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queerebrum · 4 years

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Layers (A petition for partial custody)

Scott McCall/Void to Scott McCall/Stiles Stilinski | T | 1.8k words. Written for Nogitjune! - Check the reblogs for the AO3 link if you’d prefer to read it there!

Ogres are like onions.

Layers. Onions have layers.

Void wished, not for the first time, that they’d perhaps chosen a host with a brain full of interesting facts, rather than obscure movie references. This one, though, felt surprisingly accurate. It was, in fact, the one thing that made their host interesting at all: layers.

Stiles hid his body behind layers of clothing. He hid his real feelings behind layers of comedic relief and self-deprecation. He hid his romantic inclinations (one, in particular) behind layers of friendship and the word “brothers” as if adding wrongness would make him want it less.

Normally, Void would have gone for the obvious target: the once-alpha Derek Hale, who was hidden behind far fewer layers in Stiles’ mind. The teen’s attraction for the twenty-something werewolf was undeniable, and if Void was reading interactions right (which they were, they always did) it was reciprocated to a degree.

But if Void wanted to stay, they needed to have someone more powerful on their side. Derek didn’t have enough power to make the kind of decisions that needed to be made.

Scott, on the other hand, did.

And, if Void had read those memories right, Stiles’ years-repressed feelings about his best friend were also reciprocated. The feelings seemed to be reciprocated through their freshman year, when, given the life-story Void had access to, Scott had given up on getting Stiles to notice, and Stiles had accepted that it would never be.

Next time, Void aspired to attain a host that wasn’t simultaneously so fucking observant and so fucking oblivious .

Cracking the body’s neck and wiggling its fingers a bit, Void attempted to interject some of the perpetual motion they sometimes forgot about when trying to impersonate Stiles: rubbed at the eyes to redden them, and chewed on the body’s bottom lip to make it a bit poutier, redder, more enticing.

Slipping into the McCall’s house in the dead of night was a joke of a task for a thousand-year-old trickster. Void made sure when he swung the alpha’s bedroom door open that it moved silently, and was glad to see that -- for once -- Scott was alone. Void could feel the lingering presence of others: Stiles, Isaac, Allison.

Void let the door click as he closed it and Scott leapt to awareness, eyes red as he glared. Slowly, as he took in the (masterfully crafted, thanks very much) act Void was playing, the red faded from his eyes. “Stiles? Is it really you? How did you get out?”

Void nodded, pressing Stiles’ lips together and resting the body’s head back against the door. “I don’t remember.” They swallowed, bringing the body’s hands up to scrub at Stiles’ face. “I just...woke up outside, and I didn’t know where to go. I can’t go home; it’s the first place they’ll look.” Void caught Scott’s eyes and let Stiles’ redden further. “I’m afraid, Scott.”

Scott nodded, his face sad. “We’re working on a solution. We’re trying to get rid of it. It’s just… taking a little longer than we expected.”

“Can I stay with you tonight?” Void asked, biting Stiles’ bottom lip gently. “In case I wake up not...myself.”

Scott smiled, but his eyes were sad, concerned, anxious and Void lapped it up. He patted the bed next to him. “Sure.”

Void kicked off the body’s shoes and slipped out of the Eichen sweats, leaving Stiles in just a T-shirt and underwear. Scott was shirtless, but Void caught a glimpse of sweats under the covers. They settled into the bed, leaving a reasonable distance they had no intention of maintaining between the body and Scott.

“Is everyone else okay?” Void asked, rolling over to face Scott, who had curled up on his side. They weren’t kids anymore so, unlike in the memories Void had access to, their knees clacked. Void laughed quietly at it, but didn’t pull Stiles’ legs away from Scott’s. The alpha made no effort to move away either.

“As okay as they can be,” Scott answered. “We’re scared for you.”

“Are you and Kira…y’know.” Void raised their eyebrows expectantly. “Together, yet?”

Scott blushed and turned his head into the pillow. “No.” He said, but his voice was muffled.

Slowly, Void brought Stiles’ hand up to rest against Scott’s shoulder, brushing his thumb gently against the skin there. Scott turned his head abruptly, eyes flicking from the hand on his shoulder to Stiles’ face.

“I’ve had a lot of time to think lately,” Void murmured, sliding Stiles’ hand from Scott’s shoulder, up his neck to cup his jaw. “About the past. About...us.”

“Us?” Scott asked, tongue darting out to wet his lips.

Void stared into the alpha’s deep brown eyes for a long moment before, impossibly slowly, they leaned forward to press Stiles’ lips against Scott’s.

The alpha was shocked, but returned the kiss after only a moment’s hesitation. Scott’s hands, broad and warm, came up to slide into Stiles’ hair. Void couldn’t help but want more if it; it had been a long time since they’d been intimate with anyone. The near-purr escaped before they could stop it once Scott slid a leg in between theirs, rolling Stiles’ body so they were on their back, facing up at him.

As soon as the sound escaped them, Scott froze, and the red bled back into his eyes. With a disappointed huff, Void dropped the act and rolled his eyes. “You were into that.” Void nudged at Scott’s half-hard cock with Stiles’ thigh. “Why’d you stop?”

“You know why,” Scott said, nearly a growl.

“What are you gonna do now, Scotty ?” Void taunted. “Tear my throat out? No, you’d never do that to your precious little Stiles. Or anyone, ever, it would seem.”

“You’re using a body that isn’t yours.” There was a real growl and fangs now. Void smirked, drinking in the conflict and anger in Scott. “You’re sick.”

Shrugging one shoulder, Void winked. “I’m not entirely sure what you expected from a trickster, Scott. Sunshine and daisies? A pure moral compass?” Void leaned up, causing Scott to jerk back away from him. “But, in terms of using a body that isn’t mine -- One: I’m in the body, so it’s mine. Two: do you think I’m here because you’re something I wanted? Please.”

“Stiles and I have been friends forever. If he was…” Scott swallowed hard and looked away. “If he wanted this, I’d have known.”

“Would you? Or had you just given up on him and hoped he’d given up on you. This is your chance, Scott. I can give him to you, the way you really wanted him.”

“I’m not going to rape Stiles, you sick fuck.”

“Suit yourself.” Void smirked. “See you when he falls asleep, Alpha . You’re welcome.”

Stiles slammed back into consciousness, jerking suddenly, forcing Scott to grip down harder on his shoulders. “Ow,” he said, staring up at the alpha above him. Void conveniently shared the memories of the last few moments with him. His eyes fell closed, and his cheeks burned as he realized Scott was still hovering over him, and that both of them were still hard. “Oh fuck. Scott, seriously, I’m gonna have bruises. Let me up.”

“I’m not hurting you,” Scott snapped. “Shut up.”

“Scott.” Stiles relaxed back, sighing. “Scott, it’s me .”

“Sure it is,” Scott huffed. “This is just a trick. This is just the Nogitsune trying to get me to hurt Stiles.” Stiles licked his lips. “It started as that, yeah.” He blinked a few times, “Scott, I swear on my mother’s grave it’s really me.” He waited for the alpha to look back down at him, Scott’s eyebrows drawn together. “They let me surface.”

“They?” Scott asked, warily relaxing his grip on Stiles’ shoulders.

“Void. The Nogitsune. They’ve got, like, a million names and not the slightest fucking clue what a gender is.”

Scott huffed out a hesitant laugh. “How do I know it’s you?”

Stiles shrugged as much as he could. “They’re in my head. You have to trust me. They can’t come back unless I fall asleep.” Stiles shifted slightly, still uncomfortably hard, his erection pressed against Scott’s hip.

“Oh, sorry,” Scott said, sitting back on his knees between Stiles’ legs, hands floundering for a minute before landing on his own thighs. In the moonlight, Stiles could still make out the hard line of Scott’s dick in his sweatpants. “I’m so sorry, Stiles. Void...they? kissed me.” He looked away, cheeks aflame, eyes red.

Stiles nodded. “I know.” He pursed his lips. “They were kind enough to show me the last few minutes. It’s okay.” Stiles raised his hand towards Scott for a second, and then dropped it back against the bed. “You didn’t do anything I didn’t want.”

It took a few seconds for the realization to dawn on Scott, and he turned back to Stiles. “You...and me?” he asked, tracing his bottom lip with his tongue.

Stiles gave a nod and looked to the side. “Basically our entire lives.”

“Same,” Scott said, his smile growing. “I just… You were in love with Lydia.”

Stiles looked back at Scott. “I was infatuated with Lydia. I was in love with you.” Stiles finally let himself touch Scott, one hand falling against the alpha’s thigh. “Y’know, I can think of a really great way to keep me awake.” Stiles smirked.

Scott leaned back down and dropped his elbows onto either side of Stiles’ head. “Yeah?”

This time, when Stiles surged up to bring their lips together, Scott didn’t hesitate.

Two days later, when Stiles finally lost the battle against sleep and Void was finally able to wrestle control back, they popped up on an elbow to look at Scott with a wide, absurd grin. “So.” Void waggled Stiles’ eyebrows. “I think partial custody of this body seems like payment enough for me wrapping the love of your life up for you like a gift, don’t you think?”

Scott, sitting next to the bed on a chair, smirked. “Not a chance.” He leaned forward. “You’re going to give me Stiles back. Permanently.”

Void raised an eyebrow, “And why would I do that?”

“Who said anything about you having a choice?” Scott asked, smiling at Void. They felt a prick at the back of their neck and their lip curled up at Scott for just a moment before looking over their shoulder at Dr. Deaton, who smiled and held up a now empty syringe. “What was that?”

“Kanima venom,” the druid vet answered. He turned to open the door to the bedroom, and Lydia entered. “You sure you want to do this?” Scott asked Lydia. “Do what?” Void asked, annoyed. “I’m sure,” Lydia said, dropping onto the bed and, with Scott’s help, tugging Stiles’ body up to a seated position. Lydia turned to Scott once they had done it. “Let’s get your boy back,” she said, and Scott blushed adorably.

Void was half-way through rolling their eyes when they felt the prick of the alpha’s claws at the back of the body’s neck.

Shit.

#stiles stilinski #Scott mccall #Teen wolf #nogitsune #nogitjune #void month #my fic #sciles #Scott x Stiles #Stiles x Scott #ss #sm #nogi ss

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stellar-alley · 4 years

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Everfalls

•Chapter 9•

This is based off of the artwork by oceanteeeth on Instagram! Also shout out to my Beta super.rose.cosplays!

Previous Chapter // Next Chapter

(Summary: Richie and Stan go buck wild while Eddie figures out his inner feelings. )

That day, after school, Richie waited for Eddie at his locker. The wolf only needed one sniff to realize that Eddie had already come and left. With a sigh, Richie left and made his way back to Roscoe. Where he was surprised to see none other than Stan the Man leaning up against the passenger side door.

“Staniel! To what do I owe the pleasure?” Richie exclaimed once he saw his best friend.

“Richie it’s Tuesday, it’s our day to go, as you say ‘buck wild’ and go to the convenience store” Stan begins to explain.

“Yes yes yes I remembered” Richie did not.

For the longest time Stan and Richie had a tradition of going to the corner store Tuesday after school to essentially go ‘buck wild’ and eat a bunch of junk food.

Richie clicked the unlock button on his car keys and Roscoe’s doors unlocked. Stan opened the side door, Richie walked around to the driver’s side. “It’s fine if you forgot, really. You like Eddie and he’s the main thing on your mind-”.

Richie cut in, “What? Eddie’s a good friend, but I do not like him like that” he huffed as the engine roared to life.

“Don’t lie to me Rich, I see the way you look at him. You care for him-”

“And that’s it, okay? I care for him. I care about you too but that doesn't mean we’re gonna start frenching in the back” Richie retorted, his voice filled with annoyance, his gaze never leaving the road.

“It’s not like that…” The dark haired teen’s voice trailed off, a hint of defeat filled his voice.

The friends sat in tense silence for a couple minutes as Richie’s mind went wild with thoughts. Feelings he always tried so hard to repress finally floating to the surface.

When he finally spoke, he was quiet, almost a whisper, “He’s the first Ancestor I’ve ever met. It just- It felt so good to finally have someone who shares my secret”.

“I know”

“No, Stanny, you don’t. I’ve lived my whole fucking life with this secret, eating away at me from the fucking inside out. Now I finally have someone who I can be myself around, my true self. And he’s so cute” He dragged out the O in So, it made the corner of Stan’s lip curly ever so slightly.

“You’re not wrong. I think he is pretty cute” Stan nodded in agreement.

Richie’s grip tensed under the steering wheel, “You what?!” he glared at Stan.

Stanley returned the stare before breaking out in a laugh, “You’re so whipped!” He slapped his thigh.

Richie didn’t need to ask what he meant. He felt it. His eyes had turned their signature yellow and his blood was burning from within his veins, just at the thought of someone else having feelings for Eddie.

“Sorry.” Richie whispered as if his feelings had somehow betrayed him.

“Aww does Wichie have a whittle cwush?” Stan teased.

Richie huffed and rolled his eyes, not a fan of this. “Yeah, shut it Staniel before I rip your throat out with my teeth” He threatened, but his voice had no anger, only amusement.

“Fine. But seriously. You know this is okay right? This crush?”

“It’s not a crush, okay? Just fucking drop it”

Stan rolled his eyes, “Whatever you say Wolfie”, this got a smirk out of Richie.

“At least I haven't been pinning over my best friend since the fucking third grade...” Richie mumbles under his breath.

“Hey! That's totally different from your situation” Stan turned on the defensive.

“Oh yeah, like your feelings for Bill are any different than my feelings for Eddie.” Richie rolled his eyes.

“So you admit you have feelings for Eddie?” Stan asks eagerly.

“Well yeah that's a given, he's adorable! But now we're talking about your love life.” Richie smirks deviously over at Stan.

“No we aren't” Stan shoots daggers at Richie. In response the werewolf just smiled a shit eating grin.

Eddie ran home after school. It’s not that he didn’t want to see Richie, he just wanted to figure out what he was feeling before he did see him again. His heart practically beat out of his chest when Richie touched him, his stomach would twist and his nerves would sky rocket. Deep down he knew what it was, but he didn’t want to face it, how could he? His entire life, his mother told him how wrong it was to be gay. Plus Richie probably doesn't even feel the same way, why would he? Eddie literally betrayed his own people after all.

I need to blow off some steam.

Eddie looked outside and noticed the sun was just setting, so he had some time before dark. Just enough time for a run. He changed into his new running gear and started on his way through the forest. The thick scent of evergreen and grass cleared his head by the time he reached the city. Once he reached the city he got down and shifted. He was not really in the mood to explain to anyone why he was out so late at night.

He started aimlessly exploring Derry, hopping around and doing some people watching. Eddie went around town, familiarizing himself with the area. He found the Subway Alley was talking about that one day, he even stumbled upon a comic book shop that he made a mental note to go to once he was human. The rabbit began making his way down the residential streets, admiring the architecture and seeing what the residents of Derry were doing this time of night.

He stopped when he reached a familiar house. Somehow he’d subconsciously made his way into a backyard he knew now as the Tozier’s. Nostalgia flooded his head as he recalled the day he first saw Richie, even then he thought the boy was cute…

A thought dawned on him, I won’t be able to outrun these feelings. Eddie recalled the various times his heart has skipped a beat or when it sped up, when butterflies are let loose in his stomach, when he blushes, all because of Richie.

Might as well deal with this shit before it fucking eats away at me from the inside. Plus, what’s the worst that could happen? I admit my feelings, he dosen’t feel the same, I loose the only person who’s ever made me feel safe and at home- Okay this could end pretty badly- fuck my life.

Eddie didn’t even notice that as he was monologuing in his head, he had edged his way up towards the Tozier residence. Though Richie’s bedroom was on the second floor, Eddie could just make out the vague outline of Richie, was he at the window? Or maybe standing at his desk? The rabbit wasn't sure. But what he was sure of was that the voice he heard was indeed Richie’s.

It was easy to hear the singing coming through his open window. Richie practically belting out the lyrics at the top of his lungs. “OHHHH EDDIE BABY WON’T YOU COME TO MY ARRRRRMS, TONNNIIGHT!” He sang out as he danced around his room.

Eddie couldn’t deny the feeling that spread through his body as his heart skipped a beat when he heard the lyrics.

What other Eddie does he know?

No matter what explanation he tried to come up with that would explain these current events could not cover up the feeling that Eddie had. Deep down inside he knew that song was for him. He listened until the song ended, that’s when Richie’s phone started ringing.

The bunny could just make out his voice as he talked with whoever was on the other end of the line, “Yeah, you’re here? Like outfront? Jesus Billiard I could’ve just texted you the pages of the textbook” There was a pause, “Okay give me a sec”. Eddie took that as his cue to leave.

He made his way towards the front of the house where he saw Bill who was standing beside his bike, Silver. Bill was one of the first of the Losers to get their license yet most times (unless he was driving the others) he opted to ride his bike.

Eddie watched as Richie ran out to meet him with a textbook in hand. He didn’t stay much longer, it was getting dark and he didn’t want to be out in the pitch black.

Eddie stayed in his rabbit form until he found a little tree covered area away from any possible wandering eyes. He shifted and walked the rest of the way home.

Being an Ancestor grants him some heightened senses, sight, scent, and hearing. That being said, as Eddie shifted, it was surprising that he didn’t hear the soft clicking of an iphone 8’s camera, nor did he hear the low, sudden gasp of Bill Denbrough.

Word Count: 1473

BILL? WHAT DID HE SEE? WHAT'S HE TAKING PICS OF? DID HE SEE EDDIE?

I know that this chapter is shorter but the next chapter is gonna be a long one as we get to see someone else's perspective... ANyways I hope you guys enjoyed!

Until next time

So Long and Goodnight.

[Taglist]

@richietoaster @s-onora @that-weird-girl-blog @beproudtozier @ghostnebula @bellarosewrites @s-s-georgie @lermanslogan @iamcupcakefrosting @madidraw @gazebobullshit @thoughtfullyyoungduck @aangzukos @ambitiousskychild @reddieonwheels @breadheadscorpius

Let me know if you wanna be added to the tag list!

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alchemist-shizun · 5 years

Text

Nothing changes

Word Count: 1,456

Character(s): Roman

Pairing(s): None

Warning(s): Self-deprecation, toxic parenting, negative thinking, toxic relationship implied

Summary: So. Roman couldn't take all those subtle insults anymore. And what could he do about it? Apart from waiting it out until he could live by himself, absolutely nothing.

A/N: Hope you don't mind a vent fic

✾

Middle school.

Roman had been one of the lucky kids.

Not necessarily liked by every single one of his classmates, but not much disliked by them at all. Bullying hadn't bothered him in any of his school years, in fact he wasn't even sure it happened that frequently in their institute.

He had his fair share of friends, his grades were all pretty high, apart from the occasional maths test impossible to comprehend, he had an older sister that minded her own business and parents that assured him a decent lifestyle.

He didn't have much to worry about, only the normal teenage dilemmas.

« What's that? »

« Huh? »

« You have something on your face. »

Only the normal teenage dilemmas.

Roman had been up for less than an hour, talking wasn't exactly his best skill at that moment, but otherwise, he would have angered his father if he stayed silent, which was the last thing he needed as he was the one to take him to school.

« It's a mole. » no matter how many times he told him, his dad never remembered he had a mole on top of the bridge of his nose. He always said he had a dirty spot.

« No, not that one. » the man pointed his finger on his forehead.

Roman reached and found an uneven spot on his skin. Oh god no, not now. Why did puberty have to hate teens like that?

Well, what did he have to do about it?

His father returned to his newspaper reading on his phone and didn't give out any input: Roman guessed he had to fix it by doing nothing and wait for it to disappear.

Only that, it didn't disappear. It spread into many others along his face and he slowly developed the urge to press them all, to which, eventually, he gave in.

Of course, his dad's derision wasn't late to the party either.

Every single bit of interaction they had ultimately focused on some part of Roman's body he didn't like, anything that wasn't exactly perfect was his ideal easy target. And it wasn't like Roman could disagree, what he said were simple facts that subtly left him feeling offended.

That little speck of time they spent together in the morning before and during their car ride to the school, lunch, dinner, the only times they were around each other were enough of a reason for some criticizing to take place.

He felt his pride sink down with every word, but he hung on his sister's words. « It's normal, he was like that with me, too. »

That meant he was going to stop, right?

He told himself way too many times that his arguments with his father were simple routine during his age for him to believe it anymore.

High-school.

« So, how did it go? » Roman's mother was sleeping on the couch, while his dad sat next to her, brand new iPad in his hands.

Why, you actually care?

« It went well, our art teacher is hilarious. » he eyed him while eating some pasta his mum had cooked as he was coming home. His father got up to get ready for work again.

« Yeah? »

« Mhm. He- » Roman smiled as he was talking. Bad decision, he shouldn't have done that.

The man narrowed his eyes at him. « Wait. » he got closer and basically inspected his face, demanding him to keep his mouth open as if he were at the dentist.

Even with no audience to see that scene, that was one of the most embarrassing things he asked him to do. Suddenly, he was reminded of that one time he had started to sniff his hair like some kind of dog, trying to prove the point that he smelled bad instead of simply saying "hey, take a shower".

« Can't you see your teeth are a bit crooked? »

« I've had braces for five years. »

« I know, but I still don't think they're, you know, perfect. » he marked the last word with emphasis as if he didn't actually mean that word.

« Whatever. » Roman added in a low tone, defeated by yet another imperfection he couldn't fix. It wasn't like that wasn't the first time he told him that.

« What? » his dad's eyes grew hard.

Fix it, you idiot.

Panic rose in his chest, his heartbeat increased and he felt his mind racing. All for an insignificant answer.

« Ah. Nothing important. »

His father eyed the clock and fled the scene as he noticed he was getting late. Shortly thereafter, his mother would have followed.

It went like that for literal years.

His hair, his face, his teeth, his body, his fingers. He talked and his father never listened, he only focused on something to pick on him. Something he could use to graze his self-esteem away bit by bit.

Until nothing about him really appealed him anymore. Until Roman started avoiding mirrors by instinct, until he tried to cover everything with makeup but eventually failed cause he never had enough time.

Until he stopped saying "thank you" to compliments and instead started disagreeing. "I don't believe you", "That's not true", "You're talking about yourself".

He forgot how to accept people's love, which led to him having a twisted version of it in his mind. When his first boyfriend arrived, he thought being more mocked than appreciated was the normality for everybody. He thought having "I hate you" being told to him instead of "I love you" was fine. That the only time his boyfriend ever meant he sincerely loved him had to be in very rare and extreme circumstances and he didn't even remember when that had happened last.

And when he stopped talking to him for days as punishment since he got annoyed at Roman for simply existing, Roman believed he deserved it and coexisted with the anxiety and anguish while waiting for him to come back.

It took him almost two years to recover from that, at least partially.

Two years to be able to love again and know better.

But his father didn't stop. Sure, he might have slowed down, but never ceased to point out the first thing that came in his mind.

Roman developed anxiety at the sole thought of them being in the same room, of his dad stomping his feet while going up the stairs, of when he opened a door with that usual loud noise. His almost constant yelling. Him creeping up behind him to read his messages, him sitting next to or in front of Roman during meals. His father just being there with his forever angered presence.

« Why does your face look like that? »

God please why, I'm just eating, leave me alone, just go to work I beg you.

Roman shrugged.

« Have you looked in a mirror? » as a matter of fact, no. « You're full of red spots, you're going to end up with a ruined face. But if that's what you want. »

The only thing I want as of now is ripping my entire face off, thank you very much.

He felt numb, but at the same time a fiery rage rumbled in his stomach. He just had to ... repress it. Like any other time.

In the meantime, his dad had started making a fuss out of it, calling his very tired wife to take a look at his son and "tell him what they had to do to fix that".

With a knowing look of "yes, I know this is normal, we all went through this when we were young apart form him, apparently", she said nothing and waited for him to stop rambling.

« Well, whatever. Bye. » and, as fast as he came, he was gone, storming down the stairs to get to his car.

And Roman?

Well, Roman sat there, ripping apart a slice of bread the way he would have wanted to rip apart either his existence or his own father. That was a choice he would have left to fate.

He didn't exactly register anything his mother told him, ignoring the same old recording he always went through when it came to his face's imperfections.

He went upstairs and didn't really bother to open the windows or think about the huge amount of studying the had to do.

He laid on his bed in the darkness that his eye adjusted to too quickly. Then, he pulled out his earbuds and drowned himself in music.

The urges he felt and the anger at the pit of his stomach slowly disappeared as he distracted himself with the melodies.

Nothing else really mattered.

#sanders sides roman #roman sanders #ts roman #roman angst #vent fic #sanders sides #fanfiction #ts fic #purp's writings

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svartalfhild · 4 years

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I have been thinking a lot lately about the sort of person I am, the sort of person I would like to be, and why I’ve turned out the way that I have. Long post incoming. (Sorry, mobile folks.)

I’ve recently had a lot of old memories from when I was growing up resurface and give new context to the things I do now. I tend to think of myself as being a very timid and self-critical person, and that’s often the case, but I have these moments where I’m not. Those moments can manifest in all kinds of wild ways. Most often, they are born from anger. Moments when I get mouthy or lash out because I’ve been pushed over the edge. Moments when I become stone cold because my sympathy has run out. I don’t like being that way. I’m scared to let my anger out ever because I’ve done so many awful things with it in the past, and I don’t want to become my father.

But at the same time, those moments are among the rare occasions when my anxiety shuts down, and briefly, I get to feel something like confidence. I stop analyzing and take action for once. I realize there are appropriate times to be angry and appropriate ways to express anger, but I’m always afraid that if I let myself be angry at the right times, my anger will also come out at the wrong times. There’s a time and a place to be a stone cold bitch, and I don’t trust myself to know when that is.

So I prefer to always be kind. I prefer to win people’s respect by being soft rather than assertive, because trying to be excessively nice has always come with a much, much lower risk of hurting people. It’s more important to me that I should do no harm than it is to avoid getting stepped on. I don’t always succeed at being sufficiently nice, but I try so hard.

Looking back on my childhood, I think that has a lot to do with my trauma and with the big mistakes that I’ve made in my life.

When I was a child...I wasn’t very good at being soft. I was not a sweet child. I was isolated and lived in a strict “intellectual” household under the thumb of my father’s constant rage, which made me selfish, cold, deceitful, and arrogant in ways children usually aren’t. Sure, I generally absorbed all the moral ideas of my supposedly progressive-minded parents about basic decency, but that wasn’t nearly enough. They taught me nothing about how to actually interact with people, and as an undiagnosed autistic girl, it was extremely difficult to learn on my own. Hell, I didn’t even really know that it was worth trying to learn. I wasn’t a complete gremlin; I was quiet, so the adults generally thought of me as nice and well-mannered, but my peers saw the stone cold bitch.

There were times, albeit rare ones, when I did pick the right moment to be That Bitch. At the age of like 7, I kicked an older boy really hard in the shin and yelled at him for bullying another girl because he wouldn’t stop and the teachers weren’t doing anything about it. When I was 10, I sat on the bus near a bunch of rowdy boys so they’d make the mistake of trying to harass me instead of creeping on a girl who lived two doors down from me. They were not prepared for my willingness to be extremely mean to them. When I was 12, I got a double feature of people touching my ponytail and them not being prepared for Real Bitch Hours. The girls who sat behind me in history got a blunt ass “don’t touch me”, and I did not back down when they got offended. The boys who sat behind me in math got rather graphic descriptions of the damage I would do to their balls if they didn’t leave me alone, and they reacted with a surprising amount of horror (which was rather satisfying to me), especially if I fixed them long enough with what they coined my “murder stare”. Unfortunately, the latter experience later became a spectacle as they asked me to recount my graphic description to their friends and earned me a rep as a misandrist, but it had at least persuaded them not to touch me.

Sadly, these occasions are the only ones I can recall of having spoken up in anger as a child and having been entirely justified in doing so. Most of the time, my assholery wasn’t righteous, it was just callous. I quite frankly deserved much of my bad reputation and subsequent lack of friends. I often wonder at what point I made the decision to start caring. I think perhaps I started to realize how bad I was at the onset of my teens, because that’s when I had to start atoning for some seriously messed up shit and I’d lost the few friends that I’d had. But I don’t think I truly began to grasp the importance of kindness until my late teens, when I learned that I wasn’t just a “sheltered” kid; I was an abuse victim, and that came with all kinds of realizations about my own behaviour. I didn’t want to be an abuser. I didn’t want to inflict what I’d been through on others. So I started to try to do better.

The thing is, I was not at all equipped for that. I had a rough couple of years trying to reconcile my desire to be a different person with accepting the way my brain is wired. I’d just learned that I’m asexual and autistic and all these other terms I could finally use to describe who I am. I had trouble figuring out what parts I should be proud of, what parts I shouldn’t, and how to appropriately express all of that.

I still don’t know when exactly my empathy switch flipped, but at some point, as I was transitioning from high school to college, all that empathy I’d repressed since forever came flooding out in excess, and I’ve struggled with regulating it from then on. I went from wondering if there was something wrong with me because the best I could manage was general compassion to just not being able to stop the empathy train.

Anyway, it seems like all that led me to being afraid of myself and to trying to accomplish things by being as soft as I can, as a way to atone for my mistakes, as a way to avoid becoming my father, and as a recognition of the importance of being kind. That’s helped me in a lot of ways, and I hope that it’s made life better for the people I interact with, but the thing is, it’s not always what’s needed. Being deferent and accommodating has its drawbacks. I have trouble getting people to take me seriously, and I often find myself stuck in awful situations because I couldn’t bring myself to assert my boundaries or rock the boat in any way.

I need to find a balance between the stone cold bitch and the Giving Tree. Once again, I find myself lacking the necessary tools to achieve that. I think I’d need to be in therapy and living away from my family to get there. The best I can do right now is aim for “looks like she’ll kill you, but is actually a cinnamon roll”. That won’t make me more confident or assertive when I need to be, but at least people might take me a little more seriously.

Anyway, thanks for slogging through my little personal essay. I just needed to organize some thoughts I’ve been having for a while.

#personal

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dawns-trollhunting-shit · 5 years

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Jim Champion A.U

This snippet is based on @tunafishprincess a.u about Champion Jim and Trollhunter Barbara. Please enjoy :D!

Alone. Jim had felt so alone for the longest time. He loved his mother. Did everything for his mother. Good grades, no fuss, cleaning, cooking, never asking for help. He loved his mother... but did she love him?

Walking through the dark woods late at night Jim stepped on leaves crunching them as he remained deep in thought. He held his jacket close as he began to sniffle the wind howling angrily around him. The cold bitter air clung to him and he felt the cold deep inside, it left him feeling empty and hollow. Wiping at his nose he glances at his phone again. One of the sources of his depression.

Barbara was supposed to come home early that night. Supposed too. She had promised and he believed her. But lately promises meant nothing to his mom...

Midnight. It was Midnight and he was begging for a text. A phonecall. A ding. A vibrate. A notification. Something. ANYTHING to show his mother still cared. That she still loved him. But no. Here he was... alone at night in the middle of the cold woods without the proper supplies and his mother didn't even notice.

Shaking in frustration and anger Jim thought of Strickler. The first man he'd ever really trusted after his father left and how they never talked anymore. How his mom pushed Strickler away. Pushed his happiness away.

Jim clutches his fists remembering how Strickler gave him extra credit when he was struggling or special tutoring sessions or when days were really bad some chocolate and a hug. He was always there. Always supoorting him. When he was with Strickler and they bonded Jim felt... he felt special. Needed. Wanted. After his dad left Jim just felt so dejected, Walter fixed that. And now Walter was gone too. All thanks to his mother.

Jim didn't know he was crying until he felt warm tears sting his cold face. He was so cold... Sniffling he ignored his shivering and tried to wipe the tears away but they kept coming. Biting his lip keeping it all in his vision blurred and it became hard to breath. His quiet sniffles soon turned to loud gasping as he struggled to remain composed. He began full on sobbing as he felt so empty and cold. No one loved him. Not aymore.

Not his mother. Not his would be father. Not Toby. Not Claire. No one. No one loved him and he was alone.

Screaming into the night Jim only felt pain. Emotions long repressed and built up now spilled out of him leaving him a disoriented mess. He hated this. He hated himself. Why was he so unlikable? Why did everyone leave or hate him? Why wasn't he good enough??? Screeching his sorrows to the wind he shivered. The trees groaned and creaked around him leaving him feeling scared. Jim spins in circles confused eyes wide as nothing seems familiar. Where was he? How does he get home? SHOULD HE EVEN GO HOME?!

"Jim...?" A quiet whisper barley there uttered his name. As if it were floating on the wind.

Turning his eyes widened. "HELLO?" Jim shouts. He can't tell if he's shaking from his fear or from the cold. He's desperate to get home. To see his mom. To be safe and loved. To be cared for again.

"... Jim Lake..." A warm voice beckoned him forward and he followed it. It felt like a roaring fire, Powerful and dangerous but warm and inviting, soothing even. He sniffles following the aura and a wave of calm washed over him. He felt at peace. He felt, he felt safe. "Come to me..."

Eyes glazing over Jim lets himself go numb. His legs move subconsciously and he puts up no resistance. Morgana coos to him magic warm and inviting as she waits. He walks into her cave and she smiles form flickering as she watches the Hunters son.

"Hello Jim." Becoming more solid Morgana strides forwards looking over the teen. He would not survive as her champion in this form, she'd have to fix him, remake him in her image but that was okay. Morgana was a patient being and Barbara was a foolish hunter underestimating her.

Jim stands in front of Morgana and she nods deep in thought. Reaching out her hand she strokes his cheek. Jim leans into her touch and she hums softly. How could she fix such a kind and soft but broken creature?

"Jim." She soothes his troubled mind with her words and relinquishing her control over him he gasps before his eyes widen. Looking around panicked he stares at Morgana.

"W-who are you?" He demands body tensing as he stares at her. Gold fire flickers off her body and green eyes peer into his blue ones.

"My name is Morgana." She answers tilting her head to observe Jim.

"W-what are you?" He wonders outloud. He had stopped shaking but was still sniffling as he looked at Morgana.

"I am what you need Jim." Morgana answers smiling at the confused child. Jim continues to sniffle glancing around anxious but he had calmed down. Such a foolish boy.

"I can answer all your questions Jim." Morgana promises. "I can return things to the way they were..." She hums softly. "I just need a little favor from you." Morgana coos as she strokes Jims cheek. Jims eyes go wide in fear as he stares at this woman. This strange and powerful but seemingly kind woman.

"A a... a favor?" He asks softly. Morgana nods and Jim leans into her touch unable to resist her motherly nature. For a second she looked like his mom and her hand felt like his moms. Stroking his cheek he closed his eyes wishing his mom was here with him. "what kind of favor?" He murmers missing his mothers touch, her sweet hugs and kind kisses.

"A favor." Morgana repeats continuing to stroke Jims cheek. As Jim leans further into her touch Morgana chuckles a bit. He was hers. "I'm an acquaintance of your mother." She hums gently. "We meet frequently. I want to surprise her. Will you help?" Jim looks up at Morgana eyes slightly clouded from her magic but mind completely free. This was his choice and he could leave whenever he wanted and yet he stayed. Barbara you utter fool. Leaving the one thing you love most unguarded.

"I'll do anything for my mom. What do you need?" Jim doenst even hesitate as he smiles at Morgana. She knows she has him trapped now. He will be her new champion.

"Your trust James Lake Jr. Your trust and your loyalty." Jim stares at Morgana. He thinks about it, thinks of his life and of his mother. This woman felt kind and warm and she said she knew his mother. Jim closes his eyes leaning further into her loving touch. He nods.

"You have my trust and loyalty Morgana." Feeling tingly all over Jim suddenly has no energy. His eyes begin to close and he whines a bit confused. He feels lips on his forehead and his reistence goes away, his mind goes blank and everything becomes black. Jim hears a soft voice above him the tingling spreading throughout his body as Morgana coos,

"My champion."

Her champion...

#trollhunters #jim #morgana #barbara #trollhunters a.u #dark!jim #troll!jim #troll jim #corrupted jim #trollhunter barbara #mind control #emotional manipulation #angst #my works #my work

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awritingrose · 4 years

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Burn Everything You Love

(Then burn the ashes.) Celine is haunted from the moment she is born, and spends the rest of her life chasing answers.

Celine character study. 9.1k.

Warnings: abusive parent (non-explicit domestic violence, psychological/emotional abuse, racism); unhealthy coping mechanisms; toxic behaviors + relationships; illness/death/hospital scenes; this is not quite Dead Dove territory but we sure are pushing it

Read on ao3 or continue under the read more

Celine is haunted from the moment she is born.

There are creatures in the corner of the nursery that stare at her while she is paralyzed between waking and dreaming. She watches shadows try to suffocate Damien in his bed with their mere presence. She learns to speak from the spirits that whisper in her ears of dangers yet to come.

It makes her an eerie child, frighteningly intelligent, with raven hair and shifting hazel eyes. She watches the world around her with a flat affect, studying everything she sees.

Her father, simmering red, teaches her rage and defiance. Perhaps she should learn to cower instead, like her gray mother and blue-tinged brother. Perhaps that would make things easier. Keep her from spending the next twenty-odd years of her life always tense, always bracing for a fight—always looking for one. But she favors her father too much for that.

(She thinks, when they’re grown, that this is why Damien tries to control her in his gentle way. He favors their mother, in spirit and in face, while Celine is a mirror of their father’s sins. The heir he would have wanted, if only she’d been a man.)

By the time she is fourteen, Celine has grown so used to seeing the unseen that it barely makes her flinch. She learned quickly that no one else, not even her brother, sees the auras that cling to everyone.

(“Synesthesia,” the doctors call it when she is small.

“Hysteria,” they call it after she turns twelve, with an edge to their voices. If she were not rich, she knows, if her father’s name carried less weight, they’d lock her up in an institution and leave her to rot like the women that wail half-baked prophecies in her ears.)

She and Damien stand beside their father at a society dinner one night, dressed nearly identically in a white dress and white suit jacket. Damien takes to holding her hand at times like these, when she’s at her most unpredictable, half to comfort himself with her presence and half to try to rein her in.

(Later, she’ll unleash her temper on him for it. It’s the only time she ever does, because as angry as he might make her, she cannot stand the pain in his eyes.)

Tonight, his pinky is looped through hers. Despite his easy charisma, crowds still make him nervous. She and the voices in her ear both know that the world will eat him alive if she gives it half a chance. She can protect him from it, thrust her hand out and force everyone to hear her, but she cannot keep him safe from what really frightens him: the monster in their father’s skin.

“Arthur!” Celine watches their father’s spine stiffen at the sound of his name, echoing from the other side of the room. “There you are!”

The man coming towards them has his arms open as if he means to embrace her father. He radiates golden warmth from the top of his balding head to his stout legs, and somehow the kindness of it all makes her tense.

It is the daisy chain of three teenagers following him that truly captivate Celine.

The first of them is a boy, dark-haired and dark-eyed, with the whisper-thin beginnings of a mustache. Around him swirls a sunset corona, pinks and yellows in shades Celine never knew existed. She can barely resist the urge to try to bury herself in the colors. She can barely tear her eyes away from him and his infectious smile.

“I’d like to introduce you to my son, William,” The man says. He ruffles the boy’s hair, and Celine feels Damien’s pinky tighten around hers. “And my nephew, Mark.”

Mark is slightly taller than William, and completely clean shaven. There’s an intensity to his dark eyes that threatens to swallow Celine whole, just like the hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth. She recognizes a kindred spirit from the set of his shoulders and the faint circles under his eyes—he’s the older sibling like she is, always on guard, always ready to pack up everything he loves and run. A muted rainbow surrounds him.

“And who’s this?” Her father asks, not even trying to hide the disdain in his voice. “Another foster?”

The senior Barnum laughs, loud and from his belly.

(His name is William, too, whispers a voice. His wife is everything you will never be.)

“She might as well be!” He looks down at the girl with a fondness Celine has never seen in her own father’s eyes, and for a moment, she is struck with jealousy. “No, this is Tess. Grace is sponsoring her for all these parties—the debut balls, and whatnot.”

Tess, holding Mark’s hand, cannot seem to meet Celine’s eyes. Celine knows the trick of staring at a person’s forehead too well to not be able to recognize it. There are freckles across the other girl’s nose and cheeks, the kind that come from too many hours in the sun, the kind that Celine is always put into wide-brimmed hats to avoid. Tess’s cheeks are flushed with sunburn and not cosmetics. She’s not, Celine realizes, chained by the expectations of wealth, and again that dark jealousy rises in Celine’s chest. It’s beaten out, barely, by fascination: there is no aura at all surrounding Tess.

And around each of the teens’ throats is a writhing black tendril.

(Learn, cries her very soul.)

“I’m Celine,” she says. She steps out of her father’s reach. “Nice to meet you all.”

She lets go of her brother, and she does not look back.

The Barnum manor is silent, and for months, Celine thinks that is a blessing. It’s the only place she’s ever been where she can hear herself think, where there are not so many spirits clamoring for her attention that she almost thinks an institution’s sedation would be a relief.

“Let me show you something,” Mark says when she tries to explain this to him.

He takes her hand, and Celine is caught between the rush of heat it sends to her cheeks and the shock of how cold his skin is.

He leads her deep into the woods surrounding the property. If she were a different girl, Celine thinks, she’d worry about his intentions or her reputation. It’s the sort of thing Tess would focus on (Celine would call her prissy or prudish, if she hadn’t seen Tess and William sneak out of sight more often than Celine has ever been alone with Mark).

When they finally stop, it is in a clearing ripe with wildflowers and cloudy sunshine. There’s a humid haze in the air; she can taste a summer storm on her tongue. It’s the most beautiful place she’s ever seen, and the same part of her she’s tried to repress thinks of how dreamily romantic the whole thing is.

“William and Tess used to come here all the time. They said the birds sound prettier here,” Mark says. He looks at her out of the corner of his eye.

Celine frowns. She lets go of his hand to take a step further, eyes closed and head tilted to listen.

“I don’t hear anything,” She replies, turning back to him.

She can’t read his aura like she does everyone else, the soft colors giving him the appearance of experiencing every emotion at once. But she knows the flash of relief that goes across his face. It’s the same one that went across hers when Damien admitted he’d seen something in the darkness of their room one night. The relief of knowing you aren’t crazy. You aren’t alone.

“Exactly!” He grabs her hands again with a fervency that keeps the butterflies in her stomach from waking up.

He’s giving her a look that she knows is supposed to convey some deep meaning. He’s trying to tell her something that the writhing blackness wrapped like a noose around his throat will not let him say. She has no idea what it is.

(When it’s much too late to save either of them, she’ll understand. She’ll think about how prey animals fall silent when a predator is near. She’ll wonder what it means that the things she always thought were predators fall silent in the manor’s presence. She’ll find out.)

So instead, she leans forward and kisses him, because the consequences of that are easier to deal with than trying to understand why William and Tess hear birdsong in a place too perfect to be real.

That winter, she and Damien are invited to the Barnum’s second home high in the mountains. It’s not the first time they see snow, but it’s the first time they see so much of it.

Celine falls in love.

Damien can’t seem to put enough layers on to keep himself warm, while Mrs. Barnum (Grace, she wants them to call her) has to nag Celine to bundle up. She loves sticking her hands into the snow until her fingers burn and turn red.

(Someone should notice she’s self-destructing, but no one says a word, and so she buries herself deeper and deeper beneath the ice.)

She and Mark sit on the porch most of the time. They watch Tess run about up to her knees in snow, pelting anyone foolish enough to look away from her with snowballs. She shrieks with laughter when William dumps some down the back of her dress. Anger brings heat to Celine’s cheeks; it’s not fair that Tess is so free, but even holding hands with Mark seems scandalous.

On the third day, William rushes up to them. Tess runs past him into the house—Mrs. Barnum’s voice echoes from a distant room, reminding her to take her shoes off.

“Are you ready?” William asks. His aura rotates around him, like fairy floss at the carnival. It makes her nauseous, yet the intensity in his eyes keeps Celine from looking away.

“Ready for what?” Mark tilts his head.

William throws his hands up like they’re both missing something obvious, and a smile pulls at the corner of Celine’s mouth.

“Skating,” He enunciates each syllable carefully.

As if on cue, Tess appears in the doorway again, one hand carrying five pairs of skates by the laces, the other hand pulling Damien along behind her.

And though she’s seen it coming for months (even if she couldn’t see his aura flare pink anytime Tess looks at him, his cheeks doing the same would be enough of a giveaway), Celine can’t stop the ugly, unnamable feeling that rises in her chest.

“How thick is the ice?” Damien asks as they trek through the woods.

Tess shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s never cracked, so we don’t worry about it.”

“Thick enough,” William offers, with a wink that makes Celine roll her eyes.

They skate for hours in the silence of the frozen lake. Mark tries to help her get her balance at first, but Celine throws his hands off. He doesn’t try to force it; he simply lets her do as she wishes, and she loves him all the more for it.

The boys go to sit together in the snowbank when they tire. Tess turns dizzying spirals across the ice with her dancer’s grace that Celine envies. Celine circles the exterior of the pond, stubbornly pushing past her aching muscles.

“Watch this!” Tess calls to pull the boys’ attention away from whatever they’re discussing.

Celine watches something dark shift beneath the ice. It's as if some great fish were trapped within the lake. Yet nothing could be alive there, certainly nothing so large, certainly nothing with a half-rotten face that smiles at her as it passes beneath her feet. It comes to a stop under Tess, draws its melting hands back—

She thinks she screams Tess’s name. She’s never sure, even years in the future. But if she does, the warning comes too late; Tess launches herself into the air. The thing in the water slams its fists against the ice. The crack echoes like a gunshot when she lands.

There is a deafening roar in Celine’s ears as she propels herself towards Tess. The boys are shouting, Mark barely holding both Damien and William back for fear their sudden weight will plunge the girls through the cracks. They cannot see like Celine does. They don’t see the laughing face, the burning eyes, the creature that pounds against the ice, the thing that wants nothing more than to grab Tess’s ankles and drag her under.

And for all the things Tess does that Celine hates, Celine will not let her come to any harm.

She slams into Tess with a force she’ll regret later, but it is enough to throw Tess into Damien’s arms. A fraction of a second later, bony fingers wrap around Celine’s ankle, and frozen water fills her lungs.

(She thinks of those moments under the lake in the distant future, when she and Damien and Tess are thrown into an abyss. She takes them back to that moment. She tries to conquer the fear she felt, the echoes of her father’s voice that told her she would drag everyone around her to Hell if she kept acting the way she did, the realization that he’d been right.)

Celine wakes in the smallest bedroom in the house, lying in a cot and buried under a mountain of blankets. Tess sits upright in the second bed, similarly dwarfed beneath the covers. The ends of her thick hair are still wet, and that’s strangely infuriating to Celine, because Tess should be the only one without the bone-deep cold on her skin.

“What did you do?” Celine hisses. Her throat stings with the effort.

“Saved you!” Tess snaps back.

(She hadn’t hesitated; she’d wrapped her scarf around one wrist, handed the other end to William, and jumped into the water. The boys had pulled them out once Tess had a grip on Celine’s waist, both of them weightless in the ice. It was William, Celine finds out later, who pressed his lips to hers to help her breathe.)

“You shouldn’t have! I was trying to save you! You should’ve left me!” She shouts. It’s a little too close to a confession of something Celine isn’t ready to deal with. “You should’ve just done what you were told!”

(She hears her father’s words come out of her mouth. They taste like vinegar and blood. She does not try to take them back.)

“I don’t need you to tell me what to do!”

Celine has never heard Tess shout until this moment—she’s not sure she’s ever seen Tess pass a stage of “mild annoyance”. She always assumed Tess was too soft, too feminine, for something as uncivilized as anger. It feels…good to see Tess finally crack.

It’s good enough that Celine begins to laugh, though it quickly turns to raw coughing. Tess stews on the other side of the room. She doesn’t have to have an aura for Celine to feel the anger coming off of her.

“So you aren’t perfect,” Celine finally says.

Tess’s eyes widen with panic. “Shut up.”

“Why are you still pretending?” Celine doesn’t even lower her voice. She’s certain most of the house has heard them yelling. She’s surprised Mark or Damien hasn’t burst in to try to calm them down.

Tess looks away, fidgeting with the corner of one of her blankets. “They’ll get rid of me if I’m not.”

Celine knows about Tess’s attempt to run away—Mark had told her. He’d mentioned how lucky Tess was to be able to leave, how angry he was that she’d come back. Celine had agreed. If she ever had half a chance, she would throw everything she could into a bag and run. She wouldn’t look back. She never has.

But at the same time, she knows Tess’s fear more intimately than she knows anything else about the other girl. She’s felt it too. Tess made the choice to bend to it; Celine broke it.

“Can we...can we start over?” Tess asks softly, several hours later.

Celine wants to say no out of nothing but spite. To feel that rush again of seeing Tess break, of making her feel a fraction of the pain Celine has learned to live with.

(They’re not friends, Celine tells herself. They will never be friends.)

“I’m Celine,” she says instead. She smiles and stretches her hand out across the space between their beds. “Nice to meet you.”

The light in Tess’s eyes is a gift.

Celine falls through worlds only once.

The furniture floats away from her with the slightest touch. She rests her fingers on the keys of the piano and they begin to play a symphony from a memory that isn’t her own. The room on the other side of the door shifts as she thinks of all the places in the house she’d like to go.

It does not frighten her. It feels good. It feels right. This is what the power in her veins is meant for. She is meant for so much more.

Color returns to the world when she steps through the doorway and into the kitchen. That power still drums beneath her skin, though the counters do not move when she touches them and her fingers can no longer remember how the song began.

“Celine?” Mrs. Barnum’s voice makes Celine jump. The older woman stands over the stove, stirring something into the soup. “What are you doing in here?”

The real question is how she got into the kitchen. There is a look in Mrs. Barnum’s eyes whenever she asks anything like this, as if she already knows the answer and only wants to hear what the children will tell her. Celine has no patience for the games.

She has never gotten along with Mrs. Barnum. She’s a woman loved by her family, the heir to the Barnum fortune, so powerful that her husband had taken her name instead of the other way around. She’s everything Celine wanted to be as a little girl. She’s everything Celine will never be, and the voices are fond of reminding Celine of it.

(They are wrong—Celine is just like Grace Barnum, in all the worst ways.)

“Through the door,” Celine replies.

She won’t tell Mrs. Barnum of what she saw. She can’t stand to be looked at like she’s crazy, not again, not when she’s finally found a place she feels she belongs.

Mrs. Barnum’s brows lift. She doesn't point out that Celine's answer doesn't make sense. “I see. I thought I heard someone at the piano.”

Celine shrugs. “Must have been Damien. I can’t play.”

She can’t, not like this, but if she can only find that place again, she can learn. Learn everything her soul has ever needed to know.

(She spends another decade trying to find her way back. She doesn’t regret a moment of it.)

Her first attempt is with the ouija board, when she is fifteen, when she and Mark have finally declared to their parents that they are courting, when William still winks at her while no one is looking.

(Her father disapproves. Says that Mark isn’t a suitable match. She looks at her mother; she looks at Damien; she knows what he means.)

She smuggles the board into the manor with Mark’s help.

“My aunt hates those things,” he’d said, looking at it with a reluctance that almost gave Celine pause. She didn’t care if Mrs. Barnum didn’t like the board, but Mark’s obvious discomfort was nearly enough.

“Then I won’t let her see it,” Celine had reassured him.

He refuses to touch it, so Celine stuffs it into a bag and hides it beneath her skirts; Mark simply provides enough distraction to allow her to shuffle into the parlor.

William, Tess, and Damien are already gathered around the low table, Tess perched on a cushion she’s pulled into the floor.

Celine feels that power rush into her body as soon as she unveils the board. She does not feel the eyes that watch her; Tess feels them, Mark feels them, but Celine is too focused on finally, finally, getting answers to pay attention to their apprehension. The world shrinks to the thrumming in her veins and the whispers of the board.

William is the first to speak. “A seance?”

“Does anyone have any objections?” Celine’s tone makes it clear it is a challenge, not a question.

Tess and Damien trade a look that makes Celine want to roll her eyes. Tess speaks for the pair of them. "Are you sure about this?"

Instead of snapping, Celine smiles, soft and reassuring. “You know there’s something strange about this house, Tess. The spirits could tell us what it is.”

(She doesn’t mention that the spirits have never spoken to her in the manor before.)

There’s suddenly something strange in the way Tess is looking at her, too. That black tendril around her throat tightens and Tess reaches out for the planchette, her eyes glassy. It’s like she’s…empty.

The parlor door bursts open a second before Tess’s fingers reach the board, and Celine spins to face the door with a frustrated growl low in her throat.

Mrs. Barnum looks over the five of them. When her eyes land on the board, she flares such a bright red that Celine has to squint to see. For a moment, Celine is scared. She can’t recall the last time she felt anything other than anger or a crushing numbness.

Celine leaps to her feet when Mrs. Barnum snatches the board from the table, the heat of her own anger rising to burn against her skin.

“Give it back!” Celine shouts. “We didn’t even get started, there’s so much to--”

She feels the power draining from her fingers and she has to get it back, she finally has answers, she can find out what’s wrong with her, what all this means.

“You are done!” Mrs. Barnum shouts even louder, and Celine’s shoulders draw inward out of an instinct she’s not yet conquered. “Whose idea was this?”

Celine can feel herself start to shake with rage as all five of them look at one another. She wants to scream that it was her idea, of course it was her idea, and damn the consequences. Damn the fear in Mark’s eyes. She opens her mouth to speak—

“It was me, Mrs. Barnum,” Tess says from across the circle. Her eyes are cast downward at the floor and Celine sees her tense.

“Tess,” Damien whispers.

(They’re not friends, they’ll never be friends, they’re not friends, why does she do these things?)

From the look on Mrs. Barnum’s face, she knows it’s a lie. They all know it’s a lie. But Celine isn’t going to say anything.

Mrs. Barnum’s lips press together into a thin line. “Alright. I’ll have the driver take you home.”

Celine watches her go.

Their mother dies when they are seventeen.

Damien holds Celine’s hand again at the funeral. He stares into the distance, through the trees around the cemetery, into a spot that does not exist. He is trying not to cry.

Celine is glad for the mourning veil on her hat. It hides her dry eyes. It hides her rage. It hides her disappointment that the name carved on the stone is misspelled, and that she does not know enough of her mother’s language to fix it herself.

(She keeps the hat and veil. She dresses in black long after society says she should have put it aside. She is not sure there is a name for what she mourns.)

When the others speak of their futures, she speaks only of all the places she will travel to, all the people she will meet. All the spiritualists she will see and the questions they will answer. She glares at her brother and Tess when they trade looks behind her back.

(The voices in her ears scoff when she speaks of it. They tell her that she is the only one that has ever been like this. She is alone; she has always been alone.)

Mark is the only exception, the only one that doesn’t make her feel crazy, the only one that doesn’t question her. He simply smiles at her the same way he always has, like she hung the moon and the stars in the sky. Celine teases that perhaps, if he behaves, she’ll take him with her when she travels, and they will see the world together.

(“I can’t leave,” he snarls, in a rare display of temper that makes her skin prickle. She doesn’t understand what he means until she realizes the tendril around his throat has grown so large that she doesn’t know how he can breathe.

Something dark and ancient laughs when she decides that she will free him from it.)

It shouldn’t surprise any of them when William declares his intentions to volunteer for the war effort; he’s talked for months now about joining the service to find adventure in the world. Still, it grips Celine with a sense of panic that is foreign to her. All the news reports say that they are winning, that it will be over by Christmas, but the voices in her ears tell her they are lying. There are horrors to come that none of them could imagine.

He kisses her forehead at the train station and Celine finally learns what his aura feels like. It wraps around her for seconds that stretch into hours. It’s like the first time she got drunk on champagne; the bubbles had gone straight to her head, and she’d felt like she was flying, like everything was the funniest joke she’d ever heard, like the world was good and warm and she was finally happy. William feels like euphoria.

(It’s why she comes back to him, again and again, over the years. He makes her forget.)

While he’s gone, he sends letters home to Tess. She reads them out loud in the parlor. After the Barnums go to bed, she shows the rest of them the bits that she’s censored for his parents’ sake. They try to laugh at his stories of rats as large as cats that live in the trenches even as they pray he is only exaggerating.

And then influenza comes.

Tess moves into the manor permanently when her mother is the first to die. Damien is the one that found them, and Celine thinks it hurt him nearly as much to see Tess catatonic and staring at a corpse.

“I had to carry her out of there,” He tells Celine in a low voice. Mrs. Barnum gives Tess a glass of hot chocolate in the next room. “She was just...waiting to die.”

Celine has seen that hollowness in Tess’s face before, when the tendril around her throat tried to guide her movements. She is struck by the strange notion that the darkness is gorging itself on Tess’s sorrow; it grows larger and larger, though not nearly as large as the noose around Mark’s neck.

(Something cruel and ancient growls when Celine decides she will free Tess from it, too.)

The Barnums fall ill soon after, and Mrs. Barnum insists with a fervency Celine doesn’t understand that they go to the hospital.

It almost suffocates Celine as soon as she steps through the doors—screaming spirits, pain that smothers the world, so many emotions and colors and feelings that she cannot stand it. She lasts an hour before she begins to hyperventilate and runs from the hospital.

She is three blocks away, sitting in an alley with her knees pulled to her chest and tears streaming from her eyes, when she feels Mrs. Barnum die.

Tess grieves by working until she can’t feel anything at all, and Celine is happy to go with her. The second time she enters the hospital during the pandemic, she conquers her fear of it. She forces herself to breathe evenly. She puts walls up around herself until she can no longer hear the screaming.

She and Tess sneak out from the manor while Damien and Mark are at work. The boys would keep them locked up forever to keep them safe, but neither girl can stand it anymore. They’re starting to go insane from the solitude and volunteering as nurses seems like a good way to wash their hands of their guilt and grief. They learn quickly how to care for the dying. There is no saving most of their patients. All they can do is try to alleviate their suffering.

It works—until Tess collapses.

She’s been coughing for a few days, but Celine had ignored it; Tess had told her not to worry. Now she gathers Tess into her arms and drives her back to the manor because she doesn’t know what else to do. The hospital didn’t save the Barnums. But she can save Tess, if she can just channel enough power, and she’s strongest at the manor.

(If she can’t—if she can’t, this will be her fault, it was her idea to volunteer at the hospital, she’d just wanted to prove she wasn’t afraid and her selfishness will have killed Tess.)

“We need to take her to a doctor!” Damien shouts outside of the door to Tess’s room. Celine peers around the corner at her brother and her partner; they look half ready to tear each other apart.

Mark shoves Damien back into the wall. “I’m the master of the house! She stays here. The hospital is where people go to die.”

Damien storms past her on his way down the staircase. His permanently blue aura churns with streaks of red and purple. There is disgust in his eyes when they look at one another, though she knows it isn’t directed at her. He doesn’t say a word.

(She finds him later, at the writing desk in the study, penning a letter to William.

“He should know,” Damien says. “They didn’t let him come home to bury his parents, they’re not going to let him come home to bury--”

Celine wraps her arms around him for the first time in a very long time; he can no more stand to say the words than she can to hear them. He sobs into her shoulder.)

That last afternoon, Celine knocks on the locked door and waits for Mark to answer it.

“Chef has dinner ready. Go eat something. I’ll sit with her.” She leaves no room for argument in her tone.

Mark is too tired to argue, anyway. He shuffles out of the room and down the stairs like a zombie, his hair uncombed and his eyes red and sunken. Tess’s death will destroy him. Celine always found it silly that Tess was afraid Celine would take away everything she loved, but now Celine understands. Tess will take everything Celine has left with her to the grave. She has to stop it.

Tess looks terribly small in the bed, drenched in sweat. Her eyes flicker rapidly beneath her lids. If it weren’t for the blood and mucus drying on her lips, she would almost look like she was having a bad dream.

Celine sits down in the chair by her bed. She slips her fingers through Tess’s and gasps—it feels like Tess is going to catch fire. Celine wonders, for a strange moment, if that wouldn’t be better. Burn the manor down with them all in it. Die together instead of this long, slow process where they are damned to watch one another suffer.

She takes a deep breath. The power is there. She closes her eyes and thinks of how much she wants Tess to live.

(They are not friends. They’ll never be friends. This does not mean anything. She just—she just doesn’t know what to do without Tess, damn it.)

Nothing responds. Celine can feel it, so very close to her, just out of her reach. It gathers around Tess’s throat. It gathers in her lungs. It does not flow into Celine’s hands.

Tears roll down her cheeks unbidden. How dare she cry, how dare her power not obey her, how dare this happen again and again and again, this isn’t fucking fair—

(In the morning, Mark tells them that Tess is cured. She smiles at them all, but Celine sees that the darkness around her throat has hooks now, digging into her skin. Celine realizes she will never free Tess from that cruel, ancient, hungry thing.)

Mark takes her out into the woods behind the manor, back to that place that is too perfect to be real. He drops to one knee and pulls a ring from his pocket. The diamond is carved in the shape of a crescent moon, with smaller yellow stones on either side of it like stars.

“Marry me,” he says. It is not a question. There are no flowery declarations of love.

There are no voices in her ears to yell at her. Her stomach turns anyway, and every bone in her body screams at her to run. She is not the marrying type. She will never be a good wife. She will never be like Mrs. Barnum. It’s better to run now than to drag it out.

“Yes,” Celine hears herself say.

(She knows what he meant when he said he couldn’t leave.)

Damien looks like he might cry when he sees her in her wedding dress, even with her brows pinched tight at all the bridesmaids trying to help pin her veil into her short hair.

He shifts the tulle to lay flat over her back, meeting her eyes in the mirror. “I wish mom could see you. You look amazing.”

The reminder that he is the only family she has left makes her stomach turn. It isn’t much different from the rest of their lives; he’s always been all she has. But he’s always had so much more.

(“I won’t allow it,” their father had shouted when she’d told him about her engagement. She’d been foolish to tell him, she knows. Some stupid part of her she had yet to bury had wanted him to walk her down the aisle. Had hoped for it.

“I’m not asking for your permission,” she’d snarled back. It was the last thing she ever said to him.)

One of Mark’s cousins scrapes a hairpin against her skin and that’s all it takes for Celine to break. “Everyone out!”

Damien lingers. He’s never counted as a person.

“Will you--” Celine takes a deep breath and curls her nails into her palm. “I need you to send Tess here. And go help William get ready.”

She sees the hurt that flickers in his aura; it is the first time she has sent him away. But he is dressed, coiffed, picture perfect as he always is, and she knows for a fact that the best man is still drunk from the bachelor party the night before. William will need all the help he can get. Damien is the only person she can trust to take care of things. And there are—there are some things she cannot tell him.

Tess is a vision, even in her wheelchair. As soon as the dressing room door closes behind her, she is on her feet. The doctors may have forbidden her from standing for long periods of time, from walking, and from dancing, but she refuses to rest like they want. She usually has Damien or William’s arm to help her instead.

Celine knows that restless feeling. The chair is a cage to Tess, a cruel reminder that she can no longer do the things she loves--so she will do them anyway, and damn the consequences.

“Cold feet?” Tess asks gently. She takes the veil off of Celine’s head and frowns at the state of her hair.

Celine wants to hate how easily Tess sees through her. “No. ...Yes. I don’t know. I-I said yes, so I’m going to marry him, but I just—I don’t want to end up like--”

She chokes on the words. Like my mother. Mark is not her father, Mark is nothing like her father, Celine knows this, but at the same time, he could be. She’s seen that darkness in enough people to know that anyone could become a monster. And nothing scares her more than being seen and not heard, being buried in a grave with her name misspelled and no one able to fix it because she has been stripped of everything that made her her.

“Hey,” Tess says, resting her hands on Celine’s shoulders. Celine turns to look at her, and the determination in Tess’s eyes takes her off guard. “Listen to me. Tell me right now. Do you want to marry Mark? Because if you don’t, my car’s out front, and we’ll make a run for it.”

“He’s your brother.”

“And you’re my sister.” The love in Tess’s voice steals Celine’s breath away.

(They are not friends, they will never be friends, this is—this cannot be friendship.)

Celine takes another deep breath and closes her eyes. She focuses on the weight of Tess’s hands on her shoulders. Focuses on all the times she’s felt warm in Mark’s arms, all the times he has let her fight her own battles, let her rebel all she wants. Mark knows she is strange and eerie and cursed with wanderlust. He has never tried to change her. He loves her.

When she opens her eyes again, Tess is smiling at her.

“Alright. Then let’s get your hair fixed—what were they even trying to do?”

(Celine tells herself that Mark will not become a monster. She convinces herself of it, and she does not see it until it is too late.)

Damien walks her down the aisle. William cries when he sees her. Mark’s hands shake when he puts the ring on her finger. Tess leaps from her wheelchair to catch the bouquet.

For a moment, Celine is truly hopeful.

Everything is perfect for the first few years.

Mark’s career skyrockets. It makes him happy, and in turn, Celine is overjoyed. When he’s home, he hangs on her every word, does everything she wants. She can finally travel. There are no locks on the manor windows. She has a key to every door. Mark has never tried to control her.

She is free of the voices, too, now that she lives in the manor. They cannot reach her there.

Mark starts to throw wild parties on the weekends for his coworkers. Networking, he calls it. He doesn’t ask her to come. Celine is much happier staying on the second floor of the manor, setting up her work room or reading. He’s always been better at those sorts of things. Telling people what they want to hear. He comes to check on her periodically throughout the night whenever he has a party, kissing her forehead.

(After a while, it is Benjamin that comes to check on her, bringing her dinner and a drink at “the master’s” behest. She always thanks him.)

She sees when Tess meets Julian, when the man turns her across the parlor floor without any care for Tess’s breathing. His aura is golden and glowing, tinged with pink. It is love at first sight. It sickens her, though Celine can’t explain why. She retreats back to her study.

When they discover what Julian has done to Tess (when she turns up on the doorstep of the manor after not seeing any of them for weeks, bruises on her throat, tears in her eyes, carrying nothing but the clothes she’s wearing), it takes Mark and Damien both to hold Celine back. William paces the floor with his pistol in hand. Damien takes away their car keys, to keep she and William from driving to Julian’s home and showing him how it feels to be powerless.

When the man himself comes knocking, they hide Tess in the study with Mark and Damien. Celine and William greet Julian at the door. William’s pistol is in hand, and one of his medals is pinned to his lapel. It is Celine that steps forward.

“She’s not here,” Celine says. It’s clearly a lie, one they must tell as a sort of ceremony.

“I just want to talk to her. She’s been sick—I don’t think she’s in her right mind lately,” Julian replies. He runs a hand through his tousled hair. Celine supposes it is meant to be charming.

It infuriates her instead. He fooled her once. He will not do so again. Celine steps forward, into his space, and to his credit, he does not back down. His aura is brown with rot and black with pride.

“She isn’t here,” She repeats. “It’s a good thing she isn’t. Because if she ever tells me that she so much as thinks she sees you, I’ll kill you in your own bed.”

Something bubbles up inside of her. Power. Rage. He is just like her father. He hurt her pride when she realized he’d tricked her into believing he was good. He is not her father, but her father is six feet underground, and Julian is here, where she can reach out and strike him, where she can give him all the retribution he deserves—

Dry lightning strikes one of the trees in the yard and sets it alight.

Julian’s eyes are wide when he looks back at her. “You’re crazy. Where the hell is my--”

Whatever he was going to say is drowned out by a deafening gunshot. William has stepped out of the manor, his pistol pointed up at the sky.

“Oops,” he deadpans, as if he could’ve pulled the trigger by accident.

Julian runs, and he does not come back.

She dreams of his voice.

Celine is adrift in a void. She knows she is sleeping, but she cannot find her way back to consciousness. It’s almost pleasant in the darkness. Like she’s been there before. Like she’s always belonged there.

“Trust me, let me in, and I can make you happy just like Celine.”

It is Julian, and yet it cannot be. He should have no reason to speak her name, let alone make an offer like that in her dreams. It’s the sort of thing he’d say to—

She suddenly knows how to move through the void and she flies as fast as she can towards his voice. If he is here, if he has found Tess again, then surely he means her harm. Celine will kill him before he gets the chance.

Tess sits at a dinner table in the void, though there is no food in front of her. The man across from her looks like Julian. It should be Julian, Celine knows this. But the more she looks, the more Julian’s appearance falls away like water, and the monster beneath it is revealed.

It’s...formless. Endlessly shifting into shapes that should not exist, twisting around itself and inside itself. Millions of eyes blink lazily across it.

“No,” Tess says.

The entity surges forward to nearly envelop her. Celine watches the tendril that has always been around Tess’s throat tighten until the other girl’s lips turn blue. A thousand of those eyes see her all at once, and Celine realizes she must have cried out. She cannot move under its gaze, cannot help Tess, cannot save her—

Celine wakes and tumbles out of bed moments before Tess’s scream pierces the silence of the night.

(I know what you saw, Celine writes to Tess a few months later, after Tess has run far away, when Damien is the only one of them that knows how to contact her. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you from it. I love you.)

It is as if Tess was the last thing holding them all together. With her gone, everything begins to fall apart.

William is rarely around; some strange animosity has grown up between him and Mark. He is always in search of the next big fight, the next war to be won, relishing in the violence of it all. There are moments, late at night, when he and Celine are the only ones awake in the manor. They sit together on the kitchen counters like they did when they were teenagers. They don’t speak about his nightmares. They talk about her work instead, and how phenomenal he thinks her research into the manor is.

(Mark forbids her from speaking of it in his presence. That is the first time she packs a bag and runs.)

Damien is more upset by Tess’s disappearance than he wants to let on. Instead, he wants to talk about all the things Celine is determined to avoid. She doesn’t want to speak about their father or his death or the strange, guilty mix of joy and sorrow it left them both with. So when he needs to borrow money from her, it is a relief, and she does not ask why. She simply lets him take it from her half of the inheritance, or she gives it to him from Mark’s bottomless coffers. When things get too rough, she takes the money to the speakeasy herself, more comfortable amongst the debauchery than she’s ever been amongst high society.

(She knows it is cards. She knows his tells. But he does not ask for help to get away from it, and so she does not give it. Mark is both too rich and too busy to notice.)

And Mark—

Mark is not the man she married anymore. He is gone from the manor more often than not, and Celine tolerates it for longer than she thought she would. Even when he is home, he may as well not be. They do not go on weekend trips anymore; it's rare that she can convince him to leave the manor for dinner. He spends all of his time locked in his study with script pages scattered across the floor, obsessively going over his lines. Sometimes he stumbles to bed with ink smeared across his hands from whatever new writing project consumes him.

(They start sleeping in separate beds when she shouts that she is tired of him waking her up in the middle of the night.)

Celine feels as if she is drowning. The marriage was a mistake. She should’ve taken Tess’s offer to run before the wedding. It hadn’t been cold feet—it had been a prophecy. The world is not a good or kind place. The only person she’s ever been able to rely on is herself.

In hindsight, she thinks that she wanted to get caught.

William has the same wild spirit as she does. Neither of them have ever looked for safety. Every time he kisses her is like the time on the train platform, like being drunk on champagne, like the world fades away and reality doesn’t matter for just a little while longer.

He runs from the manor when she screams at him to go, blood streaming from his broken nose. It is smeared on Mark’s knuckles as well.

William would kill Mark if he stayed, she knows this. His temper is too unpredictable, his tendency towards violence more frightening than intriguing now. Still, when Mark turns on her, Celine almost regrets being alone.

He takes a deep breath and smooths down the wrinkles on his shirt. He's pretending to be calm when he looks at her. His hands still tremble with the force of his rage. Celine keeps her weight on her back foot, ready to run.

"Now," Mark says. His smile is too wide--it is deranged. "Let's talk about this. William has always been...well, jealous. I know you wouldn't hurt me on purpose. I know this is because of him, so why don't you and I let bygone be bygones?"

How is she meant to respond to that? His eyes flicker with manic energy. Something dark shifts behind his irises. it is like all the times she's seen Tess go hollow, only worse. She does not recognize the man she once loved.

"I'm leaving," Celine manages to say. She backs up to the edge of her bed and pulls out the bag she's kept packed for the past six months.

(She should have left the moment she packed it.)

Mark follows her through the house as she makes for the front door, a demon nipping at her heels. Like all the shadows and spirits she's never been able to outrun.

"What's this about, Celine?" He laughs. "Whatever you want, just name it! Is it a child? Will that make you happy?"

In the future, the only credit Celine will give herself is not hitting him. He has become the thing she fears, the husband that wants her beautiful and home and caring for his children; the husband that does not know the first thing about her. Or, worse, the husband that simply does not care.

He catches her in the foyer. He grabs her shoulders and forces her to turn and look at him. The tears in his eyes are half rage and half sorrow.

(That is how all things will end.)

"I'll die without you." Mark's voice breaks on the words.

He is an actor, Celine tells herself. He's made his living by lying to people. This is just another lie. Like all the times he's said he loves her.

So she looks up into his eyes, and lets out that awful part of her that always screams to go for the jugular. "I don't care."

He stumbles back a step like she's punched him. Celine finally breaks into a sprint towards her car.

She looks back, just before she peels away. Mark still stands in the doorway, staring at the spot where she'd been with the same stricken look. For the first time, she sees the full extent of the darkness that has wrapped itself around him. It winds around his wrists, between his ankles, chaining his limbs together and rooting him to the floor of the manor itself.

Save him, shouts the part of her that still loves him, that knows they are not themselves. She could save him. She has the power.

But that’s not her job.

Celine does not plan on ever coming back. She sees Tess and Damien in brief flashes whenever she stops off at home to retrieve funds. They are still dancing around one another. Nothing else has changed. She is growing, becoming more powerful, but everyone else is...stagnant.

Tess corners her only once about what had happened, and for a moment, Celine is angry that Damien told her.

“I wasn’t happy, Tess,” she says, and it is far too close to the truth than she ever planned to admit. “You of all people should understand that. I regret it, but I’d do it again. I had to get away from there.”

There’s a flash of understanding in Tess’s eyes that makes Celine feel almost guilty. No, she wants to say. It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t like you. I wasn’t a good person. But it is easier to let Tess think what she will.

She drives into the strange storm that lingers over the hills. The spirit in her passenger seat has a smile that is too wide. It urges her to hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, aren’t you curious?.

(She will have her answers.)

The void is no longer familiar as she falls through it. It is everything she’s feared; it is being forgotten and being lost; it is her soul severed from her body and a name that will be misspelled on a grave and no one left who cares enough to fix it; it is the light of every bridge she has burned along her way; and worst of all, it is Damien falling with her, clinging to her pinky like he always has even though this is all her fault—

The ice groans beneath her as she sits up.

It is not really the lake she fell through as a teenager, nor is it really that forest. It’s her mind, her power, this place, all coming together to make something of nothing. It flickers and distorts even as Celine tries to hold on to it.

Cracks form beneath her feet as she stands, spiraling out towards the two prone forms lying too far away for her to help. Tess, bloodied, sprawled, moaning weakly. Damien, eyes closed, silent.

“Celine?” Tess’s voice echoes across the lake. With it, the world around them shakes, and the cracks deepen. “Celine, I can’t—I can’t move, please--”

The lake remains, but the trees around them flicker and warp and twist into—into places Celine doesn’t recognize. When she tries to pull it back to the forest, to hold on to anything familiar, Tess sobs.

She sees Tess clearly, now. Her eyes are sunken and red, the skin around them turning grey; her cheeks are hollow and her lips are cracked. Blood and a thin layer of foam have dried on her mouth and nose. The blood on her chest is still fresh, still oozing from the wound.

(It hits Celine in a rush. Influenza Tess has died before Tess has been here before Tess is fighting me for control Tess has a stronger connection Tess will win and I will lose Damien--)

If she and Tess keep playing tug of war, Damien will be dragged to the depths. Celine feels her feet sink a fraction of an inch. She has to act. There is a choice to make and no time to make it.

She runs to Tess.

Tess smiles up at her and Celine wants to recoil from her blood-stained teeth and rheumy eyes. But she remembers that moment, a lifetime ago, pushing Tess to safety and taking the plunge in her place.

(They are not friends. They could never be friends. They are not friends, so why are there tears frozen on Celine’s cheeks?)

Celine jumps. The ice shatters. Tess has enough time to realize what Celine’s done and scream in terror before she vanishes beneath the surface.

A thin crust of rime forms over the cracks, and the ice no longer protests when Celine runs across it to pull Damien to the shore, to pull him into her arms. The world no longer resists as she forces it into as much of a shape as she can manage.

And by the time Damien wakes in that one-room cabin, Celine has nearly convinced herself she doesn’t regret a thing.

#markiplier #who killed markiplier #wkm #wkm celine #celine the seer #i posted this on ao3 and then went camping before i could share it here

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tiffersthenerdyficrecs · 5 years

Text

BakuDeku Pining Fics

(*) Indicates my most suggested reads.

Get on my level by Mikacrispy *

Rating: Explicit Relationships: Bakugou Katsuki/Midoriya Izuku, Bakugou Katsuki & Kirishima Eijirou, Ashido Mina/Kirishima Eijirou, Jirou Kyouka/Kaminari Denki Characters: Class 1-A (My Hero Academia), Yoarashi Inasa, Hawks (My Hero Academia), Bakugou Katsuki, Midoriya Izuku Additional Tags: Age Difference, Pro Hero Bakugou Katsuki, Adorable Midoriya Izuku, Canon-Typical Violence, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, POV Alternating, POV Bakugou Katsuki, POV Midoriya Izuku, Bakusquad (My Hero Academia), Dekusquad (My Hero Academia), Bakugou Katsuki Swears A Lot, Intern Midoriya Izuku Summary:Bakugou Katsuki is a Pro Hero whose boss demands him to take an intern.

Midoriya Izuku is a UA student who needs an internship.

When the two of them are put together, they learn about what it truly means to be a Hero and what it means to be in love.

What The Fuck Did You Just Call Me? by reading_raindrop

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Relationship: Bakugou Katsuki/Midoriya Izuku Characters: Bakugou Katsuki, Midoriya Izuku, Kirishima Eijirou, Kaminari Denki, Uraraka Ochako, Ashido Mina, Mineta Minoru, Todoroki Shouto, Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead Additional Tags: Bakugou Katsuki Swears A Lot, Bakugou Katsuki is Bad at Feelings, My First AO3 Post, Oblivious Midoriya Izuku, Oblivious Bakugou Katsuki, Two oblivious dorks, Mutual Pining, katsuki’s POV mostly, Fluff, Teensy teensy bit angsty I guess Summary: “A-ah B-Bakugou! You dropped some pencils!”

Katsuki stiffened. Kirishima and Kaminari froze. Basically, everyone within earshot stopped what they were doing to look at Izuku like he sprouted a second head. What did he just call him? “What the fuck did you just say to me?”

Katsuki whipped his head towards Izuku with his signature death glare as he stood up from where he picked up the fallen supplies.

“U-um I said you dropped some pencils! I think this eraser might be yours to-”

“No. What the fuck did you just call me?”

Izuku starts calling him Bakugou and it pisses the explosive teen off a lot more than he thought it would

Boom, Badoom, Boom by warschach

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Relationship: Bakugou Katsuki/Midoriya Izuku Characters: Bakugou Katsuki, Midoriya Izuku Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - High School, Kissing Booths, Fluff, Mutual Pining, Kissing, or Katsuki is into Izuku Midoriya and is equally bad with romance, this is gross gross fluff i'm sorry, this is supposed to be set in late 90s and early 2000s Summary:Izuku's working the kissing booth at the school fair, it just so happens Katsuki has been crushing on him since the first grade.

“Did you—“ Izuku parted his mouth with no sound leaving it, “Did you pay?”

“Yea.”

“For a kiss?”

Big Protein by Mysecretfanmoments

Rating: Explicit Relationship: Bakugou Katsuki/Midoriya Izuku Characters: Bakugou Katsuki, Midoriya Izuku, Kaminari Denki, Ashido Mina, Uraraka Ochako, Todoroki Shouto, Kirishima Eijirou, Iida Tenya Additional Tags: Bakugou trying so hard to be a winner he's kind of a loser, Pervert Deku, Repressed Bakugou, Bakugou Katsuki is Bad at Feelings, Characters Are Pro Heroes (My Hero Academia), Aged-Up Character(s), sexual awakening, awkward sexual encounters, Mutual Pining, Big Virgin Energy Summary: Bakugou Katsuki has a thriving hero career, an agent to manage his famous attitude, and absolutely zero romantic interest in anyone. With the exception of his favourite health food joint refusing to expand to his city, his life is pretty damn perfect—so why does a viral video revealing Deku's stash of dirty mags involving him and Deku together turn everything upside-down? OR: The story of a man's random embarrassing collection.

I Miss the Music by InkspillsNotebook(Updating/Incomplete)

Rating: Explicit Relationships: Bakugou Katsuki/Midoriya Izuku, Bakugou Katsuki & Midoriya Izuku Characters: Bakugou Katsuki, Midoriya Izuku, Bakusquad - Character Additional Tags: Friends to Lovers, Mutual Pining, Rockstar AU, Slow Burn, Life goals, music industry, Social Media, fans shipping, hidden crushes, Angst, Fluff, Sexual Tension, small living spaces, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Death Threats, shit gets heavy in some chapters just a warningi will let ya'll know in the notes at the beginning of specific chapters I promise Summary: Inspired by the prompt by pennyforyourotp on tumblr of 'You're a really famous actor/musician and I'm your childhood friend that shows up a lot on your Instagram/Twitter/Snapchat and people have started shipping us which is really bad for my crush on you that I've been trying to hide'

Founder of the number one band 'Ground Zero' and lead guitarist, Katsuki Bakugou, takes a vacation before an upcoming tour. Upon returning home, he strives to convince childhood friend, and secret love interest, Izuku Midoriya, to abandon his internship hunt and come on tour with him to once more be apart of each others lives, and write music together again.

Saccharine Shit by katrucci(Updating/Incomplete)

Rating: Explicit Relationship: Bakugou Katsuki/Midoriya Izuku Characters: Bakugou Katsuki, Midoriya Izuku, Uraraka Ochako, Kirishima Eijirou Additional Tags: Rating May Change, Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Pro Heroes (My Hero Academia), Pro Hero Bakugou Katuski, Pro Hero Midoriya Izuku, Future Fic, kacchako friendship is pure, kacchan runs a pro hero agency, Late Night Conversations, Drunkenness, Fluff and Angst, Christmas, Denial, Pining, Bakugou Katsuki Swears A Lot, Murder Mystery, Crime Fighting, Organized Crime Summary: "'Ground Zero Pro Hero Agency'? Kacchan, is that really the name of your agency?"

Katsuki narrowed his eyes. "Yeah. What's it to you?"

Izuku flipped over the pamphlet this way and that, then laughed. "Nothing. It's just... weird. Unexpected. I thought you'd go with 'Explodo-fucking-kill Your Villains' or something."

"Fuck off."

Years after they'd each gone their own ways, All Might's return to Japan as a UA guest speaker sends shockwaves through the Pro Hero community. It brings back old memories, regrets, and, strangely, a familiar green-haired freckleface to the doorsteps of Katsuki's apartment on a wintry Wednesday night.

Hummingbird Heartbeat by Tokiji *(Updating/Incomplete)

Rating: Explicit Relationship: Bakugou Katsuki/Midoriya Izuku Characters: Bakugou Katsuki, Midoriya Izuku, Yagi Toshinori | All Might, Midoriya Inko, Todoroki Shouto, Class 1-A (My Hero Academia), Ashido Mina, Kaminari Denki, Sero Hanta, Kirishima Eijirou1 Additional Tags: Near Death Experience, hospital visits, Angst, Fluff, Heartbeats, Bakugou literally needs to feel Deku's heartbeat to calm down, Trauma, Slow Burn, poor bakugou, Clingy, Hugs, lots of hugs, Eventual Sex, Bakusquad, Protective bakugou, Pining Bakugou, Nightmares, mental health Summary: “The knife went through his fucking chest, Kirishima.” Katsuki spat his name into his face, mouth twisting into a vicious snarl, teeth and all. “You know that's where his heart is, right? And his fucking lungs? All the vital shit?”

Kirishima blanched. “I-I know, I just meant—”

“What, you mean to tell me that your stupid fuckin’ ass is so ignorant to forget that he lost a shit ton of blood, hah?! Yeah, it was a flippin’ knife wound, oh hoo-ray, but look at the nerd now! He’s fucking dying because of it!”

The Art of Indifference by qye(Updating/Incomplete)

Rating: Not Rated Relationships: Bakugou Katsuki/Midoriya Izuku, Kirishima Eijirou/Todoroki Shouto Characters: Bakugou Katsuki, Midoriya Izuku, Class 1-A (My Hero Academia) Additional Tags: Future Fic, Aged up characters, Bakugou needs to calm down, Midoriya is (understandably) salty, Language, Because its Kacchan, Minor Original Character(s), BAMF Midoriya Izuku, Oblivious Bakugou, wing man kirishima, Redemption, Slow Burn, Enemies to Friends, Delusions, bakugou is bad at emotions, Angst, Revelations, Pining, Protective Todoroki Shouto, Bakugou Katsuki Swears A Lot, mature adults do adult stuff like apologizing, chap 1+2 suck but hey i promise it gets better, the todokiri snuck up on me, guys when I say slow burn I mean slow ass burn Summary: Bakugou is used to being the center of attention- be it anger, confussion, or fear (mostly fear) everyone always gives him a reaction.

Until all the sudden, Deku doesn't.

What a fucking asshole.

warm hands by flowercafe(Updating/Incomplete)

Rating: Mature Relationship: Bakugou Katsuki/Midoriya Izuku Characters: Bakugou Katsuki, Midoriya Izuku, Class 1-A (My Hero Academia) Additional Tags: 5+1 Things, Mutual Pining, Getting Together, Developing Relationship, soft makeouts, Fluff, Light Angst, Healing, Forgiveness, but also a LOT of competitive ribbing and banter, rating only reflects the last chapter, First Time, Rivals to Lovers, tactile katsuki, izuku's got achy joints bc of his tendons, Massages Summary: "Your hands are so soft," he blurts.

Katsuki gives his fingers a threatening squeeze. "What the hell, Deku? Are you sayin' there's a problem with having soft hands, hah?"

Izuku never thought that Bakugou Katsuki, of all people, would willingly give him a hand massage. But here they are, sitting knee to knee, with his fingers lying innocently in those explosive palms.

a 5+1 featuring copious amounts of massaging, a dollop of mutual pining, many ridiculous competitions, Izuku’s achy joints, and one very tactile Katsuki.

The Devil Ships ZeKu by xairylle *(Updating/Incomplete)

Rating: Explicit Relationships: Bakugou Katsuki/Midoriya Izuku, Midoriya Izuku & Todoroki Shouto Characters: Bakugou Katsuki, Midoriya Izuku, Ashido Mina, Kaminari Denki, Todoroki Shouto, Iida Tenya, Uraraka Ochako, Toogata Mirio, Shinsou Hitoshi Additional Tags: character finds fic of themselves, Future Fic, pro heroes, Hero Deku, hero ground zero, Smut, Masturbation, Ecchi, Lemon, how the FUcK do i tag this, bakudeku, KatsuDeku, Fic within a Fic, Pining, Mutual Pining, Pining Midoriya Izuku, Pining Bakugou Katsuki, Bakugou Katsuki is Bad at Feelings, Jealousy, Slow Burn, kinda satire, there's a mix of genres in the fic within a fic, AUTHOR CHOSE NOT TO USE ARCHIVE WARNINGS, Secondhand embarrassment Summary: Midoriya Izuku knew what fanfiction was. He just didn't think there was something like THIS out there. About him and Kacchan no less.

Hero & Zero by GreyDayMoon(Updating/Incomplete

Rating: Not Rated Relationship: Bakugou Katsuki/Midoriya Izuku Characters: Bakugou Katsuki, Midoriya Izuku, Iida Tenya, Hatsume Mei, Todoroki Shouto Additional Tags: Quirkless Midoriya Izuku, Hero Bakugou Katsuki, Pining, Fanboy Midoriya Izuku, Bakugou Katsuki is Bad at Feelings, Dudes I cant stop writing AUs, I'm Sorry, Midoriya Izuku Does Not Go to U.A. High School, idk what this is, Enjoy 4 now, Might expand on later, Protective Bakugou Katsuki, Possessive Bakugou Katsuki, ? I guess? Summary: Bakugou was the number one hero, surrounded by fans, and loaded with fame and fortune. So why would he care if a boy from his childhood still watched him from the edge of crowds? He wouldn't give a shit about Deku who would? Who would even be looking for that stupid messy green hair?

Except maybe he would. >

To Stand by your Side by aeronines *

Rating: Explicit Relationship: Bakugou Katsuki/Midoriya Izuku Characters: Bakugou Katsuki, Midoriya Izuku, Utsushimi Camie, Yaoyorozu Momo, Uraraka Ochako, Kirishima Eijirou, Todoroki Shouto Additional Tags: High School Bakugou/Pro Hero Deku, age gap, Eventual Smut, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Canon-Typical Violence, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, wet dreams, Oral Sex, eventual happy and healthy ending, Masturbation, Sex Toys, Background Relationships, theyre both horny little shits, this is a story of recovery, Hurt/Comfort, The power of friendship, only underage if u consider teenage masturbation and unsolicited wet dreams underage, Secret Relationship, two dumbasses figuring shit out along the way, no minor/adult sex but some highly consensual feeling up Summary: One student, one hero, and a whole lotta pining

Or, the High School Bakugou/Pro Hero Deku slow burn I need in my life

Spicy Ramen by RoboticSpaceCase

Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Bakugou Katsuki/Midoriya Izuku, Minor or Background Relationship(s) Characters: Bakugou Katsuki, Midoriya Izuku, Todoroki Shouto, Shinsou Hitoshi, Uraraka Ochako, League of Villains (My Hero Academia) Additional Tags: Villain Midoriya Izuku, kind of lol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Minor Character Death, Undercover Work, Stakeout work, Bakugou Katsuki is Bad at Feelings, Business Owner Deku, Quirkless Midoriya Izuku, Morally Gray Deku, He's like half villain half "doesn't care" lol Summary: Pro Hero Ground Zero has better things to do than going on stakeouts for the cops, but when his somewhat friendly detective contact asks him to go undercover to find some major villain activity, Bakugou can't help but say yes. It was part of the whole hero gig, after all. He just wished the job didn't require sitting with quirkless, annoying Deku.

#bakudeku #bkdk #midoriya x bakugou #bakugou x midoriya #katsuki bakugou #midoriya izuku #my hero academia #mha #boku no hero academia #bnha #fanfic #fanfiction #fic rec #pining

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colorofmymindposts · 5 years

Text

Morgana and Guinevere Chapter Four

Fandom: BBC Merlin

Pairing: Morgana/Guinevere

Rating: Teen (Rating will increase in future chapters.)

Status: Incomplete

Word Count: 738 for this chapter, 3055 for the entire work thus far

Story Summary: Set post 2x04. When Gwen returns safely from captivity, Morgana has many secrets about her own inner desires to tell her best friend. Gwen would be lying if she did not reciprocate her mistress’ feelings.

Chapter Summary: The aid of darkness gives Morgana the courage to confess her secret to Gwen...more is let on than she would like.

Tags: Angst, Repression of Feelings, Love Confession

Notes: The entire work can be read here on ao3. Likes and reblogs are always appreciated!

The lateness of the hour risked her exposure to the knights keeping guard, but this was a matter that could not be discussed in the light of day. On her person, Morgana carried a sword in its sheath strapped on her back, clothes to last a week’s duration, and some scraps she had collected from unfinished breakfasts and the kitchens. If this were to go badly, she was prepared to leave Camelot forever.

She rapped twice on the door, anxious for a response. To her simultaneous delight and dismay, she was answered.

“Morgana? Is everything alright?” Gwen looked confused but not from having been roused from sleep. It was clear she had been awake.

“Yes, Gwen,” she was quick to assure. “I need to speak with you about a...private matter. Something that cannot be disclosed within the castle walls.”

“Come in.”

Morgana was shown into Gwen’s abode, a quaint one-room living space with a bed, two chairs, a table and assorted essentials like food, water jugs, and cloth for sewing. It was still remarkable to Morgana that Gwen still chose to live here after her father’s passing. Perhaps it reminded the girl of the man who she lost.

Gwen offered Morgana one of the chairs, which she took just as the other girl seated herself on the opposite side. Dark lines showed underneath her eyes even on her beautifully tan skin.

“Are you not sleeping alright, Gwen?”

“I…” Gwen started and abruptly stopped herself. She cast a meaningful look downward, where Morgana’s eyes couldn’t follow. “Well I suppose there’s no point in lying. It’s only a recent thing. It’s nothing you need worry about.”

“If you insist,” Morgana replied, aware her treading on Gwen’s boundaries was how they got here in the first.

“What I am about to tell you is something I’ve never confided to anyone else. Truly, I’m not sure what people would make of it if they discovered the truth. If they would even believe me,” she rambled, doing like Gwen and avoiding direct eye contact. Staring her in the face and telling her the depth of her infatuation, of her disease, Morgana couldn’t bear to see the confusion shift to disgust.

“Morgana!” With that, her head snapped upward against her own will. “Please, I would never betray your trust like that. Anything you tell me here, right now, stays within this room. I swear to you, on my very life.”

“Very well.” An uncomfortable silence passed between them as Morgana sought how to phrase her confession, now very dumbstruck at the idea of actually having to speak it into reality. Truthfully, she should have rehearsed it through at least once. “Have you ever read the work of the only known female Greek artist, Sappho?”

Gwen’s earnestness visibly bled into outright bewilderment in less than a second. “I am afraid I can’t say I have. I have not read many books, Morgana.”

“I understand. I shall read to you...an excerpt to explain the condition I find myself in, better than I can explain it to you in my own words. The Poetess refers to the Greek goddess Aphrodite, the goddess of love—of romantic love—in the verse:

Sweet mother, I cannot weave—slender Aphrodite...slen-slenderr Aph-phro-dite.” She began to stutter over the words, barely certain if she could reach the phrase’s condemning conclusion. Tears welled in her eyes, and she blinked the embarrassing droplets away, away else she fall into hysteria.

With a great look of concern, her maid reached across the table and took Morgana’s hands into her own.

“What is it, Morgana? Just tell me,” she prodded gently.

It was too much, too much kindness than Morgana ever deserved, especially when Gwen didn’t know of her incurable vices, of how she had been corrupted without meaning to be.

“Has overcome me with longing for a girl!”

The verse was spat out rather than languidly admitted and was punctuated by a window shattering. Startled, Morgana and Gwen both turned to look for the source, finding shards of the singular window in the house flung about the room. A distant sensation of something dripping on her face came to her. She broached her fingers to her cheek and upon withdrawing them her fingers were stained red, red as her anger when that window blew out, fear disguised as anger when those words left her lips.

“Morgana...your eyes,” Gwen whispered, voice quivering in unconcealed terror.

#morgwen #morgana #guinevere #my writing #fanfiction #bbc merlin

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savannacentralperk · 5 years

Text

...Our First Date

A/N: As always, thank you to kt_valmiri for editing and ScaraMedn for beta reading! Enjoy, everyone!

………….

Skye grinned down at her little brother who was pouting on Jack's couch. Her eyes moved from young todd to the overly excited cheetah fawning over him and Judy. The doe was grinning at their sitter, the vixen having no doubt she was just as excited about the evening as the cat.

"Oh! Em! Goodness!" Benjamin Clawhauser gushed as he pulled out a stack of movies from his bag, adding them to his tower of board games on the coffee table. "We're going to have so much fun! I have games, music, magazines, snacks! We'll order pizza and make s'mores! We can even have a dance off! Ooooooo! I'm so excited!"

"You're a brave mammal for being willing to watch these two, Benji," called Jack from the hall. Walking into the living, the buck kept his eyes down as he straightened his sweater. "You're going to have your paws full."

The grin on Skye's face became slightly bashful when the buck looked up and saw her. His entire body went still, his ears standing straight up on his head as his eyes took her in. Once again, she applauded her mother’s skills in picking out clothes. Her black skirt and sapphire blue blouse complemented his own dark jeans and white button up. Casual, with a hint of class. He looked good enough to drag back to the bedroom for several days.

It was only the fact that Ben's voice echoed loudly that had them remembering everyone else in the room.

"Oh, don't be silly, Jackie! Judy is an absolute delight!" Benji's fur bunched as his chubby face lit up on Nick. "Oooooohhhhhh! I don't think I've ever met such a little fox before! Fox kits are so cuuuuute!"

Nick scrunched down in his seat further, looking disgruntled. "I'm not little…" he grumbled under his breath. "Or cute."

Judy laughed at his reaction. "Oh, how the tables have turned!"

With a glare at the bunny doe, the todd crossed his arms and looked annoyed at the situation, though a smile tugged at his muzzle. Ben merely bounced around as he did inventory on what he had brought, his smile never leaving his face. Completely charmed, Skye knew why Jack had chosen him. She just hoped her brother wouldn't make his life too miserable.

"I'm expecting you to be on your very best behavior, young todd," she lectured as Jack came to stand next to her.

"Same goes for you, Judes." His little sister's face flashed with shocked outrage as her mouth fell open, Jack cutting her off before she could retort. "And don't give me that 'I would never!' look. I've known you for thirteen years."

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"It means you're exactly like me." He smirked at Judy's frown. Turning to Skye, he gave her another look over, the skin under his fur tinged pink. "And you look… disgusting."

Skye snorted and gave him a playful push, the buck smiling.

"Seriously though," he continued, catching her paw and pulling her towards him. "You're beautiful."

With a shy smile, she put her paws on his shoulders and lowered her muzzle to his. "Thank you." Her lips lightly touched his before they were interrupted again.

"AWWWWW!"

Starting, Jack and Skye simultaneously dropped their ears and looked over at their siblings. Nick and Judy snickered at them while Ben beamed with his eyes aglow.

"Ahem…" Jack cleared his throat and ran a paw down his crimson ears. "Call us if you need anything. Judy, if you and Nick hang out in your room, door stays open. Ben, don't let them out of your sight."

"And you," Skye turned her focus to her brother. "Best. Behavior. I mean it. If you cause Ben any trouble, it's bedpans for you. Got it."

Rolling his eyes, Nick held up two fingers. "Best behavior. Scouts honor."

With a final stern glance at the teens, Jack and Skye headed for the door. As soon as it was shut, Ben bounced back in front of them, grinning happily.

"I'm so excited! Are you two ready to have some fun?"

Nick repressed a sigh as Judy sat up straight and gave the cheetah a sweet smile.

"Actually, Ben. I'm a little hungry." Nick gave her a look out the corner of his eye. Judy just smiled at their sitter whose face lit up.

"I'll order some pizza!"

"I think it's my sweet tooth that's really starving. I was thinking more like ice cream."

Ben looked hesitant. "I don't know, Judy. I'm trying to cut back."

"And you've been doing such a great job. So, treat yourself."

Ben's face morphed into a longing look at the idea of all the treats he had denied himself lately.

"Weeeell…" he began hesitantly. "I guess one cheat night wouldn't hurt!"

Judy grinned and bounced off the couch. "I'll get ice cream and chocolate syrup! Nick, you grab the cupcakes from the counter."

"I'll get the bowls and spoons!" Ben squealed. "And I'll put on some music!"

Nick laughed at their enthusiasm before doing as he was told. Maybe the night wouldn't be all that bad.

……….

Less than five minutes into the seminar, it became very obvious the mouse on the stage was not Marcus Lemousis. A quick examination of their tickets confirmed the spelling of his name was wrong. Deciding to stick it out, the buck and vixen shrugged and took their seats. And what a mistake it was.

Jack and Skye sat in their chairs, visibly cringing at the mouse enthusiastically speaking on stage.

The buck leaned over to her to whisper, “I was expecting this to be a bit more…”

“Businesslike,” she supplied, “and less…”

“Ponzi scheme.”

Both mammals shared a chuckle behind their paws before Jack motioned for her to leave her seat. Creeping along the aisle, Skye reached behind her and felt him grasp her paw. Giggling and keeping low, they snuck into the center aisle and darted for the exit. Thankfully, the Royal Palm Hotel had a spacious and busy lobby. No one really noticed the pair running away from the conference.

Skye was still laughing as they raced towards the lobby bar, the hippo bartender in his finery nodding a greeting to her and Jack before filling two glasses with ice and water.

“Wow!” the vixen laughed as she climbed up to take a seat on a bar stool. “That was a huge waste of time. How much did those set you back, Jack?”

With a leap, Jack landed next to her, still grinning. "I didn't pay for them. We have Sandra to thank for that." The hippo bartender gave them a confused look before he set water glasses in front of the pair. The buck winked at her before turning his grin to the larger mammal. "And no sense in stopping the party. Barkeep, a bottle of your finest Pinot Noir, please."

Nodding, the hippo turned to the wine shelf behind him.

"Very classy, Mr. Hopps," Skye grinned as the bartender set two glasses and an open wine bottle in front of them.

"Classy is my middle name, gorgeous." With a grin, the buck poured them each a healthy amount before setting the bottle aside and raising his glass. "Miss Wilde. Thank you for joining me here tonight. It's not the fancy, romantic night of dinner and dancing that I wish I had treated you to. But I can't complain. That was a very… entertaining… Marcus LeMousis impersonator. And, after everything, I still get enjoy your company. Not a bad first date."

Her glass was still touching his as she smiled at him. "Date?"

"I mean," Jack smiled nervously and fidgeted on his stool. "I understand if that's a bit too forward… I mean, we've known each other for a couple weeks so I understand. But, being here, with you, tonight… It just feels like… well…"

"A date," she finished, leaning towards him. The paw not holding her wine glass moved to his jaw. "I think I can live with this being our official first date."

Their lips had just barely brushed when they both heard the not so quiet scoff of a mammal next to them. She was prepared to just tune out whomever the nosy mammal was, but she felt Jack's ears fall down his back as the mammal huffed again. He tensed, his lips still pressed to hers, before pulling back.

"Hey," she whispered to him softly. His brows were furrowed in anger as he began to turn his head towards the intruder. Skye's paw slid from his jaw to his cheek to keep his attention on her. "Ignore it. It's just you and me. On our first date."

A slow smile spread on his face at her words before the buck nodded and kissed her again.

"Disgusting!" Jack and Skye gently broke apart and rolled their eyes at each other before raising their glasses to sip at their wine. "Hey, perverts!"

Taking determined sips, they exchanged head shakes. "Ignore it," Skye repeated.

"Hey," came the angry, slightly slurred voice again. "I'm talking to YOU, stripes!"

"But we're not talking to him, handsome," Skye murmured to Jack, who laughed with her.

Though their laughter died when a firm nudge landed on his shoulder.

Jaw set and face fighting to stay blank, Jack turned to look at the mammal who interrupted them. "Can I help you?" he asked the burly ram glowering down at him.

"Yeah you can help me," he snapped, looking over at the vixen with disgust. "You can help me but not making my wife and I throw up our dinner. Have some respect! I’m sure bunny does can be an easy lay, but that doesn't give you the right to shove your tongue down the throat of a pred in good society! Have some decency."

"Sir," all three mammals looked to the bartender who was eying the ram sternly. "I'm going to have to ask you to return to your seat. Any issues with other patrons can be reported to management, who are equipped and trained to handle them. So, please, stop bothering our other guests and return to your chair."

Casting one last glare at the vixen and buck, the ram made his way back over to his wife, the small ewe haughtily adjusting her glasses and turning her nose up at them.

"I apologize for the disturbance," the bartender continued, bringing their attention back to him.

He gave them a small smile. "If there's anything more you need, please let me know."

"Thanks," Skye leaned forward to read his name tag, "Joseph. I think we're okay for now. Right, Jack?"

"Here's to you, Joseph!" Jack raised his glass grinning as Skye copied him. "May the world be filled to the brim with wonderful mammals like you."

Joseph grinned and nodded before moving down the bar to continue helping his patrons.

"Sir!" The shrill voice had the couple looking over at the ewe, who shot them a venomous look while her husband stared daggers in their direction. "We would like to speak to the manager, please! NOW!"

Before Joseph could respond, a well-dressed deer buck strode up to stand next to the sheep couple.

"Hello, ma'am. My name is Derek and I'm the bar manager. What seems to be the problem."

"The problem is the lack of decency this bar seems to have," the ram began while his wife nodded in agreement. "I work hard and pull double shifts to treat my wife to a nice evening at one of the best bars and restaurants in Zootopia. And we have to spend the night with those two freaks of nature practically rutting next to us? That, DEREK, is a disgrace to this city!"

"Oh, my gods! It was one kiss," Skye interrupted, her raised voice catching their attention. Jack swiveled in his seat to face them and crossed his arms as he glared back at the sheep. Skye's paw rose to his shoulder as she drew herself up behind him. "It's not like we were ripping each other’s clothes off!"

"It was disgusting!" The ewe shot back. Even the wool piled on top her head seemed to shake with anger. "Your parents ought to be ashamed of both of you. Your relationship is everything that's wrong with this world and I live for the day when these stupid politicians wise up and finally ban you deviants from the rest of us decent mammals!"

"Oh, yeah!" scoffed Jack as he jumped from his seat and took a step towards them. "You're so decent you have to jam your nose into other mammals’ business and screech about a something you know absolutely nothing about. Yeah, you're a real hero, lady!"

Derek moved to stand between the two couples and raised he's hooves. "Please, let's calm down. I would be very upset to have to remove anyone from the hotel. So, if you'll just"

"Don't you speak to my wife like that, stripes!" The ram jumped from his spot and stepped as close to Jack as he could. "At least I found me a lady I can spend the rest of my life with. Unlike you, who's probably just satisfying some perverted kink." His beady black eyes moved from the buck's outraged face, to Skye's shocked blues. "You heard me, sweetheart! All this bunny wants from you is what's between your legs. All these bunnies are nothing but whores"

Jack had seen old nature shows and dramatizations of how prey and predator were before everyone became civil. He had always been impressed at the speed at which everyone seemed to move. Skye put them to shame. One moment, she was tense and angry on her stool behind him. The next she was leaping from her seat in a perfect pounce, landing gracefully on the other side of a very startled Derek.

The ram's eyes went wide with shock as she grabbed the closest filled glass and splashed in his face followed by a sharp, open pawed slap.

To his credit, the ram wasn't surprised for long. His eyes narrowed in rage as he drew back his hoof, only to have the vixen dodge, the ram's punch lining up beautifully with Derek's groin. The deer buck gasped in pain, Jack gave a gaff in amused disbelief, while the sheep couple gave bleats of horror.

"I think we'll be going now, Joseph," Jack said, pulling some bills from his wallet and tossing them on the bar top. Skye hurriedly rejoined him, both noticing the group of security guards headed their way. "Like, now. Keep the chaaannnggge!"

The last bit was drawn out as Skye grabbed his paw and ran towards the exit, laughing as the ewe and ram were halted from following. A pair of guards went after the bunny and fox, who ginned at each other and picked up their pace.

"Hey, Jack?" asked Skye as they ran towards the hotel lobby.

"Yeah, gorgeous?" The pair of them ducked under the outstretched hooves of a waiting giraffe, the security guard uselessly shouting at them to stop as they easily passed her.

"How much was that bottle of wine?"

The doors were in sight, blocked by a tall, burley lion scowling at them. Glancing at each other, they ran even faster towards him and lowered their heads in a charge. At the sight of the two fast approaching small mammals, the lion gave a very unlion like squeal and moved out of the way.

Still running as they burst through the double doors and hit the sidewalk, Jack laughed and shrugged. "NO CLUE!"

Their laughter was breathless as they continued to run, the guards that had originally been after them stumbling to a halt just outside the exit. A warthog doubled over and panted before looking at the hyena next to him. Both turned to glare at the embarrassed lion.

"Thanks for your help, Tom!" growled the hyena sarcastically.

"Yeah," agreed the warthog. "Your bravery knows no bounds."

Tom hung his head and shame. "Sorry…" With disappointed shakes of their heads, they looked at where their targets had vanished. After a moment, the trio turned from now bunny and fox free sidewalk, and headed back inside.

………….

Skye didn't know what had come over her. One moment, they had been running away from the Palm Hotel security guards. Now they were several blocks away and ducked into the first alley they had seen. The pair gasped for breath and laughed as they peeked around the corner, the vixen vaguely amused that Nick's trouble-making streak seemed to be genetic.

Huh, she thought as she looked at Jack with a smile. Who knew Mom passed on the hoodlum gene?

The buck was panting lightly, before he met her gaze with a grin of his own. His blue eyes were bright with amusement as he looked at her. Her heartbeat sped up as their paws reached for each other. Jack pushed her against the wall, his lips capturing hers as his paws rose to cup her face. Her arms slid around his neck easily, one leg lifting to pull him close and keep him there.

They couldn't get enough of each other. Lips parting only briefly to pull air into their lungs before they connected again. A loud growl from both their stomachs had the couple giggling into the shared space. Parting and pressing their foreheads together, they smiled and breathed each other in.

"Food?" he asked with a smile.

"Food," she agreed. Jack's paws slid down her body as he prepared to push himself away. Only to be pulled back in for another kiss. When she finally released him, Skye smiled at the dreamy expression on his face. "And afterwards, maybe I'll treat you to dessert."

Gently moving passed him, letting her paw trail down his chest, she made her way back onto the street.

"Yes, ma'am." Paw in paw, with goofy smiles on their muzzles, they carried on with their first date.

……………

Nick and Judy looked cautiously at the large cheetah collapsed on the couch. The furniture gave a small groan at his weight.

They’d had an eventful night with Ben popping in a movie that was quickly ignored in favor of new music he had put on his phone. The fox had dissolved into laughter as Judy and Ben bounced around the living room, their 'dancing' bringing tears to Nick's eyes. After a couple hours, and several s'mores and bowls of ice cream, the large cat had flopped onto the couch, panting.

"Whew!" he gasped, closing his eyes as he tilted his head back, tongue lolling out of his muzzle. "Give me a minute, guys. Just gotta catch my breath!"

Judy watched his breath even out before a loud snore cut through the silence. With snorts of laughter, the teens looked at each other.

"And he's out like a light," Nick murmured, creeping from his place on the floor to stand next to the doe. "Very clever, Carrots. Sugar him up and let him crash. So diabolical! I mean, what would Jack think if he found out?"

He grinned at her when she gave him a hip bump. "Easy there, Slick. I go down, I'm taking you with me."

"There's a threat." His smile softened when he looked over her. "So… what now?"

"I want to show you something."

Perplexed, he watched as she made her way to the door. Following her as it was pulled open, both teens peeped downstairs. The Perk was still open, though most of its patrons were calling it a night. Turning away from the hum of the mammals closing up shop, Judy shot him a grin and crept towards the second set of stairs leading to the roof.

"C'mon," she whispered as she moved up the stairs.

Bemused, Nick closed the door quietly and followed. The bunny paused at the roof door and grinned at him.

"Ready?" she asked, her grin growing wider as he enthusiastically nodded his head. "Okay… Voila!"

She pushed the door open and stood to the side. Nick's eyes widened at the sight that greeted him. An obstacle course stood in front of them, an intense combination of monkeybars, balance beams, rope ladders, and agility tires. It was an impressive set up. One that had the todd asking a very important question.

"How the hell did I beat you?" His eyes were narrowed in confusion as he turned them to her.

With a sigh, Judy gave her head a shake. "I ask myself that question every day. Wanna go for a round?"

"Get ready to lose again," he shot back, racing her towards it.

Nick was the first one on the rope ladder, giving a loud laugh as he landed on it, only to have it cut short by a small body tackling him.

"Hey!" he shouted as Judy climbed up his back and stepped on his head. She pulled herself up onto the monkeybars. "That's cheating!"

But Judy just laughed from where she stood. "You know there's no shame in calling it quits! I thought you foxes would be good at this."

"Watch it up there little bunny!" came his response, giving her a mock frown. "Keep talking like that I'll have to gobble you up."

"You'd have to catch me first, Slick." And without another word, she moved further through the obstacle course. Nick was right behind her, leaping from bar to bar and climbing up and down ropes. He was always just a claw's length behind of her, something she took great pride in. But like he anticipated, she paused just a bit too long to gloat.

"Gotcha!" The todd tackled her to the ground, earning a loud groan from her followed by laughter.

"Get off me, you dumb fox," she exclaimed through her giggles. "You weigh a thousand pounds!"

"Ha ha ha! Knock me off if you can, Fluff!" Nick grinned down at her as his fingers dug into her sides, making her laugh harder.

"Yoyo you're the worst!" Judy squirmed under him, her paws on his shoulders, trying to wiggle away.

"Oh! You don't mean that."

Nick laughed and eased up on his tickling. Judy's laughter died down in equal measure though her smile remained. Her paws were still on his shoulders and small body tucked under him. Nick's paws stayed still on her side, his thumbs resting lightly on her belly. Both teens smiled into each others eyes their muzzles moving closer, eyes falling shut when they felt their lips brush together

"Oh, my gods!"

The loud, panting exclamation startled them out of their trace, both their eyes going to the roof doorway. Benji leaned against it, panting, obviously fighting to keep from doubling over. Nick and Judy scrambled to the feet, both blushing furiously.

"You… *gasp*… nearly… *pant*… gave me… *wheeze*… a heart attack!" Pushing away from the door frame, he staggered over to where they now stood. "Don't ever do that again! Jack will kill me if he knows you two snuck off."

"Sorry, Ben," they muttered together, eyes cast to the floor. Benji finally caught his breath enough to smile happily at them.

"Oooooooohhhhhh!" he squealed, paws coming up to cover his smile. Suddenly snatching them both up in a hug, he gave a little wiggle of joy. "I just can't stay angry with you two! You're both so"

"Don't say it!" Judy gasped out. Both teens were released just as suddenly as they were caught.

"Oh, alright!" Benji chirped, still beaming at them. "Let's get inside before Jack and Skye come back. And remember! Nothing happened."

"Right," agreed Nick, looking over at Judy who walked towards the roof door just in front of him. "Nothing happened."

Judy smiled over her shoulder at him, eyes filled with disappointment. "Nothing at all."

……………

The city was as dark as it could get. Mammals were fewer on the streets, shops and restaurants waved off their last patrons, and one by one, the lights from the surrounding homes flicked off. An early summer breeze swept through the silent streets, adding just the right amount of romance to the night when paired with glow of the street lights.

Skye was walking on air.

Paw in paw, they savored the feeling of closeness as they bantered easily. It was later than they expected to be out and part of her worried about any potential trouble Nick would be in. One never knew with her youngest brother. But those worries moved further and further away every time she caught Jack's eye.

“So,” began the buck, with a smile. “You always dreamed of be a GM for an independent coffee shop in Savanna Central?”

Grinning, Skye shrugged. “I actually never had a dream for what I was going to be when I grew up. I couldn’t decide.”

“Just kinda fell into the coffee shop biz, huh?”

“Something like that. It’s just always lively and changing. I like the work and the mammals I’ve met,” her eyes flicked over to him coyly, “ and work for.” Jack’s blush was as visible as his happy grin. Nudging him with her elbow, she moved closer to him as they walked. “So… What did Jack Hopps want to be when he grew up?”

“Ahhh…” The paw not holding hers reached up to scratch his neck as his blush intensified. “Well, I knew I always wanted to be a cook or baker. Something that had to do with food.”

“Buuuut…”

With a bashful shrug, he continued. “My Pop-pop used to tell us his war stories. He was part of this elite team of government agents, always running around the world doing these amazing things. He made it seem like they were spies. Pop-pop said he had code name and everything. It was all very 007.”

“I’m guessing you use to pretend to be part of the action?” They shared a laugh as he nodded.

“I had a name picked out and everything.”

Pausing her steps, Skye’s jaw dropped. “What was it?” He shook his head vigorously. “C’mon! Tell me! I’m not going to judge or laugh. I promise.”

Releasing her paw, Jack bit his lip and looked down shyly as he muttered to himself. Skye quirked her eyebrows and leaned her head in towards him. Giving him another small nudge and encouraging smile, she waited patiently for him to repeat himself.

“My code name was Jack Savage,” he said, his voice still a bit soft. Looking up at her finally, he cleared his throat and kept walking. “You’re laughing.”

“I would never,” she countered, still smiling and taking his paw again as they continued their walk. “I like it. It has a ring to it. And I think you would have been a great spy.”

“Aww, now you’re just trying to butter me up.”

“Is it working?”

“Almost too well.” They laughed again, walking closer together.

Finally, they came to the darkened door of the Perks.

"I had an amazing time, Skye," Jack began as he pulled his keys out.

“I did, too, Jack.” She watched him toy with his keys, seeming to think unlocking the door would end their night. Stepping closer, her paws slid up his chest as her muzzle dipped until her lips met his. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she vaguely heard his keys drop as he pulled her closer.

“If you’re interested,” he panted when they parted slightly for air, “I know a spot really, REALLY close we go to for a night cap.”

“Lead the way then, tiger,” she purred back before nibbling his bottom lip and wrapping her tail around his waist.

Groaning, he pulled away and stooped to grab his keys off the ground. Hurriedly unlocking the door, while Skye’s paws and lips did their best to distract him, Jack stumbled through the door and disarmed the alarm. After making sure both were reset and locked, he pulled her in for another passionate kiss before dragging her upstairs.

Their desire cooled marginally at Jack’s apartment door, remembering Nick, Judy, and Ben on the other side. Exchanging one last, heated kiss, they straightened their clothing out before Jack let them in. Apologies for being late died on their lips after seeing what they walked into.

“Oh my,” Skye murmured, her voice tinged with amusement.

Ben lay sprawled on the floor, an open magazine draped over his face barely muffling his snores. An upturned popcorn bowl lay next to him, its contents surrounding him. The coffee table was covered in empty pizza boxes and ice cream bowls, stray marshmallows and open bags of chips and pretzels. On the tv, the menu for a DVD was displayed.

Both adults turned their attention to their siblings. Nick and Judy lay asleep on the couch. The todd was sitting up against the back of it, his head resting atop of Judy’s. The little doe was snuggled against him, his tail in her arms.

“I’ll get a blanket and pillow for Nick if you get Judy,” Jack whispered after shutting off the tv then tiptoeing away to the hall closet.

The vixen stepped over Ben and around the coffee table. Judy barely stirred when Skye gently pulled her brother’s tail from the doe’s arms and scooped her from the couch. In his sleep, Nick grumbled in protest before falling over and settling back into sleep. Jack returned with the pillow and blanket, smiling and gesturing down the hallway towards Judy’s room. Turning his attention back to the sleeping todd on the couch, he carefully slid his paw under Nick’s head before settling it on the pillow.

Nuzzling into it, the todd was covered with the blanket as Skye came back from Judy’s room.

“... camping trip this weekend, Dad… tent has holes…” Jack cocked his head at Nick’s sleep talk, before turning to look over at Skye. The vixen’s eyes grew distant and sad, her body frozen in place with her arms crossed.

Concerned, Jack walked over to her and put his paws on her elbows. She smiled sadly at him, grateful he didn’t ask her what was wrong.

“He was one of Nick’s scout leaders,” she explained, letting herself be led to his bedroom. Jack let her enter first, gesturing for her to take a seat on the bed. “The day he…” She shook her head and looked down at her paws. “He was going to take the pack camping that weekend. Nick said it was the last thing Dad ever said to him. I didn’t know he still dreamed about it.”

He let her go silent, let her get lost in her thoughts, but still reached out to grasp her paw. All he wanted was to let her know he was there. Something she seemed grateful for when she looked up and smiled at him. Jack smiled back and scooted up to the head of the bed, still holding her paw.

Following after, she lay on her side facing him.

“Tell me about him?” Jack asked with a soft smile, passing his paw over her face tenderly.

“How much time you got?”

“For you, beautiful,” he murmured back, pulling her into his arms, “I have all the time in the world.”

……………

The trauma ward at Tundra General was nonstop busy. One of the weather generators had malfunctioned, causing a section in Tundra town to warm considerably. The issue was caught fairly quickly but once it was working again, the drastic change in temperature had turned the roads into sheets of black ice. Several unsuspecting cars lost control, resulting in TG radioing for any and all available paws to help out.

Vivian was on her first shift. She had set herself up in her hotel room earlier. The same hotel, in fact, that she and Matthew had stayed in for their wedding night. Mercifully not the same room, though. But it still put her into an emotional coma.

Which, given her profession, was a blessing.

Not long after Matthew's death, Vivian found she had problems helping her fellow foxes. No matter their fur color or stature, each one reminded her of him. Considering the area of TundraTown where the generator had failed was sixty percent fox, the vixen nurse needed that coma to survive the sea of red fur she now faced.

She was walking beside the stretcher carrying one such todd, eyes straight ahead as she and her fellow nurse headed towards the patient's new room with the doctor right behind them.

"This one here, nurse." The lioness doctor stepped back to let the smaller predators carry on through the door. "I'm passing his chart onto Dr. Beest. He's a better… stature for this room."

Vivian smiled at taller mammal and saluted. "I'll fill him in when he gets here, too. I'm going to get Mr. Fax settled, then I'll be right back down."

With a smile and nod, the doctor went on her way leaving the patient to Vivian and a pig sow. Carefully, both females transferred him from the stretcher to the bed. The sow was paged, leaving just Vivian to take his vitals. Pressing her stethoscope to his chest, she listened closely and frowned at the rapid heartbeat.

"Don't stress too much about that," rasped the injured todd, his swollen eyes on her and pained smile on his muzzle. "It beats that fast when there's a pretty vixen nearby."

"And don't worry about my gagging," Vivian replied with a smile of her own. "It's only because I'm lactose intolerant. So, cut back on the cheese, please."

The todd gave a pained laugh. "Ouch! And here I thought it was a car accident that made me hurt this badly." Still smiling, he closed his eyes and sighed as Vivian continued to check his vitals. "So, Nurse Wilde… any relation to Officer Matthew Wilde?"

His eyes opened to the best of their ability when he realized she’d froze. Understanding bloomed when he saw her turn away from him.

"I met him once," he continued quietly. "He was a good todd. I'm sorry for your loss."

"Thank you…" Neither spoke another word, save for Vivian explaining how the various remotes in the room worked.

Dr. Beest had just entered when Vivian was finishing up. After briefing the badger on what had been done so far with the todd, he gave her a smile and said she could head back to the trauma ward. Giving the patient a polite nod and smile, she turned to the door.

"Nurse Wilde?" The pained voice had her pausing before she turned back to the wounded todd. "If it's not too much to ask, I'd be honored to enjoy a cup of coffee with you. As a thank you for taking such good care of me. And as a bribe to hear all about the life of one of my heroes."

At a loss for words, Vivian looked at the ground briefly before raising her eyes back to him. Dr. Beest watched with amused curiosity, slinking away from the bed to be as inconspicuous as possible.

"Just focus on getting better, Romeo," she said finally, giving Mr. Fax a tired smile. "Then we can talk about getting coffee."

"Deal." He returned her smile before looking over to the badger doctor. "Well, doc, you heard the lady. Let's get me better."

Vivian left with a shake of her head. Moving through the halls of the hospital, back towards the trauma ward, her fingers twisted the warm metal of her wedding band. Exchanging bands was a more modern thing among foxes. Scent marks were more than enough for a married couple, bands were usually reserved for widows and widowers.

But the look in Matthew's eyes as she had slid his onto his paw, mere moments after he had done the same with hers, kept flashing in her mind.

It's only been three years, she thought as she rejoined the chaos. What would your kits say? What sort of wife are you to even consider having coffee with someone other than your husband?

Just…

… Stop.

………..

Morning was never a difficult thing for a Hopps bunny. Both Jack and Judy were used to being woken up well before sunrise to get some farm work in before going off to school. The buck's internal alarm clock was finely tuned to the routine, the habit having gotten worse when The Perk was first opened.

This morning, however, had him waking to the pleasant slide of a leg across his hip as a gentle paw slid down his chest. Smiling at the press of an inquisitive nose in his neck fur, he turned his head to nuzzle back. Getting up for the day was going to be very, very difficult if she kept doing that.

"Good morning," he murmured, Skye pulling back to smile into his eyes.

"Good morning." Their lips pressed together in a sleepy kiss. Skye giggled as he rolled himself on top of her, pressing kisses into her neck.

Waking up next to her was the most satisfying experience he had ever had. Even if they hadn’t gone further than just kisses and cuddles. There was clumsiness in Skye’s voice when she spoke about her father, endearing her even more to the bunny buck. Something told him she wasn’t use to talking about him, as though she had burdened herself for the sake of her family.

Propping himself over her, Jack grinned down at her before kissing her lips.

“Mmmmm…” she groaned in delight when their kiss ended. Her big blue eyes batted up at him.

“Are you always this affectionate in the morning, Agent Savage?”

Jack chuckled and kissed her again. “Only with you, gorgeous.”

“You know,” Skye began after kissing his lips again. Her paws moved to the front of his shirt, popping the buttons free. “We got a little sidetracked last night. Not exactly how I was hoping we would end the night.”

“Is that so?” Jack lifted one of his paws and moved it to her knee before sliding it down her thigh, her skirt already bunched around her waist. “And how were you hoping the night would end, Miss Wilde?”

“Well, something like thi-”

A loud knock broke their spell, both growling at the interruption. The door swung open, revealing Nick with a paw clamped over his eyes.

“Are you two dressed?” he asked, ears flattened on his head.

With sighs, Jack pushed himself off Skye as they begrudgingly straightened out their clothing.

“Yes, Nick, we’re dressed.” Skye rolled her eyes as Nick peeked through his fingers and gave a dramatized sigh of relief.

“Good! Judy’s making pancakes and Jon wants to know if you two are still alive.”

“What time is it?” Jack asked as he reached for his phone. Sometime in the night, it worked its way out of his jean pocket. Which explained the knot in his thigh from where it had been jabbing him.

“It’s eight thirty,” answered Nick, smirking as the pair of them sprang out of bed in alarm.

“We’re late!” They exclaimed at the same time.

“This is also not the morning I had in mind!” Jack said, Skye laughing in agreement.

Her eyes landed on her brother who laughed at them before heading back to the kitchen.

“I’m going to take Nick back to my apartment so we can change,” she planned, after making sure she had gathered all of her things. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Sure you don’t wanna play hooky?” They grinned at each other as they moved to the bedroom door. Skye’s paw reached out and grabbed him, pressing him to the door frame and kissing him passionately.

“This is a ‘To Be Continued’, Agent Savage.” Pressing another kiss to his lips, she smiled alluringly at him before heading to the kitchen.

“Yes, ma’am,” came his dazed response, a big grin plastered on his face.

…………..

The day was actually fairly quiet. After the initial morning rush, everyone fell into their usual workday routine. Nick dutifully kept up with the pile of dishes, Judy rushed around the lobby making sure tables and floors were clean. Skye and Sandra were checking inventory while Kari and Gideon were setting up the dessert counter.

"Ok," muttered Jack, oblivious to the amused smile Skye gave him. "I have the cookie ingredients all set up for Gid to start on, Jon is working on lemon curd for the tarts, and we need to taste test the berry compote. And that sandwich shop ordered seven loaves of sourdough, so I have to check the starter. Busy, busy day…"

Muttering and running through his mental checklist of duties, Jack walked to the order board and pulled a few down. Sorting through them, he wandered into the front and stood where Gid and Kari were finishing up.

"I hope you like cookies, Gideon. We have to make enough for us and at least five orders so far." The buck grinned at the young fox's excited expression.

"I can't wait!" The young exclaimed. Kari laughed at his enthusiasm, shaking her head as he accepted the orders Jack offered him and rushing back to the kitchen to wash up. Jack smiled after him.

"Gotta love his spirit," the buck said happily. Exchanging a look with Kari, he pulled a to-do list from his apron pocket. "Since it's slow, I want you to do a walkthrough of the lobby. Nick and Judy finished detailing the kitchen a lot sooner than I thought they would. This should keep them occupied for at least a day or two"

The sound of the bells had both of them looking towards the door.

"Welcome to the Perk," greeted Kari, taking her place behind the register and smiling. "How can I help you?"

Jack felt his stomach drop. Teeth clenched, he gulped audibly and turned to look through the order window at Skye. They exchanged glances before turning their attention back to the ewe in front of the register.

"Well, well, well," the short, familiar female began, her green eyes filled with vindictive amusement. A hoof reached up to adjust her glasses as she smirked at the buck. "Isn't this a coincidence."

"I don't suppose you're here for one of our famous lattes and a muffin, are you?" Jack gave her smile that was only slightly nervous.

With a small laugh, the ewe from the bar shook her head. "Even better…" Her other paw pulled up a rolling briefcase. Bending to unzip one of its pockets, a metal clip board was pulled out and pen clicked open. Straightened up, she smiled wickedly again and adjusted her badge.

"Health inspection."

#wildehopps #nick wilde #judy hopps #jack savage #skyezootopia #savageskye #au-alternativemeeting coffeeshop

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ivedonestranger · 5 years

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Chapters: 2/? Fandom: Teen Titans (Animated Series) Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Dick Grayson/Raven Characters: Raven (DCU), Robin (DCU), Victor Stone, Garfield Logan, Koriand'r (DCU) Additional Tags: Action/Adventure, Magic, robrae - Freeform, Angst, Humor Series: Part 2 of Candy Series Summary:

Who would have thought a choice could lead to so much pain?

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

FF.net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13299019/2/Raven-s-Wish

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19022185/chapters/46219351

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The evening was warm but not in an uncomfortable sense. It was just a few notches below muggy, which felt comfortable with just the right amount of breeze. The raging heat of summer would descend on Jump City shortly, but for now, Raven was enjoying it. It was better than the tower right now. She had another minor bout of whatever was plaguing her and Robin was being overprotective. Raven grimaced at the memory of them raising their voices over the disagreement of her going out on patrol. She, of course, won the argument but her love was not happy.

Since the level of crime from super villains had dropped considerably with interest moving to other portions of the country, the Titans had gone from double patrols to single patrols allowing for a mixture of being approachable by the citizens and also for more coverage. Back at base, Cyborg was on camera duty but silent in her ear.

Raven floated down the dark streets wrapped in the shadows of her cloak with the orange street lights catching the gem on her forehead once in a while. All that was left on the street were the young men and women on dates hurrying their way home and the criminal nightlife coming to the surface. Of course, the low criminal lives were staying in the shadow. She had already seen a few people wearing gang colors see her floating down the sidewalk, turn pale, and disappear quickly back into the alleys.

The story of what she had done to Doctor Light many years ago had permeated through Jump City, which made ordinary people unsure about her and the non-super powered criminals scared witless. Even now she could sense the fear from a few of the guys standing on street corners trying not to look like the pimps they were. T street was the home of much of the city's scum preying on the poor who could not move to better places. Their very own Gotham Wards. This is where she had decided to patrol.

“Almost like you’re looking for a fight,” Cyborg had commented when she handed in her itinerary for patrol.

“They deserve protection like anyone else in Jump City,” Raven answered evenly as she opened a portal to make her way to the city.

“Sure it is,” he waved her off as he had started the cameras. “just try not to beat them too senseless.”

One rather horribly dressed man with white, sallow skin had not seen her coming down the street and was yanking a scantily clad girl with too much makeup around. Raven narrowed her eyes as the other pimps were smart enough to clear the road. She alighted right beside him.

“Listen here, you dumb whore, when I tell you to----” he noted that the girl’s eyes had gone wide and whatever color that had been in her face was now gone. He turned to see the cloak there, and his face broke into a sneer.

“What do you fucking want?” he growled at her, shoving the woman aside.

A smirk crossed Raven’s face, hidden in the shadows of her cloak. This moron had no clue who she was. Raven turned to the girl who had taken three steps away from them.

“Go home,” her voice came out laced with magic and power. The girl did not even argue or look back at the man who tried to stop her. She had already been fleeing down the road.

"Who the hell do you think you are messin' with my product," he growled shoving at her. Raven let him touch her cloak and gave to the push. It would have been so easy to snap that arm.

“Is that how you treat women?” Raven asked with a growl letting the anger she had been keeping down come to the surface.

"I can treat them any way I want to ‘cause that's how it works out here," he said again. His tone had changed, which meant he noted her voice was that of a woman.

'Go ahead, get cocky,' Raven thought to herself darkly. 'Give me another reason to beat you to a pulp.'

“What are you doing out here so late, sweetie?” he said reaching out to tug down her hood but Raven moved her head slightly, making him miss. “You looking for a new pimp to help you get some cash?”

“Lassiter!” screamed a male voice from down the street. “What the hell are you doing?”

Lassiter turned to gesture to the mystic Titan who still had not moved.

“Got a new bitch here thinking she can tell me what to do.”

“You FUCKING moron!” the man yelled back. “That’s Raven!”

“Raven?” Lassiter asked with a shrug. “Who cares what her name is?”

“Raven of the Titans you ass-hat. Run before she rips your arms off!”

Lassiter's head snapped back at the name of her team, and she could see the realization sinking in of the situation he was actually in. He moved, but only a step when Raven unleashed her soul self, the black tendrils exploding out from under her cloak tangling him up and slamming him on the ground. It picked him up again and slammed him against the alley wall before letting him fall to the ground.

“I have a particularly nasty dislike for people in your line of work,” Raven seethed.

The pimp crawled back through the alley desperately trying to put distance between himself and the dark sorceress that was hovering closer, her white eyes burning brilliantly in the blackness of her hood.

“Pppp..p…...ppleaseee,” he whined.

"You've got a choice," Raven growled at him. "You walk right now to the JCPD and confess your sins to them, or I shall drag you to the pits of hell where you can meet true monsters."

“I’ll do anything!” he pleaded sense the oozing presence of her demon half.

“You better because I know what you smell like. I’ll find you if you fail your end of the bargain.”

Without any other comment, the man went sprinting down the alley vanishing. She set herself back down and allowed the power around her to dissipate. She felt in a better mood and doubted the criminal would actually turn himself in.

Looking about, she found that she had gone quite a distance down the alley and into a little culdesac of doors and backways, a hidden neighborhood made up of the buildings around. Not usually a safe place for an average person unless you knew what you were doing. She could see the closed stands and the signs that life did live here away from the bustle of the main streets. A few homeless shacks had sprung up, and there was a burning barrel deeper in the catacombs of alleyways.

“That was quite an amazing display of control,” a soft voice spoke to her from her right.

Raven's head snapped around to see a decently dressed man in a gray button-up, brown slacks and a teacup with saucer in his hands. She detected the scent of a strong cinnamon tea coming from his cup. He was sitting on the back steps, the light shining out from his home illuminating the darkness. Raven could make out the tight dark curls of his head and distinctly middle eastern voice.

“That anger though, it must get the better of you sometimes," he continued taking a sip and seemingly ignoring the fact that a sorceress was standing in front of him.

A pang of irritation shot through her. This was the first time that anyone normal human had not even flinched or showed no emotion of the fact of what she was and what she was capable of doing.

“Tea?” he offered. “Might want to talk about that anger?”

Raven gave a growl in response and floated on and up, leaving the man where he sat. She glanced down and found that he had not even bothered to look up and watch her go. He had simply gone back to his tea and the little book that sat on his lap.

Landing on the 9 story building and finally being out of the stench of the alley, she basked in the moonlight and breeze that blew over the rooftop. Of course, there were taller buildings, but they formed a tunnel allowing the breeze to cleanse her pallet. Who the hell was he? Why did his presence throw her off so much?

She wanted to resist the urge to peer over and look again. Raven did not want to look like she was the one bitten by curiosity. It was the tinkling laugh that reached her ears. So familiar that it brought a light blush to her cheeks. Floating over to the edge, Raven leaned over just enough to see down and saw her.

Her pink hair was done up like two horns, the purple dress, the black choker around the lovely gray throat. How could she ever miss the familiar profile of Jinx?

"Miss Jinx," the man said, standing and putting the book in his pocket. "Hopefully you did not come to any harm?"

"Sorry I'm late, Mister al-Salehi," she said, extending her hand. He took it, gave it a shake, and then kissed the top of it. Raven felt a flare of jealousy but repressed it. She had no room to go down any of the feelings she had for Jinx. Robin, of course, knew all about it as they sat down in their first week and talked extensively of the pinkette and Raven's relationship with her. Robin was such a wonderful man who listened with no judgment. He knew she was bisexual and had feelings for the hex witch at one point. Robin was her love now, but sometimes the strange ache would sneak up when she wasn't paying attention.

“Please come in, my dear, we have a lot to cover,”

Criminal mischief. Jinx was back in town and planning illegal activities.

“Raven to Cyborg,”

"Wha…! Oh! Raven. What's up?" Cyborg came back, confused.

Raven narrowed her eyes though he was not there to see it. “You were asleep, weren’t you?”

“No comment. What’s up, girl?”

“Jinx.”

“What about her?”

“She’s back in Jump City. I stumbled on to a criminal meet up with someone in an alley.”

"Tracking your location…. You're near Seven Devils Alley. Not a great place to be Raven. Got a lot of magic users who are known to live there."

“It’s quiet at the moment. If she’s in town, Her team has got to be here. HIVE might be planning something here.”

Cyborg hesitated, and Raven huffed with impatience.

“What?”

“Didn’t she like...go straight or mercenary or something?”

"Mercenaries are criminals too, Cyborg," Raven growled.

“So, what’s the plan then?”

"I can't get in right now without a plan, I think we need to get this place set up for stakeout. We might be able to stop them before it starts."

With that, she flew up into the night sky and made her way back to her patrol route, trying not to think of the blueberry scent that haunted her dreams.

#teen titans jinx #teen titans raven #teen titans #teen titans robin #robin #raven #jinx #fanficiont #fanfic #ao3 #ao3fic #ivedonestranger fanfic

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rosethornewrites · 2 years

Text

Monday T & G reading

The usual

Finished

Tumblr:

Nevernight!wwx part 3, by @drwcn

Teen:

Baby? What baby?, by imakirae

Wei Ying is pregnant.

happier than ever, by Edith343redwood

After Wei Wuxian get into an accident, the two brothers live together Jiang Cheng can't stop himself from downing one too many bottles at a party...and that repeats over and over again, pulling Wei Wuxian's half-wasted body into it- until he's had enough.

Grannies Are To Be Feared, by Eleanor_Fenyx

For the MXTX Reverse Trope Fest prompt: Accidental elderly acquisition

“A-Cheng,” Granny Yu starts, perfectly poised and ready to strike, her hands laid gracefully on the table with her many rings glinting in the light. “You shouldn’t worry your mother so. She’s so certain you’ll never be married.” Granny Wen tuts in sympathy and sips at her water with enough poise to make Jiang Cheng feel gangly and uncouth in comparison.

“Ah..” he starts with a sideways glance at Wen Qing, who’s too busy looking beautiful and perfect and utterly beyond reproach to help him out here. “We haven’t really talked about-”

“Nonsense,” Granny Wen says with a wave of one hand. “If you two are so willing to go around hiding a committed relationship from all your friends and family then it must be serious enough to consider such things. You would not go to such great lengths to hide it if you didn’t care for each other and feared others trying to tell you to separate.”

Lan Xichen's Romance Novel Brainrot, by Eleanor_Fenyx

For the MXTX Reverse Trope Fest prompt: There were only two beds

“Yeah, got here just in time I guess,” Jiang Cheng sighs. "Got the last room in the place.”

“I will text Wangji to inform him he and Wei Wuxian will need to find other accommodation,” Lan Xichen replies on autopilot as his romance-novel-plotline-laden brain pings ‘last room’ and immediately pads it out with ‘one bed’ or maybe even ‘it’s the honeymoon suite, our deepest apologies for any discomfort’. It’s a good thing Jiang Cheng isn’t watching him and is in fact heading for the elevators and therefore can’t see the downright dreamy look in Lan Xichen’s eyes as he trails along behind the other man.

take me in your arms and make me, by yesmissjane (12 chapters)

After being kicked out by the Jiangs, WWX is just trying to fly low, make rent and get by. Then he bowls over single dad!LWJ and things get complicated fast.

5+1 fateful meetings, with just a dash of angst for flavour, bc WangXian.

Hoards and treasures, by apathyinreverie (3 chapters)

If it hadn’t been for Wangji’s definite preoccupation with that one particular guest disciple, Xichen might never have noticed the… discrepancies.

General:

My younger brother's child, by galenquerenzi

This is a series of short stories that explores Lan WangJi as a parent to Lan SiZhui.

with you, by silverclaw

“What is going on with y—“

Time freezes as soon as Wei Ying enters the prince’s quarters. It feels as though someone has taken a hammer to his ribs.

Lan Zhan turns away, but it’s too late and the bruise on his cheek is too glaring to be missed.

Wei Ying takes a hold of his chin, fingers trembling with repressed anger yet gentle on Lan Zhan’s skin. “Who did this?” he asks.

Ready for love, by LilacNeko

Lan Wangji wants the best for Wei Ying, wants him to be happy and free as he always wanted to be... but he also knows he can't lose him again.

Times of happiness fill the pockets of our hearts, by Must_have_been_the_wind

Gusu Weekly is a respected newspaper, it’s factual and a fair price. Never once has there been a scandal around it, this peace gets shattered when a certain reader from Yunmeng decides to write in Hanguang-Jun's column.

Or:

5 times WWX writes in to argue with a columnist and 1 time he doesn’t

A-Yuan (and Wei Ying)'s first day of school, by beaiswriting

"Do you know how I met your baba?"

A-Yuan's eyes sparkled and his little hands relaxed. "Mmm no, how?"

"We were friends at school when we were young." Wei Wuxian said with a sweet feeling in his chest.

A-Yuan smiled shyly. "Will I... will I be able to find someone like baba at school?"

Unfinished

Teen:

just to sleep at night, by harukatenoh

Qingheng-jun dies first. This has made a lot of people very happy and is widely regarded as a great occurence.

(Or: a look into a kinder lifetime.)

hope, everlasting, by bluecottontail (VOlympianlove), VOlympianlove

Lan Xichen leaves behind his title and his guan. He leaves behind Shuoyue and Liebing, and walks down the mountain pass at midnight, breaking the Lan precepts. He carries his ribbon in his sleeve, a money bag and nothing more. The great Zewu Jun vanishes into the mists of Caiyi town one night and is never seen again.

General:

The Trouble With Politics: a Treatise on Jiang Sect Deputies Gone Rogue by Sect Leader Wei Wuxian, by stiltonbasket

Jin Zixuan dies. A siege is called at the Nightless City. A bodyguard flees from the Jinlintai, and journeys to the Burial Mounds to fulfill a life debt to the Ghost General.

Lan Wangji just wants to woo Wei Wuxian in peace, and figure out if Jiang-zongzhu's ex-deputy will ever stop trying to chaperone them.

(Or, the one where Yu Zhenhong stands by his da-shixiong, and becomes the head disciple of the rising Yiling Wei sect.)

#the untamed #untamed fanfiction #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #chen qing ling #cql

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loudhaoleinatie · 7 years

Text

5 Headcanons

Okay, so someone recently challenged me to write down 5 headcanons for Danny, and I can’t for the life of me find or remember who it was... I’m guessing either @hoouna @konokalakaua50 or @itsxharris?

Either way, if you guys haven’t done it then I’m challenging you next, lol!

Here are my five headcanons for my Danny. Some are a little dark, but he’s already been through the shitter in canon so why not add some more angst to the pile?

1) The reason he was kicked out of Scouts

Danny was 14 when he was kicked out of Scouts, and the story as far as most people are concerned is that he got into a fight on a camping trip and was kicked out for unacceptable behaviour.

That is only partly true - it wasn't a fight, but he was kicked out under the ‘unacceptable behaviour’ label; the reason it was unacceptable, however, was down to the Scouts being a Christian-based organisation at the time.

Danny once mentioned to Grace that a friend of his in Scouts had snuck a whole rack of ribs out on a camping trip, and that kid was Joey Benaducci. He was more than a friend, though; when Joey had moved over to Jersey from New York and into Danny's class at school the native blonde had taken him under his wing, and he and Danny had become really close due to their families both having Italian roots.

They spent a tonne of time together, became almost inseparable, Joey joined Danny's Scout group, and by the point the camping trip came around they were extremely close. When Joey managed to conceal a rack of the juiciest ribs he could find from his dad's butcher shop in his bag, presenting it to Danny and their other friends in their tent, Danny had felt like he could kiss the boy.

So he did. Later that night after they'd all roasted and devoured the ribs between the five of them and the others had gone to sleep, Danny had stayed up with Joey by the fire and thanked him for the feast. And then he'd kissed him, and Joey had kissed back, and neither of them saw a damn thing wrong with that… unfortunately the Scout leader who had chosen that moment to come and check on their group caught them did, and he lost his shit.

The leader dragged them back to the main camping ground by their shirt collars, called their parents to come and pick them up, and the two of them were out on their ears so fast their heads were spinning.

Ma Williams ripped the Scout organisation a new asshole, of course - she and the whole family believed unerringly that love is love, and it didn't matter to them if their Danny was gay or straight or whatever - but homosexual behaviour was apparently against the rules. Not that Danny had wanted to go back after all that, but it was the principle of the matter.

Joey’s parents were not so open-minded. They barred the boys from seeing one another, and soon moved to another district of New Jersey and Joey had to go to a new school. Danny never did see much of him after that, and to this day he sometimes wonders what his friend is up to and how he's doing, and if he was ever accepted by his family.

He was Danny's first kiss, after all.

2) Boxing, and why Danny decided to become a cop

In his later teen years, Danny started hanging out with the wrong crowd and getting into trouble. It was kind of typical adolescent bad behaviour like underage drinking and getting into fights, but it was awkwardly coupled with Danny's anxiety and anger issues which stemmed from his sexuality not being widely accepted - he was bisexual, and in 1990s New Jersey if you weren't straight you may as well be dead, so he mostly had to hide who he really was.

His Ma and Pa figured the best way to keep him off the streets and out of trouble was to re-direct his anger, so they signed Danny up for boxing lessons at Vic’s Gym down the street from their home. Danny hated it at first, but soon found that getting to vent his frustration on the punching bags there really helped, and the owner was very good at encouraging the young blonde, telling him he had great potential though he was rough around the edges.

With not much cash to his name, Danny started to help out around the gym in exchange for lessons in form and technique from Vic, and got to know the man a bit better. It turned out he was a retired cop, and he inspired Danny with his tales from his law enforcement days of fighting crime and taking down bad guys. He taught Danny that his anger and fears could be focused and transformed into something a lot more useful: determination and resolve. He also recognised and encouraged Danny’s ability to read others and extrapolate the facts of a situation, and his seemingly inbuilt need to obtain justice for those in need of it.

After six months of tutoring from Vic, Danny had decided that he was signing himself up for the New Jersey police academy the first chance he got. His grades at school improved, especially in the subjects the academy would require, and he stopped hanging out with the guys who had been dragging him down.

Vic was a constant inspiration to Danny, and even showed up the day his favourite boxer graduated from the academy with honours to wish him good luck for the future, presenting Danny with his old decommissioned service weapon. Danny still has the gift in a box in his closet, and brings it out whenever he's feeling depressed so that he can hear Vic’s words of wisdom a little more clearly.

He misses the old man and cried for weeks after his funeral, but Danny is determined to go out the same way Vic did - not in some blaze of glory in the line of duty - he sees no real honour in that - but peacefully, retired, and as an old man surrounded by family who loved him.

3) Danny's first time with a guy was almost his last

When Danny lost his virginity to another boy, it was one of the worst experiences of his life. He had been seeing one of the guys from the football team on the down low, both of them sneaking around because homosexuality was enough to get the crap beaten out of you at the very least when they were growing up. Mostly they had just made out, groped and used their hands on each other, but one night they ended up taking things further and it got out of hand.

Rich was a lot more closeted and repressed than Danny, more ashamed of his sexuality, and while Danny used boxing to vent, Rich used football to battle his own demons. Trouble was, it wasn't enough.

The team had just lost to their biggest rivals, and Rich was already going through personal shit at home so he spent a lot of his time angry and on edge and the defeat hadn't helped. After the big game, he had decided to drown his sorrows in some stolen whisky and Danny, dragging the blonde off to the empty locker rooms after everyone else had gone home.

Danny was young, naive and too blinded by what he thought was love to realise that he should have been treated better, and by the time he had the courage to tell Rich he was being too rough it was too late. The other boy was bigger and stronger, and his inebriated state meant he didn't see anything wrong with overpowering his boyfriend and taking his frustrations out through sex - after all, this was what they had been building towards, right?

The whole event for Danny was painful and scary - he wasn't prepped properly, his pleas for Rich to be gentle were ignored, and the other boy didn't stop or slow down until he had gotten what he wanted. They hadn't even used protection, and Rich had refused to look Danny in the eyes either during or afterward. They had broken up the next day, and Danny had been left heartbroken and confused, vowing to never be with another guy if gay sex was such an uncomfortable experience.

It wasn't until a lot later and Danny was in college and talking to a female friend that he really came to terms with the implications of what had happened. He'd blamed himself, figuring maybe he'd led Rich on and hadn't had the right to change his mind when things hadn't gone the way he'd hoped, but looking back on it then he could understand that he'd had every right to withdraw consent and have that decision respected. It had been rape, and he hadn't realised that at the time because rape was something that didn't happen to guys… or at least that was how society saw things.

His second time with a guy was about a year after he'd dealt with the impact of his realisation, and it was wonderful and perfect and respectful, and with someone he loved; everything that his first time should have been.

From that point on, whenever Danny tops he always makes sure his partner is happy and comfortable, whether male or female. He is respectful at all times, listens carefully, and doesn't rush the prep. He much prefers true intimacy and rarely messes around with one night stands or strangers, but when he does he is still a perfect gentleman. He enjoys rough sex now, but it has to be fully consensual and on equal terms with a partner he trusts.

It was a horrible experience, but Danny has always believed that it's the reason he is who he is today, and has made him a better person and a better lover.

4) His anxiety is worse than he lets on, but it's better than it used to be

Danny doesn't really talk to the team much about his anxiety. He's told Steve a few things about the ways in which his mind works sometimes - that when a good thing comes along Danny can't help but almost immediately see all the ways it could end, or how when a situation goes awry the alternatives of what he could have done differently cycle endlessly through his brain until he feels exhausted - but he generally doesn't want to burden his friends with feeling sorry for him.

He worries about things pretty much twenty-four/seven, second-guesses himself constantly, and it's all stuff that is completely out of his control more often than not which tends to make it worse.

All this worry usually triggers his insomnia, and getting by on only a few hours of restless sleep a night has kind of become Danny's life now. The team tease him for his coffee and pastry intake, telling him it's unhealthy, and he takes the jibes and gives as good as he gets… but the caffeine and sugar are probably the only things that keep him a functioning member of society on those bad days.

It used to be the case that Danny was known for being prickly, sarcastic, short-tempered and grouchy, but that was only one side of his natural personality. His friends thought he was acting out of character on the days when he was actually happy, when he laughed and joked openly with them, when he was being soft and smiley and tactile, but those were really the days when he'd managed to get a decent night's sleep.

He's better now he's used to being in Hawaii, and knowing his ohana surrounds him and will be there for him or his kids when they need them lessens the burden and his anxiety hugely, but he does still have the odd day, week or month when his insomnia attacks again and logic can't save the day. These tend to be after the big, harrowing cases, the ones that involve kids, and around dates that bring back bad memories like the anniversary of his marriage to Rachel or Matty’s death.

The times when it's about Matty though, Danny prefers the insomnia - when he falls asleep, his nightmares about seeing his brother’s body and killing Reyes are way too vivid and real for him to handle, and it's better not to sleep at all than to wake screaming and clawing at the sheets.

However on those mornings, when the alarm goes off and he's already awake and waiting for it, it can actually bring a smile to his face knowing that when he turns up at the office with dark circles under his eyes, laden with coffee and donuts and other things to keep him going, that his team will emerge and gently tease him while stealing some like they always do. It's actually comforting to know that routine will never change, that it's a reliable and non-intrusive link back to reality that his ohana will always provide.

They know why, these days, and they understand what he needs from them. So Steve will give him that look that says he knows Danny didn't sleep well and to take it easy, and Kono will give him that squeeze to his shoulder or side that says ‘come talk to me when you feel up to it, bruh’, and Danny will know that things might be shit, but they aren't half as shit as they used to be. And that's good.

5) Danny talks with his hands - literally

Danny is actually pretty well-versed in sign language, though he hasn't had to use it for a case yet in Hawaii. He learned it because of a deaf victim he dealt with when he was just a few months into his job as a beat cop.

She'd been assaulted and had her bag stolen by some douchebag, but was finding it hard to communicate with the cops due to none of them knowing ASL. She had been deaf since birth and so virtually unable to speak, and it seemed like none of the guys in Danny's precinct had the patience to try and help her, seeing her as a nuisance. They had no resident interpreter at the time either, and the nearest one was hours away.

Once they took the woman back to the NJPD the process ran pretty smoothly as they were able to get her on a computer, and Danny spent three hours with her, staying past the end of his shift, just to make sure all the paperwork was filled out correctly. But he'd always regretted the amount of time she had spent frustrated and upset, unable to communicate properly with anyone, whilst they had been at the scene - it was wasted time but, more importantly, more stressful for the victim than it ever needed to be.

He'd looked up the nearest sign language classes and attended them religiously, ensuring he know the basics as well as some of the more advanced stuff relevant to his job as a cop. The NJPD asked him to act as interpreter a few times between then and when he left for Hawaii, and he was glad to help out and put his skills with language to good use.

When Grace's Aloha Girls’ troop leader discovered his hidden talent, she even asked him to give the girls a basic lesson with Grace - whom he had already taught some to - as his lovely assistant. He was so proud watching her teach the other girls some of the signs, but when she said she was proud of him (in sign, of course) his heart just about dissolved in his chest.

Danny has always been pretty skilled with languages and accents, and Ma Williams once said that he loved to talk so much that he was obviously afraid he might run out of words so he just went and learned some more to keep himself going. He knows a decent chunk of Russian from the undercover mob case he worked back in Jersey - much more than he let on to Steve at the Embassy that time - and also a few Spanish phrases, and some Italian due to his Nonna and the family's heritage. He doesn't tend to mention it to people though, playing down his language skills as he gets a bit embarrassed sometimes… plus it's sometimes nice to have the advantage and let people underestimate him.

#five headcanons #mun speaks #about Danny #headcanon #character bio #meme #headcanon challenge

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