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laurie-stark · 3 years

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Get up and get out

Summary: Sort of part two to Unwanted. A year after fighting in Germany, y/n has to deal with the insufferable Peter Parker being around the house all the time.

Pairings: Peter Parker x stark!reader, tony stark x daughter!reader, Natasha Romanoff x daughter!reader.

Warnings: swearing, angst? i guess? mentions of blood. mentions of panic nightmares

A/N: Again, I want to make it very clear so there isn’t any confusion: Y/n is Tony’s biological child, however, being raised also by Natasha, Steve and Pepper, she calls them Muma, Pops and Mom. Hopefully that makes sense LOL oh and also i’ve never written like...kiss scenes before so just go with it okay?

He was here again. Third time this week that he has come barging into my home and taken over my training center. Okay, to be fair, it was not my training center but still. Peter Parker will never stop being a pain in my ass. Ever since that stupid trip to Germany, he has been coming over and training for hours, or working with Dad. Three times just this week I’ve had to endure listening to Peter talk with his stupid little voice and walk around my house like he owns the place. Who does he think he is? And every time I have to sit through another dinner of Dad blabbing on and on about what a miraculous boy he is.

“Really y/n, I think you two would be great friends,” I rolled my eyes as I picked at my dinner. The rest of the family ate in silence around the table. The last thing I wanted to do is spend more time with stupid Spider-boy. On the afternoons when he was here, I tried my best to stay out of his way. I would stay on my floor and he stays on his. Simple. I don’t need a new friend.

“…And he’s coming by again tomorrow, so I was thinking of showing him A.P.R.I.L. if you wanted to join us-” Dad continued.

What the hell? I thought. “No!” I snapped. “No way. A.P.R.I.L. is mine, I don’t want him messing with her.” Dad frowned at me. The rest of the table looked up in my direction. My shoulders tensed up as I faced my father. A.P.R.I.L. is my baby and I was ready to go toe to toe with him if I needed too.

“What do you mean no? I thought you’d be excited to share that with him,” he started.

“Well I’m not, so back off,” I sneered. The shift in his expression made me want to bite my own tongue. “Please.”

“I seriously do not understand what your problem is. You’ve been complaining for years how there’s only adults but the second a kid your age comes by you’re all “oooh no don’t talk to me Peter!””

I scoffed. “Sorry, I guess I just don’t want to bother you and your new best friend.”

“There it is. Why are you so jealous of him? He’s not that cool. He hasn’t made a fully functioning A.I at the age of 15. He just spits sticky stuff out of his fingers. Honestly y/n, you’re making zero sense right now.”

“Whatever, I’m over this,” I said, pushing my chair back from the table. I grabbed my untouched dinner plate and headed towards the kitchen. “I’m not hungry. And don’t show him A.P.R.I.L., I mean it!” I dumped my plate in the sink and marched right down the hall towards the elevators. My dad was right. I wasn’t making any sense. Ever since I made A.P.R.I.L I’ve used every excuse I could find to shove her down people’s throats. Anyone who would listen to me, I would tell them. Tell them all about how I programmed her to have realistic personality. How she’s running through the walls of this place, through my room, even inside the bracelet I never take off. All I knew is that I didn’t want Peter Parker anywhere near her.

I shut the door to my hard, and flopped onto my bed. A.P.R.I.L. reminded me that slamming the doors usually results in a punishment. I acknowledged her with a half-hearted grunt. I started programming A.P.R.I.L. when I was thirteen. Or rather, reprogrammed. A.P.R.I.L. was made from an older prototype version of F.R.I.D.A.Y. The base stuff was already there, I just moved some things here, recoded there until she was perfect. I don’t know why I got so defensive about Peter meeting her. Or why I had to pick another fight with my dad.

It was easier these days. To fight him, I mean. I suppose I never got over the whole “Peter is better, I choose him over you, blah, blah” thing as much as I thought I did. So, I would pick fights. Fighting over Peter was the simplest way to go, considering he was the reason I was so angry in the first place. Sometimes we would fight over him, other times we would fight over silly things. Like how I keep forgetting not to put my coffee grounds in the garbage disposal. Most of the time it was all just bickering that would blow over in thirty minutes, give or take. Sometimes it was explosive, like today. I took in a shaky breath and sprawled out across my sheets. Sometimes this family is a fucking nightmare.

Dad didn’t come by this time. It threw me off for a second because he always comes by. Even if it’s six hours later and neither of us should be awake, he still comes by with a box of milk duds that we share in silence before one of us apologizes first. That’s how we work. When it finally sunk in that he was not planning on coming, I put A.P.R.I.L. on the job. I figured perhaps he left the compound, maybe took Mom for a nighttime stroll.

“Your father is on floor B, Miss Stark,” A.P.R.I.L. informed me.

“Jesus A.P.R.I.L., how many times have I said to cut the formalities,” I muttered.

“My apologies, y/n.”

Floor B. What the hell is he doing on floor B at…12:00 in the morning? Floor B is strictly for members of household and other Avengers. There are a billion different training rooms down there. Weight rooms, boxing, a huge pool, stuff like that. Not to taint his image, but I can safely say the last time my father willingly worked out for fun was probably before I was even born. Why was he down there? Unless…

“A.P.R.I.L. who else is on floor B right now?” I asked. “Throw it on the hologram, would you dear?

The sounds of the hologram starting filled the room. A.P.R.I.L. pulled up the security map of floor B, like I’d asked. There was my dad, floor B in the boxing room of all places. Pops and Sam looked to be going at it in another one of the combat training rooms. My confusion only rose when another nametag popped up on the screen. My brows furrowed.

Peter Parker

What was he doing here? Why was he boxing? Why was he not in his own home at midnight on a Thursday? My mind was spinning with questions. A knock at my door startled me.

“Come in…”

Natasha popped her head through the doorway. “Hey there…whatcha doing kid?”

I swiftly swiped away the hologram screen and sat up straight. “Nothing. What’s up?”

“Well, we’re getting a little worried about you,” she said. We being everyone else at the table who had to witness my brawl with Dad. She sat down beside me. “You haven’t fought back like that in a long time and I’ve noticed you’re fighting with him a lot recently. You want to tell me what that’s all about?”

I wanted too. God, I wanted too. I hadn’t told anyone what my father said to me that day after the airport, not even my mom. But it didn’t matter. I’d get over it sooner or later, so there was no point troubling anyone else with my problems…right? My eyes started to well up but I blinked away the tears. “No. Everything’s fine,” I put on a smile.

Natasha tucked me in under her arm. “Okay then. Maybe tomorrow.” That was Muma for you. She never pushed me to talk but knew I would come around at some point. In the meantime, she just held me. I cried into her embrace. She let me cry into her shoulder for a long while, until I was empty. After a time, I let go and she got up, giving me a kiss on the head before wishing me a good night.

I rubbed my hands over my face, brushing off any remaining tears. “A.P.R.I.L. bring the hologram back up please.”

“Are you sure y/n?”

…

“Yeah.”

Peter was still in the boxing room but my father was not. Upon further digging, I found the nametag reading Tony Stark on my floor. He’d gone to bed. I pondered to myself as to whether or not I should venture downstairs. What is the worst thing that could happen? Peter is secretly a Hydra spy and kills me? No, I shook my head. Don’t be ridiculous. Another minute passed and I’d made up my mind.

“A.P.R.I.L. engage “I am definitely here”,” I commanded.

“”I am definitely here” protocol engaged. Volume minimized to 5% and your tracking tag will be pinned to this room,” A.P.R.I.L. responded. “Good luck on your mission small agent.”

“Oh shut up,” I chided. I closed the door to my room as softly as I could. It was nearly one in the morning, most of the hall would be asleep. Or at least they should be. The hallway was silent, except for the soft noise of my socks padding along the floor. I cursed myself for looking so ridiculous. If anyone caught me, I could easily say that I was just getting a midnight snack. Not sneaking down to spy on Spider-bitch. Boy. Whatever. Sneaking added to the excitement.

I made it downstairs all in one piece. Steve and Sam nearly passed me in one of the halls, but I had ducked into a briefing room. I could totally be a spy. Maybe I’m a Hydra spy. I thought. And they sent me here as a baby to take down the Avengers from the inside. What was I going on about? This was why I should really be in bed, I was clearly delirious. Once again, distracting myself in my thoughts led to me getting startled. I hadn’t even realized I was outside the boxing room. I would have walked right in if not for the handy wall that I smacked into.

Peter was in the ring, practicing his punches. He’d lowered down one of the punching bags from the ceiling and it was close to ripping at the seams. He was really going ham on it. The questions piled on. So, he came over to my house at midnight to…train? Something he had all afternoon today to do? God, he was weird. I suppose I didn’t quite know what I was going to get myself into when I finally walked in to confront him.

“What are you doing?” I asked, arms folded tightly across my chest.

Peter started and looked down at me. Sweat was dripping down his face. He looked exhausted. “Training,” he said bluntly. He returned to treating the punching bag like it had run over his dog.

“At one in the morning? And after you spent like six hours today doing just that?” I was not letting him off that easy. Peter ignored me and continued punching. “Your form is shit.” I mocked.

That made him stop. “Funny coming from the girl who never leaves her room. When have you ever trained? Like ever?”

“I still beat your ass.”

“Yeah like, a year ago when I was barely an avenger.”

I rolled my eyes. “You still aren’t.”

“What do you want?” Peter spat.

I shrugged. “Dunno.” I stared him down with a smug look on my face.

“You are always such a bitch, you know that?”

I faked a pout. “Aw…bite me.”

Peter was chewing the inside of his cheek in anger. “If you’re going to stay here and pester me, you might as well get a few punches in.”

“And why would I do that?”

“Consider it a rematch.”

I studied his physique for a moment. He’d grown a lot since Germany. He’d also trained a lot since then as well. I had done little of either. I knew that entering that ring would probably end up with me losing my dignity and maybe even a tooth. But I was not going to let him stand there with his stupid, sweaty face and get away with it. This is not a good idea, I thought as I took off my socks. I moved the ropes and stepped into the ring, standing a foot in front of the boy.

“I’ll still win.”

“No powers either.”

“Deal.” Not like I’ve touched my powers since…since the incident.

Peter took his stance and I did my best to mirror him. I realized in that moment that I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t know the first thing about boxing. Or sparring. I didn’t know how to fight without my powers. Oh, sweet Jesus.

We kept our distance at first, fists up. He threw a few punches and missed. I followed in suit. I finally got the first hit, a nice throw to his chest. He took it like a champ and didn’t flinch. Or rather, I couldn’t hit for shit and it didn’t hurt. He threw a punch to my left, only to miss on purpose and punched me square across my jaw. Ow. I chuckled lowly. The taste of blood filled my mouth from the fresh cut on my lip. I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth. All I could see was white rage.

Forget form, forget rules, forget everything. I lunged at him with everything I had. Lunged at him for all the bullshit he had brought into my life. For all the bitter things I had to hear my father say that weren’t even Peter’s fault. He was clearly not expecting my attack because we both fell to the ground. We fought tirelessly on the mat. He was physically stronger than me, so by default he was winning. He wrestled me until I was pinned under him. One hand was pinning my hand above my head, the other arm pinning down my body. In any other circumstances I would be amused to find myself in such a scandal. I looked in his eyes briefly and I could already tell he thought that he was winning. If there’s one thing I learned from Nat, it’s to always step on their moment. I hooked my leg around his knee and used all my force to flip us over. I had him pinned down now, my hair falling around my face. We were both breathing heavily.

“Told you,” I taunted. I was mentally preparing him to punch back but he didn’t. He snapped his arms out from under me and shoved me off him, hard. I fell back against the mat. He rose to his feet, brushing his hands off on his pants. “What the hell?” I exclaimed. I jumped to my feet while his back was turned to me and gave him a taste of his own medicine. He stumbled a few steps after I pushed him. Slowly, he stretched back up to reach his full height.

“You’re right,” he turned to face me and extended a hand. “Shake on the truce?” I took his hand, accepting his surrender. Only, he was not really surrendering. The moment my hand touched his, he yanked me towards him. I tripped over my feet and fell into him. My chest crashed onto his. The world was a blur as he grabbed me with force and spun us around, so he could push me up against the ropes of the ring.

“Stop, Peter get off me you bitch!” I fought back. I flailed my whole body around, trying to break loose. One hand reached up to grab the back of my head, pulling my hair and forcing my head back. I froze. His face was dangerously close to my exposed neck. His shift let my opposite arm break free. I took a breathe and reeled it back, ready to smack him in the across the face. He caught my wrist in time without taking his eyes off mine.

He lowered his head to whisper in my ear, “I win.” His breathe trickled down my neck. He had won, but he wasn’t moving. One hand was still in my hair, the other was pinning me against the ropes. His chest breathed heavily against my own. His grip on my head loosened slightly and I was able to look him straight on. He had that same smug look pasted across his face. His eyes moved from mine, trailing down my face, my neck, my body, before they settled on my lips. I momentarily lost the ability to breathe.

He kissed me hard. I tensed up slightly before giving into him completely. It tasted like blood and sweat and I felt like I was losing my mind. He pulled me closer, if that was even possible and claimed my mouth with his until my knees gave out. A newfound wave of warm washed through me. The hand in my hair gave a slight tug and my lips parted while that same hand moved to cup my jaw. For all I knew, the entire compound was wide awake and watching but I did not care. I brought my fingers to his hair, tugging at the ends. I smiled cunningly when he groaned into my mouth. He kissed me greedily and fully. Like he hated me. And I hated him.

We broke apart, limbs numb and chests heaving. The moment had passed, and our actions sunk in. What. The. Fuck. He lifted the ropes for me, and I climbed out of the ring. My head was still spinning from that kiss and my lip stung. Consequences I suppose, for kissing someone with a busted lip. I silently pulled my socks back on and Peter handed me a towel. Neither of us said another word. I left the room and didn’t look back. I could hear him behind me, but I was in no rush to have to look him in the eye ever again. What just happened?

I woke the next morning to A.P.R.I.L. alerting me that “Father Dearest” was outside my door. He came in and sat on the edge of the bed. We both stayed quiet for a while.

I spoke first. “Where were you last night? You didn’t come by after…” I let my words trail off.

“I was going to, I swear. But then something came up with Peter and I had to go take care of that,” Dad answered.

I frowned. “Typical. Peter over your own flesh and blood, right?”

Dad inhaled sharply like he was going to bite back, but changed his mind. “That’s not true and you know it. Peter is…he’s going through something and I knew how to help him. Not everything is about you, you narcissist,” He said, joking at the end.

I had to push down my own smile. “Yeah well where do you think I got it from?” I sat up and leaned into my father. He brushed a hand down my back. “So, what’s wrong with Peter then?”

“I really shouldn’t tell you, it’s personal.” I looked up at him with my doe eyes. He rolled his eyes and sighed, nodding a silent defeat. I felt like I was nine again and he was gossiping with me about the latest secretary. Like every fight had been forgotten in this moment. “He’s been having some nightmares ever since DC. You remember the ones we used to get after Loki?” I nodded. “Now you, you always amazed me at how you handled those. But for me and Peter, we needed a different outlet. So, I let him come over in the middle of the night. I didn’t think anyone would notice.” I hummed in response, not sure what to make of that information. I mean, I kind of felt bad for the guy. He was still a bitch, but those dreams suck. No one should have to deal with them. “He really isn’t as bad as you think, you know.”

“Yeah,” I hummed. “I think you’re right.”

tag list:

@runawayolives @ creation-magician @ eridanuswave @ markhyucksmells @ beep-beep-losersclub

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alicedopey · 3 years

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Third Birthday’s A Charm

Fandom: Vikings

Pairing: Halfdan x OC (Gaby)

Genre: Modern AU, Romance, Smut-ish

Words: 1794

Warnings: Well, there is a little bit of smut.

Summary: Gaby is not the only one who can make a wish for her birthday.

A/N: This is a birthday gift for my other half, @naaladareia Honey, you are such a kind-hearted and caring person, always there to listen. I wish you the best for your very special day. I love you.

A/N 2: This is the continuation of a little series so if you are interested in reading the first two installments: Part I - Part II

Halfdan woke up at the sound of something crashing on the ground followed by a loud gasp. He groaned and rolled on the side. The floor under his body was different from was he was used to. He blinked a few times and opened his eyes to close them back instantly. There was definitely too much sun here.

“What..what are you doing here?” A feminine voice stuttered.

It was something distant and yet, very familiar. His eyes opened again and abruptly sat up on the floor. He remembered where he was by now – or rather, when he was.

He looked up at the woman who had been in his thoughts for a while. Her jaw was opened, her eyes wide, her hair slightly disheveled and she was wearing some large loose shirt which let her legs show. He smirked.

“Hello!” He rasped.

She seemed to process his word and finally greeted him back. She bent down to gather the broken pieces of the weirdly bright colored pot she had certainly been holding in her hands before dropping it when she spotted him. She left for a few seconds and came back with a wet cloth to wash the liquid that was spilled on her odd floor. When she was done, she gave him a shy look.

“Not that I’m complaining, but what are you doing here? How did you come?”

Halfdan smiled and stood up. “Don’t you celebrate the day you were born today? I thought it was a pattern for us to meet on that special occasion.”

“Maybe…I did not make any wish this time, though.”

“You have your ways, I have mine”. He answered in an enigmatic tone but she was still curious.

“Magic, I guess?”

He nodded. “Of some sort.”

“Why are you here?” She asked, extremely confused.

He approached her, extending a hand to play with a strand of her hair. He scrutinized her face since he did not have to pleasure to do so during the former two times they had met. It seemed so soft and spotless, quite different from the women he knew. It was also very inviting so his hand let go of her hair to run along her cheek.

“I have to admit I was highly suspicious of you at first but when you mentioned something about your birthday wish, I figured the Gods wants us to meet. It was fate.”

She put her hand on his, he got closer as he kept explaining himself. “I went to the Seer who told me my adventurous destiny was waiting for me much further than I thought. It was not the first time he said those words but I always thought I was made to discover every new land until I had reached my destination. Now, I understand what he was meaning.”

Her eyes widened. “Are you saying you are here to stay?”

He shrugged nonchalantly. “That’s up to the Gods and their mysterious ways. We should enjoy it while we can.”

He pecked her lips. “You got any food? I’m starving.”

¤ ¤

Gaby filled the dishwasher while Halfdan was relaxing on her couch after stuffing his face with the brunch she had prepared: eggs, ham, cheese, potatoes with juice, coffee and tea, that he happened to like more.

She could not help pinching her skin again. Having a Viking in her home could not possibly be true and yet, here he was…and maybe for a long time. It would take a while for him to adjust since he was watching every object around him suspiciously but he was an adventurer so she was certain he would manage in the end.

“What are the plans for today?”

His voice almost made her jump. She had not heard him at all, too lost in her thoughts.

“Nothing special.” She replied. “A nice bath to relax, I’ll probably bake some birthday cake and then I’ll cook some pasta dish for dinner.”

“No big celebration? Nobody is coming here?”

“It is…quite difficult nowadays. To make a long story short, there is some kind of plague going on. We can’t really visit each other and all the places when where we can eat and drink are closed, as well as cinemas or museum.”

He frowned. “What are those?”

“Places to have some fun.” She did not really want to get into the details since she was not ever sure he would go there once. “I could offer you to go outside but we will have to wear a mask.”

Halfdan let out a disgusted sound when she pointed at the numerous masks lying on her cupboard. “No, thank you. I might be up for a bath, though. Shall we?”

“Together?” She squeaked in spite of herself.

“Well, of course”. He eyed her up and down. “Besides it’s not like I have not seen it all before.”

Gaby felt herself blushing like an innocent teenage girl even though the idea of sharing a bath with him was very tempting.

She led Halfdan to her bathroom where he looked everywhere with wide eyes. It gave her time to prepare the bath, adding some lavender bubble bath and relaxing oil. She turned off the water when there was enough and looked at him shyly again. “Bath is ready.”

Halfdan started at the foam suspiciously before getting undressed, and dipped in. Gaby did the same, trying to ignore the fact that he was ogling her shamelessly. The water had a relaxing effect on her and she leaned back against the tub. On the opposite side, Hafldan mimicked her actions.

“Relaxing, isn’t it?”

“It is…how long do we have to stay here?”

Gaby laughed. “Impatient, are we?”

“I’m just not used to laziness, that’s all.” He bit back teasingly.

She threw some water at him playfully. Halfdan suddenly leaned forwards and pulled her against him. She immediately felt his hardness. Her breath hitched as his hand travelled down her back, her ass and her thigh that he grabbed to make her straddle him. He slid into her with a deep sigh. Gaby’s head tilted backwards in pleasure.

“I guess I could get used to this type of laziness.” He rasped before moving in and out of her.

Gaby gripped his shoulders to steady herself and meet his thrusts. The water splashed gently against the tub and soon, only the sound of their lovemaking could be heard.

¤ ¤

After their steamy sexual encounter, they got out of the tub. Gaby gave Halfdan more comfortable clothes that her ex-boyfriend had left in her apartment. It was really confusing to see him wearing some pants and a tee-shirt with his warrior demeanor. It was also very charming if she was honest with herself.

Later, he helped her bake her chocolate birthday cake – well, more like created a mess in her kitchen – but they had fun. Gaby was happy to fall into some sort of domestic life with him. It had been a long time and it felt nice to have someone around her during those very particular times.

Halfdan talked to her about some of his travels and raids. She winced at some of the most gruesome details but enjoyed every word. After all, it was as if she was watching a live documentary about Vikings. Only, it was better than television, better than the show she had enjoyed watching so much. To her surprise, Halfdan was a great story teller, very passionate and entertaining. He was answering all of her questions, pleased to see she was interested in everything he had to tell.

Dinner time came quickly. Halfdan devoured the pasta Gaby had prepared and then watched her blow the candles on her birthday cake.

“What did you wish for this time?”

She smiled. “It will not come true if I tell you.”

He rolled his eyes at her answer. A playful smile suddenly curved his lips upwards. “I am here. What more could you ask for?”

It was her turn to roll her eyes at his cockiness. “Of course. Still, I will not tell you my wish, you sexy murderous Viking.”

His smile widened. “You like calling me that, don’t you? I remember you saying it last time.”

“You remember too many things.” She mumbled under her breath.

Halfdan chuckled. “My brother keeps telling me that.”

Gaby suddenly frowned, thinking of Harald. “Does he know you are here?”

“I told him everything, of course.”

“And he let you leave?” From what she knew of Harald, he was quite possessive when his brother was concerned.

“My brother has his own destiny and I have mine.” He smiled. “To be truthful, he was more inclined to let me leave because he knew it was about a woman. Helpless romantic! I only hope none of them will try and kill him while I’m gone, no matter how long it is.”

Gaby felt a slight pang in her chest when he reminded her that there was a slight chance for him to disappear one day, just as fast as he had arrived. Halfdan sensed her sudden mood change and rose up from his chair to join her. He made her stand up before attacking her lips with a kiss that left them both breathless. They exchanged a lustful gaze.

“Why don’t you show me how sexy you think I am in that oddly over comfortable bed of yours?”

How could she say no to such a proposition?

First, she cleaned up everything while Halfdan was trying to get familiar with his new surroundings and was purposely avoiding the television, a television that he had almost destroyed when she had turned it on to show him what it was. He would definitely need more time with new technology.

When she was done, the two of them went to bed where they had sex and talked some more about Halfdan’s adventures. He held her in his arms. Gaby was happy to have spent another special and eventful birthday for the third time but also worried that there was a possibility he might not be here tomorrow when she would wake up.

Before falling asleep though, she remembered Halfdan’s earlier words. We should enjoy it while we can. He was right. For the moment he was there with her, maybe for a day or maybe for ten years but either way, they seemed to share some special bond as if their destinies were linked. It meant that no matter what happened, they would always find each other again.

Tagging (please tell me if you want to be added or removed): @naaladareia @flowers-in-your-hayr @gearhead66 @therealcalicali @tephi101 @ivarswickedqueen @akamaiden @peaceisadirtyword @captstefanbrandt @mblaqgi @medievalfangirl

#birthday fic #vikings #gaby's birthday #@naaladareia's birthday #halfdan x oc #Halfdan the Black #romance #modern au #smut

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kitsuragied · 3 years

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a slip of the tongue- jamilmads

@who-knew-what I wrote a part 2 to Home Is Where The Heart Is! expect more to come, too. I’m already working on two more installments in this universe. I’ll tag all of them with “#home ‘verse” so you can find them. enjoy, y’all!

“Alex?” John asks, peering into Alex’s office. The man is barely keeping himself awake, empty mugs of coffee all around him and papers on the floor. It’s nearly midnight. “Are you alright? Do you need me to take you home?”

“I’m alright,” Alex mutters. “They’ll take me home.” John furrows his brow. People taking care of Alexander Hamilton isn’t unheard of, exactly, but usually it’s one of his friends, and he isn’t aware of any new people in the friend group. Everyone else is sleeping at home already.

“Who?” he asks. “You got a boyfriend or something?” He meant it as a joke, because Alex would have told him. Right? But then Alex looks up at him, his tired expression twisting into something happier.

“I got boyfriend,” he slurs, obviously exhausted. John sighs. Whatever that means, he’ll parse it later. For now, he just wants to make sure Alex gets back to his house.

“Yeah, well, is ‘boyfriend’ gonna pick you up in a few? The office is closing soon,” he says.

“Thomas’ll drag me out anyways,” Alex responds, though he looks distinctly annoyed at the thought.

The revelation hits John like a freight train. There’s only one Thomas in the office (not counting Thomas Paine, who’s a level above them when it comes to management and is also very old), and that Thomas is the guy Alex screams at and then complains about to John. What? He considers asking Alex for more details, but looks again at Alex’s figure hunched over the desk, typing furiously, and decides against it.

Alex, in his sleep-deprived state, has no idea why he said “I got boyfriend” or if he even said it. He has a vague memory of John’s gears turning as he stares at him from the doorway, but that’s all, and he promptly forgets about it.

Thomas and James are entirely unaware of the incident. Thomas did end up storming in after receiving an email from Alex about the project he was working on and dragging him out, scolding him like a child (“I have no idea what you’re trying to accomplish with this, Alexander, but so far I only see death by loss of sleep”), but only several minutes after John had left.

So a week later he finds himself dragging James into his office. He just wants a quick kiss, initially, and then it turns into something more and James is straddling him in his chair, making out like there’s no tomorrow, and then John Laurens barges in, stops short, glares at Thomas, and turns on his heel and runs. Thomas exchanges a bemused look at James, but John’s been sending him those glares (albeit more of an “I’m watching you” sort) all week, and he thinks nothing of it, chasing James’ mouth with his own again.

Alex barely looks up as John barges into his office, glancing once at his friend and then returning to the screen. The click of the keyboard resumes, John’s heavy breathing filling the office. “What is it?” Alex asks when John continues to simply stand there, out of breath from his run. It takes a few more moments before he can gather enough breath to speak.

“Thomas- is- cheating,” he pants.

Alex’s head snaps up. “What?” he says sharply. He isn’t worried for himself- he can deal with the fucker- but it’s James he’s worried about. And then there’s also a slight disbelief. He knows John would never lie to him, not with something like this, but he also knows that Thomas wouldn’t cheat. Right?

“He- was- hang on,” John says. Now in a better state, he continues, “he was making out with Madison in his office, I’m really sorry, Ham- what is it?” Alexander had slumped over his desk, cackling with laughter.

“Oh my god,” he says after a moment in which he feels hysterical and John is plain confused. “I cannot believe- I thought- if you knew about Thomas-”

“Get to the point, will you?” John asks, beginning to feel annoyed.

“Okay- okay so,” Alex begins, then dissolves into laughter again. “Sorry. So. Thomas is my boyfriend.” John nods, well aware. “James is also my boyfriend.” At this, John tilts his head. Wouldn’t that be worse, then? Double betrayal? “Thomas is also James’ boyfriend.” John is lost, as is evident in his expression. “Look- it’s- it’s basically like, like, I like both of them and they like me and them- like a- it’s a- triangle of love, of sorts,” he says. Having never really considered the unconventionality of his relationship, he finds himself at a loss to describe it. John is even more lost, having not followed half of what he was saying. “Like a couple, except with three people! I’m with James and Thomas and Thomas is with James and me and James is with Thomas and me. Like a big puddle of love,” he says, acutely aware that he’s not doing a very good job of explaining. John, however, seems to get it, nodding slowly as he processes the words.

“OH!” he nearly shouts. “Ohhhh. Goddamn, I feel like an idiot.”

Alex laughs. “You are!”

Later that night, Alex finishes recounting the story to his boyfriends, lying across Thomas and James’ laps on the couch. James laughs, fingers entangled in Alex’s hair. “Wait- so how many of your friends besides John know about us?” Thomas asks. Alex pauses, considers.

“Actually I think only John knows,” he says. “Wow. I just completely forgot to tell them.”

“Are you going to tell them?” James says. “I mean, I could understand if you didn’t want to, considering-” he waves his hand around, the gesture invoking memories of shouting competitions in meetings and furious disagreements and, especially, Alex breaking off his friendship with James and coming to them crying afterwards.

“It… should be fine,” Alex says, though he sounds uncertain. “In any case, they’re my friends, they’re legally obligated to support me even if my boyfriends are assholes.” Thomas smacks his thigh.

“I’m gonna call them right now,” Alex announces. “I’m probably going to forget later if I don’t.” Saying this, he picks his phone up from where he’d discarded it on the floor and proceeds to call Eliza. She picks up on the first ring.

But it isn’t her who answers. “This better be a good excuse for why you’re not at game night,” Angelica snaps. Alex’s face is blank for a moment, and then he remembers.

“Shit!” he hisses. “I’m so sorry, Angie, I just-” he looks up at James and Thomas, who are giving him disapproving looks- “forgot. I’m so sorry.”

“I’m putting you on speaker. Apologize to all of us.”

“Sorry!” Alex says into the phone, and he hears a chorus of voices rushing to reprimand him..

“This is the second time in a row you’ve forgotten,” Hercules says. “What happened, man? I thought you had a reminder or something!”

“I thought I did!” Alex says desperately. “I’m so sorry, you guys. I was just, uh…” He trails off, searching his mind for a plausible excuse.

“Well?” Peggy asks.

“Actually, I called you guys to tell you something because I forgot to, so uh…” James nudges him. “I have boyfriends,” he says. Their reactions are immediate: five different voices start talking at once, raising their voices to be heard over the others and creating a cacophony of both pleased and annoyed tones. He can’t hear John saying anything, and he imagines him sitting smug on his bean bag (Hercules has bean bags in his apartment for whatever reason) while the others crowd the phone.

“Who?” Lafayette demands. “Tell us at once, mon ami! Why did we not know sooner?”

“Uh. So,” he starts, hearing his friends fall silent at once. “James?” It comes out more of a question than an answer, but they get it immediately.

“Madison?” Eliza says. “Didn’t you-”

“Yes, well, we’ve worked it out,” James interjects. It’s still a bit of a sore subject. There’s immediate squeals on the other end.

“James!” Angelica says in surprise. “You’re there?”

“Evidently,” he says, though he’s smiling. “Hello, Angelica.”

“Mon amiiiiii, you cannot leave us hanging like this,” Lafayette interrupts. “Tell us who the other person is! Do we know him? Is he handsome? Oh! Are they a girl?”

“You do know him,” Alex concedes, “and his handsomeness… mmm, not quite there,” he continues, earning another smack on the thigh from Thomas.

“I am very handsome, thank you very much,” Thomas cuts in smoothly. His friends fall silent at once.

“Is that… is that Jefferson?” Peggy whispers.

“It IS!” Lafayette shouts. “I knew it! I knew it! See, I told you, Alex, mon cousin is not that bad once you get used to him-”

“Is it Attack Thomas Day or something?” Thomas grumbles. James pats him condescendingly on the head.

“Hush now, the grownups are talking,” he says.

“Hold up,” comes Hercules’ voice from the phone, which is now balanced on Alex’s chest. “You’re dating Jefferson? The guy you used to whine about whenever you came over?” Thomas raises an eyebrow at him.

“Oh? You whined about me? Do I truly affect you that much?” he teases.

Alex makes a hmph noise. “I did not!” he protests. “Stop lying, Hercules!” And that’s the end of any questions about his relationship, thank god. They spend a couple more minutes just messing around with each other before they disconnect abruptly upon discovering that John knew before them.

There’s silence for a bit afterwards. Thomas shifts, nestling closer to James and slinging his arm around him, the other hand resting on Alex’s thigh. “Your friends are… something,” James says eventually, threading his fingers once again through Alex’s hair.

Alex laughs. “They sure are.”

I very much hope “I got boyfriend” made you laugh as much as I did. Please, please reblog! Likes don’t do anything! If you comment I’ll love you forever.

#home 'verse #hamilton #jamilmads #alexander hamilton #thomas jefferson #james madison #john laurens #hercules mulligan #angelica schuyler #marquis de Lafayette #peggy schuyler #elizabeth schuyler

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bonteris · 3 years

Text

hold on, i still want you.

redcrackle through the years through carmen’s eyes + the ending we deserved :)

The first time they meet, she’s still Black Sheep and he’s still Gray, and she nearly breaks his neck pulling him over the back of the chair he’s sitting on.

Coach Brunt is initiating the newest class of students, and for the first time, Black Sheep is among them. She’s a few years behind them, and already a head shorter than half the people in the room, so she opts to sit under the cover of darkness in the back and pretend she’s new like everyone else.

Then Coach Brunt announces that they’ll have to earn their codenames, and her gaze turns to Black Sheep. “Ain’t that right, Lambkins?”

Any hope of going unnoticed turns null as forty heads swivel in their seats and eighty eyes scrutinize her. Her insides turn to slush and she sinks deep into her seat.

“Lambkins?” the boy in front of her scoffs. “Who knew VILE had a mascot?”

Indignation moves Black Sheep’s arms for her, and before the kid can even try turning back around, she has her hands firmly planted on his shoulders. In the first second, she sees his eyes widen with surprise. In the next, his head is only a few inches above the floor and she’s glaring down at him.

“Only my friends call me ‘Lambkins’,” she snaps. “My code name’s Black Sheep. Do you understand? Nod if you understand.”

By the time she’s finished, he’s nodding vigorously, and she feels certain she’s established a healthy bit of dominance over the class. Coach Brunt laughs, moves on, and she forgets about the kid, whose name she still doesn't know. Why shouldn’t she? He’s just another reminder of how different she is to everyone here.

She’s settling into her dorm when she hears footsteps behind her. It’s the boy from earlier, sheepishly running a hand through his muted brown hair. He holds out a hand, wincing. Out of the dark initiation hall, she can see he has two dimples that widen when he smiles. Now they seem to burrow into his cheeks. “Uh, Black Sheep, was it? The name’s Graham.”

She studies him, wondering if this is another joke. But any response she might make is cut off by another girl—Sheena, she thinks her name is?—standing by her dolls. “This where you hide your pearls, little girl?”

Black Sheep instantly stiffens. “Please don’t touch my stuff,” she says, careful to keep her voice calm but firm. Her hand curls into a fist involuntarily, but she can’t help it. She doesn’t let anyone near the nesting dolls that came with her to VILE. Anger pricks at her fingers, daring her to throw the first punch.

“What, these?” Sheena replies innocently. Her hand lingers dangerously close to the dolls now, and she knows it.

“I said,” Black Sheep starts, voice low, “keep your paws off.”

The blonde’s smile deepens, eyebrows slanting with the glee of someone who knows they’ve got leverage. Black Sheep readies her stance. She’s better than half the class already; she can take her easily.

Surprisingly, it’s Gray who cuts in, subtly pushing Black Sheep behind him. For a second she wants to barge forward, but then she realizes: he’s placating Sheena, distracting her from Black Sheep’s obvious aggression. “Play nice, princess,” he says, and though his voice is cheerful, the warning is clear. “We all have to room together.”

Sheena mutters something and walks away, but Black Sheep watches Gray. As if he can sense her, he turns, smiling, and flashes her a wink that says, Friends?

Black Sheep smiles back. Friends.

Over the next few months, she and Gray become inseparable. He’s there when they start their first classes together, and he’s there when she aces all of them. He’s there when introduces him to her monthly pranks on Cookie Booker and drags along the others to join them, and he’s there when they get caught. She’s there to see him reinvent himself in Crackle, and she’s there when he passes… without her.

And then, suddenly, he’s gone.

Black Sheep spends most of her time alone now, and she hates every second of it. She hates Shadowsan for failing her, because she knows, she knows, she knows that coat was empty. Tigress isn’t better than her. No one is.

So she follows them. Leaves the globe she grew up with under her pillow in place of her head, yanks the sewage door from its hinges and stows away in the helicopter’s closet. They’re not going to see the world and leave her behind to be failed by Shadowsan, again. He doesn’t get to do what she can’t.

She likes the surprise on his face when he sees her barrelling towards him out of the shadows. It glints brighter than the stars around them as they go sprawling over the side of the helicopter and down towards the ground below.

“Black Sheep?” he yells over the sound of the wind in their ears.

She clutches him tighter. “Don’t let go!”

It’s there, in the ruins at Morocco, that she realizes what stealing really means. It’s there she watches him raise his weapon and aim for an innocent man. It’s there she realizes what kind of person he is, what he’s willing to do.

But all she sees on his face is determination, and the knowing look that comes right before you’re surrounded, and then the Cleaners are behind her.

All of her former friends look angry. Le Cheve and El Topo’s faces are taut with annoyance. Tigress adjusts her now-broken scanner, glaring. But not him. No, Crackle—that’s who he is now—just looks sad. Pitying. She hates him for it.

I will never forgive you, she thinks as his face drags her down into the dark.

...

The second time they meet, she’s now Carmen Sandiego, and she’s just escaped the smarmy Interpol agent she left face down against his own car, still struggling to get up. The high that comes from outsmarting VILE is still following her, and she smiles as she opens the door to the cabin Player booked for her. “First class? Sweet.”

“My treat, Red,” he says through her earpiece. “You earned it.”

Carmen sets her bag down and takes out the black-fabric satchel inside, not wanting to break anything. She’s just about to open it and revel in her prize when she hears the doors slide open behind her.

“Well, well.” Carmen straightens at the familiar voice, turning.

Gray looks exactly as he did when she last saw him—give or take a few years. But the smirk he gives her is all boyish charm as he says, “Blast from the past, eh?”

He shoots the bag out of her hand and it falls to the floor. But Carmen refuses to let any emotion show; she won’t let him see how nervous that makes her. “Dude, seriously? Static cling?”

“Side effect of the directional EMP,” he responds smoothly. “So you can forget about reaching for your phone or fancy toys. They’re dead.”

Resentment shoots through her. “I know how an electromagnetic pulse works, Gray. You aren’t the only one who passed Dr. Bellum’s class.” The satisfaction she gets from seeing his jaw work when she calls him Gray is fleeting, but she keeps it close as she sits, gesturing for him to do the same.

“And you didn’t really think I’d take any of your bait without checking for a tracking device, did you, Gray?” The shock that comes over his face is completely real, and Carmen grins. “That’s right. I wanted you to find me.”

She doesn’t say any of the things she’s been dreaming about for years, such as (but not limited to) How could you almost kill someone? How could you think this is all a game? How could you be okay with hurting others?

How could you be okay with hurting me?

But if these last three years have taught her anything, it’s patience, so she lets him ask her questions, all the while gloating that he’s caught the elusive Carmen Sandiego. She winds him up, allowing him to think he’s won this round.

When she’s finished recounting where she’s been, his face softens. “We miss you, Black Sheep. VILE wants a truce.”

The way he won’t call her Carmen grates on her nerves. “They want me stealing for them, instead of from them,” she counters.

Unbothered, he taps the crackle rod absently. “You’ve proven yourself. It’s all you ever wanted, isn’t it?”

Isn’t it?

Maybe once, but not now. Not when she knows what stealing can do to others, what it can take. He still doesn’t see. Maybe he never will. Maybe all they’ll ever be is two people on two different sides of a war.

She leaves him wrapped in Cookie’s coat (it was high time she got one that didn’t stink of crime, anyways) and breaks the rod. The Interpol agent will come after her soon, so she might as well leave a mark.

Goodbye, Gray, she thinks as she watches the officer realize it’s not her underneath the hat. Then she disappears into the night, leaving the last of her connection to him behind.

...

The third time they meet, a few months have passed, and she’s in Sydney, scouting the Opera House that Dr. Bellum is supposed to be targeting. The intel Player has sent from the files she got him has been impeccable so far, but she has no idea what Bellum is planning tonight. Carmen feels blinded. Nervous.

“Nothing suspicious so far,” she tells Player under her breath, pushing back the plush crimson curtain so she can get a better view of the stage. “If a VILE operative’s here, they have yet to show their face.”

“You there!” someone yells. Carmen jerks to attention, lowering her opera glasses long enough to look up and see him. Gray.

“Scratch that,” she says automatically, surveying him. He’s in an electrician’s uniform, the kind someone working in an opera just like this would wear—some kind of disguise? A cover the faculty created?

Gray looks her up and down, mouth set in a hard line. “What are you doing back here?”

Carmen frowns. “You first.”

That seems to confuse him. She watches his face switch from shocked, to dumbstruck, then to angered until he finally says, “What? I’m working.”

“I know,” she deadpans. “‘Lights out, baby’? Come on, Gray. What job are you pulling tonight?”

The anger has bled from his face, but now he looks oddly… not-evil? She can’t place it. Her bewilderment only grows as he points to the name tag stitched to his uniform. “First, it’s Gray-ham, and second, since electricians don’t seem to intimidate you, I’ll be more than happy to have security escort you out.”

“Wait, what?” Carmen asks. “You don’t expect me to believe this innocent act, do you?”

He reaches forward and takes her arm, grip surprisingly strong for someone who relies so much on tech. Carmen is too surprised to do anything but be dragged along. “No wristband, no backstage access,” Gray informs her as they walk. “I don’t make the rules.”

She gives him an appraising look as they round a corner. “You really don’t remember me.”

It’s only half questioning, but he stops and examines her anyway, dimples amplified in the shadowed corridor. “Fashion statement aside, mate, you’d be hard to forget. If there is a next time, I promise not to make that mistake again.”

Flattery, she thinks, full of wonder. Or… flirting?

“Guess you just, uh, remind me of someone I used to know,” she lies weakly, but he seems to believe it.

They reach the door, and he says goodbye, and the door almost shuts, but she races through it as he walks away, head reeling. Le Chevre arrives, they fight (she wins) and all is well.

Except.

When she doesn’t see him exiting with everyone else, Carmen scours the famous Opera House’s grounds until she spots him in the distance. She lands her glider before he can notice it, but the moment her heels hit the ground he turns and smiles. “Hey, I remember you. Ol’ Red Sneakeroo.”

“Good memory,” she says lightly, trying not to think of how strange this all is. He doesn’t remember her. She remembers the best of him. They’re at an impasse, but he’s unaware. It’s odd, being the only one who knows the whole story. Carmen isn’t sure she likes it.

“Not really,” he sighs, and for a second he looks so impossibly sad she’s not sure what to say for once. Then it passes, and his eyes are back on hers. “So, looking to get backstage for an autograph?”

The corners of her mouth tug upwards. “No. To the outback for some sightseeing. Thought you could be my guide.”

“I wish,” he says regretfully, taking out a slip of paper to write something down. “Something fried the soundboard tonight. I have to pull an early morning shift to troubleshoot.”

Le Chevre, she thinks, annoyance lancing through her, but tamps it down. “You mentioned having a bad memory. Why is that?”

For the first time since they’ve spoken today, he falters. The pen slips in his hand. “Well, I—I kind of messed up on the job a while back, got a little ‘jolt’, as we sparkies say. Complete blackout, long hospital stay, blah, blah.” He laughs ruefully. “There’s more than an entire year of my life I can’t remember.”

“A whole year,” she marvels. That’s enough time for her to be gone. That’s enough time for VILE to be gone.

He’s still talking. “I’d say I’m lucky to have my job back, if ‘electrician’ weren’t such a dangerous occupation.”

“Oh, I can think of worse ones,” Carmen quips. He finishes writing and hands her the slip of paper. “Is this the address of an outback guide?”

“A good guide’s easy to find online. This is the address of my favorite café in Sydney. I’ll be there Friday night at 8 p.m. You?”

Carmen ignores the ache in her chest. She has him back. The Gray from before. Her Gray. “Let’s see if I make it back from my tour in one piece.” She starts walking away.

“Hey!” he calls from behind her. “I never got your name!”

“Carmen,” she replies without looking back.

That Friday, at 8 p.m. on the dot, she stands across the street from the café written on the paper he gave her. The ache that formed in her chest the night she left him standing on the Opera House’s steps has widened to a crack. She has so many questions. So many things she wants to say. How is it fair that she gets to know everything about him, and he doesn’t? Who did this?

Even as she thinks it, she knows the answer: VILE. Carmen hates them for ruining him, molding him into a killer that she cannot believe he is at heart. It’s not him, not really.

Across the street, Gray looks up, eyes lighting up when he sees her.

She can’t do this.

So when the bus drives by, she lets it take her, too.

“I can’t let VILE see me with him,” she explains to Player, once she’s a healthy distance away. Her hood is over her head and her hands are shoved deep in her pockets. Her voice wavers. “But not for my safety, for his.”

“What? Why?” Player asks, confused.

The reality hits her like a kick to the stomach. “For whatever strange reason, Gray has a fresh start now. And having Carmen Sandiego back in his life would… only complicate that.”

Carmen shuts her eyes against the cool night air and imagines she’s back at school for the first time since she left Gray on that train. I’m sorry, Gray, she thinks as she watches him get up from his seat at the table and leave.

...

The fourth time they meet, she comes to him, and it’s because she needs help. A caper involving dangerous EMP technology is worrying her, and he’s the best person she knows for the job. But the idea of dragging him back into all of this is scarier than facing off with Coach Brunt again.

It’s a perfect day, cool and sunny, and Gray sits sipping a cup of coffee as he reads a book. His eyes flick up as she approaches, and a small smile forms on his mouth. “You’re late.”

“Fashionably, I hope.” She takes the fact that he hasn’t thrown his coffee at her as a sign that it’s safe to sit. “I’m sorry I stood you up, Gray.”

He holds up a finger. “Um, it’s—”

“Graham,” she finishes, sighing. She has to get used to calling him that. “Right. Look, I was called away on business at the last minute.”

At that, he puts the book down and turns to her. “What kind of business?”

“I run an international charity for abandoned children,” Carmen says. The lie slips past her lips easily. “In fact, that’s the reason I came to see you today.”

“Oh?” He says, angling his head the way he does whenever his interest is piqued. It’s somehow both familiar and completely foreign on his face.

“I am sponsoring a big fundraiser in Auckland, New Zealand, this week. Selections from Swan Lake.”

His face shows the barest hint of recognition. “Tchaikovsky. I’ve lit a few Russian ballets at the old Sydney Opera House.”

Carmen leans back. “Fortunately for me, our lighting technician dropped out, and I’m hoping you can help.”

He doesn’t miss a beat. “On one condition.” She waits, and he points a playful finger. “You have that cuppa with me afterwards.”

Carmen raises a brow in answer. “I’ll have the foundation book you a flight.”

Things go well—she has VILE’s agent trapped and gets through the grids easily, thanks to Gray’s help. For a moment, she even imagines it’s like old times, her taking the lead and him backing her up. “Player, I’m warm. How’s the ballet?”

Then she hears Player’s voice in her ear. “On indefinite intermission. Our lighting tech walked.”

“What?” she hisses, voice low despite being the only one in the room.

“Zach and Ivy are combing the grounds for him,” Player says.

“Find him,” she says. “I’m too close to turn back now.” And too close to save him if they realize he’s involved, she thinks, but leaves that part out.

She makes it to the EMP sphere, hands hovering over the control panel, when she hears a familiar voice.

“Carmen?” Gray asks, bewildered, at the same time Bellum yells, “Sandiego!”

She doesn’t wait to see what Bellum has planned. Carmen runs.

“What kind of concert hall is this?” says Gray as they round the corner, him keeping up easily.

“Experimental!”

They hit another corner and a gaggle of VILE guards—Neal included—look their way. But Carmen has Gray behind her before any of them can even see there’s a second person there, and she shoots forward.

Neal effortlessly sidesteps her punches, sliding out of reach the harder she tries to hit. Carmen rears back, foot swinging up, but he has a hold on her shoulders before her foot can hit its mark. She thinks he says something, but the words start to muddle together as he pushes her head farther than it should go. Her breathing turns ragged. Carmen sags—

And is released. Neal’s body crumples to the floor next to her, and she looks up to see Gray, holding a crackle rod in two hands.

Fear spikes through her, hot and bright. Does he remember?

Then his face contorts with disgust and he tosses the rod. “You… don’t run a children’s charity.”

She smiles. “I’ll explain over that coffee.”

Together, they sabotage Bellum’s sphere and step off the platform, Gray holding tight to Carmen, who ejects her glider. She has a sudden memory of her being the one holding tight as they fell, Gray’s eyes on hers as the ground rushed up to meet them.

Now, she hugs him tight to her as the glider loses altitude. At the last second, it retracts from her back, and they go sprawling, her head hitting the ground hard.

When she comes to, Carmen looks around, panicked, and sees him lying a few feet from her, completely silent. The woods loom around them, shielding them from VILE’s eyes, but Carmen forgets everything at the thought of him being hurt. “Gray? Gray?”

His eyes crack open. “It’s—Graham.”

She doesn’t think she’s ever been happier to hear him argue with her about something.

Later, they sit at the café he first mentioned, watching the opera house in the distance. Carmen likes the way the moon reflects off the water, a line of milky light that traces its way over the bay.

“Carmen, I have to know,” Gray confesses. “Are you a spy? Part of some kind of… secret service?”

She mulls over what to tell him for a moment. “I do provide a service, and it is secret, so… yeah, something like that.”

“But we are the good guys?” he asks cautiously.

The crack in her chest yawns open. There’s so much she wants to say. So much she wants to tell him. But would he listen? Would he care, if it turned that awful part of him back on, the part that nearly killed that man that night?

I will never forgive you.

“Absolutely,” she says, full of surety that she doesn’t feel.

Gray says something else, but she’s only half listening, and when he looks back, she’s gone. He laughs to himself, seemingly unbothered, but Carmen watches him get clear their table, wiping their meeting from the café’s memory.

I forgive you, she thinks, and though he wouldn’t understand, the crack in her chest closes over a little.

...

The fifth time they meet, she learns that he’s in Iceland from Player. He tells her the tab he’s kept on Gray was tipped off, and her heart does a little jump. It’s been so long since she last saw him. So long since they spoke. She misses the way his dimples deepen when he smiles, the way his head tilts to one side when he’s interested, no matter how hard he tries to hide it. But, still. Iceland. Player tells her he’s been arrested.

She tries working through what might have happened. That dangerous game of What If. What if VILE has found him? What if he’s reawoken some part of him… No. She won’t go there. Carmen refuses to hand him back to VILE, not when he’s been given a second chance.

When she gets there, it’s easy to remove him from their records, easy to read the file.

Easy to see he’s in jail because he robbed someone.

Her mouth tightens, but Carmen is too focused on getting him out, away, to do anything but continue on. Even when Devineaux arrives, oddly complacent considering the last time they spoke he was screaming at her as she ran away. (It seems that’s how most of their meetings go, nowadays.)

Gray sits in his cell, bent forward far enough that she can see the crease of his brows easily. He pinches his nose as if trying to remember something, and he almost looks like he’s going to cry.

Sharp as always, he hears her coming and looks up. “Carmen? How did you know I was here?”

I’m a spy, she thinks bitterly. And I can’t even keep you out of trouble. All I can do is watch.

What comes out instead is “All in good time, Gray. We need to get you out of there.”

She holds up the keys, dangling them for him to see, and he shakes his head fondly. “It’s Graham—” Then he cuts off, eyes widening. “Look out!”

It’s the cleaners. One’s hands snake around her arms to hold her in place, terribly familiar. She realizes that this—the cleaners knocking her out, Gray watching—is just a replay of that night in Morocco, and that thought forces her to bring her heel down, hard.

Instinct shoves the one holding her back, kicks the second in the chest. He spins back into the wall, and she raises her fists. She’s not losing this time. She refuses.

She staggers back and the room spins. Her hands close around the mop nearby and she levels it at the cleaners. She barely holds on to her consciousness as the world turns to a blur of red and grey. Carmen manages to fend them off, keeping her back to Gray, but before they can advance further, they get a call and retreat down the hall.

The mop clatters from her hand. “Carmen!” Gray pleads. “Are you okay? Do I know those guys? Who were they?”

“Guys who never leave before the job is done,” she says, voice paper-thin. She starts trying the locks, the sedative the cleaners gave her finally wearing off.

That’s when something cuts through the ceiling.

Gray scrambles back as a neon-green light slices through the stone. Carmen’s senses are still too slow, too slow, too slow, and Gray is stuck, and he’s yelling something that she can’t understand, and why aren’t these keys working?

The severed ceiling hits the ground with a thud, almost loud enough to conceal the metallic one that follows. But not loud enough.

The robot stands, surveying the scene before it with mechanical disinterest. Carmen’s hands move without her needing to think, flying over the lock as she tries key after key. Come on, Come on—

The robot takes Gray in one hand, ignoring his struggles. Carmen’s voice shakes, and she wonders if Gray understands why as she screams, “No!” She fires her cable towards him, but the robot catches it instantly, yanking her forward.

Pain explodes up Carmen’s arm. Nononononononono—

The cable is ripped from her hand, and Gray calls her name. There in one second, and then gone in the next.

Her voice is drowned out by the helicopter. I’m sorry, Gray, she thinks, but there’s only silence greeting her where he used to be.

...

The sixth time they meet, they’re in the Himalayas, at Bellum’s lab. She hates it here. Hates the way everything is so drained of life and color, so muted. Scrubbed of emotion. She sneaks past the robots, easily overtaking the guards, but her mind is elsewhere. Gray. What if he’s not the way she last saw him? What if he remembers? Worse, what if he doesn’t?

Carmen heaves against the door with all her might and it gives under the pressure. “Gray? We have to move.”

He doesn’t turn. “The name is—”

“Gray-ham,” she finishes, fondness bleeding into her voice against her better judgement. She’ll never get used to calling him that. “I know, I know.”

“No,” he says slowly, and stands. The click of a crackle rod being turned on registers in her mind, and Carmen’s confusion only deepens. Then she sees the look on his face, devoid of warmth, and dread starts to settle in her stomach. “It’s Crackle.”

Her mouth drops open, but she can’t bring herself to say anything. Didn’t she know this was coming? Didn’t she think over what she would say, hour after hour, because she knew at some point VILE might not want him to be so oblivious anymore?

She has no idea what to do.

“I assume you prefer I continue to call you ‘Carmen’?” he asks, raising the rod in her direction.

“Gray, no matter what they told you, you’re not that guy anymore,” she croaks.

His face, illuminated in the green light turns pitying. She remembers when he used to look like that. She remembers that night in Morocco, when the last thing she saw was his sad face before she was pulled into unconsciousness.

“But I am that guy,” Gray whispers, shaking his head. “I’ve always been that guy.”

Carmen can’t seem to make sense of this. Graham. Gray. Crackle. She’s losing him to VILE, and everything is muddy, and this is worse than Reykjavik because he’s choosing this, choosing them, and she can’t save him because he doesn’t want to, and—

“No,” Carmen says forcefully. “Sydney, the café, we’re the good guys, remember?”

He scoffs a little, but there’s no malice in it, just resignation. “When you finally had that cuppa with me.” Then his eyebrows furrow. “Being good only mattered to me because Bellum rewired my thinking, programmed me to be some sort of… innocent fool.”

“It’s never too late to change,” she insists.

He hasn’t lowered the rod, and somehow Carmen knows that he won’t hesitate to use it. “I’ve had time to reflect. Piece together the fragments. And there’s only one thing I’ve ever regretted doing for VILE.”

Carmen’s eyes flick from the rod to his. Suddenly, he powers it off.

“Trying to hurt you,” he whispers.

Her lip quivers, and she knows he sees it, because he continues before she can say anything in response. “I know you won’t come back to VILE. We’ve had that chat, on the train to Paris. But I’m begging you: give up trying to stop us, because I don’t ever want to be put in a position to hurt you again.”

The breath is gone from her lungs.

The hope is leeching from her.

She’s losing him.

Maybe he’s already lost.

“Then, apologies,” she says shortly, voice miraculously steady. “Because I won’t stop trying to take down VILE. Not ever.” Her hands tighten around the table. “And definitely not now.”

She holds up the fuse for him to see, and feels a terrible kind of satisfaction from seeing his eyes widen in realization as she presses it.

The bombs she set on her way in explode in a flurry of sparks and ash, and alarms start to ring before she’s even gotten up. Behind her, Gray pulls himself up, forward, face smeared with soot. Pain flashes across his face, but she doesn’t think it’s because of the rubble around him.

Despite the alarms ringing around them, when the words come out, they greet dead silence. “Goodbye, Gray.”

But all she can think is, Please forgive me.

...

The seventh time they meet, Carmen watches through someone else’s eyes as he smiles and flirts and acts as if everything is normal. Does he know? She wonders. Does he know I’m not in control?

She watches, as if underwater, as she takes and steals and moves on. She’s always been good at thievery, but with everything she’s learned since she left, she’s devastating once she’s fully on VILE’s side. Carmen pounds against the cage around her, but it only seems to get tighter the harder she tries to fight. A vice she’ll never be able to escape. A hold she’ll never be able to break.

She sees herself back with her old friends, not content but restless, wanting out of the easy life that’s been handed to her by the faculty. This Carmen wants a challenge, a fight. She relishes the way people resist when she comes after them. She sees only a chance to prove herself worthy in everything.

She watches this Carmen leave her friends. Watches her trick Zach into following her to the ferris wheel, the hope shining on his face. He thinks she has control. He thinks she needs his help.

She screams as she realizes why she’s brought Zach to the top of the wheel, the lights shutting off around them.

She pounds against the control they have over her as she lands a roundhouse on him so strong he barely manages to hang on to the ledge.

And as Carmen turns away from Zach’s sharp yell, she crumbles, unable to do anything about it.

She’s only half paying attention, huddled in a dark corner in her mind with her arms around her knees, drawn in tight, when she hears that familiar cry behind her.

Carmen’s eyes snap open and Gray’s shut and both of them struggle as he brings the device down on her head.

“Please come back,” he’s murmuring into her hair, even as her elbow digs into his gut, even as she slams the two of them back into the wall, even as she pulls him over her head and levels the rod, the device broken, control restored, even as she pulls off her gloves because she has to do this herself—

“You sold me out, Gray,” she hears herself say, voice gravelly with pain.

His hazel eyes widen. “No! I’m trying to help.”

Underwater, she’s underwater, she’s—

She raises the rod.

“It’s finger-print activated,” he says hoarsely. “It won’t work for you.”

“It’s finger-print activated. It won’t work for you.”

The memory hits her, unbidden. They’re standing in a train. She has the rod against his neck in warning. He’s watching her as if he’s never seen her before, because in a way, he hasn’t—Carmen is as foreign to him as a stranger. Darkness closes in—

She staggers, trying to regain control. But in real time, Carmen has barely moved. She smiles at him pityingly, mirroring the look he’s given her so many times over the years. The look of someone who knows they’ve won. “Won’t it?”

Realization dawns on his face at the same time she opens the rod, turning up the power. “Being VILE faculty has its perks.”

Underwater, Carmen screams.

“You’re a dirty traitor like Shadowsan,” she says.

“This isn’t the real you,” he pleads.

She doesn’t care. No, she does. No—

“Goodbye, Gray.” Carmen smirks. “No, wait. You prefer Crackle.”

The last hope of reaching her in his eyes dies as he reaches out a hand. “Please, Carmen—”

The rod fires.

Gray flies back, head cracking against the floor.

His hand goes limp.

His body stills.

And as Carmen walks away, she’s not thinking anything at all.

...

The eighth and final time they meet, Carmen is walking through the corridor of a train, hands rubbing her arms to ward off the cold. She’s wearing her usual red sweatshirt, and her hair is tied up in a knot on her head. The dark jeans she wears are warm enough that she’s not cold, but the breeze coming from one of the cabins is very much trying to undo that statement.

Her hands shake and she absently checks the note Chief gave her, even though she’s already memorized where she’s supposed to go. “Just in case,” Chief had said, handing it to her with a wink. ACME’s fearsome leader, it turns out, has a weakness for meddling. Figures.

Still, Carmen is grateful. Chief has been nothing but helpful regarding her true parentage, and her own side of the story from the night of her father’s death gave Carmen a sense of fulfillment she’s never felt before.

She stops in front of one of the rooms, a smile curving her lips. “First class? Sweet.”

“My treat, Red,” he says, and she can hear the smile in his voice. “You earned it.”

“Is it weird that I’m nervous to be back in Paris?” she asks absently, setting her bag down. “Be honest.”

“I don’t think so. You have a lot of history here.”

Carmen laughs. “Understatement. But you’re right. I guess I’m just thinking about him.”

“Gray?”

Her mouth droops at the mention of his name. She knows he’s fine, Chief told her so weeks ago, but the courage to visit him still eludes her. “Yeah. I wish things had turned out differently. Maybe I should ask Chief about where he is…”

“You might see him sooner than you think.”

Carmen’s brow furrows. “What?”

But the device has gone silent in her ear. Player is gone.

And the door behind her slides open.

“Well, well.”

Carmen pauses, afraid that if she turns there will be empty air. That she’ll be imagining things.

But then she sees the reflection in the window.

“Blast from the past, eh?” says Gray, and his smile is still the same: all boyish charm, now mixing with something kind, assured.

He seems to realize she doesn’t know what to say. Those dimples reappear. “In case you were wondering, you can call me Gray.”

And as the crack that has followed her since the night she saw him at the Sydney Opera House begins to close, Carmen finds herself smiling. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Carmen.”

#carmen sandiego 2019 #redcrackle #gray x carmen #carmen sandiego spoilers #im obsessed with them sorry #mine

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buttercup-of-kaer-morhen · 4 years

Note

Hello yes I am Completely Anonymous ONCE AGAIN and I have a prompt for you! Temporary (perhaps potion or drug induced?) Amnesiac!Geralt being absolutely floored and delighted that Jaskier is his lover. Please and thank you.

Hey completely anon,

I may or may not have gone a little off script for this prompt and really wanted to write more for my dumb magical college AU. Hope you enjoy it anyway. May I present!

Magic and Exams: Amnesia

Main tags: college AU, it’s modern but with magic slapped in, Jaskier and Yenn are besties (Fight me), Lambert/Aiden kinda?, Non human Jaskier, And they were roommates~, pure fluff, pre relationship, pining… Kinda, unbetaed, we die like Renfri

——

It was official! Fate was cruel and destiny hated him. Jaskier had been fine with how life had been going. Classes were good. Friends were great. And, you know, he had finally stepped into a tentative friendship territory with his hot roomie rather than that weird close relationship you develop with your roomie. Things were just grand!-- Ignore the fact that he had a monster crush on said roomie, not important!-- What was important was that Lambert, the ass, suddenly showed up on Jaskier’s free day-- a day he was dedicating to his reading and composing, bouncing around his hobbies as he pleased-- with a semi confused looking Geralt. The witcher had barged into the dorm room towing Geralt along as Aiden brought up the rear. Now, he was going to ignore this intrusion at first but Lamby seemed to have other ideas. He loudly proclaimed to the bewildered white wolf that this was his room and, oh look, his partner. “Go ham bro!” To which, Geralt’s gaze snapped to Jaskier and proceeded to silently stare at the musician in contemplation.

Jaskier, as one would imagine, was stunned as his brain tried to understand what was happening but the dickhead explained no further as he turned to leave. Having none of it, Jaskier quickly stumbled to his feet and bolted for the two retreating figures, almost tripping several times on the shit covering the floor-- he really needed to remember to clean one of these just as Geralt had nagged him to do days ago! He managed to get a hand on the other wolf before he fully got out the door. “Explain. Now.” He demanded, his voice warbling as his eyes darkened slightly.

“Woah shrimp!Calm your tits, you’re starting to look a little red around the gills-- Seriously though, a little siren is beginning to show.” Lambert tried to make light of the situation-- fish puns again, really Lambert?-- even though his smile gained a touch of nervousness as Jaskier tightened his grip. He held back his claws for the moment but he was this close to having a truly marvelous freak out on the man if he didn’t start giving answers.

“Calm down angelfish, Lambert’s just being a prick as per usual.” Aiden cut off anything Lambert was going to say. Lambert gasped in betrayal as he gave the third witcher a look that probably tried to convey how much he was wounded, he couldn’t really see though nor did he really care right now. “Situation is, we were having a class trip across campus, something monster related that our proff was gushing the fuck over and insisted we needed to see. Waaaay too excited over it if you ask me but while we were passing a class of freshies in an outdoor charms 101 class, this one chick starts going off at--” Aiden explained but really, it seemed more like he was slowly getting off topic as he spoke.

“Kitty, Get. To. The. Point.” He insisted slowly punctuating each word, while frowning in annoyance.

“Rude. I am! Anyway, this girl gets into a row with this guy in her class and fires off some kind of spell which was deflected but hilariously it ricocheted right towards us.” That was not hilarious in anyway but rather terrifying but Jaskier refrained from pointing this out. “You know Geralt though, life loves to fuck with him, so he gets hit straight in the back with it and Poof! He can’t remember some shit now. We think he only remembers up to starting college but nothing after.” Aiden finally finishes with a proud smile at having riveted the musician with his tale of adventure but it diminishes slightly in the face of Jaskier’s baffled expression. The half-siren really was quite proud of it, it just conveyed the right amount of Are you fucking idiots or did you just lose your brain on the way over!?

Jaskier took a deep breath and calmed himself before flatly staring both in the eye, his fingers steepled in front of his mouth as he thought of how to respond. “And why, pray tell, did you bring my accidentally spelled roommate to me rather than sending him to infirm?” He asked, deceptively sweet with a razor’s edge to it.

Lambert scoffed. “He was being fucking annoying--” His words were abruptly cut off by Aiden’s hand roughly smacking over his mouth.

“What he means is…” Aiden growled, glaring at the wolf to make sure he kept his mouth shut, to which Lambert huffed and flipped him off but otherwise remained silent. “Geralt kept prodding us ‘bout going to see his partner and, well, you were like the only one we could think of since everyone else has someone and this idiot is single like you.” The man punctuated his simplistic logic with a small shrug.

Jaskier took a deep breath through his nose. “Uh-huh… This is a terrible fucking idea--” Before he could finish what he wanted to say, Lambert suddenly yanked his self free of his grip and threw Aiden over his shoulder.

“Your problem now bard!” He called over his shoulder as he booked it down the hall, cackling like the bastard he was.

“Oh nonononono! Get the fuck back here!” He called after fruitlessly. They were already long gone.

Jaskier sighed as he turned and closed the door to their room. Geralt seemed to have ignored and blocked out the whole exchange. Whether out of courtesy for Jaskier privacy or in favor of refamiliarizing himself with their space, he’d never know nor did he really care. When he finally turned his gaze back onto Jaskier, he just stared while scowling intensely in thought. It was rather insulting if Jaskier was being frank. With a roll of the eyes, the musician realized he’d just have to roll with whatever the idiots told Geralt about their “relationship” but wanted to head off the coming disappointment from the witcher. Jaskier was obviously not what he had been expecting, especially since normally the man barely tolerated him much less ever tried to invite him out, but it would sting less if he were the one to address it rather than the larger man stating it. At least that’s what he told himself. “Ok, alright. I know I’m not what you were expecting and rather disappointing compared to some of your past dalliances but please, let’s just get you to infirm. Once you have your head back on right, everything will make more sense about the whole us thing and we can just forget about this whole embarrass--”

“You’re so handsome…” Geralt’s awed words cut Jaskier’s rambling off at the knees and had him blinking in surprise. “Or cute. No, both… How do you manage to be both?!” Geralt’s marveling had Jaskier at a loss for words. The witcher had never once complimented him in all the time they had lived together. Barbed jabs? Yes. Playful teasing? Very Often. Statements of facts? Definitely. But actual full on compliments? Nope! No, never happened. Was this how he actually saw the musician or was this some hokey hocus pocus side effect?! Or the man was dying as they spoke and was out of his mind. Either way Jaskier snapped his mouth closed, no it had not been hanging open thank you very much, and tried to get his brain to work again.

“Wai-What?” Smooth Jaskier. His flabbergasted tone and excessive blinking seemed to not queue in Geralt however.

“Man, I really lucked out. How’d I get a catch like you to even look my way? Wish I could remember how…” The normally stoic individual whistled long and low as he gave Jaskier a once over. A once over! Like Jaskier was a hottie from a club-- or however Ren said it-- instead of some music nerd overloaded with college minors! Jaskier was so astonished and caught off guard that he bagan sputtering incoherently, much to the Witcher’s amusement apparently if the wolfish grin was anything to go by. He was shocked and scandalized! Delighted but absolutely shocked! He had never witnessed this side of his roommate. Instead of addressing whatever was happening here, Jaskier stumbled over to his phone on the bed and quickly dialed Yennefer.

It rang twice before he heard the familiar click of her answering and began nearly shouting before she could give her usual passive aggressive hello. “Yenn! I need help--”

“Whoa, calm the fuck down Jask, what the hell happened?!” Her worried demands cut him off. It was rather heartwarming to know his best friend sounded ready to draw blood for him. He could coo and awe about that later though!

“I’m fine but Geralt got hit with some hoodoo amnesia magic but I think it’s really just killing him! He’s acting delusional Yenn! He called me cute-- Stop laughing! This is serious!” He attempted to explain what was going on but his witch cut him off with her hysterical laughing on the other end of the line. Rude, by the way. This was a very serious matter.

“Sorry Dandy, you just, whew, gave me the best pick me up, I could have asked for. You really got me.” Yenn attempted to speak after most of it calmed down but a few giggles still managed to slip out.

“Yenn… I’m serious. He actually doesn--” He was cut off yet again. People really needed to cut that shit out.

“Lemme guess, Lambert is somehow involved?” She questioned, finally taking him a little more seriously, and he could practically hear her eye roll at the mischief maker’s name.

“Yes…” He confirmed slowly as his eye wandered to Geralt again as his panic died down slightly. The white haired man looked very confused as Jaskier tried to smile reassuringly but it probably came off as unsure at best.

The larger man came closer and placed warm large hands on his biceps as he looked intently into Jaskier’s eyes. “I mean it… I’m sorry if I never told you, I guess I was a pretty shitty boyfriend if I never told you how wonderful and caring you seem to be.” The other man apologized, as he looked away in shame. The words had the musician’s heart going wild as Yenn continued to talk in his ear. He really couldn’t hear her over his heart beating in his ears but it sounded like a demand to get Geralt to the infirmary.

To which Jaskier answered, “That’s nice dear. I think I have to go to infirm now because I believe my heart is about to give out.” His voice was sighed out in shock as he hung up on Yenn’s sudden worried screeching. Geralt on the other hand suddenly looked panicked and rather worried.

“What?” He questioned as he started to look over his “boyfriend”. “Don’t worry Jask, I’ll get you there. Just hang on.” Geralt tried to reassure him, his voice was handsome with how rough and rumbling it suddenly was, as he scooped the smaller man up into his arms like a bride. No, Jaskier did not swoon he’ll have you know! The wolf then booked it out of the room. “Damn it! I wish Roach were here…” He muttered in a growl and Jaskier thanked the heavens that the man did not remember his horse-- cat? Was in their room sleeping. There would be plenty of rumors after this but it especially would have gone down in infamy if the Witcher had rode like the wind across campus on horseback again. Jaskier couldn’t do much at that point except lay back, accept his fate, and enjoy the other’s cooing, about taking care of his boyfriend or how good Jaskier was, while it lasted. But hey, at least he’d finally get Geralt to infirm.

#Witcher #witcher netflix #Geraskier #fanfic #geralt x jaskier #gerlion #non human jaskier #college au #Lambert #Aiden #lambert/aiden #yennefer #Jaskier and Yennefer besties #Buttercup's writings

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snowdice · 2 years

Text

Big Bang (Sort of) Editing Story [Day 92]

I started writing this fic while editing my Big Bang story, but am going to continue doing it for other things now that Kill Dear is out. I will write and publish 100 words of the story every time I finish doing whatever task I’m doing. If you’d like to block these proceedings, please feel free to block the tag proofread stories. I will reblog this post with the parts of the story I do today. Edited chapters are linked; everything else I’ve done so far is under the cut.

My Master Post Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25 Part 26 Part 27 Part 28 Part 29 Part 30 Part 31 Part 32 Part 33 Part 34 Part 35 Part 36 Part 37 Part 38 Part 39 Part 40

Not sure how long I’ll work, but let’s see. :)

Chapter 41 Arc III: Bonding with the King (Virgil)

Virgil, despite cautiously believing the king’s words, was still half surprised when he wasn’t immediately thrown into the dungeon upon leaving the safety of the walls with the man. He didn’t even call the guards. Instead, he just calmly led Virgil down a set of stairs with a warm, not restraining, hand on his shoulder.

Virgil didn’t know what to think. He didn’t understand how he could not be in trouble for smacking the prince, but he was also cold, tired, and hungry from his days spent in the castle walls. He’d once been used to being all of those things, but now after only living in the castle for a little over a month, they stung a little harder. He even found himself leaning into the kings hand a bit, having missed hugs from Patton and Logan in the last few days.

He’d memorized enough about the castle layout to know they were going in the direction of the kitchen. He also knew that it was midafternoon between lunch and supper being served. There weren’t many people in their path except for the guards and they didn’t even give him a second glance.

The king took Virgil through the same side entrance Patton and Logan often used instead of through the dining hall. Patton’s mom’s office door was closed and instead of going all the way to the kitchen, the king paused to knock on it.

“Helen,” the king called through the door. “Would you mind coming out here please?”

“Just a moment,” was called back through the door and after just a few seconds the door was opening. Her eyes landed on him, and she immediately looked relieved. “Virgil,” she said. “Goodness where have you been? Patton’s been worried sick.”

Virgil bit his lip, unsure what to say to that. He’d assumed Patton would be mad at him too when he learned Virgil had hit Logan, but then again, according to the king not even Logan was mad.

“Would you mind making something for him to eat?” the king asked.

Her eyes snapped to him. “Oh, yes, of course. Virgil, sweetie, what do you want?”

Virgil just shrugged.

“Ham sandwich for now,” she said studying him, “and then I’ll make something more for dinner. Let me go grab your meal preference cards.” She stepped back into her office and grabbed the little box off of her desk full of the cards she always sent with any new food she served Virgil, so he could rank them.

Virgil watched, confused. He never did quite understand Helen with her endless willingness to feed him and to get his opinion about what she fed him with. She always reminded him of Patton with how kind she often was, though she was a little stricter than Patton ever had the heart to be.

There was no sternness to her now, however. She was fussing over him as she led them to the kitchen and started warming water for tea before grabbing the ingredients needed for the promised ham sandwich.

She made him clean his hands of the dirt and dust they’d acquired from days crawling through secret passageways before handing him the sandwich. Thomas at one point stepped out of the kitchen for a few moments but was back quickly with a smile. Virgil smiled back at him hesitantly. He was still surprised he was in the kitchen drinking warm tea and eating a sandwich as the head chef personally fretted over him.

The king also accepted a mug of tea and didn’t even watch over it closely despite Virgil sitting right there in poisoning distance. Instead of looking worried or angry when he noticed Virgil staring at him and his mug, he simply smiled softly and ask him if he needed more tea.

This man… was an idiot.

Virgil had thought that Logan wasn’t careful about his own personal safety, but apparently Logan had actually improved upon his family’s habit of being reckless. Virgil would have to complement him and provide him with more opportunities for growth if he was that willing to grow and adapt.

…If Logan didn’t hate him now.

Thomas said he wasn’t mad, but he could be lying or wrong. Virgil had hit Logan. Virgil knew he’d never been fond of the people who’d hit him. Of course, in this case, Virgil hadn’t meant to do it, but he still had. Even if Logan wasn’t actively mad, there was the possibility that he wouldn’t like Virgil anymore. That was almost worse because people who were mad might eventually calm down and forgive you, but if someone just decides emotionlessly that they don’t like you anymore, that’s a lot harder to reverse.

Logan had always been nice to him despite being a prince who didn’t need to give him the time of day and despite knowing why Virgil had come here. Logan was his friend. He didn’t want to lose that.

He finished off the ham sandwich pretty quickly and Patton’s mom almost immediately set down a plate of cheese and crackers.

“Thank you,” Virgil said softly.

“Of course,” Ms. Heart said, and Virgil jumped a bit in surprise when a hand touched his head, but calmed down after just a moment. It wasn’t that different than Patton, though he wasn’t that used to adults touching him. At least not gently or at all in the castle. “I’m glad you’re okay.” The hand stayed in his hair for only a second longer before pulling away. “Hmm,” she said. “Have you been living in the walls perchance?”

Virgil nodded at her.

“Ah,” she said, wiping off her hand on her apron. “Perhaps a bath would be in order after you finish eating.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied.

“More tea?”

He nodded again and she moved to take his mug over to the kettle. He turned to pop one of the crackers with cheese into his mouth and was still chewing when the nearest door suddenly sprung open.

He flinched, looking up to see Logan in the doorway, breathing like he’d run all the way from the other side of the castle. “Virgil,” he said sounding relieved. He’d crossed the room before Virgil had a chance to get anxious and was wrapping him up in a hug before he could do more than lightly flinch in surprise. “Thank goodness you’re okay. Where have you been?”

“In the walls,” Virgil replied.

Logan rubbed a circle into his back and hugged him harder. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Virgil jerked in surprise. “Why are you sorry?”

“I made you run away,” he said. “You were scared of me.”

“I hit you,” Virgil pointed out confused.

“It was an accident. You were having a bad day and I touched you without permission. It was my fault.”

“I…” Virgil said, “but…”

“I’m not going to be angry when it was just an accident, Virgil,” Logan said.

Virgil didn’t know what to say. He tucked his head against Logan’s shoulder and sniffled a bit. “Sorry anyway,” he said.

“It’s okay,” Logan said. Virgil felt a kiss being pressed to the top of his head. “Patton and I were really worried.”

“Oh,” he said. Tears started to leak from his eyes as he sniffled more. Logan just held him even tighter to the point it was starting to restrict breathing, but Virgil didn’t want him to let go. “Sorry,” he said again.

“Hush,” was the gentle response. The hug continued for a long few moments before Logan pulled back to look at him. “You are very dirty,” he commented.

“You’re a bit dirty now too,” Ms. Heart pointed out with a chuckle. Logan glanced down at his front. You could see an outline of Virgil’s body on his clothes.

“Ah,” he said. “It seems I am.” He seemed amused though, and honestly if he wasn’t going to be mad at Virgil for slapping him and then running away and hiding for days, he probably wasn’t going to be mad about that.

The king and Patton’s mom also didn’t seem unhappy with him getting the prince messy when he glanced at them. Ms. Heart seemed entertained, and the king was just smiling.

Virgil felt himself calming down more than he had in days, assured that Logan didn’t hate him and tentatively trusting that neither of the adults planned to lash out at him anytime soon. Ms. Heart handed him his refilled mug of tea and pointed him back at the food. Virgil relaxed fully into his chair.

Until, of course, the door blasted back open, word having gotten to Patton who proceeded to strangle him with a hug and cry at him loudly, but that was okay too.

Chapter 42 (Patton)

“Come on,” Patton urged. “You’re already all dressed up.”

Virgil made a dissatisfied noise like a cat that had just been picked up from its spot on a heated blanket.

“We’ll barely be outside five minutes,” Patton said. “You won’t even notice the cold.”

“Will so,” Virgil argued back.

Virgil’s return to the castle proper had been relieving. Everyone had been content to let him curl up on the floor near the fireplace and sleep for the past couple of weeks, but life did move on, and Patton and Logan had talked. They had agreed that Virgil’s constant anxiety about the weather probably wasn’t good for him. It had played a major part in making him stressed out enough to hit Logan which had caused the entire mess with him disappearing.

They’d brought it up to Virgil gently and, while they’d had to dial it back on requests like actually playing in the snow, the suggestion that they take the short trip from the castle to the horse stables was met with some interest. However, now that the time had come to make the trek, he seemed to be having doubts.

“Honestly,” Logan said. “I don’t think you’ll even feel the cold in that get up.”

They had, indeed covered the boy from head to toe. He currently looked a couple of inches taller and wider than he actually was bundled up with every piece of extra snow gear they could find.

He looked adorable with only his eyes uncovered even if said eyes were glaring at them both. However, Patton was a little worried he’d overheat if they didn’t leave soon.

“I don’t like snow,” Virgil said.

“We know, Virgil,” Logan said. That was the problem. They were hoping that a little minimal exposure would help him calm down just a bit. “The path’s been cleared of snow and ice though and it isn’t that much of a walk. You’ll be fine and then we’ll be able to look at all of the horses.”

Virgil still looked unconvinced.

“Just half an hour, Virgil, please,” Logan said.

“…Fine,” Virgil relented.

“Great,” said Patton, grabbing his coat sleeve and tugging him towards the door. Logan followed behind and Princess Marisol seeing they were going somewhere, got up and padded after them.

They made it all the way to the door nearest the stable. Patton could see when he opened it that the path they were to take was well cleared. Virgil still did not appear enthused. He glared at the outside like it had a knife.

Princess Marisol, for her part, saw Patton open the door, hissed, and abandoned them to strut off towards the kitchen.

“She knows what she’s talking about,” mumbled Virgil.

Patton sighed.

“Come on Virgil, I promise it won’t be that bad.” Patton offered a gloved hand. “You can hold my hand the whole way.”

Virgil was still frowning up a storm that would rival the one that had caused the snow in the first place, but he did take Patton’s hand. Patton used his grip on the hand to pull him forward through the door. It was still very chilly, Patton thought as they walked outside. Patton had chosen a coat that was a bit lighter since they were only walking to the stable and the wind bit him through it. He really hoped Virgil’s outfit was warm enough to keep him from freaking out.

Luckily, it did seem to be keeping him warm enough because, while he was tense, he still let Patton lead him forward.

They made it to the stable faster than usual since all three of them were quickening their pace. Patton gave a sigh of relief when he entered the stable and the warmer air inside of it. The stable wasn’t as warm as the castle, but it was warm enough that most of the stable hands only worked in light coats most of the winter. At least, they did inside the stable.

The head stable hand had already been warned about their visit beforehand and was waiting for the three of them at the door. “Good morning,” she greeted them, and… Virgil was already hiding himself behind Patton’s back.

“Hi!” Patton said cheerfully. He stepped to the side, so Virgil was no longer hidden. Virgil glared, reaching out to grab the edge of Patton’s sleeve and tugging on it in discontent. “This is Loraine, Virgil,” Patton said, nodding at her. When he glanced her way, he became a lot shyer, looking down at her feet instead of at her face. “She takes care of the horses. Say hello.”

“…Hello,” Virgil said quietly.

“Hi,” she said. “I hear you wanted to see the horses.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, we have plenty for you to meet and they’re mostly all inside because of the cold. Usually in the summer most want to spend a lot of time in the pasture. Let me show you around.”

Loraine showed them around the stable a bit even though Patton and Logan already knew where everything was. Virgil slowly got a little bit more comfortable, even asking a couple of questions unprompted. Surprisingly, there weren’t many basic questions about horses like Patton had expected. On the contrary, he seemed to know a good amount about horses already.

“Have you worked with horses before?” Loraine asked a bit into the tour after Virgil expressed interest in what they were feeding some of the older horses.

“I used to help take care of horses sometimes when people came to visit the orphanage,” he said. “They’re nice.”

“Do you ride?” Loraine asked.

Virgil shook his head. “I just fed them and cleaned up after them,” he said.

“Well, maybe you can try to learn when it gets a bit warmer,” she offered. “It’s a lot of fun.”

He nodded. “That would be nice,” he said.

After that, she mostly let them wander around looking at different horses in the stalls. She even let them feed some of the gentler ones who didn’t have a specific diet.

It was about 25 minutes into their adventure and while Virgil obviously liked the horses, Patton could already tell his anxiety was rising every time he took his glove off to feed a horse and it hit the chilly air. Patton glanced at Logan.

“Right,” Logan said. “We should probably be heading back inside, but I would like to stop by and see Mr. Apples before leaving. Otherwise, he will be cross with me.”

“Mr. Apples?” Virgil asked.

“He’s one of the horses,” Logan explained, moving to where the different treats were kept for the horses.

“Why do you need to see him in particular?”

Logan paused, his hand hovering briefly over the container of red apples before reaching in to grab one. “He was my Pa’s horse,” he said. “He likes when I visit him.”

“Logan’s the only one he likes visiting him,” Loraine added as she started to lead them towards where Mr. Apples’ stall was.

Patton had learned long ago that Mr. Apples could be a bit crabby. He wasn’t as mean to Patton as he was to some people, but he wasn’t exactly nice either. Patton tended to keep his distance whenever Logan went to visit.

Now, he stood on the other side of the hall from where Mr. Apples was as Logan stepped forward to greet him.

Logan spoke to him softly for a bit and he nuzzled his face against Logan’s shoulder with a huff. Eventually, he offered a piece of apple which Mr. Apple happily took.

“Can I say hello to him?” Virgil asked.

Logan glanced back at him. “Sure,” he said, “though be careful. He doesn’t like… anyone besides me.”

Virgil nodded and stepped forward cautiously. “Hello,” Virgil said. Mr. Apples turned his head to look at Virgil. There were a couple of seconds of silence and then Mr. Apple’s snorted softly. Virgil took that as permission to stretch out a hand.

“Wait,” Logan said. “He bites actually and…” Mr. Apples pressed his nose to Virgil’s hand softly and Virgil gently stroked it a couple of times.

“Huh,” said Loraine. “You’re officially the third person he’s ever liked, and you could say Prince Logan was cheating since he was grandfathered in as a baby.”

“Really?” Virgil asked. “He seems nice enough.”

Loraine rolled her eyes. Patton noticed she was standing a good distance away from the stall herself. “Oh no,” she said. “Trust me. He’s a bastard to everyone else.”

Virgil just frowned and pet the horse’s nose again. Mr. Apples leaned forward to nibble at his hair a bit.

Logan smiled at him and handed him one of the apple pieces to feed Mr. Apples which Virgil offered to the horse on a flat hand. “Red apples are his favorite,” he told Virgil. “He refuses to eat green.”

Logan and Virgil finished feeding Mr. Apples his treat and then it was time for Virgil to face the cold once again to return to the castle. Patton hoped this positive experience of going outside would make him more open to it in the future.

Chapter 43 (Logan)

Logan woke once again being strangled by an assassin. He sighed and attempted to squirm away. Virgil made an unhappy grumbling noise at the movement and squeezed him tighter. “I am just,” Logan said, shoving at the arm around him, “trying to get into a position where I can breathe.”

Unfortunately, there was no reasoning with an unconscious Virgil. Getting into an upright position was a battle and the boy was laying across his lap by the time he managed it, clutching one of Logan’s arms.

Logan huffed at his sleeping form, reaching over with his free arm to switch on his bedside lamp.

Despite how warm the room was, Logan assumed the temperature outside was extremely cold today. Virgil seemed to have some internal thermostat that seemed to know how cold it was outside even while snug in Logan’s bedroom. The tighter the boy clung in his sleep, the colder Logan knew it must be. Logan looked down at Virgil’s face. He and Patton had wanted to convince Virgil to spend a bit of time outside today, but if it was as cold as Virgil’s behavior indicated, perhaps they should wait for another day.

Logan reached over for the book on his nightstand that he’d learned to keep there for this exact reason. His reading speed had actually increased since Virgil’s arrival at the castle which was impressive. He’d only gotten this book two days before and was worried he’d finish it before Virgil woke this morning.

Luckily, he was incorrect, and Virgil began to stir a bit earlier than he usually did. Logan glanced down from his book when he felt Virgil shift only to find his eyes were open and staring at Logan.

“Good morning,” Logan greeted. Virgil’s fingers squeezed Logan’s arms lightly much like one would expect the cat currently sleeping soundly on Virgil’s pillow to knead its paws into its chosen person.

“Hi,” Virgil said, groggily. “Book?”

“It’s a book about various trade agreements that happened in the last 500 years,” Logan said, knowing what he was asking.

“Interesting?” Virgil asked.

Logan smiled a bit. “You would likely not be particularly interested since you do not already have knowledge of the players nor the politics of trade agreements in general.”

“Oh, okay,” Virgil said with a yawn.

Logan felt fondness warm his chest. “I can read you a different book if you would like,” he offered.

Virgil eyed the book in Logan’s hand. “You’re almost done with that one,” he pointed out. “You can finish it first.”

“You just want an excuse to continue to lay in bed,” Logan accused fondly.

Virgil did not even bother arguing, shifting a bit so he was laying with his head on his own pillow, but curling into Logan’s side. He was calm this morning which was honestly an odd thing. He was rarely truly calm while awake and even in sleep his face was sometimes pinched in tension. Logan and Patton’s plans for exposure therapy to cold weather seemed to help his resting anxiety level a bit, but it was still much higher than it was for normal people. Right now, though, he seemed fully content.

Logan was glad he could feel this comfortable near him, perhaps even comfortable because Logan was near. It was a striking contrast to how he’d been when he’d come here or even how he’d been when he’d accidently slapped Logan. He felt a surge of… something more than the standard sympathy one might feel for someone when he thought of Virgil’s fear and what had transpired to cause it. It was a bit like anger, but not quite. He could not quite put a name to it, but he did know it made him want to make sure nothing bad ever happened to him again. He would ensure nothing bad ever happened to him again no matter what it took.

Logan read for a little while longer. Virgil was still and calm most of the time, but Logan was pretty sure he didn’t go back to sleep. He shifted to look up at Logan when he set the book on the nightstand.

“Would you like to go to the library with me this morning?” Logan asked. “I need a new book and perhaps we could get you something too for your reading lessons. I was thinking we could go to the main library.” He had never taken Virgil there yet as there did tend to be a few more people than the more secluded library Logan favored. Yet, he’d been getting marginally more comfortable in small crowds, and Logan thought he might like to see it.

“Sure,” Virgil agreed easily. “After breakfast though?”

“Of course,” Logan agreed. “We don’t want Ms. Heart to get on us about your eating schedule again.”

Virgil nodded in agreement and climbed out of bed to get dressed. They had a short meal in the dining hall. Virgil was still adamant that Logan did not eat any of the muffins set out on the table, and with Patton still reportedly in bed, Logan did not have nearly enough social prowess on his side to argue with him this morning. Instead, they only ate things straight from the kitchen. Virgil still got a card with his meal which Logan had to fill out for him at the end. As always, he ranked everything on the plate a ‘5/5.’

The library wasn’t too far from the main dining hall. It was in the opposite direction of the way they would go if they were going back to the royal wing past the ballroom and through the entryway. In the summer, they would have gone through the courtyard. In fact, if it had been just Logan, he would have ran across the open area quickly despite not having a coat, but with Virgil in tow, he chose to walk all the way around. Though honestly, since it was Virgil’s first time entering the library, it would be more impressive entering it from its main entrance than from the side one that castle residents in a hurry would use.

He looked over at Virgil as he pushed open the library doors to see his reaction. Virgil’s eyes widened a bit as he saw the huge room with the many bookshelves.

“It’s impressive, isn’t it?” Logan asked with a smile.

“You have two stories of books?” Virgil asked, looking at the spiral staircase that led to the second floor, awed. “I didn’t even… There are more books than I’ve ever seen in my life in this one room.

“And these are just the things available to the general public. There are also record rooms only used by certain people and rooms with restricted book access based on skill, like some magic books.”

“That’s a lot…” Virgil said. What was maybe insecurity flashed through his eyes.

“It’s an overwhelming amount of knowledge, but different people can find what they need,” Logan said, pulling him out of the doorway and towards where they keep the children’s books. “Here, let’s go get books you can try to read yourself and then we’ll find some books you would be interested in that I can read to you.” They stopped at a shelf. “These would be perhaps just a bit beyond your current reading level, but they would be a good challenge, I believe. Pick whichever you like.”

Virgil took a moment to stare at the pictures on the books. He squinted at the titles for a bit longer and asked Logan what a few said before choosing some from the shelf. Two of them were about different crops and one was about a family of foxes.

“Are those three enough?” Logan asked.

“Yeah, I think so,” Virgil replied.

“Do you want to explore the library a bit or just get a book for me to read you and leave?” Logan asked, not wanting to overwhelm him.

“I’d like to look around a bit,” Virgil replied.

“Okay.”

Logan had frequented the main library when he’d been younger. Though he often spent his time now in the smaller library that had been tailored to his specific interests, he still came to the main library fairly frequently. He knew many good places to sit with a book. There were nice window seats that looked out into the courtyard and a corner near a small fireplace. Logan showed him the door that led to the courtyard and where the door to the more restricted books were, though they didn’t go into any of them right now.

Virgil seemed to like the library well enough, following Logan around willingly. Logan did have to pull him away from a few places when he looked a bit too intently at some high, but sturdy bookshelves. And the chandelier.

He did look like he was constantly straddling the line between being in awe of and being overwhelmed by the size of the library, so Logan decided to end the tour after a bit and work on picking out a book.

“What type of book would you like to read?” Logan asked.

Virgil shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “Whatever you think is best is fine. I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“But I’ve chosen every book I’ve read to you so far,” Logan said with a frown. “We should get something tailored to your interests.”

“I don’t have interests, Logan,” Virgil said with an eyeroll.

“You have some interests,” Logan said.

Virgil raised an eyebrow.

“You like climbing,” Logan said, “and… horses. You and Mr. Deknis seem to get along.”

“Are there books about climbing?” Virgil asked.

“There are books about everything,” Logan claimed.

“Bullshit.”

Logan narrowed his eyes. “Careful with that language. Just because Patton isn’t here doesn’t mean you get to be crude.”

Virgil rolled his eyes.

“I will tattle.”

“Fuck,” said Virgil.

Logan shook his head in exasperation but couldn’t help but smile a bit. There was something about Virgil when he felt comfortable enough to be slightly unruly that made Logan happy. It felt like a glimpse of the actual Virgil beneath his usual caution towards the world.

“How about we ask the librarian if there are any books on climbing,” Logan suggested. “Dr. Macey knows where all of the books would be. I can introduce you to them.”

Virgil didn’t look particularly pleased about meeting a new person, but he also didn’t seem overly distressed by the thought, so Logan tugged him along to the librarian’s small office where Logan had seen them disappear a few minutes ago. He knocked on the door.

It swung open a few seconds later and Dr. Macey’s head poked out. “Good morning, Prince Logan,” they said. They glanced at Virgil, “and, Virgil, I would assume.”

“I’ve mentioned you,” Logan said because he saw Virgil immediately start to freak out about a random person knowing his name. Though, honestly, he was sure Dr. Macey had heard about him from other sources as well. He turned back to the librarian. “I was wondering if you could help Virgil pick out a book. He hasn’t gotten many chances to read in his life and isn’t sure what type of thing he’d like. Also, if it could somehow involve climbing to prove a point, that would be appreciated.”

“Climbing, eh?” Dr. Macey asked, thinking for a couple of seconds. “I think I can probably find something.”

Dr. Macey spent a bit of time looking through the shelves. They made small talk with Virgil, and while Virgil seemed a bit guarded (likely because Dr. Macey was asking questions about him trying to figure out more about what type of book he liked), he seemed fairly calm. Logan was pleased to think he liked the library. Maybe when he was a bit better at reading and he’d adjusted more to the size of the room and the concept that other castle residents could come around, he’d want to spend some time down here.

Eventually, Dr. Macey picked out three options and let Virgil choose which one he wanted. There was a fantasy book, an adventure story, and a mystery story.

“All of these have to do with climbing?” Virgil asked skeptically.

“There’s at least one good long climb in each,” Dr. Macey promised with a smile.

Virgil studied the books for a long moment. Eventually, he pointed to one that had the title, “Into the Mist,” which was the fantasy book.

“Good choice,” Dr. Macey said. Logan was certain they would have said that regardless of which Virgil chose, but Virgil still lit up slightly at the praise. The librarian handed the book to Virgil and set the other two aside to reshelve later.

“Thank you, Dr. Macey,” Logan said.

“If you need anything else, let me know,” they said.

“I think that’s it for today,” Logan said. “Let’s go back upstairs Virgil.”

Virgil nodded, clutching his chosen book as they left the library.

Chapter 44 (Thomas)

Loraine had called Thomas down to the stables to talk about a concern that had cropped up about their grain stores. They’d found mold in one of the grain bins which had, of course, soiled everything stored there. Luckily it ended up being one of the smaller grain bins, but it still provided some concern for getting through the winter. As it was, they would be able to make it through, but a lot less comfortably.

Thomas mostly trusted the three who ran the animal husbandry on the castle’s lands to deal with it, but he still provided his opinion when asked.

The meeting had taken a few hours. When he’d come down, the sun had been shining. It had been still cold, but not as freezing the last few days, though he was under no illusion that winter was anywhere near over. A point which was emphasized when he stepped out of Loraine’s office and glanced out of a window only to see what appeared to be a blizzard happening outside.

Great. He wasn’t exactly enthused about walking back to the castle in that. Wanting to delay it as long as possible, he turned away from the window and walked towards the other end of the stable.

He grabbed an apple along the way, intending to feed it to Mr. Apples while convincing himself to make the jaunt back up to the castle. To his surprise, Mr. Apple’s head didn’t pop into the hall upon hearing someone enter his domain (aka the hall outside of his stall). This was odd as Mr. Apples was a territorial bastard who was always sure to be prepared to confront anyone who came within range or eat an apple if the person invading his space happened to be one of the few he wouldn’t attempt to bite on sight. Yet, no white nose popped into sight.

When Thomas approached the stall, he figured out why. There was someone in the stall, but unlike most instances of someone being in a stall with Mr. Apples, the person was not being bitten, spit at, or anything else. Instead, Mr. Apples was standing there calm as day as Virgil ran a brush over his flank.

Thomas stared at them for a moment. He found himself wondering if Mr. Apples had died and someone had replaced him with another white horse so the royal family didn’t get upset like one might replace a child’s dead goldfish if it dies while they’re away.

However, then, Mr. Apples realized he was there. The disdain in his expression upon catching sight of Thomas told him this was no imposter. He apparently by some miracle had just found another person he liked. Which… did pose an issue for Thomas.

Virgil had calmed down around his presence a bit ever since Thomas had found him hiding in the castle, but Thomas wasn’t sure how he would feel about being confronted by Thomas’s presence without warning. In the past, he’d been rather jumpy. If Thomas startled a person Mr. Apples liked in front of Mr. Apples, the tentative peace between Thomas and the horse would surely be over.

He debated simply walking away like Mr. Apples’ expression was insisting, but before he could, Virgil glanced up at him. Thankfully, he didn’t jump. He looked at Thomas for a second, seeming a bit unsure. They hadn’t been alone since he’d stopped being completely terrified of Thomas’s existence after all, but eventually settled on saying, “Uh, hello your majesty.”

“Hello Virgil,” Thomas replied with a small smile. “You can just call me Thomas if you’d like.”

Virgil didn’t seem to know what to say to that, so Thomas dropped it for now.

“Mr. Apples seems to like you,” he said.

“He’s a good horse,” Virgil said, patting Mr. Apples’ side. Mr. Apples sent Thomas a smug look. Well, this… was a very familiar conversation.

Having learned long ago not to bother arguing his case, Thomas just said, “He doesn’t like many people.”

“Logan said that,” Virgil said.

“Where is Logan?” Thomas asked, curious. Usually, Virgil wasn’t too far from him or Patton, but Thomas hadn’t seen a sign of them in the stable.

“He’s studying in his library,” Virgil said, “but I wanted to come to the stable since the weather was slightly nicer.”

“And Patton?”

“He had a meeting with your advisor.”

“Makes sense,” Thomas said. He was glad Virgil was apparently comfortable enough now to go places without one of the other boys. He reluctantly supposed he had Mr. Apples to thank for that. “I brought him and apple. Would you like to feed it to him?”

“Sure,” Virgil said.

Thomas smiled and handed over one of the apple slices over the stall gate to Virgil who fed it to Mr. Apples. Once the horse was finished with that slice, Thomas handed him another.

“Don’t you want to feed it some to him?” Virgil asked.

“He’ll enjoy it much more from you,” Thomas replied.

Virgil frowned, but Mr. Apples threw his head in agreement. Virgil ended up feeding the rest of the apple to the horse.

“Would you like to walk back to the castle with me?” Thomas asked once the horse was busy chowing down on his last slice.

“Sure,” Virgil replied. Thomas smiled at him and helped him put away the brush and other supplies he’d been using on Mr. Apples.

Everything went smoothly until he and Virgil moved to leave the stable. The second that Virgil’s eyes saw the weather conditions outside he paused. Thomas did have to admit that he also wasn’t a fan of what was going on outside. The castle was only a dark blob in the distance when the snow was falling that fast.

Yet, there was something different about Virgil’s expression. It didn’t just seem like reluctance to get cold and wet. Thomas had unfortunately seen Virgil terrified a few times before and it was definitely fear flashing in his eyes right now.

“Are you alright?” Thomas asked softly. Virgil jumped at his voice, but for once Thomas didn’t think he had himself to blame for that.

“I…” Virgil hesitated. “I’m just going to stay here for a while.”

Thomas looked at him and then at the snow outside. “You don’t like the snow, I assume?”

Virgil curled one arm around his waist, gripping the opposite wrist. He shrugged one shoulder. “Bad experience.”

“Oh,” Thomas said, “I see.” The child was looking away from Thomas as well as from the snow outside. His eyes were fixed on a bale of hay. “I guess we’ll just stay out here for a bit.”

Virgil’s eyes shot back to him. “You don’t have to stay,” he said. “It’s fine.”

Thomas shrugged. “I didn’t really want to go out in that anyway.”

Virgil bit his lip. “You’re king,” he said. “You have important things to do. You don’t need to sit out in a horse stable with me because of my issues.”

“You’ll be amazed how much time I’ve spent sitting in a horse stable in my life, king or not,” Thomas said with a rueful smile.

Virgil still seemed unsure. “You don’t have to,” he said. There was no way Thomas was going to leave a child who was afraid of snowstorms for whatever reason alone in a horse stable even if he wouldn’t technically be alone with all of the workers.

“It’s fine,” said Thomas. “I’m sure the stable hands would be willing to share some of the tea in their breakroom with us. We’ll wait for a bit and then see if the storm decides to let up later.”

“If you’re sure,” Virgil said.

“I am,” Thomas said with a smile before leading him towards the staff breakroom and away from the sight of the snow falling outside.

Chapter 45 (Virgil)

The king took him a little room in the center of the stables. There were two people sitting in the room when they entered. They looked up at their entrance, but didn’t spare them a second glance, going back to playing a game with cards. This both made sense because the king should be able to go wherever he wanted without question and didn’t make sense because Virgil had assumed most people working for the castle would jump into asking if the king needed anything when he entered a room.

Instead, the king walked over to a small counter at the side of the room.

If Virgil did not know that he was the king, he probably wouldn’t have been able to tell. He’d dressed to be in a horse stable today. There was no crown or any jewelry really in sight except for a necklace. His clothing was perhaps of better quality than most who worked in a stable would wear every day, but not by a large margin. He could have just been a stable manager or something if Virgil did not know better.

He glanced back at Virgil once he’d grabbed a few clean cups. “What would you like to drink?” he asked.

“I don’t care,” Virgil said.

“Have you tried hot apple cider before?” the king asked.

Virgil shook his head.

“Well, it looks like they have some cider being kept warm here,” he said touching a small barrel that was sitting on the counter. There was a slight glow to the barrel that Virgil recognized as a heating enchantment.

“Sure,” Virgil said. “I like apples.”

The king smiled and turned to pour out a glass of the drink through a spigot on the side of the barrel. He offered it to Virgil. The king was serving Virgil a drink. That was… really weird. He was a weird king.

He took the cup. It was warm from the drink and Virgil felt some of the tension that had been in his shoulders since he’d seen the amount of snow outside release as his fingers warmed up.

“It has more spices than things like apple juice,” the king said. “Mostly cinnamon, but also things like cloves, ginger, and nutmeg.”

Virgil didn’t really know what any of those things tasted like off of the top of his head other than cinnamon and, of course, apples. He took a cautious sip anyway.

“Like it?” the king asked, a smile growing on his face quickly in response to whatever face Virgil was making.

Virgil nodded vigorously.

“Good,” the king said with a chuckle. He turned to get another glass of the apple cider for himself. “Let’s sit,” he said motioning with his head to a couch. It was the only free seating available other than one extra chair at the table where the two stable hands were playing cards.

Virgil did as he said, walking over to the couch and taking a seat. It was an old, but comfortable couch. Most of the things in this room seemed pretty old, though all in good condition. It made sense that they wouldn’t want to have a bunch of new furniture when people were just using it to take a break between cleaning horse stalls.

It was a nice little room all the same and warmer than the rest of the building. The two stable hands had slung their light coats over the backs of their chairs and the king also took his off before sitting. Virgil kept his on.

There were a few hooks where it looked like the workers kept their heavier winter coats for when they left the stable as well as some bags and a couple of paintings.

“That one looks like Mr. Apples,” Virgil pointed out.

The king glanced at the painting. “It is Mr. Apples actually,” he told Virgil.

“He was absolutely impossible to keep still for it. He went back in forth from trying to bite the artist to trying to show off for his owner. I’m pretty sure the artist made his eyes red if you look close enough just to express his displeasure somehow.”

“Logan?” Virgil asked.

“Oh, no,” said the king. “That was when my husband was alive.”

Virgil immediately internally cringed. Externally he said a quick “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” said the king. “He’s not a taboo topic to me.”

Virgil searched his face, but he really didn’t seem mad. There was maybe a bit of sadness around his expression, but he wasn’t angry.

“Logan always seems upset when he mentions him.”

“He’s mentioned him to you?” the king asked, sounding surprised.

“A few times,” Virgil said. “He said the headpiece was his favorite and, when he realized I didn’t like the snow, he tried to convince me it wasn’t all bad by telling me how they used to play in the snow when he was little.

“Logan doesn’t usually talk about him much,” the king said. “He was just a child when he died. It hit him very hard.”

Virgil had noticed that himself.

“It’s good he’s talking about him at least a bit.” The king mused, taking a sip of his drink. “He was the son of a stable hand here.”

“You married a stable hand’s son?” Virgil asked and something about his tone made the king laugh.

“I did,” he confirmed. “We met when we were teenagers about your age. His father had come to work at the castle, and they lived in one of the houses out back. There weren’t many kids in the castle at the time and we both liked the gardens and the orchard, so we ended up friends.”

This knowledge just reaffirmed to Virgil that Logan’s dad was an odd king. From what little Virgil knew of princes, they were not supposed to befriend the children of stable hands they met in the gardens and kings were certainly not supposed to marry them. Then again, Logan was also a prince and he had befriended an assassin he found in his bedroom. In fact, now that he thought about it, Patton was now a royal advisor in training, but even he was just the son of a chef.

Perhaps the royalty of Prijaznia were just like that. He was once again glad he hadn’t managed to kill the king.

He’d been glad for a while now. At first it had been because he’d gotten to know Logan and knew killing his dad would have made him sad. Now, though, he thought it was a good thing he didn’t kill the king because the king didn’t deserve to die from what Virgil had seen. He was nice.

He even got up and got Virgil more of the apple cider when he finished his first cup of it. He continued to sit with him and talk to him about different things like what he, Logan, and Patton had been doing in the past few days.

Eventually, the king went to go check if the weather was any better, leaving Virgil to finish his third glass of cider.

“It’s snowing less hard now,” the king told him when he got back, “but it’s still snowing. It’s also going to start to get dark soon. Do you want to try to go back?”

Virgil didn’t really. He didn’t want to be outside when it was snowing at all, but he also really wanted to be back at the castle before it was night. He’d much prefer to sleep in a bed or even in his closet than somewhere in the stable.

“Yeah, we can try to go back,” Virgil replied.

“Alright,” the king said. He grabbed his coat off of the couch from where he’d set it. Virgil had also taken off his coat eventually, so he grabbed his as well. Once they were both dressed, they walked back to the stable door.

Virgil hesitated when he saw the snow. It was better than it had been earlier, but it still was falling fairly hard. He shifted nervously. That was going to be cold.

At least now he could see the castle clearly, so he didn’t have to worry about getting lost in the snow and dying… probably.

“Here,” said the king. He reached for Virgil slowly and Virgil tensed but allowed it. The king took off the hood Virgil had put up and readjusted the cloth hat under it so it was over his ears before putting the hood back up. He pulled on some strings that Virgil hadn’t realized until right then tightened the hood so it wouldn’t fall off his head in the wind. Then, the king took off the scarf around his own neck and wrapped it twice around Virgil, so it covered his mouth and nose. The only exposed area of his face was now his eyes.

“Now will get the least amount of snow on you as possible,” the king said.

“Thanks,” Virgil said. It came out a little muffled.

He smiled at him. “Do you,” he asked, sounding a bit awkward, “want to hold my hand?”

He didn’t particularly. He’d held hands with Logan and Patton before, but that was different. This was the king. Then again… he looked out at the snow. He really didn’t want to risk getting lost in the snow and he was less likely to get lost in the snow if he was holding on to someone, especially someone who knew his way around the castle grounds very well.

Biting his lip behind the borrowed scarf, he decided he’d already taken way too many liberties when it came to the king. He shook his head no. “No thank you.”

“Alright,” said the king. “Offer is open if you change your mind. Ready to go?”

Virgil nodded, grimacing as he stepped out into the cold, the king at his side. Even with the nice winter coat from Logan and the king’s scarf, it was still noticeably cold. Still, he was not cold enough to justify the icy chill that went down his spine and the way his lungs felt frozen solid causing him to pant trying to take in air. It shouldn’t be this way. He’d been in much colder weather for much longer and with a lot less.

“Are you alright?” the king asked when Virgil couldn’t help but slow down to a stop, shivering.

Virgil looked up at him. Unlike Virgil’s face, he had no scarf to protect him from the weather, but he didn’t seem concerned about that. He seemed much more concerned about Virgil. His reddening face was pinched, and he didn’t look like a man as powerful as a king. He looked like… well, he looked like a concerned father, like Logan’s father.

“Can…” Virgil choked out. He held out his hand.

“Of course,” he said. “Like I said, the offer is open.” He reached forward and wrapped his fingers around Virgil’s. Virgil immediately felt the warmth of them, though it may have been more in his head. There were two pairs of thick gloves between their skin.

Logan’s dad led him by the hand all the way back to the castle.

Chapter 46 (Patton)

Patton hadn’t been aware until Virgil came along what Mr. Deknis did in the winter. Most of his staff had gone home for the winter or had winter tasks to do, but Mr. Deknis and a few choice members of his staff still apparently did a lot despite not being able to plant anything. He frequently invited Virgil to join in on these tasks, and Virgil often accepted. Patton wasn’t sure why he seemed to enjoy things like deep cleaning gardening tools and checking over equipment, but he did, so Patton was glad.

“Alright, that’s enough of that for today,” Mr. Deknis said once Virgil finished brushing off the paste that had been applied to remove rust from a hoe.

“Are you sure?” Virgil asked. “I have more time to work. Even if you need to go, I can still work on something. Unless you don’t want me messing with things without supervision…”

“I’m not telling you to leave, Virgil,” Mr. Deknis said with a half-smile. “I just thought you might want to help me out with something else today.”

“Oh, okay. Sure,” Virgil agreed, sounding just a touch excited.

“Let’s put all of this away,” Mr. Deknis said.

Virgil and Patton helped him put things away, though Patton felt more like a hindrance as both Mr. Deknis and Virgil seemed to know exactly where everything in the room went whereas Patton wasn’t sure about some things.

Patton didn’t always come with Virgil when he was helping out Mr. Deknis. Sometimes Logan would come instead, and Virgil had been coming alone with increasing frequency over the last month or so.

He seemed to like it. He always seemed to look forward to spending time with Mr. Deknis and not only because Mr. Deknis often bribed him with snacks of dried or pickled fruits and vegetables.

Once all of the tools and cleaning equipment were stored away, Mr. Deknis led them down the hall. Mr. Deknis had an entire hall to himself on the first floor of the castle which included his bedroom as well as places to dry and can things.

Where he was leading them to now was a small study next to his bedroom. Patton had never been there before and by the way Virgil was curiously looking around, neither had he. It was a cute little area with a small desk and a bookshelf full of books that seemed to all be on plants.

“I’m starting to think about what I want to grow in the gardens next year,” Mr. Deknis explained as they crammed into the small office. He pointed to a large piece of paper on his desk. “This is the plan at the moment though it’s nowhere near finalized.”

He pointed at a sketched out square on the large paper. “I was thinking I wanted to plant something new here, but I don’t know what. It’s just a small patch between the vegetable and flower garden. It’s sort of by the one three teared fountain. I usually use that patch for newer plants, so it could be a vegetable or a flower. I was thinking you could help me pick out something to put there.”

Virgil looked up at him eyes wide.

Mr. Deknis smiled at him. “Would you like to?”

“I…” Virgil said. “I wouldn’t have any idea what to put.”

“Well, I have a few different books of plants you can flip through,” he said. “Any idea what kind of plant you’d like to grow?”

Virgil shrugged.

“I’ll just give you a few for now,” Mr. Deknis said, selecting three different books. “If you can’t find anything you like, just let me know and I’ll give you another book. There are plenty of different types of things to grow. This is just a start.”

“Thank you,” Virgil said, eyes staring down at the field of flowers drawn on the cover of the book on the top of the stack in his arms.

They spent the afternoon on the floor of Mr. Deknis’ living room. The gardener made them some lavender tea and let them eat some candied walnuts and then retreated to an armchair to read his own book about plants. Patton and Virgil laid on the floor flipping through the different books. Virgil still wasn’t very good at reading, so Patton would read the descriptions of the plants that caught his eye to him. One of the books was about different vegetables and one was about herbs, which of course, did catch Virgil’s attention a bit because of his love for edible things, yet the pictures of flowers seemed to interest him the most.

They ended up eventually looking only in the flower book. A while after that, it became clear that he preferred flowers in the orchid family verses composite flowers because he liked the shape of their petals better. So, then they focused more on looking at the different types of orchids that existed.

“There are a lot more types of orchids than I knew there were,” Patton said.

“It’s the second largest family of flowers,” Mr. Deknis told them from his chair. “There’s a lot of different kinds, over 28,000 species at least. Vanilla comes from an orchid plant. If there are none in that book you especially want, I could get a book specifically on orchids.”

Virgil, having already flipped through the book multiple times looking at the orchids, looked up at him with a bit of excitement in his eyes. “I would like that,” he said. “Yes, please.”

Mr. Deknis’ eyes softened on him and he got to his feet. “I’ll go see what I have in the office.”

“Getting to grow something in the garden is exciting,” Patton said once Mr. Deknis left.

“Yeah,” Virgil replied. “It is.”

It was very nice of Mr. Deknis too, Patton thought. He didn’t have to offer to let Virgil plant something, in fact, him happening to have an empty patch in his plans was probably a little bit of a fib, but it was a nice one.

Virgil liked plants and it would give him something to look forward to over the winter and then something to do in the spring and summer. Honestly, Patton could wait to see him experience the castle in the spring. He’d already loved it in the fall, let alone when things started to grow. Patton had a feeling he’d be spending a lot more time outside this summer.

Mr. Deknis came back with a good sized book filled with pictures of flowers. “Why don’t you take this with you for tonight,” he suggested. “It’s almost dinner time. We can talk about it more when you come to help me again on Saturday.”

“Thank you,” Virgil said, taking the book. “I will see you Saturday then.”

“See you Saturday, Virgil,” he said with a smile.

Chapter 47 (Logan)

Logan and Virgil had gotten into the habit of having reading lessons in the afternoons 3 times a week. They would sit in the small library near the royal wing for an hour or two and do different things. Logan had started with just teaching him letters, but he’d memorized those long ago at this point. Now, Logan would spend most of the time having him read simpler books out loud and correcting any mistakes he made along the way. Improvement was surprisingly fast, though in truth, Logan hadn’t had any measure for how long it would take a teenager to learn to read and Virgil was quite dedicated.

Usually, their lessons ended with Logan reading a more complicated book while letting him follow along. The last week, they had been reading the library book Virgil had chosen for himself, Into the Mist. It was an interesting book to read to Virgil, though Logan was unsure if it would be as interesting if he were to read it on his own. In truth, it was a good, but rather ordinary fantasy book. Virgil, however, seemed incredibly fascinated by it. He had never heard a high fantasy story before in his life and he was constantly comparing and contrasting things in the book to things he understood in real life as well as asking Logan about them.

It also became clear that Virgil did not quite understand real life fully. He attributed the same amount of awe to hearing the ocean being described as he did to the main character’s climb up the sky to a cloud city in hopes of saving his love interest’s life. In fact, he seemed more in awe of Logan’s explanation of the ocean since it actually existed. Logan had a sudden intense urge to plan a trip to see an ocean at some point in the future. Lamir was a costal country and its castle sat on top of a cliff that overlooked the sea.

It would be easy enough to take a trip to their ally’s country at some point.

“So, cloud mites don’t exist?” Virgil confirmed yet again.

“No,” Logan said. “They don’t. In fact, their existence would go against all magical laws since they are sentient without being alive.”

“But crabs do?” Virgil asked.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Crabs do not go against the natural order of things,” Logan said.

“But why?” Virgil asked.

“I… don’t understand the question.”

“They don’t have the right number of legs.”

“W-what do you mean by that?” Logan asked, confused.

“Animals can only have an even number of legs on either side.”

“No,” Logan said. Virgil nodded vigorously. “What about beetles? Those have 6 legs. Three on each side.”

“But beetles are bug,” Virgil pointed out.

“Bugs are animals,” Logan argued.

“No, they’re not.”

His face was so serious, and he was so sure, that it was funny. “Bugs are animals,” Logan said.

Virgil seemed confused by this. “But they have 6 legs.”

Logan couldn’t help but laughing at that. “Virgil, what do you think and animal is?”

“Well, I don’t know,” Virgil said, pouting slightly at being laughed at. Logan leaned over to bump their shoulder together which seemed to pacify him. “Cows. Birds. Frogs.”

“I think we need to get you a tutor. You are missing some fundamental building blocks in your education.”

He huffed, peering at the book.

“It’s no fault of your own,” Logan assured. “You are not born with information like that. People were just negligent in teaching you these things.”

Virgil nodded. “That actually reminds me of something.”

“Mmm?” Logan asked.

“There’s something I need to teach you.”

“And what would that be?” Logan asked.

“Survival instincts.”

“What?”

Virgil slammed his hand down on Logan’s desk. “You have no survival instincts,” he declared. “I bet you don’t even know what hemlock tastes like.”

“Isn’t that poisonous.”

“Yes,” Virgil said.

“Then of course I don’t know what it tastes like.”

“Exactly! That’s the problem.”

“I don’t need to know what poison tastes like, Virgil,” Logan said.

“Yes, you do,” Virgil argued. “It’s an important skill.”

“I think your view of what constitutes as an ‘important skill may be skewed,” Logan said.

“You’re a prince,” Virgil said. “Knowing about poisons is an important skill for you.”

“It’s really not though.”

“You’re at war,” Virgil reminded, “and they already tried to assassinate your father. Do you think they’re not going to send someone else when your father is alive at winter’s end and they’ve heard no word from their assassin? Do you think if they realize you’re not easily manipulatable, they won’t come for you too?”

“Well, I mean…” Logan said. “You do have a point there.”

“And you need to learn how to climb things and catch things.”

“Why do I need to know how to catch things?”

“We’ve already had this discussion,” Virgil said. “In case someone throws a knife at you.”

Wait. When had they had that conversation?

“And while we’re on the topic of knives, you need to know how to use a knife effectively.”

“I know how to use a knife,” Logan climbed even though he knew he didn’t know how to use a knife in the way Virgil was talking about.

Virgil, despite having no concept of taxonomic classification, was no fool. “Chopping things for potions doesn’t count,” Virgil said. “I’m talking stabbing lessons. For you and Patton, though to be honest, Patton has an advantage already over you when it comes to using weapons.”

“Why does he…” Logan thought. “Because he managed to get a hit on you with a cookie sheet one time?”

“His reflexes are better,” Virgil said, “as well as his ability to use his environment to his advantage. You’re always completely oblivious about what’s going on around you.”

“Excuse me. I am incredibly observant,” said Logan.

“How many chairs are in the dinning room we walked through to get here two hours ago?” Virgil asked.

Logan thought for a moment. “I’m not sure.”

“Exactly! You walk by them every day and you don’t even know how many chairs there are in that room.”

“I have no idea what that has to do with anything.”

“How would you know if someone tampered with the chairs if you don’t know how many of them there are or their positions.”

“Tamper with the chairs?” Logan asked. “What are you talking about? I filter out unnecessary information. That doesn’t mean I’m not observant.”

“Yes, it does,” Virgil said. “Plus, half the time you don’t even know where I am when you know I’m in the same room as you,” Virgil said.

“Well, that’s because you climb on top of things and hide in walls!” Logan said. “That’s hardly fair.”

“You mean I’m quiet and good at hiding like… an assassin might be.”

Logan pursed his lips. Virgil tilted his head and smiled at him. “I am plenty observant,” Logan insisted once again.

“Prove it,” Virgil said.

“And how should I do that?” Logan asked. “Beyond simply memorizing the furniture arrangements?”

Virgil shrugged. “I’m sure you’ll get an opportunity soon.”

Chapter 48 (Thomas)

Thomas was leaving his office when he ran into his son. Or more accurately, his son almost ran into him. “Is everything alright?” Thomas asked.

“I…” Logan said. His hand came out to grasp Thomas’s shirt sleeve, odd behavior for him at least at this age. He used to do such things when he was very small. “Yes,” he said anyway. “Everything is perfectly fine.” He glanced behind himself down the hall.

Thomas looked at him and then looked down the hallway, concerned by his strange behavior. “Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yes,” Logan said, but he wasn’t letting go of Thomas’s shirt.

“You seem a bit anxious, Logan,” Thomas said.

“I am not,” Logan denied, releasing his shirt. Thomas caught a glimpse of something moving above their heads. The hallway Thomas’s office was in had large pillars along the outer wall that really no one should be able to scale despite there technically being grooves in them. Yet, there Virgil clung to the chapiter of one of them. Even more bewildering, he was gripping a pouch of some kind in his teeth.

The met eyes briefly. Virgil tilted his head at Thomas. Then, he removed one hand from the pillar. How was he up there? He made a motion with his hand that seemed to be telling Thomas to step back.

Thomas looked back at his son. Logan hadn’t noticed Virgil, too busy glancing behind him and not looking up. Thomas looked back up at Virgil and took a big step back. The moment he did, Virgil grabbed the bottom of the pouch with his free hand and let go with his teeth. The pouch flipped upside down dropping its contents right onto Logan’s head.

Logan gave a high-pitched shriek that Thomas didn’t think he’d ever heard from him before. “Virgil!” he yelled, now absolutely soaked.

“Learn to look up,” Virgil said seriously, still clinging to the pillar.

“I hate you,” Logan replied.

“Don’t say things you don’t mean in anger,” Thomas reminded. He was a bit worried Virgil may overreact to Logan saying things like that to him, though he seemed perfectly calm at the moment.

Logan scowled at Thomas. “You’re on his side?! He just dumped water on my head!”

“He needs to be trained to be more observant!” Virgil said.

Logan turned his scowl to Virgil. “Come down here, you intolerable creature! I’m done with your so called training!”

“And what would you do if I did come down?” Virgil said arching an eyebrow, wholly unconcerned. “Quote facts about animals at me?”

#proofread stories #not writing

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Veritas Vos Liberabit II

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If Sherlock was being honest, the free minutes of thought between the few rapidfire cases in the past week had all turned to you.

You were a walking contradiction. Everything you said- did, even- pointed to a million and one different options of who you were. He was trying his damndest to figure you out, like he had for everyone else, but he just couldn’t.

John and Mrs. Hudson had taken to you quickly, like you were a saint there to bless their lives, but Sherlock couldn’t shake his suspicions. You seemed innocent enough. The way you talked about people, like you actually cared.

There was something he was missing though.

And he was far too cautious to think that you were sincere.

Thus, while John was more than happy to accept the dinner invitation you extended to them exactly seven days after you officially moved in, Sherlock saw it as an opportunity to learn more.

Sherlock sniffed the air, taking note of a new fragrance. He furrowed his brows, watching as John brushed invisible dirt from the shoulders of his freshly pressed shirt.

“Is that a new cologne?” He asked, not waiting for John’s confirmation.

The man in question stuck close behind Sherlock as he made his way out of the door. Mrs. Hudson was waiting at the bottom of the stairs looking particularly pleased with herself. She, too, was dressed a fair bit nicer than normal, and sporting a bolder shade of lipstick than she normally did.

“A new shade?” He muttered, “What is wrong with you two?”

“Oh Sherlock,” Mrs. Hudson waved him off with an eye roll, “She’s a nice young woman, we’re just trying to make a good impression.”

John nodded a little too enthusiastically for Sherlock’s liking. If you were trying to wrap the occupants of 221B Baker Street around your finger, you were going to have to do a lot more.

“Right,” he cleared his throat, “On we go then.”

Mrs. Hudson and John were far too eager to scurry towards your door, reeling in their excitement to knock a few times. He really didn’t understand it. As far as he knew, you had only interacted with Mrs. Hudson and John three and four times, respectively. They were never exceedingly long interactions, and besides your ‘friendly’ attitude, it wasn’t like you’d been particularly serviceable.

So why did they like you so much?

As if on queue, you opened the door to your freshly furnished flat. The sudden exposure to a million different deductions filled his mind.

You were dressed nice, not over the top though. Despite the outfit not being too flashy, it still spoke of money. Considering the newspapers and many tabs open on your laptop, which were all messily placed on your coffee table behind you, you were still looking for a job.

Odd, that. He couldn’t quite pinpoint what kind of job you were looking for, or what your qualifications were.

The light smattering of makeup on your face and the relative neatness of your hair suggested a certain amount of effort being put into your appearance, though the flyaways and minimal smudging showed it had been done hours ago.

The furniture you decorated your flat with displayed an evident love of history and antiques, however the various books aligning the shelves of your living room didn’t really confirm the initial deduction. The necklace you seemed to be overly attached to might, as it was either a family heirloom or something particularly sentimental between you and your father. You kept it out of sight though, and the intelligent spark behind your eyes told him you’d more than caught on to his line of thinking.

“Mrs. Hudson, Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson,” you greeted them with a wide smile, opening the door even further in greeting.

“Just John is fine,” he assured you, then nudged Sherlock, “and he prefers Sherlock, otherwise people will start mistaking him for his brother.”

Sherlock shuddered at that particular thought, sneaking in behind his friends to get a better view of the place. It was organized and clean, far different from his own space, though a few particular areas seemed to be assembled in a hurry. More than likely, you were a clean person without a good sense of time.

“It smells delicious, dear,” Mrs. Hudson gushed, quick to find her seat at the table.

You had cooked a big dinner, far more than just the four of you could eat, but he felt as if that was intended. There was a wide spread of food, from pasta dishes to a full glazed ham. Cooking may have been a hobby, but the state of your kitchen paired with the frazzled expression as you did a once over to ensure it all looked good made him second guess that. Perhaps you were just trying to learn?

Curious, it seemed you were doing that with practically everything.

“Have you been cooking all day?” John laughed, looking at the dishes before him like he hadn’t been fed in a month.

To be fair, he either cooked- which he wasn’t even close to good at- or ordered takeout. Home cooked meals were a rarity at 221B Baker Street.

“Basically, yeah,” you smiled, gesturing so that the three of them began to help themselves.

Sherlock was quick to take the seat opposite you, and while he certainly didn’t turn down the opportunity to have some of the food you so graciously provided, he was more focused on you.

“I love the decorating you’ve done,” Mrs. Hudson commented, cutting Sherlock off before he had a chance to begin his interrogation.

He scowled momentarily as you thanked her, still all smiles and twinkling eyes. He didn’t understand how you could look so happy and positive, especially when he knew you were hiding something.

“Lucifer Morningstar,” Sherlock finally said, narrowing his eyes as he waited for your reaction.

You didn’t look particularly put out by it. In fact, the corner of your lips turned up even more, and he saw a hint of affection on your face.

“That’s my dad, yeah,” you nodded, taking a bite of your meal. “You’ve been doing some research.”

John flicked his gaze between you and then Sherlock, trying to interrupt before the latter began, but failing miserably as he took control of the silence.

“Colorful moniker, that.”

“Unfortunately, it’s his god-given name.” There was a certain amusement about you, clearly a joke he was missing.

“Poor man,” Mrs. Hudson commented regretfully, almost imagining as if she spent her life with the name of the Devil.

“Family’s not particularly religious,” Sherlock noted quietly, though you clearly heard him. He ignored the swift kick John sent his way under the table.

“Actually, they’re more religious than most,” you corrected.

Again, you seemed entirely genuine. Sherlock nearly growled. How did you not follow the normal patterns? Every human followed the normal patterns.

“And I thought Sherlock’s parents came up with funny names,” John joked, hoping to pull the conversation back to safe territory.

You went to reply, but stopped short when Sherlock was quick to speak up.

“Why Lucifer then?”

There was a twinkle in your gaze, and he found it absolutely frustrating, but entirely fascinating that he just couldn’t read you.

“Maybe the Devil is more than we think,” you countered, shrugging.

John let the silence permeate for less than a moment before he picked up the conversation, ever eager to retain a particular amount of sensibility and cordiality.

“What about your mother?” He inquired, though it wasn’t in the same regard as Sherlock. He asked more out of an interest to know more about your life, and not like you were a puzzle to solve.

“Oh,” you weren’t really grabbing anything with your fork, more like using it as a way to keep your hands occupied. “Well, Lucifer Morningstar,” you shot a quick smirk to Sherlock, “isn’t my actual father. He sort of adopted me.”

Adoption hadn’t crossed Sherlock’s mind, but now that you’d brought it up he was beginning to make a few more deductions. Still, none seemed quite fitting for you. A brief flick of his glance in the general direction of both Mrs. Hudson and John confirmed that it was just you, and not his own mind beginning to malfunction.

“I’m glad he did so,” Mrs. Hudson proclaimed, a wide smile on her lips as she took a large sip of one of the many wines you’d left out for your guests.

“Didn’t have much of a choice, I suppose,” you laughed softly, a sound Sherlock found most peculiar. It sounded so gentle and melodic, like you were expressing exactly what you felt- nothing more, nothing less. “He’s my older brother, actually.”

“Christmas dinner must get complicated,” John teased goodnaturedly.

Sherlock could see that his two companions were very much indeed falling for your charms and grace. They wanted your attention, and actively seeked out your smile. It’s like you had pulled them to your side so quickly.

“We don’t really celebrate Christmas,” you admitted, a sheepish smile.

Sherlock, finally at a point he could no longer hold in his frustration, let it be known to the entire table.

“You don’t make any sense.”

It was a simple enough exclamation, one that he uttered in a voice that was tinged with a seething anger. His eyes were narrowed and pinning you to the spot.

“Oh dear,” Mrs. Hudson murmured apologetically.

You paused, furrowing your brow like you couldn’t quite work out where his frustration was coming from. There was a hint of hurt, and it spurred his anger on even more.

“You’re hiding something.”

Once more, Sherlock pushed. He needed to know what it was he was missing. It was just out of reach, and if he could just dig a little further, the mystery could be solved.

“Sherlock,” John hissed, dropping his fork with a loud clang.

“Oh come off it,” Sherlock argued, pushing his chair back and resting his hands on his chin. “It’s obvious you’re running from your old life because you were unhappy, hm? Were they abusive? Or maybe you’ve just grown bored of the easy, spoiled lifestyle? So you come here, of all places, and just happen to move right next door to me? I don’t believe-”

“Sherlock, enough,” John had moved from his seat at some point during his monologue, and had grabbed a hold of Sherlock’s arm. He was pulling him up with more force than normal.

Being the more reasonable of the two, John was profusely apologizing for his friend’s behavior. Mrs. Hudson was thanking you for your hospitality, as well as the meal, as she led the small group out of your apartment, hoping to spare you the torment of Sherlock’s unwavering gaze.

By the time he’d been pulled to the door, Sherlock had managed to brush John off, sending one more glare in your direction.

“Who are you?”

You had barely moved from your spot, taken by complete surprise by the turn of events. Whatever you’d been expecting, it hadn’t been what was happening. Seeming to shake yourself out of the momentary confusion, you turned to the three you had hoped to begin a friendship with.

“I’m trying to figure that out myself,” you admitted quietly, almost to yourself.

Sherlock hadn’t expected that.

Nor had he expected the sad, faraway look in your eyes.

You looked so small then, and fragile, like the world was a big, scary place and you had no idea how to navigate it all alone.

Regret filled the air as John uttered one last goodbye before closing the door in an attempt to stop Sherlock from doing anymore damage. It wasn’t necessary though, as the consulting detective realized, though far too late, that his interrogation wasn’t needed.

You were a mystery, yes, but not because you were some massive threat placed precariously there to strike when Sherlock least expected. Rather, you were someone who genuinely didn’t know exactly who you were yet.

John’s angry rant went ignored.

Mrs. Hudson’s sad exclamations weren’t even given a proper listen.

Sherlock went directly to his room, and upon trying to sleep, found all he could see was your eyes and the sadness that permeated so deep it was like a root in your soul.

#sherlock x reader #sherlock imagine #Sherlock Holmes x Reader #sherlock holmes imagine #vvl

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 4 years

Text

But You Can Never Leave [Chapter 13: Paper And Ink]

A/N: Can I just take a second to say how happy I am to see all of your reactions to my little fic?! I have never been a super popular writer on Tumblr but I like to think that I have some of the cleverest, kindest, most thoughtful readers around. Your support for and emotional investment in my stories makes me so, so, so happy. Please enjoy this latest chapter...it’s the longest one yet! 💜

Also, MAJOR shout out to @writerxinthedark and her constant insanely astute observations!! Girl, I’m shook. Do you have ESP or what...? 👀

Chapter summary: Roger tries to reach a compromise, John tries to offer solace, Chrissie tries out some retro science, Y/N tries to process some alarming new information.

This series is a work of fiction, and is (very) loosely inspired by real people and events. Absolutely no offense is meant to actual Queen or their families.

Song inspiration: Hotel California by The Eagles.

Chapter warnings: Language! Discussion of substance abuse! Babies! Drama! Angst!!!

Chapter list (and all my writing) available HERE

Taglist: @queen-turtle-boiii @loveandbeloved29 @maggieroseevans @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark @im-an-adult-ish @queenlover05 @someforeigntragedy @imtheinvisiblequeen @joemazzmatazz @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhye @namelesslosers @inthegardensofourminds @deacyblues @youngpastafanmug @sleepretreat @hardyshoe @bramblesforbreakfast @sevenseasofcats @tensecondvacation @queen-crue @jennyggggrrr @madeinheavxn @whatgoeson-itslate @brianssixpence @simonedk @herewegoagainniall @stardust-killer-queen @anotheronewritesthedust1 @pomjompish @writerxinthedark

Please yell at me if I forget to tag you! :)

“You can’t leave,” John pleads. One of his hands—strong, nimble, a gold band on his wedding finger—is clutching the wooden bedpost. Chrissie paces back and forth beside him, gnawing her thumbnail until it bleeds, silent tears streaking down her ruddy cheeks.

You throw your open suitcase onto the bed and start yanking things out of drawers: panties and bras—the practical ones, not the sexy ones, I won’t be needing those in the immediate future—jeans, velvet dresses, sweaters, socks, mittens, scarves. It’ll be cold in Boston. “I’m going home.”

“Love, please...” Chrissie sobs.

“I’m not staying here.” Your voice is surprisingly steady, resolved even. “I’m not going to stay in this house with him. I’m not going to follow him around the world watching him fuck other women and humiliate me in tabloids. I’m done, I’m going home.”

“You have a contract with the record company, you’re the tour nurse!” Chrissie protests. “Jesus christ, they could sue you for non-performance! When does the band leave, a week from now?!”

“Six days,” John says softly.

“Six days!” Chrissie shouts at you.

“I’m not going. They can sue me, that’s fine.” I don’t have any money anyway. None that’s actually mine.

“You can’t leave,” John says again. His greyish eyes are wide and restless, desperate; you didn’t know it was possible for him to be this agitated. He’s not Queen’s unflappable bassist today.

“Yeah? Observe.” You pick the pink conch shell up off the dresser—the one John found for you on the beach in Ostia, during a tour that feels like a lifetime ago—and tuck it gently into a corner of your suitcase where it will be cushioned by knit sweaters. “John, I have a bunch of your sketches downstairs. There’re some on the refrigerator, some framed in the living room, a couple on the dining room walls...will you go get those for me, please? I can’t leave without them.”

John just stares at you, blinking and thunderstruck.

Next to the empty space on the dresser where the conch shell once lived is the Canon F-1. You consider the camera for a moment, then snatch it up and move to hurl it out of the second-story window.

John jolts out of his paralysis. “No no no no, I think you’ll regret that.” He gently pries the Canon out of your grasp and places it back on the dresser.

“What the hell are you going to do in Boston?!” Chrissie wails. “All your friends are here now! Your life is here!”

“I’m going to get a job at the hospital and marry some boring, predictable man and get a house with a white picket fence and fill it with two exceptionally average children”—if I can have them, and that’s a big if as it turns out—“and a golden retriever and live out the rest of my days in blissful, prosaic anonymity. Thanks for asking.”

“Oh come on, you don’t want that!” Chrissie snaps. “You’ve never wanted that, that’s why you came to London with the band to begin with!”

“I don’t want to feel like this!” you scream, and all those tears you didn’t know you were biting back start spilling out in hot, torrential streams. Your breath hitches; your throat burns. Like wildfire. John pulls you to his chest, murmurs that everything will be okay, cradles the back of your head with his palm. You know he’s exchanging a glance with Chrissie over your shoulder. That’s why she brought him here, after all; to help talk you off the ledge, to help convince you to stay.

“What a fucking mess,” Chrissie says in despair.

“It’s my fault,” you choke out.

“It’s not,” John whispers.

“It is,” you insist bitterly, sobbing into him. “Everyone warned me and I ignored it because I’m a complete idiot and now I’ve gone and ruined my life.”

“You don’t have to go!” Chrissie implores. “You can stay here. With us, with me and John and Mary and Freddie and Brian. You have British citizenship, you can get a job at a hospital in London if you really want to leave the band. You can stay with me and Bri for as long as you need to until you’re back on your feet, or with Freddie...they’d give you any amount of money you needed to get started...they’d be heartbroken if you left, love, you’ve been there for them through everything, since Queen was just a bunch of nobodies, since we were all flat broke...they’re never going to forget that loyalty you showed them, that faith. They’d do anything to repay you.”

You sigh shakily as you untangle yourself from John and wipe your eyes. “If I stay here, I’ll spend the rest of my life dodging Roger at birthday parties and holidays and restaurants. And being known as the wife he fucked around on. I’ll be a pitiful mess of a person. They had a photo of me in the News Of The World, did you know that? A tiny little circular photo under a huge, glamorous one of Dominique. ‘Look everyone, check out the dashing rock star’s sad, pathetic, unremarkable, soon-to-be-ex-wife. Surely you can appreciate why he’d shop around.’”

“Yes, I saw that part,” Chrissie says softly. She understands some of what you’re feeling, surely, and yet she must also have a sensation of gratefulness; plenty of musicians wander like tornadoes, touching down and sowing chaos wherever their compulsions take them, but few wives have the misfortune of seeing their names and faces paraded through the tabloids. Suddenly, Chrissie isn’t the most-wronged wife in Queen anymore.

You bury your face in your hands. “Oh god. My parents might even hear about this. They could be buying wine and Cheetos at the grocery store and see my husband and his girlfriend on the cover of a magazine in the checkout line.”

“I’m so sorry,” Chrissie replies, her voice hoarse. John crosses his arms over his chest and says nothing; but he kicks the wooden bedframe hard enough to send a crack down the center of the footboard.

Downstairs, you hear the front door open. Chrissie and John whirl to you, panicked.

“Hey, love of my life!” Roger’s chipper voice vaults up the staircase. Someone hasn’t checked the headlines yet. “Baby? You home?”

“Do you want me to stay?” John asks you.

“No, I can handle it.”

“Are you sure? Because I’ll stay for as long as you want me to. I’ll hide in the goddamn bushes outside the window if that would be helpful.”

“No, John.” You smile and climb onto your toes to wrap your arms around the back of his neck, to hug him goodbye. He’s warm and comfortable and sheltering. He feels more like home than this house ever has, isn’t that strange? And for a second, just one, you wonder what your life would look like if there had been no Veronica, no Roger.

You’d still be in Boston, you idiot, you chastise yourself. You never would have come to London with Queen if it wasn’t for Roger. And You’re My Best Friend wasn’t about you.

“Thank you,” you tell John. “But I have to do this part myself.”

“Okay. Don’t you dare go cart yourself off to Heathrow without telling me first, alright?”

“Sure,” you say, not meaning it. I can’t let him stop me.

“Good luck,” Chrissie frets, wringing her hands, twirling her wedding ring. “Call me, okay? I’m going to be a nervous wreck until I hear from you. I’ll chew my poor fingers to the bone.”

“I’ll call. I promise.”

“Hey baby!” Roger materializes in the bedroom doorway, pushes his prescription sunglasses up into his windswept blond hair, peers around the room at you and John and Chrissie. And you’re suddenly reminded of how a room changes when Roger walks into it, how everything shifts somehow, becomes brighter, more alive, brimming with magnificent potential; how cavernously empty the world would feel without him in it. Chrissie glares at him with her arms crossed, nostrils flaring, tapping one fashionable riding boot against the hardwood floor. “Uhhhh...am I interrupting something?”

“Bye, love.” Chrissie kisses you quickly on each cheek and breezes out of the room. You hear her boots clopping as she descends down the staircase. After a moment, John follows her.

“You despicable prick,” John hisses as he passes Roger in the doorway.

Roger is mystified. “Baby, what’s going on?” His eyes flick to the hastily packed suitcase, to the cracked footboard. “What the fuck happened to the bed?”

There are so many ways to ask the same question. When did you decide that you needed to have her? Who is she to you? How could you do this to me? What did she give you that I couldn’t? Instead, what you ask him this: “Have you seen the News Of The World today?”

His brow furrows into deep grooves. “No...” But something primal flashes in his vivid blue eyes, just briefly. Something like fear. He knows he’s done things that would hurt me. And I don’t think I’ll ever be able to unearth them all.

You grab the magazine off the bed and hurl it at him. Roger picks it up off the floor and flips to the front page. His shoulders slump, one hand comes up to cover his mouth, he exhales in a deep sigh; his whole body shifts the same way a room does when he walks out of it: dims, deflates, goes bloodless. He calmly lays the News Of The World on the dresser, folds his sunglasses and sets them down as well, rubs his eyes with the heels of his calloused hands. Then he turns to you.

He’s going to deny it, you think, revolted. He’s going to deny it just like Brian did, try to patch things up in some weak and gutless way, placate me so he can drift off to sleep at night imagining he’s a good husband.

But Roger isn’t Brian. He never has been.

He asks you quietly, in surrender: “What do you want to know?”

Your stomach plunges into freefall, because this is real. Maybe there was some part of me that was hoping this was a mistake, some naïve and hopeful sliver of idealism left over from childhood, from a time when everything in the world was either good or evil and nothing lived in the treacherous shadows in between. “How long?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes, Roger, it matters.”

“Not long.” He waves a hand glibly. “She...ah...well she thought I was pretty maddening at first. It took her a while to come around to the idea.”

You flinch like you’ve been slapped. “Jesus christ, Roger. Thank you, that’s great, thank you for that information.”

“I’m not trying to hurt you,” he protests, exasperated. “I’m really not, I don’t...I just don’t...bloody hell, I don’t know how to do this.”

“To do what? To fuck around?! Obviously that’s inaccurate—”

“No, to confess!” he shouts. “I never confess, I never admit it, I just avoid or deflect or deny it, and when that doesn’t work anymore I just walk out because usually I don’t care enough to have the conversation. But now I do so I’m really, really trying to give you what you want. I thought you wanted answers. So ask me whatever you want to and I’ll tell you the truth.”

Everyone lies. Everyone disappoints you. I knew that, I really did...but somehow I let him convince me that I didn’t. That he was built of nothing but light. “Do you love her?”

“No,” he replies instantly. “It’s a fling, that’s all.”

“So you didn’t corner her somewhere and tell her that you’re planning on breaking up with me.”

Roger winces. I wasn’t going to end up like Josephine, that was the first promise I made to myself on British soil. And look where I am now. “No. Never.”

“Why, Roger?”

He looks away, runs his hands through his hair; he genuinely doesn’t know how to answer.

You stare at him in disbelief. “Are you even sorry...?”

He speaks carefully, purposefully. “I’m sorry you had to find out, that you were hurt by it. And I’m really fucking sorry about that headline. Discretion is extremely important to me. I never would have let that happen, but you know...” He shrugs, smirking guiltily in that disarmingly bewitching way that he does. Stop, you warn yourself, feeling something in you grasping for reasons to stay. “I haven’t been thinking especially clearly lately.”

“Yes, between the coke and the drinking and the pills you’re quite the disaster, aren’t you?” Scalding tears slither down your face. “So you’re not sorry you did it. You’re not sorry that you’re an addict or a cheater.”

“It’s not about that. It’s...” He searches for the words like premonitions in tea leaves. “Yes, there are drugs and parties and women. There are a lot of those things. But I’m not addicted to any of them. I’m addicted to being Roger Taylor, drummer of one of the best bands in the world. It’s everything I am, it’s everything I’ve ever wanted to be. I never want to live in a world where that’s not who I am anymore. You understand that, what it’s like to feel caged and miserable, you know what it’s like to want to experience things. And so if it takes coke and pills to get up on that stage every night and drum under those blinding lights until it feels like my arm is split open again, okay, no problem, I’ll do it. If women are a part of the lifestyle, a part of being free, then I’ll take advantage of that. And why the fuck does it matter? Why do so many people think that fidelity is the ultimate manifestation of love? Plenty of faithful people hate each other. Plenty of people who screw around are irretrievably in love with one person, are fucking owned by them. I love you. I want to come home to you. I want to raise my children with you if that’s a possibility, and if it’s not then fine, whatever, I’m gonna love you all the same. You’re still on my list, Boston babe. You’re always going to be on my list. Why isn’t that enough?”

“John doesn’t cheat,” you object helplessly. Even if he has all the reasons in the world to.

“No, he doesn’t. But he’s a very different kind of man. A better one, probably. But you’ve always known who I was. And I never promised you an ordinary life.”

You shake your head, hide your face in your hands, can’t force the words to leave your trembling lips. It’s not enough for me. Maybe I thought it could be, but it’s just not.

Roger says, gently: “I know we said the marriage didn’t mean anything”—yes, that was your condition, wasn’t it?—“but that’s not completely true. It’s not just paper and ink. It does mean something. It means that you’re the person I want to take care of, the person I can rely on to provide for my family and friends if something ever happened to me. It means that I love and trust you in a way that is unconditional. That you’re my best friend.”

“I don’t want to live like this, Roger,” you whisper.

“So what’s next?” he demands. “So you’re going to take that suitcase and run back to the States and...what, get a job at the same hospital you were so desperate to escape from? Back out of the tour? Abandon the band and the friends you have here?”

“If that’s what it takes to get away from you.”

For the first time, you hurt him; you really hurt him. You see it ripple across his face like cold, swirling ocean waves. “Please don’t leave.”

“I’ve already decided, Roger.”

“Come on, baby, please, we can work this out—”

“I’m not interested.” You zip the suitcase closed, heave it off the bed, and drag it towards the door.

“So even if we can’t work it out,” Roger erupts, bolting to the doorway, to stand between you and whatever a life after him looks like. “Don’t leave the band. Leave me, just me, but not the band. I know you don’t want to leave them. I know they’ll be devastated if you disappear, not to mention they might legitimately murder me over it. Bri can be a twat, sure, but he’s convinced you saved his life. You and I might be the only people on the whole fucking planet who can see how brilliant John is, who understand him. Freddie’s convinced you’re some kind of good luck charm, you know how superstitious he is, he’ll start having those meltdowns again where he insists he can’t sing five minutes before a show and that the band is doomed, the tour will be a complete disaster. We need you. And I want you to keep the job you love, the travel, the mansion, the money, I want you to have all of it. You’ve earned it. You shouldn’t lose it because of me.”

And as you clutch the handle of your suitcase, your mind dashing from one logistical step to the next—grab my passport and some cash out of the safe, collect all of John’s sketches, call a cab to take me to Heathrow—you start remembering things. But you don’t see them like flashes, like misty reveries, no; you feel them like heat from a roaring fireplace, like Mediterranean pebbles digging into the wrinkled soles of your feet, like the deafening screams of crowds filling the Rainbow Theater, the Hammersmith Odeon, the Apollo, the Budokan, Madison Square Garden. Memories of excavating shards of glass from John’s hand in a New Orleans mansion crawling with fantasies and nightmares, of toasting pink champagne in the lobby of the Chelsea Register Office, of museums and parks and beaches and apartments filled with threadbare couches and extravagant dreams, of Christmases and New Year’s Eves, of Roger convincing you to come to London with Queen on a June morning in 1974, cradling your face in his rough hands, promising you everything you’ve ever wanted: ‘Love...Accept. The fucking. Offer.’ And you could run to the other side of the world, sure; but you’re never going to be able to carve those memories out of your bones.

You let go of the suitcase, and Roger’s smile lights up his face like the sun.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Careful...careful, love...” Roger contorts himself to keep the umbrella over you and the Boston cream pie you’re carrying as rain pours out of a sinister grey sky. You both hurry beneath the roof that covers the front porch and ring the doorbell. Freddie answers wearing a tight green shirt, jeans, and an enormous toothy grin.

“Oh, for me?” he squeals, eyeing the pie.

You step inside as Roger stays out on the porch to shake off the umbrella and finish his cigarette; Chrissie hates people smoking in her house, and one should get what they want on their birthday. “Obviously, it’s for Chris. But I suspect she’ll share.”

Chrissie appears in a blue dress, her wide-set pale eyes alight as she gazes at the pie. “At last! I finally get to try one of these! And yes, Freddie, I’m only going to have the teeniest tiniest piece, so there will be more than enough to go around.” She embraces you and takes the pie. “Is this homemade?! It is, isn’t it?”

“Happy birthday, Chrissie,” you announce with a tired smile. Queen leaves for the News Of The World Tour in two days. You’re leaving with them, to everyone’s palpable relief; Freddie and Brian have never mentioned the headline to you, but they know about it of course. Everybody knows. It’s an elephant in every room, an ancient beast that quakes the floor when it walks.

“I’m going to miss you like crazy,” Chrissie tells you. “I always do.” But she’s a little thankful, too; because spending months away on tour is undoubtedly preferable to a permanent absence, a visibly missing piece like a chip in a tooth.

“I know. I’ll call.”

Roger steps inside the massive Chelsea home. “Happy birthday, Chris!”

She promptly spins away, ignoring him, and ferries the pie off to the kitchen. Freddie wraps an arm around Roger’s shoulder and steers him into the living room where Mary, John, a perpetually pregnant Veronica, and a host of assorted Mullens and Mays are passing the twins around like footballs and chatting over appetizers and tea and cookies. Biscuits, you correct yourself. And the shrimp cocktail are called prawns.

“What did you say your name was?” a middle-aged, rotund, bearded man asks John disinterestedly. “Josh? James?”

“John, actually. I’m the bassist.”

The man frowns as he gobbles down a shrimp. “Oh, how odd, I’ve never even heard of you.”

“Yeah?” Roger pipes as he sails over and claps the man aggressively on the shoulder. “Well let me introduce you. This is John Richard Deacon and he wrote You’re My Best Friend, you’ve heard of that one, right? He learned the electric piano to compose it. Yes, he doesn’t just play bass, he has all sorts of gifts. He’s massively talented. He builds amps and manages finances and can sketch pictures that look like freaking photographs...”

You wander into the kitchen where Chrissie is slicing herself a miniscule portion of Boston cream pie. “Oh fuck it, it’s my birthday. I’m having a proper piece of pie, thighs be damned.” She goes in for a second attempt. “You want any?”

“No, I’m alright. I haven’t been feeling well.”

Her brows knit together in concern. “Not compulsively consuming your own weight in snacks to avoid socializing with strangers? That’s unlike you.”

Well, since you asked, I was feeling even more piggish than usual until I found out my husband was fucking somebody else, and also that the entire country knows about it. “Yeah, weird.”

Brian enters the kitchen. “Oh, pie!”

“You want a piece?” Chrissie asks cheerfully. So they’ve made up somehow. Like they always do, like they always will.

“Yes, absolutely, but I’ll get it myself, love. You go enjoy yourself. It’s your day.”

She beams up at him and journeys out to the living room. You are in no rush to join her. Watching Roger charm the crowd, allowing him to dazzle you, to lull you back into his orbit like the subsidiary moon of a vast, ringed planet...no, you have no stomach for that at all. You pour yourself a glass of red wine and try to swallow without tasting it.

Brian’s doting demeanor evaporates like he’s taken off a mask. He sighs, mixes himself a Vesper, sips it as he leans against the kitchen counter and studies you warily. “How are things?”

“Paradisiacal.” Each night you sleep in the guest room with the blue-grey walls and the seahorse-patterned blankets. Roger tried to give you the main bedroom, still sleeps in a spare room in case you ever decide you want it; but you like that the blue room is smaller, more humble, that it smells like John’s brand of cigarettes, that there is no gaping emptiness where Roger usually is. Roger doesn’t try to talk to you about Dominique. He is attentive, optimistic, easygoing, affectionate; he lights the fireplace in the living room and brings you hot chocolate, he wears the red hat you once knit him every time he leaves the house. But he left the paperwork showing he’d sold the apartment—the ‘London Love Nest,’ isn’t that what the headline called it?—out on the kitchen table where you would see it. You know he’s waiting for you to forgive him, as if that’s an inevitability. And every once in a while you feel a guttural stab of fear that he might be right. Someone puts Hotel California on the record player out in the living room. “Every time I hear this goddamn song I get acid trip flashbacks. I start thinking of sharks for some reason.”

“It reminds me of...” Brian’s gaze goes murky. “Well, of a girl from New Orleans.”

The one from the hot tub. The one with a peach tattooed on her shoulder blade.

“We have a stop there,” you say. “You know, on the tour. We’ll be there for a few nights.”

“Oh, I haven’t forgotten.”

No, perhaps that’s all he’s been thinking about.

“How are you these days, Bri? Two beautiful children, adoring wife, We Will Rock You becoming a fantastically successful single...your world must seem pretty golden.”

“You’d think so.” He peers out the window where raindrops are clinging to fogged glass and the November skies are illuminated with episodic flashes of lightning like Morse code. At last he says, very softly: “I think I married the wrong person.”

“I think I did too.”

Bri raises his eyebrows and clinks his Vesper against your wine glass. “So we were both right. Fantastic. Cheers.”

You gulp down the rest of your wine, feeling your stomach roil in protest. You pour another glass. Brian drains his Vesper.

“You want me to escort you out there?” Brian asks, gesturing towards the living room. “I’ll happily redirect everyone’s attention towards the twins if you’d like. They’re very convenient conversation starters.”

“No, thanks Bri. You go ahead.”

“Alright. If you insist.” A smile ghosts his lips. “I’m really glad you’re coming with us, love. I’m sure it wasn’t an easy decision. And I’m sure things won’t feel easy for a long time. But Queen wouldn’t be the same without you.”

“Yeah, yeah. Now get out there before I punch you in your fragile liver.”

Brian laughs, sets his glass in the sink, and disappears into the living room. You stall in the kitchen by yourself. You sip wine, browse through the family photos displayed on the refrigerator, listen to the polite chatter of the guests from a distance. Eventually you venture towards the living room before losing your nerve and veering down the hallway towards the back porch. Outside the rain is falling torrentially, the sky rumbling with thunder. John is sitting on a wooden bench under the roof and smoking as he gazes out into the storm.

“Hey,” he says, sliding over to make room for you on the bench.

You sit down beside him and hold out your hand. He stares at you for a moment, puzzled, before passing you his cigarette. You take one long drag and give it back to him. John blinks at you, stunned.

“That’s extremely bad for you,” he teases.

“So is getting hammered and driving into cop cars.”

He clutches his chest. “Ouch. I felt that in my soul.”

You shove him, chuckling. He points down at your boots. You swing your feet up to rest in his lap, and he lays his left hand on them while he smokes with his right.

“Go ahead,” he says. “I know you might not want to talk about it. That’s fine. But if there’s any baggage you’d like to unburden yourself of, I’m listening.”

I’ve got baggage, all right. I’ve got enough to fill a Boeing 747. “Everyone warned me. Everyone told me it was a terrible idea to fall in love with him. Everyone except you, John. Why is that?”

He’s slow and deliberate when he answers. “I never wanted you to be with someone because...you know...because you thought you should be with them. Because they were the ‘smart’ choice or the ‘safe’ choice or whatever. I wanted you to make your own decisions, whatever those were. I wanted you to be with someone...whoever that was...only because you wanted to be. Because you loved them.”

You nod. “That makes sense, I suppose.”

“I told you once that it didn’t mean anything to someone like Roger when he...you know. When he does what he does. I was telling the truth then, and I’m telling the truth now. I don’t think it meant anything to him. And I don’t know if that kills any of the pain I know you’re feeling, but I hope it does. Because you being in pain is the absolute last thing I’ve ever wanted. Are you angry with me for not trying to change your mind?”

“No,” you say immediately, and you mean it. “Not at all.”

“Good. Because they took away my driver’s license for a year and I’m probably going to need a lot of rides from you.”

You laugh, a brash authentic laugh, and John grins over at you.

Chrissie hauls the sliding glass door open and steps out onto the porch with a frustrated huff. “I know this party is technically for me, but when you’re the mother of infant twins sometimes all you really want is a smoke, a nap, and a bottle of vodka.” She lights a cigarette and plops down into a chair facing the bench.

“How are you, Chris?” What you mean is: Have you screamed much at your husband lately?

“I’m doing pretty well today, actually.”

“Is that because you’re genuinely happy or because you’ve trained yourself not to be sad?”

Chrissie smirks. “You’ll find those feel like the same thing after a while.”

“No, I won’t find out. Because I’m not staying with him.”

“Love...” Chrissie begins.

“I’ll stay in London. I’ll even stay with the band. But I’m not going to stay married to him.”

“Y/N, please, maybe you should think about this,” Chrissie presses. “I know you love him. And I know he makes you wonderfully happy when times are good. Maybe that’s all we can ask for, you know? Wives in our predicament. Maybe we can learn to cherish them when they’re with us, bottle up the magic, store it on a shelf to tide us over until they come back home. No one else is going to light you up the way he does. There’s only one Roger Taylor. Withdrawal from that is going to be hell.”

You glower out into the wind and rain and say nothing.

“And that woman, Dominique Beyrand? I’ve asked around about her, she’s got some husband back in France that she goes home to when she’s not working here. It’s just a fling for her too, it’s nothing serious. I don’t think there was any chance he would have ever considered actually leaving you for her.”

“He bought her an apartment, Chris.”

“Men do stupid things that don’t mean anything all the time. Isn’t that right, John?”

“Sure,” he offers ungenerously.

You stop yourself before the words tumble recklessly from your lips: Maybe you’re trying to convince yourself more than me, Chrissie. “I’m divorcing him,” you vow quietly.

“Okay,” Chrissie capitulates. “Okay. I’m sorry, love, please forgive me. I only got two hours of sleep, Teddy was crying all night.” She puffs on her cigarette and sighs mournfully. “I hate to say it, and I don’t mean to be insensitive, but I guess it was sort of lucky you never got pregnant. Can you imagine trying to split up when you have children together? Working out custody and finances and holidays, having to pretend like you don’t want to disembowel each other all the bloody time...it would be torture.”

John glares at her, his left hand still on your boots.

“Yeah,” you respond; but now you’re distracted, because you remember the reason why you had been so determined to ignore the phone when Chrissie called to warn you about the News Of The World headline. Because the kitchen phone was right next to the calendar, and the calendar would report in no uncertain terms that your period was due.

When was that? A week ago?

You can’t be late. You’ve never been late.

“Oh god,” you breathe.

“What?” John asks, concerned.

In reply, you lurch off the bench, stumble to the edge of the porch, and vomit red wine into the wet grass like a gush of blood. Chrissie soars to you and rubs your back as you retch into her lawn. “Oh no, you poor thing!”

“John, go away,” you choke out as he approaches. “I’m humiliated, I don’t want you to see me like this.”

“You saw me in a jail cell. I’m staying.”

You turn to look up at them. They read the raw horror and shock in your eyes. John’s jaw falls open and he shakes his head, firmly in denial. You could relate.

Chrissie gasps. “Oh, bloody hell.”

“No fucking way,” you wheeze. “After all this time, after all those months of nothing...”

“You better take a test,” Chrissie says. “Come on, I have a kit upstairs.”

She pulls you to your feet and leads you to her bathroom, deftly avoiding the increasingly intoxicated crowd downstairs. John waits just outside the door as Chrissie rummages around in the closet for the test kit. It’s a contraption that looks like a chemistry set, with a dropper and a test tube and a stand with a mirror. You piss into a paper cup—successfully although not with flying colors—and wash your trembling hands in the sink with a piece of pink soap shaped like a seashell. Then you lay on the cold linoleum floor with a folded towel for a pillow and a bucket within reach. Chrissie trickles a few droplets of urine into the test tube, mixes in the contents of a small plastic vial, and places the test tube in the holder that suspends it above the mirror.

Chrissie explains to John: “If she’s pregnant, the chemicals will form a brown ring in the tube. If there’s no ring, we’re in the clear.”

“How fitting,” you chuckle from the floor, dazedly, cynically. “That would be the only ring I’ve ever gotten.”

It takes two hours. The three of you loiter in the bathroom, Chrissie and John perched on the rim of the enormous garden tub, fidgeting and chitchatting anxiously. They alternate popping downstairs, mingling just long enough to not arouse suspicions, bringing back biscuits and bits of toast that they futility try to coerce you into eating. Chrissie doesn’t like the smell of cigarettes in the house, she never has; but now both she and John are chain smoking as they wait and periodically get up to check the test tube.

“This isn’t real,” you whimper. “This can’t be real, right? There’s no way the universe has this ironic a sense of humor.”

“Wait, something’s happening.” John waves Chrissie over to the test kit. She examines it.

“Love...” Chrissie begins, her voice tentative, her eyes glossy.

“No,” you insist. “No way, no fucking way, I don’t believe this...”

Chrissie turns the kit so you can view it, so you can see what she does reflected in the tiny mirror: a single dark ring that informs you you’re carrying Roger’s child.

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