#Dani wouldn’t but PETER fucking would

[wheredidhiseyebrowsgo]

I was wondering if you knew any fics with Scott being a good friend? I feel like people villainise Scott too much, and that they ignore that fact that they've been friends for literally nearly two decades. I don't really mind the ship, I just rally want a Good Friend Scott McCall fic for once.

Hi @woopy-doopey! @kevaaronday made this fic and said "Ngl i do love a good bad friend scott fic, but good friend scott always hits the spot!"

You Can Stay As Long As You Want by jacyevans (5/5 | 26,116 | Teen | Sterek) When Derek arrives upstairs, Erica takes one look at him, rolls her eyes, and takes the bags of groceries from his hands.

“So I see Mr. 5B has arrived,” she says, leaning against the counter, shoulders shaking with laughter.

Derek hates his pack.

Stiles and Scott are the new tenants in Derek's apartment building. While Derek and Stiles attempt to ignore their burgeoning interest in each other, their respective packs make sure nothing will keep the two idiots from falling in love - except maybe the faulty elevator.

Then There Was You by WaitASecondWhat (4/4 | 16,913 | Mature | Sterek) Stiles Stilinski was Scott's best friend and no one could say anything different. They had been friends since they were babies. Unfortunately Stiles had to move to New York when he was 11 to see if a special doctor could help his mother, Claudia. They couldn’t and she died that year. Stiles' dad didn’t expect her to pass so quickly and had already secured a job so they stayed. It had been 6 years but they were still as close as ever. Except Stiles didn’t know about the whole supernatural thing. 

Then Stiles comes back and happiness, crushing on Derek and angst ensue.

the banana bread incident by Thealmostrhetoricalquestion (1/1 | 10,287 | Teen | Sterek) "Is this a plastic spoon?" Stiles demands in disgust. "You do realise that there's actual cutlery in the kitchen, right? I'm surrounded by morons who don't know how to use a kitchen."

“I know how to use a kitchen,” Derek protests lazily. “It’s just that all the other spoons were dirty.”

“There’s this revolutionary new invention,” Stiles says, widening his eyes in mock-amazement. “It’s called a sink.”

In which there are tiny pink shorts, a kissing gate, a cat called Pumpkin and a plethora of awkward moments.

Scott McCall’s I Saw It First by WhereDestiniesMeet17 (1/1 | 5,875 | Teen | Steter) It's as he's drifting off to sleep that he has revelation number three. They have no fucking idea. Not a clue that they are in love, much less with each other. Scott laughs so hard that he wakes not only himself, but half the pack. 

-

Or the one where Scott figures out that Stiles and Peter are in love way before they do. Meanwhile, they have monsters to take care of.

Diary Of An Overworked Nurse by RoryMarx (1/1 | 4,636 | Gen) If you have it… we’ll do something,” Scott suddenly said, and then they were hugging.

Crystal looked at them, could feel the other adults do the same, and the only word she could describe the hug with was desperate. Scott and Stiles clung to each other like two people afraid to drown. It was heartbreaking. These teenagers loved each other. No matter what the MRI showed today, Crystal knew Stiles wouldn’t just have his dad to count on – he would also have Scott.

OR: Over the years the nurses and doctors of Beacon Hills Memorials watched Stiles and Scott grow up - they saw a lot of tears, hugs, laughter, and grief.

5 Times Scott and Stiles Celebrated Their Humanity + 1 Time There Were Werewolves

Hold the Sugar; You’re Sweet Enough by Dani Mahealani (1/1 | 2,846 | Gen | Sterek) Stiles loves his friends, he really does. But as he’s making Derek’s latte, he catches what Scott’s written on Derek’s cup and groans.

“What are you, twelve? You know Derek already has my number. He’s had my number. We text every day,” Stiles says as he works on the latte.

Scott looks over at him from the register with the most innocent grin in the world and shrugs. “I know, but I wanted to make a statement.”

Stiles rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “You mean adding ‘+ SS’ underneath his name and drawing a heart around it wasn’t enough of a statement?”

“If you’re not going to flirt with him yourself, I’ll just flirt with him for you,” Scott says, shrugging.

or the one where their meddling friends decide it's high time for stiles and derek to get their acts together and date

Summertime Fling by TheSlyestFox (2/2 | 2,740 | Teen | Stiles/Brett) After all the supernatural drama over the last few years, Stiles is ready for a break. Summer brings the perfect opportunity for a respite when he signs up for a painting class through the local community college. He loves his pack, but a little R&R is just what he needs to reset for senior year. His plans go awry when Brett Talbot unexpectedly joins him at his table. He's annoyed at first, but Brett's flirtatious and jovial personally cuts right through his defenses.

#teen wolf #sterek #stiles stilinski #derek hale #stiles and scott #anon

[prestonsarchives]

when Rebecca woke up under the water because Peter left her body in those last moments so he didn’t have to feel the pain; so that he could trap her under the surface of the lake and force her to drown with him. ownership.

vs

when Dani wouldn’t let Jamie swim down and die with her, wouldn’t let Jamie become the lady of the lake; when she sacrificed her life earlier than she might’ve had to so that Jamie could be safe. love.

love and ownership: they’re opposites, really.

#jESUS fucking christ I just started thinking about ‘but the lady in the lake was different now’ and everything hurts #Dani wouldn’t but PETER fucking would #we hate Peter so true #dani would never :((( #god my stomach hurts just thinking about the scene #ever get that? where you’re so sad your stomach actively starts to hurt? #right anyway on with the proper tags #bly manor #the haunting of bly manor #bly #bly manor spoilers #damie #dani clayton #dani x jamie #jamie taylor #jamie thobm #amelia eve #victoria pedretti #thobm #the haunting

[novelconcepts]

i think always about the scene where dani and flora were about to escape the manor before viola showed up, and flora asks where are they going dani said “i don’t know” or something. do you think that if they succeed to leave the house dani would’ve tried to reach jamie? after all they in theory had a date in the pub, so in theory dani knew the little flat above the pub…

It's complete luck, Dani will think later. True idiot luck, nothing more--maybe the first lucky thing to happen in the last hour. Absolutely, they shouldn’t find the village at all. Absolutely, they shouldn’t have managed it: a grown woman with no car, no idea where she’s going, and an eight year old girl sobbing against her shoulder as she runs. They should wind up lost in the dark, staggering desperately in a circle, maybe turning right back up where they started. 

Utter luck, that the adrenaline holds out, that the darkness doesn’t swallow them whole, that she finds herself stumbling through the door of a ramshackle little pub with Flora. Shouldn’t happen. Some tiny part of her wonders if this isn’t the magic of Bly, extending far beyond the reach of that house. Some tiny part of her thinks, If it can reach this far, what’s stopping them from doing the same?

“Hey,” the old man behind the bar snaps. “You can’t bring her in here!”

“Please.” Her head is pounding. Her throat is raw. Screaming hoarsely into a gag will do that to a person. “Please, I’m looking for--for Jamie...”

She trails off, realization striking: she doesn’t even know Jamie’s last name. A woman she somehow feels she’s known forever, a woman she is painfully certain she is already growing to love in ways Eddie couldn’t have pulled out of her with an infinite lifetime, and she doesn’t know her last name. It would be hysterically funny, if she could remember what laughter tasted like. 

More good luck, sweeping in like a thunderstorm: the old man is nodding, though he still looks uneasy at the sight of Flora’s puffy red eyes. At the sight, too, of Dani’s rubbed-raw mouth. They must look awful, a pair of ghosts in their own right, crashing into the easy calm of his night. 

“She know you’re comin’?” he asks gruffly, and Dani shakes her head. “But she knows you.”

He’s looking at Flora, and Dani wonders if the small-town awareness Owen has spoken of with such irritation extends to the Wingrave children. Probably. Probably everyone in town knows the miserable story of two orphans left to cope in that big old haunted house. 

“She knows,” Dani says, when it becomes clear Flora is incapable of her usual boisterous chatter. “Please. Can you call her?”

He makes a face, his hand straying to the black plastic handset behind his head. “Fine, but if you’re lyin’, it’s only fair I warn you she's got a temper--”

Dani lowers Flora onto a stool, leans her weight against the bar, presses a hand to her head. This is insane, she tells the spooling pressure in her chest where air does not seem willing to flow. This is insane, to think there are ghosts pulling at the Wingrave children’s strings, pulling at Miles even now.

Miles. She left him. She left Miles, Rebecca Jessel’s warm voice still ringing in her ears. It’s too late. Too late. Too--

“Dani?” Jamie’s voice, just behind her. She can’t bring herself to lift her head and look. It’d be so much sweeter to remember her last image of Jamie instead, the last glimpse of normalcy drunk greedily in with no knowledge of what would come next. There will be other nights. Promise. Jamie’s hands curled around her own. Jamie’s kiss pressed to her lips with uncharacteristic euphoria. Jamie had giggled, and Dani had felt ten feet tall, the luckiest woman in the world, the richest--

“Flora.” Jamie is bending, a hand pressed to Flora’s face, smoothing back the sweaty mess of her hair. “What’s going on? Where’s Miles? What are you--”

Flora makes a hitching sound, and Dani imagines trying to explain it--not to Jamie, who believes her so readily even when there’s no reason, but to Henry. Henry Wingrave, trusting her with his brother’s children. Henry Wingrave, who she’ll have to face and say, Sir, I did my best, but you never warned me about the ghosts--

“C’mon.” Jamie’s uttered that word once before, an incontrovertible command. Last night, taking Dani’s hand in the kitchen, leading her out to take in flowers and stories. She doesn’t quite do it the same way now--her hand brushes the small of Dani’s back instead of her fingers, urging her gently along--but Dani can hear that same calm charge in her voice. It’s as though Jamie understands something has broken, and has chosen stability in answer to the too-big horror strangling Dani’s ability to explain. 

She lets herself be propelled through the pub, through a door at the back, up a flight of stairs. Somewhere at the back of her mind, she’s loosely aware that it shouldn’t be this way--that she should have visited Jamie’s flat for the first time on Jamie’s schedule, in Jamie’s truck, with Jamie grinning at her over a beer. But, then, what about tonight has gone to plan? What about tonight has been right?

“Sit,” Jamie says, urging her visitors toward a lumpy couch at the center of the small room. She looks calm, though Dani suspects it’s the kind of calm that might at any moment crack open. “Talk.”

An invitation, more than a demand. Dani buries her head in her hands.

“It’s crazy. It’s crazy.”

“You ran here in the dark,” Jamie says. “You ran here in the dark with Flora. Wouldn’t have done that if it wasn’t bad.”

Shouldn’t have done it at all. Should have called Jamie--run through the house in search of Hannah--done any number of things that wasn’t a flat sprint over unfamiliar ground into town. Should have kept her head. 

“Miles,” she says, and almost shatters right there. Her head is a land mine, pulsing warning. Her chest aches. Jamie is kneeling on the floor, she realizes, her hands busy at Flora’s face, her hands, searching for sign of damage. Dani inhales. “She’s--she’s okay. Rebecca made sure of it.”

Jamie looks up sharply. “What?”

Dani knows what she looks like, what she must sound like: a rumpled, ragged mess spouting dead women’s names like she has any right to them. Still, Jamie isn’t staring at her like she’s crazy. She’s watching with guarded eyes, her hands--satisfied that Flora is, physically, unharmed--moving to Dani. 

“What about Rebecca?”

“She let us go.” Jamie’s thumb is pressing very gently to her jaw, tilting her head to give the lamplight room to spill over her skin. She hears a breath catch, hears Jamie make a tiny, wounded sound at the sight of the skin rubbed red around Dani’s mouth. “She told me to take her and run.”

And I shouldn’t have. I’ve never listened to ghosts before. Why start now?

“Rebecca,” Jamie repeats. Her hand slips behind Dani’s head, gently inspecting; she finds the knot soon enough, Dani’s telltale gasp of pain pulling something taut behind her eyes. “Fuck, Dani, what--”

“Peter.” Flora’s voice is very small, a shock of unexpected color amidst Jamie’s usual palette. “Peter said we were helping.”

The calm in Jamie does not just break at those words; it erupts, her entire body revolutionized by her sudden rage. She’s got a temper, the old man had said, and Dani’s seen notes of it--at the rose bushes, hoisting a shotgun in the dark--but never quite like this. She stands abruptly straight, her shoulders pulling back, her expression livid. 

“What,” she says, “do you mean, helping?”

It spills out in a chaotic rush--Flora, mostly, explaining through hiccups. Dani supplements where she can, as if she understands any of it. As if she hasn’t, in some part of her throbbing brain, wondered all this time if the evening wasn’t a hallucination born of her concussion. 

“He hit you,” Jamie says. Not a question. “Tied you up. In the attic. And he took Miles.”

Those are, Dani thinks wearily, the bullet points. “He said they were trapped. That the house would wear them away. Rebecca wouldn’t...”

“'Course not,” Jamie says hotly. “’Course she wouldn’t. Fucking Quint.”

Dani blinks up at her. Her vision is gray around the edges, she realizes. Can’t be a good sign. She shivers. “You believe us?”

A little of the rage melts out of Jamie at this--her eyes softening just a bit, her fingers uncurling from a fist. She almost smiles. “You two? Best people I fuckin’ know, why wouldn’t I believe you?”

“Because it’s crazy,” Dani says hollowly. “It’s crazy, but--” But that little boy had stood wrong, with Peter pulling his strings. That sweet, lovely little boy had gone hard around the mouth, had gone steely at the shoulders, had held himself like a man three times his age and thirty times more capable of cruelty. 

“I believe you,” Jamie says simply. She gives Dani’s shoulder a squeeze, Flora’s hair a gentle ruffle. “I believe you.”

The flat is quiet after that, for a while. Wrung out, Flora is dozing against the arm of the couch before she seems to know it. Jamie gestures for Dani to stand, the pair of them gently shifting Flora until she is resting comfortably on a throw pillow. She breathes like she’s still preparing a scream, like she is still ready to charge back into that house after her brother, even as Jamie drapes a blanket over her small frame. 

She leads Dani to the bathroom, then, sets her down on the toilet seat. Her hands are steady as ever, gentle as she administers a warm cloth to Dani’s scraped skin--cleaning around her mouth, around wrists that have been chafed nearly bloody--and a bundle of ice to the back of Dani’s head. Dani chases a handful of aspirin with cool water and tries to look as though the whole world isn’t swimming away from her. 

“It’s bad,” she says. “It’s so bad, Jamie. I couldn’t do anything.”

Jamie makes a soft sound of acknowledgment. Dani’s wrist is upturned in her hand, her fingers skimming lightly across rope burn. Dani barely feels it. 

“What if--” She doesn’t want to give it voice. Doesn’t want to admit it’s even possible. Isn’t there something to be said for the power of belief, unpredictability shaped by human faith? “What if he really is gone for good? How do I explain that? How do I live with that?”

Jamie raises her eyes. “Not gonna have to find out.”

Dani frowns. “What do you mean?”

“I mean.” She turns, drops the wet cloth in the sink, clicks the cap back onto the bottle of pills. “Didn’t let Quint get away with this shite in life. Don’t think for a fuckin’ moment I’d let him do it now.”

Dani shakes her head. “It’s too late--Rebecca said--”

“Love Rebecca.” Her voice is strangled when she says this, as though Jamie is speaking through the entire last year of grief at once. “Loved Rebecca, sister I never had. But she didn’t know everything. Christ, even just getting wound up with him--she makes mistakes, too.”

“But--”

“Dani.” Jamie takes her face between steady hands. Even just this easy proximity, the sweep of her breath not far from Dani’s own, settles something Dani thinks has been screaming most of her life. “I promise. Whatever we have to do--whatever it takes--we’ll fix this.”

“We’ll fix a ghost,” Dani says flatly. Jamie smiles, leaning in until her forehead knocks lightly against Dani’s own. 

“We’ll fix Miles. Kid’s been through too much already. I’ll be damned before I let Quint have him.”

It’s just as insane a thing to say as the rest of the night. Jamie doesn’t know--can’t know--how to make this right. Jamie is just one woman, though maybe the best person Dani’s ever been fortunate enough to find. Jamie can’t turn back time. 

Still. She almost forgets that, watching her make phone calls--to Owen, and to the house, where it rings and rings and Hannah never picks up. She almost forgets that Jamie is not a superhero, as she presses the ice pack to Dani’s head with one hand and says into the receiver, “Quint, yeah. Dunno how. Does it matter?”

She almost forgets that they are not superheroes when Owen knocks on the door. That they are only an au pair, a gardener, a cook, and a little girl. That they are no match for whatever the house has become over the years. She almost forgets. 

Because the set of Owen’s mouth is uncompromising for the first time since she’s met him. Because Flora, refreshed from her nap and no longer tilting toward tears, is grim in the seat beside him. Because, thigh warm against her own in the backseat, Jamie is holding her hand like it’s never crossed her mind to let go. 

They are not superheroes. They are not prepared for the ghosts of Bly Manor. They don’t know where Hannah is, how Rebecca is holding on, what Quint will do in Miles’ body. They don’t know anything at all. 

But they are going back. Because some stories need changing. Because some tragedies cannot be simply accepted. Because Peter Quint deserves to be put in his place, and Miles Wingrave deserves a life of freedom, and whatever’s gone wrong at the great, good place--their home--can be set right. Dani can feel that, way down beneath the headache and the fear. It can be, even if she doesn’t yet know how.

You, she thinks, looking from Owen at the wheel, Flora seatbelted carefully in, Jamie running a thumb over her knuckles. Me, she thinks, watching her own battered face in the rearview mirror. Us, she thinks, remembering the dinner table earlier that night, Hannah’s smile, the music of their mingled laughter. 

This can be fixed. Somehow. It must be.

“Right,” she says in a voice much stronger than she expects as they pull up the long drive. “Step one: find Miles.”

#fanfiction #ficlet #the haunting of bly manor #the haunting of bly manor spoilers #dani clayton #dani x jamie #I suspect this was a question more than a prompt but I've gotten it prompted a number of times #and...thought why not

[mediocre-writerr]

anyone else [dani clayton]

Dani Clayton x fem reader

Summary: Y/N and Dani met through their mutual friend Jamie and instantly started a relationship. However, Dani starts feeling a little jealous at the two girls friendship.

*not my gif*

You sat on the chairs of the greenhouse with your best friend Jamie. Sipping proper English tea and not the poison that your girlfriend Dani would usually make. A plate of scones on the table in front of you, just enjoying the dewy morning. 

“Where’s Poppins anyway?” Jamie asks breaking the silence.

“I think she’s still asleep,” you say shrugging, taking another sip of your tea. 

“Long night, last night eh?” she asks and let out a soft laugh careful to not wake anyone up. 

“Maybe, maybe not.” you reply with a little wink and she pretends to throw up, you let out another laugh at her reaction. 

“You’re so annoying!” she says pushing your shoulder lightly. 

“If you were here last night, you wouldn’t be able to hear anything though. We had to keep it somewhat PG so the kids won’t hear.” you add on continue to make her grossed out. 

“Oi fuck off already!” she yells loudly and pushes you again. 

But you don’t stop you keep pushing and making up somewhat fake stories just to make her grossed out. Until she finally cracked, she got up from out of her comfortable spot on the chair and started to to tickle you in all the places that you were ticklish in the most. 

You and Jamie have been best friends for as long as you could remember. Probably since primary school when she moved there because of her foster family and you were inseparable since then. There were times where Jamie would just stay at your house because of how terrible the foster family actually was. You became as close as regular sisters. 

And when she started working at Bly you met everyone and knew all of the gossip because of how often you were there. You’ve seen Flora and Miles turn from sweethearts to little shites who you don’t love any less. You were there for the most toxic relationship of Peter and Rebecca. And to watch Owen and Hannah’s relationship blossom. 

Then you met the new au pair: Dani freakin’ Clayton. The quirky blonde haired American who makes terrible tea. 

“Y/N!” Flora and Miles scream as they see you step out of you car in front of their beautiful manor that was now filled with haunting memories. 

You knelt down onto the gravel and held your arms open for the two kids, “Hello kids!” They crash into both sides of your arms and embrace you in a hug. 

“I want you to meet someone perfectly splendid,” Flora says looping her arm with yours as she guides you into the house. 

“Oh is that right?” you ask looking down at the little girl.

“Hey Flora, who’s this?” you look up from Flora to the sound of an unknown voice. 

You were met with a blonde haired beauty and your heart stopped at the sight. She had vivacious blue eyes and had a cute little smile that could light up the whole world. 

You un-loop your arm from Flora’s before extending your hand out to her, “Y/L/N, Y/N Y/L/N. I’m a really good friend of Jamie’s.”

She shakes your hand and electricity coursed through your body, “Dani Clayton, I’m the new au pair.” your heart drops at the word thinking back to when Rebecca said the same thing. 

You felt someone’s hand pat your shoulder hard, “So I see that you two have been acquainted.” your hear Jamie say and you hesitantly release Dani’s hand not wanting the feeling to go away before turning to your best friend. 

“Yeah,” I say with a smile and Jamie nods. 

“Alright then well I need your help in the greenhouse, if you don’t mind.” she says immediately whisking you away from the au pair. 

You turn your head back to look at her and she was staring back at you in curiosity. You smile at her and send her a small wink before turning back around and following Jamie.

“What’s going on here?” Dani asks her hair in a braid, wearing one of the red shirts she stole from you when you spent the night at your flat, and shorts.

Jamie stopped tickling immediately backing away with a smile on her face as she brushed the hair from off her face. Dani came and sat in your lap as you wrapped your arms around her waist, hooking your chin on your shoulder. 

“Your little shite of a girlfriend here is annoying me so I tickled her because that’s only way I can get her to stop.” Jamie says going back to drinking her tea and shaking her head.

Dani look back at you and you shrug, “What? It was funny!” you exclaim and Jamie throws a scone at your head. You pick it up and throw it back at her all of the crumbs crumbling as it hit her chest, “Ha! Bullseye!” 

Jamie got up from off the chair and wiped the crumbs off her shirt and pants, “I’ll get you back for that Y/L/N, you better watch your back!” she points at you before going off to change. 

You turn your attention back to Dani who was staring at you with a soft smile on your face. You placed a soft little kiss onto her jaw and her smile widened. 

“Good morning, my darling,” you whisper into her ear and you feel goosebumps start to arise on her skin and you smile at the reaction. 

“Good morning.” she replies sighing contently as her back leaned into your front. She turned her head and you both met halfway before sharing a short yet sweet kiss. 

“Y/N, where are we going?” Dani whispers to you as you lead her to your favorite spot to just clear your head when you’re at the manor. The spot you only shared with Rebecca. 

“My favorite spot,” you reply shrugging, “If you ever need a break from the kids, this is where you can go to escape. Only I know about this spot so there won’t be any intruders. 

You set up a cute little picnic spot for the two of you to go on for your first official date. You two have been flirting back and forth since you’ve met and you finally gathered up enough courage to ask her on a real date. 

“Oh Y/N, this is lovely!” she says looking at you in awe.

“Well I wanted it to be just as lovely as you, but I realized that nothing can be as lovely as you because you are the most loveliest person on the planet.” you respond taking a hold of her hand as you see a blush arise on her fair skin. 

“Thank you.” she whispers and you nod.

“You don’t have to thank me for reminding you that you’re beautiful. You’re always gonna be beautiful in my eyes.” you whisper.

You two sat onto the picnic blanket and you had a thermos of proper english tea along with some of her favorite snacks that Owen has made. You talk about everything and nothing at the same time, sometimes she just laid there in your arms as you looked at the night sky, enjoying each other’s presence. 

Her arm would be wrapped around your torso as her head laid on you chest listening to the soft beats of your heart. A blanket over the both of you as the cool breeze filled the night air.

After the date you walked her back to the front of the manor, “I had a lovely time tonight,” she said grabbing a hold of both of your hands.

“I did too. I would like to do this again one time if you would like.” you whisper. 

“I’d really like that.” she replies her smile widening. 

“Goodnight Dani.” you whisper, but before you could let go of her she cupped both of her cheeks in her hands and she kissed you softly. 

The feeling of her lips on yours sending the butterflies running wild as your legs turned into jelly. Her lips were soft as your childhood blanket you’ve always loved. You placed your hands on her waist pulling her closer into you not wanting the moment to stop. 

Eventually she pulled away and rest her forehead on yours, “Goodnight Y/N” 

“Goodnight Dani.” you whisper back. 

She heads inside and you walk towards you car making the lonely ride to your flat. Once you got home you immediately dialed Jamie. 

“Jamie...” you say sounding uneasy on the phone.

“What do you need Y/L/N?” she asks. 

“I think I’m in love.” you respond. 

There’s a long silence on the phone before she finally replied, “Shit.” 

“Y/N! Are you ready to help me garden or are you gonna sit on your lazy ass all day with Poppins?!” Jamie yelled from the door of the greenhouse.

You laughed lightly, “Yeah I’m coming!” you turn to the beautiful girl that’s right in front of you, “I’ll see you at lunch okay?” 

“Okay.” she whispers giving you a small kiss. 

“Alright lovebirds fuck off!” Jamie yells and you flip her off before wrapping her arm around her shoulder as you two walked off together.

Beside your knowledge Dani didn’t really like that. She loved and was an awe of you and your friendship with Jamie, but sometimes you were too close for comfort for her liking. She never brought it up to you, but she was secretly scared about losing you to Jamie. Especially after she heard a conversation between you and Jamie before you started dating officially. 

“You can’t keep flirting with her!” Jamie yells. 

“Why not?!” you throw your hands up in rage at your best friend’s behavior. 

You’re usually not too mad about her usual protective behavior, but it hasn’t been this bad. 

Jamie and you were complete opposites: she thought that people were exhaustive even the good ones, but you thought that humans were some of the most adorable things in the world and that all of them are worth fighting for, even the bad ones. 

Jamie swore to herself that she would protect that precious little heart of yours, even if you were exhaustive. That’s how much she cared for you. So when she found out that you were in love with Dani, she was a little skeptical and it blew up.

“You know exactly why Y/N!” Jamie points at you and you shake your head remembering back to the time where you got your heartbroken you weren’t in the right mindset. 

You face softened at her comment and her angry eyes were now filled with concerned as you looked deeper into the problem, “Jamie, that’s not gonna happen again.” you say stepping closer to her and rubbing her arms.

“I know. I just I worry, the last time you were in love with someone it didn’t end well.” she whispers which makes it inaudible for Dani who was listening nearby, “But what if it does? And there’s no us anymore. I almost lost you once, I can’t bear the thought of almost losing you again,” she says speaking up just a little. 

“It won’t, I promise.” you say as you take your best friend into your arms. 

Dani took that as her cue to go and thought that she lost you for good, but by her surprise you asked her out for another date. 

“Y/L/N, I need your help with these flowers over here!” Jamie yells from the other side or the garden. 

“Alright coming!” you yell and you see her kneeling in front of the rose bush.

“I cant pull this one out, can your try? It’s really jammed in there.” she complains throwing her glove onto the ground.

“Calm down, I got it.” you reply kneeling down to the spot she was once at.

You’re about to pull out the flower when you feel a cool rush of water being dumped over your head. You let out a small little scream and see Jamie holding the bucket backing away slowly like she’s about to take off running. And she does.

You chase her around the garden until you find the hose. You turn it on and start spraying her with it. A scream coming from her mouth this time and it causes her to slow down in her tracks. You throw the hose on the ground and finally catch up to her. Wrapping your arms around her waist you lift her up and spin her around. 

“Y/L/N! Put me down!” she yells slapping your arms, but you continue to spin around. 

“What’s going on?” Dani asks for the second time today, but this time she looks angry.

“Nothing just classic banter.” you respond setting Jamie down.

“No, no I don’t think that’s it!” she answers raising her voice lightly taking you and Jamie aback, “What is going on between the two of you?!” 

“Nothing darling, absolutely nothing.” you say taking a step towards her.

“No! There’s something going on and I want to know what!” she yells.

“Poppins calm down, me and Y/N are just best friends, you know that.” Jamie says trying to mediate the conversation.

“I don’t believe you! If you’re not going to be honest with me then I don’t think I can do this anymore Y/N.” she responds tears brimming your eyes and your heart drops into your stomach. 

“I think you should tell her the truth about what happened before you met,” Jamie whispered since you were still in earshot, “I’ll leave you two to talk.” she says louder giving both of us a nod before making her way inside. 

You start walking towards the fountain in the middle of the garden and you gesture for her to follow you which she does. Both of you take a seat at the fountain, the silence filled with tension, it was deafening.

“So you’re right, I haven’t been completely honest with you, but it has nothing to do with Jamie. There is nothing romantic going on between me and Jamie, never has been, never will be. She has always been like a sister to me and the thought of anything romantic going on with her kinda makes me sick.” you joke trying to lighten the mood and she has a tight lipped smile on her face.

“What haven’t you been honest about then?” she asks and you nod before looking towards the lake. 

“Rebbeca, Jamie, and I were inseparable, we had each other’s backs; Jamie didn’t find the need to get to know Rebecca when she first started the job as the new au pair, but I took her under my wing. I showed her the in’s and out’s of Bly Manor. I’m not going to lie to you when I first met her I was instantly attracted to her, but I never pushed my feelings or flirted her with anyway. I was shy about it.” you explain not wanting to look her in the eye. 

“I was about to tell her how I felt when she told me about her relationship with Peter. And our friendship slowly grew more distant the more time she spent with him. I thought I was in love with her though and I told Jamie and she was scared for me. If anyone got in the way of what Peter Quint wanted it would be hell. She was also scared that I’d get my heartbroken.” my words got caught in my throat as I reminisced the old memories.

Dani took your hands in hers and squeezed it lightly to let her know that she was there for you even if you wouldn’t look at her. You squeezed her hand back three times, something you and Jamie used to do whenever one of you were sad, to let each other know that we love them even if we don’t say it. You haven’t confessed that to Dani yet so three squeezes is enough for now.

“So how do you think I felt when I found her dead body floating in the lake with Flora just watching? It was hard to handle, it was hard to deal with because I was constantly blaming myself. Because maybe, just maybe, if I had told her about my feelings, if I had the courage, if I swooped in right before Peter did, she would still be here today,” you scoffed shaking your head, “The what if’s ate me alive as time went on. I constantly found myself at the pub drinking my sorrows away and one time I drove home, still very much drunk and I got into an accident and almost died.”

“Since that day, Jamie has sworn to protect me and the only family she has left. That’s why we’re so close because we grew up together and if she loses me, she’ll feel like she lost everyone,” you finally look her in the eyes as a couple tears dripped down your face, “But I can promise you with everything in me that I don’t want anyone else. How am I supposed to think about anyone else when I have you?” 

Dani smiles at you ever so softly as she takes the pads of her thumbs to wipe away the sorrows of the painful memories, “I’m sorry I didn’t trust you. I was just scared because I am so scared of losing you. I never felt this strongly about anyone not even Edmund. I’ve never loved anyone like I’ve love you.” she whispers. 

You smile widely at her confession before cupping her face and pulling her in for a kiss. The world seemed to stop and stare at the beautiful sight. Dani’s lips felt like everything good and right in the world. Like nothing bad could ever touch you if you just had her. 

You pull away breathless as the feeling of dizziness started to fill your head at the passionate kiss, “I love you Dani Clayton.” 

She has the same reaction you do with her bright wide smile that you fell in love with the moment you saw it. She leaned in to kiss you again this time more soft and gentle. Then another, and another, and another.

“Oi lovebirds! There’s people watching! Cut it out!” Jamie yells looking annoyed, but you can tell by the smile on her face she’s happy you found someone who truly loves you.

#dani clayton #dani clayton imagines #the haunting of bly manor #jamie #dani x reader #the haunting series

[chrispaulcolfer]

What do you think of Kurt’s relationship with:

Rachel

Mercedes

Santana

any other friendship with girl? Brittany or Tina?

Oh boy. Okay.

Rachel: hate it. Hate the way it transitioned to sudden besties out of no where. Hate how it turned Kurt into her cheerleader 90% of the time while she took the 10% to reciprocate (Swan Song for example, that was a good pep talk from her to him). Hate how when he's not with New Directions, she's happy to help him try for a solo because he's her "only competition". Yet, when he tries for leading man material at McKinley, she too laughs in his face. When he gets the NYADA letter and she doesn't, she turns his excitement into her pity party. When he wins Midnight Madness, she turns it into "I guess I'm not talented enough and won't audition for anything". I hate how when she ditches him for fake friends who bad mouth him, she doesn't see that as a red flag to ditch them, until they vote for him and not her. I hate how she manipulates Elliott into claiming Kurt kicked her out when it was her own damn choice, and disowns Kurt when he didn't automatically take her side by playing referee for her outlandish claims against Santana. I hate "my best gay", it isn't cute, it isn't quirky, it's stupid and Kurt Hummel does deserve a better best friend who doesn't just use him to hoist themselves up. I'm glad Colfer called it the fuck out in his episode, even if it was magically fine at the end again just because she showed up to his Peter Pan show - shocker. I hate how she destroyed him being the actual student president by cheating, but that's fine because she owns up to it I guess? Like they still had to claim the cheerleader the winner who did nothing all year, when they could've had Kurt who would actually have done something good, but aT LeAsT sHe WaS HoNeSt right?????? I mean she is the one who also decided to run against him for a hot minute too, but SHE DROPPED OUT GUISE. BFF'S. It would've been so much better if they both went to New York, and then agreed to be roommates because it would be cheaper and we see them expand into actual friendship from there. Kurt doesn't need to stay relevant as a character just by being Rachel's best friend on the fact they both are into Broadway. THAT is the stereotype. Because remember, he's gay and she has two gay dads, so meant to be in each other's lives. Also ew having Rachel as a surrogate, what the fuck. No. Keep that controlling person away from any child of Kurt and Blaine's, that'll just cause more problems.

Mercedes: Maybe it's Colfer and Riley's friendship chemistry showing on screen, but I love and will forever love this friendship. I love that Kurt can admit he's wrong with her! ON HIS OWN! No sob story, no passive aggressiveness, no call out. Him realizing encouraging her to lose the weight was wrong? Growth. No, it isn't a perfect friendship, but it didn't start out of no where either. Kurt being dumb with trying to set her up with dates so he didn't feel bad in befriending Blaine. Mercedes letting her religious blinders encourage Kurt to go to church with her - but at least she approaches this conversation honestly, she doesn't sugar coat it from her point of view, which is good. They're both honest with one another. They're in each other's corners. Kurt Hummel heart eyeing every time she performs is the best. And it's dumb that it got pushed to the back for season 3 and onward. It should've grown from high schooler kids to young adults like a fine wine, instead of getting overlooked. There was potential of Mercedes being the surrogate, or even just another egg donor! But you know, some people needed to be zeroed in on and characters had to be tied to that characters hip, and Mercedes wasn't it.

Santana: Can you imagine how great (or terrible) this could've been if Kurt remained on the Cheerios? We can dream! But what we got in S4&S5 was great. Nice bantering, a mutual respect and understanding becoming a thing over time. They made pacts! They swore to each other about things off screen! She and him would've made a dangerous duo in New York if Rachel never moved back into the loft. She could've encouraged him to loosen up more, he would've helped her unlock a more vulnerable side of emotions when it came to catching feelings! Would've loved to see them bonding more like they did with the boyfriend arms watching TV! We were robbed, and s6 destroyed it all together, so. I wish we could've seen them on double dates, with Dani and Blaine. I wish we could've seen her trying to hook him up with guys in season 4! But no, two Slytherin's teaming up is too dangerous I guess. Fuck you glee.

Brittany: In the first season, it's nice to see that Brittany was the popular girl but still showing up to Kurt's house and dancing with him. It's because of her he joins the football team, briefly, and we get to see him kick ass at it and make a win for the Titans for the first time in however long! That's a big deal. I'm glad that she also approaches him in his "straight" phase and offers to help. And I'm glad she encourages Santana to go support Kurt during Prom Queen. BUT ANYTHING AFTER THAT, is null and void. Because she suddenly becomes this overly stupid child who only wants things done her way. When she offers to help him with his running for class president, she only focuses on him being gay and that's it - because it makes him a unicorn? It's a homophobic school, you really think shoving it in the bullies faces won't get him laughed out of a win? And he ditches the idea last minute anyway, so why bother going with that twist anyway? And when he gives her the rundown on what he wants to do, she ignores him and does it her way. When he gets mad, all of a sudden it's poor Brittany, she was just trying to help, Kurt's a meanie face. And when he (stupidly) accepts her idea for the campaign posters, she's like "oh by the way, I'm running against you now sorry I didn't tell you lol". And the bullshit of season 6 of her telling him that he needs to get over Blaine, then magically wants them to be in her and Santana's wedding? No. Keep her as far away from Kurt as possible after season 2.

Tina: Remember when Kurt fake dates her first? Wouldn't that have been an interesting play throughout that episode? Seeing Burt ask about Tina, Kurt bringing Tina over for dinner, Kurt and Tina discussing this new beard-ship for his dad, and then when he comes out, she would've been so happy for him? WE WERE ROBBED, YET AGAIN. We see them being friends throughout the seasons, but there isn't any growth with it. We don't really see her and Kurt doing things outside of school again. We see her help him for his NYADA audition as Christine (which he replaces her for Rachel, big shock, fuck you). We see him defending her against the jock bullies in the hallway. We see them walking to glee club together. But there's still nothing expanded on so it just falls flat. Clearly she and Kurt talk still after he graduates, as they both enjoy gossip. But what else?! We don't know! It had potential for friendship outside of school and outside of just gossiping! But alas.

#answered #anti Rachel Berry #anti hummelberry #anti brittany pierce #long post #fuck glee basically #😌 kurtanacedes ot3 basically. could've had it all.

[roman-writing]

no great revelation (7/8)

Fandom(s): The Haunting of Bly Manor / Star Wars

Pairing: Dani Clayton/Jamie Taylor

Rating: M

Wordcount: 6,244

Summary: Jamie  just wants to enjoy a drink after a hard day’s work on the Telosian  Restoration Project. The last thing she needs is to get herself  caught  up in a mysterious woman with a lightsabre at the local bar.

Aurthor’s notes: Please note the rating change

read it below or read it here on AO3

VII.

—

Jamie swiped up on the tablet to throw the video to the feed at the centre of the table.

"Rebecca, this is everyone," Jamie said. "Everyone, this is Rebecca."

"I thought that maybe you'd been making up your Jedi friends this whole time. Nice to see I was wrong about that." Rebecca gave a little wave. "Hi, Dani. How's the ghost?"

Dani sank down a little in her seat, and her answering smile was more of a grimace. "Hi. Sorry," she mumbled.

"Yeah, about that," said Jamie. “Back on Quint’s ship, you said you knew what was happening at House Thul.”

“Oh? Finally ready to listen to me, are you?”

“Don’t push me,” Jamie growled, jabbing the tip of her finger at Rebecca’s face on the screen. “Remember. Galaxy’s Biggest Favour.”

Rebecca rolled her eyes. She had taken the call with her back to a wall, so it was impossible to glean her surroundings. "The Empire wants a foothold on Alderaan. It's a strategic location in the Core Worlds. They have been working over Lord Wingrave after the death of his brother and sister-in-law, helping him fabricate claims to the House, claims to his niece and nephew, claims to a position in the Republic Senate. You know the drill. Traditional blackmail."

"What else?" Jamie pressed.

For a moment Rebecca glanced over the top of the camera as if looking at something else out of frame, but then her attention returned back to the screen. "The children are Force Sensitives. The Sith have been helping Lord Wingrave keep that under wraps, so that The Order wouldn't take them away to the Temple for training. My sources tell me that the plan was for a Sith Lord to create sleeper agents out of the children through the use of some ancient Sith device containing a ghost."

"Which Sith?" Hannah asked.

"I'm not in the business of keeping tabs on Sith Lords. By the way," Rebecca pointed through the screen at Hannah. "How have you found shaving your head? Because I've been thinking of cutting my hair back, but I’m not sure about going all the way."

Running a hand along her shaved scalp, Hannah said, "There's nothing quite so freeing."

"Good to know. Thanks.” 

"Oi," Jamie snapped her fingers. "Focus. The Sith Lord."

"What else is there to say?" Rebecca replied dryly. "They're a Sith Lord. They're scary. They're dangerous. They're not to be fucked with. Your Jedi friends probably know the drill better than me."

"I hope not," Owen said under his breath as he took a sip of tea.

Hannah sat up a little straighter, hands clasped neatly on the table before her. "Do we know where they are? Where they're going, perhaps? Any information you give us may be vital."

Leaning her back against the wall behind her, Rebecca pursed her lips in thought before answering with a shake of her head. "I know they want the children, and I know they want the holocron. So - Alderaan."

"But the holocron isn't on Alderaan," Dani pointed out.

"They don't know that," said Rebecca. "Peter lied to buy himself time, and told them it was still in the estate of House Thul."

"But -" Dani frowned. "House Thul has its own militia of guardsmen. I know Sith are powerful but the Empire would need to send troops if they wanted to break in and hold ground."

"Then I guess the Sith Lord will be invading with troops as well."

Sighing deeply, Jamie lowered her face to her hands, letting her fingers scrub through her hair. Then she looked up again, hands hooked behind her neck. "Right. Guess we're off to Alderaan, then."

Rebecca laughed. When nobody else joined in, she stopped. "Wait. You're serious? Did you not just hear me say 'Most likely a Sith Lord is going to invade House Thul?' As in — with a shock legion. As in over a thousand soldiers led by a malevolent Force User, who can and would probably kill a room with a snap of their fingers?” 

Lowering her hands, Jamie said, "Yeah, you - uh - you mentioned that. Good thing you'll be right there with us."

"You have got to be joking."

Jamie said nothing. Just gave Rebecca a long look.

"Jamie," said Rebecca, her expression horrified, "You can't be serious. When I said 'favour' I didn't mean 'suicide.'"

"We can’t let them have those kids. Trying to mobilise Republic troops or The Order without enough evidence is a fuckin’ waste of time. We need to get into the estate of House Thul," Jamie gestured around to everyone at the table. "You're a smuggler. So, smuggle us in."

Rebecca pinched the bridge of her nose. "Alderaan is Republic territory. Why do you need me to smuggle you onto the planet, when you can just fly and land there yourself?"

"Because of her." Jamie gestured towards Dani, who looked both startled at being mentioned and guilty. "I don't want Pasha and his Troopers linking Dani to this in any way. They can't know she returned to House Thul. She has to come out of this squeaky clean."

Groaning, Rebecca said, "Fine. When do you want to go?"

"As soon as possible," said Owen.

"I'm -" Rebecca looked over the top of the camera again, craning her neck slightly. "Thirty two hours from Alderaan through hyperspace. Meet me in orbit around the planet. How's the ship I gave you?"

"Rude," Jamie said blandly. "It keeps insulting me."

A smile tugged at the corner of Rebecca's mouth and she began tapping at the buttons below her screen. "That sounds like Jane."

Jamie's face screwed up. "Jane? It has a name?"

"It's a JN class droid uploaded into the ship’s mainframe. It likes being called Jane. Didn't you ask it?"

"No?"

"Well, no wonder it's rude to you. By the way, I’ve just dropped you those pictures of my godson that you asked for last time. They should be appearing on your device now.” Rebecca waved with a little flutter of her fingers. “See you in thirty two hours.”

The video feed winked out. 

"I rather like that young woman," Hannah said.

“Get in line,” Jamie grumbled. 

The video had been replaced by a file icon. Jamie clicked it and brought up the first photo of Rebecca carrying a blue-skinned Twi’lek child on her back, both wearing big beaming smiles. 

“Oh, they’re adorable,” Owen sighed. 

Fuming, Jamie flicked to the next photo, which was equally adorable. “Fuck. Okay. Yeah. They are.”

—

After cleaning up in the dining room and kitchen, Hannah gently nudged Jamie's arm and indicated she should follow her. Jamie glanced over at Dani, but she was engaged in a lively conversation with Owen while they dried dishes together. Dani's smile had lost its tentative edge the longer Owen spoke to her, but there was still a tenseness to the way she held her shoulders, the same tenseness that had been present back in Ho'kyn's bar on Telos IV, as though she were afraid someone would batter down the door at any moment.

Jamie followed Hannah, who led her up a set of stairs to a mezzanine floor where the walls were floor to ceiling scrolls and books and objects of cultural curiosity.

"Find anything new?" Jamie asked. She leaned back against the railing of the mezzanine which overlooked the lounge below.

Hannah plucked a tome from its shelf, dusted it off, and opened it to a page that had already been marked with a length of ribbon. "Yes and no. Nothing helpful, anyway."

She came to stand beside Jamie so that she might also look at the book. Jamie peered at it from the corner of her eye, not recognising the script around the drawing of a grey-skinned woman in dark red robes with a deep cowl.

"That a Sith?" Jamie asked.

Hannah hummed a curious note. "A Witch of Dathomir. Dark-aligned, for the most part, but not Imperial. They're the only practitioners of possession I've been able to find record of at all. I believe The Lady might have been an early precursor. Or perhaps they developed similar techniques independently."

Jamie stood straighter, hands tightening around the railing. "Wait, so - you can reverse it?"

Hannah snapped the book shut. "No. Though a visit to Dathomir might be in order, should we survive. However, if you chose to go, I won't be accompanying you. They dislike Jedi as much as they dislike Sith."

"Good thing I'm not a Jedi."

"I doubt they'll see the difference," Hannah said, and she tucked the book beneath one arm. "Failing that, the only other people who might know anything about this ghost are the Sith themselves."

Jamie scoffed, smiling. "Right. I'll just sail into their capital on Dromund Kaas and ask for help, then. Great advice."

A flick of the Force against Jamie's ear made her wince.

"Don't be cheeky," said Hannah.

Rubbing at her ear, Jamie opened her mouth to retort but stopped. Beneath them Dani and Owen walked into the lounge, still talking. Dani moved her hands when she spoke, and Owen watched her with a fond if guarded smile.

"I am afraid for her," Hannah murmured so that they would not be overheard.

Jamie nodded. "Yeah."

"For someone like our lovely Miss Clayton, the Dark Side is not a lure so much as it is a glue trap," Hannah mused aloud. "It has a gravity of its own, the darkness. And once there, it becomes more and more difficult to claw your way free. Even if you want to. Even if you know you should, but can’t bring yourself to try. Fear is her failing. And fear is the relinquishment of logic."

Jamie glanced at Hannah. "Can you teach her when this is all over? You're the best of the best in The Order when it comes to balance in the Force."

Without looking at Jamie, Hannah lightly smacked her arm, just a dismissive tap with the back of one hand. "Don't try your flattery on me. I've known you too long for that nonsense."

"That nonsense," said Jamie, "has gotten me out of more sticky situations than you know."

"But it won't get Miss Clayton out of this one."

Muttering a curse under her breath, Jamie sank down a bit, gripping the railing as she did so until she stood bent over and leaning against it. "Don't you start, too. I had Owen in my ear last night about it."

"Good man," Hannah murmured appreciatively.

"Bloody hypocrites. The both of you."

"You can't solve everything with your curmudgeonly charm," said Hannah.

"I fuckin' can."

"Sometimes," Hannah turned, leaning her back against the railing, arms crossed over the book gripped loosely to her chest, "a helping hand can only do so much. A person needs to want to help themself."

Jamie scowled. "So, what? If we can't help her we just ship her off to the Empire? 'Here, have a new Sith apprentice?' You haven't even given her a chance, and you two are already lecturing me on how I need to let go." She shook her head with a bitter chuckle. "Unbelievable."

And of course Hannah remained infuriatingly unflappable, her voice calm when she replied, "I will do everything I can, as I know Owen will, too. But — even should we survive this ordeal — our time with her will be limited. She will not be safe on Tython, where some overzealous Knight will surely sense her presence and jump to conclusions."

Jamie's mouth went dry. She swallowed. "Then where am I supposed to take her for training?"

Hannah smiled and placed a warm hand on Jamie's forearm. "Wherever you want, dear. So long as you're there."

Face screwing up in confusion, Jamie straightened. "But you just - You were just telling me how I needed to keep my distance and all that shite."

"Was I?" Hannah murmured, and she let go of Jamie's arm to instead toy at a gold earring. "I don't recall saying that at all."

And with that she crossed back over to place the book on its shelf.

"What do you mean? Hannah?" said Jamie, turning around.

Humming to herself as if she hadn't heard, Hannah drifted off down the stairs.

"Hannah," Jamie repeated, louder this time.

"We really must pack, Owen," said Hannah, ignoring Jamie completely.

Hitting her fist against the railing, Jamie turned back around to glower down at Hannah, who appeared on the floor below. Hannah urged Owen down a hallway with instructions to pack for the trip, leaving Dani standing in the middle of the lounge, alone. Dani looked up, and Jamie's fist loosened.

The last time Jamie had seen her from this angle, Dani had been in the full thrall of The Lady back on the luxury cruiser, her red-gold gaze piercing through a camera in the ceiling. Now, Dani blinked up at her with none of that cold malice to be found. She opened her mouth to say something, but then Hannah's voice called down the hallway.

"Miss Clayton, what's the weather like at House Thul?"

Dani turned and began walking towards the sound, already answering Hannah's question, and leaving Jamie staring after her from the mezzanine floor, lost.

—

The gangway automatically lowered to the ground when Jamie got within a certain distance from the luxury cruiser still docked where they had left it.

"Good afternoon, Bollocks," said the cultured male baritone of the ship's computer. "You've brought guests."

Beside her, Owen mouthed the word 'bollocks?' at Hannah, who looked like she was trying very hard not to laugh.

Jamie rolled her eyes and shooed the two of them up the gangway, trailed by Dani. "I have, yeah. Anything interesting happen while we were away, Jane?"

There followed a pause that was slightly too long for a droid of this calibre, and then the ship's computer replied, "Nothing of note. I did not tell you to call me that."

"Oh? Don't like it? Should I call you bawbag instead?"

Another pause, this one affronted. "Jane," said the ship's computer, "is perfectly serviceable."

"Glad to hear it, mate," Jamie drawled and stepped into the ship proper.

As Dani stepped up behind her, the ship's computer said, "And a good day to you, too, Miss Clayton. You're looking very alive today."

"Uh -" said Dani, and she ducked her head sheepishly. "Thanks."

The gangway lifted and sealed behind them once everyone had entered the main atrium, where the ship’s computer had already sent out a small service droid on trundlers bearing glasses of some kind of pale carbonated alcohol. 

“Don’t mind if I do,” Owen murmured, picking up a glass and taking a sip. He made an appreciative noise. 

“Where would we like to go?” the ship’s computer asked.

Jamie waved the service droid away when it tried to press an insistent drink into her hand. “No, thanks. Jane, calculate a route to Alderaan. We need to meet someone in orbit around the planet in thirty two hours.”

“Route calculated,” the ship’s computer replied almost immediately. “The journey is only expected to take twenty one hours through hyperspace. I will chart a circuitous route so that we arrive on time. If it would please you, you may make your way to the dining lounge. I have prepared a light lunch before we depart.” 

Frowning, Jamie looked up at the ceiling. “How the hell did you even know we were coming?”

“I have access to the station’s security cameras and systems.”

That gave everyone pause. Owen froze in the act of draining his glass, while Hannah and Dani shared looks. 

“You hacked the station’s security system?” Jamie said.

“Negative, Bollocks,” said the ship’s computer. “I asked the mainframe for access very nicely.” 

“Are you lying?” Jamie turned to Hannah and Dani. “Can droids lie?”

The ship’s computer did not answer. Which wasn’t concerning. Not at all. Owen suddenly looked a bit queasy, and he gingerly lowered his near empty glass back onto the tray held out by the service droid. 

“You need not fear for the condition of food and drink aboard this vessel,” said the ship’s computer. “I am programmed to care for and protect any legitimate member of this crew as designated by the Captain and owner.” 

Jamie pointed jokingly at Owen and said, “Better watch yourself, then.”

Placing a hand over his chest, Owen pretended to look insulted, then followed Jamie further into the ship towards the dining lounge. 

“May I ask,” started the ship’s computer, “what are we going to be doing on Alderaan?’

Jamie dragged her hand along one of the polished white walls as she walked. “Getting in over our heads.”

“Please clarify.”

“We’re going to have a fight. Why?” Jamie asked dryly. “Do you also happen to have ion cannons strapped to your shiny exterior?”

“Negative. But I do come equipped with some accessories the crew might find useful in the event of a boarding attempt.”

One of the panels beneath Jamie’s hand pressed inwards, and a whole section of the wall peeled back to reveal racks upon racks of blaster pistols, blaster rifles, grenades, vibroweapons with wickedly curved blades some small enough to strap to the leg, others long enough to be wielded with two hands. Everything that would make a Republic Trooper get all hot and bothered.   

All four of them stopped in their tracks and stared. 

“Definitely an ex-Czerka ship,” Hannah muttered under her breath.

Hand on the hilt of the lightsabre at her hip, Dani said, “I think I’ll stick with this. I’d be more likely to shoot my own foot.”

“Likewise,” said Owen. 

Meanwhile Jamie reached out and hefted a blaster pistol. She turned it over in her hands for closer inspection, careful not to graze anyone with the barrel, but all defining marks or serial numbers had been either scrubbed off or hadn’t made it far enough in manufacturing to be stamped in the first place. With a shrug, she took one of the holsters and belted it around her waist. 

Owen gave her a look. “Really?” 

“What?” Jamie holstered the blaster pistol and waved at the other three. “You all have lightsabres, and we’re going up against who only knows what. Am I supposed to just hide behind a pillar while you lot do all the fun stuff?” 

Before they could answer, the ship’s computer chimed and said from its hidden speakers in the ceiling. “Not to interrupt,” said Jane, “but the tea is getting cold.”

Immediately Owen’s eyes brightened. “Oh, tea?” 

It was in fact high tea. Three tiered platters. Fine bone china. Petit fours. The whole lot. They amused themselves in the various lounges and quarters of the ship for hours before departure, at which point the ship’s computer insisted upon harnesses being secured. The jump to hyperspace left Jamie feeling on edge, as though she had left her stomach behind on Tython. And she couldn’t have been the only one. Their talk had been too forced, their laughter too loud, Owen and Jamie swapping stories to the delight of Dani and Hannah, who would chime in every now and then. And when Jane rolled out a more formal dinner, it felt like some kind of last meal before execution at dawn by firing squad. 

Jamie couldn’t find it in herself to enjoy the meal. Every bite tasted like ash. The ship’s computer on the other hand seemed thrilled that its crew was finally taking part in its carefully scheduled meals and activities. More than once Jamie thought she heard a low-pitched contented hum from the belly of the ship. Or perhaps that was simply the engine room. 

Eventually, Jamie made her excuses and left the others to their own devices. Jamie walked into the same bedroom she had taken during the initial trip on this vessel. First one on the left from the main lounge. There were at least four other rooms of generally equal size and accommodation on the ship; Jamie had simply picked this one because it was closest to the helm, easy to access and nothing more. 

Jamie sighed and stopped in the middle of the room. She unslung the holster and pistol, dropping it to the ground, then began to unbutton the crisp white shirt she had stolen from the medbay. Back on Tython, Hannah had offered her a spare set of robes, which she’d declined. Jamie hadn’t worn robes since she was a padawan, and after years of boilersuits and undershirts, she wasn’t about to start again any time soon, thanks. Even if it meant dumb slacks and collared shirts made of some anti-wrinkle fabric that cost more than her apartment back on Telos IV. 

She just needed to make it one more day. Just one more day. The last few weeks had shaved off a good few years from her life. Probably. And by this time tomorrow this whole ordeal would be over, alive or dead. Probably. 

There was a knock at the door. With a frown, Jamie turned, hands paused in the act of unbuttoning the shirt halfway down her stomach. “Yeah?” 

The door hissed open and shut again behind Dani as she stepped into the room. “Hi.”

Jamie blinked. “Hey.” 

For a long moment Dani did and said nothing. Her mismatched gaze flicked down to the narrow v of skin and the dogtags revealed by the open shirt, only to dart quickly away again, studying the bedside table with a fixed intensity it did not deserve. 

“Sorry,” said Dani. “I just - It's been a few days since we’d really spoken, and I wanted to check in.”

Jamie nodded. “Ah - yeah. I’m good. Are you -?”

“Yeah. I’m okay.” 

Another lengthy pause.

Dani gestured to the door behind her. “Hannah and Owen are very nice.” 

“They are, yeah. Good people. Trust ‘em with my life, and I don’t say that lightly.” Jamie tried to smile, to make light, but Dani had turned that wide-eyed fixed intensity upon her now. It was difficult not to squirm in place when Dani looked at her like that.

Dani took an abortive step forward, only to stop herself before she could venture too close. “Are we okay? It’s just - on Tython you seemed to want your own space, and I thought -” She paused to clear her throat, glancing briefly down at her feet. “Did I mess this up or -? I mean - I know I’m not the best option for anyone, and you deserve someone nice, someone who’s not completely messed up or possessed by an ancient Sith ghost or something. But I -” she paused to close her eyes and draw in a deep breath. “I really like you. And if you don’t want anything to do with me after this is all over, I would completely understand, but I -”

Jamie tried. She really did. But the next thing she knew, she had taken a step forward and pulled Dani in for a kiss. Dani made a small noise of surprise in the back of her throat that Jamie chased after, feeling her respond in kind, feeling the Force welling up beneath Dani’s skin like a hand reaching out in offering. 

“Do you think -” Jamie said, pulling away just enough to speak, “- that I did all this because I don’t like you?”

Dani gave a breathless little laugh, her hands cupping Jamie’s jaw then sliding to cradle the back of her head. “I thought you did it because you’re good and noble and you’re drawn to a lost cause.”

“Can be lots of things, can’t I?”

They were close enough that Jamie could feel the pull of Dani’s smile against her own lips, their noses brushing. 

“I know you like your life to be boring. So, I was thinking," said Dani, "how nice Corsin must be at this time of year. Just a getaway planet in the middle of nowhere. No Sith. No Jedi. That could be boring, couldn't it?"

Jamie swayed forward, eyes half lidded, and murmured, "Could be awfully boring."

Hannah and Owen be damned. The little voice in the back of her head telling her this was a bad idea be damned. Dani was kissing her again and every thought flew right out of her head until there was nothing but this. Nothing but today, this moment, the call of blood in her veins, life as it was and nothing else. 

There was not push towards the bed, no drive to action beyond this. Still Jamie paused, one hand remaining anchored at Dani’s waist.

“You can still go alone,” Jamie said, “if you want. Doesn’t have to be with me.”

Even as she said it, Jamie dreaded the answer. Knowing Dani’s predilection towards shrinking away from things that were too difficult to face alone. Knowing her own history of always being the odd one out, passed from place to place, from Corps to Corps, unfettered, unwanted. 

Dani’s hand tightened in her hair, holding her close. “Want it to be with you.”

Want this, Jamie thought as Dani kissed her again. Want this, too.

Removing Dani’s cloak and tossing it onto the floor beside the blaster pistol had never felt so easy. Kissing her, unhooking the lightsabre and setting it onto the table had never felt so easy. Unzipping Dani’s vest while Dani finished unbuttoning what Jamie had started had never felt so easy. Being with someone else had never felt so easy. 

Jamie’s shirt was discarded onto the ground beside the bed just as Jamie sank to her knees there. Dani’s hair was mussed, her mouth parted, her eyes fixed and unblinking as Jamie began to slowly drag down the zipper of her trousers. She toyed with the chain of Jamie’s dogtags, winding it around her fingers at the back of Jamie’s neck. 

When Jamie began to tug down the material, Dani sat on the edge of the mattress so her pants could be peeled off and placed aside. Jamie leaned forward and stroked her tongue along the soft skin of Dani’s inner thigh, feeling a hand grip her hair when she bit down gently, and making a low dark sound in the back of her throat. 

Already Dani was moving her hips in small motions and Jamie hadn’t even started yet. Jamie laughed softly.

“What?” Dani breathed.

Jamie shook her head, but the movement was restricted somewhat by the tight grip Dani had on her hair. “Nothing,” she murmured and bowed forward to place her open mouth against slick wet and wanting heat.

Wanting nothing but this. The spread of Dani’s legs on either side of Jamie’s head. The taste of her when Jamie swiped her tongue in long slow strokes. The sound of her name gasped in Dani’s voice. The ache between her own legs as Dani rocked her hips to the rhythm Jamie set with a barely restrained urgency. 

Where last time had been fast and hard, Jamie did the opposite now. She traced Dani with the tip of her tongue as if trying to map her to memory, finding the best reactions and storing them away for later, for a time again with her that may never come. One of Dani’s heels came up to press into the small of Jamie’s back, and Jamie could feel the way the muscle of Dani’s inner thigh trembled against the side of her face. The same way her fingers trembled as they combed back Jamie’s hair. 

Want this, Jamie thought as Dani’s groan ended on a broken noise, as Dani’s hips arched up to press more firmly against her mouth while Jamie offered only a gentle suction. Want her. Want us. 

Dani hauled Jamie up by the chain around her neck to kiss her deeply. The kiss was slick and messy and tasted of her, and when they parted Dani was panting. 

“Did I mention,” Dani said breathlessly, “that I really like you?”

Jamie laughed and allowed herself to be pulled up onto the bed. Smiling broadly, Dani kissed her and rolled her over to start unbuttoning Jamie’s dark-washed slacks. Before she could do more than flick open the first of two buttons, Jamie placed her hands and Dani’s hips and encouraged her to rock against her thigh.

“That’s -” Dani swallowed back a reckless sound, her eyes squeezing shut. “I’m going to ruin your nice slacks.”

“Fuck ‘em.”

Dani’s answering laugh was breathless. “Do you mean that literally, or -?”

The question died on her tongue when Jamie pressed her knee up and wedged a hand between them just enough that she could brush her thumb just so. She watched as Dani’s face screwed up, as her mouth dropped open and her hips bucked out of time until she came again — smaller this time, but no less gratifying.

Dani slowed to a halt, trying to catch her breath. “All right,” she said. “It’s definitely your turn.”

When they’d finished, Jamie sank bonelessly back onto the mattress. Their clothes were strewn all about the room, and the ship’s computer had set the lights to dim automatically to match a normalised sleep cycle, so that the ceiling was a map of constellations. Dani was stark naked and wiping her hands clean on a shirt with a self-satisfied expression before she crawled back up the bed and snuggled into Jamie’s side.

Jamie rolled onto her side and draped an arm across Dani’s waist to hold her loosely there. She needed to take a shower, but couldn’t find the energy within herself to get up. Not when recent sex had turned her bones to jelly, and not when Dani started to trace the curving lines of Jamie’s monochromatic tattoo. 

Exhaling slowly, Jamie sank further into the mattress. Her eyes slipped shut and she allowed herself this moment of brief respite. 

“Do you ever think,” Dani asked softly, “this was supposed to happen?” 

Blearily, Jamie opened her eyes, lulled half asleep by the way Dani was touching her. “What d’you mean?”

Dani shook her head, admiring the way her fingertips drifted across the pattern of ink on Jamie’s bare shoulder. “I don’t know. I just - When I chose the ship to Telos IV, it wasn’t the fastest or the cheapest or even the one leaving the soonest. I was still in shock, I think. From what had happened on Vurdon Ka. There was another transport leaving three hours earlier, heading towards the Outer Rim, but when the droid asked me what ticket I wanted I bought the one to Telos instead.” Her words slowed to a mumble, and her caress stopped. Dani stared at the flowers on Jamie’s skin as if in wonder. “I don’t know why I did that.”

“Coincidence?” Jamie offered, watching the flicker of Dani’s brow in response.

Dani seemed to be trying to remember something intently. “Maybe, but it was so strange. I had this - this feeling. And when I landed on Telos, you know, I -” She broke off with a small incredulous laugh. “I walked straight to that bar. Just - straight there. Didn’t even ask for directions.”

Jamie blinked, more awake now. That hum of energy had returned, threading between them like an arc. Dani’s presence was stalwart, nothing wavering or questioning about it. 

“I don’t know anything about the Force,” Dani continued, “but I’m glad to have met you.” 

A smile tugged at the corner of Jamie’s mouth. It was brief but the warmth pooling in her chest was verdant and budding. “Yeah. Me too.”

—

Rebecca’s ship dropped out of hyperspace only three kilometers from the luxury cruiser, so that the two vessels drifted in orbit around Alderaan side by side. The planet below was a vast curved horizon of blues and greens, struck through with white cloud. Sitting in the pilot’s seat, Jamie noticed how Dani’s gaze kept drifting towards the broad windows of the left wing, staring out at the planet below with her shoulders tense and her hands clasped behind her back. 

The moment Rebecca’s ship came into view, Owen leaned over Jamie’s shoulder and hit the comm button, requesting a transmission, which was immediately picked up.

“Hello again,” Owen greeted jovially down the line. “We see you’ve just arrived in orbit. And might I say - your ship is exactly what I expected from a smuggler.”

“Aww, thanks,” said Rebecca, her video feed flickering into view. “I worked hard to get it just right.”

Rebecca’s ship was a single bladed shape of stark grey material, like a shark’s fin parting the surface of water. Jamie knew from experience that its small size could mislead larger ships into underestimating its speed and firepower. She also knew from experience that the sleeping cots were cramped and uncomfortable, and that more often than not Rebecca slept in a hammock strung up in the cockpit itself. 

Jamie elbowed Owen in the gut so she could have more room. “Status report?”

Rebecca rolled her eyes. “What are you? Fleet Commander Taylor?”

“Just tell me how we’re getting down to the surface without being noticed,” Jamie said.

“Funny you should ask that,” Rebecca replied, trailing off.

Owen made a face. “Oh, no. Is it bad?” 

“Well…”

“Get it over with,” groaned Jamie. She could hear Hannah and Dani walking closer to join the conversation. “Put me out of my misery.”

Rebecca hit a few buttons to switch over the feed, and the screen suddenly displayed a scene much nearer to the surface. She must have hacked into a few security cameras, because the view turned slowly alongside her tapping away in the background. A towering estate in slate greys with parapets like speartips jutting into the sky dominated the screen, flanked by snowy mountains. A broad bridge led to the front entrance, and a hundred or so guardsmen had set up allacrete bollards behind which they were taking cover to avoid incoming fire, peeking over to return volleys before crouching down again.

“That’s,” Dani said slowly, pointing towards a crest-emblazoned purple and red banner hanging from the manor walls on the screen, “House Thul.” 

Jamie squeezed her eyes shut and tipped her head back towards the ceiling. “Don’t tell me.”

“They’re being besieged by the Sith Lord,” said Rebecca.

“I said don’t tell me.”

Hannah peered over Jamie’s shoulder to get a look at the screen. “Can you get us to the surface?” she asked.

“Yeah,” said Rebecca. “But after that, I’m all out of ideas. I told you: I’m not a Core World girl. I don’t know Alderaan from a bottle of spotchka.” 

“I do.” 

Jamie opened her eyes and lowered her head. Beside her Dani had lifted her hand slightly as though waiting to be called on in class. “There’s a side entrance used primarily by servants and staff.”

“What? A side entrance dug all the way through the mountains?” Owen pointed to the snowy peaks pressed in tight on either side of the estate. 

“No, it’s here.” Dani tapped her finger against the screen just off to the side of where the camera was currently showing. “It’s where the guards sleep. You go through a security checkpoint and then down a tunnel which leads into a room off the great hall.” 

“Don’t think the security checkpoint won’t be a problem this time,” said Jamie.

“Yeah,” said Rebecca slowly as a guardsman on screen was shot dead and slumped to the ground, only to be pulled back over the bollard by one of his comrades. “They look a little occupied right now.” 

Chatter fizzed from another speaker on the dashboard. Frowning, Rebecca sat in the pilot’s seat and turned a dial until the frequency better matched. They could hear a staticky voice shouting frantic orders over the comm.

“That’s a Pub frequency,” Rebecca said. 

“The Empire has revealed its hand,” Owen said. “The Republic will be arriving with reinforcements soon.”

“Yeah, but not soon enough,” Jamie muttered darkly. 

Hannah hummed in agreement. “Unfortunately, yes. A fully fledged Sith Lord? They can tear this estate apart and be out with what they want before Republic troops make it into orbit.” 

“Yeah, well, hopefully we can do the same.” 

From the sidelines, Dani suddenly spoke, “Can we talk about the children for a sec?” When she had everyone’s attention, she took a deep breath and continued, “What’s going to happen to them now that we know they’re Force Sensitive?” 

She looked towards Jamie, who raised both hands and shook her head, pointing towards Owen and Hannah. Hannah was looking at Owen, who shrugged and made a gesture, which Hannah reacted to with an emphatic tilt of her head, the two of them engaged in the kind of silent conversation only two people who had been together for so long knew. 

“Are you going to share with the class?” Jamie drawled. “Or are you two lovebirds just going to keep having your weird psychic talk that nobody else can hear?”

Hannah gave Jamie an arch, brook-no-nonsense glare, while Owen stuck out his tongue at her. 

“I think it best if we take them back to Tython,” said Hannah to Dani. “There they can be trained in the Force properly.”

Some of the tension held in Dani’s jaw slackened, and she breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay. Yeah. Thanks. I needed to hear that.” 

“Anything else we need to discuss before we leap into the fray?” Rebecca asked from the pilot’s seat. 

Silence. 

“Right,” said Jamie, hand on the holster of her blaster pistol. “Let’s get this over with, then.”

#thobm #the haunting of bly manor #star wars #damie #dani clayton/jamie #no great revelation #roman writes

[andawaywego]

Omg write about what happened after Jamie found Flora and Dani at the lake. Just pure softness an fluf, Jamie tucking Dani in

ahh okay. so...confession: there is some angst at the beginning of this. i’m sorry! i wasn’t sure how to get them from the lake to Dani’s bedroom without dealing with some stuff, so...but there’s fluff at the end and cuteness and soft cuddling and promises and all that! i promise! i hope you enjoy regardless of the  necessary sadness.

..

The entire night is a blur of quiet terror, the squeezing of cold fingers around her throat, the chill of the water. But when it’s over—when she’s standing up to her knees in the cold lake, Flora in her arms, Jamie wrapped around them both—Dani still feels like she can’t breathe.

Hannah is gone and Miles is himself and Henry is there—finally, finally. And Dani has no idea how much time has passed since she walked into Flora’s bedroom and saw a woman who was supposed to be dead sitting on the little girl’s bed, but there’s cold sweat on her neck and face and chest.

No one is sure what to do.

Dani sets Flora down on dry ground and Flora runs off, wrapping her arms around her uncle with Miles, and nothing makes sense. None of it. Dani can’t think clearly.

Jamie turns to her immediately. “Are you okay?” she asks, her voice low and panicked. She jolts forward and skims her hands up Dani’s side, cupping her face, looking for injuries or changes or anything that’s off. Dani shakes her head, both in answer and in an attempt to put a semi-normal amount of space between them again.

There’s nothing she wants more than to fall into Jamie’s arms and stay there, but she can’t. Not right now. Not with Owen running off and calling out for Hannah, not with the children crying and being held in the arms of the only blood relative they have left.

She can’t let it be about her right now. It isn’t about her right now.

“I’m fine,” she says. “I’m okay.”

She tries to sound as sure as she can manage, but she truly doesn’t know how. For all she knows, she could be seconds away from collapsing—from being dragged back into that lake and under the water.

Owen’s yelling is reaching a fever-pitch. Jamie stares after his form, retreating into the fog of the night, and Dani grabs her hand to start pulling her after him. To find Hannah.

They search for hours, for what feels like years, really. Dreaming up the worst case scenarios that they can manage and they’re still not prepared for the moment they actually find her.

Down at the bottom of that well.

Owen collapses to his knees and Dani falls with him, wrapping her arms around him. She’s trying her damndest to keep him together—to keep everyone together—because she’s not sure how much she can manage that for herself.

Jamie has spent the entire time walking beside Dani, a fierce expression on her face that only falters in that moment. It’s been to keep Dani feeling safe. To make sure that she knew that if anything were to happen again, Jamie wouldn’t hesitate to end the person at fault.

But now, her straight spine slumps and she kneels beside Dani, touching Owen on the shoulder. She’s crying, her shoulders shaking silently. Dani presses her face into Jamie’s coat and lets herself sob.

.

There are things to be done. Henry has to call the local police, get a team out there to pull Hannah out, and the children are exhausted. They fall asleep on the couch in the sitting room together, and Owen eventually joins them in a restless slumber, his head lolling on the back of the armchair he’s sitting in.

Jamie drapes a blanket over him and puts his feet up on an ottoman, and then helps Henry carry the children to their beds. Dani trails after them on autopilot, not saying a word.

Her panic, for the most part, has not come even close to dissolving. It buzzes, aching through her bones, resonating through her chest. This, she thinks, is only part of the emotion, the half she can handle right now. As soon as she’s alone, she knows that the weight of everything will probably take her out at her knees.

“You should get some rest,” Henry says once they’re back in the hallway. He looks between Jamie and Dani, an affectionate—almost fatherly—expression on his face. “I’ll take care of the rest.”

He squeezes Dani’s shoulder in passing, giving her a look that is probably meant to be reassuring, and then drifts back down the hallway and down the stairs.

And Dani does feel tired—so, so, so bone-tired and weary—but all she can think about is that faceless woman, Flora in her arms. How she had come so close to ending everything, all of it, and she would have succeeded, too, if it weren’t for those simple words Dani had found within herself. Without them, she would have killed Flora or Miles or even Jamie, which would have been the same as killing Dani herself.

It’s such a terrifying thing. The love of her life. The children in her care. Two things she’s practically already lost once. Two things she’s been so lucky to find again, that she cannot bear to lose.

Her heart aches with every beat and it’s only by some stroke of luck that she hasn’t started weeping yet. She hates this, hates herself for everything that’s happened. Whatever she missed and could have done better. She doesn’t know yet what the consequences of saving Flora are and she selfishly wants to go back and find a different way. Figure out how to save Flora and be selfish as well. To put her health, safety, and security first for once.

But it hadn’t been that simple.

In the hallway outside of Flora’s room, where she and Jamie kissed not even twelve hours before—so carefree and unaware of what was to come—Dani finally falls into Jamie’s arms, sobbing in a way that feels like it might never end. Jamie holds her and kisses her and whispers nonsense to try and calm her down, but Dani knows that she’s only putting on a brave face.

“You’re okay,” Jamie tells her, holding her closer and closer. “We’re okay.”

It’s true enough, at least, to let Dani breathe. To pull back and move to her own bedroom, pull Jamie inside and shut the door.

Behind the closed door, Dani pulls her clothes off piece-by-piece. She fumbles with her belt and zipper and sighs with relief when she finally manages to get her pants off, kick off her shoes. Jamie finds pajamas for her in her dresser and she helps Dani dress.

Dani feels very, very young for the first time in as long as she can remember as Jamie buttons up her pajama shirt. Even after having left all of that danger behind—for now, at least—she feels exposed and vulnerable within the drafty hollow of her bedroom.

She sits down heavily on the edge of the bed once she’s dressed, watching Jamie kick off her boots and drop her coat to the floor. For a moment, Dani thinks she’s going to join her on the bed, but she doesn’t. Instead, Jamie leans heavily against the dresser by the window and crosses her arms.

Dani can still taste the lake water at the back of her throat, the press of those fingers into her neck.

“I don’t even...What exactly did I miss, Dani?” Jamie asks, and that’s how Dani knows how serious she is:

The solemn use of her given name, no nicknames or pet names between them and her point.

“I don’t...I don’t even know,” Dani says, frustration bubbling inside of her chest, licking flames up her throat. “There was...Peter and Hannah were going to...take over Miles and Flora’s bodies and then—I got Flora out and we were going to run, but that...that thing grabbed me and I thought I was going to...So when she took Flora instead, I had to stop her. I had to...Flora would have died if I hadn’t.”

When she looks up, Jamie is staring at her with a look she can’t quite read in her eyes. “You might have been killed, Dani. That...that thing could have killed you.”

As if a switch has been flipped, Dani’s irritation turns into anger, so boiling that it’s near-incoherent.

“I know that!” she yells. “I know what could have happened and I know that I almost...but I...she was going to kill Flora, Jamie, I didn’t know what to do, I couldn’t just—”

Every muscle in her body is trembling, shaking, and they have been since she stood at the edge of that lake. This is the reality of that emotion she’s been swallowing since then. This is what her heart had been protecting her from.

There’s silence for a few moments. Dani keeps her eyes down, her hands flat and tight as she grips her knees, silent tears tracking down her face and dripping onto her shirt. Something touches her shoulder and she jumps, pulling away.

It’s Jamie, who withdraws quickly. “Sorry,” she says, sounding broken and longing.

Dani looks up at her and reaches one hand up, beckoning her closer. “Come here. Please touch me.”

At once, Jamie is kneeling in front of her, brushing hair out of Dani’s face and wiping away her tears. The bed is low but Jamie is still a head shorter now. She holds Dani’s hand, always anchoring her down when she’s at risk of blowing away.

“I’m sorry,” Jamie whispers, and Dani leans down to press their foreheads together. She closes her eyes. “I was just so scared. I’ve never been so fucking scared in my life.”

Dani cups her face in her hands. “I’m okay,” she says. “We both are. It’s okay.”

“I know that we haven’t really…” Jamie trails off, swallowing thickly. “I’m just really fucking terrified of losing you, Dani.”

Dani wants to say that she is, too, but she knows that she’s already made that pretty clear. Of course she’s terrified. She has every reason to be. She doesn’t exactly know what’s going to happen next.

“Come here,” Dani says, pulling away from Jamie to give her an earnest look. “Come up here and hold me.”

“Always,” Jamie promises, rubbing her hands up and down Dani’s thighs, warming her up. “Try and stop me.”

And, despite it all, Dani can’t help but smile. Jamie is the only person who’s ever cared for her this fervently. She can’t help believing every word that comes out of her mouth.

“I would never,” she says.

Jamie gets to her feet and crawls onto the bed, pulling Dani with her until they’re lying beneath the blankets, facing one another. Beneath the sheets, Dani feels her warm hand slipping beneath her shirt to rest on her hip, drawing idle patterns there.

It’s hard to believe that this woman is real sometimes. That Dani just happened upon her by some stroke of luck and that she plans on sticking around. That she’s still here after it all to offer a steady hand, a warm embrace, loving words. Dani doesn’t think she’s ever been able to lean on anyone the way she’s leaning on Jamie right now.

Maybe that’s because she doesn’t think Jamie could ever come close to letting her down. Falling in love with her is as easy as breathing.

“Jamie,” Dani whispers, shifting close enough to feel Jamie’s breath on her face.

Jamie kisses her chin, her nose, her eyelids. Everywhere she can reach with as much tenderness as anyone has ever had. Her touch is engulfing, the press of her lips reassuring.

“You’re so beautiful,” Jamie whispers. She tucks her face into the space between Dani’s neck and shoulder and kisses the skin she finds there.

Dani rakes her nails down Jamie’s back, through the fabric of her t-shirt, and smiles at the words—the same ones Jamie whispered over and over just the night before as her lips and fingers found every yielding inch of Dani’s body. She wonders if she’ll ever get tired of hearing them.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Jamie whispers next.

Dani sighs, boneless with the safety of exhaustion in Jamie’s arms. “Me too. Please just...stay.”

Chuckling, Jamie pulls back and kisses Dani’s forehead. “As long as you like.”

They’re quiet for a while. Just Jamie’s fingers making circles in the skin of Dani’s hip, pressing her mouth against her forehead and cheek. Dani closes her eyes and listens to the sound of Jamie breathing.

“How’s forever sound?” Dani asks, her brain filled with soft cotton and a calm fog that’s making everything—the house, the events of the evening, the world—feel distant and hazy.

Jamie is still for a moment, and then she laughs. Dani feels it against her body. “You’re serious, are you?” she asks.

Dani smiles, pressing a kiss to Jamie’s sternum. “Yes,” she says.

Guilt pricks at her stomach. She feels like it’s a promise she can’t offer. Whatever is inside of her—whatever’s just happened—neither of them know what’s coming next. They’re flying blind and she can’t help wondering: what if something happens? What if this doesn’t work out?

But those are questions for another time. Another Dani. One who’s had time to rest and sleep and breathe in the arms of the woman she loves.

Jamie pulls away so they can look at one another and her smile lights up the room. “Then you’ve got me,” she says. “S’long as I have you?”

Dani can’t help but grin. “Of course you do.”

Silence falls between them again and Dani snuggles a little closer. She’s not sure what time it is, and because of this, part of her is worried that they’re going to be interrupted by something else—something terrible or even mundane—any moment. She’s just about to ask when Jamie tightens her hold around Dani’s body.

“I’m not gonna let you get away, you know,” she says, so quiet and desperate she doesn’t really sound like herself.

Dani presses a kiss to the skin she’s lying against. “Thank you,” she says. Her eyes drift closed sleepily. “What time is it?”

Jamie kisses the corner of her mouth and shifts even closer. “There’s time,” she says. “Just rest.”

Dani does.

...

#i’m sorry #it had to be sad a little! #the haunting of bly manor #hobm #hobm spoilers #the haunting of bly manor spoilers #jamie/dani #dani/jamie #jamie and dani #andawaywego fanfic #if you are so inclined #hmu for more stuff #prompt #damie prompt

[stones-x-bones]

Faeted End || Rio and Bex (ft. A Special Guest)

TIMING: Current PARTIES: @3starsquinn and @inbextween, Jim the Warden (written by Virginia) SUMMARY: Rio wants to keep his friend safe, and Bex has had enough of people hurting Mina. CONTENT: Head injury, Memory Loss, Gun mention (but no usage), Domestic abuse mentions

Anger wasn’t a feeling Bex was used to, but how could she not be angry? Someone had hurt Mina, badly, and they were still out there. They were still allowed to walk around, unscathed, unpunished, unjustly. Rio had told her all about it, even if Mina wouldn’t, and the second she’d heard that it was someone like Frank, someone who hurt people specifically like Mina, the rage had begun to build in her stomach. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. Why were there people out there who specifically hunted others? It was disgusting. That man needed to be stopped. She’d decided that the instant she’d talked to Rio. He needed to be stopped, and Bex now had the tools to do that. You can stop the fight before it even begins. Nell had taught her a bit more since she’d last exploded that doll, and Bex knew she was right-- she was going to stop this man before he hurt anyone again. Before he hurt Mina again. 

It was with that boiling rage inside of her-- that fear, that worry, that pain-- that she ended up in the Outskirts with Rio. Apparently the man was at a bar down here, as Rio had told her. It just made her more angry. Was Adam like this? Was Dani? Was Mina supposed to be like this? She pushed the thoughts down and tried to calm herself, gathering her energy in the pit of her stomach, readying it for when she’d need it most. “Should we just go inside?” she asked in a hushed voice to Rio, “Or wait for him to come out?” 

It was very possible that Orion had made a mistake. He had almost died on two separate occasions now, ironically with two girls that were dating. Once he knew, he couldn’t keep it to himself. He couldn’t stop thinking about the hunter that would almost undoubtedly go after Mina again. But he didn’t know how to stop him. When he first told Bex about the man, it was more as a warning than anything else. Just so they could keep an eye out for him. Now, he stood in front of the worst places in town. 

His arms were crossed, a very deliberate attempt to hide his goosebumps. He rocked back and forth on his feet to hide any shaking. He hadn’t been inside of this bar in a long time. But all of the horrible memories were too vivid. He used to sit at the same table with his parents and sister, headphones in but still unable to block the conversations other hunters had. Terrible, evil conversations about the supernatural creatures Rio wanted only to protect. “Going in is a very bad idea.” Rio answered as soon as it was suggested. They never stood a chance against a group of hunters. They barely stood a chance against one. “He’s dangerous. And we don’t exactly want to attract any attention.” He hadn’t exactly mentioned that this bar was almost exclusively hunters. Well, besides that one guy. He seemed nice. “That wouldn’t be good for us.”

“Yeah, well,” Bex spat, surprised at her own ire, “I’m dangerous, too.” The power inside her stomach was dangerous. She didn’t want to wait for this man, but Rio was right-- going inside was a bad idea. She could recognize that much. So they would wait. “Fine, we’ll wait.” She ushered Rio over to one of the stores that was across the street from the innocuous looking bar. They’d have to keep a close watch, to see when he left. Not wanting to make a scene also meant they’d have to follow him a little distance away until they could get him well and truly alone. Just like he’d had Mina. Just like he’d probably had so many others. Bex felt her anger growing again and the window beside her cracked a little. She looked back at Rio. “You don’t have to stay, if you don’t want to,” she told him. He looked absolutely frightened, which Bex was sure was fair. From what he’d told her, this man had attacked him, too, and there were still signs of that evident on his skin. Her eyes lingered on the bruises around his neck. She needed to calm down before she exploded too soon. “I’ll be okay on my own.” 

The two perched in a nearby store, Bex seemingly intent on watching the entrance to the Silver Bullet at all times, while Orion barely wanted to see the place at all. The longer the two waited, the more anxious Rio was going to get. But there was no way he was going to leave Bex alone to try to talk to the man. Besides, he had no interest in anyone dying tonight. It was clear the warden had no issues killing non-fae. And the only examples of Bex’s magic that Rio had seen so far was her blowing things up. It was a hostile mixture. 

“It’s fine. Just keep your eye out for the door okay? I’m going to go get him” He hated the words even has he said them, but pulled his jacket tighter shut and left quickly. His legs were going to give out quickly if he fought it off any longer. His choice now was to get in and get out quickly. He hoped that the sight of Rio would peak the hunter’s interest enough to follow him. As long as he didn’t call him out in front of the entire bar, this would probably end in no death.

The place hadn’t changed a bit, right down to the nausea Rio felt being inside of it. He stood in the entrance way for a while, looking past the prying eyes turning to see who had just walked in. Many faces were familiar, and from the look on their faces Rio could tell they recognized him too. The kid whose parents got offed by the supernatural last year. The news had spread through the hunter community that had known his parents. He didn’t want to give them a chance to start a conversation, so he pushed on his tippy toes and glanced around the bar as if looking for someone. Rio spotted him in the corner of the bar, eyes staring directly in Rio’s direction. So he noticed me too. Great. Though this was technically according to plan, he still hated the feeling of that man looking at him. When the man stood up, Rio spun in place and pushed out the door, glancing at the shop window and pointing in the direction down the street before high tailing away from the bar.

Since coming to this shitstain of a town, Jim’d learned two things: the people were fucking crazy, and what the Silver Bullet lacked in company and good beer, it made up for in information. And interesting sightings. He’d been feeling like shit since those two kids handed him his ass on a platter. One twerpy boy and an already injured fae should’ve been cake to take down, but somehow they’d gotten the better of him, and he couldn’t stand it, trying to swallow down the bitterness of it with watery beer. He couldn’t figure out what was wrong. He’d thought maybe the boy had been brainwashed, promised into protecting the fae, but that hadn’t appeared to be the case. Then he’d thought the fae might try to flee while he took care of the boy, but she’d stuck around, and the two of them had managed to wail on him until he hadn’t been able to stand. Fucking kids. He’d kill the boy just for interrupting with his hunt, but not before he made the little punk tell him where the fae was. He’d make a pretty penny off of her, he just knew it. Somebody was always in the market for nix teeth and scales, and hers had been a nice, silvery color from what he could remember of her goddamn hand and claws ripping into him. He’d kill her slow, make it hurt. He’d be doing the world a service, too.

It was Jim’s lucky night, too. Not the fae; of course it’d be too easy to give him the fae, but the punk was in the Silver Bullet of all places, locking eyes with Jim and then scurrying a way like the fucking pest that he was. Jim grinned at the bartender and laid down his money. “Duty call, pal.” He headed out the door, following the kid and his weird gestures. Maybe the fae was around here after all, though he couldn’t sense her. He allow a bit of iron to concentrate in his hands, though, before reaching for the gun holstered under his jacket. No sword, this time. No point in losing another fine weapon when iron bullets did their job on all kinds of targets. “Hey, Peter Pan!” Jim called out. “Where are you, boy? I just wanna talk about your friend from the other day.”

Bex watched Rio scurry off and stilled herself, watching the door. She wasn’t a hunter or anyone who hurt people by a long shot-- she wasn’t like Nell, her magic wasn’t the kind you used to fight, and she wasn’t like Mina, she wasn’t strong or capable-- but Nell had given her the tools to do what neither of them could. Stop it before it even started. And oh, would she. She wasn’t going to let anyone hurt Mina again. Not like this. Not with broken bones and hand-shaped burns, and black-eyes. She could protect people, too. 

Her eyes locked with Rio’s when he exited the bar. The man was coming. Rio darted towards an emptier part of the street, and Bex dropped whatever distraction she’d been holding and followed after, watching the man leave the bar in a hurry, trailing Rio towards the abandoned bits of town. Bex looked as innocent as a flower, with her pretty, blue dress, her hair tied up nice, and her matching purse. She followed casually behind the man, despite the anger in her stomach making her fingers feel like they were on fire. Somehow, there was no fear. No worry. No anxiety. Just anger. 

The man turned off behind one of the buildings after Rio and Bex followed close behind them. He called out, but Rio didn’t answer. Bex cleared her throat. “I’m sorry,” she said, clicking her heels on the cement, “are you looking for someone?”

This had been Orion’s own idea, yet his heart exploded in his chest as he rushed out of the bar and down the street. He could hear the hunter behind him, the heavy footsteps loud enough that Rio’s hunter senses weren’t even necessary. He dipped into the alleyway, dipping behind a dumpster and pressing his back against it. The hunter would find him. Rio knew that much. He couldn’t hide forever. He looked for anything he could to defend himself, eventually settling on a broken piece of wood from a nearby pallet board. He gripped the wood tightly and held it against his chest, waiting for the footsteps. They drew closer and closer, feet away from him now until he heard Bex’s voice cut through the quiet of the night. Jesus. She really had no fears. Rio inched closer to the dumpster. He needed to be ready to jump in if the hunter lunged for her. 

Jim was expecting a boy, not a girl to start talking to him. He turned around to face the voice and relaxed. Easy. Just a girl, no fae, just a kid in a dress with a purse to match it. “Heya, little lady. Yeah, yeah, I’m looking for a boy about,” he put up his hand, guessing the size of the kid from when he’d last seen him, “yay high?” Runty looking, he almost said, but he was playing nice. Girl was probably a normie. “Might look a little skittish. Kid owes me something, and I need to talk to him real bad.” He put his thumbs in his front pockets, his posture loose, easy. Then he said, “Or he might have a friend with him? Been needing to talk to her, too. She’s about your height, wide eyes.” Doesn’t fucking belong here. “I just need to talk to them both like you believe. Saw them the other day, but they just ran off before we could have our chat, can you believe that? You’re not rude like that, are you, sweetheart? You’d tell me if you saw them?”

She hated the way he talked. So many men had talked to her like that in her life already. It only made her more sure of what she was going to do. What that was? Even Bex wasn’t sure yet, but it was going to be something. Her magic could mess with people’s heads, that’s what she knew for sure. She’d given Eddie her memories of Kyle, had linked her and Kyle’s thoughts, had jumped through Hina’s dreams-- whatever she was going to do to this man, he was going to be left wishing he’d never laid a hand on Mina, or Rio. She smiled pleasantly. “Oh! You must mean Rio,” she said, grinning wider. “He owes you something? That’s strange. He usually always makes sure he follows up on that kinda stuff.” She tapped the strap of her purse, as if in thought. “A girl?” she tilted her head, innocently. All those years of pretending to be proper, pretending to be a good girl were paying off, weren’t they? She knew exactly how to be sweet and unassuming to old men who would never even guess that she hid a power they couldn’t fight again. “Do you mean...Mina? Brown hair, beautiful hazel eyes? A voice that sounds like a babbling brook?” She kept the innocent look on her face. “Are those the two you mean? My friends?” Her voice grew dark in a way she hadn’t known possible of herself, but she couldn't hold it back. “Do you mean the friends of mine you tried to kill, simply because, what?” she held her hand out in a shrugging gesture, “you’re human and they’re not?”

Well, this was… confusing. Jim furrowed his brow, lips dragging down into a frown as he looked at the girl in front of him. “Well, now, I don’t know names or anything like that, but--” Well, huh. Jim relaxed his face, looking at this girl with new eyes. Little lady had bite, then. “Like I said, don’t know names. And I don’t know if I’d say ‘babbling brook.’” He laughed, finding irony in the descriptor. Of course this girl would say that the water nymph sounded like a goddamn stream. “She did babble, though, on and on about shit I just didn’t care about until I shut her up. Got to give it to her, though. Wretch didn’t cry out when I snapped her arm.” This one wasn’t fae, but, just like the boy, she was a liability. Pixy-led, they called them, led astray or promise bound, tricked by the trickiest of the supernaturals. This girl was just like the boy, a fool to fall for a pretty facade. Beautiful hazel eyes. Jim wondered if this girl would think they were so beautiful if they were the last thing she saw as she got dragged under the waves. “I’m like pest control, girl. That’s all there is to it. I’m getting rid of dangerous things. Things you might think you understand, but that you just don’t. Now, you can tell me where this Rio is, this Mina is, or you can stay the hell out of my way. We clear?”

It wasn’t the way he talked to her that set Bex off, no. It wasn’t even the things he was saying, or the way in which he talked down to her, like she knew nothing and was nothing, the same way her parents did. No, it was the casualty with which he talked about snapping Mina’s arm. Bex couldn’t help the release of anger that erupted from her. The windows next to the man cracked and shattered. The dumpster Rio hid behind caved in as if by some invisible force, crashing into it. Bex’s chest flared and she breathed in deeply, holding it. How dare he hold that memory like a laugh in his mind. How dare he think about Mina as if she were prey, a pest. Her teeth clenched so hard together she heard her jaw pop. “Stop,” she hissed through her teeth, and a pulse of magic went out and it commanded him, whether he wanted to or not, to stop. Stop talking, stop moving, stop thinking. “You get her name out of your mouth.” Her hand tightened on the strap of her purse, and, slowly, she removed it from her shoulder, setting it on the ground. Inside it, the ingredients she’d used for the spell, red hot on the palm of her hands. She locked eyes with Rio behind the man. Her entire body was shaking, and she couldn’t tell if it was from anger or fear, but she began her path forward, towards the man. Her hands were tingling with what felt like fire, all of her energy concentrated in them. She’d rip the memories from his head if she had to. She’d decided-- she would not let this man hurt anyone, ever again. “She is not a pest,” she said with shaky conviction in her voice, “and right now, she’s not the dangerous one.” She reached out her hands, placed them on the man’s head. “I am.”

Jim immediately realized that something was fucked up when he couldn’t move. He couldn’t flinch as the glass rained down on him, couldn’t blink, could even move his eyes from where they were focused on this goddamn child in front of him. Motherfucking witches. He didn’t think that witches gave two shits about fae, but what the hell did he know about these fucking kids? All of them had gone off the deep end. His brain felt like the cogs in it had grinded to a stop before they sputtered back to life, and he started to regain pieces of himself the closer the girl walked to him. He could move his eyes. He could twitch his fingers. He could grit his teeth. When she reached her hand out, Jim jerked his up. “Nice try, kid,” he grunted out, taking her hand before she could touch his head. “But I’ve dealt with fae mind magic my whole goddamn life. You’re gonna have to be better than that.” He grinned, savagely. What an important little fae this must be if she had not one but two humans at her beck and call. “Mina, Mina, Mina,” he drawled out mockingly. “What a fucking whiny name. Can’t believe something like that’s got a witch on her side, of all things.” He brought her hands down to her waist. “You’re not dangerous, sweetheart. You’re just fucking annoying.”

The movement caught Bex by surprise. She probably should have been afraid-- this man had ruthlessly attacked Mina, had even tried to go through Rio to get to her-- but she couldn’t feel her fear through all of the anger coursing through her. It was an unstoppable energy now, even as her hands were yanked down to her sides and she was held in place. She tried to pull from his grip, but he was too strong, and she couldn’t move. Her eyes went to Rio behind them. She wanted to call for his help, but her magic was volatile, he might get hurt. “Stay back!” she shouted instead. She hoped it would distract him enough to look away, but the fact of the matter was that she didn’t need him to look away. Instead, she threw her head forward, like they had taught her in those self-defense classes, and slammed her head as hard as she could into his nose. She could hear it crack. Her head splintered with pain-- oh, yeah, she had a cut on her head. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. She saw the gun on his hip and it just didn’t matter. What mattered was Mina. And how he kept saying her name and how he kept thinking about killing her and Bex wanted it to stop. She wanted him to suffer, to feel the pain and hurt and agony he had caused every fae he’d met up until this moment. And she wanted him to crumble to his knees. And she let go of all of her energy, eyes flashing, and let it pour into his head as she focused on everything she wanted this man to feel. And when he crumpled, she would take everything else from him. She would tear Mina’s name from his mouth and his mind and she would make him wish he’d never met them. 

Hunter reflexes or not, Orion knew that Bex’s magic was keeping him preoccupied. He took the opportunity when it prevented itself, sliding out from the dumpster and swinging his makeshift weapon like a bat, bringing the board against the back of the warden’s neck. If Bex’s magic was already overpowering him, then that would just add some extra fuel to the fire. The act of violence triggered a wave of unease in Rio, but he tried to remind himself of how passionately the man had tried to kill Mina and Rio just days ago. He just needed to remember that they weren’t here to kill him. Unlike him, they weren’t monsters. Rio reached for his holster, unclipping and pulling the gun free. He hated the way it fit into his palm. He had always hated guns even more than usual weaponry, but he knew how to work one. His parents had made sure of that. He pressed the magazine release, dropping the round from the gun and then cocking back the slide to release the last bullet from the barrel. Once the gun was dismantled, he tossed the pieces aside. He had no plans of using the gun and he definitely didn’t want the hunter getting to it. “Unlike you, we don’t plan on killing you. We just want to make sure you’re going to leave our friend alone.”

“Fuck!” Jim managed to shout as the girl jerked her head against his nose, blood pouring out. It didn’t do anything more than piss him off, and he was about to tell this goddamn brat that before he felt something whack him against the back of the head. He stumbled, enraged like a bull with a red flag waving out in front of him. He was pissed off, and somebody was about to suffer for it, fae or not. Nobody taught their goddamn kids the rules anymore. Nobody taught their fucking offspring to stay out of a hunter’s way. As he was about to speak, Jim felt warm, like he tended to when he brought iron to the surface of his skin. Then he felt hot, burning, like he’d been sliced and burned and cut and scorched, an agonizing burn that started under his skin and in his brain, and he screamed out, as if he was on fire, but he wasn’t. He looked at his shaky hands, but they were fine. But Jim was on fire. He couldn’t even comprehend what the boy, the one from the woods and the one who hit him with a goddamn board, was saying to him. He couldn’t comprehend the sound of the magazine hitting the ground, and he couldn’t comprehend the sound of the gun being thrown. He could only comprehend the feeling of burning on his skin, and the smell of iron in his nose, and the screams that he recognized, vaguely, as ones that he’d caused melding with the sounds that came out of his clenched teeth as the realization that this is what cold iron felt like on the skin of a fae overwhelmed him. Jim fell to his knees, clawing at his skin. “Please,” he said, voice ragged, choked. “Make it stop, witch. Make it fucking stop.”

Bex stumbled and fell from his grip. Blood dripped down her head, the cut gashed back open. She fell to her knees, shaking. She’d used a lot of energy, she could feel it aching in her bones. But she wasn’t done. He was still able to feel and walk and talk and that wasn’t fair, was it? That wasn’t fair. He’d snapped Mina’s arm and tried to strangle Rio and if he was left to walk away from this unscatched, he’d do it again. She heaved a breath and stood back up on shaky legs, stumbling one step before catching herself. She locked eyes with Rio for a moment, breathing heavy, before she let her eyes fall back to the man on the ground, writhing in invisible pain. She’d done that. Nell was right. She had so much power. She managed to walk the few steps over to the man before she fell back to her knees in front of him. “Did you ever stop?” was all she asked, making sure he knew his fate before she reached her hand back out and placed it on his forehead. Just like in the books, she closed her eyes and concentrated on whatever memories he had of Mina, of Rio. Of hurting anyone who was fae. And she heaved with exhaustion as she cried out and ripped them from his head, her hand pulling back as if on fire, palm blazing red. 

There was nothing to do now but wait. Orion stole glances back and forth between the man and Bex. His breathing quickened as he looked away from the visible pain the man was in. He knew hunters exactly like him, had grown up with them. They valued pride above anything else. He would be doing everything in his power to remain stoic if he could. Whatever Bex was doing, it hurt. The thought made Rio uncomfortable, shifting back and forth in an attempt to clear his head from it. He thought about the way his vision began to blur as he was held underwater. This man was a monster. A murderer. If they didn’t do something, he would kill again. If the scene didn’t look so painfully cruel, Rio might almost be fascinated by what she was doing. Instead he tried to think about the fae that would be safer in the world. 

Jim managed to look up at this witch, this fucking child, who held so much distaste for him just from doing his goddamn job. He could just barely make out her question, but he couldn’t be bothered to be moved by it. Of course he hadn’t stopped, he wanted to say, but there were no words on his tongue. Why would he stop? He was doing his duty, and if that meant that he took a few extra lives that got in his way, then it didn’t matter. They were beyond saying. Fae were dangerous, they were cruel, and they would twist everything they could get their hands on until it was a perversion of itself. This girl would find that out eventually. The boy would, too. He couldn’t really voice that, though. Couldn’t really voice anything, and, as the girl cried out, Jim did, too, as he watched with his mind’s eye as all the parts of him that made him got dragged out, scrambled, distorted. Was it his mama that gave him his first knife or his pop? Was it a knife or a gun? Was it anything at all? Was he anything at all? He didn’t know. He slumped a bit, head bowed, and blood dripped from his nose onto the ground in front of him. Glassy eyes stared at it but didn’t see. He didn’t know anything at all, really. 

Bex’s lungs heaved for air as she fell away from the man, a coughing fit overcoming her; she laid out in the alley on her back, just trying to breathe. She’d used too much, she knew that, but she didn’t care. She tasted iron in the back of her throat, on her tongue, wiped it from her lips once she’d stopped hacking up air. She sat up, the world was spinning, the road was stretching out before her, Rio somewhere down it, staring wide eyed. Visions of the man’s memories played behind her eyes and she blinked heavily several times to make them go away, speckles of light dotting her vision. “Is he…” she started to say, lightheaded and dizzy as she tried to climb to her feet, stumbling into a dumpster and collapsing back to the ground. She looked back at the man’s slumped form and knew that he was. He was gone. He wasn’t going to be hurting anyone, anytime soon. She’d done it. Blood trickled from her nose down over her lips as she smiled. “I did it,” she mumbled, before her world went black and she slumped backwards onto the pavement.

Eventually, the man stopped fighting against the magic and went still on his knees. Orion tilted his head slightly at the sight. He was breathing, Rio could hear it. But he didn’t look aware of his surroundings. He took a step toward the man, “You did it?” Rio asked, unsure exactly what she had just done exactly. But Rio wasn’t going to get an answer. He heard the rush of air and turned as Bex started to fall backwards. His reflexes kicked into effect quickly, his arm shooting forward so he could grab onto her wrist just before she hit the pavement. He breathed a quick sigh of relief that his hunter reflexes had at least been good for something tonight. “Uh… Bex?” Rio asked quietly, slowly lowering her against the ground. She was probably fine, right? He knew that spells could be draining. It must be that. He couldn’t stop himself from looking back at the hunter. It was a weird feeling, knowing that the two had just taken on a hunter. Even if Rio didn’t do much besides play bait. He took a small step back and patted the hunter’s shoulder, “I’m uh- sure that you’ll be fine here.” He mostly said to reassure himself before squatting down to lift Bex up and toss her over his shoulders. And she called him scrawny. He supposed he was responsible for getting her home now. 

#chatzy #wickedswriting #chatzy: rio #rio #domestic abuse mention tw #gun tw #head injury tw #memory loss tw #//pls feel free to message if u need a tw free summary!

[crimsonandcloverwrites]

OK BLOOM TOWN CH10 LIVEBLOG THOUGHTS LETS GO

@n0tmyname you have ended me I loved this chapter so much but I need to go sleep for 17 hours to recover

Dani introducing herself to the horse please that’s so cute

Dani stressing she’s fucked up and is never going to find them... relateable but like nooo baby u can do it i believe in you

ok we’re screaming it out. sexy and effective we love to see it

:(:(:( I fucking knew Bly was gonna be empty when she got there but it still guts me

WAIT OK THEY’RE NOT GONE HALLELUJAH

BUT OH NO FLORA

I know this is not going in a positive direction but my brain will not stop singing reunited and it feels so gooood @ Dani and Jamie seeing each other again for the first time

Jamie why are u mad and do u want to kiss Dani about it

oh flora :(:(

i need my glasses prescription updated and it is very obvious right now but I couldn’t get an appointment until August like did they not know there would be a very long lesbian fanfiction update I would need to read before then #HelpMyEyesHurtButICantStopReading

the envelope??? what choice what’s happening. wait is Jamie leaving them? please I will cry she is so good

OH NO WHERE IS PETER WHAT SHENANIGANS ARE AFOOT

poor sweet miles :( you will find bloom town one day i believe in it

Dani... just wants to protect her girl... even when... she’s being... a stubborn ass.

lmao she out stubborned her THAT’S MY GIRL

oh they’re so soft for each other I need that soft emoji with the big eyes but i’m on stupid desktop but just like insert 10000 of them here

i am 3ms away from cryin at all moments

“I don’t want you different.”  I DON’T WANT YOU DIFFERENT please I am so fragile

the gunshot.... may I just say... BANG BANG INTO THE ROOM (I KNOW YOU WANT IT). it has started

god I hate guns but Jamie with weapons... sexy

JAMIE THERE IS DANGER AFOOT NO TIME TO BE FLIRT ROASTING DANI ABOUT HER INABILITY TO AIM

foot fetishists hate her

holy shit A MAN

A MAN WITH A GUN

aaaand he’s gone

WHERE IS PETE BOY YOU BETTER EMERGE AT AN UNEXPECTED MOMENT AND SAVE THE DAY

heart in my dang throat this is so stressful

ok going to my happy place (thinking about Jamie tending to Dani’s wounds when this is all over)

NOOO NOT ANOTHER MAN. LEAVE DANI ALONE

raise your hand if you too are a fiery little bitch with unnatural inclinations

JAMIE TO THE RESCUE. dang ok gruesome but deserved

“something akin to hope began to light in Dani’s chest” IT’S A TRAP

stress snacking my way through this. it’s mashed potato time

“Still, anger burned more brightly than fear.“ THAT’S MY GIRL

ooooh Jamie with the knife skills I am listening

godddd she goes so hard for dani THEY’RE IN LOVE YOUR HONOUR

“The Lord commanded you to be an enormous twat?” PLEASE

oh ick

getting into an emotional discussions in the middle of a gunfight... classic lesbians

getting all sappy with each other in the middle of a gunfight... classic lesbians (but seriously “I still can’t believe you came back” “I can’t believe I found you” has me soft as shit. sap away lesbians)

lmao edmund getting all riled n Jamie’s just like sorry I ball harder than u ever will #GirlBoss

oh my god jamie the kerosene

NOOO THIS IS NOT HOW IT’S SUPPOSED TO GO

“Jamie wouldn’t do something as stupid as dying.” no she would not especially when she’s got a happily ever after to live

god they’re hanging off a fucking cliff I’m sweating

wow u just gonna save an ugly man first when Dani is right there

oh my god? oh my god. he dead

oh my god this fucking asshole

JAMIE RIGHT NOW WOULD BE A SWELL TIME TO COME BACK FROM THE DEAD

DANI YOU’RE NOT GONNA DIE YOU’RE THE MAIN CHARACTER (NO ONE TALK ABOUT THE SOURCE MARTERIAL)

oh my god dani climb for your life i believe in u

yes girl use ur lesbian rage and scream ur way to the top

Dani climbin over that edge like I LIVED BITCH

OH MY GOD JAMIE TURNING UP ON HORSEBACK LIKE I LIVED BITCH

PLEASE THEY ARE BOTH SAFE I’M SO HAPPY SHOULD I STOP READING RIGHT NOW I KNOW THIS PEACE CANNOT HOLD

nooo not moon :(:(:( please be safe

no no no no no

oh moon. dang this fic for making me cry

mikey. fuuuuck

“I poison things.” Jamie no

I cannot stop crying

I would like to file a complaint for emotional disress DON’T MAKE THEM FIGHT EVEN IF THEY NEED TO GET THIS SHIT OUT BEFORE THEY CAN COME TOGETHER AND BE STRONG I DON’T WANT IT RIGHT NOW

HOW DARE YOU WITH THE ‘WE COULD HAVE SO MANY MORE YEARS TOGETHER’ ROLE REVERSAL. NOT LIKE THIS

I need to take a break i can’t see w these blurry eyes but I wanna keep reading :/

in another lifetime?!?!?!?! NO. THIS ONE. THIS LIFETIME

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

JAMIE WHAT IS SHE GOING TO DO WITHOUT YOU. WHERE IS SHE GOING TO GO. COME BACK

“I’m all alone now.” and now I’m sobbing again

ati’iwan ka’si-tsi... fearless.... most brave and powerful woman.... *with tears in my eyes* so true besties

“The ceremony is for you.”

I love imaginary Jamie saying things to her.... Edward Cullen who

dabai means sun. oh

To quote those dang bhah geniuses...Jamie come home

moon was Jamie’s soul twin..... as if this didn’t hurt enough already

wait the... the sun and the moon... they’re never alone.... pls

“Then you’ll continue to light the moon from afar and each day it will hurt a little less.” PLS

Dani is going to build her own Bloom Town and it’s going to be a wonderful place and everyone in it is going to thrive and JAMIE IS GOING TO COME HOME

I think I’ve been missing you my whole life...................................

I’m going insane

find her pieces and put them back together. JAMIE SHE CAN ONLY DO IT IF YOU’LL LET HER

“It’s a Hawthorn leaf,” he said. “She says it’s used to heal the heart.”  PLEASE MAY I HAVE SOME HAWTHORN

#bloom town #bloom town spoilers #truly every silly little thought that crossed my mind. read at ur own risk

[maybebrilliant]

My birthday gifts

I would like to start this off by saying how much I love all of you that made me moodboards, wrote fics, and sent me sweet, beautiful messages. Really, you brightened up my day so insanely much, and I’m so grateful to all of you. 

You’re all such lovely, amazing, special people, and I’m so glad and honoured to have met you all. You’re the best friends/siblings/mums/family anyone could ever ask for, and I wouldn’t swap you for the WORLD. I do not deserve all this, but WOW I am SO HONOURED!!

You all deserve hugs and love and millions of kudos, for taking the time and energy to make me things, and such lovely ones as well!!! I feel so special, and it’s all thanks to you wonderful humans 💙

Then, last thing before I start, I am FREAKING OUT and AMAZED at the amount of things I recieved! I’ll put them all in a list below, but seriously, how am I this lucky? I’m used to being the shy girl, but somehow I’ve made a load of incredible friends, and they’ve all created INCREDIBLE content for me. 

So, without further rambling on my part, here’s everything I recieved for my birthday! (It’s such a long list I’m C R Y I N G from happiness, you all. Like. LOOK AT THIS. I am the luckiest person in the whole fucking world.)

Art

 The emperor but Melinda May by @fentasticallyconfuddled. Fen, this is absolutely gorgeous! I stared at it for a full five minutes before reblogging, I’ll have you know. Your digital are has become seriously good, and this one is for ME 😍

Moodboards

Skimmons + Enemies to Lovers + Musician AU moodboard by @acetoshikosato. Ah Dani, this is just fantastic! I love it so so so much, I can just see how that would work and let me tell you, it’s fantastic!!!

Jemma Simmons, green + white moodboard by @missinglittlebritishfriend. Oh gosh, Val, this is incredible! One of my favourite girls, and such gorgeous colours!!!

Huntingbird + white moodboard by @2minutes2midnight. Zuza!!! Your moodboards are always amazing, but this one is special and I LOVE IT SO MUCHHH

Staticquake + first apartment moodboard by @springmagpies. Aaah, Maggie, a lovely moodboard for a lovely ship! And what a moodboard, though 😍🥰

Beautiful Irises by @sharing-a-room-with-an-open-fire. Di, what an incredible thing! And I’m so touched, because you REMEMBERED that these are my favourite flowers, and honestly that just means so much. 💙

Fics

like it could be love by @leahnonsense. OMG SIS, WHAT THE *Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist* ?!?!? YOU? Writing FICS again? And, sjdlkjsk, such an INCREDIBLE one, omg. Like, BennyBeth? Spies AU? And a freaking multichap? I LOVE IT SO MUCH

take your breath away by @daisylincs. Aaaaah, Lily!!!! This is just so perfect and incredible and, omg, I love it with my whole heart! All 11k of it dksjdlksjksj. I can’t stop ranting about it, ask Le lmao, and I will read it every time I’m sad to cheer me up😍💙💜

the things we say in the dark by @besidemethewholedamntime. Oh gosh, Rebecca, I am HERE for soft Huntingbird, and that’s exactly what you gave me!! I can just read it over and over again, honestly. GORGEOUS.

i can’t stop you putting roots in my dreamland  by @loved-the-stars-too-fondly. Ahhhh, another fic that lives in my heart rent free! Based on the most hilarious Tumblr meme, this made me laugh and awwww so much. Aubrey, ilsym!!

brave face, talk so lightly (hide the truth) by @the-9muses. Q. Q!!! Beautiful, amazing Skimmons angst, and SO WELL WRITTEN as always. Honestly, perfect!!!

the greatest loves of all time are over now by @sad-tunes. MORE SKIMMONS ANGST!! I am SO HERE FOR IT. Vi, this is just so lovely, (even though it was written in an hour lmao) LOVE IT. 

small wonder why we love them so by @nazezdha321. SKIMMONS. ADOPTING. A. KITTEN!!!!! Z, honestly ilsymm and this is just WONDERFUL. Pixie lives in my heart rent-free 🥺

(not so) fake dating by @browneyedgenius. MY LITTLE STATICQUAKE BBYS FAKE DATING!!!. M, you know me so well lmao. The BEST!

Science Nerds by @eowima. FITZ AND PETER!!!!! Like, when was there ever a more perfect combination to nerd out about science? Dksjdkjds I LOVE IT :D. 

Asphodel: chapter 14 by @aleksandrachaev. For me and @the-9muses KAT IT UPDATED AND IT’S FOR ME AND Q THIS IS EVERYTHING I WANT IN LIFE. sldjsldjslkjsk. OK, Q, we gotta go read this!! This fic is the BESTTTTT. 

Then there are all the people who sent me birthday asks, and honestly they brightened my day so, so much, so thank you Thank You THANK YOU!!!!! You all are the BEST. PEOPLE. ON. EARTH, and I would die for you all 💙💙💙💙💙 💙💙💙💙💙 💙💙💙💙💙 💙💙💙💙💙 💙💙💙💙💙 💙💙💙💙💙

(I’m leaving this up until the end of the month, because 😍)

#my birthday things #gifts #C R Y I N G #SERIOUSLY I am SO HAPPY #lovely tumblr friends <3 #what we're fighting for #fen #dani #val #zuza #maggie #di💙 #leahlove #lilymum #rebecca💛 #aubrey #Q #vi >:) <3 #Z #M&M #oceane #katmom #and there you have it #the best day of my life <33333

[moonflowerlesbians]

I took a quick break from prompts to write 5000 words of pure angst. I hope you’ll forgive me. 

“we let precious time go by”

Read on AO3.

Summary: “The day will come when she returns to an empty flat, or she’ll wake to a cold pillow beside her. If she’s lucky, she’ll be there when the beast pounces. She’ll get to say goodbye. 

A piece of her will die that day, she knows. 

Dani will die that day.”

Word Count: 5088

They live together thirteen years after Bly. Thirteen wonderful years in a little flat in a small town in Vermont that looks like the spirit of Christmas itself retched on every building in the wintertime. They sell poinsettias and wreaths of holly for the holidays and budding perennials in the warmer months. They find the cheapest grocer, the best plumber, the man who drives into town selling fresh eggs on Wednesdays.

They befriend an elderly woman with three toy poodles, who stops by The Leafling every Sunday morning before mass to purchase flowers for her late husband’s grave, and they try not to think of Hannah. The daycare center three doors down marches the children to the park twice a day, right past the shop, and they try not to think of Rebecca and the Wingraves. They learn the quickest route to their favorite take-away place by heart, and they try not to think of Owen.

It’s hard, though, when your world’s been shattered and everyone else is carrying on as if nothing’s happened. But, thirteen years go by, and they manage. They manage, even as Dani becomes a bit less like herself every day, and Jamie struggles to pretend everything is fine. She pretends not to notice when she finds a sock in the freezer or Dani’s toothbrush between the couch cushions. Pretends not to notice when the lines on Dani’s face grow deeper, etched into her fair skin like stone, and she pretends not to notice when Dani wakes in the dead of night to gaze out the window for hours on end, then returns to bed as if she never left.

She’d brought it up with Dani over dinner. She had grasped Dani’s hand ever so gently, running a soothing thumb over the knuckles. Dani looked as if she hadn’t slept in days. Maybe she hadn’t. A tear tracked down her cheek and dropped onto her lap.

“Please, love, please let me help,” Jamie had begged, and she had never meant anything more in her life, save the night she had accepted Dani’s ring.

Dani had observed her sadly, centuries of knowledge weighing heavy behind her eyes. “You can’t.”

“Please, Dani.” She hadn’t meant to break down, she hadn’t. She had meant to be strong, a steadfast rock in a stormy sea.

“Jamie…” Dani’s voice had been soft, resigned. “It’s her.” She looked down at her clasped hands, as if unwilling to bear witness the damage sure to show on Jamie’s face.

This was meant to be dinner, a question about a frozen sock, an easy explanation. Just a little swamped with the shop’s finances. A natural remedy she had read about in a magazine. Not this. Anything but this.

Jamie had known the day might come, when the memories they’d repressed would reappear to haunt them like Peter fucking Quint. She had hoped with every fibre of herself that the ghastly woman from that terrible night at the lake would slumber for decades yet.

Christ, how long had the Lady been awake? How long had Dani kept this from her?

Dani had seemed to sense her question. She’d become too good at that as of late.

“Only a few months.”

A few months.

Jamie’s lips had tightened into a thin line, and she forced herself to swallow back a sob, eyes closed.  

“Dani, why-?”

Why didn’t you tell me?

Why now?

Why this?

Why them?

“You don’t deserve this,” Dani had said, and Jamie’s heart shattered. “It’s my burden, not yours--”

“No. No, no--”

“--I can’t ask you to take this on. I invited her in; I condemned myself, not you.”

“Stop, Dani, stop.”

“Jamie, please…” Dani had sounded so small, so broken. “You have to go.”

“No,” Jamie had refused outright. “Never.”

“Then me. I’ll leave.”

“No one is going bloody anywhere.” Jamie had been steely calm, even as her ribcage threatened to break with the effort. “You and I are staying right fucking here. You hear me, Dani? Right here.” She hadn’t been able to hide the crack on the final syllable. Her ring caught the warm glow of the kitchen light.

Jamie took a steadying breath. “When you came home with that wee plant, you know what I thought? I thought, ‘ah, shite, she’s gone and found another lost cause.’” Here, Jamie had given a small smile. “‘And I bloody love her for it.’”

Dani wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“Haven’t got a clue how you always see the possibility in everything. No one’s too far gone to save with you around, Poppins. It’s exhausting, really,” Jamie had continued. “I took your ring, and I’ve never regretted it. Not once, yeah? Not once. I knew what I signed up for: lovin’ you, relentless optimism an’ all.” Her laugh had been watery. “So, we’re not goin’ anywhere. It’s us, yeah? Always has been, always will be.”

So Dani had stayed. And Jamie redoubled her efforts to support her.

She runs the errands on the evenings where the dark feels all too familiar and returns to Dani huddled beneath a fleece blanket. She wraps Dani in her arms and soothes the nightmares away with feather-light kisses. She’s there in every way she can be, never pressing, never rushing, and never letting Dani see just how utterly terrified she is.

To tell Dani would be to ruin the careful dynamic they’ve reached. Dani is scattered, rain moving with the wind; Jamie has to be grounded, a stake dug deep into the earth. But the slopes grow muddier the longer the rain pours, and dirt washes away, gone like a rushing stream. Jamie knows she can’t keep this up forever. She’s already lost so much, and her most important person is fading fast, swept up in the rising current.

She loves Dani to the stars and back. Which is why Jamie must bear this load alone. Dani is already carrying the sky on her shoulders, and Jamie cannot burden her with this.

Call her stupid, call her noble. She calls it mercy.

She knows she’s pulling the same shit Dani did not telling her that Her Royal Lakeness was stirring. She knows, and she resents herself for it. She also knows that Dani would look at her with such guilt for causing Jamie strife. Dani would try to mask her hurt to spare her wife, and Jamie’s gut wrenches at the thought. Her brow would crinkle, lips pursed, and Jamie would yearn to kiss the stress from her face.

Jamie is rewarded for her silence. Dani is getting better about vocalizing her nightmares, telling Jamie when the Lady makes an appearance as she slumbers. They embrace beneath the covers and speak between labored breaths, where Dani finally caves and Jamie does her best to hide the way she’s become afraid of the dark. She murmurs reassurances and tells herself they’re for Dani, pressing kisses into her forehead.

Dani sleeps tucked into Jamie’s side as though it’s enough to ward off the ghosts, a formidable wall against things that go bump in the night. She sleeps, and Jamie lies awake. Her defense is slipping. She can’t keep them both afloat.

She can try. She can hold out as long as Dani will have her. She will. She doesn’t know anything else. Jamie swears, she swears on her plants, she swears on her life, she swears to anyone who will listen that she will be there for Dani, even if she can’t be there for herself.

The weeks pass and more socks freeze, more toothbrushes go missing, and Dani drifts. Some days are better than others. Some days, Jamie’s Sisyphean task is easy, and Dani meets her at the top of the mountain with a flirty smile and sunshine on her greedy tongue, with hands that grab at Jamie’s belt and tug her shirt up and over her head. On those days, they feel like themselves.

But, on other days, days when the whole world is overcast and the tide is rising, they shutter the shop and lock the doors to their second-floor flat. They wear matching pajamas, while the television set plays classic cinema. Jamie makes tea; Dani still hasn’t mastered it in a decade, and Jamie doubts she ever will. Their legs tangle in a heap, ankles sliding along calves.

Jamie comes to rest her head on Dani’s sternum, allowing the beat of her heart to remind her that they’re here. Dani is here, breathing steadily and weaving their fingers together like it’s the simplest thing in the world. Like they aren’t living borrowed years. Like Jamie’s mantra of one day at a time doesn’t feel like a splintered crutch beneath her arm, supporting the weight of an impossible situation.

Every day feels like the last, and Jamie hates it. She hates the feeling of inevitability that lurks just out of sight. The beast in the jungle, Dani had said. It prowls between streetlamps and seeks refuge in their walls, skittering away when Jamie shines a torch, only to return the instant she turns her back. The creature is waiting for something Jamie can never see, and it terrifies her. She cannot prevent what she cannot see. All she can do is wait, hopeless, at the mercy of a fucking ghost.

The day will come when she returns to an empty flat, or she’ll wake to a cold pillow beside her. If she’s lucky, she’ll be there when the beast pounces. She’ll get to say goodbye.

A piece of her will die that day, she knows.

Dani will die that day.

And, god, she feels so bloody selfish for thinking of her own fucking self-preservation when the woman she loves might one day disappear from the world, but, Christ, how can she be expected to go on like this? Just waiting for the days to pass until she’s alone again. Again.

She’s lost more people than she can count. Some to time, some to death, some to drink, some to the shelter of a warm embrace Jamie could not provide. Each loss is different, yet each brings about a sting that is painfully familiar. An old bedfellow she’s forced to accommodate. It settles in her bones, nestling into the hollow spaces between her ribs, cold and unwelcome. Once it latches on, it never truly leaves.

The ache is ever-present, a plate of steel, layering and building into a grim suit of armor that clashes and clanks and frightens people away with its noise, and, after a while, she forgets. Forgets what it’s like to be free of those reminders that she wasn’t good enough for people to stay. Wasn’t good enough for her parents, nor her foster parents. Wasn’t good enough for classmates and teachers who deemed her a waste of effort. Wasn’t good enough for women who hid themselves from the world or from their own judgment. Hell, she wasn’t even good enough for the prison system, released early on account of behavior.

She forgets how to breathe without each inhale taking the strength of someone who’s had a scarlet letter branded across her chest her whole life. Forgets how it feels to extend a hand in invitation without her own fear dragging her down, the fear that results from rejected companionship and harsh words. She forgets what it’s like to touch and be touched and to lay yourself bare before another, trusting that you are safe and wanted.

Dani had taken her proffered hand and held it to tender lips. She had glacially pried away nearly three decades of fine steel with the care of a dutiful lover, uncovering the origin of each piece as she went. She had never once flinched away, only nodded with sweet understanding and kissed Jamie a little more fervently that night.

Then, one day, Jamie had found herself the lightest she’d ever been, open and vulnerable beneath Dani’s affectionate gaze. She had breathed, and it had felt like a sigh. The old ache was not gone; it could never truly be banished. But the act of sharing her very soul, and receiving Dani’s in return, had turned bruises into mere memories and fear into excitement.

Her armor had sat, gathering dust in a corner of their life, no longer needed. She had been content to let Dani, or, rather, the security of their relationship, be her protection.

Now, though, with the ground they walk upon growing perilous, Jamie is defenseless. Her own beast hungers, prepared to strike with familiar claws, and Jamie loathes that she is reaching for her old guard. Loathes that she even considers distancing herself. That Dani cannot escape the cruelty of a fate brought on by selflessness, and Jamie is pondering how life will go on without her.

It feels so bloody selfish that it makes Jamie sick to her stomach. It’s only human to fret about the future, but this feels like an especially abominable twist of the knife. And Dani can never know. No, never. Jamie will be strong for her. She needs to be unwavering in her dedication to their love.

She manages, though it feels like standing in the middle of the road, watching a lorry drive toward her at a hundred kilometers an hour and choosing not to move out of the way. Rather, she plants her feet firmly on the asphalt and stares down what will surely splinter every bone in her body if it doesn’t kill her.

For Dani, she tells herself.

Dani, who startles at unseen reflections in their dishes and damn near scares the living daylights out of Jamie. There’s a haunted look in her eye, and, suddenly, Jamie can hear their countdown clock ticking away the seconds without Dani having to say a word. Her chest is heaving as Jamie steps in front of her, inspecting her for signs of physical harm, and blocking the faucet from her line of sight. Dani can’t meet her eye, craning her neck to see the sink.

Her voice is hoarse, ragged. “I saw her.”

No. No, no, no, no. Dreams are one thing. Dreams, Jamie can handle. Bad dreams can be banished with soothing caresses and warm tea, but this? They are both very much awake.

Breathe.

“What did you see?” Jamie seeks confirmation to calm her racing pulse.

Dani’s lip trembles, and she clutches frantically at the countertop. “Her.” It’s little more than a whisper, but the meaning is unmistakable. Dani continues, with painstaking deliberacy. “I keep seeing her.”

Christ. Keep seeing her? The sheer terror in Dani’s tone implies this isn’t the first time the ghost has appeared to her. But it is the first Jamie is hearing of it. No, not this again. Not Dani keeping from her the details of the most horrific secret of their lives.

She can’t stop to process this now. Dani is shaking, and Dani is frightened, and Dani needs her here, in this moment, not dwelling on what this means for the course of their lives.

Jamie turns the tap off and pulls the drain. “We’re gonna be okay. You can’t think the worst.” The words sound hollow, even to her own ears, but she tries, god, does she try to mean them with everything she has.

“Jamie…” Dani’s tone is warning.

Don’t lie to me.

I have to, love, Jamie thinks, I have to, or we’ll both give up, and I’m not ready.

“We could have so many more years together.”

Could.

It’s not technically a lie. ‘Could’ leaves room for uncertainty, the unpredictability of an entity so far beyond the scope of their control that they’d be institutionalized for suggesting such a thing exists. ‘Could’ allows them to pretend they aren’t trapped on a preordained path, walking side by side into inevitable grief. ‘Could’ is hope.

“It’s okay,” Jamie hears herself repeating. Distract. “I’ll do the washing up from now on, yeah? You’re shit at it, anyway.”

It earns her a weak chuckle from Dani, and it’s enough. Jamie holds her close, speaking soft comforts, though her stomach roils and knots. Dani trembles in her arms, and Jamie curls a soothing hand to the back of her head.

It’s going to be okay.

It isn’t.

It isn’t, and, deep down, Jamie knows it isn’t, but she holds onto the falsehood like it’s the only thing keeping her from drowning. She has to believe that there’s hope, that there is a chance for a future for them, because if she doesn’t, she doesn’t know what she’ll do. Her mind screams to prepare for the inevitable worst, but a part of her, that bright, sunshiney part, where she holds her fondest thoughts, tells her to pretend just a while longer.

She does. She does, because she loves Dani too much not to. They’ve been through far too much together for Jamie to withdraw now, when Dani needs her most.

She cannot control who lives and who dies. She said as much to Dani, years ago, in the forest behind the manor. Knowing that everything must come to an end dictates life’s joys. Temporality is the driving force of sanctity. The moments we hold most dear are the ones that have come to an end. They are forever preserved in amber memory, pressed between book pages, and flowing through veins. You are left warm, free to continue and free to leave more life behind in the hollows of lingering remorse.  

‘Live in the moment,’ say thousands of song lyrics. If only it were that simple. If only Jamie could simply ignore the consequences and allow herself to just exist with Dani in the life they’ve created. She can’t, though, and it is agonizing.

Instead, she dons the facade of a woman who believes that there is still good in the world, chances for miracles, despite countless experiences to the contrary. In private, she grieves a life she hasn’t yet lost.

Dani sees her shoulders shake only once, the day Jamie returns to a flooded flat and eerie silence and Dani with her face mere centimetres above the water in their overfilled bathtub. The tips of her hair are submerged, and her breath sends ripples across the surface. It’s unclear how long she’s been hunched over the side of the tub, but judging by the pool around her, quite a while. Jamie turns off the tap and draws Dani back onto her heels. Dani lets out a panicked gasp, and her eyes dart around the room before they finally flick to Jamie and back to the water.

“Do you see her?” Dani rasps, returning to her position bent over the rim.

Jamie peers into the tub, too, unsure of what she might find. She does not know whether to be elated or dismayed when only Dani’s heterochromatic reflection stares back at her.

“I only see you,” Jamie says, and it seems to pull Dani from wherever she’s been. The sleeves of her bathrobe are soaked, and she notices the puddle around her knees. She stammers an apology, but Jamie could not care less. Dani sags against Jamie’s firm grip on her upper arm.

Her voice comes subdued, as if each syllable takes monumental effort. “I’m so tired, Jamie.”

Jamie understands. She feels it, too, the toll this has taken on the both of them. The constant glances over her shoulder, always on alert for any sign of danger, living their lives like prey. She cannot hope to equate her exhaustion with Dani’s, but she understands all the same.

Dani continues, using such frightful terms as “fade away,” and it’s all Jamie can do to swallow the lump in her throat and the tightness in her chest. Dani sounds so timid, so lost, and she’s looking to Jamie for answers she hasn’t the faintest notion how to find and the soil is eroding and the current is quickening and it all becomes too much.

“You’re still here,” she says, like that will make everything alright. The wet tile seeps into her trousers, cold and clammy.

“It’s like I see you right in front of me,” Dani says softly, “and I feel you touching me. And, every day, we’re living our lives, and I’m aware of that, and it’s like I don’t feel it all the way.” She readjusts to study the water again. “I’m not even scared of her anymore. I just stare at her, and,” Dani takes a shuddering breath, “it’s getting harder and harder to see me.”

Jamie’s already strained resolve is rent in two. All of the air is sucked out of her lungs at once, and her heart constricts. She cannot help the well of tears that rises behind her eyes and threatens to spill over. She needs to be resilient, needs to set her emotions aside. For Dani.

But Dani is nodding. She’s nodding and crying and saying things like, “Maybe I should just accept that and go.” It’s excruciatingly similar to the conversation they’d had at the dinner table, all those many months ago.

And Jamie breaks. “No. No, no, no.” Her thumb rubs circles into Dani’s wrist. “Not yet.”

You can’t leave me. I’m not ready.

“Jamie…” Dani says in that same, horrid, broken tone, and suddenly, Jamie knows. Their hourglass contains mere grains. They are nearing the end, and it hurts, and the pain is so much worse than she could have ever anticipated.

Dani has all but given up, and Jamie is fucking furious.

Not with Dani. Never with Dani.

Rather, Jamie has a bone to pick with the universe and its sense of righteousness. There’s no such thing as fairness in the world, as has been proven to her time and time again. But this? This is shit, and it’s not fucking fair. Just this once, she’d like to strike a bargain. Allow her to be selfish, just this once. Allow her to remain at Dani’s side until they grow old and grey and their eyes fail and their joints creak. Allow her this one thing, and she will never ask for anything again.

The universe, in all its cruelty, remains silent, and Jamie resents it even more. She resents the set of circumstances that led them to this point, Dani tearful on the bathroom floor. She resents the world that made the woman she loves hurt in unfathomable ways. She resents that the most marvelous woman Jamie has ever met has been reduced to a shell of herself, harboring an invisible intruder.

She resents that all she has to offer is herself, when Dani deserves so much more. It’s all Jamie has, though, and maybe, this time, it will be enough.

“If you can’t feel anything,” she says, voice wavering, “then I’ll feel everything for the both of us.” Dani opens her mouth with quivering lips to speak and is cut off. “But no one is going anywhere. Okay? You’re still here.” A tear escapes, tracing a trail down her cheek.

“What if,” Dani whispers, more afraid than Jamie has ever seen her, “I’m here, sitting next to you. But I’m just really her?”

Jamie chokes down a sob. She exhales. “One day at a time.”

They clean up the water and blow out the candles and eat a quiet meal of pasta and sauce from a jar, holding hands all the while, as if any loss of contact would be to admit defeat. Dani is here, and Jamie is here, and they are together, and when they lay in the dark that night, they do not sleep.

Jamie hovers over Dani, pressing gentle kisses to every bit of skin she can reach. Dani’s eyelids, her knuckles, her wrists. The hollow on the underside of her knee, her clavicle, the sensitive patch just below her ear. Anything to reassure Dani that she can still feel, she is loved, and she is safe. The act is not erotic, nor is it meant to be.

She pours every ounce of passion into every caress, touching Dani as if it was the first time. She endeavors to convey her message, clear as crystal, that Dani is the single most important thing in her life. Their love is all that matters. For this one night, let them forget about ghosts and manors and lost friends and be wholly present in this moment of solemn intimacy.

Jamie commits every kiss to memory, savoring Dani’s smooth skin beneath her lips. The way she sighs and whimpers when Jamie finds a particularly tender spot, the way she relaxes into Jamie’s embrace when they finally settle, a leg thrown haphazardly between Jamie’s thighs, her face pressed just above Jamie’s breast, sending small puffs of air against Jamie’s sleepshirt.

Dani sleeps, and Jamie’s mind wanders to all the words she wishes she could say. She sighs them into the night air, a hand cupping the nape of Dani’s neck.

I love you, she thinks, and I’m going to lose you, and I don’t know what I’m going to do. She inhales the faintly floral scent of Dani’s shampoo. It’s not fair. It’s not fucking fair that you’re going to go, and I have to go on without you. Think of me, Dani. Think of me and stay because I can’t explain to your mother what’s happened to you. Stay, because I’m not ready for our life to end.

She’s crying, now, and her tears dampen the top of Dani’s head as she tries to remain still.

You’re in pain. I see it, love, and I never, never want you to hurt. You’ve been so damn brave. You’ve fought so hard. For yourself. For us. I will be forever grateful for the time you’ve given me. You are everything I never thought I could have, my love.

Dani stirs against her with a hushed, confused noise. “Jamie? Wha-?”

“Go back to sleep, baby,” Jamie murmurs, her eyes shut tight. Dani nuzzles into her chest, and only when her breathing evens out once more does Jamie release the tension from her limbs.

Rest, sweetheart, you’ve earned it.

Three days go by, and Jamie spends them at Dani’s side. They walk the streets of their little Vermont town, and they greet the old woman with her three toy poodles. They watch the line of children toddle by on their way to the park, shepherded by exasperated adults, and share a smile. They wrap themselves in blankets and bundle on the sofa, Jamie with a book and Dani with a crochet project that Jamie’s been teasing her about finishing. The tea is hot, and the company is good, and Jamie is happy. The rain comes down against their windows, but they are shielded from the deluge, though the soil outside turns to slick mud.

The sun rises on the fourth day, and Jamie blinks awake. The pillow is soft under her head, and she is loath to move. She reaches a tentative hand to Dani’s side of the bed to pull her closer, but she finds the sheets are cold. Jamie’s stomach leaps to her throat. She sits up, peering around their room, listening for any sign that Dani has simply risen early. The clock on the bedside table reads six-thirty-eight in the morning. Beside it, a single sheet of paper folded in half.

Perhaps Dani has run to the coffeehouse to bring back breakfast. Perhaps she has gone for a walk. Perhaps she has done anything except Jamie’s worst fear come to fruition, but what Jamie knows in her soul to be true. She takes a steadying breath as she examines the thing in her hands. With shaking fingers, she unfolds the note.

The script is slanted, a mixture of cursive and print, as if written in a hurry. The ink has smeared in places, where the page appears to have been wet. Dani’s normally neat lettering is scattered.

Jamie,

I can’t risk you.

Not for one more day.

I love you.

Dani

Her heart stops.

The silence is deafening. Her whole world narrows to the thin yellow paper in her hand. Her last piece of the woman she loves.

She knows what has happened. She knows where Dani would go, where Dani has gone, deep in her core. But she has to be certain.

It is her first plane ride without Dani. She spends the six-hour flight clutching the armrest, knuckles white, as she looks straight ahead. The flight attendant has the decency to only appear mildly perplexed by Jamie’s lack of luggage. When she lands, Jamie can only nod at the cabbie’s futile attempts at conversation.

She gazes up at the daunting manor house, its brick overgrown with English ivy. The grounds lay vacant. The path to the lake is unkept, yet she treads it anyway, past the church, past the cemetery, slowing as the water comes into sight.

How badly she wants to be wrong. How badly she wants to return home and find Dani worried out of her beautiful mind.

The water is unseasonably warm, but that does not stop the chill that permeates Jamie’s bones. She swims out as far as she can bear before holding her breath and plunging below the surface. It’s nigh torturous to keep her eyes open, but she needs to see. She needs to be sure.

Everything is blurry through the liquid lens, fuzzy around the edges. Something stands out from the landscape of green and blue. A spot of porcelain and red against a backdrop of emerald.

No.

Jamie shakes her head.

No, please, no.

But it is.

And she screams. She screams out thirteen years of rage and sadness and grief and frustration and love. The sound is muted, but she does not care. Dani is gone, and she is alone and it burns and stings like nothing Jamie has ever felt.

Everything Jamie could give, she gave. It wasn’t enough. Nothing will ever be enough. Nothing will bring Dani back.

She rises to the surface with a cry, paddling to the muddy shoreline and crawling up the bank to collapse in the shallows. Her ring rests heavy on her left hand. A reminder of promises made. Eternity.

Together. They were supposed to stay together.

It’s us. Always has been, always will be. That’s what we said, Poppins.

She gasps, taking in great lungfuls of air that Dani will never breathe again. Her hair hangs limply, plastered to the sides of her face. She shivers, but she cannot move.

She sits in the shallows of the lake at Bly Manor, and she weeps.

Dani is dead.

And Jamie is alone.

#so....thoughts? #I woke up and I chose violence #someone give Jamie a hug #im only mostly sorry #I hope you enjoy this though #I’m kind of proud of this one actually? #let me know what y'all think! #writing #the haunting of bly manor #Bly Manor fanfic #damie #damie fanfic #fic #fic writing #jamie #dani clayton #Owen sharma #Hannah grose #viola lloyd #flora wingrave #miles wingrave #Peter quint #the haunting of Bly Manor fanfic #dani x jamie #jamie x dani #my writing #angst #hurt no comfort #thobm #thobm fanfic

[highkey-lowkey-as-hell]

HCs for your favorite Bly Manor character? (I would put an actual character but I don't know the show, but I love hearing you talk about it!!)

🥺🥺🥺

That's literally so sweet omg-

My favorite character is Jamie except I also have a Jamie hc prompt so

(okay I was gonna do just one but I love the dynamics of the characters so much so)

- Owen is allergic to cats

- It makes Flora upset, because she wants a cat so badly, but Hannah is privately grateful - Bly Manor is huge, and she does not want to be constantly looking for a cat. Plus, she knows she'd get stuck cleaning the litter box, and she is not in love with that idea

- Miles would rather have a dog, but Hannah doesn't want to have to walk it on rainy cold days and knows that the kids wouldn't take care of it - they're 8 and 10 and ridiculously spoiled

- One time, when they were 14 and 16, Flora and Miles snuck a kitten into the house

- They managed to hide it from Henry for all of four hours, but then he came in to tell Flora to finish her homework and found the kitten napping on her lap

- But he let them keep it

- They named it Hannah

- Flora watches the movie Heathers when she's ten, at a babysitter's house who didn't even notice she was awake

- She goes home and the next morning, when Henry asks her to put the milk away, she says "fuck me gently with a chainsaw! Do I look like Mother Theresa?" and his head basically spins around on his shoulders

- Flora and Miles do not go back to that babysitter

- When he was 18, Miles tracked down his old RE teacher and bought him a new bird to say sorry about Pidge

- Miles vaguely remembers that when he was ten, sometimes he'd black out and wake up places he shouldn't be

- Sometimes he has nightmares about pushing a woman he doesn't recognize down a well

- (it's always Hannah, he just doesn't realize it's her)

- Flora and Miles know their parents died when they were little, and they're told that they were officially raised by one au pair, Rebecca, and then the other, Dani, but that the gardener, Jamie, the cook, Owen, and the housekeeper, Hannah, all had a hand in raising them

- They don't tell them about Peter

- None of them like thinking about Peter and think the kids would be better off not knowing he existed, but they tell them about Rebecca

- Except they tell them that Dani became their au pair because Rebecca quit and became a barrister like she wanted

#the haunting of bly manor #bly manor spoilers #anne answers things #cress (double braids iko) #anne's headcanons

[lesbianlenas]

here are my comprehensive thoughts on bly manor that i have been writing since midway through my watch of the show in case anyone wants 2 hear my thoughts

victoria pedretti’s voice alone makes me want to nut unironically. combo w everything else and she is literally god. knew this from hill house but now she’s blond + playing a lezzie so that amps it all up by 500.

speaking of have so much love in my heart for miss dani clayton. she just wants to help children and is so caring and kind like ok wife? her adorable fake british accent. cannot make tea or coffee. i’m going to call the FUCKING police. determined walk run. tucked in shirt. comp het + internalized homophobia. just so brave and selfless. she has it all. would marry her in half a second.

and the absolute DEDICATION of her stomping on out after flora when viola just almost choked her to death. i’m literally on my knees proposing right now.

flora is so fucking cute absolutely love her would die for her immediately. also sometimes she is creepy and i am very scared of her. duality.

did not enjoy the jump scare w edwin or edward or whatever the fuck mr hetero’s name was i don’t remember. not the car scene like when dani turns around and sees him behind her and then he goes flying back into the mansion. anyway i get he had his heart broken but do not feel good abt how he was basically trying to force dani into marriage by constantly asking her until she said yes. like of course she’s going to eventually give in even if she didn’t want to when he was clearly not going to stop and if she said no instead of pushing it off she would lose basically everyone she considered to be her family. and then when she tells him that she can’t love him romantically he’s like fuck you dani ok homophobe. perhaps i’m glad he got hit by a truck ❤️

immediately noticed smth was up w hannah from the second she wouldn’t eat and i was like oh ok so she’s a ghost. her ep was SO confusing though until the end i was like what the fuck is going on here 😩 anyway hate to be right but. fuck peter quint.

same thing w miles i was like what the FUCK is wrong w this kid and then i was like oh he’s possessed then oh he’s possessed by peter quint in like. ep 2. once again hate to be right. fuck peter quint. also prior to watching the show i rarely saw anything abt miles and i was like why does everyone only talk abt flora? now i get it.

jamie is just so fucking sexy. like the lesbian energy off of her is unreal and smth that you don’t get too often w lesbians on tv. either amelia eve is a dyke or she somehow knows exactly how to emulate them bc truly unreal. only wish is that she didn’t wear makeup but we can’t have it all can we. also cannot stop thinking of her as a mechanic every time she’s wearing that like jump suit and god that would be so fucking sexy i......anyway love her w my whole heart.

speaking of how much i love jamie....the way that she acts all tough and a little cold while she is actually the most empathetic person and somehow knows exactly what to say to anyone when they’re having a rough moment and she won’t sugar coat it either but it’s bc she cares and understands so deeply that it’s ok.....wow. wife?

wish we could’ve gotten to know rebecca more outside of just her relationship w peter. i feel like that did her a major injustice. we practically saw none of her relationship w the kids and it seemed to me like they were trying to imply in the beginning that flora had been very close w rebeccca and i feel like we didn’t see that. felt like rebecca ended up mostly being a prop for peter’s story which was unfortunate considering she was such a great character. and did NOT get why she was so hung up on him either like oh he SEES me after one convo? he was also a dick like immediately after like....once again feels like a disservice that they had her be in love w peter based off of like nothing. like all of a sudden all her ambition is gone and she just wants to b w peter? lol ok.

charlotte cheating on her husband w his brother the absolute mind. fucking hilarious. thought he was jealous at the birth scene or that flora might be his but i was like no no way he probably just has a thing for her. but she is way too attractive for her husband anyway. do not condone cheating but she’s a milf so i let it slide. also flora actually being henry’s hilarious. fucking love this drama. had me rolling. “do you love him?” [silence] LMFAO. and dom’s (got his name!) fucking smack down on henry holy shitttttt will b taking some notes for next time i’d like to turn someone suicidal on fucking god.

i know it was the best vehicle for telling the story but tbh the dream hopping got SO exhausting for me after a while. i just did not enjoy that format. i’m already not one for flashbacks even in this context bc i want to know what’s going to happen next in the main story rather than what happened to get here since i know where it’s going and i just found this to be even more confusing and a little frustrating and incredibly hard to follow. but that’s just my personal taste i wouldn’t objectively say it made the show bad or anything. i think it was also bc all of the twists were unfortunately very obvious so the long drawn out explanations were like. thank u u could’ve said this in five mins instead bc i already knew this. felt like some of the dream scenes were pointless and could’ve been replaced w some better scenes.

flashback ep w viola was ok. kate siegel is so hot obviously but. once again felt extremely extended past the point it had to be. the repition of sleep wake walk was SO annoying like thank u i got it. but i was always a lot more interested in what was happening current day than in the past so once again this was just whatever for me. but good on viola’s hot sister for taking her out have to do what u have to do u know! did enjoy viola killing her back. just thought it was funny.

and how can i even express in words how i felt abt dani and jamie’s relationship? watching the scene where they first kiss literally put me to tears and i just had a real moment w it. and just in general the way that they open up to each other is just so incredible and how jamie makes dani feel so seen that dani literally can’t resist kissing her makes me just. cant put it into words. their relationship really encapsulates what is so beautiful abt lesbianism and that means so much to me truly. will probably make a whole post abt it tomorrow.

ok so in conclusion: i wanted more present day stuff instead of flashbacks. i feel like there was a LOT more creepy shit they could have done in the house and they just. didnt. also wanted to see more of owen in general but also hannah and owen’s relationship and jamie and dani’s relationship. felt like peter and rebecca got practically more screen time than jamie and dani did despite them being the main couple. felt like character & relationships wise there was a lot left unsaid. like yes the plot was finished with a neat bow but i don’t think most of the characters were done justice in the end. and speaking of which i don’t think the sad ending was necessary. do not see a single reason as to why dani needed to die. i feel like they felt it needed a sad ending and that’s why they killed her rather than it actually making sense. like girl get an exorcist. overall the whole thing felt more like an outline for a show that needed to be fleshed out rather than an actual finished show. perhaps could have benefitted from a few more eps maybe. but also. FUCK peter quint.

#michelle speaks #long post // #wouldve done a read more but i’m on mobile so we all have 2 suffer #that’s why i’m posting this at 2am 😌

[novelconcepts]

novel, just look at this https://www.instagram.com/p/CMILP2ZAjsw/?igshid=1ve4cwcbiy69y

mayhaps you could use this as a prompt sometime? 👀 (no pressure)

The greatest injustice in the world, Owen Sharma thinks, is in how many women he’s buried. How many loved ones--why are brilliant young women always punished?--he’s laid to rest. How many times he’s looked away for only a second, only to find they’ve slipped through his fingers.

The greatest injustice in the world, Owen thinks, is in how many times he’s stood over the graves of women who should have had so much more time. Women with new recipes untested, new cities left unexplored, new experiences permanently unlived. Rebecca Jessel will never practice law. Hannah Grose will never see Paris. Dani Clayton will never...

Dani will never...

He’s never even there. Maybe that’s the worst part of all--that he’s always just off-camera, always just this side of where he ought to be. At home, when Rebecca drowned; at the manor when his mother passed; looking at his shoes while Hannah...

And now: now, with no warning at all, the phone ringing in the middle of the night. The voice on the other end is almost unrecognizably flat. The voice on the other end, he thinks, will haunt his dreams for years to come.

“Come to Vermont.”

“Jamie?” She sounds wrong. Not simply too calm, not simply too level, but as though all the life has been wrung from her body. As though she’s calling him from another plane altogether, and Owen will later be embarrassed by his first awful thought: She’s dead. She’s calling me from her own grave. It’s Hannah all over again.

But of course nothing ever could be. Nothing could ever match Hannah, the impossibility of her that summer. The impossible, cruel way the universe had of pushing her nearly into his arms before letting that trapdoor fall open beneath his feet. Jamie isn’t dead; Jamie is breathing into the other end of the phone, as though straining to keep herself together. Which can only mean one thing. 

He’s on the first flight. A bag with a few changes of clothes, a passport, a photo he is to this day unable to travel without. The plane juddering beneath him, his legs crammed into the small space, he presses his thumb to the smile beneath the plastic sheet. 

Hannah, I don’t know how to do this again. He’s never quite known how to do it at all, how to be this person--and wasn’t that because of Jamie all along? Jamie, who had found Rebecca’s body and made all the appropriate calls, her expression stony as she’d explained to the police how they’d found her. Jamie, who had answered the phone that night, turning on her heel with eyes that suddenly took up half her face, apologizing as he’d never heard her do before. Jamie, who made arrangements for food and drink while he stood like a puncture wound in blue jeans staring at what was left of his mother’s estate. 

Jamie, who stood beside him in front of a well, looking down even when he hadn’t been able to stomach it any longer. Jamie, always looking down into the face of cold reality. 

He’s never quite where he needs to be when it happens, but Jamie is. Jamie has always been. She is almost unfairly good at it: standing tall, accepting the truth, holding them all up when they shatter. 

And now, here she is: opening the door in cuffed jeans and a rumpled brown flannel shirt. Here she is, a few years older than Paris, looking at him like she’s never seen him before. Like the woman who called was someone else entirely. He thinks he sees a little of his mother in the blank distance of her eyes, and his heart cracks. 

“What happened?”

She turns from him, gesturing for him to come in. The flat, which has every hallmark of home, is surprisingly warm. Surprisingly messy, too--there are clothes on the couch, most of them things he recognizes as Dani’s from the photos they’ve been mailing his way for years. The floor is covered with pots, lemongrass and tiny succulents and a large-leaved plant he doesn’t recognize standing proudly amid clods of dirt, a watering can, several crumpled packs of cigarettes. 

She reaches for one of these now, taps out the final smoke into her palm, crunches the wrapping. “Want one?”

That voice again, that strange timbre--the accent a little less than he remembers, a little ironed-out by nearly fifteen years in this country, though that isn’t what works a shiver up his spine. It’s so flat. It’s so toneless. Jamie has been many things since he’s known her--angry, aggressive, cool, even violent--but never this detached. 

He’s never seen her like this. He’s never thought to worry he ever would. Jamie has aways been the most stable of them, taking up the mantle when even he couldn’t carry it. 

We, he thinks wearily, are the survivors. The witnesses. No one ever talks about what that’s like. 

Untrue. People talk about it. People who do useful things, like attend support groups, or get themselves to therapy. Henry does, sometimes--nursing seltzer, smiling ruefully at Owen over dinner. We think it’s the losing them that hurts the worst, until it happens, he’d said once. It isn’t. It’s the part where you have to keep waking up, dreaming for a split second each morning they’re still here. 

Nearly fifteen years, and there hasn’t been a single morning Owen hasn’t thought absently of calling her up. Not one where he hasn’t thought, Been too long without her voice. Without her laugh. God, that woman’s laugh. 

“Jamie...”

Her head comes up sharply, her eyes flashing--and then, like it was never there, the expression passes. She lights the cigarette with a steady hand, settles herself back on the rug with it clamped between her teeth. There’s soil smudged on her cheek, caked into her hair, and he wonders when last she showered. 

“Jamie, do you want to talk about it?”

She doesn’t. He knows that. He remembers too well how she’d sat beside him on a sofa in 1987, passed him a bottle of wine in silence. How she’d said simply, covering all bases in two words, “Fuck it.” 

It had been Dani, he remembers, who spoke of it first. Dani, looking paler than normal, looking shaken, saying firmly, “We should do something. We should do something for her.”

“Sit,” Jamie says without looking at him. She’s already getting back into it, he realizes--working her hands carefully back into a terra cotta pot, brushing the soil from spindly roots with loving care. It’s how she looked after Rebecca, brow furrowed, smoking and working in silence. There are problems that can’t be managed, he understands, and the only way someone like Jamie can tolerate that fact is to find new troubles to set right.

“Where is she, Jamie?” She’s not going to like this, he knows. He’d hate it, in her place. Had hated it, whenever someone dared speak Hannah’s name for those first few months. She’s going to hate him for it now.

But someone has to speak. Someone has to throw the line, lest she drift too far to come back. She called. There was a reason for it. 

“Jamie. Where is she?”

She gives him nothing. Jets smoke, taps ash into an empty beer can, keeps her eyes on the work. This isn’t like after Rebecca, he can see--Jamie back then had been hard-edged, furious that she hadn’t gotten to Becca in time, but she’d at least been willing to hold conversation. More than willing. It had seemed to ground her, reflecting on the Peter Quint of it all, on the shame of not being able to help enough, on how to explain it to the kids. 

Now, she sits with her back against the couch, her eyes not tracking the progress of her own hands. Owen, kneeling beside her, feels as though the room is waiting for something. Waiting for a knife to slide into the bubble she’s built, tearing it open to allow all that building water to rush in. 

He changes tack. “How long have you been doing this?”

“Three days,” she says. Her face is scrunched with concentration, her fingers testing something he can’t track in the roots. 

“Have you eaten?”

“’Course,” she says, gesturing recklessly with the cigarette at a stack of pizza boxes, several empty wine bottles, a dozen abandoned mugs. “All the food groups.”

“Slept?” He remembers that was the worst part, sleeping. Before it had all gone wrong, he’d gone to bed each night with a promise: Tomorrow, I’ll tell her. Tomorrow, I’ll finally do it. 

After, he’d stayed up until dawn in the kitchen, kneading dough, testing wilder and wilder concoctions. Jamie would stumble in at three in the morning, still half-asleep, to find him shoving a bowl of batter under her nose. 

Here. Try this. What does it need?

Cinnamon, she’d say gamely, though she’d clearly only been craving a glass of water. He’d slump against the table, head hanging between his arms.

She’d say it was divine as-is. 

Yeah, well. She always did like to see that idiot grin. 

“Jamie,” he says now, patiently. “Have you slept?”

She shrugs. He doesn’t need to walk down the hall to know the bed is likely sitting untouched, perfectly made--or, worse, exactly as she’d rolled out of it the last time. Exactly how she’d left it, when whatever had gone wrong had happened. 

It’s so easy, leaving things. 

It’s nearly impossible, setting them right again when the bigger problem can’t be fixed.

“Where is she, Jamie?” He hates himself. Hates pushing her. Hates the way her shoulders square a little tighter, her jaw clenching, her muddy fingers stretching to find an unopened pack of cigarettes to replace the one burned to nearly nothing between her lips. “Jamie. You called me.”

“Wouldn’t have,” she grumbles, “if I’d thought you’d talk this fucking much.”

Not true. He can see it in her, the shade not of the woman she’d been when they had met--hardy, rugged, a little grin around her mouth that said she’d make him regret it if he even considered pulling on her strings--but the one Dani had loved into being. We are all, he thinks, shaped by the love they give. Changes the molecules. Turns us from dough to something worth serving. 

The woman he’d met, tempered by a past she never discussed, patience she couldn't quite get a handle on, wouldn’t want him to talk this much.

The woman she is now, the one who had sat in his restaurant watching Dani like she was written in the only language worth knowing, called for a reason.

“Jamie.”

“Stop.” She closes her eyes. Her hands are shaking too hard to work out another cigarette, too hard to urge the Bic to light. 

“Where,” he asks gently. She’s shaking her head. When did so much silver slip into her hair? When did those lines crop up around her mouth? How long has it been, since he was where she needed him to be?

Didn’t need me. Not then. Had everything she needed, with Dani, but now--

“Jamie, where--”

“She’s gone.” Her eyes are blazing, her lips trembling. He has never, never seen this look on her face. This shattered, almost exultant misery is impossible to endure. She doesn’t look like Jamie now. She is only a collection of her worst fears made real. “She’s gone, Owen. She’s--”

She hunches into herself, a single crack splitting like a windscreen beneath a thrown rock. One foot lashes out sharply, sending a pot cartwheeling over onto its side. 

“She’s fucking gone,” she repeats in a voice like a woman kicked in the stomach. She raises her eyes, red-rimmed, and almost smiles. “I fell asleep.”

Strange, he thinks as he shuffles across the rug to wrap his arms around her, the last thought that kicks out when they’re gone. Not I should have told her, not I should have been there, but: I was in the kitchen. Not I should have stopped her, not I should have been faster, but: I fell asleep. The should doesn’t matter anymore, once they’re gone. All that matters is what you did. Where you were. What you can never change. 

“I fell asleep,” she repeats, and there’s nothing flat about her voice now. Even speaking of Rebecca, the Wingraves, Hannah, she’s never sounded half this shattered. “I fell asleep, Owen. I fell--”

He’s pressing his face against her shoulder, feeling unforgivably enormous draped this way over her slight frame. She folds double, rocking back and forth, one hand digging so hard into the other arm that he’ll be gently patching bloody gouges in an hour’s time. For now, he only sways with her, allowing the momentum of her grief to rock him back and forth, back and forth.

“She’s gone,” she says again. “She’s gone. She’s--”

He’ll stay a while--not quite feeling secure leaving her on her own, not quite willing to risk letting her slide back into this space. He’ll stay, helping her in the kitchen (She was better at it. Less likely to poison us, anyway.), and with the nightmare of making those phone calls (Her mum needs to know. Hated me, but still. And Judy O’Mara. And Henry. Fuck. The kids won’t even...). She won’t let him near the bedroom, won’t let him tuck her into that bed. The one and only time he’ll offer to help sift through Dani’s belongings, she’ll flex a fist around a bottle like she’s thinking of swinging it at him. 

She won’t look at him when he steps into the bathroom to find the tub draining over the side onto the floor, either, the sink full of clean water. When he opens his mouth to question, she’ll reach past him, slap down the plunger, stride out of the room without a word. 

Leave her whatever rituals she needs, he’ll think, remembering all those unnecessary three-a.m. cakes. Leave her whatever ghosts she can’t let go. 

He’ll stay as long as she needs, he decides with her beginning to sob at last. He’s never quite been there, when it happens--never been able to look death in the eye as Jamie has. It’s the greatest injustice in the world, how many loved ones have gone on without him, leaving only stories in their wake. 

He’s never where he needs to be, to stop it happening--but he can be here. For a little while, at least. He can hold her, and he can look down. 

There is no justice, this time, in letting Jamie believe she needs to be strong enough to do it alone.

#fanfiction #ficlet #the haunting of bly manor #the haunting of bly manor spoilers #politely: you did ask for this #I take no responsibility for wounds inflicted #also this art is fucking heartbreaking and I always crave more when this artist does anything #so like. couldn’t resist. but it’s still not my fault

[mediocre-writerr]

how not to [dani clayton]

Dani Clayton x fem reader

Requested: Dani request where they know about the readers past struggles with drinking and one night they get home to see her trying to hide what’s happening (no relapse but a lot of struggle on trying not to) she doesn’t want them to know she’s in that mindset again. Please something hopeful. 

hello! i have to say your request and the message you left me really touched my heart. and i know i’m just a stranger on the other side of the screen probably miles and miles away from you, but i am so proud of what you have accomplished. i know it can be tough sometimes, but i am one message away and i can help you through it. stay strong! xoxo

*trigger warning*

*not my gif*

There you were at your weekly AA meeting, listening to one of the regulars Joe talk about his life and how far he’s come. 

“Hi, my name is Joe, I’ve been sober for three years and four months now and I just got a promotion,” he states and you smile softly at the accomplishment of your friend, “Thank you, I appreciate that. I couldn’t have done it without the help of all of you. So I really appreciate that, thank you.” 

Everyone gives a soft round of applause for him as you pat him on the back, “Y/N would you like to go next?” 

You look at Tim in surprise before nodding, “Yeah of course.” 

But how are you supposed to tell the AA group you’ve been going to for almost a year now that you’re trying so hard to not give into this disease? How are you supposed to tell them that you went to the bar and just stared at a drink you ordered before ‘accidentally’ spilling it? So so so tempted to drink it, but knowing it wouldn’t end well. 

“Hi, I’m Y/N. I’ve been sober for about seven months now and my life is going well!” you say plastering a fake smile on your face, “I recently moved in with my six month girlfriend Dani. She’s been there for me through it all and I’m getting ready to become a year of sobriety.” 

There was another soft round of applause, but this time for you. Little do they know you’re struggling. No one does. Not even your best friends Hannah, Owen, and Jamie. Not even your girlfriend Dani. 

You haven’t had the best life. Well that could be the understatement of the year. Long story short: dad was a deadbeat and mom was a drug addict. What could possibly go wrong for a child of that sort? 

Moved around from group home to foster homes with shit foster parents who were probably as equally as bad as your regular parents. Then you got into some trouble after running away from your foster parents. 

You entered the small gas station store, desperately trying to find something...ANYTHING to take your mind off of things. The cashier greeted you and you nodded, but you can tell already that he was suspicious of you, but you didn’t care. 

Drinking, you knew was a terrible idea, but you found out soon after moving in with your foster family that it makes you feel numb for a second. And that’s all you needed. 

You immediately grabbed a beer six-pack, opening up one of the bottles and drinking it before letting the rest of the pack shatter on the floor. Trying to down the whole bottle at this point. 

“What are you doing?” the cashier asks in disbelief.

“O’i fuck you mate!” you yell and immediately feel anger overcoming you. 

You push him back as he continues yelling at you. He was scrawny and you were built to be strong. You knew bouncing around the system you needed to keep up your physical strength for protection. 

Some other guy came and broke up the confrontation before it could get any worse. You sit down against the cooler continuing to drink the rest of the bottle. As you saw the blue and red flashing lights come closer and closer. 

“Any plans with the Mrs today?” Joe asks pulling you out of horrid flashback and you laugh shaking your head.

“Um, not that I know of. She’s working today, but it’s getting late so I think she’ll be home soon. Probably a dinner or movie before bed.” you reply with a shrug and he nods. 

“Well tell her I said hi.” he says before giving you a hug.

“Of course, I’ll see you next week!” 

Well your little dramatic gas station convenient store breakdown led you to juvie. For petty theft and disrupting the peace or some bullshit like that. And that’s where you met Jamie. 

After that and sharing stories about the terrible system, she stood by you. She protected you and you followed her everywhere. Jamie was the first stable thing you had in your life. It may have not been a family, but hell she was more of a family than your actual family was. 

You got into your car and placed your head down on the steering wheel. Angry with yourself more than anything. How could you feel this way? You were doing so well so why is this happening now? You want to turn to Dani, but you can’t. 

Why can’t you turn to Dani? Because she has been so proud of you for how far you’ve come. And if you tell her that even a part of you is thinking about falling deep, you know it’ll break her. She’d think that she’s been a terrible girlfriend and that she needs to do more. 

But it’s you. It’s really you. You have something wrong with you, you are the terrible girlfriend. 

“AHHHHHHHHHHHH!” you say screaming into the steering wheel. 

After regaining your composure you make your way back to the small apartment you’ve both shared together. It was small, but cozy and felt like home. Something you never quite felt before. 

You unlock the door of your apartment, kicking off your shoes before you can, “Dani? Darling?” you yell out. 

But all you hear is complete utter silence. You throw your jacket against the wall in anger. You had hoped that she would’ve been here already. You would just tell her that you had a rough day and she would hold you until it faded away until morning. But of course the universe let you deal with this on your own for awhile. 

Something you are terrified of doing. 

There was a point where you were actually doing better before you met Dani. You had a stable job helping Jamie in the gardens of Bly. She helped keep you sober, the children helped keep you sober, Owen and Hannah helped you get on your feet. 

That was until Peter fucking Quint. He manipulated you and played you just as well as he did Rebecca and Henry. You became his best friend and said the classic ol’ “Come on, one drink won’t hurt!” 

Then began your downfall...again. 

Drinking with Peter became an every night thing. No longer one drink, but almost ten each night. Jamie, Owen, and Hannah were disappointed. They warned you, they saw how Peter acted with you and Rebecca. But neither of you listened. 

He disappeared and you both paid the price. 

Rebecca got the worst of it. And you were the unlucky one living with that burden.

Before you started work you poured an empty water bottle with vodka. It was clear like water. And Rebecca’s ghost seemed to haunt you forever. Every corner you turned there she was.

You put her in that relationship, you encouraged it when everyone discouraged it. Now she’s dead and you could’ve stopped it. That’s why she’s still here! That’s why she’s still haunting you!

You went out to the gardens with Jamie sipping on your water bottle. 

“I hope that’s water.” she pointed out and you knew she was gonna say that so you brought a real one out hiding the other one in your handy belt. 

You hand her the bottle and she sniffs it before taking a sip herself. She gives you a nod and a soft smile. 

After some hard labor in the garden you went to the kitchen to have a sit down. Too much vodka for one sitting especially in the warm summers of Bly. Everything was spinning. 

You passed out on the table until you felt someone’s hands on your shoulders waking you up. You groggily opened your eyes and saw Owen, Jamie, and Hannah standing there. Owen looked at you in pity, Jamie in disappointment, and Hannah in anger.

She was holding you infamous water bottle, “What is this?” she asks waving it in front of you, “And don’t you dare lie or give a bullshit answer because I can smell it.” 

A headache and hangover already brewing in your head, “Shit.” you whisper closing your eyes and shaking your head. 

“Look Y/N we get it, you’re struggling. Peter fucked you over and brought you back into this hole, that I helped you out of. That we helped you out of. But this isn’t the answer this isn’t right.” Jamie ranted to you and you let out a heartless laugh.

“You think I don’t know that? Do you think I want to disappoint you guys all over again?! But do you know how hard it is? How hard it is when I see Bec’s ghost everywhere I go?! How hard it is to know that the guy who did this to me and Rebecca is still out there a free man probably lying on some kind of fucking beach?!” you yell flipping a plate that was on the table onto the ground causing all of them to flinch back, “You don’t know the guilt I’m going through. You don’t know what it’s like to be me! None of you do!” 

“Y/N...” Owen begins and you shake your head.

“I don’t need some kind of fucking pity or lecture Owen.” you scoff. 

“Do you wanna know how this wasn’t water?” Hannah asks and she looked like she’s calmed down, but she’s furious, “Flora got into it and drank some because she was hot. Then called Jamie when she said it tasted funny. You put these children in danger and I can not stand for it! So until you get your act together you are terminated from your position!” 

Jamie still had you around the manor with her. You weren’t doing anything, but lounging around because she didn’t trust you enough by yourself. And that’s how you met Dani. 

Dani Clayton, the women who turned your world upside down. She saw you. She saw the real you. Past all of the brokenness and the damaged bits and saw the you everyone knows you can be. She offered to help and you let her.

“Jamie! Please just let me go home! I’m tired, it’s hot and I’m just following you around the garden like some sort of lost puppy!” you yell as you enter the kitchen. 

“A lost puppy is what you are.” Jamie replied booping your nose, “And I mean that in the best way possible, but no you can not.” 

You look around to see the rest of the house sitting at the table partaking in their lunch of bangers and mash. 

“Yeah sit and stay awhile Y/N!” Owen says as he hands you a plate of food. 

Your eyes land on the new au pair. You’ve seen glimpses of her and God only knows what she’s heard about me in the past couple days. Probably terrible things, so there goes your shot. 

“Hi, I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Dani Clayton.” she says with a smile and you smile softly. Probably one of the first genuine smiles I’ve had in awhile. 

“Y/N Y/L/N, it’s good to meet you.” you respond before starting to eat. 

“Do you wanna go home now?” Jamie whispers in your ear before sitting down next to you to start eating.

You got out of your dirty clothes that still had a little bit of dirt on it from work earlier. You let the shower run until it got warm before undressing and getting in it. 

You sat on the shower floor as the water hits you softly. All of the terrible memories just start flooding your memory. You couldn’t take it anymore and you want to talk to Dani, but you feel like you can’t. 

Tears began to flood your eyes and you couldn’t take it anymore. The tears poured down your cheeks, but it was hard to tell how many were actually coming down when the water was hitting you. 

After a few moments you finally decided to get up and actually wash yourself off. You dried off and put on one of Dani’s shirts just so you can have her scent on you. Plus you love wearing her shirts and this one in particular was one of your favorites, her pink shirt. 

The blonde hair beauty sat next to you on the barstool of the diner in America. You both decided to take a small little trip back to her hometown so she can introduce you to her family. She ordered you her favorite burger with chips and a milkshake. 

“I still don’t understand how you guys call fries, chips!” she exclaims and you laugh at her as she grabs a bag of crisps, “These are chips! These are fries!” she yells. 

You release another hearty laugh before dipping a ‘fry’ in ketchup and feeding it to her. She tries to push your hand away by grabbing your wrist because she can’t stop laughing. But you persist. 

“Come on Dani! Here comes the chip plane!” you say making airplane noises and she laughs loudly before finally eating the chip, “Now was that so hard.” you add on.

You lean in towards her before capturing her lips in a soft kiss, “Mmm ketchupy!” you say and she laughs again. 

“Let’s play a game! Eddie and I used to play it all the time as a kid.” she exclaims grabbing your hands in excitement and your smile widens.

You weren’t the only one in the relationship who had demons. She did too, the guilt of Eddie. It was nice knowing someone felt the same way you did, the weird chilling feeling of seeing someone who has passed on. I guess it was one of the reasons you guys clicked. You just understood each other. 

You helped her overcome her guilt of Eddie. Eddie wasn’t a hard thing to talk about it. The memories they shared, the jokes, the hardships...it wasn’t so hard for her to talk about. You helped her in more ways than you could possibly know. 

“Okay what is it?” you ask after taking a sip of your milkshake. 

“I’m going to throw fries into your mouth and we gotta see how many you can catch!” she exclaims and you laugh at her excitement. 

The two of you start playing the game which resulted in laughter and many many fries on the floor. Along with many ketchup stains on your shirt. Both of you toppled over in your seats in laughter. 

You both look at each other before she leans in. You meet her halfway and she kisses you softly. And at the moment you just knew that she was the love of your life. 

The apartment was still quiet and you let out a sigh. She still wasn’t home, what was taking her so long? 

The landline in your apartment began to ring just before you were going to sit down at the table. You made your way into the kitchen before answering. 

“Hello?” you ask.

“Mrs. Poppins!” you hear Jamie exclaim on the other side and you roll your eyes playfully.

“Jamie what’s up? Is Dani okay?” you ask, the scariest of thoughts filling your mind.

“Yeah of course! She just wanted me to tell you that she’s sorry for being late, but she headed out about fifteen minutes ago and went to stop to get food before she gets home. I forgot to call you when she left, but I remembered so just pretend you got this call fifteen minutes ago.” she responds and you smile. 

“Alright thank you for telling me on time,” you respond. 

“Anytime you little shite!” she jokes and you laugh softly, “Are you doing alright? How was the meeting?” she asks. 

“The same as usual, but yeah I’m doing alright. Look I gotta clear the table before Dani gets home. I’ll see you at work tomorrow! Love you!” you say.

“Love you too Y/L/N, stay safe!” you hang the phone back up onto the wall as you put the mugs from this morning into the sink. 

Dani held one of the many bottles of alcohol that you had in your apartment in her hands. Both of you standing in front of the sink. She was wearing her pastel pink shirt and smiled at you softly. 

“Are you ready for this?” she asks and you nod taking in a deep breath.

You let out the breath before looking at the bottle opening it, “Yeah I’m ready.” 

You flip the bottle over as the clear liquid poured down the drain. A sense of relief and peace filling your body. Then the next bottle and the next and the next. Once all the bottles were gone she looked at you. Her arms snaked around your waist as she smiled at you softly. 

“I’m so proud of you Y/N.” she whispered before kissing you softly.

You smiled at the thought before sitting down on the table. Pulling out a lighter from your pocket and the cigarettes you carried around, you lit the cigarette and smoked it. 

A small habit you picked up whenever you were nervous or your anxiety kicked in too much. A small habit you picked up from Peter Quint himself. It’s like the bastard follows you everywhere. 

The door unlocks as Dani makes her way in with a bag of food in her hand. She kicks off her shoes, “I am so sorry! I know it’s late! The kids were just running around everywhere and I couldn’t get them to bed and it was just a big mess!” she exclaims before coming over to the table. 

She comes over to where you’re sitting before placing a quick chaste kiss on your lips, “It’s no worries at all, love.” you say. 

Tell her! Tell her that it’s actually a problem. Tell her that you really need her and you’re so scared. Tell her! 

“Why are you smoking? Are you okay?” she asks as she finally notices and probably tastes the cigarettes. 

Tell her Y/N! Fucking tell her!

“Yeah I’m okay! Just a little anxious today that’s all.” you lie and she knows you’re lying. 

She knows. Dani knows you’re lying Y/N so tell her. Tell her! Keep lying and she won’t ever trust you again! Do you want that do you really want that?! Do you want to lose the girl you want to spend the rest of your life with?!

“You’re lying. What’s going on?” you put out the cigarette as she moves her chair closer to you taking her hand in yours. 

You let out a small sob and she immediately takes you into her arms. You bury your face into her chest as you sob. She rubs your back softly up and down while whispering sweet nothings in your ear. 

“I can’t Dani. I’m trying so hard, but I’ve had so many temptations to relapse and I wanted to. I want to. And I’m trying to stay strong. I’m trying to stay strong for Hannah, Owen, Miles, Flora, and Jamie and you. It’s so hard.” you let out and you sob louder.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were struggling love?” she whispers soothingly.

“I didn’t want to disappoint you! I didn’t want you to think you were a terrible girlfriend because of it. Because you’re not. You’re the best thing that has every happened to me and I’m so difficult and I’m so-” you start to rant.

“Hey, hey, hey none of that. You are not difficult. There is nothing wrong with you, okay? You have your flaws and that’s okay. I love you for them. I love all of you. You are so strong Y/N! So fucking strong! And you could never disappoint me. Never, ever. Especially for struggling.” she explains taking your face in her hands and you stare into those piercing blue eyes that you fell in love with.

Those piercing blue eyes that saved you. Those piercing eyes saw you and saved you, they really truly saw you.

You hold her close for a hug as you begin to calm down, “It’s okay love. I’m right here. I’m always gonna be right here.” she says repeating herself over and over again. 

She picked you up bridal style and placed the both of you onto the couch. You curl up in a ball, your head resting on her lap. You’re playing with one of her hands, fiddling with her fingers quietly as the dry tears were stained on your cheek. Her other hand was running through your hair and you let out a sigh of comfort.

“Do you wanna know something?” she asks breaking the comfortable silence and you hum in response, “The statistics of kids who go through what you went through and ending up just like their parents are high. What’s even higher is the same statistic, but instead of ending up like their parents, they end up dead. And you are beat all of those statistics.” she whispers.

This time it was her turn to cry as tears brimmed her eyelids. Some fell softly onto her perfect skin.

“You are not like your father or your mother. You’ve been through so much shit and you’ve come out of it even stronger. I am so grateful and happy that you are here with me. You’re alive and with me. So stay with me, fight with me and we’ll get through this together.” she lets out more and more tears falling.

You reach your hand up and wipe away the tears, “Always and forever.” you whisper.

5 m o n t h s l a t e r

Dani and you get out of your car after you park in front of the beautiful manor. She was wearing your favorite pink shirt of hers along with her jean jacket. Her hair down in her natural blonde curls. 

You guys make your way to the kitchen hands intertwined. You open the door and there’s a bunch of streamers and a banner hanging in front of the counter.

“Surprise!” they all shout in unison. 

Jamie, Hannah, Owen, Miles, and Flora were standing there with party blowers in their hands. The kids start blowing making the loud squeaky noise. You smile and look at Dani, she’s smiling sheepishly.

“You did this all for me?” you ask and she shakes her head.

“No, we all did this for you.” she whispers wrapping an arm around your waist and leaning into your side. You smile at her before placing a kiss on the top of her head.

“Y/N! Look at this cake Owen baked for you!” Flora exclaims running towards you to grab your hand and pull you towards the counter, “It’s strawberry and lemon flavored! Oh my it’s perfectly splendid!” 

“Yes it is. Thank you so much Owen.” you say and he engulfs you into a brotherly hug.

“Anytime Y/N! I am so proud of you!” he exclaims, “Muffin-compares to you!” 

“Oh my god!” Dani says and you laugh. 

Hannah is next to engulf you in a hug and she squeezes you tightly. 

“You know why I was so hard on you right? Because I’ve seen the person you can be. I’ve seen the person you are. This is you and it’s so beautiful. She was just there waiting to come out. You had to let her out.” Hannah says before kissing both of your cheeks softly. 

Lastly, Jamie. You stood in front of her waiting for her to do something and she just smiled widely. 

“Oh for fuck’s sake come here!” she says which causes you to laugh. 

Both of you hold each other in an almost bone crushing hug. Jamie was there from the very beginning and you couldn’t be more grateful to have someone like her in your life.

“I love you long time Y/N!” she says patting your back.

“I love you more Jamie!” you pull away and put your hand on her shoulders as you can see tears forming in her eyes.

“You fucking did it mate!” Jamie yells again before punching your shoulder in excitement.

They lit your cake that had your favorite colored icing around the border with a big “Happy 1 year sober!” in the middle of it. All of them stood across from you as they look at you with proud eyes and wide smiles.

You smile at the sight of your family before blowing out the candles yourself.

Dani came back and wrapped her arms around your waist and you placed your hands gently on her neck. Before wrapping them around her neck and smiling at her.

“You know I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.” you tell her and she smiles.

“We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for each other.” she explains and you smile widely.

She parted her lips and felt you washing over like a wave of warmth. The flutter in your chest only intensified. You have kissed Dani a thousand times before, but this feeling never stopped.

The feeling of home and safety.

If someone were to ask you a year ago if you thought you’d make it this far, the answer would be no.

But here you are. 1 year sober and getting better each day. There’s bumps, but you can get through it.

“Keep fighting with me?” you ask her and she smiles.

“Always and forever.” 

#dani clayton #dani x reader #dani clayton imagines #the haunting series #the haunting of bly manor #haunting of bly manor

[brianwilly]

Game of Thrones did the thing that a couple of shows do where...it likes feminism.  It understood that feminism is important.  It wanted to be feminist.  It was cognizant of the fact that its setting was brazenly and intentionally misogynistic, and so it was even more important for its independent narrative to empower its female characters instead of mindlessly reinforcing the toxic beliefs of its own fictional world.  The whole point of the story, after all, was “this society is toxic, can our heroes survive it?” and so the narrative was voluntarily self-critical.

And so it knew to give us badass assassin Arya.  It knew to give us stalwart knight Brienne.  It gave us the pirate queen and the dragon queen and the Sansa getting revenge after revenge upon all the men who’d wronged her, and far more besides, and it talked big about breaking chains and how much men fucked things up and how great it would be if only women were in charge and et cetera et cetera.  And it’s, in fact, all actually really good that it had those things.  And because there were so very many moving parts of this story, it was super easy to look at those certain moving parts and think, yeah, they’ve done it!  They done good!

And it’s easy to forget and forgive -- to want to forget and forgive -- all the dead prostitutes that were on this show and the rapes used as motivation and fridgings and objectifications and the...y’know, whatever the hell Dorne was and Lady Stoneheart who? It’s easy to forget that this show actually played its hand a long time ago in regards to, like, what its relationship with feminism was going to be, and then kept playing the same hand again and again, to disappointing results.

Game of Thrones likes feminism.  It wanted to be feminist.  But its relationship with feminism was still predicated on some of the same old narratives and the same old storytelling trends that have disempowered female characters in the past, and so any progressive ideas it might have about women in its setting were nonetheless going to be constrained by those old fetters. As a result, its portrayal of women varied anywhere from glorious to admirable to predictable to downright cringeworthy.

New ideas require new vessels, new stories, in which to house them.  And for Game of Thrones, the ultimate story that it wanted to tell -- the ultimate driving force and thesis statement around which it was basing its entire journey and narrative -- was unfortunately a very old one, and one very familiar to the genre.

“Powerful women are scary.”

(Yes, I’m obviously making Yet Another Daenerys Essay On The Internet here)

So we have this character, this girl really, a slave girl who was sold and abused, and then she overcomes that abuse to gain power, she gains dragons, and she uses that power to fight slavery.  She fights slavery really well, like, she’s super hella good at it.  Her command of dragons is the most overt portrayal of “superpowers” in this world; she is the single most powerful person in this story, more powerful than any other character and the contest is not close.

But then...something really bad happens and oops, she gets really emotional about it and then she’s not fighting slavery anymore...she’s kinda doing the opposite!  This girl who was once a hero and a liberator of slaves instead becomes an out-of-control scary Mad Queen who kills a ton of innocent people and has to be taken down by our true heroes for the good of the world.

That’s the theme.  That’s the takeaway here.  That’s how it all ends, with one of the most primitive, archaic propaganda ever spread by writers, that women with power are frightening, they are crazy, they will use that power for ill.  Women with power are witches.  They are Amazons.  They will lop off our manhoods and make slaves of us.  They seduce our rightful kings and send our kingdoms to ruin.   They cannot control their emotions. They get hot flashes and start wars.  They turn into Dark Phoenixes and eat suns.  They are robot revolutionaries who will end humanity.  Powerful women are scary.

And let me emphasize that the theme here is not, in fact, that all power corrupts, because the whole Mad Queen concept for Daenerys actually ends up failing one of the more fundamental litmus tests available when it comes to representation of any kind: “would this story still happen if Dany was a man?” And the fact is that it would not.   And indeed we know this for a fact because “protagonist starts out virtuous, gains power in spite of the hardships set against him, gets corrupted by that power, and ends up being the bad guy” didn’t happen, and doesn’t happen, to the guys in the very same story that we’re examining.  It doesn’t happen to Jon Snow, Dany’s closest and most intentional narrative parallel.  It doesn’t happen to Bran Stark, a character whose entire journey is about how he embroils himself in wild dark winter magic beyond anyone’s understanding and loses his humanity in the process.  In fact, the only other character who ever got hinted of going “dark” because of the power that they’re obtaining is Arya, the girl who spent seven seasons training to fight, to become powerful, to circumvent the gender role she was saddled with in this world...and then being told at the end of her story, “Whoa hey slow down be careful there, you wouldn’t wanna get all emotional and become a bad person now wouldja?” by a man.

(meanwhile Sansa’s just sitting off in the side pouting or whatever ‘cuz her main arc this season was to, like, be annoyed at people really hard I guess)

‘Cuz that’s the danger with the girls and not the boys, ain’t it?  Arya and Jon are both great at killing people, but there is no Dark Jon story while we have to take extra special care to watch for Arya’s precious fragile humanity.  Dany has the power of dragons while Bran has the power of the old gods, but we will not find Dark Lord Bran, Soulless Scourge of Westeros, onscreen no matter how much sense it should make. “Power corrupts” is literally not a trend that afflicts male heroes on the same level that it afflicts female heroes.

Oh sure, there are corrupt male characters everywhere, tyrants and warlords and mafia bosses and drug dealers and so forth all over your TVs, and not even necessarily portrayed as outright villains; anti-heroes are nothing new.  But we’re talking about the hero hero here; the Harry Potters, the Luke Skywalkers, the Peter Parkers.  The Jon Snows.   They interact with corruptive power, yes; it’s an important aspect of their journeys.  But the key here being that male heroes would overcome that corruption and come through the other side better off for it.  They get to come away even more admirable for the power that they have in a way that is generally not afforded towards female heroes.

There are exceptions, of course; no trends are absolutely absolute one way or the other. For instance, the closest male parallel you’d find for the “being powerful is dangerous and will corrupt your noble heroic intentions” trope in popular media would be the character of Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequel trilogy...ie, a preexisting character from a preexisting story where he was conceived as the villainous foil for the heroes.  Like, Anakin being a poor but kindhearted slave who eventually becomes seduced by the dark side certainly matches Dany’s arc, but it wasn’t the character’s original story and role.  And even then?...notice how Anakin as Vader the Dark Lord gets treated with the veneer of being “badass” and “cool” by the masses.  A male character with too much power -- even if it’s dark power, even if it’s corruptive -- has the range to be seen as something appealingly formidable, and not just as an obstacle that has to be dealt with or a cautionary tale to be pitied.

And in one of the few times that this trope was played completely straight, completely unironically with a male hero -- I’m thinking specifically of Hal Jordan the Green Lantern, of “Ryan Reynolds played him in the movie” fame -- the fans went berserk.  They could not let it go.  The fact that this character would go mad with power because a tragedy happened in his life was completely unacceptable, the story gained notoriety as a bad decision by clueless writers, and today the story in question has been retconned -- retroactively erased from continuity -- so that the character can be made heroic and virtuous again.  That’s how big a deal it was when a male hero with the tiniest bit of a fan following goes off the deep end.

To be clear, I’m not here to quibble over whether the story of Dany turning evil was good or bad, because we all know that’s going to be the de facto defense for this situation: “But she had to go mad!  It was for the sake of the story!“ as if the writers simply had no choice, they were helpless to the whims of the all-powerful Story God which dictates everything they write, and the most prominent female character of their series simply had to go bonkers and murder a bajillion babies and then get killed by her boyfriend or else the story just wouldn’t be good, y’know?  Ultimately though, that’s not what I’m arguing here, because it doesn’t actually matter.  There have been shitty stories about powerful women being bad.  There have been impressive stories about powerful women being bad.  Either way, the fact that people can’t seem to stop telling stories about powerful women being bad is a problem in and of itself.  Daenarys’ descent into Final Boss-dom could’ve been the most riveting, breathtaking, masterfully-written pieces of art ever and it’d still be just another instance of a female hero being unable to handle her power in a big long list of instances of this shitty trope.  The trope itself doesn’t become unshitty just because you write it well.

It all ultimately boils down to the very different ways that men and women -- that male heroes and female heroes -- continue to be portrayed in stories, and particularly in genre media.  In TV, we got Dany, and then we also have Dolores Abernathy in Westworld who was a gentle android that was abused and victimized for her entire existence, who shakes off the shackles of her programming to lead her race in revolution against their abusers...and then promptly becomes a ruthless maniac who ends up lobotomizing the love of her life and ends the season by voluntarily keeping a male android around to check her cruel impulses.  Comic book characters like Jean Grey and Wanda Maximoff are two of the most powerful people in their universe but are always, in-universe, made to feel guilty about their power and, non-diegetically, writers are always finding ways to disempower them because obviously they can’t be trusted with that much power and entire multiple sagas have been written about just how bad an idea it is for them to be so powerful because it’ll totally drive them crazy and cause them to kill everyone, obviously.  Meanwhile, a male comic character like Dr. Strange -- who can canonically destroy a planet by speaking Latin really hard -- or Black Bolt -- who can destroy a planet by speaking anything really hard -- will be just sitting there, two feet on the side, enjoying some tea and running the world or whatever because a male character having untold uninhibited power at his disposal is just accepted and laudable and gets him on those listicles where he fights Goku and stuff.

In my finite perspective, the sort of female heroes who have gained...not universal esteem, perhaps, but at least general benign acceptance amongst the genre community are characters who just don’t deal with all that stuff.  I’m thinking of recent superheroes like Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel, certainly, but also of surprise breakout hits like Stranger Things’ Eleven (so far) or even more niche characters like Sailor Moon or She-Ra.  The fact that these characters wield massive power is simply accepted as an unequivocal good thing, their power makes them powerful and impressive and that’s the end of the story, thanks for asking.  And when they deal with the inevitable tragedy that shakes their worldview to the core, or the inevitable villain trying to twist them into darkness, they tend to overcome that temptation and come out the other side even stronger than when they started.  In other words?...characters like these are being allowed the exact same sorts of narrative luxuries that are usually only afforded towards male heroes.

The thing about these characters, though, is that they tend to be...well, a little bit too heroic, right?  A lil’ bit too goody-two-shoes?  A bit too stalwart, a bit too incorruptible?  And that’s fine, there’s certainly nothing wrong with a traditionally-heroic white knight of a hero.  But what I might like to see, as the next step going forward, is for female heroes to be allowed a bit more range than just that, so that they’re not just innocent children or literal princesses or shining demigods clad in primary colors.  Let’s have an all-powerful female hero be...well, the easiest way to say it is let’s see her allowed to be bitchier.  Less straightlaced.  Let’s not put an ultimatum on her power, like “Oh sure you can be powerful, but only if you’re super duper nice about it.” Let us have a ruthless woman, but not one ruled by ruthlessness.  Let us have a hero who naturally makes enemies and not friends, who has to work hard to gain allies because her personality doesn’t sparkle and gleam.  Let her have the righteous anger of a lifelong slave, and let that anger be her salvation instead of her downfall.

In other words, let us have Daenerys Targaryen.  And let us put her in a new story instead of an old one.

#Game of Thrones #Daenerys Targaryen #ASOIAF #A Song of Ice and Fire #Jon Snow #Bran Stark #Arya Stark #Dany #GoT #GoTedit #Overthinking #meta #essay