Love That For Them

Propaganda:

for success: girldad energy, no problem with killing people for those he loves.

for failure: how funny would it be if he died by being impaled again.

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How would he have handled the Firefly hospital massacre:

amazed by the flamethrower he gets to wield but disturbed by his own violent actions (supernatural is decidedly less gruesome or violent than tlou)

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Time Traveler's Vow

Happy birthday, Barbatos!

I was wracking my brain for an idea to write something for today and then this hit me. Just as a warning, it contains some discussion of death. We've all thought about what might happen to Barb if MC ever died, the lengths he might go to in his grief. This story is about that concept. I hope I did it justice!

GN!MC x Barbatos

Warnings: some discussion of death and grief

When Barbatos made his vow, he never expected things to end up this way. Too many years of refusing to look into the future had blinded him to this moment, the one moment he needed to see most. The moment when your absence was more than just a temporary ache. When the sound of your coffin closing sent shockwaves of pain through his limbs, his veins, his heart.

He couldn’t have known that he would end up on his knees at Lord Diavolo’s feet, begging for just one chance to go through time to save you. The pity in the Young Master’s eyes was piercing. It hurt him almost as much as your death, but not quite enough to stop him from pleading.

At first Barbatos refused to ask because he knew the answer already. But as the days passed, the pain deepened. It was unlike anything that even an ancient and powerful demon such as himself had ever felt in his long and complicated life. It drove him to desperation, to the selfish desire to ask even if just to hear the refusal, one that he knew it would hurt Diavolo to give him.

Knelt on the floor of Diavolo's office, hand on his heart, meeting the young lord's eyes, Barbatos knew that there was no other being to whom he would make such a supplication.

“Young Master.” His voice was trembling. The waver in it filled him with both shame and determination. “You know I would never ask you for anything. My duty is to stay by your side, always. And yet if you ever found it in your heart to grant one request from me, let it be this.”

Diavolo’s expression remained schooled, even if his eyes gave away how he was truly feeling. He did that for Barbatos, knowing that if he displayed too much emotion it would make this even more difficult.

“Barbatos-“

“Please,” Barbatos said.

The rawness of this single word made Diavolo close his eyes and let out a slow breath. When he opened them again, they were full of complications.

“You know I can’t let you do this,” Diavolo said. He held out a hand for Barbatos to take. “Please, stand up. I can’t stand to see you like this.”

Barbatos felt himself turn to stone as he took Diavolo’s hand and got to his feet. He settled into his butler stance and bowed stiffly. “I understand.”

“Do you?” Diavolo asked, preventing Barbatos from fleeing the room. “If you alter time to save MC now, we both know the consequences would be devastating. This time, it would change too much.”

“I know,” Barbatos said. “Of course you are correct, my lord.”

Diavolo frowned. "And yet you asked anyway."

“Forgive me. It was a moment of weakness. It will not happen again. Now if you will allow me to prepare dinner…” Barbatos said. It was his way of asking if he could leave.

Diavolo sighed and nodded. Barbatos left the room, knowing that this display of vulnerability would impact the way Diavolo saw him from that moment on. And yet he couldn’t talk himself out of making the request. In fact, he wasn’t so sure he wouldn’t break his vow after all. It would be so easy to simply slip through time, briefly, quickly, and he could alter it in such a way that no one would be the wiser.

Barbatos was uncertain about whether or not he would lose the battle to his grief. If he did, his vow would be broken. If he didn’t, his soul would be instead. Without you, he might as well be empty.

After that, Barbatos could feel Lord Diavolo watching him. The brothers were keeping an eye on him, too. All of them shared his grief on some level, of course. They had seen your lifeless body, too. Barbatos noticed the faraway look in Solomon’s eyes and knew that he was not the only one suffering.

And yet, it felt as though he was completely alone in the depth of his despair. Barbatos closed himself off completely, unable to connect with the others over the loss of you. For him, it was as though you had taken root inside his heart and the day you died was the day that the great tree that had grown from it was felled, yanked unceremoniously from his blood vessels, leaving him lifeless.

The empty space where you once flourished felt now like poison, the antidote of which no one could bring him. No one but you.

And there was only one way for him to see you again.

With each passing day, the stone that Barbatos was now composed of became stronger, harder, and more impossible to penetrate. He did not let anyone in. And they watched him solidify with growing concern.

When the weight of his own heart became too heavy, Barbatos found himself on his knees again.

His room was filled with chaotic teal light and a fog of darkness - his demonic aura gone awry around him.

His demon form had exploded out of him, his tail in a frenzy, his sensitive horns twitching uselessly, his gloved fists on the floor.

His tears pooled slightly on the floor beneath him as he tried to prevent his magic from propelling him into the past, fighting to stop himself from breaking his vow to Lord Diavolo. It was who he was, it was the one thing he had maintained with pride for so long - his conviction and his penance and his reason for existing.

It seemed impossible that anything would make him want to throw it all away. But he was ready to do just that and for what? For the small chance that you might return to him? Return to him in a way that would ruin the future of everything he'd spent so much of himself working toward?

Barbatos could hear Diavolo outside his bedroom door. The Young Master’s voice was strained as he yelled, trying to break his way in. But Barbatos’s power was filling the room and preventing entry. No one could reach him, not like this. No one could stop him and he was losing the battle with himself.

Barbatos crouched down further onto the floor and two words left his lips in a broken whisper.

"MC… please…"

The magic around him crackled, a tempest of teal and black, endless chimes from an unseen clock, the continual ticking of an invisible second hand.

Time paused.

It was the first break. A crack in his structure that would let out the part of him he was trying so desperately to contain.

Or so he thought.

After a moment, Barbatos opened his eyes because he realized that he was not the one who had paused time. And if not him, then who…?

"Barbatos."

Barbatos recognized the voice instantly. The sound of it zipped immediately to his heart, squeezing painfully. His name on your lips was too much. Was he hallucinating now? Was this the beginning of him truly falling apart? You had never had time powers. This had to be him manifesting a version of you that didn't exist. One that was alive, that could move through time, that spoke his name.

Barbatos couldn't move. His body was still too much like a statue - the marble of his countenance too sturdy to break just yet.

In the room where time had ceased, where his magic had frozen in place like an abstract installation of green lightning and black fog, you knelt before him.

He could see your feet, your hands, the edges of your clothes.

But it couldn't be real. He had seen you die. He had watched as your corpse was placed into the ground. He had been mourning you for months.

You settled on the floor in front of him, sitting cross legged as if you were prepared to wait until he came alive again.

"I'm sorry you had to go through this," you said. Your voice was soft, but there was something different about it, too. A new lilt that he didn't recall from before. "I didn't die in the timeline I'm from. Instead, you sacrificed yourself to save me. I lost you and I lost myself at the same time. So I made my own vow. To find you again. I spent years and years learning to use the doors in your bedroom. It was mostly trial and error. But I finally found it. I finally found the timeline in which I died and you didn't. This is the only one where you survive."

The truth of this explanation hit Barbatos harder than anything he had yet experienced. It crushed right through the stone around him, breaking him into a million pieces as surely as he thought your death already had.

Barbatos looked up, sat back on his heels, put his hands in his lap, and met your eyes.

You looked like yourself, but different. There was something ageless about you, something like magic sparkling beneath your skin. As though you were no longer fully human, now partly transformed by the way you'd doubtless been moving through the fabric of time and space.

"MC." Barbatos had never once said anything that sounded like a prayer until that moment.

You smiled at him, an expression full of melancholy and hope all at once. "I know I'm maybe not the same," you said. "I know you had to bury the version of me from your own timeline. I know I'm not the same me that you cared for. But… would it be okay if I stayed?"

Trees cannot grow in stone. But they can take root in the cracks between, reaching down to find living soil and up to find nurturing light. The empty places in his heart began to fill as you asked that final question, looking at him like all your dreams might come true if he only said yes.

Barbatos smiled back at you. As if he would ever say anything else.

"I would wish for nothing more than for you to remain here by my side," he said. "No being understands as well as I that you are still you, no matter what timeline you've arrived from. When you have spent so much time searching for me, how could I ever hope to turn you away?"

Time began again.

Barbatos's magic began to settle, returning to him like a sleepy cat, curling up and purring itself to sleep.

Barbatos pulled you to your feet as he rose himself. He kept your hands clasped in his as he tugged you closer to him.

"MC," he said. "I should have trusted that you would find a way back to me."

You laughed and there was a strain of magic lingering even there. "I hope you never doubt me again."

Barbatos looked solemn. "I wouldn't dream of it."

He pulled you into a kiss, his arms enclosing you, pressing you to him like he would never let you go ever again. His power settled even further and he knew that soon Lord Diavolo would come crashing through his bedroom door. And he would be able to say that he kept his vow. And you would be able to say that you kept yours.

But for that moment, he let himself kiss you, let himself feel the tingling magic in your lips, the endless thrill of your touch, the reality of you here in his arms.

For that moment, Barbatos softened in the face of a love so strong that you had traversed the paths of time in his stead to find him, as he had been so close to doing to find you. And he vowed to himself that he would never need to face this choice again because he would not allow himself to lose you.

masterlist | Thank you for reading!

Niall and Hozier backstage at ACL (via caroline_downey1) | October 15, 2023

The Blues Brothers (1980)

BE MAD BE SAD BUT DONT U DARE GIVE UP

Hehehe Doug Dimmadome

Tyler doug Dimmadome