“It feels like hugging a porcupine.” he suddenly felt so confident in lecturing you.
“Hmm?”
“Like hugging a porcupine. You know, loving someone that’s difficult to love.”
“That metaphor is so adorable, I almost feel like I am not offended.” your smile was there, but faltered when you suddenly felt the seriousness of the conversation. You don’t remember how much you two drank at this point of the night but you’re sure it has already been 6 beers in each and 6-beer Jake was truthful Jake and you’re not sure if you’re ready for it.
You cleared your throat to ease some of the tension and scooted to the right to create some distance between you two, small enough to not be awkward, but distant enough to create a proper boundary.
“What about you?” you finally said, “You were always at the front-row to witness my failed relationships but I have never heard you talk about your love life like literally ever.”
“You never asked.” he said.
“Never felt like I needed to ask.”
“Well I’m telling you now that you need to ask for me to answer.”
You felt a surprise chill at the change of atmosphere. If he liked someone he would have talked about her long ago, or could have at least mentioned her. You felt slightly disappointed in the newfound knowledge that he might really have had a girlfriend or liked someone before and you didn’t know why. It was unfair of him to keep that from you, but you also felt selfish in a way because you made everything seem like it was about you all these years.
“I like someone Y/N, duh. I’m still a guy after all.” he chuckled.
You sighed, not sure if it was out of relief or worry. “So are you gonna tell me or nah?”
He pretended to think for a while. “You’ll know.”
“Oh come on!!” you whined, “is she someone I know?!”
“I said you’ll know her soon!” he continued to tease, “I’m actually making it blatantly obvious.”
“Fine. Though even if you don’t tell me, you know I’ll find out one way or another.”
“I hope it doesn’t drive you crazy.”
“Please. You can’t make me what I already am.”
He laughed out loud and rubbed the top of your head. “Right. A crazy little porcupine.”
You deadpanned him and stuck your tongue out but snuggled back to him anyway, finally watching whatever movie it was that was playing in the background.
—
The restaurant was quiet when you arrived. No one was around except for the waiter that greeted you as you walked in. You take in the ambiance with all senses, ears were surrounded by faint jazz music, everything was painted emerald and gold, roses carefully placed at the center of each table. The smell was a mixture of fresh mint and musk. Adding to it were the sounds of kitchenware clanging and chefs bickering in the background. It made you feel a little small considering you were kind of underdressed for the occasion.
Jake told you to wear something decent and you did. You just didn’t think that decent meant extra formal. It was a little embarrassing and you make a small reminder inside your head to kill him later.
You finally sat down on a table by the window feeling really nervous about meeting the girl Jake has been dying to introduce to you for the first time. He was extra giddy about her lately you weren’t sure how you felt about him being all worked up about some girl all of a sudden. Also, you wondered where has she been all this time. There was no build-up regarding her existence whatsoever so the whole idea of her made you skeptic.
This whole thing reminded you of you guys’ childhood when one of your friends confided you saying that she liked Jake. It was just a small middle school crush and was meant to be a secret but it sent such a bad taste on your tongue. Granted that you were a kid back then, but thinking about it now, you knew that you still would have felt the same bad mood knowing someone else was making Jake the object of their affection. You were occupied with falling in love with other people and drowned in the flattery others were giving you, but never too distracted from the feeling of anger when you knew someone was crushing on your best friend.
It’s so funny how much you guys have been through together and how much you’ve grown. You know that a lot has changed for you and him but the dynamic of your relationship was your only constant. The idea of it changing because of this girl caused an emotional whiplash quicker than you ever imagined—and you haven’t even met her yet!
This another reason why you were so difficult. You were greedy and never swallowed your pride.
Fast forward to today. Here you are contemplating on your life decisions that involved Jake at the very last minutes of your chances of ever actually getting to be with him. How pathetic could you get picturing yourself watching him fall in love with someone else?
The wait felt like hours and you checked your phone about 10 times within the last 12 minutes. He said he was going to be late because he was picking her up but the suspense was killing you.
You heard a bell ring from the entrance indicating that someone’s finally here. You looked up from your phone and spotted a familiar four-legged cutie walk up to you.
“Layla?” you gaped, running towards her as she wagged her tail at the sight of you. “Oh my gosh, look at how big you’ve gotten!”
It has been ages since you saw Jake’s dog. She grew up alongside with you guys but you haven’t seen her since college and whatever Jake was up to right now made you forgive him for making you go through whatever this was. A million good girls, hugs, and slobbers later, your cute aggression subsided as you noticed something dangling from her collar. It was a locket with a picture of you and Jake back when you were kids on your first play date. You couldn’t remember taking that photo but you do remember not liking him at first. He was hugging you while you made a face.
Were you gonna cry right now? Oh my god you are literally going to cry right now.
You stood up as the dog ran back towards the door and that’s where you saw Jake in his black turtle neck shirt, hair falling down to his eyes, just enough to cover his eyebrows, perfectly bordering his perfectly sculpted face. You always knew he was handsome but had you always known he was this handsome? He crouched down to ruffle Layla’s head of fur before walking to where you were.
You were completely, utterly dumbfounded. What the hell was going on? Was he pranking you? If he was pranking you right now you would dump him so fucking hard both as a lover and as a best friend.
“Hi.” he smiled as if he didn’t just drop the biggest love bomb on you.
“You said you were going to be late because you were picking her up.” your voice was stern, still pretending to be your iron self even if deep inside your guts were doing somersaults.
“Well, picking Layla up from home is a bit hard. She isn’t as light as she used to be.”
You both laughed.
You hear him take a deep breath and whispered, "I love you, Y/N."
Wasting not a second further you wrapped your arms around his neck and held him the tightest you have ever held him your entire life. You felt his hands grip your waist as he kept you guys in place. You hugged him so tight it nearly knocked the both of you down. He giggled and finally settled with rubbing your back, taking in the sounds of your beating hearts. Nothing compared to how close you were at this very moment, and you two have had your fair share of moments of zero-personal space. It wasn’t like when you sat close the day at the bleachers with his arm around you, not when you cried on his shoulder at the rooftop during graduation night, and not even like the drunken nights where you fell asleep on his chest. Nothing compared to how close you were right now.
“Did you see our photo?” he broke the silence, “I told you it was hard, but even as a kid I always knew how to hug a porcupine.”
“You’re insufferable.”
And with that, you shared your first kiss with your one true love, your soulmate, your best friend. And all it took was a leap of faith and the courage to love who was difficult to love.
#jake sim#enhypen#jake#sim jaeyun#enha#enhypen x reader#enhypen jake#enhypen jake sim#enhypen fanfic#enhypen fic#enhypen fluff#enhypen scenario#enhypen imagine#enhypen drabble#jake sim fic#jake sim fanfic#jake sim x reader#jake sim drabble#jake fic#jake fanfic#jake x reader#jake imagines#sim jaeyun x reader
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The U.S. legal profession and the OTW: a few thoughts
I don't feel that I have a ton of value to add to the conversation currently taking place about structural/organizational problems with the OTW and the way that those affect the well-being of fans in general and OTW volunteers in particular. But given that it appears some of those problems are (correctly, in my view) attributed to the Legal Committee and given that I am a real, live practicing U.S. lawyer, I thought a few comments about the legal profession and how that might be affecting the Legal Committee could perhaps offer a little value. To be clear, I am not now and never have been an OTW volunteer of any kind, let alone for the Legal Committee (a thing I really regret now!), and I do not know the current or former composition of the Committee beyond what is general fandom knowledge. I'm also super uncomfortable purporting to speak for the entire legal profession, but to keep this post to a manageable length, I'm going to leave out all the caveats and "on the other hand"s that I would normally include. Please forgive my presumption and feel free to add on or take issue!
The OTW website says the Committee is "[m]ostly comprised of legal professionals." My understanding is that it is almost entirely comprised of U.S. attorneys. This has demographic implications. To become an attorney here, you must be at least ~26 years old, for starters (you need an undergraduate degree, a 3-year graduate law degree, and then you need to pass the bar exam), and most new lawyers feel very wet-behind-the-ears and would be hesitant to volunteer alongside more experienced lawyers (much less to challenge them) for years thereafter. This means that Committee members are likely to be the fandom old guard - they remember Strikethrough and were probably around for the founding of the OTW itself. Additionally, the legal profession is disproportionately white, male, and wealthy.
The legal profession is incredibly hierarchical and credential/status-obsessed. To a degree that outsiders would probably find hard to believe. You can practice law for 30 years and people will still want to know where you went to law school and where you clerked afterward (and will still take you less seriously if your answers aren't "a top-14 school" and "a federal court"). In this pecking order, law professors are very, very high. Second only to judges. And no professor ranks higher than a professor at Harvard freaking Law, such as, e.g., Rebecca Tushnet. Even a professor at a low-ranked law school, like Betsy Rosenblatt, gets a lot of deference.
Lawyers do not take non-lawyers seriously. We go through this grueling law school admissions process, followed by 3+ years of hazing (that leaves a demographically unremarkable group of law school admittees with shocking rates of mental illness and substance use problems) teaching us that only we have the keys to understand this hugely important system of rules that governs every aspect of human interaction, stuffing our minds with a whole new language of "attractive nuisance" and "expressio unius," and then we're unleashed on a world in which people are constantly doing stupid shit that's going to get them sued, and it breeds both unhealthy insularity and a hell of a God complex. It makes us think we can do anything (like write public statements without input from a professional communications team...).
Lawyers are pathologically risk-averse. First, we self-select for that - most law students are kids who were damn good writers but scared of trying to make a living writing fiction/screenplays/whatever. And second, law school trains us for precisely that: the exams test, not primarily for knowledge of legal rules, but for a skill called "issue-spotting," which is basically "looking at a set of facts and figuring out all the million ways the people in that scenario could get sued." For many practicing lawyers, figuring out how to spot shit that their clients are doing that could get them sued and then telling them to stop it is their whole job. And it can be exhausting, because people/organizations love doing shit that could get them sued. It's like parenting a toddler - constant vigilance to keep the client from sticking their fingers in a metaphorical wall socket or running out into the metaphorical street. (See how I fell there into #3, framing non-lawyers as children who need the lawyer-parent to keep them out of trouble? It comes so naturally.) The Committee has managed to keep the OTW from being sued for 16 years (to my knowledge) and counting, despite the fact that the org's projects, especially AO3, engage in incredibly legally risky activities. To give the Committee their due, that is a hell of a track record. You can see how that might feed the God complex.
There are also, to be clear, many good things about the legal profession and a legal education. But the goal here is to give fans who are outside of this very specific and insular subculture a few pieces of information that might help them understand why this body of people is acting the way it's acting - not to excuse it, but rather to help folks understand what might need to change both within and around the OTW's Legal Committee to create the better OTW that many in fandom, including me, really, really want to see.
Please feel free to ask questions and to correct anything I got wrong! And apologies again for generalizing at such a high level.
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A Helping Hand - Part 11
[start here] || Part 10 || Part 11 || Part 12
[silco x f!reader] [2.8k words] [no y/n] [during timeskip] [touch-starved reader] [henchwoman!reader] [rated M] [dom Silco] [unhealthy relationship to pain]
I should also thank @chickenparm and @sweatandwoe for letting me bounce ideas off of them constantly or straight up giving me ideas in conversation to morph into my own so: thank you! 😅 -verbs
Sevika is the one who ends up finding you. At least by the time she does you’ve gotten your shit together— haven’t even shed a single tear, so that’s good. Progress, in a way, compared to your last attack.
Your whole arm is reddened from the cold, though, after maybe ten minutes of running water sliding down your arm, chilling the whole thing and cooling your blood.
Her face is unusually unreadable. Generally, she’s pretty expressive with her surface-level annoyance or smugness or even boredom. The fact that she seems to be none of those things might be a bad sign.
“Wasting water,” she mutters, turning off the tap and grabbing a towel.
When you don’t take it from her, she lets out a long breath as she towels your arm dry. You are painfully aware of a complete lack of contact, the towel always staying a trusty barrier between skin.
You really fucking need a hug.
But at least your breath is even and calm, and you’re functioning. And you can continue functioning without any contact whatsoever. You certainly aren’t about to ask her.
“You ran out?” she asks.
Your eyes feel too dry, a sort of stinging, like they’ve been open too long. Probably have, as you stared at the water and counted your breaths. You make the tiniest shrug with one arm. Not exactly. Kind of. Basically.
“You ran out. On Silco.” The emphasis, along with her purposeful eye contact, chips at your numb exterior.
…Oh.
Oh shit.
“He was talking with Jinx, I didn’t— I felt— out of place,” you manage, hoarsely. Your throat still has that stab of pain that usually precedes tears.
Sevika’s brows furrow, but it doesn’t look like anger. It’s hard to read her expression. Not as sharp as her standard look of irritation, but not soft, either, and not the reluctant amusement of earlier in the afternoon. You’re not sure what it is.
“How long’s it been since you ate?”
“Uh…” You try to calculate. “I dunno. Fifteen? Sixteen hours?”
“Okay so that’s one. What about a shower?”
You’d purposefully avoided it last night, to avoid succumbing to some very bad ideas, thinking you might get one this morning once your blood had cooled— but then the painkillers had happened. Avoiding Sevika’s eyes guiltily, you mumble, “Night before last.”
“Two, then. What about sleep. How much sleep have you gotten?”
You can’t even calculate. “I dunno, left by 2:30, went to sleep by 3:30-4 probably. Woke up in pain, took drugs, passed out. No clue on the timeframe.”
“So maybe you also need a nap.”
You shake your head, confused. “Sorry, what is this about?”
“Feeling human.”
It’s a sad sad thing that the only concept crawling through your mind is your lack of human connection. Human touch.
“Fuck, you’re pathetic,” Sevika observes, pulling a face. You’re not about to argue that, even if it’s insulting. “Yeah, you need like… a day off.”
“I don’t get days off. I have to test.” 5:00 every evening.
The older woman shakes her head. “Your job is literally paper pushing,” she points out flatly. “You don’t have to be here. Silco wants you out of trouble, being productive, but that doesn’t mean you have to be here.”
What? “What does that mean?”
“It means my first month and half without an arm I barely left my bed.”
It’s unexpected honesty, delivered plainly, without preamble or guilt. You aren’t sure how to respond. It sounds about even with where you were in the weeks after the amputation: only leaving for the required meetings with the Doctor, barely eating, mostly sleeping, not bathing nearly enough because you didn’t like rubbing yourself down with a wet cloth and one hand.
“You shouldn’t be locked in your place all day. It’s fucking depressing.”
Why is she telling you this? It feels so personal, even if she isn’t acting like it. She doesn’t have the same stilted gruffness or begrudging attitude she had during your first panic attack. Maybe it simply doesn’t hold the same personal weight.
“That’s a move he got right, at least.”
He— Silco. Right. He’s the one who had you assigned to work at the Drop right away. Was it a choice based on Sevika’s experience? Or his own?
Both.
You can only speculate.
“Look.” Sevika clasps her hand on your shoulder, and the contact steals your breath.
That yearning is back, the craving to throw yourself at someone and cling. Your muscles freeze, keeping you still, avoiding that mortifying prospect.
“Head home. Take a night. Wash yourself off, do your laundry, clean your apartment. Get your life together a bit. Just tell Silco— you realized you forgot to feed your cat or something.”
“I don’t have a cat.”
“Yeah: you didn’t feed it and it died; it’s just a reason to leave, kid.”
“I’m—”
“Same difference.” She doesn’t even let you argue the age point again. A heavy sigh wooshes out of her. “Look, not to put too fine a point on it, but you’re a mess. It’s pretty damn obvious. So go home and get your shit together. Take your meds on a schedule, reorganize, start caring again.”
Your expression is dull. You just aren’t sure you can right now.
Sevika grumbles. “Fuck— okay, then just do three tonight. Eat, shower, sleep. And meds. You can come grovel tomorrow morning.”
Three things. That’s doable.
—
You only got two of the three done. Two and a half, kinda. Showered, and slept. Also, sent your laundry out. And took your meds before sleep.
It was a start, at least.
In the morning your stomach feels hollow, head aching, and the morning painkillers don’t help as much as they should. It’s on the way to work that you realize how every meal you’ve had in the last few days has been at The Last Drop. Frequently, directly ordered by your boss.
The same one who told you to take your medication before work.
The same one who has given you a schedule to keep that forces you to leave your house for a minimum of six hours a day, and be in a building that’s almost always bustling with activity, rarely solitary.
The one who’s personally overseeing your recovery, pushing you through your discomfort and forcing you to use the tool you’re so scared of— the tool that is meant to make your life easier— the tool that he gave you.
Your cheeks burn, gut a roiling mess of feelings you can’t untangle, but a primary one is definitely shame. The simplest thing to blame it on is your own bad behavior. Rushing out of his office, for what? Because he was having a conversation with his surrogate daughter? Because you had to witness the horror of two people hugging? What’s wrong with you?
You woke up early, as Sevika suggested. Actually, you woke up before your alarm, which was a relief, and gave you time to at least attempt to pull yourself together for the day. Wearing one of your new bras with a front clasp that you could watch as you did it up - thank the goddess, no more thin undershirts - and real clothes with actual buttons you had to fasten yourself, is a step up from the simple clothes of the last few days.
Showing a little effort, as a form of apology.
You get in earlier than usual, steel yourself, and head straight for Silco’s office for the suggested groveling.
Not only does your knock garner no response; the door is locked and no security is in the hall. He’s not in, apparently. And here you thought he basically lived here.
After a time pacing in the hall, worrying your thumb in your fist, chewing at your lip, you feel your stomach rumble. Grimacing, you try to ignore it. You’ve had plenty of hunger pains in your life, especially while your parents were sick and money was sparse; this is nothing new. You can handle it. You just need to stick around until—
The click of a door opening down the hall makes your head snap up.
His steps hardly falter when he spots you, even while a subtle scowl weighs on his features as he approaches. His gaze darts past you, to the stairs, to the bar below, as if expecting a guard that isn’t there.
“I wanted to apologize,” you blurt, hand grabbing your prosthetic’s wrist in a vise grip, trying to stay composed. “I shouldn’t have-”
The hellfire eye flashes at you, and that will has you in a metaphorical chokehold, voice snuffed out. He doesn’t seem to mind not hearing your whole apology right away; instead, his focus is on unlocking his office door.
Fucking hells, you feel pathetic. Practically crumpling in on yourself, utterly cowed by just a harsh look. You worry your lip between your teeth until you taste blood, eyes fixed on the ground. A hollow trembling hums under your skin.
Once the door is open, Silco steps back and gestures you through.
Fuck fuck fuck he’s gonna do it. He’s gonna rip it off. You weren’t grateful enough, you’re too erratic, he’ll take the hand back and leave you coming to terms all over again. Your teeth bruise flesh with how hard you’re biting, trying to keep your breath even.
You’re just overreacting. This will be fine.
This will not be fine.
There’s no chair in front of Silco’s desk at the moment. At the back of your mind you wonder if the seat you take every evening is set there by him, or by some underling. Since it isn’t there, you hesitate awkwardly where it normally would be. Everything seems a little unsteady, so you bite harder and hold tighter.
Silco’s steps behind you are slow. Even. Purposeful. Letting you hear each and every one.
“You were apologizing,” he reminds you, voice a low rumble. “Begging my forgiveness, if I’m not mistaken.” There’s a touch of chilly sarcasm to it as he slides to sit on the edge of his desk, nimble fingers drumming against the corner, somehow still lording over you even if you’re not in your usual seated position.
“I’m so sorry.” The words tumble out of you, gaze boring into the ground, but catching motion at the edge of your vision. “I didn’t mean to-”
Everything stops as his thumb brushes your lip.
Legs wobble and you lock your knees to keep still as your eyes zip straight up to his, a magnetic pull you can’t ignore. You can barely breathe. A feather-light touch of contact connects a single digit to your chin, keeping your face steady, but he’s watching his own finger as he thumbs at your lip. The calloused pad of his thumb is eerily soft, tugging your lip down to observe the subtle self-inflicted wound.
He says your name— as if you were somehow supposed to keep talking through this. It takes a great deal of self-control to not whimper. Your face is rapidly turning red. “Why the sudden exit?” he prompts, brushing your lip again.
You can’t think with his hand on you. So you say the first thing that comes to mind, voice ragged. “Had to feed my cat.”
You only realize your gaze has drifted to his mouth when you see his lip twitch in a badly-hidden smirk. “You don’t have a cat,” he murmurs, smugly.
Very hard not to whimper. “I don’t have a cat,” you agree, barely breathing the confession, hyper aware of the way his thumb is smoothing across your lip. Your expression is pleading, but you’re not sure if you’re praying he’ll stop or continue. Whatever it is you want, you want it desperately.
His words are smooth and smoky, in that voice that slithers around your throat. “The truth, if you please.” He hasn’t let go of you. He hasn’t touched you more, either, just the barest hint of contact at your chin and your lip, and it’s driving you absolutely mad.
Closing your eyes to think helps the slightest bit. Maybe. (If you’re kind of lying to yourself.) You feel shame saying it, but it has to be said. “I felt— It felt private. I didn’t want to int-”
His hand cups your cheek, deft fingertips sliding almost into your hair.
Your legs give out.
Mortified, you’re left on your knees in front of his desk, head spinning and face burning. Wide-eyed, you stare at the floor for a hot second, feeling like an absolute idiot. No fucking fair, when your body betrays you like that. You’re breathing heavily, pulse racing from the sudden fall.
There’s a beat of anxiety-drenched silence.
When you finally look up - some part of you maybe, possibly, dreading Silco’s response - you find him staring down that long nose at you, and the look in his eye makes every inch of you shiver. The pale eye is darker than usual, lid low, and you can’t tell if he’s angry or—
The idea flits through your head, too loud, ringing in your ears: he almost looks hungry.
Inevitably your nerve runs out and you drop your gaze to his collar, only to realize his breath is almost as labored as yours, despite how still his body perches. His throat bobs and your gaze flicks up at the minuscule motion as his jaw flexes.
Your own lips part slightly, a tiny breath pressed out of your chest, and you look down again, shaking your head like you can clear the fog that seems to have invaded. A cramp in your side belies the meals you’ve skipped, and you wince. When you look up again, his chin has lifted, gaze cooled, lips thinned. Whatever you thought you saw is gone.
“Something the matter?” The purr has evaporated from his voice, but his tone is still low, still spoken for an audience of one.
You shake your head, looking away, rolling your shoulders and trying to relieve the massive weight of tension stored there. “It’s nothing. I’m sorry.”
“Apologies generally are given when one has done something wrong,” he points out, dryly. After a pause, he adds; “Have you done something wrong?”
That’s a confusing question. Because— no? But also yes. You’re not quite sure what constitutes wrong in this situation. You’re not quite sure what he’s asking about.
—And you’re suddenly very aware that you’re still kneeling before him.
When you look up, his brow is raised expectantly.
“I—” I don’t think so. Your gaping mouth snaps shut. “No.” That feels like an answer. Not sure how accurate it is, though.
Especially based on the way Silco’s head tilts slightly, silently admonishing you.
“Maybe?” you amend, uncertain.
His hand reaches out and you suck in a breath as he makes firmer contact, pressing his thumb to your broken lip pointedly, no longer gentle. “You remember what I told you?”
Something about you being his investment. Something about keeping things in good condition. Something about— “Consequences,” you breathe quietly, lips moving against his thumb. You are painfully aware of your body’s response to him. The way your skin feels taut and tingly, and achingly remembers your pale imitation of his touch.
There’s a moment. Looking up at him, letting him touch you, feeling a growing heat pooling in your belly.
Then, like he’s just been woken up, he breaks eye contact and releases his grip, taking in one long breath as he stands, heading back around to his side of the desk.
Your stomach growls. “Sh-” The air hisses out of you in one quiet moment, like you can tell your body to shut up, pressing a palm to your abdomen as your ears burn. You rush to stand now that he’s given you space to do so, and the sudden change in altitude makes you unsteady, grabbing the edge of his desk for support.
You expect him to admonish you. List your consequences, your fines. Instead, his eye narrows at your pale-knuckled grip on the wood.
“Did you sleep last night?”
“Yes.”
There’s a brief spark in his gaze before it’s extinguished, facade still cool and even-keeled. “Enough?”
That’s an awkward question. You wonder if Sevika informed him of her advice to you. “Yes.” Early to bed and early to rise.
“And eat?”
You hesitate, threatening your stomach to stay quiet, dammit. You can’t answer without lying.
There’s a beleaguered sigh, more melodramatic than entirely necessary. “I do hope you aren’t going to tell me your last meal was our dinner together.”
‘Our dinner together.’ For some reason, your gut does a backflip. “No.” It’s a stubborn answer, defensive.
Silco looks up at you, clearly waiting for you to give a satisfactory response.
The back of your neck itches, and your gaze skirts sideways, adding, in a mumble, “Like seven hours later.”
The short breath is back. The laugh that isn’t a laugh. “A fitting punishment, then,” he muses ruefully.
Okay, you’re a little confused. “To not eat?”
His amusement is clear. “You’ll be eating.” Sounds like a threat. “I think I have just the thing, in fact.”
—
[next part]
[So expect thirsty Thursday to include a reverse POV for a moment in this chapter :3 Right now it’s a short moment, but I may extend the scene, we’ll see lmao. Either way, if you want to be tagged for that post (and any other official A Helping Hand posts) you can join the tag list by commenting on this linked post. 8/9 and 11/12 are some of my fave moments I’ve written so far, so hopefully next chapter is good for you guys, too 😏
As always, please boost by reblogging if you like it! I also devour tags and comments, so 👀 please 🙏 I beg 🥺 gimme reactions. 🤲 You can also drop comments over on ao3. Every single ao3 comment gets a reply, but I’ll admit I love emoji-to-emoji comments a lot, so don’t feel like you need to be super eloquent. Most comments I make when reading fics are just scrolling down to add, like, one-sentence or emoji reactions as I’m reading 😅 I love it all! ❤️ -verbs]
Tag list: @hawk4president @mello-jello29 @jennrosefx @dad-dumpster @ellhd-imagination @zuckerwattencupcake @meep-moop-mystic @of-the-argonath @arrlaauud @witxhy-lexx @mazikomo @leave-me-alone-doctor @antoine-tte @emprixnix @imalovernotahater @eriseffigy @leorioaki
#silco x reader#silco/reader#silco#silco arcane#silco x f!reader#a helping hand#wip:a helping hand#x-amount-writes#silcoxreader#arcane x reader
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Give me your strong opinions/headcanons on Harley Quinn❤️🖤
Transgender
had a pretty intense and genuinely embarrassing truecrime girly phase through like her late teens/college. probably would have started a podcast if shed had the ability at the time.
i think that and her desire to pursue a career in psychiatry/work at arkham sorta stem from this same root interest in like understanding why certain people commit violent crimes which was well-intended but ultimately came from a kind of ableist place. like she always sympathized really heavily with the people in her care but also like subconsciously saw a lot of them as these poor lost little lambs that needed her help rather than full complex human beings and thats what kinda fucked her in the end.
generally an empathetic person. tends to take on other peoples burdens. sometimes to an unhealthy degree.
i think her and bruce actually have a lot in common in that regard and when theyre not actively at odds they vibe p well for that and other reasons. also shes just the sort of person whos rly easy to get along with. she may one of if not the only rogue who none of the others rly has any lasting beef with.
bi and poly (this is basically canon anyway). i feel like some ppl tend to act as if shes only ever dated the joker and pamela but i def think shes been in and out of a lot of relationships over the years, some better than others.
she has a bad habit of 1) finding kinda messed up power dynamics a lil sexy and 2) harboring some serious "i can fix them" energy when it comes to her more obviously misguided crushes. she likes the security of a partner who she feels like will take care of her but who still relies on her emotionally and unfortunately some people use that to take advantage.
i dont know if she would necessarily consciously identify as a Femme but like. she soo is.
this is like more related to my specific dyke scarecrow au than anything canon but i see them as old exes. in true dyke fashion, they have stayed good friends in spite of the breakup. take this one or leave it but either way i like the two of them as besties soo much.
has always struggled with this impulse towards violence especially when shes feeling restless or manic. (i say struggled but shes probably having a blast with it now) i think in the past she was very self conscious about this (especially when she was newly out and trying very hard to be perceived as feminine) and tried very hard to present herself as someone self contained and in control. for better or for worse, shes much happier when shes allowed to be a force of chaos.
lowkey had a weeb phase. still very much loves j-fashion and magical girl anime. plays some video games but largely prefers the feel of a big clunky cabinet arcade game over a home console. its the buttons, the lights, the ability to loudly and dramatically tip the whole thing over if youre mad enough about losing. has watched mlp. fav is pinkie pie. obviously.
there is an aspect of her like hyper girly almost childish persona which is kind of a performance. like. it is her to a degree, but its also kind of a coping mechanism. almost like a form of drag, shes leaning into the stereotype to get a rise out of people or to protect herself. sometimes both at once. the few people who really know her well enough will start to notice little tells to differentiate when shes really feeling the vibe and when shes deliberately putting on a show.
has definitely given herself a shit haircut/dye job while in a depression spiral.
generally its just like. she feels so so so so so much all the time like oh my god make it stop for two seconds.
theres probs more but this is what i feel certain of in this moment ✌️
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BREAKING SAD
Disclaimer: Depression has been written about and discussed for hundreds of years. Despite advances in understanding its complexities, depression remains one of the most controversial issues today. I recognise the differing, often polarising, viewpoints regarding mental illness. Furthermore, I do not claim to be an oracle of all things depression. This is simply an account of how I am experiencing my version of this affliction.
I suffer from clinical depression. Whilst I’m not proud of it, I’m not ashamed of it either. Why am I telling you this now? Well, because I was just diagnosed with it a few weeks ago. People may think depression hits you overnight (and in some cases it does) but, whilst depression can be obvious, often it’s a sneaky bugger.
You might seem happy on the outside. Smiling, talking to people at parties, saying things like Did you put lime in this hummus? It’s delicious, my face is having such a great time! But you, and others around you may not realise how deeply the depression runs. You just keep going, congratulating yourself on being the “normal” human you are.
Over the past few years the facade began to crumble. It became increasingly difficult for me to make decisions. I had no empathy for anyone, and I started to crave solitude. The worst part was that it became harder to face people, even those I loved. It felt much better to be holed up on my sofa for unhealthy periods of time, which was odd as only a few years ago I was a high-functioning humanoid. Look around you… you’re probably surrounded by other high-functionaries. When I say “high-functioning” I mean, people who are doing stuff. They are doing well in their jobs, making decisions (both important and basic), and organising murder mystery dinners on weeknights (weeknights for crying out loud!)
A common misconception about depressed people is that we’re easy to spot – flailing around, zombie-esque in Dawn of the Depression. Nope, most of us like to keep that shit at home.
However, when it comes to being in the ‘outside world’ with ‘the people’ and the ‘stuff’ it’s possible to trick yourself into being a superhuman/athlete/actor. If you were running track, you’d probably be high-fiving yourself as you lap people.
Then one day you hear the starter pistol go off, but you don’t run. You just stay in the blocks staring down at the asphalt, mesmerised, thinking I feel nothing for this asphalt, I’ll just wait here till I feel something. Everything you thought you were interested in (or thought you should be interested in) goes straight out the window. You liked hanging out with friends? Nope, not anymore you don’t. You liked cycling at weekends? Nope thanks. You liked grocery shopping? Well, no-one really does but screw it, you’re not going to do that ever again. Why? Uh, because that would involve doing something and then there’s all the people… oh the people! And the things and the noises, and the fact that it means leaving the house. I’d rather repeatedly receive an iCloud account issue dialogue box.
You would think this would all be somewhat terrifying, but for me, it wasn’t. It was actually very comfortable. I’d revel in not having to feel feelings. Being numb meant I could just ‘be’ without ‘being’. Turns out this made me a ticking time bomb. See, when you extreme hoard all the feelings (like finding-a-dead-pet-under-the-refrigerator kind of hoarding), you end up with none at all. I let myself feel nothing, all the while a toxic swirl bubbled up inside me and time quickly began to run out.
Now, here’s the really terrifying bit – detonation. I didn’t know when it was coming or how it would happen but I sure as shite was not prepared for it. Detonation of depression and feelings was very clear and simple for me. I can’t remember what, but something was said and instantly my brain snapped from my heart and my body filled with hot, black sludge
Darkness surged through my veins and permeated my eyeballs. All the feelings I’d hoarded over the years were now rushing through me in one go and all I wanted was a one-way ticket back to numbsville. I’d been ensconced in my tiny, numb mind for two decades, and now something was ripping it and me to shreds. Of course I reacted because I was helplessly trying to piece back the ruins of the only mind I had ever known.
There are many reasons as to why this happened. I attribute the lion’s share to my silence. I had an inkling I ignored, an extreme sadness that surfaced twenty years later to teach me various painful yet valuable lessons. I only wish that I had talked to someone about it earlier; that would've at least let some air out of the over-inflated shit balloon I was holding onto.
Thing is, it’s hard to suddenly sidle up to someone and be all “Hey, I think I’m really sad for no reason, any guesses as to why that might be?”. Even your best friends might be like “What? But you were really into that hummus at Dave’s party”. They may take you out more as some sort of exposure therapy. They may even take you away on holiday so you can “relax and heal.” Now, all these things are lovely, and I appreciate having such thoughtful friends, but they may not necessarily understand that, whilst in depression, going on holiday is a fate worse than having to listen to your voicemails.
As I grew up, repression became so much easier, and much more crucial, like breathing or grossing people out by telling them what a Mooncup is. It was yet another one of my dysfunctional lifelines – like a Slanket of thorns (omg…new band name).
Now, as I’m going through treatment, I’m seeing and feeling the repressions of Christmas pasts, scooping out all the trauma which lead me to this point. I watch, anesthetized, as the pain passes in front of me on a lonely airport conveyor belt. All of the bags are mine and I’m forced to watch them circulate, then remove them, and then empty their contents.
The positive in all of this is that I’m not doing it alone. As I mentioned earlier, I’m in treatment and have been for 6 weeks. Reaching out for help is the single best and bravest decision I have ever made.
Depression is like being in an anaconda-esque bind and releasing yourself from it is a process – A process I’m still trying to understand. I mean shit, even some of the sentences you’re reading now were written during deep depression and mania (can you guess which ones? Answer: rhetorical). Look, I’m not writing this to you from a place of recovery (far from it!), I’m writing as I go. As I said at the start, I do not claim to be an expert on this but I do know that, when it comes to depression, you should not suffer in silence. Talk to someone, anyone. I know there are many reasons not to – it hurts, it’s hard, it’s embarrassing, it’s not the right time. Well, it will never be the right time to talk about depression, but it will always be the right decision to talk about it.
read :
what is Weaboo? Meaning and Explanation
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the more i am leaving behind my dependencies and the more i exist in a healthier state of mind, the more my thoughts are changing naturally on their own. it's kind of amazing how that happens, without planning or plotting, just blind hope that it will because even if you get your mechanics straight the mind is always slow to catch up, tantrumy and hard to steer. but my mind is also working with my body and it's some incredible amazing thing i don't have words for anymore. it's just happening. like i no longer ache to go to a drive thru and it's no longer a make-or-break point in my day, the food isn't what all my happiness hinges on at least temporarily, and i can be sane about it. if we are out and end up at a drive thru, that's cool, if we don't, that's fine too. i noticed it the last time we went almost two weeks ago, that not only did i not get the biggest meal there (something in my body registered that it would be too much for me), that i got a normal sized meal, enjoyed it, and carried on with the rest of my day in a normal way as well. there was nothing fixatory about it, obsessive, or upsetting had something happened and our plans fallen through. that's always been the case before, and it's been just one of the many triggers for my "make up" binges. it's just not a concern anymore for me, and i'm in awe of that, personally. going into town was always an excuse to eat this or that thing, but now i wanna go just to go, to get to walk around and get some exercise in, to see the city and its people, to experience things and yes, if something catches my eye food wise i'll buy it and get it, but that's no longer a reason, focus, or obsession. i think this mindset is here to stay and i still can't get over that it's like that now. and okay yes, i'm still craving a shawarma from the last time i went to the movies and didn't get one (because i'd already eaten too much that day and felt too full for it), but i think i crave it in the normal human way, like humans crave certain foods. it's really important to remember the difference, and that being human doesn't mean i'll now experience NO cravings. that wouldn't be human, and probably would be unhealthy for me to expect for myself. but craving them in a normal, non-insane way is okay. it's totally okay.
the most recent iteration of me who was still bingeing, the me of 2 years ago who thought i didn't have that big of a problem and that i was mostly past all my ED problems, she was very different. she felt aloof and superior in her belief that she had overcome her eating disorders. and i mean, lmao yes, the anorexia and bulimia were long in the past, but the third one? completely in denial about that. was also in denial whenever i read the fact somewhere that anorexics obsess over food constantly, was like lol that's not me anymore, thank god, because i thought obsessing over food meant counting calories and obsessing over them in a restrictive manner. but the thoughts that a person with BED has are equally as obsessive, just in another direction. the fact i couldn't see just how much i obsessed over this shit 2 years ago is another feat, because now i can see it. and now that i have stopped obsessing it leaves me so much more time to do things now, to think of other things, to not be completely consumed by this shitfucking disease. it's a wonder.
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how do you keep going, with all the shit we're in?
My short response is "Consider the alternative".
My longer response is:
My first s*i*ide attempt was when I was 14, and I've had other attempts over the years, and I've been dealing with depression for about as long, and I suppressed and fought my identity for about 20 years. I've been rejected from probably about 200-300 jobs in the last 3 years. I've worked for low pay for a public health department and the department of human services in a state that doesn't prioritize either, and I've done welfare eligibility and navigation in a state that struggles with both. My career has involved working with the literal most vulnerable and marginalized populations (until now, for better or worse). I'm on my third attempt at a masters degree (with the debt to prove it) and having to restart my capstone project and figure out how to complete it, and I didn't get my bachelors until I was 25, after having to start and stop my academics. I didn't see my family face-to-face for about 4 years before finally having enough money and stability to visit for a week in December...of 2019. Until today I had maybe $20 in my bank account for the last week and a half to two weeks probably because of bills and still dealing with stuff from moving. I'm waiting to get the news that I'm being evicted from my apartment in Minnesota. I need to re-establish care with providers now that I've moved and try to make sure I don't run out of medications before then. I can't look in the mirror too long or I want to punch it and myself.
BUT
I'm in a place I've been wanting to be for years, in an apartment I like, in a job that, while not perfect, pays pretty well and provides me with flexibility and opportunities for growth and which will work well with my grad program. I've been on hormones for almost 3 years now and I'm reaching the point where I can make even more progress. I have several friends who care about me and support me, and there's even more people who think like me and want the same kinds of things I do, and who are working to make changes. I have several interests and hobbies which make me happy and which allow me to think and enjoy things and which add to my life. I've got plans to get a dog and to take advantage of the area where I live and do more.
Progress is neither linear nor quick, and we're looking at some very deep and very dark circumstances on almost every level. And it can feel, and probably is, incredibly overwhelming. It's easy to focus on that overwhelming darkness, and to be sapped of energy and strength and the desire to keep moving forward, to keep trying. It's easy to be cynical and strive for aloofness and superciliousness, to try to use that and the darkness as an armor.
But that is a disservice to both ourselves and individuals, to whatever issues or causes we believe in, and to the people who are working and pushing and fighting. It ignores that we are all, to a certain extent, in similar circumstances, and it ignores that there are things to seek out and hold onto and hold up, things that puncture and brighten the overwhelming darkness, that there's still progress and positive things happening, even if not as big or as quick or as widespread as we'd like.
Plus, as I've said before, I'm stubborn. I don't intend to make things easy - not for death, not for the darkness, not for people committed to both and to those being critical and removed and aloof. And I think more people need to be stubborn in that sense.
This doesn't meant to bulldoze and barrel through each day, mostly because that's unrealistic and unhealthy. Focus and conserve your strength - some days just getting out of bed and going through the motions is the best you can do, and that's still a victory.
I keep going because I know that there's good out there and good on the horizon, and that nothing I wanted or liked ever happened or came to me because I stopped.
I keep going because I refuse to just stay mired in the shit.
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Wrong victim
Pure comedic self indulgence because we all need a funny break before shit starts to really go down in To bargain for immortality. Set quite a few years after the game events, around 2025, and is pure ridiculousness so enjoy.
////
Her response to being unceremoniously shoved in the back seat of a car that looked like it's seen far better days was merely an annoyed grunt. It turned into an eye roll when the man that climbed in after her pulled everything out of her pockets.
"Wouldn't want you calling anyone," he said with a toothy grin while waving her phone in front of her.
"Trust me, that won't be necessary," she replied in a deadpan voice. It's not like she would call the police, she wanted them involved even less than her kidnappers probably did. As for other people she could reach out to, a phone call would be redundant really. "Do be careful with it, I'd hate to lose the photos of Daniela sleeping upside down."
After maybe ten minutes of driving down the barely illuminated outskirts of the city, and having her pockets emptied, dagger included, the burly man driving pulled up inside a parking lot. It was large and overgrown with weeds and vines reclaiming spaces that had been left without human activity for who knows how long. The lamp posts were nothing more than useless concrete pillars as they provided no illumination, resulting in her pitiful captors having to use flashlights as they made their way into the dilapidated factory.
Nicole sneered at the sight of collapsed walls and rusty metal walkways, reminding her of the one particular Lord she couldn't stand the sight of. She decided a distraction was needed from unpleasant memories.
"Abandoned factory?" She whistled. "How many cliche movies have you guys watched?"
She let out a chuckle when the man that had previously taken her phone shoved her ahead. Hopefully they wouldn't tape her mouth shut, there was so much fun to be had by mockery alone.
It didn't take long before all three of them entered a dimly lit room, numerous candles placed all around, either on desks or candle supports nailed to the walls. The three more people inside were wearing long black robes and white masks covering their faces. Nicole had to laugh.
"Oh so you're that kinda crazy."
"Shut the fuck up and stay put," the man holding her hands behind her back said while pushing her into a chair.
He then moved to a table and Nicole couldn't help but scowl at how unceremoniously her beloved dagger had been thrown on the wooden surface. Afterwards, he put on a mask not unlike the others, except with red streaks going down from the eye holes, and started to prepare something in the middle of the room. The others joined in on the task, all but the one man that had been put in charge of making sure Nicole stayed put. Because of course she could easily escape five people much bigger than her at any given moment.
She decided to take a look around, at the various dusty books opened on pages she couldn't quite make out from where she was sitting. A few pages were laying around, either with diagrams or with scribbled notes. Had she really stumbled upon a cult? She couldn't wait to have a laugh about it with her family.
"So," she started, craning her neck a little so she could see her captor's face. "Who you gonna sacrifice me to huh? I wanna know before you slice up my throat or whatever you're planning on."
A confused and suspicious look was thrown her way, surely due to the complete nonchalance she spoke with about what would surely be her untimely death. "The… the devil," was his unsure reply.
Nicole let out a small laugh. "Oh trust me, you do not want to meet her. Though devil is not quite the word," she continued despite a few other pairs of eyes landing on her. "Maybe a pissy fungal overlord with an unhealthy obsession for crows. Yes that's more like it," she finished with another chuckle.
The man with a slightly different mask, who seemed to be their self appointed leader, got up from where he was nailing something to the floor and walked up to her in a few long strides. His eyes were barely visible, but anger was clearly distinguishable.
He pulled out a knife, old, rusty and with a black worn out handle so typical of a kitchen utensil, and so incredibly ugly compared to the beautifully ornate daggers that decorated her home. She had to laugh when the dull blade got pressed to her throat.
"Will you shut up for one minute?!" He raised his voice slightly, as much as someone who was doing something they didn't wish to be caught doing would dare to. It didn't deter her though.
"Oh sweetie this is just what foreplay looks to me," she started with a grin that made her wish she had fangs like the better part of her relatives. "But please do me a favor and stay quiet, there's no fun in hunting if my darling finds you within five seconds due to you screeching like a broken squeaky toy."
The man blinked for a few seconds, taken aback both by the words and by the apparent passivity towards having a knife at her throat. He stayed like that until one person that was working with some ropes behind interjected.
"Of all the people you could've taken, how did you find this unhinged bitch?!"
"I'll take that as a compliment," Nicole said, bending slightly to the side so the person that had spoken up would have a clear view of her sickly sweet smile.
After that exchange, her captors seemed happy to move things along quicker, working in silence and begrudgingly ignoring any remarks she would throw their way, including an observation on the downright dreadful quality of the rope they had. Quality that she regrettably got to experience when her wrist and ankles got tied to the nails in the floor, having her lay down in a starfish position. It kind of reminded her of sprawling on the bed she shared with Cassandra simply to annoy the brunette.
After loudly reciting something in latin, the leader bent down, same rusty knife in hand, and tipped her chin upwards to expose the neck. She did let out a wince when the blade sunk deep in her flesh and got dragged downward, towards her chest, leaving behind a choking sensation and the taste of copper in her mouth. The knife however only made it to the base of her neck, before the sound of metal crashing caught everyone's attention.
"What the fuck," the man whispered, thankfully pulling the blade out so her skin had the time to begin stitching itself back together. She still had to turn her head around and spit some blood that made its way into her mouth.
Before anyone else had a chance to speak up, the door was kicked open, one of the rusty hinges breaking completely, to reveal a rather angry Cassandra with her sickle in hand, ready for bloodshed.
There were a few seconds of stunned silence before the blade was unceremoniously thrown into the first person's skull, spinning through the air for only a few meters before getting embedded into the bone with a sloshing sound. Anyone else trying to escape through the one door was met with a similar fate. One person had their knees kicked inwards before a knife held at the same belt as the sickle came down to slash their throat. Another had their head smashed to bits against the nearest wall in the blink of an eye. And last, the burly man that had driven and kept an eye on Nicole, had his heart ripped through the bottom of his ribcage when Cassandra shoved him against one of the tables, scattering the books and papers that were by then stained crimson.
The remaining man, the leader, got grabbed by the shoulders and forcefully shoved into the same chair she had been sitting in not too long ago.
"Stay put and I'll let you live," Cassandra spoke, all the cruelty polished over decades upon decades of sporting the title of the family's most sadistic coming through those few words.
He gulped and nodded, eyes glossed over by the pure human terror now so unfamiliar to both of them.
She then turned around, expression softening like a switch had been turned behind golden eyes. "Nicole," she started, barely an edge of concern and irritation at the sight of her wife's bloody skin.
"Hi babe." The self satisfied grin almost had the brunette chuckling while she retrieved her sickle and Nicole's things.
The weapon was used to cut her free, a grimace pulling the corners of her black lips downward at the same quality observation her wife had priorly made, no doubt. A hand was offered to Nicole to pull herself up, while the other presented the familiar dagger that was gifted to her so many years ago.
"Will you do the honors love," Cassandra asked, with that beautifully sadistic smile.
"Of course," came Nicole's reply as her hand wrapped around the leather covered handle.
With some of the wretched ropes gathered from the ground, Cassandra made quick work of the man's hands and legs, securely tied to the chair and voice frantic.
"You said you would let me live!"
Cassandra laughed, a low ominous sound, while grabbing the mask and throwing it on the floor. She did love to see the terror in her victims' faces after all.
"Unfortunately my wife made no such promises," she finished with a forceful pull of hair that kept his head in one place as she moved to the back of the chair.
Nicole approached with the dagger already out of its holster and tapped the blade's point against her lips in thought for a few moments. She could simply slice his throat and be done with it, or stab him and leave him to bleed out, choking on his own blood. A hum made its way past her lips. No, no that would not do.
She grabbed a fistful of the man's shirt, pulling it up almost to the neck. After a few mental measurements and approximations were made, the tip of the blade finally found its way into muscle, drawing thin trails of blood and pained screams. It took a good five minutes to carve all the intricate details she wanted to, the swirling patterns cutting cleanly through skin, courtesy of her wife keeping the blade sharp and in top condition.
After she was content with the level of detail, and screams subsided to pathetic sobs, she took a step back and, with a hum, looked at Cassandra for a reaction.
"Oh dearest," the brunette said, looking over the man's shoulder and down at the bloody cuts on his abdomen and chest, forming a crude yet not unfitting replica of the Dimitrescu crest.
At the adoration that made its way past the cruelty in her wife's eyes, Nicole smiled and gingerly took a hold of her unoccupied hand, bringing it close to her lips and leaving a small kiss and a barely visible blood imprint on each knuckle.
"I take it that you approve of my… design choice," she asked with another glance down at the jagged lines that formed their family's symbol.
"It's wonderful," Cassandra replied, fangs shimmering slightly in the low light, exposed from the proud smile that tugged at her lips.
A gorgeous smile, really, that made something swell inside Nicole's chest no matter how many times she saw it. Truth be told, her rendition of the crest was quite lacking, never having had the artistic skills to quite capture the intricate details that formed it. Nevertheless, if it brought a smile to her wife's lips, she was more than content with it. How unfortunate that it had to be ruined.
She let out a sigh, still holding Cassandra's hand. "Too bad those pigs at the BSAA would quite disapprove of us leaving such things behind. Oh well," she shrugged, bringing the hand she was holding over to the man's abdomen. "Better it be ruined at your hands."
The next second, claws dug deep into flesh, slicing the muscle and everything underneath all the way up to the throat. It left five deep gashes over the fine cuts of her dagger, but the satisfaction did not dwindle. On the contrary, when the gurgling sounds finally stopped and the body went limp, her smile was still there, turning into light laughter when Cassandra licked her fingers only to visibly cringe.
"Say what you will about the dungeons, but at least we feed our livestock well," she spat, taking out a napkin from a pocket and wiping her fingers clean. "But with that disgusting thing out of the way, let me help you with that," she continued, grimace morphing into a sly smile when her eyes landed on Nicole's still bloody neck.
She gave her no time to disagree, not that she would, before she pushed her backwards slightly into the edge of a table. Nicole wasted no time in lifting herself up on the wooden surface, bringing their faces just a tad closer to being on the same level.
Cassandra dipped her head down, lips leaving teasing feather-like kisses on her jaw before lowering even further so she could drag her tongue up the length of her neck. It made a shiver run down Nicole's spine, that turned into an impatient tug of her wife's hair when the motion was repeated again and again, until no traces of blood could be seen on her neck, save for the crimson stains that made their way to the hem of her shirt.
Their lips met in a hungry kiss, full of fangs and smeared lipstick and the taste of copper so familiar to the both of them, albeit for different reasons. When Nicole's hands went to the first buttons of Cassandra's blouse, their kiss was broken with a sly smirk.
"This is such a dreadful place for such things, don't you think," the brunette said, all too amused by her wife's exasperated sigh.
"You started it," Nicole complained, but before the words were fully out of her mouth, she was tugged off the table and on the way out, ready to get back home and have a laugh about the irony of her capture. They would have to pick up where they left off at a later time.
#cassandra dimitrescu x maiden#unhinged maiden™ my beloved#tw: gore#cassandra being cassantra and comin to save her wifey#don't take this as a clue to how the mutation sequel may turn out#fanfic
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bad boy good thing viii.
pairing: jeon jungkook x oc
genre: angst, smut, fluff, miscommunication (we hate her lol), pining
warnings: smut, jungkook is really an asshole, the angst hurts a lot tbh, unhealthy relationships (?)
words: 1, 964
summary: a series of drabbles where you're confused and jungkook's confusing
“I can’t believe this!” Jeonghan puffs while he drops his belongings loudly onto the table in the study lounge, causing a few other students to turn and glare.
“Would it kill you to be quiet?” Jungkook grumbles, picking at the edge of the paper of his textbook, eyes never straying away from the content of the page.
“No. I will not be quiet because I thought football bros were bros for life!” Jeonghan whines.
Jungkook raises an eyebrow. “You know that’s kind of concerning when you put it that way.”
Jeonghan simply waves the other boy off before he leans forward as if he has something important he has to say. Jungkook knew him well enough to know that it would either waste Jungkook’s precious study time or be something so out of the ordinary that he can’t help but be intrigued.
Jungkook shrugged and takes the chance, anyway.
“Namjoon bailed.” He deadpans. “Again!”
Jungkook stiffens ever so slightly but feigns disinterest with a noncommittal hum.
“Really.”
Jeonghan nods his head, or shook his head—it was hard to tell because he was all over the place and he seemed more displeased than anything.
“I never thought we’d lose our own captain to a girl.” He sniffs.
Jungkook sighs, already done with the conversation because somehow no one can ever mention Namjoon without mentioning you now, apparently because the two of you were hanging out much more frequently. He’s bitter. And he’s confused—because he’s attempted patching things up with you but you only would ever reply to him with curt responses than the enthusiastic ones you used to flatter him with.
JK: hey. there’s a new cafe outside of campus. U wanna go?
Smarty Pants 🐰: Im busy. Next time? :)
JK: are u free tonight?
JK: im heading to the library later. wanna meet up for some ramen first? On me!!!
Smarty Pants 🐰: sorry jungkook, meeting w administrators for pastoral care matters
Smarty Pants 🐰: Do you need help with the content?
JK: oh… it’s fine, just wanted to hang out with you. We haven’t done that in a while
JK: jimin said u finally have some free time next week? Let’s catch up! i’ll treat u to some banana bread :D
Smarty Pants 🐰: i have plans with joon. which day were you thinking?
JK: Anytime. When are you meeting hyung?
Smarty Pants 🐰: we kind of have plans every day, here and there. could I get back to you?
And that was it. The blow that Jungkook knew he deserved but couldn’t deal with. You had tried your best to avoid any personal interaction with Jungkook and he didn’t know what the fuck to do.
“They’re kind of perfect for each other, don’t you think?” Jeonghan interrupts Jungkook’s sour mood when he recalls all his failed attempts at trying to meet with you personally.
Jungkook blinks then furrowed his eyebrows.
“Who?”
Jeonghan rolls his eyes. “Joon and your friend _____.” He knocks on the table. “Bunch of nerds together.” He adds with a snicker.
Jungkook stiffens, hands clutching his textbook tighter.
“You say that like there’s something wrong with being a nerd.” He says slowly.
“There isn’t. Really.” Jeonghan defends. “It’s just so … fitting. Captain of the football team who’s lowkey a softie and an art nerd with the overachiever on campus. Their IQ’s combined are probably in the 300 range.”
Jungkook scowls.
“Haven’t you heard of the phrase ‘opposites attract’?” Jungkook asks sourly.
Jeonghan scoffs. “Yeah. Like you actually believe in that cliche phrase. Come on—we all know you’re likely to end up with someone who’s more like you than different.”
The insinuation doesn’t sit well with Jungkook, but he can’t chew Jeonghan out for it anyway. He didn’t know the nature of your friendship with him, nor was he aware of the history the two of you shared.
“Never say never.” Jungkook shrugs.
Jeonghan rolls his eyes before taking out his laptop and settling into a comfortable position.
“I think he’s going to ask her to be his girlfriend soon.” He says off-handedly as if he assumed Jungkook gave a shit.
He did, and his heart drops to his stomach.
“Hey,” Jungkook calls out when he spots you slip past him at the foyer outside the humanities building.
You twirl around at the sound of your name being called, and your eyes widen when you spot Jungkook walking towards you with furrowed brows.
“J-Jungkook?”
Why you sounded so scared to see him, he wasn’t sure. But he knows that he’s frustrated because it’s the first time he’s seen you after the game where you and Namjoon left to hang out at the exhibition, despite his desperate attempts at calling you out to hang out with him.
“You’ve been avoiding me.” Jungkook frowns, cutting straight to the chase.
You splutter for a response, and you realise that you’re basically gaping at him when you clutch your folders tighter to your chest.
“I’ve been busy, Jungkook. I told you this.” You softly remind him.
Jungkook scoffs, and he feels his mean bone grow; feeling the need to correct you because you were smart—and both of you knew that your excuse was lame.
“Really?” He says dryly. “Too busy to hang out with me but not with Namjoon?” He can’t help how bitter he sounds, especially when he’s heard from the rest of the football members; including Jimin and Taehyung that you were spending a suspicious amount of time with the captain.
You furrow your brows at him when Jungkook stares you down, waiting for a response.
“That doesn’t change the fact I was busy.” You huff.
Jungkook frowns at you, clutching his backpack tighter with his hand as he notices the way you avoid his eyes by dropping them to the ground.
“Why are you being like this?” Jungkook accuses, tone already on the offensive.
You gape up at the boy, brows scrunched in displeasure.
“Me? I’m not being anything. I told you that I was busy and we would rain check, didn’t I?”
Jungkook tongues the inside of his cheek, frustration pooling in his stomach. “Somehow you’re only busy whenever I want to hang out, right?” He scoffs sarcastically. “I thought we were good.”
You stiffen, knuckles turning white when you grip your belongings harder.
“We are.” You say curtly.
“No, we’re not.” Jungkook retorts. “If we were then you wouldn’t need to find shitty excuses to get out of hanging out with me.”
You open your mouth, then close it. You feel yourself grow more exasperated with Jungkook the more he can’t realise the fact that you were still finding a way to navigate the throes of your relationship with him.
“They were not shitty excuses.” You snap. “Listen, we can meet tomorrow for coffee if you really—”
“That’s not what this is about!” Jungkook exasperates, breathing out in a huff.
You purse your lips. “Then what is it, Jungkook? You came up to me and started accusing me of lying to you because I couldn’t meet up at the times you proposed.”
Jungkook clenches his jaw when he notices the way your voice gets increasingly sterner when you talk to him. It only reminds him of the way you used to chastise him when he was younger when he’d do something that was ‘immature’ but standard for a teenaged boy.
“I apologised!” He cries. “I’m sorry I was a dick before this but I’m really trying to fix things between us but you’re—”
“I’m what, Jungkook?” You interject with a frown. “I’m doing my best at healing?” You add softly. “An apology won’t erase what happened.”
Jungkook feels himself deflate, especially at the way your eyes dart away when he attempts to look into them.
“I know it won’t but I just want things to go back to normal.” He sighs.
You screw your eyes shut, finding the words to say before you look at him with such sad eyes that he nearly pulls you close just to comfort you so that he wouldn’t have to acknowledge the fact that it was his fault.
“It’s not that easy.” You whisper, gripping at the hem of your sleeves. “It may be for you but it’s not the same for me.”
Jungkook releases a sigh so loud that your eyes widen, as he attempts to think of something better to say—to offer.
“I really am sorry.” He lamely apologises, his voice sounding a lot like a scolded child.
“I know.” You nod. “But you don’t know how it feels to have …” You swallow. “Whatever. We’re good. I just need time, Jungkook.”
Jungkook furrows his brows when you turn away to stalk off, but he grabs at your elbow to turn your body to face him. Your eyes briefly make contact with the way he’s gently holding onto you before they tilt up to meet his confused gaze.
“How it feels to have what?” He pries.
You sigh, shaking off his grip. “Look. It doesn’t matter. I’m being sensitive.” You deprecate immediately.
Jungkook doesn’t miss the spite in your tone, especially when you say it so firmly and seriously when you dismiss him.
“I want to fix this—us.” He pleads desperately. “Why can’t you just be honest with me?”
As if his words set you off, your eyes snap up and blaze with the pent up fury and anger you’ve been suppressing the entire time.
“Me? Be honest with you?” You scoff. “Real fucking funny. Because when I was honest with you, you turned it on me and took advantage of my vulnerability.”
Jungkook’s eyes widen. “What—?”
“You want honest?” You fume. “Fine. I’ll give you honest but you better listen closely this time because I won’t be repeating myself again.” You poke into his chest, even if it’s fierce and stern, he feels the heartache pouring through. “You were my best friend, Jungkook. You were and are someone important to me and you fucked me over because you knew I couldn’t say no to you. You knew how I felt and you took advantage of that fact just so you could get what you wanted and go.”
Jungkook furrows his eyebrows, confused at the information you were throwing at him.
“How you felt—?”
You cut him off again with a huff. “Don’t pretend like you didn’t know. Why else did you think I did all the shit you wanted?”
“I-I don’t understand.” Jungkook stutters, head caught in a loop when you glare at him harder.
“You knew every bit of insecurity that I had and you weaponised that against me just so you could keep me close.” You say softly. “You knew, either way, I would’ve stayed because I’ve always been there, Jungkook.”
“You’re confusing me.” He deadpans, grabbing onto your shoulders so you were forced to stare at him.
He notices the glistening of your eyes as he feels his heart constrict when he realises you’re trying your best to keep your tears at bay.
“Well, you did it first so it’s only fair.” You sniffle. “You can act like shits fine because you weren’t the one who was attached. I was. So just let me have this time to myself to figure things out because I can’t even be around you without being sad, Jungkook.” You whimper.
He calls for your name but you're already furiously rubbing at your eyes as you curse under your breath as you spin on your heels to hurry away.
Jungkook gapes at you as he attempts to process what you just said, but before he can get another word in—you're leaving him to feel the weight of your words in the footsteps that draw further and further away.
#bts fic#bts imagine#bts fics#bts imagines#bts smut#bts x reader#jungkook fanfic#jungkook imagine#jungkook angst#bts fluff#jungkook fluff#jungkook x oc#jungkook x reader#jungkook#jungkook smut#jeon jungkook#jeon jungkook x reader#bts angst#bts fanfic#bts jungkook
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Friend make sense of me
HAPPY AUTISTIC ACCEPTANCE MONTH!!
It's been a long time coming,I've been working on this for two months, but I wanted to post this Alyssa and Jaime fic to mark the beginning of Autistic Acceptance month.
Cw: Discussions of ableism, masking, autistic trauma and cptsd.
The title of this fic is from A Hole in the Earth by Daughter. I highly reccomend listening to it while you read this. (Unless music distracts you from reading)
"Why does tragedy exist? Because you are full of rage. Why are you full of rage? Because you are full of grief."
-Anne Carson
Alyssa was late.
As she often was. She wasn't exactly great at keeping track of the time. Sometimes it was like she would blink and twenty minutes had gone by. Probably an ADHD thing.
Still she wasn't in a huge rush to reach the LA institute, she knew Ty would be ok with her being late for dinner. It gave him more time to spend with his precious boyfriend.
Not that she was bitter or anything. Honestly Kit mostly seemed decent and they both seemed really happy together. Alyssa just couldn't help but wonder when it was all gonna go to shit.
Her therapist would probably tell her that was her cptsd talking making her cynical about human nature and people's intentions. Alyssa just called it being realistic.
She had been reluctant to go to therapy at first. Her parents had instilled a fear of it in her. Plus she really didn't want to go spill her problems to some middle aged white lady. Or any allistic person actually. But luckily she had actually found an autistic asian women in her thirties.
And Alyssa was grateful for her every day but sometimes it was uncomfortable being scrutinized like this when she had no clue what she was doing or who she was trying to become.
She wanted to be good. That she knew. She didn't want to be a beacon of pain and rage for the rest of her life. Or at least until she ended it. She wanted to be a better person. The kind of person her family could be proud of. The kind of person Ty could be proud of.
Her therapist would say that it was unhealthy for Alyssa to attach so much of her wellbeing and personhood to another person. And somewhere deep down Alyssa knew she was right.
But she couldn't help it, in a world where nothing was certain and nothing was infinite, nothing's in control nothing makes sense there's just pain and hate and nothing you do means anything, where she had no idea what she wanted to do or be. When she had no idea who she was she or if she was even real, she knew he was.
Ty was solid and unmovable. He was her tether.
Alyssa continued clomping along the side of the road in her white leather high heeled boots. Magnus had portaled her to the middle of the pier instead of the institute because there was an outdoor concert she wanted to see before meeting up with Ty.
Ali loved a good outdoor concert. The fresh cool night air combined with all the space to dance was heaven. No crowded claustrophobic stadium where she could practically feel the walls closing in on her. She let the noise fill her up and wash through her body, sparking her nerves and making her come alive again.
Something Ty would never understand. He hated noise and hated concerts. It kinda broke her heart.
She finally reached the entrance of the institute, twenty minutes later then she said she would be. Fucking fantastic.
She was putting her phone away when she saw him. There was a boy sitting out on the institutes steps. Brooding, it looked like. Brooding and drinking from a bottle of whiskey.
Ok well now Alyssa was intrigued. He was also pretty hot. He had brown slightly wavy hair, deep brown eyes and light brown skin. Also a strong jawline, and full lips that were set in a dead line.
Brooding or having some kind of internal crisis.
Whatever. Alyssa could work with that.
He hadn't noticed her as she was walking up to the porch somehow, despite the fact she was literally wearing what Ty had disdainfully called the noisiest shoes imaginable, (I like to go clip clomp jingle jangle Ty! It makes my brain happy.)
The boy was probably just ignoring her which pissed Alyssa off more then she would have liked.
"Hey shadowhunter!"she called out to him, noticing the black marks on his arms. "You're in my way."
The boy slowly looked up at her, his expression shifting from melancholy to a slight smirk. He licked his lips. "Let me guess," he slurred his words slightly, speaking with a Latin American sounding accent. "Long dark hair, murderous scowl, you must be Alyssa Reyes."
He smiled after he said her name in a way that made her feel weirdly exposed. It wasn't a friendly smile by any means but it also wasn't mocking or malicious. Alyssa felt like she was under a microscope. It wasn't as though she didn't like attention or being noticed. Her ego certainly preened and puffed up at the idea of him already knowing who she was.
But any social interaction with a new person was bound to make her feel anxious and this strange boy had a way of making her feel vulnerable, which she hated.
But she wasn't someone who easily allowed herself to be deterred. Alyssa matched his smile and channeled her best Faith Lehane persona. "Oh would you look at that, I'm famous! And you are? She asked with fake casualness. Alyssa stared directly into his eyes, ignoring the pain.
His gaze never left hers. "Jaime Roccio Rosales. I'm sure you have heard of me."
Alyssa shrugged. "I haven't," she lied smoothly. She had heard of Diego Rosales' younger troublesome brother from Ty. Apparently he was friends with Dru and it was a friendship most of their siblings didn't trust because he was older. But Ty didn't really care either way, as long as Jaime didn't hurt her.
Alyssa wasn't even really sure why she lied about knowing who Jaime was. Sometimes she shifted into bitch mode when she got scared.
Jaime didn't look offended though. He just chuckled. "Well now you have," he said matter of factly, taking another long drink from the bottle of whiskey.
Alyssa bit her lip, debating for a moment before she nodded her head towards the bottle. "You got enough enough to share?"
Jaime smirked at her again. "I thought you needed to get inside?
Oh she hated that. That knowing look.
Alyssa faked nonchalance. "Ty will understand if I'm a little late." She conveniently neglected to mention that she was already more than a little late. But there was something weirdly interesting about the boy in front of her.
She sat down beside him and grabbed the bottle taking a long gulp. The whiskey burned at her throat like she had just swallowed bleach. Alyssa grimaced and rubbed her shoulder against her cheek, dragging it across. It was one of her favorite stims from childhood. She was putting in an effort to unmask more now.
Jaime gave her a look, but it wasn't judgemental or disgusted. Just curious.
Alyssa ignored him. " Ugh! Why do you hate yourself?" She asked only half jokingly, shoving the bottle back towards him.
Jaime gave a humourless chuckle. "How much time do you have?"
Fucking none was the truth. She had negative time as per usual. Ty was going to kill her.
"I'm genuinely curious," she replied honestly. She had actually started flicking her fingers in excitement. If there was one thing she loved was hearing about people who were more fucked up then she was. It was strangely comforting.
Jaime shook his head. "You first. Why do you do that?" He asked, pointing at her hands.
Alyssa froze on instinct. Waves of panic shot through her. In the back of her mind she was already plotting her escape.
She took a breath. "It's just something I do when I'm nervous or excited. Or upset." She paused and then shrugged. "Basically any any emotion I guess. It's called stimming." Alyssa snuck a peak at Jaime's face. There was nothing that she could read. He wasn't giving her anything.
She shifted her position on the steps, pulling her legs to her chest. "You know how Ty flaps his hands sometimes? Or rocks back and forth? It's basically the same thing. It's because we're both autistic."
Jaime finally reacted. He raised an eyebrow at her. "But..you," he said slowly. "You're not like Ty?
Alyssa scoffed and shook her head. "No one's like anyone, Rosales. That's how human nature works.
Jaime chuckled. "Fair enough, but.." he trailed off.
Alyssa sighed. She knew what he was referring to. She didn't particularly want to be having this conversation. However there was something nagging at the bottom of her chest to spill the thoughts weighing on her. Just to have someone listen.
Wow she really needed more therapy.
"The truth is when I was a kid, I was a lot more like Ty. Or at least I think I was," she paused. "A lot of my childhood is just blanks now. I only remember little peices and it's usually the bad stuff." Alyssa pulled on her braid and stuck her fingers in the loops. "But a long time ago I think I was happy. I think I was free. But that didn't last."
She dropped her braid and looked back at Jaime. His expression remained relatively passive, although Ali swore she could read a touch of melancholy in his features.
"Anyways that's enough about me. How about you?" Alyssa reached for the bottle again even though she knew it would make her gag. "You said you would tell me why you hate yourself." She took a swig.
Jaime blew air out of his nose half-heartedly. "You say that you can't remember your childhood? I would do anything to forget mine."
Embarrassingly enough, Alyssa perked up. "Well now I'm intrigued!"
But Jaime just shook his head and swiped the bottle from her. She tried not to look to disappointed. Alyssa knew it was rude to try and pry thing out of people that they weren't ready to talk about. She couldn't expect everyone to just trauma dump like her. But she didn't want to monopolize the conversation.
"Did you ever, like did you ever have dreams of being something other than a shadowhunter?" Alyssa asked.
Jaime smirked. "Actually yes. When I was a child I wanted to be a faerie."
Alyssa laughed out loud. Whatever she thought he was going to say it wasn't that.
Jaime shook his head. "It's so stupid."
She rained herself in. "No, no it's not! It's adorable."
Jaime shrugged. "I was always obsessed with the fae as a child, same as Cristina. Most likely because of our family's connection to them. However unlike Cristina I was very persistent. I read everything I could find, devouring those books front to back. It was one of the only things that made me truly happy."
Alyssa couldn't help but smile at the ground. She clutched at her knees. "That sounds like me with dance. The first time I saw The Ballet I was obsessed. I begged my mother to enroll me. First it was ballet, and then contemporary and then jazz.." she drifted off. She could feel the old memories coming back to her.
"It was my sanctuary," Ali bit her lip. "Like as long as I was," she rubbed her fingers together, "touching the bar or doing pirouettes in front of the mirror then nothing could hurt me." She fought the urge to sink her fingernails into her palm and instead tapped her fingers against her thigh.
"But I was wrong. I quit when I was 16 and I've been too afraid to dance since."
Jaime frowned. "Why did you quit?"
Alyssa sighed deeply, a sound that may have more closely resembled a groan. "Because I was sick of pretending to be normal and focusing on the art at the same time? Because I was sick of playing by other people's rules? Because I was sick of being mocked and ridiculed by my so-called peers." She could feel tears of frustration coming to the surface.
"Because I had spent basically my whole life stripping away peices of myself and rearranging them to please other people, Alyssa admitted. "They call it masking. Such a simple word that means so much pain."
"Because how could I call myself a dancer or an artist when everything about me was fake right down to the root of my soul? And what I didn't destroy, everyone else was sure to take care of for me. Whether it was my parents or my sister or my teachers." She realized she had started to raise her voice and looked at Jaime sheepishly.
He shook his head. "No don't worry. I think you needed that."
Alyssa scoffed. "Still. I'm really only supposed to have outbursts like that in therapy."
Jaime raised a surprised eyebrow.
"Yeah it's this whole new thing I'm trying. To try and heal myself. To try and see if I can still save a peice of that little girl who wanted to be a ballerina. That little girl who believed in goodness and the beauty of this world." She managed a small smile. "I think I owe her that much."
Jaime looked strangely pained. "And what if she can't be saved? What if you're just stuck this way?"
Alyssa shrugged. "I don't know. I just know I have to try."
They were both silent for a moment as they sat together staring out into the night sky. Alyssa continued to tap as she let her mind wander.
Then she heard a soft sound from beside her. She peered over to Jaime and noticed fondly that he was tapping along with her.
He seemed to notice her staring and blushed sheepishly.
"I haven't done that since I was a child," he murmered in disbelief. "My mother used to put her hands over mine to stop them from moving."
Alyssa let out a dry laugh. "Same. Except when I used to flap my mother would literally pin my arms at my sides. Eventually I switched to playing with my hair."
"Flap? Like this?"
Ali could hardly contain her smile as she watched Jaime begin to move his hands more boldly and shake them at his sides.
He was probably autistic and that knowledge brought her immense joy as she always loved to meet more of her neurokin. But Jaime probably wasn't ready to hear it yet.
Jaime must have seen her somber expression because he had stopped stimming and staring pensively again.
"Do you really want to know why I hate myself?" He asked casually.
If Alyssa were anyone else she might have been put off by the uprumpt and dark subject change. But she was pretty used to this way if communicating.
Jaime didn't wait for her response. "Because I am my family's disappointment."
Alyssa blew out a loud gust of air. "Well hey I mean same! Like as if being autistic wasn't enough, I've also got ADHD and cptsd, although granted that one came later. Not to mention being a big fat queer."
"I honestly don't know half of the words you just said," Jaime said with a laugh.
"Well trust me, I'm definitely not my parents' ideal daughter."
Jaime looked down at the nearly empty bottle, he was tracing the lid with his finger. "I was never what my parents wanted either. Especially not compared to my older brother Diego. I even feel guilty for harboring any sort of resentment towards him or my parents. Honoring and being loyal your family is an extremely importent part of my culture."
Alyssa smiled. "Yeah same. I think that's something that pretty much all collectivist cultures have in common. In Filipino culture we have this term, Kapwa which basically means connectedness or a shared inner self. Like essentially you are one connected family unit and what you do effects the whole family, so you should be considerate of that."
Jaime nodded. "Right. And in the beginning I wanted to be. I wanted to be good and make my family proud. But so much of what I did naturally, so much of what I wanted and naturally felt, was not in line with the rest of my family. And at a certain point I started to feel like I was a bad person. As if I was evil or there was something wrong with me because making your family proud shouldn't be this difficult."
Alyssa felt a giant pang in her chest. It was almost as though Jaime was speaking her own words back to her. She could feel the urge to cry creeping up on her like a steady wave, but she fought it.
"Diego was everything I was supposed to be and he still is," Jaime continued. An exemplary shadowhunter, a kind and respectful son. Cristina and I used to call him "Perfect Diego" because it's seemed like there was nothing he couldn't excel at."
Alyssa snorted. Jaime's description of Diego reminded her of her older sister Grace. Grace was everything that Ali wasn't or couldn't be. The perfect student and the perfect daughter with her perfect boyfriend now husband. She had recieved straight A's throughout her entire academic career and was now in medical school training to become a doctor. It was a high paying job that would allow her to repay their parents for all they had done for her as a child.
Alyssa wanted to be able to repay her parents as well for all they had gone through to get to the US, but Ali had never been a good student and in the end had just barely graduated despite all the tutors her parents had hired. She wished she could have been a savant or an autistic person with profitable skills instead of a dancer who refused to dance on other people's terms and a professional drama queen whose talents included getting into fights and then blasting Queen or David Bowie into her ears.
But then she had gotten scratched and now her main concern was on getting her cover story straight. Her parents thought she was studying psychology at a college in Brooklyn. Alyssa had actually gotten in due to her decent grades in English and she had attended for awhile before her pack duties had gotten too demanding.
Lying to her family broke her heart but it wasn't exactly like she could tell them the truth.
Alyssa smirked. "Yeah my older sister is kind of a handful too."
Jaime sighed. "Diego isn't really though. I was the handful. I-" he trailed off. "I betrayed my best friend."
At the mention of Jaime's best friend, Alyssa instantly thought of her own. She had completely lost track of time as she had the tendency to do. And when someone wasn't directly in front of her, after awhile they stopped existing.
Ty.
Ty who was waiting for her. Ty who had his boyfriend to keep him company and he probably hadn't even noticed she was gone.
It was a petty and unfair thought. Ali knew that. But she couldn't help it. That familiar ache that came from sensing abandonment. The worry that Ty didn't really care about her as much as she cared about him.
She shoved those thoughts aside. "It's ok," she told Jaime. "Whatever you did, I forgive you."
Jaime looked stunned. Alyssa could see tears welling up in his eyes. "But you don't even know what I did."
Alyssa took a deep breath. "No, but I know what you were going through. Probably better then anyone else. And I also know that you need someone to forgive you. And I know you won't forgive yourself." She tentatively reached across the porch, slowly reaching for Jaime's fingers.
She gave him time to pull away before she took his hand in hers. He didn't resist.
"So I forgive you."
Jaime inhaled deeply, probably in an effort to stop himself from crying and squeezed her hand back.
The gesture again reminded her of Ty and Alyssa's heart sank. She slowly pulled her hand back.
"Hey listen, this has been great but I really need to get inside. Ty's waiting for me," she said reluctantly.
"Oh! Mierda right of course!" Jaime exclaimed. "I'm sorry about that."
Alyssa shook her head "No it's fine It was my bad. Besides I'm sure Kit's keeping him occupied." She tried not to snarl Kit's name but the look on Jaime's face told her she was unsuccessful.
"Not a fan of the Herondale?" He asked playfully with a return of the smirk.
Alyssa sighed in a way that was probably overly dramatic, but she was nothing if not a drama queen. "He's fine I guess. I just don't trust him with Ty." She had gone back to flicking her fingers, this time in annoyance.
Jaime smirked at her. "I don't think you would trust anyone with Ty. Anyone except you."
She narrowed her gaze. "What do you mean?"
He shrugged. "People say that you're in love with him. Is that true?"
Alyssa recoiled in disgust. "Who, Kit?"
"No. Ty. Is that true?"
Alyssa was genuinely stunned. She stared blankly at Jaime without making a single expression. There were so many questions running through her mind.
How? What? Why? Huh?
Alyssa blinked rapidly. "How could anyone think that?
Jaime scoffed. "I don't know honestly. Apparently because you're always all over him and your relationship just seems really intense. At least that's what Dru said."
"So what hugging someone a lot and caring deeply for them means your feelings gave to be romantic? That's so stupid!"
"I agree," Jaime said. "It's annoying when people make those kinds of assumptions. People used to assume Cristina and I were dating back home just because we were close."
"It's beyond annoying!" Alyssa snapped. "It's so violating. That people would just assign you romantic feelings like that without a second thought. And it pisses me off because," she paused. "Look I know the friendship between Ty and me is unconventional. But my friendships have always been weird and unconventional because I'm weird and unconventional!"
"The love we have for each other isn't based on traditional rules for what platonic relationships should be. And honestly society's idea of friendship is pretty shit."
Jaime gave her a small smile. "You don't have to argue with me. Believe me I understand. It's frustrating when everyone devalues your friendships and assumes that you want a romantic relationship."
Alyssa grimaced. "Sorry. I guess I'm just kinda sensitive about this stuff. I don't want to date anyone and I don't think I ever will."
Jaime smiled. "Me neither. We can be alone together."
She smiled, feeling strangely moved by his words. In the short time they had known each other they had already bonded. Like how she and Ty had but bonded, but not at the same time.
It was refreshing to be able to talk to someone who understood her need to keep her connection to her family and her culture, as well as her drive to please them but still be allowed to honour herself. Ty's advice usually amounted to something along the lines of "just cut them out of your life."
And Alyssa knew she needed to take care of herself. In the end that was why she was in therapy. But things weren't as simple as Ty made them out to be.
And in some ways she envied him. Envied the way he could just move through this world without a care in the world and just demand things. And he could do it because in their eyes he was respectable. He was brilliant. The top of his class at the scholomance. He clearly deserved their respect.
Not Alyssa though. Never Alyssa.
She sighed and prepared herself to finally haul her ass off this porch. "I need to get through that door," she announced. "He doesn't deserve me bailing on him like this."
Jaime nodded. "Probably not."
Alyssa wasn't sure how to proceed. She always felt awkward during goodbyes.
"Well I guess I'll see you around."
"Wait!" Jaime exclaimed, getting up from his spot. "I'll come with you. Dru's probably worried about me."
They entered the institute by Jaime opening the door for them both which Ali was thankful for. If he wasn't there she would have just had to knock. The hallway looked empty, but she could hear sounds in both the dining room and the upstairs thanks to super hearing.
"I'm actually going to go dump the rest of this before I find Dru." Jaime gestured to the bottle. "I suppose we might see each other later."
"Yeah maybe," Alyssa heard herself say distantly. Her stomach was twisting in knots.
"Hey," Alyssa turned at the sound of Jaime's voice. He smiled at her, a moment of genuine emotion. "It was an honour to meet you Alyssa."
She grinned, feeling some of her old cockiness come back. "Well I should hope so. I'll see you around Jaime."
With a nod, he dissapeared into the kitchen. Leaving Alyssa alone again.
She took a breath and slowly made her way into the dining room to check for Ty.
When she entered the room his eyes immediately found her, and she was heartbroken to see how concerned he looked.
"Ali! Are you ok? I was worried!"
Alyssa meant to tell him that she was fine, that everything was fine and she was sorry for making him wait but instead she just deflated, completely disregarding the other people in the room.
"No. No I'm not ok."
Ty approached her cautiously. "What do you need?"
And hearing that made Alyssa want to scream. He was so good to her. Always. And she could never repay that. What did she even need? More therapy probably. A fucking lobotomy. Or a personality transplant. She wanted to rip herself to pieces and reassemble herself until something clicked. Until she was real and whole. Until she had become who she was meant to be.
"Hold me. Put your arms around me."
And when he wrapped her in his embrace and squeezed so tightly she honestly thought her ribs were about to crack, Alyssa honestly couldn't remember why she'd been so worried that she would lose him.
His breathing was steady against hers as she shook. Alyssa remembered a conversation with her therapist when she had asked her, "how do I move on?"
She had sighed pensively and responded with, "It's a complicated process that takes a lot of time. But the very first thing you need to do is want to move on. I think you've gotten very used to living in your anger because it's safe and familiar for you. And of course anger can be useful, but not when it's trapping you. You have to be willing to let it go."
At the time Alyssa had been furious and thought that she was full of shit. But now as she clung to Ty in this far too brightly lit kitchen, she could see how all her anger, as justified as it may be, was just masking grief.
Grief and shame.
Shame over allowing those things to happen to her. Shame over not being what her parents wanted or expected. Or over being fundamentally broken and incapable of keeping most people happy in her life.
Alyssa was ashamed of herself for all she had lost, because she still felt deep down, that it was her fault.
But it wasn't. None of it was. And if she could accept that and accept that she didn't deserve any of the things that happened to her then maybe, just maybe she could look herself in the mirror one day and say out loud, "I am not a bad person."
I am not a bad person and I deserve to be free.
Maybe someday she would believe it.
The line "nothings in control, nothing makes sense there's just pain and hate and nothing you do means anything" is a Faith Lehane quote from Angel The Series.
A lot of the information about Filipino culture that I used for this fic came from this article here. I reccomend checking it out. It's pretty interesting.
I am actually planning on writing a Ty centric fic for the month as well so keep an eye out for that!
Tagging: @lavender-scented-rat @littlx-songbxrd @arangiajoan @have-a-holly-jolly-angstmas @tired-vin @phoenix-and-dragon @amchara @wagner-fell @sandersgrey @the-wckd-powers @spooky-drusilla @the-blackdale
#tsc#tda#twp#jaime rosales#alyssa reyes#fae's oc#alyssa is my oc#actually autistic#autistic acceptance month
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Bite Your Tongue
Hi everyone! Here's a little “truth serum” drabble loosely based on season four (Pre-Silas and Caroline and Tyler did break up). Bonnie and Caroline experiment with a truth spell and Caroline gets stuck with the consequences. I’m still pretty new at this so please be kind. Enjoy!
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Bonnie Bennett was at the very top of Caroline’s shit list today. Now she knew why vampires hated witches so much. Not that she truly hated her friend, but she certainly understood the sentiment. Ever since Bonnie started working with Professor Shane she had been practicing different kinds of magic that made Caroline more than a little uncomfortable. But never let it be said Caroline was unsupportive of her friends, so when Bonnie asked for a volunteer for a new spell, Caroline agreed and played guinea pig. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Caroline swore to herself that if she found a way out of this she would never get within spitting distance of magic ever again.
When Caroline got to Bonnie’s house she listened to her friend explain that this spell would be a game changer when it came to dealing with the Originals that were still taking up residence in their town.
“Trust me, Care. This could really work.” If Caroline had a dollar for every time she had been bitten in the ass for trusting her friends, she would be a very rich woman.
“Is it safe? I mean you aren’t going to like accidentally kill me or anything are you?” Caroline asked, nervousness evident in her voice.
“It’s completely safe, Care. I promise.” Bonnie’s answering smile didn’t exactly put her at ease.
Overly trusting, stupid bitch would be on her gravestone. Before Caroline could actually agree to the spell, Bonnie started chanting. Caroline found herself unable to move and she tried to tell Bonnie to stop, but by the time she could get her friend’s name out of her mouth, the chanting stopped and the spell was complete. Bonnie looked at her like she was examining her under a microscope.
“Well?” Caroline prompted, eyebrows raised. “Did it work?”
“Who really broke my Barbie when we were six?” Bonnie asked.
“What? What does that have to do with any- me!” Caroline threw her hands over her mouth and looked at Bonnie in shock, eyes wide.
“I knew it! And yes, it worked. It’s a truth spell. The subject of the spell can’t lie. Don’t you see, Care? We could ask Klaus or Rebekah or even Kol anything and they have to answer! We could find out straight from them where the white oak stake is or if there’s another way to kill them. Shane thinks this spell could be valuable.” Delight danced in Bonnie’s eyes.
“Oh of course Professor Creepy thinks it’s a good idea. Are you freaking kidding me, Bonnie Bennett?! All of this for witchy compulsion?” Bonnie knew how she felt about her mind being messed with. “How do you know it would even work on them? And how you know they won’t kill us all as soon as they realize what the spell does?” She was fuming. She could feel rage seeping into her veins and she knew she needed to leave before she could no longer control herself.
“Relax, Care. I’ll break the spell right now. Right after one more question.” Caroline’s body prickled with suspicion and she saw something she didn’t recognize in her friend’s eyes. Professor Creepy has got to be brainwashing her.
“Bonnie I swear to God, do not ask me-”
“Do you have feelings for Klaus?” Bonnie asked pointedly. From the calculated expression on Bonnie’s face Caroline knew she had been planning to ask this very question from the beginning. She wondered if Shane put her up to it. Shane had an unhealthy obsession with the Originals. Caroline wouldn’t put it past him not to know about Klaus’s soft spot for her. Caroline bit her tongue until she tasted blood and glared at Bonnie. She hoped she conveyed just how betrayed and enraged she felt through her eyes. “Yes,” she bit out lowly. “Now undo the spell, Bonnie. Right fucking now.”
Bonnie closed her eyes and started chanting again. Caroline waited for something to happen, but the feeling she got when Bonnie did the spell the first time never came. Bonnie’s chanting grew louder for a few moments before she stopped.
“What are you doing?” Caroline questioned. “Why did you stop?”
“I-I can’t undo the spell. It’s not working. I-” Bonnie looked panicked that her magic wasn’t working.
“Figure it out, Bonnie!” Caroline yelled. “Look, figure out a counter spell and call me when you do. I need to leave,” Caroline spat out before storming out of Bonnie’s house, the door slamming behind her with a satisfying smack.
Caroline let out a frustrated growl and continued walking away from Bonnie’s house and into the nearby woods. She needed to take out her anger on something living, and since killing a human was out of the question, a deer would have to do. She let her monster out and flashed deeper into the woods to hunt. She couldn’t tell her friends, but using her gifts was exhilarating. She loved how powerful and dangerous she felt. Within minutes she hunted down a deer and sunk her fangs in.
When she finished feeding she straightened and wiped her mouth, catching any stray drops of blood. She took a grounding breath and turned back in the direction of Bonnie’s house, calmer than before and ready to help her find a solution to her situation. She barely took another step before she caught a familiar blur speeding toward her in the corner of her eye. Klaus stopped in front of her, smirking and handsome. Why today of all days? Caroline tipped her head back to look at the sky, not believing her bad luck.
“Hello, sweetheart. Out for an afternoon stroll? Although by the looks of it you’ve been hunting. Back on the animal diet then?” He tucked his hands into the pockets of his designer jeans and took a step closer, eyes bright and mischievous.
“Yes! I needed to let off some steam so I came to the woods to hunt so I wouldn’t hurt a human.” The words came out of Caroline’s mouth before she could even think about trying to stop them. She rolled her eyes and swore under her breath. “Look, Klaus you need to stay away from me today. I mean it!” She backed away from him as she spoke, eyes wide and looking for her easiest and quickest escape route. She knew she couldn’t outrun him, but she could certainly try to put some distance between them.
Klaus took a step toward her and put his hands out like he was trying to calm a scared animal. “Caroline, love. What’s—“
“No!” Caroline shouted and closed the space between them and pressed her fingers against Klaus’s lips, effectively cutting off his question. His eyebrows rose in question.
“Please don’t ask me any questions. Please.” Her eyes bore into his, silently begging him to comply. After a few more seconds she slowly removed her hand from his warm mouth. In the back of her mind she wondered what it would feel like against her own mouth instead. Bad, Caroline. She shook the thought from her head while Klaus looked at her in silent confusion. Great. Now he thinks you’re insane.
Klaus gripped her upper arms and peered down at her, worry clouding his features. “Love, tell me what’s wrong. I can help you.”
Caroline shook her head and looked away from him. His proximity and masculine, woodsy scent was overwhelming her already heightened senses. Klaus moved one of his hands to her jaw and turned her face back to his.
“Come now, Caroline. It can’t be that bad,” he reasoned. He continued to scan her features for any clues of what she wasn’t telling him. Caroline’s face heated under his gaze. He took another moment to look at her before his face turned hard, eyes sharp, and asked, “Alright what did your little friends do now? What is going on?”
She knew he probably thought her friends were engaging in another plot against him. She bit her lip until she drew blood. Klaus’s eyes were immediately drawn to the action. “Caroline, tell me. What is happening?” He rasped. Caroline could see lust building in his eyes as he watched her lick away a drop of blood from her bottom lip.
“Bonnie worked with Professor Shane to make a truth spell and she tested it on me. They want to use it on you and your family to get information about your weaknesses. She didn’t tell me what the spell was or what she wanted to do with it until after she cast it.” Desire evaporated from Klaus’s blue eyes and was replaced by rage and wolf gold. His grip on her arms tightened almost painfully before he let her go. He walked backward a few steps and ran a hand through his hair in exasperation.
“Are you insane?” He yelled. He ignored Caroline’s whispered, “no” before continuing. “You let a baby witch who doesn’t even understand her powers yet experiment on you! You don’t have any idea of the possible consequences of what you’ve done. For fuck’s sake, Caroline!” Caroline was surprised by his outburst. She knew he cared about her, but he seemed genuinely upset that she put herself in danger. He wasn’t even focusing on the plot against his family. “Children,” he muttered under his breath before asking, “Did the witch say how long the spell lasts?”
“We-we don’t really know. Bonnie tried to undo it after I freaked out, but she couldn’t do it.” Caroline bit her lip again, trying not to think about how hot Klaus looked when he was angry. Totally not the time!
Klaus looked her up and down, eyes dark, before approaching her once again. He raised his fingers to her face slowly and pulled her lip from her teeth. He brushed his thumb across her lips before trailing his hand down her jaw and neck. Caroline tried not to let herself be affected by his touch, but it was impossible. All of her nerves were on fire and the heat was spreading. She’d been fighting her feelings for Klaus for months and she couldn’t do it anymore. Klaus didn’t look in any better shape than she was. He was breathing harshly and staring at the porcelain skin he was touching. He met her eyes and spoke, voice deep, “Do you like this?”
“Yes,” she replied, moving impossibly closer to Klaus.
“Do you want me to touch you more?” Klaus looked like he was barely holding himself back from ravishing her right there in the woods.
“Yes. I want you to touch me.” She tilted her head to look up at him before surging up and pressing her lips to his. Yes. Klaus quickly took control of the kiss and deepened it, his tongue licking the seam of her mouth. Caroline gasped and he took advantage of the opening and brushed his tongue along hers. She always wondered what it would be like to be kissed by Klaus. After all, he had a thousand years of practice. He definitely did not disappoint. She knew she would be ruined after this. No one could ever compare to the feeling of his lips moving over hers. Caroline bunched the fabric of his dark gray Henley in her hands before running them up to his shoulders and into his dirty blonde curls. Klaus circled his arms around her waist and pulled her firmly into his body. Caroline tugged on the ends of his hair making Klaus growl in his chest. She felt her nipples tighten in response.
Klaus broke their kiss to trail his lips down to her neck. He took his time nipping and licking a spot over her pulse that Caroline didn’t even know existed. She threw her head back to give him better access and let out a breathy moan that sounded almost like his name. Before she could form a coherent thought, Klaus dropped his hands to her ass and pulled her up, encouraging her to wrap her legs around his waist. She wrapped her legs around him, the skirt of her yellow sundress bunching at her hips. He flashed them forward to a tree and pressed her against it, hands moving her waist. The bark scratched her back and sent a shiver down her spine. He returned his lips to hers and stole her breath away. Caroline dropped one hand from his hair to grip his necklaces and pull him even closer. Her other hand went to the back of his neck and she dug her nails in. He groaned loudly and his hips jerked into hers in response. She gasped into his mouth at the delicious friction and rolled her hips against his. Caroline was determined to give as good as she got so she pressed her breasts against his chest and bit his full bottom lip before soothing the sting by sucking on his tongue. The growls and moans he let out traveled straight to her core. Klaus pulled the straps of her dress down her shoulders harshly and peeled the cups of her bra down to squeeze her breasts and roll her nipples between his fingers. Caroline moaned loudly and she could feel herself becoming impossibly wetter. Klaus broke their kiss and pulled back slightly to meet her eyes. His pupils were blown and ringed with gold.
“Klaus,” Caroline whined, trying to pull his lips back to hers. Klaus smirked devilishly at her before moving his lips to her ear.
“Do you want me, Caroline?” The way he said her name was downright sinful. “Do you want me to have you right here in the forest?” His lips brushed against her ear one last time before he bit her earlobe, making her cry out. His eyes met hers again as he waited for her answer.
“Yes. I want you right here.” Caroline eyes were glazed over with lust and she didn’t care that anyone could see them out in the open. She tried to lean in to kiss him, but he held her back. Klaus chucked lowly at the look of frustration on her face.
“What do you want, love?” He was teasing her, playing with her inability to lie to him. Under normal circumstances Caroline would be seriously pissed, but she couldn’t summon any feelings other than desire and lust in that moment. For some reason she found the power he had over her extremely hot. He could ask her anything he wanted and she had to tell the truth.
“I want you to fuck me and make me come against this tree.” Caroline wasn’t typically this vocal during her romantic encounters, but she couldn’t help it. Even without the spell Klaus probably could have gotten her to make the same confession. Klaus smiled wolfishly at her before rolling his hips into hers, making her throw her head back and moan. She inwardly cursed her panties and his jeans. He’d been hard for her since the second she kissed him and right now she needed that hardness against her, inside her.
“When I have you, love, I want to take my time. I want to spread you out on my sheets and worship you until you can’t remember anything but my name. I want to spend hours between your thighs and brand myself along your body. I want to make you scream until your voice is hoarse and your body is so sated that your vampirism can’t help you. I want to fuck your tight little body right here and make you call my name to the skies, but the first time will be in my bed where I can ruin you for anyone else. I’ll make you so desperate for me that you won’t be able to even think of anything but my cock and tongue in you. But I’ll not deny you the orgasm your body is craving right now.” Klaus’s voice became deeper and his accent got thicker as he spoke. Caroline thought she might combust just from his words.
Klaus moved back from her just enough to get his hand between them. He ran his fingers over her soaking panties before moving them aside and slipping his fingers into her wetness. “Fuck, love. You’re so wet for me,” he growled. He brushed her clit once with his thumb and sunk two fingers inside her core, making Caroline cry out and moan his name. Klaus hoisted her up higher on the tree and began working his fingers inside her before taking her pink nipple into his mouth and laving it with his tongue. Caroline had never felt anything like this before. By no stretch of the imagination was she a blushing virgin, but none of her other lovers had left her as wet and desperate for touch as Klaus. She clenched her thighs tighter around Klaus as she rode his fingers.
“Klaus,” she bit out. Klaus released her nipple and began sucking and biting her neck with blunt teeth. “Tell me what you want, love, and I’ll give it you. Just give me the words.”
“Rub my clit and make me come. Please.” She begged. Klaus doubled down his efforts and put his thumb back on her clit before adding a third finger to her tight pussy. Caroline let out a strangled moan and moved her hips faster against his hand.
“That’s it sweetheart, give it to me. Ride my fingers. Come for me.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Caroline exploded around his fingers with a high-pitched moan and saw stars behind her eyelids. She lost track of time while she was coming. When she finally came down she met Klaus’s gaze and he looked like she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Her chest was heaving and his eyes dropped to watch her breasts move up and down.
“So beautiful,” he whispered. He removed his hand from her and brought his fingers to his mouth to lick away the evidence of her need for him. Caroline thought she might come again from the sight of him licking her off his fingers. She was about to try and persuade him to forgo his original plan of a bed and fuck her in the woods when he dropped her legs from his waist and righted her bra and the straps of her dress. The tree at her back was the only thing keeping her upright. Klaus pressed a gentle kiss against her lips before pulling back with a grin. He looked as wrecked as she did. She could still make out the hard line of his cock under his jeans and she sincerely hoped he wouldn’t make her wait once they got to his bed.
“Alright, love. Come with me. There’s a witch in Charlotte that owes me a favor. I’ll have her meet us at my place. She’ll be able to remove the spell.” Klaus grasped Caroline’s hand in his and began pulling her in the direction of his house. Caroline’s body finally caught up and started moving.
“But Charlotte is hours away,” She said, a smirk forming on her lips.
“I guess we’ll have to find a way to entertain ourselves in the meantime.” He looked at her over his shoulder and threw a wink at her before flashing off with her through the trees.
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REFUGE : a MFKZ oneshot
AO3 link : https://archiveofourown.org/works/33567571
************
So... Things weren't looking too great.
Vinz pursed the lips he didn’t have, looking up from his sketchbook- he wasn’t a good artist by any means, but mindless doodling had always been his go-to activity for stress relief. Unfortunately, Angelino hadn’t moved an inch. Hadn’t for days now.
Nobody knew what was wrong with him- they’d tried just about everything to wake him up, to no avail. It was like his body was fighting against itself- the professor’s words, not his. Something about his weird biology shifting, disrupted by recent stress.
Well, whatever was going on, his best friend looked awful- his usually inky black skin had an unhealthy ashen tint, deep shadows under his eyes making him look even more bug-eyed than usual. He was also eerily still and silent, save for his deep, raspy breathing, and his eyes that sometimes moved rapidly for a few minutes before stopping. Beads of sweat were gathering at his temples, his clavicle, his stomach, falling slowly on the fabric of the couch he was laid on- one of the only pieces of furniture in the bare little cabin they’d been assigned to.
Or confined to, given the disapproving looks the hothead got from their saviors whenever he tried to go further than the water hole behind the wooden house.
Their saviors- the luchadores. As crazy as it sounded still, him and Lino had been rescued from that nightmare facility by none other than their wrestling idols- and had the circumstances not been this terrifying, Vinz definitely would’ve been fanboying all over the place. Both Tigre and Diablo were even more impressive up close, their booming, commanding voices rattling his bones.
But that was the thing- the admiration, the awe, the fluttery feeling of being starstruck… it hadn’t lasted very long. Not when they were running from bloodthirsty aliens -aliens!- with some weird old man who knew way too much about Lino for it to be comfortable.
Vinz groaned, getting off the floor- his joints cracked as he walked to the couch to sit by Lino’s bedside, feeling completely useless. He stifled a flinch when he spotted a few roaches in the palm of Lino’s hand, apparently watching over their beloved master.
It was equally sweet and gross, in Vinz’ opinion. But he couldn’t be mad- not anymore. Not when the swarm of crawling black pests had been the cause of their salvation. He distantly wondered if his friend’s true nature had something to do with the strange connection he had with his roaches.
Yeah… That was another thing he’d had to unpack in the last few days. He’d figured from Angelino’s recent athletic exploits and murder-y, tentacle-y episodes that something very weird was up with his best friend. But this… this was a little too much.
As it turned out, Lino was an alien. An honest-to-God alien- or at least, half of him was. The guy had never, ever talked about his parents, his earliest memories only going back to the orphanage they’d both grown up in. God knows how he’d ended up there, but considering how the Machos (and what stupid-ass name that was for an alien race, for real) seemed to view relashionships between humans and their kind… Vinz could take a guess at how that little love story had ended.
He wasn’t an idiot, despite what all the people he’d worked with might think. In the short moments where he’d been conscious and the big suit guy was around, he’d heard him mention something about ‘finishing what he’d started’ as he glared at Lino’s unresponsive body.
That had told Vinz everything he needed to know. Whoever Lino’s parents had been, they were long dead. And that man was responsible for it.
Angelino didn’t need this. He didn’t deserve any of this, to be torn from his family, hunted down like a rogue animal, and even now, being looked down at like some interesting science experiment.
Oh, Vinz saw them alright. The curious stares, the inquisitive glances. The hushed conversations between the masked men, like Lino held all answers.
Like he’d said- he would’ve fanboyed hard about his favorite fighters being around. But the way they looked at and talked about his best friend made his blood boil and his flames burn hotter. It didn’t matter that Lino was a hybrid, that he had freaky powers, hell, he could’ve been the second coming of Jesus for all Vinz cared.
Angelino was his best friend in the whole world. They’d been through so much together, even before this mess- they’d been living together their whole lives, they trusted each other, supported each other no matter what.
Vinz had wondered why he’d been so angry at Lino, at that girl. He briefly considered the possibility that he was harboring feelings for his best friend, that it was jealousy. But it quickly occurred to him that no, that wasn’t the nature of his feelings for the black ball-headed man.
Vinz loved Lino, yes. More than anything in this world, if he was being honest with himself. But he wasn’t in love with him- there was a distinct difference. He wanted to protect him, stand by him. He wanted them to keep watching dumb movies together late at night, on their shitty couch, in their shitty apartment and yet shittier neighborhood. And he’d be content with that- as long as Angelino was here, he’d be okay.
Angelino. His best friend. And his partner, for life.
This ran probably deeper than mere friendship- not like Vinz would know how to even call it. It might not have been romantic… but it felt equally as strong, and precious. Vinz sighed, crossing his arms on the couch and resting his skull between his arms. He’d considered running away- take Lino and run, run on the line between ochre sand and purple skies of the desert. Hide out somewhere, wait for everything to finally blow over. Watch over Lino until he woke up, as he was doing now.
But that was a pipe dream, and Vinz knew that. They weren’t the survivor types- they’d just die within a few days without the luchadores’ help, and then what? No, as much as Vinz disliked it, staying here was the smartest thing he could do right now.
So Vinz kept watch- gently cleaning Lino’s exposed skin with a wet sponge when his body ran too hot, replacing the cool rag on his forehead and eyes. Covering him with a blanket when he got too cold, whispering hushed reassurances.
Shhh, it’s okay, you’re okay.
I’m here.
I’m not leaving.
Come on Lino, please.
Come back to me, okay?
I can’t do this shit without you.
I’ll be better, I promise.
I’ll protect you this time, so please.
Please wake up.
#mutafukaz#mfkz#angelino diaz#vincent scavo#vinz#queerplatonic vingelino#vingelino#they're qpps your honor#this takes place after they escape the alien facility#before lino wakes up in the movie#fanfic#fanfiction#oneshot
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Here’s chapter ten! I do believe this is the first chapter with absolutely no dialogue! I hope you enjoy it regardless!
AO3 Link
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Scattered Cicadas - Chapter Ten: Soft Shadows
Redemption is a hard process. Yet the cycles seem to make it easy for one particular demon.
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Redemption was a tricky thing. It required so many different events to happen in a certain order that it rarely occurred.
The first step was to commit some form of wrongdoing.
This was unfortunately the easiest part to do and most people never moved on to the next.
The second step was to realize and acknowledge your actions as wrong or harmful.
Many had justified their own actions over the course of existence and never saw themselves as doing wrong. Worse, many knew their behavior to be cruel and simply did not care or relished the feelings of power it gave them.
The final step was perhaps the most difficult to achieve.
One had to feel genuine remorse for their actions and wish to change.
Very few actually made it this far in the process as it usually required a catalyst of some sort. A personal revelation after going too far or someone laying your actions out clinically so you couldn’t justify them. Even a single act of unconditional kindness and trust could make someone wish to change.
Then came the truly hard part: actively changing your actions.
The path to redemption was not a short one. It took a lifetime of pursuit and dedicated work to not slip into the temptation of reverting back to who you were before.
Closing yourself off and pretending you didn’t care was easy, after all. What was difficult was being honest with yourself and allowing yourself to feel.
It helped if you had people around you to offer support and love. If it was from the same people who you had harmed originally, all the better.
But earning forgiveness wasn’t the goal of redemption. Some would refuse to give it, and you would have to live with that as it was their right to do so. It may hurt, but you had hurt them first and have no right to demand it even if you had changed.
Being redeemed wasn’t for the benefit of one’s victims. The hope was that you could grow into being a better person. It was for your own personal peace of mind. Whether others choose to accept that you’ve changed was not up to you, but you must continue onward regardless if you were to ever live with yourself.
Tang was intimately familiar with this process. The amount of cycles where he had been some sort of villain was not small.
The first three steps came easy to him. Feeling remorse for his wrongdoings and wishing to change were simple for one stuck jumping through time.
He could even spot a suitable catalyst for his potential ‘redemption’ fairly quickly. MK’s kindness and belief of the good in most people had certainly been useful on many occasions.
Having the whole process down to a science himself, Tang was even able to pull others into changing their ways sometimes. The Demon Bull family were commonly caught in his actions whenever he was a part of it.
(Having Red Son as a younger sibling had been interesting.)
What was bemusing to the scholar was that throughout the cycles there was one person who would constantly be redeemed, even without his meddling.
The Six Eared Macaque was an interesting puzzle.
He seemed to fit into the group that knew their actions were harmful, but did not care. Yet time and time again, he would become one of their allies.
Tang hadn’t known much about the demon early on in the cycles, but the knowledge about him came inevitably.
Macaque had been a “beloved friend” of Sun Wukong in the past. At some point, they had a falling out, Macaque seeing it as being left behind by Wukong.
The scholar had actually experienced part of that tension back in that cycle with the time traveling cactus.
So it seemed feelings of betrayal, jealousy, and abandonment were Macaque’s main motivations.
That last one was eerily similar to MK’s insecurities.
Macaque was very much like both Wukong and MK when Tang stopped to think about it. All three had repressed emotional trauma and coped with them in wildly unhealthy ways. Usually by pretending they weren’t there.
Macaque channeled those repressed emotions into schemes of revenge. He used lies and illusions to get what he wanted. He was condescending and sarcastic to his enemies, seemingly cruel and uncaring.
And it was all a facade.
At least, most of the time. There were a few cycles where Macaque was genuinely a despicable person who showed no remorse.
As much as he tried to hide it, Macaque was actually a very emotional being. It was quite easy for him to get attached to one or more of their group and slowly his cruel streak would fade.
Macaque’s catalyst for change was usually a person. It differed from cycle to cycle, but someone would show him some kindness or trust and before Tang knew it they would have another sarcastic immortal monkey as a part of the team.
MK was obviously the most common person to get the demon to change. Macaque was not lying when he called him a good kid. Having four father figures in those cycles seemed to be good for MK.
Wukong, while usually not the initial catalyst, tended to play a big part in Macaque’s redemption. Being old friends, they knew each other extremely well. While that tended to lead to a lot of arguments, it also led to them picking up where they had left off their previous relationship.
It didn’t really bother Tang that said relationships were often romantic in nature. Watching the two monkeys cuddle when they thought no one was looking was just too cute.
Mei was an interesting choice for Macaque to become attached to. He often ended up becoming her mentor, teaching her how to properly wield the Dragon Blade. Both of their sarcastic natures worked surprisingly well together.
The biggest surprise had been Pigsy.
That cycle, Macaque was basically under house arrest as ordered by Heaven. Pigsy, not wanting the manipulative demon to be anywhere near MK, forced him to stay at their apartment. It was some time later when Tang had woken late in the night to some loud noises and had left his room to complain.
Only to find Macaque pressing a kiss to Pigsy’s cheek before fleeing his room, pursued by a flustered and angry pig demon soon after.
It was strange, but Pigsy’s gruff and silent compassion meshed really well with Macaque’s easy going and nonchalant attitude. The scholar found their affection towards each other endearing.
Tang supposed it was only a matter of time before he himself acted as Macaque’s catalyst.
The cycle had started early, about a year before the original events. While working at the library, Tang had been approached by what he immediately recognized as Macaque in his human disguise. He had requested help on learning more about The Journey to the West for a school assignment. Tang, deciding to play along, offered himself up as an expert on the story and they began meeting weekly to go over it.
Macaque truly did not know the full events of the Journey in this cycle and seemed upset at several points, such as learning about the fillet used to inflict pain on Wukong. Over time, the pair began to meet up more often and discuss things other than the famous book.
He really should have expected falling in love.
Macaque was still sarcastic as ever, but never malicious. He made jokes and comparisons that had Tang’s side aching from how hard he laughed. He was quick to pick up Tang’s quirks and preferences, surprising him with his favorite foods or a nice new set of bookmarks.
He was still Macaque, but this softer side of him made Tang’s chest flutter.
As he lay in bed with his partner, (who had still yet to reveal himself to Tang, but he was patient), Tang couldn’t help but feel a new place in his heart open up for the shadow demon. He had already been considering adding Macaque into his family due to the many times he had joined them, and this just solidified that decision.
Oh Tang knew the cycles where he never changed would be painful. Watching as someone he loved went down a path of self destruction wasn’t easy. But he held onto the knowledge that there would always be the cycles where Macaque did become a part of their family.
As long as the possibility existed, there was hope that the same could happen in his own timeline.
If he ever got back that is.
Tang shoved that increasingly reoccurring thought away and closed his eyes, letting the soothing sounds of Macaque’s breathing lull him to sleep.
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A NEW CHALLENGER APPROACHES!
Macaque is the fandom’s darling bad boy, so of course I had to have a chapter discussing his many, MANY redemption’s over the many fics and AU’s.
In particular, (Teach Me to Be) Tougher Than Leather, Softer Than Silk by *checks notes* HOLY SHIT! I had no idea this was by @ninja-knox-ur-sox-off until just now! *ahem* Anyway it is an AMAZING fic with a practically never used pair and I highly recommend it.
Tang seems to have a type doesn’t he? Demons that seem emotionally distant, but are big softies at heart. It’s probably the purring that gets him. ;P Also does Tang/Macaque have a ship name? If not I'm dubbing it InkyPages.
Don’t worry Tang! I’m sure those intrusive thoughts will go away all on their own.
Important notice! I’m probably going to be putting this fic on the back burner for a bit because I really want to write about the cycle mentioned here. Not as part of Scattered Cicadas, but as its own thing. So keep an eye out for that!
Until next time!
#Ink Writes#Monkie Kid#Scattered Cicadas#Tang#Tang Monkie Kid#Macaque#Six Eared Macaque#ninja-knox-ur-sox-off#(Teach Me to Be) Tougher Than Leather Softer Than Silk#MK#Mei#Pigsy#Sun Wukong#squidinknoodleshipping#Tang/Macaque#what IS their ship name anyway?#InkyPages#InkyPagesShipping#LEGO Monkie Kid
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Alright! Let's see how this would turn out! Prompt 30 with Hisoka?! Whenever you have time. No rush!
I can see why you chose this prompt for him.
Warnings: Yandere themes, unhealthy mindset, unhealthy relationship, possessiveness, obsessiveness, sadism, masochism, stalking, death, kidnapping
Prompt 30: “I desire any physical touch with you so please hit me more.”
“Hisoka!!! Where are you?!?! Come out you goddamn bastard so I can punch the living shit out of you!!!” These were the first words as soon as you woke up and were able to think clearly again. You were tied to a chair in an empty and tall room. Damn it! You were supposed to have a fight at the Heavens Arena by now! You had already been on the 200th floor! But when you had went there for your fight you had suddenly noticed Hisoka standing behind you. You had never liked this guy, having noticed that he had been watching you since you had reached the 50th floor. You had heard from every person in this place that you should stay away from Hisoka because he was...special. But how the hell could you avoid someone who seemed to always watch you from the distance?! At first he had only watched you from the distance, but after some time he had started to get in contact with you. After only one minute with him you had realized why everyone had warned you about him. Because he was an ass! When you had at one point lost your patience and had tried to attack him he had simply told you that you still weren’t ripe yet and he needed to enjoy you when you had riped into the sweetest you could ever be. For some reason it sounded like he meant that in more than just one way. When you had started attacking him he had simply disappeared, probably because he didn’t want to hurt you before you were “riped” or in other words, until he saw you as worthy to fight against.
It had gotten out of hand when this guy had suddenly started to appear in your room. You didn’t even know how he had managed to always get into your rooms, but there were a lot of things you didn’t know about him. The problem had been that you had never known when exactly he would suddenly appear. It could be when you had been just chilling, sleeping, eating, hell, he had even once walked straight into your bathroom whilst you had tried to relax your sore muscles after a fight with a relaxing bubble bath. Thanks goodness the bubbles had covered all your private parts. You could see how intense Hisoka was staring at the bubbles, obviously wishing to see more. You had literally blown him out of the room with your Nen ability, hoping to cause this guy some serious damage and you definitely hadn’t excepted to hear a moan from him, sounding like it came directly out of a porno. You had waited for him to come back into the room, but that hadn’t happened. You hadn’t been able to relax anymore after that.
When you had finally reached the 200th floor this guy had already been waiting for you, trailing behind you the whole time whilst teasing the living hell out of you, trying to make you angry. But after the incident in the bathroom you had come to the conclusion to just ignore him. And that had clearly annoyed him after some time. He had really tried everything to get a reaction from you, but for once you had kept your cool, ignoring him even though there had been many times when you had almost lost it. But after some time he stopped suddenly all of his interactions with you and you had thought of it as your victory, but how wrong you had been. You had started fighting against others in the 200th floor, hoping that you could avoid Hisoka. And everything looked like it had been on a role for you. But when you had arrived for the fight with your 7th opponent and hopefully 7th win Hisoka had suddenly appeared behind you. You hadn’t even noticed him and noted that he must had used Zetsu to hide his presence. But before you had been able to react in any way you had suddenly felt a quick hit against the back of your head and then everything had turned black.
Back to your current situation. You still tried to find out where Hisoka was exactly hiding, but you suspected that he must use Zetsu again to hide his presence. But you knew he was there! You could literally feel his yellow eyes staring at you, twisting your face angrily when imagining the disgusting amused look on his face. Still no answer. He was toying with you. You knew that you shouldn’t give him this satisfaction, your consciousness screaming somewhere at the back of your mind that this was exactly what he wanted, but your temper got the best of you. “You want to hide?! Well then, I’ll make sure to drag you personally to hell!!” You angrily started to struggle against the ropes you were tied up with, ripping them apart with an angry scream. That’s when you heard it. It was barely audible, but you heard a very familiar voice chuckling. Your head snapped into the direction of the noise. “So that’s where you’re hiding?! Come out and fight me you jerk!!” You angrily lifted your hands up and started shooting your red glowing Nen out of it, destroying everything the Nen came in contact with. That’s when you saw him. He jumped quickly out from where he was hiding, your red glowing Nen throwing his growing shadow over you and illuminating his entertained expression. He landed elegantly behind you.
“My, my. Quite impressive. But you should get your temper better under control. It would be a shame if something would happen to you just because you can’t control your temper.” An inch mark appeared on your head, his fake worried tone pissing you off. “Shut the hell up!! Where am I?! What did you do?!” He gave you a grin. “You are in a house somewhere far away from the arena and you’re here because I-“ “I know where I am and I also know what you did you idiot!! I’m not completely dumb!! I want to know why you did it?!?!” “Then you should have asked more precise questions.”, he replied whilst looking at his cards. “You asshole!!” Again you shooted your Nen towards him, but he simply jumped up to avoid it. You were just about to shoot again when he suddenly lifted his hands up in a surrendering way. “(y/n), if you attack me now I won’t be able to tell you what you want to know. By the way, I don’t feel in the mood to fight you right now.” Your eyes twitched. “You think I’ll just stop because you aren’t in the mood to fight me?!?! You’re truly the worst bastard I’ve ever met in my life!!!” He pretended to be hurt, gasping and laying one of his hands over his heart. “You’re so cruel (y/n).” You took a deep breath to calm down a bit. You wanted to know why he did this so as much as you disliked it, trying to fight him now wouldn’t help you to receive your answers. You would sent him flying after you’ve heard his explanation. “Better start explaining quickly or else you’re in huge troubles!”
“You’re too kind.”, he said before starting to explain. “You want to know why I took you away? It is really simple. Because I was jealous.” A dumbfounded look crossed your face. Jealous?! Him?! “I watched you since you stepped the first time into Heavens Arena and I know when I see someone with potential and you,”, he pointed with one of his sharp nails at you,”were basically overflowing with potential so I kept a close eye on you and watched as you continued to raise up. You were so entertaining to be with, but when you suddenly started ignoring me I felt” He stopped, seeming to search for the right word. “...offended.” All of your anger had disappeared and you just stared at him, blinking confused at him. What in the world was this guy talking about? “When I watched you fighting against the opponents of the 200th floor I felt so jealous and scared. I was afraid that they would take you away before I even had gotten the chance to play with you and I was jealous because they hurt you and you hurt them.” He stepped closer to you. “Only I am allowed to hurt you and you are only allowed to hurt me. That’s why I killed all of them. They didn’t deserve to continue living after experiencing a battle with you. Same goes for the guy who was supposed to fight you today. To be honest, all of them were rather weak. I am much more fitting to fight against you.”
For a moment you were absolutely speechless before all of your previous anger returned. “You were afraid that they would kill me before you had gotten the chance to play with me?!?! What am I to you?!?! Some kind of toy?!?! I am a fucking human being, not your personal entertainment thing!!! That’s it!!! Make yourself ready!!! I’ll beat some sense in this twisted mind of yours!!! Even though I doubt it will be from any use!!!” Hisoka didn’t react, instead looking at his cards. “Hey!! Don’t ignore me!!!” He sighed slightly frustrated before putting his cards away. “I told you before, didn’t I? I’m not in the mood to fight yet. I want to save this for later.” He bent down to you, a huge smile present on his face. “Don’t you think I deserve something for going through all of this troubles just for you? Maybe a kiss?” “...!!!!”
“Wham!!” Your punch sent him flying, crushing against the wall. “Kissing you?!?! I’d rather kiss the chairman than you!!! The only thing you’ll be getting are punches from me until you’re black and blue!!! Do you hear me?!?!” Due to the dust you weren’t able to see his expression at first, but when you did you instinctively took a step back. Despite the huge purple bruise on his face and the blood that was dripping down Hisoka was smiling widely. A huge blush started spreading on his face. His eyes rolled back in pure pleasure and he threw his head back, letting out an even worse pornographic moan than before. You on the other hand were highly crept out. What the hell?! The next moment Hisoka suddenly looked with a look you didn’t like at all at you before disappearing. You looked panicked around, trying to find out where he was. But that wasn’t necessary because the very next moment you suddenly felt him grabbing your shoulder and turning you around to face him. On his face was a look of pure ecstasy and put together with the still visible blush on his face and his huge grin made it quite the disturbing sight. His sharp nails were digging into your shoulders and you felt something hard poking against your lower abdomen. You didn’t dare to look down, already knowing what it was. “Do that again!” His voice sounded thrilled. “E-excuse me?!” “I desire any physical touch with you so please hit me more.”
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What are your favourite fanfic tropes/aus for romione?
(I’m gonna try to make my way through old asks I received AGES ago and never answered because I’m a procrastinating lump. Here’s betting I’m going to give up and play videogames all day instead.)
Oh my god, so many.
Okay so as a rule of thumb as long as it’s nice to Ron I’ll read it. I’ll read anything. I have been known to read Ron/Draco and even sacrificed my dignity and everything I stand for as a human being by reading some Ron/Snape stuff. Yes. I was THAT desperate. This is how low I’m willing to go because of sheer love for Ron.
Which means that when a fic will go “oh poor Hermione, poor Hermione who is waiting for Ron to grow up because She can see one day he could be worth it but for now he’s all dumb-dumb and inferior and doesn’t deserve Her perfection :(”, I will be judging. Judging very hard. I may not leave a comment but rest assured, my thoughts are loud enough for me.
This is 2010s mentality. This is “haha I’m so like Hermione, not like other girls who throw themselves at boys, I’m so special and girl powery :)” Horribly Bad Feminism. Fuck that. We’re doing better now.
Speaking of doing better. Recently I read something about how Ron is, paraphrased, “the brute of the Trio”, spun in a positive way since he uses his strength to protect them but, but, still... please no?
Just no! Just eff no with these takes about how Ron is a hypermasculine dudebro M For Manly™! No, no, fucking no! Just because he’s the Sulfur to Hermione’s Mercury and Sulfur represents the masculine component to Mercury’s feminine one, DOESN’T MEAN Ron is “the brute”! (”the” brute... seriously... who’s the more brutish one, the one who punches a racist in the face or the one who uses a torture curse as retribution for spitting on his fave teacher?)
The way I see him, Ron is a balance, a blend of feminine and masculine qualities intertwined close together. I LOVE that he can swear like a sailor but can only say “scarlet woman” or “cow” when it comes to insulting a woman. Some will probably see it as “hurr durr he sexist he doesnt think women can take it!!!!!!! >8C” but given that those are probably also the peeps who say “HE CALLE D HERMOANI A NIGHTMURRR!!!!!!! DDDDD8″ I’m gonna venture the idea that we don’t care about those folks’ biased, sexist opinions.
Where was I going with this... oh yes! Ok, so Ron can swear like a sailor yet couldn’t insult a girl to save his life. He’s strong physically but most of all he’s strong mentally (to put up with the way his friends treat him for years speaks a lot of his mental fortitude... and to top it off he comes back for more to boot! I’m not sure if that’s more mental fortitude or straight-up masochism though.) When he succeeds at things he gets a bit attention-whoreish but at the same time, you can see that when he’s being complimented he’s all unsure of himself and blushy and shy and you just, dude you can’t handle positive attention because you don’t know how to react to it I don’t know whether that’s adorable or the saddest thing I’ve seen in my life? He’s insecure but he’s always the first to cheer on Harry and Hermione when they’re doing something great, which speaks VOLUMES of Ron’s selflessness and of his actual character: to quote @peetamaellark, Ron doesn’t think “Harry is great, therefore he sucks and I hate him”, he thinks “Harry is great, therefore I suck and I hate me”. THIS is Ron. THIS is why Ron will lash out, not because he hates Harry, but because internally he hates himself and you can’t keep that sort of feeling bottled up for too long before... you got it, you explode.
I. Want. More. Fics where Hermione isn’t this ~oh dear~ Victorian damsel in distress who cries and Ron is the Big Strong Man who holds her with one arm and is stony-faced and goes “I’ll protect you”, please no that was old before it existed, let us have nice, realistic depictions of Ron and Hermione please.
Like, Hermione is more than capable of kicking butt herself. She IS absolutely nervous and scared and cries easily and that’s a vulnerability we NEED, but the fact that she can be super scared and crying but still hex her opponent into oblivion? THAT’s good, THAT’s excellent. It’s a very important message for girls, I think. “You can cry, you can be sensitive, you can be emotional, AND you can still kick butt”. And as important as that message is for girls, it’s also a very important message to give boys, because boys are socialized to “never cry” and that’s super unhealthy.
I love Ron’s admiration of Hermione. I love the way Ron hesitates, the way he can be cautious when he needs to as much as he can be reckless and impulsive. I love how he shows himself to be a big softie and a sweet soul. I don’t think that makes him an “emasculated doormat” (to quote a guest I once saw on FFN), on the contrary it makes him an even better man in my eyes.
You know why I love the locket scene so much? Because Ron’s tears aren’t ridiculed. Ron gets to cry about the terrible ordeal he’s been put through, and while Harry “pretends he can’t see Ron cry” because it’s more comfortable for him personally, he doesn’t try to tell Ron to “man up” or anything. His reassurance is pretty lousy but he lets Ron cry, he lets his friend be upset, and he doesn’t try to invalidate Ron’s pain. (ok, the “I thought you knew” is kiiiiinda on the way there, but it stops at that and I’m grateful for it).
I like. Seeing Ron distressed. I like seeing Ron upset and be allowed to be upset. I like to see Ron’s pain treated with respect. So when Ron is having a shit day I like to see him get a cuddle. I like seeing Ron go through horrible ordeals and break down and for his breakdown to be properly acknowledged and not turned into insensitive comic relief (ISN’T THAT RIGHT, LATTER HALF OF THE SILVER DOE????).
I mean seriously, just imagine GOF, Harry sitting in the hospital wing after Cedric’s death, Molly Weasley gives him a hug and it’s all very sad and angsty. And now picture Ginny running into the room screaming “HARRY JAMES POTTER” and punching him over and over and saying “PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER MAN, PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER” then after two pages of Harry “explaining” himself to Ginny she goes away saying “aight but if you do that shit again you’ll have to answer to me” then Harry’s friends are like “damn she’s spunky huh?” and Harry laughs and everyone laughs and this is how the book ends? How would it be funny? How would it be appropriate? How would it feel like “romance”? When Ron returns in The Silver Doe, he’s been psychologically tortured (”tortured” is the actual word JKR uses, please), we don’t need him to be hurting outside as well.
I want more accountability for Hermione. More “uh hey Hermione maybe don’t do that”. More “hey Hermione you know you think of yourself as a good person buuuut yeah actually if all good persons were like you I’d be very afraid”. More “Hermione please for the love of God educate yourself”. More “Hermione sweetie I love you, but you can’t actually learn everything from books”. CHARACTER. DEVELOPMENT. PLEASE. Don’t be afraid to punch Hermione down and tear her apart the way the best Ron fics maim and torture our poor boy. Just because Rowling treated Hermione with kiddy princess gloves doesn’t mean you have to mimic her.
So when Hermione does a genuinely shitty thing let her own up to it. When Ron is a victim let him be upset and angry, even if Hermione is the one treating him badly. Just because he loves her doesn’t mean he’s not allowed to be disappointed in her or that she’s entitled to his immediate forgiveness.
Give Ron and Hermione equal consideration. If you’re brushing off Hermione’s actions but condemning Ron for the slightest mistake, I am sure to hate it.
Okay, uh, so, those aren’t really tropes. Those are more just, guidelines I presume.
Oh, yeah, a trope that annoys me! Ron saying “you’re mine”, “my Hermione” and stuff, and Hermione just swoons and says “yours” and shiz. Ok, once in a while, why not. Once in a while. BUTT. I WANT HERMIONE TO SAY IT TOO. “Mine”, “my Ron!” and Ron swoons and says “yours, absolutely yours”. DO IT YOU COWARDS. FUCKING TAKE THOSE GENDER ROLES AND PUNCH’EM IN THE FACE.
Oh, right, while we’re on the subject of gender roles! Dad!Ron is everything. SingleParent!Ron is mwaaah. Stay-at-home-Dad!Ron is ALKZLDSJDLQSKLFJ <3. AnimalLover!Ron is HHHHNNNGG. Remember, the small gestures, the tiniest, softest acts Ron does (helping Harry get dressed when his arm is deboned, giving Dobby his brand-new sweater, praising Ginny, Luna and Neville when they escaped Umbridge), those are often those unremarkable, unmistakeably kind and sweet actions that tell us who Ron really is at his core: not a guy who’d want power at all costs, not a guy who’d give it all for ambition, not a guy who sees people as possessions, but someone kind who wants to make others happy.
Ok, I was also asked for AUs, so, uh, pretty much every AU is game as long as Ron gets treated with respect? I mean I don’t really care for Mafia!AUs or such but if you can find a way to fit good Romione then go for it I guess. Royalty AU, yeah why not but I often see Ron being made a prince while Hermione is a poor wee servant girl and like. Uuum, we’re talking about the same characters here? Hermione the highly educated girl who keeps on walking over everyone’s toes and loudly talking about how things should be done and is definitely Nouveau Riche, Ron who is a country boy who lives on a farm and is lost in the constant shuffle of his brothers, you think she should be the peasant and he should be the royal? Whaddafack?
Oh, and all the “Hermione is a Muggle, Ron is a wizard” AUs that start this way BUTT! Suddenly... Hermione... turns out... to be (wait for it!)... A WITCH! And a super powerful super talented very good one too!!!... yeah ok, yawn. It’s quite scary, actually, how often I’ve seen that plotline, but in the rare cases when it’s Muggle!Ron and Witch!Hermione, Ron never ever EVER (I mean, seriously, NEVER EVER) turns out to have been a wizard, not even a mediocre one, all along. No, when Ron is made a Muggle for the sake of AU he stays a Muggle. But when Hermione is made a Muggle she has to turn out TO HAVE BEEN A WITCH ALL ALONG OMYGAH. I can count on one hand the number of Mugglemione/Wizardron fics that actually stick to their Mugglemione premise till the end - and usually they’re one-shots.
(Also I don’t mean “Ron mistakes Hermione for a Muggle because he meets her in the Muggle world and assumes he must hide his magic from her, oh wait she was actually a witch!” fics, I mean genuinely “Hermione has been raised a Muggle her whole life, never had weird things happen to her her whole life ever, then Ron comes in and is a wizard and he does magic and Hermione wonders what it’d be like to be a witch and oh surprise! Don’t worry Hermione, you won’t have to feel not-special or mundane for long, here comes the plot contrivance to tell you you really were in fact the specialest of them all!!” fics.)
Fairytale!AU is cool. Very good. But honestly I like to see them swapped around. Ron cursed by a nasty fae to be a Beast and Hermione stumbling upon him? Neat, especially if you don’t go the boring route of “oh let’s just rehash the Disney/the original book with different names and call it a day”. But Hermione cursed by an asshole fae for, let’s say, not sharing books, turning into a Beast, and Ron stumbling upon her as she’s trying to survive in the woods (and not doing a very good job of it)? Yes, brava, chief’s kiss. Rapunzel AU where Hermione’s bushy hair turns into the most impractical, most suffocating improvised ladder ever for Ron? Hilarious. Rapunzel AU where Ron has A GIANT EFFING PONYTAIL OF THE GODS and is screaming “ow ow ow” as Hermione makes her way up to his window cringing and saying “sorry! sorry! sorry! (damn his hair smells good)” on every step? Equally hilarious. Go! Be creative! Please I beg of you
Creature!fics! Oh my god there’s not enough of those, at least that aren’t focused on a bullshit pairing! Soulmate AUs! Give me everything! I’ll even take A/B/O if you insist on making it Romione! That’s how far I’ve fallen from human decency I’ll take anything just give me some good Ron content please I beg of you
(Ah and to those that are going to say “Alpha Ron Omega Hermione :)))” well yes, but actually no. “Beta Ron Beta Hermione”? “Beta Ron Alpha Hermione”? “Omega Ron Alpha Hermione”??? HELL YEAH NOW WE’RE TALKIN)
Oh dear god I’m still not finished and I haven’t gone through everything someone stop me.
AND NOW BE CAREFUL CHILDREN, BELOW WILL BE SMUT.
Okay I don’t know if it qualifies as a trope, but. But. A more realistic depiction of Ron is usually what I’m after. All those fanfics that have Ron be “the sexy experienced one ;)))” ravishing “naive virginal Hermione ;))” is just UGH. We spent all the 2000-2010 period having fics like this, mind adding a bit of EQUALITY to the mix???
It’s just... I hate it okay? So many fics read like they’re just projection, writers who are essentially making Ron their big strong sex toy stud who's so attentive and sweet and cherishing, and so it does indirectly ends up as "servant Ron is so devoted to his goddess Hermione, providing pleasure to her while she doesn’t have to lift a finger”. The Dom!SexGod!Ron thing honestly depresses me... Since it's Ron taking care of Hermione, AGAIN. Like, he spends his WHOLE LIFE doing that already. Can we give him a break for once?
In the endI feel that it's less "Romione smut" and more "self-inserting into Hermione smut". In "real" Romione smut I think Ron and Hermione would switch roles according to what they feel like. And honestly I ALWAYS picture Ron being super nervous during Dom stuff, like he spanks her once then immediately he goes "oh my god are you okay?? did that hurt, do you want to stop?", things like that. I cannot imagine it happening any other way. XD
Ron is just... too caring, too sensitive to do stuff like hard BDSM and that kind of thing in my opinion. He’s too much of a caretaker. I understand if it’s your kink and you’re perfectly free to project and write the fic you want, I’m not the fun police, but it’s just... I don’t think that’s really what Ron would be like. I just want MORE realistic Ron.
Also I’m trying really really hard to not point fingers here but WHY is it that it’s always “Ron growled” while it’s always “Hermione whimpered” or “Hermione moaned”? Like... you know it’s okay for a man to moan or whimper in pleasure too, right? You know Ron isn’t 110% muscles and testosterone? You know Hermione is allowed to be fierce too? Hermione can 100% “growl” and be dominant and pin Ron to the wall and reduce him to a puddle of goo if you’re brave enough?
(Honestly how sexy would Ron think that is? The woman he loves is half his size yet can pin him down and ravish him. DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG RON HAS WANTED TO BE RAVISHED AND CHERISHED DO YOU KNOW HE’S BEEN WANTING THIS ALL HIS LIFE)
Oooo-kay, so that’s... mostly it, I reckon. Oh also Ron has a gigantic penisraise kink (and a great penis too, but mostly a praise kink). That’s canon and that’s all.
#vivi answers#ask#ron weasley#hermione granger#romione#harry potter#harry potter series#hp fanfic#fanfiction#tropes#au#writing
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kitty i can't wait for your thoughts of Shadow and Bone asdfasfaw
Ok well I just finished and I have so many fucking thoughts. Most good! Some, less so. Part of it may just be my bias because I’ve only read the Six of Crows duology and have little interest in actually reading the original trilogy, because I know how it ends and Leigh clearly hates me personally and doesn’t want me to be happy (/j), so I was already predisposed to be far more invested in the Crows and Darkling/Darklina segments (genuinely, the Mal/Malina scenes/storyline bored me to tears, and while I appreciate that the show went out of its way to change Mal’s character to make him much less of a toxic douchebag [I’ve read enough excerpts and explanations of his actions in the books to really loathe book!Malina], it isn’t enough to make me ship them when Darklina is right there), but I also don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the Crows absolutely stole the show.
It’s actually kind of funny, because I’d assumed they were only being so heavily marketed to hype the show up even more, since while there’s a lot of TGT/SoC fandom overlap they are also two fundamentally different genres and I’d wager there are a lot of people who are massive fans of one but not so enthused with the other, while remaining fairly insignificant to the overall plot. Turns out, they make up fully half of the show’s runtime (much to my delight). Which is part of what I think will help this series stand on its own, both as a book adaptation and simply as a fantasy TV series.
I’ll put more of my story-specific thoughts under a cut, so there’s lots of show spoilers to follow!
I know that a lot of early reviewers were saying that Alina’s motivations and storyline revolved too much around Mal, and that really held true for me. It made sense in the beginning--he was the only constant in her life, she was thrust into something new, terrifying, and completely unfamiliar, and they’d developed an unhealthy codependence as a coping mechanism for their childhoods and the traumas they faced, the lives they lead growing up in a war-torn country. But she started coming into her power, falling for the General--not just his power and charisma, but what she felt when she was with him. The way he helped her summon the sun, the way she felt free in a way she never had before.
Until it all went to shit--but the Darklina make-out scene in episode 5? Fucking iconic. Poetic fucking cinema. The way they were quite literally about to have sex on that wartable (and someone better write fic of that moment, what if they hadn’t gotten interrupted), and the General left, but then he ran back just to kiss her one more time... this is what OTPs are made of ok.
I think what really bothers me overall is that Alina ultimately lacked agency in her one storyline, pretty much the entire way through. She did make a few choices, but they were mostly incidental, and a lot of it was Alina desperately trying to get back to Mal rather than seizing her own power and destiny and running with it. The most prominent example is the end of episode 5--Alina is having happy make-outs and almost bones the General in his own war room, and then he leaves, and Baghra comes in and infodumps to her about how evil he is and how he’s only using her and she needs to escape.
I recognize that a lot of this is probably because that’s essentially what happened in the book and Leigh is an executive producer for the show so she has a lot of shot-calling power. However, I really think that even in the book this plotline would’ve been better-served by having Alina make these discoveries on her own.
For example, imagine that the letters which were used as framing devices for episodes 2 and 3 were vitally important to the plot, rather than being one-offs that are mentioned a few times but not really affecting much of anything. Alina begins to get suspicious when she doesn’t receive word from Mal, and she starts wondering if her letters are even reaching him--so she starts snooping. She finds ashes in the war room hearth, late at night,, and recognizes a fragment of Mal’s signature and larger piece of her own. She now knows that someone--possibly the General, but maybe that creepy priest guy, or someone else in the palace--is keeping her and Mal from contacting one another. So she starts snooping around even more. She asks the General leading questions, trying to figure out what the truth is of his intentions. She still feels this pull--this connection to him, and she hopes she’s wrong, but she’s not willing to just sit around and wait for the other shoe to drop.
The Winter Fete still happens, she still gets the hot make-out session with the General, and then when he’s called away, she snoops through his papers, looking for anything that can tell her the truth. She finds a hidden compartment filled with journals.
She reads about Aleksander’s past (and, incidentally, wasn’t that supposed to be a huge moment in the books, him revealing his true name to her in private? kinda wish it had been kept that way in the show but who knows where they’ll go with it in the future)--that leads to the flashbacks in episode 6. She feels for him, but she also reads further--she gets a firsthand look at his desire for power, something that began as a noble desire to save his people, but was twisted by a lust for vengeance (for his lost love and all the Grisha who were killed) and shot through with greed, the realization that if he found the Sun Summoner he could control the Fold, rather than just destroy it. He could create a new world where Grisha could live without fear--where Grisha could rule.
Alina is terrified. Whoever the General used to be--whatever humanity she saw flickering in his eyes, the way his heart fluttered when they kissed--she can’t trust that it’ll be enough to save her from plans centuries in the making. So she goes to Baghra, the woman who helped her discover her power, learn to channel it--the woman who always seemed to know much more than she ever let on. Baghra gives her side of the story--Alina got it from the General’s perspective first, now Baghra is telling her something framed much differently. She isn’t sure what or who to trust, but she knows that Baghra seems willing to help her escape--but rather than trusting her ‘loyal Grisha’, she makes the choice she made in the show, to choose the other path, and winds up with the Crows.
Idk how Mal and the Stag thing would fit into this (if it isn’t obvious by now, Mal just... doesn’t interest me), but Alina’s story and her character arc would be so much stronger for it. And she’s supposed to be the central character, so her story being weak and her agency so frequently being compromised ultimately hurts the show as a whole.
I know I’ve gone on and on about Alina and the Darkling (look, I’m a slut for enemies-to-lovers, and also lovers-to-enemies-and-back, so Darklina and Helnik are where so much of my investment is rooted--plus Kanej, but that almost goes without saying), but the true standouts of the series were the Crows. Inej, Kaz, and Jesper, and Nina and Matthias in their episodes, stole the show (along with the Darkling, Ben is far and away the best actor in the cast and I love that for him, but Freddy, Amita, and Kit are also amazing, and Danielle&Calahan were fucking phenomenal as Nina and Matthias--I do have to say, though, that the whole cast is really solid and has amazing chemistry).
They worked together so perfectly--Freddy and Amita communicated so much with their eyes alone, especially together, and a whole lot of their relationship dynamic is rooted in how they exist together, which really came through. The show altered the Crows timeline considerably (I’m pretty sure Kaz would’ve been 14 during the original trilogy lol), so Inej is still at the Menagerie, but things like Kaz putting up the Crow Club for Inej’s freedom, the way Kaz needed her but could never bring himself to say it (until the end of the season dklhfgdkjfgh i SCREAMED)--the way Jesper played off the both of them, and it’s so obvious they all love each other even though they’re criminals and thieves and murderers, and Kaz would never admit it (out loud--which actually feeds into my theory that his love language is acts of service; Kaz does things for the people he cares about, he never announces it and he will almost always try to downplay it, but the way you know he cares is if, for example, he puts his entire life, everything he built, up as collateral for your freedom), but they’re a family.
One thing that I was kind of iffy about was Inej’s refusal to kill--but I thought it might be something they were planning to work into her overall character arc, and they did. It was the one line she hadn’t crossed--in the books, I’d imagine that it took a while for Inej to wind up at that point, being willing to kill on top of everything else. So I actually like that they worked that into the Crows plotline, and Inej killing for the first time was to save Kaz’s life.
Just like Kaz’s first selfless act was to save her.
(He’d deny it, of course. He protects his investments. He needed her for the job. But the truth is, he did it for her. And he’d do it again. Even if he’d never admit it.)
Meanwhile, Nina and Matthias’ storyline was pretty much note-for-note according to their backstory as it was revealed in Six of Crows, and I loved every second of it. Their chemistry was perfect, their journey from enemies to begrudging allies to friends to maybe something more (Matthias’ stomach cockblocking them when they were about to kiss had me fucking SCREAMING AT THE TV, and then of course the whole ‘betraying him to save him’ thing happened and I sobbed), and then suddenly right back to enemies.
Because from Matthias’ perspective, he trusted a witch--believed in her, liked her, wanted her--and she turned on him. He has no idea that she wasn’t the one who knocked him out in the first place, and no reason to believe her, because as far as he knows, she just confirmed everything he’d ever been told about Grisha. That they are deceitful and treacherous, would turn on you as soon as look at you, that they are dangerous and not to be trusted. It wasn’t revealed in-show but I imagine Matthias’ backstory is largely the same, which means that his entire family was slaughtered by Grisha when he was a young boy, and then he was turned into a brainwashed child soldier by the witch hunters and never knew anything else.
They are perfectly primed for their SoC arc next season and I, for one, am so stoked to see the rest of their journey. And if I slip Netflix a couple twenties, maybe they’ll let Helnik have a happy ending please please please.
Anyway, yeah! I have a lot of thoughts but things are still percolating in my head so I’ll probably float around the tags for a bit and let things settle. This is just a preliminary overview of my thoughts in the immediate aftermath of bingeing the entire show in one night kldfjghdkjfhgkjgf
EDIT TO ADD: I CAN’T BELIEVE I FORGOT ABOUT THE TRUE STAR OF THE SHOW, M I L O
MILO BEST BOY. MILO THE MVP. MILO DESERVES ALL THAT IS GOOD IN THE WORLD AND I HOPE HE LIVES A HAPPY AND HEALTHY AND FULL LITTLE GOAT LIFE.
#shadow and bone#kanej#helnik#darklina#sab spoilers#alina starkov#the darkling#inej ghafa#kaz brekker#jesper fahey#malina salt#asked#cobraonthecob
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