#it's complicated. you know how it is with human bodies. treacherous things | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

whump-town · 3 years

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Give and Take

This one's for you @genevievedarcygranger

I couldn't even tell you what this is about but it's something? Like about Hotch? I'm pretty sure there is no plot so just buckle in or whatever. I don't know, this is weird

The key to building a profile, to standing before someone and piecing together the important parts of their character, is to figure which parts of themselves they give to you and which parts they accidentally show. Most people are fairly easy to read (which is the optimal word, really. No one wants to be profiled but most people don’t mind a little reading on them. Makes them feel special, understood). The thing about secrets, about people, is that they always carry their burdens. It’s like any wound, you naturally lean to protect what hurts. And when once you figure out what hurts, when you can spot the source of the blood you’ll find no matter how advanced a species humans pretend to be, we still have the look of a wounded animal. A dog backed into the corner of an alley. A lame cat waiting to see if swift justice will rain down.

And the wound being protected speaks measures but more importantly…

It’s the reaction-- what happens when the wounds been found and what they anticipate the reaction will be to it.

But, hey, that’s all complicated nonsense. Take it with a grain of salt. Honestly, people always tell you everything that you need to know about them. Especially when they have something to hide.

The first time that Aaron Hotchner ever saw a dead body he was twelve.

The river is unforgiving. That May had brought treacherous storms. Drops of rain that fell so hard, so roughly they’d leave welts on exposed skin. Children still marched to school with the threat of their umbrellas being snapped out of small hands and the wind pushing back clothing, trying to disrobe them as they fought against its pushing hand.

Two days of hard rainfall had the river spewing over the bridge in town. Spitting up its murky water like a well-fed newborn, leaving the fallen limbs of trees and dead fish to rot in the sun. By the time the storm blew over the children were as unsettled as the river itself. Jittery with energy, begging for release. So, out they went. Mothers called from their front porches, father’s leveled threatening fingers-- stay away from the river.

It’ll suck you in and it’ll never let you go.

Johnny Martin was three years older than Hotch. He’d failed kindergarten, first grade, and the seventh grade and was generally regarded as a pointless child, someone to look over. Nobody worth a damn fails that many grades, you know? Nobody worth giving a second chance to let alone a third and a fourth. Except it wasn’t that Johnny was intellectually any different than the other kids. It was just as simple as his father was a nobody, a heavy drinker, and his mother was a weak, dreadful sight. So no one ever tried. His teachers didn’t pay him any attention. No one did, really.

That’s probably why he drowned.

He was bloated, Hotch didn’t even know what he was looking at for a moment. There was a cut across his face, the skin raised around the edges that nearly made it look like pursed lips. A panting mouth. Then he’d seen the eyes, bulging and red. He hadn’t screamed, wasn’t even afraid. No point in wasting the energy on something like that. The real things worth fearing lived at home.

He never told anyone about Johnny Martin.

They found his body a little while after Hotch did. A group of twenty-somethings trampling through the woods with their artfully rolled joints wedged in cigarette cartons and the cheapest beer they could afford. He climbed up a tree, watched them call the cops, and take Johnny Martin away.

For a week, he watched everyone pretend like they gave a shit about Johnny Martin. Heard his English teacher profess some make-believe story and saw the tears glimmer in her eyes. In death, Johnny Martin became a whole person. For the first time in Johnny Martin’s entire life, he wasn’t a ghost, he was a boy. A living thing for which people felt remorse, for which people mourned.

When they’d never looked at him before.

Hotch wanted to know if that’s all it took. Is death really all he needed to become a whole person? For someone to notice the cigarette burns on his arms or to look at him? To notice him? Is absence the only way to be known?

He’s only told the general outline of that story twice. Once while drunk at a college party, one of the few places that sort of talk is welcome. “What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever seen?” And they circle around to him. Expectant eyes filled with the reflection of the flames of the fire dancing. He’d been thinking about his father’s office. The sound of the gunshot filling the house. Walking slowly down the hall, still stepping around the weak points in the floor so that he wouldn’t make a sound. Standing there looking at the blood splattered on the roof.

They put heart attack on the official death certificate. Illegal, sure, but not as ugly as suicide. Besides, a man like Richard Hotchner’s reputation would be ruined by his final actions. That couldn’t happen. So he’d been given a hero’s goodbye. A veteran of the Korean war sent off to the sound of his widow’s sobs, his two sons standing like little soldiers.

But that sort of thing ruins the mood. Kills the vibe so artfully created by the warmth of the dying fire and the joints being passed around.

So he tells them about Johnny Martin.

They hang onto his every word.

When he tells Dave it’s a diversion.

He’s laying in a hospital bed, the morphine has him slurring a bit but he’s talking more than Dave’s ever heard out of him. The kid hardly makes a peep for the three months he’s been working with them and he gets tossed down a few sets of stairs and he’s suddenly impossible to shut up. Dave was just trying to fret over him, expressing some concern until Haley could get here to do the heavy lifting. He ends up with more than he bargained for.

“No, s’okay. I’ve seen dead bodies, sir. Promise.”

Hotch tells him about Johnny Martin, curates a similar story to the one he told that night around the fire.

He’s a good storyteller and, though Dave can tell which elements of the story have been shifted for his enjoyment there are truths in all lies. Dave wants to ask what Hotch means when he mumbles out that part about ghosts, he doesn’t catch the exact wording but the implication. His dismissiveness towards Johnny Martin “some people you never notice, they’re just ghosts and there’s nothing you can do to change, to be seen”. Dave doesn’t ask what Hotch means by that and he still manages to find his answer.

Hotch has this tendency to step back. All his manners and smiles are for flourish, Southern hospitality that allows him to nimbly work his way through a crowd. Secretly, he’s an introvert. He always finds his way to the corner of the room, back facing the wall and watching. It’s where he’s most relaxed, where he’s unnoticed.

A ghost.

But even ghosts can be found out.

Even ghosts give a little bump in the night.

Aaron Hotchner doesn’t actually believe in ghosts but for a week he thinks he might. It freaks him out so bad that he tells Derek but he’s lost so much sleep freaking out over this that he mostly just sounds a little crazy. The fact that he tells Derek speaks measures but before everyone else, Derek was who he relied on and Derek is who he falls back on.

There was a broken plate in the kitchen, a plate that he didn’t break because he’d only gone to the living room. He couldn’t tell what it was but there had been this strange scratching. Then the plate fell. Honestly, he tore off. Ran to his bedroom and to Haley and when she asked what that sound was he said he hadn’t heard anything. Though he didn’t tell Derek that part, he more or less crawled into Haley’s arms and laid there until he felt safe again. Until her half-conscious rubbing at his back lulled him back to sleep.

They didn’t die so at least it wasn’t a serial killer.

It’s a cat.

Hotch’s ghost is a cat.

An old mangy orange thing that Hotch reluctantly takes into the house, Haley names him Casper. Naturally, she can’t let it go. Her husband the bravely trained, frequently praised federal agent tucking and running because an elderly cat had managed to let itself into their home.

Derek asks her about it, the ghost, the next time they all go out for drinks and she makes him swear to secrecy but he tells the others.

Not that day, nearly a year or more later.

After New York.

Penelope Garcia stays up all night watching what she thinks is going to be her friend’s last hours. Watches Hotch get tossed like a rag doll by a car bomb, and land discarded out of the view of the cameras. Just gone and she’s torn between not wanting to know and knowing she has to look. No matter what she’s going to see, she has to go on. They sift through the recording, speeding up the time-lapse. She watches him slowly gain consciousness over a stretch of twenty minutes, all taking place in less than a minute for her. Sees him stumble as he tries to stand, sagging against a street lamp and gagging up nothing. His stomach was too empty.

He’s disoriented, limping around the road.

Then came Sam.

The kid who tried to kill Hotch standing over his shoulder, touching his arm, and so close, so dangerously close. She cries, sits there and cries as she urges Derek to be faster. What if he has to finish the job? Kate was moving around, they were both alive, but Hotch can’t protect her. He can hardly stand.

He screams himself hoarse.

As Derek runs up on them all he can smell is burning rubber and blood. He’s breathing oddly, too quickly and his ribs aren’t moving the right way but Derek can see Hotch. He’s right there coherently speaking, words clear. So it doesn’t matter, the blood-splattered out on the road and running down Hotch’s collar.

And then Sam…

And the ambulance.

And Kate.

Reid, Prentiss, and Rossi are waiting for Hotch when he steps away from Kate. Reid had seen how immobile Hotch’s right shoulder had been, how stiffly it had moved as Hotch struggled into his kevlar. Rossi had seen his poor coloring, the bruises under his eyes from his lack of sleep. The way the cuts looked against his face. Prentiss had been behind him. She always is, creepily just a step behind. She’d seen how awkwardly his right leg had taken his weight. She even rolled her eyes when she noticed he forced himself to stop limping once she saw.

But what they all knew, what they’d all seen was a clock.

Another timer dangerously close to zero.

You know what they say. The bigger the man, the harder the fall.

Emily can’t get the sound of his body hitting the ground out of her head.

Hotch gets a room, courtesy of the entire hospital still being cleared out, to sleep off the drugs they give him. Groggily he groans, wakes up enough to look around him and falls back to sleep.

JJ gets sick, it’s too early in the pregnancy to be morning sickness but they’ve all just had an awful night and she’s filled with this senseless guit. Can’t stop thinking about Hotch’s soft, sheepish congratulations. Why didn’t she just tell him? What did she think was going to happen?

9/11 left New York hypervigilant and even with the threat eliminated the team is asked to stay in one place. So they stay with Hotch, all crammed up on top of each other. Legs thrown over laps and blankets jerked like children, a group of adults afraid to fall asleep. It’s impossible to sleep so Derek tells them about Hotch’s ghost, filling the dark room with noise. Better than sitting here just watching Hotch breathe, waiting for each inhale. He exaggerates it, of course. Hotch is asleep and can't exactly defend himself. Not that there’s all that much he could say-- he spent three sleepless nights ghost-hunting a cat.

“He ever tell you about that ghost haunting him?”

The next morning, still groggy and his presence of mind making it impossible to not feel the pain but too heavy to really care, he doesn’t fight with Derek nearly as much as he should.

They take the case of The Angel Maker Part 2 and, for once, Hotch does what’s best for him. He takes time off, drives home to save his ears from the trouble of the jet climbing to proper altitude. He gets back on a Wednesday, the others are waiting (Garcia may or may not have tracked his phone). Climbs slowly out of the car, the shrapnel wound on his leg hasn’t healed yet, and doesn’t look nearly that scary standing in jeans he’s had to roll the bottoms of and a patchy beard.

Which is why he doesn’t wear jeans. Suit pants he can have tailored to fit both his waist and the length of his legs. The problem with Levi's or a pair of Wranglers is that one of those measurements is always wrong. So the waist is small enough but the length isn’t long enough. He has to compromise one of them and he typically caves in the length.

Garcia knits him a hat that winter. It’s black to match the rest of his clothes with a red little fuzzy ball at the top. He thinks he can accept the gift and forget it-- like the gloves Reid got him or the cigars from Rossi. That’s not the case. He wears the hat. In a mix-up, a crowd of suits, he’s much easier to catch with his little red fuzz ball sticking out over the crowd.

And he isn’t allowed to forget about Reid’s gloves. He’s guilted into those too and finds himself being ushered into cases where the weather will be chilly with his only access being that hat and a pair of gloves.

The parts of Aaron Hotchner that he gives without prompting aren’t necessarily not him. He is decently grumpy and a workaholic. The man can not take a compliment, a fact that Morgan and Prentiss love to exploit. He’s boring, repetitive. Anyone who has spent more than a week with him can testify to that. He just likes to eat the same foods over and over and isn’t too picky but he won’t touch uncooked cauliflower because it’s texture is weird. Like a bouncy ball. As far as spending time with him goes, another weird thing to learn is that he’s messy. Methodical, yes. Messy… at the same time. He does have a bookshelf and his books are organized but he’s also really bad for leaving his unfinished books out on tables like decorations.

The parts that don’t come readily, the parts that require reading or profiling or just generally bugging the shit out of him are decent too. He’s an optimist. He wants to believe everyone is good, redeemable. Partially because he needs himself to be and because he’s a hopeless romantic and an optimist and that’s an impossible thing to be in this line of work. But some people are just good and some people are worth a second chance (and a third and fourth). He thinks that one-day people will forget he exists-- what happens when the team doesn’t need him to be around? When there’s no reason he has to be invited out?

And then what?

Aaron Hotchner is afraid of becoming a ghost again.

#criminal minds fanfiction #aaron hotchner #criminal minds #derek morgan #david rossi #penelope garcia #emily prentiss #jennifer jareua #spencer reid

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ambiguousdisorderken · 3 years

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help! a thought a thought!

s13: cas comes back from the empty without his grace and jack is very much a baby.

cas promised kelly he'd look after him, but despite all those parenting books qnd online forums, looking after a nephil is no easy task, curiously more so when it comes to jack's human wants and needs. he sees the winchesters’ intent tohelp, but jack is his charge, and cas is going to protect and look after this kid with his own limited resources even if it kills him. in return, he gets apologetic and compassionate looks from both the brothers, but dean's gaze is also... stern? no, serious. it's as if he's holding back.

cas feels judged.

at the end of one such days in which jack is being extremely... difficult, cas all but collapses. funny how an angel of the lord who once led heavenly armies and would annihilate on command like a good soldier has been brought to the brink of tears by an adorable chubby-cheeked infant with a penchant for making cas feel guilty for arguably being the worst parental figure in the whole of history. well, surely not as bad as abraham or ivan vasilyevich. cas would never harm a single blond hair on jack’s precious little head, but he’s not a good.

he's so immersed in his own frustration that he doesn't notice the door opening or the familiar weight of steps across the bedroom. he does notice the sudden shadow, and he definitely notices when jack's being taken from him by a pair of hands he rebuilt himself with the utmost care, never suspecting how he'd yearn for their touch years down the line.

dean is good with kids. he had to be. right now though, with jack? he doesn't have to be good, but he is, he's excellent. obviously better than castiel, since in less than a couple minutes jack’s long-winded on-and-off tantrum morphed into silence and then giggles. jack's actually delighted, toothless smile and happy squeals and little fists thrown in the air.

'how did you...?' cas asks stunned, wiping from his eyes the treacherous evidence of his failed parenting.

dean raises an eyebrow, but turns his face when jack's tiny hand pets his jaw. dean makes faces then, his beautiful features contorting into expressions cas had never seen. jack, laughs and curls up against dean's chest, face hiding in the junction between his neck and chin.

jack closes his red-rimmed eyes and sighs contentedly.

'dude. babies are all about vibes, man. they can sense shit, and you being all stressed out was not helping.'

cas looks down at his hands and feels every ounce of his inadequacy being maximized to stand as tall as the chrysler building.

'i... thought it'd be easier, dean. i try, i do. but jack... of course it's not his fault, that’s not what i’m saying. it's mine. he doesn't seem happy with me, and he obviously does not like me.'

dean stops rocking jack and sits on the bed next to cas, his face schooled into that expression cas has seen but can't tell the meaning of.

this time dean doesn't hold back though.

'one, that's a load of bullcrap. kid loves you. you're his dad, remember?' it's weird being admonished by dean on this particular subject, but if anyone would know about raising kids, that'd dean. he continues, 'which brings me to point number two. cas, babies are not easy. no parent has it all figured out, no matter how many books you read or how old you are. it's totally normal to hit a few bumps in the road, trust me.'

cas sighs, relieved by dean's soothing words of wisdom.

but cas' self-doubt must be a thousand-headed beast, experience has taught him many things, and right now that means he knows, from experience, that he's most likely to mess things up with jack as soon as dean hands him back.

he misses his powers. if he were still an angel he'd be able to bond with jack through their grace, and they’d have a more meaningful connection. or not.

dean, wonderful as he is, is only a human, and in less than five minutes he got jack wrapped around his finger. maybe even all “juiced-up” cas would be just as lacking.

'i wish i had your nurturing skills' cas confesses.

dean clears his throat.

'you have them' he says.

cas looks up and meets dean's determined yet nervous eyes. confused, cas clarifies, 'no, i meant i wish i could-'

dean cuts in, 'i know what you meant, cas. but i meant you have, uh, my... "nurturing skills" or whatever. because you have me. okay, cas? you have me.'

'oh?'

cas hopes, he does. but he isn't good at articulating his feelings when it comes to dean. perhaps cas learned it from him. after all, once he used to be able to declare his thoughts without flinching or feeling apprehensions of any kind.

but, when it comes to dean, he's afraid of saying the wrong thing, of saying too much.

dean continues, making what he can with cas' poor response, 'if you want, of course. and i mean... you're doing great with the little rugrat, cas, but normal babies are a handful and jack's half freaking angel. i know it's tough, and i don't like seeing you all...' he waves in cas' direction. baby-stained rumpled clothes and face worn, dark circles under the eyes are apparently not a very good look on him. he shouldn't be offended, but it still stings a bit, knowing he's doing a bad enough that his whole body is living proof of it.

'dean, you don't have to,' he replies.

'but i want to,' dean says without skipping a beat.

jack sighs happily.

'let me take care of him. with you.' his green eyes search into cas', his pitch slightly higher and his tone pleading, 'just let me help you, cas. please. we' re a - a good team, you and i. we've gone through shit must people can't even begin to imagine, so i think we can do this' his shoulder bumps gently against cas' arm. 'watcha' say, pal. wanna raise a baby together?'

cas stares back in shock, failing to taper down his burgeoning hope. but dean cannot mean what cas wants him to mean. it's not like that with them. they're friends. best friends. but do best friends raise kids together? he shouldn't poke at this.. thing, but the need to know is overpowers his better judgment, so his next words could very well be the last ones he uttered before getting his heart irreparably torn to shreds.

'i thought only couples raised children together, dean.'

dean huffs and rolls his eyes, 'that nuclear family crap is a big fat lie, cas. white picket-fence propaganda. there are many types of families in the world. not everyone gets to have a mom who lives long enough to raise her children or a dad who gives a fuck if his kids ate, consumed by a piss-poor avenger complex.'

of course. he should've known. absorbed by his own selfish wants, dean's complicated upbringing slipped from cas' mind, and now he's made the conversation awkward if dean's hesitancy is any indication to go by.

cas stays silent.

'but,' dean starts, his cheeks are colored red and he blinks twice then once again, keeping watery eyes at bay. 'we could do that too, cas. if that's.. if you'd, um, like that. you and me and this little one.'

dreaming. cas must be dreaming.

'like a family?' he asks suspiciously.

'like a family' dean says guarded.

but.

and because he needs to be sure, and dean probably didn't realize the very non-platonic implication of his statement, he asks 'like a... couple?'

'yes' the word is breathed out with pleasure and dean smiles at him warmly and openly, and he looks so beautiful like this, sitting on cas' bed with a sleepy jack safely tucked against his body.

'okay' cas says, because he doesn't know the etiquette for this specific scenario, and besides, they have to keep their voices low and their movements subtle if they want to keep jack from stirring awake.

'alright' dean says. then dean turns to whisper something in jack's ear, but the words are easily carried across what little space rests between them.

'heard that, baby? i’m gonna take good care of you and your daddy from now on.'

so, they take care of jack together. cas' parenting skills improve rather quickly, dean's natural instincts are lifesavers, and every day the three of them become happier and better rested. endless nights of cuddling will do that to you. in short, dean and cas raise their baby like a couple, and, with jack, they are, in every sense of the word, a family.

#I AM SOFT #i'll have lunch now because i got carried away with this oops.#was supposed to work on a gifset e.e #creating different types of content is a Thing.#destiel fanfic #or #destiel drabble #idek #deancas #my fanfic #I JUST WANT THEM TO BE HAPPY WITH THEIR BABY #but now they are :')#baby!jack #fuck capitalization bitches got no time for that :(#pardon ME im thee cheesiest i know 😩

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atlas-of-a-human-soul · 4 years

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Always made to break (S.M.)

Summary: Shawn meets someone who reawakens his soul and makes him question his choices in love.

Warnings: swearing, slight angst, fluff

Word count: 4k

A/N - I’ve had this in my drafts for a while, so I decided to post it and see how you guys like it, so let me know if you want more.

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''Were you ever going to tell me?“ She practically growled at Shawn as she threw a magazine in his lap, the tone she used scaring him enough to look up at her face, the beautiful features now twisted with rage and disappointment, something he never wanted to see her direct at him.

''I don't unders-'', but then he saw just what she meant, seeing his face attached to Camilla's on the front page of a random gossip magazine. He knew why she was looking at him with such fire in her eyes, and not the kind he expected to see in the bedroom, but the purest form of hatred mixed with pain.

''Not only did you poise as some poor photography student, but you also claimed you're single?! How stupid can I be, right?“ She put her right hand on her hip, using the back of her left one to wipe under her nose although nothing was there but a fathom sensation of coldness he had caused her insides now manifesting on the outside as well. She didn't shed a single tear yet, her anger not allowing her heartbreak to show.

It is better to hate him for his lies than to feel sorry for herself, she decided.

''I didn't want to...“ Shawn trailed off, unable to find the words. He, a man of many words, a person who had always managed to put his emotions in the most eloquent of ways had found himself speechless at a time he needed his words the most.

''Didn't want what? To tell me you're rich and famous? That you're dating a star? Huh?!“ She huffed, her eyes burning him with the intensity of the unrestrained pit of bursting flames within.

''What was this to you? Huh? A joke? Did it make you feel good to make me the fool?!“ She shouted, the raw emotion ripping her throat like a thousand razorblades.

Bowing his head down, Shawn swallows thickly, his eyes filling with tears he knew would only anger her more in this moment. He doesn't get to cry over breaking her heart, he just doesn't.

At the beginning

It was supposed to be a calm, ordinary Monday morning for Shawn. After months on the road, it was nice to be back home for a short break from the stage and screaming fans, just him and his earplugs and a good cup of coffee. It was supposed to be a regular, lonesome morning to start the day off right, but things never really work out the way we want them to.

Whether he meant to sit in that particular café, in that particular chair, with that particular song playing as he lazily glanced around before taking the first sip of his coffee, Shawn had started a chain of events that would lead him into a world of trouble, yet unimaginable love and heartache.

In that lazy glance, Shawn had managed to catch a young girl's eye, his curls falling over his eyes obscuring his vision. She had merely smiled at him, so sweetly, so shyly, enough for Shawn to return the gesture. Her eyes fell back on her phone and he assumed she was likely sending a message to all her friends about seeing THE Shawn Mendes, probably posting a sneakily taken photo of him in his moment of supposed tranquility as well.

It's not as if he's not used to it, but Shawn really hoped he'd have this morning to himself, a moment to put his thoughts in proper order and a second to breathe. He's been having his picture taken every day, multiple times by fans and paparazzi, especially since he started the whole agreement with Camila and her team.

Shawn was tired of it, drained, so when he hoped for a moment of his own and lost it? He truly didn't feel at ease anymore.

He looked back at the girl once more, angrily with eyes narrowed. She seemed oblivious to his newfound outlet as she kept scrolling on her phone. She was beautiful, Shawn couldn't deny that. In fact, it's why he looked her way in the first place – it's why he sat in this particular café, outside on such a cold morning to have his coffee, all because she caught his eye as he was passing the street. However, whatever drew him in had now pushed him away as he scoffed under his breath, shaking his head.

That's when she looked up from her phone and trained her eyes on him again, a confused look passing her features as she stood slowly, setting herself on a path toward him.

Rolling his eyes, Shawn reminded himself to be nice for his image is kindness and never random rage outbursts on young girls who want a photo with him. He drew in a short, quick breath of fresh air before he looked up at her when she stopped a few feet away from him, prepared to fake it if need be.

"I’m really not in the mood.” Shawn says before he can stop himself, mentally face palming when he sees the girl’s eyebrows furrow, her bottom lip sinking between her teeth as she cleared her throat.

“I wanted to ask if you needed something aside from the coffee considering you’ve been looking at me this whole time. I just assumed you were annoyed because my colleague hasn’t been out in a while. I’m sorry for making the wrong assumption and bothering you.” She wasn’t harsh or rude, making Shawn feel even guiltier as he paled. Finally realizing she’s the waitress, Shawn’s paleness is quickly replaced with a crimson shade that he could never truly hide.

The girl didn’t get a chance to walk away as he stood up abruptly, knocking the table up in the process with his thighs, some of his coffee spilling over.

“No, no, no. I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to be so rude, I just…I do want something.” Shawn exclaimed, hoping he can dig himself out of this deep hole he managed to dig for himself in a matter of seconds. “A bagel! And a brownie, please?” Shawn gave her an awkward smile, running his hand through his messy curls as she studies him with care, unsure if she should say something about his odd behavior or just take it like she usually does.

There are worse customers than him, she thinks.

“Sure.” She sighs, placing her phone on his table before whipping out a small notepad to write his order down, walking away right after.

Sitting down, Shawn sighed heavily at his stupidity, chuckling at himself. Rubbing his forehead to soothe an oncoming headache, he opens his eyes only to find her phone is still on the table, unlocked at that!

He stared at the gadget with great interest, wondering if he had assumed more than one thing wrong and if he had to change his opinion of this girl entirely. He didn’t want to take the phone and search it, but what’s the harm in peering over his cup to see what app she’s got open, right?

“Most common complications of a bowl resection?” Shawn reads under his breath, his eyebrows knitted together as he stares at the words that quite frankly sound like they came from a Grey’s anatomy episode.

“What are you doing?” A sweet voice startles him into a small yelp, the girl chuckling at this tall hunk who seems to be so clumsy and presumptuous that she can’t quite figure him out yet.

“Oh, I…Uh…I’m a simple guy, really. I see a phone screen and I have to sneak a peek, except I can’t understand a damn thing written on there.” Shawn rubbed the back of his neck nervously, sure as hell that his face is tomato red by now. He hates tomatoes just as much as he hates his treacherous cheeks for betraying every emotion he’s ever had.

Giggling, she places his order on the table, pushing back a strand of hair behind her right ear. She takes her phone swiftly, pocketing it in a single move.

“Yeah, I’ve got an exam to prepare for. Been working the night shift! Lucky me!” She exclaims sarcastically, her lips pressed together before she places the bill on his table too, turning around to go.

She isn’t even wearing a uniform, Shawn realizes, watching her as she takes her bag and begins to pack her things from the table she was sat at before. She took his order even after her shift ended. Biting down on his bottom lip, Shawn could sense a war is brewing between his head and heart, each arguing why he should or should not go after her.

Shawn’s always been a heart guy, deciding to go ahead and listen to it once again.

Jumping to his feet, Shawn moves toward her on instinct, not quite ready for her to go. He’s got too much accumulated guilt over judging her and assuming things about her that he was clearly wrong about and while she didn’t know it, he still wanted to make amends. Shawn needed to do something nice for the girl who had been kind enough not to cuss him out for being inexcusably rude to her.

“Where are you going?" He asks before he could stop himself. His head cocked to the side, his eyes shifting from the ground to the unknown girl. He barely knew her, hell, Shawn didn’t even know her name, but his heart stopped and he could barely breathe when she decided to leave.

She looked up in wonder, observing him with slight worry in her eyes, another thing he found endearing.

“I have that exam in an hour. Gotta get to my bus on time.” She shrugged, giving him a tiny wave as a means to say goodbye.

Shawn needed more time with her. He needed to talk to her, to get to know her, to at least find out her name. For some reason he couldn’t even fathom, Shawn felt drawn to this stranger, this girl who didn’t seem to know or give a damn about who he is. She is the type of people he surrounds himself with – people who are grounded and will keep him human. He wouldn’t admit to it, but she was also a beauty he couldn’t part with for reasons not of the mind, but of the heart. He knew it wouldn’t be a smart idea to get involved with someone now, not when he was under contract to be with someone else and so publicly.

However, when she made a move to leave, Shawn had to react before his heart completely stopped.

"I'm guessing you need a ride?" His voice was soft-spoken and mellow, sending a warm glow throughout Y/N’s body.

"Taking the bus won’t kill me, but thanks for the offer." Y/N smiled, waving at the café’ window. Shawn grabbed a twenty and left it on his table quickly, pointing at it in hopes of someone coming out to take the money for he had no time to pay for it right now. Shawn had decided to get in his car and chase after the girl who had started her walk to the nearest bus station, her determined walk noticeable and distinctive.

“You said you’ve been working all night, right?” He talked loudly, needing her to hear him, as if she could miss a car like his slowing down beside her or the doe-eyed guy nearly shouting at her through his open window.

“Yeah. So?” She stops, crossing her arms over her chest, uncertainty in her eyes. She looked at Shawn with such confusing emotion that he could hardly breathe when he allowed himself the luxury of staring into her eyes. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think she knew him for years, that they have history, that they’ve met in a previous life. The look in her eyes and the feeling he’d get in his heart when he’d meet her gaze? It felt like more than two strangers talking.

“Don’t want to fall asleep on the bus and miss your stop, now do ya?” Shawn tried, unsure how to convince her to let him drive her.

“I’d also prefer not to be killed by the seemingly kind stranger who offered me a ride.” She cocked an eyebrow, starting to walk again which forced Shawn to press down on the gas pedal lightly.

“My name’s Shawn and I promise I’m not a killer, just a big supporter of education who has nothing better to do than help a girl who looks like she could use a kind gesture after a hard night.”

Y/N stops again, rolling her eyes at the sky before letting out a deep breath she didn’t know she was holding. Was it wise to get into a car of a man she knew for less than an hour? A handsome stranger that could easily turn out to be a Ted Bundy she found herself attracted to?

Definitely not wise, she thought as she opened the passenger door and sat inside.

"Cute name." she smiled shyly.

“I’m Y/N.” She tells him, putting on the seatbelt before looking into his whiskey brown eyes.

“Your name is cuter.” Shawn’s crooked smile made her heart flip. The wind gently brushed his curls as he kept his window open, the breeze grazing his face, almost soothingly.

This is what he needed though, some adventure. Some risk. Some danger. Giving a ride to a girl he met didn’t constitute as adventure, risk or danger, but being seen doing so? Definitely.

She types in the location in his GPS, leaning back in her seat as the radio fills the silence. Nearly choking on his own saliva, Shawn changed the song he had recognized just by the first few beats, before Senorita could blast through the speakers.

“So, uh…what kind of music do you like?” Shawn asked awkwardly, feeling her gaze upon him not a second later. It’s as if being set on fire, but not in the way it hurts the skin, rather puts the soul on a path worth taking.

“Classical mostly. Old rock music too.” She responds, receiving a hum from Shawn in response. He relaxed visibly, knowing there’s a much lesser chance that she’d know he’s Shawn Mendes if he’s not what she usually listens to.

“You seem like a pop-rock kind of a guy.” She assumed, lifting her left eyebrow quizzically, waiting for him to agree or deny.

Shawn couldn’t hold himself back from smiling widely, nodding before sparing her a quick glance. “Nice guess.” He adds, noticing her cheeks redden, not nearly as bad as his, but enough to know she’s not indifferent.

“So, you’re a med student or a method actor?” Shawn chuckled, catching her playfully rolling her eyes at him and his stomach flipped at the gesture. She looked cute even annoyed with him and he knew he’d love to annoy her for a really long time if she’d let him.

“First one would be right!” She exclaimed, pressing her lips together as she turned to the side, looking out the window instead of him.

“That’s pretty impressive! Beauty and brains? It’s every man’s dream.” Shawn told her honestly, at least from his perspective. He had already found himself on her hook, wanting more and more all the while knowing he’ll soon have to leave her at the university and in less than a month, he’d leave the continent as well.

“You might be the only guy thinking that. It feels the day I started med school, I signed some invisible contract where I was doomed to be lonely and friendless. I never have time for friends or relationships. When I’m not in class, I’m working or studying. If I do have free time, I’m usually exhausted to the point of just curling up and watching Netflix. Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it.” She bit her lip, eyes everywhere but on Shawn.

She didn’t know why she told him this, something she’d been carrying around on her shoulders for so long. She barely knows him, yet Shawn just oozes good vibes and trustworthiness that she couldn’t help herself. It’s been a while since she had someone to be genuine with, so what’s the harm in oversharing with a stranger she’ll likely never see again?

“If you’re passionate about something, it will often demand you abandon all else. There will be times where you’ll wonder why you ever did it, why you’ve made such a decision as if you didn’t know it would be like this…you did, I know you were aware it would be hard and let me tell you, all the good things in life are hard and demand sacrifice and once you’ve got it, you’ll be reminded just why you chose it. Something happens and you’re reminded and you’ll be back in the right mindset.” Shawn tightens his hold on the steering wheel, aware he’s telling himself the same.

He’s lost the passion he used to have for music in the circus his team imposed on him and now he’s here, in the car with a girl he just met yet felt so incredibly connected to in comparison to the girl he’s supposedly dating that it was hard not to feel like life turned on him.

When he started writing music and playing it live, Shawn never realized how fake the public persona he’d have to create would be. He always thought musicians had free reign to be who they are, to enjoy life, but he’s received a cold shower of pure facts in the past year and he’s still struggling to come to terms with it.

“I really hope so.” She smiled, reaching out for his hand. She laid her palm gently on the back of Shawn’s hand, giving it a gentle squeeze before removing it quickly.

“I’m not gonna lie, I’m kind of bummed we’re already here.” Shawn sighed as he parked, looking over at the girl he wanted to stay more than ever. She wasn’t a stranger anymore, not even close. In his world, the rule states you’re no longer strangers if you’ve:

A) gotten drunk together

B) had a heart to heart.

“Bet you say that to all the strangers you give a lift to.” Her lips pulled to the left into a crooked smile, one Shawn wanted to make wider, brighter.

“Just ones I really like.” Shawn countered, smiling as well. It’s hard to resist a smile when she’s got her angelic lips spreading into the smile he wanted to see.

“You like me, eh?” She teased, coyly lifting an eyebrow as she lets her lips pucker.

“Never denied it.” Shawn raised his hands in a mock surrender, chuckling.

Then he moves closer with those eyes that look so deeply into her own, as if he could see who she is underneath all the layers she’s created to protect herself from the hurt. It’s like he sees her soul, the real Y/N and never in her life had she felt seen like she did with Shawn. He made her feel like she’s the only girl in the world and she knew then she’d never find that gaze in any other man’s eyes, never such intensity, raw emotion and understanding.

“As long as we’re clear on that.” She smirked, moving away slightly, not ready for what his eyes were telling her.

“Are you feeling better about the exam now? About everything? Because I meant what I said. You’ll be okay, even if it feels otherwise.” Shawn decided to diffuse the situation, the tension growing too fast for her to be comfortable with it, he could tell.

“About the fact that I’m not sure if I’ll ever find love or be the girl a guy would go to the ends of the world for?” She shrugged, chuckling dryly.

It’s much easier to make fun of what bothers her than face it head on. She’s been feeling so lost for such a long time that her coping mechanisms weren’t quite something most people are used to. But Shawn? He doesn’t even blink at her darkness. He doesn’t look away or shows he’s tired of her already. He doesn’t push her away for being so gloomy, he’s doing the opposite. He listens as if her words are golden, some elixir he's been waiting all his days to hear.

From what he says next she can tell he is thinking so deeply, already with a strategy that's several moves ahead of her. And in his words is a kindness, a concern that is so quick that, for him, it is natural. This attentiveness is a part of who he is and that is the most attractive feature Y/N’s ever seen in a man.

“You are though. I’ve known you for an hour and I’m already thinking just how badly I want to take you out and shower you with affection. You’re so beautiful, so raw, so fucking oblivious to your qualities that it makes me both angry and stubbornly certain that I want to change your view of yourself.” Shawn takes her hand in his, clasping it between his palms as his left hand, the one with a swallow tattoo, closes over hers. A tattoo like that would be hard to forget.

“I’ve found out that you’re intelligent, hardworking, ambitious, funny in a nonconventional way, incredibly brave for setting out on this journey, extremely good and devoted to helping humanity one person at a time, caring and you think of others even when you don’t have to. You were kind to me when I wasn’t to you, honest and open with your heart and mind…And that’s all within an hour of knowing you. And I desperately want more as creepy as it may sound.” Shawn’s words have made her eyes gloss over and she couldn’t stop herself from chuckling too.

When a woman’s sure she’s destined to be alone and that her perfect man isn’t real and then finds him when she’s given up on the notion – it’s a shock to the body. His smile alone burnishes her soul into a beauty it could never have achieved on its own. Before they met, both Shawn and Y/N were one, now they’re each a half, yet somehow so much more than they ever were before.

“I’m really glad I met you, Shawn. It’s truly an honor.” She managed to say before she leaned in so swiftly he had no chance to even move. Her lips brushed his for no longer than a moment, a single breath yet long enough to make him crave more, so much more. Just as quickly as they warmed his heart, her lips were gone and so was she.

He watched her walk away, her head bent as she stared at her shoes in thought, his heart slamming against his ribcage helplessly. He’d have ran after her, but he couldn’t afford some of the students recognizing him and snapping a photo. He couldn’t risk the world knowing he was living a lie, dating Camila on paper but already in love with a woman he was destined to fail in the long run.

Shawn should have let Y/N become a sweet memory he’d return to when the nights became too cold, too lonely to brave on his own. He should have let it be a fantasy, but he couldn’t. Whether he wanted it or not, Shawn was drawn to the same café the very next morning, hoping to run into the medical student who had captivated him.

#shawn mendes fluff #shawn mendes x reader #shawn mendes #shawn mendes imagine #shawn mendes fanfic #shawn mendes fanfiction #shawn mendes fic

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wolf-and-bard · 3 years

Text

Drown With Me If You Can

Prompt: White Frost/Apocalypse

Relationships: Arnaghad/Erland of Larvik (from one of the witcher-centric cards)

Rating: M

Content Warnings: swear words, grief, themes of giving up on life and hopelessness at the beginning

Summary: After the fall of Kaer Seren, all that is left for Erland to do in his gloomy cave is write his journal and let the cold take him. He doesn’t expect to be saved, especially not by his former-lover-turned-nemesis Arnaghad. In which: Erland wallows and Arnaghad calls him out on his bullshit. A lot.

Word Count: 5.6k

AO3 link

I close out this account with a warning: the knowledge I hereby hope to preserve is essential for the day the monsters return to our crypts, our battlefields, and our gardens. It is a call to battle and heroism and in that it is treacherous. If you use these pages with the intention to do good in this world, you will soon find yourself to be an outcast among humans. You will save them and they will spit at you. You will beg for fair payment and they will burn you at the stake. Be prepared for that, and take up the sword nonetheless for if you do not, no one will. Peace, brothers and sisters of the future, peace and blessings of the Gods. May you never need this journal.

Erland signs the bottom of the last page with fingers gnarled by the cold, trembling from how his muscles have hardened as a result of his lethargy. When it is done, he grips the quill hard, clings to it. It is a childish instinct that makes him do this, but this feather has been his lifeline for the past… past. A lifeline to the past. Time flakes away from Erland the same way the tattered pieces of the quill do once it breaks under his tightening fingers. The last few pages of his journal are barely legible and he can’t tell whether that is because his vision is fails him, like a pane of glass slowly devoured by a sheen of ice, or because his script has fallen prey to his tremor. As Erland waits for the ink to dry, he uses his weak hand to arrange his good one into the proper gesture for an Igni and casts it down the dark tunnel of his home.

A perfect cone of lightly crackling flames shoots outward, illuminating the glazed rock all around. The sign holds for several breaths, steady and sturdy and its heat singes Erland’s frayed cuffs, has the ceiling drip crystalline melt-off. Erland smiles grimly to himself and shuts the journal. This time can’t take from him and the ice won’t feast on, this his body will always know how to do. A perfect channelling of what Chaos he may access.

Shaking, Erland crawls over to his makeshift bedroll – a dirt-hardened pellet of furs he collected on his way up here, a long hike with Kaer Seren a steady ruin at his back and the names of his brothers and children a steady weight on his shoulders – and collapses on top of it.

It is done. His lips trace the outlines of these words, but his tongue is too heavy to lift. Erland sneezes into his pillow and draws a ratty quilt over himself. It used to be bursting with reds and oranges, a gift from an old woman for saving her granddaughter from an early death by harpy, but now it is faded and as grimy as the rest of him. Erland cannot distinguish the colours of his belongings any longer, not even in the stale light of the last sparks of the Igni that cling to the cave’s walls.

It is done.

His journal is finished, his life chronicled, his school honoured and his knowledge preserved. All that is left to the former griffin master is to wait for the sparks of his life to die out alongside those of his magic. Erland flops onto his belly and uses his weak hand to arrange the fingers of his good one into the shape of Axii. His wrist creaks when he angles the hand at his own face and he casts it with the same impeccable precision. The spell hits instantly and his body goes slack, his mind punctured through by holes. Erland sleeps and hopes a harsh wind will blow through his abode tonight.

II.

There is a long interval of darkness that is marked by bursts of hot and cold shivers that wreck his body, but Erland doesn’t truly wake and by the time he does, he isn’t sure that they were real at all. He goes through a stage of sleep paralysis in which all he can do is to stare at the coarse ceiling of the cave. It has frozen back over and if there were any light, Erland would see his own face reflected in it. Sunken cheeks, eyes reddened from burst capillaries, undercut grown out into shaggy strings of hair. The griffin tattooed on the side of his skull drowns in them, just like the griffin witchers drowned in dust and snow the day their school was buried in an avalanche.

Erland sighs. He cannot move a muscle for half an eternity. His nose itches and another sneeze finally frees him, releases him into an unsettled slumber that pushes him along the maze of corridors that is his own memory. He retraces every step he took along the Path, faces all the monsters he slaughtered and all the humans he failed to convince that he shouldn’t be slaughtered alongside them.

There is no lesson to be learned from these dreams. Only patience. Erland has long lived with his regrets, knows them as intimately as the beasts whose traits he noted down in his journal. Only patience, yes. In all his striving to be more than a mere mercenary or rat-catcher perhaps his most undervalued and least practiced virtue.

Erland can be patient.

He vaguely remembers one who never was, an old friend, a former lover who faced the world with steel first and foremost, steel accompanied by a detached pragmatism that was so at war with everything Erland believed in. That friend – now less than an enemy – would not have lain here so wallowing in the drawn-out pain of his end days. He would not have waited for his death, he would have summoned it by drawing his slowly rusting blades and cutting himself open, would have watched his hot blood hiss against the ice at the heart of this mountain and would have born a proud curl of his lip until the moment the fire in his own heart extinguished.

Erland smiles and his jaw creaks.

He takes the high-road.

He…

He sleeps.

He thrashes.

He recites every lesson the knight Gryphon ever taught him. They are the foundation of his life’s work, they are all he has left.

He is patient.

III.

Erland is caught in a sleep paralysis once more when it enters the mountains. The monsters usually haunt him when he’s somewhere in the realm of insanity, but now he is wide awake, body one rigid line under the quilt that has long since lost its ability to keep out the winter, which means the thing could be very real and out for his blood. Its steps boom and quake through the rock for hours before the giant passes into the dead end that is Erland’s makeshift dwelling. Even with no light to illuminate it, Erland can see it glittering, can see its giant head swing left and right, can hear the scrape of its fragile marble skin against the walls.

An ice elemental.

If Erland is extra lucky, this used to be its lair and he accidentally usurped it. There is no moving away, no putting up a fight and he resigns himself to a quick and violent death after all. How graceful of Destiny to show her face now, after everything else has passed her by.

But then the ice elemental shakes off the snow, hundreds of flakes that rain down to cover the floor, and Erland blinks. The outline of the monster softens from harsh crystals to wet strands of fur that hug broad shoulders. A werewolf? Erland can’t draw breath, doesn’t trust his ears when the thing opens its mouth and speaks, a deep baritone. Not nearly raspy enough to be of anything other than human origin.

"Alzur’s rotten balls, Erland is that you?"

Erland wants to laugh. Of all the demons the depths of his consciousness could have summoned to this cursed place, it had to be Arnaghad. Arnaghad with his hulking form and his smooth voice, his tattered bearskin overcoat and his terrible timing. Always terrible. He can’t laugh, of course, can’t do more than wheeze faintly.

A torch flares up, casting eerily long shadows at the feet of the apparition, more real than anything Erland has thought in a long time. At the same time, Erland catches Arnaghad’s eyes – dark ochre with narrow slits, eyes that are set deeply under bushy eyebrows which underline the blocky shape of Arnaghad’s face as though it was whittled from planks of red birch – and Arnaghad starts.

“It is you,” he says and follows that up with a curse Erland can’t discern, courtesy of Arnaghad’s Gemmeran linguistic oddities that persist to this day. With them comes a harsh edge to all his syllables and a tendency to mouth-breathe. Funny how after decades of reciprocal avoidance, Erland still remembers these details. Casting his mind down the drainage canal of history, he also remembers himself: a young fighter, just two decades of age, stuck in a body that was overflowing with emotions of visionary self-determination, of rough-and-fast passion, of compassionate anger. Erland waits for the spark of that anger to rekindle, especially as he watches Arnaghad toss his swords and pack and drop to his knees by Erland’s pellet, the torch held close. It’s heat licks across Erland’s cheeks and cradles his skull.

It remains the only heat.

His anger is but a relic of a more complicated time.

“By all the gods,” Arnaghad breathes, hand passing over Erland’s sweaty forehead. His touch too feels familiar, feels too familiar, but his scent isn’t and neither is the concern that drenches his tone. “You look like a giant lump of bird shit.”

Erland’s nostrils flare. Slowly, ever so slowly, his lips peel back in a snarl. He still can’t move, no matter how much he tries. He wants the ice elemental back, if only for the simplicity of its puny gravel brain. Arnaghad’s may only be a smidge bigger and more substantial, but with that comes so much. Arguments that have been left unburied, thoughts that have been left unspoken, memories that have been left unfinished.

Erland hisses weakly through his teeth and Arnaghad growls in reply. He doesn’t extinguish the torch, he sticks it into the ground somewhere to Erland’s right and sits back on his heels, the growl building and building. Erland drifts off again, waiting for Arnaghad to speak. He hopes that when he wakes, the phantom will be gone.

IV.

If anything, Arnaghad has solidified by the time Erland opens his eyes again. He sits by Erland’s bedside still, even cross-legged tall enough that his head grazes the ceiling of the cave if he straightens. Before him he stokes a small campfire with several crude bursts of Igni.

“That is a waste of precious firewood,” Erland says, voice croaky. He pushes himself up onto his forearms, head sluggish to lift from the scratchy pillows. Arnaghad doesn’t turn around, instead he retrieves an iron pot from his belongings and presses it against the cave’s wall, using his dagger to scrape off the ice there. Practical, first and foremost, that is exactly how Erland remembers his lover of yore. Lover being a euphemism for something Erland still cannot name.

“I’m hungry,” Arnaghad says and fires another sign. Briefly, the cave explodes with heat and Erland just about stifles a vulgar moan. When did he last have the pleasure of warmth this intense and indulgent? The fire slowly seeps into his blankets and furs and nestles against his skin. He sinks back into them and closes his eyes. “Besides,” the bear witcher continues. “You might have died of hypothermia if I hadn’t started it. It’s almost funny, Erland the righteous asshole letting himself freeze to death, where is the glory in that? Alas, I find it hard to believe that you have developed a sense of humour since last we met.”

“Neither have you.”

“Ha,” Arnaghad says and that’s it for a while. Erland listens to the water boil, to Arnaghad hacking at dried vegetables and jerky. It doesn’t even smell bad and despite his self-imposed fast, Erland’s stomach rumbles and the inside of his mouth feels coated in dirt. How long has it been since last he drank? It didn’t matter until Arnaghad stampeded into his life again, shaking him awake.

Erland sneezes.

Maybe not all of him.

“Bless you,” Arnaghad grumbles. “So, how did you end up here, little birdie? Your wings broken?”

“I’m not little and griffins aren’t birds.”

“Smartass.”

Erland snorts. He isn’t about to stoop down to Arnaghad’s level and start bickering and he has no inclination for small-talk. That’s what he tells himself anyway. A part of him is almost… glad for the company. Glad for this company in particular. Fuck that.

“I will allow you to stay the night,” Erland says, and squints to see Arnaghad raise one of his caterpillar eyebrows at him. It isn’t like either of them can tell day from night, and depending on where Arnaghad entered the tunnel system of the Dragon Mountains, the last time he saw sunlight may have been weeks ago. “Fine, I will allow you to have a rest. After, I want you gone.”

“I don’t care what you want. If it hadn’t been for me you would be a corpse right now. Take a peek.”

Erland follows the gesture of Arnaghad’s hand and glances down himself, gingerly lifts the blanket. He is swathed in thick, padded linens, an extra pair of breeches and woollen-knit socks. The bearskin that usually hugs Arnaghad’s shoulders is draped across him and what is more, his lips do not feel chapped any longer. His hair curls around his head in a long, neat braid, like a viper in slumber. Shit, how long was he out for?

“Have you considered that it might have been my explicit wish to die?”

“I have,” Arnaghad says on a low chuckle. “A ridiculous notion. You’re sick, that is all. Sick people lean towards melodrama.”

“I’m not being melodramatic,” Erland replies and, oh, there it is. Frustration breaking through the hard-packed stratum of the years like a flower through the earth in early spring. It’s fast to burst and blossom. He does try and sit up after all, but before the world can start to spin around him, Arnaghad has roughly pushed him back into the sheets.

“You are always melodramatic,” the bear witcher replies and glowers at him, face cast in darkness by his bulky outline. Erland’s eyes narrow.

“One night,” he says. “And then you’re gone.”

“We’ll see about that. The stew is going to have to cook for a bit, and you should go back to sleep. Want me to Axii you?”

“And have you make minced meat out of my brain? No thank you, I can do that myself,” Erland snaps. He’s being petulant, why is he being so petulant? It’s all these rifts tearing open in his chest, all these holes he abandoned when he left the order with his friends to found the griffin school. These holes pull him back to life and reality, pull him back through time and into a persona he thought he buried. Erland is not a child. Erland is the griffin grandmaster, Erland is a knight, Erland is a witcher. It doesn’t matter that these functions are all theory now, they make up his identity. Not Arnaghad and his quarrels. And yet…

Erland turns away, facing the wall. When he makes the gesture for the Axii, he doesn’t even have to use his hand to arrange the fingers. He didn’t want to live. Now he does. And that’s more than he can take after everything he’s lost. More than he deserves, really. Erland puts very little force behind the sign, letting it spill to the tips of his fingers then gently touching them to his own face and thankfully, the world blots out around him.

Arnaghad’s voice pulls him up again, like the detonation of a bomb.

“Wake up, stew’s ready.”

Before Erland is fully awake, a coughing fit grips his body and although it scratches at the back of his throat, it also feels freeing in a way, loosening the plaque on his bones and the dust in his chest.

“So you’re still a victim of your winter sickness,” Arnaghad laughs. “I wondered.”

“What do you know of it?” Erland’s voice is muffled as he wipes his mouth, the words come out spiteful, acidic. This time, he does have the strength to sit up on his bed, but he needs the sturdy stone wall at his back to keep him upright. It’s a cool antithesis to the slight swelter of the cave’s air, a gracious counter-force to the merrily burning fire and the bubbling stew.

“Erland, you have spent twenty odd winters in my embrace, would you not think some of that has stuck with me?”

“In the face of your betrayal, no, I would not,” Erland says, crossing his arms, though admittedly, Arnaghad is right. Erland has always been susceptible to the cold, more so than any of his fellow witchers. Perhaps that is because Skellige, in the shape of his mother, rejected him when he was young, or perhaps it is because of his father whose origin Erland still doesn’t care to investigate. Either way, when the frost’s first tendrils start to wind their way into the atmosphere, he falls ill with sneezes and shakes, fevers too. It must be winter already then.

“My betrayal, yes,” Arnaghad mutters and retrieves a wooden bowl from his pack into which he shovels some of the stew. It smells prickly and hot, thick with Ofieri spices and has Erland’s mouth water. Now that he is fully himself again, his senses have returned, an assault on his mind. As with any battle he ever fought, Erland decides to be methodical about it. First the food, then the fight. He reaches out for the bowl, but Arnaghad scoffs at his trembling hands. “Don’t think I’ll let your atrophied muscles spill any of this. It’s too damn good, here.” Arnaghad settles into a cross-legged seat before Erland and the fire paints a halo around him. He’s so big that it cowers at his back, which suits Erland fine. This way it is easier to ignore the concentrated, caring expression on the bear witcher’s face as he submerges a wooden spoon, scoops up a chunk of whatever dried meat he put into the stew and gently blows on it before holding it out.

“Why do you care?” Erland asks weakly, lips parting around the spoon. As soon as it hits his tongue – the perfect degree of scolding hot and spicy – he can’t help a small groan. Blunt though Arnaghad may be, his cooking has always been phenomenal. Erland’s stomach mewls for more.

“I always cared.”

“Funny way of showing that.” Erland gives him a pointed look and Arnaghad’s eyes dart along the scar that neatly sections Erland’s face. He has yet to receive even an attempt at apology for it. “Back then you didn’t seem too caring with me. In fact, I acutely remember your sword flaying me.”

“If I’d wanted to kill you, you would have died. But I didn’t want that then and I don’t want it now. I hold to my promises, Erland.”

Accusation is slabbed thickly onto those words and Arnaghad holds out another spoonful of stew which Erland dutifully swallows. It’s not the first time the sickness held him down so hard he had to be fed, but it feels strangely agitating for Arnaghad to be the one to do it. After he left and founded his own school, the only snippets Erland ever heard about the bear witcher were rumours of his death, especially with the vipers splitting off the bear school. Perhaps, Erland liked to believe that Arnaghad was dead because that took away the possibility of whatever was happening now. Perhaps, Erland left the one promise he spent all his life circumventing at Morgraig Castle the day he set out for Kaer Seren. Perhaps, Arnaghad didn’t change at all and neither did Erland.

“Do you even remember?” Arnaghad asks quietly, then allows himself a few gulps of soup before refilling the bowl. He doesn’t meet Erland’s eyes, but Erland can see the faint glow of anguish speckling his cheekbones. Oh, but this is bad. If Arnaghad goes berserk in here, they’ll both be buried in rock and ice and Erland is too awake and vivacious now to want that.

“Remember what?” Erland asks, feigning ignorance as long as that leaves him the proverbial high ground, the only place from which he can match Arnaghad’s sheer height. He accepts another two spoons, then shakes his head. His stomach feels brilliantly full, close to bursting, and he rubs it weakly. Arnaghad puts the bowl to his lips and drinks the rest of the stew. They’ll both want more later, especially with the firewood dwindling, but for now the next field is to be played. It all gets muddled anyway, who is he kidding. Erland sighs and that lets Arnaghad’s gaze snap upwards, latching onto Erland’s. They silently glower at each other for a handful of breaths.

“Of course, you do,” Arnaghad says eventually. “Knowing you, you remember your exact words.”

“I do,” Erland says and the ghost of his own voice flashes through his mind.

My heart lies at the end of a dream, Arnaghad. And as long as that dream remains unfulfilled, I cannot give it to you.

“You lied.”

“I didn’t lie, I never lied,” Erland protests, but Arnaghad shakes his head.

“I don’t understand. You obviously felt something for me, feel something still. Oh, don’t give me that look, I told you I care. I always paid attention to you, you know that.”

Erland does. It pains him to admit it, but he does.

“I didn’t lie,” he repeats, hands balling into fists.

“You threw me scraps of affection when it would have cost you nothing to invite me to your table,” Arnaghad says.

“Do we really have to do this now? I told you I want you gone.”

“I saved your life.”

“UNBIDDEN,” Erland screams and his arm shoots out in an arc. It is only by Arnaghad’s quick reflexes that the Aard doesn’t have him fly into the back wall. Erland heaves, watching Arnaghad’s thick Quen dissolve with a buzzing static, and he doesn’t know what’s gotten into him. After everything, he doesn’t want to hurt Arnaghad, of course he doesn’t.

“Why couldn’t you love me?” Arnaghad says, so fucking stubborn in his resolve to have this conversation. What a stupidly vulnerable question.

Back then, Erland bought in to the delusions he liked to paint for himself in blood and gore. He was destined for more, he was a noble knight, he was to rid the world of evil forevermore. Arnaghad didn’t fit in with that dream. He would try and keep Erland from it because he didn’t understand, had no ambitions for himself. And while that was, and likely still is true, it was never the reason Erland didn’t allow anything more than physical between them. But it was the reason he clung to and dangled before Arnaghad’s eyes over and over. After the night of the sundering… it didn’t matter so much anymore and Erland locked the true reason away in a dark corner of his heart, huddled together with the feelings he held hostage in the hopes they would fade to nothing.

Erland listens to his own heartbeat thump at his temples in a nagging ache and he forfeits his answer. Arnaghad doesn’t deserve forgiveness for what he did to Rhys and Erland and whomever else his sword cleaved, but he deserves the truth.

“You really want to know why?” he asks weakly, cringing inwardly at Arnaghad’s curt nod. Erland continues on a sigh, feeling fragile now that his anger evaporated with the sign he just cast. “I was afraid. I ruined my mother’s life by existing and I couldn’t spare Jagoda the experiments Alzur put us through and I never managed to make the humans see us as anything other than aberrations. I can slay monsters and teach others to do the same, but I can’t save the people I love.”

“That is horseshit, just complete and utter horseshit. Your mother was a right old cunt and nothing could have saved Jagoda. All the girls died, remember? Do you blame yourself for their deaths too?”

“My school,” Erland whispers, blinking rapidly to do away with those questions. “I loved them too and now they all lay buried under rubble. My brothers, my sons, my whole life. I loved them and I couldn’t save them. I’m a curse.”

“…why did you never say anything?” Arnaghad reaches out and his thick fingers brush Erland’s scraggly face. Erland stifles a dry sob. Some truths are better left unspoken and this was definitely one of them. He never dared to utter it to himself, in the quiet safety of his own mind, and now Arnaghad knows it. Arnaghad his ex-lover, used-to-be friend, nemesis for some years, phantom of his past for more, saviour of his life. Arnaghad who does, when it comes down to it, have a claim to his heart.

“Because you would have ridiculed me, as you itch to do now.”

“It is true that I was never good at understanding how other people feel,” Arnaghad says and his thumbs come to rests against Erland’s temples, smoothing out the ache there. He shuffles closer and their knees bump together which sends a jolt through Erland’s weakened frame. “But if you would have told me this, I would have found it impossible to demean you. I care, Erland, why won’t you believe that?”

Because you don’t care about anything other than your own survival.

Because it took five years for you to ever look at me twice and double the time for you to answer my frequent knocks on your door.

Because you attacked our brother and cut me and your eyes were filled with pure hatred.

Because you spent decades on your mountain, pretending like that was the only life you ever knew.

Because…

Erland grasps for more reasons, grasps for the steely indifference he felt for Arnaghad ever since the day he left Morgraig for Haern Caduch. He stops. No forgiveness, not yet. But perhaps, in the face of his grief and all that he lost, it would do well to cast his gaze into the future. Erland releases his tense muscles and lets go of something. After, his breath comes easier.

“You would have me believe that your care is rooted in love? Even after all this time?” he asks.

“Yes,” Arnaghad replies. So simple, huh?

“So maybe you love me. That doesn’t change the fact that I would have let you down.” Or Arnaghad him. Or maybe they were fated to let each other down.

“Look, birdie. I don’t know what it means to dream big, but I know this, and I know it for certain: you did what you could and because you’re a persistent shit, you did it exceptionally well. There are forces at work in this world one man alone cannot overcome. You did what you could.”

Erland doesn’t know what to say to that. Because that isn’t simple, that is insightful and attentive and not at all Arnaghad’s usual refrain. Maybe he did change and Erland is the only one who stagnated. He feels stupid, all of a sudden. Stupid for holding himself up to such high standards, stupid for being afraid in the face of his own bravery, stupid for ever calling himself honourable.

What man gives up on love because he assumes himself to be cursed? No knight. A coward.

“Could I have stopped you?” Erland asks. “If I had loved you, could I have stopped you from attacking Rhys and from waging your war on the rest of us witchers? Could I have changed the course of history?”

“You’re doing it again,” Arnaghad replies with a sly smile. He shakes his head and leans over his own legs to press a dry and warm kiss to Erland’s lips. In a way, it’s a homecoming. In a different one, it’s completely novel. Erland tilts his head for a second kiss that has his body thrum with wanting more, and Arnaghad allows it, for a bit. It’s another kind of warmth, that of their bodies re-learning one another and before long, Erland finds himself on Arnaghad’s lap, held close in a way he thought he’d never be held again. It isn’t forgiveness. It’s far from forgiveness. But it’s a start.

VI.

“Erland, there is something I have to tell you,” Arnaghad says long after they have spent the pent-up emotions of the last centuries in drawn-out kisses and frantic clashes of their body. They’re both tucked under the quilt and the bearskin, Erland’s beaten body sheltered in Arnaghad’s mountainous embrace. Erland gives a sated mumble, basking in the magic of the moment for just a heartbeat longer. Of course it couldn’t last, contentedness with Arnaghad is always the eye of the storm. “Listen to me,” Arnaghad continues and a sense of urgency replaces whatever fluttery feelings Erland just had. “I didn’t come to the Dragon Mountains to find you nor had I head of Kaer Seren’s fall. I came here for a reprieve from the storm. Have you seen it before you entered?”

“It will pass,” Erland says, unwilling to match Arnaghad’s frantic cadence. His chest is a warm rumble behind Erland, an upset sky. Damn Arnaghad and his terrible timing. “Winter is always brutal in these parts and the storms bite, but they pass.”

“It’s not winter, we are coming up on Belleteyn.”

Belleteyn… that means it’s almost May. Erland blinks stupidly before the implications sink in. Snow storms in May simply don’t happen.

“By the gods,” he breathes, and grips Arnaghad’s hand which is splayed over his own chest. His body tenses up and the cave feels stuffy now. “How long has the storm been going on for?”

“October,” Arnaghad says warily and that is so much worse than Erland expected. A harbinger of conflict Erland can deal with, an old love he can squabble over, but he is not at all equipped to handle an apocalypse. It has to be the end of the world because October is only a month after Erland entered the mountains and straight-out winter for close to eight months can only mean one thing:

“The White Frost.”

Arnaghad nods, cheek rubbing against Erland’s head. A branch in the fire bursts with a mighty crack right then, as though it is afraid too. The prophesised end of the world. Erland always assumed it was a tale to scare children and he doesn’t believe in foresight. There is no other explanation. Arnaghad’s other hand draws Erland closer and his steady mass of muscles help anchor Erland as the emotional storm resumes alongside the one that rages outside.

“I know this is a lot, but we don’t have much time. Is there anywhere we can go? You are weak still and these peaks will not protect us for long.”

“I… yes. There is a gulf that runs deeply under Kaer Seren, it carries heat out of the earth’s core and disperses some leagues out into the ocean. We have dug our cellars deep enough to tap it for the winter months… we might have food stores left too, but… I don’t know that there is a way in any longer and with a snow storm we might die trying.”

“Better to die trying than to die giving up,” Arnaghad says.

“If this truly is the White Frost, is there any chance of survival?” Erland asks closing his eyes. This is not how he wants to go out, not when he still has so much grieving and loving to do. Not when he just discovered that he can.

“I’ve never been through an apocalypse before, I couldn’t tell you. We got this far, though, so we might as well try.”

“Might as well,” Erland sighs, pulling on Arnghad’s fingers to bite the tip of one of them. The other witcher grunts indignantly. “But I’m not spending the rest of eternity stuck in a damp basement with you if you are going to keep wearing that bearskin. My nose may be clogged up with snot, but I can still smell it and it reeks. Did you piss on it?”

“I didn’t, but you might have with all the feverish thrashing and moaning you did.”

“Fuck off,” Erland snaps and they both laugh. It’s a glimpse of a relationship they barely scratched the surface of back then. If they survive now, they could learn its ins and outs yet.

And if Erland is anything, if he’s ever been anything, it is determined. He is determined to give his long life one last purpose. It’s a selfish purpose, lacking chivalry and heroism, but Arnaghad was right. He did what he could and now he can allow himself this, a shot at love in the middle of the apocalypse. Erland’s had more idealistic and futile dreams.

“What a horrible retirement Destiny has chosen for us,” he says.

“This isn’t worse than being dragged away by an ugly mage and suffering his experiments for years and years.”

“Speak for yourself, big bear, speak for yourself.”

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

@witcher-rarepair-summer-bingo , @littoraly-art

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herstarburststories · 4 years

Text

Treacherous

Pairing: Demon!Dean x Reader

Summary: You finally fall for Demon!Dean's charm and give yourself to him.

Warnings: oral sex (male receiving), language, smasgt.

You grimaced when your feet touched the cold ground of your bedroom, although it was still strange to think about that place as such. After all, it had been years sleeping and not sleeping in a room shared with Dean. To glare at the walls and not to find any rock bands posters or accidentally trip on one of his adult magazines was at the bare minimum. But then, there was nothing you could do about that. Accepting a demon version of your boyfriend’s invitation to stay in your and Dean’s old room was completely out of limits.

Dean, or his demon self, as you needed to remind yourself more than you’d like to admit, was living in the bunker again after an unsuccessful attempt of curing him. Castiel had said that maybe the cure didn’t work out as all of you intended, but it could’ve somehow reminded him of humanly emotions in a deeper sense.

Cas had been resting in the bunker more than usual just to make sure that you and Sam were safe. When he wasn’t there, the angel would be busy looking for another way to cure the eldest Winchester. You and Sam had been searching as much as possible, outside of Dean’s protests against it.

‘’Personally, I like the disease. Come on, guys. I’m still me, just better,” he had said right before he started looking for a new case.

Shaking your head, you rose up from the bed. The clock appointed two in the AM, reporting your obvious insomnia. A sigh escaped from your lips as you walked out the door, silently pacing towards the kitchen. Perhaps a cup of water would help. If you were lucky, the chocolate bar you had left in the fridge would be there still.

The frosty breeze from the refrigerator on your face was near to a midnight relief, which caused you to smile softly. Its light was your only company while you looked for the forgotten chocolate bar, until a deep voice spoke: ‘’You have been avoiding me, sweetheart.’’

You turned around with a swift move, mildly surprised by his sudden presence. Dean smirked at you, half of his face concealed by the darkness that the refrigerator light couldn’t reach.

You huffed. ‘’It’s two in the morning, and I just came to get some water, Dean. Let’s not start it.’’

‘’But I wanna start it, (Y/N). Come on, it’s been days.’’ Out of nowhere, he grabbed your waist and pulled you closer, the blackish shadows enveloping both of you. You gasped, placing your hands on his chest to separate you two.

‘’Let me go!’’ You groaned at Dean, pushing him away, but it didn’t have any effect. If anything, he only pulled you closer. You couldn't see anything in the dark. Yet, it wasn’t quite necessary. His breath hitting your cheek was warning enough of how close he was.

‘’I get it, (Y/N). You miss the good ol’ Dean, but he is gone for good, sweetheart. I’m all that’s left. Don’t you miss me enough to want me like this?’’

Before your answer, he held you. Pressing his body to yours, you felt his semi erect cock against you. You pursed your lips together in an attempt to keep the clear pleasure of feeling his body to yourself. You didn’t need to give him such satisfaction. Besides, he wasn’t your Dean.

He wasn’t your Dean, you had to remind yourself. What was pretty complicated considering how close you were, and how many wonderful memories were attached to similar situations.

‘’What? Cat got your tongue?’’ Dean smirked, moving his hips against yours. A weak moan left your lips. He grinned, leaning him to lick your neck with no scruples. ‘’Or demon did?’’ Although his voice remained harsh and deadly sexy, even his tune had changed. The way he laughed was treacherous, like everything about a demon was supposed to be. You should be scared. You should be mad. You should be anything but attracted to what once was your loving Dean. People didn’t see a demon and fantasize about getting in bed with them. They ran away and started searching for a religious solution to protect them. Right now, it seemed like you were praying to stay with the devil.

Deep down, it was him. There was a fragile, tiny voice in your mind that insisted for you to believe that. He was still your Dean, damaged as fuck, but the man you had loved for years. All your rationality told you to run away, to push him, scream at him until Sam woke up, just so you wouldn’t have a way near Dean again. You had been doing it with ease for three days, but it was only getting harder.

And this Dean made sure that your self control wasn’t the only thing getting harder. His clothed boner was still pressed against you. It grew more excited as he bit your neck, right on the sweet spot where most of his marks were left behind before.

You sniffled softly, which could be easily misunderstood by a low moan. He felt like your Dean. He looked like your Dean. He had your Dean’s memories. But he didn’t laugh like your Dean. He didn’t touch you like him, either. He was more assertive, certainly rougher. Even his mouth on your neck right now showed that. Still, he was too close. After months. He was here. Not quite the Dean you cried endless tears for, but it was enough for tonight.

You needed it. You needed Dean Winchester in whatever shape he would come. No one could point fingers at you for that; they didn’t know what it was like. He could not be your Dean, but he could love you like he did. And if that wasn't possible, he could fuck you like Dean used to.

Unseen tears rolled on your cheeks as you pushed him to the wall. You didn’t dare to make any further noise. It took Dean a second to understand what was going on, but an ill-natured smirk conquered his features when he did. He surely as hell had a good amount of memories on how you enjoyed sucking him off back then, as much as he loved eating you out for records. Your knees met your ground like a prayer’s would, but you weren’t looking for forgiveness. Pretty the opposite, you jumped right in the sin. There was no one, not even a higher power that could stop or help you now. You had crossed the line as you unzipped his pants and got rid of his jeans as fast as possible.

‘’You have no idea how much I missed your mouth, sweetheart.’’

When your lips touched the tip of his hardness, you didn’t feel any relief. It wasn’t a matter of just wanting to have sex with him. It was a necessity. Much like an addict getting another dose of the drug, there was no heavenly, rose-colored feeling. It was just a fulfilment of a need. You needed him, and who could blame you for that? After all you had been through, after fighting every instinct in your body to keep a safe distance, after seeing him die and come back only to lose him again. Maybe the Winchester was your perdition, like many people had told you before in a futile attempt to give friendly advice. Maybe you had achieved the limit or love had ultimately made you crazy.

Your body was shaking in abstinence as you finally put his trembling cock inside your mouth, not taking time to lick the drop of precum like you usually did to tease Dean before doing what he wished. His eyes were closed, head resting against the wall as he bit his lower lip. His precum was being cleaned up by your experienced tongue moving around his length. Your hand grabbed what wasn’t in your mouth yet, moving it up and down to make him more excited.

‘’Fuck, (Y/N). Do it, get all of me in that pretty little mouth of yours. You always loved it, didn’t you?’’ Dean’s groans were an evident desire for you to give him more, but, on your knees, it seemed like you were the one begging. Begging him to stay, to love you, to give you anything to hold on to. And if sex in the kitchen while Sam was sleeping and Castiel was doing an angelic version of rest was it, then so fucking be it.

You coughed a bit as you got more of his dick in your mouth, until your hand was completely replaced. You moaned against his cock when it hit the back of your throat. It only incentivized him even more. Dean’s hand finally found your hair, his fingers running through the (Y/H/C) sea as he asserted the rhythm. As you expected, he was fast, rough. Just what you needed.

After everything that happened to him, since the mark of Cain to his resurrection into a demon, you had been broken. And all your tiny, little pieces together were looking for him. Now, your mind was long gone, and all you knew was Dean Winchester. He was there. He was alive. He was with you again.

You sucked his cock, trying to follow his lead as much as you could without choking. Your tongue swirling around, up, and down his length. The grip on your hair tighter as he increased the pace, searching for his climax. Your pussy was a wet mess since you got on the ground for him, but you allowed your hand to slip into your panties and rub your clit as your mouth was fucked by Dean.

‘’Fuck, (Y/N). I’m coming. Will you be my good girl and swallow all of it?’’ Dean continued moving your head and his hips violently, your fingers caressing yourself as his cock bumped your throat carelessly. He was almost there, and so were you.

Your name left his lips in the form of a loud howl. It almost didn’t sound human. Well, it could always be the demon in him. His semen invaded your mouth as soon as your hands got dirty with your own climax, and all in your head was him, his name, the feeling that always accompanished his touches. You couldn't help but want him to keep close to you, a vivid reminder that he was there. He pulled away from you, and you almost whined, wanting to crawl closer to him. Fortunately, Dean didn’t plan on being apart from you for more than a few seconds, soon leaning forward to grab your jaw. The perfect angle for the refrigerator light to brighten his face. He looked at you through his lashes, indigo eyes dark with desire.

‘’Swallow all of it, (Y/N),” he commanded, as if you weren’t gonna do it anyway. You simply nodded, swallowing every single drop of his cum. That orgasm, though, didn’t feel as much like liberation as it should’ve. It felt like falling from grace. A sweet, tasty fall, but still. ‘’Open your mouth, let me see if you did as I told you. You always loved being my spicy, stubborn girl.’’ Dean pressed your jaw with his fingers. You opened your mouth for him, sticking your tongue out, only to gain a satisfied smile from the currently green-eyed man. ‘’What do we have here?’’ He grabbed your hand and pulled it closer to his lips, vivid eyes glaring at you as if he had caught a little kid doing something wrong. ‘’You were touching yourself, sweetheart? And came just from it and sucking me? How dirty.’’ Dangerously soft laughter echoed from his body but was soon ended when he licked your fingers, enjoying your taste. How he had missed you. ‘’Delicious, as always. You know what’s better? All of it just for me.’’

The refrigerator noises made the anthem for the moment you had sure you had lost your mind. What was done was done. Whatever it took, you couldn't lose him. Not again. You needed him.

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oneweekoneband · 3 years

Text

i didn’t though

youtube

When I was twenty and tractable I listened to “Treacherous” and I believed Taylor Swift was telling me something, because “I’ll do anything you say / If you say it with your hands”, is not content meant for straight people, even though legally they, too, are allowed to hear it, and they do generally have hands. When Taylor Swift drank beers with Karlie Kloss at a Knicks game in 2014, I believed she was telling me something even more forcefully, because, really, why be at Knicks game if not just to kill time politely before fucking whoever you’re there with. When reputation was released and it contained “Dress”, a song about buying a certain item of clothing to look good for a person you love specifically not “like a best friend” so that after “all the pining and anticipation” they can remove it from your body and you can drink wine together in the bath, I believed Taylor was screaming a confession at me, and I was more than ready to receive it. When I heard from multiple sources just last year, amidst the aggressive rainbow-deluge of the Lover promo cycle, an ultimately false rumor that said Taylor was going to come out in a Rolling Stone cover story I, somehow, incredibly, brain as smooth as a baby’s ass, believed that too.

I have believed a lot of things. And it’s a nice diversion, to believe like that. But, more recently, I’ve found that the detective in me has turned away from this one. The only facts I’ll ever know about Taylor Swift are those she wishes to share, and speculating about what secrets she may or may not be hiding is a distraction from the real, joyful work of appreciating all these already literally, unequivocally, very gay songs. I’ve found, well, that I just don’t care anymore, which sucks, as I detest the squirmy idea that I might be growing as a person. But the truth is one really can write extremely, objectively homoerotic love songs yet be, for all intents and purposes, terminally straight. And like that poignant tweet about Lin Manuel Miranda tells us, you can seem gay, because of, like, your whole deal, and then it turns out you’re just annoying. You can even have a torrid love affair with your one-time supermodel best friend and in the end just want to marry some guy from The Favourite (Allegedly from The Favourite. I have seen that film three times and could not pick that man out of a lineup if my life depended on it.) and maybe there’s nothing to announce to anybody about it at all. Sexuality is complex and personal, and Taylor’s own sexuality doesn’t much matter to me, outside of how I always think it’s nice to know there’s yet another bisexual white woman out here in the world being even more irritating than me. (I say this strictly in terms of labeling; it ought to go without saying that Taylor’s various psychosexual obsessions with things like Amy from Gone Girl, and The Kennedys, and her house in Rhode Island matter to me immensely.) It doesn’t matter because it has no bearing on the fact that she keeps dropping queer classics.

Anyway, yeah, most good Taylor Swift songs are gay, just like most good things, generally, and there’s a number of viable picks on folklore, except not “betty”, no matter what the collective banshee’s wail of the Internet tells you. The gayest thing about “betty” is that it’s Taylor putting herself in the mind of a skateboarding teenage boy, which, yes, admittedly, is a big homo vibe, but nowhere in or around this song are any people of the same gender identity smashing bathing suit parts together, or even thinking about doing so, and when there are so many better options available, I feel it is prudent that we have just the barest hint of standards. As queerness itself is malleable, wonderfully, painfully individual, and comes in no one standard format, so too is determining which song on a Taylor Swift album is the most gay a singular, complicated calculus we all must do for ourselves within our own hearts, and, of course, there are no wrong answers, unless it so happens that your answer is not “the 1”.

“the 1” made me lose my grip for a moment. A cool lament, calmly wrenching, right off it was sucking out my bone marrow and I wasn’t able to name why. (Well, except, obviously, that the twin unit of, “You know the greatest films of all time were never made,” and “You know the greatest loves of all time are over now,” is pure, not from concentrate, peak embarrassing & devastating & all the more embarrassing for being so devastating Swiftian lyricism.) Finally, weeks after the release, out walking the streets of Los Angeles midday, masked and fractious, lower back sticky, brain a little mean, buying a soda at the gas station just to talk to someone, it came to me that “the 1” is a spiritual sequel to Red’s drum-heavy forever banger “Holy Ground”. The Taylor of “Holy Ground” reminisces frantically about a lost love, some near-miss from youth. That drumbeat is a racing heart. The animating nervousness of “Holy Ground”, the way you can almost hear the narrator’s limbs flapping wildly against her body when she says that she’s dancing, has from the beginning marked this song to me as a story of looking back on some sort of formless and magical teenaged queer encounter. “Holy Ground” is looking at a precious memory like it’s a firefly in cupped hands—small and special and easy to lose—being not entirely certain what the memory means, since whatever it was that happened back then, you never really talked it out. “Holy Ground” is about a love that for all its vitality did not work out, but it is appreciative rather than sad. “But sometimes I wonder how you think about it now,” Taylor sings, “and I see your face in every crowd.”

“But we were something, don’t you think so?” asks “the 1”, imploring an ex to confirm her version of events, to agree that she’s remembering it right. Taylor has not ever struggled in her work with place and the self and matching the two against one another on the wriggling timeline of the human life. I was there I was there I was there. The question here is something else. Not was it real, but was it real to you, and do you remember now what that was like. Do you remember who I was then? What we were? The truth as it pertains to the heart of another is guesswork at best, and a troublesome kind. Memories break and bend, or weren’t even recorded right to begin with, every brain a dirty liar, and for two separate, imperfect creatures to share the responsibility of preserving one history together is a disaster. The hard facts then are grounding. Essential. “I thought I saw you at the bus stop / I didn’t though”. Everyone has past romances that they still ask questions about, yes—I am not practicing my virulent heterophobia today—but none of my queer friends are without at least one were-we-or-weren’t-we in their past, a clinch with another that was incandescent and unnameable, long over but dangling forever there loose outside the neat boxes of friend or lover. To be a queer person is to exist already beyond and without the organizing structures of heterosexuality, and this can be difficult, dangerous, but in liminality there is freedom, and in years of painstakingly debating whether I wanted to be or bang so many various somebodys I have, along the way, put the pieces of myself in the order they fit best. So then there are loves where you aren’t sure if that’s technically what it was, if it’s what they’d call it, too. Or loves that were undeniably real, only we were too busy back then with trying to turn into ourselves to keep it. And loves from the very start, from walking together on colt legs, exuberant and unprepared, and the memory is a blessing, and the memory is guilt.

“the 1”, to the ear, is softer and slinkier than “Holy Ground”, but the lyrics are dismantling. “Holy Ground” says, “And darling, it was good / Never looking down”. Full of longing, but cheerful and sure. “the 1” is older, resigned. On “the 1” Taylor mourns a love not only because it has ended, but because she can sense, from the safety of time’s remove, that it was a love which deserved better, could have been better, if things had been only a little different, if they’d felt brave enough to try just a little more. In this version of nostalgia, the golden haze of “Holy Ground” is ribboned by a vaporous shame, a regret. The song relates a story of a love that is farther out of reach and meant more than what the little girl of “Holy Ground” could have dreamt. “In my defense I have none / for digging up the grave another time / but it would’ve been fun / if you would’ve been the one”.

#taylor swift #folklore

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saiilorstars · 3 years

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The Girl in the Forest

Chapter 26: To All My Children

// Story Masterlist //

Fandom: The Originals

Pairings: Klaus Mikaelson x OFC

Pronunciation of OC’s name: Ma-leh-nee

Requested tag: @queenmj10 @ocfairygodmother @anotherunreadblog @maaaaarveeeeel

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Chapter Summary: Maleny succumbs to a spell that allows her to relive her time as Iris Velden, the body in which she gave birth to her son. At the end, she shares her memories with Klaus, though admits that there's a part of the story she feels she can't remember, and two then promise that they will bring their son home. But what Maleny couldn't remember will end up coming for them later on.

Because Maleny has been switched bodies once again, her temporary face claim is Adriana Louvier.

Iris Velden walked alongside Klaus in the courtyard of the Velden residence during the middle of the day. There was no one around for the attractions were inside for one of the family's daily celebrations.

Iris giggled as Klaus spoke of his younger siblings who apparently drove him mad. It was part of the reason for him being outside. He had gotten into some sort of argument with one of them and preferred to be alone.

"I must say I never heard anyone talk about their family that way," she looked at him.

"Because no one has a family like I do," Klaus said as if it were obvious. Then again, she thought he was just another human being. She truly had no idea the complications within his family.

"Well, my brother does often anger me," Iris shrugged, "but I suppose it's never been enough to get me really angry like you say you have. Still, I should like to help you distract yourself from your family troubles," she reached for Klaus' hand.

Klaus stopped walking and turned to face her, "Do you have an ideas?"

Iris blushed and looked down, "Well, I was thinking...just...spend time together…" she looked up to see his response but was met with a pair of lips pressed against hers. With a giggle, she broke the kiss and looked up at him, "I was not going to suggest something like that."

Klaus tilted her chin up, his eyes flickering from her eyes to her lips, "Then let me suggest it…" he leaned down for another kiss.

"You think we can break her out soon?" Amarrah was questionably flickering her gaze from the unconscious Maleny on Klaus' bed to Freya who stood beside her.

"No," Freya regretted to admit, and as soon as she did, Klaus (who'd been standing beside Maleny) turned on the two women.

"You did this!" he furiously stalked up to Freya, "And you need to fix it!"

Freya wished she could do so and win back her brother's good side, but she could not as the spell didn't permit her so. She shook her head, "I can't. Maleny has entered a dream induced coma-" but seeing the explanation was only making him act worse she quickly added, "But she will wake up! No later than tonight she will be up and she will be okay. Her mind is just releasing all those subdued memories - the best we can do is let it be exposed."

Before Klaus could come up with another gruesome threat he'd been throwing Freya's way, they all heard a loud crash coming from another room. The three went out to the corridor and realizing the noise was from Hope's nursery, Klaus sped towards there. Rebekah stood over Hope's crib inside a rattled up nursery while Hayley was recuperating from a clear attack.

"Rebekah! What are you doing?" he lunged for her, meaning to bring her down not to hurt her.

However, Eva cast a pain infliction that forced him on his knees. Hayley ran back to fight but with the same spell she was brought down and forced to choke. With the pain, Klaus forcibly brought out his wolf claws and gnashed Eva's thigh with them. Eva screamed and dropped the spell. Knowing she would not win then, she made a dash for the open window and jumped out for a clean escape. Slowly regaining their strength, Klaus and Hayley got to their feet and checked on Hope. The baby was sat in her crib, completely at ease and calm.

"We need to do something," Hayley told Klaus in a heavy pant. Clearly Rebekah was no longer in control of Eva Sinclair's body and it was only a matter of time until she returned to cause more chaos.

~ 0 ~

"I don't understand how this happened," Amarrah sat on the edge of Maleny's bed and gazed upon her friend, not even surprised something like this had happened to her.

Freya kept her distance for she knew Klaus would come back and push her far away if she was closer to Maleny than his liking allowed. She crossed her arms and rubbed her face, "Maleny wanted to remember more of her son, so she asked me to perform a spell. I warned her of the side affects and she said it was fine. I never thought it would actually happen."

Amarrah didn't display the same anger Klaus did towards Freya. She only sighed and patted Maleny's hand, "Maleny would, of course, take the chance if it meant she could remember her long lost son. I'm not mad with you, Freya, I'm mad at the luck she has. To not even remember she had a son…"

Freya had long been examining Amarrah - the moment the woman walked in with a French accent actually. She stepped closer, but still not too much. "You're one of them, aren't you?" Amarrah looked up, confused with the brief accusation. "You're a descendant of the Collin bloodline?"

Amarrah nodded. "Yes, and I suppose the story of a man and a woman dropping off Maleny's body to my oh-so-many-times grandmother was you and Nicolas?"

"Yes," Freya lightly smiled. "Thank you for taking care of her - Nicolas will be very happy to know your family has taken care of her all this time."

"We really have," Amarrah smiled and looked down at Maleny again. "Ever since I could remember, the story of the sleeping girl in the attic was told to my cousins and I. We were told that long ago, she was left at our care because evil witches had put her into a sleep curse. It was our duty to make sure no harm ever came her way so long as she was still asleep. I guess none of us ever really thought about what would happen when she woke up..."

"Where is she!?" they heard the voice of Alton from outside. Amarrah's face dropped even further when she realized Alton was going to be matching Klaus' horrible mood. This was, after all, his girlfriend's body Maleny was taking over.

Minutes later, Alton came into Maleny's room and ran straight for the brunette. "Yamilet!"

Iris was coming out of her bedroom chamber when she heard distinct shouts coming from Rebekah and Klaus. While she didn't make out all the words, she did hear Klaus threatening Rebekah which concluded with a louder shout from Rebekah followed by angry stomps going away. When Iris was sure there was no one left to see she made way for Klaus' room. He was just returning when she arrived.

"What's happened?" she whispered for fear of being overheard by someone, "I heard shouts and…" Klaus didn't let her finish and instead brought her inside his bedroom.

"Rebekah is making bad decisions as usual," was his brief response as he closed the door.

Iris had come to learn poor Rebekah was always judged by her siblings too wrongly because they didn't understand her. Crossing her arms, she gave Klaus a sharp look, "And just what exactly has Rebekah done to earn so many of your shouts?"

"She's in this phase of apparently loving someone and she cannot see it is completely wrong!"

Iris chuckled, confusing him, "Oops, I suppose this would be my cue to leave as well, then?"

Klaus' anger simmer upon hearing her words, unable to return the playful banter, "Things are different with you, love," he walked up to her and cupped her face, "You are nor treacherous nor a liar."

The smile widening on Iris' face assured Klaus he had chosen well with her, "I am glad to be on your good list. But perhaps if you listened to Rebekah's words then you could try to understand her."

"Rebekah has a way with words that leaves me wanting to cut them off," Klaus rolled his eyes and dropped his hands from her face.

"Well, someone has to listen to her…"

"Someone did - Maleny had the patience we all lacked with Rebekah." Klaus blurted before realizing. When he did, he felt the pang in his heart scold him for bringing her up.

Iris warmly looked at him, understanding his guilt. It would happen on occasions now, slowly less and less but it was still strong enough to make him feel guilty for it. She reached for his arm, gently making him look at her, "It's fine," she whispered calmly, "Bringing her up is not some sort of sin, you know."

"I know," Klaus gave a small nod, "But it's…"

"Complex?" she finished and received another nod in response, "Well of course it's complex. It's a first love, my dear. Those are always difficult. But it is possible to move on from when proposed. Remember, under the stars?"

'Under the Stars' had come to turn into something deeply important for Klaus as his newfound relationship with Iris developed. It told him, it reminded him, that Maleny Rowan, albeit deceased, was now in peace. She was the stars that lit up the dark skies that led him where he wanted to go. And under those stars, he would always love her, and they would, in turn, want him to be happy - as best as he could in his situation.

Klaus gave in with a sheepish smile, "Under the stars," he agreed in a quiet whisper.

"FREYA!" Klaus' loud shout startled the blonde witch along with Amarrah. However, upon entering the room he was met with hostility from Alton who had remained by Maleny's side.

"This is why you had me leave with the pack for the bayou!?" he angrily stalked towards Klaus, but the hybrid remained unphased, "So yet another member of your family could hurt her!?"

"Um, Alton…" Amarrah's shaky voice made no effect on the wolf man. Freya knew at the moment it was better to keep her mouth shut.

Klaus was near the brink of his patience and so he calmly instructed Alton, "Take a step back and listen to what I have to say."

"We are done," Alton shook his head, "From day one I should have taken Yamilet's body to the bayou where I would protect her until the spell was broken. I am taking her with me-"

"You are not taking Maleny anywhere," Klaus cut him off, though calm his words were laced with a dangerous warning of a challenge, "And if you should try then it will be no one's fault but your own when I tell dear old Yamilet - when she wakes up - that her boyfriend had his heart yanked out of his body."

The threat wasn't taken lightly by Alton - it infuriated him more the situation was being taken so calmly, "For someone who claims to oh-so-love this woman," he extended an arm back to Maleny, "You sure seem to let your family harm her more than anyone else. In fact, you also keep hurting her."

Patience was gone and replaced by the usual murderous instincts. Klaus had grabbed Alton by the neck and pushed him against a wall, "So then, what exactly will I tell Yamilet first when she regains control? How you died or how I chucked your body out into the street?"

"Klaus, stop!" Amarrah exclaimed and went to try to get the hybrid to back off. But of course her strength was of no use.

"Don't act like it's not true!" Alton snapped, continuing with his accusations against Klaus, "I know your story, Maleny told me. How do you live with yourself knowing that you not only hurt her but now - because of you and your family - your own son was taken and turned into a slave."

"STOP!" Amarrah screamed in horror as Klaus flung Alton out of the room, the man crashing against the rails and promptly falling to the floor.

Klaus walked out of the room with all intentions of ripping the man's heart out of his body, "I never did like you," he muttered as he made way for Alton.

"ENOUGH!" it was Freya who ended the quarrel with pain infliction spells that forced both men to back down, "Now I may have done wrong but it was all Maleny's choice," she angrily told both, "and I know she wouldn't like it if she woke up to see both of you dead."

"You are the last person to speak about this," Klaus got to his feet, glowering at her for her spell.

"And yet I am but of one of the two people who could help you with Rebekah," Freya stood her ground and stepped forwards, "Now I may have indirectly caused this but Maleny will remember her son and that will make her happy. Isn't that what matters in the end?"

"I want her awake!" Klaus frantically came at her, not to attack but to turn her to the room where Maleny laid asleep, "That is what matters to me!"

Freya sighed, understanding his pain. She looked at him softly, "I promise you by tonight she will wake. Allow me to help with Rebekah in the meantime, please?"

"Alton and I can stay with Mal," Amarrah offered for extra comfort, "And I promise he will behave himself," she added with a small glare towards Alton, daring him to say otherwise. "Maleny will stay right here."

With one last glance at Maleny, Klaus agreed with a small sigh. However his threatening mood took over his face when directed towards Freya, "If she does not wake by tonight I will make sure your suffering is tenfolds than what ever it is Dahlia had put you under."

"Understood," Freya nodded and motioned for Klaus to lead the way.

Amarrah waited until the two siblings were gone before she went for Alton, "You really ought to stop picking fights," she sighed as she helped the wolf man to his feet, "Especially with Originals and one that has such a short temper."

"He needed to hear it," Alton grumbled, gently shaking off her hands and entering Maleny's bedroom, "It's his fault."

"Weeeeell," Amarrah began in a sing-song manner, "technically this isn't his fault," Alton turned on her menacingly, "I know Klaus has many...many faults," she made a face when she got to thinking about it, "but this one isn't one of them. Finn cast the spell because Mal pissed him off. And the Dahlia curse? That was on Esther Mikaelson. This is not Klaus' fault and you shouldn't blame him because you miss Yamilet. Don't forget he kind of lost Mal too in this."

Alton rolled his eyes and made way for Maleny, "At least he can talk to his girlfriend. Yamilet is lost in her own body and I can only watch as someone else walks and talks in it."

Amarrah felt sympathy for the man, able to half understand his anger directed at the Mikaelsons, "Yamilet will come back, I promise you that. But in the meantime you have to understand that everyone here is always trying to protect Mal."

"I can understand that," Alton nodded and looked at the French witch, "but they have to understand they're not the safest people she should be around with. They are a warzone."

On that, Amarrah remained silent.

~ 0 ~

Cami found Vincent in Rousseau's helping himself to plenty of bourbon. She was both glad she found him for Rebekah's sake but annoyed she found him in the state he was in. She agreed with Elijah to split and conquer for Rebekah - he, Hayley and Gia would go back to Josephine for a hopeful extension on the ultimatum given to them, Marcel would continue trying to track Eva down and she would try to get Vincent to help them.

"It's a bit early for that, don't you think?" she pointed to the glass Vincent held.

The man sighed, "You know why I'm sitting here day-drinking in the Quarter all by my lonesome? Because I'm pretty much done and through with the vamps, wolves, and witches of this town. And, from some of the looks I've been getting, they're through with me, too. So, if I'm sitting here, they don't see me, and if I drink... after a while, I don't see them, either."

Cami raised an eyebrow before tapping the photo of Eva that laid on the table, "And how many is it gonna take before she disappears?" Vincent reached to take the photo but Cami pulled it away, "You need to know that she is back and on the loose, and we need to find her before the witches do so that we can save my friend, who is trapped inside of her," and before Vincent could get a word out she added, "and simply because you choose to turn your back on us does not mean I will accept it. I don't take 'no' for an answer so…"

Cami made a motion for Vincent to get moving and or talking. With a roll of his eyes, Vincent began talking, "If Eva is back then, you need to let the witches put that body down! Eva will use up your friend, just like she did the others."

The last part caught Cami's attention, "Others? What does that mean…?"

"The first of the kids went missing two years ago. Feels like a lifetime. I was, uh, clocking in: college, work, coven. Felt like a normal life. But, um, had this woman. Met when we were sixteen years old, did our first bit of magic together... it was so insanely intense. And then the children began to disappear. First was a little girl named Amelie Dupree from Algiers. Then, Lou-Anne Hughes from the 9th, Nicholas Alseis from the Tremé. All young kids, all witch prodigies...phew... vanished into thin air. So, I put together a posse of guys from each of the covens, but the killer cloaked the kids so quickly, our locator spells was useless."

"Eva did all that?" Cami gaped at the horrors the woman was able to do.

"I was able to slap a locator spell on one of the kids right after he got snatched, and I got nothing at first. And then a car, and then a face... But that face, man- it was Eva. The love of my life. So, I caught her, confronted her... and then I saw the truth. She kept pleading with me... "Vince! Just three more little girls, Vince! Just three!"

"But...why did she need three more exactly?"

"To complete the Rite of Nines. Eva thought if she sacrificed a witch from each of the nine covens, it would create a new witch order in New Orleans. She would have been more powerful than any Elder. Any Harvest girl."

"Wait, wait, wait- but why kids?"

"Because their magic is untapped. It's pure. And, they're a hell of a lot easier to subdue."

"I never found those kids. They died; unconsecrated, unable to be with our ancestors," Vincent bitterly admitted, "Used as a source for Eva's magic."

"Okay then," Cami nodded, "So, help me find her before she takes any more lives, including Rebekah's. Help me stop her."

Vincent didn't answer right away, for he was torn with the heavy decision that now rested over his shoulders.

~ 0 ~

Freya was more than irritated to be walking with her wrists shackled with the magic-disabling manacles from the O'Connell's dark objects room. Klaus had snuck them up on her right before they left the compound and never explained why.

"I fail to see the need for these. I'm not your enemy," she told Klaus while the two walked down an aisle in the cemetery, "What happened to Maleny was an accident."

"Oh, they're not to protect me, love," Klaus rolled his eyes and yanked her into a main room of a tomb, gesturing over to a corner, "They're to protect her, the one who knows more about mind-invasion and body-jumping than all of us put together," he chucked two blood bags into the room.

Curious to see who he had locked up in there, Freya stepped forwards. She saw a hand reach out for the blood bags. As Freya studied the conditions of the woman she began to realize it was Esther.

"No!" Freya cried in horror and turned to leave but Klaus was blocking the way, "No! Stop!"

Klaus grabbed her by the shoulders, completely at ease as he turned her to Esther, "Mother? Freya. Freya? Mother," he introduced.

Esther, while still weak and almost desiccated, was in disbelief at the sight of Freya, "It... can't be."

Freya angrily turned to Klaus, "Is this some sort of punishment?"

"Esther is now a vampire," Klaus began to explain as he left her to go to Esther, "and as such, she's vulnerable to my compulsion," he grabbed Esther by the face and compelled her, "You will answer me truthfully," and right after he forced Esther up and dragged her to where Freya stood, "Now, at least everything that comes out of her wretched mouth will be honest. We're going to raid her mind for the spell to get Rebekah back and - since you have proven useless in your promise to Maleny - she's going to tell us the spell to get Mal back in her own body."

~ 0 ~

In an abandoned warehouse was Eva where she frantically applied some remedy for the horrible injury Klaus had done to her earlier. Just when she felt the remedy take effect, she found herself pinned against a wall by Marcel who snuck up the magic-cancelling shackles on her.

"Oh-ho-ho-ho! Not really keen on another witch headache!" he smirked, remarking of their earlier incident.

"Dark objects?" Eva looked at the shackles around her wrists, "How did a damn vamp find me?"

"That would be us," Cami entered the place along with Vincent, both looking not too pleased to be there.

Vincent, of course, wanted nothing to do with Eva but in the end his morality for the innocence had won him out. So, there he was. Cami's irritation originated from Elijah. After Vincent agreed to help, Cami phoned in Elijah with the news only to be then instructed to head on home while Marcel took care of things. Cami knew Elijah was trying to pull the 'trying-to-protect-you' crap Klaus always did with Maleny and she was not going to let it happen. They argued and argued over it until someone snatched the phone and compromised for the both. Hayley had declared Marcel would accompany Cami and that was that.

"Release Rebekah!" Marcel angrily got to the point and shook Eva violently.

Eva remained at ease, wearing a wide smirk across her face, "Best not damage the package, or you may never see her again. Or your little adopted witch Davina."

At that, Marcel and Cami exchanged glances of shock.

Eva wickedly laughed, "Oh, some friends you are! I've been feeding off of her for days, and you didn't even know she was gone?"

Marcel could not contain himself and slammed the woman against a table, "WHERE IS SHE!?"

Cami sped up and pushed him back before he truly hurt Eva, "Stop!"

But Marcel went against her and tried walking back to Eva, forcing Cami to use all her strength and keep him back, "I'll just torture you until you give me what I need!" he shouted at Eva.

"Torture ain't gonna do it, man!" Vincent pointed out, "Half the witches in this city went after her, she ain't say a thing."

"He's right, Marcel," Cami finally pushed the man away, "We have to come up with something better that doesn't involve hurting the body Rebekah may remain in."

"Then what do you suggest!?" Marcel couldn't help glare at her. Apparently, not only were they fighting for Rebekah, they were also fighting to get Davina back.

"Let me talk to her," Vincent's idea left Marcel and Cami surprised and frankly a little suspicious. Still, with time running out there wasn't much to debate about.

"I would have liked to travel. Yes, that is my biggest desire," Iris was remarking as she and Klaus walked down a corridor for Iris' room, "but clearly that is not going to happen in this lifetime."

With a curious look, Klaus questioned, "And why do you say that?"

"Because I am a woman," Iris gestured to herself with a chuckle, "And unwed. Without a husband to travel with I have no hopes in leaving this place."

"Such optimism for a young lady," Klaus joked, coming to a stop in front of Iris' bedroom door.

Iris gave a light shrug of her shoulders and mischievously looked at him, "Well, unless some sort of gentleman - say a certain someone in front of me - marries me," she innocently said as her fingers danced on his shoulders, "then I shall remain here for the rest of my life."

"Such straightforwardness, how can someone not marry you?" Klaus went on with her play. He stepped closer, backing her against the door, and putting a hand on her waist.

Iris pretended to pout, "I know. I am a complete delight."

"Fortunately I'm here to make you feel loved," Klaus said before placing a kiss on her lips that turned into many more.

Iris giggled and managed to break the kiss for a moment, "Ooh, am I ever so lucky."

"You are so," Klaus smirked and continued to kiss her.

Iris melted in his arms and felt like the entire world was slipping away from her. At the sudden moan that escaped from her lips Klaus pulled away and smirked at her bright pink cheeks.

Iris was not about to let him tease her about it. She wanted something different from him and she proposed to get it, "Not a word," she whispered before grabbing his face and passionately kissing him again. Before either could realize, Klaus had opened the door to Iris' room and backed her inside, promptly shutting it behind them.

Back in the tomb where Klaus kept Esther, things were still rocky with Esther processing the fact Freya lived and Freya practically wanting to shred Esther to pieces.

"My beautiful girl. My first born!" Esther tried reaching for Freya but was met with incredible hostility.

"Touch me, and I will use these chains to strangle you!" Freya snapped and raised her shackled wrists to show she was serious.

"Yes, now that we have the pleasantries out the way, let's begin, shall we?" Klaus did not hide well his impatience with the two women, "It appears that your delightful sister Dahlia is on her way to New Orleans, hell-bent on stealing my child - well, second child apparently. I need Rebekah back in her original body so she can help me destroy her."

Esther was left speechless for a minute or two while she processed just what she had heard, "Child? Second child? Dahlia?"

Klaus rolled his eyes in annoyance but briefly broke it down for the woman, "Oh, I suppose it is difficult keeping up on current events whilst rotting inside a tomb. Very well. The short version? My second child is alive. And, somehow, in one of her past bodies, Maleny gave birth to my actual first born who was successfully taken by Dahlia in that period. But due to his escape, as well as Freya's, Dahlia is now on her way to steal my second born for revenge and power. And, on the other side, the previous tenant of Rebekah's body has seized control and isn't keen on giving it up," towards the end Klaus felt almost the need to take a big breath. That was a lot of problems, enough for a lifetime.

Esther was gaping at all she had heard, "But…"

"Oh, I'm not finished," Klaus wagged a finger at her, "Young Freya here, although powerful, lacks the spell to put Rebekah back in her true body. And that's where you come in. I need you to be a dear and dig deep into that ex-witch mind of yours," he pulled out a folded pack of paper from his jackets pocket and forced it onto Esther's hand, "Give me the spell that puts Rebekah back. And, since your son Finn decided to play a nasty game with Maleny, I need the spell to put her back into her own body as well. He's locked her into a new body with this mark," he unfolded the paper and tapped on the symbol that Maleny bored on her body, drawn by Amarrah who'd been studying it for such a time now.

Esther glanced at Freya silently and immediately saw it was all true. While being branded as evil and sadistic she did always want to help her children, and even Maleny who wasn't hers. She never intended on actually hurting them. Grumbling, she nodded and began with the task of the spells.

Time seemed to pass so very slow, and with the impatience Klaus had he stood right beside her ushering her to hurry up. "What is taking so long?" he rolled his eyes, "You didn't tarry when you attempted to kill my child!"

Esther stopped and looked up, apparently hurt, "I took no joy in that! I knew if your daughter lived, Dahlia would come, not only for her, but for all of you if you stood in her way. And however you may despise me, I would not wish that upon you."

"How touching!"

"Isn't it?" Freya had to agree with Klaus' sarcasm, "I always wondered what maternal compassion sounded like. Of course, I wouldn't know, since you sold me into slavery at the age of five!"

"When I made that bargain with my sister, I had no idea what it meant to be a mother!" argued Esther, "I thought if I had a dozen children, I would not miss the one. And then, you were born. You were beautiful. You had a light about you that put a smile on the face of the hardest man I had ever known. And when Dahlia took you, I thought that same light might warm her embittered heart. That you might lead a good life."

"A good life?" Freya had a good scoff and stomped up to Esther, "You were my mother! You should have come for me!"

"Yes. I should have," Esther said calmly before her tone took a sudden cold turn, "But, it would have been a mistake," her eyes flickered to Klaus, "The same mistake you will be making if you let this girl help you."

"For God's sake, speak plainly!" Klaus motioned with a hand to hurry up.

"The light I saw in Freya as a child, it's gone. While she was mine for five years, Dahlia was her mentor for a thousand. And, like her mentor, she will offer to solve your problems, but for a price."

Freya felt like she could literally strangle Esther, "There is no price! I know the…" she went for it to attack her but Klaus yanked her back by the arm.

"No violence until she's finished writing the spells, please!" Klaus snapped, "Honestly, it's all temper and no timing with this one," he joked to Esther, "for one, am glad you gave her away so that I could be born. You should think of me as an upgrade!"

Freya heavily sighed in irritation, wondering if this was typical sibling arguments. After a couple minutes more, Esther declared she was finished with the spells. Freya took a look at the spells to get a clear view of what would be needed.

"Mal's spell is fine but to place Rebekah back in her body requires an enormous amount of power," she looked up at Esther incredulously.

Esther remained at ease, "Which you have."

"And that power needs to be anchored, or I'll be lost inside Eva's mind along with Rebekah. Unlike your magic, mine isn't anchored to any one place. Because of you, I have no home."

"Perhaps," Esther shrugged and glanced at Klaus, "But, there is no other spell."

"Unless…" Freya began to think, "You," she turned to Klaus, "I can use you as my anchor. I'll channel your power while I breach Eva's mind."

For once, it appeared Klaus and Esther were on the same page of suspicious.

"And there it is. The price," Esther said, "If she channels you, she will have access to your mind, past and present. She will know everything about you."

"All of my strategies and all of my secrets laid bare to give to Dahlia," Klaus realized during his small pace back and forth, "You must think I'm a fool, Freya."

Freya rolled her eyes, "I am not acting with double reasons. You have me looking at Maleny's spell-"

"Don't confuse that, love," Klaus cut her right off, "Amarrah Collins will be performing that spell. There is no way in hell I would ever allow you to do it."

Freya took on an indignant aura after that, "Maleny has been the only friend I ever made, I would never harm her. And as for Rebekah, she is my sister and the only family who's shown me a bit of kindness. Rest assured I will not double cross you."

But that was not enough to convince Klaus.

Iris kicked and shouted to be let free as two older men practically dragged her through the forest. In front of them were two women, middle aged, and in the back two more men.

"Let me go! Let me go right now!"

One of the women in front laughed and glanced over her shoulder, "You can kick and scream all you want but it's not going to happen. It took us a while to determine whether or not you were actually Maleny, and now we're not letting you go for anything."

"What? Maleny?" Iris was thoroughly confused, and beyond terrified of these strangers. She had been on her way to find a trusted witch to determine or not if she was actually...well, with child. She had her suspicions but she didn't want it to get out before determining if it was even true. But she should have known better than to flee home during the night. She was ambushed by the two men and was now in front of several more strangers.

Iris was brought into a small village and promptly thrown near a fire in the center. She clutched her stomach and glared up at the group that was crowding around her. She breathed in rapidly, waiting for someone to explain what the hell was going on.

"Maleny Rowan, what a pleasure to meet you," an elderly woman made her way to the front of the crowd. She chuckled as Iris' brows furrowed together in confusion, "The spell has not allowed you to remember yet. That's a good thing. It's better this way."

"What is going on?" Iris' voice shook with fear as she looked around her spot. Everyone was staring at her like she was some grand prize - even the children looked in awe. "H-how do you know that name?"

"Our spell worked," the elderly woman declared to the group and bent down in front of Iris, yanking her golden chained necklace forwards for the others to see, "The mark is the chain, owned by the original body. This is how we will identify her in the next generations. Understood?"

"Yes," the group answered together.

"I-I don't understand, what's happening?" Iris got to her feet and kept a well distant from her and the woman, "I am Iris Velden and I order you to take me back to my-"

But the woman laughed, as did many others in the crowd. The elderly woman sobered first and put a hand on Iris' arm, "My dear, you are never going back there. It is time for you to live up to your word and die for our coven."

Iris' eyes widened and immediately she tried to run but the crowd blocked her way. She whirled back around to the woman, "Please," she swallowed hard, "I have no idea what you are talking about. My father, he's...he has power, and…"

"Our power does not come in the form or wealth, child," the elderly woman said calmly, "It comes from you and your death."

"But you cannot kill me," Iris' voice shook again, her eyes filling with tears while her arms wrapped around her stomach, "Please, I am with child," the news left the crowd and the woman stunned, "If you hurt me you will hurt my baby and I...I don't want that. Please, let me go."

The elderly woman got over her shock and walked up to Iris, grabbing her by the chin, "Your lies will not get you anywhere," her dark voice implied things would go bad in a very short time if Iris didn't do anything.

"Please," Iris resorted to beg on her knees for her child's life, "you have to believe me. My baby is very young, but he is inside and he is just starting to live. His father doesn't even know he exists."

"Father?" the elderly woman glanced at the crowd for an opinion.

"Maybe she hasn't met him yet," a young woman spoke up and walked up to the elder. The elder seemed to consider the idea and while she did, the young woman turned to Iris, "Who do you claim the father is?"

Iris knew she wasn't even sure about the pregnancy but at the moment it was apparently the only way she might be able to save her life. And furthermore, she saw no point in keeping the identity of the child's father a secret, "He's, um, he is a visitor in my father's residence. His name is Klaus Mikaelson."

"She lies," the elder declared instantaneously, "The man cannot possibly procreate."

"He has," Iris snapped, "I didn't know how to tell him and now he may possibly never know."

"Is it possible it has already happened?" the elder was now rethinking things.

"..what...?"

"The fertility spell may have worked after all," the elder continued on like nothing. "And as such, we should not waste the opportunity to have more power. Your sacrifice will happen, but…after the child is born, if there truly is a child to begin with."

"You are all mad," Iris began to insult, clutching her stomach once more.

Eunice had begun to come around on the idea by the wide smile breaking across her face, "Gentlemen," she called, "take Miss Rowan into my cottage. We have a lot to discover from the child - starting with is existence."

"N-n-n-n-no!" Iris began to shout as the two men who had carried her in were now coming for her again, "Stay back! Stay away from me!" but her shouts were of no use as they grabbed her again and dragged her towards Eunice's cottage.

Hope was placed on Maleny's beside beside the sleeping brunette and as if wanting her to wake up, Hope yelped every now and then and clapped her small hand on Maleny's arm. Beside the edge of the bed was Hayley who was staring at Maleny with her arms crossed and a grim, yet overly concerned, face.

"She'll wake soon, baby girl," she whispered to Hope and glanced at Amarrah and Alton who had remained in the room as they had promised earlier, "It surprises me how Hope knows it's Mal in there," she gave a light smile as her daughter continued to do everything in her power to wake Maleny up, "In such a little time she's managed to get Hope's affections."

"That's Mal for you," Amarrah clapped her hands together and walked closer to Hayley, "When I was a little girl and I first discovered that we harbored a woman in our attic that had been sleeping for centuries, I was terrified. I knew it was our responsibility to protect her, but...I was like six so...yeah, I was a bit scared. And then one day, one of my cousins dared me to go into the attic. I so scared I kept shaking," Hayley and Alton smiled in amusement as they listened in, "But when I opened the coffin and saw Mal unconscious, I realized there was nothing to be afraid of. On the contrary, I was afraid for her."

"Why?" Alton asked, even Hayley curious of the answer.

"I knew the stories of the girl in the coffin, how she was always living in lies and never being herself. I was afraid of what she could be experiencing at the moment," Amarrah sighed deeply, "I was so scared of where she could be and if she was okay. The sleeping girl in the coffin-I always wondered if I would get to see her awake in my lifetime."

"You did," Hayley gently clapped a hand on Amarrah's arm.

"But for so little time," Amarrah pointed out and moved to sit down on the edge of the bed, right beside Hope, "Ever since she woke up, Mal has never had a good moment. I'm her friend and I just don't like seeing her in these conditions."

Hope continued to yelp and let her head drop onto Maleny's shoulder, babbling to her oh-so-many things. At the same moment, Klaus and Freya entered the room.

"I see you have the wolves ready for Eva's return," Klaus remarked off-handedly while coming straight to Amarrah.

"Elijah said to gather them up," Hayley sighed, "but he's not exactly quite up for the fight since Cami ended up getting hurt when Eva escaped with Vincent."

"Ah yes," Klaus wasn't so surprised to hear about that.

Even though it was a petty injury - a neck snapping - it was enough to have Elijah ballistic of the idea of Cami still going out with Marcel to look for Eva. That was why he went out for Cami himself to the location where apparently Eva kept the missing children in. Vincent had called them in with the location, also admitting and apologizing for his rather abrupt plan of pretending to go with Eva's doings.

Klaus pulled out Esther's papers with the spells and held them to Amarrah who took them in confusion and gave them a mere glance, "What are these?" she raised an eyebrow.

"One of them is to get Rebekah back in control of Eva Sinclair's body," Klaus tapped one of the papers, "And the other is the spell to return Maleny to her original body."

Amarrah's mouth dropped open as she quickly looked at the spell for Maleny, "You found the spell!?"

"Yes, and since time is of the essence I need you to do Rebekah's first."

Amarrah's eyes flickered to Freya who, although no longer wore the shackles, looked pretty angry this was being asked to someone else. "Are you sure this is a good idea?" she asked Klaus, "I mean, you have a sister."

"The spell requires an anchor," Freya spoke up, "and it appears my dear ole brother doesn't have the trust in me to be my anchor."

"Because you don't have a home," Amarrah realized the problem and looked at Rebekah's spell again, "I can do it. I can draw on my family's power."

"That's all that matters," Freya said, giving her a lighthearted smile, "Someone needs to save Rebekah."

"Okay," Amarrah nodded and turned to Klaus, "We can do it."

"What are we supposed to do, then?" Hayley asked then, gesturing to herself, Alton and Freya.

"Stay with Maleny, of course," Klaus answered as if it were obvious. With a grin he walked over to Maleny's bed, reaching to tickle Hope beside the brunette, the baby promptly giggling in response. He then passed a hand down Maleny's hair, "Hang on, Mal. I got the spell," he whispered to her, "You'll be back in your body very soon now."

"Klaus," Amarrah cleared her throat, sheepishly waving a hand to grab his attention, "We have to go. Rebekah is literally running out of time."

Klaus nodded and straightened up, turning to head out. As he and Amarrah left the room, Alton stopped them.

"You mean that?" he demanded of Klaus, and if it weren't because Klaus too was content with the results they were going to receive he would've snapped the man's neck there and then.

"Yes, my mother gave us the spell needed to place Mal back in her own body and thus release Yamilet."

Alton's face changed into a brilliant joy and once Klaus and Amarrah had left, he rushed to Maleny, "Yamilet, you're coming back! Do you hear that? You're coming back to me again…" But while he was cheering and even Hayley and Freya were relieved to hear the good news, Maleny/Yamilet were far from hearing it.

Iris stood before a window inside a cottage, staring out to the dark sky filled with its many stars. She held in her hand the wooden stars craft Klaus had made so long ago. She sighed and rubbed her now swollen, pregnant stomach. It had been months since she'd seen him, her family and home. And now that she understood and even remembered some, she knew she would never see that residence again. Iris Velden had completely ceased to exist in her mind.

Maleny Rowan was alive. She was her.

"Under these stars," she remembered her ironic words. How could life be so cruel to make her say those words to the man she had loved for years and years.

"What is that?" a young woman stood behind Maleny, having come out of another room in the cottage. She was the owner of the cottage where Maleny was to reside during her pregnancy.

"A gift," Maleny answered briefly, hugging the wooden craft closer to her, making the woman laugh.

"I won't steal it," she went to a table where several herbs laid, "It can make a nice gift for your child when it is born."

Maleny rubbed her stomach and turned to her, "I wish to sleep. I have no intention on sticking to this conversation as if were friends or even acquaintances."

The girl, Laura, sighed and turned from the table, "Listen, Iris-"

"Maleny," she fiercely corrected. "My name is Maleny Rowan and I despise you and your stupid coven."

"You are the one that made this deal with us-"

"Because you lied to me about it!" Maleny shouted, once again getting angry this was being blamed on her, "Your ancestor told me a lie! She said I would live forever, and that I would be with my love."

"And you were," Laura gestured to her stomach, "and that is a consequence."

"This is some miracle," Maleny snapped, "But this was a miracle in some wicked story your ancestory had pulled. I do not want to live this way."

"Well, that is not up to you anymore," Laura declared coldly and made to leave the cottage when Maleny called out, her voice turned softer and meek.

"If I am to live this way...then I only plead you not force my child into this same cycle," her tear-filled eyes made Laura shift uncomfortably, "I made the deal, not my child."

"That is not up to me," Laura said after a moment, though did feel guilt for it. Maleny moved to take a seat on a chair, her feet now more fragile as she grew closer to her due date. Laura's guilt did not allow for her to leave. Instead, she found herself clearing her throat and asking, rather awkwardly, "So, um...have you thought of any names yet for the child?"

Maleny raised her gaze to the woman, confused of the question. Over the course of her pregnancy not one person had cared enough to ask how she was doing nor how she felt. Perhaps for that reason she had decided to answer Laura's question.

"I am not sure," she rubbed her stomach, "If it is a boy, then...I was thinking of Nicolas."

"Why that one?"

"Because it sounds like his father's name. And if shortened, it will be exactly like his," Maleny began to smile at the idea, "Nick?"

Laura smiled lightly, "That's a nice name, then. It has a lot of meaning. What about a girl?"

Maleny's smile widened. "Marlenie. We always wanted a 'Marlenie'. But, I just really hope the baby does not inherit his temper."

"Is it that bad?"

Maleny scoffed, "Imagine the worst temper possible and then chuck it out the window because it will never measure to Klaus'. God help my baby if he does inherit that."

Laura chuckled, for a minute forgetting who she was talking to, "My mom used to say that I had my father's impulsivity and that is why I would never get married."

"Used to?" Maleny had picked up on the key words and her stomach churned as she assumed what that meant.

Laura sighed, "I lost my mother when I was a little girl, unfortunately. My dad's off in a battle so I'm here on my own."

Maleny could feel a small empathy for the woman, having practically lived in the same conditions, "I lost my mother when I was girl too. And, even though my dad was still around it felt like he wasn't. He absolutely hated me."

"Why?" Laura frowned.

"Because I was born a girl and my mother didn't stick around to bear him a son. So, I was more like a slave to him than a daughter."

"I am very sorry about that," Laura honestly said and Maleny knew it, "I don't feel very lonely out here, though. Our coven is united."

Maleny made a face, wanting to say 'of course, united over my looming death' but she felt Laura was being kind enough for a minute and she wanted to keep it that way. "I didn't feel very lonely either," she admitted with a small smile, "I had the Mikaelsons with me and they were enough."

"Enough for you to get yourself cursed," Laura blurted and gasped once she realized.

"I didn't get cursed because of them," Maleny corrected calmly, "I did what I did because I wanted to secure myself a good future with Klaus. But he, just like the rest of his family, is not to blame for what I got myself into. Just like this little one," she rubbed her stomach, "does not deserve to get pushed into the life that awaits me," realizing where Maleny was headed with in the conversation, Laura shifted and tried to leave but Maleny was quick in her talk, "Laura, please. Kill me if you must but let my child live. Let him live until he is old enough to leave and find his father. Don't curse him because of my choices."

Laura stared at the woman for a long while, and in that while Maleny began to weep again, her hand clutching the wooden starcraft in her hand as if her life depended on it.

Amarrah cursed herself for ever thinking this was a good idea. The amount of power the spell required to get Rebekah back was taking a toll on her body and if it weren't for the two Originals practically keeping her on her feet she was sure she would have passed out a long time ago. She had conducted the spell needed and had sent in Marcel and Vincent to help Rebekah fight Eva off and regain control of Eva's body. However, there seemed to be a fight inside and it was only making it harder for Amarrah to keep the spell going.

Inside, the war was waging at terrible costs. Eva had knocked out Marcel across the room and was almost to the point of killing Vincent herself when she felt a stab on her back. It had been done by a young aged Rebekah who remained stoned-faced as Eva fell over Vincent and gasped for air.

The force of the spell pushed everyone away from each other and onto the floor. Vincent and Marcel woke up with loud gasps.

"Please tell me that worked," Amarrah raised her head with a heavy pant.

"You're the witch," Cami said, not too far from her, "you tell us."

"Oh...right…" Amarrah blinked and glanced over to Eva where Marcel was already carefully checking her.

They all started hearing several noises and so Cami went to find its source. She was relieved to see it was Davina waking up from her slumber on behalf of Eva's plan.

"Where am I?" the young teen looked around, barely remembering anything. After a couple minutes, more of the other children were beginnign to wake up along with Josephine who had been taken at the last minute by Eva and Vincent.

"You're okay," Cami laughed and gave her hug, "Oh thank God!"

"What the hell happened?" Davina struggled to stand on her feet for a minute but eventually got it down, "I remember Rebekah coming in and then…"

"Best not to think about it too much," Cami made a face then patted the girl's arm before taking her back to where the others were.

Klaus and Elijah were looking over Eva who had yet to wake up. Concerned, Klaus glanced to Amarrah, "Why isn't she waking?" unsure herself, Amarrah gave a big shrug.

"I did everything the spell needed me to," she promised him and raised her hands in solemn swear.

Thankfully, 'Eva' gasped awake then and looked around, exclaiming words only said by Rebekah Mikaelson herself, "Bloody hell!"

"Mummy! Mummy!" cried a young boy of a mere five years old. He was cheering for himself as he picked up his small wooden craft and hurried to where his mother was, "Mummy, look what I did!"

Maleny was helping Laura prepare some sort of spell when the boy arrived and tugged on her dress for her to look down. She chuckled and mishapen craft he held, "And what is that supposed to be, Nicolas?"

"Like the stars!" he happily replied and waved it in the air, "Like the one daddy made!"

"I think you could compete with him, you know," Maleny knelt down in front of him, "He used to make a lot of these but I don't think they were ever as good as yours."

Nicolas crinkled his nose and declared, "You are lying, Mummy," he accused, "But I don't care because I'm going to get better and then I will compete with daddy and win him!"

Maleny chuckled again, "Of course you will, sweetheart."

"Do you think maybe Ma-"

"Maleny?" Laura whispered suddenly, causing Maleny to glance at the woman, "Don't you think it's time to tell him that-"

Maleny knew where Laura was heading and tried to hurry Nicolas towards the doors, "Nicolas, go outside and play with your-"

"Maleny," Laura said again, "Six years of age is coming and you know what that means. It's time to reveal the truth."

Maleny knew exactly what that meant. And knowing what was to come of her made her eyes fill with tears again, the only thing stopping her from bursting into sobs was her son still happily babbling on to himself about his wooden creation.

Back in the compound, Rebekah was explaining to Klaus and Amarrah the reason for her choosing to stay in Eva's body - she needed to help resurrect Kol. Along with that existed the fact the children used in the spell by Eva were still linked to the body and if Rebekah were to leave it they would all die, including Davina.

"Are you sure that's what you want?" Amarrah couldn't help ask three times in a row, "Because I assure you I can do the spell."

Rebekah smiled and shook her head, "I need to help get Kol back and being in this body can help me do it. Is that a problem?" she asked, more for Klaus than anyone else.

"Of course not," he replied rather fast, "Keep your promise to Kol."

Rebekah rolled her eyes, almost amused at his impatience. They all knew what he was waiting for and it was frankly novelty to see him excited for something that didn't involve the death of someone.

"I should warn you that I can't do the spell until Maleny has woken up from her dream coma," Amarrah told Klaus, as if reading his mind she smirked, "So quit waiting for that to happen tonight."

"Simply because you are friends with Maleny does not mean I won't hesitate to hurt you," Klaus replied with, narrowing his eyes at the unaffected woman.

"Actually it kind of does - hurt friend," she gestured to herself, "means mad Maleny, and made Maleny equals shouting at Klaus which really has no happy ending you see."

Rebekah watched the exchange of sarcasm with a chuckle. She grabbed Amarrah's arm and gently pulled her away from Klaus, "C'mon, we have a lot to work on since you're going to help me practice this magic stuff."

"I am?" Amarrah made a face as she started to walk away with her.

"Did I forget to mention to that?"

"Uh, yeah!"

"Well there you have it!"

Klaus rolled his eyes at the two and headed out of the lounge room, intending on staying with Maleny for the night until she woke up. He bumped into Hayley instead just outside in the corridor.

"I can't find Freya," Hayley announced as soon as she saw it was Klaus, "She disappeared over an hour ago."

"Let her," Klaus shrugged and started for Maleny's room when Hayley called again.

"You know, if you're going to want her to help us you're going to have to be a little nicer."

"I reserve that notion for people I deem likable and I've yet to decide on her status."

Hayley rolled her eyes and walked up to him, "That woman is here to help us. If she wanted to do more harm she would not have stayed here to look after your comatose girlfriend," and at that small insult Klaus nearly lost it but Hayley was guilty enough to retract from it, "I'm sorry - you know what I meant. You need to trust a little more to get people on our side. You lost one kid, you wanna lose the second one?" she knew those were harsh words but it was the only way to get the message through to someone like him.

However, Klaus didn't reply due to familiar noises not too far away from him and Hayley.

"Klaus?" Maleny stood just at the doorway of her room, looking fragile and weary. Her mind was buzzing with new memories and new feelings while her body screamed for her to go lie down again. But, there was one thing that overpowered it all, and as Klaus quickly returned to help her, she voiced it outloud, "I saw him," she breathed and clung onto Klaus like her life depended on it, "I saw Nicolas…"

~ 0 ~

"Mal, you really ought to get back to bed," Klaus told the brunette as she took a seat in the lounge's couch.

Though clearly needing more rest, Maleny had refused to go back to her room, claiming she was tired of being there. She looked at him with a smirk, "If I had a dollar for every time you used that one on me in my lifetimes I'd be rich enough to own the Quarter."

"And that's how I know you're getting back to normal," Klaus dismissed the comment with a roll of his eyes and joined her on the couch.

As soon as he did, Maleny turned to him with that big smile of hers, "Klaus, I saw him. I saw our son. He was…" she couldn't find the word to describe Nicholas as much as she wanted to, "...beautiful," she settled for.

The revelation still seemed to put Klaus on edge. The idea of having a son with Maleny was more than shocking enough, but now to have clear proof of it was something else. But for Maleny the stage of shock had passed with all that she saw. In her excitement she got up and started to describe what she saw of Nicolas, "He looks like you! He has your hair, your eyes and your crafting skills - well that last one was in developmental stages cos he was - oh," in her excitement she had overused what little strength she had left and stumbled.

"Mal," Klaus has gotten up fast and caught her by the waist, "this is why you need to go to your room and rest."

Maleny shook her head in refusal, "You have to hear more. Please?" she insisted softly, looking up at him with pleading blue eyes that reminded him who was really in charge there unfortunately.

With a deep sigh, he settled them back on the couch, refusing to let her go for another of those excitement moments that could very well have her falling to the ground. It didn't look like she minded too much sitting on his lap as she comfortably snuggled closer to him and rested her head over his chest.

"You should have seen him," she said again, her voice laced with the tiredness she was refusing to fall under, "I only saw certain memories up until he was five. But he was amazing."

"Tell me then," Klaus suggested, wishing he could see for himself those images. Since they were barely resurfacing in her mind they wouldn't be too clear to view. Besides, her mind was probably weary already after so many new memories had resurfaced.

"He was incredibly smart," began Maleny.

"Well, he clearly had somewhere to get it from," Klaus cleared his throat and earned a whack on the chest, making him laugh.

"Nicolas was a little copy of you when you were a boy, I remember it. He wanted to show everyone his little crafts. When he got a tantrum, which were often, he would turn into this fierce little boy."

"I...don't know where he could have gotten that from," Klaus feigned innocence as he looked around the room.

"You cannot deny he is your son,' Maleny playfully joked, "Not with that awful temper binding you two together. But it was okay, because it reminded me of you during that time. Thanks to a brief friend I made, the witches only allowed me six years of his life to before I was to be killed."

Klaus held her tighter, the bile of guilt rising within, "I'm sorry for not being there."

Maleny looked up at him, not at all sad, "I don't care. I'm happy right now, I got to see Nicolas and now I know I want him back faster than ever. I want to see how he's grown - I want him here with his little sister, and with his family where he belongs."

Taking her hand into his, Klaus said, "And he will come back to us, I promise. I know I make those promises and rarely come through but this time it will happen. You will see your son again, Mal."

Maleny smiled, "I know it. I don't know why you always act like you fail me so much. Partially it's my fault for never keeping my nose out of trouble."

"Well, that would make things a lot simpler I can't deny…"

Maleny chuckled and once again looked up at him, "But that wouldn't be me, and you don't want that other me, right?"

Klaus gave her a long look, and while the face he was looking at wasn't hers, he still felt beguiled by her beautiful features of within, "I want my Mal who never listens to me."

"And I want my bad-tempered hybrid," she replied back and as seconds ticked by Klaus watched her smiles fade and a distant look take over her eyes.

"What is it, Mal?"

Maleny looked away from him as she felt another memory try to come through but she lost it just as fast as it had come up, "It's just...I feel like there's something important I didn't get to see – like there was something else to the story."

"Like what?" Klaus took that as a red alert. Anything not remembered had proven to be dangerous or at the very least agitating for them later on.

"I don't know," Maleny sadly said, "But I just know it's important…"

For the moment, Klaus would let it slide. He rubbed her arm up and down and kissed her hair, "Perhaps it will come to you later."

"Perhaps…" Maleny whispered and rested her head on his shoulder, choosing to relish in their moment instead. She was actually very tired, but she didn't want to be anywhere Klaus wasn't at. Besides, the memory would probably resurface later on. And if it didn't, it probably wasn't that important.

She was wrong.

Early 11th century.

A grand party was being celebrated in the Velden residence for one of the nobles. Everything was going as planned with the celebration until one of the double doors was flung open by a guard who was thrown inside. The music stopped and the guests looked upon the guard who was definitely dead on the ground. It appeared he had blood oozing from his neck. Just like that came two more guards that shared the same injuries.

"Mmm," the nobles heard coming from the doors.

"Who's there?" One of the Velden nobles demanded as guards from the room came to the opened door, "I demand you show yourself."

"Wow, that is delicious," they heard a young English woman's voice and a couple seconds later she walked in holding a guard by the neck.

The sight of her was appalling yet no one dared to move. Her fangs were displayed for all to see, and the trail of blood led down to her neck and parts of her tattered dress.

"Nobles always do have a better taste," she declared. She let the guard drop to the floor and opened her arms in a very familiar way, "Well, don't let the celebration stop - I do like to be honored."

"What in heavens sake are you?" the same noble from before asked.

"One very special woman, sir," the woman could almost promise. As her tongue licked off the blood from her fangs, her hand pushed back strands of her long, black hair, "I believe you know my mother? She was one of you, you know - Iris Velden?" She watched with satisfaction as the crowd went in awe and confusion. "And my, my it has taken me a long time to find you all. But now that I am here, I expect to be welcomed. If not, well…" she pretended to flick something off her nail, "...that's one catastrophe I won't be happy to cause."

"Iris Velden disappeared more than 10 years ago," the noble declared, still meaning to be brave but it was crumbling quick.

"Oh yes, and for very awful reasons," the woman wickedly smiled, "But I am here because if I cannot find my brother nor my father, then I shall have to make a home for myself in the meantime. This will be my home now," she walked forwards, "My name is Marlenie Velden - well," she smiled to herself in thought, "That shall be my name to the outsiders. In here," she gestured to the room, "You will address me by my true name: Marlenie Mikaelson."

Author's Note:

THIS was the second twist I was waiting so badly to release! Haaaa, did you guys think that one was coming? Twins? Well, even if not, I present to you the Mikaelson twins - Nicolas & Marlenie ;). (Marlenie being pronounced as Mar-leh-nee'. The middle 'e' is a short 'eh' sound!

#ocappreciation #the originals #klaus mikaelson #klaus mikaelson imagines #the originals imagines #klaus mikaelson fics #the originals fics #tvd #tvd fics #oc: Maleny Rowan #oc: Nicolas Mikaelson #oc: Marlenie Mikaelson

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ruensroad · 4 years

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never knew it could feel like this

@bloody-bee-tea gave me a good challenge with some mafia!Xichen falling in love with cafe owner!Jiang Cheng, featuring a healthy dose of secrets and jealousy.

---

His life had been a study of how to properly ignore his emotions from his first day under the Jin Syndicate’s thumb. Fear, hidden behind logic. Anger, hidden behind polite words. Sadness, hidden behind smiles. When one was part of a mafia and every moment of life forfeit at any given moment, one had to adopt such measures just to stay sane and alive. Falling too far into emotion would not be good for anyone, something he knew well. After all, if his father had not done that very thing, he would not be where he was now, and he’d promised himself long ago he would never follow that path.

And for the most part, he had a solid handle on it. Over the years, Lan Huan was certain he’d felt all emotions a human was capable of and had dealt with them all. Grief, to frustration, to rare, unbridled joy. There were some emotions he would never reach, like knowing true freedom, and he was alright with that. He had to be. The problem was that he’d miscalculated his ability to overcome these emotions he did not expect. Which was to say he did not overcome them at all. Not even close.

The Lotus Cafe was a safe haven. Peace, when peace did not exist for a man in his position. And a simpler freedom, where he could forget, even if for just an hour, that his life was not his own. Where he could imagine a world where sitting and drinking tea with a warm pastry was a welcome break from a normal job, and where he could smile and flirt with the cafe’s owner without feeling like a liar and a thief.

Not that his intentions towards Jiang Cheng weren’t true. They just weren’t wholly honest, could never be, and if he wasn’t so weak he could be the better man and walk away.

But there was no walking away from a miracle. Lan Huan had learned that from his mother. And perhaps Jiang Cheng didn’t know the full truth about Lan Huan’s tainted world, but he understood Lan Huan was at least holding secrets and still seemed to want him regardless. Only a blind fool would turn away from such a gift.

That was where the problem began.

Want was new for him. He’d wanted to be with people before, but it had happened rarely and had never gotten this far. He felt guilty to indulge it, and helpless to fight it. That he wanted Jiang Cheng was all the logic he could find. Too many reasons to list in needing to say yes, just as many reasons to say no. He was dangerous, a complication, but he could not make the words come to tell Jiang Cheng thus. And so the cycle of guilt and desire started all over again.

And now? Now he was faced with an even newer problem.

She’d come after closing, when Jiang Cheng had dimmed the lights and handed him a broom to help. A rare smile on his face, laughter in his eyes, Lan Huan had been unable to deny him anything, even if all he’d wanted in that moment was to sweep Jiang Cheng around the cafe floor in a dance to the music playing from his phone on the counter.

He’d settled for a kiss or three, all stolen around a grin, then had set to his task while Jiang Cheng had wiped down each table and chair.

The knock had set Lan Huan on edge, because his world’s shadows could reach even the brightest of places, and knowing the face on the other side of the door had not helped.

Seeing Jiang Cheng blink in surprise, but move to let her in had been infinitely worse.

And then it’d started.

“A-Qing,” Jiang Cheng chuckled and she swatted at his chest, all good natured. “Fine then, Doctor Wen.”

“Better.” She was always lovely in all the times Lan Huan had met her, the only free clinic doctor willing to patch up even mafia. Her poker face was legendary, even in the circle of the Jin Syndicate, and she didn’t even blink seeing Lan Huan standing there, holding a broom. “Did you finally find a way to disable your texts, Jiang Cheng? Wei Ying has been crying the past hour that you won’t answer him.”

Rolled eyes, so easily, and Lan Huan watched his entire frame relax, the way it never did around anyone that wasn’t family or Lan Huan himself. It made his fingers clench, just a little, around the broom.

“No, I’m just good at ignoring him,” Jiang Cheng huffed. “He knows I’m busiest at closing. Did he seriously send you here to make sure I wasn’t dead? Again?”

Her laugh was a surprise and the answering smile on Jiang Cheng’s face was a knife to his heart, so sudden it took his breath away. “Yes, but I didn’t come here for him. A-Yuan wanted to remind you of his recital on Saturday.”

Jiang Cheng sighed, but looked so fond about it that Lan Huan’s stomach dropped. In the half light, Jiang Cheng looked soft as he stared down at her, and she in turn seemed just as sweet. And that was a pain worse than the bullet he’d taken before. Lan Huan had to set the broom to the side before he snapped it, a cold feeling in his chest as they leaned in close.

He grabbed a rag and set to finishing the table Jiang Cheng had been working on, but it was a half hearted effort at best, his attention tunneling on the way Jiang Cheng bent in towards her and she to him, like their bodies knew each other’s shape and space enough it was an unconscious effort.

“I told him I’d be there, so I will,” Jiang Cheng assured her, teasingly stubborn, making her laugh again. Lan Huan had to turn away just to breathe and not rip the poor rag in half. He had a feeling that would be hard to explain away, given it was a new one. “Five o’clock, right? I made sure to fully staff so I can leave.”

“Five,” she agreed, teasing right back, and Lan Huan didn’t even have to look to know Jiang Cheng’s face was a pleased flush. Fuck, but why did this hurt so much to hear? “They’ll riot, you know. Their fearless, never-takes-a-break boss actually leaving before closing?”

“I take breaks,” Jiang Cheng grumped in mock offense and Lan Huan had to set the rag down too, feeling it start to tear around his fingernails. “You make me sound like some heartless slave driver.”

“Not heartless,” she teased, getting a snort and what sounded like some swatting. She chuckled and then finally, finally her footsteps went back to the door. Unfortunately, Jiang Cheng’s did too. “I’ll see you Saturday, Jiang Cheng. Be there or I’ll neuter you with a spoon.”

“Yes, yes, tell A-Yuan I’ll be there.” Fond, so fond, it made Lan Huan flush cold, a feeling he had never known. He’d known the numbness of anger and grief, for certain, but jealousy?

He didn’t know what to do except try to keep breathing, even as his chest constricted, even as his heart clenched so hard with something that felt too much like helpless grief. So what if Jiang Cheng smiled at her like she was the sun? They were close and they were allowed to be. So what if their closeness spoke of intimate things? Shouldn’t he be glad that someone saw Jiang Cheng as worth wanting the way he did now?

No, he realized with a sickened jolt. It wasn’t. Not when she was so blessedly normal and beautiful and could give Jiang Cheng a whole love, not just one wrapped in secrets.

Lan Huan was not used to feeling inadequate, but he felt it now, and didn’t know how to come back from it, nor compose himself, even as the chime over the door heralded her departure and the restarting of his alone time with the man he loved.

Gods, what would Jiang Cheng think, hearing such dark thoughts inside his head? He closed his eyes and forced in a deep, shaking breath. In through his nose, out through his mouth, as he’d been taught. One breath, two, three…

“You look like you’re about to explode,” Jiang Cheng commented beside him, startling him back to the present. His face was amused, but the edge of worry was creeping in, even under that adorably arched eyebrow. “Something wrong?”

“Nothing,” Lan Huan did his best to smile, but he knew it fell far flat even before Jiang Cheng snorted at his failure.

“You are a terrible liar,” Jiang Cheng said, crossing his arms now, and the words were an unexpected sting amidst the coil of black in his stomach. Oh, if only Jiang Cheng knew how wrong he was. If only he knew…

“I am,” Lan Huan agreed regardless, because he was failing at this. Tamping down the wave of cold was like trying to wrestle a dragon.

“A-Huan,” Jiang Cheng sighed and nudged him, then shook his head. “Is this about Wen Qing? The lady that was just in here.”

He knew that already, but Jiang Cheng didn’t know, and it was another hateful secret between them. “You two seem close,” he said, because it was true, and he needed some honesty here before he fell apart with lies.

“I’ve known her for years,” Jiang Cheng shrugged, though had gone a bit softer around his sharp edges again. Lan Huan hated that he couldn’t tell if it was for Wen Qing, or for he himself. “Made it to one date that I will never speak of again, so don’t even try. All you need to know is we’re friends and that she’s family now. So stop looking like the world’s poutiest murderer. She’s undeserving of any homicide plotting.”

It was meant as a tease, of course it was, but only made Lan Haun feel worse. Not that he’d ever been tasked to kill anyone, but he’d ruined so many lives in other ways, and his treacherous mind already knew what path it would take to ruin hers.

“I just…” He sighed, for once unable to put a voice or polite veil over what he was truly feeling. And perhaps that was for the best, he thought in some despair. Best Jiang Cheng see him for the petty fool he apparently was. “She makes you so happy…”

“She does, because she’s a friend,” Jiang Cheng said again, chuckling now, and reached out to take his hands. Lan Huan felt himself soften instantly, feeling the worked in callous of Jiang Cheng’s palms, so familiar now, a comfort. “Many people make me happy, even if I don’t seem like it. My sister, my nephews… hell, even Wei Ying, when he’s not being a total idiot.”

He leaned up on his tip toes then to kiss the side of his mouth, which had Lan Huan melting more even with his heavy heart. “I know… I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry for how you feel,” Jiang Cheng told him, firm on that, and slowly his untangled their fingers to wrap over Lan Huan’s shoulders, teasing in his hair. “And maybe I kinda like you jealous, even if it’s unwarranted. Just don’t act stupid or mean to her in the future and everything will be fine.”

“I’ll do my best,” Lan Huan promised, fingers sliding down Jiang Cheng’s hips, and swallowed hard at the smile he got for it.

“You’d better. I’m not saving you from her wrath,” Jiang Cheng huffed and leaned up again. This time, Lan Huan met him halfway and kissed him slow, though knew he was pulling him in a tad closer than was strictly necessary. Not that Jiang Cheng seemed to mind, if that chuckle was any indication.

“And for the record,” Jiang Cheng tacked on when they parted, forehead to forehead and gently swaying to the music and the peace of their world, “you make me happy too. Next time you feel this way, remember that, or come find me so I can tell you again. Deal?”

Lan Huan kissed him for that, finally finding a much better, truer smile, and knew he was utterly lost. “Deal.”

#ruenwrites #xicheng #lotus cafe au #mafia au #this was a lot of fun #lan xichen #jiang cheng #wen qing

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lowkeyassgard · 4 years

Text

DAY 3 OF LOKI VS. EARTH: CHINESE FINGER TRAP

Day 3 of the quarantine series and today Loki is pissed off and defeated by a Chinese finger trap.

One shot summary: It’s Loki’s birthday but what will he do when he finds himself stuck and defeated in more ways than one.

Author’s note: I started something called the quarantine series as a way to help others get through this tough time. To join in just write a one shot and tag it with #quarantine series.

Loki never truly celebrated his birthday. Birthdays weren’t a big deal to Asgardians . When you live thousands of years you just don’t see the point of celebrating every year. Loki deemed himself hard to kill; so of course he would be alive another year. He didn’t think much about his birthday or even his age. He just lived his life like there was no end to the mischief.

Loki’s birthday was today and he wanted to spend the day sharpening his knives and greasing his hair. It took a lot of effort to look as good as he always did. Loki also knew that since finding out he was adopted he didn’t care much any type of celebration. What was there to celebrate? A life of lies and deceit?

Thor had informed his brother of his return from Midgard a week prior to Loki’s birthday. Thor had said something about this year being different and wanting to give Loki something. Loki had no clue what his brother would even think of giving him. He loved his brother but giving gifts was out of the ordinary.

Thor was definitely up to something but Loki couldn’t figure out what.

Loki laid in his bed with the black satin sheets draped over him. He wasn’t naked. Fully dressed in his usual green and gold Asgardian clothing. He wasn’t cold. Sweating to be honest. He wasn’t tired. Completely awake. Loki was sulking.

Loki was sulking because even though he said his birthday was no big deal not a single person had come in the search of him. No one to admire him on his day. Yes he has lived for thousands of years and didn’t see the point of celebrating every year but didn’t change the fact that he wanted to be appreciated.

Suddenly there came a knock at the door and Loki saw his brother’s blonde hair followed by his face peek over the edge of the door.

“Brother? Are you sulking? On a fine day like this?”

“No. I am not sulking. I am saving my energy.. for uh events.” Loki groaned out. He had no want for his brother’s cocky attitude. Of course he was sulking. The people of this place did not celebrate him.

“Well I bring a gift.” Thor said and began to walk toward Loki’s bed. Loki sat up and rolled his eyes at his pestering brother.

“What are you waiting for?” Loki said. He just wanted to be left alone to sulk in peace.

Instead of answering him, Thor handed Loki a woven rectangular contraption. Loki was bewildered. This was his gift. His gift of all gifts. He had heard Thor praise this gift for a week for it to be smaller than his finger and uglier than the things he saw in the Asgardian trinket shops.

Loki was confused by the purpose of this contraception. He stuck his index finger in the one end of the contraception just to feel if there was anything hidden. To his disappointment there was not.. He tried to remove his finger to realize that it was stuck. Loki stuck in his other index finger to be able to pul the other end off. Realizing his mistake too late his fingers were completely stuck.

“What kind of joke is this brother?” Loki hissed out.. He pulled and pulled only to find the woven material tighter around his fingers. It was stronger than any material he had ever discovered on Midgard. Why would Thor give this to him as a gift? To imprison him here?

“No joke brother. I’ve heard you say for weeks that there is nothing on Midgard that you couldn’t overcome. How Asgardians are better than Midgardians. Well go ahead. Remove your fingers.”

Loki let out a laugh. He should have known this was another one of Thor’s lessons. Loki didn’t think he was better than humans. He knew he was better. He had powers, knowledge, and experience far past anything their weak feeble minds could comprehend. He could get out of a simple woven contraception like this.

“I’ll be back in an hour. Let’s see what state you’ll be in then.” With that Thor turned and left Loki alone in the room.

For 45 minutes Loki pulled, twisted, and turned his fingers in every direction they could possibly go. He even tried to shape shift into animals just to discover that this treacherous toy was still attached to him

Loki was convinced that if he didn’t get this device off that he would lose his fingers. Who would he be then? Everyone knew that power came from your hands more than anywhere. Without full control of his hands Loki stood no chance against it. He screamed in defeat

He might have lost but he would find a way. He would not let Thor return to see him still in entrapment.

When Thor returned one hour later Loki was happily reading a book in his bed. He licked his index finger to turn the page and smirked at Thor.

“Ahh Brother. You did it! See Midgard is not as bad and stupid as you wish to make it out to be. May I bring you another Midgardian gift to keep your mind churning and ego checked.”

Loki just smiled. He said goodbye and watched as his brother left his room for the last time for who knows how long.

As soon as Thor was gone the glimmer of the illusion faded away. There sat Loki in a state of derangement and anger. His body covered in sweat and his hair sticking to his face. His clothes were drenched with his own perspiration and his room lay in ruins. He had tried everything. Everything but the one way to release a Chinese Finger Trap.

Loki stayed like that for 3 days until one morning he woke up and his servant had entered his room. Upon seeing his state she let out a giggle. She immediately came over and cut the material down the middle. Upon the release of his fingers he used his powers to instantly heal them.

“Push not pull.” Loki’s servant said before leaving him with a tray of food.

Loki sat there humiliated as it hit him by what she meant. All he had to do was push his fingers in to release the tension. All he had to do and yet for three days he suffered.

Oh Jotun. Loki why must you make everything so complicated.

If this made you laugh just stay tuned tomorrow when Loki is pissed off by bouncy balls. :)

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teshknowledgenotes · 3 years

Text

THE E-MYTH REVISITED NOTES

WHY?

A lot of successful people recommend this book and the concepts in this book about businesses should benefit my life, whether it's stocks or starting my own business.

NOTES

The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary man takes everything either as a blessing or a curse, then I am as guilty of being an ordinary man as the next guy, and on occasion have ascended to the warrior state.

In the 25 years of life, I have experienced near financial and business disaster as well as incredible victories, have created new companies to expand my dream, vision, purpose and mission beyond what is included in this book, have seen my marriage collapse and with it lost control over my company, without even a glimpse of what is going on wit it. At the same time, I discovered what power I do possess, why it is important, and why in the end, everything depends upon my determination to live my life authentically, to pursue my vision unceasingly, and to live it to the fullest of my being.

My experience has shown me that the people who are exceptionally good in business aren't so because of what they know but because if their insatiable need to know more.

The problem with most failing businesses I've encountered is not that their owners don't know enough about finance, marketing, management, and operations they don't, but those things are easy enough to learn, but that they spend their time and energy defending what they think they know. The greatest business people I've met are determined to get it right no matter what the cost.

Chapter 1: The Entrepreneurial Myth

Picture the typical entrepreneur and Herculean pictures come to mind: a man or woman standing alone, wind blown against the elements, bravely defying insurmountable odds, climbing sheer faces of treacherous rock all to realize the dream of creating a business of one's own.

The legend reeks of nobility, of loft, extra human efforts, of a prodigious commitment to larger than life ideals. Well there are such people, my experience tells me they are rare. Of the thousands of business people I have had the opportunity to know and work with over the past two decades, few were real entrepreneurs when I met them. The vision was all but gone in most. The zest for the climb had turned into a terror of heights. The face of the rock had become something to cling to rather than to scale. Exhaustion was common, exhilaration rare. But hadn't all of them once been entrepreneurs? After all, they had started their own business. There must have been some dream that drove them to take such a risk. But if so where was the dream now? Why had it faded? Where was the entrepreneur who had started the business?

To understand the E-Myth and the misunderstanding at it's core, let's take a closer look at the person who goes into business. Not after he goes into business, but before.

For that matter, where were you before you started your business? And if you're thinking about going into business, where are you know?

Well, if you're like most of the people I've known, you were working for somebody else.

What were you doing? Probably technical work, like almost everybody who goes into business.

You were a carpenter, a mechanic or a machinist.

You were a bookkeeper or a poodle clipper, a drafts person or a hair dresser, a barber or a computer programmer, a doctor or a technical writer, a graphic artist or an accountant, an interior design or a plumber or a salesperson. But whatever you were, you were doing technical work. And you were probably good at it. But you were doing it for somebody else. The one day for no apparent reason something happened, it might have been a feeling that your boss didn't really appreciate your contribution to the success of his business.

Inside your mind it sounded something like this: “What am I doing this for? Why am I working for this guy? Hell, I know as much about this business as he does. If it weren't for me, he wouldn't have a business. And dummy can run a business, I'm working for one.”

The thought of independence followed you everywhere. The idea of being your own boss, doing your own thing, singing your own song, became obsessively irresistible.

Once you were stricken with an Entrepreneurial Seizure, there was no relief. You couldn't get rid of it. You had to start your own business.

In the throes of your Entrepreneurial Seizure you fell victim to the most disastrous assumption anyone can make about going into business. The fatal assumption is: if you understand the technical work of a business, you understand a business that does that technical work. And the reason it's fatal is that it just isn't true. In fact it's the root cause of most small business failures! The technical work of a business and a business that does the technical work are two totally different things! But the technician who starts a business fails to see this. To the technician suffering from an Entrepreneurial Seizure a business is not a business but a place to go to work.

The real tragedy is that when the technician falls prey to the Fatal Assumption, the business that was supposed to free him from the limitations of working for somebody else actually enslaves him. Suddenly the job he knew how to do so well becomes one job he knows how to do plus a dozen others he doesn't know how to do at all. Because although the Entrepreneurial Seizure started the business, it's the technician who goes to work.

And suddenly, an entrepreneurial dream turns into a technician's nightmare.

The technician suffering from an Entrepreneurial Seizure takes the work he loves to do and turns it into a job. The work that was born out of love becomes a chore, among a welter of other less familiar and less pleasant chores. Rather than maintaining its specialness, representing the unique skill the technician possesses and upon which he started the business, the work becomes trivialized, something to get through in order to make room for everything else that must be done. Every technician suffering from an Entrepreneurial Seizure experiences exactly the same thing. First, exhilaration, second terror, third exhaustion, and finally despair. A terrible sense of loss not only the loss of what was closest to them, their special relationship with their work, but the loss of purpose, the loss of self.

Chapter 2: The Entrepreneur, The Manager, and The Technician

No, The Technician isn't the only problem. The problem is more complicated than that. The problem is that everybody who goes into business is actually three-people-in-one: The Entrepreneur, The Manager, and The Technician. And the problem is compounded by the fact that while each of these personalities wants to be the boss, none of them want to have a boss. So they start a business together in order to get rid of the boss. And the conflict begins. To show you how the problem manifests itself in all of us, let's examine the way our various internal personalities interact. Let's take a look at two personalities we're all familiar with: The Fat Guy & The Skinny Guy.

Have you ever decided to go on a diet?

You're sitting in front of the television set one Saturday afternoon, watching an athletic competition, awed by the athletes' stamina and dexterity.

You're eating a sandwich, your second since you sat down to watch the event two hours before.

You're feeling sluggish in the face of all the action on the screen when, suddenly somebody wakes up in you and says “What are you doing? Look at yourself, You're Fat! You're out of shape! Do something about it!”

It has happened to us all. Somebody wakes up inside us with a totally different picture of who we should be and what we should be doing. In this case, let's call him The Skinny Guy.

Who's The Skinny Guy? He's the one who uses words like discipline, exercise, organization. The Skinny Guy in intolerant, self righteous, a stickler for detail, a compulsive tyrant.

The Skinny Guy abhors fat people. Can't stand sitting around. Needs to be on the move. Lives for action. The Skinny Guy has just taken over. Watch out things are going to change.

You have a new lease on life and by Monday night, you've lost two pounds. Tuesday night you get on the scale another pound gone.

On Wednesday you can't wait to get on the scale. You strip down to your bare skin, shivering in the bathroom, filled with expectation of what your scale is going to tell you. You step lightly onto it and look down. What you see is nothing. You haven't lost an ounce. You're exactly the same as you were on Tuesday.

Dejection creeps in. You begin to feel a slight twinge of resentment “After all that work? After all that sweat and effort? And then nothing? It isn't fair” But you shrug it off. After all, tomorrow's another day. You go to bed, vowing to work harder on Thursday. But somehow something has changed.

You don't know what's changed until Thursday morning. It's raining. The room is cold. Something feels different. What is it? For a minute or two you can't quite put your finger on it. And then you get it: somebody else is in your body. It's The Fat Guy! He's Back! And he doesn't want to run. As a matter of fact, he doesn't even want to get out of bed it's cold outside.

All of a sudden you find yourself in front of the refrigerator. Food is now your major interest. The marathon is gone, the lean machine is gone, the sweats and barbells and running shoes are gone. The Fat Guy is back. He's running the show again. It happens to all of us, time and time again. Because we've been deluded into thinking we're really one person.

And so when The Skinny Guy decides to change things we actually believe that it's I who's making that decision. And when The Fat Guy wakes up and changes it all back again, we think it's I who's making that decision too. But it isn't I. It's we.

The Skinny Guy and The Fat Guy are two totally different personalities, with different needs, different interests, and different lifestyles.

That's why they don't like each other. They each want totally different things.

When you're The Skinny Guy you're always making promises for The Fat Guy to keep. And when you're The Fat Guy, you're always making promises for the Skinny Guy to keep. It's not that we're indecisive or unreliable, it's that each and every one of us is a whole set of different personalities, each with his own interests and way of doing things. Asking any one of them to defer to any of the others is inviting a battle or even a full scale war.

Well this is the kind of war going on inside the owner of every small business. But it's a three way battle between The Entrepreneur, The Manager, and The Technician. Unfortunately it's a battle no one can win.

The entrepreneurial personality turns the most trivial condition into an exceptional opportunity. The Entrepreneur is the visionary in us. The dreamer. The energy behind every human activity. The imagination that sparks the fire of the future. The catalyst for change.

The Entrepreneur lives in the future, never in the past, rarely in the present. He's happiest when left free to construct images of “what-if” and “if-when”.

The Entrepreneur is our creative personality always at its best dealing with the unknown, prodding the future, creating probabilities out of possibilities, engineering chaos into harmony.

Every strong entrepreneurial personality has an extraordinary need for control. Living as he does in the visionary world of the future, he needs control of people and events in the present so that he can concentrate on his dreams.

The managerial personality is pragmatic. Without The Manager there would be no planning, no order, no predictability. The Manager is the part of that goes to Sears and buys stacking plastic boxes, takes them back to the garage, and systematically stores all the various sized nuts, bolts, and screws in their own carefully identified drawer.

If The Entrepreneur lives in the future, The Manager lives in the past. Where the entrepreneur craves control, The Manager craves order.

Where The Entrepreneur thrives on change, The Manager compulsively clings to the status quo. Where The Entrepreneur invariable sees the opportunity in events, The Manager invariably sees the problems. The Manager builds a house and then lives in it, forever. The Entrepreneur builds a house and the instant it's done begin planning the next one. Without The Manager there could be no business, no society. Without The Entrepreneur, there would be no innovation.

The Technician is the doer. “If you want it done right do it yourself” is The Technician's credo.

The Technician loves to tinker. Things are to be taken apart and put back together again. Things aren't supposed to be dreamed about, they're supposed to be done.

If The Entrepreneur lives in the future and The Manager lives in the past, The Technician lives in the present. He loves the feel of things and the fact that things can get done.

As long as The Technician is working, he is happy, but only one thing at a time. He knows that two things can't get done simultaneously, only a fool would try. So he works steadily and is happiest when he is in control of the work flow.

As a result, The Technician mistrusts those he works for, because they are always trying to get more work done than is either possible or necessary.

To The Technician, thinking is unproductive unless it's thinking about the work that needs to be done.

As a result, he is suspicious of lofty ideas or abstractions. Thinking isn't work, it gets in the way of work. The Technician isn't interested in ideas, he's interested in “how to do it”. To The Technician knows that if it weren't for him, the world would be in more trouble than it already is. Nothing would get done, but lots of people would be thinking about it.

Put another way, while The Entrepreneur dreams, The Manager frets, and The Technician ruminates.

The Technician is a resolute individualist, standing his ground, producing today's bread to eat at tonight's dinner. He is the backbone of every cultural tradition, but most importantly of ours. If The Technician didn't do it, it wouldn't get done.

Everyone gets in the Technician's way. The Entrepreneur is always throwing a monkey wrench into his day with the creation of yet another “great new idea”

On the other hand, The Entrepreneur is always creating new and interesting work for The Technician to do, thus establishing a potentially symbiotic relationship. Unfortunately it rarely works out that way. Since most entrepreneurial ideas don't work in the real world.

The Manager is also a problem to The Technician because he is determined to impose order on The Technician's work, to reduce him to a part of “the system”. But being a rugged individualist, The Technician can't stand being treated that way. To The Technician “the system” is dehumanizing, cold, antiseptic, and impersonal. It violates his individuality.

The fact of the matter is that we all have an Entrepreneur, Manager, and Technician inside us. And if they were equally balanced, we'd be describing an incredibly competent individual.

The Entrepreneur would be free to forge ahead into new areas of interest, The Manager would be solidifying the base of operations, and The Technician would be doing the technical work.

Unfortunately out experience shows us that few people who go into business are blessed with such a balance. Instead, the typical small business owner is only 10 percent Entrepreneur, 20 percent Manager, and 70 percent Technician.

If it's that within each businessperson there are three personalities, rather than just one, can you imagine what a mess that makes? If one of you wants this, and another of you wants that, and a third wants something entirely different, can you imagine the confusion that causes in our lives? And it's not only the personalities inside each of one of us that confuse us but all the others we come in to contact with as well: in our customers, in our parents, in our friends, in our spouses, in our lovers. If this is true, and all you need to do is discover whether it is or not is to take a look at yourself from day to day, as though from above, as though from someone else, to observe yourself as you go through the day you would see the different parts come out. You would see them playing their respective games. You would see how they fight for their own space and the sapce of all the others and sabotage each other as best they can. In your business you would see how one part of you craves a sense of order, while another part of you dreams about the future. You would see how another part of you can't stand being idle, and jumps in to bake, and to clean up, and to wait on customers, the part of you who feels guilty if she isn't doing something all the time.

In short you would see how the Entrepreneur in you dreams and schemes, The Manager in you is constantly attempting to keep things as they are, and The Technician in you drives the other two crazy. You would see that it not only matters that your personalities are not in a balanced relationship with each other but that your life depends on gaining that balance. That until you do, it's a war! And it's a war no one can win.

You would also see that on of your personalities is the strongest of the three (or four, or five, or six), and that she walways manages to control the others. In fact, if you watch long enough, you'll being to understand how devastating the tyranny of your strongest personality is to your life. And you'll see that without balance, without all three of these personalities being given the opportunitiy, the freedom, the nourishment they each need to grow, your business cannot help but mirror your own lopsidedness.

So it is that an entrepreneurial business, without a Manager to give it order and without a Technician to put it to work, is doomed to suffer an early, and probably very dramatic, death. And what a Manager-driven business, without an Entrepreneur or a Technician to play their absolutely critical roles, will put things into little gray boxes over and over again, only to realize too late that there's no reason for the things or the boxes she put them into! Such a business will die very neatly.

And that in the Technician driven business, without the Entrepreneur to lead her and The Manager to supervise her, The Technician will work until she drops, only to wake up the next morning to go to work even harder, and the next, and the next. Only to discover, long after it's too late, that while she was working someone moved a freeway through the store!

An entrepreneur does the work of envisioning the business as something apart from you, the owner. The work of asking all the right questions about why this business, as opposed to that business? Why a pie baking business rather than a body shop? If you are a baker of pies, it's easy for you to decide to open up a pie baking business. But that's just the point. If you are a baker of pies and are determined to do entrepreneurial work, you would leave your pie baking experience behind you and engage in the internal dialogue with which every truly entrepreneurial personality is wonderfully familiar.

You would begin to say to yourself, it's time for me to create a new life. It's time for me to challenge my imagination and to begin the process of shaping an entirely new life. And the best way to do that anywhere in this whole wide opportunity filled world is to create an exciting new business. One that can give me everything I want, one that doesn't require me to be there all the time, one that has the potential to be stunningly unique, one that people will talk about long after having shopping in it the very first time, and as a result of that delightful experience, will come back to shop there again because it has such a special flavour to it. I wonder what that business would be?

So the work of an Entrepreneur is to wonder, to imagine and to dream. To see with as much of herself as she can muster the possibilities that waft about in midair someplace there above her head and within her heart. Not in the past but in the future. That's the work the entrepreneurial personality does at the outset of her business and at each and every stage along the way. I wonder. I wonder. Just as every inventor must. Just as every composer must. Just as every artist, or every craftsperson, or every physicist must. Just as every baker of pies must. I call it Future Work. I wonder is the true work of the entrepreneurial personality.

CHAPTER 3: INFANCY: THE TECHNICIAN'S PHASE

It is self evident that businesses, like people, are supposed to grow and with growth comes change.

Unfortunately most businesses are not run according to principle. Instead most businesses are operated according to what the owner wants as opposed to what the business needs.

And what the Technician who runs the company wants is not growth or change but exactly the opposite. He wants a place to go to work, free to do what he wants, when he wants, free from the contrainsts of working for The Boss. Unfortunately, what The Technician wants dooms his business before it even begins.

To understand why, let's take a look at the three phases of business's growth: Infancy, Adolescence, and Maturity.

Understanding each phase, and what goes on in the business owner's mind during each of them, is critical to discovering why most small businesses don't thrive and ensuring that yours does.

The boss is dead and you, The Technician are free at last. Finally you can do your own thing in your own business. Hope runs high. The air is electric with possibility. It's like being let out of school for the summer. Your newfound freedom is intoxicating.

In the beginning nothing is too much for your business to ask. As The Technician, you're accustomed to "paying your dues" So the hours devoted to the business during Infancy are not spend grudgingly but optimistically. There's work to be done and that's what you're all about. After all your middle name is Work.

And so you work. Ten, twelve, fourteen hours a day. Seven days a week. Even when you're at home, you're at work. All your thoughts, all your feelings, revolve around your new business. You can't get it out of your mind. You're consumed by it, totally invested in doing whatever is necessary to keep it alive. But now you're doing not only the work you know how to do but the work you don't know how to do as well .You're not only making it but you're also buying it, selling it, and shipping it. During Infancy, you're a Master Juggler, keeping all the balls in the air.

It's easy to spot a business in Infancy, the owner and the business are one and the same thing.

If you removed the owner from an Infancy business, there would be no business left.

It's even named after you Joe's Place, Tommy's Joint, Mary's Fine Foods so the customer won't forget you're The Boss.

And soon if you're lucky all of the sweat, worry and work begin to pay off. You're good. You work hard. The customers don't forget. They're coming back. They're sending in friends. Their friends have friends. They're all about Joe, Tommy and Mary. They're all talking about you.

If you can believe what your customers are saying, there's never been anyone like Joe, Tommy, and Mary. Joe, Tommy, and Mary are just like old friends. They work hard for their money. And they do good work. Joe is the best barber I ever went to. Tommy is the best printer I ever used. Mary makes the best corned beef sandwich I ever ate. Your customers are crazy about you. They keep coming, in droves.

And you love it!

But then it changes. Subtly at first, but gradually it becomes obvious. You're falling behind. There's more work to do than you can possibly get done. The customers are relentless. They want you they need you. You've spoiled them for anyone else. You're working at breakneck speed.

And then the inevitable happens. You, the Master Juggler, begin to drop some of the balls!

It can't be helped. No matter how hard you try, you simply can't catch them all. Your entusiasm for working with the customer wanes. Deliveries, once early are now late. The product begins to show the wear and tear. Nothing seems to work the way it did at first.

Joe's haircuts don't look the way they used to. "I said short in the back, not on the sides" "My name's Fred, that's my brother and I never had a crewcut!". Glitches start showing up in Tommy's printing, typos, ink smudges, wrong colors, wrong paper. "I didn't order business cards, I ordered catalog covers" "Pink? I said brown!"

Mary's best tasting biggest stack of corned beef in the world suddenly looks like pastrami? Another irritated voice calls out: "Where's my pastrami sandwich? This is corned beef!" And yet another "What are these garbanzo beans doing in my meatloaf?"

What do you do? You stretch. You work harder. You put in more time, more energy.

If you put in twelve hours before, you now put in fourteen.

If you put in fourteen hours before, you now put in sixteen.

If you put in sixteen hours before, now you put in twenty. But the balls keep dropping!

All of a sudden, Joe, Tommy, and Mary wish their names weren't on the sign.

All of a sudden, they want to hide.

All of a sudden, you find yourself at the end of an unbelievably hectic week, late on a Saturday night, poring over the books, trying to make some sense out of the mess, thinking about all of the work you didn't get done this week, and all of the work waiting for you next week. And you suddenly realize it simply isn't going to get done. There's simply no way in the world you can do all that work yourself! In a flash, you realize that you business has become The Boss you thought you left behind. There's not getting rid of The Boss!

Infancy ends when the owner realizes that the business cannot continue to run the way it has been, that in order for it to survive, it will have to change. What that happens when the reality sinks in, most business failures occur. When that happens, most of The Technicians lock their doors behind them and walk away.

The rest go on to Adolescence.

When a Technician turned business owner is suddenly confronted with the reality of her situation, a sense of hopelessness can set in. The challenge can seem overwhelming.

There's nothing wrong with being A Technician. There's only something wrong with being a A Technician who also owns a business! Because as a Technician turned business owner, your focus is upside down. You see the world from the bottom up rather than from the top down. You have a tactical view rather than a strategic view. You see the work that has to get done, and because of the way you're built, you immediately jump to do it! You believe that a business is nothing more than an aggregate of the various types of work done in it, when in fact it is much more than that.

If you want to work in a business, get a job in somebody else's business! But don't go to work in your own. Because while you're working, while you're answering the telephone, while you're baking pies, while you're cleaning the windows and the floors, while you're doing it, doing it, doing it, there's something much more important that isn't getting done. And it's the work you're not doing, the strategic work, the entrepreneurial work, that will lead your business forward, that will give you the life you've not known yet.

There's nothing wrong with technical work, it is, it can be, pure joy. It's only a problem when The Technician consumes all the other personalities. When The Technician fills your day with work. When The Technician avoids the challenge of learning how to grow a business. When The Technician shrinks from the entrepreneurial role so necessary to the lifeblood, the momentum, of a truly extraordinary small business, and from the managerial role so critical to the operational balance or grounding of a small business on a day to day basis. To be a great Technician is simply insufficient to the task of building a great small business.

If your business depends on you, you don't own a business you have a job. And it's the worst job in the world because you're working for a lunatic! The purpose of going into business is to get free of a job so you can create jobs for other people.

The purpose of going into business is to expand beyond your existing horizons. So you can invent something that satisfies a need in the marketplace that has never been satisfied before. So you can live an expanded, stimulating new life. You can't have a business and just expect to do the technical work. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't ignore the financial accountabilities, the marketing accountabilities, the sales and administrative accountabilities. You can't ignore your future employees' need for leadership, for purpose, for responsible management, for effective communication, for something more than just a job in which their sol purpose is to support you doing your job. Let alone what your business needs from you if it's to thrive: that you understand the way a business works, that you understand the dynamics of a business, cash flow, growth, customer sensitivity, competitive sensitivity, and so forth.

If all you want from a business of your own is the opportunity to do what you did before you started your business, get paid more for it, and have more freedom to come and go, your greed - I know that soudns harsh but that's what it is your self-indulgence will eventually consume both you and your business. The exciting thing is that once you let go of your Technician side, once you make room for the rest of you to flourish, the game becomes more rewarding than you can possibly imagine at this point in your business's life.

CHAPTER 4: ADOLESCENCE GETTING SOME HELP

Adolescence begins at the point in the life of your business when you decide to get some help.

There's no telling how soon this will happen. But it always happens, precipitated by a criss in the Infancy stage.

Every business that lasts must grow in to the Adolescent phase. Every small business owner who survives seeks help.

What kind of help do you, the overloaded Technician, go out to get? The answer is as easy as it is inevitable: technical help. Someone with experience. Someone with experience in your kind of business.

When things get crazy at your business and you run around like a lunatic/mad man. You're hopelessly, helplessly at a loss. For you to behave differently you would need to awaken the personalities who have been asleep within you for a long time- The Entrepreneur and The Manager - and then help them to developer the skills only they can add to you business.

But The Technician in you won't stop long enough for that to happen.

The Technician in you has got to go to work!

The Technician in you has got to catch the balls!

The Technician in you has got to keep busy. The Technician in you has just reached the limits of his Comfort Zone.

CHAPTER 5: BEYOND THE COMFORT ZONE

Every adolescent business reaches a point where it pushes beyond its owner's

Comfort Zone - the boundary within which he feels secure in his ability to control his environment, and outside of which he begins to lose that control.

The Technician's boundary is determined by how much he can do himself.

The Manager's is defined by how many technicians he can supervise effectively or how many subordinate managers he can organize in a productive effort. The Entrepreneur's boundary is a function of how many managers he can engage in pursuit of his vision.

As a business grows, it invariably exceeds its owner's ability to control it - to touch, feel, and see the work that needs to be done, and to inspect its progress personally as every technician needs to do.

As the business grows beyond the owner's Comfort Zone as the tailspin accelerates, there are only three courses of action to be taken, only three ways the business can turn. It can return to Infancy. It can go for broke. Or it can hang on for dear life. Let's take a look at each.

Getting Small Again.

One of the most consistent predictable reactions of The Technician turned business owner to Adolescent chaos is the decision to "get small" again. If you can't control the chaos, get rid of it.

Go back to the way is it used to be when you did everything yourself, when you didn't have people to about, or too many customers, or too many unpayable payables and unreceivable receivables or too much inventory.

In short, go back to the time when business was simple, back to Infancy. And thousands upon thousands of technicians do just that. They get rid of their people, get rid of their inventory, wrap up their payables in a large bag, rent a smaller facility, put the machine in the middle, put the telephone by the machine, and go back to doing it all by themselves again.

They go back to being the owner, sole properietor, chief cook and bottle washer, doing everything that needs to be done, all alone, but comfortable with the feeling of regained control.

And all of a sudden you are struck with the reality of your condition. You realized something you've avoided all these years. You come fact to face with the unavoidable truth: You don't own a business, you own a job! What's more, it's the worst job in the world! You can't close it when you want to, because when you leave there's nobody there to do the work.

You can't sell it when you want to, because who wants to buy a job?

Your dream is gone, the only thing left is work. The day-to-day grind of purposeless activity.

Finally, you close the doors. There's nothing to keep you there anymore.

According to the Small Business Administration, more than 600,000 such businesses close their doors in the United States every year.

The true question is not how small a business should be but how big. How big can your business naturally become, with the operative word being naturally?

Because whatever that size is, any limitation you place on its growth is unnatural, shaped not by the market or by your lack of capital even though that may play a part but by your own personal limitations. Your lack of skill, knowledge, and experience, and most of all, passion for growing a healthy functionally dynamic extraordinary business.

In this regard getting small is, rather than an intentional act, a reaction to the pain and fear induced by uncontrolled and uncontrollable growth, both of which could have been aniticipated provided the owner had been prepared to facilitate the growth in a balanced, healthy, proactive way.

So if the natural disposition of every business is to either grow or contract, and it is, there is no denying that then 'getting small again' is the natural inclination of the Technician turned owner to shrink from the unknown, to shrink from the business she has created, to contrain the business from creating demands on her to which she feels hopelessly inadequate to respond appropriately. In short businesses that get small again die. They literally implode upon themselves.

Your job is to prepare yourself and your business for growth.

To educate yourself sufficiently so that, as your business grows the business's foundation and structure can carry the additional weight. And as awesome a responsibility as that may seem to you, you have no other choice, if your business is to thrive that is.

It's up to you to dictate your business's rate of growth as best you can by understanding the key processes that need to be performed, the key objectives that need to be achieved, the key position you are aiming your business to hold in the marketplace.

By asking the right questions, such as: Where do I wish to be? When do I wish to be there? How much capital will that take? How many people, doing what work, and how? What technology will be required? How large a space will be needed, at Benchmark One, at Benchmark Two, at Benchmark Three? Will you be wrong at times? Will you make mistakes? Will you change your mind? Of course you will! More often than not. But, done right, you will also have contingency plans in place. Best case, worst case. And somtimes you will simply fly by the seat of your pants, you will go with the flow, follow your intuition.

But all the while even while you're guessing, the key is to plan, envision, and articulate what you see in the future both for yourself and for your employees.

Because if you don't articulate it, I mean, write it down clearly, so others can understand it, you don't own it! And do you know that in all the years I've been doing this work with small business owners, out of the thousands upon thousands we've met, there have only been a few who had any plan at all!

Nothing written, nothing committed to paper, nothing concrete at all.

Any plan is better than no plan, because in the process of defining the future, the plan begins to shape itself to reality, both the reality of the world out there and the reality you are able to create in here.

And as those two realities merge, they form a new reality, call it your reality, call it the unique invention that is uniquely yours, the reality of your mind and your heart uniting with all the elements of your business, and your business with the world, shaping, designing, collaborating, to form something that never existed before in exactly that way.

And that is the sign of a Mature company. A Mature company is started differently than all the rest. A Mature company is founded on a broader perspective, an entrepreneurial perspective, a more intelligent point of view. About building a busienss that works not because of you but without you.

CHAPTER 6: MATURITY AND THE ENTREPRENEURIAL PERSPECTIVE

Maturity the third phase of a company's growth is exemplified by the best business in the world. Businesses such as McDonald's, Federal Express and Disney.

A Mature business knows how it got to be where it is and what it must do to get where it wants to go.

Therefore, Maturity is not an ineveitable result of the first two phases. It is not the end product of a serial process beginning with Infancy and moving through Adolescence.

Companies like McDonald's, Federal Express, and Disney didn't end up as Mature companies. They started out that way! The people who started them had a totally different perspective about what a business is and why it works.

The person who launches his business as a Mature company must also go through Infancy and Adolescence. He simply goes through them in an entirely different way.

It's his perspective that makes the difference.

His Entrepreneurial Perspective.

A Technician's Perspective differs from the Entrepreneurial Perspective in the following ways:

1) The Entrepreneurial Perspective asks the question: "How must the business work?" The Technician's Perspective asks "What work has to be done?

2) The Entrepreneurial Perspective sees the business as a system for producing outside results for the customer resulting in profits. The Technician's Perspective sees the business as a place in which people work to produce inside results, for The Technician producing income.

3) The Entrepreneurial Perspective starts with a picture of a well defined future, and then comes back to the present with the intention of changing it to match the vision. The Technician's Perspective starts with the present, and then looks forward to an uncertain future with the hope of keeping it much like the present.

4) The Entrepreneurial Perspective envisions the business in its entirety, from which is derived its parts. The Technician's Perspective envisions the business in parts, from which is constructed the whole.

5) The Entrepreneurial Perspective is an integrated vision of the world. The Technician's Perspective is a fragmented vision of the world.

6) To The Entrepreneur, the present day world is modeled after his vision. To The Technician the future is modeled after the present day world. The Entrepreneurial Perspective adopts a wider, more expansive scale. It views the business as a network of seamlessly integrated components, each contributing to some larger pattern that comes together in such a way as to produce a specifically planned result, a systematic way of doing business.

With the Technician's perspective, however the scale is narrower, more inhibited, confined principally to the work being done.

As a result, The Technician's business becomes increasingly oppresive, less exhilarating, closed off from the larger world outside.

His business is reduced to stes that fail to take him anywhere other than to the next step, itself nothing more than a replica of the one before it.

Routine becomes the order of the day.

Work is done for work's sake alone, forsaking any higher purpose, any meaning for what needs to be done other than the need to just do it. The Technician sees no connection between where his business is doing and where it is now.

Lacking the grander scale and visionary guidance manifest in the

Entrepreneurial Model, The Technician is left to construct a model each step of the way.

But the only model from which to construct it is the model of past experience, the model of work. Exactly the opposite of what he neds if the business is to free him of the work he's grown accustomed to doing.

THE ENTREPRENEURIAL MODEL

The Entrepreneurial Model is a model of a business that fulfills the perceived needs a specific segment of customers in an innovative way.

The Entrepreneurial Model looks at a business as if it were a product, sitting on a shelf and competing for the customer's attention against a whole shelf of compeiting products (or businesses).

Said another way, the Entrepreneurial Model has less to do with what's done in a business and more to do with how it's done. The commodity isn't what's important the it's delivered is.

When the Entrepeneur creates the model, he surveys the world and asks "Where is the opportunity?" Having identified it, he then goes back to the drawing board and constructs a solution to the frustrations he finds among a certain group of customers. A solution in the form of a business that looks and acts in a very specific way, the way the customer needs it to look and act, not The Entrepreneur.

"How will my business look to the customer?" The Entrepreneur asks. "How will my business stand out from all the rest?" Thus, the Entrepreneurial Model does not start with a picture of the business to be created but of the customer for whom the business is to be created. It understands that without a clear picture of that customer, no business can succeed.

The Technician on the other hand, looks inwardly, to define his skills, and only looks outwardly afterward to ask, "How can I sell them?" The resulting business almost inevitably focuses on the thing it sells rather than the way the business goes about it or the customer to who it's to be sold. Such a business is designed to satify The Technician who created it, not the customer.

To The Entrepreneur, the business is the product.

To The Technician, the product is what he delivers to the customer.

To The Technician, the customer is always a problem. Because the customer never seems to want what The Technician has to offer at the price at which he offers it.

To The Entrepreneur, however the customer is always an opportunity. Because The Entrepreneur knows that within the customer is a continuing parade of changing wants begging to be satisfied. All The Entrepreneur has to do is find out what those wants are and what they will be in the future. As a result, the world is a continuing surprise, a treasure hunt to The Entrepreneur.

To The Technician, however the world is a place that never seems to let him do what he wants to do, it rarely applauds his efforts, it rarely appreciates his work, it rarely if ever appreciates him. To The Technician the world always wants something he doesn't know how to give it.

The question then becomes, how can we introduce the entrepreneurial model to

The Technician in such a way that he can understand it and utilize it?

The answer is unfortunately we can't.

The Technician isn't interested.

The Technician has other things to do.

If we are to be succesful at this, what we must do, instead is to give the undeveloped Entrepreneur in each of us the information he needs to grow beyong the limitations of The Technician's Comfort Zone so as to experience a vision of a business that works.

What we must do instead is to provide out inner entrepeneur with a model of a business that works, a model that is so exciting that it stimulates our entrepreneurial personality, out innovative side to break free of The Technician's bonds once and for all.

What we must do, instead is to discover a model that sparks the entrepreneurial imagination in each of us with such a resounding shock that by the time The Technician wakes up to the fact it will be too late, The Entrepreneur will be well on his way.

But at the same time, if the model is to work, if the model is to awaken The Entrepreneur within each of us to begin to rebuild our businesses around the Entrepreneurial Perspective they so desperately need to flourish, The Manager and The Technician need their own models.

Because if the Entrepreneurial drives the business, the Manager must make certain it has the necessary fuel for sustenance, and that the engine and chassis are in a good state of repair.

If The Technician is to be satisfied, on the other hand, there must be a model that provides him with work that satisfied his need for direct interaction with every nut and bolt.

In short, for this business model of ours to work, it must be balanced and inclusive so that The Entrepreneurial, The Manager, and The Technician all find their natural place within it, so that they all find the right work to do.

CHAPTER 6: THE FRANCHISE PROTOTYPE

The success of the Business Format Franchise is withotu question the most important news in business.

Over the course of one year, Business Format Francises have reported a success rate of 95% in contrast to the 50 plus percent failure rate of new independently owned businesses. Where 80% of all businesses fail in the first five years, 75% of all Business Format Franchises suceed! The reason for that success is the Franchise Protoype.

The Franchise Prototype is the place where all assumptions are put to the test to see how well they work before becoming operational in the business. Without it the franchise would be an impossible dream, as chaotic and undisciplined as any business.

The Prototype acts as a buffer between hypothesis and action. Putting ideas to the test in the real world rather than the world of competing ideas. The only criterion of value becomes the answer to the ultimate question "Does it work?". In the Franchise Prototype the system becomes the solution to the problems that have beset all businesses and all human organizations since time immemorial. The system integrates all the elements required to make a business work. It transforms a business into a machine or more accurately because it is so alive, into an organism, driven by the integrity of its parts, all working in concert toward a realized objective. And, with its Prototype as its progenitor, it works like nothing else before it.

At Ray Kroc's McDonald's, every possible detail of the business system was first tested in the Prototype, and then controlled to a degree never before possible in a people intensive business.

The french fries were left in the warming bin for no more than seven minutes to prevent sogginess. A soggy french fry is not a McDonald's french fry. Hamburgers were removed from the hot trays in no more than ten minutes to retain the proper moisture.

The frozen meat patties, precisely identical in size and weight, were turned at exactly the same time on the griddle.

Pickles were placed by hand in a set patter that prevented them from sliding out and landing in the customer's lap.

Food was served to the customer in sixty seconds or less. Discipline, standardization and order were the watchwords. Cleanliness was enforced with meticulous attention to the most seemingly trivial detail.

Ray Kroc was determined that the customer would not equate inexpensive with inattentive or cheap. Nowhere had a business ever paid so much attention to the little things, to the system that guaranteed the customer that her expectations would be fulfilled in exactly the same way every time. The Franchise Prototype is the answer to the perpetual question "How do I give my customer what he wants while maintaining control of the business that's giving it to him?

To The Entrepreneur, the Franchise Prototype is the medium through which his vision takes form in the real world.

To The Manager, the Franchise Prototype provides the order, the predictability, the system so important to his life.

To The Technician, the Prototype is a place in which he is free to do the things he loves to do, technical work.

The Franchise Prototype is the model you've been looking for. The Franchise

Prototype is the model of a business that works. The balanced model that will satisfy The Entrepreneur, The Manager, and The Technician all at once. It is being used at McDonald's, Federal Express, Disney Land etc.

CHAPTER 9: WORKING ON YOUR BUSINESS, NOT IN IT

It is critical that you understand the point I'm about to make. For if you do, neither your business nor your life will ever be the same. The point is: your business is not your life. Your business and your life are two totally seperate things. At its best, your business is something apart from you, rather than a part of you, with its own rules and it own purposes. An organism, you might say, that will live or die according to how well it performs its sole function: to find and keep customers.

Once you recognize that the purpose of your life is not to serve your business, but that the primary purpose of your business is to serve your life, you can then go to work on your business, rather than in it, with a full understanding of why it is absolutely neccessary for you to do so.

Think of your business as something apart from yourself, as a world of its own, as a product of your efforts, as a machine designed to fulfill a very specific need, as a mechanism for giving you more life, as a system of interconnecting parts, as a package of cereal, as a can of beans, as something created to satisfy your consumers deeply held perceived needs, as a place that acts distinctly different from all other places, as a solution to somebody else's problem.

Think of your business as anything but a job!

Go to work on your business rather than in it, and ask yourself the following questions:

How can I get my business to work, but without me?

How can I get my people to work, but without my contanst interference?

How can I systematize my business in such a way that it could be replicated 5000 times, so the 5000th unit would run as smoothly as the first?

How can I own my business, and still be free of it?

How can I spend my time doing the work I love to do rather than the work I have to do?

If you ask yourself these questions, you'll eventually come face to face with the real problem: that you don't know the answers!

And that's been the problem along!

But now it should be different. Because now you know what you don't know.

Now you are ready to look the problem squarely in the face.

The problem isn't your business it never has been.

The problem is you!

It has always been you and will always be you. Until you change, that is.

Until you change your perspective about what a business is and how one works.

Until you begin to think about business in a totally new way.

Until you accept the undeniable fact that business, even a very small business like yours, is both an art and science.

To successfully develop a serious business you need a process, a practice, by which to obtain that information and, once obtained, a method with which to put that information to use in your business productively.

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inkstaineddove · 4 years

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A Lovelit Sky

Ships: PruHun

Characters: Prussia, Hungary; mentioned Austria

Summary: Grappling with the recent death of his beloved Old Fritz, Prussia finds himself running away from his emotions in Vienna. He winds up before Hungary, all his emotions pouring lose in his vulnerability.

Vienna, 1786.

Prussia had never been more alone. It had been two months since his beloved king had died, two months since he had to watch Frederick be laid to rest, two months of nonstop aching. He'd become zombie-like, moving through each day in a haze. In Berlin he found himself completely alone. All of Frederick's closest friends died before him and his family hadn't been sorry to see him go, leaving Gilbert to mourn by himself. He tried burying himself in his work to take his mind off things or traveling throughout Brandenburg to escape his ghost, but it was impossible. There were remnants of Frederick everywhere in the kingdom. Home was no longer safe.

His quest to escape had led him south into Austria. By the time he was in Vienna, he had begun feeling a bit better. There were no painful memories here, no past to torment him as he tried to forget. His feet carried him to Roderich's house, his body operating on autopilot. He only fully grasped where he was once he was standing below Roderich's bedroom window. Gilbert looked around, silently cursing himself. The place was so big, he could probably break in to rest for the night without being noticed. But what was the point if he didn't see...? His heart lurched. He needed company.

Gilbert began throwing pebbles against the window, praying to Fritz that the right person would notice. A flash of brown hair. His breathing caught in his throat. He stood frozen, waiting to be discovered. Even if he wanted to flee, his feet found themselves cemented to the grass.

Erzsébet appeared before him in a sheer nightgown. His heart jumped to his feet and he stared like an idiot. "Gilbert, what are you doing here? It's the middle of the night." She examined him closely. His eyes were far away, his hair and clothes disheveled, and there was a slight tremor to him. "Are you okay?"

He tried to communicate but found it difficult to speak without breaking down right there. He weakly shook his head. "Come on, there's a bench back here we can sit on." She took his hand and led him deep into the garden. "Did you walk the whole way here? Does anyone know where you are?" His silence was telling. Erzsébet closed her eyes and shook her head. She was in for a long night.

Eventually, Gilbert regained his power of speech. "Aren't you cold?" If he focused on her, he wouldn't have to deal with his own pain. If he could take care of her then maybe he would begin to feel like a man again instead of an empty husk.

"You shouldn't be worrying about me." Her voice was stern where it normally would've been tender. "Don't deflect, you look awful. What happened to you?"

He began fidgeting his hands, staring at them intently. "The old man died. No one seems to care but me. There was a small formal mourning period, but then it was back to work like nothing happened." He sneered at the ground, the memory leaving a bitter taste within him. "The greatest man I've ever known, who I loved like a father, dies and they expect me to embrace my new king? To pretend like everything's wonderful and nothing dear to me was lost? It's disgusting, it's treacherous."

Hungary tried to be understanding but couldn't wrap her mind around being this upset over a human. They died, it's what they did. Why would that be so shocking this time? "Did you really expect him to live forever? You had to know this was coming, I can't imagine how old he was." She saw his grimace and quickly attempted a change of strategy. "Regardless, I am sorry for your loss. I suppose even knowing what's inevitable doesn't make it easier when you truly care for them." While she hadn't experienced such a loss, she remembered how hard Roderich was hit by the death of Maria-Theresa. It was the only frame of reference she had.

Prussia sniffed, offended. "Of course I knew this would happen. How stupid do you think I am? It wasn't something I ever tried to prepare for since it was something I tried to never think about." He looked up at the stars and frowned. "I only realized how alone I'd been till I was with him. Now that he's gone, the loneliness hurts even worse. I have no one back in Berlin who cares for me." He rolled his eyes. "Well, they care for Prussia, but they could give a damn about Gilbert."

She took his hand and squeezed it gently. "I think you're being a bit melodramatic. I'm sure there's plenty of people back home wondering where you ran off to. I'd be surprised if Brandenburg wasn't worried."

"Brandenburg keeps to himself. He cares for me as long as it means I'm doing all the work and he can do whatever he wants in his castle." He shook his head. "My generals only like me when I'm holding a weapon. My ministers tolerate me at best. Most of the royal family views me more as the immortal family pet, which isn't exactly said with any warmth."

Silence settled between them, only the calls of owls filled the air. Erzsébet felt a pain for Gilbert. She could understand the sense of isolation such an existence would bring. There certainly were parallels with her current home life, but at least she had people outside she could talk to. She often traveled to Warsaw to catch up with Feliks or to feel that her company was appreciated by someone. She faintly remembered Gilbert being close to Francis but couldn't imagine that friendship being very secure after the most recent wars.

He sensed her pity and tried to compensate for it. "I write letters to Ivan and still keep up a correspondence with Antonio. I've got some friends, even if I'm going years between seeing them. Please don't worry about me." He faked a smile that convinced neither of them. Giving up, he sighed and kissed the top of her head. "I've got you. I've always had you, Erzsi." It was the first sign of genuine happiness she'd seen in him the whole night.

He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Their eyes met and a warmth spread throughout his body. It all made sense now. They'd been by each other's side for centuries, through immense highs and lows. Whenever he felt too weak to continue, he'd always found his way to her and she would always revive his spirits. There was no one else he was able to trust with the most intimate parts of himself. He'd never been able to confide in Ivan and Antonio - and certainly not that bastard France - like he was able with her. Being with Erzsébet was so freeing, it was intoxicating. It had always been the one thing he'd wanted more than anything else in this world, and the one thing he could never quite achieve for himself. His recent loss was making him vulnerable and he couldn't stop himself. "I love you, Erzsi." Gilbert cursed himself, wanted to take it back and couldn't. "I've loved you for so long." He bit his tongue, trying to prevent himself from repeating the words like a lunatic.

Erzsébet's body tensed up. She averted her eyes from his, focusing on the bush in front of them. What he was saying didn't surprise her, but it was the last thing she wanted to hear. If he admitted his feelings, that changed things for them. They had been having an affair for some time now, but it had remained purely physical with no deeper emotions. At least, she deluded herself that that's all it was. She'd known when she proposed the damn thing to him that he'd been enamored with her since they were children and, while she had a childhood crush on him as well, she pretended that she'd outgrown it. She refused to acknowledge that she imagined Gilbert falling asleep besides her at night, that she replaced Roderich with Gilbert when they had sex (it certainly wasn't making love!), that she didn't feel a magnetism around Gilbert when they were in a room together. Erzsébet was married, she couldn't allow herself to feel love for another man. It would make everything even more complicated.

So Erzsébet sat there, stiller than a statue, all this running through her mind while Gilbert poured his heart out to her like a lovesick moron. She bit her thumb, hoping the pain would force her to focus on anything else. She should've stayed in bed. If she'd ignored him, Gilbert would've been forced to leave eventually. None of this would've happened, they could've gone on as they always did. Eventually, he stopped talking. Erzsébet allowed herself to look at him again once he was silent. He was staring at her expectantly. She supposed she did have to speak to him. "What do you want me to say?"

"What do you think I want you to say?" She winced. His exasperation made sense. "I definitely don't want you to ask a stupid question like that!"

"Love is complicated." She felt his expectations boring down on her. Erzsébet sighed. "I think you're exhausted. How can you be so sure of yourself without being rested?"

"If you don't love me, say so. I'll be able to handle it." They both knew that was a lie. In his current state, he wouldn't be able to handle much more emotional upset.

"I'm married. I love my husband." Another lie. The expression on his face called her out. "Alright, I don't love Roderich. What good does me openly loving you do? It won't bring any of us closure. It's a pointless thing to say when loving you brings no joy." She paused, realizing she might have revealed too much. "Hypothetically loving you."

He caressed her cheek with his hand, smiling when she subconsciously leaned into his touch. "Because if we can't be together always, we can enjoy what time we do have together more. And then, no matter what, I know you’ll always have me in your heart and I’ll always have you in mine. Nothing could ever take that away from us." He kissed her forehead. "All I need is to know that, no matter how things may have to be, you'll always be mine, you'll always be the one I can turn to."

She closed her eyes, wrestling with her emotions in her mind. How lovely it all sounded, how easily she could picture it. It would be so easy, to slip into these fantasies and never come out. But reality nagged at her. In the real world, in the space she currently occupied, any happiness was fleeting. Any happiness was liable to be taken away from her. "He'll find out. What we're doing now upsets him enough, but he sees no reason to try and destroy it because there's no romance. I'm afraid that even if I whisper my feelings to you, the wind will pick them up and carry them to his ear." She shivered, the very thought chilling her to her bones. "Things are difficult for me, Gilbert. They're difficult in ways you can't quite understand. I can't be so free in my words."

"Then say so with your actions." He kissed her, his movements filled with desperation and longing. He wanted her, needed her, to confirm his feelings. To know he wasn't alone in his adoration. Despite her silent protestations, she returned his affection. Her heart cried out to her to say it, say it, say it. She wanted him to understand the conflicting nature of her desires and responsibilities. They parted and her eyes were filled with such ardor that it took his breath away. "I love you, Erzsi. You're my one constant. I would do anything for you, set the world on fire if you desired it. Anything you ask-"

She put a finger to his lips, shushing him. She quivered in anticipation. "What I want is for you to kiss me like that again and don't ever stop."

He complied. That night, they slept underneath the stars and within each other’s arms. It was the best rest Gilbert had gotten in months.

#aph prussia #hws prussia #aph hungary #hws hungary #pruhun #aph pruhun #hws pruhun #hetalia fanfiction #historical hetalia #hetalia fanfic

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sleepyfan-blog · 4 years

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Reaperdream Soumate AU ficlets

Fandom: UTMV

This was written for the UT Rarepair discord server Secret Santa Event, for @izzy-the-bizzy

Characters: Dream, Reapertale Sans, Aftertale Sans, Ink Sans, Swap Sans, Underfell Sans, Reapertale Papyrus, Reapertale Gaster, Swapfell Sans, Fellswap Sans

Warnings: major character death

Word count: 7,451

tagslist: @anxiety-is-married-to-depression @angelofthehalfmoon @trainwreck-of-skeletons @hisame-amadashi @therandomskelekey

Dream stared at the red string that had been wound around their finger from the moment that they had woken up from that awful stone spell. They knew what it was, of course. It meant that they had a soulmate somewhere in the wide multiverse. They had stumbled and fled through a portal that they had created by instinct, unsure as to just where they would end up, but fleeing the eldritch thing that Nightmare had become. Unsure as to whether or not they wanted to meet their soulmate or not, they fled from world to world, trying to gain strength and generally evade Nightmare as best as they could.

Which was how they had ended up in the situation they are in now, having been drawn to an AU that Ink had warned them to avoid. Reapertale. But they had felt... Drawn here. They were wearing their cape so that their face was hooded and hidden as they wandered throughout the world, finding it to be a mix of monster and humans. There were whispers of gods and goddesses who ruled them all, beings of incredible, indescribable power. They hadn't realized that their Red String of Fate had grown taught until they very nearly ran into their soulmate, who had a scythe raised as a human pleaded weakly for mercy.

Dream called out at the scene before them, confused "Uhm... What's going on here?" The human's injuries were fatal - and their chest had stilled. Their soul was floating freely from their chest, and still pleading for mercy.

"The name's Sans, god of Death. If you try to interfere, I may just have to kill you too." The hooded figure called out, slashing the human's soul in half and turning to face them, a red string taught between the two of them. "I trust that you..." The Sans stopped talking, staring at the taught red string that connected the two of them. "So... I guess we're soulmates, huh?" The Sans muttered, leaning on his scythe and staring at Dream.

Shock and confusion flooded Dream, and they wished that they could take back the "What the hell is that even supposed to mean?" At least they weren't bound to a mortal... They weren't sure what to think.

"I don't know. What do you think it means?" Death asks, staring hard at them.

Dream sighed, knowing the answer to that instantly "Trouble."

"Why, disappointed to find out that the god of death is your soulmate, mortal?" Reaper called, out, squinting at him.

Dream shook their head, lowering their hood "I'm no more mortal than you are. While I can be killed, I don't age, can't die of illness, starvation nor thirst. I suppose I should introduce myself, since we are soulmates, and I know your name, Sans. I'm Dream, guardian of positivity."

"... I've heard rumors about you from the Sanses who run around with Ink. You've been sorely missed throughout the centuries, since your other half has been causing a giant rampage across the multiverse. Not that Ink particularly cares beyond a new game to play. Especially since Nightmare fucks around with darker timelines for the most part."

Dream sighed softly "I was trapped in a stasis spell for centuries... I'm not sure what Nightmare has been up to while I was trapped, but I... Considering how strong he is, I can guess at what he's been up to. I... I suppose that it's nice to meet you?"

Reaper laughed, voice filled with bitterness "I suppose it's good to meet you too... If you're looking for hugs and kisses, I'm afraid I might dust you, even if you're more durable than mortals. My very touch kills."

A small frown appeared on their face at that "You... You've never been able to touch or hold someone? Not ever?" that sounds so horribly lonely...

"My brother, Paps, is also a god of death, and we can hug one another without dusting each other... But hey, it's not all bad. This death touch makes my job easier. You wouldn't believe how -" Reaper began, rearing back in surprise and flailing in shock as Dream rushed him, hugging him tight "Wait I... I... You... You're not..."

"Dusting or dying? Nope... As I told you, the only way I can die is if I'm killed... So your touch won't knock me down." Dream murmured, hugging Reaper tightly "This is going to be troublesome and complicated, but I... If you like, we can try to make it work? Unless you'd rather I vanish and never come back to your world? The multiverse is vast, I'm sure we could manage to avoid each other."

"I... No. I don't... I don't want you to vanish as soon as we've met one another. I do want to make a go of things. Of... Of getting to know you." Reaper responded, treacherous hope blooming in his chest as he looks down at them, his soul twisting and making it difficult to breathe. He had a soulmate... Who wasn't afraid of him. A true smile appeared on his face as he asked "How much of my AU have you seen, Dream?"

"Just a bit of the mortal world. Some of this city and nothing else, as a matter of fact. I'd be delighted to explore more of your world, if you like?" Dream offered, a hopeful smile appearing on their face as well.

Reaper nodded, offering them an arm as he murmured "I gotta take this soul to the afterlife. Then I can show you a few of my favorite places, if you’d like?"

Dream nods. They have no idea just how this will work out... But they're willing to try, hoping that the two of them might be able to enjoy one another's company. "Sounds good to me."

~~~

Reaper ran his fingers along the carved number on the inner portion of his radius. He was well aware of what the numbers meant, as they slowly continued to trickle down, each second passing in less than the blink of a mortal eye. He had taken the souls of many mortals, and their numbers - or the numbers of one or more of the mortals around them had hit zero, as he appeared to them, taking their souls from their bodies, to take them to the afterlife.

Five hundred and sixty-four days, three hours and ten minutes. With twelve-eleven-ten... Seconds left. That was how much longer his soulmate had to live. A bitter smile appeared on his face as he wondered morosely if his only chance to meet his soulmate - who had to be alive... They must be a boss monster of some kind, to live for so long - would be when he took their soul to the afterlife. To meet them only to be the one to take their last breath... As he sure as hell wasn't going to make his younger brother take his own soulmate's life...

He wondered what they might be like? Would he be able to meet them before they died? Would he know if they were his soulmate, and he was theirs? The dull ache that pulled at his soul whenever he stared at the numbers for more than a couple of seconds had returned. With a sigh, he pulled down the sleeve of his robe, shaking himself as he stood up, stretching a little. He was going to pester Tori for a while. It was always fun teasing the goddess of life.

He pauses, sensing something... Someone new in the garden of life. Moving swiftly, making sure to float a couple of inches above the grass, so that he didn't kill everything he touched, Reaper charged to where he could sense the new being - who was worryingly close to Toriel, summoning his scythe, just in case it was another Chara situation. Instead he sees a -

Reaper stops dead, blinking rapidly as the brightly blazing golden aura of the being who was speaking to Tori, their voice too loud and very soft all at once, the dizzying amount of information that he had gotten from seeing them for the first time incredibly distracting and distressing. Yet... The distress and concern that he felt at this stranger - powerful, kind and gentle as he could feel they were - faded away. "Good morning, Sans." Tori called out, smiling warmly down at him. "Come, meet the guardian of positivity. Their name is Dream."

Reaper nodded, coming forwards and nodding politely, his scythe vanishing as he tucked his hands behind his back "Hello, My name's Sans... I'm one of the two Reapers, so I'd like to shake your hand, but if I did, I'd kill you."

Dream smiled a little and nodded in understanding, the radiance of their soul still nearly blinding "It's wonderful to meet you, Sans. I sensed Toriel's distress and came to see if I could help. We've had a brief chat, and she's doing much better. She cares very much for you."

Reaper smiles a little bit and rubs the back of his skull "Yeah, I'm not sure why she cares for such a spooky bonehead like me, but I'm lucky... Although we didn't always get along with one another, haha... I'm... I don't think you're from this universe, are you?"

"Nope! But do not worry, I do not plan on staying here for very long. I like to wander, now that I've learned how. Thank you both for your time." Dream murmured, smiling warmly at Reaper, their magic rippling against his senses and almost causing him to purr at the feeling.

"You're welcome... And thanks for coming to cheer up Tori. That's very kind of you." Reaper responded, a genuine smile appearing on his face. "Say, have you met Ink? If you hop around enough 'verses you're bound to run into him. He's... Interesting and kind of dangerous. But for now at least, he means well."

"I'll keep that warning in mind, Reaper. See you later, I'm sure." Dream calls out, a happy smile appearing on their face as they open a golden portal, vanishing in a flash of light.

Reaper hadn't known what was going on in the multiversal sansnanigans that were going on. He had made sure that they knew that he was neutral. As long as they didn't fuck with his home timeline, he wouldn't reap their souls and send them on to the afterlife. It was a pretty good deal, and those whom he loved and cared for were well protected. Dealing with the mess that the others made when the reapers from the worlds that they had their destructive fights in was annoying and irritating to say the least, but it wasn't the absolutely shittiest thing he'd had to deal with.

What he hadn't expected was to be unexpectedly summoned during one of his rare days off, frowning as he found the Omega timeline in absolute shambles. There were dozens of injured mortals, with hundreds more dead. Sighing, he summoned his scythe, slashing his way through the dead souls, shoving them none too gently into the afterlife, having so many to reap, there was no time for any of the tact nor kindness that Paps showed the mortals who were dying.

He froze as he felt something vibrate on his left radius as he finished reaping the last of the mortal souls dead. With trembling fingers, he pulled down his sleeve, staring in muted horror as the numbers flicked down... Ten seconds... Nine... Eight... Panic seized him as he searched the AU, instinctively knowing that his soulmate had to be here... He could hear sounds of fighting and charged recklessly onto the battlefield to see Dream, Ink, Nightmare and Error battling two on two, their mortal companions dusting around them.

Before he could even attempt to defy fate and stop all four of these assholes from killing each other (as he had no idea which one of the four of them was his soul mate) one of Dream's arrows pierced through Error's soul, shattering it at the very moment that one of Error's gaster blasters was able to slam, full-force into Ink, vaporizing the creative guardian, even as a wave of ink gutted Nightmare. An anguished "No!" Left reaper as he rushed towards the four of them, noting that Error and Ink had already dusted, but he had a couple of seconds left, the positive and negative guardians sputtering weakly, glaring darkly at one another.

"You... Killed... My soulmates... Dream... Of course... I wouldn't... let that... Slide..." Nightmare ground out, surrounded by several piles of dust, the clothes of Cross, Killer, Dust and Hatchet surrounding him.

"It was not.., My intent to do so, brother... I never... Wanted to hurt you..." Dream called out, their eye lights fading. "Oh... Hey Reaper... Here to... Clean up our messes, as always?"

Discarding all sense as he knew in the back of his mind that he would only hasten the other's end, Reaper rushed to Dream's side, picking the other up and gently brushing the tears from their eyes "Dream! Dream no... Please... You.. you have to stay with me... Please no... I just... We... We're..."

"Soulmates? Oh... I'm so sorry to leave you... But..." Dream coughed weakly, golden ichor splattering Reaper's face "There's nothing that... Can be done... S-smile for me?"

"But I... I can't... Not... N-Not when you're dead! I can't... I don't..." He only helps souls cross into the afterlife. He never sees them again not unless they are reincarnated. "I... I'll bring you to Tori... Maybe... Maybe she can... She can heal you?" Tori would do that for him, right? Heal his soulmate? He's already preparing the portal when Dream shakes their head.

"No... I... I'm not meant to exist without him... Gotta... Stay balanced..." Dream mumbled, gesturing in Nightmare's general direction as the negative spirit collapsed into a puddle of dark ooze, having just given up on this life. A spectral form of a small, violet elemental hovered over what remained of Nightmare, waiting to be collected. "But... I'm glad to know... Who my soulmate is... Even if it's just in my final moments. You were a wonderful friend... Reaper... You must... Remember to smile... Maybe we'll meet each other again in a happier time?" With that, Dream faded into a puddle of dust, nothing remaining of them but their circlet and clothing. A yellow, spectral elemental appeared, gently nuzzling into him before chirping, causing the darker spirit to appear, murrmuring lowly. With trembling fingers, he cupped both of them, saying quietly "I release you from this life, and send you on to the afterlife. Rest well."

He reaped what remained of Error's soul... and poked at what little remained of Ink, knowing full well that the other was soulless. Would he resurrect somehow, or was this it? Reaper realized with a jolt, that he had accidentally allowed part of Dream's cloak to touch what remained of Nightmare... and a small sapling had begun to sprout from where the two had mixed. With careful, trembling fingers, he wrapped the little sapling up in Dream's scarf, stumbling into Tori's garden, yelling for her help, covered in dust and miserable.

She came running over, Undyne yelling at him for daring to be in here and gaster staring at him in a great deal of confusion, half a dozen of the other gods watching him. "Tori I... They... My soulmate just died and I... This... This tree.. They... I... Please take care of it... I... Please?" Reaper begged, knowing that he wasn't making much sense.

"Of course... Sans... Give me the sapling, I will tend to them... Go to your brother, and grieve for them..." Life murmured, a sad and understanding smile appearing on her face.

Reaper nodded, staggering off to where he knew his brother to be, collapsing into the other's confused embrace.

~~~

Reaper had gone to these Christmas parties for several years now, having found them to be endlessly entertaining... And if he could poke and prod at people without dusting them, finding their reactions to be amusing as all hell, so much the better. He knew that whatever had happened to his soulmate to cause the other to feel no emotions whatsoever for... Five hundred and twelve years, sixteen hours and seven seconds (so sue him for counting. It had been disorienting and terrifying when the emotions that didn't belong to him but did belong to his soulmate suddenly vanished) had suddenly come back a couple of weeks ago. The first thing he had felt from them was a return of the absolute terror, confusion and soul-rending betrayal that had laid him flat on his back, wheezing as he tried to get himself together. Tori had fluttered over him and yelled for Paps - as his brother was the only one in his AU who could touch him without dying.

The misery and sadness had died down to bearable degree - but much of the warm cheerfulness and contented peace that he had sensed from his soulmate had never returned. Not truly. There was a lot of determination and a grief that caused Reaper's soul to ache. Reaper had searched amongst the crowd of sanses at the Christmas Party, hoping that they were amongst their numbers... And he was getting close to asking Ink for help, to find his soulmate... Even if it meant dealing with the creative guardian's shenanigans a lot more than normal, it would be worth it to find his soulmate and hopefully dragging their miserable butt to therapy.

"Hey, Reaper..." Geno murmured, squinting at something or someone behind him "Ink's here... And he brought that golden marshmallow with him. I mean - Blue is tough as they come. Cheerful and sweet, but he can and will out-maneuver and manipulate pretty much anyone and everyone when he has a mind to do so. What the marshmallow is doing mixed up with the soulless creator and the mafia leader of friendship, I do not know."

Reaper hummed, turning around and freezing as he sees the gold and blue-clad sans. Their magic called to him in a way that he'd never experienced. "I... I think that they might..." He had seen other people meet their soulmates before. Whether the reactions were positive, negative or neutral, the first impression tended to be a lasting one, especially... Especially between soulmates. "I think they might be my soulmate."

Geno snickers a little "You wouldn't be the first to hope for that. They're the guardian of positivity, and their warm aura makes everyone around them feel happy... Sounds really lonely to me... They've been told that by at least half of the sanses here... Not that any of them were right, but hey. Good luck. If you're right, then you're right."

Reaper waves a hand at Geno "I can sense their emotions. What they're actually feeling, not the positive aura that is lifting the spirits of everyone around them." With that he went quiet, making his way over to Dream, mentally rolling his eye lights as a hush fell over the crowd and they reluctantly parted. He looks over at Dream, more sure than ever that the other was his soulmate. The fake smile on their face belied the exhausted circles under their eyes and the almost desperate way that they seemed to be trying to please and distract others. "Hello."

"I... Uhm... Hi." Dream responded, blinking up at him "My name is Dream. What's yours?" They ask, holding out a hand for him to shake.

Reaper grins, taking the other's hand, amused by the way that everyone tensed up around them "It's nice to meet you, Dream. I'm Death."

Dream stared up into his face, their eye lights widening for a couple of moments, surprise, hope and uncertainty flickering through them as they murmur "It's... It's nice to meet you death..."

"Heh... I get it. Not many people are eager to meet me. I think I even scare the life out of some of your companions." He responded, winking a little at Dream. "But don't worry, I'm a pretty chill guy. Meeting me here isn't automatically a death sentence."

The smile on Dream's face shifted to something a little bit more real, and a soft chuckle left them "Hehe... I... I don't think that you're all that scary. I've seen worse things happen to people than meeting you... You seem quite nice."

Reaper shrugged a little, a small smile appearing on his face "Eh. This place is a lot like an idle fantasy for me. I can touch people without killing them here. Which is nice, as in my home AU, anyone I touch who ain't my brother dies. Mortal or not. But in this place, I've got no fangs."

Dream giggles again, their eye lights brightening a little "I think the two of us need to have a bit of a private chat."

Reaper nods, following the other "True, but I'm not sure how private for how long this chat will be. Your friends seem to be kind of... Nosy."

Dream shrugs, grabbing one of Reaper's hands and teleporting them far away from where the party was "This should give us enough time to talk for at least a little bit. And of course, there's the Underfell Therapy Closet to hide in. I... I think you're my soulmate. It's difficult for me to tell, as I can sense the emotions of everyone around me... But your feelings are familiar to me, even though we've never met before."

"... I'm pretty sure that we're soulmates too, actually. Were you trapped in a stasis spell or killed for five hundred years and change before either resurrecting, reincarnating or breaking free of the spell? I couldn't... I couldn't sense you at all for that time and I..." Reaper shuddered a little. He'd despaired of ever meeting the other. That his soulmate had been mortal and worse yet, born in a different world and that they had lived and died before he'd ever had a chance to meet them.

"I... I was trapped in a stasis spell for a very long time. I didn't realize it was five hundred years. I've recently broken free. It's... I... I'm so glad to meet you, finally. Do... Do you mind if I hug you?" Dream asked, voice trembling a little as the other reaches out for him.

Reaper nods, scooping the smaller immortal up and hugging him close, lightly resting his chin on the top of the other's skull. "I'd... I'd very much like to hug you... I'm sure that there's a lot of shit that both of us have to talk about - complicated backstories and whatnot... But for now... I think just holding one another sounds good... What about you?"

Some of the worry and fear that he could sense within Dream ebbed away, replaced with hope and joy as the other murmured into his chest "I... That sounds like a really good idea to me... Thank... Thank you... Reaper."

"You're welcome, Dream." Reaper murmured quietly, hugging them tightly. Come what may, and regardless of any metaphorical or literal skeletons hidden in each of their closets, they had one another, and they'd found one another. That alone was enough for Reaper as he presses a gentle kiss to the top of the other's skull, hope and a small whisper of affection blooming in his chest as he looks down at Dream.

~~~~

Dream has existed for several days when they finally fall asleep for the first time, one warm evening, snuggled into their twin, leaning against what remained of the one who had created them, and what they had been created to protect. They found themself in a beautiful garden - with plants of many kinds that they had never actually seen before - with beautiful blossoms that as they rushed over to smell, found that they could neither touch nor smell.

This was terribly confusing to the young guardian, who tried to grab the flower, their fingers again going through the petals as if either they or the flower didn't exist. They hear two people speaking "telling you Tori, I don't have a soulmate. I've never once dreamed of them, and I've never seen them, if they've dreamed." said one voice, gruff and slightly frustrated and sad.

"Perhaps your soulmate simply hasn't been born or created yet? You mustn't give up hope, dear friend." a second voice said, comforting and gentle.

Dream makes their way over to the pair of voices, continuing to walk through the garden, seeing plants and hearing... Birds? That's what the information in their head from the previous guardian informed them that the strange but pleasing noises were coming from. "Uhm... Hello? Do you know where we are?" They call out, looking up at the tall, fuzzy person and the tall, bone person who looked similar to themself and Nightmare, though the big bone person had on a really cool black cloak. They had seen trees... But none of them remotely resembled the tree that they were meant to protect and live beneath.

"...How did you get in here? You're not supposed to be in here. This place is a sacred place." The tall bone person demanded, a growl in their voice.

Dream shrugged, not the least bit intimidated by the growls "I dunno how I got here.. I fell asleep next to Nighty an' I woke up a little while ago that way." Dream responded, pointing in the direction of the place that they had found themself in "I dunno how I got here... Why can't I touch anything? Who are you? Where are we?"

The furry person paused for a couple of moments before asking "... Do you see someone, Sans?"

"Yeah, there's this little kid like three feet from us. Can't... Can't you see them too? They're right there." The big bone person responded, pointing directly where Dream was standing "You're in Life's Sanctuary, kiddo. I'm-"

The goat person abruptly cut in "This is Sans, and my name is Toriel, young one. You and Sans are soulmates. you are currently dreaming, and you've dreamed your way to your soulmate. I can now see you, but only just. I promise that though Sans may seem kind of scary at first, he is kind and very punny. What's your name, young one?"

"My name is Dream!" The little guardian responded, grinning brightly up at Sans and Toriel, tilting their head a little as they pressed "So when I wake up, will I be back with Nighty and the tree?"

"If that's where you fell asleep, then you should, unless you were moved in your sleep... Why did you fall asleep near a tree?" Sans asked, curious despite the bored and unaffected expression on his face.

"Because me an' Nighty were created there, to protect her!" Dream responded cheerfully. "We are the guardians of the tree of feelings. I'm the guardian of the positive fruits. To make sure that no one eats them..."

"Why would someone want to eat these fruits? What do they do? ... How long have you existed?" Sans asked, moving a bit closer to them, trying to understand why now, of all times, had his soulmate appeared. After waiting what felt like an eternity for them to appear, did they finally show up. Or at least... Make themself known to him.

"The positive fruits represent the hopes and happiness of everyone... if they are eaten, then they don't feel those good feelings anymore." Dream explained with a worried frown "So I gotta protect them! And I've been around for..." They stare down at their fingers "Three days! The previous guardian - who was killed by a human - was dying and made me an' Nightmare! Night guards the negative fruits. They stay balanced so that peoples' feelings are balanced. You are the first people, part from Nighty, Who I've ever seen or talked to."

Toriel spoke up, murmuring quietly "You... You're quite big for three days old... And you can speak quite well..."

"Well, yeah. That's because our creator made our bodies so that they were adult-sized, or mostly adult-sized. An' gave us lots of information so that we would know things an' be able to guard the tree!" Dream responds happily, beaming up at the both of them. "... Why are you two upset? We haven't met any mortals yet... Part from you two right now, but you're not where I am, an' I don't think all mortals are bad... And the mortal who killed the previous guardian is dead because mama killed him."

"Err... Dream. Neither of us is mortal, either." Sans spoke up. He pauses for a moment before forging on ahead "Tori here is the goddess of Life... and I'm the god of Death." He hadn't heard of the tree of feelings, but then again... There were things about the universe that he didn't know about. He'd have to talk to dad, as he was pretty sure that this little one along with their twin were little godlings, perhaps born somewhere within the mortal realm and they needed to be found and trained properly in the use of their power... Why hadn't he been informed of something that was so important? He glances at Tori, dozens of questions on the tip of his tongue, but nothing that he wanted to ask, lest he confuse the very new godling in front of him.

"Ohhh... Cool! I didn't know that gods exist! That's really cool." The little guardian murmured, beaming eagerly up at the both of them. Dream pauses for a moment, blinking as they turn, hearing Nightmare call out for him "I think... I think I'm going to wake up soon. It's really nice to meet you for the first time, Sans! I hope to talk to you again soon." With that, the little guardian vanished into nothingness.

"... Tori, why wasn't I informed about this tree of feelings? Is it protected somewhere within the realm of the gods? Or is it rooted in the mortal realm because the tree affects both mortals and the gods?" Reaper asked, glancing at Life, trying to read her responses.

"I... I honestly have never heard of such a tree, but I cannot think that little one was lying to us. Their words had the ring of truth... Or at least, they believe what they've been told to be the truth, at least." Life responded, frowning a little "Perhaps it is something very old, that I have forgotten..."

"I'll speak with Gaster and Alphys. If there was anyone who could tell me about this tree of feelings, it would be one or the both of them." Reaper murmured, determined to find his soulmate and meet them in person - at least once. The little one hadn't seemed to be the least bit afraid or nervous of him... But the other was so new to the world, it made sense as to why they wouldn't flinch at the sight of death... Nor fall down in worship of Life.

----

Alphys had no idea what he was talking about when he had spoken of the tree of feelings. Gaster had frowned, pausing for a couple of moments before murmuring quietly "Such a tree would be well known, if it was native to this universe, Sans. I believe that your soulmate is from an entirely different universe, Sans. There are multiple universes, but it will take time and research for me to figure out how pan-dimensional travel is feasible... You will need to content yourself with dreaming visions of them and they of you until then, Sans. But I am glad to hear that you have met your soulmate, in some capacity at least."

Reaper nodded, sighing in frustration. Of course his soulmate had to be from an entirely different universe. His luck could never grant him something as easy as a soulmate who he could immediately reach out too... Although he did feel terribly unsure as to just what might happen if the two of them were able to actually interact with one another in reality... Dream was so very young, it was almost certain that they were platonic soulmates. which suited him just fine but... What happened if the other tried to embrace him? Would the other dust at his touch? "I... alright. Keep me informed. Thanks, G."

"Mmm... And I would like to remind you, sans, that by mortal reckoning, you are a little over ten years old, although gods do not age as mortals do, and you have always had an old soul. From what you told me of your soulmate... This young guardian seems much the same." Gaster pointed out, a small and knowing smile appearing on his face. He hadn't expected the other's soulmate to be so far afield... But he had hoped that the other did have a soulmate, as neither of his creations were lifeless creatures, even as many of the gods hissed and glared, muttering irritably at the necessity of such beings.

"Yeah, yeah. I know. It just... Feels weird. I have a soulmate... But I... I'm glad to have finally met them in some way... and that they haven't been hiding from me because of what I was created to be..." Reaper murmured, hope and uncertainty lingering in his mind. Perhaps the other didn't mind his presence now... But later? Reaper mentally shook himself. There was no need to dwell on what-ifs and might be’s. What would happen, would happen. He had a chance to get to know his soulmate, which was more than what a decent chance that Mortals got. "But hey. I'm sure I'll win him over with my punderful sense of humor. Then again, he's so sweet and I've just got this killer sense of humor. They... he? Might not take to it so well, given how saccharine sweet he is."

"have courage, Sans. Your soulmate is yours, and they yours for a reason." Gaster murmured "I cannort say for what reason the fate have bound the two of you together, but it is a rare and precious gift to be able to meet your soulmate, even amongst the gods."

"I... I'll keep that in mind. Thanks, Gaster." Reaper murmured, heading off to go find Paps - who would absolutely want to know that he'd met his soulmate. A small smile lingered on his face - perhaps Paps had met his soulmate today as well? He's pretty sure that he’d hear all about it if that were true.

~~~~~~

Dream was very glad that they wore gloves at this particular moment in time. As otherwise they would have to find a way to hide what was on their palm. Ink had dragged him into this strange place - the... Omega? Timeline? where there were dozens of different versions of the same monster, from many different AUs and timelines. Amongst the goat monsters, occasional humans, buny monsters, Migosp, Aaron, Temmie and Papyri... There were also... Sanses. LIke the Stylized black and blue S that had been carved into the middle of their palm since they had first acquired a body, centuries ago.

Their soulmate was very likely named... Sans. Any one of the sanses he was currently watching talk, fight and argue with one another could be their soulmate... Or none of them were their soulmate, and the Sans whose S this was, was someone else entirely. They lightly tugged up their glove a little higher, trying to decide how best to bring about the end of a brawl that was going on between an Underfell, Swapfell and Fellswap trio of Sanses - especially as a couple of Undynes were headed over, Papyri from similar timelines hot on their heels and it looked like it was going to turn into a huge mess of negativity and pain and they really didn't want that to happen.

They clear their nonexistent throat as they call out, pulsing their magic in order to increase the warm and happy feelings that the assembled and brawling monsters were feeling, lowering the amount of aggression, fear, and uncertainty in the same flare of magic "Hello... Excuse me... But why are you fighting?"

Every eye light focused on them, but Dream stood their ground. They were fairly sure that they could handle this many rowdy mortals. And they could see Blue hovering nearby, prodding at a snickering Ink, possibly to come help keep the peace.

"This asshole stole my chocolate! I want it back... Who the hell are you? You some sorta swap with a fixation on yellow?" The Underfell sans huffed, glaring a little at them, pointing at the swapfell sans accusatory "... I'm called Red, if you didn't know."

"It's nice to meet you Red. My name is Dream." They respond, a small smile appearing on their face. They turn to look at the swapfell.

"The hell it is! I bought this chocolate three days ago, and you're the one who took it from me! You cheated at the sparring match that you made me lose, so I took it back. I'm called Viper." The swapfell huffed, glaring at Red as he tried to keep the chocolate out of Red's hands.

The fellswap Sans growled "That's where they're both lying. These two stole the chocolate from me, and I want it back! I haven't seen a Swap Sans variant who looks quite like you.. are you from a storyswap where you're the king or queen of the underground, given the circlet on your head?"

Dream frowns a little in confusion, wondering what the other meant by that "No, I... I'm not a swap sans. My name is Dream. I don't know if my AU has a name, but I've never... Monsters weren't... But that's not the point of this... I propose that the three of you split the chocolate evenly between the three of you, that way, each of you has some chocolate... Regardless of whose chocolate it might have once been... Besides, isn't there a chocolatier down the street? You could each purchase as much chocolate as you wish from there."

the trio of Fell variants stared at him "I... Fine. Splitting the chocolate sounds reasonable. What do you mean your AU doesn't have a name? Unless you're from an unfinished world, yours has gotta have a name... And are you implying that you're from a surface AU? Are there humans aboveground in your world?" Red demanded, equal parts curious and annoyed at having to share his chocolate. But if it got Viper and Blackberry off of his back, he'd take it. "Ink... HEY INK! What's Dream Sans's AU called?"

"Oh... I'm not... A sans..." Dream murmured quietly. Viper glanced at him quizzically, but no one else had heard them say that.

Ink laughed merrily "Pfhahahaaha! I wish I knew. I found Dream wandering around a littletale, completely out of place and terribly confused. He can travel AUs whenever he wants to, without my help. Also He prefers to be called Dream, rather than Dream Sans. I dunno why."

the answer to that was relatively simple. Dream wasn't a sans. He did inhabit a skeletal body -the body of a swap sans that had been created by the previous guardian of the tree of feelings... But he had not been born, nor created inhabiting this body and thus could not truly be called a sans. Not that they felt any desire, nor the inclination to actually explain this, as they had a feeling that the others might not react all that well to learning about that... Not that they had spoken to Ink and Blue - with whom they had been traveling for some time now - about anything in regards to their past... Everything was just too fresh and painful to begin to think about, much less speak to another about.

"Heya, Ink. Is there a reason why you invited me here? It's not as if there are another one of those parties going on at the moment - though, with those three, I'd not be surprised if you've got a proper death on your hands soon." A low, amused sounding voice called out from behind Dream. all three of the fell based Sanses froze and drew back a little, wariness and uncertainty flashing across their faces.

Dream turns to face this newcomer, a small smile appearing on their face "Hello. My name is Dream. What's yours?"

"... Dream, huh? Like half of the people here, my name is Sans... but I have several nicknames. My favorites are "Augh no, not you!" as well as Reaper and Death. In my AU, I'm one of the two gods of death, along with my brother, Papyrus. You have been sorely missed over the past few centuries that you've been trapped in a stasis spell."Reaper called out, a small smirk appearing on his face "I had wondered what had happened when your soul mark had changed color for centuries, and was hopeful when it changed back to the color it used to be."

"I... You.. we're... Soulmates?" Dream managed out, eye lights bright and wide as they tried to process the huge download of information that had been thrown at them, a giddy grin appearing on their face, their eye lights turning into stars "I... I'm so glad to hear that we are soulmates. It's wonderful to meet you, Sans... Unless you prefer one of the nicknames that you gave me?"

"Eh, as long as you don't call me a curse, I don't care what you refer to me as," Reaper responded with a small smile. He didn't extend a hand... He did hope that his touch wouldn't kill the guardian of positivity... But he had no reason nor the inclination to even attempt to try. Not unless Dream attempted to initiate contact with him first.

Dream hummed, looking at Reaper curiously "I think I'll refer to you as reaper, at least while we are around other sanses, to reduce confusion... Do you have time for us to speak one on one?"

Reaper shrugged "Eh. If the people in my AU - the other gods at least - had it their way, I'd never stop working... But reaping souls endlessly gets really... Dreary. I've got plenty of time to get to know you."

Dream nods, a small smile appearing on their face as they walked over to reaper, taking off their right glove, turning their right palm so that the stylized S could be seen by the other, offering it out for the other to shake. "Alright.. Have you ever been to an OverHaven? They are beautiful places."

Reaper hesitates, showing the gold and blue D on his right palm, reaching cautiously towards him and the two of them shook hands, their magics sparking a little and shifting. "Can't say that I have. I don't tend to travel the multiverse all that much, although it does sound nice."

Dream nods, beaming happily as they open a portal to Overhaven 36, to a point where there should be no mortals around for miles. "Alright. I've opened the portal to what should be a secluded glade."

Reaper nods, smiling a little, though a bit uncertain as he nodded, stepping up to the portal, a hopeful expression appearing on his face. So far, his soulmate wasn't the least bit afraid of him. That was a good thing, though that might partially be due to the trauma they were likely still processing, as Reaper could read souls and was... Well aware of the secrets that the other was hiding from everyone in regards to their past. He steps on through, making sure to float a few inches above the grass, to avoid killing anything. "I... Oh..." The vibrant colors of the flowers seemed to glow in the early dawn light, the dew glistening brightly on the grass, his breath leaving him in a pale white, misty cloud. A goofy grin appeared on his face "This... This is incredible..." He murmured to Dream.

Dream nods, beaming happily and hugging him tightly around the middle from behind "I... I'm so glad to finally meet you, and I hope that we'll be able to get along."

"I hope that we get along as we get to know one another better as well..." Reaper murmured, shifting in Dream's grip so that he could give them a hug, a goofy smile appearing on his face. He'd heard muttering for the longest time from the other gods that he didn't have a soulmate - or that they had died. He had hoped that the latter wasn't true, well aware that the former was false... And now... Here Dream was... In his arms, unafraid and curious about him, even. This was a start for both of them, and one that he was determined not to squander or waste.

#major character death cw #dream sans #reaper sans #reaperdream #aftertale sans #ink sans #swap sans #underfell sans #rt papyrus #rt gaster #sf sans #fs sans

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missluthorwillseeyounow · 5 years

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Pure (Red Daughter x Morgana AU)

Lena brings books -- mountains upon mountains of books -- to the DEO, and Red Daughter pleads for Morgana to read them to her, because her voice is beautiful – rich, like wind through the fir trees back in Kaznia, she says.

Sometimes Red Daughter speaks to her of Lex, and all he was to her, and her voice becomes small and broken when she remembers that all of it was a lie

The Kryptonian hates the name Red Daughter now, she winces every time she hears it, as if it leaves a bitter taste in her mouth. So Morgana calls her by a different name.

Katya, the name suits her, Morgana thinks, and the Kryptonian smiles widely – her smile a brilliant living thing on her face – when Morgana tells her the meaning of the name. Pure.

AU in which Morgana is Lena’s “dead” twin, who was turned radioactive with Kryptonite by one of Lex’s experiments.

Look, these babies both deserve a happy ending, okay, and I need Red Daughter to live

So, I’m still a little pissed about how they “resolved” the Red Daughter storyline, so of fucking course, I made an AU, and I gave her her own OTP, cos baby girl deserves it.

This AU has 3 different versions. And in each one of them, I gave Lena a twin (before you dismiss it, hear me out):

In this version, I made her twin Morgana. Yes, Morgana is the other half of this OTP in this AU, cos she also deserves a good ending.

I deliberately didn’t change her name to an “L” name for this one. (I actually named Lena “Magdalena” in this to match Morgana but that’s unimportant, except for the fact that Alex teases her mercilessly about it when she finds out).

So, Lena and Morgana are twins, but Morgana “dies” when they’re around 16 or so.

Morgana is “the forgotten Luthor” (I hc an article Kara found on her with this title when she was researching the Luthor family history when she first became friends with Lena). There’s very little information to be found on her.

Lena and Morgana were close growing up, sharing secrets and ideas, keeping each other safe in the treacherous waters of Luthor family life.

Morgana was the more outgoing one, charming, the one who easily adapted to their luxurious lifestyle in elite social circles.

Lena was more quiet, the one who got her knuckles rapped for reaching a little too eagerly at the table, who always got the disdainful look from Lillian (“Straighten up, Lena! Luthors don’t slouch!”)

In bed at night, Lena cries into Morgana’s shoulder, and Morgana tucks a stray hair behind her ear. “It’s a show, Lena. It’s all a show, like the ones we used to put on for Mum, remember? We just have to give them a good show.”

Growing up, Lex tries the same psychological tactics with Morgana as he did with Lena. Y’know, belittling her inventions and all that.

EXCEPT for this one invention she made when she was 16 that he realized would be helpful in eradicating Superman.

See at around this time, Lex has already starting to get obsessed with ridding the world of the “Kryptonian menace”. He had just started making his synthetic Kryptonite, but it was too unstable to use.

When he finds out about Morgana’s breakthrough he immediately starts trying to manipulate her into giving it to him

Her invention is Inception. Yeah, going-into-a-person’s-subconscious-and-manipulating-their-perception-of-reality Inception

Lex figures that he can use Inception to bring down Superman, because as Morgana later tells Kara and Red Daughter “Even Kryptonians dream.”

Morgana, who is about 16 at the time, realizes Lex’s plan and realizes how determined he is to get a hold of Inception (in one other version of this that includes Gwen, Arthur and Merlin, it involves isolating Morgana from her friends and killing off Arthur, but that’s a long and complicated story no one wants to hear)

Morgana attempts to foil Lex’s plan by destroying all of her research on Inception, as well as the machine she used for it.

Inception only exists in Morgana’s mind now, and since no amount of manipulation will make Morgana yield to Lex’s plan, he eventually kidnaps her and keeps her captive in one of his labs.

Basically Lex tries experimenting on her and torturing her so she’ll give him Inception.

One of his experiments involved injecting her with some of his concentrated Kryptonite stock. Like the pure stuff, actual Kryptonite from Krypton. He did it to see how the human body would process it and if it could be synthesized, since he failed in synthesizing his own Kryptonite

The end result is that Morgana literally becomes radioactive. Like how radiation chemo makes people radioactive but WORSE. She literally can’t touch anyone. Because in this AU Kryptonite is harmful to humans too.

Which is why when Morgana eventually escapes Lex’s lab she doesn’t go back to the person she cares about most, Lena.

Lena doesn’t know about any of this. All she knows is that her sister died in a failed experiment. The family has a quiet funeral, Lena is the only one who cries and stays at the graveside.

Lillian scolds her in contempt “Luthors do not cry, Lena.”, and tries to get her in the car. But for the first time, Lena is immovable. She doesn’t wipe her tears or compose herself like a lady. She just kneels in the dirt and shakes with quiet sobs. Lillian finally leaves her there

Fast forward years later, to when Lex eventually goes to prison and Lena takes over L-Corp.

During this time, Morgana has been living almost completely isolated all these years, because of her radioactivity.

She does have one ally. I don’t remember if Daxamites are immune to Kryptonite (tbh I didn’t really pay attention to that part of the show), but let’s say they are.

Morgana uses a Daxamite, Mor-Dred to conduct most of her business with the outside world (yes, that Mordred). Her house has been safeguarded for her radioactivity, and most of her business is conducted within it. On the rare occasions when she does have to go out, she wears special lead-lined clothing.

Fast forward to Red Daughter running amok disguised as Supergirl under Lex’s orders. I’m just gonna disregard the ending they did for Red Daughter, cos it pisses me off.

Morgans reveals to Lena and the rest of the DEO that she’s alive, and volunteers to stop Red Daughter since she is pretty much Kryptonite on two legs.

The Kryptonite weakens Red Daughter, and they manage to capture her. But since Lex brainwashed her, she’s still under his influence, so Morgana uses Inception to find out exactly what Lex told her so she can undo his work, she uses Inception to implant the doubt in Red Daughter’s mind.

Kara decides to help reprogram Red Daughter from her brainwashing, and convinces the DEO to let her stay in the facility.

Morgana is another problem, however. Since she is literally the Supers’ weakness and toxic to everyone else, the DEO refuses to let her run around free. They keep her in a lead-lined cell, “for everyone’s safety ”

Lena, Alex and Supergirl try to protest but to no avail. Morgana is kept in the cell across from Red Daughter.

At first, she only talks to the Kryptonian because she’s trying to see the effects of the idea she implanted in her during Inception. If the doubt she’d sown was enough to undo Lex’s brainwashing.

It’s there, she finds, and Red Daughter is susceptible to deprogramming.

So Morgana decides to stay for a while (cos let’s face it, Morgana being Morgana AND a Luthor in this AU the only reason she stayed in that cell was because she chose to; if Lex couldn’t keep her contained, what chance did the DEO have?)

Morgana tells herself it’s because it’s nice to have company again after years of self-imposed isolation, necessary though it might be. It’s also nice to be able to see her sister every day again, even if it’s through lead infused glass

But she’s beginning to enjoy the other Kryptonian’s presence. She’s a clever one, this Red Daughter. So curious and eager to learn, so very lovely in her earnestness. She listens so intently to Morgana’s stories of the world she doesn’t know, not knowing that Morgana herself hasn’t known the world in many years.

Lena brings books, mountains and mountains of books, and Red Daughter pleads for Morgana to read them to her, because her voice is beautiful – rich, like wind through the fir trees, she says.

Sometimes Red Daughter speaks to her of Lex, and all he was to her, and her voice becomes small and broken when she remembers that all of it was a lie.

The Kryptonian hates the name Red Daughter now, she winces every time she hears it, as if it leaves a bitter taste in her mouth. So Morgana calls her by a different name.

Katya, the name suits her, Morgana thinks, and the Kryptonian smiles widely – her smile a brilliant living thing on her face – when Morgana tells her the meaning of the name. Pure.

(I literally can’t with the name “Linda”. I cannot write smut with “Linda”. So she’s Katya now)

But eventually, Morgana knows it’s time to go. Captivity is acid to her soul. She’s lived through it once, and she won’t go through it again. A life of hiding and isolation may be lonely and dangerous, but it’s her own.

As she leaves, she turns to Katya, the closest she’s made to a friend in all these years – even closer than Mor-Dred – and takes pity on her, the beautiful broken Snowbird, betrayed by a Luthor and stashed away like a toy the world would rather forget about.

Morgana frees her. And there’s a moment, just before the cell doors open, when Katya – lovely Katya with her pure, earnest eyes – asks Morgana to take her with her.

Morgana meets those eyes, and a voice inside her whispers “Maybe…. maybe…”

But then the doors open, and the moment glass parts and Morgana steps closer, glowing green veins begin to creep over Katya’s face, and she begins to wince involuntarily at the pain.

And Morgana shakes her head at her own folly, her own wishful thinking.

She presses a kiss to Katya’s cheek, and Katya hisses in pain despite herself.

Morgana draws back regretfully. She smiles wryly and pulls away “it’s been a pleasure, zvyozdochka.” (Little star)

Morgana goes underground, since she’s effectively a fugitive again (She has some safehouses prepared in case something like this happens, but they’re not as radiation-proof as her home).

Kara finds out Katya escaped, and takes her in to hide her from the DEO. But eventually, Katya runs away. To find Morgana.

(I have a vague scene in my head where Katya, poor Katya who has no social filter and doesn’t know to conceal or label her feelings, confesses them to Morgana)

“I was so lonely without you. Kara tried, she helped, and Lena visited me everyday - but they’re not you. When I’m around you, yes, I’m in pain, but that is nothing to the pain I felt without you. It hurt. It hurt so much, Morgana. Why does it hurt so?”

Morgana tries hard to keep herself cold, to harden herself against Katya’s sincerity.

“Didn’t you learn your lesson from Lex? We Luthors are not made to love. He poisoned your mind, and I am built to poison your body. The love of a Luthor is a wicked thing. You should know this by now, Katya. We bring more harm than joy to the ones we love.”

Katya shakes her head vehemently, tears running down her face. “I don’t care. I don’t care! If you feel the same way, – if being with me makes you feel as warm and light as being with you makes me feel, if you hurt as much as I do when we’re not together – I don’t care about anything else.”

Katya takes Morgana’s face in her hands and presses their foreheads together. Immediately, green starts to snake over her face, seeping into her eyes. She doesn’t have her strength because of the Kryptonite, and it’s almost easy for Morgana to wrench her hands away.

“You may not care about yourself getting hurt, but I do. I won’t be the reason for your pain.” And she walks out and puts as much distance between them as she can in the safehouse.

Also, I hc that Morgana likes to keep her hair long and curly (which is how people used to tell her apart from Lena because Lena has straight hair). And despite her radioactivity and the traces of Kryptonite in her hair, her long tresses are Morgana’s one point of vanity that she refused to chop off after being tainted by Kryptonite. Her one indulgence in a life of restraint and control.

Katya sees it long and loose once while they’re at the safehouse.

She can tell Morgana is inside the room, the telltale Kryptonite churning of her stomach alerting her to the other woman’s proximity. Even muted by the lead lined walls, it’s still enough for her organs to want to expel their contents. But the sick sensation is almost welcome after the hollow emptiness she’d felt without the other woman.

Katya moves closer to the room when she sees the door is open a crack, fighting the nausea and the beginnings of acid in her blood.

Morgana is standing at the foot of her bed, clearly still getting ready for the day. Her high-necked blouse and her signature black gloves are still on the bed.

She’s clad in nothing but her skirt and bra, but Katya can’t even see the rest of her body because it’s covered by the living black mass that is Morgana’s hair

She’s only ever seen Morgana’s hair up, always meticulously arranged in an elegant but severe updo that doesn’t hint at the wild beautiful tresses on display right now. It makes her want to see it all the time in its untamed, uncurated state, flowing unchecked down Morgana’s shoulders and back.

It makes her want to bury her hands in the black mass - as surprising and mysterious as the woman herself. She wants to feel the texture of each curl and strand, to discover the secrets buried in the rich darkness.

It’s only the tendrils of sick glowing green that snake up from her fingers up her arm that stop her reaching out her hand to open the door and just touch.

Instead she watches Morgana slowly gather her hair and painstakingly curate each curl. She’s just as lovely with her hair up, but it paints a sadness in the center of Katya’s chest, like an ink blot spreading, that it’s even necessary, that she’s forced to hide this part of herself.

Of course, since I need a happy ending, Morgana eventually gets cured.

In one version of the AU, they discover Lex knows a way to extract the Kryptonite from her system, and Morgana uses Inception to find out how to do it. While inside his mind, she also implants an idea in him. Three days later, they find him dead with a gun in his mouth and a bullet in his brain.

When Morgana gets cured, Katya is right there beside her. She’s the first person Morgana touches (in like 10 fucking years).

It starts as a soft, tentative touch at first – gloves are removed and trembling fingertips touch Katya’s palm – but Katya being essentially Kara is super tactile and it ends up being the tightest embrace Morgana can remember. She ends up breaking down and crying.

Also, in this AU, Lena finds out that Kara is Supergirl through Inception. When Morgana first enters Katya’s subconscious, she takes Lena with her (kinda like how Kara took Lena and Alex to Juru), and it’s revealed that Katya knew about Kara’s identity.

Like in the show, Lena doesn’t reveal to Kara that she knows. Instead, she slowly separates herself from Kara and begins isolating herself, ashamed of how she’s let herself be fooled, of how much she’d revealed, how much sentiment she’d let herself indulge in.

Morgana doesn’t let her. “You think you know what it’s like to be truly alone, Lena? You have no idea. For years, I lived with no other company but my own shadow. No human contact. I haven’t touched another person in ten years because my very skin is poison. I’ve lived in the shadows, in unease, afraid of killing someone, or Lex killing me. You may think you’ve got no one, but look around you -- you have a family, Lena! The one thing we never thought we’d truly have again outside of each other. And it’s a family that loves you, that cares for you. Yes, she lied! The woman you love -- don’t even bother denying it -- lied to you, for years! Perhaps she did it for a good reason, perhaps her reasons aren’t good enough. You’re allowed to be angry about that -- rage, cry, scream all you want! But don’t isolate yourself. You still have a choice, I don’t. I know what it’s like not to have the luxury of that choice. Don’t choose to be alone.”

Eventually, Lena forgives Kara (but that’s a story for another time).

_____________

By SorrowsFlower

I just really needed a nice happy ending for my baby Red Daughter, also my baby Morgana. So here it is. Sort of. What am I gonna do for the rest of the hiatus???

#supercorp #morgana pendragon #red daughter #katie mcgrath #melissa benoist #supergirl #merlin #lena luthor #lex luthor #kara danvers #russian kara #kaznian kara #commiecorp #supercorp au #merlin au

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notbang · 5 years

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r/n + unconventional sleep aid

also on ao3

“I need to see you in my office. Now.”

Rebecca frowns, tucking her phone between her ear and shoulder in order to resume wiping down her countertop. “And good evening to you, too. Also, I don’t work for you anymore. Also, it’s 7 p.m.”

“I’m sorry, that was rude of me,” Nathaniel concedes. “Good evening, Rebecca—hope you’re well. I need to see you in my office. Now. Please.”

The call is terminated before she has time to come back with a witty rejoinder.

“Ugh, fine,” she says, tossing her washcloth in the direction of the back counter. “I’ll bite.”

She rolls her eyes as she steps into the elevator.

“I know we don’t see each other so much anymore, but dude. You still could’ve mentioned to me at some point that you adopted a baby.”

She’s not entirely sure what she expected from her gruff summons to the Mountaintop office, but Nathaniel with a small child balanced on his hip definitely wasn’t remotely in the zip code of it.

He shoots her a withering look in response. “This isn’t my baby,” he says. “This is your baby, so I’m going to need you to take her.”

Rebecca takes a pointed step backward when he moves towards her, angling his cargo away from his body and very clearly telegraphing his intentions to pass it over.

“Whoa, nuh-uh,” she says, holding up her hands to reject the transfer. “That is not my baby and you know it.”

“You helped make it,” he accuses.

“Hey, Heather carried it around in her Easy-Bake for nine months. If you’re going to play that particular card, you can call her.”

His expression shifts so quickly from pleading to miserable that she has to swallow back a laugh. Apparently resigning himself to his fate, he readjusts his awkward hold and checks his watch with an irritated flick of his wrist.

Rebecca finally steps out of the doorway, crossing the threshold into the office proper. It feels strange, being back here, and the hour and the lighting isn’t making it any easier. She surveys the room—there’s a portable cot half-kicked under Nathaniel’s desk, his phone still face up on the glass where he’d barked at her on speaker. Nothing that provides any real insight into what exactly is going on.

“So how did you get stuck with my strictly-biological offspring, anyway?”

Nathaniel’s body is making intermittent jerking motions that Rebecca isn’t entirely convinced he’s conscious of; when she realises it’s his absent attempt at rocking Hebby, she has to bite back her grin.

“I’m not entirely sure. Darryl rushed out of here—something about his other daughter and an unfortunate incident on the monkey bars—and since I’m the only person around here capable of putting in a little overtime without coercion—”

“The only one without a life,” Rebecca corrects. “Carry on.”

“—somehow, being the last person left in the office was all the babysitting qualifications required.”

“Well, I’m not sure what you need me for. It seems like you’re doing perfectly fine on your own.”

Nathaniel blinks. “You don’t understand. It won’t stop crying.”

“What are you talking about? She hasn’t made a peep the entire time I’ve been here.”

“Because I picked her up,” he says, like it’s an obvious issue. “As soon as I put her back in her little carrier thing, it’ll be back to uncontrollable wailing. She’s a baby—what does she even have to wail about? She’s too young to have problems.” He gestures at his chest with his free hand. “I have problems. They just got rid of the ChargePoint on Azusa. I’m the one that should be uncontrollably wailing.”

“I mean, have you tried again? She seems pretty settled to me.”

In lieu of a response, Nathaniel switches his hold on Hebby to a two-handed, under-arm grip. True to his word, the second she leaves the comfort of the crook of his arm she starts to fuss. By the time he’s depositing her in the tiny bassinet it’s progressed to what Rebecca has to concede is indeed a full-blown wail.

“You know, I spent a lot of time in this office,” Rebecca crouches in front of the carrier to whisper conspiratorially, “and I gotta say. I can relate.”

When she glances back up Nathaniel’s looking at her with something too much like eight months of memories in his eyes and she clears her throat, suddenly oddly grateful to have a baby as a buffer between them to fend them off.

“I’ll, uh… I’ll just…”

She dips to scoop up the wriggling, wauling mass of tear-streaked pink skin, fitting her to her shoulder in a way that feels slightly less unnatural than it did the last time, one hand wrapping around the back of the tiny, curly head on some kind of hesitant autopilot. Hebby gives the illusion of settling for approximately a millisecond before she’s squirming, her cries ascending in pitch until they’re bordering on a scream, arms extended to make uncoordinated grabby hands in Nathaniel’s general direction. More amused than perturbed, Rebecca holds her out towards him.

His smug look fades, and he only resists a moment before reluctantly taking back his charge.

It’s almost comical, the way Hebby claws her way up Nathaniel’s chest, clutching at the fabric of his clothes with frustrated, clenching fingers, as if she’s mad at him for setting her down to begin with, and she wants him to know it. But then she wipes her snotty face on the breast of his jacket and falls quiet, her plump rosy cheek pressed firm against his shoulder.

When she’s not busy being the one terrified at the prospect of caring for an infant, Rebecca supposes she can admit on some objective level that parenthood isn’t as entirely off-putting as she’d like to pretend. Or perhaps objectivity isn’t exactly something she can claim right now, given the treacherous flutter of endearment she’s currently experiencing in the face of another one of her former lovers looking distractingly paternal with a tiny human cradled in their arms.

Between the exhaustion, her ovaries and her overly complicated daddy issues, it’s like she barely stood a chance.

“Wow. The whole Mr Mom look kind of suits you.”

Nathaniel rolls his head away from her, dismissive and embarrassed. “I’m not… Kids aren’t my thing,” he says, clearing his throat.

“Well, neither. But Hebby here says you’re a liar.”

Figures, she thinks, remembering the way Greg had so similarly easily mollified her. Not everything is about the guys, girl, she feels like she’s going to need to caution, just as soon as the kid’s language skills are underway.

“She likes you,” is what she ends up saying aloud, softly, begrudgingly charmed by the chubby hand weakly fisting in Nathaniel’s burgundy tie.

“Well, she definitely didn’t get that from you,” he says, tone vaguely self-deprecating. He must catch something she wasn’t quick enough to conceal in her face because he immediately opens his mouth to backtrack. “I was just—”

“It’s fine,” she interrupts. Her teeth sink into her lower lip. “Actually, while I’m here, I kind of owe you an apology.”

His eyebrows crease up his forehead. “For what?”

It’s the first time they’ve properly seen each other since her recent spectacular nosedive, outside of tight smiles and lingering looks in the lobby. Now that they’re in an enclosed space together the metaphorical elephant in the room seems to be looming twice as high.

“For the other night. Thank you, for sending me home,” she says, with all the unnerving sincerity she can summon.

Nathaniel looks stricken, sucking in a steadying breath. “Oh. You don’t have to—”

“No, listen. My acting out could have played out so much worse if it weren’t for you and Josh, and I know it’s a low bar to set for basic human decency, but I also know what spiralling Rebecca can be like, and it’s not pretty—she’s kind of a manipulative bitch. You were trying to move on and me turning up on your doorstep was so far outside the realm of okay, Nathaniel—I am so sorry. Honestly.”

“Oh,” he says. “Okay. I appreciate it. Did you…” He trails off, wetting his lips, changing tracks mid-sentence from what she can sense he really wants to ask. “Did you get a good night’s sleep, at least?”

She thinks of the bench outside the outpatient centre, the crick in her back and the stiffness deep in her bones when she woke to Dr Shin shimmering in front of her like some kind of mirage. A lifesaver, coming to buoy her back to shore. “Yes,” she says, consoling herself with the sliver of truth behind the lie. “You saw how much I’d had to drink. Slept like a baby.”

Her gaze slides over the sleepy droop of Hebby’s own eyelids, and she can’t help but think of how much she doesn’t want any of this mess for her.

“Do you ever get sick of apologies?” she wonders out loud. “I kind of keep waiting for everyone to get tired of my broken record. I know I do.”

“I’ve never been big on them until recently,” Nathaniel says, offering her a small smile. “The novelty hasn’t worn off for me yet.”

He moves to lean against the edge of his desk, snapping ramrod straight again when Hebby immediately grizzles her protest. The minute he’s properly upright she makes a contented snuffling sound and he hitches her a bit further up on his chest, hesitating. “Can I just…”

“What?”

“I know you were hurting,” he says, swallowing hard, “when you came to my apartment. I know it wasn’t about me, or even Greg, really. I know that, I do. But I—”

“You want to know if I meant any of what I said,” she finishes for him.

She’s gotten stuck on that a few times, too. She isn’t sure she has a satisfying explanation for either of them.

“I was not in a good place. I felt rejected, and when I feel that way I lash out. And I go looking for that attention elsewhere. So I went to you, because I thought, ‘here’s a sucker that’s chosen me, every single time I’ve given him half the chance’.”

He exhales hard at that. “Ouch.”

“Yeah. Like I said—she’s a bitch. But as for what you’re wondering—the answer’s messy.” She tilts her head at him, giving him a sad smile. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about you.”

His palm is rubbing back and forth across Hebby’s baby blue romper in broad, firm strokes, and if he wasn’t otherwise occupied she imagines he’d be subjecting the back of his neck to the same motion. They’ve spent enough time in the company of each other’s bodies to know their tics and tells.

“I’m starting to realise that life is made up of loose threads, and maybe I need to accept that I can’t untangle all of them. I just gotta let some of them dangle, and kind of catch on things until they fall out.”

He lets out a wry chuckle. “The knots on this one run pretty deep, huh?”

“I’ve got a couple of those,” she admits. “And the stab wounds to show for trying to stitch them back together. Sometimes I feel like I quit because it’s hard, but it’s only because I’m scared of it becoming a different kind of hard, you know?”

She needs to focus on something that isn’t Nathaniel’s imploring face, so she turns her attention to lightly stroking the back of Hebby’s squishy fist, unable to stifle the coo that comes out of her mouth unbidden when five tiny fingers wrap themselves around her pinky on unconscious reflex. The only thing she failed to consider was how much closer she’s brought herself to Nathaniel in the process.

“Hey, look at that—out like a light. You’ve got the magic touch.” She carefully extracts her finger and steps away, crossing her arms and regarding the now-fast asleep Hebecca with amusement. “I think,” she begins, grinning because she knows exactly how much he’s going to hate it, “that maybe, you remind her of Darryl.”

She doesn’t bother to tell him that she only meant it height-wise—the excessively put-upon sigh he makes a show of heaving in her direction is everything she’d hoped for and more.

Rebecca jolts awake to a stimulus she can’t remember, but she thinks it might have been someone calling her name.

She hadn’t meant to doze off, but politely turning away when Nathaniel had started humming self-consciously into the crown of a hiccuping Hebecca’s head had led to stretching out across his leather couch, and stretching out had led to closing her eyes for just a moment, and… well. At least one of them had been lulled into placation by his lullaby.

“No naps,” she mumbles with insistence. “I’m not napping.”

She pulls herself into some approximation of upright against the arm of the couch, and it’s only the motion of it slipping down that draws her attention to Nathaniel’s suit jacket and the way he’s draped it over her shoulders while she was sleeping. Wrapping her fingers around the dark blue wool of the lapel, she tugs it back into position, resisting the heady impulse to inhale.

Its owner is perched on the edge of the desk in front of her, exposed shirtsleeves haphazardly rolled up to his elbows, his face radiating a flattering fusion of exhaustion and warmth, and she has to actively tamp down on the burst of fondness that sets itself free in her chest at the sight of him.

“Hey,” she says, still groggy. “Where’s Hebby?”

“Darryl just left. He said to tell you thank you.”

“Who, me? I barely did anything. Except fall asleep, apparently.” She looks up at him, sheepish. “I’ve started some new medication, and… yeah. Inconvenient side effects.”

“Ah.” He smiles. “Well, I appreciated the moral support. Even if it was entirely lacking. Pleasant dreams?”

“Beat a park bench, that’s for sure.”

Ignoring his funny look and dragging herself to her feet with extreme reluctance, she holds his jacket in front of her like some kind of shield that will help her keep her messy feelings in check. “I guess I should, um…” She gestures towards the door.

“I think about you too,” he blurts out, then runs a hand over his face. “Not… I mean, I do, but that’s not what I’m trying to say. There’s a voice in my head, now, telling me to be better. And it kind of sounds like you.”

A giddy sense of pride effervesces in her bloodstream at that—for all their dysfunction, it’s encouraging to know there was some kind of positive takeaway.

“I’m honoured. Really. And it may not seem like it right now,” she says, nose wrinkling as she gifts him a tiny smile, “but the best part is when the voice doesn’t sound like anyone anymore. It just becomes… you.”

It’s too quiet, too intimate; the lamplight too invitingly low, and she needs to leave before she starts to unspool. She steps closer to him as if she’s moving through liquid, sure to come just short of invading his personal space, and when she presses the jacket back into his hands, she’s careful to not quite let their fingers brush.

“Goodnight, Nathaniel,” she says gently.

She stops herself from letting her gaze linger over her shoulder at him as she leaves.

mini fic prompt meme.

#crazy ex girlfriend #rebecca x nathaniel #hebecca whitefeather #my fic #mini fic prompt meme #catty-words #replies #when i first set out to write this i imagined it would be funnier #but it just ended up gooey #anyway i've been super burnt out on my wips lately and needed to pump out something else #so have at it #set in some kind of post-4x12 pre-4x14 space i guess

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