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my-unmanageable-mischief · 3 years

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Arranged Marriage Part 2

Part two of my arranged marriage series (Part 1 here, Part 3)

Draco's parents arrange a marriage for him, and at first he's pissed, but then he meets her and she's pretty and his type and he winds up really enjoying her?

If people like this I would be more then willing to write a part 3 for it! Let me know!! :)

Draco Malfoy x Reader

Draco brought you to his parents, who were currently talking to your parents, joined by Crabbe and Goyle’s parents, two men who were rather fierce looking. Draco couldn't help but think they wouldn’t look nearly as scary if they weren’t as wide as they were tall.

“Draco,” Mrs. Crabbe greeted him as you both approached, “He’s growing handsomer everyday,” She commented to Narcissa who smiled smugly at the woman.

“Isn’t he? Just like his father.” You looked to Lucius at her words and couldn’t help but notice all the differences. Draco might’ve had his platinum hair and ice grey eyes, but frankly that’s where the similarities stopped in your opinion. Draco was taller than his father, less broad and more slender. His face reminded you more of his mother’s with high cheekbones and a sharp nose. His eyes, while sharing the color of his father’s, were less narrow. Unlike the unpleasant man in front of you, Draco wasn’t stuck in a perpetual glare, there was a warmth behind his eyes that both his parents lacked.

“And Miss Y/N.” She continued, “Absolutely beautiful as always, you look so much like your mother.” You tensed, biting back a comment. You wished to tell her how that was an insult, you knew you were leagues more beautiful than your mother was, that’s why she was always so critical of you; jealousy. But you watched as your mother brimmed with pride for one of the first times in years, taking the complement for herself rather than you.

“Thank you, Mrs. Crabbe.” You curtsied politely, remembering your manners in the face of your parents. It was simply easier that way.

“Congratulations on the engagement.” Mr. Goyle extended a hand to Draco who released yours to accept it. You immediately felt colder and more vulnerable in the presents of these people whom you secretly feared.

“Thank you, I’m truly a lucky man.” He smiled, glancing sideways at his mother who seemed over the moon that you were getting along. His father’s face had yet to change, ever set in a glare.

“It’s lovely to see two fine pure-blooded families coming together in such a union.” Mr. Crabbe commented and your father nodded.

“It’s nice to create this allyship.” Allyship, you rolled the world over in your mind. Of course that’s what your father thought of it. While he was nothing to sneer at it was known that your family didn’t possess nearly as much wealth or power as the Malfoys, he was just happy his only daughter was getting him into the it crowd.

“This will be the second best thing to happen to Draco this year.” Lucius commented lightly.

“Second best?” You questioned, wondering what possibly could be the first best, while Draco at the same time asked.

“This year?” With slightly wide eyes. His mother smiled tensely.

“Yes my love, we’ve been talking. Sooner the better, we will plan the wedding for this summer, before your 7th year.”

“Before you take your oath,” His father added proudly, “He’ll be the youngest one yet.” Mr. Crabbe and Mr. Goyle smiled for their friend, raising their glasses in a cheers that your father joined in on. You tensed, fingers twitching as you fought the urge to wrap your arms around yourself for comfort. His oath, you didn’t need to ask what oath that would be. You were surrounded by death eaters and you felt sort of like a lamb being led into the lion's den. An ironic muggle saying given the situation. Draco reached for your hand again and you fought the urge to flinch and turn and run. He took it, squeezing it, and shot you a small smile. Both of your parents were watching you intently as the other’s resumed their previous, dull conversation. You returned the smile with a small one of your own before looking down at your feet.

“Getting along well?” His mother asked hopefully, you looked to Draco to see what he would say. He nodded his head at his mother and you saw some of the worry leave her features.

“Swimmingly.” He assured. You could tell that brought her joy, even if she refused to show any real emotion in front of her husband. Lucius smirked slightly glancing at his wife before looking sternly at his son.

“Frankly, it doesn’t matter how well they get along. As long as she’s been raised to be a good wife to my son, they will be fine.” He looked to your mother, “He simply needs a pure-blooded wife to keep house and raise his children. I assume you’ve managed to teach her that much.” He bit out the last sentence and you would have smirked at your mother’s face if it weren’t for the words that came from the man’s mouth. Keep house? Raise his children? Draco looked at you again, trying not to seem outwardly worried. He saw the way you had spoken to your father earlier, daring to call him daft, and he was worried you might snap in front of his parents. And his father would have no problem making an example out of you.

“She’ll make a fine wife and mother, I assure you.” Your father spoke for your mother, “Isn’t that right.” You didn’t speak immediately and Draco squeezed your hand slightly, silently pleading with you to get through this conversation.

“Yes sir,” You nodded, swallowing hard, the grip you had on his hand tightened. Lucius nodded before waving you off with a flourish of his hand.

“Gone with you two, let the adults speak.” Draco frowned. He wanted to argue with his father, to tell him if he was old enough to take the oath and get the mark then he was certainly old enough to be included in this so-called adult conversation. Merlin, maybe you were rubbing off on him. The longer he thought about it though, the less he actually wanted to stick around for the conversation, and Blaise had gotten you drinks anyways, his Fire Whiskey called to him. He bowed slightly at the group before turning and tugging you with him back towards your table.

“Alright?” Draco asked, leaning down slightly to speak to you as you walked. You wore that same blank expression you had first worn when you told him you didn’t want to marry him and he found himself worrying about you. Worrying! He mentally scoffed, Draco Bloody Malfoy did not worry, especially not about some bird he just met. Not some bird, a voice in his head reminded him, your fiance. His fiance. He looked at you and you shrugged up at him, smiling slightly but your eyes were still blank.

“Fine, thanks.” He wanted to press the issue further, but then you arrived at the table, Blaise was still seated there, and Pansy had rejoined the table, along with a few additional members; Crabbe, Goyle, and a 7th year Slytherin girl named Addia Artwell. Draco pulled your chair out for you again where you had been previously seated and you thanked him, taking the seat.

“Alright?” Blaise asked, and Draco had to chuckle at the question he had just asked himself.

“Alright, just talking with the parents.” He informed them, taking his own seat and taking a long draw of his Fire Whiskey, relishing in the feeling as it burned it’s way down his throat. You picked your own drink up taking a generous sip. You couldn’t believe this was the situation you had found yourself in. You felt like screaming and crying and ripping your hair out and the only thing you could do was shut down. Your mind drifted to Paris as the group around you chatted and chuckled amongst themselves.

“Y/N?” You looked up, raising an eyebrow when your name was called, it had come from Addia.

“Yes?” You asked, sipping from your glass, hoping at least one good thing may come from tonight- you getting piss drunk.

“You’re in Ravenclaw, right?” She asked and you nodded your head at her, setting the cup down.

“I am, why do you ask?”

“I just assumed they’d marry Draco off to a Slytherin girl.” She wasn’t as harsh as Pansy, but you noticed the other girl tuning into your conversation with a smirk. “Does that mean you’re like, really smart?”

“I do alright,” You shrugged, “As for marrying a Slytherin, I don’t know how we ended up paired up.” You admitted.

“I know my parents wanted me to marry him,” She continued, unaffected, “I guess his parents said no, so I’m marrying Clyde Inkwell, he graduated a few years back, remember him?” You didn’t not really. Only in passing at a few balls over the years, you thought you might’ve danced with him once at your mother’s request. You smiled politely and nodded your head.

“Yes, good for you, a very good family.”

“Not as good as Malfoy,” Pansy commented and both girls shot her a glare. You picked your drink up again, needing something to do to feel less awkward and out of place. Across the room you saw a few people you were relatively well acquainted with, older Ravenclaw kids whom you usually spent your time with at these kind of events, you found yourself wishing you were there and not here surrounded by snakes. Draco shifted in his seat, his arm draping back around the back of your chair. Your first reaction was to wince again at the slight brush of contact, but you scolded yourself. He had been kind to you so far, much kinder than you had expected, there was no reason to go running and screaming from him yet, besides the fact that you didn't wish to marry anyone.

“Finished?” Draco asked as you set your empty glass down again, you glanced into it and smirked slightly.

“No I was gonna sit and drink the air.” He chuckled, brushing his knuckles slightly over your shoulder.

“Want me to get you another one?” He asked, surprised at himself that he was trying to initiate even casual contact with you. You shrugged your shoulders and nodded your head, feeling the inkingly of a slight buzz coming on.

“Sure, thank you.”

“Of course,” He assured, getting up, placing a hand on your shoulder, before disappearing into the crowd. You were surprised by how you immediately missed the man’s presence. You glanced around uneasily at the group who sat around you.

“That dress makes you look wide,” Pansy commented.

“I think she looks sexy,” Goyle commented crudely, his eyes racking over your body. You flushed, not in a good way, biting down on your tongue.

“Oi piss off you lot!” Blaise announced, scooting into Draco’s empty seat and throwing his arm around your shoulder, pulling you into him as you stiffened. He was drunk and smelled like a mix of alcohol and too much aftershave.

“Slag.” Pansy muttered, Addia glanced at her before chuckling.

“Honestly, no offense,” When people said that it was usually followed with something offensive, “But really, why you? It’s not even like you’re that rich. What? Are you a good shag?”

“Excuse me?” You asked, mouth opening in slight surprise. You thought she had been nicer than Pansy, but the claws were coming out.

“Did you sleep with Lucius first?” Pansy asked and this time everyone laughed. You wanted to get up and run, you found yourself looking around wildly for an exit, for Draco, for any sort of life line.

“I bet she did,” Crabbe added, “That’s the only way someone like her would be set up to marry someone like Draco.”

“Are you going to take the oath?” Addia asked, leaning her elbows on the table and resting her chin in her hands as she stared at you like she wanted to eat you alive.

“No,” You scoffed.

“They probably won’t let her,” Pansy smirked, “She’s not pure-blooded enough. I hear they’ve got several cousins who have married below them, disgusting.”

“She’ll be at home doing the cooking and the cleaning, I bet they wanted a slave for Draco, not someone his equal, that’s the only thing that makes sense.” Goyle joked causing another bout of laughter from everyone. You stood up suddenly, your chair failing back with the sudden movement, everyone continued to look at you laughing.

“You’re just jealous, you bitter hag.” You snapped at Pansy. Draco approached the table as your chair flew back and you stood, he came to a stop beside you, two drinks in hand.

“What’s going on?”

“She’s mental,” Pansy chuckled, “You’re going to marry an imbecile.”

“I’m a hell of a lot smarter than you Parkinson,” You reached for your wand and Draco put the glasses on the table, grabbing your wrist in his own large hand.

“Y/N,” He spoke.

“I’ll show you how daft I am when your head rolls across the dance floor you blithering cow!” You shouted, causing some of the nearby tables to look towards you, Pansy had the common sense to look slightly frightened by your outburst.

“Y/N,” Draco repeated urgently, looking around to make sure your parents were far enough away they would miss the commotion. You snatched your hands from him.

“Hell, I don’t even need my wand, I could beat you with my bare hands, say it again. Say it all again while he’s here.” No one said anything.

“I don’t know what you’re going on about,” Addia spoke shrugging. Draco glanced around the table, not buying it. He’d known them for years, he could guess what type of words had been exchanged in his absence.

“Shut it, Artwell.” He snapped once again grabbing you, both hands on your shoulders as he began to steer you away from the group, sending them all a look that could kill.

“You’re just a bunch of arse kissing cowards, you hear me!” You called as Draco moved you away from the group, turning you so you were walking ahead of him, his hands firmly on your shoulders.

“My dearest future wife, let’s go.” He demanded, pushing you through the crowd back towards the french doors they had entered through earlier. He could take a punishment from his father if they were caught sneaking off, he couldn’t take you getting in trouble for ripping Parkinson limb from limb in front of everyone. He got you to the door and opened it pushing you through. You immediately stalked away from him, beginning to pace the foyer.

“Who does she think she is?” You asked rhetorically, “Bloody bitch, you should have let me hexed her, she deserves it.” Draco nodded his head, leaning against the wall as you got it all out. He hated to admit it, but you looked fit like this. Hair slightly falling from it’s previously neat braids, eyes ablaze with anger and passion.

“Won’t argue with that, but this is neither the time nor the place.” You didn’t even seem to hear him as you continued to pace wildly around the room.

“Stupid, wretched, hag! I hate this, I hate all of this, I want to bloody go home, I need- I need-” Merlin, you didn’t know what you needed, and suddenly you were crying. “I want to go home, I want my life back, I don’t want to get married, I don’t want to be some homemaker, some mindless slave to my death eater husband.” You ranted and Draco couldn’t help but wince slightly at your words, pushing himself off the wall.

“So go.”

“What?” You asked, stopping your pacing to look at him, eyes wide and red, mascara streaming down your cheeks.

“Go,” He repeated calmly, going to the front door and opening it, you winced as the cold winter air hit your bare skin, and he felt bad, but he needed to make his point, he needed you to understand. “Go to Paris.” You stood there glancing between him and the darknesses outside. “I’m sure you’ll make it there alright. Maybe even find some job at some muggle place. Maybe you’ll even find yourself a flat.” Where was he going with this, you asked yourself. He wanted you to leave? “That is, until they notice you’re gone.” He raised his voice slightly, “It won’t take long, I’m sure they’re announcing our engagement soon, they’ll notice you’ve left. They’ll hunt you down, sure it might take a few days.” You looked away from him, wrapping your arms around yourself as tears welled up again.

“Stop.”

“No, go! Let them hunt you for sport, I’m sure even your own father would join just so he didn’t seem like a trader.” You winced again, this time from his words and he felt guilt rising in his chest. But he needed you to understand - this was life or death. He came away from the door, leaving it open as he approached you, “They will hunt you down and they will kill you for being a trader.” He stated bluntly. “Or maybe you’ll get lucky and they’re simply torture you into maddness.” He put a hand on your shoulder and you allowed yourself to lean slightly into the touch. “You’ll never be a healer, you’ll never be anything. You will simply cease to exist.”

“Merlin help me,” You whispered, a few more tears falling from your eyes. He used the back of his hand to brush them away.

“I’m trying to help you.” He admitted.

“How?”

“Marry me,” He wasn’t sure if he was asking you or telling you but it certainly wasn’t a regular marriage proposal. “I will keep you safe.” He promised, and you looked up skeptically into his icy grey eyes. “I will protect you. You will be a healer, you will be my wife, a mother, perhaps a bit of a homemaker,” He smiled softly and you allowed yourself to smile watery up at him. “But never my slave.” He promised. “I’m a Malfoy, no one will lay a finger on you once you’re a Malfoy too.” You considered his words and watched as he pulled back gesturing towards the door again, “We could even see Paris someday.” You laughed, wiping at your eyes and sighing.

“Has anyone ever told you, you’re a good man?” Draco fought the urge to say ‘no’. Instead he winked and smiled again.

“What are husbands for?” He shut the door and came back to you, pulling you towards one of the hallways leading off the main foyer, to a door, “Go get cleaned up, they’re going to notice were gone soon, I don’t want them to think I wasn’t being a gentleman.” He teased and you chuckled, going into the bathroom before stopping and turning to look at him.

“Draco?” You asked, and he relished in the sound of his name coming off your lips.

“Hm?”

“Thank you,” You leaned up placing a kiss on his cheek before pulling back with a coy smile, shutting the door on his face. Draco smiled to himself, resisting the urge to touch the spot on his cheeks your lips just touched. It wasn’t a sneaky snog, like he had hoped, but somehow this was better.

#harry potter #draco Malfoy #draco Malfoy x reader #draco malfoy x y/n #draco malfoy x you #draco malfoy x ravenclaw!reader #draco malfoy arranged marriage

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yuziyuanapologist · 3 years

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stop the low talk

for the prompt “it’s all your fault” requested by anonymous, several months ago! sorry it took a while

jiang cheng/lan xichen, post canon, 2.4k words. no major warnings but discussion of past manipulation.

"Zewu Jun, open the fucking door."

Long though it’s been since last he heard it, Lan Xichen would recognise that tone anywhere. No one else could speak with so much anger and yet make it sound so caring. For that matter - he'd recognise the knock, too, loud and insistent and threatening to become a ringing in his ears if he doesn't -

“Zewu Jun, I swear to -”

It had always been Lan Xichen’s favourite thing to do, before - to open the door to Jiang Wanyin mid-exclamation. The shock on his face is too priceless, too precious to pass up on, and Lan Xichen smiles indulgently.

“Is there something you needed, Jiang-zongzhu?” he asks. “Or are you just here to catch flies?”

Jiang Wanyin snaps his mouth shut, and scowls, before rolling his eyes and answering.

“Why are there rumours of you coming out of seclusion?”

Lan Xichen’s chest seizes up. Yes, his seclusion. Hearing Jiang Wanyin - it had been a reprieve, of sorts. He had - almost - forgotten. All at once he is back where he is, beyond the threshold of a rarely opened door. In his prison, in his safety, in his hanshi.

“Well, I suppose because - I am. At least, I’m beginning to plan for it.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me?” Jiang Wanyin replies, incredulous. “You know who I had to hear it from? Sect Leader Yao, Zewu Jun. Do you know how humiliating it was to have him know something I didn’t?”

“My apologies, Jiang-zongzhu,” he’s still forcing out the smile, unsure whether he’s hiding a teasing laugh or a sob. “Would you like to come in?”

Jiang Wanyin’s next move is predictable, despite the time it’s been. He’s torn between refusal, just to make a point, and acceptance, given that it’s the reason he’s here. He scowls again, and doesn’t speak, but barges in when Lan Xichen steps aside in anticipation.

As he slides the door shut, Lan Xichen smiles to himself. Though they’ve exchanged a few brief letters while Lan Xichen has been here - he’s missed - this. Jiang Wanyin being here, being angry and dense and yet caring, beyond what he thinks himself capable of.

Beyond what he realises, actually.

Or - Lan Xichen was supposed to learn to stop seeing people in a sweeter light than what they really are, in these years alone. Clearly it hasn’t worked.

“Jiang Wanyin, may I ask -” Jiang Wanyin narrows his eyes, but doesn’t reject it, so Lan Xichen continues. “- did you come all this way just to ask if I’m leaving seclusion?”

They’ve been sitting in silence for as long as it’s taken for Lan Xichen to make and pour the tea. He’d been expecting (well, no, he never expects Jiang Wanyin to speak the first word - he’s more cut out for the last, but he’d been hoping) for Jiang Wanyin to speak first, and explain himself before Lan Xichen had to express his confusion. It’s a risky business, to ask a question like that. Jiang Wanyin is defensive, especially if it’s an answer he’s not sure of. And this seems like it may be one of those times.

As expected, his scowl deepens. “I don’t know,” he clears his throat. “Yunmeng is too fucking hot at this time of year.”

“I see,” Lan Xichen replies. “Well, it’s good -”

“I wanted to see you,” Jiang Wanyin interrupts, forcing it out as though he's reluctant to admit it. “I thought if you were coming out of - then I might finally be allowed -” he clears his throat again. “Whatever. I just mean - having your brother at conferences instead of you has tested my fucking patience,” he says.

Lan Xichen brings his sleeve to cover his mouth. “Wanyin,” he warns, the corners of his mouth twitching. “You know I can’t allow you to say such things to me.”

“Like you could stop me,” Jiang Wanyin scoffs. “Can I not express happiness that you’re returning?”

“At the expense of my brother?”

“You have a free pass to insult Wei Wuxian.”

“Oh, I'm sure you manage that fine by yourself. Besides, I haven’t seen him to be able to insult him.”

“You haven’t? Isn’t he here?”

“He’s in Cloud Recesses, sometimes. But besides immediate family - you’re my first visitor.”

“First? But - it’s been -”

“Do you need reminding what seclusion is?”

“Don’t fucking - yes, I know what seclusion is. But - five years?”

Lan Xichen looks down, a deep sigh escaping his chest. “I still wonder whether it should be longer.”

“Longer? Are you out of your -”

“Quite possibly. Though, I think if that were to happen, it happened a few years ago now.”

Jiang Wanyin is silent for a moment, his nostrils flaring with that familiar unshakeable rage. Lan Xichen almost smiles, until his chest seizes with the thought of bearing the flame of the anger.

"No," Jiang Wanyin says - it's about to burst, tide forth with fury. It's in the tension, the shake of the word. "You're not staying hidden away any longer. I won't let you."

It's dangerous to give a response, when he speaks like this. One wrong move, and the dam will break.

“Wanyin -”

“Don’t you understand how worried I -" he forces his mouth shut, exhaling loudly through his nose. "Without you there - it's -" he tails off into a mutter "it's stupid, whatever."

"Wanyin," Lan Xichen tries again, his voice shaking. "I h- I had to. Everything that happened, everything I did -"

"Did?" Jiang Wanyin scoffs. "Zewu Jun, please -"

Lan Xichen closes his eyes. "I'm not going to argue this with you. I know what I did wrong back then, I've had five years to reflect on it."

Jiang Wanyin is disbelieving. "Reflect? That’s not reflecting. That’s you fucking torturing yourself by staying in here, alone, pretending you remember, and forgetting that I was there too."

"Wanyin," he tries to make his voice a warning, but he's so tired of it all.

"It's not like I haven't been reflecting for five years too," Jiang Wanyin says. "More like twenty fucking years, actually. I know just as well as you what happened - better, even, because I don't still have Jin Guangyao in my fucking head."

Oh. Oh, that's not fair. That's not - that's not what Lan Xichen wants to hear, and it can't be the truth, because he's been dedicating every waking moment to purging his mind of that name, and that face, and it still feels like Jiang Wanyin has crawled in between his ribs to clamp his fist round his heart.

At Lan Xichen's silence, Jiang Wanyin learns regret, and lowers his gaze to the table, the blaze smoking out to embers.

"I didn't mean -"

"Yes, you did."

If there's one thing he knows about Jiang Wanyin’s anger, it's that it comes with brutal honesty. He's not one to fabricate in his spite, only to spit painful dangerous truth.

Lan Xichen waits for him to leave. He doesn't.

"I just meant that-" his voice is breathy, like he's trying not to - trying not to - "You talk about everything you did as if you were at fault. Do you truly believe that?"

"How could I put the fault elsewhere?"

"Easily!" Jiang Wanyin exclaims in frustration. "You were manipulated and lied to at every turn. You -” oh - oh, is he -? Is that - a tear? “-were the only one of us who was kind enough to believe in anyone's good intentions, and had it used against you. That's not your fault. And if - if I had -" he lets out an angry huff, roughly wiping away whatever dampness was at the corner of his eye. "If I had believed in - anyone - half as much as you did - none of this would have happened."

Interesting - to think that if they are in any way similar - Lan Xichen still may not forgive himself twenty years down the line. It seems that Jiang Wanyin wants to stop that from happening, but only in all the most useless, destructive ways.

"So you want me to blame you?"

"Yes - no - I don't fucking know," Jiang Wanyin struggles to form a sentence for a moment. "Why the fuck not? Wouldn't it help just to admit it’s all my fault?"

For a moment, Lan Xichen only stares in disbelief. Then - he tastes the words in his mouth, bitter round his tongue.

"It's all your fault."

Bitter in one's mouth, and a fist in another's ribs. There's no way that Lan Xichen gives even a hint that he means it, but Jiang Wanyin winces.

Lan Xichen shakes his head. "No. It doesn't help."

"Lying is against your rules," Jiang Wanyin mutters.

"And yet you asked me to say that it was your fault."

"Which is -"

"A lie."

Jiang Wanyin exhales roughly, looking away across the room.

"Wanyin, please -" Lan Xichen sighs himself into silence, then finds new words. "What good does it do, now, to go chasing fault?"

"Better than letting you believe it's yours," Jiang Wanyin says. "It's just - five years. How can you take five years just to conclude that only you did wrong?"

Lan Xichen lowers his gaze, shaking his head. "I - it's not so simple as that. What you said was right, too, that I was taken advantage of, but - at times, I knew. I knew that he was telling me what to think, and making decisions for me." He swallows. "And it was so much easier that way. I was so tired of - of being a leader, and having to take care of everything, and trying to fix Wangji and - and Dage and -" his eyes fall shut, his voice drops to a whisper "- it was just so much easier."

Jiang Wanyin doesn't respond. At least, not audibly, and Lan Xichen can't bring himself to open his eyes again to see what furious expression he is contorting his face into.

"Can we not talk of something el-"

Jiang Wanyin's hand lands on his own. A soft touch, reassuring, but one that makes him jump because of all the things he would have expected - this? This is far down the list, if it even made it. And for it to be so gentle - it's as though he dreamt it.

"He was the one who took advantage of that." He speaks with a gruff edge, as if he wants to pretend that he isn't being kind. As if it's easier to make this into a shouting match, as if he'd rather beat his opinions into Lan Xichen, over pressing them into his hand with a soft touch.

Lan Xichen turns his hand so that the touch is fingertips to palm, but doesn't speak. He doesn’t know how, and besides, it's clear that Jiang Wanyin doesn't want him to say anything, and so he stays quiet, fixing his gaze on the touch of their hands.

"You wanted to talk of something else?" Jiang Wanyin forces out. When Lan Xichen glances up, he's staring steadily across the room - seemingly anything but look at their hands still touching. But his fingers still press lightly into Lan Xichen’s palm, deliberate and steady - there's a palpable hesitance, but he doesn’t move away.

"Well, I'm sure there must be more joyful subjects for our first meeting after so many years," Lan Xichen replies.

At first, the only reply he gets is a noncommittal hum.

“Have you thought of anything else?” he says eventually, and Lan Xichen laughs lightly at Jiang Wanyin’s weak attempt at his usual bitterness. Of course - the question is cruel, or - it would be, if Lan Xichen didn’t have his hand.

But he does have his hand, and because of that, he allows himself a dangerous reply.

“I have, yes,” he replies, keeping his expression serene. “I have thought of you.”

The tension that floods Jiang Wanyin’s body is as he expected, but not as he had truly prepared for. Has he said too much, and too forward? After five years of mere letters, and before that, for how long they barely spoke truths in each other’s presence because of -

Maybe Lan Xichen doesn’t remember the last time they were in each other’s presence in honesty. And, though he has thought of Jiang Wanyin for - for how long, he cannot even say - but despite that, there has never been a true indication that it would come to - and, with Jiang Wanyin so self sufficient, so deliberately alone, and distanced -

Lan Xichen is cruel, to speak his mind like this. Er-ge. Do you not think that you would be influencing his opinions? His leadership? I do not want either of you to be hurt, Er-ge.

Ah. Ah, Jiang Wanyin was right. A-Yao is still there. It's so difficult not to listen to him, though.

Lan Xichen shakes his head. “Forgive me-”

“Really?” Jiang Wanyin finally speaks, interrupts - breathless, the tension rushed out of him - he’s light as a child, the corners of his lips tilting up into excitement -

“Would that - would that be okay? If I had thought of you?”

The breathless smile lasts a few seconds longer, until Jiang Wanyin seems to remember himself, and clears his throat, trying to force a scowl. (It doesn’t escape Lan Xichen’s notice that there are flickers of delight tracing through his expression.)

“Uh, I mean - I - yeah - I -” he huffs, and finally succeeds in scowling. “What do you mean, you thought of me?”

“I mean - exactly that,” Lan Xichen replies. “I thought of you. Some days I wondered what you were doing, whether you were okay. Some days thinking of you cheered me when nothing else could. And some days - some days, I missed you so desperately that nothing else mattered.”

Jiang Wanyin’s fingers have long since frozen still in his palm, but Lan Xichen moves now, to intertwine them with his own, and lowers his voice to a gentle whisper.

“Is it okay?”

Jiang Wanyin clears his throat again, but allows Lan Xichen to hold on to him.

“I mean, I think it’s stupid of you,” he mutters. “But I suppose - I mean - I did too. Think of you. Don’t look so fucking surprised,” he adds, after glancing up to meet Lan Xichen’s eyes, and immediately looking down again. “It’s not like you didn’t know.”

“I didn’t,” confesses Lan Xichen. “I hoped. But I was never certain.”

Jiang Cheng scoffs. “How could you not know?”

It's all Lan Xichen can do not to burst into laughter at how dense he can be sometimes.

“Well, you know, you tend to scowl,” Lan Xichen teases. “It does give off the impression that you have less than positive opinions of the people around you.”

As if he can’t bear to acknowledge that Lan Xichen has a point, Jiang Wanyin shrugs. “Good. Let them think that.”

“Even me?”

His eyes fixed firmly on the table, Jiang Wanyin squeezes Lan Xichen’s hand, but doesn’t seem able to reply. With a fond smile, Lan Xichen understands that it must be too humiliating to admit it.

“Wanyin,” he says, and reaches out his free hand to Jiang Wanyin’s cheek. "Do you want me to believe that you have such a poor opinion of me?"

His scowl relaxing, Jiang Wanyin sighs out a shake of his head, and leans his cheek into Lan Xichen’s palm.

"No," he admits, out loud this time. "I want you to know how I - that I -" he presses his lips together, displeasure at his own ineloquence.

Shaking his head once again, he seems to give up on words, and tightens his fingers round Lan Xichen's, bringing his other hand to the wrist of the hand cupping his cheek. He holds on, holding it in place as he turns his face to press frowning lips to palm.

Warmth swells in Lan Xichen, fondness as he's never experienced it. And still - the urge to tease, the urge to make fun where he knows that it will be taken with a roll of the eyes, and a scowl, and an understanding of the feelings it all holds.

"All of this, and you still won't let me see you smile," he says.

He's right about it - the roll of his eyes, the scowl, the understanding- and yet he's wrong, because deep within, in Jiang Wanyin’s heart in his chest, in his eyes - he is smiling.

And Lan Xichen sees it.

#im gonna post this and regret it in the morning #also i will ao3 it tomorrow #too tired rn #the untamed #the untamed fic #xicheng #fic*#mine

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nillegible · 3 years

Text

(Part 4 of Stay, the MY time travel fic. Read Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 )

So much that Meng Yao has seen in his second life has been disturbingly accurate to the memories that he still has of his former life, but the brothel is different. It feels much smaller than it did to a child who grew up there. Appears more garish than he’d seen from afar, after ordering the place to be burned down. Or perhaps these decorations are so like the gilded decor Koi tower that he hadn’t noticed, back then.

Meng Yao walks inside now, for the first time since he fled after mother’s death, dressed in simple gray robes of good make, sword and tassel marking him as a cultivator. His hair is deliberately done up plainly, as different from his mother’s as he can manage it. He does not wish to be recognized here, as her son.

“Please, please stop,” someone is crying out, and a tall, well-built young man – not a cultivator though – is dragging a woman outside by the hair. As Meng Yao steps aside to make way, he recognizes her. Anxin. It’s a new way to remember her face, twisted in fear and desperation, instead of in cruel, mocking laughter.

He lets them pass, and walks into the establishment. Two young girls, maybe sixteen, direct him to a table in the main hall and prepare tea. He responds to their flirtation politely; they’re just doing their jobs, after all; and waits for the Madame to be free.

I bet Father, never had to wait, thinks Meng Yao, but it’s an idle thought. Even his mother had not wanted Meng Yao to be like him, only to gain his favour and the prestige that entailed.

For all that he’s a cultivator now, one of considerable renown even if it does not match that of a Sect Leader or heir of a major sect. He waits patiently for the madame’s attention.

The young women at his sides stiffen into perfect posture, alerting him to the imminent arrival of their boss. “How can I help the honoured young master?” the well dressed, elegant woman asks finally, coming over to sit gracefully at his table.

“This one greets Madame,” says Meng Yao simply. “I am merely here to observe, and perhaps make a purchase.” She’s so practiced that her reaction is nearly entirely subdued, only traces of her glee at finding a customer to buy one of her girls’ contract are visible. Meng Yao pretends not to notice, just smiles, serenely.

“The Young Master is seeking a wife, then? My girls are each very accomplished, and I’m sure he will find one eminently suitable to his tastes.”

Meng Yao just nods, as if disinterested. “If madame would show me the suitable candidates…” then hesitates, carefully. “I am not seeking a wife. My Uncle’s wife has taken ill, and I hoped that if I found him a suitable concubine, there would be less disharmony in my household. I am unmarried, and finding good servants is difficult enough without him scaring the help away with his ways.” He scrunches his nose in faint distaste, and watches the calculation in her eyes.

“This one understands, the Young Master will not be looking for their skills in managing a household, then. There are women to match this criterion as well. Some of my girls are great beauties and will certainly captivate any man.”

“He can find beauties on his own coin,” Meng Yao huffs. “As long as she can perform her duties, who cares what she looks like? Will Madame show me the women? I will decide when I see them.” With such crude, miserly words, Meng Yao has saved himself having to browse through most of the women here, as well as much of the haggling. The Madame would not dare to inflate her prices above that of the prostitute’s contract, for fear he’d leave and just bribe one of his female servants to quietly accept the abuse.

Sure enough, after Meng Yao is settled in a private room, the women suggested to him are significantly older than the young ones entertaining downstairs. The madame excuses herself; there’s nothing much for her to do here, but leaves two clerks to explain the costs of each contract.

Meng Yao reads through them dispassionately, even setting aside Sisi’s contract when he sees it the first time, though in the ‘look again,’ pile, not the ‘too expensive’ one. Finally, he narrows it down to three, and the women are requested to attend them, in the small parlor.

Meng Yao keeps his face averted when Sisi approaches. There’s a sharp inhale when she sees him, and he looks up to catch her eye and quickly shakes his head, asking her to not give it away. Seeming to understand, she falls into place beside her two sisters, and allows Meng Yao to… consider his options. He picks Sisi as if on a whim, and then finalizes the purchase.

“Meng Yao?” she asks, when they’re left alone, shortly after. There is paperwork to be completed, and they’re brought tea while they wait.

“Aunt Sisi,” Meng Yao says softly. “It is good to see you again.”

“I didn’t expect… do you really have an uncle in need of a concubine?”

“Jin Guangshan has three brothers,” he answers. “But as I have not acknowledged him as my father, I do not have uncles.”

“I see,” she says. That sharp gaze means, go on. Means, what do you want of me, and it is too suspicious, too disturbing to wait until they leave the brothel to explain.

“I would have bought Mother out, if I could. I dreamed of the day. But she died and… Aunt Sisi has ever been kind to her. You were her greatest comfort, in her final days.”

“Meng Shi was a good woman,” she says shortly. There’s no softness to the words.

“I remembered that Aunt Sisi was an excellent seamstress. There is a shop well known to me, in Yunmeng, and the proprietor is willing to take on a skilled helper. The money is a loan from my Sect Leader, but it will be paid back over a year from my allowance. Aunt Sisi may pay me back over a longer time, we can work out the specifics of that loan, after you’ve settled your living at the shop.”

Sisi is quiet for a long time. “There is a merchant,” she says, “Who offered to marry me.”

“The one with the jealous wife?” he asks. “Does Aunt Sisi believe her life would be peaceful, in her household?” Not that she would even get a chance to live there, but there’s no way that Aunt Sisi could know that.

She doesn’t say anything else, nor does he, while they finish their tea, and eat the snacks laid out. Unlooked for good fortune, at the whims of those more powerful than him had never made Meng Yao feel grateful. He’s not going to expect it in someone else.

“I suppose I should thank you,” she says, only after they’ve left the establishment. He’s leading her towards the docks, to rent a boat to Yunmeng. He has all of her luggage sealed away in a qiankun pouch, though her money is in a purse clutched tightly in her hands.

“Aunt Sisi does not have to,” he says. “This one did not consult you, before choosing this for you. I apologize, for that.”

“Don’t bother apologizing,” she says. “It’s just a lot, without a moment’s notice. But I am grateful.”

“You’ll like Madam Yan, the tailor,” says Meng Yao. “She’s kind.” Of course, Meng Yao can practically see her disbelief; of course the tailor was kind to Meng Yao, a paying customer! What would she be like to an underling, and one with an unpleasant background? But Meng Yao knew more of Madam Yan than just the previous day’s meeting with her, when he’d talked to her and asked her if she needed the help of a talented seamstress who needed somewhere to go. Meng Yao’s skilful enquiries and opinions on the robes that he was having commissioned definitely helped support his argument that he knew what he was talking about, and that if he said someone was skilled they must be, but Meng Yao also knew a little of Madam Yan’s history because her daughter would one day be a Jiang disciple, and Jin Ling would be fond of the Shijie with the lovely robes.

He’s certain that he’s making the right choice, to leave Sisi with her instead of at the brothel, where she’d only face injury, scarring, and heartache.

(And then turn desperate enough to be hired for the most suspect of jobs, of being used in a murder plot, and then locked away for years. Meng Yao had been careful to give her a comfortable life, but he doubts that it was any happier than the lives of the koi in his ponds. He owes her this, even if she does not know why.)

The awkward air between them doesn’t clear, even as they hire a boat to take them the half hour upstream to Yunmeng, nor while they stop at an inn for lunch. He asks her if she’d like to rent a room to freshen up in before she meets her future employer, and she agrees. Meng Yao waits downstairs after paying for the room, returning Sisi’s luggage to her.

While he waits, he wanders between the shops nearby. He doesn’t have much money to spend on frivolities, he’s carefully planned out his finances for the next year to allow him to repay the borrowed sum as soon as possible, but browsing has always been fun. His eyes catch on a hat, scholarly, a bit shorter than Meng Yao’s own preference, and he stares for a moment.

So much ribbing in his previous life, for his height, for his name, for how he was more of an administrator than a son to Jin Guangshan, even during all those years where he was the only acknowledged heir. ‘I’m doing it all for you, Mother,’ he’d told himself, through all of it. Setting his signature hat on his head every morning, like a piece of armor. That everything he did was for his mother… and yet he’d killed so many people in her name.

People like her.

Meng Yao remembers the burning fury of hating being called a whore’s son, of people washing their hands when they touched him, like he was tainted, like the filth was on him instead of their sick, twisted minds. Of being refused a chance to carry his own nephew, shooed away and made to stand apart from the golden heir of Lanling.

My mother is not like those whores, he’d thought to himself, she’s nothing like those filth, and never regretted or repented for his choices until he saw Sisi’s scarred, terrified face among the women he’d ordered to be killed.

The frightened, sobbing women who had been used to kill his own father.

Meng Yao thinks of Anxin’s terrified face as she was dragged out of the brothel this morning. He has no idea what it was about. He doesn’t think it matters. Perhaps they truly would all be better off dying in a cleansing fire than living their sad miserable lives, as he’d reasoned to himself before. That they were deserving of such a death, for how they treated Meng Shi.

All of that… any of that, was easier than the truth.

My mother was a prostitute, and I was ashamed.

Nothing, no temple, no prayers, no statues of guanyin with his mother’s face could ever erase his crimes.

“Meng Yao?” asks a hesitant voice, and he turns around to smile at Sisi. She’s wearing the same subdued outfit she’d worn to leave the brothel, but she’s washed away the sweat from travelling over water on a hot day, and her hair has been redone. She looks like any other woman in the marketplace, though the loveliness of her face is still admirable.

“The shop is not far,” he tells her. “Shall we go?”

[Read part 5 here!]

#meng yao #jgy time travel verse #sisi #meng yao thinking about his mistakes #and growing

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celosiaa · 3 years

Text

let me be your shelter

CHRISTMAS FIC CHRISTMAS FIC!! Chapter one is here--many many days after I intended it to be up. It’s not exactly what I want it to be. But I hope you’ll find it enjoyable all the same. Chapter two is coming, I promise :)

“Come on, dads!!”

Calling from far ahead of them, Emma races through the snow, braids flying behind her in the bitter cold wind. Not that she seems to mind—according to the past week of dancing around the kitchen, marking the days off with big red x’s on their wall calendar, and reminding her dads over and over again that this Friday is the day—this was set to be the best day of her twelve-year-old life yet.

“Come on!”

“Just slow down a moment, Em!” Jon calls with a laugh, brushing a wayward curl out of his eyes. “You’re missing a lot of good ones!”

It’s true—she had, in fact, been flying so quickly past the rows and rows of Christmas trees, ripe for the cutting, barely brushing past on her search to find just the right one. That of course, Martin had to remind her could only be so tall, could only be so wide if it were to fit in their flat. And naturally, it didn’t seem she was going to listen.

“I want to find the biggest one!”

“I know, habibti,” Jon calls back. “But remember what Dad said, right? Martin?”

At the sound of his name, his eyes snap to Jon’s, brows lifted as if slightly alarmed.

“What I—said?”

“About the tree, darling,” Jon mutters, slipping his double-gloved hand around Martin’s bare one, grounding him.

This time of year was always difficult for him—the darkening of the sky casting long shadows over his thoughts, which already fill with fog far more often than makes Jon comfortable. Even if he does have a sun lamp at home, something to drive it away for a bit—it has been abundantly clear that the past week especially has been a struggle. Today, however, things had seemed a bit lighter—or at least, so Jon had thought.

“Oh—right. Right, darling, we’ve got to get just a medium-sized one, yeah? Otherwise it won’t stand up straight!” he says, a ghost of a smile playing across his wind-flushed face.

“Ugghh, fine,” she laments, rolling her eyes as far as they will go and widening the gap between them in frustration.

“Is it storming up there, love?” Jon asks quietly, squeezing his hand and trying to catch his gaze with his own.

At the familiar metaphor, Martin obliges—smile drawn up so his cheeks just touch the edges of his glasses, hiding the deep bags that had only just begun to fade from the depressive episode of the past weeks.

“Just overcast, is all. I’m fine,” he assures, squeezing back—and Jon raises an eyebrow in question, doubtful of Martin’s definition of “fine.”

“No, really, I am,” he laughs, bending down to press a quick kiss to the top of Jon’s head. “Promise. Thank you for checking.”

Supposing that would have to do for now, Jon decides to let the matter go—looping his arm through Martin’s as they keep walking down the snow-dusted path.

“Alright,” he whispers, brushing his lips against Martin’s shoulder. “Let me know if the weather turns.”

“I will. Don’t worry, love.”

Of course I will. Always.

“Here! I’ve got one!”

Shouting excitedly from up ahead, Emma waves her gloved hands around in the air, before diving right into the branches to hug the trunk of the tree that was, objectively, the best of the lot. This pulls a true, gorgeous bit of laughter from Martin—the first time Jon has heard it in weeks.

To Jon, there could not be a single thing more lovely.

“That’s a good one, Em,” Jon praises as they reach her, trying very hard not to think about all the sap likely to stick in her newly-plaited hair. “What do you think, Dad?”

“Hmm…”

Feigning a moment of deep consideration earns him an intense doe-eyed, pleading look from his daughter, silently begging. As if he could truly refuse her.

“Well, by my calculations,” he says, winking a bit at his husband, who rolls his eyes fondly. “That should do just wonderfully.”

“YES!!!” Emma shouts, immediately releasing her hold on the tree and wrapping her sap-laden arms around them both. “Thank you thank you THANK YOU!!”

“Merry Christmas, sweetheart.”

It’s the first time the fog has truly cleared from Martin’s eyes in month, and Jon smiles—choosing to cherish it dearly.

—

“Little bit to the left, habibi.”

“Aw, Boss, I didn’t know we were on that level!” Tim grins, helping Martin to straighten out the tree in the corner of their flat. “Should have said something sooner, habibi.”

“Shut it, Tim.”

The winning smile he flashes Jon at his coveted prize—a bit of exasperation from him—sends a pang of warmth spreading through Jon’s chest. Even if it’s been so many years now since…everything, he still feels so lucky to be on the receiving end of Tim’s smiles again. And a bit undeserving, if he’s honest. They’ve talked about it, of course—many times, in fact—but Jon has long since been forced to accept that things will never be quite like they were before.

Though that does mean that things have the potential to be better, and for that…for that, Jon is grateful.

“Could we focus please?” Martin pants a bit irritably, as he bears the brunt of the tree’s weight. “I’d rather not be squashed by this thing.”

“Sorry, Marto! Left it is then, habibi.”

“Stop it.”

“Never.”

—

A few hours later finds them settled around a lovely fire, steaming cups of tea in their hands, courtesy of Martin. Sasha has joined them now as well, curled up with Tim on an armchair with Emma sitting at their feet. Beside him on the sofa sits Martin, his arm wrapped lightly around his shoulders—and as he’s done every holiday since the rebirth of the world, Jon finds himself pondering the fact that he never would have thought this possible. Certainly not for him, for any of them, really. They should, all of them, be dead. Or worse. And yet—and yet. Here they are, making amends. Making their home together.

A family.

“Em, you would not believe the kinds of things your Baba and I used to get up to,” Tim grins, the bit of wine he’s had over the course of the evening painting his cheeks rosy. “Before he became my boring boss, that is. He’s absolutely mad.”

“Tim—“

“You hush,” he bellows, still laughing. “Emma deserves to know about the time we got trapped in that apartment complex, do you remember?”

“You’ve just told me to hush.”

“Hush, Jon, I’m telling a story!”

Rolling his eyes, Jon picks up his own glass again, taking the opportunity to sneak a glance at Martin in the meantime—pleased to see the bit of ruddiness masking the lightest of his freckles, a whisper of a smile planted on his face as he listens to the conversation. Nothing cloudy in his eyes, no fog—just Martin, his Martin. And in Jon’s opinion, that more than warrants the small kiss he presses into the line of his jaw, just beneath his ear.

“Hmm, what’s that for, darling?” Martin asks, turning towards him.

“Oh, nothing,” Jon hums against him, “Just you. Just this.”

“Well, you won’t hear me complain.”

“Eww, dads!!”

Alas, they’d been caught—a disapproving Emma wrinkles her nose at them from her spot on the floor, Tim and Sasha muffling their giggles behind her.

“Sorry Em, sorry,” Martin laughs, untangling himself a bit from Jon and reaching for his own glass of wine. “Have to forgive us old and gross people.”

“You don’t have to be gross just because you’re old!” she insists, pointing a finger back at her aunt and uncle behind her. “Uncle Tim and Auntie Sasha are old too, but they’re not gross!”

“Hey!!”

Sasha’s look of incredulousness is enough to set Jon into fits—but something seems to catch a bit in his chest as he does, a vise clamping down over his ribcage.

Damn it damn it

His next inhale brings him no relief, merely tightening the grip, everything in his chest folding in on itself as he finds himself in the throes of once again gasping for air. Distantly, he rather thinks the wheezing sound of his breath to be embarrassing—but there is little on which he can focus other than keeping his vision from narrowing, narrowing.

“Jon?”

“M-Mar—”

“Are you panicking, love?”

Air air need air

“Can’t—”

He’s cut off by the closeness of his own airways sending out his breath with a fit of coughing, harsh and painful and—well, there goes his vision again.

“Here, Jon, your inhaler’s right here—”

Air air need air

Can’t breathe

Wrapping a shaking hand around Martin’s, Jon takes as deep of an inhale of the medicine as he can, holding holding holding his breath until it hurts, before letting it out—begging everything not to close again before he can get something up to his starving brain.

“Take it again, Jon. One more, come on.”

It comes just a bit easier this time, the gasping just a bit deepened, letting him pull it deeper into his lungs, opening everything enough to start his vision returning to him again. Even so, it takes a few minutes of just breathing, the room around him uncomfortably silent, save for the fading whistle of his chest, before he can even think about picking up his head again from where he’s braced it against his arms.

“—alright? You with us?”

“Sor—sorry,” he pants, still a bit breathless, shaky, heart racing uncomfortably as it always does. “Dunno—what happened.”

“Alright, Baba?”

Emma rests her hand gently atop his knee, looking quickly between himself and Martin. Lord knows he’s scared them enough times; caused them enough anxiety over his health that the guilt weighs so unbearably heavy on him in moments like this. When his daughter has to be his comfort. When he knows it ought to be the other way around.

Burden burden terrible father burden burden—

“Sorry—ha—Em,” he gasps, offering her a tight smile and a nod. The best he can do for now. “Fine—m’fine.”

“Was it something I did?” an unusually quiet Tim asks from across the room, hesitant to even draw his attention.

Damn it damn it

Of course I’ve got to screw things up again.

When Tim had first reentered their lives, they had found it difficult to process on both sides—the grief and anger and distrust layered up with trauma had proven to be a difficult thing to break down. Unhelped by the panic rising unbidden in Jon’s throat every time Tim had raised his voice, even with friendly teasing at first. Though he would never say, Jon knows how deeply this had wounded his friend—and Jon could certainly understand how upsetting it is for your own voice to become another’s nightmare.

They’d worked on it, just like everything else. Nothing of the kind of panic Jon once felt upon hearing an increase in volume has happened in years at this point, but still—still, Tim is afraid. Afraid of how fragile, how stupid, how unforgiving—

“N-no, no. Promise—not you,” he is quick to assure, snapping his head up to meet Tim’s eyes at once, desperate for his trust in this. “Not you.”

The quiet grief in the darkness of Tim’s eyes betrays his doubt.

“Why don’t you stay here and recover while I finish up with the cooking, love?” Martin offers, already rising to do just that.

“Oh—no, Martin—“

He’s tired he’s tired he’s already tired and spent and still recovering

You make everything worse

“It’s alright,” he smiles down at him, still lined with well-hidden exhaustion. “I’ve got it. Just take a minute, okay?”

“I’ll help,” Tim offers at once, following him into the kitchen. To get out of his sight, just in case he was making things worse after all. Just in case Jon was lying.

Damn it damn it

“Incoming!!”

From behind him, Emma’s voice rings out—and the cat is dropped unceremoniously into his lap, giving a soft mrrow of indignation at such treatment. As soon as Jon gives a small smile and a laugh, however, the Duquessa (for she must be properly titled) begins to purr at once, kneading his thigh a bit before draping herself across his lap.

“There you are, Jon—you’re healed!” chuckles Sasha as she stands, coming to sit beside him on the sofa.

“Quite.”

—

“Alright, love?”

Words a bit muffled by the toothbrush in his mouth, Martin gazes down at him with furrowed brows where Jon sits on their bed, lost as usual in the thickest, driest biography Martin has ever seen.

“Mmm.”

“Jon.”

“Hmm?”

His attention is caught at last, reluctantly tearing his eyes away from the hungrily-devoured words and toward his husband—hair a mess, in just boxers and a t-shirt, a bit of toothpaste splodged around the corners of his mouth.

“Sorry—sorry, what did you say?” he asks, unable to hide a fond smile as Martin rolls his eyes, turning around to rinse out his mouth and set down his toothbrush. When he’s finished, he meets Jon’s questioning look with a smiling shake of the head—before pulling Jon in to melt into his side, pressing a kiss against his hairline.

“I asked if you were alright,” he repeats, letting his lips linger longer atop Jon’s forehead this time. “You’ve been sniffly.”

“Have I?”

“You hadn’t noticed?”

“Not particularly.”

It is the truth, although a bit masked—if he is, indeed, sniffly, it seems likely to have contributed to his lingering shortness of breath that evening. Not that he had found it especially necessary to mention this to Martin. No reason to worry him needlessly, after all.

When Martin fetches him the box of tissues from the living room, however, he finds himself grateful. Something certainly seems to have built up in his sinuses, and though eased a bit by his ministrations, it seems to be something of which he cannot entirely rid himself.

“Aw, darling,” Martin tuts with concern, pressing the back of his hand against Jon’s forehead, just to check again. “Are you getting ill?”

No no no no

Can’t be ill

Can’t worry him

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” he assures, offering Martin a bit of a puffy-eyed smile. “Probably just from being out in the cold.”

“Hmm.” Worrying at his lower lip, Martin sweeps his eyes briefly over the rest of Jon’s body. “What about your joints? Are you alright?”

“Yes, Martin,” Jon chuckles, rolling his eyes and fondly pressing a kiss against his husbands’ cheek. “No need to fuss, love. You need to get some rest.”

“Fussing is my specialty, though.”

“Don’t I know it.”

A small, lopsided smile spreads across his face—and Jon finds himself flushing at the gentleness of it.

Gorgeous.

“Alright,” Martin murmurs, tenderly tilting Jon’s chin upwards and into a kiss. “I’ll quit fussing, then. If I must.”

“You absolutely must. Or we’ll never get to sleep.”

“I’ll do my best, habibi.”

—

Click.

At the soft noise, Jon bolts awake, heart already pounding—from the shock of being startled awake, or POTS, he could not be sure. Perhaps both.

All he knows is that his heart is racing, and Martin is gone, and he can’t breathe.

Fuck fuck fuck

His lungs are at once too full and desperately empty—useless, vision tunneling as he pants into the darkness, reaching out blindly for his inhaler on the nightstand. Shaky, he nearly loses his hold on it twice before bringing it to his lips, forcing as much air out as he can before drawing a shallow breath of the medicine. But he cannot hold it, cannot keep it in long enough for it to work.

Help. He needs help.

He needs Martin.

“M—ha—Mar—“

He cannot choke out the words, not around the closing up of his throat, forcing him to cough without air. Without the ability to breathe back in. Dizzy, dizzy, can’t breathe, breathe breathe help Martin—

“Jon—oh, shit shit shit!”

Distantly, he hears the sound of running feet retreating from the bedroom and back down the hall—but his vision is starting to grey out, heart pounding out of his chest, and all he can focus on is don’t pass out don’t pass out don’t pass out.

“Alright, here, here—I got the nebulizer, shit. Christ, Jon.”

He loses time for a few minutes. Nothing remains in his memory but a swirling, spinning picture of the room around him, the feeling of something being placed over his mouth and nose. And when he comes fully back around, it’s to the feeling of Martin’s strong arms bracing him forward, keeping his airways as open as possible while the medicine has been allowed to work. To Martin’s shadowed face, bruises ever-deepening beneath his eyes.

Jon does not need the full powers of the Beholding anymore to know that Martin has once again gone without sleep.

“M—sorry—“

“Hush, Jon, just hush,” Martin reassures, rubbing his back when the coughing starts up again, nearly hard enough to vomit.

He won’t be trying to speak again any time soon.

“You’re alright, I’m here.”

As the minutes pass, the breaths come more easily, returning Jon’s awareness more fully. Now that his vision is no longer swirling, he takes stock of the pulse ox clipped on his finger, Martin’s eyes anxiously watching it, the mobile grasped tightly in one shaking hand, ready to call 999 at any moment.

“Martin—“

“Hush, Jon.”

“M’sorry.”

“Nothing to apologize for, love.”

But there is, isn’t there? Worry, worry, always worry over him. Deepening his husband’s exhaustion, burden, anxiety.

It seems to be his lot in life to make things worse.

“Doing any better?” Martin asks as the wheezing fades from his exhales, though he wouldn’t dare remove the mask for a few more minutes at least.

“Better,” Jon whispers. “Dunno—what happened.”

“It’s been a while since you’ve woken up like this,” Martin worries, brushing a stray lock of hair out of Jon’s eyes and tucking it behind his ear. “Thought we were managing a little better lately.”

“So did—I.”

With a long, concerned sigh, Martin shifts to sit just slightly behind him, pulling him back to lean against his chest. For once—for once—the warmth and comfort of it all outweighs the guilt of its necessity.

“We’ll figure it out,” Martin assures, the slight tremor of his voice belying his uncertainty. “We’ll get it sorted, love.”

“M’sorry.”

“Shh. Just be still, Jon. Just be still.”

Though neither of them may be able to sleep that night— there is a certain rest to be found in just holding each other. And for now—for now, that is enough.

#cw asthma attack #my writing #I hope there aren't too many mistakes here #I didn't get to meticulously edit!!#but I hope it's enjoyable all the same :)#and merry christmas eve if you celebrate!!#if not I hope you're having a wonderful day all the same and you're safe and well <3 #emma

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kaider-is-my-otp · 3 years

Text

Wedding Planning

Cinder is struggling with planning a wedding and writing her vows and Kai has a perfect solution.

„What about napkins? I was thinking either red or gold- something that is regal, but still in colors of the Commonwealth. Or we could go with purple? It's a hit color this season.” Priya, the wedding planner, looked expectantly at Cinder.

Cinder suppressed the urge to massage her temples. „Um, red sound fine, I guess.”

Priya pursed her lips like she did every time Cinder wouldn't give her a three sentence answer, but still made a note in her portscreen. „And flowers? Chrysanthemum would be expected because—„

„Yes, national flower of the Commonwealth.” Cinder bit her tongue as soon as the remark left her lips.

Last thing she wanted was to insult Priya who had been working on every detail of her wedding for more than a year at this point. She should be lucky that she had someone else to take care of everything and not have to fret about frivolous things such as music playlist and dinner menu. All they wanted from her was her opinion. Besides, she was the future empress. She should be better than this.

Luckily, Priya didn't seem to take offense. She shut her portscreen and gave Cinder a sympathetic smile. „I know this must be incredibly stressful for you- knowing that the whole world would be watching. I just want to make things easier for you and emperor so that you two can focus on important parts. Such as your vows.”

At the mention of vows Cinder's insides cringed involuntarily. She had been trying to write her vows for almost a month now, but had barely moved from the opening line. Kai had written his vows months ago. He claimed to have known what he wanted to say for years now, so he had no trouble converting it to words.

Cinder, however, was never good at verbal expression as Kai was. He offered to help her after he witnessed her struggling for hours one night, but she refused. He deserved to hear the full depth of her feelings and it had to come from her alone. Even if the whole world would be watching, as everyone liked to remind her.

Priya noticed the sour look on Cinder's face. „Still no luck with the vows?”

Cinder shook her head and bit her lip. „Does that make me a bad bride?”

„Of course not.” Priya laughed. „A lot of people struggle to express their feelings. Are you sure you don't need any help with it?”

„No, it needs to be my own words. Kai deserves that.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, looking through the window as one of palace gardeners watered a thick bush of roses. Spring was knocking at the door, with flowers in full bloom and koi fish pond glittering like a diamond from the sunlight. Cinder couldn't wait for Kai's meeting to be over so they could go to their secret little corner in the east gardens and enjoy their time together, like they did every single day.

Priya gently laid her hand on Cinder's cyborg hand. It still felt surreal to not get disgusted looks and sneers from people around her. Still, she would probably never fully get used to any sort of physical contact that didn't come from Kai or any of her friends.

The change in people's attitude towards her was gradual. After she took her throne people were still cautious, taught by experience with previous queens. They seemed to warm up to her after they realized she was not in fact power crazy Lunar like her relatives. Things got even better with time. Ever since her and Kai's engagement was announced almost year and a half ago, people of Eastern Commonwealth seemed to have accepted her for both her good and bad sides, and will acknowledge her as their empress.

„I think we should stop here today,” Priya spoke softly, fixing her neat bun. „We could discuss the flower arrangements tomorrow. Maybe even emperor could join us.”

He most certainly will, Cinder promised to herself. „That would be great.”

With one last assuring smile and reminder to work on her vows, Priya left Cinder alone in the spacious sitting room. As soon as the door had closed, Cinder rested her elbows on the table and buried her face in her hands. She wished she could scream without alerting all the palace guards. Instead, she had to satisfy with groaning in her hands.

It's not that she wasn't enjoying wedding preparations. She did, but sometimes it would prove to be too much for her. There were so many details that needed to be looked at, from guests to security to wedding dress. Not to mention her unwritten vows that sat heavy on her shoulders for months. She loved Kai more than she loved anything in the world. So why couldn't she say that in words? On top of that, she had constant doubts whether she would be a good empress and no amount of comforting words from Kai could fix that.

„I thought I heard whimpering coming from this room.” Kai walked through the door and took a seat on the chair that minutes ago was occupied by Priya.

Despite still wanting to scream and hide under her bed, seeing Kai made most of her worries fly through the open window. He looked at her with such adoration in his eyes and gently started rubbing circles on her back. He learned this trick soon after she moved into the palace and would get overwhelmed with attention everyone was giving her as emperor's fiancée. Kai made sure to always be by her side in case she needed his reassurance that he was right there next to her.

He knocked lightly her forehead with his index finger as if to read the thoughts inside, then kissed the spot where he touched her. „What is bothering you, love?”

Cinder exhaled and leaned her head on his shoulder. „It’s just a lot of details with the wedding.” She paused. „And the vows.”

Kai was silent for a second as he contemplated his answer. „You don't really have to rush with the vows, you know? Wedding is in five months. That's more than enough time for you to write it.”

Cinder lifted her head and looked him in the eyes. „I know, but it shouldn't be a bother in the first place. Writing my vows should be the easiest part. I don't want you to think--“

Kai took her face in his palms. „Just because you struggle to write your vows doesn't make me think you love me any less than I love you.” He pressed a quick kiss on her lips. „The right words will come to you when the time is right.”

Of course Kai would say something as reasonable as that. Cinder dropped the subject and stood up from her chair.

Kai grabbed her left hand, caressing it gently. „How about we take some time off? I have a few hours before my next meeting.”

Cinder narrowed her eyes at him. „What do you have in mind?”

He gave her a wicked grin and pulled her out of the room.

„This was a nice idea,” Cinder said half an hour later as they soaked in their large bathtub.

Kai pressed a kiss on her shoulder. „Of course it was a nice idea. I came up with it.”

She elbowed him in the chest, sending waves of warm water to slosh over the bathtub rim. After dragging her in their quarters, Kai ordered her to wait as he prepared everything. He filled the bathtub (a bit too much) and dropped one of the bath bombs in it. He even lit few of the candles that were usually there only for decoration.

Now Cinder lay with her back pressed on Kai's chest and his arms wrapped around her waist. All her worries and doubts seemed to diminish with scent of vanilla that filled the room and Kai's warm lips on her neck.

She turned her head to get a better look at his face and saw all the love she felt for him reflecting in his copper eyes. All the mutual respect, admiration, shared promises, encouragement and acceptance.

Every second they spent together flashed through her eyes- from that fated morning they met on the market, to his proposal in the field under the starry sky. Every gentle touch and every kind word that she never thought she would receive as a lowly cyborg. Until she met him.

„What?” Kai asked quietly, running his fingers down her spine.

„Nothing,” Cinder whispered and kissed him with different kind of intensity than ever before. Kai kissed her back, holding her neck gently. His fingers played with the ends of her hair as he whispered I love you on her lips.

She wrote her vows that same evening.

#kaider #kai #emperor kai #emperor kaito #linh cinder #cinder #wedding #tlc #the lunar chronicles #fluff #kaider wedding

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doctorstephenvincentstrange · 3 years

Text

Doctor Strange & Worth: MCU Meta

So this has sat unposted in my drafts for the longest time, but I’ve decided to dust her off and let her see the light of day, after all. These are just some of my thoughts regarding Stephen’s character development and journey in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film: his growth from someone who cannot see the true worth in himself or anybody else to someone whose eyes are opened to the beauty of everything. Not to mention how that eye-opening allows him to evolve from someone who cannot love to someone who loves fully and truly, and how Kaecilius plays a vital role in opening his eyes to the error of his ways.

Without further ado, let’s get into it!

Let’s start with the beginning of the movie.

Stephen flounces around the hospital like he owns the place and flexes his overbearing, boastful personality without a second thought. Like, most people have at least a smidgen of consideration for others and some degree of self-consciousness or ‘filter’ regarding how they treat others, but Stephen has zero. He talks down on staff members, orders people around like inferiors regardless of their status, and acts as though he is God almighty and the hospital would go to the dogs without him, overestimating his self importance. He legit acted like an overgrown child that’s yet to be struck with the reality everything is not about him. Stephen seizes every possible opportunity to show off even when inappropriate, and does all he can to assert his correctness and prioritizes it. It’s clear from the get-go that Stephen has some kind of overinflated sense of self.

All this would certainly seem to indicate beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is a generic arrogant, selfish bastard 101, but let’s skip ahead a bit, just for a sec.

This line isn’t him joking around, rather, it’s the confirmation that Stephen truly thought his own behavior was endearing. As much as he liked himself, he was convinced everybody else did, too. He genuinely, sincerely was convinced that his antics were somehow winsome and charming. And of course, having been in a position of power as a Chief Surgeon and his state of world renown, there’s no way anybody would have told him otherwise. Nobody would really be frank and honest with him — I mean, yeah, sure, Christine was, but seeing as she was the only one he was on friendly terms with who he held in high regard and was frank with him (exclude Nick, and all probable others Stephen smugly thought very little of, and their opinions), there’s no way he’d take one person’s word over that of the masses. And it’s just obvious how overcrowded he was with sycophants that overfed his deluded ego and made it harder for him to wake up to his own self deception revolving the ‘charm’ he was convinced that he possessed.

Just look at the way he hits on her! Look at the denial! We did too have fun!

You know how people say “the bigger they are, the harder they fall?”

Yeah, this story really does live up to that.

The lie Stephen was living was cut short when he lost it all and his fall from grace leaves him at the mercy of people’s honesty. All those “people skills” he thought he had do him no favors, and suddenly anybody and everybody can speak freely to him, and he’s not getting sugarcoated responses. He’s no longer treating people as his inferiors however he pleases without lash back.

And Stephen, who only knows his worth through the reception and acknowledgement of his talent and the amazing feats he had achieved with his hands in the neurological field, now feels the weight of worthlessness crushing down upon him. There are no more CCN interviews, no more speaking engagements. In his own mind, he is useless. And without any worth, there is no reason anyone would want anything to do with him. He cannot accept, within his narrow mindset, that anybody could ever love him in this reduced state. For that reason, he insists that Christine Palmer — that unlike TV reporters or other sycophants, has stayed by his side all this time — must only linger beside him for her own self gain and reputation. It must simply be an act of pity, because that’s how Stephen sees Christine’s acts of selflessness and her work— nothing but her looking down on other people to boost her own sense of self, as he has.

And when Stephen goes to Karmar-Taj, he’s completely out of his element and in a setting that is absolutely foreign to him, but navigates all the same, the only way that he knows how to. His thoughtless, proud tendency to view all else as beneath him really comes back to haunt him when it threatens to close the door to magic — and miraculous change and healing for him — forever.

By the time Stephen realizes he has misjudged the Ancient One and Kamar-Taj, and that magic is indeed very real and potentially his one last shot at reobtaining his former life, it is too late. He beseeches the Ancient One to teach him the ways of magic, but she has already seen enough of his arrogance to determine him an ill fit for a pupil..

In the end, it is because of Mordo convincing the Ancient One that even a man such as Strange still has worth and he may be of use in the future, reasserting their beliefs that all life has value, no matter how misguided it may be, it need only be redirected and put on the correct path... does the Ancient One agree and allow Strange to return, for a chance at redemption and potentially salvation.

And so, Stephen begins studying magic. And unsurprisingly, being wrong about magic isn’t enough to hamper his antics. He’s the same old Strange.

In this scene, Wong tells Stephen when he’s not ready to learn something yet, but Stephen completely challenges and opposes him, going so far as to break the rules of the library Wong protects just so he can continue with his self advancement and conquest towards superiority (and hopefully, healing). He challenges his lessons, preferring to teach himself and refusing to acknowledge that even his teachers could possibly have any superiority to his abilities.

And it’s so hard for Stephen to make sense of, the backlash he receives for these behaviors. He can’t understand how he’s apparently ‘made for the mystic arts’ but is also being told to mind his pace and take everything bit by bit, step by step and not just rush headlong in impatiently as he always has. In his own mind, he’s not doing anything wrong by breaking rules or pushing limits — it’s all about the results, after all. And this, this is for the most important result of them all... his hands. It doesn’t matter how dirty they have to get, he wants to fix them.

In the medical world, when Stephen showed off, people clapped & praised him because what harm could there be in pushing the limits and crossing the boundaries to save someone’s life? It was okay if he wanted to do something unconventional and risky (like remove a bullet from someone’s brain without a visual) because the ends justified the means, and he always delivered. It didn’t matter what he had to do or how ruthless he was, treating all around him as mere tools at his disposal to achieve what he wanted, without considering what might be at stake. Boundaries were never of the essence to Stephen.

But when he pushes the boundaries of magic and tries out the Ancient One’s Private Collection just to pursue greatness and feed his own ambition, he gets retaliation from both Wong and Mordo and is reprimanded about all the consequences he didn’t think of and other lives he wasn’t considering as he never has been before. And Stephen can barely collect himself and for the first time in the film, is speechless and out of witty remarks to snap. He is just so put off because he’s never been put in that position before, being held accountable for the liabilities of his pursuits for greatness. Simply put, he had never been made to consider the eggs he was breaking to get his omelet, and now, he is.

And he still doesn’t get it. “They really should put the warnings before the spell,” he says, because clearly it’s not his hastiness or ambition at fault, but the book.

And he doesn’t get it, and he most likely would have never gotten it or opened up to the Ancient One, Wong, Mordo, or even Christine. No, he had to see it for himself. And see it, he does; in fact, it ends up staring him straight in the face.

They didn't spend so much screen time drawing parallels between these two over and over for no reason, this was what it was all building up to. Here, Doctor Strange meets his ego’s match. Kaecilius wants to save the world by granting everyone eternal life, preventing all its inhabitants from feeling suffering ever again. A bit like "doing work that will save thousands for years to come," no?

The influence and efforts of others finally pay off as Stephen begins to apply their thinking, and questions what the cost will be if Kaecilius does that for the whole world, and if that accomplishment would really be as amazing as doing what he can in the immediate moment to spare the/ benefit the lives of individual people... kind of like “saving one drunk idiot with a gun,” right?. And Kaecilius dismisses Strange's interjections, repeats the same words he said to the Ancient one in the beginning... they’re just insignificant specks in an indifferent universe, just sacrifices that must be had to achieve what must be done. He even tries to reason with Strange, and appeal to the very reason he’s in that mess in the first place... his hands, and his deep desire to have them healed and restored.

And for the first time Stephen is looking the devil in the eye, and sees himself.

“Just look at your face!” And in that moment, Stephen rejects the man he has been, and can see clearly his flaws for what they are. His ego trip may have blinded him, but in that moment, he got on his own level and saw himself for the first time the way that others saw him, and it wasn’t someone he wanted to be and he recognized the wrongs of his ways. How ambition and the conquest for betterment can consume someone completely, until they’re so blinded in their pursuit for self worth, that they disregard the worth of all the other lives and people around them — it’s all ends that justify the means. It's not actually about doing what's right. It's about accomplishing the greatest feat possible for oneself — this is Kaecellius' ego unleashed, not a sincere quest for world salvation.

And everything bad he didn’t want to become that he saw in Kaecellius, gives way for new direction in all the inspiring goodness he sees in the Ancient One, her final farewell, and her sacrifice of her life to save his and Mordo’s own.

And in the end, Stephen finally understands what the Ancient One, Wong, and Mordo, and Christine were all on about. It’s not about what change you can create for other people to benefit yourself, Stephen; it's about the change YOU can make to benefit other people, who are so many in number and so much larger than yourself. It’s not about the strength in your hands, and what they can do; but the resolve of your heart, and the strength of your will.

And he learns, because the Ancient One teaches him...

He uses his own lifeforce to fence off Dormamu from earth, because even if he suffers, everyone else will be safe. He tests the worth that the Ancient One claimed she always saw in him; that could achieve things greater than he ever dreamed, greater than his medical ambitions. The goal-oriented, ruthless man we saw in the beginning becomes someone who learns true purpose and ambition. His life that was hollow and empty, becomes truly fulfilling.

And the most intriguing piece of irony of them all?

After exhausting countless resources, plenty of doctors, libraries, and research archives seeking a way to heal his own hands, he found nothing but failure. But using only his own willpower, he who felt helpless and powerless against his disabled hands, managed to save the entire planet and all those living within it.

Because it wasn't his hands that gave him value, nor was it his work. There was something greater, but he was blind to it in himself, and everybody else, seeing all based on what they could accomplish — their educational background, their medical accomplishments — a worth greater than him, in the world all around him that he always disregarded and failed to see. Something beautiful, precious.

And parallel to earlier events, when Stephen once again pushes the boundaries of magic, but this time, not in pursuit of greatness of for the betterment of his own hands... he is not received with a vocal reprimandation. On the other hand...

And here we are, at the end.

Stephen says it again. “You know, you really should read everything, because the warnings come at the beginning of the books.” He pokes fun at Kaecilius, at himself, at their likeness with a humility unlike yet before.

And Wong laughs. When Stephen went through so many different things trying to make Wong laugh — like he always had his other co-workers— he didn’t.

But when he put himself and his heart into it, he did.

And no longer is Stephen on the same path as Kaecilius, surrounded by subservient followers, who only did as he told them because of what he was after and the results he promised to be able to deliver on. Now, he surrounds himself with those who genuinely care for him for who he is. No longer is Stephen so blinded by his need to be the greatest person in the room, that he can't see the worth of those around him — of love, of friendship, of companionship.

#Doctor Strange #Stephen Strange #Marvel Meta #Marvel #This is the longest (and maybe only idk) meta I will write bc this movie makes me feel so much #that laugh in the end always makes me cry #Hope you like it <3

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wlw-lovestruck-fiction · 3 years

Note

I’m new and if this is the right place can you do vinca comforting mc through a mental breakdown after things mc mom had said to her? If it’s too much then just ignore👍🏽

Written by: @evoedbd

****************

“Alright, this is fucking unco, Rae.” Vinca’s voice was sharp; sharper than the little throwing blades adorning her striking red jumpsuit. In the peak of the Vegas sun, Vinca was a gleaming star; a blaze of fury and snark. The cut of her shirt revealed glistening alabaster skin; the finest marble shined by the finest scented oils. From sharp collarbones worthy of a renascence sculpture, down the valley between breasts full enough to make angel’s sob with envy. Then the smooth expanse of her belly, a surface which occasionally seemed to bubble with hidden muscle. The heaving expanse of her ribcage, lines which appeared between exhales.

“Sit down. Drink this.” Each command was almost barked. Harsh and short. Delivered from the international supermodel Vinca Wren. Rae didn’t know whether it was the heat, her own loneliness or her hysteria that brought such a vision to her, nor if Vinca herself recognised the irony of addressing thirst when she was the cause of it across the world. All she knew with terrifying clarity was that she had obeyed, accepting the iced water bottle and dropping to her haunches like an ever-faithful hound.

“Wha-”

“Ah, ah, ah. No questions.” Vinca cut her off, reaching out to press the pad of her finger to Rae’s lips. The bike Mechanic fell obediently silent, fighting the urge to rub her lips together at the irritating grain of sand that rubbed across them. When had Vinca put her hands anywhere near dirt? Wait… she’d said no questions. Why was Rae asking questions? Before she could freefall into her doubts, Vinca seemed to read it. The model withdrew her decorated finger with a softened expression.

“Drink. Then, spill.” She urged. Despite the strength of her tone, the power of her posture and … personality… Vinca’s words rung like a plea in Rae’s ears. The mechanic paused, taking another moment to inspect Vinca. There she was, on her knees in the sand of the Canyon, having chased Rae out onto the bike trails. Vinca was all high heels, platform shoes, clothes worth more than Rae’s monthly paycheck, sullied by sand. And concern. Vinca embodied concern. The aloof tilt of her mouth wasn’t true; delicious-looking, candy-pink lips falling a bit too far into a frown. The darkness of her eyeliner couldn’t hide the shadows in hypnotic blue eyes. This Vinca was not somebody Rae had ever seen before, at least, not directed at her.

The mechanic realised what a mess she must be. Her tie-dyed hoodie flapping around her elbows, cheap t-shirt hanging off of one sunburnt shoulder. Her face had to be a mess, after all her sobbing. She could feel the itchiness across her eyes, the dried caking of tears and snot down her cheeks, all the way to the point of her chin. Despite this, Vinca Wren had chased her. HER. Rae Lang. A dropout, bike instructor and mechanic living in a cheap apartment above her workplace with her single mother. That gave her the courage to try and smile, to dare utter a deflecting line.

“The drink?”

Vinca literally growled in frustration. Her hands came up to her pixie cut, sweeping the longer, dyed bangs out of her eyes. Nails dug into her scalp as if she could wrench her own thoughts out of her mind through the roots of her platinum hair.

“You are the most dense, stubborn woman I have ever met. You didn’t even cry when demons attacked you. We can’t have your eyes all swollen, that’s just a travesty. Whoever or whatever has made you this upset needs to be dealt with.” What started out frustration quickly melted back into concern. Hesitantly, as if she might break Rae, Vinca reached out. She ran her own fingers through Rae’s hair, across her temples, sweeping the chaotic locks away from the Asian’s face. Whatever Vinca saw there must have hurt her, given the subtle hitch in her breath before she slinked closer. How a near six-foot woman could slink on her knees was damn confusing, but Vinca Wren perfected the art. The movements. The attitude. The aura. Catwoman eat her heart out. It was almost feline how Vinca drew close, enough that she sat hip to hip with Rae.

“It’s my mom. We got into an argument, and things got spicy.” Rae confessed, letting herself melt into Vinca’s side. Any weariness vanished the moment Vinca’s arm wrapped around Rae’s shoulders, guiding her into a comforting closeness. Vinca’s nails found their way into Rae’s hair, delicately scratching across her scalp. This time, the motion was intentional, a gentle caress that drew the wounded sound from Rae’s throat, the weight off her chest.

“She said she was disappointed with me for dropping out of med school.”

That earned a derisive snort.

“Right. Because a doctor is SO much more useful than saving the world from Demons.” Vinca was unapologetically snarky. That earned a soft snort from Rae, a wet and wounded sound of amusement. So many people may have been touchy about such things, would have offered apologies and comforts. Vinca didn’t do that. She struck back, bigger and harder than ever, using the truth like a sledgehammer from a rival act.

“She thinks I’m being reckless with the act. That I’m trying to hurt myself like some…” Rae grasped for the words, unable to find what she was looking for. She looked imploringly to Vinca, pleading with the younger woman to rip the truth from her too. To drag every dark thought into the light, just as she did upon the stage. Just as she did in every brutal fight. There were so many shadows, so much confusion, yet Vinca usually brought clarity. Why wasn’t she being clarity now?

“I can read minds, you know. I’d know if you were being stupid or planning on kicking it on stage.”

“I don’t get it. She loves Yvette and Lazarus.”

“Everybody does.” Vinca agreed. It was true. Yvette was so painfully charming, despite her aloofness. She captivated without a single touch. She burned; azure fire held back by the weight of humanity. And Lazarus had somehow swept Rae’s mother off her feet with his gentle words and polite mannerisms. It didn’t hurt that his abs could be mistaken for a cheese grater and that he never wore a closed shirt… ok, so her mother was a cougar. Rae couldn’t exactly blame her. But she could disagree on one thing.

“But she thinks you’re dangerous.”

“I can’t argue with that. My fashion is pretty sharp.” Vinca delivered the line flawlessly, only a twitch at the corner of her mouth, showing any amusement. Rae could only shake her head in disbelief at Vinca’s jest. She didn’t get it. Didn’t take it seriously. And why should she? Vinca Wren was a worldly marvel, an international superstar. While Rae showed overweight tourists the easiest bike trails, Vinca Wren was in London. While Rae had to deal with overly entitled customers, Vinca Wren was sitting beside leopards in the finest lingerie or setting the trend for summer bathing suits surrounded by lions. Whilst Rae had a cougar for a mother, Vinca Wren sat amongst actual, literal cougars in suits that could make grown men sweat or gowns which would make grown women sob with envy. Vinca Wren was Pride. The big bad sin. The mind-reading, knife-wielding, drop-dead gorgeous extraordinaire. Why would she care what a bike shop owner thought?

“She thinks you’re just using me, that I’ve been swept up in the glamour, and I might get hurt when you g-get bored. That when you’re all done with the bike tricks, you won’t really care for me.” And there it was. The truth, laid out for Vinca to weaponize. To wield. All Rae’s unspoken fears laid bare. To rip the world apart with at a whim, all with her devastating smirk.

“Bullsh-” Vinca cut her answering growl off, clamping her jaw shut. A breath, composure reclaimed, emotion hidden behind a professional mask.

“… I mean, what do you think?” A submission. That made Rae blink. Vinca Wren had just shut down her own opinion to give Rae the floor.

“Can’t you read my mind?” Rae demanded on instinct, earning another derisive snort and a blasé flick of Vinca’s wrist.

“Duh! But like, invasion of privacy much?”

There was something about the way Vinca said it that didn’t sit right with Rae. A waver in her usually impeccably aloof act. Her sharp features were just that little too youthful. Her lips didn’t quite reach the notes of indifference, nor did her nose point quite as high in the air. Then, her eyes… wider. So impossibly bright blue, like a summer sky. So devastatingly vulnerable for a blink, before they narrowed slightly, adding to an angular appearance.

“Are you scared what you’ll find?” Rae couldn’t help but fire back, drawn into the banter. It felt dangerous, like throwing herself into a pit of knives and daring them to cut her, but the reward was worthwhile. The briefest flash of surprise in Vinca’s eyes, a tinge of colour to her cheeks, and that dangerous, not quite a pout, not quite a frown; an expression which promised pain and horror upon those who had incurred her wrath. The little crease in her brow, the way her eyes hardened and narrowed, honed to a razor's edge. Somehow, knowing Vinca, that expression was just downright adorable… like a kitten threatening a toy mouse.

“I’m not scared!” Vinca declared just a touch too vehemently to be truthful. There it was. Pride. The sin Vinca had taken on, in a way she still hadn’t disclosed. Not fully. She had killed someone, that much Rae knew. Someone evil. Someone who had the world fooled and was using his power to hurt everyone Vinca loved. But Rae knew there was more. There had to be. It was too raw a wound to be a completed chapter.

“Vinca Wren. I know when you’re lying by now.” Rae commented, refusing to let the moment she saw go. Rae had seen the photoshoots, the advertisements, the endless endorsements of this larger than life woman. Vinca Wren was sold as sex and danger; a mystery. A real-life Selena Kyle. A sin above humanity. How many people got to catch a glimpse of the woman beneath? The young, loyal woman who would give everything to protect what she loved? How many people ever got to see Vinca crack? Even Yvette seemed to look to Vinca as a rock, mindless to the fact life was like water. Mindless to how water eroded Vinca, until only sex and danger remained. What she had to be. What everybody saw. Just how did the world see Vinca? How easily did they forget how she hurt?

“Fine, whatever!” Vinca’s confession was a deflection, delivered with another attempt at indifferent even in an explosion of irritation.

“So I’m anxious about what I’ll see. Happy now, you little sadist?” There was no heat to her words. The beginnings of a fond smile tugged at her lips, even as she straightened enough to loom over Rae, chin held high in a haughty fashion. Despite her appearance of looking down, Vinca’s eyes glistened with scarcely restrained amusement. Something rarer than diamonds. Sapphires amidst the clay and sands.

“Vinca.” If one name could be a loaded sentence, it was the way Rae whispered that name. A prayer. Imploring a goddess to pay heed to an ant. And heed the goddess paid. For one bright, blistering moment of crystal clarity, Vinca’s world was only Rae. Vinca gave her all to the mechanic, hanging on the unspoken words, searching and fearing simultaneously. Rae swallowed. What could she even say? What words did she have that could sum up the complication, which was Vinca Wren? How could she show the duality of intents, the clash of meaning to every word that could ever describe her? Snarky meant wonderful, and bitchy meant saintly, selfless. Vinca redefined every insult one might spit; turned the world on its head, twisted it upon its axis. She was the brightest darkness. The darkest star. She was the shadow of the sun because she shone too intensely to be anything so simple as sunshine.

“Whenever you’re ready, look at what I think of you. Until then, I’ll try to find the right words.” Rae wanted to cuss herself out even as she spoke sweetly, invited Vinca inside yet again. Stupid. How was she so stupid? She’d had Vinca’s attention, had the chance to try to fix everything Vinca hated about herself. Had the chance to begin to untangle her own jumbled concepts of the woman. And what had she done? Chickened out. Left Vinca without answers and pressured her into something she clearly wasn’t comfortable with.

She was shocked to hear an amused huff, as if Vinca was attempting not to laugh. There was an easiness to her presence, a tenderness even in the way she sidled closer, using her own body as a pillar for Rae to lean on. For once, Vinca’s snark was delivered lightly, lips pulled into something resembling an unpractised smile as she delivered a deadpan line.

“I’ll buy you a dictionary.”

“Make sure it has snarky in it.” Rae needled lightly, giving Vinca a poke in her exposed ribs. The Pride assassin was warm, roasting even, yet so soft and smooth beneath even that poke. Once more, Rae was struck by how unusual their blossoming friendship was, how far apart their worlds truly were. Cultures, countries, paychecks. Everything considered to make the world turn. They were so very vastly different, yet here they were. Sitting in the sand. Sweaty and snotty. Making bad jokes and bridging their different upbringings one awkward syllable at a time.

“It’s a dictionary. That word be ancient. If it isn’t in there, I demand a refund.” Vinca pulled what might be dubbed a Karen face, complete with severe frown and haughtily raised brow. For one. Two. Three seconds, there was silence. Then, cracks. Vinca’s lips twitched, Rae’s breath caught in her nose. Then laughter. Rae laughed, freely and openly, right alongside Vinca. The Pride assassin’s laugh, a genuine laugh, was a far cry from delicate. It was the soft chortle of a lioness. A sound which was soft yet never let anybody forget the dangers of the being. Rae didn’t care. She continued to giggle and snort long after Vinca stopped, almost oblivious to the tender, thoughtful expression etched across Vinca’s face. Almost. Rae caught it, like a glimpse of a falling star, and wished upon it. Wished to understand it. For once, for clarity to be cast upon itself.

“… Look…” Vinca broached, voice unusually hesitant. Thoughtful and soft. So very quiet, yet so unmistakably her.

“Your mom cares about you. She’s worried. I get that. I’m not the type of person you want around for my sparkling personality. But you also have to make your own choices and mistakes. That's part of growing up. And if you tell anybody about this, I will stab you, but you’re pretty ok. You haven’t fucked up that badly… yet.”

She had to add the yet. She couldn’t be soft, not if she wanted everybody safe. Soft wasn’t safe for anybody… yet. That didn’t mean she didn’t relish how close she had gotten, how close she could come. Enough to taste the humanity. Enough to break her heart once more.

“Vinca…” Rae began, unable to find any other word, any other sound even to begin her sentence. Summoned, Vinca’s gaze turned back to the mechanic, meeting her eyes in a silent question. A silent dare. Under the weight of such a gaze, Rae cracked. The corners of her mouth pulled towards her ears, curling into a wicked little grin that sent Vinca into high alert. She tensed, calculating. Instead, she found herself flabbergasted by a rather playful observation.

“You’re really terrible at this comforting thing.”

“No shit. What do you want from me? Professional advice?” She demanded sharply, brows arched dangerously. Her lips peeled away from her teeth ever so subtly, an instinctual warning. Just like a timid hound trying to prove it was tough, Rae realised. Vinca’s knee jerk reaction was fear. Denial. Aimed at something behind the words.

“Maybe just a hug?” Rae’s request was simple enough, though it still threw Vinca for a loop.

“Seriously? What are you, twelve?” She barked; her laughter far less joyous. What she didn’t expect was the wounded expression across Rae’s face… no. That was a lie. She had expected the sad tilt to the Asian’s fine lips, along with the foggy glistening across suddenly unfocused eyes. What Vinca hadn’t expected was the way it would hurt. She flinched, unable to stop her body from reacting despite all her training. Only one person ever asked for hugs from her. One glistening, gorgeous person who Vinca herself kept tearing down. One person, she’d given everything for, including their relationship. One bright, stubborn little girl who… who reminded her entirely too much of Rae.

“… Fine.” She relented, twisting until she could gather the small woman to her chest. It was overwhelming in the best and worst of ways. Finally, after so long, she had someone she could care for. Even if that only lasted a moment, she had the comfort of contact. Of someone wanting innocent contact with her. She wasn’t reading lewd thoughts and desires, nor having to be on guard in case skin touched her. She could just… be. Exist in a moment. That was enough for Vinca to squeeze tighter, to burrow her nose into the crown of Rae’s head with an entirely too soft sigh of her own. Then, she bristled.

“For someone so sharp, you’re really a big softy.” Rae sighed, voice a million miles away. Lost in a moment, Vinca could never fully surrender to. It was too soft. Too dangerous. Too tempting. She wanted to withdraw, like a tiger with its paw snared in a trap, Vinca wanted to flee… but she couldn’t. Rae’s arms were wrapped around her, squeezing like a boa constrictor. Hands, gentler than the finest Masseuse, were like the teeth of a trap digging into her flesh. There she was, a soul sold to hell, stuck in the embrace of someone angelic. Damned if she did, damned if she didn’t.

“If you tell anyone…” she began, hissing the words into the baby hairs behind Rae’s ear. She shuddered, unable to conceal a reaction at the heated breath, the closeness… the sickly promise in Vinca’s empty threat.

“I know, you’ll stab me.” Rae chuckled, simply squeezing a little tighter, nuzzling that little bit closer. Vinca relented further, sighing, slouching into the contact.

“Seriously though…” Rae began, withdrawing enough to see the startled expression upon Vinca’s face as she muttered the next word.

It wasn’t perfect. Wasn’t the opening Rae had hoped for, nor the closure Vinca may have sought. Yet, there was a door opened. A tender olive branch extended; a sprig, too defiant to die in the blazing heat. That little spark, that unspoken potential drew a matching smile to Rae’s lips, gave her the courage to accept the comfort Vinca offered, even knowing that she risked being cut. Perhaps bleeding would be worth it to have a friend as loyal as Pride… no, as loyal as Vinca Wren.

“Thanks.”

#Anonymous #lovestruck #lovestruck fanfiction #lovestruck sin with me #sin with me #sin with me pride #sin with me vinca #swm vinca #vinca wren #vinca x mc #fluffy angst #comfort #lil bit of angst #fluff #sfw #scatterday

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shotsbyshae · 4 years

Text

Stone Cold

Warnings: Language

Words: 2.8k

Pairing: Ransom Drysdale x Fem!Reader

Summary: Ransom has one last interview left for his book.

Sequel to In the Dark

Ransom Drysdale Masterlist

*Spoiler free: no movie connections whatsoever.

God knows I tried to feel, Happy for you. Know that I am, even if I, Can’t understand, I’ll take the pain.

The door to your apartment creaks as it opens, and your entire body goes numb as you see the man step into view. The remorseful look in his steel blue eyes tells you everything you need to know, but you ask anyway.

“He stayed with her, didn’t he?”

The tears well up in your eyes and Barnes closes the short distance to wrap his arms around you, sinking with you to the floor as silent tears stream down your face.

“I’m sorry – I’m so sorry, doll.”

“No – no,” you whisper quietly.

After everything.

Natasha.

Tony.

You can’t wrap your mind around how he could do this.

“Hey,” Ransom’s voice brings you back to the present. “What do you think? Wilson said he knew Rogers the longest, but I can’t get him to return my calls.”

You sigh because you’re not sure it’ll do any good. Sam had settled with a phone interview because he and Barnes were away on a mission, but Barnes had refused even that.

“I’ll talk to him,” you remark quietly. “He usually listens to me.”

Ransom stands from the chair in your living room and begins to approach where you stand in your kitchen, his head tilting curiously, “Really?”

You take a bite of the frosted flakes cereal from the bowl in front of you, shaking your head at him as you do so. “Nuh uh.” You mumble around the food in your mouth. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?” he smirks. “This is – classic.” You take another bite of cereal as Ransom leans against your counter. “You were pining and the best friend swoops in to – comfort you.”

“It’s not like that,” you state flicking your eyes over to him. “We’re friends.” You clench your jaw in annoyance as Ransom continues to stare at you with that boyish grin.

“Friends,” he reiterates not believing you.

“There was one tequila infused night that we don’t talk much about – okay.”

“I knew it!”

“Don’t make me stab you,” the words slip past your lips only half threatening as you point your spoon at him.

“With that?” Ransom questions, eyeing the utensil.

“It’ll hurt more,” you reply before shoving it back into bowl of cereal.

Later that afternoon

You spin quickly, but he grabs your wrist instantly. The vibranium is cool against your skin and the mechanisms in his hand make an almost ominous sound as his grip tightens and he flips you onto your back.

“You’re rusty,” Bucky remarks before helping you up from the sparring mat.

“Says the hundred-year-old man,” you state under your breath.

“I’m kicking your ass, aren’t I?”

“Oooohhh,” you cut your eyes over at him. “That new haircut is making you cocky.”

Tossing him his water bottle first before you take a long drink from your own, you contemplate how to ask your next question. With a sigh you finally do it, “Will you talk to Drysdale – please?”

A groan escapes the man in front of you and a look of annoyance crosses his face, “So, that’s the reason for your visit.”

“And to let you kick my ass,” you smirk at him, trying to ease his irritation.

He shakes his head at you, “I’ve seen photos. He looks just like him, doesn’t that bother you?”

“At first.”

Bucky stares at you for a moment, “Why do you care – about the book?”

You glance down at the bottle in your hand, wanting to give him the same excuse you’d given Sam when he’d asked you the same question.

Because Fury had asked you to.

However, you know Barnes can see through even the slightest of lies when it comes to you. “Regardless of what he did,” your words come out slowly. “Steve was the best of us.” You glance up at your friend. “I can’t let my feelings get in the way of that.”

A grin crosses his face, “He used to say that you were the best of us.” Your brows furrow in confusion and Bucky continues. “That even if the whole world sees the devil, you would only see a fallen angel.”

Your lips turn up in a sad smile, “Of course he did – jerk.”

“He was a punk,” Bucky comments reminiscently.

You fold your arms across your chest, “He was never mine, Buck. Part of me knew that going in, and I did it anyway.”

“But you don’t regret it.”

You shake your head slightly, “I don’t, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.” Bucky’s hand reaches for your shoulder, pulling you into a loose hug. You accept the embrace and wait a moment before continuing. “So, you’ll talk with Drysdale?”

Barnes sighs, “I guess.”

“Thank you.”

2 Days Later

Ransom’s phone vibrates from the dresser in the hotel room, and he quickly looks to see a new message from you.

My place 2pm today. Bucky will be here for your interview.

He smiles as he types his response.

Good job. You two better be dressed when I get there. No Tequila.

Your response is quick.

Shut up. Also, it's been a long week and I plan on binging Netflix while eating my body weight in pizza tonight, so the interview better be over by 5.

Drysdale laughs at your statement.

Promise. Besides I have a date at 7.

With who?

Girl I met in the hotel lobby.

Careful, if she’s named after a flower or food, she’ll expect payment at the end of the night.

Ransom sends two laughy face emojis, followed by the middle finger one.

You had offered up your apartment as a neutral meeting ground for Bucky to have the sit-down interview with Ransom, that didn’t mean you wanted to be present.

“Where’s –” Drysdale begins to question Barnes as he shrugs off his coat, looking around the apartment for you.

“She went for coffee,” Bucky responds, watching the man closely.

“Coffee – sure,” he states, pulling a notebook and pen from his bag, part of him disappointed that you aren’t present for the interview. Given your history with Barnes, you might be able to pull more information from him than Ransom could alone.

Bucky spends the next forty-five minutes answering questions about the years he spent with Steve before the serum – the war. All while trying to figure out the man sitting across from him who looks eerily similar to his best friend. Barnes doesn’t trust easily, especially trust fund, playboy types who seem to have ulterior motives.

It only takes an hour for those possible motives to make an appearance. Barnes had spoke earlier of Steve’s relationship with Peggy and Ransom had gotten his opinion on their dynamic, but it isn’t until Bucky mentions your name that he notices a shift in Drysdale’s demeanor.

“What can you tell me about their relationship?” Ransom questions with his phone lying in the center of the coffee table, recording every word they’re saying.

“Is that important to the book?” Bucky asks, almost defensively.

“Well – yea,” Ransom responds. “I want to show that relationship as well. To lose the love of your life, wake up seventy years in the future. Having to learn so much, including how to love again. She loved him, that much I know.” He hesitates a moment. “And he loved her.”

“He did,” Bucky practically cuts him off.

“O-kay,” Drysdale replies. “And – then he left.” Barnes stares at him threateningly before he leans back on the couch, folding his arms across his chest as Ransom continues. “I’m just trying to figure out why.”

“Why?”

“It really seemed to affect her,” Ransom replies, watching the man across from him curiously, unsure who’s interviewing who now.

“Of course it affected her,” Bucky states. “Don’t sit there acting like you know her – you don’t. I was there – you weren’t. I thought this book was about Steve.” Drysdale shifts in his chair as Bucky continues. “Is that what all this is really about – her?”

Ransom narrows his eyes, “No.”

Bucky leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, “See – I’m beginning to think it is. That’s why you tracked her down, because she didn’t fall into bed with you. Then, to your surprise, you find out about Steve and it gives you the perfect reason to hang around – a book.” He watches Ransom’s jaw clench. “I’ve known men like you. Always wanting what you can’t have and trying to burn the whole world down just to get it.” Bucky can see the anger on his face, but he doesn’t ease up. “All because – why? Your mother didn’t hug you enough as a child?”

“Careful Barnes,” Ransom sneers. “You’re sounding a bit jealous.”

Bucky laughs, “Trust me, I’ll never be jealous of you.” He stands up from the couch, glaring down at Ransom. “Because, I know her, and she’ll never be able to look at you and not see him.” A small malicious smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “She’ll always see Steve.”

Drysdale drops his notebook on the coffee table as he stands up, eyes narrowing at the man across from him, “Keep telling yourself that, if it helps you sleep better at night.” He pauses for a moment before continuing. “Although, I would think that would be the last thing to keep you up at night, being a former Hydra assassin and all. Exactly how many people have you killed Mr. Barnes?”

Bucky’s fists clench at his sides, “Too many, but I can always add one more.”

“That’s enough, Buck,” you state angrily, glaring at the two of them.

They were so wrapped in up asserting their dominance, neither of them heard you come through the door. Your arms are folded across your chest angrily and both of them look at you in surprise.

“I should go,” Bucky states, crossing the room towards you.

“Yea,” your answer is sharp. “We’ll discuss this later.”

He gives a curt nod, already hearing your voice yelling at him in the back of his mind.

You and your overprotective big brother bull shit.

You’ve used the phrase once or twice with him before.

Your gaze follows Bucky as he exits your apartment.

The tension in the room is heavier than it’s ever been.

No doubt because of the conversation with Barnes. He hadn’t let him see it, but his words had affected Drysdale. Your eyes drift back to Ransom and he can see a softness there – you aren’t angry with him.

There’s a touch of sadness in your eyes and his brow furrows, “He’s right, isn’t he?”

“What?” confusion apparent on your face.

“You see him,” Ransom’s tone turns hard – cold. “When you look at me – don’t you?”

Your shoulders drop – voice quiet, “Don’t.” There’s a pause as he glares at you, your eyes pleading with him to stop. “Please – don’t do this.”

“You were in love with him,” he begins angrily. “So, it’s nothing about me. Everything you’ve done for me is because of his face. Because he was a better man than I’ll ever be – right?”

You fight back the tears as you raise your voice, “Stop!” You take a forceful step towards him. “You’re right, I did see him when I first met you, and yea, just looking at you was the hardest thing I’d ever done.” Ransom watches you carefully, determined to know the truth. “Part of me hated your face, because he fucking left.”

“Why?” Ransom questions, and you start to shake your head. He watches you bite the inside of your lip. “Why would he leave – abandon you?” He knows that word that will set you off.

You glance over at the picture of you and Steve on your shelf, “He knew I wouldn’t be alone. I’d have Sam – Buck.” The words angry as you swallow the lump in your throat. “So, he didn’t abandon me. Or us, because he knew the three of us would have each other. I guess that’s what made it okay in his mind.”

“That’s fucked up,” Ransom says quietly. “If he loved you –”

“She had his heart,” you reply sincerely. “I could never compete with that.” You glance back to the man in front of you. “So no – I don’t see him. I haven’t for a while, Ransom.” Your voice barely above a whisper as you admit it. “I only see you.”

His breathing falters at your statement and he reaches to turn off the recording app on his cellphone before he sits back down on the sofa. You move slowly over, glancing at the coffee table where the notebook is. Reaching for it, you half-expect him to stop you, but he doesn’t. You begin to read over some of the messily jotted down lines.

Steve Rogers believed in doing what was right, regardless of the consequences.

A true hero (more than once) when the country needed it the most.

Rogers was a friend to everyone and there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for a friend.

He was loved twice by women (not only beautiful, but smart and strong) with such passion – ferocity – most people are lucky to experience that kind of love just once in their lifetime.

A smile tugs at the corners of your mouth as you read the last lines and Ransom speaks quietly, “Are you still in love with him?”

You glance at him thoughtfully for a moment, “No, but there is a part of me that will always care for him.” There’s a hint of disappointment in his eyes and you change the subject. “Why did you track me down?” Hearing Bucky’s question earlier had brought it back to your mind. “Because I know it wasn’t easy – and it wasn’t over a wallet.”

“I don’t know,” he flicks his eyes up at you, seeing the expectant look on your face. “Maybe it was the fact you were just so – real. I mean – aside from the fact you were lying.” You can’t help but smirk as he continues. “Even as Natalie, you weren’t fake with me. I’d never experienced that before.”

There’s a warm smile on your face as you lay the notebook back on the coffee table, “Well, when you finish this book, maybe you should get out more.”

“Funny you mention that,” Ransom stands as you start toward the kitchen. “I have an idea for another book I want to run by you.”

You turn around curiously, “Run by me – why?”

“Well, Granddad is known for his murder mysteries,” Ransom begins, eyeing you closely for your reaction. “I thought I might give it a shot, maybe put a different spin on it. Instead of far-fetched ideas, going more of a ‘based on actual events’ route.” Your mouth begins to open slightly as you see the grin forming on his face. “Granddad’s leading characters were always men, so I’m thinking for my leading character a female secret agent perhaps.”

“Me?” the look of shock on your face is hilarious.

“Well,” Ransom smirks. “She would have to be smart. Funny. Attractive is a given.” You fold your arms across your chest as he takes a few steps closer to where you stand. “Intimidating. Definitely a bad ass.”

“Please tell me you’re joking.”

His face lights up, “All the missions you’ve been on, all the secrets S.H.I.E.L.D.’s kept, I might could shadow you on future ops.”

“Absolutely not.”

Ransom’s face instantly falls, and he looks similar to a sad golden retriever.

“If you want to stay in New York – stay.” you remark, watching him carefully. “But you’re not writing a book about me.”

There’s a smug look on his face as he responds, “It’s not about you – it’s about Natalie.” You narrow your eyes at the man, and he holds his hands up defensively, “Okay – fine.” He turns around and walks back over to the coffee table and begins to gather his things.

You watch him for a moment, remembering he’s going back to his hotel, probably to get ready for his date with random lobby girl. The feeling you’re having makes you want to scream into the nearest throw pillow.

What – why?

Are you seriously jealous right now?

You can feel the heat starting at the base of your neck and you take a deep breath before speaking, “Hey – do you wanna stay?” He stops packing his bag to glance up at you, seeing something unusual on your features – trepidation. “We could order in – watch a movie.”

He gives you a genuine smile, “Sure.”

There is nothing he wants more than to spend the evening with you, eating take-out and watching old movies, because you see him and not many people do.

But who in their right mind leaves a beautiful blonde waiting in a hotel lobby across town for a date, without so much as a call or a text to let her know he can’t make it?

He does.

Because after all –

Ransom Drysdale’s an asshole.

Tags:

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#ransom drysdale #ransom drysdale x reader #ransom drysdale fanfiction #ransom drysdale fanfic #knives out #knives out fanfic #knives out fanfiction #avengers fanfiction #avengers fanfic #fanfic #marvel #mcu #steve rogers #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers fanfic #steve rogers fanfiction

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halothenthehorns · 3 years

Text

TLTNL- THE HOGWARTS HIGH INQUISITOR

"Padfoot mate, you don't really think you think," he cut himself off and went cross eyed before trying again, "I mean that Harry is-" then he stopped again for the ludicrous statement couldn't even manage to pass his lips.

Sirius watched with some distant form of amusement as James struggled to find words, a concept in itself, as he ran his fingers hard through his hair and tried to find a way to answer. "What if I do? All those stories we've heard about what happens to those in Azkaban, what makes you think that didn't happen to me after twelve years? Turning into a dog could only have saved me so much-"

"Don't," James snapped, his eyes darkening by the second. "I can't stand thinking of you like that, it's never going to happen."

"It's already happening Prongs," Sirius whispered back. "What if we can't stop this, it's all supposed to happen in less than a year! People will start going missing, and then Dumbledore's going to come around and get you and Lily to go into hiding, and I'll do it again, I swear I will, I'll hunt down that rat bastard and-"

"Think what you're saying," James snapped, fighting hard not to knock him upside the head while he did. "Future tense mate, we'll find a way to stop this happening well before then, so stop acting like it's inevitable already. You're not going to turn into that, I refuse."

Sirius still couldn't seem to take his words to heart, gazing at a picture Lily had hung up on the wall of a forest that had branches swaying in the wind, an occasional critter flipping in and out of sight. It reminded him of the Forbidden Forest, where he'd had so many happy memories, and it scared him how tainted those already were, and kept reminding him it was only going to get worse. "It's my worst nightmare come to life, I don't know how but the universe did that to me. Made me go as mad as my folks, in a different way I'll grant but all the same, and then jailing me right back there."

"It's not going to happen," James repeated, and would keep doing so until it sunk through his thick head.

They met eyes, Sirius almost absently saying, "you have always been around to remind me of that," and then quickly flipped subjects before even the notion of this no longer existing could linger, "honestly though, I thought you were going to bring me up here to rib me for talking to Harry like that."

James snorted and rolled his eyes, forcing himself to relax as he seemed to think he'd accomplished something. "I'd be remiss if you didn't tell Harry he wasn't having enough fun in his life. I still think you should show up at Hogsmeade and show those three what we used to get up to, Harry needs more fun in his life and he's clearly not getting it from his friends."

Sirius bit at his lip as he realized Harry wasn't getting that from him either, he'd been far too consumed with his own pity party, but at James' words, he was now at least holding out hope it would come true soon.

James watched as Sirius was already starting to fall back into wallowing, and he couldn't let that stand. Sirius was usually his inspiration to start all the madness they got up to, seeing him so low now truly was doing something to him he could hardly put into words, and he desperately hoped that the next time Sirius' name came up it would be in some form of his release back into a normal life already, he'd suffered long enough for it. For now he grasped his shoulder with a tight squeeze before actually managing his old laugh back and saying, "come on now, let's see what kind of mass destruction the school causes in rebellion against whatever that stupid comment of Percy's was. Dumbledore not in charge, pfft, Fudge couldn't do any such thing."

Sirius did at least smile as he followed him back for that, any talk of setting Umbridge in the area with the twins was bound to cause a laugh, which he was hoping to hear from soon. The methods she used on Harry weren't going to hold long.

Lily and Remus were still very concerned by whatever that reaction had been, but also knew James was the best, if not the only person Sirius would get help from with it and so were plenty satisfied to see him not visibly lingering on it when they came back.

Harry most of all wanted to persist on the subject, as he felt like he'd let Sirius down in some way, but when his godfather flopped down beside him with a normal smile in place Harry just couldn't bring himself to mess it all up again when his dad had clearly seemed to comfort him about it. So as James picked up the book and began, they were all feeling almost slightly hopeful again this was all going to somehow work out.

They'd expected to have to comb the paper to find this mysterious article, but instead it was right on the front page, with a very large shot of Umbridge accompanying it.

"Urgh, as if you don't get enough of that around the castle, now you've got closeups," James crinkled his nose in disgust.

The title read the woman's new position as High Inquisitor.

"Why do I already have a bad feeling about whatever the hell that made up title is?" Remus sighed.

"You've got good instincts," Harry's eyes were already narrowed with dislike.

Harry asked what that could mean, as Hermione began reading the article about the Ministry passing new legislation giving itself new levels of control inside Hogwarts.

James struggled to understand even the first sentence! What did that mean, the Ministry had control over their school?

Lily had her lips very tightly pursed as her mind flew through the ramifications of that. Hogwarts had always been of its own body and under the guide of the current Headmaster. This had allowed for a lot of free will inside the school outside of Ministry influence which many considered a good thing, as it left the children to grow up and form their own opinions of what they thought were right and wrong. Now their own government was more than actively stepping in as more than just a substitute teacher role? Just what the hell was Umbridge going to have these students doing? Aside from torturing them!

James looked to his friends like he was hoping for some kind of clarification from them, but both seemed just as confounded by the idea.

The Minister had been growing uneasy about the goings-on of the school for a while, says Junior Minister Percy Weasley.

"Did they have to post his title? I find that entirely unnecessary as of course his Junior would agree with him," Sirius scoffed.

"I just wish they hadn't said his last name, marks a bad light on all the Weasleys," Remus rolled his eyes for poor Arthur and his reaction to further seeing his son agreeing with all this.

Minister Fudge is now responding to the concerns from anxious parents who were concerned of the direction the school was moving in.

"Then they should talk to the Headmaster, and deal with this in house as it's always been," Lily stated absently, still trying to wrap her head around how this abrupt change had just sprung up overnight and it was entirely allowed.

This was not the first time Fudge had been seen influencing the school of late, as of the end of August he'd also enacted Educational Decree Number Twenty-two, giving the Ministry power to elect a teacher at the school should the Headmaster or mistress not find a candidate.

"Oh that's even better, they've been at this since the summer," James said in exasperation, already a spiel of comments he could imagine his parents saying if they'd heard about this.

Weasley continued speaking about how this was how Umbridge had begun her time there, and she was an immediate success-

"Let's put Percy in detention with her and see how long he holds that," Harry said grimly as he rubbed absently at the back of his hand.

"He'd have to be set up to be put in there, and even then I'll bet he could kiss her arse out of it," Sirius growled, perhaps even more darkly than he should have just for having to watch Harry do that.

Harry cut in there to protest the absurdity of that statement, but Hermione shushed him and kept reading about Percy saying she was revolutionizing the teaching of Defence Against the Dark Arts.

"By not teaching them! Yeah, I'd say that's revolutionary!" Remus balked at the absurdity.

The success of this function lead into current Educational Decree Number twenty-three, the creation of the High Inquisitor. A position that allowed the Ministry to evaluate the teachers on premises and make sure they were up to scratch to be teaching future youths. Professor Umbridge had delightfully accepted this role along with her teacher's position.

Lily had to swallow a bitter taint as she almost realized what a good idea that could have been coming from anyone else. Abysmal teachers like Lockhart and Snape wouldn't have been a problem then...but that's not what this job was really doing, and she knew it full well, so didn't bother speaking it.

These new transitions had received much support from parents who had children attending school.

"I do not believe that," James scoffed. "If my folks had heard the Ministry was weaseling around inside Hogwarts they'd have thrown a fit. They never have before and they're just suddenly doing it now after they've spent the summer campaigning what a mentally unstable person Dumbledore was? That doesn't seem the least bit suspicious it's all happening at the same time?"

Lucius Malfoy being quoted as saying his mind was much more at ease knowing Dumbledore was being put under evaluation.

"Ah, well at least that support suddenly made sense," Remus scowled.

The paper continues in saying this was something that should have long since been done considering the controversial appointments over the last few years, including half-giant Rubeus Hagrid, a delusional ex-Auror known as Alastor, Mady-Eye, Moody, and the werewolf Remus Lupin.

Remus suddenly felt such a sharp twist of fear in him he retched on the spot and felt lucky he didn't vomit. He'd never been afraid of attention before, unavoidable when you made friends with James and Sirius, but the fact that his name was actually being thrown out like that honestly made him question how he was even still alive. After all, the last werewolf that had ended up in the papers had a hole hunt formed around him-

Sirius gently cut off this train of thought by smacking Remus upside the head and saying, "knock it off Moony, if they haven't done anything to you before now they're not going to suddenly start just because the Ministry is pushing in. You're long gone, clearly not making a bid to come back, and Dumbledore's got you doing that shitty arse underground work that leaves you so far off the radar anyways it's a miracle if you'll even be reading this."

Remus almost found the comfort somewhere in there, at least his body stopped trying to throw up.

Harry was honestly curious enough to interrupt what this mysterious underground work was. He'd long since gathered it had something to do with Remus staying in contact with other werewolves, but he still longed for details he decided against asking even now because it was such a touchy subject for the poor guy.

Others were not as enthusiastic about these changes, two of the Wizengamot had quit in protest of this.

"While I applaud them," Lily nodded sadly, "but it's almost a backfire on them as well, for the same reason Tonks and Arthur haven't quit their post yet. They do more good holding their tongue and staying on the inside."

"That method ceases being useful when it's all you end up doing," James scowled, though at Harry for holding his tongue far too often.

One being quoted as saying that was a school, not the next outpost for Fudge, this was only further attempts to discredit Dumbledore.

Sirius gave a merry little applause for that bit at least, thankful that this had been put into the paper at all the way it was running lately.

The article ended then with the ominous comment how one of those who had quit had details of goblin subservice groups on a separate page. Hermione said at least now they had their reason of Umbridge being here, and now she could go and inspect all of their teachers? This was outrageous!

Harry agreed with his fist tightly clenched, the words etched into his hand already a dull white instead of having vanished.

James saw red as he realized four days had already been enough to put that mark into his skin. Years later and it was still there. None of them had the delusion this wasn't going to happen to Harry again, and he doubted he could read through it without screaming some more no matter how little good it would do.

But a grin was unfurling on Ron's face.

"I immediately like where his thoughts went," Sirius piped up at once as the same grin appeared, thinking of that foul toad trying to inspect someone like McGonagall and blissfully aware who was going to come up on top.

They asked what he found to smile about, and he said he couldn't wait for Umbridge to inspect McGonagall, the toad wouldn't know what hit her.

The others caught on as well, and now they were all grinning in anticipation of watching McGonagall have a thing or two to say to that pitiful excuse for a teacher.

Hermione stopped the conversation then by getting to her feet and reminding they had History of Magic. Harry was surprised when he didn't find Umbridge in there to inspect the lesson.

"What are the odds she won't be inspecting any of the ones Harry's in?" Remus said without a trace of hope.

"Non existent," James said without looking up.

Nor was she in potions, where Harry was given back his essay with a D for a grade.

"I find it an actual miracle he didn't just flat give you a T," Sirius rolled his eyes.

Once all the assignments had been handed back, Snape gave a speech at the front saying he'd graded these as if they had been OWL finals, and hoped to see better improvement over all, or he would start handing out detentions to the dunces that got d's.

Lily almost felt a twitch appear on her lips again at his alliterations, he'd always gotten a giggle out of her when he did this, but she forced herself not to react.

Malfoy snickered loudly that someone had gotten so low a grade.

"I'm guessing he gave you an O after you cheated off of someone else's," James rolled his eyes.

"Or paid another student to do it," Sirius agreed.

Harry saw Hermione looking sideways at his and he quickly stuffed it out of sight before she could see.

"Why bother?" Remus asked curiously.

"I can already hear the lecture she'd give about how I should have tried harder or some nonsense," Harry sighed.

Lily frowned at him for that, wishing he would try harder in this class even if he did hate the teacher, but at least holding herself back.

Determined not to give Snape a reason to ruin this attempt, Harry carefully studied every line of instructions today before brewing his potion. It was still a bit more runny and not quite the right shade of turquoise like Hermione's, but he handed it in with the satisfaction Snape couldn't say anything about it with mingled defiance and relief.

"I commend you, considering at some point I'd have just chucked the cauldron in his face," James snorted.

Hermione began babbling at once about OWL grades as they left for lunch, saying while she hadn't expected the top grade,

"I don't actually believe that," Remus snorted, "I can already imagine her near the end of this crying every five seconds if she doesn't get all O's."

even a pass at this stage was encouraging.

Neither boy responded, so she kept going on about how they now had time to improve, these grades were the baseline for their future-

"Is she going to keep going with this?" James groaned as he eyed the pages with misery. He'd been starting this thinking of more Umbridge carnage, but instead he'd been suffering through some OWL memories he'd have rather forgotten.

Ron finally cut her off if she wanted to know their grades, she should just ask them.

Hermione feigned surprise at the question, but finally did ask.

Ron said he'd got a P, while Fred popped up then to say there was nothing wrong with a good healthy P.

"Err, doesn't P mean-"

"Poor, yeah," Sirius said with chipper, "only one letter off from acceptable, so really they're not wrong."

Hermione was surprised at this statement, as P stood for Poor?

Lee agreed, then said at least it was better than D for Dreadful.

"I always thought it stood for Dunderhead," James grinned.

"Stop naming things after yourself James," Remus quipped.

Harry did not enter the conversation, but Hermione was still in full swing.

"This is most likely going to be an ongoing topic until next year, when she'll move onto complaining about her NEWT grades two years too early," Sirius groaned.

Hermione kept going saying the passing grades were O for outstanding, then A-

Though Fred corrected her E came next,

James gasped wildly, and then frantically prodded the page with his wand as if insisting to find a flaw.

"What do you mean Hermione doesn't know all these by heart?" Sirius agreed mildly. "The way she was obsessing over them, even having done some pre exams last year, you'd really think she'd know that."

"I'm actually quite sure she only took note of what the top grade was and didn't care about the others," Remus rolled his eyes.

for Exceeds Expectations. Personally he thought he and his twin should have gotten E's on everything, considering they exceeded expectations just by showing up.

Causing all five of them to giggle.

They all laughed except Hermione,

"Why is that a recurring thing, it always makes me sad," Lily sighed.

"Someone needs to tell her she's getting a T for her sense of humor, see if she lightens up any then," James agreed.

who ignored him and agreed then it was A for acceptable, and that was the last passing grade.

Ron mock celebrated then you could get a P, then D, while George finished with T, for troll.

Harry laughed unexpectedly, then looked around and realized that while they were smiling, he realized it was at his reaction, and he blinked in shock.

Harry laughed again, though he was not sure whether or not George was joking.

"Nope," Sirius grinned, "though I don't understand why they'd want to give you a letter grade that would make someone think, well that's better than B for Blast-Ended Skrewt."

"You're an idiot," Remus rolled his eyes.

He imagined end of year and getting T's on all his grades, and immediately resolved to do better on his work.

"Whatever gets you through it love," Lily grinned as the thought had never crossed her mind Harry would do any such thing. Even while being at his breaking point he'd still been putting effort into his homework, there was just no way he'd do so poorly on all his exams if he just tried a little harder.

Fred asked if they'd had an inspected lesson yet, because they just had in Charms.

George agreed she'd just sat in the back of the class making notes the whole time, and Flitwick was perfectly polite to her of course. Then near the end she went around asking them some questions on the subject.

Fred asked who they had for their afternoon classes and when Harry started with Trelawney, Fred agreed a T if ever there was one.

Causing them all to snort with laughter as they suddenly imagined the wonderful idea of if the twins had taken her class and the mayhem that could have been.

Then Umbridge herself.

George warned Harry about minding his manners then, because Angelina would do him in if he missed any more Quidditch practice.

"Because that's the important part," James said grimly as his eyes flashed protectively to his son again, wondering if it was possible Umbridge's detentions could somehow get worse if she realized Harry wasn't going to take her message.

Harry didn't have to wait for his last class to see Umbridge again though. As they were taking their seats inside Divination, a sudden hush went over the room as Umbridge entered, causing Trelawney to look around as Umbridge greeted her.

Lily felt an interesting struggle taking place in her mind. She'd disliked Trelawney from the instant she'd been introduced because of insisting her son was to die, which would set any mother on edge. Yet she hated Umbridge quantifiably worse for actually hurting her baby. She wasn't really sure what she wanted to see happen here, but she wouldn't deny she was listening just as curiously as the others.

She began by asking if she'd received the note Umbridge had sent about the date and time of this inspection?

Trelawney went stiff, nodded without response, and then spoke to the class as if she wasn't there that they would continue looking through their dreams.

"Can't deny I'm already intrigued," Remus said grudgingly. "Trelawney shouldn't have had much to do with her before now considering how rarely she leaves her own tower, which means her ire with this woman must come from something we haven't seen yet."

"Maybe just from students like Parvati and Lavender who might have talked about her," Sirius offered without much thought, but immediately corrected himself when he realized, "but they haven't exactly gone out of their way disliking Umbridge themselves yet either."

"I'm sure it's just the insult of her class being inspected," James snorted.

They divided into pairs and Trelawney went to take her seat, realized Umbridge was standing right behind it, and instead began circling the class.

Harry quickly made up a dream on the spot about how he'd drowned Snape in his cauldron.

"They say dreams are where you live out your fantasies," Sirius snickered.

Ron snickered as he went to work on this, saying you were supposed to add age to the date of the dream, plus the number of letters in the subject, before asking if that was drowning, cauldron, or Snape?

"Drowning, isn't it? The other two are nouns," Remus said absently.

"Nouns can be the subject," Lily shrugged, "it depends on verb usage and-"*

"Please, this is why I was grateful Hogwarts never subjected us to Muggle classes, don't start on things I don't care about," Sirius groaned.

Harry couldn't care less about the answer as Ron went to work while Harry eavesdropped on Umbridge catching up to Trelawney and beginning to ask her some questions, such as how long she'd been in this position?

Trelawney regarded her for a moment before deeming the question worthy of the answer sixteen years.

Harry felt a sudden whack at the base of his skull for some unknown reason, absently reaching up and brushing at the back of his head as if to make sure it was still attached but ultimately ignoring the sensation.

Then Umbridge asked that Dumbledore had appointed her himself?

Though it was getting harder by the moment as Umbridge's questions really were starting to dig something out of the base of his skull that was beginning to build up quite a bit of pressure...

Trelawney kept up her curt replies as Umbridge then asked that she was the great-great-granddaughter of the renowned Seer Cassandra Trelawney?

Remus felt an odd smile flicker across his face as some old Greek myth came to mind about the Seer Cassandra who nobody believed truly was one, but he didn't point this out to the others for once as he was more invested hearing about this.

But she was the first in her family line to have inherited the gift of Second Sight?

Trelawney had to hesitate for a moment before saying these things tended to skip, err, three generations.

"Was the pause because she had to think about it and count that on the spot?" James mocked.

Umbridge was clearly not impressed as she made a few notes of this, and then looked on and asked for a prediction to be made.

Trelawney was outraged at once, saying the Inner Eye did not See upon command!

James was almost amused by this, as normally Trelawney spat out so many predictions in a lesson you couldn't shut the woman up. Now Umbridge was asking for one, and that was offensive?

Umbridge shrugged with indifference as she went to make a note of this, but then Trelawney wildly switched to grasping at the pink cardigan, apparently overcome with the fear of what she was seeing, a dark peril looming...

"I think she made herself worse by doing that," Sirius sighed. "Should have just stuck with the first thing she said, then later and a lot more randomly spouted something at least generally more threatening than that generic mess."

Dolores Umbridge was in grave danger!

Umbridge raised an unimpressed brow and ticked off something before saying that would be all.

Lily actually had to catch herself to stop from laughing. Even knowing Trelawney was a true Seer still didn't make this waffle intimidating in the least, but she despised Umbridge too much to agree with her on any level so she held it in.

She turned away and began asking some students questions, while Trelawney stalked over to Harry and snatched his dream diary away, proclaiming in a carrying voice for all to hear that even his most mundane dreams were filled with fortunes of his death.

"Yeah, there it is," James said tartly, least she could always fall back on that one, though how she managed to make that less believable every time was an actual achievement on some level.

Harry was having a hard time feeling sympathy for her during this, and when they were finally released and entered Umbridge's own class, the woman was humming.

"Urgh, having to listening to croaking all lesson, I'd rather live with a cicada," Sirius rubbed at his ears in thought.

They took their seats in the back and pulled out their books, while the teacher instructed those hopeful few who'd left their wands out not to do this very thing.

"I'm not sure if that's ignorance or delusions," Remus sighed.

They were to begin chapter two now.

Still smiling to herself, she set about some papers on her desk. Harry began flipping mindlessly through until the thought occurred to him if there were enough chapters to keep this going all year, and he was just flipping to check on that when he noticed Hermione's hand raised again.

"So were there?" Lily asked.

"Don't know, never checked," Harry shrugged.

"Even if there weren't, I'm honestly wondering if she'd have just made you reread it from the start or something," Remus rolled his eyes.

Umbridge took a different approach this time and approached her instead, bending down on her level as Hermione told she'd already read chapter two.

When Umbridge told her to go on to the next one then, Hermione stated she'd read the whole book.

"Man I wish I was more surprised, actually I'm just sad for the wasted time," James sighed.

Umbridge looked mildly surprised as she then asked Hermione what the author had said about counter-jinxes in chapter fifteen then?

Hermione gave the accurate answer at once, and Harry saw Umbridge was impressed against her will.

"People get that a lot around her it seems," Sirius mused, he didn't always like Hermione either, but she never failed to impress him with her knowledge at least.

Hermione kept going though, that she did not agree with Mr. Slinkhards interpretation of counter-jinxes and his statement they were only used as another form of jinx-

Umbridge cut her off this wasn't up for discussion.

"That was already established," Lily cocked her head to the side as she tried to understand, "what was the goal of her doing this?"

James shushed her and read quickly to find out, if anyone could find a way to push Umbridge's buttons and make something interesting happen in that class, he'd bet on Hermione.

Hermione tried to say something else, but Umbridge cut her off by taking five points from their house, while Harry demanded what for? Ignoring Hermione's warning for him not to get involved.

"She is sitting right next to you when she started this," Remus rolled his eyes, "don't tell me she really thinks you'd stay out of it."

Umbridge gave the answer for disrupting class pointlessly.

"She simply asked a question of what she was supposed to do now she's done with the work," Sirius tried for an innocent tone, ineffective as he wasn't likely to receive an answer for that anymore than Hermione.

She was going to teach them a Ministry-approved method that did not include inviting students to give opinions on things they didn't understand.

"Every bit of that was the most ludicrous thing I've yet heard her say," Remus said faintly.

"I particularly like the part they're not supposed to have opinions on what's being 'taught'," Sirius sneered.

"She read the whole book, how can she still try to make that claim!" Lily demanded.

"I'm beginning to wonder if there's something conceded about her," James said deadpan.

Their previous teachers, with the exception of Quirrell, would never have passed an inspection-

Harry cut off Quirrell had been great, except the fact that he'd had Voldemort's head sticking out of the back of his own.

"I'm actually wondering how many of the students knew that at the end of the year anyways," Remus suddenly blinked in surprise.

"Not the point," Harry grumbled.

Umbridge hardly acknowledge what he'd said except to give him another week of detentions.

Lily made a guttural, maddening noise of frustration for Harry suffering through that all over again, and she vented on the only person available. "Harry James, stop antagonizing her! It's clearly done you no good, after multiple people have warned you to stop, and you are suffering more consequences than doing any good!"

Harry flushed with anger for a moment, considered snapping back he was doing more good than anyone else was even bothering to try, but then considered the fact that snapping at her would achieve nothing. His mother was simply angry with the situation and he did not want to start yelling at them like he had been his friends in the past, so he simply held his tongue and nodded absently, also failing to mention whatever he did he couldn't go back and stop himself from doing it here now could he.

The first consequences of this came up at dinner that night, where Fred's prediction came true at once and Angelina caused such a racket with her yelling at him over having to miss another practice that McGonagall swopped in and interceded, taking points away at once for all the noise in the middle of the Great Hall. Several Ravenclaws at the table behind were still watching the show.**

Angelina wasn't deterred, saying he deserved it for another detention ruining her regime.

McGonagall turned sharp eyes on Potter, demanding who this detention was from, and very clearly displeased at the answer as she took another five points away.

"Who takes away house points after you find out someone has detention?" James demanded in outrage. "What's McGonagall playing at, he's already suffering enough for this!"

"I guess she did warn him not to continue messing with her," Remus sighed, "this is her way of punishing him for disobeying her as well."

"That did not make this feel better," Sirius scowled.

Harry tried to protest he was already being punished enough, but McGonagall wouldn't hear it, claiming detentions didn't seem to work on him so maybe this would.

"The worst part is she doesn't even know what's going on in those detentions," Lily groaned miserably, just begging for the sharp eyed woman to spot Harry's hand and raise hell for it any day now.

She warned them both to confine the shouting to the pitch before departing.

"I do love how she says confine shouting at Harry, not stop it," Sirius muttered.

Harry slammed into his seat beside Ron in a fuming mess as he demanded how it was fair he was getting his hand sliced open and losing points?!

"Maybe she wouldn't if she knew that part," James seethed.

Ron was sympathetic for him, saying she was out of order with that one.

"Are we really the only ones insisting on how dumb it is you haven't mentioned this," Lily demanded. "What about Hermione?"

"Still haven't told her yet either," Harry muttered as he shifted uneasily in his seat, still wishing this would stop being mentioned all together.

Hermione, however, merely rustled the pages of her Daily Prophet and said nothing.

"So she does know?" Remus yelped at this glossed over development.

"I guess Ron did tell her at some point," Harry blinked in surprise, he'd been too angry to realize what he was saying to whom at the time. "Honestly I'm just happy she didn't give me another go to Dumbledore speech, so I'm grateful I wasn't around when she did find out."

Nobody agreed with him, though clearly repetition wasn't doing any good regardless.

Harry snapped at her that he thought their head of house was in the right then?

Hermione answered cooly that she wished Harry wouldn't get points taken away, but she also wished he'd stop losing his temper around Umbridge.

"Hermione was the one who started the last two fights!" Sirius couldn't help but defend. "Harry more than likely would have sat in the back of the class and not said a word if it wasn't for her."

"You can't blame Harry's action on what Hermione decides to do," Lily scolded.

"Doesn't help one of his mates isn't trying to fix this problem either," Remus shrugged.

Harry did not speak to Hermione all through their next class, but all memory of the fight evaporated when he walked into Transfiguration and first spotted Umbridge instead of McGonagall.

James actually began wriggling in place in sudden excitement. If he'd put money on anyone giving that toad a run for her galleons it would be McGonagall, there was no way she could push her around like she just had to Trelawney.

The three watched almost eagerly as class began, McGonagall acting as if the extra woman wasn't even there as she instructed Dean to pass out homework, and Lavender to start handing out mice, and warning that vertebrate animals were much harder to-

Harry was distracted as he got his work back and saw he'd made an A.

"And that was with the minimal effort," James applauded, while Lily rolled her eyes at him even if she did agree.

Dean took his seat and mouse and was at once scolded for doing something to it that would wind him up in detention-

"What'd he do?" James demanded on the same breath as he'd finished.

"He was trying to place it on Parvati's shoulder," Harry shrugged.

"Less inventive than I was hoping," Remus sighed.

While Umbridge used the same, hem, hem, cough to try and get attention.

McGonagall turned cold eyes on her as Umbridge began that McGonagall had received the date and time of her inspec-

McGonagall coolly cut across of course she had, otherwise she'd be wondering why the woman was here.

James made a little squee noise when he was done with that response while Sirius was already full blown laughing, he knew McGonagall was his favorite teacher for a reason!

Harry and Remus shared a triumphant smile while Lily said impatiently, "James if you don't keep going, I will," though her eyes were sparkling with their own amusement for their old head of house.

James clutched the book to him protectively as he kept going with glee.

Then she kept going as if nothing had happened, even though Umbridge did the same act again not moments later.

McGonagall didn't even face her this time as she said sharply how Umbridge expected to get an idea of her teaching methods if she kept being interrupted, as she did not permit others to talk while she was.

James couldn't do it though, he immediately burst out laughing again, and this time Lily couldn't deny joining in. This was hardly the fiery pit they wanted to toss Umbridge into for what she'd done to Harry, but even seeing someone hold their own against her in this way was the most satisfying thing that had happened so far!

Umbridge looked as if she'd been slapped, before hastily turning to a fresh page and scribbling furiously.

"I would pay anything to get my hands on those notes," Sirius' grin was slipping past amusement right into evil. "See just what her version of, I need a burn healing charm looks like."

Looking supremely unconcerned, Professor McGonagall addressed the class once more.

Harry wasn't paying much attention to her warnings of the complexity of the larger the animal the harder it was to vanish, he was to busy whispering to his friends how she could get onto him about losing his temper when she wasn't acting much better. There was no anger though, as he grinned at McGonagall, all anger forgotten.

"Technically McGonagall hasn't gained a detention yet, so she's still doing better than you," Sirius smirked even as he was leaning forward eagerly to hear more of this.

At the end of the lesson, Ron was putting away only a wriggling tail,

"It is indeed a good mark he's already got the larger portion of the body by the end of the first day," James agreed absently, his eyes still eagerly hoping for more between Umbridge and McGonagall.

as they began to file out, but hung back when they realized Umbridge was going up to talk to McGonagall. She asked only one question, of how long she'd been at this post?

McGonagall said thirty-nine years in December.

Umbridge jotted this down before saying she'd receive her results in ten days.

McGonagall gave the curt reply of how she couldn't wait as she swept away.

"She really shouldn't act so thrilled, sets a bad impression," Remus snorted.

She barked at the three lingering at the door to get a move on, but Harry swore she smiled as she passed.

"Favorite teacher," James repeated warmly, hoping that would leave some kind of impact on Harry in Umbridge's next class. He wasn't the only one defying Umbridge.

Harry sadly turned up at his next class only to find Umbridge there again, already talking to Grubbly-Plank. She was being asked that this was not her standard position, to which the sub agreed she was only standing in for Professor Hagrid.

"I don't think anyone's yet called him that," Sirius' face crinkled as that registered.

"Does sound kind of weird, even if it is appropriate," Remus agreed.

Harry's spirits sunk as he watched Malfoy approaching as well, knowing he'd love nothing more than to gossip about Hagrid strait to the Ministry.

"He's already been doing that, surely he can't do even worse damage," Lily said with unease even she didn't believe.

Umbridge then asked if Grubbly-Plank knew anything of Hagrid's absence, but the woman was bare on the subject, saying she'd simply been asked to fill in for an unspecified time, she'd agreed, and here they were.

Umbridge waved for her to start the class then, and they continued their work on bowtruckles as Umbridge went around the class and began asking students about magical creatures, to which no one gave a flawed answer. Harry at least felt hopeful none of them were letting Hagrid down.

Remus couldn't help but wince for that, thinking that was far more likely luck depending on the questions she was asking.

Then Umbridge circled back to Grubbly-Plank, asking how a new staff member felt here? Supported, or more ostracized from the everyday crowd.

Grubbly-Plank gave the simple answer she'd always felt welcomed here, never had a problem.

Umbridge looked politely incredulous,

"That she's the only one being treated like scum? Can't imagine why that would be," Sirius snorted.

"I'm sure that's a look," James snorted, his liking for Grubbly-Plank going up somewhat. Sure she was having to stand in for Hagrid, but at least she wasn't going behind his back and trying to rub up to Umbridge, he could respect that.

She then switched to asking of reports she had from injuries in this class, but Malfoy enthusiastically stepped in then, saying that was done to him, he was attacked by a hippogriff.

"At his own stupidity," James emphasized. "Everyone seems to skip that bit!"

Umbridge began almost happily jotting this down, while Harry shouted over at them it was because Malfoy was being too stupid to listen to Hagrid before it happened.

"Oh, thank you Harry," James groaned, that hadn't been what he meant at all.

Harry shrugged without remorse.

Umbridge turned a pleased smile on him as she gave him another week of detentions.

"What was that one even for?" Lily all but screeched. "Doesn't she still have to give a reason!"

Baby Harry began squirming in unease underneath his toy so she forced herself not to keep going while James pushed on, mostly because the answer was no, that woman didn't have to give a reason to anyone about anything she did. It was becoming quite clear that was the scariest part of all to look forward to.

That evening, despite the late hour, Harry did not return to the common room empty this time, but found Ron and Hermione waiting up for him. Hermione seemed anxious at his visage as she pushed a yellow bowl towards him, telling him it was essence of murtlap and it would help.

Harry wasn't quite sure what that was, but when he put his hand, that was bleeding freely, into it it soothed the pain at once.

Ron still tried to push Harry should tell someone about this, McGonagall would do something, but Harry still wouldn't hear it, pointing out next thing they knew there'd be a decree that the person who questioned Umbridge would get fired.

"That would still cause enough of a stir in the community for it to be relevant and absolutely worth it," James tried to keep his voice even as he explained to Harry. "McGonagall's tough as they come, even if she did have to leave for a time she'd be right back the next day because Dumbledore would never let that stand, and he'd have support from those realizing how ludicrous this all is getting."

"Please tell me you've been seeing reports in the Daily Prophet about more people saying what a problem this is," Lily agreed.

Harry just shrugged though, Hermione only passed along very certain things, and she hadn't said anything about this. If the wider wizarding world did care about what was going on, he wasn't hearing about it.

Ron tried to think of some way to argue, but then closed his mouth back.

Hermione hissed what an awful woman she was, they really should do something about her.

"Tie her to the Whomping Willow?" Sirius suggested at once.

"Transfigure her into a cat and introduce her to Fang?" James smirked.

"Introduce her to the mermaids of the Black Lake," Remus said just a touch bitterly.

"See how long she could survive in the Forbidden Forest," Harry envisioned the fun.

"Poison?" Lily couldn't seem to stop herself tacking in much to all the boys amusement.

Ron had suggested poison,

"Ha!" Lily pumped a fist in triumph, "two against you lot!"

"That's fair," Sirius miraculously gave in.

"Can it at least be a slow acting one?" James contended.

"I can work that," Lily agreed.

but Hermione said she'd meant something more practical about her horrid teaching habits, how they weren't learning any Defence this year.

"Well I mean, she's not wrong," Remus snorted.

"Yet I don't really see how that's so different from your first two years either," Sirius sighed.

Ron couldn't see a way around this, she had the job and that clearly wasn't changing any time soon.

"At least until the end of the year," Lily still looked for that bright spot.

Hermione shot Harry a nervous look before beginning to tell what she was thinking today,

"Should I be worried that's how this is starting?" James looked bemused as he kept going.

that they should just learn DADA themselves.

"That's really not that far fetched an idea," Remus shrugged, "we had to do it a few years as well. Our teachers never got to the level of trying to kill us mind you, but they weren't all stellar either."

"I don't know, remember Novak? Considering how many spells he used backfired on himself, I think at some point that counts as attempted murder when he still encouraged us to trust him," Lily shrugged.

Ron scoffed at the idea of doing more extra homework, they were already behind as is.

Hermione said this was more important than homework.

"Hang on," Sirius mimed cleaning out his ears, "alright read that bit again."

James ignored him.

The boys goggled at her saying such blasphemy, Ron insisting she'd always said homework was the most important thing in the universe!

Hermione brushed them off for being silly,

"She had yet to say otherwise," Harry rubbed at his ear at all her remembered lectures.

stating this was about learning to defend themselves from what was out there.

Harry looked honestly bemused Hermione had taken his words to heart like that, no matter how much he still vouched for them being true.

Ron still wasn't on the idea, saying sure they could look up jinxes and practice them, but-

"Just like you did at the end of last year," James agreed, "that seemed to help you out loads, even with a competent if murderous teacher."

but Hermione said it would be all the better if they had a teacher, someone who already knew a boat load of spells and could correct them if they were doing it wrong.

Harry began if she was talking about Lupin,

"Naw, you're the first teacher he thought of Moony," Sirius chuckled.

"Shut up Padfoot," Remus said around a smile.

but Hermione at once said that wouldn't work, he couldn't come around often enough to be of help.

"Not with that Umbridge woman about anyways," Lily said grimly, as it had honestly been a good idea for a moment for Dumbledore to summon him to the castle at his random choosing, and just incidentally running into Harry and his friends, for a few hours, no one in the school would really question that too much if it had worked out that way. That pink frosted lump of dragon dung though would put a wrench into anything like that.

Harry couldn't imagine who else she was talking about, but then she said him of course.

Harry looked at his dad in bewilderment, before looking at the other three who all looked just as surprised at the answer as him to his relief.

"Honestly, for a moment there I thought she was leading up to herself," James snorted.

"I mean, I suppose she's not got the wrong idea," Lily pulled gently on a strand of hair as she thought about it, "but no offense love, I haven't really seen you with the patience yet to be teaching anyone much."

"Ron was better at teaching you chess than you were explaining how a phone worked," Sirius snorted in agreement.

"Oh stop picking on him," Remus scolded, though Harry hardly looked offended, he still had a politely puzzled expression on his face like he was still nursing the idea and had hardly heard them. "I don't find it a bad idea at all, Harry was the only thirteen year old I've ever seen to manage a Patronus, even you two hadn't managed that until fifth year to find out what you were going to turn into only a few months later. If Harry could master that, I'm sure passing that knowledge along wouldn't be much of a challenge."

"There's a difference between being a good student and being as good a teacher," Sirius shrugged, but he backed down altogether as Harry was starting to look a little hurt they were still giggling more than anything at the idea.

James kept himself going in hopes Hermione would come to some conclusion this should be more a group effort between the three than Harry starting secret lessons to teach these two anything.

Harry was stunned at the idea, turning to Ron for some backup, but he seemed just as keen on this as Hermione now she'd pointed it out.

Harry began laughing it off, saying what good would he do, while Hermione said in exasperation to think of all he'd done.

"Really Harry, you apparently spent all summer complaining about this bit, but you need this part explained," James rolled his eyes.

When Harry still didn't get their meaning, Ron started to laugh he didn't want someone this stupid teaching him, before beginning loudly of all his accomplishments, like second year killing the Basilisk and Riddle.

Harry tried to interrupt that had been Fawkes and-

"I really am loving the reverse of this conversation," Sirius gave a forced smile. "How are you the one saying you shouldn't get credit for doing this now, when it was you shouting at them you did all this single handedly to them at that house?"

Harry was scarlet by now, both from remembered shock of his friends throwing this at him, and how true that comment was that put on the spot he still didn't want to admit all the things he'd done no matter how angry he'd been he'd felt ignored.

"Can't have it both ways," Lily told him gently as she seemed to read his mind.

Ron completely ignored him and was still going on, coming up with fourth year and everything he'd done there as well, he and Hermione were smirking by the end as Harry felt his temper rising, he wasn't even sure where the anger was coming from.

"Actually neither am I," James frowned lightly from the book to Harry now. "At most they're still pulling your leg, what's the anger for?"

Harry brushed at his scar without comment, a deep look in his eyes that shot a thrill of fear through James instantly promising him he actually didn't want to know the answer, so he quickly moved on.

He began telling them how he'd blundered through all that, not because he was any good at Defence, he'd always had help and- stop laughing at him!

Remus let out a low whistle of surprise as he told Harry, "when you get angry, you really ramp yourself right to the top at once."

"Harry doesn't do anything halfway," Sirius said halfheartedly, Harry leaning back into the couch looking miserable he'd been caught shouting at them again, and they hadn't done anything even remotely close to deserving it this time.

He lunged to his feet so fast he knocked the essence of murtlap away, now practically shouting at them they didn't understand, none of that had been skill when he'd fought Voldemort, that Cedric had been just as good as him and he'd died so if they were insinuating he'd messed up and Harry had somehow done something better-

James had winced at every blow Harry dealt his friends, of all the pain and fear his son had suffered without anyone there to help, how even hearing it first hand hadn't quite left them with the reality Harry had lived through. To them it was all in a distant future, something they hoped never had to happen to him and so without underplaying the events happening they kept pushing past these terrible moments because it would ultimately help him to remember them just to find a way he'd never have to live through them. Most of all, James wanted more than anything for Harry never to have to witness what had happened in that graveyard, to Cedric.

Ron looked aghast Harry had come to the conclusion they were having a go at Cedric.

Harry was aware, and very grateful no one had snapped at him for this in here. He distantly saw himself doing these things, pushed into this uncontrollable anger from something he didn't understand, but one truth stood out his friends would never insinuate any such thing, so he was grateful for the silence ringing in here.

Hermione was near tears now as she insisted this was exactly the reason they needed to learn, he was the only one who had ever faced V-Voldemort.

"Well there's a distraction if ever there was one," Sirius blinked slowly to refocus off of Harry's anger, how everything he'd said had been all too real.

It was the first time Hermione had ever said Voldemort's name, and for some reason this calmed Harry. He sat back in his seat, his hand now throbbing worse than ever and gazed at the broken glass and essence of Murtlap now seeping into the carpet.

Hermione got her feet as if to go to bed, quietly asking him to just think about it.

Lily opened her mouth, wanting to say something in comfort as well as push for a change of subject, but Harry was still looking miserable and rubbing hard at his scar again, so she was afraid to push him while he was too vulnerable.

Harry nodded silent agreement now as she went off to bed, Ron following suit. Harry repaired the bowl with a quick spell, but could do nothing for more medicine for his hand.

"Wonder how she got hold of that," Sirius happily shot off, as always just looking for something to say in the awkward silence.

"She's too proud asking the house-elves for a batch," Remus played along, "I more imagine she might have asked Madam Pomfrey for some, given a vague reason as to why she wanted it."

"I'll buy that," Sirius said, looking hopefully at Harry like he was hoping for confirmation, but even if he had ever bothered to ask Harry spoke nothing for or against the idea.

He was more exhausted now than when he'd stepped in, but still he forced himself to climb up the stairs rather than sleeping in the common room, and had another restless night of dreams full of locked corridors, and waking to his scar prickling again.

Harry twitched harder than ever in his seat, his eyes swimming with pain as he yearned to understand how it all fit together, and terrified of learning the answer.

HPHPHPHPHP

I probably came off pretty anti-government in this chapter, and I swear I'm not actually trying to whip up a rebellion and start an anarchy, I just always found it really extreme that clearly since it's conception Hogwarts seemed to have stood as it's own body, but suddenly the government was stepping in and causing a ton of reforms, and the public seems generally okay with this? Of course the Daily Prophet likely didn't post more outrage than a couple people quitting, I don't even know how it would have been put into the narrative, I'd just have liked to see more people be confused and angry about this sudden regime change going on inside the most popular wizarding school in Britain.

*I was actually never very good at English, I have no clue what the actual answer was, thank you for nothing four years of high school.

**I pointed this out in the last book, but this is now a blatant mismatch of the house tables. Last time it was the Hufflepuffs on their other side as Harry had to walk past them, this time it's Ravenclaws? Someone must have been right in saying it does switch up on a regular basis.

#Harry Potter #fanfiction #reading the books #Marauders #Jilly #OotP #James Potter #Remus lupin #Sirius Black #Lily Potter #The LIfe that Never LIved

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10moonymhrivertam · 3 years

Text

Hello! A post by @west-moor got me thinking, and it resulted in this! This is a little left to the point of the post, but it just grabbed hold of my brain for a solid three days. It’s currently full of author’s notes, but I feel the Need to Share. (Please let me know if you’d like to see any of the struck-through bits revisited!)

Warnings: Renfri’s backstory mentioned throughout (rape tw); Jack Harkness-style immortality (death tw, not permanent)

Concept: With a little bit of timeline nudging, Jaskier could be Renfri’s son

“Dandelion, come here before I go.” Renfri held out her arms, and Julian dashed forward, snuggling into her. She squeezed him. “I want you to make me a promise, okay?” Her voice was soft but raw. Julian frowned - this must be serious.

“What kind?” He asked, refusing to let go of her. She rested her chin on the top of his head. ((she’s grateful she doesn’t have to look him in the eye))

Renfri sighed, tracing patterns on his back. “The [hard/important/??] kind. What I’m about to do...it might get me in trouble. I -“ Renfri hugged him tighter. “I might not be able to get back home.”

“What?” Julian’s voice went up, and Renfri shushed him gently, kissing the top of his head.

“I want to. I’m going to try to. But this is dangerous, Dandelion. Even so, I have to take this chance. I’m so sorry.” Renfri took a breath. “But I need you to promise me, Julian, that if I don’t come home...you won’t do anything about it.” She squeezed him, so he didn’t shout like he wanted to. “No matter what you hear. No matter what Stregobor might do. That bastard cannot have you, do you understand?” Julian squirmed, and Renfri loosened up her hug with an apology, finally pulling back to look at him. “I don’t trust him not to use any excuse he can to hurt you, too. So we’re not going to give him an inch. Not a thing he can twist about you the way he did me. Alright?” She cupped his face, looking into his eyes. “So that’s the promise. No revenge. I don’t care what else you do, love - swordplay or poetry, or -“ She grasped for a third option, shook her head when she couldn’t seem to find one. “Anything but revenge. Promise?”

“Promise, Mummy.” Julian saw her eyes go misty. ST ? It was probably because he’d called her Mummy instead of Renfri. That’s what everyone else called her, and she was fine with him doing it, too. [Also draws less attention than Mummy] But sometimes, when he was scared or when something was important, Mummy meant so much more ? ST

*****

Fuck, but it had been hard without Renfri. It seemed like it would be fine, at first. Renfri had left him with her friend Gina; Gina lived in Oxenfurt; and he kept living with Gina; so it was easy to badger the Academy into accepting him when his interests turned to poetry. (He ignored the pang he felt at the memory of his last promise to his mother.)

Since then...well, he was just glad Gina was an innkeeper and had seen every trick in the book for getting food, some less underhanded than others. He stuffed the bread into his pants - he wasn’t likely to be able to eat here in peace, not with everyone...

Jaskier’s eyes caught on the corner and narrowed. Not everyone. He’d thrown neither bread nor coin. Strange - even people nominally without opinions usually got caught up in the energy of a room. He hopped to his feet, grabbed an ale, and crossed the room. He’d expected it to be a little harder to wheedle a review from the stranger, considering he claimed he was there to drink alone, but he came right out with his opinion once Jaskier sat down across from him. Now Jaskier got a good look at the whole of him, though, besides that stand-out hair. His eyes were golden.

“White hair....big, old loner. Two very -“ Jaskier’s words caught in his throat. The hilt that peeked just barely out of the [bag (technical term?)]. He couldn’t look away from it. “Very,” he managed to find his voice before it could be suspicious. “Scary-looking swords. I know who you are.”

Geralt stood. [second instinct>] STDismay filled Jaskier. That was his mother’s brooch. Seeing it made his heart ache, and he wanted a piece of her - any piece of her - back. He tried to stop him by drawing attention, but it only landed Geralt a job. Well. A job would keep him in Posada long enough to talk, wouldn’t it? So he followed, letting his mouth run wherever it would. He surprised himself a little with the optimism in “death and destiny, heroics and heartbreak”.ST

[first instinct>] Jaskier nearly saw red. The Witcher didn’t get to just walk away with his murdered mother’s brooch. Drawing attention to Geralt didn’t work quite as well as he’d hoped, instead landing him a job. Jaskier hurried after him, not wanting to give him any chance of escape. He let his mouth run as it would, taking a kernel of malicious glee in pointing out the onion scent. Geralt either had a very good poker face or quite thick skin, or both. He surprised himself with the optimistic tone in “death and destiny, heroics and heartbreak”. After all, Geralt had already brought him two of those things directly.

“Ooh, I could be your barker, spreading the tales of Geralt of Rivia, the - the Butcher of Blaviken.” He relished the taste of the title in his mouth. The way it hung in the air was viscerally satisfying. He shouldn’t have gotten caught up in it. It made the fist seem like it came out of nowhere.

He couldn’t catch his breath back. He’d had the wind knocked out of him once before, falling out of a tree. It had seemed like it had taken hours for Renfri to come to him and hold his hand. It was probably barely minutes, if that. The panic stretched time. Long enough for him to remember his promise to Renfri and break his own heart. He’d nearly broken his promise. Over a piece of jewelry - a sentimental improvised weapon, but far from as useful as the daggers he hid on his person.

When he could breathe again, he straightened to find Geralt hadn’t moved far. He seemed to be checking the horse’s reigns, but coincidentally finished just as Jaskier straightened up. Well. That was almost cute. Jaskier dug claws right into a tender title, and Geralt waited to make sure he hadn’t done permanent damage. He suppressed a smile.

“You really do pack a wallop!” He crowed. He regretted it a little, his stomach still aching. “What’s this going to take, two minutes?”

Geralt ignored him, mounting Roach. Jaskier hurried to keep up, still talking.

*****

As he talked, Jaskier realized his mother would’ve disapproved. Home wrecking wasn’t puppy-murder, but it was still something Stregobor might use should he ever find out Julian de Lettenhove was connected to the Black Sun. But there was nothing to be done about it, now. It didn’t technically break his promise, and it did too many wondrous things for his mental health to simply go without.

Jaskier was tired of this semantic argument, and they’d only had it twice before. The first time Jaskier had called Geralt a friend, and the first time he’d called him his best friend. He was all too happy to turn the conversation back to the night’s contract, and years of living at an inn had him snatching away Geralt’s ale with barely a thought. There was work to be done, and drink made everyone slow, even Witchers.

“Yes, yes, yes,” Jaskier dismissed, setting the ale gently on the dresser. “You never get involved. Except you actually do, all of the time.” You got involved in Stegobor’s petty squabble. You killed my mother. But that would bring the mood down and might give Geralt the wrong idea. Real friendship had taken two years for Jaskier to admit to himself, and sometimes hurt still festered, but hate? It had all but vanished at Dol Blathana, listening to Geralt bargain for his life. Listening to him reason with the elves, Jaskier suspected he got a peek into his mother’s last few days. He had to stop thinking about it. He pulled a joke out of his ass and let the conversation carry itself.

He had proven, via scorned lovers past, that he had a resistance to magic. It didn’t skirt away from him, not completely. But it was often less severe. However, a shockwave was a shockwave was a shockwave.

***

A djinn was not a shockwave. And he thanked his mother, and Melitele - even Lillit for that. Because he could feel the djinn on the edge of his senses. Drowned, trapped, shaken, fought over: tired and hellishly angry. He should’ve dropped dead, his throat burst open. But no. There was the taste of copper in his mouth and he could hardly force air in and out, but he was alive. Barely. Because the djinn had underestimated the force it would need. As his head began to spin and he clutched desperately at Geralt, his mind took a few funny turns. Renfri would be disappointed in the wish about Valdo. Not against the letter of the promise, but the spirit - Stregobor could definitely use murder-by-djinn against him. Would Renfri think it was funny if he died in Geralt’s arms, when she had met her end at his hands? And make no mistake, he was dying despite the djinn’s miscalculation: that was Roach’s back. Even after a decade, he still didn’t get to ride Roach unless he broke a leg miles outside town.

[Yenn POV of Jaskier definitely dying and coming back to life; deciding to make it her little secret???]

It was a spring snow, and Jaskier wasn’t dressed for it. He was pleasantly surprised when the puppy eyes he gave Geralt got a non-frowning eye roll. That was about as good as an exasperated laugh from Gina. Shortly afterward, Geralt had found a safe-ish cave, and Jaskier helped him to set up the campfire. Usually Geralt didn’t resort to an Igni to start a fire unless they were both running low on coin for supplies - better to have all his energy at his disposal if something came across them in the night. But the kindling was damp, and Jaskier was shivering. After the fire, Geralt rummaged around on Roach for a moment before producing a blanket to drape around Jaskier’s shoulders. Jaskier smiled at him.

For a while, there was only the sound of the whetstone as Jaskier warmed up. Once he felt a little better, though, out came Filavandrel’s lute. It had become something of a game over the years, to try to make Geralt’s sword-sharpening his metronome. He plucked mindlessly in time to the sound, his eyes only half-focused. Renfri’s brooch caught the light as Geralt worked. Jaskier didn’t even realize what he was playing until Geralt stopped, looking downright alarmed. Well, for him.

“Are you hurt?” Geralt demanded. Jaskier frowned at him. The change in his face meant he felt the tear tracks. Then, he realized what he’d been playing. He clamped his fingers down on the fret board, strangling the notes.

“Fuck. No.” Jaskier wiped roughly at his face. “I...didn’t think I still knew that.” He focused on his instrument.

“Do you...not want to talk about it?” He supposed it made sense for Geralt to be unsettled - he did usually tell Geralt about all his woes. He’d just kept him away from the serious ones, the old ones, so far.

Jaskier swallowed. He unfolded his hand and slowly began to play again. “Little Viscount Dandelion,” he sang. “It’s time to rest your head. Little Viscount Dandelion, it’s time to eat your bread.” He hummed a little. “Little lord, oh little lord.” More humming. “Little Viscount Dandelion, it’s time to comb your hair. Little Viscount Dandelion, it’s time to cut through air.” It was five lines, at best. How was he crying again? Why couldn’t he go on? Renfri had stretched it out as he grew up. The first couplet had been easy. But as she’d wanted him to do more than go to sleep or to eat his dinner without a fuss, rhymes had gotten harder. He’d helped her rhyme them, and she would sing it while he laid down to sleep, or while she combed his hair. Sometimes she would teach him to fight to it. “‘S just a silly kids’ song.” Jaskier said thickly.

“Nothing silly about something that makes you think.” Geralt looked down at his sword, his thumb skimming across the edge of Renfri’s brooch. Jaskier couldn’t stop staring at it now. Geralt must have caught his line of sight. “Even you’ll think less of me if I tell you where this came from.”

“No, I won’t.” He didn’t mean for his voice to be so low, so mournful. And the sincerity had to be confusing.

“I killed the woman it belonged to.”

“In Blaviken?” He was relieved it sounded like a guess. Geralt grunted in grave affirmation.

“It’s from Creyden, I gathered,” Geralt continued.

“Princess Renfri’s.” Please, just let his voice not sound funny to Geralt.

“Not a Princess after what Stregobor[‘s meddling got her stepmother (to do)]did to her.”

“I imagine not,” Jaskier murmured. His hands clenched around his lute. Sometimes he wished his mother hadn’t told him about the man who sired him. But she had never, not even once, held it against him.

“You should sleep, Jaskier. It’s not going to clear up before tomorrow.”

“Okay,” he agreed in a whisper. He rolled out his bedroll and curled up as close to the fire as he dared. If he hummed Renfri’s song and cried himself to sleep, only Geralt and Roach could say so.

***

[mountain? Or just...skip the mountain, cuz it’s overdone and I don’t imagine much changes]

***

ST Jaskier stopped suddenly. Ciri noticed first and tugged Geralt to a stop. Jaskier turned on his heel and retraced several of his steps, stopping in front of a pair of [idle gossipers(?)].

“I’m sorry, couldn’t help but overhear.” He flashed them a quick grin so patently false that be even saw Geralt wince out of the corner of his eyes. “You said Gina of Oxenfurt’s in town?”

“Apparently she knew Jaskier before Toss A Coin. She keeps tryin-a find him, she said.”

“Right, right. Who did you say she’s with?”

“Ffffffrida,” the other one said slowly, far too drunk for so early in the afternoon. “Of Let-something.”

“Lettenhove?”

“Hey, yeah!” They frowned then. “Did you need to talk to them?”

“Would help, yeah.”

“Right. They’re at the market,” the first one declared. The other frowned.

“No. The [otjer place]”

Jaskier’s heart roared in his ears as they fought, and he charged out to go looking himself. Gina wouldn’t let just anyone use Lettenhove - she knew what it had meant to Renfri, the pretend city she’d given him because she could. Jaskier snarled as a hand landed on his shoulder, and he prepared for a fight.

“Which one were you checking?”

“[place]

[Renfri back, bitches. I might prefer this pre-mountain tho idk. Best for Julian’s blood pressure if he finds her first instead s of Geralt finding her.] ST

*****

“Julian.” Jaskier froze. Then he nearly cursed himself out - there would be no denying after-the-fact that the name had anything to do with him. He stood there and clung to the strap of his lute, trying not to lose himself in swirling negativity. He turned, surprisingly controlled. He frowned at seeing it was Borsch.

“I prefer Jaskier.” Well, at least his voice stayed even. He tried to settle himself, putting his arms at his sides.

“Come with me, my boy. Didn’t you tell our companion you’d be getting the rest of the story?” His tone was complicated. He’d obviously noticed Jaskier had no intention of doing anything but going straight down the mountain, but there was a painful gentleness to his request. Jaskier followed just to shed the itch of vulnerability. He could hardly believe what he saw there [in the cave]. At least until he turned to speak to Borsch and fell flat on his arse with an undignified Yelp. Alright, then. Gold dragons. Rarest. That’s how he’d smiled like he knew better than a Witcher.

ST“I sought out the Witcher for a number of reasons. The first being that I have, on occasion, insights into the course of destiny. The second being the way your songs painted him. Destiny showed me a number of paths. And I may have guessed at the wrong one, given the knowledge of what occurred in Blaviken. But I heard your songs, and destiny told me of you. I am relieved I let faith dictate my choice.”

[dialogue I don’t wanna deal with hammering out at work]

[Borsch revealing the Jack Harkness thing “there are some creatures on this Earth who are not slated to meet their makers even should they fall to tooth, claw, or blade.” Etc; mentioning Deidre as an “aunt”, maybe suggesting Eskel assumes she’s dead as well and maybe he should fix that; intro of idea that Renfri would call other girls of the black sun his aunts]ST

STBorch didn’t speak, letting Jaskier stare, his mouth flapping soundlessly.

“You hired Geralt,” he eventually managed.

“Yes.”

“For - protection?” He guessed, face screwing up in a sort of frustrated confusion. ST

“Fuck!” It felt good to swear. It made the loss, the anger, the confusion, and the heartbreak feel less intense.

“The baby does have some understanding of the world, if you don’t mind.” Borch’s voice was terribly mild. Jaskier’s mouth snapped shut - he never was good at keeping it that way for long, though, not that Renfri or her men had ever minded. Gods, that was so long ago, now.

“No one’s called me Julian in thirty years.”

ST“Will you keep your promise to your mother, even now?” Borch asked, softer than Jaskier would’ve believed possible. Jaskier sighed, curling in on himself and covering his face.

“He would deserve it if I broke it.” His voice was dark and angry. A moment later, he curled deeper in on himself. “No, he doesn’t. That bastard.”ST

“With all that’s happened today, I think it is safest if you know something in advance, Viscount Pankratz.” Jaskier looked up furtively, trying to make sure no one heard. When nothing stirred, he fixed his gaze on Borch.

“There are some individuals in this world who are destined not to meet their makers until a god is satisfied with their work here. Wounds that should end them will not stick; substances that shouldn’t be inside them will be expelled one way or another; some days they will wake up and find that wrinkles they had the day before have retreated.” Borch looked at him. Jaskier frowned, a crease forming in his brow. “Many of Lilit’s chosen fall into that category.” The words settled slowly into his mind, his frown deepening.

“Not all of them?”

“Not all. But - some. Including your mother.” Jaskier’s breath hitched. Borch fell silent. It felt like Jaskier’s mind was racing, but he couldn’t have articulated one single thought on his mind. He scrambled to his feet.

“I have to -“ Where before he’d felt lost, his tether of twenty years cut, now he had new purpose. “Thank you. Sorry.”

“You’re very welcome. Take care, Jaskier.”

Jaskier babbled another goodbye as he raced to start back down the mountain.

***

[thing from receipt in work jacket pocket about Valdo discovering Gina isn’t Jaskier’s mother.]

“It’s what bards did at the Academy, make fun of each other,” Marx claimed. “It’s all in good fun, picking at your opponent’s mother. Nobody means what they say.” Geralt stated dubiously at Valdo Marx. Were students really that stupid? “We were at the inn - fairly traditional setting. Everyone knew it was where Jaskier was from, too. The regulars all knew him; Gina roped him into chores on the weekend. I was up first. I’d cultivated my set carefully. Nothing that might actually hurt Gina’s feelings.”

“But you were wrong,” Geralt rumbled. Otherwise, there’d be no story to tell - he’d learned that much from Jaskier.

“Found out when he put a dagger to my throat, and I was the one Gina kicked out over it. Gave me a lifetime ban, but... did me the courtesy of explaining, a few years back. It hadn’t been all that long, in the grand scheme. His mother had gone traveling and never made it back. It was a mistake,” Valdo insisted. “One anyone could make. Glad, in hindsight, that it was me, even if he still holds it against me.”

****

[Deidre and Jaskier meeting]

***

Vesemir was tucked into a shadow on the battlements. He was glad he’d been in the courtyard; inside, the stone might’ve blocked their voices. But he’d been hearing them for a while now, giggly and serious in turns.

“Whose idea was this? All this trouble and they’re not even likely to be home.” The man’s voice had turned from giggles to complaints the closer they drew.

“Mm. Yes. Terrible idea.” The woman sounded terribly amused.

“Fuck you.” His voice was light.

“Language!”

“Oh, fuck off!” He laughed.

“I’ll wash your mouth out with soap. It’s my right as an ‘aunt’.” Laughter, a pause. “How often were you mistaken for siblings?”

“Usually as soon as I opened my mouth and called her by her name instead of, y’know, Mum.”

“Figures.”

“Oh!” The man said after a beat of silence. “Oh, towers! Oh, thank fuck, this mountain is too damn tall.”

[more break in]

They were rather a motley pair as they stood before Vesemir. [Deidre] and the brightly-dressed man who was probably a bard, to be carrying his lute this far.

“Well, you see - sir,” the bard amended. Then he stopped. Frowned. “Where do I even start?”

“Your mother?”

“Bad decision.” He shook his head at her. “Too much, too fast.” He paused again. “Well.... A dragon told me to find my Mum because she didn’t stay dead. But it’s been thirty years and I didn’t know where to look. Ran into Deidre first. Mum always talked about other Black Sun princesses as sisters. I was interested. She heard me out. Have to say, the ‘Witcher’s child surprise’ thing gave me a headache. But when she told me it was a Wolf, well - I knew generally where Kaer Morhen is, and we thought it would be funny if we. Um. Dropped in. Especially since it’s Summer so the consequences are minimal.”

This bard knew too damn much. “Are you Jaskier, then?”

“Ah. I hoped it wasn’t quite so obvious.” Suddenly, tentative hope bloomed behind his eyes. “You’ve heard of me?”

[All Geralt talks about. Other princesses? ~~ Ah yes well no easy way to say this mine is one too. It’s Renfri. No, Geralt doesn’t know. About any of this. And please don’t tell him! well, you’re actually supposed to tell them all Deidre and her nephew came by, to make Eskel sweat, but - hand wring - don’t connect Jaskier and Julian in their heads, if you can avoid it?]

*****

Jaskier had a hand pressed to Roach’s neck as they walked. It was both easier and harder going this way than breaking in. He liked the directness of it, but he hated the cold. Ciri shifted on Roach and leaned down a little to fuss with the cloak Geralt had made him wear.

[Vesemir has found Renfri; reunions, identity confessions, etc...]

***

[hm. To mention all the ammo Stregobor could potentially have against him and then not having a Stregobor plot is about as distracting as an unused rifle on the wall.]

#fanfic #writing #the witcher #the witcher netflix #i have no book knowledge only fic osmosis #messy #but please take pity on me and read it anyway #i'd appreciate it #jaskier #renfri

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wwwafflewrites · 4 years

Text

A Rewrite of History

Chapter 10—Bugs (Part 1)

The Winchesters shoved you in the back seat, handcuffed and tied. You were mostly just thankful they spared you the indignity of a gag. Anyway, you kept your mouth shut. Not like there was any point convincing them of your innocence; they'd see enough proof for a lifetime.

The silence in the car was awkward, like you had impeded on what was usually their time alone. It obviously wasn't your choice, but it still felt like they were blaming you.

Dean had his music playing softly in the background, but that was about it.

So this is how it's gonna be. Fun times.

They were silent the whole way, only finally talking when saw a town up ahead. Night was soon falling.

Dean sighed as he pulled into a bar parking lot. He asked Sam, "You wanna come with?"

Sam shook his head. "Nah. You go. I'll watch her." He proceeded to take out a newspaper and began perusing.

Dean shrugged and went on his way.

You couldn't help but peek over Sam's shoulder. 'Local Death & Medical Mystery' the title read. Looks like the public suspected it was 'Accelerated' Mad Cow disease. You both knew that that was not the case.

Sam got annoyed with you peering over him so he decided to get out of the car and sit on the hood in peace.

"Bugs," you murmured. Literally the worst episode, in your opinion. Then, you realized that the window was open and you fell silent. If Sam had heard it, he didn't react, though.

Nothing was ever resolved in Bugs. They just told them to never come back. And anyone with a brain knew that would never last. Eventually, after a few generations, people would be back at it.

You just prayed they wouldn't leave the car door open or something when the swarm came. Could bugs get into the car? You weren’t sure.

Wait. Hold on—were they just going to drag you around the country with them until they figured out how to kill you? Is that what this was?

Wasn't that just comical.

You'd save the 'I'm human' speech, then. The longer they thought you had something they needed, the longer you could see yourself surviving this. The longer you had to form a plan.

Not that you had much to work with.

///

A little while later, Dean came out of the bar laughing at the wad of money in his hand, waving it at his brother like a little kid.

Sam sighed. "You know, we could get day jobs once in a while."

"Hunting's our day job. And the pay is crap."

True.

"Yeah, but… hustling pool? Credit card scams? Not the most honest thing in the world, Dean," he scolded.

"Well, let's see. Honest…" he lifted his hands like he was weighing the words on a scale. "...fun and easy. It's no contest. Besides, we're good at it. It's what we were raised to do."

Sam was smiling, but he shook his head. "Yeah, well how we were raised was jacked."

"Yeah, says you." Dean started counting his cash. "We got a new gig or what?"

"Maybe." Sam stands. "Oasis Plains, Oklahoma. Not far from here. A gas-company employee. Dustin Burwash supposedly died from Creutzfeldt-Jakob."

Dean paused. "Huh?"

"Mad cow disease," Sam said. You muttered it under your breath along with him, shaking your head.

"Mad cow… wasn't that on Oprah?"

"You watch Oprah?"

You muffled your laugh—quiet enough so they wouldn't hear it through the window. This was the part of them you missed seeing. A side you'd likely never see directed at you, unfortunately.

Dean straightened, like his masculinity was hurt by admitting he's seen Oprah once or twice. "So this guy eats a bad burger. Why is it our kind of thing?"

Sam began explaining. "Mad cow disease causes massive brain degeneration. It takes months, even years, for the damage to appear. But this guy, Dustin? Sounds like his brain disintegrated in about an hour. Maybe less."

"Okay, that's weird," Dean admitted.

"Yeah. Now, it could be a disease. Or it could be something much nastier," Sam said.

"Alright." Dean clapped his hands. "Oklahoma."

You had to get out of here.

///

You refused to sleep on the drive there. It wasn’t far anyway: about three hours. You could tough through it. If you fell asleep they'd see that you were vulnerable—you were human, and you weren't comfortable with them figuring that out yet. Even if you had insisted so many times before.

So you kept your eyes peeled. Regardless of how tired you really were.

Sam seemed perfectly comfortable sleeping. Probably because his brother was right beside him.

You brooded, wondering if they were going to torture you for information on their dad. Information you didn't have.

"Do you even sleep?" Dean asked, breaking your train of thought. You were probably creeping him out.

You let the question settle into silence. It was one in the morning, and you were struggling to stay awake.

"No," you said softly, careful not to wake Sam. This was a conversation for you and Dean alone. If you could convince Dean you weren’t human, then he'd eventually convince Sam. Convincing Dean of your guilt would be a lot easier than convincing Sam, in your opinion.

Despite Sam hating you, he was one smart cookie. Dean was too, but he also often blinded himself with his own stubbornness, and you could use that to your advantage.

Funny, how something you were trying to prevent a few days ago was now the only thing keeping you alive.

As unfortunate as it was, you needed them to believe you were something more than human so they'd figure you had something to offer.

At this point, you honestly weren’t sure what side you were on anymore.

It was probably more 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' kind of thing. The Winchesters just didn't know it yet.

Dean narrowed his eyes. "So what can you do?"

You took your shot. "I can tell you that Dustin definitely didn't have Mad Cow Disease," you said, twiddling your thumbs, which just barely jingled your handcuffs.

He gave you a dubious look through the rearview mirror. Does he ever watch the road? "What killed him, then?"

"Bugs," you said easily.

Dean scoffed, but you can feel yourself smiling. This was going to work—it would just take a little time.

///

The Winchesters still visited the gas company to confirm that Dustin never had Mad Cow Disease. You bit back your I-told-you-so when Dean came back grumbling.

They left you alone, again, when they arrived at the construction site. At this point, your legs were cramped, your arms sore, and your wrists rubbed raw; maybe later you'd ask them to loosen the handcuffs.

Maybe.

Though you had a feeling Dean would just tighten them.

When Sam came back with a dead beetle in hand, you felt a smugness play on your lips. You couldn't help the little grin. "What's up?" you said smoothly. You were getting a lot more comfortable with them, maybe because they weren't set on killing you just yet.

There was tension as Dean drove, like they were deciding whether to even consider your opinion or not. Then, Dean swiveled around in his seat, and stared you dead in the eye. "How did you know?” he demanded.

You dared to raise a cocky eyebrow at him. “Lucky guess."

Dean looked ready to punch you in the face, but Sam redirected his attention by grabbing his shoulder to point out the sign saying 'Open House: BBQ'.

Dean was silently fuming.

Amused, you couldn’t help but add, "Oh, just so you're aware, they accept homeowners of any race, religion, color, or…" You smirked. "Sexual orientation."

Dean slugged you in the jaw, and your vision greyed. Frick—

///

When you came to, the Winchesters were gone and you were drooling against the upholstery. So much for convincing him you didn’t sleep.

Once again, they had left you helpless—waiting in the Impala as they worked the case. As a current hostage of the Winchesters, you were surprised by the lack of torture, and endless waiting that you had to endure.

You lazily watched as a red minivan pulled up in front of the Impala, probably to join the barbecue. "Don't mind me," you sighed, "just a hostage waiting in the car while you go to a party. No biggie." The guy looked stiff and awkward. Almost robotic. Weird.

You shrugged it off.

Anyway, in your book, that was sometimes worse than torture.

You probably shouldn't be as shocked as you were that you weren’t getting tortured. Neither of these boys had even endured death yet. Dean hadn't gone to Hell…

If Crowley had been here, he would have agreed with you. Nobody likes waiting. Though, he was probably off scamming some poor, naive people of their souls right about now.

Demons confused you.

Speaking of… did the Minivan Guy's eyes just turn black?

You stiffened. You pulled at your cuffs. "See," you hissed to yourself, "this is why you shouldn't leave me sitting in the car, Winchesters. This is exactly why—"

The man—the demon—approached the car, and you cowered as far back into the seat as you could. But no matter how you positioned yourself, there was no hiding.

Damn—he was a big guy, too. You probably couldn't stand a chance against this guy if he was a human, let alone a demon. He was almost bigger than Sam Winchester. Not taller, just... burlier. Meaner looking.

And as much as you hated to be a hostage of the Winchesters, the demons were not a better option. Whatever they had planned, you confident you wouldn't like it.

You cursed to yourself. "If anyone's listening, I lied earlier; torture is so much worse than waiting in the car all the time. I was freaking joking!" You desperately tried to open the door, but it was locked. "I swear this universe has it out for me!"

The demon was coming straight for you. Your car was gone, as was your angel blade. And… he had a brand on his arm that looked like a cancel sign. It was a binding tattoo. So exorcisms were out of the picture—so they knew your go-to, now. And they knew you were defenseless otherwise.

Your only hope was the angels, but they definitely weren't interested.

When the demon brought up his fist, you covered your face, bracing for the inevitable.

The window spat glass when he punched it. A hand reached through and grabbed for the chains of your handcuffs. When you pulled away, he socked you in your bruised face.

The demon snatched your handcuffs. You leaned away, but it was useless. If a demon could casually open an airplane's emergency exit, it wasn't going to have any trouble uprooting you from your seat.

And with that, he wrenched you through the broken window like a whip, resulting in your head slamming into hard concrete, and glass cutting into your exposed skin.

Ow.

How was nobody seeing this?! Sure, mostly empty neighborhood, but sheesh. They were having barbecue while you got your brains knocked out on their driveway.

You wheezed on the pavement, blinking up at the Impala's broken window. The Winchesters going to think I did that, aren't they? Always my fault…

Unless you left signs of struggle.

There was already some blood on the sidewalk, but that could be dismissed. No, you needed to leave an alarming amount. And the demon could give that to you.

With what small amount of strength you had left, you pulled your arms toward your chest, and bit down on the demon's arm. You spat the blood on the ground, and his arm left puddles behind him.

The demon laughed in his deep, demonic voice, but you struggled to hear him over the ringing in your eardrums. "You think that will harm me? And you call yourself a hunter."

Who ever said I was a hunter? Survivor, maybe, but never a hunter. Hunters are supposed to be brave.

And I am not brave.

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linkspooky · 4 years

Text

Nobara and Gojou

Nobara and Gojou have suffered similiar defeats in the Shibuya Incident Arc. They both lost, despite being clearly stronger than their opponent. Every single one of the main trio (Nobara, Megumi, Yuji) parallels a member of the flashback arc’s trio in some way (Gojou, Shouko, Getou), but while Nobara’s most obvious parallel may seem to be Shouko I would also argue she parallels Gojou quite a bit. Both Gojou and Nobara are characters that focus on individualism and duty above all else, in ways that Megumi, and Yuji don’t. Nobara parallels Gojou in the worst ways, she shares all of his flaws.

1. Strength Isn’t Everything.

Jujutsu Kaisen has always been a manga about nuance and balance. There’s more than one way to skin a cat (or exercise a curse). Which is why we’ve seen the story introduce two seemingly opposing ideas. Number one, we don’t live in a world where you win just by being strong. Number two, you can’t close a gap in strength through petty tricks alone.

These ideas seemingly contradict one another. The second establishes that if there’s an absolute difference in strength then strategy won’t even matter. The first establishes that strength isn’t that you can’t win a fight just by being strong. However these ideas are not opposites, they’re complementary. What they suggest is that the world is a complex place, and there’s no way one single strategy will win every possible fight. There are times when strength wins the fight, there are times when strategy is the way to go. The solution isn’t to favor one or the other, but rather to find the balance between the two.

Before Nobara gets into her fight we’re shown a fight where Megumi has the starring role. The world view of the shaman Megumi is fighting against is important for this.

The shaman that Megumi fights has a world view of “being strong makes me free to do whatever I want.” He believes strength to be permissive. Being strong means being competent enough to accomplish whatever you want, in any situation.

If you want to do something, and you have the ability to do it, you should be abel to do it. That’s why it’s permissive. Strength grants permission. Getou brings up the idea in Premature Death. Gojou technically has the ability to slaughter every single human that’s not a shaman on the face of the earth. If he’s able to do it, then why can he tell Getou that it’s impossible? If the world really were as simple as Getou suggested it to be, then being strong really would be enough. Gojou would be capable of doing anything, like some kind of god.

However, even the shaman’s own cursed technique reverses this idea of strength. Attacks that are strong around him become weak, whereas weak counters become strong. There is no idea of absolute strength. No person is going to be strong in every circumstance all the time.

That shaman is beaten not by Megumi’s decision to face his head on, but rather by his choice to make a tactical retreat and rethink the situation after figuring out his cursed technique. Strength is not the absolute decider of everything. More than that, Megumi and Yuji were both choosing to cooperate with one another, even though cooperation was harder for both of them at this point.

They both admit the hardest part of the fight isn’t even fighting against an enemy. That it would be easier if they were just strong enough to fight everything individually on their own, however, the fight is won by Yuji listening to Megumi, and Megumi choosing cooperation.

This is also the exact opposite advice that Gojou gave Megumi. Megumi’s tendency is to sacrifice himself, and defer to others because he has no confidence in himself and his own individual strength. However, once again this reflects the complex nature of reality there’s no advice that applies to every single situation in the world. Gojou’s advice won the fight in Origin of Obedience, but if Megumi fought like Gojou did he would have lost this arc.

We see Maki, and Nobara who are both characters who parallel strongly to Gojou and think they are people who can accomplish everything they want with the power of individual strength, make several critical mistakes. First, Maki doesn’t even consider the possibility Gojou could have lost. Because, Maki’s world view is the same as Gojou’s, the stronger opponent should always win. Maki is a character trying to overcome her family circumstances just by becoming the strongest possible shaman she can be to prove them wrong.

Nobara makes a similiar mistake to Maki. We see her lose the fight because of the absolute confidence she has in her own strength, that she can win every situation by being strong enough to fight on her own.

Rather than keeping the person she wants to protect close to her, Nobara sends her away so she can fight on her own. She assumes the weaker person will only get in her way and is safer farther away from the battle. Which is also literally the premise of Gojou’s entire fight in the subway, he goes in alone because he assumes that any other jujutsu sorcerer would only get in the way, just like the innocent civillians were there solely existing to get in the way of his techniques.

Nobara gets arrogant and refuses to analyze the other person’s jujutsu techniques and gets critically wounded. At which point we see Nobara run against the flaw of her own world view. That if she can only accomplish things with strength, then the situations where she’s weak she’s completely helpless. Nobody is strong all the time, and if she’s weak then there’s nothing she can do. If everything is decided by strength than the weak have no choice.

2. Nobara and Gojou, Broken in the Same Way

During Nobara’s introduction chapter Gojou says that Shaman’s have to possess a sort of craziness, to jump into battle risking life and limb like it’s nothing at all.

While Yuji feels absolutely nothing putting his life at risk to an almost suicidal degree, I would say Nobara is the one who’s actually the closest to what Gojou describes. Just like Gojou she has the single-mindedness to believe that is she’s strong enough that she should be capable of anything.

Nobara and Gojou assert their individualism over everything else. They don’t bend to the world, they bend the world to the way they want it. Yuji’s strong and confident in a similiar way but he always puts the wants and desires of others over himself in every situation, but Nobara is always about what she wants first and foremost. However, there are two parts to Nobara and Gojou’s world view it’s not just about strength, but also about duty. Gojou and Nobara are extremely selfish people but that doesn’t mean they don’t care about others. They see their absolute strength as an obligation to use it to protect others.

If the situation is to go all out and kill the enemy, or save the life of a person right in front of them they’ll always make the choice that spares the innocent life. They are strong, but their strength is duty bound, it’s something they tend to use for others rather than themselves. Even in Nobara’s choice to send away the aide that was with her, she was using herself as a distraction so she could get away safely. They’re selfish people, but they don’t necessarily put themselves, and their well beings over others.

Gojou is technically able to get out of the Shibuya situation is he just massacres every human on the inside of the curtain, but he’d never make that choice. So we have Nobara and Gojou caught between the same rock and a hard place. They can’t sacrifice others, but they can’t cooperate with them either. For Gojou and Nobara the most important thing is their own individualism and their world view.

What Nobara hates is being told she’s wrong in any way. She views her world view as absolute. What she refuses to do is revise her opinions. She can’t be wrong. She cannot accept the fact that other people might have views that contradict hers, and that multiple points of view besides her own can coexist at the same time.

If you look at the way Nobara judges the difference between Maki and Mai. She accepts Maki because Maki is more similiar to her and she likes Maki, and refuses to accept Mai because she doesn’t really like Mai. If she doesn’t like Mai than she doesn’t even want to bother thinking about her world view. It’s a narrow minded and flawed way of thinking. Gojou and Nobara tend to push other people away from them for two reasons, one they believe they can accomplish everything they want to do alone because they have such absolute confidence in themselves, and two they think they already see everything. Gojou assumes so because he has the six eyes and perceives the infinity, and Nobara because she thinks she’s smarter than the judgemental country people she was raised around.

Gojou and Nobara lose in a similiar way. If it’s a contest of sheer strength they’ll never lose. Gojou pulls off a miracle and activates his territory for mere seconds, and slaughters thousands of curses at once. Nobara is so crazy, she wins a game of chicken against a literal demon and is completely willing to light herself on fire and let herself burn if her opponent burns with her. They don’t lose because they’re weaker than their opponents. They both get surprised by what they didn’t know. They specifically didn’t know it because Gojou, and Nobara already assumed they knew everything.

Gojou is blindsided by the fact that Getou’s body still exists in some form and because of that his brain completely stalls in a critical moment. Nobara loses because she doesn’t really understand the cursed technique of the person she’s fighting against so even though it might be weaker than hers she’s still overcome.

Gojou and Nobara are both people who assume they should be able to accomplish anything with their own strength. They both have inhuman levels of strength and determination. Which is why we see they’re similiar even down to the way they move their bodies, they act and move like inhuman puppets when pushed to their absolute limits. Hunched shoulders, stiff zombie like movements, it’s a clear parallel.

If everything in the world really was decided by strength and determination than Gojou and Nobara would never lose. Neither of them are lacking in strength, or their determination to help others. But as Gojou says towards the beginning of the manga he has the ability to just murder all the higher ups in the Jujutsu world but that won’t really change anything. Gojou and Nobara are both fundamentally unable to accept other people, and are always distancing themselves from others and trying to fight on their own. That’s why for both of them, it’s not enough for Nobara, or Gojou alone to be strong.

#kugisaki nobara #gojou satoru #jujutsu kaisen #jjk meta #meta #jujutsu kaisen meta #jujutsu kaisen theory

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padfootagain · 4 years

Text

Girl Crush (XXII)

Chapter 22: A Changing Protea

Hello!!! Here we go again!! A new chapter for my little cute fic!

There will most likely not be any updates for the next few days because I'm participating to an event, and have to write for it. But I'll be back as soon as the event is over! We'll see if I have time to write for both this story and the event!

I hope you like this new chapter!

Word Count: 2296

This was the one.

You could feel it.

Every single fibre of your being screamed at you that this shop was made for you.

Just looking around, you could imagine where you would put your stalls, and a table in the centre with bouquets. There was a garden too, where you could add some more plants, and who knows, maybe even a table and some coffee.

The building needed some minor renovations but nothing that seemed unfeasible to you. A little bit of paint, and you would need to change the hideous floor. But there were large windows, and you were overwhelmed by a feeling, overall, that screamed that you were home. You had been walking around the large space for the past fifteen minutes, and you felt like you belonged there already.

After four months of search, this was the first time that something like this happened, and you had visited dozens of abandoned shops already. Besides, it was rather close to the coast, and in a cute neighbourhood. You had checked and found no competition for several blocks around. You would be the only flower shop owner in this part of town.

It was perfect.

"I'm going to need an answer super quickly for this one though," the real estate agent told you, checking that no dust from the room had come to rest on her squirt. "It's going to go super fast. Like... probably today. We've already had an offer that was refused last week."

You nodded.

"I'd like to ask a friend of mine who knows more about me about renovations and stuff like that. Can I ask him to come?"

"Sure. But hurry up."

You nodded, calling Gareth quickly. After all, he was an architect, specialized in renovations. He was the man for the job. You had no doubt that he would advise you wisely. You also called Jas and Harry asking them to drop by as soon as they could to have their point of view on the place.

Jasmine adored repairing things and building all kinds of furniture. She had worked a lot on the renovation of her sister's house, so when she arrived, she spotted many little things you hadn't seen before. A few defects that you hadn't even thought about checking. The sink in the back room was leaking and the whole thing would need to be replaced. She wasn't sure about a part of the electric system either. She took measurements, and you weighed together the pros and cons, until Harry arrived as well and joined in the conversation. He fell in love with the garden and the tall laurel hedge. He was already planning how you could set a table there and, why not, on the long run, serve coffee there to your clients, or give classes to plant-lovers. He could imagine you, hands deep in the earth, surrounded by a group of students learning how to take care of their plants.

Finally, it was Gareth's turn to arrive. He walked around the space, rather unimpressed. He asked question to the estate agent, and inspected details... you weren't even sure what exactly they were.

"It's not too much work, but you won't be able to open right after you buy the place. Are you sure it's big enough though?" your boyfriend, still seeming rather jaded

"At the beginning I'll be on my own, and even later on, I don't want a big shop. I want a little, warm establishment."

"Hmm... You'd have no space to expand..."

"I don't want to expand. I just want one little shop."

"You'll have to replace a part of the electric system in the backroom, that's what's gonna cost you the most I reckon."

"Yeah, Jas told me."

"It's not in the best shape. And it's not big enough for you to expand over the years."

"It's the place," you shook your head, your eyes shining with excitement.

"Are you listening at least?"

"Yes, I am. Do you think it's gonna be in my budget?"

But Gareth shook his head.

"Not with the renovations. You'll need professionals, and it's gonna be expensive."

"Professionals? We can't do this ourselves?"

"Of course not."

"Of course, yes!" Jasmine interrupted your conversation. "Nothing I haven't done for my sister. Don't worry. Plus, my brother-in-law is an electrician, he'll do it all for free. You'll just have to buy what he needs to work, but you won't have to pay him. You're family."

"Awesome!" you grinned.

But Gareth shook his head.

"You should ask a firm to help with the renovations."

"Why? I have you! You're my architect! Jasmine is amazing and can repair anything, she'll be our handywoman. And Harry... Can carry things around."

Your best friend rolled his eyes.

"I also happen to have no real job, which can come in handy if you need me," he reminded you, and you nodded enthusiastically.

"We have another handyman who will work 24/7 if need be," you corrected yourself pointing at Harry.

"Well... 24/7... maybe not... I have another album to write..." Harry complained, but you were already focusing back on your boyfriend.

"See! We have a dream team!"

"That's not enough, you'll need months to finish the renovations."

"I'm not in a hurry, I still have a job."

"Look, you're asking for my advice. And I wouldn't advise it. It's too risky, too much work, and not big enough to be used on the long run."

You slowly nodded, doubt settling in your mind, even though you knew that with the help of your friends and some patience, you could turn this place into the perfect shop for you. You didn't want a big shop, it wasn't in the plans at all. And if one day you changed your mind, you could still try to move your business somewhere else. It wasn't perfect, you acknowledged that fact, but it felt right, and it was by far the best place you had visited until now.

You turned to your two closest friends, these two people who knew you better than anyone else.

"What do you think I should do?"

Harry and Jasmine exchanged a glance, but nodded in silent agreement.

"I haven't seen you this exciting about anything since this new encyclopaedia about water lilies came out," Harry smiled. "The place feels right, and you obviously love it. So... I think that you should go for it."

"Really?"

Jasmine nodded, a reassuring smile on her lips.

"We'll help you out. We'll work on the renovations so you can save up some money. It should be alright then."

"Really? You'll do it?"

Harry let out a chuckle, shaking his head and crossing his arms before his chest.

"Are you really asking us that? Of course we'll help. That's what friends are made for."

"Do it," Jasmine nodded. "It's perfect for you, I can tell. Do it."

You took a long, deep breath, and nodded.

"Okay. I'm doing it!"

Behind you, Gareth was frowning hard.

"I'm the only professional here, and I'm the one you don't listen to at all?"

But your decision was taken.

"It's the right thing to do. I can feel it. I'm doing it."

"I'm an architect..."

"It's the right shop, Gareth. It is."

"Look, it's all the money you've saved, it's a very long loan to pay back to the bank too. You can't just take this decision like that, without thinking."

"It's not done without thinking..."

"It is. You're doing it on an impulse."

"It just... It feels right."

He blinked at you.

"It's not a decision to take based on feelings."

"It's both. It's a decision that I have to take with both my head and my heart. My heart tells me it's the right shop. And my head tells me we're good to go with a little help from my friends and a little patience."

Gareth shook his head.

"I don't agree. We're not doing this."

You narrowed your eyes at him, and he read in your expression that he had said the wrong words.

"It's my shop, Gareth. Not ours. The decision is mine to take, not yours."

"We're a couple, Y/N."

"Yeah, we're a couple. And I am an independent woman, in case you hadn't noticed."

He rolled his eyes.

"That is not what I meant, and you know it. I'm just saying that it's normal to take this kind of decisions together, babe."

"No, it's not. I do ask for your opinion. But the decision is mine to take. It's my shop that I'm gonna buy with my money. And I'm gonna do it."

All the paperwork for your bank was done, you only had a few days to wait for the final agreement to be accepted, and then you would be the owner of your own shop.

The idea was still crazy to you. It didn't feel real, no matter for how long you stared at the papers you had signed the day before. Your bank's final approval was the last step to take before you would receive the keys to your own business.

You had dreamt about it for as long as you could remember. It ran in your veins, it was a part of you. You had been saving money for it ever since your first job at that café down the street where you lived as a teenager. It would take a lifetime, almost, to pay back the loan you needed to finalize your acquisition. Nevertheless, you were almost there.

"Daydreaming?" Gareth asked, wrapping his arms around you from behind in a tender hold, kissing your cheek.

You nodded, realizing that you hadn't finished to cut the zucchini before you as you prepared dinner.

"Were you saying something?" you asked, your tone still distracted.

"No, you just looked cute lost in thought like this."

"Hmm..."

"You know, I'm very proud of you for opening your shop."

"It's not opened yet. I still need to get the loan. And make all the renovations."

"The banker said it wouldn't be a problem."

"You never know with those things."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. Besides, you'll need the money for the renovations too."

You heaved a sigh.

"I know..."

He gently held your hands and motioned you to turn around to face him, taking the knife away from you and putting it down on the kitchen counter.

"About the other day, during the visit... you know I support you, right? I just... I just don't want you to take a bad decision and find yourself in trouble. So many people end up bankrupt because they tried to open their own business..."

"I know you didn't mean any harm. It's okay. You were just being... cautious."

"Exactly."

"But I won't get anywhere if I'm not a little reckless once in a while."

He heaved a sigh, playing with your fingers.

"I guess... I don't know. That's not really how I see things."

"I know. I understand."

"I am here for you, though. Even if I think that this decision was a risk, I'll help you any way I can."

"I know you will."

"We're a team, right?"

You chuckled, wrapping your arms around your boyfriend's neck.

"Yeah... we're a team."

"And well... you know... you visiting all these places... It made me think."

"About what?"

"Us. And our future. And... the fact that we've been together for more than year, and I love you."

A smile formed on your lips at the sound of his feelings.

"I love you too."

"Good... because I... I think we should move in together."

Your eyes opened wide.

"Really?"

"Why not? I want to spend as much time as I can with you. We could... look for our own place."

"I like my apartment..." you breathed, your eyes wandering across the familiar kitchen, in the place you had learnt to call home.

"Don't you think it would be nice to be together more? Besides... I feel like we should take the next step. I'm ready for it. Are you ready for that too?"

He waited for your answer, but your mind was too busy trying to process his words.

Moving in with him? Wow... that was... a step...

You would have to look for a new place, because both your apartments were too little to bring the other's stuff in. That would take so much of your time and your energy, when you already had your shop to worry about now, and you were still working full time at Mary's, and...

... and were you ready at all?

"I'll have so much to worry about with the shop," you absentmindedly mumbled.

"I know, but I can take the time to look for places, just check with you if there's somewhere I like. It'll save you lots of time, and you can work on your shop while I do that."

Why were you hesitating so much? Everything was going smoothly with Gareth, and you loved him and he loved you, and he was right about the fact that you had been together for a while and should be taking the next step now.

Yet, you doubted it all. Why though, when all the logic in your brain told you that you should say yes?

It made sense. You supposed that you were tired and stressed out by your new adventure with your shop, and were being silly.

"If you can spare the time to look for a place without me, then... okay. We should do that."

Gareth broke into a grin.

"Really?"

"Yeah. I'd love that."

He crushed his lips against you, kissing you deep and passionate and almost grateful.

It was a logical thing to do, you were taking the right decision. At least, your brain told you so.

**********************************************

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