#i have no plans to return to our ghost town but am carrying memories of you forever
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A Different Path
[Baron Zemo Masterlist] [Marvel Masterlist]
Baron Zemo & OFC
*No pairing in this fic, however, this is a prequel to Reader A stories. The events here help Zemo do The Right Thing which starts Reader A’s relationship with him.
Synopsis: Zemo had always justified his actions as a means to an end. He never regretted for a moment what he did to make the Avengers feel the pain he suffered, that is, until he learns about the unintended cost of his actions.
*Set during The Falcon and the Winter Soldier around episode 4/5*
*Hurt, no comfort * Angst *
Rating/Content Warning: Teen: mild language, mentions of adult and child deaths, bombing the UN, miscarriage (no graphic descriptions)
Word Count: ~1,500
Talk of their movements spread quickly. Her body tensed at the news. Nothing good ever happened with the Avengers being nearby. Even if they weren't in her country, she wanted no part of them. She tried walking past the people discussing them on the street until she heard his name. Her stomach dropped, and her breath caught in her throat. The color drained from her face, and her fists clenched as memories flooded back. She reached for the side of the building for support. He was supposed to be in prison.
"Are you alright?" Someone questioned, hurrying to her.
She swallowed hard, looking down. "I'm okay." She waved off their concern, though silent tears slid down her cheeks.
There wasn't a day when she hadn't thought about that afternoon. Her ears still rang, and she could feel the heat of the explosion. It was the day that changed everything—the day that had taken everything from her.
Waves of sorrow, pain, fear, and anger crashed over her the more she thought about it. He couldn't be allowed to walk free, not after what he had done, not after what she had lost.
She played with the gold chain around her neck, slowly turning her husband's wedding ring in contemplation. They had only been married a year, but they were supposed to have forever. It all felt like yesterday. She closed her eyes and listened for his voice.
The memory of his lips brushing over hers as joy-filled tears covered their faces that morning elicited a fractured smile. It was supposed to be a day of celebration, a day just the three of them. She tried to hold on to that moment before it all went wrong, but it fluttered away, leaving only the pain he had left her with.
The following day was a blur. The next thing she knew, she was in the car heading to Latvia. Her gaze shifted to her purse. The weight of her decision pressed down on her as a sliver of the dark metal grip peaked out. She tucked it deeper away. She still had many miles to go.
The trip seemed longer—like a lifetime had passed as she rehearsed her plan over and over. Her vision darkened as she recalled that fateful day and the memories of all she had lost. Nothing could ever bring them back. Nothing would ever fill the void left by his actions.
Forward, she thought to herself. Every day, she reminded herself to keep moving forward, yet the past always seemed to follow.
It wasn't difficult finding them. They were the talk of the town, so their movements were easy to track; getting him alone, on the other hand, took patience. She followed them, waiting for her moment.
As his two companions argued mindlessly in front of him, she made her way closer. As they passed a small alleyway, she stumbled forward, bumping into him and knocking them both off the street. Her hand was already on the gun before Zemo had time to react. The cold barrel of her weapon was trained on him, begging him to move.
He held his hands up defensively and took a step back. He had made so many enemies he couldn't be sure what she wanted. He watched the slight tremble in her hand, realizing he could disarm her with little effort, but he was curious as to what she wanted. "Perhaps we can come to an understanding?"
Her darkened eyes bared down on him. She swallowed hard, her finger on the trigger. This was the moment she had waited for. She studied him carefully. He didn't look like the monster she had created in her head. He was just a man. He was human, but she knew that was enough. Humanity had the capacity to be the greatest monsters of all.
"I was there that day—in Vienna." Her voice wavered as she continued, "that day seven years ago, outside the U.N."
His face fell somberly in understanding. "It was a means to an end." He offered, his head tilting as he shrugged. "The Super Soldier program had to be ended before more lives were lost. The loss is regrettable, but it was for the greater good."
"That's absolute bullshit," she scoffed, stepping forward, her gun hovering in front of his face. "You blame Super Soldiers and the Avengers for what you lost, but you are no better. No fancy weaponized suit. No serum. No gods, aliens, magic, or whatever else there are these days. It was just you. You took the lives of innocent people without prejudice. They have their blame, but you did the exact same thing to me. I lost my husband."
"My sincerest apologies." His genuine tone surprised her. "I am sorry. I regret the twelve lives lost; however, more were lost in the Battle of Sokovia, and many more would be at risk had the Winter Soldier program been allowed to continue."
"Thirteen."
"What?"
"There were thirteen deaths that day."
His head quirked to the side, not understanding. The news had always reported twelve, and he knew each one of them by name.
"I lost—" Tears fell as she tried to find the words. One hand left the gun and ghosted over her stomach. She couldn't bring herself to touch it. Her whole body trembled as a burning fire rushed through her. "I lost everything." Her voice broke as memories of that moment crashed over her again. The only reason they had even been in Vienna was for her check-up and to find out what they were having. "She would have been our first. We had just decided on her name moments before—Alina."
His eyes closed as he nodded in understanding at the depth of her loss. He had waited to make sure there were no children. He had timed it for when the street was the least crowded. He didn't enjoy taking the lives of innocents, but he needed the Winter Soldier. That was the only way. He tried to remember that day. If he had seen her, he never would have pressed the detonator. Nothing was worth the death of a child. When he opened his eyes again, he cradled her quivering hands around the gun’s grip. "Go ahead. It's okay."
Her lips pressed together, and her head shook to the sides, trying to reconcile what she was about to do. Her pulse raced in her head as the ringing from the explosion returned. She focused her breathing. She had come too far to stop now.
"I understand what you must do. I hold no resentment for it. If I could have had swift judgment like this I would—"
"I'm not you," she cut him off sharply. Her face etched with pain, but her eyes somewhat lighter, having shared her grief.
Zemo's brow turned in as he looked at her curiously.
"I can't hold on to this hate any longer. I won't let vengeance consume me. I won't become what you are."
He exhaled noisily through his pursed lips, his eyes closing, not with relief but disappointment. At least in death, he would be with his family, and that was the only thing he had ever truly wanted.
"I forgive you." It took all her strength, but she said the three words she had practiced during the sixteen-hour drive there. She had never intended to harm him; she just needed his attention. She had carried the burden long enough, and it was time to let it go.
"Why?" He questioned softly; his eyes misted over.
"I am choosing a different path. Your death will not bring my family back. It won't bring me peace. It is something I will always have to live with, and now, you will too."
He leaned into the gun that she still held in her now steady hands. "Please."
"No. This is life. We don't always get what we want. We don't get to choose how our story ends, or when. We live with the pain and the heartbreak. We go on in spite of it. We move forward. All we can do is try and do better...so, do better. Don't waste this."
She breathed deeply, the pressure in her head subsiding. The gun felt lighter as she tucked it back into her bag. She turned away, tears streaming as she held her stomach, finally able to truly grieve the loss of Alina without the haze of bitterness and vengeance clouding it. She looked back once more to him. He seemed smaller somehow. She wasn't sure why she had ever been afraid of him. "Do better," she reminded him and hurried on her way.
He blinked back the tears in his eyes as thoughts of being reunited with Carl and his wife abandoned him, leaving him alone once more. He pulled out a small black notebook, turning to the page about that day, and added her name to the list of the lost. He wouldn't forget her; she would live on, even in death. Her loss was the heaviest on his long list. He sketched a cross next to her name and whispered a silent prayer, although he would never forgive himself. "Alina," his thumb traced her name as her mother's words echoed in his head. "Do better."
#baron zemo#zemo#helmut zemo#the falcon and the winter soldier#tfatws#baron zemo fan fiction#zemo fan fiction#zemo x ofc#baron zemo x ofc#zemo x oc#baron zemo x oc#baron zemo x reader#daniel bruhl
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Call Them Brothers - Chpt 6 Preview
Since it’s taking me way longer than I thought to write the next chapter, here’s a preview of what’s to come! (Be warned that this is lightly edited only, which means there may be some typos and awkward phrasing).
--Chapter 6 Preview--
“Embarrassing is what it is.” The general paced the central tent, hands thrown around in large gestures. “We have not one, but two holders of the Hero’s Spirit on our side—and what does Hyrule have to show for it? We are cornered in Hyrule Field. We have lost thousands of men, and for what? A scant fifty-mile radius that we have not fully reconquered. You—” Here, he returned to the table, just long enough to smack his palms on it. The bang was loud, shaking the glasses set over unrolled maps, yet Link refused to flinch. He kept his shoulders squared and his face carefully neutral. He stood before the table, too low-ranking to earn a seat. Behind his back, his hands shook. “—should be ashamed to even call yourself a hero of Hyrule.”
“I ask that you reframe from slander, General Balder,” Impa said, red eyes turning sharp. “Our aim today is to determine the best course of action for our kingdom—not assign blame.”
A cough—another general, this one younger and green around the gills. If Link remembered correctly, he inherited his position from his father. “At the very least, the display you both put on the other day was an insult to the title of hero,” he said.
“Captain Walton was pivotal in ensuring our victory against the enemy,” Impa said.
“We still lost the northern front.”
“The burden of that blame does not fall onto him.”
The young general raised his hands. “I’m only stating my opinion. Am I not allowed to voice my thoughts, General Impa?”
Link could see the covert snarl on Impa’s mouth, but before she could explode, Zelda raised her hand. She sat calmly at the head at the table, having witnessed the argument with nothing more than the tight pressing of lips. Sweat gathered at her hairline. She turned her forced neutrality onto the rest of the tent. “Wisdom is cultivated through diverse perspectives,” she said.
Link wanted to scoff. What a pushover.
“The goddesses despise us.” General Balder lowered himself back in his seat, pensive. “Giving us an incompetent fool for a hero. And what of that other hero you keep around? He couldn’t even make it through one battle. Perhaps the goddesses want us to fail.”
Refusing to let his anger show, Link subtly looked at Zelda. She sipped her wine, refusing to make eye contact.
He fidgeted. He wanted to yell at her until she spoke in his defense. He wanted to remind her that about the roles she played in all the legends—the princess always supported the hero. Their dedication was mutual. They were supposed to be equals. Yet it was always him having to swallow the disappointment of her people.
But he did his job. He kept his face neutral, but his chin high. His body felt the echoes of a cane striking his back and shoulders until he held himself like a well-bred noble man—Impa’s regiment to take an average infantry man and turn him into a poster body of legend. “I have a series of suggestions for our next series of attacks, sir,” he said.
There was a pause—the vague hope from the older generals that this young brat would give them more of a reason to be mad. But Link held his ground, and they relented.
The army would split in three, each going in a different direction. Lana would take her men and some trusted generals southward to reclaim Faron. Impa would lead the forces west for Kakariko and Death Mountain. Zelda and Link would go north through Zora’s Domain until they reached the Gerudo Desert in the east. Link had intel on enemy movements mapped for the generals to observed. He had bore through a long series of letters with Lincoln to figure out where he should assign the Knights of Hyrule. He had calculated the costs of battle, plans for where to allocate supplies, and had written a draft for a proclamation to be sent to every village across Hyrule to reassure the people the crown had the war under control.
The generals grumbled and shot out objections to each idea, and Link politely countered them. When common sense failed to persuade, Link adjusted the finer details until it was palatable. Eventually, their hemming and hawing turned into a reluctant agreement. Zelda said a few more words of encouragement and dismissed the meeting. Just in time too—Link was ready to scratch his skin off.
“Stay, captain,” Impa ordered, rising from her seat. “I would like to exchange a few words with you.”
Link remained at attention as the generals mingled for a few minutes longer, chatting as they gathered their notes and bags. They didn’t even seem to see Link, not even when they walked by.
It wasn’t until they had left that Impa rounded the table, saying, “At ease, Link. You did some good work today.”
He loosened his shoulders, smiling when Impa clapped a hand on his shoulder. He glanced at Zelda, finding her slouched in her seat, fingers pinching the bridge of her nose. Sweat gleamed on her skin and, for once, it made her look sickly. Seeing her without her royal façade felt like an invasion of privacy.
“Thanks, Impa,” he said. “Now my plan just has to work.”
“It will. Despite what they say, you have never led us astray.” Impa held out a slender package wrapped in simple brown paper, tied up with string. “I got this in the mail this morning. Arrived just in time, didn’t it?”
He grinned and took the package. “Thanks. Was there any problems with the money?”
“You were short about a hundred rupees.”
“A hundred! How?”
“Inflation has already hit the kingdom. Paper’s in high demand.” Impa smirked, teasing. “I took the difference out of your paycheck.”
Link pressed his lips together. Impa had made sure his pay improved when he was promoted to captain, but a career in the royal guard did not make a man rich. Even as the hero, his salary was an insult. Luckily, he didn’t have to worry about sending money back to a loving wife and three kids. His only expense was his monthly fee to store what few of his mother’s belongings he managed to hang on to after he had to give up her tiny store in Castle Town.
“What do you have there that is causing so much trouble?” Zelda had sat up, if only to uncork another bottle of wine. Here, her royal grace had returned to the grip of her gloved hands. Link wondered if her feathery touch and lofty hands were a genetic gift passed down through the lineage of Hylia.
Link held up the package, settling back into his professional persona. “A gift for the engineer, your highness,” he said. “Today is his birthday.”
“Oh.” Zelda poured another glass of wine. “How old is he now?”
“Sixteen, your highness.”
“Not much younger than us.”
“Yes, your highness.”
She scowled at her chalice. “If you had mentioned this to me sooner, I could have given him a proper celebration worthy of a hero of Hyrule’s past.”
“I appreciate your offer, your highness. But with all due respect, he’s not one for formal events. He’s as common born as I am, so we and a few of our fellows are going to the civilian camp to celebrate. If it pleases you, we would be honored if you would join us for the festivities.”
Zelda nodded. She chewed on her lip, a hunch forming in her shoulders. She seemed shrunken, her chair gaining height. A scant ten feet stretched between them, yet she seemed like she was far away on a stage. “You honor me with your invitation,” she said at last. “But unfortunately, prior engagements have already claimed my time. Please give Link the Royal Engineer my congratulations and well wishes.” She paused, considering. “If you would be receptive, I have a friend who may attend in my stead.”
Resisting the urge to smile, Link pressed his fist to his chest in a salute. “I will welcome him with opened arms.”
She smiled, a crinkle in her eyes. They were as blue as water and reflected light just the same. Link’s chest fluttered. He felt his heart pounding against his knuckles. Her passivity always made him frustrated, but that ugly emotion always passed through him like water in a sieve. How could it stay when she could look at him like that?
The giddy feeling carried in from the central tent. Gift tucked under his arm, he felt like dancing with every step, and he could not rip the toothy grin from his mouth even if he wanted to. He felt like a fool, but in a good way. The last time he had felt so young was when he got his first kiss back during his training days. It was a lifetime ago— he, along with Uri, Toto, and Anders, had shucked off their duties to crash a party at a nobleman’s Castle Town residence. A girl, blue blooded as they came, let him press her against a window and kiss her. He didn’t remember her face or name, but he could still taste the wine that had graced her lips before him.
Memory brought the ghost of that taste to his tongue now, intoxicating him better than any whiskey.
#believe it or not this is just scratching the beginning of the memories section this chapter#That's how long it is#do you understand why i'm dying right now??#lu ctb#call them brothers#lu call them brothers#lu warriors#lu spirits#legend of zelda#loz link#loz zelda#linked universe#linkeduniverse#lu#ctb preview
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Redamancy - Doyoung
A/N: I have more planned for this fiction so I am planning on a part two. Thank you for all your support everyone, I apologize for not posting for so long but I am so thankful for all of you sticking by me. I hope you guys like this story! Feedback and criticism is appreciated. I am slightly rusty in my writing so I do apologize for shitty writing if so. I will try and post more works!
Word Count: 2K
Genre: Angst, Fluff, NonIdol!Doyoung (Established Relationship)
Warnings: death and mentions of cancer. Future mentions of ghosts/supernatural (possibly).
Summary: Redemancy - an act of loving the one who loves you. She was looking for redemancy, she found it, but she could never keep it. Will she ever get a fate anything less than cruel?
Each morning she woke up to the polaroid covered wall. Plastered with old, once happy, now sorrowful memories. The reminisce of goofy, romantic dates: road trips, plane travels, stay at home dates alongside many others. Five years together gave a lot to remember with promises of marriage, a forever home, and children. The vows proved to be vain. On her nightstand lay the last Polaroid of their final date. The last Polaroid of his smile, she would never see again. His signature gummy smile, big and bright as he sat on the bench. A plaid green shirt, paired with his jeans and sneakers, a simple exterior. The background lit up from the strings of carnival lights, and behind were strings of the multiple events that happened prior and after. It brought despair, a lost future, he who had captured her heart, now a mere memory, broke her.
She pulls the white duvet covers over her face out of annoyance, from the bright warm light rays shining in her face, through the crack in the curtains. She rolls over successfully escaping the light, but the covers were too hot to burrito under. Eventually giving up, she throws the covers to the side, and sits up on the side of the bed. Her legs dangling over the edge of the bed, she scoots forward to stand up. Stretching her body and yawning out of her cozy slumber. She checks the time on the wall clock, 9:15 AM - a perfect time to wake up for the weekend and start having some fun. She walked off to the bathroom to get ready and prepare herself for the day.
She brushes her teeth with mint flavoured toothpaste and brushes out her bed hair. Brushing out the hair gently, to soften it and take out the fizziness, and settling down flyaways. Through her process of fixing her looks and picking out clothes, she got hungry, craving something such as French toast with a drink on the side and some fruits - not too heavy and not too light of a breakfast. And so, she puts on her outfit of choice, sliding on her shoes at the door, but her ears perk up hearing a ding at her apartment door.
Who could it be? She wondered. She did not make plans with anyone before, its so out of the blue. She opens her door and sees a familiar face - her boyfriend, Doyoung.
“Dons! Hey, love, what are you doing here? “She embraced him warmly and flashed a welcoming smile.
“Don’t you remember Y/N? It’s the special day today!” She was confused, she furrowed her brows at Doyoung’s words. Doyoung caught on at her confused expression and chuckled, “OH! Do not tell me you forgot! It’s our five-year anniversary, baby!” Her eyes grew wide at his words, and cheeks flushed from embarrassment. Frantically apologizing to him, as she completely missed the date and did not even have anything to buy him. He told her not to worry, and to follow him out. He knew she must be hungry, so they caught a bus over to their favourite café in town to buy breakfast. She thanked him and happily dug into her breakfast, her stomach was growling throughout the car ride, and Doyoung kept teasing her about it. She couldn’t help it, when a girl has to eat, she has to eat!
And so, the couple finished their breakfast and Doyoung suggested that the two catch a bus and head over to the annual summer amusement park. She gleamed with joy, excitedly grasping his hand in hers. Glancing at the clock on the wall, she quickly dug through her bag, left a tip on the table for the workers, and tugged him out of his seat, dragging him along, running towards the bus stop, “well then we better get going, or else we’re going to miss the bus!”
And so, the two ran as fast as they could, laughing as they catch the bus last minute, thankfully the driver was kind enough to stop the bus and open up the doors again for the two. They thanked the driver and walked to grab a seat. Panting and quietly chuckling catching their breathes after running, they sat at the back of the bus. “wow, that’s about all the exercise I need today“ Y/N laughed at Doyoung’s comment. Hitting him with a witty response, “you do not even exercise, do not even say that!”
The bus ride was about a thirty-minute (30) ride to the amusement park near the pier. Doyoung and Y/N made non-stop conversation the whole way, these two never stopped talking when they were together – honestly, that is one of the best things ever. When you have someone, you can continuously talk and talk and talk to, without either of you getting bored or tired. And that is the same person you can have a couple moments of silence with without the awkwardness which occurs. – These two were meant to be. Friends, best friends, and girlfriend and boyfriend. There was nothing more either one could ask more for.
The two walked across the pier decorated with food, tickets, and game stalls. The waves of the blue coloured water below hit the pillars of the pier lightly. Doyoung stopped in his steps to play one of the pier games, a ring toss game. If he gets all of the rings in, he wins the big prize. He played the game and ultimately won, asking Y/N to pick out the prize and she got the giant stuffed plushie, “ I don’t know how we’re going to carry this around but for you, anything. Don’t lose it though you air head.” Doyoung teased Y/N, messing up her hair. She pouts at him for doing so, and turned her back on him, until she felt his fingers creep up her sides to tickle her. She laughed her lovely laugh and begged him to stop, and so he did – after a couple minutes that is.
They carried on with their day at the amusement park, playing many of the games, winning multiple prizes, no more big ones though, they did not even have a car to carry them, or the luck. The couple walked around and at the end of the pier they reached the rides. Roller coaster, ferries wheel, teacups rides, all that fun amusement park stuff. They were both thrill seekers, so of course, they ran to the biggest roller coaster first. The waiting line was 45 minutes though, but worth it - the ride was amazing and gave them great excitement. They moved on to the other rides, like the teacups, Y/N messed around and spun them faster and faster, until the two got dizzy. They walked off that ride with wobbly legs, holding on to one another to make sure they did not fall. That was enough for the rides for them today.
After a while, they moved on to trying the different food stalls – hotdogs, nachos, cotton candy, ice cream. All of it, until the two began to feel sick. They were not going to return to the rides after this, neither of them needed to throw up today and inconvenience themselves. They took a break and sat on one of the benches decorated with potted fern plants at each side. They talked and cracked jokes, admired the beautiful, coloured lights lit up around them, all around and throughout the amusement park. Basking in the cheers around them and the darkness of the night lit up from stringed lights, the twinkling stars and smiling moon.
There was a photographer taking pictures near the fountains, which switched through purple, blue, green, and red lights, giving them colour. They asked the man and paid their fee to have their photograph taken, he kindly accepted. He told them to pose and Doyoung lifted Y/N up into his arms, and spun her around. The photographer snapped a beautiful picture of them in the dark, fountains behind them in purple, and the couple lovingly smiling at each other. The love in their eyes bright, and true for each other. They thanked him and took their polaroid, amazed at the picture.
Later, Doyoung asks Y/N if she feels good enough to head on to the Ferris wheel, and then head home. It was 10 o’clock of the night, she happily nodded. And so, they walked towards the Ferris wheel and waited in line for their turn. Doyoung helped her step in, teasingly, Y/N curtsied as he helped her in, grabbing her hand, following her in after. They sat on one side of the Ferris wheel box, Doyoung’s arm around her, resting on her shoulder and her head on his shoulder. They slouched in their seats and admired the view of the pier. The shinning lights were so bright underneath them as the ride took them higher and higher. Finally reaching the top the ride stopped, letting them look at the town feeling like they were on top of the world.
The impeccable view of the park and town was breathtaking. The dark night was lit up by the lights in apartments, houses, and the amusement parks rides. The moon was glowing brightly, and the stars were out to compliment it, there was no cloud in sight, a clear night sky. There was something about the nighttime that was entrancing, maybe it was the view they had, or maybe Y/N loved this hour of the day more than the mornings and afternoons. No idea. But this day, this night was different, it was too good to be true and one of the best days she has had with Doyoung in a while. She lift her head up to look at Doyoung and he flashed his gummy smile at her.
That was when Doyoung broke apart from Y/N, reached into his trench coat’s pocket and pulled out a small red velvet box. Y/N was puzzled, furrowing her brows, and tilting her head in confusion. Her eyes grew wide as she sees him get down on one knee, look up at her, pop open the box and reveal a ring, with a gorgeous diamond in the middle, shaped like a circle, two tiny complimentary circle shaped diamonds decorated it. It was a gorgeous ring, and Y/N’s tongue felt like it was caught on something, her chest felt heavy, but she was happy. He flashes his gummy smile again , and asks her for her hand in marriage, to live together as husband and wife. If she was ready for that step. She was, she really was ready. But did not know how to express it. She felt nervous, but why? She did not know but she knew she could not say no. Although verbally that was hard for her, she lost her words. Instead, she took the ring and slide it on her left ring finger. Smiling and crying a couple tears of joy, she says a soft “I do,” and throws herself around Doyoung, embracing him in a tight hug. The two whisper each other sweet I love you’s, holding each other close as the ride starts up again, and brings them down from the top.
Full of glee, the two walk out hand in hand, giving each other a quick kiss. Y/N speaks up and asks, “why don’t you stay over at my place today? It is late, might as well.” He happily accepts, and the couple begins to walk out of the amusement park. They walked together for about 5 minutes to reach the nearest gas station, where the bus stop was. The bus stop bench was empty, perfect for them to sit for the next 10 minutes, until the bus was arriving. Doyoung excused himself to head to the gas station’s bathroom, “I think I drank too much of those sodas.” Y/N nodded and smiled at Doyoung as he heads inside.
She took out her phone to scroll through her social media while she was waiting for him. Laughing at the funny pictures showing up on her Instagram feed. Suddenly, she hears loud noises coming from behind her, in the gas station. She turns around and her eyes grow wide out of fear. She sees Doyoung and the cashier held at gunpoint from the robbers. She did not know what to do, should she call the police? Does she run? Can she jump in to help and save Doyoung? She must save him, but she can’t she’s defenseless. She panics, looking around to see if anyone at all is there she can call out to. No one, no one was there just her, just Doyoung and the cashier. They were held at gunpoint, she was there away from the danger, she had to call the police. With shaky hands, she watches the cashier pull out the money from the machine, and she begins dialing the emergency number. Her breathing was hard, she felt choked up, her eyesight blurring from tears. She heard a voice on the other line answer, and she explained the situation – the lady confirmed they will be sending police over right now, and that Y/N should keep herself somewhere safe.
And so, the line went dead, Y/N eyes frantically shifted, and breath hitched as one of the robbers shot the cashier with their gun, and the same one shot Doyoung. Right in front of her eyes. She screamed out for him and panicked even more. She ran, and ran, and ran far from the danger. She ran down to the trees, to blend in with the darkness – to avoid the same misfortune which she experienced Doyoung face.
She mumbled to herself, angry, scared, distraught. She cried and cried and cried, she punched the ground with her hand. What is this cruel fate? What is this? Why would this happen? This could not happen. Today was so perfect, so amazing, so fun. Why would such a cruel fate take over? Maybe she just passed out after the immense amount of cotton candy and hotdogs she ate; it was just a nightmare in a food comma right? Wake up, Y/N, wake up! She screamed in her thoughts repeatedly.
And then, she noticed her hand. Her left hand and ring finger. She spots the silver diamond ring Doyoung gave her, and she knew she had to face the truth. She had to accept that the universe just took him from her. They took away her love, the one person she invested herself in for five years. Took away someone who loved her in all her best and worst times. He helped her when her mother died from cancer – it was the hardest thing she ever went through. Seeing her mother’s health deteriorate for two years, as she fought a never-ending battle, that kept taking her life away, slowly, painfully. It made Y/N lose her sleep, and it made her school grades suffer, it made her emotional stability a mess. It made her a mess. But Doyoung was there for her, to help her, to comfort her. She was a wreck, and he was her support when she lost one of the people she truly loved and cared for. And then came Doyoung, he began to build her up. He made her believe there was more for her to live for. Her mother’s life was not hers. Her mother would want her to continue and not give up. She needs to continue life and continue happily. That is what he told her. That was six years ago, last year of highschool. And now, she lost the person who built her up when she was broken. That shattered her. It shattered her heart into millions of pieces. The pain she had not felt for five years, returned.
The pain was going to ruin her again. She felt as if the universe despised her, and her happiness. She was always refused to have happiness, true happiness that is. Her happiness with her mother was snatched away, and now her happiness with her boyfriend, her fiancée, the love of her life was taken away. She could not get any of it back. She could not even erase the memories from her mind. It was such a tragedy, she hated it. She hated herself. She hated her fate, and whatever it had planned for her. She knew there could not be anything good ahead for her. Not after this, she can not trust what it holds for her. She does not want to know or experience this anymore.
Out of her anger and sadness, she strikes a hard punch to the tree, her knuckles becoming scratched and bloody. It was her fault. Her mom, Doyoung and any other death she experiences in front of her, was probably going to be her fault. She should have helped them. She should have gone inside to help Doyoung, maybe, maybe if she did, he would be alive. Or she would at least be in his place, or even with him. She would not have to be lonely.
That is what she hated so much, she was always lonely, and when she was not, she ultimately ended up alone again. For once, she felt like she did not need to be, but now it just proves to her, she deserves her loneliness.
And so, Y/N at this point believed not all stories have happy endings, and hers, was never meant to be happy.
#nct#nct smut#nct doyoung#nct x reader#nct imagines#kim doyoung#doyoung smut#doyoung fluff#doyoung angst#nct 127#nct u#nct fluff#nct angst#nct au
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Here is my contribution to the Ferriswheelshipping one-shot stockpile, written by yours truly. I decided to do a slight canon divergence of N returning to Unova before Hilda leaves to go search for them so they actually see each other. I hope you enjoy!
The past year had been...harrowing, to say the least.
Ghetsis, the leader of Team Plasma, had been defeated and arrested by Alder and Cheren, as well as the remains of his team.
The Pokémon League had suffered a large blow by being defeated and taken over by the enemy, the Elite Four barely managing to escape before Team Plasma’s Castle had erupted from the ground.
Unova had since fallen into a sense of restless peace, celebrating the rise of its new Champion who had brought Ghetsis and the whole of Team Plasma to its knees, Hilda.
“A teenager defeated our greatest threat? How did she do it?”
“Are we sure she wasn’t apart of their team this entire time? She is awfully suspicious.”
“Yes, she was seen with the leader’s...what was he, son?”
“I believe so, they even were together at the Ferris Wheel in Nimbasa City, one of the top romantic spots in Unova. That is a little strange.
Those were stories and rumors circulating around the region’s newest Champion, and she possibly had more articles written about her and the elusive “King of Team Plasma who had mysteriously disappeared” in the few weeks after she became Champion than Alder had his entire time as Champion.
How Hilda wished she could dispute the rumors, explain about what exactly had happened between her and N, but she couldn’t. In truth, she couldn’t even decide what exactly her relationship with him was either.
So she sat in silence, the new responsibilities as the representative of all Unovan Trainers keeping her mind occupied most of the time, though at night when she could finally gather her thoughts, her mind drifted towards N.
She hadn’t seen him since he had disappeared with Reshiram after the collapse of Team Plasma’s Castle, the castle he had summoned from the ground.
She had known who he was, she had known the dangers of associating with him, with being around him, and yet, she couldn’t help but feel drawn to him unlike anyone else she had ever met before.
Now, he was nowhere to be seen, his father imprisoned, his loyal followers having gone into hiding all across the region. Everyone knew they were there and simply biding their time, but even after multiple rigorous searches carried out by the International Police, they had found nothing.
It was as if they had disappeared into thin air.
Hilda lay in her bed at her home in Nuvema Town, the moonlight streaking across the floor as she stared out the window towards the night sky, as if she would catch a glimpse of a white dragon streaking through the sky.
She sighed, turning away as she felt exhaustion beginning to creep into her body, allowing her to finally fall asleep.
At the entrance to the small town, where Pokémon were scattering about, a large white dragon had landed, a green long-haired Trainer sliding off its back and landed quietly on the grass.
“Looks like we’re finally home, Reshiram. I’ll go find out any information about where she might be, you go back up and hide in the sky.” The Trainer said, patting the Pokémon’s back before it flew off, leaving him alone.
He grasped the charm on the necklace he wore as he stepped nervously into the town, afraid of what awaited him within.
~~~
“Hilda? Sweetie, are you awake?”
Hilda blearily opened one eye, looking to see that the sun had already risen quite high into the sky, not a good sign to see when she was supposed to be working or training.
“Yeah, I’m up.” She mumbled, rubbing her eyes as the door opened, her mother peeking her head through the doorframe.
“When you’re finished getting ready, could you come downstairs? Someone is here to see you.” She said, though Hilda could sense the unease in her mother’s eyes.
“Who is it? Is it that International Policeman again?” Hilda asked, and her mother shook her head.
“He wouldn’t tell me a name, only a letter. He has been waiting here for the past twenty minutes, though he insisted on helping tidying up while waiting for you to wake up.” She said, and Hilda froze, a million thoughts spinning through her mind as she immediately got out of bed.
“Hilda, is everything alright?” Her mother asked, eyeing her daughter with concern as Hilda looked frantically into her eyes.
“Mom, whatever happens, don’t let him leave. I’ll be down in a few minutes, don’t let him out of your sight.” She said, rushing over to close the door before her mother could utter another word.
“Is N really here? Why is he here? Doesn’t he understand that the International Police are on the hunt for him?” She thought as she ran around the room, desperately trying to get dressed as well as tidy up the room.
Hilda rushed downstairs into the kitchen to see her mother chatting amicably with another person.
He hadn’t changed one bit. Even his hair looked the same, and the warm smile on his face still served to make her heart beat slightly faster.
“N?”
He looked over to see Hilda, though if he hadn’t known it was her, he could have easily mistaken her for someone else.
Her clothing hadn’t changed much, except she had stopped wearing her hat, but the way she held herself was more...confident, though even he could sense the exhaustion weighing her down.
“Hello, Hilda.” He said, smiling softly as he walked closer towards her, though she looked as if she’d seen a ghost.
“But, how are you-“
“I’ll explain everything later, I promise.” He said, then turned to Hilda’s mother, bowing his head to her respectfully.
“Thank you for your hospitality, but I should be leaving. Do you mind if take your daughter out? She will be back early if that is an issue.” He said, and Hilda’s mother smiled and nodded.
“Of course I don’t mind! Feel free to be out as long as you want.”
N nodded as he held out his hand towards Hilda, who was still trying to process the situation, though that damned smile was making her face heat up.
“Will you come with me, then? We can go anywhere you’d like.” He asked, and Hilda slowly nodded as she took ahold of his hand, firmly grasping it to make sure he was really there.
“Come on, let’s go. Reshiram is waiting for us, and it can be pretty impatient at times.”
N then dragged Hilda out the door, leaving her mother very confused as she waved good-bye.
The two ran through the small town, the dirt kicking up underneath their feet as N pulled Hilda away from her home.
“N, where are you taking me?” She asked, though was cut short when he abruptly stopped, scanning the sky as if he was searching for something.
“I need to find...ha, there it is!”
Hilda squinted as she followed his gaze, though was only given a second to back up before Reshiram slammed into the ground, seeming a little annoyed as it glared at N.
“I’m sorry, it took a little longer than I thought it would to find her, but here she is. Hilda, I believe you remember Reshiram?” N asked, allowing Hilda to step closer to the Legendary, reaching out to touch its side.
“Hello, Reshiram. It’s been a while since I have seen you, though I suppose a year isn’t incredibly long for a Pokémon that’s lived as long as you.” She said softly, the Legendary Pokémon grunting in response.
“Do you know what N is planning on doing?” She asked, Reshiram shaking its head as it leaned down, allowing N to climb onto its back.
“It does not, but do you trust me enough to come with us?” He asked, holding out his hand once again to Hilda, the sight of it so very enticing. What would happen if she accepted his proposal? Where would they go?
She sighed, grabbing ahold of N’s hand, allowing him to pull her up behind him onto the Legendary, wrapping her arms around his torso, shocking him for a moment as he heard the words he’d been so afraid he’d never hear again.
“I trust you.”
N smiled, patting the side of the Legendary’s neck, signaling for it to take off from the ground.
It did so with no warning, causing Hilda to bite down on her lip to keep from screaming as she held tightly onto N, still confused by everything that was happening but knowing he was key to her not panicking and possibly falling off.
It was silent for a time, no words spoken, just the wind rushing around them as they soared through the sky, though N couldn’t help but think that having Hilda hold onto him so tightly was...nice.
He had longed to see her since leaving Unova, even with everything else on his mind, such as finding out his father using him or the International Police doing their utmost to track him down.
Now here he was, her holding onto him for dear life as they soared through the skies of their home, and now he was so unsure of what to say.
“Hilda? Are you ready to look at me now?”
Hilda slightly relaxed her grip as she moved her head away from his back to see him staring at once again with a smile, as if her presence was bringing him joy.
“Where are you taking me, N? You can’t just disappear for a year and then show up at my home with no explanation!” She demanded, though N could only laugh at her pouting expression. How he had missed this. How he had missed her.
“I have no particular destination in mind, but I needed to get away from your home as quickly as possible. I spotted some International Police agents in the woods surrounding it, and I am still a national fugitive.” He said, his expression suddenly serious.
“If you’re still wanted, then why did you return to Unova? Team Plasma is probably also trying to track you down.” She asked, and N seemed to hesitate, looking past her into the distance, as if a painful memory had come to mind.
“It’s...difficult to explain. Perhaps you and I can go somewhere to chat? Where would you like to go, we have all of Unova to explore.”
Hilda thought for a moment, a place coming to mind almost immediately, though for all the wrong reasons.
“Nimbasa City. I want to go to Nimbasa City.”
That shocked N. The very place he had betrayed her, had hurt her, why in the world would she want to go there?
“Hilda, are you sure? Do you not remember what happened before?” He asked, her nodding as she clenched her fists against her lap.
“I remember. It hurts for me to remember, but I want to have new memories of it with you so it is less...painful.”
N nodded, urging Reshiram onward as they returned to the uncomfortable silence, the memories of that night still in their minds as Hilda held onto him once again, afraid that if she looked away again, he would be gone.
The sun was already beginning its descent when the three had finally arrived at Nimbasa City, a shining city in Unova that housed many attractions, including the Gym Leader Elesa’s Electric Gym, as well as the Ferris Wheel.
The very sight of it dredged up many more painful memories for Hilda and N. It was as if they were reliving the past all over again.
“Hilda, are you absolutely certain you want to be here? We can go to another city if you’d like.” N asked, though Hilda glared at him a with a determined look in her eyes as she pointed towards the Ferris Wheel.
“I am. We should talk there, less chance of being spotted by the International Police.” She said simply, walking in the direction of the Ferris Wheel, leaving N to send off Reshiram before rushing after her.
After catching up with her, the two arrived at a small kiosk that lay at the foot of the attraction, an obviously bored engineer standing behind the counter collecting money from passengers.
“Welcome to the Rondez-View Ferris Wheel, where couples can board and enjoy the view to their heart’s content. Fee is ¥1,000, pay the money or stay away.” She said, looking between Hilda and N with a skeptical look on her face.
“Huh, never would have expected the Champion would be here with Unova’s most wanted criminal. I guess the rumors are true.”
Hilda looked at N with worry before taking out the money from her bag and handing it to the engineer.
“You won’t tell the International Police we’re here, will you?” She asked, and the engineer waved her off before opening the small gate.
“I’m not one to get in the way of a blossoming romance, go have a good time, just try and be discreet and we won’t have any problems.” She said finally, allowing Hilda and N to slip by the a silent nod of thanks before stepping into an gondola, the door closing behind them.
The area was small, two cushioned seats allowing enough room for two people each to sit, a small air conditioning whirring to keep the enclosed space cool.
Hilda and N sat down together on one seat, almost touching though trying so desperately not to.
“We’re alone now. Now tell me everything that has happened.” Hilda said softly, though N couldn’t even make eye contact with her, instead looking out towards the horizon of the evening sky.
“I know that I have done some...very bad things in the past, and there is no making up for it. Me running away and leaving you behind was another one of those bad things. But the truth was...I was scared.” He said, shocking Hilda as she looked up towards him, trying to catch his eye.
“You were scared of being caught by the International Police or by Ghetsis?” She asked, placing a hand on his arm as she felt him shudder at the sound of his adoptive father’s name.
“It wasn’t just that. I was scared, no I was terrified, of what would happen if I stayed here in Unova, with you. The thought of you getting hurt because of me was something I couldn’t bear, so I left before it could happen.”
He then turned towards her, his eyes full of such sadness that it caused Hilda to freeze, her tears in her eyes matching the ones forming in his own.
“I understand, N, I really do. But you being gone for so long hurt me more than anything anyone could do to me. I missed you so much, I came here every day just in the hope that I’d see you sitting right here, waiting for me.” She said, tentatively reaching out to cup her palm against his cheek.
“Hilda...” He started, though Hilda shook her head as she placed a finger to his lips.
“Please, let me finish. You had such noble intentions, and I thank you for that. But listen to me when I say this, please don’t leave me behind again, I don’t think I could handle it.” She pleaded, causing him to smile as he leaned his forehead against hers, taking ahold of both her hands.
“Nothing in this world can keep me away from you forever. You showed me the true value of this world after I had been led astray by the lies of my father my entire life. Hilda, you made me want to become a better person, someone who is worthy of you, of being with you.”
Hilda smiled, leaning closer towards N until the space between them had been closed, her lips touching his as she closed her eyes, feeling him let go of her hands to pull her closer to him, holding her tightly in his arms.
The feeling of being held so tenderly, brushing her hand through N’s hair so softly as he kissed her so softly made Hilda feel as if she was walking on air, the taste of his lips so sweet and warm.
To N, this was something he had never thought about, never even considered a possibility in his life. Loving someone had always been out of the question as he tried to free his friends from the confines of their Trainer’s every whim, but now, he couldn’t imagine anything else other than being with the girl in his arms.
Neither had ever thought it would feel so...right, so natural.
“N...” Hilda murmured, causing N to pull away to look her in the eyes, though he did not let go of her, which she was grateful for.
“Is everything alright?” He whispered, Hilda nodding quickly as she leaned towards him, laying her head against his shoulder as she pulled him into a closer embrace.
“I just...I never imagined that’s what that would be like. I feel so...safe with you here, I haven’t been at ease like this in so long.” She said, breaking into a fit of hysterics as N smiled, patting her back in a comforting manner.
“I’ve never felt calm as I am when I’m around you. You put put my mind and soul at peace, and I’d never want it any way.” He said, Hilda smiling as she looked up out the window, realizing they were almost back down to the ground.
“Looks like our time is almost up.”
N nodded sadly, reaching over to open the door as the gondola slowly slid by the platform, pulling Hilda out onto the flat steel area, the engineer staring at them as bored as ever.
“Looks like you two had fun. However, you may want to skip town, I’ve had two International Police agents come waltzing by while you were being all lovey-dovey.” She said nonchalantly, holding up her hand to stop any protests from either of them.
“I don’t care if you were kissing in the gondola, that’s the least of what I have to worry about people doing, just get out of here, and next time, don’t bring a fugitive.”
Hilda nodded, scanning the area to see two suspiciously dressed characters loitering around the Ferris Wheel entrance.
“Come on, Nimbasa City will be crawling with police if you’re spotted.” Hilda urged, now pulling N along as he waved his hands frantically in the air, attempting to capture Reshiram’s attention.
Thankfully, it worked as the Legendary Dragon soon landed in front of them, immediately kneeling to allow the two to hurriedly climb on before taking off again into the now dark sky before two police officers could catch up to them.
The wind whipped around them harshly, causing Hilda to shiver before deciding to lean backwards into N, his body heat seeping into her skin as she smiled with contentment.
“Are you taking me home?”
The question seemed to sit in the air for a moment, one that should have been so simple, and yet it brought both of them a sense of dread. They had known this day couldn’t last forever, and yet neither of them wanted it to end.
“Yes, I am. There’s nowhere safer for you right now.” He said simply, feeling a sort of sadness beginning to creep in as he held Hilda towards him once again, afraid that if he let go, she would no longer be there and it was all a dream.
Reshiram soon landed back at the outskirts of Nuvema Town, though thankfully there was no one wandering about the small town, allowing Hilda and N to land on the dragon unnoticed.
Hilda slid off its back, patting the Legendary’s head and whispering thanks to it before turning to look at N, a look of sadness in his eyes.
“Are you leaving?” She asked, and N hesitated for a moment before nodding, a look of utter sorrow in his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Hilda. You remember what that woman said, I’m still a wanted fugitive, and even if you may be Champion, you can still be arrested for just being around me.” He said, and Hilda sighed, stepping closer before pulling him down towards her for another kiss, which he happily obliged.
“You better not be gone for an entire year this time. I don’t care how dangerous it is to be with you, I would go through anything just to have you close.” She whispered, N nodding as he kissed her once again, desperate to have as many from her as possible.
“I’ll come back as soon as I can, I promise. You still have things you need to do here in Unova, and you aren’t allowed to come with me. It’s too dangerous.” He said, Hilda sighing as she felt tears start to well up.
“I know, I have my duty as Champion to fulfill, but N?”
“Hm?”
Hilda wrapped her arms around him and held him as close as she could, squeezing him tightly as tears began to run freely down her cheeks.
“Please don’t forget about me.” She whispered, N smiling as he held her.
“There is nothing in this world that could make me forget you. Farewell, Hilda.”
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White Sails
2433 words
The oceans going to swallow him whole some day and only then could he die happy.
Caspian already gave his soul to the sea, his first great love. Initially I was excited for him and how he got to live out his dreams. He’d write to me about his exploits, I’d gasp and laugh when appropriate, as if he can see, and finally when the stories ended, I’d write to say that I’ve been living the same way: wake up, work, eat, sleep and mostly anticipate. He’d tease that I live like a widow refusing to believe her husband's dead, wasting away staring out the window, hoping for him to someday return to her. Like the ship of Theseus every time he left a part of him had been replaced, how long has he been a man I couldn't recognise, a ghost wearing my lover’s skin.
Only the wooden planks stepped on by Theseus himself belong to the original ship, the rest are imposters high off the glory of His name. Your skin cells regenerate every twenty-seven days – and it’s been longer than that since my hands held his, the wind already swept all memories of my words from his mind. He can only belong to one and she’s infinitely larger than me. To him, her cold embrace feels like coming home. It’s selfish – I’d remind myself – selfish to want to steal what makes him happy all because I feel lonely, he’s loved the ocean long before he’s loved me, and he will long after. I can only hope she’s kind when she does finally take him. I’ve heard that saltwater burns your lungs and that a body only sinks for a moment and as it fills with water it floats to the top, I don’t want them to find his body, he wouldn’t want them to either. I hope his clothes weigh him down and 80% becomes all of him, that he sinks to Atlantis and the sun never feels him again, we don’t deserve it.
But then he comes home, the wind in his hair, salt clinging to his skin and horribly chapped lips, he kisses me hello and I get a taste of what he feels. He tells me he’s missed the warm water from the shower while I wash his locks, that his land legs haven’t grown back yet so can I hold on just a little tighter ‘to make sure I don’t fall of course’. I tell him our neighbours' gossip and he laugh and gasps when appropriate and says that he’s missed the shop at the end of the street, in the morning he’ll grab groceries and those chocolates he’s loved since he was a kid, and some things never change. When it’s quiet and we lull we watch the sun set, sitting on a linoleum countertop in the kitchen, he glows orange in its light and tells me he’s missed me.
When a whale dies its body sinks to the benthic zone, there where there’s no sun, no blood, no heat, no me, or him the oceans creatures eat on its flesh, their entire life's sustenance reliant on an animal they’ve never seen alive and blobfish get their namesake feature from the rapid shift in pressure, they essentially burst while being pulled up by fishermen. The universe is kept spinning by forces we don’t know and can’t name and one day the sun could burst, and we wouldn’t know until 8 minutes later when its light should touch us and won’t. But it did that day, the light travelled through a solar system to shine on him, and shine on me, and that’s how we met. It was fate. Eight years later it’s still fate when Caspian wakes up beside me, his skin a warm brown, like the terracotta pots he brings back to accommodate my ever-growing garden, and his tousled hair a sun-bleached orange, the roots betray their natural umber colour (the same as the eyes he was currently hiding behind tired palms), men like him are born out of stardust, and they can’t help but to replicate its heat. He’s looking at me now, his warm hands place a stray strand of my own umber hair behind my ear and pauses on my cheek, my bronze skin a slight contrast to his, brown eyes reflecting brown.
‘Let’s go over the plan, alright Leya?’ He breaks the silence, ‘we’ll lock up, give the keys to Theo and Honora, they promised to water our plants and dust the place while we’re gone, we pick up your jumper from the market –Eilidh promised it’ll be done by then- and then it’s me, you and wherever you can land your finger on a map.’
‘Yeah, I can’t wait. Me, you and The Caspian’ the smile I give him falters and my bottom lip trembles. He frowns.
It was my idea to come with him, I was tired of being alone and he was tired of forgetting synonyms of vast for his letters home, I knew he exhausted all the ways to say I love you when he started to transcript theology to me:
‘They believe that next to Christ, that’s what they call him, there was a man that lived in sin, two in fact but only one of them matters. They don’t know anything about this man, not even his name, except for his last words. And they were that of forgiveness and salvation. A man whose entire history is left out of the book that chronicles it. We know nothing of his home, his family, his life, not even his crimes, but we know that he loved and was loved in return. I don’t believe a lick of it but by God these people are good storytellers.’
I did want to go. Maybe the second I see the flickering reflected crescent moon on the ocean waves I’d decide I never wanted to leave, that the past 25 years of living and four years waiting can all be justified by that one experience. But I also couldn’t just leave. He was the one with adventures and loose ties and sea salt, and I’m the one that waits. The diligent partner with a cup of tea and open arms for him, who were we if not that? Who am I without anticipation and loneliness? For years, my life was contingent on feeling and watching a ticking clock, and now I just get to be free? It doesn’t sound real. It doesn’t sound fair on the woman I used to be, the one still waiting. He knows how I feel, he must, from the furrow of an eyebrow I know he’s got me pegged.
‘Remember the night before I left- the first time that is- and I kept going over lists, obligations and checking everything twice, I even meal prepped your food for months in advance. And you told me everything will still be here when I get back...’ He pauses to hold my face in both hands, brown eyes locked on brown eyes to make sure I was listening, ‘everything will still be here when we get back. If you don’t want to go that’s fine, we won’t, I’ll spend the next six months right here with you, and every day after that if you want me to. I’m tired of you being alone. But if you do want to go... We lock up, see the world and come back, it’s that easy.’ With that he kisses my temple -the most delicate part of the head – and climbs out of bed.
Honora and Theo promised to give all the leftover perishable foods to the family around the corner, they have seven kids and not enough to feed them all. They also ensured once a week every plant will be watered, all letters brought in, and the surfaces periodically dusted. The jumper Eilidh had made was beautiful, she told us wool is preferable when wet because it resists water and keeps you warm. She made it green, in case I miss the trees, and Caspian paid her double. I had hoped the air would be electric, brimming with something, as if it knew I’m leaving this time too. Everything was the same, same as it's always been and same as it always will. And I won’t be, I’ll go out there, replace my ships planks and come back me, but not wholly or maybe as more, and if Caspian’s with me the whole time who would notice the change, all of my red strings connect back to his.
It was half a day's journey to the port, and I felt it all. At some point my head was pulled to rest on his shoulder and every time the sun shone particularly bright he held a hand over my eyes to shield them. When we were close to enough to the sea to smell it, the briny tang light in the air, he came into himself, as if he swallowed sunlight, and grinned.
I hate this. Caspian told me I will at first, I haven’t got the familial love he has. A runaway father that was only 19 when he met his future wife at the port. The family was forcibly moved to a landlocked town when opportunities dimmed and Caspian's childhood was spending every holiday possible making the hours long treks to the beach, with just enough time to wiggle his toes in the sand and swallow lungsful of water when learning to swim, and when he was older it was learning how to sail with his father. Finally, it’d get too cold to continue so his mother would swaddle him in towels and place him on her lap, until he eventually grew too big for her, together they’d watch the sun set. He told me once that it was like the water was just a mirror and everything radiated pink and orange and golden hues until finally... darkness, and there was twice as many stars as usual. Then they’d go home and count down till the next summer. His love was intergenerational, it’ll grow on you, trust me. But it won’t, I hate this. I feel sick & disoriented, it’s too loud and quiet at the same time. Like when people move from a bustling city, heavy in smog and movement, to a quaint village, and there they find the crickets and pollen too much to bear. There was none of the sounds I was accustomed to and all too many of ones I wasn’t. I can’t even swim.
How did we plan for weeks and not think that I would need to know how to swim?
Caspian had finished prepping the sails and letting us go in the wind's direction, promising he’ll take us as far East as he can find – and then carry on. He had tried to explain all the terms to me, but words like ‘jib’ and ‘hull’ and ‘tiller’ easily slipped out of my mind like water. Instead, I stood by the helm and just watched him work, focusing on the beads of sweat running down his forehead and pushing supper down as far deep as it goes, as to not ruin this for him. When he had finished, he gave me the tour, showing me the saloon, where to cook, where to rest, where to pray, how to store in such a small space and when I was overwhelmingly exhausted from the information swimming in my head, he grabbed some pillows and blankets and led me back to the cockpit. There he prepped everything like it was our bed at home and laid down, gently pulling me down with him, our knees were bent awkwardly, and we were closer together than usual. That’s when I understood When I was younger my mother would bring me to visit her friends and after the initial gasps and hugs and ‘my how you’ve grown!’ they would largely ignore me to talk to each other. One of her friends, Mariam, had a baby boy that would sleep in a wooden bassinet pushed to the wall closest to where I was sitting, when he did stir, they’d finally address me again and tell me to rock him slightly, let him be lulled back to rest. Here, we were lightly rocked side to side by Poseidon himself and entire galaxies shining down on us, like a sleeping baby in a bassinet. I didn’t know there could be so many stars and still such a vast darkness. Caspian told me about the constellations he knows and the ones he’s made up, his own mythologies mapped out above us. And when I was too tired to listen, eyes drooping and his words bleeding into each other he tenderly held my elbow to help me up, shifting so I could rest my weight on him, and walked me to the bed, trying as best he could to push my dead weight into the cramped space. Leaving only for a moment to bring the pillows back in, before climbing into bed besides me.
The next morning, we stopped on still waters, and he taught me how to swim. In the afternoons, after I showed him my grandmothers' recipes for the cold, he tried to teach me more sailing terms and by the evening I’d read to him under the dimming light, I’d have to stop after a moment, too nauseous to read the words. It was a routine we near perfected in a month. I could tell he was happy; he was drowning in it. Shockingly, I was too, a saloon that smelled like garlic and spice, secured down potted herbs, dry storage spaces filled to the brim with my books, and his slow breaths when I should be asleep, was enough. On days the wind was too bad to pause he’d make me use the knots he taught me and shout what I need to do if we tip over, the exhilaration was more than anything I’d ever known.
Resources would run low, and he’d dock in the port of a country I'd never heard of, a culture unfamiliar and language unknown. With limited communication and lots of points & smiles we’d buy what we need and when our food was restocked, I’d ask to stay a few days more. We’d integrate ourselves in the local community and learn how to say ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’ and plan to return in the holiday season. We’d make pocket communities across the world and relish in hot water and write letters to the people back home.
#tw religious themes#tw death mention#tw drowning#writing#writers#writers on tumbr#prose#writeblr#studyblr#white sails#ask to tag
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I know this is a tad random but I was watching gbbo and it dawned on me...has geralt ever had a birthday cake, like one made for him? I assume he’s celebrated his birthday before but it is suddenly of the upmost importance to me that our good boy gets to have a birthday party filled with love and thanks, just for him
AN/// I love this, and got carried away. Didn’t know how long you wanted it, but this is a longer thing because you are right. The man deserves a cake.
“How did you know?”
“Well, I have a knack for remembering important dates, and your birthday is one of the most important of all. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” she leaned down, giving a wink. Ciri threw her arms around the woman in front of her, a smile clear on the girl’s face. Ashen hair was sticking in every direction from the training she had been going through with the witcher, and her breath was still catching up with her. Sweat rubbed off from her forehead onto the woman’s blouse as she tightened the hug, but Y/n couldn’t be bothered as the hug meant more to her than a simple shirt. She returned the hug, her hand trying to smooth the wild mane.
“Excuse me, but I think I am in need of a hug too. After all, I was the one to make the cake.” The bards voice was dripping with sarcasm, but he had been the one to make the pastry. Luckily for the two of them, it was something he learned by spending his childhood with the cooks of his family’s estate. It wasn’t a big thing, as he had to convince the town’s tavern to let him borrow their kitchen. It was big enough to let Ciri have her fill of lemon cake with a simple vanilla frosting the two had made while her lover and his child were training.
Ciri let her go, jogging into the bard’s open arms, but she had to wait as he paused her to take off his doublet. She rolled her eyes, looking to Y/n who smiled and shrugged. Once the doublet was neatly folded and placed on the rock he had been perched on, he dramatically opened his arms again. She pushed into him, the hug being too heartwarming, even for the bard’s standards. Ciri pulled away for a moment, looking between him and the cake.
“Do I have to eat the flowers too?” That made the bard blush and huff as Y/n laughed. She had questioned the garnish when he placed it there in the first place, but he said it needed to look perfect. Gentians covered the top, the color being as close as possible Jaskier could get to Cintran blue. A dandelion had also made its way onto the cake, but his explanation for it was that it tied in with the lemon flavor, but the woman hadn’t believed that that was his whole motive.
Geralt had simply been an onlooker of the scene, not having been in on the plan. Guilt had formed in his chest as he hadn’t realized it was her birthday, but he refused to show it. Though, it grew worse once the girl pranced up to him, fork in hand.
“What to try it?” Her emerald eyes shined in the light that pierced through the canopy of leaves above them. He kneeled down, a ghost of a smile appearing to her. His hand fell onto her shoulder, thumb making minute movements.
“It’s your cake, you should have all of it.” His eyes darted to the bard who was still chewing the piece he had accepted. His golden gaze shown over her again, and his tone softened. “Happy birthday.” Ciri smiled, popping the small bite of cake into her mouth before her arms draped over his broad shoulders.
The group moved in tandem as every other night, setting up for bed after the girl had finished her cake. Geralt had been fishing through his travel back when Y/n popped up next to him, shoving a small leaf wrapped item into his hand.
“I remember when you got this for her, but noticed you never gave it. I thought this would be a better time than ever.” He nodded, grabbing the small charm he had seen weeks ago. It practically called to him, whispering the joy she would have from the tiny lion charm. He had put a chain on it, but it was meant to wrap around her dagger that she had, so she could always have a reminder of her blood family despite what had happened.
He felt Y/n’s hands on his shoulders as she leaned in to press her temple to his. He leaned into it, apart of his guilt subsiding.
“Sorry I didn’t tell you, but I know you don’t like keeping things hidden in general, let alone keeping things from Ciri. Even if it is a birthday surprise.” Geralt nodded again, humming while turning his head. His nose brushed her cheek in a small show of affection. The witcher was still coming around the bend when it came to normal sprouts of affection as he had never really received or gave it. But it was true that he didn’t like keeping things from his cub, despite it being for her benefit.
The witcher had taken his cub to a secluded part of the wood, likely the same place they were practicing in earlier. Y/n plopped herself by the bard, pushing his shoulder with hers.
“So, you’ve been with him for decades. When’s Geralt’s birthday?” The bard raised his brow to the woman next to him, feigning offence.
“You aren’t going to ask when my birthday is?” She rolled her eyes, looking up to the darkened sky.
“It was eighty….nine? Eighty-nine days ago, but I know you had a large celebration at the Rosemary.” He laughed, looking to the sky as well. It seemed for a moment that he got lost in a memory that flooded his mind at the mention of the night before Y/n shoved him again. His expression fell as he realized,
“I don’t think he has one. You know he doesn’t like to think of life before the trials, and I doubt he would find his change an exciting ‘re-birth’.” Y/n nodded, standing to go back to her bag. She fished out a journal, and sat back down, holding a gentian before pressing it into a blank page. As she put pressure onto it, she flipped through the pages, looking over all of the items and dates on each. She kept track of important memories by putting items into the book, and writing the dates over them to be able to revisit them anytime she needed to. One specific page jumped out. There wasn’t much except for a stain from Geralt’s swallow that had spilled there. That was the day that they had officially started their journey together. They hadn’t started their weird form of courting till months later, but they wouldn’t have been where they were unless they had met that day.
“Jaskier, how far away is this from today?”
---
“Just keep him away! It’s not as hard as you’re making it seem.” The bard rolled his eyes, only his head popping into the room.
“He hates banquets, doesn’t want to leave Ciri and wants to spend his free time with you. It is hard!” Their whispered argument came to a halt when Jaskier heard the creaky steps of the inn grow louder. He was right in being cautious because Ciri hurdled through the door before Geralt followed silently. Jaskier fully opened the door for the witcher, who looked at the girl bounce on the bed after throwing herself onto it. His hands rested on Y/n’s waist, his forehead resting against hers.
“You are sure you’ll be alright?” She smiled, tilting up to brush her nose against his in a soft eskimo kiss.
“I wouldn’t let you leave if I wasn’t. And besides, it’s only a handful of hours.” He nodded against her, but pushed away to check on his cub before he and Jaskier left for a banquet the bard was performing in that night. It was a very lucky happenstance, but Y/n was still worried about her plan. If the two came back too early, or something went wrong on their end, the night could be ruined. Her biggest fear was his reaction.
Ciri had explained how the men of Kaer Morhen did celebrate birthdays, but it wasn’t big. It was a bigger dinner than most nights, along with more ale, and was more focused on living another year. She said Vesemir changed the day every year, as he explained to her, because the date didn’t matter. It was more of a celebration, despite them not really even acknowledging the reason behind the celebration. Y/n didn’t want to go against their makeshift birthday, but it wasn’t a day just for Geralt- it was for everyone there. And from what the cub had said, it wasn’t anything really special anyways. Despite how big or small it was though, it was with his family, and she didn’t want to undermine it. The wolf might not want to change celebrating the day, though Y/n didn’t want him to not celebrate in winter either.
Beside the anxiety, she was excited. The two were only supposed to be gone for two hours, which left the girls with a lot to do. Y/n had saved up enough to get the biggest room in the inn for her and the witcher. Ciri had agreed to room with the bard for the night, and was excited to help. She had free reign over Jaskier’s bath bag, and asking for extra candles from the innkeeper using her large doe eyes. The large room had a smaller one off of it that held a tub, and tried to make it as relaxing as possible.
While the cub went on a rampage of candles and decorations in the bathroom, Y/n was fusing in the kitchen. She had been trying to get Geralt to eat different types of cake over the previous three weeks to try and figure out what his favorite was. Unfamiliar textures and strong flavors had been rejected, and pushed in front of her to eat. It didn’t help too much, but she had an idea by asking around for dumbed down fruit jams. She was lucky again to take care of an older woman towns away who had given her a raspberry jam that hadn’t had much of the favor or scent. Her age apparently changed her taste buds, and tastes too strong became sour to her. And out of all the different types of cake, it seemed the only one she might be able to pull of was a simple sponge cake.
The baking process took longer than she thought, especially since she had to start over after over whipping the eggs. Ciri’s commentary certainly didn’t help her nerves, when she popped down to see if she could decorate the desert. The cake seemed darker on the bottom than it should be, and it isn’t level by any means. She cut through the middle to put the jam in, but afterwards she noticed the slight slant to it. Jaskier had given her the frosting recipe, but she tried to use less sugar. In doing so, it made it runny, but it covered up the filling line and that’s what mattered. Ciri tried her best to create a wolf out of berries they had picked up in town, but it seemed more like a cat. Atleast it had resembled something and that, again, is what mattered.
Y/n brought the cake up, as well as ordered water and a smaller plate of the honey ham that the tavern was selling that night. It was likely the man had eaten when he was at the party, but she couldn’t be sure. Ciri sat by the window, keeping watch for the boys as Y/n lit all of the candles. It was only minutes after she had finished when Ciri practically bounced over to hide behind the door. Y/n stood on the other side, waiting for the door to open. Jaskier made a grand entrance, with Geralt grumbling behind him.
“This isn’t your room bard.” The witcher fully stepped through the door, looking around in confusion before Ciri pounced, using the chair next to the door to get leverage and jupm onto his back.
“Happy birthday, Geralt!” The man turned to look at Y/n questioningly as she leaned next to the door. Jaskier mirrored the child’s statement and started strumming a birthday tune. Ciri let go to run to her bag, grabbing the gift she had made. It wasn’t much, but she had made a small saddle patch as embroidery was something she had to master by ten.
The witcher kneeled down as he always did with Ciri, as she gave him the gift. He pulled her in for a long hug, and she was surprised that Ciri hadn’t pulled away. Jaskier was busy tilting his head at the leaning cake. Eventually the white haired man let her go, and joined Jaskier looking at the cake. Y/n felt her heart pound in her chest. It was well known by everyone that she was not the chef of the group, let alone baker. Jaskier gave her a look, trying to put a smile up.
“It looks…like cake.” Y/n felt a flush spread, looking to Geralt. He simply stared at the cake, but she could see the cogs turning.
“Well…well, it’s not for you. Geralt, darling, happy birthday. It’s supposed to be a raspberry sponge cake, but I guess it could also be poison. If you don’t like it, I won’t take offense. The raspberry is toned down, and the amount of cake should balance it even more.” Her eyes danced everywhere but the man she spoke to. “Oh! And a special bath is ready for you, whenever you want it.” Geralt turned to walk into the bathroom, and Jaskier moved to take Ciri back to their room.
Geralt stood and stared once more for a long moment before turning to look to Y/n, who still didn’t look at him. Her hands were fiddling with each other, and her eyes planted themselves with looking to her feet.
“I, uh, know you already celebrate kind of, but I thought… You deserve more. Way more than this, even, but I thought this was good too for being on the road. The cake is definitely questionable, so I do warn you.” Geralt had closed the few paces between them before his arms wrapped around her. Y/n quickly melted into the tight hold, her own arms wrapping back. He pulled back before leaning down, kissing her. It was soft for the force he put behind it while landing his lips against hers. When she pulled away, she looked at him, searching. A disbelieving smile appeared, and she grinned back.
“Thank you. You didn’t have to.” She rolled her eyes, giving her arms a squeeze.
“Actually, I think I did.” Y/n let go, walking to the cake, but just stared before trying to cut in. She turned, handing him the fork with a nice bite, and he happily accepted. Her heart stopped, and waited with belated breath to wait for his verdict. Geralt smiled and nodded, handing the fork back.
“It’s great.”
“You can say it’s bad-.”
“My cake, my verdict.” Y/n gave a warry look, but nodded regardless.
“Just don’t eat the bottom. It seemed like it could be burned.” Geralt leaned over her, reaching and jabbing the fork into the sponge. He raised the bite to her lips, and she looked to him. “It’s yours.”
“Exactly. I want you to have some.” She sighed, letting the fork pass her lips, and was happily surprised by the pleasant flavor. It wasn’t the best cake, but it was passable. The woman turned in his arms, unlatching the armor buckles as he continued to take bites of the cake. There was a pause, as she had finished and waited to take his pauldrons off when he pressed a kiss to her forehead.
“It’s just a cake, Geralt. You deserve more than this.”
“No one has given me a cake before. It’s special.” Y/n didn’t even think of that. She was sure he had, but it was probably before the trials. They continued to undress and eat cake before they made their way into the bath. Y/n was straddling him, washing every inch of skin in front of her before he asked, “Why today?”
“Oh, well, today is the anniversary of us meeting.” Geralt smirked, his hand coming up to brush a thumb over her cheek where rouge soap bubbles had landed.
“You logged that?” Y/n gave a scoff, trying to play off her flush.
“Well, you spilled swallow all over the page. I couldn’t possibly use it for anything else, so I wrote the date down. Maybe it was fate.” Geralt rolled his eyes at that, but let his head fall back against the rim of the tub. He felt Y/n place a small kiss on his nose, hearing a soft, “Happy birthday my darling Geralt.”
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Hurt.
Merry Christmas Pham! Here is some much needed Sam and Tucker friendship bonding! This is kind of meant to set the tone before Doctor’s Disorders and explain why Sam knows Tucker doesn’t like doctors or hospitals and Danny doesn’t. Hope you enjoy!
Standard disclaimers. Also posted on my AO3 and FFN accounts. Rated T for swearing.
--
“SAM!” Danny and Tucker cried, Tucker from across the street and Danny approximately 75 feet in the air.
“Motherfucker,” Sam muttered to herself and gently poked at her right ankle. It was already swelling up and was probably turning red underneath her tights. She rolled her ankle around a bit. It wasn’t broken, but it definitely hurt. “I’m fine!” she called back to her friends, shooting the ghost that had just attacked her, the same one Danny was battling in the sky, with her wrist ray to prove her point.
Tucker ran over to her, trying to assess the situation. “Are you okay?” He held a hand out to help her from the ground. She grabbed it and hissed when she stood fully, quickly grabbing onto Tucker’s shoulder and letting her right foot hang above the ground.
“Shit..the ONE TIME I wear sneakers instead of my boots…” Danny and Tucker had insisted that if she wore sneakers to fight instead of her clunky boots, her fighting would be more efficient. Why had she listened to them again? She gets almost as many ghosts as Danny and her boots at least provided ankle support...
Tucker grinned, “It seemed like a good idea at the time. But seriously, are you okay?”
“Ugh, I don’t know. I didn’t break anything, but I can’t walk, let alone stand.” She glanced up at Danny, who was shooting an ectoblast at his opponent. “I think you should take me to the hospital to get-”
“Nope.”
“Tucker, I’m serious.”
“So am I! You’re fine! You can just lean on me or have Danny fly you home when he’s done. No big deal. No doctor, no hospital.” He shook his head frantically and wrapped Sam’s arm around his shoulder, her arm wrapping around his torso shortly thereafter. She glanced down at her swollen ankle.
“Tucker, this hurts really bad. And you know I’m not one to complain.”
Tucker shot her a look. “What about the time you complained about dissecting real frogs in biology? Or the time you complained about those really cool monster trucks? Or when you complained about beauty pageants and then joined in anyway? Or any of the times you complained about Paulina? Oh! And what about that one time wh-”
“Alright, alright, I get it. Well, I’m not one to complain about pain, anyway. But seriously, can you help me get to the hospital?”
“Do I have to?” Tucker groaned.
“Yes! What’s the big deal?” Tucker muttered something under his breath that she couldn’t quite make out. “What?”
“I don’t like hospitals.”
“Yeah, and I don’t like the possibility of never walking again. Tucker, please.”
He sighed. Sam didn’t say 'please’ very often. “Alright, alright. I’m doing this because you’re my best friend and I love you, okay? But I’m leaving right after I drop you off.” Sam rolled her eyes but complied. They both glanced back up at Danny, who was still mid-battle but holding his own. “He can catch up with us later.”
Tucker had gotten Sam into the emergency room, where she sat filling out some paperwork. He turned around to book it out of there when Sam stopped him by grabbing his wrist. “Tuck, can you please stay?” Her face was full of conflicting emotions. She hated asking for help, yet here she was sacrificing her pride and reputation of being an independent woman because she was scared.
He glanced around the room and made a face before his eyes settled on her pleading lavender ones. He had never seen her so vulnerable before. He sighed and sat down next to her. “Thanks,” there was a moment of silence before she continued, “so while we wait, how about you tell me why you don’t like hospitals.” She gently grabbed his hand closest to hers, which was gripping the arms of his chair tightly. He groaned internally; he very well knew that she would pester him until he gave her a straight answer. You could never bullshit Sam. Plus, she had already shown vulnerability to him today. He could at least return the favor.
“Well…I guess it started when I was 6. I had gotten hurt on the playground, so my mom took me to the hospital. A woodchip kinda stabbed me in the hand when some kid pushed me over. They had to remove it for me, and then they stapled the wound shut.”
“Ah, that’s why you have that scar on your hand.” Sam nodded towards it. He flipped his hand over where the scar in the middle of his palm was clearly visible.
“Yeah, it was terrible. Who uses staples on a kid? Anyway, they kept stabbing me with needles to take all these tests and stuff. I don’t like needles.” He visibly shuddered. “Then when I was 9, I had to go to a hospital again when my grandpa was sick. I didn’t really understand what was going on, but my dad had left me in the room with him while he called my mom, and I was all alone and long story short he just died right in front of me. That was pretty traumatizing.”
“I’m so sorry.” She said genuinely. Perhaps it was because she was so close to her grandmother that the statement hit her hard. She squeezed his hand.
“Another time back in middle school, I went to the nurse’s office because I scraped my knee in gym class and needed a bandaid, and while I was waiting for her to grab one, Gabriel Morris puked all over my shoes.” Tucker’s face scrunched up in disgust as he recalled the bad memory. “And then it’s just everything in general. There’s the weird smell and everything is white and they just stab you with needles and there’s people in the building dying right now and it’s all so gross and terrifying. I can’t even look at a hospital when I pass by one. I avoid doctors at all costs.”
Sam squeezed his hand again. “Well, I really appreciate you being here for me right now. I know it’s going to take awhile, and I need company or I’ll go insane.” She smiled at him. She had always been close with Tucker, and though they had conflicting interests on occasion, they had their handful of moments like these.
Tucker returned a small smile and breathed out a small laugh. “Look, I’m not even the one who is in pain and you’re comforting me.”
Sam laughed, “Hey, we all have our shit, you know.” She glanced at his phone on his lap when it lit up, signaling a text from Danny.
Tucker unlocked his phone and read the message before shoving it in his pocket. “Danny’s putting the ghost back into the Ghost Zone right now and then he’s going to swing by Frostbite to ask a few questions. He’s going to be a while.” Sam nodded in response.
“No problem, I have the mighty fine Tucker to help me through this crisis.”
“It’s Too Fine, actually.” He frowned.
“My mistake.” She smiled, turning her gaze from him as the nurse called her name. Tucker pushed her in a wheelchair to a small room with all sorts of wires and things that could poke somebody. He gulped. Sam could sense his wariness, and looked to the young, attractive nurse, who was questioning Sam about what happened. “Oh, I took kind of a hard fall. This here is my best friend Tucker, he’s been getting me through all this. He’s super brave and practically carried me over here. He’s my support system today.”
Tucker blushed at the praise and stared down at his shoes. The nurse gave him a reassuring smile and held her hand out for him to shake. “I’m Claire, I’ll be taking care of your friend today. Did you see what happened?”
He looked up at the blonde, whose smile widened when his eyes met hers. He shook her hand. “U-uh, yeah…” Tucker paused as he formulated a response. “We were just walking home from school and this ghost just blasted her out of nowhere, it was pretty freaky. Sam here kinda tripped backwards and fell in a weird way. I am always telling her she should wear boots or something with more ankle support, clumsy little thing.”
Sam tilted her head back and glared up at him. Tucker just shrugged and grinned, letting her know he was just teasing. Sam was just glad his attention seemed to be diverted from the room he was currently in.
“Oh, you’re very brave for getting her here in the middle of a ghost attack. Let’s take a look at your ankle.” Sam cringed as the nurse took her shoe off and started touching her ankle. “Yes, this definitely needs some attention. I’ll get the doctor to see you shortly and will take you up for x-rays in a few minutes if need be. In the meantime, how about you take those tights off so we can get a better look. I’ll be back in a few.” The nurse softly closed the door behind her as Sam stood on one foot and started pulling her purple tights off.
“Woah! Hey! I’m still here!” Tucker yelled, covering his eyes with his hands.
Sam laughed, “Tucker, chill. I’m not naked or anything.” She wrapped her arm around him for support as she put her weight on him and tugged her tights off her good ankle. She sat on the hospital bed and looked at Tucker, who was peeking through his fingers. “I do need your help though. Help me get these off, but be gentle.” Sam pointed to her tights remaining on her other leg. Tucker nodded and carefully pulled her tights completely off.
“You know, I always dreamt of undressing a girl, but you’re not exactly who I had in mind. No offense.” Tucker’s remark earned a chuckle from Sam.
“None taken.” She sat back on the hospital bed and watched him glance around the room nervously. “You don’t have to worry, you know. I’m the patient, not you. And I don’t plan on dying any time soon.”
“Are you nauseous?” Tucker raised an eyebrow and sat in the wheelchair.
“Tucker, if I was going to hurl all over you, I would at least have the common decency to tell you first.” She sighed when her comment didn’t make him any less anxious. “Thanks for staying with me for this. If my parents were in town, they would be driving me and the doctors insane. You’re a great friend. I know it isn’t said enough.”
Tucker looked at her bashfully, unsure of how to respond. “I uh...thanks? Or you’re welcome?”
Sam chuckled, “I’m not sure what the appropriate response is either. Hey, pull up the movie trailer for Trinity of Doom again! The sound is way better on your phone.” She smiled when she saw how proud he was of his technology as he pulled it up.
Several minutes and a debate over which monster is scarier later, there was a brief knock on the door before the doctor walked in. “So, Samantha-” he started.
“Sam.” Tucker and Sam corrected him at the same time.
“Let me check out your injury.” The doctor set his clipboard down on the counter and bent down to inspect Sam’s ankle. She winced when he started moving it and held Tucker, who looked ready to pounce on the doctor, back as he stood next to her protectively.
The doctor paused and pursed his lips at the other miscellaneous scrapes and bruises that coated her legs, some looking more healed and some looking fresh. “Samantha, are you sure this has only been a one time occurance? We can talk in private if your boyfriend wants to wait outside.”
Sam looked at him confused, ignoring his use of her full name. “I don’t understand.”
“You seem to have more injuries than just a sprained ankle, and they appear to have occurred over different periods of time. Domestic violence is unfortunately pretty common, even amongst teena-”
“Excuse me?!” Sam interrupted.
“We can talk in private if that makes you more comforta-”
“First of all, Tucker is not my boyfriend. Second, minor bruises and cuts hardly count as injuries. Third, what makes you think he would be abusive towards me when he has shown absolutely ZERO signs of being my boyfriend, let alone an abuser?”
“Well, I mean, he’s, you know, you never know and typically perpetrators are-”
“Black?” Tucker spat angrily.
“That’s not exactly what I was...I’m just saying that-” The doctor stumbled over his words, clearly embarrassed and trying to avoid a lawsuit.
Tucker opened his mouth to speak again, but Sam beat him to it. “That is so unprofessional and honestly just plain stupid of you to say. I can’t believe someone who is supposed to be smart enough to get through med school and someone who took the hippocratic oath and has to treat a diversity of patients would be so ignorant to racially profile someone and suggest he’s abusive because of the color of his skin. You damn well know that the cuts and bruises I have are as minor as playground injuries, but no, why would a white girl come in here with a black boy if she wasn’t being somehow manipulated into staying in an abusive relationship? I’ll have you know that Tucker is one of the sweetest people I know and he is a person of incredible character, which is something you, an adult and a supposed professional, are not. Now I suggest you think before you speak next and apologize to my friend here right now or I will have a massive Manson family lawsuit hit you and this hospital so hard your ancestors will be feeling it.”
Tucker’s jaw dropped slightly and his eyes were wide, though he shouldn’t have been too surprised that she would scold an adult like that.
The doctor looked at the girl, who was lighting panting from how much effort she had put into her rant, in shock. He was honestly a little terrified of how much anger she had in her eyes. He looked over at the boy who now held a stoic expression. “M-my deepest apologies, sir.” He didn’t think he could form any other intelligible sentences.
“Awesome. Now go get me a new doctor to wrap my damn ankle so we can get out of here,” Sam said sternly. The doctor simply nodded, clearly still stupefied, and scrambled out of the room. “The fucking nerve of that guy,” she started again, clearly still furious. She looked back at her friend to see how he was handling the situation.
He didn’t even need to thank her, gratitude and pride were written all over his face. She shot him a small smile and held her arms out for a hug, which he quickly accepted. “Thanks, Sam.” He leaned over and kissed the top of her head.
“Any time.” She smiled and pulled back, taking a deep breath as the energy in the room began to settle. Tucker sat down next to her and stared at his shoes for a few moments before glancing around the room and becoming anxious again. Sam quickly whipped out her phone. “Hey did you see this video of a hedgehog taking a bath?” She gave him a comforting smile.
“No, I didn’t.” He smiled back gratefully.
After a new doctor had come in to wrap Sam’s ankle, apologizing profusely to the teens, the nurse from earlier had returned and handed Tucker Sam’s discharge papers. “I left my personal phone number on there in case you have any questions about your friend’s treatment.” Tucker swore she winked at him before helping Sam stand up on her crutches. He only nodded in response and helped Sam out of the hospital, where a cab was already waiting to take them back to Sam’s place.
“So, Game of Thrones marathon until Danny gets back?” Sam smiled, texting Danny to let her know she was alright and they were heading home.
“Hell yeah!”
When they arrived back at Sam’s house, Tucker helped her up the front steps and watched her make her way into the kitchen to pull snacks out. “I’ll order some pizzas, you carry this downstairs and get comfy.”
Tucker nodded and did as she asked after she insisted she was fine and could manage her way downstairs by herself, especially because her house had an elevator to help her grandma get around. He sat down in his favorite spot in her theater and settled in, feeling incredibly grateful for his best friend and her safety.
Sam arrived shortly thereafter and pulled up the episode that would continue her and Tucker’s binge. Game of Thrones was dark enough for Sam’s enjoyment, action-packed enough to keep Tucker entertained without his PDA, and nerdy enough for the both of them. Danny never understood the hype. Game of Thrones was something Sam and Tucker shared, the tradition starting up one afternoon when they were waiting on Danny to get out of detention.
Later, Danny landed in Sam’s basement, glancing at all the junk food scattered across the couch between his friends. “Are you okay Sam?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just have to wear this stupid boot for a week. Fortunately it’s not too much bigger than my combat boots, so really what’s the difference.” She smiled.
“Yeah, Sam’s okay, but the doctor isn’t.” Tucker laughed.
“What?” Danny grabbed a soda and sat in the open seat.
“Sam threatened a doctor today,” Tucker stated proudly.
“What?!”
“It’s no big deal,” Sam dismissed it with a flick of her hand.
“It was a big deal, Danny! She even dropped the Manson name and threatened a lawsuit! It was awesome!” Tucker said excitedly.
“It was nothing,” Sam said sheepishly. “Tucker got a hot nurse’s number!”
“Not really, she was just being nice.”
“Oh please! She was totally into you, and you were just radiating that ‘Too Fine’ charm!”
Danny drowned out their conversation and looked back and forth between his friends flabbergasted. He wasn’t even sure which out of character aspect of his two friends he should respond to first. Before he could even gather his thoughts, the two were already sucked back into their show.
“How awesome is that dragon?!”
“It’s incredible! The CGI they do is amazing!”
Danny frowned, feeling extremely excluded. Sam and Tucker were friends of course, but these moments where they were more than getting along were few and far between. “Hey guys, I fought a real dragon remember?” They ignored him. “A ghost dragon? A ghost dragon that Sam turned into? That was more awesome, right?!”
“Uh huh.”
“Sure, whatever.”
“The same dragon I fought today?!” No response.
Danny huffed and crossed his arms over his chest. He wasn’t leaving the two of them alone ever again.
#Sam is a huge Black Lives Matter advocate and you can't change my mind#I tried to do my very best about writing an issue I personally don't face so I hope I did okay and I'm so sorry if it came off as ignorant#I hope you guys like this we just need some good Sam and Tucker friendship fics okay#Danny Phantom#Sam Manson#Tucker Foley#Danny Fenton#trio#stephanie writes sometimes
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Dragon Dancer III: Justice
I opened my eyes to a dimly lit space. I was hooked to an IV.
As soon as I turned my head, I saw Chisei in a white shirt and black pants. In front of him was a table of munitions. The man looked rough, a hollow of his former vibrant and frightening self.
He looked at me briefly. “You’re awake. Good. You’ve already started to heal. I need to return you to your teammates.”
Return me? I sat up, wincing against the bandages under my shirt. My ruined dress was gone, replaced by a thin white top and a bright red hakama. “Where am I?”
“We’re back at the shrine. It’s far from Tokyo and the only safe place now.”
I watched him as he pulled a gun holster around his waist.
“Chime?”
“Resting. I’ll be sending him and Erii away, out of Japan. It’s the only way to be safe.”
“I wanted to tell you, the King controls Chime with a woodblock...”
“He told me...” He glanced at me and slipped throwing knives into the sides of the holster.
“You’re still going back to the city?”
He paused, eyes narrowing, full of hatred. “You think I would leave after hearing something like that? I’m not leaving until the King is dead.”
I gripped the blanket covering me. “My wish is for you to get out of here alive. You wanted to be free from Hydra, right?”
“You had the chance to leave as well didn’t you? You didn’t take it.” He replied.
“How do you know that?”
“I heard you and the owner of the Takamagahara talking.” He tossed his trench coat over his shoulders and smiled at my open mouthed shock.
“You were there!”
“I was there for a while. And I am free from Hydra. Turns out that the King had planned for this. I’m not sure how he got the location of the White King. But he attacked as soon as she started her rampage. Immediately after the tsunami, he had forces in place to take us down in the chaos.”
He pulled black gloves over his hands. “Minamoto Heavy Industries was taken. Kaguya is gone. Yasha is dead. We lost Fuma in the escape... Hydra is completely defenseless. I thought we had won the war. Turns out the Devil Clan never cared about their own deaths or loss of territory. They had their ace in the hole... all our efforts were useless.”
He stopped. “Had I known I never would have....”
“But you didn’t know.” I said, raising my voice. “None of us did! This is all complete... insanity. The only person who had any clue about what was about to happen was Lu Mingfei! And I need to tell you something! Listen!”
He finally turned to me.
“I believe Lu Mingfei has been having prophetic visions. I don’t know how. I don’t know why. But he told me he’s been dreaming about something terrible happening to Erii. He said first with water... and now with fire. Did he say anything about that?”
From the way his eyes shifted he seemed to be recalling something. He answered. “When he was with me, he did have frequent nightmares. About the sea and an unseen enemy. He said it was a dream of the future.”
“Now he dreams of fire.” I whimpered. “And Erii...”
“Thank you for telling me. I’ll get her out... Immediately.” He walked to me tucking under my arm to lift me up and carry me out to the waiting helicopter. It was still dark outside.
“Where are we going?”
“Anjou put out a call for you all to meet him at the Tokyo Meteorological Institute.”
“And what will you do? Are you going to come fight with us?”
“Heh. Unlikely. Anjou probably has his own ideas. For all I know he’s here to get you out.”
“No! I won’t leave here-”
He gave me a sympathetic look. “He’s already taken over Tokyo at this point. You don’t have a say in anything any more.”
My heart sank even as helicopter lifted. He was right. As we soared over the landscape, we stayed silent. I realized that he was saying goodbye. It was unlikely that we would see each other again, at least, not in a dragon slaying capacity.
“Keep in touch. Please? Don’t delete my number.”
“Why?”
“There’s so few people who are like me. Even surrounded by other hybrids, I feel lonely. And Mingfei will worry about Erii.”
He didn’t answer. I got the feeling he wanted to leave everything behind and that I was part of a past he no longer wanted.
Tokyo was a city becoming a ghost town. Lines of cars were backed up and people were abandoning them and walking with whatever they could carry. I felt a deep sense of failure. I was supposed to prevent this. I was sent here to stop this very thing.
I leaned my head against back of the seat, too miserable to even cry about it.
We landed. Chisei got out with me. I found I was already able to walk on my own, though it was still very painful to do much else. We went slowly to the elevator which we took down to a hall that led to a large conference room.
As soon as the door opened, I saw Anjou with Johann and Nono. They were sitting around a table discussing something. Turned out I was late to the meeting.
A man I didn’t know was saying. “I will contact the chief executive now, but he was out of contact and being evacuated. I'm not sure of his status.”
“I only need the coordinates!” Anjou was saying. “As long as he’s still alive let him talk to me. That arrogant bastard has already messed things up. That’s the least he should be able to do to help!”
I scowled. “Hey!”
They all turned to me. Johann stood up, eyes wide. “Meixiu!”
Chisei chuckled and squeezed my shoulder. “I am indeed and arrogant bastard who made a mess of things.”
Johann approached and I easily swapped Chisei’s arms for his. His hug hurt and I grunted in pain.
“You’re injured!”
“Is just a flesh wound!” I tried to joke, but the pain in my eyes said otherwise.
“Water storage well number 13, Design code Red Well, in the mountains near the Tama River. Here are the coordinates.” He handed the seething Anjou a piece of note paper.
“Principal. I’m sorry, I tried I really tried...” I pulled away from Johann.
“I will not accept any apologies from you young lady.” Anjou’s cold eyes brooked no argument. “Your mission was very simple and became... very complicated!”
I’d never seen Anjou so furious, gazing at Chisei who took it with numb indifference. But the man had lost everything and I couldn’t stand that Anjou was going to take his anger out on him.
“I won’t testify against him! He was only doing what he thought was right!”
Anjou cut me off. “You’ll be permitted to stay in this room so long as you don’t say another word.”
Johann’s hand squeezed my shoulders. “Easy...” He whispered, guiding me to a chair.
Anjou handed the note to a man behind him. “Johann, Nono, let me talk to these two alone.”
Johann left me and walked out. Nono glanced at me but looked away before I could read her expression. The door shut.
For a while, no one said anything while Anjou gathered his thoughts.
“When I came to Japan,” He began. “...you were one of the few people I wanted to meet. But you kept refusing to meet me. This is the first time I’ve traveled abroad to meet a former student and have been repeatedly rejected. You even received my scholarship, only to waste it.”
“It is my pride as a student to be able to get the principal's scholarship... it is my prerogative as a patriarch to refuse to meet you.” Chisei said quietly. “Unfortunately, I am not a good student and I have not learned the most important things from you.”
Chisei then looked at me. “I am not a competent patriarch. Those people who believed that I was the coming Amaterasu died for me. and I failed to give them a brand new future... and now my clan is at its end.”
I didn’t want to hear that from him. But I wasn’t allowed to talk any more, so I avoided his eyes and silently brooded.
“And after so many years, you’re still being pursued by your past, Chisei.”
“You mean Chime? Someone told you?”
“You told me.”
I looked up at Chisei.
“You forgot? You told me years ago, back when you were at Cassell. We were drinking together when you told me this story... only you talked about it like it had happened to someone else. At that time you were asking about the cost of justice.”
“I... have forgotten. I thought I would never tell anyone that story.”
He told me. Perhaps I’d grown closer to him than even he realized.
“Then you forgot what I told you about justice?”
Chisei looked a little sheepish. “Can you... please tell me again?”
The atmosphere had relaxed quite a bit. My ears perked up.
“You remember Benedict’s book?” He asked.
“Yes.”
“He talked about an ultimate justice. That so long as this person obeys this justice, then the world will never reject him. Because it’s above the individual.”
He pulled out a cigar as this was a very long lecture for him. He lit it, letting the smoke curl over both sides of his face.
“However, there is no justice that can exceed the individual. For some people, revenge is justice. For others, protection is justice. If your brother’s happiness is he most important thing in your heart, then you should be willing to take on the entire world for him. You think you paid the price for ‘justice’.”
He turned to look at Chisei. “But the justice you obey is not what you really want. The Justice you obey is taught to you by others. It is not your individual justice. So now, even though you did what you thought was right, you’re tormented by your conscience!”
Chisei glanced away, looking all the world like a scolded child. “For you... revenge is justice, principal!”
“It is! Haha!” He laughed. “My life has been summer and it has been winter. When I met my friends I was lonely and poor in life. But they turned it into summer. I belonged. I had true friends. And then... the dragons took that all away. The remainder of my life is growing shorter. There no one else like me in the world. No one shares my experiences, my memories. I am truly utterly alone. My revenge is all I have left. So... it is my justice.”
He took a long drag on his cigar and I lowered my head. I’d never thought of the Principal as a lonely person but who else had lived as long as he did?
“But,” He’s voice brightened. “...it is not the only justice. Let’s take our genius, Carli here for just a moment.”
I gave him a deer in the headlights look.
“Chisei, you and your organization have left her life an absolute misery! You destroyed everyone she loved. And you pursued her with the intention of killing her. And yet. I say one word against you and she leaps to your defense! Do you know why?”
Chisei shifted, uncomfortable. “I...”
Anjou’s expression changed to one of bewilderment as he gestured to me. “It’s because she has no concept of hatred! It’s not in her nature, not even a little bit!”
I looked at Chisei who avoided my eyes.
“She’s the only one I’ve ever met like this. At least, to this extraordinary degree.” He puffed his cigar. “Now... some would look down on this. After reading the reports, it was clear that she was slow to act to escape from the Takamagahara. She took unnecessary risks in attempting to align with the people pursuing to kill her. Things could have easily gone another way.”
“It took another man’s hatred to finally move things forward. These are facts. However...” He took another puff.
“It’s also a fact, that had Chu Zihang been leading, your brother would be dead. You probably would be dead as well. The mission would have succeeded on a mountain of death. Had Nono been lead, likely similar circumstances with perhaps a lower body count.”
“Many would say, Carli’s route was much more difficult. Much more fraught with danger. Much more risky. Slow! However, unlike her loved ones, your loved ones are still alive.”
Chisei didn’t look at me.
“Carli?”
“Yes... sir?” I asked hesitating.
“Do you regret anything you’ve done here in Japan?” He looked directly into my eyes with a laser like intensity.
“Um...” My eyes shifted a bit, thinking. After that moment’s consideration, I answered. “No sir.”
He turned to Chisei. “Do you see the difference?”
A memory popped into my head, Johann Chu at my bedside. My voice saying: Don’t tell me what to do!
I lowered my eyes again, examining the grain of the wood on the table, chewing my lip.
Chisei took a deep breath and let it out. “After this many years, it’s great to listen to your lectures again.” He said.
With that Anjou ended his lecture. “From this moment on, the control has been transferred to Cassell College. You have a good rest. I hope we can all see the sun rise tomorrow.”
“You’re using the space based kinetic weapon on the White King?”
“I no longer need to discuss the White King with you, Chisei. I know you wanted to stop it on your own, but you failed.’
I looked back up again.
Anjou gave me a hard glare, that was dampened by a smile that appeared after it. I was still not allowed to talk.
Chisei took the rejection in stride. He got up, slowly bowed to Anjou and left through the long corridor. I stood up and pursued him. “Chisei!”
He paused.
“Please... be safe.”
He turned away, walking back to the helicopter.
I turned away to find Johann who had been waiting on the other side of the hall. I threw my arms around him.
“Are you alright?”
“Neither of us will face consequences.” I looked up at him. His expression was blank but his eyes were kind. I was happy to see him. I stretched up to kiss him and then flinched. “Ow.”
“The lounge is right over there. Go sit down. I’ll get you something for the pain.”
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This decade I went from being 14 to 24. From my understanding this means this decade has pretty much shaped my tastes, beliefs, and personality more than any other decade will. It’s also an important decade because at the beginning of the decade I felt like a real person, and now I feel like a ghost that occasionally almost inhabits the same space as this flesh prison.
Anyway, here’s a list of games that shaped me in reverse chronological order for maximum pretension. Spoilers and typos will be abundant.
Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018)
I like little, mostly irrelevant prepping activities in games. Currently, I’m playing Death Stranding, and my Norman Reedus always puts on a cap. Mostly to cover up his weird little pony, but also just as a thing to do to focus before a mission. Like, listening to Friends in the Armed Forces by Thursday before the helicopter lands. Like, grabbing your wallet in the morning. Or, like in Arthur Morgan’s case, putting on a bandana before being a nasty crime boy.
Okay, maybe that’s not entirely true. I always play characters as good and pure as possible. But after I got done doing my good boy crimes I could always return to camp. Sure, camp was always moving as we ran, but the people were there every time. The world of RDR2 is beautiful, I think the characters were my favorite thing about this game. The entire plot was that camp, the outcasts in it, and the dreams they followed. They fused a cowboy simulator with a cult simulator. It says, don’t worry, friend - just keep going and Eden is the next job.
This is a game where you give, break, and are broken in pursuit of a lie. This is a game where your perfect life never arrives and the simple pleasures you find are taken. In the end, you only do whatever little bit of good you can, thank your horse for carrying your weight and the weight of everything you carry, and lay down to go peacefully.
Night in the Woods (2017)
This last decade took my memory from me. When I was a freshman in college taking an intro psych class, the class took a short term memory test. I got second in the whole class. Now I’m sitting here trying to remember who said what in this game. But regardless, one character says something like, “Getting older is your list of first times growing shorter while your list of never agains grows longer.” Heavily paraphrased, probably.
I think there’s a Bojack Horseman episode where he says, life is a series of closing doors, isn’t it? In our modern capitalist hell, very few don’t get trapped. This game understands that sometimes you can’t get out, and sometimes you just need to break some fluorescent bulbs at a dumpster. Or in my case, procrastinate on my life by playing this game while everything fell apart around me.
World of Warcraft: Legion (2016)
Tanking in WoW was my most fulfilling gaming experience of the decade. I wasn’t great, but I could be good occasionally. There are a few moments of genuine pride I can remember. Which, now that I think back, might be some of the last times I felt pride.
I had never played WoW or even an MMO before Legion, but everyone has to get into an MMO when they’re in college, right? So I got into it for about a year, and I played it way too much. So much so, I lost myself after I stopped, both personally and in games. It was hard for me to stick to any game for a long time after I stopped playing, and it honestly still is.
It wasn’t the tanking or the pride or the addictive design elements that kept me coming back - it was the people. This became a Return To game for me. Whether I was playing seriously or just goofing off, I would return to the trans mog shop in Stormwind. There were a few players who would gather consistently and talk between queues. I barely knew anything about these people but I spent hours there with them. There was my healer and best friend who I played with every day. There was the carpet layer from Hawaii. There was the player we always assumed was a young girl but turned out to be some rich man? And behind the anonymity of my characters I was able to comfortably interact with the regulars and the passerbys and mess with the assholes. I learned that pretending to be an actor playing someone else is the best way to talk to people.
Even though I barely knew these people they became friends in the modern way people become friends where you see them every day, but are also shocked to find out any detail of their personal lives. I often wonder what happened to all the people I played with. I never said bye to them or anything. I wasn’t planning on never playing again. One day it just happened.
I’ve often thought about playing again. When WoW Classic came out I thought about playing it. I’ve even thought about getting into FF14. But you can never go home, right? Some things that were good can’t be good again.
Inside (2016)
God, this is extremely my shit. I don’t have anything touching or personal to say about this. Every moment of this game is so tight and perfect, and the aesthetic is spot on. Run on, my child, go be one with your blob friends.
Or maybe I just like it because I too am a disgusting blob monster haunted by a dreary dilapidated landscape.
Firewatch (2016)
The plot of this game is messy overall, but I think about the character interactions all the time. This is a perfect example on how good dialogue isn’t realistic. It should be what we want reality to be. Henry and Delilah have such a believable relationship, strictly because I wanted to believe in it. I wanted to believe two people could always be so perfect and so witty.
And Firewatch just won’t let you believe in it. At the end you can beg and beg for Delilah to stay, and she won’t. The game gently pats you on the head, and says, sometimes people are too broken to be perfect with each other.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (2015)
The PC version lets you set custom music to play as you drop in from the helicopter for your missions. This led to me hearing the beginning to Thursday’s Friends in the Armed Forces god knows how many times. Sure, maybe a 2009 emo song blaring out of a helicopter in 1980’s Afghanistan doesn’t exactly fit, but the mood fit. And it helped set the mood for the routine of going on missions.
Routine is what this game does so well. It’s an incomplete game with a not great story, and it fails at being a good Metal Gear Solid game. But the routine and mechanics blend together to create one of the best playing action games ever made. I never got tired of walking around my base, of boarding my helicopter to go drop into the desert, of launching random animals into the air with reverse parachutes.
This game also led to me formulating my Return To/Go Out theory of games, which I believe most games fall into. An old Mario game is a great example of a Go Out game. You never return anywhere; the princess is always in another castle. The Animal Crossing games maybe exist as the perfect example of a Return To game because you never even go out anywhere. You’re always there, where you mean to be. MGSV falls mostly on the Return To side of the spectrum, as it focuses on building up and managing your base and the people on it, something I’ll always be a sucker for.
Her Story (2015)
This is one of the last games that made me feel smart. As a person who feels chronically dumb as shit, that’s pretty rare. Sure, everyone in my life, and the university I went to, and all my grades say I’m not dumb. But we know that’s just because I tricked them all, and I’m actually a complete fool. But diving into this game’s wild and twisting non-linear story made me feel like a detective.
The Witcher 3 (2015)
Move out of the way Skyrim. The Witcher 3 was actually the best fantasy game of the decade. I played through all of The Witcher 2 in preparation for 3. I became so invested and involved with this universe. I feel like I should have so much more to say about this. In what was a very turbulent year of my life, this was the perfect escape. The world, writing, and characters are all so beautifully done. The DLC provides an emotional finale for the story. I never understood Gwent? But I did everything else in this game, and I still think about escaping into it again.
Also Triss for life.
Also also god, that show sucks shit though, doesn’t it?
Life is Strange (2015)
I love everything about Life is Strange. I love the melodrama, the stilted dialogue, the songs that still make me cry. I love the weird high school that resembles no high school ever. I’m not too much of a fan about what it says about me as a person though.
See, I let the entire town die to save Chloe. The crazy part is that I didn’t even think Max and Chloe were good together. When the game gave me a chance to kiss Chloe, I didn’t take it. I thought they had been apart too long, that they had too much personal baggage, that they were going through too much. But when the moment came I couldn’t let her go. I let the entire town get blown away to save her.
Transistor (2014)
Hey, do you want a cyberpunk, post-rock fueled, murder revenge love story?
Transistor had such an impact on me that Red and the Transistor are still my phone’s wallpaper and lockscreen. It’s the game I always mean to get around to playing again, but year after year I don’t. Maybe one day I will, or maybe that’s just what I tell myself about most things in life.
Regardless, this game acts as a perfect spiritual sequel to the studio’s first game, Bastion. In Bastion, everyone wanted to live in the perfect world that had been, but was now destroyed. In Transistor, the world exists - it’s there and could theoretically become whatever people want, and yet, no one wants to live in it. You’re not even trying to save the world; you want escape as much as anyone else. You just need revenge for the small part of your personal world that has been taken.
Also, at the end you get to basically fight yourself, and I’m such a sucker for when games have you fight someone with the same powers as you.
Gone Home (2013)
I had never been in love when I played this game. I thought I had, but being a teenager is dumb and weird. Of all the first times I wish I could experience again in games, this is up there on that list. Maybe even the top. Mainly because I understand love now, and I think it would make this game hurt more.
Both times I played Gone Home I sobbed, and I’m certain if I played it again, I would sob again. This was the first game to impact me in that way. As I’ve grown more and more dead inside, as I feel less and less, I seek those experiences out. Why yes, I would like to play whatever the sad new indie game is. Why yes, I would like to listen to that song that makes me emotional over and over. That scene in a show made me cry? Yes, I will absolutely watch it again.
Gone Home, like Spec Ops, taught me so much about what games could be and do. In a decade of walking simulators, Gone Home still stands out as one of the best.
Animal Crossing: New Leaf (2013)
Animal Crossing is the best goddamn game series of all time, and this is the best one because you can stack fruit.
Hotline Miami (2012)
I have never done cocaine in the 80’s, but that’s pretty much this game, right? This murder simulator game does something to your body on like, a visceral level. Imagine it’s like your 20th attempt on a level. Your hands are shaking with adrenaline, but you have a careful plan. It immediately goes bad so you just panic and start running around knifing fools and it somehow works out anyway. That’s the thing that makes this work so well, and also the thing the devs absolutely did not understand when they made Hotline Miami 2.
You know what else makes this game great? The vibes. Miss me with your vibe checks if you’re not putting off Hotline Miami vibes. It’s the trippy and psychedelic story, it’s the way you have to walk through the bodies of everyone you just murked at the end of the level, it’s the game constantly asking if you feel good about what you’re doing. Hotline Miami and Spec Ops made me reevaluate how I thought about violence in games. Which isn’t to say I don’t play violent games, just that I think more about what the games are asking me to do.
Borderlands 2 (2012)
My experience with Borderlands was different than how most people played it. I didn’t really uh, have friends, so I played it alone. But it wasn’t an inferior experience. I got to play my haiku spouting sniper at my own pace. All the guns were mine. I could laugh at the dumb jokes as long as I wanted.
Hey wait, actually, is this game still funny? If I thought it was extremely funny originally, would it still hold up? Like, Mr. Satan being Mr. Torgue still has to be funny, right?
Anyway, most of the DLC for this game is pretty mediocre or just straight up bad, but the Tiny Tina DLC is some of the best DLC of the decade. Those madmen just made D&D in a goofy ass game where guns yell at you when you shoot them, and somehow made it an emotionally resonant end to the story.
Spec Ops: The Line (2012)
We all really missed what this game was trying to tell us, huh? It constantly asks you if you’re okay with the dehumanization of minorities and the glorification of imperialism and the military that runs rampant through games. Here we are going into 2020, and goobers are still trying to argue games don’t have politics in them. Anyway, gamers are dumb as shit, and we should have listened to Spec Ops more.
Portal 2 (2011)
This came out at the beginning of this decade, huh? Guess I gotta break out the walker and sign up for AARP. Anyway, being funny is hard. I mean, I’ve never managed to be funny so I assume it’s hard. I mean, sometimes my life is funny in a cosmically ironic way, like I’m god’s personal clown and not in on the joke.
Anyway, anyway, the puzzles are fantastic, and Portal 2 is funny as hell in a way I’m pretty sure would still hold up. The humor is definitely more overt than the original Portal, but Cave Johnson is a god tier character. I can’t remember what I did yesterday, and I still remember Cave Johnson lines from like, 8 years ago.
Minecraft (2011)
*twirls mustache* Not to sound like a hipster, but I started playing Minecraft in 2010 before release. My first world seed was the most perfect seed I ever encountered. It was a large island, the size of which, I never encountered again. Like, it was big enough that it felt like I had to branch out to explore, but also small enough that I could know it all. Playing on that island was the most pure experience I had with Minecraft, in retrospect. I didn’t know what I was doing, and I didn’t realize that actually everyone else was way better at building things and playing the game than I was.
But eventually you get bored of everything, right? So I found a server and joined the forums. Over time I grew a bit bored of the game, and eventually realized I wasn’t very good at it. But I stuck around on the forums. Like, for years. Playing on that server, even as my time actually playing lessened, and being on the forums defined my teenage years.
I had a complicated relationship with the forums and the game, though. I’m not good with people. That’s just something I’ve had to learn to accept. But I’ve actually gotten better over the years. Back during my teenage years I was awful with people. I was antisocial, standoffish, pretentious, etc. I also felt like I couldn’t get anyone to like me, which I now realize was my own fault. There was a group of players I wanted to be a part of, but also could never really break into. The game and forums became what I was experiencing and also everything I couldn’t experience. It’s what I did every day but also what I was missing out on. Even today my thoughts on Minecraft are complicated. That one song, you know the one, always makes me emotional.
I originally had a different end planned to whatever this list is. It was gonna be a pretentious ending about how a few years ago I tried to go back and play Minecraft but just couldn’t because you can never go home again. I was gonna talk about my first world seed and the optimism and exploration I experienced, and it was obviously gonna mimic my decade. Because, you know, pretentiousness. But I can’t do that now.
See, I just looked up that server, and I found out it’s still active. The website looks like when I left. The same people are in charge. It’s like a time capsule. Due to a lot of personal turmoil, I asked for a server ban and a forum ban to stop myself getting back on in January 2015. That was when my time with Minecraft came to an end. But here’s the crazy thing: a couple of weeks ago, almost 5 years after I quit, someone posted on my forum profile that they missed me. And we weren’t even close friends, I thought. I mean, no one liked me, right? And it wasn’t just this one person. Multiple people had left similar messages on my profile over the years.
Normally I don’t like when people have memories and perceptions of me. Like, hell is other people, right? But this kind of hurt my insides deep down, like nothing has in a while. I don’t quite have words for it because it’s so personally tied to how I felt about Minecraft, and thus the forums, and thus a lot of this decade. Does this mean that multiple people I’ve encountered over the decade miss me? That some amount of people greater than zero miss me not being around?
Anyway, this has gotten off track, but also maybe it hasn’t. The point I was trying to make was to make a pretentious list about how silly little things we do in our free time can affect us years later in ways we won’t realize and sometimes can’t understand.
In conclusion, games track better with the most personal moments of my decade better than almost anything. Games are great. The people who play them are often terrible. Video games forever.
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Turtles
One of my Loki ideas i got at work. Some tipsy confessions for you.
…
All –
@himoverflowers, @theincaprincess, @aspiringtranslator, @sweeticedtea, @ggbbhehe4455, @thegreyberet, @patanghill17, @jesgisborne, @curvestrology, @alishlieb, @jogregor, @armitageadoration, @fizzyxcustard, @here2have-fun, @lilith15000, @marvels-ghost, @catthefearless, @imjusthereforthereads, @c-s-stars
…
Protection. Simply for protection. That was the reasoning the Asgardian King sat nursing the same beer he had been given hours ago with his eyes fixed completely on you. All these super soldiers and ego hungry men just able to lead you in your gullible state off to be tainted by their pitiful selves, something he and Thor could never allow. The blonde Prince keeping the men at arms length to him while he sat beside you with Valkyrie on your other side who was far more interested with her competition with the Hulk on who could drink more. One by one they all dwindled away and finally alone at the table Loki sat while you staggered your way to the trash bin to add Thor’s empty bottle to it in your failing attempt to clean up the trash and crumb coated table.
A turn to him made your lips purse scanning over the room with your blurring eyes stirring up the painfully withheld urge for him to kiss those now pouted lips he had been aching to kiss for months now. But you were clearly intoxicated, for decades you had tried every drink known to man but some concoction of Tony’s had left you and the passed out super soldiers far from lucid. Months he had imagined you just another robotic slave following the tide but here and there he would catch glimmers of your mischievous and awkward side, glimmers he tried to bring out by leaving random items and spark words into conversations around you hoping to unearth something more from you.
In the momentary gloss of your eyes he could see your feisty side struggling to regain control, a control you lost as those magnificent eyes of yours landed on him and you sighed out dreamily, “I bet you’re a magnificent dancer.”
In his rise to go help you to bed at your clear nearing unconsciousness he froze with eyes locked on you, “Excuse me?”
A shake of your head and your hair danced across your face clenching his heart even more in your grip as it reminded him of his dream of you in his bed being slowly revealed from under his silk sheets. Each dip and curve caressed by that smooth cloth he imagined your skin mirrored. “Oh don’t play coy. Prince,” you staggered around the island in the kitchen drawing him closer to you when your hands planted on the counters on either side of you, “Of a golden kingdom. You wear capes. I’ve seen you fight. You can’t tell me you aren’t a marvelous dancer.”
A grin eased onto his lips as he moved to the end of the island a couple feet from you, “And why are you bringing this up.”
Your head cocked to the side and his lips parted at your giggle and nip at your lip, “The guys tease me for not dating-. But-. You know what I wish for more than anything?”
Inching closer when your head straightened up again sending your hair cascading back down to your chest and shoulder again, “What is that?”
Instantly he regretted it at the tears filling your eyes and quiver to your lower lip all but making him lunge at you for a tight embrace to chase all of the pain away, “I wish, I had someone who would teach me how to ballroom dance. Big gowns, grand staircase, candles, the like.” Loki’s lips parted in confusion, “Cuz, you can’t take the lessons alone. I, have never, once, been invited to a dance. Just once I would love to have someone willing to take lessons with me, for no other reason than because I want to. No jokes. No teasing.”
His lips closed and he swallowed dryly at the tear rolling down your cheek as your voice cracked and dropped to a weaker tone he never imagined possible from you, “But no, I’m an imposition. Be nice, be thoughtful. Be considerate. Diligent, dutiful,” each word drawing him closer the more your tears came and your legs seemed to be giving out tightening your grip on the counters, “Always the faithful shadow, always the joke.” Inhaling sharply you looked away after your voice all but broke at the final word and he took a large step closer at your hand rising to lift a finger only for your eyes to roll back and your body to try and collapse.
Rapidly his hand snaked into your hair to cradle your head while his other arm sunk to loop around your hips to lift you against his chest, still shaking in both rage and a knowing empathetic tsunami whirling inside him as for how you had been treated. Steadily he turned and carried you to your room with a warm sigh from you and your silken hair pooling against his neck and fingers still holding your head safely against his shoulder. A few halls later and you were inside your room where he eased you gently down onto your bed, timidly removing your metal ring coated belt with a thick buckle he set aside then moved to remove your boots he set aside as well then covered you up leaving a glass of water by the bed for when you woke when he had ghosted a tissue against your cheeks to dry them before leaving.
With a huff he got into the elevator and crossed his arms glaring at the numbers rising until he was on the roof. In a growling exhale he lowered his arms and exited onto the windy surface towards the center of the clear patch used for helicopter landings. “Heimdall!”
In a flash of light he was brought back to Asguard in the center of the golden orb shaped room. He trotted down the three steps and halted beside the gate keeper who asked, “You called, my King?”
“I need to return in a few moments, however, I need you to pass on a message for me.”
Heimdall nodded, “Of course.”
“I need a celebration planned. Something with a, festive, feel to it.” Heimdall raised a brow, “Oh I know you were listening in. That splendorous woman has never been properly flaunted. Now, we are going to be having a Holiday, I don’t care what you call it. She would never accept a party knowingly in her honor. So, Holiday it is. Weeks end should be enough time.”
Loki turned and trotted back up to the platform turning to hear, “Turtles.” The King raised a brow, “Our turtle eggs are due to hatch next week on our North beaches.”
A nod came from the King who pursed his lips for a moment then said, “She does love turtles.” His eyes moved to Heimdall who sent him back to the rooftop with a smirk that only broke free when the King was gone.
…
All day you had been tasked to menial work to aid the crews trying to fix the system that Tony fried with his latest power flux at the new tower core he was revamping once again. Rolling your head you exited the elevator sighing that your main source of interaction outside of missions was now on a rampage through the city. Loki had clearly been set off and his doubles were running amuck all around town sending the team off into separate locations.
Straight to your room you went to shower then change into your pj’s, after which you went to lounge in the living room to read only to pause seeing Loki in his pj’s in the center of the room with recordings of an orchestra playing overhead. Wordlessly he moved to you and offered you his hand making you glance between it and his face, “I thought you were rampaging.”
He grinned at you saying, “I am rusty and I need practice. Bit of a holiday back home.”
Looking at his hand again you stammered out, “I, I, don’t-,” Stepping closer his hand lowered to claim yours, twisting to lock his in yours while the other eased your free hand into place on his shoulder before his lowered to your upper back.
“I’ll teach you. It will spark my memory.” Wetting his lips he inched closer saying, “Right foot back,” each step slowly was instructed to you before your first just barely smooth run through. No jokes, no teasings, smirks held back with only comforting smiles while a hint of a dopey grin grew on your face at the first successful run through in the room filled with doubles of his for the first run through of an Asguardian dance. Hours he taught you all the main dances and subtly worked in the theme of the holiday only brightening your smile.
That beaming grin up at him tipped him over the edge, “I doubt you have ever seen any creature as wondrous as our turtles. You are welcome to attend of course. On one condition though.”
Your brow rose and you asked, “What would that be?”
“I would have to escort you myself. Our people tend to partner up quite rapidly.”
“I, won’t be putting you off who you want to go with?”
He shook his head, “Not at all. In fact, you would be sparing me an evening of entertaining women aiming for my crown.” You couldn’t help but grin and he raised a brow, “What?”
“Just wondering if I’m going to walk into a hall of horns.” You giggled and he rolled his eyes leading you into another spin before you heard the screeching of tires outside making him wink at you and promptly bow to kiss your knuckles on the hand resting in his still, “My Lady, I will fetch you for the ball. Until then-.” Before your eyes he faded and you simply looked around the room when the music cut off leaving you to walk into the kitchen at your growling stomach.
…
A few days passed and Loki was still far from sight while Thor and Valkyrie kept grinning at you making you stick to your room hoping this wasn’t a big joke. The fourth day however began with your brows furrowed at the golden sheet covered plushy bed you were in. Turning your head when you sat up you saw the massive elaborate room you had no clue as to how you got there. The view outside your balcony brought you onto your feet only to have you hop back onto the bed when the doors opened and a set of servants walked in.
Full gown, elegant heels, jewels you could never dream of affording and a team of goddesses tasked to have you dressed to perfection. It all seemed to be just like a dream and finally a knock sounded and clad in blue and gold matching your gown the King was again barely a foot from you offering his hand.
Just a favor. Simply keeping him from vultures aiming for his crown. This was all for the baby turtles.
But in the swirling mess of music and wine your eyes locked onto Loki’s and you knew for certain, he was the King, the King of Lies and Mischief. Again and again you lied to yourself lessening what this was. Yet as you stared off at the shimmering flying baby turtles in awe you missed the entranced gaze of the King locked on you in your completely distracted and enthralled state while all the others watched him sink deeper and deeper the more you rambled on about the dazzling sight. Longer and longer the list of ‘Holidays’ grew.
Tiny fibs here and there, never once for his gain, all for you, always for you.
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Congratulations, JENN! You’ve been accepted for the role of CORIOLANUS. Admin Rosey: We read two beautiful, amazing applications for our beloved Princeling -- but ultimately, Jenn, your plots and your voice for Cyrus were so impactful and vivid. He’s winsome, charming and built for tragedy. You were able to elaborate on the different machenisms that make him what he is wihile leaving room for him to grow into his own person, to carve out a place within Verona that is unique to him and him alone. We’re ready for this particular strain of ruin! Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.
WELCOME TO THE MOB.
Out of Character
Alias | Jenn
Age | 21+
Preferred Pronouns | She/her
Activity Level | After getting back into the groove of things, I’d say that I’m most active on weekdays! I try to get in a reply at least a few times a week if I have any and if I’m not particularly busy.
Timezone | GMT+8
How did you find the rp? | I’m already in it!
Current/Past RP Accounts | Everyone’s favourite Uncle Cristian <3
In Character
Character | Cyrus Dante Sloane // Coriolanus
THE PRINCELING darling boy with the wind in your hair
A LIGHT SPILLING IN LIKE A FLOOD OF DIVINITY and the sun in your eyes, don’t you know?
WHO GLADY WAGES WAR ON ALL THOSE WHO WILL DEFY HIM everything you want is just past your fingertips
What drew you to this character? | We’d love to hear what about this character’s bio caught your attention! Make this as long or as short as you desire!
Cyrus, oh my darling boy. I took one look at his newly posted bio and realised I had overlooked him, to my eternal error. What a champ!!
When it comes to Cyrus, my favorite part is dissecting his development from boy to man and as a result, it’s going to be a running theme all throughout my app. There is so much I want to pour into that space but I will try to be concise.
I can’t tell you what I love most about him without first giving Vivianne some credit. His life is fraught with uncertainties but he thrives in spite of it and that, I think, speaks volumes about his character and how much he’s like his mother. He’s resilient, resourceful and privileged but starved of the things he really needs like love and affection. I imagine that Vivianne’s nurturing in the first decade of his life was pivotal and that it carried on as phantom lessons that he would often replay in his mind when he was in Cape Town in lieu of actually having her there. But you see, the thing about the human mind is that memories get distorted each time it’s “replayed” and he’s done it so many times that I think he’s started to warp and mimic the worst and best parts of Vivianne. Sort of like how Volumnia manages to influence Coriolanus in the original, Vivianne does it too to Cyrus but from afar and unknowingly.
Let me compare Cyrus to all that’s precious in this world. He’s all the golden hues of sunlight, ringing laughter in a home, a shining beacon wherever he goes. He was a boy whose skin was made of gold leaf, paper thin and easily bruised but now as a man it’s turned solid. He’s impenetrable save for the small crack over his beating heart and therein lies the problem he’s never been able to solve ( and the part I’m MOST eager to explore ). I love irony that as a boy who had relied on his mother for all that was good in his life, he’s cultivated such a burning resentment toward Vivianne. He wants to make her rue the day she abandoned him and that makes her his one undeniable weak spot. After so many years, she still has that effect on him and quite like his canon counterpart, it makes him sort of emotionally stunted to a degree.
So, I see him like a child daring enough to commit all sorts of sins against his mother in the name of retribution. I see him using her as a shield against Cosimo, against the mob, against himself. I see him pushing her as she will undoubtedly push back. It layers him with the kind of duality I never got to enact with Cristian and Howard that sort of evolved Cristian’s character into something he never thought he’d be. In my mind, that had been Cristian’s turning point and we all know how it ended.
There’s so many things that could keep Cyrus on the same trajectory what with his vendetta against Vivianne and all that she stands for. But there’s also so many other things that could deviate him from it. I want to help pull back all the layers as his story unfolds and I think any player would love to be able to take him on that journey of self discovery.
What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? | Where do you see this character developing, and what kind of actions would you have them take to get there? 3 future plot ideas would be preferable.
THE ULTIMATE GOAL
His ultimate goal is very clear to me. He always gets what he wants and Cyrus wants to upend all of Vivianne’s plans, whatever they may be and by extension, Cosimo’s. His mother’s kingdom must fall all around her knees. For this, I want to see Cyrus get closer to the Capulet’s enemies and possibly join them when he’s poised for success. Whether or not he believes in their cause, it would be a blow to his mother either way, especially a blow she might not expect or be ready for when they call for his head.
As he accomplishes his objectives, I’d like him to also get a taste of how his mother has lived without him all these years. I believe he’ll come to find that it bears some resemblance with his life in South Africa — successful but also disconnected from the people they want to be. So, why did she have to let him go? He could have made her proud if she had let him stay. He’s vicious and cruel when it comes to her just as he thinks she is when it comes to him. And I believe he’s willing to pull out all the stops to achieve this ultimate goal. And to get there, he’ll need some help…
THE COMPANY
Whatever his plans are, he won’t be able to do them alone. I’d love for him to build a relationship with Juliana, it would be interesting if he does. And especially since she’s more of his mother’s child than he is, I want to see how that plays out in terms of Cyrus dealing with meeting her again after all those years abroad. What’s he going to say to her? What’s he going to do to her? Eventually, I want him to find a way to ensure that he has some sort of influence over her and eventually some sway over the course of actions that the Capulets might or might not take. Though, of course things might not always be so simple.
Other than Juliana, I imagine a big key in making headway within the Capulet ranks is through Cassian. The man is astute and an expert strategist and that’s the advantage Cyrus sees in keeping his company, in playing the teacher’s pet. I want to see Cyrus trick Cassian into facilitating his ambition but like all heroes in their tragedies, a foil makes things interesting. Cassian has been playing this game of cat and mouse longer than Cyrus has and is likely a better player in the long con. And while he might get the better of Cyrus in the long run, Cassian isn’t the man who has the ear of a Cape Town kingpin.
THE KINGPIN
“The dealings with the Capulets, with his mother, had grown sour with the war that waged in the place that he had been born and molded. Who else would they send to smooth such inconveniences over than the man who had the whole of South Africa beneath his feet?” There’s a reason why Cyrus is an emissary despite only just returning to Verona. It’s unlikely that Cosimo would put his trust in Vivianne’s son, who is essentially a stranger to him, without seeing any advantage in the arrangement. So, I had this idea. I’d like to position Cyrus as an emissary for the mob in Cape Town, as the go-between them and the Capulets. I imagine it’s likely that Cosimo wants something from them to aid his cause in the war of Verona and Cyrus, because of his convenient relationship to his Underboss, is the best candidate to get the job done. I’m open to almost any sort of plot for this but my main concern for his development here is that he begins to parallel Vivianne’s journey in the underworld more apparently.
THE RIGHT-HAND WOMAN
Their weapon of choice is easy enough to acquire but what makes their smiles and laughter so razor is that when they smile and laugh, it isn’t just a grin and a sound. It’s in their expressions, the way their faces twitch, the way their eyes flood with joy so infectious others want to share in it, bathe in it. Revel in it. They make you gasp for air and before you know it, you’re suffocating and thanking them for it. Theirs is a friendship I have do doubt will wreak all sorts of havoc in Verona. They are the monsters your mother never warned you about because surely the heaven sent will do no harm. In time, I want the devastation that Cyrus and Brigette reign in Verona to generate an irreversible consequence. Thus, making sure they learn that even sunshine can turn into wildfires.
LA MAMMA
Things Cyrus will never tell his mother; things he maybe should have; maybe the time may never come when he does: “When you hung up the phone, the dial tone echoes the goodbye you never said. Instead, the last thing I hear is that “It’s all for your own good,” and “Because I said so.” I missed you for a long time so what good did it do me when I had nothing but your ghost to tell me you never loved me. That you never wanted me. That I was a mistake. Whether you like it or not, you made me who I am. And I have become heartless. Where were you when I was still kind? Am I supposed to be grateful to have survived like this?”
Just. Kill me with Viv plots.
Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | At first I was gonna say yes but after completing my app I just can’t bear to kill him off. He deserves so much more. He deserves the world. But still… I’m gonna have to say come what may.
In Depth
Please choose between the interview or the para sample (or both, if you like!):
How many years did it take to build this place? Cyrus wonders as he walks past the tall, dark arches made of steely wood that seem to have witnessed all that has happened in Verona; seen all its tribulations and turmoil and subsumed its spilled ichor. He’s almost sure that if he looks closely enough, he’d see the city’s bloody history written in its grain. The furnishing of the library is immaculately chosen, fit precisely to house a most noble family and its liege. At first glance, he sees an enormous collection of books lining every wall and alcove. The shelves are full and the spines of the books vary in colours from light to dark. He touches them, fingering the well-used titles before picking out a select few on the different subjects he’s studying. At a second, more considering glance, he sees the culmination of an extraordinary legacy. A legacy built on the very bones of Verona.
And for him to stand within a place like this, being who he is and what he represents, will be the beginning of his legacy.
Cyrus is once again new to the city and while not many know his face, some do. So, he finds an alcove away from the busier side of the floor where he might be afforded a little more privacy as informed by his absent host. He knows little about his host but he does know that he’s a man who has had the misfortune to be plagued with a tragedy — a death of a loved one. The very same event that’s brought Cyrus back home at the behest of Cosimo Capulet.
His wrist watch beeps and it has just struck twelve. Cyrus is early, he knows that. Much earlier than scheduled. So, he makes himself comfortable and opens the books he’s decided to borrow. Some time passes before a voice beckons him out of his reverie.
“Cyrus Sloane… Are you ready to begin?”
What is your favorite place in Verona?
Having grown up traversing and discovering the avenues of Cape Town looking for something to help him make sense of his snowglobe-shaken world, the streets had become a sort of solace to Cyrus Sloane. Often, it served as a distraction from his loneliness but mostly because what he saw had been as foreign as he. Like calls to like, does it not? So, Cyrus is inclined to answer the man with his winning smile “The streets,” knowing full well that it wouldn’t be a typical answer. He spent his childhood running down Verona’s cobblestone roads but now the lanes and alleys have become the foundation of a concrete wilderness to him, and he sees an opportunity to begin a new exploration.
But to say that anything was his favourite is to say that he has some attachment to it to an extent. There was nothing he wanted to like about the city, nowhere that called to him nor told him of any story he hasn’t already heard before. It is like all the travel pamphlets say; Verona is a city of love but to him, love in this city has become synonymous with lies, with deceit and betrayal. The implication racks him with bile but he lifts his light eyes away from focusing too hard on a spot on the mahogany table and instead meets the even darker hues of his interviewer. The man looks mildly perplexed at him.
Cyrus is accustomed to elaborating everything at this point, what with the denizens of this idyllic town’s constant waiting for him to speak more, do more, inspire more. Thus, blithely he provides a supplement to his answer, “What? Haven’t you been? It’s your city too, is it not? You’ll get all you need from it if you know where to look, what to ask and, especially, who to listen to. Particularly for the best gossip—” He stopped there despite having more to say. He can’t help thinking to himself if the man knew his mother. His mother and Everett Craven. The gossips say Everett is one of her finest works for the mob. Cyrus doesn’t remember much of it, but he does remember what it had cost.
With a shrug, Cyrus cuts away the underlying acerbity and replaces it with cool composure, akin to the business-like exterior the other man has on. It’s one of the few times where looking too naive, too untested might serve him ill. If Cyrus had a glass of alcohol right now, he’d surely decide it’s time to down it in one gulp. Fluidly, he wills himself to be an agreeable conversationalist. “But really, you’ll find that my favourite place in Verona is where I can get the best deals. And right now, it’s here with you.”
What does your typical day look like?
A half suppressed laugh almost makes its way past his slightly chapped lips. It’s an odd thought that his days are anything typical. Cyrus pours his winsome nature into his casting glance directed at the books arranged on the table and into the way he lifts one corner of a hardcover as he turns the title to his new acquaintance. “You have a good collection here.” He lets it drop back into its place with a soft thud atop the short pile of art, history and mathematics texts splayed in front of the sharp-suit interviewer.
“Signore, I’m quite certain you already know this by now but I’ll say it for my full vindication if you like.” He sits back with relaxed shoulders and leans into the surprisingly comfortable wooden backrest. “I’m a student here. You can imagine what my typical day looks like.” A small jerk of his head sends the other man’s gaze to the books on the table to further drive his point home. “I wake up. I get to class. I go home. Maybe hit up a club or party at night. I hear The Lamberti Tower is fun when the sun goes down. Maybe I’ll see you there some time. You know, typical student life—well, maybe not so typical considering…”
“Really? And what about Cosimo Capulet? I hear you report to him now. I’m sure someone with your standing will have a direct line to the man. There might be something here for you if you can open that line to me.” There it is. Cyrus’ mouth quirks up in a half smile. And everything in him tells him to lie, lie, lie. Not because he is afraid of any repercussions, but because a good businessman knows when he has the upper hand. And his upper hand lies with not revealing everything he knows.
With an amused sigh Cyrus continues with a cant of his head. “I want to say Tuesdays and Thursdays but you’ll understand when I say: how would I know?” There is little leniency in his voice when he says that. “He calls me in at his whims and whenever he feels like having someone to order around. If you want to get to him… I’ll work something out for you if you really need it to be done.”
Cyrus has an idea of how much his new associate is relying on his accessibility to Cosimo. But he could reach Don Capulet as easily as it was for a child to cross the road alone—if he isn’t careful, he’d be run over. No, the real power lies with the company and he’s determined to keep them for his grand designs. Rosaline. Orsino. Juliet. Edgar. Volumnia. They are the keys to the kingdom. Lucky for him, mother dearest will be there to lend a hand every step of the way. He’ll make sure of it this time.
What has been your biggest mistake thus far?
The other man’s forwardness emboldens him to let his mask crack a sliver. “This is beginning to feel like a confessional, Lawrence. Has the church gotten its claws in so deep?” The Sacrament of Penance performed for a sinner by an equally unworthy priest, so it seems. At twenty years old, it’s hard to fathom that he’d have a biggest mistake to talk about. The way his assessor asks this… It feels as if his whole life should pivot around the fact of this big mistake.
Then… Is it the fact that he’d been born? It isn’t as if he’s had a choice in that. No, it was his mother’s mistake to fall pregnant. It’s her sin to bear, not mine, he reminds himself.
Then… Is it his return to Verona? The land that bore him, made him and then cast him out as if he’d always been an unwanted stray. No, again it isn’t his mistake to bear.
He knows his own wrongs.
He knows that at twenty years old his one grievance to confess is that he is just as much his mother’s son as he’d never admit. He could be as calculative and as clinical as she is ( and as equally and reluctantly vulnerable ). Right now, it is obvious he’d even inherited her wry wit. The man sitting across him had not the time to joke but smile he did nonetheless, saying to Cyrus “We’ve all got our crosses to shoulder, don’t we? I just want to make sure I’m not about to take on a liability. Besides, I’m curious. Tell me… What’s the worst that Vivianne Sloane’s son is capable of, hmm?”
That’s all he is isn’t he? Reduced to being just Vivianne Sloane’s son in this country. It makes him see red, taste the vitriol on his tongue, feel the raging sea beneath his skin trying to carve its way out. He doesn’t let it. With all that he’s amounted to, he’ll never escape her. He’s learned to live with that. He doesn’t let the anger seep into the blues of his eyes. He’s seen it in the mirror and what had been reflected was the image of a boy, the scared child within, the boy who was taught to fight and forced to be starved of the love he had craved. If he lets the anger tint his features, he knows that the man before him will see the pain beneath, clear glimpses of his soul drowning in this persona he’d created to fit this world of indifference. No, he’s too proud to let that happen. Too proud to admit that he was the mistake Vivianne Sloane had tried sweeping under the fucking rug all the way to South Africa. No, he would make her fucking own it.
“It would be highly arrogant of me to say that I don’t make mistakes. So, I will say this: It is in my interests to— lets say, tie my own success to yours. But I can’t do it without knowing what’s in it for me. Convince me that this isn’t going to be my biggest mistake, why don’t you?” Through sheer willpower, this man will do something of worth for him. “Because if you fail to utilise my employment effectively, we’ll both be sinking in the same boat. I wouldn’t want either of us to waste such precious time.” And speaking of time, Cyrus had to go soon. He has an appointment that he doesn’t want to miss.
What has been the most difficult task asked of you?
Between the time he was shipped off to South Africa and now? He couldn’t even count, couldn’t even remember.
Everything had been difficult at first but with each task he had found that he could accomplish it all on his own with little more than a smile and a few charming, reassuring words. He picked it up from a man he no longer thinks of kindly, who should have been there when his mother wasn’t. But this thing that he’s doing now though, requires more than words. It’s as much of an interview for his new friend as it is for himself. From all the questions he’s gotten, what he gleans is that the Montagues are desperate for a foothold in Capulet ranks. And Cyrus, the princeling of Verona, the prodigal son, the product of negligence, is their way in and he’s willing to consider playing the part. He wonders, at this juncture, if his mother could be proud of him, of how far he’s come and how far he’s willing to go to achieve something he desires and he desires nothing more than seeing her humbled the way she had humbled him. To bring low a formidable woman such as she, a woman so feared she’s been dubbed a scourge of Verona, will be his most difficult task yet. But it’s not been asked of him by anyone. Except himself.
“Difficulty is subjective I believe.” Getting a plane ticket back to Italy months ago had been a feat. Meeting his mother after years and years of her elusion had been painful and exhausting. Agreeing to meet Lawrence Vernon and subsequently denounce all that the name Sloane stands for, his one link to his past, present and future, had to have been a difficult decision to make. But Cyrus surprised himself when he had found it easy to come here, to a known Montague property dressed in nothing but the slickest Italian fashion and Gucci loafers. And with the gun he’d been strapped with by Cosimo Capulet himself. “But I suppose if you really want an answer… I’m afraid I haven’t been asked to do many of the difficult things you’re probably thinking about.” Kill, torture, maim. “Though I don’t see why you might think I won’t rise up to the occasion. I’m here now, aren’t I?”
What are your thoughts on the war between the Capulets and the Montagues?
A grand finale, that’s what he thinks of it. This so called war plunges Verona’s economy into instability, it’s a wonder how the city hasn’t yet sunk like Atlantis. Granted that the sunken city was probably ill-favoured by the gods but what difference does Verona have to boast? The Three Witches look down from their pedestals and act as judge, jury and executioner. One day, when they decide to leave the city, Verona will surely share the same fate as Atlantis. Sink the stones rather than let new gods take their place. Such is the will and the way. “It’s unfortunate is what it is. Gang violence, drive by shootings, kidnappings and torture. It’s as if Verona has regressed fifty years.”
Sometimes, it’s difficult to believe that these are the times he’s living in. But just as in Cape Town, he’s used to the sight of people painting the streets red under the moonlight. “But hey, you know… If it’s bound to happen, who says war can’t be profitable, right? And that’s what you’re cashing on isn’t, Vernon? That our little arrangement will help make this war worthwhile for you.” For all that you’ve lost. Approval is now apparent in the way the lines around his mouth curves slightly, the way his chin juts out in a righteous fashion. “You’re a smart man, you know it’s all a marketing strategy. Provoke the other team and pretend you’re the heroes when you bring out your guns to protect the people from getting caught in the crossfire. Do you believe there’s honour in that?” To an extent, yes, Cyrus thinks so. Respect only comes from the money or your blood.
He can clearly imagine it. He sees it in his mind’s eye. The chaos and bloodshed — it’s all just cards on the table and he’s willing to play. Even if he lacked the fortune of receiving those Aces, he’ll find someone who has them and maneuver them into laying it out on the table. He wants this war to happen. He wants to be there for its unholy conclusion because when this war ends, and it will, he will be there on the victor’s side.
And just then, his watch begins to beep. It’s 3PM and it’s time for him to go. His contact is already waiting.
So, he begins to respectfully excuse himself as he shoves a history textbook into his bag. With all that he’s seen and learned since coming home, it’s still difficult to reconcile his reality with the memories he has of Verona of when he was a young boy.
Back then, he only knew of gardens of white lilies and black dahlias but as he grew up, he began to understand that even beautiful flowers could grow in ruins. Perhaps that is this war’s saving grace. That the blood and bodies buried in the soil will only make the earth more fertile for new shoots to grow. To make way for a new generation of Veronans, of true kings. He thanks his host for his time as he stands, reaching out a hand.“Our conversation has been…enlightening to say the least. Convince me and I’m all in for this war. I’ll help you end it.” Just the way he wants — with their problems on a spike.
Extras:
These are just drabbles I wanted to write out to illustrate the disparities between young Cyrus and grown up Cyrus. I’d like to make them canon if I can but as usual I’m definitely open to making changes with the input of the other players whose characters are involved! <3
Head / Mind
Cosimo never quite knew the boy, a boy who had an aptitude for solving problems and crossword puzzles. All he had heard was that the boy’s mother was ambitious. He never knew that that same ambition flowed through the boy’s veins.
Cosimo met the man when he was quite grown up, when he had built a name of his own in a country they had sent him to be forgotten. But the man was persistent, he’d never be forgotten so comfortably.
Upon reconnecting, Cosimo now remembers a young boy who he had seen playing with his daughter once at kindergarten. And all too easily, he remembers the boy building castles with the girl, building what may have been the tallest tower in the land. They cried and laughed as the stones of that Lego castle came tumbling down.
Now, he meets the boy-king who understands that they were no more playing in classrooms, a man who had gone to a different land and learned to dispatch kings and gods with no more than a few well chosen words in a few well placed ears.
Heart / Personality
Vivianne loved a boy once, a boy who had a soft face, who had naught but sunshine poured from his lips like water into a bowl. And like water into a bowl, he poured his soul into the things he loved doing in the afternoon. Papier mâché animals and oil pastel drawings. The boy had been happy until he turned around one day and realised he had no one to share that happiness with.
She doesn’t know what to tell him other than he is better off without her.
That boy had never believed her, not once. Not when she let him down by not bringing him home. Not when she never said anything about wishing things could be different. Not even when the day came he realised he loved her a little less.
Not once, until he starts to tell himself that he was indeed better off without her.
Vivianne knows a man now, at least she thinks she does. The man is an older, more cynical version of that boy she once knew. With his face still soft but his eyes now hard and cold as sapphires, he still pours out a part of his soul into his work. Though no more into things he loves doing but the things he must. The man has no more happiness to share for it has dried up when he left it under the blistering sun.
Spirit / Aspiration
More than ten years ago, Everett knew a boy who had enjoyed playing in the rain, running as far and as fast as his little feet could take him. He knew a boy who had enjoyed counting the stars and giggled when he lost count. The child who had said, “One day, I want to become a star. That way, I can always find you no matter where you or mamma go.”
Now, Everett only knows a man who no longer has space for anything that doesn’t move him forward. He knows a man who has no time for stargazing because all his nights have turned cloudy and heavy clouds take too long to dissipate.
He remembers a boy who had been promised the world, who grew up into a man who collects broken promises instead. The man is now an emissary to a cause he never thought he would be a part of but he makes the most out of it. Everett knows this because he knows the look of a man who has had to learn lessons without prior warning.
Everett knows a man who has had the stars in his eyes plucked out, though not by his hand. Does he think it might as well have been?
The man certainly does.
Soul / Cyrus
A boy once knew himself. He knew the man he would become. Like an astronaut that man would sail among the stars even if the distance between them would be cold and unforgiving. He knew he had a fire inside him and he had a darkness inside him, too. So, there was nothing to be afraid of in outer space because he saw it inside himself first.
But the boy could tell something weighed him upon the earth so that he could not fly. Something that clipped his wings, rendering his unable to visit the place in the heavens that he had dreamt of, that he was made of. So, he sought ways to snip away the strings of hopelessness and the tethers of a self-induced guilt that told him he didn’t try hard enough. The boy had found the best way to rid himself of that heaviness was to force it into someone else. Strike by strike.
And the boy flew away.
A man forgets parts of himself and he knows himself well enough to say that he has changed. He has learned that to exist without needing anyone’s approval is a most powerful freedom and living this way will bring the stars to him instead of the other way round.
And the man knows he will exercise that power until the world runs out of light.
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Ghost Of You
Summary: Based on lyrics from Ghost Of You by 5SOS in which you see how the each of the Mikaelsons would react your death.
Klaus Mikaelson:
“Dancing through our house With the ghost of you And I chase it down With a shot of truth That my feet don't dance Like they did with you”
You and Klaus had been together for over a half a millennium and yet Klaus had always done everything in his power to keep you safe. You and Klaus were practically inseparable and when you were human you’d joke about how crazy he was for always having one of his hybrids following you in an effort to protect you. Since you were now over five hundred years old Klaus felt more comfortable with you on your own since you were no longer a baby that could easily be overpowered. Yet somehow on the day you died, he had a gut feeling telling him to keep you at arm's reach but you being the stubborn person you were had protested his efforts, instead of opting to stay within earshot you left the compound only to be met by Klaus’s first sire, Lucien. You never thought of Lucien as a threat since his sire was Klaus and instead of running for the hills you helped him find the witch he was looking for.
When Klaus worried he was over paranoid and so when you didn’t show up for dinner and hadn’t responded to his messages he was out the door looking for you before anyone could draw up a plan. When your body was delivered to the compound a day later Klaus fell to his knees so crippled by pain that his thoughts couldn’t process what laid before him. Elijah confirming his first sire betraying Klaus sent him on a downward spiral that caused New Orleans to shake in the wake of your death. When he had met you things had begun to turn around, he slowly stopped unnecessary killings and by the time you had been with him for a hundred years he had mellowed out his murderous tendencies. And here you were dead and nothing stopped the rage that rippled through his veins leaving body after body both vampire and humans alike. Thousands dead because you were no longer there to hear him out, hear his side of things.
Nearly a month after your death Lucien was caught and Klaus kept him nearby as Rebekah tortured him in the effort to cause the amount of pain he had given her family in the wake. Klaus though had slowly retreated into himself and found himself drinking to the point of death if he were human. It was in those moments in his drunkenness that he started seeing what he’d assume was your ghost. It was then that people’s hearts truly broke seeing Klaus, once strong and undefeatable now broken as stumble over his feet as he slow danced with the ghost of you. The once delicately and smooth dance, moving from one step to the next was now clumsy and jagged. He knew you weren’t there but his brain couldn’t cope with your loss and yet he even as he danced through the house you once shared he knew his feet wouldn’t work in the delicate pattern he once used with you.
Rebekah Mikaelson:
“Cleaning up today Found that old Zeppelin shirt you wore when you ran away, and no one could feel your hurt.”
Your death changed everything for Rebekah. You had been her friend for nearly ten years and yet the time spent with you in her life had meant more to her than the millennium she’d lived without. It had been the ten year anniversary of your death and Rebekah had made it a point to herself and to every in the years before that your guys' house was untouchable. In the weeks after your death, Rebekah closed the house up, casting a spell that kept everyone out and everything fresh as when you were still alive. Rebekah would never have admitted it but from the day of your death till the exact moment of her standing on the house’s steps she knew she was running from the pain of packing up your memory.
Now with ten years behind her and her original body back under her control she undid the spell allowing the house to settle around her. The memory of you was so strong that her knees buckled. Rebekah could almost swear that you were just upstairs in your room getting ready for a night out, or taking a nap on the couch. She could smell your vanilla extract you left in the oven, ready to bake to make the house smell like a giant sugar cookie.
Hours had passed and Rebekah had set out to pack up the house, cleaning it up the dust that wasn’t there, writing notes to give the furniture to Goodwill and to transfer some of your clothing to her closet. She had been setting up boxes when the doorbell rang but she couldn’t be bothered to move to answer it. As she listened to her brothers discuss how they wanted to welcome her back into town she whispered a ‘come in’. Since the house had been registered under your name and you had died they were free to let themselves in but her brothers knew to tread carefully. Rebekah’s hands moved to pack a shirt stuffed so far under your bed she nearly had to crawl completely under and it was when her fingers trailed gently over the shirt finding a couple of holes throughout that she recognized it. It was the Led Zeppelin shirt you had worn when you both met. The slightly torn shirt caused an overwhelming sadness to settle over Rebekah.
It wasn’t until Klaus and Elijah appeared at your doorway did they realize how much you had truly meant to her. Rebekah gasped for air as she clutched the shirt to her chest, letting her tears flow as her memory of you in the shirt replayed again and again. “She was running away when we met.” Rebekah felt frail as her voice cracked. Klaus and Elijah sat down on the floor next to Rebekah unable to help. “It was raining so hard and there she was in this torn shirt with tears falling down-” Rebekah’s sobs broke through harder than ever. You both had been running away that day, her from her brothers’ manipulation and you from your depression that followed you everywhere. “She thought no one could feel her pain, th- that no one could understand how deeply she’d been hurt.” Klaus moved closer to Rebekah as she clutched your shirt tighter. It was when Klaus had wrapped his arm around Rebekah that it was clear that no one could feel her hurt that ached in her chest and spread through her body vibrating every cell.
Elijah Mikaelson:
“Here I am waking up Still can't sleep on your side”
You and Elijah were like two peas in a pod. So when Klaus began fighting for a kingdom that wasn’t his to take, Elijah’s feared nothing but you getting in the crossfires. When you had been taken he nearly slaughtered the entire town looking for you and when he did find you he was too late. You had your heart ripped out laying on the floor next to you. This destroyed Elijah. He had loved you, still loved you with everything in his body and then some. He loved your sweet smile and your protective side. Nearly a month after your death he found himself alone. He blamed Klaus of course but nothing changed the fact that you were dead. Beyond dead, as you had been human and therefore there was not even a chance of him seeing you again.
Elijah had taken to drinking in the bar Klaus’s army had spent their time in. His brothers had begun to worried more as each day with you gone Elijah had become unpredictable, always drowning out the noise and the people with drinking and now venom concocted by a witch that could guarantee the death that could kill any other vampire. Being an original kept him from dying but that didn’t mean that the poison didn’t affect him just the same with pain some would consider the absolute worse yet to him did not come close to the pain he felt at your loss. When Elijah had collapsed from the constant poison and lack of blood to feed him Kol managed to carry Elijah’s limp body back to the compound and into bed. Every time Elijah closed his eyes he saw your heart thrown on the floor next to you and there was nothing that kept your gruesome death from torturing him during his unconsciousness.
When Elijah woke up the next morning he noticed his body half hanging off the bed in an attempt to stay away from your side of the bed. The glass of blood in a small glass on the nightstand brought your rosy face to his mind causing him to roll over on the bed letting his nose breathe in your scent. He couldn’t bring himself to sleep on the bed he shared with you let alone your side of the bed. Smelling your strawberry body wash made him cry out as images of you dancing in the rain flickered across his brain. Just being on the bed you once shared made him want to rip his own heart out.
Freya Mikaelson:
“If I can dream long enough You'd tell me I'd be just fine”
Your death had shaken Freya to her core. She never expected you to pay the price that kept her safe but you did and you’d gladly do it again, over and over again. You were her confidant, she had come to you time and time again when her brothers were over-demanding or worst on their vengeance streaks that meant no one was safe from their fury. She had come to depend on you, you both did magic together and had loved drawing from one another. Rebekah was traveling the world finding a spell to resurrect Kol but Freya had stayed to be a buffer between Klaus and Elijah. And yet she’d never imagined that her brother’s actions would lead to your death. The covens paid her the respect when news spread that you had been killed, the vampires and werewolves had called a truce with the news in the effort to make it right with Freya. It had been their fault that you had died in the crossfire and since she was one of the most powerful witches with an original vampire and hybrid on her side it was no coincidence that the man responsible for your death had been pushed forward to collect his punishment. Your death had crushed her spirit nearly to the point of no return. But with you gone she found herself in her bed, unable to connect to her magic. She’d close her eyes in hopes of having a glimpse of you. Sometimes she’d swear to Rebekah that she could see you, feel your presence in the room next to her. Being a witch yourself you had been stuck on the other side staring at Freya’s fragile self. “You’ll be just fine” you whisper as your hands faintly brushed Freya’s hair out of her face. Freya’s sleeping frame turned over and you knew better than anyone how truly broken she was. Freya woke up with tears on her face as Rebekah came in to help her. “I just need to dream long enough-” Freya’s voice trembled “then she’d appear and tell me I’ll be just fine. I just need to see her again, Rebekah.” Freya whispered laying her head back on the pillow closing her eyes.
Kol Mikaelson:
“We're too young, too dumb To know things like love But I know better now”
Kol hadn’t processed your death like everyone had assumed he would. In fact, he did the exact opposite, he had sat quietly mourning you, mourning the non-judgmental ear you gave him, mourning his friendship with you that had made him a better person. He hadn’t murdered people or manipulated anyone since he saw you die right in front of him. He hadn’t even murdered your killer which terrified everyone, including his siblings. At first, they had assumed he was in a trance from seeing you die but when he hadn’t even begun looking for your killer something was definitely wrong. Which was true, you were dead and he had curled into himself allowing your killer to walk free but to everyone who knew of Kol’s reputation and even the killer himself had assumed Kol was playing a psychological game but in reality, Kol had just stopped caring.
He hadn’t shut off his humanity simply because he wanted to be better for you, he wanted to show you that he was making an effort to be the man you had always saw him being or becoming and shutting off his humanity had meant he’d turn ruthless and he wouldn’t do that to you even if you weren’t alive anymore. Day after day of Kol’s collectiveness he began to understand why he wanted this for you, began to understand why he’d rather live with the pain without seeking vengeance. He realized how exactly much you had meant to him. How he always thought of you as just a good friend, someone he could depend on to go to the bar with him at midnight to release steam or someone he could call on a long trip to explain the strangest day he had or someone he could vent to about how much he had missed being a witch, being connected to the earth in a way that made everything so small so significant.
‘I love you!’ you said it in such a tiny voice that had he not been a vampire he wouldn’t have heard. But you had said those words to him with such ease that he had just assumed you meant it in a platonic way, the way you both always ended a call or said goodbye. ‘I love you like really love you.’ you spoke much louder and he turned to face you on the bed. You had been sleeping over after you both had hit the town drinking shot after shot, bar after bar that when you both were highly intoxicated Kol didn’t even think twice about letting you come over to sleep, or sharing his bed that you always slept in to take a nap when he was off fighting battles that weren’t his. “Love you too.” Kol’s response that night was platonic and automatic and it hurt your feelings but you had kept going. ‘No I mean, I actually love you.’ you weren’t scared of being rejected because you had known that he loved you just as much so you said how you felt with drunken courage backing you up.
'Y/N, you're too young to know what romantic love is, trust me.’ his response to you was playing back in his head even after it was too late to take it back. That night you had just nodded your head quickly falling asleep but now he knew how much he loved you on a level far beyond platonic and the fact that you had jumped in front of him to save him showed how much you truly loved him. When you had told him he was just too dumb to realize how connected you were to your feelings but he knew better now. Which was why he laid in bed staring at the side you often took regretting everything he ever did after that night that wasn’t showing you how much he cared. Now that you were gone it was too late for him to which was what truly crushed him about your death.
#klaus mikaelson#rebekah mikaelson#elijah mikaelson#freya mikaelson#kol mikaelson#klaus x reader#niklaus x reader#rebekah x reader#elijah x reader#freya x reader#kol x reader#the originals#the originals imagines#the originals imagine#the vampire diaries imagine#the originals blurbs#klaus blurbs#rebekah blurbs#elijah blurbs#freya blurbs#kol blurbs#klaus mikaelson imagine#rebekah mikaelson imagine#elijah mikaelson imagine#freya mikaelson imagine#kol mikaelson imagine
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Beyond this Existence: Counterpoint, chapter 18
Summary: After being recompleted, Ienzo vows to do everything in his power to atone for the atrocities he committed in the past. But this life hasn't been easy, and he's plagued with memories and nightmares. When Demyx suddenly reappears, the two discover that they have more in common than they thought, though the secrets in their past might tear them apart. Zemyx (Demyx/Ienzo), post kh3
Read it on FF.net/ on AO3
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Progress took time.
They continued their sessions. Sometimes Demyx talked; sometimes Ienzo did. Sometimes there were tears or anger or both. But gradually, gradually they both began to heal. They found things to do outside in town. Soon the cold became less dreadful.
Ienzo often chided himself for wasting time. The urgency to do good nagged him endlessly. It didn’t matter that he was unlearning years of trauma, or spending time with his partner. There were mistakes to fix, problems to solve. He wondered if he might ever find peace.
He sought Ansem.
Ansem sat at the desk in the anteroom of the lab, bent over a set of blueprints. “Hello, Ienzo. How are you doing?”
“I am well.” His mind was drawn, inevitably, to his encounter with the lexicon and the realizations therein. “What is it you’re working on?”
“Aeleus and Dilan are helping me with plans for a new heating system,” Ansem said. “There is absolutely no reason for us to suffer for another long winter.”
“I should be glad to be warm again,” Ienzo said.
“Is there something else on your mind?” Ansem asked.
“Well… yes. Do you recall our conversation from a few months ago, when I asked to see the data you had collected from the basement?”
“How can I forget? It was the last I saw of you before you fell into that horrid sleep.” He frowned. “I suppose you’re ready to see it.”
Ienzo sighed. “I… believe so,” he said. “Demyx and I have been helping one another in cognitive-behavioral therapy. I was not at a place where I was able to take responsibility for my actions. I am now.”
“I have told you time and again that this is not your fault--”
“Thoughts that are difficult for a traumatized young man to internalize,” Ienzo interrupted, politely yet firmly. “I do believe this will help me find peace.”
Ansem sighed, and nodded. “If this is what you believe you need, then I am happy to provide. It’s all in its own folder on the desktop. Would you like me to sit with you while you read it? It’s heady stuff indeed.”
He shook his head. “I need to be able to process this on my own.” He went over to the computer. It felt strange to return, now that he’d had time away from it. He pulled up a chair, logged in, and drew a deep breath.
The files he’d read all those weeks ago were only the tip of the iceberg. The record-keeping had been extensive, and a lot of it had been hidden, thought lost, corrupted, or classified by certain apprentices (usually Even). But now it was all here.
He did not need to reread what they’d done. He knew it. What he was looking for was something else entirely.
The names of the subjects had for the longest time been redacted, replaced with letters at first, and then numbers. But now it had all been revealed. Either the encryption had timed out, or someone had released these files.
Ienzo shut his eyes and held out his hands.
The lexicon came to him slowly and hesitantly. It had retained the changes he’d seen in his illusion. It looked like one of the fairy tale volumes from Ansem’s study. His psyche surely had a sense of irony. He clutched the book in his hand and started to read the data.
There were their names--dozens and dozens of them. The photos. The biographies and backstories. Not the numbers. The people. He whispered the names under his breath, trying to commit them to memory. He hadn’t seen them as people. Not then.
He read and read until his eyes were hot and painful. Favorite colors. Hobbies. Anecdotes. Life histories. Friends, family. Husbands, wives, spouses, children. In one particularly memorable case, a border collie a young woman insisted carried the soul of her stillborn twin.
He opened the lexicon and asked it to show him one of the subjects. It obeyed. A plan began to form in his mind.
----
When Ienzo found Demyx, he was in the library. Studying. The sight was so surreal he was tempted to take a picture of it on the gummiphone. His sitar was in his lap, and he played a soft melody quietly to himself. But his eyes remained on the book in front of him. For a few minutes Ienzo watched, feeling something like pride.
“How is it going?” Ienzo asked.
Demyx jumped, a discordant twang echoing in the room.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Demyx let Arpeggio disappear. “It helps me remember, if I play,” he said. “Otherwise I can’t focus. If I read a chapter enough while playing a certain song, it sticks. I tried it the other way. I don’t know how you guys learn stuff.”
“Everyone studies differently,” Ienzo said. “So you’re really going to do it?”
“That’s the plan,” he said. “She told me to read these before I came to her for the practical stuff.” Demyx shifted the books around. Anatomy, magical theory, botany. Organic chemistry.
Ienzo kissed him lightly.
“So what’s going on with you? I figured you were working on something, but I don’t know what.”
“Well, actually, that’s kind of why I came to find you.”
“The score? Ienzo, you realize I can just read it to you, right?”
He shook his head. “Not that. Though I would like to know what’s in it, if you’re not afraid to share. No.” He took the lexicon out from under his arm. “I’m afraid there’s something only you can help me with.”
He smirked. “What was it you said? “If you want to be alone with me you need only ask?””
“What? Do I really speak like that? Never mind-- no, this is something else.” He sighed. He was just going to have to spit it out. “I want to go to the basement.”
Demyx paused. “Okay. Two things. First, not a great idea, all things considering. Second, why me? Why not Ansem or Even or someone else who was involved in the experiments?”
“You’ve got a weapon.”
Demyx paled. “So--let me get this straight. You want to go to the basement--where it’s crawling with Heartless and god-knows-what-else, not to mention where you’ve seen enough horror to go gray prematurely--”
“I haven’t gone gray. This is my natural hair color.”
“Babe, the last time you remembered something half as horrible you went kinda ballistic. I don’t want you getting hurt.”
“I’ve healed since then,” he said. “I have this--” He held out the lexicon. “And I have my power, whatever it means. I think the only way I can find peace is by helping them.”
Demyx exhaled, exasperated. “And do you really trust me to defend you? I’m out of shape, and I have no idea how strong the Heartless down there even are.”
It was becoming clear. “What is this really about?” Ienzo asked. “Are you really afraid of a few Heartless?”
He looked down, and was silent for a few minutes. “I guess not,” he said. “I just… I’m afraid that going down there and seeing all that will change how I see you. And I don’t want that to happen.”
Ienzo took his hands. He had a point. “I know that. And it might change your mind. But I… I need to do this. I hope you understand.”
He didn’t say anything for such a long time that Ienzo nearly left. Finally, he said. “You’d do the same for me. Alright. Let’s free some ghosts, or whatever.”
Ienzo kissed him. “I love you.”
“I can’t say no to you. But you knew that.” He marked the place in his book and set it aside. “I’d feel better if we got some supplies. And if you rested. You look exhausted.”
“So tomorrow?”
He nodded. “Tomorrow.”
---
That night, he read the files in the lexicon, trying to memorize as much as he could. Demyx set off to get supplies from Even, and when he came back, his expression was taut. Ienzo attributed it to nerves. He, himself, did not feel so nervous, which was odd. “Did you get everything you needed?” he asked.
“Oh, plenty,” he said breezily. “How do you feel?”
“Surprisingly, not as anxious as I thought.” He shut the book and settled down in bed.
“Can I… stay with you tonight?”
Ienzo frowned. “Of course.” He lifted the covers and let Demyx crawl in. He felt himself being drawn close, held tightly. It made sense that Demyx was worried about him. “I’m not sure why you felt like you had to ask. You scarcely sleep in your own bed anymore.” It was nearly too conspicuous; there were a few times where Demyx was seen coming and going from Ienzo's room.
“Dunno. I figured you might want some time alone.” His voice was a bit dull.
“I have spent a lot of time thinking about this alone. I don’t mind the company.”
Demyx looked up at him, with a degree of hesitation. He kissed him once, but if he had any more reservations he didn't voice them.
Ienzo slept, though timorously. He ate a good breakfast. Demyx packed the bag of supplies. The morning was warmer than it had been in ages, and he wasn’t sure this was a good omen or not. He put on his lab coat over his sweater. Tied the purple ascot around his throat. It had been so long since he’d worn such clothing that it felt a little constricting.
“You sure you want to do this?” Demyx asked.
“Yes. I’m sure.”
His eyes were sharp and serious. “Lead the way, then.”
They went down and down and down, several floors below the lab to the last locked door. The plain steel door stared back at them. Ienzo reached for the keypad, but found that he could not punch in the numbers.
“Did you forget the code?” Demyx asked, not without a hint of hope.
Ienzo summoned the lexicon and tucked it under his arm. And then he typed in the number.
It was all exactly how he remembered it.
The lights flickered on in a bright, fluorescent cascade, all the way down the hall of cells. The first few rooms were offices. All of the spaces were ravaged, ransacked; Ienzo could not tell if this was from the subjects, or from Ansem in his determination to destroy the data. Papers littered the floor. The dank, barren, black and silver doors of cells stared them down. All were open. Each, Ienzo knew, was identical--cot, sink, toilet, chair. The room was bright, but he felt as though he were squinting to see. The thin scent of smoky darkness began to permeate everything.
“They smell us,” Demyx said. Ienzo had been in fights with Demyx before, in the Organization, the rare few times they’d been paired for a mission. The higher-ups had seem fit that there was no reason for there to be two intelligence officers on the same mission, and kept them apart once they realized it was inefficient. (The fact that Zexion had complained about him seemed irrelevant.) He’d seem Demyx fight--his bearing, his cowardice. Now he was completely different; guard up, at attention. He’d brought his arm in front of Ienzo, who pushed it away.
“Not yet.”
They crept forward cautiously. Ienzo waited for the battering ram of trauma. The memories trickled slowly. Walking these halls with Xehanort, offering the prisoners (that was the right word) ice cream. Maybe it was the lexicon’s influence, or the fact that he was here to put this all to bed, but Ienzo did not feel the same helplessness as before.
“There’s no one here,” Demyx said.
“Don’t speak so soon.”
An amorphous blob of darkness materialized at the end of the hallway. They watched it form and twitch. Ienzo couldn’t be sure, he he could swear that its silhouette was more humanoid than the usual Shadows. A Neoshadow, maybe?
More darkness gathered, slithering along the floor in splintery streaks. The first jittery Shadows came out of the cells.
“Freaky,” Demyx hissed. There was a flash of light in his palm. Ienzo saw the Keyblade for the first time. To his surprise, he could see Arpeggio in its folds and curves, in its coloring.
One of the Shadows shuffled towards them.
“Stay behind me,” Demyx hissed.
“Not yet.” He crouched down. The darkness on the floor did not start ensnaring him, as he thought it might. “Do you remember me?” Ienzo asked the Shadow. Zexion had always thought that Heartless were incapable of any feeling or understanding. But they were what was left of hearts, the very embodiment of negativity within. It had not, after all, tried to attack them automatically.
It cocked its head.
“I was little then,” Ienzo said. “Not anymore.”
The Shadow twitched and shuddered. A few more peeked out. “What are you doing?” Demyx asked.
“Giving it the Sora treatment.” He exhaled. “Put that away. We’re not here to hurt you all. Isn’t that right?”
The blade in his hand trembled a little.
“Demyx?” Ienzo prompted.
He let it disappear. Raised his hands in acquiescence.
He looked deep into the Shadow’s gold eyes. “You’ve been here for such a long time, so alone.” The lexicon opened to a random page, of a little girl. “Isn’t that right, Jamie? That’s you, right?” He held the book out to the Heartless. It seemed to stare at the page within, of the photo. “I wanted to apologize for all we put you through.” Keep talking. Keep talking. “There was a bad, bad man. He made all the people around him sick with evil. And they took it out on you. On me, too. And my friend next to me. That doesn’t make it right, but the bad man’s gone and everyone wants to help you.”
The Heartless seemed to convulse.
“I can’t imagine it’s fun down here. There’s nobody and nothing to play with. But there’s another place with lots of friends waiting for you.”
The Shadow raised a claw.
“Ienzo,” Demyx hissed. Ienzo held out his hand.
The Shadow placed its claw on the photo of the girl. It was not twitching anymore, not in the way Heartless usually did.
“Do it now,” he whispered. “She’s ready.”
Two quick cuts. They watched the heart rise and disappear.
“Oh my god,” Demyx said. “Are you… are you okay? I should’ve given you my coat.”
He looked at himself. There were no rogue threads of darkness, no sign of infection. “I’m fine. Let’s keep going.”
“How many are there?”
“Left? I’m not sure. But these aren’t ordinary Heartless. This was the genesis.”
The Heartless, having seen all this, did not flee the way they were akin to when their brethren died. They came forward in a lump. They did not attack. They left plenty of space between them and Ienzo.
“They’re making a line,” Demyx said.
“They want to be free.” He smiled. His eyes were watering. “Who wants to know who they are?”
It must’ve taken hours.
He showed each Shadow that came forward their profile. He explained what happened and he apologized. Each time, the Heartless seemed to spasm, and then stopped twitching; Demyx would free the heart. Ienzo was not sure if he were channeling his own powers somehow, but he felt himself getting more and more tired. The process was rough on both of them; he could hear Demyx breathing heavily, though he didn’t complain more than to say he was out of shape.
One by one, the Heartless were set free. The smell of darkness grew weaker and weaker until it was nearly gone. Ienzo felt sweat at his brow, and a fresh headache budding behind his eyes. Was it merely tension?
“Is that it?” Demyx asked hoarsely. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”
“Yes, that was--” He crunched the numbers. “Ninety-nine.” He furrowed his brows. “There’s one left. Maybe it’s hiding? Can you handle one more?”
“I think. You?”
He nodded. When he stood, his knees shook, and Demyx helped him up. “Why did they forgive me?” Ienzo asked.
“What do you mean?”
“The bitterness… they just let it go. Without fail. There was not even one rogue Shadow that tried to attack.”
“They’ve been here ten years,” Demyx said. “That’s a long time to suffer. Sometimes you have to let it go to make the pain stop.”
He looked at his trembling palm. “I see. I… understand.”
Demyx glanced over his shoulder. “I think we’ve found our stowaway.”
It was the humanoid Heartless, the first one they’d seen. They approached it slowly.
“We’re here to help,” Demyx said. “Do you want to go be with your friends?”
The Heartless seemed to consider this. Ienzo held the lexicon in front of him. The last file--where was it? Was it missing?
“Ienzo,” Demyx said nervously. “Maybe start working your magic, yeah? My buddy here seems a little agitated.”
The Heartless’s claws twitched.
“I can’t--” He started manually shuffling the pages. “I can’t find their--”
The Neoshadow hissed. Demyx drew his Keyblade. “Come on. Let’s talk this out,” he said. “I’m offering you a get-out-of-jail free card here, friend.”
At the sight of the weapon, the Heartless s creamed, despite the fact that Heartless had no facilities to do that . They leapt at Demyx.
Ienzo’s mind was spinning, his headache pulsing in time with his heart. Hasn’t Ansem retrieved all the files? Hadn’t he read them all? Something wasn’t making sense.
Demyx was holding his own against the Heartless, guarding himself against the attacks. He didn’t play the offensive. They kept screaming.
Something clicked.
Ansem hadn’t been ravaging through those files. The Heartless had.
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First Short Story (Lullaby)
They ran through the meadow, laughing all the way. Father had gone to the city for work and would be gone until dusk. Mommy had woken her up with a breakfast of fruits and cheese, and then combed and curled her hair. She was even allowed to wear her favorite dress because today was special. Today was the day that marked five years since Mommy and Father had taken her in after her parents died in the war. She’d been so little that she couldn’t remember them except as vague bits of warmth in her life. Mommy and Father took care of her now and loved her so. Father would be back in time to celebrate at evening meal. Mommy planned to take her into the village to get a present. But that would come later. Now they were running and playing in the field as the birds sang sweetly in the light.
They walked past the neighbor’s barn, hearing cows moo as they were milked at midday. A woman shouted out, “Erienne! Erienne, wait a breath!” Mommy tisked and turned towards the woman they called Old Gran with a smile. “What is ever the matter, Old Gran?”, she asked sweetly. The old woman walked up to her, and put a hand on her face, forcing her to lean down for a better look. “Ach, fer a start, ye should get sum sun, child. Yer skin’s pale as a ghost. If’n I didn’ know better, I’d call ye a wraith. Were it not for the Autumn breeze, I’d worry ye were catchin’ a chill. Ne’ermind that. Be wary on the way to town. Folk’s been talkin’ ‘bout a blood drinker ‘ereabouts. Pigs’ been cropping up dead of late. One torn ter pieces, others with their throats slashed and drained o’ blood.” Mommy looked scared, then asked “Aye, but what should we do? Isen won’t be back ‘till dusk.” Old Gran looked at Mommy kindly, “Oh, tis naught but a simple thing, dear. A line o’ salt ‘neath yer doors an’ windows will keep fiends, wraiths, and bloodsuckers out. None o’em can walk over it. Do it while the sun’s still out, and ye’ll be fine. Oh, and wear yer moonstone necklace! Fright’ns the basterds away.” Mommy looked happy, and hugged Old Gran. She thanked her for the advice and said we should be off so we’d not be late.
A few hours later, Mommy and her daughter walked through the town market. Mommy had promised to let her make a wish at the well before they went home. Now they were looking through the stalls for a gift for her. “Minishka, come see this! You’ll love it.”, shouted Mommy. The girl ran over to her mother, and saw a necklace of wound red silk with a shiny green stone. She squealed happily, and asked “Mommy, can I have it? It’s so pretty.” Mommy smiled, and gently told her “Of course dear. Today is special. And it goes so well with your hair and eyes. Come, we’ll buy it together.” They walked over to the merchant, the little girl happily holding her present. The merchant looked at them both, and asked “And how might I help ye?” Mommy and the merchant haggled for a bit over the price. After agreeing, he remarked, “It does suit the child.” He turned to her, “You’ll look quite pretty with this necklace. Would you like me to tie it on?” The child nodded with all the enthusiasm an eight year old girl could muster. After it was tied on, she was shown how she looked in a glass. “Mommy, I look near as pretty as you! It even hides my scar.” The girl skipped away happily, staying within a few feet of the jeweler’s stall where mother was speaking.
“Ye plan to be in yer house by nightfall, neh? There’s been talk o’ a blood drinker in the town. Killed a city guard few nights ago. If armed guards aren’ safe to wander at night, I’d not fancy the chances o’ tha likes o’ you an’ me.”, the merchant told Mother. The woman nodded, “Aye, you’ve got the right of it good man. My neighbor told me of what she’d heard when she last came to market. We’d planned to go to the well for my daughter to make her birthday’s wish, then head right back home. My husband will be along to home shortly, and he’s always made sure of the salt on our doors and windows. He even draws a line afore the hearth! No fiend will enter our house see if they don’t!” The merchant nodded understandingly. “Good, good. Glad to hear ye be a sensible lass. Rare in one so young as ye. Ye’ve a good eye too. That necklace be perfect for yer lass, and covers her ghastly scar. I was sure the poor girl would see me turn pale when I saw it.” The woman looked quite sad at the mention of her daughter’s scar. “Yes. . . She had an accident in the woods playing one day. Fell to the ground, and was bit by a viper. T’was all the pellar could do to keep her alive once the wound mortified. The scar. . . he said she’d carry it all her life.” Tears rolled down her high cheekbones as she spoke. The man looked mortified with what he’d done, “Apologies m’lady. Ne’er meant to stir up bad memories. Even with that scar, she’ll grow into a properly beautiful lass. How not, with a mother like ye? Aye, but Ah’ve spoken too much. I’ll leave ye be on yer way. Gods be with ye all, m’lady.”
They walked away from the stall to the village well. Mommy pulled her daughter to the edge of the well and told her to make her wish. “I, Elaine, vow to the gods that today I am theirs. I ask them to bless me, and grant me this wish: that I live with my wonderful Mommy and Father for all time.” As Mommy let her down, she turned around and hugged her as hard as she could. “I love you, Mommy.” She felt her mother’s arms around her, holding her tight as she kissed her cheek and whispered “I love you, Minishka” back.
Father returned from the city just before dusk, bringing her favorite sweet tart with him. They all sang the traditional birthday song to Elaine, and played games after the evening meal until sundown. As Mommy carried her back to her room, Father checked the salt underneath each of the windows and doors to make sure it was still where it should be. Mommy lay her down in her bed, and smoothed out her hair. “Minishka, would you like a lullaby to sleep?” She looked up to Mommy’s smiling face and nodded. Mommy leaned close, and sang
The winds-did howl, as daylight fled.
All the dear children went, to bed.
But thoughts most foul, did fill her head.
Dear little Lilith, awake-with dread.
She whimpered quietly, into the night,
Each moment that passed, growing her fright.
Tears came down, in ghastly flood.
As she waited for it-to drink, her blood.
And so she lay, awake in bed.
Fearing in darkness, the monstrous dead.
As night wore on, she fell asleep.
To horrid slumber, dark and deep.
Yet morning came, with wan sunlight.
She woke to her mother’s smile, so bright.
She thanked her gods, she was not dead.
On her neck was a pale, red kiss, instead.
She sang the lullaby twice more at Elaine’s request. “Mommy, you sing so pretty! I hope I can sing like you when I grow up.”, Elaine spoke tiredly. The woman smiled and put her hand on the child’s cheek. “Minishka, someday you will sing far more beautifully than I can. I’ll teach you how.” The little girl lay her head into her mother’s hand, and smiled. “Mommy, can you sing it again? I love to hear your voice.” The woman smiled, and replied “Minishka, I’ve sung three times for you. It’s time to rest. Sleep and dream kind things, we’ll sing more tomorrow.”
The child put a petulant face on, and said stubbornly, “I want to hear you sing again.” The woman’s face changed in a second. Gone was the kind smile of Mommy; in her place was a sharp featured woman with eyes like gray rocks and none of the warmth of stone. “Sleep, child. We’ll sing on the morrow.” Elaine nodded hurriedly. It was never good to anger Mommy. As fast as it came, the scary face was gone. Gentle, sweet Mommy was back, smiling as ever. Mommy kissed her forehead, and blew out the candle. “Good night, Minishka.”
******************************
Erienne let down her hair as she walked out of her daughter’s room. The house was almost pitch black, only a deep red glow coming from the embers of the hearth. Isenrill’s breathing sounded clear across the house, a soft and rhythmic whisper as he slept. He must be tired from working so hard. I’ll let him sleep on the morrow. She smiled thinking of how excited he’d been lately to have a day off to spend with Elaine. She sipped from a small bottle full of dark liquid that lay on the top of the shelf and walked out of the house into the moonlit night, thinking to herself that it was in these quiet moments she felt most at peace. She’d grabbed the bottle as she walked out. Now it nested comfortably at her waist. She spied a toy of her daughter’s in the yard, and went to pick it up. Whispering quietly the words of her lullaby as she walked around their woods.
A soft whisper of wings came to her ears, and she froze. She focused on the sound. A bat seemed to be hunting. A whispered crunch, barely audible from so far away, accompanied its success. A cloud moved just then, and moonlight shone. Her skin seemed paler than the necklace of silver around her neck. Her dark hair and eyes seemed black in the night, the latter sunken into the recesses of her face that would leave an observer the impression of empty sockets. Anyone who saw her now would be frightened half to death thinking the corpse of a young woman had risen.
She kept walking along their territory, listening to the woods and enjoying its sounds. Slowly, silence began to descend around her. Gently crunching, leaves gave away the approach of people before their breathing. The ragged smell of sweat and alcohol came off the men in waves that offended her nose. She heard them pause and begin to whisper of what to do. They resolved themselves and approached her. “Oi! You there! What’re you doin’ ‘ere?”, the man demanded too loudly for comfort. Erienne looked at him with a sweetly innocent face, and replied “I am merely walking through my lands, good man. Might I ask you why it is you are here?” He stomped closer to her, hand on an axe. “We be lookin’ fer the bloodsuckin’ freak that’s been prowlin’ round the village lately. One o’ the men claims he saw it flying this way.” He leaned in close, his appalling smell coming off in waves. The two men with him circling behind her. Erienne did her best to appear frightened, and told them, “Oh, that is so dreadful, that a vampire is lurking nearby. I shall run home at once, and have my husband draw lines of salt beneath our windows and doors.” She looked for all the world like a flustered young girl then.
One of them men looked at her, and recognized who she was. “Yer Isen’s lass, ain’t ye? What the devil ye be doin’ out here? Didn’t he tell ye about the monster?!” Erienne simply shook her head. The man grabbed her hand, more roughly than he might have had he been sober, and pulled her along to her house. As he did so, the bottle at her waist fell and broke. The men stopped and looked at it. One of them leaned down to it, and then bolted upright. “That’s blood! What the devil ye be doin’ with a bottle o’ BLOOD o’ all things?!” The man’s face was contorted in terror, his fear coming off him in ragged waves along with the foul odors he had been emanating earlier. The first man to speak to her caught on, and looking deadly serious spoke, “Yer the blood sucker. . . YER the fiend! By the gods, how many YEARS ye been hurtin’ us kind folk?!” She looked at him in shock, “How can you say that? I’ve never done ANYTHING to hurt the village. I took in a CHILD, by the gods. How can you accuse me of being such a fiend?!” The men grabbed their weapons, and moved to surround her at a distance. Their leader spoke, “Tis no use, FREAK! We’ll carve ye up, shove stakes into yer heart, and burn the pieces. Ye’ll die for all you’ve done, I swear it!”
Sick of the playacting, Erienne dropped the scared girl act. “It used to be that men knew their place, you know.” She dropped the cloak from around her shoulders. “Cowards and bastards like you would never have dared come after one of mine in decades past.” Her nails began to extend, turning into claws. “And the audacity! To think yourselves better than me. Two wife beaters and a whoremonger. How hypocritical.” -One of the men spoke up, “wha’ I do wit me cock ain’t none o’ yer business, BITCH!”- Erienne’s voice deepened several octaves, “You should have stopped at ‘freak’, imbecile. Not just a hypocrite and a monstrous person, but a moron as well. Humans should thank me for removing you from the breeding pool.” The men began to circle closer to her, their weapons trembling from fear or adrenaline. Her fangs began to lengthen and sharpen while her eyes expanded until they had no whites. She looked around, and said “On your heads be it.”
None of them expected how fast she would move. The first one had half his neck torn out by a swipe of her talons while he was lifting his axe. The second one swung down at her with both hands. She pirouetted quickly inside of his arms, and lifted up her hands. As his arms slowly, to her, descended into her palms, she squeezed. The pieces of the arms were barely falling when she locked her fangs around his throat, and threw him into the last of the men. As they landed sprawled, Erienne landed atop him and slammed her palm into the third man’s head. As she lifted her palm from the remains, she gently passed her tongue along it. Her first thought was, Blech, that tastes like rutting boar. The second was simply, I’m going to need something stronger than this swill.
The corpses had been taken care of; the dogs had eaten quite well. She had her bloody dress in a sackcloth. Come morning, she’d dye it burgundy. Isen kept saying the color looked wonderful on her, so he’d not be suspicious. She walked into their room, looking at her husband tenderly. In a few hours the sun would rise, but for now she simply enjoyed the darkened room and listening to his breathing. . . his pulse. She caressed his face gently, then turned to her daughter’s room. The impulse she felt brought up a mix of guilt, sadness, and fear bubbling up from a place deep within her. I’ll be careful this time. Elaine won’t get another scar from me. As she stood up to walk to her dear daughter’s room, she thought, I need a drink.”
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Elijah’s Eternity: New Orleans - Part Sixteen
Author: eternityunicorn
Genre: Romance/Drama/AU
Pairing: Elijah Mikaelson x OC
Warnings: Violance, Smut (*Smut chapters marked +18)
Summary: Sequel to the AU Elijah’s Eternity - Ten years have passed, a mournful Elijah has finally started to move on without his lady. In that time, he has gained a reunited family and has also found a new lady love. Yet, all is not well as danger comes for the smallest member of the Mikaelson family: Hope, and it prompts Niklaus to call upon the white goddess, drawing her back into Elijah’s life. As they reunite, can Elijah really say he’s truly moved on?
NOTE: OC and original elements are from my up and coming novel series!
———————————————————————————————————
Elijah returned to the loft with the little red velvet box in his pants pocket. He was agitated by the encounter with Céleste, but he refused to let the resurrected witch ruin the planned romantic moment of him giving Eternity the engagement ring and proposing to her properly. No, instead he tried to push the vengeful ex out of his mind as he bound up the stairs from the car, allowing the excitement of what was to come once he was inside overtake the negative headspace he had found himself in after the jewelry shop ordeal.
Once he was through the front door, he found Eternity sitting on the couch. He had only been gone about a quarter of an hour, but the way her face lit up at the sight of him or the way she leapt up from her seat to meet him halfway, one would think he had been gone much longer. Elijah’s darker mood had been nearly obliterated by the adorableness of his lady’s reaction to his return. There was nothing but light and love in him, as he lifted Eternity into his arms and spun her around a couple of times before setting her back down on her feet.
She giggled girlishly at him and then reached up on her toes to kiss his lips sweetly. “So, where did you get off to exactly, Mr. Mikaelson?” She asked as she pulled away.
Elijah smiled charmingly at her and answered, “I had to go into town to retrieve this.”
He pulled the little red velvet box from his pants pocket and showed it to her unopened. Then seeing her curiously look at it, he fluidly bent down on one knee before her and finally opened the box to present the diamond and sapphire engagement ring. She beamed at him in response, but said nothing as of yet, choosing to let him say what he needed to unhindered.
“My lovely Eternity, I didn’t do this in a proper way, in one worthy of someone of your caliper,” he told her, “but here and now, in a formal fashion, I ask you with all my heart, if you will do me the honor and become my wife. Will you marry me?”
Eternity smiled endlessly. “Well, my love, you already know my answer,” she teased him good- naturedly. “However, since this is a formal proposal, let me answer in a formal way: Yes, Elijah Mikaelson, I will marry you.”
He grinned happily and placed the piece of jewelry upon the ring finger of her left hand as tradition dictated. Once it was upon her person, Elijah on his feet sweeping her off her feet and into his arms bridal style. She laughed heartily at his antics, before kissing him passionately. Her tongue swept past his lips and tasted him throughly in a devouring fashion that left him weak kneed.
It certainly stirred up his endless desire for her, making his heart beat a little quicker and his cock twitch to life. “Hmm, I want to bed you so badly all over again,” he rumbled to her, after pulling his lips away.
Eternity simpered as she played with the short hair at the back of his head, “Then why deny yourself, my love?”
He smirked with slight chuckle, before his mouth reattached to hers with a passion all his own. His tongue dove into her mouth hungrily, craving the taste of her. He was about to move toward the bed and take her as he so desired.
However, just as Elijah was taking those steps toward the soft surface, a loud stomach rumble echoed through the otherwise quiet loft. The sounds of hunger coming from Eternity gave him pause. He once again pulled his mouth from hers, to which she groaned in disappointment and chased after his lips, trying to recapture them.
He evaded the snare by swiftly putting her down onto her feet and gazed at her knowingly, “Perhaps we should return to this later. I believe my lady needs to eat something. You haven’t eaten since yesterday, if I recall.”
“Aye, while you were dragging me all over the place,” she looked at him pointedly and then laughed lightly, as she flashed a playful grin, “we did eat at that charming little cafe.”
Elijah smirked, “As I understand it, you enjoyed our sight seeing trip around the French Quarter of New Orleans.”
Eternity only grinned more, “Aye, I did. You did still drag me around town.”
It was then that he recalled the encounter at the jewelry store. Their adventure in town the other day having been the reminder of Céleste’s sudden reemergence, since that had been when he had first seen the not-so-dead witch. The lightness he had been feeling upon coming back to his lady faded a bit as the darker emotions from before came forward. He sighed heavily and turned away from the queen, heading toward the upgraded kitchen.
Eternity immediately followed him, sensing the change in his mood. “What is it? What happened?” She asked, as he went around the kitchen to see what her magic had conjured and making decisions for a late breakfast based on that. She came over to stand on the opposite side of the island, leaning over it casually as she waited for him to answer. When he didn’t immediately, she called to him, “Elijah?”
He still didn’t answer right away, as he tried to gather his thoughts. Instead, he busied himself in taking off his suit jacket and laying it on one of the bar chairs at the kitchen island. Then he unbuttoned the cuffs of his light blue dress shirt and proceeded to roll up his sleeves to his elbows. Without looking at his concerned fiancée, he moved into the kitchen once that was done to begin preparing their meal.
“Elijah.”
“Forgive me,” Elijah finally said, as he grabbed a brand new stainless steel frying pan and a carton of eggs, along with a small tub of butter, from the refrigerator. “There was an incident while I was out. Céleste came to the jewelry shop with a threat.”
Eternity on alert right away. She straightened a little bit as she asked, “What threat did she deliver unto you exactly?”
“She swore that we would never know happiness,” he told her with a heavy sigh, as he put the frying pan on the stove burner and heated it up. “That I would never know happiness. She said that there were others coming from my past, to seek vengeance for crimes gone unpunished. Céleste was focused upon me, but I sensed that she also referred to you, when she spoke of others coming.” He turned slightly to look at her over his shoulder. She looked just as stormy as he had when his former lover had made her threat.
“We cannot let these ghosts of the past win,” Eternity said softly with quiet determination.
“We won’t,” Elijah responded confidently. “I lost you once to someone of the past, I won’t let that happen again. We will defeat these foes together, whomever they are.” He flashed her a reassuring smile, as he went back to the refrigerator to collect more ingredients that he had noticed might be useful. The smile faded from his face as he continued, “It is still unsettling, regardless of how we handle the situation. I finally reclaimed my happiness and there is someone out there that wishes to take it from me, from us. I cannot abide by such a threat.”
Eternity agreed, “Aye, of course not.”
The sound of butter and eggs frying soon echoed into the air, along with the delicious scent. The engaged couple fell into a companionable quiet, as Elijah made breakfast. He had decided upon omelettes with bits of ham and green pepper mixed into the eggs. The smells of the cooking food were enough to make Eternity’s stomach growl audibly. The sound made him grin to himself, as he kept busy in his flipping of the eggs in the pan.
Then he heard her laugh quietly, in a reminiscing sort of way. “You find something amusing, Sweetheart?” Elijah asked her teasingly.
“I was simply remembering the dinner you made me when we had first met,” she replied fondly. “Then there was the breakfast the next morning, after we had...,” she trailed off, not because she was shy, but because she was being coy.
Of course, she didn’t need to vocalize the memories she was thinking about. He would remember their first coming together always. It would forever been imprinted upon his mind.
Then Eternity carried on, “Anyway, I recall it was omelettes you were preparing that following morning.”
“Ah yes, the ones that had been completely forgotten about,” Elijah turned back around with a finished omelette on a plate he had gotten out in his preparation for cooking. As he handed her a knife and fork, he grinned at her wickedly as he too recalled the events of that morning, of how he had been completely distracted by the seductive immortal queen he had been quickly falling in love with. “Those omelettes would have been damn good, such a shame.” He winked flirtatiously, before turning back around to the stove to finish up the other omelette he had been cooking for himself.
Elijah listened as Eternity began to dig into the food he had set in front of her. He heard her cut off a piece of the ham and green pepper omelette and a few seconds later heard the slight moan of pleasure that followed.
“Yes, you are definitely husband material, my love,” she said in between bites.
He laughed as he turned with his own plate of food, “Am I now? Well, I am glad that you think so, since you did accept my marriage proposal.”
Eternity smiled lovingly at him, before eating more of her omelette. She hummed appreciatively with every bite, which made Elijah fill with pride in his own cooking abilities, something he kept up out of a mix of mild enjoyment and necessity. Even so, he had to admit he loved it when his lady enjoyed something that he had made especially for her.
It didn’t take long for his bride-to-be to finish off the omelette with a satisfied smile upon her rose pink lips. He quickly followed suit, gobbling up the delicious breakfast his two hands had worked hard to put together. Eternity was right. He was husband material. With how good of a cook he was, he would probably marry himself, if he could.
His lady looked up at him with amused knowing, which meant she had heard his thoughts. Yet, she said nothing about it. Instead, once his plate was cleared, she snapped her fingers and everything was as it had been before; tidy and put away. Then with slow steps, Eternity went around the island to his side with Elijah watching her every move intensely the whole way.
She smiled sweetly as her little hand reached for his tie and yanking on it to pull his face down toward hers. Her mouth latched onto his quickly in a fiery kiss that left his heart pounding and his breath caught. As her tongue swept into his mouth, tasing him greedily, Elijah wrapped his arm around her strongly and pulled her into his side. He quickly took control of their kiss, pushing Eternity’s tongue out of his mouth, with his diving into hers to taste her hungrily.
They were so lost in their climbing passion that they almost didn’t hear the sudden knock on the front door. Almost.
It was an odd thing to hear, as nobody should have been coming to call since he and his lady had gone to the loft to hide out, away from his family in order to keep them safe. He reluctantly removed his mouth from hers and cautiously moved toward the front door with Eternity trailing behind him closely.
Once he reached it, Elijah opened it slightly and to his surprise, found Gia standing there without Hel by her side. How strange. He opened the door wider with narrowed eyes.
“Gia? What are you doing here?” He asked her suspiciously. Nobody, outside his family, was supposed to know where they were. The last he checked Gia hadn’t kept up contact with the other Mikaelsons since their split.
“I’m sorry about showing up out of the blue,” the baby vampire replied, as Elijah invited her inside like the gentleman he was, in spite of his suspicions. “I had to come see you,” the dark beauty said as she stepped inside.
Gia dead stopped as her eyes fell upon Eternity, whom in return stood tall with her hands folded in front of her like the royal that she was. It wasn’t a show of superiority or any sort of animosity, just formality in the face of someone the immortal queen wasn’t familiar with. At least, that was Elijah’s assumption.
“Where is my daughter, young Gia?” Eternity asked her, when she noticed she had come alone,
“Hel is distracted,” was Gia’s reply, but there was something off in the way she had said it. There was an almost sinister undertone to it that set every instinct in the Original vampire on edge. “Don’t worry, she’ll be fine.”
Elijah watched at the way his lady’s expression grew darker, less trusting. Yes, something was definitely not right here, he thought as he moved around Gia to stand beside Eternity, protective in his stance, in spite of the fact that she was stronger than him. It didn’t matter. He would protect his lady love until his last breath, no matter what.
“Who are you?” Eternity quickly asked the other woman.
A sinister smirk spread across Gia’s face in such a way in which Elijah had never seen before. “I’m myself, if that is what you’re asking, but I suppose you could say that I’m not quite myself,” she answered mysteriously. “The darkness of heartbreak has been amplified inside me, giving me new perspective, new purpose.”
Elijah recognized that the things Gia was saying reflected what Céleste had told him earlier at the jewelry store. Though she was not dead like his former witch lover, it seemed his old flame had targeted the dark beauty, another former lover of his; the most recent one, who no doubt had a grudge against him, even if the real Gia would never act upon it. Not that he could blame her for whatever vengefulness the young vampire had, if that was indeed the case. He had been selfish and unfair to her in his grief over parting from his lady, Eternity.
“Gia, whatever this is, you don’t need to act upon it,” he tried to speak gently to her, the guilt of their facade of a relationship getting to him. “We can talk this out like civilized people. This doesn’t need to get out of hand.”
Gia’s dark eyes were emotionless as they looked upon him and it unnerved Elijah to no end. “It’s already out of hand, Elijah,” she said almost regretfully, despite her coldness. “You should have never loved me. You should have stayed away, remained alone until you could be reunited with the woman you really loved. Instead, you strung me along for years, gave me hope of a happy future, only to abandon me as if I were nothing. Now you will suffer.”
“Enough!” Eternity shouted authoritatively.
Both vampires turned their attentions to the immortal queen. She moved with grace as she stepped closer to the female, her hair rippling in a faster pace behind her as she went. It was a sign of her power coming to life, meaning she was going to use it to subdue the possessed Gia.
Elijah knew that Eternity wouldn’t kill the other woman. It wasn’t in her nature, unlike his own. If his lady hadn’t been there, he knew he wouldn’t have hesitated to put the young vampire down. Same with that possessed human from before.
His first instinct was to kill the threat outright. It was an automatic reaction to eliminate a threat through the violence of death - their death. Elijah didn’t think of alternatives ever, which was why he was thankful for Eternity’s presence. She was merciful. She would find another way. She had another way.
“This is a warning shot only,” Gia grinned at the queen manically and then at Elijah. “A simple preview of what is to come.”
“Be gone,” was all Eternity replied with.
From those two little words, the evil that possessed Elijah’s former was drawn out of her body. The female vampire instantaneously began to convulse erratically. It only lasted a second before the dark beauty collapsed to the floor unconscious.
They both rushed to Gia’s side to make sure she was okay.
“She’ll be alright,” Eternity reassured him, as she looked the female vampire over. “The dark spell upon her has been lifted.”
Elijah breathed a sigh of relief.
“But one must wonder, just how many lovers did you love and leave scorned, my love?”
To Be Continued....
#elijah mikaelson#daniel gillies#original character#ocs#elijah x eternity#the originals#the originals fanfiction#the vampire diaries#the vampire diaries fanfiction#klaus mikaelson#hayley marshall#klaus x hayley#hope mikaelson#freya mikaelson#finn mikaelson#kol mikaelson#rebekah mikaelson#gia#romance#vampire romance#drama#alternate universe#alternative universe
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Altered Illusions (Chapter 1)
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I struggled to get the front door open. Of course, when I needed help carrying in groceries inside, none of them are around. Just leaving the front door open, I set the bags down on the kitchen countertop, starting to take the items out. It was weird that I hadn’t seen any of them. The sun had set hours ago and they didn’t have school. Kou didn’t have work. The other three were homebodies. So… where the hell were they?
When I went to shut the front door, all four them were in the foyer. On the couch laid a girl with blonde hair, unconscious… or asleep, which was unlikely. I stared for a second before I said, “Alright, I’ll ask. Why is there a girl on our couch?”
Kou’s eyes lit up when I spoke and he pulled me over to where they were standing. “Because, my lovely Leiko, this is Eve.” The grin on his face grew bigger.
“Eve? The Eve?” I asked. When he nodded, I glared at Ruki. “Can I talk to you?” I demanded and teleported up to his bedroom.
Ruki did come. He watched my run my hands down my braided light purple pigtails. “Leiko.”
“Are you out of your damn mind?!” I started, pacing around. My black high heel ankle boots clicked on the floor with every step.
“This was the plan. You know that.” Ruki said, picking up his father’s book off the desk.
I stopped. “HIS plan. I told you not to trust him! Karl Heinz is a liar and—”
Ruki cut me off. “You don’t know that. All your accusations against him come from your own imagination.” He was getting annoyed with this conversation. Good. I wanted to get under his skin. He never listens to me.
I clenched my teeth. “You know that I remember some things about him. It’s fuzzy but I know that we can’t trust him.”
“And you know what he did for us,” Ruki spoke louder. “Your past is something you want to uncover, I understand that. But your fuzzy memories could mean that your filling in the blanks with your own dislike for your father.”
“I am not.” I snapped.
Ruki appeared in front of me, backing me into the door. “If you ruin our chances of becoming Adam in any way, I will end you. Are we clear?”
Where the hell did that come from? “I’m not one of those helpless girls you prey on.” I growled and shoved him so hard that the wall cracked on the other side of room when he hit it. “I’m the pureblood here. Don’t threaten me, Ruki.”
Ruki came at me again but Kou and Yuma appeared between us. “Hey, enough,” Yuma said, his hand on Ruki’s shoulder.
“Let’s just give it a rest,” Kou said to me. He tried not to take sides but I knew if he’d heard the argument that he’d defend Ruki. All four them had been through a lot together. I know about their human lives and that was always something that put a rift between me and them.
All three were staring at me, waiting for me to comply. “Fine,” I said after a moment. I jerked the door open. “I have to finish my paperwork for school tomorrow anyways.”
I didn’t have to look to know the shock that was on their faces. Until now, Karl Heinz had ensured that I was homeschooled but I’d gone around him to enroll myself at the night school. Not a shred of me cared what he, or the boys, thought about it. No one was going to make decisions for me anymore. I would find my lost memories if I experienced more of the outside world.
Finding my way back to the kitchen, I finished putting the groceries away before I started on the dishes. Pushing up the white sleeves of my crop top, I sighed. This girl… Karl Heinz had said she was important but ignored any questions I’d asked. It didn’t add up for me. The whole situation had me on edge.
“You’re still mad,” Kou said, sliding his hands up my thighs to the band of my underwear. He pushed me up against the counter and kissed my neck. “Just forget about Ruki, he’s insensitive.”
I scoffed, trying to focus on the last of the dishes in front of me. “Insensitive? He’s being reckless. This Eve girl is not going to save you.”
Kou groaned from behind me, resting his chin on my shoulder but continued his teasing under my black skater skirt. “Leiko…” He whined. “Don’t make me choose a side.”
Drying my hands on a towel, I rolled my eyes. “You’re already on a side, Kou. You made that clear the day I met you.” They thought because I was a girl that they could intimidate me into doing whatever they needed from a pureblood. I wasn’t that much of a pushover.
Kou spun me around and kissed me. “It’s the plan. You don’t have to like it. Just let it happen.” He played with my pigtails. “Please? For me?”
I swatted his hands away. “No way. Not on this. I’m right and I know it. If you guys don’t want to listen, that’s your prerogative. Do whatever you want, but count me out. Just don’t blame me if this goes up in smoke.”
“Just because you’re a pureblood doesn’t make you right.”
So, he did hear the argument earlier
“I didn’t say that. I just told Ruki what I know is true. I don’t care if none of you believe me. This plan isn’t right.”
Kou frowned, sighing angrily. He jerked me around again, moving us to the open counterspace. One hand pushed me down while the other one slid into my underwear, rubbing me slowly.
“Kou!” I bit back a scream when he grabbed my hair at the scalp between my pigtails. “Stop.”
“What’s wrong? I’m doing whatever I want,” He said mockingly, pulling my hair harder.
I pushed at the counter, trying to get up. “This is not what I meant. Let me go, Kou. Now!”
“Make me.” His reply caught me off guard. “Make. Me.”
I closed my eyes. Dammit.
“If you don’t want me to fuck you right here, right now, make me stop,” Kou said in my ear. The point. I got it now. “You threw Ruki across the room. All you have to do is push me away.”
“Kou… please.” I said, giving in. He knew the power he had over me. I had done the unimaginable when I came here. I’d fallen for him when I told myself that I would never.
He chuckled. “Please? Be more specific.”
“I’ll let it go. Just stop.” I finally said.
Kou released me, the smile returning. “See? That wasn’t so hard was it?”
I straightened my skirt and couldn’t even look at him. Part of me was embarrassed that he’d just done that and the other part of me was upset that I’d let him. I could have stopped it. I had the ability but somewhere down the line I’d let him in. He knew that he could… I had never expected him to go that far.
“Kou, she’s awake.” Azusa said, pouring a glass of water into a small glass.
“We’ll continue our talk later. I want to know about this school thing.” Kou made a point to kiss me slowly. Then he disappeared.
Azusa drank slow. “Are you alright, Leiko?”
I forced a smile. “Fine, thanks.”
Not being able to stand lying to him, I teleported to my bedroom. Why the hell did he decide to do that? I ran my hands down my pigtails again. This wasn’t right. I can’t deal with it right now. Not at all. Stuffing some clothes into an overnight bag, I headed to the front door. Halfway down the stairs, I could hear them all talking. The girl sounded terrified. She should be. Most vampires were dicks.
“This is where we live and you’ll be living here too,” Kou said.
I stopped on the landing before the last set of steps. They were all watching her. “Here? I won’t! I’m going back!” She stood from the couch and headed for the door.
Ruki stopped her. “Go back? You want to go back to the Sakamaki manor? The place where you were a mere vampire toy for them?”
Like she wouldn’t be that for them. She served a purpose but that didn’t mean that they weren’t as messed up as whoever had her before. “I’ll give you a ride,” I mumbled louder than I should have. All eyes turned on me, keys dangling from my hand.
“You’re… a girl…” The blonde said as I walked down the stairs.
“Observant.” I rolled my eyes. She stared at me like she was seeing a ghost. Did she know me?
“Being held their captive while your blood degenerates to livestock.” Ruki continued like I hadn’t even spoke.
“But… you’re vampires too, right? So, wouldn’t it be the same?”
She had no idea what they planned for her. “Offer still stands.” I flashed a smile, ignoring the angry looks from the boys. I didn’t care what they thought.
“Don’t compare us to them.” Ruki snapped.
I still had that name on my mind. Sakamaki? It sounded familiar but I couldn’t place it. I’d have to add it to the list of things I thought I should know.
“We have self-control at least.”
I scoffed. “Not in this universe.”
“Leiko.” Kou said, warning in his tone. I was walking a thin line. One look at him told me he was upset that I was leaving. Kou usually freaked when I did. This time, it was all his fault.
“I still don’t believe you.” She said. Good. Hold your ground. Don’t let them get to you.
“How irritating,” Kou said. Now he had flipped. Laughing, fun Kou was gone. This was who he was and I had allowed myself to fall for him. “We couldn’t give a damn whether you believe us or not.”
“Correct. We just need your blood, Eve’s blood, for this plan,” Ruki replied.
I folded my arms. “A stupid plan.”
Yuma rose from the couch. “Say that again.”
Looking over at him, I couldn’t help but laugh a little. “You idiots aren’t worth my breath anymore. I’m leaving.” With that, I pulled the front door open.
“Leiko,” Kou grabbed my hand. His voice shook. This side of him was the one I fell in love with. The side he rarely showed. “When will you be back?”
“Don’t know. Sometime tomorrow. Maybe.” I snapped and pulled my hand away. The look of hurt on his face almost got to me. I slammed the door shut. If I stayed one more second I might change my mind. He wasn’t always so… sadistic towards me. Most of our time together was indescribably amazing.
I drove into town where most of the city had already closed for the night. The mostly dark parking lot was only illuminated by one streetlight and the lights coming from inside the building. The closed sign hung from the window in the door but I knocked anyways. Checking my surroundings for the umpteenth time, finally, the door chimed as it was opened.
“Hey, Leiko, you’re here late,” Eiji said, sliding his headphones off his head so they hung around his neck. The broom he’d abandoned leaned against an empty table.
I set my bag on the stool next to me at the bar. Juro was cleaning glasses and smoking a cigarette. “Can I crash here tonight?” Upstairs there was loft space. Eiji lived there but Juro owned it.
“Trouble with that boy again?” Juro asked, pouring me a drink.
“Something like that.” I mumbled. Juro was a big guy, tattoos all over and not a hair on his head. I could only assume that in human world, he was considered a tough, strong man… I could snap him half with little effort.
“What did he do this time,” Eiji asked, taking the empty seat next to me. His dark green hair poked out from under his beanie and his bangs shielded one of his gray, concerned, eyes.
I took a long drink. “I saw a side of them that I’d never seen before.”
Juro stopped, setting down his cigarette. “I’m only going to ask this once. Did he hurt you?”
“You know he and I are vampires. Your threats won’t affect him. You’ll only end up—”
“Leiko, just tell me.” Juro said.
I stared into my drink. “No. He might have. But he didn’t.”
Neither Juro nor Eiji seemed to believe me but they dropped the subject. Instead, Eiji talked about the university he intended to attend. His dream was to be photographer. Humans. I barely understood them but Eiji made it seem like we were so much alike.
I tried to focus on what he said but I knew that I’d already grown much too attached. Eventually, they’d both grow older and older and inevitably die, while I would remain this way. Young. Vibrant. Immortal. Deep down, I would mourn their deaths for eternity. That was the curse of being a vampire.
#Diabolik Lovers#diabolik lovers more blood#kou mukami#ruki mukami#yuma mukami#azusa mukami#Shu Sakamaki#reiji sakamaki#ayato sakamaki#laito sakamaki#kanato sakamaki#subaru sakamaki#leiko sakamaki#chapter 1#altered illusions
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