Love Your Writing! An Idea, If You Like It: Villain Finds Out That Their Lover Is Actually Their Hero

Love your writing! An idea, if you like it: villain finds out that their lover is actually their hero nemesis. Villain leverages this in their confrontations by threatening the hero's lover--ie their own secret identity. Basically a villain using their intimate knowledge of their lover to gain an advantage.

Part of them knew it was wrong to enjoy their lover like this - jaw clenched in steely determination, eyes wide and bright with an intoxicating combination of terror and bravery.

That part was drowned out entirely by the bit of them that stepped giddying closer, smoothing their palms down the desperate thump of the hero's chest. The horror of it.

"You think I didn't know?" the villain murmured. "About your little love affair?"

"If you lay so much as a hand on them-"

"-You'll what?"

The hero looked so protective, so willing to do absolutely anything for them. The hero's jaw clenched further; an animal baring of teeth. They took the villain's hands off them and squeezed, hard enough to hurt.

"Perhaps I'll reconsider my policy on murder."

The villain laughed, at that. It wasn't really funny so much as, yet again, giddying. When it was just the two of them alone, their lover was the gentlest person alive. Good and kind and oh so sweet. Seeing the person in front of them...

"Sexy," the villain purred.

The hero shoved them back.

The villain bit on their lip, unable to help it as they considered the hero. "What do you think your love would think of the blood on your hands?"

"If it keeps them safe, it's worth it."

"Oh?"

The hero's gaze raked over them, searching for an open. Futile, really. Their love was not a killer. The villain would never push them to that. Still.

"Alright, alright," the villain pretended at grace, stepping forward again. They scooped the hero's fists in their hands and pressed a half-mocking kiss to their knuckles. "Easy, tiger. We both know I'm more interested in you."

The hero's hands twitched, but they didn't pull away.

"Just stand down and get out of my way and I'll have no reason to hunt them down."

They imagined detailed ransom videos. They wanted to see what the hero looked like when they heard them screaming, praying, begging for mercy. Patience. They could see the hero's fury and their despair and their love most of all.

All the love they struggled to express when it was just the two of them, as if fighting villains was more important.

"I tell you this," the hero said, "and next time you threaten them again, ask for something else."

"Before you think about killing me, please bear in minds that I've put in fail safes should I die. Ruining your love being one of them."

The hero swallowed. They seemed to be trying to decide if that was true or not.

"I know so many of their secrets," the villain confessed, "everything that would ruin their comfortable life with you, every dark and dirty thing that they would hate the world to see. I don't have to hurt them to hurt them, my dearest hero."

"Don't call me that," the hero snapped.

But the villain knew they'd won.

The hero hadn't pulled back and they hadn't lashed out, not physically. They were always fine with a threat to themselves, but this?

The villain almost hadn't thought they could have so much power.

They never wanted to let it go.

But, they never wanted to let the hero go either. They never wanted to wake up one day to a world where someone else had hurt them, when they were already gone.

"Stand down," the villain whispered. "And you can be so very happy."

And, at least for a little while, the hero did.

I want to make a little game. Reblog if you want to be tagged to it. I'm hoping to make it a writeblr-wide tag game. 😁

Hopefully it'll help more writers find each other.

Lilly’s hand clutched into hers so hard it made her wince, but not enough to distract from the fire lacing its way up her nerves.

“It wasn’t supposed to end like this” Lilly murmured into her hair, and Zora tipped her head back to look at her, spine protesting at the movement.

“It was always supposed to end like this, darling,” her lungs seized and Lilly tucked her further into her lap, curling over as if she could shield Zora from wounds long since inflicted. “We just didn’t want it to.”

Lilly had blood streaking through her eyebrow. She still looked as beautiful as Zora had ever seen her. Like an avenging Angel.

Her Angel.

“Zora, we can fix it. I can fix it—“

“I was born to die,” Zora said simply. Lilly’s face shattered.

In the echoing and lonely silence, Lilly’s watched beeped.

Three minutes to midnight.

There was blood pooling on Zola’s stomach.

“You know what the prophecy—“

“Yes.”

Lilly slid a hand to the side of Zora’s face, fingers a blessing on her feverish skin.

Zora had hoped she would never see Lilly’s face look like that again. If she was supposed to stay in this world past midnight, it never would.

She would give Lilly everything.

Lilly’s breath shuddered through her chest, and Zora wished there was less pain and more time and no gods damned prophecy—

“We were supposed to fix it,” Lilly whispered with a mouth of broken glass.

Zora swallowed.

They had tried. Lilly had called to the scholars of every continent, scoured texts and old rhymes. And Zora had gone along with it.

She had known they’d end here though.

Lilly crying. Zora dying.

The watch beeped two minutes.

Lilly sucked a breath in, as if steeling herself. Her eyes glimmered with tears.

“Zora—“

“I need to tell you something,” Zora could look into Lilly’s eyes forever. She would get a minute and a half.

“Don’t.”

“But—“

“Don’t say it. Okay. That’s the cowards way out, saying that right before—Well. Right before. So don’t say it. Okay?”

Lilly’s voice broke on the last word, lips quivering.

A tear slipped down her cheek and onto Zora’s, and it hurt more than anything else ever had.

“Okay,” Zora agreed softly, and Lilly let out a shuddering sob and buried her head into Zora’s shoulder.

Zora breathed in the smell of Lilly and tried to memorize it.

Battle field tinged smoke and the dust of libraries.

Her chest hurt with a cry that was working its way out, but it was okay, because she didn’t have the hard part. She was leaving. Lilly was the one who would be left behind in the aftermath. She had not right to be hurting this much inside.

“Lilly.” Lilly’s arms shook around her with the contained force of a thousand hours of research and no answer.

“Zora.”

“It’s okay. I promise. It’ll be okay.”

The watch, mournfully, beeped.

One minute.

Tears made trails through the blood and dirt coating Lilly’s face.

“You told me not to say it,” Zora whispered.

“If you wanted to say it you should have said it three weeks ago,” Lilly said, voice breaking.

“I know.”

Lilly gave the soft sort of smile that only crossed her face when she looked at Zora.

She hadn’t let herself think about that until now.

Lilly’s lips quivered and she tipped her head back as if it would stop the onslaught of tears.

The watch beeped fifteen seconds, and Lilly looked down at her, face flushed with the rage of a broken heart and the anger of a warrior who could not save someone—and kissed her.

Zora’s hand flew up to Lilly’s cheek and Lilly tightened her forearms under her back, even as Zora’s gear no doubt bit into her legs.

Lilly tasted like stardust and wonder and old, secret filled libraries, tasted exactly like Lilly lived, and it felt exactly like loving her had felt like this entire time.

Zora whimpered into her mouth and Lilly clutched her tighter, silent unspoken ‘don’t leave me don’t leave me don’t leave me’ and behind Zora’s head the watch beeped five seconds, but it didn’t matter because she had Lilly, she finally had a Lilly, and everything would be okay because Lilly never let anything be less than okay—

The watch beeped midnight.

Lilly felt the exact moment that Zora went slack against her, muscles loosening and relaxing. She sobbed into Zora’s lips, forehead tilting to rest against hers.

Her hand pressed into Zora’s chest, searching for that beat, the song of that heart that tried to save everyone and fight monsters and unearth stolen gods.

There was nothing.

Lilly sobbed again, and then she was murmuring the same three words over and over again, words she had said not to say, three beats for every second Zora’s heart lay silent against her palms.

Lilly pulled Zora’s head back, running her thumb over the edge of her face smoothed into serene emptiness, and she sobbed again and crushed Zora to her.

Three words.

No response.

Two girls, in the middle of a war torn field.

One death. Prophesied to end a war.

“Zora.” Lilly said hopelessly. “Please”

The sounds of war horns filtered into the air.

Lilly memorized every detail of Zora’s face to the sound of marching boots. Categorized her injuries. Committed her scent and laugh and smile into a locked box deep within her.

“I love you,” she breathed, hands gripping into Zora’s arms as if she grabbed hard enough she could yank Zora back into her body.

Instead, Lilly simply slid Zora’s jacket awkwardly off Zora’s limp arms and onto her own shoulders.

The watch beeped one last time.

And then she turned and fled.

Did I daydream this, or was there a website for writers with like. A ridiculous quantity of descriptive aid. Like I remember clicking on " inside a cinema " or something like that. Then, BAM. Here's a list of smell and sounds. I can't remember it for the life of me, but if someone else can, help a bitch out <3

Sometimes I’m just sitting here, wondering why people are reblogging one of my posts with such fervor, until I reread my own writing and I end up lying on my bed kicking my feet in the air like a schoolgirl.