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bosspigeon · 3 years

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hurts like hope

Pairing: M!Detective/Mason Word Count: 3100 Summary: Detective Juniper Fenn tries to figure out just what the limit on his incorrigible hope is, and when he’ll finally be able to stomp it out.

Hello I Am Here With More Self-Indulgent Character Study Nonsense. For $8000 a month, I Will Stop.

CW for vague descriptions/references to sex

Nothing has ever hurt Juni like hope has.

He wouldn’t call himself an optimist by any means. He’d probably settle on “optimistic pessimist” if pressed, which means always expecting the worst, because at least then he’s either right or pleasantly surprised.

But in spite of that philosophy, there’s a stupid, naive part of him that won’t die, no matter how much it’s beaten down—his dumb, desperate hope.

He hoped doing the best he could in school, never getting into trouble, never arguing with Mum or making her feel guilty for leaving him behind would show her he was good enough to acknowledge in more than impersonal letters and distracted phone calls on major occasions.

He was always disappointed.

He hoped working a job he didn’t care about, that didn’t suit someone as soft-hearted and anxious as he was, would make him feel closer to the memory of his father, would make him feel like he was doing something good enough to make people care about him like they did Dad.

Disappointed again.

He hoped letting Bobby walk all over him, use him, and placate him with saccharine-sweet murmurs of “Oh, angel, you’re so good to me” would make him see Juni as more than just a convenience, a doormat and a stepping stone to bigger, better things that would always matter more than Juni’s ever mattered to anyone.

The repetition got exhausting, after a while.

When he meets Mason, he thinks he’s given up on hoping. At that point, he just wants something for himself. He wants to be selfish. He wants to be wanted, even if it’s just for a tumble or two. Even if it’s just because his stupid, special blood suddenly means he’s catnip for supernaturals. Even if it doesn’t mean anything.

I’m doing this for me, he tells himself when Mason’s touching him for the first time, when strong, calloused hands are dancing up his sides, and he tries to shrink away, suck in his gut, and Mason squeezes with a pleased little growl that makes Juni whimper. I’m doing something for me, for once in my fucking life.

The lights are off. They crashed through the door without turning anything on, but Juni knows Mason can see him just fine anyway, and he wants to squirm, wants to hide, but Mason distracts him with a very thorough kiss, his touches gentle until Juni responds positively, his sharp eyes picking him apart, like figuring out what the detective likes is the only assignment that’s ever mattered.

And then Mason calls him stunning, and he’s done for.

He’s sure that’ll be it. One and done, and Mason will forget all about the messy, bumbling detective now that he’s whet his appetite. It hurts to think about, it hurts to hope, so he doesn’t.

(That’s a lie. He does. He always does, because he’s stupid.)

He tries to bury the hope like he’s done before, but it’s no use. Every time Mason sits as close to him as possible without physically touching him, every time he gives him one of those long, smoky looks, every time he puts out a cigarette when Juni asks or just doesn’t light one at all, every time he touches Juni with a gentleness that feels almost reverent, like Juni is something worth treating carefully, it fights back harder, hopes louder. In just a few months, the vampire’s got Detective Juniper Fenn’s fragile little heart on a string, and he doesn’t seem to know it.

If he did, would he even care?

Juni gets his answer before long.

He’s only seen me naked.

He told himself he wouldn’t hope. He wasn’t hoping. He knows better. He should know better.

But he hoped, and it hurt, and it’s exactly what he deserves, isn’t it? Once bitten, twice shy, and all that, but Juni’s been bitten so many times, and he never shies enough for it to matter. He walks right on into the hurt with open arms, like a moth to a flame, to a fucking bug zapper, and just licks his wounds until the next flame comes along to reduce him to ash all over again.

When will he learn?

If nothing else, he’s resilient. It’s one of the few things he’s got going for him. He knows how to roll with the punches and pretend everything’s fine, because he’s been doing it since he was old enough to know crying for his Mum wouldn’t do anything but give him a headache. So he runs out of Haley’s in tears—she’s known him since school, so she knows he’s a crybaby and won’t tell a soul—but at least he knows how to calm himself down before he walks into the station. He plasters on a smile, cracks a few jokes, and everything’s fine and dandy.

And then Juni’s fucking ceiling explodes and his room floods, because nothing can go right in his life. At least it wasn’t some supernatural attack this time, he supposes. Small mercies.

Of course, it’s got to be Mason who greets him, when he’s soaked to the skin and covered in plaster, and still recovering from seeing Mr. Yu naked.

And Mason apologizes.

The hope he thought had finally, finally died the slow, painful death it deserved springs back to life in his chest like one of those inflatable clown punching bags. He wants to be annoyed, because an apology doesn’t mean a whole hell of a lot if you don’t even know why you’re apologizing, and it feels more like Mason’s blaming Juni for having feelings (stupid, stupid feelings) rather than actually taking accountability for causing hurt, but he’s an idiot, so of course he reaches out, takes Mason’s hand, and asks the dumbest question he’s asked in his life. And he still has to Google literally every odd sound his car makes, because the poor thing is held together with duct tape and dreams at this point.

“What does this mean for us?”

And he’s blown off again, and when the hope shrivels up this time, he wants to grind it into the dirt with his heel, salt the earth so nothing grows there again, because really, when is he going to fucking learn? He wonders how Mum just turns off her feelings, and if that sort of thing can be taught. He wonders if she’d make the time to teach him, now that she’s “trying.”

He wonders if Dad was as much of a raw nerve of a person as he is, but it’s not as if he can ask anyone about it.

"You two… One of you is going to have to make the big leap, and he has no idea how."

Felix has never been shy about needling Juni about his ridiculous and obvious whatever-it-is with Mason (calling it a crush seems as childish as it is reductive, since he doubts it can be called a crush anymore once you’ve, uh, had sex) but this time it comes out... Softer. Gentler. Definitely annoyed, groaned out with a hearty eye roll, as if the two of them are personally responsible for all of Felix’s woes, but still... kind. Kinder than he expected, and that is enough to throw him off for Felix to leave him behind before he can even shake him and ask him what the hell that’s supposed to even mean.

No idea how?

Mason’s confusion when he apologized strikes a new chord, suddenly. Mason doesn’t know how he fucked up, just that he did. In a normal circumstance, with a normal guy, Juni would assume he was just being a dick. Of course he didn’t do anything he saw as wrong, he’d just be apologizing to get back into Juni’s good graces—and also his pants. It was certainly Bobby’s MO.

But these aren’t normal circumstances, are they? And Mason’s not a normal guy.

Juni doesn’t want to think about what he saw in the mirror at the carnival, but if he were any good at not thinking about things that upset him, he wouldn’t be in this mess. He squeezes his eyes closed and shakes his head, trying to clear it of the splashes of red, of the screaming, and he swallows until he can calm himself down.

At least he can distract himself with drumming up signatures for the blood drive. He thinks he can. But Mason is there, and he’s distracting, aloof and unamused and annoyingly gorgeous, and Juniper Fenn never professed to be a terribly strong man. There’s a gut-deep urge that draws him to the vampire, an itch under Juni’s skin to get close, poke at that sneering facade and see the softer bits underneath.

Juni’s seen so many of those softer bits, far more than he thought he could ever get when he tumbled into bed with Mason for the first time. He honestly expected to be ignored entirely once he gave him what he was after in the first place, but instead he was given little fragments of something more, and sentimental idiot he is, he’s been hoarding them and trying to cobble together something from the scraps he’s been given. So he drifts closer, pulled helplessly into Mason’s orbit, and he doesn’t even know what to say, so he just laughs awkwardly and needles Mason about not helping.

Which… works, somehow?

It doesn’t exactly go where he’s expecting it to go, conversation-wise, and he’s left reeling with Mason’s stark, shameless honesty. There’s something that warms him, knowing that the vampire seems to, if nothing else, respect him, in his own way? That anyone, much less someone as difficult to impress as Mason, thinks he’s good enough? Not just good enough, but ‘better than pretty much anyone’ he knows? Juni’s known Mason long enough at this point to understand some things about him, and one of the most obvious is how loyal he is. Loyalty is everything to Mason, and he’s fiercely protective of those that have earned it.

Juni’s fingers are slack enough with surprise that Mason can take the board from him and wander off to frighten the general populace into signing up for the blood drive, and Juni is left with his heart fluttering in a very damning way.

Don’t be an idiot, he tells himself fiercely, shaking his head as if that will rid himself of the pointlessly painful affliction he’s tried for years to shrug off. Just because he likes you as a person doesn’t mean he wants anything else with you.

Whatever weirdness still lingers between the two of them, Unit Bravo’s company makes what would have been a really boring, lonely task actually pretty fun, between Felix dancing around and chatting happily at any citizen of Wayhaven drawn into his orbit, Adam and Nate working together like a well-oiled machine to collect and transfer signatures, and Mason looking genuinely confused whenever someone is brave enough to weather his thunderous expression for the chance to chat with him, however briefly.

It’s nice to be with them all, and their comfortable rapport and playful banter makes it surprisingly easy for Juni to brush his confusing feelings aside and just be, for a while. At least until the banter halts sharply, and every eye is looking over his shoulder. “Hello, angel.”

Juni closes his eyes and stiffens, jaw clenching as a shudder ripples through him. No, no, no, not him. Not today.

Juni's relationship with Bobby was never terribly comfortable, but he’s always been something of a boiling frog cautionary tale. Bobby is not the sort of person who ever turns off the persona. He was rarely ever just Bobby, and Juni knows that hasn't really changed. While they dated, even when they were dumb kids, Juni was always stuck in the shadow cast by someone so desperate to stand in a spotlight they stepped on everyone they claimed to love in order to feel even a shred of that artificial warmth. Juni supposes he wasn’t much different, only the artificial warmth he craved came from Bobby.

He has no idea why Bobby is still so hung up on him. Juni always got the feeling he was never more than the road of least resistance to Bobby. He was easy. Low-maintenance. Didn’t kick up a fuss over being talked over and ignored, because not only was he used to that sort of thing, he was just so grateful to be anyone’s anything, he’d let the man get away with murder just to keep that illusion of happiness.

“What the hell did you just call him?” Mason snarls, stalking to Juni’s side. Juni’s trying to keep calm, trying not to turn into a complete disaster of a person under the sudden stress, but his fluttering awareness of the vampire is crashing into his shrieking fear of confrontation and turning into a messy cocktail that he knows all four vampires can sense. Vaguely, and a little frantically, he wonders if he just smells like anxiety all the time, if anxiety has a smell. It probably does.

“I… always call him that.”

He does, always has, and back when Juni was blindly obsessed with everything he pretended Bobby was, he convinced himself it was cute. Looking back, it always felt sleazy and fake, but Juni’s a master of nothing more than he’s a master of ignoring his own discomfort.

“Not anymore you don’t.” Mason takes another step forward, and for a moment Juni’s terrified he’s going to start a goddamned brawl in the middle of the square. There’s a mean little part of him that wouldn’t completely hate that, but thankfully that’s outweighed by the sensible part that knows he’d be the one stuck dealing with the aftermath. He’s reaching out to try and stop Mason from escalating things further when Adam, thankfully, intercedes.

And then Mason returns to Juni’s side, and a strong arm slips around his waist and hauls him close. His heartbeat goes crazy, and he can only be grateful that none of Unit Bravo are telepathic, because he’s sure his brain is making godawful dial-up noises. It’s a struggle to maintain politeness, but he does his best. Bobby, at least, seems to realize now is not a good time to try and pick at Juni’s defenses, with four government agents backing him up, one of whom has a possessive arm looped pointedly around him.

"Just because he's being polite, doesn't mean he wants you here.” Well, Mason’s greatest skill is reading people, and he’s probably figured out that Juni’s go-to defense mechanism is to pretend everything is fine and dandy and smile, smile, smile no matter what. Still, his protectiveness (if that’s what it is?) makes Juni’s stomach squirm. Mason’s almost baring his teeth at Bobby, who hopefully will not notice that his canines are a bit sharper than a normal human’s should be. “So piss off.”

Thankfully, Bobby is the sort of person who doesn’t like to start fights he’s not sure he can win, so he leaves with, of course, a sleazy parting shot that makes Juni shudder. He really, really hopes Bobby doesn’t find him when he’s alone. He’s got enough mental stress on his plate at the moment, thank you very much, Bobert.

He tries not to make a sad little noise when Adam ushers them back to work, which means Mason pulls away from him, but he’s not sure how successful he is, given the long look he gets from those smoky grey eyes. He throws himself into the work of cleanup to avoid anymore uncomfortable conversations, because he thinks he’s exceeded his quota for the day.

Of course, he thinks that, but he never knows when to quit, and he winds up sidling up to Mason again, fueled, once again, by hope.

He wants to smack himself with a rolled-up newspaper.

What’s the definition of madness, again? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? He wonders if Mum still has his old therapist on retainer. He bets she’d have a field day with whatever the hell he’s doing now. She’d probably be able to retire with the royalties from a paper picking apart his myriad neuroses and subtle self-destructive tendencies. Maybe he should ring her. Someone deserves to profit from his ridiculous inability to take a bloody hint, and it’s certainly not going to be him.

But, God, Mason’s hands are on him, tugging him in, and he’s helpless under that stormy stare, he had not a chance in hell to resist, not when Mason is being soft, and open, and what the hell does any of this mean?

Juni sometimes wishes he’d resisted when Mason first started teasing him, turned him down, tried to keep things professional and friendly rather than stumbling all over himself at the first sign of interest. He wouldn’t mind at all if Mason just wanted to be friends, because at least then he could still be close, still bask in the steadfast loyalty and companionship of a man who would take a bullet for any one of his team—his family—and Juni could keep his heart intact. But he knows without a doubt he never stood a chance. So he sinks into the attention, leaning into it like a flower towards the sun, bares his soft throat and softer heart and hopes against hope he won’t be torn open and left to bleed.

It’s never gone well for him before, but optimistic pessimism and all that. He’ll either get exactly what he expects and deal with the painful consequences like he always has, plastering on a smile until he can go cry alone and listen to sad music to remember how to face the world again, or the battered, bruised hope that won’t fucking die will finally, finally be rewarded.

Mason’s smile when Juni pitifully asks “That’s it?” leaves him breathless and dizzy in a way just a smile has no right to, but it’s so warm, so open and sweet, it blindsides Juni when he’s already weak. He’s completely helpless. Absolutely done for. Nate’s disapproval is hardly a blip on the embarrassment radar, because Juni is floating.

And, as if Mason isn’t satisfied with just completely rendering him a puddle, he hops off the table with a quick peck on the cheek and saunters off to clean up, leaving Juni’s scrambled thoughts to chase themselves around in a circle. It was just a chaste little kiss. It shouldn’t even mean anything.

Of course, to Juni, it means everything.

For once, just once, without mentally whacking himself with a broom, Juni tentatively allows himself to hope.

#the wayhaven chronicles #specialist agent mason #specialist agent m #twc fanfic #twc detective #pidge writes #oc: juniper fenn #HERE IT GOES HERE IT GOES AGAIN #this one technically comes before the other one ive posted #i just posted that one first bc of the way things appear on tumblr #so you hit this one first and then that one #that makes sense right?#hhhhhh anyway here's some more character study nonsense for juni #bc thats where im at i guess #its all v long and disjointed but thats what my brain is doing so uh #¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

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spiltscribbles · 3 years

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Hey! I was bored today, and decided to load up Hamilton and thought about your fics. I read them all, they're so good. Any chance you'll bless the fandom with another Hamliza fic? You do such a good job modernizing their relationship. Please consider writing something new, I'll take a paragraph, hell a sentence! lol. Anyway, love your blog and it's always great to see a post from you!

~Notes: holy fuck baby!!! This is so fucking beautiful and kind and so sweet and I can’t even begin to deal😭😭 You are such a sugarplum fairy and I love u to bits!! And the idea that you like my version of them is so crazy!! Ur an angel! And I’m screaming! I just love Eliza so much😭😭 I hope that you like this even slightly!!!!💜💜😌

A Reblog Is Worth A Galaxy!

Occasionally— when Alexander is a bit tipsy and a bit lonely and feeling lightly poetic— he thinks of the cobble stoned pieces that patch together the mosaic of his life. He remembers his mother’s faint laughter, and he pictures Eliza’s iridescent grin on the day of their wedding. He alternates reminiscing on the different nights at hospital after the birth of each of his children, how he’d count their tiny fingers and smaller toes while Eliza was slumped besides him— flushed and radiant and so, so miraculous. Though the latter half of that image wasn’t there eleven months ago, when she had given birth to baby Will three weeks after the editorial had been published— finally tipping the precarious state of his world to ruin with a brimstone sort of finality. Three weeks after the affair was made public and the light in her eyes that she had always glimmered with whenever gazing at Alexander, was scuffed away permanently, under the heel of his carelessness and his cruelty and his childish cravings to feel needed by someone— by absolutely anyone.

And as he rocks in the ornate, elm carved chair that his in-laws had bought for Philip’s nursery over sixteen years ago now— with his youngest son in arms— Alexander thinks that it’s right— that it only makes sense that in the handful of memories that are the cornerstones of his existence, Eliza is in the vast majority of them. Eliza with her quiet but strong resilience. Eliza with her breathtaking, but unassuming beauty. Eliza in how she’s always been the beacon of light— a personified essence of hope— in the center of the tempest that is his life. A quiet haven that he’s always depended on like nothing else.

Eliza has always been, and will always be the most vital part of it all, the lifeline that pumps breath to his lungs and blood to his heart and makes Alexander feel like he’s finally standing on solid ground. But he doesn’t get to say that out loud anymore, shouldn’t even think it in the privacy of his own mind. Not after the shattered look in her eyes had been embedded permanently, not after the separation had been officialize, and especially not now, while he’s trying to recall that old, French lullaby that Eliza had always crooned to their children before bed while she’s graciously pretending he’s not here.

It had been a stipulation in the agreement that they scrounged up over half a year ago now. Alexander has been relegated to the loft they keep in Murray Hill while Eliza and the children remain residing in the estate right outside the city limits— The Grange. But because she’s always been touched by an otherworldly kindness that Alexander has never witnessed in another soul, Eliza told him that mornings before school and dinners before bed are open for him to visit while she finishes the work she has for the non prophet she had helped build. “You don’t get to lose your kids just because it didn’t work out with us Alex— They’re your family and I won’t be the one to take them away from you, not ever.”

When she had said as much, quiet and precise and void of the warm inflections he would always lose himself inside of whenever she spoke— Alexander wanted to absolutely ball. He wanted to fall to his knees right then and beg her not to say that— not to toy with the idea that it was really and truly over between them. He wanted to tell her that he loves her, and he loves her and he’ll always love her no matter what.

But for perhaps the first time in his life, Alex had held his tongue and only thanked her for always being the best of the lot. He was afraid if he spoke his true thoughts out loud he’d make that torn, desperately pained look melt back into her features like those first few weeks after the Twitter trends and media frenzy and poisonous gossip spreading through the circle of blue bloods that Eliza had been the heiress of since birth, and where Alexander had fought tooth and nail to belong. But besides that, he thinks he was mostly terrified that she wouldn’t betray any emotion at all— That she’d stay still and frozen and detached— forever out of his reach all over again.

Alexander’s heart twists up in an ugly, painful sort of way at the memory of that tragic brunch between them, and he physically shakes his head— as if the pictures of that afternoon could just fall out his ears and disappear into the powder blue curtains like dust.

Gingerly, Alexander kisses Will’s downy hair, and sets him into the crib with a final inhale to get him through the night before coming back tomorrow morning. And while he pads through the hall, he quietly peers into the bedroom of each of his kids. Listens to the hushed snoring from Jamie and Johnny’s room, before he looked into how Angie has swathed herself with pink blankets in her own, finally glancing into Philip and AJ’s at the end of the hall, bracing himself for how his eldest inevitably tosses him a cursory glance from over his shoulder while he taps away on his new laptop. Philip’s stopped the sneers and the clipped replies after Eliza had scolded him for as much right after the pamphlet’s release, but the ice like overture between them hadn’t lessened, and no matter how much it breaks his heart that his pride and joy doesn’t ever look at him like Alexander is his hero— like he had when he was younger— he’s strangely proud. He’s proud that Philip is steadfast in his loyalty to his mother and has a moral code that Eliza had nurtured in each of them.

“You almost done with that civics paper?” He tries for broke, talking in a hush like he was afraid to spook him.

Philip’s jerky nod is all Alexander gets before he snaps his gaze back to the screen, and he takes it like a sacrament, gently shutting the door once again and shuffling downstairs to the main level of the house.

It feels like his heart lodges somewhere deep in his throat when he enters the living room only to be taunted with the sight of Eliza curled into the side of the sofa, nightgown loose on her shoulders, and dark hair piled into a messy topknot while she nibbles on the end of a pen that she’s most likely using to mark up the novel in her hands. It’s the same volume of Arthurian legends that she’s been paging through for the past few days, and he knows it’s something to do with a child at one of the group homes she visits on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, the one who is enthralled by the folklore of it all.

And it’s like an ache— a gnawing and crippling sort of yearning that he feels as he watches the image of her that he’s seen a hundred times before, wanting to thumb at the ink smattering her cheek and lips and chin. And if this was a year ago he would’ve done just that— Hell, he would’ve kissed them away with tender lips as he gathered her small form into his arms and he would’ve waxed poetic about her and her mind and her body all night long.

Or maybe not.

Maybe he would’ve simply teased her before dropping a kiss to her forehead and retreating to his study to finish the latest bill that the president wants on the house floor before the next congressional recess. Maybe Alexander never really deserved her and it took this— them split apart and tattered— for him to realize all the things he should’ve done. All the exaltations he should’ve whispered against her skin and all the caresses he should’ve massaged against her bones and all the ways he should’ve worshipped her all along. And when Eliza looks up— a strand of hair falling prettily over a large eye and the moonlight dancing atop her with a graceful sort of panache— he feels a sick sort of despair that maybe he’ll never get that chance again. Maybe she’ll leave it to Andre now.

The thought of John Andre makes Alexander’s insides pulse with a sort of anger he doesn’t think he’ has ever known, makes his fucking arteries clog with distain. But he hasn’t said anything about him to Eliza, even though he knows that ever since her ex-boyfriend has moved back into town, he’s been pursuing her non-stop, was regaled about the flowers and the letters and the diamond tennis bracelet by a peculiarly snide, but disappointed Angelica, and he knows that his sister-in-law, between her own children and her own job as the secretary of sate, has been silently rooting for Alexander to get his shit together, to prove himself worthy enough for a second chance with the sister she loves with all her heart. And he thinks that it’s almost funny that one of the most brilliant minds he’s ever known, isn’t perceptive enough to understand that Alexander had never been worthy enough for a chance with Eliza in the first place. So it’s fucking impossible now, with everything that has past and all the ghosts between them.

“Oh,” Eliza says once she finds him just standing their, gazing down at her like some sort of pathetic drifter trying to find respite from a prophet. “Will fell asleep then?”

“Erm, yeah. Yeah he was good.” Alexander replies, tries not to sputter. “Only one who’s up is Pip.”

“Not for long,” Eliza mutters mischievously, tapping a finger against her nose with an endearing sort of diffidence. “I switched the coffee out for decaf before dinner. I reckon he’s got another forty-five minutes in him.”

Alexander can’t help the choked out laughter that spills from his lips, and can’t help relishing in the helium like levity streaming through his extremities— the heady feeling that only Eliza’s ever been able to evoke. “You’re wicked.”

“I’m a concerned mother, and our son is a bit of a spaz if you hadn’t noticed?” She retorts mildly, single brow cocked as she returns to her novel. And no— God no, Alexander can’t refrain from delving back into the easy, life affirming bliss it has always felt when they talked with one another— whether it’s platitudes or past traumas or anything in-between. So like a man about to plunge into the churning ocean waves— ready for death or the best thrill of his life— Alexander eases besides her, three feet apart but close enough to smell Eliza’s favorite jasmine shampoo wafting in the space between them.

“You enjoying the legends then?”

Eliza flickers her bright eyes back to him, uneasy and guarded. And it hurts like nothing else when he remembers how he was once able to read her open face like a favorite book that had been highlighted and underlined to hell. “Uh-huh, it’s an interesting set of stories. I think I understand why Dante enjoys them so much.”

“OH?”

“Mhmm. There’s this one myth, about one of Arthur’s knights, Sir Gawain, who was promised to this old crone and when he kisses her she becomes a fair maiden.”

Alexander isn’t sure what is going on here, knows that this is the most Eliza’s spoken to him outside the children’s schedules for months, but he’s not about to look a gift horse in the mouth, so he nods along eagerly, silently pleading for her to continue on with the summary.

“Yes, well. After she transforms, she gives him a ultimatum of sorts. Tells him that either she can stay beautiful in the daylight while they’re apart, or only at night while they’re together.” She meets his gaze head on— steadiness boring into his uncertainty. And even though he still hasn’t a clue what’s happening, he feels it in his bones that this is so very important, so he doesn’t falter, breathes in deep and doesn’t let his glance stray to her lips or her collarbone or where her hands are clutching tightly to the volume now.

“And what did he choose?”

Eliza purses her lips, like she’s not sure to tell him anymore, but something in his expression must’ve convinced her, because she shrugs a slight shoulder while standing and slapping the book shut. “He doesn’t. Tells her it’s her choice and her’s alone.”

And oh.

It’s like a punch in the gut when Alexander finally comprehends.

“Good,” he says, voice gone a bit haggard. “He should just wait until she makes up her mind.”

Remarkably, that seems to have been the right thing to have said, because the ends of Eliza’s plump lips actually quirk up into an etherial grin that’s not so threadbare like all the ones he’s seen for far too long.

“Good night, Alexander.”

“Good night, Eliza,” he replies, feeling like sunlight is finally beginning to filter through the frost when her small hand dusts across his cheek for only a sparing moment. And while he watches her putter upstairs, Alexander knows with all his heart that he would wait for an eon just for Eliza to decide whether he’s worth letting back into her world.

~My FIC Index~

Is where you can read my other Hamliza works!!!

#HAMLIZA #HAMILTON #ALEXANDER HAMILTON #ELIZA SCHUYLER HAMILTON #ELIZA SCHUYLER #Spilt ink #sweetest missives #you're an angel babe and I really hope you like this

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zargsnake · 3 years

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Knightkiller: Anakin and Obi-Wan’s First Adventure

Chapter 9: Crix Spartak

Word Count: 2309 Links: Chapter 1, Table of Contents

* * *

Two Years Ago

Shmi sits at a desk by the windowsill in Watto’s shop, composing fake documentation for a shipment to a more legitimate planet. She used to do this kind of thing all the time for Gardulla on Nal Hutta, and she's very good at it. Forging and faking are probably her best skills. She knows legal-speak and formatting; she has a knack for coming up with random numbers and convincing names. When she has a sample of handwriting or writing style from a real person, she can imitate it flawlessly, which she has done for business leaders, crime lords, and even Senators. When she doesn't have anything from anyone real, she invents someone. She has no honest idea what the closest Senator's name really is, but she's invented a self-serious personality and a squiggly autograph that has tricked docking-receivers as far away as Rodia.

Watto has little use of this power of hers for his day-to-day needs, but he sometimes comes up with plots to trick his neighbors using Shmi’s forgeries. And, sometimes, like now, he needs her tricks to get rid of stuff, like these ten tons of toxic waste he ended up with from a bad bet, and that he now wants to pass off as fertilizer and sell to a gullible offworld farmer who won't be able to trace it back to him.

Writing isn't bad work. It’s challenging, and, malicious as it is, she knows she could enjoy it, if she let herself: getting into people's heads, living other lives, for just a short while. It is like solving a puzzle, to figure out how to make other people believe something that isn’t true. The cruel intention of the trickery is not her own, it never is, so she doesn't let that aspect of her work bother her, not anymore.

The only bad part, from her point of view, is the knowledge that her words get to go somewhere that she does not.

And the only good part, really, is that she gets to look at her little boy as she writes. He sits on the desk, next to her cobbled-together, whirring word-processor. He is carefully cleaning a fragile hyper-carburetor with a rag, putrid green gear-soap, and a very serious expression.

Suddenly Crix Spartak pokes head through the window: “Skywalkers!”

“Crix!!” Anakin nearly drops the carb, but of course his reflexes are too fast. He spins around on the desk and grins at the gladiator.

Crix leans on the windowsill -- then lifts his arm quickly from the heated clay, and leans just one calloused elbow on the sill. “Good morning, Ani.” He reaches across and tussles his hair. The boy nearly glows with happiness.

Shmi raises her eyebrows at the man her son admires so much. “Good morning, Crix. Can we help you?”

“D’you wanna go for a spin on the old speeder?”

“YES,” answers Anakin.

“We have a lot of work to do. Not all of us have 6 free days out of 7,” answers Shmi.

“I don't have any work, Mom!”

“I can think of one or two things for you,” she tells him.

“Just a loop round the block, Shmi? You'll be back in a minute.” Crix rests his head on his hand and smiles at her, looking just like a puppy.

She looks at him with a very deliberate expression. “I can't.”

“Take me!” says Anakin, heedlessly.

“Ani! You need to stay with me while I work. I don't want you zooming around, testing the limit on your tracker-bomb.”

“I've calculated for that,” says Crix. “Your tracker-bombs are the same as mine. The loop I planned wouldn't go anywhere near the limit.”

“Please, Mom? I'll work twice as hard.”

“No need for that.”

“I'll bring him back in ten minutes.” Shmi does not look convinced. “Five minutes.”

“Please?” Anakin begs again.

“Ten minutes,” she concedes.

Anakin sets the half-cleaned carb down, crawls off the desk, moves the carb onto a shelf, and climbs back onto the desk and over the word-processor into Crix’s arms.

“I'll bring him right back to you,” says Crix.

“If you don't, I will kill you,” says Shmi.

“I'm more afraid of you than any gladiator alive!” he tells her, laughing.

“Good! You should be!”

“Is that YOUR speeder?!” Anakin interrupts them.

“Yup! -- Well. Not really. But I won it, anyway.”

“It's BEAUTIFUL!”

“Ani!” Her son looks at her. “Keep it down.”

“Sorry!”

“Have fun.”

“I will!”

Crix grins at her, drops a big yellow flower on her desk, and points at it. She rolls her eyes and he blushes and carries Anakin to the speeder to drive him around. Shmi can't compose at all without her little muse at her side. She sits there, worrying, as they drive somewhere out of sight. A minute passes, and she picks up the flower. She doesn't recognize it. It must be an import. He must have won this, too.

They return in just eight minutes.

* * *

One Year Ago

Anakin is not supposed to be in the audience of the death match. No one wants him here, not his master, not his mother, not even Crix himself.

But he just had to come. Everyone is talking about it. He’s never known anyone so talked-about, so famous. He feels so proud. Crix is like family. And everyone, all over town, is raving about him, how unstoppable he is, what a bloody, powerful killer he is. And now Crix’s master has rounded up a spectacular squad from faraway worlds, incredible people who are paying huge amounts for the chance to fight him, to fight Crix, to fight his mom’s cool boyfriend.

They say there’s monster-men, like Wookiees, and there’s even a Mando, whatever that means. Everyone is saying they’re crazy. Everyone is saying all his opponents are gonna die, shot by Crix’s bespoke mega-blaster or crushed in Crix’s bare fists. Anakin can picture it, but he can’t really believe it; he has only ever seen those hands used for good. It'll be Crix’s grandest fight yet, maybe even the grandest fight that's ever happened in the universe. No one can keep Anakin away from such a prospect!

He has an average amount of chores, but he sets his droids on them. His newest and, by far, most ambitious droid, C-3PO, isn't much for cleaning or repairing, yet, but he can speak, a little, and write, a little more. His mom bought Anakin a fairy-tale book and assigned him to copy out the letters to improve his handwriting. Anakin sets Threepio on the task instead, and hopes that his mom won't be able to tell.

He does feel guilty, but he's too excited to feel that guilty. He sneaks out without telling her. There was a sandstorm this morning; fortunately it has passed, but the leftover wind keeps kicking sand into the air.

The arena is in a different neighborhood than the slave houses. Anakin lifts up the tarp of a delivery truck and hides in there to hitch a ride. To his surprise, the truck is full of gross little creatures called gizka. They crowd around him and rub their big faces on his legs. He pulls one onto his lap and pets its soft horns and noses.

“I wonder why they're taking you to the arena? ... Oh, I bet the gladiators are gonna slaughter you.”

He finds it kind of funny, in a sad way, that these little animals are so cheerful; that their doom is close, and they have no idea. He pretends his hand is a sword and chops it on their heads, making them coo and squawk. He laughs.

Once he hears a crowd outside, he sneaks out of the truck and hides among the people. He is far from the only urchin running around, but he does not pick pockets. His mom forbids it, and they wouldn't be allowed to keep the money, anyway.

He follows the other children and soon finds the hole in the arena’s wall which they use to sneak in and out. He fits inside the thin crack without too much difficulty, and flits around the dirty, dark area behind the stadium seating. He finds a spot with a good view, between the legs of some pink-skinned person. He leans on the bench and rests his head on his arms, and watches the battles with wide eyes.

He almost doesn't recognize Crix, in a ridiculous helmet with a big feather, but the nasty red scar across his shirtless torso gives his identity away. He's touched that scar; it feels rough and scratchy.

Crix is more than just a killer; he is a performer. He yells and growls and taunts; he makes obscene gestures and even takes bites out of his opponents, both animals and people. Anakin feels shocked and uncomfortable to see him this way, but it does not lessen his affection for him. It only increases his amazement, that one person could contain two such different personalities.

Just as the pilots and farmers had predicted, Crix wins every battle with ease. His main strategy involves shooting to stun, weaken, and disarm his opponents, and then taking them down with glamorous, bloodthirsty wrestling moves. Anakin has never seen such gratuitous and extended violence before, though he has seen plenty of people die, from podrace explosions to mechanical accidents. Until today, the bloodiest thing he ever saw was someone's tracker-bomb explode their head, but some of these deaths far surpass that one. When he starts to feel dizzy, he looks away and takes deep breaths, but he is too invested to look away for long.

Something about all this murder makes him feel cold. But it isn't a real cold. And it isn't nearly as bothersome as this heat or this wind. He rests his sweaty forehead on his arms and swallows his own spit, but it is a weak comfort. The bench shakes under his arms as the audience bangs their feet on it. Anakin marvels at their energy. He wishes he was having as much fun as they are. He really is trying to enjoy himself, and he sort of is. The thrill of it all is similar to podracing, and the triumphs are satisfying. He supposes he will grow into liking it.

After forty minutes of this action, the host announces the next opponent -- the Mando, Chahlee Tiango. Anakin watches the helmeted warrior posture and pose as the audience frantically cheers and boos.

The little boy is starting to feel bored. This would be much more exciting if they were flying around on fast ships, not shooting and punching each other. The only real difference anymore is the color of the blood. But Chahlee looks like a human, meaning he'll just bleed red, which isn't anything new.

Anakin looks at Crix, whose helmet cracked in half in the last battle. Now that his face is visible, Anakin can enjoy his confident smile. He wishes his mom were here to see her boyfriend winning so much. He supposes she would hate it.

As Anakin's thoughts wander, the audience jumps to its feet and screams uproariously. Anakin fastens his eyes back on the battle.

Crix was shot right in the chest. He crumples. A wave of sand lifts from the ground and nearly covers him, like a blanket, hiding him, as if he were never there. Tiango takes a gleeful lap around the arena.

The audience is screaming far too loudly to hear anything from the announcer. The bench is shaking too much to remain a suitable armrest. Anakin stands up straight and stares ahead.

The pink legs that had framed Anakin's view now jump and move around with everyone else, obscuring the arena with cloaks and pants and boots. The other children in this hideaway start moving around, their own views also disrupted, trying to find better spots. Some of them move in front of Anakin. He lets them. He backs off further into the shade.

“Crix…” His initial shock starts to wear away, and he feels tears cross his parched face. “You were supposed to win! They all said you would!”

He had to lose eventually. No one can win every time. Mom told me he would lose, sooner or later. Everyone dies. It's okay.

It really doesn't feel okay. But this feels like podracing, too. Failing. Losing the game. He has been close to death himself a few times, especially when Sebulba is in the match.

He wipes his eyes and holds his fingers in his ears, which are popping from the terrifying decibel level of this audience. He squints his eyes and waits for the volume to settle and the people to sit back down.

What am I waiting for, though? They'll just continue with Tiango as the new champion. I don't want to watch that.

He makes a half-hearted attempt to get another good view, but one of the other children accidentally brushes up against him, and the feeling of being touched makes him deeply angry. He doesn’t trust these other kids. He doesn’t like them. They can’t understand. That wasn’t their friend who just died. It’s too loud here. And it isn’t going to get quiet. Not for a long time.

He worms out the crack in the arena wall and sees a truck that looks similar to the one he used to get here. He hides under the tarp again -- it is now empty inside. The truck jostles along, though it doesn't take exactly the same route back. It takes Anakin a little closer to home, but then it makes a turn he did not expect. He wonders if the truck will eventually come back around to the slave houses. He has no way of knowing. He fears it will wander out of range of his tracker-bomb. He jumps off the cart and walks the rest of the way home.

Chapter 10: Gafia Chumpi

#my story #my art #star wars #knightkiller: anakin and obi-wan's first adventure #shmi skywalker #anakin skywalker #crix spartak #chahlee tiango #scifi #action #cw violence #cw gore

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lizardkingeliot · 3 years

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First Line Meme

Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favorite opening line, then tag 10 of your favorite authors!

tagged by @phoenix-ascended thank you!!!! 💖

Okay SO. I’m gonna cheat a little bit here. The first nine I’m going to post are all going to be from the first nine chapters of time cast a spell on you (but you won’t forget me) but to be fair the chapters are so long they each might as well be a story all their own lmao. ANYWAY. Here we go. I’ll post the first paragraph from each I guess, in order of chapter number obvs:

1. Quentin shook out the tension in his hands. He didn’t understand why it wasn’t getting any easier. For days on end he’d been trying to perfect the illumination spell the rest of his fellow First Years had nailed in a matter of hours. But no matter how he tried, Quentin couldn’t seem to make anything more than a spark.

2. Quentin waited until Eliot was asleep to slip out of bed and hastily tug his clothes back on. The illuminated screen of his phone told him it was just past 12am. Clutching his shoes to his chest, he opened the door as quietly as he could manage and tip-toed out into the hall, all but running to his room and clicking the lock shut firmly behind him.

3. Dry-mouthed and groggy, Quentin woke in Eliot’s bed alone. He groaned, groping around for his phone to check the time for a long moment before remembering he’d left it in his room. Quentin rubbed at his eyes, rolling over and up to his feet, muscles he didn’t even know existed screaming as he went. He picked his bathrobe up from the floor and pulled it on, then tottered down the hall to empty his bladder and brush his teeth and gulp down frantic handfuls of water from the bathroom sink.

4. Tuesday morning was hell. Quentin woke just before eleven, empty as a husk. Filthy, all used up. His thighs sticking together where Eliot’s come had dried there in the night. Quickly realizing he’d already missed his first class of the day, Quentin pressed his face into his pillow, pulled the covers up over his head, and surrendered to the blank comfort of late morning sleep.

5. Quentin couldn’t feel his face, or much of his body for that matter. Which was… fine. It was great. It was fucking phenomenal. As long as it meant he also couldn’t feel the sinkhole that had formed in the center of his chest. The one that had been there for days, weeks, months, fucking years. He couldn’t feel anything at all.

6. Quentin felt a lever turn inside his chest, the source of his magic eking out a spark. Enough at least to send a message to Julia back at Brakebills. One of those little enchanted paper airplanes they’d learned his first week in Practical Applications that he never could get to fly quite right. He scrawled his SOS on a cocktail napkin and watched it flutter away like the world’s saddest butterfly. The universe took pity on him. Quentin figured he was probably due. 7. Christmas morning was a lackluster affair.

Exchanging gift cards over coffee and devouring great mounds of Ted Coldwater’s Famous Ham and Eggs while still in their pajamas. After, Julia and Quentin lay on the living room floor and Skyped with James, his grandparents waving hello from Pennsylvania in the background. They opened the stack of impersonal and overly-extravagant gifts from Julia’s mother that had been delivered to the house the night before. Quentin received a pair of cashmere socks and a leather belt with a shiny silver buckle.

8. Quentin stood at the bathroom sink, watching his face shift in the steamy mirror glass. Stark naked save for the towel looped around his hips. Hair dripping in cool, fat beads down onto the planks of his shoulders. So clean he swore he could feel himself sparkling from the inside out.

9. Quentin tossed his phone down onto the floor and leaned back into Eliot’s heat. “It’s almost like you want my dad to know I’m faking sick so I can stay in and let you fuck me until I pass out.”

Some patterns I guess: I love how chapters 2-4 all open with Quentin in bed after hooking up with eliot but all with very different vibes. In chapter 2, he’s just experienced subspace for the first time without having any idea that’s what actually happened to him and he is having A Time. In chapter 3, they had a very intense hook-up the night before and Quentin is sneaking out again, but this time he fully plans on returning right after. And in chapter 4, we see the joy of their beginnings at Columbia contrasted hard with the misery of where Quentin is at Brakebills.

ALSO 2/3 of the chapters begin with Quentin’s name which feels right considering just how deep into his headspace we are in this fic.

Okay. Anyway. Moving on:

10. Eliot loved watching Quentin lose himself in a moment.

It could be anything really: mastering a brand new spell; savoring something decadent and sweet; fussing with his hair when he thought no one was looking; focusing very hard on making himself a cocktail and getting the ratios just right; ranting about his Fillory books; reading his Fillory books, to himself but especially aloud; reading anything; riding dick...

That last one held a particularly special place in Eliot’s heart.

(from but i would die for you in secret aka the one where eliot is pretty sure quentin is only using him for his dick. spoiler alert: he’s not they’re just idiots)

11. Teddy was turning six years old. There was nothing in the world he loved more than stories.

His favorite was a version of Lord of the Rings Quentin had cobbled together from memory. He must have told it to their son a hundred times before it occurred to Eliot he could contribute more to story time than ogling Quentin’s hands while he spoke, or popping in to suggest when the Balrog should actually be making an appearance, Quentin.

(from in a land far away aka the mosaic fic where eliot makes margo hand puppets for teddy)

12. The words came out of Quentin’s mouth without a single coherent thought behind them.

“I’m just about to catch a movie with my boyfriend!”

There, outside the coffee shop on Eighth Avenue, Quentin’s maybe-friend from high school whose name he couldn’t even remember shot him a wide-mouthed grin. “Oh, that’s wonderful!” she said. “Which movie? My wife Danielle and I don’t have any plans for the afternoon and we’d love to tag along. Isn’t that right sweetie?”

(from your name like a song (i sing to myself) aka the one where quentin’s memory is shit and he and eliot pretend to be boyfriends in a post-monster world)

13. Eliot dropped the last box onto the floor. “Daddy’s wardrobe is safe at last,” he said, lowering himself down into the gold chair with a sigh. “Though I can’t seem to shake the terrible feeling that Todd raided my closet at the Cottage before I could get to it all.”

Quentin surveyed the damage from his spot on the sofa: there were at least seven large packing boxes bursting at their seams scattered around the penthouse. “I don’t know how you would even be able to tell. I’m pretty sure one of those boxes is just vests.”

Eliot quirked a brow in his direction. “Some of us are cultivating an aesthetic, Quentin,” he said. “And I didn’t see you complaining when I let you dress me for dinner last night.”

Quentin couldn’t help but smile. “I wouldn’t call picking between two pre-approved ties dressing you, El.”

“I’m also counting the fact that you said my ass looked great in my new pants.”

(from the parentheses (all clicking shut behind you) aka the suspender porn fic)

14. The night Quentin Coldwater died, a brand new star appeared in the sky over Brakebills. A little brighter than Venus, it stayed fixed in the same position for weeks on end. Eliot hardly would have noticed such a thing if it hadn’t been for the way that it hummed. Or at least, that’s how it felt. A humming in his bones. An old, familiar presence. Margo thought that he’d gone mad with grief. Alice was the only one who could understand.

(from a myth of devotion aka the one where eliot is sorta icarus and quentin is sorta the sun)

15. It didn’t happen the way Eliot expected it to. He dropped the letter into the mailbox, and pain blossomed in his abdomen so brightly it was like he’d gone supernova.

And everything went dark.

(from by night, beloved, tie your heart to mine aka the one where eliot sends the letter)

16. Eliot stretched out over the mosaic, his shirt riding up just a little as he clicked a yellow tile into place, and Quentin’s pulse leapt in his neck once, twice. Three times. His breath hitched. It was becoming nearly impossible to focus. In the heat of the sun, watching the sweat soak Eliot’s shirt clean-through.

(from i won’t deny (all the things i would do) aka the one where quentin and eliot start hooking up three months into their life at the mosaic)

17. After they decided kissing on the mouth was okay, Quentin and Eliot wanted to do it all the time. In every corner of the penthouse (“If you don’t stop sucking face while I’m trying to eat my sandwich,” Kady said one afternoon, “I’m literally going to feed you to the Baba Yaga.”), outside coffee shops, in between bites at the sushi place in Chelsea that Eliot loved. Once, they went to see a movie they couldn’t even remember the name of just to make out for two blissful, uninterrupted hours in the dark.

(from and a song of praise upon your lips aka part three of the box of chocolates series where quentin and eliot are definitely dating and finally talk about their feelings)

18. Eliot startled awake to something sharp and pointed slamming into his shin. He opened his eyes, and the toe of Margo’s shoe made contact one last time. Pain seared up the side of his leg, and he winced. Jesus, she really did not realize her own strength sometimes. Or the strength of her Jimmy Choo’s.

(from that you may know (the secrets of your heart) aka part two of box of chocolates aka the one where hand stuff is still banging)

19. Eliot Waugh was High King in his blood, and somehow that felt right. When they first arrived in Fillory, Quentin assumed he would be the one to wear the crown. He’d dreamed of it most of his life after all. On the throne in Whitespire, a fleet of talking animals at his disposal, a noble quest waiting around every corner to ferry him away to the next grand, heart-stopping adventure. But when the blade bit into his palm and drew no blood, and Eliot’s came up red, it felt like the final piece of some perfect puzzle clicking into place.

(from and this is the map of my heart aka the one where quentin wants to marry eliot and they have some incredibly filthy sex before everything falls apart)

20. Eliot walked into the penthouse to an eerie quiet. He found Quentin sitting in the kitchen under a dim illumination spell, drinking a beer and poking at the screen of his phone.

“Hey,” Eliot said, setting his shopping bag down on the counter. “Where is everyone?”

Quentin sighed, rubbing at his eyes. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. “Out. I don’t know.”

Eliot squinted at him. “You didn’t want to go with them?”

Quentin lifted his eyes, shot Eliot a look. “No.”

(from for love (if it finds you worthy) aka part one of the box of chocolates series)

And I have now been here doing this for so long I no longer have time to try and find anymore patterns lmao BUT I will be tagging: @thelucindac @akisazame @fishfingersandscarves @nellie-elizabeth @freneticfloetry @rubickk7 and anyone else who wants to play!

#the magicians #queliot #otp: proof of concept #myfic

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halfway-happyyy · 4 years

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An Invisible String

AN: This is something I’ve been working on for quite a while now, and it is a little different than my usual pieces. It will probably be about three or four installments. If you enjoy it (or even if you don’t) (I don’t do too many chaptered pieces... like, ever) please feel free to send feedback. Warnings include: mentions of suicidal tendencies, depression, anxiety, past mentions of domestic physical and mental abuse. Loosely inspired by the music video for ‘High Hopes’ by Kodaline.

Synopsis: Depressed, suicidal and recently single Alexander Skarsgård is at the end of his rope. But he is about to find out that no matter where you come from, what your pain looks like, or what your truth is... The universe will always fight for souls to be together.

part 2, part 3

“I mean… Maybe, somehow, something good will come of all this change.”

Those words had chimed through the confines of his brain like a clear bell, multiple times since he had last laid eyes on her. He sighed heavily and drew an arm back to cast his fishing line out into the great blue abyss before him. Though he had loved his wife with every fiber of his being, he had grown to detest her incessant need to find the positives in every single situation, towards the dissolution of their ten-year marriage.

“Oh, Alexander.” She caressed a warm palm against the curve of his stubbled cheek. “I just think it wasn’t in the cards for us, my love.”

A single day had not passed that he did not wish his relationship with her had ended differently. Past arguments, miniscule or gargantuan in scale often played on a loop in his mind like a scratched record. Was there anything within his power that he could have done to make her stay? He had concluded a while ago that that question would likely torment him for the rest of his life if he let it. And as the burnt orange sun sank low over the Baltic Sea, he took solace in the fact that he would not have to wonder long at all.

Three hundred and sixty-five days had elapsed since his wife had left him, and daily routines had been mostly kept the same. He still managed to get up every morning, still went for walks around the park. Every now and then he would strap on his hip-waders and fish for hours, and when he was finished, he would go home and shower and then head to the pub for the evening. He found early on that there was not enough alcohol in the world that he could consume to drown out the dreams of her. Frustratingly, days took longer to get through. And it was not that he minded the sudden aloneness… As the eldest brother of seven siblings he had come to enjoy solitude. Quiet mornings out on the water, even quieter evenings at home with a warm fire and a book. It was the fact that this loneliness had been thrust upon him like an extremely unwanted gift. He had no idea what to do with it. So, after careful consideration he made up his mind one morning over a cup of scalding, black coffee that just simply disappearing would probably be the easiest solution to his problems. She had clearly moved on, and it was only fitting that he try and do the same as well… just on a more permanent level. So, he allowed himself a week to set his affairs in order, left a letter for each of his siblings, and on a Friday morning in mid-May took the car to a field a few blocks away from his house. He fixed one end of the hose to the exhaust pipe with an old sock, and the other he fed back into the car from the front window. He could not begin to guess how long this whole ordeal would take, and he wondered briefly if it would be as insignificant as simply falling asleep. Just as he was about to turn the ignition over, he heard in the distance the sound of muffled yelling. He glanced towards the rearview mirror but could make out nothing of consequence, so he sat back a moment and listened. The yelling grew louder, and another glance to the rearview mirror offered something he could not quite make sense of. A woman was running full tilt towards his car, the edges of her white wedding dress clutched tightly in both fists. As she approached the car faster, he noticed a mob of angry men crest the hilltop behind her and she stopped at his door, her chest heaving under the duress of the journey she had just completed. Mascara cascaded down her face like raindrops down a windowsill and she cocked her head to the side in unabashed astonishment. “Alexander?” She inquired, breathlessly.

In a state of shock, he opened his door to get out and stocked around to the back of the car, yanking the hose and sock from the exhaust pipe. He then wandered to the passenger side and held the door open for her which she had obliged gratefully. He paid no more attention to the fast-approaching group of men as he tossed the hose and sock into the backseat and shoved the car into drive. An eerie silence befell the vehicle while his passenger tried to catch her breath. Alexander found the questions he wanted to ask her were suddenly boundless; What on earth could Thea McHugh be doing in this field, in a wedding dress of all things? Where was she going? And most importantly, what had happened to her? He scratched a hand uncomfortably along the strip of stubble beneath his chin, formulating how best to broach the first subject. “Thea… my god. What- where can I bring you?”

She took a steadying breath and turned to him, gaze downcast. “I have nowhere to go.”

He allowed himself a second to take his focus from the road to glance at her. “You don’t reside around here?”

She shook her head. “I lived with my fiancé.”

Alexander was not entirely sure when he had made the decision to bring her back to his home, but if he had to guess, it was probably around the time she had pulled the discarded sock over her fist and used it as a macabre hand puppet. Halfway through the drive he noticed the tip of his silver flask peeking out from beneath the leather interior of his side door and he offered her some of its contents, which she accepted graciously. Neither of them said much as he drove up the lane to the house in which he had bid goodbye not less than two hours earlier. He shifted the car into park and sat unmoving, sparing himself a few moments to try and figure out what the fuck he was going to do now. “Is there anyone I can call for you?” He asked after a while.

She shook her head wordlessly.

Alexander elicited a small sigh and glanced toward the stone structure a few yards away, hardly believing the words that had begun to take shape in his mind. “Listen… I’ve got plenty of space here, if you need a few days to get your feet back on solid ground.”

Her eyes widened and she shook her head no, her pink lips parting in protest. “I couldn’t intrude on you like that… we’re strangers now.”

“Yeah, well… we weren’t always.” He shrugged slowly and took a steadying breath. “Look- there is a motel a few miles down the road that I would be happy to take you to… but I wouldn’t suggest it to my worst enemy. And by the sounds of it, you don’t have any close kin around anymore,” Again, he scratched a hand through the stubble on the underside of his chin. “And your business is entirely your own Thea, but if you need a place to stay, and if you’re not too weary of strangers,” He was not sure how much he liked the sound of that word. “Then I think I could be of some assistance to you.”

She offered up a small smile. “If it really wouldn’t be too much of an imposition- I would be very appreciative, thank you.”

Clambering out of the vehicle, he made his way over to her side of the door and opened it so that she could exit. She followed him up the narrow, cobbled path to the front door and stood a few feet behind him while he fumbled around in his pocket for the keys. He took a deep breath, fit the key into the lock and pushed the door open. He leant against the frame for support as she quietly stepped past him into the darkened entrance. “It's not much…” He found himself murmuring as he watched her take in her current surroundings.

She turned to him, eyes glimmering vibrantly in the waning dusk light. “It's more than enough. Thank you, Alexander.”

He cleared his throat and offered her a curt nod in response, pushing himself back from the wooden doorframe. “I'll be right back with some clothing… for you.” He fished around at the back of his wardrobe for a pair of tattered sweatpants, a t shirt and sweater. When he returned moments later, she had found herself a seat at the kitchen table, her gaze fixed out the garden window at something unseen. She smiled graciously and accepted the clothing with a quiet thank you. “The washroom is down the hall on the left.” He watched her disappear and turned to brace himself against the kitchen sink. Five minutes had elapsed before he heard the familiar creak of the opening bathroom door. He waited for any other indication that she was coming back but when he missed it, he followed the sound of the silence. He found her perched inside the threshold of another room in which he made a conscious habit of completely forgetting was there. He cleared his throat to make his presence known and she turned to him, eyes wide.

“May I go in?”

Alexander shifted uneasily on the spot. Finally, he shrugged his shoulders and conceded. “Sure.”

He had accidentally picked up painting a year and half after he had gotten married. His studio had never really meant to be one for art, but rather a nursery for the baby girl who never quite made the journey into the world. He had returned home after a fishing weekend away with his brothers to find that his wife had done away with everything in the room except that she had left behind an easel, a tin of brushes, and numerous tubes of oil paint.

Thea wandered slowly around the room, absorbing the canvases adorning almost every square inch of space. He marveled at how bizarre it was to feel so naked in front of someone he never thought he would see again. He watched her trace a feather-light touch over an angry mass of scarlet paint on one of the last canvases he had ever worked on. She let her hand drop to her side and turned to him, eyebrow cocked in question. “When did you get into painting?”

He scratched absentmindedly at a spot on the back of his neck. “About twelve years ago, now.”

“These are gorgeous.”

Alexander chewed anxiously at the hollow of his cheek. “They used to help pass the time.” He allowed himself a moment to regard her in the dim evening light of the room. His clothing fit loose on her, and he tried in vain to ignore the questions creeping back into his mind. There still existed something entirely alluring about her; perhaps it was the way that she still seemed so much like the eighteen-year old girl he had fallen for so many years before- time had been kind to her. Or maybe it was the simple fact that she had known him long before his life cracked open and fell apart. Not caring much for where this train of thought was taking him, he cleared his throat and gestured to the kitchen. “I'm going to get something together for dinner.”

Eating together had been a quiet affair. He had found that the questions he had been burning to ask earlier felt inappropriate at this point, so he simply kept to himself. It also did not help that he was entirely unaccustomed to having another living, breathing person in the house with him. When she was finished eating, Thea excused herself from the table to rinse her dishes and gestured with her chin to his empty plate. “Are you finished?”

“All done,” Alexander confirmed and rose from his chair to join her at the sink. “You don’t need to do that…” He murmured as he watched her turn the tap to full hot and pump three gobs of green dish soap into the water beneath her.

Thea shrugged indifferently. “It’s the least I can do. Dinner was delicious, by the way.”

He glanced over at the fried cod in the cast-iron pan, and at the garden-picked green beans in the yellow flowered dish next to it on the stove. He had never been much of a cook, so he suspected that she had merely said that to be polite, but he accepted the compliment with another curt nod regardless. When the dishes were done, he cleared his throat and swayed from side to side, hands buried deep in his denim pockets. “I can give you a quick tour of the place if you’d like.” Thea smiled softly and nodded her head in agreeance. He stocked down the hardwood floored hallway, intending to show her to her room first. The door had been closed and he hesitated a second before opening it to reveal a quaint guest room. He flicked on the light and stood back as she wandered into the room, taking every inch of it in. The walls had been washed in a robin’s-egg blue, and a wicker chair stood in the corner of the room next to a white pain-chipped wardrobe. White floor-length linen curtains hung from the windowsill beneath a cream-coloured wire bedframe. “If there’s anything you need…” He offered awkwardly. “Extra blankets, or anything of the like… please let me know.”

Thea turned to him; her arms wrapped protectively around her frame and offered up a small smile. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

He turned on his heel and left without saying anything, assuming she would follow which she did. “The bathroom is here, the handle on the toilet can be a bit dodgy so just watch out for that when you can.” He wracked his brain for any other useful information that he could offer up. “Uh and the bathtub…” He gestured with his chin to the white claw-foot tub beneath the cracked window. “The water tends to get extremely hot incredibly fast so you may need to run the cold water a little bit beforehand.” He nodded his head in finality, took one last look around the washroom and left her be.

Sleep had continued to evade him that night as it had almost every night for the past two years. The questions had been ceaseless; each time he had just nearly drifted off, another one swam into his mind’s eye and he found himself obsessing over it. What was he thinking bringing her into his house? Why had he even entertained the idea in the first place? What was it about her? He lay awake until the clock next to his bed read ‘3:47 A’, and the birdsong floating in on the half-open window helped to lull his body into a fitful slumber. He jolted awake a few hours later to the sound of a crash in the direction of the kitchen. A cold sweat had broken out over the expanse of his naked upper body, and he fought to keep his breathing slow and steady while he came to the realization that he was not alone anymore. He fumbled around in the dawn light for the beige cable-knit sweater next to his bed, which he threw over himself with a shiver. The scent of sizzling butter in a hot pan greeted him first, followed by freshly brewed coffee. It made his mouth water and it struck him that he could not remember the last time he had been genuinely hungry for food. He was not entirely sure what he would find when he rounded the corner to the kitchen, so when he saw Thea’s form bent over the stove he was taken aback. He stood staring longer than he cared to admit, while she scrambled what looked like eggs, a furrowed expression heavy on her face. She pulled back from the stove to glance around the area, searching for something unknown. “Are you looking for the salt?” He had startled her because she pulled back from the stove as if she had been burned, her eyes wide and alarmed.

She shook her head slowly. “The pepper…”

Alexander jutted his chin towards the hanging shelf above her head. It was adorned with bottles of olive oil, a dish of salt and sugar, and a pepper grinder. She smiled gratefully at him and reached for it. “I think I woke you up…” She murmured as she twisted the black grinder above the eggs cooking in the pan. “I’m sorry.”

Alexander shook his head wordlessly and pulled out the chair at the kitchen table. “I’m not uh… exactly used to having someone else around so there isn’t really much I don’t miss.”

“I took the liberty of cooking some breakfast. I couldn’t remember how you took your eggs, so I decided to play it safe and scramble them.” She turned to face him; her expression unreadable. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind.” He watched her fumble around for the cupboard with the plates and almost gave in when she elicited a triumphant ‘a-ha!’ And pulled two ceramic yellow plates from the cupboard in the far corner. “Mugs are in the cupboard next to it,” He offered easily. She threw him back a thumbs up in response.

“Do you still take your coffee black?” She asked.

Alexander scrubbed a palm down the side of his stubbled cheek. “Yes please.”

She joined him at the table a moment later, setting down his plate of steaming eggs, fresh buttered toast and a sliced apple. She poured him a cup of coffee which he thanked her for and watched her spoon two heaping spoonsful of sugar into her own mug. They were silent as they went to work on their breakfasts, both basking in the warm sunny glow from the open kitchen window. “How did you end up out here, if I may ask?” She asked once she had taken her last bite of egg.

Alexander swallowed back a mouthful of the deliciously warm liquid and shook his head. “I moved out here when I met my wife.”

The only indication that Thea had been surprised at this revelation was by the way her expressive gaze widened the slightest bit. She too stole herself a sip of coffee before she asked her next question. “And you live here… alone now?”

“I do.” He tipped the last of the liquid into his mouth and removed himself from the chair, taking her empty plate as he did so. “Thank you for the breakfast.”

“It was my pleasure.”

After the morning wash-up, Alexander excused himself to tend to some things that needed done around the house. They were menial tasks; a broken hinge to a door in the basement, a couple of the chairs in the kitchen were loose and falling apart and were in dire need of some good, old fashioned hammer and nails. They were simple undertakings that he had never intended to make good on- Because as far as he was concerned, and it was all written down in his will, his house would go to his brother Bill and their growing family. None of this would have been any of his problem if he had just followed through with his original plan yesterday. But as usual, and he was beginning to think that this was simply his lot in life, there was always something else just around the corner for him.

Dinner had been less of a quiet affair that evening. Alexander had come up earlier in the day to thaw a chicken he had found in the freezer that morning and had left it to roast in its own seasonings. Thea prepared roasted potatoes to go with it, and instead of making any semblance of a salad, (he very badly needed to grocery shop) he threw together a bowl of chopped cherry tomatoes, a few handfuls of garden-grown basil, fresh sliced red onions and balsamic vinegar. “You like cooking now?” Thea asked as she stood leant against the stove watching Alexander chop the cherry tomatoes.

Alexander offered up a gruff laugh in response. “Does anyone enjoy cooking, Thea?”

“Mhm, as a matter of fact lots of people do.”

He tossed the rest of the tomatoes into the glass bowl and reached for the onion. “I suppose you’re right… but I wouldn’t say it’s my favourite thing in the world.” He glanced over at her. “I think it’s one of those things that if you’re only doing it for yourself, it becomes more of a chore than a hobby.” Which was true for him at the very least. He had enjoyed cooking when he and his wife lived together but after she left, the passion for it had dissipated almost as suddenly as she had.

“Alexander, the chicken…” Thea’s voice, or rather the sound of his name from her mouth caught him off guard and shook him from his reverie. The timer on the oven had begun to elicit a high pitch whistling sound which he turned off and reached for a ripped dish towel on the counter below him. “Smells delicious,” She simpered as he pulled the scalding dish from the oven and set it on a hot plate at the set table.

“Yes well… hopefully it’s edible.”

Alexander had a hard time remembering a dinner in recent memory that was as satisfying as the one he had just consumed. He sat back in his chair; one arm slung around the top of the wooden frame. “What do you do for a living now, Thea?”

She swallowed the sip of wine she had just taken and set the glass against the wooden tabletop with a soft thud. “I owned a bakery and café downtown.” There was something familiar in the way her eyes twinkled in whatever light she happened to be in that made Alexander want to spend the next fifty years staring at her. He watched her trace a fingertip around the rim of her almost empty glass. “The business... went under two and half months before my wedding.” A silence had befallen them that was not necessarily uncomfortable. “How about you?” She asked after a while, meeting his gaze across the table.

Alexander shook his head. “I don’t work at the moment.”

If she was surprised by this, she never let it show. “I’m sorry to hear that,” She offered softly. Alexander could hear the earnestness in her tone and believed her. “What did you do?”

He cleared his throat and deposited the rest of the white wine into his open mouth. “I owned an art gallery in town,” He glanced at the empty wine bottle and suddenly wished that there had been more. “I sold the business about a year and a half ago now. Just after my divorce was finalized.”

As the silence took shape around them, Alexander knew there existed something unspoken between the pair of them; some sort of invisible barrier which hindered either of them from asking what they so desperately wanted to know, which was: What on earth were you doing in that field yesterday afternoon?

#alexander skarsgard #alexander skarsgard au #alexander skarsgard x reader #alexander skarsgard drabble #drabble #fluff #alex sstuff #writing #an invisible string

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5lazarus · 3 years

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Labyrinth, Chapter 3: The Anderfels

"Anders made no attempt at escape during the years they were together." This story is meant to explore everything absolutely horrible about that statement. If the core part of Anders' identity is his refusal to submit to imprisonment, then perhaps listening to Karl was a violation of his sense of self. Things get better, and then things get worse.

Chapter 3/3, the Anderfels: Anders visits the Thekla village chantry.

Read Chapter One: The Circle and Chapter Two: Kirkwall on Tumblr, or find the story on AO3 here.

Everyone has a mother and a mother’s-land, even Anders. As the war rages through the Free Marches and factionalism breaks out in Orlais, Anders is left wondering: where next? So he wanders.

Kirkwall is out of the question. There is nothing left once the war spreads through Ferelden and Orlais. Tevinter would discredit the mages, so he dismisses it. Rivain is too close to the Qun, and after the annulment at Dairsmuid, everyone is too shellshocked to shelter another renegade mage. Then Fenris, who knows how to flee, suggests, “What about the Hissing Wastes?” Isabela comes up with a better option: the Anderfels. No one would ever think to look for him there.

So he grows out his beard, and they wander. Hawke and Merrill head to Ferelden, looking for Varric. Aveline returns to Kirkwall, to build its defensives against Vael. But Isabela and Fenris take him home, because no one else will, with Kirkwall gone. They sail the river bordering the Free Marches and Antiva, through Nevarra all the way to the blasted lands of the Silent Plains. It is hard for Isabela to abandon their little skip, but they get enough money out of it to buy a wagon and mules. The animals are sick. Everyone is sick, eking out a living on Blighted land. Anders remembers this, but he had thought it was the fear of his magic that had made those memories so uncomfortable. Hadn’t Karl said something about that? The first time he ate food grown in clean soil, a plate of strawberries with a child-sized spoon: I don’t want to remember. You shouldn’t forget.

They make for the Hunterhorn Mountains, skirting Tevinter. Fenris knows the way, and they find markers of others winding through this wasted land. Fenris looks grimmer than usual, lyrium-brands burning in the gray half-light. He stops at a set of footprints, pressed hard into the scanty grass of the trail.

“Qunari have come this way,” he says, studying the tracks. “Must be Tal-Vashoth. Strange. Normally refugees from Seheron go east, not west.”

“Well, there’s a war on,” Isabela points out. “Why go from one war right into another one?”

Fenris says, “It’s a bad time of year to go through the Hunterhorns. Too dry. I doubt they’ll survive to make it to the Volca Sea, or the Donarks, wherever they be.”

Justice does not need to prompt them. “Then we should help them,” Anders says. “It’s not like we’ll be facing bandits. With my magic, I can at least bring down rain.”

Fenris and Isabela exchange a glance. Anders is getting angry, and Justice is pushing under his skin. He says, “You’re not going to let them die.”

Fenris says, “Following you this far has been enough of a suicide mission. I did not flee Tevinter just to die this close to Minrathous. If you want to die, do it by yourself. Go see how charitable people dying of starvation are, as they break from the Qun. But I will not come back for you.”

Anders flares, but Isabela holds up her hand. “The blue-and-angry stuff is hot, but I’m not getting caught in the middle of this. Anders, you know he’s right. We don’t have enough food for all of us. If we go after them, we’re just condemning ourselves. And—well—I’m not dying on land. Not after Kirkwall. We have enough food to make it through the mountains. If you go after them, you’re just going to get us killed.”

Anders says, “Fuck off.” But they’re right, and Justice has proved that there are no easy answers. In this case, he must do right by his friends. Andraste has led him thus far. He prays She guides the Tal-Vashoth true, and follows Fenris and Isabela down the winding mountain path.

At night, the Tal-Vashoth attack, and they kill them quickly. Preparing their bodies for burial, Anders asks Fenris, “Who do they pray to?”

Fenris looks at him oddly. “Does it matter?”

Isabela sighs. “They don’t really do that. And if they’re Tal-Vashoth, who knows if they’d want prayers said for them anyway? They were going to kill us, Anders. Just burn the bodies and let’s go.”

It’s not right that these lives end a smear of ash on a grainy mountaintop, the blackened bits of their pyre preserved in the arid air of the Hunterhorns. They’re more than just a desperate end. People will go through this pass and see the ashes and know some battle took place, but Anders wants to be remembered for something besides death. He wants them to be remembered for something beyond dying.

Justice says, All you can do sometimes is keep living. And carry the dead with you. That’s the important part. Take them with you, but don’t let them weigh you down.

Shut up.

They find a shallow recess to rest in, before the path bends down the mountain and towards the steppe. Fenris lets the mules out of the yoke but ties their reigns to his waist and curls up among them. Anders watches him curiously. He’s clearly done this before. That’s a flash of a life outside his purview, and maybe beyond Fenris’ memory too—working for that magister Danarius, guarding his master’s trade caravans. Fenris catches him staring.

“What?” he growls.

“You look warm,” Anders says. Isabela curls up next to him, and gestures at Anders to join them. Fenris looks impassive.

“Come on,” Isabela says impatiently. “We can’t light a fire, everyone down the mountains will be able to see it. Come here. Keep us warm.”

Fenris sighs and makes room.

He wakes up to the sun a watery gold, filling the valley below and easing through the crevices of the mountain range. It’s freezing, despite Isabela and Fenris and the mules all curled around him, and he tucks his hands under his cloak as he shivers. A bird calls, and then another: some Maker-forsaken creature has built a life in this forgotten corner of Thedas.

It is all too familiar, and he wonders if this is the path the templars took when he was a boy: no. Karl told him this, didn’t he? In letters he burnt before the war. The thin sunlight resolutely insists on laying the plain below bare. He can imagine the high grass Karl promised him, and perhaps there are two adventurous young men galloping below, towards freedom, towards the promise of—what? More life than this, a better kind of hunger.

He’s got tears in his eyes, and he wipes at them angrily. Fenris stirs.

“Is there a problem?” he inquires.

“It’s fucking cold,” Anders says.

Once they leave the the Hunterhorns, it is not long until they find a village nestled in the reeds of the river Lattenfluss. Isabela leans against a mule and looks at it wistfully. Justice nudges him, at some point he needs to help her get back to the open water again, it’s only right after all that she has done for him. They see a weatherbeaten woman dragging a stubborn donkey to the water. Anders goes up to her, making sure to hobble on his staff like it’s a walking stick.

He reaches for the words of a language he has barely spoken in the past two decades. “Guten Morgen. Wie heißt dieser Dorf?”

The woman looks at him strangely. “Thekla,” she says shortly, and goes back to trying to force the donkey to drink.

“Fuck,” Anders says. That needs no translation.

She looks at him again. “Wie heißen Sie, Ausländer? Woher kommen Sie?”

She is being exceedingly formal with him. He almost says his name, but isn’t she Anders too? Instead he walks away, where Isabela and Fenris wait.

“Well?” Fenris says.

He wants to keep moving, but Justice stops him and instead he says, “Let’s rest here for awhile. We can fish from the river, at least.”

“We should move more inland,” Fenris says testily. “Gossip travels fast. We should get to the Donarks as quickly as possible.”

“I want to stay,” Anders says firmly. “Just for a moment. I need to say my prayers. It won’t be long. You can even leave without me, and I’ll catch up.”

“We’re not splitting up,” Isabela says. “We’ve separated enough. Not until we all have a place to go back to.”

“I won’t be long,” he says. “Just give me ten minutes to pray. And then we can move on.” Fenris fixes him with an unimpressed stare. He’ll wheedle it out of him eventually, and he’ll tell them, because despite everything he’s more than proven himself, he’s guided him here, hasn’t he? Andraste’s grace works in mysterious ways. He walks to the village chantry, head bowed, hackles raised at the villagers’ stares. The last time a stranger must have passed by would’ve been the Blight, and then the time before that? When the Templars took Karl. At least Karl grabbed his name before he left. Anders has left all that behind.

There is a name he has trained himself from flinching when he hears the first syllable, that he left behind when he realized he would never hear his mother call again. He had refused to hand it over to the templars, so they named him after his country: “that Anders child,” eventually simply Anders. He shapes his lips to it, mutters it under his breath, and walks into the town square, a flattened dusty piazza. There are perhaps five families in Thekla village. Not all of them have black hair and blue-gray eyes, but enough of them do for him to wonder.

The Chantry looms over the weatherbeaten limestone cobbles of the piazza, made from the same mountain stone as the rest of the village. Anders opens the familiar weather-scarred door, remembering suddenly the smell of wood made sacred by years of worship before he even realizes, this is Andraste’s house and that is Andraste’s incense, her sweet-burning flesh. Harsh sun softens through the stained glass windows into Andraste’s trials. Anders kneels as he faces the altar, and shuffles into a pew to pray.

At first there is no words, just the bleak exhaustion. He stares up at the gold mosaic of Andraste wreathed in flames, illuminated shockingly by cleverly designed windows above the door of the church. The whites of her wide eyes glimmer, recently polished. Her mouth, a slash of red glass, is resolutely closed. Her silence is what convinced Hessarian. Anders is not so sure. He would have preferred that she screamed. He would’ve, but he is no Andraste. Still, why must they suffer in silence? What good does that do? No one takes pity on those who are too weak to protest. She fought a whole fucking war for them! It’s the Maker who’s silent, not her. She pointedly wasn’t, not in the face of injustice.

Andraste bid him, fight for my people. Mages are the Maker’s children, as much as any other. Magic is meant to serve man, not to rule over them, and that meant the fear of magic as well. There is nothing in the Chant that says to rip away the spirit of any mage who falters. There is nothing in the Chant about Circles, templars, Tranquilty, or Exalted Marches either. There is, though, quite a lot about Justice. There is the demand of martyrdom. There is collective sacrifice.

Anders sings, “Let the blade pass through the flesh, let my blood touch the ground, let my cries touch their hearts. Let mine be the last sacrifice.” His voice reverberates in the dull space and grows silent. He waits, but the Maker does not answer.

He leaves the Chantry blinking blindly into the mute silent and as he stumbles towards where his friends wait with the mules he sees a man that could have been Karl, if Karl had been allowed to grow old, with a weatherbeaten face and sour expression and a mercifully clear brow, beard rather longer and whiter than he would have ever allowed. Anders opens his mouth but nothing comes out, there is nothing to say, so he keeps on walking.

#dragon age fanfic #dragon age fanfiction #kanders #anders #karl #anders/karl #karl thekla #labyrinth #the anderfels #fenris #isabela #dragon age 2 #awakening #fanfic #da2

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the-apocryphal-one · 3 years

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Next of Kin

Summary: A special kind of pain squeezes her heart. The soft question that emerges from her lips is only natural. “Do you have any family?”Astarion x Isaniel

Also available at AO3 and ff.net!

A/N: Merry Christmas to all your lovely readers!

She should have done this before now. She knows she should have.

But there just hadn’t been time, at first. In the earliest days after her infection, she’d been teetering on a tightwire of panic and desperation, hastily cobbling together plans to get this thing out. Even when they’d stopped to eat or make camp, the thought of writing a letter to her son had never entered her mind—much to her shame.

Then, as days passed and nothing seemed to happen, she’d grown complacent. Maybe their parasites were defective. Maybe the ceremorphosis had failed. Maybe they could walk away from this with nothing more than some trauma and psionic abilities.

Then the sickness came and slapped her in the face with the reminder that nothing about these parasites is normal, nothing can be taken for granted, and nothing is all her son will know of her fate if she’s not careful.

But how do you do it? How do you say goodbye to your only child across hundreds of miles with no body language or facial expressions?

For the past few nights, Isaniel has been trying and failing to figure that out. Each time, she has pulled out parchment, stared at it for an indeterminate amount of time, laboriously pushed out a few words, stared some more, then folded it back up and returned it to her pack.

Tonight, she vows as she sits near a large, flat rock that will substitute as a desk, she’s not getting up until this letter is done. She pulls it out of her jerkin, smooths it out, places it on the rock, and uses a few pebbles to hold the corners down.

Selakiir, it says.

If you’re reading this, I’m very likely dead or worse. We can never foresee our fates, but I have a reasonable certainty as to what my particular ‘or worse’ is. The details are included in an additional, enclosed letter. That had already been written, perversely coming easier than this one. You may ignore it if you wish. I would not hold it against you if you did.

That was as far as she’d gotten. Now, she dips the quill back in the inkpot, sucks in a breath, and pens, I hope that the person who delivers this will be able to give you a first-hand account of my fate, so they can

Soothe you? Selakiir is bafflingly, wonderfully outgoing…but he is also private in his grief. When his father died, he withdrew from adventuring, his friends, even her. He’s not the type to accept banal well-wishes, especially from strangers.

answer any questions you have.

Her quill stalls. She stares at the drying ink, trying to muster up something else to say.

When she writes letters, they always end up much like her: detached and logical. But this is supposed to be a goodbye letter. The last thing her son might have of her. It…it has to be right. She can’t leave him feeling like she saw this as some sort of duty. If there’s one thing she’s always wanted to make sure Selakiir knew, and was always afraid he didn’t, it was that she loved him.

Remember: my love for you is like the moon. There are nights when it doesn’t know how to show all its self, but it is always there.

No, that should be in the closing paragraph. It’d be more final, more poetic. A lovely note to leave things on. But she can’t make herself scratch it out. There’s this foolish, superstitious fear that Selakiir will find out and be hurt. Isaniel grimaces, struggling to wrestle small talk, emotion, something onto the paper so it’s more than this dry thing.

It’s almost funny that I ended up adventuring like you

We’ll meet again in Eilistraee’s

I’m sorry I won’t be there for your wedding. The present I was making is in

Don’t you dare try to avenge me. Stay far away from

Isaniel presses her head against the heel of one hand and bites down an uncharacteristic scream. The paper’s empty spaces and crossed-out lines mock her.

“If you stare at that any more intensely, it’ll burst into flames.”

“Iblith!” she curses, startling so fiercely she upends the inkpot. She’s still thinking in Undercommon, so her next few words come out in it before she catches herself and switches back to Overcommon. “Dos olist mzild taga—stop that.”

Astarion is bent double with laughter, guffawing so hard some of the others are glancing their way. There are actually tears in his eyes. “And miss out on the chance to see you jump like a wet cat? I could never.”

Gods, he can be so juvenile sometimes. Something dangerously close to affection laces that thought, banishing the bitter frustration of failure.

Ever since that day he recoiled from her hand, Astarion has haunted her thoughts more than she would like. She has sought him out more frequently, asking questions, trying to understand him, trying to sort out what she should feel. He is dark and dangerous and cruel—and yet there is something in him, raw, genuine pain that mirrors what she once knew, that she cannot turn away from.

So, Isaniel is not surprised that Astarion’s bouts of childishness have become something she can think on with almost-fondness. Empathy, revulsion, confusion, curiosity already spin together in a whirlpool; what’s one more emotion on the pile?

That doesn’t stop her from shooting him a dour look as she rights the inkpot, though. “I will remind you that I have a rapier and that someday, I’ll be so startled I’ll stab first and ask questions later.”

“Ha! Duly noted.” Astarion gingerly—because of course he’s still worrying about getting stains on his clothes—sits next to her. Unabashedly, he peers at her pathetic letter. “What are you writing?”

She lets him peek. There’s no way he knows Undercommon…and even if he does, he won’t break her cipher. “A letter to my son. In case I die or transform.”

“Your son? That is a very important letter. Who will you entrust with its delivery?”

“Whoever among us is still alive, I suppose.”

“My, don’t you have a low opinion of our abilities.”

It’s not quite that; more like she’s just not picky. But he’s clearly preparing to launch into some spiel, so she chooses to simply wait rather than argue the point.

He doesn’t make her wait long, gesturing dramatically with his hands as he speaks. “Not that you’re wrong. Without you keeping his thirst for revenge and delusions of grandeur in check, Wyll will run off and get himself killed. Lae’zel and Shadowheart will kill each other before the sun goes down. Gale—” He chuckles. “Well. Need I go on?”

Irritation nips at her. Eilistraee knows her companions’ colorful range of personalities have given Isaniel more than one headache, but she still feels protective of them. “Yes, actually—or am I supposed to believe you wouldn’t be leaping into situations fangs first?”

“Ah, but if there’s one thing you can trust me to do, it’s survive those situations. I can see that letter to your son, darling.”

She snorts at his transparency. “You just want to read it.”

He just shamelessly grins, unapologetic about being found out.

Isaniel toys with and discards the idea of chastising him. The matter is too small to make a fuss over, and his cat-like tread and nimble fingers mean he can very much lift the letter off her if he wants. Although…hm. Maybe she can twist this back around on him. She shrugs with feigned disinterest. “Well, it’s not like you could, anyway.”

Astarion inspects his nails. “Oh, I’m sure I can get a scroll of Comprehend Languages somewhere.”

“It’s not just in Undercommon. It’s encoded too.”

He’s visibly taken aback by that. It’s childish of her, but she can’t help thinking, That’s a point for me. Gods, it’s too fun to match wits with him. “You write to your son in code?”

“It was a game we played when he was little.” It had simultaneously been a way to teach him and soothe her paranoia. “We’ve kept it up since.”

In a calculated move, Astarion twists and leans in close. His voice drops, becomes husky. “You do know there’s nothing more tempting than something you can’t have, yes?” His eyes deliberately trace a path up her neck and settle on her mouth.

He’s trying to knock her off balance. Isaniel would rather walk barefoot on hot coals than let him know he has—though not, she suspects, for the reasons he intended. Let him stare at her mouth or neck, he’s a flirt and a vampire spawn. No, the feel of his breath tickling her skin, the way his hand is almost but not quite brushing hers, is more alarming. It’s too intimate. Distracting.

She hastily delivers the coup de grace before he can spot the rapid flutter of her pulse. “What better way to guarantee your delivery? Stubbornness or curiosity will make you hold onto it until you crack it. But you won’t, so you’ll have to bring it to Selakiir to find out what it says.”

A heartbeat. Two. Then Astarion laughs, throaty and deep, sits back, and shakes his head. “Well played, my dear.”

With fresh distance between them, Isaniel exhales in relief. She hastily tries to cover it up by pretending to shift in her seat, but there’s a certain twinkle in Astarion’s eyes that tells her she failed. She clears her throat, praying that her face doesn’t betray her fluster. “I’ll give it to you when I’m done.”

She expects that to be the end of it, for Astarion to fire a parting quip and wander off to tease someone else. But her surprise, he doesn’t. Instead, he props his chin in his hand and studies her.

That look in his eyes…is that actual curiosity?

Like paper thrown into fire, her own is fanned. She hasn’t bothered to ask how old he is, but she can make an educated guess. The Underdark’s abusive culture forces drow to mentally mature well before their twenties; surface elves like Astarion can afford to wait until their first century or so. Of course, magistrate isn’t the type of position you typically get straight out of adolescence, so there could be anywhere from a rough fifty years to another two hundred on top of that. For some reason, she doesn’t peg him as any more than three hundred, pre-turn. Post-turn adds another two centuries.

For humans, several hundred years encompasses several generations. But for an elf… His parents and siblings could still be alive. So could his possible children. Unless he, like her, had a half-human child. They would have died in the time he spent enslaved.

Selakiir’s warm brown eyes and smiling face flash across her mind. A special kind of pain squeezes her heart. The soft question that emerges from her lips is only natural. “Do you have any family?”

A shadow briefly flickers across his face; then, like a rat fleeing for its life, it is gone. He smiles brightly and waves a dismissive hand. “Oh, let’s not exhume the past. There’s nothing interesting about it.”

Isaniel furrows her brow, but before she can say anything, Astarion rises, brushes his trousers off, and struts away. As is all-too-common of late, her gaze lingers on him until he disappears inside his tent. She exhales slowly. If he departed with such alacrity, it’s probably for the best she didn’t get to push him. Eilistraee knows how well that went over last time, and she’d just been clumsily trying to comfort him.

She glances down at the letter. Inspiration strikes. Spontaneously, she pens in another sentence. If accompanying this letter is a pale, white-haired elf named Astarion, point him to the Dancing Haven.

It’s unusually risky of her. If Cazador really will stop at nothing to get Astarion back, she could be bringing a vampire lord down on her congregation. And Astarion just might be callous enough to repay them by selling them out or abandoning them. He does not deserve such risks, the old Isaniel insists.

But then, she wouldn’t be here now if an Eilistraeen hadn’t taken a risk for her over a century ago, when she hadn’t deserved it.

She adds, I don’t know if he’ll actually go there, but like me, he’s fled some sort of dark past. I hope that, in absence of my aid, he can at least find refuge.

Bantering with Astarion seems to have unlocked some wellspring of words from deep within her; the mention of her past gives her the subject. Speaking of which, you may have all my belongings, including the forge and the new house. The password to disarm the magical traps is the same as our old one—I hope you remember it? Your father was always fondly exasperated by my insistence on having them, but you loved to show them off to your friends. My memories of you two are the best in my life…

The next day, she hands Astarion several pages and a “thanks” that holds more meaning than he knows.

Drow isn’t officially a language in 5e, but it was in older editions. So even though Isaniel was technically speaking in Undercommon for a bit, I went ahead and borrowed words from their dictionary. Rough translation:

Iblith: shit

Dos olist mzild taga: You stealth (intended to be akin to sneak or skulk) more than— (“a drider” is what she would have finished with)

Also Overcommon is just Isaniel’s name for Common.

#baldur's gate 3 #astarion #astarion x mc #astarion x charname #isaniel gelin #fanfic #my fanfic #my writing

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anonniemousefics · 4 years

Text

My Dearest Inej | Chapter Six

Chapter Masterlist

Originally posted on AO3

Rating: Teen And Up

Synopsis: A series of letters kept among the personal belongings of Captain Inej Ghafa.

Chapter Six: Dear Nina

Hello, lovely,

Some news and a request. I am going away on an assignment for the next several months, and this one’s rather sensitive. It means I’ll be out of reach for a time. Don’t worry your wonderful Inej brain about it, though. You know very well I’ll be just fine.

Here’s how I’m thinking we make due in the meantime. I’m writing down all my adventures and silly thoughts to send you as soon as it’s safe, and then we’ll be able to catch up in no time at all when all is right with the world again. You should do the same. Once I’m able, I’ll send a giant wad of letters along with where I can be reached to the Van Eck mansion for Wylan to hold on to for you until your next trip to Ketterdam. There. Not so bad, right?

I miss you more than cake. And that’s not an exaggeration. Be safe, lovely. And give them all hell.

All my love,

Nina

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(enclosed in an overstuffed envelope marked “Nina”)

(translated from Kerch)

Dear Nina,

Your last letter has made me grouchy. I don’t know if there would have ever been a good time for you to fall off the map, but I think there could have at least been a better time than this. I’ll take your suggestion, though, and settle for trying to imagine your face when I tell you these things. When you read this, let’s imagine that we’re at that cafe in West Stave. The one with the little white tables outside. You’ve ordered enough waffles to feed five men, and I’m all hopped up on hot chocolate, and we can’t stop snickering. It’ll happen again someday, right?

I’m going to use this letter to take a break in entertaining you with stories of battle at sea and the many delightful ways in which bad men beg. I’m docked in Ketterdam today with my head dangerously full of some truly mortifying events. I don’t know what to do, Nina. Keep eating your imaginary waffles – I’m going to offload a great many details and bring you up to speed.

I’ve told you that Kaz and I write letters. That they’re sort of a romantic nature. I know you think I’m crazy. I’m well aware that I have no idea what I’m doing. I don’t know -- there’s just something about him I can’t give up yet. And I love these letters. They’ve become the first thing I pick up at every new port. They’re these little slices of Ketterdam – all of the good stuff, that is, and none of the bloodshed.

It’s dangerous, though, isn’t it? Only getting the good side of things. It messes with your perception of reality.

It should surprise no one that Kaz Brekker is good with pen and paper, considering how we’ve seen him con. Sometimes I worry that’s what letter-writing really is to him. Another way to con. He says things in letters that you could not even imagine, Nina. He can be affectionate. He can be really funny, maybe even playful. He can also write the most sincere, heartfelt sentences. You read them, and you really forget he’s, well, Brekker. It’s almost like, when he writes me, he’s not. Like some other side comes out when he picks up a pen, and it’s the side I’ve always hoped was really there all along.

I’m such a goner for this other side, Nina. It’s become a problem. Try not to spit out those imaginary waffles.

It’s a problem because, in person, when I’m in Ketterdam, he’s still Kaz Brekker, the persona, the enigma. It started messing with my head, because there is such a stark contrast between Kaz Brekker the enigma and the Kaz who writes me these insanely charming letters. That’s not to say Kaz Brekker isn’t trying to be less enigmatic, but it’s little things. He can take off his gloves more now without having violent reactions to a brush of skin. He’s managed to hold my hand for a few, brief moments. I’ve tried to cozy up to him, but I don’t know. It’s impossible to know what he thinks of it, if he likes it, if he hates it, if he resents it – until a letter shows up. And then he’s writing, “I miss you” and “I’m dreaming of tasting your lips.” (I’m imagining you making that silly fanning yourself gesture, and I really hope that’s true. Saints, I miss you.)

I’m rambling so much. I wish you were just here instead.

He wrote me this letter after Jesper’s birthday, Nina. Ughhh, why are you so far away? It was a really good letter. A really, really good letter. We had a moment during this hot air balloon ride (yet another reason you need to come back to visit Ketterdam – we do birthday experiences now). Jesper and Wylan were on one side of the balloon’s basket, wrapped up in each other and all the sights with their backs to us. And, out of nowhere, he pulled me close, tucked me right up against his side, close enough that I couldn’t help but hold him back. At first, I could actually feel his heart racing and thought maybe he’d pull away. But he settled after a minute, and we rode in the balloon for a good while like that, stars overhead, city lights below. That was all, and it was more than enough for me. I still think about it all the time. He told me later that he thought it was a nice night, and so I thought it best to leave it at that. We had a nice night. Nice, like when your dinner isn’t ruined or someone opens a door for you.

But this letter that awaited me in Os Kervo. You know Suli, right? So, if I use the phrase (nearest translation: “I shit a brick”), you’ll understand just how shocked I was. He wrote how he never wanted to forget that night and the way I looked and the way he felt. It was perfectly un-Brekker-like. It might have made you cry.

The contrast has never seemed so stark.

And so it came down to this: I needed to know that Kaz Brekker in Ketterdam was capable of actually being this person who keeps showing up in envelopes and using his name.

Which brings me to my most recent trip to Ketterdam. This was the trip after the hot air balloon ride. Before I arrived, he asked if I wanted to stay in the Slat this trip – with him. Don’t choke on your waffles, please. Nothing was going to happen – he can barely hold my hand for more than a few minutes, and at least one of the times it’s happened, I had to bribe him with Ravkan toffees first.

I had one condition for this arrangement. I wanted to bring letters for him to read aloud. Perhaps most incredibly, he agreed.

Right. This is where it gets ugly.

I’d spent the day at The Slat. Usually my first day on land, I find I’m unusually exhausted, and everything in The Slat is fresh and new since Seeger’s fire – I’d even venture to say comfortable. I slept most of the day, a luxury I know you’d appreciate. I was up around dinnertime, and he’d brought in dinner. (It was those meatballs and mash pots we used to love so much. I hope I’ll be able to eat them again after this without wanting to hurl.)

Dinner seemed like a good time to try out the letter reading. We’d spread out the food on his desk and passed a bottle of kvas back and forth to lighten the mood before he rolled up his sleeves and I gave him the first one. I had tried to pick a variety of his letters to bring along, the ridiculous ones right up to the one I can’t get over – the one after the hot air balloon ride.

Before you get too excited, we didn’t get to the hot air balloon ride letter.

It was going so well in the beginning. My cheeks were hurting from smiling so hard, listening to so many charming words come from that voice. He seemed to be enjoying it even – feet up on the desk, a sip of kvas here, read an old joke there, and he’d try not to smirk to himself when it made me laugh. He even let one of his own laughs slip once or twice. It was just what I wanted. I felt like I was finally putting together a whole picture out of two halves.

But then we came to this letter he’d given to me on the docks of Fifth Harbor, thanking me just before I left after Seeger’s fire. I was getting ready to hand it over to him, and my heart dropped right into my feet. Nina. I’d forgotten I’d written something really, really, REALLY embarrassing in the margins. Just. Sankta Alina. I don’t know if I can repeat it.

I tried to skip over that one, but he was having none of it. Everything had been playful and a little flirtatious up until that moment, and he swiped it from my hands. Sankta Elizabeta, my face is burning up while I’m writing this. Tell me this is salvageable. Oh, wait, you’re in backwoods Fjerda or something. Ugh, why, Nina, why?

Everything got really quiet – he’d seen it right away. I could tell he was surprised, but that was it. I have no idea what else was happening in that brain of his.

What it was was this. I’d made a note of how different he was on paper and labeled that Kaz by his original name. I’d written that I like Kaz Brekker, but after these letters, I was in love with Kaz Rietveld.

NINA. (Untranslatable Suli vulgarities)

I snatched the letter back – he wasn’t even making eye contact with me. He hadn’t even budged. It was too horrible. The silence felt never-ending. So, I left. That was yesterday. Now I’m staying on the Wraith. Maybe forever.

I have to say something, and I wish you were here to help me figure out what to say. Somewhere in the back of my mind, there are fragments of lessons and sayings my father would have about this, if I could only cobble them in to something coherent. I’m trying and trying to imagine how he must be feeling.

He couldn’t have been that surprised about my feelings, could he? Not after all this time, not everything we’ve written. It’s not as if I’ve been terribly coy. I’m forcing myself to believe he would not be horrified to know how I feel. No, there’s something else.

How awful it must feel to think someone you trusted finds only a part of you lovable.

I have some soul-searching to do, Nina.

Come back.

Inej

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(hand-delivered, unaddressed envelope)

Dear Inej,

I’ve spent the whole night thinking, and I have some things to say. I won’t read this one out loud, so if you have a hard time believing it’s me, I guess you’ll just need to get creative.

I know you’re embarrassed. You might remember I have intimate knowledge of what it’s like to be in your position. At first, I wanted nothing more than to ease your mind and put everything back the way it was. There was a large part of me that was awestruck that you’d find even a small, half-dead remnant of myself worthy of loving. I was ready to crawl back to you and do anything to erase this moment from time.

But then I realized that’s not a fair deal to Kaz Brekker.

And before you start making faces, I’m not becoming one of those politicians that likes to bloviate in the third person. Just for the sake of clarity in this letter alone, I’ll use the labels that you used.

Inej, Kaz Brekker saved my life. Yours, too. And a lot of other people’s. Kaz Brekker could find me food and dry clothes and shelter when there was no one else. Kaz Brekker has fixed and built and risked and fought and salvaged. And yes, there are a good many things he’s terrible at, like not being an unmitigated asshole. He is not friendly or particularly kind, and he’s rarely truthful. There are many things he should never have done. He’s done unthinkable things he’s not even sorry for. Trust me, Inej. When it comes to hating Kaz Brekker, I have a front row seat.

But the only reason there’s a Kaz Rietveld here for you to love at all is because Kaz Brekker brought him this far.

At first, my instinct was to write a letter detailing all the many ways I can become more like the man you love. And that’s not to say there isn’t some wisdom in trying to coax him out a bit more – you tend to have good taste in most things. There’s probably some value in striking a balance.

But Kaz Brekker is part of the deal. You can’t have one without the other. There is a lot about him – about me -- that I would not and will not change. So, I need to know that you see the same value in him. In all of me. Because, if you can’t, I’m not sure it will matter how much I’m in love with you, too.

And to think we might have avoided this whole mess if I just would have let you bring a flute. To that I say, mati en sheva yelu. I am in love with you even if you play a damn flute.

Are you smiling at least a little bit? I hope so.

Sincerely,

K. Rietveld

#six of crows #soc #six of crows fanfic #crooked kingdom #grishaverse #leigh bardugo #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #jesper fahey #wylan van eck #nina zenik #fanfic #fanfiction #kanej #kanej fanfic

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dryad-of-the-dogwood · 3 years

Text

Until the End

Fandom: Dragon Age

Rating: M

Word count: 2,505

TW/CWs: Major character death, violence, angst, saying last goodbyes, all that awful stuff.

This is a No Cure for the Calling story, an Alistair and Cousland go into the Deep Roads together story, and I never thought I would write this but Silhouette by Aquilo got stuck in the angstiest part of my head and I sobbed writing it down, but I still did it. Forgive me.

Until the End (read on AO3)

The moment Alistair found her sitting up in bed one morning, staring at the wall with her expression perfectly blank, he knew. Nalissa Cousland was vibrant and intense, whether her emotions were good or bad, and Nalissa Theirin was no different. If there was something too intense for her to feel, that made it too much for anyone in the world, because she was the strongest person he had ever known. And the only thing she couldn’t be stronger than was the Calling.

They had both thought they heard it once, years ago. The Inquisition—or more accurately, Leliana—had told them not to worry, that it wasn’t real, that the Inquisitor would handle it. And she had, somehow, however she had killed a darkspawn magister that kept him from being reborn into the next available blighted body. They had wondered, but not even Leliana had really known the answer beyond some combination of Rift magic, a dead red lyrium-corrupted dragon, and the power of an ostensible elven god. And so it had been yet another thing that wasn’t an answer, just like Avernus’ research had been a dead end, just like Nalissa had never been able to cobble together a cure from the Wilds flowers that had saved Ash warriors’ hounds or get a straight answer out of Grand Enchanter Fiona about whatever had cured her all those years ago. Finally when the mage had broken down into tears, she had admitted she didn’t know, couldn’t give an answer even to save the king and queen of Ferelden, no matter how much she might want to. And that had been the last lead before the trail had gone cold.

So when Nalissa looked up at Alistair, her eyes sunken and shadowed but still the same heart-wrenchingly beautiful sea green he had fallen in love with, he had read it on her face. The dreams were returning, she was hearing the whisper of the song, and her time had come.

It should have been him first. Why wasn’t it him? He had taken his Joining months before she had, he had been the one to perform that Void-forsaken ritual that had saved them at a cost that all these years later they still didn’t fully understand. It should have been him.

But it wasn’t, and he wept as he pulled her into his arms, even if she didn’t. Even if she locked everything away behind the mask of nobility that even after two decades on the throne, he had never learned to wear like she did. She was indomitable, his Nalissa, in everything except the Calling she couldn’t escape.

She very nearly physically fought him when Alistair told her he was coming with her. It was her Calling, not his, she had insisted, had shouted it at him in their bedchamber in a bout of hysteria he had never once seen her give into before. She had pleaded, threatened, tried to give him an order as Warden-Commander, but he had only smiled sadly and offered to travel to Amaranthine with her for trial if she wanted to bring him up on charges of insubordination. Only then did she cry into his chest, not for herself but for him, when she realized there was nothing she could do to talk him out of it.

He had promised her once, when they sat together in the grass on an early spring day during the Blight. He had promised her he would be with her until the end, and he meant it. An archdemon couldn’t keep him away. The fact that he didn’t hear the Calling yet wouldn’t either.

The preparation, that was almost worse than the realization. The landsmeet was a debacle, full of angry lords terrified of more instability so close on the heels of everything else the Age had brought upon Ferelden. But Nalissa hadn’t faltered, and she had given them the best solution she could: her brother, the man with the highest standing and the most experience in the country, even if he had balked at her suggestion. It felt like a repeat of history, Teagan had said, watching another Cousland put forth to the landsmeet as a potential king just like the teyrn’s father had been, only this time with no Theirin heir to dispute it.

But it was the sensible solution, they all had to admit. Couslands had ruled in Highever since before Calenhad himself was born, and the teyrn’s oldest child with his second wife was old enough by then to handle the teyrnir. Eleanor was a bright girl, as stubborn and dutiful as her father and her namesake put together, and she would take Fergus’ place well. Nalissa smiled with something like pride when the landsmeet voted in favor, even if her eyes shone a little more brightly than usual from unshed tears.

The Wardens were even more difficult. Alistair hadn’t stepped foot in Vigil’s Keep in years, but he refused to let her go alone, terrified she would leave for Orzammar without him. When the constables and senior Wardens began shouting and grappling for the Warden-Commander’s seat, he almost wished he wasn’t there to see it. The order, without Duncan, without Nalissa, wasn’t half so virtuous as he remembered. But she stood her ground as she always did, naming a stern-faced woman younger than half of them as her successor until Weisshaupt saw fit to replace her officially. Alistair didn’t know the girl, but he recognized the set of her jaw and the steel in her eyes, because he saw them in his wife every day. She would lead the Wardens well, if they allowed it, and he could only hope they did.

They returned to Denerim before setting out. Nalissa wouldn’t miss her brother’s coronation, even if it hurt to brave the noise of the crowds with the song ringing in her ears, even if she had to wear gloves to hide the mottled bruise-like marks on her hands that neither of them could pretend not to see any longer. She hugged Fergus goodbye for the last time on the steps of the palace, and both she and Alistair tried to pretend they didn’t see the pedestal at the gates, prepared for a statue that hadn’t yet been carved, with both of their names and dates etched into the stone.

Alistair Theirin, 11th King of Ferelden, Champion of Redcliffe, Hero of the Fifth Blight

Nalissa Theirin née Cousland, Queen, Warden-Commander, and Hero of Ferelden

9:10 Dragon - 9:52 Dragon

It was already written in stone, the end of both of their lives. The hardest parts were done, all the decisions that mattered had been made. But Maker, did that still not make it easier to set out on their final adventure.

It felt like a hollow echo, walking through the gates of Denerim and knowing they would never do so again. Camping along the Imperial Highway, like when they were young and free, now just the ghosts of two thoroughly overwhelmed new Grey Wardens tasked with saving the world. They had said their goodbyes to Oghren in Amaranthine, to Leliana at the coronation, written letters to Antiva meant for Zevran and to Par Vollen meant for Sten. Nalissa had even sent one to Morrigan, though who knew if that would ever be read. To their friends, to Ferelden, to Thedas they were already dead, but at least what little time they had left was theirs alone.

They spoke often of the similarities, of the differences, of what Wynne might have said to see them walking into death together one last time. Leliana would write a tragic ballad for them she would never share, Nalissa was sure. Zevran would have pointedly declared it was their last chance to join him in bed for the night, Alistair decided. But though they laughed and leaned into each other and drew every moment of pleasure they could from these last few moments of peace, both marked them for what they were: a collection of lasts.

When they finally made camp in the foothills of the Frostbacks, that final night before beginning the descent, they didn’t sleep. They made dinner together, joked how neither of them had gotten any better at it since the first time Morrigan had tasted the gray dreck they had boiled to the point of a tasteless paste and swore she would do the cooking after all. They danced around the fire, watched their shadows on the mountainside seeming to stretch into infinity. They looked up at the stars and whispered together how beautiful they were, without mentioning they would never see them again. And they made love slowly and tenderly, until they were too tired to do more than lie in each other’s arms sharing I love yous and every moment of the last half of their lives they wouldn’t trade for anything.

When the sun rose, they didn’t pack up camp. They put out the fire and left the tent and bedroll where they were, for whoever might find use for them, without ever quite discussing it. They wouldn’t need them again. There was no return journey to look forward to.

And they stopped at the entrance to Orzammar, drinking in the sun and the sky and the fresh air that didn’t smell of nothing but earth and taint. Nalissa hated the underground, hated caves and tight spaces, and her last breath before they stepped into the dark shook as she drew it, but she would not shirk this path and did it anyway. Alistair would have taken everything from her if he could, the corruption and the pain, the fear and the duty, but all he could do was squeeze her hand tightly and assure her again that he was with her until the end.

The end, he kept thinking, as they passed the guards of the dwarven thaig, as they were allowed past into the Deep Roads, as the great doors swung shut behind them with a final clang that rattled in his bones. His end would be lonelier than hers, he knew. As much as he feared it, as much as he wanted to never see those beautiful eyes empty and unable to smile back at him, he had to see her sacrifice made before he could allow himself to fall. That was another promise he had made, down here in the dark what felt like a lifetime ago. He would never allow her to become what the women taken by the darkspawn were twisted into. She would die a Grey Warden, full of fire and wild roars and singing blades. And he would die however he had to after that, even if it was on his knees at her side.

The sob that passed her lips as they paused in the shadows didn’t even sound like her. It was hopeless, shattered, things Nalissa had never been, and she clung to him desperately with tears spilling between them and soaking their armor. One last moment of fear. One more last.

When she dried her eyes and he did the same, he held her as he always did, tight against him even with the barrier of the armor they hadn’t worn together in years. Her head on his chest, his chin on her crown, their arms holding tightly to keep from shaking. Then he took her face in his hands, thumbs stroking her cheekbones that were now too pronounced, and told her that she was still the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. And she laughed, a laugh like they were young and foolish again and could still count years together ahead of them instead of hours.

She was fearless again, at the end. When they sensed the darkspawn moving through the tunnels and planned their intercept course, she was already bouncing on the balls of her feet, daggers whirling in each hand, giving him that reckless grin full of confidence and battle high that still took his breath away just as it had the first time. His shield was heavier from lack of use, his blade slower, but hers were so fast they were almost invisible as she cut through a wave of genlock assassins. And it twisted his heart in a way that he would never have recovered from anyway to see her so brimming with life and so close to death at the same time.

When Nalissa fell, she had downed an ogre, a hurlock emissary, and more genlocks than Alistair could count. Even the blade that finally slipped between her ribs was almost a matter of luck, a hurlock whose sword had clanged off a blade she had already parried and back toward her quicker than she could counter. And even though he knew it was what they were here for, that it had to happen before she became something unspeakable she would never want to be, the sound that ripped itself from Alistair’s throat was pure agony.

His sword and shield suddenly weren’t heavy at all, they were feather light and full of lightning as he crashed through two other hurlocks to the one that still held the blade and removed its head in one clean stroke. Nalissa had already hit the stone beneath her but both daggers were still in her hands and she stabbed viciously into the back of another hurlock’s calf. Blindingly beautiful even soaked in blood, fierce and deadly to the last. The last.

Alistair cut down the darkspawn she had injured, looked down to see her chest heaving, and dropped his shield. She looked straight at him even as she struggled for breath, shook her head, but he knelt beside her anyway. And again, even at the end, he could see the tears that streaked her face were for him.

She couldn’t make the sounds, but her mouth formed the words. I love you. And he sobbed it back to her, pressed his lips against hers, one last time, one last time. Her hand tried to raise to the back of his head as it always did, but it made it only halfway before it dropped and she went still.

Miles away in the deep roads, surely there were darkspawn or very unlucky dwarves that could hear the sound of Alistair Theirin’s anguish. Certainly more of them seemed drawn by his roars, bore down on him as he fought like a man possessed, with no shield but a dagger in his left hand that had fallen from hers. And it fell from his too at the end, when a viciously barbed pike caught the gap in armor on his left side. It should have hurt, but nothing hurt more than he did already. Nothing hurt more than falling beside her at last, seeing the faint smile still traced on her lips even as her eyes shone empty into the distance. Not seeing him. Never seeing him again.

But his hand found hers, before the last blow that turned everything dark. One last time.

(Also posted on AO3).

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shadow-scenarios · 3 years

Note

If the prompt thing is still available, can I get one? Akechi angst with the song meet me on the battlefield by svcrina? Congrats!

This took me back to my 2012/3 Nightcore phase, where I had little knowledge of music.

There are no happy endings on this blog, Anon. Especially with Akechi.

- Nexus.

Meet Me On The Battlefield

Trigger Warning:

Blood ; Violence ; Injuries ; Death ; Gore ; Swearing

Genre:

Angst.

Description:

A battle with Goro Akechi goes horribly wrong. Perhaps becoming his significant other was not the best idea...

When the news had reported the suicide of Akira Kurusu, the Phantom Thieves thought they had won. The plan was coming to fruition & even Akechi had fallen for their trap. No one could prevent them from reforming society, or so they had so foolishly thought. Shido’s Palace was a long haul but they were progressing steadily. Obtaining the Letters of Introduction was exhausting & yet there was something not quite right. It was almost as though they could feel someone watching them. Perhaps it was merely the presence of Shadows that brought them onto high alert but a gut feeling kept telling them that it was incorrect.

Dispatching of the supposed cleaner, Fox handed over the Letter to Joker. He seemed confident throughout this exploration but his smile was too tight & his hand slightly shaky. They had noticed but not brought a point to bring it up, as it would merely cause more stress for their leader. Everyone else seemed more intent on serving justice. So when Joker told them that they would be staying on the back lines for the rest of the Palace & to provide guidance alongside Oracle, it was surely a shock. Most of their skills were not in the healing department but they decided it best not to argue. Getting out alive was the priority.

The boiler room was sweltering. Steam rose from the engines & a poignant scent eminated from nearby vents, leaving a bad taste in their mouth. Unpleasantness soon turned to horror as someone dropped from a higher level. Goro Akechi, who was previously their significant other, stood in their way, an indignant sneer as he lectured the others about justice & revenge. Chronostasis seemed to occur as they took a moment to process.

Gone were the features of the detective they had fallen in love with. Insanity danced within his pupils & although they knew he had been the perpetrator of the mental shutdowns beforehand, nothing could prevent the raw emotions as everything began to settle in. Perhaps because they had not seen him directly meant that they had repressed these feelings. Everything they knew was crumbling but one coherent thought was what they managed to cobble together: Joker had known that they would have to fight & that was why he put them on the back lines.

Their internal monologue was interrupted when the battle began & the Shadows began to turn psychotic. Mystified by the appearance of a second Persona, albeit brief, there was much to contemplate. Zoning back into the fight, they improved the defenses of those on the front lines with an item before laying down suppressing fire in order to prevent Mona & Queen from becoming overwhelmed with healing responsibilities. Akechi soon stepped into the fight & they hesitated. They never wanted to cause him harm so they made a conscious decision to focus on keeping the others alive.

His first defeat came all too quickly. The group overwhelmed him with elemental attacks & Joker bolstered their offensive power with Physical moves. Collapsing onto the ground, Akechi had apparently lost. the Phantom Thieves withdrew as they attempted a persuasive route, all for nought. They knew he would not accept, no matter what everyone said to convince him. After all, despite his 180 in personality, he was still unwavering. A true battle began once Loki was summoned & it seemed to not be in their favour.

Everyone was already exhausted from the previous battle & though their attempts to fight & keep each other alive could be considered heroic, the fall of Joker said it all. Though the others had attempted to interpose themselves between the attack, the light eventually left the eyes of the rebel formerly known as their leader.

They did not know what was worse: The fact that Akechi had left them until last or their refusal to harm him. Bodies lay around them & what was once the scent of steam was muddied by the metallic bite of blood. Masks were discarded next to them & most of the others had sustained serious stab wounds that led to pools of blood. Even Oracle had been downed by a stray gunshot, both her outfit & Persona unsuitable for defense. Knelt over the body of Skull, one of the first members to welcome them was where they were positioned as their former teammate approached.

A gun pressed into the back of their head & he laughed, seemingly amused by the turn of events. They simply stared into his reddish-brown eyes apathetically in response.

“ If you’re going to kill me, just do it now. I can’t bare the sight of you, especially after you stole my heart & killed everyone I cared about, ” was all they demanded.

“ It’s your fault for falling for it in the first place, you know. Here I thought you were different from the others... Then you sided with these pieces of shit & their self-righteous sense of justice. Oh well. None of that matters now. ”

Opening their mouth to retort was interrupted by the pull of a trigger. There was no scream of pain, no exhausting fight put up. This was the mercy he spared for his significant other. It was an instant kill & there was no torture, unlike the others who were left to bleed out.

Word Count: 870

Publish Date: 28.10.20

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randomvarious · 3 years

Video

youtube

SWV - “Right Here” 18 Top Hits 1/94 Song released in 1993. Compilation released in 1994. R&B

The first wave of R&B girl groups in the 90s was dominated by three separate entities: first, there was En Vogue, who were responsible for starting the whole craze, and then came TLC, who were then followed by SWV. And since this is a post that’s gonna be littered with a bunch of fun, little trivia nuggets, here’s your first one: SWV, which is an acronym for Sisters With Voices, originally wanted to call themselves TLC, based on the first initials of their three members, Tamara, Leanne, and Cheryl. But they received a cease & desist letter from Epic Records, who had the TLC name locked up for the soon-to-be sensational Atlanta trio that was on their own roster. And so, Tamara, Leanne, and Cheryl begrudgingly settled on calling themselves SWV instead.

They began in 1988 in New York with two members, Leanne and Cheryl, who both sang at church, and were in search for a third girl to finish out the group. After going through auditions, they chose Tamara, who, according to a Rolling Stone article, was really shy and originally would only sing with the lights off. The three girls also donned stage names. Leanne would be Lelee, Cheryl would be Coko, and Tamara would be Taj. As a quirk, they sent out demo tapes with bottles of Perrier because they couldn’t afford to send champagne. They would end up catching the ear of legendary producer, as well as the father of the new jack swing fad, Teddy Riley (more on him later), and he would end up getting SWV inked to a ridiculously terrible eight-album contract, which the group never completely fulfilled. But at least they got themselves signed to a major, right?

In 1992, SWV released their debut album, It’s About Time, with most of the production coming from a guy named Brian Alexander Morgan. Morgan has gone on to produce, remix, write, and arrange for a bunch of music superstars, including Usher, Drake, Wu-Tang Clan, Mariah Carey, and Ariana Grande. But his first big opportunity came from...right here...with SWV’s debut album.

In fact, it was “Right Here” that would kick things off for SWV, becoming the group’s first single, before their debut album ended up hitting the shelves. But here’s where it might get a little confusing. That first single isn’t the version of “Right Here” that everyone would end up remembering SWV for. Actually, almost no one remembers the original version of “Right Here,” which is an excellent song on its own. Morgan laced his new jack swing beat with organ, electric guitar, and ringing bells that remind us of Run-D.M.C.’s “Peter Piper” and Snap!’s “The Power,” which both trace back to Bob James’ “Take Me to the Mardi Gras”. And Taj raps, too!

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The original version of “Right Here” would peak at #92 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #16 on the R&B/Hip Hop chart. The next pair of SWV singles, “I’m So Into You” and “Weak” would fare much better, both reaching the top ten on Billboard’s Hot 100, with “Weak” going all the way to #1. These singles would then set the stage for the release of a new version of “Right Here,” the one everyone knows and loves, which is credited as a Teddy Riley remix, and was fresh for the summer of 1993. It’s commonly dubbed as the “Human Nature Mix” because of its liberal sampling of the Michael Jackson song off Thriller. That particular mix would also feature on the Free Willy soundtrack, which would also contain and lead with Michael Jackson’s “Will You Be There”.

(Another famous sampling of “Human Nature” would happen in 1994, too, with Nas’ “It Ain’t Hard to Tell,” which was produced by Large Professor. Now, you could be thinking that the “Human Nature Mix” might’ve provided some inspiration for Large Pro to conjure up that particular beat, but as it turns out, “It Ain’t Hard to Tell” was actually recorded in ‘92.)

So here’s the coolest piece of trivia you’ll run into today. Know who’s delivering that catchy “ess, double, you, vee” line throughout the “Human Nature Mix”? Pharrell. And it’s his first vocal credit, ever! One day, he was performing in a high school talent show with his R&B group, The Neptunes (not his production project with Chad Hugo), and guess who was in the audience? Teddy Riley! Riley’s studio just so happened to sit next to Pharrell’s high school. How’s that for luck? Pharrell would end up writing Riley’s verse on Wreckx-N-Effect’s old school hip hop summer classic, “Rump Shaker,” and the following year he was on the “Human Nature Mix”. There’s also a captivating, “give-it-some-time-to-work-itself-out” kind of “UK Remix” of “Right Here” on which Pharrell raps, and in 1996, The Neptunes (now just Pharrell and Hugo) would receive their first production credits for two songs (and an interlude) on SWV’s second album, New Beginning.

And now for something probably even less people know about. Although the “Human Nature Mix” is credited to Teddy Riley, it’s not his work. It’s Brian Alexander Morgan’s, the guy who also produced the original version. Riley’s name was merely attached for marketing purposes only. The label probably thought that if they sold the single as a remix that was made by a production superstar who was using a Michael Jackson song(!), it would move more units than if they said it was by Morgan, which is a name that barely anyone knew. And it seems like the label was correct in its calculus. Even though it didn’t end up hitting #1 (it hit #2), the “Human Nature Mix” remains SWV’s most remembered song, and you can credit it for leading to a re-release of SWV’s debut album, which at that point would add the remix, and would help generate over two million copies sold.

And come to think of it, how many songs can you name in which the remix ended up becoming far more popular than the original version? Before the advent of EDM, anyway. And “Ignition (Remix)” doesn’t count, by the way. That totally misunderstands what a remix is. There’s like a handful of tracks that come to mind: a pair of Amber remixes by Hani and Thunderpuss (”One More Night” and “Sexual (Li Da Di),” respectively), another Thunderpuss remix of “It’s Not Right But It’s Okay” by Whitney Houston, a Latin house remix of Madonna’s “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” by Pablo Flores and Javier Garza, and of course, Todd Terry’s remix of “Missing” by Everything But the Girl. But the “Human Nature Mix” of “Right Here” might be at the top of the list. Lots of people aren’t even aware of the original’s existence. When you say the words “’Right Here’ by SWV,” everyone just assumes you’re talking about the “Human Nature Mix”. When the song is included on compilations, a lot of times the words “Human Nature” aren’t anywhere to be found, like on this random German comp I have that gathered 18 of the top songs from January of 1994. That’s how much more popular the “Human Nature Mix” is than the original. Let me know if you can think of any other remixes that hold a similar status.

One more thing before I get to the music video. This mix is so different from the original. The original version has a much harder edge and clearly took way more thought and effort to put together than the “Human Nature Mix” since the “Human Nature Mix” primarily just coasts off of the Michael Jackson sample. It doesn’t mean the original’s better though. It’s definitely great, but it’s trapped in the new jack swing era, and for that reason, it doesn’t have the staying power of the “Human Nature Mix”. Sometimes a producer finds something that’s easy enough to cobble together and it just manages to hit really good. That’s definitely the case here. The “Human Nature Mix” is just so fluffy; it was perfect summer radio then and it’s perfect summer radio now. It’s like an R&B counterpart to DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince’s “Summertime,” which came out a couple years beforehand. In fact, if I were doing a nostalgic 90s summer mix, I would probably line those tracks up back-to-back (”Rump Shaker” would be somewhere in there, too). There’s just a super relaxing, enjoyable airiness that both songs seem to possess. Oh, and speaking of DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, you know who provides the background vocals on Will Smith’s “Men in Black” song? Coko from SWV. Wild, right?

So, anyway, the video. It sucks. It just does. It’s not memorable at all, besides the awkward, intermittent slip-ins of footage of Michael Jackson performing “Human Nature” from his Dangerous tour and some clips of Free Willy swimming and breeching. It’s really a missed opportunity for the group. Apparently, there’s another video without Michael and Free Willy, too, but I can’t find it. It sounds like it’s boring though. Oh well.

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The first single off of SWV’s next album (”You’re the One”) would do very well for itself, too, and that album would manage to go platinum. But they’d get lost in the fold soon after, while En Vogue and TLC would end up building much more on their prior success. And TLC would come out on top for the late 90s with songs like “No Scrubs” and “Unpretty”.

SWV made good songs, but they weren’t marketed well, at all. Case in point, your last bit of trivia: Taj was a contestant on Survivor in 2009. No, not Celebrity Survivor. Just regular-ass Survivor. No one knew she was Taj from SWV and she didn’t tell anyone on the show either. This lady helped sell millions of records for fuck’s sake. I guarantee you every contestant on that show knew an SWV song and they had no idea who this woman even was. Isn’t that kind of insane? I mean, SWV were by no means one-hit wonders, and they weren’t super popular for that long, but they were definitely an early 90s R&B staple. Anyway, for what it’s worth, Taj ended up finishing in fourth on Survivor. She’s also married to soon-to-be Hall of Fame running back Eddie George.

So, there it is. One of the greatest and most popular tunes of the 90s. A song everyone likes that has a lot of fun, interesting facts that surround it. Shame that these girls couldn’t sustain their success for the remainder of the decade, but at least they and Brian Alexander Morgan gave us this indomitable classic.

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blankdblank · 3 years

Text

Hobbit Soulmate Pt 32

“I can’t wait!” Viggo had said that plenty of times and among the guests at this premier he hurried to go claim their seats while you and the cast finished up the press in the front warm hall before heading in to join them. You had seen it, and now all was left was for your friends to finally get a taste of what you had slaved over and was so proud for the world to see. All having paused to inspect right outside the inner theater doors was the one on the poster with the Inspector scowling your way opposite the shadowed figure of your father as the Bard, up front slightly sideways en point you stood with ankles crossed and Richard behind you in caped tux and top hat. His gloved hands easing your Selkie coat over your shoulders eyes fixed on your mournfully distant staring self with palms full of silver coins. The glimmer only egging them on more to have the film start.

Up at a second screen you watched the lights go down for the same opening sequence awing you all over again just like the first time. Soft and slow your Russian lullaby began swelling through the camera being escorted through the lamppost lit cobbled town with violin growing stronger. Names and titles etched into buildings and street and building signs with posters of the shadowy villain wafting on the breeze fallen free from those pasted to walls and fences.

‘There you are, I see you there.’ Low and guttural the Bard growled out a letter scrawled to the police the yet to be seen Inspector is reading. ‘Lost and misused this town has grown weary from Beasts like you. Keep scratching and clawing at the meek and weary, then you will hear me. Keep about your days and savor the moments yet only for so long, once in my clutches your breath ends with my song.’

Another corner turned and following a wisp of silk cloth from within a mist and shadows of milling crowds your body appeared on one foot with violin in hand playing through an en point dance. Enchanting the crowd closer to you and the trio of male dancers taking turns in aiding your flips and lifts, including a split across two dancer’s shoulders while playing. That ended in a drop backwards caught by another dancer hunched forward to support you before his swivel away leaving you in a string of pirouettes stepping back for an exaggerated arch and smirk filled dance. In that once the crowd had grown fled up the steps into the theater with an eager race following your group to the sound of the Inspector growling about the missing citizens and bodies located that had something to do with the traveling troupe now in town. Mid spin a hand off of the violin and bow your skirt tore free rippling out a longer flowing dress for the opening number of the packed show including the freshly arrived Richard who stepped off the freshly arrived carriage who lingered against the back wall at the lack of chairs.

Haunting and alluring through the background the music swelled between the dazzling musical show numbers to glimpses of murders in black and white pictures tacked on a board in the police station and missing person flyers. Steadily while the story of how you were captured by the Ringmaster came with Richard lurking more even in the less crowded theater days scouring for this hiding of your coat. Assuming his own explanation for the murders succubus was misdiagnosed by the avid monster hunting inspector growing angrier by the day as more and more men shown to attack or prey on others were literally torn out of the screen by a large hand and arm.

Gasps came from your friends amazed by the intro sucking them in quick to the gruesome times this film was set in. Each flinching at each snatching and splatter of blood while the lingering plotting gazes only built up tension to what would inevitably come.

Rich did more and more to subtly manage you out of the line of the Inspector who was up to inciting panic and unrest in the already fragile town while sharing more about his own past and painful injury sidelining his dance aspirations. Including the dance scene you had shared about for a slow and trust building show he wasn’t broken like he had been told. Those few sentimental moments shared between the pair of you gave glimmers of hope in the city drenched with nearing frenzy to the rising death count. The music lifted to crescendo through a fight causing a fire in the pub causing just enough reason to send you on a different path avoiding it.

Though nothing prepared them for your attack scene in passing through an alley. From behind a handful of your hair spun you around through a heart clenching gasp to the crescendo of the panic. Breathless the crowd help their breath as the hand clenched around your throat slamming you carelessly into the wall behind you sending a trio of buttons flying and loosening the hair comb once managing your curls seeping out to freedom. Wide eyes full of tears clenched shut at the hard blow sending blood splattering across your cheek and now bared neck causing the Inspector to go flying.

Around your waist to the lull of the Bard’s song hands folded lowering your trembling self to your feet, “Breathe,” he growled out to a hand freeing his own spare clasp on his cloak used to secure the tear in your blouse over your neck with calloused fingers to brush the droplets away. Open eyes again saw clearly the face the camera had yet to see with nearly half of you in his shadow for just a moment in the camera panning back to view his turn away saying, “Go child, walk and leave this beast to me.” Inhaling shakily you turned wetting your lips to the Inspector’s knee top shout to stop ending at the hand gripping his hair and back of his neck dragging him away with great ease while your stroll gained confidence in the rise of your hands to fix your curls back into the comb. In the Bard’s walk away the faintest flicker of purple eyes and raven curls under the brim of his hat seen passing reflected stream from a lantern gave a nod to why he might have been trailing your traveling troupe.

Silence in the crowd seemed to set in at Richard’s frantic discovery of you while the Ringmaster screamed for his fleeing creatures to return. All your things were packed and with him and refusing to stay having heard his heart wrenching plea side by side you sped to catch the final train. Upon which the duet with you and him ‘Down Below, My Bedfellow’ began to play again tightening Richard’s hand in yours through the sea of muted misty eyed viewers at the night view of the lit city the train was speeding from to his hummed answer to your whisper of where you would go from here. “To the sea,” around your shoulders the formerly unnoticed coat that was stolen from you tears prior was smoothed over by his hands.

A quiver of your lips came with evident instant grateful tears in your eyes, hands lifted to clench the ends of that coat shimmering in its melt around your torso drawing it to a close in a sliding shot shifting to follow him. One of the cars containing a bathed and properly dressed Bard given away by the braided back curls and purple eyes reading a book following his path to your car. Past the main hall to your shared car he went finding a pitcher of water making him hastily close the door and tug at his cravat. Loosening that and his collar to his lustful gaze at the pitcher gills easing open on his neck left him groaning fighting his same urge he felt each time near liquids through the film he always refused or avoided. A couple outside the door had his hand easing his collar tighter and free hand tugging one of your scarves down to coat the pitcher that wafted to fold over it in his plop onto his bench seat. There he retied his cravat in time for you to be seen outside the car door you eased open to slip inside and shut behind you again. Across from him you sat with eyes locked on his to the swell of the song in the pitch black of a tunnel flickering to an image of a secluded shack by the sea on a small island your eyes scoured over blind to his adoring gaze fixed on you.

From inside a cottage the pile of bags were seen along with the pair of you walking to the shore through the window with the well dressed Bard following at a distance. Once barely at the water fear crept into your eyes looking between him and the sea until his silent tug on the cravat he let float away on the breeze to fold back his collar exposing the gills open at his feet covered in the lapping waves. Up you sprung with arms fixed around his neck spreading his smile in the moment of foreheads touching, his arms fixed around your back to a silent chuckle in his turn lifting your legs to his side walking you deeper into the water down to his chest where the sunrise caught the silhouette of a chaste kiss. Broken by the cut to bubbly navy blue background of the credits an animated seal and fish monster swimming through the seas and surfacing as they pleased to share that cottage and possibly raise a family was the makeshift epilogue to the couple’s future with glimmers of a second larger seal seen to mingle on the edges.

A shriek was a warning from Miranda and you were engulfed in a tight hug. “I love it I want to see it fifty times,” she stated making you giggle into her shoulder to the medley of compliments given by the others that in her release to hug Richard and your father they took their chance, wrapping you in proud hugs as well sharing their favored moments all the way to the after party. The lot of them keeping as much time as they could with you through that evening and the next two between your explorations and assigned interviews in this gorgeous city with your group. Almost always tangled in Richard’s arms or having hold of his hand treasuring this first time here together as a couple. Pictures were a must and already surely a box of disposable cameras had been filled from all the pictures taken that once filled had been mailed to England to yourselves to be developed there upon arrival, all which Chris had been collecting from Richard’s place there.

Tight hugs for your grandparents weren’t the norm but the formerly standoffish pair had been melting into their newer roles a bit closer to openly affectionate spontaneously, still needing some practice no doubt but enjoying the stolen hugs from you all the same. “You are an unrivaled masterpiece,” your grandmother said in her second parting hug.

While your grandfather said, “Go knock them dead, my Little Bubble.”

Both smiling teary eyed on their steps back to head to the airport to fly back to Russia on their private jet while you joined your friends in a van to head to the airport for the plane you were packing to head to England. At least in all this the Armitage brood was glad to have you back in time for New Years and the party Margaret was holding amongst their family members in town.

Once seated across from Karl, Bernard and Miranda on the plane with the window blind shut you stole a glance at your dad ready to break into his nap and softly said, “You don’t have to come to the New York premier too I’d you want a break.”

His head turned with spreading sleepy grin to rumble, “Me and my Pumpkin are in a film together you couldn’t pry me away from that premier. Gonna see it as many times as I can for free before it comes out on tape. Get all the details soaked in before the brood back home get to watch it and the tsunami of questions come.” Making you giggle and loop your hand around his arm letting him settle in through the take off to get some sleep to greet Rich’s family when you got to town post taxi ride.

On the aisle you sat letting the guys nap as Karl closest to you chatted with you until he inevitable droop of his head and you shifted to curl up against your father’s arm. The sound of a can being opened stirred you however even underneath Bernard’s scarf alerting you to the stewardess there with the snack trolley who smiled as your dad said, “Got your snacks already pumpkin,” accepting his selection after having passed Richard’s his.

Miranda asked, “Do you want stromboli when we land? I have the biggest craving for some good Italian food right now.”

Richard said, “I know a good place of you still want when we’ve landed. Priced well too.”

“I think I want pasta fagioli.”

Karl, “What is that?”

“It’s a soup. Pretty good and you get these breadsticks and dunk it in there and it’s so good and the salt and butter from the bread adds to it. I could use a few bowls of that.”

Bernard, “I haven’t had a good rattatouli in a while.”

Martin scoffed, “Lasagna. None of that crumbled cheese though, just meat sauce and noodles, I’ll take five pounds of that.”

Hugo, “Don’t tempt me I go broke on lasagna when I go out.”

Viggo however said, “I might just have five helpings of cake. Anything with chocolate really. Got to get my fix in before my boy flies out.”

“He didn’t come last time for school?”

“Oh no, his mom’s mom had a party. Wanted a special picture with him. Plus this way we can run through Sherwood and it’s not such a long flight for him he tends to get bored on a full day flight.”

Martin, “I think everyone but Gimli gets bored on full day flights.”

“I like to nap and no one interrupts your reading up at night.”

Hugo, “Dickens again?” He asked eyeing the book you’d tucked at your side. “Looks like a thinner copy.”

“Wives and Daughters actually. Working my way through Gaskell to get to North and South.”

Miranda, “Don’t think I’ve read those yet.”

“Ohh you really should. So much mutual pining and clashing egos and romances thwarted by social standing. Just lovely.”

Viggo on his way to the bathroom asked, “Richard like to cuddle up with you when you read those or do you hide them for when he sleeps?”

That made you giggle, “They’re making a mini series of North and South actually in the first few months, and you are speaking the Margaret herself.” Making him smirk, “And my teddy bear is my brooding rejected suitor slash rival turned fiancé. I think you’d like it.”

He said, “Let ya know when it’s on. It’s for tv right?”

You nodded, “BBC. Shouldn’t take too long, and if it succeeds then I can use that as a buffer if Fox drops the show they signed me to.”

Bernard, “Why would you sign on to a show they might drop?”

“Lee asked me. Puppy dog eyed me for weeks to audition and damnit if I wasn’t talented I got the damn thing.” Making the group chuckle, “It’s got a cute back story really it’s just sort of, niche, it most likely won’t be an across the board rager like Friends or Looney Tunes. Fox isn’t known for fully backing their odd projects though. But it’ll be fun while it lasts.”

Richard muttered after chewing his mouthful of pretzels, “You’ll be magnificent. We all have odd pieces for the screen. Helps to build your portfolio.”

Hugo, “Yes, that, listen to him. You keep the faith in your little engine of a show they’re putting shows in box sets now no telling even if they cut it off air you’ll have fans who will demand it.”

Craig said after finishing off his coffee, “Plus it’s time with your friend. Who we get to see on film since he’s been hiding for so long.”

That made you giggle again saying, “He’s not hiding, just busy. Got some work for funds from now till we start to film out in Canada. He underestimated the budget to keep two apartments afloat.”

That made your dad chortle, “Been there.”

Richard said, “Just glad I own my place or keeping the flat up in Canada would be a bit thin.”

“I could help,” you said looking his way making him shake his head.

“Nope, I’ve got the rent, but you can feed us and help to find deals on furniture.” Making you smirk at the fair deal.

Craig, “You still have that little place up in New York?”

“I got bumped up to a slightly bigger little place, but ya, one and a half bed.”

Viggo, “Half bed?” He asked on his way past you to his seat.

“Ya, it’s a small room not big enough for a bed frame so we just laid some mattresses out. I think it’s meant to be a walk in closet or something.”

Viggo chuckled at that, “Ah, that’s what Karl meant.”

Karl, “It’s adorable I said nothing but nice things.” He said turning to give Viggo a pointed stare only making the actor laugh again.

Bernard, “Are houses expensive there?”

“Not if you don’t mind living on the floor to not spend money on anything but paying it off. Brooklyn and Queens are cheaper, but Dad likes me in lower Manhattan in his friend’s building.”

Your father, “He keeps an eye on her. Though with these new roles he’s got a Brownstone we could look at. Needs some fixing and maybe you can rent the basement apartment to Lee, plus I wouldn’t be just down the hall I could have my own floor, with a big tv.”

That made you smile, “You said my tv was fine I suggested getting a new one.”

Your father, “One that I am not lugging up and down those damn stairs when you move it in and then move us out. Plus then I can spring for cable.”

Martin, “You don’t have cable?”

“I got some rabbit ears.” Making him and a few of the guys chuckle. “Get most of the same stuff for free. Bit blurry no telling what the host of Wheel of Fortune looks like with his face all smudged all the time but highly doubt I’d find him in person anyways.”

Craig, “I have rabbit ears at my place in California no judgment here.”

Viggo, “I just couldn’t imagine sports on that.”

Your father said, “It’s bad. I go down to watch in the office. Plus then she can watch what she likes while we hang out.”

Random conversations ebbed and flowed through the rest of the flight until at the baggage claim. Richard called ahead to his cousin who worked at the Italian place who shut off the back room and got the tables all prepped with a corner for your bags leaving just a crowd of people and cameras watching your grouping off to fit into taxis to head that way. Well fed the plan was clear to meet up the next day before the premier opening lunch as usual with the rest of the cast where they would brag endlessly on the film amping up expectations of the others to see it finally and then you split.

On foot you found your way to Richard’s to plop onto the couch and let your dad choose a show to watch before heading to the Family home for their gathering. Answering emails and voicemail messages you caught up post flight in that break cuddled to your dad’s side as long as you could relaxing until your hand ploped on your lap in a sigh.

Lowly your dad asked, “What’s that for?”

“I forgot to squeeze Red Dragon in before I left New York.”

Richard said, “We can go day after tomorrow. Chris said he wanted to watch it again. His lady kept jumping and they had to go when she tried to go hide in the bath halfway through.”

“And, he wants to go-,”

Richard chuckled out, “Without her.”

Earning nods from you and your dad, with the latter saying, “No problem, you guys can go and have a cuddle date with him. Prefer my Hannibal films on tape. Plus then I can shop. Someone is not avoiding their 23rd.” Making you cuddle more to his side for the rest of the time you had left.

Comments and praise did explode through the cast with those having to wait until the US premier on the verge of pouting at having to wait longer than the others. While Christopher and Ian both treasured they had the big day just another night away. From another stunning dress to the final emerald velvet long sleeved dress with lace filled cutouts down the ribs away from the microphones to the forefront with the more notable faces smiling to your beaming anxious self stealing glances of you in interviews on their way in. Again you and Richard both were sent to promote the film here at the crack of dawn with just the magazine shoot scheduled the following day as you ignored the phone buzzing on silent in your pocket from friends in England and your grandparents back in Russia sharing how the film had been exploding in France and Europe after you had left at its opening to theaters sure to be matched here.

Already it was pushing a profit of double what had cost to film it after passing the initial aspired to 17 million covering all those costs and it didn’t show signs of stopping yet. Beside the Director you smiled alongside the cast while Peter smirked rehearsing his plot again in his mind of what he was set to do when the news finally broke on King Kong. Leaving all that until hopefully when your film was out in England and the producers could just see what you could do and have more to go off of past your age and tiny speaking roles yet to date outside of being Gimli. They just had to wait and see and then they would understand why he had kept bringing up your name.

“I have no words,” Howard managed to stammer out with hands at his sides in the hall just outside he theater once the crowds had filed out to the cars to head to the after dinner. That score was perfection, and I wept at that final song. I am so proud of you. Don’t ever doubt what you created was less than a masterpiece. So proud, I am to have helped you get to that astonishing work of art.”

Christopher said, “And you did not let the role own you. You shone through it masterfully. It would have been so easy to cower back into the typical damsel in distress. It was electric, the hair on my arms is still on end from that snatch of your hair.”

“Genius, Darling girl, pure genius.” Ian smirked saying, “And Richard, that little grimace at the pitcher, very subtle and very poignant all the same. A masterful role from you as well.” His eyes shifted to you as you eyed Peter and Fran whispering on their way out of the theater where hey had lingered a few minutes and he asked, “Everything alright? I don’t believe I could handle another of our crew out of sorts. Peter has been acting strange already.”

“He has?” You asked looking to Ian again not seeing the couple smiling widely in their path over to your group. “Something is afoot,” he added in a whisper tapping the side of his nose in a sign to keep it amongst yourselves.

He didn’t know how right he was, as several hours prior at daybreak Peter had gotten the call he had been waiting for, a formal notice from Naomi’s team that she would be pulling out and Peter was the second to know. The first being the producers who were gathered up in a meeting to call him and instruct him as he already knew to audition again. “Perhaps we could call Kate Winslet’s people again see if we can shuffle some things around to fit her into our filming schedule. Peter-,” his huff said it all and eyes rolled not needing another ego in this arena of bulls requiring a simple solution.

“Or you could simply promote Jaqi Pear from stunt double to lead actress and give her Naomi’s previous package.”

“Listen, about the girl-,”

Peter cut him off, “No, months ago you refused to even let me audition her based on her being barely 22 well I have a few numbers for you. Beast of Bards cost roughly 16 million to film and in one night it earned that back, just in Eastern Europe and Asia. Now that it’s out in Paris and Europe as well it’s made double what it cost to make since then and it still hasn’t opened in England, Canada or the States.”

Mouths had dropped open and one managed to ask, “You’re sure in those numbers?”

“Yes, and they are still climbing. The Ring that has Naomi in the lead has barely scraped 15 million in profits. Numbers alone she deserved to get to audition months ago. The film will be out in England at midnight, you go and buy tickets and watch the film. Listen to the crowd and make your decision off her performance in that to see her in action as a lead. Then you have a meeting and go over it thoroughly and tell me your decision. She has the physical stamina for this role and the vocal training to give me a hell of a blood curdling scream I need.”

“And if we don’t go to see this film just to give this girl a chance? What then hmm?”

That had Peter seeing red and before he knew it Fran’s mouth dropped open at hearing him say, “Then you can find a new director to go with whatever lead actress you pick.” Hastily he snapped his phone shut and threw it at his couch covering his mouth letting the couple sit in stunned silence at his monumental foot stomp on the hill he was going to die on that you were perfect for this role. Though what he didn’t know was all the other producers but the one who questioned Peter were already curious to what you could do. And completely ignoring anything he might say they decided to go see the film the country was whispering about and itching to see out with the public to get the full impact of a lead film of yours just killing in sales already without hitting the western half of the globe yet.

They knew the film would be incredible deep down and how talented you are so there was no regret on forcing this issue even if facing a lawsuit in the millions at his dropping out like this. But it had to be done and the film could only increase in value for having you in it. Especially now, after seeing just what you could do in this physically and mentally taxing film you obliterated any chance anyone could ever forget it. Just one of those iconic roles and he had a hunch people would remember you from this over all the other roles you have had so far no matter their size, this one was special and he wanted King Kong to be a second chance of sorts. You loved working as Gimli everyone knew that and cherished each grueling moment while no one who saw the film could tell exactly where you played into it to have earned a spot at each premier under all that weight they coated on top of you daily. This was his second chance to bring to life another beloved tale with you at the helm front and center once again, though this time for none to be able to imagine it could be anyone else but you.

Peter shook his head on his way to fold around you in a hug making you giggle and hug him back, “Brilliant, I can’t think of anything else to say. I could read off every synonym of perfection and it wouldn’t come close.”

Fran, “Edge of my seat the whole time.”

Peter nodded, “Yes, thrilling and you were just, a magnet, couldn’t look away. Brilliant truly.”

Your eyes looked over his face and you asked, “You okay? You seemed a bit tense.”

Peter waved his hand in your step back, “Oh, nothing can’t be handled in the morning. Let’s go feed you, hmm?”

You nodded and joined the group to the waiting van for the after dinner where yet again you mingled with the press and friends alike while Peter counted down the hours to midnight when the tickets would be available for the producers to see it themselves. They would have to see this would explode, even here he had heard several guests to the premier saying they would come back to see it again with friends and relatives. Each additional extra bit shared and explained by the Director fueled that even more with promised extras to be added when the film hit the shelves on extras for the dvd.

Sleep was required and under the covers you tangled up in Richard’s arms falling asleep to the steady beat of his heart and echoes of your father’s deep breaths from across the house. Tomorrow would be interesting as you’d ride the train to London again to find the flat where the team would be waiting to photograph you and Richard for yet another interview. At least for your sake the questions mostly differed and wasn’t terribly repetitive with all these press stops that you had underestimated a bit.

Soon to be added by another as you were going to be appearing on a morning show in New York as the animals they had hoped to get on couldn’t be managed after all. A reluctant addition on both parts. As for when it was booked you would be less than cheerful at having to dart over after having landed to make the interview time for this bothersome appointment they refused to hear that possibly a slot the following day might be better as they had first mentioned instead of bumping it up a day for their own nonsense plans. Though you supposed an earlier flight could always bother the people at the airport to squeeze into an earlier flight time if possible, though this time of the year you doubted it could be managed. All the same these few days here would be a welcome break from all the travel and time to catch up with the Armitage brood and your friends here.

On the way back from the interview however a message from Lee had you looking up to Richard in the seat beside you on the bench on the train, “Lee changing his mind on his suit again?”

“No, Naomi dropped out. Hit the press yesterday in the States.”

“Ah,” he said looking you over, “Well maybe you’ll get a chance to audition. Ours is doing well they can’t ignore that forever.”

“Maybe. Hope so, if not it’ll be a bit strange having to get used to another person to double for them. At least with John and Naomi I had some time to get to know them. Looks like I’d have to meet this new one at the table read.”

“For now let’s at least focus on the time we have, New Years will have the family around and after we land in New York I only have a couple days before catching my flight back to Canada.”

“Yes, we will have to buy you some furniture at least. Dishes too, guess we could make a list of what we’d need to fill a place.”

Richard’s arm eased more around your middle to sneak a kiss on your cheek, “As long as you put yourself on the list. Can’t forget you.” Making you giggle softly in his next stolen peck and cuddle closer in the anticipation to head back out into the nippy breeze waiting for you outside the tunnels.

Time seemed to jump with the year and back in New York you sat atop a high stool smiling for the hosts of the morning show. Chatting about the film which inevitably delved into a mention of the next ‘big story’ of the day about a pie recipe that would blow people away they were set to bake in their cooking segment to follow. Once off camera your hands rose to rub your sore jaw from holding the smile painted on your face no matter what they said. At least they kept it pleasant and this was overall harmless a stop and after a fumble of hands to return the microphone you picked up your bags and joined Richard and your father for the ride back to your apartment.

You had another two days to get ready for the premier and cross of another magazine stop and catch up with your friends. Out on the stoop however Lee was waiting with a smile and a crashing hug for you, “I can’t wait! Tell me everything, not on the film but everything around it I want to be surprised on the film. I ordered pizzas and I just got some of that fizzy fruit drink you like and they still had some chocolate covered cherries at the store I bought them all. Will thought I was crazy for it but they keep, and, one last chocolate orange, saved it for you.” He said with a smile helping to take a bag from you after letting you all in the front entrance guiding you up to your place where he set down your bag and hurried to fetch the drinks leaving just a wait for the pizzas he would guide up here.

In the sitting room you spread out around the stacks of pizzas on the coffee table basking in the warmth as your heater flooded the long empty apartment with warm air. Nice and cozy you relaxed catching up and getting ready for your own evening in catching up on some more sleep and planning the day for you to get your hair lightened and length touched up once blow dried and straightened again.

Flooded with more famous faces your final premier went over fantastically with the numbers racing upwards as soon as the film was out in theaters. Numbers that had some more shows, one in particular asking to fit you in as well the following night. Interviews completed and premiers through you relaxed at least there was only another flight for you to face to get to work on the show Lee was flying out for that night to get his place freshened and stocked up for his stay. A call from Peter however coincided with one from your lawyer, who had flown in asking to talk to you regarding one of your contracts.

“Hey,” you said greeting your lawyer who you let into your apartment for a stop blending with Peter’s, who called saying he was on his way a bit earlier. “Make it alright with the stairs? They should have de-iced earlier.”

“Oh yes, I am surprised I got here so fast, thank you for sharing on the parking garage, not too far of a walk and I can get my pens in order before Peter gets here.”

That had your brows up at your stop into the kitchen, where on the counter he settled his briefcase, Richard making tea asked, “You and Peter planned to come together?”

“Oh yes,” he said opening the case to get everything lined up, “Do you have a table?”

“Um, coffee table, in there,” you said pointing to the sitting room where he grinned carrying his case.

“Tea?” Richard asked.

“Yes please, bit of cream no sugar.”

Richard nodded and lifted the whistling kettle as your dad came from your bedroom after having switched off the race he was watching. Lowly asking as he neared you, “So there’s something wrong with the Kong contract? Thought that was settled months back.”

“Was, who knows.” It didn’t take long for another knock to sound and to the door you went to let Peter in, though once opened his huff from the chilly hall faded to a wide smile. “Hey Peter,” you said stepping back to let him in and take his coat to hang up once you closed the door sealing in the heat from escaping from the apartment. “Something’s wrong with the contracts?”

“Oh not exactly,” he said coming in to find Richard with tea in hand to offer him, “thank you, Richard. Very kind.”

Your dad asked, “Walk went well?”

“Yes, nice and ice free, but, first, you my dear, come have a seat near me.” You nodded following him into the sitting room you took up the love seat across from the one he was sharing with your lawyer who now had all his things arranged on the coffee table. “Now,” he said finishing his sip to set the mug down to pat his palms together above his lap. “This is me formally offering you the role of Ann Darrow.”

“What?” you asked in a frail squeak. “But, I didn’t even audition.” You said after a glance at your dad seated against the wall on a stool he brought in from the kitchen as Richard shifted a bit closer to your side at your hand shifting to his knee unconsciously for support.

“Well I wanted you to, I know by now you heard about Naomi dropping out as you have warned me, thank you for that again made things much easier in this transition. I got the call from the producers and they said they wanted me to get started on auditions again after bringing up the moot issue of possibly talking Kate Winslet into talking about shifting filming to fit her schedule. And when I had offered you the role to double for Naomi I had hoped to offer you the lead role, however the producers were reluctant to offer the role as you were so young. When they called me to inform me to find a new Ann I pressed your name again and told the producers to watch your film as proof that you were the right choice for the role. One of them tried to say he didn’t want to give you a chance and I told the lot of them if they didn’t they could find a new Director as well.”

That had your jaw drop in a crack of your voice, “Have you gone mad?!”

“I did,” he chuckled, “For a few minutes, even Fran had that same face, but I put my foot down and they saw the film and agree with me. And there’s numbers to back how profitable you could be compared to Naomi’s last film.”

“That’s not putting your foot down, that’s,”

“You are my only choice for Ann, you can handle the physicality the screams with all your vocal training and you helped to build the damn city after all giving us references on Vaudeville era shows and culture. You put that work in and you deserve the role a hell of a lot more than anyone else they could muster up.”

“They could have ruined you.”

“Yes,” he replied and said, “All from their idiocy at not giving you the chance in the first place. And with that weight I guaranteed they gave you the same weighty contract they gave to Naomi. Down to numbers, where your lawyer and I have been talking and wrangled down a square deal. $5.5 million paycheck, with $75 k up front, plus 2% box office gross, and an offered .02% of dvd sales.” The numbers muffled in your ears at the sudden urge of your body feeling to wish to pass out while your heart began to race.

“You-,” you squeaked out and shifted wetting your lips to Richard’s hand smoothing across your back having felt your heart rate spike.

“I know it sounds like a lot, you were stunned with a 400k payday on your last film but this one we’re going to be spending over a hundred million, paydays are in the millions and the guys got more than fair shakes and you needed someone at bat for you to get the same. Jack, Adrian and even Colin all pushed for box office and dvd sales cuts to we made certain to get you the biggest percentage. They got 1.5% box office gross and .01% of dvd sales, while you got double dvd sales and .5% higher on box office gross because I’ll be damned if Ann Darrow doesn’t get the biggest chunk on a King Kong film.”

“I,” you said smoothing your fingers across your lips.

Your lawyer said, “I was certain to get you the same 2% box office gross as for Beast of Bards just like I did for Richard. You more than deserve it, saw the film myself.” He said at the tears beginning to pool into your eyes.

Peter wet his lips to say, “This film is going to be very big, another Lord of the Rings smash we hope, and the leads in the trilogy got handsome paychecks. I need you on this, you’re the only one I know who can help me with this. Will you accept?”

“How could I not?” you squeaked out at a tear rolling down your cheek that you hastily wiped away causing him to lean forward taking hold of your free hand.

“You don’t find many actors like you these days. You’d do it for free if you could I know it. You would have been Gimli for free. You don’t want the fame you want the adventure and stories to be born. So, let me go to bat for you, because we need you. Andy will cry if we don’t get you.”

That had you laugh and wipe your other cheek then sniffle through a nod. Up onto your feet you stood and gave him a hug in squeezing between him and the lawyer to get to initialing and signing the papers. Peter stayed for lunch while your lawyer was off eager to put in the papers and pass on the news to your grandparents. In his absence Peter said, “I do like your place.” That had you giggle again on the way to the kitchen with the group for a refill on tea.

“Used to be in a smaller one. Dad’s talked to the landlord though about one of his brownstones possibly for us all and maybe Lee if he’s up for it. Have a tiny yard in the back.”

“Right down the block from another firehouse. Nice and safe.” Making Peter grin, “Plus, five floors, all ours, nice upgrade.”

Peter asked your dad, “Sounds nice, are you planning on staying here full time then?”

“No,” he said then glanced at you, “Pumpkin’s up to Canada next and I’m heading back to Texas for a while give the lovebirds some time alone. And I could use a break on flying. Get my hands back in the dirt and help with the sheep. Sheering season before long.”

“I have to learn to juggle,” you said making Peter smirk at you, “I know one of the Queens knows how to juggle. Don’t remember which one, Dolly will know.”

Pt 33

Hobbit – Soulmate - @evyiione, @deepestfirefun, @rhaenaatargaryen, @anastasialovers

X all Rich. A - @abiwim, @deepestfirefun, @thestorybookmistress

X Lee P - @tigereyesf

All –

@himoverflowers, @theincaprincess, @aspiringtranslator, @thegreyberet, @patanghill17, @jesgisborne, @curvestrology, @alishlieb, @jogregor, @armitageadoration, @fizzyxcustard, @lilith15000, @marvels-ghost, @catthefearless, @imjusthereforthereads, @c-s-stars, @otakumultimuse-hiddlewhore, @mariannetora, @shes-a-killer-kween, @ggbbhehe4455

#Richard Armitage x Reader OC #Lee Pace x Reader OC #Premiers #New Contracts #Change of Plans

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darkkitsuneprincess · 4 years

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I Love You, Dummy - Part 1 [Yukimura x MC (Mai)]

First: 220 FOLLOWERS!!! OMG!!! YOU GUYS ROCK SO HARD!!!

Second, somebody mentioned one day last week that there’s not enough Yuki content and I happen to agree. Since the rest of these fools still aren’t talking to me, I went back to this silliness. Yukimura is such an idiot and I adore him. Part 2 will be along shortly, will be full of more fluff, and may or may not be NSFW.

Title: I Love You, Dummy Pairing: Yukimura x MC (Mai) Rating: F (for Fluff) Warnings: Idiots in love. The dumbest angst ever angsted. Tooth-rotting sweetness. Description: Something is up with Yukimura. He’s been avoiding Mai for days. Kenshin spoils the surprise and romantic shenanigans ensue. People Who Need Tagging: @choi-jiyu @nad-zeta -- hit me up if you want me to add you.

~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~

Whatever it was, it had been bothering him for days. From the minute we arrived at Kasugayama, it was like a switch had flipped and my adoringly-sweet-yet-m oderately-awkward boyfriend became a totally different person. I wondered if I’d inadvertently said or done something to upset him on the trip in, but I couldn’t think of a thing. And since we arrived, I’d barely even seen him.

He hadn’t mentioned it. Hadn’t said anything at all, as a matter of fact. It wasn’t like Yukimura to not speak at all. He always had something to say, even if it was just snark. But the fact that he’d not only not talked to me, but gone out of his way to avoid me told me something was definitely up…

…which was exactly why I was standing in the garden with Shingen, waiting for him to answer my question.

“He was so excited to come back to Kasugayama for the festival,” I added after explaining my dilemma to Yukimura’s surrogate father. “But since we got here, he’s been so…weird. I mean, he’s always an awkward idiot, but this goes way beyond that.”

“If there were a problem, surely Yuki would come to you first,” Shingen told me after several long, agonizing moments of pretending to ponder my question. I could see the lie in his eyes. Shingen knew something. I mean, he was only feudal Japan’s greatest master of information…second maybe to Mitsuhide…so I knew he knew what was going on. And he knew that I knew that he knew. I could see that too. I hadn’t spent the last year with these knuckleheads without learning how to read them the same way they did me.

“Okay,” I responded with a curt nod. “If you don’t want to tell me, fine.”

I turned and left, ignoring Shingen’s calls for me to come back. He might not be willing to help me, but I knew there was one person in Kasugayama who would.

***

“I would, but you know the saying—bros before—”

“I would not finish that statement if I were you, Sasuke. He may be your bro, but I am certainly not the other.” My moderately awesome ninja friend swallowed with an audible gulp and took two steps back from me. I didn’t blame him; if I looked anything like I felt, then I looked like I wanted to wring his neck. “This routine is starting to get old, you know. Yukimura hasn’t said a word to me in three days. He’s avoiding me since we got here. He didn’t come to bed last night until…well, I don’t know when, and he was gone again when I woke up. Shingen is being his usual, obnoxious self, and even you aren’t willing to tell me what’s going on even though despite your weak facial muscles, you have a terrible poker face!” I threw my hands up in the air and groaned. “If I wanted to be left in the dark with everyone I know plotting against me, I’d have just stayed in Azuchi!”

“Mai…”

“NO.” I held up a hand. “You’re not going to betray Yukimura’s confidence and I don’t want to hear anymore excuses. You tell that idiot that when he’s ready to apologize for being such a moron, he can come find me. I might still be here.”

My voice cracked on the last word right alongside my heart and for the second time that day, I stormed away from one of my friends, though this time I did it so nobody would see me cry.

***

If I’d thought for one second someone might find me hiding behind a sakura tree in the most remote, well-hidden corner of the garden, I wouldn’t have gone there to have my little pity party. And if I had thought someone would find me, I certainly wouldn’t have expected it to be who it was.

“This is why I find women so tiresome,” Kenshin said, scaring a shriek out of me. I’d been so absorbed in my own silliness and the absurd plot to steal a horse and ride back to Azuchi to be with the other half of my Sengoku family that I hadn’t even heard him approach. I wiped my face on my sleeve and looked up to find a hard scowl marring the ethereal beauty of his face. Those mismatched eyes, though… they were full of concern.

“Sorry to bother you, Kenshin,” I said through my sniffles. “I’ll just go.” I started to rise but he placed a cold hand on top of my head.

“Stay,” he said, his touch softening as he stroked my hair with almost brotherly affection. “You are clearly upset about something and came here to hide.”

“I did.”

He surprised me by sitting down beside me. I’d grown used to his weird mood swings even if I’d not grown entirely used to the man himself. Even in repose, Kenshin was still the most intimidating thing I’d ever seen. Disarmingly beautiful…but decidedly lethal. I knew full well he could take my head from my shoulders if the spirit moved him to and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. I’d already be dead before I could even think to react.

“I assume the cause of your distress is your lover,” he said, raising one thin eyebrow at me. I nodded and hid my face in my sleeves so she couldn’t see just how much of a mess I was. “I am not surprised. Since the two of you arrived, he has been quite…obnoxious. More so than usual.”

“He’s avoiding me,” I said, my voice crackling like dry tinder from the torrents of tears. “We argue all the time. It’s kind of our thing. But even when we were supposed to be enemies, he never went out of his way to hide from me.”

“That boy is a fool,” Kenshin answered. His tone was harsher than usual and when I glanced up at him, I may as well have been staring down a pair of knives for all the sharpness in his gaze. “You would think, having been in Shingen’s service nearly his whole life, he’d have at least learned something about women.”

I snorted. “That’s pretty funny coming from you, you know.”

“I know a great deal about women,” Kenshin replied defensively, his lips pressed into a thin line to hide the smile teasing them. “I am no monk, Mai. However, I choose not to waste my time with frivolities.”

“Then why are you talking to me?”

“Because you were crying. Women should never cry.”

That time I did laugh. “Then if you know so much about us, tell me…why are women so emotional?”

“That, little one, is one of life’s great mysteries.” He smirked then turned his gaze away from me, looking out over the garden. He heaved a sigh, as if the weight of the world rested on his shoulders. “If you must know, Yukimura wishes to marry you,” Kenshin said, and my heart stuttered to a shocked halt.

Say what now?

“But…”

“You didn’t know?” he asked, though he knew full well I didn’t know. “I would apologize for ruining that surprise, but I am not sorry in the slightest. I am weary of you moping about my castle and his frantic idiocy.”

“How did you find out?” I asked, hoping to wrap my mind around this. His initial statement rang through my mind again and again, but it seemed no more real than a daydream.

“I am actually surprised you didn’t know before now. That fool has interrogated every person in his path for three days seeking guidance in the matter. He sent letters weeks ago informing both Nobunaga and myself of his plan to ask for your hand during the festival. As it seems I inherited care of you in that alliance,” his nose wrinkled as he thought of the Alliance between Echigo and Azuchi and the resulting custody arrangement between himself and Nobunaga, “it was up to me to provide the blessing for this upcoming union.”

“So you’re saying Yukimura wrote to you and Nobunaga and asked permission?”

“Yes. Now that you have arrived, he and Sasuke have cobbled together some elaborate nonsense for the occasion that involves Shingen escorting you to the festival. I find this whole affair a waste of my ninja’s time.”

I laughed at that. “I do too. I don’t need anything elaborate. I thought Yukimura knew that.”

Kenshin shook his head. “The boy is daft. If I understand correctly, Sasuke has commissioned fireworks from the artisans in Oshu.”

My jaw fell slack. “Sasuke went to Masamune for fireworks? What on earth are they planning?”

Kenshin shrugged one shoulder as if he’d grown bored with the conversation. “How many people know?”

Kenshin chuckled. “It appears you are the only person in all of Japan that didn’t. I suspect you will have quite the audience this evening.”

Excitement replaced my shock. I’d never known Kenshin to lie. But one thing still didn’t make sense to me. Here I’d begun to think I’d done something to upset Yukimura, and that wasn’t the case at all. I’d wracked my brain for the memory of even the tiniest transgression, but there was nothing. And now this bombshell…

“But—but why is he avoiding me?”

Kenshin fixed me with a hard, impatient stare. “You already know the answer to that question. You, yourself have said more than once today that he is an idiot.”

“Because he is.”

“I agree.” Kenshin rose in a fluid, graceful motion, then took my hands and pulled me to my feet. I felt like a tromping elephant beside a gazelle as I rose. Even after I stood, Kenshin held onto my hands. “He intends to ask at the festival tonight.” Kenshin reached up an smoothed a lock of my hair back into place. “I suggest you pull yourself together and go get ready. I shall send the maids to assist you.”

Kenshin gave me one last, lingering look before turning away and leaving me alone in the garden with a head full of bubbles.

Yukimura wants to marry me…

***

Every bit of anxiety was washed away as I turned and ran back to our shared room. Our first “date” had been at a festival. My insides still fluttered when I remembered our first kiss under the fireworks. My heart skipped a beat at the memory of the fire in his eyes when he looked down at me, the way the bright colors in the sky reflected in his gaze. I remembered the feel of his hands on my waist and how I’d clung so desperately to him, not wanting to leave his side. I remembered the sweetness and innocence in that moment, before the world saw fit to try and tear us apart.

Yet we’d survived, we’d come through it all together. And now, a year after my return to this time and the man I’d fallen desperately in love with, we were on the cusp of this grand, new adventure. He was, in his own ridiculous way, trying to make this night special for me. And I…I wanted to do my part.

In all the excitement, I’d forgotten that I had something for him until that moment. Since I was now in on his secret and I knew he wasn’t going to come back before tonight, I dug through my bag until I found the two wrapped packages at the bottom. I set one off to the side and went to the desk with the other, prepared to write a letter to Yukimura when the door slid open and he appeared.

My heart skipped a beat at the sight of him. His clothes were rumpled and his hair windblown, as if he’d just spent the last fifteen minutes either sparring with or running from Kenshin. Either was possible, except that I’d been with Kenshin until about five minutes ago. Whatever the reason for his huffing breath and disheveled state, it must have had something to do with his “surprise”.

“Oh, um…I’ll come back,” he stammered, breathless, and started to close the door.

“Yukimura, wait!” I shouted, rising with the package still clutched to my chest. He hesitated, panic flashing across his face, and I could see him consider just closing the door and running again. Now that I knew what was going on, his awkwardness was adorable. “I, um, have something for you. For tonight.”

Fear. Blind, bald fear flashed across his face. “Why?”

I closed the distance between us, noting how he stiffened as I neared. When I reached out and took his hand, he froze, the urge to bolt even more evident in his posture. Though when I tugged his hand, pulling him inside, he came willingly.

“Do I have to have a reason to give you a gift?”

“No, but…”

“But what?” I pushed. Yukimura began to sweat, tiny beads of perspiration appearing at his hairline. “You give me gifts all the time.”

“That’s different,” he replied, turning his hand to lace his fingers through mine.

“How so? It’s only fair that I do things for you once in awhile.” Before he could escape, I closed the distance between us and laid my head on his chest. Despite the weird gurgling noise he made in his chest, Yukimura’s arms went around me. My heartbeat jumped into high gear as I inhaled the scents of incense and woodsmoke lingering on his clothes. He was definitely up to something. “I made something for you,” I said against his chest. “Since our first official date was at a festival a lot like this one, I wanted to give you something to make it extra special.”

“Mai…”

Yukimura hooked a finger under my chin and tipped my head back to kiss me. His cheeks, ears, and nose glowed with embarrassment, which only made him more adorable. Though when his tongue swept between my parted lips to tangle with mine, all thoughts of sweetness evaporated. His arms tightened around my waist and the package I was holding thumped to the floor so that I could wrap my arms around his neck. He poured all of his love and affection into that kiss. His hands roamed over my sides and back, pulling me impossibly closer while I threaded my hands through his messy hair. It would take nothing at all to drag him across the room to our futon, but we both had plans now. Both had roles to play in tonight’s little drama.

When we parted, we did so breathless and clinging to each other for support. “Gods…I love you.”

“I love you, too.” I pressed my cheek to his chest and listened to his hammering heart.

“You said you had something for me?” he asked, his usual cheeky tone returning as his breathing slowed.

We sank to the floor together and I placed the package in his hands, watching with a mixture of excitement and nervousness as he unwrapped the bundle to reveal the haori I’d made for him.

“Mai…you…you made this?” he asked, his eyes going wide as he unfolded the garment and laid it out for inspection. His fingers traced over the black coin-crests embroidered into the shoulders of the deep, red garment—the Sanada family crest—and over the fine gold threads woven through the decorations along the neck. “This is amazing…”

“I’m glad you like it. I thought you might want to wear it to the festival tonight.”

“You bet!” he chirped, then as if remembering the festival, his nervous energy returned. His shoulders tensed and the anxiety returned to his eyes. “But, uh, I have some stuff to—er—do before then. I’ll, um, be back in a little bit.” Yukimura leaned in like would kiss me again then thought better of it, placed a quick peck on my forehead, and all but ran from the room, nearly bowling over the two maids Kenshin sent to help me get ready.

“Silly boy,” I muttered, shaking my head as I rose from the floor and ushered the maids inside.

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