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crellanstein · 4 years

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Prodigious

I find it odd how the fandom focuses so much on Aang’s childhood being ruined when he learned he was the Avatar at 12, but there’s very little talk about how discovering she was the Avatar as a toddler affected Korra’s life and how she was raised.

But we’ll circle back to that...

Because this is a good starting point to talk about one of the most prevalent themes in the story, which the mainstream discussion of tends to only focus on a few characters -- That is the Child Prodigy.

We’ll start with the two most obvious. The ones we always talk about.

Azula.

The clearest example of your typical child prodigy (if there is anything typical about a prodigy). Azula showed early mastery of very advanced Fire-Bending techniques, and is the only Fire-Bender to use blue flames, which was intended to make her stand out amongst the other villains but is also indicative that her Fire-Bending is more pure and powerful (blue flame is produced when burning pure O2 or fuel without contaminant at a very high temperature).

All this lead to her being praised and favored by Ozai as a child, but as double-edged swords go, this also meant she had a lot of pressure on her shoulders to never fail, and she rarely did. Her ego matched her talent, and let’s be honest she was the baddest bitch the show had ever seen. Conquering Ba Sing Se, defeating the Avatar in combat, and dropping some of the most devastating lines of dialogue in villain history; she was a force nobody wanted to reckon with.

And that become a problem for one asshole in particular...

Being jealous of his own child is just one item on a laundry list of reasons why this guy is the worst father in the history of fathers. Azula had begun to outshine him with her victories, and Ozai’s maniacal ego couldn’t handle that, so he left her behind to babysit the Fire Nation while he went out to burn/conquer the world, which also was her idea.

And while this wasn’t the only thing that aided in her demise, it certainly was the final straw which sent her spiraling down into this...

In the end Azula is a sad example of how certain unfair expectations are placed upon talented children, and the more they succeed, the more these expectations grow and weigh on the them until they either disappoint those looking down on them or surpass and embarrass their elders.

It is a lose-lose situation which inevitably destroys them.

There is a similar example of the child prodigy, but his story goes a little different.

Aang.

Even as a twelve/thirteen year-old boy Aang by far has the most impressive stats among any character in the Avatar universe.

Basically mastering 3 of the 4 Elements in less than a year, after mastering Air by the time he is twelve (not to mention inventing his own Air-bending move, the Air scooter).

Aang is an example of a child prodigy who had too much thrust onto him at too young an age because of the talent he showed; because of this he panicked and ran away, and the world was worse off for it.

Aang/Sokka/Katara’s story is all about how in times of War, responsibilities normally handled by adults are pushed onto kids who then have to grow up very fast in order to deal with it all.

The message is clear. War robs the young of their childhoods.

Now, let’s talk about a different kind of child prodigy.

The Unacknowledged.

Yes, of course I’m talking about Toph, the greatest Earth-Bender to ever live.

Because of her blindness, Toph’s family tried to keep her sheltered and safe by hiding her from the world. Refusing to believe she could ever be more than helpless. Anyone who has seen the show knows that is far from the truth.

But because her potential went unseen, there were some negative effects to her personality. Initially, she resented her parents, and rebelled; which established a certain level of independence, a bad attitude, and a hot-headed streak. Over time spent with the Gaang these behaviors subsided because she finally had friends and they accepted her for who she was. By the end of the series she was fully willing to accept aid from them when she needed it, like holding on to Sokka’s arm in environment where her bending couldn’t help her “see”.

Toph’s story is a foil to Azula’s, both showed immense talent and badassery, but while recognition of Azula lead to ever-mounting pressure for her to succeed; the lack of recognition for Toph created a need for her to be acknowledged and set an undercurrent of frustration which leads to her acting out in the ways she does.

The lesson to take from Toph’s story is not to shelter your kid from the world out of fear for their safety, and to be open to recognizing their talents, not shun them.

Next are two more Unacknowledged.

Katara and Sokka.

Their story, and the reason behind their circumstances, is one of the more complicated and nuanced ones in the series, so here we’ll focus on how it fits into the subject of discussion.

Because of the War, Katara was robbed not only of her mother but also of any Southern Masters to train her, and any role models Sokka could have looked up to left with his father to fight. Because of this Katara’s potential and Sokka’s genius went unacknowledged not due to neglect but rather due to circumstance. (Yes, I think Sokka is a genius, how many 15 yr olds do you know that can plan an invasion, design submarines, and spit poetry off the cuff?).

This is a further example of how War robs kids of necessary childhood experiences, and these two robberies had particular effects on both Katara and Sokka’s character developments.

Sokka had the responsibility of protecting his home put upon him at a young age. The men of his tribe leaving prevented him from completing his rite of manhood until the Gaang ran into Bato of the Water Tribe, and early on Sokka was constantly trying to prove himself as a man and a leader. Sokka is one of the smarter characters of the series, but he rarely got credit for it until the third season. Not to mention that because he wasn’t a bender he often seemed less useful than the others. The circumstances of war made his talent go unnoticed and because of that he often was unsure of himself and overcompensated to prove something.

Speaking of talent going unnoticed.

Katara is definitely one of the more talented benders of the series. After training herself for years with little progress, she essentially mastered Water-Bending in a few weeks under Master Pakku. While her anger towards the Fire-Nation mostly centers around the loss of her mother, it can’t be ignored that the delay in her training was a direct result of the Fire-Nations’ actions. Toph’s anger and frustration vented itself as rebellion. However, the same frustration and anger is within Katara, but because she wasn’t as natural a bender as Toph she sought to learn and be respected, and when that was denied to her is when that anger bubbled to the surface in some terrifying ways.

While Toph’s talent went unnoticed because of her families neglect, Katara and Sokka’s wasn’t acknowledged because there was nobody to acknowledge it. Because of that both brother and sister wanted to prove themselves to the world.

And then there is Zuko.

I know what you’re thinking. Zuko wasn’t a prodigy, his Fire-Bending skill didn’t catch up with Azula’s until the finale and he never mastered Lightning-Bending, but this section is about the Unacknowledged.

Zuko had many other talents besides Fire-Bending, he was a master swordsmen, and was able to successfully break into every secure facility he attempted in the show (which was almost every secure facility the show featured). Unfortunately, these talents were never recognized, because the only thing the royal family cared about was bending ability (It’s possible the reason he learned the sword was because he lacked skill in Fire-Bending).

As per usual with Zuko, this part of his tale is quite sad. Many can relate to being outshined by a sibling, and when it becomes all too clear that one cannot match another’s talent it’s quite understandable to focus on what they do excel at, but even then there is no promise of recognition for their own talent. Zuko was even mocked by his father during the solar eclipse when Ozai tried baiting him into attacking with his swords.

This lack of recognition is one of many sad aspects of Zuko’s early life, but it is a definitive example of one of the hardest unacknowledged prodigy’s cross to bear. The Outshone prodigy, one whose talents are never noticed because a bigger and brighter star stands in the way of such recognition, and arguably the most frustrating type mentioned here. Toph/Sokka/Katara all came from situations were there was no recognition being given to them or anyone, but Zuko had to bear watching massive amounts of praise be piled on to his sister while he and his accomplishments went by the way side.

Ozai summed up the situation best.

“Azula was born lucky, Zuko was lucky to be born”

Alright now where have I been going with all this?

So, far we’ve covered a lot of wrong ways to treat a child, whether they show talent or not, and how the circumstances of war can also take many things from children.

But what happened to Korra?

(Before we get into to this I should state that I like Korra, and the purpose of this is not to bash her as a character or her arc, but rather to give a little of my insight into it.)

It’s well established that Aang was told of his heritage too young, and that was a detriment on his development into an adult, but what would have happened if he realized his powers himself not long after he could walk? We’ll never know, but we do get to see the effects it had on Korra.

When she revealed herself as the Avatar, Korra set her entire life in a new direction, and because Aang tasked the White Lotus with finding and training her that direction was out of her control. There are two key differences between Korras’ and other Avatars’ lives.

1. She grew up in isolation on a White Lotus compound.

Every Avatar before Korra we know of spent a portion of their early lives traveling the world in order to master the elements; along this journey they not only learned how to bend the other 3 elements, buy also many things about the 3 other nations and the world they are tasked to protect as a whole. By confining Korra in safety and bringing the masters to her the White Lotus deprived Korra of this opportunity to learn and grow and understand the world and the people within in. It also deprived her of learning modern bending styles until she reached Republic City.

While this might have kept Korra safe from the Red Lotus, it grew within her a naiveté about how the world worked, and because of this when she actually did venture out into the world she was terribly unprepared for it.

2. She was trained and mastered 3 of the elements by the time she was 16.

Most Avatars don’t know they have this power until they reach 16 and then they spend several years learning to control it. Korra’s natural talent in the bending lead to her training being expedited not by necessity like Aang’s, but due to her talent and eagerness. Korra excelled at the physical part of being the Avatar and because of this by the time she reached maturity she had become over-confident in her abilities and true to what her Fire-Bending master said in Ep.1 she lacked restraint.

I’m not saying her bending isn’t great, but rather because it is so great it’s her go-to solution to anything, and she enjoys that so she uses it with enthusiastic gusto and not a lot of thinking before striking.

This overconfidence coupled with her naiveté of the world is what lead to many of her rash decisions and actions, most of which had negative consequences, and I believe are the reason behind some fan are dissatisfied with her. Aang had been almost the complete opposite, even by the age of twelve he was an experienced world traveler and an incredibly humble guy.

Some may have been dissatisfied by these character decisions, but they served a purpose, they are only the beginning of her arc. The internal challenge Korra must overcome through 4 seasons is to humble herself before the world, and learn from it. This was finally achieved in the 4th season when the metal poisoning in her body forces her to face others in the world as equals, only then had she completed her journey.

And why did it all go this way?

Because she is a very unique child prodigy, what she demonstrates in the first episode of LOK would be akin to a toddler playing the violin or hitting a three-pointer; she could bend 3 elements close to just after learning to walk. That is the kind of prodigious talent rarely seen because it is mostly impossible. How does a rational person handle a child like that?

It’s a tough question, and something this essay has been circling around the whole time. Each example here is the wrong way to handle talented and different children, but what is the right way?

As always look to Iroh.

Who treated his surrogate son Zuko with both respect and compassion.

Unlike Toph’s parents, Iroh worried over Zuko’s well being, but also allowed him to be independent, make his own decisions, and take his own risks.

Unlike the Nomad Leaders, he didn’t want Zuko weighed down by his position in the world and the responsibility that came with, and always encouraged him relax and take advantage of the moment.

Unlike Ozai, Iroh would always be there to support Zuko in his victories and his failures. Iroh shows him the right path but does not force him down it.

And even after Zuko betrayed and abandoned him.

Iroh was never angry with him, and embraced him upon his return.

He wanted Zuko to grow and be a better man. Even if Zuko wasn’t a prodigy like his sister.

And that is the answer here. The way to raise a prodigy is the same way anyone should raise any child. Love, Support, a Guiding Hand rather than a Forceful Shove, Recognition of What Makes Them Unique, and Forgiveness When They Falter. The problem comes along when you start treating children differently because you see them as different or special. All children are different, all children are special.

Kids are kids, and they all deserve a proper childhood.

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smhalltheurlsaretaken · 3 years

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So do you guys remember my post about Jedi meeting their birth families and being chill with it?

I’ve been thinking a bit - a lot, for like a year - about all the headcanons around Jedi’s biological people, and there are really only two possible cases that seem to get explored: the pure of heart, flawed but loving, desperate parents who ‘had’ to give up their precious child to the Jedi and didn’t feel they had a choice (most commonly seen from the more Jedi critical parts of the fandom, but not always), and the horribly abusive no good parents at all who gladly dumped their baby onto the Order (which appears to be the way of some Jedi fans to ‘justify’ the adoption into the Order as legitimate, which really shouldn’t be the point because adoptions are just as legitimate without abuse factoring in).

What’s kinda sad is how little we’re willing to explore all the possibilities, maybe because we don’t want to be perceived as on the wrong side of the fandom by our own pals. We all deal with just so much bad faith discourse that we smooth out any sort of human drama and nuance to try and have clear cut narratives that are so black and white that they must prevent bad faith interpretations. Jedi have to be perfect pure angels that have never done anything wrong to be recognized as good, because we’re afraid that if we write them in an interesting way people will jump on the opportunity to accuse them of all sorts of stuff.

Well, I’m tired of vanilla fics and good guys vs bad guys when dealing with purely human everyday stuff. Bad guys are for the galactic battles, the epic clash of eternal forces. When dealing with how Jedi younglings come to the Order, we can have plenty of amazing, heart-wrenching drama and warm, happy moments where all sorts of good and regular people have different goals and meet and clash without anyone being at ‘fault’ or being to blame for it. I want to see (*sigh* to write) complex, difficult situations that can’t be perfectly resolved but where people do try and everyone feels like a *person*.

With that out of the way, what about:

- the unanimously proud communities, so honored that their daughter will represent their people and traditions among the Order, wear their clothing and bear their name

- the desperate mother with proud relatives, who doesn’t want to give away her child, but feels pressured into it by well-meaning relatives. The Master feels her reluctance and tries to reassure her, but she insists that it’s fine - and it is, she wants it to be, she wants to believe it’s for the best but it’s just so hard...

- Stass Allie’s parents, who saw their niece Adi GAllia go to the Order a few years prior. Their two families are influential on Coruscant, but with Adi already in the Order, do they need to send Stass too? Will people think they’re making a grab for power? Will Stass be better off over there, with her cousin?

- Tiplar and Tiplee’s parents. How many children do they have, besides their twins? Is it easier to let your children go when you know they will be together? Did they make the Master promise they wouldn’t be separated no matter what? Did they dress them in matching outfits, or were the Jedi the ones to come up with that?

- the teenaged single mom who cries tears of relief when she realizes her baby will have a good life

- the single dad who can’t bring himself to let his daughter go, because she’s his whole world. The Master presses, not fully understanding, because she would would give up everything for the good of her Padawan, including her relationship with him if need be. The dad still says no.

- the struggling addict parent who is glad to dump that kid (but who still wakes up at night crying, cursing the Jedi, cursing themselves - who get their life back on track for their next kid, maybe? Who meets more Jedi and is thankful after all, or who never does and stays bitter, but better...)

- the family using the adoption for clout, and the consequences for the Order PR-wise, with the younger Jedi having to let go of the bitterness and the anger

- the communities with their own customs surrounding the Force that the young Knight or the wise Master’s inexperienced Padawan struggle to grasp and accept

- the happy parents who are mildly Force-sensitive themselves but didn’t know (or did know, and expected some of their children to be sensitive too), with the Master or the Knight pondering what their own life would look like as a civilian, maybe a parent themselves, maybe giving their own child to the Order like those are doing now. Would they do it? If they could met that hypothetical version of themselves, what would they say about the life they have?

- the superstitious, incredulous or religious parents who are just glad to get a real explanation for the floating rocks, instead of all the theories and the judging and the gossip

- the ones who are desperately poor, and so very grateful, and the younger Jedi struggling with this, wondering if that’s why they were given to the Order as well. Struggling not to judge, because they wouldn’t be happy to give up their own younglings no matter what, right? Learning to be grateful, and understanding, and compassionate.

- the parents who decide to give their child away against the community’s pressure, finding comfort in the Jedi’s genuine desire to support them

- the siblings struggling not to feel betrayed by their parents’ choice - and the jealous ones, the proud ones, the amazed ones, the ones who were just toddlers and spend their life holding onto faded memories

And on the flipside to all of that, what about:

- the Jedi who find a baby among dead bodies, like Mace and Depa, and are so thankful they could save this one tiny light

- the Knights filled to burst with warmth and pride as the three of them get this little toddler to giggle on the way home

- the baby who has been screaming in the Force for weeks, wanting to go home, and who finally gets to feel a presence caressing his mind gently, telling him someone is coming

- the Masters who hold the little ones at night, when those who miss their old home feel lonely or sad, rocking them and singing to them

- the Jedi who have their niece, nephew, cousin, or sibling arrive in the Creche, who call their birth family to reassure them that it’ll all be okay, and yes, ‘the child will know who I am, don’t worry, we keep our names. I’ll help them along the way, I’ll keep an eye on them.’

- the Knight who shows up somewhere and experience a supersonic boom because that’s the one, this little one will be his Padawan, he knows it

- the Knight awkwardly trying to comfort the parents, but she can see that they can see that the baby has already latched onto her, and she senses their turmoil

- the Master feeling that the child won’t be suited for the life of a Jedi, and saying that, even as it’s so hard to turn away from those sparkling baby eyes and that little mental tug

- the Padawan balancing babbling triplets on his shoulders, because they’re from a species that makes a lot of babies

- the Master-Padawan pair visiting a child a lot during the transition period, and bonding with the other siblings as well

... Just... a mess of relationships and love on all parts, with understandings being reached, people finding peace and joy, and the opposite of all that, all acknowledging that there are no bad guys here, just complicated circumstances.

#headcanons #writing ideas #jedi positivity #jedi order #jedi culture #jedi younglings #long post #very long post #meta #(ish)#sw talk

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soulmate-game · 3 years

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part 2 (of that new bio!dad fic)

Dick whipped his head over to Bruce, who could feel the heavy gazes of all his children as if they were physical. If they had had heat vision like Clark, he would have already been reduced to a puddle of mush. Bruce shifted, the only sign of his discomfort, but he recognized that the middle of a gala was no place for this discussion. There were too many busybodies trying to listen in for the latest gossip. So he plastered on a smile that he couldn’t quite feel, and held a hand out to Marinette. He was careful to keep a good distance though, and left the choice for contant purely up to her.

The young woman looked down at his hand, then back to his face. Damian had been shocked silent by what she had to say, and perhaps even more by the all too telling way that Bruce hadn’t so much as implied that she was lying, and the look he was giving her was making her a little uncomfortable. Yes, she hadn’t planned on interacting with her father more than just the years-overdue confrontation she had just done, at least not while at the gala… but her plans always left room for improvisation. She could make this work.

With a soft sigh, Marinette extended her own hand— half the size of Bruce’s, he noted almost immediately with a rush of illogical fondness— and grasped his lightly. She couldn’t help but notice the way his impossibly blue eyes brightened, no different than her own when she was particularly happy, or the way his mouth twitched with a barely suppressed beam. Instead, he controlled himself enough so that the only smile he gave would look professional and entirely in character to the nosy socialites still spying on them, and led them out onto the dance floor.

What everyone else saw was the unfairly charming Bruce Wayne giving his young guest of honor a simple dance. Just a basic swirl around the floor that every other social elite had learned when they were five. Clearly he was taking it easy on the self-made girl, who probably didn’t have experience with such dances. Humoring the accomplished young woman with his approval for a moment before he would slink back to his family or patrol the crowds and make the necessary greetings and meaningless chatter.

What his family saw was Bruce taking time to slow his steps, not for Marinette to keep up but rather to prolong the event. What they saw was the grace in Marinette’s steps as she never once faltered, and that Bruce was careful to take his cues from her instead of the other way around. He only led the dance in technicality, Marinette had all the real control.

What they saw was a father’s first dance with his daughter.

“Eighteen,” Dick whispered, eyebrows drawn low. “She said she’s almost eighteen.”

“Well, that lines up doesn’t it?” Jason asked gruffly, his own gaze never leaving the dancing duo. “We were planning on doubling up your big thirtieth birthday party as your eighteenth adoption anniversary,” he reminded his brother, who just made a slightly distressed noise in the back of his throat. Whether it was at the reinforcement of his adoption coming only months after Marinette being put up for adoption, or the fact that he was turning thirty, nobody could really tell.

“Hurt,” Cassandra spoke up from behind them, looking incredibly concerned as she watched the dance. “Uncertain.”

Stephany rolled her eyes, fidgeting from her quickly building energy. Anger was making her restless. “Of course she’s hurt. Bruce replaced her, with a boy he knew virtually nothing about, not even that long after she was born. How do you think that made her feel, when she found out?” Stephany let out a little growl, grabbing a flute of champagne from a passing server and downing it in one gulp. She ignored Dick protesting that she wasn’t of age yet, which made her wrinkle her nose. “Only one more year, Dickhead. Get over it, I need the buzz.”

“Well,” Barbara sighed and maneuvered her wheelchair around the group so that everyone could see her. “Nothing we can do right now but be supportive and watch Bruce like a hawk so he doesn’t make this worse,” she stated easily, not looking even the least bit ruffled by the news despite the disturbed glitter in her eyes.

“... Guys,” Tim spoke up, not looking at any of them. “Who wants to volunteer for Damian duty?” At first glance, it might seem like Tim was thinking about his own first disastrous meeting with the younger boy. Once everyone paid attention though, they could see that the truth was that Damian had snuck away and Tim was pointedly looking at a slightly hidden-away staircase to the second floor.

“Shit,” Dick muttered, but before he could say another word Jason shoved him back and started towards the stairs.

“No, not this time Dicky. I’ll talk to the brat.”

Back on the dancefloor, Bruce and Marinette broke away without any fanfare at the end of the song. If Bruce tried to hold her eyes for a moment too long, nobody noticed besides his observant children, and two of Marinette’s protective friends.

Then, just to make sure that nobody caught on with the help of hindsight, Bruce said something vaguely polite and praising, which Marinette accepted with flawless, distant poise. And they went back to their own groups, Bruce quickly noting that two of his sons were missing. He raised an eyebrow, about to ask why when a presence behind him caught his attention. Unlike Marinette and Chloe, this newcomer was not at all trying to hide their approach or be sneaky about it, even though Bruce couldn’t hear any footsteps that were close enough to belong to the mysterious entity. Closing his mouth, Bruce turned around only to be greeted by yet another vaguely familiar face. Bright green eyes bore into his, unreadable.

“Mister Wayne,” the newcomer greeted, voice warm but stiff. If the Waynes hadn’t all had years of recognizing when a person was only pretending to be cordial, they never would have suspected that the boy was anything but pure-heartedly happy to be there. But they did have that experience, and thus they instantly honed in on the very well-hidden fact that he had a bone to pick with them. Or, more probably, with Bruce.

He cut an impressive figure, for all that he was lithe muscle instead of bulk. Hair that was lighter than Chloe’s, less like cloth-of-gold and more like sunlight glinting off of wheatfields. It somehow hung in gravity-defying tufts, yet perfectly arranged to evoke a calming aesthetic. Like the fluff of a long-haired cat, almost, and it looked just as fluffy and hypnotizing. It contrasted with his emerald eyes, impossibly vibrant in their gleam. And the suit he wore was decidedly top-notch, much like the other two they had met from his class. He was daring, in a dark silver suit that slightly shifted in the light, green accents that matched his eyes standing out strikingly against the collars and trim, and coiling in tantalizing swirls at the cuffs. The lining of the suit jacket was done in a dark green that could almost pass for black in the right lighting, adding a layer of both drama and mystery as it peeked out at the back of his collar, the insides of his sleeves if he moved just the right way, at the bottom hem of the jacket when he turned or bent just so. And with his notoriety in the modeling world? He always knew exactly how to move or place himself to get the reactions he wanted. And he was clearly showing off the craftsmanship of his suit just then as he faked adjusting his cufflinks and lifted his head just the right amount to both look challenging and let the dark green on the back of his collar flash in the light in such a way that Bruce and those nearest him wouldn’t be able to miss the brief reveal of color.

“Adrien Agreste,” Bruce greeted back, eyebrows pulling down in slight confusion. Normally the topic of clothing was far from his genuine interest, but in this particular case it was an intriguing, and possibly even concerning, observation. So he said next; “That suit is not of your father’s usual style of design.”

Adrien scoffed, straightening out his suit’s jacket and making the obsidian buttons glint. “Of course not. I’ve started my rebellious phase— or, well, I finally started being blatant enough about it that my father noticed anyway,” the way his lips curled was decidedly not very attractive, but painted a vivid picture of a son who despised the way he was treated. Adrien quickly wiped the distasteful expression away and replaced it with a camera-ready smile. “I’m wearing one of Marinette’s designs, much to his chagrin. She insisted on making this for me as soon as she heard that my father was planning on sending me in a white suit.”

Bruce quickly caught on, and sighed. How long would the gala go on for, again? He didn’t remember what time it was anymore. “Your friend Chloe already got a pretty clear warning in. I suppose you know as well?”

Adrien’s grin darkened with mischief, and he nodded all too happily. “Of course! Marinette told me almost as soon as she found out, a few years ago. You see, we had to put down a very solid rule about secrets between the two of us. She has a bad habit of trying to shoulder the entire world’s problems and not tell anyone about it, if you don’t pay close enough attention,” his voice was deceptively light but his eyes were hard, warning. “And let’s just say, I have a lot of experience with bad father figures. I can recognize them a mile away by now. The signs of neglect, of apathy,” his eyes suddenly lightened when he saw how Bruce’s throat visibly caught, how the man didn’t seem to realize he had stopped breathing. Maybe he was being a little to mean, Adrien thought. So he let the dark slip out of his eyes, and his smile turned more genuine. “You don’t have those signs. You looked at Marinette like you were both the happiest and most miserable man in the world at the same time. But you can’t change what you did to her, Mister Wayne. If you want some advice from Marinette’s oldest friend?” Adrien held out a closed fist.

Bruce took a second to realize what was happening, too busy trying to recover from his situational whiplash and wave of relief. Once he caught back up to the present, however, he held out his open palm and let Adrien drop something into his hand.

To his shock, it was a pen, engraved with the name he recognized as Marinette’s biological mother. He also recognized it as a popular model of pen-knife. He raised his eyes to Adrien, who winked.

“Marinette doesn’t know I had this made. And she has a lot of tricks that might surprise you, but what she wants more than anything is stability. If you try to give her that, show that you care and you want her safe— and then prove that you’re gonna stay— then maybe you can repair the damage you’ve done. It won’t be easy though, Mari is the single most stubborn person I’ve ever met. And I grew up with Chloe.”

Bruce closed his hand around the pen, swallowing a lump in his throat. He couldn’t quite figure out why, but Adrien’s faith in him and his help… somehow felt significant. He nodded to the young model.

“Not to worry, I have experience with stubborn,” he glanced back at his other kids with a small smirk. None of them were the least bit repentant. “And I do want to stay. Thank you for the advice.”

Adrien shrugged. “Don’t thank me. If you hurt her again, you’ll never see my revenge coming. It can be rather… catastrophic,” with that ominous threat, Adrien bowed dramatically and turned to leave and do some rounds charming the elites. Bruce tucked the pen in one of his hidden pockets, but stayed silent after that. He had a lot to mull over.

—*—*—*—*—*

Damian leaned on the railing of the balcony, looking out over the gardens behind the gala’s venue. He was glaring at nothing, and his hands trembled from where they gripped the rail. It was five minutes, a little longer than he had expected but not that odd considering everyone’s distraction over Marinette, before he heard the glass doors behind him creak open.

“Yo,” Jason greeted, knowing it was better not to catch the boy off guard. None of them were good with surprises anymore, for good reason. It was always best to announce their presence before they made someone react violently on accident. Damian’s shoulders relaxed a little— not a lot, but enough for Jason to notice. The older man sighed, walking up and leaning on the rail next to his little brother. “What’s on your mind, kid?”

“That could have been me,” he almost instantly blurted. It was still hard talking about his feelings, but certain things were easier with Todd. This was, apparently, one of them. “If Mother hadn’t kept me a secret.”

“I don’t think so,” Jason disagreed, shrugging. “There are several big differences here. For one, Marinette was born three years before you were. By the time you were born, he already had Dick and he would have only been a year, max, away from taking me in. Which means he already had built up his problem with taking in kids, and nothing would have gotten him to give up a chance at raising you. With or without Batman getting in the way.”

“But then why—” Damian growled. “Why did he give her up?”

“Because he’s an idiot,” Jason remarked bluntly. “You know how he is. He didn’t have a kid at the time. Hell, Bruce would have only been twenty-two back then. He only adopted Dick on impulse because Dick reminded him of himself, but before all of that shit? He probably made a million excuses about not being able to raise a baby and be Batman at the same time. About his life being too dangerous for a kid. Which, yes it is, but that clearly didn’t stop him later.”

“She’s older,” Damian muttered, this time softer.

“Yup.”

“Her mother wasn’t an assassin, probably. She designs. I hate to admit it, and you are never to repeat it to anybody, but her work that we’ve seen so far is impressive. She can clearly charm even the most stuck-up of gotham’s upper crust.”

“Yeah,” Jason agreed neutrally, his eyes never leaving Damian.

“Father won’t need me. He already doesn’t have much patience—” Damian was cut off by a flick to the nose. “Hey!”

“Not my fault you’re being stupid,” Jason defended himself. “Look, B’s actually been real patient with you these past few years. I mean, when was the last time he yelled at you? Or told you that stupid ‘justice not vengeance’ line?”

Damian opened his mouth, then closed it. After another moment, he replied; “Almost two years.”

Jason nodded. “It might take him way too long, but he can still learn new tricks. Especially after that mess with Heretic, he’s been trying really hard to be better to you. He still screws up, because I think we all know by now that he’s a bigger mess than any of the rest of us and that’s an accomplishment, but he’s trying. He doesn’t keep you around because he needs you. He’s got plenty of us around if all he wanted was soldiers— though none of us would stick around if we thought that’s all he wanted.”

Damian flexed his jaw. He was still the most violent of the kids, besides Jason. He saw Bruce rubbing his forehead or pinching his nose far too often at some of his decisions or comments. He was stubborn, impatient, reckless.

But hadn’t Bruce himself told him on several occasions that he wasn’t trying to make him a perfect soldier? Hadn’t Bruce himself said that he just wanted Damian to grow into himself?

It was just really hard to swat away those stupid voices in Damian’s head. Voices of the past, mostly, old dialogue he had never actually forgotten. That he merely pretended had never affected him. The “you’re too violent”s, the “that’s not how we behave, Damian”s. All the old lectures, the old fights. They echoed like stupid little gremlins of doubt.

“...Marinette has his eyes.”

“Don’t beat yourself up over something like that,” Jason’s voice was soft, but gruff at the same time as he cuffed Damian over the head. “You didn’t choose to be born, idiot. And despite being a little demon, none of us would reverse it, You’ve saved all our skins at least once. And besides,” he nudged Damian a little with a grin. “You’re not half bad, nowadays.”

Damian chuckled. “That makes one of us.”

“Hey!”

@peterxwade24 @mizzy-pop @maskedpainter @ladybug-182 @khneltea @itsmeevie01 @fusser90 @woe-is-me0 @lolieg @moonlightstar64 @jayjayspixiepop

#maribat #platonic jasonette #platonic daminette #platonic brucinette #ml x dc #mlb x dc #dc x mlb #dc x miraculous #maribat fic

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hnychn · 3 years

Text

𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐎𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐋𝐃 [𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐍]

summary : it was painful to watch eren become the very person he swore to protect you from

warnings : gender neutral reader, angst (when is it not), season 4 anime spoilers, a bit of jean x reader but nothing is specified,

word count : 2k+

a/n : i kinda don't like this cause idk if the feeling came out as i wanted it to, but i also don't know how to fix it and make it better. i kinda played around with eren's titan abilities and the memories he inherited, but anyways lmk what you thought.

attack on titan masterlist || navigation

Philtatos.

That’s what Achilles was said to have called his love, Patroclus.

Most Beloved.

A word often spoken between the two as the salty ocean breeze filtered through the open windows and Achilles held Patroclus as if he were the moon holding his tide and Patroclus held Achilles as if he were brightening his world like a thousand golden urns. A word spoken between gasps and puffy lips as the moon peeked through the curtains and guided the two lovers. A word so precious and valuable it was the only word Achilles could cry as he held his lover’s body in the aftermath of the Trojan War.

But words too often spoken, are meanings too often lost.

“If it ever came down to you or the world, I’d choose you over and over and over.”

Much like Patroclus, you cherished the words so rarely dripped from his lips like a drop of water spilling over the edge of a cup. You held Eren tighter, pressed more kisses to the curve of his lips, held his face closer to your own when he let those rare words slip from his lips. When he spoke those words, it was as if a million stars had suddenly been dropped into your dark abyss of a universe and guided your way through life; each sparkle capturing a piece of your breath and stealing your heart and soul with no intentions of giving it back.

Eren embodied the golden urns that spilled from the sun that guided Patroclus’ path to Achilles in the afterlife; he was bright, warm, home.

When Eren lit up your word as he did, when he lit up your path and guided you to him, it was easy to call him home. He was your person. Your person who waited for you with open arms and a cup overflowing with love waiting for you to take and cherish and keep. It was easy for you to mold yourself into his arms on harsher days when he pat your head and whispered, “It’s you over the world. Always” into your ears when you wanted to scream and cry and set fire to the world.

He promised you protection; a secure future filled with love and hope and freedom and forever. It was easy to believe him when he put his life on the line for you when he was on trial. Screaming and thrashing and struggling to get to you as members of the military brigade twisted your arms behind your back and threatened to end your life on suspicions of knowing Eren’s secret. It was easy to believe him when he held you close later, with the moon’s light filtering into the room and the cold breeze cradling both of your bodies. It was easy to believe him when he held you close, his hands fisting the back of your shirt as if someone would burst in and steal you from him at any moment, while his words tickled your ear and warmed your heart, “I will protect you. You are my world.”

But words too often spoken, are meanings too often lost.

You could remember the day his words started lacking their once bright luster. Not long after retaking Wall Maria, you felt the salty ocean breeze against the curves of your face and the cool ocean water against the heels of your ankle. You smiled as you watched Connie and Sasha play in the water and looked over to Eren to do the same; but the sparkle in his eyes, or rather the lack thereof, is when the warmth of his words started to burn out like a flame too long exposed to the harsh winter.

"The world is against us. . .and I won’t let them win.”

Your back was turned to him, pressing against his firm chest that once grounded you in reality and assured you of safety; but now it only frightened you and summoned a churn in your stomach you didn’t know was possible in Eren’s presence.

It was as if your mind recognized it sooner than your heart did. As if your brain could recognize the small changes in your lover, the way his eyes slowly dimmed and were no longer the same jade green that reminded you of the soft grass that tickled the pads of your feet outside of your childhood cottage but had turned into a stormy grey that reminded you of the storms that sunk ships and shattered the hearts and trust of many.

But your heart refused to acknowledge it. Eren had placed a veil of red in front of your heart that blurred all sense of rationale you had. You could see the way he seemed to withdraw into himself more, his words became more scarce, his affection became rarer and rarer as the days passed. Your eyes could register the lack of sparkle in his when he looked at you, but your heart was under his control and refused to acknowledge it.

It was painful watching the person you love most slowly fall out of love with you.

Your heart ached when you looked him in the eyes and were faced with the heartbreaking reality that the stars that once lit up your whole universe were now slowly dimming and simmering away.

And then he disappeared.

As if he were whispers of dandelions floating in the wind, he disappeared, leaving nothing but a stem of the flower he once was in his wake.

You cried and screamed and thrashed about when you first found out, and despite his arms wrapped around you in an effort of comfort, Jean wasn't Eren. You pounded against his chest and screamed at him to let you go, to let you leave and find eren. Because it had to be a mistake, Eren wouldn't just leave you behind . . . right?

The blinding veil had been ripped from your heart and left it shattered. You spent several days locked in your room with only a few shirts Eren left behind to comfort you, his natural scent fading away as time passed, just as his love did for you.

Though, just as Patroclus did, you soon found your peace (though it wasn’t as heartwarming as reuniting with your long-lost lover like Patroclus, peace was peace and you would accept it as it came). It took a while, but with the help of your friends and Jean, you were able to pick up the pieces of your shattered heart and tape them back together.

But the process of healing is not a simple task.

There were days where you wanted to scream at the stars at the top of your lungs, there were days where you wanted to lock yourself in your room again and cry until there were no more tears for you to give, and there were days where you wanted to shatter Eren’s nose as he did your heart. But you took those days with unwavering confidence and picked up your pieces when they fell again.

You picked them up until there was no more need to pick them up because time had healed you. And while it did hurt to accept it, it was a part of healing.

And so, you accepted that Eren had chosen a life without you.

Eren didn't know whether to be happy or not to see you.

Happy you were alive. Happy he was able to see your face one more time. Happy you had made it out alive from the problems he caused.

His soul ached for him to reach out to you, to hold you close and pepper kisses to your face, and never let you go from the protection of his arms. He ached to take your hand in his and feel the way they fit so perfectly together as if they were made of the same mold. Eren ached to feel the soft pads of your fingers against his cheeks and hear your reassurances that, yes, he was good.

But he stayed put.

And he allowed you to look at him with those beautiful eyes he once loved looking into during the darkest nights that were filled with a love words could not tie-down, but we're now filled with confusion and laced with anger and an array of emotions Eren couldn’t blame you for. Eren allowed you to walk out the door of the airship and into the back where he could hear screams of joy. He let you walk away from him; the echoing sounds of your footsteps getting quieter and quieter as you walked farther away from him.

That was the only time Eren questioned whether what he was doing was right. The more steps you took away from him, the more he had to restrain his body from grabbing you and chaining you to the front of the ship. His body screamed at him to yell, speak, kick, grab you, tackle you, do anything to stop you from leaving.

But he didn't, and he allowed you to walk away.

Eren stared blankly at the metal flooring of the airship as he heard the cheering abruptly stop, and his heart sank. He prayed and prayed to the gods he didn't believe in for someone else to have been hit, that it was someone else bleeding onto the cold floor; because Eren knew he wouldn't be able to go to you. Not with Levi in front of him.

His prayers went unanswered as Jean walked in with two kids, his eyes were red with unshed tears and his hands gripped their clothing as if it were the only thing grounding him to this reality. A reality where you had been shot. A reality that Eren had seen and could have prevented.

Everything seemed to go blank then. It was as if his body shut down, his lands going limp in his lap. The sounds of Mikasa and Armin running out of the room were only white noise, but the sound of your name falling in screams once they saw you were as clear as day.

It was then that Eren realized he was but a pawn in the grand scheme of the memories he held. There was no alternative for him, no way for him to save the people he loved; leaving him to experience loss not once, but twice.

Eren tried to soften the blow of your loss by convincing himself he didn't love you, that your love was nothing but puppy love he clung onto for a small sliver of a normal life, but seeing you again for the first time in years reminded him how much he loved you.

The way you stood with confidence and fought on foreign land made his heart beat with the remembrance of the nights he held you close in his arms and whispered promises of protection and love. Promises of a world of freedom and independence.

"It's you, you, you. Always you,” words once whispered with a love Eren could only dream and long for in the present where you would no longer be there to hear them.

There was no doubt in his mind, in another universe, one where titans didn't roam the earth and the world wasn't against them, Eren would have chosen you in a heartbeat, over and over and over. In a world where his only worries would be what to eat for dinner that night, Eren would hold you close and cherish you just like he wished could in this universe.

But as the memories he inherited played out just as he knew them to and the feeling of losing you weighed heavier on him than it had when he first saw the memory years ago, Eren knew there was nothing else keeping him from becoming the very thing he promised to protect you from.

A monster.

And when Connie walked into the room, his hands stained with your blood and his eyes dripping with the horror of losing someone close, Eren knew what he had done.

Eren chose the world over you.

taglist: @hells-glory-hole @ashveil @stickystrawberrysyrup @420-uwu @kaiwai @the-trash-mammal @dprhvn @noodle-m-c-doodle

#attack on titan #attack on titan x reader #eren x reader #eren yaeger x reader #eren jaeger #eren jeager x reader #eren yeager #team eren #angst #attack on titan headcanons #attack on titan headcanon #subtle jean x reader

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lavenderlucy · 3 years

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Bite Your Tongue

Hi everyone! Here's a little “truth serum” drabble loosely based on season four (Pre-Silas and Caroline and Tyler did break up). Bonnie and Caroline experiment with a truth spell and Caroline gets stuck with the consequences. I’m still pretty new at this so please be kind. Enjoy!

Bonnie Bennett was at the very top of Caroline’s shit list today. Now she knew why vampires hated witches so much. Not that she truly hated her friend, but she certainly understood the sentiment. Ever since Bonnie started working with Professor Shane she had been practicing different kinds of magic that made Caroline more than a little uncomfortable. But never let it be said Caroline was unsupportive of her friends, so when Bonnie asked for a volunteer for a new spell, Caroline agreed and played guinea pig. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Caroline swore to herself that if she found a way out of this she would never get within spitting distance of magic ever again.

When Caroline got to Bonnie’s house she listened to her friend explain that this spell would be a game changer when it came to dealing with the Originals that were still taking up residence in their town.

“Trust me, Care. This could really work.” If Caroline had a dollar for every time she had been bitten in the ass for trusting her friends, she would be a very rich woman.

“Is it safe? I mean you aren’t going to like accidentally kill me or anything are you?” Caroline asked, nervousness evident in her voice.

“It’s completely safe, Care. I promise.” Bonnie’s answering smile didn’t exactly put her at ease.

Overly trusting, stupid bitch would be on her gravestone. Before Caroline could actually agree to the spell, Bonnie started chanting. Caroline found herself unable to move and she tried to tell Bonnie to stop, but by the time she could get her friend’s name out of her mouth, the chanting stopped and the spell was complete. Bonnie looked at her like she was examining her under a microscope.

“Well?” Caroline prompted, eyebrows raised. “Did it work?”

“Who really broke my Barbie when we were six?” Bonnie asked.

“What? What does that have to do with any- me!” Caroline threw her hands over her mouth and looked at Bonnie in shock, eyes wide.

“I knew it! And yes, it worked. It’s a truth spell. The subject of the spell can’t lie. Don’t you see, Care? We could ask Klaus or Rebekah or even Kol anything and they have to answer! We could find out straight from them where the white oak stake is or if there’s another way to kill them. Shane thinks this spell could be valuable.” Delight danced in Bonnie’s eyes.

“Oh of course Professor Creepy thinks it’s a good idea. Are you freaking kidding me, Bonnie Bennett?! All of this for witchy compulsion?” Bonnie knew how she felt about her mind being messed with. “How do you know it would even work on them? And how you know they won’t kill us all as soon as they realize what the spell does?” She was fuming. She could feel rage seeping into her veins and she knew she needed to leave before she could no longer control herself.

“Relax, Care. I’ll break the spell right now. Right after one more question.” Caroline’s body prickled with suspicion and she saw something she didn’t recognize in her friend’s eyes. Professor Creepy has got to be brainwashing her.

“Bonnie I swear to God, do not ask me-”

“Do you have feelings for Klaus?” Bonnie asked pointedly. From the calculated expression on Bonnie’s face Caroline knew she had been planning to ask this very question from the beginning. She wondered if Shane put her up to it. Shane had an unhealthy obsession with the Originals. Caroline wouldn’t put it past him not to know about Klaus’s soft spot for her. Caroline bit her tongue until she tasted blood and glared at Bonnie. She hoped she conveyed just how betrayed and enraged she felt through her eyes. “Yes,” she bit out lowly. “Now undo the spell, Bonnie. Right fucking now.”

Bonnie closed her eyes and started chanting again. Caroline waited for something to happen, but the feeling she got when Bonnie did the spell the first time never came. Bonnie’s chanting grew louder for a few moments before she stopped.

“What are you doing?” Caroline questioned. “Why did you stop?”

“I-I can’t undo the spell. It’s not working. I-” Bonnie looked panicked that her magic wasn’t working.

“Figure it out, Bonnie!” Caroline yelled. “Look, figure out a counter spell and call me when you do. I need to leave,” Caroline spat out before storming out of Bonnie’s house, the door slamming behind her with a satisfying smack.

Caroline let out a frustrated growl and continued walking away from Bonnie’s house and into the nearby woods. She needed to take out her anger on something living, and since killing a human was out of the question, a deer would have to do. She let her monster out and flashed deeper into the woods to hunt. She couldn’t tell her friends, but using her gifts was exhilarating. She loved how powerful and dangerous she felt. Within minutes she hunted down a deer and sunk her fangs in.

When she finished feeding she straightened and wiped her mouth, catching any stray drops of blood. She took a grounding breath and turned back in the direction of Bonnie’s house, calmer than before and ready to help her find a solution to her situation. She barely took another step before she caught a familiar blur speeding toward her in the corner of her eye. Klaus stopped in front of her, smirking and handsome. Why today of all days? Caroline tipped her head back to look at the sky, not believing her bad luck.

“Hello, sweetheart. Out for an afternoon stroll? Although by the looks of it you’ve been hunting. Back on the animal diet then?” He tucked his hands into the pockets of his designer jeans and took a step closer, eyes bright and mischievous.

“Yes! I needed to let off some steam so I came to the woods to hunt so I wouldn’t hurt a human.” The words came out of Caroline’s mouth before she could even think about trying to stop them. She rolled her eyes and swore under her breath. “Look, Klaus you need to stay away from me today. I mean it!” She backed away from him as she spoke, eyes wide and looking for her easiest and quickest escape route. She knew she couldn’t outrun him, but she could certainly try to put some distance between them.

Klaus took a step toward her and put his hands out like he was trying to calm a scared animal. “Caroline, love. What’s—“

“No!” Caroline shouted and closed the space between them and pressed her fingers against Klaus’s lips, effectively cutting off his question. His eyebrows rose in question.

“Please don’t ask me any questions. Please.” Her eyes bore into his, silently begging him to comply. After a few more seconds she slowly removed her hand from his warm mouth. In the back of her mind she wondered what it would feel like against her own mouth instead. Bad, Caroline. She shook the thought from her head while Klaus looked at her in silent confusion. Great. Now he thinks you’re insane.

Klaus gripped her upper arms and peered down at her, worry clouding his features. “Love, tell me what’s wrong. I can help you.”

Caroline shook her head and looked away from him. His proximity and masculine, woodsy scent was overwhelming her already heightened senses. Klaus moved one of his hands to her jaw and turned her face back to his.

“Come now, Caroline. It can’t be that bad,” he reasoned. He continued to scan her features for any clues of what she wasn’t telling him. Caroline’s face heated under his gaze. He took another moment to look at her before his face turned hard, eyes sharp, and asked, “Alright what did your little friends do now? What is going on?”

She knew he probably thought her friends were engaging in another plot against him. She bit her lip until she drew blood. Klaus’s eyes were immediately drawn to the action. “Caroline, tell me. What is happening?” He rasped. Caroline could see lust building in his eyes as he watched her lick away a drop of blood from her bottom lip.

“Bonnie worked with Professor Shane to make a truth spell and she tested it on me. They want to use it on you and your family to get information about your weaknesses. She didn’t tell me what the spell was or what she wanted to do with it until after she cast it.” Desire evaporated from Klaus’s blue eyes and was replaced by rage and wolf gold. His grip on her arms tightened almost painfully before he let her go. He walked backward a few steps and ran a hand through his hair in exasperation.

“Are you insane?” He yelled. He ignored Caroline’s whispered, “no” before continuing. “You let a baby witch who doesn’t even understand her powers yet experiment on you! You don’t have any idea of the possible consequences of what you’ve done. For fuck’s sake, Caroline!” Caroline was surprised by his outburst. She knew he cared about her, but he seemed genuinely upset that she put herself in danger. He wasn’t even focusing on the plot against his family. “Children,” he muttered under his breath before asking, “Did the witch say how long the spell lasts?”

“We-we don’t really know. Bonnie tried to undo it after I freaked out, but she couldn’t do it.” Caroline bit her lip again, trying not to think about how hot Klaus looked when he was angry. Totally not the time!

Klaus looked her up and down, eyes dark, before approaching her once again. He raised his fingers to her face slowly and pulled her lip from her teeth. He brushed his thumb across her lips before trailing his hand down her jaw and neck. Caroline tried not to let herself be affected by his touch, but it was impossible. All of her nerves were on fire and the heat was spreading. She’d been fighting her feelings for Klaus for months and she couldn’t do it anymore. Klaus didn’t look in any better shape than she was. He was breathing harshly and staring at the porcelain skin he was touching. He met her eyes and spoke, voice deep, “Do you like this?”

“Yes,” she replied, moving impossibly closer to Klaus.

“Do you want me to touch you more?” Klaus looked like he was barely holding himself back from ravishing her right there in the woods.

“Yes. I want you to touch me.” She tilted her head to look up at him before surging up and pressing her lips to his. Yes. Klaus quickly took control of the kiss and deepened it, his tongue licking the seam of her mouth. Caroline gasped and he took advantage of the opening and brushed his tongue along hers. She always wondered what it would be like to be kissed by Klaus. After all, he had a thousand years of practice. He definitely did not disappoint. She knew she would be ruined after this. No one could ever compare to the feeling of his lips moving over hers. Caroline bunched the fabric of his dark gray Henley in her hands before running them up to his shoulders and into his dirty blonde curls. Klaus circled his arms around her waist and pulled her firmly into his body. Caroline tugged on the ends of his hair making Klaus growl in his chest. She felt her nipples tighten in response.

Klaus broke their kiss to trail his lips down to her neck. He took his time nipping and licking a spot over her pulse that Caroline didn’t even know existed. She threw her head back to give him better access and let out a breathy moan that sounded almost like his name. Before she could form a coherent thought, Klaus dropped his hands to her ass and pulled her up, encouraging her to wrap her legs around his waist. She wrapped her legs around him, the skirt of her yellow sundress bunching at her hips. He flashed them forward to a tree and pressed her against it, hands moving her waist. The bark scratched her back and sent a shiver down her spine. He returned his lips to hers and stole her breath away. Caroline dropped one hand from his hair to grip his necklaces and pull him even closer. Her other hand went to the back of his neck and she dug her nails in. He groaned loudly and his hips jerked into hers in response. She gasped into his mouth at the delicious friction and rolled her hips against his. Caroline was determined to give as good as she got so she pressed her breasts against his chest and bit his full bottom lip before soothing the sting by sucking on his tongue. The growls and moans he let out traveled straight to her core. Klaus pulled the straps of her dress down her shoulders harshly and peeled the cups of her bra down to squeeze her breasts and roll her nipples between his fingers. Caroline moaned loudly and she could feel herself becoming impossibly wetter. Klaus broke their kiss and pulled back slightly to meet her eyes. His pupils were blown and ringed with gold.

“Klaus,” Caroline whined, trying to pull his lips back to hers. Klaus smirked devilishly at her before moving his lips to her ear.

“Do you want me, Caroline?” The way he said her name was downright sinful. “Do you want me to have you right here in the forest?” His lips brushed against her ear one last time before he bit her earlobe, making her cry out. His eyes met hers again as he waited for her answer.

“Yes. I want you right here.” Caroline eyes were glazed over with lust and she didn’t care that anyone could see them out in the open. She tried to lean in to kiss him, but he held her back. Klaus chucked lowly at the look of frustration on her face.

“What do you want, love?” He was teasing her, playing with her inability to lie to him. Under normal circumstances Caroline would be seriously pissed, but she couldn’t summon any feelings other than desire and lust in that moment. For some reason she found the power he had over her extremely hot. He could ask her anything he wanted and she had to tell the truth.

“I want you to fuck me and make me come against this tree.” Caroline wasn’t typically this vocal during her romantic encounters, but she couldn’t help it. Even without the spell Klaus probably could have gotten her to make the same confession. Klaus smiled wolfishly at her before rolling his hips into hers, making her throw her head back and moan. She inwardly cursed her panties and his jeans. He’d been hard for her since the second she kissed him and right now she needed that hardness against her, inside her.

“When I have you, love, I want to take my time. I want to spread you out on my sheets and worship you until you can’t remember anything but my name. I want to spend hours between your thighs and brand myself along your body. I want to make you scream until your voice is hoarse and your body is so sated that your vampirism can’t help you. I want to fuck your tight little body right here and make you call my name to the skies, but the first time will be in my bed where I can ruin you for anyone else. I’ll make you so desperate for me that you won’t be able to even think of anything but my cock and tongue in you. But I’ll not deny you the orgasm your body is craving right now.” Klaus’s voice became deeper and his accent got thicker as he spoke. Caroline thought she might combust just from his words.

Klaus moved back from her just enough to get his hand between them. He ran his fingers over her soaking panties before moving them aside and slipping his fingers into her wetness. “Fuck, love. You’re so wet for me,” he growled. He brushed her clit once with his thumb and sunk two fingers inside her core, making Caroline cry out and moan his name. Klaus hoisted her up higher on the tree and began working his fingers inside her before taking her pink nipple into his mouth and laving it with his tongue. Caroline had never felt anything like this before. By no stretch of the imagination was she a blushing virgin, but none of her other lovers had left her as wet and desperate for touch as Klaus. She clenched her thighs tighter around Klaus as she rode his fingers.

“Klaus,” she bit out. Klaus released her nipple and began sucking and biting her neck with blunt teeth. “Tell me what you want, love, and I’ll give it you. Just give me the words.”

“Rub my clit and make me come. Please.” She begged. Klaus doubled down his efforts and put his thumb back on her clit before adding a third finger to her tight pussy. Caroline let out a strangled moan and moved her hips faster against his hand.

“That’s it sweetheart, give it to me. Ride my fingers. Come for me.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Caroline exploded around his fingers with a high-pitched moan and saw stars behind her eyelids. She lost track of time while she was coming. When she finally came down she met Klaus’s gaze and he looked like she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Her chest was heaving and his eyes dropped to watch her breasts move up and down.

“So beautiful,” he whispered. He removed his hand from her and brought his fingers to his mouth to lick away the evidence of her need for him. Caroline thought she might come again from the sight of him licking her off his fingers. She was about to try and persuade him to forgo his original plan of a bed and fuck her in the woods when he dropped her legs from his waist and righted her bra and the straps of her dress. The tree at her back was the only thing keeping her upright. Klaus pressed a gentle kiss against her lips before pulling back with a grin. He looked as wrecked as she did. She could still make out the hard line of his cock under his jeans and she sincerely hoped he wouldn’t make her wait once they got to his bed.

“Alright, love. Come with me. There’s a witch in Charlotte that owes me a favor. I’ll have her meet us at my place. She’ll be able to remove the spell.” Klaus grasped Caroline’s hand in his and began pulling her in the direction of his house. Caroline’s body finally caught up and started moving.

“But Charlotte is hours away,” She said, a smirk forming on her lips.

“I guess we’ll have to find a way to entertain ourselves in the meantime.” He looked at her over his shoulder and threw a wink at her before flashing off with her through the trees.

#Klaroline #klaroline drabbles #klaroline fanfiction #klaroline smut

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yandere-sins · 3 years

Text

The Fox Wedding - Stay dead [True End]

Summary: You escaped.

Characters: Kitsune!Suna Rintarou, Reader

Rating: Explicit

Warnings for this chapter: Happy Ending

Death was as calm as you would expect it. Your body - or rather, your soul - felt like it was floating on water, but no wave dared to disturb you. There was no up or down, just the floating, and that was all there was for a while. As if you were in a room painted in black, nothing to see, to hear, to feel. All you knew was that it wasn’t uncomfortable.

The place you were in now wasn’t plagued with the horrors of life. Pain and suffering, fear and anger. There was no regret and no desire for revenge, but even without any feelings at all, it wasn’t boring. Perhaps this was what made death so unique, the absolute nothingness. You couldn’t even feel if you moved a limb or not, and thus, you concluded that this was it. Even after all that happened, without being able to feel anything, it became meaningless.

You were ready.

Who knew where your soul would go now, but you were ready to move on.

It almost felt like you were ascending from the water, ready to leave. Limbo. Going like this wasn’t bad, and your judgment of the situation was meaningless and thus easy for you. But perhaps you actually liked it! What was there not to like about it?

“Death is permanent, Human,” a sudden voice rung out. You didn’t know this was possible in this space. Was that God? Was it true after all, did such an entity exist? “So… come back.”

And at once, it was over.

Grabbed by what felt like fabric on your back, you were pulled backwards into the water, completely engulfed by the wet. You felt it glide over your skin, wet your hair, and try to fill your nostrils and mouth, and your body instinctively knew not to accept it inside of you. You opened your mouth to let it out, but it only filled more, and then, suddenly, you were pulled out of the water.

“Shhh, shhh,” a voice tried to calm you as your body shook violently in a cough. A stranger’s hand helped you to wipe away the water on your eyelids, and he held you up, so it was easier to free your lungs of the water. Even though you blinked a few times, you couldn’t get accustomed to the brightness all around you, but one by one, your senses reappeared.

You could feel the pressures on your body and pinch yourself again, birds chirped all around you. The taste on your mouth was unpleasant as if you had eaten something foul, but luckily it disappeared as time passed. Finally, your eyes started to focus again, the blur disappearing together with your sensitivity to light. You looked up at the tree crowns, rays of sunshine bursting through them as a breeze got caught in the leaves.

“W-Where--” you croaked, only causing you to cough more. Was this heaven? It almost seemed like it since you couldn’t hear anguished screams or the crackling of fire. So it wasn’t hell. Looking down at yourself, you seemed too old to be reincarnated, and you soon enough found yourself out of options of where you were.

“The forest,” the unfamiliar voice explained for you. Finally, you looked up towards the person sitting beside you, blinking a few times as you tried to remember where you had seen him before. His dark brown hair was shining in the sun, and from it, two very peculiar ears seemed to stick out. All of a sudden, you were hit by a flashback.

Gasping loudly, you touched your shoulder, tearing at the white kimono you were wearing and which you had never seen before. But no matter how much you searched, you couldn’t find the wounds that were inflicted on your body. It almost seemed pristine, but you knew it wasn’t.

“There are still some marks,” the stranger said, and you couldn’t help but flinch. Instinctively, you pushed yourself away from him, sliding off his hold and onto the ground, noticing you had been sitting in a spring. It wasn’t deep, but you noticed the bubbling nearby where it continuously flowed out of a crack in a stonewall. You felt too weak to actually move further, but now that you looked around, this part of the forest was even more unfamiliar than any other.

“Where am I?” you asked daunted, a big part of you returning to a state of fear and panic. The stranger sighed as he got up and walked over, seizing you by the armpits and pulling you up. Putting your arm around his neck and steading you with one hand around your hip, he moved forward, urging you to move even though you struggled. The first few steps were a hurdle, but with every continuous one, it got better.

“Why… But I…”

“Yes,” he said. “I won’t deny what happened, but I’m one of the few that knew about this magical spring water. It healed your wounds - almost perfectly even. But I don’t think there’s much more I can do for you.”

“Where are we… going?” you questioned as he led you on a small path through the forest. Everything seemed so… normal. As if it was trying to undermine the cruelty that happened the night before. “You wanted to go home, didn’t you?”

Peeking up at this, you gave the stranger another look over, all the memories slowly coming back. “I remember you,” you mumbled. “You were with Kita when he came to look after me! Why… why would you help me?”

Catching him as he looked away as if he was caught in a lie, there was no immediate answer. Instead, the pace quickened, and you did your best to keep up with his lead. “Not everyone liked the idea of marriage,” he finally spoke up. In the distance, you could see the trees clearing up. The end was finally near.

“Kita is a good leader. We all like him. But he’s been too obsessed with the idea of marrying you ever since he was still only an aspirant for the leader. Many tried to oppose him, coming to the clan to spy, like the twins, but it’s not easy to go against someone so calculated and strong as Kita is.”

He took a deep breath, collecting himself. “I’ve been by his side for a long time, and I don’t regret it. But I couldn’t watch this happening again.”

Again? you thought, but the moment you two finally left the last tree behind, you came to a halt, your attention quickly diverted. You recognized the road that spread out before you, a mere ten minutes walk from your home. Slowly, the fox let go of you, waiting for you to steady yourself on your feet, but it was easy now. “What should I do now? I- I can’t go back to the house! They’ll find me again…”

Your voice was still so fragile, cracking under the pressure of emotions that tried to regain their place in your body. It wasn’t as hard to stand, breathe, or all of it at the same time as it was to get used to feeling again. It was overwhelming, but you knew better than to get lost in emotions this time. After all, you’ve been through much worse before.

“No, they won’t.”

Looking up at the fox, you had noticed him back away into the shadows of the trees as he seemed ready to leave again. It was only a few steps, but it felt like he had made the separation between your worlds clear again. “The clan moved on as Kita couldn’t stay anymore after losing you. I have to go back to them now, but they won’t come looking for you. You are dead to them.”

Nodding slowly, you took a step forward towards him again, his body language showing that he was wary as you approached. “What’s your name?” you asked out of the blue. What a stupid sentiment, but you felt like after what he did, coming all the way back to save you, remembering his name was the least you could do. He looked surprised before his expression grew nervous and hesitant, but eventually, he decided to tell you softly. “Suna. Just… Suna.”

Reaching for his hands, you crossed the barrier between worlds one last time, squeezing them. “Then, thank you, Suna.”

Time was of the essence, and you felt it was running out for you two. When you thanked him, managing to smile softly, it was almost like a stone fell off your heart, freeing you off so many things. He gave a slight nod in your direction before pulling away, and you knew it was time to go. “Farewell,” you sighed, relief spreading through you, and you turned to leave. It would be hard to go back now, remembering all that happened. Certainly, you couldn’t stay in that house for much longer, even if Suna said it was safe now. Too much had happened. Too much that you wanted to forget forever.

Way down the road, you turned around, seeing the silhouette of a small fox sitting on the curb, watching you. As you noticed it, the fox sprang up and disappeared into the woods, and you couldn’t help but be thankful, knowing he had watched over you just in case. Somehow, you’d be alright. It would be hard to manage without anyone who’d ever believe what you’ve been through, but Suna had managed to restore some of your faith in the world. Just marriage. You’d postpone that… for a long while. You definitely had enough of marrying, and maybe you’d move to the city now, just in case.

But as you looked up at the blue sky with the morning sun rising ever so slowly, you felt grateful for this chance you were given. The experience aside, you definitely felt like you had grown from it. Gained some insight into the worth of life.

You were given this second chance, and you were not going to waste it, no matter how hard it would be.

This time, you’d do better.

“You’re such a goody two-shoes,” Atsumu taunted as he approached Suna. The latter only looked back over his shoulder calmly, seeing the twins’ faces slowly creeping up to him. “It’s a shame. I really wanted her for myself.”

Giving Atsumu a nudge with his elbow, Osamu reminded his brother, “She was dead until a few minutes ago. There was nothing for you to get there but worms.”

“And now she isn’t, I wonder how!”

The bickering between the two continued while Suna turned forward again. From the hill he was standing on, he could see you disappear inside your house, locking the doors behind you. You were such a good girl, careful but kind until the end. You didn’t need to thank him, but you did, smiling at him before you left. He, too, had always appreciated the kindness of humans, even if he always had warned Kita to not interact with humans back when the two of them were still small cubs. But no matter how weak, humans could still be kind, a fascinating fact in his eyes.

There was so much you didn’t know, and perhaps, it was better that his world would no longer be part of yours. The intrigues, foul words, magic - that wasn’t for a good human like you. An eternity bound to a being like a Kitsune wasn’t what would make you happy, even if…

“Suna~ What are ya thinking about so hard? Aren’t ya coming with us? Don’t tell me you changed yer mind?” Slinging one arm around Suna’s shoulders, Suna’s train of thought was interrupted, and he sighed deeply. “Idiot,” Osamu grumbled, kicking his brother in the shin. “Have some tact and let the guy make sure she gets home safely. They’re family.”

Atsumu rolled his eyes but let go of Suna, the two walking a few steps ahead as they gave him the time to say goodbye. But they were right; there was no use lingering. Maybe Suna should have told you why you were so interesting for the kitsune. You were a rare sight as a human ancestor, after all. Knowing that you and he shared the same family tree - even if there were hundreds of years and what felt like a couple dozens of generations between you two - he couldn’t have let you die like one of the other darling wives Kita had found over the centuries. Suna had seen it too many times how he ended up hurting them as they hurt him by escaping or angering him, though arguably, the emotional wounds Kita suffered weren’t as bad as the deadly ones he inflicted. Then again, thanks to that, it gave Suna a new reason to live. No more clans or loyalty. He had something much more important now.

Family.

“Do ya think she’ll go to the city? Think I could become a city boy?” Atsumu mused, and Osamu let out a loud snort while Suna turned around to follow the two. “Only thing you’re good for would be a fur coat,” Osamu snarked, and it even brought a chuckle to Suna’s lips as Atsumu gasped loudly. They turned their attention to Suna, slowing down their steps to match him and lowering their voices as they spoke between themselves.

“Are you sure Kita won’t notice? You stole her right from under his nose, after all. He didn’t even bury her yet - luckily,” Atsumu asked, and Suna shrugged. “You don’t know it because you’re young, but the older and stronger a kitsune gets, the more they begin to forget. I’m sure he is very busy looking for a new replacement right now. He never got over this first wife of his. She truly was perfect. Kind, loyal, and loved him.”

Silent glances were exchanged between the twins as Suna revealed some of the past that he witnessed. “Her only fault was her mortality, and I guess that’s why he keeps searching.”

“Ya think he’ll ever find someone?” Osamu asked after a moment of silence. Suna shrugged again. Even he didn’t have the answers to everything.

“Who knows,” he sighed, and those were his final words on the matter. Rubbing his hands gently, he remembered the warmth of your touch, relieved that your life had been spared. All of your lives would go on, even for the younger kitsune. Their life was too long to ponder about the past. All that mattered was the future.

And Suna was glad that the past didn’t take away your future either.

Want a different ending?

➤ Go back to the prologue to change your fate

#Haikyuu!!#Haikyuu #HQ!!#yandere haikyuu #yandere!haikyuu #yandere #yandere imagines #yandere headcanons #yandere scenarios #yandere fanfiction #yandere writing #yandere stories #yandere oneshots #yandere oneshot #yandere drabble #yandere x reader #yandere x darling #Yandere TW

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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Rewatching RWBY there's this chilling lack of empathy through the volumes that I used to just wave off. Yang has no empathy for Tai, Blake is just entirely about what Blake needs, Weiss almost kills a woman at a party and her takeaway is 'my dad is mean so I'm going to run away'. Qrow sinks hard into depression in vol. 6 and Ruby's reaction is to yell she's never needed him. No one has EVER helped a civilian. It's so prevelant. Knowing how 7&8 go really changes the earlier writing.

I think there was a great deal of well-written empathy in the early volumes — after all, this cast was designed as the kind, well-meaning heroes — but that care was expressed almost solely within the group itself. Ruby sits by Jaune in the hallway and says "Nope!" to his self doubt. Weiss offers Ruby a hand up after she fails to kill the death stalker. Yang seeks out Blake and gets her to open up about what's bothering her. Now, I want to emphasize that there's nothing inherently wrong with this. It actually makes perfect sense. These are our main characters and they're written as peers co-habiting the same space. Of course whatever emotional growth we get, which automatically includes moments of compassion, would be directed towards each other. Similarly, the dynamics originally introduced — that of teachers and parents — likewise (rightly) puts the burden on the adults to provide the comfort, not the other way around. Port snaps Weiss out of her arrogant mindset. Ozpin reassures Ruby about her leadership worries. Tai is there to support his daughter when she's recovering from a lost limb. That's the natural order of things, so to speak.

The problem, to my mind, begins to occur when the group exits those dynamics. They're no longer students, they're licensed huntsmen. They're no longer kids, but equals who never needed adults in the first place. They're no longer doing things for themselves and their friends on personal downtime, they're doing them for the community at large as a profession (to say nothing of the world-altering war they've insisted on shouldering responsibility for). That's what a huntsmen is meant to be, a defender of the people, not someone who uses that power for personal interests alone. All of this is a huge change from where we started out: cutesy kids going off on comparatively low-stakes adventures because one or more of their teammates are invested, only just beginning to realize that they're signing up for a job where their desires come second (that fireside conversation at Mountain Glenn).

This change invites — demands, really — that the audience read them differently too. Qrow's spiral in Volume 6 is a good example of this. If Ruby is demanding to be treated not just as an equal in terms of maturity and experience, but also as the primary leader of this group, then the viewer expects her to treat her uncle as an equal too, not dismiss his hardship. I've seen numerous fans defend that arc with some version of, "He's her uncle. He's supposed to take care of her. He's failing" but that, according to the show, is no longer the dynamic. Qrow is now just a member of Ruby's team, someone she's responsible for as their leader. It's easiest to see the problem if we switch out Qrow for any of the other members. If Blake developed a drinking problem, do we think Ruby would just shout at her until she magically got over it? If Jaune endangered the group, do we think they'd all be angry about it, rather than trying to figure out the source of what caused the mistake? We don't even need to think hypothetically for that one because we saw it on screen. Jaune attacked Oscar and drove him off, not just threatening him, but arguably endangering the whole team by requiring a search party. Fans have long insisted they had to steal that airship right then because being in Argus was too much of a risk, but if we buy that reading (which I personally don't, but), then that means Jaune made things exponentially worse by forcing them out into that super dangerous city, rather than allowing everyone to stay hidden inside. He made a massive mistake which, according to the logic of Qrow's arc, should be met with frustration, disdain, and eventual demands to get over his anger at Ozpin or ship out. But, of course, he received nothing but concern. Yang was worried about him, not Oscar. The search becomes about his grief for Pyrrha and his team's willingness (as well as Pyrrha's family member) to provide more comfort. Suddenly, the tendency to express care solely towards those within the group becomes a flaw the story won't acknowledge.

And then it spirals. The thing to remember is that no single act here is bad on its own, especially when we consider that yes, we want flawed characters. Rather, it's about the pattern. Ruby is allowed to get mad at Qrow for his behavior and chuck her scroll in frustration. She's human. I'd be crazy frustrated too. However, if Ruby is meant to be written as a caring, sympathetic character, she should not only respond to the situation with frustration, yelling, a refusal to listen, and demands that he follow her lead, no questions asked. We can, and should, acknowledge that Weiss was the victim during that party. Her father was hurting her, the woman was beyond insensitive, Weiss was triggered in regards to a horrific event, and her power acted on its own. However, if we want to write Weiss as a compassionate, mature huntress to-be, she should acknowledge that she nearly killed someone — even an asshole someone — and vow to work on her control because she's not willing to put someone in danger like that ever again. Both of these moments have a "They could have been handled better" response attached to them — the former more-so than the latter imo — but these moments are made far, far worse due to later events in the show, events where the characters are cruel without any justification attached. Weiss didn't mean to attack that woman, but she did mean to ignore Whitely and threaten him with her weapon. So once we see that, it informs our understanding of what came before it. "Oh. The fact that Weiss never reacted to nearly killing someone isn't just a bit of missed potential, it's an early indicator that she... doesn't seem to care. If she endangers people, threatens people... that's fine with her." The group has a right to be frustrated with Qrow. The group did not have the right to magically steal Ozpin's entire life story, assault him, and blame him for the world's problems until he felt his only course of action was to run from them. So when we see that it becomes, "Oh. The fact that the group treated Qrow so poorly isn't just a one-time mistake born of a stressful situation and young adults being out of their depth in regards to alcoholism. They really will just abandon anyone the moment they start making mistakes." Anyone outside of their group, that is.

To say nothing of how all of these moments interconnect. Yang's recovery isn't just about getting used to not having an arm, it's about getting used to having a new one. Weiss' party isn't just about nearly killing someone, it's about not committing manslaughter because someone else stepped in. The Volume 6 arc isn't just about trying to escape with the Relic, it's about trying to get it somewhere safe. Fans frustrated with Ironwood's treatment don't harp on these details out of some desperate attempt to make him look good post-murder spree, rather, they recognize that he's a character that's been around since nearly the beginning, originally written as a good guy, and thus has accumulated a number of key connections with the cast. So when none of those connections are acknowledged during an arc about trust... that makes the group look very uncaring. Yang doesn't care that he gave her the arm, Weiss doesn't care that he saved her from hurting/potentially killing someone, Qrow doesn't care that he's trusted Ironwood for years (in a rival-bros way) and that they've been heading towards him this whole time. And when Ironwood begins to spiral, they don't do anything to try and help him, let alone acknowledge that their own choices, that lack of trust and empathy, had a hand in getting them here. "But it's not their responsibility to fix him!" Isn't it? Even a little? Just as human beings seeing an ally struggling under horrific decisions and circumstances? Sure, they don't have to try... but that doesn't make them look very heroic to my mind. And we can't even shrug that off by simplifying things with, "Well, Ironwood is evil now so who cares about him." They simultaneously don't care about finding Qrow who is missing, then captured. They don't do anything to try and find their missing teammates, with the exception of sending May to do it instead. They don't help the army fight off the grimm. Don't try to make sure Pietro and Maria had portals to escape through. Barely hesitate when the newly resurrected characters goes, "Kill me. That's the easiest thing for everyone." And these are just a few of the big ticket moments. It doesn't even begin to cover all the details we get that paint a picture of, "Wow okay. They just really don't care about people outside the group, huh? I mean, they say they do, in a life-or-death way, but they're not putting forth effort to show it on a daily basis."

And if you pick up on all that, if you acknowledge how much the group has changed based on where they started out, you might wonder when in the world that started. Surely we didn't just flip a switch around Volume 6. So you re-watch early stuff and, sure enough, there are moments that feel like setup for what's to come later. Not intentional setup (quite obviously), but a lack of care towards details across the series that, once the dynamic changed, became far, far more pronounced. Characters should be at least somewhat recognizable from start to finish, especially characters who have only experienced about two years of in-world time, so if we now get to see Ruby blandly commenting on all the people who are dying, or Weiss using her weapon as a means of coercing her little brother into doing what she wants, or Yang and Jaune dismissing Ren until he gives in to their point of view... we're going to look for the beginnings of that behavior early on. As you say, we were able to wave all those little details off due to a number of important factors. Now though? Now they feel like they hold a lot more weight, simply by virtue of that early material proceeding what we have now.

#rwby #rwde #mymetas

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inyourwildestdreamslove · 3 years

Text

Tell Me No Secrets: Chapter 9

Pairing: Steve Harrington X Reader X Billy Hargrove

Begins in Season 2.

Summary: You thought you escaped the world of science experiments and torture when you walk out of that lab. However, high school has other plans, somehow you end up as unlikely friends and love interests to the two most desired boys in school. Not to mention monsters from another dimension and a little girl named El from your past that just won’t seem to leave you alone. Maybe that lab wasn’t as bad as you thought, at least there people left you alone.

Masterlist

Chapter 9: The Captured

The trees are a blur as the car roars forward. The bewildered and angry faces of Dustin and Steve in the rearview mirror sparks a twinge of guilt. It’s better this way though, they don’t need to be involved. It’s bad enough that Max and Billy are involved. Groaning as the two men in the car pull out behind Billy but in front of Steve. You can feel how startled Steve is and his growing panic as he realizes what’s happening.

Billy glances behind him and growls out, “Friends of yours?”

“Something like that…” you say absentmindedly as you assess the situation behind you.

Realizing that they have far more information than you would like punches you in the gut as town quickly approaches.

You make a decision.

“Pull over.”

The order hangs in the air.

“Are you crazy?!” Max yells, pulling herself forward in the seat, “They’ll catch you!”

“That’s the point,” you say emotionlessly as you regard her.

“No!”

“What is going on here!?” Billy yells angrily beside you.

“They’re going to take her!” Max screams turning to Billy, “You can’t stop! She’s going to give herself up to save us!”

“Fuck that,” Billy says as he revs the engine and makes an abrupt turn to the right. The car behind you all skids but makes the turn at the last minute.

“You need to let me do this,” you say calmly.

“Like Hell I do!” he says rage in his voice.

You huff in annoyance, “They will succeed, if not today, someday.”

“Then it’s not going to be today,” Billy says, taking another abrupt turn trying to throw them off your trail.

“You need to let me do this,” you say matter of factly.

The alleyway you find yourselves in is a dead end. Billy curses and slams his hands on the steering wheel as you get out of the car.

“No!” Max yells as you exit the car, Billy reaching for you a moment too late.

You turn to the men, each of them pointing a gun at you. Steve pulls up behind them a moment later and grabs his bat from the back seat.

“Steve… Don’t…” you murmur tiredly.

“They can’t have you!” Steve yells.

“It’s okay…” you soothe them.

“So you’re coming quietly?” questions one of the men.

“Yes.”

“Good choice,” the other murmurs as he pulls the trigger.

The panic from those around you is palpable as you fall to the floor the dart sticking out of your neck. Steve and Billy make to run towards you before they turn to the men and to rush them.

With the last of your strength your message echoes in their minds, “Don’t forget…”

***

Horror fills them as they watch her fall to the ground. Her eyes roll back into her head and everything goes silent before the rush of rage brings everyone snapping back to reality. Billy pulls back and punches the nearest man as a tranquilizer dart flies towards him. Steve falls next his bat rolling uselessly to the side. Max and Dustin panic and scream as they rush to Steve and Billy.

Max whips around in just enough time to see the two men haul her up and throw her limp body in the back seat of the car. Methodically, as if kidnapping is second nature to these monsters, they move Steve’s car. Dustin is struggling to pull Steve out of the way.

Max cries out in sadness, feeling helpless, as her friend vanished from sight around the bend. She’s left with her unconscious brother and a panicking Dustin.

“What do we do!?” Yells Dustin snapping Max from her shock.

“I don’t know!” She yells back, anger masking her fear.

“We have to do something!” Dustin yells as he paces back and forth. He would periodically rake his fingers through his hair.

“Like what!?” Max screeches back fists flying to her side in rage and frustration.

With no small amount of effort the two preteens drag their older and heavier brother figures into Billy’s car. The two young men are slumped together unceremoniously in the back seat as Max takes the wheel of Billy’s car.

“Are you sure about this?” Dustin asks, hesitation clear in his voice. The memory of the last time Max drove clear in his mind.

“Zoomer. Remember?,” She says pointing at herself in confidence, “Besides, you didn’t die last time,” she says flipping her hair over her shoulder.

“It was dark last time! No one was on the road! It’s the middle of the morning!” Dustin argues crossing his arms.

“Stop being such a baby! It’ll be fine!” She exclaims, frustration seeping into her voice.

With that, she starts up the car and nervously pulls out onto the road. Slowly the preteens make their way to the police station. Not without many near misses and loud honks of other drivers.

The preteens jump from the vehicle and rush into the police station yelling for Hopper as they do so.

“What are you two doing here? Why aren’t you in school?” Hopper asks in bewilderment coming out of his office. The receptionist unable to control the duo before her.

“They took (Name)!” Both Max and Dustin yell in a panic turning towards the confused chief of police.

***

When you wake up you are strapped to a chair with a helmet over your head. Your head is completely silent for the first time in your life, and if you weren’t concerned with figuring a way out of this, you would be enjoying it more. The room is dark save for the single fluorescent light in the very center of the room. There are one-way windows on one side of the room and you can practically feel the eyes of the people on the other side.

A man that you recognize from your childhood enters the room and regards you as a science experiment. He’s wearing a brown suit with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. He hasn’t changed much except for the now graying hair on his balding head.

“Three… How have you been? You are quite the sneaky little thing aren’t you?” he asks conversationally as he sits down across from you at the table.

Your answer is an emotionless gaze. You can feel yourself retreating back into your mind as the man in front of you regards you the same way as so many years ago. Like an experiment, as if you are less than him.

“Where have you been hiding all this time, hmmm? With Melanie Snow perhaps?” he quips pulling the cigarette from his lips. The smell burns your nostrils as he releases a puff of smoke.

You feel your chest constrict as he mentions her name.

“I see you’ve made friends with a Steve Harrington? A Dustin Henderson? A Maxine Mayfield? A William Hargrove?”

“They aren’t my friends, they are annoyances,” you answer monotonously.

“Annoyances?” he sounds almost amused.

“Yes… If it wasn’t for them your lackeys would be dead,” you spit the words at the man fire in your eyes as you regard him coolly.

“Dead, you say? You would do that?” he asks leaning forward on his elbows.

“I’m not a child anymore,” your voice is ice.

“No… I suppose not… However, we will be picking up where we left off. Perhaps we will see the results that we want after all this time.”

With that, he gets up and leaves the room. You keep your mind calm and clear as you access the situation you are in.

It’s not long before a couple of men in white come into the room and push you from the chair. Their handling is far rougher than it should be as you walk down the hallway. You can hear the cries of a few children, but you keep your face void of any emotion. The room they take you to is the same one from your childhood. You see the number three on the wall and suppress a shudder. You are shoved inside, but before the door is shut you turn to the man behind you and lock eyes with him.

“You know… cheating on your wife when she’s pregnant with your child is disgusting.”

The look on his face as the door closes is priceless.

***

“We have to help her!” yells Dustin as he paces the living room floor of (Name)’s house.

“Can Elle find her?” questions Steve his hand in his hair as he sits on the couch.

“Damnit!” curses Billy as he punches the arm of the chair he’s in, “What good is this?”

Steve and Billy had woken up in a panic upon realizing what happened. They had given their statement to Hopper, who had been very displeased that Max had driven to the police station while the boys were unconscious, but that’s a talk for another day. They went to break the news to Melanie which is how they found themselves setting up camp in the Snow living room.

“Hey just calm down man! We’re going to figure something out!” Clenching his teeth against the pain in his head. The tranquilizer making his head pound with the leftover drugs still coursing through him.

“Well, what can this Elle girl do?” he rounds on him anger radiating off of his person.

“More than you!” yells Dustin.

“Hey! Yelling about everything isn’t going to solve this!” yells Max.

“She’s right…” laments Melanie, “She’s going to have to get herself out of this.”

“But Elle can-” Dustin begins.

“She would be putting herself in danger!” Hopper interrupts, “You don’t know how they found her, they could do the same to Elle.”

“We can’t just do nothing!” yells Billy as he stands up from his seat and takes a step towards Hopper.

“I’m not risking Elle being found. That doesn’t mean we aren’t going to do anything.” Hopper holds his stare until Billy backs down.

“Why do you care anyway?” Dustin asks looking over at Billy in confusion.

“Why do I-?” he looks angrily at Dustin, “Because-” He trails off looking unsure of himself for just a moment before his anger covers it up. “None of your business twerp!”

“Will everyone just calm down?” Yells Hopper trying to maintain peace.

“How?! How are we supposed to do that?” Asks Dustin shaking his head in frustration.

“Can someone just do something?!” screeches Melanie before she collapses to the floor crying.

Everyone is silent as they regard her, each of them thinking the same thing...

‘But what can we do?’

***

The next few days you sit quietly in your old room listening. Your powers while not entirely snuffed out are muffled and it isn’t long until the helmet is replaced with another stronger one. You don’t mind as much they think you do as you feign sleep all the while listening.

It’s in sleep that you feel him though. He’s frantic and angry and feels very alone.

You can’t blame yourself for this. You say calmly regarding him.

His eyes widen when he sees you sitting there on his bed.

“You got out?!” he says getting up and coming towards you.

No… I am still there…

“How are you able to…?”

We have a connection Billy… Perhaps it’s our emotions that bind us… We understand hurt better than most…

“You let them take you!” he explodes, “You could have fought them! We could have fought them! Max is… Max is really upset! And damn Harrington! He- Damn it!” He yells angrily picking up a can of hairspray and throwing it against the wall.

It had to happen…

“No, it didn’t! I could have… done something... protected you…” He sits down on the bed defeated, his elbows resting on his knees.

You’re silent for a moment, ‘There are bigger things at play than you understand. They would not stop and I had to think of more than just myself…’

“Bullshit.”

Tell them not to worry…

“Not to worry?!” he yells, “You’ve been captured by some freak show scientists, and no one is supposed to worry?!” he jumps up from the bed and towers over you breathing heavily in his rage.

You regard him silently with the same patience that you always have.

Trust me…

With that, you vanish from his mind. Blinking you are abruptly woken up by the sound of a little metal flap swinging as food is shoved into your cell. You sigh as you glare at the hard bread and porridge that is sitting in the bowl. It’s important that you keep your strength up though it’s imperative to your plan. You pick up the tray and begin to eat.

***

“What do you mean you saw her?” Steve asks, disbelief clear in his voice. He hadn’t been sure what to think when Billy asked to meet him behind the school, but this wasn’t what he expected.

“I told you! I saw her okay?! I don’t get it either!” Billy yells all while trying to keep his voice down. He doesn’t need anyone seeing him and Harrington talking behind the school, too many questions.

“But why did you see her and not me? I’m her friend!” Steve says defensively and maybe a little jealously. Why were you talking to Billy and not him?

“I’m her friend too! You aren’t the only one!”

“Yeah right! What have you ever done for her huh?”

“She-” Billy looks away from Steve. He can’t know…

“She what?” Steve presses, voice going lower in a warning.

“None of your business! Look, I just wanted to know if that makes any sense to you!”

“I mean… she’s special… you know…” Steve says uncertainty clear in his voice.

“Yeah, I know she is…” Billy says remembering the day you casually told him you were going to help him.

“So what do we do?” Steve asks.

“She said to trust her…” Billy says trailing off in thought.

“If she contacts you again see if she knows where she is. We’re going to get her back,” Steve says with finality. “Truce?” he asks holding his hand out to Billy.

Billy regards it for a moment before he nods, “Truce.”

The two young men clasp hands in a firm handshake, both trying to have a tighter grip as they shake on it.

“What are you trying to do? Break my hand?!” Steve yells.

��You’re such a wuss Harrington!” Billy laughs as he pulls back.

“Wuss?! You face a Demogorgon and tell me who the wuss is!”

“What the fuck is a Demogorgon?”

“You have a lot to learn Hargrove. A lot.”

***

You feel yourself growing stronger every day. And among the quiet in your mind, you’ve noticed something else. You can tap into emotions and you spend the next few days wreaking havoc on the workers of the lab. You cause anger outbursts, crying spells, and lust to run rampant. Papers are thrown to the floor in a rage and balled up in fits of uncertainty. You plant lies in their minds with the simplest of sentences. If you didn’t know any better you would say you’re having fun.

“It seems we’ve underestimated you…” Carl Watt says from his position in front of you. He adjusts the button on his ugly suit jacket as he sits down before you.

You just regard him blankly as silence rings throughout the room.

“You have caused quite a few problems for us. Are you having fun?” he asks patiently as if speaking to his six-year-old daughter who made a mess in the kitchen.

You gaze down at the steel table in front of you, eyes unseeing as you creep in his mind.

“If you don’t cooperate there will be consequences.”

Again you are silent at his threat.

“After all we wouldn’t want anything to happen to your friends would we?”

You fight the reaction. The flinch. The twitch. The way your mind screams at the man before you in rage. You give him nothing as you continue to gaze down at the table, the silence stretching long and cold in the sterile room.

“You think you’re fooling anyone? Teenage girls are so easy. You all have the same weakness. Emotions. Boys. Attention. You are not nearly as complex as you believe you are.”

You finally raise your head to look squarely in his eyes, your own void of any emotion as you regard him.

“You think you’re fooling anyone?” You mimic, “Men are so easy. You all have the same weakness. Power. Lust. Control. You are not nearly as complex as you believe you are.”

Carl looks enraged as his fist flies onto the table. Instead of flinching as he wanted, you merely tilt your head to one side and regard him in boredom.

“And you said teenage girls are emotional. You should really have better control than that,” you say calmly.

“Get her out of here,” he says through clenched teeth.

Walking back to your cell you sense it suddenly. A tickle in your mind. You snap your head to the side and hear it plain as day.

They know.

They found it.

The door. The door. The door!

There is panic in the words and in the mind.

He’s fourteen with dark hair and wild green eyes. You remember him vaguely from when you were here before.

Show!

You collapse as the boy enters your mind and you are thrown into a dream.

Billy is in a car accident. He’s pulled into a void. The screams are too much.

You try to pull away from him. To break away from his hold on you.

Bait.

The creature that fills the sky is terrifying. Black and everywhere. It fills your mind and you know in your heart that this isn’t over. That the Upside Down is beating at the door.

Wait…

You gasp as you are thrown back into your head. The haunted green eyes of the boy down the hall filling your vision.

“Get up!” yells the guard.

You are kicked roughly in the side as you double over again. The other reaches down and grabs your hair dragging you up to your feet.

“Not so tough without your powers are you?” spits the guard.

You blink and reorient yourself before you wipe the blood from your nose. You can feel him at the edge of your conscience.

Bad men… bad…

‘Yes…’ you think to him, ‘Bad men…’

Out?

He pauses for a breath as you are thrown back into your cell.

Out out out???

‘Soon.’

The thought seems to soothe him as his mind quiets and he drifts off to sleep. Vaguely, you wonder if he even knows how to talk. His mind is less fragmented than you originally thought though. You can use that to your advantage.

***

Billy opens his eyes to see you standing before him.

I need you to be ready.

“For what?” he asks instantly alert and sitting up, “Ready for what?”

The moment I expose them…

“What do you need us to do?”

The old base is where I’m being kept. Elle knows where. I will need a distraction in precisely three days’ time. You need to listen very carefully to my instructions. In a glass bottle mix carbon disulfide, phosphorus, and sulfur with a metal lid. This solution is highly flammable if exposed to air.

“What do you want us to do with that?”

I want to burn this place to the ground.

Notes:

I know! Such a long time coming! Concentrating has been difficult even with inspiration for this story! The next chapter will probably be the final chapter for this story, but never fear! I'll begin work on "I'll Tell You No Lies" the sequel to this story set in S3 of Stranger Things! There may be a little short in between this story and that one because I have such affection for this weird triangle between MC, Billy, and Steve. Please drop a comment to tell me your thoughts!

#Billy Hargrove #billy hargrove imagine #billy hargove x reader #billy hargrove fanfiction #steve harrington x reader x billy hargrove #steve harrington #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington x you #steve harington imagine #steve harrington x reader #stranger things #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things series #stranger things reader insert #stranger things fandom #love triangle #healing #i'm fixing this #you're welcome

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mystic-deep · 3 years

Text

“You don’t know how to beg, darling.” | Nanami Kento x fem!reader

♡ ♡ ♡ description: Married life is never easy, but you and Nanami always made it work. How could a little text cause the end of it all?

♡ ♡ ♡ warnings: cheating, swearing, nsfw, rough kissing, fingering;

♡ ♡ ♡ notes: this will be a two-part story if people find the first part interesting enough. guess I was craving a bit of heartache from our favorite ex-salaryman haha. it's not proofread so please show mercy.

♡ ♡ ♡ word count: 2.7k

“God I hate this fucking job.”

With your face buried in your hands, you muttered to yourself in the almost empty cafe. That’s how it all started, with a very honest complaint, followed quickly by “I wish I was at the beach”, to which you received a small chuckle. With tired eyes, you looked to your right to the man that, unknowing to you at that time, would become your husband.

“You too, huh?”

That’s all it took, just an acknowledgment that you weren’t the only one suffering at the hands of capitalism, and you were instantly attracted to this handsome and somewhat intimidating man that was offering you a sympathetic smile.

Two hours later, with your opened laptops now completely forgotten, and a constant order of caffeine drinks, you both came to the conclusion that you enjoyed each other’s presence, thus deciding to meet up again the following day. Then the day after that and then the day after that, until about a week later, when Nanami asked you out on a proper date. About three months in your new relationship, you moved in together and about half a year later, you were married.

A match made in heaven, that’s what you two were. It was plain for everyone to see how good you were together. You both enjoyed similar things, you were both foodies, you were successful in your respective careers, even in terms of looks you would catch envious glances as you both walked down the street hand in hand.

You never had a fight, you never argued - it was always a well-balanced relationship. You were a team and you both worked hard for the same goal, to leave your well paid jobs and bustling city for the quiet and relaxing beaches of Malaysia.

It wasn’t always easy, sacrifices had to be made, and there were times when you both arrived home so overworked that you would collapse on top of each other, not even bothering to take off your clothes. It was worth it though, or at least it would be once you were in your little house by the beach where you wouldn’t have to worry about your boss or clients calling you, where there were no deadlines or targets to be reached. Only the sun, the waves, a cocktail and a good book and who knows, maybe even children.

Yes, a proper plan for a proper future and everything was going great, until your husband had forgotten to turn off his phone and left it on the kitchen island. Your hand reached for it on instinct when it made a little buzz, thinking it was probably nothing more than a notification or a message from a client.

“Thank you for the gift, daddy! Can’t wait to show you how good it looks on me!” That was the message, quickly followed by a few kisses and then the screen went black.

The towel that you were using to dry your hair had fallen to your shoulders as you gripped his phone and stared at it in disbelief. Nanami was in the shower, you both arrived at the same time and he was gentleman enough to let you go in first. He was probably texting this person when he heard you turn off the water, and most likely forgot to close the phone.

You knew what this meant, you didn’t want to admit it but there had been signs going back to a few months ago. Date nights that were abruptly cancelled, a new expensive car even though you both had promised to cut back on your expenses, the fact that he barely touched you even on days when you were both free.

It’s not that you were dumb, far from it, but you were so in love. You were so in love with the man that had been your husband for four years now, you were so in love with the idea of a future with him - where you could get to enjoy your lives and build a proper family. That love made you blind, even now with clear evidence in front of you, the idea that Nanami was cheating on you just seemed so surreal.

What exactly had happened? What happened to the two of you that were so perfect for each other? What happened to the man who couldn’t keep his hands off of you, the one that had fucked you silly on every piece of furniture when you first bought your expensive penthouse? What happened to showering together in the morning because you didn’t want to part even for five minutes? To waking up to the smell of fresh coffee and pancakes on weekends, to holdings hands while whispering to each other in quiet cafes, to all those little moments that you treasured so much - and that you were now questioning if you’d ever get to experience them again.

All the love and care that he had for you was now being directed to another. You had lost a battle that you didn’t even know you were fighting, and the outcome was a tragic heartbreak.

That night, curled into a ball on your side of the bed, you sobbed quietly to yourself while your husband was sleeping. With trembling hands you clutched the bed sheet, your tears wetting the pillow case. You knew that there was no way for Nanami not to hear your little whimpers or feel how your body was trembling, but he made no movement. He said nothing and you said nothing and the silence fell between you heavier than a cover made of lead.

It was after a month, and the work of a private investigator, that you gathered your courage to confront your husband about his affair. As he sat at the kitchen table, lazily drinking his coffee and reading the newspaper on a Saturday morning, you handed him a folded paper.

“Sign here.”

He looked at you from behind his reading glasses and arched a brow at the piece of paper that was handed to him. He folded the Financial Times neatly and placed the paper on the table before turning his attention to the document. It must have been a complete shock to him, because he just stared at the divorce papers for several seconds before he finally made a sound.

“What...what the hell is this?” He got up from his chair, eyes narrowing at you in a threatening way.

“Divorce papers. I thought you were smart enough to read.”

“Have you lost your fucking mind?” His voice was shacking, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the papers in his hand.

“I thought there was no need to involve lawyers since we signed a prenuptial. Let’s finish this quickly, like removing a band aid.”

“Why? Why would you want a divorce?”

You had been calm up until that moment. You thought to yourself that you had cried until your tears had dried up and you had screamed until you’ve lost your voice and that all there was left to do now was to end it quickly and be done with it.

Oh but no, Nanami Kento wouldn’t let you leave without hurting you one last time. He wanted you to say it- he wanted to see the damage and pain he had caused.

“Because you’ve change! Because I don’t recognize the man that I’ve married! Because you’ve stopped loving and respecting me! Because you’re fucking a god damn college student! A little whore that has been riding your dick in hotel rooms and empty parking lots for a designer bag!”

Your face went bright red as you shouted your accusations, feeling the pain of the first discovery washing over you once more.

“This isn’t what-”

“This isn’t what? What lie do you plan on telling me? That she’s some poor relative and you’re just such a good Samaritan that you had to help her out? Tell me, how many of your family members call you ‘daddy’?”

Nanami’s hand slammed the kitchen table with such force that it made all the cutlery and dishes to jump up. He took off his glasses and angrily placed them in the pocket of his sweatpants. With just a few steps he had you trapped between the wall and his strong chest, his large hand gripping your chin.

“Why can’t you be quite for once? Why can’t you just shut the hell up and listen!” You’ve never heard Nanami raise his voice at anyone before let alone you. Sure, he could be extremely intimidating when he wanted to, but he always considered it was classless to scream. The anger flashing in his eyes and the grip on your chin were clear signs that he had lost whatever composure he had left and that a storm was coming.

As though sensing that you wanted to open your mouth and protest, he smashed his lips against yours and bit with savagery on your bottom lip. You let out a whimper and he took full advantage of that to slide his tongue inside your month. He kissed you like he had never kissed you before and it made your head spin. It was so rough, so primal - it almost felt like he was trying to eat you.

Your hands landed on his shoulders and began to grip his shirt like your life was depending on it. You were losing -you were losing your mind to this intense feeling that was building in your stomach. There had always been passion between the two of you but nothing close to this raging fire that was threatening to consume you.

When he finally pulled away, your head felt light from the lack of oxygen and your eyes looked at him in a dazed way. Smirking, clearly enjoying the fact that he still had such a strong effect on you, he began to part your legs with one of his knees, his right hand finding its way in your loose curls. He pulled on your hair harshly before his mouth went to attack your neck.

“You always get to decide, don’t you darling?” He let his teeth sink into the soft flesh, chuckling when you let out a little squeak. “Let’s start dating, Kento. Let’s move in together, Kento. Let’s get married, Kento. I don’t want to be married anymore so let’s get divorced, Kento.” Each word that was rolling out of his mouth contained so much bitterness and it stabbed you straight in the heart.

“Even my fucking dream, you couldn’t even let me have that. Oh no, you just had to make it yours.” You were so caught up in the hurtful things he was saying that you hadn’t noticed his hand travelling to the waistband of your shorts until he started rubbing your clit through the thin fabric of your panties.

“Kento...oh, Kento, please!” Please what? You didn’t even know what you were asking for. – ‘Please stop saying such horrible things, you’re breaking my heart. Please don’t make it sound like I’ve stolen your dream away from you. Please touch me more, touch me and remember how much we used to love each other.’

“You don’t know how to beg, darling.” His long fingers pushed the panties to the side before skilfully playing with your folds. “Ah, so wet for me already. You’re really hoping to get fucked, huh?” Without much trouble, he pushed two fingers inside your tight hole and began to pump them in a slow rhythm while his thumb pressed against your clit. His other hand cupped your breast before pressing his palm on your swollen nipple, his mouth returning to devouring your neck.

You were so close, with your back pressed on the wall behind you, you were so close to climaxing that every hair on your body was standing up. Then, just as abruptly as it started, Nanami retrieved both his hands and took a step back, enjoying your dishevelled state.

His rough hands landed on your shoulders and he pushed you gently on your knees, your face just inches away from the growing tent in his pants. “All you have to do is ask, darling. All you have to do is beg me to fuck you and maybe I’ll be generous. Tell me what you want.”

At this point you were ready to break. It had been too much - your heart just couldn’t take it anymore. It was hurtful enough to realize that your husband had fallen out of love with you but to find out that he never loved you to begin with? It felt like the whole world would come crumbling down.

Now you stood there, on your knees, looking up at the man who wanted to take everything from you, wondering what should you do. It would be so easy, just to beg like he had asked and let him bend you, let him break you. You would become just like that poor little girl he was fucking for fun, disposable the second he got bored with you. No matter what you chose, you couldn’t go back to the way you were. The life that you thought you two had planned together would never come to be.

With that thought in mind and whatever strength you had left, you pushed yourself up, propping your back on the wall. “I need you-” You looked straight into his eyes as the next words left your mouth. “-to sign the fucking divorce papers.”

His fist hit the wall next to your head with such force that your heart stopped beating. There was a small part of you that knew, even if he hated you, Nanami would never raise his hand to hurt you.

Looking up to meet his frightening expression, you held your ground knowing that there was no turning back at this point. He said nothing more - he threw you one last angry glance before storming to your shared bedroom. He emerged minutes later, completely dressed, fished his car keys and his wallet and he was out the door. You knew exactly where he was going but at this point you didn’t care anymore.

With trembling feet you wobbled to the bedroom and began to pull out the suitcases and boxes that you had prepared in advance. You had rented a small apartment, a far cry from your luxurious penthouse, but it was close to your office and you couldn’t afford to throw money aimlessly at this point.

As you threw your belongings in the suitcases, you made sure to leave behind every single gift he had ever given you. You didn’t need his coats, his jewels, his watches, his bags or shoes. Everything that you wanted he was no longer willing to give you and so you left only with what you had bought yourself.

He could keep the penthouse too, his little mistress will probably be thrilled to finally move in the expensive apartment complex and be showered with gifts without having to worry that the evil wife will catch them. That is until some new little thing would come along and she will be tossed to the side and forgotten. Nanami might have indicated that he had never loved you, but you were also sure he didn’t love this girl either.

As your packing was nearly completed, you looked at the photo album left on the bed, wondering what to do with it. You knew that if you left it there it would quickly find its way to the trash, and even though it hurt to remember, it hurt more to think such memories would be discarded with such ease.

You picked it up and when you did, a small flyer fell from between its pages. You picked it up from the floor and stared at the words “WELCOME TO MALAYSIA!” written in bold colours on the pamphlet. You had it ever since you went to the travel expo a year ago, a little glimpse to what was to come, but you guessed you didn’t need it anymore.

As you moved to throw it in the trash bin, you suddenly stopped. His dream, his dream, the words just kept coming back to you. No, this was your dream as well! This is what you worked for so hard every day! This was what you’ve postponed having kids for! This was all the birthdays and parties that you couldn’t attend because you were working overtime. This was all the money you stopped yourself from spending on little goods that made you happy. He could have the penthouse, he could have his luxury brands, he could have to expensive car and hell, he could even have his happily ever after. However, he would not claim your dream and stop you from achieving it.

You carried all the boxes and suitcases to your car and got in, already forming a plan and how you could move to the sunny beaches of Malaysia in just a few months. As you drove away from the apartment complex, your phone let out a little buzz. Stopping at the stoplight, you checked your messages and saw that Nanami had texted you.

‘I’m on my way home, let’s have a proper talk.’ A few seconds later, another text. ‘We can work this through, you know I didn’t mean everything I’ve said.’ You scoffed and stared angrily at the screen. ‘Wherever you’re going, that’s no longer my home.’ You texted back quickly before the light went green. ‘Tell me when you’ve finished signing the papers and I’ll tell you where to send them.’ You threw your phone on the empty seat as the last massage you’d ever write Nanami was being sent. ‘I will never beg, I will never bend and you will never break me.’

#Jujutsu Kaisen #nanami kento #kento nanami #nanami kento x reader

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clanwarrior-tumbly · 3 years

Note

ayup, clanny! have you seen the AGOTI mod yet? if yes, can you do some headcanons or a scenario where the newly imprisoned AGOTI meets the unwilling warden of the void who’s been trying to escape for a few years (i think time moves faster in the void), so they team up to get out. When Cherry and Keith show up, Cherry actually recognizes the warden as the crazy talented old producer for her and Tabi before they mysteriously disappeared, and they all end up escaping and the warden becomes AGOTI’s new producer. -🎋🦊

Ooooh nice idea! I love the mod so yes ......

"Ugh..stupid-ass demon scumbags!" Agoti stormed around the Void in anger, jumping from one floating rock to the next. "They couldn't handle me taking the spotlight?! What kinda bullshit is that?!!"

"Hey buddy, you might wanna chill out-"

"SHUT UP, ASSHOLE!!" Spinning around, the tendrils of his hair lashed out at the other person who spoke.

But he was surprised when you dodged the attack. With little effort you grabbed his hair and flipped him over, sending him crashing to the ground. He groaned in pain and opened his eyes, shocked to see the electrified prong aimed at his chest.

Though he also saw you were covered in armor, sporting a symbol of some kind on your chestplate. "I'm giving you one more chance to calm down." You warned. "I really don't like hurting people."

"Yeah? Well you really kicked the shit outta me just now.." Agoti hissed, but ultimately decided to give in. "Fine. I'm cool. Can ya point that thing somewhere else?"

You nodded and held your spear back to your side, while he got up and dusted himself off. "Who are you anyway?"

"The Warden of the Void. I assume you're that hotheaded "A Guy On The In-""

"Just call me Agoti. It's less of a mouthful." He put his hands on his hips, looking around at the white sky. "So you're the warden of this place? This goddamn prison that I shouldn't even be in.."

"I heard a lot of folks say that but..I'm inclined to agree with you."

He did a double-take. "Wait, really?"

"According to this log.." Waving your hand, you brought up a hologram that displayed his profile. "You're here for...outshining every singer in your town and threatening the careers of two famous rockstars?"

"...what the fuck..so they weren't bullshitting?"

"No. To be sent here because of that is an unusual punishment."

"So you can't enter a plea deal or whatever? Make those jerks come in here instead?"

"Unfortunately I can't." You made the hologram disappear. "In a way I was wrongfully imprisoned, too."

Agoti seemed baffled, so you explained how you were sent here ages ago. You've forgotten what you previously did, but one day you were just randomly given the duties of the Void's warden. Anything you needed to subdue and process prisoners was granted to you--but you could never leave even if your sentence was finished.

You've sought out ways of escaping for years...without much success. But you didn't wanna get caught, and until Agoti came here, you had no actual incentive to leave.

Once you finished your story, the screen demon hummed in thought. "So..you want out, I want out. I bet we can make something happen." With a toothy grin, he offered his hand to you. "How 'bout you show me the ropes and I'll help you find an escape? Deal?"

"It could take us a long time to figure that out." You hesitated. "You should be aware that time moves exceptionally fast in this dimension. Minutes out there are like hours in here-"

"So what? Better to start finding a way out now than later. C'mon.." Agoti was growing impatient, but fortunately he managed to get through to you, as you shook his hand.

"Alright, Agoti. It's a deal." You smiled.

...........

Neither you or Agoti knew how long it's been since you made that deal to help each other escape.

But finally, you figured it out. The solution was right there in front of you all along:

A singing battle

Singing was the key to escaping this place. With the combined soundwaves of two singers, a portal to the real world could be produced.

Now the only problem was...you were never really a singer, and Agoti was. So it wouldn't be a fair match that can create a strong-enough portal.

"You're tellin' me there ain't another goddamn singer here?!!" He fumed one day as you regrettably told him no other prisoner was proficient in music. "Great..juuuuuust GREAT!! We spent all this time and got nothing out of-!"

"Wait, what's that?"

Agoti looked to where you were pointing, seeing a portal opening up in the sky, before two figures fell out of it: a boy with blue hair and a girl in a red dress.

They crash landed onto the platform you and Agoti were on, miraculously suffering no injuries of any kind.

"Huh..this is new.." He remarked as he approached the couple.

The blue-haired boy made a beeping noise, standing up and rubbing his head. You noticed the microphone in his hands, but more notably..you recognized the girl who was with him.

"My apologies but..have we met?"

"Hm?" The brunette looked up at you, surprised, though you could see her eyes flash with recognition. "Are you...[y/n]?"

"[Y/n]? You two know each other?" Agoti quirked an eyebrow, bewildered. He hadn't known your actual name until now.

"Yeah, a long time ago I was her music producer. But last time I saw her she was with someone else." You mused, trying to remember who her last boyfriend was. "It was.....Tabi wasn't it, Charlotte?"

"Woah woah...Tabi dated her?!! No way. He never told me about that!"

"Yeah um..we were together for a while," Charlotte awkwardly chuckled. "But....I-I'd rather not talk about it. I just have a new boyfriend now. He's Keith." She gestured to the blue-haired guy.

"Yeah! And..uh...skee deh beh doo bop!" Keith pointed at Agoti, who looked offended by whatever he said.

But he went back to snarling at the pair, manifesting a microphone out of thin air as he stepped closer. "Another singer, huh? Well I hope you have better insults than that! Because we're all gonna be here a while....a very long one."

Knowing what was about to happen, you decided to stand by them and make sure nobody else interrupted, while Charlotte hopped onto a nearby floating rock.

And so you watched Agoti and Keith have a rap battle, in which your friend kept losing again and again. You did try to warn him not to lose his temper, as this could be the only chance of you two escaping this prison.

But his frustration and impatience got the better of him, as by the third round he turned the platform into a giant speaker and sent it flying into the air. Poor Charlotte was clinging onto the rock for dear life, but you caught her and tried to keep steady as the platform swayed.

"Well..so much for "staying calm"." You sighed as Agoti shouted at his rival, berating him for "insulting him", before the two had one final showdown.

Although he lost yet again, their combined efforts managed to breach a portal into the dimension, and you all escaped through it.

Finally..you and Agoti were free from this hell.

~Epilogue~

In the weeks following the events in the Void, you've decided to become Agoti's new music producer once his career started back up. Thanks to your talent, the fans returned in no time at all.

The main issue was him previously making a competition out of singing, so he decided to perform his music locally and lose the ego...just a little bit of it.

Meanwhile Solazar, his friend and manager, was concerned about Charlotte and her ties to the family that trapped you to begin with.

Though the two of you just brushed that aside for the time being, wanting a chance to experience the real world again.

It was good to be back.

#clanask #bamboo fox anon #fnf x reader #friday night funkin x reader #fnf agoti x reader #agoti x reader

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fluffy-bunbunny · 3 years

Note

What is the complete storyline? Is Valentino an abusive ass in this one 2? If so, why does Angel let him around Whitey? And why does Alastor treat him the way he does?

Part 1:

Valentino took Angel Dust and made him a star.

He surrounded Angel with his cigarette smoke and promised him all the riches of hell if he worked obediently for him, he just had to say "yes" to everything and be a very submissive boy.

Drugs ran through his blood. He couldn't live without inhaling that red smoke, Angel needed it in his life, if he didn't breathe it, became nervous, depressed and hysterical.

Being close to Valentino was the only thing that made him happy and he would endure any abuse for his dose of drugs.

Angel worked hard to earn a position as his right hand man and also a position in the heart of the Moth. His life was drugs, fame and money, Valentino adored Angel and was about to confess.

Angel was sickly in love, dependent, would have done anything to make him happy... But he made a mistake that would cost him everything.

Valentino lost a lot of money, territory and fame, because of a mission that Angel failed and Valentino swore by his life that Angel was going to give him back every dollar that he lost because of his mistake.

Angel Dust was overexploited to the point of fainting, consuming more drugs every day to stay on his feet and earn Valentino's forgiveness. He cursing himself every day, every second for having defrauded in this way the one he had "saved" him from poverty and had made him a recognized star.

The debt went on and on growing. As time went by, Valentino added disproportionate interests with which he kept Angel in misery. Their relationship was totally broken and Vox entered the game.

So many years passed. Still, Angel Dust thought there would come a point where Val would forgive him and they would have that beautiful dream relationship again, that idealized relationship, for which he cried every night.

Sales began to drop, Valentino proposed as a novelty to turn Angel into a woman and reach a new audience. Angel was terrified at the idea, but he would do anything... to please Valentino.

Many experiments later, it was possible, Angel Dust would now be a woman. She would shoot straight porn for a limited time and that would boost sales. Val was beaming, happy and that made Angel happy too.

Angel was still very sore from all the experiments they did on him... Although for Val there was nothing that some sex would not solve and Angel enjoyed the few times that Valentino was kind.

Angel Dust returned to the Happy Hotel, to recover and get used to her new body.

Alastor has always been an egocentric who only thinks about himselft, but seeing Angel in his new body caused him curiosity, and he approached to find out more; he unconsciously acted as a cordial and polite man, the feminine essence made him lower his guard. Angel in his new body made him more friendly, as he always was with women, a cordial and educated man.

A drink, a few caresses, one thing led to another. It was nothing out of the ordinary, just a one night stand.

Cap 2 The recordings were going very well, but Angel felt bad, dizzy, disgusted and somewhat weak. He went to the doctor and received the horrible news: an unwanted pregnancy.

Angel was very sure it was Valentino's, because he was the first to "taste" his new body.

They tried to abort him in a thousand ways, cause for them it was only a hindrance, but Angel's body was not resisting: weak, thin and sunk in drugs... And Valentino was not going to lose his source of income.

Although it did not seem like it, after the initial shock the idea didn't seem so bad. Valentino, in his egocentricity, wanted to leave offsprings and have a "Mini-Me", he wanted something of his own blood, something made by himself and the more time passed, the more he got excited about the idea.

Angel… He was happy to make Valentino happy and he dreamed of a family, a good family, not like the one he had in human life, a family with parents who would love his children.

This new beginning brought Val and Angel back together, who began to reconcile, fantasizing about a happy and powerful family.

Even so, Angel Dust didn't stop doing porn and only added the tag “pregnant”.

The expected day arrived, after a long wait a little white-haired male baby was born in hell. Angel returned to his masculine form immediately after that.

A soft fluff surrounding his neck… And deer ears decorated his head.

Valentino didn't take the news well at all, he felt betrayed and used, exploded in anger.

He had them both killed.

Angel Dust, using all of his strength, took off running towards the Happy Hotel, with Valentino shooting to kill and with Vox's dogs hot on his heels.

He barely managed to arrive, exhausted and broken, just in time to reach Alastor's arms and ask for asylum, who didn't understand anything, but would not let Valentino, least of all Vox, were to cause problems in his hotel.

Big was his surprise when he found out that this little boy was his son, someone with whom he never had a single connection, who only had a one night stand, came to bring him his little newborn.

After the chaos, Charlie took Angel and the little one in, while Alastor made sure to guard the place without letting Valentino carry out revenge on him.

days passed and Angel thought about killing his own son if it brought him Valentino's forgiveness, but he knew it, nothing could heal such a broken relationship.

On his side, Alastor avoided getting close to Angel and the little boy, not knowing how to react and how to take on his fatherly role, watching them from afar and stalking them around the hotel.

Alastor made it clear to the pimp and his square-faced lover that if anything happened to his son's 'mother', he would destroy them without thinking.

Knowing that they couldn't kill him, but Val and Vox came up with a good plan to keep making his life miserable.

Cap 3 Final.

Val demanded that Angel return to work as soon as he could, so he would continue to exploit him and make his life miserable, knowing that in the end he wasn't in a relationship with the red demon and a deal... It's a deal: all Angel belonged to Valentino by contract.

Alastor made it clear to the pimp that if anything happened to the spider, he would eat his body for dinner.

Little by little Alastor got closer to Angel (not in a romantic way) to get to know his little one better. After some debate, he ended up being named White: on one hand a name that sounded appropriate for Alastor and on the other hand, for being a nickname for cocaine (White dust, White powder, White rock). His little one "Whitey".

(Here I make a clarification, that there was never an agreement on the name in general and Whitey's first name is Alastor Jr)

Alastor Jr White.

... But White hates it and prefers to be called Whitey, Witty, Whitie, etc)

Angel didn't want to make Alastor uncomfortable, he didn't even trust him, as he felt that it would be easier for the Lord to eat Whitey than to bear an unwanted child with someone like him.

Somewhat overprotective and without wanting to get away from his baby, he preferred to take Whitey to work, leaving him in charge of other porn actresses while he worked. Whittie was still a months old baby and he wouldn't remember or know what was going on around him.

Thus, Whitey's childhood was spent in the arms of actresses and prostitutes. Angel just came out of filming, took a shower and ran to pick up his son.

Valentino avoided Angel because he felt that if he saw him he would destroy his face with rage, but he never imagined meeting the little one.

The girls huddled together to give affection to that small and tender being, they filled him with kisses with lipstick and hugged him with the smell of cheap cologne, remembering their children they had in life. He started to be a "everyone's son" in the studio.

The pimp was curious about the situation and went to see, running into the baby. He had angry feelings when he saw him, he had waited for him for so long, he had wanted him and he had even bought things for his arrival and now he was in front of him... But It wasn't his son, yet Val had loved him for so long that the feeling couldn't go away easily.

Valentino took him in his arms and felt something inside him, White smiled for him and wagged his tail happily.

When Angel Dust finished filming, he saw Valentino surrounded by the other actresses with his baby in his arms, laughing loudly and playing with him. His heart clenched at the thought that he could hurt him... but he didn't, he looked happy and Whitey too.

Despite the fright, Angel couldn't refuse to let Valentino approach Whitie, because he would get in trouble with the pimp, so he just stayed on the sidelines, making sure that the little one didn't enrage the madman who was his boss.

As a result, Angel, Val and Whitt began to spend time together, creating a false sense of 'happy family', one where Angel would see Valentino smile daily at this new 'toy' he gave birth to for him.

The one who was not happy was Vox, who had made a baby specifically for Valentino (Bytez), to fulfill his frustrated dream of being a father, but Valentino had cruelly rejected him after becoming fond with Whittie.

On his side, Alastor promised to give his son the best possible life.

He placed high expectations on him, relying on his ego in wanting to raise him as someone faultless, Alastor wanted him to be perfect, a worthy son of him, one that people admired and feared, a powerful being like him who could dominate the masses.

Whitey was still a baby but Alastor saw a lot of potential. Knowing that Angel was taking him to his work was not to his liking, much less knowing that his son was in the hands of someone like Valentino.

When he was barely old enough to learn, Whitey passed into the hands of Alastor, who gave him tutors and teachers, molding him from a young age with a strict regimen.

Alastor's high expectations destroyed his bond with Whitie, always demanding more of him, always demanding a perfection that he couldn't achieve. In his youth, he did't know how to shoot a weapon (and when he learned he had a horrible aim) he didn't hide his feelings behind a smile like him, he was explosive and affectionate, he had a hard time controlling his inner power. Spending father and son time was a headache for both of them: always fighting, always arguing, too different to get along.

Alastor saw his son as a disappointment and even as a danger, because he had to control that his bad temper didn't cause greater havoc, controlling the power in him.

Unlike Valentino, the pimp loved to see Whitey be destructive, be messy and boisterous, be dirty and annoying. He loved taking him to fast food and limousine rides, using him as a weapon for his enemies, watching him tear people apart and bathe his white skin in blood, watching him devour his victims like a wild animal.

Val gave him the acceptance and attention that Alastor denied him since he was a child, the paternal hugs, the words of encouragement, hearing him say "I'm proud of you", "you are the king" "you can achieve what you propose".

And so was his life, between the studio and the happy hotel. Loving Angel, hating Alastor and loving his “uncle / stepfather” Valentino.

#long text #hazbin hotel alastor #Hazbin hotel Valentino #Angel dust #Fluffy Deer #3vBot #Radiodust #Valangel #oc lore

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imagine-lcorp · 3 years

Text

Between Two Lungs (One Shot)

A/N: Hello dears, so here it is the infamous fic I’ve been writing. I really hope this fullfils my dream of crushing your hearts once again and that you have a fun time agonizing over this final choice. Because yes, I’ve made this a multiending fic...As always, remember to tell me what you think, is it something you want me to keep doing for other fics? Also, how did you feel after this? pls let me know. Also i made this PLAYLIST if you want to add some feeling to this while reading... Enjoy!

Lena Luthor x R/Hanahaki AU//Word Count: 3,464

-------------------------------------------------

It is possible to die of a broken heart.

You look it up somewhere in the internet. It's similar to a heart attack, caused by a very strong and emotionally stressful event. The death of a loved one, a breakup, a betrayal. It's treatable and rarely fatal. Following the recommendations of your doctor, you can make a full recovery within weeks. Still, it is possible to die of it.

You don't have a broken heart. You wish you had one. Because love, the one only you feel, is growing inside of you and it is much worse than that.

Thankfully, compared to others your condition it's not as painful as it could be.

You have heard about people with roses inside them, how their thorns puncture their pharynges with every breath they take. Others don't get flowers. They get apple or cherry trees with their fruits pouring juice inside their lungs and out of their mouths. Some others have pines and spruces, with cones constricting their organs and rib-cages until they bones break.

So you look at the small white petal that lays in your hand and think that, in your case, it is something almost magnanimous.

Plumerias have no thorns and, even though some can be a bit thick, their branches are soft enough to bend around your heart and lungs without much trouble. Their petals, small and delicate, rise easily up your throat without lacerating it in a coughing fit.

Maybe, you want to think in a very optimist way, if you can keep that love from growing further, you won't have to suffer through it.

Maybe.

So you prescribe for your own heart solitude and abstinence.

The first one is the easiest.

You tell your friends you are sick and need some time to recover. Most of them get worried as they don't know yet what illness has fallen upon you in these troublesome times.

"You know, If you wanted, I could get you a full medical examination." Alex offers with a raised eyebrow, giving you the look of the always concerned big sister.

"Thanks, but it's alright." You assure them with a smile. "I was thinking about spending some time at home anyway."

After a lot of questions you manage to dodge in the end, they decide there's no reason to doubt your intentions. So they leave you to your own devices.

Homemade remedies, or herbicides depending on who you ask, seem to help as you spend your days at home. Drinking some salt water with lemon in the morning, or a couple of vinegar tablespoons in a cup of tea before going to bed. They don't taste that bad once you get used to the flavor and these help you ease the new bitterness that you taste in the back of your throat.

The second is a bit harder.

You have to stop yourself from dreaming her, thinking her, missing her.

She has texted you a few times already, wanting to know how you're doing and offering her help if you don't feel like you're doing okay on your own. You handle it as best as you can. You text back, consistently enough and with measured time and words, so you don't raise any red flags. When you don't seem to answer she calls, but just thinking about hearing her voice makes your chest hurt a little.

You never answer. She doesn't try to call again. You spit your first handful of flowers after that.

It's all fine, you lie to yourself, at least until the pain reaches your insides and white petals come out of you mouth dappled in red.

"You need to tell her." Kara says softly as she pats your back after another coughing fit.

You cover your mouth with your hand, making sure there are no signs of blood or petals as you tight it into a fist. "Tell who what?"

"Tell Lena about the flowers." She sighs when she fells you freeze under her touch. "Sorry. Alex told me if I could get a clear shot at your lungs maybe we could figure out how to help. I didn't expect it to be... well, flowers."

It shouldn't come as a surprise to you but you are still amazed at how easy it is to forget Kara has x-ray vision when she's not wearing her suit. With or without it, she's still the same caring and protective person you have always known. It also explains why she has been so adamant about having lunch together, at least once a week, after your failed attempt at convincing her you were doing well after a month alone. You couldn't expect less from your best friend, you remind yourself as you catch your breath.

"How do you know it's her?" The taste is bitter as you swallow the rest of blood and petals in your mouth.

"It's plumerias, isn't it?" She rubs your back again as you regain you posture. "They are her favorites."

There are a couple of red tainted petals in your palm when you open your hand. "Yeah, they are."

Kara looks at you and you see something in her you don't think you have ever seen before in the Girl of Steel. But you recognize it, because you feel the same way. Hopeless. Helpless. Powerless.

"(Y/N)." She says like she's already grieving. "It's spreading fast."

The easiest way to get ride of the disease is by removing its seed from your heart, the doctor says. No more than an hour in the operating room and your respiratory system would be as good as new. Common symptoms after the surgery can include aches between your shoulder blades, ribs, back of the neck or chest, weakness and hoarseness in your voice, and, in general, some memory loss and the inability to experiment intense or deep affection towards another person. Most of these stop shortly after you recover, except for the last one.

More experimental methods have been developed with the help of biotherapy. Experts in Japan are said to have reduced the spread of the flowers with other plants like kudzu or barberry, while someone in Europe has been using thrips to eat the plant and control its growth. It's like using maggots to eat your wounds, the doctor explains more enthusiastic than you feel.

You could, of course, try the simplest of things and confess your love.

It only takes to be loved in return for you to heal before any permanent damage is done. The seed that grows in your heart will almost instantly wither, the cough will purge the last of the flowers out of your lungs, and your recovery will last only a couple of weeks. You will breathe again.

But, if your love goes unrequited, you'll reach your fatal end in a matter of days. Doctors will give you a double dose of morphine or induce a coma trying to ease your pain. Flowers, fruits and cones bloom, branches and thorns grow. You convulse and gasp until your last breath when the biggest flowers come out of your mouth. All until your thorax is transformed, beautifully and violently, into a garden of flesh and blood.

Anyone who has seen it happen will tell you, how shocking it is to witness such a thing.

Whatever the case, this only serves to confirm what you already know. You can't be optimistic anymore.

You're dying and you will die, soon with flowers in your lungs or after many years with a loveless heart. Because this life and death of yours, you think, cannot be, shall not be, decided by a coin in the air.

And yet.

"It's flowers...in my lungs." You can almost tell which direction the flower stalks take inside your chest as the words form in your mouth.

"Oh." Lena says as she starts to fidget with her hands.

The anger, that had been growing inside her after weeks of vague replies and evasions, vanishes in her eyes the moment she understands what you're going through.

"Have you...talked to the other person?"

"No, not really. Not yet." You try not to lose your composure as you feel the flowers threatening to rise up your throat.

"Will you?" She asks.

You take a deep breath, feeling the gravity pull your already heavy heart down. "It's plumerias."

"Plumerias?" You can see the moment it dawns on Lena, and the look she gives you makes you wish again you could die of a broken heart instead.

"Miss Luthor, I'm sorry but the board meeting will start shortly."

Jess opens the door a second later and it gives you time to look at the other side and place your hand in your chest. As if that could possibly stop your heart and lungs from collapsing.

"Thank you, Jess. I'll be there." Lena dismisses her with a nod and looks again at you.

She doesn't say anything else and you feel a coughing fit building in your lungs. Stronger than you have ever felt it.

"(Y/N)!" She leaves her chair, running towards you.

You cover your mouth as your chest feels like a boxer is using it as a punching bag. I doesn't feel like it will end quick and when it finally does the only thing that remains is pain.

You thank the chair that holds you in place as you catch your breath.

"I'm fine. It's fine." You don't want her to see it, but she manages to catch a glimpse of the bloody petals that cover your palm once you recover.

"No, it's not, (Y/N). You're dying and I-"

"It's not your fault." You cut her off, shaking your head and taking a little napkin from you pocket to clean yourself as best as you can.

The death, the break, the betrayal. You feel it all as worry and pity finally merge in her eyes. There's also guilt when she looks at you. It is there along with everything else she doesn't feel for you. So you don't want an apology, especially not from her, especially not like this.

"You're my friend and I just- I wanted you to know. I got my surgery already programmed."

"Surgery?" You watch her draw back a bit in surprise.

"I'll be fine." You lie again.

"(Y/N), I-"

"Miss Luthor, the board-"

"I know!" Lena snaps and, when she realizes the magnitude of her reaction, she retracts, taking a deep breath for herself before answering. "Sorry, yes. Do you think you could hold it for a minute?"

"You should go." You say with a small voice before any of them can say more. "The meeting, sounds important."

"(Y/N)..." The way she pronounces your name makes you want to be over with this already. You just can't stand it anymore.

"We'll talk later." You say. "We got time."

She wants to argue, you know, but you won't, can't, do it. Still, you pull a little smile for her.

"We'll talk later." She replies with a nod.

There will be time for another conversation. There will be time. There will be time. There will be time. You repeat it like a mantra to help you carry yourself out of her office.

Everything else after that passes like a blur.

You know you reach the front door of the building, with the voice of the receptionist behind your back offering to call for help. You stumble on the sidewalk trying to hold onto light poles and signposts to keep yourself from falling. You clutch your hand in your chest as the pain reaches its peak. Flowers come pouring out of your mouth and you gasp for air as you finally fall.

You're delirious by the time you land on the hospital bed.

Many faces come and go then, doctors, nurses, friends, ghosts, both the living and the death. The only constants are your dying gasps and the painful beating of your heart until the morphine does its work. It helps you see, with certain clarity the only face that can make a difference.

"You listen to me, alright? I'm sorry I didn't say anything earlier." You open your heavy lids at the sound of her voice, and you see those emerald eyes for what could be the last time. "I love you, (Y/N), please, I love you."

You hear her words, or you don't, or it is simply to late to care anymore. The coin is in the air and there's no more time.

***

☞ You let yourself drift into darkness as the plumerias are pulled to a better light. The garden is gone and what is left behind is only an empty carcass. You cannot stand the emptiness and your heart does what it should have done from the beginning. It breaks and breaks and breaks...

***

☞ Your mind tries to grasp her words but you find your heart too weak to keep a hold of them. So you let them pass through like a shadow. No need for them anymore as the anesthesia and the scalpel give you a break from all this suffering. There will be no flowers and it is, truly, not as bad as it could be...

***

☞ Her words suddenly hit you in their full meaning and your mind does its best to keep and save them into your heart. Even through branches and petals, it has the effect of an echo chamber, repeating those words like a healing prayer. I love you. I love you. I love you...

#Between Two Lungs #One shot #lena luthor #lena luthor x reader #lena luthor imagine #lena luthor imagines #lena luthor x you #lena x reader #lena x you

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soulmate-game · 3 years

Text

This is an alternate ending for my Bio!dad Joker / Bio!mom Harley AU. Or really, the timeline itself will be entirely different starting from the moment that Marinette’s plane lands in Gotham. If you haven’t read the original, you can do so here.

—*—*—*—*—*

“He’s going to find out, Mom.”

“No he won’t, don’t be silly! I’ve been very careful about hiding you from him, Nettie-pie.”

“Mom… I just have a bad feeling. I don’t think we can hide who I am from him. If he sees me, I think he’ll know.”

The phone went silent.

“If he hurts you, I’ll kill him. If I was crazy about him, Sugar, then I’m head over heels for you. Not even he can stop me from caving his skull in if he tries his usual tricks with you.”

“... My plane leaves soon, I’ll talk to you when I land. And mom?”

“Yeah, honeycake?”

“I love you.”

—*—*—*—*—*

Marinette often hated how accurate her intuition tended to be. She had barely even stepped out of the airport before she had felt the prick of a needle in her neck and the sensation of being shoved into a small, dark space before her vision cut out.

Looks like her mom wasn’t able to hide her existence away as well as they thought.

And unfortunately for Marinette, her darling asshole of a father had apparently had ample time to plan his first meeting with her. If he had just used the much easier to acquire Chloroform on her, then Marinette likely would have woken up early enough to come up with a plan. Chloroform was unreliable and wore off fairly easily. But no, he had actually had the time to steal hospital grade anesthetic.

Which meant that Marinette woke up with her wrists zip-tied to heavy links of chain above her head, and her ankles connected to the chain below her with what felt like ten layers of duct tape.

Lovely.

“Ah, there she is! Good morning, sleepyhead!” Those were the high-pitched, dramatic words she heard when she came back to consciousness. She didn’t even need to open her eyes to know who the speaker was— she had watched enough videos online and not-so-legally obtained Asylum and Prison footage to immediately recognize the speech patterns and tone that was echoing around her.

Apparently keeping her eyes closed was not allowed, because it was only a few seconds later that Marinette felt a harsh slap sting her cheek and whip her face to the side. Oh, that would become a bruise without a doubt. Her teeth betrayed her, cutting into the inside of her mouth with the force of the hit. So, when Marinette opened her eyes to glare at the sperm donor responsible for half of her DNA, she aimed her bloody spit right at him. It landed on his shoe, which only a few seconds later slammed into her gut.

Marinette gasped for air even as the chain she was on swung violently, making her dizzy and upsetting her stomach. Too bad she didn’t have anything in there to throw up on him, she thought angrily. The chain links rattled loudly, ringing in her head alongside the electric pain of both of her newly forming bruises.

“Honestly, is that any way to treat your dear ol’ Daddy?” Joker cooed with false offense, one hand over his heart. Marinette glared at him as best as she could as she continued to sway in the open air, the chain she was tied to being the only thing keeping her from plunging straight down into a vat of sickly green, bubbling liquid.

Marinette didn’t need to be told what that liquid was. And joker knew that, the moment he saw her look down at that vat and saw the realization almost immediately cross her face. So instead of explaining, he laughed. Loud, high, and deranged.

“Good, good! That idiot Harley kept you educated, at least,” he said between psychotic chuckles. “Ah yes, and she somehow managed to choose the perfect name,” he glided over to her, as if he was some ethereal demon of chaos instead of a human. His paper-white hand reached out, grabbing her chin in a crushing grip and turning her face this way and that. Inspecting her as if she was a piece of china and not a living being. “So easy to adjust. Right now, you’re Marinette. Just like how, all those years ago, your mother stood here as Harleen. But just as she was dunked into acid and became my harlequin,” he stepped back and grabbed Marinette’s shoulders. He spun her like a top, making the metal chain creak and clink as it wound into a few weak coils and then released back out, trying to go straight again. It sent Marinette twirling through the air in a horrid half-spin, one-eighty degrees one way before sharply spinning to the other side. Joker laughed.

“Just like that, you’re gonna go from boring old Marinette,” he stuck out his tongue like a child, as if the mere taste of her name was bitter. “And you’ll be reborn as my new little Marionette. Aren’t you excited?!”

“Fuck you,” Marinette spat, even as she tried to blink and return her vision to normal. She was far too disoriented to even come up with a plan— but she was still coherent enough to register that the sky was dark outside the high windows of the factory she was apparently in. She had been missing for a few hours then, which meant that her mom and Momma Ivy would have called for help a long time ago. Maybe if she just stalled long enough, it would get there in time. “I’m not a puppet. Not for you, not for anybody!” She snarled.

Joker rolled his eyes, but his smile still widened. “Oh, that’s what they all say. In fact, your mother put up a good resistance there for a while, but her inner chaos couldn’t resist me. You’ll bend even easier, I have no doubt,” her ran his hand along her cheek in a motion that was so gentle that it felt foreign, wrong, to her coming from him. She knew what he was doing. He was trying to whiplash her, take all her hope away before dangling the option he wanted her to choose in front of her like a carrot on a stick.

Too bad he didn’t know her at all. She cringed away from his gentle touch, revolted by the mere feel of his skin on her’s.

“And your accent is a nice touch,” he cooed as if her reaction didn’t bother him at all. It probably didn’t. “Exotic. Just the thing I need to freshen up my usual act a bit, the Boston twang my old Harlequins had is just… stale by now, don’t you agree?”

Marinette clenched her jaw at the reminder that he had tried to pass off a cheap look-alike as her mom when she disappeared, back when she was pregnant with Marinette, to hide her baby from Joker. How he had discarded that woman like trash when Harley went back to him, only to replace her again when her mom left him for good.

No matter how badly Joker spoke of her mom, Marinette knew that Harley had been the only Harlequin of his to actually last. The only one he kept around, and there was a reason for that. Now, he was looking for another replacement. One that was more than a cheap knockoff, and he was hoping that a teenager with not only Harley’s genetics, but also his own, would be the exact kind of right-hand prop he wanted. An obedient little puppet of chaos, just for him.

But Marinette was nobody's toy. She had been used and taken advantage of enough back in Paris, she had spent her whole life struggling to escape the side effects of her parentage. To deal with the things she inherited.

The obsessiveness, the way she was so quick to get attached. She knew she inherited that from her mom. But there was also the rage, the anger that Marinette constantly had to stuff down. Hide below the surface before it hurt someone. Keep under a tight reign and hide away in the back of her mind, her own dirty little secret.

The constant reminder of just who her biological father was. Because that anger, that viciousness, could only have come from him.

She had spent her whole life trying to carve herself her own identity, to create beauty with the chaotic elements she got from her blood. And she couldn’t blame her mother, not really. Her mother at least did her best to help, and always leant an empathetic ear when Marinette needed it. But Joker?

Oh, she could, and would, blame him even long after he was dead and gone. Because he was the one who hurt her mother, he was the one who twisted her and drove her to feel unfit to be a parent. And sometimes, Marinette thought it would be better if Joker never existed. Sure, that meant she never would have been born. But wouldn’t that have been easier, too? To not ever have to experience the struggle that came with being his daughter, a title she never consented to?

But she couldn’t change the past. She was alive, and she would use her life to spite everything that the Joker stood for. That would be her revenge. He wanted a toy?

Joker had been monologuing, but Marinette drowned it all out as she kept her periphery vision on the windows above her. Shadows moved out there, with familiar bright yellows and shadowy blacks. The bats were there. She just needed to stall.

She opened her mouth. Joker pulled a lever.

Marinette dropped.

Wire whizzed through the air, knocking the breath out of Marinette as it wound around her torso. She was barely able to piece together what was happening; one of the bats shot a human-safe grapple to try and pull her away from the acid.

But the chain and her restraints were stronger, heavier, and just dragged the grapple down with her body.

The impact sent a large wave of sickly green liquid surging over the side of the vat, and Marinette was dragged from view underneath the surface.

It burned.

She distantly felt the tape around her ankles peel itself away from her skin, the combination of acid and wetness rendering it useless. She felt the chemicals burning at her, sending painful tingles across every last inch of her skin. It got in her mouth, she didn’t have any breath in her to hold and ended up swallowing some. It seared her throat and created a river of lava inside her. It hurt.

It hurt so bad, she just wanted out. Out. Out. Out!

Someone pull her out now!

The zip tie around her wrist loosened enough for her to pull herself free, right as something heavy slammed into the heavy metal bowl. The entire container sloshed, slamming to fall onto its side. Marinette’s body was pulled alongside the rush of liquid as it flowed out, and she was able to breathe air again. Sweet, cooling air.

And then she hacked up acid, spitting and spewing it in an attempt to purge every last drop she had accidentally ingested. Like a cat choking on a hairball, she coughed and hacked and her chest convulsed and contracted to try and help her. Her ribs ached, she figured that the grapple that had tried to save her had ended up fracturing or breaking a rib or two. But all she cared about was breathing and getting rid of the chemicals she had inhaled. She needed it out. All of it. Out. Out. Out of her!

“Try to take a deep breath,” a gruff voice commanded, soft but solid. Something stable for her to cling to. So she did as it asked, forcing herself to stop hacking and instead focus on inhaling. As slowly as she could. It was difficult, the first few breaths cut themselves off with more involuntary coughing, but the owner of the gruff voice stayed nearby. Repeated it’s request. “Deep breath. Steady, now. In. Out. Good.”

Marinette was just starting to calm down, just starting to claw herself out of the haze of panic and adrenaline, when that wretched laugh cut through the air again.

“There you are! Heheheheh! My cute little Marionette!”

Marinette froze. She could barely think, barely understand her own emotions. But she knew she was different now. She knew there was no way back, he had taken it from her. He had taken her normality, he had taken all of her years of hard work and burned them right in front of her.

He had won. The bats hadn’t been fast enough. But, if her foggy mind was correct, Batman was the one trying to bring her back to lucidity. Batman was the one trying to help her get air back in her lungs.

Not her so-called father.

If he wanted a toy, she’d be a haunted doll. She’d harass him, haunt him, until he wanted nothing to do with her. She’d come back, like a possessed porcelain doll refusing to be thrown away. She would make him regret ever awakening the monster that she had spent so long forcing down. Because she was her father’s daughter, yes. But she was also her mother’s daughter.

And most importantly, she was Marinette Quinzel-Isley. Her own damned person. The Chosen wielder of the Creation miraculous. And she would never bow down and be used by anyone, ever again.

Tikki’s words from so long ago echoed in her mind. Resounded even louder than Joker’s laughter;

“That’s all order really is, Marinette. The decision to take all the chaos and madness around us, and make it make sense. Make it do something good.”

And wasn’t that everything Marinette had ever done? It was a part of her now. Like a tattoo she had inked into her very soul.

She took the chaos she was given, and turned it into something beautiful. And right now? Right now, the most beautiful thing she could think of was Joker’s face when she slammed her fist into it.

“Easy,” Batman repeated, but for a different reason now. Marinette’s lungs still stuttered a little, but her breathing was mostly under control. Now, he was saying it because Marinette was forcing herself to her feet. Her legs trembled under her, threatening to lay her out on the floor again. But she was every bit as stubborn as Joker, which made for a terrifying combination with her all-consuming fury. The acid had broken the mental chains Marinette had been using to hold it back, and now it burned fierce and bright in her eyes.

So Marinette kept herself up right, cognizant of Batman’s hand on her shoulder but ignoring it. She grit her teeth against the burning light of the room, everything suddenly too bright and colorful. Too vibrant. But it did little to distract her. She realized that one of her hands still gripped the heavy chain that had sent her drowning in the acid, and sent a snarl at her darling, jackass of a father as she whipped it out right towards him.

“Marinette!” Batman yelled, his grip tightening on her shoulder. But he didn’t pull her back, which spoke louder than any words he could have said to her right then. He wouldn’t save Joker from his daughter, he knew the man deserved at least this much pain. And sure enough, the metal links slammed right into Joker’s side, winding around him like a crushing whip.

But that was all Marinette had the strength to do. As soon as she saw Joker’s body hit the floor, writhing in agony and painfully loud cackles, her hand let go of the chain and her body tumbled down. Batman caught her.

“Red Hood, Nightwing, get Joker back to Arkham,” Batman’s order faded in and out of focus. Now that her most pressing desire was taken care of, the effects of the acid reared their ugly heads with renewed ferocity. Everything was too bright, too loud, and her thoughts echoed in her head like voices wrestling for supremacy. “Robin, Black Bat, stay on alert. Harley said that she’s incredibly trained,” he warned his partners. Marinette didn’t begrudge him, the only other two people who had survived being dunked into those chemicals hadn’t exactly treated him with kindness and pacifism. But she could barely focus on them anyway, too distracted by trying to reign in the chaos in her mind.

But Joker would never stay silent, even as he was dragged away in chains.

“Hehehahahahaha! Paper white, paper white!” He jeered cheerfully. “That’s my girl! Violent just like Papa!” Red hood knocked him out with a harsh punch to the side of his neck before he could say another word. But it was enough— enough for Marinette to gasp in realization.

Her skin. It was paper white, just like his. Not even Harley’s skin had been bleached like the Joker’s after her dip in the acid. That had always been makeup. Her mom had a healthy, peachy complexion like anyone else. A complexion Marinette had shared— until now. Now, she was unhealthily pale. Just like him.

A painful screech tore itself from her already raw throat, and Marinette’s fingernails immediately began to tear at her own skin. Red. Red was better than white— she didn’t want to look like him. She couldn’t. White was bad. Bad. Bad. Bad.

“Marinette! Stop!” Strong hands clamped around her wrists, pulling her hands away from herself even as she wriggled and tried to keep clawing at herself.

“No! No no no!” Marinette howled. “I don’t wanna look like him! I don’t wanna be like him!” She managed to get one hand free and immediately tried to tear away at her face. Batman was able to wrestle her arm away before she could do any damage besides a few angry red lines. “I refuse! I refuse! I refuse!” She shook her head, not feeling as tears flung themselves off her cheeks.

“Okay,” Batman’s voice was solid again, soft and grumbly and stable. She grabbed at it again, drawn to anything that might help bring her stability. She needed his unflappable attitude right then, and he probably didn’t even realize how badly. “That’s good. But you don’t need to rip your skin off to do that, you know that right?”

Marinette hiccuped, finally sinking down to sob as the weight of everything she had lost pressed down over the chaos of deafening light and blinding sound that continued to jumble around inside her head. “He changed me,” she choked out. Batman nodded even though she wasn’t looking at him.

“He did.”

“Th-that f-fucking bastard,” Marinette managed a sad chuckle before devolving right back into sobs. “I wo-worked so h-hard. N-never hurt any-anybody. Never… never yelled. Ne-never hit… Not people who didn’t attack f-first.”

“I know. Your mom told me,” he confirmed calmly. Solid, tethering. Marinette swallowed another gulp of air, trying to calm down. But everything was too much.

“Mom!” She suddenly realized out loud, turning and grabbing at Batman’s chest, clinging to his uniform. She didn’t even care that she almost sliced herself on a batarang, she clung to him desperately with wide, crazed eyes. “G-get Mom and… and Ivy! They… they can help. They know—“ Marinette paused to breathe, then resumed. “Momma Ivy— she gave me—gave me a diluted… th-thingy, years ago, I can’t remember—“ Marinette’s eyebrows furrowed as she tried to get her mind to calm down. To work.

“The serum she gave Harley?” He asked. “The one that made her immune to poisons, and gave her increased physical abilities?”

“That!” Marinette agreed frantically, nodding. “I was too— too little, to give the real thing, so she diluted it,” she swallowed her spit and winced when it burned her throat. “It… I think it’s helping with the—the—the—“

“The chemical’s effects?” Batman suddenly sounded like he was paying much more attention than before, his shoulders a little straighter at her explanation. “You think it’s slowing down or numbing what it did to your mom and Joker?” Marinette couldn’t talk anymore, it hurt too much. Everything hurt too much, so she just nodded. “Good. That’s good, Marinette. Robin! Get Harley and Ivy down here, now!”

That was when the voices started. Sometime during the ten minutes it took to get her Mom and Ivy to her, they had apparently been waiting nearby anxiously incase the Bats had needed backup, the voices had built from ominous whispers to devious shouts, ordering her to do things like slam her elbow into Batman’s throat or see what happened if she splashed Robin with some of the acid that was still on the ground.

Her body didn’t move. She kept herself carefully still, focusing on ignoring her impulse to listen to one of the voices. She was still lucid enough to know that she would regret it if she did any of that. That the Bats were more on her side than any of the voices or the Joker were. But it was growing painful, and Harley and Ivy walked in to Batman trying to keep Marinette from hitting her own head. She had devolved to trying to knock herself out to get the voices to be quiet.

“Shut up,” she hissed, her voice hoarse and gravelly. “Shut up, shut up, shut. Up!” She was clearly talking to herself, her eyes screwed shut as she continued to try and hit her head. Harley gasped, hands flying to her mouth and eyes watering at the sight. This was something she had hoped she would never see.

“Harls,” Ivy spoke softly, putting a gentle arm around her wife’s back in support. It hurt Ivy to see Marinette in so much agony, but she knew it pained Harley even more. And much more personally. “Come on. We can help.”

“Y-you’re right,” Harley agreed shakily, taking a deep breath to try and compose herself before they both approached their daughter. Batman didn’t let go of Marinette, but did lean out of the way to give them access to her.

“Honeycake?” Harley called out softly, a little unsure how the chemicals were affecting her baby’s personality right then. The first few days were going to be the worst, and she knew that. The Dunk never took it easy on it’s victims. Marinette gasped, stopping her muttering and raising her head to look at Harley with wide eyes.

“Momma?”

Harley had to swallow heavily to shove back the sob that wanted to bubble up out of her. She had to be strong for her baby. She couldn’t break yet. But Marinette hadn’t called her Momma since she was little, now she called Pamela ‘Momma Ivy’ and her just ‘Mom’.

“It’s me, sugarplum,” she assured her daughter, kneeling down and cupping one of Marinette’s cheeks in her palm. And that was when she noticed it, and couldn’t help but widen her eyes in shock. But Marinette’s senses were so sensitive that she noticed it right away, and stiffened.

“Wh-what is it?” She grew frantic when Harley didn’t immediately respond, only winced in sympathy. Marinette knew that wasn’t good. “Mom? What is it? What did he do? What else did he do to me?”

“Darling,” Harley started, licking her lips nervously. “My sweet baby girl, your right eye… it’s green now, sugar.”

Marinette’s world froze. She tried to smile, but it came out lopsided and disbelieving. “No,” she somehow managed to breathe. “No, mom, I have your eyes. Your blue eyes. I love your eyes,” Her voice steadily got more and more panicked as she went on, not wanting to accept what her mother was clearly seeing. She watched as Harley’s face broke a little, a few tears escaping before the older woman could stop them. Marinette shook her head again, slipping her tiny wrist out of Batman’s hold and raising it to her eye. “No. It’s one of his tricks. He—he must have slipped a contact in my eye when I was passed out, that’s— that’s— that’s all—“ but her fingertip met her normal eye. No contact to be felt. Marinette’s hand fell into her lap limply. The room was absolutely silent as everyone gave her a few seconds to process just how much she had been changed, entirely against her will. She opened and closed her mouth, not sure whether she wanted to yell or curse or cry. Instead, her voice just came out in a very tiny, broken:

“...fuck.”

—*—*—*—*—*

Marinette had gone mostly mute. She would say a word here or there, but for the most part she was doing a good impression of a vegetable. She stayed silent, as still as possible, and just stared at the ceiling of her hospital room.

She had been like that for the past two weeks they had been monitoring her in the Acid’s aftermath. Her ribs, which had turned out to only be bruised thankfully enough, had healed. Her cheek and torso were healed up too, only the barest hint of sickly yellow to show as a reminder of Joker’s hits on her. Sometimes the cameras would catch her talking to seemingly empty air, only for a nurse to rush in and see that Marinette had gone silent yet again.

Tikki was doing her best to help. She had been separated from Marinette, but Pamela had found Marinette’s purse and returned it— and subsequently Tikki— when they had gotten her to the hospital. She was the only person Marinette regularly spoke to, because Marinette knew Tikki understood. Tikki had been around since the Big Bang, she had seen worse things than a little insanity. Tikki had always been there to help her feel at ease with her mind and body. She shared a piece of Tikki’s soul, even, according to the tiny god.

But talking to anyone else was too hard. Too scary. She still had those damned voices at war in her mind, trying to convince her to do things that made her lock her joints and keep her body absolutely still before she acted on any of the coaxes. Possibilities she had never considered before came startlingly easy to her mind now— like how it would only take two seconds to tear her IV out and stab it into her nurse’s eye. How she could use her blanket to strangle Momma Ivy, or how she could fake jumping out the window and Harley wouldn’t waste a second trying to save her.

They were horrible thoughts. Intrusive, ugly, and far too loud. She didn’t want to act on any of them, but sometimes she found her fingers twitching only a second before she could follow through on one.

She spent a lot of time meditating, because of it. Which is why most people thought she was ignoring them. She didn’t mean to, she just needed to meditate. It was like her brain was a giant room filled with filing cabinets that held her thoughts and emotions. Her whole life, Marinette had carefully kept this room alphabetized, organized, and neat. Every file in its correct drawer. Until Joker had come along, and ripped the entire place apart. Tore certain files in half, broke her cabinets, ruined her filing system. And now she had to put the room back together, one drawer and piece of paper at a time.

That’s what the meditation was doing. She was getting reacquainted with herself. Learning what had changed in her mind and trying to adjust. She couldn’t be the old Marinette anymore, but she’d be damned if she let the Joker turn her into someone ugly like him.

So she needed time.

One day, towards the end of those two weeks, she got a visitor slipping through her window. Considering her room was on the tenth floor, she had it pretty narrowed down as to who it could be. Batman had visited her every night, a silent shadow in the corner, but he had already left for the day so it couldn’t be him. None of the other bats had dropped by after the second day.

She turned her head to see that that was now changed; Red Hood sat on her windowsill with one leg inside the room and the other bent on the sill itself. He looked the very picture of comfort despite being a stiff wind (or quick shove— no, bad brain) away from falling to his death. And then Hood took off his helmet, which was ugly enough to inspire some of the more violent suggestions in her brain and make them seem appealing.

“Ya know. Red Hood used to be what Joker called himself,” were the first words out of the vigilante’s mouth. Marinette’s eyebrows pulled down, and it was clear she was confused (and a little angry) at what he told her. He grinned, his eyes still hidden by the domino mask on his face. “Eh. The bastard killed me, ya know. I was the second Robin, a lifetime ago.”

Marinette’s eyes widened at that, and the violent voices dimmed and seemed to grow muffled. Marinette couldn’t quite understand what they were trying to tell her anymore, which made her figure that she had better pay attention to what Hood had to say. She licked her dry lips, and spoke softly. Her throat was still damaged from the acid, so she couldn’t speak very loudly yet.

“Then how are you… you know, here?”

The man chuckled. “Another group of assholes happens to have a magic pit in their basement. It’s a glowing green lake, ten different types of bad news. But it brings people back to life, and they dunked me in it without even caring for a second if I even wanted to come back.”

Marinette’s shoulders relaxed all on their own. It seemed to sink into her brain all at once, a simple:

Oh. He gets it.

“I guess the water doesn’t take it easy on your brain, either?” She hazarded an educated guess. He laughed, shaking his head.

“Not at all. I went off the deep end for a while, and killed a lotta people. They deserved it at least, but I don’t like how violent I was back then. Before I learned how to cope. Attacked people who were innocent. Red Robin almost died when I attacked him, back then, when he was just Robin.”

“Then why’d you keep calling yourself Red Hood?” She asked, tilting her head. He finally turned his head to look straight at her instead of just staring out the window. His grin widened, but it was lopsided. The grin of someone who was healed from some serious shit, but knew that it would always ache. A bittersweet expression.

“Cuz he doesn’t own that name. I made it into something that stands for at least a little good. Something that scares the assholes who don’t care about killing or abusing innocent people. Hell, some people take comfort in the name Red Hood now. And you know what that means?”

Marinette shook her head, and his grin widened into a shark-like smile.

“It means I stole it from him. The name Red Hood. He’ll never use it again, and now it stands for the opposite of anything he’d agree with. You can do that too, you know. Find something to steal from him, or use something he gave you, and make it your own.”

“Turn the chaos into something good,” Marinette said dreamily, clearly quoting someone. Red Hood nodded.

“Exactly. It’s not gonna be easy, but you got the choice here. You ain’t going back to who you used to be, but you can take the victory away from him.”

“... make him regret ever dunking me in that stupid vat,” she agreed, narrowing her eyes as they filled with determination for the first time since her body hit the acid. “He wants a puppet, an obedient little doll, I’ll give him Annabel.”

“There ya go,” The vigilante slid off the windowsill and approached her bed, holding out his hand for a shake. “I can help you get to that. What do ya say?”

Marinette was silent for a long minute, staring straight into his masked eyes. And then, a slow smile spread over her lips. “I got one question, Red Hood.”

“Shoot.”

“How do you feel about black cats?”

—*—*—*—*—*

This took four hours, holy hell. I’m actually happy with how this turned out. What do you guys think? I even got to max length on Tumblr 😂

#maribat #ml x dc #mlb x dc #jasonette #bio!dad joker #bio!mom harley quinn #Poison Ivy x Marinette #platonic brucinette

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sweetchup · 3 years

Text

A Helping Hand 4: Ghosts of Pasts // Day 1

Type: Shalnark x reader

Au?: Savior Au

Word Count: 2,800+

Warnings: Reminsing of last chapter, Injury, Meteor City mentioned

Author Note: Ah! I’m glad to be back writing this series sorry for the long wait. I split chapter 4 up into multiple parts so it’s going to be looooong.

Also, I’ve started a Taglist for all of my series to make it easier for people to find out when the next installation is. So if you want the be added just sent me an ask thats not anonymous and I’ll add you.

<—(Pt.3) / (Pt.4.2)—>

A Helping Hand Masterlist

It was the eve of December 18th, when snow finally fell throughout the Republic of Padokea. However, there was no celebration or cheer by the citizens as all of the festive winter holidays had already passed by then. With most just deciding to bunker in for a quiet night at home. Even at the Hospital near the bloodthirsty Heaven’s Arena it was rather quiet, almost dull in a way.

Though, one specific doctor, Doctor (y/n) of the intensive care unit, had little to complain about the lack of patients and activity. It was rather refreshing actually, mostly due to the fact it was your last night on the job before you went on your week long holiday break, a break you had planned out with your supervisor months ahead of time.

Months before you had met a specific man. Much more specifically, a specific patient named Shalnark Ryuseih. A member of the infamous Phantom troupe who you had saved from his demise at the Heaven’s Arena.

…. As well as someone you might have developed a really really big crush on during your time taking care of him. But, that’s a story for another day and something you shouldn’t be worrying about right now. Especially since you still have plenty of time left on the clock before you go home.

As the seconds click a way, you find yourself letting out a groan. It was no use. You couldn’t get him out of your mind.

You just wished that it was the usual thoughts of Shalnark that festered in your mind during work. The ones that were caused from something as simple as him holding you in his arms tighter than usual while he slept one night or perhaps a teasing comment he shot at you while passing in the hall.

But that sadly wasn’t the case.

For the last couple of weeks, Shalnark had been acting…… weird.

Well he technically always acted weird—a man who actually enjoyed indulging in birthday cake flavored ice cream could not be considered normal in your book— but this time, he was actually acting quite strange.

Sometimes, when doing check ups or just visiting his room you could hear him sigh. It was quite unnoticeable at first, you had just thought he was frustrated with some new tech thing he got into, but as December went on the sigh only got heavier and more frequent. This was also when some of Shalnark’s other actions started to be strange as well, something as simple as,“What are you doing for the Holidays?” Or, actually now that you think about it, anything that was remotely related to the holidays would have the corner of his lips drop slightly. Something very strange for him, for he hardly faltered that smile of his.

And it wasn’t as if you weren’t trying to find out what was wrong. You had asked him plenty of times about his new habits. Though, in a Shalnark fashioned way, he would just brush you off with a grin and be confused as to what you were talking about.

So, if Shalnark isn’t going to tell you himself what was wrong. You were just going to have to take it upon yourself to make him feel better. Emotional health is just as important as physical health in your book.

“For the last time (y/n), I hope you know what you are getting yourself into.” Mal reminds you for the 15th time since you entered her office space.

“Yes, yes. I understand, don't worry about it.” You reassure the older woman as you continue to fill in the blanks to finish up the paperwork. All the while attempting to ignore her as she nags your ear off. “Okay I’m done. Thanks by the way Mal, I really owe you one”

As Mal takes the paperwork from your hands, she gives you one last warning of caution,

“I know Shalnark is under your care and all, and you have gotten pretty close to him during his stay…. but don’t you think having him leave with you for vacation is a little much? It’s legal, for some odd reason, but you should be careful. Not only is he a grown man that could try anything while you are alone with him but if any of the higher ups hear about this, you could get in a lot of trouble.”

“True, but I doubt that,” You hum out as you fumble with grabbing your winter coat off the rack, “The higher ups don’t exactly care much about paperwork unless one of the secretaries, like yourself, reports something. So unless you choose to report me, I don’t have much to worry about.”

“Fine. Just…. be careful. I swear you have been getting more and more reckless the more you spend with that man.”

“I will. Don’t worry, Mal. See you in a week!!”

“Okay, see you in a week.” Mal responds back, her wave goodbye immediately faltering as you close the door. Taking a deep breath to calm down the uneasy feeling in her gut, She just hoped you knew what you were doing.

Once Mal sends you off, you make your way in the direction of Shalnark’s room. You are excited to tell him about your little surprise but also quite scared because you did not exactly ask him… permission…. to sign him out.

“Come in.” Shalnark's voice rings out from behind the door as you knock. Coming into the room, you see that, as per normal, Shalnark was clicking away at his laptop. He seemed busy with something since even when you took the seat at his bedside he couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away from the screen.

After a couple more minutes of listening to the clicking of keys, Shalnark finally closes his laptop and turns his attention to you.

“Hello (y/n)! What brings you in here today?” He asks, resting his chin on one of his hands as he observes you. As Shalnark scans you up and down you can’t help but notice the mischievous look in those blue eyes of his. You kind of wondered what he was thinking, or possibly planning, but then again— knowing Shalnark —you didn’t want to know what was running through that brain of his.

“Can’t I just visit you?”

“I guess you could.” Shalnark comments halfheartedly as if you don’t already visit him for fun on the daily already, “I’m just surprised you haven’t gone home for your vacation. It’s your last shift tonight, right?”

Shalnark might have asked the last part as a question, but you already knew— from tons of experience with dealing with him —that he already formed his own answer in his head.

“Missed me that much huh?...” Shalnark whispers out, his eyes seeming to sparkle under the light as he leans back against the headboard of his bed.

“S-shut up.” You grumble out. Swiftly putting the paperwork in your hand up to your face as you could already feel your cheeks begin to flare up from flusteration. You swore this man had no sense of fear or dignity.

“Hmm?” You feel Shalnark grab at the paperwork wrinkled in your hand; recognizing his photo ID on the cover. “What’s this?”

“Paperwork.”

“What type of Paperwork?” Shalnark presses forward, already taking it from your hand to examine it. No matter how close you two have gotten during his stay, he has always been extremely thorough about looking at what you put down on his paperwork. Must be something he picked up while being in the troupe you guessed.

Suddenly, you see Shalnark’s gaze pause on a section of the paperwork. His body unintentionally freezing up in surprise as he rereads it again. However, instead of instantly asking or explaining his confusion, your eyes are trained to his lips, ever so slightly parted due to confusion.

Unconsciously, you run your fingers over your neck. Your mind flashing back to what happened when Shalnark was under the effect of the aphrodisiac drug. The tingly feeling of his lips raking up and down your neck. Kissing, sucking and biting at any possible skin he could—

“(Y/n), What is this?” He mumbles out, his eyes still trained to the paperwork.

“U-uh Well…” You pause for a second as you try to calm yourself down from your thoughts, thinking about what you should exactly say, “Recently, I’ve noticed you being quite down. Kind of depressed or miserable in a way—”

“Huh? I haven’t been depressed.” Shalnark exclaims, snapping out of the trance he was in as well as cutting off what you were saying.

“Let me finish idiot.” You grumble at Shalnark, flicking his forehead in anger. “Also even if you aren’t depressed—“

“Which I’m not.”

“...Do you want to get punched this time?” You threatened, watching as Shalnark suddenly broke out in a cold sweat. Memories flashing in his head of Lara pissing you off and facing your unwavering wrath. After one last glare, you continued what you were explaining, “As I was saying, Even if you aren’t depressed, it would be good for you to get out of the hospital. Hence why I decided to sign you out for my vacation week.”

It’s silent in the room as Shalnark just stares at you; an unreadable expression on his face. However, before you can figure out what expression it was, he quickly snaps out of it.

“Oh nice. That’s actually awesome.” Shalnark announces out, letting out a small giggle. “Just one question though… Is this even legal?”

“In a way…” You squeak out, watching as Shalnark looks at you with a knowing smile. Clearly understanding that you were pressing the line of legality and a possible felony in this situation.

“Well,” You watch as Shalnark shuffles out of bed; Planting his feet in front of yours before sending you a subtle wink, “Let’s get out of here before we get caught, okay?”

—.—.—.—.—.—

“So,” Shalnark starts, looking at the small white townhouse in front of him, “This is your house?”

“Um. Yeah?” You answer questioningly as you fiddle with your keys, “What about it?”

“Oh nothing.” You watch as Shalnark squats down in front of the garden gnome next to your tomato plant. Seeming to take in the plethora of plants covering your front patio. “It’s cute. I like it.”

“Thanks.” You mumble out bashfully as you unlock the front door, “I only rent the bottom floor of this place so it's quite small. But it's home.”

Before you enter, You offer a hand to help Shalnark up (He still has quite the injury in his legs after all) and watch as he walks inside your house; a limp still ever present as he walks. You just hope that he doesn’t push himself too far while with you. He might be a nen user but—

“Oh wow!” Shalnark’s voice calls out from inside the house, breaking your train of thoughts as you shut and lock the door. Confused yet curious at what he found interesting in your house, you slipped off your shoes—taking a small mental note that you should tell Shalnark to take off his as he forgot to— and walked over to his location. As you round the corner of the hall and gaze into your living room, you can’t help but let out a huff of a laugh. You can’t believe you totally forgot about Chloe.

There she stood, your 8 year old Sphynx cat that a college roommate had given you years ago, curled up in a fluffy blanket on top of her cat tree. Shalnark stood in front of the tree, looking up at the cat with an amused look as it glared down at him.

“Chloe.” You call out to your cat as you make your way next to Shalnark, “Come here baby.”

As you lift the cat off the tower, still wrapped in a blanket, and cradle her in your arms, you feel your breath hitch for a second. You turn your head as you feel a sudden pressure on your back and see Shalnark leaning over your shoulder. You stood there frozen and flustered, unable to move or look away from his face, from how close he was to you. However, Shalnark doesn’t notice how flustered you are; his attention focused on the cat in your arms. Eventually, he brings his hand down to pet her. Watching curiously as she sniffs his hand for a second before allowing him to touch her.

“They truly don’t have any fur…” Shalnark muses out as he rubs at Chloe’s ears, causing you to smile as you feel the rumbling of her purrs against your chest. “Hey (y/n)... did you know these guys are actually from Meteor city?”

“Wait… Really?” You shout out surprised, finally snapping out of the trance you were in.

“Yep!” Shalnark states rather proudly, “They were caused by accidental breeding by abandoned cats in the junkyards. …Though, the ones from Meteor city are quite rabid and terrifying so you can’t pet them like this. They would surely kill you.”

Startled, you give Shalnark a confused look, “No way…You're joking…”

“Nope.” He responds, popping the ‘p’ at the end as he walks away from you two and takes a seat on the couch. Your back suddenly feeling quite cold now that he was no longer next to you. “Even our toughest members like Phinks and Feitan were scared of those things.”

“Oh wow…“ You mumble out in amazement, placing Chloe back at the top level of the cat tree before taking a seat next to Shalnark. “...Meteor City sure sounds scary.”

“Eh, in a way.” Shalnark sighs out, stretching his back before suddenly resting his head on your lap. Startled at the act of affection, you freeze and stare down at him. Your mouth agape in shock. What… What was he doing?

“Oh.” Shalnark murmurs out as he takes note of your expression, already beginning to sit up, “Sorry, I stepped over a line didn’t I—”

“Ah! No!” You shout out, startling the both of you at how loud you were, “I mean… uh. I don’t mind, it just surprised me that’s all.”

“Oh. Okay?” Shalnark says, raising an eyebrow at you. As he sees your still worried expression looking down at him as he lays back down, he decides to flick at your forehead, surprising you. You two stare at each other for a couple of seconds before breaking out into light laughter at your stupid expression.

“W-what was that huh?”

As your laughter eventually stops, leaving you two in a comfortable silence, you stare down at Shalnark; his arms lazily crossed above his head with his eyes shut.

“You know…” You start, a stifle of a giggle sneaking up as a funny thought crosses your mind, “...You remind me of a cat right now.”

“Oh really?” Shalnark huffs out amused, popping one of his eyes open to gaze up at you.

“Yeah. All elongated on the couch, looking like you're about to fall fast asleep… Just like a little kitty cat.” You cooed out at him, taking two strands on the opposite sides of his head to form cat ears.

Shalnark sputters out a laugh before sending you a wink, “Go on. Give me a pet, Doc.”

You feel yourself freeze up as everything that has happened in these last couple of minutes hits you like a truck. Shit… You're his doctor, you idiot. This was what Mal was talking about about you getting too close with him. You have feeling for him but you can’t—

“Hey (y/n). You know…” Shalnark murmurs out, snapping you out of your thought, “One day…, I would like to take you to Meteor City.”

“R-really?” You answered, confused as where this was suddenly coming from.

“Yeah…” You watch as Shalnark eyes shift up towards the ceiling. His eyes unfocused and expression dazed as if he was off in a distant memory, “Not right now… But, In the spring…”

A smile slowly edges its way onto his face.

“Yeah… The spring,” He murmurs out again, sort of to himself, before looking at you, “You wouldn’t believe what it is like in Meteor City at the start of spring, (Y/n)... After a long hard rainy winter, seeds from rotten food, or hidden in garbage, come blooming out. It hardly lasts a month but… It’s gorgeous….”

As he stares up at you with those dazzling blue eyes of his, you can’t help but finally allow your hand to rest in his blonde locks. Wanting to understand more about that far off memory he had.

“I-I…” You murmur out, pausing as a small smile comes upon your face, “I can’t wait… Shal. Do… Do you think you could tell me more about your home while I wait?”

Just…

Just one more time, you’ll let your affections slide.

Allowing yourself to blur the lines of professionalism and wanting more.

Taglist: @meromelodi, @quartetstarheaven, @yumezai, @lvndrhwis, @writtenappreciation , @jojo-sinner, @pastelbear12, @aly-kurta, @bbunnycore, @feifood

#hxh #hunter x hunter #phantom troupe #shalnark #shalnark ryusei #shalnark x reader #a helping hand

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joyfulsongbird · 3 years

Text

broken not shattered

in the year following Vecna's defeat, Percy starts to notice that Cassandra is displaying the same attributes that he had in himself in his darkest time. Percy helps pull her through her anger and darkness, knowing what it is like, and makes sure she doesn't spiral the same way he did.

the cassandra-centric self indulgent fic i was born to write <3

ao3 link!! (content warnings listed in the notes)

***

You learn things, when you get to a place where your mind is no longer your own, let alone your body. You learn how to survive, when there is nothing you can do but save yourself.

You learn more than how to hold a blade, more important skills than how to dress yourself in armor, or tie your hair back by yourself because mother was still doing it for you when she died. Vesper always said it was ridiculous how much her little sister depended on their mother. “I was braiding my own hair before I even got to the double digits!” she’d say indignantly, but Cassandra never listened. She refused to learn. Being the youngest didn’t mean as much as many think. She was not doted upon as much as the twins were, she was the smallest, the least interesting, and being left in the dust made her starve for attention. No one could blame her, she was a child. A child who would not regret the minutes in the early morning when Lady de Rolo would braid her youngest daughter's hair into a neat plait. She did not regret the fuss she had made, not when it gave her just a few more minutes with her mother. So she taught herself how to braid her hair.

When she got older, maybe 15 or so, she was braiding her hair every morning. She’d spent two years with the Briarwoods, growing more and more numb every day. She had doomed one rebellion already, and she did not know that she would doom another yet. There was very little she could do that would make any sort of lasting impression, besides string herself up on the Sun Tree in the same place they had hung her family's corpses. Despite herself, she could not bring herself to. There was still a self preservative spirit inside her that she could not quell. The only rebellions she got at that time were silent, not even rebellions. Lady Delilah did not know that the way she wore her hair was in honor of her mother. Honoring her deceased family was strictly forbidden and Cassandra was quite sure the De Rolo name had not been uttered in the Briarwoods presence, maybe at all, in well over a year. She still did it. She wore the stockings gifted to her by her father even though they had been meant for 12 year old feet and had been darned and patched many times over. She wore her mothers braid; and when her fingers wound her hair tightly into the simple braid, she could feel the ghost of her mothers hands in their place.

She honored the De Rolos. Her mind was broken, her body did not belong to her anymore. But she honored them by existing. In the mirror she looked into the eyes of the dead. That’s the thing about big families, they all look at least a tad bit similar. You could look up at the portrait that used to sit in the grand hall. The dark hair, the strong jaw, the striking eyes, even the freckles. On some they showed more than others, but they were there. She remembered how in the summer, when they vacationed South where the sun was so much brighter and stronger, they’d come back sunburned and freckled. She’d laugh at Percy, who hated how his skin got so dotted and peeling from lying in the sun. Cassandra rarely wandered outside the castle walls, her freckles were non-existent. Still, she was comforted by the fact that if she did wander the gardens more often, her nose would soon look just like her grandmothers. She, too, was long gone and Cass barely remembered her, but in the few memories she had, her freckles stood out.

Cassandra learned to brave the cold. Even when it meant giving up her honorances. Lord and Lady Briarwood were not dumb, they were quite the opposite. There was a reason they had made it this far, a reason they had managed to convince so many that the murder of her family was just an awful tragedy. Her socks were burned. Her mind picked apart until she confessed to every thought she had of her family, every death wish to those who hurt them, every inkling of rebellion. She learned to brave the cold even when it meant forsaking the ones she loved. They were not here to see her betrayal, the guilt persisted anyways. Her mind did not belong to her. She was never alone. She forgot what her family looked like. How was it possible, some might ask, that she forgot what they looked like when she saw them every time she looked in the mirror? Maybe it was that she did not recognize herself, either.

She was 13 when the Briarwoods came. She was 14 when she was tortured until she told Anna Ripley everything about the first rebellion. 15 when her mind started to wane. 16 when she wasn’t sure how to breathe anymore. How do you breathe when there is no air to consume inside of the castle? On the outside, she was perfect. Perfect, lovely brown curls. Bright, alive, attentive eyes that shone like sapphires. She grew into a beautiful young lady. That’s what they all said. The little girl who had run through the halls and caused a riot grew into a lady who would fetch a fine husband someday.

The years passed slowly, the second rebellion came and passed. She didn’t even try to resist the questions when they came. They asked “where are they planning to meet?” She told them everything. “What is their plan?” She told them everything. She bore the scars from the last one, the white in her hair was proof enough, how could she even attempt to put herself through that ordeal again? She could not bring herself to pray, she didn’t even think to ask for any kind of holy assistance until late one night and pushed the idea away quickly. If a god wanted to help her, they would’ve already. It was too late for her, she had supposed long ago, no god could destroy her when there was nothing she felt was worth destroying.

She learned there was nothing she could do, but go along with the plans placed in front of her. She was their puppet. She was their little doll they played dress up with, they stole not just blood from but her soul itself. It was not a quick realization, that she was without hope or future. It came slowly, when she was maybe 17 it entered her mind, fully formed.

She was a Briarwood now.

The De Rolos were no more.

Years and years later, she will lie awake in the late hours of the night, wondering how much of that realization was mind control and how much of it was sheer, unadulterated mental exhaustion on her part. She was so tired. Tired of getting flashes of her brother's bloodied body every time she glanced at the doorway leading down to the dungeon. Tired of seeing her parents mangled corpses’ every time she met Dr. Ripley’s eye. Tired of sharp slaps when she let the wrong thing slip off her tongue. Tired, tired, tired. Better to leave it all behind. Better to let it fade away. She was a Briarwood. That was the reality.

She learned much, in those five years in that dark, bloody castle. How could she not? Every day was a lesson, every day was a test. Failing meant dying. She would not fail.

Maybe if Percy had come any later than not too long after that realization, she would have been too far gone to be saved. He came months later, but what were months when she had spent years in the dark? He had failed to pull her from the snow once, this time he dragged her from the cold and she was almost warm again.

It was strange to have been stuck in the dark recesses of the castle, something more than lonely, something more than lost, and then to suddenly be shoved into the light. Be faced with a brightness that hurt her eyes and left her feeling blinded and stumbling for something to grab hold of. But she was strong, and she was resilient, and she was her mothers daughter. She would not succumb to this darkness inside of her, this persistent voice that sounded like some odd mix of her own and the whispered, sultry tone of Delilah Briarwood. It crooned, it cried, it begged for a bone to be thrown its way. If she paid it no mind, it would slowly wither and die. She held her head high, lifted her chin even when she faced her captors, refused to cry when the nightmares came after years of silent nights. There was nothing she could do about the pain that continued to rack through her body now that she was coming to.

She was essentially a child leader. She saw the looks from other council members, the sideways glances of even her own citizens. She was barely grown. It showed in her face. She’d always had full cheeks, but as a child that was normal. Now, when she’d gotten older and lost her baby fat, she’d held the youth of her face. She looked like a child, felt like a child especially when she was surrounded by so many politicians with years of experience, but she refused to let her intimidation show. She was firm, strong in a way that brought others comfort. Whitestone was in her hands and her knees were shaking under its weight. But she had yet to crumple, even through all of her pain, and this weight would not break her. She gained respect every day that passed by and when Percy returned for good, she had grown from a step below a child queen to a ruler who knew how to hold her shoulders just so, how to shake a hand the correct way, how to smile while appearing confident but not overbearing. She learned many things, after the Briarwoods.

You learn things, when you are trapped and have been trapped for a long, long time. You learn or you break. Cassandra was lost, and lonely, and yes, quite a bit broken, but Pelor help her, she refused to shatter.

He surprised her with a hug, when he arrived. She had been resting in her room after the ordeal with Vecna and being… well, you know, killed . She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t at least a little shook but surprisingly, she was very calm. Her body was tired but her mind was alert. The only reason she was in bed at all was because her maid, Margie, had taken one look at Cassandra upon her return and said she looked like absolute hell and needed to be taken care of at once. Cass relented and let herself be bathed and fed and dressed in her night clothes despite the early hour. She sat upright in her bed, flipping absently through some book about the history of taxation in Tal’dorei which had been recommended to her by a council member. It was incredibly boring and her eyes only took in every other word or so. It was a welcome intrusion, then, when there was a knock on the door and she could gratefully dogear the page.

“Come in!” she called, grabbing her blankets in preparation to cover herself if need be. But when her brother cracked the door open, she let the blanket fall and stood immediately. She hovered there for a moment, halfway between sitting and standing, as she stared at her brother. He looked more shaken than her, dirt caked and bone tired. He looked wrecked and like he had just arrived back home moments ago.

Nobody spoke for a moment. Then he made several long strides (he was quite tall, with long gangly legs that she remembered Julius had teased him about) to meet her at the edge of her bed. He did not speak, barely met her eye before tugging her into a messy but not unwelcome hug. A little shocked, for Percival was not one to veer on the side of physical affection, it took her a moment to reciprocate. But when she finally came to her senses, she wrapped her arms around his neck, placed a comforting hand on the back of his neck and felt him shaking just a little under her palm.

It did not last long, even when he was in a particularly touchy feely mood, it didn’t seem like it stayed around for very long. He pulled back, looking at her with eyes that mirrored hers to the point where it was uncanny. How she’d forgotten how similar the De Rolo children were. Beautiful children, all lined up prim and proper. Each ball they went to, they were praised. The seven of them were the bright stars of Whitestone, though some were brighter than others. Now, just two remaining, she found herself looking into his eyes and seeing herself reflected back. Pained. Afraid. Lonely, but learning to love again.

“I…” he licked his lips. “I’m glad you’re alright, sister.”

She nodded. “And I you.”

He let go of her shoulders which he had been holding tightly. “I have to go to Vex. I’ll be back to discuss. Have a well needed talk. Maybe over tea. I swear.”

She smiled and voiced her assent. Of course, they would. Of course, they needed to catch up. Wonderful idea, Percival. Looking forward to it, Percival.

The next day came. She saw him over breakfast and she put on her practiced smile for her overwhelmed brother and a grieving Vex’ahlia. She was good at this; putting on a facade, knowing what people wanted to see and adjusting based on their reactions. It was easy. She had done it for years, shoved down her fears so that she wouldn’t be questioned, disguised her thoughts and covered her emotions in layers of small talk and politeness.

They did not have that discussion over tea that day. Nor the next. Nor the next week.

They talked, of course they talked. But it was always in surface level ways. She knew that he wanted to see deeper, to look at her and be able to understand her. But she didn’t even understand herself. Days, then weeks passed and she was spending more and more time absorbed by her work. This was what she had to do. Spent hours in her office, locked away until she barely saw the sun anymore. Give her a project, she got it done in a day. Give her something to do, she finished it in record time. For the first time, she was good at something that didn’t hurt anybody.

The bliss of finally being of use lasted maybe two months into the year after the defeat of Vecna. Percy and Vex were busy as usual, but now more than ever because of the baby. Their child wasn’t due for many months but the couple was determined to get everything done as soon as possible, to prepare and plan every instance. The nursery was ready and waiting for the child not long after Vex began to show. Cass was one of the first to know, as the only other family member who lived with them. She was happy for them, she really was, but there was a twinge in her heart when they came to her with grins on their faces and brightness in their eyes. This child would continue the line of the De Rolos, this child would honor them. For years, Cassandra had lived out of the belief that she was the last of her kind. That she was the last of her family and therefore needed to survive. She was not the last. The line would continue without her.

The bliss of being constantly busy ended over breakfast. Vex was rambling about the gift that Pike had sent over, some baby rattle that Cassandra had yet to see, and Percival was nodding along, listening intently. Her brother’s wife was still obviously in mourning, there were bags under her eyes and more often than not, Cassandra saw her looking in the mirror and cringing away. She empathized; there is nothing more difficult than being unable to look at yourself without remembering all that you have lost. But she had Percival, and she had all of her family, that was enough to keep her going. She still smiled and laughed daily, that consoled them all.

The door to the dining hall opened with a creak, the three of them looked up from their food. Vex’s words were cut off immediately as a guard entered the room and left the door ajar before opening his mouth to speak.

“We've captured somebody on the outskirts of the forest, a man who we suspect assisted the Briarwoods in the coup against the De Rolos.” Cassandra's eyes immediately found Percival’s, they were wide and blue and determined. She and him stood at the same time, pushing their chairs back and starting towards the guard. Cassandra glanced over her shoulder and saw Vex, standing as well and grabbing Percy’s hand. He gave her a glance, pressed a kiss to their entwined fingers as they walked to meet Cassandra at the door. He did not reach for Cassandra, he had that expression on his face, one that she only saw every once in a while when a memory resurfaced. She couldn’t do anything to make it go away, the memory would still exist. They would always exist.

They followed the guard down the hall, silence filling their chests. It was pressing, suffocating but Cass was good at miming the act of breathing. She kept her eyes forward, ignoring the memories that appeared in her peripheral vision. The 13 year old with dark hair curling behind an old set of armor and sobbing into her skirts. The maid tried to clean up the blood that was smeared on the floor with a mop. It had stained the carpet. She’s pretty sure the Briarwoods burned it. This castle was filled with ghosts and in her day to day, she was usually able to ignore them or avoid them entirely. But this short walk to the dungeons was the worst it had been in years. Hearing the name “Briarwood” out loud had made it so the halls had awakened again, the memories that had faded somewhat into the background reappearing with a fervor.

They walked through the castle, making their way to the stairs that lead to the dungeons. As they descended the stairs, she heard Percy let out a tiny, almost imperceptible shaky breath. Yes, this was where he had spent most of his time between the attack and his escape. She tried not to remember in detail what she had found when she’d come to break them free. She wanted to turn around and comfort him but Percy was often not one to openly accept comfort, maybe just from Vex. Maybe he’d accept some from her but not when they were in front of a guard. It would feel too intimate to him, and to Cassandra as well if she was being honest.

The guard led them to the small series of cells until they were standing in front of a small, shadowed cell. Whoever was inside was shrouded in darkness and none of them (except perhaps Vex'ahlia, with her elven blood) could make out the prisoner. The guard lit a torch and suddenly they were all flooded in golden light. Cassandra blinked at it, leaning forward slightly to get a better look at the figure that was curled against the stone wall. He was stripped to his basic layers, ragged looking tunic and pants, bare socks riddled with holes. His hair was long, blonde, matted and unkempt. He looked like one of the poor civilians she used to see all over the place years ago, before Whitestone rose again. She almost let pity bloom in her chest before she remembered why he was in this cell. No pity would be born on this day.

Moments passed, and she was close to saying something to get his attention, before he lifted his head. His face appeared out of the shadows and was flooded with light.

And suddenly, she was a child again.

She was 8 years old and laughing because one of the guards was playing with her, holding her doll high above her head and she was jumping to try and get it back. He was tall and smiled at her.

You see, the De Rolos were a powerful family, yes, but they were a family nonetheless. They valued every member of their staff, they were as close as family with many of them. And most of them loved the family right back. Cassandra had a few vague memories of being held on a maid’s hip and walked around the castle, her thumb in her mouth. Of playing tag with the cook’s children. And of this. Of a relatively young guard teasing her.

There was more. As there always was.

She was 11 and the guard was still around. He worked for them for as long as she could remember. He helped her with her studies when she became frustrated. He pointed out her mistakes and worked through them with her. He was kind to the spaz of a girl that she was.

He gave her candy. Snuck them from the kitchens and slipped them to her when no one was looking.

She was 13. She was crying. Screaming. Begging for her father. And he was… looking at her. The man who had been kind to her since she was small. He was looking at her and she realized, probably for the first time, that there was nobody left to save her. His eyes were brown, and they were empty, and he stared at her for many moments. He opened his mouth, and for a second, for one beautiful second, Cassandra thought he was going to call for the people holding her down to let her go. Her friend. Almost a member of their family; he had been loyal to them for years . But when he spoke, it was nothing. He turned to Lord Briarwood and asked what his next order was. She could hear them clearly as anything.

“Dr. Ripley needs assistance. Go to the dungeons and see what she needs.” And he left without sparing her another glance.

He was there. For the first three of those five years, he was there. There were a few times, in the beginning, when she had tried to get him to help her. She learned quickly there was, and to her it seemed like there had never been, no affection for her or her family. He left, after a few years, and she can’t quite remember how, maybe from the snooping into Ripley’s journals she often did, or just from an overheard conversation, that he was the one who slaughtered Whitney. That he was the one who assisted Ripley in the torture of her siblings. She had no affection for him after that. The memories from her childhood tasted like bile, and to her chagrin, the faint flavor of lemon candies.

“Luther.”

She took a few steps forward, her hand coming to rest on one of the bars of the cage. She could look through them easier this way, see his face and every angle in it. Every line and wrinkle, every twist in his expression.

He tilted his head to the side, recognition flooding his eyes after a few moments of tense silence. His lips twitched like he was trying not to smile. “Cassandra.”

She stood there, clenching her hands around the bars to keep them from visibly shaking. She had never experienced anything like the pounding in her mind, the undeniable flood of feeling that coursed through her entire body. She did not like it; didn’t like the way she no longer had control over her limbs. She knew that her voice would shake if she tried to speak at this moment, so she kept her lips pressed together and body stiff.

Percy stepped forward next to her. The last of the De Rolos, side by side.

Luther did smile now. “Ah- Percival. I barely recognize you. Though I heard a few stories about you… thought they were false, of course. Why would that boy I knew be traveling with- what was it- Vox Machina ?”

His tone felt too casual, as if they were three acquaintances just getting caught up on each other's lives after years of separation. Percy was frowning, his eyebrows furrowed. “I remember you. I remember what you did.”

Luther’s smile falters. “Yes. The Briarwoods were quite the villains, weren’t they?”

Percy shifted his weight from foot to foot. “‘Villains’? That’s quite a perspective change, sir.”

He shook his head. “They had control of me. They had control of us all. I wish I could’ve done more, but alas, I-”

“Liar .” Cassandra found her voice without meaning to. The word came out strangled and snarling, like a wild animal fighting against its captor.

His eyes turned to hers again, he blinked slowly, so docile, so calm. It only made her rage even more. “I remember you so well. I desperately wish I could’ve saved you.”

“You’re a liar.” she breathed, her voice coming out a whisper but it felt like a shout. She took a step back from the bars and turned to the guard. “Let him out, keep him in chains but lead him out with us. I want to see him up close.”

“Cass-” Percy’s voice came from behind her, she held up a hand to stop him. It was enough to silence him, and he did not speak or protest as the guards fiddled with his keys and opened the door to the cell. Luther was unchained from the wall, but the cuffs keeping his wrists behind him stayed on. Cassandra pointed to the ground in front of her silently, and he was led there, standing before her.

“On your knees.” she ordered, using the same tone she’d use in a meeting with politicians. Luther looked at all the while, he stumbled a little as he dropped to his knees in front of her. She stared at him. He was older now, many years had passed since she had last seen him, but so many that she couldn’t take his face now and warp it into the expressions of the man she knew back then. He had broken his nose since leaving Whitestone, and his hair was thinner than it had been.

“Do you remember,” she began, her voice unshaken now. “The day you buried Whitney?”

He shook his head. She clenched her fist.

“No?” he shook his head again. “Let me paint you a picture.”

She took a step forward until she was just a few inches away from him. In the last moment before speaking, she reached forward and took a fistful of his hair, yanking it back so that he was looking right up at her. She might be small but from this angle, he needed to crane his neck to look directly at her. She made sure he was staring into her blue, De Rolo eyes. She wanted to make him see them all, make him see the children who once ran through the halls, the leaders who ruled so peacefully; see the people he helped to slaughter.

“There’s a reason you don’t remember.” she said a little too sharply and a little too loudly, so that when the words came out it sounded a little unhinged in her anger. “You took her down from the tree, I’m sure you remember this. You took them all down from the tree, you can say more than I can what you did with the rest of them, but Whit, she was still in one piece. Remember? Remember how you killed her? And what did you do with that little girl’s body, long after she was gone? Bury her respectfully? Burn her and spread her ashes in the garden? I know how the Briarwoods worked, Luther, they don’t control you all the time. I watched you do it.”

He swallowed under her gaze, trying to turn his eyes away from her eyes but she ripped hard at his hair so that he winced and his eyes watered. But he looked at her again.

“What did you do?” she asked, not really asking. She was ordering again.

“I-I don’t remember.”

“I know you do. I broke a lot of rules to try to reach you, to try and get your attention outside the castle, but instead I watched you. What did you do?”

His eyes were watering more now but it was something else besides the pain making him do it. His whole body shook. “Cut her hair. Took her clothes. Sold it.”

None of the others had salvageable clothes or hair, Cassandra had realized back then. They had been covered in blood, ripped apart, unclean and unprofitable. But Whitney, she had been killed the most cleanly. Not the most mercifully, of course not, none of them were capable of mercy. But Whit still looked most like herself and that was dainty, pretty, clean. They took even that away from her. Cut off her long curls until she had shorter hair than father’s. Took her clothes so that she had no dignity, even in death. And then, only then, could her sister be taken back to where the rest of her deceased family was. It had stuck with Cassandra, for the rest of her life. The way the men had talked and even laughed as they did this to a child. She couldn’t hear a lot from her hiding spot but she could see their faces and that was enough. It was mind control. And she still didn’t know why they were so horrible. She had more nightmares about that memory than any other.

“Why did you do it?” She knew her voice sounded more hysterical than she would like it to but the image of her sister’s white corse floated over her vision. “Why? Why us?”

He did not answer for a long time. “Gold lined our pockets for what we did.”

“No.” she bit out. “Why did you hate us?”

He looked at her with dull eyes, his eyes were still half full with tears but his eyes held hers with no emotion in them. “No ruler is well loved by all. We did what we wanted, for the first time in years. The children were just in the crossfire… we got carried away.”

She leaned back, letting go of his hair. Carried away. Carried away .

She didn’t even try to stop herself. Her punch was filled with a power she didn’t know she had. She swung hard and hit him square in the jaw, the momentum carrying his body to the ground as he was unprepared for the hit. When she saw the blood on his cheek she realized that she had hit him with the hand that she wore her ring with the Whitestone crest on it. Poetic in an odd way. She did not regret the gash that she had left on his face. She hoped it scarred, hoped it would stay there forever.

There was a ringing silence as she shook out her fingers that buzzed with the impact.

“Give me a reason not to slit your throat.” she let her left hand rest on the blade that hung on her belt. “Because there has not been a word out of your mouth that has convinced me you are deserving of another minute of life.”

“I wasn’t in control-”

She wrapped her hand around the hilt of the sword.

“I could’ve killed you, I could’ve-”

Pulling the blade out, she watched the torch light glint off the blade. Metal is oddly beautiful, especially when the promise of vengeance sits on its tip.

“I’ll do anything, I’ve become a better man!”

Cassandra placed the tip of the blade on his throat. Over the past few years she had gotten to be far more skilled with a blade. Thanks to Vex’s tutelage and her own determination to defend herself against any sort of danger, by now she could join Vox Machina and hold her own. But this was not a test of skill by any means, he was directly in front of her, chained and shaking out of fear. It felt good that he was so afraid that tears started rolling down his cheeks, that she held power over him. It felt good to be powerful. Never in her life had she been this strong in the face of somebody she used to fear.

“Cassandra!” Percy’s voice was the only barrier between her and slicing this man’s body in two.

“Brother, shut up.” she bit out. She felt a hand on her shoulder and tried to shrug it off but he stayed firm.

“I know what you are feeling. I truly do. And if I were myself at any other time in my life, I would be right next to you. But I can’t let you do this, Cass.” His voice was the most sincere she had heard him in a long time. The softest he had ever been in her direction since they had defeated Vecna.

“Yes, you can.” she said, pressing the blade in a little harder so that a dot of blood appeared right between his collarbones. “You can step back and be silent for once.”

“He can’t and neither will I.” Cassandra let out a half sigh, half laugh, as Vex’s voice joined alongside Percy’s. “Darling, you need to give me the sword.”

“You can’t take this away from me.” she snapped. “Just let me have this one thing.”

In her peripheral, Percy was standing there, hand on her shoulder and face dead serious. But on her other side, she could see his younger, crumpled, bloodied body. The body she had seen and thought he was gone like the rest of them until she saw his rising and falling chest.

“I can’t.” he said softly.

“You can. You can . He let them destroy us, Percy. He killed Whitney. He helped Ripley. He’s one of them. Why do you get to kill them all and I get nothing? Let me have something for once in my life!” she let her voice rise, finally, shouting at him even though he was right by her. She wanted to scream. To cry. To beg for her family even though her only family was right here.

“I wish I could.” His voice was so eerily calm, so sad in a way that made her want to shove him away even harder. “I need you to put the sword down, Cass. Or I’ll have to do something I don’t want to.”

“I hate you.” she said, staring directly at Luther but not sure who exactly she was saying it at. She knew that she sounded like a petulant child who wasn’t getting what they wanted and was throwing a fit but her whole body trembled with need . She needed to destroy this physical manifestation of everything the Briarwoods did to her. She needed to hurt him in a way she couldn’t hurt them. Killing Delilah wasn’t enough to quell this need in her soul. She needed more.

“He deserves it.” she argued, her hand that held the word trembling.

“He does.” Percy agreed. “But I will not let you become what I was on the path to. I swear to all the gods, I know what you’re feeling intimately. Killing this man will not make things better. Give Vex the sword.”

She felt tears sliding down her cheeks. “I can still see them.”

“I know.”

A hand that wasn’t Percy’s gently pried her fingers off of the hilt of the sword. She let it happen.

“I’m so tired, Percy.”

“I know.”

And then the sword was out of her grip, and she let out a strangled sob as she shoved Luther hard in the chest. It sent him tumbling back to the ground, onto his back, his hands still behind his back. Leaving him completely vulnerable. But her hands were empty, and the world wasn’t fair, and she could barely see him through the wall of tears obscuring her vision.

She placed a knee on his sternum, leaning into it enough to hurt. Tears dripped off her chin and landed on his face. She wanted to kill almost more than she had ever wanted anything.

“This world will be brighter when you are gone.” She spoke impressively clearly considering all that she was feeling. “And I will be that much happier.”

He swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing. She did not let him speak, when he opened his mouth to say something, she pressed harder onto his chest and shortened his breath. He simply let out a pained squeak and she let herself smirk in satisfaction. She straightened back up, adjusting her blouse before turning back to the guard that had led them to the dungeons in the first place. Her cheeks were still soaked with tears, she didn’t bother to wipe them away. They would dry eventually.

“I want him chained, hands and legs, and gagged until his trial date. Thank you.” the guard nodded his head in confirmation, his eyes just a little wide. No doubt in shock at the display from his ruler he had just witnessed. She knew that she should care that he had just seen her at her weakest but she couldn’t be bothered to. All she could do was watch as she made sure he was bound correctly back in his cage before turning on her heel and climbing the steps back up into the corridors. Her body felt hollow, each movement felt like a ghost inhabiting her body.

She made it maybe fifteen paces before Percy caught up to her, grabbing her upper arm and turning her to look at him. She didn’t speak first, her face spoke enough for her. For the first time, Percy really saw her. It was like he hadn’t truly looked at her in months. She looked wrecked, cheeks splotched and wet. But more than that. There were dark bags under her eyes, a hollowness in those eyes and she looked exactly as she had said. Tired. Just exhausted to a point where anyone else would be dead on their feet.

“It’s alright.” it was all he could think to say. What was he supposed to console her with? There was nothing good about the situation they had found themselves in. He tugged her into a messy, awkward hug. “It’s alright, Cassie.”

She buried her face into his chest, breathing in the scent of her brother. Black powder and the hint of Vex’s perfume and smoke. He was so much taller than her, all legs and arms. Her body didn’t fit quite right into his like it felt like it should. In all books, when people were family or close to family, they fit together like puzzle pieces. Their hugs felt just right. This didn’t feel perfect, it wasn’t “just” right but it was definitely right. There would be an indent on her face from pressing her face into a button on his vest but she was caring less and less about dignity. It had been so long since she’d properly hugged Percy and he hadn’t had to rush away for whatever reason. He held her for a long, long time. She got the impression that he had decided in his mind that he would not be the first to pull away.

Eventually, one of them had to and Cassandra pushed off him with a sigh. She saw Vex hovering a little ways away, trying to look like she wasn’t watching but glancing over every once in a while. Percy was looking at her fondly but with worry in his eyes. She reached up and brushed hair off of his forehead, distracted by the hair that had almost fallen into his eyes. He needed a haircut.

“I’ll be alright, Percival.” she murmured. “I promise. You don’t need to worry.”

He shook his head. “Don’t. You have to let me help you now. Let us help you.”

“My darkness is not your darkness.” she told him. “We are not the same.”

“I know,” he said earnestly. “But you’re my sister. And I will not be able to go on if I don’t help you now.”

She pursed her lips, looking away. “I know.”

“Cassandra?” She lifted her eyes back up to his. “I care about you. Very much.”

“And I you.” she said, the response she always said in response to intimate speeches.

“What he’s trying to say is that he loves you dearly.” Vex had walked up to them now, standing beside Percy and looking at Cassandra with a knowing look in her eye. “Right, Percy?”

Percy tucked his chin against his chest for a second, smiling. “Right. Love you, sister.”

She hadn’t heard that in a long time either. “I-I love you too.”

It almost felt wrong on her tongue. And she hated that it felt wrong. Hated that she was so unpracticed in love that she didn’t know the correct way to say it. That the cadence of her words was all wrong. That her tone wasn’t sincere enough.

“You look a mess, dear.” Vex was the first to speak after a bit of a silence, she wrapped an arm around Cassandra’s shoulders and started walking them down the hall. “Come. Let’s go for a walk, hm?”

So Cassandra let herself be led through the halls and into the gardens. With her sister-in-law on one arm and her brother on the other, she felt fully secure. Each step forward brought her closer to herself and though she was still shaking with anger, her hands itching for the hilt of the sword Vex had left behind, her mind scrambling to cope with all that happened in the last twenty minutes. She let herself be led around by her loved ones, Vex at one point pressing a kiss to her cheek and smiling before turning forwards again and continuing on with some story about Trinket. She did feel loved and was surprised to find that after months of being holed up in her office, it was nice to step out into the sun and breathe.

That night, when she lay in her bed wide awake, she wondered what exactly the darkness in her chest was. Percy had Orthax in him whispering desires of vengeance into his ear, urging him to do horrible things. But she had no monster inside her. She had no odd dreams and no voice in her ear telling to cut that man’s head off. She had wanted that, herself, her mind. It had been her own desires and need to quell that need inside her, not some outside force. Did that make her worse than him? She did not think herself a terrible person for having the desire to hurt those who had hurt her worse. But even Percy had let his revenge empty from his body when Orthax had left.

She pulled herself out of bed, walked barefoot down the hall, down all the steps until she reached the door that led into Percy’s workshop. At this time of night, it was a toss up on where he would be. Sometimes Vex was able to drag him to bed at a decent time but still, even with the pressure from her and Cassandra, more often than not Percy could be found bent over some contraption he was spending far too many hours perfecting. She knocked on the door and when she didn’t hear an answer, gently turned the doorknob and peaked inside.

He was there, so absorbed in his work that he didn’t hear her knock. She stepped inside, and it was only when she closed the door that he lifted his head and turned around. Confusion immediately knitted his eyebrows together. Seeing her in her nightgown, hair completely down and loose around her face, no shoes on her feet, was probably the oddest thing he had seen in awhile. Cassandra almost never let her appearances slip on purpose, and the few times she did were either accidental or something forced her to. Her skirts always had no wrinkles in them, her sleeves always buttoned, her hair made just so. But she had come to him, vulnerable and looking so very not-Cassandra.

“Cassandra.” he said, meeting her gaze. “What can I do for you?”

“Might I just sit and watch for a bit?” she asked.

He blinked, taken aback before rushing to answer. “Uh- yes. Yes, of course.”

He grabbed a stool and placed it next to his work table, patting it awkwardly. “Come sit.”

She did. Lifted herself up and watched him work on some clock-like machinery. She was fascinated by his work, even if she didn’t completely understand. Sitting here with the heat of the furnace close and only Percy’s soft humming, she felt more calm than she had in a while. Especially not after how emotionally taxing the day had been. She wanted to ask about what he was doing but didn’t want to break the silence, and anyways, she was too caught up in her own thoughts to be able to follow any complicated explanation at the moment.

“Percy?” she said after a long time of just silent working. He hummed in response, a confirmation that he had heard and was listening. “Did you still… want to hurt people, after Orthax? Want to kill those who forced us to lose everyone?”

His hands stopped moving and he let them rest on the table, completely still. He stayed that way for an uncomfortably long amount of time, letting the silence stretch and stretch until she felt it was going to snap. Instead of breaking it with a word, he let out a heavy sigh. Leaning his head back so that he could look up at the ceiling.

“It’s a good question.” He finally said. “The thing about Orthax, about the darkness, is that it didn’t create the want in my mind. He didn’t make me want to murder those people, Cass, I wanted to. I want to. He gave me the tools and then it was just a matter of me saying yes. In the state I was in… of course, I said yes.”

She nodded along, listening intently. “But after. What about after he was gone?” He tapped his fingers on the table, chewing on his bottom lip. “I think… I think by that point I had gone so far for my revenge, I had experienced it to the point where I was both satisfied and hungry. I knew I had done what I set out to do, but part of me still wanted more. I knew then, and it was only thanks to my friends that I was able to, that revenge was not what would fix me. As much as they deserve it. As much as I wanted to make them hurt for what they did. It was not what would bring me joy.”

He looked over at her then, her pale skin golden from the small lamps that were littered around the room and the fiery furnace. He considered her for a few moments, taking in his baby sister who he had had no idea how to approach all of these months. He had been so afraid that she would realize that she hated him for leaving her behind, that she had grown so far away from him that there was no closing that gap. He looked at her, and the white streaks in her hair that would always remind them of what she had gone through, and saw himself reflected back. It was too hard to explain, even to himself. But in her eyes, if he looked deep enough he could see that hunger that had drawn him to Orthax in the first place. In the set of her frown, in the clench of her fist. His sister was strong, she had always been that way. Her darkness would not overcome her.

“I truly wish I could let you kill him,” he said with a humorless chuckle when she did not respond right away. “But this world doesn’t need another De Rolo on a destructive streak.”

She cracked a smile at that. “Yes, from what I hear, that would not be the brightest idea.”

She was breaking inside, a little. Cassandra De Rolo, strong, fearless, always held her head up high, had cracks spreading through her chest. She was afraid they would show on her face. She wanted nothing more than to burn and burn and burn until she felt happy or she was gone completely. She wanted so much. So much she couldn’t have. But one thing she could have, she wanted. So she did it.

She reached for Percy, placing her open palm on the table as an invitation. He reached and took it with both of his, holding it tightly. She whispered to him, even though there was no one else around, “I hate that it’s just us. I hate the quiet.”

He nodded. “I do too.”

“It was awful, when you were gone after the Briarwoods.” she told him, for the first time. Admitting something she knew he didn’t want to hear. “I was… lonely. So lonely, Percy. In this cursed castle, having to remember-”

He squeezed her hand tightly when her voice started to have an edge again. She had lived her entire life in this castle, she had known it in its prime, she had known it in its darkest hour, and she would know it for the rest of her life. It was the hardest thing, every morning, to get up and face the rooms where she faced horrors for five years. And when it was over, it was still as if she had to face them every day. She hated it, seeing their faces, seeing the bodies hanging from the Sun Tree. There was nothing from her to do but move through each day and ignore the painful chasm in her chest.

“I’m here now. Vex is here now. We’re not going away.” he told her. “You don’t have to be alone anymore.”

She wanted to cry again but instead she half smiled. Lovely to hear him say that, lovely to hear his voice at all. She needed to treasure that more often. For years, she had thought she was alone, the last of the De Rolos. And finally, her brother sat before her once again, he was at her disposal all of the time and yet she didn't hold him tightly everyday, she didn’t treasure his every word. But maybe that was a good thing. It meant they were healing. It meant that they had become a normal part of each other's routine again. She didn’t need to hold every moment with him dear because they had years to find happy moments with each other. It brought her some peace, to remember they had so much time. The clock did not feel as if it was ticking down every second anymore, and they could breathe in these minutes of silence.

“I’m very tired.” she told him finally. He slackened his grip on her hand, but still held it loosely with one of his.

“Let’s get you to bed, mother would be so unhappy with the hour.” Despite the pang of sadness the mention of their mother brought her, she laughed.

“She would, wouldn’t she?” she replied. She made him turn off the furnace and put all his things away before they walked out of the workshop, in the hopes that would force him into bed. They walked through the dark hallways, Cassandra’s arm looped through Percy’s. He brought her back to her room, opening the door and leading her inside. She hadn’t known Percy to ever be the most affectionate person but over the last few months it was like he was practicing for his child. Giving more hugs, giving more kind words, going out of his way to make his intent clear. It made her proud, made her happy, that her brother was healing alongside all of his friends. She felt left behind sometimes, that he was making strides in his journey to happiness and she had inherited his gloom. But it still made her happier, when he sat down on the bed next to her and pinched her cheek playfully, the way he used to when she was a child. He’d been only a few years older than her, but old enough to tease her and remind her he was the elder of the two.

“Goodnight, Cassandra.” he said as he got up. “Sleep well.”

“Sleep well.” she repeated as he left and closed the door softly. The room felt fuller now than it had when she had left to find Percy. Warmer.

After she blew out all her candles, she laid in the dark, staring up into the expanse of her ceiling. The darkness felt heavy after all the discussion from the day. It was closing in on her and she closed her eyes to fight against it, now looking at the back of eyelids instead of her pitch black room. Maybe it was her subconscious or maybe it was her tired mind beginning to descend into dreams or maybe those are the same things but regardless, moments passed and then, clear as day, she heard the woman who had ruined it all.

“You could’ve been my daughter.” Lady Briarwood crooned in a sing-song voice. That voice that had been used against Cassandra for so many years, that voice that had haunted her dreams, and her waking hours, and never seemed to leave even when she was alone.

She was a De Rolo. She tried to scream it but her throat wouldn’t work, her mouth wouldn’t work.

I am a De Rolo .

She would wake up tomorrow and she would still be a De Rolo. She had always been. Even when there was nothing to keep her chained to her family, she had this castle, she had their memories, and she would not let them go. She planned on living a long life, one that honored her family in every decision she made. She wanted to make them proud, make her living family proud, and make her home a home for the continuation of their line. There was so much to do and every day she had to remind herself she had time. Beautiful, sweet time. And when Delilah’s voice grew stronger in her head sometimes, she would turn her head and Percy would be there. If the ghosts got a little too strong, she’d turn her cheek. The visions didn’t go away, how could they, after all of these years of persisting and festering in her head? But she lived with them.

She hurt. She’d always hurt, she supposed.

She was broken but not shattered. She refused to shatter. That would have to be enough until she was whole again.

#hilariously. I wrote a fic very very few people care about and I LOVE IT SO MUCH PLS VALIDATE ME #calling all cassandra lovers/gay people!!#anyways #there's a lot more notes and sentiments on ao3 that's a much better place to read this!!#critical role #critical role c1 #critical role campaign 1 #briarwood arc #cassandra de rolo #percival de rolo #vex’ahlia de rolo #the de rolos #delilah briarwood #sylas briarwood #critical role fic #cr percy #cr cassandra #cr vex #AHHHHHHHHHHHH

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