#(Sorry it's a little long because of the exposition! The other replies will be more like the length that's beneath the ellipses x'D)

[dreamscapesalesstore]

It's a long descent from the throne to the ground. Sunday relearned that fact nightly from the memories that haunted his every resting moment. The piercing air whistling through his feathers. The slender arms around him that could not possibly protect them both. The impact of the ground, fracturing what should have been an endless, boundless dream, fracturing him.

Not even two system weeks had passed since then and Sunday was still picking up all the pieces. Without Penacony, without his sister or Master, he'd felt so... untethered. Would that Charmony Dove have felt this way, if it survived its own fall? After spending so long in a cage, it was difficult for one to know where to go next.

Perhaps that's why he agreed to join the Stellaron Hunters in the end. He'd always been partial to structure, and if following Elio's scripts would forge a new path towards that dream of paradise he still fervently held in heart then, then...

Well, the Halovian could follow orders quite well. He'd done it before.

(And if he didn't like this master, he'd also deal with him in the same way he'd done before.)

...

As it turned out, Sunday would not be working alone. It felt a little odd to be forced into such close cooperation with a relative stranger, the only bridge between them the orders they both shared.

Still, he diligently rehearsed his instructions before this mission, so he couldn't help but take some offense to the unnecessary reminder.

"Yes, I am aware. I have read the script, you know," Sunday replied archly, golden eyes narrowing as he tilted his chin up. What was this man so damned tall for?

With a shake of his head, he decided to take the lead, walking in front of the other with his shoulders squared and hands folded in front of his waist. Just because he felt like a mess did not mean he had to look like one.

"If we both know what to do, let us not waste time. We do have a schedule to keep."

RP Starter: @dreamscapesalesstore

Blade still, after a week, wasn't 100% certain if Sunday had joined the Stellaron Hunters of their own free will or had been pressured by Kafka and the script; while she wanted an almost immediate answer Blade had vocally made it known to give him time since technically Sunday wasn't needed for a mission for at least a week.

He also hadn't stuck around to hear Sunday request time to consider the offer OR if the Halovian had actually accepted it on the spot.

Those type of thoughts, from over the last week, would be pushed to the back of his mind as both Blade and Sunday were on their way to the first 'script mission' together and he took these very seriously especially since this time his script required becoming mara struck to make the mission believable and successful to the targets.

"No matter what your abilities sense from me, stay on script, make sure to keep everyone including yourself back... when I'm struck by mara there is little difference between 'friend or foe' and I will likely see you as my enemy." Blade intended to remind Sunday in his own words, he was not questioning the others intelligence; but it had been a long time since he had a new partner on missions so Blade had no idea what to expect and could only hope things would go smoothly and Sunday didn't stray from the script.

[ask-whitepearl-and-steven]

Would you mind sharing your planning process of the comic? I'm starting to brainstorm a fiction idea and right now the ideas are very messy and I wanted to know if you could show how you plan what happens on a season and on an episode, maybe with an example of a season episode you already published, so I can learn how to organize myself?

I really, REALLY appreciate you coming to ask me for help with this. It's awesome to hear that you respect my writing enough to seek me out as an authority on such things, or at least enough to ask for advice.

But I'm gonna be real with you - what you're asking for is not a quick slapdash reply that I can whip up in my free time. What you're asking for is an hour long video essay (with examples) on the level of an educational creative writing online course.

And I--I don't know if I have it in me to do that right now. Not with everything else I'm trying to do. (Sorry.)

BUT.

What I can give you instead is a basic rundown, and maybe some recommendations for where to this stuff.

To be absolutely brief: For me, the best way to visualize how I plan would be to make a flowchart.

Keep in mind that....... I don't ever actually.......MAKE. A flowchart.

Mostly, I am just using this as a visual representation of how my ideas flow from and to each other in a coherent way. The reality is that this skill is something you have to develop until it becomes second nature.

As an example, let's take the episode(s) where I introduced Seaglass.

This little arc was planned in season 3, but really started to come into play in Season 4.

To make it happen, I started with the obvious main idea: SEAGLASS.

I then broke it down into multiple smaller ideas:

If you notice, the main plot of this doesn't even start when the Seaglass exposition does. Steven makes Seaglass back in season 3, but doesn't know about it. But these ideas are still important to acknowledge as being a part of the main plot.

I then fill in MORE space between these larger ideas.

This whole set of steps is just a logical progression of me playing 'how do we get there'. I make up plot points and say 'what happens to get from A to B?'

And keep in mind - this may seem kinda obvious. That's because... it should be! But that's how the planning happens.

Realistically, it's just a bunch of asking myself questions. The same exact questions I refuse to answer in asks.

"What happens next? What would happen if....?" "Why doesn't Steven know about ....?"

"How would Steven find Seaglass if he doesn't know she exists?"

Well she's small and green, kinda like Peridot. So he goes looking for Peridot and mistakes Seaglass for her.

BAM! You've got yourself a plot point. That's a plan, baybee!

And then just kinda rinse and repeat.

And eventually, you want to make sure that you have some sort of connection back to the main plot point. In this case, it's the realization that Steven CREATED LIFE.

Again, I want to stress - I don't actually........plan.... by writing this down.

I do this process in my head. Often, multiple times per chapter, writing and editing to make it make more and more sense. The important part is about asking yourself questions. The same questions your readers should be asking.

"Why is this character doing this?" "Why is this event happening NOW?" "How will A find out when they realize what B has done?" "What is the BEST time for B to find out...? What is the WORST time?"

All of this takes imagination. It isn't about organization. It's moreso about learning to tetris plot events into their most snug spaces. It's about thinking of events as a staircase, which eventually leads to a larger staircase of plot arcs.

And as a final note, I will say that someday, when I'm less busy, I may make a video about plot. But it will take more time and effort, and for now, please just watch videos by other creators! I'm sure they're just as good at it as I am.

[sparklecarehospital]

I know you’re not working on any askblog things but will the sparklecare askblog ever return?

i've thought about this a lot, semi-recently. sorry for long post, i had a lot to say

see, the issue with asksparklecare is the fact it's supposed to "go along with canon events" and a lot of the time, the arcs will just abruptly end or change with no real connection between them. haunted was sort of my first attempt at putting a "story" on there, then again with the kissmas comic from 2021.

when i started cometcare for example, i wanted to take the generic "ask blog" format and turn it into a coherent, cohesive connecting story that just had interactive elements to make it engaging with readers as opposed to just making people ask the characters questions aimlessly. the main ask blog never really had that entirely, it was just sort of the classic 2010s-style ask blog, this is apparent in basically every arc on there.

it's stumped me quite a bit because now that i have this very different style of ask blog storytelling, the original ask blog feels weird to go back to and i don't feel the same passion or connection with it that i once did. it's a little bit frustrating. i tried to do an arc about the side patients but as you guys saw, i never even did it because i felt so out of touch with that old format of ask blog posts and i couldn't bring myself to work on it at all.

cometcare and darkermatters both have Stories to them, and each arc has a plot that is moved on by readers- even if i already have it written out, there are little things people can influence through the asks and it's a good way for introducing new characters or expanding on characters who we've already met. several times cometcare will return to specific characters to relay information or new details or exposition or something that their initial introduction didn't have.

it's a much more fun process for me to write actual stories in my AU blogs, instead of just....making the characters talk. and another thing- going alongside the main comic has problems, because sometimes there's information i can only reveal in the comic itself, and it's hard to keep up with it in general.

i enjoyed doing the kissmas comic because i got to do a "story" even if it wasn't interactive. i had fun repeating the concept on cometcare last december with help of the crew.

i'm sort of at a loss of what to do with the main ask blog at this point. as much as i miss doing stuff like that for main comic, i just don't find it FUN to do it that way anymore, i've become too attached to the storytelling aspects of my other ask blogs and it just doesn't feel the same exciting experience of watching people react to events and such.

if anyone has suggestions about what i should do with the main ask blog to solve this problem i'm open to hearing them, it would be nice to have some ideas because i'm really not sure what i want to do with it.

there was a time i had the idea of doing a backstory ask blog as an alternate main canon interactive story that followed similar mechanics as cometcare and darkermatters, but idk if everyone would be interested in that. that would probably be a separate thing if i ever did it.

thoughts, opinions, suggestions and ideas are all welcome in the replies or my inbox, i would love to have your guys' input since im making content you all would be engaging with after all

[lecl3rcw]

𝒜𝓁𝓌𝒶𝓎𝓈 𝒷𝑒𝑒𝓃 𝓎𝑜𝓊 | Prologue

Authors note: Hi guys! This is a mini series and my first one at that so I’m a lil scared😀 but I really hope you like this story because I’ve been planning it out for a while now😭 but yes this story will contain angst, and like a lot of fluff:) but yeah I hope everyone will like it💕

This is a prologue!!! A lil chapter on the sister’s dynamic and the exposition!!

____________________________________________

The Parisian sky roared as gentle raindrops started to fall against her apartment window. The girl was in her painting studio, where she spends most of her time anyways. Her headphones blasting her favorite song as her shaky hand outlined the last of her painting. As she was about to finish, the ringing of the bell startled her, she groaned as she took her headphones off and went to open the door. When she did tho, she was met with her two older sisters, one carrying the bags of groceries and the other carrying a toddler.

“Oh sorry guys, how long were you out here” she says feeling a little bad. “Don’t worry Y/N, not for long” Her oldest sister Adriana says placing the toddler on the ground as she gives her sister a soft smile, to which she reciprocates.

“What were you doing anyway?” Her middle sister, Julianna asks, “I was just finishing up the last of my painting before my flight tomorrow” she says as she bends down to the toddler’s level, squeezing her in a tight hug as her heart warms at the giggle her niece lets out.

“How are you feeling? I mean leaving so abruptly” Adriana asks putting last of the groceries away, “I feel good, I just need a change of scenery, I don’t think I can live here after everything that has happened” Y/N replies, standing up and going back into her studio. An uncomfortable silence fell upon the two older siblings.

“Julie, I’m really worried about her, she’s not processing anything correctly, she’s refusing to go the therapist, and now she’s moving to a whole new country, where she knows no one, I really don’t think we should let her go” Adriana mumbles anxiously.

“Ada listen, I don’t want her to go either but she’s not a baby anymore, she’s 19 and she’s very responsible, and it’s not like she’s going on vacation, she’s going to study and holding her back from her passion isn’t helping, plus i can go visit her when the Spanish grandprix happens, we have to trust her, she wants to move on with the whole situation with mom and we have to respect that” Julie says rubbing her sister’s shoulder.

The three girls had lost their father at a pretty young age, however the loss of their mother was still very recent. Almost like the ghost of her still haunts them three, everything about her, they miss it all. They stood there silently, uneasy and clenching their heavy hearts.

Once Y/N finished her painting, a genuine smile came across her face. Painting was a passion that she picked up from her mother, that’s how Y/N wanted to keep her memory alive.

y/n.hirose

liked by julie_hirose, adriann.a, alexandrasaintmleux and 48,000 others

y/n.hirose a recent painting dump 🫶🏻

Comments

julie_hirose Si talentueux💕 (so talented)

^y/n.hirose 😚💕

elainejohansen ugh my best friend is too perfect😔

^y/n.hirose I miss you Lainey🥲💕

alexandrasaintmleux je l'aime tellement😍 (i love it so much)

^y/n.hirose merci mon amour😘 (Thankyou my love)

julieslefttoe her hiatus has ended y’all🤭

charlessssluvrrrr her and Alexandra interacting is genuinely my favorite thing ever🥰

y/nhiroseswardrobe Y/N please post more pics with your incredible outfits🥹

adrianstoofine she’s such a W

Scrolling through her Instagram comments made her feel a litttle happy, with Julianna being so famous, it wasn’t odd to see all her fans being so nice to her. Her peace got interrupted by Julie calling her name.

“You called my name?” Y/N says stepping out of the room, “Well, since you’re leaving, we’d thought that maybe we could make something together and just watch a movie” Adriana speaks, a smile adorning her face, “Princess and the Pauper!!” Adriana’s toddler, Suzette speaks up excitedly clapping her hands, “Well if Suzu wants to watch Barbie, then Barbie it is” Julianna says lifting the little girl up causing her to let out a squeal.

adriann.a posted a story

seen by charles_leclerc, y.n.hirose, julie_hirose , and 70,000 others

The rest of the night was spent well, jokes were traded, all the food Y/N had made was conquered. Adriana had gone to sleep as Suzu had started to get cranky, leaving just Julie and Y/N. As the two girls were tyding up, Julie said what had been on her mind.

“Y/N listen, I just wanted to say that I’m so proud of the person that you have become you’re so grown and independent and I could never be more proud to call you my younger sister. I just want to say that no matter where you are in the world, me or Adriana? I’m only one call away and don’t be afraid because this is a big step in your life and we’re here to support you through it no matter how much it hurts us and I know that it’s gonna be hard but mom would’ve been so proud of you. We all are.” Julie says cleaning the kitchen counter.

“Julie!? Did my food poisoning you? because why are you being so nice to me all of a sudden” Y/N says dramatically checking Julie’s temperatire warning her a shove. “ this is the last time I’m being supportive of you that one time I decide to be nice and you take advantage of that, so is the last time so live in the moment” she says rolling her eyes, “Thankyou Julie, I love you” Y/N says hugging the taller girl tightly, “I love you too sis, now you have a flight at the crack of dawn tomorrow, so don’t worry about cleaning I got it, just go get some sleep alright?” Julie says pushing Y/N into her room, “Goodnight Julie” she mutters, earning her response.

Once she was done with her skincare, she slipped on her silk pajama as she laid in bed overthinking her decision, is this the right decision, am I doing the right thing, what is this is a mistake?

She groans into her pillow as sleep overtakes her body, with many things she wasn’t sure about, there was one thing she was sure about and that was “Madrid, here I come” she says before sleep finally overtakes her body.

[problems-exe]

Question for Lu and Prim, how did they become friends?

Hi!! Thank you so much for the question omg, I am always so excited to talk about them, haha. I'm so happy that people are as interested in them as I am!!

Also sorry that this reply is a bit long pfftsgaha

I've hidden it under the cut!! :D

The way they became friends is a bit complicated, but essentially, Prim first came across Lu when they were around 23, and she was 20. One night, Prim had decided to go do some graffiti in a random au, sitting on top of a building. While painting, the Bad Sanses showed up to cause some chaos.

Prim had frozen, feeling conflicted on whether they should step in and do something or not. After all, they likely had more skill in fighting than anyone else in this au did. But, at the same time, they knew the Star Sanses would step in at some point. Their decision was made for them when the Star Sanses appeared whilst Prim was mid thought.

Prim decided that maybe they could stay and watch the fight. Just for a few minutes. It was dark out, and they blended well into their environment. There was no way they would be spotted, right? At this point, it had been 12 years since Prim had seen any of the Star Sanses, so you can't blame them for being atleast a little bit curious.

They were surprised to see that there was seemingly a new member of the Star Sanses, one they had never seen before. And that's where Lu comes in.

Prim was completely shocked. For multiple reasons. But mostly because it was obvious to them that this was another outcode kid. And they hadn't known that there was another one of them within this multiverse. They ended up watching the fight for longer than they had intended. They were pulled out of their shock by a large object hitting the building they were residing on, an attack from one of the Star Sanses. The building started to collapse, and this is when Killer noticed them. Calling out that they had an observer.

This got the Star Sanses attention, including Lu's, who was just as shocked to have seen Prim as Prim was to see her. Lu had heard of Prim, of course. Not much, since the Stars seemed to avoid the topic as much as possible, but she did know about them. She never got to meet them before they seemingly went missing, going to live with Reaper.

Prim disappeared before they got the chance to talk.

Prim starts to be a bit less careful when traveling aus. Traveling to ones they know could be attacked at any point, or ones that the Star Sanses had seemingly full protection of. They weren't going to admit it to themselves, but a part of them did want to see the Star Sanses again. And apart of that, was their curiosity involving Lu.

Weeks later, after the fight, they find Lu alone. Sitting on top of a building in a mostly positive au, one that Dream frequents often. One that Dream had brought them to as a kid.

The two of them talk. Despite having fairly different personalities, they get along well.

It was nice for both of them to have that solidarity of both being outcode kids.

They became, not quite friends, but acquaintances, and Lu promised to not tell Dream that she'd seen them. As long as Prim would visit. It wasn't to blackmail them. If Prim had disagreed, she'd keep their secret anyway. But she wanted to get to know them better. And this seemed like as good of an excuse as any.

And so, they made a schedule. Meeting at the same place every time and talking, eventually becoming actual genuine friends. They keep meeting eachother even after the original deal isn't needed anymore. They find that they enjoy eachother's company quite a lot, and really wouldn't mind having the other stick around.

They love eachother alot :)

Thank you so much again for the question!! I know this has a lot of exposition but I hope it answered it properly!!!

[distant-velleity]

Throwing Him a Bone

Summary: Main Story Book 1 - the very first scene where Ace comes to Ramshackle, but with my Yuusona. Word count: 1.4k+ A/N: Okay. Um. Once again not my finest work but it's super fun to write silly stuff like this. Yu normally puts up a nice, shy facade but Ace has managed to speedrun ticking him off, and it really shows haha. They'll get used to each other eventually. There's a slight reference to this scene but it's really not that important. Enjoy lol <3

~

In theory, Yu should’ve flopped onto his bed and been out like a light. After a long day of meeting students, getting dragged into trouble, and narrowly avoiding the consequences of mages’ actions, he should have slept like a rock until the next morning. A slightly worn mattress and thin blankets that would definitely be the death of him in the winter should have been enough to keep him sound asleep.

Instead, he finds himself waking up at an unknown time in the dead of night, his uneasy awakening triggered by a series of distressed knocks on the door. 

Yu doesn’t move. Stranger danger, and all that.

The knocks pause for a moment, waiting for a response, and then continue with more anger to them this time. They’re accompanied by shouts—“Hello? Is anyone in there? Dude, you gotta let me in!”

Even though he recognizes the voice, Yu still hesitates. Ramshackle is so structurally unsound that he can almost imagine the entire dormitory shaking; it’s probably in his best interest to go downstairs and nip the problem in the bud. At the same time, he was trying to get some beauty sleep after a long day of incidents caused by a certain someone.

A System notification opens up before him—

[ MAIN MISSION — “Sheltered Beneath the Rosebushes” 

OBJECTIVE: ACE needs to talk with you. Hear him out and make your choice. ]

Fuck. 

As the rapid knocking starts up again, Yu curses under his breath and hauls himself off the bed. He pads down the stairs barefoot, hoping to get this over with quickly. 

“I hope he at least makes this worth my time,” he mutters, and then opens the door to see Ace with what looks like a giant collar around his neck. “...What the fuck?”

Ace grimaces, shifting his weight awkwardly from one foot to the other. “Hey, can you let me in already? I’ve been out here for a while, you know…!”

Yu crosses his arms. “I thought you had a dorm of your own.”

“That’s why I’m here! Look—listen…” Ace places a hand against the doorframe, gesturing angrily with his other one. “I absolutely can’t go back to Heartslabyul House. It’s insane there! You gotta let me join your dorm!”

“I’m not even a student, how are you gonna—” Yu blinks. “Come again?”

“I’ll explain once I’m inside, okay?”

Seriously, Yu doesn’t know how to feel about this guy. First he pulls up with a slick, nice-guy attitude—then gets them all stuck on cafeteria cleaning duty—and then pushes Deuce’s buttons even further at the dwarves’ mine… and now this? 

You’d think he’d learn already…

Yu steps aside reluctantly. “Not gonna lie, you’re really testing my patience here…”

“Uh, yeah. Sorry about that,” replies Ace as he enters, not sounding very sorry. Still, he rubs his wrist as if he can still feel Yu holding it in a death grip. 

The door is closed, and Ace slumps onto the couch openly like he owns the place. Yu gives him the side-eye and sits on the armchair across from him, feeling weirdly like an underpaid therapist.

“So.” Ace, slouching and resting his arms on his knees, lets out a long-suffering sigh. “I got this collar thing from my housewarden. It’s his signature spell or something, and it stops me from using magic.”

“Okay,” Yu says, because a world where Ace can’t use magic seems like a wonderfully peaceful one. And he’s not really sure what to do with the sudden exposition.

Ace shakes his head. “Not okay! Dude, I got this for eating a tart. A tart!”

“You… ate a tart.” Yu opens his mouth, closes it because that does sound a little unfair at first, and then reconsiders. “Elaborate?”

“See, I was a little hungry…”

--

Ace tiptoed down the stairs to the kitchen, holding his stomach and glancing around to make sure the coast was clear. He was, in basic terms, fucking starving after the chaotic first day he’d had, and desperately needed a snack after missing dinner entirely. 

“Nailed it,” he whispered as he snuck into the kitchen, making a beeline for the fridge. “Okay, fridge. Whaddya got here…”

As soon as he opened the fridge door, his eyes widened like saucers. Three whole tarts, decorated with artistic precision, sat right in front of him. The fruit toppings shone like jewels, buried amongst snowy mountains of whipped cream.

“Whoa…” Ace couldn’t stop his jaw from dropping. “There’s so many…! No one would notice if I snagged a slice, right? Haha. ‘Course not.”

And so, with that one-track thought process, he stuffed a whole piece into his mouth. 

It was—to put it simply—delicious. He didn’t consider himself a food connoisseur of any kind, but the combination of fruit, cream, and crust was simply divine.

“My Seven,” he muttered, “I think I’m in pastry paradise right now…”

He was too busy falling in love with the tart to notice the presence behind him, brimming with anger.

“Of course they’re good,” remarked a lofty and refined but firm voice. “Trey made them. His tarts are always exceptional.”

“Yeah, no kidding! These are crazy good—I’m talking ‘so good he could sell them at’—” Ace realized, suddenly, what it meant for him that he wasn’t alone. Slowly snapping out of his reverie, he turned around. “H…Housewarden?!”

Cold grey eyes burned holes into his soul. “You dare touch something of mine… If nothing else, you certainly have an abundance of audacity.” Although he was still in sleepwear, he pulled out his magic pen, and it extended into his signature heart-topped scepter immediately. “But the Queen of Hearts’ rule 89 leaves no room for exceptions: ‘Never eat a tart without the Queen’s permission.’ The theft of tarts is a serious crime, do you understand?”

Ace knew what was going to happen immediately, stomach sinking with dread. “Wait, wait—c’mon, Housewarden, hear me out—”

“ 『Off With Your Head』 !” 

“BWAAAAAH!!!”

--

“—and now we’re here,” grumbles Ace. He looks up and winces at Yu’s unimpressed expression.

“You literally told me earlier this afternoon that the Queen of Hearts places a heavy emphasis on rules,” Yu recalls, “and then—not even a day later—you go ahead and break the simplest one?”

“It was one slice, Yu. One slice! I lost my magic over a slice of tart! From three whole tarts that he couldn’t have eaten by himself!”

Yu frowns. “I think the main takeaway is that you’re both awful. Did you even apologize?”

Ace pauses, and then deflates. “No, but… c’mon, I was expecting you to be more sympathetic. I’m a victim of injustice!”

“Um. Right. I think the situation will blow over if you just… apologize. Not right now, obviously, but tomorrow.” When he gets a look, he rolls his eyes. “I’ve yet to hear you give anyone a proper apology. At least be the bigger person and make things right.”

“Alright, alright. Fine, I should probably apologize,” Ace concedes. “But you’re coming with me, got it? Since it was your idea.”

“I can’t believe you need a chaperone,” mutters Yu. “Okay, whatever.”

“Anyway, back to my original point, can I crash here for the night?”

Yu stares at him like he’s grown a second head.

“Pretty please, with a cherry on top?” Ace clasps his hands together. “There’s no way I can go back to my dorm tonight wearing the collar of shame. You wouldn’t let me sleep outside in the cold, would you?”

Unfortunately, that’s true. Yu would feel bad, even if he did it out of spite; and he’s far too familiar with the embarrassing feeling of having to crawl back ‘home’ after being punished. “Crewel cleaned up the lounge and my bedroom, but didn’t put as much effort in the other sleepable areas,” he points out. “Your options are kinda limited.”

Ace pulls out the puppy-dog eyes. “Won’t you just let me stay with you? I’m real slim, Yu—I won’t take up a whole lotta space. Pleeease?”

“Wh—” Yu cannot express the visceral disgust that shoots through him. “Dude, we just met. Keep it in your pants.” 

“Huh—?”

“The couch,” Yu says plainly, standing up. “You’re sleeping on the couch. And you’d better stay there—no funny business, or I’m gonna beat you up now that you can’t threaten me with magic.”

Ace huffs. “Geez, you’re so harsh on me… Guess I gotta pick the lesser of two evils, though. Sofa it is.” He starts shrugging off his blazer. “G’night.”

“Uh-huh. See you in the morning.”

With that over with, Yu trudges back up the stairs—hoping that he’ll actually get some sleep this time around, and hoping that the morning will bring significantly less trouble to his doorstep.

[artemisia-black]

I really love your Black family metas and over the years I’ve definitely become more interested in the family than I was when I first read the books. I always thought that Regulus was very interesting to me, because canonically we know very little about him, but ofc fandom has taken that to mean he can be either very softened or turned into a Death Eater at like age 11(I’ve read both of these lol). Anyway, I was wondering what you thought about how Regulus came to join up with the Death Eaters. I know a lot of people try to have him be forced into it(I think as a way to excuse his actions), but there’s no real evidence for that, and also in order for him to have a redemption arc(of a sort)- he needs to have done something wrong lol. I always thought that it was a mix of Regulus genuinely being interested in the DE’s and also Bellatrix(and perhaps Malfoy) seeing that interest and grasping onto it. So there could have been some manipulation involved for sure and peer pressure going on, but joining the Death Eaters was also something that Regulus did seem like he was interested in. Not to mention he literally has news clippings about Lord Voldemort hung up around his room- which Reg? Buddy? You good? He’s not James where you would probably have to like erase his mind to get him to join Voldemort’s side. Rather I think he was someone who already showed an interest/fascination in what Lord Voldemort was doing and this would make it easier for Bellatrix to use that to get him to join(and I wouldn’t be surprised if she used his parents as leverage too-like “This could make them proud,”). So I really do love him and I do think that there was some form of pressure/manipulation involving his joining of the Death Eaters, but I also think a lot of it was his own idea and that’s where he would need a redemption arc, because he did some bad stuff before his death. Also I’m sorry this is so long- I just have so many feelings about this subject 😂

I also don't see him as being forced into it. During Kreacher's exposition speech he literally says that Regulus joined willingly:

"he knew what was due to the name of Black and the dignity of his pure blood. For years he talked of the Dark Lord, who was going to bring the wizards out of hiding to rule the Muggles and the Muggle-borns . . . and when he was sixteen years old, Master Regulus joined the Dark Lord. So proud, so proud, so happy to serve."

So Regulus was talking about joining the Deatheaters for years before he actually did and had clearly bought into the surface-level ideology. It's interesting that Kreacher also includes 'muggles' and not just muggle-borns, so Regulus was fully up for a complete world takeover, not just a 'reform' of the wizarding world's intake policies.

I also don't think his parent's forced him. Even Sirius, who claims to 'hate the lot of them,' can't bring himself to actually call them Deatheaters. Although he does say that their pureblood ideologies primed Regulus for Deatheater recruitment. And going back to Regulus being 'happy to serve,' I think the proud and haughty Blacks would have been horrified at that alone.

I'm not sure if you're reading my WIP Pietas, but this quote (get me quoting myself haha) summarises what I think set Regulus up on his destructive path:

‘Of course, father,’ Regulus said, returning the smile as his pulse quickened in anticipation. He had been dreaming of this moment for years, the endless possibilities chasing each other around his head as he replied with a simple, ‘I am keen to hear both yours and grandfather’s plans for me.’

Orion nodded returning his goblet to the table, ‘Well, you will of course be expected to achieve both excellent OWL and NEWT results,’ he paused and allowed Regulus to nod.

Orion’s voice softened and he indulged in yet another smile, ‘And in the meantime, we will procure you a wife from an excellent family.’

Regulus nodded once more, despite the desire to question his father bubbling inside him. The anticipation becoming almost intolerable as it caused his heart to beat uncomfortably fast. The moments seemed to stretch into infinity, as he silently willed his father to continue talking.

‘As for your long-term future,’ Orion began, once more pausing to eat as Regulus suppressed the urge to throw a Sirius-esque tantrum.

‘Your grandfather Arcturus and I, feel a Black is needed at Hogwarts. As in recent years, that school has allowed too many dangerous ideas to fester and corrupt children from pureblood families.’

 His eyes pierced Regulus as they continued. ‘You will help tamper the nonsense down and one day you will become headmaster.’

As his father finished, Regulus took a large gulp of his wine and almost spluttered as his thoughts chattered over each other.

Disappointment clanged through him, leaving a hollow feeling in his chest. He had been hoping to help with his family’s political dealings. He had yearned to dedicate his life to something that would aide in bringing wizards out of hiding and help his family take their rightful place on the world stage. He had dreamed of the day when wizards could openly use magic and their superiority was acknowledged by all.

Annoyance rose in his chest, but determined to not act like his brother, he willed his emotions into check.'

I basically interpret him as someone who feels superior but lives in his brother's shadow. But is equally as determined and intense as his brother (the Note is as feisty as anything Sirius would write) and puts his beliefs into action. I interpret his defection as being about the Horcruxes rather than because he suddenly got all woke about muggles. I have a meta about souls here.

Also, his Voldy mood board can be interpreted as him intelligence gathering after finding out about Horcruxes- it's described as 'ragged', which is a contrast to the rest of his room (also Sirius gathers intelligence in a similar way in Gof). Or it could be that he walked into the DE's knowing full well what they were about and did so willingly because he was willing to spill blood for his ideals.

I love chatting about Regulus- so thanks for this :D

[the-girl-in-the-box]

Not Today II

A/N: Hi! So, we’ve got a bit of exposition in this chapter, but I really wanted to explore Aethelind’s response to what has happened in Kattegat, and Ivar’s hand in it, as well as something of a refresher on the situation and a brief explanation to make this readable for anyone unfamiliar with Vikings! I hope this hasn’t made this chapter too boring, and that it will still be enjoyable even if it’s dealing with material we’re probably familiar with! We’ll be getting back to new territory with the next chapter, so until then- skål, and I’ll see you next week! (Taglist at the end!)

Summary: When Ivar takes the throne of Kattegat, Lagertha flees to Wessex along with Björn, Ubbe, Torvi, and the Bishop Heahmund. There, they seek the aid of King Alfred. This aid comes in the form of his sister, Aethelind, who agrees to travel to Kattegat and try to reason Ivar, who she spent some time with during their youth, when her grandfather King Ecbert hosted Ragnar Lothbrok in their castle. Now, she is the only hope for Lagertha and her supporters to retake Kattegat from Ivar the Boneless.

Masterlist

—

It hadn’t taken long for Aethelind to go and find the Vikings. She knew her brother would have questions, and if she wanted his support in supporting Lagertha, she was going to need answers for him. Answers that, truthfully, would only come from her Viking guests. Aethelind figured it would be smarter to get those answers before she saw her brother.

Lagertha, Björn, Ubbe, and Torvi were all congregated in Lagertha’s chambers, trying to make a plan concerning Kattegat, when there was a knock on the door. The four looked up, then to each other, sharing a suspicious glance amongst themselves as Lagertha called out, “Who is there?”

"It is Aethelind,” a gentle voice replied, and the Vikings shared a look of relief as Lagertha called for her to enter. It was true that they didn’t trust anyone there in Wessex very much, but watching the way Aethelind came into the room, the idea of trusting her- at least a little- became a bit more bearable. And really, did they have any other choice?

Aethelind offered each of them a warm smile. “I wanted to apologize for my brother,” she began. “He worries for our kingdom, but I believe there is no reason we cannot protect our people, and help our friends. So, I would like to formally welcome you back to the Kingdom of Wessex. It’s an honor to have you here.”

“You are very generous, Princess,” Lagertha replied politely, and stood to go and greet Aethelind properly. “And we are very grateful. You have already done more than we hoped you might.”

Aethelind shook her head, taking Lagertha’s hands in her own. “I cannot begin to imagine what you have been through,” she said. “I’m sure this is quite the least we can do to help, but I promise you, I will speak to my brother about doing more.”

Lagertha squeezed her hands slightly. “Thank you, Your Highness,” she said. “It is true, we have been through… very much, lately.”

“Would you be horribly affronted if I asked you to sort of… elaborate on this for me? Before today, the last I had heard of the sons of Ragnar was that they had killed my grandfather, King Aelle. But now…” She paused, and turned to Björn and Ubbe. “I have two of those sons as guests in my villa. I think it’s time I heard your story.”

Aethelind released Lagertha’s hands and gestured for her to sit once again, before seating herself between Björn and Ubbe. But neither man had the chance to explain before Torvi, Ubbe’s wife, was speaking up.

“You do not hate them for killing your grandfather?” the doe-eyed blonde asked Aethelind, looking across at the woman who had sat on Björn’s other side.

Aethelind’s eyes widened and she felt her cheeks darkening a bit as blood rushed into them at Torvi’s question. “He had a… predisposition to cruelty, and I knew he had killed Ragnar,” she managed. “I suppose I just… understood.”

“And… this had nothing to do with Ivar?” Ubbe asked. Aethelind’s cheeks reddened further, betraying the answer before she could even say anything. She found herself wishing he weren’t so perceptive. “He spoke of you when he returned, as I mentioned before. You must have been close to him.”

Aethelind sighed, and nodded a bit. “I… confess, I did hope my grandfather’s death might bring him some peace,” she admitted.

“Ivar has never had peace,” Björn said. “He is too violent a man for that.”

Aethelind’s brow creased thoughtfully for a few moments, before she shook her head. “He was not violent when I knew him,” she countered. “He was vastly intelligent, I could tell that much without even understanding so much as a word he said. We used to play chess, and we’d play together and beat my brother. But when my brother did win, he was never given to anger. He was always so gentle… How could such a sweet boy have become such a violent man?”

"He was always cruel,” Ubbe said. “Wickedly smart, but cruel all the same. It adds to his violence.”

The look on Aethelind’s face made Torvi’s chest ache, and she turned to whisper to Ubbe, “Let her breathe. This must be quite a shock to hear. We know he’s good at presenting himself however he chooses, and she didn’t exactly know him for very long. Give her a moment.”

Ubbe nodded, and soon all attention was on Aethelind, who took a deep breath and then looked up. “How did you come to be here, then?” she finally asked.

She had expected that Ubbe would be the one to explain, but he didn’t. Instead, it was Lagertha who spoke. “I killed the Queen, Aslaug,” she confessed. “Neither my son, nor any of hers, agreed with what I had done, but they all chose to respond to the change of power in very different ways. Björn, of course, stayed with me, but-”

“I joined Ivar in going to make an attempt on her life,” Ubbe suddenly broke in. “She had killed our mother, after luring myself and our brother, Sigurd, away to keep us from protecting her. Sigurd was unmoved by our mother’s death, but I only gave up on my pursuit of revenge because Björn asked that Ivar and I spare Lagertha.”

“I did not ‘ask’ you not to kill her,” Björn countered. “I told you, you would have to kill me if you wanted to kill my mother. You conceded then, Ivar did not.”

“And where was Ivar?” Aethelind asked. “I can’t imagine he would have just… let his mother be killed, not without at least trying to stop it.”

“He was still here in Wessex, or perhaps on his way home, when our mother was killed,” Ubbe answered her. “He returned with news of our father’s death, only to be given news of our mother’s.”

Aethelind swallowed hard, and asked, “So you, Ivar, and your brother Sigurd all lost both your parents in quick succession?”

"And Hvitserk,” Ubbe added. “Our other brother. He agreed with Sigurd, and took no action against Lagertha.”

Aethelind nodded, going over all the information she had in her head so far. So, Björn, Ubbe, Hvitserk, Sigurd, and Ivar were the sons of Ragnar. Björn was Lagertha’s son, and Ubbe, Hvitserk, Sigurd, and Ivar were Aslaug’s. When Lagertha killed Aslaug, Björn supported her (though he didn’t approve of the action), Hvitserk and Sigurd remained neutral, and Ubbe and Ivar attempted to avenge their mother. Ubbe, however, conceded, while Ivar wouldn’t. This was all very complicated, in her opinion.

With all this straightened out in her mind, Aethelind asked, “So where was Hvitserk, then, if not with Aslaug?”

“In the Mediterranean, with me,” Björn answered. “We all returned to find my mother was the Queen of Kattegat.”

“I see,” Aethelind replied. “And now? Where are he and Sigurd? And Torvi, where were you during all of this?”

An awkward silence fell over the Vikings, and they all looked to each other. Eventually, Torvi told Aethelind, “I was with Lagertha. I am her right hand.”

Aethelind nodded, but the awkwardness had not yet gone away. “And… Sigurd?” she prompted. A feeling of dread settled in her stomach.

“Sigurd is dead,” Ubbe finally answered.

And so, her suspicions were correct. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she said gently. “Did… did he die in this war?”

Ubbe sighed and shook his head. “He provoked Ivar at a feast,” he said. “And Ivar threw an axe. It killed him almost immediately. A few steps, and then…” He gestured in a way as to show someone falling over. “He was dead.”

Aethelind swallowed hard, and let her eyes slip shut. “Good Lord,” she whispered, before her eyes opened again. “I’m so sorry to hear this. I can’t even begin to imagine…”

“We really fell apart then,” Ubbe said. “Hvitserk chose to stay with Ivar in York, and we didn’t see either of them again until they came for Kattegat.”

"We won that battle,” Lagertha interjected then, and Aethelind found her attention being pulled to the woman. “At great cost, but we won.” She paused, taking a deep breath. “And then Ivar joined forces with King Harald Finehair, and Rollo, his uncle, who brought him Frankish support.”

“And… they won,” Aethelind surmised, her voice soft. “Is that when you came here?”

Lagertha nodded, looking to the ground, and Björn put a hand on her back. “Rollo helped us escape Kattegat,” she told Aethelind. “And Heahmund brought us here.”

“I’m glad he did,” Aethelind said definitively. “You’re all safe, now, I can assure you of this. And I will be talking to Alfred. What happened to you… It was wrong. Alfred and I will come up with a plan to help you return home, I’m sure of it. You deserve no less.”

None of the Vikings had expected this response from the Princess. They’d figured out that once, she and Ivar had been close. Or, close enough, at least. Close enough she’d seen fit to quickly ask after him, once realizing the relation, and close enough that Ivar had spoken of her. So to hear her speak in opposition of him…

“What about Ivar?” Torvi asked. Somehow, she couldn’t quite wrap her head around what might could even be called a betrayal of the Boneless King.

Aethelind sighed sadly, and shrugged, shooting a weak smile to Torvi. “I don’t believe he is the same boy I once knew. Whatever happened once he left here… That boy is gone. Isn’t he?”

Ubbe shifted at her question, drawing the room’s attention to him as he leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, and drew his brows together thoughtfully. “I don’t know,” he eventually confessed. “But if he is not… He is buried beneath years of anger, and pain, and hatred. I have not seen the boy he once was before our father died, and I doubt he will show that side again. I hope something will bring that boy back, I just…” He finally sat up a little, looking to Aethelind. “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

Aethelind nodded, swallowing. She turned back to Torvi and asked, “Then what about Ivar? He has changed beyond recognition. My heart aches for the loss of him, but my mind knows I must move forward. No, it isn’t the easiest thing to do. I will mourn the boy I knew. But this new Ivar sounds so different… I’m not even sure I can see him as the same person. And in the end…” She chuckles softly and shrugged. “I only knew him for a few days years ago, anyhow.”

The group chuckled a bit. “You say all this now,” Björn commented. “But you have not faced him yet. It is easy to have such little concern until you are confronted with the issue. We will see if you still feel so unworried about Ivar then.”

Aethelind felt a weight settle in her chest. Björn was right, and she knew it. All this talk was all well and good, but looking in Ivar’s eyes… Would she be ready to stand against him still?

She wasn’t sure she had the answer.

Taglist: @youbloodymadgenius, @wilhelmyna, @katfett, @fangirl-nonsense, @zuzus-sun, @heavenly1927

If you want to be added to the taglist, feel free to reach out either by commenting, reblogging, DMing me, or sending an ask, and I’ll be more than happy to add you! 

[lovelivingmydreams]

A story by heroes and vilains

Virgil Anker: Confrontation

Virgil hates confrontation. That is probably why it took him until now to talk to Janus. And even now it can’t be avoided any longer, he wants to.

When he saw Roman again the next day, he was momentarily speechless.

When he said he’d try out wearing his flag, Virgil hadn’t expected him to do this. The theatre kid entered the classroom with rainbow hair and a rainbow backpack slung over his shoulder, his red varsity jacket open, showing off his matching rainbow shirt. Roman locked eyes with him and strode over to his desk with an excited grin, sitting down on top of it. “You are extremely extra any chance you get aren’t you?” Virgil chuckled. Come to think of it, he really should have expected this. “I am,” Roman agreed, proud of it, as he took off his jacket. Virgil smiled as he saw the writing. Gay Disney Prince indeed. “Well it looks good on you,” he told him honestly. It did. It was like he was glowing. “Why thank you, mi caballero guapo.” Before Virgil could begin to decipher that, their homeroom teacher walked in and Roman took his seat. The second they were handed their schedules, Roman compared them with a growing smile. “We have almost every class together!” he exclaimed, sounding about as happy about it as Virgil felt. This year was looking better and better with every minute. “Aside from our electives that is. Why am I not surprised you’re taking drawing classes? Though you don’t really need the extra help. You are amazing as you are. Which reminds me. Did you think about sending in your designs?” Virgil didn’t really have the chance to react to anything Roman just said, and when he did, he wasn’t capable of it. Roman had been leaning over to read Virgil’s schedule and hadn’t moved away while ranting, and now he looked up and Virgil could feel his breath on his face. Roman quickly sat up with a sheepish grin. “Sorry. Got a bit ahead of myself there.” Virgil looked away to hide his emberasment. He played with the edges of his hoodie for a moment. He knew he was blushing and that his foundation wasn’t covering it up anymore. Why had he let Picani and the counselors convince him to slowly build off the amount he put on every morning? Sure it was part of letting others in and all that stuff. But he was still nervous about it. Blushes and freckles and heaven forbid any sort of tan hadn’t been seen by anyone other than his dads in ages. Even uncle Thomas hardly saw him without make up on. And J… Well, it’d been a while for him too. Start of last year come to think of it. The last time he’d stayed over at his place for a night. It was a thing that just happened sometimes, when they were too lazy to go home. They both had a bag of stuff in the other’s house for just such occasions. Those days of having so much fun that hanging out just evolved in staying over were something he’d missed a lot. And part of him still hoped they’d come back soon. That Janus had woken up and was back to his old self. “No problem…” he assured Roman, forcing himself not to dwell on those thoughts. Instead he thought about the answer to his question. “Well… I don’t know. You really think he’d want it?” he checked, looking up to read Roman’s face. “Are you kidding?” Roman exclaimed with a look as if the answer was the most obvious thing in the world. “If I were forced in that atrocious ‘crime against fashion’ as you adequately called it, I’d be wishing on every star for a new outfit. And what you have drawn up. It’s not just an answer to his every prayer, it’s the most awesome costume he could ever hope for.” Virgil felt a corner of his mouth lift and looked away again. “Alright… I’ll send it in… But with some adjustments and under an alias,” he insisted. He wasn’t sure how his dad would feel about him restyling the city’s newest hero. “How about Dante?” Roman offered. Virgil did his best not to show how happy that choice made him. He’d gotten the reference. He knew the book. Of course he did. He was a theatre nerd. He was bound to know the classics right? Virgil nodded. “Sounds good,” he agreed. When the door opened Virgil had actually been in the process of taking out his sketchbook to show Roman the finished design, but then the teacher spoke and he immediately found every nerve in his body on edge. Not a great reaction to have when hearing your life long best friend’s name. Virgil couldn’t make himself look at Janus. He’d promised himself over and over again that he’d face him head on when the time came. Principal Stokes had warned him that they were in the same homeroom. But once class started he’d foolishly hoped that they managed to move him in another group after all and had just forgotten to tell him. He should’ve realized he was just late.

Before he knew it, Janus was in front of the desk. “Move, that’s my seat,” he said through gritted teeth. What had him so agitated? He’d taken peace with Virgil sitting next to Roman last year right? Why was he back to being a jerk about it? Sure he’d never liked it, but hadn’t he learned his lesson about telling Virgil who he could and couldn’t sit with? “De ninguna manera,” Roman replied, leaning back in his chair with a confident smirk. Virgil wracked his brain. He’d just told Janus, “No way,” if he remembered correctly. Roman had never talked Spanish for no good reason before though. Was this because Virgil asked about it? Some kind of learning by exposition? “You want to sit with the coolest kid in school? Get here on time.” And then he has to go ahead and say that. Roman definitely did not know the power he held over Virgil’s mood. Hearing Roman say that, without a hint of doubt or insincerity, made Virgil a lot more confident about what he had to do today. Roman Castile had his back, and a lot of other people too. People liked him. He had to remember that. “Excuse me?” Virgil’s eyes widened as he saw that Janus raised his fist. He’d never seen him actually hit anyone. He’d threatened to do it a few times. But never in front of a teacher. Had he lost his mind? “Mr. Bullard! Seat! Now!”

Janus’ gaze moved from Roman to Virgil, waiting for him to say something. Too bad for him, Virgil wasn’t going to say what he wanted to hear.

“You heard the teacher Jan. Just go.” After a few moments of disbelieving silence Janus went to sit at the empty desk on Virgil’s other side. Luckily there was a bit of open space between them. “Good,” the teacher sighed as she continued her class. “As I was saying, I hope the rest of the year will go without any more incidents like yesterday. Mr. Anker, Mr. Castile, I speak for the whole school when I say that we are happy to see you two are back and unfazed by yesterday’s incident.” “Thank you Mrs. Foster,” Virgil muttered a little embarrassed by the attention. He just hoped some different type of gossip would grab everyone’s attention soon. And maybe it already had. Roman’s coming out might distract a little from what happened yesterday. “I wouldn’t dream of depriving you of my radiant presence for another day,” Roman jested, stealing the show effortlessly as usual. Virgil joined his classmates in their laughter, feeling himself relax. The bell rang and Roman and Virgil were among the first to leave the class. Janus, luckily, had to stay back to get his schedule.

Virgil was happy to find that Roman’s locker wasn’t that far from his. “Where are we headed next?” Roman asked while he was collecting his things. “Um…” Virgil muttered as he dug in his backpack. He was pretty sure he knew the schedule by heart already, but they had enough time to make sure. The second Virgil confirmed their destination, the paper was snatched out of his hand. “Hey!” he exclaimed turning around to find Janus studying his schedule. He looked very unhappy.

Virgil was angry enough not to worry about that. His attitude from earlier and now combined made him not feel sorry for the cold shower Janus was going to get once he learned the full truth. “How can we have no classes together? I thought we were going to take sociology?” And he just pissed him off even more. “No!” he snatched the paper back, surprising Janus. When their eyes met he could see surprise shift to hurt confusion. “You were. I tried to tell you that I wanted to do art, and you didn’t listen. Like usual.” And that was all he was going to say about it right now. He was so mad at himself for hoping today would go well after that stupid text. He always got him like that. But this back and forth was hurting him. Hurting others. He couldn’t let it continue. “We’re in building C. Let’s go,” he told Roman, who nodded, collected his last things and starting to follow him to class. Staying out of the argument, like Virgil had asked him last year. “Virge, come on!” Janus was blocking his path, looking at him pleadingly. Looking like the real Janus. No. It’s a trick. Or not a trick maybe. But it wasn’t… He couldn’t back down now. “You are mad, I get it, I’m sorry okay?” Virgil felt his heart clench. It had been a while since he’d said sorry like that. But saying sorry, while a good step, was only a start. He and Picani had made a list of things that needed to happen before Virgil could start letting Janus back into his life. If ever. “Can’t we talk about this? We always work things out,” he pleaded  and Virgil flinched. He wanted to. He really did. Not here and not now though. He had to do this. For both of them. They both needed some space. “My decision is final J. I’m done enabling your behavior. I thought I was helping you out, but I was making it worse. I can’t protect you anymore… You are right. Sometimes we have to do what’s best for us. And for me, that is not being around you anymore.” Please, please let it be now. Virgil wished. He didn’t, he was reaching out, and once more, Virgil found himself looking at Roman’s back. “He’s asking you to back off. Give him some space.” He sounded soothing. He wasn’t trying to taunt Janus. Just to diffuse the situation. Janus didn’t see it that way. With a loud bang, Roman was pushed against the lockers, making Virgil flinch. This wasn’t good. He could feel his self-control slipping. He couldn’t have an attack right now. He hated that he’d taken a pill yesterday. If he hadn’t then he might have allowed himself to take one today. Now he was going to lose it in the middle of the hallway and… “Stay out of it Chapero!” This was followed by another bang. Virgil looked up and was surprised to find Roman was now the one holding Janus against the lockers. He looked livid. “You better not know what you just called me,” he warned. Janus grinned at him, clearly feeling vindicated for some reason. “I don’t say anything I don’t mean. Payaso.” Virgil had to put a stop to this. He wouldn’t let Janus taunt Roman into getting in trouble. “Roman! What’s going on? Let him go. Let’s just go to class. Please,” he pleaded, wondering if it would help to lay a hand on his shoulder or make things worse. Roman looked back though and once their eyes met he seemed to calm down. “Sorry. You’re right. We’ll be late,” he sighed, letting go and letting Virgil lead him to their class “Get to class Jan!” Virgil called back. “This isn’t over!” Janus promised, but to Virgil’s relief, he didn’t follow them. Virgil waited until they left building A before he looked over to Roman. He looked really upset. After taking a deep breath to steady his nerves, he carefully laid a hand on Roman’s shoulder. “You okay?” he asked. “I’ll be fine, just pissed off,” Roman assured him before looking at him concerned. “How about you? He was your friend for a long time right?” Virgil sighed sadly. “He lives in the house next to mine. We basically grew up together I guess.” Virgil wasn’t sure if he wanted to smile or cry as he thought back to the countless memories they shared. Janus and his parents had always been a part of his life almost as much as his dad was. “And I tried to protect him from bullies as best I could, you know because of,” he made a gesture to his face. Roman nodded. He understood. “I didn’t realize he isn’t that same kid anymore. I guilted myself into sticking with him. He was my friend, if I didn’t help him who would? He needed me. He stuck with me too. You get the picture,” Virgil shrugged dismissively. Though it was so much more complicated than that. He didn’t want to get into the nuances of his past and his decision now though. There was simply no time. “When he told me to take the same elective as him. I had enough. I told you about the summer camp I went to. What I didn’t mention was that it was a camp where they teach you to stand up for yourself. ‘your needs are important too’ and all that stuff. So when I got home I asked my dad to help me convince the principal to make sure I shared as little classes with him as possible. I felt shitty doing it.” It still felt like a betrayal on his part. “But at camp, I also learned that me tolerating Jan so long isn’t helping him. Mrs. Danvers was on the right path when she separated us last year. We both need to learn be us without the other. And maybe when we’ve figured that out, we can try again.” God he hoped they could try again. He missed his friend. But that might take some time. And the ball was entirely in Janus’ court. Speaking of. How badly had he just messed up with Roman to make him loose his composure like that. “What did he say?” he asked Roman. “Janus likes to brag that he is fluent in Spanish and French. I didn’t know he’d also learned slang.” “He learned slang alright,” Roman scoffed. “I’m pretty sure he was just trying to get a rise out of me, which succeeded.” Roman took a deep breath, calming down considerably. “You sure you want to know?” he asked, much more gentle. “Yes. If it upset you that much, I do,” Virgil said firmly. He wanted to know how mad he had to be with Janus when they inevitably talked later. “Alright. Payaso, means clown,” Roman told him. Clearly he was starting with the less offensive term. Virgil gave him an encouraging nod. “And… Chapero,” Roman’s face when he said the word filled Virgil with dread. It must be really bad. “It means- It refers to my…” Instead of finishing his sentence, he gestured to his coming out shirt. No… “Seriously!?” he growled as he turned, about to tell Janus that he’d have to work twice as hard to make Virgil trust him again now. Because this… This made him want to keep Janus away from his family. What if he’d said something insensitive in front of Logan or Patton? He would not allow it. Suddenly he felt a pull at the back of his hoodie. Stopping him in his tracks. “We can’t be late. Not for him,” Roman reminded Virgil. “You’re right.” There were priorities in his life other than Janus. He could not let him take up a leading role in it any longer if he wanted to heal. Man, he was started to sound like Picani. They arrived in their class and sat themselves at a desk fairly central. Virgil was secretly happy that Roman chose to sit next to him again.

“Well, what do you know? My two favorite boys at one desk. Must be my lucky day!” Virgil looked up. Stacey was sitting on Roman’s desk, subtly respecting Virgil’s personal space while still drawing his attention. He appreciated that. She was good at this flirting thing. “Good morning to you too Stacey.” Roman greeted with a smile. “Hi,” Virgil said casually. “Ro. Guess where we’re going for our date?” Stacey asked excitedly. “No clue,” Roman shrugged as Virgil tried to find a polite way to correct Stacey. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to go on a real date with Stacey yet. It wouldn’t be fair to her to let her think he was. And even though Roman clearly wasn’t into him, he wanted him to know that it wasn’t a real date for some reason. “The art studio! We’re going to go nuts on a blank canvas together. Isn’t that the coolest thing you’ve ever heard?” she gushed. Virgil was kind of flattered that she was so enthusiastic. But still… “Well… It’s basically just hanging out,” he corrected her gently. To his relief Stacey seemed unbothered by that. “Yeah. What did you call it? Vibe check?” she verified. “Something like that,” he nodded to which Stacey started rambling again. “Basically we’re going to roll with it as friends and see if we click romantically while we are pouring our souls out on canvas. No click? No hard feelings.” Before anything else could be said the teacher arrived, sending Stacey to her own seat. After History he had art with Stacey. Connor Grant was everything he had imagined he would be. “Virgil Anker… You won the prize at last year’s exhibition. I see here you never took an art elective, did you follow classes somewhere else?” he wondered warmly. They were all sitting on the floor in the studio and getting to know one another. “Um, well I watched some tutorials and stuff online and took some inspiration from that,” he explained. “No formal training? Well such raw talent… It’ll be a privilege to help you find your way Virgil. Such a gift, deserves to be developed with proper guidance.” Virgil grew flustered at the praise and the cheers and claps he received. No one seemed envious. Grant was full of praise for everyone’s unique talents though, so that could have something to do with it.

After class he walked over to him. “Um, Mr. Grant. I kind of have two questions, if that’s okay?” he asked timidly. “Ask away,” the man smiled warmly.

“Thanks. Um… I kind of made a portfolio of sorts. Would you mind looking at it?” he asked shakily as he handed the binder over to him. “It would be my pleasure,” Mr. Grant assured him. Feeling empowered Virgil pressed forward. “Is… Are we allowed to use the studio after hours for private projects?” he wondered.

“Of course. The muse does not work on any arbitrary schedule set by us. You can always ask me for the key,” he said as he locked the room and handed the key over to him. “What… Really just like that?” “I have a spare should I need it. But I’ll need that one back after your date with Miss Stacey.” Virgil blushed and bit back his protest. It didn’t matter. He had the key, he could get on with his day.

He hurried to his locker, hoping to find Roman there so they could walk to Math together. Roman hadn’t arrived yet. Drama must be running late. Virgil packed his things humming to himself when he suddenly felt an hand grab his shoulder and turn him around roughly. “We need to talk, now,” Janus said, clearly in a hurry. Virgil frowned. He was right, but he wasn’t in the mood to talk anymore.

“Are you going to apologize to Roman?” he bit. “What?” Janus asked baffled. “Or any of the people you’ve tormented over the past year, if not years?” he doubled down. “Because the only way, you and I are ever going to be on speaking terms again is if you stop acting like everything I despise in this world. Which, in case you are unaware, is a narrow minded, homophobic, bully.” Janus looked down, ashamed, and that gave Virgil hope he really shouldn’t be feeling now. “I already told you Janus. I’m done. When you start acting like my friend again, I’d like to have him back. I miss the Janus I’d stick by no matter what. But the guy I’ve seen the past year… I don’t know who that is. All I know is I want him nowhere near my family.” Janus looked up. “Listen, I messed up. I got mad and I just said the worst thing I could think of okay? I know that won’t excuse it. What with your dad and his boyfriend situation…”

Virgil stiffened. His protective instincts fully engaged. “What do you mean…” when did he learn about Patton? Why hadn’t his parents told him? “If you said something to upset Patton or Logan, I swear!” “NO! I didn’t… I promise. I just… Need you to hear me out, like now. I need to tell you something important. Let’s just go somewhere quiet for a bit. Okay? I swear I’ll leave you alone after… Just, please Virgil, I need you to know…” There was a part of Virgil that saw Janus’ desperation and wanted to answer. Wanted to lower his guard and follow him. Help him out. He shook his head. “I can’t Jan. I want to. Trust me, I really want to be friends again. But I know that if I go with you now, things will just go back to how they were and that… I was being suffocated by you. I didn’t feel like me with you anymore. Even when we were just us, I couldn’t fully be myself. I’m sorry. But I’ll listen, once you’ve proven you're over this whole,” he gestured to the general space between them. “Thing where you think you can control my life. It’s not good for me.” He was about to head to his class when he was pulled back and slammed against the locker, hard. He didn’t have time to protect himself. The impact hurt. But he kept his composure. “Damn it Virgil! Just stop being dramatic and come with me!” Virgil heard people gasp and shout around them. He just stared Janus down, to make sure he saw that there was no doubt in his mind when he replied. “No!” “Let him go Bullard!” Virgil looked up surprised. Roman had come. He was happy to see him. But he didn’t want their friendship to start off with Roman thinking he couldn’t take care of himself.

“I’ve got this Roman,” he told him. Roman looked at him, his gaze steady and calm. “I know. But you don’t have to do this alone.” Virgil took a moment to process that. Right. Roman knew he was capable of standing his ground. This? was different from when Janus would try to ‘protect him’. Roman was being supportive. Not controlling. He had not once decided in Virgil’s stead. The closest he’d gotten to that was that one time he’d been openly critical of his friendship with Janus, for which he’d been apologetic right away. Two of Roman’s friends flanked him, one, Kelly, whispering something to him. Roman nodded in acknowledgement. He raised his head, squared his shoulders and spoke clear and decisive. “I’ll ask one more time. Leave him alone.” Virgil barely registered Janus stepping away. He would’ve crashed to the floor if he hadn’t stabilized himself a little with his shield. He was glad that that power was a rather intuitive one, because he never seemed to have time to decide to use it. And catching himself was not an application he would have come up with on his own. He rubbed at his chest where Janus’ arm had pressed into him, speeding up the recovery. “Think you can take me Castile?” Virgil looked up at Janus, he was walking towards Roman arms lifted as if daring him to hit him. What was he doing? This was the opposite of helpful if he wanted… Didn’t he want them to be friends again? Roman wasn’t intimidated. “I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of getting me in trouble,” he replied once Janus came to a stop. “So you’re just talk then huh? Afraid to get your butt kicked in front of everyone? Trying to score easy points with Virgil? Hoping I’ll let you steal him from me that easily?” Was he trying to blame Roman for this? Virgil had worried something like that would happen. Janus clearly thought he had no agency of his own. But still… Had he completely lost his mind? “Trying to repay him in some small way for saving my life yesterday. But none of that is any of your business.” Virgil was in awe of how passionate Roman sounded. “Virgil’s decision to finally break free from you has nothing to do with me, and everything with how you’re treating him. I don’t understand what he saw in you that made him stick around this long. But you took it for granted and now it’s done. Leave him alone.”

Just then, Roman’s other friends, including André, arrived and immediately they all started to tell everyone in the audience to get to their classes. As the crowd disappeared Virgil saw the tension leave most of Janus frame. Though he could see him tap his left hand against his leg, a dead giveaway that he was growing more nervous.

“What’s wrong Castile? Don’t want an audience? I thought you lived for the cheers of a crowd?” Roman didn’t budge. “Or maybe this is an exclusive event? Just for your little fanclub and Virgil? Is he your newest devoted follower?”

Virgil winced at the sting of hurt and betrayal in J’s tone. “You guys should head to class,” was Roman’s response to that. His friends did not like that. “You’ll all get in trouble if you don’t get to class in time. Now go. Tell our teacher that Virgil and I will be there soon. I’m not feeling well and Virgil is looking out for me.” Janus scoffed. “Making your friends lie for you Castile? Some friend you are.” Roman quirked a brow, not impressed. “Or tell them the truth. Apparently Bullard wants detention on the first day.” Virgil could tell Janus realized he had made a mistake. Roman’s friends left and Janus doubled down on the false display of confidence. “Now we’re talking! A private show, just for you Virge,” Janus looked back at him, but Virgil didn’t want to reward his behavior with the slightest bit of attention.

He just kept soothing the imprint on his sternum and looked at Roman making sure he wasn’t in any kind of distress right now. “Virge? You okay?” Roman asked. “Yeah, fine,” he muttered. When he tried to walk past Janus though, he was stopped by a brisk hand gesture. He could’ve ignored it, but he could see Janus was seconds away from snapping. He didn’t want to set him off. Not so close to Roman. And besides that, he didn’t like seeing him in pain. “Just get to class. I can handle myself.” Virgil appreciated the thought, really he did. Roman was doing for him what he’d seen Virgil do for others plenty of times in the past. But Virgil had learned by now that that kind of behavior wasn’t very healthy of him either. “Stop mocking me!” Janus exclaimed. Virgil acted without thinking. He ran up to throw himself in between Janus and Roman and then he felt Janus’ fist connect with his stomach at full force. It hurt a lot, and likely would hurt for a while. He fell to his knees, groaning in pain. Roman was at his side in an instant. “V… I...” Virgil looked up and as he blinked away the tears that threatened to overtake his vision he could see Janus was horrified with what just had happened.

Roman was furious. “Messing with him emotionally and mentally isn’t enough for you? You have to resort to physical violence as well? What kind of friend are you?” Virgil flinched. Roman had really picked up on everything hadn’t he? He wanted to argue that Janus would never intentionally attack him, but the way his chest still ached, even though it was drastically overpowered by the pain in his abdomen, was proof that J could lose his temper with him. Janus didn’t respond. He looked down and walked away. Virgil could swear he’d seen tears in his eyes.

Once he was gone Roman turned his attention back to him. “You okay? Should we go to the nurse?” he suggested worriedly. Virgil felt is heart flutter a little at his concerned tone. Roman was making it really hard to get over his crush. But he knew that the nurse wasn’t an option. Besides, he was already healing. “No. Dad will lose it if he knows someone actually hit me. Let’s just go to class. I’ll be fine by the time we get there.” Roman looked uncertain. “Okay, if you are sure.” Clearly he wanted to argue, but he was respecting Virgil’s boundaries. “Thanks for catching that one, but you didn’t have to. I did some self-defense courses. I would’ve been able to get out of harm’s way without hurting him.” Oh? That was interesting. Maybe he could ask Roman for some lessons just in case. He’d watched some videos online on basic self-defense and parkour. The later he’d been practicing every time he went out. Just in case his cloak failed him next time the cops sent someone to figure out who was leaving them packages. You’d think they’d take the intel and not ask too many questions. But clearly that wasn’t the case. They even had heroes on the lookout for him in his regular spots. They must really want to catch him if they went through the footage to get hints on the location where he recorded some of the evidence. “I’ll remember that,” he grinned, trying not to show that most of his upper body was still in various degrees of pain. “Seriously though that’s the second time you’ve jumped to my rescue. Thank you,” Roman said as he helped him up. Virgil once again played off how it hurt with a grin. If not for his healing factor he would probably want to go to a doctor to be safe. And even now he was wondering if whatever he did to heal bruises was good enough to fix more serious injuries. Was it even a serious injury? Or did it just hurt a lot? He promised himself that if he was still in pain when they got to class he’d agree to go to the nurse’s office. It normally didn’t take him long to fix himself. “Guess DreamPrince inspired me to be heroic,” he joked. Because apparently, Dream Prince was now his codename for Roman whenever he was too scared to make his feelings for him obvious. “He does seem to inspire a lot in you. I’m almost envious of him.” Virgil’s heart skipped a beat at that. Did Roman mean…? “I’d love to be the one to inspire someone so much, artistically and the like I mean. Oh, that would be the dream. To be someone’s muse and have them be mine in return.” You already do, Virgil wanted to say. But he couldn’t. Not when he already agreed to give Stacey a shot. “That would be pretty cool I guess,” he said instead finally able to walk without wincing each step. “You sure we don’t need to have you checked out?” Roman was clearly not convinced. Virgil nodded firmly. It was not worth worrying his dad over. “I barely feel it anymore. He didn’t hit that hard,” he shrugged, feeling a little bad for that lie. But he wasn’t ready to tell Roman about his powers yet. Maybe he would be, one day. The rest of the day was hopefully a sample of how the rest of the year would go. Virgil sat next to or near Roman for every class they shared, and he’d allowed himself to sit next to him during lunch. Stacey got a kick out of the fact that Virgil had ‘charmed’ the key from the teacher. Virgil insisted that it was not that big of an accomplishment. They had fun. Stacey had a lot of energy and a curious and adventurous nature. He liked hanging out with her, and he thought she was very attractive. But when the cliché paint fight broke out and they came close enough to feel each other’s breath… Virgil knew that he could kiss her. He could see that she was okay with that. Hoping for it even. It would just take one question and a slight tilt forward… And he wouldn’t mind kissing her. He felt attraction that was for sure. He was even wondering if she’d be as energetic when being kissed as she’d been all night. But he didn’t feel a spark. He’d felt the spark a few times. The little jolt to his heart that told him that he didn’t just want to kiss a person. If that made sense. Not just with Roman, though that spark was still the strongest he’d ever felt. He knew that he liked Stacey, platonically. And he found her attractive, physically. But he wasn’t romantically interested in her. And while he didn’t see the harm in casually kissing... He didn’t want to do that with Stacey. For various reasons. He’d stepped away and Stacey pouted. But she’d agreed that she wasn’t interested in him long term.

She did offer to let him kiss her anyway. For practice. He’d laughed and politely declined to which she pretended to be dramatically disappointed.

When he got home and he told his dads that it was fun, but they were just going to stay friends, he didn’t miss the relief on Logan’s face. He bit back the comment about turning sixteen next October. His dad would have to come to terms with the fact that he was of the dating age sooner or later. But he wasn’t going to push it. He let himself fall onto his bed that night, thinking of Roman and how he definitely would have kissed him. About Janus, and what he’d needed to say. He let those thoughts go though. One day at a time. Today had been okay, all things considered. Maybe tomorrow would be fine too.

Masterlist

Better Together

@moonlightshow00​ @naturallyunstablegamer​ @alias290​ @meowthefluffy​ @frida0043​ @angelic-cali​ @selenechris​ @theblackveilinreverse​ @cirishere​ @hestianerd1​

[skullrock]

the flight - Steve Harrington x Reader

pairing: Steve Harrington x Reader

summary: a request from anon - “Hi, could you do a very smutty fic where the reader meets Steve at an airport and they instantly click before parting ways thinking that was the end of it, then discover they are sitting next to each other on the flight.”

word count: 2434 (and I- oop!)

warnings: so much smut, pretty much exhibitionism, swearing

a/n: WHEW. a few things - I have never been on a plane so I am not 100% sure what their deal is; I only know what google has told me. it is a modern fic because airports in the 80s simply weren't dramatic enough. this is also super long with a lot of exposition and I am so sorry. could potentially be a part two if y'all want? let me know!! hope you enjoy :)

----------

To say that you were stressed would be an understatement. You didn’t realize that trying to board a flight was going to be this ridiculous. Check ins, then luggage check, and then security. Stupid, stupid security. You waited in a long line, tapping your feet aggressively, trying to calm yourself down. Your flight was in an hour, and you were pretty sure you’d be okay, but who knows? It’s your first time flying alone, so you didn’t have anyone to help calm you down. You could have cried right there, in that line that seemed to be a mile long. To help yourself calm down and stay focused, you decided to stare into the back of whoever it was in front of you. You watched as their shirt would crease with their movements, how they’d roll their shoulders… from their body language, they seemed to be stressed, too.

Seeming to sense the eyes boring into the back of their neck, the person in front of you turns around. He is a boy in his early twenties. His features are soft despite his obvious anxiety. He has a strong nose, broad shoulders, dark brows. He is very handsome. Your mind went blank. He did a once over of you, too, from your eyes down to your legs, exposed from the dress you stupidly wore. He licked his lips and moved his eyes back up to yours. You smile sheepishly.

“I didn’t mean to stare,” you start. “I was just trying to calm myself down, and I thought that maybe if I just focused on your back, I would.”

He smiles, too. “I don’t have a problem with it,” he replies.

Oh, he’s flirting. Oh, man, he’s flirting. And you can’t even care to be weirded out by it, because he’s there, staring at your legs again, and he’s so hot, and it’s not like you’ll ever see him again, right?

“Good,” you say. “Can I continue?”

“You can if you tell me your name.”

“Y/N.”

“I’m Steve.” He offers you his hand and you shake it. His hands are so soft. His handshake is so firm.

“Are you here by yourself, Steve?” you ask.

“I am. I’m assuming you are, too?” he speculated. You nod.

The line moves up. You both take a few steps forward and continue to talk. You’re throwing compliments at each other left and right. It’s cliché, but you don’t care. It’s fun to have fun. You click with him immediately, and you’re starting to wish you didn’t have to leave him.

It’s his turn now. He throws his luggage up on the conveyer belt. He turns to say something to you but is interrupted by the agent.

“You’ve got something in here too big for the flight,” they say, examining the x-ray that popped up. “It looks like a hairspray or something?”

“Oh – uh – it’s –”

But it’s too late. The agent opens his suitcase to reveal a Farrah Fawcett hairspray container. You laugh gleefully – so that’s how he gets his hair to look so good.

“We have to throw this out,” the agent says.

“I – okay – whatever,” he huffs. He steps forward to get the pat down, and successfully makes his way to the other side. You follow soon after him.

“I didn’t even know they still made that!” you say, pinching his arm. He rolls his eyes, trying to act like he wasn’t embarrassed.

“I was taking it home for my mom,” he says. “It’s not mine.”

“Don’t worry, Stevie,” you tease. “We all get caught with embarrassing stuff in security checks.”

“You didn’t!”

“I’m just lucky that they didn’t find my vibrator.” It’s a joke, and you laugh, but he looks very serious suddenly. Then you get serious, too. And you stare at each other for a moment. You feel butterflies in your stomach, a twist in your chest. You try to find some words, any words, but nothing can come out.

Then you remember that your flight is leaving in 30 minutes.

“Oh, shit!” you shout. “My flight’s about to take off without me, and I have to grab some stuff from a convenience store.”

“Oh, fuck, mine too,” he replies, frantically looking down the terminal.

You grab your luggage and smile up at him. “Super nice to meet you, Steve. Safe travels.”

“I hope our paths meet again soon,” he says, and he squeezes your arm before taking off.

----------

You get to the plane just in time, and the attendant helps you to the back. You notice how little people there are, and you’re half thankful for it.

She points down to the very final row. “Right down there, next to the gentleman in the blue shirt.”

You follow her finger and lo and behold, it’s Steve. He hasn’t noticed you yet, thank God, because you look like you’ve seen a ghost. You weren’t expecting him to be on the same flight, and you sure as shit weren’t anticipating sitting next to him for a 10 hours.

“Thanks,” you say, making your way back.

You clear your throat and he looks up. His jaw drops, and he slightly shakes his head.

“No way,” he breathes.

“Yes way,” you laugh, sitting down next to him. “What are the odds?”

He continues to shake his head, as if in disbelief. Then he smiles, widely, and knocks your knee with his. “How am I going to get through this flight with such a pretty girl beside me?”

----------

Luckily, no one else sits beside you two. And it’s a really good thing, because you can’t keep your hands to each other.

It starts when the sun sets – about two hours into the flight. You’re both sharing a screen to watch a movie, and you’re leaning pretty heavily on him. His hand moves to grip your knee, and your breath hitches. You look over at him, and he smiles, then turns back to the screen. You try to pay attention, but it’s difficult. You feel his fingers making small circles on your thigh, and he eventually starts to creep up, closer and closer to your core. He gets close before sliding back down, resting his hand on your knee again.

You’re perplexed by his behavior, but you’re not mad about it either. You’re thankful that it’s just you two in the back, alone, or else this would be insanely awkward.

“This okay?” he asks. You nod vigorously, scared to lose the contact. He keeps his hand on your inner thigh for a few more minutes before letting go, attention focused on the movie. You’re irritated – and horny – now, sinking in your seat and crossing your arms. He chuckles beside you but doesn’t say anything else.

You’ve never done anything like this before. To be honest, it was kind of horrifying. But this boy has been driving you crazy since the moment you started talking in the security line. After all the stress of getting onto this flight, you think you deserve a reward.

Suddenly, the overhead lights turn off. It’s time to sleep. Steve shifts in his seat, glancing over at you and giving you a smirk, then looks back at the screen. You decide it’s time to get some revenge now, under the cover of the dark. You slide your hand over to rest on his thigh. You hear him laugh lightly, but he doesn’t react beyond that. You leave it there for a few minutes, feigning interest in the movie, and then slide it up higher. He rolls his shoulders and clears his throat. He shifts so that his back rests almost on the window, giving you better access to his legs. You smile and trace your fingers gently, gently up to his zipper, then back down again. He huffs.

“It sucks, doesn’t it?” you whisper.

“I can handle it.”

You roll your eyes but trace your fingers back up again. You rest your hand on his upper thigh. After a while, you move your hand to where you assume his dick is and start to rub. You weren’t exactly an expert in plane handjobs.

A small moan escapes his lips and he looks over at you, fire in his eyes. He moves his hand back to your thigh, too, tracing up again. You bite your lip as his fingers ghost over your underwear, resisting the urge to squeeze your legs shut. His fingers press down on your clit, rubbing small circles over it. Your mouth drops at the sudden feeling, a strike of lightning running through your body. You increase the pressure on his cock, making him buck his hips. He is biting on his lips so hard that you’re afraid it’ll break skin.

Someone a few rows in front of you gets up, and both of your hands fly back into your own personal space. No one would come back here – the bathroom is up front – but you become acutely aware that there are other people on this plane. You look over at Steve, who seems to be breathing heavily, and he looks back at you, eyes wide. You laugh a bit and relax, sinking slightly into your seat.

You behave yourselves for a while, then pick up again. Steve moves first, hand gripping your thigh again, and you push your dress up so that it’s around your waist. Something resembling a groan comes from him, and he runs his hand over your bare skin. You move your hand back to his zipper, this time tugging on it. He gets the hint and quickly unbuttons and unzips himself. He runs a hand through his hair and then gets back to work, running his fingers over your underwear again.

You dip underneath the waistline of his pants. You run a finger along his hipbones, trying to tease before dipping down further. The position is awkward, and his pants are tight, but you manage to grip his cock. Steve gasps, enjoying the feeling, and then his fingers are on your bare skin, tracing the folds. As you begin to pump him, he moves up to your clit, rubbing so damn gently. Your pace is slow too, drawing out low moans from him.

“Faster,” he whispers, bucking his hips again. “Please.”

You speed up, and he throws his head back against the seat, throwing his free hand up to muffle the sounds he’s making. It’s so dirty, so sexy, and you can hardly stand it. Your eyes burn into his profile, watching as his eyes crinkle shut, listening to the soft whimpers coming behind his hand.

Abruptly, Steve removes your hand. You’re worried that you maybe crossed a line. You go to say an apology, but he cuts you off with a kiss, pulling you as close as possible despite that awkward arrangement. Your tongue slips into his mouth and he groans softly, hands over your arm, your breast, anything he can touch. He leans back, panting, and looks at you.

“Are you okay?” he asks. “Are you cool with this?”

You answer by pulling him to you again. You grip his shirt – for comfort or stability, you don’t know – and his hand his back at your core. He pulls away.

“Just relax,” he growls, and you lean back against your seat, staring ahead at the arrangement of screens on the seats in front of you.

Steve’s hand slips under your underwear again, and you spread your legs so he has better access. He mumbles a thanks, which makes you giggle – but you stop once you feel a finger enter you. You grit your teeth to prevent any noises from coming out. He pumps his finger in and out of you gently. Eventually he adds a second, and you reach down to rub your clit. He groans at the sight, wishing he could do more, grab more, hear more.

You’re doing everything in your power to be quiet. Biting your tongue, your lip, casually placing a hand over your mouth. He reaches over and takes your hand, gripping it tightly.

“Wanna hear you,” he murmurs, his lips on your neck.

You nod lightly and turn to look at him. His face is shadowed, and you can’t see very much, but you could see that he was biting his lip. As his pace picks up, yours does too, and you let a quiet stream of moans out. You whisper every swear that comes to your head, which at this point is pretty blank, solely focused on the pleasure and adrenaline coursing through you.

“Come on,” he whispers. “Let me hear you.”

You lean forward and press your lips against his, letting a louder moan out, hoping his mouth will muffle the noise.

You reach for his cock again, grabbing it and pumping quickly. He lets out an “Oh, fuck,” and buries his head in your shoulder. You throw your head back, letting it fall against the headrest. He picks up the pace and you do, too. It hurts your arms to be going this fast, one pumping him and the other rubbing you, but it feels too good to stop. Steve picks his head up to look at you, and you look back. His hair is disheveled, his eyes are wild. His mouth falls open and a quiet moan comes out.

“You gonna cum for me?” you gasp.

His hips twitch and he moans again. “Fuck, Y/N, yes,” he breathes.

You feel yourself close, too, grinding on his fingers. He’s getting louder now, and so are you, and you both kiss to cloak the sounds. A long whine comes out of you as you get closer and closer.

“You’re taking my fingers so well,” he groans. “So good.”

“Steve, I’m going to—’

“Me too,” he interjects. His eyes squeeze shut and he whispers, “Now.”

You both do at the same time. Your climax runs over you, takes you harder than you ever thought possible. You feel his warm release cover your hand as he comes, again nuzzling into your neck to mute himself. You grit your teeth, but it doesn’t help much – an orgasm this good can’t be quiet.

You both take your time catching your breath, and eventually remove your hands from each other. He grabs paper towels, conveniently there, and you both start to clean up. You put your dress down and he buttons and zips back up.

“Jesus,” he says finally, leaning back. “That was….”

“Yeah,” you respond. “That was.”

He glances over at you, smiling. “Were you serious about having a vibrator in your luggage?”

“It’s in my carry-on.”

He grins widely. “Get it out.”

[atamascolily]

Okay, Flint has now given Leia a love interest - basically Isolder, but with fewer planets and less matriarchy. But he’s upset that Han treats Threepio like a servant, so he can’t be all bad though he might be secretly evil, even if he is otherwise a cardboard cutout.

Of course, Threepio is then kidnapped by unknown assailants, though they don’t stay unknown for long. 

“Utilizing  this  transmitter,”  Voss  lifted  a  closed  hand  and opened it, showing Threepio a small disk on his palm, “which  we will implant in you. And, using a special code, you will send a message to us just as soon as the destination is learned.”

“And  just  what  makes  you  think  I  would  cooperate  in  such  a treacherous act?” the droid said indignantly, pulling himself defiantly up as much as his fetters would allow.

“Oh, you’ll have no choice in that,” the smirking Voss replied.

He gestured back toward the pudgy man as he stepped down from the platform. “You see, our good Doctor here is well adept in A. I. T.”

“Artificial Intelligence Transmogrification?” Threepio amplified, fear entering his voice.

Okay,yes, I know “transmogrification” is a synonym for “transformation” but it’s still impossible for me to take this seriously outside of Calvin and Hobbes. Anyway, it’s basically the same plot device from TROS except that Threepio is now actually evil. 

Meanwhile, Luke is...well, see for yourself:

He  was  now  stretched  out  spread-eagle  on  the  sand,  chained hand-and-foot  to  metal  stakes.  He  had  been  stripped  down  to  his trousers, the white flesh of his torso exposed to the merciless Tatooine suns.  Exposed  to  something  else,  too.  A  curious,  golden  goo  with  a pungently  sweet  smell  had  been  poured  on  his  chest  and  was  slowly oozing down his sides.

I know, I know, I  know this isn’t meant to be funny, but this paragraph makes it sound like Luke went to a really kinky BDSM party in Space Burning Man Festival and I just... can’t stop laughing.

(the sap is to summon a Dune Maggot, which is also impossible to say with a straight face, although from the description it appears to be more slug-like, or at least in possession of a radula)

Anyway, Luke ends up with the Sand People, who have Obi-wan’s sugar bowl and deliver a colonialist critique that @teagrl has written extensively about and got me interested in this book in the first place. Unfortunately, we rush through all the interesting stuff to get to Luke having to fight his way out through single combat against one of their warriors, sigh.

BUT we do get a Tusken who has lived in the outside world (I guess he went on a Rumspringa of sorts?) and offers to help. Luke is too principled to cheat, even to save his life, but he does agree to a placid bantha mount since apparently they are jousting or something?

Anyway, I kept hoping this was an A’Sharad Hett cameo, but no such luck - turns out to be Pollux in disguise. Luke wins, refuses to kill his opponent, and this impresses everyone.

The shirtless young Jedi sat patiently on a stool in the throne room of the O-Tal while Jattal Or tended to his wounds. He had many of these. The fight with the dune maggots and his contest with Dovra Ackru had left little of his torso unmarked by vivid welts, bruises, and cuts.

The  O-Tal—at  the  moment  the  room’s  only  other  occupant—looked on  from his  rattan throne as his translator carefully smeared more  ointment  from  an  earthenware  pot  over the  last welts.  He was clearly admiring of the young man’s stoicism.

Yeah, sure he’s admiring Luke’s... *checks notes* “stoicism”. I know I am.

Meanwhile, Han and Prince Love Interest are sniping over carrying luggage and Wedge shows up to play Mr. Exposition. Leia dresses up, which makes Han jealous and uncomfortable and he and Leia argue while manipulating holo-chess pieces in a sequence I would enjoy more in a slightly different context and less stereotypical gender roles.

Threepio is OOC because of his reprogramming and it’s hilarious.

“Our  relationship  has  changed,”  the  droid  told  him  in  a brusque,  lecturing  tone.  “I  am  no  longer  going  to  play  your  slave  or servant.  My  service  is  now  to  Princess  Leia  and  this  mission  only.  I am  much  too  intelligent  and  valuable  to  be  utilized  otherwise.  I  will thank you to consider that factor from this point on.”

With this he pushed past Han and marched out of the cockpit.

“Well, I’m blowed!” said Han, looking after him. “You think you know your comrades...”

The  Wookiee  nodded  and  made  a  low,  rumbling  sound  of commiseration.

Han moved to his seat and plopped himself down into it with a certain weariness.

“I don’t know, Chewy,” he said in a perplexed way. “Luke, Leia, and now him.” He shook his head. “Things are changing so fast, I don’t know who anybody is anymore.”

The Wookiee made a growl of protest at this, and Han quickly gave him a smile.

“Sorry. I meant ‘except for you’, old pal,” he assured.

D’awww. Most of this book so far has made me raise my eyebrows but every now and then there’s a passage or idea that’s spot-on, and I really like it.

[florencecastlewritings]

Writing Dialogue

Below the read more is a lesson on writing effective dialogue in fiction. As with everything in art, rules are there to be broken, so please do treat the below lesson as a guideline rather than a legal document, and remember that it is based on what works for me as well as advice I have received from other writers. It might not match your style, and that’s all right. It’s also a very lengthy blog post, but I have used headings to try and break it up and there’s a little contents of sorts at the start, so feel free to skim/skip where needed. 

If you do find it useful, however, please consider helping me through a tricky time by sending a few pennies my way via ko-fi. 

Dialogue is the written speech of your characters in your story. For some people, writing effective dialogue comes naturally, for others it feels almost impossible to master. It is worth considering, as well, the differences in dialogue for different kinds of media - in screenwriting, for example, a writer will be able to rely more heavily on actors’ expression, comic timing, body language and other effects such as music. However they will also be constrained by shorter time, more need for unnatural exposition, and lack of internal thoughts. The following lesson will focus on dialogue in fiction - for short stories or novels - although some rules will be applicable to dialogue in other mediums too, so they’re worth keeping in mind. 

The Purpose of Dialogue

Dialogue should:

Progress the story

Deepen character and relationship

Have realism

Be embellished/supported with suitable dialogue tags and appropriate narration. 

Easier said than done. Let’s take them one at a time. 

Progress the story

As with most writing, the writer needs to be constantly asking herself ‘what is the point?’ Why am I having my characters say/do/notice this? It may be to deepen character and relationship (and we’ll get onto that), but for longer stories we must acknowledge that the dialogue needs to move the plot along as well, as much as we might want to indulge in a bit of pointless fluff now and then. 

Dialogue can drive the plot in a more engaging and exciting way than plain narration. Narration on its own can be effective at building tension, but usually only in small doses, and having many pages of narration without dialogue or internal thought will feel more like a summary of events or a witness statement than the author would perhaps like. Consider the below: 

Breakfast was tense that morning. They ate silently as they pondered what to do. Michael buttering his toast so aggressively that it was surprising that the knife didn’t go through it. Susan asked him to stop, but that only started the arguing again. He accused her of expecting him to get over the affair so quickly. She threw back that there was nothing left to say if he refused to get therapy, and she had warned him for years that things had to change, and that it had been one foolish night in twenty years of unhappy marriage. She, Susan insisted, had excused plenty of foolish mistakes on his part. 

Compared to: 

‘Will you stop that?’ she said sharply. Michael did not pause in the furious buttering of his toast. ‘I said I was sorry.’ 

‘What, you say the magic word and I’m meant to shrug it off?’ he replied. ‘Pretend it never happened? Pretend you didn’t-’

‘You’ve made your anger perfectly clear, and I understand, but you don’t need to be so aggressive with everything, I get it.’ 

‘Oh, here we go. Buttering toast is aggressive now.’ 

‘Well, yes, like that - I’ve tried to talk to you like a grown up, but-’

‘It really bloody winds me up when you just say insane stuff patiently and without emotion and think that makes it acceptable, d’you know that? I’m allowed to be angry, you cheated.’

I could continue. The first example can pack a lot more information in, but using dialogue to drive the plot makes for more interesting and deeper meaning. It turns it into a story, rather than an account of events that occurred. It allows the writer to layer the plot with character work and unlock the story a little at a time.

In this regard, it is good to have your characters talking. To each other, to themselves, to the reader - whatever your particular style demands. Having that personable voice is engaging. 

There are a few “rules” to keep in mind in order to ensure you remain plot-focused with your dialogue:

Avoid small talk. Enter late, leave early. Naturally there are exceptions (if you want to emphasise the awkwardness of a relationship between two characters you might want to include some failed attempts at small talk), but the usual chit-chat and extended greetings that we are used to saying in every day life can normally be skipped or avoided. You don’t need to have lots of ‘hi, how are you?’  ‘I’m fine thanks, you?’ ‘Fine, cheers. Have you seen the rain?’ Your characters are allowed to just get to the point and your reader will thank you for it. 

Have characters on their own thought trajectories. This is a great way of driving the plot, and though it can be tricky to master it can really help in making your characters believable individuals as well as creating some conflict. If characters know each other, or both know the topic, they will likely jump ahead, make assumptions, fail to answer each other directly - this can be a great way of showing that they’re on the same wavelength, but can also be a vehicle for miscommunications and misunderstandings, or deliberately misleading one another. In that vein, don’t have the characters telling each other things they already know, unless made to sound believable. 

Similarly, don’t have characters say things solely for the benefit of the reader. This is called exposition, and while exposition is necessary, it can be clumsily handled in dialogue. It’s made fun of frequently in films where they have such limited time to get background information across. You definitely don’t want dialogue like ‘So, Michael, it’s been three years since your divorce, have you thought about dating again?’ Michael knows this, his insensitive friend knows this, the reader is not stupid and knows that it’s not natural sounding. If it must be said in dialogue, weave it into a more natural conversation - ‘I haven’t been to Ibiza in three years, and I don’t plan on going back any time soon. Don’t want to run the risk of bumping into Susan and Jorge.’ 

We’ll get onto weaving it in with narration and dialogue tags later, which makes that a lot easier, but, in short, use dialogue to drive your story. 

Deepen character and relationship

This is my favourite thing to do, and why I often prefer to write shorter stories than longer ones. A writer can find great joy in bringing a character to life through dialogue, dragging them away from plot vehicles and making them people of their own.

Firstly, it’s important to remember that your character’s background and personality will affect the way that they speak. If all your characters sound the same, they probably sound like you! A well educated character will obviously have a different way of talking than a common street urchin, but everyone has quirks and patterns to their speech that you can use to say a lot. You might use long meandering sentences with lots of rhetorical questions for a character known to be boring, for example. You might use short, sharp sentences for a character that’s grumpy or distracted with some deeper internal struggle. You can use the way two characters talk to each other to say a lot about their relationship and power dynamic, especially if you remember that good dialogue should have subtext (what isn’t being said being important).

A good example of this is from the short story Hills Like White Elephants, by Ernest Hemmingway (CW; indirect discussion of abortion). Consider the short passage below. 

‘It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig,’ the man said. ‘It’s not really an operation at all. 

The girl looked at the ground the table legs rested on. 

‘I know you wouldn’t mind it, Jig. It’s not really anything. It’s just to let the air in.’ 

The girl did not say anything. 

‘I’ll go with you and I’ll stay with you all the time. They just let the air in and then it’s all perfectly natural.’ 

‘Then what will we do afterward?’ 

‘We’ll be fine afterward. Just like we were before.’ 

‘What makes you think so?’ 

‘That’s the only thing that bothers us. It’s the only thing that’s made us unhappy.’ 

The girl looked at the bead curtain, put her hand out and took hold of two of the strings of beads. ‘And you think then we’ll be all right and be happy.’

It’s a really interesting story that is almost entirely dialogue, so it’s well worth reading to get a good sense of using subtext. I wasn’t aware of the abortion connotations when I first read it because I hadn’t heard of the very dated term ‘letting the air in’, but really the story is great at demonstrating the uneven power dynamic between the two even without knowledge of what the operation is. Without much description (though ‘man’ and ‘girl’ says it all really, doesn’t it?), you get a sense that a much older man is persuading this reluctant girl into this act by leveraging how hopelessly in love she is with him, though he does not seem to feel the same way. He speaks most when he is trying to persuade her - the rest of the time he is snappish and short with her childish and ignorant questions about the world around them. The above passage is the only time in the story where he refers to her by a name, and we can gather that it’s a pet one. The girl’s silence says as much as her dialogue, and when she does speak it is questioning - looking to him for authority. 

Understanding character motivations and background is what makes this masterful use of dialogue. It would be tempting, for a novice writer, to have the girl argue. For her to say something like ‘what if we could be happy without it?’ But where that should be, there is silence, or repeating his thoughts back to him - because Hemmingway is not only driving the story but emphasising the imbalance of their relationship and her own naive nature. She would not argue with him, she can only wish that he will change his mind. This is all through dialogue and a tiny bit of narration, barely any dialogue tags, and really says so much without saying it at all. Show vs tell is about more than description after all. 

That kind of depth when it comes to writing dialogue is... really hard. I haven’t picked Hemmingway to suggest that this is the quality all writing should be at, and I certainly don’t mean to intimidate anyone. But it really is a golden example of thinking about your dialogue within the context of the character, and how their background, situation, and goals will affect how they respond and react to those around them. Your character may not always be able to say what is convenient for you, the author, to tell the reader, because it may not be in their nature or sound authentic. But there are clever ways around that and it can make for more powerful writing, between the lines of what is said. 

Have realism

If you skipped down to this bit, I understand. It’s the area that people most often struggle with. I find that people tend to fall into two traps here - either their characters sound like robots because they are over formal and have too much emphasis on being grammatically correct or over eloquent at the expense of natural dialogue, OR they swing in the other direction and try to replicate perfectly how people speak in day to day life. 

If you do have a problem with stilted dialogue, it is a good idea to listen to how people naturally speak and try typing it out to get yourself out of the habit. But on the whole, the way people normally speak actually doesn’t sound that great in written format. In real life, we use lots of filler words, we get muddled, we go off on tangents, we trail off, we stutter and stammer and phrase things badly, we um and ah and say far more with our body language and expression than we realise. If you ever read transcripts, from interviews or courts, you’ll see how much of it actually doesn’t make a lot of sense. Our brains make sense of it when we listen to others, based on other parts of communication. Yes, sometimes adding in a ‘er...’ is beneficial and good, and you might have a really nice character moment of someone anxious trailing off when they realise no one is listening to them. Sprinkling those moments in can absolutely make your dialogue sound more authentic, especially when carefully used with character knowledge, but be careful not to over use it. In written dialogue, our characters can and should be more articulate and quicker to formulate their thoughts than in real life for the sake of the story. Striking that balance between overly structured and too real and easy can be really hard, but it only comes with practice - reading dialogue out loud can be a big help, as can writing the dialogue first with no narration or speech tags (more on that later). 

Some common mistakes when it comes to dialogue: 

Having one character speak too long without a break. Monologues are tough to get through as a reader and don’t come up often in real life in any meaningful way. They can end up cheesy or exposition heavy. Occasionally you can get away with it with very particular characters, but in general, avoid. 

Over use of names. It’s really distracting as a reader if dialogue is constantly like, ‘what do you think, Harry?’ ‘Charlie, I just don’t know.’ ‘Really, Harry, you need to decide if you’re going to marry her or not.’ ‘I know, you’re right, Charlie.’ Use names to get someone’s attention and then don’t use them again unless you need to make it clear to the reader who the character is talking to. 

Not using contractions. Even very formal people use contractions such as don’t and won’t, it is part of natural rapid speech. Save the ‘do not’ and ‘will not’s for when the emphasis is really needed. 

Having characters speak in unison. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes this can be used to hilarious effect and can always be used for a bit of comedy. But on the whole people don’t do this, including twins. 

Misuse of slang or dialects. If you’re going to use it, make sure you do your research. It’s also worth bearing in mind that if you over use it, it will be hard for the reader to understand and may break immersion. 

Over explain for the reader. I mentioned this before but it’s worth repeating. If you went outside right now and saw a UFO, you would probably shout something along the lines of ‘wtf is that?’, and you would perhaps point or scramble for your potato to take a shaky video. You would probably not shout, ‘look at flying saucer! I’ve never seen anything like it!’ Think carefully about realistic reactions, even if they are not particularly convenient to you as a writer. 

Over use of exclamation marks/caps lock. People aren’t that vibrant and it’s tiring to read. The less you use it, the more punch it packs. 

Using narration and dialogue tags

First, a quick grammar lesson. Sorry. 

‘This is some speech.’ 

‘This is also some speech,’ said the character. 

‘Is this also speech?’ asked another. 

‘Well,’ said the first, ‘yes.’ 

‘Brilliant,’ said the other. ‘Thanks for letting me know.’ 

I use single quotation marks because I’m British and annoying, the conventional double quote marks the Americans use (”like this!”) is also correct. The only important thing is that you pick one and stick to it. Quotation marks always surround the words that are being spoken aloud, and must be opened and closed. Where the sentence ends, you must use a full stop (period), or another piece of punctuation like a question or exclamation mark before closing the speech with the marks. 

Where there is a dialogue tag (he said/said/replied, etc), the sentence is continuing, so a comma is more appropriate (but you can also use a question/exclamation mark and the sentence still continues), and again this must go before the speech marks close the dialogue. If you want to continue the sentence with the dialogue tag in the middle, you can continue by using another comma, or you can end the sentence with a full stop and continue the dialogue as a new sentence. 

Use a new line for a new character speaking.

Phew, that’s over so you can pay attention again. But unfortunately I still have more to say. 

Here is a fun little exercise. Take the below dialogue between two characters, A and B. 

‘Do you love me?’ 

‘You’re drunk.’ 

‘Why won’t you answer the question?’ 

‘Sit down. I’ll make you a tea.’ 

‘I don’t want tea, I want an answer! Tell me!’  

The dialogue alone already tells us a bit of a story - a picture is probably already forming in your head, perhaps of the characters, perhaps of the setting. As it stands it’s ok, and if you struggle with dialogue it can be effective to write only the dialogue out in this way (this tip from my writing teacher also helped me cut down on purple prose!). But now look at the scene: 

It was not the first time, nor would it be the last, that Alex was woken at 3am by repeated bangs on the floor and shouts through the letterbox. Nothing else would have made her rise from bed. If she had suspected even for a moment that it was anyone else, she would have called the police. 

But as usual, it was Sam. Blonde, tousled hair a mess, eye make up smudged, pouting lips trembling as she swayed. 

‘Do you love me?’ 

‘You’re drunk,’ said Alex, wincing as Sam’s grey eyes shone with tears. ‘You’d better come in.’ 

‘Why won’t you answer the question?’ 

Alex ignored her, pulled her in by her slender arm. ‘Sit down. I’ll make you a tea.’ 

‘I don’t want tea. I want an answer. Tell me!’ Sam’s voice was loud and high, and it pierced her. 

So, we haven’t actually added that much narration or dialogue tags (t’s best, if you can, to avoid using them too much), but we’re able to give a clearer picture of these two characters. You may even now be reading the dialogue in a different tone to the one you originally did - picturing the scene with a different feel. Not convinced? How about now? 

Yet again, as had happened dozens of bloody times before, Alex was woken at 3am by incoherent, slurred shouting through the letterbox. 

‘Do you love me?’ was Sam’s immediate demand as Alex wearily opened the door. 

Alex rubbed her hand over her bleary eyes and sighed. ‘You’re drunk. You’d better come in.’ 

Sam turned on the tears at once, mascara running in thick, spidery lines down her blotchy cheeks. ‘Why won’t you answer the question?’

‘Sit down,’ Alex muttered. ‘I’ll make you a tea.’ She stood aside and jerked her head towards the living room.

‘I don’t want tea, I want an answer! Tell me!’ 

Wincing once more at her piercing shriek, Alex closed her eyes. 

The very same dialogue can be shaped by carefully worded narration and dialogue tags. It’s a fun exercise to do with writing buddies - all use the same dialogue and see how different the stories come out. It can also be a pretty nifty way to challenge writers block or shake up a scene you’re struggling with. 

Some extra tips from my writing teacher - I fully confess that I am not always the best at following these ones, because my writing has been heavily influenced by JK Rowling who also doesn’t seem to set much store by them. But they are good, and since I’ve kept them in mind my writing has improved. 

Avoid overuse of adverbs (’she said nervously’). Use action or dialogue alone to convey this information instead. 

Avoid overuse of verbs besides ‘said’. The reader will skim over said and barely notice it, if every character is whispering and muttering and shouting all the time it stilts the flow of the scene - use sparingly.

Use tags when necessary to ensure clarity as to who is speaking, otherwise let the dialogue stand for itself. 

Use internal thoughts in place of speech tags sometimes. 

Use action beats (’he turned to stare coldly out of the window’) in place of speech tags sometimes to help set the pace of the scene. 

I hope this very lengthy post has helped! Please do get in touch if you have any further questions or would like any elaborations on anything I’ve mentioned here, or if you have suggestions for future lessons!

Lastly, I hate to do this but times must - if you have even just a couple of quid to send my way it would be a massive help to me. If you did find this useful, please consider donating to my kofi. 

[iwrestlenow]

Many More To Die, Chapter 6

TITLE: Many More To Die (Chapter 6)

FANDOM: Sanders Sides (Necromancer AU)

SUMMARY: Logan knew, for a long time now, that he had a brother--but now, he remembers who his brother is.

Virgil joined the royal guard to bust Logan out. Logan's a stubborn creature, so instead Virgil tells him about his powers--and accidentally helps Logan realize that someone hasn't been totally honest with him.

SHIPS: Logince (Logan/Roman), Moceit (Patton/Janus) and future Dukexiety (Remus/Virgil)

WARNINGS: Plot is happening, way too much exposition--also, who let me have nice things? I DO MEAN THINGS. >.> But the next chapter will be adorable. And come way faster.

No beta, no problem--I'm sorry I'm so hung up on lore and world building and shit, but I'm just having a lot of fun okay? Okay. >.>

Also, no betas, we die like men.

NOTES: This is based on the gorgeous piece of art by @gretacticdraws that can be found here. I ended up writing a ficlet for it, and then my brain got swallowed up. Breathe at me wrong, and I’ll write more…hell, who am I kidding? I’ll write more anyway because this? Is self indulgent drivel. XD

Also located at AO3 over here.

Logan was running.

Clutching the book against his chest with one arm, clinging to his little brother's hand with the other, he was running for his life as the looming figure pounded down the corridor after them. Everything was dark, too dark...

There. Light. Souls Eternal, what in the Seven Hells was he still doing there?

Stopping dead, Logan faced Virgil. Briefly, he wished he could feel the little hand in his—because if he was here, there was only one way this could end.

Looking around furiously, he realized there was no other choice. Facing Virgil, Logan gripped his shoulder and held his gaze in the dark.

“That open door—go hide behind it.”

“No.”

“The Spider does not question, he spins for his Weaver—just this once, Stormcloud, I'm begging you, do as I say without arguing!”

He gave Virgil no other opportunity to argue—shoving Virgil towards the sliver of light, Logan watched him stumble forward, then look over his shoulder.

“I'm right behind you.”

The little boy scowled, but his figure swiftly moved, and his footsteps pattered against the stone.

It was the first lie he'd ever told his brother.

Turning away, lest he lose his resolve, Logan frantically tried to remember what he'd been told. The corners, the crevices...the hidden secrets of--

--yes. It was perfect.

Bolting down the corridor, Logan frantically shed his jacket and wrapped the book up as tightly as he could, dropping to his knees with enough force to bruise them. Pulling up the grate, he lowered his precious cargo into it...

Two hands grabbed him at the same time—one from the sewer, the other the back of his collar.

Panicked, Logan blindly grabbed the hand in the sewer, the one he knew, fingers gripping his with a desperate force that was painful...

“Hold on.”

He coughed, gagging as his collar cut his throat. His back hummed with the proximity of the larger body behind him, but the hand in the dark...

He strained to see into the shadows, lookin for that glimpse of light—just one look, just one...

“Loganberry!”

There was no other way.

“Do not let go.”

The moon was slow rising in the sky, a sliver of light moving to illuminate the dark for just an instant—and it was enough.

“I never have. I never will.”

The hand at his collar yanked, and Logan's fingers slid free, throbbing—

“Logan?”

Logan  blinked—and the world had changed. Gone was the dim light of the war room, gone was the dark, muffled nightmare he'd been momentarily caught in. He was in a corridor of polished stone walls and pale marble floors. What little light that numerous windows didn't provide, lamps mounted on the walls did, casting soft white light into the space from the magically created luminary globes set in each one.

“Hey, you back?”

He turned towards the sound of his name, disoriented. His movements felt slow, encumbered...

Looking down at himself, Logan realized he was clinging to a blanket wrapped around his shoulders like a cape. It glimmered with a film of energy he couldn't pinpoint—until he realized it was connected to him. He was the one creating it, could feel his magic woven through the fabric. His awareness was caught in the stitches and the heavy beads of glass within...

Glass? No...not glass. Crystal...just under his fingers, clear quartz beads for calm and comfort, drawing away the fear and the panic...

All at once, the heavy haze started to settle over him again, the half sleep he'd been in before—but he knew what to do now. Some part of him had always known, even without a Name to tell him how it worked.

Shutting his eyes, Logan bowed his head and let the haze take him over, dragging him back into the dark until he could feel it, glossy wood biting his fingers as he held on tight, thick warm spider silk touching his fingertips.

“Logan—wait, here.”

He couldn't feel the hand that slipped into his, but his fingers tingled, and pulled him swiftly back into the dark.

“Loganberry!”

The little boy, his voice in the dark, screaming Logan's name...his little brother...

Virgil. That was the name of the fragment, and suddenly it made all the sense in the world. There was something else, something bothering him, something stopping him from finishing the picture but he could fix this. The shoddy weaving, the places where the thread had torn when he was ripped away from his work too soon.

He labored for hours. For seconds.

Logan let the blanket fall and opened his eyes as the glittering film of energy vanished.

Immediately, his eyes locked with the dark ones from his...dream?...even through the dark, he recognized them. The face was older, the fear less intense, hope now sitting where blind panic had once been...

It wasn't a dream. It was a memory.

“Stormcloud.”

He watched the cadet's face crumble just before Virgil launched himself at Logan. He caught the younger man easily, wrapping him up tight and greedily running his hands over his arms, his back, unable to feel his warmth or his presence but relishing the faint hum of proximity, the resistance that wouldn't let his arms close fully—reassuring himself that Virgil wasn't just safe, but that he was really here.

Four years old and terrified, cuddled up to Logan's side to watch the needle and thread. Seven years old, cloaked in fear as his ceremonial garb, every thought clear and sharp as the razor's edge. Eight years old, spinning silk for Logan's loom, bound to his side as Logan reaches for the Tome...screaming his name in the dark as Logan is dragged away by the man with the sword...

“It worked.” Virgil gasped, drawing back to grin at him with fresh tear tracks on his face. “It worked, it really worked, Souls and holy shit it worked--”

“Not completely, but enough to know that I'm going to kill you myself if you're not executed for engineering a jailbreak.” Logan snapped, clutching Virgil's face between his hands. His own cheeks felt wet, his vision blurry with a stream of tears he couldn't stop, and he had to stop because his powers had to stay in check...

Virgil. Virgil, Virgil, a cadet of the royal guard, a criminal, his baby brother, his Spider.

Logan pulled Virgil close again, pressing his nose to Virgil's temple. His hair still smelled like damp stone from sleeping on the floor all the time. The shoulders Logan had his arms around were lean, but powerful—how old was he now? Nine years old when Logan was imprisoned...

“You're nineteen.” he realized aloud, finally letting Virgil go so he could look into his face again. “I didn't know, I knew I had a brother but I didn't know...I didn't know you...”

“Shut up, you can pretend you aren't all emotional and shit later.” Virgil soothed, stepping back to grab the blanket off the floor. Logan couldn't quite remember making it, but he knew he had. He could see Virgil with his thumb in his mouth, feel the tug on the half finished blanket as Virgil pulled one end to rub the soft fabric against his nose and cheek, feel the sting of the needle as he pricked himself...

“OW!”

“Wha' happen?”

“I stuck my finger with the needle—there's blood on the blanket now.”

“We can wash it.”

“No, we most certainly cannot.”

“Loganberry! Tha's so gross!”

“Falsehood. This is advantageous—we must let the blood dry first. See where it fell? It will soak through and charge the crystal pocket with my personal magic. That way, when you need it? You can wrap up in the blanket, and you'll feel me there with you.”

“...promise?”

“I swear it.”

“Lo...you gotta do it.”

“Souls—how is a few drops of blood more inherently disgusting than a spit handshake? Fine...”

“The crystals that made this a healing charm—my blood charged them with my personal magic.” he realized aloud, staring at Virgil in shock. “You snuck this in here hoping to restore my Name with it.”

“At least some of your power, but looks like I didn't have to go to the trouble.” Virgil shot back.

“You could have been killed! If the nature of the power had been discovered—oh, I am going to murder you myself once I—“

“Souls, Lo, do you have to go full bloodlust all the time?” Virgil laughed, grinning as he grabbed Logan's arm to pull him along while he started walking down the corridor. “Even after ten years, nothing changes.”

“I will take your word for it, as my memory has not been restored.” Logan replied, planting his feet as he gave his surroundings more serious consideration. The opulence of this area, the magical lighting instead of standard torches...

“All I have back is you, Storm—that said, where are we? How did we get here?”

“The residential wing of the castle—you brought us here.” Virgil explained, gesturing to the end of the corridor he was still trying to pull Logan away from. “You were channeling in the war room, but Mori tried to kill you by taking the blanket off...I thought he was gonna strangle you. Then you woke up, but your eyes were...weird. You just...stood up and bolted.”

Logan started to move towards the door, pulling Virgil with him. “Where is the king? And...the others? I was in and out of consciousness...Emile and Remy?”

“The heart-healer and the prison mage, yeah—couple members of the royal council spotted you heading this way, and word's out that Colonel Mori's been arrested. Roman's doing damage control with Prince Remus, I don't know where the others are. Doesn't matter, though, Logan will you stop and let me get you out of here?”

“No.”

“Loganberry, what the actual fuck?!”

“I'm not leaving. I have to resurrect the king.” Logan reminded him, head twisting around to regard Virgil with genuine confusion. Did Virgil really not understand this? He was Logan's Spider, he...

...didn't know where that came from. Didn't know what it meant.

The Spider does not question, he spins for his Weaver.

“Okay, one? You couldn't even if you wanted to, his Barrier is still open—you try to raise him now, the wrong soul could end up in his body. For another? He's the king and you're a necromancer. This is a jailbreak, remember? We're getting you out of here.”

Virgil emphasized his point by tugging on Logan's arm again, but Logan didn't move.

There was something else, something he wasn't seeing. Something about this...it felt off.

“Logan, we don't have time to fight about the life of a royal, okay? You don't remember why they can't be trusted--”

“Yet you trust him.” Logan pointed out. “You call him Roman, not 'His Majesty' or 'King Thomas Roman.' He...said something in the war room...”

Virgil finally let go of Logan's arm to start pacing back and forth in front of him. With a practiced flick, he draped the blanket around his shoulders—a petulant gesture Logan recognized. He recognized it, remembered it...the feeling was so alien to him.

“Yeah, I do—Souls help me, I trust him.” Virgil replied. “He swore on the Spider's Thread.”

“And?...”

“And...you're a Weaver.”

“You realize I do not know what that is.”

Virgil stopped pacing, then sighed and removed the blanket to drape it over his arm.

“Can we get out of here first so I can at least pretend I'm taking you to your quarters?”

Quarters?...their rooms. Patton.

“That is acceptable.” Logan relented, relieving Virgil of the blanket so he could walk unencumbered, as a guard ought to with a prisoner in tow.

“The Necromata aren't necromancers—they're a tribe.” Virgil explained as they walked, keeping his voice low as his gaze darted furtively around. “We're a tribe. Not every necromancer can raise the dead, some can foresee it or forestall it. The seers are the Black Dogs, the healers are the Reapers, and the resurrectionists are the Weavers. That's what you are.”

Logan thought of the magic he'd worked on instinct, the strange trancelike state that brought him the image of the shuttle, wound with spider's silk.

“The shuttle and thread...” he murmured.

Logan's stride faltered as Virgil crowded closer unexpectedly.

“Yes. So it worked, then?” he hissed excitedly. “We're connected?”

“I...believe?” Logan hedged uncertainly, the phrase echoing in his head again. “'The Spider does not question, he spins for his Weaver.' Are you...”

“Your Spider, yeah. I'm your familiar.”

“My what? Familiars--”

“--aren't stupid animals, idiot stick, that's for outsiders. Familiars are Sensitives that are connected to other necromancers, a perfect match to the power they wield. A Sensitive that's bonded to a necromancer as a familiar can actually do a little magic in tandem with their partner. You're pretty powerful on your own, you always have been, but when we realized we were matched? You got scary good.”

“So...Weavers raise the dead. And Spiders help them do it.”

“More or less. We were bonded when you got your True Name—it means you can draw focus and some small amount of magic from me, and I can communicate with ghosts. The souls you restore to life.”

“My...True Name?”

“Yeah—Loganberry. Every one of the Necromata has one.” Virgil replied, his features softening with a strange mixture of grief and gratitude. “Necromancy is rooted in memory, that's why being stripped of your Name wipes it out—makes you powerless. Your True Name, though, is rooted in identity. There are stories that say a True Name has the power to undo the Cleansing...I guess it's kind of true, since you have your powers.”

Logan fell silent, despite lacking certain answers. That feeling that something was off, it was only growing stronger. Something about names...

“So, the Spider's Thread?...”

“The oath Roman swore? Yeah—it's a reference to the Animata. Outsiders say they kept the Necromata in check? It's total bullshit. The Animata weren't life manipulators, they were a tribe of twin spirits—a being born with two souls. The Spider's Thread is the bond that exists between Animata and Necromata...necromancers don't have souls, but one that finds their Animata lays claim to their second soul, and...well, it's basically immortality. For both of them. That's why the familiars of the Weavers are called Spiders, 'cause we provide the thread that lets Weavers return souls to the Living Tapestry.”

Immortality...an immortal necromancer.

...like the Animator, the First of their kind. The necromancer so powerful, he still marked the passage of time.

A.A.--After Animator.

“How does he know about that, anyway?” Virgil asked. “That's not common knowledge outside the tribe—Logan? Logan, talk to me. What's wrong?”

Virgil's voice was fading. The world was going dark around the edges of Logan's vision again.

In the dark, pulled in two directions. Choking at the hands of one, latching onto another for dear life.

Grabbing blindly. Fingers gripping his, fingers he knew...

“Loganberry?...Logan!”

Gripping with a desperate force that was painful.

“...stay here, okay? I'm gonna get someone--”

Logan grabbed Virgil's hand as hard as he could. He looked down at their joined hands, watched Virgil's knuckles turn white with the force he was using to hold on in return.

Logan couldn't feel it. He wouldn't even feel it if Virgil broke his fingers.

The hand in his memory hurt, burned, seared...

He could feel the hand in his memory.

“Hold on.”

Logan strained to see into the shadows of the sewer, prayed for one final look.

The moonlight shifted.

Green eyes glittered in the momentary illumination.

“Loganberry!”

“He knew.” Logan breathed, releasing Virgil's hand. “He didn't come out of kindness, he came because he knew.”

“Knew what? Logan, who are you talking about?”

His voice was strangled, barely audible, but the words echoed in Logan's ears and cut out the heart he wished to the Souls that he did not have.

“Do not let go.” he demanded, begged through clenched teeth.

If he pulled Logan down, the man behind him might follow. Then they would both die.

There was no other way.

“Maybe he thought I'd remember, maybe...maybe he thought I'd escape...”

“Logan, who?”

Logan squeezed Prince Roman's hand as tightly as he could. He burned those green eyes into his brain, hoping he could carry them with him into the Void when he was gone.

“I never have. I never will.”

He never did—he hung on until the grip on his collar finally yanked him out of the fourteen year old prince's grasp.

“Roman—Virgil, I knew him. Before. I...I think he might be the reason I was arrested.”

[eleanorbloom]

When You’re Ready Ch. 10

Pairing: Bryce Lahela x f! MC (Eleanor Bloom) x Ethan Ramsey.

Word Count: 5.3k (Sorry!!!)

Warning: Innuendos at the beginning, then, just angst and a bit of cursing.

A/N: Yes, I’m sorry. Today’s chapter is the longest I’ve done so far, but it’s worth it (at least to me) because is about my babyyyy. Things are going to get harder from now on, so I’m excited for the upcoming chapters!! I hope you enjoy the angst because there’s more to come. Hehe.

A/N2: I’m gonna post some One Shots for Kinktober, so I was wondering if anyone wants to be tagged? It will be BrycexEleanor and DrakexMC from The Royal Romance. I’ve never published anything for TRR but I’m planning to write something in the future. Meanwhile, I’ll exercise with some smut muahaha. So let me know if you wanna be tagged 😏

Taglist @utterlyinevitable @binny1985 @shanzay44 @choicesficwriterscreations @laiba-the-person @starrystarrytrouble @lahellacute @lucy-268​ @aylamreads @cinnamonspongecake @romewritingshop @angela8756

_______

Chapter 10: Stay.

Funny you’re the broken one

But I’m the only one who needed saving.

 “Is that Raf?”—Eleanor raised her head from Bryce’s chest and stared at the ceiling, trying to prick up her ear.

At the distance, it was heard a deep voice in the middle of a mix of laughter.

“Yeah, that’s totally him.”

“What is he doing here so early?”

“Early?”—He chuckled—"It’s midday, babe.”

“Midday?!”—She grabbed her phone from the nightstand and checked. It was 12.10.—"And how we slept through all morning?”

“We stayed up late, don’t you remember? I think we got here like 3 am and then you just couldn’t shut up about how mad you were because Ramsey is being irrational about the influencer girl.”

“Oh, right. Drunken rant.”—Her cheeks blushed—“I’m sorry”

“Why are you sorry?”

“For making you hear all this crap when probably I ranted all night at Donahue’s about it.”

“Actually, you were just pissed off that Ramsey was mad at you, but when we got here you said the real stuff.”

“Like what?”

“Like you think that Ramsey is suspecting about your relationship with me and he’s taking it on you. He’s mad because you went behind his back with the Gwyneth thing, obviously, but he has contained his rage for weeks, and now he’s just… exploding.”

“Oh, fuck, you’re right, I did say that—She covered her face with both hands—"God, I’m so stupid.”

“Why? I think you’re right. He’s been acting like an ass with me this whole time too, he looks at me like I’m a piece of garbage or something.”

“But it’s really unprofessional that he is taking a work issue to an extreme just because he is what? Jealous? Mad that I’m getting over him? It’s very inconsistent of him.”

“Yes, it is. Are you going to do something about it?”

“Like what?”

“Like talk to him, tell him to stop,, that he shouldn’t take it on you at work just because he’s jealous.”

“I… I don’t know, I wouldn’t like to mix things, maybe I’m wrong.”

“You’re not wrong, Elle. You can’t let him be this ass with you, much less affect your work.”

Bryce saw how her head inside was spinning around, and her hands tensed over his rib cage.

“Just think about it.”—He added, stroking her hair comfortingly—"Don’t think for a second this is your fault, ‘cause it’s not. He made his choice in the first place.”

“I know…”

Eleanor leaned on her elbow to look at him in the eyes, smiling faintly at him.

“Thank you for being so understanding”

Bryce smiled back and then caressed her cheek while his eyes were expressing tenderness and protection.

She nuzzled into his soft chest losing herself into the sweet scent from his neck.

“Let’s focus on something less stressing and boring instead”—She whispered, lovingly.

“Like what?”—He asked tantalizingly roaming his hands through her back.

“Like the fact that I’m finally waking up with you.”

“Aw, you woke up really sugary today, uh?”

“Don’t you like it?”—She asked seriously.

“I have sweet tooth just because of you.”

“Awwww”—Eleanor encircled her arms around his neck pulling him down to her lips.—“You’re saying I’m sugary, but you just gave me a diabetic coma.”

“And I am having constipation ‘cause you, Eleanor Bloom, are being too cheesy.”

She burst out laughing, resonating in the whole apartment.

“Bryce! You’re impossible.”

“And you are impopsicle, babe.”—Before she could retort anything, he caught her lips into his, his hands travelling slowly down her bum. He deepened the kiss the moment she opened her mouth in a sigh.

“Do we have time for a quickie before getting ready for the concert?”

“Is it me or you’re doubting about your timing skills?”

“No, I’m just asking for consent.”

“We are wasting precious seconds, Dr. Lahela.”

Both chuckled before Eleanor pushed him against the bed and climbed on top of him, the sheets falling and pooling behind her, exposing her bare body.

“Sweet, sweet cowgirl ride me till the end of the world if you want”

Eleanor laughed hard again.

“Yeehaw!”—She joked between laughs.

This time it took like two minutes to make her stop. It would have been more if it weren’t for Bryce, who replaced her laughs for other more improper exclamations  that soon had to be hushed too.

By the time Bryce and Eleanor appeared in the living room, all their friends were ready for the Music Festival Eleanor had invited them, courtesy of her patient, Gwyneth Monroe. After a quick chat, they all headed to Cambridge, excited for the new adventure.

The group spent the afternoon eating, drinking, playing lawn games and, of course, enjoying the music. At some point, they split when Eleanor, Kyra, and Aurora decided to see an art exposition while Bryce, Elijah, and Jackie joined Sienna to see an indie band she had been fangirling all afternoon.

Once the group met again, an hour later, it didn’t take long for Bryce and Eleanor to get lost in the crowd, enjoying the music while savoring the moment alone in the open air.

The sun was about to set when Bryce felt his phone buzzing. As he pulled it out of his pocket the letters froze him. He ended the call and saw 10 missing calls and a lot of messages in the notification bar.

“Bryce, where are you?”

“I’m outside your apartment.”

“Bryce, please answer me! Are you at work?”

Eleanor stared at him worried, sensing his nervousness.

“Is everything alright?”

“I… I have to go.”

“Why? What happened?”

“Nothing, I just remembered tomorrow I have a really difficult surgery and I need to study up.”

“Okay.”—Her brows knitted, suspicious.

He kissed her quickly and turned to leave, but she caught his wrist before he could get lost in the crowd.

“Bryce!”

“What?”—He replied, trying to hide the fear that was invading him just right.

“If something wrong you can tell me, you know that, right?”

“Yeah.”

He smiled faintly and gave her one last kiss before walking out of the crowd.

He didn’t know how he reached the parking lot and got in the car, his hands were trembling and a knot of anxious had settled in his stomach. He pulled the phone out and called back.

“Bryce!”—He heard on the other end of the line—"God, I’ve been trying to reach you for hours, where are you?!”

“Keiki, what’s going on? How is that that you’re in Boston?”

“I’ll explain later, are you coming?”

“Yeah, I’ll be there in forty.”

“Hurry up, I’m bored to death here.”

When he got to his floor, she found a tall girl in a red leather jacket sitting against his door, a backpack between her legs. He barely recognized her, even if he had seen dozens of pictures of her on her social networks. She was a teenager now, not the little girl that said goodbye to him with tears in her eyes when he left for college.

“Keiki”

“Bryce”—She said getting up from the floor. He opened the door a few moments later and both got in.

“Can you explain to me now what you are doing here?”

“Hey, bro, I’m glad to see you too.”—She ironized—“Thanks for the kind welcoming.”

“Keiki, please.”

“I ran away from home, okay?”

“You what?”

“I don’t wanna live there anymore.”

“Keiki, you can’t do that”

“Why not? You did it.”

“I went for college…”—He replied, feeling the guilt sharpening inside him.

“Yes, and then you never came back because you couldn’t stand our parents. It’s the same with me.”

“That doesn’t excuse that you escaped from home and underage. Do you have a plan? Or you’ll just wait until they come here to take you back and maybe they will report me for child kidnap?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Bryce. They wouldn’t that.”

“Still this isn’t right, Keiki. It could’ve happened something to you on your way here.”

“Yeah, but it would have been worth it if it means not spend another second in Maui.”

Bryce looked at her, intrigued. He couldn’t understand how things were bad for her if she had everything she wanted back in Hawai. A room the size of his apartment, all the clothes she wanted, and millions of things to do. But that was enough? He knew well it wasn’t.

“Can I stay with you?”

“Of course, Keiki, but you’ll go back tomorrow. Call mom to know if she can buy you a ticket flight back, I’m not sure I have the money for that.”

“Don’t you understand? I’m not coming back there, Bryce. Period.”

He shook his head and sighed. It was impossible to reason with her, and he knew it wouldn’t get anything by pushing her even more.

“Call her to let her know you’re here, then.”

“I bet she already knows.”

She seated on the couch, looking at him defiantly. He just ignored her act.

“Have you eaten something?”

“Some Doritos I bought around the corner.”

“What do you want to eat? I’m calling a delivery.”

“You don’t cook? I want real food, Bryce.”

“I’m a surgeon, not a chef, Keiki”

“Either way, you should know how to feed yourself by now, how you have survived all these years?”

“Take out.”

“Unbelievable”

Bryce didn’t know what to do. Maybe he could just watch a video on Youtube and cook something basic to save the day. Eleanor’s face popped in his mind, but he shook off the idea as soon as it emerged. Calling her would implicate to tell her the truth about his family and he wasn’t ready for that.

“Okay.”—He said after some deliberation—"I’ll go to the grocery store, so you have food for breakfast tomorrow and all that. Do you wanna go with me?”

“Nah, I’m tired, I think I’m gonna lay down a bit.”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll be back in a bit.”

The moment he was out of the apartment, Bryce rubbed his hand across his face in exasperation. He didn’t know what to do, how to deal with his sister, and with the mistake he had been making all those years.

He always knew he shouldn’t have left her sister just like he did; never go back to Maui; call her just once in a while to finally only for her birthday. The guilt that has been accompanying him for ten years was materializing now in one of his worst fears: face his sister and deal with the consequences of his abandonment, the rage and the loneliness she might be feeling, all without prior notice.

He tried to clear his mind. At that moment he needed to stay calm to give Keiki the stability she had come to look for with him. He was the adult there, so he couldn’t let the feelings overwhelm him and make Keiki feel worse than she already was. 

Once he regained calmness, Bryce made his way to the grocery store where he collected all the ingredients for a spaghetti recipe he read on the internet, plus some vegetables, fruits, bread, butter, bacon, eggs, cookies, Doritos, so Keiki would have something to have breakfast and eat while she was at his place.

When the doors of the elevator opened again on his floor, she found the silhouette of a woman with a black and golden dress on, talking to Keiki. He froze for a moment until both directed to him.

“Elle”

“Hi Bryce”—She looked at him surprised, while Keiki just eyed them, leaning in the door frame, arms crossed.—“What’s happening?”

“Let’s get inside and talk, okay?”

Keiki moved backwars to let Bryce and Eleanor in. He went straight to the kitchen and set the bags over the counter meticulously, like trying to gain some time before facing her. After a few moments, Bryce turned to Eleanor.  

“Elle, this is my sister Keiki. She arrived today from Maui. She’s visiting.”

“Like hell. I told you I’m not planning to go back there, Bryce.”—She barked while she was flopping on the couch with the remote control in her hand.

“Hi Keiki, I’m Eleanor, nice to meet you”—She replied, giving a smile, even if she wasn’t looking at her.

“Yeah”—The girl just said, her eyes not moving from the TV.

Bryce just sighed, making evident his frustration. Eleanor looked at him worried and then pulled him to the kitchen.

“Can you explain to me now what’s happening? Why your sister ran away from home? Hell, I didn’t even know you had a sister, Bryce.”

Even if he wasn’t ready to talk about it, Bryce knew it wasn’t fair Eleanor didn’t know he had a sister, while she had talked about her family countless times.

“Elle, I…”—Now another fear was materializing: telling the truth about his family to someone from Boston. To the woman he loved, no less.—“To make a long story short, my family was a big deal in Hawaii. When I was in high school my dad went to jail for insider trading, and my mom only got off by testifying against him even though she was right there helping him the whole time.”

Eleanor gazed thoughtfully at him until she realized.

“Oh my god, Bryce… Your parents are The Lahelas? As in property tycoons turned white collars criminals The Lahelas?”

“That’s my family, and Keiki lives with them back in Hawaii. Dad got paroled a while ago for good behavior.”

Bryce saw as she remained in silence, surprise in her eyes. He couldn’t help but wince, waiting for the disappointed look, the disgust, the judgment. But nothing of it came. She instead tried to understand why Keiki was running away from home, what could have triggered that. She tried to convince him that this was not a simple rebellion as he was thinking. There was no judgment in her eyes or words. She just focused on Keiki and how to help him to deal with her.

Once Bryce felt less tense, he asked Eleanor to help him with dinner, which she accepted gladly. Half an hour later, the three of them enjoyed a plate of pasta that felt tastier as it was a result of collaborative work. 

Even if Keiki was hesitant to talk at first, the food put her in such a good mood that Eleanor got her to chat a bit with her, Bryce observing the exchange with admiration. From the answers, Eleanor could tell Keiki was a smart girl and mature for her age; she had a hot temper but the same self-assurance Bryce had, even the same smirks and looks.

“Thanks for dinner, Eleanor. .”—Keiki said before going to sleep.—"Good to know I won’t starve to death my first night here.”

“You’re welcome. It was nice to meet you, Keiki.”

She smiled at her and then got to the room.

Eleanor and Bryce stood in silence for a bit, none of then sure who had to speak first.

“Bryce, why you never told me? This is big.”—Eleanor finally said, standing in front of him, concerned.

“I know… I just…I was afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Of you judging me.”

“Judge you? How could I judge you, Bryce?”

“Because it has always been like this. People know me and it’s okay at first, but then, when they know that I’m the son of a criminal, they assure me it’s okay but they never look at me the same, never treat me the same. They look at me like I’m about to do something, or like I’m a professional liar and I’m trying to cheat on them.”

“Bryce..”—She whispered, cupping his cheeks, her eyes full of sadness.

“I wanted to start from scratch here, no one knowing about my parents, no one judging me for that, just focusing on what I am, on how hard I worked to be at Edenbrook and be known for that.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry this happened to you.”—She said as he took him in her arms, embracing him tightly.

They stayed in silence for a while.

“How could you ever think that I would judge you, that I would treat you like that? I would never, Bryce. Never.”

“I know but some part of me thought you would.”

“Now I understand why you always changed the topic when I asked you.”

He nodded.

“But now you know you can trust me, right? Whatever you need, I’ll have your back.”

“I know, but… it’s not that simple, Eleanor. Since high school, people have seen me as a disease the moment they know I’m a Lahela, so I’ve never had anyone to trust about what I felt or just tell…stuff… the stress, the sadness… the things friends share. I never needed anyone to deal with problems, I could do it on my own until… until I met you, but I’ve ignored the feeling because I don’t wanna hold on to you, I’m scared that you’ll go away and I’ll lose the one person I trusted.”

“Why would I go?”

“Because nothing’s settled between us. There’s still the possibility that you’ll go with Ramsey or simply break up with me because you don’t want me anymore.”

“Bryce, we’ve been together for two whole months, I’m not planning to go anywhere.”

“Yeah, that’s what you say now, but you still want our relationship to be a secret because you don’t want Ramsey to know and make it a reality, because some part of you don’t want it to be true.”

“How can you say that?”

“Don’t be hypocrite Eleanor, please. I’m not stupid.”—Bryce retorted, hurt. She had never seen him this serious and cold.

“It’s not like that. And I don’t get where you’re going with this.”

“My point is, Eleanor, that I want to trust you, I really do want to tell you what is happening inside my head, but I can’t if the one person I can trust maybe won’t be here with me in two months or in a year. It doesn’t work like that with me. I have to keep on my own as always.”

“Bryce, no matter what, I’ll always be here for you, even if things turn out different-”

“No, Eleanor”—He interrupted—“Please don’t do this. Don’t be this selfish, thinking that if we end up things, we could go back to what we were. If I hold on you, I don’t know how I’ll deal with losing you or be away from you while I heal.”

“Bryce… Don’t be afraid, sometimes you have to take a leap of faith…”

“Don’t you think I haven’t taken enough leaps, Eleanor? I showed my feelings for you, I told you I loved you even before we were dating. You’re the only person I’ve done that with, and yet there is always a possibility that you won’t feel the same ever. And what about you? Yeah, you took a leap when you started dating me, but you can’t take a leap in leaving Ramsey in the past, tell him the truth, scrub all over his face that you moved on, because your ego is terrified that you weren’t enough to heal him. So, don’t dare to tell me that I should take a leap.”

He turned around and sat on the couch, both hands over his hair.

Eleanor looked at him, seeing the real Bryce for the first time. The Bryce that feels in pain, angry, annoyed, frustrated. Vulnerable. Human. The side she had never seen in him and she always wanted to know.

She took a few steps towards him and squatted down to face him.

“I’m sorry. I’m not trying to push you —She murmured—”I just want you to know that I’m here for you if you need me, okay?”

“I know, but I don’t think I’m ready for this, Eleanor. This is too much, and I need to deal with this on my own, that’s how I know best.”

“I understand.—She said softly, while taking his hands on hers.

The moment he felt his touch, his eyes threatened with tears and a knot ached in his throat. He pulled away from her grip.

“I… uh… I need you to go, Eleanor. I want to be alone.”

“Of course”—She replied, standing up.  

Once she collected her things she went to the door.

“Whatever you decide, just remember that I want the best for you, Bryce. I know we are in a complicated situation right now, but I’m doing my best to end this hell soon.”

And she left.

Bryce stood unmoved on the couch recounting the events of the past hours as the tears streamed down his face.

His biggest fears had occurred, and now he was feeling the incessant need of trusting Eleanor, tell her all the pain that was buried in his heart, but he just couldn’t. Just like his issues about his parents,  he had been burying the thoughts about Eleanor not wanting to confront Ethan about their relationship. He knew she still loved him and couldn’t blame her for that, but it was hurting him more than he thought, and he had just ignored his feelings and not said anything to her because if he opened up to Eleanor, even for one single thing, it would be like to open the pandora box, and he wasn’t ready to let all go.

Things were difficult in the next days. Keiki was absolutely decided to stay with him, especially since his parents didn’t reach him or Keiki to make her come back to Maui, and he still didn’t know how to deal with Keiki, because at any try of conversation, they ended up fighting or she ignoring his tries to be friendly.

The frustration and guilty were getting bigger and bigger.

He didn’t speak to Eleanor, and barely spend time with the rest of his friends. He just locked in on himself, focusing on working hard, and go straight home to be with Keiki even if they didn’t say anything or just argued. She was alone all day so she needed some company, and he really wanted to understand her, bonding with her and be like they were before, o maybe not like before, but he wanted to be her brother again.

However, soon he realized that he had been too harsh with Eleanor. Even if she was still in love with Ethan and didn’t want to make it official, it was all within their agreement. And more importantly, she had always been very respectful of their relationship, because she had only eyes and time for Bryce, and even if she wasn’t ready to commit, to tell the truth to Ethan and stop loving him, she was all in the relationship with him. He was her priority, he sensed that. He knew it.  Because she had been refusing any contact with Ethan since he was back.  When Bryce assumed that Eleanor had kissed him the night she stayed at Donahue’s, the reality was different.  And Ethan’s behavior the past weeks was proof of that. So, he felt bad for reacting that way. She didn’t deserve it when she only wanted to help.

*

Bryce was walking by the fourth floor, expecting to find Eleanor there, when he heard heated voices inside an empty room.

“This anger you have against me is about something else and I won’t allow it, Ethan.”

“What do you mean by ‘something else’?”

“Not work-related. You have been an ass to me for weeks, and whatever might be your reason, you’re being unprofessional and you’re exactly what you wanted to avoid.”

Then, absolute silence.

If Bryce was right, Eleanor was confronting Ethan about his behavior in the past weeks. She didn’t address the problem openly, but it was clearly a step he thought she wouldn’t take so soon.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”—She said when she ran into him, not cathing it was him at first.—"Bryce? Hi”

“Eleanor”—They stared in silence for a moment—"I was looking for you. What time does your shift end?”

Bryce saw the brief moment Ethan passed behind Eleanor, his face impassive and cold as steel, ignoring their existence completely.

“Half an hour, I’m doing my final round. Why?”

“I need to speak to you, meet me in the atrium as always?”

“Okay, yeah.”—Her cheeks flushed and couldn’t help but look at him with hope.

“See ya later, then.”

He waited in their usual spot and finally, fifteen minutes later, she appeared.

“I’m so sorry, I had to run new tests for a patient, and it took me ages.”

“Don’t worry, I’m glad you’re here.”

“So…”

“Let’s go to my car, we can talk there.”

“Okay.

Once both got in the car, they looked at each other until Bryce broke the silence.

“Elle, I want to apologize. I realized I was too unfair with you the other day. I know you were trying to help and I just took it on you, because I was frustrated with the situation and I didn’t know how to deal with it, let alone with another person offering help.”

“It’s okay, Bryce, it’s me who should apologize. I shouldn’t have pushed you like that.”

“No, you were trying to help me, and I thank you for that. But I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that about Ramsey. You have been very respectful to our relationship, I want you to know that. I really appreciate it, babe. It’s just that sometimes this is… hard.”

“Bryce, listen, you were right, you don’t have to apologize for telling me the truth. I am afraid, and sadly I still have feelings for Ethan and I don’t want to hurt him, but I don’t want to hurt you either, so it’s all so complicated.”

“I know, Elle, I know, that’s why I shouldn’t have been so rude. By no means you have been unfair or mean to me. It’s just that this is getting a bit hard for me, that’s all, especially now that I’m dealing with something big in my life and I want to hold on to you… But I’m terrified to do so.”

Eleanor rested her hands over his. 

“Look, I know I can’t promise you we will be together forever, but I want you to know that our relationship it’s the most important thing to me now, and I’ll do whatever I can to take care of us. We are still in this difficult process until things are clear inside my head, but right now I want to be here for you, I want to help you with your sister and with whatever you need. Just say the word, okay?”

He smiled thankfully and then nodded.

“Truce?”—She said, offering her hand.

“Truce”—He agreed, but instead of taking her hand, he kissed her sweetly in the lips.

Eleanor giggled against him.

“God, I missed you so much.”—He sighed, parting from her just a brief moment, to keep kissing her for another couple of seconds.

“Me too. These days have been a real nightmare without you. How are you dealing with Keiki?”

“Not so well, actually. That’s why I wanted to ask you if you would like to go home with me tonight. I haven’t been able to talk with Keiki, and if you there with me, maybe I’ll understand her better. I don’t wanna fight with her anymore.”

Eleanor smiled warmly at him.

“This means that you’re letting me in?”

Bryce had made his decision but couldn’t help but feel a bit nervous.

“Yes. I want you with me in all this, Elle.”

“You won’t regret it. I promise.”

When they get home a delicious smell invaded their nostrils. Keiki was in the kitchen apparently frying some beef.

“Hey Keiki”—They both greeted.

“Hey. Eleanor, I didn’t know you were coming. I hope I’m doing enough food for the three of us.”

“We’ll make it work”—Bryce said, hopeful.

“If not, Bryce, you can call a delivery just as you like.”

“Haha, always so loving, sis. Whatcha doing?”

“Mongolian beef, I found an easy recipe on Instagram and here I am.”

“You need any help?”

“Umh, maybe with the rice, I have to chop the scallions and then have an eye on the beef.”

“Sure.”

They both washed their hands and then Eleanor taught Bryce how to cook rice while suggesting topics to talk. Some were delicate and Keiki reacted badly, but after every scowl Eleanor gave to Bryce, he tried to act more empathetic, listening to her before judging.

Once the dinner was served, the three seated with smiled on her faces.

“Keiki, this is great!”—Eleanor praised after giving the first taste to her plate.—“You had cooked before?”

“Yeah, a couple of times, but it’s not that I have the chance to do it often when you have people who cook for you”—She replied, a bit embarrassed.

“And what do you like to do? Reading? Singing? Playing an instrument? Skateboarding?”

“I like drawing, reading, and sometimes taking pictures.”

“That’s great. Boston has such beautiful places to do it.”

“Yeah, that’s true. I’ve took some really nice. ”

“You must show me them after dinner, okay?”

“Sure”

“ And what about your friends? You are not missing them now that you’re here?”

“Nah, I don’t have actual friends there, they all hate me.”

“Why they hate you?”—Bryce asked, brows furrowed.

That was the moment Bryce had been waiting since her sister got there, because with that question, Keiki let everything out. 

Bryce finally knew the motives that made her leave home and fly all over the Pacific Ocean and to the other side of the country to be with him, even if they hadn’t seen each other in ten years.

And it happened that her sister was living the same hell he lived. Her classmates hated her for what his parents did, and of course, they hadn’t done anything to protect her. They only cared about their reputation.

The mistake he kept making for ten years had led to this. Her sister suffering from loneliness, abandonment, bullying. Just like he did.

“Keiki I’m …. I’m sorry I didn’t call more. I should have been looking out for you.”—Bryce finally said.

“It’s not like you could have done anything from all the way over here.”

“I could, Keiki. I should have tried, I should have done better, I should have stood in front of mom and dad if you needed me to. And I didn’t. I let this happened. But I’m gonna do better, starting from today.”

Bryce got up from the chair and opened his arms, inviting her sister to do the same. After a few moments of staring at him, she finally stood up and threw herself into his arms.

“I’m sorry I was a jerk when I turned up. And like… every day since.”—She apologized, complete sincerity in her eyes.

“The only jerk here is me. You can stay with me for as long as you need, okay? We’ll figure it out.”

“Thanks, Bryce.”

“I’m sorry, Keiki. Truly.”

“Bryce, it’s okay. I’m happy that I can count on you.”

“Always.”

The three chatted on the couch until Eleanor started to feel sleepy. She and Bryce said goodnight to Keiki, who had given his bed back a couple days ago as she found out the couch really comfy and his brother needed proper rest more than her.  When they locked in the room, Bryce pulled Eleanor to his chest gently, resting his forehead into hers.

“Thank you for doing this.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“All the right questions, and all those scowls and deadly glares that meant ‘stop screwing it up, Bryce’ is doing nothing? Really?”

“Ah, well. It was minimal. You did the hard job here, you get your sister to talk, and you listened to her and empathized with her. You apologized. You were the support she was looking for. You did it amazing, Bryce. Not me.  I’m so proud of you.”

“This wouldn’t have been possible without you.”—He kissed her in the lips, giving her the sweetest smile she had even seen in him, it made her stomach flutter.

“Good things happen when you trust people, you see?”

“Only with you.”

“I know. And I won’t let you down.”

___

[roseskiesandbutterflies]

Le Démon Déchu - Chapter 2: Réponses Et Plus De Questions

Summary: The summary is kind of long so please check a previous part or my masterlist if you want to read it.

Warning(s): threat, swearing

Word Count: 6.8k+

Inspiration: Do You Know What Eternity Is? by Elderly_Worm on AO3, Great Omens (The Big One) by falsepremise on AO3, Pray For Us, Icarus series by Atalan on AO3, Demonology and the Tri-Phasic Model of Trauma: An Integrative Approach by Nnm on AO3, wasteland, baby by john1513 on AO3, Not of Us by ShesAKillerQueen98 on AO3, How to Win a Lifetime Achievement Award for Services to Television (and how not to) by GaryOldman on AO3, Doctor Who (don’t ask) and, of course, Good Omens itself

A/N: Okay I took a bit of a hiatus from writing literally anything for about five months so sorry about that but I’m back now!! That’s the main thing. Also, I’ve left high school now which is very exciting! That does mean I’ll have so much more time to write and I’m definitely going to try and use this summer to establish some kind of routine for writing so that when I start college, I won’t get too overwhelmed with both my studies and with updating my fics. That’s the plan anyway so don’t hold me to that lmao. With any luck, now I’ve actually said that it’ll have to happen. (I wrote that part of this note back in May when it was the start of the summer. It is currently September and I’m just about to finally publish this chapter and I assure you, I am cringing at my own optimism.) Sorry this took so long to post. This chapter has been in the works since May (yes, I know I’m terrible) but I actually got a lot more writing done in that time that what you just see in this chapter. All will be revealed soon. I just promise that I have been productive. Once you’ve read this chapter, you have my blessing to translate the title of this fic. Hopefully it will make sense.

I just wanted to point out something about the playlist I linked in the previous chapter. I am well aware that there are some rather problematic people in it, namely Sia. I want you all to know that I don’t support her in any way (I don’t like her at all I think she’s a complete ableist twat). Her songs are only on there because of how well they fit with the story (a lot of this will become clearer as the story goes on).

I also wanted to point out that I know that if angels do exist, then their true forms probably wouldn’t look anything like humans. I’m well aware of that, I’m not an idiot, I don’t know if any of you remember when people started googling ‘angel true form’ and some people got scared lmao. The point is, we’ve all seen the pictures. But for the purpose of this story, and honestly just to make it easier for me to describe what the characters are doing, we’re going to have to pretend that they did look like humans. Can I claim creative license with this one? Maybe it got lost in translation because there is probably no way someone could describe how an angel truly looks in any human language? I don’t know, just roll with it.I know that this chapter had so much exposition and explanation in it but I can promise you two things. One, there is still much to be revealed. Two, I promise this isn’t just bad writing on my part. Just trust that I needed to put this all in this early on.

And how is everyone doing after the season 2 announcement? I mean, at the time of writing this specific part of my notes, it only got announced about an hour ago lmao. I’m very fucking excited, oh my god. It’s all I’ve been able to think about since I found out I can’t lie. Catch me trying to finish this before it comes out in case things occur which means I have to change things in this story. I can’t be arsed for that. Oh well. Hopefully it’ll read like those Sherlock fics that people wrote in between series 2 and series 3 if that doesn’t happen.

Taglist: @briarrose26​

Ask or comment to be on my taglist! Let me know if it’s for a specific fandom(s) or series. Full list is in my bio.

Hermit (upright) + Five of Wands (upright)

Conflict. Reflection. Resurfacing memories.

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

Let’s admit, without apology, what we do to each other.

We know who our enemies are. We know.

– Richard Siken (Detail of the Fire)

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

“Fuck.”

The angel and demon exchanged glances of what could only be described as thinly veiled panic, while the woman in front of them just looked annoyed at the most.

“They couldn’t wait five minutes, could they?” she muttered, pinching at the bridge of her nose in frustration before standing up again, “Look, just stay down here, I’m gonna go sort this out. With any luck they won’t have actually realised you’re here too.”

“Wait, how do you know they’re here for you?” Crowley asked, suddenly curious as to what business Eloise might have with Heaven.

“Just a gut feeling,” she said before making her way to the spiral staircase behind them, muttering to herself, “If they were here for you, I feel like they would have at least used the front door.”

The other two waited until she’d run upstairs before exchanging a quick glance, an unspoken word, and following her up.

Meanwhile, Eloise was hovering outside a room at the end of the corridor which she could only assume was the bedroom. She was strangely hesitant, not out of fear of them, simply out of fear of the unknown. She hadn’t spoken to anyone in that room for millennia, and something told her that this wasn’t going to be a friendly chat. She took a deep breath, even though she technically didn’t need it, letting a wave of faux confidence wash over her, and stepped inside. Don’t crumble now. You’ve come too far to crumble now.

“Ah, Mariel, long time no see,” Gabriel smiled coldly, brushing the dust off his white suit. Flanked by two other angels, he stood in the wreckage of the bedroom without even acknowledging the damage they must have caused when they crashed in. Beside him were Beelzebub and Hastur, who both looked as though they had been dragged kicking and screaming to come here. Beelzebub in particular kept shooting metaphorical daggers at Gabriel, who remained perfectly oblivious. The entire ceiling had caved in from the impact of their crash, the setting sun painting the doorway where Eloise stood in a pale gold and casting a dark shadow over the others.

She’d grimaced at the use of her old name; it was too unfamiliar, too ancient. Mariel was the name of a long-dead version of herself. Once upon a time, she’d embraced it, but that was once upon a time. Once upon a time long gone.

“Almost like I’ve been avoiding you on purpose,” she muttered, leaning against the doorway as she stared intrusively at each person in the room, observing, assessing. She silently revelled in the blatant discomfort in each of their faces.

“No need to be so rude,” Gabriel said, doing anything to avoid her eyes, his previous confident façade now shattered.

Eloise stared at him in disbelief, “What exactly were you expecting? A fucking welcome party? I haven’t seen any of you in over six thousand years and you just crash through the roof of my house, unannounced and uninvited, so yeah, forgive me for being a little irritated.” She couldn’t help but feel a little bit guilty. She’d barely been in Aziraphale’s bookshop for fifteen minutes and she was already pretending she owned it.

She watched smugly as he squirmed under her gaze, desperately looking to the others to say something in response. A moment or two passed before Beelzebub’s head suddenly snapped up in confusion, “Are you alone?”

Shit. She’d hoped that they wouldn’t have noticed the presence of the two who were definitely not downstairs like she’d asked. She swallowed, trying not to let any kind of emotion show on her face, trying not to give the game up that quickly, “Yeah, I live on my own.” She watched the whole group of them squint in concentration, trying to sense any other beings in the house. She sighed, changing the subject before they could comment on it any further, “Look, what do you want? I don’t have all day so if you could make it quick then that would be much appreciated.”

Gabriel looked back at her, his suave exterior unfortunately making a return, “Hey, we just wanted to check up on you, see how you’re doing-”

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” she snapped. She pushed herself off from the doorway, stalking towards the others, “You have had six thousand years to ‘check up on me’, don’t pretend you’ve only started to care now.”

She was met with only silence as Gabriel and Beelzebub glanced at each other awkwardly, looking very much like chastised children. Suddenly the latter groaned and cried, “You can’t just leave Hell!”

“Oh, here we go,” Eloise muttered, rolling her eyes, bored already.

“You can’t! You Fell from Heaven, so you go to Hell, there isn’t a third option!”

“Well, apparently there is,” she shrugged.

“No there isn’t!” they argued, face screwed up like a petulant child.

“Then what do you call this then?” she asked, unfolding her wings for the second time that day. She studied their reactions closely, scrutinising coal-black eyes piercing through their very souls. She was searching for any hint of shock, of recognition, of anything that could clue her in as to what was going on in their heads at that moment. All she could find, however, was pure, unadulterated confusion. Which was annoying when her wings were supposed to be an answer to their unasked questions.

Gabriel stumbled over his words, “Good Lord, how did you even-”

Eloise cut him off curtly, no longer having the patience to listen to his incoherent mumbles. She instead turned to Beelzebub who at least had the decency to look a little more composed, “That would be what you could sense then. I’ve got both Heaven and Hell in me, that’s a lot of energy to pick up on.” She stared right through them, daring them to say anything else.

“Must be,” they replied slowly, though they didn’t look at all convinced.

Gabriel held up a hand, his eyes darting about as he tried to comprehend what he was seeing, “No hold on, how did you even manage that?”

“I left Hell,” Eloise said simply, “Why should I have black wings? I’m not some demon who ran away from everything. I left. Permanently. I looked Hell in the eye and walked away. You know what? Fuck it, I looked Satan in the eyes and walked away.”

“You what?” he stuttered.

“Yeah, you heard me. You have a problem with me leaving Hell then go on! Take that up with the bloody devil,” she said, staring them down, daring them to retaliate. She smirked when she was met with pure, uncomfortable silence, “Except you won’t, will you? Because you don’t actually give two fucks about me. Just like I said, if you did then you would have chased me up a long time ago. Quite frankly, I think you must have been glad to have me out of your hair,” she sighed, half sad, half amused when they couldn’t even meet her eye. She paused for a moment, wondering how far she could push this, before asking, “You know what I think is really going on here? I think the pair of you are feeling a bit bruised after the absolute shitshow that was Armageddon last year, which, by the way, fucking hilarious. I think your egos are feeling a little sore after a literal child stopped you from ending the world, so you’re thinking ‘hmm, what would be an easy win so that we don’t feel like total shit? Oh yeah, what about that demon who ran away all that time ago? That should be easy to sort out.’. Well, love to disappoint, but you’re not getting me that easily, especially when not a single one of us actually wants me back, and Sandalphon, take one more step further I swear I will dropkick you back to Heaven,” she snapped, glaring at the angel who had been menacingly inching closer while she had been talking. He reluctantly stepped back alongside Gabriel, looking a little more than miffed that his plan hadn’t worked out. “You really want me back? Get your bosses to talk to me because I don’t actually see why it’s any of your business. No middle men. Just God, Satan and me. I’ll see what they have to say about all this. Questions?” she asked, tone snapping from one extreme to another, almost as if she had just been possessed.

Gabriel stared at her, mouth gaping like a fish, “You can’t just boss us around like that.”

“What? Like how you bossed us around all those years?” she replied without missing a beat, real rage, real danger seeping into her voice now, “I think we’re done here.”

“But-”

“I said, I think we’re done here,” she said, leaving no room for arguments. She gestured to the sorry excuse for a room around them, “Now, if you wouldn’t mind cleaning this up.”

“Why can’t you do it? You can miracle things too,” Gabriel said, desperate for any kind of leverage over Eloise.

“You’re right, I could, but I didn’t make this mess, and I personally believe that you should face the consequences of your actions, Gabriel,” she said pointedly, watching as he visibly gulped. In a matter of seconds, the room was restored to its original state and Eloise was left alone in the room, no indicators that she was ever with any other people remaining.

She sighed and all but collapsed into a chair that may or may not have existed a few moments ago, confident façade shattered completely. She breathed heavily in exhaustion, as if she’d just run a marathon; she supposed she had just run a mental one. Her emotions were bugging her to no end. It was strange. She wasn’t scared, per se. There was very little that Gabriel or Beelzebub could do to her that would frighten her anymore. She tried her best to compose herself, writing off the tsunami inside her mind as just plain old adrenaline, before calling out, “You can come in now. I know you guys are outside, it’s okay, you can come in.”

Crowley and Aziraphale walked into the room, one looking considerably more sheepish than the other. Aziraphale perched awkwardly on the freshly reconstructed bed, “We’re sorry–”

“No, you’re not.”

“No, we’re not.”

Eloise and Crowley exchanged a glance, amused looks on both of their faces while Aziraphale simply looked distressed. Eloise turned back to him and smiled sympathetically, “I told you, it’s fine. I would have done the same,” she admitted, looking away before collecting herself once again, “So, I’m guessing you have a lot of questions–”

“That’s the understatement of the century,” Crowley muttered as he took a seat beside Aziraphale, although it was a very loose definition of ‘taking a seat’.

Aziraphale glared at him while Eloise just sighed and reluctantly said, “I think it might be better if I just show you.”

Crowley cocked his head in confusion, “Show us what?”

She brought her chair closer to the edge of the bed and put out her hands, “Take my hands. Brace yourselves.”

Mariel was standing before a crowd of angels, dozens upon dozens of disgusted faces staring right at her. She couldn’t quite remember getting there. She had been in the pitch-dark holding cell and the next thing she knew, she was here. Blinding white light surrounded them, harshly illuminating her vulnerabilities before all of Heaven. She tried her best to keep her chin up even though she absolutely hated the fact that they could see the bruises from when she had been arrested that were now blooming on her face. She frowned as she noticed the lack of measures preventing her from escaping. All that was keeping her there was Gabriel’s presence at her side, cold violet eyes pointedly ignoring her. He really was an arrogant bastard for assuming that she wouldn’t even try to make a run for it. Just because he was right this one time, it didn’t mean that he shouldn’t have come prepared. Mariel sighed and looked up at the angels staring down at her. Michael was sat higher than everyone in the centre of the crowd, face void of all emotion as she said, “The Principality Mariel. You’re on trial today for betraying the will of the Almighty, rebelling against all that is good and light in the universe...”

Mariel blocked the rest of her pretentious speech out as she droned on about all the awful things she’d supposedly done to deserve this. It was all lies anyway. She knew the real reason she was here. There were a few things that stood out to her despite it all, things that nearly made her laugh. She’d known that they’d needed to conjure up some reasons for condemning her, but this was just ridiculous. Gabriel really had gone to extraordinary yet desperate lengths to slander her in her final moments in this Someone-forsaken place. She was surprised that the angels gathered to watch her downfall believed a word of this. She tried her best not to resent them, though. It wasn’t like they had anything better to believe in. Especially considering the amused smirk that had crept its way onto her face.

She returns to reality just in time to hear Michael ask, “What do you have to say to defend yourself?”

“I’ve done nothing I need to defend,” she said firmly, leaving no room for argument.

“Don’t make this worse for yourself than it already is,” Gabriel muttered dangerously from where he stood beside her.

Mariel turned to look at him in disbelief. “How the fuck could this get any worse, Gabriel?” she hissed, fury flaring up in her eyes.

He just looked back at her condescendingly, “Do you really need me to answer that?”

She pointedly refused to reply, turning back to face Michael, determined to ignore him.

The next part goes past in a blur for Mariel. Michael speaks again, though she doesn’t listen. Then suddenly there are shouts of anger, screams of rage, coming from the gathered crowd. They spit with venom as they hurl insults at her. She doesn’t hear a word. It’s as though her head is under water, completely submerged in the stone cold anger that seeps through her body, and suddenly Mariel is drowning in the realisation that this is really happening, oh God this is really happening.

Why? Why is this happening to me? You listening, God? Look me in the eye and tell me why this is happening.

She doesn’t get an answer, and though she wasn’t expecting one, it still hurts. Because she knows that she’ll never get an answer from Her again now.

Eventually she feels a tug on her arm from where Gabriel has been standing, dragging her away from the crowd and out her of current state of mind. She could feel her senses coming back to her as she stumbled backwards, but everything was crashing down on her too quickly, too harshly. She did her best to shove the rising panic as deep down insider her as she could. There was no way she would let anyone here see her in that state. She couldn’t let them think they’d won.

She didn’t even realise she had reached the edge of the ground she was standing on, the edge of Heaven itself, Gabriel no longer grabbing her arm. She nearly found herself peering over the edge, but stopped herself before she could lean too far. It may have helped her in the past but now was not the time to give in to her curiosity. And she didn’t trust Gabriel to not push her the moment he had the chance. She turned her head to glare fiercely at him, piercing holes in his very soul. She could slowly feel her anxiety being replaced by cool rage as she found herself saying, “Any institution that tries to silence anyone who opposes them is inherently corrupt.” She stared knowingly at his discomfort as he forced himself to face her. He knew what she meant by that. He knew.

He took a second to compose himself before practically scoffing in her face, “Don’t preach at me.”

Mariel cocked her head as she studied him. She watched as his eyes subconsciously flicked back to the crowd, to the other Archangels. He blatantly wanted nothing more than to re-join his fellow angels, the only beings who understood why he was doing what he was doing, or were at least supposed to understand anyway. Somehow she doubted they were all as cold-hearted and self-absorbed as the angel in front of her. She considered him for a moment before saying simply, “Your quest for power will kill you in the end.”

He furrowed his brows in somewhat amused confusion, “Is that a threat?”

“No. It’s the truth,” she blinked at him before leaning in and murmuring in his ear, “It will be your downfall.”

“The only one who’s going to Fall around here is you,” he said dangerously. Mariel leaned back and watched the lethal glimmer in his eye wither and die under the intensity of her gaze.

She just smiled. “We’ll see.” She let herself look at him for a moment longer before blinking away the tears and cautiously taking a small step backwards. She could feel where the ground ended beneath her feet and was sure not to step any further. She took one last look of the place she once called home, embracing how it felt for the last time though she knew she wouldn’t miss it.

She closed her eyes for a moment and fell back.

Mariel was Falling. That bit she knew, but much more than that? Everything was happening too fast for her to notice. And yet, it was as if she was existing in slow-motion. She worried for a moment that this was, in fact, her fate; doomed to remain in a perpetual state of limbo, of Falling, for all eternity. The only thing telling her otherwise was the view of Heaven above her, which she realised only too late was slowly shrinking into nothing. Mariel found herself reaching her own arms out, grasping for Heaven. They were opposite ends of a magnet being roughly pulled away from each other by an invisible force.

You hear that God? Why me? What did I ever do to deserve this? And don’t you dare tell me it’s all part of your plan because right now, the only thing I want is to be back where I should be and I can’t even have that.

She pulled herself out of her mind and back into reality; she’d have plenty of time in Hell to yell at a God who’d never listen, let alone answer. She only just started to register her surroundings, the fact that she was actually Falling, who knows how far and for how long, tumbling through the air at an unimaginable speed, plummeting towards a place that could be anything from seconds to hours away. The deafening wind that screamed in her ears, drowning out the screams which may have been coming from her mouth or her mind, who was she to say? Air whipped around her body, icier and more painful than any words that could ever be uttered by the angels above her. It wasn’t until she could no longer see any hint of Heaven on the horizon that she started to feel the tears finally fall, trickling down her face and floating slightly due to the force of the Fall.

Then suddenly it came. She felt it in the very tips of her wings first, a strange tingling sensation, as though hundreds and then thousands of pins were skirting the edges of her corporeal being. It spread over the rest of her wings, and then her body, at a faster pace than she could keep track of until her whole being felt as though it was burning. The pain grew, and it grew, and it grew, and she didn’t think she could physically take any more pain when she looked up in horror at her own freshly blackened wings. Her beautiful, holy wings which had once been the softest, purest white, were now stained with evil and ash. For the first time since she started Falling, however long ago that might have been, she let out a choked sob that racked through her whole body and through the ever-changing air around her. Nobody heard her cries. Nobody heard her screams as the searing pain in her chest grew stronger. She couldn’t even begin to work out whether it was physical or emotional but it was there and it burned a hole, a gaping wound, through her soul, leaving a scar fated to never heal and to forever haunt her-

Eloise was crying. She’d tried so hard to prevent the steady streams that were now running down her cheeks, but that was a memory that she’d never wanted to relive. She looked upwards for a moment, trying to regain control of her emotions and her breathing, before peeling her hands away from the two sat in front of her. She roughly wiped the tears from her face, and suddenly the only thing telling you she had been crying were the bloodshot eyes that Crowley tried to ignore as he said bluntly, “I’m still confused.”

“Crowley, give her a minute,” Aziraphale chastised him, furrowing his brows at the demon before he turned back to Eloise with kind eyes and a kinder heart, “Are you alright, my dear?”

She nodded without much hesitation, “I’m fine, it’s okay.” She certainly wasn’t fine, nor was it okay, but the last thing she wanted was to have to deal with her feelings in front of two people she was trying her best not to scare off. She looked back at Crowley, eyebrows raised in curiosity.

He looked at her in understanding, for if anyone knew her thought process in that moment, it was him. “Right, so you Fell and became a demon. Then what?”

“Well, you know what Hell’s like,” she started, looking pointedly at Crowley. She waited for him to nod before continuing, “Not my scene at all. I just point-blank refused to do anything they asked of me. Naturally they didn’t like that much. Eventually I was called in to see Satan about it. I remember thinking, ‘well, that’s that then. Terrible knowing you all.’, because I didn’t think I was going to survive that. Turns out he was just annoyed that I was being a bloody nuisance to everyone else, but he was too amused to really do anything about it, so he basically just told me to piss off. Leave Hell, don’t come back, and I won’t tell anyone where you’ve gone or that you’re even alive. Not exactly a deal I could refuse, so I left, came to Earth, been here ever since. I think everyone just assumed he’d killed me,” she shrugged as if she hadn’t just destroyed the whole idea of eternal damnation with just a few sentences. She smiled to herself as they gaped at her for a moment, though she doubted they realised they were doing it.

Crowley somehow managed to gather his senses quick enough to hold up a hand and say, “Wait, but when you were talking to Gabriel and Beelzebub and that lot, you said they had six thousand years to check up on you. Why would you say that if they thought you were dead?” He narrowed his eyes at her. He wasn’t altogether quite sure why he seemed to be so keen on finding any gaps in her story, but he needed to be able to trust that she was telling the truth. Or at least that’s what he told himself.

Aziraphale’s eyes lit up with understanding. “Yes, and they didn’t exactly seem surprised to see you alive.”

Eloise grinned. You two are gonna be fun, I can tell. “You’re both very observant, I have to give you credit for that.” She paused in thought for a second before starting carefully, “You see, the trouble with me is that I’m not really one for keeping a low profile. I’m too noisy, so to speak, and I don’t even realise it most of the time. This demon I hadn’t exactly been the nicest to back in Hell saw me in Babylon, gosh, it must have been eighteen thirty something BC? Anyways, he ratted me out to Beelzebub who must have told Gabriel all about it. I had about a decade of this bloody demon trying to discorporate me just to see if it would force me to go back to Hell, then one day he just stopped, and I never saw him again. Beelzebub probably told him to piss off.”

They were both quiet again for a little while. Eloise didn’t even think to say anything. It might be a rare occasion, but she did know when to keep her mouth shut when it mattered. She could see the cogs turning in their heads as if it was projected in the air above them. Eventually Crowley murmured, “I didn’t even know you could do that, you know, leave.”

She shook her head with a strange kind of sympathy that came from recognising an experience you had far too long ago, “Neither did I. It stills shocks me sometimes if I think about it too much.”

A few seconds passed before Crowley cleared his throat abruptly and said, “They called you Mariel. I thought you said your name was Eloise.”

She hesitated before answering. She knew exactly what he was doing, she’d been doing it for the whole of their conversation thus far, but just because she tended to bury her emotions, it didn’t mean that she liked it when others did it. She decided to ignore the hypocrisy of that thought, how ironic, she thought to herself, and instead explained, “It is. Mariel was my angel name. You know how it is,” she looked pointedly at Crowley again, hoping that Aziraphale would be able to put the pieces together. She didn’t actually know how much he knew about what it was like to Fall and become a demon.

“Oh, so is Eloise your demon name?” Aziraphale asked politely.

“No,” she said curtly, instantly feeling guilty when she saw the hurt that flashed over Aziraphale’s face. She grimaced and explained in a gentler tone, “I chose it for myself when I came to Earth. Hell tried to change my name after I Fell but I just refused.” She studied him for a second, watching his eyes dart about, before saying, “You want to ask something, I can tell. What is it?”

He looked a little startled at being caught out, momentarily glancing at Crowley for support, probably subconsciously, Eloise noted with a smile. “I, well, I couldn’t help but notice that you mentioned Armageddon. Back when you were speaking with, um, well, you know. H-how did you know about that?”

“I might have been there.” The words rushed out of her mouth in a much less casual manner than what she’d been aiming for, coming out in a sort of jumbled heap that took Crowley and Aziraphale a moment to decipher.

Crowley, the poor sod, could only think to lean forward and ask a simple, “You what?”

She jumped to defend herself, wanting to avoid the onslaught of questions if she could, “Not actually at the airbase, but I was in the area. I was living in Tadfield at the time.”

Aziraphale narrowed his eyes, although the hint of a smirk on his face told her it was more in amusement than suspicion, “How did you know it was at the airbase?”

Eloise couldn’t help but chuckle to herself because of course, they’d notice her choice of words, “I knew Adam and his mates. I ran an ice cream shop, would you believe it. He came and told me all about it the day after,” she smiled fondly before suddenly coming alive with excitement, “That’s actually how I found out about you two. That’s why I’m here. Because I thought I was the only one trying to stop the world ending, but apparently I wasn’t. I had to see for myself.”

A moment passed before Aziraphale asked quietly, “You were trying to stop it?”

Eloise, not noticing the newly subdued atmosphere, launched herself into a painfully over-enthusiastic explanation, “Yeah, it was quite clever really, if I do say so myself. I made sure Adam was swapped with the American baby in the hopes that he would have a human enough upbringing to perhaps change things. Seems to have worked,” she shrugged, before finally taking in the two shocked faces that were staring back at her. Her brows furrowed and her face fell as she asked, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You switched the babies?” Crowley asked blankly, although it came out as more of a statement than a question.

Her face screwed up as she tried to work out how best to explain herself. “Well, I say switched, it was more of a ‘made sure the demon dropping the antichrist off went to the wrong delivery room’ kind of thing. Feel sorry for the poor sod who had to deal with that but needs must.”

Crowley blinked at her and said bluntly, “I was the poor sod who had to deal with that.”

Eloise looked at him for a moment as about five different jigsaw pieces finally clicked in her head, before she threw her head back in realisation, “Oh shit, so you were. I knew your name sounded familiar.”

“You bastard, we spent six years raising the wrong child because of you!” he exclaimed, wagging his finger at her and jumping off of the bed at one point before Aziraphale tugged him back down. Eloise didn’t know whether to laugh or run for her life, for the menace in his words was betrayed by the disbelieving laugh in his voice.

“I’m sorry, you did what now?” she asked, only just processing what he’d just said, and she couldn’t help the laugh that escaped her lips at his dramatic antics. She knew not to push it when Aziraphale just lifted a finger and pursed his lips with the look of someone who’d rather never bring up said event again.

“Oh bloody heaven, I can’t believe this,” Crowley shook his head, chuckling to himself. Although part of him resented it, he couldn’t help but look at Eloise differently now as they laughed like little kids together. Maybe it was the fact that she seemed so much more like them now, so much more human. Or maybe it was the fact that she had been trying to stop the apocalypse and all the implications that came with the fact. Suddenly he just wanted to know more about her, but he quickly silenced that thought. One thing at a time.

She raised her shoulders with a confused look on her face, giggling as she said, “Sorry? Well, I didn’t know, did I?”

They locked eyes for a moment before bursting into laughter again at the sheer absurdity of it all, leaving Aziraphale slightly bewildered and more than slightly exasperated at the pair. It took them a few moments to finally calm down but once they did, Crowley sobered his tone of voice as he asked, “Right, back to what happened before we came in. Anything we need to keep an eye out for?”

Though he didn’t say it, Eloise could see the unasked question in his eyes. Are we safe? She smiled softly, “Nah, you two’ll be fine. Basically I told them if they want to talk to me, then they need to get their bosses involved, and somehow I highly doubt God and Satan are gonna pop down for a friendly chat any time soon. Even then, you two should be fine. I don’t think any of that lot clocked on that you were here.”

Crowley nodded in understanding, and it didn’t escape Eloise’s attention how the remaining dregs of tension visibly dissipated from both of their bodies. Aziraphale and Crowley looked at each other for a moment, the relief palpable from the pair of them. Eloise averted her eyes, giving them the privacy that they didn’t necessarily need but probably did want. She allowed herself a moment to ponder their relationship. They were very in tune with each other, very in sync, that much was obvious. Are they in love? The question sounded ridiculous the moment she thought it. Of course they are, look at them. She’d seen that look time and time again over the millennia. Although when she thought about the way they looked at each other further, that lead to another question. Do they know? The hint of yearning in their eyes was subtle but it was there. No, absolutely not. They’re too comfortable with each other. They’re a unit, that much she could tell. A unit that might not want to be disturbed.

Oh dear.

She looked back up at them hesitantly, unsure of what to say for the first time that evening. Eventually she said, “I’d better go. I think I’ve outstayed my welcome.”

Crowley frowned. Hadn’t she said she’d been travelling for a while? “You got somewhere to stay?”

Eloise paused. She’d definitely not been expecting that response. “Not yet. There is a flat I was going to rent but the people haven’t moved out yet because of the lockdown and it seems rude to miracle them away. I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

“Stay here,” Crowley said almost instantly, then pulled a face of confusion at how quickly he replied, “I mean, only if you want to.”

Eloise blinked at that. Surely, they wouldn’t want her there? What reason could they possibly have to want her there? “Wait, are you sure? I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

Crowley just shrugged, “It’s not a problem. What are your options anyway? No hotels are open, and you can’t stay with anyone.”

“Only if you’re sure,” she murmured, still wary for a reason she couldn’t quite put her finger on. She glanced at Aziraphale for confirmation; it was his bookshop after all.

He nodded firmly, “Of course. I’ve been told the sofa is remarkably comfy,” he added with a twinkle in his eye, to which she grinned broadly.

A short while and a few miracles later, the sofa downstairs had become a makeshift bed that was significantly larger and softer than it had remembered it being. Eloise was currently settled on it; all it had taken was ten minutes for her to completely crash out. Aziraphale and Crowley had left her in peace with a chuckle, heading up to the bedroom they shared (that wasn’t out of choice, mind you. Simply because there was only one bedroom in the bookshop. No other reason.) One slightly confused item of furniture aside, all seemed to be well in the bookshop.

Upstairs in the bedroom, an angel and a demon were sitting in the same bed. Neither of them had thought to turn off the lights, so they were sat in thick silence in the bedroom. Aziraphale didn’t usually come up to bed, not as used to sleeping as Crowley was, instead opting to read the night away downstairs. However this seemed impolite considering their new guest, so he’d come up with Crowley. And while Crowley was mulling this over he finally stumbled upon why he felt so uneasy.

Aziraphale hadn’t brought a book up with him.

As bizarre a concern as that may seem, Crowley could always trust Aziraphale to bring a book up to bed with him on the rare occasion he came up at night. That was one of the things he lo- liked about him. Liked. He looked at Aziraphale curiously, noting the slight frown on his face as he stared into space. How deep in his head must he have been to forget a book? “You alright, angel?” he asked as softly as he could so as to not startle him.

He looked at Crowley with wide eyes that darted away almost instantly as he started to play with his hands in his lap, “Yes, my dear, I’m fine. I just realised something, is all.”

Crowley cocked his head in interest, “Oh really? What was it?”

He was silent for a little while before saying in a voice no louder than a whisper, “I think I was there when she Fell.”

Crowley felt his eyebrows raise in shock, looking away for a second to try and compose himself. “Right. Well, that’s a thing.”

“Quite.”

He furrowed his brows as he tried to make sense of what this meant now, “And was she telling the truth? Did all that actually happen?”

“Yes. I remember it perfectly well. Clear as day,” he managed to choke out with a forced smile before going back to his routine fidgeting.

Crowley laid a gentle hand on top of Aziraphale’s, stopping what he was doing and getting him to actually look him in the eye for longer than a second. “You sure you’re alright?”

“I am quite well. Don’t fret,” he said, and despite Crowley’s concern, he couldn’t pretend that the smile on Aziraphale’s face wasn’t genuine, however small it may have been.

He reluctantly let it go, changing the subject quickly, “You alright with her staying here? I know it just sort of happened.”

The smile on his face only grew, much to Crowley’s surprise, “It’s alright. After all, wasn’t it you who said we’re on our own side now? I think she’s the first person we’ve met who might understand what that means.”

Crowley tried not to think too much about the fact that Aziraphale had actually listened to him when he’d said that, let alone remembered it, instead opting for a casual, “Yeah, I suppose so. Right, I’m gonna get some sleep. I, um, yeah,” he stammered out awkwardly, cursing his brain for not thinking of literally any other decent response.

Aziraphale simply smiled fondly at him, “Indeed. Goodnight, my dear.”

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

Hello my love,

At the time of writing this, I do not know what the future holds. For me it’s an uncertain, unstoppable force, and it’s not one I think I can fend off for much longer. I’ve tried, please believe that I’ve tried. I’ve tried for your sake to prevent the inevitable. But it’s coming. I can feel it. It won’t be long now, I don’t think.

If you’re reading this, it means I was right, and I have Fallen. I know you’re probably confused and scared and that there is a biting anger bubbling inside you. I wish I could tell you why this is happening. I wish I could tell you that this is all a huge misunderstanding that will be resolved soon.

I wish I could tell you I love you one more time.

But I can’t. There are many things I can’t do now, and it’ll do me no good to dwell on this any longer than I have to. To survive we must focus on what we can do, and that’s exactly what I’m asking you to do.

If I know myself as well as I think I do, there are many things I would have liked to have said to you upon our final farewell, but didn’t because I wanted to make sure you were alright. Don’t feel guilty about this, my love. Think of it as my last debt to you being repaid.

I have a plan. Well, it’s more of an idea, and it might not work. And it’s because of this that I shan’t tell you exactly what it is. It seems cruel to allow you to hope for something that might never come into fruition. But please put your faith in me, and in our love, for we will prevail. One way or another.

I hope that you didn’t wait to read this letter because you were scared of its contents, though I’m sure this isn’t the case. You were always brave. It was always something I loved about you. Your quiet, beautiful, roaring courage in the face of such turmoil and anguish. You always had the courage to be kind and to love with all your being, even when everything was against you. No one would have blamed you if you had turned cold and bitter, and yet you chose not to. I admire you for it every day. My idea, should it work, will require us both to be incredibly brave. But more on that another day. It’s that bravery and that strength that you will need to rely on now. That, and the thought of me. Though I may not physically be with you, but I hope that my love’s own soul is enough.

I won’t sign off this letter, because this is not where our story ends. There is much left to be written. And I need you to remember that each day we are parted. Until the next time, my love.

[taxicabinmemphis]

Prince Charming Chapter 6 - Sword-ing Things Out

chapter one - chapter two - chapter three - chapter four - chapter five - chapter six

Word count - 2,019

Pairing - Moceit (Prinxiety and Intrulogical in previous chapters)

Warnings - sword fighting, kiss without consent (it’s fine in the story but please remember that consent is essential, kids, and always ask first!), food, tell me if there’s anything else I need to tag!

Janus woke up later than usual. A glance at the clock told him he had slept for a full eight hours and that it was a quarter before ten in the morning. Dinner had been very late, and he read for a couple hours while processing the day before he went to bed.

When Janus had finished getting ready for the day (around a quarter past ten), he sunk out of his room and into the kitchen. He glanced into the living room next to the kitchen, spotting Patton sipping from a coffee mug. The moral side had a plate of pancakes in front of him, covered in syrup, and seemed to be deep in thought. His glasses were slightly askew on his face, his hair wasn’t fully in place, and his cardigan was tied around his shoulders a bit messier than usual. Janus smiled; Patton looked like he’d just gotten up.

“Good morning, Patton,” Janus greeted smoothly. “I hope you slept terribly.”

Patton jumped in his seat; Janus had clearly surprised him. “Oh! Sorry, Janus, good morning! And, uh, I slept alright I suppose. You?”

Janus raised an eyebrow. “A full eight hours. However, it doesn’t seem it was the same for you; you look quite tired. How long have you been up?”

“Oh...maybe an hour or so? An hour and a half? I got at least six hours, so I’m alright.”

“That’s wonderful for your health.”

“It’s one night; I think I’ll be alright,” Patton replied, a small smile on his face. “Anyway, Janus, please don’t bother cooking or anything. I made enough pancakes for everyone, and there’s another mug of tea as I had extra, if tea is indeed your thing.”

“It is, Patton. Making breakfast for everyone is very considerate, and the tea is a very nice gesture, thank you.”

“It’s no trouble, Janus,” Patton replied tiredly.

Janus grabbed a plate, placed two pancakes on it, put blueberries on the pancakes, and grabbed the aforementioned mug of tea. He noticed that there was already syrup at the table where Patton was sitting and walked over to the moral side. He stopped in front of an empty seat, not wanting to invade his space.

“I’d hate to join you, Patton, if you’d allow me,” Janus requested.

“Oh, of course! This is a table for all of us sides, is it not?” Patton permitted with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Janus sat down, frowning. “Are you sure you’re alright, Patton?”

“Yeah!”

Janus gave him an unimpressed look, pouring syrup over his pancakes.

Patton sighed and took a long sip of his tea. “I’ve just been thinking about yesterday. It’s probably why I didn’t sleep as well as you.” Patton stared at his pancakes, stabbing his fork into them rather harshly but not taking a bite.

Janus waited for more exposition but didn’t receive it. “I don’t suppose you’d like to elaborate on that.”

“I don’t think you’d want to listen.”

Janus shook his head to indicate a negative, taking a bite of his pancakes. “I’d love for your day to be ruined by unresolved worries. Considering the stress I put on you yesterday, it’s only fair for me to listen to your troubles in return.”

Patton glanced up at Janus from his food. “There are a lot of benefits to talking about your feelings…” Patton stated, considering Janus’ offer. “Sounds pan-tastic.”

Janus snorted at the pun, suppressing a smile. “I’m disappointed you agreed. What’s on your mind?”

“I just…can’t help but be mad at myself for what I did to Virgil. I know he doesn’t blame me for it, but I still feel really bad.”

“He would’ve killed you if you hadn’t,” Janus pointed out, taking a sip of his tea.

“I know,” Patton sighed. “But he’s my best friend! I can’t help it.”

“That makes no sense. It’s understandable. Of course you feel guilty, you’re Patton. But you have to remember—you totally deserve the guilt. It’s not like you did anything wrong.” Janus took another sip of his tea. “I wouldn’t go as far as to say your actions were more considerate than what could be expected of you.”

“Thanks, Janus,” Patton said, taking a bite of his syrup-soaked pancakes.

“Of course,” Janus responded. “Anything else on your mind?”

“Uhh,” Patton started hesitantly, “yeah? I may or may not be confused and...just a tiny—” he held up his index finger and thumb to Janus in a position that made them almost touch, “—bit annoyed and, well, irritated as well as previously a small bit angry with you for forcing me to fight Virgil.” He gave Janus an unsure look, smiling nervously. “Sorry?”

Janus sighed; this part of the conversation was inevitable. “Ah. Yes. Don’t be sorry, I get why you’re upset. You have every right to be.” He sipped his tea.

Patton nodded, refusing to look at Janus and staring at his pancakes instead as he stabbed at them with his fork. “Was it really necessary?”

Janus opened his mouth to defend his actions, but he shook his head. “No. It wasn’t.”

“Then why did you do it?”

“I was supposed to play the bad guy.”

Patton frowned. “It has to be more than that. You don’t seem like the type to do stuff like that just because of a role someone gave you.”

Janus sighed, pouring more syrup on what remained of his pancakes. “If you must know, Logan was beating me in our fight; I had to distract him.”

“You could have done anything else.”

“He also wasn’t getting in my head.”

Patton raised his head to meet Janus’ eyes. “In your head? Logan?”

Janus nodded. “It was quite a travesty. I guess I tried to...prove something to him and myself.”

“And?”

“I didn’t,” Janus said with a pitiful laugh. “Logan was right.”

The two ate in silence for several minutes, processing the conversation, before Janus realized he hadn’t apologized.

“I’m not sorry, Patton,” Janus said to break the silence. “It was right of me to take out the confusion of my inner struggles on your and Virgil’s emotional wellbeing.”

Patton gave him a weak smile. “I’m sorry, but...I don’t know whether I should forgive you yet. I want to, but...it hurt.”

“You don’t have to. I definitely expect you to, especially this soon after events. Just please know that my apology is sincere, and I will do my absolute worst to make sure it never happens again in the future.”

Patton finished his pancakes and put his fork down. He put his elbow on the table and leaned his head onto his fist. “I don’t wanna forgive you yet but you make it so hard. I wanna hold out until this evening but I’m not sure I’ll be able to.”

Janus’ human side adopted a pink tint. “You’re rude, Patton, but strong. I’m sure you can do it.”

Patton’s face lit up. “I have an idea!”

Janus raised an eyebrow. “I’d hate to hear it.”

“You’d have to be up for it, though, and you in no way are expected to be,” Patton prefaced.

“Alright.”

“We could fight it out! With swords!” Patton said with a grin. “If I win, it’ll satisfy me enough to forgive you, and if you win, I will be dissatisfied and be able to not forgive you.”

“Losing creates anger, does it not?”

Patton waved a hand. “No, I’m not mad at you, silly. You can not forgive someone and not be mad.”

“Fair enough,” Janus replied, finishing his breakfast. “I agree to this, especially if it helps calm your mind.”

“Yay!” Patton stood, taking Janus’ arm. “Let’s go sword things out.”

Janus snorted and shook his head. “Hilarious.”

The two ventured into the Imagination. Patton conjured the sword he had used the previous night, and Janus looked at it with amusement.

“A beautiful sword you have there, Patton, though I think I will have to trade mine for a shorter one.” He conjured a black gladius with a yellow hilt.

They were in a plain black room, the only color filling it being them and their accessories. However, they could see the other very well.

Janus stood in a fighting stance, smiling at Patton.

“Square up, sweetheart. Starting a fight unprepared is incredibly wise.”

Patton laughed nervously, a pink on his cheeks from the pet name. He shifted to a fighting position. “You got it. Prepare yourself to be defeated.”

“So you want to forgive me?”

Patton made the first move, not dignifying the comment with a response. He stepped towards Janus and swiped at his shoulder. Janus parried, and made a strike at the moral side’s neck, only for that to be parried as well.

They went on for a couple of minutes, trying to disarm the other. The only noises heard was the shuffling of feet, grunts of effort, and clashing of swords.

Janus made a particularly hard hit that Patton could barely parry, throwing the moral side backwards a little. He took the opportunity to discard his cloak and his hat, throwing them a good fifteen feet away.

“You removed your hat? And your cloak? Woah, this is a moment to remember!” Patton teased, striking at Janus’ head.

He blocked the blow, taking the opportunity to stare Patton in the eyes. “Only for you, honey,” Janus replied.

Patton flushed, stabbing at his torso.

“Oh, you needn’t try to hit my heart, it’s not there.”

Patton raised an eyebrow, deciding to humor him. “Where is it, then?”

“I don’t think I saw you holding it a few minutes ago.”

Patton laughed and made a cut to the neck. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen my breath.”

“Considering it’s not cold enough, no….”

“Oh. I thought you had taken it away for a second,” Patton said with a cheeky grin, swiping his sword at Janus’ legs. “But if you haven’t…”

Patton knocked the gladius out of Janus’ hand, the blade falling right beside him. He stood close to Janus, really close, too close (though Patton could never be too close in Janus’ eyes), his sword at his side. Though Janus may have imagined it, he could swear he saw Patton’s gaze drop to his lips for half a second.

“I suppose I can take yours instead.”

Janus smiled, raising his hands to surrender slowly. Patton’s smile widened, and he took a step back.

“So I w-”

Janus kicked his sword up, grasping it by the hilt and knocking it horizontally into Patton’s torso, making sure not to hurt him. Patton fell backward, eyes wide as Janus knelt over him. His right hand was clasped over the moral side’s left, holding it in place so he couldn’t strike. He got himself as close to Patton as he had been before; leaning over him with a victorious smirk on his face.

“I think I win this one, my blue beauty,” Janus whispered, staring into Patton’s eyes. “Though, I’m completely opposed to a rematch.” He glanced at Patton’s lips, before looking back to his eyes.

No. Patton hadn’t said he forgave him, he was a dark side, this could have all just been a game. For show. And even still, romantic feelings were a completely different level than friendship.

He stood up and extended a hand to Patton to help him up. Patton took it, pulled himself up, dropped his sword, and in one fluid motion, pulled Janus in for a passionate kiss.

Janus’ eyes widened and he dropped his sword in surprise. He didn’t know what to do and was more surprised than he should have been. His hesitation prompted Patton to start to pull away.

“I-I’m sorry, I should’ve as-”

Janus reconnected their lips, putting his arm around Patton’s shoulders and kissing him like there was no tomorrow.

He pulled back for air. “You’re giving me mixed signals here. I won, yes, but you’re kissing me, so am I forgiven, or…”

“Not yet.” Patton pulled him back in for a third kiss—a smirk on his face and his eyes alight.

~

Taglist: @the-sympathetic-villain ​ @justanotherhumanstuff ​ @thistledown15 ​

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This is the final installment! Originally this was a sequel, that’s why it has a title (I kept it cuz I like the pun). Hope you liked it! This one wasn’t quite as serious as the others so the writing is different.

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Love you all, thanks for reading this story!