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duskholland · 4 years

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The Fame Game (Part Nine) - Tom Holland

Summary ↠ Breaking up is hard. But breaking up with your fake boyfriend, with whom you’ve fallen irrevocably and painfully in love with? It’s almost impossible.

Warnings ↠ Angst, Y/N’s being stubborn but can we blame her? Cursing and crying. All the good stuff.

Word count ↠ 5.2k

A/N ↠ This part? Emotional rollercoaster and a half. We’re almost at the end of the story, though! :((( Only part ten and the epilogue to go, and I am not okay. Crazy crazy crazy. Anyway, buckle in and enjoy part nine :)

NINE: Expiration Date (Y)

It’s raining in London. Tracks of grey, miserable water stream down the dirty window, obscuring the view of the city beyond. Your fingers are cold as you hold a mug of stale tea, the liquid pale and long-past its best. You’d poured it an hour ago, intending to throw it back and pull yourself out of your stupor, but you’d failed.

Today is the end of your relationship with Tom - the expiration date, as your team likes to call it. In a move of obscene pathetic fallacy, the weather curled across London seems to emanate your innermost thoughts. It’s cloudy and grey, darkness settled across the sky. In the distance, the clouds grow blacker, and a part of you wonders if it’ll thunder later.

You feel a tear slip from one of your eyes, and the warm line traces down your cheek as you sniffle. With slow movements, you finally put down the mug, crossing your arms over your chest as you continue to stare out of the window, vacantly. You’re in your London flat, your belongings in boxes around you. With the conclusion of a final filming project comes the end of your lease, and when you leave London tonight on a plane, you leave behind your flat, your job, and your boyfriend.

Your boyfriend.

Your fake boyfriend, who sometimes acts like your real boyfriend, but has made it all too clear that he is only, only, only your fake boyfriend.

A scowl springs out across your face, and your fingers curl into fists at your sides.

You thought you’d been hurt by Tom before. For years, you’ve felt anger towards him - resentment, irritation, burning frustration. You’ve cursed him out on countless occasions, publicly denounced him, and watched on as he’s returned every move you’ve made against him with equal ferocity. At almost every given opportunity, Tom has launched blow after blow at you, but you’d taken it. You had accepted that that was just your relationship - that sometimes two people don’t get along, and sometimes they thrive off irritating the other. His insults didn’t touch you - not really, not like this. They’d riled you up and they’d made you seethe, but they were just insults - just empty, irritating insults, which you’d returned with a smile on your face. But now…

For the first time, Tom Holland has actually broken your heart.

It’s painful when you think about him, as you cast your mind back to your last day together. You’d been so excited, so hopeful, when you’d turned up at his place in LA, and as he’d laid you down and you’d held one another, you’d felt the love you have for him grow. Each time he’d kissed you, you felt your love deepen. Each pass of his hands over your skin made your heart race, your mind shake. You’d been waiting on the right time to open your mouth, say the three golden words, and then propose giving your relationship a real shot, only for Tom to jump the gun and tell you that he, in fact, loved you.

To have Tom stand opposite you and tell you that he loves you - only to immediately follow it up with a retraction - has shattered you. You can’t stop thinking about the moment that you’d let yourself believe, for one brief, shocking second, that Tom reciprocated your love - that Tom had softened out, and grown to love you, too. His words had knocked you off-guard, but fuck, if they weren’t the sweetest three words you’d ever heard. You’d been fully prepared to drop everything and jump into his arms, only for him to add--

“No… Wait, no.”

You are upset. You are so fucking angry. You are a whirlwind of tears and clenched fists and stiff jaws. The more you contemplate it, the hollower you feel. You have never known heartbreak as pronounced as this.

You hate the power that you’ve given Tom. Hate that you’d walked straight into this, eyes open. You can’t even blame it on blind infatuation, because you’d been aware at every moment how dangerous your budding feelings were, just you’d chosen to ignore the warning signals, too distracted by Tom’s easy smile and his kisses. You hate that you let him break your heart, hate that he’s emerged from this unscathed when you feel the weakest you’ve ever been.

But above all, you hate that you don’t hate him. It would be so easy to slip back into old habits, to return to that blind, festering hatred that used to roar through your veins at the mere mention of his name. You can’t return to that, and every time you try to drum up some anger towards Tom, you’re instead reminded of how nice, and funny, and sweet he can be.

You release a shaky breath. It’s your expiration date, today. All that’s left of your relationship is a visit to Tom’s house to collect your things, and a few pap photographs of you leaving his place, in pieces. There’s no doubt in your mind that the paparazzi will find it convincing: you’ve been a mess for days, your tears will be real. You’re full of apprehension and rattled nerves about seeing him again, about walking back into his house knowing it’ll be the last time and having to act like he hasn’t reached into your chest and ripped out your heart.

You are an actor, to your core, but your role within this relationship has been your hardest performance to date - and you have the sinking suspicion that not even you can pull off the denouement.

The paparazzi are already outside Tom’s as you walk down his front path, raindrops bouncing off your jacket. The flashes from their cameras illuminate the garden, and your eyes hurt as the light glints off the collection of small garden gnomes Harrison and Tom keep in front of their house. You’re quick to drum your knuckles on the front door, tugging on the chords of your hood and trying to shy away from the yelling journalists.

After what feels an eternity, the door is opened. Tom stares out at you, eyes widening as he takes in the pouring rain.

“Shit, it’s wet today, isn’t it?” He mutters, quickly moving aside. You hurry into the house, sighing contentedly as the warmth envelops you. You kick off your shoes, but your fingers are frozen solid and you can’t quite tug the zip of your coat. “Do you need help?”

You glance up, seeing Tom eyeing your shivering fingers as you try and fail to release the slippery zip. “Yeah,” you mutter, quickly glancing away. It’s not your intention to stay long, but you’re not so inconsiderate that you’d traipse through Tom’s entire house in a dripping jacket.

You stay very still as Tom steps forward, one of his hands holding the bottom of your jacket as the other goes up to the zip. His tongue slips out between his teeth, and a deep crease appears between his eyebrows as he grasps the zip and carefully tugs it down. A smile splits over his face, and you sigh as the coat releases.

“There you go.” Tom doesn’t stop there, though. He goes so far as to help you wiggle out of the jacket, and even hangs it up on the peg for you. The same peg you’d used when you’d stayed with him a few months ago. Your peg. “So.” Tom rocks back on his feet, looking at you through narrowed eyes. “Why haven’t you been answering my texts?”

You clear your throat, crossing your arms over your chest. “What?”

“Y/N.” Tom steps a little closer, his eyes wide with hurt. “My calls, too. I really needed to talk to you.”

“Sorry,” you fib. You’re not sorry, not even one bit. Every time you’d watched your phone go through to answerphone, you’d felt a little stronger. “I’ve been busy.”

“Doing what?”

“Oh, you know. Stuff.”

Tom frowns at you. “Well, I needed to talk to you.”

“Yeah, you said that.” You clear your throat, shaking out your arms as you try to lighten the air between you. You hadn’t meant to come into your last encounter with Tom with so much hostility on your shoulders, but being so close to him again makes your chest ache. “Sorry,” you mutter. “What did you want to talk about?”

Tom nods his head. “Well, it’s… It’s complicated.” Now he’s hesitant, with reluctance clinging to his features. You feel irritation stir inside as you watch him fluster. All you want to do is get this over and done with, so you can leave his house before you start crying again. You don’t want to drag this out.

“Well, can we talk about it as I pack my things?” You ask, your voice clipping a little at the edges.

“Uh, yeah, I guess.” Tom moves out of the way, letting you into the main body of the house. “What do they want us to do, again?”

You bite your lip as you see the photograph that hangs from the wall in the hallway. It’s new, and it shows you, Harrison and Tom, laying out together on one of their sofas. You remember the night well: Harry had taken the picture, teased Tom for the way he’d got you wrapped up in his arms and refused to let go for the duration of the scary film you were all watching. On your other side is Harrison, glaring at you and Tom, mock outrage on his face. It was a good night - near the end of your trip to London, back when things were better.

“Did they send you a box?” You say, voice vacant. You can’t stop looking at the photo, at the way Tom has his face buried in your neck. You look so happy. “They want me to put all my stuff in a box. Apparently, paps just need to see me leaving with all of my things, and then they’ll get the picture.”

“Pretty simple, then?” Tom drops down to his knees, beginning to rummage in the cupboard under the stairs until he procures a big red box. “This is the one they sent.” He passes it up to you. “Will that be big enough?”

“Yeah. I only have a few things here, I think.”

“Cool. Do you want to start upstairs?”

“Why not.”

You feel awkward as you slowly climb the staircase. The air between you is unsettled, and you can tell Tom’s hurt that you’re clearly less than enthused to be here. Part of you wants to soothe him, but the other part wants to run, run, run.

“Harrison not here?” You ask as you walk past his empty bedroom. You enter their spare room, which you’d been crashing in back when you’d stayed, and quickly start pulling out the odd book and bottle you’d left. Management had instructed you to leave a few things back when you’d left, and now you understand why.

“Nah, Liverpool,” Tom says. “It’s just me.” He sits on the edge of the bed, watching as you quickly pile everything into your box. “Look, Y/N, can we please talk?”

“I’m listening.”

“No, no.” Tom stands up, and you freeze as he reaches out for your arm. The second his warm fingers touch your skin, a lump comes to your throat. “I need to- we need to talk.” You stay completely still, closing your eyes as you feel him slide his hand up your arm. His palm rests on your shoulder, weighted and familiar, and the contact makes your heart pang.

“What do you want to talk about, Tom?” You ask, voice hoarse. You keep your eyes shut. The scent of his cologne is so familiar it brings back the tightness in your chest. You aren’t sure if you’re so upset because this is the last time you’ll be together, or if it has more to do with the fact that you can’t look at Tom without being reminded that he doesn’t love you.

“Come and sit down. I can make tea.”

You suck in a deep breath. “You know that I’m walking out of your house in ten minutes and probably never coming back again, yeah?” You mutter. “What’s so important that it deserves a cup of tea?”

Tom only chuckles, not seeming to mind the bitterness of your voice. “I’ll tell you. Over tea.” He squeezes your shoulder, and you finally open your eyes. Your vision swims with tears, but if he notices it, he doesn’t comment on it. “You can pack your stuff up here, and I’ll meet you in the living room. Okay?”

You nod. “Alright.”

You try to delay your conversation for as long as possible, which takes you on a short trip into Tom’s bedroom. In your defence, you don’t mean to snoop - you did, in fact, leave your favourite book on his desk - but you do also take the opportunity to have a little look around.

On Tom’s windowsill is a line of very dead plants, their leaves shrivelled and broken. You roll your eyes as you peer into the empty watering can, chuckling softly. Typical. On his desk is a pile of scripts, dog-eared and stained with the round marks of spilt tea, and crumpled clothes hang everywhere, shoved over various armrests and laying in heaps on the floor. Tom’s entire room is organised chaos.

What catches your eye, though, is the large shelf hammered into the wall. You’ve been in Tom’s room before, hell, you’d spent your last night in London in his bed, but you’d never taken the time to look up and examine this shelf. Settled in the middle of it, gathering dust, is Tom’s BAFTA. You sigh, and instinctively, you reach up and take it.

It’s heavy in your hands. You’ve felt it before, but you’d forgotten the weight of the blue glass trophy. When you’d last touched it, it’d been on the night of the show, and Tom had thrust it into your hands mockingly, making some flippant comment about it being a mark of his success. You’d immediately tossed it back at him, almost dropping it in the process, and shut him down with a snide remark.

Now, you run your thumbs over the award. The curves are smooth beneath your fingertips. You blink a few times, and two tears splash out onto the thing. As you rub them away, you take a deep, shuddering breath.

Pull yourself together, Y/N.

You swallow, and when you release a deep exhalation, you feel steadier. The award goes back to the shelf, and you pick up your box. Just ten more minutes. One conversation, one cup of tea, and ten more minutes. Then you can leave him behind.

How much can change in ten minutes, anyway?

There’s something melancholic about the way you find yourself sitting on Tom’s sofa, facing him again. You’re in the same position that you were in back when you’d customised your shoes together, before everything had gone to shit: you, leaning up against one armrest, Tom against the other, both of you with your legs outstretched and meeting in the middle. Tessa has staked her claim sitting on your feet, and as you sip nervously at your tea, you keep your eyes on her.

“So.” Tom’s fidgeting. If he’s not drumming his fingers over the ceramic of his mug, he’s picking at the strap of his watch. “I need to talk to you.”

You wince a smile. “Yeah, you keep saying that.” You take a sip of your tea. It’s still hot, and it burns the tip of your tongue, but part of you wants to down the whole thing just so you can leave. Being so close to him makes your chest sting.

Tom takes a deep breath. “I said something really stupid the last time we were together. I was… I was just going to leave it, but then I realised that doing that would be even more stupid,” he starts. Immediately, you feel yourself bristle. You can’t have this conversation again.

“We don’t need to talk about it, Tom,” you mutter. “What’s the point? I’m leaving soon.”

“Which is exactly why we need to talk about it, love.” Tom’s eyes are wide, a hint of desperation swirling in them. He sets his tea down on the coffee table and sits up straighter. “I didn’t mean it.”

You sigh, rubbing at your forehead as you feel another stab of pain in your chest. He’s really twisting the knife, now.

“I know,” you remind him. “You’ve already told me that you didn’t mean it.”

“No, no.” Tom shakes his head, running a hand through his curls. “No.” He’s visibly anxious, but you’re too perplexed to consider offering him any comfort. “I mean… I said I didn’t love you. Well, I said I loved you, and then I took it back.”

You release a sound somewhere between a whimper and a groan, and it brings on a fresh set of tears. “Yes, I remember, Tom.”

“Well, I was wrong.”

Very slowly, you look up at him. You put down the tea and bring your knees to your chest, staring at him through hard eyes.

“What?” You say, voice dull.

“I was wrong. I shouldn’t have taken it back.” “Tom.” You’re exasperated and confused. “What are you trying to say?”

“I love you, Y/N. I’m in love with you.”

Your eyebrows pull together. “What?”

“I love you.” Tom’s lips quirk into a soft, warm smile. “And- And I know you probably don’t feel the same way, and you probably don’t want to hear it, but I had to tell you before you leave. You have to know how I actually feel.” He sits forward, and his foot nudges your knee. “I love you. I’m sorry for being a dick, I just… I panicked, I guess.”

Your brain feels like it’s running slow, wading miles behind the rest of you. You’ve spent so many days coming to terms with the fact that Tom doesn’t love you that the evidence for the contrary isn’t sinking in.

“What- but you said that you didn’t love me?” You puzzle.

“I was wrong.”

You look at him. You look at him long and hard. Your eyes dissect the soft smile on Tom’s lips, the eagerness in his eyes, and the blush on his cheeks.

You don’t believe him.

“How can you get something like that wrong?” You ask him, frazzled. “Tom, I- I don’t know if I can trust anything that you say.”

Tom raises an eyebrow. “So you want it to be true?”

“What? Shut up, this isn’t about me.” You have a lump in your throat. “Tom, this is- this is about you, not knowing how you feel.”

“But I do know how I feel. I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you-”

“Stop.”

You can’t take it. With every repetition, it feels like Tom’s rubbing it in your face.

“Y/N?”

You stand up from the sofa, displacing Tessa who whimpers in response.

“You’re so cruel, Tom.”

Tom scrambles to his feet too, hopping as he regains his balance. He stands in front of you. “What? What do you mean?” His eyes are wide with hurt. “I’m being honest, Y/N. How is it cruel to love you?”

Tears form in your eyes.

“You don’t get to take it back. You… First, you said that you loved me. Do you… Do you know how happy that made me?” You screw your hands into fists, voice hoarse. “I thought, for a second, that you loved me. I really, really did. I thought that we could end this stupid thing and just be happy. But then, you turn around, and you take it back. You’re not allowed to take back a declaration of love, Tom. Do you know how- how crushing that was?”

“-But-”

“No, I’m talking.” The end of your nose tingles, and you reach up to brush the wetness from your cheeks. “You… You broke my heart, Tom. Because I-” You break off, and you meet his eyes. You speak directly to him. You finally bare your soul. “I love you, Tom. I fell in love with you, and so for you to turn around and take it back-” You break off, waving a hand through the air. “It broke my heart.”

“I’m sorry.” His voice is raw, and you watch as Tom rubs at his eyes. “I didn’t know, Y/N.”

“How am I supposed to believe you?” You look at the floor, vision blurry. “How am I supposed to believe that you aren’t going to turn around in two minutes and take it back again?” You rub at your arms. “Why do you get all of the power?”

Tom steps closer, but you just move away. “Y/N, please. I don’t want to hurt you. I would never, ever want to hurt you. I was confused, but I know now more than ever how I feel about you.”

“But you have hurt me, Tom,” you say, finally looking back at him. “Our entire relationship has been us hurting each other. Why should it be any different now?”

Tom clasps his hands together, his cheeks red and ruddy. “We both know it’s different now.”

“Is it?” You release a dim laugh. “Because I feel, just now, exactly as horrible as I used to feel when we’d argue, Tom. All we’ve ever done is hurt.”

“That’s the past.” Tom’s voice is picking up now, growing in strength. When he looks at you, you see his jaw flexing. “I’m sorry for the ways I’ve acted, Y/N, but I can’t change it now. All I can tell you is that you’ll be making a bad decision if you walk out of the door.”

“I have to.” It’s too much to process - too much to think about when Tom’s looking at you so desperately. This morning you’d woken up expecting an awkward visit and then a plane ride far, far away from him. This revelation upends all of that.

“No, you don’t.” Finally, you let Tom take your hands. He runs his thumbs over the back of your palms and you whimper. “Stay. Stay here with me. Fuck PR, fuck the paps. We can be together. We can love each other.” He smiles again, softly. “Let me love you. Please.”

It’s very tempting. As Tom holds your hands tightly and stares into your eyes, you want so desperately to cave. You want to throw yourself into his arms and tell him that you love him, that yes, yes, of course you’ll stay with him. But you think back to all the tears that you’ve shed, and you look at his face, and you’re reminded of the night at the BAFTAs when he’d thrust his polished trophy into your face and bragged about it. You think about all of the times he’s made moves against you and tried to trip you up. You think about your last day together, and how easily he’d retracted his statement.

How can he stand here in front of you, and ask you to forget about all of that so easily?

“I can’t.”

You step away from Tom and instead grab your big red box. You walk quickly into the hallway, your eyes full of hot tears. He follows.

“Yes, you can.”

You sit on the stairs and start lacing up your shoes, staring at Tom angrily.

“I can’t.” Your fingers shake as you tie your laces. “I have a flight. I have a life in LA that I need to get back to. This was never part of the plan, Tom. You’re my fake boyfriend. You aren’t supposed to be my real boyfriend.”

“But you love me.” Tom’s blocking your way, his biceps bulging from his black t-shirt as he stands in front of you desperately. “You told me. You said that you love me, Y/N, and I’m telling you that I love you too.”

“Love isn’t always enough, Tom.” It hurts to look at him, to think about how easily and foolishly he’s handled your heart. “Let me go.”

“Love can be enough.” It’s his final attempt; you can see it in his eyes. “Don’t let us end like this, Y/N. Please.” He takes your hand, bringing your knuckles to his lips. His mouth moves over your skin, dropping kisses to your cold skin.

You feel trapped. You know the car is waiting outside, and it’s all come on too fast, too soon.

“Tom,” you say. You pull your hand from his grasp. “Let me go.”

Tom steps aside. He finally slumps against the wall, pressing his head into his hands. “Is this what you really want?” His voice is raw, broken, and his eyes are red.

You tug your soaking jacket from the peg on the wall as you shrug haplessly. “You can’t drop these feelings on me ten minutes before I’m out the door and expect me to change my life for you.” You look at him. “It isn’t fair.”

“Fine.” Tom stands up straighter. “You should take off your hoodie, then. It’s mine. Wouldn’t be the best impression of the paparazzi to be seen wearing my clothes, would it?”

You drop your jacket to the floor and start shuffling out of the pink hoodie. It’s an oversized fit, and it comes off easily, but you chuckle bitterly. Tom’s taken everything from you - your heart, your sanity - even the very clothes from your back. What more could he possibly want to take?

“There.” You shove it into his hands and angrily pull on your coat. The sleeves are cold and damp against your skin, making you shiver. “Happy now?”

Tom looks down at the jumper. “No,” he says, voice soft. His eyes are round again, widening further as you reach for the front door. “Y/N, please.”

Your fingers linger on the doorknob, cold to touch. You hesitate. When you glance back at Tom, your resolve crumbles. As frustrated and bemused as you are, you love him. You love him, and he’s your best friend, and you’re leaving him.

“Tom,” you whimper. You step away from the door, dodging the box, and fold into his arms, crying with your face on his shoulder. Tom’s arms wrap around your back and he pulls you in tightly. “I’m sorry.” You aren’t sure what you’re apologising for - your departure, your broken heart, your tears staining his shirt. You just know you are so overcome with every emotion that it’s overflowing now, leaving your mouth in ugly sobs.

“Shh.” Tom rolls a hand over your back, patting in large circles. Your jacket crinkles at the action, and you think you can feel his chest shake. “It’s okay.”

You stay in his arms, your face buried in his neck until you stop crying. Even then, you feel clogged up and weakened. He’s so warm - his embrace strong, and comfortable. You feel protected, and when you step back, you feel your heart break again.

“I’m sorry, Tom.” You wipe at your eyes and pick up the red box. Tom’s face falls in response. “I just… I need time. I’m not- I’m not saying that we can never be together, I just… I can’t stay just now. It’s too fresh, I don’t...”

“It’s okay.” Tom steps forward. One of his hands goes to the doorknob, the other rests on your shoulder. He’s near to you - so near that you can see the flecks of pain in his eyes and the freckles on his face. His gaze flickers down to your lips. “I can wait.”

You lean in and kiss him, softly. His lips taste of salty peppermint.

“I… I’ll see you later.” You want to say it, want to tell him so desperately that you love him, but the words choke in the back of your throat.

Tom just smiles, the action not stretching to his eyes. He tilts his head towards the door. “Are you ready?”

You nod. “Yeah.”

Tom looks at the box in your hands and reaches up. He tugs up the hood of your jacket and tucks your hair into it carefully. “Safe flight, darling.”

“Thank you.”

He opens the door and steps aside, and then you’re on your own.

London Heathrow Terminal 5 is very empty. You’re sitting alone in the back corner of the waiting room, hood drawn around your face, sunglasses resting heavily over your nose. You haven’t been able to stop shaking since you left Tom’s house. Feeling numb through bag drop, security, and duty-free, it’s a miracle you’ve made it to your gate on time.

You close your eyes, and you see him. You open your eyes, and you expect to see him. He’s everywhere.

Is this what you really want..?

It plays on loop, lilted in his voice. Is this what you really want? To be sat alone, crying in Heathrow airport, when Tom is waiting back at home, finally willing to take you into his arms?

You sniff as you wipe at your eyes, furiously trying to stem the flow of tears. It had all happened so quickly; it felt almost unfair.

Your phone vibrates in your pocket, and you’re grateful for the distraction.

Tom <3: Have a safe flight. I’m sorry for being such a dick. I know you don’t want to hear it, but I love you. I love you and I’ll wait for you. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to figure it out. I love you. Xxxxxxxxxx

You put the phone down, sucking in a deep breath. Your eyes fall to your feet. You notice, for the first time, that you’re wearing your special personalised Converse.

With shaking hands, you pull off your sunglasses and stare at your feet. The ink has run a little, obscured by the pouring London rain, but you can still make out some of the shapes Tom had drawn over them, all those weeks ago. A love heart, a flower, a couple holding hands. The lump in your throat grows bigger.

Is this what you really want..?

“Now boarding, Flight BA0269, London Heathrow to LAX. We now invite our platinum club to board.”

You sigh. You stand up and pull your backpack over your shoulders. You look back at your feet.

The love heart is wobbly and uneven, and you remember the look of concentration on Tom’s face as he’d tried his best to doodle over your shoes. The room had been so warm, back then. Just the two of you, together, finding comfort in one another’s company. It’d been simple, and you can remember looking up at him and feeling warmth for him in your heart.

Is this what you really want..?

No.

Your relationship has felt like a series of rash decisions lately, and you aren’t about to make the final, irreversible choice of leaving London. You can’t leave - not now, with the path finally clear. You can’t leave Tom, who’s finally told you how he feels. He’s messy, and complicated, and being around him makes you feel like your heart is on fire, but you love him. You love him, and maybe he’s right - maybe love is enough.

You know that you have come too far to throw it all away without giving him a chance.

You’ve never been a fan of bold, romantic gestures, but as they call your gate again, you turn off your phone and you turn around. You turn around, and you run. You run back to him.

↠ next part

#sob #tom holland x reader #tom holland x y/n #tom holland #tom holland series #crying on main time #y/n #y/n use #self insert #self-insert #tfg #ahhhhHHHHH screaming truly #what am i gonna do with my fridays when im finished with this series!!#:((( anyways #please let me know what you're thinking :)))#almost didn't include the final scene in this part but :)) i thought it deserved to make the final cut

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lovelylogans · 3 years

Text

puppy love

roger: do you want another cup of marriage? anita: excuse me? roger: tea? another cup of tea? anita: you said marriage. roger: uh, marriage? anita: yes, that’s what you said. i—i mean, you meant to say tea... but it—it came out marriage. roger: oh, i’m sorry. uh—do you want another cup of... tea?

—101 dalmatians

warnings: misbehaving dog, misunderstanding that might cause secondhand embarrassment, please let me know if i’ve missed any!

pairing: virgil/logan, offscreen patton/janus

word count: 2,732

notes: this is for day four of @analogicalweek! the prompt of the day is “alternate universe” and i have decided to write a "i think my dog likes your dog” au, based off the introduction of anita and roger in 101 dalmatians! please enjoy!

⁂

Logan would have named his dog Tesla if the name had not already become popular due to the brand and if he did not have a deep-seated dislike of Elon Musk, but as it has, and as he does, his dog’s name is Nikola instead. He had finally given in and adopted her after his brother, Patton, had been wheedling him to adopt or foster one of the animals for years from the shelter he serves as veterinarian.

Nikola is a very intelligent dog. In the two-and-a-half years he has had her since she was a puppy, he has taught her a variety of tricks—the usual things, like sit, shake, stay, but also more unusual tricks like fetching him water bottles or tissues or any number of things that she knows the name of and is within her reach. She is a mix of two intelligent breeds—rottweiler and German shepherd—and as such learning and practicing tricks helps keep her from being bored.

She has a surplus of enrichment toys. She never rips up shoes or furniture. She keeps an obedient trot at his side on hikes and runs ahead if he tells her to. She waits after he throws something for her to fetch until he says to run, and she has learned to sit before they cross the street. She is a very well-trained dog.

Which is why it is so surprising when, as soon as he crouches to unleash her at the dog park they go to on Sundays, weather permitting, she snatches his baseball cap meant to keep the spring sun out of his eyes, and goes running off as if he has told her to fetch a tennis ball.

“Nikola!” He calls, out of being startled more than anything, before he starts to jog after her.

Nikola runs, just a black-and-brown streak of fur with the navy blue of his cap clamped between her teeth, and Logan is really quite fortunate that he spends most Saturdays, weather permitting, hiking, and weekday mornings on jogs besides. This habit has kept him in shape, however, it has also contributed to keeping Nikola in shape, and as such she is a very fast and athletic dog. He wonders briefly if he’ll catch her before he makes too much a fool of himself.

But just as suddenly as she’d started running, she stops at one of the benches installed around the dog park, dropping his cap on the bench and then immediately moving to the dog sitting beside her owner, Nikola wagging her tail and panting and looking quite pleased with herself, with eyes only for the other dog. The other dog, all black excepting the white splotch on her chest, looks at Nikola curiously, but does not crouch in a playful posture or otherwise react.

“Nikola, really,” he scolds, picking up his cap and jamming it back on his head. Then he looks to the man sitting on the bench with the dog that Nikola now seems enamored with, intent on apologizing for disturbing him or his dog, but his mouth goes dry almost immediately.

The man with the dog sitting calmly at his side is very handsome.

He’s brown-skinned and black-haired—he’s Latino, Logan thinks—and in the middle of reading a book. Logan isn’t sure what book, based on the way his hands are placed, his long, elegant fingers covering the title. He’s also listening to music, as evidenced by the white wireless earbuds placed in his ears.

It’s likely that Nikola’s tomfoolery hasn’t disturbed him at all. The man only gives Logan a look—his eyes, which are a stunning shade of brown so dark they’re practically black—and returns his attention to his novel.

Logan clears his throat awkwardly, jams his cap back on his head, and turns to Nikola, who is still trotting around them, seeming very pleased with herself, wagging her tail, looking every inch a pompous showdog.

Sometime in the middle of watching Nikola, the exceptionally handsome man has closed his book and stood up, and Logan tries his best not to pay him any mind as he walks away.

“Helena, come,” he says, with a deep, lovely voice that hits Logan somewhere in the sternum. He has an accent—Spanish, maybe? Portuguese? Logan isn’t very familiar with romantic languages outside of English, other than the Latin he took throughout high school and college. Nikola is still looking very excited, but the black dog—Helena—stands and follows after the man.

“Nikola, really,” he repeats weakly, and crouches before her, gathering her leash in hand and preparing to let her loose so they can, perhaps, play a game of fetch, or something that does not involve Logan running after her like a madman.

But of course not. Whatever mood Nikola’s in persists, as she suddenly pulls forward, forcing Logan to get up off the ground lest he be dragged in her wake, and he really does not want to be dragged along the ground at the dog park, so he does, scrambling after her and trying to regain his balance.

He doesn’t notice she’s looping her leash around the man’s knees until it’s too late.

Which brings him to notice that she is also backtracking to loop around his knees.

He cannot help but notice when Nikola pulls tight and it brings Logan and the man colliding forcefully, chest-to-chest.

“Oh!” The man grunts. His chest is warm and broad. Logan would quite like to curl up under a nearby rock and never come out and also, if Nikola understood human terms, she would be so grounded. As it is he is absolutely revoking treats for her behavior today, even if the man is now putting a hand on Logan’s shoulder and it radiates warmth through his shirt.

“I beg your pardon,” Logan splutters, “I’m so sorry, please excuse me, I’ve no idea what’s gotten into her—”

At the same time, the man is saying “What the hell, oh my God, what—” and trying to push them apart, Logan stumbling with it.

Which makes the man stumble, which makes Logan stumble a little more, and very suddenly, they’re overbalancing, and Logan lands on top of him, the man wheezing as his back meets the ground, surely knocking the wind out of him. Even with that, he puts a hand at Logan’s waist to keep him from falling off of him into the dirt.

“I’m so sorry,” Logan gasps, and looks over—Nikola and Helena are side by side, Helena still haughty, Nikola still seeming very self-congratulatory.

“Nikola, bad girl,” he scolds. She doesn’t even have the decency to look chastened. “I swear she’s never like this, I really am so sorry—”

Logan manages to loosen the leash from around their knees and rolls off the man, apologizing all the while.

The man manages to sit up, eyes wide, and promptly Helena comes trotting over to him, leaning heavily into his side.

“Uh, that’s,” the man coughs, “that’s okay. It—it wasn’t your fault. Um.”

He threads his fingers throughout Helena’s long fur, and Logan whistles sharply. Nikola at least has the good sense to return to his side.

“I am very sorry,” he repeats and stands, offering a hand to the man. The man hesitates before he releases Helena and takes it, allowing Logan to pull him to his feet.

Logan picks up the book—oh, he’s handsome and he has good taste, too, he’s reading On Beauty by Zaydie Smith, of course he had to go and look like an absolute buffoon in front of him—and holding it out for him.

The man takes his book back, eyes wide, before he looks to the dogs.

And then, of all the things to do, he starts to laugh.

Logan looks, too, and he feels his face crack into a grin.

Nikola is wagging her tail eagerly, staring at Helena, and Helena, at last, seems to look back at her. Her tail, almost grudgingly, starts to wag, too.

“I think your dog has a crush on my dog,” the man says, amused.

“I can’t deny that observation,” Logan admits. Sure, Nikola will play with other dogs, but she’s never been so sweet to another dog before. Even if he is irritated with her for running off, he can’t quite hold onto his sense of annoyance as Nikola makes doe-eyes at Helena.

“Like a regular Romeo,” the man says, then makes a face. “No, scratch that. Um—”

“She’d be a Juliet, regardless,” Logan interrupts.

He relaxes his shoulders. “Good. Romeo’s overused.”

He catches Logan’s confused eye, and explains, “My brother’s name is Roman. He crushes on people a lot. It was an easy joke growing up.”

“Ah,” Logan says, waits a beat, before he says, “It’s odd I know your dog’s name and your brother’s name before I know yours?”

“I have another brother named Remus,” he offers. “And, now that you know my family tree except me, I’m Virgil.”

“Well, I have a brother named Patton, and a brother-in-law named Janus,” Logan says. “I’m Logan.”

Virgil’s brow crinkles up. “Not Janus Ophidian?”

“The same,” Logan says.

“Small world,” Virgil says thoughtfully. “He’s a pain in my ass.”

He immediately blushes, as if he did not mean to say that, but Logan laughs before he can stop himself. Virgil blushes deeper.

“Uh, sorry,” Virgil says. “Sorry, he’s your—”

“No, you’re quite right,” Logan says affably. “He is a pain in the ass, he’d be proud to hear you say it. How do you know him?”

“Coworkers, of a sort,” Virgil says.

“So you’re a lawyer?” Logan says curiously.

“No,” Virgil says. “He’s in immigration law, right?”

“Correct.”

“I’m a translator,” Virgil says. “They hire me on retainer, sometimes, for clients who speak Spanish or Portuguese and not as much English. Or Catalan, or Aromanian, or Asturian, but those are way less common.”

“Interesting,” Logan says. “You’re a polyglot?”

“Six languages fluently, and three enough to make conversation,” Virgil says, then, “Aw, look at that.”

Nikola is nosing at Helena, and, after waiting a moment, Helena noses her back, their muzzles pressing together in a facsimile of a kiss.

“Well,” Logan says, unsure of what to really say to that, because it really is quite adorable. Then, “I suppose they’d like to spend time together. Would you like to sit back down on the bench to talk?”

Virgil smiles at him, more a quirk of his mouth than anything, and Logan’s heart flutters in his chest.

Please be single, please be single, he prays to no one in particular as they sit down together.

“So, what do you do for a living?” Virgil asks, ensuring that he has marked the page (his bookmark advertises for a small, local independent bookshop) and closing it, setting it aside.

“Oh,” Logan says, then, because his actual job title is quite long and unwieldy, he says, “I’m an astrochemist.”

“An astrochemist,” Virgil repeats, sounding intrigued. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that. What do you do all day?”

Logan brightens. “Well,” he begins, and off he goes.

He knows he can be something of a rambler, especially when it comes to topics he’s passionate about, and especially when it comes to astrochemistry, a combination of his two most favorite scientific disciplines of study. It only takes someone five minutes of listening to him ramble to discover he’s passionate about his work and the discoveries they make.

But he can’t help it. It’s the best thing in the universe, what he gets to do—use radio telescopes to detect the electromagnetic radiation that’s given off by objects in space, establishing what substances are in space and in what quantities, which can potentially come to tell the story of how the universe was made.

He gestures frequently with his hands, his voice rising in volume as he talks about the significance of his work, the knowledge he’s helped discover, the theories they have. He sweeps a wide, expansive gesture to the sky, and points in the approximate direction of the various planets and stars of study. All the while, Helena and Nikola move to chase each other in circles, and all the while, Virgil alternates between watching the dogs with a soft look, and then looking back to Logan with genuine interest shining in his eyes, along with something Logan can’t quite name—well, he did just meet this man, he supposes that isn’t unreasonable.

Whatever the look is, though, it increases the excitement of lecturing about something he loves to someone who wants to learn, something in his stomach fluttering, his heart beating loud in his ears.

He’s about to start explaining the use use theoretical models as well as computer visualizations to help them explain their observations in terms of known physical and chemical principles, and how it helps them study the origins of extraterrestrial bodies and the chemical processes that have shaped their present forms when he stops, abruptly aware of how long he has been talking.

“Goodness,” Logan says, suddenly shy, pushing his glasses up his nose. “I’m so sorry, I’ve just talked away a good portion of your afternoon. Um. That’s the—that’s the sum of what I do on a daily basis. Which is what you asked.”

Virgil has that same quirk to his mouth as before, and that look in his eyes that had made Logan so eager in the first place.

“I don’t mind,” he says, and scratches at the back of his neck. “Um, I don’t drink coffee, ‘cause I have anxiety—Helena’s my emotional support dog, actually—”

Her stillness and calmness at the start of the whole debacle makes sense, then.

“—but, um. There’s a café nearby with outdoor seating, would you wanna maybe go... get a cup of marriage?”

Logan blinks at him, mouth agape.

“Excuse me?” He manages to squeak out.

Virgil blinks right back.

“Tea?” He clarifies, as if he was unsure if Logan heard him over the sound of other dogs and humans in the park. Goodness, there’s other dogs and people in the park, when did that happen? When did it get so crowded? “Would you want to maybe go get a cup of tea?”

“You,” Logan says, certain that his face is flaming red. “You said marriage.”

Virgil blushes then. He opens and closes his mouth a couple times, and at last he says, “Marriage?”

“Yes,” Logan says. “You—you said marriage. I mean, you meant to say tea, but it—it came out marriage.”

Virgil’s brow furrows. He thinks for a few moments. Then it seems to click, and he buries his face into his hands.

“Oh, God, I’m so sorry,” Virgil groans. “It was nice to meet you and you’re very attractive and also you were so excited about your work so I have started liking you in a friendly way but also in a I’d like to date you way but I just proposed marriage barely an hour after we met, so I’m going to go fling myself into the creek so I never have to see you again, I can’t believe I said that.”

Helena has untangled herself from Nikola and is currently butting up against Virgil’s shins, seemingly in an attempt to get him to calm down.

“No! No,” Logan says hastily. “No. Oh, please don’t do that, um. Tea sounds great. Tea sounds lovely. I also think you’re very attractive and like you in both a friendly and romantic sense!”

Virgil peeks out from between his fingers. “Really?”

“Really,” Logan promises. “In fact, would you like to go get a cup of tea with me? Right now? As a date?”

Virgil grins at him weakly. “I guess a date sounds more reasonable than marriage right off the bat, doesn’t it?”

Logan smiles back at him, as encouragingly as he can. “It does. I’d like to go on a date with you.”

Virgil’s grin strengthens. “Great! Okay. Okay. Um—follow me, then?”

They both pause to leash their dogs, sharing a bashful smile with each other, and Logan follows Virgil and Helena to the gate of the dog park.

Nikola’s strange sense of mischief has worn off; she’s trotting obediently at his side again. To think, he’d thought Nikola had just caused all this trouble for nothing, and now he’s going on a date with a handsome, intelligent man.

He sneaks her a treat as they exit the park, on the way to the café just down the street.

⁂

logan’s dog, nikola virgil’s dog, helena

#my post #text #my fic #analogical #analogicalweek #sanders sides #sanders sides fanfic #sanders sides fanfiction #virgil sanders #logan sanders

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nikibogwater · 3 years

Text

The Final Becoming--a Tales of Arcadia fanfiction: Chapter Two

A gentle king, a warrior queen, a clever prince, and a Master Wizard. Together with their allies, these four heroes must reform the ancient kingdom of Camelot and rise up to face the Arcane Order in a decisive final battle for the fate of everything they hold dear.

An alternate take on the series ending for those for whom Rise of the Titans didn't quite make the cut. Updates every Friday (weather permitting).

(Link to Chapter One)

Read on Ao3

Or in the post below:

Before we begin, I have to say thank you all for the amazing response to the first chapter. I have worked harder on this fic than any other I've written so far, so it brings me no small amount of joy to know that you are all already enjoying it. 💖

This chapter is a bit shorter than the prologue from last week, because there was really only one place that seemed good for a chapter break. But rest assured I'll work very hard to get the third chapter ready on time next week so I won't leave you hanging too long. I hope you all enjoy, and thank you again for all the amazing support!

*****

Though the chill of winter still persisted in the occasional little gust of wind, the sun’s warmth on their backs carried the promise of the swiftly-coming Spring. Nari had been especially restless that morning, pacing around their tiny apartment, checking and rechecking all of her potted plants in an effort to keep herself occupied. It was Douxie’s half-day at work, and the moment he returned home, he hustled his companions out the door for a walk, half-heartedly hoping it would ease Nari’s growing anxiety. With no proof that the Order knew where they were, and nowhere else to go even if they did, he could only pray that her worry was simply the result of her long confinement within the city, and not a premonition of things to come.

Out here in the sunshine, she seemed more at ease, though her eyes still darted around more quickly than usual. She was delighted to discover a scrawny dandelion growing up through a crack in the sidewalk, and knelt down to give it her blessing without a second thought. Douxie didn’t have the heart to tell her people were staring, or that the use of her unique brand of magic carried the risk of revealing her whereabouts to the Order. They continued on their way, the wood nymph seeming to feel much better for her efforts.

“...Douxie?” Nari had to raise her voice in order to be heard over the noise of the city.

“Mm?”

“...I am sorry if this is an impolite question, but....What are you wearing on your head?”

“Oh, do you like it?” He gave the baseball cap a jaunty little tweak, turning and walking backwards in front of her. “I’ve never had one before. Found it at a thrift shop a couple of weeks back and thought I’d give it a go. Makes me look like a proper mortal, eh?” He turned back around just in time to barely avoid running into a streetlamp.

“Among other things,” Archie muttered, leaping up onto Douxie’s shoulder so he could keep a better eye on him. Nari giggled softly, skipping a few feet forward to walk by Douxie’s side. They stopped at the end of the sidewalk, where a clearly distraught and world-weary man was shaking a paper cup as he miserably proclaimed to unsympathetic passersby:

“The world’s gonna end! We’re all gonna die!”

Douxie shared a glance with Nari, mouth turning upward in a knowing smile. He flipped a quarter into the man’s cup. “Not on my watch,” he said blithely. They went on their way before the confused prophet could ask any questions. Nari’s hand slipped into Douxie’s, giving it a grateful squeeze, as Archie’s tail draped fondly around his neck.

Strolling aimlessly around the city block like this, with Archie on his shoulder and Nari’s hand in his, Douxie found himself overcome with a warm feeling of contentment. In spite of all the evidence that easily proved otherwise, he felt that for just this moment, all was right with the world.

But it was always the nature of such moments to come to an end.

A few minutes later, Nari came to an abrupt stop, her nails digging into Douxie’s hand as she sucked in a sharp breath.

“Nari?” he murmured.

“They’re here. Bellroc’s magic, I felt--” She couldn’t finish before an explosion rattled the entire street, a huge chunk of skyscraper toppling to the ground in a flaming heap nearby. Archie leapt off Douxie’s shoulder, shifting into his dragon form, and blasted away a chunk of brickwork before it could crush a terrified mother and her child. Douxie pulled Nari into an alleyway, his feet pounding against the asphalt as the echoes of the confused and panicked screams of civilians bounced off the narrow brick walls around them.

“Douxie, where are we going?!” Nari cried, scrambling to keep up with his long strides.

“I don’t know!” he panted. “Just--” A blast of frigid air shrieked down the alleyway and threw the both of them off their feet. Douxie curled around Nari just before the hit the concrete, as her instinctual magic rushed around him, softening their fall. “...away,” he snarled through gritted teeth, as Skrael emerged from a flurrious cloud at the end of the alley and gilded towards them slowly. Douxie pulled Nari to her feet and pushed her behind him, while Archie perched on his shoulder, baring his fangs at Skrael. Douxie’s staff appeared in his hand, his eyes flashing blue for a moment as defensive magic coiled around the three of them.

“Stand down, boy,” Skrael hissed. “Unlike Bellroc, I am willing to strike a bargain. Hand over Nari, and we’ll let you live long enough to witness this world’s glorious rebirth.”

“Seems Bellroc and I have something in common,” Douxie spat. “There will be no bargains. Not today, not with you.” He kept his staff raised as he spoke, slowly backing up with Nari still clinging to his arm.

“Oh, I dearly hoped you would say that,” Skrael murmured with a cold grin, readying his own staff.

“Douxie!” Nari pushed Douxie to the side just in time to avoid a wave of fire from the other end of the alleyway. Bellroc stalked through the flames, throwing aside their ornamental skull-helmet as they came. Only one way out, Douxie realized with a sinking heart. He slammed the end of his staff on the ground, sending out an explosive pulse of magic that pushed the two demigods back for a moment. He swept up Nari and Archie with his magic and launched them to the top of the building at their backs.

“Go! Call Claire!” he shouted, throwing down a barrier just in time to block two simultaneous waves of fire and ice. Nari pushed against his magic, frantically trying to rejoin him on the ground, but he wouldn’t let her go.

“No, I cannot leave you!”

“Go!” Douxie bellowed. “Archie, take her!”

“We have to trust him, Nari!” Archie insisted, tugging on the back of her shirt. With a frustrated growl, she finally relented, and the magic holding her at bay dissipated as she tore away from the scene, bounding across rooftops as Archie flew beside her.

“She is escaping!” Bellroc howled. Skrael leapt up to follow her, but a tendril of blue magic snapped around his ankle and pulled him back down.

“Not so fast!” Douxie barked. “I thought you said you wanted to fight me!”

“Insolent brat!” Bellroc snarled, fingertips sparking with red-hot magic. A bubble of flames erupted around Douxie’s feet. He hissed in pain as he rolled out of the way, throwing out a shield spell just in time to block Bellroc’s staff from slamming into his head.

“Oh, come on, now, no need for petty insults!” he quipped, ducking under their staff to launch them away with another spell. “I’m sure we’re both capable of tearing one another to pieces in a civilized manner.”

“By the time we are finished with you, you will beg for the mercy of being torn to pieces!” Bellroc roared, charging towards him once more.

The alleyway was swiftly lost in a haze of smoke and flashing blue light.

*****

Nari was gasping for air as she sprinted across another building, her magic carrying her across the gaps as she bounded from rooftop to rooftop. Without the rejuvenating magic of raw nature, she quickly grew weak, and she and Archie were forced to stop and take shelter behind a chimney. She ripped her phone from her pocket, dialing Claire with trembling fingers. Her hand clenched against her rapidly beating heart as they waited for an answer.

Click.

“Hello?”

“They have found us!” Nari gasped. “The Order--they are here. Please, you must assemble the Guardians--Douxie cannot fight them alone for much longer! He needs your help!”

“...We’re on our way,” Claire replied.

“Hurry!” Nari breathed, before ending the call and struggling to get back to her feet. She stood for a moment on trembling legs, looking back at the billowing cloud of smoke and flashing blue light in the distance.

“We must keep moving,” Archie urged, gently nudging her with his head.

“But....Douxie...”

“Claire and the others will be joining him any moment--he’ll be alright. In the meantime, he is counting on you to stay out of the Order’s grasp. You have to keep running.” Nari did not look fully convinced, but she pushed away from the wall and continued to run, with Archie following close beside her.

*****

Douxie yelped in pain as Bellroc slammed him against the wall, burning hand at his throat, their forked staff pinning his weapon hand to the side. He choked and struggled as he was lifted off his feet, the back of his head scraping painfully against the brickwork.

“You fancy yourself a Master Wizard,” Bellroc hissed, breathing heavily from exertion. “But you are nothing more than a meddlesome child. One that I will relish in punishing.”

“Yeah?” Douxie snarled breathlessly. “Well, this meddlesome child’s plan worked perfectly. And you couldn’t do a thing about it. Nari is--”

“--Already in our possession,” Bellroc said, a smirk twisting their ashen face. “Your plan did not account for the fact that you humans are very easily distracted.”

“What’s that supposed to--” Douxie stopped short with another fruitless gasp for air, his eyes widening in horror.

Skrael was nowhere to be seen.

*****

Nari cleared another alley in a single bound, but stopped when she landed on the other side. Frost was creeping across the tiles beneath her feet. She swung around and managed to throw Archie back before leaping out of the way of Skrael’s attack. Ice chunks scattered across the top of the roof as Nari landed on all fours, what little defensive magic she still had gathering in her hand. In this wasteland of concrete and metal, she was all-too-aware that she wouldn’t stand a chance against her brother, but she faced him nonetheless, eyes burning with quiet rage. Archie swooped over her and landed on her shoulders, spreading his wings over her protectively as Skrael descended in front of them.

“Nari,” he spoke silkily, brandishing his staff. “Beloved sister...We are tired of your games. It is time for you to rejoin your family--time to fulfil your duty.”

“You are not my family!” Nari spat. “Not anymore. My duty is to protect this world--I will never help you destroy it!”

“These human pets of yours have already destroyed it. We merely intend to set things right. But I am not here to reason with you. You will return to us...” he leveled his staff at her. “...willing or otherwise.”

*****

“R-rigescunt indutae!” Douxie choked, grasping Bellroc’s hand where it was clenched around his throat. They let out a shriek of pain as webs of frost shot across their wrist, and jerked back. Douxie dropped to the ground, coughing and gasping for air, briefly raising a trembling hand to his burned neck. He summoned his guitar and strummed a blast of magic that sent Bellroc flying out of the alleyway. He turned to flee, heart pounding wildly, growing more frantic with every beat. Nari! They can’t take Nari!

But turning his back on the ancient sorcerer proved to be a horrible mistake. Bellroc was up faster than he anticipated, and immediately took advantage of Douxie’s carelessness and retaliated with a roaring blast of fire. Douxie screamed in pain as it struck his back full-force. His shirt and hoodie were instantly shredded by the flames, leaving them in scorched tatters that hung limply off of his frame. He struggled to push himself up, limbs shaking, the raw, stinging pain in his back nearly unbearable.

“How easily the fleshlings fall,” Bellroc mused, coming up beside him and planting their foot between his shoulders. Douxie cried out in agony as he was pinned to the ground. “Such arrogance, calling yourself a Master Wizard. You are a worm, and you shall die like one!” Bellroc’s foot pressed deeper into Douxie’s back, sizzling like a brand. He couldn’t withhold the scream that tore from his throat, as hot tears stung mercilessly at the corners of his eyes. This couldn’t be it, he couldn’t fall here. Nari and Archie needed him! But no matter how desperate his writhing, he couldn’t escape from beneath Bellroc’s burning heel.

“Die, Creeper!”

There was a loud thwack, and suddenly, Bellroc’s weight was thrown off of him. Douxie gasped in relief, managing to lift his head just enough to see Steve furiously fending off the demigod with his beloved axe. Claire, Jim, Toby, and Aaarrrgghh all charged through the shadow portal behind him, their gazes murderous as they rushed to defend their ally. Jim dropped beside Douxie and eased him upright, mindful of the fresh burn that stretched across his back and shoulders.

“J-Jim...!” the exhausted wizard gasped.

“Sorry we’re late! I had to borrow an extra serrator from Krel,” Jim told him. “Can you stand?”

“Nari!” Douxie croaked, gripping Jim’s sleeve with white fingers. “We have to get to Nari!” Another wave of fire came hurtling towards them. Jim activated the serrator’s shield and blocked it, as Aaarrrgghh shielded the others with his stony body.

“Jim, get Douxie out of here!” Claire barked. “We’ll handle this!”

“No, I can’t leave without Nari and Archie!” Douxie protested, weakly struggling as Jim pulled him out into the street.

“You can’t fight like this, Douxie! We have to--” Jim was cut off as his foot landed on a patch of ice--his legs flew out from beneath him, and both boys were sent toppling to the ground. Douxie looked up just in time to see Archie’s limp, frost-covered body thrown down in front of him, hitting the iced pavement with a sickening crunch. The Familiar’s glasses landed in shattered pieces nearby.

“Archie!” Douxie dove for his Familiar, crouching over him protectively.

“Bellroc!” Skrael’s voice echoed down the street. “We have what we came for. It is time to go.” He descended beside his sibling, launching another blast of icy wind that pushed their assailants back. His robes were singed and tattered, and his face was scarred with fresh wounds, the cuts bleeding a misty substance that floated away on the wind. Nari had clearly put up quite a fight alongside Archie. She was bound in icy chains behind Skrael, struggling fruitlessly against his magic. She let out a panicked cry as her gaze landed on Douxie and Archie, taking in the awful sight of the both of them so horribly injured.

“No!” she shrieked. An explosion of green light broke through Skrael’s chains and coiled around her, as a gust of warm wind shrieked down the alleyway. Douxie forced himself to his feet, Archie still cradled in one arm, and reached for her as she flew towards him.

Her hand clasped his. He felt her magic slam into him for one brief, joyous moment, rushing and rolling over him like a river. His pain vanished, and he felt fresh air pouring into his lungs, as a surge of energy coursed through his body, filling his chest and limbs .

Then suddenly, in a whirl of snow and ash, she was gone.

Thanks for reading! ✨

(Link to Chapter Three)

#tales of arcadia #toa #toa fanfiction #douxie #toa nari #toa archie #toa bellroc #toa skrael #jim lake jr #claire nunez #toby domzalski #steve palchuk #aaarrrgh #the final becoming

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corpsentry · 3 years

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fandom: botw rating: t  pairing: zelda/link  notes: post-canon, getting together, mild descriptions of injury. cooking. dancing. crying. and so on. “Let’s say you’ve been asleep for a hundred years and when you wake up you’ve lost all your memories, but you defeat the big bad monster like you’ve been told to, because a girl told you to, and because you were in love with her. And after defeating the big bad monster she comes back, only she’s not the person she was a hundred years ago. And you’re not the person you were a hundred years ago. And yet every time you look at her, your chest hurts so bad you think you might be dying.” He looks up from his breadstick. “Am I dying?” “No,” Beedle says. “I think you’re stupid.”

All roads lead to hateno.

“I ate the frog.” Is the first thing he says to her in a hundred years, because he can’t stop staring at her hands, and his head isn’t working properly because he can’t stop staring at her hands, and he doesn’t remember what he had been planning on saying before he walked into the castle and killed two versions of evil incarnate in a room with a domed ceiling and a field with a domed sky, but he’s pretty sure. He’s pretty sure it wasn’t this. “I’m sorry,” Zelda says. “You what?” “I, uh.” He takes a step back, and then a step forward. Hyrule castle looms like a corpse behind her, hulking and majestic and dead. It distracts him, though not as much as Zelda herself, pale as winter and glowing behind a halo of sun. “There was a frog you wanted me to eat.” A hundred years ago. “You said it would be for an experiment.” A hundred years ago you told me to eat a frog and that’s all that I remember. That’s what’s kept me going all this time. When things got hard, when the weight of the curse you had given me grew too great, I cooked a frog in a pot over a fire. She stares at him for a moment, her expression unreadable. “You’re more talkative than I remember.” He panics. “Should I stop talking?” “Oh no! No, just— how do I put it—” This probably isn’t what she had in mind for their reunion. He feels the sudden need to apologize. He should have tried harder to hold onto himself while he was sleeping off the blood on his back and the world retreated into a corner to lick at its wounds, but it was hard. He didn’t know what he was doing. He doesn’t remember, actually. He doesn’t remember going to sleep, and he doesn’t remember what he dreamed of. That’s two question marks in one head, and only one answer to go around. There were two shadows on the wall, though they belonged to the same boy. Zelda twists her hands together, almost as if in prayer. Her white dress billows heavily in the wind, covered in wounds from another century. “I’m sorry,” she says to his feet. “Please keep talking.” He nods, though she isn’t looking. After a moment, they make their way across the trampled, dead-looking field to his horse, who’s had half of her mane seared off and looks like she desperately wants a carrot. He hauls himself onto the saddle, then holds out a hand to Zelda, who stares at it like he’s just offered her the rest of his lifespan. Then she takes it, letting him pull her up behind him, and her hand is so warm, and the sky is so blue, and everything is so strange, he almost lets go. Of the girl. Of the reins. Of his grip on reality, this new, unexplored reality, the carcass of the castle slowly growing smaller in the distance. When he walked into the sanctum with a plan to kill Ganon he had been thinking about how the stalhorses on Tabantha Snowfield run faster than the horses near Kakariko, how a bokoblin will choose a freshly roasted chicken over the skin of your teeth, how stables are a metaphor for family. Now all he can think of is angels. She asks him where they’re going a little while later, and it’s only then that he realizes he doesn’t know. It’s a cool, starless night. No moon, no blood. His horse snickers at a boar by the side of the road, and Zelda tightens her grip on his waist. God, what have they been doing for the last hundred years? “Home,” he answers. “We’re going home.”

 The house in Hateno is a small and modest affair. This is probably the only reason Bolson and his construction company were willing to sell it to him at an equally modest price, with modest display stands for his modest weapons, and a modest bed beside which he hung a framed photograph of him and his dead friends. He’s fine with it, though. The only thing that really matters to him is the photograph, though there are now two living people in it instead of one and a half, and if Bolson had not graciously included a bedframe and mattress in his modest homemaker’s package, then Link would have slept on the floor. He says as much to Zelda, who blinks at him sleepily and throws a pillow at his face. “Please don’t do that,” he says. “Sleep in your own bed,” she replies. He peels the pillow off the floor and pats the dust away before replacing it carefully on the bed. “I promised your father I would take care of you.” And Daruk. And Mipha. And Urbosa, who would kill me if she found out I let the princess sleep on the carpet. Like a dog, she would probably say, her voice low, her eyes slanted. How could you treat her like a stray dog? This is the princess we’re talking about. She deserves better. He opens his mouth to say as much, but Zelda gets there first. “My father is dead,” she says, her voice unexpectedly raw. She seems surprised at herself despite her best efforts, and clears her throat in an attempt to hide it. He finds himself overwhelmed with the sudden urge to hug her or blast a hole through the roof with his sword, but can’t decide on one, and ends up wringing his hands together behind his back while Zelda sits on the side of the modest bed in the modest house in Hateno, and presses the folds of her dress into a clump. There should be more he can do for her. What is it? If only Urbosa were here to tell him what it means when Zelda takes your hand like a promise, when Zelda pinches the side of your waist, when Zelda announces that her father is dead, has been dead for a hundred years, died a long time ago. But Urbosa is dead too. The old world is gone, though its survivors have finally emerged from the twilit field. What now? Zelda rubs her eyes. He picks at a cuticle and holds his breath. Despite her best protests, she agrees to the bed-floor arrangement. Zelda will sleep on the bed, because he didn’t think that far when he walked into the castle and defeated evil incarnate, and she doesn’t seem to care. Meanwhile, he will sleep on the floor. Which floor? The first floor, he decides, but when he tries to go downstairs he almost throws up. His heart’s uneasy, of course, but he had underestimated the side-effects of meeting an angel. Over the past few months, he had gotten used to getting mauled by things to the point where it had become part of his daily routine: get up, have a minor crisis about the fact that everyone you know is dead, have a minor crisis about the beautiful voice in your head, get mauled by a bear. Get mauled by a bokoblin who stole your spear. Get mauled by Mount Lanayru, which has a thing for spitting giant snowballs at him when he’s trying to talk to the Koroks in the region, pleading with them through chattering teeth to stop giving him more tiny golden shits and start letting him talk about his feelings. Zelda is not daily routine. Zelda was the girl in the dream, then a face in a photograph, and now Zelda is sleeping in the house in Hateno with her hands pressed up to her cheek, breathing softly. He’s overcome with emotion, though if you asked him to tell it to you, he wouldn’t know how. And as for the matter of her hands, were they always this lovely? Impa didn’t tell him what to do after he saved the girl, though he knows she’ll want to hear about it from him and not the Sheikah warriors she has spread out throughout the kingdom, keeping an eye on their dying gods. Impa wanted him to look forward, which meant knives and teeth and forests full of bodies. She didn’t tell him what he could or couldn’t do in the presence of the sun, and he, having spent his whole life sitting in a dark room, didn’t think to ask. In retrospect, he should have. In retrospect, he should have asked Bolson to build two beds. But the thought didn’t occur to him, just as it didn’t occur to him that his heart might not be the dead thing the world told him it was, and so he never did.

 “I had a dream.” He flips the eggs. “About what?” “About a world where I made it in time.” Zelda peers over his shoulder. “Are they done yet?” “Almost, if you could please—” “—Ah, excuse me—” She dances out of the way of the big cast-iron pan, which he holds in one hand while he reaches for the plates with the other. In her haste to create space she walks into the counter and winces, bending over to touch the side of her foot. “Oh. I stubbed my toe.” She sighs. After breakfast he goes to look for Uma. He finds her sitting under the same old tree beside the bridge, cradling a cup of tea and humming along with the cicadas. Uma is the only person in Hateno who remembers the Calamity as a name with a face, and not a dream. She also had a daughter once, whom she lost in the years after the Calamity, when the rice fields had not yet begun to flourish, and the winters were long and cruel. He asks her quietly about the weather, which she tells him is her favorite kind. Spring’s never felt quite so lovely, she informs him, as she pries open an old dresser and leans forward to peer inside. He holds her cup of tea with both hands, the mellow sweetness of chrysanthemum tickling his nose and making him sneeze. After a moment, she returns with a set of clothes in the signature Hateno blend of oranges, blues, and warm, earthy browns. She places them carefully on his head and then retrieves her tea before he has the chance to drop the cup. “I hope your friend is taking well to Hateno,” she says warmly. I hope I have a friend, he thinks with his heart stuck halfway up his throat. He’s barely keeping himself together, in pretty much every sense of the word, but he thanks her all the same, and means it.

 He did, in fact, eat a frog. Several times. Once on the Great Plateau, after the spirit of the old king had left him to fend for himself with a pickaxe and half an apple, and again while he was in the Hebra mountain range, because it was too cold out to hunt and one had hopped into his pack while he wasn’t looking and died there. Then there was another time, at one of the stables up north, where he met a traveling salesman who offered him a stamina-boosting trick for ten rupees. The first time he obediently closed his eyes, and could only describe the texture in his mouth as ‘soft, with hints of viscosity’. He returned several weeks later, ran away on his horse immediately after making payment, and was mildly alarmed to discover that he had not in fact been presented with a breadstick, but rather a leg. A very long leg. With joints. And skin. And a big, webbed foot. Once, while sitting on a raft headed out to sea, he considered hurling himself into the water. It had been raining for several days by this point, which itself wasn’t a problem as he had come to quite like the sound of rain bashing on the outside of his tent with bloody fists, but this rain was relentless. Like a ghost which tries to kill you and fails, and, in a fit of bitter resentment, resolves to throw rocks at your window each night for the rest of your life, the water got into his boots and it got into his eyes and then it got into his pack, which spoiled all of his carefully-preserved meat and caused the stopper in his bottle of milk to rot. Under the present circumstances, all the game had either gone off to find shelter or been washed away by the floodwaters. There was nothing for him to hunt, and nothing for him to eat. His stomach growled faithlessly. While stumbling along some beach or another, he bumped into Kass, who told him about some treasure further out at sea. He looked blandly in the direction that the parrot pointed out for him, and found his eyes drawn to the island that lay beyond it. “I’m going to go there,” he said. “I hope you find good treasure,” said Kass. “Yeah,” he said. So he hauled himself onto a raft (he was too shy to ask the people in Lurelin for help, and too proud to talk about his circumstances) at the crack of dawn and began to blast a Korok leaf at the sail. And then he got tired. He sat down. He leaned over the edge of the raft. His reflection in the water was gray, because the sky was gray, and the sky was gray because it was raining. He had begun to shiver again, but he had spent most of the week shivering anyway and so didn’t pay it any attention. His hair was matted to his forehead, and there were bags under his eyes. One of his piercings was smarting; it must have gotten infected. “What if I just stopped trying,” he suggested to the sea, which ignored him. What was the point of it all, anyway? All of his friends were dead and the girl in the photograph was stuck in a castle in the sky. He didn’t remember a single thing about the first seventeen years of his life. Only the things that happened in the last three months, only the things that were deemed important, and even those he remembered in fragments. Like what if he had a sister. What if his father had been kind to him, or doting, or an alcoholic. What if he had been in love with someone, and what if he had had a heart, and what if he had cared. It was hard to discern the world’s sympathies for him when he spent most of his time alone. Sometimes, at night, he drew a face on the rock-wall and gave it a name. “I’m tired,” he said. “I’m tired, and I’m hungry, and I feel more dead than alive, even though I’m the only one still breathing.” But the sea continued to ignore him. The wind continued to ignore him. The rain continued to ignore him, pelting at his wet shoulders with wet hands and wet teeth, clawing at the skin on the back of his neck, telling him to go to sleep and stay there. Eventually the raft drifted of its own accord to the shore of the island he had spied in the distance, and then some thousand-year-old mummy stripped him of all his belongings anyway, so it no longer mattered that he had nothing in his pack or his head or his heart, as long as he was able to replace it with something new.

 A few weeks later she’s standing in the kitchen and staring at the vegetables in the pot, humming to herself, while Link rearranges the condiments on the table. She’s swaying from side to side, holding up the ladle like a sword. She seems happy. He leans back in his chair until he can just about see the top of her head. “What song is that?” he asks, casual as a house on fire. A pause. Something clatters to the floor. Picture two figures in a forest full of thorns and teeth. Picture the knight carving a path through the trees, the princess stumbling behind him, his clammy hand tight around her wrist, their feet bruised and dirty. It’s raining, of course, because it’s always raining in the dream. They’re being chased by mechanical monsters with knives for eyes. And they’re tired, both of them, so tired they could hurl themselves into a pond and drown there, but instead she walks into a tree. The bark scrapes the length of her forearm like a kiss, tearing at her skin and pouring blood down the back of her hand. Something clatters to the floor. Something breaks. Picture the old dream, the one he knows like a memory, the reason he’s less afraid of bears than people. He whirls the chair around to the sight of Zelda’s hand in the fire, her posture rigid, her face hidden by a curtain of hair. “I’m sorry,” she says, crestfallen. “It’s just—” He’s on his feet and halfway across the room before she can finish her sentence, pulling her away from the counter, reaching for the faucet with his other hand. “—It’s the first time you’ve asked me a question since you found me,” she says quietly. The skin on the back of her hand is bright red. If Urbosa were here, she would tie his arms and legs to four horses and then ask them to run in four different directions, and he would die in such a memorable way, it would eclipse even the deaths of all his old dead friends, who were trapped in machines with voices for a hundred years while their bodies turned into dust. If Urbosa were here then he likely wouldn’t be, would be in the next room, his ear pressed to the door, his heart pressed to the roof of his mouth. It’s a good thing, then, that she isn’t.

 It’s spring, so the water from the faucet is cold enough to cut yourself on. The water from the faucet is cold, so it should sting on skin as red as this, but Zelda doesn’t say anything as he holds her hand under the stream of water, his thumbs resting on the curve of her wrist, his eyes searching her blank expression for. A sign? A reason? Why the ladle on the floor; why the hand in the fire? “It’s fine,” she finally says, brushing her hair behind her ear with her unhurt hand. “No,” he says before he can stop himself, bristling a little, feeling slightly outrageous. “It’s not.” Zelda looks somber for a moment. Then she hiccups a laugh. “We’ve had this conversation before, haven’t we?” Yeah, I remember when you [the path that leads to Hateno is wet and winding] and I [your hand on the back of my head was cold and dying], he wants to say. But he would be lying if he did, because he doesn’t remember. He doesn’t remember anything except the sixteen stories she left him, sixteen shards of a seventeen-year-old life. If she’s referring to something funny, then he’s missed an opportunity to make her laugh. If she’s referring to something important, then it’s no wonder he can’t seem to bridge the gap between the frog and the girl, no wonder his head hurts like someone stabbed it with a pitchfork and forgot to take it out, no wonder Hyrule still feels so far away, even as he milks the chickens and he chases the cows and he collects the eggs from the bears. He turns this thought over in his head as he goes for the medicine cabinet, which he had not asked for and Bolson had installed as a courtesy. Despite his best efforts, the blood on his back never quite washed away. She’s gone by the time he closes the cabinet, and he begins to feel that telltale sickness in his stomach, the sudden urge to throw up. He walks briskly out of the house in Hateno, salve and bandages tied to his wrist, his heartbeat ringing in his ears. The moon is a crescent tonight. Hateno rises and falls with each breath, pressing flowers into the palm of his hand. He folds each one unevenly in half. Zelda’s halfway up the ladder when he finds her. He waits for her to get onto the roof before he starts heading up, and is surprised all the same when he reaches the top of the ladder, and finds her face inches away from his. “I didn’t know you had a ladder,” she says pleasantly. “Why did you follow me up here?” She smells like Goron spice and sun. He is three seconds away from plummeting to his death. This is nothing he is used to, and a part of him thinks that if he knows what’s good for him then he will never get used to any of it. Not the silent, dead castle, not the long black shadow of the future, not the girl. She leans back after a moment. He breathes out. Half an inch of space will not keep either of them safe. Zelda watches him retie his ponytail expectantly. “So?” The ladder is from the Great Plateau. He found it at the back of the Temple of Time days after the old king asked him to climb to the top of the ruined structure and revealed to him that he was, yeah, the old king, and that all of his friends were dead, and that he would have to get the girl out of the castle before she could even think to save him, and by association, the rest of the world. At that point he was still naive enough to think defeating Ganon would take a stick and an apple and a really fast horse. He had also not yet learned of the myriad ways in which he had failed everyone he had ever cared for, and so spent his days wandering from place to place, pointing at bugs in the leaves and laughing. The ladder pissed him off. Who put it there? Why didn’t the old king tell him about its existence? What was the point of leaving a ladder behind the statue of Hylia when you could’ve put it in front, so stupid soulless people like him could use it to reach the end of the story faster? He returned to it much later, after he had purchased the house in Hateno, and yanked the whole thing down. Hacking it into four sections with a pickaxe he stole from a bokoblin (it had probably belonged to him first anyway), he piled all of them on his horse and then walked through Hyrule field, past Fort Hateno, all the way back to Bolson, who stared at him like he’d just asked him to kill a man. What do you mean you want me to fix this ladder, he asked. I mean I want you to fix this ladder, he replied. So Bolson did. Zelda laughs so hard she almost falls off the roof. She gets right up to the edge of it, leaning over the side with her face in her hands while he scrambles to keep her from toppling over. She only let him wrap up her arm because he was talking, because according to Zelda he never did much talking, but maybe he’s said too much. He’s embarrassed. Defeated, he lies down. There’s a star, just above the crown of trees at the other end of the village. He reaches out idly, trying to pinch it between his thumb and forefinger, but his fingers brush against skin instead of sky. Zelda, half-goddess, half-miracle, turns her face into the palm of his hand for the briefest of moments, like a butterfly alighting on the surface of a pond. The cicadas sing ballads. His breath stops in his lungs and dies there. “I like the ladder.” “Oh.” “Please keep it.” “Oh.” “You know,” she says, still leaning over him, close enough that if he gave her hand a tug, she might fall right out of heaven. Her head is tilted, her hair falling into her eyes, splaying across the tiles on the roof like a satiny strip of sun. “What?” he asks hoarsely. She smiles at him like a secret. “I—”

 He used to be in love with her. As each piece of his sixteen-part past was returned to him and the last day of his life emerged slowly into the light, it dawned on him like a horse falling out of the sky that he had been very lucky to be her knight, that he would have willingly given his life for her, and that he did. Only his final, heroic act of sacrifice failed to accomplish anything meaningful in spite of his best efforts. He had died with her hand cradling the back of his head, his tunic wet with blood and tears, believing that the ending could be salvaged still. Maybe this is what it takes to reach happiness, he thought dizzily. Maybe you have to be pushed to the end of the line, before you can start walking back towards the center. But when he opened his eyes, it was to a world which had not moved an inch from the precipice. His back was covered in scars, water streaming down his skin like blood, and his head was so light, he worried for a moment that if he stood up too fast it would float right off of his shoulders. The only thing that remained was old skin, the thin aftertaste of fear, and a bone-deep anxiety that wouldn’t come off no matter how many times he threw himself into the river. The only thing that remained was a voice in his head, calling his name through the dream, reminding him that there was still something that could be salvaged from the fire. He used to be in love with her, though it took him a while to admit it, because being in love with her meant admitting that he had failed not only on a prophetic level, but on a personal level that cut to the wound at the center of his chest. It was a matter of survival in those first few months. Him, or a kingdom. His selfish and worthless pride, or the world. Naturally, he chose the world.

 “Let’s say you’ve been asleep for a hundred years and when you wake up you’ve lost all your memories, but you chase after fairies and you dig up shrines and you defeat the big bad monster like you’ve been told to, because a girl told you to, and because you were in love with her. And after defeating the big bad monster she comes back, and you take her back to your house, and you fry eggs for her. But she’s not the person she was a hundred years ago, because she spent a hundred years in a dream. And you’re not the person you were a hundred years ago, because you forgot everything you could possibly forget, and then you got mauled by a bear. And yet when you look at her, every time you look at her, your chest hurts so bad you think you might be dying.” He looks up from his breadstick. “Am I dying?” “No,” Beedle says very seriously. “I think you’re stupid.” Beedle retrieves a string of petrified armored beetles from one of the pockets on his back, and holds it abruptly in his face. “You can fall in love with someone twice, you know.” Link wrinkles his nose. “How do you know?” Beedle sticks the lower half of a beetle in his mouth. “I’m five hundred years old.” He bites down. “I know things.” Chews thoughtfully. “I’ve eaten things, too. Things you’ve never even dreamed of. “Point is, Link, you’re being stupid. Get it together. The world’s not ending anymore.” “Oh,” says Link. He watches Beedle eat the rest of the beetles. There are five in total. He doesn’t have to chew very hard, which is weird. He turns Beedle’s words over in his head. Beedle has a point. The world isn’t ending anymore. The world isn’t hanging on by a thread, waiting for the boy in the story to haul it back up the side of the cliff. They hauled it back up, him and Zelda and their old dead friends. They hauled it out of the well. And now look at the flowers.

 Once, while sitting on a raft headed out to sea, he considered hurling himself into the water, but here’s the other half of the story. He had recently been into the castle again, up to the princess’ room, where he found, among other things, a moblin, a bow, and a single Silent Princess, growing at the end of the hallway. He also found a diary, which he really shouldn’t have read. He shouldn’t have read the diary. It’s common courtesy. It’s the mark of human decency, respect of personal privacy, respect for the dead, et cetera. But he did. So he hauled himself up to that tower in the sky, and he mistimed several guardian laser parries before finally getting one right and yelling in triumph and getting a beam to his ass for his efforts, and then he cried, standing over that tattered old book while a cold wind blew in through the man-sized hole in the wall. He had spent so long working towards the abstract idea of salvation, he had forgotten that salvation was also, inextricably, a person. A girl with the hands of Hylia, praying in a castle in the sky, stuck in a hundred year cycle from hell. She had thrown away everything so he would float back out of the water with his face to the sky, and he couldn’t even remember how to shoot a bear without getting his face clawed off. What had he ever done to deserve this? What had he done for her? The answer was he couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember anything. The conversation they had about skin-deep secrets, the day it was raining and she told him about the hypothetical nature of failure, the morning of her seventeenth birthday, as she slid the gold cuffs onto her wrists and strode grimly out of the castle, her shadow clinging to the wall like it could keep her from leaving if it did. Did he even say happy birthday? Did anyone bring her candles? Did she make a wish, and if so, for what? He felt suddenly angry, and disappointed, and lonely. The fireplace was full of rubble and the table was covered in dust. The bed frame had collapsed, probably at the very beginning of this whole mess, and the mattress was sunken in like a face with no flesh, the sheets torn, the gold trim reduced to tatters. This place used to be a sanctuary. Now it wanted him dead. He wiped his eyes furiously, though there was no one there to point at him and laugh. He wiped his eyes with the back of his clumsy, scarred hand, pulled the diary shut, and walked back out, into heaven’s line of fire.

 He takes her to the Kochi dye shop on her request, but Sayge gives them a name and an address and herds them out of his store, and so they find themselves in Tarrey Town again, exchanging nods with the people he tricked into leaving their old lives behind while Zelda describes her old outfit to Rhondson, who takes notes on her husband’s arm in erasable ink. Several days later, a new set of clothes arrives in Hateno by donkey. He helps her do her hair, by which he means he holds a mirror behind her back and she does her hair, occasionally instructing him to tilt it several degrees in one direction or another, but it’s the most useful he’s felt in weeks, and when she’s pulled on her gloves and done up the buckles on her boots, she stands up and does a little twirl. It’s a perfect replica. She’s glowing. Rhondson is god. “I feel like I could defeat Ganon,” Zelda tells him. I already did that, he thinks. He nods. “You probably could.”

 “So, are you going to do something?” Beedle retrieves a string of soft-shell crabs from his pack. “Do I have to?” Beedle waggles his finger at him disapprovingly. “The question is, do you want to?”

 He has a dream where she falls from Shatterback Point. He runs as fast as he can down the side of the mountain, cutting his palms on coral and bruising his knees on the wet rocky path, but when he gets to the bottom, no one’s there. You were too late, Muzu tells him, stroking his beard somberly. You tried to reach her, but you let go, and then you were too late. The water in the lake is bright as blood. The sky crackles silently above Muzu’s vacant eyes. A voice emerges from the lake. You let me die, the voice says. I saved the world for you, and you let me die. He wakes up sweating. He curls up on his side, bracing for the cold, hard floor against his cheek, but Zelda’s slipped one of her pillows under his head while he was sleeping. She’s murmuring in her sleep, something about fruit halves and grams of sugar, her hand dangling over the side of the bed clenching and unclenching itself earnestly, kneading imaginary dough, cutting imaginary apples. “Zelda?” Too soft. He won’t call again. He refuses to. In a moment of weakness, he reaches for the side of the bed, but stops just shy of her hand. Beedle’s bright, angular nose appears before him, carrying with it the wisdom of his ancestors. What do you want to do, Link, Beedle’s Nose asks him. What do you want? I want to pull her out of the burning house, he thinks. Is that too much to ask for? Moonlight trickles down her throat and vanishes under the collar of her tunic. His chest implodes and his heart bursts into a thousand tiny pieces, as he wonders how it is that planets were made before people. Beedle’s Nose is indifferent. What burning house, it asks. Where’s the smoke coming from? Look around you, Link. There’s smoke, and fire, and windows with broken glass. But who’s still inside?

 Uma’s hundred-and-ninth birthday arrives on the coattails of fall. On her insistence, they keep the decorations sparse and the cake disarmingly large. Streamers are put up and butterflies corralled into glass menageries. A traveling band with a bit of a reputation further west is invited. There are three musicians with ocarinas and one with a cowbell, and all of them are wearing pink overalls and big yellow sun hats which hurt to look at for too long, unless you work for a construction company, in which case you want to look at them forever. After Bolson has finished taking down all of their contact information on his forearm (they prefer to be called for via messenger pigeon, but if you don’t have one then a snail is fine as well), Zelda drifts across the grass to stand in his place. She’s wearing a white dress, borrowed from Uma, who said it would complement her eyes. Uma was right. The dress is made from a thin, glittery fabric that billows around her ankles and makes her look like she’s floating. Like a fairy in a forest clearing. Like a cat perched at the top of a clocktower. Their conversation lasts for several minutes. She says something, and the others laugh. The guy with the cowbell pretends to look embarrassed. Everyone else at the party is dancing, including Uma, who is holding hands with a small child in a green frog-suit and swaying like a palm tree in the wind. While Zelda keeps the ocarina ensemble preoccupied, one of the adults in the village has gone and retrieved a guitar. He begins to play a warm, meandering tune that reminds Link, distantly, of grassy fields and white skies. “Are you not going to dance?” He looks down. Nebb tugs at the edge of his tunic with one hand, pulling him in the direction of the crowd. He squats down. “I don’t have anyone to dance with.” “You can dance with me. Duh.” “I don’t know how to dance.” Nebb looks at him like he’s stupid. “Then learn.” “What if I don’t want to?” “What if you meet someone who does, and you like them too much to say no?” He squints suspiciously at Nebb. Nebb’s atrocious bowl cut hasn’t grown any less atrocious with time, though it does have the effect of making him look far less menacing than he would be if he were bald or sporting a mohawk. The boy knows too much for someone so small. This cannot do. If this goes on, he will reveal a secret to the gods, and then they will kill him for his hubris. “Shhh,” Link says to him, holding a finger up to his lips. He digs around in his pockets until he finds a piece of honey candy, wrapped in a palm leaf and tied together with twine. “Take this, and go dance with someone else.” Nebb gives him the Stare of Judgment, but takes the candy. “You’re terrible, Link.” He sticks out his tongue. “Bye.” Then it’s back to demolishing the cake, which he’s still not convinced Uma didn’t order expressly so that he would have something to do with himself during the course of the evening, as the dancing progresses from cheerful to insane and a small group of guests begins to construct a spaceship out of empty wine glasses. No one else has gone for thirds, though a handful have gone for seconds. There’s a big fondant chicken perched on the highest layer. He sucks on his fork thoughtfully. He wants it. Last week they went up north, in search of forgiveness. Despite their best efforts and the gift of crabs and crocuses they brought along, their reception in Zora’s domain was cold and gray. It reminded him of the way they had received him when he first stepped out of the rain and into the blue glow of the domain’s hallways, armed with only the knowledge that he had been sent to prevent a tragedy that had already happened. He didn’t yet know that Mipha was dead. He thought he could still save her. They called him failure and fool and living reminder of Hyrule’s downfall, laughing at him in a language called mourning. He had thought they had forgiven the Hylians and their king for letting their Champion die, especially after he walked out of Vah Ruta with a black eye and a bloody nose to show for it, especially now that the evil had been defeated. Apparently the knight by himself was tolerable. The knight and the princess, together, made things too raw. Too immediate. “Mipha’s dead,” they said. It was a Tuesday. “I’m sorry,” Zelda replied. Tomorrow they’re headed for Goron City. He closes his eyes and wills away the taste of sweet cream and berries, tries to picture the winding path up Death Mountain, the grooves hammered into the ground, the rubies in their metal caskets. Flame-resistant armor is a given, so it’s a good thing he bought two sets on accident last winter. He wants to trap a few fire lizards in a bottle and bring them back for a friend. As for what he will say to Zelda before he hands her off to the city’s protectors, their hands half an inch apart but not touching, never touching, there isn’t much. Goron City will be better, he thinks. He licks the cream off his fork. It’s sweet. “What are you thinking?” He opens his eyes. Zelda looks at his plate, then the cake, then his plate again. She points at the chicken. He shrugs. “I was thinking that I hope Uma lives forever.” Someone has invited the dog onto the dance floor. He isn’t trying very hard to keep to the beat of the guitarist, who has been joined by two of the ocarina players with brown hair and blue eyes, but he doesn’t have to. Spinning very fast in a circle is actually the smartest dance move of them all. There’s no beginning, so there’s no end. Zelda plucks a berry from his plate. “It’s not very fun, to be honest,” she says, chewing thoughtfully. “Living for that long.” He watches the dog chase its own tail and she watches him watch the dog, though neither is aware this is happening. “Sorry, I didn’t know. I was asleep.” The dog is easily the best dancer in the crowd. He experiences neither shame nor hubris, and is thus freed from the stresses and seasonal anxieties of being known by others who might fear him or like him. He also runs very fast. Zelda punches his shoulder weakly, her hand lingering, her eyes soft. “That’s a terrible joke, Link.” He pinches the inside of his wrist. “I’m trying my best.” “So am I.” After a beat, the dog who has been invited to the party to spin in tight circles on the dance floor and be a nuisance to the other guests goes careening into the rotisserie chicken. In a wondrous, gravity-defying moment, the chicken sails not away from the dog, but towards him, flying in a swooping arc over his head at a height of several hundred feet above the ground. The plate clatters to the floor before the chicken can find its bearings and, awoken by its war cry, people scramble into action, evacuating themselves to the other side of the buffet table or under the veranda with their legs between their tails, until Uma is standing alone on the grass, still swaying to a song only she can hear, still smiling. The chicken reaches the highest point in the sky, pauses for a heartbeat, then pitches downwards. She catches it. The crowd goes wild. And then Zelda is tugging on his sleeve, like Negg, but not like Negg, because Zelda walked out of the mouth of the monster, because Zelda left her hand in the fire, because Zelda looked at the miserable, vulnerable world that he had yelled at until his voice was hoarse and dying and even the pigeons were something fiercer than him, that he had tended to with clumsy, scarred hands in spite of all the dead things on the ground, and decided to stay. “God,” she says, her eyes bright. “Link, look. In the sky.”

 Picture two figures in a forest full of night. Picture the princess carving a path through the trees, the knight stumbling after her, her hand tight around his wrist, their feet fast and flying. The sky is clear, of course, because someone pulled the mourning veil off its head and threw it in the river. They’re chasing after a column of light, poured by the hand of Hylia from the heavens. And they’re tired, both of them, so tired they could hurl themselves into bed and lie there, half an inch apart, watching each other in the dark with waiting on their tongues, but instead he trips on a branch and goes down, face-first, into the dirt. She doesn’t realize he’s let go until he lets go, but when she turns around he’s already pushed himself off the ground. Hands and knees and boots digging into the grass. The woods outside of Hateno are still teething. The princess gives him her hand, and he stares at it for a moment like she’s just offered him the rest of her lifespan, and then takes it. He’s fine; of course he is. It would take much more than this to kill him. It would take another hundred year cycle of pain. She points at the column of light. It’s still there. Still glowing. So they keep going, picking their way through the undergrowth, climbing over branches and pushing boulders out of harm’s way, doing what ghost children like them do best, which is pointing at something in the distance, and then chasing it. Chasing hope. Following it back to the center. And when they reach the place where the sky has spat out the blood in its mouth, the knight gets punched in the face with nostalgia. He caught a falling star once, when he was all alone and the world was grim and unknowable. Then he gave it to a fairy, in exchange for less blood on his tunic, in exchange for stronger teeth. He approached heaven from afar once, a solitary figure burning darkly against the pale yellow water, but there was no way for him to go home when all was said and done, so he pinched the inside of his wrist and kept walking.

 The thing is you can’t go from swinging a sword around and dreaming about dead people to waking up and frying eggs and searching for ways to heal the cracked earth beneath your feet. Not that fast. Not that goddamn fast. You can’t just flip a switch and not be scared anymore, not wake up sweating anymore, not wake up wanting to hold her hand. Fear is a country and you’ve lived in it all your life. There’s a reason kingdoms keep such a close eye on their borders. You’re either in, or you’re out. Make up your mind. Pick up your sword. Save yourself.

 The star fragment is stuck in a tree. Zelda wants to climb it and he wants her to stop; naturally, she wins. She hauls herself up the trunk while he circles the bottom like a hawk with an anxiety problem, waiting to catch the star, or the girl, or both. But neither comes pitching out of the sky. The dream stays just out of sight. “So that’s what star fragments look like,” she says later, her voice muffled by the sound of crickets. She turns it over in her hands, running her fingers along each point and indent. “They’re warm.” Smells it curiously, then wrinkles her nose. “No smell.” Tries to break off one especially thin-looking point with little success. “Sturdy.” She spends ten minutes staring at the star. He spends ten minutes staring at her. She gets bored, puts the fragment on the ground, and looks up. He looks away. “The party’s probably over now, huh.” He nods to his left. A sigh, very small, very lovely. Like a firefly under a bridge. “I didn’t get the chance to dance with anyone.” Beedle’s Nose is staring at him from a gap in the trees like the red eye of the devil. It’s singing a nursery rhyme he doesn’t remember learning. What do you want/what do you want/what do you want. Link! Link! Open your eyes! He has to break every bone in his body just to turn his head three inches to the right, but for the first time in this life, this new life, this second chance at everything, he gets it right. Zelda’s knees are drawn to her chest, her head pillowed on her arms, her gaze heavy on his face. He sucks in a breath. “Do you still want to?”

 Dancing without music sounds reasonable in theory, but generally requires one party to be exceptionally good at keeping count while the other has to be in possession of at least a rudimentary grasp of the steps. This is, of course, assuming that there are redeemable qualities to both parties. For example, if one is the knight from the fairy tale who has spent his whole life swinging sharp objects at people, and the other is the princess from the fairytale who has spent her whole life praying sharp objects find their way to the right people, then there may not in fact be anything redeemable between them. Her counting is off, his hands are clammy. Her voice is wavering, his feet are too slow. It’s disaster after disaster after disaster, first the champions in their divine beasts, then the castle, then the king on the Great Plateau, a knife through the heart, et cetera. Dancing without music sounds reasonable in theory unless you’ve spent the last three months of your life chasing angry moose down mountains, so it’s a good thing no one’s here to laugh at them. It’s a good thing they’re alone, surrounded by starlight, half an hour by foot from Hateno, village of lights and wonder. Spring has come and gone without them. The night is young and the air is cool and the forest is sweetly indifferent to his tendency to crash into inanimate objects. This would be embarrassing if he left himself think about it, but more importantly it’s unfair, how neither of them knows what they’re doing but Zelda can smile her way out of a clumsy turn, how he has to keep his hand on her waist but hers is doing an elaborate dance on his shoulder, how every time she leans in and her hair parts down her back, a sliver of neck peeks out and steals the lungs right out of his chest. He is going to die trying to keep his hands to himself or they are going to fall off the edge of the forest and into a ravine with no bottom. There is no option to walk away. “You’re a terrible dancer,” she says, smiling up at him from under her lashes. He chews on his lip. “I’m sorry.” “That’s fine.” He twirls her and her dress floats up past her ankles like a cloud of tiny stars. “I like you anyway.” He walks into a tree. Decides that’s not enough. Slaps himself generously across the face, hard enough to leave a mark. Decides that’s not enough. Kneels on the grass, letting go of her hand, to look for a stick that might help him end things faster. “Link?” It is too much and too little all at once, and therefore unbearable. He is going to fall off the edge of the forest right now. He tries to stand up just as she begins to bend down, reaching for his shoulder. They fall off the edge of the forest together. Oh god. Oh fuck. Oh no. They’ve fallen off the edge of the universe together. Her face is in the crook of his neck and her hair is stuck to his clothes. His skin is on fire and his butt is sore and he’s dying. Hylia, can you hear him? There’s a name for the place children go after they leave this world. He’d like to know what it’s called now. “Hey,” comes the small, muffled voice. Her arms are on either side of his waist, and they’re trembling. “Can you say something?” He looks up. Always up, always forward, towards knives and teeth and forests full of bodies. Always past the blurry face in the dream, to the nightmare that follows after. Someone will tell you when to breathe. Someone will tell you when to swing your sword. Someone will tell you when it’s all right to stop being scared of everything, and start looking for angels. Like right now. Like right-right-now. Your heartbeat fluttering in your throat. Your throat an ocean of knives. Eight weeks and three days after he walks into the castle and defeats two incarnations of evil, first in a room with a domed ceiling, then in a field with a domed sky, he steps out of the burning house, and finds himself face to face with the sun. He presses his cheek against her hair. “Do you want me to?” “Yes,” she sighs. “Yes, I do.”

 He tells her about the way the world looks from atop the back of a bear and the gray of the ocean from a raft and the conversation he had with her dead father about how cooked apples taste sweeter. He tells her about the first time he shot an arrow at a bomb barrel and the second time he shield-surfed down a hill and how Urbosa made him promise to take care of her, even in death, even after it. He tells her about being so lonely it hurt to breathe and being so bad at breathing he passed out in a river, and being so hurt he had to be saved by a stranger on the road, tied to the back of their donkey like a piece of merchandise and carried to the nearest stable to be burnt back to life. He tells her how no one believed he was the boy in the story, even when he pulled out the sword, even when he showed them the blood on his back. He tells her about how the stalhorses on Tabantha Snowfield run faster than the horses near Kakariko, how a bokoblin will choose a freshly roasted chicken over the skin of your teeth, how a sword is a metaphor for forgiveness. He tells her how a hundred years ago she told him to eat a frog, and he never forgot about it. Not once, not ever. Walking through the Breach of Demise, looking for Koroks in Fort Hateno, praying for her heart at the Spring of Wisdom, he never stopped thinking about the damn frog, and by extension, the girl. The first thing she says is why didn’t you tell me all of this earlier? The second thing she says is why the hell didn’t I ask? She presses a hand to his forehead, pushing his bangs out of his eyes and glaring at him. The third thing she says is that she really wants to see a stalhorse, and the fourth thing he says is he’ll take her there one day, and the fifth thing she does is cry. Big, heaving sobs. Arms tight around his shoulders, tears smearing the front of his shirt, while he pretends he isn’t half as insane, gives up, and resolves to hide his face in her hair forever. And it’s dramatic as hell, it’s an ancient tapestry on a wall in Kakariko, but hasn’t it always been that way? Haven’t they been through enough shit to justify the heartfelt reunion, the face full of tears? If the conversation they had in the field outside the castle was a blueprint for what it looks like to meet someone you wanted a hundred years ago, then this is the aftermath of that war. Do you remember me? Of course I do. Do you love me? Of course I do. Ask me a question, any question. Crack my chest open. “To make things very, very clear,” Zelda says, wiping her eyes furiously. She’s pushed him flat onto his back and the light’s not hitting her face so he can’t make out her expression, but he can imagine the pinched brow, the bitten lip. “I didn’t fall in love with you because you were conveniently there, like, I don’t know, an armchair when you’re tired, or a glass of water when you’re thirsty.” Her hands on his chest are very beautiful, even in the moon-lit dark. “I didn’t take one look at the prophecy and think to myself, well, if I’m going to tie my happiness to someone then it might as well be him.” Now he’s the one who’s embarrassed. He brings a hand up to cover his face but she tugs it away. Takes a deep breath. Counts to ten, probably, maybe fifteen, maybe a hundred. “I fell in love with you,” she says, softly, each word falling from her lips like a star, each star plucked from the highest point in the heavens. “I don’t even know why I fell in love with you.” She fists her hands loosely in his shirt. “It just happens, you know? One day you look at the boy with the stupid pretty hair, and you think to yourself, oh no.” His head is spinning so fast he feels like the dog at the party. Maybe he is the dog. Maybe he finished eating the cake and shoved the fondant chicken in his mouth and then he passed out, and had to be carried back to his house, and had to be laid gently on the unmade covers. He gathers his thoughts. “I’m not a very good person,” he says quietly. “But if you would have me, I would gladly give you my life.” “You’ve already done that once, Link,” Zelda says, laughing with the sun in her mouth. “Do something else.” What do you want, Link? Open your eyes. Save yourself. “Okay, then. Can I kiss you?”

 His name is Link, and he died once when he was seventeen. It was pretty traumatizing. He got slashed several times across the back with some very sharp weapons, and then he got mauled by a forest full of screaming metal, and then he collapsed, right in front of the person he was supposed to protect, who ended up protecting his dead body by the skin of her teeth. Because he died. Somewhere between the laser on his chest and her hand pressed against the seal of the sky, his body made one last stand against the stark inequalities of the world, and he died. The only reason he knew his name was Link when he woke up was because it was the first word she said to him. “Link,” she said. “Wake up.” He concluded through logical reasoning that “he” must be “Link” and that “Link” had to “wake up”. So he did. He went traipsing around Hyrule with a ladle and a pot lid, seeking out places from a photograph and trying to find ways to bring every four-legged animal in the land to a stable, but he never really felt like “Link”. He felt like a corpse that had received a very shiny, very thick coat of paint. Half-here, half-there. Half-me, half-something-else. What else? A bird, maybe. A horse. One day Link got bored and decided that he was going to defeat all the forces of evil. He fought his way into the castle, where the guardians shot lasers at his earrings, and he fought his way past the lynels, who hissed fire and called him rude words, and he fought his way into the sanctum, where he met the asshole who had put him through all this shit in the first place. And he kicked his ass. And he kicked his other ass. And the asshole died. His name was Ganon. Ganon dying brought Zelda back to life, because the law of equivalent exchange governs half of the children in this world, while the devil gets the rest. The devil got to him: his life will always carry the weight of hundreds of thousands, he will always feel like lead for the first three seconds after he wakes up. But it didn’t get to Zelda. Zelda got the other bargain, the one where your dead father dies but you get your knight back. One or the other, left or right. In the end, you always have to choose. And he’s still pretty traumatized. And dying at the age of seventeen with a sword still stuck in your hand is pretty traumatizing. And the Zora are still mourning and the Gorons are still eating rocks and the Gerudo still think he’s just a really short girl, which he can live with, which he doesn’t particularly mind, but the trauma has a place on the shelf now. And the shelf is in his house. And the house is a modest one, with modest display stands for his modest weapons, and a modest bed beside which he’s hung a framed photograph of his friends. But some things are different, even if the foundations stay the same. No more rafts on gray seas. No more sleeping on the floor. No more standing in the burning building, and wondering why the shadows aren’t moving. No more shrines full of dead monks. No more monsters full of dead bodies. No more waiting for someone to tell you when to breathe, when to stop, when to get mauled by a bear. Pick up your sword, boy. Now put it down. Now pick it up. Now put it down. You’re going to be doing this until the day that you die. Are you all right with that? Are you all right with your god? [Thank you for helping my sister.][They say the leviathans died thousands of years ago.][Get me a horse. A big, strong horse. Any horse.][BROTHER. THE ROCKS ARE READY.][Find me someone whose name ends with ‘-son’.][I’ll sell you rushrooms for diamonds. Fifty-five for one.][Have you heard of the story of the bird on the mountain?][Do you already have someone special in your heart?][They say if two people visit this pond, they’ll be together forever.][Do you believe in miracles?][Do you believe in magic?][Do you believe in me?] [I believed I would see you again.]

It’s a cruel, unforgiving world. People die and don’t come back. But you did. Now get up. Someone’s waiting for you.

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cozy-the-overlord · 4 years

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Running with the Wolves

Summary: After the events of Infinity War ripped her life to pieces, Queen In-Unga forges forward as sole ruler of Jotunheim, finding solace in the two orphaned wolf puppies she finds outside her sleigh.

AU in which Loki didn’t die at the beginning of Infinity War-- he accompanied Thor to Nidavellir, then to Wakanda, and died in the Snap alongside the Avengers.

Based on Frostbite by @maiden-of-asgard

Word Count: 12,192

Pairing: Loki x Reader/Loki x In-Unga

Read it on Ao3

A/N: So let’s flashback to last summer. I had three obsessions: Avengers Endgame, A Song of Ice and Fire (which I was reading for the first time), and Frostbite by Maiden of Asgard. Those obsessions merged into a story that’s been swirling in my head ever since. I never thought I'd actually write it-- back then, I still wasn't fully comfortable with writing my own fanfiction, let alone writing fanfiction of someone else's fanfiction. But when Moa announced that she was going to be turning Frostbite into a physical book and would be accepting fan submissions, my dumbass brain went "i CaN dO tHaT."

This is the most I've struggled with writing a story ever. I've never written from the perspective of a character that wasn't my own, and I found that to much more difficult than I anticipated. Combine that with how the story I was trying to tell spanned over an overwhelming five years, my constant stress that I was ruining Moa’s characters, and the fact that I kept finding myself in "this-made-more-sense-in-my-head" territory and I started getting pretty frustrated. I had expected to be done by the end of June; when at the beginning of July I was only barely halfway finished, I kind of threw in the towel and said "forget it." I took a week off from writing to clear my head, and after a pep talk from my sister (thanks, JJ!) I decided I had to complete it. So here it is! Am I completely happy with the final product? No, but seeing as I never thought there'd be a final product, I'm proud of myself nonetheless.

One last note (this a/n is obnoxious, I’m sorry): Moa, I did intend for this story to be a part of your Frostbite book, but I totally understand if you don't want to deal with it. It is disgustingly long, and I know that you said that the book is already huge. I won't be offended if you don't put it in-- I don't want to create more trouble for you.

Thanks for reading!

It was freezing.

That was saying something. Freezing was an adjective In-Unga had learned not to use lightly. Living on Jotunheim came with the acceptance that you would be existing in extreme sub-zero temperatures year round, warmth being an elusive gem found only in the recesses of furry coats or underneath thick blankets. In the years she had spent in the realm of the Frost Giants, In-Unga felt that she had come quite accustomed to the cold. It was something she was rather proud of—when Captain Rodgers had visited with Thor a few years back, he had joked that she must have taken some kind of super soldier serum herself in order to handle it so well. She had responded, beaming, that as long as she had Loki, she didn’t need anything else to keep her warm.

She had never really considered the truth to that statement.

Njal, her burly head guard, pulled his mount alongside hers. “The temperature is dropping, my queen,” he said. “Perhaps you would be more comfortable in your sleigh—”

“No.” She hoped her voice sounded stronger than she felt. “I appreciate your concern, but I am perfectly fine as I am.” Just for good measure, she added a queenly nod.

Njal seemed unconvinced, but he bowed his head just the same. “As you say, my queen.”

In-Unga exhaled, trying to ignore the white cloud that enveloped her when she did so. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could stay out here. She couldn’t see the skin of her hands under her mittens, but she was certain they were blue. Her face, as well. In fact, at the moment she probably looked more Jotun than Midgardian.

But she was determined to continue riding. Loki had always made a point of it, in the early days when his main concern was showcasing his strength. Now that he was gone, she needed to be strong for him, and for her people.

Those that were left.

Her eyes burned in warning, and so In-Unga shook her head and went back to thinking about how horribly freezing it was. The cold hurt less.

Býleistr had questioned her decision to tour the kingdom so late in the year. The weather would be awful, he said. Her people would understand if she waited until spring. In-Unga had argued that waiting brought its own danger: ignoring the far-away regions during such a tumultuous time would foster restlessness, and the last thing they needed on top of everything that had happened was a civil war.

What she couldn’t put into words was how she needed to get out. There were too many missing faces in Utgard, gaping holes in the tapestry of family she had woven around herself. The throne room was empty even when it was full. She couldn’t focus on mealtime conversations because her gaze kept drifting to the vacant seats where her Forest Twins should be sitting. Her bedroom had become a tomb.

She had to leave, before she drowned in the silence.

Shouts at the back of the party startled In-Unga out of her pity spiral. Members of her guard rushed down the line of sleighs, weapons drawn. Those that remained by her side closed in a tight wall around her.

“What’s happening?” she called to Njal. “Are we under attack?” That’s just what we need now. The forested wilderness that surrounded them provided cover to any would-be assailants. Here, they were sitting ducks.

The wind picked up again, ice cutting straight through her many layers, and this time In-Unga found she couldn’t control her shivering. Frozen sitting ducks.

Soon enough, the cries died down, and her guards came riding back.

“All is well, your majesty. It was only a vargr.”

In-Unga thought of Mánagarmr and shivered again. “A wolf?” she asked. “Is anyone injured?”

“No, my queen.” In-Unga didn’t know the name of the guard that spoke. He was a new member of her defense, one of the many who got an unexpected promotion when their superiors turned to dust. “It jumped out at the last sleigh and startled many, but it was small, and taken down rather easily.”

The mortal queen of Jotunheim frowned. “Why would a wolf attack a party this large?” she asked.

“I cannot say, my queen.”

“Your majesty,” Njal spoke. “Shall I give the order to continue?”

In-Unga shook her head. This didn’t make any sense. “No,” she said. “I want to see this wolf.”

It shouldn’t have surprised her that a giant’s version of a small wolf was bigger than a Clydesdale. The majestic animal now lay lifeless in the snow, the pure white of its fur sullied only by the crimson stain spreading from the spear in its neck. The soldier who brought it down was only too pleased to relay the story to his queen.

“It came tearing out of the woods like a beast from Hel,” he cried, waving his hands for dramatic effect, “Snarling and hissing and baring its teeth. Most of us were caught off guard, but I’ve always been quick with a spear, and so when it turned to me, I was ready for it—”

In-Unga nodded, only half listening. She scanned the treeline from which the wolf had appeared. It made no sense to her—what would cause the creature to attack unprovoked? Right now, with the trees casting crooked silhouettes and the wind whistling in her ears, it seemed like an omen.

But of what? She wondered uselessly. What else could go wrong?

A clump of snow caught her eye. For a moment, she couldn’t understand why—it looked no different than any other clump she had come across in her life. Completely ordinary, but… there was something…

Warmth.

It was warmer than the rest.

The realization shocked her a little. Sensing changes in temperature from afar had been one of the skills Loki had taught her (unsurprisingly, given his affinity for snakes), but she had thought she lost it, along with all her other magical abilities, when she lost her husband.

Better make a note of that.

“There’s something over there,” she said, pointing. “In the snow. Something alive.” She made her way off the road, her guards scrambling to maintain their positions around her.

Damn, it was cold. In-Unga knelt in the ice, biting back curses as the snow soaked through to her knees. Getting back on her mount was looking more and more impossible.

The clump whimpered.

She let out a small gasp when the fluffy puppy head popped out of the snow, blinking ice out of its eyes. It shook the glistening snow from its fur with a tiny whine. A petulant growl followed, and a second pup appeared, pushing its way in front of the first and baring its teeth.

“Oh!” In-Unga reached out cautiously, the cold already forgotten. The growling puppy yipped and she pulled her hand back. The other merely yawned.

Behind her, Njal cleared his throat. “My queen, perhaps you should back away. They are feral—”

“That was their mother,” In-Unga interrupted, looking back at the bleeding body on the side of the path. “She must have felt they were threatened by the caravan and attacked. And we killed her.” Although, even that seemed unlikely. In-Unga eyed the wolf-killer where he stood over the body of his prey, animatedly retelling the story of his deed to a growing crowd. It was easy to picture him wandering off the trail and provoking the frightened mother. Her gaze darkened.

Njal shifted uncomfortably. “It is unfortunate, my queen, but at this point there’s nothing to be done. We should continue before the weather takes a turn for the worse.”

“We can’t just leave them to starve!” she cried. She reached out again. The growling puppy flinched but didn’t back away. Its sibling craned its neck to sniff her mitten, sneezing when it breathed in a noseful of fuzz. Puppies in the dead of winter. That’s got to mean something. “Look at them! They won’t survive without their mother.”

“I can give them a quick end, your Majesty, if it would ease your worries,” one of her guards spoke up. “It would be merciful—”

“No.” Her guards stiffened at the ice in her voice. The first puppy nuzzled into her hand, rubbing against her like a cat and letting out a contented sigh when she scratched the fur on its neck. The other slunk forward guardedly, curiosity seemingly cracking its tough guy exterior. To her surprise neither resisted when she scooped them into her arms.

“I’ll have no more killing today,” In-Unga said as she stood. “I’ll care for them myself.”

Huld seemed absolutely horrified when the mortal queen plopped the little balls of fur on the floor of the sleigh.

“My queen, they’re wild animals!” she cried.

In-Unga laughed as the first puppy attempted to burrow back into her coat pocket. “Yeah. Real wild.” Its head popped up at the sound of her voice, and for the first time, In-Unga noticed its eyes: one brown and one blue. “Why, you’re a little David Bowie wolf, aren’t you?” she cooed, scratching its pointed ear. The puppy licked her wrist happily.

Her maid wasn’t quite as pleased. “My queen!” she exclaimed, backing away as the other pup growled. “What do you plan to do with them?”

“Keep them, I suppose. Raise them as pets.” She left the Bowie wolf to rein in his brother. They were both so small—when she held them in her arms they could easily be mistaken for Earth dogs. In-Unga found herself recalling her first sleigh ride in Jotunheim, with Greip and Gjálp and Snowball the Not-Melrakki, how shocked the twins had been at the concept of Midgardians owning pets.

How many years ago was that? Five? Feels like a lifetime.

She swallowed the lump in her throat, hoping Huld was too preoccupied with their new companions to smell her grief.

“Do we have anything for them to eat?” she asked with forced brightness. “Seal milk, or something?” Huld frowned, but obediently prepared a bowl of milk.

“They’re going to grow to be monsters,” she warned. “My queen, you saw Mánagarmr—”

“That’s right, I did,” In-Unga interrupted as her puppies began lapping up the dish. “And let me tell you, these guys are nothing like him.” The tough pup looked up with an offended growl. Laughing, she reached out to pet him. “Although this one thinks he is.”

The maid’s look of concern only deepened.

In-Unga sighed. “Don’t worry, Huld. Their mother wasn’t even that big. They won’t grow up to be Mánagarmr.” She cringed as she thought of the blood-splattered wolf lying in the snow. These puppies were so small, they had to have been born within the last month, after the Snap. Their poor mother survived the event that massacred half of every living being in the universe so she could give birth to her children, only to be stabbed to death by some hotshot with a stick. It was too cruel for words.

His hunger satisfied, the Bowie wolf paddled over to where In-Unga sat cross-legged on the floor and plopped down in her lap, grinning up at her with his multi-colored eyes.

“Awww!” In-Unga stroked his fur as he snuggled against her coat. “Huld, look at this! Isn’t he precious?”

Huld gave some non-descript reply, but In-Unga didn’t hear her. The second puppy was sniffing her boot, chewing on the sole with pearly teeth. “Come here, little guy.” He whined as she pulled him into her lap with his brother but didn’t try to escape. Quickly, they were both snoring.

In-Unga cradled them as the caravan trudged on, completely oblivious to the cold.

Her wolf pups quickly became the highlight of her entourage. At first In-Unga kept to leaving them with Huld while she met with the nobles on their various stops, hoping to spare them from the information overload of court, but they howled something terrible whenever she was out of sight, crying and chasing after her and giving poor Huld nightmares. Ultimately, the queen had two leashes fashioned out of leather, which they wore reluctantly in exchange for accompanying her everywhere she went. It certainly was a sight to behold—she had already looked rather ridiculous before, this tiny mortal woman encompassed by giants, and now here there were these two little fluffballs constantly nipping at her heels— but perhaps it just added to her effect.

They grew quickly. Within a week it seemed they had doubled in size, which In-Unga only realized when she nearly pulled a muscle trying to scoop them both up as she had done when she first found them. Their appetite grew with them. She was seriously concerned for a while that the caravan would run out of things with which to feed them until Njal pointed out one night that they were born hunters.

“Let them loose while we travel, my queen,” he said. “They’ll find food.”

In-Unga frowned. “You think they would come back?” she asked.

Her guard’s gaze traveled to Bowie, sprawled out on her lap fast asleep, his brother hunched protectively over her feet. “I don’t think you have to worry, your Majesty.”

She started taking them off the leash in the morning. At first, they’d only trot alongside her mount, too anxious to leave her side, but soon they were venturing off the trail for pockets of time, reappearing later with some bloodied creature dangling from their mouths. Birds, rodents, small animals—nothing was safe. Her little fur-babies were stone cold killers. She would’ve been lying if she said it wasn’t unnerving to see the little puppies she cuddled up with at night licking blood off their faces, but honestly their prowess was impressive. Her eyes nearly bulged out of her head when Brynjarr returned one day dragging some furry mammal twice as big as him.

Unlike his brother, Brynjarr had remained nameless for a large part of the journey. He had been bestowed with nicknames of all sorts—Hunter, Tough Guy, Mommy’s Little Fighter—but it wasn’t until they reached Márfjall that he got a proper name.

“That’s a warrior,” Hrossþjófr said to her while watching the two wrestle on the beach. “He needs a warrior’s name.”

In-Unga had been dreading this final stop, dreading having to walk down these hallways alone when the very walls of the castle screamed for Loki. She had resolved be strong, but just seeing Hross as they alighted, withered and wilted without Griep by his side, had been nearly enough to cause her to fall apart.

The wolves kept her together. Their childlike fascination with the crimson sands was almost enough to distract her from the other memories swirling around in the dark bay. In her few moments of free time, she’d take them down to the shore and laugh as they’d go tearing up the surf, Brynjarr barking menacingly at the ocean when the waves crashed too close to his feet, Bowie rolling around in the sand until his white coat was stained pink. Hross joined her often with his children, likely as desperate for a diversion as she was. They didn’t talk about the event. It was easier just to focus on the wolves.

Hross was endlessly impressed with their obedience. “How do you get them to do that?” he asked when they stopped what they were doing and came running at In-Unga’s whistle.

She shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said as she attempted to dust off Bowie’s coat before he plopped down on top of her. Even though the two wolves were nearly at the height of her hips, Bowie still seemed to think he was a lap cat. “They just always do.”

Dagný shrieked and buried her face into her father’s chest when the wolves came too close, but her brother leaned forward, his eyes like saucers as he reached for Brynjarr with chubby hands.

“Woof,” he cried. “Woof.”

Hross pulled him away. “Dali, we don’t want to bother the vargr, now—"

“It’s okay,” In-Unga said. “Bryn, sit down so Dali can pet you.”

Brynjarr sank into the sand obediently. Dali gasped in delight as he ran his fingers through the wolf’s thick mane.

“Woof!” he cried again, happily. Hross and In-Unga laughed.

From her lap, Bowie whined for attention. She reached to scratch behind his ears.

“So devoted,” Hross mused. “I’ll have to add it to your song. ‘In-Unga, charmer of wolves.’”

The party arrived back at Utgard just as the winter freeze was beginning to thaw. There was an audible gasp from the crowd gathered when she exited her sleigh flanked by the two animals, but Býleistr only raised an eyebrow.

“There were rumors, but I supposed no one really believed them,” he told her as they walked in.

She smiled. “But you did?”

“Of course,” he said. “If there’s anyone on this planet stupid enough to mistake a vargr for a pet, it’s you.”

“I missed you too, Bý.”

Býleistr and the rest of her advisors tried to catch her up on all the business she had missed over dinner, but the very presence of her wolves was quick to derail any serious conversation.

“They’re so well behaved,” marveled a forest giant In-Unga probably should’ve known the name of. “How does one inspire such loyalty, your Majesty?”

In-Unga forced an artificial laugh. “They only stick around because they know I feed them.”

The wolves laid down at her feet, eyeing the meat on the table. She reached down to scratch Bowie’s back. She doubted the giant had meant anything by her question, but the way everyone was looking at Bowie and Brynjarr was reminding her of the way everyone had looked at her when she first arrived in Jotunheim with Loki, and it was stirring up emotions in her chest that she wasn’t prepared to deal with.

She thought of the golden collar she had worn for so many years, a sign of ownership that had turned into a display of loyalty. She had despised it at first, but by the end she had been proud to wear that collar.

Lokakona. Loki’s woman.

It was in a box under her bed, along with the knife he had given her after the Rann Steinar debacle and the wooden Yggdrasil pendent Griep had given her before her first trip to Asgard. In the days following the destruction of the stones, as the heavy truth that this was a nightmare she wasn’t going to wake up from sank in, In-Unga had collected everything that broke her to look at and stuffed them where she wouldn’t see them anymore.

It hadn’t helped much.

The nights were the worst. It was stupid, because she had lived alone for years before Jotunheim, but now the concept of sleeping by herself made her sick to her stomach. When everything had first happened, In-Unga had refused to even touch the bed. It was too big, too cold, too empty to even attempt sleep in it. She piled furs and blankets on top of the couch and laid there all night, haunted by missing faces and broken memories and outstretched hands that were just beyond her reach. By morning, she’d be curled up so tightly into herself that it hurt to sit straight during the day.

At first, it was just temporary. Wasn’t that what Agent Romanov said, when she finally got into contact with her? They’d find a way to reverse it. Once they were able to locate Tony Stark, they’d find a way. It would be okay. She’d just have to rule in Loki’s stead for a little bit, just like she had before. Keep his realm together for him until he came back. But a month later, she got another call. This time, Romanov’s voice held none of the steadfast determination that In-Unga had been clinging to so desperately. They were gone. The infinity stones, and the people too. It was over. They failed. She was so sorry.

Vaguely, In-Unga remembered asking if she could talk to her brother-in-law, the silence that followed as Romanov went looking for him, her apologetic tone when Thor refused to come to the phone. The next thing she knew she was in the courtyard, heavy snow pummeling her body as Býleistr dragged her back inside with an arm around her waist.

“Are you completely out of your mind?” he snapped. “You’ll freeze to death out there!”

She held up her hand, hazily noting that her skin looked an even darker blue than his.

It was soon after that In-Unga decided to tour the kingdom. The voice inside her head scolded her for the decision even as she attempted to provide political rationale. She was running away. Pushing her problems further down the road in a childish attempt to avoid the unavoidable. Loki would be disappointed in you.

But how could she rule a planet when she couldn’t even bring herself to sleep in her own bed?

So she had left for a few months, for better or worse, and now she was back. After dinner her wolves, obviously exhausted from the long journey, trotted into her old room without issue. Bowie plopped down on the floor and was asleep in seconds. Brynjarr, ever distrustful, made his cautious way around the room, sniffing at odds and ends and barking at items that seemed too suspicious. In-Unga stood in the doorway, watching. It was almost enough of a distraction. Almost. The room was untouched since the last time she had entered, so much so that it still reeked of Loki. The feeling was so strong that for a moment she didn’t trust herself to move.

She entered slowly, drinking in the memories. Loki’s desk, where she’d lean on top of him and read his paperwork over his shoulder, currently piled up with documents he was never going to review. The table across from empty fireplace, where on rare occasions they could have their meals when the only company they felt like entertaining was each other’s. The rug next to the fireplace, where they always seemed to end up after such occasions.

And there was the bed. Brynjarr rushed ahead of her as she made her way to the bedroom, seemingly intent on confirming its safety before allowing her access. In-Unga found herself laughing despite the ache in her chest.

“Does it meet your standards, Bryn?” she asked as he slipped under the bed and out again, sniffing every corner and examining every fur. Eventually, he laid down at the foot of the bed, satisfied.

In-Unga sat down next to him, stroking his ears as he rested his big head on her thighs. This was the last place she had seen Loki. Here, in this room, on this bed. They had been woken up in the middle of the night by a messenger at the door. Groaning, he had dragged himself out of bed to answer it, only to return shortly after considerably more alert.

“What’s wrong?” she asked sleepily as he dressed. “Where you going?”

“Thor’s made a mess of things on Asgard,” he replied, pulling his tunic over his head. “He needs my help.”

“What?” The gravity of his tone woke her up quickly. “Wait, you’re leaving now? What happened?”

He leaned forward to kiss her. “It’s probably nothing. My brother is known to blow things out of proportion. I should be back within a few days.”

“Loki—”

He muffled her with another kiss. “Don’t worry, dröttning,” he whispered against her lips. “It will be fine. I love you.”

“I love you too,” she whispered back. “Stay safe.”

And then he was gone.

For months, In-Unga wondered if there was something she should’ve done. Pulled him back into bed, forbidden him from walking through that door? “Stay here with me. Thor can handle it himself.” Would it have even changed anything? Loki had told her about Thanos—not a lot, but enough to understand that his influence stretched across galaxies. Would he still have collected the stones, regardless of whether she managed to keep Loki with her? She didn’t know which alternative was worse: the idea that there was something she could’ve done but didn’t, or the thought that she was so useless that Loki and the others were fated to die regardless of her actions.

Brynjarr whined, sitting up taller so he could lick the tears off her cheeks. She buried her face in his fluffy neck.

“I miss him, Bryn,” she sobbed. “I miss him so much.”

He followed her into bed that night. It was a bit surprising—Brynjarr normally wasn’t one for bedtime cuddles, that was Bowie’s thing—but not all together unwelcome. In-Unga was a little more concerned about the bed—on all fours her wolves were now taller than her, and significantly heavier. But it seemed to hold together alright, minus a few creaks, and honestly, the comforting weight of Bryn’s head on her stomach was worth a damaged bedframe if it came down to it. Slowly, she drifted off to the sound of his breathing.

Court was sparse these days.

In-Unga had become so accustomed to the looming hallway being packed with faces that seeing it half-empty kindled even more anxiety in her chest. The faces that were there seemed anxious as well—although In-Unga was rather certain their apprehension came more from the massive wolves at her feet than the vacancies in the room. Bowie and Brynjarr were still for the most part, but they were always ready to pounce at a moment’s notice.

Everything was threatening to them. If someone addressed her with a less than respectful tone, if someone tried too come to near to the throne, they were on their feet, teeth bared and growling. In-Unga found it hard to take them seriously. Bowie was a big sweetie who liked belly rubs and snuggling next to the fire, and whenever Bryn growled, she could only picture the tiny little fluff ball she found in the snow trying to be intimidating. But they certainly succeeded in unnerving the court, a little too much perhaps.

“Maybe I should have them wait outside next time,” she wondered aloud to Býleistr after a civilian who had come to petition the queen had been so frightened he was unable to string together a coherent sentence.

“No, most certainly not,” he countered. “They give you an extra sense of authority. The Queen already controls the Casket, now the vargrs bow to her command—it’s a powerful statement, and Jotuns respect power.”

“I suppose,” she said, thoughtfully. “But I don’t want to feel like I’m ruling through fear.”

Býleistr scoffed. “If your subjects don’t fear you to some extent, then you’re doing something wrong. Besides,” he added, “they should be fearful of your wolves.”

He was probably right. In-Unga trusted Njal and his men with her life, but she knew that if there was any sign of danger it would be the wolves who acted first. Bryn and Bowie accompanied her everywhere, flanking her like a set of furry bodyguards. It was especially odd given how large they had grown—they had long been towering over her, and now were approaching Býleistr’s height. Thankfully, Utgard had high ceilings.

With time, the palace became more accustomed to their presence. In-Unga liked to think that seeing her so at ease with them had begun to rub off on her subjects. If she ever had free time during the day, she’d take the two outside to run around and play in the snow. It wasn’t nearly as spacious as the beaches at Márfjall, but they had enough room to wrestle and cavort around. A crowd usually gathered when she played fetch with an old stick of wood she had picked up while still on the road, watching cautiously with wide eyes. She felt rather like a zookeeper putting on a show in an exhibit.

And if you look here, boys and girls, we have an overgrown doggo in his natural habitat.

It had also become a well-known fact that Bowie and Brynjarr slept in In-Unga’s bed with her. She wasn’t quite sure how this had become a well-known fact—perhaps those in charge of washing her bedding had taken note of the clumps of white fur tangled in the blankets—but Huld told her that this fact was seen as quite impressive to the other servants.

“It’s brave,” she said. “To leave yourself vulnerable to such beasts every night.”

In-Unga laughed humorlessly from where she sat hunched over at the desk. It had been a rough day. “At least they’re impressed. I’m pretty sure Loki’s glaring daggers down at me for letting animals sleep in his bed.” She had meant to make a joke, but there was a familiar lump building in her throat that she couldn’t quite swallow.

Hesitantly, Huld reached out to touch her forearm. “He’d love them,” she said. “He loved anything that made you happy.”

Maybe that was so. But In-Unga was still pretty certain that he’d be pissed—if not for the constantly shedding vargrs taking over his bedroom, then definitely for the stupid ideas that they spawned.

“Alright,” In-Unga said, drawing a line in the air from her chest to the ground. “Lie down.”

The two wolves sunk into the snow obediently, though not without confusion. They clearly expected playtime when she brought them outside, as did the growing crowd of faces at the palace gate. She sighed. This was one time where she’d rather not have an audience, but she didn’t feel right having them dispersed.

“Have I mentioned that this is a terrible idea?” Býleistr drawled from behind her.

“You have, as a matter of fact,” she replied, rubbing Bowie’s neck. He sighed contently, multicolored eyes slipping closed. “I’m still not listening to you.”

“It was worth a try.”

It was Hross who had put the idea in her head, when he had come to visit a month or two ago. Even after he returned to Márfjall, she couldn’t stop imagining what it might be like to ride one of her wolves like a horse.

“Just picture it!” he had said excitedly. “Queen In-Unga, riding into battle alone atop a vargr, casket in hand—”

Býleistr had interrupted to inquire under what circumstances would the kingdom become so inept as to send their mortal queen into battle alone, but In-Unga was sold.

Although, looking at it now, mounting didn’t seem as simple as Hross had made it out to be.

“Okay,” she murmured to Bowie as she made her way around his body. “I’m going to get on your back, buddy. Don’t freak out.” She grabbed a clump of fur on his back—even with him laying down, she had to reach a bit—and tried to pull herself up.

Key word being tried.

“No—what are you doing?” she cried as Bowie stood up with her still hanging off his side. “Bowie, sit down!”

The wolf yawned.

“Oh my,” Býleistr was doing his best to sound disinterested, but she could hear the suppressed laugher hiding under his voice. “Do you need a push?”

“Shut up.” She leveraged herself against the wolf, trying to wriggle her way to a sitting position. Bowie suddenly decided to obey her earlier command and plopped his bottom on the ground, the movement throwing her off enough to tumble into the snow.

“Oof!”

Bowie grinned at her.

Býleistr’s laugh rang out across the ice.

“I take it back,” he said. “That was well worth it. Now, have you had enough of this nonsense, my Queen, or might we go back inside?”

In-Unga was already back on her feet. “Do whatever you want, Býleistr. I’m not finished yet.”

This time, she went to Brynjarr. He was still lying down, despite all the ruckus.

“Okay,” she murmured, scratching his ear. “Take 2.”

Bowie whined. In-Unga turned around to see him lying down with his head between his paws, eyes wide and repentant. “Oh, hush!” she said, rolling her eyes. “You had your chance.”

Pulling herself on to Brynjarr’s back was surprisingly easy, likely because he actually listened to her when she told him to stay still. It took her a minute to get situated and comfortable, seated in a position where she didn’t feel like she was immediately going to slip off. She wondered if she should have a saddle made. But she felt like that would be too complicated—they’d have to get measurements from the wolves since no such saddle had ever been made before (to her knowledge, at least), all the while working on the assumption that Bryn and Bowie would even wear such a contraption.

Besides, she told herself, Daenerys Targaryen rides her dragons bareback without problem, right?

Yes. That was definitely the type of logic she needed to live her life by.

In-Unga clutched his fur as tightly as she could. “Okay, Bryn,” she said, tapping his neck. “Up!”

The wolf rose to his feet in one fluid, graceful motion that nearly sent her sprawling again. Oh boy. She tightened the grip of her legs around his sides. If I die today, blame George R.R. Martin.

She was high. Extremely high. Geez, she had to be at least ten feet in the air! Since when had her babies gotten this big?

Býleistr cleared his throat. “So,” he said, looking up at her (Býleistr had to look up at her!), “Are you just going to sit up there all day or do you plan on doing something? Because if not I would like to remind you that—”

“Hold your horses, Bý.”

He blinked. “Excuse me?”

In-Unga ignored him. She leaned forward to flatten herself against Brynjarr’s back. “Okay buddy,” she whispered, tapping his shoulder. “Whenever you’re ready.”

He started off slowly, a fact for which she was exceedingly thankful. He crept ahead almost as if he was tiptoeing, so soft that she barely felt his feet on the ground, a far cry from the clodding she was used to with the wooly rhinos. He wandered around in a circle, continually looking back to check if she was still there.

“Good boy.”

They continued riding in a circle for a while. It wasn’t anything grand, and it was certainly a far cry from Hrossþjófr’s vision of her galloping into battle, but there was still something thrilling about being atop such a powerful creature. In-Unga didn’t have any delusions about being in control—she knew damn well the moment Brynjarr decided he had had enough he’d plop down in the snow and she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it—but the illusion of control was enough to make her feel unbelievably powerful.

“Look at me, Býleistr!” she called. “Aren’t you impressed?”

“Exceedingly,” he said dryly. “Are you finished? Remember, we do have things to accomplish today.”

In-Unga frowned. Býleistr was right, of course—she was the Queen of Jotunheim, she couldn’t just spend the entire day playing with her wolves. But on the flip side, she was the Queen of Jotunheim—if she wanted to spend the entire day playing with her wolves, who could stop her?

Just as she was beginning to favor postponing her next few meetings on account of essential wolf training, Bowie rose to his feet.

She sighed. “Bowie, what did I tell you—” The wolf wasn’t listening. He knelt close to the ground, muscles tense as he eyed something in the distance. Brynjarr turned around abruptly, In-Unga grabbing at his mane to maintain her balance. He too tensed, staring unblinkingly into the snow.

She squinted into the distance. At first, she couldn’t spot anything out of the ordinary, but the tiniest movement of white fur soon gave it away. A kanína. They were smaller, rodent-like creatures that lived all over the place, not unlike the rabbits she knew from Earth. Their meat was extremely tough, practically inedible to giants and mortals alike, but her wolves loved to hunt them.

Uh oh.

“I think I’m going to get down now,” she said, patting Brynjarr’s neck. “You can chance down that furball once I’m on the ground. Lie down.” Bryn didn’t move. Oh dear.

She tried again, more authoritatively. “Brynjarr, lie down! Brynjarr—” She cut herself off with a very unqueenly shriek as the kanína bolted, the wolves bolting after it.

All In-Unga could do was hold on for dear life. The wind smacked her face as they picked up speed, whistling so loudly in her ears that she could only barely hear Býleistr shouting her name. The landscape flashed by in a blur of color.

Holy shit holy shit holy shit!

“Bryn!” she screamed. “Bryn, stop!”

It was like riding a giant rocking horse running at the speed of light. Straightening up was out of the question, so she flattened herself against Brynjarr’s body and tried to sway with his movements. To the left, she could barely make out Bowie running alongside them, leaping so far that it looked like he was flying above the snow.

Just breath. Focus on breathing. Don’t think about how much it’ll hurt if you fall. Just focus on breathing.

Although… it wasn’t that bad. The longer she held on, feeling the vibration of their paws travel up her spine, the more her panic began to fade. She pushed up a little, risking a glance over her shoulder at the distant dot that was Býleistr. Shit. They were going fast.

Exhilaration flooded her body. This is what Hross had been talking about!

In-Unga, Charmer of Wolves

For a moment, she felt like a superhero.

When she hooted, the wolves howled with her. The kanína was still running in front of them, scrambling to stay ahead, but its time was up: Bowie pounced and had the poor rodent dangling in his mouth in a second, snapping its neck like it was nothing. They slowed down, Bowie stopping completely to grin at her with his prize. Look at me, Mom! Aren’t you proud of me?

In-Unga laughed. “Good boy.”

Trotting back to Býleistr was slightly less thrill-inducing now that she could actually see where they were going without getting pelted in the face with wind. In-Unga made a mental note to have a pair of goggles made for any future wolf-runs.

“So what do you think?” she asked, grinning down at her brother-in-law.

Býleistr gaped at her. He shook his head. “I don’t know why I still haven’t learned to just expect this madness from you.”

She snickered.

After that, wolf rides became a part of In-Unga’s daily routine. Every afternoon she’d climb onto Bryn’s back and take off into the snow for about an hour, flying across the countryside with only her wolves for company. That last detail drove Býleistr mad.

“You are the single most important individual on this planet,” he snapped at her one day. “And, if you’ll excuse my saying so, likely the most vulnerable as well. You need to take a guard with you.”

“I can take care of myself, Bý,” she replied nonchalantly from where she sat with Bowie in front of the fireplace. “You should understand that as much as anyone. Besides, the wolves will take care of me.” Bowie looked up with a grin, thumping his tail against the stone floor in enthusiastic agreement. Býleistr rolled his eyes.

“And when you go flying off their back while they’re running at full speed? How will they protect you then?” He shook his head. “I’d doubt they’d even notice you were missing.”

“That will never happen,” she said stubbornly. “I’d never fall off, and they’d never leave me behind.”

It was easy to sound fearless while bathed in the warmth of the fire, but there were moments where In-Unga was a little less sure of herself (although she’d stab herself before admitting such to the prince). The landscape around Utgard was high and rocky, and although her furry companions were sure footed, she often found herself swallowing her heart as they scampered up craggy ledges.

Still, every hair-raising experience she survived increased her confidence in her abilities as a wolf-back rider and encouraged her to go farther. She taught Brynjarr to understand her commands just by the way she shifted her weight on his back. Luckily, he picked it up easily— trying to yell instructions with the wind blasting in her face got old very quickly.

Bowie took a little while longer, but they got there eventually. He wasn’t as much of a fan of having In-Unga on his back, but he also wasn’t a fan of being left out, and weeks of watching his brother get all the attention for carrying the queen wore him down. Soon enough, she could ride him as well as Bryn.

They tended to keep to the rocks on their journeys. Running through the caves would have been a lot easier, as well as less windy, but the caverns that Loki had carried her through when she first arrived on Jotunheim were haunted by ghosts of memories In-Unga couldn’t bring herself to face. Instead, she stuck to sights less sacred: mountainous cliffs and jutting rocks that Bryn and Bowie loved to race each other around, places so far off the beaten path that there was no chance of stray flashbacks popping up to punch her in the gut.

Sometimes, on the way back from the palace, she’d ride through town. It was a risk, of course, but then again when was anything not? She always wanted to laugh at the crowd that gathered whenever she came through, at the way her people’s eyes would bulge at seeing the giant wolves plodding down the road completely unphased. They would whisper amongst themselves, just as they did that first time she came to the marketplace with Griep, but the words were slightly different.

In-Unga. Vargdröttning.

Usually, she made a point of stopping at some small vendor and purchasing something— a dagger, a blanket, a piece of jewelry— the item didn’t really matter to her. She just liked interacting with her people, asking them about their families, checking up on their wellbeing. With everything that had gone wrong in the past few years, she felt that was the least she could do. That too was reminiscent her trip with Griep. So much had changed since then, and yet still so much was the same. Back then, the Jotuns hadn’t known what to make of a mortal wandering through life on Utgard as if she belonged there. In-Unga got the feeling that they still weren’t sure what to make of her now, but they treated her with respect and grace and that was all she could ever hope for.

Some of the changes hurt. The absence of her Forest Twins was an ache she carried with her everywhere she went. In-Unga had never really realized how deeply she depended on them both until they were gone. Now, without them, she missed them everywhere. At the table during meals. In the throne room when she held court. Just walking through the halls—it was such a silly, stupid thing, but she felt naked making her way through the palace alone even now, a couple years after she lost them.

Most times during her afternoon ride, she’d dismount at the top of some mountain and let Bowie and Brynjarr hunt for a bit. She’d find a rock to sit on, sheltered from the wind, and make a list of all the things she wanted to tell them. How she had been trying to teach Huld to play gin rummy, but Bowie ate half the deck. How Hross had written that Dagný had finally said her first word: daddy. How Býleistr was all pissed off because Bryn had somehow gotten into his greenhouse while In-Unga had let them out to hunt and knocked over some important plants from Alfheim.

Griep would have gotten a kick out of that last one: in the months before everything went wrong, Gjálp had been spending a suspicious amount of time in Býleistr’s greenhouse, something her sister and In-Unga had been relentlessly teasing her about. You know, payback for all the teasing she had doled out over the years. She had been getting pretty annoyed about it.

“I don’t know what the two of you have gotten in your heads,” she had scowled. “Prince Býleistr was simply showing off his imported aster flowers. They only bloom for a short period of time—”

“Riiight,” In-Unga said, smirking. “That’s definitely what he’s been showing you.”

Gjálp sputtered, scandalized, while Griep exploded into a fit of very uncharacteristic giggles.

On her rock in the middle of the snow, In-Unga giggled too. It was nice, having these quick little moments where she could almost trick herself into thinking that everything was fine. They were fleeting though. By the time her wolves returned to her, a few minutes later, she was sobbing uncontrollably.

She missed them so much.

But with everything that had changed in the past few years, everything that had been uprooted and ripped to shreds, at least there remained one constant in her life.

Periods still sucked Hel.

Regardless, In-Unga always tried to carry on with her day as usual. She was the queen, after all—she couldn’t be seen as weak. So, she’d hold court like everything was normal, sit up straight on the throne and pretend she didn’t feel like someone was wringing out her insides like wet laundry. If the giants around her noticed the stench of blood (which of course they did), they knew better than to bring it up.

But today had just been too much. Meetings heaped on top of meetings, every new face bearing a different demand or a different complaint, every new conversation only exacerbating the ache in her head and the knots in her stomach. By noon, she called it a day.

In bed, burrowed into her nest of blankets, In-Unga existed in the frustrating in-between: too tired to be fully awake, but too uncomfortable to drift off to sleep. She buried her face in her pillow and cursed the blizzard outside. It seems periods always worsened with the cold.

From the doorframe, Bowie whined. Brynjarr had easily accepted the reality that there would be no afternoon run today, instead electing to pass out at the foot of the bed, but his brother did not give up so easily. If In-Unga hadn’t felt so awful, she would’ve laughed at him—the doorway to her bedroom was far too narrow for the giant wolf. He was just barely managing to squeeze through.

He whined again.

She groaned. “Can’t play with you right now, buddy.”

Rolling over, she nestled deeper under the covers, seeking protection against the biting cold. It was a useless attempt. She never seemed to be able to get warm anymore.

Bowie padded over to her bedside, his claws drumming on the floor making him sound like some sort of depressed tap dancer. He snuffled at her hair.

“Go away, Bowie,” she muttered when he pressed his clammy nose to her forehead. She pushed his giant head away halfheartedly. “Lie down with Bryn.”

Suddenly, the whole bed dipped, and the giant wolf was attempting to snuggle his way into to her blankets.

“Bow—” she tried to push him away again, with even less effort than before. “You’re too big!” But with a final push, he nuzzled under her blankets next to her, grinning widely and smacking her face with a mouthful of doggy breath. In-Unga winced.

“Such an attention hog,” she groaned, even as she reached to scratch the fur under his chin. “You don’t even care that I’m trying to rest, do you?” He snuggled closer, sighing in contentment when In-Unga shifted so that she was resting her head on his fluffy neck rather than her pillow.

“Yes, you’re a good boy. I’m sorry. I’m just having a bad day.” She heaved a sigh of her own. “Do you know what my small council said to me, first thing when I sat down?”

He cocked his head. In-Unga took that as a sign to continue.

“They think I should get married. Remarried.” She swallowed bitterly. “They said it would help ‘maintain my legitimacy as queen.’ As if I’m not already fucking legitimate!” She smacked the mattress with her palm, glaring at her wolf. “Do you know the shit I went through to get to this point?”

Bowie whined.

“Right, of course you don’t,” she apologized. “You weren’t born yet. But take my word for it, it was a lot.”

On the floor, Brynjarr shifted in his sleep. In-Unga continued.

“And then there’s the whole subject of heirs. ‘Your Majesty, since you failed to have a child to King Loki before he died, you have no one to advance your lineage’—yes I’m well aware of that!” she shouted at the ceiling, blinking the steaming tears from her eyes. “I’m reminded of that fact every damn day of my life! I don’t need you to tell me!”

Her nose was running. She wiped it angrily with the heel of her hand. They had been trying to have a baby, her and Loki. After years of pushing it off, waiting for things to stabilize, they had finally felt ready. Loki had told her not to be frustrated if she didn’t get pregnant right away.

“Our biologies are fundamentally different. It may take some time.” They had been in bed, tangled up in each other under the cover of darkness. In-Unga could still feel his breath in her hair when he leaned down to kiss her head. “Don’t worry, dröttning. We’re in no rush.”

He had gotten called away a few months later, her womb still empty.

“They had a whole list of men they thought would be suitable,” she muttered to Bowie, blocking out memories that hurt too much to touch. “They had organized it all and everything. I felt like the Bachelorette. Totally ridiculous! And they had the audacity to look at me like I was the crazy one!”

The way they had stared at her, when she categorically refused to even consider their proposition. “But my queen, don’t you want to have children?”

Yes. Yes she did. She wanted to have children whose ebony hair matched their father’s, who carried both his intelligence and his mischievous streak within them. She wanted to see her husband’s eyes light up when they learned a new magic trick, wanted to laugh at the regal King of Jotunheim crawling around the room on his hands and knees with his toddler giggling on his back. She wanted to cradle her baby and smile at its sleeping face in awe, wondering at the perfect mix of her and the man she loved so much, a mix that could exist with no one else.

Yes, she wanted to have children. Loki’s children.

In-Unga ran her fingers through Bowie’s fur. “He’s not coming back,” she whispered. “I know that. I’ve made my peace with it. But I can’t pretend that it’s okay. I can’t just… replace him.”

Bowie licked her cheek with a tongue the size of her entire face. In-Unga sputtered, snorting. “Ugh… thanks buddy.” He nodded, moving to rest his head on her stomach so she could scratch his ears. She stroked his long fur absentmindedly. The wolves were the closest thing to children she was ever going to have. She was at peace with that too. Her advisors may not understand, but they didn’t have to. She had done so much for her kingdom. They could give her this.

And so time marched on. Winter turned to spring, spring to summer, then back to winter again, over and over as if nothing had ever happened.

It was a quiet night in her quarters when things changed.

In-Unga was skimming over a document by the fire, having abandoned the desk in favor of the furry rug, a warm blanket, and her wolf-pillows. Bryn’s eyes were fluttering. Bowie was already fast asleep, sighing contently. Behind them, Huld softly cleaned up the remnants of the late dinner she had eaten alone in her room. Save for the crackling of the flames, the room was silent.

It was becoming increasingly difficult to focus on the lines of script. The flickering light was almost hypnotic—In-Unga leaned against Bowie’s back to rest her eyes for a moment and found herself unable to sit back up.

She yawned. Probably time to call it a night. Still, she felt so nice here—her bed would be large and cold, and she’d have to get up and walk all the way to the next room to even get there…

In-Unga was just beginning to doze off completely when the high-pitched beep nearly scared her out of her skin.

The wolves were on their feet immediately, knocking her out of her reverie and barking so loudly the room shook. The beeping continued, shrill and ear-piercing, and In-Unga cursed under her breath as she pulled herself up.

I live in a damn circus.

Huld was standing at the table, hands over her ears and red eyes trained on the corner of the room. “Your majesty!” she cried. “It’s the thing!”

In-Unga followed her gaze to the telephone-like communicator Tony Stark had created for them, back when everything was nice and happy and Thor had convinced everyone it was a good idea for Jotunheim to have some method of contact with the Avengers. For the first time in five years, it was flashing red.

She made her way across the room in a fog. The last time it rang… that call had broken her. Broken everything. Told her that the hopeless mess her life had turned into would be here to stay, and that she would have to clean it up alone. In-Unga hadn’t touched the device since. What could Earth’s Mightiest Heroes possibly have to say to her now?

Still, it couldn’t be worse than last time, could it?

In-Unga hushed the wolves, who fell silent at her command, and picked up the receiver.

“Hello?”

Agent Romanov’s sharp voice said her Midgardian name. “How have you been?”

“Alright, I guess, considering everything,” she answered cautiously. Somehow, she doubted that after half a decade the assassin had just decided to phone for a social call. “Is everything okay?”

She was right. “We’re working on something,” Agent Romanov said. “We’re not positive how everything’s going to turn out, but at the moment, things are looking good. I thought you should know, just in case things get crazy.”

In-Unga frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“The Snap,” she said. She inhaled softly. “We think we can bring everyone back.”

In-Unga’s heart stopped.

For a moment, she just stood there, barely comprehending her words.

We can bring everyone back.

Romanov said her name again. “Are you still there?”

“Yeah,” she said shakily. “Are—are you serious? You going—how is that even possible? You said before—without the stones—”

“I know,” the assassin said. “We still need them. But Stark’s come up with something that would allow us to retrieve them before they were destroyed. We’ve planned out where they are across the timeline, the easiest times and places for us to access them—”

“Wait.” In-Unga’s head was spinning. “Retrieve them before they were destroyed?” She had to be misunderstanding. Surely Romanov wasn’t suggesting what it sounded like she was suggesting. “How is that possible? Unless you have a—”

“Time machine?” There was a wry smile to Romanov’s voice. “Yeah, that’s about right.”

“What?”

“It’s a long story, but like I said, Stark’s come up with something,” she continued. “I know it sounds insane, but we’ve proven it works—we ran a test with Barton, and Lang basically did it unintentionally for five years—”

“Lang?” In-Unga asked weakly.

“You don’t know him. But my point is it’s possible.”

It’s possible.

“Time travel,” she said. “That’s what’s happening? I haven’t gone crazy, you’re actually telling me you can time travel?”

“Well, you did marry the guy who attacked New York, so I can’t say you’re not crazy,” Romanov said. In-Unga was so overwhelmed that the poor attempt at humor didn’t even bother her. “But yes, that’s exactly what I’m telling you.”

They’re going to bring them back. In-Unga was shaking. Loki, Griep, Gjálp… they’re going to bring them back!

“When is this happening? How is this going to happen? Is there something I can do?” The questions tumbled out faster than she had time to think.

“We’re going out tomorrow. Technically speaking, everything will only take a few minutes, so we should have the stones by then.”

In-Unga gasped. “That soon?”

“Yeah. We’re not sure exactly how they’ll work once we have them, but Thanos was able to wipe out half the universe just by snapping his fingers, so we’re guessing it’s not that difficult.”

“So, everyone could be back tomorrow!” The shock was beginning to wear off, replaced by a surge of pure elation. The wolves, sensing her excitement, began barking again. “Hey, shut up! Both of you!”

Romanov laughed. “I didn’t know you had dogs.”

“It’s a fairly new development.” So new that Loki and the Twins never got to meet them. Her eyes were stinging. “Tomorrow?”

“Hopefully, yes,” In-Unga had never known Romonov to sound so excited. “That’s why I wanted to get into contact with you. We’re not sure how this will work, what kind of widespread effects it can might cause. I thought you deserved a heads up.”

She nodded. “Thank you. Will you let me know when you get back with the stones?”

“Sure thing.”

“Well…” In-Unga wondered if she was dreaming, if she was going to wake up and curse her stupid brain for letting her hope for a moment. But this was real. This was happening. “Good luck!” she said into the receiver, pulse thrumming.

She could hear the smile in Romanov’s voice. “Thanks. I’ll get back to you tomorrow.”

In-Unga set the receiver down in a daze. When she turned, both her wolves and her maid were staring at her with eyes so wide it was practically comical.

“Huld,” she said quietly. “Get Býleistr in here, would you?”

She spent the next day huddled next to the communicator, anxiously tapping her feet on the stone floor.

Býleistr had been willing to hold court in her place today, but he had been less inclined to share her eager optimism.

“The past has already been written, In-Unga,” he said softly. “That’s not something anyone can change.”

“But there’s a chance they might,” she cried. She pushed the hair out of her face. “A chance. That’s more than we’ve had for the last five years!”

“Getting your hopes up will only cause yourself more pain when they fail. You’ll be grieving all over again—"

“I never stopped grieving,” she whispered. Her eyes were damp again as she looked back up at Býleistr. He sighed.

“I hope it works,” he said. “I do. It’s just—” he cut himself off, shaking his head and abruptly standing up to leave. “Goodnight, your Majesty.”

Behind her, the wolves paced back and forth, whining softly as they picked up on her nervous energy. In-Unga couldn’t tear her eyes away from the phone. Had they left yet? Was everything going to plan? She let out a worried breath. If only there was something she could do. Something besides just sitting here and feeling useless.

By the afternoon Romanov still had not called and In-Unga had completely chewed through her bottom lip. She should have heard something by now. She was certain of it. Hadn’t Romanov said that it was only supposed to take a few minutes?

Huld brought her lunch at around noon. In-Unga left it on the table untouched. She wasn’t hungry. In fact, she felt like she was going to be sick.

Bowie was scratching at the floor. The sound of his nails dragging across the stone put her even more on edge than she was already, but he ignored her when she told him to stop. In the corner, Byrnjarr growled softly.

Her room was warmer than usual. She found herself shrugging off the blanket she usually kept draped across her shoulders in her quarters and letting it fall to the floor. Out of nowhere, she felt confused. Nothing was the way it was supposed to be. Everything was happening at once. It was overwhelming—so overwhelming. She couldn’t think— wait.

These aren’t my feelings.

In-Unga shot up so quickly she knocked her chair over. Bowie and Bryn were on their feet in less than a second, bouncing around and barking at the top of their lungs. With shaking hands, she reached for her neck, for what had become nothing more than an old scar these past five years. At the brush of her fingertips, sparks shot through her skin.

Her gasp melted into messy sobs. “Loki.”

Outside, people were shouting, voices blending together into an amorphous blob of noise. Someone pounded at her door.

“Your Majesty!” Njal shouted. “Your Majesty, something is happening—”

They’re back. They’re all back…

In-Unga barged through her door without a word to her guards, dashing down the hallways at lightning speed with Brynjarr and Bowie trotting at her heels. There were people everywhere—servants, nobles, people gasping, people embracing, people running through the halls like maniacs like her—In-Unga ignored all of them. She flung herself down the stairs with her wolves still behind her.

The room she was rushing to hadn’t been touched in five years. She had felt stupid, giving that order, but having someone else move in was admitting that they were gone forever, and she couldn’t do that.

But it didn’t matter anymore.

In-Unga was completely out of breath by the time she flung open the door. The woman standing in the middle of room looked up as she pressed her fingers to her temple, red eyes furrowed in a frown.

“In-Unga,” she asked. “What is—”

Gjálp didn’t have time to finish before In-Unga crashed into her in a bear hug, bawling.

She sputtered. “In-Unga—”

“You’re back!” In-Unga sobbed. “You’re back! You’re back!”

Gjálp returned the embrace tentatively. “What is happening? What—Norns!” She stiffened, yanking In-Unga backwards. The mortal queen turned to find that Bryn and Bowie had followed her into the room and were now looming over the couch with all the intimidation of a pair of overexcited Labradors.

“Oh no, it’s fine—” In-Unga hiccupped, finding words astonishingly difficult to control in the moment. “Mine. They’re mine. Don’t worry! Uh—lie down!” Thankfully, they obeyed without an issue, their tales flying around like propellers. “See?” She gulped, turning back to Gjálp. She gripped her wrist, just to remind herself that this was real, and she wasn’t dreaming.

“You’re back,” she whispered again, hoarsely.

“You keep saying that,” Gjálp said, still frowning suspiciously at the wolves. “What happened? Where am I back from?”

In-Unga let out a wet laugh. “You were gone. He got the stones and took out everyone—half of everyone, half of everyone everywhere,” she laughed again, because it suddenly sounded funny saying out loud with Gjálp staring down at her like she had lost her mind. Maybe she had. It didn’t matter anymore.

“Your Majesty.”

They both jumped at the unfamiliar voice behind them. In-Unga turned to find herself face to face with a man—a human man, with a goatee and red cloak, standing in the middle of a ring of fire. In a second, the wolves had flanked her, teeth bared and growling.

Shit, I guess I have lost my mind.

Gjálp was the first to find her voice. “Who—what—how did you get in here?”

The man ignored her. “Your Majesty,” he said, facing In-Unga. “I am Dr. Stephen Strange of New York.”

The name vaguely stirred something in her memory. “You died in the Snap,” she said. “You were with Mr. Stark.”

Dr. Strange nodded. “The effects of the Snap may have been reversed, but this isn’t over yet.” He fixed her with a solemn stare. “Your husband needs your help.”

Somehow, she had known he was going to say that. A wave of resolution washed over her. Standing straight, she wiped her cheeks. “What do you need me to do?”

The smoke was stifling. Strange had said it was a war zone, but In-Unga hadn’t expected for even the upstate sky to be blackened with debris. She had been to this compound before, years ago with Thor and Loki. It had felt a bit like stepping into the future, with the manicured lawns and the crisp white doors that whooshed as the slid open automatically. It had been nothing like the scorched wasteland flaring before her. The smoke was so thick she could barely make out the looming warships hovering over the skyline.

The dark warriors lined the horizon, a mass of limbs extending far beyond her range of sight. In-Unga squared her shoulders as she road through the portal. She could see him, standing in the middle of all this destruction, the golden light of the portals casting shadows on his purple skin. For so long, he had been faceless to her, the untouchable enemy who she had never seen but whose name she fell asleep cursing every night. And yet here he was in the flesh, living, breathing, vulnerable.

Thanos.

Brynjarr howled. From her perch atop his back, In-Unga felt the vibration in every part of her body. Bowie joined in, his usually mournful cries dark and full of promise. The sound mixed with the battle cries from portals down the line, words chanted in languages she didn’t speak, but in sentiment she understood perfectly.

You took everything. Now we’re taking it back.

The Jotuns behind her understood too. With deep voices, they answered the cries with chants of their own, shouts crescendoing with every individual rushing through the portal. Utgard had been in such chaos that she hadn’t expected anyone to rally to her call, but vengeance was a powerful motivator. She had stood on the balcony and told her people that the one responsible for their suffering was out there, still struggling to once again rip their loved ones from their arms, and just like that, her armies mobilized.

Now here she was, Queen In-Unga of Jotunheim, facing down the enemy atop a howling vargr, her soldiers armed and ready behind her. She felt strangely calm.

I’m bringing Loki home.

He was here somewhere. Even if Strange hadn’t told her how he had been resurrected on the plains of Wakanda with the other fallen warriors, she would have known. She felt his steely resolve as he prepared for battle, let it swirl and mix with hers across the battlefield.

This is it.

When Thor shouted, she screamed with him. And then they were all running. The appeal of two nine-foot-tall wolves in combat was quickly apparent: her babies tore through alien fighters like rare steaks. Brynjarr didn’t even need to be directed; he seemed to know exactly where to go, when to duck, when to tackle. Bowie cleared a way through the chaos, trampling everyone in his path.

They zig-zagged across the battleground, In-Unga pressed tightly into Bryn’s fur to avoid shooting darts of light and projectiles flying through the air every which way, no clue who was shooting them. A roar consumed the land, built from rallying cries and death shrieks, guns shooting and bones cracking, and in the midst of all this pandemonium, she found him.

Loki threw his blades with a catlike grace, completely surrounded and yet completely in control, as if he had never left.

“Bryn!” she steered him left, and he understood instantly. Snarling, the wolves rushed the scene. Loki whipped around in shock, In-Unga barely registering his fleeting moment of confusion as she felt the thud of alien bodies crushed on the ground. When Loki called out her name she found she could barely breathe.

“Down!” she choked at Brynjarr. She slid off his back to unsteady legs and managed to hold back her tears until she threw her arms around her husband.

The battle faded away. She sobbed on his shoulder, drinking in the scent she thought she’d never experience again, relishing the way he gripped her so tightly she felt as though she might break. She clutched at him too, afraid that if she let go he’d disintegrate through her fingers. He whispered her name against her hair, that soft baritone she thought she’d never hear ever again, and she held him even closer.

He was the one to pull away first, cupping her cheek in his palm as he wiped her teardrops with his palm. His green eyes held her in their stare.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

In-Unga exhaled, the tiniest laugh. Less than an hour ago he had been dead, and he was worried about her?

“Yeah,” she murmured. It was a tiny breath under the rage of battle, but somehow, she knew he heard. “I am now.”

…

“Come on, you scaredy-cat, it’s fine,” In-Unga laughed from atop Bowie on the beach at Márfjall.

“I’m not scared, just concerned.” Loki stood on the ground besides Brynjarr, the two sizing each other up suspiciously. For the most part, her husband and her wolves had been getting along well—at least, well enough. Bowie was still bitter that his place in In-Unga’s bed had been taken from him, and Bryn was untrusting by nature, but it was getting better. Loki still didn’t understand how creatures that showed such savagery on the battlefield could be so cuddly at home.

“Look, if I can do it without a problem, you certainly can manage.” Bowie whined as he shifted his weight between his feet, anxious to sprint down the red sand. She rubbed his neck and fixed Loki with a pointed stare.

He shook his head, smiling uneasily. “You’ve had five years of practice, love.”

“Yeah, which I never would’ve got if I hadn’t gotten on first.” She turned back to the small group watching behind them. “Give me some help here!”

Griep frowned, holding Dagný in her arms. “I don’t know, In-Unga. I don’t think vargrs are meant to carry people.”

“I thought you liked animals—”

“It’s a giant vargr—”

“Now, my precious ice-heart” Hross said, intertwining his fingers with hers. “In-Unga has proved time and time again that there are those more than capable of riding a wolf. Both myself and Prince Býleistr can attest to that.”

Býleistr chuckled. “She fell off the first time she tried.”

“No, no!” In-Unga whipped back to Loki. “That was on Bowie, because Bowie likes to be difficult. Brynjarr has never given me a problem, which is why you’re going to try riding him.” Bowie gave an offended snort.

“I still can’t believe you can tell them apart,” Gjálp said. “They look exactly the same, smell exactly the same—”

“I told you, Bowie is the one with two different colored eyes!”

“But when you can’t see their eyes—”

Dali pulled at Hrossþjófr’s free arm. “Wanna ride wolf!”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” In-Unga groaned. “Loki, get on the damn wolf before I give your spot to a toddler.”

Loki huffed indignantly, but he pulled himself over Bryn’s back and into a sitting position. “Happy, wife?”

“Ecstatic,” she tried to maintain her stern, but the sight of him balancing haphazardly on the back of her wolf made it hard not to grin like an idiot. “Now, tell him to get up.”

“Get up, wolf,” he said emotionlessly.

Brynjarr looked at her in exasperation. Are you kidding me with this guy?

In-Unga sighed. “Tell him nicely.”

He through his hands in the air. “It’s a wolf!”

“Loki…”

“Fine.” He looked back down at Bryn. “Get up wolf, please.”

Behind them, Hross was cackling uncontrollably. In-Unga rolled her eyes. “I think that’s the best he’s gonna do Bryn,” she said. “Come on, up, up!”

Brynjarr grunted, but still hopped to his feet far more quickly than usual. Loki gasped as he struggled to right his balance. She pressed her hand to her mouth to muffle her giggles.

Loki scowled. “I hear you snickering over there. This is why I didn’t want to do this.”

“What do you mean?” she asked innocently. “You’re doing great, sweetie!”

He glared.

Oh, if looks could kill.

“Now what?” he asked sourly.

She leaned forward, clicking her tongue. “Now, you hold on, and try to keep up.”

“What—” Loki was cut off with a cry as the two wolves took off down the rusty beach. In-Unga laughed as they rode alongside each other, Loki clinging desperately to Bryn’s fur. His startled expression morphed into something more sinister when he noticed her amusement.

“I’m going to get you for this!” he yelled over the wind.

She grinned. “You better!”

In-Unga wouldn’t have it any other way.

#running with the wolves #loki x reader #loki x in-unga #frostbite fic #maiden of asgard #loki fanfic

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kuiinncedes · 3 years

Note

HI JEANNE I AM SO GLAD UR DOING PROMPTS!!! can i prompt general #24 for quinntina with some kuinn friendship maybe pls???? 🥺🥺💞💗💞💗💞💗💞💗

hi rae thanks for prompting!!! <333

General 24 “I haven’t seen (her/him/them) smile in months.”

this got longggg 2796 ish words 👀 (i edited it after pasting into tumblr tho so idk exactly :P) i think this is the longest thing i’ve posted?? i hope it doesn’t suck <3

(also small mention of homophobic parent(s) (mostly quinn’s mom) and just not great parenting... also blood and death mention warning (but like just in conversation?))

i’m like weirdly nervous about this one sdlhgkjf *screams and hits post*

“What’s wrong with Tina?”

Kurt gives Quinn a sideways look, fixing his hair in the mirror on his locker. “Tina Cohen Chang? Why are you asking about her?”

Quinn shrugs, trying to play innocent and nonchalant. “I haven’t seen her smile in months.” Because since the beginning of the year, Tina always smiled at her as she walked into their first class and the only one they share, but now she doesn’t, if she even comes to class on time at all.

Kurt looks at her knowingly and Quinn pushes his arm lightly. “Shut up,” she grumbles. “I’m serious.”

“I’ve noticed it, too,” Kurt says after a moment, following Quinn’s gaze to Tina arriving at her locker. They watch as she hurriedly puts some books in her bag and quickly walks off again, head down and giving a wide berth to everyone she passes.

“Yeah, and that,” Quinn says, “it’s like she’s… scared or something.” She looks at Kurt whose jaw has tightened. Quinn squeezes his arm lightly and he smiles a little at her.

“I can ask Mercedes,” he says reluctantly as he shuts his locker and they start walking down the hall. “She’d know more than me, but… yeah, I don’t think she’s even been in glee lately.”

Quinn’s barely paying attention and almost runs into another student before Kurt pulls her out of the way. “You know, it’s a little creepy that you noticed this at all,” he teases, a glimmer in his eye, and Quinn elbows him and follows him into their next class.

Mercedes doesn’t give them any new information, and then Quinn -- Quinn wants to forget about it, but she can’t. She keeps stealing glances at Tina in the halls, during class, at lunch. She knows Kurt’s right, that it is a little creepy, but…

They’ve been around each other’s circles since the beginning of high school, and a friendly wave from Tina one morning was the only thing keeping Quinn feeling normal when the least normal thing possible had happened to her the night before. She didn’t have Kurt yet, she barely had any friends because of her work to uphold her status as the ice-cold head Cheerio. Tina was kind to her when she was spiraling after her world had turned upside down and no one was around to support her, to turn it back around.

So she just wants to know if Tina’s okay. Because of that. No other reason.

Quinn gets her chance a week later.

She doesn’t expect to see Tina today -- she isn’t in English and hadn’t been for a few days. Quinn tries to ignore her growing concern; after all, she still doesn’t actually know anything about Tina’s life.

When Mrs. Harrison splits them off into groups of two for a new project, Quinn is last to pick her partner and everyone else has already paired off.

“Tina’s absent today, I’ll work with her,” Quinn says airily, playing with the end of her ponytail and tapping her pencil on the desk. She acts like she doesn’t care (why would Quinn Fabray have any reaction to getting paired with a relative social nobody for a project?) but part of her is… looking forward to it. Not only because of her persisting concern about what’s going on with Tina, but also because she does genuinely want to spend time with her. So maybe this is her chance.

She tells Kurt about it at his locker between classes and he rolls his eyes and smiles fondly at her.

It’s the end of the day when Quinn realizes she doesn’t actually have Tina’s number to contact her; it’s too late to ask Kurt or Cedes, she stayed after school to retake a math test and she’s the only one here, as far as she knows.

Except she’s not. There’s another car in the student lot. Quinn glances at it and stops when she realizes someone is sitting in the driver’s seat -- Tina. Before she can talk herself out of it, Quinn walks over and taps on her window.

Maybe she should’ve talked herself out of it, she thinks as Tina jumps and seems to steel herself before rolling down her window. Quinn smiles a little, apologetically. A wave of warm air comes from inside the car, like Tina’s been blasting the heat even in the relatively warm spring weather.

“Um, hey,” Quinn says awkwardly. “So… you weren’t in English today, but we’re doing a project and you and I are partners.” Her voice goes up at the end as if it’s a question. She’s really doubting this now. Tina looks like she’s sick and she’s gripping the steering wheel and not meeting Quinn’s eyes. “Or…” Quinn clears her throat slightly, putting her head Cheerio, most popular girl in school mask back on. “It’s fine if you don’t. Just tell Mrs. Harrison. I’ll do it myself.”

“No,” Tina says, looking up at her finally, and Quinn thinks there’s something different about her eye color. Her smile is tight and forced. “Sounds good.”

Quinn raises an eyebrow. “You sure? Doesn’t sound like it sounds good.”

Tina clenches her jaw. “Yeah, it’s good, sorry, I’m just tired,” she says in one breath. “Here, I’ll, um -- ” She fumbles with her phone and offers it to Quinn. “Put your number in, I’ll text you.”

Quinn’s fingers brush Tina’s when she takes the phone and she almost jumps at how cold her skin is, despite the warmth emanating from the car. Even Kurt, who runs cold, isn’t nearly this cold to Quinn’s own unnaturally warm body temperature…. Her concern grows and she watches Tina for another moment, who’s closed her eyes and leaned back in her seat.

“Are you… okay?” Quinn asks hesitantly.

“I’m fine.”

“Forgive me for saying this? But you… don’t look fine.”

Tina gives her a sideways look. “Yeah, well.” She closes her eyes again.

Quinn enters her number but doesn’t give Tina’s phone back when she’s done. “Hey, seriously, I -- what’s wrong?”

Tina just exhales defeatedly. “I can’t tell you.”

“Try me.”

She shakes her head.

“Your skin is fucking freezing, you have the heat on high in the car in almost 70-degree weather, you look different and not in a good way. I know -- I know we don’t talk much, Tina, but please, let me help you.” Quinn even surprises herself with the last part. It’s far from the hard facade she hides behind at school in her Cheerios uniform, even though she’s still wearing that right now.

Tina stays still and silent and Quinn fidgets with her phone.

“I really don’t know what to do here,” Tina says softly, opening her eyes, glancing at Quinn again then back away. “I literally… have no. Fucking. Clue.” It sounds like she’s talking to herself more than anything and Quinn isn’t sure how to respond.

“Well, I… whatever I can do -- ”

“Have you ever had something… absolutely, absolutely insane happen to you? Like… you would never believe it yourself but it happened to you and you have to fucking deal with it so you have to believe it.” Tina’s breaths come more quickly as she continues, her fists curling tighter around the steering wheel. “And I don’t know how to fucking deal with it, but I fucking have to because -- because I have to and I’m this thing now -- ”

“Hey, Tina, hey, breathe,” Quinn says hurriedly, trying to put a hand on her shoulder but the angle from outside the car window is awkward and she doesn’t know if it would be appreciated. Her mind spins with those words -- you have to believe it, I’m this thing now -- and it’s scarily similar to Quinn’s own thoughts when she first… turned, over three years ago.

But Tina can’t be a werewolf too, her skin… Quinn thinks. Thankfully Tina’s breathing has mostly gone back to normal and she just looks exhausted again, her forehead resting on the steering wheel and hands loose in her lap now. What the fuck. What the fuck am I about to do.

Despite all her instincts and rationale screaming at her not to do it, Quinn says shakily, “I think I get it,” and when Tina turns to look at her, she inhales and says in a whisper, so quiet she’s not sure if Tina can hear, “I’m a werewolf.”

Tina stares and Quinn starts thinking and thinking about how she can take it back, it was a joke, there’s obviously no such thing as werewolves, what the fuck was she saying, what was she thinking revealing this to a near stranger --

“I think… I think I’m technically a vampire.”

Oh. Quinn stares back at her.

Some of the tension seems to have gone out of Tina’s body. There’s another silence. “Can I trust you?” Tina asks quietly.

“What -- ? I mean, yeah…” Quinn swallows. “Yes, you can. Of course. I think if there’s one person you could trust with this, it’s me.”

Please trust me.

“Thank you,” Tina whispers, like she just has no energy to speak louder. “I just can’t think right now, I think I need… like, fucking blood, probably, I don’t know…” She looks down at her hands hopelessly. “I think I might be dying.” She laughs humorlessly. “Again, I guess.”

Quinn thinks for a moment, taking in the almost metallic pallor of Tina’s skin and the difference in her irises that she noticed earlier. “How long have you… been a vampire?”

Is this the answer to what she’s been wondering about?

“A few months, I guess.” (There it is… Quinn wonders if anyone might have noticed something different in her for the months after her first night as a wolf.) “There was another vampire -- nicer than the one who bit me -- ” her voice goes hard and tight on bit -- “who gave me some blood for a while. But I don’t know where they are now. They said they never stayed in one place for a long time. So I guess I’m starving to death. I don’t know.”

“Can’t you, like, get blood… somewhere?”

“I can barely stand talking to you right now, to be honest,” Tina says. “I don’t think I could go near other people right now.”

Right. Quinn curses her complete lack of knowledge on vampires besides that from popular media, which probably doesn’t apply very well to this situation. This feels absolutely ridiculous, though she’s been through weirder herself… still. Her first full moon was a disaster and she doesn’t know how to deal with this either. But…

“I might be able to help,” she says, standing up straighter and finally handing Tina’s phone back to her. Tina pauses before taking it, as if she forgot about it; Quinn has, too, for the most part. The project is definitely not a priority now. “I know absolutely nothing about vampires,” Quinn continues, “but I have my own needs as a werewolf. I know a place -- it’s where I hunt. Animals.”

Tina seems to wince at the words. Quinn vaguely remembers hearing about how Tina doesn’t eat meat, for the most part. She could probably avoid thinking about it when someone else was getting her blood, but this will be direct. This will be a change.

Quinn presses on. “You need blood. Everything in history about vampires says that -- they can’t all be wrong. Please let me help you.”

“Okay,” Tina says weakly, nodding a little. “Give me the address, or whatever -- ”

“I’m driving you. In this car. And staying with you.” Quinn doesn’t back down as Tina’s eyes snap to hers, and her mouth opens to protest. “Seriously. I’m helping you with this. And you’ll crash the car if you drive yourself.”

Her head falls back against the headrest. “You’re lucky I’m exhausted and dying, Fabray,” she grumbles. She gets out and goes around the front of the car into the passenger seat, and Quinn slides into the driver’s seat, putting her bag in the back. She instinctively reaches to turn down the heat, but remembers Tina’s freezing skin.

“You can turn it down,” Tina says. “I don’t even feel cold. I just wanted my skin to feel normal to other people, which clearly wasn’t working.” Quinn gives her a glance to make sure, but Tina is just leaned against the window, body slumped and tired.

She turns it down just a little.

Then remembering something else Tina said earlier, Quinn asks warily, “Are you okay with me in the car right now? I know you said earlier you could barely stand it…”

Tina shrugs. “I mean, I have to be, don’t I?” Quinn doesn’t answer, and Tina looks over at her and chuckles a little. “Don’t worry, Fabray, I won’t kill you and drain your blood. Although it does sound… appetizing right now.”

“Haven’t you read Twilight? My blood tastes awful to vampires,” Quinn jokes, trying to lighten the mood as she pulls the car out of the school parking lot.

“Is that really a thing?”

Quinn laughs lightly. “I think so, I don’t know. But that is something I’m thinking about when it comes to vampires, so I must’ve heard it somewhere.”

Tina hums. “I never read or watched Twilight. My parents wouldn’t let me; my mom said she thought Kristen Stewart seemed like a bitch.” She lets out a short laugh. “The irony.”

“Do your parents know?”

“No. Yours?”

“No.” It’s honestly too easy for Quinn to hide it from her mom and her mom’s boyfriend. They’re never home and when they are, they leave Quinn alone, which is fine by her, especially on full moons or random weird days when she needs to leave. She does whatever the fuck she wants; they don’t question it. She supposes there are worse ways to live, especially while being a werewolf.

“How am I supposed to tell them?” Tina asks, looking out the window. “I thought I’d have to worry about telling them I thought Kristen Stewart was hot, not that I had basically become her -- or, her character.”

“Well, you could lead with the first thing? Maybe that’ll make it a little easier to accept. Or you could lead with the second, and while they’re freaking out about that, just drop in that you like girls.”

“Ha ha.”

“It’s good advice, I just might follow it myself,” Quinn jokes.

“…You like girls?” Tina asks. “Or -- you don’t have to answer that, sorry -- ”

Quinn glances at her. “Yeah.”

“Cool. Let me know how it goes, if you do follow that advice,” Tina teases lightly.

Quinn laughs harshly at the mere thought of coming out to her mom. She might’ve been able to come around about her teenage pregnancy, but Quinn doesn’t miss the tone her voice takes on when she asks about Kurt or when Quinn mentions him, when Quinn’s watching something on TV or reading a book, when she sees something in the news.

“Well I’m not coming out anytime soon.”

“That’s fine,” Tina says, her voice soft and tired but sincere.

“Kurt’s the only other person who knows, though, so… yeah, you know… trust thing.”

“Of course. Thanks for telling me.”

And Quinn does trust Tina, with this, with the werewolf thing… she’s wondering how Tina managed to win her trust so quickly... and friendship.

Hopefully, Tina trusts her enough for what they’re about to do.

“We’re here,” Quinn says, pulling into a dirt area surrounded by woods. She puts the car in park and hears Tina take a deep breath. She looks nervous and Quinn doesn’t need to imagine to have an idea of what’s going through her head right now. She takes one of her freezing hands in her own, holds it between them. “Tina. I’ll be here for you, okay? I’ll help you. Are you ready?”

“Absolutely not. Do you know anything about vampires hunting?”

“Is it so different from turning into a wolf and hunting?” Quinn jokes, then asks seriously, “Do you need a minute?”

“No.” Tina removes her hand to open the door and Quinn misses the contact, the… warmth, even from her cold skin.

When she gets out of the car and comes up next to her, Tina shoots her a grateful smile -- small, but genuine. Something Quinn hasn’t seen in months. She’s missed it.

(Shit, Kurt was right, she thinks, and if this is any indication, she won’t ever get tired of that smile.)

“Thank you, Quinn, for helping me with this.”

“Of course.”

Quinn’s hand suddenly finds itself in Tina’s again, and she can feel Tina’s hand shaking a little. Quinn gives her a small, reassuring squeeze. “Let’s go.”

***

small notes for after bc i didn’t want to “spoil” this before lol !!

this is in the werewolf!quinn / vampire!tina au i’ve written in before :) if u wanna check that out hehe here’s my fic tag :P

this and this are the two that are most connected to this one tho if u want to read :3 especially the second one -- i think that’s kind of a continuation of this fic, or like the next scene i guess

no one really cares but i started out with this prompt thinking about a more canon s1 au where it was tina saying the prompt about quinn during her pregnancy but idk somehow it turned into this instead slfdkjkd

i really didn’t have many notes lmao that’s it thanks for reading if u did <3

#quinntina #tina cohen chang #quinn fabray #glee #glee fic #idk what i need to put as like warnings i guess i'm just trying to think of things i've seen tagged on fics lol #but lmk if anyone needs anything specific tagged <3 #my ficsssss #prompt fills :))#asks #sparrow-mp3 #heck yeah i learned how to save an ask as a draft on desktop without an extension lol #writing and reading this just made me want to write more in this verse lol #some of the stuff i have is actually so soft i'm very happy with it haha #YK WHAT I'M JUST GONNA POST THIS TONIGHT AHHHH LSKGHDFJS #god i'm like honestly kinda nervous about some of this also lmao my cat just jumped in my lap and scared the shit out of me lskghsfj #idk if i'm overthinking everything about this or if it actually does need to be changed lmao idkkk #this also isn't very like romantic quinntina slkdhg sorry about that

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crowdedimagines · 4 years

Text

Happy Ending - Harry Styles

friends to lovers 3.1K 🤩

The long line doesn’t turn me away from my favorite coffee shop. I know it’s worth the wait, I’m sure the warm weather is what’s bringing everyone in so suddenly. I’m in no rush, I just got out of class and all I have waiting for me at home is homework and some vinyls demanding to be played.

I can feel a presence behind me as the line continues to grow behind me.

“Would it make me a complete narcissist if I ask you if that tattoo is related to me?” A voice calls in my ear softly. I turn to meet the face of the man who created the idea behind the tattoo himself. Harry Styles. I follow his eyes as he looks down to the small T P W K printed on the back of my arm in a minimalistic font.

“Yes it would, but that doesn’t mean you would be wrong.” I grin, turning back away from him. Partially so he doesn’t see my blush and so I can try to somewhat maintain my cool. I never thought Harry Styles would actually see my tattoo.

His grin reaches all the way across his face.

“Well in that case I’m flattered.” He hums his eyes drifting to the menu board on the wall.

“You should be, it was my first.” We both laugh.

“Have you ever come here before?” He asks, continuing the conversation.

“Yes, it’s my favorite little spot in L.A.”

“Got any recommendations for a drink?”

I go over a few different drinks with him explaining why I like them. I give him a few options because I honestly don’t know what he likes. Does he want something hot? Iced? Blended? I’m definitely overthinking this, but at least I’m giving him a variety of things to try if he ever comes back.

“Which are you getting?”

I respond with the first drink I started telling him about. He takes a sidestep around me, bypassing me to the register. I didn’t even realize I was next. He orders two of my drinks and pays for them.

“It’s the least I can do for a fan.” He says after I thank him. We both move over to the other end of the counter to wait for our drinks. It looks like the rush might be slowing down.

“So what brought you here? I’m guessing it’s because there’s no way you could ever step foot in Beachwood Cafe ever again.” I tease.

“Yeah, I can’t go there. Not like I used to at least, but I have to say depending on the coffee this place might become my new spot.”

“It’s not usually this busy either. I think it’s the spring fever bringing everyone out today.”

Once we get our drinks he follows me to a table by the window.

“You don’t mind, right?” He pulls out his chair.

“Not at all, I am a bit confused though.”

He nods for me to continue while he takes a sip of his coffee.

“I don’t think you hangout with every fan you meet. Especially not in a public place like this. So what gives.”

He snorts softly at my blunt question, but I had to know. It was secretly eating away at me, why would he choose me to spend his time with?

“Since we’re speaking bluntly,” He pauses to lean forward on his arms on the table, “I feel drawn to you. You seem like someone I would enjoy spending time with. I don’t typically pass that sort of thing up.”

“You want to spend time with me? What if I’m some crazed fan?” I grin. It’s weird how comfortable I feel around him. I feel like I already know him, but somehow he’s welcomed me in. Our conversation comes with ease.

“Trust me, if that were the case I would’ve known by now. I wouldn’t have engaged any further.” He laughs.

“Wow, so that’s how it is. You decided I’m probably not delusional?”

“You can never be too careful.” He shrugs, “Plus I needed to get to know the girl who got a tattoo after one of my songs.”

“Actually I got it before the song.” I correct with a laugh, “I liked the message when you came out with it as part of your brand. Treat people with kindness is a good thing to remember. The fact that you created a song for it is just a bonus.”

We sit and talk for nearly a half an hour. I never thought I would be able to keep myself focused and composed, but after the first minute you realize he’s just a human. The conversation flows easily, never an awkward lull.

“Well, I actually have to go. I have so much work I need to do and I wasn’t planning on staying when I ran in here.”

What am I doing? How often do you get to sit and talk with Harry Styles? Homework can wait!

“Yeah, I should probably be going too.” He gets up and we walk slowly towards the door, he holds it open for me and we’re greeted with a warm breeze.

“Well it was really nice to talk to you. Get to know the man behind the music a little better.” I smile, his cheeks tint pink.

“You too. It was nice to get to know the girl behind the tattoo a little better as well.”

“Have a nice day, Harry.” I smile and turn to walk away.

“Y/n, wait.” His voice calls, saying my name out loud for the first time. I turn around to see he’s taken a few large steps to catch up. “Can I ask for your phone number? I don’t want this to be the end of our story.”

My heart starts racing at his words.

“And what exactly do you want to be the end of our story?”

“I’ll let you know once we’re there.”

It’s been nearly four months since I first met Harry. After I gave him my number that day it’s been nonstop communication. Him calling while he travels far away, texts between my classes and his meetings, but my favorite are when I actually get to see him.

“Harry!” I yell, letting myself into the unlocked house.

Still no answer.

“Harry!” I call again as I kick off my shoes and set down my bag, “You know as a big time celebrity you really shouldn’t leave your front door unlocked.”

Still no answer.

I let myself wander around trying to find the boy I’ve grown so close with. His large Malibu home leaves plenty of places for him to be. I check the kitchen, living room, dining room, and his office before I go upstairs. In hindsight, his bedroom should’ve been the first place I looked once he wasn’t answering.

“Hey.” He calls from inside his walk in closet.

“Hi.” I groan, letting myself fall back on his bed.

“Long day?” He asks, coming out as he pulls a shirt on over his head.

“Yeah, just a presentation I need to do next week was assigned today. It’s going to suck, I’m already dreading it.”

He walks over and throws himself down on the bed next to me, laying parallel while we both stare at the ceiling.

“I’m sure you’ll smash it. What has you dreading it?”

“It’s just with the worst professor, he’s known for making students cry on the spot. He literally has the worst reputation on campus. He interrupts you and corrects you, announcing your points off as you go. He’s insane.”

“That sounds awful. Can he really do that?”

“I don’t know, I think so. I’ve only ever heard horror stories.”

“Well since you’re in such a shit mood, I’ll let you pick the movie.” He holds out a hand to pull me up off the bed.

“Hey, I’m not in a shit mood!” I grumble.

“You came in all mopey.” Harry teases.

“I’m not mopey.” I roll my eyes, “You asked me what was wrong, so I told you.”

“I know, now let's go make dinner.”

He presses a fast kiss to my cheek before he places a hand on each shoulder with a squeeze, leading me out of his room and down the stairs. It’s brief moments like these where I question our friendship. If that's what you can call it. He is by far the touchiest and most cuddly friend I’ve ever had. Not that I mind, I just wish there was the tiniest bit more clarity to the situation.

“Pasta?” He asks, opening his cupboard and looking around.

“Yes!” I cheer.

It’s been a tradition of ours for two months now that if he’s in town we have a movie night which consists of us making a meal from scratch beforehand.

“Have you ever made homemade pasta before?” I ask, reaching for the flour and other ingredients I know we’ll need.

“Twice. Both times I think I made Gem do all the work.”

I roll my eyes muttering a ‘sounds about right’.

“What was that missy?” he asks, bumping his hip into mine.

“Nothing.” I grin.

“Hmm sounds like you said something, love.” His voice just a whisper in my ear. His breath is warm against my face, raising goosebumps everywhere else on my body. Before I can even move a muscle, he’s gone to grab something on the other side of the kitchen. Unfazed by his actions.

Harry puts on some music and we both get to work. The dough is setting up in the fridge while we cut vegetables and prepare other things we’ll need.

“So you’re telling me that you’ve never really made pasta before, but you have a pasta maker?”

“Yeah, so what?” I roll my eyes.

I throw some flour on the counter so I can roll out the dough so cut into strips to run through the machine. Harry grabs his phone, busy finding a new playlist to listen to. I grab a small pinch of flour and throw it at him. The front of him is now powdered white.

“You did not just do that.” He mutters quietly as he looks down to his now white shirt.

“Hmm, sounds like you’ve said something, love?” I echo his words back to him. He tries to cover up his grin, but fails.

“What happened to treating people with kindness?” He asks, “You like it enough to get it tattooed on ya, but ya can’t even be nice to me.”

I let out a laugh, my tattoo has been something he enjoys teasing me about. He likes to hold it over my head that before we became friends I was a fan.

“You’ve just started a war.” He sets down his phone and takes a few steps closer, I take steps back until I meet the kitchen island. Harry reaches behind me and takes a handful off the counter.

“Now Harry, that’s way more than I did.” I remind, seeing his fistful of flour hanging over me.

“Who said I’m trying to get even?”

Without another second he opens his hand, letting flour rain down on me. I duck and try to avoid as much as I can, which is a failure. I can tell I must look ridiculous by the way Harry starts laughing.

I brush it off my face with as much grace as I can.

“That was a mistake.”

“Oh was it now? Because to me it seems to me you are the one coated in flour right now.”

“That’s about to change.”

We both tear off chasing after each other. Mainly me chasing Harry because I have the flour bag in hand. Miscellaneous vegetables fly through the air as we target each other. We both manage to douse the other a few more times in flour before he finally catches me by my waist. I let out a scream as he picks me up off the ground.

“Truce?” He asks.

“Truce.”

He puts me back down and I can finally get a good look at the damage. His cabinets and the floor are splattered with flour. Each step we take, more falls off of us. Bits of carrots, broccoli, and tomatoes all over the floor.

“Okay, you call for pizza and I’ll start cleaning this up.”

“Sounds like a great idea.” Harry agrees, he grabs his phone.

I grab the broom and start cleaning everything up. I wipe down the counter and the other spots that were hit.

“Alright pizza will be here in thirty minutes.” Harry announces coming back in.

“That’s perfect because we both need a shower.”

I pull my shirt off over my head and fold it in on itself to avoid sprinkling it anywhere else.

“So you plan on doing that right here?” He asks teasingly?

“No.” I roll my eyes, “We are literally dripping flour, I just cleaned this up. I’m not tracking this all over the house again.”

I walk to his laundry room and take off the rest of my clothes, leaving me in my bra and underwear, Harry follows me in realizing I was right. I catch his eyes on me a few times which makes me realize he’s never seen me in this little clothing. We’ve been close for months, but never without clothes.

“You can take the shower in the guest room, that one should have some towels and shampoo and whatnot.” Harry informs as I follow him upstairs.

“Thanks.”

The shower was nice, and much needed. I could get used to showering here. The water was truly hot and the water pressure was insane. Even his guest bathroom shower could fit at least two of the one in my apartment. I’m drying myself off when there’s a soft knock at my door. I wrap the towel around me tightly before opening it.

“Here. I thought you might need something else to wear.” Harry hands me a stack of clothes that I know belong to him.

“Thanks.” I smile.

He pushes wet curls back, running a hand through them.

“The pizza just got here.”

“I’ll be right down.”

I look over the sweatshirt and a pair of boxers that he gave me. I’ve worn an outfit similar a few times here when I’ve slept over when I wasn’t planning on it. It’s all so soft and it smells like him.

“So what’s your pick?” He asks, going over the movie selection. I decide on a rom-com that we surprisingly haven’t watched together yet.

We both eat our pizza before wanting to shift. Harry lays down the length of the couch and I tuck myself next to him. His arm resting on my waist as we share a pillow.

“I can’t believe it’s been how long and we haven’t watched Sweet Home Alabama.” I grin, “It’s a classic.”

“I didn’t know it was one of your favorites.” He comments, looking down at me. It takes me a second to not get lost in his green eyes.

“Yeah, I just love a happy ending.”

“Me too.”

We continue to watch the rest of the movie for a while in comfortable silence. I think for some reason Harry’s nervous. Two minutes ago he moves his hand to my hip, I don’t think he knows that he’s tapping on it.

“Har, are you okay?” I look over my shoulder.

“Hmm?” He looks down.

“Are you alright?” I ask, “You’re tapping.”

He follows my gaze down to his hand and he stops immediately.

“Sorry.” He sighs.

“It’s alright, are you okay? Do you need to talk about something?”

I can’t figure out where this is coming from. I have only seen him look this anxious a few times.

“Yeah, I do actually.” He sits up, pulling me up with him. I turn to face him, he reaches for the remote to turn down the volume of the movie.

“I’m all ears, H.” I reach out my hand to him.

He smiles looking at our connected hands and takes a deep breath.

“I’m in love with you, Y/n. I know we’ve been friends for months, but I would be lying if I said that that’s all I want for us. I have never felt this way about someone before, since I met you. I knew that you were someone I needed to know. And now that I know you, I want to know all of you, Y/n. I understand if you don’t feel the same way, I just needed to tell you. I think that you’re worth how scary this is right now. I really love you, Y/n.”

He lets out a long sigh once he’s done. A visible weight lifted off his shoulders.

“I love you too, Harry.” I grin. “I have loved you since before I even knew you, and now that I do I love you even more. It’s hard to believe there was ever a time where you weren’t in my life.”

I pull him down on top of me in a bone crushing hug as we fall back on the couch.

“Thank god.” He mutters into my hair.

I let out a laugh and rub up and down his back.

“Will you please be my girlfriend?” He sits up, pulling away slightly to get a good look at me.

“Only if you’ll be my boyfriend.”

“Deal.”

He litters my face with kisses, all except the one place they’ve never been.

“Hey.” I grab his attention, pulling it from the kiss he was planting on my forehead, “If I’m your girlfriend now, I want a real kiss.”

“I think I can manage.”

He brings his head down, I bring my hand up to his jawline. I run it up until I hit his hair, giving it a good tug. I guide his face towards mine until our lips finally meet. I can feel we’re both smiling right now, until we deepen it. Just enough to last a few seconds and get a taste of what we’ve both been craving for months. I would have to say it’s a perfect first kiss.

We both snuggle back in the way we were laying previously. The only difference is we both have goofy grins now that are impossible to wipe off.

“So, is this the ending you wanted for our story?” I ask after a few minutes of watching the movie, turning over my shoulder to look at him. I could never forget what he said the first time we met.

“You want to know what our ending will be?” I nod eagerly, he reaches out to brush a piece of hair away from my face.

“Our ending will be us, old and wrinkled on the beach somewhere. Kids. Grandkids. That’s what I want to be our ending.”

“I think I like our ending.” I peck my lips against his.

“Me too.”

please let me know what you thought below! love feedback xoxo

#harry styles imagine #harry styles x reader #Harry Styles

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fivefeetfear · 3 years

Text

Chapter 4

.............................

(Y/N) spent about an hour showing Spinel around the small town, giving the pink gem a rundown of the tiny metropolis. At some point Spinel stopped processing the words the short girl was saying since her brain seems to be on the fritz as alarms went off in her head. Because at this very moment (Y/N) was holding her hand. She was holding (Y/N) hand. They are holding hands! This was all she could think about for the last hour; they're laced fingers locked together. It felt nice. However, as a means of distraction from the hand holding, the pink gem began to pay attention to (Y/N) facial expressions. The taller gem admiring every smile line whenever she smiled, or the way her eyebrows knitted together or the way her cute nose scrunches up! This isn’t helping. Spinel averts her eyes when the (Y/G) would glance up at her. She could feel her cheeks glowing pink. Shit she was almost caught staring! Little did Spinel knew, she was, a few times, and it only made (Y/N) smile as she walked closer to Spinel; their arms brushing against one another every so often.

"Ok, I think it's time for us to take a break. I'm going to take you to my favorite ice cream shop! They have the best (F/F) ever! It's so creamy and sweet, I know you'll love it." She sighs softly ready to have her favorite frozen treat.

"There it is!" The (C/G) gem calls out happily, (Y/N) picks up her pace as she tugs the pink gem along. Spinel grins to herself eagerness; she had a feeling she has to get used to the idea of her arm possibly be dislocated. And she was ok with that. The two approached a cute yellow shop with a large neon sign reading "Scoops". Before the two made it to the door, the tall gem used her stretching abilities to open the door and gestured for (Y/N) to go first.

"After you ." Spinel says softly.

"Thank you." Y/N replies as she walked into the chilly shop. The two made their way to the front, standing at the register was a short teal Opal gem, she waves at them politely as she glanced at the familiar (Y/G)

"Would you like your usual Ms. (Y/N)?" Opal asks getting ready to punch in the order.

"Yes!" the (Y/G) answers nearly rocking in place, eyes wide with childlike wonder. The teal Opal looks over at Spinel and asks her for her order too.

"I'll take a raspberry cone please." The magenta gem orders. The list was huge so she just called out the first one she could see. Food wasn’t her thing but she enjoys sweets.

"Ok, your total will be $7.45." Opal confirms with a bright smile. Spinel reached into her sweater pocket to pull out her money, Steven had given her some for the outing. The slim gem then glances over sees (Y/N) pulling out her wallet from her dress pocket. Um no? She was not about to let this cutie pay for her, not on her watch. With a heavy sigh, Spinel begrudgingly releases the short gem's hand. The pink gem stretches her arm around (Y/N) and swipes the wallet from her grasp. (E/C) eyes widen as they followed the hand as it springs back to Spinel. The pink gem tucked it away in her sweater for safekeeping.

"Spi-"

"I gotcha covered." She says coolly giving the cashier the proper amount of money.

"But you're my guest; I'm supposed to treat you." The (Y/G) explains as she pouts gazing up at the pink girl. God, she's too damn cute for her own sake. It wasn't fair on how big of an impact (Y/N) has over her already. Spinel averts her eyes away as she rubs the back of her neck.

"It's the least I could do for you for being so nice to me." Spinel informs as she gives (Y/N) a shy smile. (Y/N) chest tighten as her cheeks lit up. This was the first time she has seen Spinel smile! And it was so cute! The (E/C) eyed female could feel the gem on her neck grow warm as she memorized the wrinkles by Spinel's eyes. The short gem hums thoughtfully before taking the frozen treats.

"Fine, but next time I'm treating!" she says, playfully bumping hips with the taller gem. Spinel's left brow quirks up as her orbs followed her retreating figure. Next time? She wanted to ask what she meant by that but decided against it. Maybe when they were lone.

................................

The pair made their way across the street to a large park in the middle of Little Homeworld. They sat on a bench as they finished their frozen treats in a comfortable silence. Spinel watched as other couples wander the park enjoying the warm weather. Her eyes spotted two gems holding hands as they sat on the swing beside each other. Her eyes drifted down towards (Y/N) petite hands that rested next to hers. Feeling warm under the collar, Spinel tried to summon the courage to touch her hand, but she couldn't do it! The pink gem was in an internal war with herself as she trembled in her spot wanting to have physical connect with her again. UGHHH why was she so pathetic!

"Spinel?"

"Yes!" the pink gem shouts nervously startling (Y/N).

"I-I'm sorry! I didn't mean t-to shout." (Y/G) waves it off as she leans in closer into Spinel's personal space.

"Don’t worry about it, I just wanted to make sure you were having.” (Y/N) hums sweetly as she swings her short legs, her feet barely touching the ground.

"Y-yeah, I'm having f-fun, but I've b-been meaning to ask y-you something. S-something that d-doesn't make any sense." Spinel informs, her voice trailed off at the end. (Y/N) stops swinging her feet and turned her body to let Spinel know she has her full attention.

"Sure, what is it?" Spinel could feel every atom in her body shaking with fear, her chest constricting tightly with each second that goes by. Relax, she needed to....relax. The pink gem took in a deep breath holding it for ten seconds and slowly releasing it. Ok, she could do this. Spinel lifts her head higher as she shifts her magenta orbs to look directly into (E/C) eyes.

"At the ice cream parlor you said, you’ll be treating next time. What did you mean by that?” (Y/N) blinks her eyes several times as she tilts her head to the side.

“Well it means I would like to hang out without with again.” The curvy gem answers like it was obvious. Or at least she thought SHE was being obvious about her crush towards Spinel.

“See thats what I don’t get? Why do you want to hang out with me again?” Spinel quips anxiously back needing more clarity. Why would she want to be around her! Spinel knew (F/N) and everyone in Little Homeworld knew who she is! They have to know what she has done! And if she does why does she wants to be even near her!!

"Because you're nice." (Y/N) answers simply as she waited for the slender gems reaction. The (Y/G) didn’t understand why this was so important to Spinel. It seems like she wants a life altering answer on why she wants to be spend time with her but she doesn’t have one.

The dots were not connecting for the pink gem and it was beginning to irritate her. Spinel sat unmoving on the bench as she stared down at the (Y/G), her expression completely unreadable. (Y/N) began to shift her eyes around growing nervous under the magenta hues. Did she say something wrong? Before (Y/N) could speak, Spinel started chuckling to herself, it gradually got louder and it threw (Y/N) completely off guard. It was not a happy laugh either, it was a laugh empty of joy and filled to the brim with bitterness.

"W-what's so funny?" (Y/N) asks meekly. Spinel quicks her laughing then snaps her attention back to the short gem as she frowns in disdain.

"You. You're what's funny!" she responses mockingly. Ok? The short girl's eyes widen with confusions as she grips the hem of her dress in firmly completely confused what is happening. Spinel resumes her spiteful laughter as she leans forward placing her elbows on her knees. The pink gem felt like she had completely crashed and could not help the uncontrollable laughter that erupted from her form. Spinel has spent the majority of the day thinking about why a talented and beautiful gem such as (Y/N) wanted to hang around her? A gem that is twisted and completely unstable! And to hear her say it was because she thinks she is nice! What a joke! Where on earth would she get that idea from? Spinel hasn't done anything nice in her life! All she has ever been was a burden!

The self-hatred laughter died down, she then sharpens her eyes in a scowl. Her teeth gritted down as the pink gem felt the fire of distrust burn within. Was she toying with her? (Y/N) has to know who she is and what she has done, right?! Of course, she knows! She is friends with the Crystal Gems! Maybe this was a setup! Was she using some form of reverse psychology? Maybe this was all some elaborate plan to see if she is still as unhinged as the day she left.Why else would she be gaslighting her like this? Paranoia floods her mind drowning any rational thought she had left. Spinel felt her eyebrows twitch uncontrollably as she let her insecurity devour her.

"Did you hit your head or something? Or are you always this full of shit? Why would you think that? I know you heard about me and what I've done. I gave you no reason to believe I am nice. Was it because I bought you ice-cream, mmhm!? If that's your only proof then you set the standards for yourself pretty damn low! It's sad really! If that's all that it takes for you to consider ME nice to consider hanging out with me, I can’t imagine what I have to do to get between your legs." Spinel cracks with a sadistic grin.

(Y/N) eyes widen in anger as she stood up from the spot on the bench, her hand glowing a bright (F/C) as she reeled it back as far as she can and swung it forward with all her might. She refused to let anyone talk to her like that.

SLAP

Spinel head swirls around from the powerful impact as she hisses in pain. Damn, that really hurt, she knew it was going to leave a nasty bruise. The pink gem unwind her neck as she cupped her injured cheek, her eyes meeting teary (E/C) ones. (Y/N) breathed heavily in anger as her tiny hands shook with rage.

"You are such-"

"A bitch? Asshole? Monster?!" Spinel suggested with a crooked smile. The pink gem felt her figurative heartbreak knowing this was her defense mechanism trying to protect her. Protecting her from any more pain. The hatred that she harbors for herself had completely overruled Spinel's hope for any potential relationship with (Y/N). She knew she was already attached to the (Y/G), and it scared her on how quickly it happened. The magenta gem refused to let anyone have that kind of hold on her again.

(Y/N) seethed in rage as her fists glowed once more, angry tears building up in her eyes.

"To t-think you...you...fuck!" (Y/N) growls under her breath, choking on her tears. How did this happen? How did this day take a wild one eighty!? (Y/N) saw a crowd begin to form and it took everything inside her to ignore the stares.

"To think what? That I was NICE?" Spinel snaps as she reaches over and grabs (Y/N) wrist.

"Oh I'm a swell gal alright. I'm sooooo nice that I brought an injector to earth filled with Bio-Poison to kill your precious Steven! To completely wipe him out from existence right along with the planet and his friends! YOUR friends! So please tell me what it is that you?!” Spinel demands as she glared harshly at (Y/N). The furious gem began to tower over the (G/C) girl as she grabs her other wrist to yank her closer, staring directly into (E/C) hues trying to figure out what her aim is.

"ANSWER ME!" She screams into the short gem's face, panic laced within her words.

"To think you were the one that found me!" (Y/N) roars back into the Spinel's face refusing to let the pink gem intimidate her. Spinel's face contours in confusion when her words-processed in her head. Found her? What did she mean by that?

(Y/N) growls as a blinding white light consumed her form, this startled Spinel as her grasped loosen around her wrist. The (G/C) gem latched her hands onto Spinel's forearms keeping her in place.

"Let go of me!" Spinel yells frantically trying to escape the iron grip of the short gem, but no dice. The light then creeps up onto the base of Spinel's forearms and spread to the rest of her body. This kicked her into panic mode as her eyes dilated in fear, feeling her skin heating up.

The two then vanished into thin air.

#spinel #spinel steven universe #steven universe #cute #fanfic #love #reader #spinel x reader #su #spinel x self insert #spinel x you #spinel x fanfic #spinel x y/n

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slippinmickeys · 3 years

Text

The Dreaming Tree (2/4)

...A broom is drearily sweeping

Up the broken pieces of yesterday's life

Somewhere a queen is weeping

Somewhere a king has no wife

And the wind, it cries Mary...

Harbor Springs, Michigan

July 1, 1999

9:02am

A local DNR conservation officer had agreed to meet her at the site first thing the next morning, but had not yet arrived when Scully parked the rental sedan under the Coming Soon! development sign. She had dropped off Mulder at the local library before pulling out a pair of hiking boots from the backseat and swapping them out with her heels. Thus outfitted, she had driven north.

Despite dressing more sensibly for her venture, she still stepped carefully over the rutted, muddy two track that led into the woods, the pungent smell of humus a welcome assault on her nose. She decided to look around on her own, heading for the area where the various Dreamers had lunched the week prior.

The sun was midway through the morning sky, and the poplar leaves twisted in a cool breeze; the underside of them lighter than the tops, like the belly of a sunfish. Construction work had shut down for a couple of hours to accommodate her investigation.

The forest was teeming, fecund, half-choked with chlorophyll, the air filled with the high whine of katydids screaming at her from the canopy. She felt like she had stepped into another epoch; prehistoric and riotous with life.

The big equipment had churned a lot of the forest floor into a chunky, muddy mess, and her hope of finding evidence -- if there was any to be found -- seemed about as likely as her mother converting to Buddhism. It probably wasn’t worth setting up a grid.

Her thoughts drifted to Mulder as she stepped over trout lily and larch. What would he find that she might miss? His intuition was otherworldly, and even after seven years -- especially after seven years -- he could make connections she hadn’t ever considered. And he’d never once looked down on her for it. He’d never once treated her as anything less than an equal. If anything, he put her on a pedestal she didn’t feel she deserved. He was erudite and occasionally conscientious. He loved her with a fierceness she didn’t dare contemplate.

Staring at the weathered heart and initials carved into it, she decided to start at the pine tree and work her way out, hoping the conservation officer would arrive soon and perhaps let her know what she was looking for. Scully reached out a hand and touched the bark of the tree -- it was warm, though the trunk had been in the shade. It gave off a pleasant, earthy scent, and she pulled her hand back, tapping her fingers together, sticky with sap.

She heard something behind her and turned, seeing a tall brunette in a greyish green uniform making her way toward Scully through the bracken. Her hair was pulled up tightly into a low bun, giving her a severe look, but she wore a smile and had a pleasant mien. The woman raised a friendly hand.

“You Special Agent Scully?” she called out.

“I am,” Scully called back, returning the smile and stepping forward.

“I’m Polaski,” the officer said, shaking Scully’s hand as she stepped over a fallen branch. “I have to say it’s refreshing to find you’re a woman.”

“Likewise,” Scully said. The woman took a moment to look around the forest and construction site.

“Geez,” Polaski said, “I like the woods better when they stay woods.” She straightened. “So how did you need my assistance? My sergeant only told me that the FBI was working a case and needed a local flora/fauna expert. He said he didn’t know what the case was.”

Scully wasn’t sure she did either.

“We’ve got some victims experiencing… something akin to hallucinations. The only thing the victims have in common is their presence at this site. The only time all the victims were in the same place was when they all shared a meal in this general area. I was hoping you might assist me in identifying any possible naturally occurring hallucinogens or flora containing psychotropic elements. Are there any you’re aware of that grow locally?”

Polaski nodded, the leather of her utility belt creaking as she leaned back contemplatively.

“Off the top of my head… there’s a couple of mushrooms: fly agaric, big laughing gym. Then there’s unripe red mulberries, though it doesn’t affect everyone the same. And I’ve known some old timers who’ve used sassafras.”

“In what way?” Scully asked.

“Safrole,” Polaski answered, “the oil from the sassafras root can be used to make... whatcha call it, MDA.”

“Methylenedioxyamphetamine?”

Polaski nodded. “Makes better root beer, you ask me.”

“Would you be able to survey the area with me, let me know if you see any of the flora you mentioned?”

“Let’s get to it,” Polaski suggested.

They made their way in concentric circles, the conservation officer occasionally pointing out this or that, none of which were what they were looking for. By the time they’d gotten to the area around the entrance of the site, the sun was at midday high and they hadn’t found a thing.

“Can you explain to me the nature of the hallucinations?” Polanski finally asked.

Scully felt Mulder’s own words form within the confines of her mouth and smiled at the intrusion. What could she tell this woman without sounding crazy?

“The victims appear to be, at the very least, sharing dreams. With physical ramifications.”

“Such as?” Polaski asked, though her tone was of open curiosity rather than the doubtful disdain Scully had been half expecting. With only a momentary pause, Scully opened up to her, giving her some of the stranger details of the case.

“Well, shit,” Polaski said, and Scully wasn’t sure if there had yet been a more succinct reaction to the case.

“Pretty much.”

Polaski leaned against a yellow articulated dump truck that was parked just within the tree line off the highway.

“Sorry I couldn’t be of more help, Agent Scully,” she said.

“On the contrary, you were a tremendous help, Officer Polaski, I thank you.”

“This case,” Polaski hedged, “sounds pretty odd. You want me to take a look at state-wide records, see if I can pull anything with similar overtones?”

“If you’re offering, I’ll accept, but are you sure you’ve got the time?”

“Beats getting mosquito bites while busting anglers without a license. Let me take the afternoon, see what I can find.”

With that, Polaski pushed off the Caterpillar and nodded once at Scully, who followed her back to their respective vehicles and pointed her internal compass toward Mulder.

XxXxXxXxXxX

Best Western Motel

Petoskey, Michigan

11:23am

From the dozen or so phone calls that he’d made, it seemed the school had been run by nuns from the Holy Childhood sect, which had been a part of the Diocese of Gaylord, a town forty minutes southeast. However, when Mulder called the Diocese of Gaylord, which had been established in 1971, he was redirected to the Diocese of Grand Rapids, a further three hours downstate because it had been overseeing Holy Childhood before ‘71. School records seemed to be scattered to the four winds, though an older secretary in Gaylord told Mulder in confidence that she remembered the Mother Superior had been close with the priest at the St. Francis Xavier church the next town over -- otherwise, school records would be “forthcoming,” whatever that meant.

Mulder brought a hand to his temple as he relayed this information to Scully.

“Any luck in the woods?” he asked.

“No,” Scully said, “though the conservation officer I worked with offered to look through state cases for anything similar. Otherwise, we got bupkis.”

“Not quite bupkis,” Mulder said, handing her a sheet of paper. “I went through old newspaper articles and was able to track down some old pictures of students from the school. Those from the last thirty years had some names included on the captions and I was able to cross reference the names with records from the local Secretary of State office. This is a list of former students I was able to track down that are still local.”

Scully looked over the list.

“There’s not many,” she said, looking up at him. There were only three.

It was indeed a pitifully small number for the hours of work he’d put in. If he never sat in front of another microfiche machine, he might die happy.

“There’s not. But it’s a place to start.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I figure we can interview some former students and maybe get more insight into the area. Up until two months ago, the only thing up there was the school. Maybe we’ll find a connection.”

“It’s as good a plan as any,” she said.

XxXxXxXxXxX

Bay View Inn,

Harbor Springs, Michigan

1:34pm

They found Argyle Petoskey at his job, waiting tables at an upscale inn and restaurant that had been converted from a Victorian mansion in one of the chautauquas of Harbor Springs. The day was turning hot; Mulder had left his jacket in the car, and even Scully had opted to wear only a blouse on top, changing from her hiking gear back into her pencil skirt and heels in the library bathroom.

Argyle’s manager pointed them out back, where they found him leaning against the wall of the loading dock smoking a cigarette, dressed in a restaurant uniform version of a tuxedo, the pre-tied bowtie hanging loose around his unbuttoned collar. When they introduced themselves, he flicked the cigarette off into a puddle and jumped down to greet them, leaking smoke from his mouth.

“What’s this about?”

“We’re looking into the Holy Childhood school,” Mulder said, assessing the man before him. He had short, dark hair and intense brown eyes and what Mulder supposed passed for a mustache. Argyle’s eyebrows rose at this.

“You mean the federal government is actually looking into the shit that happened at Indian schools?”

Mulder, interest piqued, made a mental note to further investigate and simply said, “Can you tell us about your experiences there?”

Argyle took a breath and blew it out, then fished a foil-wrapped stick of wintergreen gum from his pocket and shoved it in his mouth.

“The school was actually pretty good for me,” he shrugged, “I didn’t come from the most stable home. I got my diploma, kept my nose clean. And I, uh, wasn’t on the receiving end of some of the bad shit that went down.”

“Abuse?” Scully finally spoke up.

Argyle gave her a once-over, his eyes lingering at her cross necklace.

“Like I said, not to me. But I did know some people it probably happened to.”

Mulder nodded. “What was it like when you were there? How many kids?”

“Not many when I was there. I graduated in ‘82 right before they shut it down. After ‘78, a lot of Native families stopped sending their kids. But it was okay. Taught me how to play sports, kept me out of trouble.” He hunched up a shoulder. “Kept me away from my dad’s belt. I made a lot of friends.”

“I didn’t see any playing fields up there, where did you guys practice your sports?” Mulder asked.

“Oh, we’d play lacrosse on the front lawn in front of the school until the nuns yelled, but otherwise the local high school let us use their gym and fields and stuff.”

Argyle looked over his shoulder at the door.

“What about out past the school? Looks like the school owned a lot of the land up there. Anyone ever experience anything strange out in the forest?” Scully asked.

“Like love by the dashboard light?” Argyle chuckled. “No, we didn’t go out in those woods. All the kids said it was haunted. We stayed away.”

“Haunted?” Mulder asked, “by whom?”

“A dead student? Some hunter? An old tribal chief? Your guess is as good as mine. I heard ‘em all. Probably an urban legend. I bet every boarding school has one. Listen, are we almost done here? My shift is about to start.”

“Sure,” Mulder said, handing him a business card, “you mind giving us a list of some of your friends from the school? You don’t need to do it right now.”

��And get blamed for sending the Feds to their door? Fat chance. Listen,” he said, jumping back up onto the loading dock, and tucking the card into a back pocket, “I’ll put the word out. You staying locally?”

Mulder nodded. “The Best Western on US-31.”

Argyle nodded back, waved. “Good luck.”

XxXxXxXxXxX

Petoskey, Michigan

4:56pm

The second student on their list -- Stan Skippergosh -- told them roughly the same thing that Argyle Petoskey had, only in a far less succinct way. It was nearing 5:00pm by the time they headed toward the house of the last student on their list.

The road that led out of town turned country at a stop light: to the west toward the lake were businesses and doctors’ offices, churches and schools, but past the stop light it was all pasture. The road dipped with the countryside, and then climbed up steeply, the banks on either side covered in field grass and Queen Anne’s Lace, the air thick with the buzz of insects and the rich tang of grass blades leeching oxygen. It was mostly farmland with the occasional suburban house, small yards carved out of fields and dotted with swingsets and boxes of geraniums.

Leonard Naganashe lived past the fields and farmland, past where the forest began, and Scully’s Mapquest printout was not quite cutting it -- they had to double back twice and ended up finding his road on their own. The driveway wound like a river through the trees, fresh gravel popping under their tires, and Mulder only noticed the tops of the trees when Scully pointed them out.

“Mulder,” Scully said, leaning forward and squinting through the windshield, “look at the canopy.”

At first it was only one or two trees, the tops of which had been blown off and charred, but as they approached the house it seemed as though nearly all the tall trees surrounding the house were similarly affected, a few with the tops blown off, but many, more of them affected than not, with long perpendicular lines scarring their trunks. Hemlock or birch, beech or maple, none were spared.

The house, in a small clearing at the end of the drive, was a quaint one-story ranch that had simple metal finials attached to all four corners. Lightning rods. Mulder flashed on Darin Peter Oswald and gave Scully a significant look over the console.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Mulder said, throwing the sedan into park and cutting the engine.

The heat hit them like a force when they stepped out of the air conditioned confines of the car, the humidity as thick as bisque. Mulder pulled uncomfortably at his tie as they stepped up onto the landing and pushed the doorbell. When no sound came from inside the house, Scully gave the door two sharp raps. A moment later, a woman appeared, her face wearing a look of wary apprehension. She spoke through the screen door, but did not open it.

“What do you want?” she inquired.

“Is this the residence of Leonard Naganashe?” Scully ventured.

“Who’s asking?”

Mulder and Scully both pulled out their badges, holding them up briefly at face-level.

“What’s he done?” the woman asked.

“Nothing,” Mulder said, repocketing his badge. “Leonard attended the Holy Childhood Boarding School in Harbor Springs. We’re trying to get some background. He’s one of the few former students that still lives in the area.”

The woman snorted. “Nothing good ever came from that school. Leonard included,” she replied. “I should know.”

“Did you attend the school as well, ma’am?” Scully queried from beside Mulder’s elbow.

The woman didn’t answer at first, and Mulder could see her face cloud over.

“I graduated in ‘82,” she finally said.

“What’s your name?” Mulder asked.

“Mary.”

“Can we talk to you about the school?” he requested.

“No,” Mary said curtly. “Leonard took off about a month ago. You find him, you tell him I got papers for him to sign.”

With that, the door closed in their faces.

XxXxXxXxXxX

Best Western Motel

Petoskey, Michigan

7:23pm

They were north of the 45th Parallel -- closer to the north pole than the equator and the summer days seem to last forever -- it was light before 5:00, it was dark after 10:00. The sun shone on and on.

Their hotel was neither the worst nor the best they’d ever stayed in -- just off the highway, but tucked back into the trees of a cedar swamp, each room opened out onto the small parking lot with suburban woods beyond it. Their respective rooms were on either end of the long row, and they’d set up camp in Scully’s, at the far end away from the motel office. Mulder closed the door on the damp cedar brine and kicked off his shoes.

The A/C unit rattled in the window but was cooling the room admirably. It was late and Scully was on her second piece of pizza after realizing that she’d had nothing all day but a stale mini bagel from the motel’s ‘continental’ spread and a hot slug of bad coffee she’d made from the little pot on the small vanity outside her bathroom.

“Are you still thinking this is some kind of mass hallucination?” Mulder asked her around a mouthful of sausage and pepper.

She could tell he was feeling her out, gauging her hostility toward his more outlandish theories.

“I don’t know what to think, Mulder,” she said. “The details of this case, so far as we have uncovered them, leave a lot more questions than answers.”

“I will give you that.” He sighed, wiped his mouth, crumpled up the napkin and threw it in a perfect arc into the trash can. She gave him the ghost of an impressed smile.

“You think it’s a haunting of some sort?” she walked her own napkin, and the flimsy paper plate the pizzeria had given them, over to the trash can and deposited them sensibly.

He gave a mock shiver. “Don’t get me too excited Scully, we’re in the same motel room after hours.”

She wondered briefly what he would do if she walked over to the chair he was sitting in and straddled his lap. If she wrapped his tie twice around her fist and pulled his generous mouth to hers. Would his eyes be startled? Would they glaze over in lust?

Her indecorous fantasy was interrupted by the ringing of her phone. She answered it.

“Agent Scully, this is Officer Polaski,” said the voice on the other end, “I’m sorry to call so late, but I think I may have something for you.” Scully waved Mulder over and he sat next to her, the mattress dipping below his weight and pushing her into his side. She tilted the phone so they could both hear. “It’s a pretty old case -- from the 50s -- and some of the details of the case notes have been lost over time, but I found a record of an arrest in the woods where you and I were today.”

“Definitely not too late,” Scully reassured her. “What was the charge?”

“Murder,” Polaski said, and Scully tilted her head slightly to find Mulder’s eyes. “You want me to fax it over?” Polaski went on.

Mulder rose and hurried over to the dresser where a pad of motel stationery sat, the phone and fax numbers at the bottom.

“Please,” Scully said, and then rattled off the number as Mulder held it up for her.

“It’s on its way,” Polaski told her, and Mulder was already slipping on his shoes.

“Be right back,” he said after Scully had thanked her and disconnected, and he trotted out the door toward the motel office.

He was back a few minutes later, shuffling through a few leaves of paper that wafted the smell of hot toner in her direction. “Polaski was right,” he said, handing her a couple, “this is pretty thin.”

They both sat on her bed and traded sheets of paper, reading through the case file.

Franklin Henry Donaughy had been arrested while camping in the woods not far from the Holy Childhood Indian School on the night of November 14, 1952, by two Emmet County Sheriff deputies. His wife, Denise Donaughy, aged 37, had been found dead -- from a gunshot wound to the chest -- in their home in Harrison Township, Michigan (a town located three hours to the south, Scully discovered after a quick map consult and a brief mental calculation). Franklin had claimed to have been hunting and camping up north for the four days beforehand and had no part in her killing, or so he said to the sheriff deputies. There were several pages missing from the file, it appeared, particularly those of Franklin Donaughy’s statements to police.

Mulder handed Scully the coroner’s report, which she looked over.

“This is odd,” she noted, after a moment, and handed the paper back to Mulder. “It says here that the body was discovered sitting up in a lounge chair in their living room under a blanket, next to a switched on radio. There was no blood spray discovered at the scene, but the body had both an entry and exit wound, so they assumed she’d been killed at a different location and then placed in the living room.” She leaned closer to him, pointed to the page. “But, Mulder, the recorded amount of blood that seeped into the chair was almost four liters. That’s nearly all the blood a body has--”

“--So she couldn’t have been killed at a different location and then moved,” Mulder concluded.

“Exactly, it makes no sense.”

“What else does it say?” he asked.

“Not much,” she said, frustrated, “it’s incomplete.”

Mulder blew out a raspberry and shoved his palm tiredly into his eye socket.

“I’ll call the Sheriff’s office tomorrow and see if they have a more complete record. Barring that I can always swim again with the microfiche, see what the local papers said in ‘52.”

“I’ll help,” she smiled at him and then shoved him lightly in the shoulder. “Let’s get some sleep for now, huh?”

He leaned his arm onto hers for a moment and she saw a glimmer of something brewing in his chlorite eyes. A moment later he turned away and then stood from the bed.

“We should,” he agreed, and made his way to the door, throwing her one last glance before closing it softly behind him.

She felt as though she had barely closed her eyes when there was a pounding on the same door. She looked at the glow of the alarm clock next to the bed. It was nearly 1:30 a.m.

She threw open the door to find Mulder threading the tie he’d worn earlier in the day back through the collar of a dress shirt.

“Hank Poquette just called me,” he said. “He found Moira in their bed, unresponsive.”

“Did he call 911?” Scully asked on a hop of adrenaline.

“Paramedics are on their way,” Mulder said, already moving back in the direction of his own room, “I’ll meet you at the car in five.”

XxXxXxXxXxX

Cross Village, Michigan

2:40am

The forest around the Poquette property was awash in blue and red light as Mulder and Scully drove up the winding driveway, the house itself lit up with the headlights and search beams of several police cruisers. Mulder pulled in behind one and killed the engine.

“This doesn’t look good,” he said to Scully, who remained quiet, her face grim.

The Poquette’s black dog was whining from its chained position beside the tree, its eyes never once leaving the house as they walked past. EMTs exited the house pushing a stretcher just as Mulder and Scully got to the bottom of the porch steps -- a person laid out beneath a sheet that was pulled over their face.

The agents backed away to let the paramedics pass and shared a look. When they got to the front door, they were met by a confused young sheriff’s deputy who blanched at their IDs. He called over his superior who appeared to be the Sheriff himself, with whom Mulder shook hands. Scully stood back slightly, her hands crossed in front of her.

Hank Poquette sat at the counter in his kitchen, staring blankly ahead, head in his hands.

After Mulder explained -- with as few details as possible -- what they were doing in the area and at the Poquette house, the Sheriff agreed to let them have a few minutes with Hank before they took him into the station to get his statement.

The deputies migrated to the far end of the living room by the door before Mulder spoke quietly to Hank, Scully keeping close at Mulder’s elbow.

“What happened tonight?” Mulder coaxed, as kindly as he could.

Hank didn’t look at either of them; his eyes glassy.

“I had a dream,” he said blankly. “When I woke up… I found her like that. Next to me.”

“What happened in your dream, Hank?” Mulder asked.

Hank finally looked up, a deep groove etched between his eyebrows. He took a shallow breath.

“She died.”

XxXxXxXxXxX

Best Western Motel

Petoskey, Michigan

July 2, 1999

7:30am

Scully was dressed and had just unwrapped the towel from her freshly shampooed hair when she heard Mulder at her door. They had left a nearly catatonic Hank Poquette at the local police station at 4:30 a.m., and Scully, bleary-eyed with barely any sleep, had stumbled into the shower thirty minutes earlier.

Hank had said very little when deputies questioned him, simply laying out the timeline of he and Moira’s evening (dinner at a local bar with friends and a 10:00 p.m. bedtime) and had told them that he’d woken to find Moira in bed next to him, unresponsive. It wasn’t until he was in the small interrogation room alone with Mulder and Scully and had a hot cup of coffee in front of him that he’d told them both his dream: she’d fallen from a tall building while he was running to catch her.

“I always have dark dreams,” he’d said cryptically to Scully before they left, his eyes haunted. The Sheriff had mentioned that they didn’t have enough evidence to hold him and that he would be released later in the day.

Mulder moved into her room and tossed a newspaper onto Scully’s unmade bed.

“Interesting entertainment article got picked up by the local paper,” he said, nodding to the periodical. “Page four.”

Scully set down the hairbrush she’d been using on her wet hair and picked up the paper.

July 1, 1999

by Megan McCullough, AP

TOM CRUISE’S DISAPPEARING ACT

An impressive PR stunt was successfully pulled off last night at the premiere of the new Warner Bros. tentpole ‘The Magician.’

Star Tom Cruise was walking the red carpet in front of the Bruin Theater in Westwood when he vanished, ostensibly into thin air. The stunt was captured on film by the press and fans alike, who said Cruise was glad-handing and giving autographs to the fans along the velvet rope when he disappeared.

“He was standing in front of me one second and gone the next,” said fan and witness Amy Michelson, “I couldn’t believe it. We were all kind of freaked out and scared for Tom but then he came back about twenty minutes later.” Witnesses say the star reappeared at the exact spot he had disappeared from about a half an hour later, startling studio and security personnel who had surrounded the area. “He looked totally shell shocked when he reappeared,” Michelson went on, “and he had smears of lipstick all over his mouth. I’m not sure where he went, but I wish it had been with me!”

Sources close to Cruise say that the star was surprised and upset by what they refer to as an ‘uncontracted and unsafe stunt’ and has been looking into lawsuits aimed at Warner Bros. as well as ‘The Magician’s’ executive producer David Copperfield.

When initially asked for comment minutes after the incident, the studio was close-lipped. Press inquiries as to why police were called to the scene in Westwood immediately following the disappearance were chalked up to “miscommunication.”

As of this morning, the studio seems to have changed its tune and released the following statement:

“We at Warner Bros. are always happy to work with Mr. Cruise, and are very proud of ‘The Magician.’ We hope audiences will go to theaters to see it before it, too, disappears!”

Scully looked up at Mulder.

“You don’t think…”

“Lindsey Conrad is a Dreamer, and you saw the posters in her kitchen.”

“Jesus, Mulder.”

“We need to stop this thing Scully. What if one of these people dreams of the President dying? What if some foreign government figures out what’s going on up here and starts using these people for assassinations or -- hell, what if our government does?”

His hair was sticking up in places as though he’d been running his hands through it. Scully looked up at him. “What is ‘this thing,’ Mulder? What the hell are we dealing with here?”

“Something is pulling people into the dreams of others, Scully. Whether you believe it or not. And whatever the mechanism is -- we need to find out what it is, how it works, and how to stop it.”

The explanation Mulder was pushing could not possibly be true. Could it? She stayed mute and could see the color rise in his cheeks.

“People’s lives are at stake Scully,” he said darkly.

She felt anger building inside as well but pushed it back down.

“Maybe we’ll find something in Moira’s autopsy,” she finally said.

Mulder nodded, suddenly looking as tired as she felt.

“I’m going to head back to the library while you’re slicing and dicing -- see what I can turn up on this hunter case Polaski sent us.”

XxXxXxXxXxX

Emmet County Morgue

Northern Michigan Regional Hospital

Petoskey, Michigan

9:34am

The county medical examiner was as near to retirement as any she’d ever met. He’d reached the stage of male aging where the hair on his forehead receded, only to grow wildly out of his ears. His fingernails had yellowed and ridged and his eyebrows seemed to crawl across his forehead like hairy grey caterpillars. Nevertheless, he was friendly and polite, if a bit hard of hearing.

“Edward Farrugia,” he said, extending a hand over the body of Moira Poquette. Scully shook it firmly, and found the skin of his palm warm and dry. She’d shaken a lot of ME’s hands in the subterranean dark of various morgues, and found many to be roughly the same texture and temperature as their charges.

“Dana Scully,” she said. “Did you receive the police report from the Sheriff’s office?”

“I did,” Dr. Farrugia informed her, “though I didn’t look at it -- I was just about to. I like to do my initial exam without knowing any of the details. Start from scratch. No preconceived notions to bring into it.”

Scully nodded. She liked that.

“So you’ve already looked at the body?” she asked. The EMTs had left with Moira’s body before she got a chance to see it herself.

“Just an initial visual exam. I’d be happy to share my thoughts,” he said.

“Let me scrub up and we can go over it together?”

He smiled at her and nodded, then headed back into his office while she found the small locker room nearby to scrub in and change. There was a hot pot of coffee on a sideboard table in the locker room itself and she threw back several large, hasty sips.

When she walked back in ten minutes later, she found the Medical Examiner in his office staring at his desk, his face darkly set. He had the police report in his hand. She cleared her throat and he looked up.

“Are you ready to get started?” she asked politely.

“I am,” he said, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “But Dr. Scully… Nothing here adds up.”

“How so?” Scully asked.

Dr. Farrugia glanced toward the examination room where Moira Poquette’s body rested under a sheet. He held up the copy of the police report.

“From what it says here, this woman went out to dinner last night with her husband and some friends, went home, went to bed and her husband found her unresponsive around midnight. There were multiple witnesses at the bar placing her there not more than two hours before her death. So she eats, goes home, gets in bed. That timetable indicates her death was likely caused by heart attack, stroke, aneurysm -- I’m sure I don’t need to list them all for you,” he went on, “you’re an expert.”

She nodded.

“Agent Scully, this woman died from a fall,” he said. “A pretty big one.”

She walked into the exam room and moved to the table before he’d even finished talking, peeling back the sheet covering Moira Poquette’s body. She heard Dr. Farrugia shuffle in behind her as she stared down in disbelief.

There was no blood, except for a small trickle from a clearly fractured skull. On her torso, her skin had split to the length of about ten or fifteen centimeters right above the hip bone, and a quantity of her small intestine was hanging out from the laceration. They were textbook injuries sustained from a fall of eighty to a hundred feet.

“This is…” she started to say, her tone one of disbelief.

“Yes,” Dr. Farrugia agreed. Their eyes met over the body and he moved to join her on the opposite side.

“Shall we see what we find on the inside?” she asked him after several moments.

“Let’s.”

XxXxXxXxXxX

The Carnegie Library

Petoskey, Michigan

3:30pm

Scully found Mulder beyond the stacks. The Carnegie Library was old, stately, a sturdy box-like structure with stone pillars in front, built with money endowed from Andrew Carnegie himself. Scully had to go to the back of the building and down a set of stairs to the basement, where she found Mulder sitting at a tabletop surrounded by rolls of microfiche, glasses perched on his nose, a screen flickering rapidly in front of him.

“Martha?” he said, as he heard her steps approach, “Let’s go another month or two ahead, see if we can find some articles from the trial.”

He turned when she touched his shoulder, his face blossoming into pleased surprise when he saw it was her.

“Hey,” he said, smiling, whatever slight animosity he’d been feeling towards her earlier in the morning dissipating into the air. “Sorry, I thought you were the librarian who’s been helping me out.”

At this, said librarian came around a corner, a small basket filled with boxes of microfiche rolls slung over her elbow. She was likely around seventy, with bright white hair cut into a fluffy bob, symmetrically cut bangs framing her forehead. She looked at Scully expectantly.

“Can I help you?” she asked Scully.

“Martha, this is the woman I told you about: my partner, Agent Scully,” Mulder said.

She gave Scully a quick up and down.

“Well,” she said, “it’s nice to meet you, Agent Scully. I must say, when pressed, Agent Mulder conceded that you were quite lovely, but I now see why he turned so coy. My dear, you’re a vision.”

Scully felt her cheeks color.

“Martha is a shameless flirt,” Mulder said, his eyes on the tabletop.

“And a matchmaker,” Martha said to Scully, winking.

Mulder pointedly changed the subject, “Do you have late February and early March?”

“Right here,” Martha said, unslinging the basket from her elbow and passing it over to Mulder. She grabbed a nearby chair and pushed it in next to Mulder’s own. “Have a seat, love.”

Scully took the proffered chair and sat, giving Mulder a look as the woman left them on a whirl of white hair, leaving the faintest trace of Chanel No. 5 in her wake.

“You made a friend,” Scully said, teasing.

“Yeah, well, I spent a week here yesterday morning,” he replied. “How was the autopsy?”

“Illuminating.”

“Yeah?” he said, turning to her in full, “Tell me.”

She sighed. “Three guesses.”

“She died from a fall,” Mulder said, a little reverence in his voice.

Scully nodded. “That’s what the body says.”

Mulder let out a long, low whistle. “Do you believe me now?” he asked, running his thumb along his jaw bone. It took her a moment to look away.

“I’m closer to believing,” she acknowledged.

“I guess I’ll take it,” he said after a moment.

“Have you talked to Hank?” she asked him.

He shook his head. “Sheriff drove him home this morning. I’ll head out there when we’re done here and check on him.”

“Hopefully he’ll get some sleep,” Scully said.

“Hopefully he won’t,” Mulder said significantly.

Scully sank into the chair Martha had pulled out for her.

“Have you found anything?” she asked.

Mulder shook his head and passed her a couple of rolls of microfiche.

“Local paper,” he said. “They had a blurb on the arrest of Franklin Donaughy, but nothing else. Probably not that surprising since the ‘murder’ was downstate. Now I’m searching through for articles about the trial to see if there’s anything there.” He nodded toward a second viewing machine further down the table. “Care to join me?”

She pulled the basket of rolls toward her.

“You take February ‘53, I’ll take March?”

XxXxXxXxXxX

They searched for two hours before Scully left to bring them back dinner and Dramamine. Mulder was just wadding up the butcher paper from his ham on rye when Scully got his attention, waving her salad fork in front of his face.

“I think I’ve got it,” she said.

He let out a soft, satisfied belch and then scooted his chair closer to hers.

It was a front page story:

March 2, 1953

by VJ Hramic

Not Guilty: Hunter Proclaims Innocence

Mulder skimmed the article until he found what he was looking for.

“There,” he said, pointing to the screen, “his alibi -- he’d been hunting and camping in the woods near the school for four days during the time of his wife’s murder. State’s evidence is all circumstantial except for the gun. Same caliber and ammunition as his hunting rifle.”

“Hmm,” said Scully, still not convinced.

They scrolled on for another week and a half until finally:

Guilty!

There was a picture of a haunted looking Franklin Donaughy being led from the county courthouse in handcuffs, surrounded by fedora-wearing reporters and the large drums of fifty-year-old camera flashes.

“Jesus,” Scully said and Mulder leaned forward when she pointed to small print at the end of the article on page 4, below the fold.

“Mr. Donaughy repeatedly shouted the phrase ‘But it was only in my dreams! She only died in my dreams!’ to reporters as he was led away to the Gladwin County Jail. He has been since evaluated and sent to the Northern Michigan Asylum in Traverse City to receive treatment for what doctors are calling a psychotic break.”

The wooden chair creaked when he leaned back in it.

They were both silent for almost a full minute, the hum of the microfiche machines the only sound other than their breathing.

Finally, Mulder rose and spoke.

“I’m going to drive out to the Poquette residence to check on Hank,” he said formally. “Would you, ah, make a call for me?” She nodded up at him from the chair. “I’ve been playing phone tag with the priest at St. Francis Xavier. See if you can get in touch with him and set up a meeting tomorrow -- I want to see what he can tell us about the headmistress of Holy Childhood.”

Mulder walked out to the sedan with a headache. He rolled the windows all the way down as he drove down the sunset road.

#The X-Files #fanfic #fanfiction #msr #case file #my fic #XFCaseFic2020

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