May 16, 2022
snuggly bf!!!
seen from Portugal
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seen from China
seen from Malaysia
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snuggly bf!!!
🌹 x5 :3c (I’ll send in some WIPs when I get home 👀)
🌹 “You remember everything.” The world wanted to crash all around him. It did nothing of the sort, but to Gilbert, it felt the same as if it had. “You knew…?”
Chrysi’s smile tightened. Pain paled her eyes. “I did.”
He was ecstatically happy. He was agonizingly betrayed. “You… lied to me.” His words sunk in and a surge of hurt turned his tone accusatory. “You lied to me.”
———
🌹 Chrysi caught his wrist, though she couldn’t bring herself to look up into his face. It still brought about turmoil in her chest, so hot and furious and helpless that she wanted to vomit from it all.
But she still said, “Thank you.”
Archibald paused. He kept his hands studiously by his sides.
“You don’t need to thank me,” he said. There was a smile in his voice, like there always was, this time with a self-effacing bend. “I should have told you sooner. I have been a coward.
“Yes. You have.” Chrysi finally dared to look up, her face wiped clean of emotion.
That made Archibald’s smile brighten, more self-hating, but unfairly angelic on his face. “This is why I like you, Mademoiselle Executioner,” he said. “You are ruthlessly honest.”
She arched a brow. “Well, we can’t have worked if not for transparency on both our parts, Archie.”
———
🌹 The empty black hole of Daeshim’s cloak tilted to the room over, then returned its hungry, empty gaze to Jacks. “Make that three favors you owe me now, Prince of Hearts.”
He looked up at him hazily.
Jacks could owe the Assassin all the favors in the world and he wouldn’t give a damn. All he cared about was Chrysi in the next room over. Her anger and grief and horror mixed with his, melding together into a twisted sculpture of their hearts. He didn’t even want to speak with the Assassin.
But he knew that owing the Assassin a favor—singular—was bad enough. Jacks couldn’t be owing Daeshim three of them and allow them to be on bad terms when he ultimately decided to cash them in.
“Thank you,” he mumbled, eyes roaming the room around them. It looked unfamiliar. Pale, tall Grecian columns and elegant crown molding. He saw some potted plants, a welcome hint of color in the white room. “Where are we?”
The Assassin stared at him with that black hood.
“Somewhere safe,” he settled on saying.
Jacks doubted the truthfulness of that statement, but he didn’t care. So long as they were away from the Undead Queen and whatever other secrets Mistress Luck had uttered, it was good enough for him.
“Thank you,” he said again, and he meant it a little more this time.
“The Prince of Hearts thanking someone,” the Assassin commented in that flat tone of his. “What a treat.”
———
🌹 Not daring to take a breath, Mordred gently laid his hand on her side. The delicate edge of her rib cage and the angle of her hip bone framed the opposite sides of his hand. Small finger to thumb, the reminder of how fragile and small this girl to whom he’d pledged himself.
Underneath his palm, her breathing stilled. Mordred could feel an invisible surge, like lightning sparking underneath her skin and underneath his in tandem.
But she didn’t move away.
He didn’t either.
Mordred peered over her tangled mess of curls and into the tree line. He hadn’t sensed anything from his horse—she would be sure to wake him if need be. And he so wanted this lowering of his guard. He wanted to curl closer, tighter around Chrysi and see if she felt the same spark he did.
The thought of her rejection terrified him, though, and so he withheld himself. They were close enough for their purposes—they needed nothing more.
He wanted something more.
———
🌹 Despair pushed off the ground, desperate to reach her.
Thwack!
He crashed as a jolt of agony split his head and his vision with white-hot pain. The floor scraped at his hands, at his knees.
He tried to push up from the ground again.
Another jab, right at the base of his spine.
He crumpled with a groan. His body spasmed without his permission.
A wordless cry of anguish tore from Chrysi.
Femt clicked his tongue. “Not so fast, Caeruleus,” he said cruelly, voice sing-song, and taking great amusement at Despair’s huddle of pain on the floor. “I can’t have you ruining the show before it even starts.”
“Don’t,” Despair gasped. “Don’t—hurt her.”
“Aw, why not?”
His body protested as he twisted his head to find Femt looking down at him once again, his cane hooked over his arm and his chin in his palm, grinning horribly down at him.
At Despair’s attention, Femt’s smile twisted unnaturally. “She’s dying anyway! We may as well have some fun with it.”
Ice sheeted over him. Emptiness yawned where his heart should’ve been.
He looked at Chrysi once more, agonized, panicked.
She stared back at him with a twisted expression—but none of that worry was for herself.
Despair wanted to scream, wanted to cry.
“If you kill her,” he snarled, and it was to cover his sob, “I will hunt you down for eternity.”
Femt cocked his head to the side. Hope—that traitorous thing—began to bloom in his chest.
But then Femt crooned, “At least it’ll keep things interesting” and Despair’s whole body shuddered.
chrysi and @paper-star-ships love to torture despair <3
Then he’s heading up to Sally’s apartment, and Filly is wandering around the lab, not touching anything, and trying very hard not to strain her ears for bits of conversation.
It shouldn’t be this hard to wait, she rationalizes.
It shouldn’t be, but it is.
Because Sally is Arthur’s childhood friend, and now she’s grown, slim and beautiful, and Filly is waiting downstairs while the two of them talk. Alone. Why is it so important that they be alone? What’s so special or scandalous that Arthur thinks it should be kept from her?
Why is she so bothered?
His expression looked akin to a pleased cat as he’d taken her hand in his cold one and, as he pressed a kiss to her palm, informed her of the little amusement park he’d happened across recently.
“You love amusement parks, don’t you?” was what he’d said.
Chrysi didn’t entirely recall a time when she informed him of that, but she had to admit that many people loved amusement parks.
“I suppose I do,” she said lightly. She adjusted her hand so Despair’s chin rested squarely in her palm.
His eyes fluttered closed. His fingers brushed over hers, leaning into her touch until she didn’t even think he felt cold against her anymore.
He looked so peaceful.
Which was precisely why her lips twitched up and she added, “It’s particularly fun going on my own. Thanks for telling me about it. I’d love to check it out.”
A rumble of indignant disagreement fluttered through her fingers, through her wrist, all the way up until it connected to her heart beating with the frivolous twirl of a ballet dancer. Despair’s eyes fluttered open with a disgruntled red shine.
“That’s not what I mean.”
She giggled. “Oh, is it not? I thought it was pretty obvious—”
“I am being obvious,” he complained. “I could not possibly be more obvious.”
With that, he pulled away from her hand. Chrysi tried not to let the disappointment she felt filter through—made much easier when his arms wrapped around her waist and he pushed her back into the bed.
“Are you?” she bit back playfully. Her hand carded through his messy gold hair. “And here I thought you were being petulant.”
Despair let out an exasperated sigh. “I’m being both, Chryseis. That’s a possibility, you know.”
The wry tone of his voice startled a laugh from her, so bright and shocking that she had to lay her head back on the tangled pile of blankets they’d been curled up in just moments before. She locked her hands behind his neck and pulled him down with her.
Despair gave a strange, strangled noise.
He hovered so close now.
Just a breath away, and Chrysi knew for a fact they’d be kissing each other into oblivion all over again.
despair gently holding chrysi’s face in his hands is deeply romantic and almost painful. he does it often, when he can’t believe he’s able to be with her again. when he remembers her bleeding out in his arms thousands of years before. when that familiar empty ache fills him. chrysi’s his charm, made to chase away the pain by nature of her existing in his hands once again. he’s very, very fortunate, he thinks, to be able to retry his love story with chrysi again.
Okay not a ChrysiJacks ask but like... if you got any Chrysi/Despair rants to spare... 🥺 I miss them<3
YES, I WILL TALK ABOUT CHRYSI AND DESPAIR. I ALWAYS WANT TO TALK ABOUT THEM.
So much of the way that Despair will treat Chrysi the first time they reunite (while he’s still in Will’s body) is him trying so hard not to tip Chrysi off to the fact that they’ve known each other before. It kills him every single second he’s with her, because he wishes he could act like he used to with her. He wishes she could call him by his name. He wishes they could have the same inside jokes as before. He wishes his Chryseis would remember being his Chryseis.
Chrysi’s not dumb. She picks up on his sadness and the way it eats at him from the inside out. She tries her best to help him, but it only makes everything worse :(((( Because Despair is only reminded of their past more and it’s killing him.
In addition to all this pain over the past half-remembered, Despair’s also really anxious over the Second Great Collapse. He’s not actively working on it anymore, because he has Chrysi now, but Femt is not backing off (I actually have a writing post-Second Great Collapse, when Despair’s in Azure’s body, where Femt decides to hurt Chrysi as a way to find the fun Despair kept from him). Time is not Despair’s friend—the past hurts and it haunts so much, the present is limited and he can feel time running out, and the future doesn’t hold any good tidings for him and Chrysi.
He’s constantly scared that some cruel god is going to take Chrysi from him again, as punishment for his entire existence. They did it to him before, and that was back when he’d committed far less crimes than he’s committed now. He’s so tense that every time they sleep, he wakes up in a cold sweat, about to throw up, remembering the past and dreaming up a new, worse future.
That’s why it’s almost a relief when Chrysi finds out about his plans and breaks up with him. It’s a weight off his shoulders, knowing that she won’t be struck down because of how close they’ve gotten again.
(Underneath it all, though, he’s shattered. He’s hurting, he misses her already, and he still wants her to love her as unafraid and openly as she did before)
He throws himself into his work, because in some twisted part of himself, he’s doing it to keep Chrysi away from him and safe. If she doesn’t get too close to him, nobody’s going to be able to take her away from him. And now he gets to finish his big plan, his magnum opus, and Femt is finally off his back about it.
Obviously things don’t pan out the way he wanted them to. He’s fine with it, once the panic and irritation wears off.
But then he wakes up in a body that looks just like his old one and he is not okay. More proof that time is going to repeat itself? Well, then he supposes he’ll just have to break the universe and the loop of time so that his Chryseis will be safe in the end.
(For all he knows, she could be dead. He hopes she’s not. He doesn’t know. It’s been almost two years now)
Meanwhile, Chrysi’s built an organization of her own, something respectable enough to be considered on par with Libra or LHOS, but it’s so much more underground, undercover. Nobody knows how to get in (you can’t get in if you try. Only Chrysi decides if it’s worth it). Nobody knows the leader (just as well, because if anybody finds out their leader is a 22 year old woman that’s dying, they’re all fucked). She barely exists anymore.
Despair thinks he’s about to start crying when he sees Chrysi again at the hospital (he’s still being watched, because his body is fragile, and he hates it). She’s alive, but she’s not well—he can tell, because he recognizes all the warning signs from their past—from Ancient Rome.
He doesn’t realize Chrysi’s remembering snatches of memories too, and when she sees him for the first time, he doesn’t expect her to recognize him. He’d been hoping he could sneak into her hospital room and then lie and say he lost his way when she woke up and demanded who he was.
He was not expecting her to say that Caeruleus is a horrible name, and that she prefers Blue more.
He was expecting her to throw things at him, though. He takes his leave.
But they’re soulmates—bound by time, despite the fact that time took so long to return her to him—and they keep being dragged into the same business. What else to do, but fall in love again?
Despair isn’t complaining. But all he wants is Chrysi to be safe.
He doesn’t know if that’ll happen. He doesn’t know if they’ll be getting a happy ending here, in Hellsalem’s Lot. He doesn’t know if they’ll get a happy ending anywhere on Earth.
But he does know that if she dies, he’s going with her this time. He doesn’t want to leave her alone again.
o my gosh it's been so long since i've watched kkss but ur recent art post reminded me what prosfair was NVM THAT WOULD BE EVEN HARDER THAN 5D CHESS WITH TIME TRAVEL😂. still living for despair being tortured tho <3 hilarious
LITERALLY, I LOOKED UP THE SCREENSHOT FOR PROSFAIR AND WENT “😶 maybe despair jst can’t wrap his brain around time travel, that’s why it’s hard” <<< unconvincingly
what i’m saying is bf that can’t understand accounting for time travel in chess x gf that can’t comprehend adding spatial anomalies into chess
all the importance in the world
ALT TITLE: they love each other. they love each other, they love each other, they love each other.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: chrysi and despair don’t care about being terrible people as long as they can be terrible together <3 that’s all that matters. they love each other so much. so, so much.
SOUNDTRACK:
Casanova // Allie X
— — —
“Sometimes I hate myself,” Chrysi whispers into his shoulder, folding herself even closer to him.
Despair doesn’t look down at her. Instead, he tries to memorize the shape of her next to him, how she fits so well against him, how she’s all he’s ever cared about even after all this time. He’s scared he’ll chase her off.
“Why?” he asks into the darkness looming overhead, even though he knows damn well why.
The tracing of her hand along his ribs makes him shiver. She still remembers his weakness, even if she doesn’t remember their past entirely—even if she doesn’t remember the countless times they’d laid out on a bed like this together in the blackness, fatigued and desperate only for each other’s company.
“I think you can guess why.” And she doesn’t sound angry like Despair thinks she normally would. All she sounds is sad and reluctant.
Sourness coats his tongue. He struggles to swallow properly.
Slowly, he says, “I’m sorry I’m not a better person.”