#Nothing Is Canon Compliant | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

moonshine-nightlight · 4 months

Text

NWWD Bonus: Divergent Revelations 1

Bonus story for NWWD, AU starting mid Chapter 23. This is primarily the set up for an earlier, different, revelation conversation. (basically fanfiction about my own story)

During the fight with assassins, you and Dale are forced to confront the truth of what you each know about Dale's nature. How does the fight change to have this come about? How will the conversation about these revelations go when there's still more than a week before the wedding?

Main Story: [Part One]

AO3: NWWD Bonus: Divergent Revelations

Part 1 of 2

Just as you secure a makeshift bandage in place and resolve to leave to find help, Vi comes running out of the side room. You know the moment she spots you because she changes direction. Reflexively, you bolt for the door. The mercenary runs around wide, blocking it as a viable exit.

Without thought, you pivot, heading back the way you came for the courtyard. She’s fast though, faster than you with her sturdy boots and training while your skirts and soft shoes only slow you down. She catches you by the time you only get as far as the desk and closet you’d started this situation from.

A blow from her spear blindsides you and you cry out as you stumble into the wall and some furniture that result in another jolt of pain. Vi lunges to cross the last few feet between you before you can do more than get around the side table. Slamming you into the wall, there’s desperation in her eyes as her spear shaft is pushed across your throat. Your wrists are held up in the skilled maneuver, pinning you far more securely than Lasky’s dagger managed. Her wide, terrified eyes bore into yours. “What the fuck is he!? You’re going to—”

The clash of metal on metal followed by a wet cough and a triumphant growl from the other room cuts her off. You try to wrestle her for control while she’s looking behind her and find to neither of your surprise that you’re no match for her strength. Shifting your strategy, you desperately wiggle your hands, trying for even a little more room to breathe. Your head is tilted back, your throat throbbing as she fixes her gaze back on yours. You try to say something, you don’t even know what, but she doesn’t give you a chance.

“They lied,” she spits. “He’s not human, he’s a skinwere.” Your stomach sinks at the realization Dale must have revealed enough of himself that she knows he’s not just enhanced. Skinwere is a common enough term for a demon possessing a human, but it's one you’ve heard more in your short time in Northridge than the rest of your life, so you wonder if she’s a local. No wonder she’s scared out of her mind. That makes her even more dangerous, more able to expose Dale for what he is and your mind screams at you to do something, anything, to be more than a liability here.

When you don’t respond quickly or dramatically enough, despite her spear shaft still preventing you from doing more than breathing shallowly, her eyes narrow. “You knew.” It’s not a question, but you still can’t speak or even move your head to answer anyway. She doesn’t seem to need you to. She pushes against you with her spear, completely cutting off your air before she pulls back enough to let you speak. You cough, gulping in air as she orders, “Tell me how to kill it. Tell me—”

Before she can make any more demands, you drop your whole body down like a dead weight. There was enough space between the spear and the wall to let you, although it still wrenches your wrists painfully. Your head hits the wall as your chin hits the spear shaft to allow the movement.

Wrists, head, and backside throbbing, you’re moving before you can think about it. Crawling around her legs on your hands and knees. You scurry towards anything that can be perceived as safe. The sound of something heavy being flung into a wall in the distance makes you flinch as you try to get under a couch.

A heavy blow to your back causes you to yelp and you collapse onto your stomach. “You’re not going anywhere,” Vi snarls, the butt of her spear pressing down with insistent force into your spine. You try to push yourself forward, tears rolling down your cheeks from the way you can feel the wooden dig into what feels like your bones. “Not until—”

The pressure abates abruptly and you turn on your side to see something long and black around her wrist, pulling her weapon off of you. Your vantage point, combined with your throbbing head and blurred, teary vision, makes it hard to follow all the action. How could a black snake be trying to fight Vi?

She draws a knife with her free hand to strike the black thing, but the crack of bone breaking causes her to scream as her spear drops from her now limp hand. You manage to pick the spear and shoot it along the ground, as far away as you can. You know she’d be more capable of taking it from you than you would be at wielding it against her.

Vi finally looks behind her, following where the solid shadow stretches to and screams at whatever she sees. You only see another long dark ribbon of tangible blackness wrap around her neck before she’s pulled backwards with a strangled sound, past where you can see. A gasping whimper and a thud make you wince, paralyzed on the floor, mind unable to decide what to do next.

You hear footsteps heading for you accompanied by a tap of wood on wood. Then you hear a worried, “Sana?”

Relief floods your body and you desperately need to see Dale, to reassure yourself that despite the horrible clashes and yells, the violence and the destruction, he’s whole. No matter what he must look like given what you’ve seen and how his voice still has an echoing, deep quality to it. Flattening your palms to the floor, you brace yourself to get up. You’re interrupted by a loud crack before you can clear your abused throat enough to answer him.

“I knew it,” an unfamiliar voice meets your ears. It has a strange, otherworldly grit to it and you freeze instantly. “How all these other humans are so blind, I’ve no notion.”

Dale hisses, “Hide,” before you hear him move away from you and towards the voice. You follow his suggestion, too cowed by the return of the threat to want to do anything else. Half crawling and half dragging your tired body, you skip the couch to tuck yourself under the heavy wooden desk.

“As though you are a paragon of subtlety,” Dale snaps back. He’s clearly nearly in that other side room once more, but his voice carries more than perhaps he’s even aware.

“Ah,” the voice concedes, the sound carrying just as easily. Is that a demon power? you wonder with only slight delirium, projecting your voice? “But I am not trying to be. Neither of us are.”

“Us?”

“Yes,” a far more human voice replies this time. “Us.” The two voices overlay on that word before the more inhuman voice continues, “We are not all so rude as to kick out the original owner. Some of us know what it is to share.”

You realize it’s Two, who has apparently decided to finally enter the fight and who’s strange nickname suddenly makes a lot more sense.

“I care not how many of you are fitted in that body,” Dale replies. “You’ll do no more harm here. You’ll not fulfill your mission.”

“Perhaps,” the casual menace of this voice is not intimidated by Dale’s confidence or orders. “Or perhaps there is simply more to be gained and less to be parsed.”

You strain your ears but there is only the sound of movement and metal after that. Grunts from all three voices, perhaps more distinct given your inability to see and only to hear, come from that further side room. It’s not enough to tell you who’s winning and you’ve no notion of how Dale stands in contest with another actual demon.

Does the Two being both human and demon help or hinder them? They had implied that Dale was not sharing his own form, which confirmed the human who had been Dale was gone, didn’t it? Neither of them are mentioning Clen either, so is he dead? What sort of creature was the demon in Two? You know demons vary wildly, even the intelligent ones, in a manner far greater than humans did. What if this one was more powerful than Dale?

Although, it feels like ages of simply listening as you try to regain your breath, though in reality, it’s likely only a minute or two. You can’t take knowing so little about what is happening. Hesitantly, you move forward and cautiously kneel up to see just over the surface of the desk.

They’re indeed still in that other room, circling so fast you can hardly tell who’s who. From the glimpses you catch, neither of them are in forms that are entirely human anymore. Part of the fight seems human enough, the swords meeting and breaking apart as they move, engaging each other’s blades while dodging stabs and slashes.

The room around them is what currently seems like it's not of this world. The shadows in the room move unnaturally and at least two seem to be even more independent than that. They whip around Dale to meet and deflect spikes of animate stonework, colored grayish-green with a rusty red shot through it. The rock seems both to originate from the columns and walls of the room, despite looking nothing like the rock used to construct it, and from nothing at all. Ripples of unnatural movement in the floor and ceiling add to the feeling that the room itself is attempting to attack Dale.

Your heart is in your throat as Dale’s shadows seem far more ephemeral, far weaker, than something as sturdy as stone. A big chunk breaks to fall from the ceiling. Dale’s dodge to the side is more desperate than any previously and he catches Two’s sword stroke awkwardly as a result. His sword flies from his hand to land behind Two with a clatter.

Retaliating with a riot of shadows which erupt between them, Dale forces Two back. They’ve migrated such throughout the fight that you have to strain to keep them in sight and follow what’s happening. Dale’s inky back is to you and half his body is blocked by the doorframe while Two’s nearly on the other side of that room now.

“I believe you’re unarmed now,” Two says with a smirk that’s beginning to look unsettling on his face which has begun to resemble a statue’s more than a person’s. The movement of stone when he talks and his expression changes just looks wrong.

“I do not need a weapon to be armed,” Dale snarls, the shadows of the room flickering dizzyingly. You can’t tell if it's the lighting or actuality, but his entire body seems more amorphous than ever before. Taller than he typically is, but thinner too—he’s becoming more unrecognizable as the fight drags on. He brandishes his hand to better display the black claws he now has. The arm you can see is oddly shaped, more like a medical mannequin from class—bone and muscle with no fat to be seen—than a living person’s. In fact, you’re certain he’d been wearing a green suit earlier, but that’s black now too. Even his dark hair seems to absorb light, untied and wild, longer than it should be.

You keenly appreciate Dale’s rebuttal, but you still hate that his sword is gone from his hand while one remains in Two’s. They shift their stances.

You bump into a lamp that’s been knocked to the floor when you automatically try to compensate to keep your minuscule view. As you push the lamp to the side, something on the ground catches your attention. Very deliberately not looking too closely at Vi’s body, you focus on the long, thin piece of polished wood which drew your notice. Dale’s cane.

Instantly, you know you need to get this to Dale having heard him boast about it’s hiding a weapon at a gala. More than that, you want to do something, anything to help him. Fear fights that impulse. The big, heavy desk provides the reassurance of safety, however wishful it might be. With one last look at the circling fighters, you lean down, steadying yourself on the cold stone floor. Straining, you only just manage to wrap a few fingers around the foot of the cane to pull it towards you.

Hastily retreating back behind the desk, you pop back up fast enough to give your still sore head a rush. You run your hands over the familiar wood as you try to spot Dale as he and Two dance around each other.

Once they’ve split once more with Dale nearest the doorway, you call out, “Dale!” Leaning up as high as you can on your knees, you hurl the cane like you’ve seen others throw a javelin. It soars through the air while both are distracted by your shout.

Dale leaps backwards as if propelled by some of the shadows under him towards you. A clawed hand, black like he’s wearing gloves or dunked his arm in ink, snatches the cane out of the air with careful precision. You think you see the glint of a blue eye on the back of his hand, the only color standing out against his form now.

“Will that do you any good?” Two asks, seemingly curious more than anything as he watches Dale hold the cane. You can’t tell if his lack of anger over this fight, the way he keeps treating it like a tournament fight for entertainment, is a good thing or not.

Dale says nothing, merely twists the handle. He carefully pulls off the wood to reveal a long green rapier. Before you can wonder at the applicability of such a weapon, Two takes a full step back.

“Jade,” Two hisses. “A dangerous weapon for one such as ourselves to wield.”

“All weapons are dangerous,” Dales replies brusquely, squaring up instead of dodging as he’d been doing since Two disarmed him. “Humans regularly use weapons as deadly to themselves as they are to their enemies.”

“How adaptable. All the shade in your nature, I presume,” Two says, a mocking edge to his tone.

“You are not the only one who can use stone to their advantage,” Dale bats back as easily.

Two lets out a cascade of laughter and the sound seems to come from far more than two mouths, let alone one. It’s grating: like steel on iron, like a throaty cough, like the squeal of a live animal on fire all at once. You would give nearly anything for him to never do that again. “It has been so long since I spoke with one of us with intelligence still left to them up here,” Two seems to relish the idea. “The sunlight seems to drive too many insane. Almost a shame to kill you.”

“A good thing then,” Dale says as he charges, “that you will not.”

The visibility of the fight becomes impossible after that. There’s too much movement from shadows as Dale chases Two further into the room. You’re back to primarily trying to gauge the fight based on sound alone: thuds and crashes and ripping you can’t identify.

“So close. But perhaps you are correct,” it’s the human voice this time, panting but not demoralized. Some of the sight line clears and you see Two hunched over, a hand on their chest. “I shall not be able to kill you nor collect the bounty so generously placed on your head.” They cough a cloud of rust from their mouth as they lift their head. “However, the knight had the correct idea.”

“Yes,” the gravelly demonic voice picks up and they slowly straighten. “I’m certain you must have supplies or teachings worth perusing. I can tell your form is impeccable underneath, despite your essence spilling out.” They gesture with their arms, sneering. “This body, with him intact, still gets a bit stiff if I’m not careful. I shall be intrigued to ascertain how you accomplished such a thing.”

“You think I will allow you to leave?” Dale hisses. “After all you’ve done?” He throws a hand out to emphasize the general state of destruction around them.

Two laughs again. How could you not be better braced for it? Even anticipating how horrible it is, it remains one of the most unsettling things you’ve ever heard. It has a screech to it now that makes your skin crawl. You’re resisting the urge to cover your ears or yell yourself in order to drown them out when they look over and meet your eyes. Their dirty red eyes, the color of dried blood, bore into yours across the distance and they rush for you.

They cross the distance faster than they should be able, outpacing Dale, and there’s a ripple in the walls that seems to respond to them. Panic seizes your heart and mind as you instinctively dive back down and under the desk. Your hands desperately latch onto and drag a broken ottoman to cover the opening at the back of the desk.

Curling up against the front board of the desk, you feel something slam into your makeshift shield. Pushing you and the desk back, the wood squealed against the floor as it moves. A wordless roar comes from somewhere to your right and another crash echoes through the room followed by a heavy grunt and the sound of books falling to the floor. Then, silence.

After holding perfectly, tightly, still, you can’t keep in a cough. The stone moving has kicked up a lot of dust and you’re unable to help it. You think you hear a smothered groan as you attempt to stop, but you stay rooted in your hiding spot, waiting.

After another dull thump, Dale calls your name. His voice is still strange and yet you can hear the confusion and worry in it. You can hear a lot more than that actually. Your eyelids flutter despite being unable to see anything other than dust and dingy wood. Your name sounds different than when he’s said it in the past. There is a depth to it, meaning below the surface that you can hear when he’s like this. Like emotion and inflection and neither of those.

There’s a layer of softness, of imagery that it conjures up, that you can almost feel through his voice. Of gentle sunlight through the window on a clear day. Your favorite chair and the taste of fresh, sweet honey melting on your tongue, soothing and comforting. Its respect and harmony and the potential to be more than you are alone, of joining and of belonging. Tension leeches from you in waves, like taking off so many heavy coats to stand unburdened. You want to drown in the sensation. You want to hear him say nothing, but your name for the rest of your life.

You want to come out, to go to him, regardless of what you might see. Hesitantly, you push the ottoman away and start to crawl out from beneath the desk. Shakily, you stand up and turn to face Dale.

Black shadows still cling to his form, one hand pressed against the oddly bulging stone, the other behind his back where a bookshelf is braced. His eyes glow an unnatural blue and his hair is too long and wild. He’s roughly the correct height with only one extra eye on the back of his hand. He’s still too thin, as if his arms are muscle and bone only. His face is mostly human, his skin the same light brown it always is, except for a streak of shadow and some darkness around the edges where his hair halos his head.

He looks like nothing so much as what he is: a human consumed by something inhuman, something demonic. Adrenaline surges through your veins and yet, he’s still so clearly… “Dale,” you breathe out, relieved. He’s the one you’ve grown to know and like. You’re not afraid of him. How could you been when he’s still protecting you?

Instead, you find yourself searching for evidence of the toll the fight may have taken on him. To your relief, he doesn’t seem to be bleeding either, no obvious large wounds or injuries.

Nerves still prepared for danger, you look beyond him to assess the rest of the situation, although you can tell by an absence in the air that Two is–

“Gone,” he croaks, his voice shuddering and rusty. With a groan, he pushes himself straight and the bookcase falls away from him to land with an echoing crash that fills the room, empty of all but the two of you. He removes his hand from the rock of the wall to your right. The large bricks of rock are loose, but not enough to threaten the integrity of the wall itself.

You meet his eyes once again and finally take a deep breath, while his shoulders droop as you both stand in the aftermath. The shadows are receding slowly, subtle enough you wonder if it's just a trick of the light, but of course, they are shadows, so it must be. Then Dale’s striding forward and the cool fingers of his hand cup your cheek. His eyes trace down your body, taking in every scrape and bruise and streak of dust as he looks.

“I am fine,” you say, more because you’re alive and so it feels like the appropriate response. Not to mention, you’re not the one who’s just been battling assassins.

It’d probably be a more convincing statement if you couldn’t feel tears dripping down your cheeks. His eyes rake up and down your form, obviously trying to assess that for himself and his other hand grasps the elbow of the arm Lasky cut. Everything about him, his shadows, his gaze, his focus tightens. “You’re hurt.”

“Nothing serious. Are you?” Your eyes strain to see his body more clearly now that he’s not completely wreathed in darkness. Mostly you can tell his clothes are in rough shape, but there are no obvious large holes, no blood.

“I’ve got a thick skin,” he says, voice still pitched a little lower than usual. “And I’d speed on my side. Not to mention Two’s folly in letting the others face me without them.”

Cautiously, you place your free hand on his chest, over his heart—needing to feel him solid and whole under your touch. “But they fled.”

“Yes,” Dale admits, but his gaze doesn’t dart towards the doors. His eyes stay fixed on your face. He carefully brings a thumb to wipe away your tears with a tenderness that doesn’t match the danger that lingers in the way he still holds himself. You can’t help but lean into his touch, the safety he offers, if only to you. Some of the tension starts to ebb from him when he freezes.

You don’t understand why until you are able to tell he’s fixated on his own, still inhuman hand on your cheek. Abruptly he’s as still as a statue. It’s obvious he’d been unaware of how demonic he still looked. “It’s alright,” you murmur, gently. His wide blue eyes finally meet your own. “I don’t mind.”

Dale pulls back his head at your words, looking more baffled than you’ve ever seen him. he drops your elbow, but he doesn’t let go of your face. From the corners of your eyes, you can see all the shadows melt away as he pulls his inhuman influence in to leave a mostly human man looking back at you with faintly glowing blue eyes and ink stained hands. He doesn’t push your hand away from his chest, where a human heart beats, reassuring you that he’s still alive and with you.

“I don’t—” Dale stops speaking abruptly, tilting his head and finally breaking eye contact with you to look towards the door he came through. His hand drops from your cheek to hide behind his back and when he next blinks, there’s no more light in his eyes. You resist the urge to sway towards him, wanting his touch to keep you grounded, but understanding the implication. Reinforcements must be due to arrive any minute. Reluctantly, you drop your hand from his chest.

When he looks back at you, you can see he’s trying to pull himself together to face company. He blinks again, before frowning, his eyes darting around the room with renewed concern. “Where is Grandmother?”

If Dale can hear what’s going on in the hall… You spin around, your hand closing around the door handle for the closet. You wrench it open to reveal Grandmother, still hidden away safely. You rush in to check her breathing, to feel her pulse and reassure you both that… “She’s still unconscious, but she’s breathing.”

Dale breathes out in relief and without any more words, you grab one arm of the chair and Dale the other as you pull her from the closet. You don’t even care that he’s clearly doing the majority of the work. “Grandmother will be fine too,” you say, not sure who you’re trying to convince more.

“Good,” Dale says, eyes drifting over your more obvious injuries once more. “It would only be worse for them if either of you were not.” His eyes slide down Grandmother’s unconscious form and menace seems to drip from his voice. “It shall be bad enough as it is.”

Despite the warning from Dale a minute or so ago, you still jump at the sound of a door opening, looking past Dale to see two of the governor’s guards walk in. They stop in the doorway, gaping.

Dale straightens from where he’d been leaning over Grandmother. His head swivels to the direction of the courtyard, where Two went. He doesn’t respond to Grandfather’s concerned voice calling his name and Grandmother’s and even your own.

Fear grips your heart and your hand lands on his forearm, “No.” He doesn’t look back at you either. He gently, but inexorably pulls out of your grasp. You can’t stop him, you know that you can’t, but you can’t stand the thought of him leaving, of him pursuing this threat. “No. Dale.” He ignores you and picks up his rapier. “Don’t go after him!”

Dale runs out into the night, in pursuit.

“Damn you,” you say, voice tight as you try to stop more tears from welling up. What if he’s found out? What if Two can do more to hurt him? What if there are others in wait and he’s ambushed? What if—? You wipe your eyes more harshly than perhaps you need to as you force yourself to focus on what you can do, who you can help.

While the other guards race to follow Dale, Grandfather hurries across the room to be on the other side of the chair, calling Grandmother’s name. You can feel her breathing, but you need to know if her heart is in trouble. “We need a doctor. Now.”

-/-

This is the re-write of Chapter 23's ending to set up the next part, which should go up within a week. There as originally gonna be a steamy dream after the fight, but i couldn't make it work and then it morphed into this lol. See this ask for further details.

#my writing #story: nothing's wrong with dale #nothing's wrong with dale #fanfiction of my own story #canon divergent?#lol #i dont know how to explain or tag this well at all #couldn't resist tightening up evn the parts that did overlap with the main story #wasnt sure where to break off into the new stuff #so i just started where i thought it made sense to divert from chapter 23 #monster romance #osha compliant #what if they had a conversation earlier?#because dale figured it out that sana knew sooner?#assassins #fighting #demonic reveals

31 notes · View notes

topgunreacts · 11 months

Text

“Roo-Roo Bradshaw…as I die and suffocate.”

#top gun maverick #top gun correct quotes #canon compliant #rooster bradshaw #hangman seresin #this is nothing #look away #bradley bradshaw #jake seresin #top gun shitposting

67 notes · View notes

ashotofogdensoldfirewhiskey · 1 year

Text

Sweet Nothing

The jinx hits him in his abdomen, and his first thought isn’t of the pain, or even the counterjinx, it’s of the paperwork.

“I know,” Harry sighs a few hours later, as Robards delivers what feels like his millionth lecture about protocols and safety procedures and doesn’t Harry know he needs to be more careful?

“I know you know,” Robards growls. “Which is why I’m wondering how you let this happen again.”

Harry wants to spit out that the number of accidents that befall him in the field aren’t accidents. That the remaining Death Eaters and pathetic scum who hadn’t been talented enough to be Death Eaters but may as well have been have made hexing Harry the new benchmark for revenge. That Wilkins is a corrupt scum who’d said the room had been cleared when it hadn’t, and he should have been fired ages ago if the department is truly clean the way Robards claims it is.

But he doesn’t. It isn’t anything Robards hasn’t heard before, even acknowledged once or twice. But he only cares about his safety statistics, and the end of quarter report he has to submit upon which he must now record this incident, a blot on a record that might impact the promotion he’s lobbying for.

“It won’t happen again,” Harry promises. They both know it’s bullshit. Robards accepts it anyway, because what else can he do?

“You handle the press,” Robards orders, a far more effective punishment than anything else he could have devised. Harry wonders if he knows this. Wonders if this makes him respect the man more or less.

“Why?” Harry asks bluntly.

“Because you’re who they always want to hear from, aren’t you?”

The truth of the statement does nothing to ease the sting.

“The suspect was taken into custody and is now under questioning for the murder of Florean Fortescue. This is still an ongoing investigation, and further details cannot be disclosed at this time.”

Harry doesn’t open the floor for questions but they hurl them at him anyway.

“Mr. Potter, is it true that you were injured during the arrest? Did you have a personal history with Selwyn?”

“Mr. Potter, would you say that your lack of formal education and credentials impacted you today?”

“Mr. Potter, do you regret lobbying for the removal of dementors when making arrests like this?”

“Would you say your presence in the Auror department is a publicity stunt?”

Harry had known what he was signing up for when he joined the Aurors. He had known he wasn’t signing up for a life of peace or simplicity, had known that the weight of his name and identity would be hanging on his shoulders.

There are days when it’s easier to pretend the weight isn’t there, and days when he wonders whether the chains round his neck are visible.

Today is not one of the easy days. Harry answers the questions with his best impression of politeness. He’s never been very good at impressions.

Then it’s back to the office to write up the incident report. Wilkins sidles up to his desk like a prick and has the gall to ask after his injury.

“My stomach is fine,” Harry says flatly, not bothering to look up from his report. “How are your eyes?”

“Eh?”

“You cleared the room, didn’t you?” Harry asks, crossing a t with unnecessary force. “Must not have seen Selwyn.”

Harry looks up from his report now. Wilkins doesn’t even have the courtesy to look defensive. “Yeah, that’s right,” Wilkins says with a sneer. “Didn’t see him.”

“I’ll make sure to include that in my report,” Harry says lightly, as though that means anything. They both know it doesn’t.

“You do that, Potter,” Wilkins says. “Hope your tummy heals up soon.”

The wheels of justice turn slowly. Hermione had said that to him once over a firewhiskey at the Leaky Cauldron, as though that were meant to make him feel better, or something.

Harry pops out for a coffee in the afternoon, and gets accosted by a photographer from Witch Weekly on the way back. The purple smoke from her camera nearly chokes him as he takes an unfortunately timed sip of his coffee.

“Harry Potter!” she squeaks.

Harry doesn’t bother with a response, and pushes past her roughly in his escape. He knows that this will inevitably result in some bullshit story about him being a stuck up famous prick who thinks he’s too good to speak to his fans, or maybe this time they’ll imply he’s having an affair with someone different and had to run away to avoid detection, someone interesting, maybe Tom the barman or maybe the random witch who had stood in front of him in line at the coffee shop. Anyone will do, because anything with his name attached will sell and it doesn’t matter whether the story is even on the same continent as the truth.

He should have smiled at her, at least.

Or maybe he shouldn’t. Maybe then he’d have been accused of being fame hungry or coveting a headline or perhaps even having an affair with her.

The truth is there is no winning with the press. His skin is thicker than it used to be, he doesn’t care as much as he once did, and yet today he sips his coffee with a hint of cynicism and the faint flavor of libelous purple smoke.

When he returns to his desk it is to find that the warrant he’d applied for had been denied, and he’ll need to find more evidence to bring charges. He’s supposed to owl the Montgomery family today for an update on their case. They’d been hounding him all week, and he was waiting for the warrant to give them some positive news.

Now he has no positive news to deliver.

He finishes up his incident report, and scribbles a hasty letter without any substance to the Montgomerys, feeling shit.

He’s still thinking about it when he Apparates home for the day, wondering whether it will be worth questioning Greyback again to see whether he might accidentally divulge more information pertaining to the Montgomery case, and whether such a small possibility was worth yet another conversation with the man who, after all this time, still revolts him.

He pushes open the door to Grimmauld Place, and it takes him a moment to register the sound of humming coming from the kitchen. It’s off key, some Hobgoblins song that he vaguely recognizes.

She’s standing at the sink when he comes in, swishing her wand at the sink hopefully while she reaches the crescendo of the chorus, and for the first time all day, Harry smiles. The light through the window is bright, and it makes her red hair shine a coppery gold. She’s wearing the lounge trousers that make her bum look particularly good, along with some bright purple fuzzy socks that prevent her feet from turning to ice on the stone floor, a perfect mixture of cozy allure that he’s come to associate with her.

His footsteps alert her to his presence, and he’s sorry for it, because she stops humming. But she turns to him and grins, which is nearly as good.

“Oh, you’re home,” she says brightly. “Look, you’re not allowed to tell her this, but Mum was right.”

Harry reaches her and wraps his arms around her from behind, letting the warmth of her seep into his cold skin, dropping a kiss down to her cheek. “About what?”

“I should have let her teach me all those householdy charms like she said,” Ginny says with a dramatic sigh. “I just can’t- get- it- to-”

She punctuates each word with a wave of her wand, and Harry watches as the pot she’s attempting to magically scrub flips feebly, a bit of food clinging stubbornly to the bottom.

“I’ll wash it,” Harry offers.

Ginny turns, still in his arms, and smiles up at him. “No, I’m going to get it right and then you’ll be deeply impressed by my domestic prowess.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes,” Ginny says, reaching up to snake her arms around his neck. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

She reaches up and kisses him. He knows she probably meant it to be a greeting kiss, a small thing, but he holds her there against him, soaking in the smell of her, the feel of her against him, the soft of her lips and the silk of her hair, drowning in her.

“Well hi,” she says after they finally pull apart, her lids a bit heavy now, her eyes wicked.

Harry answers with another soft kiss.

“I didn’t know you were so into scrubbing pots,” Ginny teases against his lips. “I’d have done it much sooner.”

“You knew what you were doing when you put on those trousers.”

Ginny cackles, and Harry thinks he’ll never get tired of it, the way she laughs with her whole face, the crinkles of her nose and around her eyes, the glint of amusement she gets, the way she throws her whole head back with it. “You’ll never prove it.”

Harry doesn’t care to prove it, only kisses her again and again, until he lifts her up onto the counter and pulls the trousers off, until he’s warm and deep inside of her and she’s whispering his name in his ear in the way she knows drives him mad, and her skin is so soft and freckled and perfect.

Then they laugh at themselves, going at it in the kitchen when they have a perfectly good bedroom upstairs, and Harry teases her, telling her to show off her domestic prowess and clean off the counter. She smacks him on the arm and tells him that domestic prowess is overrated and shouldn’t he make himself useful?

She tells him about Quidditch practice earlier, and the new formation that the team hadn’t been able to get quite right, and the owl she’d received from Charlie about the hatching of a new baby dragon while they eat dinner, a leftover stew Harry had made the evening before. It’s warm and delicious, just like her, and he knows she’s speaking but he can’t get the sound of her off key humming out of his head, and how maybe everything she says is music.

It isn’t until she’s pouring him a glass of red wine and they’re settling down to listen to the Puddlemere match on the wireless that she asks him.

“How was your day, anyway? Anything interesting happen?”

Harry thinks for a moment, feeling quite warm as she burrows her toes beneath his leg and she drapes a blanket Molly had knitted for them across both of their laps. “Nah, nothing,” he says, lifting her hand to kiss the back of it. “Just you.”

#hinny fluff #drabble #sweet nothing #canon compliant #taylor swift lyrics #you're in the kitchen humming #some light smut #mature

114 notes · View notes

daily-whistlepaw · 10 days

Text

daily whistlepaw until ca becomes PoV day 1185

#warrior cats #whistlepaw #windclan #medicine cat apprentice #somewhat more 'canon compliant' whis with amber eyes and the like #but mostly an excuse to draw intricate tabby patterning #and try out how to draw fatter cats #And it was too canon compliant so I took away a leg #Honestly one front paw would be Somewhat annoying for meddies as they sometimes need to hold things or press down onto wounds #So it's a bit of a challenge for Whis but nothing ca can't manage

12 notes · View notes

landfilloftrash · 3 months

Note

May I ask for more of your ShinKaru headcanons please? 😀🙏 or even about Manfred, do you have any HC about his wife?

Not gonna lie with you Chief, it took me longer than it probably should’ve to realize that you were using “Karuma” for the second half of the ship name lmaooo (very jovial)

But headcanons for Gregory and Manfred!!! I have those in spades! I won't go into tooooo much detail because we'll be here all day but I can give you some I sent to my partner! But as always I must preface; this is mostly based on vibes, certain lines I cannot quote off the top of my head, and fanfic-- because both characters and their backstories have not been TOUCHED let me see how they GOT HERE

Anyways /lh

In actual canon, my guess is that they met for the first time during the IS-7 incident. More specifically, the first time they’ve actually TALKED.

However, this alone is boring; So I imagine they’ve seen glances of one another in the courtroom. On Gregory’s end, he has seen von Karma in passing, fresh from the courtroom, going into battle, or going over something in the lobby and scowling, given a polite nod to the man or a nice tip of his hat if he was wearing it and mostly classified MvK as “older gentleman with nice taste in clothing.” if he ever sees him again.

MvK on the other hand might have heard of Gregory in passing? Extremely good defense attorney who regularly beats prosecutors; that’s not saying he’s perfect, that would catch the older man’s attention after all, but MvK has probably heard of him and his Justice filled ways and gone “bah. these fools don’t know how to prosecute that’s all, and he’s a naive fool.” If SEEING him without first noticing his badge, might politely nod back or huff a breath in lieu of greeting. If seeing his badge, 100% a nearly uncontrolled sneer. A mere defense attorney. A bug to crush.

And if later down the line Gregory wants to be that cool bug that Manfred studies closer and finds interesting, that’s his own damn business, thank you very much /lh

The only way I see them happening would be if Manfred's wife was either divorced or dead; He brags about his wife's cooking in a contest about baking that man is a wifeguy fo sho

Anyways

They are court rivals!

They match each other blow for blow, which means whatever Manfred’s brand of insane is that trial, Gregory is ready to go with it and turn the tide, and even if he doesn’t win (perfect win streak), the crowd goes away with a sense of “wow. Von Karma was really on the ropes a couple of times.” and Manfred HATES IT. Not the crowd’s whispers— but now people know there’s someone who can actually MATCH his damn insanity and that riles him up to the point of bloodthirsting lust

Gregory ALSO hates it but for a different reason; he's fighting for his gawddamn life with these cases, doing his best as a defense and usually coming so so close but missing just that little something, and von Karma wins.

But he’s stubborn. He will get people their Justice, and he WILL literally die trying so help him gods. That stubbornness extends to von Karma; he WILL win against this man one day, and he’s tenacious and firm, so one day, it WILL happen.

On other hand.. he’s also interested in the amused expressions and sometimes even delighted smile that pops up on extremely brief and rare one second occasions when Gregory pulls a trap of his own or turns von Karma’s trap around; It’s a predator amused that his prey thinks it can win, but playing along and once again trapping the poor creature, but he can’t deny that the expressions make him pause for a moment. Von Karma is very intrigued as he is incredulous about Edgeworth; the fact he only smiles when cornered, so deadly serious and matching fire with fire, a little bit of a nerd! What is this man and why is he so amused by him? He's gonna have an aneurysm

Outside of the courtroom, there’s not much interaction. But… on occasion, they will cross paths while investigating, and almost make a game of it.

They’ll bicker, snip at each other, get close to violence on a couple cases, occasionally even laugh at a stupid/funny comment the other made, quip and quote back and forth like their lives depend on it and should they fail they’ll disintegrate.

Most detectives, especially Badd, the one they most regularly have to deal with, have caught onto this and stay the FUCK out of their way; no matter if von Karma demands they don’t let Gregory onto the scene, they find out later he snuck past them and is up to his thighs in a mystery he’s two thirds of the way figured out

Meanwhile von Karma is already ‘hiding’ witness testimonies and figuring out what he might need to smudge to keep the 'innocents' safe and the 'culprits' put away. While this is a tried and true tactic, and a very welcome one, if he can get away with not doing those things, he prefers it.

Gregory on the other hand, has a notebook for every case he’s been on with MvK as the prosecutor because every time they go against each other he needs to write down every thought that comes to mind in regards to the case. In other cases not against Manfred, he’s decimated the prosecutions arguments before they get off the ground thanks to having to deal with the god of prosecution. But he goes over these notebooks and regularly writes new theories and ideas on what might’ve actually happened, or if he came across the truth and was unable to prove it, circles it, and when they're all actually solved, he closes that notebook permanently.

On the extremely rare occasion that they have NO culprit, but there’s a crime they’ve been assigned to, they have tossed theories at one another, simple to try and one up each other of course. But it’s a different kind of race and game. It’s slower, much more careful.

Manfred once couldn't get to a crime scene up on a hill because it was a terrible pain day and Gregory said nothing about it as he supported Manfred’s almost full weight and let him recover before they actually approached the police and the scene. They never bring it up again and Manfred hates the fact that it even happened, but Gregory soon after finds a small gift basket and a note that says “tell no one. they will never believe you.” and Edgeworth keeps the note.

Gregory is a very calm and chill man, but he has on multiple occasions yelled in true anger at Manfred for certain topics, and Manfred purposefully doesn’t bring those topics up again unless truly relevant, which is almost never.

Manfred absolutely hates Gregory the way you hate a dog. Gregory hates Manfred the way you hate a season.

That's where I'll leave those for now lmao-- but now. Ouuuh. Headcanons about Manfred's wife, huh? She's not so closely my department in headcanons/personal canons like my buddy @.nwdolphin is! But if I were pressed...

May perhaps not be a perfectionist like her husband, but probably strives for it in a way that Manfred saw, appreciated, and partially married her for

I'm not quite sure on ethnicity or name-- depends on if they met in Germany or Japanifornia, and even then it's a mixed bag either way-- but definitely not "noble birth" or whatever if going on with MvK's edwardian outfits /aff Just a normal person from a normal Ace Attorney universe family, so of course her name is a pun/irony.

That being said-- Business woman though. Possibly a CEO of some kind? Possibly just a simple worker. Either way, she commands attention

Softer face for Franziska? She's who it came from!

Like I said earlier in the post; Manfred brags about her cooking! Wifeguy for sure. Her cooking may not be "perfect" but it's made with a genuine effort and a love of the task/people it's made for, so it's perfect to him, goddamnit all, and he will stand by this until he dies

This is all not to say that she's perfectly fine with her husband's bullshit; she calls him out when he gets too Into It

Definitely challenges her husband in more than one way-- whether it be verbally, mentally, or maybe even physically in a sparring match when they were younger and Manfred's leg didn't act out as much!

Manfred fr wouldn't have it any other way; he strikes me as the kind of guy who would decay rapidly without a proper challenge in some way or another (enrichment for the caged tiger in his enclosure please)

I could definitely see her being the one that completely and utterly endorse her youngest daughter wielding a riding crop as little more than two so even she could defend herself

Both of them were definitely so proud of her

Of course her eldest also got a weapon (<- the one who gave them their weapons) who do you think she is

Their granddaughter is named after her, methinks; the eldest keeps in contact enough for Manfred to know her dog's name is Phoenix (whether or not he was simply bluffing on this is irrelevant, I'm taking it and running with it /lh) and even if it isn't, he still knows his granddaughter has a dog who she very much adores.

I think around the time she left his life (death, divorced, missing, etc.) is around the time he truly started to lose the way of how he wants Perfect Justice and instead started to perfectly embody everything wrong with the Law

#whispers from the void #rea rambles #MvK's Wife #Manfred von Karma #Gregory Edgeworth #shingou #blueberrypancakes #thanks for the ask!!#Sorry MvK's wife didn't get as much </3 I haven't thought about her too hard bc I have nothing to work off of #and I'm a usually a stickler for being at the very least canon *compliant*#there are cases where I'm canon defiant but those are rare and usually me going ''this is my city now''#(aka something super fucking stupid happened in canon that goes against characterization and lore and I said "nah <3'')#(or simply an AU and I fully acknowledge canon but simply want my silly goobers having a vaguely peaceful time of it together)#rea rambles in the tags #long post #shut up rea #rea's trash

19 notes · View notes