#this fic is like seven years too late to be relevant but you know

[bellamyblcke]

Lilacs from the Dead Land

Pairing: Jocelyn Fairchild/Valentine Morgenstern/Lucian Graymark

Summary: Everyone gravitates around Valentine, even them.

Read on AO3

“What are you doing?”

Jocelyn looks up, startled, and sees Valentine Morgenstern coming out of the school’s meetinghouse and heading towards her.

Normally Valentine is surrounded by his disciples, especially after one of his little meetings, and she hadn’t thought she’d see him today. As she watches, he shrugs into his gear jacket, the movement rippling his shoulders and the stretch of chest she can see beneath his jacket.

Jocelyn closes her sketchbook with a snap. “Nothing,” she says. And then she realizes that isn’t quite true, and frowns. “I’m waiting for Luke.”

Valentine smiles. “He’s still inside,” he says. He walks over to where she’s sitting straddling the fountain lip. “He’ll be along in a bit.”

She’s wearing a dress today, a rarity for her, but summers in Idris are too warm for pants or heavy gear. She had felt pretty before he’d showed up, but next to Valentine in full gear it makes her feel frilly, and she sniffs.

“We missed you today,” he says, coming to sit beside her. One of her legs is in the fountain and one out, and that, the strangeness of it, her bare feet, one wet, one not, so close to his booted ones, sets her on edge.

“Why?” she asks him. She tilts her head to regard him, and watches him track the fall of her hair across her bare shoulders. His eyes flick quickly back to her face as if he hadn’t meant to do it.

“Why what?”

“Why’d you miss me?”

His smile spreads slow across his face. “Are you excited for the new school year?” he asks her instead of answering. “Seeing as it’s our last one.”

“I’m sure you’re ready to graduate,” she laughs. “So you can be off making your mark on the world.”

His eyes are strange, she thinks. So dark as to almost be black. With all the rest of him so light it’s disconcerting. She wonders how she would paint him. There’s no color in him at all.

“What are you two talking about?” She looks up, startled again, and sees Luke walking towards them. Unlike Valentine, he’s dressed as casually as she is in a pair of light wash denim jeans the same faded color as his eyes and a loose cotton t-shirt. He had buzzed his hair at the start of the summer, and he looks older now without his hair constantly falling in his eyes. “You left this,” he says, tossing Valentine a book.

Valentine catches it easily.

Jocelyn stands, and for a moment, she’s taller than Valentine, looking down at him, and he looks up at her as if surprised, and then she’s stepping out of the fountain and heading towards Luke. The stones are hot on her bare feet.

“Nothing,” she says, and smiles.

.

“You should come to the next one.”

Jocelyn has been staying at the Graymark’s for the last several weeks of summer. Amatis has been pissy about it, but then she’s never liked Jocelyn. Jocelyn doesn’t really mind. After a month back home at the manor, she’s been glad to be out of the country and back in the city. She can handle some snotty looks.

She rolls over onto her back on the carpet, spread eagle. Luke is on the couch, reading as per usual, and he shoots her an amused look. She reaches out with a bare leg to whack him, and he laughs.

“I have no interest in joining the Valentine Morgenstern fan club,” she says. “Besides, I’m pretty sure all the spots are full.”

Luke scoffs. “I hope you don’t think I’m a member of this fan club just because Val and I are friends.”

Jocelyn sits up, and looks over at Luke, and then makes a face. He raises an eyebrow at her.

“Don’t be silly,” she says. “You’re not a member. You’re the president.”

.

“So what do you think?” Jocelyn asks. They’re standing outside the main school building, staring up at the intimidating heft of it.

Luke shrugs. “Same as always, I imagine.”

It’s not, though, Jocelyn thinks. Not really. It’s the beginning of the end. Luke’s sentimental enough to think that too, even if he’s not saying it.

“Graymark!”

They turn, and then there is Valentine jogging down the street towards them. They both still to watch him approach. When he reaches them he stops short, and runs a hand through his hair, his eyes skidding to Jocelyn and then back to Luke.

“Morgenstern,” Luke grins.

Jocelyn shakes her head. “I’ll leave you two to talk shop.”

Valentine calls after her. She turns and looks back at the two of them, side by side: Luke, as familiar to her as her own face in the mirror, and Valentine, the foreign element.

“What?” she asks.

He opens his mouth, as if to say something and then closes it. “I’ll see you in class,” he says instead.

.

“He likes you, you know,” Luke says.

They’re eating lunch out in the courtyard, soaking up the last of the late summer sun before it fades. Jocelyn will miss the freckles, and the heat. Valentine is holding court on the other side of the yard, surrounded by Maryse and Robert and all the rest of them. There’s so many people vying for his attention that you can barely see him through the masses. If Jocelyn wasn’t here, she knows that Luke would be with them.

“Who?”

“Valentine.”

She looks over at Luke, shielding her eyes so that she can see him better. “Be serious,” she says.

Valentine could have anyone he wanted. She’s pretty sure that half the girls in school have tried, and some of the boys too. But she’s never seen him with any of them, not really. For while he flirts with anyone and everyone, dating doesn’t quite seem his style.

Still, a traitorous warmth spreads through her chest. Valentine was untouchable, she knew that. And if he was anyone’s, he was Luke’s.

“I am,” Luke says.

.

“Impressive,” she hears from behind her. Jocelyn is wiping the sweat from her brow with a towel, and when she lowers it and turns, she sees Valentine, closer than she had expected. “You’ll have to show me that parry sometime.”

Jocelyn tilts into one hip, and raises an eyebrow. “You don’t know it?”

Valentine smiles. “I didn’t say that,” he said. He is sweaty too, and she can feel the heat radiating off of him. “I like watching you fight,” he says, low and intense.

“Yeah?” she asks.

She’s surprised by the amount of power that she feels having him watch her. He swallows, and Jocelyn watches his throat work. Perhaps this is how he seduces all of them, she thinks. Flies to the honey trap.

“Good,” she says.

.

Luke is late for their meetup, and Jocelyn taps her pen against her sketchbook, looking around for him, impatient. When he does finally show, it is with Valentine in tow. Valentine’s arm is slung around Luke’s shoulders, and they’re both laughing. It causes Jocelyn’s heart to seize, though she couldn’t say why.

“We’re celebrating,” Valentine says when they arrive in front of her like conquering heroes. She wonders how he manages to make leaning against Luke look elegant.

“How come?”

He looks at Luke, and Luke shrugs, sheepish. “He wants me to be his parabatai.”

“He agreed to be my parabatai,” Valentine amends, grinning.

Jocelyn doesn’t know why the idea is so repugnant to her, just that the thought of it goes through her like a shock. “Well, I doubt you’re used to people saying no to you,” she says.

Valentine turns his gaze from Luke to her. “No,” he says, slowly. “I’m not.”

.

“You don’t think I should do it,” Luke says to Jocelyn, later. They’re sitting on Fairchild House’s roof, kicking their feet into the empty air.

Jocelyn sighs. “Do you want to do it?”

Luke flushes, but doesn’t answer. Jocelyn supposes it was a ridiculous question. It’s Valentine. Everyone in Alicante would kill to be his parabatai, and it’s Luke that he wants.

“I think if you feel okay about it, then okay,” she says. “It’s your soul.”

“He’s not that bad, you know,” Luke says, nudging her. “You might even like him, if you’d actually talk to him.”

Jocelyn wrinkles her nose. “I’ll leave him to you, thanks.”

.

At the bonding ceremony, their heads bowed close together, Luke’s shorn hair is several shades darker than Valentine’s, although they are almost exactly the same height. Jocelyn feels like Valentine should be taller.

“Entreat me not to leave thee, or return from following after thee — for whither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried. The Angel do so to me, and more so, if aught but death part me and thee.”

Valentine meets her gaze over Luke’s shoulder.

Jocelyn looks away, face flushing.

.

There’s a party to celebrate the ceremony, the official one with all of their parents there, and then later, another smaller one. A group of accolades all sneak out the big plaza in the center of Alicante, the disciples mainly, but just this once, Jocelyn doesn’t mind being one of them. Someone brings wine, and soon they’re all tipsy.

Jocelyn’s hair is down, the weight of it tickling her bare back, she has glitter on her eyes, and she feels loose limbed and happy, despite the late autumn chill.

“Do you feel different now?” she asks Luke.

He’s watching Valentine, who’s talking to Maryse but looks over as if he heard them. Luke raises his mug of wine, and Valentine mirrors him.

“Yeah,” Luke says, quietly.

Later, when Luke is laughingly pulled into a dance by Simone Marchetti, Valentine comes and sits beside Jocelyn on the stoop. He’s flushed from the wine, and appears to Jocelyn bright-eyed and strange.

“Not dancing?” he asks.

She shakes her head. “It’s Luke’s night.”

“And mine,” he says. The parabatai rune is drawn on the center of his chest, but he’s not wearing heavy gear for once, just a white button down, and she can see the edges of it curling raw and dark beneath the sheer fabric. She shivers.

“You’re not dancing either,” she says.

He shakes his head. He’s all silver in the moonlight. “I prefer your company.” He settles back against the steps next to her as if he is in it for the long haul.

Across the square, Luke looks up at them.

.

Luke paces back and forth in Jocelyn’s room. She’s been working on a landscape painting, the view from her room back at the Fairchild manor. Normally, it calms her to paint, to get the fall of light just so, but his mania is spreading into her as well, and she feels restless.

“Do you think he’s okay?” he says.

“You’d know if he wasn’t,” Jocelyn says, setting down her brush.

Luke nods, but he doesn’t stop pacing. Jocelyn wonders if it’s his anxiety or Valentine’s. If he can even tell the difference. But then the parabatai bond has always been a mystery to her. She values her independence too much to easily understand why you’d be willing to give it up.

“He’ll be back soon,” she says. “And you can check on him.”

“I know,” Luke says.

Jocelyn picks her brush back up, shooting another glance at Luke over the canvas. He looks wrecked. She wonders what Valentine looks like. She can’t imagine him as anything but immaculate.

He’s human too, she reminds herself.

But the thought doesn’t stick.

.

“Graymark.” Valentine drops into the grass beside Luke and Jocelyn. Luke makes a muffled noise of surprise, and then throws himself at Valentine, wrapping him in a fierce embrace.

Valentine meets Jocelyn’s gaze over Luke’s head, his expression amused. For all Luke’s worry, Valentine looks just the same as he always does. “You fucking scared me, Morgenstern,” Luke mumbles. “Leaving without saying goodbye.”

Valentine nods, but doesn’t apologize. “You’ll both be at the funeral, I imagine.” Luke and Jocelyn both nod. “And we’re having a meeting after. To discuss plans.” It’s not a question.

Valentine pushes to his feet, although he had just arrived. Standing over them he looks quite tall. Luke lifts his hand as if to reach towards him, but then lowers it.

Valentine looks as if he might say something more, but then he just turns on his heel and leaves.

.

At the funeral, Valentine’s face is like stone. He is kind to everyone who greets him, and none of it reaches his eyes,

Next to Jocelyn, tears drip down Luke’s face.

.

Jocelyn is sleeping when she hears the patter of something hitting her window. She lies in bed for a moment listening, and then pads across the room, confused, and finds Valentine Morgenstern outside her window, throwing stones. His hair is a beacon in the dim light. Jocelyn frowns at him. He doesn’t gesture, just stares back, pebbles in hand. Jocelyn sighs, and heads for the door.

When she steps outside, he is waiting, looking up at the sky.

“What do you think is up there? Heaven?”

“I don’t know,” she says. She doesn’t think it would be helpful just now to say that she doesn’t believe in heaven. But then, Valentine is not one to need false comforts.

“Despite our angel blood we have so little control over any of it,” he says, still not turning. “Does that seem right to you?”

He is ruminative tonight, Jocelyn thinks. She walks down the steps until they are both standing at street level. He is close enough that she can feel the hairs on her arm reaching for him. She wonders if there is anyone who is not hyper-aware of him, if he ever exists and is not drawing everyone in the room towards him.

It is him that closes the gap between them. He pulls her into his arms all at once, burying his face in her neck. She can feel him breathing there, ragged and warm, and she thinks for a moment that he might sink his teeth into her skin. She thinks for a moment that she might want him to.

He pulls back just enough that their faces are pressed close together. This way, all she can see is him. He blocks out anything else.

“Help me,” he says. His voice is raw, tinged with panic. He does not sound at all like Valentine Morgenstern.

“Help you what?” She feels as if she is drunk. Like she might actually still be dreaming.

“Does it matter?” he asks her.

No, she supposes. With Valentine, it does not.

.

There is a grand ball for their graduation. Jocelyn wishes she could work up some excitement for it, but it feels like everything, even their graduation, is eclipsed by Valentine’s sudden fervor for action. The circle, he’s calling his group now. He talks of little else, and brings everyone along with him. Some mornings she’ll find him sitting outside of her door so that he can walk her to class, and pick her mind about new ideas for it. It’s both annoying and so deeply flattering that Jocelyn is embarrassed. You don’t talk like this with Maryse Trueblood, do you? she wants to ask him. But then comparing herself to Maryse is a fruitless cause. And she’s not meant to care what Valentine thinks at all.

“What do you think?” Luke asks her. “Think we should go, for old time’s sake?”

Jocelyn looks up from her sketchbook in surprise. His gaze is steady, and unhurried. “Oh,” Jocelyn says. “Yes, that sounds nice.”

She turns from him and screws her eyes up tight, before smoothing her face back out. An exhale. It wasn’t like she had been expecting Valentine to ask.

She draws her hand in a large arc over the paper. She’d meant to draw a landscape, but looking at it, it’s nothing at all.

It wasn’t like she would go with him even if he did ask.

.

The next morning, Valentine is waiting outside her stoop, writing in a book. He snaps it shut when she comes out.

“What’s on the agenda today?” she asks him. “More Nietzche?”

“Are you going to the ball?” His expression is eager, almost boyish, although she rarely thinks of Valentine as a boy.

She blinks back at him stupidly for a moment, and then starts down the street like an automaton.

He hurries to catch up with her. “Come on, Jocelyn,” he says. “Go with me.”

“I thought you’d have a queue lined up,” Jocelyn says. Her heart is beating butterfly fast in her chest.

Valentine stops her with a hand to her arm. “Everyone else,” he stops, and then tries again. "I want to go with you. If you’ll have me.”

The morning light has turned his hair more blond than silver, and he looks like a painting come to life. It seems unfair that he should be beautiful as well as all the rest of it.

“Will you?” he asks. “Have me, I mean?”

He runs his hand down her arm to take her hand, hesitant, as if she might startle at the slightest movement. But Jocelyn couldn’t run away from him even if she wanted to. She feels trapped by her desire. It rises like a tidal wave within her.

He presses her hand to the center of his chest. “It’s yours,” he says. “Anything you want. All of me.”

She curls her hand into the fabric of his gear, and pulls him towards her, as if all she’d needed was an invitation. He’s smiling when she kisses him. She can feel that smile pressed against her own. Mine, she thinks. Mine for the taking.

.

They meet up with Luke at the entrance to the school. Their days there are numbered, and Jocelyn can’t help but feel that every day is precious.

“She said yes,” Valentine tells him.

“To what?” Luke asks, frowning.

“Yes, to what, dear?” Jocelyn asks, turning to look at him. He reaches out and brushes a strand of hair from her face, and the intimacy of the act causes a flush to spread across her cheeks. Silly, when they’d just done something so much more intimate.

Valentine grins at her though, as if she had delighted him. His smile makes her heart expand in her chest. Looking at him feels like exploding. “To eternity,” he says. “An eternity of my adoration.”

“I wasn’t aware that’s what I was getting into,” she says, and wishes it didn’t sound so breathless. She buries her face in his shoulder to chase the feeling, and he wraps the arm around her.

“It’s always eternity with Valentine,” Luke says. His smile does not quite reach his eyes.

Valentine slings his other arm over Luke. “I’ll have an eternity of you as well, Lucian,” he says.

“Yes,” Luke says. “I suppose you will.”

#shadowhunters fic #valentine morgenstern #jocelyn fairchild #luke garroway #jocelyn x valentine x luke #valentine x jocelyn #this fic is like seven years too late to be relevant but you know #book verse teen!jocelyn x valentine x luke #why are ppl not writing teen!valentine i can't fathom it? #my writing

[goodgirlsfanficawards]

It’s Friday! Kick off your weekend with a reread of these five fics from September!

found my thrill by s_t_c_s / @sothischickshe​

12 Sep 2020, M, 2.1K, 1/1

The tip toward Mrs. Boland fell delightfully easy into his lap. And yes, he thinks, absently clacking the hard candy against back teeth, the source of this information isn’t what he’d term the most wholesome. Leslie is, to put it mildly, something of a turd. Apparently one with aspirations of playing cops and robbers, quite possibly unstable. But that’s essentially by the by. Jimmy’s allied with worse for less.

His sweet is practically vacant of flavour now. It’s spent too long being sucked upon, dwindling slow. There’s a packet in the cabinet by his head; easy replenishment is on offer. But it’s the action he enjoys, more than the florid taste. There’s no sense to using up supplies ahead of the need.

She’d been squirrelly, this Mrs. Boland, both times he spoke to her. In the presence of her husband, and without his shade. Maybe she’s not aware Jimmy noticed it, might be unused to having her responses attended to; her man doesn’t exactly impress as the observant type. But Stepford sketchiness wouldn’t necessarily translate to anything relevant right now. He’s focused on breaking this case, not poking at lesser fry. Oh, Jimmy’s seen the seedy underbelly to white picket land, is past naïve over that. Has run into a whole host out there: prescription pills; pimpless, primarily, prostitution; pornography production ranging from the shockingly amateur to the really quite advanced.

Suburban problems have a way of sealing themselves inward though. Rarely spill out their box into messy violence and mass ugliness in a manner which requires large amounts of attention. If it’s something of that type, he may not, for now, have a quarrel with her. Well, unless she brings him one.

The Game by BookBearer 

08 Sep 2020, M, 4K, 1/?

This most recent hit was one of the biggest they’ve seen in a while. Rio and his group owned – well, “collaborated with” – multiple grocery stores, businesses, and shops throughout the city of Detroit. Each section had its own purpose, but there were a couple of larger, no-named, grocery stores that were their biggest assets.

One of which was robbed yesterday night.

The first time an incident like this happened, Rio was not overly concerned. There were lowlife criminals scattered all across the city of Detroit- sometimes shit happens. Some people are new to the area, so maybe they didn’t get the memo—don’t fuck with Rio’s business.

Usually he would send out a couple of his boys to rough them up a bit. And if he was feeling generous, he would show them the error of their ways, take the full cut of what they took, and then let the go with all their fingers intact. Sometimes.

But this?

This was different.

With each passing day, Rio would continue to hear about how his shit was getting robbed. A barber shop here, a liquor store there, and now yesterday was the grocery store on 3rd. And it only seemed to be his shit getting hit… each store that was robbed had his cash involved somehow.

To say Rio was pissed would be the understatement of the century.

Let's All Get Drunk And Go To Heaven by Fei / @lanafannabanana​, @Nice_diva

01 Sep 2020, E, 3.4K, 1/1

Only it’s not one drink for her. Not even two. The whole situation just feels surreal, and she feels so out of place, so restless. Rio is sitting across from her and she could feel his eyes on her even when she is not looking. Beth ends up having double bourbon. Twice. By the moment she finishes her second glass, she feels her mind blissfully fogging, and she knows she should probably slow down a little, but it’s too late now.

And maybe she’s feeling a little too tipsy right now, so what?

Beth is nursing her third drink, when she feels Rio’s knee bump into hers. She raises her eyebrows, turning to him.

“Yo,” he says lazily.

And that he is tonight – awfully lazy and very relaxed. She finds it suspicious and doesn’t even want to think about why he is so relaxed. Is it because it’s Mick’s birthday, so Rio is letting it go for a moment? Or maybe some deal went really fine? And, gosh, what kind of deal, exactly? Maybe he is just in a good mood? Is he ever?

He is always so much trouble even when he is not.

She doesn’t reply, just snorts and rolls her eyes, twirling a lock of her blond hair. He looks so cheeky and genuine right now, she can’t help but smile back.

don't give it a hand, offer it a soul by medievalraven / @medievalraven​​

08 Sep 2020, M, 14K, 2/3

“You know I did hear something interesting about the event tonight,” Gretchen says.

“What’s that?”

“Apparently Elizabeth Boland was there, caused quite a stir.”

Rio takes a drink, trying to remember seeing anyone out of place tonight or anyone people had been watching, whispering about.  But he can’t place anyone outside the normal crowd. 

As if sensing his confusion Gretchen exhales sharply before clarifying. 

“Her grandfather was the former governor and she had been a regular at these things ever since she could walk.  My mother used to love seeing what dresses she’d wear even as a little girl, it was quite the big deal amongst the newspapers apparently.  Anyway a couple years ago there was talk that her husband was being tapped for an appointment to the State House of Representatives when he passed away suddenly. She basically disappeared after that.”

“Is that right?”

“So imagine everyone’s surprise when she showed up tonight as the caterer no less,” Gretchen chuckles. 

And of fucking course that was her. 

Off The Record by Sdktrs12 / @sdktrs12​​

18 Sep 2020, T, 31K, 5/?

“It’s a ride along, so you’ll be on the road for a few weeks. But compensation is...substantial.” He pauses and Beth lets out an exasperated sigh. “It’s an entertainment piece.” He continues hastily, sensing her impatience. “A series of gallery showings for a photography exhibit.”  

She sucks in a sharp breath and she knows Mason catches it because he heaves out a sigh, already knowing he’s losing her. “Absolutely not.” She hisses, her mind immediately transported back seven years.  

She can picture herself perfectly, sitting at the hotel bar as she’d tried to drink away her misery. And then he’d been there, materializing by her side, eyes dark and dangerous as they’d scanned over her... 

“You didn’t even let me finish.” Mason interrupts her thoughts and she distantly hears the toilet flush down the hall. Then the water is running in the sink and she pushes herself off the island. 

She heads toward the door, stopping by the stairs to grab Jane’s overnight bag.    

“I don’t need to hear the rest. Honestly, what did you expect? I mean, not only do I refuse to work with him, he refuses to work with me.” Beth scoffs at that—like he had any right or reason to blacklist her.    

Not like the reasons she had.  

“That’s the thing. His publicist called us and asked for you specifically. Said he doesn’t want the article done under any other publication or written by any other freelancer.”  

 And just—what? That didn’t make any sense. They hated each other.  

If you know of anyone’s tumblr/twitter and we haven’t found it or tagged incorrectly, please send us an ask to let us know.

#good girls nbc #nbc good girls #good girls fanfiction #brio fanfiction #good girls fanfic #fic back friday

[jojotichakorn]

For the @mistletoinks Secret Santa event, a gift for @class2clown

Mostly to Yourself: an OhmFong fic

Ohm and Fong have liked each other for years, but neither of them confessed, too scared of being rejected and absolutely sure that the other didn’t reciprocate. Until one day (or rather, night), when some much-needed help came from a surprisingly insightful friend.

Ohm, Fong Phuak, and Tine were sitting in the uni’s cafeteria. The latter three were passionately discussing something Ohm couldn’t focus on. Instead, he was focused on Fong, who was sitting in front of him. He was carefully studying the other boy’s features, paying attention to the way the crinkles around his eyes that appeared whenever he smiled made him even prettier than usual (if that was even possible). The sun looking through the tall cafeteria windows seemed to land on Fong in a very special way – how else could Ohm explain the fact that the natural light reflecting off of Fong’s skin made him look glowing and unbearably pretty, while it did nothing to Ohm, except for maybe blinding him.

Suddenly, Ohm noticed someone staring at him. With some reluctance, he had to look away from Fong to Tine, who gave him a knowing smile. Ohm silently cursed every person in the world, who was in love and could thus easily recognize anyone else consumed by the same feeling. “You look at him the way I look at Wat,” Tine told him a month ago when confronting him about his feelings. At first, Ohm was worried that he was being obvious, but he soon realized that neither Fong nor his other friend had even suspected anything.

“What are you so afraid of?” Tine asked him then. How quickly people forget their insecurities when they are no longer relevant. Tine was similarly agitated about Sarawat’s feelings just a year ago, but it had all been forgotten now. However, the truth was that Ohm was even more agitated than Tine had been back then. And it was because Fong was entirely out of his league. He was beautiful and witty and wise and smart, but Ohm couldn’t help but have a crush on him anyway. He had been living with it for almost a year now, but the farther he went, the more he realized that he had probably liked him ever since they first met back in high school. How hard it was to distinguish the strong platonic feelings one had for his best friend and the possible romantic feelings one had for that very same friend. How much harder it was when said friend was also a guy, and the perception of a relationship between two men that society forced on you was so far from reality.

He had to drift out of his thoughts upon hearing his name called with the kind of annoyance that indicated it having been spoken a few times already. “Ohm, Earth to Ohm!” Phuak said, waving his hand in front of his face.

“Yes, what?” Ohm asked, blinking rapidly.

“Wanna go clubbing with us tonight or not?”

Ohm thought for a moment, throwing a glance at Fong. On the one hand, when you like someone – proximity is of essence, regardless of how they feel about you. On the other hand, the idea of seeing the person you like leaving with someone else would make anyone feel miserable, and that happening was a possibility, after all.

“No”, Ohm finally decided.

“Why not?” Fong spoke up, surprised.

Ohm turned to him and looked him in the eyes for a moment, before deciding on staring at his own hands instead. “I’m just a bit tired today, that’s all”.

“Oh, alright then,” Fong responded, sounding almost disappointed, and Ohm was ready to smack himself for all the wishful thinking that his brain managed on a daily basis.

Tine bailed as well since he and Sarawat both had a free evening and wanted to spend it together, which meant that Fong and Phuak ended up going to the club just the two of them. Fong thought about going home too since he didn’t enjoy clubbing that much lately and the only reason he had agreed in the first place was the possibility of spending time with Ohm. But, being the good friend that he was, Fong couldn’t in good conscience leave Phuak alone, so he agreed to go. His friend, however, noticed his initial reluctance and complete disinterest, when they got to drinking in the club.

“Fong, are you ok?” he asked with some note of concern.

“Yeah,” Fong gave him a weak smile. “Why?”

“Because I can see you’re not, but asking is the polite thing to do,” he responded, putting his drink down, clearly ready for a serious conversation.

Fong sighed, contemplating whether he should tell him or not. It wasn’t that he thought Phuak wouldn’t understand him or that he would judge him. It was just that pouring one’s heart out was always hard.

“Fine,” he said finally. “Can you keep a secret?”

“Sure,” his friend shrugged casually in response.

“Ok, this is important, so you have to promise this will stay between us”.

“Cross my heart,” Phuak nodded, jokingly drawing a cross over his chest with his finger.

“Alright then, here goes nothing I guess,” Fong said, nervously playing with his hands. “I like Ohm”.

“Ok,” Phuak responded simply.

“Ok?” Fong exclaimed, almost offended. “I just told you I like my best friend, our best friend, and that’s all you have to say?”

“Well, what do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know!? Maybe a sentence that consists of more than one word?”

“Alright, well. Did you tell him?”

“Did I-” Fong stopped and blinked in shock because his friend’s suggestion sounded like confessing was the easiest thing in the world. “Did I tell him? Of course, I didn’t tell him!”

“Why not?”

“Why… what? I can’t just blurt it out, as if I’m saying hello!”

“Why not?” Phuak repeated.

“Because!” Fong exclaimed, and Phuak raised his eyebrow, clearly unconvinced. “Well, he is our best friend. What if I ruin our friendship? Or our entire friend group?”

“You won’t,” Phuak said nonchalantly.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because,” he paused. “Ohm is not stupid enough to stop being friends with you because of this. And you are not the type of person to ruin our friend group by distancing yourself because you might be a little embarrassed”.

Fong sighed in defeat, indicating that his friend was as right as Fong was annoyed by it. He tried to fight back. “But what if he doesn’t like me?”

“Well, how do you know, if he likes you or not?”

“Well, you know him! He’s… Ohm,” Fong said as if the name spoke for itself. “If he likes men at all, he is clearly entirely oblivious to it”.

“You don’t know that, though,” Phuak pointed out. “Maybe he’s not ready to just go off and come out to us, or maybe he just doesn’t want to talk about it. You never know. I mean, a year ago, we were convinced Tine was straight, which seems almost laughable now. Besides, Ohm hasn’t dated anyone for a very long time, and it’s not like there isn’t anyone interested. There must be a reason for that, right?”

Fong sighed again.

“What will I do, when he rejects me, though?”

“If,” Phuak corrected. “If he rejects you”.

“Alright, then what will I do if” – Fong pronounced the word almost mockingly – “he rejects me”.

Phuak looked at him carefully and sighed. “Ok, tell me – how long has this been going on?”

“Like a year,” Fong shrugged. “But I think it started even earlier, I just didn’t realize it back then”.

“So it has been a long time”.

“Yes,” Fong prolonged the word hesitantly, not sure where the conversation was going.

“Now tell me, do you see yourself – realistically – falling out of love with him? Especially not knowing whether he reciprocates or not?”

“I-” there was a pause. “No,” he admitted.

“Then think about it – wouldn’t it be easier, in the long run, to find out what he feels and work with that, instead of pinning for the rest of your life, that little bit of hope constantly at the back of your mind, never letting you go?”

Fong was silent for a moment, eyeing Phuak curiously. He wouldn’t say that he was thinking his friend’s words over – he knew Phuak was right three minutes ago, and he got more and more convincing with each sentence. It was more the fact that he was talking with the conviction of someone, who was talking about himself.

“You are surprisingly insightful today,” Fong pointed out carefully.

“No-no-no,” Phuak shook his head. “This conversation is about your messy love life, not mine”.

“Oh, so your love life is messy?” he asked, grinning mischievously.

“Oh, is that how you wanna play?” Phuak smiled in response, taking out his phone. “Ok then, I guess I gotta call Ohm and tell him how in loooove you are with him”.

“You dickhead!” Fong exclaimed, trying to take Phuak’s phone out of his hands. Both eventually gave up, laughing uncontrollably.

Fong ended up staying with Phuak until the early hours of the morning, realizing that his friend’s reasons for coming to the club were more serious than just having a fun evening. Whoever he was trying to get over, it was bad. Fong was now determined to find out, which of his friends he’d share his fate with – Phuak’s or Tine’s.

Ohm woke up the next morning with a headache worse than Phuak and Fong had combined. He became more and more restless every day, and that particular night he only managed to sleep for three hours. During that sleepless night, he finally decided to get over it. He had been pinning for Fong for far too long, and – being sure it wasn’t going anywhere – decided he needed to move on.

That was easier said than done, however, so the first small step he decided to take was to focus a little more on his studies. He had to admit, he had not cared for studying since he was seven, so this was a big change both for him and his friends. But, ignoring the confused looks the trio was throwing at him, he buried himself in homework, which was – among other things – a perfect excuse to put some much-needed distance between him and Fong.

This was absolutely infuriating to Fong, who had just decided to finally confess his feelings only to not get the slightest chance to speak to Ohm alone for the entire week. He got a tiny bit bolder the next couple of days, actively asking Ohm if he had a minute to talk, but was always refused with some stupid excuse. Fong was a rather patient person, but even he had his limits.  

So, when the four friends were coming out of the faculty building after class on a Friday afternoon, Fong – ever so determined – breached the subject again.

“Hey, Ohm, do you have a minute to talk now?” he emphasized the last word, trying not to sound annoyed and failing miserably.

“No, actually I-” Ohm started but was quickly cut off.

“You what? Have homework? It’s Friday, Ohm – I’m sure you can do it during weekends,” Fong was getting more and more impatient, the confession now being somehow secondary to his frustration about Ohm’s behavior these past two weeks.

“I-” Ohm began, unsure.

Phuak coughed. “So we will leave you two alone for a second,” he said, giving Tine a meaningful look. The other boy nodded in understanding, and both left, despite Ohm’s pleading eyes.

“Why have you been ignoring me this whole time?” Fong asked after a pause, reaching out to touch Ohm’s arm. The latter jerked away suddenly. An idea flashed through Fong’s head and he felt himself getting angry. “Listen, if I am actually that obvious and you have figured everything out, that is no reason to treat me like shit!”

Ohm looked at him, confused at the meaning of the sentence and taken aback by Fong’s tone.

“Oh, so now you don’t have any excuses, huh!? I guess I hit the nail on the head then.”

Fong was about to turn around and leave when Ohm grabbed his wrist. “Wait, Fong! I-” he shook his head. “I’m kind of confused, what are you even talking about?”

Fong blinked rapidly, realizing his mistake. “N- nothing,” he stuttered. Ohm looked at him disappointed, clearly understanding his friend is hiding something.

“Oh, don’t you give me that look!” Fong exclaimed, exasperated. “I’m not the one who’s been avoiding you this whole time”.

“Ok, fine,” Ohm sighed. “I have been avoiding you, and I’m sorry. But I can’t tell you why.”

Fong threw his hands up in the air out of frustration. “Who even says that?”

“As I said, I’m sorry.”

“That’s not enough, though Ohm! At least-” Fong looked down, hurt. “At least tell me what I’ve done wrong. Maybe I can fix it, maybe I can-”

“Don’t- don’t blame yourself. This is not your fault. I’m the one, who fucked up”.

“Well, what have you done!? I promise, I won’t be mad or disappointed or anything, I just… I really wanna know, okay?” Fong looked at Ohm with the saddest, most desperate eyes he had ever seen. Ohm breathed out and looked down.

“If I tell you, it will change things. Forever.”

“What things? What will it change?”

“This,” Ohm pointed at both of them. “Us, our friendship, probably our entire friend group, I will ruin it all”.

Fong felt like someone stuck a knife between his ribs, his own words from the night at the club two weeks ago repeated back to him. Could it be? Could he…

“Tell me,” Fong nodded. “Maybe… maybe it will be a good change”.

Ohm took a step back, wide-eyed and shaking his head. “No, no I can’t”.

“Ok,” Fong took a confident step forward. “Then I will tell you what I’ve been trying to talk to you about this whole time”. Ohm visibly relaxed upon realizing he was no longer being interrogated.

There was a pause before Fong continued speaking. “I like you,” he said, and Ohm froze in place. “Actually, I think I more than like you. I think I’m in love with you and I have been for a very long time. And I’m sorry if I’m saying something wrong here and I know I might be ruining things now, but I just had to-”

Fong was interrupted by Ohm pulling him close and kissing him. It was a bit awkward, their teeth knocking against each other pretty hard, but neither of them cared.

“You absolute idiot,” Ohm said, when they pulled away, burying his face in Fong’s chest. “Why didn’t you tell me anything!? I haven’t been able to sleep for days!”

“Well, why didn’t you tell me anything?” Fong said, trying to sound as annoyed as possible and failing miserably, a huge smile beaming on his face.

“Well, you know,” Ohm said, suddenly embarrassed. “I’m me and you are you”.

Fong was almost offended by that. “You are you! Exactly!” he exclaimed, looking at Ohm in adoration. “You are beautiful and funny and smarter than anyone gives you credit for and so kind and nice to your friends and-”

“Ugh,” Ohm groaned, rolling his eyes as if tired of the compliments. “Just kiss me again, you absolute cheeseball”.

And so he did. They shared many kisses that evening, only pausing for quick confessions, getting comfortable with saying “I love you” over and over again.

There would be many evenings like that to come.  

#secretsanta'20 #secret santa 2020 #2gether the series #still2gether #ohmfong #hope you like it !!

[of-the-moors]

So I've been thinking about the whole Maleficent movie + sequel = 'feels like a trilogy but may never be because M:MOE was kind of a disappointment' thing.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed M:MOE from an entertainment perspective. It had some funny moments, and some touching moments, and Angelina Jolie and Michelle Pfeiffer (which I always want to pronounce 'Per-FIFF-er' for shits and giggles) are an electric combination. Sam Riley, as usual, managed to convey more with eyebrow twitches and eye movements than his lines alone would suggest. Elle Fanning is once again a delight.

But.

BUT.

What the actual fuck was up with that storyline?

News just in: there's nothing wrong with a gentle fairytale. A movie doesn't HAVE to end with an epic MCU-inspired megabattle. Yawn. Been there, seen that.

So the first movie is character-driven. Maleficent is a sweet and innocent little soul, she's betrayed and violated by someone that she has chosen to trust, it fucks her up, she knee-jerk retaliates, feels vindicated, then over the course of the movie comes to realise that she may have gone overboard etc. By the end of the movie, she's not back as she was, but she's a better version of herself that she was sixteen years earlier.

She has agency. She makes her own choices. She is beholden to nobody, except on occasion, the moral questions of her servant (more on Diaval later).

Aurora doesn't really have much of a say in anything, other than her choice to go to the castle, but it could be argued that it wasn't so much her CHOICE as the curse playing out. Either way, it's not really relevant, as she's barely more than a child and doesn't know her arse from her elbow.

The end of the first movie wrapped everything up quite nicely, and a sequel wasn't strictly necessary.

The thing is, if you're going to make a sequel, you owe it to the original movie to not cock it up.

The tone just wasn't the same, for starters. It was very much a Mega Worldbuilding CGI Wank, as compared to the insular and gentler tone of the first film. I mean, Maleficent had a main cast of just seven people, and that includes Phillip who only had a handful of scenes. The cast of M:MOE blew WAY out. It changed the tone, and not for the better.

Why introduce the Dark Fey at all?

Are we seriously to believe that the entire population of Maleficent's race, less herself, have been living a hundred clicks off the coast of Ulstead all of this time, and yet they let Maleficent - who apparently is like their queen or something? - grow up an orphan in the Moors? Um, collecting her and taking her back to be with her own kind would have taken what, an hour?

If you're going to introduce a situation like that, at least have the decency to explain it and close the gaping plot hole. One line would have sufficed. "Your parents chose to leave the sanctuary. By the time we realised that they had been killed, it was too late to bring you back - too late to take you from the only home you had ever known. So we have watched over you instead, ever since."

Wow, and I'm not even a script writer.

And the war. I mean, really? Ingrith is a psychopath - a genocidal maniac, to use Angelina Jolie's words - and she wants to kill off the entire population of the Moors. Um, okay. I get the feeling that the Dark Fey retcon was conceived as a handy plot device to spawn a Big Battle Scene, and the implications of that were ill-considered.

At least they didn't go and pair Maleficent up with one of them. I know that there was implication with both Conall and Borra, but at least it wasn't overt. You can't have one who was burned by love to the degree that Maleficent was suddenly falling in love with a relative stranger in a matter of days; it's beyond out of character. So thanks, folks, for refraining from that particular trope.

Then there's Maleficent's agency. She was very much a reactive protagonist, and made very few decisions of her own will. Is she even still Maleficent?

There was so much wasted potential.

The first movie had a character who, through the actions of another, no longer believed in true love. By the end of the movie, she believed in true love in the sense of filial love. Romantic love, no, that was still tosh, but the love of a mother for a daughter? Oh yes, that existed.

The second movie SHOULD have expanded on this, using the wedding of Aurora and Phillip as the catalyst for further growth and acceptance on the part of Maleficent. The movie we got does, in a way, come to the same place - Maleficent accepts that romantic true love exists, albeit not for her - but it feels entirely secondary to the Great Big Battle. It was messy. So, so messy.

I almost feel as though we're owed a third movie, to right the wrongs of the second. To tie up the gaping plot holes which were introduced but never adequately explained - or even addressed! It's unlikely to happen, unfortunately, but we can only hope.

A third movie would need to complete Maleficent's arc, that's for sure. From not believing in love to believing in filial love, to believing in romantic love for others but not herself, the logical conclusion of that arc is for Maleficent to have a reason to believe in true love for herself again.

In the interests of interesting cinematic conflict and confusing our winged protagonist, two competing love interests would make for an interesting story. A parallel plot could bookend the plot of the first movie by recasting Maleficent in the role of protector - have Aurora's baby taken by an antagonist - ideally a magical one - and centre the story around recovering the child and defeating the evil whilst navigating matters of the heart.

Who would Maleficent be drawn to? A mysterious and volatile man of her own species, now that she knows that she's not the only one? Someone as exciting as herself? One whose wings match her own?

Or is love steadfast and loyal? Kind and devoted and dependable? Of course, I refer to Diaval, who is, in my mind, the only logical love interest for Maleficent, but she'd need some prodding to see that. He'd need to do something incredibly brave and she'd have to realise what losing him would really be like, that old chestnut. But really, he's the one. He's both her conscience and her constant, and his rationality and calm nature are a perfect foil for her impulsive hotheadedness. They're two halves of a whole, even without the romantic undertones.

(Let's not go into how Angelina Jolie and Sam Riley evidently agree with the above assessment of the Maleficent/Diaval relationship, based on interviews and the way in which each plays their character against the other. Or that Sam Riley is the unofficial official captain of the Good Ship Maleval. Someone should tell him. He needs a proper hat for it.)

I like the delicious synchronicity of Maleficent, burned by what she thought was true love, creating her actual true love in that darkest time of her life, and then not realising it for two decades. It has a certain perfection to it.

But hey, it isn't going to happen for much less than a miracle. Thank heavens for fanfiction, eh? Fixing the dodgy shit one fic at a time.

#maleficent #maleficent 2 #maleficent 3 #angelina jolie #sam riley #elle fanning #maleval #diaval x maleficent #maleficent x diaval #diaval #nitpicking #outright complaining #please fix it #it was a train wreck #someone high up start rattling cages #disappointment level: high

[scrunchyharry]

RIP WIP: if you see this post, respond with a snippet of a fic you (sadly) won’t be completing.

So, this inspired me to go through my google drive and unearth this fic that I’ll most likely never finish. I haven’t touched it since March 2014, so, you know. I might as well have not written it myself.

meet this 1950s, Oxbridge, shy librarian worker meets bad boy AU that almost was. the title of this google doc was “kill your darlings - library sexcapades”, so you can see where my mind was. I was in library school, I’d just gone to see Kill Your Darlings in theatres, it was so predictable, really. reading through it earlier, I realize that I used many of the underlying ideas I had for this fic in fondre ton absence, which I first started only two months after I abandoned this one (and I only posted it in 2019, I know.)

I abandoned it because, if I remember correctly, it was only my second ever historical AU (the first one wasn’t in this fandom, it’s a glee fic, if you bully me enough I can provide a link) and I really, really struggled with it, not only with keeping it free of anachronisms, but also relevant to 1950s British culture rather than American culture, which I am more familiar with as a Canadian. I vividly remember panicking when I couldn’t figure out if Brits went bowling in the 1950s, or even now???? we had different problems in ye olde days before the pandemic, hm?

now, of course, I’ve come to love the pain of researching historical AUs, it’s literally the only thing I’ll write, but 6 years ago was a different story. also, I’m not in grad school anymore, so I have more free time. this helped a lot with fleshing out my fics, this whole “no longer being in university” thing (that I say while being 5 years out of university and now only posting a single fic per year).

anyway. enough from me. here’s the fic. it’s 6500 words long and stops abruptly.

Lying awake in his bed, Harry listened to the steady pitter-patter of the rain hitting the windowpane, the yellow streetlamp outside his dormitory room’s window casting distorted shadows on the floorboards as it filtered through the water running down the glass and the sheer curtains. On the other side of the room, Niall was fast asleep, his breathing regular and slightly wheezing from the cold he’d caught playing football out in the rain the day before. Every six or seven inhale, he’d snore loudly, rousing Harry from the half-sleep he had managed to slip into. Staring at the ceiling, Harry was trying to tell the shadows of the bare tree branches from the cracks in the off-white plaster. The room smelled dank like the rest of the building, the wood creaking and beads of water oozing from the walls from the rain that had been plaguing them for close to a week.

Harry turned on his side, wincing as his joints ached in the cold, humid air of the room, Niall’s congested nose asking for the window to be left ajar, which only let more humidity in. His bedsheets were moist and stuck to his skin in a way that made him feel queasy and promised to rob him of sleep for the entire night.

From somewhere down the hall came a peal of laughter, the sound piercing through the still night air and drifting to Harry’s ears. The sound was almost comforting, breaking through the oppressing bubble of his insomnia to remind him that he was not stranded, or alone. There were other people alive, other people asleep in the rooms next and above and below his, and the sun would rise even if it was behind grey clouds, and not being able to sleep was not the end of the world, no matter how it felt as he lay in his bed, restless and exhausted. 

He reached for his alarm clock, the bells quietly chiming as he moved it, and he frowned when he saw that it was half past three. He had to be up in four hours, hours which he knew he wouldn’t sleep. With a final sigh and a resentful glance at the sprawled shape of Niall, Harry rolled out of bed and grabbed his dressing gown, a plaid atrocity his sister had given him as a joke two Christmases past. 

The hallway was quiet as he made his way down to the creaking staircase, holding on to the railings as he went down so his slippers didn’t skid on the polished wood. He nodded at the night guardian reading a library copy of A Christmas Carol, his feet up on the desk by the double, windowed entrance doors.

“I’ve still got two more days to read this, haven’t I?” the man asked, lowering the book to squint at Harry in the dimness of the hallway.

“Three, sir,” Harry replied, hands deep in the pockets of his robe and shoulders slumped forward as a shiver ran through him. He could smell the fireplace burning from the common room and yearned to reach it soon. 

“Greg, give Harold a break, will you? He’s not working right now,” Zayn said, appearing out of the dark hallway and stopping by Harry’s side. “It’s already tedious enough to watch you read a Christmas novel in November, don’t make it worse on us by bothering poor Harry here about his job in the middle of the night.”

With a wink to Harry, Zayn dropped a pack of cigarettes on the guardian’s desk before walking past him again, back where he had come from, a quick nod inviting Harry along. He followed and closed thankful eyes as he crossed the common room’s threshold and was met by a wall of warm, dry air.

“Liam’s nicked logs from the hall across campus,” Zayn explained as he slouched in an armchair by the fire.

“Bless him,” Harry said, sitting opposite Zayn, close to the hearth. He extended his feet and let the flames warm them, feeling as if every crackle eased his weariness from the past few days.

September had been a neverending blur of mixers and social events to try and make friends as quickly as possible before it was too late and you were relegated to the ranks of social outcast. By the time October rolled by, Harry had managed to be late in all of his classes and had found himself locked in the library even when he did not have to work, his entire universe reduced to the dusty smell of books and ushed voices whispering about classnotes and midterms. On most nights he had to stay up well into the early hours, the grey light of dusk filtering through his foggy mind like through dirty glass as he tried to read three novels at once. Now that midterms were over, he had hoped he might be able to sleep while he counted down the days until finals, but he had managed to well and truly mess up his sleep rhythm. 

“No offence, mate, but you look like shit,” Zayn commented after a while, startling Harry out of his most-welcomed doze. 

Rubbing his eyes, Harry let out a small laugh. “Can’t sleep.”

“I know a guy--”

“No, thanks,” Harry cut him, not unkindly. 

Zayn always knew a guy, who knew a guy, whose brother could get you whatever you needed. He himself took nothing, keeping a record as straight as his ridiculously white teeth; scholarship kid, they said. Harry knew better than that, because he was one himself and had never seen Zayn at any of the disastrous mixers the financial aid office tried to organize. Besides, scholarship students were expected to work on campus, which Zayn did not do. He always seemed to be drifting from place to place, black hair carefully styled so that a swirl appeared to carelessly fall on his forehead and jacket nonchalantly hanging off his shoulder like something out of a magazine, without a care in the world. Harry figured it was the sort of attitude you had to adopt when you had a name like Zayn Malik. Not that Harry gave a damn about any of that, but, to put it mildly, it was not because people were quick to point a finger at Germany for what they had let happen that they were willing to face their own ignorance. In short: people whispered, and all of this despite the thick Northern accent that surprised the wits out of Harry the first time he heard it come out of Zayn’s mouth.

“It’s not healthy, though, is it? You should go see a nurse or something about it, you can die from sleep deprivation.”

Blinking slowly, Harry stared at his oldest friend on campus silently for a moment. “I hope you never make it into medical school, you’re going to be a shit doctor. ‘You can die from sleep deprivation,’ you tell the insomniac at four in the morning.” With a long sigh, Harry shook his head. “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean that.”

Zayn laughed. “Don’t worry, mate, I’ve heard worse. Have you met Louis?”

Harry rolled his eyes at Zayn. “Yes,” he replied despite knowing that this was a rhetorical question. “I know Louis.”

He shifted in his seat. Mentions of Louis had the pesky side-effect of making Harry’s stomach churn uncomfortably. He ran a hand through his hair, tugging slightly at the curls as he yawned. He watched as Zayn light a cigarette and shook his head when offered one, instead pulling his legs up on the chair and curling up in it, arms wrapped around his knees. 

“Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m still up at this hour?” Zayn asked after discarding his cigarette in a nearby ashtray.

Tearing his eyes from the fireplace, Harry blinked slowly at him. “Do you want to tell me?”

Flashing him a wicked grin, Zayn winked. “A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.”

Harry rolled his eyes again. “I should have seen this one coming.”

“But you didn’t and that’s why we love you, Harold.” Zayn stretched and got up, picking his jacket off the back of the armchair and shrugging it on. “With this, I’m off to bed.” With a pat to Harry’s head, he headed out of the room.

“Goodnight!” Harry called after him before turning back to the fire, resting his chin on his knees with a sigh.

Harry considered following after Zayn for a moment, but the thought of his cold room made him wince. Instead, he carefully placed more wood into the hearth and pulled the armchair closer. He wrapped his dressing gown tighter around himself and then closed his eyes, turning his face to the warmth with a smile as his thoughts drifted through his memories.

The first time he had seen Louis did not technically count as the first time he had met him. His first glimpse of him had been a fleeting one: a knock at the door of his room and the flash of a crooked grin before a sharp voice called Niall out and the door slammed shut. It had been a whirlwind of sights and sounds, there and gone in a matter of seconds, and promptly discarded as one of Niall’s many boisterous friends.

The first time he met Louis, on the other hand, had made a much stronger impression. Harry had been working the counter at the library, alternating between reading a novel he kept hidden under the desk and staring off into space, eyes on the specks of dust as they drifted through the sunbeams pouring in from the tall windows. It had started with a gust of autumn wind sweeping into the room as someone threw opened the heavy oaken doors, causing the occupants of the library to look around in disgruntled curiosity. Harry himself had found himself craning his neck to try and see who was the utter idiot who was entering a library like it was a barn.

Louis had come running at top speed, muddy wingtips squeaking and skidding on the linoleum and his opened jacket flying behind him. He braced himself on a table as he took a sharp turn to the left and headed towards the counter, vaulting it and crouching down before Harry could stop him. He had stared down at him silently, blinking slowly, until the boy had pulled him down by the front of his shirt so he would kneel next to him.

“You can’t stay here,” Harry had said lamely, feeling ashamed of the yelp he had let out as he looked at the red-faced, breathless boy still holding his shirt in his fist.

“Hi, I’m Louis,” the boy had said, letting go of his shirt to extend his hand for Harry to shake.

“You can’t stay here,” Harry had repeated, ignoring his hand. “And I’m Harry.”

“I know,” Louis had replied, smirking. “So, I may or may not have dressed the statue outside the principal’s office in a dress. And I may or may not be currently running away from the school security.” He had paused to look up at Harry with big, pleading eyes. “My life depends on you, Harry. Please, hide me.”

“You--what? Why would you do that?”

Louis had squinted at him, an amused smile playing on his lips. “For fun?”

“Well, you can’t stay here, we--”

Louis had shut him up with a hand over his mouth. “Please, Harold. I’ll owe you one.”

“No, I mean, there’s--” Harry had mumbled against his hand, eyes darting to the top of the heads of the guardians he could see coming closer to the counter.

“Harry Styles, I am begging you, please let me hide here.”

Prying Louis’ hand away, Harry had rolled his eyes. “Shut up and listen to me, there are two guards coming over here right now, you need to run.” He wouldn’t be able to tell what took him, but had he found himself adding, in a quick whisper, “I’ll distract them. Go.”

Louis had grabbed Harry’s face to plant a loud, wet kiss on his cheek before repeating in a rush that he owed Harry his life and running back the way he had come.

A month had gone by since their meeting and Harry still winced with embarrassment when he thought back to it. He had looked like a proper fool in front of Louis, who, it turned out, was friends with all of his friends. He always turned up, no matter what they were doing or where they were going, teasing and joking and mocking, always constantly there in Harry’s peripheral vision. He was a third year, the rumour was that he had the lowest average in the history of the university (which made no sense, considering he still managed to pass his classes; besides, Harry had checked in old yearbooks during a quiet afternoon in the library and had found that a certain Lionel Hearst allegedly had the lowest average back in 1931--chances were that each year had their own Lionel Hearst, and the class of 1954 had elected Louis Tomlinson as theirs), and he was quite possibly the most annoying person Harry had ever met.

And there was another problem, a massive one that was threatening to destroy Harry’s sanity: he was gorgeous. Not your inoffensive “I can recognize that, objectively, Humphrey Bogart and James Dean are attractive males”, which Harry could very easily and comfortably live with. No, Louis was the kind of gorgeous that had poisoned Harry’s mind until it was all his twisted mind could conjure whenever he had what a psychology textbook he found in Liam’s room had called ‘nocturnal emissions’. 

When combined, Louis’ irritating personality and Harry’s inability to get him out of his head were a dangerous mix. One that he never missed an opportunity to use, because on a misguided evening, Harry had made the mistake to go out with Niall and had tragically confessed, over his fourth pint, that he was having unbecoming thoughts about Louis. The news had obviously rapidly travelled all the way to Louis’ ears and now it seemed he had made it his mission to make sure Harry never lived his shameful infatuation down.

Not to mention that, well, he was a boy infatuated with another boy. The same psychology textbook had told him that what he was had a name, and that it was diagnosable, and thus curable, but Liam had walked back in before Harry could read exactly what they meant by ‘aversion therapy’. He hadn’t dared ask Liam, not while Louis was sprawled on his bed, smoking with slow drags and slower exhales, winking at Harry whenever their eyes met. 

Louis had asked what Harry was reading and he had mumbled something about insomnia (which had been his first goal, mind you) and a wicked grin had appeared on Louis’ face.

“You were reading about paraphilias, weren’t you, you naughty boy? Which one was your favourite? I’m quite fond of homosexuality myself.”

Zayn had thrown a wrinkled jacket at Louis at that, saving Harry the embarrassment of having to reply by saying through a laugh: “The shit that comes out of your mouth is astounding.”

“It’s not shit! What’s it classified under, again? Payne, help me out.”

Reciting dully, as if he was used to the question - and Harry suspected he was - Liam had rolled his eyes. “Sexual deviations are under personality disorders of the sociopathic subtype.”

“Thanks, mate. I didn’t understand half the words in there, but I like the ring of ‘sociopathic’, don’t you? It makes it sound so dangerous, so ‘I will kill you in your sleep and then shag your corpse’.”

“Someone’s won the roommate lottery,” Niall had said, earning himself a slap upside the head from Liam. 

This particular exchange, and more specifically the image of Louis talking about sexual deviations while lying on a bed like some sort of caricature of a French painting, was running through Harry’s sleep deprived mind as he hurried to his morning class under the cold drizzle that had replaced the rain. He had managed to get a couple of hours of sleep, but had woken up when the fire was out and the room had turned frigid. Going back to his room, he had collapsed on his bed, only to hear his alarm clock ringing what felt like three minutes later. And now, as he hurried up to the fourth floor on the slippery stairs, he realized with a groan he had forgotten to do the assigned readings for the class.

He took his usual seat near the centre of the lecture hall, unpacking his notebook and fiddling with his pen to keep his mind busy and, more importantly, awake. A three hour lecture on Shakespeare was the last thing he needed at the moment, his eyes unable to focus on the board for more than a handful of seconds before they closed heavily, his entire body jerking back as he drifted to sleep and started to fall forward.

The door opened loudly and Harry didn’t have to look to know who had just entered. He always banged doors opened, making his entrance known as if his presence itself wasn’t enough to get him noticed.

“Harold!” Louis’ voice echoed around the half-empty hall, off the wood-panelled walls and the high, off-white ceiling. He was holding a notebook in his hand, the poor thing in tatters like most of what Louis owned. The usual swirl of hair was falling on his forehead, disheveled in a way that felt more genuine than Zayn’s calculated styling, with the sides ruffled and looking mostly unkempt.

Harry waved at him, shifting in his seat as he watched Louis climb the steps up to where he was sitting and make his way to the empty chair next to Harry. He rubbed his eye and braced himself for the tornado of Louis’ personality.

“Hi, Louis,” he said once Louis was settled. “How are you?”

“I’m brilliant. My day’s always off to such a good start when I get to see you first thing in the morning.” He patted Harry’s knee, a smirk on his lips. Harry swallowed around his dry throat. “You, on the other hand, look terrible.”

“Insomnia,” Harry replied with a shrug, stifling a yawn with his hand. “Nothing new.”

“Yeah, I see that, the bags under your eyes are terrifying.” 

Harry opened his mouth to reply, but then forgot to close it as Louis reached up and stroked a thumb under Harry’s eye, lightly touching the paper thin skin. He could wax lyrical about how soft Louis’ skin turned out to be, or how unexpected the touch was, but neither of those things would be right. The fact of the matter was that being touched, stroked, petted or any other synonym describing fond, affectionate physical contact were common when Louis was concerned. That did not mean that Harry was used to it, and he found himself freezing under Louis’ careful finger, his words dying in his throat. 

“It looks like you’ve got shiners,” Louis said, voice quiet and soft. “You have to take better care of yourself, Haz, or else someone will have to do it for you.”

Louis’ fingers were still lightly brushing his cheek, close to his ear, as his thumb moved back and forth, barely touching his skin, and Harry absolutely could not let out any sound resembling modern languages. Instead, he nodded, remembered to close his mouth, and cleared his throat to try and speak. All of his efforts were ruined when Louis patted his cheek and moved back, slipping lower in his seat and winking at Harry when their knees bumped.

Harry blinked to realize that the hall had filled while Louis was busy making him forget English. He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket for his glasses and slipped them on, not missing the pleased noise Louis let out next to him. He glanced at him, frowning.

“Love the glasses, Harold.”

“Me too. They help me see.”

Harry did not particularly consider himself a religious man. He went to church when it mattered and tried not to do unto others what he would not want done unto him, but for the most part, he never really had God at the back of his mind whenever he did something. And yet, as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wondered what he had done to anger God. His eyes widened and he felt a blush blooming on his cheeks, his skin burning with the shame and embarrassment of his reply. They help me see, way to state the obvious, Styles. Louis was obviously flirting and the only thing he could come up with was bloody “they help me see.”

Louis let out a bark of laughter, pushing his knee against Harry’s. “Good for you, mate. You wouldn’t want to strain those pretty eyes of yours.”

The professor walking in and setting up his papers behind the lectern saved Harry from having to answer. Harry kept his eyes trained on the front of the class for the first hour of the lecture, pointedly ignoring Louis’ constant shifting and squirming around in his seat. Liam often asked if he had ants in his pants, which usually prompted Louis to let out a vulgar joke about what he did have in his pants. It was better if Harry ignored him, then. He was already struggling to keep up with the deadpan droning of their professor, he didn’t need to think about the way Louis’ thigh brushed against his every time he moved. 

The lightbulb closest to the door kept flickering, the rhythm varying from every other second to one every two or three minutes, and Harry found himself captivated by it. The ventilation buzzed in the background, a low metallic rumble pushing moist air into the suffocating hall. A strand of hair had escaped from his comb-over, falling into his eyes and curling from the humidity. He blew on it, watching it rise and fall and repeating the motion over and over again, until Louis elbowed him.

Harry turned to him, bracing himself for a witty remark that would turn him into a blubbering mess, but instead he was met with Louis’ profile, face set and serious as he had his hand raised in the air. Squinting, Harry turned to their professor in time to see him calling on Louis, who lifted his eyebrows, once, before an amused smile curled up his lips.

“Sir, there is something that has been bothering me since I read through the assigned pages last night. See, I can’t quite figure out what Shakespeare meant when he had Aufidius say: ‘Let me twine mine arms about that body, where against my grained ash an hundred times hath broke and scarr’d the moon with splinters,’ and then later when he adds: ‘but that I see thee here, thou noble thing! more dances my rapt heart than when I first my wedded mistress saw bestride my threshold.’”

Louis glanced up from the copy of Coriolanus opened in front of him, several lines underlined in blue ink, to give Harry a wink before looking back down and continuing.

“And when he writes: ‘thou hast beat me out twelve several times, and I have nightly since dreamt of encounters ‘twixt thyself and me; we have been down together in my sleep, unbuckling helms, fisting each other’s throat, and waked half dead with nothing,’ what I don’t understand, sir, is that it sounds to me like Aufidius is courting Marcius, doesn’t it? All this talk of,” Louis glanced down again, “nightly dreams of what sounds to me like some sort of wrestling? All of this leads me to think that there is a certain passion to Marcius and Aufidius’ relationship that you haven’t talked about, yet.”

Louis sat back in his seat, the line of his shoulders disagreeing with the look of candid innocence he had schooled his face into. The entire hall seemed to be waiting with baited breath for their professor’s response, the poor man looking terrified and offended and minuscule in his bulky tweed jacket. His lip quivered, making his grey, toothbrush moustache dance, and he narrowed his eyes at Louis.

“Ignoring Mr Tomlinson’s depraved mind, let’s have a short break. Class will resume in ten minutes.”

Chatter rose around them and Louis shook his head, a look of annoyed resignation on his face.

“I knew he’d do that. I bloody knew it. They’re always too stuck up to address the blatant homoeroticism of the material they assign us.”

Homoeroticism. The word rang in Harry’s ears, filling up his skull and flushing out everything else, leaving him with images of--with images of things he’d rather not put a name on. Of Louis’ lips as they curled into his trademark smirk, of Louis’ spread thighs as he lay on one of their beds, reading out loud from whichever book he had found on the bedside table, of Louis’ eyes and the way they had to always seek Harry’s, but also of older memories. Memories of swimming in a lake with his older cousin as a child and watching the drops of water running down his chest and shimmer in the sun. Locker room memories, a seemingly endless number of them, all strung one after the other in his mind like a neverending series of discomfort and shame as he caught glimpses of changing bodies. Memories of feeling wrong and twisted, an abomination that would bring shame to his family if he said anything.

There was a word for all this, a simple word which Louis uttered like it didn’t carry the weight of the world with it. A word which didn’t sound as ominous as the others did. That word wouldn’t be in Liam’s textbook. That word evoked ideas of art in Harry’s mind, not of therapy.

“Harold? Are you all right? I’ve lost you, here, haven’t I? Wake up, Styles, you’re not in your bed. I understand that it can be confusing for you right now because we all know you see me in your dreams, but--”

“That word you used,” Harry said, cutting him. He cleared his throat and decided it was better to ignore how accurate Louis’ teasing was.

“Which one? You’ll notice I speak quite a lot, so you’ll have to be a bit more specific than that.”

Lowering his voice, Harry leaned in. “Homoeroticism.”

“What about it?”

“It was the first time I heard it. I didn’t know it existed.”

“There are a lot of things you don’t know about.” Louis patted his thigh with a pout. “But don’t worry, I can teach you. I owe you one, remember?”

Harry let out a strangled noise and looked away so he would not have to see Louis’ smirk.

Harry spent the rest of the lecture in a haze, his mind preoccupied with what he tried so hard to ignore during the first half: Louis’ elbow brushing against his on the armrest, their knees bumping when he moved, the sound of his breathing, regular and deep, the way he tapped his pen against his notebook, the muscles in his forearm shifting as he took notes. By the time his torture was over, he realized with horror that he had not listened to a single word of the entire second half of the lecture and he bit his lip. 

“And they say I’m the worst student this school has ever seen,” Louis commented after seeing the blank page that Harry failed to hide.

“I couldn’t concentrate,” Harry explained as he packed his bag hastily and followed Louis to leave the lecture hall.

“You can borrow my notes, don’t worry.” Once out of the hall, Louis turned to walk backwards, eyes on Harry. “Why, though? Why was Harold Styles, scholarship student, not paying attention in class? Thinking about boys, maybe?”

Without thinking about it, Harry lurched forward to put his hand over Louis’ mouth. “Shut up,” he hissed.

Unfazed, Louis lowered Harry’s hand with his, his expression softening. “So, you were? This is an interesting turn of events.” Looking up at Harry, he frowned. “Oh, you’re scared.”

“I’m not scared.” At the sight of Louis raising his eyebrow in disbelief, Harry licked his lips. “I’m terrified.” He glanced around, feeling like all eyes were on the pair of them as they stood in the middle of the hallway and blocked the traffic.

Louis nodded and took Harry’s elbow, dragging him along and out of the building. Outside, pale rays of sunlight were peeking through the clouds and the air felt light for the first time in days. Harry tried to avoid the puddles covering the cobblestones while Louis kept pulling him along, mindful of keeping his socks dry even as an outrageously flirtatious man he barely knew was taking him somewhere unknown.

“Do you have work today?” Louis asked over his shoulder as they crossed the campus towards their dormitory.

“No. Where are we going?”

“My dorm.”

Harry stopped abruptly, causing Louis to stumble forward before he caught himself and turned. “Why?”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to molest you.” Letting go of Harry’s arm, he stepped closer, lowering his voice. “I just thought you’d prefer to talk about your innermost secrets in private. Assuming you want to talk about it?”

Harry looked down at Louis for a moment, unsure of what to do next. Louis held his gaze, eyes wide and earnest, almost begging for Harry’s trust. Gnawing at his lip, Harry breathed in sharply and nodded, making the jump, stepping off the edge of the metaphorical cliff and choosing to trust Louis.

A small smile appeared on Louis’ lips, more subdued than what Harry was used to see, and it warmed up the bottom of his stomach in a way that was not unpleasant.

“Very well. Let us be on our way, then.” 

A sense of dread descended upon Harry as they neared Louis’ room. His nerves were setting in, sparking up, exploding in bright flashes of what felt a lot like terror at the prospect of the conversation he was about to have and of its ramifications. Thinking it was one thing, admitting that he was thinking it was another, but voicing it was in the realm of impossibilities. The door shut behind them with a quiet click and then they were alone, shielded. Louis sat backwards on his desk chair and motioned for Harry to sit on his bed before he folded his arms and raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

“Harry, tell me. How long have you known?” His voice was quiet and soft, so unlike Louis’ usual loud squawks that it eased Harry’s nervousness, if only partially. 

Harry found that he could not look at Louis’ face and he let his gaze drift to the wall behind him, hung with pennants in the colours of Liam’s favourite teams. He brought a hand up to scrape his teeth against the knuckle of a finger, a nervous habit he’d been trying to get rid off for years. He could feel Louis’ steady gaze on him and he swallowed thickly, breathing out.

“I don’t know.” He forced his eyes back on Louis, briefly, to see him frowning. “How long have you known?”

“That I’m gay?” Harry winced at the word and it made Louis smirk. “Summer 1943, there was this bloke billeted at a neighbour’s house. He’d pop by to play with my sisters and I some times and I’d seen him almost every day for months, but that one particular day, he helped my mother with gardening and took off his shirt because of the heat. It changed my life.” He chuckled and scratched his cheek. “I was twelve. I spent the entire day in my bedroom, watching him from the window, absolutely confused about what was happening. I thought I was ill.”

“What’d you do?”

Louis shrugged. “I masturbated, obviously. That was a first. What a day.”

Heat spread on Harry’s face, bright red spots blooming on his cheeks at the words, and he muttered a scandalized ‘oh, my god’ that made Louis laugh. 

“Have you never?” Louis asked, giving Harry a curious smile. “Have you really never touched yourself?”

Putting a hand over his eyes, Harry groaned. “Of course, I have, but I don’t talk about it with everyone,” he blurted out, ashamed.

“Why not? You have to stop listening to your minister, kid. It’s perfectly normal, everyone does it.”

Harry shook his head and wiped his sweaty hands on his trousers. He could not remember having ever been as uncomfortable as he was in that instant. His nerves were raw and he felt too hot and too cold at the same time, safe and cloistered at once in the cramped dorm room. Looking at Louis, he found him observing him with a steady expression. Harry appreciated that he was not pushing for answers despite his obvious curiosity. He didn’t feel pressured to answer, but the possibility was there, hanging in the still, humid air between them. It was his choice to seize it and, with a shaky sigh, he did.

“I’ve always had, hum, suspicions that I wasn’t normal. I can’t--” he waved his hands around, “--put words on it, or tell you about specific incidents, but I’ve been having doubts since grammar school.”

“You’re normal.” There was an unexpected fire behind Louis’ words that made Harry frown.

“You can’t be serious. You heard Liam the other day, we’re sociopaths.”

Louis rolled his eyes, digging in his pockets for a cigarette. He placed it between his lips and cracked a match to light it, eyes on Harry through the rising smoke. “Do you feel like a sociopath?”

Harry shrugged. “Not particularly.”

Blowing smoke, Louis raised his eyebrows. “There you go. You’re not. Simple as that. Admitting a bloke needs to have his hands tied above his hands to be able to come, would you say he’s a sociopath?” When Harry shook his head, Louis continued. “But that’s still a paraphilia, ergo he’s mental. We’re not perverts, we just love differently. That’s how I see it, anyway.”

Harry licked his lips and nodded, transfixed by Louis’ verve. “And they say you’re the worst student of your year.”

Louis laughed, sharp and clear, smoke coming out of his nostrils. “I’ve had a bad freshman year and the reputation, sadly, stuck with me. Of course, I’m not a scholarship kid, so I don’t compare.” He winked a Harry.

“How do you know so many things about me? We’ve rarely spoken.”

Louis laughed again, but the sound was softer, more intimate, in an odd way. “Well...” He rubbed the back of his neck, discarding the butt of his cigarette in a dirty ashtray on his bedside table. “I asked around. You helped me a lot when you befriended Zayn.”

Harry shifted on the bed to rest his back against the wall, kicking his shoes off quickly to pull his knees up against his chest. “Why?”

Louis’ eyes widened, almost comically, before he shrugged. “Curiosity. You looked interesting.”

#caro writes fic #larry #larry fic #my fics #rip wip meme

[shadowsong26fic]

Coming Attractions!

First Monday of the month, which means Coming Attractions Post!

(Especially since I skipped last month, whoops…)

Before we get into it, as I always do in these things, plug for my Discord server--it’s pretty quiet, but basically a slightly more interactive version of this tumblr. Sometimes I talk a little more about origfic or other stuff than I do here, too.

Also, this is not my only hobby! As some of you may know, one of my others is lacework, and I now have a sideblog for that. I have pictures of my completed projects up there, and will probably have more stuff as I start…well…making more stuff.

Anyway. On to the actual writing stuff aka why most of you are here (also a few requests for feedback/Opinions behind the cut).

So, I didn’t get much done over the month until, like…the last few days. In part because work got super bonkers for reasons I’m still Cranky at but that is a vent for my personal blog, lol.

Precipice:

I have threeish scenes left, which I’m probably going to do as one more chapter (unless they end up Super Long, then I might split it into two). That’ll close out Arc Seven, and the first big chunk of this fic. As I’ve said before, I’ll split off into a sequel fic (working title Protectors) at that point, along with doing a sort of…interquel, working title Preludes, that mostly deals with integrating Rebels content. Also probably Maul.

Right now, I’m tentatively planning six installments to Preludes? Mostly because six feels like a nice number to work with, lol. These will be one-shots that aren’t super interconnected, all taking place during the six-year timeskip. These are the ones I’m thinking about doing as of right now (subject to change, and I welcome suggestions!):

one involving Kallus on Coruscant, shortly before he gets reassigned to Lothal;

one involving Hera and whoever her contact is in this AU (since Ahsoka’s doing something different from the Fulcrum stuff);

one where Kanan and Ezra connect with Obi-Wan et al. (probably through Hondo);

one with Luke, probably similar to that one episode where Leia turns up in Rebels canon;

I really do need to figure out what the heck is going on with Maul, don’t I.

…something else????

The only ones I’m 100% sure about including are the one with Kallus and the one where the various Jedi link up because those are necessary and/or plot-relevant, though I’m still working out specifics (especially on the Jedi one). I may also include something with Thrawn, since I’m doing something different with him than canon did. Like I said, I welcome thoughts/suggestions/etc.

Protectors will then pick up six years after the end of Arc Seven, with Arc Eight. And, as a treat, the working titles for Arcs Eight and Nine are Escalation and Watershed. In theory, I’m planning to post Preludes alongside arcs eight and nine, but we’ll see.

…anyway, uh, what I forgot to mention earlier is that my plan is to wrap up arc seven/the first fic in this series this month. Hopefully I will actually pull that off XD. And then we move on to the other stuff.

Other SW Fic Projects:

Big Bang is coming up again! I think signups will be next month? I’m considering three different plotlines as of right now, though that’s assuming I don’t come up with something new and exciting and/or another ObiAniDala plotline, which is what I seem to do every year…which one I end up doing probably depends at least partly on how S2 of the Mandalorian goes, since two of the three ideas heavily feature Bo-Katan. Of course, one of those lacks a plot and the other is pretty episodic/involves a lot of blank space I still need to fill in…

Anyway, we’ll see how that goes after the show airs and I get more event information, especially since it’s going to be structured differently/teaming up writers and betas much earlier in the process, which will be nice and possibly help chronically-undecided me actually pick something so I’m not scrambling to finish at the last minute but given that it’s me I probably will be anyway XD

As for other SW projects…I still owe a few meme fills from, like, April…but otherwise, extant projects are mostly back-burnered for now.

AtLA Projects:

Aka, the reason why SW projects other than Precipice and SWBB (and any one-shots/prompt fills that occur to me) are back-burnered, lol.

I am working on an AU outline, set to come out this month. There’s a couple of fulltext fics I’m playing with. I haven’t gotten any actual text written down yet, but I know where I’m going with them, at least to start.

The AU outline will be a canon-divergent thing set during the Ba Sing Se arc, and will be hopefully out Soon.

Fulltext fic #1 is…basically, the premise is, Lu Ten had a lover during the Siege, the soundtrack to this fic involves a lot of West Side Story, he left her with someone to remember him by, and then there’s some mindbending and complicated politics after his death. I think I talked a little more about this in a previous post? Anyway, one of the things I’m considering is whether to just tell this story linearly, or to start several years later, and go into the whole star-crossed lovers backstory as she regains her memories of what actually happened. The advantage to the first option is that it’s easier to work with shifting POV, which I prefer; and also involves more canon characters more quickly. The advantage to the second is that I think it would work really well for this particular storyline? Assuming I could get people invested in her and/or Ba Sing Se Politics/Worldbuilding that fast …y’know, when I think about it like that, maybe linear is the best option, lol…

Fulltext fic #2 is an Avatar Zuko AU, where he figures it out at age thirteen, and at that point decides he has roughly three and a half years until the comet, aka three and a half years to figure out how to make all this work (not to mention at least starting to learn air, water, and earth), and hopefully by then he’ll know what he should be doing with it? Whether it’s to resurface and Prove His Worth by defending the Fire Nation during the leadup to the comet, or something else (though Something Else doesn’t quite occur to him until he starts doing the other stuff). This will heavily feature at least one of my old OCs, and probably a few others (and likely one or two new ones), especially during the first two years. I’ve got things more or less worked out up until Aang resurfaces and Zuko’s plans have to shift/he has to cut his earthbending year short (much to Toph’s annoyance). Because once Aang is awake, everyone thinks he’s the Avatar (he’s not; there’s another explanation for how he iceberg’d for a century), and that fact just escalates All Of The Things.

((I’ve mentioned before that I am Pathologically Incapable of not creating a bunch of OCs and AtLA is a particularly strong example of that, so...yeah, that’ll be a Thing in pretty much anything I write in this fandom))

…anyway, this should be fun, once I actually get actual text down XD

Original Fic:

I did write one thing last month! Which was nice. Hopefully, I’ll get a bit done this month, too. For those of you who don’t know, most of my original stuff is posted on rainbowfic, which is a great community and if you guys do original stuff you post online, you should come join.

I’ve also started poking at a couple of new concepts, because that is how my brain do. Including one Arthuriana story despite the fact that I’m not super into Arthuriana but then my brain was like “what if Mordred was a girl?” and welp. Here I am.

NaNo:

I’m proooooooobably going to do a similar setup to what I had the past couple years--set myself a wordcount goal, but not bind myself to any single project. Depending on how things go this month, either with Precipice!verse or SWBB or my AtLA stuff, or if that Mordred thing catches on, I might try to prioritize one or more things (like, have my goal be 20k on X project, and 30k on other stuff), but I’ll decide that closer to the date.

…I think that’s everything! What are you guys up to lately? Does anyone have NaNo plans? Any thoughts on stuff I mentioned on my docket, so to speak? What’s on your mind?

#miscellania #coming attractions #feedback greatly appreciated #shadowsong26fic #shadowsong writes star wars #shadowsong writes atla #shadowsong writes original fic

[azissuffering]

Rocks and Water - Chapter 1: Finitude

Moonfam Origins Fic. Begins with Runaan and Lain in the Silvergrove.

Link to Ao3: 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/24565177/chapters/59325352

The girl was pretty, he supposed, pretty enough that she caught his eye from a hundred yards and a breathless four miles into his training routine. She had a narrowish face and a wire-thin frame that did not match with the easy way she worked over the mass of vine and rock that blocked the forest path some three hundred feet behind him. He didn’t recognize her from his own troupe, but it was common enough for training exercises to overlap, even within the boundary of neighboring communities.

“Hurry up, Lain.”

Runaan rapped him on the shoulder as he passed, which Lain did not appreciate — he did not exactly have a gentle touch. Lain tore his gaze from the girl’s retreating back and hurried to catch up with his errant friend.

Runaan slowed and allowed him to fall in step beside him, and they ran in silence for a while, following the bare path carving through the foliage from decades of drilled training exercises. It was a balmy summer morning, the forest still recovering from the previous night’s rain, and the ground was dangerously slick from wet. The thick canopy would shield the world beneath until high noon, and even still it would be hours yet before the land was comfortably dry. Most would be holed away in their homes at this hour of the morning, and probably for much of the foreseeable day, but sleeping late was a luxury that the guild apprentices did not have. They were young, and thus the rigors not quite as demanding as their elders in their specialized occupations, but they were challenged, still. 

Lain didn’t particularly mind the rain or the demands of his to-be profession, but he knew his friend had different feelings, and he finally saw fit to break the silence with a query after his health.

“How are you doing?” he asked between steps. 

“It’s wet. It’s early. My ankle aches from when you stepped on it yesterday. How am I supposed to feel?” 

Lain rolled his eyes. “Runaan. I meant your sister.” 

Runaan scowled. “What about her?”

Their conversation was momentarily interrupted when, ahead, the ground split into a series of uneven gnolls, empty pockets of earth knotted into the ground as if hacked away with a great axe. It was messy, and obviously artificial, one of the many obstacles that the guild students were to be faced with on the daily.  

“The guildmasters were unhappy this morning,” Runaan muttered, hopping gingerly from foot to foot to avoid slipping. Lain noticed with a pang that he was favoring his right leg. Still, guilty conscience or no, he had a moral duty as “friend” to ensure his partner’s wellbeing. 

“Well, how is she?” 

When there was no response, Lain glanced away from his footwork to find Runaan’s jaw set and lips pressed into a line. 

“Ru —”

“I don’t see how that matters,” he snapped. “It’s not relevant.”  

The ground smoothed over and began a slender slope downwards. In the distance, Lain could just barely make out the lively sounds of morning bustle, shops opening and those stubborn enough to brave the weather. They were nearing the end of the loop. 

“Hey! Runaan!” 

Lain scurried forward and caught hold of Runaan’s arm.  

Runaan shrugged him aside, twitching, but he stopped all the same. 

“Listen, you need to slow down for a second. I —” Lain cut off when he saw Runaan stiffen and sighed. His friend could really use a lesson on emotional vulnerability. He softened his tone and tried again, “I just want to help.”

“I understand that.” His words came out tight, but the fact that he responded at all was promising, from him. “I just don’t think it’s important.”

“Don’t think it’s —” Lain ran a hand through his hair and forced himself to lower his voice. “Runaan, your sister almost died. That’s a very big deal, especially when you choose to pursue the very path that put her there.”

A heavy pause.

“Look, can’t you at least try to explain? You haven’t talked to me the whole week. Actually, you’ve actively avoided me the whole week.”

“I haven’t —”

“Yes, you have, and you weren’t even trying to be discreet. I got stuck with green recruits four days in a row because you were absent on partnering rounds.”

“I needed to think.”

“Well, you’ve had your time, so let’s talk.” 

Runaan looked away, shifted on his feet and glanced back at Lain. “She’s not getting better,” he muttered. “And she won’t talk to me.”

Lain waited.

“It’s not like she’s ever talked to me before.” Runaan huffed a laugh, harsh and scathing, then turned on his heel and began walking again. 

Lain began to protest, but Runaan threw a hand over his shoulder and said, “I’m not evading, but the guildmasters will get suspicious if we’re late. We’ll speak while we walk.”

That was Runaan, thinking about his reputation even while he was hurting. Lain swallowed his sigh and followed. 

Runaan began unprompted this time, which probably meant he was more worried than he let on. “When the blackspine hit her, it got her in the stomach, but she fell on her back. She was unconscious when her troupe brought her back, so they didn’t know how bad it was, but when she woke up, she couldn’t move her legs.” Runaan swallowed hard and turned his head to the sky as if checking the degree of the sun. Of course, he wasn’t. He was just stalling. 

“Go on,” Lain prompted gently. 

Runaan sighed heavily. “The healer said she broke something. He suspects the spinal cord, but it’s not like he’s going to cut her open and check. He doesn’t know if it’s a full break or a damage that will heal naturally, and he said it’s too early to be sure. We’ll only know if her recovery gets better with time.”

“And you worry she won’t,” Lain guessed. 

“No — yes, obviously, but it’s more than that.” Runaan waved a hand through the air. “We’ve...talked about her injury and the possibility of no recovery. Neither of us are happy, obviously, but you know us. We’ve never lied about reality. It’s not our way. It’s the waiting I can’t stand. I wish these weeks would be gone so I could know how to accommodate her.”

“You know it doesn’t work like that.” Lain touched his shoulder. “Besides, moments like these are the best opportunities for growth. When else would you prompt yourself into juggling dual responsibilities? Family and work?”

“Never,” Runaan muttered. “Precisely because it means I can’t focus properly on either.” 

“Runaan. You have to learn how to do both. Life’s the best teacher, if you’ll just let it guide you.”

Runaan did not respond, and Lain didn’t push him. They walked the last two miles in silence, then paused at the top of the hill that hid them from the view of the rest of the village. 

Runaan turned to Lain and offered him a small smile. 

“I appreciate your help, Lain,” he said, “even if you are a pushy ass about it.”

Lain smiled and pulled him into an unwarranted embrace. “That part just means I care. Now, let’s get back down there before Liam eats our breakfast.” 

*

When they entered the mess hall, they were greeted by Laida’s unhappy timbre. Normally, nothing could stand between an elf just off training and their prospective meal, but as guildmaster and keeper of the twelve that made up their troupe, Laida had just enough authority to do so.

“You’re late,” she said, stepping before them in that imperious way of hers. Despite being a bare inch above five foot, she managed to convey the affluent air of the Dragon King himself. 

“Guildmaster,” Runaan greeted with a respectful tilt of his horns, but his tone belied his apparent regard. “I have to disagree. We’re a full half hour before the deadline, and the hall isn’t even close to full, meaning that even the year-ups haven’t completed their run before us.”

Laida interrupted him with a knock between the horns. It was the sort of reprimand you’d give a child, not a seventeen year old assassin-to-be, and given to such a revered pupil, doubly humiliating. 

“I meant in a personal regard, you twit,” she snapped. “That arrogance will get you flogged by a testier master, Runaan. Curb it now.”

Runaan looked at her, wincing, but the ire in his eyes did not leak into his tone. “Yes, Guildmaster.” 

Laida nodded, then reassessed her stance. “Now, what I meant was that you’ve come in a full fourteen minutes after your usual time. I don’t know what the reason for that could be, given you aren’t lovers, so far as I know —”

Lain spluttered an affronted protest, but Laida plowed right on. 

“Nor have either of you ever been severely impeded by the rain. I’m old enough to know when further prying is necessary, and this is not such a time, but I am giving you fair warning. I placed my repute and career in advocating for you all those years ago. You’re my most promising students, and I expect you both to make it as Knives by next winter’s end. Do not ruin this opportunity with frivolities, do you understand?”

Both Lain and Runaan nodded.

Mollified, Laida stepped aside and let them pass. 

They did so cautiously, then hastened their step once they’d passed her. Laida had a glare like forge-heated steel. They slipped past the first-years along their way to their corner table, and Lain was uncomfortably aware of their bright eyes and hopeful expressions, knowing that such youthful optimism would soon be ripped from them and gutted beneath the guildmasters’ scrupulous attentions. Softness had no place in an assassin’s life until they were well and truly broken in, and at that point it was enforced merely to preserve one’s sanity. 

They approached the table in the corner, and with the already seated ten, plus Lain and Runaan’s two, it was the least crowded but for the tenth-years who had lost three in the year-end cuts and were now down to a scant seven. The occupants were mostly quiet, focused on their meals, but they chipped into the main conversation every now and then so as not to be excluded. 

Liam was, as usual, hollering about something or other, to Talis, who was not paying him attention other than the occasional nod. He cut off when he noticed them approaching, face breaking out into a broad grin.

He half rose in his chair with his wave. “Lain, Runaan! About time! I was debating with my friend here whether or not you’d been devoured by a blackspine, them being so prevalent this year — ow.”

The girl on his right had elbowed him sharply in the ribs and was now glaring at him with gray eyes gone furious. 

“What?” Liam cried.

“Not funny,” she said mildly. 

Lain shot a glance at Runaan just in time to notice him forcibly unclench his jaw. Sure not to let his worry show, he plastered on an easy smile and slung an arm over his shoulders.

“That’s alright, Talis,” he said, “I’m sure he wasn’t thinking of how it’d affect Runaan when he said it.” 

“No, he just wasn’t thinking, as usual,” Talis said, but she returned to her fruit without saying more.

“I didn’t even do anything,” Liam muttered, and Lain did his best to ignore him.

Jara scooted over to offer him space, and Lain seated himself with a gracious smile, pulling Runaan along with him. Runaan settled with a grimace. He preferred to sit on the end of the bench, but they were lucky to receive a space at all. They were taught early to show no pity to comrades come late to breakfast; the guildmasters’ punishment. Luckily, their troupe was closer than most, and Laida enjoyed spiting the system enough to encourage their small rebellions.

“So,” Liam began, “can I ask why you two are so late, or will I get punished for that, too?”

Lain helped himself to a pair of bread loaves and what was left of the fruit and filled a second plate for Runaan. Runaan took it with that same confused gratitude he always expressed whenever someone offered him a kindness. Lain patted him on the head before turning to address Liam.

“No reason in particular,” he said. “We found a dry patch amidst the wet, and we got to talking.” 

“Oooh.” Liam pounded a triumphant fist on the table. “I knew it. You hear that, Talis? They got to talking —”

“That’s not a euphemism,” Talis interrupted, but Liam wasn’t listening. 

He pointed at Runaan. “I always knew you swung the other way, but Lain — that’s a surprise. Wasn’t he into that one girl from the Highgrove last year?”

Lain colored. “Hold on —”

“Oh, yeah,” Rhys piped up with a mouth full of ham. “The one with the pretty eyes. She clocked him in the jaw for staring.” 

Liam cackled. “That’ll teach you!”

“Actually, not,” Runaan added. “I caught him staring at her ass just an hour ago.”

Lain spun around to look at him. “I thought you were running.” 

“I still have eyes, Lain,” Runaan said hotly. “You’re not discreet with your affections.” 

“Except with Runaan apparently — ” Liam began but cut off with a yelp when Talis saw fit to intercede again with the sharp end of her fist.

“Would you cut it out?” she snapped. “You’re not funny. Next time, I’ll break your arm instead of bruise it.” 

“Oh, she’s mad now.” Rhys, who had been scooping butter into his mouth by the spoonful, paused to speak. “Better listen, Liam. You know she’s serious when she threatens violence.”

“I’m always serious,” Talis interjected, “I just don’t like idiots who can’t close their mouths long enough to let a thought interject once in a while.” 

“STUDENTS.” 

Farin’s exclamation, animated by his respectable reservoir of magic, jarred most conversation by its root. Youth or not, they were still military trained. 

‘THE MEAL IS CONCLUDED. YOU MAY STEP OUTSIDE FOR PAIR DRILLS. YOU WILL BEGIN AS STUDENTS TO YOUR YEAR-UPS, FOLLOWED BY MONITORED INSTRUCTION WITH YOUR YEAR-DOWNS.” Farin nodded at the now-silent room. “DISMISSED.”

The room stood as a single unit, then began filling for the exit in uneven rows. Guildmasters called for troupes over the sound of marching feet and scattered conversation. Runaan trailed after Lain with a hand on his elbow. He wasn’t overly fond of crowds, and he preferred a tactile stimulus. Lain was glad to be of service. 

“Over — fuck — over here, damn it!” 

Laida’s flushed face popped through the crowd before disappearing again, an airborne fish dropped back into the waves. Lain tracked her by the disgruntled expressions pointed down, the unwitting leader to Runaan and the rest of his fellows. 

“This way — shit, fuck, just follow me,” was Laida’s greeting, to which Lain did not give a response other than a passive nod.

When they’d squeezed out through the hundred bodies and come out into the grassy courtyard that served as the training yard, Laida drew in a breath and threw her hands to the heavens.

“Moon and fucking shadow! That gets worse with every passing year!” She took in one last suffering inhale before her posture shifted and her tone went crisp. “Right. To business. They’ve put me in charge of this team, so Silha’s brats are mine, now.”  

Indeed, a slow stream of bodies came to stand beside those already gathered, tentative and guarded as Moonshadows were with those they didn’t know well. There were fifteen in total; Lain recognized a few faces, but most were strangers. Laida gave them a few minutes to gather themselves before she began again. 

“As the numbers are uneven, we will have to amend the rules in order to comply with the requirements of a pair drill,” Laida said. “Now, be honest now, who is the best among the lot of you?” 

There was a moment of uneasy silence, a murmur passed through the crowd. Two stepped forward confidently, one with mild prompting and a final unsure glance thrown over his shoulder, and the last was shoved out from behind her friend with barely concealed annoyance. 

“Four of you,” Laida nodded. “That makes this easy, then. Each one of you will take three of my recruits; in succession, not all together. Don’t get excited.” Laida began to assign their troupe to each of the four leaders. When she reached Runaan and Lain, she said, “Runaan to Saia, Lain to Malik. I’m sorry to separate you, but I think it’s unfair to have you both on a single person, don’t you agree?” 

Lain nodded sagely. “Of course, Guildmaster.” 

Laida gave him a wan smile. “You just agree no matter what I say.” Before Lain could voice a word of protest, she leaned in and whispered, “Just between the three of us: wipe the floor with them, won’t you?” 

 Runaan smiled wolfishly. “Of course, Guildmaster.”

*

It was high noon when they switched from roles. Though the physical tax was not the same, Runaan found it far more exhausting playing teacher than student, restraining his abilities as opposed to stretching them. He knew how to speak plainly, which he thought more efficient than the flowered words of encouragement Lain offered, and his partner was an amiable enough student, but still. By the end of the day, he was drenched in sweat and his temper was sharp enough to cut himself on.

Still, he dragged himself to meet Lain at the edge of the training yard, as they always did at the end of the day. Thankfully, Lain didn’t seem to be in the mood for a chat, merely yelled, “See you, tomorrow!” and dashed off in that happy shadowpaw way of his. 

Runaan shook his head on a smile and turned for home. 

His home was on the southern edge of the grove, nestled between two firs and only a handful of steps from the ritual pool. It was a melancholy house, shadowed as it was and set beside a place of mourning, and as Runaan stepped closer, he felt the familiar gloom more apt than ever. 

He stepped inside and shut the door with deliberate strength, for between his taciturn air and his sister’s even quieter nature, the sound of the door served just as well as a shouted hello. He pulled off his boots and left them stacked in tandem with a second, smaller pair before padding off for the kitchen. 

It was a small house, but the threadbare furnishings made it seem overly large. Indeed, one would not fully know the effect a soft chair and a bit of upholstery had on the dreary emptiness of a room until one stepped into Runaan’s house. It was bare, void of color or personality save the staple necessities to survive, an oven, a cooling box with enchantments carved down the side, a smattering of cutlery amidst other, more poignant knives. 

Runaan pulled a clean plate off the rack beside the sink, kneeled on the black chestnut of his floor and pulled the cooling box open. Inside was a half-eaten torte, a jug of milk, and a variety of fruits kept fresh by the enchantments. He stacked the plate with fruit and the bread left over from their pre-breakfast, then headed for the hallway. 

He found Nia in much the same position as he’d left her, except when he’d left her she hadn’t had inkstains smudged across her nose and hands, nor had there been a mountain of crumpled papers littering the floor like the Silvergrove’s first snowfall.

Runaan paused in the doorway and raised an eyebrow. “What’s all this?” he asked.

“Boredom,” Nia said flatly. She hurled something at the wall beside his head, and he tracked its trajectory from her hand until the point it came to rest at the space between his feet. He reached down and picked it up off the floor, then held it up between two fingers for examination.

“A pen?” he said.

“Yes, it’s what people use to write,” she retorted dryly. “Hands are for more than knives, remember?”

Runaan’s lips thinned. He let the pen slip from his fingers and kicked the door shut behind him. He didn’t have any particular reason to do so — it was just the two of them — but he’d acquired the habit and had never seen reason to part with it. Besides, he felt more secure with four walls around him. 

As he approached the bedside, Nia reached above her head and took hold of the bedframe with both hands. She heaved herself upright without outward effort, then arranged her legs beneath her as one might a stuffed doll. She scowled while she did it, then scowled some more when Runaan dropped the plate in her lap. 

She prodded at the bread. “Leftovers?” 

Runaan perched on the edge of the bed and settled his own frown across his lips. “That’s all we had. I haven’t been to the market since last week.” 

Nia grunted and prodded at the bread before stuffing it into her mouth. “So, what’s new?” she mumbled. 

“You could’ve asked before you started chewing,” Runaan said. “And nothing much. The guildmasters said something about a year skip for us, so that’s new.”

Nia choked on her mouthful and sat upright, pounding on her stomach. Runaan watched with mild interest.  

“A year skip?” she managed after a moment. “Runaan, that’s not something they do for just anyone.”

“I am aware.” 

“They didn’t even do that for me.” She stared at him. “You said ‘us.’ Who else are they considering?”

“Lain.”

She snorted. “Of course.”

Runaan raised an eyebrow. “You don’t seem surprised.” 

“No. If anyone could stand up to you, it’s him. You were first at everything, but he was always right on your heels.”

“Barring you. You were always better at everything.”

“Well.” Nia shoved a chunk of sweetmelon into her mouth. “You won’t have to worry about that now.” 

“About that.” Runaan tucked a leg beneath himself and set his gaze to the ground. “I’ve been meaning to talk with you —”

“No.” 

He looked up. “Pardon?”

“I said no. We’ve talked about it so many times I can hear your words before you say them. ‘Nia, it’s worrying, the way you shut down. Nia, don’t be a pessimist; we don’t even know all the facts yet. Nia, you know Mum wouldn’t want you to be down on yourself over something you can’t fix.’ Gods, Runaan, you’re like one of those self-esteem novels Dad gave me when I was thirteen.”

Runaan, whose jaw had tightened with each word that escaped her mouth and now felt like a wound spring, straightened. “Well, I’ll take my leave, then,” he said tightly. He made to get off the bed, but Nia spoke up again.

“Wait.”

He paused without looking.

She sighed heavily. “Stay there, you dramatic ass. I’m bored as all hell, and you’re probably the only entertainment I’ll get for the rest of the week.”

Runaan hid a vicious smile and scooted backwards on his hands. He waited.

“Toff’s putting his foot down about my rest period,” she said after a moment. “He told me this morning: three weeks minimum.”

Runaan frowned. “That’s not what he said two days ago.”

“Yeah, I know, that’s why I specified.”

He hesitated, and Nia leaned forward to swat him. “Stop that. I’m not made of glass.”

His lips twitched. “No, you are very much not.” He sobered again. “I just wondered...if the healer had mentioned anything new about your recovery?

Nia shook her head. “The same as always. He can’t make any decisive statements until he sees how my body adapts to the injury.” 

Runaan nodded. He twisted halfway to look her over again, and his tone lightened considerably. “How’s the pain? Have you been doing the exercises like he said?” 

“The pain?” Her brow furrowed. “There is none. Didn’t I tell you this already?”

She had, in fact, multiple times, but it was hard to remember that someone as vivid as Nia was also the bearer of two non-functioning limbs. His mind couldn't seem to pair the childhood memories of a girl that leapt from the rooftop of the bakery onto his father’s waiting back with the whip-thin approximation lying in a sickbed. Perhaps that was a flaw innate to his own self. 

“I suppose you have,” he murmured.

Nia yawned and set the empty plate aside. “Why don’t you read to me from that book you like. The flowery shit. ‘Shakefist,’ or whatever.”

“Shakespeare?”

“Yeah, that.” She leaned back against the headboard and shut her eyes. “It’s nice. You have a good voice for it.” 

Runaan sat very still and repeated what she’d said in his mind. Nia didn’t say things like that. To anyone, ever. “Of course,” he heard himself say, but it was from a very far away place. 

He leaned over and reached an arm under the bed. He returned with a thick tome in his hand. 

“Which one would you like?” he asked, blowing dust from the cover. 

“The Rape of Lucrece,” she said without hesitation. 

Runaan flipped through the book and began to read.

*

Lain crept along the cobbled path that ran between his mother’s garden. He moved quick and quiet, carefully avoiding sticks and fallen debris that might alert the house’s occupants to his presence. At the door, he paused, listening.

It was quiet inside, save the low burr of his father’s voice, and dark save the flicker of candlelight and the luminescence offered by the fading sun. Satisfied, Lain reared back on his heels and drew the door open. 

His father did not react at his appearance, but his mother started, jolting upright before sinking back into the plush of her seat. She gave him an absent smile before returning her attention to the table. Lain spared them a glance as he shucked his coat off. They were playing tak, as usual, a game of stones.

When his boots were lying in a heap by the door, coat slung across the open closet door, he stood there in the foyer for a moment. The stones made little thunks when they hit the wood of the gameboard. 

“I’m back,” he offered, hoping he might rouse one or both of his idle parents to attention.

“So we heard,” his father said and moved one of his stones into an offensive position. “Draw or idle?”

“Idle,” his mother said, to which his father laughed. 

“You know I take the win when you play defensive.”

His mother reached across the table and tapped a finger against his cheek. “Well, I’m about to remedy that, don’t you worry.” 

“We’ll see.” 

Lain watched them blankly, and a sudden anger rose within him. They hadn’t done anything specific to warrant it. Their mere existence peeved him. Always idle, always waiting for something to happen while the world spun circles around the pocketed bubble they’d built for themselves.

“Lain.” 

He glanced up at his father’s voice, momentarily pulled from his thoughts. 

“What are you doing standing there like that? Why don’t you come over and greet your mother like a proper son?” 

His jaw clenched. “Yes, Father.” 

He crossed the foyer stiffly and moved around to stand beside his mother. She held her hand out in traditional greeting, and he took it between his. 

She looked up from her game and smiled at him, the brown of her eyes twinkling merrily. “And how was your day, son?” she asked him.

“I’m continuing with the guild.”

Her eyes went round as saucers, her mouth fallen open in shock. His father looked not much better. Lain savored it. That had gotten a rise out of them. 

“ ‘Continue.’ ” His mother breathed the word from somewhere very far away. 

“Lain,” his father rumbled, “what nonsense are you speaking?” 

“It’s not nonsense, father. You know I never lie to you.” 

His father’s eyes narrowed dangerously. For all his flaws, stupidity was not one of them. “Explain.”

“Laida vouched for me,” he said. “Runaan and I are to join the Highgrove at winter’s end.” He left out the part about them not being officially approved by the Council. Laida’s intuition was right nine times out of ten, and besides, he was enjoying his parents’ discomfort.

“No, no, that can't be right," his mother muttered. "You're good, but you were never that good. You're a farmer, like your father."

"Listen to your mother, Lain," his father said. "You had your fun, but you're almost grown now. It's time you started thinking about the future."

"Future? What future?" Lain spat. "Will I sit here whittling away the days in the garden? Or perhaps you'd like me to get married." He snorted. "You've probably already found someone. Is that what you want? To drag another elf into this stain of a family?"

His mother seemed taken aback at his vitriol, and his father rose from his chair, a storm on his brow. "That's enough!" he bellowed. "You don't come into this house yelling profanities and threats. I raised you better than that. Your mother deserves your respect, and I damn well think I should too."

Lain laughed scathingly. " 'Respect is earned,' you always say. Best toughen up, Father."

His father stared at him a moment before shoving back from the table and storming across the living room. He threw open the door and pointed out into the night. "Get out of here," he snapped, "and don't return until you can be civil."

Lain sneered in his face. "Yes, Father."

*

Runaan sat upright. He cocked his ears and listened. Night owls, crickets, a singular pesky lyrebird, frogs and newts, nothing out of the ordinary. Except lyrebirds were diurnal and it was well past dusk, and he didn't think he'd ever heard one sound a mating call two months after the season. 

"Not again," he muttered and leaned over to pull the window open. As expected, the moonlight illuminated a lonely figure standing with hands still cupped over his mouth in the shade of his family's elm tree. 

As he watched, the figure dropped his hands to his sides and offered a lopsided grin. "Thank the Moon," Lain said. "I was one call away from scaling your roof and climbing in through your attic."

*

He ordered Lain to sit at the kitchen table while he set about making tea. "What was it this time?"

Runaan kept his voice low, wont to wake Nia but also because it felt wrong to raise his voice in the sobered ambiance they'd gathered between the two of them. 

Lain traced the whorls along the table's grain, gaze downcast and thoughtful. "I got cocky when I shouldn't have," he said

Runaan hummed and walked back to the table carrying two cups. He set one down in front of Lain. "That sounds more like me than you."

Lain wrapped his hands around the mug but didn't drink. "Perhaps you've rubbed off on me."

"Is that a good thing?"

"They just make me so angry," he explained. "My whole life, they've done the same thing. Farm crops, play tak, sleep, repeat. According to them, that's all they ever wanted or will want." He shook his head in disgust. "They have no ambition. I don't understand."

Runaan eyed him. He nodded at Lain's still-full mug. "Drink some of that, and we'll talk."

Lain looked down at the mug as if he’d forgotten it, then took an idle sip. 

Runaan waited until he’d downed half of it before speaking again. “You’ve explained your upset to me. Really, you’ve explained it every time you’ve come here. Still — do you think perhaps you’ve grown complacent?” 

Lain paused with his lips an inch from the porcelain rim of his cup. “What?” 

Runaan pursed his lips. “Do you ever stop to think that you’re lucky for having them at all?”

“Oh.” Lain set his cup down. “Runaan. I’m so sorry. Of course, I come in here complaining about my parents when you have none at all and your only sister has just had a scare with death — careless. I’m sorry. Do you need me to leave or —”

Runaan held up a hand. “You’re much too quick to pick up the blame,” he commented. “I ask out of curiosity, not as a criticism. Do you?”

Lain fell back into his seat, brow furrowing in thought. “Not really? Parents are just something you take for granted, I guess. Most people have them, so you kind of just assume you should, too.” He paused. “I’m sorry if that’s hurtful.” 

“No,” Runaan said. “I think I understand. It’s how I feel about Nia. She’s always been there. Why shouldn’t she be? It’s only recently that I’ve been thinking otherwise.” 

“Yeah… How is she?” 

Runaan looked heavenwards, fingers clacking against the side of his cup. “She’s fine, and she can probably hear us talking about her, so best not.” 

“Right. Sorry.” Lain hesitated. “And...what about you?” 

Runaan looked at him. “You asked me this morning.”

“Well you didn’t exactly answer.” 

Runaan scoffed. “Yes, I did. How is ‘I’m stressed’ not an answer?” 

Lain pointed at him with a triumphant smile. “Yes, good! You’re stressed. Tell me more.” 

“Would you like a list of my everyday peeves?” he said dryly.

“Have you got one?”

“No.”

“You should try it. Writing is good for emotional expression.” 

“Lain, sometimes I wonder how you got hooked into the Guild at all when your calling as a poet is so clearly laid out before you. You have that overripe-speak, pain-in-my-ass dichotomy down pat.”

Lain shrugged. “I’m good at hitting people, I guess.”

After, they placed their dirtied cups in the sink to be washed in the morning, and Runaan led Lain down the hall to the far room. He took a quick pit stop in the closet for a fresh pair of linens and a down pillow that he never used because the softness disagreed with him. 

“You’re putting me on your couch again?” Lain asked

“Yes. As a rule, we don’t have guests. No guests, no bed.” Runaan finished tucking the covers between the cushions and retreated with a flourish. “All pretty for you.”

Lain shuffled over and sat atop it gingerly. “You know I appreciate you always doing this for me,” he said earnestly.

“So you’ve mentioned.”

“But really, Runaan.”

Runaan rolled his eyes and walked to the doorway. “Goodnight, Lain.” 

*

“Runaan.”

Nia’s voice came through the crack in her door. He mourned his empty bed for a moment before firming his resolve and slipping inside.

Nia was sitting upright against the bedframe with her eyes turned towards the window. She seemed to like that position. He wondered if she missed being outside, the way she looked so intently. She rolled her head around to face him when the door opened.

“He’s alright,” she said.

Runaan leaned against the doorjamb. “He is.”

“Why’s he here in the first place?” 

“You were listening.”

“I was, but you got quieter towards the end, so fill me in.” 

Runaan said, “He didn’t explain himself very well. Something about being angry at his parents, the usual. Probably offended his father.”

Nia grunted. “What do you suppose it’s like, having two living parents, yet never being intelligent enough to appreciate them?”

“Don’t be cruel,” Runaan snapped. “We all have our struggles to deal with, and Lain deserves my kindness more than you do.” 

She snorted. “Don’t pretend, Runaan. We both know you value duty too seriously to abandon your family bonds.”

Runaan clenched his jaw. “Yes.” 

They were silent for a moment. 

“But, actually,” Nia said, “he’s not hurt?” 

“No, his parents aren’t like that.” Runaan shook his head. “Honestly, I remember them being fairly pleasant the few times I met them. I’m not sure why he’s on such poor terms with them.” 

Nia half-lifted herself into the air, then eased onto her back. The bed creaked defiantly. “Different ideas on how to live,” she said. “Your Lain has plans. His parents, it seems, do not, or they do, just the wrong ones. Clashing temperaments. Just imagine what it would be like if I was nice.”

“Can you imagine?” Runaan asked dryly. “Surely we wouldn’t get along nearly so well as we do.”

“Nah, you would be confused out of your mind. You’re used to taking my beatings.”

Runaan’s lip twitched. He fumbled the doorknob and half-slipped outside. Nia was already rolling onto her side, back facing him.

“Goodnight, Runaan,” she muttered into her pillow. “And look after yourself, would you? Now that I’m not around to do it?”

He swallowed around a sudden lump in his throat and managed a hurried “Goodnight” before he shut the door behind him. 

#moonfam origins #tdp fic #fanfic #first time posting a fic on here since the dark days #lain #runaan #mentions of tiadrin #no ethari yet

[psycho-slytherin]

Bonus chapter: Truth or Dare

Thanks to @minprismpowermakeup for the idea~ <3

Context: This takes place around Strangers ch. 33, after y/n and Yoongi have begun filming Moon Over the Sea. This content is not relevant to the main Strangers plot. 

WC: 1.8k love it when a bonus chapter is longer than some actual content

|mlist|

A/N: Namjoon really wrecked me during the awards stages ok I’m not projecting I’m just projecting

“Okay, y/n, truth or dare?”

“Truth,” you yawn, making yourself comfortable. You’re sleepy, it’s past two in the morning, and you don’t wanna get up.

“Anyone got a good one for the token ARMY?” Hoseok asks, looking around at the other members sprawled on various pieces of furniture and carpet. You stick your tongue out at Hoseok on hearing your title.

“Do you have a crush on anyone?” Seokjin asks from below you, tipping a mostly-empty beer bottle at you.

“I already answered that, and no.” You swat the eldest member, who’s laying on the couch with his head in your lap. “Bitch, I just ended a relationship and webcomics continue to convince me that men are trash. Besides, I barely get to sleep– when am I gonna have time to catch feelings?”

“Blehhh, boring.”

“I can drink if y’all can’t think of anything,” you say, already reaching for the bottle to refill your wine glass. Hey, you were feeling classy tonight.

“No, wait, wait, I have one!” Jungkook leans forward eagerly. “Have you ever written... fanfiction?”

Ah, shit.

You press your lips together to keep a straight face. Lately it seems you’ve been using more of your acting skills when you spend time with the boys than you do for school and work combined. “Have I ever, at any point, written fanfiction for any fandom? Yes.”

“Was it…” Jungkook leans even closer, his long hair almost hitting you in the face. “BTS fanfiction?”

You smile, choosing your words carefully. “Unfortunately, Kookie dearest, I already answered my truth.”

“She’s avoiding the question!” Jungkook hollers, far too loudly for the time of night. “You guys know what that means~”

It’s as though all signs of sleepiness have vanished– every member sits up, and with Jin’s weight off, you realize your legs have fallen asleep. 

“C’mon, guys…” you’re met with seven pairs of eager eyes, focusing on your favorite. “Et tu, Yoongs?”

A corner of Yoongi’s mouth turns upward in that oh-so-familiar smirk. “What can I say– I’ve got a cat’s curiosity.”

“Don’t let Holly hear that,” you reply, tossing a pillow at him. He snatches it out of the air without moving from his curled-up position in his favorite armchair. You’re reminded again of how he’s so adorable when he looks that small.

“So?” Jimin asks eagerly. “Have you ever written fanfiction about us?”

You could lie. God knows it would be easy. But the far more fun option wouldn’t be lying… it would simply be not telling the truth.

“I would love to answer that, but unfortunately it’s not my turn anymore,” you reply airily, delighting in the boys’ groans. “So, Joon, truth or dare?”

“Dare,” Namjoon replies, his eyes confident. He really could bring anyone to their knees with just a glance. As your first bias, Namjoon has always had a special effect on you.

“I dare you to let Kookie and Tae tickle you.”

“Wait, what?”

You check your watch. “For, say, one minute.”

Namjoon backs away nervously from the predatory advance of the maknaes, all signs of bravado gone. “C’mon… ah, y/n, this is too cruel…”

“Who was it that dared me to drink a shot of soy sauce?” You ask smugly. “And who dared me to catcall Jin?” Your plan is to distract the boys, and luckily you have plenty of material to work with. Namjoon especially always seems perfectly sadistic when assigning dares.

“As if you weren’t thinking that stuff anyways,” Seokjin says dismissively.

You roll your eyes, focusing on the leader’s imminent torture. “One minute, starting… now!”

At your signal, Taehyung and Jungkook leap like feral dogs upon Namjoon, who falls to the floor with a thump, laughing uncontrollably: “Ah! Guys! S-sto-ah!”

You sit back in satisfaction as the clock winds down, figuring you’ve suitably distracted your friends from their original prey. 

Your hopes are dashed soon enough. Namjoon gets back up, fire in his eyes. “Y/n.”

Dammit. “Yes, Namjoon?”

“Truth or dare?”

Well, what does he think? “Dare.” Obviously. You’d die before letting them read the stories that you, in your lust-addled fangirl’s mind, wrote so long ago. 

“I dare you to give Yoongi hyung a hickey.”

Wait, what? “Yo, Joon, that’s not cool–” Yoongi is quick to complain, but Namjoon silences him with a raised hand. Meanwhile you’re frozen to your seat, feeling as though all your blood has simultaneously rushed into your face and fled your body entirely. Sure, you guys have toed the line of what’s proper during these late-night games, and as the only woman you’ve tended to get the brunt of it, but to give Yoongi a hickey? To press your lips, your tongue, your teeth to his smooth skin?

Now that you think about it, you’re pretty sure you’ve written that into a fanfic at some point anyways.

“Dude. No.” You say, at last finding your voice. “C’mon, that’s ridiculous.” You spare a glance at Yoongi, who you can tell is trying to keep a straight face. Still his clenched jaw and rapid blinking give away his anxiety, and– no. You couldn’t do something like that to Yoongi, who so clearly would hate it.

Namjoon raises a brow, his expression void of mercy. “You could always choose truth.”

You laugh nervously. You didn’t anticipate this, and now… “Can I take a drink instead?”

The leader shakes his head. When he speaks, it’s as though his voice is made of steel. When did he become so intense? “Nope. Truth or dare. Pick one.”

You inhale deeply. Dammit, Yoongs, you owe me one. “Truth.”

Immediately all tension melts from Namjoon’s gaze, and he breaks into the dorky grin you’re so familiar with. “Yes! Quick, guys, before she changes her mind!”

Your eyes widen. “No, wait–”

Hoseok pounces. “Have you ever written BTS fanfiction, and if so, what was it about?”

Fucking hell. You’ll get Joon back for this. 

“Uh…” Should you lie? Every instinct is telling you to steer the boys as far from the truth as possible. Still, you’re buzzed, and it’s late, and–

“Yes. I have.”

Jungkook bursts out laughing, his nose scrunched as he slaps the couch. “I knew it!” The others celebrate in similar fashions:

“Ten bucks says it’s a ship fic!”

“Reader insert, it has to be.”

“Have you guys even heard Emo Y/n? I bet it’s super sad.”

You snatch Jungkook’s drink out of his hand and take a swig. You’re starting to realize you’re gonna need something stronger than wine if you want to survive the night. “How do you guys even know those terms? Who’s been corrupting you with Tumblish?”

“Twitter,” Taehyung replies, shuffling over and draping himself over the back of the couch, his head resting on your shoulder. “ARMYs kept tagging us, they thought we never saw.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you notice Yoongi staring at the ground, smiling softly, his fingers laced together. Huh.

In the meantime, the remaining members have continued with their buzzword arguments. You begin petting Tae’s soft hair absentmindedly while waiting for the others to calm down and hopefully forget this entire conversation by morning.

“It’s probably crack.”

“No, fluff!”

“Angst, I told you!”

Jimin suddenly pipes up, his voice sleepy and soft. “What if it’s… smut?”

A hush falls over the room, and your breath catches in your throat. You don’t remember writing anything explicit, most romance scenes were mainly innocent, full of vague implications of other goings-on…

Wait. Your eyes widen. You did write that one scene, on a dare from Lisa… fuck. You rack your brain– what was it? You wrote it almost four years ago, you can hardly remember. It was about Namjoon, right? He was your bias around that time. 

“Y/n, would you ever write smut?”

“Ha, maybe if someone paid me!”

“Ooh! Is that a promise?”

It was all a joke, but you did end up posting it on your Tumblr at some point or another, classifying it as dumb and crackheaded. Regardless, that means it’s online. And that means…

They could find it.

“Y/n-ie?” Taehyung waves a hand in front of your eyes and you jump, nearly colliding with him. “You zoned out for a bit~”

“S-Sorry.” You notice the boys are all still looking at you. “What?”

“Your truth. What was your fanfiction about?”

You sieze on the vague question. “Well, funny you should ask, I think I wrote one about Hobi here going to space, which was–”

“The hell? Did I die?” Hoseok whines. “Y/n, you traitor–”

“Wait, so you’ve written more than one?” Yoongi interrupts.

“I mean…” that’s safe to say, right? “Yes.”

Namjoon taps your shoulder. “Have you ever written smut?”

Jeez, what was with his confidence tonight? “I–”

“If you tell us the truth, we’ll make Joon hyung rap Expensive Girl,” Hoseok sings, swinging a shoe in his hand. Wait, is that your-

“Huh? Hold up, hold up, that wasn’t part of the deal!” Namjoon’s facade quickly fades in liu of genuine terror. 

Yoongi slowly rises for the first time that night, his grin nothing short of malicious. “You wanna play sadistic games? If Y/n completes her truth, you have to do that dare.”

“Y/n, I changed my mind, don’t tell us,” Namjoon begs, turning to you.

Oh. Oh, the power coursing through your veins. Either way, you win. You could keep your dark secret, or torture Namjoon just a little bit more. What a glorious choice to have.

“You know what?” You drain your wine glass, the alcohol lending you courage. Namjoon wanted to make you give Yoongi a hickey, he deserves this. And you were younger, a simple fangirl– besides, it’s not like they’re going to ask you to read it. “Yes. I did write a smut fic once. And you know what, Joon? It was about you.”

You giggle and sit back as the members do the “OHHHHH!” thing that boys never seem to grow out of. 

Instead of going red like you expected he would, a shit-eating grin spreads across Namjoon’s face. He seems more… well, pleased than anything. 

“What was it about?” he asks.

“Joon,” Yoongi warns, his voice a note deeper than usual. You shoot Yoongi a grateful smile– how does he know you so well? As for the fic, you genuinely don’t remember, but knowing it was smut, and knowing it was about Namjoon…

“I dunno, dude, probably some daddy kink shit.”

Namjoon cocks his head. “Daddy… kink?”

You jaw drops, and in your bordering-on-drunk state, you can’t help but blurt out: “You don’t know what a daddy kink is? I thought you had one!”

The leader scratches his head. “What?”

You can’t help but laugh, the drinks finally hitting you hard. “Oh my god. C’mon, gather round, my students.” You reach out, clasping Jimin’s and Jin’s shoulders. “let’s teach you guys about fanfiction.”

#bts #bangtan #yoongi #suga #namjoon #rm #bts rm #min yoongi #kim namjoon #bts yoongi #bts suga #bts fluff #bts crack #bts oneshot #bts angst #bts drabble #bts series #bts fic rec #bts fic #bts au #yoongi fluff #yoongi crack #yoongi angst #yoongi drabble #namjoon fic #namjoon fluff #namjoon drabble #namjoon oneshot #yoongi oneshot

[agentofship]

My rewatch AoS 1x11 to 1X15

I am very late for the rewatch so I thought I’d keep doing my rewatch review in blocks of five episodes (or whatever seems relevant). So here we go. With TAHITI, we're starting to get a glimpse of what the rest show is going to be since from that moment on. Except for Yes Men (who still gives an important moment information about May at the end) who really should have been in the first part of the season, every episode will be connected in a more or less big way to the main plot of the season. Like Yes Men who's completely independent or Seeds whose main plot doesn't seem linked until the end when we learn that Iain Quinn was linked to it, this first part of 1B makes the transition between the happy Bus days and the darker tone of the last seven episodes that will continue on in season two. So here's a few thoughts about separate episode: The Magical Place I absolutely love that first scene with the team working together perfectly, each using their own talent, it was perfect. Still love it when people call Fitz "sir" in season one, it's just so funny since he's so tiny 😄 May is really smart in that episode. Everyone did exactly as she had planned without even having to tell them (because she knew FitzSimmons and Ward would help Skye escape) and thus also remaining in Hand's good graces. Agent Skye mini May is adorable! But she really is as smart and ressourceful as May, she just needs to be trained in combat and badassness now! I know it's a very unpopular opinion but Raina annoys the crap out of me with her too sweet smiles and exaggeratedly sexy voice. I mean she's obviously really at getting in men's heads, including Coulson but I just find her… annoying. She gets more interesting after she turns, too bad she didn't last longer after that. Love the Coulson rescue mission, again that was some very good team work. And love the reunion scene, although I know at least Skye wanted a group hug. Love May's side smile and "Nice Jacket". "Bet there's no flower dresses where she's going!" "Amen to that, sister." Love that :D "Disengage bracelet" Coulson's dorkiness really is one of his most endearing traits. Seeds First of all, a big thank you for giving us enough FitzSimmons content for hundreds of FitzSimmons Academy Era fics. Love that FitzSimmons scene where they present each other's work mirroring the scene in the Pilot when they introduce each other, it's adorable. Also love the way their speech is so well rehearsed, it's perfectly flawing between them and I bet even that joke Fitz does was written on paper. "Potential can sometimes be dangerous…" Oh Fitz, you're going to remember that one quite bitterly in a few years. FitzSimmons are so proud of their Academy and being such stars there. I love their competition with Ward and Simmons' "Did you have one of these in ops? Did not think so." Yep, cannot imagine Ops having something so fun! SciTech would have definitely been more my kind of place (except for the fact that I didn't study science at all :p) "My room was just like that." We know it's a lie but it's cute, it's Fitz's slightly awkward way of trying to connect. We know he has trouble making first contact and it looks like he's also kind of thrilled of being someone's hero or even a father figure of sorts. Coulson saying "You're talking, it's weird" is the best. That's some pretty dangerous info we're getting on Skye. They really took their time giving us bits of information all through the first season to focus on it in season two. Love the little robot on the bar at the boiler room, never noticed that before, need to include it in a future fic, it's adorable! Too bad Donnie ended up as he did, he really wasn't a bad person and deserved a redemption arc. Again, May is such a freaking badass. And all this without a single superpower! T.R.A.C.K.S Although there will be some criticizing, keep in mind that this episode still remains one of my favorite episodes of the season and the show as a whole. Love the plot, the humor, the action, the different POVs and that's also some top notch drama at the end. So, first of all, the accents. Even I, a person who only some distant italian relatives, can tell that Ward's one is awful. But at least, he's not supposed to be Italian so that's understandable. But that conductor sounds like a mix between Mario and Jen speaking pretend Italian in IT Crowd (hilarious episode by the way, you should look it up if you haven't :D) Then, that train. You should read @valentinaonthemoon‘s post here about it if you haven't because she points out all that is wrong with the train and its route. But seriously, it's so weird. It's all too big and pretty. I have never seen a restaurant carriage with actual cute little wooden tables and chairs and actual room to walk between the table. And what the hell about the actual bed? I've taken a night train to Venice once, even first class wasn't close to looking like that! Anyway, now moving on to all the good parts. May is the definition of badass in this episode. First casually walking on a moving train and then taking of all the bad guys with the knife they stabbed her in the shoulder with. And I also love the little Philinda moment where she lets him help her but didn't let Ward. Love Fitz summing up every cliche Europeans have about Americans "They have some good shows. Lots of nice teeth." and "Someplace affordable with big portions." His pretend relationship and real friendship with Skye is very very sweet in this. I love all the teasing but also the way he insists she takes the gun and tells her to be careful. Jemma is, once again, very heroic in this. Once more, she takes the conscious decision to sacrifice herself for his friends and Fitz in particular. Of course, that grenade wouldn't have killed them but she didn't know that. So really, during the pod scene, when Fitz is faced with the reality that only one can hope to make it to the surface, his decision is easy. And I think it's not only because he loves her and couldn't bear to live without her anyway, but also because she did twice already and he thinks that's it's his turn now. He's just less lucky about the consequences it has on him. (And ironically, Ward provoked it instead of being here to save the day… but I digress). I love Fitz's reaction after Jemma falls. He doesn't run to her because he's stunned and frozen at the idea that she might be dead. His sigh of relief when Skye tells him she's alive is everything. And also the line about her little face is adorable, especially since I only learned recently that it was ad libed by Iain! I didn't remember how heartbreaking Skye was when she tries to call for help and has no voice left at all. For a moment, she must have thought she was going to die all alone in that scary dark room. I mean, I never was really worried because they weren't going to kill her off but still, that's gut wrenching :s But Jemma for the win though! She's not even a medical doctor and so many people are alive thanks to her! And well, of course, THAT HUG! I mean all of FitzSimmons hugs are wonderful but this one is just… I love how it parallels the one from 4x21 where they don't talk and he just has to reach for her shoulder for her to finally let go and cry in his arms. At first, she doesn't fully hug him because she's afraid of putting blood on him (which is very Jemma-like of her) but then she lets go and he doesn't need to say a thing because it's his presence that comforts her the most. Also, FZZT was the moment he realized his feelings had changed for the first time but this feels important too. This is the first of many hugs and the moment their relationship becomes more physical (not in the sexual sense of the word, just physical). As much as I like to imagine they spent their Academy days falling asleep in the same bed every week, I feel like until now, their friendship was very intellectual with only quick very tame physical displays of affection like the touch of a hand or shoulder. Even that kiss on the cheek seemed something wild in the way he reacted and she hesitated before doing it. After that, we'll see more hugs and more daring touches, culminating into the pod scene. (and then regressing and slowly progressing again in season two B and and three) Because being on the field had taught them how hard things could be and they're like each other comfort blanket for a time, thus the need to be physically closer. T.A.H.I.T.I I love how FitzSimmons are sitting so close together on that couch. I think they both need the comfort of each other's presence because they are the only constant in their ever changing world. They really should have let Ward blame himself here. The way May beat the crap out of Iain Quinn was very satisfying. Love Coulson's progression about Tahiti. "Turned out not so magical" and in the next episode it'll be "It sucked". Well, at least he got to see the real, beautiful Tahiti 😞 Awww Trip. I didn't like him all that much the first time. I mean I found him okay and all but only on the second rewatch that I grew to like him. Other than the fact that he could actually get "Witches weekly's most charming award", he really is just a genuine nice, easy going, good guy. Too bad it made him the perfect candidate for shock value death 😞 Love, love, love that scene with FitzSimmons looking through the files. It's stunning and blue light definitely suits Fitz. I also love him during the mission. We know he's kind of scared and he still doesn't like being on the field but he's brave and funny and adorable. "Not afraid, not yet…" "To certain horrible death? Absolutely" Classical sassy Fitz! One thing that had always bothered me during this mission: Couldn't they use non lethal weaponry to "attack" the base. I mean they're protecting a shady secret but they're still (mostly) agents of SHIELD. And they'd been left to die and be buried under all that rock. I get that Coulson wanted the truth and to save Skye but still … I absolutely love the way they decided to handle the Kree reveal. Make Coulson look terrified and let us imagine all the most horrible things and then only in the end the horrible mutilated corpse. Feels a lot like what Hydra did to Skye's mother by the way and very, very evil :s Yes Men I enjoyed this one more than I thought I would despite it not being the strongest episode and it has a lot to do with Sif being a badass. So, first of all, with all the super advanced technology they have, would an Asgardian really be impressed by a bike?!! Skye saying: "I must look awful". Honestly, makeup department guys? They did a really good job when she was close to death but now she doesn't even look a little pale. She doesn't a little circle under eyes and doesn't even look tired at all. And look at her hair! That's not the hair of someone who had been forbidden to leave her bed for days! Fury is already missing, it's getting serious! Sif is so freaking badass and really aces the super hero landing! Also, she's so extra, like she casually throws a car to provide cover. I love her connection with May and I would totally watch a spin off of them kicking ass together. I like the phrase about people being dangerous when they are controlled and how it's another hint at May's backstory. Okay, so I love Sif throwing a car during the fight scene and I love Coulson calling Sif "your ladyship" but seriously, didn't SHIELD have enough women fighters? Honestly! Jemma is totally right about being mad at Coulson about wanting to know more about GH325. Coulson has a good reason for keeping it in house but he should just tell them for god's sake! At this point, we can see that he's still struggling between the whole following the rules and doing things his way because he no longer trusts SHIELD completely. "Ward is not the man you knew. He will not hesitate to kill you." "He might try but he wont." Yep, yep, yep, you don't know how right you were, May! "Because yes, I am that good!" Fitz was cocky and cute there but really not that wasn't a smart move telling Coulson about Lorelei without knowing if he'd been swayed as well. Libido does take a bit of his genius away :p "He's always getting knocked out, isn't he?" Mmmhhh … okay but how freakishly strong is Coulson if he can knock him out with only one punch? "You were saying?" Honestly, they should have copied that collar to use for all the villains and their long boring speeches. And finally dun, dun, dun! They really did a good job making us paranoid and making us think May could be the villain.

#aos rewatch #agentofshiprewatch #team earth aos #earth vs space #aos 1x11 #aos 1X12 #aos 1x13 #aos 1X14 #aos 1x15

[emperorsfoot]

Sequel to “Genetic Composite”. 

Second installment in the fic series, “A Song of Steel and Light”. 

...

Unlike almost every other cabin, and corridor, and chamber aboard the Vinyl Hood, Lord Hode’s Gallery Deck was extremely well lit. So well lit, in fact, that it was almost too bright. Zero-Zero-Three had to squint the nictitating membrane of his eyelids for several minutes while his eyes adjusted to the brightness. The vibrant ruby glow dimming to just a matte red.

Zero-Zero-Three had only been a sub-Commander working under Force Captain Six-Seven-Four for a little short of three weeks. Ever since his own sub-Commander was killed in action and he was the lucky brother out of his unit that was chosen to be promoted to the newly opened position. This would be the first command briefing he would attend that was given by Lord Hode himself.

He had never seen the cabinet Lord up close before. Lord Hode of the Third Division. They said he was eccentric and odd, but also a tactical genius.

Standing at a rest just a step behind his Force Captain, Zero-Zero-Three was seeing the ‘eccentric and odd’ part.

The Gallery Deck was exactly what the name would imply. A gallery of alien artifacts. Items taken from the planets Hode conquered for Horde Prime, or planets that were already conquered and part of the Empire, but Hode had to visit them for one reason or another. There was a mask carved out of a kerek fragment, with shells inlayed in designs that gave the illusion of depth and contours of a face. A blanket woven from reeds dyed bright colors, the patterns coming together to depict an alien scene. A primitive blade sharpened from an animal tusk with an anthropomorphic hilt. Jewelry, and pottery, and decorative boxes, primitive weapons, intricately woven or knitted textiles of diverse fibers, traditional clothing, ceremonial dresses, sculptures, and illustrations.

In all honesty, Zero-Zero-Three did not see the point of many of these things. Most of it didn’t even serve a function. The headdresses looked heavy and would be a liability in a battle. The clothing was cumbersome and impractical. The illustrations just hung on the walls and didn’t do anything. The sculptures took up space around the chamber and forced the officers to navigate around them. The pottery looked functional, but they were decorated so unnecessarily. Who even needed a solid gold, jewel encrusted goblet anyway? Why couldn’t they just drink out of a standard issue commissary tumbler like everyone else?

“This is the third time we have had to put down a rebellion on this world.” Hode announced, sounding annoyed. Possibly even frustrated.

Anyone who knew of Lord Hode’s rise to power knew that he was actually instrumental in putting down the first two rebellions. The first when he was still just a sub-Commander like Zero-Zero-Three. Young and inexperienced, he somehow managed to take down the slippery and illusive King Hiss, a victory that earned him a promotion to Territory Captain of the planet. Years later, after another rebellion had gained momentum, he managed to capture and execute the leader of that one as well. King Miro, the supposed ‘rightful ruler’ of the planet. Now Hode was a cabinet Lord, in charge of many star systems, a quarter of the Empire, and he was still having to come back here.

To Eternia.

To put down a new rebellion.

“This time they’re calling themselves the ‘Heroic Warriors’.” Hode pressed a button on his datapad and the bright lights of the Gallery Deck went dark, holograms of the leaders of the ‘Heroic Warrios’ being projected on the glass display cases of his art collection. Ram Man, Mekanneck, Stratos, Man-at-Arms, and King Randor –the son of the late King Miro whom Hode executed. The boy had grown up –as naturally born being tended to do- and had started a rebellion of his own –as the children of rebel leaders tended to do.

Zero-Zero-Three stood at rest as he listened to his Lord explain each ‘Heroic Warriors’ powers and abilities. For all coming from the same planet they were widely diverse. Such diversity did not usually exist naturally on one planet.

“This has to be the last one.” Hode really wanted to drive the point and make sure that each and every one of his officers understood that he was sick and tired of having to come back to the already conquered world to put down the same rebellion every few years. “Eternia needs to be stable.” There was a strange kind of emphasis on that statement, a tone that implied that Eternia’s ‘stability’ was more than just social and political. But Zero-Zero-Three did not know enough about the planet to hazard a guess. “Do you know why new rebellions keep cropping up on this world while other planets will submit quietly?”

No one answered that question. It was a general, unspoken, unwritten rule that when a cabinet Lord posited a question to a room instead of directing it at an individual, they did not want an answer. Besides, no one was gonna guess anyway, for fear of getting it wrong.

“It is because the Eternians think they have ‘destiny’ on their side.” Hode announced, giving his officers the answer they never would have guessed on their own. The Horde did not believe in ‘destiny’. “They have a prophesy that keeps cropping up every generation. A kind of poetry they have put to music to rouse and inspire their masses.”

Force Captain Six-Seven-Four scoffed loudly.

The lights still dark, Hode moved to one of his display cases, his cape whispering around him. A shadow moving among the shadows. He opened the glass and withdrew an alien instrument. Shaped from wood, with a long neck, and strings. Hode began plucking his talons along the strings. The notes forming a haunting melody.

“This is what keeps getting the Eternian’s blood up.” He announced.

Then Lord Hode began to do something odd with his voice. Something Zero-Zero-Three had never heard one of his brothers do before. It was like he was speaking, but the syllables were rising and falling, the words elongating at the end of every other line. His speech weaving in the with notes he was plucking on his alien instrument. Almost as if the two were one entity. The instrument’s sounds and Hode’s voice.

“If we should lose the fight, “Light’s Hope burns ever brighter. “One hundred days and nights, “Engines, pistons form a choir.

“If blood should stain the skies, “As waxing stars re-ignite. From Despondent dark they rise, And strike a chord of steel and light.”

In front of him, Zero-Zero-Three’s Force Captain fidgeted slightly, shifting his weight from one foot to the other impatiently. Nobody would have noticed except that Zero-Zero-Three was standing directly behind him. It was a little disrespectful to do in the presence of your Lord, even if you were impatient and didn’t see the relevance of this… music. Zero-Zero-Three certainly didn’t see any relevance to making all of the Force Captains and sub-Commanders listen to this alien… noise.

“Embrace the spark of Grayskull’s last. “Rekindle dying embers. “As her brother bares his blade, “By the Power, untampered.

“She brings light in darkest night, “The sword forged for Honor. “Of Protection breathes new life, “An heir for Mara’s redemption.”

Zero-Zero-Three found himself suppressing the urge to sigh. He had heard that Lord Hode was eccentric and odd. He hadn’t realized when he was promoted to sub-Commander just how much of his Lord’s eccentricities and oddness he would have to endure. Would all mission briefings be like this? He hoped not. The Horde had no need of music. The Horde had no music of their own. They did not need to borrow noise from other planets.

Then Hode launched into a repetition part of the song. Zero-Zero-Three didn’t know it at the time, but later he would learn this was the part of a song called the ‘chorus’.

“No sacrifices in vain. “Behold the bleeding stars. “Unholy night, the skies have been stained. “Return - not without scars.

“Their coming – prophesied, “Between blades of red-wings ride, “Wielding blades of steel and light, “The purest spirit, sealed inside.

“He'll break the night. “She'll break the night. “They'll break the night.”

After those last three lines, ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘they’, Zero-Zero-Three thought the song would be over. He shifted his rest into an attention, ready to take his assignment and deploy down to the planet.

But then Lord Hode kept singing.

“Of Runeswrod’s heavy hearts, “Like fabric, torn and tattered, “Two worlds ripped apart, “A true bond cannot be shattered.

“My prison, Despondence. “And salvation uncertain. “Redemption to find worth in. “Have-“

Did Hode’s voice skip for a moment? Was this a difficult song? The spoken language of Eternia was one of the languages all clones were programed with. Singing in Eternian should not be any more of less difficult than speaking in Eternian.

“Have all I slain deserved it?

“From ashes, resurgence, “To cleanse this ‘verse or burn it. “To fate they are but servants. “They’ll break these chains we’re cursed with.”

Hode seemed to recover and dove back into the melody. The lyrics flowing with the tones of the instrument seamlessly.

“Through windows to the past, “Cold touch of Revena’s Last. “Even the Batking’s hearts, “Forgotten, long departed.

“No sacrifices in vain. “Behold the bleeding stars. “Unholy night, the skies have been stained. “Return - not without scars.

“Their coming – prophesied, “Between blades of red-wings ride, “Wielding blades of steel and light. “The purest spirit, sealed inside.

“He'll break the night. “She'll break the night. “They'll break the night.”

Finally, as the last notes faded into the dark, Lord Hode relaxed the instrument in his hands and stopped singing.

“That is why Eternia has been so problematic for us.” Hode announced. “They have legends and prophesies. Shining heroes and magic swords. They are convinced that –this time- the prophesized heroes will appear. This time. They’ll cut through the red wings of our banners. This time. They’ll wield magical blades of steel and light. This time. They’ll break the metaphorical darkness of Imperial control. This time. This time. This time. That’s the problem with cultures with prophesies. They instill an irritating amount of false hope. Hope that motivates rebellion. To control Eternia, truly control it, we have to destroy their hope.”

“But was it nessisary for us to stand here and listen to that.” Zero-Zero-Three muttered. He didn’t even realize he was speaking out loud until Lord Hode reached for his datapad again and commanded the lights back up.

“Who said that?” He demanded.

Force Captain Six-Seven-Four looked back at him. Turning to glare at Zero-Zero-Three. Make sure the subordinate officer understood just how much trouble he was in.

There was nothing Zero-Zero-Three could do. His options were either have his commanding officer turn him over, or confess on his own. Both would yield the same results. But one of them would at least ensure that he did not lose respect from his brothers.

“I did.” Zero-Zero-Three announced, raising his hand so that Lord Hode could see him behind the other officers of higher rank. “I do not understand the relevance, my Lord.”

Captain Six-Seven-Four stepped to the side. All the higher ranked officers moves out of the way so that Lord Hode could get a clear and unobstructed view of the brother that had dared question their Lord in front of his subordinates.

Hode studied him. His eyes, glowing ruby red from under the darkness of his hood moving down from Zero-Zero-Three’s face, taking in his uniform, the sub-Commander badge on his chest, his exposed thighs, knee-high boots. Then back up again, finally meeting the younger clone’s eyes when he was done. “What is your designation, sub-Commander?”

Zero-Zero-Three swallowed. He was going to die. He knew it. Lord Hode was going to execute him for his insubordination. “I am 66694-42-003, my Lord.”

A clone from batch number sixty-six thousand six-hundred and ninety-four. From crèche number forty-two. Hatched out of tank number three. Individual designation simplified to just Zero-Zero-Three.

“The relevance is to help you –all of you- understand the enemy you are about to fight.” Hode announced. “A great deal can be understood about a species by studying their art. Music –that’s what this was- is a form of art. You should study art, Zero-Zero-Three. If you understand a species’ art, you will understand that species. And if you understand them, you can control them.”

#Hordak #oc #lord hode #hode #a song of steel and light #prodigal brother #fan fiction #ao3 #RenkonNairu #spop #she-ra #he-man #masters of the universe

[phcking-detective]

1. Caught Dead with a Beretta

Fic Title: First Blood

Rating: E

Length: 1/33 chapters, ~128k

Tags: Slow Burn, Idiots to Lovers, Trans Character (gavin), Autistic / Asexual / Non-binary Character (nines), BDSM, learning to use good etiquette and safe words, Dom Nines / Sub Gavin, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort

Chapter Tags: suicide, death / murder, verbal hazing

Link on AO3

***

Gavin's sick of working suicides—they're depressing as hell and aren't going to do anything for his promotion. He's just got to the crime scene already wants to go home. It's fucking ass'o'clock in the morning, and he hasn't slept worth shit, so of course Nines texted to let him know about the scene the second he'd finally dozed off. 

The elevator ride up to the two thousand square foot loft gives him enough time to get hit with shit, did I take my meds before I left home? Fuck. Maybe? 

Goddammit. Maybe he should switch to those patches and gels instead of a weekly injection. Taking his T is the one thing he never, ever forgets, so if he switched to something he could do daily and took his meds for the BPD and ADHD at the same time … 

The elevator doors ding open, ruining his train of thought. Nines is here already because he doesn't fucking sleep, apparently. That hot fuckboy he sucked off once—and the beat cop for this side of town—Brayden, is in there too, but Gavin's most recent bout of soul-crippling insomnia has actually worn him down too much to be horny. 

Well, too much to put forth the effort for flirting, at least. 

"—huh, Nine Thousand?" Brayden says as Gavin walks up. 

Nines doesn't respond. 

"He's RK nine hundred," Gavin says. "Not like the meme. Super disappointing." 

Brayden grins. "Yeah, but I mean like, the movie." 

"Nine thousand?" 

Gavin frowns, trying to force his stupid idiot brain to think. All he can come up with is 300. Maybe it's a movie based off of that one book? The like, underwater … and submarines. Something-number thousand leagues under the sea? No fuck, that's not nine thousand. 

"Two thousand," Brayden says. "And one." 

Shit, is that the number of leagues or the title of the movie? 

"Man, I am way too fucking tired." Gavin waves him off. "I'm not even into that film shit. I just like action movies." 

Brayden heaves a deep sigh. "I've seen your file, Gavin. You're too smart to willingly lump yourself in with the uneducated masses." 

"May we proceed with the crime scene, detective?" Nines asks before Gavin can reply. 

Brayden flinches a little. The only reason Gavin doesn't get scared himself is because he's gotten used to Nines not breathing or moving—until he suddenly does. Makes people jumpy as shit to realize they forgot about the giant fucking android just standing there.  

Not blinking. Or breathing. 

"Go ahead," Brayden says with a sweep of his hand, like he didn't just jump half a foot. 

"May we proceed with the crime scene, detective?" Nines asks instead of complying. 

"Yeah, sure," Gavin grants permission. 

Nines proceeds. Gavin tries to hold back a smirk. Brayden's the pretentious kind of asshole who loves explaining shit no one cares about, but he's pretty hot too, and Gavin's not quite ready to burn that bridge to Terra-dick-bia by pissing him off. No, that sounds terrible. The bridge to … mm, dick. 

Damn, he's tired. 

He follows after Nines, a little worried he might wander off in his sleep-deprived state and get lost in all this square footage of prime fucking real estate. Even saints would have to work to feel sorry for dead people as rich as this. 

Finally, he stumbles into a section of the open floor plan that seems to function as the living room. There's a flat screen tv nearly as big as the wall it's mounted on, a coffee table made from a whole chunk of mahogany with a half-full tumbler, and a dead guy sitting in a chair with a gun in his hand and a hole in his head. 

The TV still blares out the news, and the vic's own face flashes out at them. 

"This the Ponzi scheme guy?" Gavin asks. 

"Maverick Russell, age forty-seven." Nines shoves a finger inside the vic's mouth with no shame or preamble. "Blood alcohol level point-oh-nine-seven. The entry wound in his head appears to be consistent with a nine millimeter Beretta." 

He takes a small packet out of his Cyberlife jacket pocket and somehow has the coordination to open it one-handed. Gavin wrinkles his nose at the antiseptic smell as Nines sanitizes both hands with the wipe, even though he only touched the vic with one finger. Then he lifts that same finger to the victim's head. 

"Hey!" Gavin barks. "What have I told you about that shit?" 

Nines stares back at him with that unblinking, lizard-eye look. He touches his finger to the entry wound but doesn't push it in. Just brushes it back and forth, which is somehow way freakier. 

"The entry wound in his head is consistent with a nine millimeter Beretta," Nines says. 

"Great." 

Gavin walks a perimeter around the designated living room space. At first it's just to keep himself awake, but by the second circle, he's got one of those gut feelings. Something about this scene is off. Fuck if he can tell what though, 'cause the victim was drunk, watching his own demise on the news, and has a bullet in his head from the gun in his hand. 

"You feel that?" He asks. 

Nines cocks his head to the side. "The circulating air temperature is seventy--" 

"No." Gavin huffs and starts on another circle. "Do you like … you feel what I’m feeling?" 

"Your question is incomprehensible." 

Gavin sighs and grinds the heels of his palms against his eyes. He bites back a comment about this being why androids can't make good cops. Fuck knows why he's bothering to be nice now. He just wants to get this shit done and go home. 

When he opens his eyes, everything swirls with black spots in front of him. What's bugging him about this? The guy is dead, the gun is in his hand, the news says—

Gavin blinks the spots away and stands in front of the vic. Fake tan, but high enough quality that it'd look real if he didn't live in fucking Detroit. Decently fit, and the open kitchen on the other side of the room has one of those blenders that cost more than his car. The loft's decorated in masculine colors, all brown and navy and black leather. 

"Go check out the kitchen," Gavin tells Nines. "Tell me what's in the fridge." 

Nines does as he's told, but only after considering it. Gavin takes back the lizard comparisons. He's like a cat. One of those big jungle cats that's smart enough to eat the humans hunting them. 

"Dannon Oikos triple blended greek nonfat yogurt, coffee, four pack, five-point-three ounce cups," Nines says. "Dannon Oikos trippled blended greek nonfat yogurt, peanut butter banana, four—" 

Gavin rolls his eyes. "Just say yogurt. What else does he got?" 

"Yogurt. Eggs. Milk. Sparkling water. Chicken breast. Mayonnaise. Sliced ham. Apples. Protein shakes." Nines opens the freezer. "Chicken breast. Chicken breast. Chicken breast. Chi—" 

Gavin starts giggling. He can't help it. Nines turns around and glares at him, deliberately flashing his LED red for a second. 

"OK, fuck off, it's late," he says. "I'm like, super tired. Just analyze that shit or whatever and tell me if his food matches any of the latest high protein fad diets." 

"Yes," Nines replies so instantly Gavin wonders if he actually even looked it up at all. "The victim's food intake matches the Eight Step Enligh—" 

Gavin waves him off. "Yeah, yeah. Cool. Does the bar have gin, vodka, and vermouth?" 

Maverick Russell, definitely confirmed for one of those ultra-rich masculine gym types. Not like, an actual gym rat, just that generic rich person level of fitness achieved through liposuction, personal fitness trainers, and the latest fad diet. 

"Yes, along with seven other distinct liqueurs." Nines finishes checking the bar and returns to the living room. "How is this information relevant, detective?" 

"This drink and that gun don't match," Gavin says when Nines returns. 

Nines cocks his head again. "Match." 

"Yeah. I don't see any Bond memorabilia in here." Gavin takes another quick glance around, but the entertainment center doesn't display any vintage DVDs, and rich film buffs are not subtle about displaying their collections. "He ever purchased anything like that?" 

Nines's LED spins yellow for about half a second this time before he replies. "No. There are no significant purchases of memorabilia relating to the James Bond books or movies present in Maverick Russell's finances." 

"OK, then why the fuck does he have a Beretta?" Gavin asks. 

Nines looks at the victim, and then back at him. "That is what he shot himself with." 

"Yeah, but why," he stresses. "Would this guy—this self-obsessed, rich guy masc, desperate-to-be-cool motherfucker—have a Beretta?" 

"It is the tool he used to complete suicide." Nines frowns. "Is there a reason he would not have a Beretta?" 

"Because it's a ladies' handgun," Gavin says. "This guy's got three different TV remotes, a flat screen covering an entire wall, jesus, how old is that scotch?" 

Nines sticks his finger in it, because of course he does. "One hundred and twenty-three years old, consistent with—" 

"Shit, I would've thought this guy was trying too hard when I was twenty and desperate to be cis," Gavin mutters. "Look, I fucking promise you, this particular man literally wouldn't be caught dead with a Beretta—unless he's a James Bond fan. Even then … hey, Brayden!" 

"His input is unnecessary, detective." Nines cleans his hands with another sanitary wipe. "If you would be more clear—" 

His jaw shuts with a click as Brayden jogs over. 

"Hey, you like the Bond movies?" Gavin asks. 

Brayden heaves a tortured sigh. "I really prefer foreign movies, but for an American—" 

"All right, sure. Would you ever kick it with a Beretta?" 

Brayden bites the inside of his cheek, opens his mouth, then closes it with a frown as he thinks about it. 

"What if you were like, a super fan?" 

"Why?" Brayden glances around the loft with an interested look. "This guy have some collector's memorabilia?" 

Gavin shakes his head. "Nah. But why else he's got a fucking Beretta?" 

"Well that's not the drink for it," Brayden says immediately, then scoffs. "A scotch?" 

"Yeah, and he had the shit to make a martini too." 

"Weird. You thinking …" Brayden trails off, then winces. "Ah, shit. We uh, we got a guy a floor down. Said he heard the shot that, you know. But he said it was two bangs. And you know how shit witnesses are about getting anything right, and the TV was on and—" 

"That's shit I need to know," Gavin snaps. "Doesn't matter how stupid you think it is, you're the first officer on the scene, you report every-fucking-thing to the responding detective." 

"Yeah." Brayden clears his throat. "My bad." 

Gavin lets it slide only because now he has something to go on. "Whatever. Check me on the precon for this, RK." 

"Preconstruction running, detective." 

"So we got two shots." Gavin backs up so he's approaching the living room from twenty feet away. "So we should have two guns. The perp, coming in here, gets shot 'cause the vic's only got the one entry wound, but—" 

Nines touches the victim's hand, and then his cellphone buzzes. 

The distribution of gunshot residue on Maverick Russell's right hand is not consistent with a Beretta. The gun he fired has a longer muzzle and larger caliber. My preliminary preconstruction matches it to a .500 S&W Magnum. The victim has four registered in his name.

Gavin closes his eyes and rubs the bridge of his nose. Would it fucking kill him to send that in five separate texts like a normal person? Now he's going to look dumb as fuck staring at the screen for five minutes trying to read one paragraph. 

OK, he’s got the fifty caliber Magnum, that's easy to read. Longer muzzle, larger caliber, right. 

"So the vic has a fifty caliber Magnum instead of a dinky Beretta, makes a lot more sense." 

Nines doesn't correct him, so that must have been the gist of the message. 

"The perp gets shot—" 

"Where's the blood though?" Brayden asks. 

Gavin glares at him. "Can you let me fucking work?" 

Shit, he's doing it again and this is why no one wants to work with him because they fuck up--everyone fucks up, he knows this, he fucking knows this--and then he just can't let it go but why the hell does Brayden think he's allowed to speak right now when—

He's not in trouble. He's not in trouble, it's just the loft, being in another rich empty room again. None of them are children and he's not in trouble. 

His cellphone buzzes. 

The floor has been scrubbed clean throughout the loft. I did not realize that was relevant information. I will give you full reports of my analysis moving forward.

That's not too bad to read, and concentrating on making the letters stay still actually helps him cool off a bit for once. Gives him something to look at other than Brayden's pretty, hurt face or the perfect fucking interior design that still feels like when he was thirteen and— 

Gavin shoves those memories aside and starts typing out a reply. 

just text me that shit

I'll prolly yell if u try telling me about the floors at every crime scene

"Am I dismissed then?" Brayden asks. 

Gavin looks up from his phone and can't force out any sort of apology. He never can. And anyway, fuck him. If Brayden wants to get pissy about getting snapped at twice after a legitimate fuck up and interrupting a senior detective mid-sentence, then sure. He can fuck right off. 

"Go get the maid," Gavin tells him. 

"The … android?" Brayden asks. 

"No, the roomba. Yes, the fucking android maid. Someone scrubbed the floors clean." 

And the side table.

Gavin doesn't bother with texting back this time. "That where the blood splatter would have hit?" 

"Yes, detective," Nines answers out loud. 

Gavin turns back to Brayden. "So there's your answer. Get the maid, 'cause I doubt the perp stuck around himself to clean the entire two-thousand square foot floor." 

Brayden hesitates. 

"She's still here," Gavin asks. "Right, Officer Burton?" 

Brayden gives a curt nod, but he breaks into a run as he leaves. 

AP700 #480 913 876 is located in the foyer of the building, along with Officers Miller and Abrahamson. I have sent alerts to their cellphones that the AP model is needed for questioning.

Gavin starts to ask how Nines knows that but … isn't this what he was literally designed to do? 

"She's not a suspect yet," he says instead. "So cool it, Terminator. And don't hack peoples' phones. That's what the officers have walkie talkies for." 

Nines makes a face like Gavin just suggested they all start using smoke signals. He's not exactly the type to go all buddy-buddy on witnesses himself, but they're definitely not going to get anywhere with Nines scaring the thirium out of their one lead. 

Gavin takes a moment to wallow in how much he hates this before he calls Hank. At least if he has to be up before dawn, so will that motherfucker. 

"We do not need assistance from Lieutenant Anderson," Nines says, his expression souring even further. "Or my predecessor. I recognize that I did not meet the necessary level of efficiency when I neglected to—" 

"Hey, this isn't a punishment," Gavin says, tilting the phone down away from his mouth. "I fucking hate Connor too, and when we have an android suspect, I get that's your thing. But right now we have an android witness, and that's his." 

"Ahh, fuck," Hank's voice comes out of the phone. "Sun's not even fucking—goddammit, Reed." 

"We will be at your location in twenty minutes, Detective Reed," Connor's voice says next. 

Gavin stares out into space as what's left of his soul collapses in on itself at the confirmation that those two really are fucking. Not even just fucking, they're sleeping together. In bed, for literal sleep. 

"Nines, tell them they're disgusting," Gavin orders. "You can put way more hate into it than me." 

 "Disgusting," Nines says with a sneer that would put Gavin's mother to shame. 

Gavin hangs up before Hank can reply. "I know you lack the capacity and all that shit, but if it makes you not-feel any better, I bet you five bucks the perp's android." 

"Based off of what evidence?" Nines asks. 

"Took a bullet and kept going." Gavin steps back into place where the perp probably walked in. "He's got the Beretta, but it's just a gun to him. He grabs the vic's gun, maybe disarms him, maybe doesn't even have to after the first shot." 

"The blood vessels on the victim's wrist have not been damaged." Nines starts cleaning his hands again even though he hasn't even touched anything this time. "Why would the human stop shooting?" 

"TV's on, he's drinking, has a gun out already." Gavin shrugs. "Might have been a suicide interrupted by a murder. Might've fired the first shot just being scared, y'know, gut instinct." 

Nines just looks at him. 

"Or you don't know, whatever." Gavin rolls his eyes. "But once he realizes what's happening—maybe he couldn't pull the trigger himself, but now here's someone gonna do it for him. Maybe he just sits back down. That still work with your preconstruction?" 

"Yes," Nines says. "Along with two thousand, one hundred and fifty-eight other scenarios." 

"Whatever. And just like, for the record, don't ask Hank about how this suicidal shit works," Gavin tells him. "Hank might not care, but those are fighting words with Connor." 

Nines doesn't move a single centimeter as he stares silently at him. 

"And don't fucking fight with Connor, we don't have time for it. Anyway, if anyone gets to pick a fight at a murder scene, it's me. So." Gavin walks up to the chair with his hand pointed like a gun. "The perp gets him back down, shoots him in the side of the head, then switches the guns so the ballistics will match." 

"He could have taken the victim's gun." Nines's LED spins a few yellow cycles. "It is registered in his name. The suicide would have looked more authentic." 

"And that's why I'm thinking our guy's an android," Gavin replies. "Someone who hasn't ever seen a movie before in his whole life. Thinks a gun is a gun is a gun. I mean, you didn't know why the Beretta was weird, and if you made A Plan to kill a guy with this gun, would you switch it up in the middle?" 

Nines's LED immediately hits blue, but it's that fake-blue that means he's really covering up a red. Gavin almost kind of … has a feeling about it? 

But then the elevator doors open with Brayden and the android maid inside. Gavin's got a burned bridge, a possible eye witness, and an a murder to deal with. Worrying about his partner's not-feelings will have to wait. 

***

***

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15 / 16 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20 / 21 / 22 / 23 / 24 / 25 / 26 / 27 / 28 / 29 / 30 / 31 / 32 / 33

This fic is also available on my Patreon! $1 tier gets you each chapter a week early, so you could be reading chapter two right now~

$2 tier gets you deleted scenes and bonus content--this week, it’s extra scenes about how Nines was found at Cyberlife and how he gets his first apartment

$3 tier gets you access to the first chapters of two new AUs I’m currently writing--an A/B/O universe in which Gavin is a bitter omega and Nines is his android partner determined to help him during his heat; and a Reverse AU where GV200 “Gavin” is assigned as Detective Richard Stern’s sobriety companion

#reed900 #gavin reed #dbh #reed900 fic #dbh fic #ch 1 #uglytrashgoblin

[kylo-ren-writes]

The End, Part 2

Part 1 <--

Pairing: Kylo Ren x Reader

Request: @x-avantgarde-x requested:

“May I ask for a sequel to your writing, "The end."? I just loved it way too much, and I would love to see how Kylie regrets choosing Rey before the reader ùwú”

Warnings: Depressive, sad boy Kylo.

A/N: Not sure if anyone is still around from the days I wrote the original fic. I wrote this early last year, and since then I’ve gotten numerous requests for a sequel. I never planned to write a sequel for this but here I am! I finally gave in! Lol. I’ve linked the first one above if you want to read that first, but I think the request gives you enough context if you would rather not. Up to you! (Gif not mine!)

The room was terribly quiet after you were gone.

Every room in Kylo’s quarters were quiet without your presence to fill them, or voice to add sound to the quietness. That was the very first thing he noticed the day you left. How quiet it was in the large space.

Had he been that used to you? Of course he had been.

But anyone would feel odd if something from their environment had been suddenly taken away. Or removed.

Kylo had removed you, hadn’t he?

Not you physically, but he’d sent your things to your new room after you didn’t come back to fetch them. He had expected you to come back. Although he wasn’t sure why, it was such a ridiculous thought.

Why would you want to come back and see the man that broke your heart and torn it out from your chest? You wouldn’t. It was rhetorical.

But still. He’d thought.

It was for the best though. It really was. That’s what Kylo told himself.

With you gone, he had other things to pursue. To focus on. Like Rey, for instance. Now he had Rey, or, he was going to have Rey. She hadn’t quite submitted to him yet, or turned. They just talked. Talked like they first had in that hut all those months ago when they touched hands for the first time.

Talking was nice, especially with Rey. She understood him and he understood her. Weren’t they meant for each other? They had that connection, that force bond that would connect them randomly throughout the day and sometimes night. He’d seen into her mind and her into his. They’d been through a lot, bad and good, and bad again, but hopefully now good.

So why did it not feel that way?

That emptiness you had left behind in Kylo weeks ago still remained. It had grown bigger actually. Rey was suppose to fill it but... but...

Rey filled the emptiness a little when they talked. It wasn’t the same but it was sufficient. At first.

It was probably nearly two weeks ago when Kylo realized that Rey wasn’t going to turn to the dark side for him. Or at all. Since then he had been living in almost a delusion. Maybe if he continued on with the scavenger girl, maybe she would turn. She would have to. Eventually.

Right?

In the rational part of his mind (although he wasn’t sure when he had become so irrational), Kylo knew his reality. Rey would never turn over to the dark side. He had assumed that she would. He had hurt you and given up everything that he had good in his life for a delusion.

An irrational, stupid delusion.

It hadn’t even started out like that at first. Kylo had had no intentions of being with the scavenger girl like he was with you. Like he had been with you. No, he only wanted to turn her. Kylo had wanted Rey on the dark side with him for power. Because what would the Resistance do without their last little jedi? He could crush them. Once and for all.

Kylo couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment when things had changed. It was probably when feelings got involved. He would share things with Rey to obtain her trust, to be open and make himself seem like he was interested in her. And he was, to a certain extent, he had to admit that, but not like he was with you.

The tables had clearly turned on him. It was laughable, really. Hux would laugh. At him, cruelly. Who knows, the insufferable general probably had or was, or is.

But general Hux was irrelevant. What was relevant was the over whelming feeling of absolute regret.

No, Kylo didn’t want Rey. He’d realized that too late and had gotten way too ahead of himself. He wanted you. Kylo wanted you. He’d realized that too late as well. Way, way too late.

Kylo has been pondering over this poorly timed revelation for almost a week now. Tomorrow will make it seven days exactly. It’s been the most miserable week of his life.

Everyday is the same mindless routine of waking up, getting ready, and going about his busy day as Supreme Leader. But it’s lonely. Kylo wakes up alone and goes to bed alone. A large chunk of his thoughts during the day is the knowledge that he’s alone.

He hates his quarters. He hates how quiet they are, how empty and lifeless they are without you filling up the space. So, he works more. And sleeps later and less, and repeats.

Countless times this week, Kylo has thought about you. He knows where you live on the finalizer. He’s looked it up and walked by the hallway. He’s too afraid to go down it because he doesn’t want you to see him, but he knows you’re there. And of course he sees you on the command bridge. He doesn’t ever look at you though. He can’t bring himself to.

Maybe he’s a coward. No, he knows he is. But how can he suddenly change his mind when he hurt you so bad? It’s not like he can go up to you and confess everything that has been going through his mind the last week. Or, he probably could, he’s just too pathetic to try.

And so the next couple weeks carry on the same.

It’s late in the evening one night and Kylo is tiredly dragging himself back to his quarters for some sleep. He’s been awake for almost an entire forty eight hours, but he still would rather work then try to sleep in his cold, empty bed. It’s nights like these where he misses you the most.

Kylo’s taking the long way to his room, or rather, the way in which he gets to pass by your room. It’s become a habit now, especially when it is as late as it is now and he knows that you are asleep. There’s no risk of you catching him.

At least that is what he safely assumes.

He’s too tired to pay much attention to his surroundings as he stops and glances down the hallway where your room is. He looks down it longingly, wishing he could just go down it and be with you. He’s sick of cold beds and the emptiness that comes with them.

He stares longer than he should, longer than what would be safe during a working hour when you would be awake. But he feels safe and he’s not exactly thinking. He hasn’t really thought much over the course of the month. Not since that last miserable week when he had realized how alone he truly was.

Kylo is so exhausted and just out of it that he doesn’t even hear the person coming up behind him. He doesn’t recognize the energy or the walk, or anything. He just stares down your hall because he knows it’s yours. What he doesn’t know is that you aren’t down it.

“Kylo?”

It’s the sound of your voice that he does hear. Although, Kylo doesn’t think for a minute that it could actually be coming from you. It’s a hallucination, it has to be. He’s had them before when he’s been this sleep deprived.

“Kylo?”

And there it is again. It’s a bittersweet hallucination. Equal parts bitter and sweet. But the hallucination only gets even more so.

Within seconds, you’re standing in front of Kylo with a familiar frown pulling down the features of your face. He’s always loved your features, and your face, and just you.

Kylo almost smiles.

“Kylo?” You’re waving a hand in front of his face now, because you’re not a hallucination. You were working a late shift on the command bridge to get extra work done and only just now were returning to your quarters for some sleep of your own.

Not in a million years did you expect Kylo to be here, so close to your room.

The hurt he has subjected you to was gone now, or, well, most of it was. A little of it is brought back to the surface seeing Kylo here.

He looks awful. His posture is even worse than it already was. His naturally pale, light complexion is even lighter that he almost looks a shade of white. And of course, his under eye circles, which had already been rather pronounced, are even more so now, especially with those bags he’s got going on as well. Kylo looks ten years older and like he died yesterday.

It tugs at your heart to see him like this even though it shouldn’t. But you’re not angry at him anymore. Your anger went away weeks ago.

Kylo looks at you like you aren’t real. With how exhausted this poor man looks, he probably thinks that you aren’t.

You bring a hand up to touch his face, allowing your palm to cup his jaw and fingers to splay over his cheek. “Kylo?”

He nuzzles into your hand and closes his eyes, and you’ve never seen this man look so vulnerable before. If you were cruel, you would play off of it. But you aren’t and you desperately want to help him.

Sliding your hand up to the back of his head, you bring it down slowly to your shoulder, where Kylo presses his face into it. Your other hand comes to his shoulders and you stroke his hair and head with the other.

“Shh, it’s okay,” you soothe him, running your fingers through his dark locks. This motion feels familiar and something from a time so long ago. You can feel him relax underneath your touch.

“You’re real,” Kylo mutters

You nod. “I’m real.”

Kylo hums for a minute, something inaudible and from his throat. “I’m sorry.” It comes out as a whisper that you almost don’t catch, but when you do, you freeze.

“What?” You know what he must be apologizing for, but it’s almost hard to believe. Kylo never apologized for much.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. “I’m sorry.” He turns his head so his forehead is resting against the side of your neck, and his arms come around you all at once.

You forgot how strong his arms felt. It’s been ages since you’ve been wrapped in them.

“I was wrong. I was so, so wrong,” he continues on.

You just listen. Let him speak.

“I never wanted Rey.” Hearing her name stings but you don’t push him away or interrupt. “I got lost in a... delusion. I...”

Kylo’s not good with words, he never has been, but he’s trying so hard now. He wants to say the right things. Even if he won’t get you back, which isn’t necessarily what he is trying to do, he still needs to tell you the truth. He needs to tell you everything.

“I wanted Rey for power,” Kylo tells you. You knew that, it’s something you remember him telling you. “If I had her, if the First Order had her, then the Resistance would be nothing.” You remember that too. You also remember thinking that it hadn’t been a very good plan. That girl was devoted to her cause like Kylo was to his. She wouldn’t turn. You guessed she hadn’t.

“I got carried away, and... you know what happened.” You did. Kylo broke your heart. “But, I was wrong. I was so convinced that Rey would turn. I thought she would turn for me to the dark side, but I had been wrong.”

You’re stroking his head again. It’s an old habit, but you also don’t want to just stand here holding up this man either.

“I realized how wrong I was too late. I’m sorry.” His hold on you grew tight after his apology, as if he didn’t want to let you go now that he was done.

You took in a deep breath. “Thank you, Kylo.” It felt odd saying his name. “For apologizing... and for realizing your mistake.” The words sound too simple, but what else is there to say?

Kylo’s hold on you only grew tighter.

“I forgive you.”

Kylo released a shaky breath. It sounded relieved.

“I want you back,” he blurted.

You frowned. “Kylo--”

“I feel so empty without you. My quarters are so bare and empty, and so, so quiet. It’s maddening. I can’t take it, I feel so... alone.”

You felt for him, you really did. The two of you had been together for so long. It had been hard to get used to his presence not being with you, and if you were honest, you still weren’t used to it. But you also couldn’t just give right into him so quickly. He’d hurt you and completely broken your trust. Not only that, but Kylo had also ignored you and treated you like you had meant nothing to him. You weren’t just going to take him back so easily. He needed to work for it first.

“Why don’t you get some sleep first, and then we’ll talk about it tomorrow,” you told him.

“You’re rejecting me.” He sounded depressed.

“Kylo.” You said his name firmly as you pushed his head from your shoulder, looking him in the face. “You can’t just expect me to take you back right away when you hurt me so bad.”

Kylo looked at you. He knew that, but he was pathetic and cowardly, and so tired. He just needed you. Right now.

“I know.” His arms loosened around you until they fell away completely. “I just... I don’t want to sleep alone tonight.”

You sighed and glanced down the hallway where your room was. Letting Kylo sleep in your room, in your bed, was not something you should allow. But of course you still had a soft spot for him and you didn’t want to see him suffer.

“Alright. Fine.” You sighed again as you looked up at him, giving in. “You can sleep with me.”

Kylo seemed to visibly relax at hearing your words. It made you long for him even more.

“But,” you continued, “this doesn’t mean that we’re back together.”

Kylo nodded. “I know.” He wasn’t so far gone in exhaustion to where he couldn’t comprehend that.

“There is a lot of work to go towards mending our relationship, and you have to contribute most of it.”

Kylo nodded again, more eagerly. “I know, I’ve thought of this all already, but please, can we just sleep? Pretend like everything is okay for one night and sleep?” He was practically begging now, but Kylo didn’t really care. He was past caring.

You had to admit. That sounded nice. And you were tired, Kylo even more so, and really? You just wanted to be with him again. One night where you pretended everything was alright couldn’t hurt. And if it somehow did, then you could fix it.

You nodded. “One night.”

“One night,” Kylo agreed. He was relieved that he didn’t have to be alone.

You held out your hand for him to take and he did. Kylo’s hand was warm and comforting, and you had missed holding it.

Pulling him gently along, you led Kylo down the hallway to your room. This was probably a bad idea, but you were tired. You just needed sleep.

You dropped Kylo’s hand once the two of you were inside. Your quarters were smaller than his but they were still decent.

“Bedrooms through that door.” You pointed at an open door.

Kylo nodded but just stood where he was. He was probably waiting for you to come with him. You hadn’t forgotten how needy he could be.

Taking off your shoes and setting them by the closed door neatly, you glanced at Kylo before heading off to your bedroom. Kylo followed closely behind.

You took off your socks and the outer layer of your issued uniform, but nothing else. You didn’t feel like changing into other clothes and you didn’t think it was appropriate to get naked in front of Kylo.

As Kylo methodically removed his boots, you got into bed. It felt so strange having him here and even awkward. Neither of you talked or even looked at each other, but there was a sense of familiarity of it all.

Kylo got into your bed beside you after removing his boots and outer layers of his tunic as well as his cape.

You weren’t facing him, your back was to him, which you had done on purpose. But he didn’t seem to care. Within seconds, Kylo’s chest was pressed up against your back and his arms were wrapping around you. There was enough room in the bed to where you didn’t have to touch each other, so he was obviously doing this on purpose.

“Kylo,” you tried protesting, but he only hushed you.

“Shh, just sleep,” he commanded softly. “Just for tonight.”

He was awfully warm behind you and his arms were so comforting and familiar. It was hard not to relax, especially when your body just wanted to sleep.

You sighed.

“I missed you,” Kylo mumbled. “So, so much.” He was already beginning to fall asleep.

As much as this was a bad idea, you gave in. You relaxed against him and closed your eyes. “I missed you, too,” you whispered back.

By the soft way he was breathing against the back of your neck, and how much his arms had loosened around you, Kylo was already asleep.

You smiled sleepily. “Goodnight, Kylo.”

#kylo ren x reader #kylo ren #kylo #kylo ren fanfiction #kylo ren fanfic #kylo x reader #kylo x you #kylo fic #kylo fanfic #star wars #star wars kylo ren #star wars fanfiction #star wars fanfic #the end fic

[halcyonnhood]

Sight and Sound [5sos fic] Ch.3

Note: unedited. Sorry for random n late updates. More to come. 

Previous chapters: [one] [two]

Chapter Three

Eight days and four hours. It takes eight whole days to realize where I had recognized Ashton from. I had been looking at the photos hanging up and decorating some of the coffee tables when I realized the boys were in a band. 5 Seconds Of Summer, a name that would've been easily recognizable to 16 year old Tenley and not as relevant to 21 year old Tenley. My first reaction is to tell Diana, so as I explain my newfound discovery to her, she just smiles at me and nods. Either I'm just really oblivious to something or my own best friend is privy to knowledge I've yet to discover.

“Did you know?” I gasp at her.

“I mean, yeah, I still loved their music!” Diana then points at me, “Unlike you. You traitor”

“I haven't paid attention to them since sophomore year,” I huff. “You could've told me”

“Why would I tell you!?”

“Because you're my best fr-” I start my spiel, but she quickly interrupts me.

“I don't want them thinking we're psycho fangirls! They think we're oblivious and they just started trusting us. They'd kick us out.” She whispers. “They can't know.”

“A-” I groan as I'm interrupted yet again.

“We can't know what?”

Calum stands in the doorway with his eyes narrowed and focused on us. I just look at Diana with wide eyes, shocked and unsure of how to respond. To be fair, she is the one who said it and I thought all of the boys were in the basement playing video games or pool. She looks just as shocked, but knowing her she'll come up with some quick and witty response. Or not.

“Tenley,” Calum steps towards us “What can't we know?”

“It's a personal thing...I-” I trip over my words nervously. “It's nothing important”

“Sounds like you can tell me then,” He glares at me in a threatening manner.

“I really can't...That's why it's personal…”

“Then I guess I'll just have Ashton get it out of you” He shrugs nonchalantly “Just remember that this is my house.”

This is my house. The words echo through my mind for most of the day, keeping me on edge and nervous that he would actually kick us out. He didn't bother saying anything to me for the rest of the day, but whenever we're in the same room he just stares daggers into my soul. If dirty looks could kill, I would've been dead seven hours ago. In my mind it isn't that big of a deal that we know of them and their band, if we were gonna do anything horrible we would've already done it. Diana may be a hardcore fan, but I haven't given any attention to them since I was a teen. I didn't understand what the hype would be, we're in the middle of a fuckin apocalypse.

After the first night, I half expected Calum to be nicer to me. Ever since then he's done nothing but send me suspicious glances and follow me around when he thinks I'm not paying attention. It makes me wonder if the whole scenario was a dream, he went to sleep on the couch beside my own and when I woke up again in the early morning he was missing. Apparently he can only be nice one time, then it's just an angry atmosphere every other day. The other boys are kind and inviting, why can't he be the same? It's just disappointing that I can't see the good guy that Ashton claims is somewhere buried deep down. It became  apparent that indeed, I won't see that anytime soon. So I just stay in the guest room and read whatever books Calum has available in his house, which is currently one full of poems.

“I see you and Calum are still clashing,” Ashton comments after entering the guest room.

“Calum is doing all the clashing,” I reply, not bothering to look up from my book. “He can't just be an ass and expect me to be polite,”

“All you had to do was answer his question,” He tells me softly.

“Does he not understand what the word ‘personal’ means?”

“He heard Diana say you couldn't tell us. What are you hiding that's so horrible?”

“NOTHING, ASH.” I raise my voice as I look up at him. “You guys hide stuff from me, am I supposed to pretend I don't see you whispering when I'm in the same room?”

“Don't be like that, you know we tell you everything!” Ashton defends harshly.

“Looks like we're both liars then,” I hiss. Ashton just stares at me with his mouth agape and a slightly hurt look on his face. “I told her I wouldn't say anything, so I'm not.”

“It can't be that bad. Just tell me, I won't tell Calum. We just want to know if any of us should be concerned,” Ashton sits on the edge of my bed carefully.

“We know who you guys are,” I look away from him. “I saw some pictures and put together that you were familiar because of your band. I went to tell Diana, but she already knew because she's still a big fan...I di-”

“That's it?” He laughs loudly. “A big fuss over knowing 5sos?”

“I-I” I'm cut off again when he uses two fingers to turn my chin towards him. I try to look away again before he can see the tears brewing in my eyes, but his expression softens and he tightens the grip to keep me facing him.

“Ten, why are you crying?” Ashton questions with a slight frown.

“I'm scared, Ash” I wipe away the tears hastily before continuing, “I'm scared that Calum will fucking make us leave just because he thinks we're crazy fangirls or something. I'm scared because I've always had my brother to help me through things. Diana is the only person I have left and I don't want us to die yet,”

“This may be Calums house, but I would never let him do that to you. You can trust us. Even when we're being total dicks” He tells me with a reassuring smile. Then he pulls me into his chest, a steady hand rubbing my shoulders in a soothing way. “I promise we won't ever hurt you,”

/  /  /

Thirteen days and six hours. The dreaded day has arrived and faster than any of us had expected. We ran out of food yesterday at breakfast, even after we had rationed and planned for another weeks worth. Luke blamed Michael for sneaking snacks, Michael claims it was Ashton, and Calum just tells everyone to shut up. I just sit silently next to Diana and Michael wondering how the hell they'd solve this problem. We can't just drive to a store without sacrificing someone for their eyesight. It doesn't matter what plan I come up with...Someone dies in each one.

“There's a store one block away.” Calum tells us. “We will blindfold ourselves and a couple of us will walk there,”

“That's literally walking into our own deaths, Cal” Michael shakes his head dramatically. “I'm not down for that,”

“The longer we sit here doing nothing will only make it worse. Starving will make us die too.” He retorts with a raised eyebrow.

“I just think it's too much of a risk,” Michael mumbles. “This thing...It will do anything to kill us”

“But it can't unless we look at it,” Ashton glances at Michael quickly. “Calum's right. As long as we have blindfolds we can make it there and back.”

“Who's all going?” Diana finally asks, her blue eyes darting around nervously. I can tell she's hoping to stay with Michael.

“I am” Calum tells her. “I think Ash should stay, we need someone level headed to go and one to stay. Ash will keep this place safe and guarded while I'm gone,”

“I'll go with you,” I tell Calum. I may dislike him right now, but I won’t go as low as letting him walk into danger all alone.

“Me too,” Luke glances at me quickly with a small nod.

“Good, I'll go find us some bandanas. Luke gather up some bags.”

I'm going to die. That's the only thought cycling through my mind. The plan works in theory, but no one knows how this demon creature truly works. For all we know, the blindfolds could be pointless and we'll off ourselves just from being outside with it again. Diana and Michael's terrified expressions do not do anything to calm my nerves, it just stresses me out more each second that I spend waiting for the boys. I can hear Luke rummaging through the rooms upstairs and the squeak of Calums shoes from the staircase, all while Ashton just tries to give me another soft smile before I look away. It doesn’t matter how hard I attempt to block out the negative thoughts, there's always one wedged somewhere in the depths of my mind. I’m going to die. We’re all going to die. Doing this is pointless, we’ll never make it out alive. We can never leave this house again. It just seems futile when we’re all going to die soon enough. The thought is almost enough to make me wish I had died too, then I wouldn’t feel so terrified and alone. My mind is rendered temporarily silent when Calum places three purple bandanas on my lap, startling me out of my horrendous daydreaming.

“Empty your pockets,” Calum tells me “Make sure you don’t take anything sharp or potentially dangerous.”

“Tenley wouldn’t hurt you guys,” Diana glares at him defensively. I just casually place everything from my pockets onto the side table, including the sharp nail file I had been using earlier today. I know his intentions for the request and I don't mind it.

“I’m not worried about her hurting me,” He snaps back. “She can try to hurt us all she wants, it’s so she doesn’t stab herself in the jugular or something.”

“It’ll just make us all a little less on edge,” Luke adds as he places a duffle bag beside me. “We already checked our stuff.”

“Good point,” Diana just mumbles with an embarrassed expression.

“I’m guessing that’s why you’re using three blindfolds each too,” Michael eyes the blue cloth in Calum's hands. “Extra protection.”

“We’re going to use two and keep the third in our bags.” He nods. “Just in case,”

“How long do you think it'll take you guys?”

“An hour and a half at most,”

“And what if it takes longer?”

“Then stop waiting for us” I tell Michael, his blue eyes widening. “If we don't come back tonight, then don't spend your life expecting to see us again”

“What she said,” Calum nods in agreement.

For the first time, he gives me a smile before moving to tie the cloth around his head. Ashton helps me tie both of mine tightly over my eyes and behind my head. I blink testing to see if I can see or if any light bleeds through, but I'm met by nothing but darkness and I let out a sigh I didn't realize I had been holding in. Luke finishes getting ready, we grab our bags, and Ashton leads us towards the door. Queue the emotional goodbyes and hugs as if we're leaving for world war three. Close enough. Diana grabs me and pulls me close, I can tell from her long hair and fruity scent, since she insists on still using perfume she had kept in her purse. Ashton is next, his strong arms wrapped tightly around me and his soothing voice whispering that I'd be okay. Comforting as usual. Then it all happens too fast, Ashton telling everyone to close their eyes, the door opening, then the three of us are outside and on our own. Now we're walking in the dead silence.

“Stop,” Calum calls out. “We're at the light, we need to go right,”

“We're almost there then, right?” Luke questions.

“It's close. I just have to feel for the sliding doors.” He tells us softly. “Be careful. Just listen to our surroundings, okay?”

We listen to the sound of Calum's hand sliding against the different textures of the buildings, brick, stone, glass. The sound of our shoes scuffing against the cement. Then once he finds the sliding doors, I can tell that he's trying to break the lock and the nerves forming in the pit of my stomach are climbing up through my throat making it hard to concentrate on anything other than the fact that we're going to die out here. Then the world stops turning, my lungs stop breathing, my heart stops beating.

“It's going to be okay, Tenley.” Matthias’ voice calls from beyond the darkness of my blindfold. “Let me help you”

“Matt?” I gasp.

“Ten, who are you talking to?” Luke's sounds confused and lost.  

“Ten, I promise I can help” This time the voice belongs to Ashton. Hearing both voices leaves me soothed and I instantly take a step towards the sound of Ashton's voice. “Just open your eyes so you can follow me,”

“Calum said not to open my eyes,”

“Don't open your eyes, Ten” Calum warns in a harsh voice.

“I'm going to die if you don't help me, please help”

“Ashton, I can't…”

“Tenley, listen” I feel Calum's warm hands on my shoulders, the force making my body sway slightly. “Matthias isn't here, he's dead. Ashton isn't here either, he's waiting for you to come home okay?”

“But he said he was gonna help..” I let out a frustrated huff “Now he's going to die since I'm not helping him”

“He's safe, he is. The demon things, they're trying to trick us. We got the door open and we'll be safe inside, c'mon” He pulls me along with him and then I hear the click of the doors being pushed together behind me.

“Cal are you sure it's safe to take off the blindfolds?” Luke now questions the boy.

“The store was owned by this old lady named Mary, she watched the news and got paranoid and taped cardboard everywhere so the customers would be safer,” He informs us.

“How could you even know that?”

“Mary liked me, we talked after I would checkout. I'm also looking at it right now and I'm not dead yet,” Calum just chuckles slightly.

After a minute or two of me trying to undo Ashton's knot in the blindfold, I feel Calums own hands nudge mine aside before he goes about untangling it. His breath fans across the back of my neck and I huff in frustration, just wanting to get this over and done with. It doesn't matter what the boys say, the voices sounded so real. It has me on edge knowing how these creatures can manipulate voices and use them for evil. Hearing Matthias’ voice again is enough to driven me mad. It's always a game of pushing away bad thoughts, but I have no other option when Calum pulls off the bandana and leaves me blinking to adjust to the lights. The store is perfectly intact and exactly how it had been before this apocalyptic bullshit.

“Remember, canned goods and anything that will be useful once the power goes out.” Calum tells us. “I'm thinking that we also just fill up a cart and take it with us. We would be good for ages with the bags and a cart.”

I fill the bag with with an assortment of canned food, anything from spaghettiOs, vegetables, and a decent amount of fruit. I even stuff a small bag of sour patch kids in the side pocket for Ashton and small sweets for all of us. It may not follow Calums requests, but if we're going to die soon we get to savor a treat. I find the two of them in the drink aisle, with Luke arguing that he really wanted some Mountain Dew and Calum saying that it would waste space. I just shrug at Luke and wait for them to turn around, then I shove a couple cans into my bag. I'm chilling by the front doors when Calum finally talks to me.

“Are you okay, Ten?” His once intense eyes are now softer as he questions me.

“I'm fine,” I tell him with a small smile. “Just gathering necessities.”

“You heard your brother and Ashton?”

“Yeah. It's a good ploy, I guess. I didn't know it was possible.” I admit while looking away from him. The neon “food” sign, the linoleum tiles, Luke eating cheetos a couple aisles away. Anything to avoid that gaze.

“I didn't either, I'm sorry you had to be the first to experience that. It can't be easy.” he pauses for a moment, “But I did find something for you since you like reading so much,”

Calum now holds three books in his hands with a smile. I graciously take them from him and look at the covers to see if I know the titles or authors. The gesture is far more than I ever expected out of this man, yet here he is handing me books just because he knows I enjoy reading.

“Thank you so much, Cal” I beam at him.

“It's not a problem” Calum nods.

Maybe spending the end of the world with these guys won't be so bad.

Tags: @bodaciousidiot @nicholerodz @filleinterrupted @5sos-luna @woahthereangela @aspiringwildfire [if anyone wants added or removed, just ask]

#5sos #5 seconds of summer #calum hood #ashton irwin #luke hemmings #michael clifford #5sos fanfiction #ashton irwin fanfiction #luke hemmings fanfiction #michael clifford fanfiction #calum hood fanfic #5 seconds of summer fanfiction #5sos blurbs #5sos imagines #luke hemmings imagine #ashton irwin imagine #michael clifford imagine #calum hood imagine

[v-katsuki]

thank you @maderilien tagging me!! :D

rules: tag a few people you want to know better; make a new post, don’t reblog!

favorite color: right now it's soft blue

currently reading: i'm not reading anything at the moment because somehow, time to read has became something i have to earn with hard work and i haven't worked hard enough lately :') haha this sucks.

last song: sunmi's black pearl :'')

last movie: the adam project... i didn't like it...

last series: a series of unfortunate events :') i still love this series as much as i did when it was airing. 10/10 it still makes me feel emo.

sweet, spicy, or savory: sweet :)

coffee or tea: i drink at least 3 cups of caffeine-free tea every day so, tea.

three ships: uh... iwa/oi, sang/cheng, and feng/qing are the ones that currently have me by the throat... and it's been like this for YEARS because ships come and go but non-canon otps stay forever <3

first ever ship: i don't know? probably ze/link (my beloveds)?? i'm not very sure :/

currently working on: MY THESIS. once again i'm working on "ghosts hehe" and it's my goal to finish it asap because it is way too long already :') + a fic for a zine + a few wips not that relevant that maybe i won't finish... but maybe i will???

favorite piece of clothing: idk? but i like dresses :)

comfort food: nothing tastes more like home to me than my mom's soup. she cooks it with rice, mushrooms, peas, and sometimes chickpeas or other vegetables.

favorite time of year: whenever it's the coldest and don't have to worry too much about school, so late december/early january. i have a complicated relationship with my birthday (i hate it lol) and don't care too much about the holidays, though.

fav fanfiction: like ever? i don't know and i'm terrible at picking favorites :')... i think i'm going to say Seven Years and Twenty-Four Hours because it is my favorite yoi fic BUT i'm sure that i like other fics as much as this one. i just don't know which one should i pick :''') anyway, that fic makes me cry and believe love is real <3

not tagging everyone this time (because i have no one to tag) but if you want to answer these, please do.

#thanks again for the tag :) #i don't remember my tag for this kind of games :'') #tag game #i think??

[hencethebravery]

TITLE: CS 0155 Data Witchcraft, 1/1 (Ao3)

SUMMARY: All the books and movies seem keen on operating under the assumption that magic is supposed to make your life easier. But apparently it was all lies, because being in one’s 20s seems to suck no matter what kind of spells you’re prone to casting. Emma Swan and Killian Jones, while “blessed” with the gift of magic, are certified emotional disasters—it’s a relief to know that at least they’ve found each other. A Contemporary CS Witches AU.

CONTENT WARNING (RATED M): Contains brief mentions of childhood sexual abuse; swearing; casual, non-depressing drug use; implicit and consensual sexual content between adults. The sexual abuse is mentioned in passing and not described in explicit detail. If you need further details before reading, feel free to send me a message!

AUTHOR’S NOTES: This was a story that I planned on finishing with about 9k. It ended up being completed about 41 words under the 15k limit, and imo it should probably be longer, but since that’s not an option, this is what we’re left with! I’d like to thank a few ppl that made this possible: @the-reason-to-sail-home, @pritkins-little-witch, @initiala, and @wellhellotragic for all of their time and helpful thoughts. This fic ended up being far more challenging than I had anticipated and I couldn’t have done it without y’all. Especially Tessa and Kat, you are both my shining stars. Thank you for never letting me give up on myself. Literally incredible freaking artwork that I cannot stop staring at provided by @clockadile and @princesse-swan, both found here and here (respectively). If you’re interested in listening to the soundtrack I made to suit the particular vibe of this story, you can listen on 8tracks, here. 

“Watch carefully that magic that occurs when you give a person enough comfort to just be themselves." — Atticus, Love Her Wild: Poems

i. ugly_duckling

Emma Swan learns about magic the same way that most children do—slipped in between the pages of a book. She is not granted the privilege of enjoying a conversation typical of most children; that of parents soothing the inevitable disappointment with the truth that magic is not real. The parents might, for the most part, keep the dream alive for a certain number of years. And so, for that certain number of years, the child will be allowed to live in a world where magic exists. That child will spend a few blissful years staring a little too hard at the creepy house at the end of their street; that child will throw a packet of salt over their shoulder, even at the risk of being yelled at by their parents after the fact. Most children will grow up feeling afraid, and not much can be done about it—but to be able to quell that fear, at least temporarily, with the suggestion that there’s a magical world at the heart of it all, waiting to be discovered? That kind of thinking might make the pain of all those unknown variables worth it, at least for most children.

Emma Swan was not most children. She was “most children,” in the sense that she wandered into a library and plucked a book off the shelf with a flying girl on the cover (she rode a broomstick and wore a black hat). She was “most children,” in the way she jumped off picnic tables and prayed that her feet would never touch the ground. But she was not “most children,” when she brought the book home and showed her new “mother” the particular book in question.

“Oh, you silly thing,” Mrs. Swan had so gleefully informed her, a sharp smirk on her stiff, something not quite right about it face. “Hasn’t anyone told you? There’s no such thing as magic.”

In the Swan household there was no such thing as magic. There was a roof over Emma’s head, and a hot meal three times a day, but in all other matters of importance, it may as well have been another orphanage. To make matters worse there was Betsy Swan’s husband, Mitchell Swan—a man who, on his very best days, could hardly summon the courage to lift his ass from the couch, and on his very worst, slip into Emma’s room every other night when his wife was asleep.

As a child, Emma would disappear into her own head, creating elaborate escape attempts from her supposed home. Sometimes she would don her own pointy black hat, put a spell on her own boring broomstick, and turn Mr. Swan into some small, nasty insect she could crush beneath her shoe.

When Emma turns seven, the Swans buy their first computer. It’s a Power Macintosh G3, which matters little to Emma at the time. At first, when she overhears them talking about it, Betsy mentions something about a mouse, and she finds herself unnaturally excited at the prospect of there being an actual animal in the house. That is until she actually sees the thing, and becomes confused and disappointed at the sight of this small, oddly shaped piece of plastic attached to a length of cord. She stares curiously at the blackened screen for a few moments until Betsy returns, yelling at her to get her “behind” away from the most expensive thing in the house.

Like most major developments that might occur within the pages of any generic fantasy novel, Emma makes her first acquaintance with the digital universe in the dead of night. Closer to midnight, if we’re being specific. A clock chimes from the dining room, and the Swan house is blessedly silent as she sneaks down the hall, past the flickering light of the television, the soft sounds of Mitchell’s snores emitting from his armchair.

The machine sits quiet and imposing atop the desk in the office; the light from the moon casting an eerie glow about the room, the dark screen a seemingly infinite void staring back into her wide, curious eyes. She sneaks a glance back towards where she came, expecting to hear Mitchell’s heavy footsteps, or Betsy’s cruel laughter, but she’s only greeted with silence, the odd creak of an old house.

When she finally works up the nerve to power it on there’s a kind of yawning, high-pitched static that hits her ears in a not entirely unpleasant way. It’s just enough that she finds herself overcome with the urge to open and close her mouth comically wide, like when your ears pop inside the cabin of an airplane and you have to re-adjust all the loose air inside your head. There’s a sound afterwards, a low hum that would never really go away. In later years, she would come to understand that there’s always a vague humming associated with most electronics. What was different in Emma’s case was the sound beneath the hum, or rather, the sounds.

She would learn to ignore them after a time, picking and choosing the most relevant or useful voices. Sometimes they were people, other times they were… something else. The first night she boots up the Power Macintosh, it’s all white noise, and she assumes it’s a thing that everyone can hear. It’s a lot of excited whispers, so hushed and quickly spoken that she has a difficult time making out any one word or phrase.

“Hello?” she utters quietly, still silently praying for the Swans to remain asleep and unaware of her trespassing. “Is there anyone out there?”

The humming cacophony of distant voices and dissonant beeps are the only answer, as if her own voice has gotten lost in the din, and her eyes search the desktop until they land on an oddly familiar image of a piece of paper. It is unlike any other piece of paper she’s ever seen, this bold, flat image outlined in blocks of color—untouchable, and with no discernible smell or texture. She has stumbled upon a word processor, a blank document with a blinking, vertical line that waits and waits.

The moon grows a bit brighter in the wake of her excitement, but Emma is too eager to notice the way the darker corners of the room become less so; even the way in which the computer itself has begun to emit its own soft, illuminated ring of greenish light, as if the office has been submerged in water.

“Hello,” Emma writes slowly, one key at a time. With each selection of every letter beneath her fingertips sounds a satisfying clunk, and she grins as she continues, “My name is Emma Swan.”

The silence that follows in the wake of all those voices is nearly deafening, but there’s a clear answer that sounds from within the four walls of her newly christened safe haven; murky and quiet, getting comfortable from her place seated at the bottom of a pool, “Hello, Emma Swan. It is very nice to meet you.”

As it turns out, there is quite a lot about the Swans’ Power Macintosh G3 that they are not privy to. The Swans, in point of fact, seem to be ignorant of a great many things occurring out in the world and even in their own home about 99% of the time. They have never heard the hum of voices coming from the computer room, nor do they seem to receive the same kind of unsettling, predictive programming that Emma can suss out from within the apparent blankness of a darkened television screen. It’s a blessing and a curse. While it’s nice to know she’s not quite so alone as she used to be—while it seems as if she’s been able to lift a veil and spot the real world underneath, there’s still the reality of the Swans always hovering in another room, at her back, or in her bed.

Betsy catches Emma on the computer late one night about a month or so after her first midnight rendezvous, and the subsequent consequences are about as bad as she assumed they would be. There’s a harsh smack to the back of the head, even harsher words, and a rough tugging of her arm towards her bedroom door, tossing her inside and slamming it shut before Emma can say a word in her own defense. She cries and seethes, the tightness at the back of her throat a painful and vicious reminder of the fact that she is little more than a prisoner.

And while Emma stewed inside her room, her small feet pacing back and forth from door to window and back again, Betsy Swan had tried and failed to turn on her new computer after it had shut off quite unexpectedly. It’s screen remained stubbornly dark, and there was Betsy, angrily and futilely attempting to turn it back on, only to give up about 20 minutes later, returning to her own bedroom, mumbling to herself about how they would have to lug the fucking thing back to the store.

It’s all a bit of a different game after that. Emma has to be more careful about how and when she visits that place she’s found behind the curtain. She’s sure to cover her tracks online, deleting files or browsing data as if she had never been. She spends the next few years doing her best to become a ghost—in both of her lives. Within the walls of her “home,” in the hallways at school, and in the cold, impersonal well of the Internet. She studies everything as carefully as she can, but does her best to leave as little an impression as possible. She excels a little too well in her typing class at school, earning her some impressive marks from a teacher, so she fumbles a few weeks later and drops down a grade.

It goes on this way for two or three years, and it’s about when she starts yearning for more that she obtains a bus pass and starts regularly visiting the library. It is during these regular visitations that she meets Lily Page, and wonderfully, her life is never the same.

Emma is close to turning eleven when she gets a private message from a user called “spyro-huntr3ss” on a public message board. At first her instinct is to block the user—she’s been around long enough to know that people are scum wherever you go, even in this digital world where she had felt so safe at first, this place she had decided to call her own.

“I know what it is you’re trolling for,” her mysterious new contact, likely trying to get her age, number, or address had sent, followed by, “and I can help you find it.”

From what Emma has been able to discern thus far, most people using the Internet were just as oblivious as the Swans, which was disappointing. She had been hoping, in vain it would seem, that once she’d been able to locate more users that they might be able to help explain it. The humming, and the voices, and the stories in the static—the songs lost in the high-pitched chorus of a dial-up tone. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be. Most people thought she was being metaphorical, or just plain paranoid. Message boards were a breeding ground for those folks made of cracks and dark places; lost people looking for patterns and meaning where there were none to be found.

The unsettling shiver that shrieked down the length of her spine had her head swiveling atop her thin, spindly neck as if she were some kind of anxious, wide-eyed owl; her mouth going dry at the sight of her own name staring back at her in bold, black text. To her profound relief, the library appeared to be just as empty as it had been when she walked in that morning. Not many people would brave the snow-filled streets a few days before Christmas to hang out in a public library, but then again, not many people had the Swans waiting for them at home.

Emma felt her heart beat anxiously in time with the blinking cursor inside her text box, a taunting slowness that seemed to be daring her to refuse the offer. She glimpsed at the library entrance and observed the snow falling heavily atop the empty city streets, tried to ignore the sickeningly sweet melodies of holiday cheer emanating from the head librarian’s office. The truth had been all she ever wanted, wasn’t it? From the very first moment she’d realized that she had come from nothing, that no one had wanted her, and could that be true? From the feeling of Mitchell’s hands and eyes where they shouldn’t be—wondering if all fathers were like this. From the first time she’d booted up the Power Mac, the ghostly chorus ringing in her ears, always ringing, ringing, ringing—

Lily’s “truth” is every bit as exciting as Emma’s painfully beating heart had hoped it would be. That yes, Emma Swan, there is a world behind the world and you have been invited to be a part of it. The people who are “in charge?” Those people that have hurt you, that have convinced you that you don’t matter, that what you might want for your life doesn’t matter—those people are powerless here. But not you, Emma Swan, not us. We’re the powerful ones now.

It takes her some time to truly trust her new informant, “spyro-huntr3ss,” who, while forthcoming about the realities of this world, the potential for what they could do, of what was waiting for them a few years down the line, was quite tight-lipped concerning personal details of her own life. Which was understandable, if not a bit frustrating, especially since she had known Emma’s name without having asked for it.

According to her new source (Emma’s not certain “spyro-huntr3ss” will ever be a friend), there are ways to pick apart the cacophony of sound constantly washing over her in dizzying regularity. There are also, blessedly, ways to tune out the noise. “Invest in a good pair of headphones,” had been one of the first things she’d advised, and after Emma, not yet a teenager, trapped between the freedom of the web and the reign of her parents, had quite logically argued that she had no money for such things, Lily had “laughed,” a peaky mechanical noise echoing in Emma’s ears.

Despite the fact that she was still technically a child and living under the Swans’ supervision, Emma had never in her life felt so independent. If not for her inconvenient need to eat and drink every once in awhile, the Swans might have forgotten she was there at all. There was of course the unfortunate recurrence of Mr. Swan; still coerced by some dark, unspoken perversions that it was his God-given right to appear by Emma’s bedside every few nights. Until Lily had learned of it, of course. It had been a secret Emma had always kept to herself, except for that first night she had run to Betsy, hoping for a savior and finding a stern hand instead. A disgusted voice of disbelief, calling Emma the sick one, the wrong one. “Mr. Swan would never do that you wicked little thing,” she had hissed into Emma’s small, red face. “You’re lucky I don’t send you right back to the orphanage for this disgusting stunt.”

And of course, Mitchell had found out, because the dutiful wife informs her stalwart husband of every single thing going on in their house, and he had made damn sure that Emma never said a word of their “visits” to anyone, especially not Mrs. Swan.

They had been messaging one another back and forth for about two years before Lily discovered her dirty little secret, and Emma was quite happy to finally be able to think of her as a friend. Even still, she had never been tempted to reveal the truth—she was embarrassed and ashamed, and she assumed that Lily would never speak to her again should she ever slip-up. Ultimately, it had been Emma’s penchant for frequently keeping extremely late hours, coupled with her recent cell phone acquisition, which she had been keeping underneath her pillow.

Emma had only recently started cursing, and found that it was one of the few things she genuinely enjoyed. It made her feel like she was older than she was, and the older she was, the closer she was to being free of this fucking place.

When she wasn’t getting lost within the dark, less than reputable corners of the Internet, Emma learned that she loved to read. Lately, she seems to have gotten into the habit of reading the same kind of story—the same kind of journey, over and over again. She’s read these stories so many times, in point of fact, that she’s begun to seek out these same patterns as they might appear in her own life. Is this beginning? She might ask herself, stepping off the bus and colliding with a polite stranger. Is this the end? She would nervously wonder, thinking she had heard footsteps outside the door to the computer room.

Staring at Lily’s direct yet subtle offer on the screen, she knew that this must be one of those moments; the moment where the story is about to take a turn, and no amount of deus ex machina, or praying, or wishing will ever bring back the life you had once lived.

Mitchell Swan is stunned to find an ungodly (and almost certainly illegal) amount of money in his bank accounts the next day, and he arrives home from work in an alcohol-fueled panic. Emma watches the two of them, quiet and unbothered from the darkened hallway as they titter and yell at one another like a pair of screeching birds. Her phone feels warm in her pocket, and she smiles at the thought of what’s in store—all those atrocious, sickening pictures hidden away on his work computer. What will the world think of you, Mr. Swan?

ii. [email protected]

Killian Jones often feels trapped by the city—little more than a lifeless, concrete prison; he despises nearly everything about the place. And to make matters worse, he has the misfortune to have been cursed with the burden of having too reliable a memory. It is far too easy to be able to slip back, back, back—all the way back until he’s suddenly standing in the middle of his mother’s garden. Until he can hear her voice in his head, laughing, singing, scolding. In these brief yet harrowing moments of nostalgia he can almost always hear her tears as well; her cries of pain that he had been helpless to alleviate. Logically, he knows he had been little else but a boy when she had first fallen ill, but it matters little. He feels responsible for her illness, even more so for her eventual death, alone and searching for a son that was no longer there.

Killian and Cordelia Jones owned a farm about five hours north of the city. Mr. Jones is long gone, and Killian, while in possession of an exceptionally good memory, remembers little of the man who his mother assures him was his father. She maintained his innocence for many years, wanting her son to know that he was loved, but as he approached a certain stubborn, righteous age, she had been forced to admit that no, he was not the man that Cordelia had hoped he would be.

“But it has not a thing to do with you, my love,” she said quietly, allowing him the benefit of thinking she hadn’t noticed his tears. It was truly astonishing that she never once raised her voice to the boy, especially given his behavior in later years. It was almost always at a level tempo, calm and direct, with just a hint of an Irish brogue that her own mother had possessed, although Killian had never actually met the woman.

“She wouldn’t have put up with your nonsense for a single moment.” Shaking her head at the sight of a broken lamp, or a carton of milk left to spoil on the counter. “You are one lucky lad.”

His mother insisted that the Jones’ were a lucky family. But as an adult he would come to believe that they had never been anything other than cursed. It would always be unclear to him exactly why that was, but he assumed it had something to do with the magic. That was always the case, wasn’t it? “All magic comes with a price,” says every single fantasy novel he had ever read, every magically-inclined film he had ever seen. Their downfall, in later years, seemed to him inevitable. If his mother were still alive, he would have asked her, “Did our family make a deal with the wrong demon?”

His bitterness, however, would still take a few more years to develop. As a child, he was enthralled with the sight of the vines and the flowers crawling their way inside the house. The way his mother would reach her hands deep within the soil and a few moments later, up would sprout the stubborn seeds. Cordelia made their living with her magic, often receiving visitors from the surrounding towns looking for quick-fix solutions to their various troubles. They would often come late at night, or when he was out in the fields, trying to make things grow or flourish, or wilt, as the case may be. But when he would see them walking nervously down the drive, quietly knocking on their aged blue door, he would drop whatever it was he was working on and try to sneak a peek at their meetings.

“What do they ask you for?” he wondered one night as she tucked him into bed, his eyes wide and curious, bright with all kinds of vivid imaginings. “Love,” she answered happily, bringing the blanket up to rest beneath his chin.

“Love?” he asked with a grimace, as if he were about to become infected with a terrible disease at the mere mention of the word. “And sickness,” she continued, chuckling at his obvious disapproval. “And loneliness. Or success in their businesses.”

“Can I help?” he asked sleepily, feeling the effect of the chamomile tea his mother had made him drink every evening before bed.

“One day,” she answered, kissing him on the forehead. “Soon.”

Ten years later and he’s not so sure how she would feel about the kind of man that he’s become. What he’s been using his “gifts” for. The harshest parts of him imagine telling her that heis helping them—helping them forget how terrible the world can be; the blissfulness of ignorance. And if he makes some extra money in the process? Well, then so bloody be it. He can almost imagine himself cruelly bragging of it even, taking pleasure in the heartbroken, disappointed look on her thin, pale face.

It hadn’t started this way, to be sure. Initially, the plan had been to go to the city temporarily, to make some extra money to afford the kind of medicine that would keep her alive for longer than just a few months. Of course she had been lying to his face when she had suggested it. Made him think that there was even the slightest chance that she would live another six months. Unbeknownst to him, she had apparently contracted an illness that even magic couldn’t cure (wasn’t supposed to cure, according to her).

“Then what good is it?” he had yelled despairingly, trying to ignore the pitying look on her face from where she was laid up in bed; small, weak, and complacent. No, not complacent.

“Accepting,” she had sternly tried to correct him. “Magic is not meant to prolong that which should end. You know this, Killian.”

But he had been too angry, too determined to seek out a cure, and Cordelia Jones, knowing her son, knowing his stubbornness, his inability to give up, to grapple with the helplessness of being human, had suggested that if he went to the city, used his abilities to make some extra money, perhaps they would be able to afford the medicine that could save her life.

“And take the cat, would you?” she had asked on his way out the door, shakily calling after him from where she dozed. “I want to make sure she’s well-looked after.”

Chammy was a calico with poor eyesight and an even poorer temperament. Most of the time. If you gave her some extra food or a good brushing she might deign to sit with you on the couch for a bit, but most of the time she was content to sit on a ratty armchair that he had pulled in off the street, her ears and tail flicking at the stray vines or weeds when they would grow too close.

The plan had always been to return. As soon as he had stepped foot off the bus, he had felt suffocated. By the polluted air, the distracting, flickering lights, the sounds and smells of too many human beings packed into one place like sardines in a tin. With Chammy’s crate in one hand and a packed duffle in another, he had wandered angrily through the streets until he’d found the shitty apartment he had managed to rent from a property owner who lived nearer to the farm.

“It’s not much,” he had warned Killian, clearly uncomfortable with the knowledge that Mrs. Jones was wasting away at the back of the house somewhere, “but it’ll do for a time.”

“I’m certain it will,” Killian had answered with a bitter grin, “Thanks for your help.”

Dealing in illicit substances hadn’t been the plan at first either. He had seen the kinds of services his mother provided; there wasn’t really a “modern” term for what she practiced other than “holistic medicine,” which wealthy business people in coastal cities seemed to love opening their wallets for. Unfortunately for Killian, he had never had much of a head for such things. The plants he had managed to cultivate back home, for himself and his friends, the kinds of things the local cops had busted him for on more than one occasion, those were the kinds of things he was good at. However, getting scolded by the cops back home was one thing, winding up in a city prison was quite another.

It had taken many frustrated evenings of trial and error, and even a few angry customers, before he was forced to admit to himself that the “healing” part of it was simply not where his true talents lay.

“This is good shit,” one of his recent acquaintances (the people you sell to should never really be considered anything more) had told him late one night from their perch on his fire escape, “You could make some good money with this.”

And that’s where it had all started; a steady stream of high quality product, and more than enough people willing to pay top dollar for it. He had been just about ready to afford the medicine, the whole reason he had moved to this awful city in the first place, to retrieve the cure and bring it back to his mother, when he had gotten a call from his landlord that Cordelia had passed in her sleep.

“I’m sorry for your loss, son,” he had said quietly in a grating tone of pitying condescension, “you should come back soon, collect her things. Figure out what to do with the place.”

“Yeah,” Killian had barked back, his vision going fuzzy and his throat tightening, “Thanks.”

And he had planned to return home for the burial. He knew that was what he was supposed to do. He had even gone so far as to get a babysitter for Chammy, had bought a bus ticket and packed a bag. Only he had smoked a little bit too much one morning (in preparation for the nightmarish journey home) and when he returned to himself a few hours later, found that he had missed his bus by several days. There were a few voicemail messages, mostly from people back home who had watched him grow up—some of them angry and scolding, others sympathetic and patient, reminding him that legally the farm was still his, that he could take as much time as he needed.

Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and suddenly it had felt too hard, and he was too much of a coward. So, ten years later and here he was—still trapped in his box like every other human-shaped sardine he would often glare at on the subway. He has managed to turn the apartment into something of a home, bringing in some potted plants that he had encouraged to grow a bit above their station. It’s something of an oasis in an otherwise barren hellscape, and while it is rare for him to not feel the occasional pang of regret and longing for what his life should have been, there’s still the nagging cowardice that has left him paralyzed in a life that feels unnervingly unfinished.

If he’s awake before sunrise, odds are whatever he thinks might be at his door at such an hour is more than likely a figment of his imagination. Especially if that figment is a grumpy, petite blonde who looks suspiciously like a Daria reject. Most of that blonde hair (imaginary as it is) would seem to be stuffed into an old, slouchy beanie in desperate need of stitching, but a few stray hairs have escaped to fall across her charmingly furrowed brow.

“Well, I must say this is a surprise,” managing to speak despite the dry mouth and still being half-asleep. “What do you say we continue this meeting at a more reasonable hour? Or preferably never? Never also works well for me.”

Normally he might not be so inclined to such rudeness, but a figment is a figment, and he needs his eight hours if he’s going to be remotely personable throughout the day. And drug dealers are famously nothing without their personalities.

One of the admittedly lovely, yet sadly fictional, woman’s eyebrows shoots quite delicately upwards, and he makes note of her especially twitchy fingers moving restlessly against her folded elbow. “Are you always this rude to potential customers?”

“Only when they interrupt my beauty sleep, darling, now if you’ll excuse me—”

He goes to close the door, only he’s found it blocked by a smallish, military-booted foot stuck between it and the frame, the ends of said boot all soft and scuffed; an experienced leather shoe on a tiny blonde female with impeccably groomed eyebrows. He should probably start laying off the more experimental strains. This was an unusually vivid hallucination.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re very pretty,” she says hurriedly, her own tired eyes trying desperately to meet his, “but I haven’t slept in about three days, so, could you maybe help me out?”

“I’m not in the habit of selling to imaginary wom—ow! Bloody hell, what on earth was that for?”

Her fingernails are painted a formidable shade of black, which was an odd detail to have stuck in one’s mind when they’re in the midst of pinching your chest hair unexpectedly viciously. Her eyes were also a little less tired, a lot more manic, and a particularly vivid and enticing shade of green. It made him think of something—a specific memory, locked away somewhere at the back of his mind where it was supposed to stay .

“I can assure you, I am very real,” she says on a grin, her hand still twisted up in his flannel. “And like I said, I am also very tired. So, please?”

It was the sudden, gentle note of desperation in her voice, paired with the residual nipple pain at the very least, that had his circuits re-firing a little bit better than they had earlier. A familiar kind of exhaustion, an intriguing feeling of despair that he had often felt stirring painfully within his own heart. It was the fact that, while he had only known this woman to be real for a few seconds, he knew that the gentility of her voice, the sudden nervousness—that these were hard things for the slight girl with the pale hands and heavy boots.

“My apologies. Please,” smiling and opening the door wider to allow her entrance, he gestures a hand inwards as she walks into the living room. Staring at the stiff slowness of her movements, the way she filled the space around her—that was when he had suddenly remembered. The sight of the farm in the heat of late summer and the dramatic, end-of-day light that would cast the garden in a fiery glow. The smell of the dirt under his bare feet, the warm flesh of ripening tomatoes. And was that his mother’s voice, calling his name from the porch?

“What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t,” she answered, no doubt distracted by the unusually green and “lively” look of the place. Not to mention Chammy’s guttural chirps at her feet. “It’s Emma,” she said, extending a thin, still hand. “Emma Swan.”

“Emma Swan,” hoping his grin was a little less frenzied than it felt, “Killian Jones.”

iii. vwthi3f

From the outside looking in, most people would probably suspect that the soul-crushing heartbreak, betrayal, and subsequent imprisonment would have left Emma Swan yearning for the so-called “carefree days” of her youth—but those people would be wrong. It would be safe to assume that those same people had probably lived fairly standard, mediocre lives, and there’s nothing wrong with having lived such a life. Mundane lives such as these, they’re usually of the pain-free variety. Aside from the occasional missed birthday, disappointing grade, or sneaking liquor from the cabinet before they’re able, childhood tends to pass quickly and blissfully. It’s one of those things that adults often recall with fondness; they imagine that if they could go back in time to an age before bills, home ownership, and a number of regretful sexual encounters, that they might be truly happy again. Emma Swan had dreamed of the mundane life even before she had started living with the Swans, and certainly afterwards she had desired it moreso. She wished that her pain (and even now, the labeling of her past as “pain,” felt pitiful and tiresome) was the kind of story you didn’t mind sharing, instead of the harsh, ugly thing that she preferred most people not know. Even if they were your friends.

From her prison cell, she often tries to make a list in her head of all the good things that have happened since leaving the Swans. Those times when she’s feeling a bit lonelier than usual, or after she’s spent a little too much time thinking about his smile. As if breaking one’s heart was the worst thing that could happen to a person. And sure, prison is pretty miserable, but it’s not a foster home, and it’s not the Swans. Prison has designated computer time, and there’s no sneaking down darkened hallways at night. And the prison system, unsurprisingly, knows very little of magic, which is how she so easily bypasses the archaic security software, reaches out across the void, and finds the comforting, if not vaguely biting, words of an old friend.

At the very least, she is gracious enough to avoid coming right out and saying “I told you so.”

One of the first things she notices about Lily Page (and isn’t that just irony at its finest) is her hair. It’s long, dark, pin straight, and some of the thickest she’s ever seen. She always threatens to chop most of it off, but never does (and never will), despite Emma’s playful needling. Unsurprisingly pale, with deep red lips and black, wet eyes that always make it appear as if she’s on the verge of tears. “Ask me if I’m ‘okay,’ one more fucking time, Swan,” she would frequently threaten before fleeing the room. She would eventually, and begrudgingly, admit that being on the receiving end of someone else’s “concern” made her feel slightly nauseous, which Emma had found to be pleasantly relatable.

Lily had been living in a very small studio at the tip-top of a tall, post-war building in the financial district. It was a charming place to live, but not particularly well-suited to housing two people, so they found another. As Emma had already been led to believe, money wasn’t much of a concern when most of it was digital these days anyway, and while they couldn’t go for something especially lavish (so as not to draw too much attention to themselves), it was still a nicer home than Emma could have ever imagined as a child.

The feeling of safety and comfort in her own home is one of the good things on her list. If nothing else, one of the very best. Having the security of a door with a lock on it—a roommate who always knocks. The first night in their new place she has the best night of sleep she’s ever had, and when she woke up in the early afternoon the following day, her blankets unmoved from the night before, her door still blessedly shut, she had to muffle her relieved sobs with the absurdly soft pillow beneath her head, lest she force Lily into an awkward moment of interpersonal comfort she often found distasteful.

“I’m better online,” she had humbly conceded after an awkward, consolatory pat on the back. But it was okay. She was still the best friend that Emma had ever known, and besides, she wasn’t great with people either.

Their apartment was a veritable hive of high-end, up-to-date tech. The walls practically hummed with it all, the various cords trailing in and out between rooms, framing windows and doorways. Another thing to add to the list; the small touches that made it both a home and impenetrable fortress from which they might change the world if they had a mind to. She’s got the friend, never really had one of those before, but on top of that, she gets a teacher—she gets power. A lot of it. She also gets an iBook G4 with 1.5 GB of memory (that she manages, with some magical prowess, to enlarge to around 3 or 4). She loves that it fits in her lap, that she can feel the warmth of it against the tops of her thighs when she hasn’t powered it down for 48 hours. The sounds of the keys beneath her fingertips, loud and decisive, wary of her at first, but after a few weeks, craving her touch.

“We all have different strengths and weaknesses,” Lily had explained over coffee, twirling the length of headphone cord round and round her finger. “You seem to be especially adept at Research.”

Emma huffs. “Couldn’t anyone be good at that?”

“Not when it involves talking to corpses and seeing the future.”

“I don’t think they liked to be called that,” Emma had said uncomfortably, turning the sound down on the phone in her pocket. “Well,” Lily answered smartly, forcing down her cold coffee with a grimace, “that’s why I’m not so good at it, isn’t it?”

Emma eventually learns that when Lily says “Research,” it doesn’t necessarily mean traditional forms of information gathering. She could hop on Google and find an article, probably quicker than most, sure, but what Lily really means is communication and knowledge; she means dipping her fingers into the void and coming back with Truth. Apparently there’s a whole freaking dictionary of witch-related vocabulary that she’s missed out on, and funnily enough, it’s not online.

“Where anyone could find it?” Lily explained, dropping the aged, poorly bound manuscript onto Emma’s lap, “Analog has its uses.” Knowledge is good. Answers are good. The world is vast and old and it’s all in one place, just waiting for her to hit the power button.

It sounds stupid, but she could eat ice cream whenever she wanted. It’s one of the good things, and as Lily had informed her, it’s also one of those things that kind of made her just like everyone else. “Most people enjoy the privilege of being able to eat ice cream whenever they want,” she said, distracted with something or other on the screen in front of her, “congratulations, you’re finally normal.”

There was a note of sarcasm in her tone (surprise, surprise), but  Emma couldn’t suppress the grin that had appeared on her face at the thought of being just like everyone else. If one were to totally ignore the “tech-savvy witch,” thing, obviously. Eating ice cream, “just like everyone else,” while a good thing at first, would ultimately return to bite her quite firmly on the ass, but for a while it had been Rum Raisin and Moose Tracks whenever the hell she wanted. Mercifully, it was sold cheap at the corner bodega and sometimes she would wander out of the apartment mere hours before the sun was due to rise and buy herself one or two pints (even though there were several unfinished sitting in the freezer). She met Neal Cassidy during yet another trip to the store in order to indulge in one or two flavors she hasn’t had the pleasure of trying yet. Like Cherry Garcia or the one with the caramel-filled chocolates shaped like fish. Lily had referred to the fish-shaped chocolate as a “crime against nature,” but she could be a tad dramatic sometimes.

“Gotta cure those night-bites somehow, I guess, right?”

Emma Swan dislikes and distrusts men as a general rule. So when she heard a distinctly male voice at her back, had sensed the way he stood over her, she had felt uncomfortable almost immediately. Her phone started to buzz quite incessantly in her pocket, despite the fact that she had left Lily sleeping and no one else had her number—she had, mistakenly, ignored it.

Emma had never entertained the prospect of a romantic relationship before Neal. At that point in her life she’d been getting closer to 18, so she knew it was about “that time,” but it had never really been something she wanted to pursue. She had only just started getting used to the feeling of Lily sitting next to her on the couch; the non-threatening way she might bump their hips together when she moved past her in order to get to the fridge. And it’s not like he managed to get under her skin quickly (if anything she remembers noting that he had quite the punchable face), but there was something about him she had found charming, and unfortunately she was not quite as repulsed as she might have expected herself to feel.

“What?” she had asked with some confusion, hoping her facial expression was not quite so dumb as she imagined it to be.

“Late night cravings,” he clarified, nodding at the ice cream in her hand, “I know the feeling.”

She managed to surmise he was talking about being high, not that she would have really known. But she nodded anyway, finding herself in the familiar predicament of having to pretend she’s “in on the joke,” so to speak. She had never done any kind of drug at that point, but she had preferred he assume she knew what he was talking about and let her off the hook, rather than come off as some kind of dense pre-teen. Luckily for her it had worked, and he simply smiled and walked off, snagging a candy bar and shoving it into his pocket as he went. Despite the obviousness of the lift the clerk had failed to notice, and Emma rolled her eyes, finally pulling the buzzing phone out of her pocket.

Idiot, read a text from an unknown number, the less frenzied hum of a few dozen voices scrolling in the darkness of her closed eyes, infinite, vertical rows of ones and zeroes. That’s a walking prison sentence if we’ve ever seen one.

Emma stares up at the ceiling of her bleak, unremarkable prison cell and thinks about how she might yell at those numbers now, if she could. Thinking they’re so smart all the time just because they’re dead. Or, ya know, “untethered by their human forms,” or whatever the fuck. In yet another teachable moment, Lily had tried to explain that while most of the time she was in conversation with the dead, sometimes she was just reaching out to other Techies wandering around in the same playground as her.

“You shouldn’t trust everything they say,” Lily had warned, “I know it seems like they know everything because they’re ‘one with the machine,’” her eyes rolling, “but most of them are just as lost and fucked up as we are. There’s no power greater than your own instinct.”

It’s too bad Emma never really got around to the whole “trusting herself” thing. Especially when it came to Neal Cassidy—the first boy to make her feel special. The asshole who had given her a taste of what it meant to love and be loved only to rip the still beating heart out of her chest and squish the particularly sensitive parts between his toes. Not that she had known that at the time. At the time she had simply been relieved to know that she wasn’t completely broken. That someone could care for her, that she could care for them in return. That she could bear the feeling of his hand wrapped around hers (ignoring the fact that she was often bothered by the unusual sweatiness of his palms).

When she’s not walking in circles around the prison yard or in the computer lab, she’s replaying her memories of the last year as if they were disassociated segments of a silent film—a distorted, desaturated mess of key scenes that would ultimately lead her to this very moment, to this hard bed beneath her back. That’s usually when the bad begins, when she goes back to adding good things to the list.

The dead ones always want to know because they’ve forgotten, and they’re hoping that she’ll be able to help them remember what it was like, being alive. Please, Emma Swan, please bore us with the details.

It’s not quite so bad at first. They flirt a lot, which Emma finds fun despite never having really done it before, and then there’s her first kiss, and the first time having sex she actuallyenjoys, and running through the darkened city streets without a care in the world. There’s sharing her story with someone who seemed to care, a lover and not a friend; who upon learning of her abilities got a gleam in his eye that she would live to regret ignoring. There was getting high for the first time and trying not to feel hurt when he had laughed at her obvious inexperience, despite having promised that he wasn’t going to. It was stupid to ignore the hint of warning in Lily’s eyes when she started spending more nights at Neal’s place. Not to mention the dozens of ominous text messages from unknown numbers.

Emma had become defensive and snarky almost immediately. Taking offense at the suggestion that she couldn’t handle herself in her first grown-up relationship, as if she wasn’t a smart, experienced woman with a good head on her shoulders.

As it turned out, the “babysitter” probably would have been helpful. Maybe the babysitter would have been able to stop her from transferring all of those large, traceable funds into Neal’s accounts. When she has a difficult time conjuring up another good thing to add to the list, his smarmy voice pops into her head instead, reassuring her that “no one would ever find out.”

Three years and one prison sentence later she often finds herself haunted by her own words. Disgusted with herself for betraying the one person who had never been anything other than kind in a world full of monsters. “All’s well that ends well,” Lily had said in greeting upon picking her up from prison, her face hidden beneath the shadow of a baseball cap. “Breathe in that sweet, sweet freedom.”

The only useful thing that Neal had managed to leave in his wake, aside from a renewed sense of disgust with humanity as a whole, was the innocuous drug habit. She didn’t consider herself to be an addict by any means, not that an actual addict would admit to such a thing, but she certainly imbibed more frequently than she might have predicted a few years earlier. The problem (if you had to call it that) was using it for normal human things that most people were able to accomplish without the chemical assist—things like sleeping.

Emma has always had trouble sleeping. It was unsurprising given her history, but as it turns out, staring at screens almost 24 hours a day doesn’t really help the situation either. She had tried a handful of other remedies over the years: a hot cup of chamomile tea before bed (that always made her have to pee right on the edge of sleep); some user generated playlists comprised of soothing instrumentals (except for that one “experimental” song at the end that left her heart racing); charge and cast spells left waiting in her camera roll, various hand drawn sigils or long strings of emojis (while effective, often accompanied by odd dreams). For whatever reason, the weed had been the most helpful. She had felt ashamed at first; good little girls don’t use drugs after all (sounding suspiciously like Mrs. Swan in her head), but it was like Lily always said, “If it works, it works.”

4: [email protected]

While their first meeting had undeniably fallen on the rougher end of the friendship spectrum, there’s something about her that insists upon a second. Especially after he’s had more sleep, and his charm is significantly more effective. He’s held her hand for an almost inappropriately long few moments before he comes to his senses and asks after her problem—what is it she’s in the market for? It’s as she’s said, “trouble sleeping,” and he reminds her that his product, while almost exclusively well-received is a bit, shall we say, “stronger” than the usual fare.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asks, glancing suspiciously around his oddly lush studio despite it being midwinter.

“My methods can be a bit,” pausing for effect, a bit of vague handwaving for emphasis, “unusual.”

“‘Unusual,’ like laced, unusual?”

“Good heavens woman, no,” he says hurriedly at the angry look on her face, frustrated with his seeming inability to form sentences this morning. “Let me show you.”

Normally, he might not be so inclined to reveal his “gifts” to a new client, but as he surmised from their awkward yet brief conversation at his door, there was just… something about her. And for whatever reason, he got the sense that she wasn’t about to be shocked or frightened by his admission. He leads her over to a large, round window that looks out over a dismal alleyway. The tops of other apartment buildings with decrepit looking antenna rest precariously on their respective roofs. The glass of the window is warped, evidence of the building’s rather respectable age; dotted with air bubbles and flecked with dirt and pollen. The window itself, while framed by some aesthetically pleasing distressed brick, is also encircled by a rather impressive wreath of thick, green vines.

Beneath the window he’s setup his appropriately named “Alchemist’s Table,” complete with ceramic pots and glass test tubes, even an old microscope he had acquired at a middle school auction. “You some kind of mad scientist?” Her words sound a bit sharp, but they’re nowhere near harsh enough to hide the curiosity and wonder in her voice, and he plays along with a bit of a “mad” grin.

“After a fashion.”

He shows off a bit after that, there’s no denying it, sticking a finger into a pot of soil with a small sprout peeking out of the dirt. A young and fragile thing. Emma watches, entranced, as it begins to grow and stretch itself into being, and after a few seconds, a small, pale green strawberry appears. “It’ll be ripe enough to eat in a few hours,” he says casually, reining in his laughter at the look of shock on her face, “if you’d like to stay for a bit.”

While he’s used to women finding this particular trick alluring, he finds himself quite surprised at what she ends up saying instead. “You’re one of us.”

“Sorry, love, one of who?”

“Us!” she says happily, her hands clapping gently together, “I’ve never met a non-Techie before.”

“A non-what?”

“Do you not know?” she asks, suddenly sobering, her head tilted endearingly to one side. At the blank look on his face she smiles softly, her earlier fidgeting having evaporated at the prospect of revealing this apparent truth. She leans close enough that he can smell the sweetened coffee on her breath, and an oddly familiar floral scent that seems to stem from the blonde tips of her hair.

“You’re not the only one,” she divulges in an excited whisper, and he becomes abruptly alarmed at the likelihood of falling in love with this strange woman who ended up being undeniably  real. “There’s more.”

The smoke tastes sweet on his lips. She’s not sure if it’s magic or something else. Something unique to whoever or whatever he is. They kiss on the first day they meet and she’s not quite sure what that says about her. She’s fairly certain that it says more about him—that perhaps there is something a bit irresistible about a man who has briefly wondered whether or not you truly exist. Which is ironic, because for the first half of her life it was all she could do to make sure that people knew she was there, but that was mostly so someone would feed her or give her a place to sleep. It was only after she had stopped feeling so hungry that she had hoped she would disappear.

“I have a question,” she starts, taking a hit off of his “free sample” while trying not to marvel at the trail of pinkish smoke that escapes from in between her lips. “If you were so sure that I wasn’t real, why did you even talk to me?”

When he exhales the smoke is blue rather than pink, and when it meets the colorful cloud above their heads it blends together in shades of vibrant purple. She can’t help feeling like she has stumbled into a scene from Alice in Wonderland, having found herself in a strange land with an excitable man (who likes to leave empty mugs scattered about his home), as well as the literal toadstools and the rather odd sensation akin to falling down a rabbit hole.

“Rather pretty for a figment, I suppose. Wouldn’t do to ignore such a lovely, imaginary thing,” crushing the the last of the joint against a small, porcelain plate, “might hurt her feelings.”

Her phone buzzes in her pocket and she almost ignores it. But it was hard to forget about the nightmare that had ensued when she had ignored it the last time, and she pulls it from her pocket with a polite “give me a minute,” gesture.

She snorts at the sight of the word “airs,” her mind conjuring a 16th century French courtesan in a dramatically large dress, and silently warns her heart not to get it’s hopes up. Me too.When she looks up from her phone his head whips away too quickly for him to have been doing anything other than staring at her, and she wills the inevitable blush from her cheeks.

“We should exchange numbers,” she says suddenly, “for when I need more.”

Thankfully he ignores her rather abrupt request and pulls a most surprising device from his pocket that has her temporarily forgetting the way he had been so obviously observing her earlier. It’s a Motorola Razr V3 (launched in 2004), and the only thing funnier than the phone itself is the offended look on his face after she bursts into loud, obnoxious laughter at the sight of it.

“I’m doing my best not to feel quite so hurt right now, Swan.”

“I’m sorry,” she gasps in between her embarrassing bout of giggling, “I just didn’t think you could even get your hands on one of those things anymore.”

“It may not be your ‘high-tech’ nonsense,” he goes on proudly, “but she’ll do in a pinch.”

“Oh, Killian,” she says sweetly, “I’m sure she will.”

They start texting with a frequency far more reminiscent of an honest to goodness friendship rather than that of a business relationship, and Emma finds herself having to reassure the small, frightened girl inside of her that the whole thing won’t end in disaster. He’s not Neal, she thinks desperately, trying to trust in the hopeful parts of herself without succumbing to the bitter voice inside her head that struggles to forget the less admirable parts of humanity. What’s another potential stint in prison for such a pretty face, after all?

The first night she tries what he recommended, a strain he refers to as “Sailor’s Delight,” she dreams of the ocean. It’s an especially vivid dream, unlike anything she’s ever experienced—she can smell the sourness of low tide; taste the salt on her lips, and feel the warmth of the sun on her face. First thing in the morning she reaches for the phone beneath her pillow, her fingers flying across the screen.

She hesitates briefly before sending that last text. While it’s true her mind feels calm and her body re-energized, her heart hammers wildly inside her chest—the tiny fists of an anxious child warning her of the inevitable. While her own nervousness is enough to give her pause, she does try and take comfort in the fact that her “ghostlier” comrades would seem to have taken a backseat for the moment.

His texts often arrive in the form of mini paragraphs. Full sentences and words bundled together and sent to her as if they were handwritten letters. She can see his fingerprint on each and every one, a dirt-stained brand that conjures some unknown, vast greenery made of hills and fir trees, winding back roads and cloudless skies.

“He better not track any dirt in here,” Lily warns her the evening before he was supposed to be coming by to drop off another batch. It was to be his first visit to their apartment, and Emma could not be more nervous if she tried. She’s been back to his place a few times since that first visit, but allowing him to come here had been an unexpected offer on her part. Not that it matters, she thinks calmly, what do you care what he thinks?

“Don’t be such a snob, Lil.”

Lily’s mouth is full of frosted flakes as she leans against the refrigerator, glaring at the back of Emma’s head. “This shit’s expensive, and I don’t have time to fix anything he manages to break.” She suspects a note of jealousy in Lily’s ire, so she decides to cut her some slack, pressing a kiss to her cheek with a guaranteed dirt-free visit.

“It’ll be fine,” she says, heading towards her room to straighten up for no other reason than the fact that it has been a while. “Besides, aren’t you curious?”

A playful shout at her back, “Not nearly as curious as you, my little thief!”

The next morning he’s standing at her door holding a potted plant. “It’s a succulent,” he says happily, his hair sticking up in all directions. He smells like the city after it’s been sanitized by a particularly cold frost, and she wonders how he’s managed to keep warm in a half-buttoned flannel and a knitted scarf. “Notoriously hard to kill,” he assures her, shoving the thing into her hands, “I’m sure you’ll get along famously.”

The brief facade of confidence he had displayed while foisting the plant upon her departs rather suddenly at the sight of her apartment, and he looks all kinds of adorable and confused at the otherworldliness of it all. She supposed it would look rather intimidating to a person like him, surrounded by all those green things. Not that the wires and the screens were any less alive—they were just better at playing dead.

He does have some dirt on his fingertips and beneath his nails, but Emma finds herself quietly charmed by the sight of it; the deep impression of his prints highlighted by the dark soil permanently staining his skin. It’s been getting harder and harder to pass off their brief moment of intimacy as a one time thing. Especially when she can’t seem to stop thinking about it. Especially when she does stupid things like noticing his hands and trying not to recall the pleasant sensation of their roughness against her cheek.

“Don’t worry,” Emma says teasingly at the awed look on his face, “this is the most secure room in the city.” With a few magical fortifications no one and certainly no obscure, supernaturalthing was getting past the barriers they had implemented when they had first moved in, and it had only gotten stronger over the years.

Lily pops her head in from the kitchen, most likely with the intention of embarrassing her only friend. “Hey, Sprout,” she says, glaring at Killian from behind her thick curtain of hair, “don’t touch any of my stuff.”

“Don’t worry about her,” and Emma takes a moment to stick out her tongue in Lily’s direction. “She’s trapped in a state of perpetual grouchiness.”

“I heard that.”

There’s something incredibly momentous about the occasion of his entering her room. Lily had only hung out in there a few times, and Neal had never even been inside (she had spent all their nights together at his place). It’s her favorite time of day, which helps. Late afternoon, which often brings a light that seems warmer than at any other time—and with those big windows, the ones she suspects Lily had a hand in ensuring were a fixture of the apartment, the light falls and frames the room in a buttery yellow that makes winter feel that much further away.

In a probable attempt to diffuse the tension of Lily’s condescending nickname (and subsequent scolding), he laughs and runs a hand through his hair, making it bigger than it already was.

“Well, she’s charming.”

“She’s a good friend,” Emma says quickly, irritated with her sudden urge to leap to Lily’s defense as if he had said something wrong. Which he hadn’t.

“I’m sure she is, Swan,” he reassures softly, “it was only a joke.”

Then comes the urge to apologize, which she knows she has no reason to, and fuck, there is no reason why this should be so hard . He takes a seat in a large armchair she’s tucked away into a corner of the room, his eyes making quick work of all the unfamiliar equipment. The curious awe with which he observes her space gives her pause—takes her back to the day when she had first seen the Swans’ new computer in the room at the end of the hall. Forbidden, yet waiting for her all along.

“Make sure you keep her in the light.”

“Who?” Confused by the pronoun and wondering if he’s been seeing imaginary women again. “The plant,” he explains, gesturing towards the small, green twig in her hands, “make sure she gets a decent amount of sunlight.”

A part of her wants to remind him that she’s shut up in the dark most of the time. That was why she needed the drugs in the first place. Aside from the few short hours pre-sunset when she would, occasionally, open the curtains. But he looks so hopeful, she doesn’t really have the heart to deny him. “Sure. Sunlight.”

In the days following Killian’s visit to the apartment, all of the various cords and sundry start growing towards the sunlight as if they were starving for it. She even starts to notice some small weeds pushing their way through her keyboard. It doesn’t seem to be a problem at Lily’s end of the apartment; her equipment seems to have stayed blessedly put, but Emma’s room is another matter entirely. She even goes so far as to make a post on a message board where other witches have been known to frequent, despite the fact that they usually have terrible advice and she’s generally better off not having spoken to them in the first place.

She attaches a picture and hopes for the best, but unfortunately no one seems to have a clue. Someone does suggest watering them and seeing what happens, but that seems incredibly stupid, so she deletes the post and moves on. Or she tries to at any rate—pretends that there is nothing at all odd about her frequent compulsions to text him anytime a meaningless thought enters her head. The way she starts opening her curtains for a few more hours each day; the feeling of the sun on her skin becoming a welcome part of her routine, as opposed to a cruel reminder of the world that exists beyond the walls of her bedroom.

Their odd, somewhat unlikely friendship grows and flourishes like one of Killian’s plants. It is not without the occasional thorn or weed, like most relationships. The both of them are not without their mutual baggage that stings when you poke at it. Neither one of them can help messing with the other’s wounds, it would seem. Emma had always been under the impression that picking at the thing made it worse, but Killian insists on acting as an infuriating salve that alleviates the pain and leaves the injured place stronger than it had been before.

Beyond the niceties of being one’s drug dealer, getting to know another person can be quite difficult, which had been expected. From the very first, Emma had betrayed an innate desire to keep parts of herself hidden from others. Her passion for witchcraft—the excitement with which she had explained her kind to him that first meeting, it was a good trick, but it wasn’t long before he would come to realize that Emma Swan would rather place a curse upon herself than share the sordid details of her past with anyone.

It had been in the aftermath of his own unburdening—his sudden desire to finally reveal to her all of the messy details of his own life. About his mother, her passing, how maybe he was living a life she had not wanted for him. Emma had been nothing but understanding in the face of his admission, just as she suspected, their unexpected kinship made his pain an easy pill for her to swallow, but that didn’t mean she was necessarily ready to reciprocate.

“I barely tell Lily things about my past,” she had shouted angrily, her arms folded defensively in front of her chest, “why the fuck would I tell my drug dealer?”

“Oh, is that all?” Spoken into the sudden, sucking quiet of his apartment, forcing himself to ignore the painful look of regret on her face. She could wish away her words all she liked, he refuses to be anyone’s whipping boy, no matter how damaged they are. “Then you’ve gotten what you came for,” he said, patiently opening his front door for her convenient departure, “and you let me know should you require my services again.”

Her facial expression could not have been more pained—a fervent desire to take back what she had said, to offer an apology and admit to him the facts of the case. The fact that he had, quite unexpectedly, become one of the more important people in her life. The fact that she often daydreamed about the hour or so in which they had forgone the illusion of platonic friendship. The fact that she often considered the Killian-shaped hole in her future where he would almost undoubtedly be. But, alas, stubbornness won out, and she stormed away, so swiftly and in such a rage with herself that she left her jacket behind. A weathered, burgundy leather number, soft to the touch and smelling vaguely like an electrical fire. At least she’d have an excuse to see him again.

He waits a few days. Keeps his phone buried in a drawer beneath all of his socks and underwear, resisting the urge to send her a text, to wonder if she had sent him one. Eventually, he returns the jacket with a proposition. “Come with me,” he says, not quite begging, but with a breathlessness that he does find mildly humiliating. “Please.”

They take a bus upstate, far enough away from the farm that he doesn’t feel claustrophobic, but with enough distance between themselves and the city that he feels like he can finally breathe. They wander through small, sleepy towns full of charming coffee shops and bookstores, grabbing a cheap breakfast before venturing further into the countryside, stumbling through various trails and parks suggested to them by the locals. “There’s a particularly nice spot,” remarked the older woman who had served them coffee, “right here.” Marking up the paper map that Killian had insisted they buy.

It is a bit nippy further north, and despite the fresh smell of earth and rain, their noses still turn pink as they walk through the woods. The “nice spot” in question is a ledge of rock that overlooks a large, clear lake that sparkles in the sun. A light mist hovers over the top, and when he takes a quick peek to gauge Emma’s reaction, he is momentarily stunned at the way the sunlight has fallen across her face—how it has betrayed the sheen of wetness that seems to be gathering at the corners of her eyes.

“Swan?”

“It’s not a nice story,” she begins after a few moments of quiet. “I don’t like to tell people. Because it’s just not…” She huffs in frustration, turning away briefly to face the sun, staring out over the water as if it will be able to finish this conversation for her. “I don’t want people treating me differently.”

He hesitates before gently pulling some stray hairs from her chapped lips, and when she looks back at him it feels as if he’s been punched in the gut. Having never seen this particular look on her face before; perhaps moments away from arriving at this emotional plateau, only to shutter it away at the last moment. It is glassy eyed and fragile, her nose wrinkling and her hands fidgeting with the ends of her sleeves—it is a choked admission of all the horror she has known; of her adoptive family, her villainous “father,” the computer at the end of the hall, the young girl waiting at the other end who had stormed the tower and rescued her from a cruel fate.

When the tale is finally done, and he pulls her into his arms, the sun has moved higher into the sky. The fog has evaporated completely from the surface of the water, and now it merely shimmers. Their legs dangle over the rockface, and he presses a firm kiss against the side of her head. “I swear,” he whispers against the shell of her ear, “you are still the same person you were before. And if it seems as if I look at you differently—” He considers his words carefully, her fingers tapping nervously against his upturned palm, “It’s because I am more in awe of you then I was before.”

Her kiss is a salty, stinging thing against his tongue, and he can still feel the occasional soft hiccup resonating from the back of her throat. “I’m tired,” she admits quietly, her head rolling against his shoulder.

“Aye, love,” giving her another squeeze, a brief kiss to her cheek that reddens under his lips. “Let’s go home.”

It’s the fact that he never actually asks that makes her want to do it. That and the fact that he has bared his soul to her on multiple occasions and asked for so little in return. And quite honestly, there’s not much left he could do to her, given the fact that she’s spilled her damage all over him anyway.

Their feet hang over the fire escape out Emma’s window, the chilly spring air keeping it brisk yet refreshing. A hint of warmth that reminds the world of the impending season. “If you could,” she begins gently, taking a sip of their shared beer, “would you want to talk to her?”

He nibbles at his lower lip in response, an infuriating and distracting movement that has her discreetly pinching the top of her own hand. “I’m not sure,” he admits quietly, looking a bit like someone who feels ashamed by who they have become. Although, if she had the strength, she would have stopped him in that moment, reminded him that there was nothing to be ashamed of. That he was every bit the sweet, loving man his mother had suspected he would become. “Not sure she’d very much want to speak with me, if I’m being honest.”

Her heart breaks at the sound of his nervous, self-deprecating laughter, but she keeps her earlier, enamored thoughts to herself. While he’s lighting a cigarette she pops back into her room quickly, grabbing her laptop and returning to the ledge to face his sadness; the light and sound of a sleepless city, awaking slowly from a long, hard hibernation.

“I can’t guarantee anything,” resting the quiet machine on her lap, trying not to twiddle her thumbs, “but we can try.”

When she boots up the laptop, a soothing hum ignites in her fingertips and rushes through her veins. Now this, this she can do. She can feel his nervousness from over her shoulder, can see his fingers peeling the label away from the bottle out of the corner of her eye. “Relax,” she says softly, closing her eyes, her fingers flying across the keyboard. She’s not sure how much time passes, but at some point, in the midst of all the chatter, she hears it—a song that sounds familiar even though she is certain she’s never heard it before. “Do you hear it?”

He doesn’t seem to, not at first, not until she increases the volume on the laptop and slides it carefully onto his lap. “Take as long as you want,” pressing a kiss to his temple before standing and returning to her room, “I’ll be right here.”

It’s hard for her not to let her mind wander, to consider the particulars of a conversation that he’s been waiting to have for years , a voice and a face that he’s been tortured by everytime he closes his eyes. She had never even really considered looking for her own parents. What would she even say to them? Thanks for the childhood trauma, I have multiple lifetimes worth of debilitating baggage and it’s all thanks to you. And what would they do, anyway? Apologize? Fat lot of good that would do.

When he comes back inside she’s petting the soft edge of her succulent, somehow still flourishing regardless of her complete lack of knowledge as to how to properly care for the thing. His eyes are red and wet, and he tries to smile when he sees her obviously worried expression, only it crumbles as soon as she touches him, her hands coming up to frame his face with a gentleness she had not been sure she possessed. “Killian—”

“I’m quite alright, Emma. Thank you.”

It hurts to call the look in his eyes “love,” but she doesn’t know how else to describe the way he admires her with words of gratitude on his lips. It doesn’t matter what it is he’s thanking her for, whether it be the opportunity to speak with his mother one last time, her physical presence, or something else, it seems to encompass all of these things and more. The weight of this realization leaves her grasping for how to react, and in a moment of panic and a heavy, painfully beating heart, she presses her lips to his; aligns their bodies so firmly and precisely together that any suggestion of space between the two of them ceases to exist.

“Real enough for you?”

“Yes,” he rasps hotly against her lips, and the shiver she feels traveling down her spine and between her legs allows the terrifying rush of unwanted thoughts skittering elsewhere. “You are the realest thing I have ever known.”  

The sun shines bright and disarming the following morning. Having left her curtains open the night before, he is able to admire the sight of her eyelashes dusting atop her cheeks in the cleansing light of a new day. The world feels different. The only other time he can recall feeling this way was waking up the morning his mother had passed, sensing that something fundamental had changed, that his life would be forced to take a direction he had not expected. For the first time in years, he can picture the farmhouse in his head as if it were a photograph. Can smell the aged wood, the cooling stove, the chamomile tea brewing on the counter. Time to go home, he thinks suddenly, staring at Emma as she twitches mildly in her sleep.

The way the blankets have come to rest beneath her breasts, her hair splayed over the pillow, she looks not unlike some unnamed renaissance painting one might see hanging in a museum somewhere. Her skin smooth, soft, and warm, he can’t resist the temptation to run his fingers gently over her ribcage, observing the slight, sloping arcs of her.

“Hey,” she says quietly, stretching her arms above her head. “What are you thinking about?”

In the days, weeks, and months following this morning, he will freeze this moment in his head. The way she had looked at him, with a contented yet desirous look that had almost convinced him to put off the conversation for a few hours. Oh, how he wished he had. Perhaps, if he had waited just a bit longer, if he had considered how she might respond with greater care—if he hadn’t been quite so excited by the change in the wind.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said with a smile on his face, “that it might be time for me to return home.”

Hell, if he had even relayed the thought in a way that implied his wish for her to come with him. That he was by no means planning to abandon her , that in all of his visions of the future,of course she played a starring role. But in his haste to share the news, to embark upon this journey that he had awoken to find simmering beneath the surface, he had failed to consider the fragility of her heart. A vulnerability she often hid well, but to his eyes, not well enough.

“Oh,” responding with a deceptive pleasantness, leaving his side quicker than he would have liked. “That’s uh, that’s great, Killian.”

“I think you’ll like it,” he continued, oblivious to her discomfort, a point which he would absolutely kick himself for later. “Might take a bit to get the Internet hooked up, but—”

“Wait, did I miss something?”

For someone with so remarkable a memory, all of the words they throw back and forth seem to grow a bit fuzzy after that. Their voices grow louder and crueler than he can stand; they twist and turn inside the labyrinth of his mind with all the gentleness of a machete hacking through a jungle—sharp, incomprehensible things that end in one undeniable fact: he leaves, she stays.

A year passes. In the city, a year passes in rides on the subway. It passes in television shows and which bars you’ve decided to stop going to. Some new diet you’ve decided to try in lieu of really examining oneself as a person. On the farm, it passes in sunsets—in which vegetables take root at what time, and will they make it? Maybe, and he can hear his mother’s voice, if it’s their time. It passes in whether or not Chammy has decided if she’ll be sleeping at the end of his bed. Can he feel her small, humming warmth atop his feet? Winter. Has he lost track of her hungry chirps each morning? Spring.

The months without Emma Swan are dimmer than he can stand. Desaturated, cornerless days of trying not to think about the jagged edges of her hair. Or the way she smelled, or how she had curled around him in sleep with a fierce, desperate grip. Please, stay. Winter is hard, since winter was when it had all began. With beanies and boots, and pale hands reaching for his. He will wonder, occasionally, if she’s managed to keep the plant he had given her alive without his reminding her to water it. And then, inevitably, his mind will wander to the shape of her face, or the color of her eyes—and the months apart feel more like years. He writes a lot of e-mails that he never gets around to sending. Some of them biting and cruel; others quite obviously lovelorn. Pathetic.

Sometimes, when he stands in his cold kitchen waiting for the fire to take the early morning chill out of the place, he imagines his mother’s voice in the silence. Come now, Killian, she remarks playfully, it’s not all bad is it? And then the sun will shine through the bare trees, and Chammy will scratch at the door, and he’ll take a breath. No, not all bad. The only time he hears the honk of a car horn is when he drives into town for supplies. His lungs never feel as if they were in danger of collapsing (unless he’s thinking about Emma Swan, in which case, he finds himself yearning for the gritty, polluted haze of the city); and his feet feel rooted to the earth.

Life goes on—it grows.

Emma Swan returns to him in midsummer. All solid flesh and sinew, with striking green eyes that appear almost golden in the pre-evening sunlight. She walks towards him in the same boots she had worn the morning they met, only with more tape wrapped around the toes. She walks with a lightness that he had only managed to catch a glimpse of—that day at the lake, when her blessed history had come rushing through her lips like a waterfall after too much rain.

It feels like another year has passed when she comes to a stop in front of him, her bag falling heavily off of her shoulder. The both of them staring at the ground as if it will save them, her bag and his feet, toes wiggling in the dirt.

“Your hair,” he says finally, admiring the sight of the freckles that have begun to bloom across her cheeks. “I like it.”

Grown past her shoulders in the months following his departure in long, soft waves that he has often dreamed of running his fingers through. Only he’s not dreaming now, and has grown sick with waiting. “Thanks,” she begins to say, only he finds himself overcome with the sound of her voice, and before she can complete her thought he has snuck a hand against the back of her neck and pulled her mouth to his—all of those beautiful words waiting in the lovely depths of her soul, and he is ecstatic at the prospect of being able to hear each and every one.

Eventually, he leads her by the hand towards his front porch, newly sanded and finished, replete with antique rockers and potted plants lining the steps. He thinks it might be polite to offer her a drink, to ask her about her trip, but he’s finding it difficult to do anything other than stare at their joined hands—his browned with the sun and the dirt, her’s just as pale as he remembers, only her polish has turned a friendly blue as opposed to the chipped black he can recall with such fondness.

“Lily says ‘Hi,’” she says, her voice thick with emotion.

“I have a hard time believing that.” His heart thumps at the brief, shy smile she sends his way, her knee moving up and down with a familiar degree of anxiety that he knows he still loves—even still, he knows, and although there are few things he knows, this he can say with certainty, he loves her. He places a hand on her knee and she stills, her eyes roaming over his features with a gaze so hungry he finds himself struggling to breathe.

“I’ve missed you,” she says softly, and he can practically feel her nerves buzzing around them as if they were sitting beneath a hornet’s nest, “I thought that, maybe, everything would just go back to the way it was, like always, but—”

Her hair lifts in a warm breeze that seems to engulf them in an almost eerie, magical quiet, and while he wants nothing more than to ease her fears, to reassure her that no matter what she says, he will never let her go again, he lets her speak her piece, her eyes meeting his once more. “I didn’t want it to. I don’t want things to go back to the way they were before you.”

When their foreheads meet, he thinks he might catch a flash of their future. In the next few minutes, they might move inside to find a bright, well-ventilated kitchen that he has renovated with his own two hands. She might meet Chammy with a pleased hum, cradling his old companion in her strong, steady arms. Would she then relax in the garden with him? Snapping pictures of his bare, freckled back with her phone, laughing and sending them to Lily even though she held little affection for such things. Installing wires and cables and slipping them beneath the persian rugs in the living room in order to maintain the illusion that she has fully embraced the country life.

Holding one another tightly each night, perhaps recalling the loneliness, the anger they had once felt and marveling at the seeming improbability of finding each other in such a vast, concrete sea. But for now he makes her tea. He tucks some strands of that new, thick hair behind one ear as they listen to the final, evening chorus of the birds, the water boiling in the kettle. “I am so very happy to see you,” he admits with a smile, relishing in the sight of her flushed, joyful face, “Emma Swan.”

#cslb #ouat ff #cs ff #cs fanfic #captain swan #cs: shit is breathtaking bro #@hencethewriter #seriously tho #this was such a labor of love #i cannot say enough about kat and tessa #u will dance with me at my wedding #also both of my artists #like i cannot even with the art #it's absolutely perfect #i hope y'all enjoy it #i know it's all atmospheric #and occasionally nonsensical #but that seems to be my thing #so #it is done #amen

[henry-hart]

"The Spy and the Kid...Spy Kid?" - Chapter 1

God that title is so lame lsdksdklks. I suck at titles, so I apologize for that. I try to be witty, and this is what happens. Also, this fic is pretty serious, so maybe a silly title doesn't fit the mood...oh well.

Dedicated to: @sunbeameyes @ramune-ray @up-the-tube @youngbloodthekilljoy @writing-excuses @an-anxious-gay-mess @kiwikwami​​​​​​​ 

Summary: Jasper's cousin, Elizabeth, is in town for spring break, but Henry suspects trouble when she arrives just as a new, unnamed villain begins terrorizing Swellview.

Fandom: Henry Danger

A/N: Okay, I know introducing a distant relative for one specific plot and making them relevant by saying, "Hey, this is so-and-so. We used to be tight as kids!" is weak (I always hated when tv shows did that only to have the character appear for one episode), but here I am, doing it anyway. Guess I'm a hypocrite. Sue me. lolol I needed a new character that I could somehow relate to the characters we already know, so Jasper has a cousin from out of state. *shrugs* I hope you like this! The idea came to me in a dream (lol), and I thought it was interesting and decided to go with it. Also in my fic Henry can drive because he's like seventeen, so, you know. And I've headcanoned that Piper is secretly intelligent because I like the idea of her being in advanced classes and whatnot but being incredibly hush-hush about it (she did go to the gizmo show, after all). Enjoy! xoxoxo

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"Okay, that was the bell." Ms. Shapen snapped. "Get out of my face--all of you!"

Henry rolled his eyes; his teacher's sour attitude was nothing out of the ordinary. He collected his notebook and pens and everything else he had been using and put them in his book bag, sending a quick nod to Jasper as they both got out of their seats. They met Charlotte by the door, and the three of them left the classroom in the direction of their lockers.

"Man, Ms. Shapen really went heavy with the homework today." Jasper sighed, grabbing both his book bag straps as he walked. He was already thinking about how late he was going to be up finishing all that they had been given. Of course, he was already going to stay up late, but now it was going to be because of the inconvenience that is homework.

"Yeah," Henry grimaced. "I guess her date didn't go so well yesterday."

Charlotte stopped walking. "Or she's tired of having to deal with lazy students," she shot. She didn't think her teacher's love life or lack thereof was of any concern to them. The homework load they were assigned for tonight wasn't even that extensive; Henry and Jasper just liked doing the bare minimum.

Henry held his hands up in surrender and looked at Jasper with a "what's with her" look. Jasper shrugged and walked over to his locker. Henry and Charlotte walked to theirs as well.

Henry swung his backpack around and was pulling out notebooks he wouldn't need tonight when Jasper, who was done with his locker, leaned against the one next to Henry's. Henry noticed Jasper was trying for nonchalance, but subtlety had never been Jasper's strong-suit.

"What's going on?" Henry jested.

"You have a guest bedroom in your house, right?" Jasper wondered, but his tone told Henry that he wasn't really asking.

"I do." Henry clarified, his eyes narrowed apprehensively.

Jasper nodded. "I thought so." He played with one of the straps of his book bag. "Say, since that room is free and meant for guests, do you think my cousin could stay there over spring break?"

Henry stopped thumbing through his pre-calculus textbook and looked at Jasper, eyes wide at the onslaught of implications in that question. "What?"

"I need somewhere for my cousin to stay." Jasper explained, his eyes pleading. "My parents don't allow guests--not even family--and Charlotte won't let anyone even remotely related to me stay at her house after that incident."

Henry shuddered at the memory of Jasper's last girlfriend. He looked at Jasper's wide eyes and groaned. "I don't know, man. Last time I let someone's relative stay at my house, you, my little sister, and most of Swellview almost lost their teeth." He shuddered again, remembering that whole odd situation involving stealing teeth and the elderly. It wasn't something he enjoyed thinking about.

"Yeah but she's not like that." he pleaded. "Please, Henry. I haven't seen her since we were kids."

Henry paused. "Wait, you said she?"

Jasper nodded his head. "Her name's Elizabeth."

This changed things. "Is she cute?" Henry asked, a slight smirk on his face.

Jasper only shrugged; who was he to say whether his cousin was attractive or not? "I guess--if you're into that sort of thing."

Henry considered this for a moment, but he stopped himself. He wouldn't let that happen again--not after Noelle and the teeth and just, no. He would do this for Jasper to spend time with family. Nothing else.

"Alright, man. Sure, she can stay at my house." He shut his locker. "My mom loves having people over anyway." It was true; his mother loved being able to be, well, a mother to people.

Jasper jumped up and down and pulled Henry into a tight hug. "Thank you so much, Henry! You have no idea how much this means to me!"

Henry coughed, unable to breathe properly with Jasper squeezing him so tightly. "I have a pretty good idea." He groaned.

Jasper realized Henry couldn't breathe and let him go. "Do you mind picking her up from the airport too? I would, but I don't have a car."

Henry straightened his shirt out. "Sure. When does her flight arrive?"

"Today. Around seven."

"Wh--Today?" Henry sputtered. "It's Thursday. We have school tomorrow."

"I know," Jasper placated. "Her school gets out for spring break earlier than ours does." He finished with another pleading, wide-eyed look.

There wasn't much Henry could do now; he'd already agreed. "Yeah, fine. I'll just pick her up after work, I guess." Jasper jumped to give Henry another bone-crushing hug, but Henry held his hands up. "That's okay."

Jasper backed off, but he couldn't stop the wide smile on his face. Henry had made him so happy. He was going to see his cousin today.

Jasper remembered how much fun they had as kids; it was nice to know there was someone like him--someone else who was normal--in his family. Those weekends when Lizzie would visit Jasper were some of the best of his life. It had been years since he had seen her, and he could hardly contain himself from bursting with happiness now that it was only a matter of hours before he was going to be reunited with his favorite family member.

Charlotte walked up to the boys then. "Did he agree to do it?"

Jasper nodded vigorously. "He did."

Charlotte could see how happy Jasper was, and it made her smile. She looked at Henry apologetically. "Sorry about the ambush. I don't care how much Jasper says she's nice. I can't. Not after--" she trailed off, but they all knew.

There was a moment of silence as they all remembered her.

"Okay, let's get to work, shall we?" Henry announced, ready to be out of the school.

"Let's," Charlotte agreed. "Are you driving?"

Henry shook his head, avoiding his friend's eyes. "No, Piper has the car."

Jasper and Charlotte groaned in unison.

"Why would your parents let her drive the car when you have a legal license?" Jasper complained. He feared for his life every time he even got near Piper when she was behind the wheel of a car.

"You know how Piper is. No one lets her do anything. She just does it." Henry argued, throwing his hands up.

Charlotte rolled her eyes. She didn't like driver Piper either, but she knew there wasn't anything she could do about it. Like Henry said, Piper just does things. "Fine, but you're riding shotgun." She pointed a stern finger at Henry. 

Henry accepted the punishment as penance for being the older brother, and the gang walked out of the school to meet the girl who was currently laying on the horn.

__________

 "Do you see them?" Kid Danger asked Captain Man.

They were currently scouring Swellview Park for two criminals by the names of Donnie and Hyde, a couple who got their kicks by stealing money, jewelry, and even sometimes home entertainment centers. They were petty thieves as far as Henry and Ray--Captain Man and Kid Danger--were concerned. It never took more than an hour to track them down. Captain Man and Kid Danger had busted them a few times, but like all the other criminals in Swellview seem to be capable of doing, they had broken out of jail and were on a crime-spree.

But something about tonight seemed off to Kid Danger.

Maybe it was the fact that Donnie and Clyde hadn't even stolen anything.

Or, better yet, that they had called the Captain Man hotline. 

It was some taunting video message that had said there was something big about to go down. The thieves stressed that Captain Man and Kid Danger wouldn't want to miss it, and they should come to Swellview Park immediately. That was all the video said.

Everything about the situation was bizarre to Kid Danger, but he pushed past it. They were criminals who had broken out of jail; they needed to be caught.

"No, I don't." Captain Man responded with a frown. He too had noticed that this wasn't going down like their usual gig. He had the nagging suspicion in the back of his mind that he and Kid Danger were missing a bigger, important piece of the puzzle.

Kid Danger stopped searching to let his mind sift through all that wasn't making sense. He sat down hard on one of the park benches. "Okay, this is weird, right?"

Captain Man chewed on his bottom lip. "Yeah, it's definitely weird." He scratched the back of his neck. "Donnie and Clyde calling us? What was that about?"

"Right?" Kid Danger agreed. He gestured to the empty park. "I mean, why lead us to the park if no one is even here?"

Captain Man didn't sit down. He was too anxious to sit. He paced back and forth nervously, trying to shake the feeling that he and Kid Danger were being set up for something. "I don't know." He spoke finally. "And I don't like not knowing."

Kid Danger dragged a hand through his hair. "Do you think they've moved on from stealing? Why break out of jail now. Is there some big plan? Are they working for someone?" He had to stop himself. "God, one question just makes five more."

Captain Man held a hand out. "Why don't we just stay on alert. They wanted us here. Obviously something is supposed to happen, so just be prepared for anything."

Kid Danger nodded and stood up from the bench, thinking it best to be standing if something did happen. Suddenly he felt something prick his neck.

"Ah, what the--" he slapped a hand to his neck and pulled it away, expecting to see a squished mosquito, but there was nothing there.

Captain Man rushed over to Kid Danger. "What is it? Are you alright?" He demanded. The waiting made him a bit high strung.

Kid Danger waved him off. "Yeah, I think a bug bit me or something." He wasn't completely certain though. He wasn't certain of anything today.

Captain Man jumped slightly then, slapping a hand to his neck just as Kid Danger had. "I think the same bug just bit me too."

They looked at each other, both thinking the exact same thing; too many weird things were happening today for this to be purely coincidence.

As if they didn't have enough to worry about.

They didn't have time to ponder it long. Suddenly, a noise sounded from the other end of the park.

"What was that?" Kid Danger whispered, moving into a fighting stance.

Captain Man did the same. "Get ready, Kid."

Donnie and Clyde walked out from behind the park's information kiosk then, smirking at Captain Man and Kid Danger. They were wearing their usual uniform: all black leather.

"So, I see you two decided to join us after all," Donnie drawled, taking slow steps in the direction of the superheroes.

"What do you two want?" Captain Man snapped, not liking that they seemed to know something he didn't. He didn't like the disadvantage that put him at.

Donnie looked back to Clyde with his arms spread out innocently. "We just want to talk." They walked closer.

"To talk?" Kid Danger scoffed. "That's why you brought us all here? To talk."

Donnie put a finger on the tip of his nose, "And the Kid gets one hundred points!" He mocked, walking closer still.

Kid Danger rolled his eyes. He didn't feel like wasting any more time on these clowns. He looked at Captain Man, an understanding passing between them. "Then let's talk." He snarled, and he and Captain Man lunged for the two men.

The two superheroes were too focused on Donnie and Clyde to realize that four more men were creeping up behind them. Normally, this would've been something the two of them picked up on immediately--especially Kid Danger with his super fast reflexes--but the two had been on such high alert waiting for Donnie and Clyde that they didn't leave room to think about much else.

Two men grabbed Captain Man while a third stood close in case the two weren't enough. Only one of the large men was needed to hold Kid Danger.

Clyde spoke up then. "You two seem to forget the most important thing about being a criminal." He gestured to the four burly men, "Henchmen! You don't ever actually have to do anything. They do everything for you!"

Captain Man fought against the two men who were holding him back, but his super power was not super strength. He couldn't break free. Kid Danger also couldn't get away from the henchman.

"It's not like you two to let anyone else in on your little schemes." Captain Man grunted, hoping to distract Donnie and Clyde. He still fought the arms around him despite the obvious futility. "What's with the extra muscle?"

Donnie and Clyde smiled at each other.

"It's one of the many perks of joining a cause." Donnie cooed, staring lovingly at Clyde.

"What cause?" Kid Danger growled. He too was still trying to break free. He twisted to reach his laser, hoping to use it on the brute holding him back, but the henchman had Kid Danger's arms pinned behind him. Too much movement sent pain radiating up to his shoulders.

Donnie and Clyde were telling the truth when they said they wanted to talk. They had been sent to the park to do so. Confident that Captain Man and Kid Danger were thoroughly indisposed, they both sat down on a park bench.

Clyde took a deep breath like he was preparing to tell a bed time story. "You see, Cap and Kiddo, breaking out of jail is no easy feat--especially for two petty thieves such as ourselves."

Donnie shook his head. "That's right. It's rather difficult, but with the right help, it's a--" he motioned all around them. "Well, it's a regular walk in the park!" He and Clyde erupted into a fight of laughter.

Captain Man looked over to Kid Danger, and they shared mutual expressions of annoyance.

"Will you two just get to the point?" Captain Man snapped. He was tired of being in the dark, tired of having these big--and quite frankly smelly--men holding him back, and he was tired of being dragged around by these two thieves. "What help are you talking about?"

Clyde clucked disapprovingly at Captain Man. "He doesn't like our witty banter, my love." He whispered to Donnie, but it was one of those obnoxious whispers that is meant to be heard by everyone. "Straight to the point, I see. Well, if you must know, Donnie and I have recently come upon a very lucrative business offer."

Donnie nodded. "Very lucrative." He gestured to his outfit. "This is genuine leather, you know."

Henry rolled his eyes. His patience was wearing thin. "I'm very happy for you two. Really."

Clyde waved him off. "What do they know of fashion? I mean, seriously. Red and blue block colors? What is this--a pre-school color test?"

The couple went into another one of their laughter spells, but Donnie quickly regained his composure.

"We digress." He stated, shaking his body as if to refocus. "We have called you here, on this lovely afternoon, to inform you that big things are at play."

"Things we can't disclose just yet," Clyde added, holding a finger up to stop his partner from revealing too much. "But rest assured, you two will be center stage for it all."

If Captain Man and Kid Danger had been confused before, they were completely lost now. Donnie and Clyde had explained nothing. All they did was give the superheroes half of the information, and it was the half that made more questions instead of answering the ones they already had.

Devices on Donnie and Clyde's belts beeped then, and they both jumped up from their seat.

"Ah, that would be our boss." Donnie said. "Duty calls, I'm afraid." He sighed almost as if he were sad to go. "We had to make sure our players are all in play, though, didn't we?"

"We'll be seeing you." Clyde promised with a secretive wink. They started to walk away, but Clyde turned back to address Captain Man and Kid Danger. "How's the neck by the way?" His gave a chilling smile that further proved he knew much that they didn't. "Ta-ta for now." He waved, and the pair walked away.

It made Captain Man and Kid Danger seethe to see the two criminals strutting away without a care in the world. They struggled against the men holding them back, but it was still to no avail.

The men couldn't hold the two forever though; they did have orders.

The large man holding Kid Danger suddenly let him go. Once free, Kid Danger immediately turned around to attack the big man, but the henchman had been expecting that. He sent heavy fist flying at Kid Danger's face.

"Kid!" Captain Man yelled when his sidekick fell motionless to the ground.

His henchman let Captain Man go then, confident that he wouldn't try to attack all four at once when Kid Danger was lying hurt on the ground. They were right.

Captain Man sent threatening glares in their direction, but he let them walk away. He ran over to Kid Danger, crouching down to make sure the kid was alright.

Kid Danger began to stir.

"Kid," Captain Man breathed, relieved to see him moving so quickly. "Are you alright?"

Kid Danger sat up with a groan and dropped his head into his hand. "That guy could really pack a punch."

Captain Man gave a dry laugh. "I know."

He looked around the park for the henchmen. "Where'd they go? You didn't fight all of them, did you?"

Captain Man shook his head. "No, I didn't." He side-eyed Kid Danger. "Though the lack of confidence is bit insulting." He helped his sidekick to his feet. "I let them get away so I could check on you."

Kid Danger nodded. He didn't blame Captain Man. Everything that had happened since they received that video call had been so unsettling; the only sure thing they had was each other.

Kid Danger swayed a bit on his feet, still a little disoriented, and Captain Man kept a hand on his arm to steady him. "I have so many questions." The sidekick admitted shakily.

Captain Man sighed deeply. "All I have is questions." He gave Kid Danger a light push. "Let's head back to the Man Cave and try to see if we can figure things out there. I'm tired of being in this park."

Kid Danger agreed. He almost felt sick to his stomach thinking about all that had happened--though some of that might have to do with the blow he took to the face. What unsettled him the most, what made him feel like the ground had been ripped out from under his feet, was the promise that bigger things--things revolving around the two of them--were to come.

What could that mean?

__________

"Are you okay?" Charlotte asked as soon as Henry and Ray made it down the tubes and had changed back into their regular clothes. She rushed to Henry's side to make sure he wasn't severely injured from the punch. "We saw everything." She turned back to Schwoz who was nodding grimly.

"Define okay." Henry muttered. He gently pushed away Charlotte's helping hands, assuring her that he was fine. "You guys heard what they said then, yeah?"

Charlotte nodded. "What does it mean?"

Ray shook his head, his jaw clenched. "We don't know."

The four of them were silent for a moment.

"What did they mean about your necks?" Schwoz asked then, a terrible thought beginning to form in his head.

Henry felt his neck where it had stung like a bug bite. "Ray and I felt like a bug bite us or something, but it was all too weird, you know? All that happens, and then the same bug bites us both? It's hard to believe that was just coincidence."

Charlotte knitted her eyebrows together. "So, what? Something stung you that wasn't a bug?" She could admit that the events that unfolded all seemed to be happening according to some underlying plan, but what was Henry implying? The bugs were in on it too? That seemed a bit too far fetched for her, a girl of rational thought.

"I know it sounds crazy, but what about what Clyde said? He asked us how our necks were. How could he have known about that?" Henry turned to Ray for support. "They weren't even there when it happened."

Charlotte held her hands up to try and calm her quickly spiraling friend. "I'm not saying your wrong, okay? All I'm saying is that we don't have enough information to be making any kind of conclusions just yet."

Henry used her gentle tone to help calm himself. If he wasn't careful, he would spiral into a panic attack. He took a few deep breaths in and out, centering himself.

Ray walked over to the control panel to bring up the video feed from their suits. He wasn't looking for anything in particular, but he figured maybe there was something there that they had missed. Ray couldn't rely on what he and Henry remembered in the moment; they weren't firing on all pistons then. They had been pretty shaken up before Donnie and Clyde ever showed up. No, he needed to review the information with new eyes--repeatedly.

Schwoz, all the while, remained silent, his premonition quickly looking more and more like a reality. He kept this realization to himself; he was worried what the information would do to his friends who were already under incredible stress. He would figure this one out on his own, and he wouldn't go to Ray or Henry about it unless absolutely necessary. Schwoz feared that outcome though; if there wasn't anything he could do about what he knew, then there was no hope.

Henry and Charlotte joined Ray in front of the video screen.

Ray was playing the part of the recording where Donnie and Clyde warned of big things in the near future. Ray paused the video. He was silent before slamming his fist on the table, making Charlotte jump.

"Who could they be working for?" He demanded to no one in particular. He got up from his seat, fearing that if he didn't get up and move or do something, his anger would find some destructive way out. "Why not just get us there? Why all the chit-chat and the secrets and the mind games?" He looked at Donnie and Clyde's faces on the screen. "I hope they know we're coming for them."

Charlotte watched Ray. She was worried. The only other time she had seen Ray so worked up was when Drex came back. This could only mean bad things for the team, and that realization didn't sit well with Charlotte.

Henry's eyes were glued to the screen. He heard their voices bouncing around in his head on a constant loop. Over and over again he heard them joke about what the future had in store for Captain Man and Kid Danger. Over and over again they laughed and taunted him.

His phone buzzed in his back pocket, jolting him back to reality; Jasper was calling him.

"Yeah," he answered, not tearing his eyes away from the screen. 

"Henry, why are you still at Junk 'n Stuff?" Jasper demanded, his tone harsh.

Henry was so focused on what had happened that Junk 'n Stuff and Jasper and his normal life seemed to exist in another world entirely. It took him a few seconds to remember what Junk 'n Stuff even was.

"Because I work here," he responded absently.

"You seriously don't know what I'm talking about?"

Henry almost laughed aloud at the irony. He wanted to snap at Jasper for making him play along with whatever it was Jasper was on about because it seemed so miniscule to what he had just experienced, but that wouldn't be fair. Jasper didn't know that Henry was near to having a nervous break down.

"No, man, I don't." He sighed, finally looking away from the screen. Jasper's anger at Henry seemed to pull him away from his problem.

"Are you sure? Is there nothing--or no one--coming to mind?" Jasper's tone made it obvious he was more than angry at Henry.

"Okay," Henry stopped him, rubbing a hand over his tired eyes. "This could obviously go on for awhile, so will you just tell me whatever it is that has you freaking out?"

"Elizabeth, Henry. You were supposed to be picking my cousin up an hour ago." Jasper fumed.

Henry's jaw fell open. Crap. It had totally slipped his mind. He had forgotten all about picking her up from the airport--though with good reason. Up until just then, Henry had forgotten she existed. He felt ten times worse when he remembered it was now raining.

"Oh God, Jasper, I'm sorry. I completely forgot about Elizabeth." He drug a heavy hand down his face. He wasn't sure how much more he could take today. Charlotte looked up at him sympathetically.

"Don't apologize to me." Jasper snorted. "Elizabeth is the one who's been standing in the rain for an hour." Henry could tell he was going to have to spend awhile making this up to Jasper, but he couldn't worry about that now; his plate was already full.

He grabbed his jacket, put it on with one hand seeing how he was holding his phone with the other, and found his book bag where his car keys were. "Okay, I'm on my way now. Tell her I'll be there in fifteen minutes tops."

Henry couldn't see him, but Jasper was shaking his head in disbelief. "I'm sure she won't mind waiting fifteen minutes more. It's not like she's cold and wet or anything."

Henry closed his eyes. "Jasper, I said I was sorry. Ray and I were fighting some criminals, and I got sidetracked. What do you want me to say?"

"Nothing," Jasper sighed. "Just--Just go pick Liz up."

"I am." Henry reiterated.

"Yeah, now." Jasper muttered.

"Jasp--" Henry's phone beeped. "--per."

He slid his phone back into his back pocket. He didn't bother saying bye to anyone in the Man Cave; he knew it wouldn't have mattered. Ray was finding some way to vent his anger. Schwoz had disappeared to God knows where--he went to work on his theory in private--and Charlotte was watching the video feed again. None of them would've heard him anyway

He got in the elevator and pressed the button to go up.

Henry hoped that whoever Liz was, she was a lot more understanding than Jasper had been and that she wouldn't be too harsh on Henry for forgetting her.

He wasn't sure how much more emotional stress he could handle before he shut down completely.

__________

"Again, I am so sorry about--" Henry gestured to both his and Liz's soaked clothes and wet hair. "Well, everything."

Elizabeth chuckled. "Don't sweat it. I needed to wash my hair anyway."

Henry smiled, relieved to find that Elizabeth was the forgiving type. He had felt horrible when he pulled up to the airport and found her completely drenched and alone. She didn't even have an umbrella. Fortunately for Henry, she wasn't one for public ridicule or holding grudges; she had merely thanked Henry for picking her up and helping her with her bags.

She didn't know it, but Elizabeth had helped Henry cope with today's stress. She had been kind and forgiving and level-headed in the midst of chaos, and that was Henry's life line.

Henry opened his front door, letting Elizabeth walk in front of him while he grabbed her bags. She hadn't brought much--just one small suitcase and an even smaller carry-on.

"This is my house." Henry stated once he was inside and had shut the door. He put Elizabeth's bags at the foot of the stairs. "There's a guest bedroom upstairs."

She nodded. "Cool deal." She looked around the living room of the Hart house and whistled appreciatively. "Nice digs you got here."

"Thanks," Henry noticed she was rubbing her hands up and down her arms. "Hey, do you want a towel or a dry shirt or something?"

Elizabeth felt goosebumps break out over her exposed legs and arms. "Yes, please," she urged.

"Alright, I'll go get that." He looked into the kitchen where Piper was sitting at the table on her phone. He was wary of introducing Elizabeth to his little sister, but he also knew it would be rude not to. "That's my little sister Piper, if you want to go talk to her." He started to go up the stairs, but he turned back to his guest. "Be careful, though. Her bark is just as bad as her bite."

"Oh?" Elizabeth inquired, turning to look at the little girl too absorbed in her phone to notice that a stranger had even walked into her house. "I'm sure I'll be just fine."

Henry wasn't so sure, but he admired her confidence and left to change and get her a towel.

Elizabeth looked around the house again, admiring how homey it all felt. She was cold from being wet, but the Hart house seemed to have a warm glow to it that made that cold not so bad. She liked it.

She made her way into the kitchen, stopping near where Piper was sitting.

"Hey," she said.

Piper, hearing a voice she didn't recognize, jumped suddenly and turned to see who was currently in her house.

She sized the wet girl up. "Who are you?"

Elizabeth took Piper's tone into account with the warning Henry had given her. "I'm Elizabeth, Jasper's cousin." She held a hand out. "You can call me Liz, though."

Piper looked at her hand but didn't extend one in return. "I'm Piper, but you can call me Piper." She went back to her phone.

Liz smiled, liking this little girl's spunk.

She looked over the papers and books laid out in front of Piper. "What're you doing?"  

Piper didn't even look up from her phone. "Homework," she snapped.

Liz ignored Piper's attitude. She held back a retort about how it looked to her more like Piper was avoiding it rather than doing it. "What kind of homework?"

Piper gripped her phone a little tighter. She didn't like all these questions--especially by some girl she had just met. Piper didn't even know what this "Liz" was doing in her house, dripping water all over the floor.

She set her phone down, narrowing her eyes at the stranger. "What exactly are you doing in my house?"

Liz was once again unmoved by Piper's brashness (this infuriated Piper who was so used to being feared). "Henry and your parents are letting me stay here while I'm in town visiting Jasper and my Aunt and Uncle."

Piper was hacked off no one had asked her if she was okay with a house guest--especially one related to Jasper--but she let it slide. "Why don't you just stay at Jasper's then?"

Liz picked up one of Piper's papers and studied it. "My cousin's parents are...strange, for lack of a better word. They don't allow guests. Your brother's probably never even been to Jasper's house before." She grabbed a few more of Piper's homework papers. "Do you want help with this?"

Piper was fuming over the fact that she now had no way to easily get rid of this girl, but Liz's offer to help her with her homework derailed her.

"What?" She asked.

Liz held the papers out to Piper. "Do you want help with your physics homework?"

Piper raised an eyebrow. "How do you know physics? My brother isn't even taking physics."

Liz smirked. "I think the better question is how do you know physics?" She grabbed the textbook and looked to Piper with her eyebrows raised. "So, are we doing this or what?"

Piper narrowed her eyes at Liz but accepted her offer of help anyway. Maybe this "Liz" wasn't so bad.

They had finished over half of Piper's physics homework--which she had stopped doing because she didn't understand it and had no one to help her--when the watch on Liz's left wrist beeped.

Piper cocked her head to the side. "My brother has a watch that beeps just like that."

Liz looked down to her watch and quickly smacked a hand over it, hoping to block the noise. She smiled to cover the strange reaction. "I have to make a phone call. Is there anywhere I can go for privacy?"

Piper thought she was acting strange all of a sudden--and that it was weird that someone else had a watch like Henry's--but she pointed to the front door. "My brother makes all his phone calls on the front porch."

Liz nodded, easily composing herself. "Then I'll go on the back porch."

"But it's raining," Piper pointed out.

"Can't get any more wet than I already am." Liz shrugged and got up from her seat to walk out to the back porch.

Piper thought this girl was definitely strange, but she had helped her with her homework when no one else could, and for that she was grateful.

Liz walked away from the windows and checked to make sure no one was around to see or hear her before she pressed a button on the side of her watch.

A life-size hologram of a man dressed in a freshly pressed black suit projected out of her watch and onto the ground in front of her. Liz straightened her posture as she addressed the man.

"Sir," she greeted.

The man had no expression. "You're late." He stated.

Liz cringed ever so slightly. "I know, and I apologize. There were...complications upon my arrival."

The man quirked one eyebrow--the only movement on his face besides his mouth. "Complications? I hope nothing went wrong." When he said hoped, what he really meant was that there better not have been anything wrong.

"No, sir," Liz quickly assured. She wouldn't let her boss believe she was incompetent. "Everything is fine. I just arrived at my host family's house."

The man nodded, "And what of the two superheroes?"

"To be determined." She answered. She knew he was looking for more information, but she had none to give. Closer inspection would be needed. "I could only see so much of the video feed while waiting at the airport."

"Then I expect you'll continue with the task entrusted to you." He paused to let the warning in his voice take effect. "Big things are ahead. All players must be in place."

"Yes, sir. I understand." She held her hand up to salute him one more time. "Dunlop out."

With a nod, the hologram of the man in the suit folded up and disappeared back into Liz' watch.

Once her boss was gone, Liz visibly relaxed. She even let her shoulders sag. She was tired from her long flight from California, and meetings with the boss always sucked whatever energy she had right up.

She only just realized she was standing in the rain.

She straightened her soaked clothes up, plastered on a fake smile, and prepared to walk back into civilian life, all the while thinking of those two superheroes whose roles in the near future would be crucial.

__________

Henry expected to come downstairs and have to pull Piper off of Liz, but when he made it to the kitchen, he found Piper alone at the table.

"What did you do to her?" He asked immediately, expecting Piper to say she scared the girl all the way back to wherever she had come from.

Piper looked away from her phone and to her brother with a furrowed brow. "Who?"

"Elizabeth, Jasper's cousin." Henry groaned loudly. Piper had definitely chased her away. Now what would he tell Jasper? As if he needed another thing to worry about. He looked around the house and found that her bags were still there.

Oh God, did Piper kill her?

"It's Liz."

Henry snapped his attention back to Piper. "What?"

Piper sighed and set her phone down. "Her name is Elizabeth, but you can call her Liz." She held up her completed homework. "And she helped me with my homework."

Henry didn't know what to say. Did Piper actually like someone? Someone related to Jasper, of all people?

"So, you like her?" Henry hesitated, not believing it be true.

Piper shrugged. "I don't know about like. I've only known her for five minutes." She collected her homework and got up from the table. "She's not entirely horrible."

Henry smiled, and it felt like a huge weight being lifted off his shoulders. Finally, something had gone right today.

"You have no idea what that means to me." He breathed. Piper gave him a weird look, not understanding the emotional turmoil Henry had experienced. Henry, the smile still on his face, looked around the kitchen. "Where is Elizabeth--I mean Liz?"

Piper pointed to the back porch. "She had to make a phone call."

Henry looked out the window and saw it was still raining. "On the back porch? In the rain? Why?"

"I don't know, Henry. Why do you make your calls on the front porch?"

"Touche," Henry conceded, though Piper didn't know he went on the front porch for privacy to keep his secret identity just that. Why Liz went on the back porch was strange to him, but he also knew it wasn't his business.

Piper had all her stuff collected in her arms and was on her way upstairs when she stopped. "She has a funny watch like yours, though."

"What?"

"Her watch," Piper explained. "It beeps like yours." She turned and continued up the stairs.

Henry thought that was definitely strange, but he was not going to let himself look too far into it. He wasn't going to ruin the one thing that had gone right today. He wasn't going to go looking for problems where there wasn't one.

Liz walked into the house then, more wet than before, but with a wide smile on her face. "Sorry about ducking out for a minute there." She apologized. "I had to call my mom and let her know I made it in okay." She looked at her wet clothes. "Well, mostly okay."

Henry laughed, running a hand through his own wet hair. "Sorry again for that. You wouldn't believe the day I had at work." He sighed, glad that the Liz situation had worked out, in the very least.

"Tell me about it." Liz muttered. "Are those for me?" She pointed to towel and clothes in Henry's hand.

Henry looked down at the stuff in his hands. "Oh, yeah. I got you a towel and one of my old hoodies." She raised her eyebrows at the hoodie. Henry laughed uneasily. "No, I don't mean--I just figured you had your own clothes, but maybe you were cold. If you don't want it, I'll under--"

"It's great, really." Liz smiled, accepting the hoodie. "Thank you, not just for this--" She lifted the towel and hoodie. "Thank you for letting me stay at your house. It means a lot to me to be able to see Jasper."

Henry shook his head. "It's no big deal, honest. My mom loves having people to take care of." He thought of Jasper. "You should probably call Jasper though. He was pretty mad at me for leaving you in the rain."

Liz nodded. "Yeah, I'll do that--but dry clothes first."

Henry smiled. "The guest bedroom is up the stairs, first door on the right. The bathroom is right across the hall."

She smiled and left him to go up the stairs.  

Henry watched her go thinking that Jasper was right; she was pretty. Of course, that's as far as Henry let that thought go. Her arrival had been the most uncomplicated thing he had faced today; he was not going to muck that up by trying to start some pointless relationship that would only last the length of spring break. He could handle being her friend, nothing more.

And Henry had a feeling she was going to be a great friend to have.

Liz walked up the stairs thinking about how sweet Henry was. Cute too--not that she was interested. She wasn't one to go trying to date anyone she even remotely found attractive. She was content having attractive people as just friends. Nothing wrong with that--except she wasn't here to make friends. She was here to make sure everything went according to plan.

She pulled her phone out of her pocket, thinking her boss could deal with her making some time for her favorite cousin.

__________

A/N Part 2: Phew, that was long, but I enjoyed writing it, you better believe. It's a complete 180 from my last fic (lolol). None of my children are having a good time this go round. Oops. I like this kind of stuff though. The suspense. The mystery. The bigger the stakes, the better. What did you guys think of Donnie and Clyde?(see what I did with that one? hd likes to play on popular things, so I joined in. Ert and Bernie anyone?). I loved creating their dialogue. It was so fun! What about their boss and this big plan for CM and KD??? What about Liz? Love her? Hate her? Don't know yet? Don't care? lol How do you think she fits into all of this? Let me know what you think!!! xoxoxo

#a;lkjsdkjg' #i did it #i started my next fic #i have no idea how long this will be #we're just gonna enjoy the ride as it goes #lol #tell me your thoughts #mine #henry danger fanfiic #henry danger #fanfic #em writes