#man that hat pile took fucking forever

[raddest-hat-showdown]

🎉AND WE HAVE OUR WINNER🎉

Congrats to La Muerte for having the raddest hat of all!

Special mentions to Preceptor Seluvis and Amon for 2nd and 3rd raddest hat respectively and Ranni for winning the Redemption bracket.

Thank you all who participated, it was a lot of fun hosting this. I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did!

#man that hat pile took fucking forever #also please excuse my unskilled photo editing abilities 😅 #raddest hat showdown #raddest hat showdown update #la muerte book of life #la muerte bol #la muerte #book of life #preceptor seluvis #seluvis elden ring #seluvis #elden ring #amon ffxiv #amon final fantasy #amon #ranni elden ring #ranni

[90sdisneys]

me: *sends 12 air kisses*

me: to my bbs in la huerta

-

Jake: did it hurt?

Mc: Let me guess? When I fell from heaven? *rolls eyes*

Jake: *smirks* no, when you fell for me

-

Jake, introducing Mc to his family: This is my ex-girlfriend, Mc

Mc: I told you to stop calling me that

Mc: Hello I'm his wife

-

Mc: look, Craig is great, but he doesn't have a life plan. He doesn't even have a day plan. I once found a note he wrote to himself that said 'put on pants' followed by a question mark.

-

Mc: I'm a little chilly

Jake: *sets the entire world on fire*

-

Jake: What's that on your hand?

Mc: Wha-

Jake: *holds it* It's me

-

Craig: Mc we're out of candy.

Mc: What? Already? There's only been like three kids.

Craig: Yeah I know but one little girl told me she loved me so I just gave her everything.

-

Craig: Z is just a sideways N

Mc: it's 3 am please stop

Craig: zo

-

Mc: I made this couple bracelet for you.

Jake: You know, I'm not really a jewelry person.

Mc: You don't have to wear it.

Jake: No, I'm going to wear it forever. Back off

-

Zahra: (mumbling) you looked pretty today

Craig: ?... what was that?

Zahra: I SAID U LOOKED SHITTY TODAY. GOODNIGHT

-

Zahra: I wanna spice things up

Craig: You know I can't eat spicy foods

Zahra: I mean in the bedroom

Craig: I can't eat spicy things anywhere Zahra

-

[in the supermarket]

Zahra: Hello, I lost my boyfriend, Craig, can I make an announcement?

Staff: Absolutely

Zahra: *leans into the mic*

Zahra: I will find you, you little shit

-

Zahra: I could kill you if I wanted to.

Craig: Yeah? So could another human being

Craig: So could a dog

Craig: SO COULD A REALLY DEDICATED DUCK

Craig: You're not special

-

Mc: Alright, listen up you little shits.

Mc: Not you, Craig. You're an angel and we're thrilled you're here.

-

Craig: hey, wanna help me commit a felony?

Mc: what the hell dude?!

Craig: sorry, my bad

Craig: *whispering* wanna help me commit a felony?

Mc: *also whispering* of course man what do you need?

-

Jake: Zahra, tell Mc that she's an idiot, but I still love her

Zahra: gross. tell her yorself

Jake: we're in a fight

Zahra: you're sitting on her lap???

-

Mc: you're gonna hate yourself in the morning if you stay up late

Jake: joke's on you, I'm gonna hate myself in the morning no matter what

-

Craig: I'm the kind of person who likes to think things through

Mc: since when? I once saw you eat a marshmallow that was still on fire

-

Mc: *crying*

Jake: I will destroy every aspect of the known universe and burn whatever remains to ash in order to be sure I eradicated whatever hurt you.

Mc: I'd rather have a hug.

Jake: Okay, princess.

-

Michelle: who's more clingy?

Jake, sitting on Mc's lap with his arms wrapped around her neck and his face buried into her chest: Mc, obviously

-

Craig: Mc, Zahra's right there! What should I say?

Mc: Just tell her "You have beautiful eyes."

[a few minutes later]

Craig, to Zahra: I have beautiful eyes.

Zahra: Okay...

Mc, in the distance: NO!!!!

-

Mc: Jake is actually very sweet for such an aggressive guy.

Jake: *laughs menacingly while shooting a soldier's kneecap*

Mc: He's like a muffin to me.

Diego: He just SHOT someone!

Mc: My murderer muffin!

-

Grace: I'm cold.

Aleister: Here, have my jacket

Mc: Hey, I'm cold too.

Jake: What?? [taking off jacket] I fucking told you to bring more fucking layers! But of course you didn’t listen and now [piling scarves on her] now look, I’ve got to make sure you don’t FREEZE to death and [taking somebody else’s hat] how fucking long have you been cold you little shit?you should have said something-

-

Mc: *sees someone doing something stupid*

Mc: What an idiot.

Mc: *realises it's Jake*

Mc: Wait, that's my idiot-

-

Mc: I've only befriended Craig for a day and a half, but if anything happened to him, I would kill everyone in this room and then myself.

-

Craig: I guess I'm just too tough to cry

Mc: just yesterday you were crying about snakes

Craig: *choking up* they have no arms okay?!

-

Jake: I swear whoever took my favorite green sweatshirt is gonna-

Mc: *walks in wearing Jake's green sweatshirt*

Jake: Go on a date with me and be loved unconditionally

-

Mc: *accidentally bumps against a door*

Jake: Are you okay??!?!!

Mc: It's okay, I'm fine

Jake: *to the door* You stand in Mc's way one more time and I'll make sure to take you down.

-

Quinn: What's wrong Mc? Why are you crying? What happened?

Sean: Are you okay? Did someone make you cry? Who is it? I'll go talk to them if you want me to.

Jake and Estela: WHERE ARE THEY? I'LL FUCKING KILL THEM.

-

Craig: I'm quick at math.

Mc: Okay, what's 38 times 76?

Craig: 24.

Mc: That's not even close.

Craig: But it was quick.

-

Us: the embers of hope thins is so cool, 'cause we can see our friends happy in the future

Pixelberry: ....

Us: :) !!

Pixelberry: ...

Pixelberry: now die to see it happen

-

zahra: can play 12 different instruments, got accepted into Harvard, is organized craig: once ate 15 cold hot pockets in a row, tripped over their shoelaces, claims they can fight 2000 bees

-

Jake losing their temper and about to essentially annihilate anything/anyone in their path. A kiss and gentle hand squeeze from Mc calms Jake down instantly

-

Zahra: we’re engaged

Craig: IN COMBAT

-

Jake: going to plan B? Aleister: technically, that would be plan G. Craig: how many plans do we have? is there like, a plan M? Mc: yeah, but Aleister dies in plan M. Jake: I like plan M.

-

“And when you finally make it to the other side, you’ll be the queen you always carried inside you…”    

-

Craig: do you know how many bones the human body has? it’s 206. we start with 369 when we’re babies but they fused. wouldn’t you want to go back? have as many bones as a baby? what if i could help you

Mc: hi yeah what the actual, literal, genuine fuck does this mean

-

Jake: I don’t fall in love easily

Mc: *smiles at him*

Jake: *in awe*

-

Raj: Hello Mc, Michelle

Mc:

Michelle:

Raj: You may be wondering why Craig is taped to the ceiling-

-

Craig: *kicks the door down looking panicked*

Mc: What did you do?

Craig: NOBODY DIED.

Mc: WHAT KIND OF AN ANSWER IS THAT?!

-

Mc:  *staring silently out the window as it rains* Jake:  She looks so deep in thought, I wonder what’s going on in that big, beautiful brain of hers Mc, thinking:  Warm water tastes round and cold water tastes pointy.

-

Zahra: Jake won’t get out of his room. Mc: Just tell him I said something. Zahra: Like what? Mc: Anything factually incorrect. Jake, arriving moments later: Did you just say the sun is a fucking planet-

-

Mc: when we walk together please take into consideration my tiny legs. I can’t keep up with you. please think of my little legs when we walk because I don’t want to jog to keep up with your leisure pace, you TITAN. Craig: just get some roller skates and hold onto my sleeve, we don’t have all day

-

Mc: Jake, what’s for dinner?

Jake: *staring at a plate of burnt food* regret

-

Police Officer: Miss, you’re receiving a ticket for trying to fit 11 people on a car

Mc: Dang

Craig: Wait, 11?

Police Officer: Yes

Craig: OH MY GOD

Police Officer: Sir are you alri-

Craig: ALEISTER FELL OFF

-

Craig: trust me I know what I’m doing 

Mc: not even God knows what you’re doing

-

Craig: *sets the kitchen on fire*

Quinn: where’s the responsible adult?

Jake: he’s asleep on the couch

Mc: don’t worry guys, I got this. hand me a bucket of water

Mc: *dumping water on Sean* WAKE UP, THE KITCHEN IS ON FIRE

-

Mc: You spent our entire life savings on dogs?!

Craig: They’re golden retrievers. They retrieve GOLD. I did this for us

-

Mc: ASDFGHJKL 

Aleister: what is that 

 Mc: it’s a keyboard smash 

 Aleister: how do I do it 

 Mc: just press anything 

 Aleister: 8

#endless summer

[romansleftshoulderpad]

Falling Down a Rabbit Hole

Ship: Platonic LAMP

Genre: Hurt/Comfort

Summary: SvS redux. Roman needs some comforting.

If you like my writing, please reblog ! and maybe, buy me a Ko-fi?

---

It’s getting late and I

Cannot seem to find my way home tonight

Roman felt like shit. Just an awful, useless, gross pile of shit.

Feels like I am falling down a rabbit hole

Falling for forever, wonderfully wandering alone

He sunk out. What was wrong? What was right?

What was the fucking point?

His face was flush with the overwhelming urge to cry. He didn’t think about where he was going, he just popped up in the first place that felt safe. As his hands shook with emotion he wondered if being here was the wrong choice too.

What would my head be like

If not for my shoulders

“Roman?”

Or without your smile

Roman crashed, falling onto his knees. Virgil was quick to catch him and the prince found himself sobbing into his jacket. It smelt like lavender- Logan had mentioned many times how lavender could relieve symptoms of mild anxiety.

“Princey,” Virgil said. He hesitantly brought his hand towards Roman’s head and combed through his hair. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”

It was funny, almost. It’d be funny if not for the fact that Roman was helplessly crushed. Falling straight into the arms of someone he swore was his enemy once upon a time.

Now all Roman had to do to find his enemy was to look in a mirror. He felt pathetic. He could hardly breathe and his hands were shaking like pins and needles.

Worthless.

He missed the callback for nothing. If he couldn’t help Thomas win his hopes and dreams...what could he do?

He was gasping for air. He felt light headed. The room was closing in on him. He held on to Virgil- no air- NO AIR!

“Princey, we need to get you out of here.”

“I- I’m fi-”

“You’re having a panic attack, don’t tell me you’re fine.”

“I’m-”

He felt the pull of being summoned into another room. No. No, no, no, no, not Thomas. He can’t face Thomas. He couldn't-

“Roman,” Virgil said. They were in his room, sitting on his bed, the air was still. The world wasn’t ending. “Roman, are you okay?

He tried to speak, but the words weren’t there. He could still feel the lack of oxygen in his hands. He shook his head and buried himself further into the hood of Virgil’s jacket.

But follow you forever

May it never leave you

To sleep in the stone, maybe

“We’re okay.”

Stay lost on our way home.

He doesn’t remember how long it took him to feel okay again. (Certainly not okay, but at least oxygenated). He just remembers the scent of Virgil’s jacket as he was rocked back and forth. He remembers the cool touch of a baby wipe cleaning his cheeks and under his eyes. He remembers the black stains left on that wipe.

C’mon, c’mon, with everything falling down around me

I like to believe in all the possibilities.

He started to feel okay again, though, after he had snapped on some pajamas (per Virgil’s request) and laid back against the bed. “Get some rest, Princey.”

“Don’t go,” Roman urged in a quiet whisper. “Please. I don’t want to be alone with... everything.”

Virgil took a deep breath and summoned a switch. “Want to play some Animal crossing?”

Roman cringed slightly at the idea of video games, but tried to find some safety in the company. “Yeah, that would be great.”

Virgil slid next to Roman, not daring to get under the covers, but just close enough that they could both see the screen. Roman rested his head against Virgil’s shoulder as the game loaded.

If I should die tonight

May I first just say I'm sorry

For I, never felt like anybody

I am a man of many hats although I

Never mastered anything

“What’s the objective?” Roman asked.

“Whatever you want,” Virgil whispered.

“That’s nice.”

“Going to make Blathers my bitch with these fish though.” He paused in realization. “Am... Am I Blathers’ sugar daddy?”

Roman snorted, finding himself moving closer to Virgil as he laughed. “I think that also makes you a furry.”

“Oh dear God.”

There was a knock at the door that interrupted their laughter. “Roman?”

But I am ten feet tall

I’ve never felt this tall since the fall

It was Logan. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but I was looking for Virgil. Have you seen him?”

Virgil gave a hesitant look. “It’s okay,” Roman whispered.

“I’m in here, L,” he called out.

Nobody seems to know my name

So don't leave me and sleep all alone

Maybe stay lost on our way home

The door opened slowly. He stood stiffly, with an almost solemn expression on his face. “Roman, I do hope you are feeling better. I have been... informed of recent events.”

Virgil squeezed his side protectively.

“Are you alright, Roman?” The door opened a little more and he could see Patton nervously peeking behind it.  

“I’ll...” Don’t lie. Lying is wrong. Lying is evil. “I’ll be better, Specs.”

“Well, if that’s all, then I shall be-”

“Logan.”

He paused. “Yes?”

Roman nodded towards the empty space next to him. “Come join us. Both of you.”

There was a hesitance in Patton’s eyes. He was walking on eggshells and he couldn’t stop.

“Padre,” Roman whispered. “Please. It’s okay.” Roman snapped himself and the lensed duo into their onesies. Virgil smiled softly and changed himself in an act of solidarity. He also summoned a switch into Logan’s hands.

“Visit our island, bitches.”

“This is only one console.”

“We’re evening out the playing field.”

Logan and Patton sat on the bed, Patton sitting on the edge and keeping to himself.

C’mon, c’mon, with everything falling down around me

Patton and Roman shared a glance.

I’d like to believe in all the possibilities

“We love you,” Patton whispered.

C’mon, c’mon, with everything falling down around me

I’d like to believe in all the possibilities

Roman smiled at him- it wasn’t easy, but Roman smiled. “Right,” he mouthed.

Try not to mistake what you have with what you hate

It could leave, it could leave, come morning

It wasn’t long before they could see Logan and Patton’s avatar, with a curvy mouth and forward facing eyes, running onto their screen with a default outfit. Virgil snorted commenting that the character looked “like a fucking crack addict” much to the disagreement of Logan and Patton. After a while they were all much more relaxed, even Logan seemed to be okay with Roman now leaning onto him.

Celebrate the night

It’s the fall before the climb

“It’s getting late,” Logan commented.

“Fuck it,” Roman murmured against his shoulder.

Shall we sing, shall we sing, until morning?

He reached over Logan’s torso, reaching out for Patton’s hand. Patton stayed silent as he laced their fingers.

“Roman, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Patton.”

“But, I-”

“It’s okay, Patton,” he said. “I love you too.”

If I fall forward, you fall flat

Under the sound of Animal Crossing music and dialogue at full blast, Roman could hear Virgil humming a familiar tune. Something about Virgil being a sock puppet still made him laugh.

And if the sun should lift me up,

Would you come back?

C'mon, c'mon, with everything falling down around me

I'd like to believe in all the possibilities

C'mon, c'mon, with everything falling down around me

I'd like to believe in all the possibilities

So c'mon, c'mon, with everything falling down around me

I'd like to believe in all the possibilities

Yeah Yeah Yeah!

It was around four in the morning when they all fell asleep. Janus’s words were still echoing in Roman’s head. But it was quieter now. It was easier to ignore under Patton’s snore. It was fine. They were going to be okay.

He was going to be okay.

It’s getting late and I cannot seem to find my way home tonight...

#sanders sides fic #tss fic #platonic lamp #hurt/comfort #roman angst #sanders sides angst #sadders sides #lol

[the-young-and-forgotten]

Chapter 1 - The Arrival

| masterlist |

A/N: this is set at the start of the marauders 6th year

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With a clap of thunder and a single flash of lightning, four boys fell directly from the sun, slamming onto the concrete ground beneath them. 

As their backs hit the pavement, their mind whirled through memories that weren’t their own. A castle up on a rocky cliff, rooms full of magical equipment, a forest with danger at every turn and a fiery redheaded girl that made James blush.

Groaning, they all picked themselves up, dusting their clothes off.  Peter shielded his eyes and looked up at the sun, grumbling “Why did they have to go and drop us from the fucking sky?” Remus opened his mouth to respond but something hot and soft started falling from the clouds. 

James held out his palm to the sky and watched as a burning piece of ash floated down onto his open palm. He studied it, visibly confused. “The sky is.. raining fire?”  “Nah mate” Sirius said with his arms outstretched, head tilted towards the sky “The worlds shuddering at the weight of our power” At that, the other boys started to spin in the fiery rain, laughing as they caught the embers on the tip of their tongues. 

Unbeknownst to them, an old man had heard their laughter and was walking up to them, smiling softly. “So you must be the fallen gods” he stated bluntly, capturing their attention. A flash of panic flitted across the boys’ faces as they searched for an excuse. “Oh no,” James said quickly, leaning against Remus’ shoulder. The boy in question had just started picking the flowers out of his hair, which was not helping to sell their lie. “We are just four normal boys casually dancing in the burning rain.” The man laughed, looking at them with a twinkle in his eye. “I do not think I am mistaken, Hecate told me you would be coming soon.” Peter scoffed, “Psh Hecate. You should never trust the goddess of…..” He paused at this, looking at James in wonder who was waving his arms around haphazardly. Realising his mistake, he tried his best to backtrack.  “Wait I mean, who's Hecate? She sounds dumb.” 

Right at that moment, one too many ashes had landed on Sirius’ skin, activating his flames.  With a big flash, he turned into a humanoid fire. The flames gradually subdued, leaving a sooty boy who looked at his hands in shock before turning his gaze to blood brothers, eyes wide. “That wasn’t supposed to happen..”  James’ shoulders slumped, running a hand down his face as Peter ducked down to hide his grin. Remus finally looked up from picking out the flowers from his hair that now lay in a pile around his feet. Dumbledore raised his eyebrows at him. “That uh.. That doesn’t happen often...” he explained, shaking his head at what a mess they all were. 

“Would you like to take a walk?” Dumbledore inquired. They slouch after him, visibly relieved that he didn’t question their insanity further.

They walked in silence for a few minutes before Dumbledore spoke up. “Are you boys familiar with… the tale of the Children of Hecate? It’s an old one.” Sirius laughed harshly at this “dude, we are a thousand years old we know all sorts of tales you couldn’t even dream up.” “You never answered my question young god.” “No… we aren’t” Dumbledore smiled, pulling out his wand. “I thought not.” He waved about his wand and silver mist broke out of the end, morphing into people, animating the story being told.

“A long time ago, there was a woman.  Cast out by the gods from helping out a paranoid mother, she, like you today, fell from the sky in a blaze of burning rain. Filled with hate and grief, she vowed to anger the gods in any way possible. For a hundred years she wandered this earth aimlessly, occasionally accompanied by Thanatos who came to reap the mortal souls. One day, she stumbled across seven mortals, cowering at the feet of Death, begging for life. Now, this woman had traveled among us, watching all our struggles and misery. Listening to our heartbreak and treachery. She took pity on these mortals and stepping from the shadows for the first time in a century, she addressed the seven. Pushing past Thanatos, she knelt to their level and placed a hand on the cheek of the child in front of her. Smiling kindly, she knew what to do to help them and fulfill her vow.  Reaching inside of her core, she drew out seven silver wisps. Weaving it around the mortals in front of her. “Upon you I bestow the power of the gods,” she whispered, transforming into her godly form. “Follow the path this shows you and life will come.” As the mortals scampered away, hands smoking and eyes dancing, Thanatos turned to her furious. From then on, Hecate was forced to spend the rest of her immortality guiding demigods, gods and mortals along the three crossroads. The mortals she blessed, though some may say cursed, used the powers how their minds begged them too, some for good, some for evil. But the magic went on, passed from generation to generation, family to family and will do so forever. Among all these powerful witches and wizards, as we call ourselves, were two men and two women. Born with magic unrivalled by anyone but Hecate herself.  They drew together and formed a school now known as ‘Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry’.  From then onwards, magical folk have been taught, honing their abilities to perfection. Carrying out the vow Hecate made many eons ago.” 

The boys were speechless. Remus pointed to Dumbledore then his wand and back again. “So you’re…” “Yes” Dumbldore answered, turning towards them and giving a short little bow, “I am a descendant of Hecate.” “And you want us at this school of yours?” “With Hecate's blessing, yes.” 

Peter cuts ahead of his friends, raising his hand. “Interjection! How the hell are we supposed to get magic powers?”  Dumbledore smiles at him and holds his hand. “If you four trust me, I will take you to where everything will be revealed.” The godlings look at each other before holding onto the man in question, watching as he whispers something, waving his wand around.

The boys feel a tug on their abdomen and gasped as the world around them blurs, like they are on a moving train. They felt themselves morph, as if they were travelling through time. Their very fibre being pulled and torn. Before long, the scenery around them started to solidify, changing into a strange room with silver instruments and hundreds of portraits everywhere. “What the FUCK was that.” Sirius shouted from a pile of broken items he had staggered into, being vulgar as always.  Dumbledore merely dusted himself off and fixed his robe before moving behind the desk. “That, dear boy, was a form of magical travel called apparition.”  Peter lay on the floor, gasping for breath. “I think I prefer falling from the sky.”  “And I prefer lying on a couch throwing grapes at the nymphs.” James groaned, stretching out his back.

“So magical powers?” Remus asked, walking up to Dumbledore's desk as his friends gazed at him in shock, wondering how he could be fine after that supposed ‘hell’ they just went through. “Ah yes!” Dumbledore clapped his hands together, reaching into a drawer just behind his desk. Out of the drawer he pulled four glasses filled to the brim with grey smoke.  “Within these glasses contain the exact wisps Hecate used to infuse those seven mortals with magic. Take this and it shall do the same.” “I’ll drink to that.” Says Sirius, pushing past Remus and picking up a glass. 

In one go he downs it, smiling devilishly. “See men? All fi-” Suddenly, Sirius’ face freezes in a half smile as his hands fly up to throat. He falls to his knees, coughing horribly, eyes glowing silver. His whole body twitching uncontrollably.  As quickly as it started, it was over. He lay there gasping, trying to formulate a sentence. “That was delicious…” he wheezed “110% recommend you give it a go.”

After seeing what happened to Sirius, the other boys were more hesitant to take even a sip.  But one encouraging smile from Dumbledore made them drink it, going through the same process as their blood brother. 

When they had finally recovered from the side effects of the potion, Dumbledore was reading through a small scroll covered in glyphs. “I just need to ask your four a question in order to secure your stay here at Hogwarts. Now this may feel extremely unnatural, since I am jogging memories that don’t actually exist.” 

He looked up from the paper, his eyes holding that twinkle they had seen before.  “Boys, what house were you sorted into six years ago?” The godlings felt their soul pulse for a second and their mouths fell open of its own accord.  A movie tape started running through their mind, twisted and slightly burning. Back and forth it ran, so fast everything was a blur of colours.  Finally, it landed on a vision of their younger selves sitting on a stool in front of hundreds as a hat screamed out something. The boys on the stools were faceless and the edges of their bodies were blurred, as if someone had edited them into a scene. They felt something invisible reach towards the memory and rip it out of the tape, forming it into words. Speaking together, they all said “Gryffindor.” 

Their souls pulsed once more, and they were brought back to reality, grabbing their heads and groaning. “I swear if we have to go through that everytime we remember some pointless memory-” Sirius spat, grabbing at his hair like he was trying to rip the headache out. “No, do not worry, Sirius. This should be the last time it will happen. You will feel dizzy and weird when experiencing a memory though, since they were forcibly planted into your mind.” 

“That reminds me,” Remus interrupted, wincing as he stood up “How come we aren’t going dizzy from the sight of you? Something tells me we should know you even though we don’t .”  Dumbledore laughed “My, aren’t you inquisitive?”  “That's Remus for you.” said Peter smiling fondly at the boy in question. “Has to know everything about a subject the moment he finds out about it.”  Remus made a face at him before turning back to Dumbledore, eyes hopeful.  Dumbledore smiled kindly at him and continued. “That’s because I personally asked the gods not to include me in your implanted memories. I would prefer to get to know you as the boys you are now. Not what fake scenarios portray you as.”

The godlings look at each other, questions of trust in their eyes.  Taking the first leap of faith, James extended his hand for Dumbledore to shake. “You have left a good impression on us sir. You have earned our trust.” Delighted, Dumbledore shook his hand, once again smiling kindly at them all. “Now, I must show you to your dormitories…”

“No need Sir.” Sirius said, finally standing up. “We can get there just fine.”  They turned to leave, heading for the office door. Dumbledore cocked an eyebrow at their departing figures. “You may get lost” 

James stopped by the door just as the others went through, chuckling.  Turning around he winked at Dumbledore.  “That’s the thing about us chaos gods.” He said, grinning mischievously.  “We have impeccable navigational skills.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

taglist: @pregnant-piggy @just-a-belgian-girl @james-effing-potter @thegrxywitch @aspiringsloth20 @naviation-xx @marauderenergy @give-the-boy-a-hug @amixedwitch

if you want to be a part of my taglist for this, fill out this form 

#marauders as gods #the marauders #god!marauders #sirius black #james potter #remus lupin #peter pettigrew

[likesomekindofcheese]

Promised Part Five (The Great Mini-series, Arranged Marriage AU)

A/N: Here it finally is!!!! Sorry it took forever, life happens.

Word Count: 4K

Summary: When the Emperor’s behavior gets your families alliance with Russia in danger, you agree to marry his best friend Grigor in order to make sure the alliance does not fall apart. You’re tossed into the Russian court and into the arms and bed of a Russian count, dodging his jealous ex lover, trying to survive the unpredictability.... but...what about yuou two? Are you and Grigor finally...feeling something for each other?

Warnings: Swearing, drunkeness, mentions of sex and nudity, marriage, and an in universe reference I couldn’t resist.

“Come here Sonya! Come here!” Lady Svenska cooed, wiggling her fingers.

The puppy trotted to her and she squealed in delight.

Tatiana bent her knees, her lime green dress bunching below her like icing on a cake as she did.

“Sonya! Sonya come!” she gestured.

With a happy trot, Sonya waddled over. She reached up, her tiny tail wagging.

“Oooo, good girl! Good girl!”

You had been invited to a tea party with the other ladies. Although you had gotten closer to the empress, you feared if they would see you as an enemy. Especially hearing of Catherine’s last tea party with them. So walking in, you brought your secret weapon. And it worked.

The only woman it seemed who was not having the time of her life with what was happening was Georgiana. Dressed in her purple gown and largest wig, she sat a little slumped on the couch. She was sipping her tea every now and then but crossing her arms. She stared daggers at the dog and how it trotted. She preferred any small circle that came over to obsess over the latest scandalous affair, but even then she kept one eye on Sonya as if the dog was a wolf ready to attack. She didn’t dare say a word to you. And you didn’t say a word to her. But if there was nothing said, then nothing bad could happen.

Smiling, you helped yourself to a red macaroon, delighting in the crunch and cream of it’s taste. Lady Svenska walked over to you and asked.

“Can she do tricks?” she questioned.

“Almost. She’s getting better at walking. She used to pull and run a lot, but she’s better at being obedient.”

“And she doesn’t tear things up?” she asked.

“Only sometimes. I have to watch where my dresses are stored,” you answered.

“Ah! She’s such a good dog! How lovely of you to bring her here, Madame Dymov!”

Georgiana’s eyes went dark.

“Will you come to our ball throwing this evening! It is most fun! Mine might go another inch!”

“I’d be delighted to! And be sure to tell me more about that maid with the baron old enough to be her grandfather too! And with copous details!” you added on.

“Oh! I do like you! And what of the Empress?”

“Well, we read. And we chat…”

“But all that reading!? Isn’t it time consuming!”

“A little. Her books can take time. I reread pages over and over…but in the best way. I suppose. It keeps her happy.”

“If you have any gossip about her, please share!”

“I..I, uh, will!” you promise.

“First of all, have you any plans or gifts to give her on her birthday, it’s coming up in about a month!”

“Hmm, I don’t know…” you mumbled.

At that moment your husband entered the room. He seemed a little uncomfortable with all of the flowers and pastel dresses, eyeing birds singing ditties in shiny cages and macaroons piled to his chest on platters.

“Oh, Y/N…where is Y/N?” he asked to one lady in a pink dress and grey wig.

She pointed in your direction and he smiled.

As he walked by, he passed the couch where Georgiana was sitting. Her shoe tapped his calf and he turned.

“Hello, Grigor…” she said with a faded grin.

“Hello, George,” he replied politely. Somehow, your blood felt hot. But yet, the marriage was over, so what if they even talked? He probably just enjoyed you talking with him and occasionally sleeping with him. But no, they had to be soulmates. And it was better not to disturb them. After all, despite the suddenness of the marriage, it would work. He would be happy.

“How is the party?” he asked, hands placed behind the back.

“Going perfect. We’re being introduced to the loud, hairy creature that lifts her leg when she pisses. Her dog is there too.” She quipped with a surprisingly relieved smile.

You froze. Little Sonya recognized Grigor and ran up to him, oblivious to how white his face was turning. A few fans were spread, and you barely heard feminine whispers of “…quite bitchy…” It got a little quiet. Even with the string quartet in the back was playing at a piano as if they wanted to hear what would happen next to.

Getting up, you turned around to leave them alone. Let them take it out. Let him laugh, Let her smile. Maybe even fuck against the wall like you noticed the odd couple doing on a night of reveling in the palace, no matter who might see or hear.

“George. I can’t control what you do on your own. But when you are with me, you will not speak about my wife in that matter.”

Pausing, you turned around. A couple quiet tears fell down your cheeks.

“You’re an esteemed lady of the court with the world at your fingertips. She’s a poor creature thrown into an arranged marriage, stolen from another country, and little to never to see any of her family or friends again while you just lay down and let Peter put fruit in your pussy and drink champagne.”

Wiping away tears with your hands, you stood still, not sure what to say. Grigor continued, truly angered and passionate.

“I didn’t marry her because of you. And she didn’t marry me so she could have my cock when you couldn’t. I did this so that we all- we all-“ he gestured to the people in the room “won’t be fucking ripped apart by Swede’s in a fortnight thanks to her families army. You will show her what little compassion you have in your tiny heart. You could even show her an ounce of gratitude for the sacrifice she and I made for the safety of everyone here, including yours. Or else I could have said no and let the swedes stab you in your tits when you’re asleep in the emperor’s bed. And I wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep over it too. But I did.”

She froze. There was even a couple of gasps.

Scooping the tiny dog in his arms, he turned ot you promptly.

“I hope you’re enjoying yourself.”

“I…I am…” you answered. “But I’m tired, let’s go home and play cards.”

“I agree.”

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

 A week later, Grigor had partied so much with the Emperor last night, wrestling and playing with some man named Leon or whoever. You peaked in the door, and yawning, retired to your own apartments to sleep even if alone.

Waking up briefly in the grey air, you felt him crawling into bed at four in the morning. So you let him sleep in as you took Sonya on her morning walk. Besides, she would pout and whine if you didn’t walk at her certain time.

“Here you go, I know, Papa can’t be there-but I will,” you assured the dog.

You made your way through the halls into the gardens. Sonya was already getting bigger. The collar and leash made for her a while ago was getting snug on her fluffy body.

Enjoying the forest, you heard the rhythmic crunch of the leaves and sticks beneath Sonya’s prancing paws. The cold air stung your lungs in the best way. The sky looked clear and crisp.

Sonya pointed her snout in one direction. She began pulling and barking.

“What is it? Some sort of creature!” you thought, walking forward.

It wasn’t a mouse of squirrel, there was a person slumped against a tree, sitting on the dirt. Walking closer, you made out a dark green skirt and a hat, but a head of dark, curly hair made loose. She reeked of vodka and beer. Her face was pale to where she seemed ill, rather than the lovely cream color of her skin. And beneath her eyes there were several bags.

“G..Georgiana…”

She turned her head to you, squinting.

“Yes…” she grunted.

“What are you doing here?”

She began to laugh a little, bitterly.

“I could ask the same…what are you doing here?”

“I’m walking Sonya…she needs to be exercised so she won’t get into trouble from being bored,” you explained, gripping the leash.

“Huh, I know sometimes…sometimes Grigor goes with you…” her voice was deep and throaty, far from her usual speaking tone. As if every word was choked up.

She seemed so pitiful you didn’t have the heart to chafe her.

“Yes, yes he does…”

Her exhausted eyes wandered forward into the grove of trees. She kept speaking to you.

“Sometimes we’d walk together. Only if it was nice. We did everything together. Walking. Eating. Dancing. Bathing together. Did you know…I even got my portrait painted and he kept it in his room! Right next to his bed…he…he cared for me so much to where I was right there with him every morning even when I wasn’t next to him and now…now he hates me…”

She began to sniffle, and a few tears worked up.

“No. No, I don’t think he hates you at all…”

“Why did he speak to me that way?”

“He just…he got emotional. And he has been emotional because he loves you. He’s every bit as sad as you are for not marrying…”

Sonya walked over to the crying woman. Alerted by the sounds, she walked over and sniffed at her wet face. She broke out  a smile.

“But the truth is…in this court, there’s plenty of women who’ve fucked Peter. More than half. That’s just a fact of life. But I… I love it. I love having men want me, being worshipped, loved, is that wrong?”

“It’s normal,” you admitted. “it’s normal to want to be loved.”

“And the things it gives you. It’s not the least bad. I have all sorts of things. Dresses. Hats. A high position in court. Security. Comfort. Occasionally I can change laws and save lives with just a word-imagine that! And jewels. Jewels I used to dream of having. And I get to enjoy making love to a man who’s skilled at it. It might be the only way for a woman here to move up. That’s the way it is, is that wrong? Is it wrong to enjoy fucking and love a man too? For them to be separate men? They do it all the time and no one bats an eye bit when I do…”

She finally fell down into sobs.

“And he just...he couldn’t accept it. He claimed he loved me, and I… I love him, I still do, he just couldn’t accept me as I am and this world as it is…I thought he knew me…and that I knew him…”

She began to cry more; Sonya reached over and began to lick her face. She laughed at the ridiculous feeling of a dog’s tongue right on your nose and you began to laugh too.

“Georgiana…I’m so sorry I yelled at you that first day…I saw you as a threat and didn’t stop to think what you would feel. How I would feel if I was in your shoes…”

“Ugh, you’re…you’re as saccharine as…as…I don’t even know, Y/N. I’d put you in my…my mouth and my blood would rush, and they’d have to let it out with slugs.”

Taking out a handkerchief, you began to wipe her tears from her face.

“I’m not the one in tears…but…he used to keep a portrait of you…” you questioned.

“He did…is it there? Maybe….”

“Not anymore…” you explained flatly.

So that explained the circular area on the wall next to the bed.

“I know you really do love Grigor. And you care for him…but loving someone is hard. I love my family and friends back home, or unless I wanted to make all of them suffer or even get killed, I had to let them go to come here…sometimes, there are things you have to let go and move on from…” you assured her. You aren’t a bad person for wanting those things. You’re a smart person for figuring out how to get them. I admire you for it.”

“I just keep wondering…I keep wondering what would happen if he said yes…if he agreed to the terms…we’d be so happy…”

And he would see you with Peter and be miserable. Then god knows what would happen you thought.

You took her arm and helped her to her shaky legs.

“But there’s no use in that. Here, let’s get you back to the palace. I think after you get some water and some sleep, you might feel better…”

“But Y/N, Grigor I think…he’s in denial how Peter works here. If a woman needs anything in court, and if Peter picks you…he picks you. And, well, there’s nothing you can do about it…”

Your stomach lurched.

    “Grigor might want a faithful wife. He might’ve thought he got that with you but…defying the Emperor is a risk. Too huge. Why say no? After all, he’s a genius at fucking so it could be worse…”

“You need water, Georgiana. And you need to clean up. Then you’ll feel better…” you interrupted, trying to mother her away and ignoring the fear in your gut.

 But as you were strolling later in the week, returning from another one of the Empresses’s private discussions, you saw a few ladies eye down at the book. Perhaps they judged you. Perhaps they were jealous. But one bespecaled face saw you, smiled, and then hurried up.

“Orlo! How are you?”

“Y/N-er-Madame Dymov! Enough about me already- I heard the Empress gave you a copy of the Rousseau! What do you think!?” he asked excitedly.

His dark eyes glittered at the book in your hands. Holding it up to him you let him inspect it.

“I was…I was shocked at first. His ideas felt like…like a blast of cold wind. But I…he made good points. And I found myself agreeing after some time…” you explained with a shrug.

“He’s one of my favorites, and tehre’s so much…so much inside there. But I…I wish I could explain it all…”

“Let’s go to my place, I’ll call for a plate...” you offered with a shrug and a smile.

Introducing him to the drawing room, he settled down shyly on the seat in front of the fire. You brought in some tea with a strawberry cake and wound up talking for a straight hour. He got his own turn to pet on little Sonya as she licked his fingers from the cake crumbs. You discussed Rousseau, then he went on to talk about Voltaire, Plato, Paine. Ideas stretched you and you found yourself talking about things you could never imagine debating about with anyone. About people. Power. Faith. Life. Death. Purpose, if there was one at all. Your cup became cold and you had to reheat it by pouring some liquid into it.

Orlo glowed as he explained it all. He was not condescending. In fact, it felt like being in school with  a good teacher. You understood and appreciated it even more. You were amazed with the depth of knowledge he had. Beneath his mousy exterior, there was a brilliant mind. Perhaps even genius. You were amazed in him. Strands of his hair loosened out and he smiled more, seeming relaxed and confident. Far more confident than you ever knew him to be in public.

“But out of all of them, I think my favorite is…”

The door creaked as it opened.

His head turned and you saw Grigor walking in. His face was pink, and his eyebrows crossed.

“Hello Orlo, what are you doing with my wife?” he asked, his lips tight and his voice firm.

“I, uh…” he found himself blubbering. His posture slouched and his hands retreated.

Standing at once, you walked up to Grigor with as much poise as you could.

“The empress gifted me with a book and Orlo was asking me about it over tea, nothing more…” you explained plainly.

“It’s fascinating. Isn’t it!” you added, throwing back a look.

Orlo nodded shyly, getting out of the seat like it had spikes.

“Very.”

“Oh, alright…” Grigor replied quietly.

Once Orlo thanked you for hosting him and shuffled out, Grigor’s eyes never left his steps.

 He was quiet over dinner. You had to ask questions about his day and have Sonya’s begging fill the silence. Later, you changed into your nightgown to see Grigor was already in bed.

You saw him curl up to the other side. Not turning around, holding the blanket over his shoulders and leaving your side disproportionally cold.

With a huff, you placed your hands on your hips.

“What is it?” You had a guess, but you wanted to hear it from him.

“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong” he said in a tone that said something was definitely wrong.

“What is it…tell me…” you wheedled, sitting on the bed and leaning closer to him.

He turned around.

“I understand we agreed to follow orders to marry. Not for us. Our countries, the safety of your family and for their workers and tenets to not go hungry, for protection, the alliance, and for Russia to succeed against the Swedes… but I know you didn’t choose to marry me…if you…if you…are in love… then I guess it would make it easier…but you will at least be honest with me and not play around when you fall in love with some man!”

“In love? With Orlo?!” you added.

His head snapped back at the sound of his name.

“If you love the prick, then that’s fine! It will make you bear being here better- it’s all fine!” He if it will make you bear this, bear being married to me…”

“I’m not in love with Orlo!” you laughed, placing a hand on his shoulder. He flinched a little, but didn’t turn away.

“What…you aren’t? Both of you always talk together.”

 “I always talk with the empress, and Tatyana and everyone else too. They’re my friends. He’s my friend as well… and…I…I promised you I won’t hurt you. That I will do my best not to hurt you…and you’re obviously hurt…” you reasoned.

The clock chimed the hour in the back.

“I…yes, I was…I had memories of when…you know…” he muttered out, looking down.

You folded your arms and turned away from him.

“Well, have you ever kissed Georgiana since our marriage? I guess you can run back to her, like I’m apparently running to Orlo. Should I be worried about her?”

“Uh-no! Not at all! We’ve barely talked since the betrothal! I talk more to Sonya than I do to her in a fortnight!” he said, pointing to the dog curled asleep on her pillow.

You crossed your arms and started to laugh a little. A smile cracked on his thin face as well.

“If I have no reason to suspect you of anything with George, you have no reason to suspect anything of me and Orlo!” you reasoned with a shrug.

Leaning forward, you pulled more of the cover to your side. He relented.

 Both of you were tense. Words left your voice.

“Just dinner and drinks with your friend, nothing more. Perfectly normal.” You assured.

Even if it meant eating in his chambers with large portraits all over the wall and a big green bed on the other side. Peter stood up and greeted you both. His arms were wide, pearls dangling from his neck.

“Ah, hello! Join me!” Peter cheered. “Grigor-make yourself at home! There’s already some food.

You carefully walked in, placing yourself on the couch and folded your hands in front of your lap. Unsure of what to do or say. A finger nudged you.

“Here, Y/N…here’s the seat for you!” your husband said, taking his large hands around your waist and picking you up as you let out a smile.

Grigor placed you on his lap, like he did on your wedding. Smiling, you accepted the feeling of him nearby and settled your weight. The closeness far more natural than ever. Grigor’s arms were warm as they passed dishes around from one man to the Emperor. A serf poured a Kiev vdoka and you enjoyed yourselves.

“I tell you- fucked a horse! It’s just a rumor-but can you believe it!” he said.

Laughing in spite of yourself, you shook your head insisting “no, I don’t!”

Smiling. Laughing. Everything felt normal. You laughed so hard you almost snorted your drinkand covered your mouth, laughing more at the dirtier humor. Years ago, your mother would have become so uncomfortable at such words she would excuse herself and complain about it later. Laughs held back were finally released, you jaw uhrt and your cheeks felt hot.

“And that’s what hapoens when you use the duck whistle on the balcony-“Oh, Grigor! Have I fucked your wife yet?”

The drink you were sipping almost spat out of your mouth and you coughed it out. Both of you froze again. You felt Grigor tense up. His breath quickened. His face turned white and then red and then white again. His jaw clenched and his nostrils flared.

Turning your head back, you began to give a charming smile at the emperor, even giving the little half smile you noticed to do. You decided if the subject came up, you would be prepared.

“Your highness, of yes, of course we’ve fucked. Several times!” you said.

Where he couldn’t see, you kicked Grigor’s leg to alert him.

“Oh, really!” he said.

“Ah! What a Casanova you are, Emperor! Losing track! But…”

You circled the rim of your glass, and then added on.

“I have an eternally dry pussy, can’t suck cock to save my life, and an ass so tight that deflects any object near the hole so it’s been rather disappointing. It’s a miracle my husband tolerates me. He’s hardly been able to finish the job!”

He tilted his head, pondering it with a hmmmm. Glancing at Grigor, you quickly mouthed “play along.” His eyes bright, he nodded at you, and then to the Emperor in agreement.

“Yes! Fucking Y/N is a total disappointment. Remember her place? They’re boring, plain people even when fucking.”

Peter nodded in agreement, his eyes up to the sky as if thinking about the fake experience. Not that it was to think.

“Humph. I…I think you’re right. It was disappointing. Grigor, if you need me to order you a whore, let me know.”

You kept your hand on his and you saw his eyes dart in confusion and realization, his brain thinking a hundred thoughts.

“Please pour me another drink…” you said, holding your cup to a serf.

“Besdies, Catherine…she’s been having all these ideas about art. And I saw a portrait and I…I cried! I fucking cried-can you believe it? I never knew she could..could even make me feel like that!”

 As you left the chambers, you squeezed his hand. Both of you let out a breath and continued some nervous laughter until you were both home.

“That was brilliant!” He praised, sinking in relief in the chair. There was already a fire crackling, drawing warmth into the chilly room.

“I knew he would bring it up, soon. So, I might as well. Now you don’t have to worry about anything…at least for now…” you said with a shrug.

“Oh, but the party tomorrow…you’ll be careful. I think people will be very merry and he might…get carried away…”

“Just give him a galloon a vodka then, he’ll won’t be able to stand.”

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

As the party the next night raged on, it struck you that it was Grigor who was well on his way to drinking a gallon of vodka. The rooms glowed yellow orange with all of the candles. Stringed guitars played out dancing tunes with throaty Russian lyrics where although the words were hard to understand, you had to tap your toes. Women walked by with snakes draped over their necks and you stared in frightened awe at the creature, as if in Eden. Your own gown was a pale pink with bows on the stomacher, a ruffled skirt beneath the first one, and you hair done up in flowers and feathers. You even agreed to wear a beauty mark of a small dog on your cheek. Girgor himself had a grey wig and his finest, deep green suit. He eyed plates of vodka, reaching for two small glasses and downing them…and supper would be served in an hour.

You noticed and Empress and Emperor dancing. She swished her pale pink skirt and he twirled in a black skirt, carefree. It was almost like watching a fight, how they were both powerful yet matched each other.”

“Come on, you sad bastards!? Why aren’t you dancing!? Dance! I command you!” Peter cried out in joy.

“Y/N! Y/N- we haven’t danced too much-let’s dance! Dance with me!” Grigor insisted, pulling you further down.

“Grigor, that’s the vodka talking!”

The musicians were warming up for the next piece in the corner.

“I…I don’t know the…” you mumbled in a panic as other couples filled the floor.

“Oh no-just follow me!” He said with a big smile and his face flushed.

  Still you ran out with him, mimicking hand movements and your feet trying to keep up with the steps. If you felt him leading you somewhere, you followed. If you sepearted in lines, you kept an eye on him.

“Girgor…do the trick! The trick!” Peter insisted, running up in the middle.

Eyes wide, you saw your husband grab hold of your body.

“Here. Y/N! I can do it- hold on! Jump up.

He lifted you up in his arms and twirled you up, his arms adjusting to hold you up so that he held you up by your legs, your stomach to his face. You could hear him muffling beneath your clothes.

“We need smof practif…”

But Peter laughed and you heard loud applauding as faces turned to look at you. Even George’s own face had a smile, albeit a sad one.

He set you down.

“Let’s try it again, put your leg on my shoulder…now your other leg..ooof! Now, this one is better!”

He lifted you up so high, you realized you were on his shoulders, and emabarrasingly his head was near your crotch. The court applauhded and laughed and huzzahed. It was so fun you almost forgot your fear of being dropped. you laughed as you held onto his shoulders for deaer life, thrilled to see everyone smaller before you. As if they dhrunk or you became a giant. The chandeliers dripping with diamonds were easy to your touch, your fingertips grazed one as Grigor walked in a circle.

“Ha! I knew you could do it good chap!” Peter applauded before asking.

Grigor placed you down with a smile, he placed his hands on your cheeks and for a moment you thought he was going to kiss you, then his eyes wandered to some vodka and he took another shot.

 He was singing as the party ended late in the night. You struggled to support him over your shoulders.

“Grigor…be careful…”

Once you got into the room, Sonya woke up from her nap and barked, jumping at your feet. Staggering, you brought him to your bedchambers.

“Let’s get your clothes off…” you said, pulling his coat off and placing it on the floor.

“You wish to see me naked, you could’ve asked, darling…”

Sighing, you poured the hot water into the golden tub.

“If you don’t bathe, then you’re sleeping with Sonya…”

He leaned down in his shift and breeches to the wagging tail beneath him.

“Oh….hello doggie, cute doggie…good doggie…”

“To bath, Grigor!”

Eventually, you got him to bathe enough to where he didn’t reek of alcohol. Once he dried off, you pushed his breeches onto him.

“None of that tonight with you drunk off your head!”

“Can’t I at least kiss you?” he complained childishly.

“Fine, but it stops at kissing!”

Once you finally settled within your own sheets, legs and feet sore from dancing, you barely put the blankets over you when  you felt two large arms wrap themselves around you and hug you tight, pulling you close. He laughed a bit before kissing you on top of your head. You smirked and let him obloge. Then you felt him relax.

“Y/N, I love you….”

You froze solid, your stomach dropping.

“What?”

He took a hand and placed it on your cheek again, before it sloppily fell down.

“Y/N, my sweet angel…I love you…”

Shaking your head, you pulled the covers above you both.

“That’s the vodka talking, now go to sleep….”

He went back to holding you, turning you so that your back was turned to him, you felt and smelt his breath as he kept speaking.

“I love you, Y/N. I’m falling in love with you this minute and…I’m fucking terrified…”

You let his arms settle.

“Don’t wanna…get hurt, get shat on…but every day I’m….falling more in love with you…and it makes me both so happy and scared I could fucking scream…that was why Orlo fucking scared me, and Peter, that wonderful, bastard. I love him, but if he lays a hand on you, I swear to god…”

“Grigor…you need to sleep. You’re drunk. Only time will wear it off.”

Besides, it was better to not get your hopes up.

‘I can’t believe I’m fucking falling in fucking love all over again…never thought after George that I would….never would let myself…thought ”

“But Grigor…you….”

“I’d like to see you…see you happy. See your smiling face before I sleep.”

You gave him a small smile and his eyes fluttered shut.

“Grigor…do you…do you love me….do you really love me…”

You gave him a small smile. He then rolled on his belly, spread like a starfish. He was snoring deeply in minutes.

“Because I think I’m falling in love with you too…” you wanted to say.

taglist:  @retropetalss @queenlover05 @joesleee   @grigorlee@itsametaphorgwil @always-a-fairycat @foxinaforestofstars @simonedk @i-wished-upon-a-star-one-night @queenlover05 @xviiarez @kiainspace @gwilymleeisbae @writeroutoftime @staradorned @iwritefanficnotprophecies @panagiasikelia @marshmxllowfluf @rhapsodyrecs @sebastiistan​ @yourlocalmusicalprostitute @gwiilymslee @isitstraightvodka​ @cherry--coke​

[abluescarfonwaston]

Did someone ask for a quick and angsty immortal jaskier prompt? "It was supposed to be the music," he whispered, voice breaking. Heart breaking. "The songs. I wanted my songs to be remembered forever. I never wanted this."

Why would you do this to me anon. i’m already crying over the fact dandelion outlives everyone he loves. Major Character Death Warning. Obviously. Literally everyone dies. Uuuh also this kinda turns into Lambert/Jaskier at the end but like. They’re both Centuries old so nothing Happens.

When the wasting sickness swept through Lettenhove it killed his Mother and his Father and his Sisters and left him untouched. 

He was ten and the world was over. Except he kept waking up in the morning.

At thirteen a girl at Oxenfurt, Essi Daven, played her Lute in the commons and sang and had the most beautiful cornflower blue eyes. And for the first time in years he sang a duet with her and suddenly he was a bard and he had a little sister again. 

Maybe the world hadn’t ended. Maybe it finally restart.

At seventeen he met a man with white hair and seemly as many scars on his body as his heart and fell in love. Because Bards fell in love easily and he was impossibly easy to love.

The witcher plead for his life. Plead for them to let the bard go.

“No. Both of us or neither.” He was done outliving those he loved. At seventeen he was already done with that. “You kill him and let me go and i’ll destroy your mountain. Kill every last one of you in revenge.”

He’d leave behind a song. The one he’d written as a child and had swept the town more devastating than even the scarlet fever had been. It would live on past him. He would be remembered. The people he loved would be too. Toss a coin to your Witcher. The people he loved immortalized in song.

It wasn’t supposed to make him immortal.

“Give it a rest Jaskier.” Danity snapped. “It’s not you that has to be afraid of anything. No one ever touches a troubadour. For unfathomable reasons you’re inviolable.”

He’d still feared then. Chappelle could have had him killed. He was pretty sure he could die. Mostly he feared the pain. Or dying alone.

“When an old woman gets tired of life she walks into the woods without a weapon. The results are guaranteed.” He’d told Geralt when he’d moaned about how the world was changing and -more importantly- that he had no work.

Remember how I don’t even carry a knife when I follow you out on an adventure? No weapons at all. Ever. Just me and my lute.

He’d brushed death. A thousand times he’d almost met her. He followed Geralt- who was prophesied to always have death follow after him. You’d think at some point they’d meet.

Essi and Geralt fell in love on the coast. He wrote a ballad for them. About how their love was so powerful not even death could come between them.

He never played it. Not to anyone. He didn’t think it was actually about Essi and Geralt.

When rash appeared on Essi’s face in Vizima during the quarantine his hands shook.

“Not her.” He’d screamed at the gods. They didn’t exist of course. If they had then they’d abandoned them all long ago. “Not her.”

“Jaskier?” She shivered violently. “I don’t want to be burned.”

“You won’t be. You’re going to be fine.” He promised. Clutching her hand. “Promise Poppet. You’re going to be fine.”

The cremation fires blazed outside.

“I want to be buried in the woods. With my lute and-” She hurled mostly into the bucket. “My necklace. Please Jaskier.”

“Course Poppet. When you’re old and grey I will bury you out in the forest.”

“Thank you.” She clutched the little pearl. “For giving me him. I love him.”

“I never saw him happier than when he was with you Poppet.”

“What about when he was with you?”

“Oh come now.” He shifted her in his arms and moved the bucket a little further away. “You know me. I’m insufferable.”

“I love you Jaskier.” She cried as she shivered with less and less energy.

“I love you too Poppet.”

He carried her from the city. Into the forest. Her heart stopped beating before they arrived. He dug her grave and buried her with her lute and her pearl necklace.

With the pearl he’d given to her as a birthday gift. From him and Geralt.

When Regis passed it felt absurd. Humans weren’t supposed to outlive goddamn vampires in their fifth fucking century.

And then there was Geralt. Died in Yennefer’s arms along with her.

“It was supposed to be me.” He told no one as Ciri led their bodies out to the lake. “I was supposed to die with him.” Love so great not even death can part us.

But the story was never really about him was it?

Nenneke had a garden full of plants that grew under a crystal skylight. They didn’t grow anywhere else in the world anymore.

He’d asked Geralt about it. She’d said something about the sun and how it was changing. Apparently Geralt had asked why they all didn’t live under crystal skylights then, if it was so deadly.

“It’s already too late for us.” She’d said.

She talked liked the world was ending but the world ended all the time. And he still woke up in the morning.

Zoltan’s beard turned grey. He supposed he should have been thankful that Zoltan got to turn grey. It was better than most of the people he’d loved.

“How’s your fucking hair still Gold. You’re supposed to be getting old too!”

“I dye it.” He lied with a roll of the eyes. He’d stopped dying it years ago.

That winter he buried Zoltan too.

Golden eyes stared at him in confusion. “You look just like.” He started. His thin hair was grey. His wolf medallion gleamed in the sunlight that streaked into the bar.

“You’re one of the last Witchers i think.” He told him as the waves crashed outside. “Might even be the last.”

“Fucking hope so.” He sat down across from him and stole his beer. “Shitty job and a shitty life.” He squinted at him- which Jaskier knew was entirely unnecessary. He just forgotten to adjust his eyes. “What’s your name bard?”

“Dandelion.” He answered. It had been for the last century. “Yours?”

“Lambert.” He downed the drink. “You really think i’m the last? That worth a song? One of my brothers had a lot of songs.”

“Yes I suppose he did.” He waved for another drink. “And look what it got him.”

“Died surrounded by people who loved him.”

“Are you sure you know what a pogrom is?”

That got him a sharp toothy grin.

“I could write you a song but-” He was tired of burying people he loved.

“But?”

“I’m cursed you see.” It was definitely a curse these days. “I’ll live until the last of my songs is forgotten. I really don’t need anymore material.”

Lambert leaned forward curiously. “Doesn’t sound like a curse.”

“You don’t think it sounds like a curse?” He sneered. Lambert’s face faltered. “To outlive everyone you love?”

Lambert paused. Thinking. “Write me a song then. Play it just for me. So if my song’s the last we’ll go together.”

“And what’s my payment for this song?”

“Company.” Lambert’s grey eyes glittered. “You look like you need it.”

“Not as much as you. I bet you talk to your horse.”

“Well i know you do pretty boy. Heard you in the stable.”

He leaned back on the bench. “So what’s a Witcher do in a world without monsters?”

He shrugged. “Fish mostly.”

“I can do that. Once almost snagged a catfish the size of you. Got a djinn instead. Very bad deal honestly.”

“You expect me to believe that? I know about Bards and Ballads and how you’re all rotten liars.”

“Don’t forget about fisherman and their tales.”

The boat leaked worse than an old drunkard but it was small enough and the lake calm enough that it didn’t make him sick.

“I could just kill you. Curse probably can’t fix decapitation.” Lambert offered with his stick in the water. He claimed were bombs they could use instead if they got desperate. Or bored.

He smiled and shook his head. “Give it a try.”

Lambert raised an eyebrow but pulled a silver blade from it’s sheath.

His pole reeled and the boat tilted to the side, plunging him and the sword into the water.

He laughed as the attempted to drag the monstrous fish to the boat. Lambert cursed and climbed in. Yanking at the rod until the line snapped and they fell back into the boat in a painful pile. Laughing.

He didn’t remember the last time he’d laughed.

“Sing me a song bard.” Lambert would request from under his floppy sun brimmed hat. “No else up here but me.”

“There’s an entire stone keep on the hill.”

“No ones lived there in centuries. No one can hear you up here but me.”

He frowned at the ruins on the hill. Lambert kicked him.

He grinned and for the first time in decades - sang.

Maybe. Maybe the world hadn’t ended. Maybe it had finally restart.

“What was this place called?” He asked as they wandered through the crumbled ruin, covered in moss and ivy.

“Kaer Morhen.” He said like the words hurt him.

They hurt him too. He laughed.

He laughed some more.

He couldn’t stop laughing until Lambert smacked him hard enough to see stars.

“I never got to come here. Geralt.” He caught the flinch but moved past it. “Never trusted me enough to even let me know which country it was in.”

“So you were his bard.”

He nodded as Lambert kicked a stone apart. “He was right not to tell me of course. But.” It still hurt that his best friend hadn’t trusted him with his home. He’d taken Yennefer here. But not him. Never him.

He didn’t deserve Geralt’s trust. A thief, a liar, a spy, a bard. It still hurt.

“Well a wolf finally took you here. Is it everything you fucking dreamed?”

He took it in. “Nah. It’s rubbish.”

Lambert smirked. “Yeah. At least that hasn’t changed.”

“You’re hairs getting grey bard.”

“What?” He nearly leaped into the water in his haste to look.

Grey strands streaked his beard.

“Thank you.” He cried. “Thank you.”

“Still owe me that song Dandy.”

He wrote Lambert a lot of songs. Performed for an audience of one.

“Are you really okay with the fact no one will ever hear them? I mean what’s the point in being immortalized in song if-”

“Yeah. Didn’t give a shit about the songs.”

“Hey!” He protested. Kicking him where he lounged in front of the fire. “They’re good songs!”

He grunted in fake pain. Wiggled out of range. “Did Geralt ever tell you why he liked having you around?”

“My charming personality I assume.”

Lambert snorted.

He sat down on the floor and poke him. “Don’t fall asleep. Tell me why you think he did.”

“No one tells Witchers bedtime stories.”

“Oh.” Lambert was halfway to sleep already. “Would you like one?”

“Yeah.”

“What you think happens after?” They were huddled together. Old and grey as a storm raged outside. “We die.”

“I gave up on gods when i was a child.”

“So did i.”

“Then.” He paused. Listened to the howl. “Whatever’s next at least neither of us is going alone.”

Lambert squeezed his bony hand. “What’s the chance we see them again?”

“Hm.” He pretended to consider. “Well we’re definitely going to hell so-”

“Like anyone we gave a shit about wouldn’t be.”

“Point.”

He closed his golden eyes. “Hey Dandy.”

“Yeah?”

“Sing me out.”

“It’d be my pleasure.”

And quite singing filled the drafty cabin until the song stopped.

The world ended.

And at long last no one woke up in the morning.

#geraskier #Jaskier x Lambert #Immortal Jaskier #jaskier #Essi Daven #canon deaths #play me out Dandelion #Let's go together #also Anon I specifically Requested NO IMMORTAL JASKIER CAUSE IT NOW BREAKS MY HEART #damnit #hope this breaks your heart you bastard #thanks for the prompt #someone send me fluff #writing

[baddestbitchcas]

Falling For You

Word count: 3.7k

Summary: Fluffy as hell and Dean and Cas go ice skating. It’s a beautiful afternoon. Enjoy :))

Also on ao3 here

—————————

Around 10:00 am, Dean finally stirred awake. Keeping his eyes closed, trying to hang onto the remnants of sleep, he rolled over and searched the sheets beside him. Instead of finding the warmth he was looking for, the bed next to him was cool and empty. He grumbled to himself; Cas must have gotten up already. Damn, he loved waking up next to the angel and spending his first few moments of the day cuddled up to him. Well, just because Cas wasn’t here didn’t mean he wasn’t close by. With a light-hearted sigh, Dean finally opened his eyes and swung his feet to the floor. He pulled on a pair of sweats and padded out of his room to find Cas. Instantly, he was hit with the smell of fresh coffee. Ah, Cas. He grinned as he turned the corner into the kitchen. Cas was leaning against the counter, sipping from a mug of steaming hot coffee. He smiled lovingly at Dean, and for a moment the hunter just stood there, drinking in the sight before him. Cas was so beautiful in the mornings. His hair was messy and sticking up in the back, and his eyes were soft and peaceful. He wore a soft, threadbare shirt that had belonged to Dean, and a pair of his pyjama pants hung loosely off his hips. Dean’s eyes fell to the bit of tan skin that jutted out at his hip, and his breath hitched slightly in his throat.

“Morning, sunshine,” he smiled at the angel and he crossed the room to kiss him. “You look beautiful. Mornings suit you,” he mused before pressing their lips together. Cas blushed and ran his free hand along Dean’s bare chest.

“They suit you as well, Dean,” the angel said, moving his hand up to tug on Dean’s bedhead.

“Mmph,” Dean mumbled. He was still half asleep. As if reading his mind, Cas pulled a second mug of coffee seemingly out of nowhere and handed it to Dean. He took it appreciatively, and brought it to his lips. The coffee was perfect- Cas always knew how to make it just right. He grabbed Cas’ hand and led him into the next room and onto the couch. They sat next to each other, silently sipping their drinks, fingers still laced between them. It was a few minutes before either of them spoke- they were content to just enjoy each other’s company, and Cas was giving Dean the chance to fully wake up. When Dean finished his drink he sat the mug on the table beside him and pulled Cas into his arms. Cas, still slowly sipping his coffee, savouring it’s warmth, pulled his legs up and leaned into the hunter’s chest.

“Okay,” Dean chuckled, ‘I’m awake for real now,” he planted a kiss in Cas’ hair. “How was your night?”

“Pleasant. I spent it laying next to you,” Cas said, smiling up at Dean. “You were very peaceful in your sleep last night. Were you dreaming?”

“Nah. If I was, I don’t remember it,” Dean replied, “I don’t usually remember my dreams. Only the important ones.” He felt his cheeks redden, and he was glad the angel was momentarily distracted taking another sip.

“What are the ‘important ones’ about?” Cas asked, and Dean could feel his head tilt against his chest. He grinned. He wasn’t really embarrassed- it was Cas afterall.

“You,” he punctuated his statement with another kiss on the top of Cas’ head.

“You dream of me?” Cas’ voice was quiet.

“Of course, Angel,” Dean chuckled. “What else would I dream about?” Cas hummed, but left it at that. “What do you do all night anyway? Just watch me sleep?”

“I think, mostly. It’s comforting, being in your presence. Peaceful,” Cas said, nuzzling deeper into Dean’s chest.

“What do you think about?”

“You,” Cas answered just as simply as Dean had, causing the hunter to chuckle.

“Glad we’re on the same page then,” he grinned. “Hey, let’s do something today!” Cas shuffled so he was sitting up and looking at Dean. He smiled back.

“Okay! Like what?” his eyes were lit up at the prospect of spending the day with Dean. They weren’t working on any cases right now, and Sam and Eileen were spending the weekend visiting friends. They had the place to themselves with no obligations standing in the way- a chance they hardly ever got.

“Well, I had one idea…” Dean bit his bottom lip, he had no idea if Cas was going to go for this. “But if you breathe a word of this to Sammy, I’ll be pissed.”

“What is it?” Cas asked curiously, tilting his head again.

“Okay, well you know the pond behind the bunker?” he started, as Cas nodded. “I noticed the other day it looked frozen over.” Cas grinned as he realized where Dean was going with this.

“Dean, would you like to go ice skating?”

“I just think you would enjoy it, that’s all,” Dean mumbled, but he couldn’t fight off his own grin.

“I would enjoy that very much. Is this a date?” Cas wondered.

“Sure, I guess it kind of is,” Dean laughed.

“Do we need to get dressed up?”

“No, babe. It’s not a fancy date. Just ice skating, being outdoors together. We can hold hands and fall together,” Dean leaned over and kissed the angel’s cheek, “We should probably wear something warmer, though. Don’t want to freeze,” he said, pulling on Cas’ thin shirt.

“I told you, angels don’t feel cold, Dean,” Cas stated.

“Still, if I’m gonna be all bundled up, you are too.”

“That seems fair,” Cas agreed, getting up off the couch. Dean stood too, and they walked hand in hand back to their room.

Dean crossed the room and pulled open his dresser, rooting through the piles of clothes. When he looked up, Cas was pulling on his normal white dress shirt.

“Hey hey hey,” Dean straightened up quickly, “Not that one.”

“Not what one?”

“Not that shirt, I said I was gonna bundle you up,” Dean grinned.

“Is bundling me up code for playing dress-up, Dean?” Cas asked teasingly.

“W-what? I don’t play- I don’t play dress up,” Dean sputtered, face turning pink, “That’s not what this is at all,” he cleared his throat.

“Dean,” Cas smiled warmly, “I like it when you dress me up.”

“Really?” Dean asked, his eyes narrowing.

“Yes. I think it’s sweet,” Cas stated. Something about his matter-of-fact tone settled Dean.

“Okay fine, yes. Sometimes I like to see you in not your usual get up. What can I say? You’re hot.” It was Cas’ turn to blush, and Dean’s lips stretched into a grin. He walked over to the angel, and tugged his dress shirt back off, pausing to press his lips to the other’s collarbone. Cas sucked his breath in and a hum bubbled in the back of his throat. Dean grinned again and thrust something soft into Cas’ arms.

“Put these on,” he said as he took a step back, giving the angel space to change. He walked back to the dresser to pick out his own clothes. He grabbed a plain t shirt and pulled it over his head, followed by his warmest flannel made up of red plaid. He tugged on a pair of thick blue jeans, and when he finished buttoning them up, he glanced at Cas. He was wearing a similar flannel shirt to Dean’s, but his was made up of blues and greens. All the buttons were done up except the top two, so Dean could see the slight dip in his chest where his collarbones met. He also wore another pair of Dean’s jeans, the denim snug against his hips. He looked good. Dean let out a soft growl of appreciation as he took in Cas.

“Fuck,” he murmured, “You look so great wearing my clothes.” He stepped closer to the angel, hooking his fingers into the other’s belt loops. He tugged and Cas staggered forward until Dean caught him in his arms. He smashed their lips together, and for a moment just savoured Cas. He would never get tired of this. After a while, they separated, both panting slightly. As much as they both wanted to stay like this forever, they had a date to get to.

“Come on, Angel,” Dean said, grabbing Cas’ hand and pulling him from the room. “We need a couple more things.” They wandered down the hall, finally reaching a storage closet. Dean opened the door and pulled down the box he was looking for. He opened it and sifted through its contents. “Perfect!” he exclaimed, pulling out two wool hats, two scarves, and two sets of thick mittens.

“Dean, is this really necessary?” Cas questioned as he took his half of things.

“It’s all about the experience, babe,” he replied, kissing Cas swiftly on the cheek. They grabbed a couple jackets to finish bundling up and Dean pulled two sets of skates out of the same closet. He grinned at the angel, “C’mon, you’re gonna love this.”

They made their way outside and down the familiar path, through the trees to the pond. As the pond came into view, Dean’s heart sunk. Cas noticed the frown on his face and stopped suddenly.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” he asked frantically.

“I don’t think the ice is thick enough… I don’t think we’ll be able to skate,” Dean said, trying not to sound too upset.

“Oh,” Cas replied shortly. He paused, then let go of Dean’s hand to walk towards the pond. He crouched at the shore and rested his palm against the melting ice. Instantly the ice visibly hardened. Dean was confused until he saw the small glimmer radiating from Cas, almost invisible in the sunlight. He was using his grace to freeze the ice- and smooth it out from the looks of things. The pond was now glistening in the sun, smooth and polished like a mirror. The scene was breathtaking. Cas stood up slowly and turned to face Dean, a smile spreading wide across his face.

“Is this acceptable?” He asked cheekily.

“Cas, man. You’re amazing,” Dean grinned back. How lucky was he? They found a rock to sit on as they did up their skates, Dean helping Cas into his. As he stood to balance on his, he looked down and realized Cas had never done this before. Cas looked up at him nervously. “Okay, stand up, and make sure you balance on the center of your feet. You’ll be okay, I’ve got you.” He pulled the angel to his feet, and they both wobbled for a second. “If it makes you feel better, I haven’t done this in a million years. Bobby used to have a pond that froze in the winters, so sometimes when Dad would leave me and Sammy there we’d do this. But I was, like, 8. I don’t really know how,” he chuckled, and they wobbled again. Maybe this wasn’t a great idea. Cas sensed his wavering courage.

“It’s okay, Dean. I’ve got you,” he parroted Dean.

“At least if we fall, we’ll fall together,” Dean laughed. Even if this was a terrible idea, it was sure to be fun. They each drew in a breath and took a step out onto the ice, mittened hands holding tightly onto each other. So far so good. “Okay,” Dean let out a cautious breath, “Now you just sort of...glide your feet…”

“Like this?” asked Cas, as he imitated Dean perfectly.

“That’s it! You got it!” Dean praised. Of course Cas was good at this, he was an angel. But as soon as that thought had come into his head, he felt himself being yanked downwards. Cas had fallen and taken him with. They both exclaimed as they hit the cold surface. Cas grumbled and Dean laughed.

“Dean, I’m sorry,” Cas said hurriedly, “Did I hurt you?”

“Nah, I’m alright, don’t worry about me,” Dean placed a quick kiss on Cas’ pink cheeks to show he was fine, “Let’s try again,” he said, pulling the angel back to his feet.

“Dean, I don’t want to hurt you. Maybe we should not hold hands-”

“No!” Dean exclaimed, “this is a date, we’re holding hands.”

“But if I fall again, you’ll fall too,” Cas pointed out.

“Well, that’s a risk I’m willing to take, come on,” he pulled on the angel’s hand and they started again. Surely enough, a few moments later they were back on the frozen ground. This time Dean winced, and even as he tried to hide it Cas noticed. He grumbled, and Dean could tell he was upset. “Hey, it’s okay,” he whispered, bringing his hand up to cup Cas’ face. The motion was awkward because of the giant mitten covering his hand, but it was sweet nonetheless.

“I don’t want you to get hurt,” Cas whispered back, defeated. He sat there for a minute, staring at the ice. All of a sudden, his eyes snapped up to meet Dean’s gaze and a smile spread across his face. Determination flooded his eyes and he leapt to his feet, bringing Dean with him. Now it was Dean’s turn to stumble, the sudden movement catching him off guard.

“Fuck!” he blurted out, losing his balance. Cas was quick though, and caught him before he landed back on the ground.

“I will not let you fall again today,” he soothed, still holding onto Dean inches above the ground.

“Oh yeah?” Dean asked breathlessly, lost in Cas’ gaze. “How’re you gonna do that?”

“I have an idea,” Cas mewed, but he didn’t explain. Instead he simply pulled Dean to his feet. “Okay, let’s go again. I’m ready this time.” Dean didn’t move. He could see how determined the angel was, and he didn’t want his spirit broken when they inevitably fell again.

“Cas, we’re both still very new at this. We’re probably gonna fall again-”

“We won’t fall,” Cas interrupted.

“Well I love your enthusiasm, but Cas-”

“Dean,” Cas seemed to look directly into his soul and Dean’s breath hitched. “Trust me.” And that was all it took. Of course Dean trusted Cas. And hey, if the angel said they weren’t going to fall, maybe they wouldn’t. Dean squeezed Cas’ hand and off they went, gliding over the smooth surface. At first, Dean didn’t notice anything different besides the lack of falling. Suddenly skating seemed a lot easier, and they were gliding along the ice at a steady pace. Now Cas was the one supporting Dean, holding him up and pulling him along. At the change in dynamic Dean allowed himself to not just look straight ahead, but take in his surroundings. The glint of the sun hitting the ice, the peace of the still forest at the edges of the pond. The way the light shone in Cas’ stunning blue eyes and painted streaks in his hair, and how it cascaded down his wings- Wait, WINGS?

“Cas-” Dean spluttered, stopping suddenly and almost falling again. Like he promised, Cas caught him- although this time not with his arms, but with a giant wing.

“Yes, Dean?” Cas asked innocently, a smirk dancing on his lips. Dean didn’t know what to say, so he simply stood back up. He placed a kiss on Cas’ mouth and looked back at the incredible sight behind him. Stretched out impossibly wide behind him were two beautiful, midnight coloured wings. They were dark but somehow rainbows bounced off of them in the sunlight. Glistening oil slick hues twisted down the feathers in an intricate fashion. They seemed to absorb and radiate light at the same time, a subtle glow bouncing off of them, scattering prisms all around them. They were the most stunning thing Dean had ever seen. He was awestruck, dumbfounded, and overwhelmingly in love with the gorgeous creature in front of him.

“Cas,” he muttered again, “you’re beautiful.” There was so much more he wanted to say, but he couldn’t find the words. The sight of Cas’ wings, part of his true form… This was more intimate than anything he could dream of. This proved the bond between them and solidified Dean’s already concrete feelings. If it was even possible for him to fall more in love, it was happening right now. He felt years of thoughts and feelings bubbling in his chest, and tears sprung to his eyes. Jesus. This was supposed to be a light hearted date, and here he was crying. He let out a slow breath, and hoped Cas could somehow understand all the emotions radiating from him right now.

“I love you,” he whispered, looking into the angel’s deep blue eyes.

“I love you too,” Cas whispered back, leaving it at that. As Dean had wished, he could feel the longing coming from the hunter. They didn’t need to say anything else, they both knew.

With that, they kept going, skating circles around the frozen pond. As it got later in the afternoon the sun began to set, throwing blazing light over everything. The glassy pond glowed golden beneath their feet, and what the sun was doing to Cas’ wings… Dean needed a moment to soak it all in. He told Cas his feet were getting sore, which was the truth, and went to sit on the rock from earlier. He insisted Cas continue without him- he was enjoying himself too much and Dean wanted to watch him.

Cas guided him to the edge of the pond and placed a soft kiss on Dean’s lips before allowing him to sit. Once he was sure Dean was situated he took off rapidly towards the center of the pond. Dean watched in awe, Cas was graceful. He flew around the ice, sometimes quickly but often taking his time, enjoying the moment, always with his wings fluttering out behind him. As he built up confidence he allowed his wings to move a little more. Aware of Dean’s eyes on him he showed off a little, feathers dancing smoothly in the wind. They maintained his balance while swirling around in the air, casting rainbows as they moved. Between the golden shine of the ice and the light bouncing endless colours off his feathers, the scene didn’t look real. To Dean, it looked like a dream, or maybe Heaven- angel and all. Cas was getting into the movements, adding spins and twists to his laps. Dean watched the love of his life enjoy himself and thought about how free he looked. The thought brought tears back to his eyes- if anyone deserved this it was Cas. Suddenly he couldn’t bear to be so far away. He stood up shakily and began skating towards his boyfriend, a lot less gracefully than Cas. The angel noticed him and met him in the middle, pulling him into his arms and wrapping his wings around both of them. They stared at each other for a moment, drinking in the beauty of one another in the glory of the sunset.

“You’re beautiful,” Dean murmured, resting their foreheads together.

“I’m nothing next to you. God’s perfect creation,” Cas whispered back.

“Says the angel,” Dean chuckles, uneasy from the compliment.

“I mean it, Dean. In this moment,” Cas gestured and looked all around them, “in this moment, there is nothing more perfect than you.” He lifted his hand, which Dean noticed no longer had a mitten on it, and used his fingers to delicately trace the freckles on Dean’s face. They stood there for another moment, drinking in each other, Cas continuing to go over ever detail on Dean’s face.

Dean didn’t know what to say, so he crashed his lips against the angel’s. He had passion searing through his body, lighting up every nerve. Being here, in the beauty of his angel, love of his life, surrounded by peace and perfection, with not a damn worry in his mind… Hearing Cas say those beautiful words to him… For the first time in his life, he was really and truly and contentedly happy. He was wrapped in the wings and arms of his lover, and he was safe. Nothing could touch them now.

“I love you, Cas.”

“I love you too, Dean.”

They remained there for a while, enjoying each other, sometimes kissing and sometimes just listening to each other breathe. Cas pulled Dean along and they skated a few more laps around the frozen pond. Dean let Cas lead, enjoying his angel taking control. Only when Dean began to shiver did they stop. The sun was now hidden behind the trees and it was darker; Cas’ wings were no longer throwing prisms but instead appeared to be a deep onyx colour- inky black in the dim light. And suddenly, Dean blinked and they were gone, just like that.

“You’re cold,” Cas stated, bringing his hand up to rest against Dean’s bright red cheek.

“Well yeah, we’ve been out here all day,” Dean chuckled, “I don’t know how long I can keep this up, I’m already gonna be sore tomorrow as is.”

“Come on, let’s get you inside,” Cas said, leaning in to brush a soft kiss against Dean’s frozen lips. He shivered- partially from the cold, but mostly from the feeling of Cas’ lips on his. They began gliding towards the edge of the pond and back towards the rock but as they reached their destination they both toppled backward and landed on the ice. Without the help of Cas’ wings they had fallen again, but this time they both laughed.

“I think we got over confident,” Dean smiled, “come on, we’re almost there.” They- cautiously this time- made their way the few more steps to the rock and planted themselves firmly, taking a few minutes to pull off their skates. Before Dean could get his boots back on Cas was holding his feet in his hands, rubbing soothing circles on the bottoms. Suddenly they didn’t hurt as bad.

“Let’s go inside and have a nice hot bath,” Cas murmured, looking up at Dean through his thick lashes. “It’ll help with the cold and the soreness.”

“Whatever you want, Cas,” Dean grinned. A steaming bubble bath with his angel sounded like the perfect ending to this day. “Let’s go,” he pressed their lips together, savouring the lingering cold before lacing their hands together and making their way back to the bunker, leaving the perfect afternoon behind.

#destiel #destiel fic #destiel fluff #castiel #castiel wings #destiel date #ice skating date #deancas #deancas fluff #spn #spn fic #dean winchester #boyfriends #my writing

[thefloorisbalaclava]

eros [pre-pragma]

eros - erotic love - a passionate and intense form of love that arouses romantic and sexual feelings

pairing: frankie ‘catfish’ morales x f!reader

warnings: light smut - reader’s first time

a/n: this turned out longer than i expected but i had fun writing it although it made me a little sad.

summary: frankie is leaving tomorrow so he spends his last night with you.

pragma masterlist

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO - ONE DAY BEFORE FRANKIE LEAVES

The past few weeks had been hectic for Frankie—from getting his pilot’s license to…her and all the complicated feelings that came from just seeing or being around her.

“I don’t understand why you just won’t tell her. Especially now,” Santiago said as he drove to the beach. They all had went hiking a few days ago and, as always, Frankie could focus on nothing but her. Anytime he tried talking to her though someone else came up and took her attention.

“Park here,” Frankie said trying his best to avoid the change in conversation. Santiago parked then just stared at him.

“Tell her something,” his friend pressed. “Obviously, you both feel it. She invited you upstairs, man.”

“And I turned her down.” Frankie got out of the car and grabbed the cooler from the trunk, mumbling to himself.

“I don’t understand you.” Santiago helped him carry the cooler onto the beach and towards the little fire that their friends had already started.

“About time!” one of them yelled and everyone else cheered. Frankie smiled and greeted everyone but was distracted with trying to find her. There was someone standing at the water's edge a little further down the beach and he knew it was her right away. He grabbed two beers and headed her way. She hadn’t heard him until he was only a few feet away.

“Francisco…hey,” she said. Right away he could hear that something was wrong.

“Hey. Bought you a beer.” He handed her the beer then stared out at the water.

“Thanks.” She only held the can without opening it.

“I…well, we leave tomorrow,” he said, turning to her again.

“I know.” She started walking away, heading away from the water to sit.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, following her.

“What do you think? I don’t want you to leave, Frankie. Either of you.” Finally, she opened the beer and took a few sips. “I don’t wanna say goodbye.” She looked at him as he sat beside her.

“Then don’t.”

They were quiet for some time. He finished his beer and she gave him the rest of hers to finish.

“Pilot, huh?”

“Yeah. Helicopters to be exact.” He smiled but it faded once he saw that she wasn’t.

“Why Frankie?” she asked sadly.

“I’m tired of being useless. I mean…look at me.”

“I look at you all the time,” she confessed. “You should know that by now.” She sighed then closed her eyes. “Will you miss me?”

“What kind of question is that? You know I will.”

“Are you running away from something?” she asked, and he bristled. “From me because you love me and don’t know how to say it?”

“God…” He shook his head and looked down at the sand. “I don’t wanna do this now,” he said.

“Then when, Frankie? What if there is no other time?”

“You saying I’m gonna die?” he snapped.

“No! You know what forget it.” She stood and started to walk away.

“You fuckin’ idiot,” he said to himself before standing and following her. He grabbed her arm gently and turned her around. “Look…I’m sorry.”

“Are you?”

When he opened his mouth to answer, Santiago walked over. “You two leaving already?” He nudged Frankie.

“Stop, man.” Frankie spoke through his teeth as if that would make it harder for her to hear.

“I’m going home,” she said. “Gimme a hug, Santi.” He hugged her and kissed her cheek. “You better come back, soldier, or I’ll come looking for you myself.”

“Oh boy, we gotta come back now, don’t we Frankie?”

“Yup.” Frankie stared at her and she shrugged before walking to her car. “Dude, what the hell?”

“What?” Santiago threw his hands up.

“Why’d you say leaving like that? I don’t want her to think…the wrong thing.” He looked at her standing by her car.

“Is it the wrong thing though?”

“I don’t know. I just…”

“Just shut your mouth and go to her.” Santiago patted his shoulder and walked away. Frankie took a deep breath and made his way over to her.

“So,” he said, putting his hands in his pockets.

“So…” The silence stretched and the only sound they could hear was the cheering from their friends on the beach and the waves crashing. “Oh, I got you something.” She opened her car door and pulled out a cap. “Here.”

“You really went and found me another hat to wear?” he asked looking at it.

“I said I would. Put it on.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He pulled the old hat off and threw it into his truck before putting the other hat on and holding his hands out. “Well?”

“Perfect. You gotta wear it forever now.”

“I will.” He held out his hand for her to shake.

“I’d rather have a hug.” She moved closer and he automatically put his arms around her. They stood wrapped in each other’s embrace for a long time. He heard her sniffle a few times, but he didn’t say anything about it. “Kiss me, Frankie.”

“You’re so bossy. I kinda like it.” He smiled before cupping her face and kissing her gently. It was going to end there, but she deepened the kiss. Her hands gripped his shirt, holding him where he was. The tears that stained her cheeks now stained his.

“We should go,” she whispered.

“Go where?” he asked stupidly. “Oh…oh!”

“If this is my last night with you, I want to make it special.” Tears still fell from her eyes.

“We don’t have to do that to make it special…” What the hell was he saying? He could kick himself right now.

“I want you to make love to me, Frankie,” she said confidently. There. It was out in the open. No hesitation on her part, but he was frozen in place.

“You…want…are you…what?” He shook his head then blinked at her.

“You heard me.”

“But we…I…”

“If you don’t want to, I understand.” She turned to her car.

“Wait!” he said a little too loudly. “Are you for real? Are you sure?”

“I am. I’ve thought about it for a long time.”

“Like…how long?” To tell the truth, he had thought about it all the time, even when he was with someone else.

“I don’t know exactly how long, but…a long time. Long enough to know that I’m sure about this.” They stood in silence again while Frankie tried to think of reasons to say no. He didn’t want to say no but he also didn’t want to seem overly eager. Once your heart desired something it was hard to turn it down.

“My place or yours?” he asked, unable to look her directly in the eye.

“Yours.” Once again, no hesitation. Her mind was made up and once that happened, it was hard to change it. He really didn’t want to anyway.

“Okay…so…okay.” He stood there awkwardly as she got into her car and rolled down the window.

“I'll follow.”

“Right.” He got into his truck and his hands twisted at the steering wheel. Why the hell was he so nervous? He had done this plenty of times. But never with someone he felt so much, so deeply for. “Okay,” he breathed, starting the car.

The entire way there, he kept checking his rear-view mirror to make sure she still followed. He had to know this wasn’t a dream or some kind of joke she decided to play on him.

As he pulled into the driveway of his house, he felt a sudden overwhelming sense of desire and lust, but his heart knew it was more than that. She was more than that. He fucking loved her—there was no doubt about that.

He got out of the truck and watched her walk over to him, a smile playing at her mouth.

“You look even more nervous than I feel,” she joked, and he smiled. He loved how she could joke even when something so real was about to happen. She always had a way of relaxing him.

“Let’s go in.” He fumbled with the keys as he walked to the door and unlocked it, holding the door open for her. She immediately kicked her shoes off by the door out of habit. Her eyes fell to the pile of bags that sat off to the side and she looked away quickly, not wanting to linger on it.

“I don’t want you doing this just because I want to. Do you really want to do this with me?” she asked.

The truth shall set you free, he thought.

“I’ve wanted to do this for as long as I can remember,” he confessed. She wasn’t a priest and he wasn’t super religious, but he felt as though he could tell her every sin and not be judged for it. “I thought about it…a lot.”

“Me too.” She walked up and kissed him, making him stumble backwards a bit, knocking his new cap off as she carded her fingers through his hair. He could lie and say it was because she caught him off guard, but he knew it was because she made him weak in the knees.

“Bedroom?” he asked, and she nodded. He took her hand and led her to his room. If he had known this was going to happen, he would have cleaned up a bit, but she didn’t seem to be paying attention to any of that. Why was he? The woman of his dreams was getting undressed in his room and…

“Wait,” he stopped her just as she was pulling her shirt up.

“What?” She pulled the shirt down again.

“I always wanted to…I’d like to…may I undress you?” he finally got out.

“Oh…sure.” She couldn’t look at him at first but soon she felt drawn to him the same way he felt drawn to her. His eyes never left her face as he pulled her shirt up and off. He had to make sure she was okay. “You can…look at me.”

“I am.” He captured her lips in a dizzying kiss and she pulled at his shirt. They broke apart long enough for her to get it off him.

“Okay,” she whispered to herself or to him, he couldn’t be sure, but she climbed onto his bed and laid down. He found himself on top of her, kissing her some more and she pressed herself against him. The embarrassment of knowing that she could most likely feel him was making him move stiffly. “What’s wrong?”

“N-nothing. I just…” He looked down and she giggled.

“There’s no reason to be shy about that. I don’t have much experience, but I do know that’s supposed to happen."

He sat up on his knees. “What do you mean you don’t have a lot of experience?”

“I’m…I never…you’ll be my first,” she said.

“Shit,” he breathed. Something stirred within him, but something also made him stop. “You’re serious?”

“Yes. I wouldn’t want this to happen with anyone else. It’s okay.” Funny that she was the one reassuring him when he was the one who had been through it already. “I know you’ll probably make fun of me later with Santiago.”

“I’d never make fun of you especially for that but…are you sure? One hundred and fifty percent positive?” He looked at her as she sat up on her elbows.

“One hundred and fifty percent, sir.”

He laid down beside her and touched her bare skin, his fingers skimming across her stomach. She trembled and moved closer to him as he slid his hand to the waistband of her jeans and unbuttoned them. He was careful when he moved away to slide them off her, leaving her lying there in nothing but her underwear. He had fantasized about how she would look with nothing on more times than he cared to admit, but this…she was spectacular, and she wasn’t even fully naked yet.

“Your turn.” She sat up and unbutton his jeans. He looked up at the ceiling as she bent to pull them down his legs. Now they both stood there in nearly nothing.

“I’ll um…” She reached behind her back.

“I’ll do it,” he offered. She nodded and turned her back to him. He made quick work of the bra, kissing along her back and shoulders as the straps slid down and the bra finally fell away. When she turned to face him again, he kept his eyes on her face respectfully.

“Go on, Francisco.”

He swallowed hard, finally allowing his eyes to trail over her. He let out a shaky breath followed by a “wow" and she laughed.

“Why thank you.” She looked down at her panties and Frankie immediately got down on his knees. He looked up at her as he hooked his fingers over the waistband of her panties. With a nod from her, he was slowly pulling them down and helping her step out of them. He kissed her stomach, her thighs, and her mound making her gasp.

“Too much?” he asked, moving away quickly.

“No. It was…nice.” She pulled at his arms to make him stand. Following what he had just done, she got on her knees and pulled his underwear down.

“God help me,” he said quietly, quickly pulling her to her feet. If she kissed anywhere around there this whole thing would be over before it started. Instead, he kissed her lips and laid her down carefully, slotting himself between her legs. “I have to, well, get you ready,” he told her.

“Okay. I trust you.” The words were so sincere, so real. She really did trust him and that meant more to him than anything ever will.

“Is there anything you don’t want me to do?” he asked, and she shook her head. “Okay. Well.” He kissed her again before moving lower, kissing her neck, licking across a particularly sensitive part that made her moan quietly. Everything about her was beautiful, even the sounds she made.

When he got to her breasts, he looked at her nervously before swirling his tongue around her nipple. Her hand flew to her mouth as she whimpered loudly. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He pulled her hand away from her mouth and held it. “It’s okay.” He moved to the other nipple and this time she moaned without any hesitation. The hand he wasn’t holding found its way into his hair as he kissed down her stomach. Her breathing was uneven, and he looked up to make sure she was okay.

“I’m okay, Frankie. Please.”

He nodded, carefully pushing her legs up and open around him as he kissed lower. She looked away shyly, turning her head to look over at the wall, but he squeezed the hand he was holding.

“Look at me, baby.” When she turned back to him, he slowly dragged his tongue along her, tasting her. A weird sense of pride flowed through him knowing that he was the first to get to do this.

“Oh…oh my god,” she whined.

“You okay?” he asked before kissing her thigh.

“Mmhm.” She bit her lip as she prepared for whatever he did next. He spread her open with his fingers and licked her again, latching onto the bundle of nerves this time. “Frankie, I…I…” He didn’t stop, his tongue and lips sending her into a pleasurable frenzy. She cried out and tried to squirm away from his mouth, but he held her there, drinking her down, closing his eyes in satisfaction.

“Damn,” he whispered, lifting his head. He wiped his chin then crawled up to kiss her. She didn’t seem to mind that, in fact, she seemed eager to kiss him while he tasted like her. “You just…”

“I know what an orgasm is,” she told him with a smile.

“I should, well…” He slid his hand between her spread legs and rubbed her. She was still sensitive from her orgasm and he was able to get one finger in. She gasped and grabbed his wrist. “It’s okay. Look at me.” When her eyes were on him, he pressed his forehead to hers and slowly added another finger. He’s had sex before, but he can’t recall having such an intimate moment with someone. They looked at each other as he touched her and pulled all sorts of sounds from her. He eventually pulled his fingers from her and she giggled, looking away as he brought them to his mouth.

“Frankie…”

“Sorry. You’re just…really good.” He chuckled as she hid her face against his chest.

“Do you have protection?” she asked, and he nodded, sitting up to reach into his bedside table. “Can I put it on?”

“If you want.” He handed her the condom almost immediately regretting letting her touch him there. Her hands were gentle as she wrapped them around him and stroked. She brushed her thumb along the tip, and he grunted, his hips moving with her hands of their own accord. He wanted to whine we she took her hands away to carefully roll on the condom.

As she laid back down and he moved between her legs, she exhaled deeply. “Just keep looking at me, okay? And you tell me if I’m hurting you.”

“Okay.”

He lowered himself over her, reaching between their bodies with one hand to carefully line himself up. “You ready?”

“Yes.” She wrapped her arms around him just as he slid into her. She whimpered and he stopped moving. “Keep…keep going.”

“Eyes, baby.” He wouldn’t continue until she was looking at him again. “I’m here. It’s me.” Just a little further and he was completely inside her, cursing under his breath at the feeling of her. “Still okay?”

“Yeah. Please move.” Her hips squirmed beneath him. “I want to feel…” He kissed her before she could finish, sliding out of her slowly only to push into her again. “Yes.”

“This feels better than I ever imagined.” He moved slightly faster, keeping his eyes on her the whole time. Her eyes closed in pleasure as her hands found their way into his hair, tangling there and keeping his forehead against hers as he made love to her.

“You feel amazing, Frankie,” she moaned and that was nearly his undoing. He kept up the pace since she seemed to be enjoying it just like that but then he noticed the tears and nearly rolled off her. “No. It’s okay. I’m okay,” she cried.

“What is it?” He slowed down but didn’t stop.

“This is just perfect in every way,” she sniffled. “And I’m gonna miss you so much.”

Now he felt tears stinging his eyes. “I know. I’m gonna miss you too.” He moved faster now, his heart and soul breaking but also whole as he made her his. Their bond was something indescribable and not just because of the sex. There was so much more, something that would never go away no matter how far apart they were.

“I…” she started but only smiled then kissed him.

“I know,” he said. “Me too.” He moved his hand between their bodies and touched her. He was close and wanted her to finish first. It only took a few touches for her to come undone beneath him and that was enough to have him groaning her name and finishing with a few thrusts that were slightly harder than the rest. He thought that he should roll off her, but she anchored him there with her arms and legs…and lips. She just couldn’t stop kissing him, her tears wetting his face.

“You’ll always be my Frankie, you know?”

“I hope so.” He rolled off her and she quickly sat up and got out of bed to go to the bathroom. While she was gone, he took care of things on his end. He wondered if he should put something back on but before he could decide, she came back.

“All yours,” she said, climbing into bed and hiding under the covers.

“Be right back.” In the bathroom, he washes himself off then looks in the mirror. He had never felt quite so fulfilled before but…he was about to leave it all behind. The woman lying in his bed right now had given herself to him, heart, body, and soul, and he was leaving. What the hell was he giving her in return? Sleepless nights full of worrying about him? Sadness? Loneliness? She held his heart in her hands and he couldn’t even be here for her.

He walked back into the bedroom and climbed into bed beside her. “I’m sorry.”

“What for?” she looked at him, puzzled.

“That I’m leaving like this. We did this and…I’m just leaving. I’m no better than all the other creeps out there.”

“Francisco Morales, I knew what was coming and I gave myself to you knowing that. I don’t regret a moment. Do you?”

“Of course not, but…,” He turned to her. “If you wanna see someone else while I’m gone, you can.”

“What?”

“I have no right to keep you hanging on waiting for me. We probably won’t see each other a lot.”

“I don’t care. There will be no one else, Frankie. I want to be yours and I want you to be mine.” She snuggled up against him.

“Really?”

“Yes. Hold me, please.” Her voice cracked and she cried against his chest. “You better come back; you hear me? I would wait forever and a day for you but please don’t make me.”

He lifted her head, wiping her tears away. “I'll come back. I promise.”

“And you’ll stay?” she cried, wiping the single tear that fell from his eye.

“Wild horses couldn’t drag me away,” he said before kissing her.

Tomorrow would come and he would be gone, but they had right now, and he would make the most of it.

Tags: @cable-kenobi @saltywintersoldat @ahopelessromanticwritersworld @pedrosdoll @psychobillybunny @behindmyeyes-insidemyhead @keeper0fthestars @mrsparknuts @thinemineours @huliabitch @synystersilenceinblacknwhite @lavenderl3mons @mrscrain-x7 @fioccodineveautunnale @gooddaykate @themilkface @tiffdawg @ms-dont-care @mus1caln0tes @awesomefandomsunited @seawhisperer @virtualxjournality @badassbaker @demigod-dragonrider-schoolidol​ @lokiaddicted @forever-rogue @sloantravels @javier-djarin @jawabear @longitud-de-onda

#frankie morales #frankie morales x reader #francisco 'catfish' morales #triple frontier #pedro pascal #headcanon

[fleetwoodmactshirt]

roadtrip headcanons (requested)

i think they’d all have a different vibe and a different energy. i didn’t really rank them best to worst, i just explored what i think the vibe of a road trip with each of them would be like. i also let loose and slipped in some super self-indulgent personal hcs/one-shot au idea that is a WiP about ezra as an intriguing handsome stranger you encounter on your solo cross-country road trip. as a treat. s/o to @ithinkhesgaybutwesavedmufasa​ for suggesting whiskey’s fav song.

frankie morales is the road trip king. no matter how spontaneous, frankie can whip a road trip plan together smoothly. he’s got a spacious truck, he’s got a cooler, he’s got the coziest blankets, he’s got the travel pillow, he’s got the camping gear, he knows the best scenic routes, he’s got the best classic tunes, he’s got the best snacks. he makes homemade sandwiches and burritos, wraps them tightly in tin foil. he heats up frozen pizzas, cuts them into slices. he stores it all in the cooler for lunches. when the supply runs out, you gorge yourselves on burgers and fries at roadside diners. but every morning he’ll stop in the nearest town to buy some apples, or some fresh fruit/veg of some kind. if they’re ripe he’ll get avocados that he’ll cut in half for you both to scoop out with a spoon to eat plain while you sit together in the bed of his truck in the shade of a lake you’ve stopped at for the afternoon. but he surprises you with your favourite junk food and snacks. he lets you borrow his cap if the sun is in your eyes; he’s got a spare, more threadbare one in the glove box. he’s low key done the research on the best places for stargazing; you lie back nestled together under a blanket, in the bed of his truck, gazing upwards; you listen as he describes the constellations, tracing them out with his finger.

max phillips. business road trips but max’s...condition necessitates driving at night only. liminal spaces. driving through the night, sleeping in business hotel rooms during the day, dust motes floating in the thin streams of sunlight peeking through the cracks in the curtains you’ve pulled shut. you see incredible sunsets and sunrises from the highway. you also see some undeniably weird shit late at night on road trips with max. he watches you eat breakfast food at 2 am in neon lit 24/7 diners. while on the road he passes you lots of candy throughout the night; he stocks up from the hotel vending machines. but no matter how much caffeine and sugar he tries to fuel you with, sometimes you’re lulled to sleep by the peacefulness. you nestle your head against max’s shoulder; it’s not the most comfortable position to drive in but he can’t bring himself to readjust and shift away from you. solitary brightly lit gas stations that are like an oasis of light breaking the pitch darkness. the two of you feel utterly alone sometimes; the world has shrunk down to only you, max, in this car, driving along this empty, dark stretch of road, a blush of purple on the edge of the horizon signalling the dawn.

based on how oberyn canonically took his daughters to explore an abandoned holdfast, i think his road trip energy would be all about the journey and not the destination. road trips with oberyn and ellaria would be meandering and adventurous. sometimes you’re riding shotgun and sometimes you’re sitting in the backseat with ellaria laid out and napping beside you, sun hat dipped down covering her eyes, her long legs stretched across your lap. if the three of you come across a motel you enjoy he’ll feel no urgency to leave; the days blur together and soon you’ve spent a week soaking up sun by the pool and sleeping in late entangled together in a pile of limbs after long passionate nights. day by day you may not even travel very far; he wants to stop and explore. hike amidst rock formations, swim in hot springs, explore the local museums; whatever catches his or your fancy. if he sees a billboard on the side of the road advertising local caves, or a petrified forest, or hears rumour of nearby ghost town that’s all but disappeared off the map, you’ll suddenly find yourselves veering off down small country roads, hours from the highway, seeking out pleasure, adventure, mystery. 

marcus has a hilton rewards card so you’re staying at hilton garden inns every night. clean sheets. comfortable beds. complimentary breakfast. it’s very pleasant. middle class fancy. holds out his hand for you to drop some snacks into his palm so he can remain focused on the road while you’re both munching. let’s you curate the spotify playlists.

roadtrips with javier are always last minute decisions to just take off, head to a gorgeous but isolated beach you’d heard about that’s a few days from here. he doesn’t get many opportunities for long stretches of time off, so when he does you don’t hesitate. you might not even wait for a rational time to leave. it’s midnight and you guys just speed off into the darkness. you just threw some essentials into a bag, jumped in his jeep, and booked it. you gotta buy toothpaste and toothbrushes at a gas station, and you borrow javi’s deodorant stick because you forgot yours. greasy fast food containers, half-empty cigarette packs, and snack wrappers litter the dashboard. his aviators perched on his nose, one hand resting on the wheel, the other curled around your thigh, javi on a road trip is relaxed. he’s leaving all his burdens, his worries, everything weighing on his chest, all of it, behind him. literally, the more distance you guys put between yourselves and where you were, the more uplifted his spirits. when your favourite song comes on the radio, and you’re shimmying in your seat, he can’t keep his eyes off you, his gaze flicking between you and the road. he sings along under his breath, bobbing his head almost imperceptibly and tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, a slow smile spreading across his face.

whiskey pulls up to your house at 5 am on the dot, the obnoxious custom sound of the horn of his bronco rattling the windows and scaring the birds out of the trees lining the street. country music jams ONLY. you argue over his taste in music; does he enjoy being a walking cliche? he will not accept any song that doesn’t have a twang to it. he’d be an aux cord hog if he knew what an aux cord even was. so much for your favourite spotify road trip playlists. “spot fly? spot what fly, where?” still has mixtapes he made himself, the same ones he’s been playing since forever. forces you listen to all his favourite songs, the ones he knows all the words to, while he obnoxiously sings along and ignores your eye-rolling. but he doesn’t ignore how your feet start tapping absentmindedly to toby keith’s ‘whiskey girl’. the corner of his mouth quirks up in a smirk that quickly becomes a broad grin as he reaches over to smack your thigh, laughing he’ll make a country girl of you yet. startled out of your daze, you vehemently deny you weren’t enjoying the song, he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about. he insists he knows the best places to stop, which means you always end up driving far off the highway to some little mom and pop diner that has killer apple pie for lunch. in the evenings you always end up in some honky-tonk bar that’s joined to a motel and yes, there’s line dancing, and yes he manages to twist your arm and convince you to join in. 

ezra…..as a man who’s floated from planet to planet, following jobs and leads, for the better part of his life, he’s found himself smooth-talking his way into being a lot of people’s unexpected travel companion out of necessity over the years. road trip ezra is on the run from someone or something; maybe the law, maybe not. all you know is this beautiful, mysterious stranger you met under dubious circumstances somehow, with his roguish grin and drawling accent, his kind eyes and eloquence, convinced you to let him ride along with you. you ran into him in the grungy diner attached to an even grungier motel in some desolate nowhere town. you recognized him; he’s unmistakably the lone figure on the side of the dusty road, his thumb stuck out, that you drove past yesterday. you’d driven past but that blonde streak had been unmissable and you won’t admit it but you’d felt his gaze on you long after you’d left him in the dust. ezra’s endless chatter on the road isn’t unwelcome; he knows seemingly innumerable facts about local folklore, flora, and fauna, and he never seems to be depleted of stories. you’d made the conscious and contrary decision to make this cross-country road trip alone, rebelling against a lot of cautionary advice, but somewhere along the way loneliness had creeped in under your skin and settled there. this handsome stranger may have an edge of danger to him but later when he’s bringing you to heights of ecstasy in a motel room you won’t give a damn.

maxwell lord flies everywhere in a private jet. the worst.

din djarin’s entire life is basically one long never-ending road trip. but in space. i figure earth-bound din on a conventional road trip would basically be how we see him: no nonsense. no frivolities. no music; travels in total silence. gets where he needs to go. stops for soup, as needed. stops for repairs, as needed. stops to work an odd job with some really sketchy people for some gas money, as needed. din’s road trip energy would be like that john mulaney joke. you’d see the mcdonalds sign lit up and shining in the distance and plead for him to stop so he’d pull into the drive-thru, order one black coffee and keep driving. except if you’ve got the baby with you; he gets a chicken nugget happy meal for the kid. he’s a good papa! and of course you’d get whatever you wanted too, he provides and cares for his loved ones after all.

SEND ME ANY QUESTIONS/HC PROMPTS/REQUESTS YOU HAVE

#pedro pascal x reader #javier pena x reader #ezra prospect x reader #frankie morales x reader #agent whiskey x reader #oberyn martell x reader #frankie morales headcanons #javier pena headcanons #ezra headcanons #agent whiskey headcanons #oberyn martell headcanons #all the boys headcanons #headcanon requests #fleetwood writes

[goldeneyedgirl]

whumptober time

I’ve always been a joiner, so following in @volturialice & @flowerslut’s footsteps (and holy hell, those ladies are bringing it), I figured I’d toss my hat in the ring. Not sure if I’ll get many done, but I can only try! And what better way to try that to start with a spontaneous MCU crossover. 

Day 08: Where Did Everybody Go?

“Don’t Say Goodbye” | Abandoned | Isolation

Rating: T for swearing

Words: 2,482

Summary: Twilight X MCU crossover. The Snap doesn’t just kill humans. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Notes: Takes place a couple of weeks after the Eclipse Battle/ at the end of Infinity War. Yup, now Twilight happens in 2018. I should just call this ‘Jar of Hearts’ but that feels a big grisly. Ideally, I’ll be writing three more parts to this for Whumptober or for Jalice Week (depending on prompts). 

It was a normal night for them. There was nothing to indicate anything was wrong. The boys had gone hunting together, deep into the Olympic Ranges for predators.

If he had to remember one thing about that hunt, it was how … pleasant it was. They’d all caught what they had hoped for (with a helpful map from Alice). There were no disagreements, no mood-swings, no storming off for hours. And with brothers like his, to avoid all three of those things was a fucking miracle.

When he looks back, he tries to work out when it started. They were running back, mud-splattered and bloody; for once, they weren’t so late they couldn’t clean up before school.

It’s Edward first - just ahead of him to the left. Eddie leaps over a fallen tree and he … stumbles, only just keeping his balance.

“Jasper!”

He’s laughing at Edward’s stumble - perfect balance and all that - but Jasper isn’t. In fact, both Edward and Jasper have this look of increasing horror on their faces, and it’s only when Jasper grabs Edward  and Jasper’s hand goes through Edward’s shoulder because Edward is turning into dust and that is not fucking right.

“Emmett.”

He’s never heard Edward sound so much like the seventeen year old boy he was, and he reaches for his oldest - and his youngest - brother, but by the time his hands are grasping out for Edward’s, Edward is gone. There’s nothing left of him, no clothes or cellphone or bones or hair or anything. It’s not even proper ash, but dust that mingles with the dirt on the ground, and there’s nothing. Nothing. He might as well have never been there.

He’s not entirely sure if he’s feeling his own horror, his own terror, and grief, or if Jasper is projecting. Neither of them know what to do, to scoop what is left of Edward into their pockets, and flee home or to get help or to… what.

But then Jasper is running again, and he follows, desperation streaming off Jasper so strongly that Emmett can almost feel his own dead heart pounding.

Is it disease? Are there vampires diseases?

It can’t be age, Jasper and Carlisle are older, the Denali girls older still…

His phone trills in his pocket but he keeps running and Jasper keeps running, and they aren’t getting there fast enough.

Jasper keeps running until he crumples into dust, his golden eyes wide, and the one word on his lips lost as he disintegrates.

Alice.

He backs away from Jasper’s resting place, like the dust is contagious - and maybe it is - maybe whatever happened to Edward spread to Jasper when he touched him.

Instead, he runs. He tears through the forest, a soundless rhythm in his head Rosie-Rosie-Rosie-Rosie and the kind of swirling, twisting worry like human nausea in his stomach as he bursts through trees and underbrush.

He’s ten miles out when he hears the screaming.

It doesn’t stop as he somehow moves faster, and bursts through the property line, to the backdoor of the house, which he half rips off the frame as he charges into the house.

The screaming - the wailing - is Alice, on her hands and knees in the sitting room. There’s dust on her face and hands, and she’s not all there, her eyes wide and glassy, as she rocks back and forth.

There’s a weight in his stomach, one that gets heavier every second Rosalie doesn’t appear, that Esme isn’t trying to calm Alice. Instead, he skids to a stop and drops to his knees in front of her, tugging her into his arms, pointedly ignoring the dust that sticks to his jeans, that he sends floating up into the air.

This is an Alice he doesn’t know, just like he knows a Rose that no one else does. The one that Jasper has alluded to, once or twice, in confidence. That it might have always looked like Alice was the one piecing Jasper back together, pulling him along in her grand plans, but it was never as simple or easy as that. Jasper held her together, she put him together. A balancing act.

Just the way that people assumed that he was the one that healed Rosalie of all her demons, when in truth he was just there, letting her know that whatever ‘okay’ looked like for Rosalie was for her - and only her - to decide. And that he’s always been the luckiest son of a bitch in existence to be apart of her version of ‘okay’.

Rose would have lost it with Alice by now. There’s no way Rosalie would have tolerated this level of noise.

Rose isn’t coming.

He holds his sister tight, and mutters reassurances in her hair. They stay like that for awhile until Alice just lets out a sob, and looks up at him, blinking slowly.

“He said he’d never leave me,” she says in a wobbly voice. “He promised me.”

“It wasn’t by choice,” Emmett rushes to tell her. “You were his last thought; he tried so hard to get home before he…”

Alice wipes her eyes, but she still doesn’t look like Alice. She looks lost and breakable, and she sits back, noticing the pile of dust they’re both sitting amongst.

“She… she was so mad,” Alice babbles suddenly, grabbing his hand. “If anyone could have stopped it, could have reversed it by… by sheer will, it was Rosalie, Em. She didn’t go alone, I had her.”

He’s sitting amongst his wife’s… ashes-dust-remains. It’s on his hands and legs and face, and he can see it clinging to Alice’s hair, and he kind of wants to match her wailing because there has never been an Emmett without a Rosalie, not in any history that counts, and without Rose, he has no plan, no direction, no purpose. The world has tilted off its axis, and he wants to go and bury his face in her clothes upstairs, clothes that smell like roses-lemons-cars until the tearing feeling in his chest just stops.

“Esme came running,” Alice continued, staring off into space. “She didn’t make it down the stairs. She didn’t even notice until she was practically gone.”

They sit in silence for a moment, or maybe longer, until the day has begun. The sky has lightened, and they are still alone in a quiet house. No radio, no conversation, no bickering, nothing.

“Did you see this?” he asks finally, and feels cruel asking.

“No.” She sniffles, and he thinks how cruel it was to take Jasper and leave Alice. “It happened so fast; I saw Edward when Rose started to…” She took a deep breath. “I felt Jasper go.” She shudders and there’s a hitch in her breath, and he really doesn’t want her to start crying again.

“We should call Carlisle,” he says, and she nods but pauses.

“Call his phone, not the hospital. No one will answer,” she whispers, but there’s a look in her eyes he doesn’t like and he doesn’t want to ask, either…

“I can’t see him answering, Em,” she whispers.

He takes a deep breath and dials the number.

It rings.

It keeps ringing.

“Hello?”

It’s a nervous sounding woman’s voice, and for a moment, he can’t find the words.

“I don’t know whose phone this is,” the woman continues, her voice shaking.

“It’s Emmett Cullen. I need to speak to my father - Dr Carlisle Cullen,” he manages, but Alice is already shaking her head.

“Emmett, it’s Nurse Fletcher,” and he has no idea who that is, truly. “Your father… he’s gone, Emmett.” The woman sounds traumatised, and he understands. “Half the hospital just… disappeared, there was nothing anyone could have done…”

He throws his phone against the wall, and it smashes through the drywall as it shatters, and Esme’s not even here to yell at him.

—

Somehow, Alice gets him to his feet, and drags him into Forks. Something about people coming looking for them and they need to go to the school, where everyone who is still here is gathering. They’re both covered in the dust of their family (Edward and Rose, mostly, and he wonders if bringing Alice a handful of her husband’s remains would have been the right thing to do. They’d left Esme where she fell, a waterfall of dirt on the stairs.)

There aren’t many people at the school when they arrive, and people are staring. He gets it; Alice looks like she just crawled out of an empty grave (Rose’s; Rose sticking to her face and hair and hands and knees…) and he’s splattered with mud and probably blood that he didn’t think to clean up before they left but together they are a suitably haunted, stricken pair of siblings.

A couple of Bella’s friends are at the impromptu gathering; the Hispanic girl is clinging to a man who has to be her father, fresh tear tracks on her face. A blonde girl is sitting with a blanket around her, almost bisected perfectly down her body with the dust of someone - a classmate, a family member, a passerby. Just dozens of people standing around, confused and grieving.

But Alice stops when she sees one figure, stooped and already exhausted.

Charlie Swan catches her in a hug as she approaches him a little faster than she should, and he wants to pull her back because now parts of Rosalie are sticking to Charlie’s clothes and from the look on Charlie’s face and on Alice’s, the dust on Charlie belonged to Bella.

He wants to chuckle, at the picture of Rose’s face if she was told her ashes would be mixed up with Bella’s forever now, or at least until Charlie does some laundry.

“She was in bed, sleeping,” Charlie says. “I thought it was a prank, at first.” His eyes are shiny and he takes a shuddering breath and looks closer at the pair of them. “Who…”

Alice seems to shrink into herself, and just shakes her head. “It’s just me and Emmett now,” she mutters. “Jasper’s gone and Rosalie’s gone, and Esme and Carlisle and Edward and now Bella.” There’s a tinge of hysteria to her words, and Emmett pulls his sister closer because he doesn’t want what’s left of Forks to watch if he has to try and calm her down from another round of hysteria.

“It’ll be okay,” he manages. “We’ll call Denali and see how Tanya’s doing. Cousins,” he offers to Charlie, who looks relieved. “We’ll check in on a few people,” he continues, hoping to distract Alice, who keeps repeating their names under her breath. “Peter and Charlotte, Maria, Garrett, Randall…”

“Good. You kids can stay with me while you track down some family if you need to,” Charlie offers but Alice manages to pull herself together.

“No, we’ll be fine,” she assures him. “Emmett’s old enough and … we’ll be fine. We just need to know what happened.”

“We don’t know much yet, but as soon as I do, I’ll call,” Charlie promises. “I’ll put your names on the … Survivors list, you two go on home and take a shower, make sure you’ve got enough food and gas in the car. And you call if you need anything.”

“Carlisle’s phone,” he says immediately. “Nurse Fletcher at the hospital has it, but we … can’t go there.”

Charlie seems to understand by totally misunderstanding why they can’t go to the hospital and promises to see what he can do.

And then there’s nothing else for them to do but go home. Go home and wash off the dust, and scoop what’s left into Esme’s vases (urns, now). Alice folds their dirty clothes and puts them in a box without a word, and he watches her collect dust from the trim on the coffee table, from the gaps between the floorboards, with a tiny paintbrush so that every grain of his beautiful wife is collected.

Then he takes her to where Jasper fell and she doesn’t say anything. There’s no way to tell what dust and dirt is Jasper and what is the forest, and there’s nothing here for her to gather in her hands and hold tight. They sit for awhile, just staring at the spot.

“If Maria survived, it’s going to be bad,” she manages as the light begins to fade. “And if the Volturi…”

They walk home at a human pace, and they both start to notice things that they missed before; the stillness of the forest, suddenly amiss half its animals. The sparseness of the trees, of the ground. As they make it home, the day sinking into night, he notices half of Esme’s gardens just gone, as if waiting for someone to plant them fresh, when they were in full bloom less than a day ago.

There’s a small figure waiting on the back porch, in dirty denim cut-offs. He looks smaller than last time they saw him, only weeks ago.

Seth Clearwater swallows hard when he sees them, and they can tell by the look on his face that whatever, whoever is left on the Res, it certainly isn’t his family and friends, and Emmett is overwhelmingly sad for the kid that had to come to his natural enemies for safe haven.

“The pack,” Seth begins. “It’s only me, and Colin, and Brady left. And at home, it’s only me.”

Alice moves too fast, and pulls him into a tight hug, and Seth hugs her back, despite the stench.

“I figured you might know something about what’s happened,” Seth continues, and he’s trying so hard not to cry, he’s giving Emmett a headache. “I left Colin and Brady back to protect the Res, and came to find help.”

He wants so badly to promise this kid it’s going to fine, that they’ll find a Tardis, a time-turner, a fucking goddess of time and rewind everything to stop this from happening but his wife is nothing but dirt, and his sister looks like a broken marionette, and there’s a wolf pup looking so desperate and hopeful that the words die on his tongue.

Alice smiles at him, kindly, for for a second she looks like herself. That lost, glassy look she’s worn all day has faded back inside her, and he hopes it stays there.

“Come in, Seth,” she says, and motions that they both follow her in through the door he broke that morning. “I think we’ve got food.”

Emmett takes off his boots before he goes inside (just like Esme always nagged for him to and he never remembered), and he wonders if the others are up there, laughing their asses off that the House of Cullen has crumbled and all that’s left is a broken psychic, an underage shapeshifter, and the guy with his wife in a jar.

He thinks it might even be funny to someone.

#will tag tomorrow so tired #my writing: jar of hearts #my fic: jar of hearts #just killing off as many characters as i can #it was super fun #perfect balance doesn't always look perfect especially in small communities and in minorities #imagine the absolute riot maria and/or the volturi would start if 50-60% of their primary food source just vanished

[paperficwriter]

I’ll Follow You Into the Dark

Harboring a fugitive means having to be careful, having to be smart about it. Because what terrible things might happen if someone were to find out? Unfortunately, being particularly clever is not one of Badd’s strong suits.

Written for @kaincuro​! Cut is for length, not for content.

“Where have you been?”

Badd hasn’t even gotten in the door yet. He’s just opened it with his shirt covering his hand because it’s gross, because there are splashes of gore on his clothes. Showers are available at the Hero Association HQ, yes, but it would have meant being out even later. The chance to take advantage of the Class S wing’s amenities was outmatched by his desire to be home with Garou.

“I got sidetracked by two monsters when my shift was supposed to end.” Garou’s eyes shine in the dark like a cat, even when the rest of his face is obscured by shadow, and Badd gropes for a light switch. “Ya could have at least waited with a lamp on. Where’s Z—”

“She’s staying over with that one annoying girl from her class.” A hand grabs his wrist and pulls him. “Why didn’t you call? You’re always browbeating me about using the burner phone you got me.”

“I said I was—”

“After.”

“It died. Garou, let me get a damn light, ya fuckin’—”

There’s a mouth jamming into his, which isn’t really the best way to describe a kiss. This is more like he’s being berated, like it’s a scold in the form of affection that’s being taken rather than given. Garou licks his face, and that’s so fucking gross, he’s told him how gross that is, especially right now when he’s sweaty and dirty. 

That sharp nose presses in next to his, and his face is held by icy fingers. He can hear his lashes falling on his cheeks, and between their eyes is this singing . That’s the only way he can think of it as. A high-pitched energy.

I was worried, Garou is thinking into him so he doesn’t have to say it. 

“I’m sorry.” Despite the grime (clearly Garou doesn’t give a shit) Badd palms the back of Garou’s neck until their foreheads touch into a point of pain. “Hey. I’m sorry.”

“Mm.”

He puts on a little smile. “I’m real flattered that ya missed me so much, though. It’s nice to be missed. Kinda sweet, comin’ from you.”

“Shut the fuck up.” There’s not even an ounce of bitterness in those words; the only thing reflecting any hurt is the way he pinches his cheek.

“Ow.”

“What? You’re the one who liked being missed so much. I should show you all the things I miss. Like these stupid soft cheeks of yours.”

“You’re just jealous. You’re like all skin and bones and shit.”

It’s still dark, but Badd’s eyes have adjusted. He leans his bat against the wall by the coat stand, on the linoleum where he can take it out and hose it off later. It’s the only moment he takes his hands off Garou, and he returns them just as quickly to sweep over his chest. Garou’s shirt is just a little loose on him, which is a pretty big indicator that he’s borrowing one of his.

He leans up until he feels a little soft hair on his nose and the bump of Garou’s ear. “Why don’t you show me all the other things you missed in the shower with me?” he whispers, and damned if he isn’t dragged down the hall on the spot.

Garou hisses when he finally turns the bathroom light on, and Badd gets his eyes on him for the first time since that morning. God, he kind of looks awful. Not that he’s going to say that, but there is this worn quality to the skin on his face, his eyes are a little squinty (even after he gets accustomed to the light) and there’s just a fatigue that’s there that’s not normally there.

“G. I’m okay. See? None o’ this blood’s mine, yeah?”

Slim fingers pick at some dried blood on his collarbone, then practically tears his shirt off. 

“I’m really, really sorry. I promise I’ll try not to let it happen again. I—”

“I almost went out looking for you.”

Badd stops talking for a second. His heart squeezes uncomfortably. “Ya know ya can’t do that durin’ the day. You’re…” A wanted criminal. The only monster that has ever escaped from the Hero Association. “It’s not safe.”

Garou scowls, pulling back, his touch rescinded entirely. He bends his head to rub his face against his own shoulder like a cat, and it makes Badd wonder if he’s trying to spread his scent onto his cheek. “I didn’t, did I?”

"It won't be forever. And it's nice when we go out at night, yeah? To our special spot?"

On the hill that overlooks the river. The one that's two miles outside the city, where sometimes Garou will meet him after work or Badd will drag him out on evenings like this in a completely different outfit.

Sometimes they don't even get there at the same time. They even pretend they're strangers. To spice things up. Keep it interesting.

But Garou doesn’t seem to want to go anywhere. He’s kissing him again, grabbing for his pants, and those pale fingers are getting dirty on his buttons. Badd scrambles to try to undress him too, but Garou is like some unstoppable force when he’s like this. 

“No trips tonight,” he says when he gets to his neck, hand slapping out to start the water. It hits too hot, but Badd can’t get to it to adjust. “I need you here. I’ve needed you here. I don’t want to share you with anyone else, even if it’s just the fucking bugs and birds and shit.”

Badd chuckles and lets Garou pin him to the wall. The water is running murky right now, and this should be gross, he should be shoving him off, but denying Garou is like trying to stop a hurricane with a parasol. 

“Alright, babe. I’m not going anywhere.”

How does it happen?

They fuck up somewhere. It’s hard to say where, or when, or how.

Was it when Garou slinked along beside Badd when he went on a midnight grocery run?

Or the time Garou snarled at a guy who catcalled a girl as he was waiting for Badd to get off the train, and Badd grabbed his arm so he wouldn’t actually take off after the weasel? 

Or was it just chance? A suspicion, a hunch, and a window open a little too wide in the bedroom?

It doesn’t matter.

Garou had gone for a walk. Just a walk. It was fall, so the nights were getting longer, so while Badd dropped Zenko off at their cousin’s for the weekend, Garou went out into the crisp air, hat pulled down over his ears, Badd’s favorite jacket on with the embroidered tiger on the back (the hero had made the piece of clothing too tantalizing, always scolding that if he ripped it or stained it, he’d fucking kill him).

Although Garou’s walks always took him into a run, and then a leap, dashing up buildings until he could see for miles. And this one was different. His slippered feet propelled him from rooftop to rooftop, the smell of drying leaves and burning wood in his nostrils, air whistling.

His phone vibrated. ‘Gonna pick up food. What u want?’

He landed on one foot on the top of a stone cross erected on an empty church. Pigeons noisily swarmed from inside the belfry and out into the air. ‘Dumplings. Soup. Meat.’

‘lol, ok. See u soon.’

That’s the last one. The last text.

When he’s coming back, the noises make his ears twitch as much as his nerves. Anyone else wouldn’t notice, but he knows every inch of Badd’s house. He knows the furniture in it, the weight of it, and he knows what it’s like to fight inside (there were a few of those when he first started living there). 

There are people inside the house. There are people ransacking Badd’s house. 

The part of Garou that Badd always calls “the guard dog side” heats up to combustible levels. Usually it’s “cute” (again, something Badd says), when he glares at the door before he’s pushed off Badd and down the hallway out of sight. 

They’ve sprayed something on the windows so he can’t see. Fine. If they want to do this the painful way, he’ll oblige.

The window breaks as he goes through it so fast that he barely cuts himself, rolling into the bedroom. There are three men in suits, and the bed - their bed - is turned upside down. The nightstand is cracked, the drawer thrown open and turned out. Everything that they have worked to make theirs is ruined, and Garou roars. 

“He’s here! He’s—”

Garou grabs the man’s face and throws him through the broken window. The other two reach for guns on their belts, but the movement takes far too long compared to the speed with which Garou attacks, sending each of them flying into the walls. 

I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you all.

“Garou…”

It only takes a few sprinting steps to get to the stairs that lead to the living room, although it takes three (precious, few, too many) seconds to take out goons in the upstairs bathroom and in Zenko’s room. One manages to get a shot off, and the sound rings in Garou’s ears even as his fist breaks through his nose and jaw. He drops the bullet he caught onto the ground.

From the landing, he can see down into a black sea of men in suits, like the ones he’s dealt with upstairs. Badd is sitting up in a chair, and even from here Garou can see that his eyelids are heavy, a sagging in his cheeks and muscles. 

He’s been drugged with something.

One of the guys has his foot on his bat, which is on the floor, and there are several guns trained on Badd���s head.

He does the math.

Garou is fast, and if it was one person, only one, he could make it. But there isn’t one. There’s...twenty. They are crammed in here, and they all have guns, and there are too many for someone not to get lucky. And from the range they have on Badd, they don’t even need luck.

Run. 

It’s not a word that comes to his mind. It’s one silently mouthed by Badd.

Run, Garou.

Garou shakes his head. How can he run? How can he leave him? Now, at their worst point? That’s not just making him a coward. It’s making him a truer villain than he ever possibly could have conceived of himself to be. “No. Badd—”

So Badd is the one who moves. He sinks his teeth into his own hand, and Garou can feel as much as see how his Fighting Spirit flares. 

That’s when all hell breaks loose.

Shots fired at him, around the room. Ten men pile on Badd, and he disappears under their bodies. “Run, Garou! Get the fuck outta here! ”

Two shots hit him. In the side and in the shoulder. Too much happening. Too many distractions. Below him, he can see Badd struggling, and he knows he’s alive and if he’s alive he can find him, he can get him back.

“Take him down! Don’t let the Hero Hunter get away!”

The Hero Hunter.

That’s all he is to them. He’s still that version of himself that he had given up, the already-flimsy mask that had been torn off in that last fight.

Breaking into a run down the hall is like running through mud. Maybe not physically - physically he outpaces them all, a wild animal that knows the woods better than any clumsy human - but with every step he’s calculating when, where, why, how, will they, won’t they, what are you doing?

He doesn’t just go through the window; he takes half of the wall with him. This time, he barely touches the rooftops as he jumps from one to the next. Anything it takes to put as much distance as he can between himself and that house, those men.  

And Badd? A voice in his head asks.

He smothers it in his molten rage.

---

Who is he kidding? Garou can’t stay away. It doesn’t matter that it’s only been a few months. It doesn’t matter that they will probably check in on the house, or that they may be watching it now. He’s drawn back to it like a bird - like a chicken, that awful voice says again, rearing back, returning over and over no matter how much he ignores it - and in the dark he’s much harder to spot.

He waited a day. That’s as much as he can be expected to wait, isn’t it?

They’ve only put tarps over the holes, so he goes in the exact same way as he did that afternoon. 

Everything is still a mess. Any shelf that was standing or on the wall has been torn off, tipped over, emptied. Clothes have been pulled out and left scattered on the floor, or in piles. Nothing seems intact.

Even the bed has a gash running through it, clearly torn open by a knife. It nicked Badd’s pillow, and feathers are bleeding out onto the comforter. The sight makes him so angry that he picks up the whole bed and he’s about to throw it through the wall when two eyes shine up at him.

“Meow.”

Tama. She’s pushed herself into the tightest ball she can in the corner, somehow evading the terrible events of the afternoon. He puts the bed down, leaning it against Badd’s desk, and reaches down for her. She darts down the hallway into Zenko’s room.

The scene is the same. Granted, he always hated the posters and standees of Amai Mask, but seeing them ruined, torn off the wall (for what fucking purpose, those bastards) makes him nauseated. 

“Meow.” Now she’s under Zenko’s bed. He gets down on his stomach and pats the floor. She doesn’t move.

“Come on, Tama.” She backs up, and he kicks the door closed with his foot so she can’t run away again. “Come. On.”

She can survive. Cats are predators, and they can handle themselves. You’ve done enough— 

“Come on!” His fist lands on the floor. A piece of paper falls off the pink cork board over Zenko’s desk, fluttering to the floor. Not paper. A photo. Badd is grinning, with her up on his shoulders, and Zenko is making bunny ears over his head. Garou stares at it, not blinking, not moving. And then he realizes that he’s just barely in the picture. Half his face, the visible part of his smirk, and he recalls Zenko begging Badd to let her keep it. 

“Just that one. And it stays at home. Understand? No showin’ it to anyone at school.”

“I promise!”

He hates this feeling.

And it’s one he should be used to, isn’t it? Being on his own. He was on his own for so long, living in that shack, stealing food. And only a few times did it ache a little, to be away from the world, but it was worth it, because he had a goal.

What does he have now?

...nothing.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Liar. Liar. Liar.

You could have stopped it. You should have died stopping it. 

No. No. No.

The bristles of Zenko’s carpet are making his face itch, but all the energy has gone from his body. It’s hard to tell how long he stays there, the silence so eerie. No television. No talking. No breathing. 

And then, there’s something. A gentle vibration. He glances up to find that Tama has occupied the space of his slightly-bent arm, where it had been outstretched. Her eyes are heavy, and she’s purring gently. When he picks her up, she lets it happen, and he pockets the photo as well.

For a moment, he considers taking more, but…

No. 

...better to let this chapter end. It’s easier to let it all go. He has the jacket, and Tama, and one picture of them together.

Yes. Look at where attachments have brought you.

---

Garou memorizes the address on the fridge, and rips it into tiny pieces. If they found it already, they have it, and if they don’t, they won’t now. It doesn’t look like anyone is watching the place, so far as he can tell.

He gently knocks on the window.

“Garou!” Zenko looks like she’s been crying, so she must have some idea what’s happened. That makes things easier, although who knows what they’ve told her. Her face is red, and she grabs his arm, trying to pull him in from where he’s crouching on the window sill. 

“No. I can’t stay.”

“You can’t go!” One of her fists punches his arm as her eyes start filling with tears again. “Don’t go, Garou!”

It hurts. He doesn’t...he wasn’t expecting it to hurt this much. “Here.” Reaching into his jacket with his free hand, he takes Tama out and hands it to her. She has to let him go to take the large cat in her arms.

“Tama…” Now she’s sobbing into the cat’s fur, and he remembers just how old Tama is. Old enough to have been there through losing their parents. Old enough for all Badd’s antics, all the things that led him to promise ‘no violence in front of her.’ 

Some good that did.

“Do you…” she hiccups and scrubs her eyes. “Do you know where he is?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you know if he’s okay?”

“...I don’t know.”

“What do you know?!”

“Nothing!” Before he can stop it, his voice goes as sharp as hers. “I don’t know anything yet! Are you happy?!”

At first, in the moment he regrets it, he thinks she’ll start crying and then...what, is he going to try to comfort her? But instead she puts Tama down, jumps up and slaps him in the face. Which doesn’t really hurt all that much (physically, at least). Not as much as when she yells at him, “You’re the adult! You’re supposed to be able to deal with it!”

...he is, isn’t he.

He holds his hand out. “Give me your phone for a second.”

When she unlocks it and hands it over, Garou brings up the news and searches for ‘Metal Bat.’ Immediately, there are several articles about his “leave of absence” from the Hero Association, about “suspicions of misconduct,” and how he was currently staying in the Hero Association Headquarters where they would be investigating his involvement with “possible criminal monsters.”

A monster...

Garou hands the phone back to her. “You probably saw that he’s at the hero headquarters.”

She nods. “That doesn’t narrow it down much...the new one is huge. You can’t just— Garou!” Zenko pulls hard at his arm as he tries to jump away, like she can yank him inside. “You can’t just go in!”

“I don’t have much of a choice.”

“Take me with you!”

“No way.” She’s about to yell at him again, he can tell, but he gently, firmly pulls his arm out of her grasp. “Your brother will kill me if I get you in trouble. And who will take care of Tama then?”

Zenko hates it. He can tell, because the expression on her face is how his gut has felt all day: angry, grief-stricken, hurt. “Promise you’ll come back for me. That you’ll both come get me!”

He nods. “Fine. Call Tareo. He’ll be worried, and I don’t want you alone.”

He leaves after that without saying goodbye. There’s nothing more to say, and he can’t make any more promises he’s not sure if he’ll be able to keep.

---

Garou spends that night in the special spot. He curls up in the tall grass where he usually does, and below him he can hear the water gently lapping over the rocks. It’s dark, and there’s a breeze, but there are stars overhead. 

He takes Badd’s jacket off and balls it up under his head, where he can breathe it in.

“I love ya, Garou.”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah, it’s right, jerk.” Badd laughs and smacks his chest. He’s using him as a pillow, that night, and it’s warm yet cool enough that this is the first time they’ve been able to stand being out in it. In the distance, storm clouds are moving in. They’ll be forced home soon.

Garou is playing with his hair. He usually has it down when they go out. The pompadour is too much of a signature for him, too unique. Like this, Garou can pass his fingers through it without it getting caught in product. 

“You don’t have to say it back.”

“Good.”

Badd’s smiling into his flesh, and he traces the outline of one of his pecs. It makes goosebumps jump up across Garou’s shoulders. “You at least like me, don’t ya?” he teases, poking him near the armpit so he jumps. 

“God, no.” Garou rolls until he’s got Badd on his back and he’s looming over him, growling as he places several nipping bites down his throat. “Can’t stand you…”

“Yeah, I get that a lot from folks,” Badd laughs.

“No, you don’t. And that’s what I hate the most.” He follows the path of the bites with little kisses, faintly feeling Badd rubbing at his scalp. “You’re so damn likable...everyone fawning all over you...you’re like the neighborhood mutt everyone wants to give treats to.”

Badd sits up a bit until he can press his face into the soft space of skin under his eye, slotting his nose into the dip of his cheek. “Do ya wanna give me a treat?”

God. He wants to be annoyed, but Badd’s boyish face, his little smile, his hands, even the calluses on his fingers...every piece of him just endears him more and more. Does that mean that this is love? Is this what love is? It’s not like he’s ever felt this for someone before, this positive energy. The only things that he can think of that have fueled him are spite. Anger. Bitterness. At best: boredom.

Not that he hasn’t been kind to others (as kind as he has thought possible) but…

But he doesn’t know enough to say it.

…

You should have said it. You might never get a chance to tell him again. You knew at the time, and the only reason you didn’t say it was because you were a fucking coward.

Garou curls up tighter. 

Or.

An itch is beginning to cover his skin. His eyes actually hurt, like he’s been swimming with his eyes open, but it deepens into a worst burn.

Or you never loved him at all.

“No!” When Garou punches the ground, he can see that his skin is different. Harder, stony. Like that day. His head is on fire. The voice that comes up from his throat doesn’t even sound like his. It’s coming out of a smoking muzzle. 

When he gets up - on all fours, so tall now that the long, hard tail swinging behind him knocks two trees over - he picks up the jacket, the picture still in the pocket, and holds it against his chest. The armor shell that has been forming around him seems to swallow it up, and he can feel the material, feel Badd, pressed to him. Present. Protected.

It’s very possible that he won’t survive the night.

He accepts that.

And as he lets out a howl so long and so low, so reverberating and far-traveling that he can hear dogs on the far shore return his call, he turns away from the hill and begins to run back toward the city.

---

It’s like this was the only form he could take to quiet his mind.

Because when Garou gets to the Hero Association Headquarters, he doesn’t stop to think or consider his next plans. He’s not crafty or cunning (was he ever?). He’s a mad dog. No, a wolf. A rabid wolf, in form as much as action now.

And the Hero Association has never been good at actually defending itself against monsters.

The glass in the front of the huge building shatters as he goes through it. 

“Baaaaaadd!” It’s the only thing that comes out of his mouth where gray fangs make the darkness within look like a cave without an end. “Badd!”

The men inside are shooting at him, but this isn’t like inside the house. The bullets bounce off him, and he runs through them, into a door, another passage. His huge nose sniffs at the air, and even though they begin crumbling under his weight, he starts taking the stone stairs that lead up further into the building.

More security. This time, in the form of flying drones with both constant artillery as well as drugs, electricity, nets. 

Insects. All of them.

It’s not to say that Garou doesn’t feel their attacks. The rocky armor surrounding him cracks in places, pieces falling to the floor in small piles. But he’s being fueled by something greater than metal and energy.

They crunch like cans in his jaws. 

“Baaaadd!”

He tears through another door, clearly reinforced, having to dig through it with his claws. Cameras are watching him; sometimes he catches one out of the corner of his eye, and in the lens he can see his blood-red, burning eyes. 

He doesn’t waste time with them. Let them see.

More humans. More humans with guns, with long spears that end in shock cords, like the kind used to leash strays. Do they think it will be effective? They sting when they touch him, sure, when they manage to loop his ears but the moment he shakes his head he can hear their bodies make contact with the walls.

They keep trying to trap him, trying to close him between lock-down gates. It’s obvious they think he’ll try to go through the steel, but then he just turns and rips his way through the wall. 

More robots. More rolling, shielded automatons. They issue warnings he doesn’t heed, and the ones he can’t literally destroy he just ignores.

Then, it gets quiet.

And that is worse than any of the defense that he’s faced to this point as he’s climbed higher and higher in the building, following Badd’s scent, tracking him through corridors and stairs and firepower. 

When he gets to a large, open room, empty but for equipment and air ducts far up in the ceiling, he’s about to start scaling the wall when the door in front of him opens and a lone figure walks through.

“Ah...I just want to sleep...why do they want to put me to work so late?”

It’s him. Saitama. Again, here, at the end of everything, why, why, why .

He’s picking at his ear, his other hand in the pocket of his striped pajamas. “Didn’t even have time to change…”

Garou’s options are limited. He can go back the way he came, or he can charge forward. But then, would he make it either way? Saitama was fast last time. And Garou… 

He can’t help slumping. God, he’s tired. 

He’s no stronger than he was before…

“Oh, it’s you again. You look a bit different. So...you here to cause trouble, or…?

Garou growls. He’s talking to him like he’s a child that’s gotten somewhere he’s not supposed to be. On the tip of his nose, he can just barely smell Badd still. They’re moving him. Higher? Farther away? It’s hard to tell. “Badd…”

Saitama turns and looks up toward the ceiling, where Garou’s gaze is fixed. “Is that why you’re here? Are you two friends now or something?”

The growling intensifies. This isn’t a conversation he wants to have. This isn’t a moment he wants to share. Not with him. Not with the one person who could break him down so completely, who could ruin everything like it was nothing. 

“I don’t like that, you know. What they’re doing.”

Garou stops moving. 

“Everybody knows Metal Bat. He talks about his sister in every meeting. I don’t think he would do something that would endanger her.” He drops his fist in his hand, as though something has made sense to him. “It was you, wasn’t it? Who they think he’s associating with. You two are friends now. Good thing Genos isn’t here...that probably wouldn’t be enough to stop him.”

Garou watches as Saitama moves, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I think,” he says, cracking his bare feet against the floor, “this is better for you, you know. Doing more of the hero thing. The villain thing was kind of half-assed, you know.”

Saitama walks away from the door he came out of, leaning against the wall.

“And I’m sure I’m probably already in trouble, but it’s going to be worse for you if you don’t go get him now. Because they’ll probably send one of those other heroes after you...maybe that scary girl that flies around.”

Every instinct Garou has is telling him this is a trick. A trap. Not to trust anything he says, to stay and fight.

But what is there to gain? What would be smarter or better than just letting the strongest hero kill him right here, right now? 

...he’s still not going to thank him. He won’t give him that satisfaction. 

Garou just smashes through the door and keeps running.

—

Badd wonders if he’s having some kind of out-of-body experience.

He can’t focus on anything, he realizes. Not asleep. Not awake. 

At one point he thinks...is he at the dentist? Because there’s something in his mouth, keeping him from putting his teeth together...but they don’t cuff your hands to the bed at the dentist, do they?

Now and then, he hears people talking.

At this moment? People are talking much louder. More excitedly. Above him, lights are moving quicker. He can see them around the mask over his nose. 

He’s in a hallway.

And everything is starting to feel...bumpy. Like there’s an earthquake. Is it an earthquake? Are they taking him somewhere safe?

...somewhere safe...because...this place isn’t safe, is it?

People start screaming, and suddenly something huge is standing over him. He’s staring into gray dark, and there are four limbs over top of where he is laying. Somehow, in all of the fog, it’s like…

It’s like he knows he’s being protected.

“Hnngh…?” He can’t talk with the thing in his mouth. And his hands are still trapped.

This...god, yes, this has to be a dream. It’s the only thing that makes sense when all the sounds stop and the creature backs up and stares down at him. A wolf. But...a statue of a wolf? No, more like a gargoyle, because there are cracks in the stone, and that’s falling away, getting smaller until…

Garou.

Garou’s here.

He tries to reach his hands out to him, but...right, no, those have to stay where they are. Except then Garou breaks the thick cuffs, and he’s snapping the harness that’s around his head, holding what he sees now is some kind of bit. He takes the mask off him too.

Slowly, he begins to come back into the real world.

“Garou…Garou, I…” Arms go around him, holding him so suddenly, so tightly, that his muscles object because… “How long have I been here?”

“Two days. I love you.”

Badd blinks. “Garou, it’s—”

“This is my fault. It’s all my fault. I ruined your life. I ruined your life, and they took you away, and if I had lost you, I would have...I don’t know what I would have done. And you would have been gone without me having said it back.”

Badd pulls back enough to look him in the face. He doesn’t even know how to describe the expression that’s there. Garou looks like he’s the one who was coming close to death. “I love you too. Okay? I’m okay. They probably...fuck, they were probably keepin’ me under and all so I wouldn’t trigger my Fightin’ Spirit. If I accidentally bit my tongue ‘r somethin.’”

Garou kisses him, and he kisses back. He’s pretty sure they both know this is not what they should be doing right now, but… 

“Zenko. Fuck, Zenko, is she—”

“She’s okay. So’s Tama.”

Even in spite of the terrible condition they are in, as Garou helps him out of what seems to be a modified hospital bed, Badd has to laugh. “Ya went back for Tama, huh…”

Garou picks up something off the floor. His jacket, he realizes, and Garou puts it on him, over the sort of sterile gown they changed him into. He takes a step and almost falls, and Garou picks him up effortlessly in his arms.

“Ya know...I didn’t think that the first time you would carry me like this would be so...dire, ya know?”

Garou’s face is starting to soften, and as he hears approaching footsteps - running, quickly - he takes them through an empty room. The windows overlook the city beyond. It’s a long way down, but...they’ve both managed from higher places. “Ready?” he asks.

Badd tucks his face into Garou’s neck and steals one last kiss before bracing himself. “Yeah...yeah. Let’s do this.”

He’s not lying. The rest of the details aren’t important. He just closes his eyes as Garou carries him through the glass and the air, into whatever comes next for them, trusting that he’ll get them there, no matter what. 

#my paperfics #one punch man #batarou #metal bat #badd #garou #angst #a lot of angst woof #that's really it that's the biggest tag honestly #it's fun though imagining what might happen to them next

[aethelflaedladyofmercia]

The Rules

(Ok my Good Omens Lockdown fic is complete! And not at all what you were expecting! Check tags for brief TW for one of the final scenes.)

--

Dear Crowley.

The black ink flowed across the yellowed paper, trailing behind Aziraphale’s pen.

He frowned, and scratched it out.

My Dearest Friend.

He barely finished the final letter before crossing it out even more frantically than before.

Anthony.

Now that was just absurd. Another sharp line across the page.

Crowley.

Aziraphale all but threw the pen into the inkwell. He grabbed the paper in both hands and tore it in half – in half again – and again – and again, ink smudging and staining his fingers.

Stupid, stupid, stupid idea.

When he was finished, he dumped the confettied remains of the letter onto his desk and glared at them until they started to smolder, the first wisp of smoke twisting into the air.

Then, with a sigh, he waved his hand, returning them to a single sheet of clean parchment paper.

How long had he been in lockdown now? Six weeks? Seven? Eight?

Long enough to start coming up with foolish ideas. Long enough to begin questioning things that he knew were probably better left unquestioned and unsaid.

He took himself over to the shop’s kitchen and started the kettle boiling again. Cocoa? No, tea. And a nice slice of cake, that’s what he needed. The red velvet this time, he thought.

Crowley liked red velvet cake. Not that he admitted to it, but he never turned down an offered bite. And he would smile, just a bit, as he chewed it, eyes hovering across the top of his glasses...

When he’d gathered his treats, Aziraphale settled again at the desk, carefully restacking his books to make room for the cake and mug. He dimmed the lights around the shop, put on a soothing record, tried to find that calm center that allowed him to think clearly. He’d never actually found it before, but he’d read about it in books on meditation, and it sounded jolly useful.

Finally, with a deep breath, he carefully picked up the pen again, tapping it against the glass of the inkwell so that it didn’t drip, and tackled the paper again.

My dear Crowley,

I hope these strange new days see you well, and that you are not causing too much trouble on your side of London. Things have certainly been quiet over here, but you know that’s how I prefer it. Perhaps I should close the shop more often!

I finally had a chance to read that author you suggested, and while I couldn’t locate any of your recommended titles, I’ve found Chesterton’s “Orthodoxy” to be quite a fascinating read…

--

…and so I find myself with rather an overabundance of time! While the baking has been going exceedingly well, I feel that something is missing. I can’t quite put my finger on

The sound of breaking glass at the back of the shop. Aziraphale frowned. He didn’t keep anything breakable back there, just boxes of newly arrived books, supply storage, and of course the back door –

Ah. That probably explained it.

He stood up, pausing to wipe the crumbs from his face, and retrieve his favorite umbrella from the hat stand. A soft thump from somewhere in the back room put a little more speed into his step.

--

“Watch where you’re going,” Dru hissed, jerking his foot free of the box Tommy had knocked over. Books spilled out across the floor.

“Sorry,” muttered Tommy leaning over to restack them. They were those old books with weird hard-cloth covers, stamped with the names of dead poets he half-remembered from school. They smelt like dust. The whole shop smelt pretty gross, actually, like someone had hidden old cheese in a corner and let it sit there since Christmas.

“Don’t bother with that.” Dru kicked over the books. They slid across the floor, mixing with the broken glass. Tommy scrambled back. Dru was much bigger than him, over six feet tall, taller when he was angry. “I told you, look for the cash box. It’s gotta be back here somewhere.”

“Says who?” Jack was on his hands and knees nudging his way through more boxes towards the corner wall. “I’ve been looking forever and there’s – look, nothing again.”

“Shhh.” Tommy shrank back towards the broken window, glancing into the alley outside. He could still hear the scratchy old record playing at the front of the shop, and he didn’t think he could jump out the window quickly enough if they were caught. “This was a stupid idea, Dru. There’s someone here, and he’s going to hear us –”

“Just some old bloke,” Dru waved his hand angrily. “He’s run the shop forever, gotta be a hundred years old. You scared of him? Just find the safe.”

“What safe?” Jack crawled back out of the corner. “I told you there isn’t any bloody –”

“There’s always a safe in the back. It’s a rule.”

“I’m afraid it is not, in fact, a rule. Otherwise I would have one.” Tommy spun, and there, not ten feet away, stood the old bookseller. He was dressed in an ancient suit, hands resting on a tartan umbrella, a pair of glasses perched on his nose. “However, I’ve always though the logical place to keep money is in the till, so that’s where it is.”

Dru whipped out his knife, pointing it at the bookseller’s face. Jack followed a moment later, fumbling with the unfamiliar blade.

The bookseller just watched them, lips pursed. With a sinking feeling, Tommy realized he was nowhere near a hundred. The white-haired man looked barely older than Tommy’s dad, and at least as strong. Tommy had a good sense for when someone was not a person to cross, and this man set off every alarm bell.

He shoved his hands in his pockets, suddenly afraid the bookseller might recognize the dust from the brick Tommy threw into the window.

Dru waved his knife, trying to recover. “You just stay over there, right? We don’t want to hurt you.”

“No,” the bookseller said seriously. “You don’t.”

Jack lowered his knife and shuffled his feet.

“Shut it,” snapped Dru. “Right. We know where it is now. Tommy, go get the till.”

“Thomas do not get the till,” the bookseller snapped. His eyes flicked down, studying the mess all across the floor. When he looked up again, pulling his glasses off, his gaze pierced Tommy like a pair of blue icicles. “Did you knock over my books?”

“Yessir,” Tommy muttered, flinching away. He never liked arguing. Easier to go along with what people told him. Normally, at least, he would just agree and keep his mouth shut. But today, he felt the words bubbling inside him, fighting their way free. “And I broke the window. But Dru kicked the books over. I tried to clean, honest.”

“I see.” The blue eyes studied Dru, then drifted over to Jack. “And you?”

“I just moved the boxes, I didn’t break anything.”

“Well.” The bookseller took a step towards them. “I hope you all feel very ashamed of yourselves.” Tommy immediately did, though that wasn’t too unusual. He always felt ashamed of something. “Don’t you know there’s a lockdown going on just now? Pandemics are very serious business. You are breaking the rules – rules that are put in place to keep you safe. People could die from your carelessness, do you understand that?”

“Look,” Dru stepped forward, waving his knife a bit more urgently. “I don’t give a shit about that. You need to –”

The bookseller swung his umbrella like a sword, knocking Dru’s knife across the room. “I wasn’t finished talking. Now you go back over there and listen for once in your life. And mind your language in this shop.” Dru blinked, and shuffled back towards the wall. The bookseller’s eyes turned to Jack, who was already hastily putting his own knife back into his pocket. “Much better. Where was I?”

“People could die,” Tommy prompted.

“Right. Thank you, dear boy.” He smiled, just briefly, and for the first time in a long, long time Tommy felt that maybe there was more to the world than a steaming pile of garbage. He almost wanted to smile, too. “Now. You three being out right now is against all the rules, not to mention breaking and entering, and putting your hands – and feet – on my books. These are all very serious crimes.” He put aside the umbrella and folded his hands behind his back. “I want you to tell me what, exactly, brought you here tonight.”

“Money,” Tommy said quickly, but he could feel more words twisting their way up his throat, secrets threatening to spill across the floor.

Jack beat him to it. “Bored. Nothing to do. Just sitting at home, watching my folks grow old, and everyone gets angrier and angrier and I can’t think inside that room anymore, I don’t feel anything –”

“What are you talking about?” Dru demanded, stepping forward again. He didn’t look as confident as before, but much, much angrier. “Look, we’re here for your money, not to tell our life stories. I don’t know what the hell you’re trying to pull here, but just hand it over and I won’t have to get medieval on your ass.”

“Really? What a curious turn of phrase.”

“Dru always gets angry when he’s not in control,” Tommy said, not really knowing where the words came from. “I don’t know if he’s ever killed anyone but he always acts like he has.”

“Does he indeed? I’m afraid I know the type.” The look he gave Dru could have broken through a concrete wall. “And what do you have to say for yourself, young man?”

“That you’d better fucking watch yourself, old man.” He’d managed to get right up to the bookseller’s face, and now jabbed him in the chest with a finger. “Or you’re gonna regret what comes next.”

“Yes, I’m rather afraid I will.” The bookseller turned and picked up an ancient telephone, spinning a little dial on the front. “I want you to know that I tried very hard to keep it from coming to this.”

“Who you calling?” Dru sneered. “The cops?”

Frowning, the bookseller pressed the telephone to his ear. “No, Andrew Morgan, I am calling your grandmother.”

For a moment, there was no sound in the shop but a strange, strangled noise coming from Dru.

“Ah, yes, is this Delores Morgan? Yes, I’m afraid there’s a rather angry young man in my shop. Tall, rude, really using the most atrocious language – ah, yes, I’m afraid so. Yes. With a knife. Oh, of course.” He held out the telephone. “She’d like to speak to you now.”

With a shaking hand, Dru took it from him. “Nana?”

--

Half an hour later, Tommy was sitting at a little round table in the back of the shop, nibbling on a scone. Jack sat next to him, dipping his own in a mug of tea, trying to eat it quickly without dripping.

“I’m not saying I don’t understand,” the bookseller started, coming over with another plate. “Sourdough?”

“Yes, please,” said Tommy, taking a thick slice.

A thump echoed from the back room. “Just stack them up neatly like they were, there’s a good lad,” the bookseller called cheerfully. Dru grumbled, but not so that they could make out the words.

“As I was saying. This is a very difficult time for all of us. Financially, yes,” he nodded to Tommy, “but it can also put a strain on our mental health. I really do think you should talk to someone.”

“Where am I supposed to find a doctor at a time like this?” Jack complained.

“I have been led to believe the Googles can provide these things.” Tommy fought back a laugh. “What? What did I say?”

“It’s…uh, it’s not called the Googles.”

“It isn’t? Oh, dear. Regardless, I’m sure you can use your computer to find what you need. There are resources. But you must follow the rules. They are here to keep you safe.” He picked up a tray of muffins and carried them back towards the hidden kitchen. “In the meantime, perhaps you should try revisiting an old hobby. What is it you like to do?”

“Dunno,” muttered Jack. He started glancing around the room for inspiration.

Tommy had already studied their surroundings pretty thoroughly. Tons of trinkets, some of them cheap looking but almost all of them old. Pieces of art, some of them framed, others carefully laying across tables. Statues. One statue wore a bit fancy medal around it’s neck. The plates of cake and pastry on literally every surface. And the books. So many books.

Granted, he’d expected those, but the shop seemed bigger inside, crammed with more books than a person could even take in, never mind read. And the titles. The other table nearby was stacked with books called Forbidden Rites: Necromancy in the Fifteenth Century or Magic: An Occult Primer.

Tommy took everything in as quickly as he could. Jack, meanwhile, seemed to stop at the strange old drawing of a dark-haired man with his hand on a book, hanging from one of the shelves. A smile flickered across his face. “I guess…I liked to draw. When I was little.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful! Yes, drawing is a very useful talent.” A moment later the bookseller emerged, carrying two enormous plates filled with cakes, breads, and something covered with cream and fruit, all wrapped carefully in plastic. “Now, this one is for you, Thomas, and mind you share with your sister. And this is for you.” When Jack took his tray, the bookseller placed a pile of printer paper on top, and two pencils. “And these. To get you started on your drawing again. It takes time, but I suppose that’s one thing we all have in abundance now.”

The bookseller clapped his hands and beamed at them. Jack muttered a thank you, but Tommy couldn’t even bring himself to do that, just stared at the tray, blinking back tears.

“Oh, and I’ll expect you both to bring the plates back when the lockdown is over. Not before! Remember, the rules are there to keep you safe.”

“Yessir.”

“Erm, excuse me.” They all turned to face Dru, who stood with his head bowed, and an expression Tommy had never seen him wear before. “All the books and glass are cleaned up. May I have some cake?”

“Well,” said the bookseller, pursing his lips. “I suppose one cake, now that you’re finished.” He walked back to the kitchen to start another tray.

--

After the lads had left, Aziraphale settled into his armchair, rubbing his eyes with a sigh. It took a lot out of him, reading people like that. Nudging them to tell their secrets. Perhaps he was just out of practice.

It had felt good, really, helping people like that. He forgot that, sometimes, how much he enjoyed giving people that little push towards solving their problems. Perhaps he should get out there and try it a little more often. After the lockdown was over, of course.

He glanced at the table, where the letter to Crowley sat half-finished. He’d quite lost his train of thought now. Oh, dear. He was sure he’d been on the cusp of something important, but his mind was too heavy. Perhaps after another glass of brandy or two…

--

Three days later

--

…It occurs to me, my dear fellow, that we’ve never exchanged letters. Not properly. And no, I will not include those ridiculous coded missives you used to send, although I did appreciate the book ciphers. But throughout our long

The pen hovered in the air, bead of ink poised to drip. Aziraphale knew the word he’d been planning to use. He could see it, trace the letters with his mind. But…

No, once again, he lost his nerve.

centuries, we’ve never used this method to simply exchange pleasantries. Well, what is this time for, if not to finally accomplish that which we had long planned to do? Research. Baking. And finally writing a proper letter to my

Another moment of panic, as his mind twisted around the one word he desperately wished to write.

Someone knocked at the back door, quick and sharp.

With a sigh, half disappointment and half relief, Aziraphale placed his pen in the inkwell and went to investigate.

--

Tommy wrapped his arms around his stomach. “Come on, Emmy. This is a terrible idea.”

His little sister scowled. “You kidding? He’s an old man who bakes cakes. What are you afraid of?”

“It’s not…there’s something off about him.” He shivered as she rapped against the door again. “He’s going to figure it out, as soon as he looks at you.”

“I think you’re just chicken.” She tossed her head with a grin, short fringe of dark hair hanging in front of one eye.

“Shut up, Emmy, you don’t know –”

The door opened.

The bookseller looked a little smaller by daylight. Plump, pleasant, almost harmless, except that his frown still cut sharply across Tommy’s heart. “I’m certain I told you not to return until the lockdown ended.”

“Sorry. I just –”

“You!” Emmy stepped forward, waving her finger at his buttoned-up waistcoat. “What did you do to my brother?”

The bookseller blinked. But today his gaze seemed soft, almost normal. “I beg your pardon, I didn’t do anything.”

“Yes, you did. He was fine before he came here, now he sits around talking about responsibility.” She gave him a dirty glare. “Tries to make me do my homework.”

“Ah. Well, you really ought to do your homework, my dear.”

“You’re joking, right? The whole world’s gone to shit and I’m supposed to be doing math problems and reading Shakespeare?”

“Oh, I love Shakespeare!” The bookseller’s eyes lit up. Tommy felt a strange wave of delight that almost loosened the knot in his stomach, before the anxiety crashed back into place again. “Such a wonderful man. Not particularly charming, but oh, he had his moments. Are you reading Hamlet? It’s my favorite, you know.”

Emmy snorted. “It’s everyone’s favorite.”

“Yes, it…it is, isn’t it?” For a moment his entire demeanor changed, eyes drifting down, face turning rather pink. “Well, I did rather hope…er, never mind. What brought you two here today?”

“Emmy thinks you put a spell on me, or cursed me or something.”

“I know you’ve got magic devil books in there. Tommy saw them last time, he told me and Dad.”

The bookseller glanced between them, smiling. “Oh, good. You told your parents what you were up to.”

Tommy shrugged, hunching his shoulders, waiting for what came next. Obviously the bookseller would see right through him. “He was really pissed off.”

“Yes, my boy, I’m sure he was upset at the time, but you’ll find that honesty is…” he trailed off as Emmy and Tommy exchanged a look. She was smirking, smug, while he just felt confused. “What? What is it?”

“I thought you knew,” Tommy muttered, shuffling his feet. “Cuz you can, y’know, read minds or whatever.”

The bookseller looked at Tommy until he was ready to burrow into the ground and die. Finally, the old man said, “I can’t…always. I think you’d better come in and explain things.”

--

“Whoa,” Emmy said, grabbing a slice of thick, red cake covered in icing. “I thought you were kidding about the damn cake. Look at all this!”

“Emily,” Tommy hissed. “Behave yourself.”

“At least I’m not trying to rob the place,” she pointed out, stuffing her face. “Oh, you’re right! Look at these books!” She reached for one, but the bookseller got there first, snatching it away from her frosting-covered fingers.

“That is quite enough of that. Take a seat and mind your manners or I will send you straight home.”

Tommy sat quickly at the table, putting his hands on his lap, trying to force his fingers to stay still. Emmy, however, kept staring at the book, tilting her head to study the title.

“What’ve you got a book on necromancy for?”

“You don’t even know what that is,” Tommy pointed out.

“Do too! Its magic that brings people back to life. Like zombies and stuff.”

The bookseller sighed and tucked the book onto a shelf. “It’s a treatise on fifteenth century necromancy, if you must know, and it’s rather more complicated than that. The word at the time referred to many types of magic, including divining the future using the bodies of the deceased, and spells and incantations to control demons.”

“Oh,” Emmy nodded. She grabbed a cupcake off a tray and shoved it into her mouth whole as she sprawled across a chair. “How come they don’t teach us that at school? And why do you want to control demons?”

“I don’t,” he said simply, grimacing at the crumbs she sprayed as she spoke, as if trying to track each one through the air. “And I’d like to make sure no one else can, either.”

“You got more magic books?” She reached for another that was lying nearby, but again the bookseller got their first, gently pushing it further away.

“This is a book shop. I have many types of book. But we aren’t here to talk about that.” He pursed his lips and studied Tommy, settling into a chair across the pastry-laden table. “I believe we’re lucky your sister wasn’t here the other night. She is almost worse than your loud friend.”

“Dru’s not my friend,” Tommy muttered. It still made him cringe inside to contradict an adult, even when the bookseller wasn’t angry, but he didn’t like being associated with Dru. “And Emmy was here.”

“Was she?”

“I was the look-out.” She reached for another cupcake, this time licking the frosting off so it smeared across her mouth. “You had them in here forever, then they all come out, carrying cake and things. Dru was acting like a baby. I thought he was gonna cry.”

“But you can’t be more than thirteen years old!”

“I’m not.” She jumped to her feet again. “Got any more of that angel’s food cake? Tommy ate all the stuff you sent home.”

The bookseller looked at her, and Emmy gave her winning smile, the one that never fooled Tommy for a second. With a sigh, the bookseller pointed her towards the kitchen. “Please be careful with the dishes. If you break one –”

“I’m not going to pay for it,” Emmy snorted, wandering off. “Do we look like we have money?”

The bookseller frowned, watching as she took a plate out of the cupboard and started piling it with food. “Well, I suppose that brings us back to the question at hand. You said you came here for money. Was there more to that story?”

Tommy nodded, forcing himself to stare at his hands. He didn’t have any appetite this time, even though the bookseller gently pushed a plate of bread towards him. “Yeah. Dad threatened to kick me out a few years ago. Makes me pay rent. Says I’m old enough to have a job.” He shrugged. “So I dropped out of school. Started working.”

“Ah.” The bookseller sat back, nodding slowly. “I take it you no longer have a job?”

“Closed. Cuz of the lockdown.” His knee was starting to bounce nervously. That strange calm that had come over him the first time...it was there, hovering around the edge of his mind, but he didn’t really feel it. “But Dad still wants the money.”

“How much?”

“Six hundred pounds.” Tommy stood up, leaning on the back of the chair, trying to meet the shopkeeper’s eyes. They were warm, trusting, and once again he felt that tug in his gut to say more than he wanted. “Look, I know, I could move out for that. Probably could have already if I was smart. But I’m not. And I can’t save because Dad takes everything and…” He watched as Emmy walked behind the bookseller, tearing into an enormous slice of cake with gleeful abandon. “You know. I gotta watch out for my sister.”

“And how does your father expect you to produce six hundred pounds in the middle of…ah.” The bookseller stood and walked around the table to stand next to Tommy. “He wants you to steal.”

Tommy shrugged, keeping his eyes on his feet. Trying not to meet the booksellers eyes, not to watch his sister wandering around the shelves, to ignore the awful knot inside. “We hit three other places this month. But I’m still short.”

“You needed the money, and I gave you pastries instead. I take it your father didn’t like the exchange.”

“He, uh,” Tommy tried to smile. “He wasn’t impressed.”

A soft, well-manicured hand landed on the back of the chair near Tommy’s. “Look at me, please, Thomas.”

Clenching his jaw, he looked the bookseller in the face. And gasped to see the hard, sharp glare back in those eyes.

“What brought you back here today?”

To his horror, Tommy found he couldn’t lie to the bookseller.

While he was still trying to choke out an excuse, the old man’s eyes narrowed, and he spun, grabbing Emmy by the arm. The plate clattered to the carpet.

“Oi!” She shrieked, jerking her arm, trying to pull free. “Let go of me, you pervert!”

“Put. Them. Back. Now.”

“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about, you loon!”

“Young lady.” And though his voice didn’t get any louder, suddenly the bookseller seemed ten feet tall. Tommy scrambled back against one of the pillars. He knew he should help, should defend his sister, some instinct in him screamed to do so. But he was completely frozen in place, barely able to breathe. “That book is over two hundred years old. For that alone I would throw you out in a heartbeat. But if that drawing has one rip – one wrinkle on it, you will regret the day you ever set eyes on this shop.”

Emmy reached under her shirt and pulled out a rolled-up paper, trying to dangle it out of the bookseller’s reach. “So it’s valuable, then?”

He held out a hand, waiting. “It is priceless. And you will never find someone to pay you even a fraction of its value. Now give it back.”

Snarling, Emmy slapped it against his palm. “What the hell, old man? We need the money more than you.”

“Leave my shop.” He let go of her arm and cradled the roll of paper like it was a baby.

“Fine. Whatever.” She stalked towards the back door. “And stop hiding Tommy, for God’s sake. You’re supposed to be the adult.”

“Emily.” The bookseller’s voice echoed through the shop. Shadows seemed to stretch out from every shelf and corner, reaching for Emmy. “Leave that book.”

She scowled back at him, but he wasn’t even looking in their direction. She out the ancient leather-bound book she’d tucked in the back of her trousers and started to throw it on the ground. At the last moment she seemed to lose her nerve, and tossed it onto a chair instead.

Once it was out of her hand, Tommy felt the strange grip on him vanish. The shadows snapped back to where they belonged. He sucked in a deep, shuddering breath of the strange shop air. Before, he’d thought it stank. Now he thought it was charged with electricity.

“I gave you a chance, Thomas,” the bookseller said coldly. The bright blue eye looking over his shoulder seemed almost to glow. “This is how you repay me. Go. Now.”

He didn’t have to be told again.

--

With shaking hands Aziraphale unrolled the scroll. The five-hundred-year-old parchment felt crisp under his fingers, and he gently massaged a miracle into it, softening it, freshening it just a bit. There were no rips or bends, but to be safe, he pressed it flat against a table, weighing each corner down with a stack of books.

From the center of the paper, Crowley’s face looked back at him, smiling just a little, serpent eyes almost visible behind those glasses. Da Vinci had really captured his look. Not the face, though it was a very good likeness, but something more. The beauty mortal eyes could not quite perceive, something almost ethereal yet at the same time, quite the opposite. It hovered over the page, captured in the simple linework.

Crowley had kept this portrait, in secret, for five hundred years. Aziraphale had never known his own was part of a matched set, until a few months ago, when Crowley presented it to him, saying, “They’re a pair, you know. Supposed to be together. Displayed together. So I thought you should have this.”

He’d been too flustered to say anything at the time. He wanted to, though. He so very desperately wanted to say something.

But Aziraphale was a fool. He’d always been a fool. Trusting the wrong people. Ignoring those he shouldn’t. He’d probably never change.

--

Three days later

--

…There are many things that have stood unsaid between us. Perhaps it is our way. Perhaps it will always be our way. But for all that, I truly hope there will never again be silence between us. Conversation with you might be the thing I most miss just now, and is surely what I most look forward to when this strange time has passed.

Until then I remain,

Yours

The pen hesitated one last time. Yours what?

Yours respectfully?

Yours sincerely?

Should he try to be funny? Profound? Was there some clever play on words he could put in?

Or.

Perhaps, for once, he could let the unsaid word speak for itself.

Until then I remain,

Yours

Aziraphale

--

A drop of deep green wax. Was that too forward? Too subtle?

He pressed new his signet stamp against it, sealing it shut with an emblem he’d designed with such good intentions. Would Crowley see what it meant?

Too late for doubts. Too late for second thoughts. The front of the letter was already written, perfectly neat: Anthony J. Crowley, Esq. Now all he had to do was get a stamp from his desk and –

He pulled open the left drawer. Empty.

The right drawer. Nothing but pens and scraps of paper.

He dug around the endless stacks of receipts and tax documents, destroying his neat piles in a desperate search.

No stamps.

Burying his face in his hands Aziraphale said, for only the second time in six thousand years, “Oh, fuck.”

He sat like that for a long moment, then slowly lifted his gaze to stare at the telephone.

--

“You know, I could…hunker down at your place. Slither over and watch you eat cake. I could bring a bottle of…a case of…something…drinkable.”

Something rose up in Aziraphale, a terrifying fear he couldn’t begin to name.

“Oh, I-I-I-I’m afraid that would be breaking all the rules. Out of the question. I’ll see you…when this is over…”

“Right. I’m setting the alarm clock for July. Goodnight, Angel.”

Aziraphale set the receiver back into the cradle, trying to stop his hand from shaking. His heart – which really, didn’t need to beat at all – was doing something altogether unexpected in his chest.

No, he told himself firmly. This is the right thing. Wait out the lockdown. Like you’re supposed to.

The rules were there for a reason. They told you what to do when the world stopped making sense, when your own mind was ready to betray you at any moment. When you couldn’t trust yourself, you trusted the rules.

He’d followed that philosophy his entire existence and look where it had gotten him. A lovely shop, a home, filled with books and art and cake. And no one else. No friends. No Crowley.

Just himself, alone, bent over a telephone.

And a heavy, frantic knocking at his back door.

--

Tommy pounded on the door, echoing the pounding of his heart.

“I told you, this is a stupid idea,” Emmy grumbled.

“Well, we tried your way last time and look what happened.” He slammed his fist against the door again. “So just…just shut up and follow my lead.”

“I think I liked you better when you were scared of everything,” she said, trying not to smile.

“I’m still scared of everything,” he snapped. “But what else am I gonna do?”

He started knocking again, just as the door jerked open, and he nearly fell into the bookseller. The old man looked paler than before, and somehow even less happy, but maybe that was the evening light playing tricks. 

His eyes weren’t gentle or sharp this time, but something new, something that made Tommy’s heart ache in his chest.

“You two. I told you to leave.”

“We did leave. And. Um. Now we’re back.” Tommy cringed but rushed ahead. “Look. I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry. I was an ass. I shouldn’t have tried to lie. And Emmy’s sorry for everything, too.”

“Well,” she grunted, not looking at the bookseller. “I’m sorry for some of it.” Tommy shoved her arm, and she rolled her eyes. “Most of it.”

“That is something, I suppose.” The bookseller pressed his lips into a line, and settled behind the door, looking completely immovable. “But I’m afraid I’m still not going to allow you in this shop.”

“Fine, right, I understand. I just need, um, a hundred and twelve pounds.” The booksellers jaw dropped, but Tommy rushed on. “I’m not just, it’s not charity, right? I brought stuff. Here.”

Emmy handed over the backpack and he dumped it out on the ground. “There’s some books, and a couple of these weird trinkets, I saw you had some around the shop, and this jewelry…”

“This is a bookshop, not a-a-a pawn shop!” The bookseller gave them an indignant look. “And I am most certainly not a-a fence for your stolen merchandise.”

“It’s not stolen. Look.” His fumbling hands grasped the thick computer programming textbook and flipped it open. Thomas Finch was scrawled on the inside of the cover in smudged, faded ink. “I bought this a few years ago. Trying to learn enough to get a better job. Only I’m real thick and I couldn’t follow it at all. So – so you can have that, right? It cost a lot, so it’s gotta be worth something now.”

The bookseller tilted his head, a look of vague disgust on his face. “Well, I don’t really have much use for a computer book…”

“Fine.” He tossed it aside and rummaged through the pile again “Or, look. This necklace. I don’t think it’s gold-gold but it’s really nice. It doesn’t rub off or turn your skin green or anything.”

With obvious reluctance, the bookseller took the chain and studied it up close. “I suppose it does look…Is this yours, young lady?”

Emmy turned her face even further away, arms crossed over her stomach. In the evening shadows, she seemed almost to disappear. “It was our mom’s. Before she died.”

“Ah.” He held out his hand, but Tommy didn’t accept the necklace back. “I wouldn’t take such an heirloom from you,” he tried again, and his voice was surprisingly gentle.

“We don’t want an heirloom, alright?” Tommy could feel the panic rising in him, but he had to force it down, force past the tightness in his throat and the wetness in his eyes. Had to get through this. “We want a hundred and twelve pounds, by tomorrow, or my dad’s going to throw me out. In the middle of the lockdown, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“I’m sorry, truly I am, but you’ve already tried to rob me twice.” The bookseller let the necklace fall to the ground, joining everything of value Tommy and Emmy could find. “And once again you are here, outside, breaking the rules –”

“Shut up about the fucking rules!” Emmy spun back, glaring at him from behind the fringe of her hair, swept across her eyes. “How are the rules supposed to help Tommy now? He can’t get a job, or a loan, or anything. It’s all shut down. So what’s he supposed to do?”

“Emily.” Tommy knelt down and started putting everything into the backpack again. He kept dropping things, his hands shook so bad. He was out of ideas. “Fine. You won’t help me. But, look, Emmy’s just a kid. She’s made some mistakes, but…when my dad throws me out, can she stay here?”

“What –”

“What?” Emmy shoved him so hard he nearly fell over. “That’s not the plan, shit head! You can’t just dump me on some…some random –”

“Yes, I can.” His chest ached as he tried to meet her eyes. “I’m not leaving you with Dad, and I can’t take you with me if I don’t even know where I’m going. I don’t see another option.”

“I can take care of myself!”

“You’re twelve, Emily.” Tommy stood up and put his hands on his sister’s shoulders. She wore her usual tough expression, but she trembled, fighting back tears. “You shouldn’t have to.”

“I’m so sorry to interrupt,” said the bookseller in an overly bright voice. Tommy started, guiltily realizing he’d forgotten the man was there. “I seem to be missing some information here.”

Tommy looked at his sister, saw all the fear that he’d been carrying for years echoed in her eyes. He took her hand, squeezed it tight.

Emmy took a deep breath, and brushed the hair out of her eyes. Showing the large, half-healed bruise on her face.

The bookseller was quiet for a long moment. “Your father did that?” His voice seemed to be very carefully balanced.

“Yeah. Um.” She cleared her throat. “I’m. I’m trans. So my dad. I guess he thinks if he hits me. Um.” Her gaze fell to the ground. “Fuck that guy, though, right?”

“Ah.” Another long silence. Tommy clutched at her hand, neither of them breathing. Emmy hated coming out to strangers, to anyone really. Lots of bad experiences. He could see her remembering them now, in the way her shoulders hitched, her jaw clenched. “And does your father hit you, too, Thomas?”

“Um. Yeah. Different reasons. But yeah.” He shrugged. “Since I was younger than her.”

“I see. Wait here.”

The bookseller stepped away from the door, disappearing back into his shop.

“I say we run,” Emmy said, reaching for the bag. “He’s probably going to call the cops on you, right?”

“I don’t know. Are you ok?”

She wiped at her eyes. He could see her jaw was still tight with tension. “I’m fine. Just. I hate telling people my shit.” She sniffed and glared at her feet. She still pretended most of the time, at school, even around their dad if she thought it would make him less angry that day.

She hated it. She pretended it was fine but watched that hate and pain eat away at her for years, just another thing he couldn’t protect her from.

“Look, Emmy, I’ll figure something out, I promise. We’ve got time. Another day, yeah? I’ll...I’ll think of something.”

“Shut up,” she shook her hair back in front of her eyes before turning her glare on him. “Just go if you have to. I’ll be fine. I’m used to being alone. I can take care of myself, and –”

“Oh, good, you waited. It’s nice to see you finally listening to me.” The bookseller stepped through the door to stand next to them, and the smile Tommy had glimpsed that first night was back on his face, warm and open. It made the evening seem just a little less miserable. “Here.”

He pressed an enormous wad of banknotes into Tommy’s hand. More than a hundred and twelve pounds. A lot more.

“That should be enough to get you started in a flat of your own. It won’t be easy during the lockdown, of course, but by some miracle there are a few places available in the north of London that should suit. Please be careful with that, it will likely need to last you some months.”

“I…” Tommy stared at the pile of money. It was more than he could have imagined such a crummy shop would hold. “Why…how…”

“I believe this is when you usually say thank you, although I’m not very good at that part myself.” Before Tommy could even find his words, the bookseller had turned to Emmy. “As for you, young lady.” He reached to put a hand on her shoulder, then quickly pulled back when she flinched, instead tilting his head down to try and meet her eyes. “I wish I had some advice for you, I really do. I don’t think I even know where to begin.”

“It’s --” Emmy started.

“Do not say it’s ‘fine,’ my dear, because it’s not.” There was a sharp edge to his tone, but it quickly softened. “It’s never ‘fine’ to feel alone. And if you’re suffering, that’s all the more reason to reach out.” There was a moment of uncertainty - Tommy saw the bookseller bite his lip, and his eyes grew distant, lost in his own thoughts. Then he turned back to Emmy and smiled, holding out a small stack of business cards. “And there are organizations you can reach out to. I’ve put the ones that specialize in teenagers on top. Support groups. Hotlines. Legal aid. Which reminds me,” his eyes shot over to Tommy again, “you should probably call the police on your father, but I’ll understand if you want a stable living situation first.”

He pressed the cards into Emmy’s hand. “I know you might not be ready to talk, but when you are...there are people ready to listen.” She stared at the cards in her hand. “You aren’t alone, my dear, and you don’t need to take care of yourself. Let the people who love you take care of you. Especially your brother.”

“I don’t…” Emmy’s fist closed around the cards. “I’m not…”

“Not quite what you need? I have a few books on gender identity. I always find that a bit of reading helps me think about what I’m going through. You’re welcome to look through them any time, under strict supervision, of course. I’ve seen the way you eat.”

“So…we’re allowed back in?” Emmy wondered.

“Yes. Any time.” He patted her hand, then stepped back. “Especially now, if you need a place to go for a few hours. Just please come to the front door next time, this alley is horrendous.”

“I thought we weren’t supposed to be on the streets,” Tommy mumbled, still feeling dazed. But he felt his lips twisting into a smile. “You know. Against the rules and all that.”

“Well. I suppose…sometimes the rules do sort of get in the way, don’t they? I can…make an exception.” He beamed at both of them, the sort of smile that made it impossible to think of anything except smiling back. “Well. Jolly good. Now I think you two will need a bit of time to come up with a plan. What do you say we discuss this over cake?”

--

Two hours later

--

Aziraphale pressed the phone against his ear, listening to it ring. He had only rehearsed his conversation twice this time. He hoped it would be enough.

“Now what? Don’t you know I’m trying to sleep?”

“Hello. It’s me. Aziraphale.”

“For the last…I know.”

“Er, right. Ah. I just wanted you to know. Um. That is.” Drat. He really should have rehearsed more.

“Aziraphale.” Crowley’s voice turned very serious. “Is something wrong?”

“No, w-w-well, yes, that is…” His eyes drifted over to the table, the stacks of books, the cakes, the bottle of cognac. “Yes. Dreadful emergency. I’m nearly out of brandy.”

“You’re. Are you serious?”

“I am extremely serious, Crowley.” He took a deep breath. “And what with the lockdown on. Well. I would need someone to…to break all the rules in order to get me more.” He bit his lip. “And-and possibly some Merlot, or a nice Riesling. I have ah…rather more red velvet cake than I can eat.”

A long pause, Aziraphale tugging at the cord of the phone nervously.

“I thought you wanted to wait out the lockdown.”

“I did. I just…” He started to sit down, then sprang back up again, too anxious to hold still. “I realized, well, I can take care of myself, but that…that doesn’t mean I have to. And the rules…um…they…”

“Angel,” Crowley interrupted softly. “I can be there in twenty minutes.”

The smile trembled across Aziraphale’s face. “Ah. Yes. Good. I have some new neighbors to tell you about, I think you’re going to like them. And. Uh.” His fingers fell on the folded-up parchment, sealed with a drop of wax, green for hope. “And I have something for you, Crowley.”

--

(Thanks for reading! I apologize the OCs got so much of this fic. I’m trying to work on better OC-husbands balance, though in this case I hope you can see the parallel I was going for. I’ll probably write another Lockdown fic more focused on just Aziraphale and Crowley, but I really wanted to answer the question: who were the lads who tried robbing AZ Fell’s???)

#good omens prime #good omens lockdown #good omens fanfiction #aziraphale #aziraphales bookshop #ineffable husbands #who robs a book shop in the middle of quarantine #my writing #bastard angel #outsider pov #ocs #quarantine fics #Ill Omens #tw: mentioned child abuse #tw: implied transphobia #aziraphale x crowley

[treatian]

The Chronicles of the Dark Ones: Magical Loopholes

Chapter 38: Old Dangers

He left the library feeling…lighter, somehow. He might even go so far as to say he felt "good" about how he'd left things. No, she wasn't moving in again, they'd barely touched, and the truth had been brief and broad, but it had been honest. He hadn't told her much, but what he had told her had been the most important part of it. It left the door open for more, and though he'd suspected that saying what he'd said might leave him feeling naked and vulnerable, he found it wasn't a terrible thing. With Belle safe inside the library, he set the protection spell over her property and somehow had the feeling he was sealing his own secrets in with her.

He felt hopeful where he and Belle were concerned, comfortable with where they'd left things. He was embarrassed, perhaps even a little disappointed in himself that he'd done something so foolish that meant he wouldn't be by her side as she explored this new world, but the more he thought about it, the more he acknowledged that Ruby might just be the perfect person to help her through that. He knew from Baelfire that he could be protective, perhaps too protective. That was one of the reasons they'd gotten here, after all. If he were by her side for this transition, he'd want to do everything for her. He'd want to pay for everything, sign every form, handle the money, run the library. She wouldn't like that. It would have caused tension and grief between them. So, this was good. He'd watch from the shop to be sure she was safe, he'd keep his distance, and then when she was experienced in this world, they'd be together again. They'd go for a hamburger. They'd return to each other.

And in the meantime, there were other things he needed to have done. There were ways that he could protect Belle with more than just a spell, and he intended to do just that. There were villains in this world, some big and some small; the events in the mines proved that just fine. Both were dangerous but in their own ways. He could do very little about smaller villains in this world simply because they were too numerous to weed out. But the right lesser criminal did have one particularly befitting feature…they could lead to the greater threats.

After leaving Belle, finding Smee was easy. His grandmother had cast a spell on him that made it difficult to locate him by magical assist, but that was over a century ago. And now…now he had his hat. It was so easy to find him it was almost laughable. In fact, when Smee turned on the docks and found him staring back at him, the sound Smee let out before he used magic to hide him away did make him laugh.

Under the shop, there was a basement, where he stored rather large items he had no interest in selling. He used his magic to send Smee there, bind him, and put him to sleep as he considered his plan of action. It wasn't really Smee that he was interested in, but rather the man he suspected had kept him alive for all these years…Killian Jones, now known as Captain Hook.

He had no evidence of that, no proof, only what he could deduce from what he saw. When he'd first met Smee, he'd been interested in staying young forever. They'd made a deal, not for eternal youth, but rather to turn the clock back and make him a boy again in exchange for a magic bean to take him to Bae. Smee had found the bean, but he'd never gotten it to him. Milah and Hook, when he'd still had two hands, had intercepted Smee and kept him as a prisoner. They'd proved it with the same fucking hat he now held in his hands. They'd brought him to the ship, and that was the last location he knew of for Mr. Smee. He'd argued and fought with Milah and Jones. He'd killed Milah, then taken Hook's hand under the presumption that it held the bean he needed. And then he'd left, only to discover later that Hook still had the bean, and it appeared he'd used it for himself to escape to Neverland.

He'd heard nothing about Smee. But he'd searched for the man afterward and found no trace of him. He had concluded that where Hook was, there he would also find Smee. Now, looking at Smee, who should be dust in the ground, and knowing that Hook had flitted off to Neverland, a place where individuals never aged, he suspected more than ever that was true. Still, there was only one way to prove that. And there was only one way to find Killian Jones. He had no intention of being surprised by that pirate again or risking Belle to him either. He needed to know where Hook was. He needed to kill him before he killed Belle.

By the time the sun started to go down, and he heard hoots and hollers from the basement, shouts of "help" from Mr. Smee indicating he was awake, he had a plan. A timid plan, one that depended on another individual, but one he was confident he could carry out. Of course, it depended on the information that Smee gave, the story that he told. So, he cast a spell over the shop to keep the sound isolated, ensuring that Smee could scream as loud as he wanted and no one would ever hear before he grabbed his hat and wandered down into the basement. Smee was silent by the time he opened the door, suggesting some intelligence. He hoped that continued.

"You're probably wondering why I brought you here," he pulled out the red hat he'd found in the mines, the one his grandmother, Mama Odie, knit for him before protecting him all those years ago. He'd been protected, but now that he was in front of him, that spell couldn't save him now. "I found this in the mines, Mr. Smee."

He lay the hat on his lap, and his eyes went wide with fear. "I am so sorry. I didn't-"

"I'm not interested in apologies," he interrupted. "I'm interested in information. About the man you work for."

"I'll tell you anything you want to know about Moe," he smiled.

"No, no. Not about Moe–your captain." He felt a small thrill of hope shoot through him at Smee's willingness to sell Moe out. Could he be bought that easily? One could hope. "Where is he?"

Smee shook his head. "I've never seen him in Storybrooke, I swear. For some reason, when the curse hit, it…it didn't take him!"

So it was confirmed. He was right. Smee had been with Hook all these years.

But he didn't believe his side of the story. Not for a second. If Smee was as young as he was, then he'd been with Hook until the end. As far as he knew, the Captain, and therefore Smee, had no issues with Regina, so unlike Frankenstein, he couldn't imagine a scenario where Regina would take him but leave Hook. It didn't make sense.

"Then, where is he? If you're here, then where would he be, Mr. Smee?"

"I don't know. We were separated in the Enchanted Forest, just before the Curse hit."

"The Enchanted Forest?" he clarified. "Not Neverland." While it made sense for them to have been there if he'd been unknowingly swept up into the Curse, it still didn't make sense why he would have come over, but Hook wouldn't.

"No," Smee confirmed. "We live in Neverland, but Pan sends us back and forth to other worlds on his own business, to make trades."

"And you were on one of these runs when you were separated from your Captain."

"Not exactly, no."

He rolled his eyes. "Then why were you in the Enchanted Forest, Mr. Smee."

"To kill someone," he answered quickly, a line of sweat dripping from his temple into his beard. His eyes were wide, and he could see the desperation to please him in his eyes. Perhaps he should believe him. "We were to make our usual trades, but before we left, Pan informed Cap of a prisoner that the Evil Queen had in her towers, someone that he saw benefit in killing."

He sucked his breath in as Smee explained and felt his stomach clench painfully. A prisoner in the tower that would benefit both Pan and Hook if killed? He hadn't known at the time, but now he knew there was someone there who fit that description. It didn't settle his stomach. His father knew? About Belle?

"Who?" he demanded.

"I don't know. The conversation was private, Cap'n only told me that much. When we arrived, we docked in the Evil Queen's territory with instructions to make the trades while he was away and promised that we'd meet him after it was done. We disembarked, made the trades, and spent the night in town, but the Curse struck before any of us could return to the ship."

So, they'd been separated, but that still meant that Hook should have come over in the Curse.

"So, where is he now?"

"I don't know," Smee stressed. "I swear I don't, I told you the truth, I've never seen him in Storybrooke, but I've barely seen the other crew members! He could be anywhere."

Anywhere indeed. And was Smee being truthful now? Or was he protecting the Captain, who had obviously protected him all these years ago? He appeared spineless, but he knew those could grow over time. He'd find out if it was true or not. For Belle's sake, he had to. But not this moment. He had a plan. If it worked out, then he just needed to stick to it.

He placed the red hat over Smee's wiry hair and, without any further explanation, left him there in the basement. He locked him in, made sure the spells were secure, and took his cell phone from his pocket. He was in the front of the shop gazing into the library, the second-floor apartment windows lit for the first time since he could remember, when his call went predictably to voicemail.

"Things are beginning to pile up, Mr. Dove, and while I understand your disinterest in continuing our partnership, I'll remind you that it appears we are going to be in Storybrooke for quite some time, and it is only because of that partnership that your parents enjoy rent-free accommodations in their old age. It is also because of our partnership that you and several family members enjoy your lifestyle. I have a job for you. You are a Prince, Mr. Dove, but without a Kingdom to rule for the foreseeable future, you might consider sticking with what you know."

He hung up, eager to see what his message would get him.

#Rumbelle #Rumple #Rumpelstiltskin #Dark One #Mr. Gold #Belle #William Smee #Captain Hook #Killian Jones #Peter Pan #ouat #ouat fanfiction #fanfic

[ericahacher]

A RIVER THAT WINDS ON FOREVER

     It felt too soon to be going back home. Hours on the back of her bike with the sun beating down on her, and the closer she got to the base – the more familiar the terrain became – the more the feeling grew; like she’d never left in the first place. Approaching the outer perimeter – the path of the patrol routes, the sightline of the nearest lookout point – she slowed down, weaving between gnarled Joshua trees and pale rock formations erupting from the sand, watchful eyes scanning her surroundings through the tinted visor of her helmet.      A trail of dust appeared on the horizon before long, kicked up by an ATV advancing from the left, then another, from the right. Erica slowed to a stop, switching the engine off and kicking the stand down while she waited for them to reach her. Before they came to a full stop in front of her, she pulled her helmet off, breaking into a grin when the first of the drivers recognized her.      “Erica?”    “Josh.” She stepped off her bike, receiving him when he came up to hug her, the pair locked for a moment in an embrace before the woman from the other vehicle took over, flinging her arms around Erica’s neck. “Sadie, good to see you.”      “Your hair! You look so different!”    “Figured a bit of change was in order.” She rubbed at the back of her head, still smiling at them.      “Look at you,” Josh was almost laughing. “Couple months in the city and you’ve got piercings all over. You get any tattoos?”      She shrugged. “Not yet.”      “And the others?” Sadie looked hopeful, grabbing the brim of her cap and wiggling it a little to adjust it. Her dark hair was tied into a bun at the nape of her neck, but a strand loosened with the movement, blowing across her face in the dry breeze.      “Forgotten about us already?” Josh smirked, quirking an eyebrow.    “No; I’m here for work.”      “How long are you staying?”    “I’m not.”      Both their smiles faded, disappointment and something else sapping some of the warmth from their expressions. Erica pretended not to notice.      “Right. Of course.” Sadie returned to her ATV for a comm, freeing it from a small bag placed on the side of the seat. “Gate, this is lookout four. Erica’s here.” She spoke into it, releasing the button on the side while she waited for a response.      “Copy.” There was a pause. “All clear, Sadie. I’ll let Cira know.”      Fuck. Erica closed her eyes, slowly breathing in, then put her helmet back on and straddled her bike. Josh had seen her expression, but thankfully knew better than to ask, returning to his ATV with a nod and a polite but rather unconvincing smile. Helmet back on, Erica mirrored the nod, flipping up the stand with the heel of her boot and starting the engine, leaving the two of them to return to their posts as she traveled on, trying not to clench her jaw too hard, or let her knuckles pale around their grip on the handlebars.

     The base was nestled in a flat between a loose circle of towering bluffs, a high wall wide enough to walk along the top of filling the gaps between the crags. Steel walkways clung to the insides of the steep cliffs, connecting the stretches of wall to form a perimeter around the entire compound, high enough that when walking it, one could see clear to the other side. Coming up on the gate, she saw two figures atop it – one on either side of the barrier, each carrying a rifle – silhouetted against the sun. She didn’t bother trying to see who it was, nor did she get the chance, because before she’d even reached the gate doors, the left one opened, pushed along by Grant and… Erica drew in a breath, rolling in through the opening on momentum alone before pulling to the side and parking her bike out of the way of — but still near — the inside of the gate. She took her sweet time switching off the engine, taking her helmet off, rummaging through her small backpack before hooking the strap over her shoulder, getting off the bike, and only when she couldn’t stall anymore without looking ridiculous, she turned around to face the shadow she’d been keeping an eye on the entire time, stretching across the sand underneath her feet.      Another hug, firmer, longer, but no comment on her hair, or the silver rings in her ears and septum.      “It’s good to see you.”    “You too, Mom.” Erica pulled back, carefully breaking the embrace to look down at her mother’s solemn face. “How is everyone?”      “Surviving.” Her mother began walking, and she followed, throwing a small wave and a halfhearted smile over her shoulder at Grant as she went. “One of the solar panels has lost connection with the inverter; we’ll need new parts for it as soon as Frances and Lionel figure out what the problem is — and we’re low on antibiotics, but otherwise the base is operational.”      Erica opened her mouth, stopped herself from asking if there was anything she could do, and nodded instead. Nobody was dead. Sick. Hurt. At least not badly enough to be worthy of mention in her mother’s eyes. “Listen, I need to talk to Moira. Could you… not tell Allegra and Marcel or Nadir that I’m here? If you see them. I don’t really…” she turned her head, looking around as if Gia and Yousef’s parents would suddenly appear, now that she had mentioned them, “have time to catch up.”      “Will you stay and eat?”    “Maybe. I don’t know.”      “I’ll be in AG.” Her mother peeled off without acknowledging her request. “Find me before you leave.” Stopped in her tracks, Erica drew a quiet sigh, then headed in the opposite direction, towards the building that housed the lab.

     Placed in the shade of one of the crags and thoroughly air-conditioned, the lab and infirmary was the coolest building in the compound, with its own set of generators and additional backup power on top of that again, should anything go wrong. Failsafe upon failsafe. The hallway she stepped into when she came through the door was dark and quiet, void of people; not unusual, so she pressed on, undeterred. Through another door towards the far left end of the hallway, the lab opened in front of her — just as dimly lit, save the blue sheen cast over the wall to her right by the UV-lamps that warmed the rows of various plants there, encased in glass. She still didn’t see anyone, so she continued past an open doorway into the next room, where she finally spotted the back of the woman she was looking for, silhouetted by the monitor at her desk.    “Moira. Why’s it so dark in here?”

     With a start, the brown-haired woman turned around, mouth open about to reply before she saw who had spoken and froze for a second, a blank look of surprise lingering on her face.      “Erica.” She stood up, rubbing her eye as she approached, lab coat swishing around her legs. Her glasses were perched on top of her head, half-tangled into the mess of greying curls she’d piled there and fastened with a tie; a strand clung to them when she tried to pluck them free, and she began impatiently trying to disentangle it, gaze focused on the hinge it’d gotten caught in. “The panels… getting fixed. Generator’s running the important stuff. Lionel said it probably wouldn’t be long, so–” she got her glasses free and hooked them into the pocket on her chest, “–I’m not wasting fuel on lights. What are you doing here?” A sigh heaved her shoulders. The woman’s hands were planted firmly on her hips.    “I need poison. As small a dose as possible, and as fatal as possible in as little time as possible.”      “Okay… I don’t really have that kinda stuff on hand. Method of administration?”    “Oral.” Erica made a face. “I assume.”      “I can make a tincture, but it’s gonna take a couple of days if you want it to be potent.”    “Days? You really don’t have anything else? Some drug that could be lethal in high doses?”      “No guarantee it’d result in death, no. It’s also not what you would define as quick.” Moira paced around, opening a small fridge filled with vials. “The only thing I have is a bit of snake venom, but that needs to be injected. We also need it to make antivenom.”    “Shit.” Erica, about to reach for her phone, remembered that it was packed away on her bike, switched off. No cell traffic in or near the base. No phones. Just radios. A few months in the city, and getting anything arranged without one was already a pain in the ass, where she’d never once minded it before. “Do both. What do you need?”      Moira shrugged. “Nothing I don’t already have. Hey— where are you going?”    “To replace your venom.” She was already through the first doorway.      “Rattlesnake!” Moira called out after her, the clinking of lab equipment sounding between her words, “The Mojave, not the diamondback!”

     In AG, her mother was walking between rows of cabbage with a spray bottle of organic pesticide, a wide-brimmed hat hiding her face from the sun.    “Mom,” she called out, pacing closer along the edge of the square plot, boots never touching the darker soil that had been placed there.      “Yes?” her mother didn’t stop her work; didn’t look up.    “Looks like I’ll be staying for a couple days. Have you seen Locke?”      “If you want to help, go to the panels, Erica.”    “I need to do something for Moira first. Have you seen him?”      “I haven’t — but you know where to look.”      She nodded, a single dip of her chin. “I’ll see you tonight, then.” Two days of living in the past, for a client she’d never worked with before. Money is no object, she thought stubbornly as she headed off in search of the only man she’d trust to wrangle a deadly snake, wondering idly if Josh and Sadie would be too in whatever huff she’d put them in to keep her company later, maybe share some moonshine. She’d need it — especially if she was staying the night with her mother.

#( erica ) #( para: a river that winds on forever ) #( title from ends of the earth by lord huron ) #( this was supposed to be posted weeks ago but whatever )

[elareine]

Deaged Jaybird anyone?

Well, judging from ao3 and tumblr, I think the answer to that question is ‘everyone and amazingly so,’ but I might as well throw my hat into the ring, thank you <3

I thought this was gonna be sweet and funny. It didn’t exactly turn out that way.

rewind, fast forward, stop Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply - Childhood Trauma, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Temporary Character Death, Angst Relationships: Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Jason Todd, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd Characters: Jason Todd, Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Tim Drake, Damian Wayne, Duke Thomas, Cassandra Cain, Alfred Pennyworth Additional Tags: Age Regression/De-Aging, De-Aged Jason Todd, Family Issues, Family Feels, Loss of Trust, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt with Temporary Comfort, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, The Batfamily Needs Therapy, Bittersweet, Unreliable Narrator

“If he says the words unstable molecules one more time, I’m going to hit something,” Dick muttered.

“Jason’s been gone for two hours, and you’re already trying to replace him?” Tim asked. It was a weak joke, and Dick didn’t laugh.

Nygma and Crane were still arguing at metaphorical gunpoint (i.e., genuine sword end), bent over the makeshift crib.

“I didn’t expect this to happen, either! What’s the point of posing riddles if he’s a baby?”

“Well you still fucked up and now we’re here, basically hostages—”

Bruce held up a hand. Everyone fell silent.

“So. His age will change several times?”

“Yes.”

“You cannot predict the intervals.”

“No.”

“What does he remember?”

“I don’t know. We should ask him…”

“…when he reaches an age where he can speak, yes. Will this stop once he reaches the age he’s supposed to be?”

“I don’t—”

“Then we will find out. Nygma, you have 24 hours to fix this.” He turned and looked at Dick. “Call reinforcements and start the lab work.”

Dick nodded, but whatever he was going to ask wasn’t going to be heard because Jason chose that moment to start wailing.

Everyone froze. Despite all the arguing, the fact that they know had to care for a baby hadn’t seemed real until that moment.

Bruce, though, just lifted Jason up and to his chest with the same natural competence with which he handled explosives and batarangs. “There, there, Jaylad. You’re hungry, hmm? I bet Alfred has already prepared a bottle. Let’s go find him, shall we?”

——

Dick volunteered to stay home and watch the baby that evening. Except when he returned to the crib with a freshly prepared bottle, it was a toddler staring back at him.

“Hey there, little man,” Dick greeted him.

Silence.

Dick tried again. “Jason, are you in there?”

The kid stared back at him, clearly wondering what the strange man was talking about. His eyes were so blue. “Me.”

“Yes, you’re Jason,” Dick agreed. “Do you remember me?”

Jason’s brow furrowed as if he was concentrating really hard. “No?”

“That’s okay. I’m Dick. I’m—” your brother. But how did you explain that to a toddler who didn’t remember any siblings? “A friend.”

After a minute of stern evaluation, Jason’s expression melted into a smile, and he held up his short chubby arms. “Up?”

“Of course.” Dick bent down and scooped Jason up with one swift motion, bouncing him up and down for a few seconds, to Jason’s great delight and giggles. Then he settled him onto his hip. “How about some food, buddy?”

“Hungry!” Jason declared. It sounded like ‘angry.’ Dick wanted to record that and use it as Jason’s ringtone forever.

He couldn’t very well give him the baby formula now, so: “Let’s go to the kitchen, then, huh? I like midnight snacks, too.”

“Snack,” Jason repeated. He seemed to like that word. “Snack, snack, snack!”

“Yes, snack. Hey B,” he called softly through the non-emergency line as they walked through the corridor, “listen to who woke up.”

“Baba?” Jason asked. Dick had no idea whether he meant Bruce or was asking for his own father. Either way, it was devastating.

“Jaylad,” Bruce murmured back. Dick didn’t call him out on the use of real names. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”

“No.”

Dick tried not to laugh at the sleepy pout. “To be fair, I don’t know how ‘slept like a baby for hours,’ literally, affects his sleep schedule.”

“How old is he?”

“About… two? Maybe?” Dick was not an expert in estimating the age of children, so sue him. “Maybe younger. He’s real small, and he doesn’t remember me.”

Silence. “N, we’re coming home.”

The bats had barely been out for an hour. “Sure. See you soon.”

——

It was Tim who discovered the next transformation. He’d taken over the early morning shift by virtue of not sleeping anyway. Jason’s room had been quiet; Tim had just wanted to make sure he was doing okay when he was greeted with a much larger shape in the bed than he’d expected.

Which, fuck, that couldn’t be good, right? Last time Jason had only skipped a couple of years, but now he was at least six.

The figure was also too still to be asleep. Tim switched on the nightlight they’d installed by the door and looked at Jason. Yeah, his eyes were definitely open. It was eerie, the way he held himself still as if he was trying to disappear into the darkness. Don’t notice me, his position screamed. I’m not here, go away.

It was so familiar. Tim couldn’t breathe for a second for the way it was a perfect reversal of the way he himself had spent his childhood. Notice me, look at me, don’t leave.

“Hey,” Tim called out softly, unconsciously imitating Dick’s voice. “Can’t sleep?”

“Who are you.” His voice was clear and hard, a far cry from the sweet toddler who had played with Tim’s cape when they’d come home from patrol at midnight.

That had been four hours ago. It was going to be a long day, wasn’t it?

“I’m Tim,” he said. “You don’t remember me right now because you’re… sick, but we know each other.”

The distrust did not wane. “Where am I?”

“At my father’s house. Wayne Manor.” Tim smiled. “Maybe you’ve heard of it?”

“Who else is here?”

“Your family.”

That did not have the expected effect, at all. Jason shrank back, hands gripping the blanket tight even as his expression remained blank.

Tim’s hand moved to his bracelet and pressed a button. He’d promised Bruce to wake him up if there was a development. Besides, he was in over his head here, and he knew it.

“I’m going to call them, okay?” There was no answer.

It took less than two minutes for the doorway to be filled with people. Bruce was first, of course, closely followed by Dick, with Damian, Duke, and Cass lingering just behind them in the hallway.

“You’re going to crowd him,” Tim pointed out. “We’re all strangers.”

“Tim is right.” Bruce stepped forward. “Stay back.”

They watched as he crouched down in front of the bed. “Hi, Jason. You don’t remember me, and I know that’s scary.”

“I’m not scared.”

Tim couldn’t see his face, but he would bet good money that Bruce smiled at that. “No, you aren’t because you’re brave, aren’t you.”

“Hmm. Where’s mom?” Jason asked.

“She’s not here. I’m sorry. You’re staying with our family and me for now.”

“Where’s dad?”

“He’s not here, either, but—”

Jason’s shoulders deflated.

Oh. Oh.

Tim could feel the tension rack up in the room as every single family member was simultaneously filled with rage.

Bruce, however, looked calm. “As long as we are here,” he said, quietly but with the kind of conviction that could move mountains, “no one is going to hurt you. Your mother is fine, and so are you.”

And Jason looked up and believed him. Tim could see it in the way he relaxed, how he slumped down against Bruce’s bulk as if it was the only thing holding him up. He didn’t say anything.

Tim felt a gentle tug on his elbow. He followed the others outside, quietly, leaving Bruce to keep vigil. It was touching, but something about the scene bothered Tim.

“Do you think,” he quietly asked Dick as the group dispersed, “that we should call someone else? His friends? You have Roy’s number.”

“It will help, being here, when he reaches Robin age. They’re strangers until he’s an adult.”

That wasn’t the point. Tim frowned. “I know you think he should be with family when he’s like this. But Dick—we haven’t been his family for a long time. We shouldn’t see this stuff.”

Dick swallowed, but he didn’t argue with that. “B already knows.”

“Not all of it. Not what will happen when—”

“Yeah.” Dick’s shoulders slumped. “But do you think you can convince B of that?”

“No.” Tim sighed. “No, I don’t.”

——

“Master Jason, what are you doing in the kitchen?”

It was eight a.m., and even Master Tim was asleep by now. Alfred had kept an ear out for the sound of a preschooler waking up, but Master Jason must’ve aged again. He looked to be about nine now.

The kid frowned. “I don’t know who you are, but I need to make breakfast, or mom won’t eat.”

Alfred took a moment to fix his apron, blinking discreetly. “Of course, Master Jason. Your mother, however, isn’t here at the moment. Would you like to help me prepare some pancakes?”

——

There was a sound like something heavy falling, then a curse. “Where the fuck am I?”

Dick and Tim exchanged a glance. They’d installed Jason in front of the tv, at first, but he’d been more interested in the few children’s books Bruce kept around for guests.

Tim had tagged along—at this point, he had somehow wound up one of Jason’s primary caretakers, and wasn’t that a sentence he hadn’t expected himself to ever think? Looked like the time for children’s books had run out.

When they walked over to the armchair Jason had buried himself in, they found a pile of limbs in front of it, scrambling to get up and look at them. The family had taken to dressing Jason in the largest clothes they could get him in without them falling off, just to spare his modesty at the next change. Not that Jason had really grown much over the last few episodes…

At least he was dressed as he woke up in an unfamiliar living room because he couldn’t remember the previous episode or his adult life, Tim thought. Honestly, this curse/science mishap/whatever seemed hellbent on making their lives as miserable as possible.

Dick advanced cautiously. “Jason—”

“And you would be?” the boy asked, his voice suddenly much lighter.

“My name’s Dick Grayson, and you’re safe here.”

“Hmm, am I?” There was something wrong with the way Jason looked at Dick. His weight was shifted to the side, pushing his hip to the front, his long lashes almost fluttering, and there was something challenging in his gaze as if he was daring Dick—as if he was—

The idea was so incongruous—so impossible—that it took Tim too long to connect the dots. It was the exact pose he saw the working girls and boys adopt, night after night when they approached a car.

The thing with Tim was: He could be thrown off a building, and his brain would still keep on working all the way down. (No, seriously, that happened several times.) It was just how it was. So he could be shocked at what was happening, at what he’d just learned about Jason, and still notice that Dick wasn’t.

Perhaps he was making a mountain of a molehill, then. Perhaps Jason had just seen too much on the streets and was trying to play along, to give Dick what Jason thought he wanted, and then he’d punch him when he got too close and get out of here.

Perhaps.

“Let’s just—wait it out, okay?” Dick sighed. “You got temporary amnesia. It’ll all be clear tomorrow.”

“Sure.” Jason looked like he didn’t believe him, but was willing to run with it. “You got some food?”

——

“Oh, hey Dick! You look different!”

Dick thought he was about to cry with relief. Finally, a Jason that knew them, that wouldn’t have to be reassured about their intentions every few hours. “Hey, Jason.”

“Is it for a case?”

“Something like that,” he said. “You’re in the future, sort of. We have to wait a few hours before you can go back.”

Jason’s eyes went wide. “Really? That’s so cool! Can I talk to myself? Where am I? What year is it? What am I doing?”

“We can’t tell you that,” Tim said suddenly. “You know. Time travel code. Gotta follow the rules.”

“Ah.” Jason nodded as if that made any sense. “But you can tell me about other things, right? What about the cave? Can I see how it changed?”

“No, not the cave—” not while that damn memorial was still there, “—but Alfred has a collection of photos in one room if you want to see.”

That would be fine. Jason wasn’t in any of those, anyway.

“Whoa,” Jason commented when he saw how many pictures there were. “This family sure has grown. Wait, who is that?”

“That’s me,” Tim said.

Jason frowned. “That’s a Robin outfit. Are you Robin after me?”

And Dick—he could see how Tim tensed up. Understandably so, they had all heard what Jason called him. “Yeah, I—I didn’t mean to repl—you were—”

“It’s okay,” Jason shrugged. “Robin is more than one person, right? Dickie here said that. You don’t stop being Robin. You just share it.”

Tim blinked once. Then again.

Dick watched in some concern, because—surely that’s what he said to him back when he gave Robin to Damian, too? Right? It was all such a blur, but he must have.

Jason was already moving on to the next picture. “Wow, are these your wings?!”

“Yeah.”

“Did you make them? That’s so cool, I wanna fly too!”

Dick watched in amusement as a blush spread across Tim’s face. “I could show you the plans?”

“That would be fun! It could be a project.” Then he whirled around. “Do you go to school?”

“Uh, not really.”

Jason frowned. “You should. Grades are important. You can’t go superheroing forever if you don’t have money.”

“That’s true.” Tim looked suitably chastised. Dick bit down on a laugh as he watched Jason walk along Alfred’s little gallery, commenting on everything he saw and pulling Tim along.

God, thinking about the kid they saw yesterday, this Jason was a miracle. Dick knew what it meant to pull yourself up after darkness crashed down on you, how to find a way to smile after you lost everything.

And he knew, too, what a single person who cared for you—who believed in you could do.

(Maybe Dick should’ve remembered that when Jason became a miracle for the second time.)

Bruce had been that for both of them. Even now, Dick could see him at the doorway, watching Jason with such pride and unbearable longing on his face. Then a shadow fell over his expression, and he turned away.

“Dick!” Jason called over. “Tim has never heard the train story! C’mon, you’re the best at telling it.”

“He hasn’t heard it because it’s embarrassing,” Dick whined, but he walked over and joined them. Might as well make the most of this, right?”

——

“I’m sorry, Bruce,” Zatanna said. “There’s nothing I can do.”

She was magic, Cass knew, and Bruce didn’t like magic. So if he was asking her for help… Duke, next to her, looked worried, as well.

They weren’t letting the two of them see Jason, and that was okay. Neither of them had ever been close to Jason. Not that Dick or Tim had been, exactly, but they cared in a way Cass and Duke admittedly didn’t.

“Is there anything that could slow down his aging process, at least?”

“Nothing but putting him into stasis, and he would not thank you for that, Bruce.”

Duke dared to ask: “But Nygma said the effect of the gas should stop once he’s reached his proper age, right? So that should be… alright?”

“And what,” Bruce ground out, “if the next time he phases forward, he’s dead?”

“Bruce.” Zatanna put a hand on his shoulder, empathy in every line of her body.

Bruce shook her off as if he couldn’t bear the touch. “We don’t know if he’ll wake up this time.”

For a second, Cass wanted to hurt everyone who made Bruce sound like that. But she knew there was nothing she could do. Love, she knew, cut like that sometimes.

——

Damian was well aware that they would prefer to keep him far away from Todd. To a certain extent, he understood. He would not wish more people than necessary to watch him relive his own childhood, either.

However, no one in this family was prepared for what was coming next. Damian knew.

The minute the screaming began, Damian walked into the room.

Jason was convulsing on the bed. Dick was frantically checking him for injuries, and Damian clicked his tongue. “That won’t help. He is not bleeding.”

Bruce turned to him. “Damian, what—”

“He’s in pain. His body is half-alive, half-dead,” Damian told them calmly. His voice wasn’t shaking. It wasn’t. “It won’t stop until he swims in a Lazarus Pit.”

His father should not look like this. Helpless. Pitiful. Damian resented him for it, just a little bit. Father had not been there the first time. This would only last for hours, and all he had to do was wait. The crushing weight of how to fix this was not on him as it had been on Mother.

“I’m going to get a tranquilizer,” Dick murmured.

——

Duke wondered what they would do if Jason woke up in full rage mode. He had seen the files, had read everything he could the minute this started happening. Cass had told him the rest, pieced together from hints her brothers had dropped over the years. There was no way they could deal with that if they were unprepared and Jason was in their home. No way.

So he was… nervous. Just a bit. Enough so that he was camping out in front of the bedroom that they were keeping Jason for now. Sure, Jason had been medicated, but Duke had seen Bruce trying that on Red Hood before. Red Hood had barely slowed down. Whatever the Lazarus Pits were, exactly, they sure did a number on a person’s metabolism.

Duke got his answer when Bruce sent everyone out of the room. Batman would wait alone, then. Dick and Tim obeyed, albeit reluctantly.

Tim, however, returned a minute later with Bruce’s utility belt, shock full of batarangs and other weapons. The older man, however, hesitated to take it.

“Bruce,” Tim said, and he very gently touched a scar on his neck.

Bruce took the belt.

——

The next morning, Jason left.

Minutes before, Bruce watched him as he woke up.

He had known as soon as he had seen Jason as a toddler that his son would not forgive him for this. The others, maybe. They had only tried to help. Bruce was the one too selfish to let Jason keep his secrets, bring him to people he trusted.

Because that sure as hell wasn’t him anymore. Deservedly so or not, Bruce had had to face that reality a long time ago.

Still, when Jason opened his eyes and there was only a tinge of green in them, nothing like the rage of the pit, just like they had been the last time Bruce had seen him without the mask—for that one moment, Bruce allowed himself to hope.

Maybe, just maybe, Jason wouldn’t remember. Then he could use the whole thing as a learning experience—see it as bonding, even—something that would allow them to finally move on; that would help Bruce to find the right trigger to get Jason to give up his mad crusade and come home.

Then Jason blinked, and his eyes were empty even of hate.

“My phone?” was all he asked.

“In the cave.” Bruce kept his voice even because what else could he do?

Jason nodded. Then he left, and he did not come back.

#elareine writes #rewind fast forward stop #batfamily #jason todd

[uzumaki2810]

How are you feeling about 100YQ animation? Just curious!

Fairy Tail as a series died for me all the way back in chapter 504. I still remember something in my head snapping as I read Gray blaming Natsu for his loses and going 'this is the dumbest shit I've ever read'. Gray is my favourite in the series so to see his character be completely assassinated like that was infuriating and at the time I thought it was the worst case of character assassination I’d ever seen (oh how utterly naive I was).

Then the rest of Alvarez came out and fundamentally destroyed every single story thread the series had. My investment in the series took a massive nose dive because of it. And it certainly didn't help when that one interview came out and Mashima pretty much admitted that he had no plan on how the series would go AND that he didn't care about continuity. At the time I thought this was the biggest ‘fuck you’ a writer could give to their audience & their investment (again oh how disgustingly naive I was).

And now we're here with the sequel, a great example of what happens when a series over stays its welcome. There's no stakes since it's being written by an author that can't even keep a old man dead. None of these characters are in any danger so there's no reason to care. A character could get reduced to a pile of ashes and I still wouldn’t care, I still wouldn’t believe they’re dead until I read the very last panel. The world building is also terrible (not that the original series had any good world building to begin with) none of the places we go to feel like well established lands rich with history and culture. Instead they all feel like battle arenas where the big fight happens. Plus it doesn’t help that a lot of the things that happened in the sequel are the same events that happened in the original series with just a different coat of paint:

A battle against all Fairy Tail members where Mashima tried to add stakes in saying the white witch can kill anyone at anytime (hilarious that he thinks people will still fall for this). 

This was then followed by another Face battle.

More clones but unlike Edolas where the existence of the characters were justified, these clones in Fairy Nail aren’t. If anything it would’ve been funnier had the actors not looked anything like our characters similar to in One Piece where the Straw Hats are reunited & see a group of criminals impersonating them. But no instead we have literal clones of our characters just because. But nah turn ya brain off, don’t think about it - look the ships are happening!

Another secret brother revealed in the form of Ignia so Natsu can have the same ‘storyline’ in Alvarez and I say that very loosely since Zeref & Natsu being brothers meant fuck all in the original series. 

The characters have been drastically reduced to one or two traits they have. Their arcs were destroyed completed in the original series and there's hardly anything left for most them to do other than be ship fan service since that's where most of Mashima’s revenue comes from now. A good majority of the characters just feel like hollow corpses being strung up by strings to act out what fans will like the most and thereby making the most money.

Nalu as a whole has been a massive let down due to Mashima's constant baiting & their moment in 545 where Natsu says 'we'll be together forever' which is considered to be a romantic gesture has been retconned since Lucy in the sequel thinks Natsu isn't interested in romance. Plus the way Natsu has been written, good god, idk why Mashima thought it was funny to reduce him to having the intelligence of a child. The way Natsu's been written & the way that one serious moment where Lucy calms him down burning herself in the process got reduced to a fucking pee joke has been a massive disappointment. I've been meaning to write a post regarding just how badly Mashima screwed up & wasted all the pay offs this relationship could have given us but that's something for another time.

So to answer your question on how I feel about the 100 year quest getting an anime? Happy for the people who still find genuine enjoyment in this series but I’m apathetic to the whole thing. After a string of disappointments from both this series & other IPs I was greatly invested in I just don’t care anymore. I now live in a world where not even THE LAST OF US could get a decent sequel. So I’ve stopped being super invested in things anymore. 

I’ve always suspected that the sequel was just something Mashima had as a safety blanket in case Edens Zero didn’t meet his or his editor’s expectations. Now hearing that the sales for EZ haven’t been all that great for a mangaka of his status it’s making a lot of sense. The anime is here to give a bigger boost in sales both in the manga & official merchandise. I’ll gladly bet you anything that the first pieces of merchandise we’ll get will be ship related. 

So to sum it all up I'm literally only here for whatever conclusion Nalu gets. 

#asks