#and got fucking double celestial space shit

[bear-cubs-art-things]

BRO THERE AINT NO WAY I WAS GONE FOR FOUR (4) DAYS AND GOT DOF PLIXIE TODAY WITH A DOUBLE CELESTIAL DICE REWARD

BRUH HOW??????

#anyways #epic gamer moment #been gone for. 4 days. #and today I rolled the celestial dice #and got fucking double celestial space shit #and got plixie

[harrelltut]

卍 JEHOVAH Occult Witness Me [ME = U.S. Michael Harrell = TUT = JAH] as Biblically Black [Ancient] Egyptian [BAE = COSMIC] JEHOVAH from Astronomical [JA = YAHWEH] HEAVEN since I BEE So Astronomically INTELLIGENT [A.I. = ANUNNAKI] on Egyptian HARRELLTV® as I Magically ILLUMINATE [MI = MICHAEL] My HIGHLY Sophisticated Underworld Nubian [SUN] Mental of Biblically Black [Ancient] FUTURISTIC WISDOM I Meditatively INCORPORATE [MI = MICHAEL] on Earth [ME = U.S. Michael Harrell = TUT = JAH] 卍

#U.S. Michael Harrell [Emperor TUTANKHAMŪN] on Earth #FUCK ALL religious clergy who don't know Shit about Primitively Ancient [PA = SUPERNATURAL] Black ANUNNAKI Astronomy Religions #FUCK yo' SLAVE ass religions that keep you MENTALLY ENSLAVED [ME = U.S. MICHAEL HARRELL = TUT = JAH] on Earth [JE = JESUS] #you still sittin' in church and Still don't know Shit #I MASTERMIND Undercover [MU] HIGH [MH] LEVEL CYBER CRIMES of Primitively Ancient [PA = SUPERNATURAL] BLACK LAW & ORDER #I Intentionally SABOTAGED ALL [SA = SATURN] fake ass space agencies on earth #I’mma Mathematically + Algorithmically + Creatively [iMAC] SABOTAGE & INTENTIONALLY DESTROY [I.D.] the powerless govments of fallen america #don't show ANY weakness or regrets when you go II WAR wit' Me [ME = U.S. Michael Harrell = TUT = JAH] on Earth [JE = JESUS] #I Dare [I.D.] anybody to WAR wit' Me [ME = U.S. Michael Harrell = TUT = JAH] on Earth [JE = JESUS] #I BEE A HIGHLY Official… U.S. Black American Military [BAM = Shhhhh = U.S. Black Sorcery Illuminati + Bambudye Society] Elite on Earth #Modern Day Egypt got Me [ME = U.S. Michael Harrell = TUT = JAH] Under Secret [U.S.] Society [U.S.] PLUTOCRACY PROTECTION in California [PC] #I BEE MENTALLY [IBM] IN:side [MI = MICHAEL] My QUANTUM HARRELL TECH® Year of 5000 #FEAR My HIGHLY Official… U.S. ATLANTEAN [USA] 6G Memory of QUANTUM HARRELL TECH® Intel from 2020 #2019 QUANTUM HARRELL TECH® BLACKOUT in fallen amerrica #I got Double Black White House Society Privileges in modern day america #I BEE Biblically Black [Ancient] Egyptian [BAE = COSMIC] JEHOVAH from Astronomical [JA = YAHWEH] HEAVEN on Earth [HE = JAH] #I Magically ILLUMINATE [MI = MICHAEL] My HIGHLY Sophisticated Underworld Nubian [SUN] Mental of Biblically Black [Ancient] FUTURISTIC WISDOM #FUCK ALL you fake astrophysicists who don't know Shit about My Magically UNSEEN [MU] Black Universes of Celestial ATLANTIS [CA]

[haught-n-cold-gay]

“it’d be easier if i hated you”

a wynonna earp fic you can read here on a03

summary: 

“Thought I’d visit my favorite sexy ex-enemy.” Rosita smiled as they pulled apart until she saw Wynonna’s face up close. Her eyebrows furrowed before she reached out and gently touched her cheek. “Are you sleeping? Eating?” “Who are you, my mom?” She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be a brat, Earp.” Wynonna gasped playfully. “Me? Never.” _._._

Wynonna can't help but visit Rosita in the nunnery. She doesn't know why she keeps seeing her or talking to her or why she wants to kiss her, but she's willing to figure it out.

part  i

“Thanks for saving my ass.”

Wynonna let out a soft, almost embarrassed, chuckle. “It’d be a shame not to.”

A smile flashed across Rosita’s annoyingly perfect face and for a moment, Wynonna swore that Rosita was looking at her, like really looking at her, and she felt the urge to reiterate her promise that she was going to get her out of there, no matter what. Even if she was going to be stuck surrounded by horny nuns.

“Wynonna…” Rosita closed the space between them, forcing time to freeze as their eyes locked. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”

She felt the warmth radiate off of the gorgeous woman and nodded stiffly, not wanting to admit to her that she hadn’t been ‘okay’ in a long time. Maybe ever. She didn’t even know the feeling. Not really.

“I’ve got my trusty gun again, so…”

Rosita raised her eyebrows. “You’re more than your gun, Wynonna. You always have been.”

Wynonna broke the eye-contact. She had to. She had told herself for so long that being the Heir made her something. Made her worthy. Made her a hero. Losing her gun made her feel like she was nothing. And here Rosita was telling her that she was more than the gun.

“Hey.” Rosita grabbed her hand and pulled her even closer (God, Wynonna couldn’t ignore how good she smelled) and whispered, “I’m here if you need me. Literally. I can’t leave. Come by anytime.”

Wynonna swallowed the lump in her throat and looked down at her hand that was being held by Rosita’s. She didn’t want to cry, not in front of her.

“I’ve got to go,” she breathed out, unable to even glance at her as she pulled her hand away. “Keep that fine ass of yours safe for me, alright?”

Rosita snorted and muttered under her breath, “this ass is yours if you want it.”

Wynonna pretended she didn’t hear that. She just ran toward the celestial green light, never looking back. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t. She didn’t know what she would do if she did.

part ii

One week later.

Wynonna didn’t know why she was back so soon. She didn’t have a solution for Rosita (she barely had the chance to tell the team about Rosita and the situation the ex-Revenant was in), but here she was. Dark circles under her eyes and demons screaming inside of her, she walked into the nunnery she spent the last few days trying to find through her sister’s copious notes about the buildings on the edge of Purgatory since there wasn’t a mystical green light to transport her there.

At first, Wynonna thought that Rosita was missing amidst the group of nuns, but then she heard her laugh. Wynonna did a double-take. Rosita was in the center of the cluster of nuns, wearing the tunic or robe or whatever the hell nuns wear.

The Heir gulped. She was severely startled by how Rosita in the nun outfit was doing things to her (then again, Rosita could probably wear anything and it’d do things to her). Her mouth felt a little dry and she tried to take a deep breath and remind herself of the real reason why she was here. The only problem was: she didn’t know why the fuck she was here.

“Wynonna? You’re here!” Rosita shouted and pushed past a bunch of annoyed looking nuns. She was running at her and Wynonna’s heart just pounded faster and faster until Rosita’s arms were wrapped around her and Wynonna could breathe her in. And truth was, Wynonna couldn’t remember the last time she was hugged and felt warm.

“Thought I’d visit my favorite sexy ex-enemy.”

Rosita smiled as they pulled apart until she saw Wynonna’s face up close. Her eyebrows furrowed before she reached out and gently touched her cheek.

“Are you sleeping? Eating?”

“Who are you, my mom?”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be a brat, Earp.”

Wynonna gasped playfully. “Me? Never.”

Rosita punched her shoulder lightly, as if she realized that Wynonna was not willing to talk about whatever was going on with her. “Okay, Ms. Sarcasm.”

“Besides, you’re one to talk. You look like a nun.”

“Well, I do live in a nunnery. And it’s not like there are clothes for me to wear. Want to head to my room?”

Wynonna’s eyes widened, completely out of surprise. “Your room? Are you a dessert before dinner kinda gal?”

“Totally, but I was just thinking of a place we could talk where we won’t be heard.” She nodded toward the group of huddled nuns who were watching them like freaky hawks. Wynonna shivered. Nuns had always freaked her out, but this was even scarier.

“Right, show me the way, m’lady.” Wynonna mentally hit herself for acting so dorky. She’d never consider herself a Shakespeare, but she normally wasn’t an idiotic geek. She coughed and tried to shake away any weird feelings.

(And she tried really hard to not look at Rosita’s ass in the nun outfit as she followed her to the weapon room they killed that fucking demon nun.) (She failed.)

“So… you have your own room? Kinda thought you’d be all in one room, orgy parties every night.”

Rosita closed the door to her ‘bedroom’ and laughed. “We don’t have orgy parties every night. They like being all together and I… need my space, you know?”

The room was still filled with weapons, but in the middle of the room there was a small mattress, a few blankets, and a pillow. It was a nicer situation than Wynonna’s.

“I definitely do know. It’s why I’m living in a damn barn.”

Rosita flopped onto the mattress, grinning as she tried to land in a ‘sexy’ position. “So I’ve got better digs?”

Wynonna couldn’t help but laugh at whatever the fuck Rosita was doing. “Considering you live in a nunnery, I’m not so sure. Living with an engaged couple and teenager versus judgy nuns. Now that’s a conundrum.”

Rosita raised her eyebrows. “Engaged, huh? Waverly and Nicole are tying the knot?”

Wynonna was trying to read her tone. “Hard feelings?”

She cringed and crinkled her nose. “Waverly told you?”

“About your drunken kiss of shame? Yeppers.” She grinned at her, noticing the embarrassment flooding her face. “Don’t worry ‘bout it. Seriously. She and Haught totally made up and all that good shit. Obvs, they’re getting hitched. Besides, kissing someone you’re not supposed to is kinda my thang. So no judgment coming from me.”

“And you and Doc?”

That was the absolute last thing she wanted to talk about. Not because Rosita and Doc were a thing, but because Doc had left her. He was ‘disappointed’ in her. As if she needed more fucking shame in her goddamn life.

“I’m not good enough for him,” she finally confessed, in more of a whisper than she had intended it to be. “Even with Alice, I’m not enough.”

Rosita opened her mouth but then closed it. She moved over to one side of the mattress and patted the empty side. “C’mere.”

“What?” She let out a nervous chuckle and crossed her arms.

Rosita narrowed her eyes at her. “I’m not going to rip your clothes off, Wynonna, unless you want me to. C’mon. Lay with me.”

Wynonna gaped at her slightly, a little bewildered by what was happening. She thought about turning around and leaving, but it had been a long time since someone wanted to be near her. Wanted to comfort her. Okay, maybe that wasn’t true. Waverly was always there to do those things. But this was different and Wynonna couldn’t tell why.

Ignoring all the warning bells going off in her head, she slowly made her way toward the mattress and sat down on it. It was awkward as fuck. Too awkward. Rosita placed a hand on Wynonna’s back and she flinched away from her touch like the ex-Revenant’s fingers were scorching. She stood up suddenly, feeling the urge to throw up.

“Wynonna… I’m sorry…”

“No, I’m sorry.” She started to walk backward, back toward the door. “I… have to go. I just remembered, I need to be somewhere.”

“I—okay. I can walk you out—”

“I’m good,” Wynonna shouted and escaped as fast as possible, practically running out of the room and out to the exit. The felt stupid running, but she couldn’t imagine being inside of there for another second.

part iii

Three weeks later.

She was fucking back. With bags in her hand. And whiskey. Fuck.

She had come to the entrance of the nunnery more than nine times in the last three weeks, but she just couldn’t walk inside. She wanted to, she wanted to apologize for being a fucking weirdo, but she couldn’t get her feet to move.

(For a week she had even convinced herself she couldn’t step inside because she was so unholy, so full of sin.)

It was late and she had already been standing outside for a ridiculous amount of time. She was turning into an icicle, but she still couldn’t get her feet working. It was fucked up, she knew. She didn’t even know why she kept coming back, why she even went to see Rosita three weeks ago, why she had reacted so terribly to her touch. Nobody seemed to want to touch her anymore. Not Waverly (who was spending all her time with Nicole), not Jeremy (who was obsessed with planning the Wayhaught wedding), not Rachel (who had been looking at her strangely ever since she found out she killed Holt), and definitely Doc (who avoided her like the plague). And yet when Rosita wanted to touch her…

“Fuck it.”

Wynonna opened the large door to find Rosita sitting there in the last pew, right in front of her.

“I was wondering if you were ever going to enter.”

Shit. “You saw me out there?”

Rosita tilted her head, her ponytail swinging along with it. “I saw you come and go for the last three weeks. It’s like when someone texts you and you see little dots come and go. I thought you were going to leave me on read.”

Wynonna snorted as if it was crazy (it wasn’t). “Definitely wasn’t going to ghost you.”

Rosita hummed. “Sure. What’s in the bags?”

The Heir furrowed her eyebrows. “You’re not going to ask why I didn’t come inside for three weeks?”

She smirked at her. “Do you want me to ask you why you didn’t come inside for three weeks?”

“Fuck no.” Wynonna sniffled and held up the bags for her. “Clothes for you. Y’know. So you don’t have to keep wearing the nun uniform.”

“You don’t think it’s sexy?” Rosita stood up and did a little twirl for her in the aisle.

Wynonna’s eyes were glued to Rosita’s body and she felt heat pool around her body. “You know I find you frustratingly sexy. So if you don’t want the clothes…”

Rosita grabbed the bags from Wynonna’s hands. “This thing is fucking itchy.”

Catching Wynonna off-guard, the woman started ripping the robe off until she was only in her bra and underwear. Wynonna didn’t even have the chance to turn around (not that she wanted to) and blushed furiously when Rosita asked her: “like what you see?” Somehow, it got worse when Rosita put on the clothes.

“Are these your clothes?” Rosita inspected the ripped black jeans and cropped Blondie t-shirt. “They smell like you.”

Wynonna was a little breathless as she looked at Rosita wearing her clothes. She thought it was a good idea at the time, but this was driving her crazy seeing her like this. She couldn’t stop looking her up and down, imagining her own hands all over her and—

She cleared her throat. “Well, I wasn’t going to spend money.”

Rosita snorted. “I appreciate it.”

Wynonna shrugged like it was no big (it was a huge deal). “I brought whiskey.”

“You know how to please a girl. Do you mind if we head to the bedroom? The others aren’t really thrilled at the idea of drinking. For being wild in the sack they’re pretty lame about everything else.”

The thought of going back into that room sent chills down Wynonna’s spine, but she didn’t say anything. She wanted to get over herself. Get over whatever the fuck that happened in that room that sent her over the edge.

Rosita seemed to notice her nerves since she left the door open when they got in the weaponry room and sat down on the floor, not on the unkempt bed in the middle of the floor. It helped Wynonna breathe easier.

Once she sat down a good five feet away from her ex-enemy, the Heir pulled the whiskey out of her pocket and took a swig. It didn’t calm her down as much as she thought it would, but it was a good start. She passed it off to Rosita who took a good sip.

“Tell me everything that happened after I left,” Rosita commanded suddenly and passed the bottle back to her.

“You mean after you tried to kidnap my baby?” Wynonna was still bitter, even if she did forgive her.

Rosita chewed her lip guiltily. “Yeah, after that.”

That was a bad time. Not all of it, but most of it. She didn’t know what Rosita wanted to hear. It wasn’t like she could tell her how hard it was to send Alice away and how darkness started to become her comfort zone. How she could barely get out of bed. How it only got worse when Dolls died and she realized she probably loved him (and that he probably loved her more than anyone else ever would or could).

So instead, she stuck to things that were easy to talk about.

“Waverly and Nicole got closer, obviously. Jeremy fell in love with this guy who is gone now, for reasons that Jeremy won’t get into. I ended the Earp curse and got stuck in a garden, losing a year and a half of my life.” Wynonna drank.

Rosita frowned. “Dolls?”

“Dead.”

She lowered her head and shook it. “I’m so sorry, Wynonna. I know how much you two cared about each other.”

“Yeah, well. That’s what happens when you care about me.”

“Stop,” Rosita told her intensely. “We both know BBD killed Dolls.”

Wynonna shrugged (knowing that Rosita was right but didn’t want to admit it—she liked to wallow in self-pity from time to time). “I feel like I’m a walking catastrophe. It’s why I had to send Alice away. Being around me—”

“You mean being around your life? You got fucked with the whole ‘heir’ thing. Your life is dangerous because of your curse and the town you live in. It’s not you.”

Wynonna felt the tears bubble up. “But what if it is me?”

Rosita sighed. “But what if it isn’t? C’mon. Tell me about the good things. The funny things. The things that keep you going. I’m barely living here, so I need to live through something. C’mon. Tell me one good thing.”

Wynonna knew Rosita was trying to guilt-trip her into telling her something that would make her feel better, but she told her the first thing that came to her mind anyway. “Haught… she’s my best friend, apparently. My first best friend. She’s my best friend even though I told a huge gnome man to marry her instead of me.”

“You didn’t want to marry a gnome? That’s shocking. Please, tell me more. How did this gnome find you? Was he at least cute?”

A freaking smile emerged from Wynonna’s lips. She hadn’t really smiled in the last couple of weeks. It felt weird, but good. She didn’t know if she deserved to feel good, but around Rosita, she felt like she lost control.

So, when Rosita begged her to continue, she did. And after that, Rosita told her something funny about her time on the rocks. And after that, they just swapped stories until Wynonna’s eyes drooped and the ex-Revenant advised her to go home.

And that’s just what Wynonna did. But as she went home, the only thing she could think about was how she just wanted to stay.

part iv

Three days later.

When Wynonna opened the doors, she didn’t hesitate this time. Three nights ago was the best night she had in weeks. Maybe even months. Even if that meant being around Rosita brought up emotions she had been trying to push down.

She had another bag with her today. Food. And when she entered, the nuns darted toward her. Wynonna quickly realized that bringing food was probably not a smart thing to do. She had to zigzag through the group of nuns and headed for Rosita’s bedroom. She knocked on the door and hoped, definitely didn’t pray, that she wouldn’t be walking in on a sex fest.

Wynonna didn’t know if she was glad or not that Rosita was all clothed when she opened the door. Rosita was wearing one of her baggy t-shirts she gave her, with a Velvet Revolver album on the front.

“You’re back and no three week wait? What did I do to deserve this?”

Wynonna held up the bag of food. “I’m not sure, I almost just got mauled by a bunch of fucking nuns.”

Rosita moved aside so that the other woman could enter her room. “They are ruthless. You brought me food? Is this a date, Wynonna Earp?”

Wynonna blushed at Rosita’s smirk (she didn’t know why she was suddenly starting to get flushed when she never had before). “I don’t go on dates.”

“You brought me food looking like that. It’s a date.”

Wynonna looked down at her outfit, confused. She was wearing her normal half see-through shirt and leather pants. She would have worn this even if she wasn’t going to see Rosita. Probably. Okay, maybe she put on the shirt just before she left, but…

“You’re acting like you don’t know that you’re totally hot. Okay, fine, be humble, Wynonna Earp. But owning up to your sexiness is definitely more attractive.”

Her heart raced, but she tried to reign herself in. “Eat the food I bought you, idiot.”

“Happily, Wynonna,” Rosita said and grabbed the bag out of her hand. She started to rummage through the bags until she looked up at the Heir and smiled. “Breakfast, huh? You really know the way to a girl’s heart.”

“I got pancakes and waffles. Didn’t know which one you’d like, so I just—”

“If you don’t have a preference, we can just share them.” Rosita sat down onto the ground and started to pull the boxes out of the bag like they were going to have a picnic. “Are you going to eat with me or are you just going to stand there and watch?”

Wynonna chewed her cheek. She came here with food, so she didn’t know why she was so surprised that Rosita was wanting to eat with her. She came here wanting to spend time with her, knowing it was easier to spend time with her than it was to spend time with anyone else, but she wasn’t quite expecting for Rosita to welcome her with open arms. She was spinning with absolute confusion.

“Earp, sit your ass down.”

She swallowed it. All her fucking fear. And sat down.

“Are you going to leave any syrup for me?” Wynonna asked her, trying to be playful because it was easier than being anything else with Rosita.

“I am no syrup hog,” Rosita stated and passed her the tub of syrup and watched carefully as Wynonna poured it all over her pancake and waffle. “But I have a suspicion that you are.”

Wynonna gasped dramatically. “No, I’m not! I use the right amount of syrup.”

“I can literally hear your waffle and pancake screaming because they’re drowning right now.”

“Oh, please. This is the normal amount of syrup need—holy motherfucking shit, dude! You put butter on your pancakes?”

Rosita raised an eyebrow. “Um, doesn’t everyone?”

“No! Everyone does not! Butter tastes like nothing with syrup on it.”

“Yeah, it probably doesn’t taste like anything when you drown your pancakes in syrup! I’m sure butter would taste like nothing for you.”

Wynonna shook her head, completely astonished. “You are a monster, Rosita Bustillos.”

“Correction, Wynonna Earp, I used to be a monster. Now I’m just a lame old mortal human who can’t step outside of church without completely disappearing and heading to Hell for the entire rest of my existence.”

Wynonna gaped at her slightly. She had tried so hard to keep things light and fun. She should have known that too much had happened to each other for things to not get heavy. They were two very cursed women with very cursed lives. Destined to be enemies, but here they were, sharing pancakes and waffles.

“Even without the curse, you think you’re going to hell?”

Rosita looked down at her food and shrugged. “Might be living in a nunnery, Earp, but there’s nothing about me that’s saint-like.”

“Eh, saintliness is overrated.”

She looked up and stared into Wynonna’s eyes. “There should be a different place for people like us. Good people who have done shitty things to survive. Or in your case, to keep your loved ones alive.”

Suddenly, the food felt like sludge in her stomach. “We already live in Purgatory, Rosita.”

“I know,” she muttered and shook her head. “I’m just saying.”

Wynonna nodded. “I know.”

Rosita bit her lip. “You don’t belong in hell, Wynonna.”

“Neither do you.”

Rosita raised her eyebrows as if she was surprised that Wynonna would ever say such a thing. “Well, then, fuck it. Let’s become some goddamn ghosts and haunt this place. Scare nuns for the rest of our existence.”

A snort fell out of Wynonna’s lips. “You would spend the rest of your existence with me? You don’t even know if I snore.”

“You are so much better than all the Revenants I’ve had to spend eternities with. Besides, the kind of shit we’d get into? It’d be fun. And besides, you’re not terrible being around. We could make it work, don’t you think?”

Wynonna couldn’t stop gaping at her. Rosita was smiling slightly, like this imaginary future of the two of them made her actually excited and warm (in the same way that the Heir was impossibly feeling). And in that moment, Wynonna remembered. Remembered that Rosita was beautiful. Not just sexy and hot desireable, but beautiful. She had noticed when she met Rosita for the first time at the bar. Rosita wasn’t just this amazingly sexy and smart person, she was kind and bright and filled Wynonna up with feelings she hadn’t recognized. For a long time, she thought it was jealousy. But now…

She pushed it down. In the long run, it didn’t matter if Wynonna loved Rosita’s smile and her laugh and the way she could make Wynonna do both of those things with only a few words or look. Because this, whatever the fuck this was, she was sure that Rosita didn’t look at her the same way. Rosita couldn’t. She knew this better than she knew anything. No one ever looked at her that way. Except maybe Dolls (but that didn’t end well for anyone).

She cleared her throat. “Yeah, maybe. I’d have to return to the homestead in my ghost form to check out my sister’s kids and grandkids. Make sure they don’t have sticks up their asses.”

Rosita snickered. “Waverly and Nicole might be the most overprotective parents in the world.”

“Those poor kids.”

“Lucky, though.”

“The luckiest.”

As if Rosita somehow knew Wynonna’s mind was now on Alice, she said, “I never thought I wanted kids. I mean, it was a typical thing for women to do but I… I didn’t want them. Until I couldn’t have them.”

Wynonna’s heart broke. “When you became a Revenant.”

“Yep. All because of fucking Wyatt Earp. No offense.”

She shook her head. “I know he’s a dick, don’t worry about it.”

Rosita smiled softly. “I’m going to change the subject right now. Tell me. What shows have I missed standing on a rock and living in a nunnery?”

The Heir was incredibly happy for the change in subject. “Apparently there’s this new show everyone’s been talking about, Fleabag. Still haven’t seen it yet. Still catching up on Lucifer.”

“Now that’s one cast I would like to smash,” Rosita joked through mouthfuls of waffle. “But only as their characters.”

“You’re talking about Maze, aren’t you?”

“Hell yeah,” Rosita said and winked. “But also Amenadiel. Angels do it for me, I don’t know why. Okay, why is your face like that?”

Wynonna was cringing hard. “I may or may not have banged an angel.”

Rosita dropped her fork. “An angel? A literal feather-covered wings angel?”

“To be fair, I didn’t know he was an angel at the time. I just thought he was a normal firefighter!”

“No one is ‘normal’ in Purgatory, Wy.”

Wynonna groaned. “I know. I haven’t even told you the worst part.”

Rosita smirked devilishly. “Ooh, good. Tell me.”

“Well…” Wynonna hated that she put herself in this position, though she was almost fairly certain Rosita would be the last person to judge her. “Once again, I had no idea, but he was… Waverly’s dad.”

Rosita’s eyebrows jumped. “So… he…”

“Screwed my mother, yes. But while we were together he, like, had no memory of it. So like, he wasn’t being creepy or anything. He legit had no idea at the time. But yep, he was Waverly’s dad.”

Rosita sighed. “Wow. I missed so much. So Waverly is a half angel. Okay, not as surprising as I thought. Makes a lot of sense.”

“Yeah, I mean she was always the ‘good’ Earp, so it—”

“You’re a good Earp, too, Wynonna.” Rosita interrupted with her serious face on. “To be honest, you might be the first good Earp.”

Wynonna rapidly shook her head. “That’s not true. I have fucked things up.”

“I’m not going to argue about this with you. I’ve met all the Earps since Wyatt. They were all pretty terrible. Especially your father.”

She tensed up. Talking about the sins of Wyatt Earp was a lot easier to talk about than the sins of her father. He wasn’t someone she liked to talk about (or think about). Not just because the most traumatic moment of her life was his death. She just didn’t have anything good to say about him (most of her memories of him were bad).

“He was a bastard.”

Rosita nodded as if she knew what Wynonna wasn’t saying. “You deserved better than him. All kids do. Mine was… I was really lucky that he died when I was young. Best thing that happened to my mother.”

Wynonna tried to skip over the fact that she and Rosita seemed like they had similar fathers and said, “I’ve got mommy issues, too, so…”

“I’m sure you do. Who doesn’t? Can I ask you a question, though?”

“Shoot.”

“Why do you keep seeing me? I mean, I’m very pleased that you brought me clothes and dinner and we’re having all these conversations, but you didn’t want to get to know me at all years ago. Actually, I was pretty sure you hated me. Even before I pulled the shittiest move of all time.”

She opened her mouth, a little surprised that Rosita finally voiced how weird it was that they were becoming borderline friends. She didn’t know how to answer. She didn’t know why she kept showing up with stuff as excuses. She didn’t know why she spent all of her days wishing she was with Rosita (though she kept trying to push that thought far far away).

“I don’t know.”

Rosita frowned slightly. “I don’t mind. Seriously, Wynonna. Every time you come, it really cheers me up. You’re—you make me happy. Wow, that came out really fucking cringy, but it’s true. I just don’t want you to think that you have to come see me. I don’t want this to be out of pity, you know?”

“I’m not coming to you out of pity,” Wynonna breathed out, avoiding Rosita’s eyes as much as she could. “Believe me, Rosita, I’m not that nice.”

“So… you’re here because…”

Wynonna shivered and placed her food back in the bag. “Because I don’t know! You’re like the one person I can handle being around right now! I don’t know what else to say!”

“Hey,” Rosita grabbed Wynonna’s hand as she tried to pack everything up, “don’t do that. It’s okay. It’s totally okay. I won’t interrogate you any further. It’s fine.”

Wynonna clenched her teeth together. She wanted to keep her cool. Pretend like she was here because it was something to do. She didn’t want Rosita to know how much spending time with her meant, how it was keeping her going when she felt like she just wanted it all to stop. She wanted to pretend like nothing Rosita said or did affected her.

Wynonna pulled her hand away sharply.

“Shit, I fucked things up, didn’t I?” Rosita asked, worry drowning her voice. “Please, let’s change the topic. Please. We can talk about anything else.”

Wynonna felt sick. She wanted to be able to talk about something else—anything else—but her mind was swarming with thoughts she couldn’t control when she normally could. She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t say anything but she couldn’t quite move either. She was frozen. Paralyzed.  

“Wynonna…”

“I can’t—” her throat felt so dry, so dry. “I can’t—I need to leave.”

She stumbled as she stood up. Blood rushed to her head and for a second, she thought her dizziness would send her to the ground, but Rosita had gotten a hold of her. The ex-Revenant was holding her up, unwilling to let her fall.

Wynonna was trembling, but she was held tight. She didn’t want to enjoy it, Rosita’s embrace. She hated that the ex-Revenant was stronger than her. Wynonna hadn’t been sleeping, hadn’t been eating. She had been feeling weak for a long time. And as much as she hated it, it felt nice being held.

Rosita smelled like a burning candle. Cinnamon.

“You don’t need to leave,” Rosita whispered into her ear. “You can stay. Please, stay. I don’t want you to go out like this.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’ll fall apart if I let you go.”

Wynonna scoffed quietly. “I won’t fall apart.”

“Okay.”

“I won’t.”

“Okay.”

Rosita still hadn’t let go. And even though all the warning bells were going off in her head, Wynonna didn’t make her. She just let it all happen.

She let Rosita hold her until their arms became numb. She let Rosita drag her to the mattress. She let Rosita tenderly place her on the bed and wrap her up in blankets. She let Rosita wrap her arms around her. She let Rosita breathe into her neck, her skin. She let Rosita trace circles around her hands.

“I really hope one day you can tell me what’s going on,” Rosita told her as Wynonna began to feel drowsy. “I’m here. No matter what, I’m here.”

She let Rosita embrace her until she fell asleep.

part v

Six hours later.

Nicole was blue. Blue and dead. Dead and blue. Wynonna was screaming for help, but no one could hear her. No one could see Nicole’s dead body in the tub. She was dead and there was nothing she could do. She blinked and the body was Waverly. She blinked and the body was Rachel. She blinked and the body was Jeremy. She blinked and the body was Doc. She blinked and the body was Rosita. She blinked and the body was Alice.

She woke up breathless in a cold sweat. Rosita was already all over her, asking if she was okay, asking if she could do anything. She just shook her head and sat up. She felt like throwing up, but she swallowed the bile.

“I need to get home,” Wynonna muttered, her voice hoarse and so wrong sounding. She scrambled up from the bed and said, “I have to—I need to make sure they’re okay.”  

“Okay,” Rosita said and started helping Wynonna get her things together. “I get it. But maybe you should call your sister. I don’t think you should leave like—”

“I’ll be fine,” Wynonna stated firmly. Rosita looked unsatisfied with that answer. “I’m fine, Rosie, I promise.”

Rosita raised her eyebrows at the nickname, but didn’t say anything. “Okay. Wynonna, please stay safe. Dammit, I wish you could call me when you got home.”

“Fuck, I almost forgot.” Wynonna pulled out the cheap phone she bought and passed it to the other woman. “This is for you.”

Rosita’s eyebrows shot up. “You got me a phone?”

“A burner phone. Don’t get too excited.” She tried to joke, but Rosita looked just as concerned. “I’ll call you. I already programmed my number in there. That way I can text you before I come so I don’t interrupt your sexcapades.”

That seemed to reassure her somewhat. “So you’ll call? When you get home?”

Wynonna’s face softened. “I will. Promise. I’ll see you later, Bustillos.”

She left before giving her the chance to say goodbye back.

part vi

One day later.

Rosita was waiting for her. Wynonna had texted her, telling her she was coming. She had a long day hunting a demon who was feasting on livers. It reminded her of an x-files episode. Or Hannibal Lecter. Either way, it ended up with her asking for Doc’s help, who she found shacked up with Amon at the Glory Hole. Wynonna pretended like it wasn’t like a punch to the stomach. Doc and Amon helped and in the end, Wynonna was covered with the demon’s guts. Which was why she showed up to the nunnery after taking seven showers.

“Your hair…” Rosita grinned and reached for Wynonna’s wet hair. “It’s stringy.”

Wynonna pouted. “It’s wet.”

“That’s what she said. Come on, Wynonna. I have food this time. I was able to get this Uber Eats thing on my new phone. I stole a little bit from the collective bank.”

Wynonna gasped dramatically. “You sinner. Right in front of God. Savage.”

“I thought so,” Rosita smirked and started to head toward her room with Wynonna. “I do have to say, the nuns are starting to dislike me.”

The Heir snorted. “Why?”

Rosita lowered her voice. “They don’t like you hanging around.”

“Ah,” Wynonna muttered and closed the door behind them. “They don’t like me taking you away from their sexy times?”

“Probably. Here. I bought tacos. You love them, right? I think I remember you and Waverly having them all the time.”

She held up the bag of food and Wynonna’s mouth watered. “You’re my savior. I deserve a fucking treat. I not only had demon guts all over me, I saw my baby daddy’s tongue in another dude’s mouth.”

Rosita winced. “Ouch. That must hurt. Speaking of, I’m sorry he and I were… you know.”

Wynonna’s eyebrows furrowed. “Why are you apologizing? Doc tends to want me until he doesn’t. Besides, who wouldn’t want a complete brilliant sexy genius like you?”

She smiled up at her and passed her a taco. “Thanks, but plenty of people. So, how do you feel about Doc being with someone else?”

Wynonna shrugged and took a bite. “It hurt, but it’s happened plenty of times for me to be used to it by now. I just thought… we seemed to be getting somewhere before… but it hurts less than I think it should.”

“What do you mean?”

She didn’t quite know how to explain what she meant. She had been thinking about it a lot. Ever since she had first met with Rosita again.

“Have you ever felt like you’ve… fallen for the idea of a person, or something that they represent, but not the actual person?”

Rosita tilted her head. “I’m not sure if I have, but I understand what you mean.”

“Doc believed in me before anyone else did. And then… and then I had his baby and I… I don’t know.”

“Well,” Rosita grinned at her, her hair falling into her face. “Doc is making the biggest mistake of his whole entire existence. How’s the taco?”

Wynonna felt her cheeks redden with heat. “So much better than when it’s vegan. You are a hero.”

“Ha. It was easy. So, tell me about this demon. Are there that many left in Purgatory?”

Wynonna told Rosita all about the Purgatory that she was still getting used to after being gone for a year and a half. She told her about the turbulent relationship between demons and humans, how there were demons that had a resemblance of class (like Amon) and those that were so hungry for human flesh that they couldn’t help it.

She told her about how Nicole was back as sheriff and that being a part of BBD was weird and felt wrong, especially after what they did to Dolls. She talked about training Rachel, trying to make her into a fighter. She talked about seeing herself in the teenager, but how she also saw Nicole in her. A lot of Nicole in her.

She told her about the Wayhaught wedding planning. How they were planning to have the wedding on Earp land (a little afraid to have it anywhere else and have it interrupted by demons). How Wynonna didn’t know if she was going to be Nicole or Wynonna’s maid or honor/best man. How Jeremy was getting obsessed with all the little details.

Rosita absorbed everything, listening intently to everything she said. Nodding along, asking questions, and laughing at the right moments. Wynonna was surprised to find that she enjoyed telling Rosita things. The good things. And when she was done, she told Rosita to recount her own last few weeks.

When they were done with their tacos and collapsed onto the mattress, Rosita talked about the other nuns and all the gossip that happened between the nuns. She talked about the nuns who fought over her and each other, making Wynonna crack up with laughter. Laughing made her feel lighter, freer. For once like her world wasn’t collapsing beneath her.

“Uh oh. What is this? Wynonna Earp laughing at my stories? Is it possible?” Rosita was on her side, facing Wynonna who was mirroring her.

“Don’t get so full of yourself,” Wynonna joked and smiled, trying her hardest not to pay attention to Rosita’s eyes or her lips or her chest. “I only find you marginally funny. I’m mostly just laughing at you.”

“Nah, Earp. You think I’m funny.”

“Funny looking, maybe. Looks aren’t everything, you know.”

Rosita pursed her lips and let out a breathy chuckle. “You’re a dick, you know that, right? You can’t even admit that you think I’m funny.”

“Why would I do that? It would give you a big head. You’re already gorgeous and brilliant, if you thought you were funny, your ego would just multiply in size.”

Rosita raised an eyebrow and smirked. “You think I’m gorgeous?”

Wynonna rolled her eyes. “As if you didn’t know that.”

“Maybe I just hoped you did.”

Their eyes locked. Wynonna felt her chest pounding and her stomach flutter. For a second, she thought she could drown in Rosita’s eyes. She knew she could do it without any effort. And in that moment, she thought she could kiss her. Taste her. Love her.

No.

Wynonna looked away and laid flat on her back. She didn’t want to see her. She didn’t want to keep looking at her lips or drowning in her eyes. That territory was dangerous. Because what they had here was great. It was easy. It felt good. And there was no way she was going to risk losing it.

“So, what’s the rude nun’s deal? Cecilia? Why is she always glaring at me?”

Rosita paused for a second, like she was debating something else, but then took a deep breath and told Wynonna what exactly her deal was. Back and forth, they continued to talk about meaningless things until they drifted off to sleep.

part vii

Two weeks later.

Wynonna: yo rosita r u sure that cecilia bitch wont hit me when i come inside again

Rosita: come inside what ;)

Wynonna: you’re worse than me

Wynonna: answer the goddamn question

Rosita: don’t worry about her, the others have her under control

Wynonna: good, i’m coming in

Wynonna: don’t you dare make a joke

Wynonna entered the nunnery a little worse for wear. She spent the last week hunting a pack of demons that were working for Cleo. Cleo was not great at being a bad guy, but she was good at finding bad guys to fuck up Wynonna’s life.

At the very least, she was feeling stronger. She had been sleeping (over with Rosita) and had been eating (with Rosita). She had been spending every night with Rosita, eating dinner and falling asleep in her arms. She was just glad that no one living in the homestead had noticed her sneaking away. That was a conversation she did not want to have. They were leaving her alone for the most part ever since Doc ended whatever they were.

When she wasn’t with Rosita, she wished she was with her. She was doing better being around Waverly, Nicole, Rachel, and Jeremy, but their company couldn’t compare to what she felt like around Rosita.

There weren’t even any nuns around when she came in, which was a miracle. Usually, she got horrible stares from them. And then there was Cecilia, who hit her because she was ‘jealous’ of the amount of time Rosita was spending with her. That did not feel great. But it seemed like Rosita had done something to make sure she wasn’t in the presence of any nuns.

“What food did you bring for me today?” Rosita said as she bounced toward Wynonna, all giddy in a way that made Wynonna smile.

“I had a rough day so I have… cake.”

Rosita grinned at her. “And I have forks.”

Wynonna followed Rosita to her room and felt a rush of relief inside. Somehow she felt more at home in a weapon room than she did at her own homestead. She still didn’t know how that happened.

Rosita pulled out the boxed cake and grinned at her. “Chocolate cake. What did I do to deserve such kindness?”

Wynonna snorted. “You are letting me stay in your room most nights.”

“Fair enough. I’d like to think you’d let me stay in your barn if I could.”

Wynonna pretended to wince. “Ooh, you would be living in close proximity to a moody teenager and horny couple, though.”

“Doesn’t sound too terrible to me if you’re around.”  

“You’re a weird one.”

Rosita stuck out her tongue. “Says you. Cake time.”

They were silent for a few minutes as they got into the cake. Wynonna was glad with her decision. She was definitely feeling better.

“So, you said your day was rough? What happened?” Rosita asked between bites of food.

Wynonna shrugged. “Still dealing with the pack of freaking demons. And Doc’s still upset with me because he thinks this wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t—” She couldn’t say it, but Rosita nodded like she understood.

“He’s a fucking hypocrite. You did what you had to do, ‘Nonna, don’t forget that. So… the demons are still out and about?”

“Two down, two to go. The Black Badge weapons aren’t even really helping.”

“Demons be fickle like that,” Rosita joked lightly. “You’ve got a little cake on your nose.”

Wynonna flushed and tried to wipe her nose. “Did I get it?”

“Here, let me,” Rosita whispered and leaned over slowly, very very close to Wynonna’s face. “It’s right… here…”

Wynonna waited for Rosita to wipe her nose (as she ignored how good Rosita smelled), but Rosita just grabbed a handful of cake and slathered it onto Wynonna’s nose. She gasped in complete and utter surprise. She definitely wasn’t expecting that.

“You dick!” Instead of wiping the cake off her nose, she grabbed whatever she could from her nose and threw it at Rosita, landing in her hair. “Got you in your luscious hair.”

Rosita grimaced as she tried to take the cake out of her hair. “My hair!? My hair, Wynonna!? Seriously?”

Wynonna grinned devilishly at her. “Well, as they say, if you really want to hurt someone, you go after what they love the most.”

“It’s on, Wynonna.”

Rosita grabbed a handful of cake and threw it at Wynonna’s shoulder as Wynonna threw a piece at Rosita’s head. It only took a few seconds for it to turn into a fully fledged war. They were laughing and screaming as they aimed cake at each other.

When Rosita hit Wynonna’s jacket, however, was when it became intense. Wynonna jumped on top of her and rubbed a piece of cake all over the top of her head. Rosita winked to catch her off guard before she forced them to roll around so that she was on top. She pinned Wynonna’s wrists to the ground, forcing out a groan from Wynonna.

“I’ve got you now.”

Wynonna’s chest was heaving as heat flowed through her entire body. Rosita was sitting on her, smirking in a way that made the heat throb. Cake was falling off Rosita’s head, but all of her attention was on Rosita’s eyes. It was always on her eyes.

“You do.”

Wynonna blinked and Rosita’s lips were on hers. She was frozen for a second before she kissed her back. She couldn’t help it. Desire fiercely roared through her in a way it really hadn’t before. Besides, Rosita’s lips were soft and gentle and eager and so kissable. Her whole body from head to toe felt like it was tingling. Electric.

Wynonna wanted more. More and more and more and more. She ran her tongue against Rosita’s bottom lip and Rosita obliged. Her tongue was in the other woman’s mouth and at the sound of Rosita’s moan into her mouth, Wynonna almost died on the spot. The heat between her legs was killing her.

“Fuck.”

The sound of Rosita’s voice forced Wynonna to stop. To realize what had happened. To regret everything. She easily pushed Rosita off of her and quickly stood up. Rosita looked at her with such confusion, such hurt that it nearly broke Wynonna’s heart that very second.

“What’s wrong?” Rosita asked, her voice so quiet, so terrified.

Tears were falling from Wynonna’s eyes. Rosita thought she was rejecting her, which wasn’t the case at all. Instead, Wynonna was stopping things before Rosita had the chance to reject her. She knew it would inevitably happen. It always did.

“This was wrong! You weren’t supposed to kiss me!”

Rosita started crying too. “Why? I thought you wanted me, too!”

“I…” she did want her. She wanted Rosita more than she had ever wanted anybody. And that was fucking terrifying. “It doesn’t matter. You ruined this, Rosita! You were my person and you… you ruined this.”

“I’m sorry!” Rosita choked out as she reached for Wynonna’s hand, but she just pulled away and started walking backward toward the door. “I’m so sorry. Just please stay. Let’s talk about it. Please, Wynonna. Let’s talk about it.”

Wynonna shook her head rapidly. She couldn’t stay and watch Rosita cry. She couldn’t stay and watch as everything was falling apart. She wouldn’t do that to herself. She wouldn’t do that to Rosita.

“I have to go.”

Wynonna, with her lips still numb, turned around and headed for the door as fast as she could.

“Please stay, Wynonna!” Rosita shouted suddenly, stopping Wynonna in her tracks. “Don’t do this, ‘Nonna! Stay with me!”

Wynonna bit her numb lips, drawing blood. “I can’t.”

Rosita didn’t chase her out of the room. She didn’t know what she would have done if Rosita had followed her out. She just had to get out of there. She just had to get out of there. She just had to get out of there.

part viii

Three hours later.

Rosita: wynonna, please answer your phone, i’ve called you 3 times

Rosita: please wynonna

Rosita: you’re worrying me

Rosita: please, let’s just talk about this

Rosita: i’d fucking come to you if i could

Six hours later.

Rosita: just tell me you’re okay

Rosita: i just want to make sure you’re fine

Rosita: fuck

Rosita: wynonna, please

Rosita: i’m begging you

Twelve hours later.

Rosita: i shouldn’t have kissed you, i should have asked

Rosita: we would never ever have to kiss again, i assure you

Rosita: wynonna, we can just be friends

Rosita: or whatever you want to be

Rosita: i just want you to talk to me

Twelve hours later.

Rosita: you’re scaring me

Rosita: if you don’t pick up your fucking phone i’m going to leave this fucking nunnery, damn the consequences

Wynonna: dont be an idiot

Rosita: wynonna are you okay?

Rosita: wynonna?

Thirty hours later.

Rosita: don’t do this, please

Rosita: we can pretend like it never happened

Rosita: i promise, it’ll be like before

Rosita: please

Rosita: you’re the only one who understands me

Rosita: you’re the only one who has ever understood me

Rosita: please

Two weeks later.

Rosita: i need you

part ix

One day later.

She didn’t know why she was back. It had been about two and a half weeks since she had been here. Two and a half weeks of hating herself. Two and a half weeks of hating how she left and how she felt like she couldn’t go back. Two and a half weeks of missing everything about Rosita. Two and a half weeks of wishing she was back in her arms, back in her bed, back kissing her lips.

She wished that it was Rosita’s last text that had convinced her to come back, but instead, it was her nosy best friend.

“You’re mopey again. And drinking.”

Wynonna rolled her eyes at the redhead, who was looking at all the empty bottles in her bed. “And you’re annoying. So what?”

Haught glared at her. “Go see her, Earp. Please. For all of our sakes.”

“What the hell are you on about?”

Haught put her hands on her hips. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but I know you were going off to see Rosita every night a couple of weeks ago. Rachel told me that she had seen you sneaking out and I followed you. I connected the pieces. I have to say, I was surprised, but she was making you so happy.”

Wynonna groaned and buried her head in her pillow. “Did you tell my sister?”

“Not my problem. You should tell her, not me. So… what happened?” Nicole sat down on the makeshift bed with Wynonna.

“She kissed me.”

“And that’s a bad thing? Did she force herself on you?”

“No, nothing like that. I kissed her back.”

Nicole furrowed her eyebrows. “So… what’s the problem?”

Wynonna shook her head, frustrated that she didn’t understand. “I’m a fuck up. I would fuck it up. I don’t do relationships.”

“But you like her?”

“Too much.”

Nicole sighed. “Wynonna, don’t focus on the relationship. Don’t focus on any of that shit. It doesn’t matter. What matters is how you feel about her and you wanting to be with her. Everything else, that’s just fluff. You deserve this. You deserve her.”

Tears spilled from her eyes. “She’s too good for me.”

“You’re an idiot, Earp.” Nicole reached over and wiped some of her tears away. “Go to her. Tell her the truth. Everything else is fluff.”

Fluff.

She opened the door to find fucking Cecelia’s fist. Blood was spilling from the cut in her lip. Fucking Cecilia.

“Hey! What the hell is going on here?”

Rosita was running toward her as Wynonna held onto her rapidly bruising face. The first thing she noticed was that Rosita was back in her nun outfit. Out of Wynonna’s clothes. It was a fucking stab to her heart (though Wynonna understood why).

“Rosita…” Wynonna breathed out when she finally approached her.

“I thought you wouldn’t want her back inside,” Cecilia hissed to Rosita proudly, like she had been of service to her.

“Go away, Cecelia, you didn’t have to fucking hit her,” Rosita muttered and finally turned to look at Wynonna, who was practically speechless. “That should be my job.”

Wynonna gulped and stiffened, ready for a smack. But nothing happened.

“Did you really think I was going to hit you?” There was no resemblance of humor in her voice. She seemed genuinely concerned.

Wynonna shrugged. She didn’t tell her that it had happened before.

Rosita seemed to know the answer to the question even though she was silent. Her hard eyes softened and she reached out to pull the other brunette into her arms. Tears immediately spilled out of Wynonna’s eyes. She had missed this so much. Rosita’s arms.

“Goddammit, Wynonna.”

“I’m so sorry,” she apologized and squeezed Rosita tighter. “I shouldn’t have left you like that. I should have picked up my fucking phone. I was so scared.”

“Of what?”

“You, me, us. All of it.”

Rosita pulled away and cupped Wynonna’s tear covered cheeks. “I never would have done anything you weren’t comfortable with. We don’t—let’s go into my room. Everyone’s watching us.”

Wynonna looked around and realized that Rosita was right. Nuns were staring down at her, glaring at her in the creepiest way possible. She shuddered and followed Rosita to her room, anxiously waiting for Rosita to finish what she was saying.

When the doors closed, Rosita continued. “Wynonna, we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. Ever. ”

Wynonna ran her fingers through her hair. She knew this was going to be the hard part. Telling the truth. Being vulnerable. She fucking hated it. But with Rosita holding her hand as they sat on the mattress, she felt reassured. She felt strong enough to do this.

“It’s not that I don’t want us to do things. It’s just… I’ve never done this. I don’t know if you know this about me, but I fuck up every single potential relationship I’ve ever had and I have never ever been enough. I don’t want us to get together and for me to ruin this.”

“Oh, Wynonna…” Rosita squeezed her hand and took a deep breath. “I don’t know what Doc or anyone else said or did, but you need to know that you are enough for anyone. You might be a colossal hot mess, but Wynonna, anyone would be lucky to have you. As a friend, as a lover, as a mother…”

Wynonna broke.

Physically, emotionally, she broke down. She placed her head in her hands, crying into them as she tried to move away from Rosita, not wanting her to have to deal with this. She never liked anyone to see her like this. Not even Waverly.

“Wynonna…” Rosita moved closer to her and tried to pull her close.

For a few long seconds, Wynonna pushed her away as hard as she could. Tears streaming down her face, she struggled with Rosita, screaming and hitting, trying to get away from her when all the ex-Revenant was doing was trying to hold her closer. Normally, Wynonna would have been able to fight against her, but while she was desperately shaking and forgetting how to breathe, she couldn’t fight against her. She hated it. She hated that Rosita was holding her, cradling her in her arms, whispering that she needed to breathe.

She didn’t deserve it. Just like she didn’t deserve Doc. Just like she didn’t deserve her sister’s love or Haught’s friendship.

But she continued to sob into Rosita’s shoulder as the woman ran her fingers through Wynonna’s hair. She didn’t know how to stop. How to start breathing like a normal person. She hadn’t done this in awhile. And usually, it happened when she was alone and she’d cry until she couldn’t anymore.

She clung to Rosita’s nun robe until she finally was able to breathe along with her and coughed out, “I’m ruining your clothes.”

“Eh, there’s more of ‘em. I could take it off if you wanted.”  

“Why are y-you doing this?” Wynonna asked her (somehow ignoring Rosita’s innuendo), her voice trembling as fiercely as her body. She couldn’t think of a single person other than Waverly who would do this for her.

Rosita shrugged. “You know I don’t want to see you suffer.”

That wasn’t good enough for her. “I ghosted you.”

“You did, but I don’t give a shit about that right now. You’re Wynonna fucking Earp. The bravest, most loyal, and sexiest person I’ve ever met. You have so much shit on your shoulders and everyone expects you to just deal with it with a smile. It’s okay if you’re not doing okay.”

She shook her head, not allowing a single word to mean anything to her. “I’m not just doing ‘not okay’, I’m doing total shit. I’m a fuck-up, Rosita, it’d be a joke to pretend like I’m anything but.”

Startling Wynonna, Rosita gently traced a finger from Wynonna’s eyebrow to her chin and whispered, “just cause you think you’re a fuck-up doesn’t mean you not also all those things I said.” She grinned down at her, knowing Wynonna’d smile.

“You’re a beautiful idiot.”

“All I’m hearing is that I’m beautiful.”

Wynonna wiped her tears and smiled at her. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“You literally compliment and flirt with me all the time. Like in every sentence. Even when you try to criticize me—”

“Yeah, yeah.” Wynonna looked down, tried to gather herself, and said, “I’m sorry I ghosted you.”

“I’m sorry I kissed you.”

Wynonna shook her head. “Can you do it again?”

“Wynonna, I don’t want you to feel like we have to do anything.”

“Please. Please kiss me, Rosita. I just want you to fucking—”

Rosita interrupted her with her lips. Her fucking lips. She kissed her with a greedy need and Wynonna returned it. Give and take. Wynonna wanted all of her. It was all need.

The Heir gracefully moved so that instead of the cradling position they were in, she could sit on Rosita’s lap, placing her hand on Rosita’s waist. Rosita smiled slightly at the touch and the kiss deepened. Rosita’s hands were all in the other woman’s hair.

When Wynonna’s mouth traveled to Rosita’s chin, down to her neck, Rosita asked, “I thought you didn’t want this.”

Wynonna came up for air and found Rosita’s brown eyes. “God, I want everything with you. Everything else is fluff.”

Rosita snorted. “Fluff? Who are you and what have you done with Wynonna Earp?”

“Don’t be cheeky,” Wynonna quipped back. “What I mean is, all of my worries, when I’m with you, it’s just extra fluff. What matters is that I want you. I want to spend all my time with you. I want to talk to you. I want to laugh with you. I want to kiss you. And you know I want to fuck you. I want you.” She kissed her neck. “I want you.” She kissed her jawline. “I want you.” She kissed her cheek. “I want you.” She kissed her lips.

“You have no idea how happy I am to hear that,” Rosita muttered between kisses. “Though I’m pretty sure I want you more.”

Wynonna felt like her whole body was on fire. She just kissed her with more urgency, more desire, more love. She tried to find a zipper or button or something on Rosita’s nun thing and growled when she couldn’t find anything.

“Fuck it.”

She ripped it.

Rosita laughed. “Needy.”

It didn’t take long for the nun outfit to be in shreds. She was caught a little off-guard when she saw Rosita’s body, her fucking body, her entire glorious body. She quickly started to memorize every section of skin, every curve, every line.

“See something you like?”

“You’re gorgeous.”

Rosita grinned at her and started taking Wynonna’s clothes off until they scattered across the floor. Rosita started touching her, her fingers feeling like bolts of energy across her skin. Rosita’s touch brought her back to life.

part x

One year later.

Wynonna’s eyes snapped open at the sound of pots and pans. She groaned and rolled over, bumping into a body. She was mostly used to sleeping with another body, but it still sometimes startled her. In a good way. She couldn’t believe that it had been a year and that they were still together, even though the bed was different.

The other woman wrapped her arms around her and Wynonna breathed her in. She smelled like home.

“I’m going to kill my sister for waking us up every morning.”

Rosita chuckled and kissed her forehead. “She’s making us breakfast, you know.”

“Even so, she’s making me miss the nunnery.”

“That’s dramatic. You added an extension on the house for a reason, Wynonna. I would not have liked to live in the barn.”

Wynonna grinned at her cheesily. “It was a cozy barn.”

Rosita rolled her eyes. “Not cozy enough for me. I’m just personally glad you finally told your sister. She was the one who figured out how I could stay here with the ammonite.”

“And she’s been teasing me about you ever since.”

Rosita pretended to pout. “Oh. You poor baby. You have to deal with your mean sister making fun of you being cute with your girlfriend. Your hot girlfriend, might I add.”

Wynonna smirked and started to trace her fingers along her girlfriend’s arm. “The hottest girlfriend in the world.”

The ex-Revenant hummed. “How long do you think we can wait until we have to go see your sister.”

She groaned. “Knowing her, she’ll probably knock on our door in three minutes if we don’t get up. I can’t believe she’s still doing her interruption ‘payback’ scheme. Wynonnus Interruptus was charming. Waverly Interrupy is just a jerk.”

“Well,” Rosita sighed and began to tug at the boxers Wynonna was wearing, “we can do a lot in three minutes.”

Wynonna’s heart thumped as her girlfriend rolled on top of her and started kissing her neck. She moaned and started to mess with Rosita’s bra clip. It was almost completely off when there was a banging on the door.

“Breakfast is ready, lovebirds!”

Both of them groaned in frustration and Rosita flopped back down on the bed. They acted surprised even though this happened almost every morning. Wynonna wasn’t sure if she’d ever get used to it, though. Waking up to Rosita every morning. Rosita, her girlfriend. Her fucking girlfriend. It still amazed her. She couldn’t believe she stayed.

“I guess that means we have to put clothes on,” Rosita sighed as she sat up and pulled her long hair into a messy bun.

Wynonna gazed at her girlfriend. “Please don’t put clothes on.”

“Baby…” Rosita leaned over and kissed her. “The last time we left the room looking like this we were told that we ‘traumatized’ the munchkin.”

“Smalldez. Ruining our mood.” Wynonna scrunched up her nose and frowned.

Rosita snorted. “It also just so happened that she was on facetime with her significant other. Rachel said that they were very concerned about her when it happened.”

“Okay, so we learned our lesson! Rachel legit saw Waverly and Nicole on the floor in the kitchen. I don’t know how us in our bras could be that much worse.”

The ex-Revenant shrugged. “Don’t know. But we have to get out of bed or it’s just going to be worse for us. You know that. The last time we stayed in our room, when we came out, they all had headphones on. And we weren’t even really doing anything. And when we have Alice come home, it’ll just be worse. She’ll need you all the time.”

The mention of Alice sent both excitement and anxiety through her body. With Cleo admitting defeat and surrendering and most of the demons under control, they decided to bring Alice back home. Wynonna was still in a state of shock. She was so worried when she found out she was pregnant that she’d have to do it all alone. But she had her sister, her best friend/sister-in-law, Doc, Rachel, and Rosita. Rosita, who told her that she would be there for her and Alice, no matter what.

“She’ll need us, Rosie.”

A smile grew from Rosita’s lips. “Imagine in a few weeks time, your little girl will be in our arms.”

It was the only thing that Wynonna had been thinking about in the last few months. “It’s crazy. I’m so excited for her to be home. It’ll be like…”

“Like what, Wy?”

Wynonna took a deep breath, knowing what she was going to say was a big deal. “Like all the people I love will be in one place. Like my family will finally be together. Like I’m finally happy. I know a lot of it has to do with you.”

Rosita cupped Wynonna’s cheeks and kissed her nose. “You make me happier than I’ve ever been, Wynonna.”

“Rosita, I—I love you. So fucking much. I love you so much.”

She finally said it. She knew it was the truth after a week of being together, but she wasn’t ready to say it out loud until now. She was emotionally ready, now. She knew what there relationship was and she knew that it was strong. There was nothing that could pull them apart. Not now.

“Wynonna Earp,” Rosita laughed and wiped the tears that flowed from Wynonna’s eyes. “I love you, too. More than anything. More than the amount of stars in the sky. No matter what.”

Wynonna grinned, feeling a burst of love spread throughout her entire body. She kissed her with everything she had. God, she loved Rosita Bustillos.

“BREAKFAST IS GETTING COLD!”

“I think we’re going to be in trouble,” Rosita joked and kissed her gently. “We should go.”

Wynonna sighed in agreement. “We should.”

They didn’t.

#wynonna earp fanfiction #Wynonna Earp #wynsita #wynonna x rosita #binonna earp #binonna #wynonna earp fic #wynonna earp fanfic #wearp fic #wayhaught #wayhaught fic #nicole haught #doc holliday #waverly earp #rosita bustillos

[rueren]

★ 𝓢 𝓣𝓐 𝓡 𝓓 𝓤 𝓢 𝓣★

𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓹𝓽𝓮𝓻 1

Word Count: 6k

CW: swearing, slight angst

𝒦 𝐸 𝐼 𝒯 𝐻

Saturday August 31, 7:07 am

***

He woke up drenched in warm sunlight.

Wait, no.  Cold sunlight.  Cold sunlight? No, that's not right. Cold, artificial, too bright to be natural light.  

The clicking of a light switch rang throughout the room.  His eyelids turned orange, the fluorescent light source directly behind them. Click. Click. Click.  

He pulled the sheets closer to his chin, mumbling sentences that didn’t even make sense to himself.  He’d just ignore the flickering lights - and the person flicking them - until they left Keith alone and let him sleep in peace.  He hoped.

 Then the sheets started to shift, being pulled slightly off of his leg.

“Ugh, okay, fine, I’m up now.” He grumbled into his pillow, “What do you want from me.”   

This was the same thing Shiro had done the whole week. And well basically their whole life.  Randomly waking him up at such an ungodly hour by flicking the lights on and off.  Kicking his foot just enough to annoy him into consciousness.  

The room was occupied by boxes.  Towers of them.  Maybe not towers.  Mounds? There were like, five boxes to unpack.  Maybe seven.  He’d be done in two hours, three tops.  He’d been putting it off for a week, sure.  But he’d do it today.  Today, but not now.  Later.  Not at seven o’clock in the fucking morning.  

“I don’t want anything.  I need you to get up, and unpack.  We’ve been here for almost a week and you haven’t touched your boxes, and classes start after tomorrow.” Shiro said, finally pulling the sheets off the mattress.  

His body blocked the sun coming from the glass wall across the room, and when he moved away with the sheet, the cold air in the apartment from the AC washed over his legs.  Shiro stepped over him, with hair still dripping wet, and sat on the other side of Keith’s mattress on the floor. They’d bought basic bed frames back home, and Krolia said she would ship it to them, but they hadn’t come in yet, so he’d had to make due.

“It’s seven am, Takashi.  On a Saturday. I don’t have time for your shit,” Keith grumbled, curling in on himself, “And besides, I have opened them.” A truth.  Not a whole truth, but that still counted, right?

“Opening one box to take out like two shirts since we got here doesn’t count Keith.” Shiro reprimanded, and Keith didn’t need to open his eyes to hear the smirk in his voice.

“Okay, I’ll do it.  But I’ll do it later, ‘cause its seven fucking am Shiro, not everyone is as excited about the crack of dawn as you.” He finally opened his eyes, glaring at Shiro with still sleep-heavy lids.

Shiro laughed at that, water droplets falling onto Keiths face, “It’s not my fault you like to sleep away your entire existence,” He kicked at Keith’s shin as he got up, with Keith expecting the bed to dip back with the lack of weight but then it doesn't and he remembers he doesn't even have a bed frame so it isn't going to dip, because their stupid IKEA beds hadn’t come in yet.  Good for nothing shipping companies, never being on time, “I’m coming back to get you in ten minutes.  With a glass of water.  Cold.” 

“You wouldn’t.” Keith half sat up, propped on his elbow, facing him.

“Guess we’ll find out in ten minutes.”

He closed the door before Keith could get out a retort, and Keith just groaned, flopping in his bed.  

Shiro’s laugh behind the door sounds fainter as the receding sound of feet against floorboards crept out of earshot.

 He might as well get up now, he supposed.  He was fully awake anyway.  And Shiro pouring a cup of water on him if he fell asleep again wasn’t as appealing as it sounded. 

He stretched out his limbs, and made his way out of bed.  An incoherent string of insults fell from his lips as he reached to grab a shirt out of the box.  He stared at it for a bit, going back on what Shiro said about only opening the box to grab a shirt.  Stupid Shiro for always being right, it’s not even natural.  He tossed back the shirt and grabbed a pair of sweatpants instead, because if Shiro gets to wake him up, he doesn't have the power to make him get dressed.  Neither is he going to give him the satisfaction of being right about something else.  Again.

The floor  of his room was freezing under his feet, despite the August weather.  It sent shivers up his legs to his shoulders as he walked into the hallway of the new apartment.  It was still new to him. He made a move to go to the bathroom, out in the hallway.  Then realized that it wasn’t home.  Well it was, but not home. He doubled back and went into his bathroom, connected to his room. 

 He wasn’t used to the layout of the place, not like he was back home. Back home he could walk around with his eyes closed.  He wasn’t bothered though.  He’d just have to make due.

The bathroom floor was no different.  Cold under his feet, if not colder.  Keith grumbled under his breath, glancing at the door as Shiro stuck his head in.  “You’re like a wet dog, dripping everywhere.” He didn’t wait to hear Shiro’s response, closing the door on his face. Metal on wood was heard outside the door, prosthetic clanging against the door, followed by more receding footsteps. 

Keith dragged a hand across his face, staring at his reflection.  He’d spent the night tossing and turning, never comfortable, and now his hair paid the price.  He knew he should have tied it, but he was too tired to care.  Future Keith’s problem, he’d thought.  Well, Present Keith was ticked at Past Keith.  Also at Present Shiro for waking him up at seven am on a fucking Saturday. All this being-pissed-off was not helping his bed head, and he sighed as he tried to finger comb his hair, not to literally rip the hair out of his follicles. 

Hair brushed and mouth not tasting gross anymore, he trudged out to the kitchen.  The apartment wasn’t the biggest, but it certainly was bigger than most. 

The living room was big, with a glass wall, and a balcony behind a sliding glass door.  There was a door in Keiths room that connected to the balcony too.  Shiro didn’t even fight Keith when he promptly flung his bag on the floor the second he found out that room had the balcony - he knew Keith would’ve fought him for it. And Shiro didn’t mind that much either. Although they weren’t that high up, it was only the tenth floor, Shiro wasn’t too fond of heights.  So a smaller window instead of a glass door reminding him just how high up they were was all he could ask for.

When they first made their way up to the apartment, he thanked whatever celestial beings he could think of for this place to have two bathrooms.   He’d shared one with Shiro back home, and saying it was a nightmare was an understatement. Using all the hot water after a run, taking too long to make that tuft of white hair just right.  It was too much for Keith to process.  It looked like he just left it there when he finished anyways, so why did it always take twenty minutes.  

And the space.  Their bathroom back home was the smallest bathroom you could imagine. Shower and tub together, the sink crammed right next to it and a toilet across.  They’d had to install and uninstall a lock on the door more times than he could remember, for one reason or another.  

This one was different. Spacious.  A full bath and shower.  A long mirror.  Tiled shower walls.  Gray and white aesthetic, the lights being a little bit too bright, but he didn’t mind.  Helps him wake up when he needs to.

The only thing wrong with this bathroom was the floor to ceiling glass wall.  Who in their right mind would ever think that that was okay.  He thought back to when Krolia had told them about the place 

The bedrooms were situated on either side of the bathroom .  Keith's first then Shiro’s .  And since they were at the end of the hall in the complex, they’d gotten a corner apartment.  

They had a pretty decent kitchen as well, with an island and barstool chairs and everything.  

Well, there would be barstools around the island, and an actual dishwasher in the spot by the edge of the counter, and an actual stove, if the shipping company got their shit together and sent their furniture.  The apartment had been eerily empty with just mattresses in each room, and the living room stacked with boxes instead of actual furniture. 

He sat himself on a box, one that was not labeled fragile.  His head slumped forward, hair falling down his face, tickling the exposed skin on his back..  He was not looking forward to Shiro telling him to open his boxes again after today, so he’d have to get it done.  And besides, the semester started the day after tomorrow. He’d have to do it anyway.

“He got you too?” A voice, rough with sleep, said from behind him. He smirked, as he heard the sleep driven shuffle of slippers on the hardwood floor.

“Yeah. Got you too it seems.” Keith said, finally looking up.  Adam looked over at him with sleep heavy eyes.

“Why is he so hellbent on waking up before the sun every single morning?” Adam sighed, grabbing the box of Eggo waffles from the freezer.  He held it up and Keith held up two fingers.  Adam took out four and put them in the four slot toaster.  A gift from Krolia before they left. 

“I just know you boys are going to fight over who gets breakfast first.  Here, take it.” 

“Krolia, we don’t need this.  Keep it-”

“Hush.  Take it.  I will not have you two fighting over who gets to toast a stupid piece of bread every day the whole way through college,” Krolia sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose, “Ugh, just thinking about it gives me a headache.  Take it, Shiro, or so help me god-”

“Okay, okay, we’ll take the toaster.  Thank you.”

He’d slept over the night before to help Shiro unpack.  Well, that’s what he’d said he was over for.  All three of them knew he was here to be with Shiro.  Long distance relationships were always hard, and Shiro and Adam were no exception.  They’d been dating since high school, senior year, so that had been - 5 years?  

There had been a break up halfway through, though.  Keith didn’t even know something could be mutual but also not until this break.  They’d both agreed on it, but only for the sake of the other, the whole time complaining to Keith.  Adam called him to wallow in his misery, sentences consisting of “Ugh, I miss him so much, Keith.” and “Why would I even say that we should take a break?” and  “I’m so stupid.  Keith, does he even talk about me?”.  

Shiro talked about it less frequently to Keith, but when he did, he did so more insistently.  “Keith, I know he calls you.  Does he say anything about me?  Please, tell me he does.  Ugh, why did we even think a break was a good idea?” 

Both of them thought the other had wanted it.  Wanted time to focus on themselves.  Both of them being stupidly wrong.  Both of them thinking a break would be best because of stress and long distance and whatever else made them take a break.  Neither of them really wanted it, but only did it because they thought the other needed it.  And they would do anything for each other. 

It was sweet, Keith thought then.  Sweet but stupid.  Make yourself hurt for what you thought the person you loved wanted.  Sweet but stupid.

Adam had flown out to see Shiro, a month and a half  into the break, because Shiro had drunk called him.  That was enough to break him.  He booked a flight to LA, from Chicago, and only told Keith that he was in the city, once he landed.  Krolia had driven down to pick him from the airport.  Keith was in charge of  keeping Shiro preoccupied until Adam got to the house.  

Adam came into the house the moment Shiro started complaining about the break again.  And when Adam had heard Shiro say he hated the break, never wanted it to begin with, only agreed to it because Adam wanted it, he stepped out from where he stood in the foreir. 

“I never wanted it, you dipshit.”  Adam said, and Shiro froze in place.   He turned around slowly, and Keith found himself smiling, watching it unfold in front of him.  Shiros face falling, then he smiled, the brightest he’d ever seen Shiro smile. 

Then he started tearing up.  That’s when Adam moved across the living room.  Turned to Shiro, strides across the floor purposeful, and filled with love and emotion, as if that were even possible.  Steps filled with the distance between them and the longing they both had for each other and the love they had for each other that was projected in the way they looked at each other.

“I missed you.” Shiro’s voice cracked.

“I missed you too,” Adam said, his hands coming around Shiro’s wrists, “ God, I missed you. So much.” 

And when he said that, Shiro broke.  They both broke, and hugged and cried and laughed and fell to their knees with their heads pressed to the others shoulder and Keith felt tight in the chest as Krolia placed a hand on his shoulder, a small smile gracing her face as well.  And they both left, feeling like they were invading a private moment. 

“Well, he’s your boyfriend, and he never did that before you,” Keith smirked, “So I say it’s your own fault.”  

“Yeah, well, that was before I figured out how much of a blessing sleep was when you're a college student.” He grumbled before downing the glass of water he poured for himself. 

He looked worse than Keith, with his hair - which had grown last since Keith had seen him, another thing that made Keith remember he was away from the people he was close to for far too long - was disheveled, flat against one side from sleep.  He hadn’t even put his glasses on and the bags under his eyes were more visible.  His shirt, a soft dark gray with NASA across the front in a fading font, from how old it was, a few sizes too big, considering it was Shiro’s.  Pajamas bottoms too long for his legs, scrunched up against his Bart Simpson slipper, the red and blue and black stripes making the yellow of Bart’s face way too bright.

Adam yawned as he started a pot of coffee.  As tired as Adam looked, it reminded Keith of where he was.  With the people he cared about. Not talking to them through a screen that pixelated their faces because of sketchy college dorm WIFI.  He had seen Pidge and Matt the first day they got into Chicago, and he’d felt better.  Hugged them and forced himself not to tear up, because they would never let him hear the end of it.  He was happy.  For the first time in a long while.

“Good, you’re both up.” Shiro’s voice entered the kitchen. They both looked over at him, and gaped at how awake he looked.  

Well, Keith did. Adam was probably gaping for different reasons, that Keith did not want to think about his brother in.  

He had on a tank top - way too tight, for no reason, other than that his boyfriend was here - dark gray sweatpants, and an honest to god neon pink and black striped headband in his hair, a stark contrast to the white bangs that it held from his face.

“No thanks to you,” Keith grumbled.  The toaster popped up and Keith reluctantly stomped over to it, throwing them on a plate and taking the syrup Adam handed to him absentmindedly, drenching his waffles.

Shiro sat on the floor - because they had no furniture - cross legged, against the box Keith was sitting on before.  “How do you guys eat that stuff? It's just sugar.”

“Some of us like sugar, Shiro,” Adam quipped, hopping up on the island to sit and wait for his coffee, “Just like how some of us actually enjoy letting the sun get up before we do.”

Shiro laughed, “I went out for a run. I let you guys sleep for another 2 hours after I got up.”

“How did you guys even come from the same house?’ Adam directed at Keith, around a piece of waffle, as he stuffed a piece of his own waffle into his mouth.

“How are you guys even dating? '' He countered, voice monotone, but his chest tightened slightly in happiness.  He liked how happy Shiro got around Adam.  He deserved to be happy after everything that’s happened to them.

Not that he’d say that aloud.  He’d never hear the end of it.

“He’s lucky he’s cute,” Adam said, grabbing 3 mugs from the cupboard, pouring their coffee, and Shiro’s cheeks went pink. Keith made a show of visibly gagging, and Adam flipped him off.

It still amazed Keith, how even after dating for so long, his brother still got flustered over the smallest of compliments.

“Yeah, whatever.  Go sleep the rest of your youth away. I don’t care.” Shiro teased, and Adam handed him his mug of coffee.  He kissed Shiro’s head, and Shiro’s face went redder as he smiled. 

They all sat around for a bit, Adam beside Shiro on the floor and Keith on the island, eating waffles drinking coffee, and talking about school starting and Adam’s new job, and Shiro’s new classes, as well as Keith starting classes as well.

 Keith missed this.  The familiarity of it all.  He missed it.

“‘Kay, as much as I love talking with you both about school at seven in the morning on  Saturday, I need to take a shower.” Adam got up from the floor, cracking his back, “When is your furniture supposed to come in?”

“It was supposed to come in two days ago.  They said it’d be another like, 3 days at most.” Shiro said, getting up too, and putting both their mugs in the sink.

“Okay, yeah.  Well, off to shower I guess.”  And he left down the hall. Shiro and Keith talked a bit more while he showered, about Krolia saying she was going to visit in a few weeks, about Matt and his new girlfriend, and when their schedules had open spots at the same time.

“Alright.  I need to go get some WIFI and whatever,” Keith said, dropping his plate in the sink, as Adam turned off the shower, “I’ll be back in a few hours.”

“You have to finish unpacking today,” Shiro said, as he walked off to his room, to change.

“Yeah, I’ve got the rest of the day.  It’ll be unpacked don’t worry.” 

“Alright,” Shiro said, as Keith closed the door to his bedroom.   Keith chuckled at Shiro’s voice muffled behind the door as he said, “How do I always get stuck on dish duty?”

He changed into a black t-shirt and ripped black jeans, although half of the cuts he’d done himself. Rummaging around in the one box he’d opened  when they first got here, he fished out a blue shirt, and groaned, tossing it over onto the mattress .  The next thing he grabbed was a flannel.  Basic, but it would make do.  Red and black plaid around his waist, he grabbed his olive green messenger bag, covered in pins and patchwork and doodles.  His laptop and charger were stuffed inside, as well as his sketchbook and pencils.  Never left anywhere without it.

Phone in hand, he left his room, and walked to the front door. He passed Adam walking out of the bathroom, with his head wrapped in a towel and one around his waist, glasses slightly fogged from the steam.

“Is that even necessary?  You don’t even have that much hair to dry?” Keith questioned, grabbing an apple from the fridge.

“Don’t hate my routine when you don’t care about your own hair, kiddo,” Adam said, over dramatically ruffling Keith’s hair.  He swatted his hand away, walking out the door, with Shiro and Adam laughing behind him.  He called over his shoulder, “Call me if you need me to pick anything up.”

“Yeah, sure.” Shiro said, and Keith grabbed his red leather jacket and stuffed his feet into his black and red checkered vans.

“Be careful,” Shiro called and Keith locked the front door.

And he left the apartment.  With his bike helmet under his arm, he rode the elevator down. He passed the front lobby.  The swivel doors were occupied by someone holding a bunch of boxes, so he took the side door. 

He fiddled with his keys, looking for the one to his bike lock. He didn’t notice the person walking towards him, boxes covering his face.  Not until they crashed into each other.  

“Oh my god, shit. Shit, shit, no. No, oh my god,” The strangers rambled, grasping at the boxes that started teetering to the side, dangerously close to falling over.  Keith threw his hands out to stabilize them, his hand coming over the other guy's hand.

“Shit, sorry, I didn’t see you.” He said to Keith.  He poked his head around the boxes, and smiled at Keith.  

“Yeah, I can see that,” Keith said, taking his hands off the boxes after making sure they weren’t gonna fall, and smiled slightly, “Sorry about bumping into you.  Wasn’t watching where I was going either.”

“No worries. Thanks for not letting me drop these,” He smiled and moved out of the way for Keith to get through.  He waved and the boy stuck out two fingers as a salute, and went into the building, talking to the guy who went in through the swivel doors.

Keith got his keys out and unlocked his bike chain from the back of the complex.  He stuffed his messenger bag in the compartment in his motorcycle, and texted Pidge to say he was leaving to go to the coffee shop they’d agreed to meet up at the night before.  

Keef 

i’ll be there in like, 20 minutes

u better be up 

and there

Pidge(on)

don’t tell me ur awake 

a l r e a d y 

dude its 8 am

im nOT leaving my bed this early 

good bye sir

Keef 

ill give you like 10 minutes after i get there

then im leaving

its not even my fault 

u knooo shiro has like sum competition with the sun to see who can get up earlier

Pidge(on)

LMFAOOO

hes prolly winning too

uuuuuuugh fine

20*

Keef

whatever

just be there

and pidge i swear to god

if its some basic bitch place with watered down shit im gonna kill u

Pidge(on)

ur lack of faith in me is wounding

u wont be mad trust me

He pocketed his phone, sighing and zipped the pocket of the leather jacket he wore.  Extra precautions.  He’d broken his last phone that way.  His bank account was not happy about it.  He pulled his hair out of his face and tied it in a low ponytail,  tugging his helmet on.  The bike revved, and the low rumble of the engine was enough to set him into a familiar rhythm.  Kick up the stand, put his leather gloves on, twist the handle bars, speed out the parking lot.

The wind got stuck in his jacket, and sent a welcomed breeze up his shirt.  It helped his mind relax, the familiar feeling of his jacket wiping behind him as the wind rushed through it.  He loved the feeling.  The familiarity.  It was always something he could rely on.  Something to ground him, when everything got too much for him.  He’d grab his helmet, and just drive.  Back in Texas, he’d drive for hours down the dusty trains behind his parents house.  Even though he hadn’t had a motorcycle then, and he was a child, he’d ride his bicycle for hours and hours in their backyard until his mom would call him in for dinner.

Then when his dad died from a firefighter accident when he was 10.  He ran into a building, when everyone had told him not to go. He hadn’t listened.  He was a Kogane, never backing down from a challenge.  His mom packed them up and left right after the funeral.  She said it was to get a new start, make a life for them somewhere else.  So Texas would always be in their memories, but only the good ones.

Even then, he knew she just wanted to escape.  Escape from the freshest memories, not the countless others where his father was present.

So they packed up, and moved.  To LA.  It had been impulsive.  She’d applied for a position at the art gallery in the city, never really thinking she’d get called back.  When she did, he remembered her being  over the moon.

He’d gotten there, and always rode his bike around the neighborhood.  To and from school.  To the corner store.  To hockey practice.  That had been hard, for an 11 year old to go to practice with all his equipment on his back, and keep control of a bike.  Krolia drove him after he tried once.

And while they were there, she met her future husband.  They hadn’t gotten along with each other at first.  Both insanely competitive, but never failing to compliment the other on their pieces.  Friendly competition.  They started hanging out, they started dating, they had their children meet at Bring Your Kid To Work Day. Shiro had taken a liking to Keith, and the two found out they were going to the same school. Even when they weren’t technically step siblings yet, he had always looked up to Shiro, from the second they met.  So when, 4 years later,  their parents got married, Keith was ecstatic. He was going to have a family again. 

He still rode his bike, but not to escape anything. Because he liked his life now.  Enjoyed waking up, having breakfast with his mom and her fiancé, and fighting over who got to use the bathroom first with his step-bro to be.

Everything was great.  The wedding was sickeningly sweet. His mom looked beautiful in her dress.  Shiro’s dad cried.  Shiro teared up, his friend Matt sat beside him, also beaming with happiness.  Matt’s younger sister, Katie, who insisted on being called Pidge - “What kind of name is Pidge?” 11 year old Keith had asked the 8 year old Pidge.  “It’s my name.  Matt gave it to me. Better than a boring name like Keef,” She said, a tooth missing from the corner of her mouth” - sat beside Keith, smiling up at them, glasses way too big for her face.

Everything was great.  They were a family.  Went on vacations.  Shiro was the best big brother he could’ve asked for, and Shiro’s dad was really nice to him, and although he wasn’t like his own dad, Keith accepted him really quickly.

Everything was fine, until 3 years ago. 

Keith shook his head.  He didn’t want to go back there.  It was a new beginning, Shiro had said on the way up to Chicago.  A fresh start.  Away from all the messiness of their past.  Not that they were trying to escape when the opportunity arose, but they certainly did not turn it down.  

He arrived at the coffee shop ten minutes after texting Pidge.  He parked the bike across the street from the café, killing the engine. He stepped off the bike, and took his helmet off, shaking out his hair from the loose ponytail it was in.  Grabbing his bag from the compartment in his motorcycle, he stared up at the sign for the café

When Pidge had told him to go to the Lion’s Café, saying it was the “the best coffee shop near campus”, what he was met with certainly wasn’t at all how he’d pictured it.  Glass walls outlined the café, and even with the glare from the sun, he could see the many potted plants hanging from the ceiling against the glass. The sign was bold, each letter looping and connecting with another, in a gold cursive font.  A blue coffee cup with gold swirls of steam was put in place of the tittle for the letter “i”.

 Inside was no less intriguing.  The counter was old, rustic, worn.  Full of character.   A glass display case for the pastries was tall, chest height, gold accents around the rims. Chalk boards hung over the wall behind the counter, the menu in swirly, colorful, cursive writing.  Doodle’s of coffee cups and pastries adorned the corners of the boards.

The walls on either side were brick, colors ranging in warm tones, browns, dark burgundy, black, beige, with white cement between each block.  Scattered art work lined the walls, white floating shelves a sharp contrast, each adorned in small potted plants.  On the wall opposite from the front door, there was a large, floor-to-ceiling  length mirror. The tables were made to look like the ring of a tree, with metallic seats on either side of them.  

What really stood out to him was the room and wall on the far end of the café. Through the arch way, hung a curtain of beads.  Inside,  two couches with a mismatch of throw pillows sat on each side of the small room at the end of the café.  There were a few tables behind the couches, still the same design as the seating area in the front.  But the walls, the wall’s of the back room were what caught his attention.

The walls of the room were covered in books.  Head to toe.  All books, crammed into the shelves, books piled into the corners of the room, books piled on the corner tables on either side of either couch.  He ran his hands along the books on the shelf.  So many different books.  Fiction, non-fiction, old, new, big, small, paperback, hardcover.  There were so many.  He looked up at the lights on the ceiling- Faerie lights hung along the ceiling, in a mismatch pattern.  

It looked like something straight out of a movie.  Or a book, whatever.  Definitely something fictional.  It didn’t look real.

And it was this close to campus?

Keith knew exactly where he would be hanging out between classes now.

He sat down on the couch, and opened his laptop, connecting to the cafe’s WIFI.  He’d been there for a little over another the minutes when Pidge came through the door. 

Keith stifled a laugh, a grin plastering against his face.  Pidge looked...the same.  The same as always.  Tired, bags under her eyes.   She had on her favorite green pullover, with an awkward collar that sat somewhere on the line between crew neck and turtleneck - and honestly, it was 80 degrees, he didn’t understand how she wore long sleeves all the time and hadn’t passed out from heat stroke yet.  She had on cargo pants, probably Matt’s, probably something she grabbed from the laundry.  Her backpack hung off of one shoulder, as she ordered something from the cash.  

“Hey,” He said, when she sat down.  More like collapsed, into the spot opposite from him on the couch.

“Why did you make me come here so early?” She groaned, arm over her eyes, head thrown against the back of the couch.  

“Blame Shiro,” He grumbled, and turned back to his computer, tabs upon tabs of job applications open. 

Pidge sat up more, turning over to face him, grinning, while taking her laptop out of her bag, “So, how’re you liking the Lion?” 

“It’s cool.  Not what I expected,” Keith said, not taking his eyes off his screen.  It was more than cool, way better than cool.  It was probably going to be his new favorite place, but he’d never let Pidge know that.  

“Oh come on.  It’s great.  And I literally work here dude, you have to give it some credit,” She said, starting up the computer.

Keith turned his head, “You work here?  You said you worked at a -”

“At a coffee shop? Yeah, this one,” She grinned.

“It’s cool.  Aesthetic.  Might draw it or something.”

“Must be pretty great for Keith Kogane to draw it, huh.”

He smiled softly, “Must be.”

And they sat in silence for a while, with Keith’s eyes scanning for applications, and sending resume’s and sending emails to Kijiji ad’s, and Pidge’s steady typing filling the air.  Her coffee came a few minutes after - worker came over and passed it to her, and Pidge later told him her name was Ezor - and the silence washed over them again. 

It was nice.  He missed this.  The comfortable silence they could get into, enjoying each others presence.  It was familiar, and he reveled in  it, since he didn’t get too much familiarity in his life.  And he knew she understood how he valued their friendship so much.  Even if he didn’t express it in so many words.  She helped him, with grounding him, with being there for him, for pushing him out of his comfort zone.  

Well, maybe he spoke too soon.

“Dude, there’s this party tonight. Some ex-frat boy or something. His parties are known campus wide, according to Matt.  Legendary stories,” Pidge said, as they were packing up to go back to go back to Keith’s place.  He’d roped her into helping him unpack his last few boxes. 

“Keith, I am not unpacking your boxes for you.  Haven’t you been here for like a whole week?  Why haven’t you done it yet?”

“Didn’t it take you like, a month to finish unpacking your stuff when you moved here?” Keith countered, eyebrow raised, “I distinctly remember Colleen yelling at you through over Skype to unpack.”

“I’m like, 5’2.  I can’t be expected to unpack everything so quick, when I can’t even reach the top shelf.”

“Whatever.  I’ll buy you McDonalds if you come over.”

“I am offended that you think I will cave that easily.”

“And a tub of cookie dough.”

“Fine.” 

“Okay, that’s cool.  I guess,” He said, looking skeptically at her grin that would’ve put the Cheshire cat to shame, “Why are you telling me this?”

“‘Cause you’re coming.” She said.  “And before you even say no, Shiro already knows.  And he said that you should go.”

“Shiro wants me to unpack my boxes.  Not go to a party.” He said exasperated.  He held the door open for her to pass, and they made their way to Keith’s motorcycle.

“Pidge no I swear this is really not my scene.”

“You’re the worst liar. I can not even count off how many times you snuck out to go to parties back home,” She glared, tightening the straps of the backpack, so it wouldn’t fall off while they drove. “And how many stories you’ve told me over facetime.”

 “Okay, fine.  But I don’t know.  I think I’m just gonna watch stuff.  Not feeling up to it.”

“You will be.  Don’t worry kiddo -”

“I’m literally 2 years older than you, but go off.”

“-We’re gonna unpack your stuff and make it all sparkly and pretty and then you’re gonna get ready to kill all the boys at the party,” She said, her grin falling from her face as he shoved the helmet into her arms, “Do I have to wear this?  It probably has like lice or something.” 

“Do you want to bash your head in if you fall off?”

“You would never let me fall off,” She smirked, reluctantly  putting the helmet on, “You’re too much of a hero.” 

Keith swung his leg over the bike, and kicked up the kick stand.  He started the motorcycle, and Pidge’s arms tightened around his waist.

“Debatable.” He said over the roar of the engine.

***

Prev. Chapter | Next Chapter

#klance #keith kogane #keith #lance #lance mcclain #voltron #vld #voltron legendary defenders #stardust klance #stardust #fanfiction

[softboyscully]

Whatever it Takes

this is a coda. a cheesy cheesy coda. it’s not my best writing but just,,,,, humor  me here okay. im sad

---

Dean bit into another slice of pie, moaning. “See, Sam, this is what--”

“Dean?” 

Dean swirled around, eyes landing on Jack, who was just... standing there.

“Jack? We thought you said you were gone, for good,” Sam said.

“I said I was hands off. But... It’s come to my attention that I didn’t bring Cas back with everybody Chuck made disappear. And I can’t--Not directly. But,” he paused, taking a deep breath. “I could give one of you the ability to do it.”

“I will,” Dean said, no hesitation.

“It will take a lot out of you,” Jack warned. “I’m not sure it’s ever been done. You your self would be the first test of it.” 

“I’m fine with that.”

“Dean--” 

“Sam, really,” Dean said. “Whatever it takes to get Cas back.”

Sam swallowed nervously, glancing between his brother and the new God.

“Now. How do we do it?”

~

“Et claritas tenebris est, et in tenebris anima haud desinunt cum principiis est opus mortalis. Audi nos admonens dicebat: Numquid non cadunt, sed non semper impetro tergum in lucem,” Sam recited, finishing the spell, gazing at his brother with increasing concern. “Dean? Dean, are you alright? Is it working?”

Dean stood as still and solid as a rock.

Until he didn’t.

Until he wasn’t.

“Dean? Dean!” Sam shouted, scrambling to the place where his brother was last.

There was nothing.

~

“Ow--fuck, shit,” Dean swore, getting up off of his knees. He’d fallen into an inky black abyss, so much nothing his eyes were beginning to hurt. 

“Who are you?” A disembodied voice shouted. It almost sounded like...

“Cas?” Dean said breathily. It was too good to be true, but... they deserved something that was.

“Cas!” The voice mocked him, and Dean went on the defensive when he recognized the tone to be much higher than Cas’ ever had been.

A thing in Cas’s body materialized in front of Dean, pure fury depicted on it’s face. 

“How dare you invade my space?! You’re only a mortal, how could you get here?”

“Love,” Dean replied defiantly.

“For what?” It spat out.

“Castiel, Angel of Thursday. You took him. I want him back.”

A slow, evil smile spread across what Dean had now figured was the Empty’s face.

“Oh, you poor soul. Nobody told you the rules, did they?”

An icy chill folded over Dean, his chest constricting in on his heart. “What rules?”

“It’s a soul for a soul, boy.”

“For you to bring Cas back... You need someone else in return.”

“Exactly! But, see, here’s the thing; I promised Cas that I would take what truly made him happy. That seems to be you. Now, I can’t double back on a deal, can I?”

It took him a second, but he got there. 

“You want me.”

“Precisely. Is your Castiel worth enough for you? Is he?”

He didn’t even have to think.

“Yes.”

~

“Cas? Cas!”

Castiel’s eyes opened slowly to the sound of Sam calling his name.

“Where’s Dean?” Cas questioned, sitting up too quickly and making his head spin. He winced, holding a hand to his temple. 

“What do you mean?”

Castiel opened his eyes again, him and Sam staring at each other with mounting horror.

“He... He went to get you,” Sam said quietly. “From the Empty. He... Jack... there was a spell...”

Cas began to sob, his body racked with the terror of being alone.

Without Dean, what was he? A feelingless celestial being with no purpose.

Sam cried with him, both of them having lost one of--or the--most important things in their lives.

Dean Winchester was dead.

----

WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT

THAT WAS NOT A CODA

IM SO SORRY I DIDNT MEAN TO WRITE THAT

I WANTED TO WRITE SOMETHING HAPPY

FUCK

#supernatural #avery is tired #IM SORRY #fanfiction #fanfictions #fanfic #fanfics #spn #supernatural series finale #spn series finale #supernatural finale #spn finale #supernatural fantiction #supernatural fnafic #supernatural fanfictions #supernatural fanfics #destiel #dean #cas #sam #jack #dean winchester #castiel #sam winchester #jack winchester #castiel winchester #castiel novak #castiel angel of the lord #castiel angel of winchester #castiel angel of thursday

[elisaphoenix13]

Second Chances

*Another AntLord fic*

**Just for age references, I have Quill at 38, Scott at 35 (both haven't age because of infinity war and endgame) and Cassie obviously at 15.**

It was an in and out mission. Take out Hydra and whatever monstrosities they managed to experiment with and release, and destroy any others experiments they may have going on on the inside. Quill and Scott had been part of the second factor of the plan and the ex-criminal hitched a ride on the pirate's shoulder as they snuck in. Scott destroyed the power grid as soon as they found it and Quill immediately took out the Hydra agents with his guns and a couple of grenades. When Scott had caught up with him and landed back on his shoulder though, that was when they realized the power had released some kind of monster much bigger than the ones released to go after the rest of the Avengers.

Bigger, stronger, and had no problem with tearing apart the building as Quill goes and it chased after them.

"Holy shit! Huge problem guys!" Scott yells over the comm.

Quill swears when the monster throws debris at him and he ducks, only for the debris to destroy his and Scott's escape route. Scott jumps off the pirate's shoulder and grows back to normal size, grabbing the last grenade off Quill's belt to throw at the monster that the sharpshooter shoots as soon as it gets close to the creatures face.

All it succeeded in doing was pissing it off though. One clawed arm shot out to hit Scott and the next few moments seem to pass in slow motion for Quill. Scott's suit malfunctioned and he couldn't shrink to avoid the hit and was sent flying into a cracked wall that crumbled under the impact and caused part of the roof to collapse on top of him. Seeing the other man unconscious and trapped under the heavy chunks of concrete had Quill seeing red.

He would not lose Scott too. He recently discovered his feelings for the fellow thief and with just the thought that the building was crushing his roommate, managed to catch the other clawed arm that shot out to hit him as well. He didn't remember much after that. Just bits and pieces of throwing the experimental monster through the opposite side of the building and throwing the debris off Scott's body and picking up his limp form.

"What the hell?" Rhodey's voice faintly registers through Quill's comm. "Did anyone know that Quill had powers?"

The pirate carries Scott out of the collapsing building and sets him down safely away from anything that could explode, and turns just as the creature lunges at them. Quill turns with his eyes completely blue and white light sparking in his forming fist, and punches the monster down into the ground. It screams at him and he picks it back up to effortlessly snap it's neck, dropping it when Tony and Stephen fly over and land nearby. The pirate growls when Stephen tries to approach Scott and the sorcerer stops as Tony holds up his hands.

"Easy Quill. Calm down. You took care of the last of it." The billionaire tries to placate the enraged space pirate and Stephen looks between Quill and Scott.

"Scott is safe now, but I need to help him." The doctor tries and both he and Tony sigh with relief when eyes engulfed in bright blue slowly recede to show green irises again.

Quill turns to Scott as Stephen approaches and they both crouch down beside him. The sorcerer checks the ex-con for injuries and after healing some internal bleeding and some  of the more major wounds, Scott eyes snap open and he gasps. Without a second thought, Quill pulls him into a hug with Scott's head resting against his shoulder, and heaves a heavy sigh of relief. The smell of mint and oranges relax the pirate as one of Scott's arms reach up to pat Quill's back, and then he helps the younger to his feet.

"I'm alright Spaceman." Scott mumbles.

"Well, now that we've cleared that up..." Tony starts to get their attention. "What the hell Porcupine?!"

He motions behind him toward the dead monster, the smoking pile of rubble that had once been the Hydra base, and then back to the dead monster that was in a crater. Quill gives Tony a confused look that the engineer returns and Scott tightens his hold around his roommate when he almost pitches forward. Quills arm tightens around his waist tightens in response but Scott was too tired and hurt to notice.

"What happened out here?" Quill asks and Tony gapes at him.

"You happened! Why didn't you tell us you had powers?!"

Quill blinks before looking down at his free hand and willing some of his power to flare at his fingertips and his eyes widen. "I thought they were gone when I killed my father."

Stephen studies the light in the outlaws hand. "Perhaps it was only dormant. You leveled the building, threw that creature around that gave the rest of us some trouble, and then slammed it into the ground creating that crater. You then proceeded to snap it's neck and kill it as if it were nothing."

Quill looks around at the damage he supposedly caused and his mouth goes dry. He didn't really remember much. Yes, he remembered killing the monster but he didn't process how hard that should have been. All he cared about was getting Scott to safety and then keeping him safe. Now it looked as if seeing Scott hurt had awakened his dormant powers. Right now, besides the fact that Scott was okay, Quill was glad he didn't hurt any of their team members.

"Do you know what the trigger was?" Stephen asks him curiously and Quill tenses.

"Uh...no. It just kind of happened."

The sorcerer studies him, obviously seeing through the lie, and then understanding dawns in blue eyes when he looks at Scott. Oh, Stephen very well knew what Quill's trigger was but he had the decency not to say anything as the rest of the team joined them. They stayed back to make sure they got all of Hydra and that there were no more experimental monsters or biological weapons left behind. All that was left was to head home and rest. Scott in particular who was leaning more and more against the Celestial as seconds passed.

"We better get Stuart Little back to the tower. He looks like he's about to pass out." Tony says and nods to Stephen who opens a portal straight to the tower.

When Scott makes no move to step forward though, Quill takes it upon himself to scoop the man up and carry him bridal style through the portal and onto the bed in the medbay where the portal had led. He bit his tongue when Bruce told him to wait outside while he double checked Scott's well-being, and eventually was allowed back in when the biologist found nothing serious. He just patched up whatever wounds Stephen didn't heal and Quill sat at Scott's bedside the entire time. The ex-con slept most of his time in the medbay and while he slept, Quill carefully practiced with small bits of his powers.

He never thought he would have his celestial powers back, and then he found out they were just dormant and all it took to bring them back was to see Scott get hurt? His powers had been triggered by either anger or fear...maybe even both. Anger toward the monster that had hurt his best friend (read: crush), and fear that said friend was possibly dead. His powers hadn't just been a light show either. Sam had visited at one point and told Quill what happened, what he had looked like. Blue completely took over the entirety of his eyes, his hands glowed while tentacle like beams surrounded him and killed any Hydra operative that got too close as he carried Scott out of the building, and then his show of strength. That had been visually obvious to the pirate once he came out of his trance.

"I could really go for some orange slices right about now." Scott groans out and interrupts Quill's train of thought. The thief looks over at him and rubs his eyes tiredly. "Have you been here the entire time?"

Quill shrugs. "Had to make sure you were okay. Our floor is kind of quiet without you anyway."

"You calling me loud?"

"No. Just used to hearing you talk to yourself while you work or pace."

"Huh." Scott says. "Anyway...food? I'm starving."

"I think Cass is bringing something."

True to his word, Cassie came in with some sandwiches for both Scott and Quill (to his minor surprise) and sat in the empty chair next to Quill once she helped her father up into a more comfortable sitting position. While she and Scott talked amongst themselves, Quill turned his attention to the t.v. and ate his lunch in silence. Only half paying attention to the conversation beside him. They were talking about a drink or something when Cassie nudges his bicep and holds a cup out to him.

"Can you try Dad's drink? He thinks it doesn't taste like root beer."

Quill takes the drink and takes a sip from the straw before passing it back. "Tastes fine to me." When Cassie doesn't take the cup back, he looks over at them and finds the teenager smiling smugly at him and Scott giving him a weird look. "What?"

"Indirect kiss." Cassie announces and Quill blushes.

"Sure, if you're a teenager. We share drinks all the time."

"Ugh. Idiots."

She finishes her sandwich and tells Scott she'll  visit later, and when the door closes behind her, Scott continues to give Quill a strange look.

"Quill."

The pirate places the cup of soda on a flat surface nearby. "Yeah Scotty?"

"What triggered your powers?"

Quill stops the other half of his sandwich partway to his mouth. "I said I don't know."

"I know you're lying because you keep looking at the door." Scott points out and Quill freezes. "What was it? Hydra? The monster? Or--"

He couldn't do this. He had been living with Scott long enough to know the man wouldn't let up until Quill told him the truth, so the pirate decided fuck it, and stood from his chair to stand next to Scott's bed. The younger looks up at him with a bit of guilt in his expression from hounding Quill for answers and he sighs.

"Sorry. I was just--"

Quill leans down after gently grabbing the back of Scott's neck and kisses him, effectively silencing the man. In the first few moments, be waited for Scott to push him away, but Scott did the complete opposite. His arms that he had lifted and Quill thought he would use to push him away, wrapped around the outlaw's neck and hazel eyes flutter close as Scott reciprocates the kiss with equal enthusiasm. A few moments pass with lip biting and quiet moans until the need for air separates them, and Quill stares down at him after Scott slowly reopens his eyes.

"It was you."

#scott x quill #scott lang #peter quill #antlord #cassie lang #tony stark #stephen strange #ironstrange

[obsoletesystem]

D&D Ask Meme

@wisdom-fangs​ asked me to do all the questions of this D&D ask post. So I did. 1. A favorite character you have played. I really like playing monstrous characters. Currently in Adventurers League, I play Frattek Venvaris, bugbear rogue/barbarian, who is a delightfully goofy character. But I also miss playing Bajur Mashoir, a very charismatic lizardfolk "voodoo" shaman, whose catchphrase was: "As you can see, I am an alligator, sir..." spoken in a thick southern brawl. 2. Your favorite character that someone else has played. During a one shot the guy that played an evil halfling warlock sacrificed himself to blow up the big bad with a block of dynamite. The true MVP. 3. Your favorite side quest. Idk. 4. Your current campaign. I DM a homebrew campaign, in which the party is stuck between sides in a war between the local Jarl and a fey duchess who has taken over a part of the woods. I also participate as a player in a slight homebrewed Salt Marsh campaign, in which I play a tiefling cleric of Pelor. She's got a Sad Backstory. 5. Favorite NPC. The Loathesome Gribble, an NPC in the game I DM, who is a very small tiefling sorcerer with an immense knife collection and a four-armed aasimar monk girlfriend. He is found in the most of unlikely places and his signature spell is "Gribble's Hand of Sand", which may or may be not magical, as it blinds a creature with sand, but the material component is just a handfull of coarse sand. 6. Favorite death (monster, player character, NPC, etc). The druid in our home game charged into giant stag form at a huge burning construct (The Burning Man from Burning Man, but moving), missed his attack, upon which the Burning Man rolled nat 20's on BOTH ITS ATTACKS. No advantage, no nothing, just two straight 20's. He grabbed the stag by its antlers, turned its head 360 degrees, and dropped a flaming, mutilated dwarf to the ground. 7. Your favorite downtime activity. I always like to do something that tells a little bit about the culture of the creature I play. When I was on haitus because of school, I described how Frattek had spend some time with his little bugbear niece, and had just returned from a fun little war (seeing as bugbears love to fight). 8. Your favorite fight/encounter. We had to fight a vampire spawn in a dank, dark basement, but it was light outside, and Frattek is incredibly good at grappling creatures, so we dragged the vampire out from his basement into the sunlit street, and then made a run for it as we had broken into a house. 9. Your favorite thing about D&D. Coming together with friends and not drinking (a lot) or smoking weed. I like doing those things too, but it is also fun to just hang out and play games where heavy drinking is not really handy. 10. Your favorite enemy and the enemy you hate the most. Dragons are the best, spellcasters are the worst. Spellcasting Dragons are the bees knees. My players, however, are going to hate a certain spellcaster very much. Once they find out... 11. How often do you play and how often would you ideally like to play? Usually once a week, but I'd love to be able to balance twice a week. One day as player, one day as DM. 12. Your in game inside jokes/memes/catchphrases and where they came from. "Name and occupation, please" comes from when we played Pathfinder, and one of the characters died, but I didn't want to get rid of him yet or he was set up to be reincarnated or some shit idk. Anyway, his soul arrives in purgatory, which turns out to be this bureaucratic office, where he has to stand in line for a long, long time, before arriving at a booth/desk type situation, in which an Ophanim angel (one of them burning wheels full of eyes) floats that asks with a bored sigh "Name and occupation, please". The player answered, and was set up for reincarnation, which involved shooting his soul from a cannon/drop tube into the unborn baby of a local woman. The child grows up unnaturally quickly, and because it has the soul of a mature orc barbarian, it is more than a little trouble. Nephertheless, the "Name and occupation, please" gag remained forever. 13. Introduce your current party. My Homeboys, the Lords of Okab Volal, are Nazreen, a wood elf ranger who missed her wolf, played by @tabula-wasa​, Tophr Thanestone, the previously mentioned dwarf druid who was murdered by a giant flaming effigy and subsequently reincarnated/put into the body of a frost elf woman (something he hasn't come to terms with) played by our bearded friend Glenn, and Adelon Vrena, half-elf bard/cleric/divine soul sorcerer a.k.a. Healer Supreme, who is really righteous but not above torturing a captive githyanki, and played by Arnaud. The Schadestenen (meaning "Damage Stones", as in dice), which is the OG Adventurers League group in the Spellenhoorn in Hoorn, consist of Aiden Rainbowscale (Albino orphan wood-elf monk/barbarian), Fjorgyn (dwarven cleric of Moradin, who died last week and still suffered from the Death Curse. RIP.), Frattek Venvaris (Bugbear barbarian/arcane trickster and gladiator/luchador, played by me), Gideon Thornton (cowardly Half-Orc Hexblade), Grommash Hellscream (Stereotypical Half-Orc Barbarian. Great guy.), Ruldra (disgraced Hobgoblin undead-hunting Ranger), Cadence (Powerful but stupid Half-elf Grave Cleric/Divine Soul Sorcerer who never learned how to read), Ullr (Arnaud's Gloom Stalker and Human Machine Gun), and Darin (half-elf ranger and Master Of Backflip). The Peeps from Salt Marsh, DMed by the guy that plays Darin, in which Arnaud plays William Wisenose, The Awfully Lucky Halfling Build (halfling wizard/bard/whatever), Cadence's player plays Sylver Ravenstar (half-elf bard/hexblade/run away princess), her friend plays Samm Enoch (Aasimar Bard and Very Handsome Man), Aiden's player plays Ankis (Aasimar Celestial Warlock and very secretive about both these facts because Back Story), and his friend plays Vena Malum (Human Bloodhunter, who is really buff and does that swirly thing with her falchions, and oh my...), Grommash's player plays Morgain of Astora (human paladin of Pelor, and companion/boyfriend/substitute son to my character), and I play Paytsarra Avèry (winged tiefling cleric of Pelor). Praise the sun. 14. Introduce any other parties you have played in or DM-ed. We had one party consisting of a drider, a very evil dwarf, a fire genasi, a gnome psychic, and a kenku ninja at one point. When the evil dwarf died, and I introduced the guy's new drow "medic", I knew I lost all cohesion of the group. 15. Do you have snacks during game times? My players do. I don't like snacks that much. 16. Do you play online or in person? Which do you prefer? In person. I tried playing online, and I think I would do again, but only if I'd have a really good headset. 17. What are some house rules that your group has? In the Salt Marsh campaign you double the value of the dice on a crit, which I think is disappointing. I just wanna roll a lot of dice :( 18. Does your party keep any pets? @tabula-wasa​'s ranger has a dire wolf...somewhere...

19. Do you or your party have any dice superstitions? Not that I know of. I do know some of my dice seem to roll better than others. 20. How did you get into D&D? How long have you been playing? I found a d&d character creation app on the web ages ago, and that sparked my interest. Later I joined a warhammer fantasy role play group with a friend I had been rp-ing online with a lot, but this was the real deal, at Arnaud's house. He dmed number of campaigns for us, and later he joined my pathfinder group which turned into a D&D 5th edition group. 21. Have you ever regretted something your character has done? Yeah. Frattek decided to be a hero and tried to assassinate an ogre torturer. He failed his shot. We had to fucking run. 22. What color was your first dragon? The first dragon I fought as a character was a young Red Dragon. Even at 5th level, we whooped its ass. He found himself in a cave, surrounded by fools, and we beat him to pulp. The first dragon I put in front of my players was a young White Dragon. It kicked their asses. 23. Do you use premade modules or original campaigns? I usually homebrew my own campaigns, but I have dmed some AL sessions. 24. How much planning/preparation do you do for a game? Not an incredible amount, but for my home game I prepare ideas months, even years, in advance. For DMs 25. What have your players done that you never could have planned for? A lot. The most notable was casting Dispel Magic on the demiplane-item the cultists were in... and then opening the demiplane underwater. 26. What was your favorite scene to write and show your characters. I had these zombies that always repeated the last thing they said before they died, which was cool and creepy. But the thing I really wrote out was the description of how an Astral Ship warps space around itself, and what that looks like from the people on the deck of the ship. 27. Do you allow homebrew content? If it's well written, absolutely, but there is a lot of shit out there. 28. How often do you use NPCs in a party? When it makes sense, but I try not to do that too often. 29. Do you prefer RP heavy sessions or combat sessions? I prefer RP sessions, but I am leaning more toward combat. On the other hand, I don't think it completely excludes each other nor should it. I am of the opinion that 30. Are your players diplomatic or murder hobos? Rather diplomatic, but they can definitely kick ass. For Players 31. What is your favorite class? Favorite race? I like casters, and I will always have an affinity for wizards, but arcane tricksters and eldritch knights are cool too. I like elves, and I like monstrous races; goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears. I like things that are pretty and scary, or creepy and goofy. 32. What role do you like to play the most? (Tank/healer/etc?) I usually mix a bit of tank and dps. I don't like being very frail, but I do enjoy doing a lot of damage in one shot. 33. How do you write your backstory, or do you even write a backstory? I tend to write a character from a concept, and then build out the backstory. How did this person become the person they are today? Even if you have something of a bugbear, or a hobgoblin, or a yuan-ti. They have had a childhood, they have role models, they have culture. But what is that? What defines a character? What makes them they way they are? I don't like playing monstrous races that have been adopted by a "better, nobler race" like humans and elves and dwarves. I get the appeal, but I also think it is a little trite, and a little condenscending, almost. I think a lot about what defines a monstrous identity, and being a Cultural Anthropologist, I think a lot about the way culture shapes the values and morality and thus also behaviour of a creature. Do hobgoblins tell their children bedtime stories? What are they about? How will a bugbear struggle in regular humanoid society, where his violent urges -natural to him- are equally, or even more excessively violently repressed and punished? Is this just for bugbears? Will they then look for each other, and find each other in their shared cultural/natural tendencies? Are there goblinoid lawyers or activist groups, that seek to protect other goblinoids from unjust treatment under laws that aren't theirs? How will your life be if you are a second or third or even fourth generation inhuman creature in a human society? Do they dream of returning to a society that is 'theirs'? And is there even such a thing? And if there is, will they actually fit in, or forever be an outcast, neither hob nor man? I tend to poke at such questions with my character backstories. 34. Do you tend pick weapons/spells for being useful or for flavor? Everything is useful, since everything is always situational. If you plan only for situations in which you are going to kill every living thing, then you shouldn't pick something like Rope Trick, or Magic Circle. But you do you. I very much dislike decoupling "flavour" from functionality. This is a game of make-belief, so everything you do is flavour. The mechanics are an abstraction of a fantastic reality, and though inherently important to the working of the game (without rules, it would merely be improvisation, which is also a kind of game, but schwa), it is all flavour. People that brag about how much average damage they can do with this or that specific build tire me. 35. How much roleplay do you like to do? All of the roleplay! But please let me punt goblins into the garbage sometimes!

[fajority]

Five times Caleb expressed physical affection exclusively through his cat, and one time he didn’t

I wrote another thing! This is, by the way, @fraeuleinjuhu‘s new Critical Role sideblog, so anyone who wants to follow me here, hop on board. 

Thank you @hippity-hoppity-brigade for being the best & nicest beta I could have hoped for <3

1- It takes Caleb a while to realize what Molly's problem is. In his defense, he does have a few of his own problems that take up about 90% of his capacity at any given time, and while their group has gotten almost uncomfortably close, Caleb has tried his best to stay on its outskirts.

He only notices Molly getting increasingly sharp and snappish with them at first, countering Beau's jibes with more and more cruel retorts, until Yasha takes him aside for what he assumes must be a more or less stern talking-to.

Caleb watches Molly slink around the bar they've wound up in this time, getting steadily drunker and louder. He sits down on the chair next to Yasha for a minute, placing his feet in her lap and tipping the chair back on its back legs dramatically.

Yasha gives him a few absent pats on the legs and then gently removes them from her thighs, and Caleb can practically feel Molly's mood drop.

Ah.

Of course: the circus seemed like a pretty affectionate bunch, even if they didn't always like each other. Their little motley crew is different, warier. More distant, at least physically.

Molly is touch starved and he has no tools to work with it. This place doesn't have a brothel. There are no strangers around that seem susceptible to his particular brand of charm.

Caleb's first idea is to message Jester to give Molly a good long hug, but when he turns to look for her, she's nowhere to be seen. Fjord is missing as well, so Caleb decides against investigating further just in case.

Molly has slumped on a barstool, elbows on the bar, his face in his hands. There's a grin on his face still, but it's holding on by a thread.

Caleb snaps his fingers, and Frumpkin jumps up onto his knees from under the table as if he's always been there, just out of sight.

He makes his way to Molly slowly, cradling Frumpkin to his chest. His decision is made, but that doesn't have to mean he likes it.

"Mollymauk," he greets and gets into the chair next to him. Molly gives him a grunt and an indecipherable stare.

Oddly enough, Caleb has found that he doesn't mind the red eyes at all: He's not very fond of pupils and irises anyway. He finds it much easier to maintain eye contact if he can't see the eyes fixating on him back.

"You look down today," Caleb starts, wavering. "I'd offer you a hug but I'm afraid I don't really, uh, do that kind of thing." Molly raises an eyebrow.

"I'd figured, or I probably would've tried to drape myself over you at some point this evening."

It has all the components of a confession, but it doesn’t sound like one: too annoyed, almost angry.

Caleb shakes off the image of Molly coming up behind his chair, leaning into his space, hands on his chest in a loose sort of hug. A sharp toothed grin pressed to his cheek. It sounds nice in theory, but in practice it will just feel like being crowded, short of breath and panicky and too much weight on him all at once, Caleb knows this.

"But Frumpkin does. I can lend him to you whenever you - uhm - crave - uh - physical contact, if you'd like."

He holds out a hand, and Frumpkin scales his shoulder and walks along his arm towards Molly.

Molly stares at him some more, or at Frumpkin, precariously perching on Caleb's hand. It's hard to say.

"Okay," he says finally. "Sure. Thank you."

He holds out his own arm, and Caleb grips it firmly, making a bridge for Frumpkin to cross, and then he's a purring scarf around Molly's neck, and Molly squeezes Caleb's hand once, very briefly, before he starts scritching Frumpkin behind the ears, mindful of his claws.

Caleb feels himself relaxing a fraction, and he pulls back his hand. That went well, he thinks.

"You can keep him until morning, if you want," he offers before he's even finished the thought. Molly looks at him again, and this time Caleb thinks he can see surprise in his expression.

"You don't need him?"

"I do, but he's always with me, no matter where he is location-wise." Caleb taps his head.

A grin very slowly unfurls on Molly's face. "Are you telling me you are feeling this?" He reaches up with his other hand to scritch under Frumpkin's chin, and Caleb gets an incredibly weird double feeling tugging him in two directions at once.

He tries for a middle ground, which is neutral honesty. "It's - not directly. I get the secondary impressions, if that makes sense."

Molly hums, thoughtful. "What are those?"

Caleb hates every second of this but he started this conversation to make Molly feel better, so he better see it through. He sighs.

"He feels… comfortable. Loved."

Frumpkin jumps down into Molly's lap and rolls up into a ball, still purring loudly.

Molly hums again, one hand settling on the cat. "I'd kill to have that," he says, sounding half serious. "Okay, I'd love to hold onto him until morning, but only if you don't spy on me."

"What would I even -" Caleb clamps his mouth shut on a memory, too late.

"You remember that I sleep naked," Molly grins.

"Vividly," Caleb confirms, and hightails it out of the conversation.

*

2- It happens while they're fighting a group of trolls attacking their camp at night: Beau is, as always, the first to get into the melée, jumping up and onto one of them and delivering a series of kicks and hits against its jaw - until it gets a handful of her and flings her against the nearest tree. She stays slumped against the trunk for a couple of seconds, enough for everyone to see her but not enough to reach her: Jester is occupied healing Yasha, her duplicate trying its best to get the troll to attack it instead of going after Beau again, and none of the others have healing spells or potions left. It's been a long day.

Caleb fires spells left and right, and out of the corner of his eye sees Beau move to sit up ever so slowly.

She's going to get back up and get herself killed for good, he thinks, and snaps his fingers. Maybe he can't reach her in time, but Frumpkin will.

And sure enough, Frumpkin goes from thin air to pointedly curling up in Beau's lap, nuzzling into her hands as she automatically reaches down to him.

Between two spells, he sees her shoot him a look that doesn't quite say fuck you, but it's a near thing. He motions for her to stay put. "We've got this, don't get yourself in trouble for no reason!"

She looks like she's considering to yell back a few choice words, but decides against it. Her whole body is shaking with the sheer effort of staying upright. She doesn't stop petting Frumpkin.

Caleb feels a wave of affection for her that is and isn't his own. He casts Haste on Nott, who brings down the troll that attacked Beau with three clean shots. He flashes her a proud smile and runs over to Beau, as if he could even shield her from any damage. As if she can't handle herself better than he will ever be able to.

It doesn't matter. He's out of spells, no use for anyone. He might as well get out of harm's way.

He sits down next to her, and she pointedly doesn't turn to look at him, although maybe that's her spine acting up. She did hit that tree pretty hard.

"I don't need you to protect me," she says.

Kiri could knock you out right now, he doesn't say. "I'm not protecting you," he says instead, holding out his hands, palms facing outward. "I'm tapped. If anything, you're protecting me."

Beau starts laughing and then very quickly stops again on a choked outbreath. "Thanks for that, Caleb," she says. It falls flat, like almost everything she says, but he thinks she might actually mean it this time.

They sit together and watch the last troll fall as Molly cuts its tendons and Fjord slashes its throat once it's down.

Beau's breathing rattles in her chest like an old woman's. It's all Caleb can do to wait until Yasha comes running and casts her Healing Hands.

"Thank you," he says in Celestial, sung on a sigh.

She gives him a confused look. "I am healing her, not you. Why are we speaking Celestial?"

"She never says thank you. I wanted you to hear it, but I didn't want to make her feel bad about it."

"Thanks, Yasha", Beau says, exhausted. The rattling sound has stopped, but she's still shaking ever so slightly. "That sounded nice. I hope you weren't talking shit about me."

Yasha gives him a pointed look, and Caleb gets up and offers Beau a hand. "Sorry about that. Do you want us to stop?"

Beau takes his hand. Frumpkin jumps onto her shoulder as she slowly gets up, spine popping. She leans her cheek into him, and Caleb feels a shadow of his cat satisfaction. He hides a smile about her conflicted expression.

"I mean, I don't appreciate being talked about, but it does sound really fucking nice."

"I thanked her for healing you, because you were looking that awful," Caleb volunteers.

Yasha flashes him a discreet thumbs-up.

"You're welcome," she says, and repeats it in Common, too.

"Fuck you too," Beau says, and ironically, it's like insults are the only thing she can make sound affectionate. Frumpkin butts his head up against her chin and purrs loudly.

*

3- When Caleb wakes up, screams still ringing in his ears and the heavy memory of smoke in his lungs, Nott's weight on his chest is just this side of suffocating, and he pries her off with shaking hands. She makes a small sound, turning her head in his direction, and he snaps Frumpkin into existence as quietly as he can.

The cat stretches out next to her, almost as long as she is when she is balled up like this. She settles her arms around Frumpkin as Caleb backs away into a corner of the room, choking on memories both real and made up.

Nott slings her arms around Frumpkin in her sleep, and this time Caleb doesn't feel the suffocation of it, just the quiet reassurance. He calms down in increments.

Forgetting nightmares is hard when you have a photographic memory, but Nott's steady breathing helps. When he strains his ears, he can hear the faintest purring.

I don't deserve any of this he thinks, and as he does, Frumpkin lets out a pitiful mewl, and Nott opens her eyes, glowing yellow in the dark.

Caleb doesn't try to hide anything like he would from anyone else. He just sits there and breathes through it, wheezing until he's panting until he's huffing until he's as quiet as he'll get.

Nott is watching him, and then she very deliberately reaches out a hand and starts petting Frumpkin.

The effect is immediate: Just like that, Caleb knows he's safe. More than that: he's worthy of it, too, just this once. He shrugs off the nightmare like a heavy coat and instantly feels exhausted, ready to fall asleep.

And then Nott’s small voice fills the quiet, and for once, she doesn’t sound skittish or hysterical, just sure.

“I know you think that your brokenness is the only redeeming factor about you, that breaking was the only indicator in all this that you're a good person - and I won't try to change your mind about it, although I think you're wrong - but even if that were the case, that still doesn't have to make it a bad thing if you let yourself heal. It's not a betrayal to your parents if you get better. If you let yourself be a good person in the time it takes to learn what you have to learn, it won't mean you disrespect their memory. I hope you know that.”

In the dark, in the privacy of their room, with nothing but Nott’s and Frumpkin’s glowing eyes watching him, he can almost believe it.

"Thank you," he tells Nott, and gets back under the covers. She blinks once, a cat smile, like he taught her. Frumpkin blinks back.

*

4- The next time Yasha leaves, Caleb sends Frumpkin to go with her.

She tries to hand him back over. "I don't know how long I'll be gone," she says.

"Take him anyway." Caleb bends down to Frumpkin to give him instructions. "Go with her until she tells you to leave. Then come back to us."

Frumpkin scales Yasha's leg, and she scoops him up. He climbs her arm and knits himself around her shoulders, and Yasha reaches out a hand to pet him, automatic.

"Don't spy on me", she says, and Caleb promises. "Friends, remember?" he says in Celestial.

"I'll hold him to it. Kick him in the shins at regular intervals so he can never be off guard here," Beau adds, and Caleb nods.

She nods back at him slowly, and turns away. They watch her leave, her huge form and the bright orange scarf getting smaller ever so slowly.

He feels intermittent bursts of warmth throughout the next days, and only thinks of checking in briefly, not only because Beau is holding up her end of the bargain and kicks him in the shins in the most unexpected moments.

Somehow, he doesn't want to lie to Yasha. Even if when he set out to gain her trust he did so because she is scary and strong and it's always good to have someone intimidating on your side. Something about the word friends keeps him from betraying her trust.

He's getting a signature feeling from each member of the Mighty Nein now, almost, he ponders. He can usually tell who snagged Frumpkin without looking: Nott feels calm and safe, Molly feels like a smile. Beau feels affectionate. Yasha just feels warm.

On the fifth day, Caleb feels small and unprotected and off the way he sometimes does; it takes him an embarrassingly long time to link it to the absence of the faint bursts of reassurance he so quickly got used to.

"Do you think Yasha's okay?" he asks Beau at dinner.

She stares at him for a couple of seconds, the way she does when he addresses her without preamble, and then shrugs.

"Don't know. She can probably handle herself."

She sounds miserable as well.

Caleb snaps his fingers once, and then again. Frumpkin comes running towards him, leaping into his arms and nuzzling his hand. Caleb feels the familiarity and closeness, but this time, it's not enough. They are too close in mind.

Frumpkin jumps back to the floor and starts pawing at Beau's trouser leg until she scoops him up with a sigh. She sinks her fingers into his fur slowly, and Caleb is struck with a feeling he barely remembers - compassion. Pity. Frumpkin attempts to lick Beau's face, and she leans back with a grimace: "No - what - that's weird, Caleb - "

"Oh - yes - sorry - " He calls Frumpkin off, who immediately goes to placidly lying in Beau's arms, the picture of a harmless pet. She eyes him suspiciously.

"Did you - did you, like, tell him to lick my face? Because that's really weird," Beau repeats, and Caleb is sure if he gets any redder his head will just explode.

"I didn't think of it as such," he tries to explain, fumbling. "Frumpkin just felt sorry for you and that is what he does when he feels that way, and it has been a while so I didn't remember in time to stop him."

"Frumpkin felt sorry for me." Beau asks, flatly. Caleb nods, and hopes this conversation will be over soon, so he can lie down and hopefully die and stop thinking of situations in which Beau probably also thought that Frumpkin was a part of Caleb in the same way his hands are. All of the laps and shoulders he's sat on. That time he licked Kiri's face. "Mmmhm." Beau gives him a considering look.

He tries and fails to look inconspicuous.

"So, how, how close are you to him? Can you, like, read his mind? Are you his mind?"

"Somewhere in between those two?" Caleb tries. "It's a connection, but he's still a cat. But I still made him. So he's also a part of me, but just a bit."

"So, before Frumpkin, did you never feel sorry for anyone? That strictly his job?"

Caleb feels the blood drain from his face all at once. He sits up stiffly. In Beau's arms, Frumpkin goes completely still.

"I didn't-"

Beau is already shaking her head, horrified. "Oh no, nope, no, I wasn't alluding to that, can we pretend that never happened please -"

Caleb nods gratefully. Frumpkin, less forgiving, lightly nips at Beau's finger. "I know, sorry," Beau tells him, and Caleb relaxes a fraction.

"I just meant," Beau tries again after a moment of silence. Caleb spends a few seconds wishing he had a God to pray to for this to end. To not loop back to before Frumpkin.

"I just meant, maybe you shouldn't distinguish - quite so much. Maybe you can just say you felt sorry."

"But it was Frumpkin. I am just miserable because he hasn't gotten anyone to pet him today and I'm afraid for Yasha and I am hating how lost I am without him. Then you picked him up and he felt - that."

He pauses for a second. "He's better at the interpersonal stuff than I am. You might have noticed."

Beau laughs, a hearty, bellowing sound that lasts until Frumpkin digs his claws into her thigh and she lets out an undignified yelp.

"I - yeah, I might have some idea," she says.

Caleb grins, just a little.

*

5- When they finally find Kiri's parents and leave her with them, Jester is the one it hits the hardest.

Nott is a little teary eyed as well, but she manages to talk through it. "It's almost like we're good people," she tells Caleb at some point, and he nods.

"She made it easy to be," he says.

Everyone is a little subdued, but it's most obvious with Jester. She's walking a little off to the side, not taking part in any of their conversations. When Fjord splits off to talk to her after a while, she sends him off with a shake of her head.

Maybe she wants to be alone. But maybe she wouldn't say no to some wordless comfort, Caleb thinks, and snaps Frumpkin into existence on top of Jester's head, nestled between her horns.

She gives a quiet yelp and sends him a startled look, but doesn't pry Frumpkin off, so Caleb leaves him there, playing with strands of her hair as they walk on. He makes sure his claws are drawn in.

When he feels a brief burst of satisfaction that isn't his own a few minutes later, he chances another look: Jester has reached her tail up above her head and is using it to scritch Frumpkin behind the ears. Frumpkin has closed his eyes and is dozing in the sunlight that filters in through the leaves of the trees they're walking beneath. She's still quiet, but she seems less sad.

By evening, the strange spell has worn off, and Jester is back to her old self: Talking excitedly, scribbling in her notebook, telling everyone who will listen about the great deed they have done by rescuing this child from a monster and reuniting her with her family.

Caleb realizes for the first time how much they need her to keep them sane and kind and happy, and Frumpkin carefully climbs off her head and onto her shoulder to press his face into her cheek. She sets down her tankard of milk to pet him, and then grabs him around the middle and hands him back. "Thank you for your cat, Caleb," she says, in the drawn out sing song voice she gets when she's trying to remember to be polite. "He was very cute and helped me a lot. But I also think he needs more flowers."

"I know, but I can't make them stick to him!" Nott butts in, "They just fall down when he goes poof. Do you know a spell for that?"

"Oooh, that would be a great spell. Let Frumpkin take flowers to the other realm!" Jester slams her fist on the table, startling Beau, who had been resting her head on it.

Caleb smiles. "If I come across one, I will teach it to you," he promises. Then, on a whim, he leans closer to Jester and lowers his voice to ask: "Are you okay?"

Jester gives him a startled smile. "Oh, I'm fine," she says cheerfully, "Just, you know, I have never made any friends before you guys, so it's hard to leave one behind."

Caleb has the sudden urge to hug her, and quells it by letting Frumpkin jump on the table and push into her hand again.

"Well, we'll stay together, so that's six friends you don't need to worry about losing," he tries.

Jester nods emphatically as she pats Frumpkin on the back a little too hard. "And we'll get those diamonds so I won't need to worry about losing you in other ways, too."

She scrunches up her face and headbutts Frumpkin before he can, and if Frumpkin steps on Jester's plate in the following playfight, it's not like anyone but Caleb sees it, so it can remain his secret.

"Yes", he says. Fjord, who is seated two chairs over, starts sneezing in earnest, so Caleb reluctantly disappears Frumpkin, making Jester almost faceplant into the table.

*

6-  When they reach Erdeloch, Caleb thinks it should make Fjord as happy as he gets: Caleb has never seen a body of water so big that it meets the horizon in the distance, and he thinks to himself that they probably won't get any closer to an actual ocean in their travels.

But Fjord is quiet and withdrawn even when Jester invites him to come swimming.

He gets in the water, but there's no joy in his practiced strokes.

Something is troubling him. From the way Molly is watching Fjord from the shore, Caleb thinks he probably sees it too, or knows more than he does. Maybe Fjord had another nightmare.

He summons Frumpkin, who eyes the water suspiciously, and pets him absently.

"Do you think he might be cheered up by a cuddly familiar?" Caleb asks Molly abruptly.

Molly raises an eyebrow. "Fjord is allergic," he reminds Caleb, and Caleb nods. "I know," he says. "But I still have enough incense."

Molly's other eyebrow joins the first. "Oh, that sounds like an incredible waste of resources. I love it."

Caleb knows he probably shouldn't take that as an encouragement, but he does: He gathers coal from their campfire and starts the ritual right then and there, on the shore of the lake, where they can all watch him - and they do, he's half aware of Nott's curious gaze and Jester's questions, of Molly's quiet answers from his other side. He's briefly swamped by a feeling he hasn't had in more than a decade: he feels at home, for the long minutes that his mind is occupied with the ritual just enough to not be thinking how much he doesn't deserve them, and the others in his peripheral, just enough not to crowd him.

Then it's over, his mind snaps back to alertness, and Frumpkin nuzzles his hand, otter-shaped. His fur is softer and more dense than Caleb is used to.

"What is that?" Molly asks, immediately fascinated.

"It's an otter. Pretty close to a cat, but they live in water," Caleb explains. Molly holds out a hand, and Frumpkin pushes his head into it just like he did as a cat. Molly gives a delighted bark of laughter. "Incredible," he says, smiling bright.

"He is pretty good," Caleb says, in a rare burst of pride. He doesn't feel exposed and lonely the way he did when Frumpkin was a sparrow, and this way he is not wary of the water the way Frumpkin-the-cat was. Caleb nods down at him and smiles. "Go bother Fjord," he instructs.

Frumpkin chirps at him and flits off, weirdly off-balance until he reaches the water, and then he's streamlined and as elegant as the cat was on land.

Fjord is diving when Frumpkin reaches him, so Frumpkin dives after him without hesitation.

Caleb looks away from the stilling surface of the water and catches Molly, Jester and Nott intently staring at the lake. After a second, Jester nudges him with an elbow. "Well, go spy on him! We want to know what's happening!"

Caleb looks to Molly. He doesn't know when Molly of all people became his moral compass, but here they are. Maybe it’s because he’s always sure, even if his moral rules only make sense to him.

"What are you waiting for? And tell us everything!" Molly makes a shooing motion as if to push Caleb into the water, and Caleb goes blind and deaf, with Jester and Molly habitually holding onto his elbows so he won't topple over.

Frumpkin has almost reached Fjord when he gets there, still on his way to the bottom of the lake, which is, as Caleb can see now, littered with little colorful pebbles that seem to emit a faint glow. Fjord grabs a handful of them, and Frumpkin does the same, taking one with little blue swirls on it and holding it carefully as sand muddies the water where they stirred it.

Fjord looks over to Frumpkin, and for a second, Caleb sees surprise on his face, melting into a genuine smile. He slowly holds out a hand as if trying to gain Frumpkin's trust. Frumpkin puts the stone he picked up into it, startling Fjord into a laugh that leaves his mouth in a few bubbles that rise towards the surface. Reminded of where he is, he quickly pushes off the ground and swims up, Frumpkin at his heels.

Caleb relates everything to the others as it happens, and feels Jester's hand tighten on his elbow in response.

Fjord reaches the surface and gulps in air, sputtering a bit.

"Hey!" he calls over to the two colorful globs Frumpkin can barely make out in the distance. "I found a friend!"

Frumpkin chitters and swims around him to clamber on his head.

"Well done, Fjord!" that's Jester's voice, drifting over from the shore.

"Say hi to Frumpkin!" comes Molly's shout, a second later. "Caleb made him this way specifically so you could stop sneezing!"

For a second, Fjord stiffens. He probably doesn't appreciate anything that even remotely resembles a prank, after the kind of childhood he seems to have had. Frumpkin jumps off his head and swims around him in a wide circle to gage his expression.

Fjord gives Frumpkin an appraising look, and then it eases into a grin.

"Thanks, Caleb," he says, quietly, and gives Frumpkin a pat. "'ppreciate that."

"You're welcome!" Caleb yells across the lake before he can talk himself into pretending he wasn't just spying on his friend, and he pulls back just in time to hear Jester cheer and Mollymauk give a big, hearty laugh.

After that, Frumpkin and Fjord set out to collect as many of the pebbles as they can for a delighted but decidedly dry Nott, and between the splashes and the low, encouraging voice Fjord uses to talk to Frumpkin, Caleb feels well and truly appreciated.

It has been a while since that feeling last wasn't associated with murder and obedience.

Caleb leans back on his elbows between the two tieflings and allows it to heal him the tiniest bit.

#critical role #caleb widogast #I wrote this and then I found out that Travis would indeed like an otter shaped Frumpkin #also this is not intended to be shippy but caleb seems to be in love with everyone because I am #fajority writes

[insanescriptist]

Rereading the Fairy Tail manga for research purposes, so having reached a little past chapter 100, here’s impressions:

-Natsu’s not a complete idiot

-He’s just a mostly thoughtless one who doesn’t see destruction as a bad thing or as something to avoid. Hence why he doesn’t try to limit it

-He’s actually bad at intentionally trying to destroy things. Accidentally however...

-Dragon Slayer Magic is technically using an Enchantment to temporarily transform parts of a person’s body to be like a dragon’s. Which makes sense considering an Enchanter made it.

-Considering that magic can change a person’s body in various ways, accidentally making it possible to turn into a dragon should have been expected.

-Actually considering that due to Lacrima, Cobra and Laxus don’t have inner dragons doing the anti-body thing to prevent that specific side-effect, chances are they will turn into dragons eventually if they keep using it.

-Same for Sting and Rogue, since their dragons are dead.

-A lot of Natsu’s attacks are actually magnified by the enchantment; Natsu’s sheer destructive power makes a lot more sense that way. Natsu however has no sense of scale so he does things like 500x times more powerful than he needs to

-Happy is a lot smarter than he appears; he’s just an obnoxious little shit-stirrer

-Lucy stayed with Mira while trying to find an apartment to rent; also it’s Mira that hands out a copy of Lucy’s apartment key to her team.

-So they’re not breaking in. Mostly.

-Gray so killed a person without blinking; he froze a guy’s head solid during the whole ‘Lullaby Incident.’

-It’s Gray’s speed with his magic that makes him dangerous

-Gray has his issues but he’s a lot more prideful than a person would expect; intelligent fighters are great okay?

-Lyon however I have issues with. Lots of. How did you get followers? Especially ones that were part of a mage guild? Did you put out an ad in Socerer’s Weekly? How did you pay for all the supplies you’d need for a group of people for three years? How did you even move Deliora?

-Also Gray’s from the ‘northern continent’ so um... plot-hole space? Unless there’s like a second ‘northern continent’ so the ‘western counties’ remark by Ur makes sense

-need to go look at that book Levy has on one of the splash pages; is a world map

-Actually there’s a lot more death, but it’s mook death so we don’t care. See how the army was ‘defeated’ by Eisenwald or whatever it was called. This is further combined with the mooks that died at the Tower of Heaven; not just in the slave revolt flashback but when the tower is destroyed and they’re crushed, followed by the unstable magic of Etherion doing whatever to the crystals

-Lucy knows she weaker than them physically; she at least makes up for it by having a wider background knowledge of magic. Too bad none of this ever gets followed up on in other ways.

-Lucy is uncomfortable taking jobs without the rest of the team; no wonder you’re a broke bitch. Taking jobs with just Natsu means your income is breadcrumbs.

-Lucy’s also had to have renegotiated her contracts with her keys several times; otherwise she’d have only access to all her spirits on Wednesday as that’s the only ‘day’ Aquarius originally let Lucy call her on.

-When Lucy got Loke? She went and accidentally renegotiated Celestial Spirit Magic contracts in general. Because for Loke’s story to logically work out, a mage could only have one Celestial Spirit out at a time. With Loke jamming Karen out, she couldn’t summon another.

-So Lucy made it possible for summoners to have two out at one time; clearly the time for Spirit Double Battles is near

-Also Karen probably had another magic of some sort. Celestial Spirit Mages by themselves are considered weak because there’s so many conditions built into using the magic; when to use the spirit mostly but also all the agreements between the contractors. Hence Lucy must have renegotiated all her contracts at least once, as Lucy uses her keys more indiscriminately as the series progresses. It’s a versatile magic, but limited to having the item, having the contract, being the day of able to use the spirit’s time/energy etc

-Lucy might want to look into learning some other magic to be more well-rounded; as intelligent as she is, runes would be easy enough. So would re-quip. You’ve lost your keys how many times now?

-Laxus what are you wearing when first introduced? Please tell me that it was laundry day and you were wearing a gag gift from Bixlow, even if Bixlow hasn’t been introduced yet. Because awful. Let Natsu burn it, please.

-Also Laxus, considering the size of the communication lacrima in the guild, how large is the one you’re carrying? Also how do they work because the one Urtear has with her later is like the size of a basketball. Not exactly portable.

-Cana is awesome and has great leadership skills; she lead the defense of the guild against Phantom while Erza was out cold and Mira was being useless

-The Guildhall clearly has several sub-levels. Mavis’ body is well hidden and probably the reason why the basement hasn’t flooded despite being next to the lake. Makarov, I love you but it’s probably Prech/Hades who reinforced the shit out of the sub-layers.

-Loke probably overdid it during the attack by Phantom Lord and probably shaved off a few months of his ability to stay in Earthland while defending the guild. No wonder he was looking so terrible after

-Juvia once dated Bora of Titan’s Nose; you know the guy in the first chapter that Natsu beat up? You’re better off without him.

-Juvia dear, a crush is not love and you’re being somewhat obsessive; that it only gets worse and is eventually reciprocated is less than ideal; maybe it’s those last few chapters of Naruto but I keep seeing Sakura/Sasuke parallels in the ‘chase the man down for a pity fuck, get it, get a child, have ongoing depressive episode’?

-I probably wouldn’t mind this so much if Juvia had more of a personality than ‘love struck, obsessive fan.’ Like what are your ideals, what do you like that’s not about Gray?

-Lucy’s tragic backstory is probably less lonely when you consider she probably could hang out in the local ‘large’ village; she’d be slumming it but she at least would have had friendly acquaintances

-The staff do love her and she them; Lucy just doesn’t have her father’s love

-Jude is a piece of work that deserves to be told off; also, marrying Lucy to nobility for land to expand business so your eventual grandson will inherit?

-Fuck you; Lucy should have slapped a bitch. As it is, refusing to do so probably put a nail in the coffin of your business Jude.

-There’s a difference between ‘army’ and ‘rune knight’ and the latter are solely answerable to the ‘Magic Council.’ Also the ‘Magic Council’ seems to be a continent spanning organization separate from the national government, meant to monitor and organize mage guilds.

-It being corrupt as it is later is not really a surprise as there’s really not a lot to hold them accountable; Jellal and Ultear infiltrated the council and it’s implied that Jellal through work for the Council was named Wizard Saint.

-There’s probably more than just those two who have infiltrated the ‘Magic Council’ organization. Those two are just notable for having reached such a high level, as they both had voting power.

-Erza’s actually a holder-type mage, who can also use caster-type magic

-Specifically re-quip is a caster-type magic but she uses both the inherent and charged abilities of her armor and weapons to further her strength and abilities physically and magically. She’s also got some telekinesis so she can also further use this to ‘wield’ more weapons

-Erza’s oblivious to a lot of social things, which is not surprising as she’s not actually the social type.

-She’s missed so many people having a crush on her: Simon, Lucy, Gray, Bisca... yeah, Erza turns people into useless lesbians. Gray somehow manages to avoid this, possibly through the power of stripping. More probably through friendship and being in a Rivalry with Natsu

-Rivals is a relationship status okay; someone where between committed and it’s complicated

-Erza’s ability to kill a bitch gets nerfed for plot purposes; namely Jellal

-Jellal, you being evil I like. You have personality. You’re an asshole but somehow charming with your teenage boy sense of humor and extra-ness. Your fashion sense however needs work.

-Jellal was clearly in charge of getting supplies and such for his minions/slaves. And yet he can’t import a fashion sense? Clearly skipped movie night too much

-Wally so did make movie nights happen; they can probably quote movies verbatim

-Jellal focused a lot on Natsu. Not for his magic but because he wanted to fight Natsu. No evil plotting here

-Simon, you are so pathetic, this is why you’re a plot point later, so you can actually be useful after death

-Also Erza, ‘Eternal Wizard Saint’? Aren’t you just going a little far in your imaginary funeral. Makarov’s speech was in character but, a little more realism

-Oh and there’s more mook death in the Tower of Heaven arc; I think I mentioned it before? Them getting crushed by a collapsing tower and then vaporized by unstable magic? No wonder Erza and Jellal were spit back out; plenty of people died.

-Erza probably ripped open her second origin/magic container here, trying to absorb and direct the unstable Etherion magical build-up

-The way the story is framed makes you think the dragons are out and in hiding somewhere, instead of being spirits inside their slayers or something

-It’s probably a flashback?

-Oh and Lucy can make fireworks too; clearly gate keys are not just for summoning spirits

#Izzy rambles #Izzy tells no lies here #reference #Sin and Power

[trippingonroads-blog1]

Teotihuacan

The final day: Los piramides de Teotihuacan. We booked a tour through TripAdvisor and set it on our last day based on the recommendation from one of Lindsay’s friends who said it’s a pretty exhausting half day that can have lingering effects on the creaky and weak like us.

We left the Airbnb a little before 6 AM to walk to the tour bus pickup spot at a hotel about 15 minutes away. Every city puts its funniest hats on before dawn and Mexico City is no exception. Mini rush hour, although the rush better described the pace of the vehicles on the road, not the amount. A few early-rising street vendors setting up their tents and starting to boil hot water for coffee and lay out the day’s ingredients. Finely dressed people stumbling from their cars to their apartments, truly inexplicable to us on a Monday morning.

There were a few people sitting outside the hotel when we arrived, a massive relief for Lindsay who had read a couple of reviews that said the bus had failed to show up in the past. Sure enough, at 6:20 on the nose it pulled up and 40 or so of us piled on in an early morning bilingual daze.

Leaving Mexico City isn’t easy and by the time the bus pulled onto the freeway, the sun had come up and the neighborhoods began to look a whole lot more like what we usually see in American media. One of our guides, Gerson, a boisterous, cheery performer with a squeaking rubber chicken in his shirt pocket, explained with glee that 12 million people lived in these neighborhoods and the favelas we were soon to pass on the highway. Million! Almost double the population of the state of Massachusetts in an area about 20 square kilometers.

“No es Roma Norte, La Condesa… eso es el Mexico verdad!”

He joked that the favelas of Mexico aren’t the favelas of Brazil, where you can sit and have a coffee, eat some street food, and admire the poverty. In Mexico, the favelas are dangerous as hell. My only knowledge of Brazilian favelas comes from the movie “City of God” and they sure look pretty dangerous to me but I don’t know enough to comment one way or the other. Gerson seemed almost proud of that danger and as we traveled away from the last vestiges of urban Mexico City, he told us to get our cameras ready. While the favelas of Mexico City are rough, Gerson energetically hyped the destitution of the upcoming ones on the outskirts, lining the mountains along the highway, like a seal handler at Sea World.

“Cameras! Cameras!” He insisted we document the poverty. Grim, but to be fair, destitution’s beauty is a shocking, photogenic irony.

The mountains outside the city are doused in a favela collage of teal, pink, yellow, blue, and grey while the fittest green emerges near the peaks, resiliently staying the hand of human advance. Wide avenues span up and down like ski slopes between the stucco cracks. Beyond the roads, it’s nearly impossible to tell where one wall ends and another begins, turning the hillside into an elaborate canvas. You tend not to wonder who’s inside the buildings in paintings; you wonder less in reality. I wondered where the grocery stores were.

About 45 minutes later, we pulled into a red dirt parking lot at Teotihuacan and split into English and Spanish tour groups. Our English group, surprisingly, was mostly comprised of non-Americans. Danish, Scottish, Israeli, Canadian, Australian, Italian… only five Americans out of 17 people. Kevin, our more-straightlaced-than-Gerson tour guide, spoke the most English of anyone we’d met all week and, dangit, the man knew his stuff.

I’ll hold off on trying to describe the city of Teotihuacan too much because, like the Grand Canyon, it’s really too magnificent to explain. The preserved area that you can see today is only about one-seventh the size of the original city at its peak around 800 AD, and it’s still mind-boggling to consider how an ancient civilization could construct such an enormous, sophisticated city with only stone tools.

The city features three primary pyramids, built at the head of vast public spaces that had varying uses over time. The Pyramid of Quetzacoatl stands on one end of the park, the Pyramid of the Moon stands at the other, connected by a 3-kilometer-long pathway dotted by sunken public spaces and surrounded by the ruins of family homes and workshops. The Pyramid of the Sun, one of the largest pyramids in North America at 64 meters tall, stands about 30 meters from that pathway, called the Avenue of the Dead.

The pyramids, as you could probably surmise, were built to honor kings and originally held temples at the top, where royalty and nobility would confer with the gods and demonstrate their hegemony over the public. In the middle of the squares sat elevated platforms where shamans performed human sacrifices of war prisoners and children (because they’re pure) to appease the gods. Once upon a time, the squares and pyramids were painted red and constructed with gargoyle-esque symbols and the faces of gods and animals. They’re imposing and beautiful now; they’d definitely make you believe in the celestial more than one thousand years ago.

Contrary to what you might think, Teotihuacan was not built by the Aztecs. It was built by a people called Teotihuacanos, about whom not a whole lot is definitively known. Mayans and Aztecs both lived in Teotihuacan at different times but they mostly pillaged the city of all of its riches years after the Teotihuacanos evacuated it under mysterious circumstances. Some archaeologists think the San Juan River dried up, depriving them of a primary water source and their main sewage outlet. (Yes, they built a subterranean sewage system in the 6th fucking century.) Some say a civil war purged the population and the varying tribes moved in separate directions. 

What is known is that the pyramids we see today are the final product of a series of escalating pettiness. After a new king took over, he’d build pyramids on top of the existing ones just to show he was bigger and badder than the previous guy. As such, the Pyramid of the Sun contains six smaller pyramids within it. Unlike the Egyptians, Teotihuacanos didn’t use pyramids as tombs. They were built to become closer to the gods and display a king’s power. In some, the innermost pyramid was used as a vault for riches. Of course, by the time archaeologists excavated these vaults, they had been picked over by the Aztecs who only left behind the stuff they didn’t want. Hence why it’s hard to know much about the Teohituacanos: A bunch of assholes pillaged their history. Sound familiar?

Another thing we learned is that Teotihuacanos ate turkeys. Extension: There are turkeys in Mexico! I had no idea. On the walk between pyramids, I asked Kevin about the Teotihuacano diet and what the marketplace might have looked like and he gave me an extensive answer that attracted a few of the solo travelers to gather around as we walked.

One, an older American woman we had seen throughout the day trying to talk to anyone who would listen to her, caught on to the turkey bit. Turns out, this lady despises turkeys. According to her, they’ve become a scourge in Northern California (I called that this lady was from the Bay Area the second I heard her speak) and are “taking over.” Lindsay nor I had ever heard of turkeys in California so when this was happening, we bowed out of the conversation to look at each other and say “what the f is she talking about?” Googling later, turkeys have apparently become one of the most prominent non-native species in California over the last decade or so. Who knew!

Anyway, we didn’t know that at the time, which is why it was exceedingly difficult to keep from laughing while this lady exhorted her vitriolic fucking hatred for turkeys.

“They’re constantly in my yard, they’re everywhere. One of them scratched my son and he’s got a scar down his forearm. I had to put up a six-foot fence just to keep them off my property!”

I imagined a spiked wood fence, painted red in the blood of foolhardy turkeys, the points adorned with freshly decapitated turkey heads and a sign outside that read in red “Gobble gobble gob gob gobble dee goo” with English translation in Helvetica beneath: “Turkeys who cross pay the ultimate price.”

But then she said you aren’t allowed to shoot them. Nobody is listening to her at this point as she exclaims what an outrage it is that you can’t kill them on your own property. Lindsay and I drop jaws at one another in amusement as I realize, “Holy shit, I was just doing an imagination joke but this lady has definitely fantasized about turning her home into a turkey slaughterhouse.” But the God damn guvrnmint say she cain’t shoot what been trispassin’ on her pro’pty! (Based on my subsequent eavesdropping, she lives in Marin County, is married to a 76 year-old Mexican man, is the self-proclaimed most adventurous member of her family, has bad knees because she played soccer in college forty years ago, and was on this trip to “discover her husband’s heritage” which baldly means she’s bored by her own Western European heritage and needs to have some more culturally interesting things to say about herself at the next garden party. There is no doubt in my mind that she’s a bleeding heart liberal and would never bluntly denounce government overreach but I couldn’t help giving her a pissed off Southern accent.)

Nobody else on the tour was quite so interesting as to have a vendetta against a species of bird but we did meet two nice Canadians (duh) at the tequila tasting and buffet lunch after the tour. They were sisters, doing a catch-up vaca together, and were heading to Los Angeles after their stay in Mexico City. We gave them a few recommendations and when I was at the buffet for seconds, Lindsay discovered that their Airbnb was in our same building. I told you it was all Airbnbs! We walked home with them from the hotel drop-off.

Yes, we made it to the top of all the pyramids if you were wondering, so we were pretty beat when we got back to the apartment. However, my friend Kira lives in Mexico City now and she reached out to see if we wanted to get dinner. We did but it took some effort.

All for the best, though, as Kira picked the place — Taquitos Frontera — and we had yet another amazing taco night. Kira’s been in CDMX for two years, teaching some of the country’s wealthiest, most spoiled middle schoolers at an American school. She had some high school Spanish under her belt when she moved but she’s been pretty much learning on the job and kicking ass living abroad. I hadn’t seen her in five years and it was very cool to see how much she was loving being in the midst of this incredibly bold life decision.

After dinner, we got consuelitos — ice cream sandwiches made with cookies and cream ice cream and mini circular churros — and then caught an Uber home. We were asleep by 9:30.

[mistye-dawne]

Finding the Words

Summary: A chance meeting while taking a break from her team sends Lucy and Laxus into unfamiliar territory as Lucy tries to find balance between catering to her team and moving forward with her own life, while Laxus fights his demons and struggles to accept that he just might be good enough to have the girl of his dreams.

FF.net

Chapter 12: Confrontation

Days had passed since Laxus and his team left Magnolia and in that time, they'd met with their client in a town located on the southern edge of Waas forest. There were rumors of a dark guild lurking in the forest attacking merchants and travelers passing through. The same thing was happening to those coming from the north end of the forest. With that information, the four easily assumed they'd find these mages in the heart of forest not too far from the road.

They spent a day traveling along the road and easily took out the guilty mages that ambushed them. However, the group felt a strange energy settle over the forest and were convinced that there was something sinister at work around them. They were compelled to investigate it before leaving.

Laxus had no trouble sniffing out whatever it was they headed toward but the moment he got close to it, they realized that they'd been caught in a misdirection spell. A powerful one. The lightning slayer felt like he'd get them a little closer each time, but then the scent would suddenly change directions before they could reach the source.

"This is getting us nowhere. We've double backed how many times now?" Evergreen inquired agitatedly.

Beyond frustrated with the situation and other things, Laxus spun on the woman with a glare that made her flinch. "Yeah, I know Ever," he growled. "Everytime I think we're close to getting out, this shit shifts around."

"I wasn't blaming you," she asserted. "I was just thinking that maybe we need to try something else since we've been stuck for so long that it'll be getting dark soon."

"By all means then, think of something," he snapped. "I've got a fucking headache." He stomped off ahead of them, beyond caring if they got separated.

Bickslow placed a hand on Ever's shoulder and she shook her head at him. "I'm good Bix. I could have said that better with tensions running so high," she confessed. "You should go check on him. He's been irate since the master called him the other night."

"We still have a few hours before it's completely dark, so Ever and I will try to look for a weak point," Freed offered. "Separating isn't an option."

"Right," Bix nodded. "I'll make sure he doesn't get too far ahead. You guys pay attention though and don't fall behind."

The two nodded and watched him catch up to Laxus. Freed wondered aloud if it had really been a wise choice for the guildmaster to inform Laxus that Jaice had not been apprehended. Ever didn't quite know how to answer. but she thought the master had to have had a good reason to bring it up while they were in the middle of a mission. She also offered the idea that maybe he had called as his grandfather rather than the guildmaster, reminding the rune mage that the call between them had been a rather long one.

Freed thought about Ever's words. The relationship between the lightning slayer and the guildmaster had slowly mended since Gildarts reinstated his status as a member, but to call them close would be an exaggeration. If anything, Laxus just respected his grandfather properly now. But maybe she was right and they had spoken about something of a more personal nature.

The fairy mage and rune mage for silent for some time after that, trying to feel a break in the spell surrounding them. Freed thought that since the spell only shifted once they got close enough to it's edge, that it was possible for there to be a rune surrounding them. If that were the case, then all he would need to do was locate a weak spot within the rules, and then rewrite it because a rune of large size could very easily have multiple weak points if it had been rushed. The remaining hours seemed to drag on until Ever and Freed felt the air change again, this time far more subtly than before that they expected Laxus and Bickslow to miss it since they'd not been looking for it.

"My hair is starting to frizz up," Ever complained.

"It's gotten humid." A heavy mist had settled over the two making it hard to see more than three feet in front of them as the sun was already low in the sky. "Fog?"

"Jaice wielded a type of mist, didn't he?" Ever asked, panic in her voice.

"Laxus! Bickslow!" Freed shouted. He'd only just realized that they'd gotten out of sight and prayed that they hadn't gotten too far, leaving the group separated. A second later, the men came into view.

"Why'd you stop?" Bickslow questioned. "You find something?"

"I don't feel the misdirection spell any longer. Instead this mist has settled in it's place."

He was right, none of them could feel the effects from before. However, when Laxus inhaled to catch the scent of something he could use to lead them back to the main road, all he could smell was the moisture in the air.

"Dammit. I can't smell anything past this mist. How are we gonna get out?"

"Well the spell changed for a reason. I also don't feel like my magic is being suppressed so I might be able to do something about the mist."

The group made a fire to give Freed a little bit of light as he and Ever worked on adjusting the spell around them.

"How's cosplayer?" Bix asked, hoping to get the lighting slayer talking since he been silent after his little outburst.

"Irritated to hell."

"Can't say I blame her. Weeks ago, she's told that she can't work solo and now she's gotta have a babysitter."

Laxus sighed and shook his head. "I don't think I helped to improve her mood any."

Bickslow eyed the blonde as he ran a hand through his hair. "Good lord, what did you say to her?"

"That I was glad to know that she was safe," he mumbled.

"What else, Laxus?" Bix prompted.

"I tried telling her that the old man is just looking out for her."

What he didn't tell his friend was that his grandfather had been speaking to Loke before he'd called him to inform him about Jaice the other night. They'd spoken at length about protecting Lucy and while both the spirit and his grandfather seemed against the idea, they were considering it simply because they didn't know what might happen to her once Jaice was near her again.

Laxus didn't want to consider the possibility of Lucy losing her memories so he decided that there would be no chance of it happening. The celestial mage might end up hating him, but if he wasn't there to help protect her he wasn't going to risk her losing everything because of her pride.

"I'm sure she knows that. But she's a mage in her own right," Bix explained.

"And a prideful woman that doesn't need anyone," he scoffed.

"Hey. Doesn't mean that she don't want someone around."

Laxus knew Bix was right. If Lucy didn't want him, she'd say so. This whole situation was just fucked up and he wanted to do nothing than just go home to her and try to make it better, not that he knew how to make things better. They continued to talk for a little longer. Lucy had finally found a new apartment and was starting to move in. Bickslow assured him that the distraction was a good thing for her. It would let her feel normal and lot like some crazed loon was possibly hunting for her.

Ever came back to sit with them as Freed made a few more adjustments to the enchantment. The lightning slayer apologized to her for snapping and she just shook her head offering her own apology. She rested with them for a little bit and asked about Lucy's new apartment. He told her that the celestial mage had found one that she was finally happy with even though it had more space than she could use up. The fairy mage joked about maybe moving in with her and Laxus said that all she had to do was ask.

The place had two bedrooms and two bathrooms. The selling point for Lucy had been the jacuzzi in the master bathroom. Evergreen was definitely going to consider asking her friend for the spare bedroom since she was getting tired of Fairy Hills.

When Freed walked over, Ever nodded at him and stood up motioning for the other two to follow. They returned to where he'd been working and she made sure they were prepared for whatever was waiting for them once the mist was cleared. The rune mage recited the incantation and the mist was lifted to reveal a small clearing surrounded by at least twenty mages. One of the mages stepped from the crowd and pulled back his hood, a smug grin on his face. His hair was black and fell over his gray eyes.

"So these are the four you've been so concerned about?" he mocked. His were held open to them as though her were extending them a warm welcome. "Well I must admit, to be able to clear the mist in such a short time and with little effort, it would seem that you all were rightfully afraid." The man narrowed his eyes at Laxus. "Leave all but the lightning mage alive. I have uses for their magic."

The man turned away and the others started attacking. Freed called out to Bickslow who moved to cover the rune mage as he began crafting another rune to give them control over the fight.

Ever leapt up and summoned her wings to hover over the group that had surrounded her. She shot them down with her fairy machine gun but was knocked out of the air by someone behind her. She managed to recover fought beside Bickslow as Freed finished writing his rune.

Laxus teleported after the man that had been speaking, cutting of his path and forcing him to jump back away from where he struck.

"You don't get to dish out orders and then walk away."

"Normally I do, but you seem to be an interesting sort and I've been rather bored since evading imprisonment by the council." Laxus furrowed his brow at the familiarity of the man's words. "I need this to end quick I have someone I need to be looking for."

"Oh? Maybe I can help when you're face first in the dirt," he taunted.

Laxus surged forward, his fist connecting with the mage's jaw. The lightning slayer showed no mercy but the mage was able to find some ground and tried to ensnare Laxus within his mist. He was easily able to teleport from it before he was physically trapped but the mage had already tapped into his mind.

"You seem to know the individual I'm looking for," he said, sounding genuinely surprised. Laxus fell to his knees and clutched his head after landing as the mage tapped into his mind. "Why don't you tell me where she is."

"Laxus!" Evergreen jumped between the men, devoid of her glasses and looked the man she now knew was Jaice. She'd already suspected as much with the mist but his mind melding confirmed it. Jaice looked away and fled before she could gaze into his eyes that had been glowing.

"Done!" Freed shouted as he finished his rune. Any mage that continued use their magic would find it hard to breath. "Bickslow, you and Laxus get back to Magnolia now," he ordered.

"Freed and I will clean up things here. Hurry up," she added.

Bickslow knelt down beside his friend and pulled him to his feet, dragging him away from the fight. With Laxus' lightning they could be back home in no time, but Jaice had done a number on the man when he looked into his mind. Bickslow only hoped that he'd come to his senses soon so that they could get to Lucy first.

Two days later, a strange fog settled over Magnolia when the sun was peeking over the horizon as Jaice tried to find the celestial mage within. Lucy was fast asleep in her bare apartment and woke up, feeling a familiar tug on her mind. Before she came to, Horologium's gate was opened and she was taken to the spirit world.

She looked down at herself and recognized the clothing as something Virgo had once brought her. Still half asleep she watched Loke offer his hand to help her stand, a sad smile on his face. All of her spirits were there, each happy to see that she was safe but also a bit saddened. Loke would be the one to take her wrath and anger since he'd been the one that sent Horologium to get her, but they each felt a bit guilty about bringing her here to protect her.

"Loke, what's going on? Why am I here?"

The lion spirit just shook his head. "I'm sorry, Lucy. I waited as long as I could."

"Loke," she whispered, placing her hand on either side of his face and forcing him to look at her. "Waited for what?"

"Jaice just arrived to Magnolia."

He could see that she was confused and lead her over to the fountain where they watched over her on occasion. There, she looked down at the water and saw her home blanketed in the familiar mist.

"Loke, you have to take me back," she said shakily. Now was not the time to lose her cool because he;d never let her go back if she wasn't calm. "I need to warn the others."

"I'm sorry, Lucy. We can't risk that."

She spun on him and glared. It hurt that she was looking at him like that but this was what had been agreed upon. They were doing what they could to protect their mage, consequences be damned. "Loke, take me back this instant," she fumed.

"You're as obnoxious as ever, girl," came a familiar voice.

Lucy turned around to see Aquarius on the other side of the fountain, a rare gentle smile gracing her face. "Aquarius," she sputtered.

"You have to stay here until this passes," she commanded bluntly.

Lucy tried to argue but the sad look in the water spirit's eyes made her think of the day she broke her key. She walked over to the spirit and collapsed, tears streaming down her face. She'd missed the spirit so much and if Aquarius was honest, she missed Lucy as well. But now was not the time for an emotional reunion. She explained to Lucy that bringing her to the spirit world had been her idea in the first place. She told her that if she wanted to be mad at or hate anyone, that it needed to be her.

Lucy pleaded her case to Aquarius. She needed to be there to fight with her family if it came to that. She didn't need to be hidden away and protected. She was perfectly capable of doing that herself. The spirit just chided her and reminded her that she'd grown too prideful in wanting to do everything on her own.

The celestial mage wanted to argue but the spirit was right. Loke had been telling her so for some time now and she hadn't listened. Instead, she'd acted like a child and ignored him saying that she needed to stop relying on others to solve her problems.

Lucy looked to the pool and saw Laxus approaching Jaice, who was standing on the cliffs that overlooked the city. She looked up at Loke who looked truly regretful that he'd brought her here. She reached out to him and tried to reassure the lion with a smile before looking back at the pool.

"She's vanished. Hmm, maybe I can wait until those spirits bring her back," Jaice mumbled with a shrug.

"What do you plan to accomplish? What's all this for?" Laxus barked out.

Jaice turned to look at the lightning slayer, annoyed at his persistence. "You mean the ritual? Hell, I don't even know if it'll work. I was just curious to find out."

"Curious?" he scoffed. He couldn't believe it. This prick was going to use Lucy asa fucking sacrifice just because he was curious. "Is this a fucking game to you? Playing with people's lives?"

"I wouldn't say easing my boredom always included someone dying," he sighed. "But she's eluded me again and I'm quickly losing interest, which is never a good thing."

Laxus saw nothing but red and as he did two days prior, the lightning slayer charged at the man. Lucy was forced to sit back and helplessly watch as the two men traded blow after blow. Jaice was physically weak, but the celestial mage was afraid to see what he would do when he was pushed into desperation. And Laxus, she hardly recognized him and realized that she'd actually never seen the man when he was in dragon mode.

It reminded her of Natsu, how uncontrollable and feral he seemed when he was pushed that far. Was Laxus this way because of her? Was he fighting purely on instinct because her life had been threatened? It was clear that he wasn't going to let up until Jaice was dead. However, the mind-melding mage didn't look like he was giving up easily either.

There's was something different about him. Just as Laxus could become part of his lightning, Jaice had become part of the mist and Laxus' attacks had ceased to do anything to him. Lucy was starting to panic as Laxus started to fall behind. Jaice was able to get in a solid blow and knocked him back and he didn't immediately get up.

Laxus shouted in agony when the mind-melder gripped his mind. The mage's eyes and tattoos were glowing. The lightning mage was unable to fight against him. "I'm sorry... Lucy."

"Oh you will be," Jaice spat. "She would have died quickly, but now I'm going to make her suffer."

"Let me go back!" Lucy cried. "Please... please. Live. Laxus"

"Live. Laxus." Lucy's voice rang through his head and his eyes snapped open. That's right. He was fighting for her and she was waiting for him. He took the deepest breath he could manage, summoned his magic forth and let out that same breath with all his remaining strength before his world went black.

As soon as Magnolia was in sight, Laxus sent Bickslow to find Lucy. He had tried her old place only to find her bed empty. He didn't know where the new apartment was so he just headed to the guild praying that she'd be there.

"Bickslow?!" Mira was more than a little surprised to see the seith mage burst through the doors.

"Mira! Where's Lucy?" She opened her mouth to tell him that she hadn't been in yet but words didn't come. "Mira!" he called again. His voice was filled with desperation.

Makarov, hearing the commotion downstairs, walked from his office to investigate. He saw the seith mage leaning against the bar, out of breath. He also saw a confused Mira who couldn't seem to answer him.

"Bickslow," he called. The mage looked up at him. "Tell me everything," he demanded, narrowing his eyes.

Bickslow, remaining on the first floor, explained to the guildmaster, and everyone else sitting the hall, what had happened to them in the forest. How Jaice had organized an ambush after trapping them inside the forest. The mind-melder had tapped into Laxus' mind and learned that Lucy was here. Laxus and he had been the only ones to give chase. He assured the guild that Evergreen and Freed were fine and probably already on their way back to Magnolia.

Makarov responded by informing him that Lucy was safe, though he wouldn't say where she was. Bickslow pleaded with him, but the old man simply ignored him and asked where his grandson was. Bickslow assumed that Laxus had sought out Jaice by himself to finish this. Only then did the seith mage realize what a horrible mistake he had made leaving the lightning slayer alone..

Bickslow turned on his heel and ran outside, looking for his best friend's lightning. Seeing the strikes on the far west side of the city, he took off hoping that he could get there before this was all over. It wasn't that he wanted a piece of the action per se, but they had no idea how to protect themselves from Jaice's mind-melding. The only way they could prevent him from even attempting to use it was keeping him on the defense.

He ran past Natsu who was shocked to see him and called back to the fire slayer to follow him. Picking up on the urgency in Bickslow's voice, he ran after him. When the two reach where Bix had seen the lightning, they find both men collapsed and unconscious. The seith knelt beside Laxus and rolled him to his back. He was pretty beat up but Jaice looked ten times worse. Seconds after Bix looked over the lightning slayer, Lucy appeared.

"Bickslow!" she called and ran to kneel opposite of him.

She cradled his face between her hands and leaned over him, pressing her forehead to his. She felt Bickslow lean over and rest his head against her back as he let out a shaky breath.

"You're okay," he sighed. "Where the hell were you? Master wouldn't tell me?"

"I was taken to the spirit world," she admitted sadly.

"Did anyone know?"

"I can only assume that both Laxus and his grandfather knew," she answered.

Loke would never have brought her there without seeking advice from the guildmaster. And if he did go to the master, then she knew that he would have told Laxus. Had he given Loke the okay to just take her while he fought to protect her?

"If he knew, then why would he send me to find you?" Bix choked out.

His weight left her back and she say up to look at him. Why would Laxus fight alone if he knew that she was already safe. Her eyes grew wide and filled with tears as she looked back down to her unconscious boyfriend. She wanted to be upset with him for sending her away but knowing that he'd fought alone to protect his best friend as well, knowing the risk.

"Bix," she sobbed. "What if he did something to him?"

He reached over and wrapped his arms around her as tightly as possible, given how they were sitting. "Shhh. He's gonna be okay. He's just a little beat up is. Everything's alright now." She wanted to believe him but she just had too many questions.

"Lucy!" The two looked behind the celestial mage to see Wendy run past Natsu and directly to them. Lucy hadn't even realized that he had been there.

The girl knelt beside Lucy and made sure that they could move him to the guild. He had several fractured bones and she could definitely tell that there was some brain damage, but she couldn't say that. Looking at both the seith and celestial mages, she tried to think of what she could do to help them. They were grief-stricken and lost in their heads with uncertainty and self-doubt. They needed something to keep them grounded and focused on the now.

She turned to Natsu who was hovering over the other mage.

"Natsu, is he alive?" she inquired.

"Yeah. He's in bad shape but he'll live." Laxus had done a number on him but it was clear that he was still alive. Natsu's instincts raged and he had half a mind to take the mage to finish him off, but that wasn't going to help anyone.

"Good," she acknowledged and nodded. "I need you to get Laxus back to the infirmary at the guild. He's fine to move, just be careful please. And send for Porlyuscia when you get there." She stood up, holding Lucy close and stepped aside for him. She thought the blonde might fight her but the woman was limp and allowed herself to be moved while clinging to the healer.

Wendy watched the fire slayer carry Laxus away and then turned back to the seith mage. They needed to get Jaice back to the guild as well, but she wasn't going to risk anyone touching him and falling under his influence. She sat Lucy back down and asked for Bickslow to follow her. She explained that she was going to heal him just enough to be conscious and able to move.

Without needing an explanation, Bickslow agreed to go along with her plan. She would heal him and he would use his figure eyes to bring the man back to the guild without ever having to come into contact with him. While doing so, he'd be able to see into his very being and see if there was something he could possibly glean from the man.

Wendy felt ill at the idea of healing this man but they needed this man alive just in case he had done something to Laxus. When he opened his eyes, Bickslow removed his visor and looked down, reaching for control. When he had it, he lead the mage back to the guild with Wendy and Lucy following just behind her. Both prayed that nothing serious had happened to the lightning mage or there would be hell to pay.

#ficsforvera #ftfanfics #laxlu #Laxus Dreyar #lucy heartfilia #fairy tail fanfiction #fairy tail #mistye-writes #finding the words #multichapter

[elkian]

Chapter 18: Holy shit suddenly we’re in the not-endgame

the thing about that sidequest is that what little build up to this end-of-Part-1 kind of deal there was is completely obliterated. The sidequest probably should have been placed after chapter 15 or 16, really, or even before that.

(also, the Inuyasha main BGM is playing during this, it’s interesting, and not entirely inappropriate)

I will say that Blazer’s sense of gameplay and gameplay lead-up (especially in when you can gain items) is pretty good, though.

Also, Here’s the more completionist LP by Blastinus if you like more detail

there is a metric buttload of foes on the field, though thankfully they’re mostly sporting E and D rank weaponry; some of the archers have Long or Short Bows, there’s a cav with a Cappricio (the low-hit crit lance) up top, and a knight with a Short Spear, but other than that it’s fairly generic.

We’ll be bringing Cia for plot reasons; speaking of which, those levels last chapter will serve Anakin well, since he’s due for a Plot Promotion at the end of this chapter. One nice thing is that if your Anakin didn’t turn out really combat-viable, you can still grind him up to level 20 by Motivating people.

Considering I’m fielding 16 units, another healer probably would have been a good idea. Especially when Corben can’t outdamage our Archer.

...man, Lirin’s doing the same fucking damage with a SLIM LANCE

i have her take down the archer instead, and her first hit is a crit. Beautiful.

there’s a Sage with Thunder and 2x the magic of most of the mages in the middle of the map, lest you get complacent

Shon lands 4 of 4 shots at 86% and only gets hit once. I’m kind of proud!

Ehh, still kind of proud. I’ve been so starved for Skill levels that this is fine with me.

the Knight in range of Emma decided to loop around to take a potshot at the now-healed Shuuda. Whatever.

now we’re talking. Shuuda went from being equal to venom blades with steel to outdamaging Steel with Iron. It’s all in your foe.

in both of my attempts as well as Blastinus’ LP, this Allied Merc is just invincible. They dodge two attacks entirely and take about 2 damage from the third attacker.

that upper Cavalier on the left moves before the mage, saving Corben some burning - there’s no space to attack from now. And that Cav didn’t have a ranged option.

the generics were going to kill a sniper, so cia runs over the finish them for....

anyways

starting to regret not training Tekun. We break out the Lancereaver instead (and I really should have grabbed the Armorcutter earlier)

a) Mark can double this poor sod

b) look at the fucking size difference, it’s like they were built on different scales

idk it’s just jarring.

I possibly-foolishly free up the chokepoint in front of Corben for a pretty okay level.

I have no idea why you are so hell-bent on gaining resistance, but I will not argue.

Also, the sheer amount of Skill makes me so happy.

Supporting Ace with both Eduardo and Anakin may work out well, since it means he either has a high-Move decent frontliner watching his back, or that our squishy mage of a protagonist has a physical unit nearby

Also, Eduardo is getting better Hit with WTD and Steel thanks to Javelins being heavy and the support. And just Ed being Ed.

Refresh Units+Healers is always a great combo, and this is an astounding level.

good thing Ed has so much HP, cause he can’t dodge worth squat at the moment

ow. Mark missing both counterattacks is also an Ow moment.

it takes something like 7 collective attacks, but dodgy Merc is brought down.

Ace’s high luck and HP makes this viable. Good thing, too, cause he takes the hit.

Tekun kills the Knight for an okay level.

i don’t know whether to be mad he didn’t crit or glad he landed both hits

i leave Emma in kind of a bad spot, and she gets a level to help mitigate my fears (she’s carrying the Guiding Celestial Ring but I didn’t think to throw her a Fire tome)

this cav rides over to... deal her No Damage.

weirdest. troubadour. ever.

Zach kills the cav and breaks into double digits with an okay level.

keep in mind that at level 14, Corben has 2 less Strength

the cav that’s been harassing Tekun is much less scary against someone with defense and no WTD

are... are you fucking with me, Ben?

this is the second time this phase that a sword user has missed on high-70s odds

and again!

Emma caps out with - sure.

this boss’s palette is just... bad.

this mage did more damage than a cavalier with a sword

worried now

dodging a hand axe gives eduardo... even more HP and slightly more dodge

so Noah is supposed to appear here instead of this NPC, but i’ve never gotten it to trigger and I don’t know why.

Itsuke takes some heat off Cia for a pretty solid level.

all those Res levels pay off.

I was wrong about her promotion item somehow, but anyways, Emma promotes. Look at those defenses!

Mark’s been taking potshots at the first boss, and it pays off okay.

i don’t do this, but again, HP-Luck-Res levels are underrated

i’ll take it

what hurts even more than the lance is the miss on the first counter.

uh oh

fuck

reload

my last save was apparently several turns ago

Mark gets the HP-STR-DEF level again

one nice thing is that for some reason the enemy AI prioritizes attacking Allied units, so I can use them for a bit of a screen

(the downside is that allies will gank kills on enemies you were planning to feed on your phase)

that is fucking weird but okay

(it’s literally his alternate level inverted)

Shon crits on the first hit and subsequently buries this fucker, taking no damage in the process (and jumping to 99 EXP)

there’s something so hilarious about an Archer killing a General with an Iron Bow, 2 damage a hit, 52% hit chance.

this.... this is a peg knight level minus the skill.

where Eduardo  failed with 3 out of 4 55% Charge attacks, Ace manages with one 53% Javelin. Whatever.

One thing that’s interesting and good attention to detail is that there’s actually 3 enemy factions: Ft. Darner, Magnians in general, and Howard’s Unit (Hwd’s Unit)

it’s been a while since i’ve used Kelik, and enemies are just homing in on him. somehow he’s been avoiding 65%+ hits so far.

Shon fails to hit the Thunder Sage but gets a dodgy level for his troubles. Also, Jesus, that Strength.

This enemy archer was in range of Ben because I am a fucking genius (Lirin has the Delphi Shield) but decided to attack an Allied AI instead.

possibly because it couldn’t OHKO him? idk

Ace’s first level in quite a while. He’s the first on our team to cap speed, and Luck and Defense ain’t bad.

I grab Tekun and Kelik’s C Support. (Wind and Fire.)

an Allied AI baited the Sage over - Lirin takes a chip at him for a strange but good level

see, now I have to deal with this

Eduardo brings us home and nets 60 EXP in the process

Tekun kills a cav for an excellent level

and then almost dies to my carelessness. I can’t even be mad that he missed on 75%

this random-ass NPC has a Brave Sword, btw

sure

look at this shit. Howard is EXTREMELY dangerous - his attack’s always in the 30s and his base Speed is 20, so you need to make sure whoever’s in his way can live through that. He’s also got one of each physical weapon (sans bows) so getting WTA is tough

That NPC baits him into using his Spear, but that’s not a bad thing - in my previous play, all the Allies zerg-rushed Howard, and he expended something like half his Spear uses on them. We’re going to be employing that plan again.

Yes, Kelik (plus Tekun and a Javelin-wielding Ace) is our bait. He’s got the HP to tank a hit, the Speed to not be doubled, and just enough luck (+crit dodge from his support) not to chance being critted.

Ace actually manages to land on 19%

Anakin can actually survive one hit, so I leave him in countering range to motivate Emma

not bad!

and now Emma can out-heal Howard’s damage to Kelik with her Heal staff.

Zach actually manages to land a hit on like 5% with the Rifle Bow, apparently using his entire store of non-ironic luck in the process.

Howard’s down to 1 Spear use, and we need Shon to go a round and survive for quest reasons.

Kelik breaks out the Armor Cutter and brings him down. We’re ALMOST done.

NOW we’re done.

#elk text #26th #April #2017 #April 26th 2017 #Elk plays TLP #Elkian plays The Last Promise #fire emblem: the last promise