#but in this lot? on his turf? I am but a rabbit | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

votederpycausemufins · 3 years

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another chapter of the ‘we summoned Tommy and now we found out Grian’s family” fic. this chapter is very long.

also warning, there are some references to sui//cide, but it’s never directly mentioned by name.

Phil tried to ignore the way his chest hurt at the name that had been said. Sure, biologically Grian was his son, but it had been years since they had seen each other, and he had grown up with different people who became a new family for him. And he understood that, but it still hurt that the avian thought of someone else as his dad.

“Er, not quite.”

“Oh, okay,” Grian spoke, matter of factly. The two of them stayed quiet for a few moments before he spoke again. “You found me ‘gain.”

“That I did.”

“You didn’t stop lookin’”

“Nope.” Phil replied, though he knew it was a lie. Of course he always wanted to find his son again, but he had given up actually looking a number of years ago. It wasn’t worth focusing on one child and ignoring the others. But he supposed that’s sort of what happened anyway with him and Tommy.

“That’s what I thought. It kept me goin’ on th’ really bad days.”

“Am I allowed to know what those bad days were?”

Grian was silent before shaking his head. “Hurts too much…”

“That’s alright mate. How about you talk about some other stuff.”

And so Grian did. Talking with Phil about some of the things he had done over the years. Eventually, Stress arrived and helped out, getting the bots up there with Grian and Phil. At that point the stories stopped and Grian focused on his kids, who were glad for all the attention. Mumbo returned with Tommy shortly, also bringing Tubbo along, and soon Grian’s nest was filled, making him quite happy.

“He’s looking better.”

“Yeah, I think it was your admin who gave me the gist of things. He was tired and using his Watcher stuff which made him loopy.”

“Yeah, that would do it.” Mumbo shook his head.

“Hey, you know what that means?” Tommy asked, smirking and focusing his gaze on the bots. Jrumbot smiled and pulled out some pumpkin seeds, which Grian quickly pounced on and started eating. “That part of the bird stuff is great.”

“And what part isn’t so great?” Philza asked, though for a moment he regretted it, thinking the teen wouldn’t respond and just stay quiet or get angry.

But instead he just crossed his arms and gave an over-exaggerated pouting face. “When he gets all mother hen or whatever and is super overbearing. The other shit is fine.”

“Tommy!” Mumbo huffed but the teen just waved him off.

“Oh come on, they’ve heard me say it loads of times. Jrum won’t risk saying anything cause you’ll just take some of his diamonds away.”

“Yeah! I won’t say stuff like that!” Jrum agreed, before suddenly Phil jumped and looked to see a few of his remaining feathers now in the small robot’s hands. “How much would I get for these Tommy?”

“I’m sure if you meet the right people you can get plenty for those. He’s like, trillions of years old, and not many people have them.”

“I’m not that old!” Phil complained, trying to grab the feathers back. He managed to pull one out of Jrumbot’s hand, but the rest ended up disappearing into whatever the kid had for an inventory.

“You’re right. You’re older.” Tommy taunted. “Old as shit. Dinosaurs are younger than you and they’re all dead.”

Philza glared at Tommy before his gaze fell on Grian. The other avian was still out of it, but getting better. Then he looked at Mumbo before rolling his eyes. “Alright Tommy, maybe so. But it means I’ve got more experience.”

Tommy paused, not used to the hardcore player agreeing with him about something like this. He looked over at the bots, who shrugged. It wasn’t like they had grown up with him. “Says the guy who let two mobs get the best of him.”

“Hey that was one time! And that was also years ago!”

“I’m gonna ‘gree, that’s pretty lame.” Grian spoke up, giggling a bit still. “I’m still alive af’er uhhh…” He started counting on his fingers. “I dunno! Lotta years with Sam!”

Mumbo, Tommy and the bots immediately froze up, looking between each other nervously. Tommy moved a little closer to Grian to make sure he had the avian’s attention. “Hey G? You sure that’s okay to talk about? I know normally you-”

“Pfft, it’s fine! Not like I died! ‘Stead I just hurt a lot, killed some pipul, selled some drugs, stuff like that!” Grian looked over to Philza, who was starting to regret staying around when everyone else arrived. “Ya know, almost didn’ make it. But I didn’ wanna disappoint you by giving up. Mmm… plus Gareth freaked me out too much ‘n I didn’ wanna be like him.”

“Okay Grian! I think you should really get to sleep now! We can talk about this more later! But don’t you want to uh…” Mumbo trailed off.

“I can get the jukebox once you’ve slept!” Tommy continued for Grian who seemed to really like that idea. He finally laid down and before long he fell asleep.

It was still quiet for a bit, no one sure how to react to all of that at first. Phil and Tubbo were the quietest since they had little to no context. Because of that, they easily jumped when Tommy finally shouted and broke the silence. “Okay Mumboli, when the fuck were you going to tell me about that part of all that shit?!”

“First off, that would be something Grian would need to tell you, not me! Second off, I didn’t even know about that!” The anger on Mumbo’s face quickly turned to some sort of melancholy. “He didn’t even tell me. I mean, he had made some jokes, but I assumed that it was just from the situation. It does make sense he would think of… but…” The redstoner became quiet, his normally pale face much paler than before.

“Daddy?” Grumbot spoke up, making Mumbo look at the bots. Jrum was shaking a bit and Grum didn’t look quite so well himself. “I think Jrum and I should leave.”

“R-Right. Let me help you down.” The redstoner picked Jrum up to help him down the ladder, Grum still well enough to go down it himself. Before he left the platform though, he got Tommy’s attention and nodded towards Tubbo and Philza. “Try to fill them in. If Grian wakes up before I’m back, tell him what he did. He deserves to know.”

Tommy nodded, waiting for Mumbo to leave before saying anything. “So… Grian kinda got stuck in a fucked up place for a number of years. He’s told Mumbo a lot of stories and me some as well, but not everything of course. Basically, he had two friends. If he was me, one of them was like you Tubbo. But uh… the other guy was like Dream. Like, Dream’s an admin and all that, but this other guy was for the most part just a fucking normal guy around my age but he went off the deep end. G and the other friend escaped, but not for a long time. That place was a hardcore world, but they didn’t have potions or healing or whatever the fuck. I mean, there weren’t any mobs either, so death wasn’t at every corner. I mean I guess it was for G because the one guy was a psycho and murderer, but whatever.”

“Wait, are you telling me that this guy just lived with someone potentially worse than Dream for years?!” Tubbo asked while Philza was trying to comprehend it all.

“Uh, well they didn’t live with each other all the time, but yeah. But ‘cause it’s probably good for you guys to know, his main triggers are wearing blue as well as rabbits. If someone else is wearing blue, it’s fine, but if he’s wearing blue it freaks him out. With the rabbits thing, some of them being around are fine, but white rabbits especially freak him out ‘cause the guy was a hybrid.”

“Alright, noted.”

“One of the people most frustrated about it is Grumbot because, well you know how he just suddenly knew who you were, right Phil? They kinda first built him to help with the election here- long story, talk about it another time- and he’s able to look into a lot of stuff, but only based on political stuff. There wasn’t really anything like that with G’s first world. I mean, he gets fragments since Grian’s been a campaign manager before, but all that really comes up is empire stuff.”

“Uh, he had an empire? Was it anything like-” Tubbo timidly asked, glancing to the unconscious avian.

“Nah, basically he just built a big thing in the middle of the ocean and decided he would become the Grian Empire. The only other member was his friend- the good one- but he went off and made his own place pretty quickly. The worst he did is the TNT there was really volatile. If you so much as touched it after placing it, it would explode. He’s told the TNT shop story a number of times where he built the shop out of it and made the stock the walls of the shop.”

“Was that the first time he did something like that, or did it never go anywhere?”

“No that’s the thing!” Tommy started laughing. “He did it so many fucking times and someone still fell for it! That’s why it’s such a great story.”

From there, Tommy continued to mostly tell lighthearted stories Grian had shared with him. He talked about the prank war and following civil war from the Hermits’ previous world. The hippies against area 77, the time machine, the build height battle. After that he brought up the head games, which freaked Phil and Tubbo out when he suddenly pulled out what at first appeared to be a severed head but was actually a very accurate mask. From there the election was talked about like Tommy had promised, and then the following turf war and its minigame battle.

“I showed up right after the turf war which I’m really glad about because it freaked me out enough just hearing about it. I can’t imagine having to learn what wars here were actually like while in the middle of it all. Instead when Grian visited me when I was holed up in his old place, he just kept talking about the mole people. Around then’s when I really started opening up, especially when Zed showed up.”

“Who’s that?”

“Sheep hybrid that makes contraptions instead of redstone. He made me a bed that just kills me instead of what it should.” Grian spoke up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He was still slightly groggy from just waking up, but the three SMP members could tell he looked rested and more lucid than earlier. “Where’s Mumbo and the kids?”

“He had to take them away.” Tommy answered, covering Tubbo and Phil’s mouths before they could say anything, even though they weren’t going to. “Grian, you were like, super out of it earlier.”

“Oh oof, how bad was it?”

“Well,” Philza pulled Tommy’s hand away from his mouth. “You mistook me for some person named Martin and asked me to swear loyalty to your empire. Then you called me some name resembling your admin’s name.”

“X eye sooma void?”

“Exactly.”

Grian laughed a little. “Yeah, a number of the hermits call him some variation of his name so I took it to the next level when I first showed up.”

Tommy put a hand on Grian’s knee and the avian looked over, smile falling from his face when he noticed the serious look on the teen. He immediately sat up straighter, worried for his brother. “Tommy what’s wrong?”

Tommy noticed the way Grian’s hand moved like it wanted to grab a weapon, something he had seen constantly when the two of them were alone at night and the avian was being overprotective of him when he could take care of himself. Well okay there was the factor that all the mobs here seemed to be stronger, but that wasn’t too bad. Grian asking Tommy’s name again pulled him from his thoughts and he immediately stopped Grian who was now actually reaching for a weapon. “No! No it’s nothing that bad! You’re going to freak out Big T if you do that!”

“Then what’s going on?!” Grian huffed, crossing his arms, mainly so he wouldn’t try that again.

“When you were really out of it, you said some things. Specifically from your high school stories.”

Grian looked a bit uncomfortable from that, but didn’t look too worried. “Okay. I- was I screaming? Did I scare the boys from that?”

Tommy shook his head. “No. You said something new. It- god G, not even Mumbo knew about it at first.”

Now Grian looked worried, eyes flicking between Tommy and the other two and he pulled his knees up to his chest. “Wh-which thing did I say?”

Tommy stood up, being the only one standing adding to his already tall height. “You mean there’s more shit you haven’t fuckin’ told anyone about?! Grian what the fuck?!”

Tubbo tried to pull Tommy back down, but the blonde teen resisted for a bit before falling back to the ground. “Tommy please. If it’s been this long and he doesn’t want to talk, it's obviously really bad.”

“No, you don’t know some of the shit Grian’s talked about. There’s nothing that could be that bad!”

“Tommy that’s enough.” Philza spoke coldly, making him and Tubbo freeze. “Grian’s not you. He decides what he’s going to talk about. Maybe to most people the stuff he talks about is worse than the stuff he hides, but obviously it’s different for him. So you’re not going to fucking yell at him and make him even worse.”

Tommy frowned angrily, but stayed quiet and slumped back. Tubbo tried to help calm Tommy down while Phil did his best to do the same with Grian. “So… can you tell me what I said? Grian tentatively spoke up, looking to Tommy, but Phil answered instead.

“You mentioned someone named Gareth and not wanting to be like him. Obviously Tommy and Mumbo knew what you were talking about, but me and probably also Tubbo don’t know anything and are still pretty clueless. We just know that it’s something bad.”

Grian let out a quiet ‘oh’ as he pulled his knees even closer to himself. “Um, after I disappeared, I ended up in a different world and made friends with some people named Sam and Taurtis.” Philza tried not to react as he recognized the second name. “At some point in high school I moved in with them, but before that it was just the two of them. They had a teacher named Gareth. He um… his wife was found killed and a lot of people thought he did it. He… got fed up with it and uh..” Grian shook his head. “The classroom was closed up when people found his, uh, body. They took that away but left… left behind what he used. There was one time I snuck in and thought about… you know. But his ghost showed up and freaked me out so I ran.”

After that, it was quiet, no one really knowing how to respond to that. Grian just ended up letting his feathers puff up and he hid in his wings, Tommy being able to wriggle his way in there. The wings ended up muffling a conversation the two had in whispers, though Tubbo and Phil could both hear a few curses from Tommy. Mumbo finally came up the ladder while they were doing this and was greeted by the two SMP members with a finger to their lips. The redstoner wasn’t planning to be loud since he didn’t know if Grian was awake again or not, but he still of course complied. He moved closer to the avian before putting a hand on one wing, Grian moving said wing out of the way to see who was there.

“Mumbo. A- How are the bots?”

“They’ve gone to bed. They seem like they’ll be fine.” Mumbo replied in a soft voice. “You can go back to what you were doing, I just wanted to let you know so you weren’t worried.”

“N-no, it’s fine. I… Hey Tommy, why don’t you show off your base.” When Tommy looked like he might refuse, Grian spoke again. “Please?”

“Alright, but not my fault if a war starts up!”

That earned a smile from the avian. “Wouldn’t have it any other way. Remember to bring scaffolding with you. I’m sure you can find some in the chests in the basement.”

“You mean the storage system, or the fucking chest monster.” Grian smirked an evil little grin. “Fuck you. Alright come on you two. You gotta see Cobble Tower.”

The two other SMP members each gave Grian a look of sympathy before going down the ladder behind Tommy. He led them down to the fireplace that was centering the main hall, but specifically to one side of it. “Alright, this is the quick way up and down.” The teen opened some trap doors revealing some sort of donut-shaped object. “There’s one on the other side, but this is the elevator or whatever the heck Zed called it. You sort of lie down in it like this.” Tommy climbed in, lying down in the small structure. “Then you just hit that button and-“

Redstone activated and suddenly Tommy was lowering out of view. He quickly pointed towards the other side of the fireplace before pulling his arm in so it didn’t get crushed. It took a few moments, but an identical mechanism appeared there, ready for Tubbo or Phil to get into. Tubbo was the first to get in and was soon following behind Tommy. Philza, on the other hand, took more time getting situated, trying to be careful of his wings so they wouldn’t get caught or pinched on anything. He was mostly sure it would be fine since this was Grian’s place and he was an avian, but at the same time, the hardcore player could never be too sure.

When he reached the bottom, Tubbo was busy freaking out over all the items filling the chests. And there were plenty of them. There seemed to be a storage system lining the room, but also plenty of extra chests strewn about. “Hey, Philza Minecraft! Help us look for scaffolding, or at the very least some bamboo and string!”

The avian rolled his eyes before helping the pair, the three of them gathering enough for each of them to have at least two stacks. From there he led them out of the mansion’s basement and around the back of it in the direction of his own base. “Okay, so I haven’t been here as long as the other guys, so my tower is still in progress, but it’s got a couple floors. I mainly stay at the hobbit hole that’s back the other way.”

Both of the SMP members expected to just see a pillar made of cobble, but instead, standing tall in the distance, was a mostly completed tower that looked like it belonged to part of a larger castle that was nowhere in sight.

“Mate what the fuck is that?” Phil stared at the tower. There was no way that was Tommy’s. Or at the very least, he hadn’t built it. He had been close to Grian and they had all just been at Grian’s mansion which was a feat on it’s own. Obviously the avian had been building this for Tommy.

“I said we were going to my tower. And that’s it.” Tommy gestured to the tower before he continued talking. “I gathered all the cobble myself but bought a lot of the wood. Yeah some of it I got myself and I got gifts here and there, but I got a pretty good business venture so paying for it is easy.”

“Business venture?” Tubbo asked.

“Yeah. Speaking of which, I think Bdubs said the shop was empty so I’ll need to refill. Once I show you guys around, I’ll probably fly over to do that.”

“Could I come with you?”

Tommy paused to look at his friend. “I don’t think that’s a good idea Big T. Everyone’s at the shopping district like all the time, and they fly everywhere too. They aren’t all avians like Phil and Big G, and they don’t use tridents all that often, so instead it’s elytra, and those use fireworks to work. I don’t know how you’ve been since I left, but I’m guessing you and fireworks still aren’t on the best of terms.”

Tubbo crossed their arms. “I can use fireworks when I need to. You know that.”

“Yeah, you can use them fine, but you get jumpy when other people use them.”

Before Tubbo could respond, a voice from further ahead piped up. “Hey Tommy my man! Who’re your friends?”

“Hey Ren!” Tommy ran over to his neighbor. “This is my dad and my friend Tubbo. They’re sort of visiting.”

“Nice to hear.” Ren lowered his sunglasses slightly to look at the visitors. “I’m sure X knows about them?”

“Yeah, I sorta got half kidnapped while hanging with Grian and they followed us back.”

Ren inhaled sharply with a wince, his ears folding back as well. “Oof, how bad did Grian scare them?”

“Phil got freaked out cause he did some shit to piss off Watchers in the past.” Tommy smirked while Philza rolled his eyes. “He kinda tried taking me back again as well as the bots. I seriously thought Grian might kill him until Grum kinda shouted at us.”

“Yikes, how bad did it get for him to do that?”

“We kinda kept interrupting him while he was trying to tell us something important.” Ren winced again from that comment. “Fortunately it helped calm things down a little in the violence department.”

“And in the other departments?”

Tommy pulled Phil over closer to Ren. “So Phil isn’t just my dad.”

Ren nodded. “Yeah, you said you had some brothers.”

“Yeah, he’s also Grian’s dad.”

Again, Ren nodded. “Okay, yeah that-” the wolf hybrid completely froze. “Grian’s dad?! But he’s your dad!”

“Yup.”

“But also Grian’s?!”

“Yeah.”

“So the two of you are-”

“Brothers, yup.”

“You know this explains so much my dude.” Ren ran his fingers through his hair as he stared at the avian with his new knowledge. “Who else knows?”

“Right now, Xisuma and Mumbo. Haven’t really gotten the chance to tell many others.”

Ren nodded in understanding. “Does this mean you two aren’t coming to triple H?”

At this point Tubbo finally spoke up. “What’s that? And also it’s nice to meet you. Tommy said your name was Ren?”

“Yup, Ren Diggity Dawg at your service. And it’s Hermits Helping Hermits. We try to meet up once a week to help out one hermit.”

“You say that, but we haven’t even done it once yet Ren.” Tommy piped up, making Ren frown.

“Well that’s how it’s going to work. Hey, if you want, these two could come along.”

“I dunno. There would probably be lots of flying.” Tommy shrugged before slightly gesturing towards Tubbo.

“Tommy! I don’t need you acting so concerned for me! A few fireworks aren’t going to freak me out! Plus aren’t there unlimited lives here? Even if I do die I’ll just come back!”

Before Tommy could say anything in response, Tubbo took the elytra that were on Tommy’s back and put them on their own back. Ren seemed to be on Tubbo’s side, because he handed them some blank fireworks. He immediately lit one, which made them flinch just a little, but the next one didn’t cause them to have the same reaction. The only problem was while he was using the fireworks, he wasn’t getting into the air at all. “Uh, how exactly do these work?”

Tommy looked like he wanted to shout, but Ren spoke up before the teen could. “Elytra wings open up on descent, so you have to jump first. I’d say we get you some platform to test with before you try launching from the ground itself. Not even every hermit can do that right since you need to hit the sweet spot. Tommy’s pretty good at it though, but he’s got a good teacher.”

Tommy just rolled his eyes when Tubbo and Ren looked over at him. “Grian doesn’t use elytra, he uses his fucking wings.”

“He had to relearn how to fly in season six when he was still hiding his wings.” Ren pointed out and Tommy rolled his eyes again, though the sentence had caught Phil’s attention.

“Why was he hiding his wings?”

“Someone’s in parent mode.” Ren chuckled, which caught Phil slightly off guard. “I’ve heard that same tone plenty of times from X. Usually around the full moon.”

“Wait, so are you-”

“Werewolf, yeah. I know, most people just assume hybrid, and I kinda am. Anyway, to answer your question, he had apparently already gotten used to it in his older worlds. Even hanging around other hybrids didn’t help. He just had them hidden for so long that his standard was no wings. Iskall was the one to really get him with his wings out.”

“Iskall is Mumbo’s sibling, right?”

“Nah, unless we have another case of a surprise family connection. They had a business venture with Grian and Mumbo last season and the three have been really close ever since. They’re not officially related, but at this point they’re essentially all family.”

“I see, well what did he do?”

“They made a shop for hiring them as a hitman since they did that in the past. Someone ordered one on Grian and he got a plan ready and everything, but it involved outflying Iskall.”

“Good to know. I’ll have to meet with them at some point.” Phil nodded and Ren gave a barely noticeable wink at the avian correcting himself.

“Well, I’m sure I've held you guys up enough. If Tommy gives you any more trouble with flying, just shoot me a message.” Ren looked at Tubbo with his second comment, then he waved goodbye and headed off the other way.

Over the course of the next hour and a half, Tommy briefly showed off his tower, but for the most part it was Tubbo learning how to fly with elytra. Tommy was giving out pointers, but mostly was just freaking out whenever Tubbo did something that seemed even slightly concerning. Phil was doing his best to give tips, but wasn’t completely sure how elytra worked seeing as how he was used to just his own wings and hadn’t had access to elytra since they had been damaged.

By the end of the hour, Tubbo was flying pretty well, and Tommy was following nearby. When he had first gotten into the air, it had made Tubbo jolt, but before long, he had gotten acclimated to the firework’s initial sound with no following explosion. Tommy also ended up getting out a third pair of elytra for Philza to try. It wasn’t enchanted like the ones Tubbo wore or the backups on Tommy’s back, but it would do fine for a quick trip to the shopping district.

“Alright, you can explore the place as much as you want as long as you don’t go stealing anything. Otherwise I’ll have to pay for it.”

“You? Telling us not to steal?”

Tommy crossed his arms. “Yeah, no one does that here. I did a bit at the start, but you don’t really fucking need to. Even if you could just pay for shit at the shops, if you really need something, someone’s gonna show up to help you out.”

“Got it.” And with that the three of them flew over the ocean and to the island in the middle of it all. The place was littered with builds that surprised Phil and Tubbo. “These are all just shops?!”

“Yeah. You saw how big Big G’s mansion is. Just about everyone works at that scale. Even if they don’t fucking need to. You get used to it after a bit, it’s why my place is so big. You’d lose your minds if you saw Cub’s place.”

“I don’t even want to know mate.” Phil replied as they landed, sounding slightly exasperated at the thought.

“Right, well that’s my place over there.” Tommy pointed to a shop that looked more like a skyscraper and was near a number of similar buildings. “Most of the land in the actual shopping district is claimed, but Aquwu town still has lots of property.”

“What the fuck did you just say?”

“Aquowo.”

“Stop.”

“Aquwayway.”

“What’s the place actually called?” Tubbo piped up, making Tommy stop the joke.

“Just Aqua Town, but no one pronounces it like that. Even Scar, and he built the place. He normally calls it Aque Town.”

“I’ll be using that.”

“Suit yourself.” Tommy then walked towards his building. “You guys take the diamonds out and I’ll restock the place, okay? You can even keep a few of the diamonds.”

There were some nods of agreement and the trio went inside. Tommy put down his shulker boxes filled with stock as Tubbo opened the first chest, eyes going wide at the amount of diamonds in them. “There’s twenty-seven diamonds in this chest!”

Phil looked up surprised before looking in another chest. “This one too.”

“Well they said the place was all sold out.” Tommy responded as he opened up one of the shulkers and started pulling stacks of cobble out of it.

The avian noticed just what Tommy was grabbing and stared at it. “Mate, are you actually selling cobble for diamonds?”

Tubbo’s head whipped around to look away from the chest where he too saw Tommy pulling out cobble. “Not just cobble. There’s that, normal stone, andesite and granite.”

“And they buy that?”

“Yeah, at first I thought it was out of pity, until one day I got there to stock up and Bdubs was in there and was happy I was there. They all like building, but when they mine, none of the hermits bother to pick up all the stone since they normally fill their inventories with anything else and let the rest disappear. I make sure to go down with plenty of chests and put everything away, so when they need stone and shit, I’m the one they buy from.”

From there, Tommy and the other two stocked the shop. No hermits showed while they stocked, but one did show up just as they were leaving, Tubbo jumping back a little as the two of them nearly ran into each other, the wide eyed look of the hermit adding to the surprise. “Hey Keralis. Just stocked up so you’re good to go.”

“Why spank you Tommy. Who are your friends?”

“Tubbo and my dad Phil.”

“Will they be staying long?”

“Yeah, but Big G’s got them covered with housing.”

“Ah, Brian does have a good place indeed. But if they need a place to stay, I have plenty of room.”

“Almost too much. They’d be like me the first time I saw your place.”

“All the more reason for them to visit!”

“Right, see ya later.” Tommy followed behind Tubbo and Phil who had already slowly gotten ahead. He pulled out his comm and sent a message to Grian and Mumbo about where they were and where they were heading. Mumbo sent a reply that they would be coming over there soon with the bots, and Tommy put his comm away again. “Alright, I have a bit of land on a different part of the island, but it’s not really a shop. It’s more something I sort of brought over from the SMP.”

Tommy led them through the roads before they reached another area near the shore. Sand had terraformed the nearby land and various tables and chairs and other items were all over the place. But right next to the shoreline was a familiar piece of furniture that had Tubbo tearing up just a little. “You built the bench.”

“Yeah. Made it feel more like home sometimes. The rest of it is based on the beach party I held back in exile.”

Tubbo flinched slightly and looked down at the ground. Tommy was slightly confused and looked at Philza, who just gave a slight nod and wandered off. Once he was gone, Tommy led his friend over to the bench. “What’s up Big T?”

“Your… Your beach party. I- I’m sure you had fun.”

“Not really. Didn’t go the way I planned. Especially since you weren’t there.”

“I didn’t think you wanted me there. I never-”

“I sent an invitation, Tubbo. Ghostbur was supposed to give everyone in L’Manberg an invitation. But no one came. I thought it was cause you all fucking hated me. I mean, I did kinda ruin everything. I remember how mad you were.”

“Tommy…”

“I still thought that when I got here. Starting making friends out of spite instead of because I needed them. But then they made me realize some things. I don’t… Ghostbur wasn’t the most reliable, so I thought maybe he just didn’t manage to get the invitations out. But Grian said since Dream was messing with me the whole time I was there, he probably did something. Made sure you didn’t come.”

“Really? He’s been helping out. With you gone he’s become an ally to L’manberg.”

Tommy essentially growled in response to those words. “He’s not a fucking ally to anyone. He plays mind games and fucks everything up. He lies and tries to make you trust him so he can stab you in the back later. He was trying to make it so I’d only trust him. Unless you’re saying he told the truth when you immediately burned your compass for me.”

Tubbo’s hand immediately moved to hold where he had kept his compass, but it stopped midway there. “I… No. I kept it with me all the time.”

“Kept?”

Tubbo started tearing up a little before forcing the tear back. “I sort of got killed by a creeper and the explosion or something destroyed it. Tommy… I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to lose it. I didn’t want to lose you. But-”

Tubbo was cut off from Tommy hugging him. “It’s fine Big T. We lived in a fucked up place, and now we don’t have to. It’ll be you and me again. I’ll build you a tower for yourself. I’ll-”

A loud sound suddenly rang out along with an explosion. A second and third pair of the noises quickly followed. Tommy and Tubbo jumped up from the bench and looked towards the source of the noises to find three withers in the middle of the shopping district.

“What the fuck?! Why are those there?!” Tommy was immediately pulling out his comm and sending a message in the main chat.

Tubbo, on the other hand, squinted as something that seemed to be standing behind the boss monsters. They quickly shot open as he realized what he was seeing. “Technoblade?”

#hermit!tommy au #hermit!tommy #grian #watcher!grian #avian!Grian #grian xelqua #tommyinnit #philza #tubbo #rendog #mumbo jumbo #grumbot #jrumbot #YHS #tw suicide

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kelyon · 4 years

Text

Golden Rings 2: A Jail

The Storybrooke sequel to Golden Cuffs

Sheriff Graham deals with the Golds

Read on AO3

Graham Humbert did not get paid enough for this.

For the most part, being the sheriff of Storybrooke was easy. This was a quiet, law-abiding community. There were no drugs, no gang turf wars, no serial killers lurking in dark alleys. People kept to themselves and stayed on the right side of law and order. Usually, Graham could manage the whole town by himself. He had never even needed a deputy, though the position had been open for as long as he could remember.

Of course, bad things did happen in Storybrooke. Graham worked closely with the Mayor, and he knew more than he wanted to about the true nature of evil. But the worst crimes in this town were the things that didn’t get reported to the police department. If whole paychecks were spent at the Rabbit Hole and kids went to bed hungry and property was not stolen, but had been pawned off for much less than it was worth--that wasn’t anything that people called 911 about.

He tried his best, but he couldn’t protect everybody. He was only one man, after all. And Mayor Mills had made his duty very clear: He was paid to make sure Storybrooke looked good. Graham wasn’t there to root out secret crimes. He was there to keep the peace and make sure would-be troublemakers behaved themselves. Most of the time, that job was easy. Most residents of Storybrooke wanted the place to look good too. So they stayed in line and didn’t rock the boat.

With a few notable exceptions.

It was Saturday night, the day before rent day. Unlike any other Saturday in a given month, the day before rent day was especially quiet. Everyone who owed money to Mr. Gold suddenly realized that they actually couldn’t head out to a bar or enjoy a meal at a restaurant. They stayed home and counted their pennies.

Except for the one person in town who never paid Mr. Gold in cash.

Graham pulled the squad car into the free spot on the road by Birdhouse Corner Park. It was called a park, but it was really a fenced-in lot with a few trees and benches. Every fall Miss Blanchard’s class at the elementary school made birdhouses that hung from the tree branches and gave the park its name. Few birds ever actually took up residence in the bird houses, but it was still a pretty spot to sit outside if you were downtown.

Assuming that no one else had gotten to the benches before you had.

“Good evening, Mrs. Gold,” he said as he got out of the car. He hadn’t turned the flashing lights on; there was no need to draw attention to the situation.

He’d taken care of Mrs. Gold often enough to know that attention was exactly what she wanted.

“Hi, Sheriff!” Mrs. Gold waved with one hand. She was perched on the back of a bench facing the street. Her pale legs glowed orange in the streetlights and they were spread very far apart. Her other hand was plunged down the waistband of her shiny skirt.

She smiled, like she’d been expecting him.

At this time of night, all of the businesses in this part of town were closed, and there wasn’t much foot traffic. It was unlikely that anyone driving along Main Street would see the woman hidden in the shadows of a public park. Unlikely, but not impossible. After all, Graham had seen her while doing nothing more than a casual patrol, and what he had seen had been enough to make him stop his car. Maybe he would have done better to just look the other way.

He did not get paid enough for this.

He considered his next move carefully. Mrs. Gold was loitering, breaking a few decency laws, and putting herself in no small amount of danger. But she was also his landlord’s wife and one wrong word from her would land him in several different worlds of trouble.

“Bit chilly, isn’t it?” He crossed his arms over his chest to demonstrate that he was wearing a jacket. He tried to keep his eyes above her waist. Mrs. Gold, in addition to her short skirt, was wearing a white blouse and a dark-colored wrap that was so thin he could see her skin through the sleeves.

“I’m hot,” she declared, leaning back to expose her neck. Her thick necklace plunged past her collarbone and into her cleavage. “I’m always hot when there’s a sexy man around.”

Graham tried to stand so his stance was more authoritative than sexy. “You were alone before I got here.”

“Was I?” she giggled. “Are you sure?”

His stance collapsed. Maybe he shouldn’t have tried small talk.

“Mrs. Gold, why don’t you go on home? The streets can be dangerous for a woman out at night.”

“Aren’t you going to keep me safe, Sheriff?” Her one hand was still in her skirt and her elbow jerked with quick, repetitive motions. This woman was clearly masturbating, in a public park, in the middle of a conversation with a uniformed law officer. “Besides, what do you think Mr. Gold will do to anyone who touches me?”

Graham ran his fingers through his hair in exasperation. “So is that why you’re…” he gave up, “... touching yourself?”

She beamed and rocked from side to side on the back of the bench. “Mr. Gold likes me to be ready all the time.”

Against his better judgement, Graham took a step closer to Mrs. Gold. “Are you being coerced? Did your husband tell you to expose yourself in public?”

“Sheriff!” she giggled again. “You should know that I don’t do anything unless Mr. Gold tells me to. And I love doing it!”

Graham rubbed his hand over his face. Suddenly very tired, he pinched the brim of his nose and kept his eyes closed for a minute. “Mrs. Gold, if I tell you to go back home without making a fuss, will that do any good?”

“Nope!”

When Graham opened his eyes, he could see her smile in the patchy darkness. Jesus Christ, she was still fucking playing with herself!

“Sorry, Sheriff, but I don’t take orders from you.”

He snapped. “I am an officer of the law, you know! Do you think the law doesn’t apply to you?”

“No-o-o,” she cooed. “I think the law doesn’t apply to Mr. Gold.”

Unfortunately, there was no arguing with that. So Graham did what his training told him was the next step, and what she had probably wanted the whole time.

He reached for his handcuffs.

“Mrs. Gold, please put both hands where I can see them.”

Still smiling, she put her hands in the air. “You know Mr. Gold owns this park, right? Sure, the city leases it from him, but it’s technically private property.”

“Mrs. Gold, I just want to take you in out of the cold. I’ll give you a cup of coffee at the station and maybe we’ll have a talk. Will you come with me if I don’t use the handcuffs?”

She held out her hands toward him, wrists pressed together, begging to be restrained. “I’ll come in all kinds of ways, but handcuffs always make it more fun.”

This was no victory, but what else was he supposed to do? At least he could get her out of public view for the night. Graham closed the silver handcuffs over Mrs. Gold’s wrists. She shivered and made an obscene noise.

He rolled his eyes.

“Wait here,” he said. He left her on the park bench and opened the passenger door to the squad car.

“Yes, sir!” Mrs. Gold pushed her eyebrows together and made a face that matched her voice--mock-military serious, playing that he was in charge of this situation. Hands bound together, she hopped off the bench and stood beside it in her ridiculous heels.

Graham came back with a wet wipe he’d grabbed from the glove box, a souvenir from his last box of wings from Chicken Little’s. He took the wipe out of the wrapper and held it out to Mrs. Gold.

“Please clean off your hands before you get in my car.”

“Are you going to frisk me, Sheriff?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Aww!” she mocked him. “What a gentleman! I’ll be sure to tell Mr. Gold you were so nice to me.”

He didn’t let himself react until she was in the back seat and he was shutting the door behind her. Even then, all Graham could do was run his hand through his hair and clench his teeth around a curse.

****

The Storybrooke Sheriff Station was a small building. Most of the square footage was used to store archives of case files and other paperwork. The only two cells were in the back of the Sheriff’s Office. Most of the time they were just a place to store belligerent drunks until they dried out.

But Mrs. Gold was not drunk and she had an odd way of showing her belligerence.

“Mr. Gold holds the deed to this building too, you know.” A good enough reason for her prance around like she owned the place. The handcuffs didn’t dampen her spirits at all.

Graham walked in behind her, a prisoner even though he held the keys. This time of night, there was no one else at the station. Even the dispatch officer, Mariah Moder, had taken the evening off when she heard that her sister Dotty had had something break in her house again. That was why the red light was flashing on his desk phone. Someone had left him a message, or possibly several.

“Aren’t you gonna take my picture?” Mrs. Gold had wandered over to the mugshot camera. She was posing like a model, pouting and winking at a photographer that wasn’t there.

Graham took off his jacket and hung it on the coat rack. “You’re not under arrest, Mrs. Gold. That’s why I didn’t read you your rights. In fact, if you cooperate with me, I won’t even bother writing up a report and you can be home in half an hour.”

She gave him a skeptical look and held up her cuffed arms. “Then what was the point of these?”

“You said yourself that you wouldn’t come quietly unless I restrained you.”

“Well, I never come quietly unless I’ve got something stuffed in my mouth.”

Refusing to rise to her bait--or sink to her level--Graham cleared his throat. “Why don’t you have a seat?” He gestured to the couch that sat against one wall, perpendicular to the jail cells.

“What if I lie down instead?” Mrs. Gold was already moving into position, stretching out on the pilly blue fabric. She leaned her head on the armrest, so her red-soled shoes were pointed in Graham’s direction. The position made her skirt bunch up around her thighs but didn’t reveal her underwear--if she was wearing any.

Graham shook his head and sat down at the desk by her feet. “Just keep your hands where I can see them, please.”

“Well, since you said please,” Mrs. Gold shrugged and stuck her arms in the air. He watched her tilt the handcuffs this way and that. She hummed and admired her reflection. The girl had been picked up by the cops and she didn’t have a care in the world.

Was she even aware of where she was right now? Could she be held responsible for her actions? Should he have her tested for mental competency? Who would he even call to administer a test like that? Dr. Hopper? Or the psych ward at the hospital? Or did he need a judge to give a court order first?

“One thing at a time,” Graham sighed. He pulled out the office rolodex to look up Mr. Gold’s contact information. “Do you think your husband is at home or at his shop?”

“He won’t answer for you,” she said with matter-of-fact smugness. “And this time of night, he’ll only answer his cell phone.”

Graham looked at the front of the index card. Then the back. “I don’t have his mobile number.”

Mrs. Gold giggled. “Of course you don’t!”

He didn’t answer that, and he didn’t think about the flashing red light on the phone. He just turned the rotary dial and waited for Mr. Gold to pick up. Even if Graham wasn’t allowed to charge Mrs. Gold with illegal activity, he could still impress upon her husband that she was a public nuisance and needed to be better managed.

This was so stupid. He felt like a principal calling a kid’s parents because they had been disruptive during study time. Mrs. Gold should respect the law on principle. She should at least have enough self-preservation not to flirt with danger and enough decency not to do it in public. But she would only listen to one person and that was who Graham was trying to get a hold of.

On the other end of the line, the phone rang. And rang. And rang. It kept ringing until Graham hung up.

“Well, he isn’t at the shop.”

“Nope,” Mrs. Gold agreed. She was swinging her hands back and forth over her head, testing her range of motion in the handcuffs.

When Graham tried Mr. Gold’s home number, the phone picked up on the second ring. And promptly cut out.

“What the hell?” Graham muttered. He dialed again. As soon as his finger had turned the last circle, the other office phone started to ring. He ignored it. Let that call go to voicemail with the others. He needed to get Mrs. Gold out of his hair.

This time, the phone at Mr. Gold’s house hung up on the first ring. When Graham called a third time, there was a busy signal.

“What the hell?” he said again. He looked at Mrs. Gold. “Do you think your husband would take his phone off the hook when he knows people are trying to get in contact with him?”

“On the day before rent day? Yep!” She had finally put her arms down, and now they were slung over the couch armrest, one on either side of her head.

Graham put his elbows on the desk and ran both hands through his hair. Two hands, for double exasperation.

The phone rang and Graham picked up the receiver before it had finished the first ring. “Mr. Gold?” he asked hopefully.

“What?” The voice on the other end was female and very angry. Graham recognized it at once.

“Madame Mayor! I’m sorry about that. Is everything all right?”

“Absolutely not. I’ve been calling the station for hours! Where the hell have you been? Where’s dispatch?”

“Mrs. Moder had an emergency with her sister so she--”

“I don’t care about your excuses, Sheriff. There’s a real emergency happening right now and I need you.”

“What’s going--”

“Henry’s missing.” For the first time, there was a break in the Mayor’s anger, a deadly serious sliver of fear.

Graham leaned forward in his chair. Henry Mills was the Mayor’s son. He was a good kid--quiet, maybe a little lonely. That was understandable. If Regina Mills was a person in your life, that didn’t leave a lot of room for anyone else. But the lad wasn’t normally the type to cause trouble.

“It’s gonna be alright.” Graham said the cliche with sincerity. “I’m gonna do everything I can to find him.”

“You had better!” Regina snapped. “I haven’t seen him since after lunch. He could be anywhere by now. Something could have happened to him!”

“Don’t worry,” he told her. “I’ll be over at your place as soon as--” Graham looked over at Mrs. Gold, tried to calculate how much longer he’d be playing phone tag. “--as soon as I can.”

“Get here now!” the Mayor barked into the phone. Then the line went dead.

Leaning back, Graham let out a long whistle. Many of his conversations with Regina were more intense than necessary, but this time she was right to be demanding. Her son was missing. The only person she even came close to loving.

“Trouble with the boss?” Mrs. Gold was sitting up on the couch now with her feet on the floor and her hands placed primly in her lap.

Graham looked at her through bleary eyes. Maybe he was seeing things, but she actually looked sympathetic.

“Henry’s missing,” he said simply. “The Mayor is upset. She wants me on the case. But I’m stuck here with you, trying to get your husband to pick up his phone.”

Mrs. Gold looked at the ground. When she spoke, she sounded like a human being, not just an inflatable sex doll come to life. “Henry Mills, you said? The Mayor’s kid?”

“Yeah,” Graham said. Dull eyed, he looked at the floor between his desk and her heels. He felt like he should be angry, but he was just so tired. “You didn’t see him, did you? Ten years old, caucasian male with brown hair and brown eyes. Was he walking by while you were playing with yourself in the park?”

For the first time in as long as he could remember, Mrs. Gold looked embarrassed. Good. Maybe bringing up kids would make her aware of what planet she was living on. A kid could have seen her out there, indecently exposing herself. Anybody could have seen her. There were consequences to her actions--even the actions Mr. Gold told her to take.

“I didn’t see anybody,” she said quietly. “Mr. Gold always tells me to stay away from kids.”

Graham looked at her. “Why?”

Mrs. Gold shrugged. “Cuz I’m a bad influence.”

“No argument there.”

She looked stung, as if she had expected him to disagree with her. What did she think he was gonna say? No, of course a woman like her would be great with kids! She was Mom of the Year material, sitting in a police station with her skirt hitched up to her panties.

Not like Graham thought that he was any better. As well as he knew Regina, he had never spent much time around Henry. There was a reason for that. He wasn’t any better than Mrs. Gold. He was just better at keeping quiet about it.

“Alright,” he said as he stood up. “I’m done with the games. I need to take you home.”

“No!” Mrs. Gold leapt to her feet. There was a real emotion in her eyes. Fear? “I have to stay out until Mr. Gold calls me and tells me I’m allowed in the house.

Graham’s eyes narrowed. “Allowed in the house? Did he kick you out or something? Were you fighting?”

“I don’t fight with him.” She looked down at her hands in the silver cuffs. She had a few rings on either hand, but it was a simple golden band that held her attention now. “It’s just… one of the rules.”

Torn between wanting to know what the other ‘rules’ were and simultaneously desperately hoping Mrs. Gold would not tell him more details of her peculiar marriage, Graham didn’t speak until the phone rang again.

He picked up. “Storybrooke Sheriff Station, this is Graham.”

“Where the hell are you?” The voice on the other end was so loud that Graham moved the receiver away from his ear until it was safe.

“Hi, Regina. I really am on my way.”

“You should have already been here hours ago when I first started calling you, you worthless excuse for a man!”

Her standard flame of anger had blazed into a white-hot rage. Graham realized what he had done. He had called Mayor Mills by her first name. He wasn’t allowed to do that in public. That was one of their rules.

“Madame Mayor, I am so sorry.” He tried to grovel without letting Mrs. Gold know that he was doing it. “Please let me make it up to you. Please trust me to help you find Henry. I-I want to--” his instinct was to say please you, but he couldn’t say that while Mrs. Gold was watching him. “We can resolve this together, Madame Mayor, I promise. Please just allow me to take care of some official business first.”

“Graham, if you come to my house stinking like some townie slut--”

“I have Mrs. Gold in custody!” he shouted before Regina’s voice could carry any further. When she didn’t answer, he went on. “I caught her… loitering, and I’m going to drop her off at her house whether she likes it or not.”

In the silence that followed. Graham tried to imagine the expression Regina was making. Was she angry that such a stupid problem was delaying the search for her son? Could she possibly have sympathy for him? Would she understand that he did want to be helping her right now? Or would she get a thrill from knowing that Graham was using his authority to make a pretty girl’s life as miserable as he could?

Regina wasn’t really a bad person, but she did have a strong sense of schadenfreude.

“Fine,” she said at last. “If that’s the townie slut you’re busy with, just get rid of her so you can get to work finding my son!”

She hung up before Graham could promise her that he would. When he looked up, Mrs. Gold appeared to be dislocating her shoulder trying to reach her cuffed hands into her blouse.

“Do not--”

“Shut up,” she cut him off. “You’re lucky you’ve got those puppy dog eyes to make me feel sorry for you. I might get in trouble for this.”

If Graham thought of himself as any animal, it was as a wolf--loyal, family-oriented, and cautious. But when it came to Regina, “puppy dog” was the right image. What was a dog if not a wolf that was weak and stupid enough to be put in a cage?

But it had gotten Mrs. Gold to take pity on him. Even though she might get in trouble. The woman was practically in jail and she was only worried about getting in trouble with her husband.

Graham sighed. “What are you--”

“A-ha!” From the depths of her decolletage, Mrs. Gold produced a small silver mobile phone. She flipped it open and pressed some buttons on the menu.

“Give me that!” When he swiped the phone from her hands, it was still warm from being in her bra.

Gross.

But Graham didn’t have time to think about it. The tiny screen was already lit up with blocky letters that said ‘Mr. Gold’ and the phone was ringing. He put it to his ear just in time to hear a raspy growl on the other end:

“Are you in trouble already, pretty whore?”

“Mr. Gold!” Graham shouted quickly to keep him from going on. “This is Sheriff Graham with the Storybrooke P.D.. I’ve been trying to reach you for a while now.”

The phone was quiet, but not dead, so Graham went on.

“I’ve got your wife here at the station and I was wondering if I might bring her back to your house?” God, he sounded so weak! When it came to these people, Graham really was a worthless excuse for a cop.

On the other end of the line, Mr. Gold chuckled. “Oh really? Is the pretty whore in trouble already?”

Was there really no difference between how Mr. Gold spoke to his wife privately and how he referred to her when talking to a near-stranger? For her part, Mrs. Gold sat up straight on the couch, one bare leg crossed over the other, staring straight ahead at nothing.

Graham swallowed before answering. “She hasn’t done anything illegal,” he lied. Then he amended: “At least, she’s not under arrest for anything. She was out in the cold and I brought her by the station to warm up. I want to make sure she gets home safely.”

“I’m sure that’s more kindness than that slut has treated you with tonight.”

“Uh…” What the hell was he supposed to say to that? “So there won’t be any problems if I drop Mrs. Gold off at your house?”

“No of course not, Sheriff.” Mr. Gold’s voice was slick and businesslike. “I apologize that the stupid cunt wasted your time. Time is money, as you know.”

Had he really just heard that? “...Yeah,” he said. “I’ll… drive her over to your house.”

“I appreciate the courtesy. And please don’t worry about something like this happening again. I’ll be sure to give that cheap tart a sharp lesson in respect.”

“Uh…” Graham said again. Was that a threat of violence? Did he have to consider that actionable talk? Was bringing Mrs. Gold back to that man really in her best interest?

But then the office phone rang again and he knew he didn’t have time to do that kind of digging. That was Regina. Henry was missing.

He couldn’t protect everybody.

“Thanks for arranging to bring her back, dearie,” Mr. Gold said.

And then he hung up.

Graham snapped the mobile shut and placed it on the desk in front of Mrs. Gold. She picked it up and held it between her hands. Time was of the essence, but he still needed a minute to recover from that conversation.

“So… you might still be in trouble,” he said.

Mrs. Gold gave a knowing half-smile. It was nice to get a glimpse of a real person out of her. “Did he say he’d give me a sharp lesson or a hard lesson?”

“Sharp.”

“Oh, that’ll be fine.” She waved her hand as she stood up--or, waved it as best she could with the handcuffs on.

“Can I take those off now?”

She held out her arms. “Yeah, they did their job.”

Once Graham was done, Mrs. Gold rubbed her wrists and flexed her fingers. She did it automatically, massaging her joints with skill that clearly came from lots of practice.

“So, it’s a ‘hard lesson’ that’s bad news for you?”

“Why, Sheriff!” The fake smile was back, as was the bubbly-bright sex toy voice. “It’s always good when men are hard!”

“Right.”

He grabbed his coat and they walked out of the station.

****

He let Mrs. Gold sit in the front seat of the squad car, but he didn’t try to talk to her again. He wasn’t trying to be friends with this woman. He didn’t want to get roped into whatever sick games she and her husband played with people in this town. He didn’t want to get to know her. He didn’t want to worry about her.

He didn’t want to think about all the things they had in common.

But he did turn up the heat when he noticed the goosebumps on her bare legs. And he did put the car in park once he pulled up in front of Mr. Gold’s old-fashioned pink mansion. He wanted to wait and make sure that the door would open, that she got inside. He could make sure she was safe at least until then.

The lights were on inside the house. When the squad car pulled up, the front door opened.

Mr. Gold stood, silhouetted in the door frame, leaning on his cane. The lights were behind him, so his face was obscured by the darkness. There was just a small figure with a long, black shadow.

When she saw her husband, Mrs. Gold let out a gasp of delight. It was dark in the car, but her smile--her real smile--lit her up like a firework.

Graham half-expected her to run up the front steps and leap into his arms. But aside from her smile and some extra-happy humming, she acted just the same as she had been before. She let herself out of the squad car like she was a movie star getting out of a limo--one high heel at a time.

Then she bent at the waist and braced her arms against the open car door. She had angled herself so that Mr. Gold was getting a very nice view of her butt.

“I owe you a ride!” Mrs. Gold said, loudly enough that not only her husband, but the whole neighborhood could hear. “You can come anywhere with us!”

Graham sighed. “Take care of yourself, Mrs. Gold.”

She blew him a kiss and then practically danced up the stairs to where Mr. Gold was waiting.

He didn’t want to see what happened once those two were within five feet of each other on the day before rent day. He turned the key and had just put the car in gear when Mrs. Gold came bouncing down from the house, waving to him.

Graham reached over to roll down the passenger window. “Is everything alright?”

She stuck her arm inside the window. There was a crisp fifty-dollar bill in her hand.

“Mr. Gold told me to thank you for taking such good care of his stupid cockslut. He said he knows what a handful that whore can be and you deserve to be rewarded.”

Mouth open, Graham stared at Mrs. Gold’s face. Then he stared at her hand. Then he stared at the money. This was a bribe. He had to refuse this. He had to report this.

“Mrs. Gold, I can’t--”

“Yes you can.” She dropped the bill on the passenger’s seat and stepped away from the squad car with her hands behind her back. “Your rent is due tomorrow.”

“I’ve got enough for my rent.”

“Then buy a box of donuts.”

Without another word, Mrs. Gold turned on her heel and went back to the house. Mr. Gold was still waiting in the doorway. When she got back inside, he let her in and shut the door behind them.

For a solid minute, Graham sat alone in the darkness. There were a million things he should do right now. But all of them involved being a better man than he actually was. With a heavy sigh, he took the fifty off the seat and put it in his front pocket. He could still report it as a bribe. Or he could give it to charity.

Or he could buy a box of donuts.

Graham shook his head and drove toward Mifflin Street and Regina. Priorities. Henry could be halfway to Boston by now and who knew what kind of trouble he might find there?

#golden rings #rumbelle #rumbelle fic #ouat #poor graham

18 notes · View notes

lumosinlove · 5 years

Text

Sweater Weather

part v

Remus woke up to light between the curtains he forgot to close all the way and a heavy, warm weight around him. He was hot with his sweatshirt and sweatpants on and the weight, and he tried briefly to kick it off, only it held him tighter. He opened his eyes, starting a little, and his lips brushed skin. He held very still.

Sirius made a noise in his sleep and shifted, rolling onto his back a little and pulling Remus with him. Remus found himself with his head resting on Sirius’ shoulder and his nose pressed into his neck. One of Sirius’ hands had fallen on Remus’ waist, the other by Remus’ head, fingers in his hair and brushing his neck. Remus was sure he was never going to breath properly again.

His eyes found the clock on the hotel bedside table. It read six twenty-four in the morning. The team bus would leave for the airport at eight thirty. They had—time. Remus let out a quiet breath. They had a lot of time. The light was soft and Remus felt in a haze, like he was in a different world and it was just the two of them. He could close his eyes right now, pretend to be asleep, and do whatever he wanted.

He shut his eyes and pressed into Sirius’ neck, letting his lips brush there. Just a little. Just once. It felt like it was now or never. Never. He slowly, and what he hoped looked sleepily, slid his hand to rest on top of Sirius’ chest.

Sirius made another noise and Remus froze, keeping his breath even.

Sirius’ breathing stopped, held for a few moments, and then re-started.

Remus could feel, beneath his palm, as Sirius’ heart went from sleepy beats to faster, rabbit ones.

Like he was scared, or nervous, or—

Remus squeezed his eyes shut and pretended Sirius’ heart was beating so hard because he was like Remus, because he wanted. Because he wanted Remus, too.

Remus expected to be woken up any minute, any second. He breathed Sirius in, the morning mussed warmth of him, the slight sweat on his skin from his own thick sweatshirt, and prepared to remember it. Prepared to cherish it. Prepared for Sirius to maybe never look him in the eye ever again.

He’d invited Sirius in last night to fix everything, not to make it worse.

And then Sirius’ hand tightened in his hair, just a little, his fingers brushing softly, almost reverently, disbelievingly, through the sandy strands. His palm cupped Remus’ hip and held there, like he was trying to keep Remus from rolling away. All the while, Sirius’ heart beat hard beneath Remus’ palm.

Remus opened his eyes where Sirius couldn’t see. Remus couldn’t even see past the pillow and the dark curls of Sirius’ hair, but he didn’t need to see any of it. He could feel it. He closed his eyes again, determined to stay put. Now or never. Sirius could be half asleep, he could think Remus was someone else, he could not have a clue what he was doing—

Remus wanted this to last. So, he breathed in and let Sirius surround him.

They slept until the alarm woke them up an hour later. It would have felt like a dream, only neither of them had moved and Remus felt Sirius’ chest shift as he reached towards the nightstand to turn off Remus’ phone. They both lay there for a few minutes, not moving apart. Sirius barely let go.

“Hey.” Sirius said, and Remus had to close his eyes again for a second, cheek pressed to Sirius’ chest. That was what Sirius’ voice sounded like in the morning. Scratchy from sleep.

Remus’ blinks felt heavy. He couldn’t remember the last time he had slept that well.

“Hi,” he replied. They were awake now. He should get up. He picked his head up and looked at Sirius, “Um. I guess I—I sort of—gravitate towards…”

Sirius was rubbing one of his eyes and sent Remus a little smile. “How do you know I don’t, too?”

“I—yeah,” Remus nodded. “Yeah, I guess so. I’ll just—yeah. Sorry.” Remus sat up, instantly feeling such a cool contrast between the air and Sirius’ body that he shivered. He hoped Sirius hadn’t seen.

“Nothing to be sorry about.” Sirius said, and stretched—obscenely. His toes curled and he raised his arms way over his head so his sweatshirt rode up even more, nearly exposing his entire chest. His sweatpants were low, stretched across his hips and Remus didn’t think—well, he didn’t see underwear anywhere in sight. Fuck.

“I’m fucking starving.” Sirius said and groaned as he sat up. His hair was wavy and fluffing out around his ears. He cracked his back once and then winced, turning around to look at Remus. “Sorry,” he said. “Some people don’t like that.”

Remus blinked at him, still kneeling on the bed. It was like Sirius wasn’t even fazed, like everything was perfectly fine. Like they hadn’t just fucking snuggled all night. Remus was busy making a list in his head. Sirius sounds like this in the morning. Sirius is hungry in the morning. He stretches, he cracks his back, does he want coffee or tea—

“Re?”

Remus looked up, “What? Oh, sorry. No, that’s fine.” He pushed himself off the bed, then hovered in the middle of the room. “Um. Do you…Are you rooming with James? I mean, you can shower here, too, I just…”

Sirius shrugged. “I’ll shower when we’re home. Not worth it if I’m just going to have to do it after the plane and stuff,” he shook his head. “Hate flying.”

Remus raised his eyebrows. “You chose a pretty flying-heavy profession.”

Sirius laughed. “A sacrifice I’m willing to make for hockey.” He cleared his throat, looking down a little. “One of many, I guess.”

Remus nodded, even though Sirius wasn’t looking at him.

Sirius stood, patting his pocket, making sure he had his phone and keycard. “Well. See you on the bus?”

“Yeah,” Remus said, at a loss. “Yeah.”

Sirius hovered for a minute, eyes on Remus and lip between his teeth, before he nodded and took a few steps towards the door. “Okay.” He smiled, sort of sweetly, or as sweet as a tall, broad shouldered hockey player could look, with a hand on the doorknob. “Bye.”

“Bye,” Remus said faintly.

Once the door clicked shut behind him, Remus more or less fell back down on the bed, staring at the carpet between his feet.

He didn’t know what just happened, but if he was taking any cues from Sirius, they weren’t suppose to acknowledge it.

They were playing the Snakes.

It was a Saturday game, in just two days, and the energy that surrounded it—the press, the players, the fans—felt like the Playoffs. It was almost agonizing to watch the boys bear it—especially Sirius, who, as Remus expected, was taking the brute of it on his own shoulders. Not that the media gave him a choice. To the world, it was captain against captain. It was as if they were two kings, age old rivals, and this was the deciding battle.

“I’m just saying that its bullshit,” Remus said to Moody as they were having their daily morning meeting. Here, they went through each of the guys with updates or strategies to get them back on the ice, or better them any way they could. “It’s not how it works. This whole rivalry thing is just—it’s bullshit.”

“I’m not disagreeing with you, kid,” Moody grumbled, “stop yelling at me like I am.”

Remus took a breath. “Sorry. Sorry, I just—I don’t know. I’m nervous.”

“We’re all nervous.”

“Yeah,” Remus tapped his pen against his notepad, staring down at the scribbled notes he’d taken so far. “At least everyone is looking good.”

“Don’t fucking jinx that!” Moody reached over and scuffed him lightly on the head.

Remus laughed, “Fine, fine.”

Remus thought that it wasn’t really fair of him to be as nervous as he was. After all, he wasn’t even playing. He wasn’t Sirius, with every eye on him, every spotlight, every hope and expectation.

“I’m just bummed it’s an away game. I wish it was on our turf first, you know?”

Moody grunted. “Hate when they throw those fucking things on the ice.”

Remus groaned in agreement. The Slytherin fans had a habit of throwing those fake, rubber snakes on the ice, the kind that spooked horses. It was only during Playoffs, but they did it enough to make an impression. It was unnerving, sure, with the way the bouncing rubber on the ice seemed to writhe, but even more so it made Remus angry. If a blade hit that thing at the speed that players skated, Remus didn’t want to see how bad that wipeout would be. It had happened before, sure, but never to his team while he was with them.

“If I see one of those snakes I’m going to toss it back into the fucking crowd,” Remus said, and there was a delighted laugh from behind him.

“Oh, will you now?” Hands clapped down on his shoulders, “That’s the kind of attitude I like to hear.”

Remus grinned before he even turned to see Pascal Dumais. He was one of the older players and a so much of a father to the entire team that, if they weren’t calling him “Dumo,” they were calling him “Dad.”

“Hey, welcome back, Dumo. How’s the wrist?”

Dumo flexed it for him as if to prove it worked. “Still second line material, mon ami.”

“Are you sure about that? Looking a little rickety there.”

They all looked as Logan entered the room, tan skin flushed from the slowly dropping temperatures outside.

“Hey,” Dumo grabbed Tremzy by his shoulder and pulled him into a headlock. “Mon fils, le connard!”

“Oh, good,” Moody sighed as he got up to give Pascal a friendly slap on the shoulder, “father and son are reunited.”

Pascal laughed. “Are you kidding? He lives in my basement, I get no peace.”

Remus laughed. Logan Tremblay was partially famous among the team because he’d billeted with Pascal and his wife and three kids his rookie season, about three years ago now, and just never left. He wasn’t their son, but he might as well be.

“My built in babysitter, eh?” Dumo said.

“Tu ne me paye pas!” Logan laughed, escaping.

Pascal pinched Logan’s cheek. “I pay you. I pass to you, you score, you get paid, non?”

Remus looked on, amused, as their conversation devolved into rapid-fire French, as it often did. Some of it was too fast for him to follow, but he caught the stray insult or endearment—an oddly familiar contrast between the two of them.

It had been two weeks since that road trip with Sirius—the one they didn’t speak of, apparently—and the boys were started to contemplate Halloween. In the locker room after practice that day, the debates of costumes and party hosts were a relieving change from the strained nervous talk of the upcoming game against the Snakes.

“I vote the Captain’s house.” Logan said, throwing a balled up piece of stick tape at Sirius in his stall.

Sirius grimaced. “Okay, but I can’t make any of the food. Unless I’m ordering something.” He pointed to the tape with raised eyebrows. “Pick that up, I can’t stand tape on the ground.”

Pascal quickly volunteered his wife, and James, Lily, and Leo piped up that he himself would make something.

“What?” he said. “I like to cook.”

Finn gave him a sweaty pet on the head. “Of course you do, Knutty.”

Leo rolled his eyes at the nickname and swatted at him with his goalie blocker.

Remus was looking at the plays Coach had drawn on one of the many whiteboards that occupied the room when a voice said from just behind him, “You’ll come to the party, won’t you?”

Remus turned and Sirius was there, in a soft gray t-shirt with his number twelve on it and his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants. He had a cardinal red Lions hat keeping his hair out of his face, backwards.

“Yeah, sure. I mean—if I’m invited, yeah.” Remus shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

Sirius took a step forward. “You’re always invited.”

Remus laughed a little, maybe from nerves, maybe from the earnest look in Sirius’ eyes.

Sirius smiled then, too, and after a moment, gave him a little punch on the shoulder and took an awkwardly large step back. Remus looked at him, bewildered.

“Um. Cool. See you there.” Sirius began to turn, but turned back again, taking his hat off, pushing his hair back, and putting it back on again. “Or, not—like, I’ll see you before, obviously. But…”

Remus laughed again, a little freer this time. “Sure thing, Pads.”

Sirius cleared his throat, and his smile looked a little pained, but he just retreated from the room.

Remus stared after him, even when Sirius glanced back right before he turned the corner.

He was pretty sure—well.

He was pretty sure that felt like flirting. Nervous flirting. Very nervous flirting.

He looked back at the whiteboards, but he didn’t comprehend a thing this time.

If Sirius Black was flirting with him, he was done for.

Remus didn’t have any time to test out his theory, not with the Dog Calendar shoot going on and them leaving for Slytherin tomorrow. It was chaotic, trying to get players in from whatever they were doing—practice, workout, eating—and behind the camera where they would be paired with a dog or, in this year’s case, a rabbit.

It was one thing to briefly think that Sirius Black was flirting with you.

It was an entirely other thing to do something about it while he was standing there grinning at you and holding two sleeping beagle puppies. But Remus could try.

“Loops, look,” Sirius whispered, even though no one else was whispering.

Remus smiled, took a breath, and and stepped forward into Sirius’ space—with the excuse of petting one puppy carefully on its tiny head.

Sirius didn’t tell him to go, but leaned in more until Remus could feel the warmth of—maybe it was the puppies, but Remus let himself pretend it was all Sirius.

“Look at their little faces,” Sirius said softly. “Listen, they’re snoring. Très mignon.”

Remus was trying to listen but all he could hear was his own heart and Sirius breathing. Their heads were bent so they were almost touching.

“They are cute.” Remus glanced up at Sirius, eyes flicking over his dark eyelashes and the faint scar at the top of one of his cheekbones, another on the top of his lip. It was similar to the one that Remus knew ran faintly across the bridge of his nose. All hockey related, he was sure.

“You want to hold one.” Sirius said it like it wasn’t even a question and, really, it wasn’t.

Remus held out his hands. “Just until you’re up to get your picture taken.”

Sirius nodded and carefully transferred one of the sleeping pups into Remus’ waiting arms. “This one’s name is Pierrot, and that one’s name is…Puck.”

Remus laughed, cradling the small furry bundle close to his chest. “Did you just make those up?”

“Oui. Mais, c’est bon, non?”

Remus nodded, “c’est bon. Hi, Puck.”

“He likes you,” Sirius said after a moment.

Remus looked up. Sirius was looking back. Remus wondered if he was just looking for signs now or if that was maybe something.

“Does he?” he asked quietly.

Sirius opened his mouth to respond, gray eyes intent, when someone called his name. It was his turn to shoot.

Sirius’ mouth remained open, like the interruption had caused the words to stick in his throat. His eyes looked more frantic now and Remus smiled at him. He knew that feeling. It didn’t matter if he was right about Sirius, or if he was wrong. Remus didn’t want him to be worried about it.

“Here,” Remus said instead, then, after a breath, after he’d pressed the puppy back against Sirius’ chest with careful hands, “he likes you, too.”

The Slytherin stadium was teaming with green and silver and white. The crowd, amped and ferocious, frequently broke out in fits of hissing cheers that could be heard from the visitor locker room.

“No one’s even on the fucking ice yet,” Kasey said from his squat on the floor. “Jesus fuck. I hate these guys, I hate everyone in this city. Fucking dirty fuckers, fuck.”

“Alright, Kase, not the attitude we’re going on the ice with.” Sirius scuffed him lightly on the head as he walked by.

Remus felt quietly proud of Sirius about that, but he wanted to see how long it lasted. Sirius was an incredible player, he was an incredible person, but he wasn’t exactly known for being level-headed on the ice.

Kasey voiced his thoughts for him, scoffing. “I love you, Black, but we’ll see how long that lasts.”

Sirius shrugged as he sat in his temporary stall, legs spread wide and looking smug. Remus looked, eyes tracking down Sirius’ bare, broad shoulders and his strong thighs, every muscle defined in his tight underarmour. His mouth felt dry. When he raised his eyes, Sirius was looking back and a flush had appeared at the hollows of his cheeks. Remus watched Sirius let out a breath and look down at himself briefly, then back at Remus. Remus should have taken that opportunity to look away, probably, but he didn’t. There was a reason Sirius had the most marriage proposals at the glass. There was a reason he got so much attention, why he had jerked away at the mere thought of Remus’ touch. Sirius wasn’t just talented, he was gorgeous. And as shallow as it was, that was what the media liked. People were susceptible to that, they either loved him, or they hated him so much that they would do anything to bring him down.

And if Remus was right, if Sirius felt like he did…Remus didn’t want to be the one to bring him down. He didn’t want to have to think like that.

Sirius finally had to look away to one of the equipment managers, and Remus had to look away to Logan who was asking about his skate, but a few minutes later there was a tap on his shoulder and Remus turned to see Sirius, this time with a sweatshirt.

“I need to make my sandwich,” was all he said.

Remus nodded, “right.”

Sirius pressed his lips together, hesitating, then jerked his chin towards the door. “Let’s go?”

Remus followed Sirius down the hallway and into the visitor’s lounge silently until they reached the empty kitchen.

“You suddenly decided you wanted company for this?”

Sirius looked back at Remus from where he was taking the honey and bread out. “So?”

“So, I didn’t know you could change anything.”

Sirius rolled his eyes and Remus laughed, glad Sirius had caught the joke.

“I can change things.”

Remus raised an eyebrow and nodded at the bread in Sirius’ hands. “Don’t toast that.”

Sirius’ chest puffed out a little, he stared Remus down, and then finally, like the word was being pulled out of him, he grimaced. “No. Nope.”

Remus laughed, taking a seat on one of the tall stools on the counter and leaning his chin on his hand. “Told you.”

“I can,” Sirius protested, “just not before a Snakes game.”

Remus couldn’t argue with that. “Makes sense. The question still stands though.”

The bread popped out of the toaster and Sirius took it out before dropping it onto his plate and shaking his hand out. It was adorable.

“Hot,” Sirius said, then, “what question?”

“Why am I suddenly here?”

Sirius smiled a little. “I can’t want your company?”

Remus looked at him, narrowing his eyes. “You’re nervous.”

Sirius laughed. “Of course I am. Tell me what you’re going to be for Halloween.”

Remus blinked at the change in subject. “What? I don’t know.”

“You’re coming to my party, you better have a good idea.”

Remus shrugged helplessly. “It’s not your party. And I haven’t thought about it yet. I was—what was I last year…”

“You were a werewolf.”

Remus snorted. “Oh, yeah, you’re right. You and James were, what, knights?”

Sirius squeezed some honey out on his buttered toast and then came to sit next to Remus. “In shining armor.” Sirius held out one half of one of the two pieces of toasts. “Want?”

Remus looked at the toast, then at Sirius, whose eyes were soft and he held the food out a little more firmly.

“Oh. Sure, I mean…is that—”

“Maybe it’s a new tradition. Or it can be.”

Remus narrowed his eyes at him, just a little, but takes the toast and takes a bite. “You’re full of surprises today.”

“Just today?” Sirius smiles.

Apparently not, Remus thinks.

Remus leaned against the locker room wall as coach Weasley talked to the team, pacing around in a circle to look at them all, the first line card in his hand.

“Now,” Arthur was saying, “I know there’s a lot of pressure in this room right now. A lot of nervous energy. I’d expect nothing less but, here’s the thing, boys. Let’s use that energy. Let’s use that energy to our advantage, leave it all out there on the ice. We’ve been through the tape, we know these Snakes better than they know themselves at this point, right?”

There was a few claps from around the room, agreement.

“Don’t let them get into your head. Relax and play the game. We’re just going to relax and play the game.” Arthur looked around at them all before handing the card to Logan. “Tremzy, your read.”

“Alright boys,” Logan said, “First liners, you ready?”

James whooped loudly, banging his hand against his stall.

Logan cleared his throat, resting his elbows on his knees. “We’ve got Kaner.”

The boys clapped, as they did between each name.

“We’ve got Halla. We’ve got Pots, and Harzy. We’ve got Black. And in the cage, we’ve got the Blizzard.”

There was more banging, more hollering, the boys psyching themselves up, before everyone was standing, reading to file out onto the ice for warmups. It was crazy-loud now. Remus was already flinching to think about what it was going to be like on the ice.

In the hallway they listened to the Snakes be announced to their home stadium. They listened to the Slytherin fans cheer and hiss, screaming for their team.

It all turned to booing once the Lions were given their cue to skate on. The crowd was a menacing glitter of silver and green. Remus watched Kasey make it to the goal and start digging his skates in, going back and forth, marking up the crease for friction and easy-stops. He watched James go through his stretches. Sirius usually did on-ice stretching, too—and boy did Remus love to watch that—but not for Snake games. Here, he’d done all he needed to do in the safety of the locker room.

Then, Remus turned his eyes to the Snakes’ side of the practice rink. Snape was easy to spot. He didn’t warm up with his helmet on and his dark, chin-length hair glinted greasily in the greenish light of the Snakes’ lazar show, meant to get the crowd going. Remus’ skin prickled at the sight of him. He was being fed pucks for his one-timer, shot just from the left circle of the goal. It was lethal and Remus was not looking forward to watching him use it in game.

They had Riddle in the goal—of course. Tom Riddle was notoriously vicious and aggressive. Besides Snape, he was practically the face of the Snakes, so much so that Crabbe, the back up goalie, barely got an ice time. When they say that goalies are crazy—which they are, even Kasey’s a little manic about stuff—they had Riddle specifically in mind. The guy taunted players to no end with a sneering smile and dark, pupil-less eyes.

Riddle turned from where he was blocking his teammate’s practice shots for some water, and the coiled skin of a snake that was painted on the front of his helmet morphed into the strange, yellow eyes of the animal on the back. Remus hated it. He got the joke, eyes in the back of his head and all, but he hated it. He hated Riddle even more because he was good. He was really good. They called him the Sphinx. Impossible to figure out Riddle, nearly impossible to get past.

But so was Kasey. The Blizzard.

Malfoy was glued to Snape’s side, as usual. They were, at large, thought to be the sort of equivalent to Sirius and James, but Remus didn’t see it. Snape was constantly sneering at Malfoy, yelling and correcting. They meshed, sure, but only through their coach’s pure force.

Coach Karkaroff was brutal with his methods and fought dirty whenever he could. Last season, Remus had seem him tell Carrow, their enforcer, their biggest hitter, to slash Dumo right in the wrist, resulting in his injury. The bone had jutted out on the ice. It had been terrible, blood everywhere. Remus wasn’t even sure how Carrow had managed it so quickly. He didn’t like to think about it.

And then there was Regulus.

Regulus Black.

The biggest story this summer, nearly overtaking Sirius’ ankle and Snape’s dirty hit.

Regulus Black, younger brother of Gryffindor Lions’ captain Sirius Black, gets drafted first over-all, just like his older brother. But, this time, it was to the Snakes. Remus had watched the draft at home with his parents and Julian, and even Julian had known how big of a deal this was. Sirius’ parents had been there, stiff but approving as the younger version of Sirius had walked onto the stage, shook hands with Karkaroff, with the team’s general manager, Delores Umridge, and slipped on a green and silver jersey. Sirius was there, too, to give his younger brother a tight hug before he descended to the stage. Regulus had shaken him off. They denied it, but all the cameras caught it.

Rivalry was there in an instant, plastered across every blog, every paper, every screen. But Regulus was just a rookie, and people far favored the old fan-favorite competition of the captains.

Remus saw Sirius glance over at his baby brother a few times. He even braved a few strides towards center ice before giving up. Regulus hadn’t even spared him a glance. Instead, he was on one knee with Snape, who was talking quickly.

Remus ached for Sirius. He didn’t know what he’d do if Julian decided he hated him.

The two teams steered well clear of each other during warm ups until they both finally lined lined up at center ice, Kasey coming a little ways out of his goal, and the lights dimmed. The anthem was a blur. All Remus could focus on was Sirius’ bowed head, dark hair falling into his eyes, helmet pressed against his chest. The soft slope of his nose and his parted lips. Remus licked his lips and thought of the honey from earlier. He didn’t think Sirius was religious, and Remus wasn’t either, but they both were praying to something.

The lights came up and the Snakes’ announcer riled the crowd.

Sirius, number twelve, skated to center ice. Snape, thirteen, did the same for the first face off of the game.

The referee dropped the puck, and they were off.

#wolfstar #sirius black #remus lupin #sirius x remus #remus x sirius #sweater weather #sirius/remus #remus/sirius #lumosinlove #wolfstar au #hockey player!sirius #wolfstar angst #wolfstar fluff #slow burn #hp fic #harry potter fic #writing #wolfstar fic #harry potter au

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jolienjoyswriting · 3 years

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Melon’s Birthday

"Melon's Birthday," a very twisted Beastars fan fiction story. Co-written by AI Dungeon (Griffin AI)

The day has finally arrived! It's Melon's birthday! And, of course… you, Haru, made a promise to him. You make lots of promises to lots of people… but the one you made to your half-predator, half-prey friend is one you intend to keep.

Word count: 2,976 – Character count: 16,372 Draft time: UNKNOWN (07 pages) Drafted: November 14th, 2020 –

Spoiler Warning This story contains major spoilers about the Beastars series finale.

Okay, I'll be honest, here – I didn't like how Beastars ended. I thought the ending felt rushed, clichéd, and smelled horribly either of executive meddling or of Ms. Itagaki throwing her hands up and going “eff it”. There were also some plot threads left unresolved, or just plain discarded… such as Haru’s promise to Melon. This fan fiction was written to correct what I felt like was a missed opportunity and is totally not me just exercising a bizarre fetish I didn’t know I had until I started reading Beastars. No. Not at all. (:

Random fact: I played Haru during the writing of this story. Not that it mattered too much, since I also wrote several lines for Melon. Also of note, this story was Reported into oblivion by some people on AI Dungeon. I’ve removed it from publication because of this. Sorry.

Melon, Legosi, Haru, and "Beastars" series and related characters and concepts created by Paru Itagaki and © Akita Shoten

It was a chilly, Winter day. Snow fell over the city, but no one seemed to notice. The Back Alley Market was torn down during the last Turf War, replaced by other businesses, and unity between predator and prey species was at an all-time high and things had truly never been better in the city! However, despite the uneventful day outside… it was certainly eventful inside a certain prison.

During the events of the past Turf War, the mysterious killer known only as Melon was arrested and locked in solitary confinement. He was finally getting the help he needed. As it just so happened, it was Melon's birthday, on this wintery day, and he'd already had some visitors, such as his "friend" Legosi, who gave him a couple of books and some candy. He didn't know it, but he was in for a surprise visit from another "friend" of his…

The criminal was reading one of the books Legosi gave him when he heard them arrive. "Thanks," he heard a female voice call. When he looked up, he saw a white dwarf rabbit talking to one of the guards outside of his cell. Then, as the guard let her in… he perked. "Haru…" he whispered in a mix of surprise and borderline-happiness. "You came…" "Professor," she greeted with a soft smile. Her smile warmed as she watched him stand to meet her. She walked over, sitting on a padded bench and looking into his cold eyes. "Happy birthday," she told him as she set a vacuum flask next to herself. "I made you some coffee." "Thank you," he replied softly. She poured some coffee into a plastic cup, then poured some for herself. "The guard wouldn't let me bring mugs in," she told him with a sigh. "They're afraid you might try and hurt yourself. I told them you wouldn't do that… not anymore… but they didn't listen. I hope this is okay." "It is," he answered. He took a sip of coffee. It tasted strange, like chalk, and it was hot enough to burn his tongue… which is how he liked it. Even so, it made him cough. "Blow, silly," she chuckled as she blew cool air onto her own drink. "So, how are you holding up, here? Are they treating you alright?" He nodded silently, downing the whole cup, making himself hiss. Then, wordlessly, he handed the empty container back to her as she shook her head. "Thanks for the drink," he said. "I don't deserve it, but…" "You do," she countered. "You're trying, Melon. And, that's what counts." He looked at the rabbit, his eyes devoid of any feeling. "Doesn't matter," he answered. "There's no helping me. I'm diseased. Plagued. I shouldn't exist… but I do. Because my mother was a whore and my father was a pervert." She sipped her drink as she watched Melon's expression falter. "Do you know the saddest thing about what you just said?" she asked, once he'd finished her sip. "You honestly believe every word of that." She offered him another smile. "Melon, you're not a monster," she told him. "You're a… well, a lot of things, but a monster isn't one of them." "You don't know what I am," he hissed back. "No, Melon, I really don't," she agreed. "But, I'm willing to find out." "Why?" he asked in disbelief. "Because." Her face warmed a little. "You're proof that predator and prey can truly love each other." Her tone was light, her smile warm. It caused his stomach to twist into a sickening knot. "So, you've said," he dismissively mumbled.

"Melon, I know you don't want to hear it, but… you're a miracle. You're the result of two very different people coming together and making a conscious decision to love one another. Maybe it wasn't fair. You didn't ask for this… ask to be born. But, I'm glad that you were. Just meeting you… learning about you… gave me new hope for my relationship with Legosi." Haru bit her lip, stopping herself from saying anything more. Once she'd stopped talking, she looked down at her drink, stirring it slowly as she began to blush. Her ears were red, her fur bristling with anxiousness. "I brought you something for your birthday, Melon," she said as she nodded to the guard. When he and his partner walked away, she turned back to Melon with an oddly shy sort of smile. "It's not coffee." The hybrid animal cocked his head. Haru hadn't clarified what it was beyond that. Rather, she'd crossed her arms in front of her chest and stared down at her hands as she fiddled with a ring that adorned her finger. "Well?" she asked hesitantly. "Do you… like it?" He stared in confusion. "Do I like what?" he said in a short tone. "Your birthday present!" she cheerfully exclaimed, looking up at him. When he gave another confused look, she sighed and smiled. "You forgot my promise, huh? You're almost bad as Legosi…" she muttered. She looked down, absentmindedly rubbing at her fingers as she frowned to herself. "I guess I did," he grumpily muttered. She could tell that he was lying, though. "I promised…" she started as she removed her ring and put it into her dress pocket, "that you could eat me for your birthday. So…" She stood up and stepped over. "If you still want to…" She then beamed up at the confused killer. "I'd like to be your prey!"

Melon's breath caught in his throat. His eyes shot open, his irises expanding to the point where they seemed almost hollow. His jaw dropped as bunny looked upon him with a predatory gaze of her own. "I already paid off the guards so they won't interrupt. They won't be back for an hour," she said with a soft chuckle. "I also had them turn off the cameras for this room. I'm all yours, Professor… just like I promised." She put her hands on the rim of her sweater, fingers hooking under it. "So… if you still want to eat me…" She lifted the dress from the bottom and pulled it off her body. Then, as she tossed the garment aside, revealing the naked form that lay underneath, she whispered… "I'm yours…"

Melon stared at the young rabbit woman. He knew she must work out – surely that what kept her body looking so perfect. Her belly was flat, ribs showing where none should be. Her body was young and firm; soft skin that was still strong enough to excite a man nearly twice her age. Her legs were long and slender, just a few extra pounds around her hips. She was definitely a sight to behold… and for some reason, that made him conscious of his own gaunt body. His own was nowhere near as developed. It was just… deadly. After a moment of staring, Melon stood up, taking Haru into his arms like a plush toy. He then sat on the bench, placing the girl right in his lap. "I want to eat you," he breathed. When Melon licked his lips, Haru blushed a little. That wasn't the look of an animal looking for food that he was giving her… No, what she saw was a different kind of "hunger". "W-wait," she said with a frustrated scowl. "Melon, that's not what I–" He covered her mouth with his hand, two of his long fingers wrapping around her neck. She shivered, but she didn't struggle. "No, that's fine," Melon softly said, pulling his hand away. He looked at her, gently running his fingers through her short fur. Then, he leaned down, forcing her into a rough kiss that was surprisingly warm and gentle. Just as he was starting to get into the swing of things… "M-Melon!" She suddenly pushed him away and turned to one side, half-curling into herself.

"M-Melon…" she whispered, her voice unusually soft. "When you said you wanted to eat me, I-I thought…" She sighed, then she looked up, locking eyes with the murderer. "You're welcome to eat me…" she sternly told him, gently holding the hand that stayed curled around her throat, "but I can't do those other things with you. Besides…" She looked up with a soft, sad sort of smile. "You can do better than a sad little rabbit for that. Surely!"

Melon watched helplessly, his expression unchanging, as she suddenly started to shiver. The girl's body began to shudder as silent sobs wracked her. Was she suddenly scared he would rape her? Or, was it something else? She buried her head in her knees, trying to hide as she was overwhelmed by her emotions. He didn't like seeing her like that… but what could he do?

He reached out his hand to her, and she looked at it, sniffling. "S… sorry," she hiccuped, trying to save face. "I guess… I guess I wasn't expecting you to suddenly find me attractive. You really have changed, haven't you?" She didn't mean that in a bad way, of course. She was proud of all the progress he'd made since his defeat and his attempt at suicide, so many months ago. It was just… "I love Legosi, Melon… It took me a long time to realize that I love his big, dumb, idiotic self. But, I'm a girl who keeps her promises." She paused. "I made a promise that I'd let you eat me for your birthday, and I still mean it. I… I want you to eat me. Because, I want you to be able to feel something. I want you to be happy…" She sniffled a little more and rubbed her wet eyes. Meanwhile… her words made his face scrunch up in disgust and anger. "What? What are you talking about? What?" Melon asked angrily, his hand tightening around her throat. "I'm saying… I want you to be happy," she gasped as he started to choke her. "I want you to be happy and to feel. If eating me can help you do all that… then I'll gladly let you. You're… you're special to me. You're interesting. You're proof that love conquers all." She softly caressed his hand and looked away, feeling slightly embarrassed. "I must sound like a holiday greeting card, right now…" she laughed. "But… it's true." She looked his way, again, her eyes staring right into his, once more. "You don't know how amazing you are, Melon. But, I do. That's why I want to keep my promise to you. Please… don't hold back. Eat me."

Haru's eyes slipped shut as she sat in the killer's lap, holding her breath. She didn't resist and she didn't fight back as he tightened his grip on her neck while she caressed his hand. She was shivering and her heart was pounding… but she wasn't afraid. She was just… doing what came naturally to a little prey animal, like her. She couldn't help that her body wanted to run or that her brain wanted her to cry out for help. She would do neither, though. All she wanted… was for the beautiful hybrid that was strangling her… to eat her. And he would, in due time.

He looked back into her eyes. She was already struggling to breathe. Soon, she wouldn't be able to go on. Yet… she was still able to look right into his. He could see it in her eyes… he could see that she meant what she said… that it was okay. She genuinely wanted this. Maybe even more than he did… It was like a challenge, even though she didn't know it. She wanted him to eat her. Was it a reward for being brave or something? Maybe, it was more like a dare.

Melon's expression went back and forth between a mixture of disgust and desire. He licked his lips as he stared at her neck. He wanted to snap it… end her misery before it could begin. But at the same time, he didn't want to hurt her. No… he just wanted to eat her. Just like she wanted. This was what he needed. It didn't matter that she was pretty. It didn't matter that she was a prey animal. It didn't even matter that she was practically challenging him to do it. What mattered was that she wanted this more than he did. If she really cherished his freedom that much, then he would do it. He would eat her… and he would be free.

"M… Melon? Wh…" the girl wheezed. He tightened his grip on her neck, lifting her into the air as she coughed and gagged. Then, with little emotion to his voice, he whispered… "I'm sorry…" Haru closed her eyes, violently trembling. He was moving his head closer to her… threatening to bite her throat. In mere seconds… it would be over. And, no matter what… she was going to fight all of her hard-coded urges and simply… let him do whatever he wanted with her tender, delicious body. It was her birthday gift, given to someone she admired… someone she wanted to make happy. She wanted him to do that. Perhaps she was a bit jealous that he existed… or perhaps she understood him in a way no one else ever could. She didn't feel scared. She didn't feel anxious. She felt… excited. "I… want this…" she whispered as her words blurred into a hoarse cough. "M… Melon. Eat… me…" "Yes…"

The two animals felt an unusual form of ecstatic feeling flow through their veins as it happened. Haru squeaked in a mix of pain and ingrained fear. She could feel every inch of Melon's cheetah fangs burying themselves into her delicate neck. Even Melon, who was all but dead on the inside, felt something new… something unfamiliar… something that he thought he would never feel again. And as he tasted her blood for the first time, it was like a shooting pain, but a good shot straight through his heart.

He gasped for breath, his grip growing weak on her neck. The girl had stopped moving, her red life fluids trickling through her pure, white fur and down his clutched hand. She was still breathing, though… still alive. He'd intentionally held back just enough… to savor her taste. A taste that he hadn't expected. As he cleaned his teeth of her blood, he tasted something more than what was there… something deeply emotional. It was the sweetest thing he'd ever felt… better than anything he'd ever tasted before. He wanted more of it. He wanted it all the time. And so he did what he set out to do.

He went back to the well, and he drank. And drank. And drank.

"N-ngh…" Haru tried to reach up and grasp his wrist. However, she fell short. He was feeding like he was a vampire and her little body was losing blood, fast. It made her feel weak and dizzy… and happy. Very happy. He was really taking his time… enjoying things at his own pace… "H-H... Happy... B... Birthday, Melon...!" she managed to grunt as her vision started to darken and blur. She was certainly going to die with a warm smile on her face… knowing that she made her friend so happy. Melon slowly withdrew his head from off her throat, licking the last traces of blood from his lips. He held her hand in his and looked into her pale eyes, which stared into his own. She wasn't focusing, anymore. She was starting to fade on him. Good. His plan was working. Soon… she would lose consciousness, and he could eat her without hurting her any further. "Thank… you… Melon…" she whispered. "My pleasure," he said with genuine warmth to his voice. As the girl drifted off, the two of them shared one last smile…

When the guards returned at the start of the next hour, they were stunned to see that the little, white rabbit girl had, indeed, kept her word. All that remained was a small pile of clothing, some bones and inedible organs, and a vacuum flask she'd brought with her. "You actually did it…" one guard said, feeling sick to his stomach. "You actually ate her… You sick, twisted bastard." Melon sat on his bed, rubbing his belly and licking his lips. He flashed a wicked, awful grin to the guard. "Happy birthday to me," he practically purred, "happy birthday to me…"

There was absolutely no remorse to his voice or shame on his face. In fact, he had never looked happier. There was, however, a sole regret that rested in his mind… I'll never get to experience this, ever again… He shrugged a little. Such is life.

In the name of keeping a promise. Haru had made the ultimate sacrifice, that day. And, in her last moments of consciousness, she felt absolutely no regrets in her decision. After all… she'd wanted Legosi to eat her since that business with the old leader of the Shishigumi. Because it would have made her happy. She recalled thinking about the events that transpired after that time… how, in a fit of necessity… Legosi had been convinced to eat the foot of their mutual friend, Louis. In some twisted way, she was even a little jealous that Legosi had done it, regardless of circumstances. Legosi and Louis would always have that deep, emotional bond… something she felt that she lacked with the big, dumb wolf.

Before her light had completely faded… she smiled. She smiled because she was finally able to have that sort of bond with someone she cared for. She smiled because she was finally able to make someone genuinely happy. And, she smiled because she finally got to play the role she was born into…

She was finally able to be the prey that she was meant to be.

#fan fiction #Melon's Birthday #co-written #AI Dungeon #commercial characters #Beastars #Melon (Beastars)#Haru (Beastars)#slice of life #drama #horror

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cinemavariety · 4 years

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The Director’s Series: Nicolas Winding Refn

The director series will consist of me concentrating on the filmography of all my favorite directors. I will rank each of their films according to my personal taste. I hope this project will provide everyone with quality recommendations and insight into films that they might not have known about. Today’s director in spotlight is Nicolas Winding Refn

#9 - Fear X (2003) Runtime: 1 hr 31 min Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

When his wife is killed in a seemingly random incident Harry, prompted by mysterious visions, journeys to discover the true circumstances surrounding her murder.

Verdict: Refn’s most forgotten about film, even I have a hard time remembering that this film is part of his oeuvre. Nevertheless, Fear X is a quiet and lingering exercise in style. It’s a surrealist film noir with heavy influences from David Lynch. It’s also the first time where Refn began experimenting with color and started to move away from shaky cam.

#8 - The Pusher Trilogy (1996/2004/2005) Runtime: 1 hr 45 min / 1 hr 40 min / 1 hr 30 min Aspect Ratio: 1.66 : 1 / 1.85 : 1 / 1.85 : 1 Film Format: 16mm / 35mm / 35mm

A drug pusher grows increasingly desperate after a botched deal leaves him with a large debt to a ruthless drug lord.

Verdict: I made the decision to categorize all three Pusher films as one entry for this post (otherwise it would just be too many). Nicolas Winding Refn started off his career with the strong crime tale of Pusher, and made the last two films to complete the trilogy after his English language debut Fear X ended up bombing. While I love the first and third entry more than I do the second, all three Pusher films are captivating and anxiety-ridden crime docudramas. It’s a great way to see how far Refn has evolved by starting with these films first.

#7 - Bleeder (1999) Runtime: 1 hr 38 min Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

Two stories for the price of one: Lenny works in a video shop and tries to get acquainted with the waitress Lea. Leo can't cope with the pressure of becoming a father, leading to trouble with his pregnant wife and especially her brother.

Verdict: While Bleeder might be Refn’s lowest budget film to date, and not all the violence comes off as extremely convincing, I enjoyed it more than all three Pusher films because of the emotional stakes within the story. Multiple characters lives intertwine and interconnect in oftentimes disastrous circumstances. I also loved how Mads Mikkelsen’s character is a huge film aficionado, all of the scenes he is featured in bring a much needed reprieve from the turmoil and abuse.

#6 - Too Old to Die Young (2019) Runtime: 15 hr Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1 Film Format: Arri Alexa Digital

The numb existences of Martin Jones, a police officer with secrets to hide, and Jesus, a traumatized avenging son, collide in a ghostly Los Angeles where several ruthless criminal gangs fight for their turf and dictate who lives and who dies. Verdict: Too Old To Die Young finds the celebrated auteur, Nicolas Winding Refn, sharing his view of humanity and society at its most despicable. All of his usual motifs and creative decisions are employed in full force with Too Old To Die Young, sometimes to an almost unbearable degree unless you are a truth Refn aficionado. His long takes, infinitesimal silences between lines, neon lighting, synth score and characters belonging to a criminal underworld are all utilized to great affect within the series. And while I believe that Refn’s sensibilities are best conveyed through a film medium, the limited series allows Refn to explore what he wants to convey like an artist adding layer upon layer of colors onto a blank palette.

#5 - Bronson (2008) Runtime: 1 hr 32 min Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

A young man who was sentenced to 7 years in prison for robbing a post office ends up spending 30 years in solitary confinement. During this time, his own personality is supplanted by his alter ego, Charles Bronson. Verdict: Bronson is quite possibly Tom Hardy’s most impressive performance, and that’s saying a lot. It exudes such a hypnotic quality that every time I watch it, it’s as if I am seeing the film for my very first time. It tells the true story of one of Britain’s most infamous criminals.Refn’s visual flair and unique filming style make it unlike any other prison film I’ve ever witnessed. This is the beginnings of Refn’s disinterest in traditional narrative structure.

#4 - Only God Forgives (2013) Runtime: 1 hr 30 min Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1 Film Format: Red Epic Digital

Julian, who runs a Thai boxing club as a front organization for his family’s drug smuggling operation, is forced by his mother Crystal to find and kill the individual responsible for his brother’s recent death.

Verdict: This is easily Refn’s most frustrating film. Whenever I watch it, I’m unsure whether I adore it or dislike it. But the fact that it’s the Refn film I have probably revisited the most is extremely telling of the ambience that Refn creates. Only God Forgives is arguably the most beautifully shot film from Nicolas. The neon drenched streets of Bangkok are presented to look like a netherworld. It’s a revenge fantasy thriller mixed with Oedipal undertones. Also, Gosling looks like a treat in every frame.

#3 - Valhalla Rising (2009) Runtime: 1 hr 33 min Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1 Film Format: Red One Digital

1000 AD, for years, One Eye, a mute warrior of supernatural strength, has been held prisoner by the Norse chieftain Barde. Aided by Are, a boy slave, One Eye slays his captor and together he and Are escape, beginning a journey into the heart of darkness. On their flight, One Eye and Are board a Viking vessel, but the ship is soon engulfed by an endless fog that clears only as the crew sights an unknown land. As the new world reveals its secrets and the Vikings confront their terrible and bloody fate, One Eye discovers his true self.

Verdict: Valhalla Rising is Refn’s dirtiest and bloodiest work, and it certainly finds the director at his most surreal and existential. If anyone wants to know a film that epitomized what it means to be considered art house - this is it. It’s a film about a slave finding emancipation from his tyrannous slave owners, and finds himself on a doomed voyage to the New World with a group of fanatical Christian vikings. The story is told in separate chapters, with each section the audience finds itself traveling down a rabbit hole that resembles something of an acid try gone awry.

#2 - The Neon Demon (2016) Runtime: 1 hr 57 min Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1 Film Format: Arri Alexa XT Plus Digital

When aspiring model Jesse moves to Los Angeles, her youth and vitality are devoured by a group of beauty-obsessed women who will take any means necessary to get what she has.

Verdict: The Neon Demon has grown to become my second favorite movie from Nicolas. The film succeeds in shedding light on the hedonistic lifestyle of deranged young women in a tongue-in-cheek, almost satirical fashion. It’s one of the best looking Refn films to date, with even banal or commonplace locations drenched in neon hues. Composer Cliff Martinez outdoes himself with the synth-heavy score which guides the audience along a fairytale of horrors. In Refn’s surreal vision of Los Angeles there is no such thing as going too far to reach fame, even if it means bloodshed. As one character says in the film: “Beauty isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” It would be nice to write off this statement as pure subjectivity, but what else has the media taught us but this ideal?

#1 - Drive (2011) Runtime: 1 hr 40 min Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1 Film Format: Arri Alexa & Cooke S4 Digital

A Hollywood stunt performer who moonlights as a wheelman for criminals discovers that a contract has been put on him after a heist gone wrong.

Verdict: Seeing Drive in theatres back in 2011, without even having seen a film from Refn and not knowing much of the plot in general, is hands down one of the most memorable and inspiring theatrical experiences I ever had. Drive, among many other films that came out around that time, acted as a catalyst for me to branch out and discover more independent and arthouse filmmakers. I believe that it is undoubtedly Refn’s best film, and I might dare say that might be credited to the fact that is one of the only Refn films in which he didn’t write. These characters, while quiet and mysterious, have more depth to them than any of his others. The quiet romance between Drive and Irene provide more emotional stakes than any of his other works as well. All the elements of Drive complement each other and build off of each other. As cheesy as it may sound, if any film could be considered cool - it’s this. It’s already gained a cult status and it will most definitely go down in history as one of the most beautiful crime noirs ever made.

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shuwuwua · 5 years

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farmboy!joshua

in which your first time in the rural countryside–crap internet, 20 minute drives to the nearest grocery store, random deer in the roads, and all–is not bad. not bad at all. (aka joshua and animals and being very soft) [fluff]

word count: 3k

disclaimer: not all rural areas are the same. you can get high speed internet. (just not in my personal experience lmao)

you were born, raised, and spent most of your livelihood in the same city

a proper skyscraper sort of city, not a “it’s bigger than a town so i guess we have to call it a city but the tallest building here is still only 4 stories high” city

your family wasn’t really one for vacations but this summer your parents decided to switch it up and spend a few weeks with your relatives who live in the countryside

and although you’ve been skeptical as to what’s possibly worth spending that long in the boonies, you figure it’s been a while since you saw those relatives and don’t say much against it

you’ve tried unsuccessfully for the past few days to avoid nature by browsing YouTube, but it’s proving difficult with your relatives’ lack of surfable internet

they finally suggest you go to the petting zoo

and you snort a little at first bc it’s not your ideal pastime but you suppose that’s what you gotta work with now in the boonies

so you drive to the nearby petting zoo. you exit your car.

and your hit with the Smell™ (of dried grass and poop, to clarify)

and you’re like. oh yeah. i’m definitely in the countryside.

you proceed.

as you walk up the path to the main buildings, you see some of the larger animals around you. horses. cows. the pigs are outside feeding at this hour. you’re kind of in awe because you’ve never seen a Live Cow and,,, they’re kinda cool how they’re so chill and they look sorta Smooth like they’d be really pettable and you wonder if you’d be able to milk one or smthn

but you’re getting a little ahead of yourself.

you open the barn door. and are immediately hit with more Smell™

you wonder if it’ll attach to your clothes. you figure you will deal with it later.

there is something else to deal with at the moment.

“wait, no–lucky! come back!” someone yelps as they rush around in front of you, chasing what seems to be a ball of fur that moves at the speed of light

or a puppy. same thing, really.

that someone takes a giant leap of faith, only to just barely miss the pup and end up face first on the floor, which you can’t imagine being the most sanitary of surfaces

you look away in search of the flurry of fur. you can’t see it, but you can definitely hear it. unfortunately, it doesn’t sound like it has a collar, so you prepare yourself to scoop it up completely rather than grabbing its collar. as expected, it runs into your direction and you launch at it...

success!

lucky squirms in your grasp, barking and sniffing at your shirt. they must decide that you’re an agreeable human, because they start trying to lick your face

“wow, you caught him!” you look up at seemingly the body from earlier

and like,, not to exaggerate but is this what looking at an angel is like?

the boy you’re looking at looks back with such bright eyes and with a gaze full of affection, although after a second you realize the affection is probably for the dog. he has the best smile you’ve seen in a good while, because people you pass by in the city don’t smile that much. he just radiates Warm and Good and is probably great for business, because he’s just as cute as the puppy who is still going at your chin

“i… yeah, guess i did. uh, you kind of have straw all over you” is what you settle on saying to him, because out of all the things you noticed about him, your brain decides that the straw and dirt still sticking to his cheek and various parts of his shirt were the most acceptable features to point out. while they weren’t the more flattering options, they probably saved you from the complete AWKWARDNESS that would have come from mentioning his eyes or beaming smile or really anything else bc the straw and dirt were the only flaws.

“oh!” he exclaims, straightening up and brushing off his shirt

“… here too,” you say, grasping lucky in one arm as you move your other hand to your cheek

of course, he wipes at the wrong side.

“the other side”

“right. ok. am i good? sorry, that’s not a great first impression.”

he still has a smear, but you decide it’s probably not going to budge and he’ll figure it out later. and he has no clue what a great first impression it was. clearly. “no, it’s fine.”

he continues to smile at you and you’re still crouched, clutching lucky. lucky then decides to yelp because he’s tired of the severe lack of attention, which snaps you back to the situation.

“oh, right.” you stand and give lucky back.

“here he is!”

once lucky is back in the boy’s arms, he immediately starts to lick at his jaw. the boy sighs and pulls a treat out of the pocket of his apron, waving it around lucky’s face. “what are we going to do with you?”

he turns back to you. “sorry about that, lucky is a very excited young pupper, as you just saw. the most problematic of all his siblings. anyway, i’m joshua! welcome to nabiya petting zoo. is it your first time here?”

you nod. “er. it’s actually my first time in this area, or in this part of the country, really. i’m from a pretty big city.”

“oh! well, a bigger welcome, then. i hope you enjoy your stay.”

he rubs lucky between his ears. “isn’t it nice to get away from the busy urban life sometimes? i’ve always thought it’s really relaxing around here.”

“yeah, it seems… nice so far,” you say loosely, reflecting on how you haven’t really seen enough to come to that conclusion

he still has that warm smile. “i’m going to put lucky in his pen. hm… you’re the only one who’s come in so far today, so i could show you around if you want?”

“yeah, sure! i haven’t seen a lot of these before,” you reply, going down the list of animals at the side on the wall.

“ok, i’ll be right back!”

when he comes back y’all walk around n look at things and he asks you if you want to hold or feed some animals and you take everything pretty well, more than even you expect

you look at the normal domestic sort of animals like a litter of kittens, and the pen with lucky and his other pupper brothers and sisters

typical farm animals like pigs and sheep

sheep are not as fluffy as you imagine, they’re actually kind of gross looking if they haven’t had a bath recently

nonetheless you find them kind of cute, and you even pet one of the rams, aptly named… sam the ram

something tells you joshua was responsible for the name

you guys go out to the field and observe some turkeys strutting around

“huh so that’s the thing you see in clipart, the thing hanging off their faces”

“yeah it’s called a snood”

“LOL huH”

“only the dudes have snoods”

“um”

“during mating season, female turkeys pick male turkeys with longer snoods. you could say they’re in the snood for love.”

“please stop”

y’all spend a lot of time with the rabbits bc “bunnies are my favorite animal” says josh as he crouches next to a brown fluffball of a bunny, petting it

it’s just such a Good n Wholesome scene you can’t help but let slip “wow ur so cute”

he looks up, but his expression says he is otherwise unbothered

“sorry, what’d you say?”

“i SA ID the buNNY is sO cuTE” panics

“oh” joshua says. “alright” he turns back to the bunny, a tiny smile on his face

before you know it, 4 hours have passed and your stomach is letting you know dinnertime is approaching, so you bid josh farewell and wonder if you’ll ever see him again because that was a hecking nice 4 hours

you find yourself coming back again two days later lmao

today, joshua is putting out slop for the pigs. he grins at you.

“hey again. what brings you back so soon?”

you find some excuse like “ykno i just bonded with sam the ram so well i had to come back, we’re bros now” and josh just laughs softly at you

“ok. you wanna look at some horses today?”

“whoa. o-okay.”

when he brings them out ngl you’re kinda intimidated bc like,, they’re some toL bois.

one time you saw a pony at the state fair but that was smol n cute and walked at a pace of 3 miles an hour

but these horses?? threatening. now you understand where the horse in horsepower comes from

“hey, don’t look so scared. they’re harmless!” the black stallion chooses that moment to snort and buck a little.

you gulp.

“no, really.” he pets the stallion. “snuffles has never hurt anyone.”

you blink

“,,, snuffles ??”

joshua gives you a hard stare. “7 year old me thought that was an appropriate name and today years old me still thinks it’s fine”

you raise your hands to say “ok man ur turf ur way”

joshua clears his throat dramatically and turns back to ,, snuffles. “so aNyway, i brought snuffles out because i think he’s the best for a beginner to ride, and i’m assuming you’ve never ridden a horse before.”

“yeah i haven’t… wait did you say we’re gonna riDE them??”

“yeah, we don’t usually let people do that but i feel like you need the whole farm experience so you can go home and tell your friends the country isn’t just yeehaw and old town”

“but like… isn’t this just proving the point of old town? you literally have the horses in the back.”

“however, my hat is not matte black. i don’t even have a cowboy hat. or Wrangler. or anything else the song mentions. just the horses.”

“ok joshua if it makes u happy i will take snuffles to the old town road”

he gives u a big :D

he instructs you on how to mount the horse and stands behind you in case you start falling but thankfully you don’t so we don’t have to go over any kind of cliche

~ gripping of the waist for balance ~

~ catching you in his arms ~

scenes

: ))

“hey, good job! give snuffles some pats or something.” you reach a hand out to stroke the side of snuffles’s face. he whinnies a bit. Well frick, you think, that was kind of cute.

joshua decides he’ll walk some laps around with you before letting you actually ride snuffles by yourself. after you seem to be comfortable, you guys walk/trot around some and that’s how the rest of that afternoon goes :)

picture this with me

the sun is low in the sky

and y’all and your horses are just looking out over the hill

skin lookin immaculate bc it’s the golden hour

a massive grin you don’t even realize you have on your face.

and then you gotta go home, as your stomach reminds you again.

over your stay at your relatives’ place, you visit the petting zoo more times

you and josh become pretty comfortable with each other

he always has a lot of time to spend with you bc people don’t come that much this early in the summer, and in general they don’t get a huge amount of traffic but that’s okay financially bc the petting zoo is just a side thing, it’s mainly his family’s farm

and so you learn more things about him and his family from your times together, you guys sometimes sit around with some lemonade and hold some bunnies. lucky has also taken a liking to you, so you hold him a lot.

joshua tells you about his parents having always wanted to live peaceful and healthy lives, eating their own produce, moved to the area before he was born and it just expanded into the farm.

so although no one lives on the farm, they live pretty close by and he spent most of his childhood around all the animals.

you wonder if he was born with the soft, patient, and gentle nature needed to care for all the animals or if the animals shaped him to be that way.

but on top of that, he really loves spending time with them. even though he’s there basically every day, he never seems tired of his job.

“but what about you though? i’ve never really been that far from here, so i wonder what a big city is like.”

you trade your chaotic urban stories for his peaceful rural ones, and he trades his farm accident horrors for your memories of solidarity in the city.

you tell him about all the great food, countless different flavors of restaurants and a bubble tea chain every few blocks

you tell him about the convenience, the variety of transportation and the proximity of things, like basic groceries

the crowded sidewalks, the crowded metro, the crowded shops

the neon signs that light up the night, the period of quiet and calm somewhere around 3 in the morning, when you can open the window and hear the city nightlife in its most muted yet most raw state.

not only has time in the countryside made you appreciate it more, but also your home life more.

while you’re still wrapped in your memories, joshua smiles softly at you from the side. lemonade long forgotten, ice long melted. “that sounds really nice. your stories make me want to visit you in your hometown some time.”

huh. he could’ve just said visit the city, but he said visit you in your hometown. joshua has such a way with making the conversation personal.

you process what he said again and think about what it’d be like if he came. you could take him to all those places you raved about… it’d be like…

,,, a bunch of dates really. your brain frazzles a bit at the thought.

“… yeah! … that’d be pretty cool.”

and that’s how your afternoons pass these days. lemonade at the side, bunnies in hand, breeze passing through hair.

eventually josh asks you if you want to hang out like… nOT at the petting zoo

and you’re like whoa ok what’s your idea

and he’s like “can you meet me at watchtower hill tomorrow at 8pm?”

he thinks about what he just said and quickly follows with “i know that’s kind of a really late time, but i promise i have no nefarious intent! oh, shoot that makes it seem like i do. i really don’t i promise! i just wanted to show you what the sunset and night sky are like in the countryside. oh, i just spoiled it…” he flashes you an awkward smile and some finger guns. “yep, that’s what we’re doing! no nefarious activities.”

you grin at him. “calm down dude, i didn’t think like that in the first place. i’m usually out even later at home anyway.”

he rubs the back of his head and laughs it off with you.

you do meet the next day at 8pm. he brings some midnight snacks that his mom made. except they’re not really midnight snacks, because you’re not trying to stay out there until midnight (spoiler: you do, because y’all yak a lot)

you guys sit on your jackets, watching the sunset. it’s the kind of temperature that’s says it was mad hot during the day, but now that the sun is going down, it’s cooled into a pleasant room temperature with an occasional warm breeze.

for once you all don’t say much, because it’s nice to just share the moment.

you reflect on how you’ve come to experience the area recently. most of it was the petting zoo, but sometimes you’d take up some of joshua’s suggestions about the area and report back to him how the experience was later on.

looking out at the sun that bleeds out into the blueish black night, you think that it’s been a pretty good time here, and maybe it does have an edge on city life.

as the last of warm colors finally seep out of the sky, the moon takes over the night and the stars become more apparent than you’ve ever seen before.

seriously, it’s a scene out of a movie. you know, the wide screen shot of the protagonists staring at the sky, mystified. the panorama over the constellations that twinkle down at you, a little gift from the galaxy.

“i’ve never seen the sky like this. all the twinkling lights in the city come from the streets, and the buildings. which are pretty in their own way, i think. but Mother Nature… is really something else,” you say.

“yeah,” he says, looking at you as you’re still in awe at the sky. “something else.”

a few more moments pass, but it’s a timeless night as the sky is frozen in space.

joshua lays back on his jacket.

“hey,, maybe this is sort of crazy but.”

you turn to him, raising a brow.

“it’s been really, uh.. it’s been. really awesome getting to know you. i’ve just kind of… seen the same sorts of things all my life. the same sorts of people. i mean! of course, everyone is unique in their own way but! you know.” he takes a glance at you. “rural folks, urban folks. there’s a difference. so I’ve really enjoyed talking with you. uh, i mean i enjoy talking to you regardless of if you’re from the city or not!”

he puts a palm to his face and sighs. from behind his hand, he says, “i just like you.”

“i like you too, joshua! you’re a really great guy.”

“no, not like that. i mean. i like you.” he finally removes his hand.

you blink a little. and finally burst into a grin. “yeah. i like you too. you’re a really great guy.”

it’s his turn to blink

you lie back as well. he slowly starts to smile next to you

the stars above shine on.

yeah. this is a life you could get used to, too.

a/n: i stole the snood puns from a website i was reading sry website. hope you guys enjoyed and i had a lot of fun writing joshua this way (he’s all squishy, not exactly canon i would say lol)

#joshua scenario #joshua scenarios #seventeen scenario #seventeen scenarios #seventeen #joshua #hong jisoo #joshua hong #type: scenario #genre: romance #genre: fluff #format: bullet #scenario: seventeen #scenario: joshua #words: 5k #author: jae

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ransomedbard · 5 years

Text

A Good Day

This is dialogue I cut from a WIP; it got too dark for the story it was intended for.

As a young adult, Duo begins to unpack difficult memories from his time with Professor G’s rebel group, and confides in a trusted friend...

“I was 12, maybe 13 at the time, and I was getting by on my own - odd jobs sometimes, but more often fencing what I stole. My luck had been off for a while and I made a bad hop - that’s stowing away on a ship - and they caught me. Well it was out of the frying pan and into the fire, there. They were so paranoid and asked me so many questions it was clear this was no ordinary transport; they were up to something and deathly afraid of being caught. So when the Professor offered to bring me in to their group I said yes with a quickness, ‘cause I was afraid it was that or the airlock. That’s how it started.”

“After we docked they blindfolded me and put me in a crate or trunk or something - my heart was beating like a rabbit - but when they let me out at their hideout it was an ok place, like an old factory with a warren of rooms to work and live in. And the Professor took me into the mess hall and introduced me to the rest of their group. A couple dozen of them, all adults. It was a real cold welcome, and the way they looked at me I thought it might turn ugly, but it didn’t because he was in charge - or rather, as I learned later, they needed him too much to piss him off.”

“So he leaves me there with them and it’s round two of questioning, and they seemed pleased when I repeated what I’d said when they caught me - ‘bount what the Alliance had taken from me - no lie, that. When they talked about themselves they were pretty vague, but I picked up little bits and pieces of what it was all about. I knew they were militants, and wanted to take down the Earth occupiers, hit them so hard the Colonies would be free. But how? No, that they wouldn’t tell me. I wasn’t allowed to see what they were working on or be present at their meetings. I didn’t dare try to see what was behind those giant doors. Looking back, I was sure they were back there making bombs, or missiles, or something - I never would have guessed what it really was.”

“I was in limbo there for a while. I had expected the Professor would give me something to do, but I barely ever saw him. Since I wasn’t allowed in their factory or lab, or even to touch a computer, I thought maybe they would want me to go out and steal for them. But they just laughed at me when I offered, which hurt my pride a bit. I mean, they had caught me so I could understand their scepticism, but on the whole I was pretty good at it. But I think they couldn’t see anything but my age. In any case, I wasn’t allowed to leave because they didn’t trust me. And I didn’t want them to think I was useless. So I just tried to earn my keep doing cleaning and stuff like that, but it was tense.”

“I wasn’t there long before I realized things weren’t going well for them; there was a lot of anger, and sometimes people went missing. I overheard whispers they had a mole - a sellout, someone feeding the government information. I was terrified they would think it was me somehow, even though they were still keeping me in the dark. I thought about trying to run but that would just make me look guilty, and these weren’t the kind of people you could cross. I was deep in a bad situation.”

“I think...that experience reinforced my fear of stability, of ‘staticness’. I had as much to eat as I wanted, I was clean, had a bed of my own, no one was stealing from me - in a physical sense it was a relief from struggle; comfortable. But my mind was a mess of restless fear. I was more afraid for my life than I’d been when I was homeless.”

“Then there was that day. I was cleaning the kitchen, and Jonah and Carrillo came in and told me they had caught the mole. It was one of the engineers that worked with the Professor, a guy named Mitya. They took me alone to one of the storage rooms to see him. I had a bad feeling…”

“Mitya was lying on the floor, hands tied behind his back. He didn’t look too roughed up, but he wasn’t moving and didn’t speak, so I knew they had already done something to him. Drugs, maybe.”

“Carrillo - she was sort of their enforcer, scary as hell, but she talked to me more than most so she knew my background, that I’d been in gangs before - turned to me and asked me what they did on the street to traitors. The way she asked the question, I knew she wanted a certain answer but I didn’t know what. I said we would take back what they stole if we could, and kick them out and make them leave our turf. She said ‘Did you hurt them’, and I said yeah, we would hit them sometimes in anger for what they did, but getting thrown out was the real punishment because now they were marked and no one else would trust them. She didn’t care for that, just kept asking ‘What did the other gangs do, Duo? What did the adults do to traitors? You’re going to be an adult soon.’ I knew what she wanted me to say, but I was scared.”

“Then she told me that Walsh and Zoe - those were two of the people that had gone missing - were caught by the Alliance and were in prison now, and Mitya was responsible. You have to understand, I hated being locked up back then more than anything. Other kids said it wasn’t so bad, at least they fed you, but I had been in ‘juvie’ jail a few times when I was younger and I loathed every second of it. They took everything from me and threw it away - my tools, my mementos, the weapons that I needed to defend myself, even the clothes they picked me up in. They asked me all these questions and twisted my words to make me sound guilty or crazy. They wouldn’t let me sleep when I wanted or save food for later. They had complete control over me and I couldn't stand it. She knew all that, that’s why she told me, to make me hate Mitya for doing that to them for his own gain. She said they might never get out of prison and there needed to be a price.”

“She gave me the knife then. I knew it was an initiation - it felt like that. That was the only time Jonah spoke at all, he told me how to grab his shoulder and stab him from behind, in and up. I don’t think I could have done it if I could have seen Mitya’s face. It was over pretty quick. And then after, they told me I did well, and they took away his body.”

“I remember getting a mop to clean the blood off the floor, and being so relieved knowing that I wouldn’t be suspected any more. And hopeful that I would be more accepted now that I had done what they wanted, which turned out to be true; that started me on the path that led to me being chosen as the pilot. So that was a really good day; that’s how I remember it.”

“But when I look at it now, that’s pretty screwed up, right? I just used Mitya to get what I wanted, to raise my status in the group. I didn’t know or even care if he was the mole, or even if there was one to begin with. Maybe he was just a scapegoat. He was decent enough to me - he stood up for me once or twice when I was getting yelled at, and he had promised to teach me to weld, and he gave me his dessert a couple of times when he didn’t want it. He could be kinda irritable and short with everyone, but when he was happy he had a big laugh, and he had a wife and child he hadn’t seen in years but wanted to go back to someday.”

“What kind of person am I, that none of that mattered to me? What kind of person remembers the first time they killed someone as a good day?”

#gundam wing #fanfiction #duo maxwell

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gusherfruitsnack · 5 years

Text

Bunnymund physical headcanons

If this wasn’t exactly what you had in mind I apologize, I wasn’t sure if you meant what I imagined when reading more about him, or about the technicality and what his mannerisms might be like.

So I did a bit of both, but I do hope you enjoy it all the same :)

~Snack

Fair warning I am no scientist, but I do like incorporating hypotheses at times.

So looking at the wiki mostly, there’s a few things we do know. After watching the film twice rather recently, there’s a few other things we can infer as well. But traits I’d like to point out would be :

Bunnymunds model was heavily based off of a Hare/Rabbit, that is true, but also human physique and kangaroo as well! So to go off on this, I would think that because of his stature, his gait would have longer strides and slower steps. Unlike bugs bunny his feet are rather small and he’s balancing on them most of the time, allowing him to be more agile even with his height. Similar to runners/sprinters/mountain climbers always being told to rest their weight on the balls of their feet, it creates less fatigue when they need to do activities requiring more leg power. So I think it’s safe to assume he’s just as comfortable on two feet as he is on all fours.

It’s possible when resting or lounging he would be more inclined to do so on all fours, easing tension in his legs. Several times we see him switch from bi-pedal to running in a quadruped like manner, just like a rabbit. Along with that, in his home turf he does seem to roam around more-so like a rabbit, unlike at the other guardian home bases.

At his tallest, he stated himself in the film that he is 6′1, although that could just be Hugh being Hugh. However, I wouldn’t doubt it, he’s practically a sky scraper next to the other guardians. (Ok besides North, but North is another story.)

As for weight and muscular structure, he appears lean and toned, unlike his actual bunny form. This could just be a stylistic choice or the fact that being that tall and running as a quadruped would probably be quite the workout, leading to him having a more “toned” build.

His fur though. I can’t not write about this. Have you felt rabbit fur before? It’s softer than sheep skin rugs, which try and imitate soft fur and it’s just as warm too. So besides it being softer than dandelions, he probably has a floral/earthy scent as well. Guardian of spring and all that.

Although it would be funny to say that he dyes certain portions of his fur to get those markings, due to his race being something completely different (no really, in the books he’s referred to as a Pooka, and the last of them too), I would say that it just grows in in that fashion. Similar to how fawns lose their spots as they mature, the Pooka could be the reverse of that, showing maturity through receiving their marks.

And a fun fact, on the wiki they made a note that when making the film, they redesigned Bunny’s whole character because Hugh had the role. He went from a “well educated, but uptight” rabbit, to this Australian ranger.

Leave it to tumblr to delete my original draft of this... I fleshed it out a bit more + added many gifs, so I hope that makes up for how long it took to post this Anon!

Lil p.s

My friend, after many years, decided to watch this film for the first time recently! Of course it was quite late and we were cracking a lot of jokes and catching onto things we didn’t expect, so we watched it again a couple days later, I believe? My sense of time has been non-existent this week to be honest...

sorrythismightbemegoingabitdeepintotheorizingbutthat’sforanothertime

#rotg #riseoftheguardians #bunnymund #headcanons #hcs #bunnymundheadcanons #theories #bunnymundrotg #anon request

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ladylynse · 5 years

Note

Hello, I apologize if you have already answered what I am about to ask. When you write a story how do you develop the plot? And do you ever think about plot holes? If so how do you prevent those?

Hi, Anon. Thanks for asking!

I start with my idea. Sometimes it’s as simple as “it would be hilarious if Maddie saw Phantom get hit with the Booo-merang when she knows it reacts to her son”. Sometimes it’s a paragraph or two or ten of random ideas smushed together(technical term)--this is more or less the stage my DPxML fic is at. There’s a lot of me going, “Oooh, this would be fun” or “ooh, or I could do this”, and I’ll actually talk to myself like that in my notes. It’s long, ramble-y, grammatically incorrect, and basically the equivalent of me brainstorming some sort of initial idea, the root of the story. (I’m already rambling, so the rest of the answer will be under a read more.)

I then start doing a bit of research on stuff I’ll need to write the story. Depending on how long I’ve been in a fandom, this can be very basic stuff (people’s names) to more specific things (what day does Adrien have fencing?) and will always include some sort of cheat sheet for myself if the characters use slang (like Randy. And Jake.). If I come up with any ideas--or potential ideas--while doing that, I jot them down. Even if it’s a couple lines of dialogue or a way to end a scene, at some point, if I can write that scene into the story (eg Gwaine saw Merlin’s eyes glow gold.) All of this starts in my initial fic document and eventually gets moved to a scrap file associated with that fic. Do not delete ideas/scenes/dialogue/anything even if you aren’t currently using it. You might be able to recycle them into a different fic or later in the current story.

Then I start writing. To see if it’ll work. Even if I don’t have a very clear idea of where things are going yet, and certainly no idea of the end. Sometimes I need to try a few different ways to start a story (Reflections went through various iterations. Mockingbird and my DPxML fic are still in that stage) before I find one that seems to flow. That’s when I look at the situation the characters are in (or about to be in) and try to figure out their actions and reactions to the stuff I’m putting them through. And then I try to let that drive the plot. It’s something I’ve gotten better at over time--making it less obvious that the characters are doing that because that’s the way I want the story to go--but my best plots tend to be character-driven. (This may or may not help you avoid some plot holes. Depends on what the plot hole is. It’ll hopefully help you cut down on the “well, why didn’t they do that like they always do?” sort.)

If you need a character to do something that’s not in character for your plot to go the way you want, you need to give them a reason to act out of character (eg Danny not telling Jake his secret because there’s a paranormal studies/ghost hunters convention in town--and because Jazz keeps ragging on him). If you can’t give them that reason, then you need to find another way to achieve what you want to happen without them doing that--or change your initial idea for the plot. Even if you start with a plan in mind, you will probably have to tweak it at some point. This is normal. You’re just adapting to your story. Sometimes, a story will get away on you--it’ll write itself in a direction you weren’t expecting or past the point where you’d initially figured it would end (hello, Treachery)--but, at least in my experience, if it’s the characters driving the story that way, and you let them, it can actually turn out to be a better story than what you’d initially planned. (Again: Treachery. The unplanned part ie second half is much better than the planned part.) It’s just a matter of keeping them reasonably in character so that things don’t get too out of hand.

I only think about plot holes once I notice them. Honestly, I’ve gotten good at patching. If something doesn’t occur to me, I can’t prevent writing it in. It’s not so much plot hole prevention for me as adaptation of the story to make it more acceptable once I realize it’s there.

Sometimes, when I’m editing a chapter or rereading something to remind myself of the story thus far/what’s happened, I’ll see something that doesn’t work that I’d missed before. (Random note on the ‘remembering what’s happened’ bit: if you plan a long fic taking place over multiple days, do yourself a favour and make a timeline for yourself in your scrap file. So much easier. That’ll allow you to make accurate references like “last week” and “three days ago”. I did this with Shattered and regretted nothing.) Once I notice a plot hole, I consider the damage. Have I posted something where it’s already stated? If I haven’t, repairing it typically isn’t that hard, though of course it depends on what it is--you just need to give it some justification, shaky or otherwise, or do a bit of rewriting to patch it up. Once it’s firmly written in and you don’t notice it until chapters later, your best bet is writing in justification for it later. In some cases, this involves you turning your plot hole into a plot point. It may be a small plot point or it might be a significant one that will actually shift your intended story a little bit. I did this a lot with my earlier Doctor Who crossovers. I got quite good at retroactive patching there, and my plot hole turned into foreshadowing, although in all fairness all of those involved time travel to one degree or another so that made things a bit easier; I didn’t have to stick to the rules of the actual universe.

So here’s a plot hole of mine that’s recent that you might have noticed if you’ve read Down the Rabbit Hole: the note on Toby’s bed. Why...why are they communicating that way? Why go to the trouble of sending a note to him that way? Why not just phone or text or email? I missed that initially. And now I see it. And now I have justification (that hasn’t yet appeared in-fic) for not communicating by normal 21-century means. Depending on how things go, it might be hinting at something bigger, or it might just be a small one-off thing.

Now, in case you’re interested in my disaster of a ‘planning paragraph’, this was how Masks began--and please bear in mind I’d seen ten episodes, subbed, at this point and wasn’t entirely sure on what stuff was called:

Blademaster. Fights with knives. Unless it’s someone fromAdrien’s fencing class; the transformation could make that thing deadly sharp.That’s better, actually. Go with that. Marinette actually beats Adrien to thetransformation because she was skulking around waiting for him to come outafter class/lesson/club/whatever it is is over (to just ‘happen to be there’and try to ask him to catch a movie or something in casual conversation) andheard the commotion, while he got caught up in the fleeing people beforemanaging to sidestep and transform. Ladybug hasn’t managed to get the swordaway from Blademaster in the meantime and nearly gets the cord of her luckycharm thing cut for her trouble. Chat Noir shows up and pretty much fences withhis quarterstaff thing until Blademaster starts to cheat, at which point hevaults over him and tags him from behind, hoping the distraction is enough forLadybug to free herself from whatever she ended up in. Evil moth guy isdemanding the gems, so Blademaster starts trying to take a slice out of ChatNoir, who evades rather than parries, trying to draw Blademaster awayfrom…something…and Ladybug takes over when he’s backed into a corner and needsto turn to scale the wall. She yells at him to get the something away if he’sfigured out what Blademaster is after—she hasn’t, yet; just that the blade isprobably what the akuma is in—and Adrien, being there for the transformation,knows exactly what happened and can oblige. But he isn’t long out the door whenhe hears Ladybug scream; Blademaster had either grabbed another blade orsomehow acquired something sharp—I’ve never fenced; I’m not entirely sure howsharp those things are—and while avoiding one blow, she jolted off the courseof the other and got her earlobe sliced off/the gem ripped out. Blademaster hasa gem—moth guy is rejoicing and demanding he now get the other one—andMarinette, with one hand clamped to her ear, has to get out of there despitethe pain because as much as she needs to get Tikki (?) back, she doesn’t wantto risk her identity and—more importantly—she’s not sure how much longer shecan remain upright. She hits the change room or office or something, aiming fora first aid kit or at least a wad of toilet paper, and Chat Noir is shocked theLadybug is gone. He manages to defeat Blademaster and retrieve her gem, but itis inactive, and while he manages to catch the dark butterfly in a fencingmask, he doesn’t have the means to banish its evil OR to erase the ill that hashappened here; that’s Ladybug’s turf. But how is he supposed to return hergem—return her—when he doesn’t knowwho she is, and his own transformation is wearing off? (Marinette will bepulling a new hairstyle or modelling a hat or just plain skipping school—ifthere IS school; what day was fencing class again?—and getting Alya to coverfor her with her parents on the pretence that she’s trying to work up thecourage to do something with Adrien, perhaps, and she really doesn’t want tohave that conversation with her mom,when in reality she’s just trying to find Tikki. Not sure what happened withTikki, exactly. Needs to regain energy, which Plagg (?) would know and informChat Noir accordingly, but with them trying to keep secrets from each other….)

and that will give way to notes like this:

Tikki, PlaggMiracle Stones/MiraculousHawkmoth

Ladybug – lucky charm at end, always ends up with somethingshe doesn’t know what to do with at first and then figures it out; yo-yocompact; BOTH EARRINGS for the miracle stones…but maybe ripping one out woulddeactivate the other. She is the ONLY ONE who can cleanse the akumas. Chat Noir – (allergic to feathers), ancient destruction/cataclysm; batonYeah, if that ring comes off, the Kwami is forced out and the detransformationis right awayPlagg is SUCH a glutton, he’ll even chase after stuff he thinks is food

----

Okay. Adrien picks up Tikki and Miracle Stone, so Marinettefinds nothing and tries to track down Chat Noir, but Tikki, once recovered, canjust tell Adrien who Marinette is. Problem solved. That’s not fun. Unless Tikkidecides to respect Marinette’s wishes?

Or maybe they each find one earring, and Tikki isn’t wellbecause they’re divided?

Adrien and Marinette can both find nothing—Marinette because she hasn’t achance to look, Adrien because he doesn’t know TO look—but unless Tikki’strapped there, she gotta be able to get out.

Wait, Adrien’s chivalrous. He’ll respect Ladybug’s wishes.Even if he hates it

----

If Plagg can’t see, when they transform, Adrien won’t beable to see, either.

“What do you mean, I can’t transform?”“If we transform, this thing would get sucked in, too, and you won’t be able to do anything.” [lines from the Rogercop episode]

Statue set on green stone (granite?) with the top edgejutting out about chin height for Adrien

-------------------------Nope, gonna have to go back and change Blademaster’s restoration to Phillipebecause that DOES seem to be after Ladybug’s restoration. [turns out I was right the first time with this, but I’d checked with someone else and they’d thought no one changed back until after the Miraculous Ladybug bit, so I’d changed my initial plans here, and a few months later we got an episode that confirmed that, no, the magic link just needs to be broken, things don’t need to be fixed yet.]

#ladylynse #asks #my writing #writing advice #kinda #the don't delete your scrapped ideas is writing advice #my writing advice #for what it's worth #Anonymous

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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 years

Text

#5yrsago The Borribles [Book Excerpt]

Yesterday, we published

reminiscences from Aimée and Rose de Larabeitti

, the daughters of author Michael de Larabeitti. The stories their father told them stories would go on to publish as the anarchic, anti-authoritarian, and completely wonderful Borribles Trilogy of young adult books. Republished this month by Tor UK (here's

Cory's review!

) we're delighted to present the first chapter of

The Borribles

for your enjoyment. — Eds.

The swirling rain-clouds rushed on revealing the bright moon, and the two Borribles dodged behind the bushes and kept as quiet as they could. There was danger in the air and they could feel it. It would pay to be cautious.

‘Strewth,’ said Knocker, the chief lookout of the Battersea tribe, ‘what a bloody cheek, coming down here without so much as a by-your-leave.’

New ebook edition from Amazon (UK) • Current US edition

Lightfinger, Knocker’s companion, agreed. ‘Diabolical liberty I call it . . . nasty bit of work, covered in fur like nylon hearthrugs . . . snouts like traffic cones . . . like rats, aren’t they?’

‘There’s a big one, just getting into the motor, he’s shouting at the others, he’s the boss all right. Tough-looking, do you see?’

‘Yeah,’ answered Lightfinger, ‘they do what they’re told, don’t they? Look at them move.’

Presently the two Borribles saw the large car drive away in the moonlight, passing along the shining tarmac which led between the trees to the limits of Battersea Park. The car stopped for an instant at the gates and then turned left into Albert Bridge Road and disappeared on its way southwards into the quiet streets of the outer London suburbs.

The two Borribles stood up and looked around. They weren’t too happy in parks, being much more at ease in crowded streets and broken-down houses. It was only occasionally that the Borrible lookouts checked on the green spaces, just to see they were still there and that everything was as it should be.

When Knocker was sure they were alone he said, ‘We’d better see what they were up to over there. Something’s going on and I don’t like it.’

All at once the patch of ground at his feet began to tremble and clumps of grass began to pop up and away from their roots. There was a noise too, a scraping and a scrabbling, and a muffled voice swore and mumbled to itself. The carpet of grass rose and fell violently until a squat protruberance established itself between turf and top soil. The bump hesitated, as if it didn’t know whether to continue upwards or retreat downwards. It grunted, swore again and, as if undecided, took off on a horizontal course, forcing the turf up as it wriggled along.

At the first sign of trouble Knocker and Lightfinger had taken refuge behind a bush but as the bump moved away they came from cover and followed it.

‘It’s got to be . . .’ said Knocker. ‘It can’t be anything else, and down here in Battersea, it’s bad, double bad.’

The mound stopped and shook and struggled and became bigger, and as it grew more clods of grass fell from it. ‘Watch yourself,’ whispered Knocker. ‘It’s coming out. Get ready to jump it.’

Lightfinger and Knocker crouched, their minds racing. The turf rose higher and higher till it was as tall as the Borribles themselves, then it burst and the grass fell away like a discarded overcoat and revealed a dark and sinister shape of about their own size.

It looked like a giant rat, a huge mole or a deformed rabbit, but it was none of these for it stood on its hind legs and had a long snout and beady red eyes, like the things that had gone away in the car.

Knocker gave a shrill whistle and at the signal both he and Lightfinger leapt forward. Knocker got an armlock round the thing’s head and pulled it to the ground while Lightfinger fell onto the hairy legs and bent one over the other in a special hold that could dislocate a knee. The thing shouted so loudly that it would have woken the neighbourhood if there’d been one in Battersea Park. Knocker squeezed it round the neck and whispered, ‘Shuddup, you great fool, else I’ll smother yer.’ The creature shuddupped.

Knocker levered the prisoner into a sitting position and got behind it so he could tie its arms back with a length of rope he took from his waist. Lightfinger moved so that he was sitting on the thing’s legs, looking into the eyes, which were like marbles rolling around at the wide end of the snout.

‘All right,’ said Knocker when he was ready, ‘give it a duffing.’

Lightfinger grabbed the beast by the scruff of its fur and pulled its snout forward. ‘Name?’ he asked gruffly.

The snout moved a little and they heard a voice say in a distinguished tone, ‘Timbucktoo.’

‘Tim who?’ asked Lightfinger again, shaking the snout good and hard.

‘Timbucktoo.’

‘And where are you from, you moth-eaten overcoat?’ asked Knocker, in spite of the fact that he knew the answer.

Timbucktoo shook himself free of the two Borribles and, though his hands were bound, he got to his feet and glared haughtily down his snout, his red eyes blazing.

‘Why, I’m fwom Wumbledom of course, you dirty little tykes. You’d better welease me before you get into sewious twouble.’

‘I knew it,’ said Knocker turning to Lightfinger with excitement. ‘A Rumble from Rumbledom. Ain’t it strange as how they can’t pronounce their rs?’

‘So that’s a Rumble,’ said Lightfinger with interest. ‘I’ve often wondered what they looked like – bloody ugly.’

‘It’s the first time I’ve been this close to one,’ said Knocker, ‘but you can’t mistake them – nasty.’

‘You wevolting little stweet-awabs,’ the Rumble had lost his temper, ‘how dare you tweat me in this fashion?’

‘ ’Cos you’re on our manor, that’s how, you twat,’ said Knocker angrily. ‘I suppose you didn’t even know.’

‘I only know what you are,’ said Timbucktoo, ‘and what I am and that I’ll go where I like and do what I like without having to ask the permission of gwubby little ignawamuses like you. Untie me, Bowwible, and I’ll forget about this incident.’

‘He’s a real pain,’ said Lightfinger. ‘Let’s throw him in the river.’

The moon was clear of clouds again and glinted on the nearby Thames. In spite of himself the Rumble shivered. ‘That will do you no good. I can swim, you know, like an otter.’

‘So you should,’ said Knocker, ‘you look like one.’ And he cuffed the Rumble once more and told him to hold his tongue.

Knocker thought deeply, then he said, ‘I s’pose the river’s the best idea for getting him off our manor, but maybe we ought to take him back and find out more about him, what his mob are up to. I don’t like the look of it; suspicious this is, Rumbles down here in Battersea, it’s wrong. We ought to give Spiff a chance to give this thing the once over.’

‘You’re right,’ said Lightfinger, and they hauled the Rumble to its feet and pushed it towards the park gates.

When they reached the sleeping streets they kept to the dark shadows between the lamp posts and marched rapidly in the direction of Battersea High Street.

Borribles are generally skinny and have pointed ears which give them a slightly satanic appearance. They are pretty tough-looking and always scruffy, with their arses hanging out of their trousers. Apart from that they look just like normal children, although legions of them have been Borribles for more than a lifetime – as long as a Borrible remains at liberty he or she will never age.

Most of them have sharp faces with eyes that are burning-bright, noticing everything and missing nothing. They are proud of their quickness of wit. In fact it is impossible to be dull and a Borrible because a Borrible is bright by definition. Not that they know lots of useless facts; it’s just that their minds work well and they tend to dislike anyone who is a bit slow.

The only people likely to get close to Borribles are ordinary children, because Borribles mix with them to escape detection by ‘the authorities’ who are always trying to catch them. Any child may have sat next to a Borrible or even talked to one and never noticed the ears for the simple reason that Borribles wear hats, woollen ones, pulled down over their heads, and they sometimes grow their hair long, hanging to their shoulders.

Normal kids are turned into Borribles very slowly, almost without being aware of it; but one day they wake up and there it is. It doesn’t matter where they come from as long as they’ve had what is called a bad start. A child disappears and the word goes round that he was ‘unmanageable’; the chances are he’s off managing by himself. Sometimes it’s given out that a kid down the street has been put into care: the truth is that he’s been Borribled and is caring for himself someplace. One day a shout might be heard in a supermarket and a kid with the goods on him is hoisted out by a store detective. If that kid gets away he’ll become a Borrible and make sure he isn’t caught again. Being caught is the end of the free life for a Borrible: once in custody his ears are clipped by the police surgeon and he begins to grow into a malevolent and adventureless adulthood, like any ordinary child.

So Borribles are outcasts, but unlike most outcasts they enjoy themselves and wouldn’t be anything else. They delight in feeling independent and it is this feeling that is most important to them. Consequently they have no real leaders, though someone may rise into prominence from time to time, but on the whole they manage without authority and they get on well enough together, though like everybody, they quarrel.

They don’t get on with adults at all, or anyone who isn’t Borrible, and they see no reason why they should. Nobody has ever tried to get on with them, quite the contrary. They are ignored and that suits them down to the ground because that way they can do what they want to do in their own quiet and crafty way.

Knocker and Lightfinger had been on night patrol in Battersea Park when they’d stumbled across the Rumbles and the discovery had made them uneasy. Borribles like to make sure that no other Borrible tribe is encroaching on their territory, that’s bad enough. They live in fear of being driven away from their markets and houses, of seeing their independence destroyed; that is why scouting round the frontiers of their borough is a regular duty.

Unearthing a Rumble was a calamity. They are the real enemies of the Borribles and the Borribles hate them for their riches, their power, their haughtiness and their possessions. If the Rumbles were coming all the way down from Rumbledom to colonize the Park, what price Battersea High Street?

Knocker and Lightfinger harried Timbucktoo along in front of them. They went through Battersea Church Road, by St Mary’s down by the river, and then into the High Street. They saw no one and no one saw them, it being well into the early hours of the morning. They were making for an empty house standing opposite the end of Trott Street. It was tall and wide and the bottom windows were boarded up and a sheet of corrugated iron covered the main doorway. The facade of the building was painted over in grey, and in black letters was written, ‘Bunham’s Patent Locks Ltd. Locksmiths to the trade.’

It was a typical Borrible hideaway, derelict and decaying, and Knocker and Lightfinger lived there. Borribles live where they can in the streets of the big cities, but they like these abandoned houses best of all.

The two Borribles halted on the pavement and glanced up and down the street. Nobody. They opened a gate in the railings and Knocker pushed Timbucktoo down some stone steps that led to a basement. The two lookouts followed, opened a door and dragged the Rumble into the house by the neck. Once the door was closed Knocker switched on the light.

The Borribles had entered a large room furnished with orange boxes for use as chairs and tables. Two doors opened from it; one into an underground larder, which served as a storeroom, the other to some stairs which led to the rest of the house. The bay window was covered with scraps of old blanket to prevent light shining into the street and alerting the police that someone was squatting in a dwelling that was supposed to be empty.

‘What we gonna do with him, now we’ve got him here?’ wondered Lightfinger, and he pushed Timbucktoo down into a seat.

‘Yes,’ said the Rumble, looking up, his eyes glinting crimson, ‘you won’t get away with this you know, it’s iwwesponsible. You Bowwibles must be insane. I’ll see you get your ears clipped.’

‘Clip me ears, will yer?’ said Knocker tight-lipped, and he went into the store cupboard. A second later he was out again, carrying a roll of sticky tape. He went over to the Rumble, grasped its head and wound the tape round and round the animal’s snout so that it could no longer speak.

He stood back to admire his work. Lightfinger sat and cupped his face in his hands and rested his elbows on his knees.

‘There,’ said Knocker, ‘that’s the way to deal with a talking mattress.’

‘I’m glad all animals can’t speak,’ said Lightfinger. ‘We’d have meningitis within the week, or run out of sticky tape.’

‘I’ll go and get Spiff,’ said Knocker. He ran up to the ground floor of the house and tapped on the door of a large room that overlooked the back garden, a back garden that Knocker knew was a wilderness of weeds; a dangerous dump of rusting oil drums and broken bicycles.

The door opened a crack and another Borrible appeared. He was perhaps an inch taller than Knocker and his ears were very pointed. He was dressed in a bright orange dressing gown made from new warm towelling. His carpet slippers were comfortable.

‘Who are you? Ah, Knocker, what do you want then?’

‘Sorry to wake you, Spiff,’ said Knocker, ‘but me and Lightfinger found something in the park and think you ought to have a look at it. It’s down in the basement.’

‘Oh Lor’,’ groaned Spiff, ‘can’t it wait till morning? You haven’t got the law on your trail, have you?’

‘No,’ said Knocker, ‘it’s nothing like that. What we’ve got is worse. It’s a Rumble! There was a whole lot of them in a posh car and we caught this one tunnelling. Cheek, ain’t it, coming down here without a by-yer-leave and digging?’

Spiff had become more and more intent on what Knocker had been saying until finally he seemed quite beside himself.

‘A bloody Rumble, in the park? You get back downstairs, me lad, and I’ll come right away. I’ll put me hat on.’

He closed the door and Knocker darted back down the uncarpeted stairs. He understood Spiff’s caution; no Borrible ever left his room without putting on a woollen hat to cover the tops of his ears. It wasn’t that they were ashamed of them, quite the contrary, but they liked to be prepared for an emergency. Any unforeseen circumstance could force them into the streets and it wouldn’t do to be spotted as a Borrible.

‘He’s coming,’ said Knocker as soon as he re-entered the room. ‘He’s a good bloke, you know . . . short-tempered sometimes, but they don’t come any craftier than Spiff.’

‘You can’t get anything past him and that’s a fact,’ said Lightfinger. ‘They say he’s pulled more strokes than the Oxford and Cambridge boat race put together. And they say that he won dozens of names in fights with the Rumbles, and we’re only s’posed to have one. Nobody knows how many names, nobody . . . He’s a mystery, but one thing’s for sure, he hates Rumbles.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ said Knocker. ‘There’s millions of stories about his names and some of them not very Borrible either, but I’d rather have him for me than against me.’ He sat down and looked at Timbucktoo and thought about names and the gaining of them, something that occupied his every waking hour.

A Borrible name has to be earned because that is the only way a Borrible can get one. He has to have an adventure of some sort, and the name comes out of that adventure – stealing, burglary, a journey or a trick played on someone. That was the rule and Knocker was against it; it made it difficult, if not impossible, for a Borrible to join an adventure once he was in possession of a name. The first chance was always given to those who were nameless and this infuriated Knocker for he had a secret ambition to collect more names and have more adventures than any other Borrible alive.

A noise on the stairs disturbed Knocker’s reflections. He stood up and at the same moment Spiff flung open the door and strode theatrically into the room. His head was adorned with a magnificent hat of scarlet wool and he clutched the orange dressing gown tightly to his chest. Spiff had the clear face of a twelve-year-old child but his eyes were dark with wisdom: the wisdom, so it was rumoured, of a hundred years of existence. His nose was prominent; the kind of nose that smelt out trickery with ease.

He stopped short as soon as he saw the Rumble and he pushed his breath out over his teeth and made a whisper of a whistle.

‘At last,’ he said, like he was praying, ‘at last. It’s been a long while since I had my hands on one of these stinking rodents.’ He turned and beamed at Knocker and Lightfinger. ‘You lads have done marvellous, you’ve captured one alive and well, though he won’t be for long, the little basket. Found him in the park, eh? With hundreds of others, digging holes! That’s how it starts. Down here on our manor, taking it all for granted, think they’re the lords of creation, don’t they? Go anywhere, do what they like, we don’t count.’ He prodded and screwed the Rumble with a rigid index finger as he spoke. He turned to Knocker. ‘You know what this is?’

‘A Rumble.’

‘Yeah, a Rumble.’ Spiff was bitter. ‘No better than you or me for all their la-di-da manners. Years of them I’ve seen, sneerin’ at us down their hoity-toity snouts . . . lords of creation, moving in on our space whenever they think they will.’

Knocker and Lightfinger looked at each other. They had never seen Spiff so angry.

‘Oh, come on, Spiff,’ said Lightfinger, ‘it can’t be that bad; the Rumbles have never done me any harm.’

Spiff jumped a foot from the floor. ‘You don’t know you’re born. You know nothing about the struggles and fights we had to win free. It weren’t easy to stay alive even.’

‘Oh, I know about it all right but that was your time, not mine.’ And Lightfinger leaned against the wall, crossed his ankles and shoved his hands into his pockets.

‘Don’t care was made to care,’ said Spiff sententiously, ‘and history repeats itself; in fact it don’t repeat itself, it just goes on being the same.’

‘Well anyway, what are we going to do with this rabbit?’ asked Knocker.

‘Shove it in the cupboard,’ said Spiff, rubbing his chin. ‘I’ll call a meeting tomorrow. You two can run down the street with the message right now, before you go to bed. I know Borribles don’t like meetings but this is an emergency, and we will have to act and think together for once!’

Spiff took one last look at the Rumble, then he pulled his Borrible hat further on to his head, spun on his heels and left the room. Knocker got the prisoner to his feet and locked him in the store cupboard, then he and Lightfinger left by the basement door and spent the next few hours informing all High Street Borribles what was afoot. Finally the two exhausted lookouts got to their own room at the top of Spiff’s house and climbed into a bundle of old blankets and sacks that formed their bed.

‘Argaah,’ yawned Knocker, ‘what a day.’

‘Goo’ night,’ said Lightfinger, and was immediately asleep.

A Borrible’s main business is to stay alive. This is an occupation that takes up most of his time; getting food from wherever he can discover it, finding things before they are lost, stealing his provisions from barrows and out of superstore warehouses: stealing because the fundamental Borrible rule, the rule that is primordial to the way they live, the mainspring and motivation of their very being – rule number one – is that they must never have dealings in money. They have been brought up without it, and they must never touch it. If they do, bad luck and loss of freedom will follow as sure as night the day. That is why Borribles steal, and why they prefer to live near shopping centres and street markets like Brixton and Petticoat Lane, where food is easy to come by.

So important is that aspect of their life that they have many sayings that deal with it and they are all gathered together in the Borrible Book of Proverbs. Some of these maxims are very ancient, like, ‘that which falls off a lorry belongs to him who follows the lorry,’ and ‘That which is found has never been lost.’ One of their favourites is, ‘It is impossible to lose that which does not belong to you,’ and Borribles use that one a lot to people who complain about their thieving.

By eight o’clock on the morning following the capture of Timbucktoo Rumble, Battersea High Street market was in full swing. There were barrows and stalls along each side of the road and so little space was left for traffic that not a car dared venture down there. The barrows had been shoved very close together and it was easy for a Borrible to crawl underneath them from one end of the street to the other, picking up fruit on the way. It was a good way to get breakfast.

The costermongers shouted at each other and at prospective customers, urging them to buy. There were barrows selling fruit, ironmongery, fish and large crabs; the shops had their doors wide open and people were drinking tea in Notarianni’s cafe, talking loudly, making wild gestures with their hands. Brown’s, the pie and eel shop, was doing a brisk business and the inhabitants of the buildings – Archer House, Eaton House and White House – were loafing on street corners and thinking about passing bets in Ernie Swash’s, the bookmaker’s. The noise was so great that it rose right up the side of the house where Knocker and Lightfinger were sleeping and woke them from a deep slumber.

Knocker rolled over and woke his companion. ‘Come on, breakfast.’

He stretched his arms above his head; he hadn’t slept enough. The two Borribles had been out so late the night before that the coster-mongers had been loading their barrows as they came home; finding breakfast had been no problem and it was there beside them: one grapefruit, an orange and two large doughnuts dripping with jam.

Lightfinger rubbed his eyes and the old sacks and blankets dropped from him. He reached for the orange, bit it open and sucked hard, making a lot of noise. The orange was wonderful, fresh-tasting, chilled to ice crystals by the lorry journeys to and from Covent Garden.

‘Ooaagh,’ he groaned with pleasure, ‘that’s lovely.’

‘We’d better hurry up,’ said Knocker, ‘or we’ll miss the meeting.’

Halfway down the High Street was a disused brick-built hall. It had last been occupied by a firm of photographers called Scots of London, but they had departed long since and now the shop fell within the province of the Borribles. It was here that Spiff had asked the members of the Battersea tribe to gather; decisions had to be made and everyone was allowed a say.

Inside the hall, on a kind of podium, stood Spiff in conversation with a score of his cronies. Other Borribles, ragged, dirty and inquisitive, slipped in through broken doorways, and, talking furiously, waited in groups to see what might happen.

The moment he thought enough people were present Spiff stepped to the front of the stage and held up both arms like a politician. He shouted several times and gradually the hubbub of voices became less and less until eventually a kind of excited silence hung on the air, then Spiff began to speak, relishing the occasion, for he took a delight in speechifying.

‘Brother and sister Borribles, I am pleased to see so many of you here, for today is a day of decision. Our way of life is in jeopardy and we must either act together or perish.’

The hall became quieter and the tension rose.

‘Not to beat about the bush, I’ll give you the facts, then anyone who wants a say can have a say. Right, the facts. Last night, our chief lookout and his assistant . . .’

All heads turned to Knocker and Lightfinger.

‘. . . while on a routine inspection of the Battersea area, discovered that we had been invaded by the Rumbles.’

The crowd drew in a deep breath and then let it out again in a long explosion and Spiff looked round for effect and more silence.

‘It seems that a large force came down here, all the way from Rumbledom, and occupied the park for several hours. They were digging! Now, in my opinion, this can only be a preparation for a takeover of Battersea, an attack on our freedom, a new and subtle kind of slavery and a clipping of ears. Things have been bearable as long as the Rumbles have stayed in Rumbledom, where they belong, but this is something else.’

Murmurs of assent came from the assembly but Spiff held up his hand and went on.

‘In my opinion there is only one answer, my friends, pre-emptive defence. We must attack before we are attacked. We must destroy the Rumbles at the heart of their organization. However—’

Spiff broke off for a second and admonished the ceiling with a grubby finger.

‘—to carry out this plan we shall need to search carefully among the ranks of the nameless. From those who have not yet had their first adventure we must select the bravest, the slyest, the craftiest and the most resourceful. It is not only the enemy we have to fear, but the enormous distance between us and him, dangerous terrain. The Rumble is confident in his stronghold, blinded by his own conceit, safe, so he thinks, in the security of his own riches and comfort, but that is where we shall strike, with a handful of chosen Borribles. We shall need dedicated volunteers, but remember, those who go may never return. Blood will be spilt.’

At this there was a terrific hush in the hall and the Borribles looked at each other with trepidation. An adventure was one thing, death another.

‘We feel,’ went on Spiff, ‘that Battersea should not bear this brunt alone. All London Borribles are threatened. To this end messages will be sent out over the city and certain tribes will be asked to send their likeliest un-named champions to us for training and instruction. Likewise, from among the ranks of the Battersea nameless, we shall choose one who shows the greatest promise. We intend to approach the following groups: the Totters of Tooting, the Wendles of Wandsworth, the Stumpers of Stepney, the Whitechapel Wallopers, the Peckham Punch-uppers, the Neasden Nudgers and the Hoxton Humpers. Details of the raid will be worked out when all the candidates have arrived.’

Spiff stopped for breath and the hall became alive and words buzzed like bees. Who, people wondered, would be chosen as the Battersea representative on the expedition? An honour, yes, but a danger too.

Knocker swore to himself. ‘Why do I have my name already? What an adventure it’s going to be.’

Spiff called for quiet again. Now he prepared for his moment of high drama. He made a sign to the side of the stage and the prisoner was brought on for all to see. There was silence. The Rumble was still taped round the snout but its beady eyes glowed a fearful red and it stood upright and unmoved.

‘This,’ shouted Spiff, ‘is the enemy, no braver than us, no more dangerous; but they are difficult of access, living underground as they do, well-protected in their burrows. They are rich and they are powerful, and think themselves superior to all Borribles by divine right. This is the enemy who wants to take Battersea into its grasp. Even now they may be digging under the streets to emerge in your very backyard, even now they may be undermining your way of life, silently; dirty and evil, moles of the underground.’

Spiff took a deep breath and shook his arms in front of his body as if he was emptying a sack of cement; the crowd stirred with emotion. Spiff raised his voice a further notch.

‘This is the enemy, and we all know that they must be stopped at all costs. Yes, but more than that, they must be eliminated, and who are the Borribles to do it? Why we are!’

An enormous cheer rose from the audience. ‘Throw it in the river,’ came a voice from the back of the hall, ‘with a bicycle round its neck.’

This suggestion was so popular that it was taken up on all sides.

‘Yeah,’ came the shout, ‘in the river, steal a bike someone.’

Spiff smiled indulgently. ‘I understand your feelings,’ he looked at the Rumble, ‘but I have a better plan. Let me explain. The one thing that these objects fear above all others,’ he touched the Rumble lightly with a disdainful finger, ‘is disclosure! They would hate to be unmasked and shown for what they really are. In their mythology the greatest possible disaster is what they call the Great Rumble Hunt – an attack on their citadel of power – and we, the Borribles of Battersea, will start that Rumble hunt. But,’ Spiff had to shout across the cheering, ‘this is also to be a war of nerves; we want them to know that something really nasty is on the way – us! And that is where this little rodent comes in. We propose to stick a notice on to the fur of this carpet bag, and send it back to Rumbledom, living proof that we mean business. The message will say, “The Great Rumble Hunt is on. Beware the Borribles!” All those in favour say “Aye”.’

Another enormous cheer rose from the assembly; Spiff’s oratory had done its work, that was what he wanted. Borribles clasped each other, jumped up and down and shouted, ‘We’ll show ’em, we’ll teach them rabbits to come down here.’

As the cheering died away Spiff and his cronies left the building with the prisoner, and the hall gradually emptied as the Borribles went back to their squats, eager to discuss the morning meeting and to wonder who would be chosen as the Battersea ‘no-name’ for the Great Rumble Hunt. Those who were not known for their bravery kept very quiet and decided not to call attention to themselves, for a few Borribles manage to pass through life without ever earning themselves a name. But most are of a different stamp, and they ran to the market without delay, stole paper and wrote directly to Spiff, begging for the position.

But Knocker was disconsolate. He returned home alone, thwarted. He knew there was no chance of him being considered for the expedition to Rumbledom. He went into the basement of the deserted house and made his way upstairs. As he passed Spiff’s door it was thrown open and the cunning face of the most cunning of Borribles appeared, beaming.

‘Right, lad,’ he said, ‘in here. Just the bloke I want, look lively . . . Want a word with you.’

Knocker stepped inside the room, and removed his woollen cap; he had good pointed ears, a sign of high intelligence and alertness. Spiff smiled and settled into an armchair that must have fallen from a very expensive furniture lorry.

‘Sit down, lad,’ he said. ‘I wanted to thank you for your good work last night, champion that was, champion . . . but now I want to ask your advice. As you know, there are eight Rumbles in the Rumble High Command. I’m sure that if we can eliminate them, the rest of the Rumble set-up will fall to pieces, they’ll be too busy even to think of us any more. So that’s why I thought of sending eight Borribles only, one for each High Rumble. There will be one from Tooting, Hoxton, Wandsworth . . . You heard all that already. But, Knocker, who are we going to send from Battersea? The point is, you are out and about a lot, you see a lot of Borribles in action, who do you think would be a good choice?’

Knocker thought for a while. ‘It’s tricky,’ he said at length. ‘There’s quite a few who are good. There’s a bunch of bright lads down by the river, some others under the railway arches at Battersea Park station, but I think the brightest of the lot, out of the whole borough, is one who lives up on Lavender Hill, bright as a button and smart as paint.’

‘Whereabouts does he hang out?’ asked Spiff.

‘Underneath the nick,’ said Knocker.

‘Underneath the nick!’ cried Spiff. ‘He must be mad.’

Knocker laughed. ‘Oh, no. Bright. There’s a stack of rooms up there that are left empty every night. It’s centrally heated, blankets galore, constant electricity. You name it, he’s got it. In fact he’s very friendly with some of the coppers – the Woollies.’

‘Hmm,’ said Spiff, ‘and he’s a no-name?’

‘Yes.’

‘Right,’ Spiff went on, ‘that’s settled then. Send a runner up to Lavender Hill and get that wazzisname down here. As soon as the other seven come in from across London we shall have to begin a training session. As well as that, I want you to get some volunteers to do some spare-time thieving. We’re going to need lots of things for this expedition: grub, weatherproof clothing, high-quality catapults, watches, compasses, anything that might be useful . . . so get that organized. I know you’ve got your own thieving to do, and so have the others, but do what you can . . . We can’t afford to fail.’

Knocker nodded. His heart was bursting with pride, he was being involved in the Great Rumble Hunt, which was more than he had dared to hope.

‘Is there a chance of anything else, Spiff?’

‘What do you mean? You can’t go on the expedition, you know, that’s a rule.’

‘I know that. It’s, well, you said they would have to be trained. I’m a good Borrible lookout, well, I could train them . . . couldn’t I?’

Spiff gave Knocker a long look, a look that went right through him and saw everything. ‘Hmm,’ he said, smiling a secret smile, ‘you are keen, aren’t you? How many names have you got?’

‘Just the one,’ answered Knocker feeling uncomfortable.

Spiff chuckled. ‘You know what Knocker, you reminds me of me. You didn’t have to ask, I’d already thought of you . . . yes, you can train the team.’

Knocker got up to go, feeling proud of himself.

‘Here, take this envelope,’ said Spiff, ‘it’s instructions about the Rumble; he’s downstairs in the cupboard. Send him packing. Try not to let anyone see him, they might still chuck him in the river.’

Knocker ran downstairs and opened the cupboard. Sure enough the Rumble was there, his paws tied behind him and a notice glued on to his fur. Two other lookouts came into the room and leant against the wall to watch as Knocker read his instructions. When he had finished he removed the tape from the animal’s snout and sat it on a grape barrel.

‘You are being sent home, Rumble, alive. Take that message to your leaders and tell them what you have seen and heard.’

Knocker turned to the lookouts. ‘You two can escort him on the first stage of the journey. This envelope has instructions from Spiff. Take him to Clapham Junction and hand him over to the next Borrible tribe. Then he can be taken to the Honeywell Borribles, and they can take him up to the Wendles beyond Wandsworth Common; from there the Wendles will take him to Merton Road. This letter goes with him and explains what should be done at each stage. Finally, he should be released as near Rumbledom High Street as possible and allowed to find his way home. Any questions?’

The two lookouts shook their heads.

‘Right,’ said Knocker, ‘as soon as you’ve got rid of him report back to me. It is very important that he gets home in one piece, though it doesn’t matter what he looks like; the rougher the better. We’ve got to frighten the fur off every Rumble in existence.’

Timbucktoo jumped to his feet at this. ‘You don’t fwighten me, Bowwible, nor your fwiends. You don’t know what you’re taking on. We’ll be keeping a watch out for you; you’ll be skewered on our Wumble-sticks before you get a sight of Wumbledom Hill. You may be safe down here in your gwimy stweets and stinking back-alleys, but Wumbledom is a wilderness with twackless paths that only we can follow. This means war.’

Knocker swiped the Rumble round the ear, almost affectionately. ‘Go on,’ he said, ‘you old doormat, before I knock that snout of yours through the back of your bonce.’

At a sign from Knocker his two assistants hauled the Rumble from the room on the first stage of his long and perilous journey, a journey on which he would be passed from hand to hand like a registered packet in the London post.

The Borribles is being re-released by Tor UK with an introduction by China Mieville

New ebook from Amazon (UK) • Current US edition

https://boingboing.net/2014/01/18/the-borribles-book-excerpt.html

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