#Duck reminds me of an olive mmm man I love olives

[blueopalsystem]

Chibi lineup

[thefreakydeaky]

Thunder Kiss ‘66

Characters: John Winchester x Reader

Summary: You witness your co-worker being murdered by a monster. You do your best to protect yourself.As luck would have it, a mysterious stranger intervines.John Winchester saves you from the ghoul, but who will save you from John Winchester?

Warning: Language, S m u t , Canon Typical Gore

One Shot

Word Count: 2,364

“What’s your name, Darlin’?” Your tall handsome savior asked.

Such a mundane question in the wake of heart-stopping terror and disturbing violence felt inconceivable.

”Y/N .” You heard yourself respond.

Kind eyes of molten gold and olive green gazed into yours.You were transfixed.

“That’s a beautiful name.” He commented leading you calmly through the room with his hand at the small of your back.

“What’s your name?”Your voice sounded steadier than you felt, but if he noticed how shaken up you were, he didn’t show it.

“Name’s John.John Winchester.” He told you with a disarming grin.

“How did you know how to stop them? I tried everything.I even stabbed it, but it kept coming.”You rambled.

The shock of what you had witnessed was starting to wear off.He sighed but didn’t stop moving.

“It’s complicated.How about right now we just focus on getting you outta here?” He suggested leading you out the back door.

The old pick up rumbled loudly down Highway 290. It wasn’t until he pulled into the parking lot of a sleazy looking motel that you started to worry.

Holy shit!

You didn’t know this man.You didn’t know what he was capable of. Well…that wasn’t entirely true.You knew he was capable of killing those things whatever they were.

Oh Great!A+ decision making skills, Y/N!

He put it in park and turned watching you contemplatively for a quiet moment.

O-kay don’t panic don’t panic don’t-

“So, normally I don’t do this.I get in, kill the evil son’s of bitches, and then get the hell out of town, but… I gotta tell you, in all my years doing this, I never seen a civi that could handle themselves that well against a monster.”

“A what?”

“A monster.A ghoul.”He repeated solemnly.

“They are creatures that generally hang around grave yards feeding on the flesh of the dead but when they seek vengeance like that particular monster, there’s no telling.”

“Feed…on the flesh…of the dead?”

He nodded giving you a look that made your cheeks burn.

“You know, I think we should have this conversation after we get a couple of drinks in you.”

So many questions came to mind that you hardly had time to think about them before a new one came up.

Was this real? Was he crazy? Were you?

The thing that attacked you had seemed very real. A “ghoul” he’d called it.

“You, uh, might wanna get cleaned up.” He told you interrupting your thoughts.And there it was again, that charming grin.

“Mhmmm” You murmured helpless against the pair of warm hazel eyes trained on yours.

His tongue licked lightly at the corner of his mouth and your eyes followed the movement. John leaned in close.You didn’t move away.His face was just inches from yours. You leaned forward. The popping sound of the lock on the passenger door being pulled up snapped you out of your reverie.

“You feelin’ okay?” He asked amused.

“I feel fine.”You grumbled making to get out of the truck.

You followed him to his motel room watching as he unlocked the door with large steady hands. You berated yourself internally for thinking of the many ways a man like him might put such capable hands to use.

“Bathroom’s right over there, Kid.”

He gestured to the door on your left.You cringed at the appellation, but ducked into the bathroom anyway closing the door behind you.

What you saw in the mirror made you gasp.Not in your worst nightmares had you ever seen yourself so disheveled.There were blood stains all over your clothes.Drying patches of it on your arms, neck, and face.You even had bloody bits and pieces of ghoul in your hair.Turning away from the mirror, You peeled off your top and shimmied out of your ripped up clothing. You kicked your ruined clothes into a pile before getting into the shower.

Under the warm water, you began to feel good again.The more you scrubbed the better you felt. By the time you were done, you were no longer freaking out.You turned off the water stepping out of the tub to find that John had taken away the pile of ruined clothes and left you a towel.

You rang your hair out over the sink and did your best to dry it with the towel.Your reflection looked the same way it had before you left the house that morning, but You didn’t feel like the same person.

You considered the facts.Something evil had walked into the store today and brutally murdered your co-worker.If John Winchester hadn’t come in to help you when he did, you wouldn’t be alive.You glanced down at the towel in your hand contemplatively and your reflection seemed to agree with the idea.Carefully folding in the edge,you wrapped the towel around you.

He was stepping back into the room when you opened the door. You didn’t say anything just watched him close the door behind him, a brown paper bag in his hand.His eyes met yours for the briefest moment before he noticed how little you were wearing. Then he got caught up taking in the rest of you.His eyes moved slowly down your body.You noticed his throat work as he swallowed, his jaw tightening almost imperceptibly.

“Enjoy your shower?”John inquired freeing a bottle of low grade whisky from the bag and setting it on the table.

“Yes.” You replied taking a seat. “I did.”

“I can lend you a shirt.” He poured three fingers of whiskey into each of the cheap plastic cups he had set on the table.

”Oh, I don't mind.” You winked picking up the small white cup.

He sat down in the chair opposite you and took a sip regarding you thoughtfully.

“That so?” He drawled meeting your gaze.

It was a challenge.You didn’t dare look away.You had a feeling that John Winchester had an aversion to weakness and the last thing you wanted was for him to size you up and find you lacking.However, his unwavering stare was beginning to make you feel self conscious.You took a sip of the honey colored liquor for courage.

“Why are you making it so hard for me, Kid?” He sounded almost strained.

“It’s Y/N.” You reminded him taking another sip.

He took a deep breath and smiled.

“I’m trying to do the right thing here,Y/N.”

Ordinarily a statement like that would be reason enough for you to back down, but your towel had slipped lower during the conversation and John’s eyes were no longer on yours when he spoke.

“And what exactly is the right thing, John?”You knew full well that you had the upper hand.

“Get you some clothes, drop you off at your place.”

“Mmm...I get the feeling you aren’t all that keen on that idea.”

“I saved your life.All that’s left for me to do is give you a ride home.”He seemed torn, but from the way his gaze kept traveling from your lips to your cleavage You knew it wasn’t much of a battle.

”Or I could spend the night thanking you for saving my life.”

“I’d be taking advantage.”

“No. You wouldn’t.”

“This conversation is getting old fast, Kid.” He sounded as frustrated as You felt.

“So it’s back to ‘kid’ now?”

“By comparison.” He sighed running his hand over his eyes wearily.

You put the cup back on the table and stood.

“That’s not true.”You told him taking off the towel and letting it drop to the ground.

You heard a sharp in take of breath and watched his expression change.His eyes roamed over your figure, pupils blown wide with desire.Without another word, You climbed into his lap and pressed your lips to his.His hands were on you in an instant kneading and caressing your hips and ass.

“Fuck.” He cursed gruffly.“How old are you?”

“Old enough.” You murmured against his lips.

“That’s what they all say.”He contested breaking the kiss.

You huffed offended at the implication.

“Answer the question.” The deep growl of his voice sent shivers down your spine.

After a moment's hesitation you leaned in and whispered your answer in his ear.

“Jesus.” John muttered palming your breast in his large warm hand. "You are younger than my youngest son."

"Does that really bother you?"

"Not nearly as much as it should."

You kissed and nibbled at his neck.

He groaned, one hand in your hair the other massaging your breast.

You tugged the button up shirt he had on down his shoulders.

John kissed you roughly almost sloppily.You could feel his insistent erection against the back of your thigh begging for attention and it thrilled you.Men like John Winchester didn’t need much in their lives to get by, but tonight he needed you.Warmth bloomed in your chest at the thought.

You ran your hands over the muscles of his back, his biceps and reveled in the simple pleasure of skin to skin contact.

“You’re nothin’ but trouble, you know that?” He murmured against your collar bone.

You ran your fingers through his hair and sighed.

He kissed your breast lightly.His tongue slipped out running over your nipple slow and tantalizing.

“Damn, you taste good.” His warm breath against your damp skin sent a little wave of pleasure rolling down your body.

You began kneading his erection through the rough fabric of his jeans and ground your ass against the hard length.The teasing didn’t stop. John continued nibbling, licking, sucking on your nipples and breasts until your breathing became ragged.Your pussy was almost wet enough to drip.You leaned back just enough to unbutton his pants and slide down the zipper freeing his thick cock from his jeans.You made to mount him, loving the thick ridged length of his dick already.You felt like you were falling.You gasped as he tipped you forward the only thing holding you in place, his arm around your waist.

“I’m not that kind of man.” He drawled.

“Wh-wha?” You sputtered as he lay you down on the mattress.

“I am always on top.” He growled as he sank into you.

“Haaa…aah..” You became incoherent then.

Every sound he drew out of you was a testimony to the pleasure he elicited with each and every thrust.When you thought you might reach orgasm, you began to push your hips up against his. John held you down firmly to stop you.

“Not yet.” His gruff voice, and mesmerizing eyes filled with hunger were very nearly your undoing.To your surprise, he drew back, pulling out of you. You groaned in disappointment.

“I-I won’t do it again.” Your voice sounded whiny and you hated it, but You needed him. The whisper of a smile passed across his lips as he kneeled there between your thighs.

“I wouldn’t leave you like that, Baby.” He assured you.

You looked on as he kissed his way down your stomach and then his head was between your thighs. He kissed you wetly, open mouthed and you whimpered at the delectable sensation. He licked and sucked at the swollen skin and this time he didn’t pull away when you grinded yourself against his tongue.

“Mmmm” He hummed as if he’d never tasted anything as good as you. John sucked on your clitoris and You lost yourself. A tide of euphoria drowned you in blissful feelings.

“Fuck, John, oh John.” You cried out holding onto his hands where they were gripping your thighs.

You lay there drunk on him and the way he made you feel as he made his way back up your body.Your eyes stayed on his as he thrust back into you seeking his pleasure now.His thick cock slid into you a little more easily than it had before, your cum coating his shaft.He leaned down and kissed you, his tongue imitating the movements of your lower bodies only served to re-ignite the embers of your ardent desire for him. Your thighs trembled as he quickened the pace, fucking you in earnest. The incredibly arousing sound of his balls slapping against your ass drew a whimper from your throat.

“Is this what you wanted, sweetheart? My cock deep in this nice tight pussy?” His deep voice sent shivers through you.

He pulled out just to sink back in, rolling his hips.

“Nnn…yes.” You moaned not caring how needy you sounded this time.“God, yes.”

John thrust deeper into you making you cry out and you couldn’t hold back any longer.Your walls clenched tightly around his dick as a second orgasm, rocked you, taking you to a place of exquisite ecstasy.He called your name as he came.You watched in a daze as he reached his peak cumming deep inside you, leaving you feeling wondrously full.

“Why am I trouble?” You asked later that night, as you lay tangled together beneath the thin bed sheet.

“What?” He murmured sleepily.

“You said I was nothing but trouble, why?” You persisted running your fingers down his arm and back up to his shoulder in a lazy caress.

“What it means, is that you’re the keepin’ kind and a hunter’s got a short life span.” He replied letting out a yawn.

“What does that mean for me?” You wondered out loud.

“Don’t worry about tomorrow, Kid.”He told you. "Trust me.It's nights like this that make life worth living."

You weren't entirely sure what he meant. John kissed the top of your head and held you close. You drifted to sleep, clinging to the notion that you would never forget John Winchester and the night you had spent together.

[preraphaelitepunk]

Fictober19 Day 9: Taste Test

Prompt #9: There is a certain taste to it

Fandom: Good Omens (GO)

Characters: Aziraphale, Crowley

Rating: Teen

Warnings: None

Taste Test

Getting Aziraphale to allow a television in the back room of his shop had been interesting. The angel had taken to a few elements of the twenty-first century like a duck to another duck that the first duck really liked -- he had been terrorizing other bidders at online rare book auctions for years, and had nearly gotten the hang of ordering delivery on his elderly desktop computer. The computer, Yertle, was far too old to have any business even connecting to the internet, but since Aziraphale expected it to, it did. (Mobile phones were still a challenge, but Crowley was working on it. Progress would be increased if Aziraphale didn't sporadically pretend to have presbyopia and claim he couldn't see the words on the phone screen.)

Television, though, he resolutely resisted. It did not bring food, or new books for his hoard, or Regency snuffboxes, or anything worth while. It wasn't until Crowley thought to point out Antiques Roadshow UK, Bake Off, and Jamie Oliver that the walls began, very slightly, to crack. When he mentioned how Bluetooth headphones meant that one person (Crowley) could watch James Bond movies without disturbing anyone else (Aziraphale) with the noise, the mortar between the bricks of the wall started to flake off. When Crowley found a sleek, modern, experimental-model television that actually retracted into its base, hiding itself like something sleek and sinister and not coincidentally not blocking access to bookshelves, the walls crumbled completely.

“This is actually quite lovely, my dear,” Aziraphale mused, running a hand absently through Crowley’s hair. They’d determined early on that the ideal viewing position was the angel sitting on the battered sofa, with Crowley sprawled out and resting his head in Aziraphale’s lap. “I’m so glad you talked me into getting a televisual contraption. Oh, look: it’s another cookery show up next!”

“It’s the bloody Food Network, angel. Of course it’s going to be another food show up next. What were you expecting, Sir David Attenborough?”

“Oh, hush, foul fiend.” Aziraphale booped him gently on the nose. “Oh, it’s that sweary one. I like him.”

“Huh. Wouldn’t have thought he’d be your type.”

“Silly boy! I don’t mean I like him. Although he is not entirely unattractive, for a human.” He smiled fondly when Crowley stuck out his tongue. “I mean he reminds me a little bit of you. Very tough and sweary on the outside, but he’s actually quite kind. He just has high standards. I saw one of his shows with children, and he was so patient and supportive of them. Reminded me of you with Warlock.”

Crowley frowned at the white-clad man on the screen, evaluating. “Right now he reminds me more of me with my plants.”

Aziraphale chuckled. “Yes, he is a bit hard on the new cooks, isn’t he? Ooh, he’s going to do the blindfold thing.”

“Ngk?” Crowley had not been expecting blindfolds. This was a pre-watershed program, he’d been sure.

“It’s a blind taste test, to evaluate one’s palate. See if you can identify foods without visual cues.”

They watched in silence as the competitors tried and failed to identify basic foodstuffs. Crowley felt a twinge of sympathy, not that he’d admit it; most food tasted bland and ashen to him, and he was impressed that they’d gotten any guesses right. Aziraphale was, however, not so kind.

“Imagine not being able to tell the difference between a potato and a parsnip! What a galoot.”

“Galoot?” Crowley sat up, appalled.

“A sap. Idiot. Fool.”

“I know what a galoot is, angel. I just didn’t expect to ever hear you say that word.” Crowley sighed. “Who am I kidding? I should consider myself lucky you didn’t say ‘fopdoodle.’”

“He’s that, too.”

“It’s very easy for you to sit there and judge, you know. I bet you couldn’t do much better than that lot, if you didn’t know what you were eating and couldn’t see anything.”

Aziraphale’s eyes twinkled. “All right, you’re on. What are the stakes?”

“If I win, you have to try sleeping. Not just reading while I sleep: actually get your head down and kip.”

“Agreed. And when I win,” Aziraphale did that hideously cute thing with his eyes, glancing down and then cutting them back up at Crowley, “you will allow me to tell you how nice and wonderful and kind you are, for a full five minutes without complaining.”

“And you call me a fiend!”

A bit of rummaging around found an old tartan ascot that would serve well as a blindfold; Crowley tied it carefully, checking to make sure it wasn’t too tight and trying to ignore the angel’s happy wiggle. Best not to think on that too thoroughly; probably it was just anticipation of winning that made Aziraphale hum to himself. Crowley pulled up a random ingredient generator on his phone, and started miracling up food samples.

“Plum. Not a very ripe one.”

“Nobody said anything about ripeness, but you’re right.”

“Chicken; breast, not thigh. May I get a sip of wine, dear? Just a palate cleanse. Thank you. Tofu. Silken, I think; not water packed.”

“Tofu, yes, but it’s not anything-packed. I’m just miracling these things up.”

“Regardless: it is clearly from a UHT pack.” They worked their way through a dozen more samples. “ Ah, that cheese — gouda, I believe.”

“If you think I’m going to make a pun about gouda, angel. . . .”

“I would never think such a dreadful thing about you, my wily old serpent.”

“Thank you. But I guess you’ve proved your point. You’ve guessed them all right.”

“Oh, wonderful. But just one more, maybe? Just to make sure.” Even with the blindfold, Aziraphale had a stunningly effective pout.

“All right, then. I can’t say no to you, but I know it’s just because you like me feeding you.”

Wiggling a little, Aziraphale popped his mouth open, waiting for the next tidbit. If Crowley had been more alert, he would have been prepared. As it was, the hand that grabbed his wrist with the next morsel of food (white chocolate, with dried raspberries in) caught him totally off guard.

Aziraphale guided the food closer and nibbled, his lips brushing Crowley’s fingertips. “Mmm, white chocolate. Something else in it, though.” The tidbit had been devoured, but his hand was being drawn inexorably farther forward. “Strawberries, perhaps? No, raspberries.” A tongue flickered across Crowley’s finger, and teeth nipped playfully. “And this: so familiar, so redolent of something lovely, there’s a certain taste to it, but I can’t tell precisely what.”

“Grfl.”

“It’s absolutely scrummy, whatever it is.” And now Aziraphale gave the finger a quick suck, and Crowley’s knees threatened to give out. “Ah, I think I know now.” Aziraphale pulled off the blindfold with his free hand, and gazed up at Crowley adoringly. “It’s the taste of home, of being cherished and loved and protected. It’s the taste of my beloved, my dear heart, my darling. My Crowley.”

“Yours,” Crowley managed; the angel was peppering his hand with tiny butterfly kisses, and his thoughts were sluggish. He cleared his throat, trying to regain some composure. “So I guess you win.”

“Dearest, I won the day I fell in love with you. However,” Aziraphale added with a smirk, pulling the demon down onto his lap, “I do still intend to hold you to our bargain. And I intend to begin now.”

It was an excruciating five minutes, being complimented and praised and coddled and cuddled, but Crowley wouldn’t have traded it for anything. He might even have to arrange a similar wager again soon.

[raisindeatre]

reciprocity (A Watchmaker of Filigree Street fic; Thaniel/Keita)

For the inimitable Maria @searchingforserendipity25, who loves this book, and who holds the dubious honour of being the first person EVER to receive a fic from me that isn’t Zuko/Katara. I literally have never written for any other pairing before. I duly apologize for any flaws in characterisation that may thus ensue. I hope you like it!

This is the colour of love: 

The rustle of mechanical wings outside as Keita’s birds move in the dark; dim, almost imperceptible flashes of pale green lighting up the blackness. Down the hall, Six stirs lavender in her sleep, a far cry from the orange alarm that would spike the air the first few months after she moved in and bolted awake breathless in the middle of the night; this child made sharp and wary by the workhouse. Next to Thaniel, Keita breathes slow and silver.

(Once upon a time, there would’ve been flashes of blue, too: out of the corner of his eye, climbing up table legs, flickering behind walls. There are still days when Thaniel has to remind himself not to look for them when he opens his dresser. There are still days when Thaniel cannot bring himself to open his dresser.) 

But despite everything, it’s a good life. It is. It’s-

“Ghastly,” Keita murmurs sleepily beside him. “Ghastly things, the lot of them.”

It’s been more than a year now - long enough that Thaniel isn’t alarmed any more by these random pronouncements. Darkness blurs everything, and the demarcations between what Keita sees and what he allows himself to say are no different. He’s always more unguarded at night, more loose.

“Sorry,” Keita says after a moment (his confusion flickers yellow, before it fades). His sigh ruffles the hair by Thaniel’s ear. “You didn’t say that aloud, did you? You didn’t say it yet.”

“Not yet,” Thaniel says, rolling over to face him, letting the hazy roll of his thoughts wash over them both: a memory - June 14, 1884: Thaniel bought some music; there is blue cake, with an icing duck on it - and a question: what do you want this year? 

“Well,” Keita says, his eyes fluttering shut again. “Like I said. Ghastly things, birthdays. Don’t set much store by them, myself.” 

“No?” Thaniel asks, and Keita hums in the darkness. “But I feel we ought to do something this time around. After all, last year...” Never really happened, he thinks. There was no cake with an icing duck - and it was an icing swan, by the way; I firmly maintain that. We never celebrated; not in this reality anyway; not in this dimension, not this version of you and I.

“I know,” Keita says, his voice raspy with sleep. “But it doesn’t matter, Thaniel. Don’t fret.”

Thaniel doesn’t say anything for a moment; instead, he studies Keita’s face: the sweep of his dark eyelashes, his high cheekbones. It doesn’t alarm or scare him, anymore, the glimpses he sees of Keita’s abilities (or more accurately: the glimpses Keita allows him to see, now) but it never stops feeling a little strange, a little disconcerting - to intend a thought and have Keita answer it aloud; the possible turned probable turned reality in a heartbeat. 

“Tell me,” he says softly. “What you do. What is the difference between clairvoyance and... well. Mind-reading?” Can you read my mind now? 

Keita’s surprise flares ochre in the dark. “Do you really not know? What I do... I can’t read minds, Thaniel. You have to intend something for me to see it - you need to mean it enough that it could affect the future to render it visible to me. But your thoughts, your feelings - I can’t see them at all.”

Thaniel is silent, thinking, and for a second anxiety pulses from Keita; a low, thrumming blue.

“Does it matter, though?” Keita says to him softly; he reaches out and rests his hand in the curve of Thaniel’s jaw. “What I do. What I see. None of it is set in stone, Thaniel. Nothing about it is inevitable. You can always change your mind.”

“Mmm,” says Thaniel, and he slides his hand under Keita’s nightshirt: relishes the startled sound that escapes the other man’s throat. He drums his fingers lightly against Keita’s delicate ribs with the fingers of a pianist, a telegraphist, a lover. He taps out a melody against the cage of Keita’s heart: Grizst’s second movement, their inside joke. He taps out a message: I love you.

“I suppose I could,” he says at last. “But you know, I don’t think I will.”     

Keita’s laugh is surprised; the only way he knows how. This is the colour of love: his copper peal ringing out in the dark. Thaniel thinks, not for the first time, how apt it is, that happiness for the watchmaker is metallic: the deep bronze of contentment, the molten gold of pleasure, delight chiming bright and clear as highly polished silver. “Well,” he murmurs. “I’m glad to hear it.”

“Have you ever tried to surprise a clairvoyant?”

“Yes.”

“In a way that didn’t leave him unconscious in the tunnels of the London Underground?”

A beat. “Oh. Then no.”

Thaniel rolls his eyes, even though that gesture is lost on Grace, whose head is bent studiously over the paper she’s writing on. What happened between Keita and Grace the fateful day of the operetta has long become common knowledge between the three of them, but some days forgiveness seems further away than others.

“It’s all rather simple, though, Thaniel. Well, in theory, at least,” Grace says, and smiles, almost to herself, a scientist’s wry amusement. “As most things are. You know the basics: if you don’t want Mori to know what’s about to happen, you have to stop yourself thinking it, intending it, for as long as you can.” 

“That shouldn’t be much of a problem,” Keita says gloomily. 

“What, to not think?” Matsumoto says; again Thaniel rolls his eyes, and again that gesture goes unnoticed. Sometimes he thinks these two are more trouble than they’re worth. “What a luxury! I personally wish I could stop thinking sometimes; it doesn’t do one any good, you know, to be occupied by one’s thoughts too many late nights in a row. Eye bags, and all that. The burden of an intellectual, I suppose.” 

Grace keeps writing, but her other hand rises up to touch the skin under her eyes. “I haven’t any eye bags.”

“That’s why I said they were an intellectual’s burden, Carrow.”

“Oh, shut up.” 

“I only meant,” Thaniel says, “that it shouldn’t be a problem to not think of Keita’s birthday surprise, seeing as I haven’t the faintest idea what it is yet.”

“Ah,” Matsumoto says. Stretched out on the chaise lounge in the corner of the room, holding a book of Japanese poetry in one hand, he is a collection of lazy lines and loose limbs and indolent charm. “Well, in that case, Steepleton, I vote for a new wardrobe. It pains me to see a fellow countryman in such drab attire. Perhaps we should take Mori shopping.” 

“You don’t get a vote,” Grace says.

“Steady on, Carrow. One could see your anti-suffragist sentiments from France.”

“I’m not going to take Keita shopping,” Thaniel cuts in, exasperated. “And from now on I’m only going to accept reasonable suggestions, please.”

“Then you shouldn’t have come to us,” Grace says, still looking at her paper, but something in her voice is different: an undercurrent of steel. Some days, forgiveness seems further away than others. “We hardly know the man, Thaniel; I doubt any suggestions we’d have to offer would be of any help.” 

Thaniel sighs. “I suppose. Although I don’t think it was unreasonable for me to hope for more cooperation from the two of you. After all, you do owe him.”

“Owe him?” Grace says incredulously; finally looking up. Her voice whips out in the room, a line of prickly red. 

Thaniel meets her gaze head on. “Yes. The two of you - you and Matsumoto - whatever the two of you have, I know Keita is reponsible for it -”

Even before Grace opens her mouth, Thaniel can see the colour her anger will assume - all oranges and reds, like a fierce sunset - but before she can say anything, Matsumoto cuts in smoothly, his soothing words a river of indigo. “I don’t know about that, Steepleton. I rather think we would’ve found our way to each other at some point, eh, Carrow?” His voice softens, dips a dove-gray. “Grace.” 

And when Grace smiles at Matsumoto, it’s both strange and lovely. Her expression doesn’t soften - because if there’s one thing Grace Carrow is not, it is soft - instead it seems to brighten, to sharpen almost; like a knife fresh from the whetstone. This is the colour of love: the silvers and golds that crackle between the two of them, like sparks thrown from a bonfire. Thaniel and Grace would never have shared this electric spectrum, this push-and-pull.

I would not have been the only one made smaller by our marriage, Grace, Thaniel thinks, a strange feeling humming in his chest. A little like contentment, a little like wistfulness. Everything turned out the way it should have. 

When Dolly sees him and arches one eyebrow, Thaniel knows the other man means for him to see his surprise. Dolly has spent too many years in the police for his face to betray anything other than what he wants it to.

“Steepleton,” he says, as Thaniel falls into step beside him. He doesn’t slow his pace, so Thaniel has to lengthen his strides just enough that it is uncomfortable to keep up. “It’s been a while.” 

“Williamson,” Thaniel says, and then: “Dolly.”

Dolly’s face doesn’t soften, but his next words are a less belligerent form of olive. “Can I help you?”

“Did you get my telegraph?” 

“I did,” Dolly says. “I thought it might’ve been a prank.”

“Well. It wasn’t.”

“Good God, Steepleton,” Dolly says. “Why on earth would you come to me asking for ideas for Keita Mori’s birthday surprise? Have you lost your mind?” 

When Dolly says that, Thaniel thinks he might have, but the truth is perhaps more embarrassing: he doesn’t really have any friends, does he, and at one point in his life he’d considered Dolly one of them. Perhaps there is some left-over affection for the other man still sleeping in Thaniel’s chest; some remnant of the days when asking him for advice would’ve come naturally; some echo of the friendship they’d forged over the telegraph wires a lifetime ago.

Or maybe it’s just that Keita’s birthday is looming on the horizon, just five days away, and Thaniel is running out of time. 

“Well,” Thaniel says, and then doesn’t say anything else. 

Dolly sighs. “I’m hardly the person for the job now, am I. Happy birthday, Mori! Enjoy your present - the chance to see Scotland Yard from outside, and not from within. A prison cell not with your name on it. Shall we go for a pint?”

“He’s not a criminal,” Thaniel retorts, not for the first time. “What would you have charged him with?”

“Obstruction of justice,” Dolly replies, not for the first time. “Withholding of crucial information. Wasting police time.” He checks his watch. “A trait you two share, it seems.”

Thaniel throws up his hands. “You’re off duty!”

“I’m still a copper when I’m off the clock, Steepleton.Have a little more faith in the dedication of our boys in blue, eh?”

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Thaniel says. “Thanks so much.”

They pause as they wait to cross the road, and Dolly sighs. “If you want my honest advice? The... the ability that Mori has.” Thaniel isn’t sure just how deep Dolly’s grudging belief in Keita’s clairvoyance runs, but he listens anyway. “I imagine it would be overwhelming sometimes, if what you say is true. To see the things he sees.”

“I imagine so,” Thaniel says, and Dolly shrugs.

“Then that’s what I would get him. Something to make that burden a little easier. Like that,” he says, nodding at a horse-drawn carriage passing just before them, flashes of gray filling the air, sparking in Thaniel’s vision, as the hooves rattle on the cobblestones. 

Thaniel squints. “A horse?”

“Do you know why horses wear blinkers, Steepleton? It stops them from running wild because it scares them when they see too much. It helps them, to have something to narrow their vision.”

A beat. “You want me to get Keita... blinkers.”

A very slight smile pulls at the side of Dolly’s mouth; but he has spent too many years in the police force for his face not to betray anything other than what he wants it to. Thaniel knows Dolly intends exactly for him to see his amusement. “It would make an interesting picture.” 

“Oh, I don’t know,” Thaniel says. “There are some benefits to knowing what’s about to happen next.”

“Like what?” Dolly starts to say, but Thaniel pushes him into a puddle before he can; Dolly’s surprise - and very faintly, his amusement - flooding the air between them with cream.

“Reciprocity,” Annabel says to him, her voice crackly over the phone. “I find that’s the rule to gift-giving.”

“What do you mean?”

He can almost see his sister shrug. “People should repay in kind what others do to them. What did Keita give you for your birthday?”

Thaniel tells her: a mechanical bird that could record and sing back to him the piano notes he’d played for it, a lifesaver for the times when inspiration hit too hard in the moment for him to transcribe on paper the melody humming in his brain. 

“There you go, then,” Annabel says. “Clockwork. That’s Keita’s specialty. What’s yours? That’s what you should give him.”

Thaniel thinks about that. “Thank you, Annabel. Give my love to the boys. Or, no - what do you call them up in Edinburgh? The wee bairns?”

“Oh, piss off, Thaniel,” Annabel says, but even through the wires and the miles that separate them, her voice is warm and golden-rich, like honey. This is the colour of love.

Two days before the birthday, Thaniel realizes that he has neglected to ask the one other person whose insight into Keita is perhaps as useful as his own. He isn’t the only one who knows the watchmaker. He isn’t the only one who loves him.

He finds Six sitting in the grass on the garden out back, cross-legged as she busies herself pulling petals off a handful of daisies.

“Hello, Six,” he says, and she nods at him, solemnly. He lowers himself on the grass across from her, folding his long legs.

“So,” he says, and decides to dispense with the preliminaries: the three of them, here in this house on Filigree Street, have no need for conversational niceties. “You know, Keita’s birthday is in two days.” 

“Oh,” she says, her voice clear and almost translucent in the afternoon light, like a prism of glass. Her fingers pause thoughtfully on a daisy stem. “Six didn’t know that.”   

“Well, it is,” Thaniel says, and then: “Have you any idea what to get him?” 

She shakes her head, and Thaniel says, a little awkwardly - Keita has always been the better of the two of them with this girl - “Well. I’d appreciate it if you did. Have suggestions, I mean. And that if you decided to get him anything, it would be obtained through, ah, legal means.”

She blinks at him.

“If you didn’t steal anything,” Thaniel says.

“Six doesn’t steal things,” she says, and Thaniel arches an eyebrow at her.

“Anymore,” she corrects, and Thaniel lifts his other eyebrow at her.

“And even when Six did, Six didn’t steal them,” she says. If Thaniel had another eyebrow to raise, he would, but he contents himself with looking Six straight in the eye. This is always going to be a losing battle though: Six can outstare a cat.

“What do you mean, you didn’t steal things?”

“Six didn’t steal things,” she protests. “Not always.”

Thaniel doesn’t say anything, and finally Six lets out an exasperated sigh, her discontent filling the air with violet. “There was other kids, in the workhouse who wasn’t good,” she says. “So sometimes Six didn’t steal things. Sometimes Six stole things back. Understand?”

“Ah,” Thaniel says, and the girl nods, and hands him a daisy.

That night, Thaniel lies awake thinking, the voices of everyone he’s asked chiming together in his head in a rainbow whirl. 

I imagine it would be overwhelming sometimes, to see the things he sees. Something to make the burden a little easier.

Reciprocity. What’s your specialty? That’s what you should give him back.

Six stole things back.

And finally, Keita’s voice joins the fray, shadowy gray and familiar, an old memory: 

Thaniel, look at this. He’d called Thaniel over to his workshop, where Thaniel had stood behind him and peered into the inner workings of a watch, glinting silver and vulnerable somehow, like a heart laid open exposed to the night air. Watch, Keita had said, and slowly, the gears had started shifting into motion, first one, and then another, and then another, until they were all whirring and ticking together in time, a miniature symphony of colour. That’s always been my favourite part, Keita had admitted. Watching all these separate pieces come together.

And just like that, an idea starts to flicker to life.

The next morning, Keita looks at Thaniel strangely, before brushing a kiss against his cheek and shrugging his coat on. “I’ll be gone all day,” he says. “So I suppose it would be a good time to do whatever you have planned.”

Thaniel blinks at him. “Do you know what’s going to happen?”

Keita smiles at him, a little puzzled. “No. Only that something is.”

“Good,” Thaniel says. “Good.”   

It’s strange to see them all gathered under one roof: Grace and Matsumoto and Dolly and - and Six, lurking in the shadows, eyes wary as she studies the visitors. Thaniel gives her a stern look, one that says: whatever they came into his house with, they’d better leave with, Six. She sticks her tongue out at him.

“Come on then, Thaniel, tell us already,” Grace says impatiently. “Some of us have work to do.”

And Thaniel does.  

Three people can keep a secret, if two of them are dead is how the adage goes, but Keita is different, has always been different. Thaniel knows, now - and Grace agrees - that to keep a secret from the watchmaker, the more people involved the better. To keep track of six different futures, six different sets of thoughts and plans and intentions, always shifting, intentionally kept as murky as possible, as clouded as they could be - surely that would be complicated enough to keep Keita in the dark, if only for a day. (Grace herself has had firsthand experience evading Keita’s sight - Thaniel knows if anything, he can rely on the pattern of her thoughts to safeguard the element of surprise.)

So the surprise is settled, but the question of the actual present is another thing altogether. But Thaniel thinks he’s got it covered.

The next day, the day of Keita’s birthday, Thaniel goes home that evening to find the door already open, Keita leaning against the doorway. There are already seven cups of green tea steaming on the living room table: one for each of the inhabitants of this house on Filigree Street as well as for the people trudging up the front steps behind Thaniel. Keita arches an eyebrow at Thaniel as he watches the people enter his house, and there is apprehension there - but there is also trust. Thaniel touches his shoulder for a moment - is this okay? are they okay? - and the watchmaker nods at him.

“I prefer brown tea, Mori, not this green muck,” Dolly says, looking at his teacup in dismay, and Keita replies, unruffled, “I know.” 

“Right!” Thaniel says. “We all know what we’re here for, so there’s no need to beat around the bush. Happy birthday, Keita,” he says, and something in Keita’s face softens. “This one’s for you.”

They all take their positions by the piano: Grace and Matsumoto and Dolly and Six - only Thaniel remains by Keita’s side. The watchmaker’s face is confused, blinking, and then - there’s comprehension, and shock, and delight, and, oh well. Having a surprise spoiled just before it was meant to be revealed - that’s pretty damn good when you’re in love with a clairvoyant.

“Requiem for Katsu,” Thaniel announces, and the first clumsy notes on the piano ring to life. “A piece written for 8 hands.”

What is your specialty? Thaniel knows - and Keita knows too, had recognized it even before Thaniel had - that it was music. 

Reciprocity. There’s a beautiful kind of symmetry in using Keita’s present to Thaniel - that little mechanical bird - to help compose Thaniel’s gift back to him.

Something to make the burden easier. Katsu had been the balm to Keita’s loneliness long before Thaniel and Six had arrived in his life, and Thaniel knows, even now, there are days when the octopus’s loss cuts sharp, days when Keita looks around the room before he remembers not to.

Sometimes, you have to steal things back. Thaniel had thought there had also been a beautiful kind of symmetry in Grace - the person who had stolen Katsu in the first place - helping in bringing the octopus’s requiem to life. But the more he thought about it, the more this sentiment went even deeper. There had been so many things that Keita had lost to his clairvoyance, but chiefly among them was the easy chance for friendship. The opportunity for relationships untainted by wariness, by the fear that seeing the future meant the ability to manipulate it.  

Clairvoyance had stolen those things from Keita. The least Thaniel could do was steal them back. 

That’s always been my favourite part, Keita had told him once, his voice silver-soft. Watching all these separate pieces come together.

And so this is what Thaniel can do for the watchmaker he loves: bring all the different people in their lives together for him, because of him. 

It sounds awful, of course. Thaniel had had just the one day to teach them the song, and four people standing at a piano is always going to be a bit of a squeeze. It’s all discordant notes and jarring colours, fingers stumbling on the piano keys and pedals pressed at the wrong moment, and “Shit, Carrow, you needn’t hit those keys quite so hard”, the air full of clashing shades and mismatching tones, but -

This is the colour of love.

“Did you like it?” Thaniel asks Keita that night, as he rests his head against the watchmaker’s chest, listening to the ticking of his heart.

“Mmm, fishing for compliments, I see,” Keita says, running his fingers through Thaniel’s hair. His voice softens, turns almost invisible in the night. “Thaniel. You know I did.”

Thaniel waits patiently, because he might not know the future, but he does know the man beside him, and sure enough Keita adds, “I’m not sure how to feel about everyone, though. Grace and Matsumoto and Dolly. I’m grateful to them, of course, but if you were expecting a... a friendship, I don’t know -”

“I know, Keita,” Thaniel says. “I know. It’s not impossible - a friendship between us all, I mean - but I don’t expect it to happen now. I understand. We’ve never been very quick to trust, you and I. But that only makes it better when we do.”

“Oh?” 

Thaniel snorts. “I didn’t trust you, when we first met. Not for a long time.”

“Oh,” Keita says, and the word sounds so different than when he said it a moment ago. Thaniel takes his hand - those slender, clever fingers - and presses a kiss to his knuckles, to his palm, to his wrist, to each fingertip.

“You can’t blame me,” he says, and smiles against Keita’s skin. He might not be able to see the future, but he knows, sure and immutable, what will happen next. “You weren’t my Keita then.” 

And it happens, just as Thaniel knew it would - the colour of love: Keita’s laugh, chiming silver in the half-light.