#EXPLODES INTO A THOUSAND AND ONE PIECES AND THAT ONE PIECE FLIES ALL THE WAY TO KOREA AND THROUGH GEUNSEO'S WINDOW

[wovenstarlight]

FUCK YOU GEUNSEO FUCK YOU GEUNSEO FUCK YOU GEUNSEO FUCK YOU GEUNSEO FUCK YOU GEUNSEO

[heartfullofleeches]

Hoiiii :3 can i ask for yan! Prince where he became sick and instead of the maids taking care of him, he insist that he rather wants knight! Reader to take care of them 0:

You use the bedroom door as a shield as a bowl flies into it, shattering into a million pieces and exploding a burst of hot broth against the wall. The prince's hoarse voice drowns his screams as he violently throws his head away from the cupful of medicine.

"Let me go! I don't want it! I. Want. Y/n! Bringing them to me now!"

Your kingdom is doomed. The prince never took being sick well. In youth, having the boy sit still was like a death penalty. He'd slip out of the servant's care and infect half the castle during his daily routine of greeting everyone who worked under his father's command. The one thing that brought an end to his reign of terror was a knight in training exhausted from practice and taking refuge in his comfortable bed. The two would end up sick as dogs the following morning, but for one night they both knew peace.

You fix the blanket on your arm back to your shoulder and step inside the room. The prince tries to leap out of bed, but is stopped by the strongest of the maids tossing him into the mattress; pushing his head into the pillow like she was attempting to suffocate him the wrong way.

"Y/n!" He breaks into a coughing fit, the hands restraining him quickly darting away. "you came."

"I was taking care of more important tasks." You spread the blanket over the empty half of the bed. The prince sighs dreamily.

"Your sheet..."

He runs his cheek against its corner as you turn to the maids. "Apologies for the trouble. If one of you could bring me some more soup, you all are free to good."

The servants race for the door, tripping over each other as they shout for the elixir likes it's a blood sacrifice. You sit down on the bed, placing the back of your hand to the prince's forehead - recoiling like you've touched coals.

"You're burning up. Keep this stubbornness up and your father may outlive you."

"I'll live a thousand years longer than that living corpse long as I have you~"

"You are delirious. Drink." Lifting his chin, you shovel the lukewarm warm tea down his throat. He gags from the temperature and flavor, but forces it all down in hopes you'll comply to his commands for being good. He sticks out his tongue once you set the cup down.

"Ahhh. All gone."

"You're not a child, and it's a fluid."

The prince clings to the tail end of your armor, voice meek and pleading as he begs. "Y/n, lay with me like you did when we were kids. I've been good."

"I missed a week's worth of training because of that."

"But it was time that you spent with your favorite person in the kindgom. Please, Y/n? Everything hurts.."

He pokes out his bottom lips; quivering, as his eyes go wide. You roll your eyes and remove the binds of your chest plate, setting it aside as you swing your legs onto the bed. The prince throws his arms and one leg over you, pressing his nose and lips to your collar; falling asleep almost instantaneously. You swear to the gods if you get sick he'll be your training dummy for everyday you're off the force.

[lastconcourse]

Blunder Plus, MegaWinter

Anabolic stage scene

Regiondirect→ center stage:

The scene is a living room at 2:00 on Christmas morning. The set is a middle class living room with new cream carpet and clean white furnishings. Regionreaders see a standing height view of a decorated tree on the left, under it, some presents in boxes, some on a table, and some on the large couch. Decorative looking columns separate the living room from a kitchen at left (stage right). A blizzard is making motion and sound in the trees outside. The camer’eye drops vertically until the view is on the floor, the entire room now feels like a canyon with small sized objects like sockets and chair legs dwarfing the regionreader’s perspective.

Now the room is unusually dark. The color fades back and forth from black and white to full color. Reflections of Christmas lights on the gloss surface of hung ornaments look like distant radio towers flashing. Green + blue glow is bouncing to a haze on the window over quick snowfall and increased wind outside.

(Rectangular present boxes, white carpet, sectional couch, brown end table, fireplace mantle clock, Christmas tree, ornaments with names, a snowmask sunrise, a window into a backyard with birdfeeders and snowy branches + perched cardinals, a cellphone charger plugged in, many baubles, a glass light dome on the ceiling, a vacuum cleaner parked in the corner, a reading lamp by a lounge chair)

Snowy tree branches violently blown by the wind slam into the window,

A fast burst of downfalling snow with glass,

Onto rainwet carpet, ten twigs now drop,

Three round green baubles tumble off branch-steps,

and enter the glasswater clump. Quick→smash glop.

shatterbreak tone.

A whole branch from outside enters the second window, breaks in two, and an asteroid made of doorhinges enters from stage right on a wide orbit and crashes into the middle of the room. Thousand hinges spill. The two tree branch pieces break into four, and two silver hinges crawl up like bugs and join them as knees: this makes the branches into the legs.

Blizzard wind throttles the living room. Where are the homeowners? One of the giftboxes is crushed by a grandfather clock, cardboard and wrapping paper blow around, ripping up, floating, now damp and mixed with dust of clockglass. Paper scraps and torn ribbon strands coalesce under wind force in the corner and are glued together when a huge pair of hands squeezes a glue bottle into the mess from above the stage. A 4wd bulldozer made out of a leather suitcase and a dustpan pushes the paperboard slurry inside a steel basin. Now the basin drains down an open duct from stage left to stage right and fills up a double-sided mould where the paperglassglue slurry dries in the shape of two arms; and this makes the arms.

and the arms are raised out of the mould and are lifted into the air by a gantry in the night sky while the Christmas tree tips over and explodes→ out→orange flame. Same time, a long tubular birdfeeder is blown through the window and starts rolling around on its side like a rolling pin: Tossing around windust.

The back wall collapses→and the backdrop is now a moving projection of a hospital corridor with square telemetry terminals and a tall IV drip pole.

A stack of nineteen giftcards tied up and laid down sideways grows flanged wheels and drives from stage right on a railroad to stage left like a boxcar. All of the cards are addressed to one person but their name is misspelled a different way on each one. It crashes into an open mailbox which closes its door, raises its flag, and shrinks into darkness.

Mantle clock from the brick hearthjamb meets tire mud

Hands against its face brusquely bent and halted

Bulldozer pushes the mud-cloaked brass left.

Phone charger cable spunsweept: coil-whip; flies→

airborne→ a white corkscrew, serpent-tornado

Stage middle,

tall white tail+ small green tree pins sucked, spun.

White soft rug scraped off the floor by the rampage

of a jealous vacuum cleaner turned hate-fiend.

The white soft rug retreats in waves like slime mold

while marble + bricks from the hearth fall on it.

A silver shower basket rolls into the middle of the stage on four thick-tired wheels.

A helicopter with a robotic hand wearing a blue surgical glove flies up to the ceiling light and reaches for the dome→

The ceiling light dome is unscrewed, taken down, and epoxied to the silver shower basket to create a skull, this is the skull.

A volleyball falls from the ceiling and is popped by a gliderdart. The limp corpse of the volleyball is stitched to the domebasket to cover it up as skin and scalp.

The vacuum cleaner drives around on its own at stage left and is picked up by a gantry. Big robotic hands wearing blue gloves wield surgical instruments and a rusty toolbox and now move in from right and left. The vacuum gets doorknob joints implanted on four points to create a torso, this is the torso.

Branches from the tree that fell through the wall roll and snap on the ground like alligators, and are then carved into legs by mobile sculptorsaws: These are the wooden legs.

A bunch of shards of glass from the broken ornaments and window are crushed, melted, blown and pulled long to reshape them into two arms, these are the arms.

The two arms are duplicated. One pair of arms is attached to the body of the grandfather clock, with one arm emerging from where the face was and the other from the pendulum chasm. The other two arms are jointed to the top of the ornamental end table. Each arm gets a doorknob for a shoulder joint. These parts together make a tall humanoid and a short one. These armbeings walk to the center of the stage (now an arena) and precede to box each other, armwrestle, and then finally fence with foils.

The Christmas tree is now burned and snowed over, snow melting under flames reigniting then going out→ in sync with a flame elsewhere lit under the burning plastic branches to bloom.

This whole horizontal mess looks like a flashing matrix of LED lights going red, then down to orange, then almost dead dim, then orange and red again. It’s angry fire though. Eventually the most of the tree is burned, wet, soot. Three small tornadoes of soot spin at the border.

Sparse green in slopslurry char-ash: Burnt stand→ Within burned, wet soot:

Melted cable

White, awful wire: Shock from spark to socket

Went left to right and burned the drywall

And a tall gardening cart slides from stage left to right←on a monorail track, then reaches out a reticulated lamp post limb which ends with a dustpan, and now starts scooping the plastitreesoot. Now a sapient bottle of soap goes stage right to left→ and dumps a stream of soap that pours long and forms out to the shape of a human hand. The soaphand starts attempting to clean the ashes and melted plastic off the carpet, but the burnt goop is too fused with the cream grid of fibers for any success.

The hospital scene backdrop shows a sobbing nurse.

Regiondirect→ In kitchen stage left

Napkins launch into the air as fabric rocket planes and land gently as migrating butterflies. The butterflies eat minerals off of metal pieces of ornaments and shiny glass. Napkin rings fall from thirty feet in the air and clack on the exposed concrete where the carpet has retreated in fear.

The sets of arms now throw down their foils and beat each other to death

The storm cloud is a heavy tarp with thousands of pores, suspended on a horizontal zigzag lattice boom, coruscating center to edge through colors of black purple and gray:

Like winterain bioluminescence

along this airborne trespasser who makes everything wet.

The wind is a network of hateful drum fans suspended on flat helium balloons, puffeting angrily at the old pictures on the walls in the attacked house: Wind, stormcloud’s sidekick.

Regiondirect:

On the stage right walls→

Family portraits in frames are blown down and fall into intelligent blenders hidden under the carpet around the floor at stage left. The blenders grind up the pictures.

Next to ramps underneath the blender blades, trapdoors open upwards. Long linkages located outside the blenders then pull back the blade+blademotors, sideways, and out of the tank; and the contents of blended portrait scraps fall down the ramps, and into a running waterfall + creek that then ends on a conveyor. Now this wet slurry of destroyed image is carried up→the elevator to a hanging lattice structure on the ceiling at stage middle where the wet mess is funneled down a traffic cone into a pair of moulds hung above candleheaters where the heat dries it, and turns it into arms, legs, and a head: Body out of the drying filth.

The sectional couch bends on a joint in the middle, the sectional couch bends in half like a giant pair of calipers, and it has six thick tractor wheels, the offroad sectionalcouch drives to stage left from the right side of the collapsing living room, where it gets rained on with wall dust and ash and hail, to the center where it grasps the remaining Christmas presents+burnt tree and bites into→the boxes with twelve spears made out of firepokers that emerge from under the cushions.

Two gloved mechanical hands and a gantry pick up the Sixwheeler couch, remove two wheels→ saving four as shoulder and leg joints, cover it in plaster + electrical tape, and set this up vertically as a torso. Leftover brass from the smashed clocks is now melted in with iron from the Christmas tree base and now mixed with glass from everywhere and poured into a head-shaped mould→ This makes a skull.

head of moltengloss-brass staked→on plastered cushion shoulders+chest

A cardiogram is heard flatlining mixed with an ambulance siren mixed with a low note from a pipe organ mixed with the song of a mourning dove.

Regiondirect:

The ceiling and rear walls implode and bury the set, then the stage floor opens up and the calamity is sucked down through water→ the whole stage is built on top of a garbage disposal and sink.

A curtain (like the ones in hospital rooms) falls.

[farfromstrange]

Foreigner's God | m.m

Previous Chapter ° Series Masterlist

Chapter Forty-Four: Cold As You

Summary: Eliza searches for answers in the one person she thought she would never have to see again, but she is desperate to figure out what is going on with her mind. Breaking into SHIELD proves harder than planned and she finds herself with more decisions to make than she wanted, and finally hits back at the man who ruined her life.

Warnings: ANGST, nightmare, panic attack, blood, emotional hurt/comfort, attempt at humor, bad legal talk, Infinity War & Endgame spoilers, allusions to child molestation, mentions of past mental manipulation and torture, mentions of suicide, mentions of sex (but nothing explicit), fixing the Karen erasure by giving her a time to shine

A/n: I'm back at it with the angst. It's been a while since I've written something darker, so I'm finally making my big ANGST comeback because it is written in capital letters and we all know what that means... take the warnings seriously, please. Also, this only has like 9,000 words. I managed to get under 10,000?? That is new for me and I'm kind of proud of myself for keeping this on the shorter end. Have fun reading! (Also, thank you all for your support! It really means the world to me and I can't wait to continue this story with you all)

She was trapped in the circle again. The crystals around her drove in circles around her, offering no point of escape. What were they trying to tell her? They were speaking a language she didn’t recognize, voices only she could hear inside her head. They kept getting louder like a swarm of bees in her eyes, or the flapping of million of flies’ wings. 

She pressed her hands to her temples, trying to keep her head upright, but the noise only kept getting louder and louder and louder to the point she felt as if she was about to explode. Her brain couldn’t comprehend the pictures she saw, the blue and purple galaxy around her, and the voices that were familiar yet so strange. 

Out of the fog, a familiar face appeared. “Matt?” she asked. His picture was getting clearer now. 

The stones wouldn’t let her through. She was forced to watch in horror as his limbs turned to dust and he fell to his knees, disappearing into the floor. He was swept away by the universe. 

“No,” she slapped a hand in front of her mouth, “This can’t be real. This isn’t real.” 

Beginning to slap her cheeks, she squeezed her eyes shut to somehow escape the hell she was trapped in. But as soon as she did, she was falling again, and this time the ground seemed too far out of reach. She was free falling to her death. She wished she could turn to dust like the man she loved, it would make the suffering worthwhile, but she was alive and she was forced to see what her existence meant. Destruction, chaos, blood, and death. 

She was caught in a time loop, it seemed, where she had to watch her friends and family living and dying. The same thing happened over and over again, in different places and different colors. The lines across the universe broke apart with every picture she saw, the stones traveling the same distance she was falling. 

She had to watch the man she loved die over and over again, in all kinds of cruel ways. Every time she tried to reach for the open hole in the galaxy to save him, another gush of wind made her fall even faster. She could scream his name as many times as she wanted to, but he continued dying with every flashing picture, and she couldn’t stand it anymore. She was crying. She couldn’t lose him anymore, she couldn’t watch him turn to dust over and over again; she just needed this hell to stop. 

Eventually, though, she accepted her fate. And when she opened her eyes, the stones exploded into a thousand tiny pieces and she finally hit the same mirror she had once broken. The galaxy broke apart, holes were torn into the sky, red clouding her vision, and she woke up with a loud gasp, trying to get the lost air into her lungs. 

Distraught, her arms flailed wildly to get rid of the suffocating touch on her arm. “Sweetheart,” Matt’s voice reached through to her. He wasn’t dead, although it felt as if she was dreaming once again. He would turn to dust if she touched him, she was sure of that. 

Dust… why dust?

“Baby. Baby, look at me!”

She was panting, eyes switching between the wall and the door. What if someone came in to hurt them, but they would leave her and killed him instead? Just to hurt her, they would kill him. It would be her fault. 

She jumped out of bed, hands at the ready to fight whatever enemy would come their way. She wasn’t quite present yet, and no matter how cold the floor felt under her feet, reality only seeped in agonizingly slowly and kept the alarms in her head burning brightly. The sound made it impossible for her to hear anything. 

Matt sat on the bed, his hair disheveled, and his sightless eyes pointed somewhere at the wall next to her. They were wide, eyebrows raised, and his mouth slightly agape. He stretched his arm out. He wasn’t the enemy, but she knew that. She was waiting for someone else to come through the door. She wasn’t scared of him, she was scared of what was out there. 

“Eliza,” he said her name, and she knew it was serious. It made her mind reel in a completely different direction, what are you doing?

She looked around, not sure what to say. She wasn’t sure what was happening. 

“Liz, hey,” he kept his voice soft, “It was just a dream. You’re okay, I’m not trying to hurt you. You’re safe here. I need you to breathe. Can you breathe for me?”

She tried, but she couldn’t. Her back hit the wall and she slid down slowly, knees pulled up to her chest. The water rose to her lungs. 

He scrambled out of bed and knelt before her. “Okay, I need you to breathe. Focus on your breathing,” he said. “I’m here, you’re okay, I just need you to breathe for me.”

Eliza stared into his eyes through the tears that blurred her vision. She looked at him as she tried to get the air back in through her nose and out through her mouth. She followed his instruction, the world slowly becoming clearer with each passing second, and the burning in her chest turned into a tiny flame that she could stomp out. 

“There you go. Good girl. You’re okay.”

She shivered, wrecked by a sudden wave of sobs. “You died,” she choked out. “You died so, so many times. I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t save you. I can’t- I don’t know what’s happening to me, Matt. I’m scared. My head- my head is splitting. The world is falling apart. Space and- and time, everything’s breaking. I can’t- I can’t stop it. It won’t stop. Make it stop!”

He was next to her suddenly, wrapping his arms around her shoulder and pulling her into his chest. Matt held her tightly, her ear pressed to his left, right over his beating heart. He covered the other, tuning out the noise around them. He rubbed soothing circles over her heated skin and the bandage he could now smell the blood out of. She popped her stitches when she was writhing in bed, probably leaving the wound wide open. Eliza didn’t seem to notice. She was crying so heavily, he considered shaking her to get her to stop and breathe. He hated to feel the pain she was in but not knowing how to stop it or make it easier for her to deal with. 

The sound of his heartbeat coaxed her back into consciousness, his hand on her ear stopping the screaming in her head. She exhaled, the sobs subsiding but leaving her shaking, still. She clawed at his shirt. He was her lifeline. 

“You’re doing so good,” he murmured into the crown of her head.

Her muscles relaxed, melting into him, and she let him carry her. 

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered. 

They were lying in bed and had been doing so for a while before she allowed herself to speak. 

Matt shushed her. “Don’t apologize. I get nightmares too.”

“This was different. It felt so… real.”

“Our minds can play cruel tricks on us.”

“I had the same dream while I was knocked out. What is happening to me?”

She hoped he would offer her something she could hold onto that would make her feel less insane. 

“You hit your head,” he said. “Pair that with the blast of alien tech, I think you were just confused. I could feel the power in the air, and it was stronger than anything I felt before. You took the whole force, so I don’t think you’re going crazy, your head is just a little banged up right now.” To underline his words, he stroked her hair back. “But you’re okay,” he reassured her, “because you’re not alone. I have you.”

That sufficed. “Okay, thank you,” she said. 

“Get some rest now. I’ll make sure the demons stay away.”

“Matt?”

“Hm?”

“I love you.”

“I love you more.”

She fell asleep to the sound of his heartbeat. 

The next day was a blur. Eliza sat over the legal files she was supposed to write a report on, but all she could think about was that godforsaken dream. All she could think about was the pictures she saw, the stones and the endless fall, and on top of that, she kept thinking about a gigantic lie she carried with herself and now had to entertain because it was too late to tell him — Sister Maggie is Matt Murdock’s mother. It kept continuously hitting the back of her head like a bouncing ball. 

How does one go about dealing with such knowledge? There was the possibility of a multiverse, a threat she couldn’t put her finger on and then there was her boyfriend, someone so kindhearted, he didn’t deserve to be lied to, but she did it anyway. She did the one thing she promised herself she would never do because she knew damn well what it felt like to be lied to. 

Her head hurt and so did her heart. Everything hurt. Her soul was torn apart. Her head was splitting. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep her composure. 

She needed to understand why she dreamed what she had dreamt. She needed to understand what was happening to her heart, why her powers were acting funny, and why the infinity stones she saw were suddenly trying to speak to her when she was close to them, even if it was just a hallucination. Reality works in funny ways and she could feel it in her hands. Time ran through her fingers like an hourglass. 

Eliza figured the happiness she had felt before wouldn’t last. It was the calm before the storm. She couldn’t let this destroy her life or her relationship like the secret of Matt’s mother would if he ever found out she lied to him. She had to keep quiet for his sake and partly for hers. It was selfish, but she didn’t care. The truth would tear him to shreds, Father Lantom was right. It was too late to pull out now, anyway. 

Her father was dead, and so was her mother. Her file told the truth about her heritage and what she was born with, but it didn’t go into detail. The video Anton left her explained nothing, it only made her feel more guilty about selling him out and made forgiveness an easier task. The letter her mother left her was just as useless when viewed from a rational standpoint that relied on facts and figures. She didn’t know what was happening, and the foreshadowing of her parents did nothing but put her on edge when she thought back to what she heard. 

Who else could help her? Bruce was lost somewhere, Tony wasn’t a doctor, Happy was just a man and she couldn’t go to a doctor’s office and have her checked out. The only people who knew or could figure out what was going on were either dead or off the planet — Thor and Asgard could help; she was half confused why they hadn’t shown as her father predicted, but perhaps they were right about her purpose and she was worth more on earth than somewhere else. Right now, she didn’t care though. She needed to know. 

She thought about Mueller. He killed himself. He could have found answers, but he died too. They were all dead. All of the sources she could have turned to were gone and so she was left with a burden too heavy for her to carry. 

Except there was one person. The man who raised her. The man who helped shape her into what he wanted her to be. 

“Oh, no,” she muttered to herself. 

It was not a thought she was supposed to have. But she was desperate and desperate people make stupid decisions, especially her. She swore she would stop being reckless, but opinions tend to change and hers switched as soon as the thought crossed her mind. She hated the thought, but her mind told her that it was the only way, and even the rational part of her agreed. This wasn’t being reckless, this was being desperate for answers, and she would take the risk gladly. 

The door to the conference room was open, but she still missed when Karen came in. “Hey, is your wifi working?” she asked. 

Eliza jolted, her head shooting up. When she saw her colleague, she closed her eyes and sighed a breath of relief. 

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. I should have knocked.”

She waved it off. “It’s fine, I’m just a little jumpy lately,” she said. “Not your fault.”

Checking the icon on the bottom left of her laptop, she noticed the exclamation mark next to the wifi symbol. 

“Yeah, no, mine’s out.”

“Great,” Karen cursed, “I was just doing our tax reports and the damn wifi stops working halfway through.”

“Have you tried banging on the router?”

“I did, yeah. Twice. It’s not working.”

“Okay,” Eliza rose to her feet, “Let me take a look at it. Sometimes it’s a glitch in the system. I’ll see if I can fix it.”

She sighed, “You’re a lifesaver.”

One look at the router told her that the issues with the wifi were caused by how old it was, and they chose the cheapest model, too. She hit it with twice Karen’s strength, almost breaking the plastic, but then the lights went on and her laptop chimed in response. 

Karen beamed. “Thank God!”

“You need to hit it harder, sometimes to the point it almost breaks,” Eliza explained, “Or else it’s just not gonna work. But now that we’re already on the issue, we should work on getting you better internet. This thing is old as fuck.”

“It was the cheapest,” she jumped to her defense. 

“I know, but you guys are financially stable now and I want to make sure it stays that way. Functioning internet can go a long way.” 

She looked between the offices on either end of the room. “Where are they, anyway?” she asked. 

“They-” Karen’s frown told her that she was supposed to know why Matt’s office was empty and Foggy was nowhere in sight either. “They told us earlier that they had a meeting at lunch,” she said. “They were going to check the police station for possible cases. They do that sometimes. You don’t remember?”

Anyone else would have made fun of her for being so forgettable, but she just looked concerned. 

It dawned on her. They did say that in the morning, Eliza remembered. Looking at the clock, she also realized that it had been five hours since then and that she spent the duration of those five hours staring at a blank page. 

“Huh,” she scoffed. “You’re right, I completely forgot.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I just… I haven’t slept that much last night.”

“Oh, because of-” her smirk turned suggestive and the heat rose to her cheek at what she was suggesting. 

“No!” Eliza stammered. “We didn’t- it’s not because of that. Jesus, no. At least not last night.”

Karen’s smirk grew even bigger. “Okay, that might be too much, but is he any good?”

Her blush deepened. 

“'cause, I mean, he is attractive. Foggy said he was quite active in college, so I was just wondering. Two hot people-”

“Wait,” she said, “Two- you find me hot?”

“What?” It was Karen’s turn to stammer. “Well, I- okay, this is getting weird.”

She was bright red now, too, her pale skin making it easy to see the embarrassment embedded in her skin. Her blue eyes turned anywhere but forward, hands fidgeting, and she made sure the hair fell into her face to cover most of her blush. It didn’t work. 

Eliza licked her lips, scratching her temple, then turned back to her. “He is good,” she answered. The situation grew no less weird, but at least she steered off the awkward conversation about why Karen found her hot, not that it mattered, but they weren’t exactly close friends that would say such things about each other. 

“How good?” Karen questioned. “I’m not asking this because I’m a pervert,” she chuckled, a high-pitched sound in the hot office air, “No, I’m just asking because I am getting way too little action, like none at all and I was just curious. I need to hear crazy sex stories or I might go crazy.”

“Six times good.”

“In one night?”

“Sometimes seven. Eight when I don't tap out first. The highest we went was ten, I think, but that was with snack breaks. And yes, in one night."

“Oh, God!” She slumped into her chair. “I need sex. Like, I need sex that is that good. I mean, honestly, ten times? And you-" Karen wasn't sure how to phrase it, and she was too much of a chicken to say it flat out.

"Cum?" She had absolutely no filter. "Oh, I do. I always do. Did you think the ten times were all for him?"

"Oh, that sounds so good."

"It is good. Amazing, mind-blowing, out of this world," Eliza counted down all the adjectives she could find to describe just what it felt like to have sex with Matt, but nothing cut even close and she felt proud that he was so incomparable.

She whined again. "Ugh! Why does life hate me? I'd be happy with just one orgasm, but I just can't find a man that knows how to do shit."

Eliza hated what desperation did to her. She had always been rather sneaky, but this was a new one. The worst part was, she didn’t feel guilty. She wasn’t doing this just to be selfish, it was a quid pro quo, but poor Karen didn’t even know what she would be helping her do. 

She pulled a chair toward her desk and settled down. Other than Natasha, she never had a real friend of the same sex that she could share steamy stories with. Not sure how those relationships worked, she decided she would try her best going by what she observed. 

“Let’s make a deal,” she said. 

Karen raised her eyebrows. “A deal?” she asked. 

“Yeah, a deal. I’m going to tell you something now. I’m going to tell you what happened behind what you saw on the news because I want you to know that I take this seriously, and then you’re going to do me a favor. In return, we are going to hit the streets and I am going to help you get laid. I know quite a few places here in New York where you can find good-looking guys or girls, whatever floats your boat. The quality of the sex needs to be judged first though 'cause I think finding a Matt Murdock is impossible, but anyway! The question is, do you trust me?”

She seemed taken aback. The sun hit her blonde hair in a way that made it look red. Karen contemplated, weighing the pros and the cons, and then settled on an answer. 

It was an unconventional friendship, but she needed one of those. 

“I trust you,” she said. “So, we have a deal, as long as you won’t lie to me.”

“We have a deal, that kind of secures my promise of honesty. I used to be an Avenger, and we take loyalty seriously.”

Loyalty. She was a hypocrite. She lied to Matt, the person she swore her undying honesty to, and she broke that. He didn’t yet know she broke it, but he would find out eventually. All of the decisions she made would come back to haunt her and bite her in the ass. She would be the one to ruin their relationship, she would ruin the future Matt seemed to be planning and she would ruin all the good she built for herself in such a short amount of time. It only took one bad decision and everything was back to being as fucked up as it used to be. 

At the beginning of the retelling, Karen didn’t think much. She expected to encounter some information that would mess with her brain, but she was prepared for setting foot into a world so foreign yet so close. She had been around for the Battle of New York, and she knew that aliens existed and what they could do. She knew about the Avengers, accepted what they could do, and accepted there were things she could never truly understand if she didn’t live the same life as the group of heroes. 

When Sokovia happened, she watched the news in shock, but her life had already been messy enough back then to care. When Lagos happened, she found herself wondering about how dangerous mutants might be, and then the Sokovia Accords were set in place to control the very mutants she questioned before. She never once agreed with the decision made by the court. Of course, mutants were different, but they weren’t more dangerous than the criminals walking the streets, and treating them like animals weren’t the right way to approach the topic. 

She wasn’t a big fan of Tony Stark, especially not after what happened with Union Allied and the fight with Fisk that almost broke them apart. She hated rich people. It was a part of her she didn’t want to change. To her, billionaires were pretentious bastards and deserved nothing. She was an anti-capitalist, and she stood by that.

Though as Eliza told her the story of what she had been through, she started to understand more about why she was the way she was. It broke her heart. She treated her like an intruder when she was anything but, and she would curse herself for a long time for what she did. 

“Your staring is quite unsettling,” said Eliza. Her words had long faded and she watched Karen intently for a sign of life. “I know this was a lot, but maybe you can say something?”

She swallowed. “I’m-” Why did her voice sound so weak? Karen cleared her throat and tried again to say, “I’m so sorry.”

“Oh, thank God, you’re alive.”

“You- you almost died because you were shot?”

“Yes.”

“Hydra took you as a child, experimented on you, tortured and brainwashed you, turned you into an assassin, but then SHIELD saved you, trained you to be someone better until the Avengers came around and then you became a hero?”

She nodded again. “Yes.”

“And then Hydra came back to get you, but you were working with Daredevil – the Daredevil, the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen – so you unveiled their plan, but they ended up kidnapping you, tortured you again, killed your father, and then tried to kill you?”

“And they almost succeeded, too. I was clinically dead for thirty minutes, but I came back, so now I’m not dead.”

“Oh, my God.” If thoughts were visible, there would have been smoke coming out of Karen’s ears. “I’m so sorry, are you okay?”

“Daredevil saved my life,” Eliza said. “I know people say he’s dangerous, but-”

“I know he isn’t because he saved my life too.” Karen’s hand found hers. “You didn’t deserve any of the things they did to you,” she said, “and I’m so terribly sorry that I judged you by the lies the media spread about you. It wasn’t fair. Or judging you for your relationship with Matt when you are one of the most mature people I’ve ever met. You’ve been through so much and treating you like that wasn’t fair. I get it now. I’m so sorry.”

She squeezed her hand. “It’s okay, I’m better now.” She wasn’t, she was spiraling down and something wasn’t quite right with her head. 

“So, uh,” Karen tried to regain her composure, “You said there is something I can help you with? Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

Could she? 

“I need you to help me get away with something so Matt doesn’t find out,” she said, and the look she received was one of confusion. Eliza gnawed at her bottom lip. “It’s nothing bad, he’s just very overprotective and I need to be alone for a couple of hours.”

“To do what, exactly?”

“I need to meet an old friend. A friend I had when I was still an Avenger.” 

Eliza could be extremely quick on her feet, especially when it came to telling lies. She scared herself at how easily the words came over her lips. 

“And he can’t find that out because it’s a little dangerous in the legal sense,” she said, “and he wants to make sure I don’t go to jail, which I understand, but this is a short meeting I have to attend because I need answers on something no one else but that friend can give me.”

He wasn’t a friend, he was a foe, but Karen didn’t need to know that. 

The explanation seemed to make her curious and maybe a little suspicious, but she had her fair share of secrets, so she gave in. “Tell him we’re going out tonight to bond,” she said. 

“What, seriously?”

“We made a deal. We’re going to pretend that we’re spending time together while you go about your business and then tomorrow, we’ll go out so I can get laid. That was the deal, right?”

“Right,” she answered quickly, “You’re right, that was the deal. Thank you, Karen! I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“He’d probably find out and lock you in at home like Rapunzel in her tower.”

“That-” she laughed, “Okay, that’s true.”

“And I desperately need a wingman,” she said. 

And for what Karen was willing to do for her, she deserved Eliza’s best performance at finding someone that would absolutely destroy her in the best ways possible. 

Her plan was simple: Get a taxi to the SHIELD base, sneak in through the back, and have Maria Hill, the only person willing to help her always, disable the security so she could get in unnoticed. Once she was inside, she only had to stay away from the security cameras and find her way to the prison cells in the basement. For that, she needed security clearance, but she convinced Maria to give her the key that would give her access to every inch of the base. Then, she only had to outrun security, distract them or knock them out to reach her target that was locked away in one of the most secure cells in the entire compound. It was simple and sounded so easy, but the not getting caught part was the hardest one.

She had infiltrated many government facilities, but Nick Fury was smart and he had his ways. Thanks to Maria, she could get in unnoticed, but the rest was on her. And if Maria was asked, she would have to fold to keep her job, which would get her cover blown faster than she got in. 

Viktor Volkov was a murderous asshole that ruined her life and took her childhood and her pride, but she was in control now and he was locked away with no opportunity to touch her. She was safe from him. She had the upper hand. He was an asshole and a pedophile but he was the only one who knew her ‘condition’ better than most. She grew up with him. He raised her, supervised the experiments, and used her in the ways he saw fit, which meant he knew the extent she could go to back then, and after figuring out what was really inside of her, he still knew more than she ever did. He was the only one who could help her and she would get her answers, come what may. 

She made it as far as the lower level, the hallway she had to get through to reach the stairs that would make it easier to go lower. She triggered a sound distraction at the opposite end, causing the guards to split up and jog in the opposite direction. The red light of the security camera shut off and she thanked Maria for being such a good friend. She didn’t even have to explain, she just told her she had to speak with him and get some things straight and that Fury wasn’t to find out. She agreed to help. One hand washed the other. She owed her. This was treason, technically, going behind his back, and she risked a lot by helping her out. But when did Maria Hill ever care about being a rebel? She was born for it. 

Eliza looked around the corner first. The hallway was clear. She looked to her left, taking a few steps back. She thought she ran back into the wall, but instead, she hit something a lot… softer. 

She jumped around when she realized it was a body, hands at the ready to fight, but the red eyes looking down at her almost in pure disappointment made her scream. 

“Jesus Fuck!” she held her heart. “You scared the crap out of me.” Taking a closer look, her face fell. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” she asked. Her voice sounded shrill and he flinched, purposely so. 

Matt opened his mouth, surprised she even had to ask. “What am I- what are you doing here?” he shot back. 

“I asked first.”

“I asked second.”

“I was just… visiting my friends,” Eliza said. “What’s your excuse, hm? You don't have any friends here."

He cocked his head. “You were just casually visiting your SHIELD friends in a secret government facility, in your suit, the one I had Melvin design for you?”

She shrugged. “I felt fancy.”

“The suit isn’t fancy, it’s practical. It’s meant for fighting. It's not meant to be paraded around, but you know that. The fact that you used it so you could break in-”

His lecturing tone made her roll her eyes. That he even got to judge. He broke in too, after all. 

“I didn’t break in. I had a key.”

“Where the fuck did you get a key to this place?” His voice grew more and more agitated with every passing word from her end.

“Obviously not fucking eBay,” she deadpanned. “I got it from Maria, who just happens to be my friend.”

“Oh, so now Hill’s helping you break into her workplace, a secure government facility with a security presence higher than the Empire State?”

“So what if she did? You broke in too, you hypocrite!”

“Because I was following you,” he said. 

“You were following me?” She was afraid of that. “You stalker!” Eliza screeched. “Can’t I just have one night to myself?” Her face was starting to grow red and he didn’t look better. 

The argument was useless. She was fucked anyway. He made her and now her mission was at risk. Matt wouldn’t let her proceed, not even when the Devil came out to play. He wanted to kill Viktor and he would do so still if he ever got the chance, but he also wouldn’t because he found back to faith and himself. It was a weird space in the in-between, and she hated it. 

He sneered, “You can if you’re not getting yourself in danger. What did you tell me? You were going to have a girls' night with Karen?”

“Maybe I was.”

“No, you weren’t. I could tell she was lying the second she said she was leaving to meet you. Seriously, you got Karen into this? What did you tell her?”

“She’s my friend,” she argued, “and also, I told her everything. That’s why she helped me.”

He stared blankly behind the mask. 

She huffed, biting her cheek guiltily, and dropped her shoulders. “I told her some things,” she corrected herself at his deadpan expression. “Doesn’t matter anyway. I needed her to stall so I could get in here because I knew you were going to try and stop me.”

“Damn right, I did! You are so reckless,” he snapped, “what is wrong with you?”

“From the top of my head, I’d say a lack of parental affection and a genetic predisposition for anxiety and crippling depression.”

“Would you mind taking this seriously?”

“Would you mind leaving me alone?”

She was being childish, she knew that but the fact he followed her to stop her did not sit right with her and she was beyond pissed off. 

Matt chuckled. It was one of his dark chuckles, the one reserved for either roleplay in the bedroom or for all the nights he walked the streets of Hell’s Kitchen as Daredevil, the man without fear. It was the breathless chuckle that left most criminals shaking because he proved to them how much he enjoyed enforcing justice, how much he enjoyed beating them to a puddle so his city could be a better place. It was then that Eliza realized she had fucked up, and he wasn’t going to let this slide. 

“Sweetheart, you better tell me what you’re doing here before I have to force you,” he said. His voice resembled a low growl, sounding like boots scraping over gravel. 

She pouted, answering, “I was visiting my friends.”

“Stop bullshitting me!” He echoed through the hallway and she flinched. 

“Jesus, Matt, stay quiet!”

“Tell me,” he demanded. 

She couldn’t say no to the Devil, but oh did she want to, and he had pissed her off enough for the night. She loved him but this went too far. He had crossed clear boundaries and she wasn’t going to let this slide. 

She opened her arms in exasperation. “What do you care?”

“What do I— I’m your boyfriend.”

“No,” Eliza replied sternly, “Right now you are Daredevil and he has no business being here or following me.”

“Okay, fine, I’ll take the mask off.” He did so, removing the cowl and staring at her intently. “There,” he said, “I’m Matt Murdock, your boyfriend. Now tell me what the fuck you’re doing here!”

“I don’t answer to you. You have no right to control me. I’m not your property.”

“I’m not treating you like property, I just care about you,” she was surprised at how soft he sounded all of a sudden, “and I really want to know what you were thinking so I can make sure you don’t get hurt.”

He heard the footsteps too late. The security guards came around the corner, guns at the ready, and the pair sighed in defeat. It was of no use fighting the SHIELD Agents tasked to protect the facility, especially not so deep down, and since the light on the cameras was blinking again, Fury knew exactly where they were and what they were doing. 

They put their arms up and behind their heads. 

She sighed. “Great,” her eyes rolled back, “You managed to trigger the fucking security alert, congratulations.”

“I did?” Matt retorted. “You were screaming bloody murder.”

“Well, now we’re getting arrested-” she hissed when one of the guards pushed against her back. “I took measures to make sure this doesn’t happen. You completely fucked with my plan.”

“Oh, sorry I was trying to protect my girlfriend from getting killed!”

She struggled to find words, “Who would kill me in here?” 

“I don’t know.”

“Then why are we arguing?”

“I don’t know!”

"Honestly, the audacity you have sometimes-"

The security guards pushed them down the hall, into the elevator. They both stood trapped with the heavily armed men in the small space that slowly started to feel suffocating. 

He turned his head to her. “Should we fight them?” he asked. 

In response, a gun pressed into his lower back, as did hers. 

“Nevermind.”

Eliza scowled at him. "You are so not getting laid the next two weeks," she said.

"I can take good care of myself, thank you," he retorted. "I'm not the one who has trouble masturb-"

"Okay, would you stop? You are disturbing the security guards."

"You started talking about our sex life."

"Which will be non-existent for three weeks now," she grinned sourly at him, "Congratulations. Have fun with your hand- hey!" One of the guards dug his gun further into her hip. "Would you mind?" she asked.

He didn't even look at her.

"Unbelievable."

They were forced into a room somewhere on the first floor, and the door shut behind them as fast as it had opened. On each end of what seemed to be another conference room at the other side of the compound, a guard stood to protect the doors. 

Eliza realized they weren’t there to prevent Matt from leaving because he had accepted his fate, they were there to make sure she didn’t make a run for it. 

She paced the floor with angry steps, her fists balled at her sides, and she muttered curses under her breath that were anything but friendly. 

Matt sighed. “Would you stop pacing?” 

She glared at him. “No.”

“Eliza, please, just sit down. It’s of no use-”

“If these guys would do something other than standing around and being useless,” she said and stepped up to one of them, “I could get out of here, but I am once again held against my will, which would be terrifying if I couldn’t break his fucking neck if I wanted to right fucking now.”

The guard flinched back. 

“Would you stop threatening the security guards?” he asked from behind her, at this point beyond tired of her shenanigans. “Sit down,” his demand was louder this time, “or I’ll pull you into my lap and make sure you stay there.”

“Take your shot.”

She should have known he would stay true to his promise. His arm slung around her waist and pulled her back into his chest. She struggled, but he had her pressed tightly to him, she couldn’t move. He wasn’t sitting however, he was holding her as he stood, and her heart calmed at the grounding stroke of his hand along her side. 

He cooed into her ear, “I know you’re mad at me right now, but I only followed you because I was worried. Now, you can hate me all you want, but at least I got you in my arms again, safe and sound.”

His silver tongue be damned. 

“Whatever brought you here, it’s okay, we can talk about it.”

“I don’t want to talk,” she said, “I just want answers.”

“Answers about what?” he asked. 

“Myself.”

“What?”

The door opened and his grip on her eased. They turned to the man that entered, his black leather coat dangling dangerously close over the ground. Nick Fury stood in all his one-eyed glory, the look of disappointment causing his forehead to wrinkle, but then again he always looked like that. His arms were crossed behind his back, undoubtedly holding something he didn’t want them to see yet. 

He eyed Matt first, then Eliza. His face fell even further. “I taught you better than that,” he said. “That was an awful break-in.”

She chuckled sourly. “Well, I was in a hurry,” she said. 

“Still weak. And talking about your sex life while guns are pointed at your backs? What are you?" he cocked his head, "Twelve?"

“What do you want, Nick?”

“I’m curious as to what led you two fools here.”

“I had a mission, he was following me.”

Matt scoffed, “You make me sound like an asshole.”

“I love you, but right now you are,” she said.

“Whatever your marital dispute is,” Nick cut their bickering short by stating, “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Seriously?” Eliza said at the same time Matt said, “What?” 

Their forehead wrinkled in confusion, unlike his look of disappointment, and she searched for answers in his face. He was expressionless as always. A goldfish displayed more emotions than him. He was hard to read, impossible even. 

“Yeah, I was actually going to contact you, but your insufferably reckless ass somehow made it here without me having to waste valuable time to call you. And your puppy is somehow always on your ass, so it was kind of predictable he'd break in too, which he seemed to be better at than you," he said.

“You make it sound like I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“That’s because you don’t."

His arms came forward, the thick brown folder in his hand almost bursting with documents. He threw it on the table. It slid toward her, landing right in front of her. Eliza stared at the missing title, then back at Nick. 

“What’s that?” she asked. 

He slid the same file only with a Braille imprint toward Matt, who caught it with his palm. “Same question here,” he said. 

“Well, Matthew, I'm sure you'd like to know that your girlfriend was planning on sneaking into our prison quarters and speaking to Viktor Volkov who is locked away pretty good in a special cell, but she knew that already,” Fury’s working eye switched to her, “Didn’t you?” 

Matt’s eyelids fluttered wildly. “You were planning to do what?” at the end, his voice hitched an octave, and he looked almost angry. She didn’t answer, only staring down guiltily at the closed file. “Are you out of your goddamn mind? Eliza, what has gotten into you?”

“I wasn’t planning to kill him if that’s what you’re insinuating,” Eliza said, and in her defense, she really wasn’t. He could hear it in her heartbeat. 

He scoffed, turning away. “Why?” he asked. 

She glanced over at his sharp jawline, the way it twitched ever so lightly, an inner conflict displayed in his face. He didn’t understand and she couldn’t blame him. She really didn’t understand it either. She was supposed to find her answers elsewhere, not turn back to Viktor, but in her mind, it had been the right choice to make. It still was, in some way. She still wanted to ask him because damn her father, he wasn’t alive anymore and she was at a loss for answers. 

“Does it matter?”

“Yes, it does.”

“No, it doesn’t,” said Nick, “because I have something for you that I need to talk about. I’m glad you’re both here ‘cause you’re going to need a lawyer for this one, Bennett.”

She frowned. “What did you do?” She didn’t trust him, especially not with strange files that were never opened before. There was still a seal on it. 

Matt toyed with the paper. On his face, the same question was displayed. 

“This is all the information we could pull from the White Room and what was left of Hydra. It includes government secrets and reports on the experiments conducted, new and old. The reports date back to twenty years ago, even before you came along. It’s filled with death certificates and profiles of each Hydra Agent that was responsible for Project Chaos, and the new variant they were trying to create. This file has all the evidence on what happened at the new facility,” he told them, “which makes this very valuable. The government would kiss my feet if they got this. But that’s not all. It has all the information on the men that hurt you, especially Viktor, Ivan, and that scientist Mueller. I compiled every last sliver of information in this file-”

Her jaw tightened. “What does it have to do with me?” she questioned. 

“Because it’s also a record of everything you did in Hydra’s name.”

Shit. 

“Now, I know this may seem like a lot, but I encourage you to take a look at it. There is a decision you have to make,” he said. “We either burn this thing or we get it to the FBI, including Viktor, and this thing goes to trial. You have to choose one of them.”

She had to choose? Eliza stared at the file, her eyes blank. She came in to talk to Viktor, not be overrun by Fury’s twisted idea of justice. She wasn’t prepared for it. 

She flipped the file open. Her eyes skimmed over the secrets Hydra had collected over the years, many of those that could threaten governments all around the world. She recognized some of the secrets because she was the one who got them. The diplomat’s daughter that she killed, everyone dead around her, every last record of what she did, who she killed, it was all out there. Or, it was in the file, anyway. Every child that died at Mueller’s hand and Viktor’s command. The faces were partly familiar, partly strangers. 

When it came to the records of what happened a month ago, she saw the outline for the new White Room, the records of the people kidnapped, the procedures that were done and killed so many more. The ones who got out were put into witness protection, it said in the file, and it made sense. She was listed as one of the kidnapped victims, and what they planned to do to her and her blood was briefly documented, but the record also stated that most of the documents were burned or shredded. 

Ivan was pronounced dead and so was Anton, her father. Ivan’s murderer wasn’t mentioned; they blacked Natasha’s name out, thank God, because if the government found out, they would send an even bigger search party and prosecute Eliza for more than what was stated in the file. 

Matt read the file at the same speed she did, but he picked up a little more than she did. The lawyer in him read the information she had told him long ago, but it still made him swallow. In a legal sense, this didn’t look good and if it got out - he didn’t want to think about it, and the fact Eliza seemed so deep in thought was unsettling. 

“Angel,” he said, “You can’t let this happen. The pardon that was made-” he tried his best to glare at Nick, “It would mean nothing if this goes out. Why would you even suggest this?”

“Because the FBI and DODC can lock Viktor Volkov away for good and make sure he never sees the light of day again,” Nick said. "They can give him a proper trial and put him somewhere he won't come out again because the people in jail, most of them, at least, hate child molesters. He'd suffer far worse there than here. This is a five-star hotel in comparison and quite frankly, it's pissing me off."

“Well, this isn’t just about that asshole, although I would love nothing more than to see him suffer. Believe me, Fury, I get why you’d want him locked away somewhere that isn’t your basement, but this isn’t about you or Volkov,” he said. “This is about Eliza. She’s the only thing that matters here.”

“With all due respect, and I don’t often say that to just anyone, but it’s not just about her. This is about putting a criminal and enemy of the state behind bars that are not in a SHIELD facility but far, far away from here.”

“No,” Matt’s chuckle sounded dark, and his eyes matched his tone, “absolutely not. This is about her, you and I both know it. Don't put justice in front of her. She matters more than that."

Nick turned to Eliza, his head cocked to the side and his eye expectantly boring into her frame that seemed smaller than usual. “Bennett,” he said.

“Eliza,” said Matt.

She closed her eyes, rolling them behind closed lids.

“Sweetheart, please, you can’t consider this. From a legal perspective, this will screw up the freedom you just gained back. The statement of what happened at the facility, I— you broke the Accords more than once, sweetheart, and if the government got their hands on this, no one is going to show you mercy. And this is not your boyfriend speaking, this is your lawyer who is cautioning you against this. As your boyfriend, I can’t lose you, but as your lawyer, putting you in jail by releasing this would be completely counter-productive because your imprisonment would be entirely different from a normal inmate, and right now your lawyer’s words are what matters the most. Even Foggy would tell you the same thing.”

Her thoughts raced. His words met her ears, but they floated in her brain like weightless clouds, speaking a foreign language she never learned. She wasn’t sure what to say, think or do. All of the information that her eyes picked up was messy and she knew how risky it was to consider it. She agreed with Matt that it would get her locked away faster than she could say she was innocent, but the part of her that craved to see Viktor suffer found Nick’s offer alluring. She considered it and she hated that she did. 

She looked up eventually. “I want to see him,” she stated. 

“Absolutely not,” Matt jumped in once again. He didn’t mean to sound controlling, but it seemed Eliza was being controlled by a force she couldn’t see, a cruel little monster that told her exactly the opposite of what was the right thing to do. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. We should sit down and think about this,” he said.

“I want to see him,” she said. Her voice played one note. “Let me see him.”

Nick shared a look with the two guards. “If that’s what you really want—“

“Fury, with all due respect, you can’t do this.” Matt was determined to stop this before it could get worse. “You can’t let her talk to him.”

Her eyes were dead when she turned to him and said, “It’s my choice to make, not yours.”

He feared she might slip away from him again. 

“I need to see him, and I’m going to do so with or without your support. Now, are you gonna stand in my way, Matthew, or are you going to put your role as my boyfriend aside to support me in my decision to paint my own picture before I sell myself out to the FBI?”

Viktor always put her in a terrifying mindset, but the more he listened to her erratic heartbeat, the more he realized she couldn’t be swayed, and she was just as scared as him, although her moral conflict prevented her from showing how badly it hurt. 

His question, “Can we listen in?” was answered quickly by a nod from Nick. 

“We’ve got surveillance everywhere,” he said, then nodded to the guards. “If that’s all, take her to him.”

Matt caught her arm. "Hey," he said, and his voice and eyes had softened visibly, "I didn't mean any of what I said earlier. I'm here for you, always, no matter what."

She smiled, "I know."

"I know you have to do this and it's your right, but... be careful, okay?"

"Okay," she said.

Eliza thought she would never see him again. She didn’t want to see him. She hated him. She loathed him with her entire being, but sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do to get results.

It reminded her of the time she went to visit Mueller, but this time, she didn’t have to sign a waiver or talk to his lawyers. She could talk to him and there was nothing he could do about it because he was trapped behind glass. She had never felt so powerful as she did when she finally stood in front of him. 

She chuckled. “I was looking forward to this.”

Viktor sat on the bench of his cell. At the sound of the door opening, he had looked up. His eyes sparked curiosity, but he didn’t get up, not even when she stood right in front of the glass where the red border was drawn on the ground. Don’t cross, it said. 

“Not particularly this,” she said, “but seeing you locked in a cage while I’m out here, free of the chains you bound me with when I was a kid. How does it feel to be the ant instead of the boot?”

He rose to his feet, finally, and approached the glass. 

“Does it feel humiliating? Does it make you feel smaller than you are like you have no rights and are merely existing for the purpose of someone else?”

“Oh, I’m so glad to see you again,” he purred. His voice had gotten deeper and his hair had grown out. With the white suit on he was right where she had once been and the fact he was chained to the ground meant she really made it out and now it was his turn to suffer. “How have you been, malyshka?”

“Don’t deflect.”

“I heard what happened with Ivan. I knew you’d survive, of course. You always do.”

She eyed his face. The scars of what she did to him were still visible. “I survived because you were not my only reason for living,” she said. “I survived because I deserve it, you don’t. The truth is, I should have killed you when I got the chance, but I learned that I am better than the killer you made me out to be. I’m not defined by what you did to me, so I’m glad I didn’t kill you so you can see me thrive now and watch yourself lose over and over again when you look into my eyes and see yourself trapped in a cell, not me.”

He chuckled. “Attitude,” he said, “You’ve always had that. Feisty you were, especially as a child. But this undying hope that you have… I never taught you that.”

“Yeah, you told me hope was for the weak and that a good girl doesn’t hope, she only obeys. That kind of sucked, by the way.”

“What brings you here?” he deflected once again. “Did you miss me?”

“You disgust me,” she spat. 

“Now, why are you being so vulgar? I didn’t do anything to you. I just showed you who you really are, but you didn’t want to see it, did you? You still don’t want to see. You’re blind, malyshka. You want to be blind because you know what you’re going to see is so much worse than who you pretend to be. If anything, you owe me.”

“I owe you?” She laughed. It was hilarious. He still spoke as if he had any control over her, but she knew better. Finally, she knew better.

A month ago, she would have struggled with not believing him, but now she knew that he was merely trying to turn her into the monster he wanted her to be. He didn’t own her and she didn’t owe him, especially not after what he did to her. 

She could fight back and she would because she had to, not only for herself but for all the innocent children he hurt, for all the girlhoods he took and the innocence he stole from her. She had to fight for the death and destruction he caused and the families that suffered at his hand. And she had to fight for her future to be free of his memory. He didn’t deserve the kind of power he had over her, and she was finally done falling for him. 

She stepped forward, barely breeching the tape. “I owe you shit,” she said. “I followed your command for so long, listened to all the lies you told me, and I let you shape me the way you wanted to. You manipulated me to the point I started to believe that I was as worthless as you said and that I only lived for Hydra. You made me feel so small,” Eliza shivered, the tears clogging her throat, but she pushed through them, “You made me feel like a toy and while I might have loved it back then, I realize now that you made me dependent on you simply because you thrived off of taking the power and innocence from little girls. You think I owe you because I was the only one who survived your torture? That I owe you for the mercy you showed me when I disobeyed you back then? You really think that?”

His eyes darkened. The monster was about to come out, and she realized that she had seen the same darkness in herself, but she wasn’t a monster. He made her believe she was born to be a monster, but that wasn’t true. The way she viewed herself was heavily influenced by what he taught her and it was time she broke that cycle. She had to take back the power she lost. 

“Newsflash, Viktor, I no longer live for you. I don’t live for anyone but myself. So you can take your manipulation and shove it so far up your ass, it comes back out of your mouth, and then you will choke on it because you don’t deserve the air you breathe. You don’t deserve anything but what’s coming for you. You think washing your hands is going to make what you did go away? It won’t,” she told him, “and you know why? Because I am going to show everyone the blood on your hands and I am going to make you suffer for what you did. Now that I’m grown, I’m scared of ghosts. Every last memory of you is burned into my brain and I keep thinking about what I did wrong. But it wasn’t my fault,” Eliza said, “and I get that now. I used to be weak, I used to be smaller than you and afraid to hit you back because I was scared of punishment. I used to pray for the day I got bigger than you, but I was too caught up in your game to grow up. But I am grown now and I understand that what you showed me wasn’t love. This ends with me. Now I live for the thrill of hitting you exactly where it hurts you the most, and that started with tearing down Hydra, and it’s going to continue by putting your files out there and getting every last government organization involved in getting you somewhere far, far away from here where no one can ever get hurt again. I’m taking back my girlhood, Viktor. I’m taking back the power you stole from me and you are so going to burn for all that you ever did in your miserable life.”

He bared his teeth, suddenly so close to the glass. “You think I’m scared of a little girl?” he asked. 

“Look at me. Do I look like a little girl to you?”

“You say you’re big enough to hit me back, but you’re hiding behind a facade. Deep down, you’re still a scared little girl and nothing that you do is going to break me. If anything, if you publish those files, I am going to break you–“

“No, you don’t get to break me. You don’t get to do that. I won’t give you the satisfaction.”

“Oh, malyshka,” his words spat venom and she swallowed it up at the first glance, “This is not up to you. You think you’re in control, but I’ll always be in your head. I’ll always be in control of you. I made sure of that.”

Eliza clenched her jaw. “Is that why I’ve been seeing strange things, huh?” she said. “What kind of mind games did you play with me? Why does it feel like my head is being split in two every damn night? Was that you because if it was, I want to know just what you did so I can reverse this madness!”

“I didn’t do anything. And even if I did, there’s nothing I can do about it now. The real power is in your blood. The truth is up to you and God now. Maybe you should ask your father- oh, wait,” he smirked, “He’s dead.”

Her hand collided with the glass. His laughter rang out and it only got louder. She needed him to stop. The sound was all too familiar. It was terrifying and it hurt deep within her chest. It tore her skin off her bones and threw it into a smoldering pit of fire. He pulled at her heart and took her soul with his laugh, he toyed with her and broke her mind with every word he spoke. 

He didn’t get to have control over her anymore, but the anger did and he knew how to play with her anger. Oh, how he knew how to play with her anger. He was a master manipulator, after all. 

When her hand hit the glass, it shook, and the guards behind her broke their motionless stance to storm after her. She broke the barrier right through, standing right in front of where he was locked away, and the sound of her palm against the cage vibrated in the large room. 

“Take his name out of your mouth!” she hissed. “Answer me! What is wrong with me? What do you know, huh? Tell me!” One of the guards grabbed her arm, but she shoved him away. “No, I need to know. I need to know what you know, Viktor. You don’t have anywhere to run, so you gotta tell me before I get in there and fucking rip your throat out, you useless fuck!”

He only laughed harder. He was making fun of her. Viktor got off on how desperate she was, the fury in her eyes and the fire in her bones. He thrived off of seeing her struggle like a fish out of water, and it only made her angrier. 

The arms of the other guard wrapped around her and pulled her back behind the tape. She shrugged him off but remained where he had forced her to stand. “If you know anything, I’m gonna find it out. You don’t get to destroy who I am,” she said, “and I’m no longer scared of you. Do what you want, I’m done. I’m going to dedicate my life to ruining you, and you have to watch as I burn everything in your way to set you on fire, too.”

Eliza glanced at the security camera where she suspected Nick and Matt were watching her, and she exhaled a heavy breath, one that was as determined as she was. “Publish the file,” she said loud enough for the speakers to pick up.

She turned to the exit, ready to make a run and punch the first wall she could find, but then his voice rang out again and it made her blood run cold. 

“The real enemy here is you,” he said. “There’s a reason you’ve been having those dreams, and if the world ended, it was probably your fault. Destroyer of Worlds.”

The words were in Russian, but she understood. “What did you just call me?”

Viktor only laughed again. 

“What did you just call me?”

“You’re going to destroy yourself before you destroy me,” he stated, unrelated to her question, and he settled back down on the bench. “I’ll be here waiting for you to join me in jail.”

She looked at him again. She wasn’t going to join him anywhere. He could try as hard as he wanted, but she wouldn’t listen. She refused to cave. 

“They can try to lock me away, but I would rather kill myself than be anyone’s captive ever again, and trust me, I will. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“But did you ever succeed?”

“Trust me, if I get prosecuted for what you did, I won’t hesitate to pull you down with me. That’s not a warning, Viktor, it’s a promise. You’re done here. You’ve lost. I’m taking the power and control you took from me and I’m going to channel it into destroying you,” said Eliza, the door opening before her and revealing the brightly lit hallway behind it, “Whatever it fucking takes.”

[lottiebagley]

Till forever falls apart- Fred Weasley

Out on our own Dreamin' in a world that we both know It's out of our control But if shit hits the fan, we're not alone

Fred Weasley lived in his own little world. He had his friends who he eagerly invited in but he was never particularly aware of the world around him. He never needed to look any further than his circle of friends.

She fell in love with Fred Weasley instantly. From the moment she saw him she wanted to be around him. Something about him made her heart beat faster and her mind run miles. She wanted Fred Weasley in every room she entered.

He never really noticed her.

She was the year below him at school and he never needed to know who she was.

His little world didn't include her and so he barely realised she existed.

That was until she arrived at his quidditch practice in floods of tears in the middle of his third year at school.

Fred had watched in shock when Oliver Wood immediately called a break mid-practice, something he never does, and rushes down to the crying second year.

Fred notices as he flies back towards the ground that despite being in tears the girl is beautiful. Something about her so raw and vulnerable. He pushes the thought away because what 13 year old is looking at a 12 year old, he doesn't quite understand the difference between them is a mere 6 months.

"What's got Wood all caring? Hope he's not dating a child the pedo," Fred jokes to his friends who all seem to look at him like he's grown a second head, even Harry, who had only been on the team for four months.

"That's his sister you moron," Angelina Johnson states, rolling her eyes.

Thinking really hard Fred can almost remember knowing that Oliver Wood had a sister, he just never took the time to realise who she was. He watched from afar as Oliver comforts the girl before she settles in the stands and practice resumes.

The entire time Fred feels drawn to her. Glancing towards her every so often and watching as she reads her book, occasionally glancing up at the practice.

When Oliver finally calls time Fred watches as the girl walks down to the pitch, eaves dropping as Oliver tells her to wait for 5 minutes while he changes. Fred sees his opportunity to talk to her, wanting too not just because she's beautiful but because something about her seems to pull him in, he runs to the locker room and grabs his bag before heading out to the pitch where she's standing.

"Hey, I'm Fred," He grins brightly to the girl who blushes just from the way he looks directly into her eyes, looks into them like he can see her very soul.

"I'm y/n, Oli's sister," She introduces herself, he nods

"You alright? You- well-"

"Showed up a sobbing mess?"

"Yeah," He nods, chuckling a little at how direct she is

"I'm fine. I've been arguing with this girl in my dorm a bit recently. I'll be honest she's kind of a bitch,"

"Really? Who is she? I'll prank her for you," Fred offers brightly

"Florrie Watson, but you really don't have to. I wouldn't want you to get in trouble,"

"I have no clue who that is but just you wait, once I find this Florrie Watson she won't know what hit her. And don't even worry about me getting into trouble, I've done it for much less beautiful girls," Fred promises, the girl giggles a little and Fred would do anything to be the cause of that giggle again and again for the rest of his life.

"Thanks Fred," She smiles, he grins back brightly, fishing around in his bag

"Here, have a chocolate frog, they always make me feel better," He offers, she smiles gratefully accepting the frog as Oliver exits the changing room. He strides over, nodding his end in a goodbye to Fred before leading the girl off talking about a game or exploding snap and some hot chocolate.

Fred Weasley would never forget the image of her, a few feet away, turning over her shoulder to shoot him a warm smile.

Three days later she arrives at breakfast to see Florrie Watson with bright green hair and exploding boils on her face. When she looks to Fred he sends her a knowing wink before returning to his breakfast.

She was utterly in love with Fred Weasley and maybe one day he would feel the same. 

Cause you've got me and you know That I've got you and I know

Fred does feel the same. He doesn't realise for a while but he falls just as hard.

Once she's become part of his little world she is a staple of it.

They chat in the common room, she helps out with pranks, they tease Oliver together.

They grow close over the next two and a half years and so on the platform ready for his sixth year at Hogwarts, Fred is more than excited to see her.

Although, he had probably been in love with her for a while, the realisation happens all at once.

He turns around to see her charging down the platform, skillfully avoiding bumping into people, as she runs towards him and George. She has a bright grin on her face and her eyes are shining with excitement.

She throws her arms around Fred who wraps her in a tight hug lifting her into the air to spin her around.

It's as her easy laughter floats into his ears he realises he's a goner.

That he is madly in love with her.

Despite feeling anxious at the realisation he wouldn't have it any other way.

He places her down gently and smiles happily as she grins up at him "Missed you Freddie," She grins and with that she's moving to pull George into an equally tight hug.

"I'll never understand why you come from Scotland all the way to London to go back to Scotland," George teases her as he releases her from his tight grip.

"Becuase floo powder takes literally seconds and otherwise everyone gets fun memories and I don't,"

"So you're scared of missing out," George deadpans

"You're happy to see me, right Freddie?" She beams, turning to the boy who is staring at her with a love struck grin on his face

"Couldn't be happier sweetheart," He confirms, she grins even bigger, although he hadn't thought it possible, before turning back to George

"See Georgie, some people actually like my presence," She jokes

"Don't remember saying I didn't," He chuckles, raising his hands in mock surrender, she laughs loudly, swatting his hand down. She moves to say something but is stopped when her name is squealed from across the platform.

"I'll talk to you guys later," She informs, turning to run towards her best friend, the very Florrie Watson that Fred once pranked.

"George?"

"Yes, Fred."

"I think I'm in love with her," Fred speaks with confidence

"About time you figured it out," George smiles, patting his brother's shoulder with a laugh

If the tide takes California I'm so glad I got to hold ya And if the sky falls from Heaven above Oh, I know I had the best time fallin' into love

She was almost 100% sure she had no chance with Fred Weasley, that and that alone is why when Cormac McLaggen asks her out she says yes.

"Hi boys," She smiles, leaning over the sofa to stick her head between Fred and George

"You smell good," Fred comments, not really thinking about what he is saying but immediately recognising the scent as the one coming from the potions classroom that morning.

"Thanks Freddie," She grins happily

"You look good too, what's the occasion?" Lee questions, he's the only one who can fully see her from his arm chair across from the sofa the twins are sat on

"I've got a date," She shrugs. Fred feels his heart sink as he takes a deep breath, mustering his best fake smile, before putting on a 'totally fine' act, not wanting her to think he is mad, although right now he's thinking up a thousand ways to make whatever boy she's about to go on a date with's life a misery.

"Show us the outfit then," He chimes cheerily, she moves away to come around the sofa, George catching Fred's eye and sending him a sympathetic smile.

She looks beautiful as she stands in front of the boys. Fred letting out a dramatic wolf whistle and smiling when she blushes

"Give us a twirl then," George encourages, she laughs but plays along and twirls for the trio.

"Looking gorgeous," Lee compliments

"You really are," George adds. She smiles at them both before turning to Fred, his the only opinion that ever really mattered to her.

"You think I look alright?" She questions, he wonders for a second how she seems so anxious, like he doesn't think she looks like a piece of art people would wait hours to see even when she's just in her pjs in the common room.

"You look better than alright darling, absolutely beautiful. He's a lucky guy," He grins happily. She blushes a bright red, moving to respond before her name is called from across the room.

"See you later," She smiles to the trio before rushing off towards Cormac McLaggen who is eyeing the girl like she's a piece of meat.

Fred watches as he leads her out of the common room with a scowl on his face "Seriously? McLaggen of all people? If Oliver knew he'd murder Cormac and then he would murder us for letting it happen," He grumbles, receiving sympathetic grunts of agreement from his friends.

We've been livin' on a fault line And for a while you were all mine I've spent a lifetime givin' you my heart I swear that I'll be yours forever 'til forever falls apart 'Til forever falls apart

Fred feels his heart sink at the sight in front of him. Cormac McLaggen dancing at the ball with a girl who is most definitely not his current girlfriend.

He's exiting the ballroom quicker than his friends can work out what's going on. "She's in her dorm," it's the voice of Florrie that makes him stop his frantic search, turning to look at her, thinking it best to have a clue what's going on before he charges full steam at a problem.

"What happened?"

"He broke up with her this morning so he could bring Romilda. I tried to force her to come anyway but she didn't want to. Managed to talk her into her dress and we did her hair and makeup but she just wouldn't actually leave the dorm,"

"Prick!" Fred grumbles, shooting the younger girl a thankful smile, before running off in the direction of the Gryffindor tower.

When he arrives, slightly breathless, outside her dorm his heart sinks even further in his chest. He can hear her sniffles from inside her dorm, raising his hand to knock on the door.

"Florrie, please, I really don't want to go," she calls, her voice cracking a little.

"It's Fred," he calls back

"Oh, do you need anything?"

"Just wanna see you sweetheart," he responds gently

"You should be at the ball,"

"So should you," he calls, "I'm coming in," he adds.

The sight makes his blood boil in anger but also makes his heart beat race.

She looks beautiful, a long silver ball gown flowing around her, her hair curled and falling gently around her head, her makeup is smudged from crying but he can tell before the tears it was done to perfection. She looks like an angel walking the earth and he wants to kiss her right there and then.

At the same time though, he notices her red eyes and the tracks of mascara on her face. He thinks about Cormac and how horrendously he treated her and it takes everything in him not to turn around, march back to the hall and kill the stupid boy.

"You look beautiful,"

"I look a mess," she responds

"A beautiful mess," he sighs, moving to sit next to her on the narrow single bed.

"You look handsome Freddie," she smiles, resting her head on his shoulder, exhausted from crying all day.

"Thank you darling," he grabs her hand and gives it a gentle squeeze "There's no chance I can talk you to coming to the hall is there?" He asks

"No. You should get back though, I don't want to ruin your night,"

"Well my plans were to stare at the most beautiful girl in school from across the hall which I can't do when you're sat up here," he's completely honest but she laughs like it's a joke.

"It's your one ball at school,"

"Look, I know you don't quite realise how important you are to me, but I'm not just leaving you a crying mess on your own. So, you and I will stay up here all night," he decides

And they do.

He steals snacks from under Ron's bed and they sit up in her bed eating them. He makes her laugh and she cheers up a little. He catches Bertie Botts every flavour beans in his mouth and smears Cauldron Cake filling on her nose.

He talks her into dancing around her dorm with him. It's fast at first, music playing from her friends record player. When a slow song comes on he holds her close and strokes his hand up and down her back, she rests her hands on his shoulders and stares up into his eyes with a too quick heart beat and a need to kiss the boy she's head over heels for.

They drop to her bed, laying up as she explains what happened. She tells him that she never really liked Cormac all that much and it was the shame and embarrassment that hurt so much, it was the feeling of worthlessness.

Her friends filtered back from the ball one by one, finding them fast asleep in their ball outfits, her head on his chest and his arms holding her close.

So this is it, that's how it ends I guess there's nothing more romantic than dying with your friends And I'm not sorry for myself I wouldn't want to spend a minute lovin' anybody else

"Where too next pretty girl?" Fred questions with a smile, his arms  wrapped around her shoulder, holding her to him as they walk through the warm streets of Hogsmeade, the first drops of summer warming the couple.

"Three Broomsticks?" She suggests, taking a lick of the caramel ice cream Fred had insisted on buying her in Honeydukes.

"Sure," He nods, beginning to walk in the right direction, swinging his Zonko's bag in his empty hand "How's the ice cream?"

"As good as ever, you wanna try some?" She questions, taking another lick before tilting her head upwards to look at him, he shrugs in agreement before a smirk takes over his face.

Her eyebrows raise in question before his thumb comes down, hand cupping her jaw, the thumb swiping over the corner of her lip and collecting a smear of ice cream, he pops it into his mouth, sucking the caramel flavour off as she stands staring up at him, eyes a little wide and mouth a jar.

"It's good," He nods, casually dropping his arm back around her shoulder and continuing on his was towards the pub. She allows herself to be tugged along, slightly in awe and massively in love as he somehow manages to act nonchalant, in reality his insides feel like they're on fire.

"Hey, Fred?" She questions as they walk, he hums gently in response, eyes flickering down to look at her

"Why no date this weekend?" She questions casually.

"Haven't been on a date in a while if I'm honest," He admits casually. It was true, for a while Fred was serial dater, she was so unattainable and so he occupied himself, tried to find someone who would make his heart beat just as fast as she did. That was until George informed him the more girls he dated who weren't her the less likely she was to admit to liking him if she felt the same, George knew she did, he could tell, not that Fred believed him.

"Very out of character," She teases, a smirk falling to her face "You lost all your game?"

"Why don't you consider how much you blushed when I tried your ice cream and answer that yourself?" He smirks, watching as she blushes once more but rolls her eyes at him.

The afternoon passes pleasantly, harmless flirting that makes them both overthink carrying the conversation.

It was a joke at first.

He had snuck into a small florist whilst she was talking to a girl from her year.

When he had returned to her side, the flowers held behind his back until the girl was gone, he smiles politely along with the conversation.

She had turned to him, ready to ask where he wanted to go next, and blushed madly when he held out a bouquet of sunflowers to her, he knew they were her favourites.  She had taken them with a bashful smile and a teasing 'what have you done wrong to butter me up with flowers'

And it had been a joke when he responded.

"Nice guys buy their dates flowers Wood,"

The reality of what he said hit the pair hard as his eyes widen at the realisation. He can practically see the cogs turning in her head before she whispers

"Is this a date?"

He almost lies. Tells her she's insane and that she's like a sister and he had just been messing with her.

But then he sees it.

The flicker of hopefulness in her eyes.

"I hope it can be," He admits, breathless although he's not quite sure what from.

"Okay, date it is," She confirms, tugging the flowers to her chest in one hand and taking his hand in the other.

'Cause you've got me and you know That I've got you and I know

Fred's foot taps loudly on the floor, a rapid beat ringing through the kitchen.

"You're up early," Molly comments as she enters the kitchen, she's unsurprised by her son's presence in the kitchen even though it is hours before he would normally wake up.

"My girlfriend gets here today. Merlin, mum, you didn't forget did you?" He questions.

It had taken hours and hours for Fred to be able to convince his mother and all the other adults involved to allow his girlfriend to stay for the last two weeks of summer given the location of the Order was supposed to be a secret.

It was eventually Remus' declaration of trust for the girl over dinner after a meeting one night that forced the adult's agreement. "Of course not sweetheart," His mother assures, a loving smile on her face as she watches her son who she's never seen happier. "You know she's not getting here until the afternoon though and that Remus is meeting her in Diagon Alley and he hasn't even woken up yet, let alone left,"

"I know. Just couldn't sleep," Fred admits, rolling his eyes at the beam that overtakes Molly's face

"You really love her?"

"I do. If it means anything I think you will too,"

"I'm sure I will dear," Molly smiles, squeezing her son's shoulder before moving to prepare breakfast.

6 hours later the door is pulled open and Fred feels his heart practically double in size. She hadn't been expecting her boyfriend to be sat on the stairs staring at the front door waiting for her, he had been there since his old professor left. She had been talking happily with the older man, something about her brother's new quidditch job from what Fred heard before she's silenced.

She let's out a mildly shocked laugh when two arms wrap around her, lifting her off the ground and spinning her around in circles. He places her back to the ground, staring down at her with a bright grin that's mirrored on her face as she stares back up.

Half the order and all the kids have now made their way to the front door to watch the couple's reunion. No one can deny that the entire house seems warmer now that their love is filling the walls. No one can question that it's love to the very truest form as they watch the couple stare at each other.

"You're entire family and a load of people I don't know are staring at us," She whispers, only he can hear and he chuckles a little, his arms still wrapped around her waist as her hands rest on his chest.

He can faintly hear the scream of Walburga Black's portrait followed by Tonks shouting 'shit I tripped, did I miss it?', her question answered by Ginny's laughter and a 'They haven't even kissed yet'

"I'm going to kiss you anyway darling, because it's all I've been thinking about for the past four weeks an-"

He's cut off when her hand tugs him down by his shirt, his lips meeting her for the first time in a month. It's not the most magical of kisses, a little toothy from both their wide grins and ruined by the onlookers and Ron's dramatic faux gags.

She pulls away quickly, not wanting to seem disrespectful and giggles when his lips chase after hers "Next time don't talk so much and just kiss me," She teases in a quiet whisper, just for him, he lets out a breathy laugh as she pats his cheek before squeezing past him in the corridor, approaching Mrs Weasley with a tentative smile.

She's pulled into a hug by the woman before being lead into the kitchen. Fred watches from the doorway as she's introduced to everyone and happily greets his siblings, a lovestruck smile on his face.

If the tide takes California I'm so glad I got to hold ya And if the sky falls from Heaven above Oh, I know I had the best time fallin' into love

Fred sits on the cabinet, his legs open as she stands inside them.

"You really need to stay out of trouble," She comments quietly, trying to be gentle as she dabs the open wound on the back of his hand clean.

"Better it's me than the 11 year old she would have given the detention too if I didn't take the blame," Fred responds, trying not to wince at the sting of the alcohol on the cotton pad.

"I hate seeing you like this though," She sighs, he leans down to press a kiss to her forehead "You were very brave though," She compliments, throwing the red stained cotton pad into the bin as she grabs the ointment the twins made a few weeks before from the cupboard. "We're running low," She comments quietly

"I'll make some more in the morning," Fred sighs, letting his head drop back against the wall "Is there enough for George too?" His voice sounds tired but she knows if there wasn't he would stay up to make his twin more, it was the quickest way to heal the scars of Umbridge's quill.

"Yeah," She sighs gently. "Freddie?"

"What's wrong darling?" He asks, one eye fluttering open to look at his girlfriend. Not liking the anxiousness of her voice.

"I was just thinking that tomorrow I could go to Umbridge and tell her the other night was my fault, your hand is practically raw and-"

"No," He doesn't mean to snap at her but he would never, ever, let that toad of a human lay a hand on his girl. He'd take any punishment she has a thousand times before he let her take it even once.

"Fred, you can't just-"

"I mean it. I'm not letting her hurt you, alright? 'M your boyfriend, it's my job to keep you safe so no. You aren't taking the blame for her finding us kissing in a broom cupboard," He demands, she sighs as she grabs a bandage to wrap up Fred's hand

"You're killing yourself slowly Fred and I won't let you. I was just as at fault as you were and you've taken the blame for every slip up I've made all year. Even when you weren't there," She argues, her voice is soft though, not wanting to fight with him.

His hand that's not being bandaged rakes through his hair in frustration. "Please, please just let me keep you safe?" He's speaks so quietly, so full of nerves and love and every emotion in between that her heart melts a little

"You-"

"I swear to you right here that I'll start being more careful and I'll stop taking the blame for other people if it makes you worry, but, please. Angel, please, just let me look after you,"

He's practically begging and she can't help but agree, reaching up to press a kiss to his cheek. "Just start being careful alright?" She whispers the question

"Promise," He confirms quietly

"I love you Fred,"

She had been in love with him since her first year and it was the first time she ever said it to him.

She wasn't nervous though, not even for a second, she knows he loves her back, he may not have ever said it but he tells her in his own way a thousand times a day.

"I love you too sweetheart," He smiles gently, reaching his none bandaged hand to her jaw to pull her to him.

He kisses her soft and slow before she pulls away, moving her head to press a gentle kiss to the palm of his hand that's moved to cup her cheek.

"George! I'm ready to do your hand!" She calls, turning away from her boyfriend to blink away her tears, her anxiousness for his well being feeling overwhelming. George enters the small bathroom, cradling his own bleeding hand.

Neither twin mentions the redness in her eyes.

We've been livin' on a fault line And for a while you were all mine I've spent a lifetime givin' you my heart I swear that I'll be yours forever 'til forever falls apart 'Til forever falls apart

"I need to tell you something," Fred had spilt the words out over dinner, interrupting his friend groups story. She immediately turns to him, eyebrow raised in concern. She had joined his friends for dinner at his request, he'd been clingy fort he past month but she thought nothing of it until that very moment.

His brown eyes that usually held so much love and mischief seemed consumed in guilt.

"Alone," He adds hastily, trying to ignore the questioning look from Angelina Johnson across the table who had been talking about her Potions essay.

He stands, his girlfriend following behind wordlessly. Normally, he would reach out to grab her hand but he could feel the cold stare of Dolores Umbridge.

By the time he pulls her into an empty class room, too anxious to go all the way back to his dorm, he can feel his heart in his mouth.

He knew, realistically, that he should have told her months ago. Told her when the idea was first born. Not now, less than 24 hours before it happens.

"I swear to god, if you've cheated on me Fred I will cut you-"

"No!" He's quick to defend himself "Of course not. I would never, you know that," He sighs, still not sure where to find the words. "I have something to tell you but please don't be mad,"

"You can tell me anything Freddie," She reassures, sitting down on a desk as he stands in front of her

"I'm leaving," He speaks lowly

"What do you mean leaving?" she questions, eyes scrunched up like she's concentrating.

"I mean Harry gave George and I his tri-wizard cup winnings and we are dropping out of school to open a joke shop. I'm leaving tomorrow,"

"I- I don't know what to say," She admits quietly

"Well, what are you thinking?" He promts, trying to gauge her reaction

"I'm- I'm kind of mad that you didn't tell me you were leaving. That you've undoubtedly known for a while and you didn't bother to tell me. I'm worried because I'm so in love with you and I don't know what happens to us when we aren't both here, I mean I knew next year everything would change but I thought we had time to work out what we are doing. I'm sad cause I'm going to miss you like crazy, but, if I'm honest more than anything I'm so unbelievably proud of you and happy for you,"

"I should have told you. I know that. But I promise that nothing has to happen to us, I love you, not being here won't change that,"

"And you'll write?"

"Everyday," He assures, standing between her legs to press his lips to hers.

We never had it from the start 'Til death do us part

"So, what do you think?" Fred's voice questions, his hands that had been clasped over her eyes nervously ringing by his sides.

She was the first person to see the inside of the shop and both the twins, who stand on either side of her, were nervous about it.

She looks around with wide eyes, her feet spinning her in a slow circle as she takes in the bright colours of the store.

"Jeez woman, say something already," George groans, his anxiousness getting the best of him

"It's perfect," She grins, turning back to the two boys

"You really think?" Fred questions

"I do. It's like you two in shop form. I love it," She grins, flinging her arms around her boyfriend's arms as he lifts her up into the air, spinning her around as his loud laughter of excitement mixes with her giggles

"You love it?" He asks, excitement evident in his voice

"I love it," She confirms as he places her back onto the ground. She turns to hug George, smiling a congratulations.

Fred tugs her by her hand around the store, giving her the guided tour and pointing out every single product, explaining ones she hadn't seen before. She listens attentively, her heart swelling in pride and she swears she falls in love all over again as he grins at her, eyes shining.

If the tide takes California

I'm so glad I got to know ya

Fred's arms hold her close to him, her's looping round her neck as he sways them gently to the music playing through the marquee, her head tilted up to look at her boyfriend who smile back down.

"When we get married-" Fred starts, rolling his eyes when she immediately rolls her eyes

"Did you just say we?"

"Obviously we are getting married you idiot," Fred huffs, she smirks, reaching onto her tippy toes to press a kiss to his cheek "As I was saying, when we get married, it's not going to be this fancy,"

"No?"

"No. Not worth the stress, unless you want a big fancy shindig, if you do obviously we can have one, we will just put a full body binding curse on mum," He chuckles at his joke but she can hear the sincerity in his voice

"Fred Weasley I would marry you with a piece of string for a ring and only one witness,"

"So a small wedding?" He smiles, pressing a kiss to the top of her head

"Small wedding sounds good. You'll have to ask Oli for permission before you ask me though, otherwise he'll genuinely murder you,"

"I'll do that," He grins down.

She laughs it off, no idea there was a ring in his bedside draw since his first pay check at the joke shop, that he was just waiting for everything to calm down to ask.

And if the sky falls from Heaven above Oh, I know I had the best time fallin' into love

Fred feels like he can finally breathe again when he hears the door of the flat swing closed.

"Hey, I'm back," Her voice rings through the home above the joke shop.

"In the living room," He calls back, he hears her drop her keys onto the small table by the door before she arrives in the door way. Staring at him from the door way

"Thought I told you not to wait up?" She questions

"Couldn't sleep, hated not knowing if you were okay," He admits, she let's out a sigh, crossing the living room to sit next to him on the sofa.

"I know what you mean. Spent the whole day worrying if anything had happened to you," She admits, he sighs, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

"How was work?" He asks softly

"Busy. The world is a mess out there," She admits, her job as a healer seemed to only get crazier with each passing day, the war raging on the streets.

"I know," He hums gently, "Did you see Oliver after you finished?"

"I did, he's good just worried about everyone," She shrugs, it was how everyone seemed to be recently.

"I'm glad your home safe,"

"I'll always get home safe to you Freddie, as long as you promise to do the same?"

"I promise angel,"

We've been livin' on a fault line And for a while you were all mine

She feels like she can't breathe when the door is pulled open, she had the address on a piece of paper in Hermione Granger's neat cursive.

For a second, as selfish as it makes her feel, she allows herself to pretend. Pretend the man standing in the doorway is him. Allows herself to pretend it's the love of her life staring at her, and, for the second she does she can almost kid herself into thinking everything is okay.

"You want to come in?"

She feels the world crash around her as she nods, allowing George Weasley to lead her into his house. He offers her a drink and she politely declines, taking a seat in his living room.

"You're staring," He comments, he doesn't seem angry, nor does he seem hurt to see her. Instead, he watches her with pity.

"Sorry, I just-" She sighs, not bothering to finish

"I do it too. I stare at my reflection and trick myself into thinking it's him,"

"I'm so sorry, that you've had to go on without him. George, I'm so, so, sorry,"

"The same to you," George smiles sympathetically. His eyes scan her, trying to work out how she is without asking. "So, that's why you're here?" He questions, nodding towards the ring that sits on her left hand.

"It is. I need to talk to you about it. I'm sorry, because I know we said that we weren't going to speak but it had to be you,"

They'd both agreed it within a few months of the war ending. Being around each other was too hard. They were the one person who reminded the other of Fred the most.

"Okay," George nods in agreement. He watches as she eyes the framed photo of his wedding day on the mantle piece before letting out a deep breath.

"I moved away, to America, after the war- I just- I needed to get away. It was 5 years before I went on a date, it was 6 before I had sex it was 7 before I had a boyfriend. I didn't want to have a relationship, not when it would never come close to the one I had with him, and it doesn't, you should know that it doesn't, but Daniel, he asked me to marry him and I said yes. But- I can't go through with it, not if you're mad at me for it,"

"I'm not mad," George speaks gently, he has a feeling that in this moment it isn't him she's speaking too at all. If it were anyone else he would be angry, but for her, he is prepared to be the bridge to Fred, because he knows the one person who loved his twin more than George himself, was the girl in front of him.

"I know. I knew you wouldn't be I just-"

"You aren't asking if I'm mad. You're asking if I think he is," George comments, he reaches across the coffee table to squeeze her hand gently

"I know. I'm so sorry George, it's not fair to you and I know that. The thing is- You knew Fred better than anyone and you- Oliver keeps telling me that it is okay. That Fred would want me to be happy and to have a husband and kids and- I want to believe him but- I need to hear it from you. From you who knew him so deeply. Wherever he is does he hate me right now?"

"Fred would want to be the one who made you happy,"

"Look, George, I believe in love. I believe in one grand love, a soulmate, a forever. I believe that Fred was mine. He was the one. He was the sun and the moon and the stars. He is the love of my life. But I want kids, George, I always wanted that, and he is gone. I believe that when you die, the person you loved most in life is waiting for you and no matter what I believe it'll be Fred who greets me. I believe that he's watching over me and every decision I ever make I can practically hear him telling me what to do. I have love for Daniel but I am not in love with him, I will never be in love with anyone like I was with Fred, he was it for me. But I can't have him. I think he knows I would always pick him, I would still pick, I wish it were him. So, George, would he hate me for having a life without him?"

"You had a forever with Fred. It wasn't your forever, but it was his. I never saw him so happy. He wouldn't hate you. Just, for me, don't forget him,"

"I won't George. Nothing else comes close. It never will,"

I've spent a lifetime givin' you my heart I swear that I'll be yours forever 'til forever falls apart

**

Masterlist

[pathfinderunlocked]

Bloated Maggot-Hive - CR5 Undead

Every time I make a fat enemy, it seems to explode into a swarm of some kind when killed.

Artwork by Björn Hurri on Twitter.

This extra-gross zombie would probably make a good mini-boss for a level 2 or 3 dungeon that’s full of regular undead, but it’s simple enough to run in groups at higher levels.  If a PC necromancer manages to take control of it with Command Undead, the swarm explosion creates a built-in “this is a terrible idea” feature, since that swarm is gonna attack enemies and allies alike.

Its challenge rating of 5 and XP of 1800 includes the botfly swarm that appears when it dies.  A botfly swarm is CR 4, but this one is way less deadly than normal.  Swarms are notoriously hard to kill, especially at low levels, so I wanted to make sure that there was an alternate way to deal with it.  The flies simply dispersing and flying away certainly counts.

I also, as I often do, completely ignored the rule about swarms always having a space of 10 feet.

Bloated Maggot-Hive - CR 5

Hearing your approach, the horrific creature steps with one swollen foot, something writhing under its skin, and turns around to face you.  It is a massive, bloated, morbidly obese zombie with the skin dripping off its face, with thousands of maggots spilling out of its eye sockets, its mouth, and every other opening.  

XP 1,800 NE Medium undead Init -2; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +10

DEFENSE

AC 14, touch 7, flat-footed 14 (-2 Dex, +7 natural, -1 size) hp 43 (5d8+15) Fort +4; Ref -1; Will +6 Defensive Abilities channel resistance +2 Immune undead traits

OFFENSE

Space 10 ft., Reach 5 ft. Speed 30 ft. Melee 2 slams +5 (1d8+3)

STATISTICS

Str 16, Dex 6, Con —, Int —, Wis 14, Cha 16 Base Atk +3; CMB +7; CMD 15 SQ bug sack, swarm explosion

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Bug Sack (Ex) Whenever a bloated maggot-hive takes bludgeoning or slashing damage, a mass of hundreds of flies erupts from the wound, dealing 1d3 piercing damage to all creatures within 5 ft of the bloated maggot-hive.  A DC 15 Reflex save halves the damage.

Swarm Explosion (Ex) When a bloated maggot-hive is destroyed, it explodes in a cascade of rotten gore, coating everything within 40 feet with pieces of its rotting flesh.  All creatures within 40 feet must make a DC 15 fortitude save or be sickened for 1d3 rounds.

Additionally, when a bloated maggot-hive is destroyed, a swarm of tens of thousands of flies bursts from the shredded remains of its bodies, spreading out to fill the area.  This functions as a Botfly Swarm except that it has a space of 40 ft. (limited by the space of the room), and its swarm attack deals only 1d3 damage to account for the reduced density of flies.  The botfly swarm does not take squeezing penalties if forced into a smaller area.  A creature that is prone can make a DC 14 Reflex save each round on the botfly swarm’s turn to negate the swarm attack.

The botfly swarm attacks creatures within its space with its swarm attack, but does not move or otherwise seek out additional targets to attack.  After 3 rounds, the botfly swarm disperses in all directions, ceasing to be a swarm creature and becoming normal harmless flies.

[bomberqueen17]

disorienting

So I got in the car yesterday morning and it was 45 F and raining, and I drove for five hours and got out and it was sunny and 67 and Dude had rearranged the kitchen while I was gone.

(Apparently he had last week off work and just didn’t mention it to me. He had also forgotten, and just-- didn’t-- bring it up-- and I’d known he was taking a week off and I’d meant to be in town for at least some of it and like maybe spend some time with him even if I couldn’t take more than like a day off, but we could at least daytrip somewhere or hang out or-- well, it’s moot, he had a vacation and didn’t tell me.)

So anyway I don’t know who or where the fuck I am or what it is that I do here, but I’m at work anyway trying to remember how to people.

I stayed late at the farm, stayed through Sunday dinner and then left Monday morning, because the store was closed yesterday, and because BIL had to work Saturday but had Sunday free and had volunteered to start on the cabin.

!!! I know! Starting!! on the Cabin!!!

The plans didn’t call for it but i upgraded the skid material to be pressure-treated lumber because it’s just sitting on blocks in gravel and that particular part of it will be basically impossible to repair, over the lifetime of the house. So we went to Home Depot one morning when BIL was unexpectedly free, and got the pressure-treated lumber, the concrete blocks for the foundation, and an electric hammering machine. IDK what it’s really called, but that’s what it is, it’s a nail gun kinda deal. BIL said if I didn’t buy it he would, and I thought, if I’m making him do all this work for me the least I can do is buy the dang hammer thing. Also I can’t fucking hammer a nail to save myself by hand, so if there’s a machine to do it for me sign me the fuck up.

A nailgun is fucking terrifying, by the way. We ended up with one that takes plastic-collated nails, and it does this high-pitched piercing whine of a wind-up and then slams the nail in so fucking hard that sometimes a spark flies off to the side. It gets tiny plastic bits fucking everywhere. And it’s heavy. And it fucking slams those nails in there so hard and so fast and so loud that you cannot help but stare at it and contemplate what it would do to human flesh. But it’s so much less fucking effort than hitting a nail thirty-five times-- these skids were four 2x6s nailed together, times two, to be 24′ long, and it was six nails per two feet in the directions, and like-- also we had to nail three of the boards together and then tack the fourth on, because with the 3.5″ nails the instructions called for, there’s no way it would actually hang together, so-- we also glued them, even though the directions didn’t mention that.

We’re getting the idea that the instructions leave a fuckton of information out.

Like, the next step, which is to build the platform-- you make the frame, square it, then put vapor barrier on top and bottom, then add plywood on top and bottom. It makes absolutely no mention of the question of how you add plywood onto the bottom of a sixteen-by-twenty-four-FOOT frame without pulling it out of square. Please bear in mind that once assembled this platform will weigh over a thousand pounds. Are you just supposed to... flip it over? How? Are you meant to have the Hulk on your contracting team? How good is the Hulk at not pulling a frame out of square when moving it?

Anyway. The plans make no mention of this, it’s just a magical exploded diagram making sure you know exactly where to put each piece. That’s great but how..

We also discussed that we need to name this bit of construction, because BIL objects to “tiny house” because 16x24′ isn’t that tiny, and calling it a shack or shed is also dumb, but there’s already The Cabin on the property. We’ve been absently calling it the yurt and it would be hilarious if that name stuck because it’s super not a yurt. Farmsister suggested “the Yeet”, which I like but also hate.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 280: I Am Red Riot

Previously on BnHA: The pro heroes over at Gunga Mountain struggled against Gigantomachia and the League until finally Midnight was all, “fuck it, let’s just put the kids in charge.” Momo immediately got to work organizing a sophisticated counteroffensive involving an exploding swamp, a bunch of sedative cans, and a massive coordinated team attack. I gotta tell you guys, it’s really something to watch a large-scale group attack in which all of the team members are actually competent. I don’t know what Japan put in the water when all these sixteen-year-olds were growing up, but that shit has paid off big time, and basically the only reason Machia hasn’t gone down yet is because he cheated and was all “sneeze” and the kids all got blown away because they are little and because he is really, really big. Anyway so then Dabi set the forest on fire because he loves doing that, and the chapter ended with Mina using her Acid Man attack to make herself FUCKIN’ FIREPROOF so she could charge through the woods ready to save the day and stuff!

Today on BnHA: Mina launches herself straight at Machia like the beautiful corrosive wild child she is, but then everything goes to shit when she recognizes him from that one time she almost got murdered while giving a strange man directions. Just when it’s looking like she might get killed for real this time, KIRISHIMA SHOWS UP TO SAVE THE DAY AND SHOVES HER TO SAFETY AND IS ALL “BOTTOMS UP” AND HEAVES A LITERAL CAN OF WHOOPASS RIGHT IN MACHIA’S MOUTH. At this point the grown-ups are all “oh wow look at that, time for us to take over for you kids now, don’t worry we’ve got it all under control” because Oh Those Wacky Pros and all that, but at least Majestic finally deigns to show his face so that’s a plus! The chapter ends with us cutting back to the Jakku battle, where Tomura is curled up in a little ball all “curse you heroes, how dare you [checks notes] save people all the time”, which is a real take and a half. Anyway so things are looking up, which can only mean everyone is about to die. That’s how it works, right. Shit.

HOLY SHIT LOL

THIS IS MINA. SHE’S REALLY COOL AND SHE CAN MELT PEOPLE. um, the hell kind of tagline is that?? holy fucking shit?? “melt and succumb”?? IS THE SUCCUMB PART REALLY NECESSARY. IS THAT NOT ALREADY IMPLIED. it’s like saying “die and then perish”, which actually sounds really badass and I’m about to make it my new go-to threat actually so you know what never mind. where the fuck were we anyway

“IS EVERYONE SAFE” some absurdly bad-at-gauging-situations kid from class B is yelling while the forest is on fire and all the kids are recovering from having been catapulted fifty miles by King Dodongo’s windy yeet breath. of course they are safe, sweet child. of course everyone is absolutely fine, why the fuck would they possibly not be safe after something like that

KAMINARI NOOO MY POOR SWEET BABY

AT LEAST HE’S STILL CONSCIOUS ENOUGH TO MAKE STUPID JOKES. holy shit this baby got concussed to hell and back and then Machia turned him and the others into precipitation and he wasn’t in any kind of state to even try to land safely, I hope to god someone caught him

Sero is all “is there anyone still in range!” and damn, I like that he’s taking charge and trying to regain their momentum. he is so criminally underrated. I feel like he’s in the top six or seven of class 1-A kids who I would most trust to take charge. which is very high praise because that class has a lot of charge-taking kids

SPEAKING OF

it “probably” can’t get through her acid, she says. my god. sometimes the spirit of Plus Ultra just takes ahold of these kids and it’s like, I want to ruffle their hair proudly and then grab them by the shoulders and shake them vigorously because WHERE EVEN IS YOUR SELF-PRESERVATION WHY DO NONE OF YOU HAVE IT GODDAMMIT AIZAWA REALLY SHOULD HAVE EXPELLED YOU GUYS AFTER ALL

man. and yet I really do love this “be the one who can do it” stuff. what a heroic fucking attitude dfjfklks. I’ll just go put on my humongous sandwich board that reads GIANT FUCKING HYPOCRITE and go stand in the corner

damn it this week’s scan is annoyingly dark, it’s really hard to tell what’s going on but it looks like the pros are attacking Machia and the League at long last. way to go guys it only took you seven years but you finally hopped to it

MINA WHY IS THE ACID COMING OFF OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD. PUT IT BACK!!!

I KNOW SHE’S NOT GONNA DIE DAMMIT BUT AHHHHH AHHHHHH AHHHHHHHH

okay what the hell is up with these weird zen proverbs though

“your fear stricken heart”, “the shortest path”, what the fuck even is this. whose thoughts are these. normally these translations are honestly decent enough but I gotta say this time around I’m totally being thrown for a loop lmao

(ETA: FYI I’m only just now realizing that he was saying the shortest path to Master, as in Tomura, not “master” as in to master something fjkldjskf lol some delayed reading comprehension there. so basically he’s just bitching about how annoying these little “flies” are proving to be.)

JESUS CHRIST

okay is it just me, or is Gigantomachia suddenly showing intelligence in his eyes instead of mindless animal instinct the single most pants-shitting thing you’ve ever seen?!! holy shit. the way he just LOOKS at her out of nowhere all of a sudden?? holy fucking shit DO NOT HURT MT. LADY OH MY GOD I’M FREAKING THE FUCK OUT. AND DON’T YOU DARE HURT MINA EITHER!! JUST FUCKING DIE AND PERISH

but also though, is that recognition in Mina’s eyes?? because even though this dude is 80 feet tall now, her encounter with him a couple years back had to have been one of the more memorable experiences of her young life. damn I was wondering when this would finally come into play

OKAY YES THE NEXT PAGE IS A FLASHBACK OH SHIT

this has nothing to do with anything but Mina just has the prettiest hair, btw, and this “just woke up covered in acid” look is a particularly good one on her. it looks so soft and fluffy, like damn. this is like Shouto-hair-billowing-in-the-wind levels of pretty here

NOOOOO

oh my god holy shit?! putting her back in the school uniform to show the slip in her mentality is a PUNK MOVE, HORIKOSHI, and I respect the shit out of you for it you manipulative bastard. goddammit. bracing myself for the incoming wave of Mina feels... here they come... they’re a lot... let’s see if I can latch on to anything I can actually figure out how to describe in words

okay well here’s one, my respect for Mina’s bravery just went up like a thousand percent in this instant, because now we know this was actually such a traumatizing event for her that hearing Machia’s voice again years later immediately sent her into a full-blown flashback. she was that scared and yet she still stood up to him and didn’t hesitate. and now I’m remembering how her knees just buckled right afterwards, and just...

and this visual, though!! what a brutally effective way to show that in her mind she went right back to being that scared middle schooler again for a moment. god fucking damn. holy shit you guys is Kirishima fireproof because if he comes waltzing out of the woods next I don’t even know what I’m gonna do. lolo kids getting traumatized left and right this arc is fucking merciless

um eXCUSE ME!?!?!

YOU MOTHERFUCKING PIECE OF SHIT LET GO OF HER RIGHT NOW OR I AM GONNA LOSE IT!!

THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT!!

holy shit he could have fucking snapped her neck like that??! I don’t like this at ALL WHAT THE FUCK

OKAY SERIOUSLY

I’M GONNA NEED ANOTHER KID TO STEP IN HERE WITH A LAST MINUTE SAVE LIKE RIGHT THE FUCK NOW, OR I AM GOING TO THROW MY COMPUTER OFF A FUCKING CLIFF AND MOVE TO THE DESERT AND BECOME A HERMIT AND NEVER READ MANGA ON THE INTERNET AGAIN

OH THANK GOD

TODAY WE SPELL “REDEMPTION” K-I-R-I... ETC. THERE’S A LOT OF LETTERS BUT YOU GET THE DRIFT!!!

holy fucking shit y’all. I mean, it’s not like it came out of nowhere, like the setup could not have been more obvious, but let me assure you that none of the predictability lessened the actual impact of this moment in the SLIGHTEST. Horikoshi really wrote a flashback scene one hundred and thirty five chapters ago and planted it, watered it once a day, and patiently waited for THREE LONG YEARS until he could finally harvest the badass fruits of his labor in the midst of his most epic arc to date. I’m so fucking hyped I’ll even forgive him for sacrificing Mina’s big moment and having her get rescued, because it’s such a good reversal. he didn’t freeze up this time. he promised himself he’d never freeze again and he didn’t and he saved her and god fucking damn. anyways so now Machia is going to treat him like a fucking action figure though but he’s a solid little dude he can take it hopefully

NO WHAT IS THIS!!! STOP KILLING MY MOOD!!!

she better not be dead!! SHE BETTER NOT FUCKING BE DEAD I WILL RUN MY PC THROUGH A PAPER SHREDDER AND GO AND LIVE ALONE WITH MY FEELS ON A MOUNTAIN IN TIBET

CHINTETSU!!

well we know he’s fireproof. another callback at the least expected of times lmao

so Tetsu’s all “yeah Kirishima’s not really all that fireproof but he totally ran over here anyway to save you. oh wait that probably wasn’t very comforting of me to say.” maybe that’s why it seems like he might not have actually said it out loud, now that I’m reading this over again. good call Tetsu

ARE YOU STANDING UP AND CASUALLY STRETCHING OUT YOUR BACK

I CAN’T EVEN BELIEVE HOW MUCH I HATE THIS GUY RIGHT NOW. WE’RE REACHING LEVELS OF HATRED RESERVED FOR NAZIS AND PEOPLE WHO WALK TOO SLOWLY IN FRONT OF ME IN A GROUP SHOULDER TO SHOULDER INSTEAD OF SINGLE FILE SO I CAN PASS IN FRONT OF THEM. YOU’RE A FUCKING TOURIST IN NYC YOU PIECE OF SHIT

lmao he’s just dropping this random hero person and letting him fall to his doom wheeeeee

remind me to leave all of the League of Villains’ texts on read for the foreseeable future. goddamn. I still love you guys but also, fuck you so damn hard

OHO A LIL RED SCALY BOI ISN’T DONE YET!!

real talk, just between you and me, I’ll lower my voice so that Kirishima can’t hear. so uh. we all agree that even if Kiri is fireproof and squishproof, that little can of tranquilizer juice technically shouldn’t have been, right? but we’re all going to hush and pretend like it was anyway for the sake of not spoiling his big moment. even though I am crossing my arms and tapping my chin with my finger while doubtfully glancing to the side

anyway here he goes!

YEAH KIRI GO GETTIM [stage whisper] there it is, in his pocket. should’ve burned. we won’t discuss it

OH FOR FUCK’S

TOGA YOU LITTLE WIENER BUT WHAT’S THIS ABOUT “MY HALF” NOW????

DID HE GRAB MINA’S MID-AIR?? IS HE REALLY REACHING INTO HIS BACK POCKET AND FUCKING UNZIPPING IT RIGHT NOW WHILE HOLDING ON TO NOTHING AND PRESUMABLY FALLING THROUGH THE AIR. DID A LITTLE BIT OF OCHAKO’S QUIRK RUB OFF ON YOU OR WHAT

OH SNAP SON HE REALLY DID THE THING HOLY SHIT???

AND TOKAGE FLEW OVER AND SAVED HIM AND NOW TANKS ARE SHOOTING AT MACHIA, LMAO WHAT IS THIS. MOMO HOW MANY GUNS DID YOU MAKE

Shouji standing there trying to be useful any way he can. are eyeballs really that much more effective if you make them the size of tennis balls and hold them up above your head. legit question, I don’t really know how eyes work

okay after 45 seconds of googling this my impression is that no, they are not. well good on you for giving it the old college try anyway though Shouji

oH MY GODLKDLK?!?!

DID SHE SAY WHAT I THOUGHT SHE SAID, DID SHE SAY MAJESTIC, ARE WE GONNA SEE MASJKESLTKCI DSFLKJL

oh my god he really is the Magic Man dude??? TIME TO DUST OFF MY INVENTORY OF ADVENTURE TIME QUOTES

(ETA: AHH FATGUM AND GANG ORCA ARE THERE TOO YESSSS!)

“that’s enough depending on some interns” oh, okay. now that they’ve done all your work for you. I see, I see

so now Gigantomachia is LITERALLY UNHINGING HIS JAW I can’t fucking believe this dude you guys. everything he does is just like, ARE YOU SERIOUS

please go to sleep already. thanks to you I have my keyboard set to capslock as the default for the duration of this chapter

ARE YOU SERIOUS YOU FUCKING WAITED UNTIL MAGIC FUCKING MAN SHOWED UP TO TEACH US MAGICAL LIFE LESSONS AND NOW YOU’RE CUTTING BACK TO THE TOMURA FIGHT?? WHY DO WE KEEP LETTING THIS MAN GET AWAY WITH THIS

oh my god you guys they really fucking did it

I guess that Howitzer slash fire punch combo really was that potent huh

anyway so now Endeavor is standing there making a big speech instead of reaching into Tomura’s pocket and taking the bullets that he doesn’t know about and shooting him with one asap. dammit Endeavor

aaaaand Tomura is firing back with the wisdom of Shimura Fucking Kotaro of all people

well you sure convinced me. damn I don’t know what I was thinking. heroes suck you guys. how dare they help other people all the time

so now he’s all “PERIOD, EXCLAMATION POINT!!”

take that Endeavor. you heard the man. it’s not destruction without conviction, as god as his witness he will have you know it is destruction WITH conviction. something something the great sage Shimura “I hurt my family for absolutely no reason at all, fuck this ‘helping others’ bullshit” Kotaro. I hope you packed your textbooks because you just got SCHOOLED. I hope the person who ordered you signed up for delivery notifications because you just got SENT. I HOPE YOU LIKE CAPITALISM BECAUSE YOU JUST GOT OWNED. I HOPE YOU CHOSE PAPER AND NOT SCISSORS BECAUSE YOU JUST GOT ROCKED

what an absolutely, unreservedly bizarre place to end the chapter lol. we’re really just done with this week, just like that. Majestic showed up and Gigantomachia opened his chin like a garage door and Tomura is all “you may have won the battle but you suck” while he buys time for Aizawa to suddenly sneeze or something so he can make his terrible comeback and continue Horikoshi’s Traumatize Every Kid in Class 1-A 2020 campaign. what an arc this is my friends. what an arc

[rwbyvein]

Firen Lhain:  Chapter 809:  Em-Brace:  Part III / III

Taj hit a couple of buttons and turned back from pilot seat. Mercury and Emerald glared at him while Cinder looked at him curiously. Taj clapped his hands together. "So? News."

"Good or bad?" Emerald asked, and Mercury glared at her.

"Do you really think it's good? We're either almost out of fuel or we're being attacked."

"We have plenty of Dust." Taj stated, and Cinder stood up.

"And what are you planning to do?" Emerald asked, "We're over top of the ocean."

"And just what do you think happens if our airship takes enough damage that we have trouble maintaining attitude?" Taj asked.

"But?" Emerald asked, "Why would you?.."

Taj looked at her and then at Cinder, "Because he expected us to take care of our guests."

"There's a reason small airships don't normally make the long journey alone." Taj stated.

"Then why are we?!" Emerald asked.

"I don't know, maybe a Maiden who used to work with the one sending us the Grimm?" Taj said, and then looked to Cinder.

"What are we looking at?"

"A flock or swarm, larger than any bird that flies in flocks. At this point I don't know much else."

"Their speed?" Mercury asked, "Course?"

"Intercept, and faster than us." Taj replied.

"Can't we go faster?" Emerald asked, and Taj looked at her.

"If we do, we Dust-out and fall into the drink." She gave him a judgemental look, "What, you guys are the ones who wanted to take a small airship on a long haul flight between kingdoms?"

"This is almost exactly as I expected." Cinder stated. "Do you have a ladder to the roof?"

Taj stood up and walked to the bulkhead the separated the cockpit from cargo. Shuffling and metallic noises could be heard, and then a sudden clamour. He looked around the bulkhead, "Ready to go."

"You don't even know what you are going to face!" Emerald nearly shrieked.

"Implying we're not going to help?" Mercury asked.

"Not all of us cut their legs off and replaced them with rockets." Emerald harshly said to him, and he stepped towards her with rage in his eyes.

"You insufferable bitch!"

Emerald scoffed, offended. She then looked at Cinder, "Of course you're offended, it was offensive, but if we don't protect this airship, we're all dead. We don't have the wonderful benefit of being immune to Grimm like we used to."

Mercury was already walking up to the front.

Taj sat back down, "You want me to bring us down?"

"So, we only fall 20 feet instead of a thousand?" Emerald asked.

"Exactly, but it also increases the chance of us falling into the drink, or getting eaten by a Cetus or something."

"How about 100 feet?" Cinder asked, stepping up behind Mercury.

"That would give us some wiggle room." Taj stated, "If you close the trap door, the airship will be more stable, but I also won't be able to hear if one of you goes overboard."

"You could have some opinion!" Emerald shouted, "This is our lives we are talking about."

"One, if you don't go out, you're in the same boat as me." Taj stated, "Two, I'm not the Huntress here, so I'm going to defer to the ones who actually know what the fuck they are doing. Either go outside, and risk getting knocked overboard, or sit in here, with me, white-knuckling the controls hoping you don't get shot down. Considering you are, or were, a street rat, you think you would have figured out that life sucks and then we die. When you're outside of the walls of the kingdoms, you are at the whims of Grimm and bandits. They actually teach us this in the military, because it's kind of important for pilots. So, you're friends are on the roof. Make sure decision. Go up and fight, and stay here, but either way, stop fucking whining, pull up your big girl panties, you racist pieces of shit."

"Racist?!" Emerald asked.

"Uh?" Taj asked, "You think I didn't hear your talking about Faunus as if we were beasts?!"

"How dare you?!" Emerald asked, and Taj turned back towards his controls.

"I'm a military pilot, daring is part of the job description."

"But, you're not!"

"Okay, was, whatever?" Taj asked. "Either sit down and shut-up, or climb up and shut-up."

"How can you possibly?!.." Emerald tried to ask, and Taj looked back around, "If your whining distracts me, we could all die. What do I have to do to get this through your head?" Emerald looked forward as if her gaze was simply lost in space.

* * *

Cinder looked off into the distance.

"What is it?" Mercury asked, and Cinder just turned to look at him, and shrugged.

"They look like electric bats."

"And what kind of Grimm is that?"

"Well, I'm regretting that I didn't pay any more attention to what type of Grimms there are."

"Did it just teleport?" Mercury asked, "Like a lightning bolt?"

"Your guess is as good as mine." Cinder stated, "Now, rules are pretty simple, don't fall overboard, don't get hit, and try to take them out before they get close to the ship."

"You call that simple?" Mercury asked.

"How about uncomplicated?" Cinder asked. Mercury lightly nodded. "We probably have ten or fifteen minutes until they catch up to us. Until then relax, just, you know, not too much."

"I intend to spend my time making sure I'm not going to fall overboard."

"That should help us when the time comes." Cinder replied, her dress blowing wildly in the wind.

* * *

"What the hell is taking so long?!" Emerald shouted.

"I'm not exactly going to slow down and let them catch up to us!" Taj replied. "Half of combat is the waiting."

"If it was half they would be here by now."

"I really don't know how someone so persnickity can be so bloody important and wanted." Taj replied.

Emerald let out an offended huff.

* * *

Cinder breathed in deep, trying to centre herself, as the swarms of electric bats was about 200 yards away. She pulled the surrounding energy into her centre. She thrust forward with her right palm causing a colossal fireball to form, launching at the swarm. They didn't seem to react, but how they jumped around like lightning bolts made it difficult to tell. At the last moment a number jumped away, but Cinder's colossal fireball incinerated a couple dozen of them. On the outside some of them simply burned a single wing, and then seemed to shrink to a smaller, whole, version of themselves, while others seemed to split into two. Others split as well, and the swarm spread out even more. Half of the horizon seemed to be filled with them.

"So?.." Mercury asked.

"The beauty of simple plans is that they don't need to change when things like this happened. I'll focus on the larger groups, you keep the smaller ones off of me. I am the Maiden, after all."

"Simple enough." Mercury stated, and Cinder started to breath deeply to ready another colossal fireball. And then another. The three fireballs seemed to have annihilated two thirds of the swarm, though it was hard to tell with them all splitting into pieces. Cinder was breathing heavily, but steeled herself and summon her swords. Mercury shook to loosen himself up and moved to and fro. He planted his left foot and spun about, launching out Dust balls, using his Semblance to guide them into a swirling spiral about them. Cinder crossed her swords to send out another pair of smaller fireballs before the swarms was upon them. Cinder struck with sword and fireball, while Mercury used his kicks to strike them, and guide the balls of Wind Dust into exploding at them. The bodies of the bats started to fall away and disappear. Before long there was too many dead Grimm to properly disappear, and the bodies started to fall into the ocean beneath them.

* * *

Mercury climbed down the ladder into the cockpit.

"Is she?!.." Emerald eagerly asked before Cinder's legs appeared atop the ladder. Mercury stepped off the ladder and walked into the back as Cinder climbed down. She stepped off the ladder and gently wrapped her arm around Emerald's shoulder, pulling her into the back.

"For the first time in..." Cinder said, and stopped. Emerald took another step forward before turning to look back at her, seeing her looking lost into space. Cinder shook her head, "For the first time I can remember I'm actually happy to have the body I have. I don't have to worry about constantly not being good enough. I don't have to worry about the Grimm creatures slowly corrupting me, I..." she said, but stopped as soon as Emerald eagerly, agressively pulled her into a hug.

* * *

Jaune and Weiss walked down the stairs and walked up to the cell. They then looked over to Yang and Blake lounging around. Jaune then looked at the cell. "Why don't you come out and talk to us?"

Neo moved towards the opening of the cell before stopping and shaking her head. She then vigourously pointed at him. He just opened his arms wide. Weiss produced a tray of cookies, "It's a bit late for coffee, but I did get Aurora to make us some cookies.

"How did Ruby react?" Yang asked as she stood up.

* * *

Ruby eagerly crammed the cookies into her mouth.

* * *

"She made enough to share, of course." Weiss stated. She then turned to the cell, "Now, did you want some?"

Neo edged a bit closer.

"Are we sure about this?" Yang asked.

"She's in pain." Jaune stated, as that was simply answer enough.

"It did work on Cinder." Blake stated, and everyone looked at her, "To a degree." They all looked back to Neo, slowly inching towards the opening of the cell. "We don't bite."

Yang took a step forward to speak, "She does, but only in a good way." This caused Weiss to let out a loud scoff. Neo paused for a moment before taking one last step out of the cell.

[random-thought-depository]

A short vignette I wrote as part of a discussion on a forum I post on, with past/present tense and other grammar and formatting and math somewhat cleaned up from the rough version I posted there, and I’ve given it a title; it is a stand-alone piece and is not connected to any of my main SF settings; I took the liberty of re-using some relatively generic planet names and taking a little inspiration from John M. Dollan’s Arcbuilder Universe (if you’re interested you can find links to a little of John M. Dollan’s more recent writing on his Twitter):

----------

Advantages of Specialization

As I departed Cordillera, I passed a sign of the times. There was one of the big Hegemony freighters, on its leisurely upward fall toward minimum safe distance. It was much too far away for unaided eye visual contact, of course, but Mariposa's telescope gave me a fine view of it. And Cordillera space traffic control had supplied all the relevant details, of course; planned trajectory and burn timing, alpha-numeric designation - and a name; the Humbolt. Humbolts are whales that sing. Appropriate, I guess; it was big. Next to it little Mariposa would look - well, like a butterfly flitting around a whale, I guess. Mariposa is 50 meters long and masses 100 tons, 500 tons fueled up, with space for about an elephant's mass in cargo. Mariposa could fit inside Humbolt's fuel tank. Mariposa could fit inside the nozzle of Humbolt's fusion rocket.

Humbolt had finished its escape burn from Cordillera two days ago and it was just falling up now, not very fast. Its orbital rockets had burned at a leisurely .5 MSS, only a twentieth of a G, and hadn't burned very long. It hadn't even reached escape velocity from Cordillera's sun. Mariposa had burned hard, 3 G on the way up from Cordillera's surface, then 1.2 G the rest of the way to outbound flight velocity. Mariposa passed Humbolt quickly; the velocity differential was huge. Mariposa hadn't just reached escape velocity from the local sun, Mariposa had reached escape velocity from the galaxy! If I never burned her rocket or did a hyperspace jump again Mariposa would fall up very long and very far, into intergalactic space, where she'd fall up until her atoms evaporated by proton decay or the Big Rip tore her apart or she disintegrated from the slow sandpapering of the intergalactic medium, whatever came first. Of course, that wouldn't happen. I'd reach the local hyperlimit and jump to hyperspace in three months or so, then it'd be a few days in hyperspace, then another two months to get from the 82 Eridani hyperlimit to Hyannis. Funny; a few months to cross a few dozen AU, a few days in hyperspace to cross dozens of light years, a light year is more than 60,000 AU. Our-space distances aren't applicable to travel in hyperspace, of course, but I still think it's funny. Lots of people do.

As I passed Humbolt I studied telescopic images of it, studied its weaknesses, and thought maybe a whale wasn't the right analogy for it after all. Something from an ocean was, but not a whale. It was more like one of those deep sea fish that explode when you bring them to the surface, into the light.

Humbolt hadn't landed at San Ysidro Spaceport. It couldn't have. It wouldn't have survived trying. Humbolt is a pure creature of the void, that will never know the kiss of air or the touch of ground. It unloads and loads cargo at space stations, leaving transport to and from planetary surfaces to specialized local surface-orbit shuttles.

Humbolt is long thin pillar more than a kilometer long, with the fusion rocket at one end, a spherical fuel tank and the cargo and a small crew section spun for centrifugal gravity at the other end, and huge radiator wings between them. The long pillar is to protect the rest of the ship from the heat and radiation of the fusion drive. The fusion drive has a maximum rated acceleration at full cargo load of 2 MSS - one-fifth of 1 G. If Humbolt tried to accelerate much faster with a full cargo load, its engine would melt with waste heat. And if by some miracle it got itself up to 1 G that long pillar would snap and crumble. Put Humbolt on the surface of an Earthlike world, and it would disintegrate into a mass of rubble. If Humbolt tried to land like Mariposa, it would have the aerodynamics of a brick, and pieces of it would snap off from air friction, and its great rocket wouldn't have the thrust to control its own fall, and its own weight would break its back before it even touched the ground.

Maybe a whale isn't a bad analogy after all. The blue whale is the biggest animal to ever live on Earth; it's easier to be big in the water.

It's about efficiency, see. Humbolt should never experience a force of acceleration much above 2 MSS, so it's not built to take more than .5 G or so. That's a good safety margin, given the gentle acceleration its drive maxes out at. Building it fragile like this is efficient. Saves mass. Saves construction material. Saves fuel. Saves money.

It doesn't even really have a cargo hold. They just attach stuff to the front. Lots of different configurations are possible. On that trip Humbolt's front end was a greebled sphere of snapped-together rectangular cargo containers half a kilometer across, with a sort of tarp draped across it to protect it from high-velocity dust. There must have been hundreds of thousands of tons of cargo in that greebled sphere of cargo containers. It must have been a non-trivial fraction of Cordillera's yearly offworld trade. Cordillera isn't a big colony; it's a dusty dry world with only a few small seas, marginally habitable, only 160 million inhabitants. The sphere is the most efficient shape for a container, and the protective tarp is light, and Humbolt doesn't need to worry about streamlining. Trucks and trains and planes and boats and Mariposa are long and narrow because if you have to worry about streamlining you want to minimize frontal area. Humbolt doesn't have to worry about friction, so its cargo can be gathered into a sphere, which is efficient.

Free traders like me with ships that can take off and land like Mariposa are still a lifeline on Cordillera. Until a few years back Cordillera had just one orbiting space station to service big cargo ships like Humbolt. The Hegemony gave them another one a few years back though. Gave them another space station. A whole space station. Just dragged it in all the way from Alpha Centauri. The Hegemony must have plans for Cordillera.

Humbolt fell behind quickly. After they'd passed a few million kilometers behind they sent a text message telling me they were about to fire up the big fusion rocket. The burn timing was already registered with Cordillera space control who'd passed it on to me, of course; it was just standard procedure. The Hegemony were sticklers for this kind of thing. The contents of the message were very standard too; if it hadn't been composed by a computer it might as well have been. I wondered if it was AI composed or some sort of standardized form they had a human fill out. There'd be an audio warning and check-in too.

The audio warning was less standardized. A male voice, with an accent that might have been Tolimanish, saying, "This is the Kentauric Hegemony nationalized transport KDY-442-A74F, the Humbolt, calling free trader Mariposa. Hello, Miss, uh ... Miss Cherinise? Did I pronounce that right? Just as per standard procedure we're giving you a redundant warning that we're going to fire up the big atomic flashlight in 600 seconds. Please acknowledge."

Mariposa and Humbolt were almost seven light seconds apart at this point; far enough apart for light lag to noticeably influence conversation. I could have fired up the subspace radio, but Humbolt hadn't bothered, and I wasn't going to spend power on it if they weren't.

I sent back, "This is free trader Mariposa, I understand and acknowledge your message. I see we have the same destination. Does that make this a race? Seems to be going pretty well for me so far if so; I left after you and I'm already ahead of you."

I couldn't resist the dig, even though I knew it was lame and wasn't even an effective one, it just drew attention to my own weakness. I made it sound happy, like I was joking and saying something to have an excuse to talk to somebody for a few minutes.

The voice from the Humbolt said back, "You'd lose. Might want to make sure any un-hardened electronics are protected before we fire the big rocket, and maybe put your fuel tank between your crew and cargo compartments and us, just to be extra safe. You should be OK at that distance, but it's gonna be some real Manhattan Project hours out here when we fire. KDY-442-A74F over and out."

I said back, "Mariposa's been in battles and flare star megaflares and I've had to navigate more than one particularly nasty gas giant and brown dwarf magnetosphere. My ship's built tough, I'll be fine. Free trader Mariposa, over and out."

For some minutes Mariposa and Humbolt fell up away from Cordillera's sun, glowing only with the warmth of life support and radar and power reactor standby power and cargo environment maintenance. Then Humbolt's main rocket fired.

Mariposa can do 4 G at a steady burn, more in a sprint. The big limit is my own tolerance. Compared to Mariposa's muscular rocket, Humbolt's great rocket is weak in thrust. It imparts the gentlest of pushes. Humbolt's great radiator wings soon sizzle with heat at a fifth of a G. It ejects less than 200 kilograms of fuel per second, for a ship that masses hundreds of thousands of tons fueled and loaded. It's built for fuel efficiency, endurance, not thrust. The big rocket fires continuously for more than two weeks, compared to Mariposa's 22 hour 1.2 G burn.

And that efficiency implies its own sort of power. That 200 kilograms flies out of the rocket nozzle at more than two percent the speed of light. Humbolt's big rocket is a butterfly's sigh in terms of thrust, but in terms of energy it's a nuclear bomb that explodes continuously for more than two weeks. Ships like Humbolt have to maneuver near planets using weaker secondary orbital rockets because of the damage that storm of radiation and high-velocity charged particles might do. Alerts squawked nervously as Humbolt became a dark speck at the end a brilliant comet of charged particles and radiation thousands of kilometers long, the brightest thing in Mariposa's sky except for the local sun.

Mariposa uses not a lot of energy to eject a lot of fuel not very fast. This gives it the thrust to blast off the surface of a world. It's like one of those gasoline-powered SUVs you see on a lot of low-population worlds with big stretches of hostile terrain; go anywhere no matter how bad the road, power over rocks and through sucking mud puddles. But it's like an SUV; it guzzles fuel. And fuel-guzzling, in space, ultimately means slow. Humbolt uses terawatts of energy to eject a little fuel very fast, and this makes it fuel-efficient, and fuel-efficient in space ultimately means fast.

The man was right. If it's a race, Mariposa will lose, I'll lose. Humbolt will reach the hyperlimit of Cordillera's system in a little over a month, reach Hyannis in a little over two months, well ahead of me. And with ships like Humbolt the Hegemony can charge shipping prices half of the minimum I can charge to stay in business and come out with a 20% profit. And they can ship high-bulk goods that are just out of reach for me. Mariposa is a flying fuel tank with an engine and a crew quarter and a cargo compartment attached, stuffed into something shaped like a delta-winged aircraft. Humbolt gets almost three times my delta V while being less than half fuel by mass.

Free traders like me kept trade flowing through the age of fragmentation and economic contraction after the disintegration of the Terran Empire. Our tough versatile little blast off from anywhere land anywhere rockets were just what human space needed back then. But it's getting tough for somebody like me to stay in business nowadays.

[dragonrajafanfiction]

Genji Heavy Industries (Part 6) The Red Sea

This is my fiction writing. There is no scene like this in the novel or the game. But it could have been there.

Enjoy!

Because it involved your abilities, the earthquake preparedness system of Tokyo interested you. You understood that if enough seismic activity were detected, the Early Warning system would activate, giving more people time to seek safety from the seismic activity that could be generated by Soul Skill Eruption. So now, in the hopes of causing as few casualties as possible, you increase the pressure on the fault line at a carefully measured pace taking minutes, rather than seconds to reach the point of no return, where the pressure you were exerting would be released and the earth would move. 

As you grit your teeth in the dark of your improvised shelter of concrete and mud and exert the extreme forces of the earth, You think of Chu Zihang, Caesar, and Lu Mingfei. By this time, Chu Zihang and Caesar would know you were missing and start to look for you. Perhaps they would be trying to find this Hell floor but they wouldn’t know it even existed. It was like you had truly gone into a bottomless pit. They could run around forever and never find you.

But you hoped that Caesar would trust you to make your way out through the underground on your own without his help and get to safety. Once the earthquake hit, it would throw the Hydra in disarray. They would be too busy fighting monsters and escaping themselves to even notice the boys. They could explode the Kaguya computer core and blow things up, as many things that would make him happy to make them pay the debt for Ms. Makoto.

Your smile fades and you huff out a little whimper of a laugh. That would be way too easy and in his leisure mind, he would definitely waste time trying to find you.

All across Tokyo, television programs were interrupted with a message window showing the epicenter of an earthquake under Tokyo. On the radio, two sets of chimes sounded, followed by a voice announcement in Japanese. “This is an Earthquake Early Warning. Please prepare for powerful tremors!” Japanese major mobile phone carriers blast out text messages urging the citizens across the city to take cover now!

People flooded the streets in panic, rushing to shelters and emptying out highrises. Traffic turned from neat rows of shining cars to a snarled mess, as people panicked and collided. Everywhere, hundreds of thousands of feet pounded, creating vibrations on their own.

Five seconds later, it hit.

To most people's eyes, skyscrapers stood still on the ground, unmoving. But this is only an illusion. Skyscrapers use steel as the skeleton. The physical properties of steel are not only strong, but also flexible.  When under pressure from an external force it will naturally bend to unload the force, and then rebound. At the height of the Genji Heavy Industry building, in windy weather, the top floor will also be given a few dozen centimeters of sway. A few dozen centimeters compared to the height of the Genji Heavy Industry is insignificant. The general public will not use laser rangefinder and other sophisticated equipment to observe it, so this sway is usually ignored. But in a high-intensity earthquake, all the skyscrapers in Shinjuku district swayed the moment the shock wave passed through, like a cedar forest in a gale. 

You hold your breath in your own minishelter, feeling the pull of the enormous forces being exerted on these buildings. Each sway was a potential disaster that could mean hundreds, even thousands of lives lost, but the results were out of your hands now. Like a waiter bumping a table full of delicate crystalware, all you could do was observe the whole city as it jostled and pray.

You’re shaking from fear, exhaustion, and mental fatigue, but also lack of oxygen. The shelter was watertight as well as air tight. You force open a small hole in the top and peer out. You had formed a dome shaped earthen shelter for yourself that held back the water and shielded you from falling debris. Fresh air poured in the smell of seawater and fish.

Z was gone. All around you the whole basement was flooded save for the section surrounded by your little levee. A few red emergency lights illuminated the shattered tank and bits of glass block and made them look like you were floating in an extremely large pool of blood.   The tank wall was gone and the room that was already large now seemed more like a baseball stadium in size.

Through your spiritual feelers, you could detect the frequency of vibrations that your mind could interpret as sound. Many muffled voices were desperately screaming and yelling and pounding on doors.

There were still so many people in this building. Why had they not evacuated? The ground was full of tension. Aftershocks were sure to come and there was no way you could stop them. These people needed to get to shelter! Hydra were so organized even by Japanese standards. This disarray was unusual.

You’re struck with a sudden vertigo and dizziness. Your mind becomes aware of the smallness of your body, while at the same time it is still aware of the vast depth of the earth beneath you. You try to take deep breaths against the wave of nausea but the food you ate in the elevator comes up in a single heave. You lay down against the levee and clutch your head against the stabbing behind your eyes. Cluster headaches were normal and actually a good sign that the blood vessels in your head were still working. If you didn’t feel anything, it was likely you had lost too much brain function to ever recover. But they also made it impossible to move or think about escaping. After using such an apocalyptic force you were rendered as weak as a child.

You close your eyes and feel your tired brain rebound from your body back to the residual spiritual energy in the Earth. Every time your mind returns to the earth,you hear something strange. It was as if a long river of metal was flowing underground and scraping against rock, except his metal river hissed with powerful breath. It growled with menace at the same time it breathed, as though there were many of them. 

Something massive was moving near Tokyo. It was underground. It was alive.

In that moment, another sound hits you, a loud explosion, followed by gunfire. This time it was much nearer by. The sound echoed down from the elevator shaft. Because it was connected to the building, these sounds were reverberating through the ground. By the time they reached you they were quite faint, but wherever they were coming from, it must have been a very loud noise.

Caesar and Chu Zihang could be engaging with the enemy, or maybe the Hydra were engaging with the monsters. Either way, you have to start making your way out.

The water surrounding you was going to be a problem. Any hole you made at this point would be immediately flooded. Before you could tunnel out, you needed to move the water away and drain it.

A movement catches your eye. One of the floating blocks of glass is spinning rapidly in the opposite direction from the other floating bits. Something knocked into it. You freeze, gasping in fear, and reach for your pistols. With shaking hands, you start to load them with mercury laden armor piercing rounds. Your eyes scan the dark water but every wave could be concealing a serpentine creature. The floating glass created their own ripples. Plus, you were surrounded by water.

A loose bit of metal detached from the glass wall of the tank. It fell, colliding with a piece of concrete slab sticking out of the water with a soft clang. A three meter long tail thrashed wildly and an invisible shape formed a clear wake in the deep water as fast as a jet ski. It exploded from the water. Its claws were like scythes and serrated. It’s golden scales were like copper in the crimson light.

The creature's upper body was six feet long, so that made it a good fifteen feet, enough to rival a saltwater crocodile. It lifted the piece of metal and bit down and the steel deformed between its teeth. Infuriated that this actually was not edible, it flung it high in the air where it twinkled for a moment before descending. After a few seconds, you hear a small splash somewhere else in the room. The beast screeches and dives in the water, heading for the splash it didn’t realize it made itself, soaking you in the process.

Huge, fierce, strong, reactive… stupid. You recall Z’s play with these creatures. They reacted to light and sound very strongly and they were also cannibals. The emergency lights largely meant that there was no power in this place and a quick glance upward at the now-still and silent ventilation fans seemed to suggest the same. The pumps and siphons that managed the tank were shut down. But that may not last either. 

So long as that thing was swimming around there’s no way you’d be able to work. It had to die. You had your guns and your ammunition and you also had a little C4 and a detonator. You remove your trenchcoat and pin it to the levee with a pocket knife. Then you adhere a bit of the C4 to the coat. Once everything was set up. You whistle loudly.

The beast’s roar echoed and  you duck as low into the water as you can. It flies beneath the water toward the flapping windbreaker and seizes it, tearing it away from the knife and stuffing it down it’s throat. You press the detonator. It was so fast to swallow the bait that the C4 must have been half way down its throat. The lower half of the monster’s head shatters in a bloody spray and bits and pieces of it plunk into the water. The beast howls and chokes, still alive but unable to bite, only flailing about uselessly.

You’d scarcely begun to smile when the wake of something else slips by you. Fortunately you’d been standing still so it didn't notice you were there. Another monster of the same kind reared up out of the water and bit down on the other injured animal. While they were both distracted you ran away. Every step sent water slapping and splashing in all directions.

You were heading for the control panel. There was a long wiring run that ran up the wall through metal pipes attached by bracing. You should be able to climb it! You don’t dare look back but take a flying leap and hit the wall. Your fingertips just barely grasp the braces holding up the wiring run. When you look down, the uninjured sphinx is waving its claws just inches from your swaying feet.

But then it’s pulled back! The other sphinx with the half head is now missing part of its right arm but  has pulled your pursuer by the tail and slams its claws into its head piercing its eye while it screamed and flailed its forked tongue. It pulled the eye out. The nerve still dangled like a bloody root. It popped the eye into its upturned throat. It didn't need a lower jaw to eat that.

Using just the strength in your arms and shoulder, you pull yourself to the next brace. Soon you’re swinging precariously 20 feet in the air. From this vantage point you can see that under the water is a massive pile of glass and steel rubble. The water actually isn’t that deep and if you fell from this height, you would probably die due to impact with the debris. But at least now you could see the entire complex. 

It looked like most of the sphinxes were gone from the cavern, only these two were left. But then the world goes blurry. Once again you’re hit with vertigo! You moan softly and squeeze your eyes shut as the room tilts and your mind reacts to movement in the earth. The ground was filled with great tension, like the tension a cold person feels right before they shiver.

Your eyes snap open. Aftershock!

You didn’t have much time. A powerful aftershock could easily shake you off the wiring run and kill you.There was a small ledge next to the ventilation fans. But it was a good distance from the last brace. You wouldn’t be able to just leap frog up to it.

The two beasts below were still locked in a battle but the one eyed monster was winning. Unable to bite and now missing a limb, the one injured by the C4 was grasped by its head and tail while its opponent ripped bloody chunks out of its flesh with its shining bald head.

It wasn’t even swallowing the meat. This was a vengeful tearing apart!.

Finally, it dropped the lifeless body into the water and turned back to you. It hissed, baring its red tipped fangs. It’s body undulated once and reached the wall. It climbed with spider-like alacrity, claws plunging straight into the concrete like it was soft mud. It only took a second to reach your height. It lashed out and you rocked away from it’s claws, coming inches from being disemboweled. It leaped to the side to pounce on you!

And it fell short. The single eye made it lose depth perception!

With a mighty heave you lift yourself upward by your arms. The flat of your foot smashes into its face and using that as a springboard you make it to the ventilation ledge!

The strong aftershock hit the Genji Heavy Building and pounded it. Cracks spread through the reinforced concrete structure, steel was shorn, water pipes burst, steam and cold wind filled the air. The monster was knocked off balance by the sudden quake and plunged twenty feet to be skewered by a piece of steel that was bent upward. It wiggled it’s long serpent body, curling silently like a worm on a hook for a few seconds before it began to scream, a single high pitched note. Over and over and over. 

A single shot to the eye and it goes limp. You hold the gun at the ready, just in case another was needed, but there was no more sound.

You lie on the ledge to catch your breath. But you couldn’t rest. You weren’t done. You had to drain the water.

With what little residual spiritual energy you had left remaining in the earth, you use it to form a channel under the wall, forming a pipette that would hopefully lower the water level. You wave your hand and from a distance your eyes glow gold. Mud rolls in hills pushing the water towards the channel. It takes a long time, several minutes. Meanwhile, you can feel yourself getting more and more dizzy. More and more sleepy and less able to think.

An extremely loud sound banging and crashing is getting nearer and nearer. Something big was falling down the elevator shaft! It crashed with such force that the car folded like an accordion on and one door was blown out, flipped and landed with a loud splash.

Blood oozed from the resulting debris and a golden clawed hand fell limp. You take a few deep breaths and crawl back to the wiring pipe and slide down it easily. You cautiously sift your way through the debris.

By looking at the elevator shaft can feel the scale of the building, the elevator shaft of ordinary buildings are only three or four elevators, elevator shaft area of no more than twenty square meters, but the source of The levator shaft can accommodate more than a dozen elevators at the same time. So it has an area of more than a hundred square meters. In this one hundred square meters hundreds of high-strength angle steel columns stood in the middle of the steel crossbeam. This kind of high-rise building uses super high-speed elevators, and the metal cars pass up and down at a high speed of 5 meters per second, reminding people of the future cities in science fiction. 

You sniffle. Red drops of blood come from your nose. You no longer had the strength to create a tunnel. But you could crawl up above ground and find a way out that way.

The elevator was pitch black and impossible to see inside like an endless starless sky. The idea of climbing up such a massive shaft would be impossible for an ordinary human. But even in your state of fatigue and pain, it wasn’t too far to go when it came to distance. It was just vertical. 

You step over the dead sphinx. Its upper half was in the shape of a woman's body and it’s guts were torn out of it. It was missing limbs and the skin of its face was falling off in a flap. This beast was never a danger to you. It must have been torn to shreds and fallen. It was dead before it hit the ground bottom of the shaft. It served as a warning to you. It would not just be a matter of climbing the elevator shaft out of the Basement called Hell level. The elevator shaft was another level of Hell!

You check your weapons briefly, go to the back of the shaft where the rail created a sort of ladder and start climbing.

[thegeminisage]

writing that’s not supposed to be writing but that’s just supposed to play the mental movie for you:

"I'm not trying to smother you, man," Dean says. "But I can't—if anything happened to you—" He stops again. "Sammy, let us handle the demons. God knows you've done enough." He closes his eyes briefly against the memory of Sam's face right before he fell. It's okay, Dean. I got him.

"Dean," Sam starts, like he's gearing up to dig in his heels on this one, but he's cut off by a distant boom. It sounds almost like thunder, but summer is long over and there’s no flash of lightning to explain the noise.

Dean squints out into the dark. "Did you hear that?"

Something massive and unidentifiable rises up behind the woods, blotting out the stars behind it, then swoops back down.

Sam grips the porch railing so hard his knuckles whiten. "Is that demon smoke?"

Boom. This one rattles every window in Bobby's house, close enough that Dean feels it in his feet. "Sam, get inside," he says, keeping his eyes on the treeline.

"Dean, what if that’s Balthazar? We have to—"

Something in the distance glows bright white and then fades behind the trees. The wind's starting to pick up. "I said get inside! Now!"

Bobby opens the front door. "What in the hell—"

"Both of you, get down!"

Too late. The light explodes—

-

When Meg’s perception settles, she's standing in tall dry grass that ripples in the sulfur-scented wind, dark wandering silhouettes barely visible against the deep blood-red of the sky. Something huge and jagged juts up out of the ground. For a moment everything is very still.

This is even worse than she thought. It's dark inside Sam Winchester's soul.

Then there's a sound like a thunderclap and the ground heaves beneath her feet. Around her, the shadows all stumble off their mysterious paths. She hears a child sobbing somewhere in the dark. That jagged thing the distance—it might once have been a wall—comes further apart, piece after piece crashing to the ground. The sky’s faint red light flickers dangerously.

Meg picks her way across the unsteady ground to the nearest shadow and turns it to face her. It's Sam-shaped, younger than the version outside, but its teeth are bared and its eyes demon-black. "It's a prison,” Sam’s voice snarls, "made of bone and flesh and blood and fear. And you sent me back there!"

"What the hell," Meg hisses, and lets go. She doesn’t understand why the words sound so familiar until she sees the brand, the binding link that she put on that arm to keep herself in Sam’s body. She’s looking at the memory of herself. And if the echo of Meg is here, then Lucifer's must be too.

One of the shadows glances over at her: little-boy Sam, clutching a parcel in his hand. "Dad lied to me. I want you to have it." Another shadow, twenty-two with floppy hair, passes by on her other side. "I have these nightmares. And sometimes—they come true." She wheels around. Another Sam on his knees, black veins spreading over his face, screaming: "Dean! Let me out of here! Let me out! Dean!"

-

Once Meg crosses the last of the wall, the sky gives way to absolute blackness save for a single spark in the distance. Were Meg able to feel, she knows she would be frozen to the bone. She recognizes this place; she spent decades of Hell-time studying it from the outside. This is the Lightbringer's Cage.

Like a camera lens zooming in, the spark rushes towards her until an endless wall of flames fills her vision. Behind the fire: bars, chains upon chains, and six hundred and sixty-six locks to hold the Cage closed. Many are broken, most by her own hand.

"Lucifer," she breathes, and pushes forward heedless of the flames. Fire, her old friend—it will not hurt her here.

Being inside the Cage is like standing in the eye of a hurricane. Two enormous shapes, incomprehensible even to her own mind, circle in the void above her, bleeding malice. The first has wings made of a hundred thousand quivering hands reaching out from a body with too many eyes. The second form is an undulating mass of razorblades and barbed wire and silvery scales, each engraved with tiny ticking clockwork, each razor-sharp. There's another Sam, bleeding and broken, curled around himself on the parched bedrock below. His screams are silent; she couldn't hear them anyway above the clash as the two shapes come together. Lucifer and Michael, still fighting after all this time.

Meg trembles. Even as a memory, the power of Lucifer's true form overwhelms her.

"Lucifer!" she calls. "Morningstar!"

He turns toward her, the attention terrifying and blinding, like being caught in a floodlight. Immediately his brother swoops in for the kill. With a shriek of grating metal and crunching bone, the angels slice into each other with a viciousness Meg has rarely seen even in all her time in Hell.

-

Finally they see it, a hole in the world opening up wider and wider by the second, dividing the stone that stretches up endlessly into the gray sky.

"Come on, Sammy," Dean says. The air is getting colder. "Come on, I know you know this song—"

"Please," Sam laughs, but he does; he's heard it so many times it could be his own lullaby, and when the chorus comes in— "Eeeeexit light!" he shouts, head thrown back. He can't hit a note either. The gate fills their vision; there is nothing else. "Eeeenter ni-ight!"

"Taaake my hand," Dean crows, looking at Sam instead of the looming oblivion before them, and he's smiling too, grinning from ear to ear. He almost looks young again. "We're off to Never-Never La—"

-

Castiel jerks his hand up, wreathing Meg's host body in flame, but she does not burn. "You think fire can hurt me?" she snarls, eyes gone yellow and glowing. The fire flies off of her, embers stinging his skin, and she slides back into smoke and hurtles towards him.

Castiel wraps his tattered wings tight around his vessel and then flings them open, sending Meg slamming into the wall of the barn. Chunks of wood and rot fall all around him as he squints to see where she's gone.

There—a sound to his right. She cracks a solid punch to his jaw that leaves him reeling; she must be very angry to fight like a human.

-

The lights flicker and go out. Dread crawls into Jesse's chest as he stumbles out of bed, limbs feeling clumsy and heavy, breath fogging in the air. A tall, hulking figure materializes out of the shadows on the wall behind Ben and raises something in its hand—a weapon.

A machete.

A frisson of terror, dark and inexorable, rushes up Jesse's spine. He lunges, desperate to stop that wicked blade before it meets Ben's neck, and feels the pain slice into his shoulder instead. That's nothing, his skin is already stitching itself back together, but the impact sends them both sprawling and it takes Jesse a few disorienting seconds to stagger back to his feet. When he finally jerks upright, he comes face-to-face with the ghost.

At first Jesse doesn't recognize him. It's hard to make out any features past the charred exterior: there's an empty space where the ghost's mouth should be, blackened and burned completely away. He sees blond hair, an upturned nose, strong shoulders. But when Jesse meets its eyes—

He knows those eyes. How they looked in the firelight; how they looked as their own light went out. Even after three years, there are some faces you never forget.

-

Argent forces himself up to his elbows, coughing. "Derek?" He tries not to jostle his wound too much when he rolls over. It's difficult to see through the dust the spray of bullets kicked up, but he's able to make out the black shape of Derek's shifted form lying motionless ground a few yards away.

Don't be dead, Argent thinks blankly, ice flooding his veins. Don't be dead.

Derek's not dead. He makes it to his feet before Argent does, then immediately staggers and falls over again.

-

Snow blankets the roof of the watchtower and slicks under Arthur's boots, and in such conditions it's nigh impossible to keep his footing. Visibility is wretched, for up here the wind blows the snow between them, buffeting them back and forth over the icy floor. His father is getting older, yes, but he's still a skilled swordsman, and Arthur, fighting left-handed, is at a distinct disadvantage. He has no shield and wears no armor, not even chainmail; the only thing standing between him and his father's blade is his very flammable cloak.

Arthur's not sure he could kill his father now even if he did want to. He's no match for him like this.

His father's crown has fallen off his head, rolled away to some distant corner. His cloak is damp with snow and singed by fire. His eyes flash gold, sometimes; when they do fire races up the edge of his blade, making him doubly dangerous. Arthur's magic has finally been brought to heel, but his father's is going mad, there one second and gone the next, the flames dying and rising again unpredictably. Presently his sword, still alight with flames, comes down in a hard overhead blow. Arthur blocks in time, but his father's strength is greater—Arthur stumbles all the way back to the battlement, his back leaning out over the open air while their blades are still locked.

"Did you not say once that I deserved to die?" his father hisses, golden-eyed. He looks like some kind of monster. "Think of the things I've done, Arthur. The innocents that have died in my fight against evil! Did you not want to put a stop to it?"

-

Merlin takes the stairs two at a time, gasping for breath. "Arthur?" he calls, heedless of the danger, but there is no reply. The tower is utterly silent, save for the wind whistling through the cracks in the walls. Just a little further, he's almost at the top—

Merlin stops short. A thin line of scarlet cuts through the frozen gray stairs, creeping towards him and pooling around his boots. He thinks he can hear something dripping. He follows the line with his eyes, up, up, and slowly it widens—

It's blood. The stairs are covered with it—the ladder, the trap door...

"Arthur!" Merlin shouts again, and scrambles forward, slipping through the blood, not caring that it stains his hands and clothes, only that it is still warm, it can't be too late, it can't be—

-

Cas has his feet propped on the table, his coat draped over the chair. He's got a beer in his hand. He looks like shit, because he always looks like shit; he's just got one of those vessels. From this angle, Dean can only see the back of him, and his face, angled to look at Sam, in profile. He's smiling.

-

"Nothing," Dean mumbles, and lays his cheek down on the cool surface of the table. His heart's going over-time again. He thinks about being in this kitchen a year ago and trashing the hell out of it. If this were the real Cas, Dean would beat his face in.

Dean hears the clink of Cas setting the bottle down in the sink. He feels rather than sees Cas come over to stand beside him. And then Cas kneels, so that Dean, head still down, sees his face there sideways. And he can't not look at him unless he moves.

-

Dean's vision swims. The pounding in his head gets worse. One of the vampires grabs Dean's hair and, yeah, no, that's more than far enough. Dean knees it in the balls.

Pain as the fangs tear out of his flesh. The vampire howls, hunched over—and then it stops dead, trembling, and begins to scream. Light and fire start pouring from all the orifices in its head, and every cell in Dean's body goes slack with relief. Dean knows it's Cas before the vampire's corpse falls to reveal him standing there.

The vamp behind Dean takes off. Dean shouts as the fangs leave his neck, but there's no way he's letting it get away that easy. He takes aim and hurls his machete after it like he's skipping a stone—it spins through the air and takes the vamp's head clean off. "Go get it," Dean pants to Cas. He doesn't have time to go back for it now. He slips his hand inside Cas's trench coat and pulls the machete out of its sheath on Cas's belt instead. "Thanks, Cas."

-

Mom squints at the projector as they crowd into the library. "Is that Hatchet Man? They must have made more of them while I was dead."

"Yeah, this is the last one. Came out in '89."

"Dean," Sam says, somehow putting decades of disappointment with Dean's taste in movies into a single word. "You're inflicting these on Jack?"

"Trick or treat," Hatchet Man says. "Time to slice and dice."

"We let him drink beer," Dean argues. "What's a few R-rated movies?"

In the movie, someone screams. They all watch Hatchet Man show some unsuspecting skateboarder his own insides.

-

The bunker's red emergency lights come on. There's a shadow standing in front of him. Dean blinks. Dad, he thinks, and his father's boots swim into focus. But—

Dean scrambles back, looking up, up, up—

-

Dean holds up his hands. Fine, whatever, let them have their fun. The pit itself is on the far side of the bunker, in a little dip that's mostly out of sight of the road, so it's not like anybody's gonna see. But the sun's been up for a few hours now, and the four inches of snow that fell overnight makes everything look so much brighter, and Dean's just not used to a daytime fire in a hole.

A realization strikes Dean then, and he smiles. "Hey, Sammy," he calls, and Sam looks up. "You forgot the salt."

Sam throws his head back and laughs.

-

LIIIKE idk if this makes any sense. but there it is. that’s what insane people do we write in a way that involves no words interrupting the mental movie. i am so bad at proper prose this is the only way i know how to do it

[alternativewinxcontinuity]

April has begun, a new month, a new start.

To celebrate the First of April, I've decided to embark on a new project. Some might say it's a little Foolish when I have so much else to do, but it must be done:

Fate: the Re-Winxed Saga!

We'll be starting off with a fixing of the reason Bloom ran away from home. I don't know about anyone else, but I always found it jarring how Bloom essentially had two sets of parents played by the same actors.

One pair were abusive a$$hats, on of whom thought their daughter was a freak, the other was basically a doormat with no opinions of their own, meanwhile the other couple were loving and “always knew she was meant for bigger things”.

So I've changed the reason behind Bloom's house burned down, and restored her artistic talents to her. There's nothing wrong with liking repairing old lamps, but we saw it once to point out how much of a “weirdo” she was, and then it was gone.

I've also added in a bit to explain how Farah found her, while maintaining Stella's OG presence in the scene.

I know there's a prequel book out (soon?) now that's supposed to fill in that blank, but I've just gone ahead with it.

Warnings for minor implications of sexual assault that never actually happened.

Here we go:

Fire\Starter

Bloom's sleep was fitful. 

She felt hot in her dreams, flushed with embarrassment and rage as Mitzy's obnoxious laugh played on infinite repeat. The condemning looks from her peers, from strangers on the street, plagued her like a thousand daggers.

In the waking world Bloom's body kicked back her sheets and writhed like she was fighting off an attacker.

In her dreams Bloom saw the sweetly deceitful face of Mitzy's cousin.

Bloom was an artist, she'd been drawing since she'd been young. Her art had won some competitions, small and local, but so important to her.

Important enough that her parents had bought her a graphics tablet for her birthday when all the other kids her age were getting bikes. It was the most expensive gift they'd ever gotten her.

She'd used it frequently, making digital art now alongside the more traditional paintings and sketches. She'd gotten good enough to be asked and paid for commissions.

And that's how Mitzy had managed to sneak her cousin in, to set a trap.

Moira had commissioned Bloom to make a 'tasteful nude' in 'that old European style, you know the one?' and Bloom hadn't thought anything of it. She'd let Moira into her home, into the converted solar-turned-art studio she'd been using for almost a full year now and...

Bloom had spent every day since cursing herself for not noticing the similarities. Moira and Mitzy looked so alike when you saw them together, Bloom didn't know how she'd missed it.

Maybe it was because Moira had smiled kindly, hidden her smirk and contempt better than Mitzy ever had.

Bloom had only touched Moira once, a gentle arm on the elbow to steady her while Moira was in her under garments, but the way she'd spun that into lies of assault...

Bloom could see it perfectly in her head, Moira laying casually on the couch of Bloom's studio, skin mostly bare and a sweet smile on her face.

In her dreams it warped into a smirk, lips cracking apart until Mitzy's laugh rolled out of the gaping maw. In her dreams, Bloom set Moira on fire.

Her rage, pure and true becomes an unstoppable flame, so hot it melts the walls, melts her tormentors skin. In the dream Bloom screams her rage and the world is consumed and-

-Bloom wakes, choking. She rolls to the side and tumbles from the sweat soaked mattress to the warm wooden floors of her room. Her gasping breaths drag the scent of smoke and paint into her lungs, but she ignores the remnants of her dream and tries to calm herself.

The scent doesn't fade.

It gets stronger.

Somewhere below her on the ground floor, glasses shatter and Bloom hears a familiar whoof. She'd heard it in her father’s educational videos on fire.

Her studio is on fire.

Her house is on fire!

“MUM! DAD!” Bloom screams as loud as she can, trying to remember what she's supposed to do. She tears her pillow case off her pillow, scrambles to put her laptop, graphics tablets and her three recharge cords into it before pulling her sheet free and wrapping it around herself.

She grabs her phone on the way out.

“MUM! DAD!”

Bloom makes her way to their room down the hall, the smoke in the air thickening.

“FIRE!!”

Her parents meet her at the door, their own sheet wrapped around them both to help filter the smoke, they have a few things as well.

Together they crouch down low and make their way down stairs, Bloom's father, Mike, already on his cell phone calling for the Fire Brigade.

They're almost free and clear when her mother, Vanessa, tries to head for the family office.

Bloom calls “mum, no!” at the same time her dad says “'Nessa stop!”  

But Vanessa darts away, just past the office door to grab a single box and out again, away from the spread of the fire.

Bloom feels a flicker of relief for half a second before something in the house explodes, letting out a torrent of flame in her mother's direction.

Bloom screams and flings out her hand as if she could do anything to stop what's about to happen.

For a heartbeat Bloom feels something well up inside her, something dark and powerful, and the wave of fire splits around her mother.

The trio stand, stunned, until Mike comes to his senses, “'Nessa, move!”

And they bolt to the door together, out onto the small lawn in time to see the lights of the fire trucks round the corner.  

-

In the days to come, they will recover the items which remain, few as they are. Bloom's childhood book of fairy stories was somehow untouched by the flames.

Mitzy will spread a new rumour about Bloom as part of her campaign to ruin Bloom's life, saying Bloom started the fire.

The investigation will rule it an accident, suspected faulty wiring in the art studio.

But Bloom knows, with an awful certainty: Mitzy was right for once, Bloom had started the fire somehow. She knows her parents suspect it too, but they won't say anything, not even about how Bloom had made the wave of fire part.

There's an elephant in the room now, it hovers awkwardly about their family, makes every conversation feel like trying to walk through broken glass in the dark without stepping on any.

Bloom tries not to go to sleep. She only makes it a few days before she finds herself constantly drifting off. Her parents watch her with fear, telling her to sleep.

But she can't, don't they understand that? What if she starts another fire?

She leaves their motel room, takes her phone and uses some of the money she earned from her art to by a sleeping bag and some snacks. Searches the internet for a place to stay with no people and as little flammable material as possible.

She finds an old warehouse that will do the trick. She buys a small fire extinguisher on her way there.

-

Her phone tells her she's slept for two days when she wakes up with a horrific dehydration headache.

She feels a little better for the sleep, she hasn't burned down the world while unconscious. There's a public showering area in a pool several blocks away, she manages to sneak in and get clean.

Begins to feel almost human again.

-

Bloom falls into a routine, sleeping in the warehouse, showering in the public washrooms, reading everything she can find on what the internet calls 'pyrokinesis'. The scientific side, or the fringe-science side of things feels wrong somehow.

She can't explain it, but something in her knows that's not the path she's looking for.

She tries folklore and myths instead. Feels pulled towards the stories of fae and dragons.

There's an abandoned quarry not far from town, and Bloom manages to make her way there with some candles, matches and her thankfully unused fire extinguisher.

She can't conjure fire, can't put it out, can't even provoke it. She's missing something, she knows, she can feel it.

Bloom comes across some 'majick' on one of the websites she finds looking for answers. A way to call a fae and force them to answer any questions you have. Bloom scoffs but takes a screenshot before backing out to another page.

Several days later she makes the mistake of looking at social media.

She's officially a runaway at this point, and Mitzy has used her absence to establish Bloom's guilt.

“Bloom burned her house down to fake her death to avoid facing charges of assault,” is the going theory.

It makes Bloom mad enough to set her sleeping bag on fire.

The following morning she buys a new one, and some things from the list of 'spell' ingredients. She's making no progress on her own, she's desperate.

Bloom returns to the quarry, she doesn't want the smell of incense in the warehouse, just in case. She fills a small bowl with water and a piece of quartz, waits for the moon to rise over head and does her best to match the google-translate’s reading of the 'some magical European language' the spell requires.

For a moment she sits, feeling like a fool, her eyes closed. Then she feels like she's falling.

Or flying?

There's a wind but it's intangible, a forest but it's colours are vibrant in a way Bloom's never seen, like they're leaking energy.

And then there's a tug, like someone has pulled her up short, and a woman with soft, pale brown hair and kind but curious eyes.

The woman opens her mouth but Bloom jerks back in shock, and startles so hard her leg flies out to knock over the bowl, spilling the water everywhere.

Bloom stays there for several long minutes, panting like she'd run a marathon, but then a real wind blows and her damp jeans go cold against her skin. She packs everything up and runs back to the almost safety of her warehouse.

-

Bloom is awoken by the sound of the warehouse door opening and closing. She's confused for a moment before the sound of two sets of footsteps has her scrambling upright, and out of her sleeping bag.

It's the woman from Bloom's... spell? Vision?

She smiles at Bloom, and Bloom feels herself relax.

“Hello, I'm Farah Dowling,” she gestures to herself. Behind Farah, a young woman, blonde and roughly to same age and nervousness level as Bloom, clears her throat slightly, so Farah Dowling adds: “And this is Stella,” Stella waves, “we're here to help you, if you'll let us?”

Bloom knows better than to trust strangers, but this woman had been in her vision.

“You can help me?” Bloom asks, her voice sounding far smaller and unused than she was expecting.

“I'd certainly like to try,” Farah says kindly, her hand reaching out to Bloom, letting Bloom make the choice.

Bloom gathers her things and takes Farah Dowling's hand, Farah squeezes it gently, it's comforting. Bloom sobs as she realises this is the first real human contact she's had in... weeks now.

“Come on,” Farah and Stella return to the warehouse door, “Stella, if you could?”

“Yes Miss Dowling,” Stella gives Bloom a quick eyebrow wiggle, like she's about to show off, and places her hand on the door.

'She has nice hands,' Bloom thinks distantly as the large sunburst ring on Stella's finger glows golden, the light spreading out to coat the door and it's frame.

When Stella opens it, the door no longer leads outside the warehouse, but out into a verdant forest. Bloom can smell the leaf litter, there's the smell of moisture, like there's rain about to fall.

Stella steps through into the forest, holding the door open for Farah and Bloom to follow.

“Welcome to Avalon,” Stella says as she sweeps out an arm to indicate the trees around her, “home of Alfea school for Heroics and Fairies.”

“Fairies?” Bloom can feel herself smiling, excitement building. Her parents had always affectionately despaired at her life long obsession with the mythological creatures.

...her parents...

Bloom wavered.

“Can, can I just have a moment to text my parents?” Bloom looks between the two... women? Fairies? She's afraid that any second this will turn out to be a dream, or worse, real and she'll somehow throw away her chance.

“Of course,” Farah says, her voice full of understanding, “take all the time you need.”

“As long as you only need ten minutes,” Stella cuts in, “because that's how much longer I can hold this doorway open.”

Farah gives Stella a fond but exasperated look.

Bloom shakes her head, “I only need two minutes, tops.” She pulls out her phone, spends thirty seconds undoing the call blocker and sends her text before reinstalling the blocker, too scared to hear her parents reply.

What if it was “stay gone”?

“I'm ready,” Bloom says, and Farah ushers her through into Avalon.

-

[I'm OK. Sorting some things out. I Love You Both.]

Mike and Vanessa almost collapse in relief, their baby girl is alright. They tell the police to stop actively looking for Bloom, but to keep an eye out, and to tell her they miss her if she's seen.

The pray she'll come home on her own.

[captain-emmajones]

Love, Emma (3/7)

(Art by the wonderful carpedzem <33)

Loosely based on Love, Rosie (2014). Killian and Emma are best friends and neighbors. They’ve always been – until he leaves for the Navy when his brother dies. When he comes back, nine months later, summer has begun and childhood is ending. Emma can tell something is changed in him, but she doesn’t know what. Until she does. He’s fallen in love with someone else.

And then, suddenly, they’re kissing on her nineteenth birthday. When she asks him to forget their night out, and never talk about it again, Killian thinks she means to tell him she regrets the kiss they exchanged. Except she has no memory of it.

Killian and Emma will dance around each other, until their heads spin and their legs hurt, and everything becomes blurry and it has to stop – for both of their sake.

Title is from Taylor Swift’s Hoax, and if you know it, you know, this one is going to be a tad painful. 

Once again, a big thank you to @profdanglaisstuff who’s really an angel and beta’d this <3 

Friends to Lovers - Mutual Pining - Angst - Fluff - 4000 words - ao3

Part 1 - Mirrorball, Part 2 - August , Part 4 - Peace, Part 5 - This is me trying, Part 6 - Cardigan 

Just to set the scene, last chapter ended on Emma's wedding to Neal. This one opens on Emma, still in Augusta Airport, after Killian's departure -- four years before her wedding. It is still the summer of their nineteenth birthday, the summer during which they kissed but Emma forgot and now Killian is gone again and Emma has to learn to live without him.

PART 3 - HOAX 

Don’t want no other shade of blue, But you. No other sadness in the world Would do.

.

Four years before Emma’s wedding – Augusta Airport.

Emma’s hand is very harsh on her cheeks as it childishly wipes her tears away. She’s still staring at the door by which Killian left. She cannot stop staring.  

She cannot even blame Augusta airport’s lack of air conditioning for the way her entire body shakes and trembles and seems about to explode into thousands of little pieces of confetti.

He left, again. And she is so mad. He was here all summer and they didn’t spend it together. And he left. And she is alone with her rage, now.

“Fuck.”

The exasperated whisper escapes her mouth as she feels something humid roll down her nose. Great, now she is blowing her nose in the middle of the airport. Killian is the one to always carry tissues in his backpack. Another spike of anger shoots right through her. Thankfully for her, her agitated hands find a used tissue in her front pocket.

It has the merit, at least, of making her decide to leave this goddamn place. Once her nose is dry and red, she aggressively strides forward – her pace sure as her face crumbles.

The sun is blinding when she reaches the outside world. It savagely burns her eyes and forces her to squint. Incredibly warm air fills her lungs and it tastes bitter, and everything is shit and she just wants, she just wants… Her thoughts nearly make her choke on her tears. She just wants Killian and he is gone.

One outraged foot stomps on the burning concrete, as if to allow her to regain some composure. She is Emma Swan. She doesn’t need anyone. She never has.

Liar.

Without a second thought, she heads for the bus stop. He left, again. Well, now is the time to learn to live without him, Emma.

Flashes of her past year haunt her thoughts, and she swallows painfully. Her throat is sore. She really spent a shitty year, huh.  

As she glances at the bus schedule, and the scorching sun causes pearls of sweat to roll down her back in the most unpleasant way, she feels a hand press her shoulder.

She makes a U-turn in the blink of an eye, hands fisted and ready to defend herself, but then her eyes meet a familiar chocolate gaze.

“Hey Emma!” Neal’s voice resonates as he smiles brightly at her. She sees his expression quickly change and Emma gathers her red nose and her swollen, teary eyes aren’t her best look. She firmly wipes the remaining tears on her face and grins as Neal keeps staring. “Are you okay?” He asks her and his hand gently brushes her shoulder, and it looks like he cares about her.

She realizes he is exactly what she’s been waiting for. A distraction.

“Better now,” she affirms, and she hears her own voice as if it did not come out of her mouth.

She sees Neal arch an eyebrow, gathers he must be surprised that for once, she’s the one flirting with him.

But this is exactly what she needs. To feel special, desired, wanted.

(To feel like she isn’t someone one just leaves behind.)

“Good. Waiting for the bus?” he inquires, and she nods.

Neal is definitely tanner than the last time she saw him. He must be back from vacation.

She sees the grin on his face change, become something much more…dangerous. She isn’t afraid. She’s tired of feeling afraid.

“I’ve got my own car, if you want. I could drop you off.”

He’s biting his lower lip, and she sees herself brush a strand of hair from her face, unaware of the used tissue emerging from the front pocket of her jeans, as she leans into him.

“I’d like that, actually.”

She muffles the voice inside of her head telling her to be careful. Look at what careful gave her. It gave her nothing. It gave her goodbyes.

And she seizes the hand he offers.

.

Being with Neal is easy, mostly because she doesn’t have to wonder if he likes her as much as she likes him. He tells her. He lets her know. She thinks he likes her more than she likes him, but that’s also fine.

It allows this year to pass by fairly easily. She feels less alone. (Her heart still skips a beat when Killian’s name appears on her phone, but there will probably be no getting rid of that.)

She doesn’t tell Killian. What’s the point? He never told her about M. She wants to have secrets, too. She deserves to have her secrets.

.

It’s fall, and they’re sitting on Storybrooke’s carousel when Neal confides in her for the first time. (She really tries to shake her memories from her mind, the ones of her and Killian, once upon a time, when everything seemed easy and sure, and now it’s all over and she hates him.)

“I was given up, as a kid, too,” he tells her, legs wrapped around a brown horse. He is slightly below her, a kiss away. They haven’t kissed yet. She thinks they might. She thinks she might like that.

Emma feels her grip getting tighter around her white horse, breath caught in her throat.

He is the first person to understand her, on that level.

“And I understand, Emma,” he continues, and the warm brown of his eyes melts into Emma’s chest, leaves golden sparkles there. “I understand what it feels like.”

Oh, this is all too good. This is all she’s ever wanted. (She doesn’t care that Neal doesn’t have a job but can somehow offer a car and all the marvelous gifts he brings her. That doesn’t matter, not when he is staring at her as if she hangs the stars in the night sky.)

She’s leaning towards him, heart beating fast in her temples.

“I know your anger, your anger towards your parents.” He pauses, and Emma’s face suddenly stops on its way down. “I am angry, too.”

Something gets caught in her throat. Oh. No. That’s not it. She was wrong. He doesn’t get it.

She’s not angry. She’s just perpetually followed by a very grey feeling. This feeling has fuzzy legs and arms and they are wrapped tightly around her, at all times. And it sticks, it never falls to the floor, as most fuzzy things do. And it stares at her when she thinks she is happy and it tells her maybe not.

But she doesn’t say it, not that. She leaves it hanging there within the few inches that separate her mouth from Neal’s, and she kisses him.

Because this has to be good enough. This has to be what she deserves.

Neal’s hand comes up to cup her cheek and she kisses him harder. His lips are soft, and his hands softer, but she can’t close her eyes. Instead, she stares at the black horse and his red collar – the one she’s stubbornly avoided  looking at.

And she thinks if only she could hate Killian a little, then things would be easier.

.

As time flies by, and fall turns into winter, Emma thinks Killian might have been right about Neal.

When his kisses linger on her neck as she pulls her clothes back on in the back of his car, and there is this very funny feeling in the back of her mouth, and he hands her a big, black bag –  that’s probably the sign she was waiting for to run the hell away from him.

But she’s dumb, Emma, and she needs to be very certain that she is making a huge mistake before she can decide to step away.

“I’m going to need you to keep this for a while. But do not open it, Emma,” he tells her, and the poor girl glances at it with a lot of concern but also a complete blind faith.

“Please, tell me it’s not a dead body.”

It makes him chuckle, and he bends towards her to kiss her lightly. She does not smile into his kiss. Something feels very wrong. Her ears are buzzing.

“No, Emma. Don’t worry. And to make sure you keep quiet, here is a gift for you.”

And he takes out of his pocket a very beautiful, very much stolen watch, and Emma tries her best to silence the voices in her head that are, by now, screaming, howling that none of this is right.

But Emma wants to be loved, and she doesn’t listen to them. Surely he must love her if he gave her a gift.

(The bracelet on her right wrist glints under the moonlight. She almost takes it off right then.)

“Thanks Neal,” she eventually whispers. Stars are shining brightly in the window pane, it almost looks like a painting. “I promise I won’t say anything.”

And when she gets out of the car with this big, black bag, she finally figures out what this strange feeling that lingers with her is.

Neal waves at her before disappearing into the night. She waves back.

She feels used. She wanted to feel love and she feels used. Her grip gets firmer over the bag and she walks to Ingrid’s house.

Oh, shut up. Her thoughts are going to ruin everything, again. Just like she ruined things with Killian.

Her bedroom is incredibly cold as she comes in. She left her window open all day. There’s no light in the corridor; Ingrid is fast asleep.

Emma closes the window with tired arms. She cannot quite control the quick peek she takes at the house in front of Ingrid’s. It is forever engulfed in darkness, and she sighs. She wonders if Killian will ever sell it.

She puts down her heavy red coat and her beanie, leaves her boots next to the wall, and lies down on her bed.

Her fingers absently turn the charm around her wrist. She closes her eyes, makes a wish.

Her heart misses a beat when his name flashes on her phone.

“I miss you, Swan. Hope everything is okay. We should call soon.”

A small, salty drop hits her phone as a smile splits her face. She doesn’t know how he knew she needed him. But he knew. And this, this is the only thing that feels right, right now.

Her throat is tight as she texts back. “Miss you, too, Killian. Let’s call this weekend?” She’s still working with Ingrid during the week, and she realizes just how lucky she is. Ingrid doesn’t really need any help, but she’s too kind to tell Emma to find a real job.

“Ah, can’t this weekend, but the next?” Killian’s answer is a slap against her face, a much needed return to reality.

Her room is still so cold. And the stars are of no comfort that night. Why does she feel this sad?

She closes her eyes, one instant, to swallow down her pride and how much she misses him and them.

“No problem. Goodnight, Killian.”

He cannot call because he will be with her. She’s sure of it.

Emma wraps herself in her blanket and it smells of lavender, and she never told Ingrid she doesn’t like lavender, because when Ingrid insists on changing her sheets each week, Emma really feels like maybe she belongs somewhere. But that, she also doesn’t tell her.

“Goodnight, Swan.”

Her phone screen goes black. And just like that, Emma is swallowed once again by this very grey feeling, and she thinks she will never be able to see any colors again.

.

Sometimes life is just a shitstorm of bad luck, isn’t it? Well, at least, that’s what Emma thinks as Ingrid stares at her, with the big, black bag open revealing a good dozen stolen watches, and the one at her wrist simply confesses her crime.

“There are a lot of things I can tolerate under this roof, Emma, but robbery? That’s just un—”

Surely, Ingrid didn’t mean to find it. She was just cleaning her room, but she usually does so on Fridays after spending a week telling Emma she should really clean her room – and it is Thursday and she wasn’t meant to find this bag.

“—I don’t understand how you could possibly think this is okay and I am—”

But Emma isn’t listening. As Ingrid stands in the middle of her room, she is scanning her surroundings as fast as she possibly can.

She’s already packing in her mind. Her ears are ringing and her heart drums in the worst way possible, but she isn’t listening.

This had to happen. It’s fine, actually, because Emma has been saving some money just in case, and really Emma doesn’t mind surviving on her own, it’s what she did for most of her life now, and sure, it was nice having a home at Ingrid’s but it’s over now and it’s fine, she just needs to deal with it –

“Emma!” Ingrid is screaming now, and that she didn’t expect, and Emma takes a step back, hands coming in front of her face to protect herself.

She can’t listen. Her breath comes out in a heave. She sees however that Ingrid is trying to look calmer, she sees the line of her eyebrows become softer. “I’m sorry, Emma. I didn’t mean to yell. I shouldn’t have.”

She has a big sigh, Ingrid, and Emma knows she’s trying to tell her. But it’s fine, she wants to tell Ingrid, she already knows, she’s always known.

Ingrid shakes her shoulders and passes by Emma, the bag firm in her hands. Emma’s mouth is still open but no sound is coming out.

“We’ll talk about this, later. For now, clean your room, please.”

And she closes the door behind her, and Emma is swallowing glass suddenly, and she cannot breathe, and she cannot break down, she has to pack and leave, leave, leave, of course, she has to leave.

(Ingrid forgot to ask Emma to give back the watch around her wrist. Emma leaves it anyway, on her desk, with a simple note: “For whatever it’s worth, but I did not steal those watches. Love, Emma.”

Neal’s watch leaves a faint green and purple burn on her skin. It itches painfully.)

.

That night, she boards a bus to New York.

“Emma, are you okay? Why are you calling this late?”

“Would…would it be okay for me to stay for a while with you and David?”

“Of course, honey. But please, tell me what’s going on.”

A big sniffling – Emma’s never learned to cry silently. “I’ll tell you once I get there. I’m taking a night bus. See you, Mary Margaret.”

And just like that, she’s gone, without a look back at this house in which she spent the best moments of her childhood, with Killian, but Killian is gone, and there’s no childhood to look back at.

.

He receives Ingrid’s call, very early on Friday morning as he sips a black coffee in Milah’s kitchen. He is on Christmas leave, but thankfully for him, the Navy has trained Killian to wake up far before the sun – especially in winter.

“Everything okay, Ingrid?” he asks right away, because Ingrid isn’t the type to call just to know how he is doing.

He’s frowning furiously as he examines the world from the safety of this apartment window. Outside, the city of Portsmouth is frozen, as if wrapped in a dark blue dream of snowflakes. The streetlights are still lit up, drawing fireflies that will not fly on the pavement, and winter mornings always did stir something bittersweet in Killian’s belly.

“Killian! I’m so glad I could reach you!” Ingrid’s tone makes Killian’s stomach twist. Can’t she just skip to the part where she tells him what the bloody hell is going on? “It’s Emma,” she finally confesses, and Killian has to put down his coffee mug. It’s as if suddenly somebody opened the window, and the cold, savage winter air swallowed him alive. He’s breathing ice. “She ran away. And I don’t know where she went. And before calling the police, I thought you might know –“

Killian’s mind races. “Ran away? Why?”

“It’s about Neal. He stole watches. It’s a long story, one I wish I could tell you over a fire and –“

“Ingrid!” Wrath escapes his throat. “You have to tell me, did she leave any clue behind?”

But the poor woman is practically sobbing on the other side of the phone, and Killian rolls his eyes.

“No, no, she just left. I’m so sorry, Killian, I didn’t know and now I—”

A big sigh shakes Killian’s shoulders. “It’s going to be okay, Ingrid. I will find her. And Emma can take care of herself, she’s a big girl.”

He ends the conversation as fast he possibly can, takes one sip of coffee and starts his investigation. In front of him, the sun slowly rises, painting the sky in pink, orange and purple clouds.

He knows Emma well enough not to try to call her. She won’t answer. She’ll know Ingrid sent him.

Thus, he calls the next person, besides himself, who might know where the bloody hell Emma Swan is.

“Yes, hello?” answers him a very small, very sleepy voice, and Killian glances at the kitchen clock to discover that it is barely 8am. She’ll hate him, but that’s something he can live with.

“Hi, Mary Margaret. It’s Killian, Killian Jones. We went to high school together.”

There’s an “mmmm” on the other end of the phone, and Killian gathers she knows very well what he is about to ask.

“Would you be hosting a certain nineteen year-old girl? Blonde hair, big, green eyes and freckles.”

There’s a silence then, and he imagines her mind racing at high speed thinking whether she can confide in him or not. (Whether Emma will hate her or not.)

And, finally, “Yes. But Killian, she specifically said she wanted nothing to do with you. So I’m kind of breaking a sacred rule of friendship right now, but I think she really needs you.”

Something cracks inside of him. It makes a gruesome sound. A bird lands on the frozen window ledge; its feathers are of a very tender yellow.

“Alright. You don’t have to tell her I called. I’ll simply call Ingrid back to tell her Emma is safe and sound at yours.”

Another silence, Mary Margaret is almost audibly pondering her words. “…Mmm ‘kay. That seems fair. Bye then, Killian?”

He nods, but it’s to himself only. “Bye, Mary Margaret.” The first rays of sunshine are starting to burn his eyes.

“Why are you on the phone so early?” Milah’s voice suddenly resonates in the kitchen, and he turns to face her sleepy features.

He forces a smile on his face. “Family call,” he explains casually, but Milah frowns. She must know he’s lying.

“I thought you were an orphan?”

He licks his lower lips. Well, that wasn’t very nice of her. She just woke up, let the damn woman breathe.  

“Aye, indeed, love. I still have some family left, though.”

He thinks she sees a flicker of pain in his eyes because she wraps her arms around his neck and kisses the side of his jaw. “Sorry, baby. That wasn’t very clever of me to say,” she already smells of menthol against his lips, “I’m so glad we’re spending this weekend together.”

Killian winces, as she drops kisses all along his neck. “About that, love…”

.

Mary Margaret would make an incredible mother, Emma thinks as the petite brunette tiptoes through the living room – so as to not wake up Emma.

It’s Saturday morning, but Mary Margaret is an early bird. She’s already wearing clothes that shouldn’t be worn ever, especially not on a Saturday morning – Saturdays and Sundays are for pajamas, that is the sacred law.

Emma feels good, buried beneath thousands of blankets that smell like soap, and she wants to remain like this forever, with nobody to ask her anything and no responsibility. Emma, you might need to confront reality, one of these days.  

She grunts as her friend switches on the kettle for some well-need needed coffee, and Emma turns on the sofa.

Mary Margaret has been living alone in New York for a year and a half now. David decided to stay in Storybrooke in order to follow in the footsteps of sheriff Graham, but they’ve been making this long distance relationship work. Emma isn’t surprised, what they share is unique and precious.

Last week, David joined Mary Margaret for the Christmas break, and Emma thinks she really is a big smear on their perfect little lives.

Except that, when Emma sees her friend start to whip eggs, although it’s barely nine, and she does so with such a big smile on her lips, Emma thinks that maybe she isn’t that much of a bother.

Gathering up courage, she swings her legs out of her improvised bed and stretches loudly to let her host know she is awake.

“Ah! Emma! Good morning!” Mary Margaret smiles instantly, and Emma thinks she really is a ray of sunshine. “Hope I didn’t wake you up.”

She even makes Emma smile, and that says a lot, because Emma does not smile in the morning.

“ ’Morning, Mary Margaret. No, don’t worry. I was already awake. How are you?”

The whipping intensifies as Emma makes her way to the kitchenette, shuffling her feet on the warm carpeted floor.

“I’m really good!” And then a frown. “How are you, Emma?”

A really big sigh shakes Emma’s shoulders then, as she glances at her phone on the living room table.

“I’m okay, I guess. Better, anyway.”

She spent the whole trip to New York trying to call Neal. He never answered. She doesn’t know what she expected. Everyone keeps leaving.

“I’m sure things will work out, with Ingrid—” Mary Margaret is trying to cheer her up but her words are stumbling over each other.

And Emma is tired, and she doesn’t want to talk about it.

“I know, Mary Margaret. My reaction might have been harsh, now that I’m not in the heat of the moment anymore –“ That was indeed very Emma of her, to let all hell break loose at the slightest inconvenience.

“—Yeah, my point is, Ingrid never asked you to leave…”

And Emma frowns because Mary Margaret’s words stir something nasty and painful inside of her. Clearly she was wrong, she is a bother, she always has been, Mary Margaret is trying to tell her to leave, and it’s fine really, and then, then – the doorbell rings and Emma has to keep all of her emotions bottled up inside. Her eyes twitch. She didn’t get much sleep last night.

Mary Margaret quickly squeezes her arm, but Emma backs away and returns to the couch with a lump in her throat she cannot swallow down.

She made a mistake coming here, thinking she could rely on other people, thinking she had friends…

And then, one name echoes in Mary Margaret’s apartment.

“Killian? It’s been so long! What are you doing here?”

Mary Margaret is really a pitiful liar but Emma’s heart has already caught fire as she stands up like the devil and reaches the front door in a few long strides. Her ribcage is about to explode.

There he is. How dare he.

Why does it feel like coming home?

Emma fists her hands as exhausted blue eyes meet hers, and she gathers he took the first flight to see her. Of course he did.

“Hello, Swan.”

Oh, how much she wants to be angry. She wants to scream at him, but then her chin starts trembling and her legs wobbling and she cannot breathe and her body cannot handle the distance between them and… She doesn’t know who reaches first, but then her hands are in his hair and he is lifting her off the ground and she’s hugging him with all of this despair, all of this sadness in her chest, and she wants him to feel bad for what he did to her.

And all of the emotions she tried to bury rise at once, consume her completely, and she’s sobbing in the crook of his neck, until there are no more tears and no more her but him, and his scent, and his everything, and may he never let her go again.

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[artoodeeblue]

A Lady on Paper

Find the French version along with my other original writing on this blog!

I can barely remember my birth. My first one, anyway. The cornerstone. It is shrouded in mist, cloggy like the swamp of my cradle-town. Someone must have fathered me – towers and spires rarely sprout up unannounced, I have gathered. In the echoes of my nave, I still hear the scratching of quill over parchment, the heavy bangs of the hammer, the heaving of my creators’ breaths.

The little details give me real life. I take my first breath when Gaultier chisels his initials on one of my rib vaults. His upturned tongue sticks out, almost touching the freckles on his nose. The light bounces through his walnut hair and lands on my freshly-carved stones.

“Hello,” I whisper, gently caressing his mind.

“Hi.” He smiles. Wipes the sweat from his forehead. His voice is tentative. He doesn’t quite know what he’s doing, but his tender name glows, etched into the millennia.

“Pleased to meet you, Gaultier.”

With a professional hand, he scratches another layer of mortar on his stone. In the growing mass that will become my visitors, the sound is both grounding and appeasing. Painfully, heavily, I rise.

“Me too, my Lady.”

Someone must have sired me, but my loyalty has always been to my children.

 They give me jewellery and thorn crowns, which I accept like a mother concedes to her child’s present. I don’t need them, but if they reassure them – if they can feel less alone in this world – I can carpet my walls with a thousand tapestries.

Gaultier is long gone, but his laugh still echoes in the choir. It spins around, playfully blowing out candles and raising my children’s hair. His parting gift to the generations.

 They give me eyes. I count three, round and gleaming. They flash with pastel, sketched with a delicate mix of stone and glass. With them I see my cradle-town. I see the steaming chimneys, the palace, the paved dampness of the city. I finally see my children, immersed in pink and blue light. Kneeling, muttering, singing. Confessing. They come in processions, light candles most cannot afford, speak a language I do not understand. I pray as well – that they find the answers they ask of me.

They add more intricate buttresses, for fear that I fall. I chuckle. Of course I will fall. I will burn down and crumble and fade until I am nothing more than a lady on paper. But Raymond will have none of this. He gives out orders, holding his parchment, counting steps and scratching on his board.

His touch is firm and steady. He pats me like his pet, running his fingers in the tiny creases between the stones.

(He misses Gaultier’s carvings, which I hide covetously.)

“You will become the most beautiful temple ever to stand upon this earth,” he tells me. His pompous language never fails to pry a laugh. “You will be thin as a sheet of parchment, yet your towers will stand strong until Judgment Day.”

“My sisters have not,” I try again. “Can you not hear their screams, as they fall to pieces and flames in the East? Only their ruins will see the sun rise on Judgment Day.”

“Not you,” Raymond insists. “You are better. You are good. You are holy.”

“Holier than the entire civilisation your people slaughtered in the name of God?”

His blue eyes glint with stars and hubris. He jerks his chin upwards. “Yes.”

My children are strong, and proud, and will burn themselves for a touch of the sun.

  I wonder if this was how my sisters felt in the East.

They plunder my crypt, behead my kings and saints, but I never knew them anyway – they are all mere faces tattooed without my consent. Fake jewels. Kings never come to say hello; they just waltz in, kneel, smirk, and declare war over heretics.

Julien’s little kick is nonchalant, patronising.

The pavement is coated with a thick layer of blood. It swirls around me, inside me, churns my stomach and stares at me. They don’t do much to me – maybe, underneath the harsh gaze of the Raymond they so despised, they can hear Gaultier’s murmurs of hope. I never really understood hate, but I know it quickly dissolves under permanence.

“Not so powerful now, huh, girl?”

He wears a blue and red tricorn which awkwardly frames his childish face. He cannot be over twenty, yet his tongue sticks out as if he had finally brought a lion to its knees. Still, it has been decades since I have spoken. I nudge him back.

“Never,” I answer.

Julien smirks, and waves his little flag. “We control you now,” he gloats. “You’ll never hurt anyone else again. You’ll be forgotten, just like every other part of the Old Regime.”

“So will you.”

With a giant, heaving swing, the rod comes smashing towards St Thomas. His head explodes, and the fragments scatter through my bowels.

“I despise you,” he snarls. His breath is ragged, and his chiselled jaw twitches in its socket. “You’re everything that’s evil in this world.”

I am only rocks, I want to tell him. How can stone, oak, mortar and carved initials rival with the bloody smoke-trail of a musket?

But he is already gone, running on the pavement, carried by youth and homicidal optimism.

They change my name – it belongs sometimes to Reason, sometimes to the Supreme Being, sometimes to Liberty. My children are creative, and fickle. Anything to prove that they have changed.

But a few chopped off heads do not change the tell-tale glimmer in your eyes.

  A man with almond eyes and a high forehead like mine pushes through my heavy door. His steps break my trance-like slumber, and I stir. Shy sunlight cracks through my unused eye. I blink. Slowly.

Gaultier’s laugh is no more than a whisper now. It has lost its music – has grown as lethargic as mine. Raymond’s promise flies over me like the angel of Death.

The man blows, sending a streak of fresh air over the piers. Dust materialises in the diffused rays. He stumbles around the half-ruins littered on the floor.

Electricity courses through his fingertips as he brushes my stone. I shudder. I haven’t been touched like this in centuries.

There’s an aura around him. Not divine – not like the few priests who still roam my sleepy aisles. Something rich and brown, scented with paper, ink and starlight. His eyes seek, blink, and dart in rhythm with the turn of the earth. His feet are posed firmly on the checkered tiles, yet his posture is light and dream-like. Grounded, physical, yet full of wonder. Not broken – not yet.

He smells so intensely, decidedly human.

I take a breath, and guide his hand towards the tiny alcove I made. It hides in the joint between walls, covered by dust and inconsequence. His breath gets caught in his throat, Adam’s apple bopping up and down. He religiously traces around the tired G, the sloppy H. It stings up to my spire, but tickling nerves feel much less lonely than numb inattention.

“Six hundred and fifty years,” he murmurs. “We must look like insects to you.”

I brush his skin, watching his eyes light up with Muses. Deep in the bowels of my bells, a slow rumbling comes to greet him.

“I think you look like giants, Victor.”

 Out of everyone who said hello, he’s the only one who comes back broken.

“Look at you, all pampered,” he says. “You’re a proper lady on paper now. On your way to your old beauty.”

“It is your doing, my love. Your beautiful story set the spark.”

Victor smiles, a weary, tentative thing that contrasts with the navy bags under his eyes. His back is hunched, shoulders drawn tight under his jacket.

Sometimes, Victor reminds me so much of myself it sends sparks of pain down to my crypt.

“I am so very sorry, my dear.” I send him a tender sunray, but he recoils – flinches – away. He takes a shuddering inspiration.

The clangs and thrusts of the renovation scaffolding reverberate inside the nave. Victor’s knee fidgets back and forth, up and down, synchronised with my heartbeat. His breath comes in long, trembling sighs. He dips his head a little more, letting his brows cloud his gaunt expression with shadows too old for his age.

“She was…” Victor falters. “My Leopoldine, she was only nineteen.”

He whimpers, shoulders trembling. Never in his life could he withhold emotions from his features. My Victor has always felt everything so viscerally, so fiercely, that the force of a hundred hell fires could not possibly restrain him.

His hands are linked together and his eyelids close – a small, awkward attempt to connect to something far above my spire. I stay silent.

“You’re supposed to know everything.” His mouth moves, yet his voice comes from another realm. His brow twitches. “If you’re so omniscient, can’t you at least tell me… Tell me why?”

That is the one question I cannot answer, that I can never answer.

“Why can’t you bring her back?”

His broken sobs do not echo. Neither do Gaultier’s laugh, Raymond’s hopes, Julien’s fire. They are absorbed in the scaffolding above, in the heavy oak framework, in the centuries-old mortar.

 Sometimes I wish I could speak to God. After all, am I not named after his mother?

Perhaps I am condemned to share her fate, forced to watch my children break and die, suspended to the cruel post of Time.

Demain, dès l’aube, à l’heure où blanchit la cathédrale… Je partirai.

  It feels…strange, to say the least. I am smaller, lower. Reduced.

Smoke and ashes fly from my spire over my cradle-town, my beloved light-city. My children are cut from me, staring powerless behind murmuring firemen. They pray, they sing, mutter words of comfort that I barely catch over the screaming in my mind.

It aches. The intricate carpentry consumed, the flames licking up my roof, the crashing water relentlessly boring into my shoulders. The tireless wind ramming against my walls, whistling between my towers. It carries the bystanders’ collective gasp as they watch my spire crumble and impale my flank.

A young fire woman fixes her gaze on the brazier, a stoic jawline firmly maintaining her illusion of control. I can barely discern the tell-tale glimmer of her eyes through the smoke.

“You must be in so much pain.”

Maybe, but my pain is not unbearable. My children’s is.

“Don’t worry. We will protect you.” Her voice is wobbly, with a higher pitch than usual, yet her hand on the hose could not get any steadier.

 When the sun rises over my still smouldering body, I hear relief, and I hear grief. The city, my radiant, proud, boastful people, hang in exhausted silence. It drapes over me.

My close call to destruction caused thousands of individuals to turn their heads towards an old remnant of the Regime.

“We will rebuild,” they say. From my undamaged eye, I spot their leader, surrounded by a shifting mass of microphones and cameras. “We will restore Our Lady to her former glory, and make her even more beautiful. We will make these stones alive again.”

Raymond’s voice resonates through millions of television sets. His eyes bore straight through the country.

I think of Gaultier’s sweat-filled affection, of his cheery compassion.

Of Julien’s anger at the vices of the world, of the passionate curve of his eyebrows.

I think of Victor the writer, of his beautiful smile and his magnificent tears, of his unconditional love for humanity.

I think of the three or four billionaires I have never met, who will claim to adore me by bedecking me with fake jewels, by cajoling me with impersonal wood and long-dead cold stone.

I think of my other sisters in the ocean, in the forests, in the air. Cathedrals that will never be rebuilt nor remembered, in the small scheme of political power. Monuments older than my cradle-town disappearing with the snap of two fingers, never to be seen again. Killed by hubris, disdain and general disinterest.

 My stones do not make me alive. Just like you, they decay, wither, and burn.

No. I do not remember the placing of my cornerstone.

I took my first breath when a young, gap-toothed bricklayer chiselled his initials on the slabs of my rib vault.

[himbowelsh]

Kiss prompt no.3 for Harry and Kitty! 🥰

sha-la-la-la my oh my, looks like the boy’s too shy  💋 (accepting!) 

3.   kissing so desperately that their whole body curves into the other person’s

He steps off the train with his bag over his shoulder and a spring in his step  ---  one his thigh, which still sometimes aches during rainstorms and long runs, doesn’t appreciate. A little pain never stopped Harry before. Paratroopers, he reminds himself, put up with plenty more than that... and even if he’s not strictly a paratrooper anymore, well, he didn’t earn those jumpwings for nothing.

His grin only dims when he scans the platform for familiar faces, and comes up blank. It’s not like he expected a welcoming party — he’s one of twenty fellas in uniform coming home on this train alone — but… well. He expected something. Someone. 

Kitty’s last letter is still in his pocket. He read it ten times since this morning, vibrating with anticipation of finally seeing her again. After two years — and hell, if it doesn’t feel longer than that! It feels like Harry’s spent a lifetime without his love… missing her, dreaming of her, haunted by her in the morphine-hazy days while his wound was healing. He imagined her specter in the frigid Bastogne woods, slipping through skeleton-tree silhouettes. He imagined brushing the snow from her eyelashes, dancing with her around the drifts and bomb craters, kissing life back into her frozen hands as they grew blue and lifeless…

Kitty’s been with him in a thousand ways since the last time he saw here. There were her letters, of course, endlessly cheerful and full of rambling stories from home — he saved every one. Then the care packages, knitted mittens and homemade cookies gone stale over the long journey… that picture she had taken in her favorite pearls, just because he asked her for a new one. The articles she sent from home, the Wilkes-Barre Journal mentioning their hometown heroes by name. The letter with a red-lipsticked kiss pressed into the bottom of the paper, Christ Almighty…

He’s been dreaming of Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, for so long… that not seeing her feels like a punch to the gut.

He gave her the right time, didn’t he? The right day? She knows when he’s supposed to be pulling in, he made sure of that —

Another soldier shoulders past, nearly knocking him over. A protest is already on Harry’s lips when he turns, to see the man being embraced by a well-dressed woman. He loops his arms around her waist, swinging her off her feet; she lets out a noise that sounds like a sob, rumbling his uniform as she grips him.

For a minute, he can’t help staring. Something sour and sharp twists in his stomach, a longing he can’t grasp with both hands. When Harry finally tears his gaze away, his throat feels tight.

She said she’d be here…

Slowly, he shuffled forward along the platform. It isn’t crowded, but he searches each face all the same. A telltale flash somewhere, that’s all he’s looking for — a head full of bouncy curls, a smile that could light up the night sky, a sparkling laugh or bell-clear voice calling his name…

He sits down on the bench. He waits.

He’s all alone.

Ten minutes pass, then half an hour. By the time the crowd has thinned down to nothing, the sun is already starting to set on the horizon. Against a backdrop of gold and salmon, shadows stretch longer, and the train station feels lonelier than ever. Harry exhales, long and low, through pursed lips. There’s a paperback in his bag  ---  he finished it on the train  ---  and a half-done crossword puzzle he picked up in New York City, but he doesn’t feel like either of them. If he looks away for a second...  well, the irrational thought’s caught hold in his head that Kitty will slip by and he’ll miss her.

She’s not coming. That’s the other irrational thought, a thousand times worse than the one before. As the moments tick by, the more likely it seems. Nixon’s teasing words ring in his ears  ---   if she hasn’t run off with some 4-F by now...   that’s not even funny...

He scrubs his palms against his knees, nauseous. Jumping into Normandy wasn’t as bad as this. Even then, he had Kitty’s photo in his pocket, and the reassurance of her kisses as soon as he got back, if he got back. Now, it’s a different uncertainty, a buzzing dread that stirs his nerves into an electric storm. He never worried about coming home hurt, even coming home in a box...  because at least then he thought Kitty would be there to welcome him back.

He’s made it back in one piece, and she’s not here.

Something inside feels like it’s breaking. Harry pushes it down, smothering it like the burn of sore muscles and frostbite. Worse pain than this, he reminds himself. You’re a paratrooper. A tough son-of-a-bitch. Paratroopers don’t cry, damn it.

When he rises from the bench, heaving his bag up with him, he doesn’t...  even if his eyes sting, and his throat feels too tight to force out a word if he tried.

He could walk home, he considers, making his way to the stairs leading down from the platform. Hitchhike? Maybe some nice Patriot will offer a ride to a guy in uniform. He’s been travelling all day, and he’s rather not heave this bag all the way back to his mother’s house  ---

The stairs are steep, several flights descending down in a long stretch to the parking lot below. Bathed in dying gold light, Harry can just make out each step...  and a figure, too far away to make out, at the very bottom of the stairs.

She’s wearing a mint green dress, and a hat with a turned up brim. Her hair flies about like it’s escaped from their pins in some struggle  ---  curls, he realizes, catching the light like liquid gold. She stumbles on the bottom step, obviously in a hurry, and only catches herself with one hand on the railing.

Harry’s looking down. She looks up.

Their eyes meet, and the world explodes into radiant color.

“Oh my God  ---” From a distance, he registers his bag dropping to the ground; but Harry’s too caught up to notice, too busy throwing himself forward down the stairs. It’s quicker going down than going up...  but she’s moving just as fast, practically bounding up the steps in unsteady kitten heels.  (She hates heels, can’t stand them, swears she’ll only wears them for special occasions  ---)

They meet each other halfway.

Kitty laughs out loud as she falls into his arms. Immediately, he’s gripping her like a lifeline, like he’s parachuted into the ocean and she’s the only raft keeping him afloat. He presses his face into his hair, inhaling the sweet smell of her, registering her urgent babble from a distance.

“I’m so sorry, the car broke down, I waited at the side of the road for an hour, a nice lady had to stop and show me how to fix it, I was worried for you the whole time  ---”

“I knew you’d come,” he breathes.

Kitty pulls back, hands on his shoulders; her eyes are wide, impossible sweet and unbearably earnest. “Of course I would. You silly, silly man.”

He always imagined that their first kiss would be sweet — something tender, like a reward for making it back alive. Instead, he kisses her like a drowning man desperate for air. His hand knots in her tangled curls; she grips his shoulders fiercely, and presses back with all the fire he remembers, what he fell in love with in the first place. She holds him like she’s determined to never let go again. Kitty presses against him, body angling into his own, and Harry grips her like a prayer. Until the sharp tang of salt forces its way into their kiss, he doesn’t realize he’s crying. When he pulls back, breathing hard, tears streak Kitty’s rosy cheeks as well.

“No, no,” he hushes, wiping them hastily with his thumbs before pressing another kiss to his brow. “I’m home… I can’t believe I’m really home.”

“I missed you so much,” she declares, caressing his cheek like she’s trying to memorize the outline of his face. When Harry breaks into a grin, she beams back, managing a shaky giggle.

Forget the ships, forget the trains… seeing that smile is what truly brings him home.

“I’m here,” Harry declares, leaning in to press another kiss to her lips. “I’m here, Kitty… and I’ll never go anywhere again without you.”