#so either the kids annoy me or trigger me back to my childhood.
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I do not like children.
My sister called me today to tell me she is pregnant and she wants me to be involved in the kid's life and while I knew she was trying to get pregnant and that she would say somethin along those lines I still don't know how to breach the whole "i hate kids and don't want to make exceptions"
I like literally feel so uncomfortable around kids bc they are gross, messy, and do not understand boundaries. Even when they are older they are ticking time bombs of something or other.
But I have decided if she's going to try to force this child onto me i will simply be left with no choice but to convert them into a wiccan with a deep-seated fascination in snakes and arachnids and an artistic perspective that destruction is their favorite form of creation.
She also told me she got them genetically tested. Which I feel slightly conflicted about. It supposedly came back not showing anything. I'm not sure it should be treated as an end all be all though. With that said if the kid ends up being ND, ive no idea how she interacts with ND kids especially if a Certified Scientific Genetic Test said no they aren't.
Anyway that will be an interesting long term development for the coming years that i did not want or ask for. much like the rest of my life. fabulous. i make all this effort to avoid having children in my life and here we are. speaks to how well she does not know me.
#children have my respect at a distance#i just want nothing to do with them.#sure there are exceptional children who behave well. they are usually traumatized into 'behaving well' and thats just triggering#so either the kids annoy me or trigger me back to my childhood.#its just not a good time.#im great with kids but i do not like them.#please respect me and do not bring children near me.#as soon as she said she could travel with an infant i almost threw myself out of a window. but im not up high enough for it to kill me#she knows where i live. i need to move tomorrow.#i stg if this turns into some stereotypical ran away from home and show up on your bitter uncle's doorstep troupe i will exit life#im not taking responsibility. i will not have a child in my home.#you have a few years to adopt a new sibling to pretend to be their uncle. they can find out the truth when theyre older and understand
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Marc Spector Headcannons part 1
I've been playing Marc Spector on a Discord group and have fics in the works for him but, these are the headcanons that my brain decides to come up with and bonk him over the head with the tragedy sick with. There will be a part two of him in a relationship and NSFW stuff related to that. After this, I will be posting my Jake fic so enjoy! ps. sorry for the clickbait gif, I promise there will be suit-related content in the Future.
Quick A/N I'm finally almost done with the Jake fic I'm working on I only have two more scenes to write. then I'll be updating Fountain pen and uppercut. I'll be posting two Miguel o'hara fics after that then ill be working on a Poe fic. that's my line up so far. for anyone that's interested. also, I googled some stuff to try and be accurate to the character. the marc I have in my head also doesn't practice Judaism anymore but Steven does so if the food headcanons leave you confused that's why. Also Tumbler decided it was too long so there will be a second part which annoys me but it is what it is.
Trigger warnings: child abuse, food, music, taking of his life, Military service, and training. NSFW stuff about puberty. That's all I can think of.
childhood
• He is uncomfortable with staring. When Wendy wasn't physical, she would go nonverbal and stare a hole into the back of his head until he would get out of her sight whether it be him running up to his room or getting on his bike and riding to the park.
it wasn't just his birthday that Wendy wouldn't join or get drunk and blame him again. It was every holiday and the anniversary of his brother's death. It even expanded into Wendy going off on him if he was visibly enjoying himself. It has caused him to curb his enthusiasm about things and not want to celebrate holidays.
Bathing/showering was hard for him to get back into after the accident. The spray and the sound of the shower would give him flashbacks to when the cave was filling up. Baths would give him the same flashbacks. It took him months to get to a place where he could clean himself and get out fast enough that it wouldn't send him spiraling. He still showers fast to this day. He doesn't like the sound of rain either.
He has to be quiet. If he was quiet then, he could be in his room and read or play a little bit with his toys. He walks quietly too or won't make much noise still. He accidentally sneaks up on people because of it.
Wendy wasn't hostile all the time, and on those days he would let Steven front unless he wanted the day to himself but that would be very rare. He always tried to protect Steven and take the brunt of it.
He doesn't trust himself to cook, mainly because Wendy would snatch whatever pan or utensil out of his hand and told him that he didn't need to ruin anything else in the house. His dad found out it happened so he would get things for the microwave or have Marc wait until he could cook dinner for the two of them. He only knows how to cook two things.
After his brothers Shiva and Wendy's outbursts, their family members quit hanging around. He would rarely get to see his dad's mom who was the only other woman figure that treated him warmly.
His dad made him go to Hebrew school. He didn't get a bar mitzvah either. His dad would make him go to the temple but after he turned 15 his dad quit asking or making him. He could see Marc lose his faith.
He and his dad would watch replays of Cubs and Bears games late at night as Wendy was sleeping. It was the only time his dad could show affection to him as well. Mostly a hair ruffle or a shoulder squeeze.
Marc was able to do enough to be passing in school, He didn't make friends after everything with his brother and Steven showing up. He couldn't risk spending the night or hanging out and switching. He spent most of his time at the park walking around or reading or drawing sometimes.
(warning his edgy phase) He was at the park one day and saw a couple of goth kids walk by. He went to the library and looked up what he saw on their shirts and was hooked for a while. He wore mainly black and painted his nails until the bottle ran out. He got a long black coat and a choker too at the thrift store but the choker fell apart a week after he bought it. He tried to dye his hair and give himself streaks but his dad talked him out of it in fear of what Wendy would do to him.
He would listen to The Cure, Nine Inch Nails, Bauhaus, the sisters of Mercy, Depeche Mode, HIM, Deftones, pearl jam, Alice in Chains, Nirvana, foo fighters, smashing pumpkins, L7, Bush, Incubus, Kittie, slipknot, Korn, Mudvayne, a system of a down, limp bizkit, linkin park, disturbed, Alanis morissette, Green day, he even listened to the cradle of filth and cannibal corpse for a while.
He used to wear eyeliner. It was only in his waterline but Wendy found the nub of it he had left and threw it away. He didn't rebuy it when he found it in the trash.
He has a fondness for bugs and the ducks and other waterfowl at the park he was at all the time. He use to draw them with an ink pen.
As a kid during the summer, he used to hide and sneak away from the house during block parties. He would set off fireworks and go trick-or-treating with the neighborhood kids then. They let Marc hang out with them cause they knew what happened to his brother and they didn't mind too much Marc was quiet the whole time.
Marc had a hyper fixation with sharks. It started with him thinking it could help with his water phobia it didn't but he thinks they're cool creatures and knows a bunch of fun facts about them.
When he was a teenager a girl named Hannah asked him over for help with homework. He generally thought she wanted help. She didn't
He loves adventure and horror books. Stephen King and Jules Verne are two of his favorite authors. He also read Jumanji multiple times as a kid and watched the movie multiple times when that came out
(Puberty stuff ahead) when he started to get pubes he didn't understand why hair grew there cause he didn't talk to his mom or dad so he always shaved it off. He would usually nick or cut himself but got better over time. He didn't realize he could trim or grow it out until he watched porn.
When he explored his body for the first time he had to learn how to be completely silent. He went online and learned how to choke himself so he could be quiet. Over time with partners, he learned he didn't have to do that but sometimes he craves having a hand around his throat.
Kissed his pillow as practice. He froze the first time a girl kissed him. All that practice went out the window.
Picked at his skin when he had acne. Still does from time to time but Steven and Jake usually have the most consistent skin routine which lessons it.
Cucumber melon and lip smackers send him back to high school and middle school. He always thought they were nice smells/tastes. If you wear those around him he definitely would give kisses throughout the day or kiss the gloss/chapstick off. He will smell and or sniff you when he hugs or cuddles you.
Marc used to wear his shoes out so badly that the souls at the bottom would tear off or his toe would poke through the top. He didn't get brand new shoes until his military shoes and after that. He usually would wear what he could find at thrift stores with the money he got from mowing lawns in the summer.
From the age of 14-18, Marc would mow lawns during the summer for money. He would go wash off at a truck stop cause he didn't want his room or parts of the house to smell like grass and give Wendy another thing to yell at him for. It usually cooled him off during the summer anyway.
Before Marc left for the military at 18. He mowed a new neighbor's yard for her during one summer. He didn't understand why she would stare at him until later in life. He doesn't know how to take it to this day.
Marc was a very awkward flirt at first. Hannah had to teach him how. He was very thankful for it.
During middle school, he got a girl he had a crush on a sticker she wanted for her collection. She kissed his cheek in return. It made him noticeably flush a shade darker. He still will flush that deep if you kiss his cheek.
Marc used to steal his dad's cologne and wear it. It was Old Spice. Kids at school would say he smelled old but he liked it anyway.
He bought his bike from a thrift store
Constantly fixed flats with duct tape.
He used to visit and just sit at Randall's grave. It usually ended with him sobbing saying sorry and telling Randall what their mom would do to him. Eventually, it got to the point where Marc would eat lunch or just sit there after. The groundskeeper would give Marc pop during the summers.
Before almost shooting himself in Khonshu's temple. Marc tried jumping off a bridge as a teenager but couldn't do it; he was too scared to end up in the water below.
Space is a hyper fixation for him along with sharks and baseball trivia. He used to collect baseball cards as a kid.
Use to spend time in a comic book store and read TMNT comics and other superhero comics. He also used to try and watch Saturday
Morning cartoons before his parents woke up. He got to see a couple of episodes of TMNT, Thundercat's, Transformers, Jem and Holograms, sailor moon, gargoyles, and Gi joe if he was lucky.
Had crushes on Demona, Pumyra, Jem, Sailor Mars, and April O'Neil
calmer headcannons
he listens to "newer" bands like sleep token, I don't know how but they found me, fallout boy, my chemical romance, and Lorna Shore as he works out.
His music Tastes got expanded when he was in the military due to his fellow soldiers.
He didn't have very many video games. He didn't get his game system until his housing after the military. Resident Evil and Silent Hill are some of his favorites.
Marc didn't realize he and Steven were on the spectrum until the military and their assessments of him. He just thought he was weird
He's decent at masking and learned how to hide his fidgeting. He likes fidget toys he can squeeze or rub. It helps his need to be quiet and helps him focus or gives him something else to do when he's overstimulated.
He's had a few meltdowns when a schedule has changed out of nowhere or when a spot he likes gets crowded with people.
Has texture issues with shirts and blankets. If they're not cotton or just soft he won't use them. If he has no other choice he will be very grumpy.
He zones out big time but it's only when he is comfortable other than that he's on high alert
He likes flying and doing parkour in the suit. Gets adrenaline filled easily after.
Marc sleeps on his side and cuddles a pillow.
Sneezes loud and takes him a minute to function after
Refused to wear sunscreen and had to be broken out of it. (He got a really bad burn and learned his lesson.)
Knows first aid and CPR.
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okay no pressure at all but oh my god PLEASE tell me abt your riddler lore I'm literally all ears
Okay. I have a lot of things and also not at all. So I will give some details and maybe elaborate it later.
- He was born in Gotham but raised in Metropolis. He HATES Metropolis. He isn't the biggest Gotham fan either, but he really really dislikes Metropolis.
- He made a promisse to never again change for the sake of other people at age twenty and that it's the more important thing in his rather flimsy moral code.
- The only time he cheated in a puzzle was when he was ten in school on a context for all Metropolis students were the winner would get to meet Lex Luthor. His dad and a lot of his teachers knew he had cheated but coudn't prove. That made they believe he always cheated and that he wasn't truly a genius.
- While Lex used to be his childhood hero, adult Edward HATES Luthor.
- He changed his name at age sixteen and moved back to Gotham. He never went to college. School had made him hate formal academia.
- Sometimes he repeats sentences, always to a prime number, mostly three times, because of his OCD.
- He goes to Oswald private room a lot during his visits to the Iceberg because he has sensorial inssues or because the number of guests, drinks or the position of the tabbles was annoying him. He used to just change the position and/or expulse guests and later to complain to Oswald but that was the better solution. If Oswald wasn't his friend he would have been permanently banned.
- He rarely kills. He only does it if he is sure the person has absolutly no future potential or if they are triggering one of his compulsive episodes. A normal Riddler will not kill you, but if you are in his way to leaving a puzzle or figuring an answer he is obcessed with than he will not think twice.
- Has difficulty understanding other people emotions. He can read their motives like data but the emotion behind it? Absolutly not. He accidentaly angers people a lot because he is unnable to realize he is doing it.
- Treats his henchpeople pretty well, he had his intelectual property stolen by cooporations before becoming the Riddler and he was a working class kid, he knows the importance of unions and workers rights. Also most of his henchpeople could beat him up pretty badly so better not to risk.
- Query and Ecco are less employers and more friends. Contrary to popular belief he never slept with them (except sleep in the sofa during movie night) and never wanted to. They are friends and the girls date.
- Hates cops. Really hates cops.
- He and Ivvy are the most political aware Rogues. Unfortunally they hate each other. Particulary because on their first meeting Edward kept teeling plant facts to Ivvy and Pamela considered it pretty condesceding after all she has a doctorate in botanical biology, she doesn't need a man teling her things about her expert area as if she will be shocked by it. They still have to interact to each other a lot because Edward is friends with Harley and Selina. Later Pam and Eddie become friends over having to help Batman rescue Selina from Joker but it takes a looong time.
- It's the pettiest man alive. Will throw tantrums over the smallest things.
- Expensive clothes. Expensive tastes. Cares a LOT about his aparence. Was called a dandy multiple times by multiple people including Amanda Waller, Scarecrow and Green Arrow. This people in particular also called him fruity at least once. He has no idea if they meant as an observation or a slur (exept Waller, Waller totaly meant it as a slur).
- Started as a villan at age twenty-two.
- Robins use him to help with their homework.
- Black Canary once sended him a questionary in Arkham to help her get ready for the Justice League Quiz Night (Batman had to miss because he had a parent-teacher reunion on Damian school and suddently anyone could be the winner it was great).
- Provided the questions for the Justice League Quiz Night more often than not. He has no idea of this fact.
- Provides the questions for the Iceberg Lounge quiznight. But was forbiden to host it after entering in too much fights over dumb answers.
- Has some small question mark shaped scars and the first 12 numbers of PI shaped scar in his arms because he used to draw it in his skin with a switchblade when having an episode. The only good thing Arkham ever did to him was that he was able to stop doing that and start to just draw then with a green marker instead. He does have a big question mark shapped scar in his chest that he got from police brutality and that he lies it's a tatoo even though it's very obviusly not a tatoo.
- He has a very high pain tolerance but also a very low one. He will take a lot to be taken down but he will scream like a litte girl over it even if it a very small bump.
- He had an adverse reaction to Arkham medication once and had a convulsion and ended up in the enfermary for days. Ever since he hates meds and unless he has no choice will only pretend to take then and spill it out.
- It's the second Batman Rogue with higher rehabilitation chance according to Tim Drake villan list, losing only for Harley (Ivvy does not get second because her rehabilitation is only viable if Harley convinces her, she won't do it by herself, Batman places him as third and Harvey as first but Tim thinks is just Bruce being too hopefull with Harvey, Kiteman isn't on the list because he is not a treat).
- In my AUverse he did help Steph during her early Spoiler days, mostly as a revenge to Cluemaster but also because he thinks of Steph as a niece though he will never admit it.
- Loves to steal art. He keeps some of it. Seels the rest and if he is feeling nice he just sends some back to their country of origin.
- He can draw pretty well and does art comissions under a fake name on Tumbrl/Twitter when bored. He also posts fanart. Mostly Batman. But also some fandom fannart. His fanart were a great adition to the Gravity Falls fandom for one. That being said if you don't credit the fannart he will send an impossible virus to your PC.
- Security companies are forbiddem to tell they are imprenatrable in Gotham because both Riddler and Catwoman see that as a personal challenge.
- He sold state secrets. He also just divulgued state secrets online. He has some state secrets hiden that he just never felt like telling anyone becauee what it's the point of a secret if everyone knows it.
- Has compromising information about EVERYONE but he won't divulgue it unprovoked. He hates to have to stop the fun of being the only one to know but his pettiness speaks louder.
- Knows most heros secret identities including all the batfamily he just can't tell them because what would be the point? Different of Hush Riddler he never really did anything with it besides teasing.
- The only time he used his knowledge of heros identities was when he needed to go to an high society party to figure the answer to a puzzle (and meet a famous artist he was a huge fan of) and he sended an e-mail convincing Oliver Queen that if he wasn't his plus one he would spoil his secret identity with proof. He choose Oliver because Bruce was hard to threaten and he would porbably just be beaten by Batman or worse Bruce would take him and purposifully make soo he coudn't met the guy.
- Actually needs his cane for mobility because of a childhood injury (ironicaly not caused by his dad).
- Is a great swordsman. Also uses his cane for it.
Yeah. I think that is it. If you have some specific question about him or about my versions of the rogues feel free to ask. And thank you for the question it was fun.
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I posted this as a reply to someone on YouTube under a video about the 8 Passengers situation. Thought I'd share it here because why not.
I feel like I should put a trigger warning here as this post discusses child abuse, but now that I think of it my whole blog probably needs a trigger warning...
Post:
I was also badly abused growing up and this is something I'm just now starting to come to terms with. My parents were divorced when I was five and my father claims he tried to get custody of my siblings and I, but the truth is he didn't want to be a single father and having three little kids to take care of would have gotten in the way of his drinking and partying lifestyle. I never knew my mothers side of the family because she's pretty much been estranged from them since before I was born. But I remember when my sister died from a drug overdose the whole side of my dads family were suddenly so sad about what we went through growing up and would say things like "We tried to give you some sense of normalcy. We always invited you to Christmas and the holidays." As if they were doing us some kind of favor for letting us come to family gatherings.
The worst part is I didn't have to wonder if they knew. I knew they knew because I remember being very vocal about what was happening to us our entire childhood. But every time I tried to tell someone it seemed like they would either turn away and pretend they didn't hear me or make some kind of joke like "Oh yeah, that's your mother. She's crazy. Ha ha ha." or a dismissive "Well, she's the only mother you're ever gonna have, so you gotta love her." or what I feel is one of the most damaging things you can put in an abused child's mind, "I know it may not seem like it, but she loves you in her own way." No one seemed to be worried back then.
The other worst part is instead of being understanding about the ways the abuse has effected us and maybe trying to help us get our lives together, these same people who turned a blind eye to it now have the audacity to judge us for not being "successful", their definition of success being having a great career, lots of money, nice house, nice car, nice marriage with three perfectly behaved, straight A students. We're supposed to be perfect like all of them pretend to be. Just supposed to magically not be affected by any of the abuse and neglect we suffered growing up so that they can pretend it never happened so they don't have to feel guilty about the fact that they knew we were living in a house with a raging alcoholic without food and clean clothes half the time and they did nothing about it. It wasn't *their* responsibility to protect us. Now that we're adults its *our* responsibility to fix ourselves and stop "playing innocent", blaming the family and making them look bad. The only reason we can't is obviously because we're just too inherently defective. Because of course we are. We're "just like our mother". We have her genes. And the kicker? I'm constantly told to "rise above my raising" while also being told I'm "screwing up" my niece because I can't afford to take her out to eat all the time and shit like that. Literal mind fuck.
And yet, the most bizarre part is, the more progress I make in my recovery, as I have been diagnosed with several mental health issues including a severe anxiety disorder (AvPD), the harder and harder they seem to want to come down on me. Like it's not enough that I've spent years in therapy trying to get my life straight, that I'm raising AND homeschooling my sisters child, whom she abandoned long before she passed away. It's not enough just that I survived that hell and I'm still here and I'm not an addict or in jail or on the street. I'm just not getting better fast enough, and that annoys them. They don't want to hear about my recovery because they don't want to acknowledge how fucked up I actually am, and how much work its taking to even try to achieve some sense of normalcy, let alone have a "successful" life and career, according to their standards. My very existence is a stain on the security blanket of lies they wrap themselves up in so they can sleep at night. And they really don't like that.
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What I learned from 2022
Trust the process, this was something that required me to rewire my thoughts and belief system. It’s really hard to go through it while you are going through it. Kinda like hiking, in which you know there is a peak but the hike ain’t gonna be easy, so all you had to do is trust the process.
Momentary lapses are forgivable, lapses, in general, are forgivable (unless it’s harmful like drugs or any form of addiction). Building habits be it to do more of something positive or to do less of something negative, is a journey and you will lapse from time to time, it’s important to be compassionate to yourself and not to punish and undo your progress due to these lapses.
Any progress is great progress. This could be one of the hardest things for me to get through my thick skull because as a “perfectionist” (born through trauma), I always think of things in black and white, you either do it 100% or not at all, and it took a lot of things to happen in my life for me to appreciate the “greys” the in-betweens. I apply this to relationships external or internal or even to my lifestyle. Some things are worth doing half-ass, as long as you do it.
Energy matching, more than ever when I turned 30 I do not have time to be doing things that are draining my energy. There will be situations or persons in your life that drain your energy and no matter how much you love it/them (due to the past or ‘what we are used to’), does not mean you have to ‘sacrifice’ your physical and mental energy to maintain it. It’s okay for you to admit that to yourself, and control the amount of energy you are willing to spend toward a situation or a person.
You are more in control than you think you are. A lot of things spiraled for me at the beginning of 2022, which was a result of my decision in quarter four of 2021, it wasn’t regretful but it felt like I lost grip of my life. It felt that way because I wasn’t taking care of myself mentally and spiritually and it allows leeches to take over. You are always in control, more than you think you do, you have the power to decide and incite, and act on things that are involving YOUR life.
Acknowledging trauma. I’ve been doing this for a while but not as much as I did in 2022, people call Millennials the strawberry generation because we “bruise” easily, without them even acknowledging that we suffered from the generational trauma that was passed on from them. This was only apparent when I sit with myself and started asking myself why I react a certain way to certain things and why I am easily triggered or annoyed over certain behaviors/words, usually, you can always trace it back to your childhood, and it doesn’t always have to be coming from your parents it could be your peers, teachers or society in general. Heal.
Having a Purpose. This was something that I never thought of in my adult life, when I was younger yes maybe, but as an adult, I was a nihilist. When I realized my purpose in 2022, it was so freeing, and it was not something grand like ‘change the world’ or ‘cure cancer’ or ‘end world hunger’, it wasn’t something like that and it doesn’t have to be. It could be as small as I am meant to ensure my parents never had to work, or I am meant to bring a kid into the world and teach them amazing values, or I am meant to light a candle for my grandma every night until the end of her life, or I am meant to share my stories. Having a purpose drives you as a human being.
Don’t take it personally. Really. I think I’ve learned this in previous years as well but as you reach 30, it’s a different era with different sets of people with different reactions. I am also a different person compared to all those years ago when I started this series. It is a lesson that I sometimes need to remind myself of. A lot of people’s reactions are based on their viewpoint, their upbringing, and their trauma, rarely does it ever has to do with you and your character. When people disagree with you, you do not have to spend energy to convince them to see it from your point of view if they refused to, they could be right and you could be wrong vice versa. You are living life through your lenses and nothing is ever really about the other person, that’s just how we’re wired as humans.
Life is short and long at the same time. I feel like I did a lot of meaningful experiences in 2022, YOLO with friends, and traveling locally and outside of the country. Saying, hey we have 24 hours in a day, I’ll manage my time let’s just do this! I don’t condone constantly doing something to feel ‘alive’, you just need to do what makes you happiest. As an extrovert, mine is to spend time with people I love that energize me, do things I’ve never done before, and experience new places. If it’s just sitting on a balcony and reading a book is your happy place, then do that. Our lives should be filled with things we wanna do and find people that wanna do the same thing as us, to enjoy it together. It feels like you always don’t have enough time but too much time as well. So just do it, take that leap of faith, money is an energy it will always come back, time is relative, and it’s short and long at the same time.
Your path is the best path for you. We do this a lot, where we compare our journey or our lives to those of our peers, younger or older. We let it consume us of what we view as ‘success’ or ‘failures’ or even someone who has it ‘better’. It takes a lot of focus out of your own life and I haven’t been doing this for a while, I’ve left this habit years ago, but at the same time I feel like this is something that we need to be reminded of now and then. Especially when you turn a certain significant age or a milestone, for example, turning 30, I’m sure others will start thinking and start comparing so I am here just to remind you that whatever path you are at right now, it’s exactly for you. It’s not better or worse than anyone else’s because you are not anyone, you are you and this is YOUR life. Put your energy into getting to know yourself, your wants and needs free from societal pressure and expectations and free from other people’s influence. You are exactly where you are supposed to be.
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Oh man I was scrambling trough tumblr tag and I saw this LB quote about Aleksander: "The Darkling is beautiful, I wanted to create a leader who was charismatic, appealing, a dictator you could imagine yourself following, an antagonist you couldn't just dismiss. [...] The Darkling is beautiful and broken and had a rough childhood, but he's also a brutal, manipulative monster with no regard for human life. He's dangerous because he's seductive, because he evokes sympathy.
…I just don’t even know when to start with this? Can she come off as anymore ignorant and offensive by trying to sound so woke. I mean “beautiful and broken”?! Are you kidding me?!
(Book Spoilers. Trigger Warning: Trauma and Mental Health)
Hmm well I'm not sure you could really sum it up as a 'rough childhood' more like a rough life filled with alot of trauma that has left him isolated and struggling to form human connections. Also I'm not sure I like the term monster for someone who is made the way they are through trauma and also the line about him having no regard for human life is just false he has lines he wont cross which is why he didn't harm the grisha children in book 3 and he was never going to because he values their lives. To be honest though I had some issues with the way LB dealt with trauma and mental health in the books. Not just with Aleks either but with Sergei too, actually I found the way she treated Sergei and his mental health in the last book rather appalling. Sergei is established as being severely traumatised by losing Marie to the point where he struggles to function properly. I think out of all the characters in the trilogy he's depicted as having the worst trauma, all the other characters have bad dreams and what not but Sergei really does find it debilitating and he struggles with day to day tasks like eating, sleeping and even just walking/travelling takes its toll on him. But Alina's attitude towards Sergei at times was troubling. To be clear though I'm not blaming the character for this as it was just the way she was written but she seems to consider Sergei weak and his mental health a hindrance. Here are some extracts from R&R the first is right after Sergei accidently revealed Genya's real name to Nikolai:
I shot to my feet. “What happened?”
“Sergei let her real name slip. He seems to be taking to heights about as well as he took to caves.” I released a growl of frustration. Genya had played a key role in the Darkling’s plot to depose the King. I’d tried to be patient with Sergei, but now he’d put her in danger and jeopardised our position with Nikolai.
Sergei was nowhere to be found. Probably a good thing, since I didn’t have time to give him the pummelling he deserved.
And like I understand that this must have been a frustrating situation but Alina knows that Sergei is struggling with his trauma and that he didn't mean to cause anyone any harm. I can understand her frustration but I really don't like the line about the 'pummelling he deserves'. I just don't like the suggestion that a person who is clearly suffering from a mental health issue deserves to be punished for making a mistake because of his trauma. Here's another instance where Alina is annoyed at Sergei:
Sergei had slowed us during our fight with the militia. He was unstable. I could apologise, offer useless words, but I didn’t know how to help him, and it didn’t change the fact that we were at war. Sergei had become a liability.
Again I get the frustration but again I have issues with the suggestion that because they are at war Sergei should just pull it together. Or even this image that's being painted that people who have mental health issues are just a burden on those around them. People in real life who suffer with similar mental health issues like depression and anxiety often worry about feeling like a burden to their loved ones so this could be really triggering for them. Then there is this from Baghra:
“We came to find you. What’s the matter with that boy?”
“He’s had a hard time of it,” I said, leading them away from the tank room.
“Who hasn’t?”
“He saw the girl he loved gutted by your son and held her while she died.”
“Suffering is cheap as clay and twice as common. What matters is what each man makes of it."
This one really troubled me because its like LB is saying that you can control your own trauma or decide how the trauma is going to effect you. It's again this suggestion that Sergei is weak because he struggled with his trauma more than others did. But the part that actually kind of disgusted me when I read it and I actually had to stop reading the book for a bit because of how much it upset me is how the characters talk about Sergei after his death. Alina had sent Sergei away because she felt he had become a liability and he then went back to the darkling and told them all the information he had on Alina and co. This move was obviously one born of his trauma and was made out of desperation. On several occasions Sergei has said he is struggling with feeling safe and no matter how hard he tries he never feels safe. Alina even tells us that Sergei had gone back to the darkling looking for reassurance and safety which really makes sense, this man grew up at the LP the one place where grisha could be safe, he grew up under the protection of the darkling. Then he chose to stand with Alina and went through the trauma and grief of losing the woman he loved horrifically in an attack against the LP which was his original safe place. He then never feels safe again so it would make sense for him to go back to what previously had made him feel safe, the LP and the Darkling. But this is what the other characters say about Sergei after he is killed by the darkling:
I sat beside him, unsure what to say. I remembered sitting like this with Sergei in the tank room, searching for words of comfort and failing. Had he been scheming then, manipulating me? His fear had certainly seemed real.
Abruptly, Zoya said, “I should have known Sergei couldn’t be trusted. He was always a weakling.”
Though that seemed unfair, I let it pass.
“Oncat never liked him,” Harshaw added.
Genya fed a branch to the fire. “Do you think he was planning it all along?”
“I’ve been wondering that,” I admitted. “I thought he’d be better once we got out of the White Cathedral and the tunnels, but he almost seemed worse, more anxious.”
Abruptly, Adrik snarled, “I’m glad Sergei’s dead. I’m just sorry I didn’t get to wring his neck myself.”
Steel is earned. Adrik had that steel, and so did Nadia. She’d proven it again in our flight from the Elbjen. A part of me had wondered what Tamar saw in her. But Nadia had been in some of the worst fighting at the Little Palace. She’d lost her best friend and the life she’d always known. Yet she hadn’t fallen apart like Sergei or chosen life underground like Maxim. Through all of it, she’d stayed steady.
And yes again I understand why they feel betrayed but they knew that Sergei was struggling and instead of understanding that Alina is accusing him of manipulating her and Zoya is saying he couldn't be trusted and that he was a weakling. To be honest it kind of reminds me of the way people talk about the darkling. Instead of recognising their trauma and trying to understand they jump straight to well they were a bad, untrustworthy person who was manipulating me.
Then there is the last part where Alina is thinking about how Adrik and Nadia are strong because although they faced trauma they were able to keep going and keep fighting but not Sergei, Sergei was crippled by his grief and his trauma and this means he was weak. Maybe its because I have struggled with crippling mental health issues myself where I couldn't even get out of bed let alone do anything else but I just found this implication that Sergei was weak really offensive to those who do struggle that way. People deal with trauma in different ways and whilst some people can fight through it and will just have a keep calm and carry on attitude others can't, others just fall apart, but that doesn't make them weak. I also don't think this 'just carry on and push through it' attitude towards mental health issues is necessarily a healthy message. If you need help then you should ask for it and be able to have access to it. LB could have used this as an opportunity to show a character who is severely traumatised getting support and help to work through his trauma and heal. But I feel like nobody really helped Sergei and any comfort or support he got seemed to be grudgingly given and there was more of an attitude of I'll try to help you because your issues are a hindrance to me than because any of the characters actually cared about him and wanted to help him.
Sergei and the Darkling were both characters that were 'beautiful and broken' but neither one of them was given the support or help they needed. Instead they were painted as either weak or as a monster. So what kind of message does this send to readers who also struggle with trauma and mental health conditions?
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One thing that Annoys me about RWBY is that Summer Rose could have been a really interesting character of they bothered to develop her at all.
She's a dead mom trope, but she's also a dead dad trope, and I think it would have been really cool if they had a flashback episode all about her.
I remember my mom and a friend talking about how a woman's hero's journey is different than a man's hero's journey because if that woman has kids there's this extra guilt, and I think it would have been really cool to see Summer as this woman who loves her monster fighting job, but also loves her family and feels guilty over leaving them to do it. And then when she dies doing what she loves, but not being with the people she loves, then it would be extra sad and tragic.
Summer Rose is not a person in the story, but she had so much potential to be one. And if the audience cared about her as much as Ruby and Yang do, then their grief over her would hit harder for the audience.
Just I thought I had this morning and wanted to share. Love your blog!
Hey, thanks for this ask! Summer could've been really well utilized and then this "is Summer alive/is Summer a Grimm/Ruby cries about Summer a lot" stuff wouldn't feel out of left field, forced, and so freaking boring. XD Ruby's reactions as a person technically makes sense, because emotions are complicated and childhood trauma tends to leave really lasting effects even if you're too young to fully remember the event itself, but as an audience member, Summer has been little more than an infrequently used plot device at best, and an infrequently used means to set up more important plots at worst.
The only instances we had of Summer content prior to volume seven that I can remember are:
1. Ruby stands in front of Summer's grave in the red trailer and we see Summer with her hood up during the first season opening theme song, which is literally just a reference to the red trailer.
2. Yang talks about Summer's death to Blake as an opener to the conversation about her searching out Raven and comparing it to Blake's problems with self-destructing due to the problems with Torchwick and the White Fang.
3. Ruby talks to Summer's grave at the start of volume three, doing a minor and quick recap seemingly for the audience's sake as well as once again seeming to be a reference to the Red trailer (which would make sense considering that people weren't sure that RWBY was going to come back after season 2.)
4. Yang references Summer's death again while talking about how her family is broken and Blake leaving her triggered old abandonment issues.
That is literally all that I can remember that was established about Summer Rose prior to volume seven when Ruby wants to have heart to hearts about her with Qrow and falls apart crying when Salem mentions her, and then we're introduced to this big question about what happened to her and maybe she's a Grimm and Ruby and Yang have to deal with the horror of that thought and... Yeah, it makes sense for the characters, but why did it take seven seasons for them to remember that this was supposed to be a big deal that mattered to the audience? Did they just assume that the fans would do the work for them of making Summer matter to us? There'd be nothing wrong with the early use of Summer if there wasn't this as of yet completely unneeded big deal made of her in volumes seven and eight. There's a long history of dead parents in media who are dead because the writers just don't want to deal with that or just want to add character to their... Characters. Yang is a more interesting character when you add 'mother's death impacted her' and 'feels like she needed to mother Ruby' to it. Now they only have one parent to contend with when Ruby goes off on her quest, so on and so forth.
But with the way that they want us to care about Summer now, they should've made her at least slightly more established. Like, they could’ve had it established anywhere that either Yang or Ruby want to be Hunters because of their connection to their mom. They could’ve had Ruby talk about being a hero like her mom was a couple of times or how she wants to protect people so families don’t get broken the way that her family was. Yang’s abandonment issues could’ve had Summer featured just as much as Raven and maybe could’ve involved her not wanting Ruby to be a hunter due to the inherent danger involved after or even before they realized Ruby has Silver Eyes. When Qrow tells Ruby about magic and Ozpin and Salem, Ruby could’ve asked him about whether or not Summer was a part of the circle with him and knew about all this magic stuff. Ruby could then tell Yang about whatever answer Qrow gives when she arrives. This could lead to a larger tension where either Ruby and Yang have to grapple with how much their parents and guardians didn’t tell them and how clearly dangerous it is to be involved in Ozpin’s inner circle, or they have to grapple with the fact that Summer didn’t know and wasn’t told despite her Silver Eyes having put her at a stronger risk. Before Yang reconnects with the main group, she and Raven could talk about Summer in the Branwen camp, with Raven making bitter comments about how quickly she was replaced by Summer and Yang confronting Raven with the fact that she forfeited her right to being Yang’s mother and how that role was filled by Summer, and it could be a whole thing. Qrow could’ve worked with Ruby on activating her Silver Eyed Warrior powers throughout some of volume five and throughout volume six by talking about having seen Summer use them, having heard Summer talk about them, and knowing how they work through her.
Then, when Ruby is having conversations about Summer with Qrow in volume seven and breaking down in tears at the realization that she fought Salem and crying at the horror of the possibility that she’s a Grimm and it’s this huge big deal, we would be more connected to Summer, we would feel more sympathy for Ruby and Yang in this situation because we would’ve had seasons of seeing the way they’re affected by Summer having been dead this whole time.
As it stands, we’re getting Katara going after the man who killed her mother with only a couple random references to Kya’s death prior and no emotional investment, no scene where Sokka talks about how he can’t even remember his mother’s face or Katara freaking out about losing the necklace that connects her to her mother or it being one of the things that continues to drive Katara throughout the whole show, something she talked about with Jet and Zuko, something she used to relate to Aang’s suffering at losing his people, etc.
We’re getting an emotionless delivery. A random new thing to focus on in two seasons overflowing with far too many badly done arcs and conflicts. Something that seems less established and important than even Emerald’s badly done and rushed redemption arc. It might make sense for the characters to have been detached at least somewhat from Summer after years and yet have these big emotional reactions when their trauma is brought to the front of their minds. But as an audience member... They didn’t manage to make me care about Summer or even how Ruby and Yang feel about her, point blank period. Like usual in RWBY, it’s too little, too late. And I’d much rather they stop trying to add things in the later seasons that they should’ve been doing work to establish for the past several seasons, and focus on actually making the stuff they already have in the story better, like idk, the relationship between Ruby and Qrow, or Maria and Ruby, or any number of things. RWBY is a quantity over quality show, and Summer Rose is just another thing that suffers from it.
#rwde#anti rwby#rwby criticism#rwby critical#canoncrit summer rose#I guess#never thought I'd use that tag but uh... Yeah
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hunter, hunted
i should not be so excited about this but i just discovered that when you copy and paste text into a new post tumblr FINALLY allows italics and bolded fonts to be transferred over so I don't have to remember to go through it and do it myself again i could literally CRY rn. ANYWAY I thought it would be fun to write a oneshot like the Profiler, Profiled where Morgan is accused of murder. i created an oc for this one and I hope you love April I've spent a lot of time with her the last couple of weeks (:
words: 13.4k
pairing: hotch x oc
warnings: detailed descriptions of murder and torture and sexual assault
questions comments concerns
“Where’s the weapon, April?”
It was almost laughable. A federal agent handcuffed in an interrogation room being questioned for murder in her small town while visiting a childhood friend. She shakes her head at the detective, laughing. “I carry a gun on me at all times because, as I said, I’m a federal agent. You have it in your possession already. If you want to test it to see if I’ve fired it recently, be my guest. You won’t find anything.”
“You’re right, we won’t find anything because Brandon Perry died from blunt force trauma to the head. So I’ll ask you again, where is the weapon?”
This time, April does laugh. Of course he wasn’t shot. That would be too easy. “You know what, Detective Barnes, if you hadn’t kicked my hotel door down in the middle of the night, handcuffed me and dragged me in here, I may have cooperated with the investigation, but here we are. So I’ll tell you again: my Unit Chief is SSA Aaron Hotchner. I won’t be answering any more questions until I can speak with him.”
The middle aged man glares at her until finally getting up and leaving her alone in the interrogation room. She rested her head on the table and hoped that maybe that stupid motherfucker would listen to her this time.
***
“Hunter has been detained in Bar Harbor, Maine.” Hotch tells the team in the conference room.
JJ frowns, “Isn’t that her hometown? Why has she been arrested?”
“For murder.” Hotch says. Before the team can react, he pulls up a picture of Brandon Perry’s body, “Brandon Perry was found yesterday by a fisherman just off the docks a week after he was released from prison on parole. He had been bludgeoned to death with some sort of blunt object, the M.E. suggests a baseball bat.”
“And why do they think April did this?” Spencer asks.
Hotch clicks a button and a picture of a couple brutally murdered in their bed, a little boy who’s throat had been slashed, and a little girl with brown hair and bright green eyes, alive and well filled the screen, “Because he was serving time for the murders of Addison, Jacob, and Timothy Hunter. April’s family.”
Everyone stares at the monitor in shock, “Her whole family was murdered when she was a kid… and she never mentioned it to us?” Penelope asks, her lower lip trembling.
“April was left relatively unharmed, but she had been sexually assaulted by the assailant. She said he was tall, but he had on a ski mask so she was never able to give solid identification.” Hotch finishes.
“So how’d they connect these murders to Brandon Perry?” Rossi asks.
“He was connected to a couple other home invasions and assaults nearby so he entered a plea deal. The local police were under a lot of pressure to close the case.”
“Breaking into homes to murdering almost an entire family is a big escalation.” Morgan says.
Hotch nods, “I thought so too.”
“April was just a kid,” Prentiss says, “And to go through a trauma like that, I’m sure she believed whatever the police fed her. And to see him be released from prison like that… I hate to say it, but it could have been the trigger.”
Penelope’s shaking her head, “No, no, you guys don’t really think April did this, do you?”
Everyone’s silent for a moment and then Morgan speaks, “Baby girl, if she’s innocent, we’ll prove it. But we can’t rule out the possibility that she did this just yet.”
“I know April hasn’t been here that long,” Garcia says, “But she is still a part of this family. You can all treat her like an unsub, but I won’t.” She finishes and marches out of the conference room.
Aaron sighs, “Wheels up in thirty.” He says resolutely before leaving the room.
***
Hotch walked into the police station, the team at his back and was greeted by a man about April’s age who introduced himself as Detective Fielder. “Detective, I’d like to speak to my agent.” Hotch demanded after shaking the man’s hand.
The man shrugged, “Sorry, sir. My partner’s in there with her. She’s stubborn as hell. I went to school with her, you know it’s a shame the way her family died but… must’ve knocked a screw loose or somethin’. She ain’t ever been the same.”
Aaron thought it over, killers had made their way into the bureau before. Not like this, though. Not under the nose of his whole team. April kept to herself, but she had joined this team less than a year ago, it would be overwhelming for anyone. “You misunderstand, detective. It wasn’t a request. Bring me to my agent.”
Reluctantly, the younger detective brought Hotch to the back of the station where he could already hear another man, older by the sounds of it, screaming at April.
She was staring back at him, her posture relaxed, looking more annoyed than anything. Hotch walked in and she relaxed further, only then letting on that she had been putting on a show of being unbothered for the detective, “Thank God.” April sighs, “I thought maybe they didn’t call you.”
“Are you alright?” He asks her first, unable to explain why hearing another man scream at you had made his blood boil.
“I’m fine,” She says and directs her attention back to the older detective, “Detective Barnes won’t even get me a water, though.”
“Detective Fielder, get April some water.” Hotch demands. He can feel the two men exchange a look behind him before the younger detective leaves the room. “Detective Barnes, uncuff my agent.”
“You can’t let her go, you don’t have jurisdiction here.” He growls.
“I’m not suggesting you let her go, but even if you’re right she committed a one off crime of revenge. She’s not a threat to anyone here. Uncuff her.” The detective glared at April who only smirked at him. “Now, detective.” Aaron said, firmer this time.
With a look of disgust on his face, the detective uncuffed a smiling April as detective Fielder came back in the room with a cup of water. “Thank you, Billy.” April said as the detective placed the cup in front of her. He ignored her completely.
“I’d like to speak to her alone.”
“Like Hell.” Detective Barnes spat.
“With all due respect, detective, it doesn’t appear that you’ve gotten much out of her. You’re welcome to watch through the window, but I will be questioning her. Clear the room.” They stared at each other for another few moments before the detectives both left the room. Hotch turned back to April whose entire demeanor changed. She sighed, relaxing her shoulders and slouching over the table as she rubbed at her wrists where the cuffs had been. The antagonizing behavior Hotch had just witnessed her exhibit completely vanished.
“You don’t help when you antagonize them like that.” Hotch says.
She shrugs, “The men in this town don’t like a woman who thinks she’s his equal. They never liked my attitude. They like it even less now that I outrank them. Either I act like the superior I am, even in cuffs, or they force me into submission.”
He sits down at the table across from her, “Why didn’t you tell me about your family? It wasn’t in your file.”
“Strauss knew.” April says, immediately defensive. She hadn’t lied, the bureau knew.
“But you didn’t want me or the team knowing, why?” She doesn’t answer him, just stares at her hands. “April, I can’t help you if I don’t know.” He says gently.
Finally she looks up and sighs, “When I was twelve my entire family was brutalized and murdered in front of me, but not before the unsub raped me in front of my parents. And I didn’t react the way the people of this town wanted me to. I was twelve and I was covered in semen when he left. So I showered before calling 911. I didn’t cry even once in front of anyone and I never spoke about what happened to anyone, not even the police. Only enough to tell them that I had no idea what he looked like, but I thought he was white.” Her eyes water just slightly and she doesn’t meet his eyes, “For the six years after the murders that I stayed in this town, I know a lot of people thought I did it. That I was some kind of psychopath. So no, I didn’t want it in my file.”
“You thought maybe we’d arrive at the same decision the town did.” Hotch opens the case file, “But you were never tried or even considered a real suspect. There was no physical evidence.”
She smiles sadly, “No physical evidence means nothing to a small town who’s rarely ever seen a scandal, and certainly nothing like this.”
He stares at her for a moment, “And so when Brandon Perry was released from jail, you thought he hadn’t suffered nearly enough so you came back up here and killed him.” April laughs and Hotch can see he’s made her feel antagonistic again, “This isn’t funny, April, you’re a suspect in a homicide.”
“No, Hotch, you don’t understand. It’s funny because I don’t even believe Brandon Perry killed my family and I haven’t believed that for a long long time. Which is why it would make no goddamn sense for me to kill him.”
“That’s bullshit!” The door bursts open and detective Barnes walks in.
“Detective--” Hotch stands as if to shield her and April nearly frowns at how protective he seems to be of her right now. She had seen him this way around the rest of the team, but never her.
“You told Detective Fielder when you were fifteen that you would kill that son of bitch yourself if he ever got out of jail.”
Hotch looks at April with a bit of annoyance, he hated when others had more information than him and from the second he walked in here she kept hiding things from him, not telling him the whole truth.
She lazily rolls her eyes and stares at Billy, “I was fifteen. I was angry. He cooperated with the police so he had the opportunity to get parole after fifteen years? Get his life back after I thought he had ruined mine? Yeah, I said some stupid shit, I think any kid would have.”
“When did you start to doubt that Brandon Perry had killed your family?” Hotch asks, but she’s still shooting daggers at the other detectives, “Agent, eyes here.” He says roughly, growing impatient with her.
Her eyes snap to his, “I used to lurk on support pages for people whose loved ones had been murdered and I remember seeing that this girl described… Almost exactly what had happened to my family, but she said it happened while Brandon was on trial here. She lived a couple towns over.”
“So what did you do?”
She shrugs, “Nothing, I was seventeen, I didn’t have any resources there was nothing I could do.”
Hotch sits down across from her again, leaning over the table so he’s closer to her, “You really expect me to believe, with the conviction you just said Brandon is innocent, that you didn’t look into this further?” She stays quiet and won’t meet his eyes, “I can have Garcia search your desk and computer if you’d rather do this that way.”
She leans back in her chair, rolling her eyes, “Jesus fucking Christ, I’m not a fucking criminal.”
“Then tell me what you know.” Hotch says, voice raised.
“Fine! I started volunteering at the police station so I could get access to files. I was good with the digital databases, but no one else was so they basically gave me free reign. I was able to find three similar cases, all within a couple years of each other but in different cities. One of them, he crossed into New Hampshire. All of the local police departments either arrested someone like Brandon or dismissed it as a one off crime and let it go cold. The files are in my desk drawer at the BAU.”
“You carried them with you all this time?”
She picks at the cuticles around her thumb, something Hotch noticed weeks ago she does when she’s nervous. “I thought… I thought about asking you guys to just look at the case a million times. See if you saw what I saw. And if you didn’t then maybe I could finally move on.”
“So why didn’t you ask?”
Her eyes dart around the room, to the detectives, the one way window, and then back to Hotch, “You guys, the team, you all have… This unbreakable bond and I… I barely just got here and I thought if I’d asked…” She sighs and runs her hands through her hair, “I just… I didn’t think you’d care.”
“The whole team flew out here at the drop of hat for you and you think we wouldn’t care?”
She frowns, “The whole team is here?”
“Yes.”
April sits back in her chair, looking dazed.
“Detectives, you’ll be releasing Agent Hunter from your custody now and since we have reason to believe there’s a serial killer loose and across state lines, we’ll be staying on the case.”
“You don’t really believe anything she’s saying, do you? She’s a psychopath!” Detective Barnes fumed.
Hotch stands and steps to the detective who immediately takes a step back after noticing Hotch’s menacing stance, “She is a federal agent and is no longer a suspect, you have no physical evidence and you just lost motive. You will speak to her with respect and if you don’t think you can handle that I’ll contact your superintendent and have you removed from the case. Is that clear?”
The detective stood back and out of their way, April looking at the ground so Hotch wouldn’t have to yell at her for antagonizing them again.
“What’s the history with you and Billy?” Hotch asks as they walk out of the room.
April rolls her eyes, “He was my high school boyfriend.”
“Oh,” Hotch muses, “You can do better.”
Before she can figure out if he was joking or not, the team realizes she’s walking of her own free will and they seem to all release the tension in their bodies. JJ walks to April first, pulling her into a hug before she can react.
April slowly raises her arms to hug JJ back, “I wish you had told us sooner.” Is all she says.
“I’m sorry you guys came all the way out here.” April addresses the team when JJ moves away from her.
“That’s okay, Hunter, we’re just glad to see you aren’t a murderer.” Morgan teases.
“We might actually be staying here for a while after all.” Hotch says.
Prentiss frowns, “Is there a case here?”
April opens and closes her mouth, “I-- Maybe.”
“Why don’t you call Garcia, ask her to get those files to everyone.” Hotch says to her quietly.
April nods and walks off.
“What’s going on, Hotch?” Rossi asks.
Hotch pushes his hands in his pockets, “The reason we were able to clear Hunter is because she has no motive. She doesn’t believe Brandon Perry killed her family and she hasn’t since she was a teenager.” He pauses, “She thinks the murders may be the work of a serial killer. She found three additional cases nearby, one crosses over to New Hampshire, that she believes are the work of the same unsub.”
Prentiss slowly nods, “And you want us to see if that’s true or not.”
Hotch nods, “I’m sure April would really appreciate our support.”
Everyone on the team is already nodding when April comes back, “So, as Penelope might say… Avengers assemble?” She asks hopefully.
Thankfully, they all laugh and nod, even Hotch cracks a smile, “Great.” April sighs in relief, “Let’s go to the conference room.”
With Garcia on a laptop screen, April tells them everything she knows, which admittedly, isn’t much. However, there are overwhelming similarities between the cases.
“Every family he chose was wife, husband, two kids. The eldest was the daughter all between the ages of 11-13 and in each case the daughter was raped and kept alive.” April was speaking as if she wasn’t speaking about herself and Hotch would be lying if he said it didn’t concern him. “In each case the parents were brutally tortured with a knife, forced to watch the rape and then killed with a fatal gunshot to the head. The boy was always killed first and it was always quick.”
“A mercy kill?” Reid muses.
April sighs, “I’ve never been able to figure that part out. It’s obvious he gets off on the rape and torture of the parents and daughter, but why not leave the boy alive the way he always leaves the daughter if it’s out of mercy?”
“It could be he thinks he’s sparing the boy the pain and trauma of having to go through the after effects of watching his parents and sister tortured.” Prentiss says.
“When all is said and done the daughter suffers the most psychologically.” Hotch says, “She could be the real target, maybe a surrogate for someone he knew.”
At this point, Hotch notices the way April is staring at the table, eyes unfocused, “Hunter,” Her eyes shoot up, “You must be exhausted, let me drive you back to the hotel so you can get some rest.”
“Hotch, I’m fine, I want to help.”
“No,” He says and she frowns, “If the daughter is the true target we’re going to have to dive deeper into victimology. Why he chose you. You don’t want to be here for that.”
Everyone’s quiet and deliberately looks away from April. She sighs, “Fine, but I’m coming back first thing in the morning.” She stands and walks out of the conference room without waiting for Hotch.
“Garcia, see what you can find about April’s childhood as well as the other victims and let us know if there’s any similarities.” Hotch says.
“It feels icky, but I’ll do it.” Garcia responds.
“I’ll be back.” Hotch addresses the rest of the team before heading after April.
They ride in silence for a few minutes, Hotch glancing over to the passenger seat every few seconds. “Whatever you want to say just say it.” April says, growing tired of the constant glances.
“You don’t have to keep working on this case like it’s any other case--”
“It’s not just any other case.”
“I know,” He says gently, “I’m worried about you. I know you bottle things up, showing emotion to other people makes you feel vulnerable, which in turn makes you feel weak. And I worry that the way you’re bottling up your rage is going to lead to you taking it out on--��
“I didn’t kill Brandon.” She says.
“I know you didn’t. But if we do find the real killer, I can’t let you come with us into the field until he’s been taken into custody.”
“Hotch--”
“It’s not up for discussion. I’m sorry.”
She sat back in the seat and crossed her arms over her chest and they continue on in silence for a while longer. “Do you think our unsub is also responsible for Brandon’s death?” Hotch felt guilty about upsetting her and thought maybe getting her brain back into work mode would stop her from giving him the silent treatment.
For a few moments he thinks she might continue to ignore him, but finally, she sighs, “It’s possible. If we think he gets off on the suffering of the daughters, he might be upset that I thought he had been caught. That I felt safe knowing he was behind bars. Killing Brandon after he was released could have been a message to me that he’s still out there and obviously following me.”
“You don’t feel safe anymore.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It was implied.” Hotch pauses, “I can stay at the hotel with you, work with the team remotely from the room next to yours.”
He expects her to refuse, but instead she agrees. “Okay.” She says quietly. This only worries him more as she is typically unlikely to accept help unless he insists upon it.
They walk up to the hotel room in silence and Hotch stands behind her as she unlocks her door, “Hey,” He says softly and she turns, “Anything you need, anything at all, I’ll be right there.” He nods his head to the door next to them.
“Thank you.” She says, giving him a small smile before pushing the hotel door open and then quickly closing it behind her.
He stands there for a moment, staring at the space she was just standing in before sighing and going to his own room.
“How is she doing?” Rossi asks when he calls the team from his room to let them know he’ll be staying there.
“She won’t admit it, but she’s scared. She thinks he might be following her and that Brandon Perry was a message to her that he’s still out there.”
“That would make sense if we think the girls are the real targets.” Prentiss chimes in.
Hotch stays on the phone with them a little while longer before they all decide to head back to the hotel. He stares at the wall that separates him from April and tries to get his mind to quiet enough to rest. He’s right here. Nothing will hurt her if he’s right here. He thought about how just last week Rossi had teased him for catching him staring at April. He had nearly convinced Aaron to ask her out. But she was so distant and hard to read and he didn’t want to chance rejection. Eventually, he closes his eyes and drifts off, an image of you smiling at him on the backs of his eyelids.
***
April was exhausted, but she stared at the ceiling for what felt like hours. Small noises that she never thought twice about now startled her. Hotch is next door. She reminded herself. She thought about the comment he made about Billy: You could do better. Had he been… Flirting? Aaron Hotchner… Flirting? It felt absurd. Shaking the thought out of her head, she got up and poured herself some water from the Brita in the mini fridge. Finally, after drinking the water, she’s able to fall asleep.
The breeze against her face wakes her. Slowly blinking her eyes into consciousness, she notices the balcony doors are open. Those were closed when I fell asleep, She thinks to herself and shoots up in bed, scrambling for her gun as her heart races. April considers yelling to Hotch, but if he’s still here she doesn’t want to scare him off.
On the wall at the foot of her bed reads “Welcome Home” in what looks like blood. Under it sits her favorite childhood teddy bear, head ripped clean off. She tightens her grip on the gun in order to stop the shaking and then glances around the room, but there’s nothing. Then she slowly opens the bathroom door. Pointing her gun at the shower, the curtain moves. She doesn’t hesitate she fires off four rounds, breathing hard. She doesn’t hear a body fall. Reaching out she pushes the curtain, but no one’s there.
Seconds later, Hotch is calling her name, but he doesn’t wait for a response before kicking down the door. “Hunter?” He calls again and she thinks she might hear fear in his voice. Fear for her?
“I’m in the bathroom. You can put down your gun, it’s clear.” He appears behind her a moment later, still staring at the shower, “I thought he was still in here.”
She walks around him and back out to where he left the message, “He came in through the balcony, I— I thought I locked it…” She trails off, looking at the glass of water on the table and realizing she can’t remember when she fell asleep.
“What is it?” Hotch asks.
“He was in here before. I think he drugged my water.”
He narrows his eyes at her, “We should go to the hospital then, I’ll have the team come here and treat this as a crime scene.”
“I don’t need to go to the hospital, I’m fine—“
“We don’t know what he gave you or how much, besides, having you tested will tell us what he used faster than sending a sample of the water to Quantico.”
“Fine.” She agrees begrudgingly, he was right. She walks over to her bag of clothes and it’s only at this moment that she realizes she had worn only an oversized t-shirt to bed and Hotch was making a valiant effort not to stare at her legs.
“I’ll, um, I have to get dressed as well.” He says hurriedly, gesturing to the pajama pants he’s wearing. He leaves before she can say anything else. Under normal circumstances, April’s sure this would have made her laugh, but that teddy bear seems to be staring her down. She gets dressed and leaves the room without another glance.
***
April stares out the window of the SUV in silence while Hotch calls Rossi to fill him in on what happened so the rest of the team can start assessing her hotel room. When he hangs up, she feels his eyes darting between her and the road again.
“Do you want to talk about it?” He asks quietly.
She’s quiet for a moment and then she takes a shaky breath, “That teddy bear went missing from my room a couple weeks before the murders. It was my favorite.” She swipes impatiently at the tears that start falling, “I blamed Timmy for it, we fought about it for hours. He felt so bad that I was mad at him he used his birthday money to buy me another one. I really thought he took it.” She tilts her head back in the headrest, trying desperately to stop the impending sobs.
Hotch doesn’t say anything, but he reaches across the car to hold her hand. To her own surprise, she lets him, the calluses on his thumb rubbing reassuring circles on the back of her hand.
***
“What do you have, Garcia?” Hotch steps out of your examination room for a moment to accept the call.
“How is she?” Penelope asks first.
“She’s… shaken up. But, like everyone else on this team does an excellent job of seeming unaffected.”
She sighs, “My poor wonder woman. Anyway, I think I found the connection between all the daughters.”
“What is it?”
“Well, it turns out that our April was a very talented child. Her parents took her to talent shows regularly, she was voted ‘Most Likely To Make It To Hollywood’ in her middle school yearbook.”
Hotch frowns and looks back at April, “We’re talking about the same federal agent, right?”
“I know, sir, not much surprises me anymore, but this did. There’s videos of her singing all over the internet, she was on the local news, quite the young star.”
“And the other victims?”
“All singers, sir. Every last one.”
“Thanks, Garcia.”
He walks back into April’s room, “You used to be a singer.” He says.
She rolls her eyes, “So?”
“So all the other daughters were singers too.” She sets her jaw and won’t meet his eyes. She’s not surprised by this information. “Why didn’t you mention it?”
“I didn’t think it was relevant.”
“You didn’t think it was relevant that there was a connection between all of the victims?”
She sighs and she feels shame at his obvious disappointment, “I’m sorry. I’ve worked really hard to block it out, sometimes I honestly forget.”
“What else aren’t you telling me?”
She bites her lip and looks down at her hands, picking at the cuticles around her thumb again, “He made me sing while… While he raped me.”
“Is there anything else?”
“No. I swear.”
He stares at her for moment and she knows he’s trying to see if she’s lying. It makes her angry at him, but also at herself. Maybe Hotch had never been as fond of her as the others, but he had never distrusted her. Just another thing the unsub had taken from her. “What song did he make you sing?”
The question is so painful to think about that she visibly flinches, “Do you really need to know that?”
“You know I do.” He says softly.
She looks away from him again, back to the cuticle on her thumb that she’s made bleed, “Like A Virgin by Madonna.”
He places his hand over hers again and she finds it almost alarming the way his touch seems to immediately calm her. “April, we won’t stop until we find him. I promise.”
She gives him a teary smile, “Will you stay with me?”
He smiles back at her, giving her a hand a slight squeeze and his smile takes her breath away, “I’ll be glued to your side until this case is over.”
***
A couple hours later they had found out that there was a classic date rape drug in April’s system: Gamma-hydroxybutyric acid, or GHB. The drug is usually prescribed for narcolepsy, but it was most often obtained illegally from Mexican pharmacies which they assumed was how the unsub got it.
“I’m bringing you back to the police station so you can stay with me and the team like I promised, but you don’t have to keep working the case.” Hotch says as he drives.
“Funny that you think you can stop me from working the case.”
He smirks a bit and brings his attention back to the road.
“What do you guys have for a profile so far?” He looks over at her, frowning. “What? I know you guys have been working while I’ve been reliving my trauma so what’ve you got?”
“White male, when he murdered your family he was probably in his twenties so now we’re guessing mid thirties to early forties. The torture is consistent with a sadist. Killing an entire family is an incredibly high risk crime which suggests he’s a narcissist, but also very organized. He’s able to control four people at once without much difficulty and he’s never left a shred of physical evidence behind except on the daughters. This means he’s arrogant and--” Hotch cuts himself off.
“What?”
“You said you showered before calling 911. Why?”
“I… I told you he left… He left his semen all over me, I was just a kid, I wanted a shower--”
“No.”
“Excuse me?”
“No, that doesn’t make any sense. Yes, you were traumatized, but every kid has it hardwired in their brain that as soon as something bad happens the first thing they do is call 911.”
“Okay, well I didn’t.”
He presses some buttons on the console of the car and then Garcia’s voice is coming through the speaker, “At your service, sir.”
“Garcia, in any of the family murders, was there a rape kit done on any of the daughters?”
“Well, surely there must have been-- Oh. No, no rape kits, not on any of them.”
“Does a police report tell you why?”
“I’m checking… and…” There’s a sigh from Penelope.
“What is it, Garcia?”
“All of them showered before calling 911.”
April is already shaking her head, “No, no that can’t be right.”
“Did any of them report why they showered before calling for help?”
“Most of them, like April, just reported that they felt icky and needed to shower, but the first one, the very first victim Katie Yates, she reported that the unsub made her shower. Like, held her at gunpoint, marched her to the bathroom, and watched. Once he was satisfied with how clean she was, he left while she was still in the shower.”
“That’s not what happened,” April says quietly, her eyes closed.
“Thank you, Garcia.” Hotch says and hangs up the phone before she can respond, “April--”
“No.” She says fiercely, “I’m telling you that’s not what happened.”
“Every other aspect of the crime is controlled and calculated, he wouldn’t make the mistake of leaving DNA all over his victims--”
“I would remember that if he did--”
“No,” Hotch says gently. He had pulled into the police station now, putting the car in park, “No, because you didn’t want to remember. Just that one memory, that one you wanted so badly to believe was your own. That he wasn’t there for the shower. But he was, wasn’t he?”
“Please stop.” She said breathlessly.
“I’m sorry.” He sounds sincere and he puts his hand over hers, “Look at me.” She doesn’t obey immediately so he reaches up to grip her chin and gently turn her face to his. Her eyes are shining and her breathing is uneven, but his eyes are soft and she has the absurd urge to rest her forehead against his. “He can’t hurt you anymore. You’re safe.”
She nods and swallows. “I need you to walk me through exactly what happened after the rape.” He continues. Her lip trembles, but she nods again. “Okay, close your eyes.”
“Hotch--” She whimpers.
“I’m right here. I’ll be here the whole time. You know how this goes. Close your eyes.” She takes a shaky breath and closes her eyes. “Good. He’s on top of you still. He’s just finished. Tell me what you feel, what you hear.”
“Um. I’m crying. I can hear my parents crying. His weight on me is making it hard to breathe.” She starts panicking, her breathing quickens.
“April, focus. He’s not here. You’re safe. What about your hands, what are you touching?”
“The carpet. I’m on the floor in the basement.”
“Can you see your parents?”
“Yes,” She gulps, “But I’m trying not to look at them. It’s humiliating.”
“Okay. Now what is he doing?”
“He… He kisses my neck and whispers in my ear ‘Thank you for the show’ and then he stands up.” Her breathing quickens, “He’s walking to my parents, I don’t want to watch, he’s going to kill them, Hotch--!”
“Okay, okay, come back. Open your eyes. I’m here.” His hands come up to cradle her face. She should be startled by her boss touching her like this, but she’s oddly comforted.
Her breathing finally slows, “I’m tired.” She says softly.
“I know. We’re almost done. Close your eyes again, you can do this.” His hands stay on her face as she closes her eyes again, “Okay. Your parents are dead. What does he do now?”
“Uh, I’m screaming. He’s looking at me and laughing and then he grabs my arm and pulls me up from the floor. I struggle and he puts the gun to my head and says if I don’t calm down he’ll blow out my brains like he did my parents. And then… He walks me up the stairs to the bathroom…” Her breathing becomes rapid again, “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“Yes you can.” Hotch’s voice is low and soothing. He believes in you, she thinks to herself, if he thinks you can do this, you can.
“He turns on the shower. I’m already naked and once I’m in the shower he starts undressing.” Silent tears stream down her cheeks and she’s distantly aware of Hotch gently wiping them away with the pads of his thumbs. “He comes in the shower. He’s touching me. I’m begging him to stop. Oh, God.”
“April, stay there. He’s undressed, he’s taken the mask off, do you recognize him?”
She’s shaking her head, “I can’t… I can’t look.”
“The water’s hitting your skin, his hands are on you--”
“Stop.”
“Look up, April.”
Despite herself, she listens. She’s in that shower, significantly smaller than she is now, and she looks up to see blue eyes looking down at her. Shaggy brown hair nearly covers them, especially now that it’s wet. He has a smirk on his face and crooked front teeth. There’s a tattoo on his right arm of a cross.
“Okay, okay that’s enough, you did it.” Hotch’s voice pulls her back out and she becomes aware of the car that’s still around them and the fact that she’s sobbing. “You’re okay. You’re safe. You did so good.” She falls forward in his arms and after a moment of hesitation he wraps his arms around her, holding her until her breathing settles. It takes him a moment to realize that anyone could look in the SUV and find him in a seemingly compromising position with his subordinate and he pulls away. To his shock, she seems to look disappointed. “You ready to go inside?”
“Yeah.” She says and without another word, she gets out of the car. Hotch can’t deny that he feels like he’s done something wrong as he watches April walk into the station.
When April walks in the station, her whole team cranes their heads to watch her, but she heads straight for the coffee without looking at anyone. Hotch files in soon after.
“Is she okay?” Reid asks, the rest of the team waits for his answer.
“I just gave her a cognitive interview, I’m sure she’s upset.”
“Did you learn anything?” JJ asks.
“Yeah,” Hotch nods, “She remembers what he looks like and she identified a tattoo on his right arm.”
“We should have Garcia run that, see if we can get an ID.” Morgan says.
“Call a sketch artist as well.” Hotch looks up at where April was standing just a few moments ago to see her gone, “Excuse me.”
***
April’s hands shake so hard as she tries to pour the coffee she ends up putting it down in frustration. “Need some help?” She turns to see Billy, standing there smirking at her.
Sighing, she stands back and gestures for him to go ahead. He steps in to pour the coffee, “Pretty elaborate ruse you got going on, staging a break in at your hotel room with that teddy bear.”
She stares at him in disbelief, “You still think I did this?”
“I think,” He says, handing her a cup of coffee, “That you’re impulsive and you went to confront Brandon and you didn’t mean to kill him, but you did and now this is all to cover everything up.”
“Oh,” She scoffs and starts walking away from him, “You are delusional and a dick.”
He follows April into another room and closes the door behind them, “Open the door.” She says when she realizes she’s shut in.
“You and your stupid FBI team are making this whole police force look bad, you need to drop the investigation.”
“The cases cross state lines, we have jurisdiction.”
“Yeah, you would have jurisdiction if there was a real case, but there isn’t. You’re a pathological liar and you can’t even see it. Brandon Perry murdered your family and raped you and just can’t let it go.”
“You’re a sick son of a bitch,” She walks around him to the door, but he turns quickly and places his palm against the door, slamming it shut again. “Let me out.” She says slowly.
“I’ll let you out when you promise me that you’re going to march out there and tell them that you’ve been lying this whole time and then march your pretty ass back to D.C.”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll arrest you for the murder of Brandon Perry.”
“You have no evidence.”
“Oh, April, April, April. I know you know what a coerced confession is here. And I also know that you know a jury of your peers here in Maine would send you to prison for less.”
There’s a sharp knock on the door and Billy finally steps away. When she opens it, Hotch is on the other side, “Everything okay in here?”
“Just fine, Agent Hotchner. Isn’t that right April?” Billy says and grabs a strand of her hair, twirling it around his finger and tugging, exactly like he used to when he sat behind her in middle school.
April slaps her hand on his wrist and twists his arm around until he yells. “You lay a hand on me or threaten me again, I will make sure you don’t have a career here anymore. Understood?”
“You can’t--” He starts, but she twists his arm further.
“Am I clear?” She says again.
“Alright, fine!”
She shoves him away and he stumbles, nearly falling to the floor as April storms out, Hotch still standing in the doorway, watching Billy.
“I told you,” Billy says, pushing himself to standing, “She’s a crazy bitch.”
“Detective, let me make myself very clear. If you continue to harass my agent or impede on this investigation in any way, not only will I make sure you never have a career in law enforcement again, I will arrest you for obstructing a federal investigation.”
Billy shakes his head, “She’s got you all wrapped around her finger.”
“And I think your boss has you wrapped around his finger. He’s the one who arrested Brandon Perry. Seems like he would have a lot more to lose if he was wrong than you would.”
“He wasn’t wrong.”
“Then let us conduct the investigation. If it leads back to Brandon Perry, then so be it.”
“You really think she’d accept that?”
“If the evidence led us there, she would. Now stay out of our investigation if you value your job.” Hotch leaves without giving him time to respond and then tries to find April.
“Are you alright?” He asks when he finds her. She’s sitting alone at a conference table.
“I’m fine, Billy’s just an asshole.”
“There’s more to your relationship than you told me to begin with.”
She frowns, “What are you talking about?”
“You said you came up here to visit a friend. Who were you visiting?”
“I’m tired of being interrogated--”
“The reason Billy is so sure you killed Brandon Perry is because you were with him that night and then you left suddenly, isn’t it?”
April sighs and looks down at the table, “Hotch, I appreciate everything you’re doing to help, but who I was with and what I was doing that night doesn’t change the fact that I didn’t kill Brandon so please just drop it.”
He shakes his head and he looks almost frustrated with April, but that doesn’t make any sense. Why would he care so much about her relationship with Billy? “I don’t understand why you would waste your time on a cop like that, look at what a mess it put you in.”
She frowns, “With all due respect, sir, it’s really not your business who I’m sleeping with.”
“Why did you leave that night if you didn’t kill Brandon?”
She scoffs, “I can’t believe this.”
“Answer the question.”
She was angry with him. Practically bursting at the seams with rage. Just like every other man, thinking he’s entitled to everything about her. They all disappointed her in the end. “Billy and I had a fight and I wanted to be alone.”
“What was the fight about?”
“He wanted to be an official couple again. I didn’t.”
“Why not?”
She tilts her head to the side, “Just because I’m a good fuck doesn’t mean he gets to claim me. Like you said, he’s just a stupid cop and I could do better. Now will you leave me alone?”
April recognized that look in his eyes: He was jealous. Aaron Hotchner was jealous that she had a sexual relationship with another man. And suddenly her anger evaporated and was replaced by desire. She supposed she did always have a thing for older men which she was sure a profiler would say had to do with her dead dad. Either way, she sent a smoldering glare his way until he left her alone.
When he left, she rested her head on the table in exhaustion and didn’t notice Emily had approached until she heard the seat in front of her being pulled out. She raises her head and manages a smile, “Hi.”
“How are you doing?” She asks.
“Better now that you’re here, I’m tired of all the men around here.”
She laughs, “Good. Well, the sketch artist is here and I’m sad to report that he is a man.” April groans. “But, I will stay with you if you want and then I think we’re all going to work through the night, but Hotch was talking about bringing you back to the hotel to get some rest. It sounds like you had a rough day.”
“Yeah,” She sighs, “Cognitive interviews are the worst.”
As promised, Emily sits with her while she talks to the sketch artist and Hotch walks over not long after. When it’s finished, Emily gives your hand a squeeze and leaves with the sketch to pin to the evidence board.
“You should get some rest, I’ll take you back to the hotel now.” Hotch says, hands in his pockets. It was intriguing to her that he could act like he didn’t just ask about her sex life only an hour ago.
“I can’t sleep in that room again.”
“You can sleep in mine. I’ll sleep on the floor,” He adds quickly upon seeing the look on her face.
She sighs, “You don’t have to sleep on the floor, just don’t touch me.”
“Won’t be a problem.” And with the indifference in his tone, she thought maybe she had actually imagined everything earlier.
“Great.” She murmurs and gets up to walk out first.
Hotch stays behind for a moment, pinching the bridge of his nose and Rossi comes up behind him, “You picked a terrible time to start giving her hints about the way you feel, Aaron.”
“We’re trying to solve a case about her family’s murder and all I can think about is how pissed off it makes me to know that she’s been sleeping with someone else.”
“You’re human.”
Hotch just shakes his head and walks away.
***
“Daddy driving you home?”
The voice behind April makes her jump, her hand flying automatically to her gun.
“Woah, it’s just me April.” Billy laughs, leaning up against the station building, “You really are on edge, lately, huh? A sign of guilt or genuine fear?”
She could strangle him right here, she thinks. But instead, she reigns in her temper and leans against the wall next to him, “What about your daddy, huh? Haven’t seen him here all day. Is he too busy making wrongful arrests?”
Billy scoffs, “Yeah, and how’s your stupid little profile going? Did you find the real killer yet?”
She sighs, “You cops are all the same, think your old fashioned police work is better than profiling.”
Billy looks like he’s about to respond, but Hotch walks through the door just then, “There’s daddy, you better hurry up and get in the car like a good girl.”
Hotch barely registers what Billy’s said before April launches herself at him, fists flying. He immediately reacts, grabbing her arms, “Hunter, hey, hey! That’s enough! Get in the car.” He says sternly.
She shakes him off, but walks to the car all the same.
“Fucking bitch.” Billy mutters, drawing Hotch’s attention back to him.
“Detective, I thought I made myself clear that you were to stay away from my agent and out of my case.”
Billy steps up, eye to eye with Hotch, “This is my station, agent. Back off.”
Hotch stares him down for a few more moments, “The superintendent will be hearing from me tomorrow, at the very least you’ll be getting suspended. Maybe now’s a good time for you to clean out your desk.” And then he turns and walks back to the SUV, ignoring Billy’s curses behind him.
Once Hotch is in the SUV and starts driving away, he starts talking to April, “When you’re out in the field you represent me, you represent the team, and the whole bureau. You can’t just--”
“I don’t need a lecture right now.”
He’s surprised to hear tears in her voice and it softens him immediately, “April, I’m sorry I’ve been so hard on you today.”
“You’ve only done what you need to do to solve the case, you shouldn’t apologize.”
“No, no, I… I shouldn’t have questioned you about Billy earlier. You were right, it’s none of my business.”
“It’s fine.” She says. First indifference, now an apology. Maybe she really had imagined everything. “I just want to sleep.”
***
Hotch works for a while by the light of the lamp when you get into bed, poring over the case files again and again, trying to figure out if they had missed anything. He’s pretty sure April is actually sleeping and once he’s sure he can’t get any more work done, he turns off the lamp and gets ready for bed.
He slips in the bed as quietly as possible, hoping not to wake her, but there’s the smallest moan that escapes her lips when the mattress shifts. A moment later, she turns over, still in sleep and slings her arm over his chest, sighing contentedly as she rests her head on his chest. Hotch freezes, unsure of how to react before slowly wrapping his arms around her in return. Her shampoo smells like peaches and vanilla and he breathes it in deeply knowing in the morning she’ll pretend this never happened.
***
When April wakes up and finds herself in Hotch’s arms, legs tangled under the sheets, she does her best not to panic. With the way they were positioned, it was clear she had initiated this which was all the more embarrassing. Lucky for her though, she doesn’t have to figure out her next move because his phone rings. She pretends to be asleep as he slowly comes to wakefulness and reaches for his phone.
“Hotchner.” His voice is husky from sleep and it sends a thrill through her and she imagines for a moment what it would be like if Aaron Hotchner was hers. Then she hears Billy’s voice in her head calling him her daddy and the moment sours.
“Okay.” He says after a few moments, “We’ll be there as soon as we can.”
He ends the call and sets the phone back on the nightstand, but to her surprise, he doesn’t immediately wake her. “Are you awake?” He whispers after a few moments and she tries not to balk.
“Mmm.” Is all she manages and she keeps her eyes closed, not sure she can meet his eyes like this.
“They’ve, um… Another family was killed last night.” He tries to say it as gently as possible, but she shoots up in bed anyway, “The daughter was killed as well this time.”
She’s shaking her head, “No… No, that can’t be. She has to… She can’t be dead.”
“It’s probably a message to you.” Hotch says calmly.
She scoffs, “That’s great. A whole family’s dead because of me.”
“This isn’t your fault.”
“Oh, like hell it isn’t.” She says, climbing out of bed and pulling on her jeans. She doesn’t fully realize who she’s getting dressed in front of until Hotch tries to subtly avert his eyes. “I should’ve solved this case years ago. I’ve known it was serial for a while. I could have saved them.”
“You know as well as I do that thinking like that isn’t helpful for anyone.” He says, following her lead and getting dressed in front of her. The fact that they’re both acting like nothing out of the ordinary has taken place between them makes everything somehow even more intimate.
She sighs, “Let’s just get over there.” And she walks into the bathroom to brush her teeth.
***
April can feel the bile rising in her throat as her team mills around the crime scene. She’s crouched next to the girl, Layla, whose throat had been slit. She had also been stabbed too many times to be counted by the naked eye. Her eyes stared blankly ahead, but April could see the fear there. He had left her here, in front of her parents’ bodies, naked. “He went through the entire ritual, even the shower, then brought her back down here and killed her.”
“He’s always been very controlled and organized, but this last kill is full of rage.” Prentiss notices.
April frowns as she looks at Layla’s throat and notices that it almost seems to be bulging, “I think there’s something in her throat.” She pulls on her latex gloves while everyone crowds around her and then gently prys the girl’s jaw open. Reaching in, her fingers brush what feels like crumpled paper at the back of her throat and April pulls it out. Heart racing, she smooths it open.
Welcome home, April. I’d like to see the woman I’ve created. Arrive alone at the place where we first met, 20:00.
Everyone was silent as April read the note over and over after reading it aloud the first time. The word “alone” had been underlined several times. There was no threat attached to it, but April knew it was one all the same.
“We’ll have to call SWAT and let them know, we’ll also have to prepare the local police--”
“No.” April cut off Hotch, “You can’t be serious, he said to come alone.”
“April, his end game is clearly to kill you, if you go there by yourself you won’t come back out. And I already told you you’re not allowed to handle the arrest.”
“This is our one shot to get him,” Her eyes water, “This family died because of me--”
“Hunter--”
“Stop.” The tears fall down her cheeks and he wants to brush them away like he had the day before. “I won’t let this happen again, I’m going to see him by myself.”
“At least go in with a wire, we’ll stay a safe distance away.” Morgan bargained.
She shifts her attention to Morgan, to her team who are all looking at her sadly. Concern dripping heavy from their limbs. “No SWAT.” She insists, “Just this team.”
Hotch sighs and rubs a hand over his face, “You’re sure you can handle this?”
She wasn’t, but she nods anyway.
“Fine.” Is all he says before walking away.
***
Aaron is conscious of her eyes on him as he helps her put the wire on, “You steer the conversation away from yourself when you’re in there. Don’t let your guard down for a second. He’s going to try to get in your head, blame you for what he’s done. Don’t let him, just feed his ego and then call us when you’ve got him. Okay?”
“Yeah.” She says quietly.
He finishes putting the wire on and leans away from her in the surveillance van, “I can go in with you.” He says, giving it one last shot.
“No.”
He nods resolutely, “Promise me you’ll walk out of there alive.” She avoids meeting his eyes, “April.”
Finally she locks her eyes to his, “I’m scared.” She says, and her voice shakes.
It’s the first time he’s heard her admit it. He’d known she felt it, but she’d never admitted it. “Listen to me.” He says firmly, “You are not the twelve year old girl he knew. You’re stronger than him. You can do this.”
She takes a deep breath and nods, moving around him to exit the van.
“Be careful.” He says one last time and he thinks maybe she’s aware of just how worried he is about her, his eyes full of concern.
She gives him a small smile before turning away and walking down the street, rounding the last block to her childhood home, the house she hadn’t entered again since the murders. The town was small and since everyone knew what had happened there, it had never been sold.
April stands just outside the house for a minute, hand hovering just above her gun, trying to get both hands to stop shaking. Hotch believes in you. She reminds herself, recalling his words in the van. She can do this.
She’d been avoiding thinking about all his touches in the last few days. The way his rough, callused fingers felt so gentle on her face when she cried. The way he’d wrapped his arms around her in sleep, almost protectively. The way when he woke to answer his phone this morning he had absently stroked her shoulder. Did they mean anything to him or was he just an overworked, touch starved man, desperate for any sort of attention, even from her.
Shaking the thoughts from her head, she headed for the door, raising her gun as she approached. The door was already slightly ajar and she pushed it lightly with the pads of her fingers. Carefully, she cleared each room, heart ricocheting against her rib cage, though she already knew where he’d be waiting for her.
After they had found the last family, Garcia had been able to ID the killer based on the sketch and the tattoo as Allen Grey. He had the usual tough past, abusive father and mother, grew up in poverty. His parents died when he was still young and his older sister was left to take care of him, and she then continued the cycle of abuse, escalating to sexual assault. It explained the mercy for the young boys and torture of the eldest daughters, but April couldn’t bring herself to feel sympathy for him.
She stood at the top of the basement stairs, could already see the lights on down there and could hear Madonna’s Like a Virgin playing on vinyl. April hated the way her body reacted, the way everything in her was telling her to run. She was a federal agent for Christ’s sake, she took down killers like this one all the time. He was no different, she tried to assure herself, he was just like the rest. And then she steeled herself, brought her gun back up in front of her at eye level, and began descending the stairs.
“There you are! Welcome home, April!” Allen says cheerfully as you point the gun at him, “Now, now, come on, I don’t have a weapon,” He raises his hands, “Why don’t you holster that gun, Agent Hunter.” He had an arrogant smirk on his face.
Tears stung the corners of her eyes and her finger flexed on and off the trigger, wanting so bad to just pull it and be done with it. But she knew her team was listening and this was exactly why Hotch hadn’t wanted her in the field for this. She lowered her weapon and put it back in her holster.
“That’s better. Why don’t you have a seat?” He gestured to the worn out table and chairs, “Let’s have a drink. Talk.”
She swallowed thickly, “No thank you.” She managed.
“No, come on now, April. We have to catch up!”
“Why did you bring me here?”
He smiles at her again and comes closer to her. Slowly, he pulls a knife out of his pocket and brings it up for her to see. She balks, but he quickly grabs her from the back of her neck to keep her steady and runs the knife gently over her face. “You were always so clever, April.” She keeps eye contact with him, doing her best not to show any fear. “So pretty and smart. I only followed you, after, you know? You were… number two, I believe. I chased the high I got with you with everyone after, but none of them were the same.”
“Is that why you stopped for a while after the fourth family?”
He nods, “Like I said, you were always so smart. And then I saw how you became obsessed with people like me, went to college to study criminal justice, always thinking about me. Joined the FBI because you were so obsessed with me, weren’t you, little April?”
She wanted to spit in his face, but she remembered what Hotch said about feeding into his ego, “They say you never forget your first.” She says cooly, almost seductively.
It works, an arrogant smile twists its way up his face and he pockets the knife. “All I ever wanted was to find you,” She says, slipping into character, “See those blue eyes again. I dream about them every night.” None of these statements are lies, but the tone she takes when delivering them, the sweetness she adds to it, the act she puts on makes bile rise in her own throat.
“I knew it.” He says, looking at her with newfound desire, “We’re soulmates, you know?” His words are gentle, but he grips her by the hair again and pulls, exposing her neck. “Let’s run away together, baby.”
“Okay.” She says softly, “I’m ready.”
Hotch is already ordering the team to go in, jumping out of the back of the van with Morgan. Through his earpiece, he listens closely to you. He can hear your fear in the way you’re breathing, but he’s not sure Allen is picking it up from you.
When she agrees to go with him, he spins her and shoves her against a wall, her head painfully bouncing off the cement. He laughs as she winces and then leans in to kiss her throat, “Are you going to tell your team to leave us alone?” He reaches under her shirt where the wire is and yanks it off her. “April, April, April. My clever, clever girl. You had to know I would have expected you not to come by yourself.”
He pushes himself off her and walks to the table, reaching under it and pulling out a gun that he had taped there earlier.
April’s jaw tenses as he raises the gun to point it at her head, “You won’t kill me.” She says smoothly, though she’s not sure she believes it herself.
“No,” He cocks the gun and turns slightly to aim towards the doorway, “But if Aaron Hotchner walks through that doorway I’ll kill him.”
She does her best to betray nothing, but a muscle in her jaw jumps involuntarily and he narrows his eyes at her, “Yeah, I thought you liked him.”
“I care about everyone on my team.” She says stiffly.
He shakes his head, “No. Don’t forget April, I’ve been watching you. I know your weaknesses as I’m sure you know mine and the past few days here I’ve noticed the way you look at Agent Hotchner when you think he’s not looking. But he always notices because he’s always aware of you, even when he tries his hardest not to be. So, April, I’ll give you one chance,” He hands the wire back over to her, “Tell Aaron to back off.”
Reluctantly, she takes the wire from him. “Hotch,” She breathes, “Stand down.”
Hotch holds a hand up to the team on the outside, signaling them to stand down, though he can barely hear past the roaring in his ears.
“There,” Her voice comes in his earpiece again, “Are you happy now?”
“I’ll be happy when he hears me kill you and knows there’s nothing he can do to stop it.”
“I thought we were running away together.”
“You think I can’t tell when you’re playing me?”
“No, I know you can’t tell when I’m playing you.” Something in April had unlocked when Allen threatened Hotch. Threatened her team. And she knew Hotch could hear them and though she had told him to stand down, he was trying to figure out another way to get to her. He wouldn’t stop until she was out of there, whether it ended with both her and Allen in body bags or Allen in cuffs. But she wouldn’t let it come to that.
“Since you’ve been watching me my whole life, you know the entire town thought I killed my own family and that I lied about the whole thing. Do you know why they thought that? Because they saw in me what my team sees in people like you.” She walks up to him, and though every instinct screams to run, she instead places a hand on his chest, “That night… you made me into you. So no, Allen,” It’s the first time she uses his name and she relishes the shock that lights in his eyes, “You can’t tell when I’m playing you.” Capitalizing on his surprise, she disarms him the way Morgan has drilled into her over and over, quickly slamming his wrist into the nearest surface and catching the gun when he releases his grip. Faster, she takes a step back from him and draws her gun as well, now pointing two weapons at him, “And I think you’ve overplayed your hand, babe.”
He raises his hands and now there’s genuine fear in his eyes, “April--”
“I’d like you to very slowly remove the knife from your pocket and toss it to the floor and if you even think about launching it at me, just know that I am a very good shot and I have been dreaming about killing you every day since I was twelve, don’t tempt me.” Her voice shakes, but this time not from fear, but from anger that she’d harbored close to her chest since the man who stood in front of her stole everything from her.
As Allen slowly does as he’s told, April hears footsteps on the stairs and is relieved when she spots another gun trained on Allen in her peripheral. Morgan begins to walk to Allen, but April stops him, “No.” She says, “I want to do it.”
He nods and redraws his gun, backing away. She holsters her own weapon and hands Allen’s gun back to Hotch without looking at him. Drawing cuffs from her pocket, she walks behind Allen who has managed to get a smirk back on his face. The sight breaks something in her and she roughly shoves him against the wall, feeling satisfaction at his grunt of pain when his face collides with the cement. She tightens the cuffs a bit more than necessary and begins stating his rights to him as she marches him up the stairs.
“I’m going to be a legend, you know? They’ll make all these dateline documentaries about me and the families I’ve killed.” He’s smiling still as April shoves him in the backseat of Billy’s police car. She’s trying not to think about the fact that he showed up here.
“Prisoners don’t look too fondly on those among them who kill and rape children, Allen, and I’m going to make sure that whatever cell block you rot in knows exactly what you’ve done. Have a nice life.” And she slams the car door.
Billy’s watching her as she does so, “I’m sorry.” He says simply.
April sighs, “I don’t care.” She says without looking at him and then walks away.
Hotch is watching her, arms crossed and frowning deeply. She stops in front of him, tilting her head to the side and noticing the concern written all over his face as he sizes her up, “Thank you for backing off when I asked you to. I know that was hard for you.”
He simply pushes himself off the car that he was leaning against and pulls her to his chest. She feels surprised for a moment, but then wraps her arms around his waist in return, breathing him in, focusing on his touch rather than Allen’s. And when the sobs begin to wrack her body, he just holds her tighter. He knows the rest of the team is watching and maybe he’ll have to explain this later, the way he rests his head on top of hers to reassure himself as much as her, but he doesn’t much care. He’d been fairly certain she was going to die in there and he’d never have the chance to tell her how he really felt.
Hotch drives back to the hotel with her sleeping in the passenger seat. The medics had checked her out and concluded that she didn’t really have any injuries, but his heart had nearly shattered in his chest when April asked if there was any way they could refill her sleeping medication. They had been unable to, but decided to give her a few doses of ambien anyway, to last her until she could call her prescriber back in DC.
“You can take as much time off as you need when we get back.” He had said as they climbed in the SUV, his too big FBI jacket wrapped tightly around her shoulders as she immediately popped the ambien in her mouth.
“I don’t need to take time off.” Was all she said before she curled herself in a tiny ball, facing the car door, and fell asleep only minutes later.
Now, he pulled into the hotel parking lot, rain falling gently against the windows and debated whether he should wake her. “April.” He said softly, gently shaking her shoulder.
“Mmm.” She murmurs and her eyes flutter. Still straddling the line between sleep and wakefulness, seeing Hotch’s face above hers prompts a small smile. “Aaron.” She says softly and reaches her hand up to touch his face.
Hearing her use his first name so tenderly sends a jolt through him, but he reminds himself that she’s sedated, albeit lightly, from the ambien. “Do you think you can walk up to the hotel room?”
She nods sleepily and he quickly gets out of the car to help her out of the other side, pulling the hood of his jacket over her head to shield her from the rain. She walks slowly because of the drug, but he doesn’t mind. And when she slides her hand down to his to intertwine their fingers, he doesn’t mind that either. When they get to the hotel room she wordlessly strips down to her underwear and climbs into bed.
He stares at her for a while, unsure if she would want him in the bed or not, and decides it’ll be safest to sleep on the couch. He begins taking some cushions off the couch when he hears her voice, “Aaron?” There was his name again. He wasn’t sure why hearing her say it had him coming undone, but he wanted her to repeat it over and over again.
“Yes?”
“Why won’t you come to bed?”
He opens and closes his mouth a couple times before responding, “I was going to sleep on the couch.” She’s quiet for too long and he thinks she must’ve fallen asleep so he turns back to the couch.
“I don’t want to sleep alone.” Her voice is so quiet, he wonders if he imagined it. But when he turns back to the bed, she’s watching him, eyes full of sadness and what he thinks might also be desire. He can’t say no to her. She continues watching him as he takes off his clothes, first unbuttoning his shirt. She watches him carefully, no traces of shyness and he tries his best not to let on the way her attention affects him. He undoes his belt buckle and then pulls off his pants before walking to the bed, pushing the sheets aside, and climbing in.
She turns to him and brings their faces close enough that just another inch would have them rubbing noses together. “Why have you been so nice to me this whole case?”
It’s not what he was expecting her to say and he frowns, “It was a tough case for you that brought back a lot of trauma, why wouldn’t I be nice to you?”
She shrugs, “I know you’ve never liked me the way you like the rest of the team--”
“That’s not true--”
“Aaron.” He wonders if maybe she’s caught on to the way saying his name affects him as his mouth closes immediately, “I’m not stupid, I haven’t been here nearly as long as the others and I certainly never open myself up in front of them the way the rest of you do. It’s not anyone’s fault, I’m just… Not a part of the family. But this case… You treated me the way you would treat Reid, JJ, Morgan, Prentiss… Any of them. Why?”
“The second you join this team you’re a part of this family and I’m sorry we made you feel otherwise.”
She rolls her eyes and turns her head to look at the ceiling, “Would you have shared a bed with any of them?”
Heat floods his face and he’s glad she’s not looking at him. “No.” He says and he’s sure his voice, thick with desire has betrayed him.
But April only nods, still staring at the ceiling, “Is it just because you’re lonely?”
It’s then that he realizes what she’s getting at. He hears the vulnerability in her voice, the fear there. She thinks she’s not good enough for him and it breaks his heart even further. “April, look at me.” She manages to turn her head to him and her eyes are glassy. “You have shown the last few days how incredibly resilient, intelligent, and just amazing you are. You can’t really think that the only reason I keep reaching for you is because I’m lonely.”
She smiles sadly, “You wouldn’t be the first.”
A lesser man would’ve taken this personally, perhaps groan about how she could think so little of him, but Aaron was different. He understood what she’d been through, that he could have been Superman himself and she’d still have her doubts.
“Then I suppose I’ll have to prove it to you.”
She turns her head back to him and frowns, a trace of amusement on her face, “And how do you plan on doing that?”
Hesitantly, he reaches out and strokes a thumb across her cheek, “I’d like to start by just holding you tonight, if that’s alright.”
She closes her eyes at his touch, nuzzling her face further into his palm and he melts. “I’d like that.” She says softly.
So he gently wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her to him. Her little sigh of contentment as she settles against his chest is almost too much for him to take. “Aaron?” She says after he's spent a few moments just listening to her heartbeat.
“Hm?”
“You’re the only man I’ve ever felt truly safe around.”
He feels her sadness then and he tightens his grip around her to convey that he’s sorry she feels that way, but he’s grateful for her trust. They fall asleep like that and neither attempt to move away from the other the entire night.
***
“So this is a date.” It had been about two months since they had gotten back from Maine and Aaron had been nothing but a gentleman to her. So much so, in fact, that at some points she thought he was no longer interested in her.
He chuckles, “It’s not a date. We’re meeting the team.”
“Yes, but you’re taking me,” April grins, linking her arm through his as they walk towards the bar, “So it’s a date.”
“If it was a date I would’ve done this--” Hotch spins her in front of him and abruptly kisses her. At first, she freezes, but when he gently nips at her bottom lip she moans slightly, kissing him back. As sudden as it began, it ends and Aaron is staring at her with a look of such arrogant satisfaction she wants to slap him.
“Okay, so it is a date.” She murmurs quietly as Aaron steps around her and walks away, “I knew it.”
When Aaron opens the door to the bar for her, he casually slips his hand in hers, intertwining their fingers. He notes her questioning look from the corner of his eye, but just squeezes her hand in response. And instead of detaching herself from him when the team notes their arrival, she squeezes his hand in return, even when the relentless teasing from the team commences.
Aaron only slips away from her to go get them drinks and even then she looks back for him. It’s the most unsure of herself he’s ever seen her and it only broadens his grin.
“You finally did it, eh? Attaboy, Aaron.” Rossi’s already at the bar, a whiskey in hand and another on the bar that he slides to Aaron. He takes it and then orders April a gin and tonic.
“It’s just one date, Rossi. She’s still… hesitant.”
“She doesn’t look hesitant,” Rossi says, looking over his shoulder, “She hasn’t taken her eyes off you since you walked away from her.”
Aaron smirks, “Yes, well, I’ve discovered playing hard to get is very effective with her.” He tips the bartender and clinks his glass with Rossi before walking back over to April. When he hands her the drink, she seems to shrink into his side, taking larger gulps of her drink than he thought she should.
“Slow down,” He plucks the drink from her hand and places it on a nearby table, “Why are you so nervous?”
“Look at all of them just staring at us, I feel pressured.”
“Pressured into what, being with me?”
“Aaron, no,” She places a hand on his arm, sensing the insecurity rising in him, “I want to be with you.”
“Then what?”
She shrugs and reaches for her drink again, but Aaron covers her hand before she can, clearly expecting an answer from her. She sighs and looks up at him, “I feel pressure to be perfect because I can see on their faces how much they love you and I don’t want to fuck this up and then you all hate me because I wasn’t good enough for you.” It all comes out in a rush and she feels breathless after admitting it, her cheeks reddening as he lifts his hand, allowing her to reach for her drink.
“April, they like you just as much as they like me.” She rolls her eyes and he reaches out to tip her chin up gently with his fingers, “You could never mess this up.”
“I messed it up with Billy.”
He drops his hand, unable to hide the annoyance and jealousy on his face at the mention of Billy, “Billy was an immature boy who didn’t know how to treat you anyway.”
She smirks, “And you’re a big strong man who can sweep me off my feet at a moment’s notice?” He manages the smallest of smiles as a slow song starts playing, “Come on, Hotchner. Ask me to dance.”
“You want to dance in front of the team?”
“Well you brought me here to show me off, didn’t you?” He gives her a look like he’s offended she would even think so and she laughs, “Please?” She pouts, “Billy would dance with me if he were here.” She adds teasingly, her eyes glittering with mischief.
Hotch shakes his head at her, but he’s grinning, “You love causing trouble, don’t you?” And she laughs in response as he takes her hand and pulls her to the dance floor, letting his left hand rest gently on the small of her back, his other hand holding hers.
He twirls her around the room and with the whole team watching, he kisses her as the song ends. Their lips worked together to teach each other their own dance and for a moment, it’s just the two of them, until the rest of the team starts jeering and April pulls away, her face flushed. Aaron is still looking at her, smiling and she reaches up with her thumb to swipe at his mouth, “I got some lipstick on you.” She says quietly.
“Can I take you home?” He says finally and his voice is husky and full of want.
She wonders if he’s aware of how alluring the sound of his voice is. “Yeah.” She responds swallowing.
He leads her out of the bar after much protesting from the rest of the team, but all he wants and needs is to get April, April who’s smiling at him from ear to ear, home and in bed with him. They settle into their new relationship with ease, the team noting that they’d never seen either of them smile so much and all of April’s fears and insecurities melted away day by day.
As long as her unit chief quietly placed a coffee on her desk every morning with a sweet note attached to it, she figured she could overcome anything.
#mine#aaron hotchner#aaron hotchner fic#aaron hotchner fanfic#criminal minds#criminal minds fic#aaron hotchner imagine#hotch x oc#hotch angst#hotch fluff#hotch imagine
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am i the only one who thinks the whole shigaraki identity crisis and seeing tenko in the end of this arc asking for deku's help was handled perfectly? I mean apart of the S&S bullshit everything was great imo, I'm saying this because i saw some people (who support deku saving tenko) not liking how tomura was handled in this arc.
UHHH I'm so incredibly biased about this entire sequence we just got through, so I'm not the best person to ask this if you're looking for an objective opinion on the writing here LOL
I'll just give my full opinion on this mini-arc (is that what this was?) we just got through:
I think it was great. S&S, while as a character felt annoying, ultimately ended up paying off a great deal in the end.
Think about it, we saw SO MUCH in such a SHORT TIME just now??? I feel like THIS is the kind of pacing Horikoshi is good at. The story felt similar in terms of pacing to the beginning actually! Or even MVA. Yes---there was annoying movie tie-ins, we can all complain (and we will), but in the end we saw MORE happen in these six chapters than we did the entire villain-hunt arc focusing on Deku and the top 3.
I like Deku, but I just don't think Horikoshi knows what to do with him when the story's focus is all about him. Deku either needs an ensemble behind him or his character's focus needs to be on Shigaraki to make the story progress. Because since the war arc in the chapters that focused on Deku primarily, I feel like we only really made progress in chapters 305, 310, and 314.....out of almost 40 chapters. It didn't start to pick up until the class came back and Bakugo and Ochacko got some focus. Ugh, don't even get me started on Shouto's lack-of-focus. Anyway.
Everything we just saw finish off--I really liked. We got a lottttt of information:
We first see that Shigaraki is constantly fighting for control, and the boundary is hazy to an extent of not even knowing if he is himself or if he's AFO--so who is he?
It's less possession and more fusing 🤮making it so much worse than it already was. But makes for damn-good story telling, and a damn good arc for Shigaraki and Midoriya.
AND we learn that Tenko is very much still present. That identity is so close to the surface that he was caught wondering if this god-tier quirk would apply to his dead dog from his childhood. A piece of himself we haven't even seen a grown Tomura Shigaraki thinking about, outside of the flashbacks. And it seems that this whole possession thing has triggered Tenko's identity to rise to the surface and be more present than ever before.
We even got a little bit of development (I guess you can call it that) for AFO? He thought of him and his brother reading the comics when they were little. Which is just eerily sentimental of him. We knew he's been trying to get OFA back for the power, but we also know that the ghosts of the quirk will be with him so long as he wields the quirk. It's started to beg the question of--does AFO want OFA JUST for the strength and power, or is there an underlying motive such as idk, keeping his brother's ghost with him forever? Not to make him this sentimental loving big brother, because he's not, but it's really human of AFO and honestly makes it way worse lol. Because if he is just wanting his brother's ghost with him forever it's strictly out of a desire to maintain control of a possession--the way a kid wants to keep their favorite toy with them and not share it. That kind of sentimental....lol, creepy.
Now, after S&S has been killed, we see that it's possible Tenko has all but been swallowed up, because AFO has pretty much assumed full control by the end of chapter 334. Shigaraki's consciousness has been so far suppressed that we see him hoping to himself, at his core, that "some hero" will come save him. "Some hero", and then he's thinking of Midoriya??
We basically got a full 180 spin from Shigaraki in this arc, and imo, it worked well.
During the war arc, he was DONE waiting on heroes to do something, to get better, to learn their lessons. But NOW we know that deep in his heart, he feels differently. The whole "he doesn't want to be saved!" argument can be put to rest. Because chapter 334 squashed that argument like a bug. Not that it wasn't already a stupid argument, because the desire to be saved was rooted so deep into his character all the way back from chapter 69 when he encountered Midoriya at the mall, but now it literally cannot be argued.
And my personal input is---the fact that Tenko thought of Midoriya of all people is just...really sweet? He didn't think of, or ask for any of the LOV members--his comrades--to come save him. He thought of Midoriya--which to me tells me that he's been hoping Midoriya (specifically!!) would try to reach out to him for a while now. From as far back as their little talk at the mall.
Things I was kind of annoyed at but not too much anymore:
New Order disappearing--I think this is mostly because almost all of us expected AFO to get it and make him super OP to kickstart the final battle. But I'm not really all that annoyed anymore by it because I feel like I can actually see some sort of trajectory Hori is going with now, more than before actually.
More movie tie-ins. The Egyptian hero showing "outrage" tells me we're gonna see more international heroes. Whatever, I guess. I'll deal with it so long as it drives the plot further.
Having to read dumb emotional backstories for characters that exist for five chapters. I mean I get it. S&S is supposed to be some mimic of All Might and we needed to see why she was like that--and see how she is so far from All Might's ideals it's hilarious. But still, it was irritating wasting panel space lol. But ultimately, nbd.
SOOOOO I'll be honest---I really liked everything. From chapter 329 with Shigaraki's fucking beautiful entrance in the sky to now, with little Tenko at the core, hoping and wanting to be saved. Along the way, I've enjoyed the hilarious memes that resulted from S&S's satirical behavior and Mon-chan's little debut. The memes have made me laugh really hard and I got to meme my own dog lmao. Honestly I've had a great time following the series the past month and a half. I'm pretty pleased!
So idk if people would say it was "perfect"--but for me personally I enjoyed the execution of showing Shigaraki's current mess of a mental state, because it's so important to the main character's arc! So I'm excited to see more, especially for Touya and Toga. And I'm really excited for this week's chapter!
Also, these are just opinions. Pls chill before you come throw your disagreements at my inbox.
#bnha#bnha asks#anonymous#bnha 334#shigaraki tomura#shimura tenko#midoriya izuku#bnha league of villains#bnha lov#boku no hero academia#deku#bnha deku
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An Archive of Someone’s Own: my experiences being groomed in fandom circles on AO3
TW: Childhood sexual abuse, grooming, mentions of incest and rape.
I used to be a big writer of fanfiction. It was the logical choice for me. I loved to write and create bold and immersive worlds, and I craved an audience who would enjoy my work as much as I did. Since my writing wasn’t actually good, I needed a community of other amateurs who wouldn’t mind that, and by tweaking my characters and settings into ones from canonical media, I got the audience I so craved.
I started writing fanfiction online when I was 14, posting initially on FanFiction.net and then moving to AO3 a few months later. As I got back into writing original fiction towards the end of high school, I lost interest in this community, and it’s been a long time since I posted anything much on AO3.
I’ve always struggled with the fact I display a lot of symptoms of CSA, and for the longest time, I couldn’t figure out why. Throughout my teen years, I refused to get changed or bathe when anyone was even vaguely nearby, constantly paranoid about being spied on; I developed a severe touch phobia, and would have frequent panic attacks from something as small as brushing arms with a passerby; I resolutely identified as asexual and refused to get into anything resembling a relationship with others because the very concept disgusted and repulsed me.
Weird, considering I had grown up pretty normal and all of these symptoms had started around my early teens. It was only when I told my friends about my friendship with a 30 year old I had met online that the pieces started falling into place for me.
Child grooming is usually discussed in the context of one adult going out of their way to befriend a child with the goal of lowering their resistance to sexual abuse, through normalisation and friendliness. I’d like to talk about how that worked on the fanfiction website AO3. Since it’s an open website and most communication takes place between anonymous users or accounts in the comments section of a work, there is very little delineation between spaces for adults to discuss whatever dark topics they like and spaces for kids to do the same.
This frequently leads to pretty inappropriate conversations between people of widely varying ages and life experiences, which is how I ended up talking sex as a fourteen year old with people ranging from a couple of years older than me, who were generally okay, to more than twice my age. The 30 year old in question listed on her profile how many pedophilic ships she loved, and she knew my age but pushed me to keep discussing sexual topics with her. Sounds like a red flag, yeah? Well. I was 14, and very stupid.
This 30 year old woman, who I will call Aku (because it’s similar to her screen name and because it’s funny to name her after the bad guy from Samurai Jack) would start conversations with me whenever I posted anything to AO3 and would refuse to take no for an answer when I tried to back out of conversations with her, and since these conversations were public and occurring within comments, I didn’t want to be rude to her since this was taking place on content I was trying to promote.
I told her my age multiple times and she would either pretend she forgot from last time (saying her memory is super bad) or continue as though it was just trivia about me and not a sign she shouldn’t have been pushing me. My primary objection to what she would say to me (since most of it was just her being annoying) was her insistence on sexualising everything I wrote, and her determination to push me into writing pornographic content, which I eventually gave in to.
Yes, she was a terrible person. She emailed me using her personal email address, so I know her full name and place of residence, because she’s an idiot. These emails also contain sexually explicit materials. Nothing much ever happened between us except for these very creepy interactions and the fact we remained online friends for a few years. But here’s the thing: she wasn’t the only person pushing me into creating sexual content. Lots of people would comment on my writing demanding that I show explicit sexual content when I really didn’t want to.
After a while it felt like I couldn’t write a longer, romantic fanfiction without including explicit sexual content. Like my work wasn’t valid without it. Other, more popular writers were usually sexual in their content, and I wanted to be like them and bring in the views, right? So, when I look at my back catalog of works, I can see how my content moved from completely non-sexual to featuring sexual content over time, and the views usually came with. In this way, I was in an environment that was encouraging me on many levels to sexualise my own work, which impacted the way I thought about my creative process.
Here’s another example I remember. When I was a young sprout, I remember reading down someone’s list of fanfiction recommendations and seeing a work called Hug Therapy, which I promptly read. While the work is marked as explicit and containing the Loki/Thor pairing, the use of relationship and rating tags on AO3 is so poorly regulated that it didn’t really mean anything to me to see either of those. People tag hardcore material as non-explicit and tag friendships as relationships, because there’s no motivation to tag properly. Plus, someone I followed here on Tumblr had recommended it to me.
Now, you wouldn’t know from the listing, but while this piece starts out as comedy, it turns out in the end to include rape, incest, and BDSM in very explicit terms. The fact it was tagged as being explicit didn’t slow me down, because the liberal use of these tags could mean that an explicit tag was just there because sexual content was implied or mentioned, which I thought would be the case based on the rest of the listing. Out of curiosity, I recently tried to report this work to the moderators for containing no warnings about incest or rape, and I got this in response:
“Selecting “Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings” satisfies a creator’s obligation under the warnings policy. Users who wish to avoid specific elements entirely should not access fanworks marked with “Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings”. Our Terms of Service note: “You understand that using the Archive may expose you to material that is offensive, triggering, erroneous, sexually explicit, indecent, blasphemous, objectionable, grammatically incorrect, or badly spelled. ….. This decision is in accordance with our policy of maximum inclusiveness; we have therefore closed this case and will not be investigating further.”
Which, yeah, I guess. The frustration comes from how ‘Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings’ is an extremely commonly used tag, and most things that it’s used on are totally harmless.
This fanfiction, which I was recommended by a friend, is hugely popular, in the top 60 most read fanfictions in the entire fandom. You wanna hear the kicker? The author, Astolat, is one of the founders of AO3. They’re not just some random author who isn’t following the rules. They’re a creator of the whole website, and they made the rules. This is pretty telling about how seriously the website actually takes protecting their users.
My final example I want to give is one of fetish content. People in fetish communities generally (not always) say that fetishes are probably something one should work up to after the onset of sexual activity, especially potentially harmful stuff like BDSM. In the circles I was running in, if you weren’t sporting a fetish or two (no matter your age) you were a boring bitch.
Maybe this isn’t true of everywhere in the fanfiction community, but I used to feel that bizarre pressure until I got out. Bear in mind that my main time in this community was from ages 14 to 17. I never made my age a secret, either. I told people outright I was that age, I was in high school, I was playing hockey and studying The Great Gatsby when I wasn’t online.
Since I was in the Avengers fandom and I liked Loki and the Asgardians, I was frequently exposed to incestuous content between Loki and Thor, and a lot of it came out of nowhere or was poorly tagged. This was considered the norm, and while I at first felt completely horrified and repulsed, within a year or two I no longer gave a shit. It’s only in the last few years as I’ve begun to unpack everything that I’ve started to get that strong revulsion reaction to incestuous content.
In the circles I was in, it was relentlessly normal. Normal to the point that people who disliked it were usually shouted down. Even to this day, debate rages on in fandom spaces about whether or not content like this normalises this kind of abuse. In my own personal experience, which I don’t usually like to talk about, it absolutely does.
In real life, this normalisation started to have serious consequences for my mental health and interpersonal relationships. In fanfiction, any occasion when you are alone with someone could become sexual, any familial relationship is possibly sexual, and it doesn’t matter if you like it or not. I became incredibly anxious around male family members for fear of being sexually assaulted, and my OCD, which I had been developing since I was a child, turned from thoughts of physical violence to thoughts of graphically sexually assaulted by anyone and everyone around me.
My fear of being touched got to the point where I would have panic attacks if anyone came anywhere close to touching me. I quit sports, fucked up my romantic relationships, and didn’t hug anyone, not even members of my family, for years. All the while, I had bought my first laptop and was consuming more fanfiction than ever before. I struggled with my sexuality growing up, as I am bisexual, and while fanfiction provided LGBT content to help me, the content was frequently so disturbing that I viewed any expression of sexuality as something evil and predatory.
The community on AO3, whether you like it or not, is often sexual, and provides no barriers between the casual user looking for content and extremely intense fetish material. It’s sometimes called the Pornhub of fanfiction, but considering the wide range of people who use it, it’s more like if you opened Youtube and saw niche hardcore fetish videos just on the front page, recommended and trending.
Sure, you have to click a little button to confirm you’re 18 before you can actually read a story, but the tags and descriptions of readily available works can be extremely explicit. Fanfiction also brings you into close contact with fellow readers and the author, and encourages you to become a content creator, which in some ways makes it more dangerous.
I was affected much more strongly by what I saw than most people would be, because I was already treading shaky ground. But I’m also not the only person out there who has been hurt in this way. Most of my friends who grew up in fandom can report the impact that fanfiction culture had on them. One of my friends from high school knew a panoply of porn terms at age 14 or so due to reading fanfiction, and another of my other friends at high school almost exclusively read rape porn because it was her favourite. I didn’t have friends who watched porn; I had friends who read fanfiction. These are just as troubling to me as any other accounts of young people consuming visual porn from a very early age.
It’s frequently cited that fanfiction gives minority groups the opportunity for creative outlet. It was a great place for me to cut my teeth as a content creator, and a source of acceptance and kindness when times were tough. Fanfiction communities have historically been the domain of women and minorities, and create a space for these people to tell their own stories.
It’s largely because of this that fanfiction communities fear censorship and strict moderation, as they have been attacked in the past on homophobic or misogynistic grounds, resulting in mass deletions of works or the shutdown of websites. But there must be some middle ground between total censorship and the kind of free rein that puts vulnerable people in danger, and I strongly encourage the board of AO3 to seek this middle ground out.
But it’s the community itself that needs to shape up; AO3 is, after all, a community-led website built by fans for fans, so the fact that this website has such issues is a reflection of the issues that run deeply within the people who created it. Aku didn’t talk to me with the intention of doing me harm, or so I believe at this time, and she didn’t pursue me as a lone wolf or in isolation.
She was simply a particularly brazen member of a community that was used to having inappropriate conversations with young people and sexualising everything they did. Even people my own age were jokingly pushing me into discussing and consuming extremely sexual content. It was just normal. That’s what I want to say here. Inside the world of fandom on AO3, the grooming of children with sexual content is normal. And that’s scary.
- Mod Daft
#mod daft post#ao3 discourse#fandom wank#fanfiction discourse#fanfiction wank#csa//#rape//#grooming//#incest//
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Adventus Everlark
Author: @mandelion82
Prompt: Special request: Everlark celebrates Advent by focusing weekly on hope, peace, joy, and love. [submitted by @hutchhitched]
Rating: T (for suggestiveness and a trigger)
Trigger Warning: Mention of physical abuse.
Author’s Note: This story will have both religious (Catholic/Christian) and secular elements. This is part 1 of a 4-part ficlet series. To be continued on A03 at a later date. Thank you. I hope you enjoy!
______________
If Katniss knew anything about her boyfriend, Peeta Mellark, she knew he loved this time of year‒the Christmas season. He loved everything about it; he was practically giddy as a child over it, and he’d been eager to share his traditions with her for some time. Truth be told, Katniss didn’t always understand or share Peeta’s excitement for this time of year, but she loved to see it, and she loved him for it.
Having grown up in a Catholic household, Peeta celebrated Christmas in the traditional Catholic way‒with Mass, prayers, and the lighting of Advent candles. Of course, there was always a Christmas tree, presents, a big dinner, and tons of baking‒Peeta was a baker, and came from a long line of bakers, so there had to be.
The Everdeens, by contrast, weren’t expressly religious; although, they were open to the possibility of a greater power in the universe, and they would partake in the typical holiday activities around this time of year. Katniss had gone along with those activities for years, even tried to replicate them for her beloved sister, Prim, after their father died and their mother suffered from a crushing depression, but she’d never gotten the joy out of it that Prim did.
Or Peeta.
Peeta was a lot like Prim. Maybe that was part of the reason why she loved him so much. The two were kindhearted as they came and fresh as raindrops, both giving, loving, and selfless individuals. Too good for Katniss, in her opinion. They even looked alike, with their light skin, pale blond hair, and blue eyes. Honestly, Prim looked more like Peeta’s sibling than her own‒she with her olive skin tone and gray eyes.
Another thing Prim and Peeta had in common was their faith. Despite growing up in a secular home, Prim held strong beliefs, similar to Peeta’s.
For Katniss, faith was a challenge. It required a great deal of trust and devotion, things which she’d always struggled to give. At least, that’s how she felt about it. But Peeta said otherwise. Peeta always said he saw Katniss for who she truly was, even if she didn’t see it herself. He said he saw a loving and compassionate woman, dedicated to caring for and providing for her entire family.
She’d argued that it was because they were family. It didn’t make her compassionate; it was just the way it was supposed to be. Directly after, she’d felt awful for her statement. Families were definitely not created equal when it came to love and affection, and Peeta was proof positive of this.
When Peeta first told Katniss about some of his childhood experiences, particularly his mother’s physical abuse, she was furious. She couldn’t understand how he could have anything to do with his family, let alone uphold their traditions as he did, and she wanted nothing to do with them, either.
Katniss had put off meeting Peeta’s family for that very reason. Quite frankly, she wasn’t sure how she’d stand being in the same room as his mother. If she even looked at him wrong, Katniss was certain she’d go off the deep end.
But Peeta assured her that his family wasn’t all bad, nor had his home life been. In fact, he’d mentioned a lot of good memories with his brothers and his father. And regarding their holiday traditions, those were the ones he held closest to his heart.
Peeta was so good, almost too good.
If anyone could be a religious prophet come to earth, it would be Peeta. But maybe she put him on a pedestal because she loved him so much.
No, Peeta was not perfect, and sure, he did things to annoy her, like the time he jokingly called her pure. She’d gotten huffy about it and refused to talk to him for about two days. In hindsight, her reaction was a bit extreme, but they’d made up, and then some.
Besides, if anyone was pure, it was Peeta.
Not that he was a saint; there were certainly things he…bent the rules on, such as them sleeping in the same bed before marriage. She was glad for that one, because she hated not sleeping in his arms.
And Peeta felt the same.
One time, after a particularly nasty fight with his mother over what she suspected to be an ‘improper arrangement’ between them, Peeta had told Katniss, “I don’t care if she thinks it’s a sin. Now that I’ve slept with you in my arms, it’s impossible not to. I’m not going back.”
“Sometimes you do,” she’d said cheekily. Considering they weren’t ‘officially’ living together, she did occasionally sleep at her place.
“I know, but those times are unbearable,” he’d responded, leaning in for a soft peck. “If I had to do it all the time,” he whispered against her lips, “what kind of life would that be?”
Katniss concurred.
Of course, the whole sleeping together thing had started innocently, when they were still just best friends. It all began with Katniss’s nightmares…
One night, after an especially bad one, she’d called Peeta, who lived in the same building, hoping he’d talk her to sleep. On a whim, she’d asked him to come over, and she’d asked him to stay. He did.
After that, they shared a bed frequently, and it was all very innocent. But the more they slept together, the harder it became to fight temptation, especially after revealing their true feelings for one another.
It was sort of a mutual confession, but Peeta had been hinting at how he felt for a long time. Then one night, in bed, he’d asked her directly, “You love me. Real or not real?” This was a little game they played.
Without hesitation, she’d answered, “Real.”
This would be Katniss and Peeta’s first Christmas as an honest-to-goodness committed couple, and they were both thrilled. Peeta usually went to his family’s for Christmas, but this year, he’d said that he wanted to spend it with just her.
And they’d decided to celebrate Advent together by focusing on hope, peace, joy, and love.
Week 1: Hope
On the first Sunday of Advent, which fell this year on November 29th, Peeta taught Katniss about the lighting of the Advent candles, and they lit the first candle on the wreath, one of the purple ones. Peeta explained that it was called The Prophecy Candle and symbolized hope and God’s forgiveness of man’s sins. They proceeded to light it every night, together, and Katniss even prayed with Peeta, or at least remained by his side, holding his hand.
Her favorite activity during the Hope week so far was when they spent an entire evening wrapped up in each other on the couch under the blankets, eating junk food and talking about their hopes for the future, their own wishes and those for their loved ones and all humankind.
At first, Katniss had been fearful about speaking some of her own because she didn’t like to think too far ahead. To think ahead was to ultimately be disappointed, in her mind. She was so afraid that if she spoke aloud what she hoped for, as with one of those elusive birthday wishes parents talked about, it would never happen, or be taken away.
But Peeta reassured her.
Something else Peeta had been doing for Advent, which he hadn’t expected her to do was fasting. It wasn’t a complete fast; he was still eating, but he wasn’t eating between meals or having meat on Fridays or any sweets.
First, we fast; then we feast, was what Peeta had told her, referring to the period of penance and preparation leading up to the Christmas celebration.
Peeta was being really good about it, so good that she worried he might waste away to nothing at this rate. And she liked a little bulk on his body. Healthy and strong like an ox, that’s the way she liked him.
Of course, she wasn’t making things easy on him.
Katniss imagined it must be difficult for him to bake up all kinds of treats for her this time of year and not eat any himself, so she’d offered to fast with him. But Peeta refused, saying he enjoyed the act of baking, which she knew, and that he enjoyed serving her. She also knew that. And naturally, he had to bring up her cheese bun and Christmas cookie addictions.
He was right, though.
What could she do but thank him and kiss him, then prop her head between her hands and watch him bake?
As creepy as it might sound, she loved watching him. She enjoyed seeing the muscles of his forearms twitch and pulse when he whipped a mixture. And she enjoyed watching his long, pale golden eyelashes flutter in concentration when she got close while he read over one of his recipes (also when he sketched or painted).
Presently, Katniss was seated on the edge of the counter watching Peeta boil fudge in a saucepan. God, she loved fudge.
Peeta was multitasking today, so he also had a batch of cookie dough laying in wait in a mixing bowl. When he looked over and smiled at her, she smiled sweetly back. And then, partly to freak him out and partly because she wanted it, she scooped a bit of dough onto the mixing spoon and brought it to her lips.
“Katniss!” He tramped over and smacked her hand lightly like a child’s.
“Hey, watch it,” she said, grinning. She’d been asking for it, though. She knew Peeta hated when she licked the raw cookie dough batter. Something about salmonella. Although, she’d done it as a kid and never got violently ill from it.
“But this was one of my traditions.” She cocked her head and licked the very tip of the spoon in a seductive manner, hoping it’d get to him.
It didn’t.
Peeta simply sighed. “Fine, go on and eat it if you want to end up in the hospital.”
Poking her lip out at him, she put the spoon down in its bowl. He smirked over at her, then returned to the oven to check on the fudge. After a few seconds he turned back, spoon in hand. “By the way, trying to entice me while I’m baking isn’t going to work.”
“No?” She was honestly surprised.
“Nope. You should know that when I bake, I go into a zone. And as you’ve seen, I have some self-restraint.” He smirked impishly. “But nice try.”
Katniss pressed her lips together.
“Don’t get me wrong, though. I’m gonna carry the image of you licking the spoon with me the rest of the day, minus the unsafe cookie dough, and later…I might have big plans for you.” He winked at her.
“You mean big, big, big, big plans?” Katniss imitated Miss Trinket, their ‘eccentric’ (to put it mildly) neighbor with the wild, colorful wigs and affected accent.
“Yes, very big plans.”
“Can’t wait.” She bit down on her lip and reached for the spoon again as if her hand was magnetized.
“For all that is holy, please stop eating raw cookie dough!” Peeta exclaimed.
“Okay, okay.” Katniss dropped the spoon back in, the corner of her lip twitching. “But you might need to give me something else to snack on.”
“Will do, sweetheart.”
With that, he walked over purposefully, placed his hands on either side of her face, and captured her lips. Sofly, but insistently his mouth moved across hers, sending a pulsing sensation straight down.
“How’s that?” he asked as they broke apart.
“Hmm…you think a lot of yourself, Mellark.”
He raised a brow then kissed her again, longer and slower.
“Better,” she said, slightly breathless. He began feathering hot, wet kisses down her throat, and Katniss sighed.
With a low growl, Peeta gripped her hips, causing her to let out a small squeal. He tugged her closer to the edge of the counter, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, pressing her pelvis into his. She could feel his excitement growing, and just when she was sure he was about to carry her off and take her upstairs, he disentangled himself.
“That’s self-restraint,” said Peeta smugly.
Katniss felt like whipping a ball of deadly cookie dough at his head like a snowball. “Tease.” She groaned, shoving his chest. “Sadist.”
“No, masochist, sweetheart. Trust me, this is a lot harder for me than it is for you.” Katniss chuckled, and he pecked her cheek.
Just then, Katniss’s phone began to ring. She fished it out and took a look. “Oh, that’s Prim calling.” She hopped off the counter and prepared to tap the green button. “Hey, Peeta, what do you think about inviting Prim over for Christmas Eve?”
“Sounds great.”
“Okay, I’ll tell her.”
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Also available on Ao3: [link]
Proofreaded a bit by @wikimb
Partner Artist: @wikimb
Word count: 13143
Trigger Warning: Graphic depictions of heavy violence/gore, depression cases, PTSD breakdowns(abandoment/bullying/death), severe illness, physical torture(due illness) and emotinal breakdown.
Note: I’m not a native english speaker, fell free to point out via DM any mistakes.
Void Realm(aka Human World) - Same Day 11:30 PM
Victor decided to tell his three visitors everything he knew about the Sparda's twins; Sparda's story, the day Eva was killed, the mess of Temen-ni-gru, and at the end what happened in Mallet Island.
During dinner, Nero, among Kyrie and Nico, told Victor all what they knew and remembered about the Fortuna Incident and the Qliphoth Event.
"And now they're probably stuck in Hell", Nero finished.
"I see…" Victor said, quite thoughtful. "The problem is… the Qliphoth fruit helped Vergil to recover his heavily wounded magic and not make him overpowered like he thought it would happen. But I can't be sure if it also helped with his synchronization. Either way, you two doing Sync will be of great benefit for both."
Nero didn't say a thing. Just the slight idea of having to interact with Vergil, his so called blood father, again was making his nerves itch.
"But…" Victor kept saying. "How could you live this long? Without one of your parents to sync with, you should have died at a very young age, like… two years old."
Nero continued quiet, trying to understand why Victor was insisting so much about that.
Initially, he thought about the day he met Shooting Star Man; he was two years old, the "death age" Victor mentioned. But he’d rather not talk about that with a new person just like that, not even Nico knew about it yet.
"Don't you remember Sync with some woman?" Victor tried to help Nero recall some memory.
"I don't even know how's the sensation of being in Sync, dude." Nero contested, a bit annoyed.
Before continuing to speak, Victor had to adjust his glasses. "Well… as what my mother could briefly study about the twins, Sync in hybrids have some sort of 'bonuses'. Both parts can somehow connect mentally; they can feel what the other is feeling and as well share memories and theoretical knowledge. As for the magic, the twins described it as something very relaxing and peaceful - they didn't know it was a demon magic thing back then, but you got it."
"The peace thing makes sense since the magic energy is calming down," Nico added to Victor's explanation.
After the brief explanation, Nero couldn't hold but make a surprised face.
"Oh. Have you just remembered something?" Victor asked when he noticed Nero's reaction.
Nero was able to recall something, but just the fact of having to tell them that was making him sweat cold. He had a feeling it wasn't a good idea.
Hell - “Same moment”
Vergil and Dante were able to find a shelter to protect themselves from the fire rain: in the middle of the decaying remains of the Qliphoth tree they both sat inside a small cavern inside a massive root.
Dante was quite relaxed, he was laying his back in a small root, calmly waiting for the end of the rain.
Vergil sat a bit in front of his brother, he seemed to be tense for no apparent reason; he was tapping his feet nervously and rubbing his hands as if they were itching or something.
Once Dante couldn't stand his brother's silence anymore he got out of his place walking on his knees, when he got closer he said, "Bro, relax a little. You're too tense" and he gave a small tap on Vergil's right shoulder, unexpectedly making him do a little hop like a cat.
"Geez! Chill it." Dante said, quite surprised. "I'm not gonna attack you." and he moved a few steps backwards when his brother stared at him with eyes wide open scared.
Vergil couldn't think of something to reply to his brother, he was too surprised by how calm he was at that hostile place, such behavior didn't make sense to him; they could be attacked at any moment by some wild demon, but even so Dante was very chill.
Vergil then returned his gaze to outside, leaving his brother in an awkward silence.
The atmosphere was starting to make Dante feel uncomfortable; he recently had made up with his brother, thus regaining their brotherly rivalry, but that was the first time since their childhood they weren't fighting or discussing, instead, they were just in silence sitting close to each other.
Vergil could feel Dante's restless energy coming from behind him, but he had no idea what to say either.
Deep down their hearts, both had a lot of questions to ask each other, but none of them had a single clue in how to start a conversation that wasn't about who's with the highest score.
After long minutes of watching a literal fire rain, Dante was the one who finally took courage to break the ice: "Soooooo… Brother… Who was that 'Baby' you whispered about earlier? I swore you were talking about Nero's mom… Also! How was sh-?"
Vergil quickly interrupted him, rolling his eyes in annoyance, "I told you already, you will learn more about her when I tell Nero about it, he deserves to know that first."
Dante got annoyed by his brother's supposed etiquette, but regardless, he continued in his attempt to create a conversation: "Okay… but, what about the 'Baby'... person…? I guess? You got me curious, man! Especially about the part: 'this wouldn't be happening' thing," he said as he was getting a bit closer to Vergil again.
Vergil's normally stoic expression drastically changed to an uncomfortable one, he looked at the sky, took a deep breath, and let out a very sad sigh,"'Baby' was… a child… That wasn't his name, just how I used to call him. I never knew his name or how he truly looked like…"
Dante highly doubted Vergil's words. "What?! How? That doesn't make any sense yet. You gotta work on those explanations, bro"
"You remember what happened on Mallet Island? After you… -sigh- beat me?" Vergil replied with a bit of annoyance in the end.
"Uhh… yeah, you disappeared in a light…" Dante said a bit confused.
Vergil took a few seconds of silence, mentally gathering all the information he felt necessary to tell his brother before starting his explanation: "I honestly don't know how I did that… probably had something to do with Mundus' magic… I got teleported to somewhere else."
Surprisingly, Dante got quiet and Vergil had his full attention. Vergil didn't look behind him, but he could tell that Dante was staring at him like a curious child waiting for a new bedtime story.
Vergil cleaned his throat before continuing - "Thanks to you, I started to be able to have myself under my control again. I then began to try to fight Mundus' corruption over me, although the more I tried, the more it tormented me. Until I had an idea that would cost much more than I expected…"
Dante's eyes wide opened with curiosity but also of worry about the incoming words.
"Under all that pain...I truly panicked… and tried to Devil Trigger in an attempt to fight the corruption… " Vergil said low, recalling the pain of the said moment.
Dante gasped silently, even not knowing what happened, he was sure that terrible things had happened.
Vergil's voice started to get low and crumbling as those memories were like a living nightmare. "I could feel all my muscles and bones being crushed and twisted by the fight of the magic energies inside me. I couldn't scream, I could barely breathe and move either… I have no idea how much time has passed too."
Dante noticed that his brother started to feel apprehensive about that subject; Vergil was slightly sweating cold and pressing his hands against each other strongly.
But before Dante thought of something to say, Vergi continued to tell the story: "I can remember some very random and quick things that happened… I fought other demons… even humans and perhaps Devil Hunters too? I don't know, but I swore I was destined to feel that pain for eternity, until…"
Void Realm - “at the same moment”
“So, Nero” Victor called his attention. “Have you just remembered something?”
But Nero didn't respond, he was being reluctant to speak, they couldn't tell if it was because of his health state or something else. Kyrie tried to call him back to the conversation, “It’s about Monster, dear?” she said in a soft voice.
He raised his head a bit to look at her, with a visible sad face he replied low and insecure: “Yeah... “
He stayed quiet once again, staring at the void for a few seconds and avoiding eye-contact; Nico was getting anxious to know what was passing through Nero's mind, but Victor kept patiently waiting.
Finally, he looked at Victor and said, "I think… there was someone I connected with this way… but… he was a human that turned into a demon."
Victor raised his eyebrows in surprise, that didn't make much sense but he decided to not question, Nero was already emotionally unstable, it was better not provoke.
"Let's see then. If you don't mind telling the story," he asked politely.
Nero took a deep breath before starting, that subject wasn't that comfortable for him to talk about freely: "I was around six to seven years old, the de-sync started to happen with a higher frequency day by day… The other kids from the orphanage, especially the older ones, never liked me, and one day they were chasing me down in the woods on the outskirts of the city. Even not wanting to fight they still kept hunting me, they weren't satisfied until I passed out." Nero explained.
"Why?" Nico asked confused.
A bit uncomfortable with the subject, he tried to avoid, "I'd rather not talk about…"
He then continued, without making eye contact with Victor, he just continued to look at his own hands and sometimes to the void or away. "I couldn't run anymore, that's when they got me. The oldest was ready to punch me, but suddenly, a horrendous deformed… giant demon appeared from behind the trees. He was like what? four meters(13ft) high? He didn't need much to scare the shit out of them and send them back to the city, just a roar was enough."
Kyrie was the only one that already knew the story and how Nero would feel about it. She honestly wanted to speak in his place, but she felt better letting him put his feelings out by himself.
"I was the only one that didn't run. I was too tired already… and I didn’t want to return to the orphanage either." Nero said in a depressing tone.
(Hell)
"Have you attacked?" Dante asked curiously, yet worried.
"No" Vergil responded. "The others fled away very quickly and the one that left didn't do anything either. I wasn't going to waste my energy and feel more pain for no danger at all."
(Void)
"But the motherfucker didn't do shit", Nero added. "He left me hanging and just turned away!"
"When I saw him turning away, I yelled: "What are you doing?" But he completely ignored me"
"I yelled again, 'What's wrong with you?'."
(Hell)
"The kid came after me, but I didn't want to waste my energy. When I felt him touching my arm and yelling something - that I can't remember - I instinctively just waved my arm and threw him away."
(Void)
"I flew into a tree and all the stuff I was carrying in my small backpack got scattered around," Nero continued, his voice slowing down.
"You will need more than that to get rid of me!' I shouted to provoke him… but…"
He made a pause.
"But when I looked at him…"
"He was staring at one of the books I borrowed from the public library. He simply stayed there, kinda hypnotized by the thing, you know?"
"With the only hand he had entirely -the right one- he tried to pick up the book. His hand was huge and he knew that… but I think… he had terrible eyesight. The first few times he tried to hold the book, he let it fall because he didn't want to… 'hurt' it."
"He tried, over and over again. That scene was pitiful, to be honest. At a certain point, he started to wimp… kinda like a dog's painful crying: 'wimp wimp wimp'."
"and he tried... again and again, and again... the more he tried the louder the wimps we're getting."
"He was clearly in a panic… until then… he let out a very long and painful scream. It was when I noticed… he wasn't supposed to be like that...."
Victor interrupts, "why? What made you think that?"
Nero responded with sadness in his voice as he looked at Victor, "He was crying… Only through the right eye, but he was truly crying."
"'Do Devils cry?' I asked myself."
"During the screeching, he suddenly lost support on his left arm - the most severe and disproportionate one - and fell to the ground. The arm started to bleed around.. where I think it was the pulse… I couldn't tell, but the broken bone pierced through his skin. I noticed that the rest of his body he had various open wounds, that shit surely was hurting him badly. He then started to wimp uncontrollably while he was spitting blood out of the month, he was insanely trying to get up again but he barely could move his body."
"I don't know what the hell happened with me at that moment, but seeing and hearing all that suffering from him was starting to hurt me. I could feel my heart being pressed. My body moved by itself, I took off my jacket and went to try to... somehow help with the wound on his left pulse."
(Hell)
"I don't clearly remember how I got into that situation," Vergil continued. "I only remember very blurry images and immeasurable pain all over my body, especially at my left arm."
"In the middle of all that pain, I somehow could notice the kid getting closer to me. I tried to move away from him but that only was making the pain worse… I was unable to move."
"I couldn't see him clearly, but I heard: 'you weren't supposed to be like that, right?' from him."
"I remember… my heart and breath stopped when I heard he saying: 'Let me help you, stay quiet.'"
Vergil started to get visibly shaken from that point in front.
"Why? He could just have run away… but instead… he came to help me?! Why?! WHY?!"
"I guess... he did some bandages on my left hand… I couldn't move or see it anyway…"
Dante, a bit shocked by his brother's confusion, asked "Why are you so incredulous?"
Vergil turned at him quickly, his face of both anger and sadness. "WHY?! Because never in my entire life someone had lent a hand to me like that! Not even if I asked!"
Vergil recalled for a moment the difficult time he had after his mother's death; food shop owners didn't want to spare not even the smallest thing for him, some even shout him out, with the excuse he was acting. He couldn't find a good place to sleep and winter was a pain. He had to fight demons all alone. He had to manage to steal sustenance and clothes or get from the trash as the last resort.
"I didn't have the same luck as you, brother…" Vergil said harshly.
(Void)
All those memories were starting to make Nero more emotional, recall the monster's pain was very hurtful even to himself.
"I never discovered what turned him into that… but he was destroyed…" he added.
Victor then questioned, "And you just decided to help him? Just like that?"
"Yes… something told me he needed help… a feeling of he didn't deserve that…" Nero said quite sad.
But even being visibly shaken, he continued the story either way, "through the next days I decided to start stealing everything I thought could be the use of help with his open wounds."
Nico interrupted, "steal, man? why?"
"Who would believe in a six years old saying it needs help with a dying demon?!" Nero replied annoyed. "I had to do that myself. Blankets, towels, curtains, all those kinds of stuff I could get around the city, not just in the orphanage…"
-a pause-
"Also food… and the medicine I knew helped with such changes wounds, the one I remember the caretakers using on me."
Nero's tone slowly began to sound grievous, "He didn't leave the place I first saw him… he just waited for me there every day…"
“He couldn’t move, every time he tried he had to do so much strength. He was also… so cold... I tried to cover him the most I could… but even so… he couldn’t stop shivering. I could see that even those smallest moves hurt a lot… even breathing...”
“His wounds weren’t fresh. It was very difficult for me to make some bandages and mostly use the medicine… because whenever I tried he would start panicking and wimping all over again.”
“I used to say things like: ‘Stop, please! I can’t help you like this!’ or ‘collaborate, please!’ to try to keep him calm, but his pain also made me nervous as well.”
“The food was most difficult, the merchants got sharp eyes. The ones that knew me even got so mad that they started to throw stones at me."
Nico quickly stopped Nero's talk, "What the hell?! Fucking stones?!"
He stared at her, his eyes were blank, and then he said, with a low and grievous voice, everyone could sense the pain in the words, "When you are the... 'bastard, son of a whore, demon magnetic child' people just don't care about you…"
Nico didn't expect that, her face was of utter shock, which made her dead silent.
“I didn’t care about my wounds, tho… I just wanted to bring him food and water too. He needed help to eat and drink nonetheless. He used to eat and drink desperately, getting himself dirtier than he already was… he was definitely on his limit…”
Nero let out a desolate sigh while his eyes were getting teary.
(Hell)
Vergil's voice started to sound more painful the more he talked about the child: "The kid kept bringing new things everyday… cover sheets, bandages, food… even water and… medicine...I think? I barely could move anymore either way… I could only stay in the same place and watch…"
Dante started to feel his brother slowly getting more emotional with the subject; Vergil’s voice got low and he was also starting to discreetly sniff, his body was tense and his expression was of sadness: "He… he wasn't bringing all that stuff for himself… he brought blankets for covering me, to help me not suffer that much from the cold nights in the woods…“
“His voice… I’m sure I was hearing every pitch wrongly… but he sounded so… soft anyway: ‘here’s some food’, ‘come on, try to drink this’, ‘I hope you don’t feel so cold now’... and some many others.”
“My vision was a total mess, the colors were switched, the forms were distorted, I never got to know how he truly was or how he sounded… or even if the scent I remember was his true smell…” Vergil vented, as he remembered every single sensation of the kid taking care of him; the way the child had to hold his huge head up for him to drink water, how he had to pick every single food into tiny pieces because Vergil couldn’t chew. The child trying to cover his gigantic deformed body with small cover sheets or even towels.
Breaking Vergil's recall to the past, Dante asked him, “So… you never actually got to ‘know him for real’?”
“I think…” - a pause - “yeah… you’re right…” Vergil told him but looking away to the dark sky and the raining fire in Hell.
"I don't know how he did that… but there were times he used to hug me, or even just touch, and the pain almost got away completely… it was when I was able to breathe without pain for a few minutes..."
He closed his eyes, deep recalling those moments of calm and inner peace. Those were some of the memories he holded dearest, the sensation of being hugged by the child, or at least he thought it was. The kid stroking his head and singing lullabies to calm him down. Such gentle touch from his tiny hands on his wounded head and skin was something he could never forget, even if that used to hurt as well.
Before opening his eyes, Vergil let out a deep sigh, that made Dante get an idea of how much that unknown kid meant to his brother and he was starting to connect the dots with what Vergil said earlier.
"Why?" Vergil said in an indignant tone. "Why did he do all that to me?!"
He turned to Dante, he was very confused and incredulous, "What I did to that kid?! Why did he help me not wanting anything in return?! He never requested something back!"
Dante's eyes wide-opened surprised about his brother's confusion and he asked himself: 'He didn't understand what happened?'
Vergil's voice became louder as he was letting out old thoughts of painful memories, "Why, brother?! WHY!? There were even some days he appeared with wounds; he said it was the people that didn't like him, they hurt him to push him away because they didn't want to give the stuff to him. I could smell the blood, his wounds...he…-inhales- Why was he sacrificing himself?! He was doing all that to me… TO MEEEE! A PITIFUL WEAK USELESS THING I WAS!"
Dante even leaned back scared after Vergil's last scream, that behavior was quite unexpected coming from such a person that is always composed.
"I was weak! I was dying! No one cares for a weakened demon, they just let them die! He could have called hunters to finish me… BUT NO! He did the total opposite!" Vergil kept yelling extremely confused.
"I remember the stories he told me… and sometimes, during moments of physical contact, I saw some of his...memories? -I guess they were - he was an orphan! No one wanted him, everyone else hated him for no reason and the older kids used to hurt him for fun! HE WAS JUST A LITTLE KID! Why didn't he request me to pay back those people in return for the favors he was doing to me?! That's not how it was supposed to work?!” Vergil yelled while huffing out of breath.
Dante gently touched Vergil's shoulder and just gave a calm look at him, like telling him to take easy on his nerves; Understanding his brother's signals, Vergil took an incredibly deep breath in an attempt to calm down, but his disturbed face and stiff body remained.
"That's called empathy, bro…" Dante said softly.
Vergil took a moment to process what Dante said, but he kept looking at him confused. "What?!" he yelled.
Dante hardly believed that his brother never experienced an act of empathy before and stared at him confused as well.
"Empathy. You know… that thing of being able to understand what the other is feeling? To put yourself in the place of the other?" Dante tried to explain, but that only made Vergil more confused. His silence and as well doubtful face made the situation more awkward for Dante - making him visibly worried.
"Well… it's a human heart thing… Empathy generates compassion and that's what moved the kid to help you. He understood your suffering and decided to help you out. He didn't see you like what you described, he saw you as a living being." Dante tried again.
Vergil was slowly starting to understand; it didn't need much for him to recall Nero helping him when he was V and also the people himself helped when he was V during the Qliphoth roots' rampage.
"That's what moves humans to help others? That's how it's called?" Vergil asked confused.
"Yes!" Dante replied happily and a bit relieved. "Such strong empathy like that kid is incredibly rare to be witnessed, especially nowadays. People like that must be protected at all costs, not just because of their kind heart, but also because they can kill themselves because of it. Humans like that are worth fighting for."
Dante's words made Vergil a bit uneasy as if he did something wrong with the kid during a part of the story he hasn't told yet.
And Dante kept talking: "That's what is amazing about humans. But... demons think that's a weakness… well, that's, in fact, a weakness, it's incredibly dangerous but it's also their strongest point! For demons, self-preservation is more important than anything, meanwhile, some humans don't give a shit about that if it's necessary to protect what is important. They rather die sacrificing themselves, and for demons that's a shame, especially coming from a species that's magically and physically inferior…"
*Unfortunately…" Dante's enthusiasm vanished away very quickly. "The own mankind created such a society through the past decades where that kind of stuff is being suppressed...by themselves! And apathy is going apeshit everywhere… This is another reason why that kind of person should be safeguarded… otherwise, mankind will only keep hurting itself."
"I think… 'Apathy' should be considered a Deadly Sin… since the current seven are all based on it…" he said scratching his head.
They stayed in silence for a few seconds, hence Vergil had no idea about what Dante said at the end. They both returned to gaze at the fire raining (supposedly)night sky for a few minutes until Vergil broke the silence: "These kind people you said… It's pretty much like Baby and… Nero…"
"Yeah, you're right…" Dante said calmly without looking at Vergil.
"This thing of sacrifice itself…" Vergil then continued the story, but talking at a more slow pace, "There was one day… Baby didn't come… I was like 'I was abandoned again?'
"Aah…About that..." Dante interrupted a bit unnerved.
But Vergil responded quickly "I know! But back then I didn't! -ahem- I was finally able to get up a bit and worried something may have happened, I decided to pursue his scent…"
(Void)
Nero continued his side of the story, even with the feeling of his throat closing because of the incoming subject: "It was very difficult to take care of him… He didn't have the strength to lift his head or to chew some food… gosh… he smelled so bad, such a strong scent of dry blood and… other disgusting stuff -if you know what I mean- but eventually, I learned how to ignore that awful scent. He used to shiver so much… his extremity members were cold like ice…"
-a pause for a deep breath-
He then continued: "every little movement he tried to do he whimpered in pain… he barely could leave the place we first met. I was getting used to calming him down with some gentle physical contact like strokes on his head… but even so…"
-sigh-
"There were some moments I hugged or when I just touched him and I could feel what he was feeling… it was an immeasurable pain… Other moments… -It's very confusing, to be honest- But I think I was able to see his memories? I guess...?"
"How did they look?" Victor asked, interrupting Nero.
"Aah… well… a huge old man, long-ass beard and with feathery wings… hmmm.. aaaaand... aaaa... red third eye…? He was all white as if he was a statue and had a huge hole in his chest. He always appeared to be torturing him…" Nero said a bit uneasy, he remembered that as if it was his memories.
Victor closed his eyes and let out a concerned sigh, he knew Nero was talking about Mundus, but that wasn't the moment to tell him.
Nero looked at him worried, not understanding what was going on, although he suspected it wasn't something good.
"Just… keep going," Victor said apprehensively.
"The ones that most scared me was when the old man was taking off his members, like, literally. He used them to create monsters…" Nero shivered just with the slightly recalling his eyes even got teary from thinking about that.
He quickly passed his hand on his eyes to clean up the tears, before someone could notice them, "that always made me jump off the place, those images and some others were always storming his thoughts… I guess it was his thoughts… He cried every time I saw them…"
"Considering his reactions about those images and the state he was… I think he didn't deserve to be like that… he wasn't like that because he wanted… I think that old man did that to him… -sigh- ...he was so needy… he hanged his head in my lap every time I used to sit closer..."
Nero's eyes got more watery than before, he tried once again to hold his emotions and clean his eyes.
Before continuing, he took a deep breath to focus back and keep posture. "Well… there was one day I was trying to stealthily leave the orphanage… but the older kids got me. They were so pissed at me because they discovered it was me that had stolen some of their things… Pfft! They used to destroy and also steal my stuff… so fuck them. But I couldn't escape that time… and I was missing the hour to go meet with Monster…"
(Hell)
"I followed his trail with a bit of difficulty, mostly because of the pain all over my body, but I could find him," Vergil continued.
"Somehow I could hear more people around… so, I stayed behind some trees… or was it a wall? well..." but he hesitated to continue.
"What was happening?" Dante asked curiously.
"Some other kids… I guess… they were not so taller than him and were apparently fighting him. They had the advantage in numbers, he couldn't handle them all." Vergil said low.
"How did you know who he was?" Dante questioned.
"I learned how to recognize him… somehow… his shape and colors we're different from the others and as well his scent…" Vergil answered.
"I remember the other ones saying 'you freak! you're not just the son of a whore but also a thief?', 'what are you doing with our stuff?' I could feel his tiredness of the fight, he then replied: 'I needed them for a…" Vergil suddenly paused as if something got stuck on his throat.
"I needed them for a…?" Dante repeated, anxious for the end of the phrase.
Vergil kept quiet for almost a minute, holding back his next word. He was visibly tense, but Dante attempted to incentive him to continue with the story: "Brother? What happened then?"
No answers, although Vergil had closed his eyes and was biting his lips in tension, he was holding his emotions the maximum he could.
"Bro… listen…" Dante said softly while he put his hand on Vergil's shoulder. "Don't hold back your feelings like this… Put it out, let then go…"
But his brother continued immobile.
"I'm not gonna judge or mock you… I promise." Dante continued to try to convince Vergil. "Look, you can even stab me as much as your heart desires if I do something I shouldn't."
Vergil let out air since he was also holding his breath a little and something Dante never expected happened, not even when they were kids: Vergil's eyes started to become teary.
Yes, tears. Dante couldn't believe what he was witnessing.
"Friend," Vergil said low and with grief.
"He said… 'I needed them for a friend' -sniff- 'I have a friend that needs help, but you wouldn't help me anyway," Vergil said with agony in his voice.
"Friend… friend… friend...FRIEND!" He then looked at Dante with a quick turn and shouted in pain, "HE CALLED ME HIS FRIEND!" and a few tears rolled out in his face.
"WHAT DID I DO?! BROTHER, PLEASE! TELL ME!" Vergil screamed in panic and confusion. "WHAT HAVE I DONE?! WHY HE WAS DOING ALL THAT TO ME?! I CAN'T UNDERSTAND!"
"Why do you think you didn't deserve that?" Dante nearly broke Vergil's sanity with that question.
Vergil suddenly got an empty look, as he never thought about that, he could only stutter trying to come up with an answer.
"T-T-That's not how it works… That never happened before… Y-Yo-you got to do something to receive such a thing… right?! RIGHT?!" Vergil was on the edge of freaking out.
Dante took a long breath, to not absorb his brother's messed up aura. He kept his voice calm and low for don't provoke him more: "No, bro… Kindness is not an award, it is a gift. The kid saw something in you and thought you deserved that… What was it? I don't know."
Vergil's face turned blank, he'd never thought like that before… the way he lived didn't let it anyway, he had no idea about why and how that happened with him.
"So… what did you do to help the child?" Dante asked rather calmly.
(Void)
"The kids were beating the shit out of me… but I didn't give up on trying to flee from them. I didn't want to fight, I just wanted to return to my… friend." Nero continued, his voice getting low while sadness was taking over him.
"I even tried to explain to them that I was doing that for someone that needed more than them, but that only made them madder…"
-a pause-
"I don't know where he came from, but Monster just suddenly jumped off in the middle of the orphanage's backyard. He roared so loud that he even let a huge blue fire column go out of his mouth. He came straight to the bullies and swinging only his right hand he tossed all of them away in a single move! POF! ...He then stayed over me as if he was trying to shield me or something."
"His wounds were bleeding all over again, he must have made a shit ton of strength to reach the orphanage."
"The other kids recognized him from that day… the oldest even shouted: 'I knew it you were a freak, but this is too much!' That only made Monster angrier, he wanted to go for the kill."
"He started to prepare another fire breath, but I couldn't let him do that. I jumped in front of him and shouted 'NO! Don't kill them! It will only make it worse for you!' hoping that he would understand me…"
"And that worked?" Nico asked nervously with the story.
"Yes," Nero responded. "He stopped at the same moment and looked at me very confused. I also could hear the adults screaming to call the Order's knights at the same moment."
"'You have to get out of here' I yelled. 'They will kill you!'"
"I don't think he understood what I meant at first because he suddenly grabbed me by my shirt's collar using his mouth and threw me on his back. He got away from the place very quickly into the woods, I don't know how he was able to stand the pain… he was going relatively fast… and when already far from the orphanage, he tripped on his own legs and arms."
"I was launched out of his back and surprisingly I didn't blacken out when I crashed over a tree. I got up in a rush and the moment I spotted him I saw he was all bleeding… all again, he was back to zero. He was whimpering in pain again, but even so, he was trying to get up."
"I ran to help him out, I didn't know how I would help him, but I went to try anyway."
(Hell)
"I don't remember exactly what happened… The next thing that's more clear in my memory is both of us in the woods. I was trying to get up, but my weakened body and the extreme pain weren't letting me." Vergil explained with a bit of confusion on his face.
"'You have to go! The Order's Knights will kill you!' he yelled at me"
"Hold up!" Dante interrupted. "’Order’? The Order of the Sword?!”
"Yes…" Vergil replied low and slow.
"You were in Fortuna?!” Dante yelled at him quite stunned.
"Yes… Don't ask me how…" Vergil said with a bit of embarrassment.
(Void)
"I was trying to make him get up… but like… he was countless times bigger than me," Nero said with a sarcastic smile.
"I was starting to hear the Knights' yelling and running around the woods looking for him. That only made me more nervous… The only thing I had in mind was: 'they will kill him'."
"Out of nowhere, blue light strips appeared around us and I could make one hell of strength to make him get up. And when I looked at my arms and hands… there were my spectral arms, helping him to stand and move away, they were rather proportional to his size."
"I thought out loud: 'What is this? Your magic?! Thanks! That's gonna help a lot!'"
"Wait!" Victor stopped the story. "Through years you thought your demon magic was a gift from him?"
Nero kept staring at Victor with a surprised, yet embarrassed face. "Oh, well… -scratches his head- I could only use my spectral arms while in contact with him…so..."
"Hmm… makes sense...I would also expect such thoughts from a six years old that grew up thinking it was a human… well, part human in this case." Victor said calmly.
"Sorry for interrupting, continue, please." He asked politely.
Already thinking about what was coming along the story, Nero was already getting nervous and more shaken once more.
The sadness in his voice we're getting apparently the more he spoke: "We ran… and ran… and ran… and like everything can get worse, it started to rain, at least it helped clean his wounds a little. It was so dark, but my 'magical arms' could illuminate the way. At some point, we were able to find a small cave. Monster's absurd size and disproportion nearly didn't let him get in, but he could lay down to rest."
"I could make my spectral arms disappear, but there were the blue strings there yet...They weren't making any illumination tho." Nero said it was a bit uncertain.
"That's because isn't something 'material', it's like...infrared and ultraviolet rays, and only demons and half-demons can see it," Victor explained. "although, it can be seen with special cameras," he added.
Immediately, Kyrie made a worrisome face and Nico looked at her scared as well. The lights that only she could see and apparently, Trish as well, was an actual demon thing and not demon-magic related. That would also explain why Nico couldn't see them. What could that mean? Haven't Kyrie only obtained demon magic but it also turned into one… or she was still turning? After Nero's case, she was the next one to talk with Victor but the feeling of uncertainty we're only making her anxious.
"Ah… that would explain how they didn't find us…" Nero continued, without noticing the girls' reaction. Unfortunately, Victor did and he was already preparing questions for them.
"When the rain stopped I went back to the first place I was taking care of him and got our stuff back. Monster had fainted from tiredness and only woke up the next day."
"I haven't returned to the orphanage either."
(Hell)
"I don't remember too much of how we got in that cave, but the kid didn't return to the city, it was the first time he passed the night with me," Vergil said.
"That night was also the first time I had dreams in a long time… but I don't think they were mine, they were memories from the kid…" Vergil then made a pause, he remembered the child's memories as if they were his.
Dante was getting nervous since he discovered that little kid was from Fortuna; he had a feeling that 'Baby' could actually be 'Nero' since he was aware about the Sync's traits and many of what his brother described matched with.
Vergil had let out a depressing sigh before continuing to speak: "I could see more clearly than before how his life was… It also reminded me of mine… loneliness, pain, and sorrow… But that child didn't have a special sword or demonic powers to take care of himself alone… he was dependent on people that didn't care about him."
(Void)
"When Monster woke up I was outside the cave, wondering what I would do about my little life… the people from the orphanage definitely wouldn't want me back and I was one hundred percent sure I wouldn't be adopted after what happened. I had nowhere to go." Nero said quite sad, his eyes were getting teary again.
(Hell)
"He was just sitting right in front of the cave entrance." Vergil continued. "The pain on my body had returned, I could barely move again."
"'What I will do?' he asked me. 'No one will ever adopt me now… not after they discovered I have a demon friend…' and he started to cry… it was a quiet cry."
"…and ...I still can't understand what happened to me... His painful crying made my heart hurt… psychologically hurt… not literally. I didn't want to see him like that… I knew how much that was painful…"
Dante made an embarrassed smile without his brother noticing; Vergil just had described a moment of empathy, a thing that a few minutes ago he had no idea even how it was called.
Dante then thought: "You have so much to learn about your humanity, bro…"
"He then turned to me and said, 'I don't want to come back…' his voice was more trembling than before." Vergil continued with sadness in his voice. "His face was a big distorted blur to me, but somehow I could identify his tears dripping down his face."
"I honestly didn't think rationally at that moment, I just wanted his welfare. That child… he's been doing so much for me without me saying a thing and for nothing in exchange… I couldn't leave him hanging in the wind like that."
Dante, even having an idea about what was coming, became so hyped to know what would happen next that he got very close to his brother, nearly starting to invade his personal space. Vergil didn't like all that proximity, but he hasn't complained… yet.
"I extended my right hand to him, inviting him to get closer to me, hoping that he would understand what I meant with that."
"He did?" Dante asked curiously.
"He hasn't understood the first few times I made the signal, he kept staring at me for a brief moment, until he said 'Do you want to adopt me?'" Vergil explained.
(Void)
Nero was already in tears without even finishing to tell that part of the story. He was sobbing and crying as if he was living that moment all again. He began to desperately try to stop crying and to clean his tears, Kyrie even got closer and handed a soft tissue to him.
"It's okay to cry, Nero. No need to be ashamed of your tears." Victor said in an attempt to tranquilize Nero.
"Yeah, man," Nico said worriedly. "No one will judge you, I promise."
Nero tried to take his breath back between many hiccups and sobbings in an attempt to regain his posture, but that was impossible, that moment was too shocking for him.
"H-He.. he.. -sob- He wanted me -sniff- he was the only o-one… tha-that… -sniff- aaa-accepted me… that didn't see me as a… -sob sob- freak… a-a-a problem…-sniff sob sob-"
(Hell)
"I just waved my head confirming what he asked and he suddenly broke. He began to cry out loud like a newborn baby."
"sniff"
That "sniff" totally surprised Dante; Vergil was unexpectedly once again shaken and teary with the story. That kid surely meant a lot to him after everything they passed together.
"He came at me running for a hug… and kept crying like that for so long that he nearly lost his voice. He hugged me tight around my neck -sniff- as if I just had saved him from. death..."
Vergil stopped to take a breath and, surprisingly, he tried to clean a few tears. "And then... -sniff-...after that we began to live together… but I have no idea for how long… I just remember that he grew up a lot."
(Void)
"We then lived together for… six years…" Nero said between sobbings.
"He was my best friend… almost like a father… still… -sniff-... we had to take care of each other. But through the years his condition was getting better -sob- his body was getting more proportional and looking 'human-ish', he didn't have more pain like before… almost none to be more exact -sob- the pieces of the some short of armor he had started to fall off his body too."
"What do you mean?" Nico asked. "He was like… 'healing' or something?"
"I think?" Nero replied a bit confused as he scratched his head.
"Most of the time his actions weren't like a demon's, he mostly looked like a human in a demon body." Nero tried to explain.
"One day I asked him if he was a human once, he took a long time to answer, like five minutes almost, but he said 'yes'. Although… It took him hours to explain to me that he was half-human. He tried to explain other things but he couldn't because of his condition; he couldn't write or draw and much less speak. He gave up on the explanation and we never talked about it again."
"So, you never asked him how he was when human?" Victor asked with a bit of suspicion.
"No…I was waiting for him to speak and move better..." Nero answered quickly. "But I would be lying if I say I never tried to imagine…"
-a brief pause-
Nero giggled when he remembered about a silly thing.
"We.. we made up a 'special handshake' if he returned to be human when I wasn't looking…" he said with an embarrassed smile. "I never forgot how it was -sigh"
(Hell)
"It was very difficult to live around a demon-infested forest with a dependent child, a debilitated body and the Order of the Sword hunting us down," Vergil said sadly.
His face became sadder and more tears started to form as he continued to speak
"But he was someone I swore to myself I would protect", he said fiercely but still with a sad tone in the voice.
Vergil quickly cleaned his tears, expecting that his brother hadn't noticed them. But even sitting a bit behind him, Dante could tell by his movements what was happening.
"I tried to teach him what I knew of sword and fist fighting, fortunately whenever we touched each other and some kind of...lights...? I guess, appeared around us, I only had to think about the theory and he would learn right away, he just had to practice."
"While the time was passing I could feel Mundus' magic fading away veeeeeery slowly... as if I was being purified somehow. My body was getting back to normal, I wasn't feeling that much pain anymore, sometimes I even felt nothing wrong… but I was still a mess."
Dante dry swallowed a bit audible; that was more proof of Sync, a Parent and Child or Siblings of same parents exclusive stuff. A little brother of them the kid couldn't be, so the only possible conclusion was a child from Vergil.
Confused, Vergil turned back after hearing his brother's nervous noises. Dante couldn't hide his anxious face, that gave to Vergil a very suspicious feeling.
Dante then giggled nervously, "sorry, keep going…"
Vergil stared at him with skepticism, but he continued the story either way. "There were some moments I… I just wanted to hold him closer… comfort him with gentle strokes and give him kisses in the head."
He then wrapped his arms around his chest, like demonstrating a hug, while he made a face of joy and he said with a tender voice: "I wanted to tickle him to make him laugh… Play silly children activities like hide-and-seek…I wanted to read bed-time stories for him, cooking him food… and so many other things…sigh..."
His face was of pure happiness, that kid was very precious to him; thinking about the good times they passed together was one of the few ways for Vergil to be able to smile, a discreet but honest and pure smile of happiness.
Dante finally came to a concrete realization and interrupted Vergil: "You mean… The things mom used to do for us?" he asked, expecting a certain reaction.
Vergil stopped to think for a brief moment; his brother was right. Everything he wished to be able to do was everything he remembered what their mother did for them.
He turned to look at Dante, his face was of surprise, he never related the things like that before. It was when Dante knew that his brother had some parenting instincts and love hidden somewhere inside him. He just needed a chance to put them into practice.
But the problem was: what if Baby is Nero? Vergil had hurt the most precious person in his life for his "more-power-quest"? And how both parts would react when they discover they already knew each other?
Should he tell Vergil his thoughts? Tell him the deep details about Sync, since he seemed to not know them? Dante saw himself in a very complicated and delicate crossroads.
"I think...I understood why you called him 'baby'" Dante said calmly, trying to keep his anxiety away.
"Ahn?" Vergil blurted. "That was a misunderstanding, to be honest: a few days after I invited him to stay with me, he asked if I would give him a name. My debilitated mouth and tongue didn't let me speak a single comprehensive word. I tried to say 'maybe', but he understood 'baby', and no matter what I tried there was no way I could either speak or he understood me. So, we stuck with 'Baby'".
Dante surely wasn't expecting that; the disappointment had hit him like a truck, he was expecting something cute, something special… but no, it was just a misunderstanding.
"But… Why… "wanted"? You weren't able to do a single thing of that?" Dante asked, even already knowing the answer.
Vergil's joy quickly vanished, as if Dante just had stabbed him on his back. "How could I? In that state?! Even after all that time, we passed together, in the end, I could not even speak or see him clearly. The maximum I could do was hold him closer and nothing else."
They passed a few seconds in silence until Dante came with the worst question he could have done about that subject: "Well… what happened with the kid then?”
Vergil's soul left his body at that moment. Only to think about it made him visibly depressed. He started to stare at the void, his eyes had no shine anymore as if he just died that moment.
(Void)
"He used to teach me how to sword fight and also how to fight bare hands. I learned all the basics with him… although… I don't know how, but when that lights appeared, I used to instantly know about whatever he wanted to teach me." Nero explained, with a bit of confusion on his tone.
“Sometimes I had those… ‘de-sync breakdowns’… but being with him helped me endure the pain… I don’t know how that happened…but somehow it hurt him a bit as well. With time that stopped to happen and only came back a few weeks ago nowadays."
Now even Nico and Kyrie were with the feeling that Monster was in fact, Vergil. Everything Nero was describing matched with the description of Sync Victor gave to then early.
Nero giggled remembering every good moment he passed with his best friend. "When he was feeling good, we used to go to the city late at night and steal stuff. Clothes for me, food, cover sheets, and so on. Hehe. When he was in a good mood, rare times, we used to steal food from delivery guys, especially the ones from pizzerias. Or even watch TV from the windows of some houses… I could watch something, I don't know about him. I remember he loved to hear me reading books to him too… He always wanted to try to read them too, but he definitely couldn't because of his wounded eyes… - sigh."
"Why did you call him Monster?" Nico questioned, quite curious about.
"I don't know exactly, I just started to call him like that… Nowadays I think it's quite an ironic name… he only looked like a monster… but he was more human with me than every actual human I ever met…"
"He was so affectionate…" he said with a smile. "Not at the very beginning, he turned with time. He liked to hold me closer, especially during bedtime. He tried to do some gentle moves like… stroke or pat my head, but his size and lack of better control of his moments didn't let him do that so well…"
"... he even made up a clicking noise to pretend it was a kiss… sigh…"
"But… what happened to him?" Victor asked, taking off Nero's happiness from his face. That was the worst question someone could make about the monster.
Then, both Nero(at Void) and Vergil(at Hell) started to recall and talk about that fateful day:
Fortuna - back to 13 years ago - 04:00 AM
Baby and Monster were sneaking their way through the city, going in the direction of the port area.
Monster was wearing a dirty cloak, he was almost the size of a tall human by that time, although his large horns made a weird shape on the cloak’s hood. Since his body was almost proportional now, he was able to walk on his legs, only needing an improvised cane Baby made using hardwood to support himself standing.
Baby was at the end of his childhood, around twelve years old. He was wearing some humble clothing that he stole from a shop and on his backpack, also stolen, he was carrying the few material things they had. On his waist, it had a badly forged iron sword, a failed attempt to recreate a katana that he made among Monster.
When the Port got on sight, Baby whispered, "Finally! We need to get into one of those big commercial ships and we will finally get out of this hell.
They both went slow and silent through the darker areas of the place, contouring every lamp post and the one or two workers they spotted. Until they reached a medium-sized cargo ship; an uncommon kind of commerce ship that docks on Fortuna's Port bringing special products from the continent.
"Now we just need to get in thought the anchor" Baby whispered excitedly.
But before he gave the next step, Monster gently touched his shoulder calling his attention to him. Baby turned at him visibly confused but when he saw the gesture Monster was doing he understood what it was: he was calling him for a hug.
Baby could tell that his friend was trying to smile, Monster had to kneel to look at him eye to eye and his arms were stretched toward him, calling him closer.
Nero didn't get why that right now, but he didn't question, he went straight to the hug. They hugged tightly and tenderly and the time seemed to have stopped, they were enjoying every second of that comforting hug. Monster felt his heart warming, that feeling of seeing Baby happy was indescribable. While Baby was immeasurable happy about how much his friend got better.
They didn't want that moment to end, it was the first time they were able to do a decent hug, even if Monster's arms weren't totally recovered. Monster was even purring like a big cat for much of Baby's fun.
"Thank you...I love you Monster, you're my hero." Baby said from the bottom of his heart.
Those words were going to get stuck on Monster's mind forever, but it was him that wanted to say that most.
'No… you that saved me, my baby… I love you too' Monster thought. But he was so desperate to say such words that he tried to talk, unfortunately his vocal cords and tongue haven't healed enough and he could only mumble mostly random demonic noises and a syllable or two.
"it's okay…" Baby said when he noticed his friend's despair. "I can't wait for your mouth and neck to get better so we can have actual talks" he giggled.
"Let's go" he called him, gesturing for them to keep walking.
Once they were side by side with the anchor's huge chains, Baby said quite confidently: "Are you rea-?" he suddenly was interrupted by a loud painful screaming from Monster.
When he turned, he couldn't believe his eyes, Monster got stabbed on his back by a silver sword that pierced through his chest. It wasn't the same sword type the Order's Knights used.
The sword slightly opened its blade in the middle like a jaw and quickly drained Monster's energy, making him scream in pain again.
"MONSTER!" Baby shouted with all his strength.
He sprinted to help his friend, but twenty or more Order's Knights jumped out from inside the crates that were closer to the ship.
"The Order?! How?!" Baby yelled in panic. All those years living hidden from them, how they finally found the double?
The silver sword got out of Monster's body quickly; the fatigue caused by the energy drain made his -already unstable- body fall to the ground. Behind him, it had a woman in the Order's Knight uniform, the hood and low light were hiding her face and she was holding another sword, of the same look, on her other hand.
"Finally found you, you brainless beast," she muttered. "What's your problem in dying?"
Baby ran towards his friend's body on the cold metal floor of the dock, he was bleeding tremendously. He didn't have time to think about what that sword did to him. The moment he got closer Monster was still conscious, but he was weak once again.
Baby was on the edge of freak out: "No. No. No. No. No! You just got so much better! Why?!"
He tried to help him get up, but two Knights rapidly dragged him away from Monster. They quickly turned his hands to his back and wrapped his pulses together with a silver rope that had some strange runes written on it - immediately he felt his strength being drained and he kneeled tired as if he had just trained for the entire day.
"NO! Monster!" He shouted, feeling even his breath getting heavier.
Monster was feeling weak because of the energy drain, he felt the same tiredness he had years ago. But this time there wasn't pain aside from the stabbing on his chest, he could do that, he MUST and he WILL protect his child.
He started to concentrate strength on his arms to get up, his almost fully regenerated wings opened wide to intimidate the Knights, revealing his demonic body under the cloak, they also now had a blue glow inside that helped to illuminate just a little the place.
The woman with the pair of odd swords rolled her eyes before going straight to stab Monster's left hand against the floor. He didn’t scream but his face was of real pain.
She stabbed his hand so strong that the sword got stuck on the metal floor, with the strength he had left he couldn’t take his hand out of the place so quick and easy, dragging him into the beginning of insanity.
He roared scared, kinda telling Baby to run away.
Baby tried to untangle from the Knights' tight grips: He jumps and shakes his body, fighting to get free… But the ropes had cut off all of his strength and the Knights were being able to hold him like a normal kid. All that effort only made him more breathlessly.
Under all that stress he could only think: "What's going on with me?! If I don't do something they will kill him! He's not one hundred percent yet!”
Monster realized that Baby wouldn't get out on his own, he tried to get his hand out of the sword trapping, with no results. The only way would let the sword cut its way through his hand for he can get out, leaving his left hand useless for the moment.
"Spare me of this shit…" the woman said, annoyed by the attempts of the double to get out of that situation through the last minute.
"Listen, you piece of shit!" She called Monster's attention. "If you come with us in peace, we won't do anything with the kid."
She gets very close to him and whispers, for only him to hear it: "I know you can understand me… Nelo Angelo."
Her last two words made his blood boil.
Hear that name again triggered nightmares and traumas that he already had suppressed years ago thanks to his life with Baby.
Monster roared loudly and in despair, just for the fact that the woman had that information, she was surely dangerous and probably somehow knew Mundus.
He goes fully charged with his right arm at her, his claws ready to slaughter, but she could easily dodge by kneeling.
Monster barely could move his chest to turn around because of his stuck hand.
He threw his body forward, his mouth was wide open to get her.
Unfortunately, the woman was countless times faster than him.
He got close enough to take a piece out of her, but he had bitten the air. She did a high jump over his head and landed on his back, going down with everything she got and smacking his chest against the metal floor.
For some reason, she hated Monster and that could easily be seen in her vicious eyes.
With the other sword she had in her hands, she began a quick yet cruel multiple stabbing on his back.
The sword had not just pierced him, but it also drained his energy and magic at every stab.
Baby screamed in pain so loud that he almost lost his voice. Monster could do nothing either except shout in pain.
"STOP! STOOOOOOOP!" Baby screamed in panic and started to cry uncontrollably, that was the only thing he could do in that situation.
The woman jumped off from Monster's back, her sword dripping his blood as well her leggings and cape dirty with it as well. She took off the sword from his left hand and stabbed in his right hand, but he couldn't move anymore, he returned to zero all over again.
"WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?! YOU ARE THE MONSTER HERE, YOU SCUM!" Baby shouted with his most honest anger and panic towards the unknown woman.
Baby couldn't see her face but could feel her stare at him. The pressure was immeasurable, but it hasn't shaken him anyway.
She made a hand signal to one of the Knights to let the kid go. At the moment they had taken off the rope from his pulses, he ran away towards his friend - his face was completely wet with his desperate tears.
"Monster! Monster please… no… you have to get out of here!" Baby cried in panic, trying to help him get up.
But he was so weak… again. He tried to give his arms some strength the maximum he could, but the energy-draining made that an impossible task.
The woman pulled Baby, holding on the neck collar of his jacket, with ease away from Monster.
Very close to losing his conscience, Monster kept trying to get up and even charge some magic to help Baby. Unfortunately, all of his efforts were useless, he was already out of battle.
Baby couldn't speak, he only could stare at the image of his best friend dying in front of him and he couldn't do a thing about it.
Mentally, Monster was in a total panic, his body and magic weren't responding to his commands anymore, but he kept trying to get up anyway.
"AAAAAH!"
Monster had a bad vision, but he could see and understand what happened right in front of him: Baby was stabbed in the chest by the woman and a few blood drops had fallen on Monster's face.
The sword then electrocuted him with a deadly high voltage: "AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!"
Monster's heart and soul slowly started to die together with Baby.
"You two can't stay together, that's not how it's supposed to work," she told him drily and dreadfully while she threw Baby's dead body in the ocean.
Monster died inside together with the sound of the “splash” of Baby’s body in the water.
The Knights could easily chain him up and take him to a big vehicle, transporting him to the Order's Headquarters after that.
Through a few years, the Order used him and the pieces they found of his armor to create their Angelos. They thought they were draining his magic, although, somehow he managed to hold the most he could his own magic and he made them drain all of Mundus' corruption out of him.
That nearly had the cost of his life, but he was able to regain his full consciousness and "original form" at a high cost.
One day we faked his death and was able to flee from the facility in a killing spree. That happened a few weeks before the Fortuna incident.
Through the next years, he lived that moment of Baby's death over and over, corrupting him from inside out; making him realize once again how weak he was, that he didn't deserve a human life or either love. His human side was only responsible for his and his loved ones suffering and that he had to return for his search of power because of his weakness and this time… no matter what, even if that meant discarding a part of himself.
Meanwhile, Baby survived the stab of that day and found himself on a shore later, still at Fortuna.
He went to live around the outskirts of Fortuna for a long time, attacking and sometimes even killing by accident every Knight he spotted on the path between the city and the Order's headquarters. He questioned every single one of them about Monster, but none of them knew what he was talking about.
Until he attacked Credo, that had an idea about what he was looking for.
Credo and Kyrie's parents accepted Baby to live among them since he had white hair and some connection with demons, very similar to the description of the figure they worshipped: Sparda.
Unfortunately, a few weeks later they got killed by a demon, thus, bringing the "demon magnet curse" back to haunt Baby.
He then joined the Order with the only intention of getting good equipment and to get inside the HQ to look for Monster.
A few weeks before the incident with the Savior, Credo was able to bring for Baby, in secret, a copy of documents talking about Monster… only for him to discover that his best friend had died.
Void Realm - Pitch Black City: Back to the present
Kyrie had to finish the story from Nero's "death" in front since she knew it as well, all because Nero was sobbing and sniffing uncontrollably, his tears were too much for he could clean it and he was too shaken to be able to speak.
Nico never expected to feel so sorry for Nero, she was aware he had a tough life, but not that much… Victor was also feeling bad for him, but he had to tell him the truth, the only possible truth. What he didn’t expect was the reaction that was about to come.
They waited in silence nearly an hour for Nero to calm down, it was already very late in the night.
“Nero...” Victor started slowly, breaking the silence. “I don’t think Monster really died…”
Nero raised his head to look at him, he couldn’t understand how Victor got to that conclusion.
“Have you payed attention… on the things you described?” Victor continued calmly. “Be able to feel what the other is feeling… see memories… receive the knowledge from the other…”
Victor’s words weren’t clicking Nero’s memory, he was still a bit shaken with the story.
Noticing that, he decided to be more direct: “You described every characteristic of Sync”
Nero’s brain gears began to work again, Sync was a recent subject Victor explained to him: an exclusive ability of Siblings of the same parents and… Parent and Children exclusive thing.
“No! Wait!” Nero blurted confused. “Ar-Are you… Are you trying to tell me that Monster… - a pause- was Vergil?!”
“I’m sure about that,” Victor said quite seriously, staring at Nero’s eyes.
Nero immediately got up from the seat, scaring Kyrie that was closer to him. His face had changed so quickly as if someone had pressed a switch. He began to yell angrily at Victor for no apparent reason: “VERGIL ISN’T MONSTER! No way that cold-blooded motherfucker is Monster!” he screamed between tears, but this time tears of anger.
“Dude! Chill! What’s up?!” Nico yelled scared with his reaction.
“Why are you in denial?!” Victor questioned, keeping his calm and serious posture. “Can’t you see that everything you said described Sync perfectly?”
“NO!” Nero shouted angrily.
Kyrie could see some sparks starting to blink around Nero, but before she was able to say anything Victor went first: “Why then?!” he yelled confused.
Nero took a deep breath and concentrated all his anger and depression on his next words and tears: “I’M NOT THE BASTARD CHILD OF A DEMON!”
And immediately after those words of sorrow, he started to bleed through his eyes, nose and mount at an alarming quantity. He lost control of his body and fell off the ground, shaking so much as if he was having a convulsion.
Only Kyrie could see the mess of blue and red bolts circling around Nero: “Oh my God! He’s desyncing again!” she shouted scared and instinctively rushed to help him out.
“Kyrie! Wait!” Nico shouted, but it was too late.
The moment she touched him, purple and white energy strings came out of her and touched his energy streams. At exactly the same moment, his energies repealed hers away, sending Kyrie a few steps backward.
“Are you a demon?!” Victor shouted quite surprised. “Or a half demon?! - he quickly turned to Nico - “You said she was human!”
Hell - at same moment
The situation got quite awkward between Dante and Vergil.
Vergil was holding his feelings the maximum he could, he was even holding his breath to do so, his body was shaking of so much tension and a tear or other was going down his cheeks, his face was red of stress.
“Ah… That’s why you did that then…” Date said low, finally understanding what initially motivated his brother to go after the Qliporth and throw away his human half.
There was no way Vergil’s uneasy and tension could pass unnoticed. Dante started to feel sorry for his brother like he never thought he would; Vergil lost the most precious person in his entire life. Baby was his savior and he barely could do something to help him in return.
The way Vergil was holding himself made Dante recall how he felt that day; Yeah, that fateful day he couldn't hold Vergil to destroy his own life. That killing sensation of feeling useless and powerless. The thought of 'everything could be different IF...'
“Bro…” Dante said soft and low, trying to call Vergil’s attention. “Listen… even a Devil may cry when they lose a loved one.”
When Dante thought he couldn’t see his brother more shaken, the inevitable happened: Vergil couldn’t hold anymore, not after his brother’s last words; he started to sobbing and crying in grief. Baby's death was too painful for him: he hugged himself trying to endure the pain and he stuttered uncontrollably many incomprehensive words, he brought his legs closer and assumed a fetal position.
Dante got closer and in an attempt to comfort the desolated man he laid his left hand on his left shoulder. Vergil couldn’t resist and laid his head on his brother’s shoulder; he was crying and sobbing as if Baby just had died that moment and even being a silent crying, he was in pure pain. His chest and shoulders were giving small jumps because of his strong sobbing and hiccups, his lips and jaw were trembling as if he was shivering and his nose was very runny.
“I-I-It-t-t w-as just like… just like that day… - sob- just like… -sob sob- just like that day…! -hic hic!” Vergil cried. “I-I-I I couldn’t protect him! I WAS WEAK! t-t-THE SA-ME SHIiiiT-T! ALL OVER AGAIN! -sob sob... hic- aaaaahh...!”
Dante tried to stroke Vergil’s shoulder to comfort him more, it wasn’t helping that much, but he was trying. He had no idea what to do, he’d never been in a situation like that before. Now… should he tell his thoughts to him? He was more than certain now that Baby is Nero. But how would his brother react? That would help? Would it make it worse? There was only one way to know.
Dante waited for a long time in silence, for his brother to catch his breath back before he could say something again.
For several minutes, if not an hour, Vergil's crying was the only sound around, echoing in their hideout.
“Vergil… Do you remember… that thing… we used to be able to do it when we were kids?” Dante tried to start slow, touching the wound with a bit of care.
“Sob - W-What… - hic - thi-thing…?” Vergil asked, very lost.
Dante got a bit nervous, he didn’t want to go to the point so quick. “You know… that when we touched… we could see each other’s memories, learn what the other learned… and so on…”
“Sob- Th-That thi-ing... -hic- Rose was studying about us - sob - ?” Vergil tried to remember but it was a bit blurry at that moment. “Sob sob - that later I dis-dis-covered -hic- with Vi-Victor that it was… -sob- a demon thing?”
“Yeeeeaaaah…” Dante said a bit awkwardly.
There’s a moment of silence before Dante gets the courage to continue: “Sooo… Have Victor told you everything about that?”
“No -sob- why?” Vergil replied as he raised his head to look at his brother.
Dante let go of him and gave a small distance, afraid of his reaction. “Well then… Victor explained to me… that’s a demon thing like you said… BUT it’s a thing… exclusive to siblings of the same parents… and...”
“And?!” Vergil started to notice Dante’s reluctancy on the subject.
“And a parent and children thing too… and a lot of you described about what used to happen between you and Baby matches with what Victor explained to me....” we said very slowly. “So… I’m afraid that… maybe... Baby…”
“NO!” Vergil understood very fast. “No no no no no no no no no no no! NO!”
“I’m afraid that maybe… Baby was your child all this time… He’s...Nero.” Dante finally said.
Vergil’s soul left his body and returned for a brief moment. Had he hurt Baby for real? Someone that only deserved love and care met his worst? His face became full of total despair and panic, he brought his hands to his head, pressing his fingers against his scalp. The more and more he recalled what he did wrong with Nero the thoughts started to storm his mind like a hurricane. Until he let all the panic concentrated on his gut explode away in a loud despair scream, that even called the attention of nearby demons.
Vergil began to freak out in tears, he was insanely crying in pain that he started to hurt his head with his nails, digging them on his scalp. Dante quickly grabbed him by his arms to hold him still, for he didn't get himself hurt in the middle of his panic.
“Bro! BROTHER!” Dante tried to call. “Easy Vergil!”
Between the heavy sobbing, he could split out a few words. “No no no! -sob sob- I would ne-never -sob- hu-hu-hurt him! - Sob sob”
“You can’t blame yourself for that, man!” Dante attempted to help him get in control. “You thought he was dead, you saw him being killed in front of you and you didn’t know he was a hybrid like us!”
Vergil looked at him, a desperate face and eyes red of so much crying, but he was listening to his brother.
“If you explain to him what really happened I think he will understand.” Dante said, very worried with Vergil.
It was very hard for Vergil to believe that he would be forgiven for such doing, especially the arm literal take off. He couldn’t think clearly about that now, he was too worried that it was very likely he had hurt the most important person of his life.
By now, he laid his head on Dante’s shoulder once more and let go all the tears as possible.
Inside Vergil (figuratively)
The place was close to being dead for real, the sun was hidden behind very heavy dark clouds, the ground was totally dry and crackly and there was a small pool of water at the center of the place. A loud painful crying was echoing very high around that infinite desolated place.
It was V, crying uncontrollably as he stared at a very small dying flower, smaller than his fingers, with another one starting to blooming at the side. He got his arms, legs and neck chained to a dead tree stump in front of the pool that had scorched marks at the roots. Although the chains were heavy, he could move his members. He was wearing the same clothes as Vergil and his hair and facial hair was purely white now.
Urizen was sitting behind the stump, he was quiet, only listening to V’s painful crying.
V kneeled to the little flowers that were at his side, with the point of his fingers he gently touched the dying flower, and raised it a little.
“My little one.. -sob- my little little one…. - sob - I’m so sorry… -sob sob- I’m so sorry for having hurt you… - sob - my baby…!”
To be continued...
#forgotten sins story#devil may cry#devil may cry 5#Vergil#Dante#dmc5 nero#nerokiri#dmc5 nico#original character#fanfic
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Trigger warning: gaslighting, cheating, possible COCSA
I am seeking: support and validation
In about the 7th grade I was struggling with feeling like my friends loved me and didn’t think I was an annoying burden on them and I fucked up big time in that current relationship. I had already felt like an outsider in my own friend group and my own closer inner circle right before school was ending. And to not beat around the bush I had cheated on my at the time partner and hated myself for it. I also can’t talk to the person who I cheated on them with anymore because I feel gross and tainted from the experience, looking back I didn’t want to do it either. I kept feeling pressured to keep going and I just couldn’t say no but I also couldn’t say yes to them. when I finally came out about that night I lost everything. I had a semi-close friend and partner of one of my inner circle friends gaslight me for the entire summer. Or at least, I think they gaslit me, every time I use that word I feel like a fraud. I can feel my own brain invalidate me and I can’t stop it and it kills me inside. I had lost contact to all those friends, even my inner circle childhood friends for months, hating myself every minute and making amends to my partner (which we had fully come together and patched everything up for months after the incident) while still having that one person chatting in my ear bringing up the incident time after time but I kept reaching out because I was just so lonely and desperate. And the one time I reached out to the others and they welcomed me back they swooped in and kicked me out and made me vulnerable again to their abuse. I felt like an irredeemable villain for that, I still flinch mentally when people bring up cheating even on the internet in passing posts because I feel that guilt rise in my gut and I hear their words over again. I know I fucked up and I can’t escape it but I was also just a kid, I knew it was wrong I know I knew it was wrong but it kills me that they chose to make my private fuck up their personal play ground to abuse me mentally. I reconnected with my close circle again too, when school started back up, they asked me why I hadn’t come back, they told me about how they missed me and missed hanging out with me. I felt sick at that moment, I wish I had gone back, I wish I had never done that in the first place but I know I can’t change that. I lost touch with the other people, I lost touch with most of my old friends once I started Highschool. I don’t regret leaving them for the people I have now, I’m kinda coming to terms that I didn’t like them all too much in the first place. I have newer, better friends now and they’ve helped push me to ask for support from a therapist which ive gotten. I don’t think I can tell my therapist about the cheating or the abuse though, I don’t think I could handle their reaction. I imagine them shaming me even if I know that’s not what would happen. I think that I imagine it like that because of the experience I had that summer. I wish I knew how to escape these memories.
Cheating doesn't magically turn someone into a bad person. One action does not define your entire life, especially when you didn't want it to happen. You are not an irredeemable villain. My partner had an affair 2 years ago. And yes, it sucked a lot and was traumatic for me. I still don't think he's a bad person. He's a good person who made a bad choice. And after making that bad choice, he worked hard to make better choices in the future. That says more about his character than the affair.
I would never wish abuse on him, because he doesn't deserve it. Even if he wasn't remorseful about it, he still wouldn't deserve abuse. And you don't deserve the way you were treated by your friends after what happened, either. Nobody deserves to be treated like that no matter what they did.
I'm glad you have newer, better friends, and I do think that getting support from a therapist could be helpful. It can be hard to find a therapist who might be able to help, but you should be able to book a free consultation phone call with a therapist and that is a good chance to ask about whether they're comfortable discussing cheating and setting their own personal moral judgments to provide support to someone. You deserve compassion and support for the horrific way your "friends" abused you, and for being in a situation where you felt you couldn't say no (and being left with guilt over it).
- Mod Allison
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family meeting
A/N: this was requested by anon, I hope you enjoy! Sorry it took so long, I’ve been sporting a pretty bad migraine for the past couple of days. Let me know what you think!
Summary: Can you do one where Richie has a daughter and Eddie meets her for the first time and she put up a fight to make Eddie think she’s doesn’t like him
Richie’s sudden departure flabbergasted you, more so because he didn’t give you any warning or explanation why, only that it was a friend emergency and that the only option was for him to go. The way his voice cracked down the line when you called him in a panic solidified the fact that something bad occurred. With a promise that you would take care of yourself and a final I love you, he disconnected the call, leaving you in disarray.
After two days he contacted you again, this time to inform you that he was on his way back home, and that he had a certain type of friend with him that he wanted you to meet.
You’ve been aware for a long time that your father is gay, not thanks to Richie himself, but thanks to the fact that you’re not an idiot, the context clues painting a clear enough picture that it’s obvious without him having to utter the actual words. Richie remained quiet at all times about this fact, and so you did as well. Richie refrained from bringing any girlfriend home with him, though you heard about his conquest from gossip tabloids anyway. The overabundance of ‘my girlfriend’ and ‘your mom’ jokes obviously an effort to hide his true self, even from his daughter.
A sneaked glance every once in a while led you to believe that Richie knows you know his secret, but any conversation you attempt to begin about it gets shut down faster than a blink, and so despite hating it, you started to accept that your father may never be ready to reveal every single thing of his being, always locking away that part he feels is most revolting.
That’s why it’s such a surprise that Richie reveals he’s bringing a friend along, for you perceived that the empathizes on the word friend means that said ‘friend’, is perhaps more than Richie would prefer you to understand.
A hushed conversation draws your attention, peering outside your bedroom window to spy on the first person your dad allowed you to meet. You don’t dare to draw up the curtain, to avoid getting spotted, so your view is limited, but you watch as Richie opens the door of the passengers seat, like a real gentleman he never bothered being to previous lovers.
He pauses for two seconds, then bends down to presumably say something, his hand egging the person out like a cat that gets shuffled away, until his hand is slapped and Richie retracts it with a laugh.
Richie’s laugh is loud enough to be picked up on from the second floor, holding his hands up in surrender and making way so that his friend has room to get up himself. The first thing that is noticeable, even with your obstructed vision, is that the man is sporting a scowl, so terribly annoyed and done with Richie’s shit that he is at the point that he apparently doesn’t energize enough to cover up. You can relate, since you are no exception to your dad’s ability to drive people crazy.
Luckily or unlucky depending on your point of view, such a feature is inheritable, and by god do you use it to your advantage.
Richie slides his arm across the lower back of the man, pulling him close enough that they’re taunt against each other. The man pretends to wriggle away, but as soon as Richie loosens his grip he grabs his arm and places it neatly back where it belongs.
The angry frown lines vanish, replaced by a thoughtful look that captivates Richie, and the emotion behind the stare tells you exactly one thing, your dad and the man are absolutely smitten with one another.
Your feet tick loudly on the wooden boards on the floor as you bolster down the stairs in anticipation of your dad coming home.
The door opens and before Richie has the opportunity to greet you, you tug him into an embrace, your hands fisting the fabric of his shirt in an iron grip.
‘Hello pancake, I missed you.’ Richie says, hugging you back equally as fierce.
‘I missed you too’, you admit softly, not yet stepping out of the way and making room for his friend to come in, simply because your sole focus is on your father.
‘Don’t you ever do something like that again old man’, you threaten with a steel voice, ‘or I will shorten your curfew, don’t you try me.’
Richie chuckles, shaking his head solemnly, and lifting one hand in an oath motion, ‘I wholeheartedly swear I will never commit such a hanus crime ever again.’ He promises, a British accent coating his words in his intended way.
‘Holy shit your voices have gotten better.’
‘Told you Eds.’ Richie declares proudly as he turns to face his friend, the both of you stepping aside so his friend can walk in.
The man standing in the hallway beside your father had to be the most uncomfortable person you had ever seen. He shuffles from one leg to the other, filled with a nervous energy and no way to get rid of it.
‘Hey, my name’s Eddie’, he says lumbersome, one of his hand tucked stiffly in his back pocket, the other doing a vague motion of a halfway wave.
You cock an eyebrow up, tilting your head slightly sideways to absorb the smaller man, watching as he looks to Richie for guidance. He’s a lot smaller than your dad is, with him barely reaching his shoulders, but from their interaction outside, you determine that he’s a fire cracker who has no problem pointing out things as they are. You like him already. You must be somehow intimidating though, he’s barely able to hold eye contact with you for over two seconds, and the figure of speech of someone shaking in their boots is no longer only figuratively.
You try hard to keep your smirk hidden at the prank that is forming in your mind, a little messing with someone has never seemed so appealing. Besides, if this man plans to date Richie, he needs to know what he’s getting himself into.
‘Hi’, you draw out, imitating the movement from the man to taunt him a little.
‘Look at you, you look just like your dad’, Eddie tries to strike up a normal conversation, pulling out all the cliches. You vaguely wonder if he spend his time reading through a parenting book on the way here.
‘I resemble a forty year old, single comedian guy? Thanks for the flattery.’ Eddie fake smile slides of his face, producing a gawky chuckle to hide the unease that’s very clearly present.
‘Okay now that’s just cruel Y/N, I am so much more than that. Try handsome, successful and courageous.’
‘Courageous? Dad, eating a rotting hot dog is not courageous but plain stupid.’
The two of you stare off, provoking the other to add another comment, but then Richie knacks the tension by lolling his tongue out, a laughable face resulting in you laughing.
‘Now that I’ve reestablished my roll as funniest in this family, this is Eddie. Eddie Spaghetti is an old friend from Derry.’
He points to Eddie, then slangs his arm around his shoulders, tapping a melody into his shoulder blade and throwing a grand smile his way.
Eddie swirls around to face him, his eyebrows drawing in close and his mouth opening in protest. ‘Don’t fucking call me that dickwad.’
A dark red color spreads across his entire face, peeking a glimpse of you from the corner of his eyes, gauging your reaction. You summon all the willpower you posses to stave off the hearty laugh bubbling up right beneath the surface, maintaining an perfectly poker face.
‘Nice’, you eventually say as it becomes clear that Eddie is flabbergasted at the way he said that right in front of you.
Richie eyes twinkle in amusement, catching up to what your intentions are. ‘I’m craving food, you want some too Eds?’
‘I-I guess I could eat’, Eddie stammers nervously, shutting his mouth with an audible click to stop the anxious word stream threatening to let loose.
‘I’ll get some food, Y/N can show you around okay?’
Richie begins his journey to the kitchen, and Eddie, only now realizing that would mean he’s left alone with you, attempts to grab Richie’s sleeve. He misses by an inch, and he dejectedly drops It back down and whips his clammy hands on his jeans.
You smile slightly devious, the fact that Eddie throws his all in getting you to like him is pretty entertaining.
‘So childhood friends huh?’ You inquire, leaving the task of getting to know the house up to Richie. You doubt Eddie would appreciate you showing him around the house while interrogation him, at least if Richie leads him around they have an opportunity to create new memories.
‘Yeah’, Eddie response, not elaborating further on the topic.
‘You guys weren’t very close then, he never once mentioned you, and you guys didn’t keep in touch in either?’
‘No we were best friends as kids’, Eddie defends tempestuous, though he bites his tongue and urges to hit himself over the head because of his stupid admission. He comes up blank with explanations why they forgot about each other, and there was no way in hell that he elucidates the Pennywise situation.
Thinking back to old days during which Richie and him rode their bikes in a race, or running to the edge of town to locate the beginning or end of a rainbow in hopes of finding a pot of gold triggers a protective side in him, and Eddie sets his heart out to convince you how much he appreciates all those short moments that meant nothing to them back then.
‘Richie bought me a slushie once, than after we finished it he proceeded to turn us around on a UFO ‘till we both threw up. Before we left that day he got another one anyway. The heaten deprived of self-preservation even then.’
You give him a pass and decide to forgo the subject, smiling with crinkled eyes, the first genuine one you grant him since he arrived, because that does remind you a lot of your dad.
Eddie perks up, his back straightening and allowing his hands that cramped up by his side to relax in retaliation.
‘On to the real though questions, what do you do for a living? Are you planning to sleepover a lot? Are you accepting of all his quirks.’ You fire off rapidly, acting like a parent interrogating the first partner they bring home, which may or may not be payback to the time where Richie humiliated you in front of your classmates at prom.
Eddie blanches, reforming his scattered brain and considering what questions to answer first. You add one more for the hell of it; ‘How did my dad and you reconnect?’
It’s confusing, the duality between angst and pensiveness that strikes Eddie’s face, making you wonder what the story behind all of this is.
‘Y/N, get your ass over here and help me please’, Richie calls out from the kitchen, so out of nowhere it spooks you.
You sneak a peek at Eddie, then the door frame, and wondering if you said something wrong and if you should leave Eddie alone in this state. Another yell of your name decides for you, darting out of the room and hurrying beside Richie, halfway done with peeling an orange.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ You snort, unimpressed with the obvious attempt to appear healthier than he really is.
Richie gazes up in surprise as if he didn’t call to you, but then he shrugs. ‘Eds obsessed with these, so I’m giving it a go.
‘An orange? It’s a fruit dad and not even an exotic one. Lying isn’t a good feature, I know you zeal for it as well.‘
‘Okay little miss, hid the attitude and help your old man. I aided you in changing diapers and stuff, now it’s your turn to step up.’ A squirt of orange juice trickles from the side of the tabletop, staining your dad’s shirt and leaving a spot you’re sure is not going to wash out.
Refusing to acknowledge his stupid claims, you were a baby for god sakes, you snatch another orange and strip it from it’s shell, demonstrating to your dad how it’s done without massacring the fruit.
‘Thanks, I knew there was a reason I had you. Also lay of Eds a bit, the lasted for ages and you’re scary if you set your mind to it.’, Richie expresses his gratitude by planting a kiss on your your temple leaving residue of the orange he apparently wielded with his mouth behind.
You wipe at it with the bottom of your sleeve excessively, removing as much as you can.
‘Like you don’t find it funny to mess with him.’
‘Fair,’ Richie admits’, you coming?’ He asks right before he leaves the room, holding the door open and clutching the orange and a few napkins in the remaining hand.
‘I’m going to grab my own fruit and I’ll be right there. Oh and dad?’ Richie nods, listening intently to you.
‘I love you no mater what. There’s nothing you can say, do,’ you pause to let the words really sink in, ‘or be that change that. My love for you in unwavering.’
His eyes turn wet, and he stares far off-ish taking in your words, sniffling and then swallowing past the lump in his throat.
‘Thank you’, he remarks, letting the door pound shut as he shuffles Eddie’s way.
Smiling to yourself, you pause and count to five in your head, persuading yourself that you should not snoop on your dad and his potential boyfriend, but the curiosity wins over. You stagger to the door, unlatching it from the lock, and generating a peep whole that allows you to eavesdrop.
‘Really Richie? What about a plate or something to eat this on? All the juice is going to spill on the floor and it will be disgusting and dirty and you’ll have to clean it up.
‘Relax Eds, it’s no big deal. Just be careful and I’m sure you can avoid sloshing.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Eddie challenges, ‘so you didn’t obtain that speck be peeling it?’
Richie must be debating if it’s worth it to lie or not, and concludes that lying to Eddie is never a good idea. He sighs exaggerated and stomps his feet like a petulant child.
‘Fine your majesty Spagheds, you’re lucky I love you.’
‘Don’t fucking call me that Rich.’
Instead of moving away from the door, you freeze, the words your dad uttered repeating themselves in your head. Never in a million years did you think the day was going to go like this, with your dad proclaiming adoration to a guy he forgot to hint at to you, but you’re weirdly okay with it.
Richie laughed more now then ever with someone other than you, and if Eddie pitched in Richie’s happiness, you accept him already.
The entryway unrolls, you jumping away in the nick of time before hitting you full in the face. You stare up at Richie sheepishly, twinkling at him with innocent eyes.
‘Snooping much, buttercup?’
‘I learned from the best.’
You walk back with him to the living room Eddie sits in and watch as your father hands over the plate. He’s leaning against the backrest and showing sings of tranquility, but when he notices you his posture goes rigid, nervously balling his hands up by his sights.
You snicker, deciding to put the poor man out of his misery and finally welcome him into your home.
‘Do you hate his stupid nicknames as much as I do?’ You ask him, finding common ground to strike up a conversation.
‘Yeah they’re the worst.’ Eddie admits, decomposing at the turn of events.
‘Eum I’m seated right here. Is this how it’s always gonna be? You two ganging up on me?’ Richie whines.
Peering Eddie’s way, the both of you nod excitedly.
‘Yeah it is.’
#x reader#richie tozier imagine#eddie kaspbrack#eddie imagine#reddie imagine#reddie x daughter#daughter reader#richie x reader#eddie x reader#richie as a dad#eddie as a dad#My writing
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Sorry if you’ve already answered this but J was wondering if you could talk more the girls childhood/growing up? Love what you’re doing btw, absolutely adore how you’ve basically recreated the Winx world! 💗
Thank you!!! and sure thing! long post ahead
BLOOM: she never really had any problems family wise, Vanessa and Mike told her she was adopted at like…. Age 7 or so (in a positive affirming way obvi) and even if any kids teased her about it she never doubted her parent’s love for her. Even with Daphne’s spell helping her blend in with earth life, Bloom still had a nagging sense she didn’t “fit”, and got lost in fantasy books and art whenever possible. Growing up she deals with some body image issues that probably stem from the whole wrong fit feeling. Bloom grew up an artistic and quiet kid, Mitzi and Selina were her best friends from childhood, and because they both had really strong personalities, Bloom often repressed her own feelings in order to play peace maker. Up until high school, where Mitzi, who was always the leader, slowly started to turn into a bully in order to gain the approval/fear of her peers, targeting Selina specifically. Bloom was more of a follower at the time and just didn’t want to loose her friends so she didn’t stand up to Mitzi but tried to treat Selina as if nothing had changed, which was not cool with Selina and she not-so-subtly started to reject Bloom as a friend. Bloom, for her part, did get her shit together and stand up to Mitzi, loosing her only other friend right before her senior year of highschool (she was still technically friends with Andy but they had also just broken up and everything was awkward lmao). Bloom regrets not standing up to Mitzi sooner, and wants to rekindle her friendship with Selina (and Mitzi if she’s willing to tone down the bitchiness).
STELLA: So Stella’s childhood is a little more complicated. Stella is the first SoLuna heir in Solarian history, and a very loud minority protested her very existence. Stella also had to stay close to the Second Sun of Solaria as a child, so she had a very solitary and confined early childhood in a wing of the Solarian castle. When she did figure out how to sneak out she was only 10 or so, and spent most of the time just wandering around the capital city. She didn’t have any problems in the city, but an off duty guard recognized her and took her back to the palace. Stella was then sent to an elite boarding school under a false name (Sasha), she formed close friends with Nova and Varanda, but the trio was the target of the rest of the school’s bullies (for various reasons). Junior high was peak nerd Stella, but she “princess Diary-ed” herself when starting high school and started placing all of her value in her appearance and status as a sex object. Her parents’ marriage was also starting to crumble and Stella felt like she had lost their love. Because Stella craves validation and affection, this lead to a couple bad relationships because the only way she could get people to “love her” in her brain was through physical intimacy, even if it didn’t really fill the void she felt. Nova and Varanda were her rocks during this period and Stella was able to learn to love herself first with their help. Stella was insanely nervous to leave her friends and go to Alfea, and tried to force friendships with other people originally, (this mostly lead to people thinking she was annoying and getting multiple censures from Griselda), and her first genuine connection on Magix was with “Prince Sky” (Brandon). Nova and Varanda were VERY worried when Stella first told them about “Prince Sky”(Brandon) and how fast they had gotten into a relationship and they may have stalked/threatened him on a visit to Stella but they eventually came around and started to like him. Stella being expelled was only kind of an accident, Varanda texted Stella in the middle of a Chemancy class her application to Alfea for the next year had been accepted and Stella got SUPER excited and blew up the classroom. She probably could have stayed in school but her response to Fraragona and Griselda’s “now what do you have to say for yourself young lady” was *giddy laughter* and “ i only wish the explosion had been big enough to send me forward to next year!!!!!” and griselda was like “either she goes or I go” and Stella was like “ya gurl i gone” of course her time back on Solaria didn’t go exactly as planned as her parents were just fighting every time they tried to do something together making her people pleasing/self blaming tendencies worse.
FLORA: ahhh my baby So Flora does remember her father, not a lot and she feel guilty she doesn’t remember more, but she was only 7 when he died. Alyssa remarried when Flora was 13, and eventually she adjusted to having a younger sister who she loves very much now. Due to Rhodos’s nature preservation needing a lot of room for study Flora and Miele grew up pretty far away from any town and didn’t have a lot of friends. This is primarily why Flora and Miele are so close despite their age difference, and why Flora took her role as protector so intensely; she was the only one there (I mean besides the parents obviously). Flora did well in school though she was quiet and reserved, which made making friends even harder than living in the middle of nowhere. She figured out the best way to make people like her was to give them what they wanted, and this snowballed into Flora becoming kind of doormat not comfortable with voicing her true feelings and faking a lot what people expected from her. Flora has a lot of repressed…… everything (Bloom mostly just has a lot of repressed anger she’s good with other emotions lmao) she has trouble identifying what she’s feeling and for the most part is content to leave her feelings buried as long as the surface remains calm. The Winx do help her start to access her feeling more, and encourage her whenever she does voice an opinion. Helia is a perfect match for her in the sense that his quiet nature leaves Flora to express herself without trying to mold herself into whatever she thinks he wants (of course on the flip side this also means Flora and Helia have issues with communication and repression but that’s another topic).
AISHA: hoo boy another complicated one. Aisha was raised in a strict environment, this mostly stems from her parents and their more…. anxious natures, but royalty on Andros is not as free as some of the other planets. Aisha’s world consisted of lessons and adults and rules and she had very little control over her own life. Aisha met Anne in a rare moment of freedom in the tidal gardens where Anne’s father worked. Anne was biding her time waiting for her dad to get off work so they could grab some dinner and was dancing. Aisha just watched her for a while before Anne noticed her and asked her if she wanted to play. The two formed a fast friendship, and Aisha finally started to feel like she had some sort of influence in her own life as she snuck out of lessons to play with Anne every evening she could(obviously their favorite thing to do was dance lol) Unfortunately Anne and her father disappeared one night. Aisha lost her only friend, the only social outlet she had, her one source of freedom, and couldn’t even figure out what had happened. Feeling so out of control lead to a pretty bad anxiety disorder for most of her teens, primarily triggered by the dark or being trapped in some way. She also has issues trusting others and letting people help her. Aisha started to act out, trying to exert any kind of control and relieve some of her anxiety. Her risk taking behavior got pretty bad, but she had started to tone it down after she met and bonded with Piff(royal business trip to Magix she skipped out on). Of course when the pixies went missing she wasn’t going to let her friendship vanish again and tracked them down with a not so healthy single minded determination.
TECNA: born to higher class parents, Tecna had greatness thrust upon her from an early age. She received extra training and education basically from birth, which she was fine with for the most part. Tecna grew up being able to handle academic pressure very well and met all of her teacher’s and parent’s expectations. She and Riven had a brief collision as preteens in a school before Riven got expelled. Tecna’s one issue was that of her emotional intelligence, Zenith doesn’t really place an emphasis on that, so she was able to advance through high school very predictably until she attended a non-Zenith based workshop for magic. She found herself socially ostracized and very very confused. Of course Tecna had never met a subject she couldn’t master and emotions wouldn’t be an exception right??? Wrong. Zenith’s information about the brain and the chemicals produced was of no help, her teachers and parents didn’t understand why Tecna suddenly had this new interest in such an illogical subject, and worst of all, Tecna realized she didn’t understand her own brain chemicals. Tecna had a mini existential crisis, realized she had no idea what she even wanted to do with her life or why it mattered and applied to the Alfea Fairy program because “FAIRY MAGIC EMOTION MAGIC HELP” also it would offer her strong emotional experiences(transformations basically require it), the opportunity to work closely in groups, and personally obverse her dorm-mates emotional states. She got way more than she bargained for but doesn’t regret it a bit.
MUSA: my angst child T-T so basically, the first half of her childhood is p good, her parents work really hard and don’t always have enough money but the family unit is pretty stable. At around 12, Musa’s mom gets sick. Nobody is too worried at first, but she never seems to get better and she takes a big turn for the worse when Musa is about 16, Matlin is finally diagnosed with Core Failure Syndrome. CFS is similar to Core Fatigue, but while Core Fatigue can be remedied fairly easily with rest and magic, CFS is virtually incurable unless it’s caught really early. The causes are still unknown, and the symptoms (fatigue, nausea, cognition issues, and muscle weakness) can be prolonged but mild until it’s too late. In the later stages (extreme fatigue, numbness in the extremities, chest pain, joint pain, memory/focus issues, inability to keep food down) all you can do is try to make the afflicted comfortable. Ho-boe is understandably distraught, and tries to freelance write for music but goes into a pretty bad depressive state. Musa has a few odd jobs here and there, and thats mostly what’s keeping them afloat among heavy medical debt. Musa latches on to her mother for emotional support as Ho-boe is super dissociated. When Matlin does pass as Musa turns 18, Ho-boe finally breaks, and violently destroys every last reminder of Matlin because he can’t deal with the pain. Musa, who has suddenly had her one emotional anchor cut off, is super freaked out and scared by this and it really damages their relationship going forward. Musa becomes incredibly anxious, and can’t really process her mother's death because her father won’t talk about it with her and is still shut off emotionally. Moving to Magix only worsened it as Musa rebelled and went after music with a desperate passion. Applying to Alfea was a way for Musa to get out of the house, and she and her father weren’t on speaking terms when she did leave for the college. Musa had planned on learning more magic to further her career as a musician, special effects infusing magic into a song rubbing shoulders with rich and well connected people who could possibly get her connected to the big shots in music….. The winx situations had her change some of her long term plans a little, but her connection with the group + her separation anxiety and fierce loyalty didn’t really leave any other choice lol
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A Journal Entry
July 20th, 2021
11:44pm
Trigger Warning:
Sexual Assault, Self Harm,Mental Health, physical health, and occasional swears.
Dear Reader,
I’m only eighteen but I have experienced a lot, and so have many other teens I know. I know at least four of my classmates have been raped at some point in their life. And who knows what others may have been through and I never knew.
But I’m not writing to share their story, unless they decide that they want their story told. As of now, I am writing to share my story.
So, let's start with my earliest memory.
My earliest memory is watching Elmo and Little Bear from my crib in the living room when I was probably a toddler. I don’t remember much, other than enjoying the cartoons. It was happy and innocent. One of the few childhood memories I can look back on and smile.
I was really young when I was first raped. First raped, you caught that part, right? Yeah, I wasn’t raped just once, but multiple times by one man. The man I had grown up calling my father. The man on my birth certificate. I’m not exactly how old I was when it started, but if I had to guess, I was probably in the first or second grade when it went past the occasional groping and lewd comments.
Near the end of third grade, my mother decided to take me and my sibling to live with our grandmother. But that didn’t last long.
We ended up moving back in with our mother and abusive father when I was in fifth grade. I didn’t want to but my father manipulated me into doing so. He threatened to place a restraining order on my grandmother when I wanted to stay with her.
Things were miserable and the abuse continued. But luckily I was able to go back to my grandmother by sixth grade. But I still had to deal with what happened.
I believe my grandmother meant well, but she use to tell me not to let people know what had happened to me. She said that no one would want to be with someone who was raped because a lot of people view them as used or damaged goods basically.
My grandmother was a bit emotionally damaging, though I know she more than likely didn’t know that she was being so. I have reason to believe that she has dementia and possibly a personality disorder.
I remember her saying that I shouldn’t wear plaid or spotted clothing because it would make me look bigger than the broad side of a barn. She also told me to stay away from bright colors because they would have the same effect. I refused to stay away from plaid though, I kept that jacket from middle school until junior year when I could no longer zip it. But it took me a long time to wear bright colors, and it is still hard. I also have a hard time feeling comfortable in my own skin, and not just because of the occasional comment about my weight from my grandmother, but also because of the abuse I had dealt with from my father. I spent the majority of school always wearing jeans, jackets, and dark clothing. I didn’t feel comfortable wearing shorts. And I’m still getting used to wearing them.
I had to go to court in middle school. Someone had apparently turned my father in for what he had done to me (I was living with my grandmother again by then) and we still do not know who reported them. I wish I could thank whoever turned him in.
Sadly, they only gave him three years despite the evidence. And he was only going to have to serve one and a half years because of the amount of time spent in a jail cell waiting for court that kept getting rescheduled. He died of stage four lung cancer though before he was half way through his time.
My freshman year I finally realised I had anxiety and that there was something definitely wrong with me mentally. By my sophomore year, I was self harming and in counselling and diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, PTSD, OCD, and Anxiety. By junior year I was on a lot of medication thanks to a pill happy psychiatrist. And I was miserable. But thankfully, I found a new psychiatrist who quickly helped me get cut down to just one pill. Near the end of junior year, I quit self harming. And I also finally started to get a bit of control over my mania and my depression.
I have a Google Doc somewhere that has over 150 pages of poetry, and the majority of it is about depression, trauma, and anger. And they were all written during middle school and highschool. Writing poetry helped me then. Now, I don’t really write poetry anymore. I have only written a handful of poems within the last year. And they were mostly in Shakespearean English because I thought it would be fun.
I believe I might have religious anxiety. I don’t remember the technical term though. I grew up going to Baptist Churches and had a heavy christian influence. But sadly, Christians aren’t quite as christian as they are supposed to be.
Due to being constantly worried about sinning and about being too filthy and being damned to hell, my depression and anxiety got to me from a different angle. I kept breaking up with everyone I dated if I feared we were getting too close. I would either feel like I wasn’t good enough or I would fear that we would have sex and I would be damned. I also hated myself for my sexuality, though it took me a long time to figure that out. I supported my LGBTA+ friends but when it came to myself, I couldn’t accept myself.
When I self harmed, I would do it because I felt filthy and had this urge to scratch my skin off my body because I never felt clean. I never hurt myself too severely, just scratches and shallow cuts on my wrist and my thigh. But I still found it hard to quit. It became far too easy to always turn to the blade, regardless of if I was feeling filthy or if I was dissociating or if I was having a panic attack.
Despite what had happened to me, I’m finally starting to become me. Even though I am still discovering who I am. I quite self harming, I don’t have quite as many panic attacks or nightmares, I lost my virginity, learned I am demisexual (leaning a bit towards asexuality though) Panromantic and Nonbinary. I also discovered I have some other health issues outside of my mental health. I am apparently allergic to alphagall, peanuts, and wheat. Thankfully I just get slightly sick if I eat those things though, but it is still a bit annoying when those things are basically in everything you like to eat.
I also found out that the reason my menstrual cycle has always been so irregular is because I have cysts. Originally I thought I had PCOS but now after some ultrasounds, it is looking like Endometriosis. I have cysts on my uterus and my ovaries. The doctor told me that my insurance should cover the surgery if I were to get a total hysterectomy.
I never really wanted to give birth so that part of this doesn’t bother me, my fear is that there will be issues from the surgery. And it has also spurred some identity issues. But so far, I am sticking to they/them pronouns. Even though my family still calls me she/her. But I haven’t really come out to them. They know I’m not 100% straight, but who wants to sit down and explain to their grandmother (who dropped out of school in eight grade to care for her grandma, has a flip phone, and just a few years ago decided to accept the lgbt+ part of her family) that I’m nonbinary? I barely manage to explain to my mother (highschool dropout because of pregnancy, has a touch screen phone and understand some things of the current century) that there is more than just straight, gay, and bisexual. I explained to my mother the other day what omnigender and nonbinary is. Had to explain transgender to my mother when I was a junior and introduced her to a friend of mine who was afab but went by he/him pronouns.
I suppose that despite all the shit I’ve been through, at least my mother doesn’t give two flying fucks who I like. When I told her that I thought I was pansexual in middle school, all she did was ask me what that meant. Then she just nodded her head and went with it. Same thing when I decided I was Wiccan in middle school. She even bought me a pentacle necklace and every book (mostly fantasy) that mentioned witches. I no longer identify as Wiccan, I mostly just stick to animist. But my point being, my mother didn’t throw a fit when two of her nine kids came out as gay. Even if she does identify as a Saturday Adventist, she supports us. She even listens to me ramble about mistranslated things in the Bible and my views on theology. And my rants about Supernatural. Though she did laugh when I spent about an hour crying after the Supernatural second to last episode of season 15. She did listen to me rant about Castiel and the plot lines and everything. Though I had to keep explaining some of the characters to her.
Despite the things I’ve been through, I managed to graduate high school, survive my severe depression and anxiety, and now I am thinking about possibly applying for Law school and going to college. And I now also have the confidence to do what I want and wear what I want. Though I still feel all nervous about asking out a girl I’ve been friends with for about three or more years. I’ve now made the excuse to wait and see if she mentions not being completely straight. Oh, and she now has a boyfriend too so yeah, gonna have to wait a bit.
Until next time,
Alois 🐧
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