#cherubcest

She grips her gun tighter. There are six bullets inside. There are four officers. She'd have to be accurate. And quick.

Part of her wants to resist- she is not her brother. She has never done well with gore. Or killing. She has never enjoyed the act of killing someone- nor has she ever wanted to. Part of her wants to hide her gun and pretend this is fine. Normal. Nothing important.

The other part of her knows that just a few rooms down her brother lies on his bed, gravely injured.

If the officers were to investigate, they would be able to arrest him easily.

If they didn't kill him instead, that is.

She wouldn't do this for anyone else. Wouldn't go against one of the only principles she's held close to her heart in all these years.

But....

It's Caliborn. Caliborn who had been by her side all her life. Shielding her from pain just as often as he is the one causing it. Caliborn who got into fights whenever someone insulted her just to turn around and start throwing words sharp as knives at her the moment she dared try and treat his injuries. Caliborn who held her through her nightmares just as much as he appeared in them.

Caliborn who had taken Father's rifle and shot him full of holes that night she still can't think about without her chest going cold. Cal who held her hand even as he was stained head to toe in blood. Cal who grabbed her cheeks with both fierceness and tenderness before leaning in to kiss her deeply. Passionately. Cal who had looked her in the eye and promised her he would never allow anyone to hurt her. Never again.

She would do anything for him.

yes okay! that was vivi's lady english au; vivi was an important figure in early uUcest/cherry limeade fandom, she was one of the central figures of the ship and created a lot of the early social spaces we found each other in, and she was the original owner of the uUcest url. a lot of us referred to her as the "ship captain." she disappeared from tumblr years ago (hence me claiming this url for my sideblog), so i like telling people about her. credit where credit is due and all that, and i feel somewhat responsible for bearing the torch with everyone having dispersed for other fannish shores and no-one else really left who knows about how important she was in this pocket of fandom.

anyway, since she left tumblr without archiving any of her blog or giving any notice of where she went, i don't have any of the original materials for her au and can't track them down, save for a few art posts ive already reblogged here. however, i was really into it in 2013ish, and here are the details i can remember:

this was an au where a dead calliope went to join lord english postmortem

caliborn was in his pre-english form

they lived in the felt mansion in the dream bubbles together

calliope underwent a sort of corruption arc where she became a lot less fixated on protecting the humans and a lot more fixated on staying with caliborn at all costs

while it was called the lady english au, i also sometimes referred to it as the "maid au," because once vivi drew a piece of kink art for it where calliope dressed up as a maid to tease caliborn, but also because she did a lot of the cleaning etc overall for him as a part of their dynamic

their dynamic had a lot of bdsm overtones and overall it was a very sexually charged au