#staring in a consternated sort of fashion

[reactionimagesdaily]

#staring in a consternated sort of fashion #reaction image #reaction meme #daily reaction images #image mood: w h a t #submission

[sphericaldice]

We Have Not Touched The Stars Nor Are We Forgiven (aka The One Where Ishimaru Jacks Off With Oowada Butter)

( ‘́⌣’̀) Ao3 (˘̩̩ε˘̩ƪ)

Summary: Ishimaru Kiyotaka handles grief and love the best way he knows how, poorly.

Author Comments: Just gonna come out and say it, this is a darkfic lol. If you’re not in to that, then you may wanna skip this one. This fic is also r-18 so younuns please come back later! 

Reblog if you like what I write and check out my Ao3 ㋛

SPOILERS FOR DANGANROMPA TRIGGER HAPPY HAVOC  ***

“Wh-whoops...I slipped...Sorry, man.” 

“Sorry, man.” Was all the Biker could muster, gazing away from Kiyotaka and his remaining classmates. Though his face was veiled by his unkempt pompadour, tears crept down his visage and dripped from his chin, making their presence known to everyone. 

Ishimaru Kiyotaka didn’t remember who he voted for instead of Mondo, it wasn’t a conscious election. It could have been Byakuya, Hifumi, Yasuhiro, Aoi, Celestia, dead Chihiro, Touko the harbourer of a blade-wielding maniac, or Makoto, who shot down every last one of his feeble rebuttals, just anyone, anything but his Aniki. Kiyotaka’s final bid to save Oowada Mondo was predictably trivial. No one listened to him because no one loved like him. That had to be it, none of his classmates had a bro they made a promise too. That’s how they could be so blind and imperturbable. So wrong. It was all wrong.

The bilious cackling of the mechanical ursine wrang in Kiyotaka’s ears “Pupupupupu! Punishment time!” it squawked with excitement that mocked the mournful courtroom. 

 Kiyotaka staggered forward, towards a detached Mondo who wouldn’t meet his tear-drowned eyes. The Ultimate Moral Compas didn’t get very far before Sakura swiftly encapsulated him in a bear hug. He watched the boy, the bear, and the bike pull off in the direction of an enormous metal cage embezzled with wooden tiger cut-outs.  

Gunk from his nose stained his quivering lips as he cried out “Wait! I’m asking you to just wait, please!” Kiyotaka spurted in place, hopelessly retrained by the Ultimate Fighter. 

Sakura tightened her grip “You fool! Do you want to be dragged off as well?” she snapped but her usually husky and authoritative voice was brittle. 

Kiyotaka clawed unprofitably at Sakura’s thick, brown, arms. If he could just break free he would fly ahead and save his innocent best friend. But he was not strong enough. “Why won’t you wait!? I’m begging you to listen to me!” 

Sakura groaned and hung her head, and at that moment Kiyotaka felt dampness against his hair.

The execution couldn’t have been more than a minute. Sakura attempted to shift her arms in a way that allowed her to cover Kiyotaka’s eyes but he would not allow it. He watched, sangria eyes bulging, as the tiger-adorned contraption began to spin Mondo around and around. Even from a safe distance, he could see, take in Aniki’s face, first stained with regret and then completely deformed by consternation as the machine gathered unbelievable speed. Kiyotaka witnessed the moment Aniki’s neck snapped from whiplash and he was beyond anything he could’ve done to save him. Seconds later the man Kiyotaka loved was a jet-black blemish on the cage’s steel tracks and the bitter scent of smoke bombarded his nostrils. It was over. Or so he thought.

 There was a sharp ting akin to an old fashioned microwave and the machine expelled something that resembled a pint of yoghurt. The cream coloured container slid across the checkered linoleum and landed at Fukawa Touko’s feet. The haggard girl did her best impression of a cat vomiting and stumbled backwards into Asahina Aoi who reacted with a high-pitched yelp once she saw what had spooked Touko.

“W-what is that!?” stammered the tanned swimmer, covering her mouth with a quivering palm.”

“Haa...Haa...Consider it a souvenir for Captain Morals over there, pupupupupu!” Monukuma replied between pants, he was exhausted from his impromptu hula-hoop routine. 

Sakura released Kiyotaka and he clambered over to the two girls, hastily despite his legs feeling like lead. The boy fell to his knees, snatching up the container. He stared blankly at the lid and stern, smokey eyes stared back at him. It was Aniki. By then a few other classmates had gathered around him, anxious to see what was causing such a commotion. 

Naegi Makoto leered over Kiyotaka’s shoulders and read the pint’s label aloud. “‘Oowada Butter’..? What the hell, Monokuma, that’s too horrible! You can’t just turn our friend into...butter!” 

“Pupupupu, Oh but I can! And I have a feeling something beary interesting is going to happen tonight!”  The bear vanished, marking the end of the trial.

 Students filed into the crimson elevator, some looking rather ill, all completely silent. Kiyotaka felt a large hand on his shoulder and glanced skyward at the tower of a woman before him. 

“Come now, friend, we do not want to miss the elevator,” Sakura said, regarding him kindly. On her other arm, Aoi clung for dear life. “We will walk you back to your room.”

He allowed Sakura to drag him from the courtroom.

***

They sullen group strolled wordlessly for what felt like aeons to Kiyotaka and arrived outside his room a few minutes before 10 pm. 

Sakura’s low voice cut the thick silence, “Would you like Asahina and I to stay over tonight?”

“No. That would be improper.”

“It’s fine, really,” Aoi chimed, “Ogami-chan and I have had plenty of sleepovers when I need someone!” 

If this were any other evening Kiyotaka would’ve delivered a choice lecture onto Asahina Aoi and her muscular...cohort, but tonight he said nothing. Without replying he reached for his door, but a hand on his shoulder froze his motion.

“Wait, Ishimaru.” Sakura addressed him firmly, but there was an underlying softness and compassion in her voice. “What do plan to do with that?” 

He knew immediately what she was referring to. He tightened his grip on the container. “I am going to keep it.”

“Whoa, are you sure? Just because that bear didn’t mess with the doughnuts or any of our other food doesn’t mean he didn’t poison that butter!” Aoi exclaimed, bringing a hand to her ample chest. 

Kiyotaka clenched his teeth. “I’m not going to eat it!” He trudged into his room slamming the door behind them before either girl could interject with anything else. 

He did not turn on the lights, opting instead to stand in the doorway of his black room for a while. Aoi and Sakura were likely calling out to him from behind the door, but the soundproof walls helped him blot the concerned pair from his mind. He hated Ogami Sakura and Asahina Aoi. He hated all of his classmates who had allowed Aniki to die. He hated Monokuma. He hated Fujisaki Chihiro because she was with Aniki and he wasn’t. He hated so much that his head spun. Monokuma’s nightly announcement aired and ended with Kiyotaka paying no mind to it. Eventually, he shuffled towards his bed, took a weary seat, and set the Oowada Butter on the adjacent drawer. He undressed to his briefs, socks and undershirt, in the dark, leaving his uniform to rest atop his boots on the floor. He knew it would wrinkle this way. He paid it no mind tonight. He swung his leg on to the bed, one at a time, mechanically, and let himself collapse. Laying there, Kiyotaka felt oddly restive. This was his typical bedtime, but his racing mind refused to align with his exhausted body, sleep would not grant him escape from this nightmare. He wanted desperately to will himself unconscious but every time he shut his eyes he saw Mondo’s neck snap. Again and again and again and again and-

The teen bolted upright and urgently switched on the bedside lamp. To his relief, he discovered the butter was right where he left it. He snatched up the container, taking the time to thoroughly examine it in the dim lamplight, reading all labels aloud in a shaky murmur. “Oowada Butter...Yankee Bread...Mondo...Two times the fat...80 kilograms...Keep refrigerated.” He gingerly turned the container on its side and read through the serving size, caloric total, nutritional facts, making his way to the ingredient summary, 

“Ingredients:...despair...cream...natural Oowada flavouring...salt...contains milk.”

The final warning text in bold stuck out to Kiyotaka. ‘Aniki doesn’t have any milk..?’ A feathery tingle engulfed his half-naked body and he chuckled joylessly at the thought for reasons he was unsure of. He lay back down, holding the container close.

“Aniki,” he addressed his best friend’s face on the plastic lid, “you’re not really gone, are you..?”  Then he peeled back the plastic lid to gaze upon the thick, cornsilk coloured expanse. 

‘Just because that bear didn’t mess with the doughnuts or any of our other food doesn’t mean he didn’t poison that butter!’ 

- He pushed Aoi’s voice to the back of his brain until it was completely muffled as if she were speaking from underwater. 

The lid was off and placed beside him, Mondo side up. He breathed anxiously, excitedly as he ran his right index finger through the butter, collecting a fair amount of it on the length.

‘Whoa, are you sure? Just because that bear didn’t mess with-’

Kiyotaka shoved his butter covered finger between his lips and into his mouth. His bright eyes widened the second it met his taste buds. Never in his life had he tasted something so rich and creamy and salty. Never in his life had he tasted Oowada Mondo. He sucked his finger clean in one greedy slurp. 

“Aniki…” He breathed the title, plaintively, “you’re not really gone, are you…?” 

This time he collected a large amount with two unsteady fingers and inserted them deliberately into his hungry mouth. Carefully he slid the fingers in and out, savouring the unique flavour until his fingers were clean. He swallowed, then repeated this a second time, and a third time. But by the third time he began to experience a strong foreign sensation. His body grew hot and restless, and his heart throbbed and tumbled in his chest. Kiyotaka was vaguely familiar with the concept of lust and arousal but had never given in to those sort of thoughts. He was the Ultimate Public Morales Committee Member, and it would be unbecoming of him. So he’d push the rare moments of desire to the back of his mind and drown it with push-ups and Tai-chi, and homework and lectures. But never had he encountered want and need so agonising. And never had he felt so hopeless. 

Kiyotaka groaned and whispered with his mouth full “Ahhhh, Aniki...What do I do, Aniki?”

With little thought, almost automatically, he scooped a small handful of butter with his left hand, slipped it into his tank top and slid a cold, buttered palm up the front of his chest until he found a nipple. He expelled several short and fast breathes as he encircled the sensitive thing with the heel of his palm then suddenly pinched it.

“Shit!” Kiyotaka hissed, nearly biting down on his own fingers. 

He wasn’t sure why he did that, it wasn’t something he’d ever thought to have done to himself. Regardless, the flustered boy yearned for more of this intense contact. Whatever had come over him, he craved more. By now the container was about half of its original contents. With both hands, he seized more of the decadent treat and began to feed his carnal hunger. His left palm slid smoothly up his chest to tend to his neglected right nipple all while three fingers on his right hand made love to his mouth, vigorously sliding in and out, overwhelming him with the taste of cream and saline. He resented the rest of his hand for not fitting into his mouth and preventing him to slide his three fingers further back, allowing him to gag on his Aniki. Kiyotaka relished in Aniki’s thickness and flavour, his toes curled and he crossed his legs, attempting to quench the new throbbing between his thighs. It wasn’t enough. He found his slick right hand had fallen from his mouth and was collecting a copious amount of butter, leaving it near depleted. His eyes grew wet as he pushed aside the cloth flap of his briefs and freed his arousal. Panting frantically he gripped the base of his shaft and slid up and down, meticulously spreading Aniki down this full erect length until slick with softened butter. More butter was collected with three fingers from his left hand and those fingers were subsequently thrust into his mouth. He drove his hips forward into his hand in hurried, desperate movements. Feeling Aniki. Tasting Aniki. Right now there was nobody else, just him and Aniki as one, for eternity. Without warning, Kiyotaka’s entire body clenched and he felt so light in the head that he wondered if he were floating above his sweat-drenched sheets. 

“What’s...hah...pening?” he sputtered between hastening breaths.

 His eyes fluttered shut and for a moment he saw The Ultimate Biker Gang Leader shrouded in a curious, artificial green light, leering at him with those cold grey jewels for eyes. Oowada Mondo’s thin brows were knit in characteristic assurance and his lips were curled into a slight smirk. 

“Aniki…” The title of the man he loved dribbled from his lips as he came in long, pearl coloured spurts. 

The Ultimate Moral Compass lay there in the aftermath of his ecstasy, stained in sweat, butter and semen, finally able to catch his breath. He reached into the container once more, only for his soiled fingers to be met with plastic. Emptiness. Kiyotaka beamed in spite of the rivers that flowed from his sangria pools. 

He rolled over to face the lid that bore Oowada Mondo’s image and spoke to it. “There’s nothing they can do now, Aniki. We really will be together forever. I promise.”

And right then there really was no one else in the world but The Ultimate Public Morals Committee Member, his Aniki, and the girl who watched him through the surveillance camera in his bedroom.

#fanfiction #lemon #Danganrompa #Kiyotaka Ishimaru #mondo oowada #kiyotaka x mondo #death #spoilers #2k words #explict #angst #danganrompa trigger happy havoc #slight canon divergence

[twitchesandstitches]

Wedding Eve in Hoard Keep Commission

Another comm for @alt-hammer set in their Noblestuck AU, this time featuring Porrim and Bronya visiting the land of the Pyropes before the historically unprecedented wedding of Latula and Mituna, introducing Terezi, Karkat and Kankri, as well as Redglare!

Featuring hyper pregnancy, unbirth, size difference, hyper boob, hyper butt, hyper belly, Redglare being really very large, and Kankri attempting to cause musicals.

------

There were many ancient buildings from before the modern age of the noble families, of the like that probably would not be made again for many ages.

They were something from an older age; buildings inherently magical, aetheric essence pulsing through them and their own strange functions and unique enchantments like blood through a living thing. There were factories in the underlands of the Zahhak castles, daily pumping out scores of weaponry, armor and the foundations of architecture under the watchful eyes of mechanists who would be sorely loath to admit they had no idea what they were working with. To look inside those factories was to see… well, nothing. Nothing at all in there but a solid, tangible and black emptiness, staring right back with a presence all its own. No one was quite sure what happened to the material they put in.

And there were the massive and ancient ships of the Amporas and Serkets, enormous war machines that could end entire civilizations with the fearsome weaponry at their disposal; larger than some city districts, flying beneath the ocean itself or skipping on the waves with no apparent means of production; death itself to anything on the water. The means to make more was lost, and many felt this was absolutely for the best.

Every one of the noble families (the Megidos in their halls of the dead, the Captors atop the universities of magic and lore, the Pyropes and their dragons, the Leijons in the distant jungle lands and the Maryams in the oasis secured from the walking corpses of long dead monsters, the Zahhak aristocrats and the sea-faring Serket pirate lords, the Makara priesthood atoning for the sins of their blood, the Peixes and the Amporas of the shorelands, and most recently the Vantases and their human kindred-in-arms) had laid claim to one of these mighty relics.

It might, depending on one’s perspective, be a prerequisite. Each of the families was descended from people who had laid claim to one of these relics or taken it for themselves, worked out how to get it operational, and then used it for all it was worth. They had largely remained in power because they were untouchable, some more literally than others. Even the Vantases, who were only a single generation into being a noble house, had done so when they had been found worthy to use such an artifact.

It wasn’t surprising that war had plagued the continent until only recently.

At the far west of the continent, there was a mighty mountain range, covering much of the entire coastline, all the way to the magocracies of the Captors and their metropolitan libraries, and it was the land of the Pyropes. They were the dragon riders, among the largest and strongest of knights, blessed with insight, and empowered by the mighty blood of their ancestors. In the wars of the dragon riders they had won out, and they had laid claim to one such relic that was greatly prized by anyone who wanted to hold their land, for it was literally untouchable in war.

The Pyrope lands were marked by the trees growing across much of the mountain range. These trees, in their many varieties, were probably magical in nature: there were several thousand species alone across any given direction; needle-leaf conifers growing on the highest reaches, flowering trunks that grew into the supports of tree-cities around the cliff sides, expansive banyan trees near the wetter areas of the Vantas wetlands, and massive greenwood trees that were big enough to be mistaken for mountains themselves closest to the sea, but all the trees had this in common: their leaves flowered bright teal, the same blue-green shade as the blood of the dragons that called the land home.

The dragons, and the trolls who ruled and had long since bonded with those dragons.

Fortresses of various sorts were a hallmark of the continent, especially here with the many various dragon rider lineages having warred against each other for eons, and fortifications had featured heavily in the conflicts. But against the largest mountain in the entire mountain range, there was an especially massive castle, one so large that it wasn’t legally considered a castle at all, but a sprawling city with fortifications.

It was older than any troll bloodline to still be extant. It was older than any modern civilization; it had been there before the humans had come, it may have been there before the trolls had arisen from their swampy origins, and it would likely be there long after all else was dust.

See it clearly; think of a mountainside, soaring high into the heavens, one of the largest mountains in all the world. Now imagine around it, an impossibly large castle assembled around it; perhaps even grown in some fashion, considering the strangely organic pattern in the stone work that wasn’t likely for something that had been assembled.

Imagine its walls clinging tight around the mountain, around terraces and plateaus, over cliff sides and descending along the paths of rivers. Imagine bolt holes and tunnels into the mountain, veins for the castle and the lifesblood that was its people; and within its massive depths, thousands of people living there. Farmers and artisans, clever craftsmen and wise scholars. Writers, sculptors, and dragons. Hundreds of dragons, of many different varieties from the Red Queen famously bound to the Pyrope line itself, to the many different varieties and sizes, all the way to tiny coal-stokers just big enough to fit in a human’s lap. And humans! They dwelled here, freely, without fear, in open defiance that they had once been shackled in other lands not so long ago, and that said something of the character of the trolls who owned this keep now.

The keep had been passed down over the ages, from one owner to another. It had been hotly contested by both warlords and settlers, and why not? It’s powers were not fully known, but anyone knew of its famous ability to generate a massive shield that no sword nor spell could pierce, not even the mountain-breaking superweapons of the Serkets; to hold the keep, and to master its powers, was to be truly untouchable in your own lands.

And the size, and curvaceousness, of its seer-warriors was well known in the modern day. The keep channeled its energies into them, making them far larger than normal, and it's magic now ran in the blood of the Pyrope line, so that its daughters grew bigger and more bountiful than any other save perhaps the Maryams.

This keep had been kept for eons, from many hands won over another, until its present owners had slain the most vindictive of the old dragon riders, burning their history down so they could start fresh; some, less well disposed to their uncompromising ways, had suggested they started the war to do the same to the whole continent.

But, all the same, the Pyropes sought to protect others. They’d bonded with their dragons, internalizing some of their mentality, and they believed that dragons ought to protect what they cared about most. What they cared about was their people. And thus this great city-castle was the Hoard Keep.

Porrim Maryam, in one of the grand plateaus near the peak, enshrouded in the warm and protecting walls of the Keep, thought it all sounded very nice.

Certainly, she thought, it was very different from the home she’d known. Porrim was a vampire, of the Maryam clan that came from an oasis city considered a center of refinement and culture, and she was familiar only with the desert. She knew well the open sky before her, and the sun beating down. But here? It was colder, and the sky a small sight between the towering walls of stone.

It was… surprisingly cozy.

Personally, she thought the whole thing kind of looked like a big iridescent cake someone had smashed into the side of the mountain.

It was just like a multi-tiered cake. At the bottom was a vast terrace, of sprawling little villages bordering farmland and caves that their fungal farming and crawler-beast ranching was done on a scale to feed their entire territory with ease. The villages got bigger, clumping into micro cities until you got to the border of one of the upper walls, and then you got another, rather larger terrace, where much of the industrial and artisan workers lived, keeping the sewer systems functional, the rivers and canals streaking through the castle properly maintained.

And the terraces got narrow as they kept going up, the upper classes and nobility poised up high as if to leap down and strike anything that threatened the people who kept them alive. In turn, the dragon nobles (as they were called) were honorbound to swoop down and defend their people, with flame and blade.

Porrim looked up into the sky as she walked. Great leather-winged shapes flew, periodically belching clouds of flame, their eyes burning bright like small suns.

There were many reasons the Pyropes had never been ousted, not even during the greatest conflict between them and the Makaras when the humans had sought sanctuary with the dragonlords. Having fiercely loyal living siege breakers was certainly a factor.

But respect might have been a greater factor, and love for the protecting dragonlords was something the other trolls who had claimed this keep in the past hadn’t managed. Certainly, the Pyropes were much loved by the humans, Porrim thought as one showed her around town as a proper tour guide, much to the consternation of the actual tour guide.

“Anyways, if you tilt your eye-jigglies that away,” he said, pointing towards a large building across the street. “I’m pretty sure that’s one super big library. Dunno what the name of it is but it’s huge, I’ll give it that.” He was a little below average height for a human; to Porrim and her friends, who naturally stood far larger than humans, he was adorably tiny. A slender human, his skin a deep brown and his hair curled, he bore a few details that suggested he’d been trained in the magical traditions of knighthood. The flowing capes he wore suggested it, and his were a bright red, rather than the teal clothing seen elsewhere.

Porrim rubbed a hooked horn, rising from her dark hair; her other horn was slightly curved instead of hooked, and both were very long, and as per the traditions of her people, heavily carved with the heraldic symbols that indicated full status as a vampire matron among her clan. The same curves, spirals and flowering designs carved into her horns ran down her black skin, over her broad shoulders, her heavy arms, and especially the massive belly slung out in front of her, nearly as big as she was and wiggling with something inside. Or rather, multiple someones; Porrim had absorbed several people in order to reform them as vampires, and the process left her quite big!

Their tour guide led them onwards, apparently deciding on a whim that it would be a good idea to lead them there.

Porrim didn’t mean to make her hips sway so seductively, so enticingly, the hems of her robes fluttering around her knees. They’d just grown so large, and the width of her pelvis so great, it had affected something in her stride; she couldn’t help but advance like each step was carrying her upwards, her other hip swinging sharply down, for a delightful rhythm that attracted attention to her with each. She felt eyes nervously shift to her and then away, as if embarrassed, and beneath her veils, Porrim smirked in delight.

In front of her, her tattooed belly wobbled heavily from within, the occasional hand pressing out against its surface, or a leg or torso just barely visible. Distending so far its lower slopes nearly touched the floor, supported by a number of oiled straps from her shoulders and tied to a huge round brace holding up the bottom of her belly, she was very clearly pregnant. And in the particular traditions of the Maryam clan, pregnant with adults; absorbed through powers particular to her own clan, her body remaking them into new vampires. This detail was common knowledge around here, and Porrim glanced aside, smirking beneath her glossy veil when she saw people’s eyes lingering on her massive belly. Do they want to be in there too? She wondered.

‘You bet, babe,’ said a voice that was not her own. The people inside her, while they were being reshaped into true vampires, were usually completely out of it in a dreamless slumber connected to her mind, filling her pleasurably as their half-thoughts soothed her own. But sometimes, a strong enough emotion or thought made itself known, and briefly, Cronus awoke from his own dormancy in her to say this. She smiled and put a hand against her stomach, and thought she felt his hand press back.

They were nearly to the library and Porrim found her breasts constantly bouncing right over her face as her belly jogged them up. The noble families tended to get… ample as they grew more powerful, owing to certain arcane traditions and quirks of their magical bloodlines, and the Maryams grew very rapidly, so that Porrim wasn’t entirely used to having breasts nearly as big as her entire upper torso bounding and overflowing on top of her gravid belly. They projected out by at least three feet, each nearly as wide around as her torso and their motion a soothing, pleasant friction. She did have to walk carefully to avoid walking right into someone.

Each step, her huge hips swaying here and there in step with the forward moment of her massive belly and breasts, felt terribly uneven. Something was throwing her weight off, and Porrim tugged at the insufficient fabric bolt securing the fabric around her breasts.  “We should have brought a poet. Your home is lovely, Latula!”

She spoke to a taller troll standing beside her. Porrim Maryam was a tall woman as trolls went, and Latula was much larger, as befit a scion of the dragon line; Porrim’s horns were only on level with her shoulders, and when Latula threw a playful punch into her shoulder, it nearly knocked her off stride. This was no mean feat; Maryam matrons like her could shrug off direct impacts from falling buildings, and it was hardly a surprise that Latula was so strong; the teals were enormously strong for the greenblood trolls, and Latula had trained in the magical ways of a knight, adding to her physical power.

“What, Kankri doesn’t count?” Latula joked. She was built on broader lines than her friend; while Porrim was a tall and curvy (and heavily pregnant) figure of a troll, her body adorned in the Pyropian attempts to replicate the gauzy silks and heat-resisting veils and robes of her homeland, Latula was much more bottom heavy, her breasts a little bigger than her head but her butt was as big around as a lot of Porrim’s whole body, her big belly outslung in a firm, maternal mass, and her hips absolutely enormous. Watching thighs more than six feet around slam into each other in an aggressively friendly swagger was certainly a thing to see.

Porrim wondered if it was like a warning bell for the Pyropes, who tended toward this kind of figure. Listen for the clap of mighty thighs and the smacking of a huge butt, it suggested, and be unafraid for nothing is stronger than the dragonrider near you!

Latula’s fastened a furred cloak around a body-glove that carefully outlined her entire body, streaks of yellow visible in patterns on her sides, and in her cleavage, there was a small medallion worn on a necklace, disappearing between her cleavage to be held safe and snug between them. It glowed faintly, and Latula made a show out of tucking it and giving her breasts a bit of a flounce, as if to keep it secured as close to her heart as possible. She looked a bit proud, even bashful.

Porrim glanced at her, smiling faintly.

Latula tilted her head up, awkwardly pushing up smoked red glasses to her eyes. The furred collar couldn’t quite hide the blush rising up to her cheeks.

They were now at the doors of the library and passing into it, their tour guide (who was named Dave, according to a neat script on his cloak) headbutting it open for no apparent reason. Then again, he had been trained in the Pyrope ways, according to the iconography on that robe as well; the terminal scales were only granted to those that were authorized to use Pyrope magical techniques and were up to their specifications. Some of the others were a bit more enthusiastic about popping into a random library.

In particular, Bronya hopped forward, her hands clasped with some difficulty in front of her own bustline; she was even more ridiculously big than Porrim, her breasts rising up in front of her face so much it must have been hard to see, the sides of them spilling past the diameter of her massive hips, but even they looked small compared to her gigantic belly. It was even bigger than Porrim’s, dipping nearly to the ground, and it would have been flat on the ground if not for an elegant and unobtrusive brace hoisting it up to somewhere around her knees. Just like Porrim’s, the forms of slumbering people being reshaped into vampires surged against her skin periodically, but it seemed like there was a more in Bronya than in Porrim; as big as Porrim was, she could have used Bronya’s belly as a bed.

Bronya’s long hair fell down past her hips, a streak of bright green flowing past her curved horns and ending somewhere past a backside that distorted edges of even the Pyrope-style robes she’d put on. The tailors hadn’t had any more luck getting her outfit to fit properly, and until they could find something that fit, she was making do with robes that at least fit.

“I’ve always wanted to see the libraries of the Pyropes!” She said excitedly, bounding forward and almost trampling a few people with her huge, gravid belly.

“Me as well,” said Kankri Vantas, the last of their number. He was smaller than either of them, closer to the diminutive humans in height; a muscular, broad shouldered troll, he was surprisingly wide for his size, and when he moved you got the impression it was best to get out of the way. The carefully controlled expression of his round, dour face abruptly opened into a genuine expression of true delight; the half-cape worn by a Vantas knight swung back behind as he flourished his arm in a dramatic gesture. “Just think of it! Books gathered from across the entire landscape!”

Bronya leaned down and carefully took hold of his hands, fingers wrapping carelessly over his palms. “Works of art discussion and techniques through the ages!” Impulsively she spun him a little, right in front of her belly and allowed him to support himself off it like a climber on a happy cliff.

“Records of lectures from famed philosophers of golden ages!” He declared, letting himself be spun around!

“Architectural designs and fashions throughout the ages, in numerical order of objective fanciness!” Bronya spun him around; above them the library was a sort of hollow tube, with a circular staircase spiraling upwards. Many floors fanned out from it, each one dedicated to a broad subject (Such as works of fiction, artwork, and at the very top, a collective ‘we don’t really know where to put it so here it goes’ floor). Around them, librarians paused in surprise, contemplating the sight of so much jiggling and belly poking out. They took some interest for academic reasons; a glowing woman with prominent fangs, tattoos and green clothing read ‘Maryam vampire’ pretty clearly.

“Comprehensive maps to the most ancient ruins known to trollkind and ruminations on their cultures!” Kankri declared passionately, and with even greater passion, added “Damara even donated some!”

“And little joke books that Karako might like!” Bronya said, referring to her adopted child, who was currently off at a daycare.

“I feel… so passionately about this,” Kankri said as she stopped twirling. “It could almost…” he placed a hand on his chest. “Make a troll want to…”

The others, detecting the warning signs, winced.

“Want to sing!”

Bronya and Kankri both prepared themselves, breathing in deeply…

Dave tapped them both on the shoulder… or at least on Kankri’s shoulder, Bronya got an impatient poke in the hip. They both looked down at Dave, who gazed up at a solid wall of shapely troll to gaze as sternly as he could without really caring that much. “Guys, chill. You’re not allowed to do musical routines in the library on this day of the week.”

Bronya frowned sadly. “Ohh…” she perked up. “Still, I have always wanted to come here!” She hurried off, trying not to knock anyone down with her huge belly. Some cautious researchers, intrigued by the Maryam rites of unbirthing and recreation, followed after her softly.

Kankri put a hand to his nose, frowning deeply, and as he finally caught up to events, a scandalized look came over him, mingled with horror. “I almost… defied local customs! Me, an outsider! Invited to these lands and I almost broke a taboo!”

“Ehh, I wouldn’t say it's a taboo,” Latula said, behind him, waving a hand. “It’s just supposed to be done on certain days…”

He fled to her, clasping her hand. “Latula, I swear, I did not mean to break the ways of your people!”

She patted him on the head. “Chill, dude, you’re cool.”

Kankri turned to Dave and bowed to him. “I thank you, tour guide. Without your advice, I may have committed a terrible wrong.”

“Yep, without me you would have been the worst criminal in two hundred years,” Dave said, not blinking.

Kankri hurried away, perhaps to find a book to drown his shame in, and Latula glared at Dave, who was now grinning a little. “Dude! Don’t mess with him like that, he thinks you’re serious!”

Dave just kept grinning. “He makes it easy.” He thumbed at the door. “I’ll be hanging right here if anyone needs me or when you wanna bounce from here. Just… standing there. Being all cool, and fancy. And with a really cool cape. A cape way cooler than what you got.”

Latula growled. “I wanted to be the tour guide!”

Dave pointed at her while walking backwards. “Hey, dragon princess, brides don’t do dirty work! And not just because your mom thought it would be funny to annoy you like that.”

Latula made a few inarticulate noises of strangled frustration as he left.

Porrim, a book on sculpture techniques and cultural relevance through the ages in her hand, waved to her. “Please, Latula, please sit down.”

Grumbling to herself, Latula walked back over and sat down. The bench creaked as she sat down, her massive butt overflowing both in front of it and that, rising up a couple feet higher just because of how much butt she had. Porrim was much the same, but given that her belly was so huge that she required a couple people to carefully put some pedestals beneath it for support, it wasn’t so apparent.

Kankri and Bronya didn’t feel the need to come back; they would, Porrim supposed, meet up with them when they were done here. Perhaps they would spend the day here; they had several months before the big event was upon them, and with that thought, she glanced at Latula, who was still fuming but calming herself down, tugging something on a string out of her cleavage.

Porrim watched her with a faint smile; her fangs were long, protruding over her thick lower lip, and it was about as menacing as a goldfish. (And not the fire-breathing, mile long ones either.)

It wasn’t common for the nobles to leave their home territories, she reflected, even on business. Though this was business of a sort, given the need for the allied noble families to show solidarity.

It was particularly important for the Pyropes. History lived with them, in libraries like this; in the grand court archives where every crime in their lands was recorded, and in other records. The ones where historical crimes were marked down. The Pyropes had a particularly vindictive view when it came to justice: ‘a perpetuator for every crime, and a noose for every perpetuator.’ They looked at history and they saw the wrongs left to fester, both recently and in the distant past, and it was their pleasure to repair it.

So much of the continent’s history was a crime. To the trolls, but by other trolls to them. There were injustices down to the carapacians that had arrived from across the sea, and most of all to the humans that lived under troll rule. Porrim glanced at some humans walking by, their sleeves long and their faces staring down by habit, and she wondered how many of them bore the marks of shackles burned into their wrists, or ownership stamps bound into their foreheads.

Many tealbloods had owned this keep. Not all of them had been kind. There was a lot of blood soaked in these stones, and she supposed the seers the Pyropes trained were specifically trained to come to terms with the horrors in their past. But it was the Pyropes that had set the humans free; it was Redglare herself who had broken the chains of humans, told them they were free, and declared who was responsible for their torment.

It wasn’t the Pyropes who had started the war that had burned the continent down and had killed thousands, but it was the Pyropes that had flown down on their dragon armies, and left nothing but ashes and vengeance behind.

It was Pyrope blades that cut the Makaras down to nothing but a few bloodlines, their ash-stricken homelands a suitable punishment for the horrors they had inflicted. It was dragonfire that had scorched keeps and castles, barracks and naval fleets, and had turned entire kingdoms to soot and grisly chunks.

Porrim had been trained to think of these sort of things, for the days when she might set policy. Her own oasis city had been a neutral ground and sanctuary for ages, maintaining careful balance and kept secure by the inhospitable dangers of her homeland, and she had taken to politics quite well. She kept thinking about the significance of the Pyropes inviting others to such a big event as this, and it struck her that it was very much an extended hand of friendship.

Now she observed that Latula had pulled her trinket out from between her boobs, her claws lightly tracing it, her bright teal eyes looking distant as though she were thinking of something, or someone else. Latula stared at it longingly, sighing softly to herself and clearly lost in thought.

It was a chunk of teal crystal inlaid with gold; chipped right off from a variety of pseudo-floral mineral that grew very quickly in the underground cave systems where a lot of the local agriculture was grown in conditions that didn’t require sunlight; edible mushrooms, cave-dwelling giant bat livestock, digger beasts, and so forth. These crystals naturally glowed faintly and had a unique beauty, lustrous and gleaming like fine metal when properly treated.

It was a tradition among the Pyropes to offer them carved medallions, necklaces, medals or other such things as an engagement gift. It meant something; the crystals below had been traditionally allowed to grow to such size that their immensely strong structures could carry massive weights, and serve as the foundations of cities and castles. Even a small one, properly treated, could be the seed of something that carried houses and lifted up mighty realms. And they had to be decorated, carved; you had to make it look pretty, had to put a creative spark into your gift; that made it personal. Inlay it with precious metals, or an abstract image of hands clasped together, and the more tastelessly ostentatious, the better. The people of the dragon lands tended to have all the fine artistic discernment of a concussed magpie.

Now Latula’s claws traced geometric lines and sharp angles arranged into a lovely, if clumsy design. It was an artistic peculiarity of the Captor mages, who rather liked patterns based in mathematics. It was not a well-carved piece, though; the edges were chipped everywhere, cracks were visible here and there when the chisel had bit too deeply. But the carver had tried, working around some very severe motor control difficulties; fingers that spasmed and twitched on their own had nonetheless worked hard, sheer stubbornness triumphing over the limitations of his body. Space had been used to convey as much a design as the actual carving, the design was as simple as possible for the carver to manage it without too much difficulty, and while it was hard to say what the design actually was, it looked pretty.

Latula tenderly cradled the medallion and its gold-colored necklace strings, and she kissed it softly.

There was a soft popping sound. Latula tilted her head up and stiffened when she saw Porrim grinning at her, and even glowing faintly.

Porrim opened her mouth to say something.

“Nuh uh!” Said Latula, waving a finger and tucking the medallion back into her cleavage, the slight impact making the lower crest of her breasts shift slightly around her belly. “You keep those dirty thoughts to yourself, vampire lady!”

“What makes you think it was going to be dirty? I promise you, all my thoughts were about how romantic it is.”

Latula sneered. “You know my magic is all about foresight and seeing the future, right?”

“...I wasn’t going to say exclusively dirty things about you imagining that medallion as being Mituna, now was I?” Porrim said innocently.

“Yes, and you were going to be explicit about it!” Latula crossed her arms with an indignant ‘hmph!’.

A long moment passed between them as the banter wore down, after that. People walked past them, perhaps word spreading that today the scion of the Maryam Clan was visiting. People came to peek, and Porrim noticed a few people poking their heads from around bookcases, and she felt the warm caress of their gazes upon her stomach.

She placed a hand upon the upper crest, and it was a little higher than her jawline. Her breasts, rising over her belly by at least four feet straight up, interfered seriously with normal vision from the front and so she made do with rather more esoteric senses granted by the fertility powers of her bloodline, the same ones fed and amplified by the bodies being reshaped by her busy womb. Cronus, in some approximation of awareness, thought some miffed thoughts about them being so open about it.

Porrim certainly loved showing her body off as much as possible; she worked hard to get such a splendidly massive figure! Impishly, and to test the waters of public reaction, she tugged at a swath of translucent green fabric flowing down the side of her breasts, insufficient to provide full coverage, flowing down the sides of her body (both belly and back completely exposed, her tattoos flowing across exposed skin) and bundling up around her massive hips, finally trailing off in a slit-thigh style around her knees. As it was, her belly and breasts stretched her clothing enough that the fabric was pressed hard, and she was perilously close to a wardrobe malfunction at all times.

She didn’t actually mind, though.

Further thoughts on this matter was interrupted by something very heavy dragging on the floor, and a bookcase being pushed aside by a weight so big that even the shelf and its payload couldn’t ignore it. They looked and Latula’s mouth opened as her future vision flashed through all possible events of the next few minutes to settle on the most likely one. She sighed. “Bronya, really?!”

Eventually, Bronya shuffled out. It took some time for the actual Bronya to appear; at first all they saw was a huge belly, more and more of it coming into view with various laborious steps. It didn’t bounce or jiggle, as was normal with such big attributes. It was too heavy for that, dipping low as gravity and the weight of many new residents made it even heavier, and finally Bronya came into view, still eclipsed by her own belly.

Bronya had been big before. Now, her brace had snapped at some point before she’d dared seek out Porrim after what was very likely a moment of weakness, and Porrim’s first guess was that her stomach had grown to the point that even the distinctive braces of the Maryam’s couldn’t cope with the new weight. Her belly rose higher than her horns, the typical distended shape of a gravid vampire belly more sphere-shaped from all the weight of the new residents in her womb filling it out.

Some part of Porrim, overeager to stuff as many as possible into her womb, was quietly in awe. She wondered how Bronya had even moved down here with all that weight!

Porrim rolled her eyes. “Not to repeat Latula but… really, Bronya?”

“I’m sorry!” Bronya squeaked, her belly now pregnant even more with new residents. “But the head librarian was so very cute, and her staff was really cute, and I just couldn’t resist!”

“The staff!?” Latula said. “What’d you do with Stelsa and her girls, hrm?”

Dave emerged beyond Bronya, his usual expression of practiced aloofness bubbling away. “So, hypothetically speaking… how bad would it be if pretty much the top five administrators were suddenly out of commission for a while?”

“Um. That’s a good question. How long is a while?”

Bronya looked speculative. Porrim leaned forward into her belly and after thinking, said, “It depends on if Bronya fully vampirizes them. It could be anywhere from a few days if she doesn’t, to… a lot longer if she does.” she thought about doing a rough calculation, and then decided it’d be funnier to let Latula try to work it out; she usually made some amazing expressions at those times.

Bronya looked appalled. “I can’t let them go so soon!” she said, with an edge of dismayed shock at the very notion. “I just got ahold of them!” Various hands pressed fervently from inside of her belly, protesting the very idea.

Latula, with her own mystical connection to thoughts and minds, certainly heard what they had to say. “...Ah. Well…” She frowned, considering this deeply, tapping a claw against the side of a horn. “Huh. Guess we could word it as a diplo-whatever thingy. We could get someone to wrap that up in fancy words?”

“That’s grand to hear!” Bronya said brightly, hugging her heavy belly with a delighted sigh. “We only just met, it wouldn't be fair to depart so soon!”

A short moment passed.

Then Kankri came, a big stack of books in his arms. “I cannot believe you have the entire series of the transcribed Letters From an Anonymous Lout Complaining About Copper Grades! All eighteen volumes! This is such a rare…” He paused, peeking around the books in much the same way as Porrim had to do from her own monstrous bustline. He blinked at Bronya’s newly massive belly, the wary but entranced crowd of onlookers, and Latula apparently unsure if she ought to be amused or annoyed.

“Did I miss something?” He asked.

-----------

Their time in the keep went on pretty much like that, and for the next month as they settled it, more of the same came and went.

Bronya did her best to restrain herself, and Redglare herself, the Dragon Queen of the keep, took an interest in the legal consequences of her impetuous ‘adoption’ of the library staff; what their clan status would be if fully vampirized, how that might be a tie between their houses, whether this would magically make their position as part of the Pyropes void in a magical sense, and other such questions that weren’t that interesting to Porrim. She was an activist in improving the lives of others, but she didn’t pay much attention to the legal issues.

It would still be some time before the actual wedding, and Porrim was well aware of the momentousness of the occasion. The grand war between the noble houses was still fresh in people’s minds; there were still places burning from Pyrope attacks, or lands left leaderless from night-time Maryam vampires striking in the dead of night. Places where the Makaras had detonated forbidden magical weaponry and it would be generations before anything could dare inhabit them again. And there were worse nightmares than that, still lingering in the quiet places people hadn’t yet opened up.

These rather gloomy thoughts were on Porrim’s mind as she went to meet up with Latula, her betrothed, and Latula’s younger sister Terezi, and with her was Kankri’s younger brother, Karkat Vantas.

“That’s the history of the world, I suppose,” she said softly to Karkat, as they walked up to a former dragon roost. “The ancient families break the world, and then our descendants clean up the mess, and do it all over again.”

Karkat made a thoughtful noise; his voice was deep enough, and his blunt fangs broad enough, that it sounded like a growl. He walked up the stairs a good distance from her; not out of dislike, as she was pretty sure he’d had a crush on her as a younger boy, but out of bashful fear of accidentally bumping into her belly or huge hips. Even a single misplaced swing of his hand might be more inappropriate a touch than he was comfortable with.

Porrim chuckled at the thought. The Vantases were just so… bashful.

“I dunno about that,” he said eventually. He was even smaller than Kanri, though perhaps only by half a foot or so; he was slightly built, broader at the hips and thigh than typical for a troll boy, his round face as delicately featured as a statue built of soap, even his horns round and stubbly. He looked fragile, like a lovely glass figurine that would crack at the touch, and it was quite a contrast to his usual grumbling, manic energy.

They stepped out into the staircase and into the dragon roost. He looked around for someone, briefly distracted. Today, there were many trolls, some humans and carapacians mingling among them; some of them were tending to the few dragons left around, while most were simply reading or gazing into the sky. A few wearing the revealing, comfortable robes of the trained seers sat there, staring out as they allowed their minds to wander freely and their magic to take hold of the could be and grant them the future sight.

(Metaphorically. Most of the seers sacrificed their senses in exchange for seeing the abstract and the possible futures; sight was common enough, and Latula had lost her sense of smell, and she was far from the only one to do it like that.)

Not seeing who he was looking for, Karkat continued. They walked past dozens of house-sized stalls, designed to accommodate dozens of dragon breeds, and now, almost all of them were empty. It was the same story across all the roosts; once there had been ten dragons for every troll, the keep always abuzz with the distant beat of leathery wings. But that had been before the war, and the loss of so many.

“Mituna and Latula’s wedding isn’t political,” he said. “Sure. There’s the usual political crap around it, and I guess they can use it, but… in the old days, they’d have been married off. Hell, what’s the chances the dragon seers and the high mages would have bothered ever talking to one another? But… this war changed stuff, Porrim.”

They came to a balcony, overlooking the lands and lower levels, and there were several others there; a large seer bigger even than Porrim, and resting on a couch, a particularly massive knight apparently dozing, her bustline bigger than the couch she was napping on.

They stopped at the balcony, and it struck a thought in Karkat.

“The dragon riders set the humans free,” he said. “They defended my home when the brownblood knights tried to take it over for the war effort, and they declared us nobles when all was said and done. And now… the kids of that war are becoming friends. We’re getting married.” He leaned on the balcony, still looking out with a contemplative air at the sky. “Does that sound like the kind of world that would be made in the old days?”

The large seer Porrim had seen was sitting there, larger than anyone else there, perked up at the sound of his distinctive voice. She turned, and first Porrim realized how big she was, taller than Porrim even sitting down. As she stood up, there was a lot of wobbling from various outlying parts of her body, her robes cut to show off as much of her as possible. When she stood to her full, imposing height, her seat was left creaking behind her, sinking inwards without her massive body to put weight on it.

Oblivious to this, Karkat gestured outwards to the horizon. It was hard to honestly see a horizon in the circumstances; the keep was simply so huge, it’s walls so high and extensive that if you looked onwards, in any direction, you’d probably just end up seeing more of the keep. The fortifications loomed high into the sky for miles around, in the distance terrace forms and mountainside lakes defined warmer edges around some of the most distant walls far below the descending lowlands. Rivers winded, rather like glistening ribbons, all the way from the mountain itself and spilled downwards, splitting into dozens more, and the sunlight made them glow at this time of day.

And from wall to wall, it was filled with more city. Buildings built upon other buildings, rope-bridges connecting to one another in lieu of traditional streets, the architecture flowing up the walls and climbing higher; there were a few houses or civic buildings that peeked over the walls, many hundreds of feet up. The sound of it all was a physical presence, or perhaps the sound of a dance; a single vast sense of movement from below, the pulse and breath of so many people creating the life of the city. Humans, trolls, and other beings all living together without any real interest in how historically unusual that was, that only a few generations ago so many of them would have been in chains in other lands…

Them living together, in peace, had been as unthinkable as a tealblood marrying a goldblood mage. Or perhaps a mutant being raised to knighthood.

Now the seer that had gotten up approached. She was powerful enough to have picked up on his thoughts, and now she spoke aloud, “We’re in a better position than our ancestors were, and I guess we got a duty to keep doing better.”

“See, that’s what I’m saying,” Karkat said as Porrim turned towards the seer, her eyes a bit wide with surprise. “We can do better! I mean, look at where you came from; best as anyone can guess the whole place used to be farmland and then someone let loose something bad there, and now the whole place is one big undeath zone. But you’re fixing it; it's actually getting better than it’s been in hundreds of years. We can actually fix the crap going on!”

“Or look at where you’re from,” said the seer, now standing directly above Karkat, and she was not only tall but… thick, her breasts jutting out so that Karkat was put into shadow beneath them. He blinked upwards, the experience familiar enough that it instantly made him realize who it was. “The lake your guys live on. It used to be a fishing village where people tried to hide away from everyone else, and now? When you make a challenge, everyone listens. Hell, it’s a place where humans get to have a voice.” She grinned, her teeth big and sharp, and the scarred eyes staring out were glassy and a dull red, seeing nothing at all.

“Ah, there you are, Terezi!” Porrim said as Karkat whirled around and sank his arms into her stomach in a very serious hug. His expression remained as dour as usual even as his shoulders heaved with the strength needed to really sink into her, but at least her outfit had the right kind of cut for skin-on-skin contact, cut around the sides to make room with her expansive belly.

Terezi Pyrope laughed warmly, reaching down past her huge breasts to sink her claws into his robes and pull him clear off the ground into a face-smothering hug where her breasts overflowed his entire head and shoulders, pulling more and more of him right into her cleavage and against the flat plane where her breasts joined her body. Despite him being abnormally heavy for his size, she carried him easily with the frankly ludicrous strength honed by the mystical bond to dragons that her ancestors had passed on; the power of the great beasts flowed through her, as surely as any other seer of her kingdom took the spirits of dragons and stranger creatures into their bodies (whether through a sort of mystical pregnancy, or other means) to empower their foresight.

Karkat was an intensely private person; he might have come off as manic and emotionally expressive, and certainly he never lied about what he felt, or what he really meant by what he said, but he kept as much as he could to himself. He was naturally suited to have been a spy or perhaps an inside agent if he had lived in more troubled times; as it was, he never really let himself be too open, perhaps out of a sense of propriety; more stringent and grim than Kankri. It was a bit of a Vantas thing, Porrim supposed.

But he was… well, he wasn’t smiling, but he was clinging tight to her, openly and unashamed of doing so in public where everyone could see; his arms sank into her breasts now, and he didn’t appear to care about the intimacy of being in her cleavage, not in the heat of the moment, or its own curious romance.

It was, in Porrim’s view, adorable.

She felt bad putting a pin in it. “I know you two enjoy yourselves,” she said dryly, noting the distinctive outward curve of Terezi’s belly. “But there is such a thing as time and place…?”

Terezi, unabashed, slowly let go of Karkat and allowed him to slide down her front. He dropped to the ground in a little crouch and stood up, and both of them mirrored each other, instinctively adopting the same pose; it wasn’t quite insolent, but it was definitely heading that direction.

Terezi grinned, providing a great distinction from Karkat’s more serious demeanor. Every bit of her was a contrast; where Karkat was short, she was abnormally tall for a troll, towering above him so much that his horns were somewhere around her waist, at best. Where he was generally on the slim side, she was enormously wide; even bigger and curvier than her older sister Latula, her hips were over five feet across and big enough to cause serious trouble getting through doorways; she nudged one hip against Karkat’s face, trying to get a reaction out of him.

The slit hem of her robes rode up against that hip, sliding away from incredibly wide, soft thighs that Karkat could easily use as a mattress, if he didn’t mind sinking in. Her robes were teal, and modified somewhat; a deep cleavage hole provided a grand view of her bustline, her clearly pregnant belly protruding out by about a foot and dipping low over her waist line, and the hemline was cut short around her knees. IT showed off a lot of her body, just as Terezi liked, and incidentally was easy to move around in. An important consideration, for the adventurous lifestyle of a Pyrope seer; they were often called to direct action, as their foresight was generally demanded in a combat capacity.

It was honestly hard to imagine Terezi moving fast, though Porrim felt this was a bit of a slight. Even without a butt big enough to serve as its own ultra-cushioned seat, Terezi’s breasts were so big that the automatic assumption was that they would hamper movement. They were almost as big as Karkat was, and would likely eventually be considerably larger than his whole body; already, their lower crest dipped below her waist line, almost over her hips, swelling out wider than her torso was broad… about twice as wide as her torso for each breast, in fact. They looked heavy, and Porrim knew from experience that such massive assets were not to be taken lightly.

Apparently on automatic, Karkat and Terezi’s hands came together. Porrim chuckled and went to sit down.

Karkat and Terezi came after her, and paused in midstep; Karkat turned to look at something behind them. “Um, Porrim? We have company.”

“It is a public space,” Porrim said, adjusting herself for the complicated task of sitting down when equipped with a belly bigger than most of your body, a butt bigger around than most seats were really designed to accommodate, and breasts big enough to give even more weight to that belly, even without all the people in her womb making her balance a tricky thing.

“Uh, not that kind of visitor.”

“Hi, mom,” Terezi said cheerfully.

Porrim froze up, and turned around. She suddenly remembered a pillar… or someone big enough to be mistaken for one.

It was said that magic and the essence of dragons ran in the blood of the Pyropes; Terezi and Latula, growing as big as they were and as ludicrously strong as they could be, were strong contenders for the idea. Sitting in a particularly oversized chair and overflowing a lot of it was an even better case example.

“Hello, young Maryam,” said the cool and authoritative voice of Dragon Queen Redglare, the undisputed leader of the Pyropes, commander of the dragons by right of guardianship, and the troll who had personally ended the seemingly eternal wars of the nobles through both diplomacy and force of arms, and now that Porrim realized she was there, the full weight of her presence set on the area like a lead weight.

You couldn’t look away from her. Even sitting down, doing nothing, attention was pulled her way, like flames being drawn to a much brighter, hotter fire, and it had nothing to do with her beauty, or her great size. There was a word for what she had, but somehow charisma seemed insufficient to fully describe the subtle qualities of grace, inspiration and power that Redglare could give off.

Latula was tall, Terezi was big, and both were curvy enough to do terrible things to doors when they tried to move through them in a hurry, but even laying down, Redglare made them both look small. The chair creaked beneath her as she sat up, her immensely long and pointed horns arcing up slightly as she settled into position. There was a faint noise as the knightly attire she wore, richly decorated like a sort of wearable tapestry, did its best to accommodate a figure packing more mass than some crowds did. Breasts taller than even a Makara bruiser rose up high above her, pooling over her powerfully built and matronly body like a couch stripped of framework, and as Redglare moved, it was sincerely humbling for Porrim to see so much… mass moving around.

She was even bigger than her mother, the Dolorosa. That was a very intimidating thing to live up to.

Redglare sat up fully, her massive butt making a notable dent in her clothing and the chair. Behind her broad back, the couch was severely bent, her fearsome weight far too much for it to survive; her lust for drama had taken out yet another bit of furniture. Beside her, Porrim saw Latula sitting on another chair and holding hands with a smaller, incredibly handsome goldblood troll with four horns poking through his wild hair, a contented smile on both their faces.

“Isn’t it inappropriate for a bride and groom to see each other before a proper wedding?” Porrim asked, unable to stop herself from being impish.

“Not around here, it isn’t,” Terezi said dryly. “Dunno where you heard of that kinda tradition.”

“I haven’t any idea what you’re talking about,” Redglare said, affecting an air of innocence. “Why, if I saw them being so inappropriate, I would have already said something!” She very pointedly looked away from the pair.

Latula giggled. The goldblood next to her did as well, sticking his tongue out cheerfully. It wasn’t easy to see his eyes beneath his hair, though it was easy to see the scars webbing around from below his eyes; he took a more... reckless approach to magical experiments than was perhaps wise, and it had left its damage. His hand jerked and twitched in Latula’s grip, but she held him firmly and securely and without any reaction to this.

In only a month, Latula’s belly had swelled hugely, its firm and distended shape suggesting something a little more internally complex than just gaining weight; while not as massive as Porrim’s belly (and for good reason!), she was still getting big enough that she needed her own supportive brace to support it. Her belly hung low, the lower crest about even with her knees when she was standing, and looked about as big as a couch for the goldblood that Porrim suspected was the reason her belly was so big and, well, gravid.

Latula was very obviously pregnant; this wasn’t a big deal in Pyrope views, which regarded marriage as a vague formality in any case, but Porrim still worried about the diplomatic repercussions that might come about, what with heirs and all. Trolls lived long enough that getting an ideal heir was usually a matter of just waiting long enough, but getting them early on could pose some tricky questions with educating them; something that normally required life experience from the nobles in question.

If Porrim had to take a guess, she suspected that Latula’s growth wasn’t just additional children being gestated as the result of frequent personal time with her beloved. Magic had an emotional component, and it was pretty likely that being so affectionate and loving was adding to her growth, or double-impregnating her in some unexpected, mystical fashion.

Her beloved, Mituna Captor, looked quite proud of her growth. He leaned into her, and Redglare tilted her head aside, like an ancient nest lord proudly regarding some mischievous but very skilled dragons at play. “Sure is a good thing I have no idea where my kid or kid-in-law are,” she said laconically. “Otherwise I might have to pretend I actually want to bother with what they do on their own personal time.”

“Yup,” Latula said.

“Sure is a good thing I don’t know where they are, then.” Redglare sat up completely, and slowly stood off the couch; it creaked complainingly as she left it, and watching her stand up was a sight all on it’s own; her massive hips produced a sort of moving eclipse behind her, and her breasts were so incredibly massive they were visible even from behind her.

Redglare took a step to the balcony, resting the massive shelf of her breasts against the wall. “Hey, kids. Come here a sec, would you?”

Porrim, uncomprehendingly, cautiously raised a hand. Redglare turned, and nodded at her. Meekly, Porrim approached, the overwhelming size of the towering dragon lord like a magnet.

Terezi and Karkat followed, still holding hands, though with a dutiful air. Latula and Mituna followed too, but at a bit of a distance, perhaps unsure whether to drop the pretense or not.

There was a long moment before Redglare said anything else. A tension of a sort, not taut but loose and fraying, settled around them as she gathered her thoughts.

Eventually, Redglare spoke. “Huh. A wedding with a Captor mage, with my own daughter, with nobles of the other kingdoms attending. All on their own, too.” She adjusted herself, resting into her imposing bustline like her own moving cushioned table. “Believe me, kids. When I was your age, I’d never have believed I’d say something like that.”

“Yes, mama,” Latula said meekly.

Redglare snorted. “Boy, if my Latula were here and being all ‘dutiful daughter’ and stuff, I’d tell her to quit it. I didn’t make rivers run rainbows with blood so you guys would have to be serious and crap. Live a little, y’know?” Behind her, Latula nodded seriously. Mituna rolled his eyes… or Porrim supposed he did, his head tilted in the right way anyways.

“But. Yeah. We’ve spent hundreds of years just fighting back and forth over scraps our ancestors screwed up, and doing our best to screw up what’s left. I mean, look at all the monsters the Amporas have to clean up.” Redglare started to count things off on her fingers. “The desert you Maryams are fixing up; the rogue monsters that keep popping up here and there, hot spots of wild magic making the land rot and go insane… lost experiments wandering the world, all along and miserable… automatons that are slaves to their programming, and war machines that don’t have any thought but just killing whatever they think is an enemy… and that’s not even getting into the literal demons appearing from where too much hate and despair sank into the ground.

“This whole land has been screwed up for a long, long time. I hate to say it, but the work of fixing it doesn’t stop with me. I’d love it to. But my generation isn’t going to be the one to make sure it gets fixed. Probably not yours, either; this is a job you pass on.” She turned slightly, breasts dragging on the balcony, her half-lidded eyes pausing on Terezi’s belly. “And you’re making some headway on that so, hey, congrats on getting your boy before he wises up to you being a total smart ass, kiddo.”

Terezi nodded sagely. “Yeah, that’s the plan.” Karkat snorted.

“But, jokes aside, fixing it permanently isn’t your job. But keeping it going is. Same thing for making sure there’s no backsliding, either.” Redglare’s expression softened, loosened, her eyes distant. She winced, and looked for a moment as though she were remembering something sharp and painful. “There’s too much of that. Every inch we get, someone wants to pull it a foot back into where we were. So don’t give anyone even an inch. Understand, kids?”

“Yes, ma’am,” they chorused.

She chuckled. “Smartasses. But yeah, you get the idea.” She looked into the sky. “Me, ‘Rosa, Karkat and Mituna’s dads, the Leijon chief, and the others… we started this. But we don’t finish it.” She turned, looking square at them, and the intensity of her gaze, the fervor of her belief, hit Porrim like a ton of bricks. “You don’t either, but you can take it further than we ever did.” She grinned. “You can do it. I know you can.”

Porrim tilted her head down. She wasn’t sure she believed she was the one to do that.

She stood close enough, though, that Redglare could tilt her head up, her touch light and gentle. “Hey, kiddo. None of that. I believe in you. Follow me? C’mon. Chin up.” Porrim cautiously smiled, and Redglare grinned: wild, fierce, a dragon in all ways but the physical.

Redglare shifted tacks, her point made. “Come on, no looking all serious and crap.” She spread her arms wide, turning and her huge breasts sliding down, lowest slopes somewhere around her knees once they came to rest, and projecting out more than Redglare herself was tall. “It’s a wedding! Cheer up a little, dorks.” She flounced off. “Don’t let a cranky old dragon knight pester you any, huh?” She headed off, to leave them to their own devices, and she stopped.

She paused, in front of Latula and Mituna. She peered down at them, her expression suddenly caught between the cool exterior she normally tried to project, and something more raw; something red and wet and enough to bring tears to her eyes, and her lip tremble, just for a moment.

She looked down at her eldest daughter, her proud and skilled child, and at the goldblood she’d thought of as a son for quite some time, but never really hoping that she’d be able to say so for real. And here they were; to be married soon, sealing a bond between their kingdoms, not out of political necessity but because they wanted to.

She reached down, producing a startled pair of squeaks from the two as she hugged them tight. “I’m proud, of the both of you,” she said softly.

Redglare let them go, then, and left.

Porrim watched her go, thinking about what the dragon lord had said.

She supposed they really did have a job to do.

It was a duty as nobles.

#my writing #commissions #fics #twitchy!karkat #twitchy!terezi #twitchy!porrim #twitchy!bronya #twitchy!homestuck #twitchy!redglare #twitchy!latula #twitchy!mituna #twitchy!kankri

[ramblebrambleamble]

The magic came back with a bang.

Wishes were horses and beggars did ride,

And each one had a turnip-sword by their side

And the man in the moon bellowed down at the wolf

That stared in consternation at its hairless hands.

Crystals rang in a deafening symphonic

That promptly shorted out all electronics

And there was much cursing- and the curses came true!

That's how I got here, talking to you.

My uncle's an ass and my father's a fool,

Dancing around and being uncool;

My mother's got a broom that can go like a shot!

My aunt's seeing visions every time she smokes pot.

Witches are fashionable and wizards are buying

Skyscrapers so high that it's terrifying!

My neighbour's a cleric channelling some sort of god

That makes her the darling of every guard dog

And her wife's going 'round pulling swords out of puddles

After blessing down the rains- oh, what a muddle!

A horse ran me down but I got right back up;

Either magical healing, or incredible luck.

Tell me, my friend, have you any new powers?

I'm planning on robbing a bank after hours.

My other neighbour, see, has suddenly perfected

The art of burglaring my house undetected;

They gave me my wallet, plus a great deal of money

That wasn't mine that I spent on a bunny-

Here, his name's George, he's your late birthday present;

The store promised his disposition is really quite pleasant-

Oh, look at the time! I really must go!

I've people to meet, banks to rob, as you know!

#poem #my poem #poetry #my writing #writing #my words #spilled words #ramblebrambleamble #magic #nursery rhymes #puns #fun #funny #at least i think it is

[sushigirlali]

The Politics of Dancing - Part II (Reylo Fanfic)

Part I - Part II - Part III - Part IV

Summary: Ben has known Rey most of her life, but when things change between them one tumultuous night, can he convince her that they have a future? Or will secret legacies, scheming parents, and fetching suitors get in the way?

Parings: Rey + Ben Solo|Kylo Ren, Finn + Rose Tico

Continuity: Regency AU

Rating: E

A/N: Sorry for the wait, friends, I haven’t been feeling very inspired lately. The Tumblr apocalypse and subsequent drop in activity has got me down. On the bright side, this story is now going to be a three-parter. This chapter was getting really long, so I decided to split it up. Enjoy!

Master list –> AO3 | ff.net | Tumblr 

——————

The Politics of Dancing - Part II

By: sushigirlali 

——————

London, December 1818

——————

Peering over the rim of her crystal wine glass, Rey slowly sipped the sweet red liquid in lieu of answering Lady Shara Bey’s probing questions. Poe’s mother could be a little pushy, but Rey was too used to Leia’s brand of brazen self-confidence to be excessively offended by her lack of tact.

“Really, my dear, you must come visit Yavin after the new year,” Shara simpered. “We have the most picturesque landscapes and historical homes, not to mention a great number of fashionable neighbors to dine with.”

“Thank you for the invitation, but my father and I have plans to stay in town through Easter,” Rey said noncommittally, finishing her glass and signaling Artoo for another. I wonder if anyone would notice if I just kept the bottle. “Maybe another time, though,” she added, not wanting to sound ungrateful.

Appearing disappointed but not discouraged, Shara tried a new approach. “Did you know my son was recently titled Viscount of Yavin? His father will retain the title of Earl until his death, at which point the name will be bestowed upon Poe.”

Rey slanted her friend a look, trying not to laugh at his pained expression. “Congratulations, my lord.”

“He’s also incredible marksman, you know. I don’t think I’ve ever seen his equal. In these dangerous times, it would certainly be reassuring to have someone as capable as him by your—”

“Rey can shoot just as well as any man,” Poe interrupted brusquely. “So, I don’t think she’s in need of a protector.”

“And what would you know about the needs of women?” Shara snapped, putting Poe on the defensive.

“Mother, can we not—”

Covering her friend’s hand where it rested on the table, Rey stepped in to head off a confrontation. “Poe understands me quite well, and I him, so there’s no need to be insulting, madam. He’s a credit to your house, whether you want to acknowledge it or not.”

Lady Bey rounded on Rey, but their hostess cut her off before she could make a retort.

“Shara, would you mind switching seats with my husband?” Leia requested, seeming to materialize out of thin air. “I would so love to catch up with you.”

Leia’s tone was friendly, but her steely gaze made it clear that she wasn’t asking.

“I—yes, Leia, that would be lovely,” Shara said stiffly, dropping her napkin as she stood. “If you’ll excuse me, Lady Niima.” She gave her son a small nod. “Poe, I’m…I’ll see you later.”

He inclined his head, but didn’t speak again until she was out of earshot. “Thanks, Rey,” he said under his breath.

“No problem,” she returned, giving his hand a comforting squeeze.

Following Leia and Shara’s progress toward the head of the table, Rey was unsurprised to find Ben staring in her direction. What did surprise her, however, was the automatic rush of heat that raced up her spine just from making eye contact with the man.

Tilting her head, Rey studied his unique features, admiring the way his inky black hair fell wild around his pale face, the silky strands sticking out at odd angles were her searching fingers had sifted through them earlier. He wasn’t classically handsome, not in the way Poe was, but Rey found his too large ears and deep-set eyes and slightly crooked nose ridiculously tempting.

Not to mention that scar, she hummed, tracing the faded mark with appreciative hazel orbs.

He’d been a hellraiser in his youth, and she’d idolized him because of it. So many society men were afraid to be themselves, to be real, but not Ben Solo. He was outspoken and honest, even when he probably shouldn’t be. If she’d been a man, Rey liked to think that she would have followed in Ben’s footsteps.

Well, maybe not literally, she allowed, sizing him up. His height and build were so far out of the norm that he stood out in any room. Especially tonight.

Ben looked dashing in his neatly tailored black coat and trousers, the custom-made vestments showing off his long legs and broad shoulders to perfection. Still, Rey couldn’t help but picture his powerful body stripped of all finery on black sheets, just the way she’d seen him last night.

So manly, so beautiful…

The longer she surveyed him, the more she wanted to crawl across the table and slide into his lap; to feel his thickly muscled arms wrapped around her again as she devoured those sinfully full lips…

Get ahold of yourself, Rey! she chided, feeling her nipples stiffen behind the thin fabric of her chemise. Now is not the time to be letting your imagination run wild!

But it was too late. As if sensing her wicked thoughts, Ben’s dark gaze fell to her breasts, scraping across her taut peaks like he owned them. Why did I decide to forego a corset again? Cursing her lack of appropriate undergarments, Rey crossed her arms and prayed that he was the only one who’d noticed her wanton behavior.

Stop looking at me like that, she mouthed, fighting down the heat rising in her cheeks.

No, he replied with a smug smile, obviously amused by her blatant response.

Why, you—

“Hey, kid!”

Rey jumped as Han dropped into Lady Bey’s empty seat. “Uncle!”

“Sorry about that,” Han chortled, patting her on the shoulder, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s quite alright, sir,” she said, playfully wrinkling her nose at him. Maybe I should tie a bell around your neck just in case, though. That’s twice now you’ve snuck up on me tonight, a third time could be disastrous.

“And you, Lord Dameron, how is your evening going?” Han courteously inquired.

“Whatever the opposite of festive is,” Poe deadpanned, lifting his glass in salute.

“Yes, the atmosphere is rather tense for a yuletide celebration,” Han said jovially, reaching past Rey to click his glass against the Viscount’s. “I apologize for any consternation you might have felt due to my wife’s meddling. She can be a bit overzealous when it comes to the art of matchmaking.” He threw a wink at Rey. “Especially where my darling niece is concerned.”

“Uncle,” she groaned, “not you too!”

“Now, now, Rey, I just think—” Han stopped short as See-Threepio dragged a serving cart laden with at least five different cuts of meat and several sauces into the room. “I just think we should talk about this after dinner. Heaven forbid we let all this incredible food go to waste!”

Saved by the second course!

Rey thought irreverently.

Good thing Han prefers food to lectures…

——————

Gripping his goblet tightly enough to shatter it, Ben glared at the perfect picture his lover made sitting next to Lord Dameron: her pretty white dress and sun-kissed complexion playing nicely off his black hair and formal attire. Rey and the newly appointed Viscount looked good together and he hated it.

Since when are they more than mere acquaintances, anyway? he sulked, annoyed by how well they seemed to be getting on. What could they possibly have in common? Ben’s brow furrowed as Rey slid her hand over Dameron’s. And why the hell is she touching him?!

While they weren’t enemies per se, the older man had been a thorn in his side since university. Popular more for his personality than his wealth, something Ben had always been sensitive about, Poe had been his rival in everything from fencing to making friends, but up until tonight, they’d never pursued the same woman.

First Johnson, now Dameron, Ben frowned. Is Rey friendly with every eligible bachelor in the county? How many other men do I have to compete with?

Unused to feeling anything but supreme confidence, Ben tried to reign in his riotous emotions. It wasn’t Rey’s fault that he’d been supplanted as her dinner date, after all, that honor belonged to his interfering mother. Having long given up trying to arrange the love life of her only son, it appeared that Leia had moved onto her niece. Unfortunately for the Skywalker matriarch, Rey had a mind of her own.

Good luck, mother. That little spitfire has an independent streak a mile wide and I very much doubt you’ll be able to exert influence over any facet of her life. Ben took a thoughtful swig of ale. Besides, Rey would never allow herself to be bullied into anyone’s bed. She’s always been adamant that only the deepest love would induce her into…into…oh!

All at once, Ben realized that sneaking into his room had been a declaration of sorts, an admittance of Rey’s feelings and intentions toward him. At the time, he’d been too eager to possess her to pick up on the significance of her actions, but now, recalling the way Rey’s beautiful body had tangled with his, practically shouting how much she loved him, Ben felt like a fool for not being more perceptive.

We made love from one side of the room to the other, locked together for endless hours in our own little world and yet, somehow, I failed to see the sentiment behind her surrender. Ben marveled at his own stupidity. But what does she want long-term? To become my mistress? My wife? Or was last night just a passing fancy?

He supposed he should be wary of getting in too deep too fast, but he wasn’t. Beyond her boldness in the bedroom, Rey’s jealousy on the dance floor and subsequent ardor on the veranda gave credence to the notion that she felt more than simple desire for him.

Is this love then? he mused. It could be. We’re good together. Ben paused. No, better than good. We’re fantastic together. Amazing, even. Hell, we barely took time to breath let alone consider the consequences, and I…I…oh, shite! Ben cursed as realization struck. I completely neglected to take precautions with her!

Regardless of who bewitched whom, Rey had come to his bed untouched, putting the onus on him to protect her from potential repercussions. But he hadn’t; he’d put her at risk. She could be carrying my child even now. I want her, but am I ready for that kind of responsibility? he wondered.

Only vaguely aware of his mother standing up beside him and moving around the table to speak with Lady Bey, Ben allowed himself to envision what life would be like with Rey by his side. They could ride together, like when they were younger, read to each other in the library, have hours long discussions over dinner…and make love every night. There was so much he could teach her, so much she could teach him…and if she was pregnant, well…

The more he mulled over the idea, the less terrifying the prospect of fatherhood became. We might have twins, a boy to going shooting with Rey and a girl to practice calligraphy with me. They’d have freckled cheeks and dark hair and big hazel eyes…

As the appealing image formed in his mind, Ben decided that irrespective of what his mother or Luke had in mind, the only way Rey was getting engaged to someone other than him this holiday season was over his dead body.

——————

For as long as she’d known Ben Solo, he’d never been one to wear his heart on his sleeve. But in the past few hours, he’d admitted to being jealous of Finn, nearly seduced her on the dance floor and then on the patio, and now he was giving Poe dark looks as well.

What is going on? Rey stared down at her plate, pushing her venison around without really seeing it. It’s not like we’re engaged or anything, and he hasn’t once mentioned love, so why is he acting so territorial? I need to get him alone again and—

“I wonder what’s wrong with Lord Ren this evening,” Poe said, voicing her concerns.

Rey schooled her features, hoping no one else had noticed Ben’s strange behavior. “I have no idea what you mean.”

“Don’t you? Ren looks like he’s contemplating murder every time he glances in my direction. Have I done something wrong or is the wild mushroom soup not to his liking?” he inquired.

“Well, he does hate mushrooms,” she said drolly. I’m not sure how he feels about you, though.

“I’ll just assume the soup is the most likely culprit, then,” Poe chuckled. “What a relief! I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of my old schoolmate; he’s a real fire-eater.”

“You have no idea,” Rey mumbled, knowing full well how it felt to burn up in Ben’s arms.

Something in her tone must have given her away because Poe looked suddenly suspicious. “Is there something you want to tell me about you and Lord Ren?”

“There’s nothing to tell,” she denied, glad that Han appeared to be lost in conversation with Baroness Kanata. Please, keep him busy for me, Maz, because I don’t think Poe is going to let this go.

“No? Judging by your behavior, and Ren’s, there seems to have been a development in your relationship since the last time we spoke,” he said speculatively.

“You’re just imagining things,” Rey gulped, reaching for her wine. He’s definitely not going to let this go.

“Careful, love,” Poe cautioned, gently steadying her hand to keep her from knocking over the nearly full glass of claret.

“Thanks,” she said sheepishly, setting it down again without taking a sip.

“You’re welcome.” Then, more seriously, “Even if you don’t want to tell me now, just know that you can always confide in me, Rey. I’m no gossip.”

“I know,” she replied solemnly. “You’ve trusted me with so much about your own life, but I—I’m scared. I did something brash last night, something that could have lasting consequences...”

“Rey, I’m sure whatever you did is—”

“I seduced Ben,” Rey confessed in a rush. “I don’t know what came over me, but I went into his room and took my nightgown off and I—we—and it was wonderful—but now he’s acting strange and possessive and I don’t know what to do!”

Poe hid it well, but she could tell that she’d shocked him. “You went to him?”

Rey squared her shoulders, determined to take responsibility for her actions. “I did.”

“And he didn’t turn you away?” he said in surprise.  

She shook her head, puzzled. “Should he have?”

“Not necessarily,” Poe said without judgement. “Ren must want you very much to risk being ostracized by his own family, though.”

“How do you mean?”

“I can’t imagine Lord Skywalker will be pleased that his nephew deflowered his adoptive daughter,” he said bluntly.

“But it wasn’t Ben’s fault!” she protested. “I seduced him, remember?!”

“Rey, Ren is a man. An experienced man, at that. I can assure you that it will matter very little to your father whether you initiated the situation or not,” Poe said plainly. “Skywalker may not be very traditional, but he’s still your guardian.”

“Oh, I…hadn’t thought about it that way,” Rey grimaced. “What should I do then? I can’t imagine not seeing Ben anymore, but I don’t want to hurt Luke either.”

“As long as you’re discreet, I wouldn’t worry about it too much about it for now,” he offered. “Your father doesn’t strike me as particularly perceptive when it comes to matters of the heart.”

“No, he’s not,” she agreed. “There’s always been something between Ben and I, a special connection as it were, but I don’t think Luke has ever noticed.” Rey relaxed a little. “Thanks, Poe.”

He waved away her gratitude, looking mischievous. “So…” he muttered, leaning close, “did you enjoy yourself?”

“That’s none of your business!” she blushed, surveying the table to make sure no one was listening, least of all her wayward relatives.

“Of course it’s not,” Poe conceded, lowering his voice. “But did you?”

Rey bit her lip, vacillating on whether or not she should answer.

“Oh, come on, it’s not like I’m going to repeat anything you say, no matter how raunchy.”

“I know you won’t,” she sighed, playing along. “Alright, yes. I enjoyed myself. Immensely.”

“And he didn’t hurt you?”

“No!” she exclaimed. “No, the experience was…umm…satisfying.”

“Good.”

“Is that all?” Rey said sarcastically. “Any other personal details you’d like to know?”

“Just one,” he said dryly. “Do you want to sleep with him again?”

“Poe!”

“In for a penny, in for a pound?” he grinned.

“Well, I—I wouldn’t say no,” she stammered.

“And what about him? Do you think he still wants you too?”

“I don’t know,” she said evasively.

“Rey.”

“Maybe?”

“You don’t know?” he teased. “I could always go ask Ren directly, I suppose.”

“Don’t you dare!” she yelped. “Yes, okay?! Happy now?”

“Are you?” Poe asked rather pointedly.

Rey was quite for a moment, caught off-guard. “You know, I think I am,” she said in amazement. “I think Ben’s wanted me for a long time; maybe even as long as I’ve wanted him. He was careful to never let on, you see, but by the way he performed last night…”

“Then you know what you have to do,” he said with a playful wink.  

“I do?” she said bemusedly.

“Really, Rey?” Poe rolled his eyes. “If you’d like to continue your…relationship, I suggest you ask Lord Ren to make an honest woman out of you first.”

“Marriage?” she gasped.

“Is there another word for satisfying your natural urges without societal contempt?”

“But I’m nobody,” Rey asserted. “Why would Ben want to marry me?”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” he said sternly. “Earl Johnson said you’ve been made Luke’s legal heir. If that doesn’t make you more attractive on the marital market, I don’t know what will.”

“But I don’t want him—or anyone—to fancy me simply because I may or may not be inheriting a fortune,” she frowned. “And I really do wish Finn would stop spreading that rumor around. I haven’t even discussed it with—”

Rey stopped speaking as Artoo came around to remove their dinner plates and set the table for dessert.

“Buck up, darling.” Poe pushed back his chair. “You’ve always felt a special connection with Ren, right? I’m sure he feels it too.”

“Perhaps, but where are you going,” she said sharply.

“The loo,” he laughed. “Sorry, love, but nature calls.”

Rey worried her lip. “But what if Ben approaches me while you’re gone?”

“I’m sure you can handle him, Rey. You’re no shrinking violet.”

“I know,” she snorted. “It’s just…he makes me so crazy sometimes that I want to—”

“Kiss him? Marry him? Bear his children?”

“Now that would be telling.” 

——————

A/N: I’m actually kind of hoping that the title to EPIX is such a spoiler that they’re not even going to tell us what it is! I don’t know, I just think it would be super exciting to go into the movie with a little surprise dropped into the title scrawl XD Thanks for reading! Please review! 

#reylo #reylo fanfic #reylo fic #rey #kylo ren #ben solo #regency au #happy Christmas in feburary #lolz #my fanfiction #my art #sushigirlali #the politics of dancing #pregnancy #reylo baby #maybe #we'll see #just tagging to be safe

[stormlight1]

Feral - A Labyrinth Story

Six

Sarah couldn’t say she wasn’t relieved that Fable had chosen to stay behind, although it did give her cause to wonder whether he might be Up to Something. Perhaps it seemed a bit ungrateful of her but, for all that he’d saved her life, she couldn’t bring herself to fully trust him. The fact that she also felt as if she ought to know him somehow didn’t make him any less unsettling; she was quite sure she’d never met him before, or any fae aside from Jareth.

She paused on the steps to catch her breath for a moment and then frowned as it belatedly occurred to her that this was the fourth such rest she’d taken since beginning her ascent up the staircase. She glanced suspiciously behind her, half-expecting to see the entrance to the stone chamber. There was nothing. Just an endless array of steps, spiraling gently down the narrow passage she’d been following.

When she looked up, more of the same.

A feeling of unease crept over her. Stairs were supposed to lead somewhere. Even stairs in the Labyrinth. The last flight she’d climbed had led her into the dizzying display of the four-dimensional puzzle room, but so far she’d had no luck getting anywhere with this one. She sat down on the step to contemplate, brows furrowed. It couldn’t be some sort of a trap, could it? Luring her into a never-ending staircase that had neither beginning nor end, forcing her to climb until she dropped from exhaustion or thirst? But if he’d wanted to kill her, why not just leave her to the Fire Gang? They'd have done the job nicely, she was sure.

She hopped to her feet and determinedly started to climb again. Sitting around on her duff waiting for someone to stumble over her wouldn’t get her anywhere and she was certain that there had to be a puzzle to this. Some way to get to where she was trying to go…

Think, Sarah. Where are you trying to go? The thought rang clear as a whisper in her mind. It sounded suspiciously like Fable.

Or maybe that was Jareth’s voice? They sounded so similar, she really couldn’t tell.

“To the ones I seek,” she nonetheless whispered back.

And who are they?

Thoughts of her daughter and brother, of Hoggle, Didymus, and Ludo flitted briefly through her mind. But she’d been distracted now with wondering if Jareth knew she was here, or whether that goblin had been telling the truth about him dying, and no sooner had the thoughts formed than the stairway was suddenly gone and she found herself stumbling, rather ungracefully, into yet another stone chamber.

Unlike the first, this room was far from empty. It had been decorated in lavish style with sheets of cream and golden silk that draped the stone walls like gauzy curtains. The furniture gleamed with the dark burnish of well-polished wood and accents of gold and silver. At one wall, a trio of tall, arched windows allowed sickly yellow light to filter through, dimly illuminating the room’s expanse. Against the opposite, a great hearth held the dying embers of a fire, circled with comfortable armchairs and a lounge. A magnificent bed of glowing redwood held its grandiose place in the center of the room, demanding the immediate attention of all who entered.

Sarah couldn’t help staring. It was truly a bed fit for a king. And repose in the middle of it, nearly lost among swaths of velvet and silk, was exactly where she found one. Jareth reclined against a mountain of pillows colored in elegant shades of soft cream, deepest burgundy and palest gold. A book lay open in his palm, forgotten, as his gaze raked over her face. He looked as surprised to see her as she was to see him.

“E-excuse me!” she squeaked, hastily turned around to dart into the stairwell and try again. Well, that answered that. Jareth was most certainly alive and if he had been unaware of her presence in his kingdom before, he certainly knew of it now.

Aaaand the stairwell was gone, as she discovered the moment she smacked into the wall, nearly hard enough to brain herself had her upraised hands not been in the way.

Naturally.

She gave a little groan and curled one hand into a fist, thumped her forehead against it as a mantra of whymewhymewhyme scrolled through her head.

“Well. If it isn’t you.”

She winced at his bland tone. “Well, if this isn’t sufficiently awkward…” she mumbled sardonically to the wall.

A faint chuckle greeted her. “I thought I sensed a disturbance in the Force…”

She opened her mouth to reply—perhaps to grovel for her life a bit—until his words abruptly registered. She cast an incredulous glance over her shoulder. “Di-did you just make a pop culture reference?”

“Do you plan to continue speaking to the wall?” he rejoined snidely. With a blush, she sucked in a deep breath and turned around, made three great strides toward the bed. Where she stopped as she saw that the thick quilted blankets covering him had now been pushed aside. And she realized with some consternation that he wore nothing but a knee-length night shirt fashioned of some pale fabric that was so thin and filmy, it hardly had the right to be called fabric at all.

Sarah was hardly a blushing virgin anymore, but that didn't mean she was any more comfortable now than she would've been at fifteen with ogling a man's … goodies. Especially this man’s goodies. Face burning, she snapped her eyes upward, only to lock gazes with the Goblin King; hers mortified, his glinting with thinly-veiled amusement. Even from that distance she could see the changes his illness had wrought. The dullness of his skin, missing the glowing luminance she remembered. The gaunt, sallow appearance of elegant features with deep bruises smudged beneath hollowed eyes. His fine hair spread lank and dull over thin shoulders. He looked … smaller somehow. Diminished. So unlike the beautifully terrifying king from her memories that she wondered if it really was the same man or if this was just some horrible ruse being played upon her.

They sized each other up for a few more moments as the silence grew between them. Hers increasingly uncomfortable, his both amused and strangely patient as he waited for her to say something. She shifted from foot to foot and wondered what should be said to the person whose kingdom she’d destroyed and who appeared to be dying as a direct result of it. “I’m sorry” hardly seemed adequate.

“You’re … looking well,” she ventured after a bit. It wasn’t a blatant lie, given how she’d recently been told he was dead…

Jareth proceeded to look unimpressed. “Come, now,” he tsked. “Do try not to insult my intelligence.”

She pursed her lips, abruptly irritated. Hey, at least she tried to be civil! “Okay, then. You look like death warmed over,” she snarked, crossing her arms. She instantly regretted the words, realized how seriously she’d just overstepped the bounds. He was still a king, after all. Far too late to take them back, she mentally braced herself, waited for Jareth to throw her out of the room—through a window, in all likelihood—and was again caught off-guard when he instead tipped his head back and laughed.

His humor didn’t last long as chuckles abruptly dissolved into deep, hacking coughs that made her scramble to his bedside in alarm. Doubled over, he waved her off before she could touch him. Embarrassed at herself (those darned motherly instincts; so inconvenient sometimes…), she meekly stepped back as he slowly straightened, forehead glistening with a fine sheen of perspiration. He looked so vulnerable that her heart went out to him. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, contrite. “That was horribly rude.”

“Indeed.” He slid her a glance from the corner of his eye. “But if I may point out, my dear, I am not the only one who appears a bit … disheveled.” His assessing gaze raked over her body, reminded her of her own rather unsightly appearance; her raw, filthy bare feet, the bloody scratches covering her arms and legs, her grimy pajamas and tangled hair. Remnants of the smelly, drying gore that still clung to her neck and shirt. She blushed and shifted under his scrutiny.

“It’s … been a long day,” she muttered as she busied herself with pouring him a cup of water from the crystal pitcher at his bedside. She silently offered him the silver goblet and he accepted with a slight nod of gratitude and took a long drought.

“As you can see,” he rasped as he leaned into the pillows again, “I have not been … well, as of late.”

“I know.” Sarah ducked her head again. “Hoggle told me what’s been happening. About the Labyrinth … dying.”

“Did he, now?” Jareth’s smile flashed, tight and grim. “And I suppose you were all too willing to rush right over and witness your greatest adversary laid low at your feet. A truly glorious day for the forces of good, no doubt.”

Sarah flinched. “Of course not. Don't be like that,” she mumbled. “I never wanted you to die. Nobody wants that.”

“Indeed.” His steely gaze never left hers. “I suppose you've come as an avenging angel, then, to right the wrong that has been done to this land.”

His tone was so condescending that she drew herself up and raised her chin proudly. “Actually,” she replied sharply, “I’ve merely come to collect the children. Then, since my company seems so unwelcome, we’ll be returning home.”

Jareth went absolutely still. “Children,” he repeated softly. “You are certainly mistaken. There have been no wishes made.”

“I know,” she agreed. “They've been stolen away. My brother, Toby—I’m sure you remember Toby—and my daughter, Katerina.”

“And so you simply assume that the Goblin King is respon—”

“Oh, stop it.” She cut him off mid-sentence, secretly delighted by the brief surprise that flickered across his face. “I never claimed that you took them,” she continued pertly. “Looking at you, I can tell you’re hardly in any sort of shape to go around kidnapping children.”

His face darkened at that. “Well, if you’re not accusing me, then why would you presume that they’re here, of all places? The Labyrinth is not some Aboveground corner store one simply pops into for a gallon of milk or a lottery ticket whenever one feels like it.”

Sarah cocked her head. And again with the modern references. It made her wonder how often he watched the above world to even know what the lottery was. Not to mention a convenience store.

Which, in turn, made her wonder how often he might have watched her. She hastily banished the thought.

“Well,” she began slowly, “the magical portal conveniently left open in the bedroom window was a pretty big clue…”

It was almost comical the way Jareth’s eyes widened. “Impossible,” he snapped. “I certainly would have felt the pull of that much power.”

“Whether or not you felt it, it appeared and someone took the kids through it. They deliberately left it open for me to find. They wanted me to follow them.”

“And who are ‘they’?”

Sarah took a deep breath and worried the ring on her finger. “I don’t know for certain but I-I’m pretty sure Hoggle is the one responsible.”

She wasn’t sure what she expected, but it certainly wasn’t for Jareth to laugh. Again. She tensed, waited for the deep chuckles to dissolve into that horrible coughing, but he managed to keep control of himself this time. “So Hoghead has taken it upon himself to play the role of villain,” he uttered, clearly disbelieving. “My, this is a plot twist.”

Sarah felt herself flushing. “It’s the truth,” she huffed. She pulled the bracelet from her wrist and dangled it in front of him. “I gave this to Hoggle during my first trip through the Labyrinth, but last night I found it on the windowsill. And this ring…” She yanked said ring off her finger. “I gave it to the Wiseman as payment and yet it also ended up in Toby’s bedroom. How did they get there? Who else knew they were mine?”

Jareth remained silent, eyes intense in his scrutiny of her face. He still seemed doubtful and she huffed irritably. “Why would I make up such a crazy story? And how else do you think I could I have gotten here?” she pressed. “You said it yourself; it’s not like strolling into a corner store.”

“Very well,” he relented. “It seems the fastest way to solve this little mystery is to go right to the source. Hoggle!”

His sudden bellow made Sarah’s ears ring. She winced and stepped back as he swung his legs over the side of the bed, completely heedless of modesty as his nightshirt ruched up around his thighs. She hastily averted her gaze before she saw something she really shouldn’t as he stood and strode to the door.

Well, perhaps “strode” was too strong a word. Jareth’s gait resembled more of a weak limp and it was all she could do to keep her feet planted and not rush to his side to steady him before he tipped right over. His pride wouldn’t stand for it, she was sure. Besides, he wasn’t wearing nearly enough clothes for her comfort and she certainly didn’t want him to get the wrong idea!

A slight ruckus from the hallway and then the ridiculously large door that guarded Jareth’s chambers swung open with a protesting groan. A familiar little figure scurried in. “You bellowed, Yer Majesty?” the dwarf grumped as he balanced a tray of food in his arms and managed to push the door shut with one foot. “I tolds ya I’d be ins wit’ yer supper soon as it were rea—”

His words cut off as pale blue eyes landed on Sarah. A great, resounding crash filled the silence when the tray slipped from his limp grasp, spilling its contents across the floor. “Y-y-you!” He barely glanced at the mess as he hurried forward, jaw working. “What’re you doin’ here? How’d you get here? You saids you wasn't comin’!”

Sarah stared at him, both eyebrows raised to her hairline at his astonishment. “What am I doing here?” she repeated, unable to keep the angry quaver from her voice. “Why do you think? How do you think I got here? Through the portal you left open!”

He blinked as his brow furrowed in apparent confusion. “Portal?”

“The one in Toby’s window? The very same one Jareth used ten years ago? Ring a bell?” She clenched her fists as she struggled to contain her growing ire. “Where are the kids, Hoggle?” she pressed. “I came just like you wanted so where are they?”

His eyes widened. “Kids? What kids?” he squawked. “I ain’t gots any idea what yer talkin’ abouts!”

She stared at him. Unable to understand his reluctance to confess; she’d done exactly what he wanted so why was he trying to act innocent now? She dangled the bracelet in front of his nose. “Doesn’t this look familiar?”

Hoggle’s jaw dropped as he fumbled around the assortment of jewelry that dangled from his belt. “Wh-where’d ya gets that? That’s mine!”

She snatched it out of reach as he grasped for it. “Right where you left it,” she snapped. “You want it back? Give me my children!”

All Hoggle could do was sputter. “I don’t—That isn’t—How could yas think I’d steals yer kids? We’s friends! I’d never do somethin’ likes that to yas!” Genuine hurt gleamed in his eyes, along with a hint of anger.

Sarah felt the first stirrings of doubt, quickly firmed her resolve before she could lose it. She didn't want to fight with Hoggle. She wanted badly to believe him, to believe it was all a terrible misunderstanding, but… 

“What else am I supposed to think?” She tossed both the bracelet and the ring to the floor. “You show up out of nowhere in Katie’s mirror, asking for help. And when I have to refuse, a few hours later both of the kids are missing. There’s a wide-open passage into the Labyrinth and I find your bracelet in Toby’s bedroom. It doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together.”

Hoggle sputtered again, hurt melting into confusion. “But that was months ago!” he protested. “I ain’t talked to yas since then!”

Sarah opened her mouth to argue and hesitated, brow furrowed. It was her turn to be confused. “You came to me last night,” she reminded him. “There was a big storm. Katie woke me in the middle of the night telling me about the funny man in the mirror.”

“It weren’t me.” He crossed his arms, stubborn scowl fixed.

“It had to be!” She tossed her hands up in frustration. “How many dwarves do you think I’ve got, using my mirror as some … some interdimensional telephone?”

He didn't reply and she pinched the bridge of her nose as the dull headache that had been lurking in the back of her skull for the past few hours steadily increased pressure, stretched her taut nerves to the snapping point. “Did you or did you not come to me asking for help?” she asked with exaggerated patience.

He immediately nodded. “I did.” And when she tried to respond, hastily added, “but it weren’t a night ago an’ I ain’t been back to yas since. Couldn’t. Magic’s been so busted up it weren’t safe ta try no more.”

She made a frustrated little whine in the back of her throat, turned a helpless gaze to Jareth, who had been listening to the exchange in stoic silence. “Come, come now, Sarah,” he chided softly. “Surely you haven’t forgotten the rules of the Underground. You’ve spent years studying the tales. Some truth lies among the myth.”

She really wasn’t in the mood for riddles, but Sarah sighed deeply and struggled to recall everything she’d ever read in regards to the faerie realms. There were so many conflicting stories and much of it was, indeed, made up fantasy. But several of the … “rules” (for lack of a more accurate term) seemed to be universal among many of the tales. “Don’t ever step into a fairy ring,” she recalled. “Never eat or drink anything in the Underground. Words have power; use them wisely.” She ignored the Goblin King’s derisive snort but felt her cheeks grow hot at the reminder of a lesson learned, too little, too late. “Don’t thank a fae for favors rendered, else risk putting yourself into their power,” she pressed on. “Time passes differently in the Under—”

Here she stopped short, eyes widening in belated realization. How could she have forgotten that one, fundamental rule?

“May’ve been a few hours ta yous, but it been longer ‘n that down heres,” Hoggle confirmed.

“But … but isn’t it the opposite? The stories all say that only hours pass here to years Aboveground.”

“Fact from myth,” Jareth reminded her. At some point he’d seated himself in one of the chairs by the hearth, looking more worn by the second. Sarah bit her lip to keep herself from ordering him back to bed.

“Fact is, Jareth was wot kept time in workin’ order ‘round here but he ain’t been in much condition ta keeps much of anything in any order no more,” Hoggle grumped. He quelled slightly under the withering glare Jareth tossed his way but managed to stand his ground.

Sarah pondered this information. “So, you’re saying time is … broken?” she asked in dismay.

“Not broken.” Jareth waved a dismissive hand. “Merely … confused.” His sharp, arrogant smile seemed a mere shadow of its former self. He tilted his head, eyes shrewd as he added with mocking sympathy, “Do sit down, dearest, before you fall over. You look a little faint.”

Sarah bit her lip against the urge to backtalk, decided to take him up on his offer and staggered toward the nearest chair to drop into it; the exhaustion she’d stubbornly held at bay nearly blindsided her as it surged forward in one great rush and she closed her eyes against the ensuing dizziness. A heavy silver goblet was pressed into her hand and she offered a weak yet grateful smile to Hoggle as she raised it to her lips. Where she promptly hesitated, torn between her raging thirst and her desire to not become a permanent resident of the Goblin Kingdom.

Clearly sensing her thoughts, Jareth snorted with thinly-veiled amusement. “Oh, do go on. You will not be trapped here for eternity if you drink the water. Nor will it put you under any enchantment.” At her continued hesitance, he actually rolled his eyes. “On my honor as the King of the Goblins, it is safe,” he intoned. Putting as much dry sarcasm as he could muster into the words.

Sarah felt her lips twitch into a smile despite herself, hid it behind the cup as she allowed cool water to flow down her throat … and abruptly hacked and choked when the taste of mold and withered plants filled her mouth.

“Ah. Yes.” Jareth smiled grimly. “My apologies for not warning you. I’m afraid we’ve all grown so accustomed to the stagnancy of the water by now that we’ve quite gotten used to the taste.”

“You actually drink this?” Sarah set the goblet aside, nose wrinkled with distaste. “No wonder you’re so sick! I doubt it’s doing much to help you.”

“Yes, well … beggars can’t be choosers and all that.” Another dismissive wave.

Sarah released a slow breath, turned a beseeching haze to Hoggle. “Where are the kids, Hoggle? If you take me to them I promise I won’t be angry.”

Hoggle scowled deeply. “I tolds ya I ain’t gots ‘em! I dunno who took ‘em but it weren’t me!”

She dragged her hand through her matted hair. “If you don’t have them, then someone else does,” she muttered. Her stomach roiled as she pondered the implications. “I wasn’t that worried before because I knew they’d at least be safe with you. But now…” She shook her head, eyes burning as if to shed tears, only she was too parched to cry. “What should I do? They could be anywhere and I can’t even fathom where to begin looking.” Frankly, the thought of venturing back out into that hellish landscape with its equally hellish occupants was a terrifying idea.

But the thought that the children might be out there among them was even more terrifying and not an idea to dwell on lest she send herself into a full-blown panic attack.

“If it pleases the lady, perhaps I might be of assistance.”

Fable’s pale figure melted out of the shadows, causing startlement all around. He ignored Hoggle’s yelp, beelined past Jareth’s equally astonished form with barely a glance and paused to kneel before Sarah’s chair. “How very strange.” His expression filled with childlike curiosity. “This isn’t at all where I’d expected you to end up. How did you come to be here?”

#Labyrinth #Labyfic #Sarah #Jareth #Hoggle #mystery #yes I'm still alive

[snowbellewells]

Run to Me (in the Dead of Night)

(Here is Chapter One - the first regular chapter after the prologue - of my CSSNS fic!  Thank you for all of the like and re blogs I received last week; I hope you will enjoy this newest installment as well.  I also appreciate your patience, as Killian didn’t appear until this week.  Anyway, I still don’t own them, and this is still very much a divergence from early season two (many things go differently and various characters will continue to be portrayed differently than they were as the show went forward)  I genuinely hope you will like this, and I’d love to hear your thoughts.)

by: @snowbellewells  (TutorGirlml on ff.net)

And for sure, once again, THANK YOU so much to @wingedlioness for the breathtaking story banner I cannot stop staring at!!!

~ chapter one: out of the shadows

The next morning found Emma calmer again, though still a bit shaken by the sense of something lurking and possibly tracing her steps, seemingly proven by the cry of that wolf the night before.  She had opted not to share her misgivings with her newly reunited mother and father however.  Even as she knew they would be desperate to listen and help her, reminding her for the 90th time that doing just so was all they had ever wanted, they were also a perfect fairytale couple almost sickeningly in love at having found each other again, and so nonsensically optimistic that Emma wasn’t sure she could handle them both blindly reassuring her that everything would be fine and that she was worrying over nothing.  Real life wasn’t some children’s story or Disney movie - at least, hers had never been.  And so she simply avoided getting platitudes and chipper comfort, no matter how well-meant; she didn’t want to snap at them for trying to do their best.

Instead, she had quietly woken Henry with the promise of a special breakfast for the two of them at Granny’s.  The opportunity for sweet French toast and their favorite hot chocolate with cinnamon, plus his mom all to himself, which had been rare since the chaos of the curse breaking, had her bright-eyed boy grinning and dressed in minutes, ready to go.  The excitement of them sharing a secret had his big, brilliant eyes twinkling with glee; he almost bounced where he stood, his enthusiasm more than could be contained in his small ten-year-old frame.  Needless to say, it took only minutes to get him out the door and down the street, skipping along at her side and talking as fast as he could draw breath to sustain the torrent.

Henry only truly paused once they were seated with plates of sugared, fried toast dripping syrup and butter and steaming hot before them.  Emma chuckled to see him start shoveling forkfuls into his mouth as fast as he could, grinning at her around the battered bread confection as she finally snuck a few words in edgewise to ask what he’d been studying at school and how his friend Paige was doing now that she knew she was also Grace and had a father named Jefferson to split her time with as well as the adopted family she had always known.

Only as Henry began to detail the science experiment with tiny maple shoots his class was doing, did Emma glance up at the ring of the bell over the door at Granny’s entrance.  The tall form filling most of the doorframe and blocking a fair bit of the early morning light through the glass for several seconds, made her breath stall in her throat.  She was frozen, unable to blink, for fear the vision before her would disappear. The dark headed stranger; scruffy, wiry, and clad in full dark denim and black leather, stared back at her with a stunned sort of recognition, even as Emma knew she had never laid eyes on him before.  There was no way she would forget a man who looked like that.  No matter how uninterested in dating, romance, or potential heartbreak she was, Emma certainly wasn’t blind or oblivious, and no red blooded female could see this guy and not have their heart rate kick up a notch or two.

It wasn’t until the man shook his rather shaggy mop of hair slightly, almost as though trying to clear his head, that the overpowering connection of their gazes broke and Emma felt herself draw in another breath, looking down in embarrassment at the flare of heat blooming over her cheeks. She knew that meant her fair skin bore a bright and telltale blush that she didn’t want detected. When she again chanced another look up through her lashes, the man had dazedly moved to the counter to place an order and was speaking unheard to a smiling Ruby. There was something a bit off about Ruby’s stance, even as she smiled gamely at the new customer, that Emma couldn’t quite figure, almost as if the wide grin were showing her teeth more than conveying a welcome. However, she didn’t have long to puzzle on it before realizing that her intense focus had snagged her curious son’s attention. She could feel Henry grinning at her as much as actually see the spark of playful curiosity in his eyes as they roved from the stranger near the entrance and back to her with interest, back and forth like he were observing a tennis match.

Sighing and shaking her head, Emma couldn’t help a rueful laugh at her own expense, chest practically heaving and mouth hanging open in awe like a woman on the cover of one of those cheap bodice-ripper romance novels. Henry leaned forward, his eager amusement obvious as he whispered across the table to her.  “Who is that, Mom?” he questioned, completely oblivious or simply ignoring her consternation. “Do you know him?”

Emma shook her head at her easily excitable little schemer, hoping he wouldn’t draw attention to them with his not-so-whispered queries.

Henry did stay relatively quiet, thankfully, but nudged her hand on the table with his own.  “You should go talk to him,” he urged.

Before she could object or try to steer her son back toward eating his breakfast and getting to school on time, Emma was startled once again when the newcomer crossed to their table with three to-go cups somehow balanced between his hands.  Coming to stand before them, the man’s blue eyes - even more arresting up close - twinkled at first Emma and then Henry as his hip jutted in a decidedly rakish stance, and he held the proffered gifts out for them.  “Hot chocolate with cinnamon,” he explained with a playful wink, and then an encouraged smile as Henry’s face clearly transmitted his delight. “The lass at the counter assures me it’s your regular order.”  Pausing to wet his lips uncertainly, almost as though battling nerves, he then added an almost courtly and old-fashioned bow. “By way of introducing myself - Killian Jones, at your service.”

Emma had tilted her head suspiciously, studying this Killian’s words and actions when he chose to approach her with her son, but she trusted her gut as well as her instinctive lie detector and read nothing false or dangerous in his intentions.  Sensing it to be a truly considerate and well-meaning gesture, she gave Henry a small nod and reassuring smile when he looked to her for confirmation it was alright to accept the treat.

Emma took her own beverage from his hand as well, and only when her skin brushed his with a shiver did she notice the stiff, immobility of his left appendage.  She had to admit that she was both curious and struck with a pang of regret for whatever must have happened to him, but it didn’t affect her nearly as much as the lurch of powerful attraction in her stomach immediately upon their fleeting contact.

“Thank you, Mr. Jones,” her son spoke up brightly, scooting further into the booth they occupied in order to make room, even before he asked, “Do you want to sit with us?”  Emma shook her head again, wondering if that hadn’t been exactly what Jones hoped to achieve, though she couldn’t truly be upset at her son’s politeness, nor his friendly, accepting character.  

Killian chuckled good naturedly, happy but also struck by a pang through his chest at just how long it had been since he had been welcomed by anyone with such ease and enthusiasm.  He hoped his humored response had covered the accompanying flinch of pain, but he pressed forward just in case.  “Please, just Killian will do nicely.  Mr. Jones was my father; you’ll make me feel old.  As for joining you both, I would like nothing more, lad, but I do believe I heard your mother speaking of your lessons commencing as I approached?”

It was Emma’s turn to laugh lightly then, her face practically glowing and her eyes crinkling as she joined their exchange.  “He has you there, Henry! Nice try, kid, but we’d better get you to school before you’re late.”

Henry groaned, clearly much more interested in whatever new developments might happen in his absence than in attending class, but he dutifully finished his last bite of French toast, gathered his backpack and drink, and moved to stand.  “Walk with us at least?” he asked hopefully, eyes trained with accuracy on the man he had clearly decided to make his newest friend.

Turning to search the stunning blonde deputy’s face for approval, Killian felt the blood drain from his own visage, and the strength from his limbs, so caught up in the visceral attraction that pulsed between them once again.  It was as though he couldn’t look away, the connection, the pull between them was so strong.  The force of it left him completely adrift, merely scant comfort found in the fact that - if he weren’t mistaken - she seemed to be affected in much the same way.  He had only meant to ascertain if she would be opposed to his accompanying she and her boy on their way, but he might as well have suddenly turned to stone, a mute statue, for all that he could voice any of his thoughts.

Seeming uncertain for only a second, she then gave him an almost shy smile.  As if reading his eyes and his as-yet-unspoken question, she agreed with her son in a carefully casual lightness.  “Sure, come along if you’d like - the more the merrier.”

It didn’t take a genius to see that this was going out on a limb for her; Deputy Emma Swan’s offer wasn’t half as nonchalant as she wanted it to appear.  He could sense the way her pulse quickened, the light blush that tinged her cheeks, and the idle tension as she crossed and uncrossed her arms over her torso while awaiting his answer. An outcast himself - lost and alone for most of his life - Killian could recognize another with similar defense mechanisms. Even without the clues his heightened senses could detect from her bodily response to him, the kinship he felt warmed him beyond any simple animal magnetism he had ever encountered.

Scratching behind one ear nervously, he offered both mother and son a crooked smile before nodding gratefully.  A chance to actually join in with those around him, be a part of something, was tempting despite its never having worked out well for him before.  “Aye, I’d like that.”

Their little trio was just moving to the diner’s exit when a slight man with a cane swept in, a wave of fear and expectant energy covering the place with his arrival.  Mr. Gold, the pawnbroker, though all were also aware that he was Rumplestiltskin - the Dark One - one of the most powerful magic users ever and not to be crossed, eyed everyone in the establishment; his beady, sharp eyes coming to rest on the three facing him, stalling where they had been on their way out.

Emma tried imperceptibly to move so that her body at least partially shielded and hid Henry from view, but Gold merely sneered silently as if to remind her that such efforts would be futile if he decided to strike, before coming to rest on the man at her side.  The smaller man’s eyes glinted cold recognition, narrowing as they centered on Killian Jones with a malice that made shivers of foreboding tingle across the back of Emma’s neck. No words were spoken, but it was a stand-off all the same, and one she found herself suddenly desperate to break up.  “Can I help you, Mr. Gold?” she asked while attempting to stare him down and stepping forward to draw his focus to the deputy badge clipped onto her belt.

The sinister hiss of his smooth, oily words was disconcerting, but Emma didn’t flinch, wouldn’t allow herself to show weakness.  “Funny you should ask that, Dearie,” Gold intoned almost gleefully, looking for all the world as though he really was savoring whatever he was about to unveil.  “You do owe me after all.” Emma cringed slightly at the remembrance of her agreement to return him a favor in exchange for Cinder-freaking-rella to keep her baby.  “But let’s wait for your colleague to join us… Oh yes! There he is.  Good morning, Sheriff Humbert.”

As if on cue, Graham stormed through the door at that very moment; a man on a mission, though he drew up short at Gold’s positively jubilant greeting, immediately on the alert. It was clear to Emma, who had come to know him fairly well by that point, that her friend had entered into the diner with a purpose - something on his mind - but he certainly wasn’t going to broach it with the Dark One standing nearby like a sinister eavesdropper.  

“Good morning, Gold,” Graham said with a nod in a friendly enough tone, but his eyes were wary as he watched the powerful imp who owned half the town, both literally as a landlord and figuratively as broker of the many whose deals he held over their heads.

Gold smiled lazily, his gaze encompassing their audience in the other booths and at the counter of the diner, Henry, Emma, Graham, before narrowing in once more with open hostility on Killian Jones. The wide, mocking smile vanished for a second as a truly monstrous glimmer passed over his face, then rippled and vanished so quickly that Emma had to wonder if she had only imagined it.

Bringing his focus back to the sheriff and deputy, Gold made an ostentatious gesture with his hand, twirling it up like the announcer on a game show or a magician flourishing before unveiling his favorite trick. “Well, now that we’re all present…” he drawled with pleasure, “what I want from you is quite simple.”

Emma narrowed her eyes more shrewdly, still attempting to put Henry as out of sight and mind from the troubling deal maker as she could, feeling her breath stopper up within her throat at the slight movement beside her which caused her to realize that Killian Jones, whom she had only just officially met and who owed her nothing at all, had shuffled enough closer to her side to aid the effort, effectively shielding Henry behind both their bodies.  He’d done it so subtly that Emma herself wouldn’t have registered the stealthy shift if it hadn’t been for the way the fine hairs on her arm stood at attention in awareness of his proximity - electricity erupting in the air between them so strongly that she couldn’t ignore the sensation.

Emma shot a quick sideways glance in his direction, only to find his light, sea blue gaze already directed her way, waiting to receive her response.  She had meant to be surreptitious, not intending to give away what he had managed so smoothly, but as their eyes met, she couldn’t help the sharp breath she sucked in at the impact, stunned and muddle-brained by his effect on her.  Hoping to convey her gratitude for his help in protecting her son, Emma attempted to funnel that emotion into her expression, and to her relief, a warmth stole across Jones’ striking features, laugh lines crinkling briefly at the corners of his eyes and a warm, comprehending smile pulling his lips up briefly as he nodded to her before turning forward to face their common foe once more.  Still, somehow in that brief exchange, a bit of the pressure within Emma snapped. Her shoulders fell slightly from where they had been pulled high to ready herself in what Ruby jokingly called her “fighting stance”. The easy communication she had just experienced, ready comprehension without even needing words, was incredibly rare.  The sense that another person understood and valued the thoughts and opinions they read from her had possibly never been so clear before - certainly not with such ease or strength.  Though she didn’t have the time to work it out just then, or to weigh why it excited her and bolstered her courage instead of making her want to run, Emma filed the knowledge away, hoping for the time to examine and savor it later. A sense of kinship, of belonging and effortlessly understanding another person, was more welcome than she would have expected.

Pushing the whirl of emotion aside, Emma returned her gaze to the deceptively frail-looking older man in his sharp, tailored suit before them.  Now well aware who he was, despite knowing only a fraction of what he had done in the realm where she was born, and all he was capable of doing, or had already done, to those she held dear, Emma knew the small, unassuming facade for what it was.  Even when he appeared friendly and jovial as he did now, there was an undercurrent of danger that accompanied his mere presence, and she refused to be taken in or caught off guard.

Speaking up clearly and directly, not allowing her unease to show through, nor hesitating to meet him head-on, Emma stared right back into reptilian eyes that glimmered with intelligence and treachery, biting out, “Well, let’s have it then,” she prodded, inviting no grandstanding or tricks, just the plain truth.  “Clearly you wanted an audience, so here we are. What is it you’re after?”

“Ooh,” Gold mocked a shiver of intimidation, “very bold, Miss Swan. So brash, so self-assured.”  A truly fiendish grin of delight stretched across his face, showing the glint of his teeth as he paused deliberately before warning, “I’d be a bit more careful of your tone though, Dearie.  Remember, I’m not the one who’s indebted here.”

Judging by the abrupt hiss of air through clenched teeth that she heard to her left, Killian Jones had recoiled at the threat in that statement nearly as much as she had.  Either shocked, angered, or displeased by the news that Emma owed this villain a favor, she wasn’t sure which and she couldn’t risk a glance at him to see.  Instead, she grit out her response to Gold’s admonition with a near growl.  “Well, that may be true, but I certainly wasn’t aware of all the details in the fine print, was I?”

“A deal’s a deal,” the Dark One simpered almost playfully at her, “doesn’t matter if one later decides the price is too steep.”

Emma continued to glower back, fists clenched at her sides, uncertain if she could even move from her defensive stance she was so frozen, so torn between rage and embarrassment at the bind she had locked herself into before knowing any better.

It was Graham who broke through the increasingly heated staredown.  “Gold, tell us what you want and be done with it.  This isn’t the Enchanted Forest, nor have we any need of the theatrics.”  The firm, commanding tone her friend could pull off but rarely employed gathered everyone’s notice.  Emma caught him making eye contact, even as he spoke, with his adopted sister over their heads to where Ruby stood behind the counter.  He must have been able to communicate his instructions well enough to her, as soon Emma heart shuffling and the squeak of footsteps on linoleum flooring at her back and realized that her brunette friend was almost certainly ushering diner patrons out the back entrance as stealthily and swiftly as possible.  Emma held her breath, knowing the exits wouldn’t escape Gold’s notice.  However, he seemed untroubled by them, and so the five of them stood in a sort of motionless tableau until the vacated diner was eerily silent and emptied of all innocent bystanders.

Giving one final titter of mirth, a sound that truly set Emma’s teeth on edge, Mr. Gold, mentor to the Evil Queen herself, finally stated his business and laid all his cards on the table.  “The maid in my employ back in our realm - Belle French - is still missing, despite Regina’s curse breaking, memories being restored, and reunions happening left and right.  She became rather invaluable to me during her time in the Dark Castle - good help is so hard to find, you know.”  He said the words flippantly, endeavoring mightily to seem nonchalant; unconcerned one way or another, merely wishing to reclaim a stolen possession, but there was a fervency behind the light words, a tightness in his face as he spoke, that set off Emma’s sense of a lie.  This maid meant more than he wanted to reveal.  “She was unfailingly dedicated to her work and possessed of a ridiculously overdeveloped sense of honor,” he continued.  “She would have returned to her duties for me if she were free to do so.  Therefore, I can only believe she has been taken.  Someone is holding her against her will.  And I want her found.  Immediately.”

This last was leveled with ringing authority, the implied consequences for failure unspoken but abundantly clear.  

“And how do you know she was even brought over to this land with the curse?” Graham questioned smartly; Emma duly impressed by his quick thinking and completely logical argument.

Gold’s gaze narrowed further still, his focus so intense on the Sheriff and former Huntsman that it made Emma want to flinch away from its burn though not even trained on her.  Eventually however, he nodded succinctly as if he had found what he needed and moved on.  When he spoke again, his voice was once more smooth, assured, and certain he would not be denied.  “And excellent question, Sheriff Humbert. Perhaps your former keeper trained her loyal dog a bit better than I realized.”

He paused, a knowing simper on his pointed face as he watched Graham stiffen, an involuntary shudder rippling visibly through his frame.

Emma bristled on her friend’s behalf, not sure what exactly Gold meant by his words, but easily able to see they had upset and shaken Graham’s resolve to an uncanny degree.  She took a step forward, intending to break into their exchange and a hand coming to rest on Graham’s arm in support, but Gold continued before she could speak.  “Let us simply say that I know she is in the land somewhere.  I would feel it if she weren’t.  That is all any of you need know.”

“So we’re just supposed to take your word for it?” Emma bit out harshly, not at all liking his assumption of control, nor the way Graham had still hardly moved since Gold’s veiled insinuation.  “We should expend all our department’s time and resources on your wild goose chase, even though the whole town’s in chaos right now?”

Gold sneered at her, undeterred and unwilling to acknowledge any claim as more pressing than his own. “You would find you truly regretted going back on a deal with me,” he intoned, voice eerily calm but all the more troubling for it. “Not to mention,” and his gaze trained on Graham once more, staring him right in the eyes as if to make sure the Sheriff caught every word.  “He owes me even more than you do, Deputy Swan.  Our good Sheriff might well decide he didn’t have the heart to do otherwise.”

Graham snapped his eyes free of the almost hypnotic serpent’s stare Gold held him in, turning his head abruptly and clearly battling within himself for a moment, before finally rasping in a voice that sounded as though it had been drug over gravel that of course they wouldn’t leave an innocent young woman to suffer, and they would do all they could to locate this Belle French.

Emma found her eyes going back and forth between the insidious businessman and her boss, aghast at Graham’s seeming compliance with the demands and trying to decide what was going on between the words spoken, clearly something Gold could use as leverage on her friend that she wasn’t privy to.  Not that she minded trying to help someone genuinely in need - that wasn’t the point - but she bristled at Gold thinking he owned the sheriff’s department and could control them as he did so much else.  Still, she bit her tongue, waiting to see what would happen and trying to trust that Graham would explain further when he was able.

Seeming to sense that he had gained their acquiescence, at least begrudgingly, and the upper hand, Gold’s focus slid once more over to where Killian Jones stood at Emma’s side.  The newcomer’s eyes never wavered from their aggressor, on his guard and vigilant, as if expecting an outright, physical attack, and Gold seemed equally intent, sizing up his quarry patiently.  “And you,” he nearly spat, a flicker of fire in his eyes that truly made him look for a fleeting second like the demon she had heard so many claim him to be. “Seeing you here, now, when my Belle is gone, makes me think you had something to do with her disappearance,” he continued, drawing nearer as he spoke.

Killian tensed, a muscle in his jaw working at the sinister accusation leveled against him.  Emma held herself back only because she was still determinedly trying to keep herself somewhat neutral in her official capacity, and physically between their foe and Henry. Even so, she had to grit her teeth, burning to step forward and defend the man next to her.  He had just arrived in town, how could he have had anything to do with the disappearance of Rumplestiltskin’s maid?  She knew what it was to be doubted at every turn, mistrusted merely because she was new to a place, alone, and didn’t belong anywhere with anyone else; it wasn’t right or fair, but she had burned with the feeling more than enough to sense her defenses rising on Jones’ behalf.

Next to her, Killian’s eyes narrowed at his accuser, no longer a twinkling light and mirthful blue, but dark as a stormy sea, his right hand fisting and opening repeatedly as he held himself rigid, clearly wanting to step forward and strike out in retribution for the uncalled for slander.

The pawn shop owner studied them both, not missing a single detail: how close they stood to one another, how hard Emma was working to maintain a semblance of control, and how intensely Killian was struggling to keep himself in check. Somehow, even taking that all in, an insidious, evil grin stretched over his thin lips, as if pleased with the turmoil he had wrought.

When Killian did speak, his voice was a dangerously low rumble from his chest, a warning to back off, as he would defend himself and his own.  The mere fleck of light remaining in his cerulean eyes flashed like lightning with his words.  “Think what you want, Crocodile,” he countered, Emma’s brow furrowing in confusion at the strange moniker, and not for the first time wondering just what volatile history lay between this intriguing man beside her and the Dark One.  “I may be guilty of many things - plotting to see you pay for all you’ve done to me amongst them - but make no mistake, I’ll not hide in the shadows when I strike vengeance against you.  You will know it was me.  Kidnapping some former member of your household staff brings me no closer to my aim.”

If possible, Gold’s countenance grew even more disturbing at Killian’s gritted words. Right before their eyes, his face seemed to darken in rage; for a second, Emma would have once again sworn that his skin nearly sparkled as if covered in glittering, truly reptilian scales and eyes turning almost yellow, before the vision dissipated and she blinked, wondering if the effect had been in her mind both times.  The roar of his next words did make Emma flinch back though, their timbre almost inhuman.  “You filthy cur!” he railed, taking a step closer to Killian, hand raised in a manner that made Emma fear he was about to strike Jones down where he stood.

To his credit, Killian didn’t even blink. Gold’s whole body seemed to shudder with a wave of power from within, as if the frisson was bursting to escape and barely contained in its slight, unassuming vessel.  Pivoting to face Graham, his face close and eyes hard on Storybrooke’s lawman, the Dark One’s next statement chilled Emma even further.  “I want Miss French found, Sheriff.  And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll begin with that mongrel right there.”

His finger pointed at Killian could not be mistaken, even as Emma watched, tensed, expecting some blast of dark magic she still knew very little about to spew forth and set him on fire or turn him into a toad - whatever horrible curse the imp could imagine, she supposed. Thankful that no such destruction occurred, her heart still sunk, even as she floundered for another course of action, at the slippery wizard’s next words.  “He can feign innocence all he likes, but that degenerate cannot even deny that he has gone after her before, merely to injure me.  I want him brought in for questioning, Sheriff.  Consider it a part of the debt you owe me.”

Shaking her head, appalled by the swift turn of events, Emma gathered herself to strike back at the spiteful man, fruitless as she knew it was; to argue with Graham, to remind him they didn’t answer to Gold, nor have to do his bidding without real evidence, but it was as if she had suddenly gone silent and invisible, watching it all unfold around her.  Fumbling without even looking, she gripped Killian’s hand in her own, almost as if she intended to hold onto him so he couldn’t be taken away.

And though Killian returned the pressure warmly, the rough calluses of his fingertips and palms somehow making her stomach flip when they brushed against her smooth skin, his eyes were grateful but resigned when she raised hers to meet his solemn stare. “It’s alright, Swan,” he murmured, so quietly she didn’t think anyone else had even heard and making her heart rhythm stutter at the unexpectedly beautiful nickname.  “I’ll go with Sheriff Humbert.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but he shook his dark head minutely.  “On this score at least, I’ve nothing to hide. And, at any rate, with whatever he has over you and your sheriff, my freedom isn’t worth anyone’s life.”  He stepped forward, offering his wrists for Graham to cuff.

Graham, for his part, looked ashamed, clearly reluctant to take this man in on no grounds whatsoever beyond a villain’s word.  “No need for that,” he mumbled, barely meeting Jones’ eyes, and both avoiding the gloating evident on Gold’s vindictive face.  With a mere firm hand on Jones’ arm, the sheriff led the other man out of the diner to his waiting squad car.

Gold exited as well, watching with the satisfied air of one whose job is done, then he bowed to Emma like some magnanimous ruler and turned to leave, heading back up the street to his shop.  

Henry was pulling her arm before the chime on the door at their backs had ceased its ringing.  “He can’t just do that, can he?  Not here in the real world!  We’ve got to help Killian!!”

Emma quickly gathered Henry close to her, delving her hand into his soft hair and holding his body tight to her own for fear he might run after the Dark One in childish haste and fiery need to right all wrongs he saw.

She didn’t know what she was going to do just yet, but she would get to the bottom of this. Of that she had no doubt.

Tagging: @cssns @kmomof4 @laschatzi @searchingwardrobes @wingedlioness @whimsicallyenchantedrose @resident-of-storybrooke @therooksshiningknight @jennjenn615 @spartanguard @teamhook @revanmeetra87 @linda8084 @bmbbcs4evr 

#cssns #cs canon divergence #cs au mc #ouat werewolves au ff #run to me (in the dead of night) #chapter one

[geekmama]

Idiots in Love

Sherlolly Appreciation Week 2018, Day 7, Writer’s Choice

And we’re back to Sherlock and Molly’s engagement, with three short stories from Greg Lestrade’s pov. As he said in Gravitas...

The satisfaction of watching the live-action post-Sherrinford sitcom, 'Idiots in Love', had been a private delight for months...

Domestic Bliss

For all his curiosity -- and sympathy, too, of course -- Greg had refrained from contacting Sherlock for a good six days after the Sherrinford/Musgrave affair, but on the seventh he absolutely needed Sherlock’s sharp wits for a tricky case, so he pulled out his mobile and, after only a moment’s hesitation, texted him. 

No reply. 

Which was unusual. Even if Sherlock wasn’t in the mood to come out to a crime scene, he was almost always willing to provide input via text message or even Skype, if the situation warranted it. And as for answering, Greg sometimes thought that mobile was bloody attached to his hand, he was that quick. 

Greg tried texting a couple more times, with the same result, and then he found he was really starting to get worried. 

So he sent one off to Sherlock’s brother. There’d probably been quite the blow-up with the Holmes mum and dad, what with them not having known their daughter was still alive. Maybe the boys were still in the midst of smoothing things down in that quarter. 

But Mycroft replied almost immediately. 

 Sherlock is fine, as far as I know. He is with Dr. Hooper. - M 

 Greg nodded (as though Mycroft could see him -- ha!) and texted back his thanks. 

He’d known, of course, that Sherlock was staying with Molly, since 221B Baker St. was a bit too blown up for habitation, and he’d heard it from John, too, when he’d run across him walking little Rosie in Regent’s Park. 

“Yeah, Molly’s taken him in,” John had said, with a crooked smile, which Greg had taken to be relief that he didn’t have to put up with a possibly unstable houseguest after… well, everything. John had been through a lot in the last six months. Or six years, more like. 

“They’re okay, then?” Greg had smiled, remembering how worried Molly had been after that phone call, and then Sherlock’s reaction to hearing that she’d begged to be included when Greg had been summoned to Musgrave. “I was hoping they would be. Now if Sherlock’ll just refrain from bein’ a git for a while…” 

John had laughed. “I think he’s working on that. And Molly’ll keep him right.” 

That was no more than the truth. If anyone could make Sherlock behave, it was Molly Hooper. 

And apparently they were sorting it out, since Sherlock was still there in her flat. 

He tried texting Molly, then, but though she, too, was usually quick to reply, there was, again, no answer. He frowned. 

It wouldn’t hurt to go over there and check things out. When Sherlock was involved, you just never knew what might be happening. 

 * 

 A few minutes later, Greg was on the brick walkway and approaching Molly’s door when it opened and Sherlock stepped out -- but not a Sherlock Greg had ever seen -- or not in public at any rate. Molly’s street was a quiet one, of course, but Sherlock’s state -- dressing gown negligently tied over what Greg strongly suspected was precisely nothing, dark curls styled a la bed-head, and a somewhat glazed and strangely contented expression -- was as near to indecent as made no odds. 

And it was bloody one in the afternoon! 

And he was holding, with tender care, a puppy. 

Greg halted on the walkway and gaped. Sherlock, for his part, jerked his head up suddenly, eyes widening, and his contentment taking on more of a deer-in-the-headlights look. 

“Greg! What are you doing here?” he blurted. 

Greg, beginning to be amused, quirked a brow. “I’ve got a case, and I tried to text you but you didn’t reply. What’s that you’ve got there? A bloodhound?” 

Sherlock’s consternation faded to fondness as he looked at the pup, who was trying to lick his hand. “Basset Hound,” he corrected. “Here, Cal, time to take care of business.” He set the pup down on the grass, just off the front porch, and the little dog immediately began to sniff around with intent. Sherlock straightened, smiling at his new protégé. 

But just when the pup had settled to his “business”, a bit of white fluff dashed out the door and, as it passed, Sherlock uttered a cry of dismay and gave chase, onto the grass and along the flower bed next to the house. The pup joined in with a tiny, delighted bay, and Greg watched open-mouthed as Sherlock cornered the bit of fluff, which turned out to be a rather posh-looking kitten. Sherlock then caught both the animals up, one in each hand. 

“Bad Hobbes!” Sherlock scolded the kitten, and then noticed that the sash of his dressing gown had loosened somewhat in the chase. 

Yep. Precisely nothing on underneath. 

“Bloody hell!” Sherlock muttered, with a glance at Greg. But with his hands full of pup and kitten he was unable to remedy the situation and finally growled, “Just come inside, will you?” 

“Happy to,” Greg told him. This was becoming more amusing by the minute. 

Greg followed the comic trio into the flat, then closed the door as Sherlock bent down to carefully set his new pets on the tile floor. They bounded off to roughhouse while the detective straightened and adjusted his dressing gown, pulling the sash tight, rather firmly, before turning back to face Greg. 

“So. You have a case?” Sherlock asked, briskly, looking down his nose at Greg, obviously wishing to put the whole of the previous awkwardness aside. 

Greg subdued his smirk and began, “Yes, I’ve--” 

“Sherlock, Hobbes didn’t escape did he? He’s not--oh!” 

It was Molly who’d interrupted, coming down the stairs, a note of concern in her voice, until she suddenly noticed Greg standing there. Greg felt his jaw drop and his eyes widen, but really, how could he help it? If Sherlock’s fashion statement had been startling, it was nothing to this one of Molly’s. She was wearing a very skimpy garment of some sheer material, white with a delicate blue flower pattern, edged with lace and fastened at the sides with blue satin ribbons. And, again, nothing else. Greg had only seen her out of her loose-fitting work attire that once, at that unfortunate Christmas party in Baker Street, and that was years ago, now. Really, he would have been less than human if he hadn’t stared at the vision before him (and it was certainly worth staring at, he had to give her that). 

But he didn’t have long, for she gave a kind of horrified Eeep! and turned to scurry back up the steps and out of sight. 

Sherlock cleared his throat in a somewhat pointed manner. Greg turned to him, feeling a bit sheepish. 

But Sherlock apparently didn’t know quite what to say, either, for a moment -- which was a first. He was also turning rather pink. Greg was hard put not to burst out laughing. Presently, however, Sherlock did pull himself together, and said, coldly, “I trust I may rely upon your discretion?” 

Greg fought down his grin and said, “Yeah, of course you can. Won’t tell a soul.” 

Sherlock gave a small sigh and un-pokered somewhat. 

And then light footsteps were heard, coming down the steps. 

It was Molly, again, now decently swathed in a long, blue satin dressing gown. 

“Greg!” she said, smiling, if somewhat pink-cheeked herself. “Is everything alright?” 

“Yeah! Apparently things are just fine,” he replied, still carefully not grinning. 

Molly blushed rather pinker, but said, “We… ah… Sherlock is still recovering from… ah… everything.” 

Greg nodded and said, with what he knew to be admirable gravity, “It’s good of you to help the lad.” 

But even Molly couldn’t help giving a tiny snort of laughter at this, and Sherlock rolled his eyes, completely done with it. “For God’s sake, he’s here on a case, Molly!” 

“Are you?” she asked, brows rising. 

“Well, yes,” said Greg. “Can’t do without the world’s only consulting detective for too long, now, can I?” He subdued his mirth and dug out his mobile. “Here, both of you take a look and tell me what you think.” 

They did take a look -- Greg had brought some pictures, and he gave them a brief verbal rundown of the details. 

And then they argued about what they were looking at for about five minutes. 

Greg listened to the give and take of the conversation with interest. Sherlock wasn’t affording her any slack, but Molly held her own, and in the end Sherlock was nodding at a couple of the points she’d brought up, and they finally came to a consensus. 

“There you go,” Sherlock said at last, handing the phone back to Greg. “Is that all you wanted? Good. Let me see you out.” 

“Not going to offer me some tea or anything?” Greg managed to look hurt for about three seconds, but then desisted as Sherlock began to grind his teeth. “Alright, Romeo, I know when I’m not wanted.” 

“Romeo? Romeo?!” Sherlock exclaimed, outraged. “Romeo was an idiot!” 

Molly began to giggle helplessly, and Greg said, “Ah! But we’re all idiots in love, aren’t we?” 

“No, we are not,” Sherlock snapped, his feathers thoroughly ruffled. “Now get out! I’ll contact you tomorrow. Or next week -- if you’re lucky.” 

He opened the front door and, with a sweeping motion of his arm, encouraged Greg to leave. 

Greg said to Molly, “I’ll bid you a very good afternoon, then, Dr. Hooper.” 

“Thank you, Greg,” she said, smiling. 

He considered saying, Cheers, mate! to Sherlock but it seemed unwise to goad the lad further. Sherlock refrained from speech as well, though he did slam the door when Greg had barely stepped out onto the front porch. 

But then the sound of Molly’s unbridled laughter could be heard, and Sherlock’s voice, saying something sharpish, after which there was a bit of combined laughter and shrieking until it all faded into the distance -- up the stairs and into the bedroom again, no doubt. 

Greg could finally let loose, grinning and chuckling in delight as he made his way to the car, got in, started it, and set off down the road. Lord! What wouldn’t he give to tell someone of this miraculous, unprecedented turnaround. 

Sally Donovan would never believe it. 

And as for Anderson, well, there’d be no living with him, for obviously he’d been right about the pair of them all along.   

 o-o-o

  Contrition 

About a month later, Greg asked Sherlock to come out with him on a truly baffling case, “sure to be at least an eight on the Sherlock scale of interest.” 

“Hmm. I doubt it,” had said the consulting git, but in a strangely subdued manner. Still, he added, “Alright, come pick me up in half an hour.” 

Greg was, to put it mildly, taken aback. “Pick you up? You want to ride with me? In my car?” Sherlock never rode in a police car, if he could help it, even an unmarked vehicle. Greg had known him a long time and quite understood. The road to the current Sherlockian state of sobriety and domestic bliss had been long and bumpy indeed. 

But all Sherlock said now was, “Yes, why not? Problem?” 

“No!” Greg exclaimed. “See you at noon, then.” 

“Make it twelve fifteen,” Sherlock said, thoughtfully. “I need to shower.” 

Greg’s brows rose. “I’m not interrupting something again, am I?” 

“No, not at all. Molly had the early shift, left at some ungodly hour.” 

“Ah. OK. Good. Twelve fifteen then.” 

The weirdness continued. Sherlock was ready on time, gave Greg a perfunctory nod, and got in the car, but was far from his usual self. He seemed strangely quiet, almost preoccupied. Unhappily preoccupied. 

Trouble in paradise? Greg thought, but he said nothing about that. After they’d gone a few blocks he pointed out that there was a folder of pertinent evidence sitting on the dashboard. “If you’d care to take a look.” 

“Oh, yes. Sorry,” Sherlock said, and reached for the folder. 

‘Sorry’! Good God… 

Greg kept glancing over at him as he leafed through the notes and photographs. It didn’t take him long, and before more than a couple of minutes had passed the folder was closed on his lap and he was staring out the side window again. The phrase in a brown study popped into Greg’s head. 

“Well, what do you think?” he finally prodded. 

Sherlock gave a sort of shrug, and continued looking out the window, frowning, though he did offer, “Probably a five, and the brother-in-law did it, but I’ll be more certain when we get there.” 

Greg shook his head, exasperated. Of course “truly baffling” would be child’s play for Sherlock -- and he wasn’t even giving it his full attention. 

There was something going on. 

But it would have to wait. 

They arrived at the scene a few minutes later and Sherlock perked up a bit. “Maybe a seven after all,” he muttered, looking about him. He pulled out his little magnifying lens and went at it. 

The crime scene was an old house in Camden that had seen better days, quite dilapidated, with overgrown shrubbery that included roses and lots of them. After a few minutes, Greg noticed that Sherlock seemed more interested in these flowers than in the evidence to hand. 

“Oi, what are you doing? Got anything yet?” he asked.

“Yes, of course,” Sherlock replied, and in his usual style he rattled off a detailed summary of the many reasons it was obvious the brother-in-law had, indeed, done it.  But then, when he was finished, he added, “Now, what kind of roses do you think these are? These yellow ones.” 

Greg stared at him, then snapped, “How should I know? And what difference does it make?” 

Sherlock stiffened at the admonitory tone, then said, “Right. I’ll be in the car.” 

As he stalked away, Greg determined that he was going to get to the bottom of this mystery, far more baffling than the case of the murderous brother-in-law had been (apparently). 

He passed on Sherlock’s analysis of the case to his colleagues, who exclaimed over the clarity and perception of it. 

“Yeah, well, he’s good,” said Greg, “as we should all know by now. But he’s a bit off today, so I’ll let you blokes dot the i’s and cross the t’s while I take him home.” 

Various expressions of sympathy followed, and requests that Sherlock be given their best. 

“I will,” Greg said, trying to smile, then bade them adieu and headed out to the car. 

He slid into the driver’s seat and closed the door, but did not start the motor. Instead he turned toward Sherlock and said, “Alright, what’s going on? Have you been up to your old tricks with Molly? ‘Cause I tell you to your head, if you start bein’ a bastard to her again--” 

“I haven’t!” Sherlock protested, but then added, “I mean… not lately.” 

Greg lifted a brow. “So it’s something from the past? It isn’t like her to hold a grudge--” 

“She’s not.” Sherlock looked away for a moment, then pulled himself together and faced Greg manfully. “If you must know, she found out last night that I did remember her from university, though I’d pretended not to. That first time we first saw her at Bart’s. You remember. The Johnstone case.” 

Greg stared, recalling the occasion clearly for all it was ages ago. He almost blurted out, Why?!?, but stopped himself, and frowned. And glared a bit at Sherlock, too, because he knew exactly Why. So instead he asked, “How’d she find out?”  

“We met a… a mutual acquaintance. Last night, at a restaurant. He was a bastard, in our days at Oxford. We were all at a party, one of those all-out end-of-term things, and he lured Molly away and would’ve… well. He didn’t. I didn’t let him.” 

“My God! Rape?” Greg exclaimed, horrified even at this late date. 

“Yes. Possibly. He was big, a rugby player, team captain or something, and very drunk. She’d had too much herself -- he’d seen to that. And she was… small. Barely more than a child, really, thinking back on it. In her first year, and I was a teacher’s assistant in her organic chemistry class.” 

“I see,” said Greg, slowly, picturing how it must have been. “I suppose she was in love with you even then?” 

“Noooo!” Sherlock gave a roll of his eyes. “How could she when she didn’t know me at all?” 

Greg gave a humorless laugh. What Sherlock didn’t know about women -- women of all ages -- could fill a book. And if the git hadn’t been a young Adonis -- or something even more interesting -- Greg would eat that bloody deerstalker of his. 

“So. You already knew she was smart, and you used her schoolgirl crush. For years. Lord, no wonder she’s furious!” 

“Yes, she was,” Sherlock said, looking worried. “She’s not, now. Or she says she’s not. But… I’m afraid…” 

“I’d be afraid, too,” Greg agreed. 

Sherlock said, firmly, “I have to do something more than apologize. Will you take me by a florist’s shop? I thought--” 

“Yellow roses!” Greg smiled. “That’s a good start.” 

For the first time that day a bit of a smile appeared on Sherlock’s face. “Do you really think so?” 

Greg laughed. “I think you’ll be years making this up to her, but yeah, a dozen or two of roses, and maybe some chocolates, to start with. To go along with the groveling you’ll have to do -- because you know you will, right?” 

The smile faded, but instead of pokering up, he just looked crestfallen. “Yes. I expect so. Let’s go, then.”

 *

 It was nearing six o’clock on that warm, late-spring evening when Molly walked out her kitchen door and into the back garden, took in the scene before her, and cried, “What are you doing?!!” 

Greg straightened up and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, and Sherlock, his Dolce & Gabbana dress shirt sweat stained and coming loose from his trousers, gaped at her. 

“I thought you were going for drinks with Meena!” Sherlock said, almost resentfully. 

“I was,” Molly said, “but I begged off at the last minute.” She came down the steps and crossed the patch of lawn to where they stood, shovels in hand, hard by the garden wall, an enormous hole between them -- but not enormous enough for the monstrous tub of espaliered yellow rose bush that sat off to one side, flanked by a huge (and very heavy) bag of soil amendment, and a much smaller container of something called Miracle-Gro for Roses. “Sherlock, what is all this?” 

“I… I bought you roses, Molly,” Sherlock said, with rather less than his usual confidence. 

She stared at the plant, which was really a very pretty thing, if a bit out-sized. 

Greg said, “He looked at some cut roses, but didn’t like the idea that they’d just wilt in a few days. The florist suggested this garden center out in Battersea, nice selection, but Sherlock had to get the biggest one they had, of course. What with the size of it, and then the traffic to and from, it was a real project just getting it here.” 

Sherlock winced a bit. “I thought we’d be able to get it planted before you got home. I wanted to surprise you.” 

Molly looked at Sherlock, and then the rosebush again, and then the whole scene. And then back at Sherlock. She said, carefully not laughing, “You did.” 

Greg sighed in weariness and relief, as she came forward, Sherlock let his shovel fall, and they embraced and kissed. At length. With such affecting tenderness that Greg finally had to turn away, shaking his head. 

Finally Greg heard Molly say, huskily, “We can finish this tomorrow. Come inside.” 

“I love you, Molly,” came Sherlock’s soft voice. 

“I know. I love you, too,” she said, definitely teary now, and kissed him again, very gently. Then she cleared her throat and looked over at Greg. “Would you like to come in for a drink?” 

Greg laughed. “No thanks. I’ll just go on home, if you’re going to give up the gardening for tonight. Let me know if you need help with it tomorrow, though, eh?” 

“We will,” Molly said, with a somewhat tremulous smile. 

“I’ll text you,” said Sherlock. He came over and held out his hand, and when Greg took it in a firm grip Sherlock said, “And thank you, Greg. For everything.” 

Greg gave him a grin and said, quite sincerely, “My pleasure, mate. Any time.”      

 o-o-o

 The Graveyard Shift 

Here it was, two weeks before the wedding, and the level of discomfort in the morgue was such that Greg was tempted to knock Sherlock and Molly’s heads together and shout, Snap out of it! Molly had been all business since they’d arrived, and Sherlock seemed to have reverted to his previous mode of existence, causing her to go pale, then pink with anger by turns. She wasn’t just rolling over for him anymore, though. He was smart, but she was, too, and their sniping about the details surrounding the death of Mortimer Revesby, laid out before them on the slab, was almost too fast and furious to follow. 

What the devil had got into them? Greg wondered, so distracted by their antics that he almost missed that they’d come to a consensus on Revesby and Sherlock was now insisting that they all go off to the canteen for a cuppa, though there wouldn’t be much sustenance available since it was the middle of the graveyard shift. 

“Very well,” Molly finally said, rather coldly. “I’ll meet you up there.” 

Sherlock threw up his hands with a sound of disgust and headed for the door. 

Greg hovered, uncertain, but Molly said, “Well, go on. I’ll be there in five minutes.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” said Greg, humbly, and was relieved to see her lip quiver against a smile. 

He caught up with a stormy-looking Sherlock, joining him in the lift as he poked abusively at the button for the first floor. 

“Sherlock…” Greg began as the doors closed. 

“What?” Sherlock glared. 

Greg lifted a brow. “You know you’re marrying her in two weeks, right?” 

Some of Sherlock’s stiffness seemed to abate. “I… it must look odd to you…” 

“It looks very odd. I mean, considering.” Greg thought of these last six months, the obvious love between them, their tender regard for one another. 

Sherlock said, “She’s been… a trifle under the weather. Off her feed, so to speak. I specifically didn’t want her working any more graveyard shifts, and then she insisted she had to take this one, fill in for that dolt Sachdev so he could fly off to India for some family gathering. Or for Mike Stamford, really, since he’d agreed to take Sachdev’s shifts but couldn’t tonight, had tickets to take the family to some musical and couldn’t be here in time. But that’s Molly for you. Always letting people take advantage.” 

Greg refrained from saying, Yeah, and who’s the worst offender in that category, eh?, but Sherlock must’ve seen he was thinking it for he flushed and looked away, momentarily disconcerted. 

The doors opened then and they made their way out and down the hall to the canteen, nice and quiet in the wee hours. There was a small selection of cold comestibles, and drinks of all sorts. Greg picked up a chicken sandwich and a cup of coffee for himself, and Sherlock got teas (one of them decaffeinated, Greg noticed), and a likely dish of tapioca pudding with a dab of whipped cream for Molly (“She likes this pap. God knows why.”) 

They sat down at one of the many empty tables, and Sherlock put one packet of sugar in Molly’s tea (the decaf) and three in his own. Then he sat there, sipping and brooding, and making desultory replies to Greg’s attempts at small talk, until finally Molly came in, about five minutes later. 

She pursed her lips, but her eyes were softer than they’d been downstairs as she looked at her maddening fiancé. Greg noticed that she did look a bit pale, tired maybe. Sherlock might be right… there was something strange about the whole situation... and the wedding moved forward so suddenly, too, and the odd excuse Sherlock had presented for doing so when Greg had verbally RSVP’d to him the previous week… 

Sherlock stood up and pulled out a chair for Molly, and Greg was relieved to see that their eyes were soft on one another, now. Maybe the little storm was blowing over… 

But then, as Sherlock sat down again, Molly looked for the first time at the dish of tapioca. An odd, very uncomfortable expression swept over her face and she suddenly went dead white. 

“Molly?” Sherlock said sharply, sitting up very straight. 

Molly glanced up at him, said, rather muffled, “Have to use the loo,” and was up and out of the room like a shot. 

Pursued by an obviously panicked Sherlock. 

And of course Greg had to leap up and chase after them as well. 

He was down the hall in time to see Molly disappear into the loo, and it was evident that Sherlock was going to follow her right into the ladies’. 

“Sherlock!” Greg half-shouted, in a sort of nebulous warning, but he was ignored and Sherlock pushed his way inside. 

A female shriek that was not Molly’s sounded, then Sherlock’s scathing reply of “Get OUT!” was heard. 

As Greg came up to the door, the shrieker emerged, an older woman, red faced and blazing mad. “This is outrageous! Where is the manager!” she demanded, but continued on down the hall without waiting for any reply from Greg. 

Greg frowned after the woman, and hesitated, hearing some vague sounds from inside the loo that might have been retching, and Sherlock speaking in deep, soothing tones. He decided that it would be the better part of valor to just stay outside for a bit, guarding the door from intruders. 

Presently, however, all was quiet again. There was no sign of anyone coming to roust out any trespassing males of the species. And finally Greg left his post and shoved his way inside, to make sure everyone was still alive. 

He found them in one of the stalls, Sherlock seated on the toilet with a drooping Molly in his lap, her hand crushing the life out of his coat lapel while she softly wept into the opposite shoulder of it. Sherlock’s cheek was laid against her hair, and he was murmuring something, his arms tight around her. 

Greg felt more than a little awkward, interrupting them, but he cleared his throat and said, “Everything OK? You… ah… need anything?” 

Molly sat up, tear-streaked and sniffling, and Sherlock got a long strip off the loo roll and handed it to her. While she dried her tears and blew her nose, he said to Greg, “She’s going home. I’ve already texted Mike.” 

“But I’ll be on call,” Molly said to Sherlock, with gentle insistence. 

“Yes, very well,” Sherlock said, in the interest of détente. “And I’ll come with you if you have to return tonight. But no more, for all our sakes. Er… I mean both.” Sherlock glanced furtively at Greg. “Her’s and mine.” 

Greg gave him a crooked smile. “And junior’s?” 

Molly gave a watery chuckle and laid her head against Sherlock’s shoulder again, closing her eyes for a moment. 

But Sherlock flushed, hesitated, then said, stiffly, “We don’t want it generally known as yet.” 

Greg was grinning, now. “So that’s why the wedding’s in the dead of winter. I was wondering if that might be it. How far along?” 

“Just six weeks,” said Sherlock, sounding a bit worried. 

“But I’m fine!” Molly said, sitting up again, and looking at Greg for the first time. “It’s just a little nausea. Morning sickness, you know, because of the hormonal changes. Though unfortunately it’s not just in the morning, in spite of the name. I don’t think I’ll be able to look at tapioca pudding again for a while -- and I didn’t even get to eat any!” 

Sherlock smiled. “I’ll make you some dry toast when we get home.” 

“Yes,” said Molly. “I think I’d like that.” 

They got up, then, and when Molly went over to the sink and mirror to address the ravages (which really were very minor -- there was some color back in her cheeks and a glow of peace in her expression), Sherlock straightened his slightly crumpled and tear-stained coat and, indeed, his whole person, and said to Greg, “I… uh… once again, I trust we can rely on your discretion?” 

Greg chuckled to see him like this, so worried, and so proud, all at the same time. 

How far he’d come. How far they’d all come. 

So he said, “Of course you can. Molly Hooper isn’t the only one who can keep a secret now, is she?” And he gave the young git a congratulatory slap on the shoulder.

 ~.~

#sherlollyweek2018 #Sherlock #sherlolly

[sovinly]

So this is an idea which has been bugging me foreeeever. 2017 meets 1830 basically. Maybe E is alive in 1830 and when everything kinda collides he meets 2017 R? Or hell any of the boys (I would pay for 2017 Jehan to meet Parnasse. Or 1830 Joly/Boussett meeting 2017 Musichetta) 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼 (also I just found your Balance verse and I am in love. Bless you)

(Thank you for your kind words, anon-friend! Also, may I direct your attention to The Dead Knocked, which has deals with just that topic in its weird way?

For now, though, have some J/M/B metaphysical dream shenanigans full of snark and talking past things with humor! Because that’s how they do.)

Musichetta tends to dream in abstractions, fragments ofstories that repeat themselves as she remembers them, shifting landscapes ofshifting people, running from one narrative to another.

She doesn’t think she dreams, usually, of amalgamations likethis.

Her favorite tea shop, polished metal counters and a whitetile wall behind the bar, worn lavender curtains draped in the windows, jammedhaphazardly into an old building with creaking wood floors and a slanted roof.Oysters and cheese and ham lounging on a table beside crisp pastry and steamingcups of tea.

“My goodness, what a strange sight,” Joly sighs, a strangeJoly clad in an old fashioned coat, all his hair awkwardly twisted into curls,his gaze flitting about as a sparrow’s. “And a stranger Musichetta!”

“A stranger Joly, too,” Musichetta retorts, even in her dreamdiscomfort as he studies her very sharply. She looks to Laigle, whose coat isthreadbare and who looks much betterbald, not flattered in the least by a receding hairline. “Are you going to callme strange too, starshine?”

“That is darling,”Laigle exclaims, as though startled. “If very strange! But, Joly, I cannotspeak for you, but I, at least,recall falling to lie dying, so I will excuse the lady a touch of strangenessto see her face.”

Joly’s face does a painful contortion. “To continue in the veinof strange, I hope that I find myselfhallucinating in my death throes, rather than to have you both here. TheCorinthe, indeed, and somewhere else – surely not even Prouvaire’s future callsfor such unearthly Spartan décor.”

“I would like toknow why you both think you’re dying,” Musichetta says, crossing her arms.Their jokes so rarely run to fatalism, and she’s sure she hasn’t read enoughmid 19th-century literature for it to have seeped into her dreams.

“Then I would like to know why your hair is so short andyour garb so strange!” Laigle drapes himself against a wall, and his fondnessis bare on his face. “I thought you admired Joly’s acquisition of new trousersfor the sake of their delectable effect on his form, not envy for your own.Though perhaps our mores are short-sighted!”

“Perhaps this is a more metaphysical arrangement?” Jolyoffers, tapping his nose with a cane near to hand. “Surely a kind God wouldusher us along together, my dear friend. And a fitting guide! God made death,and, seeing His error, created Musichetta.”

“Quod erat demonstrandum!” Laiglelaughs, but it sounds a little sad. “And who am I to say that heaven’s robesare not such as these? Do you guide us, Mademoiselle Musichetta?”

She watches them, the way she can in a dream, when herfrustrated confusion is dimmed by that faint awareness. Neither of them arereligious, so far as she knows: Joly’s family is Catholic, loosely, but itmostly shows up as fodder for puns.

“Well, if you’re dead, I’d make a very poor guide,” shesays. But for all the strangeness of a dream, she really does hate to see thenso consternated. “And dress isn’t the first thing I’d think to address.”

“I suppose we cannot doubt the address,” Laigle quips,flourishing a hand at their surroundings. “Tell me, if nothing else, wherefalls God on the question of dancing?”

“I don’t know God’s feelings on it, but I’m for it,” Musichettatells him dryly, and, feeling very dramatic, snaps her fingers.

Music pipes its way through the speakers she knows are setinto the ceiling, the grand swelling violins and piano in Classical suddenlyresolving themselves in her ears as the now too-familiar strains of Despacito,and she laughs so hard she shakes with it. Joly and Laigle, or theirold-fashioned dream selves, are laughing nearly as hard, a familiar warmfeeling.

“A dance?” Joly offers with a bow, and leans his cane on achair as he holds his hands up in position for a waltz.

“Why not?” Musichetta, still laughing, steps forward andsets her hand in his, tries to fumblingly remember the steps. Dream-Joly seemsto know what he’s doing, at any rate, so she goes along with it. “You seem waytoo light-footed for a dying man, you know. I think you might be a-okay.”

“I am very glad I’ve no longer a cold!” Joly tells her,laughing, but it trails into something softer and more tender as he looks ather, the familiar lines of his face made suddenly strange. “You always had theloveliest eyes. It would have been such a shame to never see them – it occurredto me more than once, these past few days. Musichetta, ah, the very flower ofyouth.”

“I always liked you with bedhead,” she replies, teasing, butsoftens all the same and leans forward for a brief kiss. “Your eyes, too, andyour kindness, and your puns.”

“And my Republican ideals?”

“And your radical politics,” she agrees. “Seeing, you know,as I share them.”

Joly smiles, steals a kiss, and lets Laigle step in toswitch out partners.

“Do you adore my eyes as well?” he asks her, raising hiseyebrows suggestively. He is fleet of foot, as always, all languid grace in herarms. “Perhaps my wealth and fine head of hair?”

“Try your humor and your quips,” she snips back. “Maybe yourcommitment to your studies?”

“A cruel hit from a cruel mistress,” he gasps, but he smilesas he says it, and his face is no less fond or achingly soft than Joly’s. “SomethingI have ever admired in you. Heaven or no, what say you of your world?”

Musichetta considers it, falling into the lulling rock ofthe steps. “Often cruel, but salvageable. In need of kindness and laughter, andpeople working to make it better.”

Laigle smiles and kisses her too. “Yes, I think so. If youthink so, I can be assured our own striving was not in vain, though I would ratherhave liked to roost again on your branches.”

“You and Joly, always flying off with all those wings,”Musichetta agrees, and kisses him again. “I’m always glad to see you.”

Joly moves to cut in again and Musichetta sweeps out of theway, leaves them facing one another.

They pause, staring at one another with some kind ofunknowable grace. Slowly, they take one another’s hands and shift back intostep with the music, still playing, defamiliarized, above them. Their headsbend close, speaking so quietly even she can’t hear, and share the sort ofsoft, lingering kiss that she knows means heavy, heavy moments.

Tucked together as seamlessly as always, they move acrossthe room, words intercut with a quiet burst of laughter.

Musichetta stands back, smiling and content to watch, thesestrange mirrors of a dream. Even as her dreams begin to pull her away, Joly andLaigle’s steps carry them further and further until they fade from the café,waltzing in wool coats to the fading sounds of a summer pop hit.

#sovin writes things #joly/bossuet/musichetta #J/M/B #modern au #canonical character death cw #well #it's implied #in the canon part #sort of? #both #definitely both #did i think i would write metaphysical dreamscape shenanigans #including both recent pop hits and implications of canonical character death? #no #but that's where we are! #musichetta is wonderful everyone else can go home #joly is perpetually aware of the fourth wall #bossuet just runs into walls #thank you for the prompt anon!! #i hope you like it! #and sorry for the delay! #Anonymous

[general-du-vallon]

for @canadiangarrison​. I don’t know that I like it yet so I’m not posting it on AO3 and linking it to the Harry Potter au lololol 

Porthos is sure this is the address. It’s weird though, not what he expected. Then again, what had he expected? Some kind of tower, maybe, or a spindly skinny house, or something drab, or maybe a house with a tartan pattern. Instead it’s a farm. He’s apparated into a field. There is mud. He looks across at Athos, who’s managed to apparate onto the driveway, and picks his way over, rifling his pockets for the little bit of paper he was given after much charming and begging and cajoling and wheedling. When he climbs over the stile Athos raises an eyebrow at Porthos’s muddy shoes so Porthos spells them irritably cleaner to keep the mockery at bay. It doesn’t help: Athos squints into the field. He finds the scrap of paper and examines it, examines the house, and nods.

“This is it,” he says.

“Am I going with you? She’ll be madder the more of us there are,” Athos says.

“You mean she’ll be mad at you too if you go and if you don’t she won’t be,” Porthos says.

“That too. I’ll wait here,” Athos says, perching on the stile and pulling out a book. “You couldn’t do a warming charm, could you?”

“No,” Porthos says, making for the house. He does, though, because he’s a pushover. Athos giggles as the warm air gets into all his ticklish spots.

Scotland looks like any other middle of nowhere, Porthos thinks, looking around him. Except not, because here is a little house dug in to a hillside and Scotland as far as the eye can see is less neat patchwork fields and more slightly terrifying wildness. Porthos can follow the driveway to a lane and then a road, and there are patchwork fields, and far, far away another far, and closer some more buildings. He’s startled by a dog. She surely doesn’t have a dog. It shows very little interest in Porthos, merely glaring and moving out of his path to lie in the lee of the house, with another dog. Sheepdogs, maybe. Working dogs, probably. Porthos is relieved to find an old fashioned rope bell-pull, that at least is in-keeping. He gives it a cheerful tug and stuffs his hands into his pockets. He put on robes for this but they are robes with pockets. Good pockets. He’s happy about his pockets. The doors opens.

“Vallon,” professor McGonagall says, mouth a thin line or irritation.

“Um, yeah,” Porthos says, suddenly thinking this is a very very bad idea she probably has all sorts of reasons for not giving out her address. He scratches the back of his neck.

“Well you’d best come inside,” she says, opening the door wider.

He does, politely removing his shoes and cloak, standing holding both under McGonagall’s scrutiny. She’s wearing a black dress and tartan shawl and her hair is only loosely tugged up into a bun. She looks relaxed. Even casual. She makes a sharp sound and indicates another door. He pushes it open and finds a small room lined with coat hooks, a sink at the ends, wellies everywhere. He hangs up his cloak with the other cloaks and stares in consternation at the muggle coats. There’s a very old ratty Gryffindor scarf and hat, and a red pair of wellies with a badly drawn lion peeling off.

“Well?” McGonagall says, so he comes out.

She closes the door, it has a heavy metal latch, old fashioned. That too is in-keeping. She leads him down the hallway, down three stone steps, and into a big, open kitchen. It’s warm, there’s an Aga and the floor is flagged stone but they’re warm stone - Porthos senses magic in the flags. The light is soft, from side lamps at the far end where there’s an area of overstuffed furniture, beyond a big wood table. There’s a kettle on the hob and as they walk in it whistles, lifting itself off and filling a tea pot with floats down the room to the soft furnishings and a coffee table where there are two pink mugs, fine bone-china, a beautiful sugar blue sugar bowl that matches, a blue milk-jug which doesn’t. There’s a cat curled up in the window, and another comes over to purr and wind itself around Porthos’s legs.

“Not the postman?” Comes a voice from the armchair with a high back, a broad Scottish accent turning the vowels unfamiliar, the chair facing away making the owner of the voice invisible until she stands up and looks over.

She’s small, a little bent, with copious amounts of thick dark grey hair. Her face is lined and sun-beaten, she looks strong. She’s smiling warmly. She’s holding knitting. She gives McGonagall a look and McGonagall gives an exasperated one in return and the woman looks Porthos over once before bursting into a peel of laughter.

“You’re Porthos Vallon,” she says, sounding amused. “Excellent! How ever did you find us? Come, sit. Minerva, get another mug for our guests, and ginger biscuits. I like ginger biscuits, don’t you, Porthos?”

“Not really,” Porthos admits, going over to take the hand she’s holding out, knitting stowed under her arm. She takes his in both hers and smiles up at him, face full of laughter.

“Minerva has lots of complaints about you, it sounds like you liven things up to me though. Then again, I chose to work with nothing but cows and sheep, go weeks without seeing another human. Much the better life, in my opinion,” she says.

“Oh,” Porthos says. “This is your land?”

“Yep. I bought the place in 1969 and I’ve been looking after this earth ever since. Minerva says that makes me an honorary witch,” she says.

“You have me at a disadvantage,” Porthos says. His hand is still held in hers. It’s warm and he finds himself smiling, he adds his other hand to their little knot. “I don’t know your name.”

“That’s right,” she says, grinning widely, eyes sparking with mischief and a certain slyness creeping into her expression. “And you don’t know why Minerva lives here, either.”

“If the two of you would let go of one another so we might sit down?” Mcgonagall says, stiffly, finally coming over.

They both do and Porthos perches on the sofa, not looking away from this new woman. She sits back in her chair with a serene, smug look and goes back to her knitting. Porthos is sure he’s not getting an introduction. Minerva clears her throat and Porthos draws his gaze reluctantly away, helping himself to tea and slumping back in the comfy sofa.

“Thought I’d better find you, before term began,” Porthos says.

“I already reinstated you all as teachers,” Minerva says.

“Yeah,” Porthos says, and clears his throat. “That’s what I thought I’d better see you about.”

“If you tell me you’re not coming back afterall I’ll make you plough the blasted back field by hand without magic, with the plough we’ve bloody well kept from the 18th bloody century,” Minerva says, glaring across at the other woman, who knits on ignoring the look. A third cat comes in, a younger one, and bats at the ball of wool as it twitches.

“No, no, I’m looking forward to teaching again,” Porthos says. “And the others are too, we all missed it believe it or not.”

“Spit it out, Vallon, before I lose what little patience I have for this visit.”

“I dunno what to say,” Porthos admits, sitting up and looking into his teacup. He quite wants one of the ginger biscuits now. It would be something to do with his hands. Minerva lets out a long breath and then softens.

“How about you begin at the beginning?” she says.

“Yeah ok. I went to hunt ice dragons, a bit of adventure, live a bit of life. I thought maybe I’d get a taste for it, maybe I’d… I’ve always thought that stuff in the past might’ve been holding me back, that I was being safe, and yeah, I was a bit. I liked the adventure, I might do more of that in the future. Hands on transfiguration was fun, and I liked thinking on my feet, and I really used my skills.”

“It’s not what you expected?” Minerva asks.

“No, not that. Though, not really what I expected. Since we’ve been back, Aramis has been working on his past stuff, and… I’ve got to thinking, and I want more,” Porthos says, softly. “Seeing everyone in Diagon Alley with their families, and seeing my family around me, I love them all to bits don’t get me wrong but I want more. I want a baby.”

Minerva is silent. Porthos risks looking at her. She’s staring at him in complete shock. Which, fair enough, it’s not a desire he’s ever really made clear to anyone, even himself. Usually when it comes up he’ll cite his age, and Athos’s age, and their complicated situation with Aramis though really it’s very simple and only complicated by idiotic social convention. He lifts his chin defiantly. Just because he’s never been able to choose ‘yes’ to ‘do you want children’ doesn’t mean that ‘no’ was an actual decision. Minerva looks back at him, shock clearing.

“And? What am I to do about this?” she asks.

“We’re gonna adopt. We’re gonna need testimonies are stuff, I wanted to ask you,” Porthos says. “And I’m going to do the first few months of parenting so I’ll need time off,” he ducks his head to hide his smile. “Paternity leave. And then Aramis is probably gonna quit because he quite likes the idea of being a stay at home Dad, but not at once because he loves babies an awful lot but is worried he’s not good enough at it so we’re gonna ease him in and wait until he’s confident. I’m babbling. I’m excited about this.”

“I would be happy to write you as many testimonials you require,” Minerva says. “I will help you start a family, if that’s what you want.”

“I want it,” Porthos says. “I didn’t know how much until I admitted to myself that maybe it’s possible after all. My aunt is gonna help us too, and Aramis’s brother, and d’Artagnan and Constance have both agreed to write letters for us. We found a service that sets up private arrangements, they’re sort of specialists for matching people in different life situations.”

When he looks up again Minerva is looking not at him but at the woman, who’s still knitting but has the softest, sappiest, most affectionate smile on her face. Minerva tsks and gets up abruptly, going to fetch a biscuit tin. She offers Porthos one which isn’t ginger then shows him out. He doesn’t get a name but he knows perfectly well now why it is Minerva lives here. He turns, out on the steps, the dogs still there ignoring him.

“I’m glad you’re happy afterall,” Porthos says. “I always thought you lost someone and just stopped looking.”

“I did,” Minerva says. Then gives him the fiercest look he’s ever received from her: he steps back and raises a hand. “I was hardly ‘looking’. She tried to sell me a pig.”

Porthos does not laugh. Minerva nods and closes the door with great dignity. He really wants to ask for a name, but he can’t bring himself to. The door opens again.

“I didn’t buy the pig,” Minerva clarifies. “So she married me instead.”

Then the door snaps shut and doesn’t open again. Porthos heads back down the path to the gate and out onto the driveway, back to the stile. Athos hops down and throws his arms around Porthos, kissing his cheek, then links their arms and sets them walking. Porthos doesn’t question it, just lets Athos meander for a while, liking having him close.

“She said yes,” Athos says.

“She said yes,” Porthos agrees. “She’s married, to a muggle.”

“Really?” Athos says.

“I’m not to tell anyone,” Porthos says, guilty. Athos sniffs. Porthos blushes a bit. They walk in silence.

“I think she’s known you long enough to know how long that will last,” Athos says, eventually, amusement seeping into his words.

“Maybe. I got no name,” Porthos says, chagrined. Athos does laugh, at that. “What?”

“Porthos, that farm is called Gaw’s Farm, there’s a sign, and the post-box says Elspeth Gaw on it,” Athos says. “And Gaw’s Farm is written on the top of your little bit of paper, along with Elspeth House. There must be other addresses on the farm.”

“She named her house after herself,” Porthos says. “That’s not an obvious thing.”

“No,” Athos agrees. “But it’s also on the post box, and also Professor McGonagall has mentioned an Elspeth, I thought she was a friend they were going for drinks or something.”

“Ok ok,” Porthos says. “Are we ever going to disapparate?”

“I’m side-alonging you, no more fields.”

“You’re horrible,” Porthos grumbles.

He takes Athos’s hand, though, and they twist on the spot, vanishing, leaving nothing but the fields and the empty track and evening drawing in.

#fic #mine #harry potter au #porthos

[captainwhogotthecanary]

Captain Canary, Future, Fluff, Letters

This jumped into my head after I watched a Netflix movie(enjoyable enough, but I think Sara would’ve hated it), and I realized my ideaworked for one of my few remaining prompts from APRIL. So I hope it’s okay you’regetting a Christmassy prompt fill when I know it’s not what you expected!

Set some time in the future wheneverything’s fixed. Also on AO3.

“Gideon, turn off the TV.” Sara glares at the screen, evenafter it’s gone blank, and Leonard can practically feel her consternationgrowing. When she turns to look at him, he arches an eyebrow. “What the helldid we just watch?” she demands.

“A feel-good Christmas movie.” Leonard keeps both expressionand tone dry. “You said they remind you of Laurel.”

“Yeah, but—” Sara gestures at the TV. “What even was that? I ignored how bad they were atarchery, because I expect moviesaimed at women to get that sort of thing wrong. And then the whole thing withthe wolf: who in their right mind thinks you should sit on the ground and callfor help when there’s a wolf? Who thinksthat, Len?” He opens his mouth to respond, but Sara continues. “I canalmost get past the fact that an entire country’s laws were rewritten byletters and poems from a dead dude. But then the happy ending is them gettingengaged when they don’t even know each other. She’s going to leave the entirecontinent behind and marry a guy she was lying to the whole time they were…They weren’t even together!”

“So I can’t tell,” Leonard drawls, “did you like the movie?”

Sara huffs and turns toward him. “I think I would’ve beenfine with it if it hadn’t ended that way. Why does a happy ending have toinclude marriage?”

“It was a movie riddled with clichés, by design,” heresponds. “Of course the happy ending had to include marriage. They’ll probablyhave two children, too, and the father will fall in love with the palacemanager. There’s probably a puppy at some point.”

“I just hate the assumption, that’s all.” She searches hiseyes as if begging him to understand that she’s serious. “People can livehappily ever after without marriage, even if it includes monogamous romance.”

He thinks about his options. He suspects that marriage is includedin many people’s ideas of happily ever after, and he’s sure Sara knows that.Asking her whether she herself wants to get married seems like he’s probablymissing the point. Leonard tucks a leg back so he can turn to face her, too. Theirlegs are almost touching on the small couch. “What would you write as thehappily ever after?”

Some of the tension leaves her shoulders. “They just don’thave to be married. A good relationship doesn’t have to include a ring.Marriage is fine, not saying I have anything against it, and if it makes thepeople happy, then they should getmarried. It’s just the idea that it’s required that sits wrong with me, youknow?” She’s calmer now, but no less passionate, and when he nods inacknowledgement, her breathing slows. “I think I’d just end it with a kiss.There’s already the grand romantic gesture just by showing up, and then theaudience can fill in whatever they want. The kiss says they’re together, and it’sa holiday romance, so we know everything’s gonna be okay after that.”

Leonard’s eyes flicker to her lips, briefly enough that Saraprobably wouldn’t notice if she were anybody else. As it is, she smirks, butshe stays quiet, giving him a chance to respond. He questions himself for amoment before he says what’s on his mind.

“So the kiss at the Oculus,” he starts, watching herintently, “was that a happy ending?”

She doesn’t break eye contact. “No. I mean, there was thebig gesture and all, if what you did for Mick counts for anyone other than Mick,and then the kiss was…” She pauses. “But then you died, and we didn’t gettogether when you came back. We’re not in a holiday romance, though, so itdoesn’t follow the same rules.” Sara places a hand on his knee, and he glancesat the point of contact before looking back at her.

“What if we were?” he asks. “If this was a cheesy holidaymovie, what would come next?”

She’s still watching him, with intensity that rivals hisown. “Well,” she says, “it’s gotta be heteronormative, right, so I’d leave,hurt, because I didn’t think you wanted me. And then you’d show back up in somedramatic fashion and tell me that you want to be with me. That you’ve always wanted to be with me.”

“At least since you accused me of staring at your ass,” hesays, easy, and she smirks again.

“At least since then. And I’d come up with some concern thatdoesn’t really get in the way, like—“

“Like what if the crew doesn’t listen to you because you’redating a man?” he suggests, and Sara chuckles.

“Something like that, yeah. And then I’d tell you I’m inlove with you, and if we ever get married, it’ll be because we want to, notbecause we have to.”

Leonard searches her eyes, failing to find any hint ofreluctance or uncertainty, and leans forward. Sara does the same, and he pauseswith a scant inch between their lips.

“I think you’re forgetting something,” he says, and her eyesdrop to his mouth.

“We’d kiss, and then we’ll live happily ever after.” Shebarely finishes the sentence before she’s pressing her lips to his, it’s a fewminutes pass before she comes up for enough air to mutter something abouthorrible movies leading to unexpected places, and Leonard captures her lipsonce more.

Personally, Leonard doesn’t think the movie was so bad.After all, it did end with a kiss.

#captain canary #captain canary fic #prompt fill #christmas movie fic #future #I don't even #what are tags #I hope you like this #my fic #agentmarymargaretskitz

[chasingthecosmos]

Call Me But Love

Fandom: Doctor Who Rating: T Pairing: The Doctor/Rose Tyler, Twelfth Doctor/Rose Tyler (The Doctor/Clara Oswald, Twelfth Doctor/Clara Oswald) Chapters: 18/40 Read on AO3 here.

“‘Oh, dear. Looks like we might have picked up an extra passenger,’ the Doctor grumbled to himself. His gaze raised to Rose’s once more and she was struck by the sheer intensity of it and the way that he managed to look at once so familiar, and yet so different from what she was used to. ‘Best find something to hold on to,’ he warned her ominously.”

A Season 8 & 9 AU centering around Rose Tyler and her newly-regenerated Doctor as they both struggle to maintain their relationship in the face of some unknown force that seems to be drawing them together. Will they be able to solve the mystery of who is pulling the strings before it’s too late?

This is a direct sequel to “By Any Other Name” and might be a bit confusing if you haven’t read that first.

“I need to speak to whoever’s in charge here,” the Doctor demanded, scowling darkly at the female droid before them and attempting desperately to regain some shred of dignity once more.

“I am in charge,” Missy insisted pointedly.

“Well, who’s in charge of you?” the Doctor continued to press.

“I’m in charge of me,” the droid replied simply.

“Who repairs you?” the Doctor growled with a frustrated huff.  “Who maintains you?”

“I am programmed for self-repair,” she explained in her robotic monotone.  “I am maintained by my heart.”

Rose nearly stumbled backwards over her own two feet as the droid suddenly elbowed past her once more in order to stand directly before the Doctor, her hand grabbing his wrist and bringing his palm up to rest against the center of her chest with a dramatic, eager gasp.

“Is everything in order?” she asked, her tone low and suggestive in a way that made Rose’s blood begin to boil.  The only thing that kept her biting retort in check was the shock of fear that she could feel shoot through her bondmate’s thoughts as the niggling sensation in the back of the Doctor’s mind suddenly began to grow and coalesce into a single, loud warning alarm.

Doctor?  Rose asked curiously through their bond.   What's wrong?

He didn't have an immediate response for her that made any sort of sense.  He just continued to radiate a sense of growing discomfort that made Rose's skin itch and her heart beat unevenly in her chest.

“Who maintains your heart?” he breathed quietly as he met the droid’s gaze with a weighted expression on his face, searching the creature’s eyes for the answers to the many desperate questions that Rose could feel running through his head.

“My heart is maintained by the Doctor,” Missy replied with a sly smile.

Another spike of uneasiness echoed within the Doctor's mind that made Rose's stomach twist uncomfortably as he stared hard at the droid from under his thick, furrowed brows and asked, "Doctor who?”

The droid flashed him a pointed smirk before she twisted her head and called out rudely, “Doctor Chang!”

Missy was off without another word, bustling down the hallway of the eerie mausoleum without a backwards glance to retrieve whoever the mysterious Doctor Chang was.  The Doctor, however, remained as he was, his hand raised in the air before him while he stared at it in wide-eyed, curious wonder.

Doctor? Rose tried again, pulling forcefully against his thoughts as she slowly stepped forward and wrapped her fingers around his outstretched hand, gently bringing his arm back down to his side once more.

Be on your guard, Rose,  he warned her silently, his fingers nervously squeezing against hers as he turned and stared hard down the hallway after the welcome droid.   Something’s not right here …

Doctor, what is it? Rose asked tentatively, her bondmate’s nervousness making her feel unbalanced and fidgety.

Do you feel it? he asked, suddenly turning to lock his intense blue gaze on hers as they continued to stand hand-in-hand before one of the watery graves lining the walls.

Feel what? Rose asked searchingly.

The Doctor gritted his teeth together as he mentally reached for Rose's presence in his mind and gently guided her towards the corner of this thoughts that were currently screaming a red alert at him.  It was almost as though another entity was pounding against his mental defenses while at the same time stubbornly evading detection. It was like nothing that Rose had ever experienced before, and it made her shiver with a haunting sense of trepidation.

What is that?  she asked curiously.   Is this some weird Time Lord thing?

I don’t know yet,  the Doctor admitted as he glared back down the hallway once more and set his gaze on the two figures who were now walking eagerly towards them,  but I intend to find out.

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

The room that the curious Doctor Chang led them to was a strange sort of lab filled with mismatched, posh equipment and yet another glass tank filled with what he referred to as “dark water”.  However, that was really the least of Rose’s concerns as the young, bespectacled doctor explained to them the truth behind the three words that his institute was based on and the horrible reality of their situation began to settle over her in waves.

“Fakery!” the Doctor declared angrily, before Rose could get a word in edgewise  “All of it - it’s a  con , it’s a racket!”

Personally, Rose was inclined to agree with him, but there was no denying the voice of Danny Pink that suddenly rang out through the room around them, calling her name in pained desperation as he attempted to reach across the expanse of death that lay between them and find her once more.

“Clara?  Clara, are you there?”

“Danny!” she breathed in quiet disbelief.  “I can hear you, is that you?”

However, before Rose could get any sort of information out of the strange, disembodied voice, the signal connecting them was suddenly disrupted and Danny’s voice faded into indiscernible white noise.

“This isn’t possible,” the Doctor reminded Rose quietly.  “The dead  don’t come back.”

You sound pretty sure of yourself,  Rose snapped in silent response as she whirled around to fix a glare in his direction.   I’ve seen you do far more than that before.  How many times have you faced impossible odds and seen them through?  How many times have  you,  yourself, come back from the dead, Doctor?

Rose … the Doctor attempted to reason with her.

However, his words were cut off as the signal was boosted, the connection reestablished, and suddenly Danny’s voice was calling out for Clara again from the clear monitor on Doctor Chang’s desk.

“Clara, can you hear me?” he asked breathlessly.

“Yes, Danny, I can hear you,” she responded without a second thought.  “Can you hear me?”

“Yeah, yeah, I can hear you!” he answered back eagerly.

I don’t like this … the Doctor reminded Rose silently through their connection.

“What do I do?” Rose asked him expectantly, turning to meet the Doctor’s intent, blue gaze.  She wasn't sure what to believe in that moment, but Danny's voice was so clear and so eager to hear from her again, and Rose found herself wishing more than anything that this could really be as simple and harmless as it seemed.  She had seen far more ridiculous things during her time with the Doctor, after all. Just this once, couldn't things be easy for them? Didn't the universe owe them that?

Doctor, he’s there - that’s  him, she insisted warily.   He could still be alive.  We could still save him …

The Doctor's responding sense of sympathy for Rose's current turmoil made her jaw clench in determination as she stubbornly refused to accept his soft, reassuring thoughts.  She didn't want his sympathy right now, she wanted his support. She wanted his clear and honest opinion and then she wanted to sort this whole mess out and get to the bottom of what was going on here.

“Question him,” the Doctor ordered her simply, when he at last resigned himself to his bondmate's stubborn will with a small sigh.  “Ask him questions only he’d know the answer to. Be sure.”

“And what are you going to do?” Rose asked hesitantly.

“I’ve got to check out those tanks,” the Doctor replied distractedly.   And that droid,  he added silently.  “There’s something that I’m  missing  …”

Be careful, Rose warned him as he turned and commanded Doctor Chang to follow him out of the room and leave her alone with the monitor that was currently still projecting Danny’s panicked, fearful voice into the room around them.

You, too,  the Doctor replied just as warily.   Be  sure  Rose - don’t just hear what you want to hear.  There’s something deeper going on here, and for whatever reason, it’s centering around you.  Be cautious. Make  sure  it’s him.

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

Unfortunately, no matter what Rose thought to ask, there was simply no way of being absolutely certain that the voice currently speaking with her was actually connected to Danny himself.  In fact, as Rose continued to speak with him at length, she began to realize how little she actually knew about the man in question. How could she possibly be sure if it was really him or not?

The sensation of the Doctor’s rising panic on the other side of their mental connection certainly wasn’t helping matters, either.  Rose could practically hear her heartbeat pounding in her ears as she attempted to calm her bondmate and reason with Danny both at the same time.

It’s Missy,  the Doctor realized suddenly, the force of the revelation making it sound like he was shouting the words directly into Rose’s head.   It’s been her all along.

Doctor, what’s going on? Rose asked desperately as she raked her hands through her hair and nervously bit her lip in consternation.

Cybermen,  he replied, the terror behind the single, horrifying word making Rose’s heart skip a beat in fear.   Cybermen and Time Lord technology.  No, it can’t possibly be …

“You’re a Time Lord,” Rose heard the Doctor mutter breathlessly through their connection as he looked the lady in the purple dress up and down with a sharp, assessing gaze.

“Time Lady, please,” Rose heard Missy reply loftily, “I’m …  old-fashioned .”

Rose shot to her feet without needing to hear another word, whirling around in an attempt to chase after her bondmate before she realized that there was a large, silver cyberman already looming over her, the dark water tank that had been sitting at her back completely drained and leaving behind a single metal suit.

“ Doctor !” Rose called out desperately.

The center of London …  the Doctor replied distractedly.   Hundreds of cybermen right in the center of London …

Doctor, what are we going to do? Rose asked as she began slowly backing away from the giant silver monster that was currently standing motionless before her, its dead, black eyes staring straight through her.

The Doctor’s only response was a single, two-syllable name:  Master …

It took Rose a moment to place the name, but the emotions that followed behind it and the memories that bubbled up from within him and overflowed through their bond were clear enough, and she understood immediately who had been behind all of this - the person who had been pulling the strings from the very beginning, leading her and the Doctor together ever since she had returned to this parallel universe.

The Master?  she asked, her own terror quickly rising to match the Doctor’s.   How is that possible?

She knew of the Master through conversations with the Doctor's duplicate in her parallel world, but even though they had been married for nearly seven decades, Rose had never been able to convince her husband to give her much more information about him (or  her  ?) other than the name.  The Doctor could go on for hours about different alien species ranging from the fascinating to the terrifying, but he never seemed to want to divulge much about his old friend other than to say that they grew up together and he (  she ?) had been haunting the Doctor's travels ever since he left Gallifrey.

Rose, I’m so sorry, the Doctor replied desperately as she felt the connection between them waver as their combined, overwhelming emotions threatened to silence it completely.

Stay inside - stay  safe.   I’m going to get us out of this, he reassured her vehemently.

Sorry, dear, but that’s never going to happen,  Rose reminded him as she squared off against the encroaching cyberman and raised her chin stubbornly into the air as she stared the creature down and refused to so much as flinch.   I’m coming to help.

Rose watched in silent trepidation as the cyberman before her slowly seemed to revive, it’s mechanical parts whirring slightly before it suddenly snapped its head up and pointed it’s weaponized arm threateningly in her direction.

“Stop!” she cried out, jolting in fear despite herself as she did her best to face off against the deadly mechanical creature looming before her.  “You can’t kill me.”

“Incorrect,” the cyberman stated plainly.

“No, no, no, that would be a  very big mistake,” Rose insisted chidingly as she crossed her arms against her chest and raised an imperious brow at the thing.  “You don’t know who I am.”

The cyberman paused only long enough to do a quick scan before it began advancing on her once more.  “You are Clara Oswald,” it stated matter-of-factly. “You are human. You are unimportant.”

“Ha!” she huffed dismissively.  “You might want to scan again, there, big guy.  Clara Oswald is a cover story; a disguise. There is  no  Clara Oswald.”

The cyberman paused once more as the weapon on it’s arm powered up and whirred to life.  “Identify,” the cyberman insisted.

“Oh, you lot really  are slow, aren’t you?” she muttered, rolling her eyes condescendingly as she shifted her weight into a petulant stance and shook her head at the creature.  “I’m not Clara Oswald. Clara Oswald has never existed.”

“Identify,” the cyberman repeated pointedly.

“Have you got records of Canary Wharf in your databases?  Do you have memories of the last time the cybermen tried to come to earth?” Rose continued haughtily as she strolled casually closer to the dangerous silver monster.  “Ever wonder what happened to them?”

“Identify,” the cyberman commanded once more, its robotic tone managing to sound even more threatening than normal as it matched her movements and took an intimidating step closer to her.

“I’m the Bad Wolf,” Rose replied ominously, facing the cyberman and staring it straight in its dead, black eyes.  “I’ve turned daleks to dust and pulled cybermen into a never-ending hell. I exist across all of time and space. I know everything that has and is and will happen.”

She tilted her head to the side and flashed the metal creature a sharp, feral grin.  “Long time, no see,” she murmured threateningly. “Did you miss me?”

#doctor who #dw #fanfic #fanfiction #dw fanfic #dw fanfiction #doctor who fanfic #doctor who fanfiction #rose tyler #the doctor #twelfth doctor #twelve/rose #twelvexrose #the doctor/rose #the doctorxrose

[elfnerdherder]

Dread and Hunger: Ch. 2

Chapter 2: Montrachet

           The FBI wasn’t the friendliest place to meet someone at, but when Will explained that he had physical, vital evidence in regards to the recent murder, he was admitted into the building with an escort to Agent Jack Crawford’s office. The man in question was much older, gristly in appearance and expression, and he clasped his hands together on the desk, observing Will with mild suspicion. Will tried to reassure himself that the agent probably looked at most people like that. Then again, probably not. Will studiously studied the edge of the desk rather than look at him.

           “What can I do for you today, Mr. Graham?” he asked. At the presentation of the letter, his brows lifted questioningly, but he made no move to touch it.

           “I go to school at the location the woman was murdered yesterday, and this morning I opened my door and found this,” Will explained. “I know you haven’t released whether or not it’s the Chesapeake Ripper, but at the initials, I went out on a limb.”

           At that, Jack Crawford reached forward and picked up the letter, eyes scanning the artful, elegant script before pausing at the initials, his glare deepening.

           “C.R.,” he murmured. “You think the Chesapeake Ripper sent you this?”

           “The body was right on the quad where I’d definitely see it, and judging from the floral arrangement, it seemed to be an offer of courtship,” said Will. Saying it out loud in front of an aged FBI agent wasn’t as convincing as it had sounded in his head. At the stunted silence, he hurried on. “I don’t really…see people, Agent Crawford. There’s no reason another person would send me something like that, and the people that I do know don’t have those initials.”

           “Are any of your friends good for a laugh?” Jack inquired.

           “They have a sense of humor, but not that kind,” Will replied, not bothering to reassure him that his ‘friends’ could be limited to less than as many fingers he had on one hand.

           “So you think that the Chesapeake Ripper is interested in you because –what, realities and your assumptions of them?” Alright, it definitely sounded stupid when Agent Crawford said it. Will inhaled, counted to three, then exhaled as slowly as possible.

           “I, uhm…I have an empathy disorder,” he said heavily, looking down to the bottom of the desk. The words were rocks, tumbling from his mouth with little regard to what they bruised on the way out. “Whoever wrote this knows that, and seems to know it…intimately. The only people in the world that know about that are now you, me, the therapist my father made me go to when I was twelve, and my father. None of us wrote that letter.”

           “That we know of,” Crawford stated, and Will glanced up to his face, jaw working furiously.

           “You think I wrote that and brought it here?” he asked incredulously.

           “It’s possible.” Crawford’s shoulder twitched into a shrug.

           “I can take a handwriting test if you like, but I didn’t write that,” Will snapped, fingers tapping along the outside of his leg. “That’d be me handing myself over on a silver platter, and I’m not the sacrificial type.”

           “No, but the Chesapeake Ripper is the flashy sort to do something much like that,” Agent Crawford mused, and he spun on his swivel chair, grabbing his phone. “Give me Price down here.”

           Will’s fingerprints were taken, as well as a swab of his saliva. It didn’t seem to matter that he’d been the one to turn the letter in, he was treated with a sort of consternation, each move he made suspect to the situation at hand. The letter was taken by a man in latex gloves, and it disappeared from view. He was shown the door by Crawford who assured him that he’d give him a call if anything ‘checked out’.

           Right.

           He found himself at Sangre the next night, going over the drink list and shadowing a girl a few years younger than him. It was a dim, swanky bar with just the right touches to give it a feel of pomposity as well as class. The drinks were served in old fashioned glasses, and there wasn’t a single chair in the place that hadn’t been reupholstered after being recovered from an antique shop.

           “They want to feel like they’ve stepped back in time, so keep it short, sweet, and articulate,” she coached him, and Will nodded, studying her hands whose nails were serrated from a bad biting habit.

           “I can do that.”

           “Good. If you want to go grab that man’s order, I’ll get the guys in this corner.” She disappeared around a heavy partition of velvet curtains, and Will made his way to the new patron, adjusting his satin red vest. It was itchy, like it’d been passed over by too many hands, but it would have to do, much like the Belle Bleu’s uniform just had to do.

           “Welcome, sir, to Sangre. Is this your first time?” The harpsichord music was just soft enough that he didn’t have to raise his voice, and he smoothed out his vest before looking up. When he saw the very familiar face, he balked a little under its amused stare.

           “It is,” Dr. Lecter said, crossing his leg at the knee. “Is this your first day out of training?”

           “Dr. Lecter, I…yes.” Will nodded, glancing about the bar area before looking back to him, studying the curve of his jaw.

           “When I supposed you’d find something less drawn to the public eye, I should have known this would be such a place for you. There is a distance that was held between people in the 1800’s that this pop culture genre seems to seek.” There was an ironic twist to his mouth as he looked about the brass lamps and muted light, a dismal attempt at gaslights for ambience.

           “How did you know I’d be here?” he asked, and he looked to the table when the doctor’s gaze flicked back to him.

           “Your acquaintance Bryan was kind enough to tell me. I suppose gossip gets about quickly within the bartending circuit.”

           “I didn’t realize I was so popular,” he said dryly, and Dr. Lecter laughed appropriately.

           “No one makes an old fashioned like you do.”

           “Is that what you’ll be having tonight?” Will asked, grabbing his notepad to take his order.

           “I’ll try it, if you recommend it. Have you sampled their selection yet, Will?” Will glanced up to his face, and he studied his eyes, hazel and gold in the lamplight. Behind him, he heard his trainer coming back from her table, and he cleared his throat, looking away.

           “Not yet, but I’ll make sure to use the top shelf bottles,” he promised, and he walked back to the bar, mixing the drink.

           Like all Saturdays, the place steadily filled up as the night wore on, and Will found himself trapped behind the bar making drinks rather than taking most orders. The outfits ranged from the normal, dressy attire to the costume variety that represented the bar in its entirety, and Will found that it was more often than not easier just to pinpoint people by their clothes rather than their face or name. In between rushes, he managed to make it to Dr. Lecter’s table in order to total his bill.

           “I’m sorry, Dr. Lecter, here you are,” he apologized, passing over the ticket. The man laughed lightly, reaching into his wallet for cash rather than fuss with a card.

           “It’s no trouble to me, but if I may, you do seem tired. You should rest after your shift.”

           “I’ll try,” he promised, although not with too much sincerity. He took the cash and returned with change, but when he went to hand it back, Dr. Lecter stood and stopped his hand, fingertips delicately gliding along the back of his hand to his wrist.

           “I insist you keep the change,” he said, and at a head taller Will had to look up to try and meet his gaze. “You’ve certainly earned it, with the way you’ve been running about.”

           “I…thank you,” he said, and he tucked it into his pocket.

           “With your neuroses, I’d imagine this amount of socializing would leave you drained after each shift.” Will didn’t know quite what to say to that. Was he psychoanalyzing him? He stepped away in order to let out a short huff of breath, shifting from one foot to the other.

           “I’m just talking at them; they only talk back for an order or two,” Will reassured him, and when a small group of ladies stepped in with hoopskirts and –god forbid –parasols, he balked at the image.

           “I’m sure,” Dr. Lecter said, obviously not at all sure as he took in the appearance of the people before him. He seemed to think along the same lines as Will did, judging by the faint lines just around his mouth. Will glanced to his chin, then his neck, then his shoulder, unwilling to admit he’d noticed so small of a shift in expression.

           “This doesn’t seem to be your style, doctor. I’d hate for you to waste your time in a place like this just because of how I mix drinks.”

           “Rest assured, Will. It’s not just because of the drinks.” There was a flirtatious allure to his voice, and he was heading towards the door before Will could even think to reply, the back of his neck heating up with the reality of what was just said. He didn’t have time to meditate on it, though; the girls made it to the bar, and he made his way back behind it to greet them, relieved to find that he was not the only one on the staff or in the crowd that had a penchant for avoiding eyes.

-

           This time, the letter was waiting for him when he got back from a study group a few days later, resting against the bottom of his door. He considered calling Jack Crawford, but after the first abysmal meeting, he didn’t want to go through that again. He scooped it up and wheeled the bike into his apartment, locking the door behind him.

“To Will Graham,

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its lovliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

                                                                                                           Yours,

                                                                                                           -C.R.

           “Yours,” Will muttered, setting the letter on the table. Inside, the flower petals were much aged, remnants of what he’d taken from the bouquet. If it was the Chesapeake Ripper, he was certainly in danger. Serial killers didn’t just send love letters for no reason –usually, their reasons escalated until they were wearing their love’s skin as a suit in some sort of sick, bizarre homage. It was possible that this was just to back him into a paranoid corner until he had no means of escape, but why warn him? Were the other victims warned through poetry and letters scrawled stylishly on thick-woven paper?

           A quick internet search informed him that no, the Chesapeake Ripper certainly didn’t send the other victims letters. If he had, Freddie Lounds would have found out –resident campus reporter with a penchant for being illegally nosy –and second, the variety of victims were too diverse and sporadic. If he’d found images of all curly-haired brunettes, maybe. As it was, none of the victims looked remotely like him, and he wasn’t sure if that was a comfort or a warning sign.

           Will tried to entertain the thought that it was a prank, but it was an easily discarded theory. Who would bother pranking him? If it was a prank, wouldn’t they have signed it fully the Chesapeake Ripper rather than leave it to hope that he leapt to that conclusion? In truth, he’d have welcomed it as a prank rather than admit to himself that he potentially had a serial killer sending him notes.

           He slept, and when he dreamed, he dreamt of white oleander and monkshood petals falling from the hands of the dead.

-

           “You seem troubled, Will,” Dr. Lecter said, accepting his drink. It was a Montrachet from a winery Will had only heard talk of, but Sangre offered the best in all things.

           “Are you charging per hour, doctor?” Will asked, the sarcasm half-hearted at best.

           “Please, you may call me Hannibal. I’ve known you long enough that the title is unnecessary.” Hannibal swirled the wine in the glass and inhaled the bouquet, eyes closing. “A good choice.”

           “I thought you might like it.”

           “And once again I am reminded why I moved my afternoon leisure time from Belle Bleu to Sangre.” Will ducked his head at the compliment, turning the drink tray flat against his stomach as he took a step back. After his initial arrival, Hannibal had resumed his Monday through Friday appearance, refusing to take advantage of the lady fingers discount if you ordered drinks from 3-7 that included a shot of Bailey’s.

           “To my original observation, though; are you troubled?” Will looked away from him to the empty bar because apparently no one lurking about for a steampunk aesthetic seemed to come out of hiding until at least 6:30.

           “Some trouble sleeping,” he admitted, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Hannibal nod.

           “School assignments keeping you awake in the dark hours of the night?”

           “Love letters, mostly,” said Will, and he froze when he realized what’d popped out of his mouth. He hadn’t meant to say it, mostly due to lack of desire to share that aspect of his business, but also because it was troubling business at best and deadly business at worst.

           “Love letters,” Hannibal repeated, and a smile ghosted his lips. “Are you dating someone, Will?”

           “No,” he hastily replied, turning back to Hannibal. “No, just…someone sending me love letters. At least, letters of admiration.”

           “Do you lie awake and think of them fondly, or are you losing sleep because the contents make you uncomfortable?” Dr. Lecter tilted his head, and his knowing gaze ripped right through Will to expose him.

           “It’s…more my worry of who it’s from,” he said, and he rocked back on his heels, gripping the serving tray tightly. When Hannibal motioned for him to sit, he did so, poised on the edge of the opposing chair, watching Hannibal’s crafty fingers turn the wine glass about on its napkin.

           “Unrequited love?” Hannibal asked lightly.

           “I don’t even know who it is,” Will confessed, leaning in and staring at the fake kerosene lamp between them. “I have…my suspicions, but if I’m right…”

           “Ah, a secret admirer. I could imagine, with your constitution, that such a thing would be invasive and horrifying to think of,” Hannibal noted, a mild tone of mocking. Will gritted his teeth and refused to acknowledge it.

           “I think this person may be someone that’s hurting other people, and I don’t know if they’re hurting them for me, or if it’s just…something to pass the time.” He thought of the woman on the quad and closed his eyes, lashes fluttering against his skin as he exhaled shakily.

           “Have you taken your concerns to the police?”

           “They weren’t helpful in the least,” Will replied, snorting. “In fact, they took my prints and all but accused me of bringing misleading or damning information to them.” He glanced to his knees, sighed, then looked out of the semi-parted curtains to watch pedestrians outside. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, or if I should even do anything.”

           “What do your school studies tell you to do in a situation like this?” Will had almost forgotten that Hannibal knew what he went to school for.

           “Report your concern so that it’s on file, and don’t try and message back.”

           “Have you done both of those things?”

           “Yes.” Will nodded firmly. “I keep my door locked, my windows locked, I try not to be alone-”

           “Another difficult task for one such as yourself, I’d imagine,” Hannibal cut in dryly. Will looked to his shoulder, frowning.

           “I have friends,” he said, like that absolved him of anything.

           “I’m not questioning your acquiring of friends, but I do question your ability to open up to them and build your relationships with the sharing of intimate details about your life. When this happened to you, did you go to them?” At Will’s guilty silence, he nodded knowingly. “And when it troubled you further, did you finally seek them out?” Another silence. Hannibal took a sip of his wine. “Friendships are made to be built by trust and shared experiences that bond you, but a person such as yourself struggles with that connection to people because you struggle to open up.”

          ��“How do you know so much about me?” Will asked suspiciously, unwilling to admit his embarrassment at being read so well.

           “You’ve met my eyes once since helping me today, and that is the average of each time you’ve ever served me. I believe on a good day, you will meet my gaze approximately four to five times, and on a particularly bad day, you can’t manage the trouble at all.” It echoed his old boss, and Will nodded, morose.

           “I’m sorry.”

           “Don’t be. Do you avoid the gaze of others because you are made physically uncomfortable, or do you see the very things one would rather keep secret?”

           “You really are psychoanalyzing me,” said Will, glancing up to his face. He forced himself to look at his eyes, drumming his fingers on his knee. He made it a good three seconds before looking over his shoulder instead.

           “Am I making you uncomfortable?” Hannibal asked.

           “A little.”

           “I’d apologize, but I’m not entirely sorry,” he revealed and Will nodded in agreement.

           “I had a feeling.”

           “This…person you suspect as harming people while sending you love letters; do you believe it will escalate over time?”

           “That’s my concern. We’ve studied obsession, stalking, and ‘offerings’, and it doesn’t end well for the target in any case except for cases where law enforcement took their claims seriously. Even then, it’s difficult to…pinpoint the person behind it. They stay low, they stick to the shadows and underbelly of society, and they use any suspicion directed towards them as a means to make the victim appear mentally unstable and inefficient as a witness to any crime.” When a customer walked in, Will stood, turning the serving tray about in his hands. Hannibal glanced to the patron, then nodded in understanding.

           “Do you feel like a victim, Will?” he wondered before Will walked away.

           “I feel…” His voice halted in his throat and refused to go further. When he couldn’t finish his sentence, he nodded his head to Hannibal and excused himself silently, the back of his neck hot with embarrassment. As he took orders, he saw Hannibal relax into his chair and look out of the window with a calm, sanguine expression, as though they’d never spoken. Thankfully, the good doctor didn’t press for an admission when he finalized his bill, and Will was able to get away without having to admit that he felt rather flattered that out of everyone in DC, he was the one the Ripper decided to notice.

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