#I don't anticipate anyone finding anything he doesn't want found

[oliwrightofficial]

Didn’t Oli say he was going to go back to school for music management or something like that?

I mean that does ring a bell, but Oli has certainly never said anything about anything publicly so where did we hear that? Now that you've said it, it does sound right though; I'm thinking maybe pre pandemic when they were talking about tour and Oli studying to do tour management maybe one of the other tour worker people said that somewhere? If anyone can remember or source this info it's Oli investigating hours lads, what we got??

[enderlovez]

No Germs Found

Spencer Reid x Female BAU Reader WORD COUNT: 1000+

Summary: You and the team are back in Arizona on another case, and when an amazing unfortunate mishap takes place at the front desk, everyone is forced to share rooms with each other.

Content Warning: non-sexual nudity, strong language in reference to the temperature, blushy Spence, mentions of heat stroke, pain from the heat, mentions of murder, slightly NSFW at the end, Spencer likes boobs- I MEAN WHO SAID THAT?

A/N This is kind of a continuation of another one of my works called Germs, but they don't necessarily need to be read side by side. There's only one mention of something that happened in the first part, and it's not really that important to the story, so...

────── ꒰ঌ·✦·໒꒱ ──────

None of you really anticipated being on another case so soon, at least not in the same place you'd just gotten home from a few days before, and the place you all seemed to... strongly dislike.

Maybe 'dislike' isn't the right word, but one thing is for sure — the moment you step foot off the jet, you feel like you're covered from head to toe in sweat, and your throat dried up like a fish in a desert.

Not to mention how you' were all stuck in a stuffy room all day, with crappy air conditioning that did absolutely nothing for anyone. So far you had practically nothing on the unsub, they were slippery as soap, and that stress — the stress of not knowing who they are, who they are going to kill next — has you in a very grumpy mood.

And despite the inconveniences, the day still somehow finds a way to get worse.

That much is clear as Hotch strolls up to our group of people with an annoyed look on his face — granted he almost always looks like that when we're having a hard time finding anything on the unsub.

"There was a malfunction in their system, and they overbooked their rooms," he says simply, only earning a choir of groans from us, "so we're going to have to double up tonight."

You throw your head back, a heavy sigh escaping your mouth. It's been a long day, and all you want is to lay around without your clothes on and go to sleep — but you can't exactly do that with someone else in there with you.

"You're free to pick your roommate yourself, but please, for the love of God, keep it professional," he finishes as he drops a small pile of numbered keys onto the little table in the reception.

Everyone immediately splits off into pairs, while you make no move to do anything, laying back on the armchair with your neck bent over the top, eyes closed against the white fluorescent lights.

"You know, frequent hyperextension of the neck can have negative effects on its structure and function," a familiar voice says from above you. "Around fifteen to twenty-five percent of North Americans experience lasting effects, such as chronic pain and nerve issues."

You peel your eyes open to find none other than the brilliant Spencer Reid standing over your head, dangling a key over your face, and just like that, all your apprehension melts away.

"Stop flirting with me, Spencer, it's incredibly unprofessional," you joke lightheartedly, a vibrant smile overtaking your face as you pluck the key from his fingers.

He doesn't seem to realize you're joking, though, because he immediately goes to defend himself, stuttering adorably and blushing firetruck red. "No, um, I wasn't — I would never flirt with you!" he tries to defend himself, only realizing a second later how it might've come off. "I-I mean I would, but that's not what I was trying to do."

You shake your head and laugh, standing from the armchair and threading your arm through his so you can lead him down the hallway towards the room you both would be staying in.

The room that was, technically, booked for only one person.

The room that only has one bed.

It's not like you don't want to share a bed with him, you're more worried that he might not want it, with his whole 'germ' thing. Not that he really seemed to care about that the other day, when he drank straight from your water bottle without a care in the world, then proceeded to ask you out on a date.

"I can sleep on the floor, if you'd like," he offers quietly as he shuts the door behind him.

You immediately dismiss that idea, shaking your head before the words are even fully out of his mouth. "You're not sleeping on the floor, Spencer, that's not fair," you say quickly, a sly smile tugging at the corner of your mouth. "That is, as long as you're alright with me sleeping in my underwear, because I will be doing that."

Of course you're half-joking — if there's any indication that he's uncomfortable with that idea you'll just sleep in a t-shirt and shorts, it's just that you'd much rather not in this heat.

"N-no, no," he says, his voice pitched just a little too high. He's blushing from head to toe, you know that without even looking at him. "You can s-sleep in whatever you want to, I don't mind."

It's entirely unprofessional, you know that, but you really can't help it as you instantly begin tearing your sweat-drenched clothes from your body, tossing them around haphazardly until you're left in only your bra and underwear. You don't waste another second, flopping onto the bed, briefly stretching your limbs out, then rolling to one side.

It's a relief to be out of those clothes...

Only now do you realize that Spencer has not moved an inch from were he was standing when you initially asked the question, face bright red, breathing uneven as he tries desperately to keep his eyes from dipping from your face.

"Come on, I don't bite," you say quietly, patting the empty space on the other side of the bed, meanly deciding it would be funny to tease him, "not unless you ask very nicely."

Nervously, he drops his stuff beside the door and makes his way towards the bed, siting on the edge of his side. You're sure you can see him sneaking glances down at your chest every now and then, when he thinks you're not paying attention.

Who is he kidding? You're always paying attention to him, clinging onto every word he says like you'll die if you forget a single one.

"Come on, Spencer," you urge, "you've literally shared spit with me, don't get all shy now."

You're phrasing it that way as a joke, and you're sure he knows that.

But the next words that come out of his mouth leave you stunned, mouth dropped open and butterflies stampeding through your stomach, heart beating a million miles an hour.

You're not expecting something like this to come out of his mouth, really, but after his strange confidence the other day in drinking all your water and asking you out, you're not sure what to expect now.

"Can you please bite me, then?"

[oneofthetorturedpoets]

Keep on pretending pretty girl.

based on pretty girls by Renee Rapp.

Regina George x Reader

You wouldn't say that you were popular but you were definitely well known, mainly for the fact that you were openly gay and stood up for yourself if anyone had something to say.

You knew how Regina George ran the school, but you never had to interact with her, fortunately for you. Though because of your clashing personalities everyone anticipated a fight between you too, knowing you wouldn't back down, even from the top plastic.

-

You held your lunch tray out in front of you as you were walking towards your table, as you were walking a jock slapped your food out of your hands.

"What's up, lesbo?" He says, you stand still, shocked at the situation. No one has ever tried to be violent with you, it was mainly just name calling.

You look up towards the guy, who you found to be Shane Omen "What the fuck dude?"

He chuckles, mockingly. "Aw, I'm sorry, were you going to eat that?"

You shake your head, deciding to just ignore him and leave. As you went to do that, he pushed you, causing you to stumble. You grab the table to save yourself.

"Where do you think you're going? I'm not done with you, dyke." You whip around, before he could even react to you facing him now, you swing your fist, hooking him right in the jaw. His head flew to the side, his hand immediately going up to try and soothe his mouth.

All the way across the gym, Regina George is watching the interaction, heat shooting straight through her body as she watches you sock her ex boyfriend in the face-

Wait did she think that was hot? No, she's not gay.

-

After the so called fight in the gym, your day was fine. You tried to ignore the shooting pain in your knuckles as you fixed your hair in the mirror. You see the door open and Regina walks through. She smirks at you.

She stands next to you, starting to adjust her her lipstick. "What's up, loser?"

You look over at her. "Uh, nothing much. what about you?" The sentence coming off more awkward than you wanted.

"I'm having a party this weekend, I want you there." Her tone makes your heart skip a beat.

"Just tell me when and where, I'll be there."

-

The weekend came sooner than you thought, leaving you rummaging through your closet. You finally find an outfit that is still your style but you're sure Regina would approve.

You walk through Regina's front door, the lights are dimmed and music is blaring. You weave through the people who were either drinking, dancing or eating each other's faces.

You find the drink table, grabbing a drink for yourself. You felt a hand on your arm, looking over to see Regina. "You came."

"Well you did invite me." You say, jokingly.

She snickers. "I wasn't sure you would show, this doesn't seem like your thing."

You shake your head. "It's not, but I figured I should try it before I have real life responsibilities."

"Well, I hope my party lives up to all of your expectations." As soon as she says that, she's wondering back into the crowd of people.

-

You find yourself sitting in a corner, the party really wasn't your thing. None of your friends were invited, so there was no one you could talk to, except for the occasional Regina.

She was sweeter than you thought she would be. Maybe it's because you haven't done anything wrong, but then again she snaps at people for just looking at her.

Speaking of her, she walks over to you, a sway in her walk. "Hey, loser."

"Hey, Regina" She slides into the spot next to you.

The smell of alcohol and expensive perfume invading your nose. You feel her turn to face you, you follow the action. "So, you're gay, aren't you?"

Ohh so this is the part where Regina finds something to tease you over and throws you out of the party? "Yeah, I like girls."

"That's cool." She says, the tension builds. "Is there any girl you have your eye on?" Her tone sounds almost like she wanting a specific answer.

"Not really, I don't talk to many people" She nods along with your statement.

She plays with her fingers. "You know... if I were gay, you would probably be my type." She inches close towards you.

You've heard that before, so many times. All of the straight girls who wanted to experiment. Why was this time different? Why did butterflies swarm your stomach? Why were you leaning in?

Before you knew it, your lips collide. A spark that makes your skin irrupt into a blush. Her hands get lost in your hair, trying to pull you closer. Your hand squeezes her thigh. You pull away, finally coming to your senses.

"What about Aaron?" Your hands remain in the same spot.

"Don't worry, he won't mind." You try to leave the situation, do the right thing and leave, but when she staring at you with her dilated pupils and kiss-swollen lips. you pull her in for another kiss, all coherent thoughts fly out of your mind, except for one that kept circling.

How can Regina be so mean if her lips are this sweet?

"Regina- oh my god" Gretchen screams.

You go to pull away but Regina holds you in place for another second, savoring the moment. "What Gretchen?" Regina was more annoyed than you thought. was she really that into the kiss?

"Aaron was looking for you, but I see that you're... busy" Gretchen looked you up and down.

Regina could tell Gretchen was judging you. "Yeah, I am actually. Tell him I left." Before Gretchen could even turn around, Regina pulls you in for a deep kiss. The action causing you to melt into her.

-

"Everyone is gone, Regina." You mutter against her lips, she slowly pulls away.

She sighs. "God, I can't get enough of you." Her sentence caused you to blush. "You know, we barely get to talk but you've always been my favorite. I think it's because you're not scared of me? I don't know but I've been watching you and I think you're cool." She plays with your hand, seeming nervous.

You smile at her. "I must be cool if I could do this." You pull her in for another kiss, she moans. You pull away, sooner than Regina wanted. she tries to follow you but eventually you break apart.

"I absolutely love what we got goin' on here but I think I should go home." She rolls her eyes, glancing over to the clock on her wall, it reads '3:00 AM'. She realizes how long you two have been there.

"Oh shit, you're right" Regina gets up, adjusting her outfit. “This was fun, baby” She pecks your lips one last time before leaving the room.

-

As you walk into the school, you’re nervous to see Regina. You’re not sure why, she said she had fun last night.

You see her passing by. "Hey Regina!" She ignores you, pushing right pass you.

What the fuck?

You brush it off, deciding to continue on with your day. You walk into your first period, the only open seat was next to Regina. You walk over there, she turns away from you as much as she can. Visibly avoiding you.

Half way through the period, you try and talk to her. "Regina, if you're mad-"

She cuts you off immediately. "Why are you talking to me? We never talked before. What changed?"

You scoff. "You know exactly what changed, but if we're going to play that game, let's do it."

Regina looks at you, slightly shocked.

-

The next time you see regina that day is in fifth period, right before lunch. She's sitting in the seat you always sit at.

"You're in my seat." You stare down at her.

She smirks. "It doesn't have your name on it."

"It actually does, I carved it in to the desk when I was bored. So get out." She looks down, seeing your name faintly carved into the plastic.

You tap your foot, getting impatient. "That doesn't make it yours. I've decided I want to sit here today."

You shake your head. "I preferred it when you didn't talk to me." You turn around, storming off to a different desk.

-

The period finally ended, after what felt like forever. You packed your notebook in your backpack, quickly leaving the class, as you were walking down the hall, a hand pulled you into the janitors closet.

"What the hell-" You were interrupted by lips crashing into yours. You quickly pull away, relieved to see Regina, but also extremely confused. "Regina-" She cut you off again. Kissing you passionately, not letting you think about anything else except for her. You kiss her back, her taste too intoxicating to not. When air became a problem, she pulled away.

"God, I hate you" She whispers against your lips.

Your brows crinkle in confusion. "Why?"

She kisses you lightly. "I think you've brought out the part of me I've been trying to keep away all these years."

"Maybe instead of hating me, you should be thanking me." She smirks.

"I think I'm showing you enough gratitude." Your lips meet again, passion overflowing.

[devilfic]

❝right place, right time❞

VIII. whatever keeps you around.

parts: previously / next plot: bruce has a proposal for you. pairing: battinson!bruce wayne x gn!reader. cw: surgeon!reader, secret identities, slow burn, brief discussion of slight suicidal ideation/martyrdom, drug (and the injection of drugs) mentions, you will not guess what trope I managed to include in here. words: 6.9k. a/n: plotting this series makes me feel like charlie day pointing at a wall of red string

“…You won’t like it.”

It's clear what you have to do. You'd realized it when Gordon came to you, so of course Bruce did too. If you were going to make this right, you would have to face this head on. "I know what I have to do," you start, "I need to lure him out."

Bruce's expression shifts. Whatever you've said seems to be the wrong answer, "That... won't be necessary."

"What? What else can I do?"

"What did Gordon tell you about Dimitri?"

Your head throbs as you recall the memory, "Uh... he said he believes I'm next on Dimitri's hit list. He also said Dimitri hadn't anticipated me being at the house."

"Right, because Russo didn't want anyone knowing where he was." Bruce turns to his computer and brings up Russo's file, "After his divorce and the death of his son, he holed up and started erasing himself from the internet. As far as his neighbors know, he was constantly alone. You already know how hard it was to find him on your own, and unless Dimitri knew someone keeping tabs, it doesn't stand to reason that he found him any easier. But you, on the other hand," Bruce opens a search engine and types in your name. You're unsettled when the screen fills with results, most of them news articles from the night you'd been held hostage, "your name and face was everywhere after the gang war."

When the reporters had shoved cameras in your face and begged for you to tell them about Batman's heroic rescue, you hadn't thought twice about it, still fresh from the throes of gore and violence in the ER. Friends, family, coworkers: almost everyone you knew had seen it.

It clicks for you then, "If Dimitri planned on killing us both and I was easiest to find, why didn't he come for me first? I mean... it was me and Alex who ruined his life. If he wanted anyone dead more, wouldn't it be me?"

"I wondered the same thing. With the know-how and the right connections, anyone could find where you live just by name alone. Russo, on the other hand, is almost anonymous. It doesn't make sense why Dimitri would target Russo first."

"Do you think maybe it was a warning? Maybe he wanted to scare me."

"If he wanted to warn you, he wouldn't kill the guy in his house where no one checks up on him. Days would've passed before anyone noticed the flies in the windows."

"I don't get it."

"Do you remember how long it's been since you were taken hostage?"

Your mind lands on a weak estimate, "I don't know, a week and a half?"

"It's been over two weeks. According to the wardens, Dimitri stopped being a problem for them after the first few years. Friends with a rough crowd but he rarely got caught up in anything. Didn't have the heart to. So why, after 17 years, does he break out?"

Your stomach drops, "He saw me."

"And realized that while he was rotting away with nothing to live for, you were a hero," the word sickens you to hear, "on the front lines, saving lives, being saved. Your life went back to normal."

You grip the side of Bruce's desk with the sudden urge to vomit up everything you'd eaten today, which, frankly, wouldn't add up to much more than water and crackers.

You'd said it yourself: you'd gotten to live a life that Natalie, Dimitri, and Alex never would. Of course he wanted you dead. "So then I have to lure him out."

"And put yourself in danger? No."

"I’m already in danger, Bruce. What if he goes after the others? My parents? My coworkers? The other cops at the shootout? We have to end it now."

"This isn't the only way."

"It's the best way."

"Last time he had a knife, you could defend yourself. Barely. What if next time, he has a gun?"

"So what, you just want to do nothing?"

Bruce turns away from you. He gnaws on his lower lip, "No, I want to bide our time. Look into him more. I need to know if he's working with the Vipers again."

You watch him as he begins typing away at his computer, but you can't process what he's looking for through the haze of anger that washes over you. You lean on the desk, craning your neck up at his face to make him look at you, to understand how ridiculous he sounds, "We don't have time for that. His grudge is with me. I should meet him now and end this... either he gets what he wants or- or..."

Or what? Your stubbornness peters out. You don't know what. You see yourself standing face-to-face with Dimitri, his knife raised, ready to bury itself into the cushion of your chest. And nothing.

The you in this vision has no weapon.

"You don't think you're going to survive this." Coming out of your mind, Bruce is now looking at you, brows furrowed. He looks... mortified.

You scramble to cover your tracks, "That's not true. I'd have you there."

"But you don't want me there. You want to go alone. You think you deserve it."

"God, what are you? My therapist?" Your words flit out of your mouth in a rush, tongue nearly slipping up to defend yourself. You push away from the desk when you start feeling overexposed.

Bruce follows you, "You're not 16 anymore, this isn't some gang fight where you throw all your chips in because you can't see a year ahead of you. You've made a life. You've got people to lose, you said so yourself. I know what it's like... the survivor's guilt. You relive that day over and over-"

His words are making you feel sick to your stomach again and you lurch forward, finger in his face, "Don't you fucking preach to me-"

Almost as immediately as you'd raised your finger, Bruce snatches your wrist in his hand, yanking you close enough to be imposing, staring down at you with the same power that the Batman had used. It was so sudden that you quickly fall slack, wrist going limp in his grip.

It had completely sobered you of your tantrum, and for better or for worse, you were forced to listen to him, "Stop feeling sorry for yourself and think. You see this ending with you dead because you want to make up for the shit you did. You think that's what Alex wants? For you to bleed out in an alley like she did?" And just like that, the fire roars in you once more, but your other hand can't slap him across the face before he's caught that one too, "No future? What about all the people you've saved? Could still save? Face it now because you may not get another chance: you're alive. Do you want to be or not?"

You want to hurt him, turn his skin red and give it a place among the other bruises that glitter and glare down his torso, and as your hand shakes in his hold, you are forced to understand that you are angry because he is right.

You'd felt this same anger before. When your parents told you Alex was a bad influence on you. When Russo looked you in the eye and told you that you didn't have it in you to pull the trigger. It was maddening. He had clocked your suicide mission before even you had, had seen you in his mind's eye the way you saw yourself: disarmed, a lamb to the slaughter, a sacrifice for the greater good, a speedbump.

You could see Batman tackling him to the ground over your dying body. You couldn't see yourself getting up the next day.

After the frustration leaves Bruce's eyes, he's looking at you with something softer. You feel known, uncomfortably so, as he waits for you to meet him there.

And when you do, you hate how you collapse into him. Even more, you hate that he takes you up into his arms, holding you steadfast, as understanding as you needed him to be with all your fear of admitting it. The solidness of his body reminds you of the night he'd first held you, and that just makes you cry harder.

It feels different from last time. Where there was armor is now warm skin, the likes of which you hadn't felt in a while. If you had told your past self you'd one day be standing in Batman's cave, hugging Bruce Wayne and crying over the permanence of your mistakes, you might have diagnosed yourself with head trauma.

You screw your eyes shut in a vain attempt to put the tears to rest, your freed hands practically clawing at Bruce's warm back for some purchase, some stability. He doesn't seem to mind. He just holds you closer.

After a few minutes, you force yourself to speak, sniffling away the last remaining tears you'd allow yourself to shed, "You said I wouldn't like it. Your plan. What is it?"

"To disappear."

You wrench yourself back. Bruce is dead serious. "What?"

"I've considered it from all angles-"

"What do you mean, 'disappear'?"

"All but one of the prisoners Dimitri broke out with are still missing. How do we know they're not all working together? How do we know that you luring him out won't draw them out too? You were the easiest target before, not anymore."

"Say what you mean, Bruce. What do you want me to do?"

"I want to hide you here," he winces as he says this, as if aware of his words only now that they're out in the open, "with me."

"You're shitting me."

After a while, Bruce's face hardens, "I told you you wouldn't like it."

Liking it or not liking it was nothing. You'd advanced past "like". You were firmly out of your depth here.

You slip out of Bruce's hold and he lets you, standing rather awkwardly as you rub a hand across your mouth. Despite earlier, it now feels uncomfortably dry. You glance at Bruce and then at his screen, the tab with your name and face plastered all over it hovering in the background. "You want me to disappear off the face of the earth while you track him down. Leave my home, leave the people I care about, abandon my job. You want me to hide."

"I don't know how else to protect you. Not until we figure out what we're up against." Bruce watches you spin away, scoffing into the air, "You noticed it when you fought him off, didn't you? Something was really wrong with him."

You see flashes of Dimitri's feral stare, the way he staggered and swung. He was like a rabid animal in a cage. "Of course there was, he was trying to kill me."

"Beyond that," Bruce insists, "he wasn't right. I've seen it before. He was on something."

"Most people are these days. I wouldn't be surprised if he'd... I don't know, gotten his hands on drops or something-"

"It wasn't drops. Gordon told me."

"The detective?"

"He said they found a syringe with traces of venom in it. Dimitri's shooting up. That's why he was so strong."

Your mouth drops open in disbelief, "Venom? Great. Somehow worse than Drops."

"If he's on that drug, he's definitely addicted. It also means you won't stand a chance against him. This is why I'm telling you to stay here," Bruce steps forward, eyes imploring yours. You're dumbstruck by the heavy earnestness there, "stay in the tower. Hide here for a few days. Let me handle this."

"If he's on venom, it means he doesn't think he can handle you on his own," you wring your hands, flitting through images of the Dimitri you remember, "he was always really small. Even at fourteen, he hadn't really sprung up. He was scrawny and small and couldn't defend himself. Suddenly Gordon's saying he's almost twice the size of what I remember. Have you ever fought someone on venom?"

"Once or twice, somewhere between fixes. Why?"

"General has this kind of... sedative that we use when we get patients dealing with the effects. It's not perfect, but it does help calm them down enough to help them. Maybe we can use it to help him."

"The strain is constantly changing," Bruce watches you deflate and clears his throat, "but if I can get that sedative, I can use it as a base to make a new one."

"You need clearance to get your hands on that stuff. I'm going with you."

"What part of disappear do you not understand?"

"One, I never agreed to do that, and two, if Batman gets caught stealing from a hospital, that'll make you public enemy number one. You need my help, so let me help you."

Bruce is looking away, rolling his bottom lip between his teeth even as you zero in on him. You're getting flashbacks of that same Bruce from when you'd first met him here in this tower. All tender-eyed, even as he tries to put on a face for you, "And I need a drink," you rub your temple next, catching a glimpse of Bruce watching you from his peripheral, "You've got those, don't you?"

It turns out Bruce has plenty. There's a whole cellar full of them, the kinds you see in MTV Cribs with the low recessed lighting and mahogany shelves gleaming with polish. It makes sense for him to have it, but less so when he tells you he doesn't actually drink any of it.

"You weren't drinking at the party, either. Even though everyone else thought you were." You brush your hand along the shelves, careful not to knock any bottles loose. "Is that a trick to keep people spilling secrets? Or to keep from spilling your own?"

Bruce hovers near the entrance with his arms folded and back pressed to the wall, carefully watching you peruse his selection, "Maybe I don't like the taste."

"That's good. Men in Gotham die from alcoholism at a higher rate than any other city in the state."

"Really?"

"Really. You don't smoke either." Bruce blinks at you, "Just get shot at. And stabbed."

He says nothing.

Your hand lands on a red aged older than your mother and you stand to the side, looking expectantly at him. You're afraid that if you try to pick it up, you might knock down the whole row.

Slowly, Bruce pushes himself off the wall and glides over to you, grabbing the neck of the bottle in one hand and looking to you for approval. You try not to shrink yourself when you nod.

You follow him out of the cellar, flinching when the lights dim behind you and the door rolls shut all on its own. He guides you to the kitchen where night still hangs over Gotham outside the window, but the time on the stove clock warns of early morning soon.

Bruce pulls out two glasses and fills yours with wine and his with cranberry juice from the fridge. You could almost laugh at the pairing.

Once he slides your glass to you, you take a seat at the island and take a sip, "I need to ask you something. I get now why you refused me at the station, but then you came back. Why did you change your mind? I mean, neither of us knew Russo would be dead when we got there. Were you just going to let me hate you?"

"Yes." His simple response draws a quick, stifled laugh out of you.

"Are you always this... chaotic?"

Bruce leans his elbows on the countertop, hunching in on himself, "I always meant to tell you who I was. I just didn't know when. And I didn't mind if you hated Bruce Wayne, but... you trusted Batman. I didn't want to break that trust. Even if it meant telling you earlier than I planned, I wanted to give you some closure."

You think about the fear that had paralyzed you back then, thinking that Bruce Wayne was some big, bad criminal hiding behind polite society. Then you think about the real man, hiding behind a mask. You fidget uncomfortably, struggling with feeling somewhere between grateful and nauseous. Your eyes catch the stitches on his shoulder and you itch to wipe away the dried blood that had dribbled from the cut, "You said you were looking for Dimitri when you got that. Did you..."

Bruce catches your eye when you fail to finish your question. "No," he answers solemnly, "which is only part of our problem." He stands to his full height, flexing bruised knuckles against the counter, "I ran into one of the guys that broke out with Dimitri tonight. That's who gave me this. Dimitri isn't working alone."

You frown, "Is he trying to shake you? Why leave clues at all?"

"Because these people want me dead. The guy from tonight? I booked him a year ago for trafficking women. Earlier led me to a fringe group of Falcone's."

"You've been looking for Dimitri all day?"

"I haven't stopped since we found Russo. I couldn't."

You rub your arms, feeling the room grow chiller by the second, "So... so he's leaving clues to people who hate you. To keep you occupied." Bruce nods. "So he can get to me?"

"After last night, he knows the Batman is on your side."

"Dimitri wasn't out when you got on the scene. Do you think maybe he's taking venom because these guys warned him about you?"

Bruce smirks, rolling his eyes as he takes a sip from his glass, "As a precaution, sure. And now he has reason to believe I know you. If he's going to go after you, he's going to shoot up each time."

"That stuff is nasty. You're big and scary when you're on it but as soon as the effects wear off-"

"You deflate like a balloon. It's also stupid expensive, so he's either got real generous prison pals or he's being used. It's why I need to know if he's working with the Vipers. They might be supplying him."

How you'd gone from an ordinary surgeon to a detective in the span of mere weeks was beyond you. You're beyond just treading water. You're diving into the abyss.

Your brain struggles to make real what is before you. Bruce, still shirtless, drinking delicately from a glass as he watches the night sky shimmer from the kitchen window. And you, sitting across from him, cracking open one of his family's expensive bottles that, frankly, puts your pantry vinos to shame. Playing vigilantes like schoolchildren. Except the blood on you both is very real.

Your arm throbs at being remembered for once tonight. Bruce notices you touch it, "You need to get some rest."

You know he's right, and you're not arguing for the sake of arguing when you say, "I can't sleep yet." But he can tell there's more on your mind as he waits silently, almost egging you on to lay yourself bare. You swear you're not arguing just for the sake of arguing, "And I don't want to disappear. I want to be alive."

Bruce says nothing. The silence isn't humiliating like you'd think it be, even if the first few seconds leave you feeling just as laid bare as you thought you would. No. It feels acknowledging. Understanding, even.

For the first time, you look at Bruce and feel like you understand him. If he was really Batman, then he would know better than anyone why you would want to put yourself in danger. But beneath that, with the meager knowledge of who Bruce Wayne is, you also think you understand him too.

He'd mentioned the survivor's guilt. While he'd played a much more innocent role in the whole ordeal, you couldn't imagine the weight on one's chest knowing that two people you love didn't get to go on but you did. It's a lot to ask of a child barely coming to understand the mortality of one's own keepers.

The choice to be alive for someone like that is a deliberate choice. Constantly made every morning.

"There is another way," Bruce muses, "but you'll like it even less."

"Don't leave me hanging."

"We could go public."

"What?"

"You said disappearing would mean abandoning your life. And it would. No one could know where you went, who you were with, but there's always the chance someone might slip up. It's the safest option but it's not what you want. So don't hide." Bruce's eye contact is deep and unwavering. Compared to earlier, he seems to trust you're willing to listen this time, "Be mine."

For the nth time tonight, you are rendered nearly speechless. Nearly. "Are you fucking with me?"

Bruce's eyes narrow, "No."

"Did you just... proposition me?"

"I made a proposal."

"You're asking me to date you."

"Publicly. Batman has more enemies than allies, but Bruce Wayne has the people. If you and I are publicly linked, it tells everyone looking for you that the world is watching. It makes you more visible, as well as anyone who comes after you."

"You haven't slept," you reason, "clearly. And you're delirious."

"I haven't slept, no." But he looks fairly sober for someone who hasn't slept in a day. He is a different breed, this Bruce Wayne.

You peer out the kitchen window and see the black sky dipping into a blue horizon, "Then sleep on it and come up with something better."

Bruce rounds the island until he's standing beside you, looking down at your barely touched wine, "There's some spare rooms upstairs. You can take your pick." It dawns on you that you may not be going back home any time soon. "You know your way around."

You suppose you deserve that dig.

Then he's leaving you, glasses abandoned, home for you to explore. You don't realize how thick the air had gotten with him right next to you until he's gone.

You half-expect Alfred to pop up somewhere nearby, but there's nothing. This far up, there is no city to listen for, no neighbors slamming doors. You are in a cold house all alone. You suddenly wish he'd stayed to keep you company, even if the weight of it was beginning to take its toll on you. Left alone, you only had the sunrise.

You watch until the sky has all but chased the night away, and then you head upstairs.

You didn't think you'd get much sleep in a stranger's bed, but you're being roused by a sharp, successive rapping at your door several hours later. It jolts you awake, kick-starting your heart, and you clumsily tumble out of the million thread count sheets to open the door.

Alfred stands there fully dressed for the day, one hand tucked in his pocket and the other still raised to knock. Upon seeing you, he lowers his fist, "Morning," he starts, looking away as soon as he meets your eyes, "breakfast is ready. Come get it before it's cold."

He does not give you a choice in the matter. He's already limping toward the staircase without another word.

After you get your heart to settle down, you follow after him, preening yourself as you pass hallway mirrors and portraits of the Wayne family through the generations. You hadn't come down this hallway when you'd found the terminus elevator, so you stumble to a stop in front of a portrait of a young Bruce grinning ear to ear.

It startles you. His eyes are soft, a gentle humming blue untouched by wrinkle or darkness. He must've been especially young here. Glancing at a nearby portrait of his parents, you find him the spitting image of his father. You look around and realize there are no portraits of Bruce at this age.

Bruce. He might be at breakfast, and the mere thought of having to discuss what occurred last night almost turns you right back around to the guest room, but your stomach rumbling begs you not to. You still walk quietly, peering around corners in case your stomach changed its mind.

You find you're cautious for naught when the only person standing in the kitchen is Alfred, chopping up fresh fruit.

"I hope you don't mind that I moved your things," he gestures with his paring knife to your surgical tools neatly congregated on the counter, "I cleaned them too."

"Oh. You didn't need to do that."

"There was blood, so I'm afraid I did." Alfred places a bit of pressure on "blood", and you quickly take note of his short tone.

Still, all the same, he then gestures to the island and implores you take a seat in front of an empty plate. Without asking, he begins pushing steaming hot food onto your plate, "Tea or coffee?" He asks, barely looking up at you.

"Uh, coffee is fine. Thanks." You watch Alfred pour you a mug and wonder if the awkwardness with him is any more preferable to the awkwardness with Bruce. Alfred is passive-aggressive, Bruce is... aggressive. You remember how the latter had left off your night together and find yourself feeling warmer toward Alfred. "How long have you been up?"

"Since 6, although I woke a few times through the night."

You wince, "Sorry."

"No need to apologize. I did think Bruce had invited you over under different circumstances, so... not as alarming, all things considered." Your grip on your fork slips and it clatters to the marble. Alfred barely reacts.

"He needed stitches." Is all you can get out.

"Yes, I'm well aware."

You glance up at him, "You saw?"

"When he first arrived home, yes. I was the one who helped stop the bleeding."

You stare at the coffee sweating in your cup, recalling something Bruce had mentioned last night, "Bruce said you were the one who used to stitch him up."

"Yes."

"If you were there, why-"

"It's what he pays you for, isn't it?" Alfred almost snaps back at you, slicing a strawberry into quarters with more edge than needed.

You recall something else next. The softness in Alfred's face the day you first came here, arguing with Bruce in the very room next door. You'd wondered what it had all been about.

"I've done alright, haven't I?"

"He said something else too," you start, careful as you choose your next words, "about how much you worry about him." You fiddle with your mug, pretending not to feel the heat of Alfred's eyes on you, "I think the reason he hired me is because he was worried about you."

You just catch the tail-end of Alfred's frown, "Worried about me? Why?"

You probably aren't close enough to either of these two to laugh about this, but you do anyway, "Isn't it kind of obvious?"

"Nonsense. We always discussed... if it would come to it, that if he were to pursue this life further, that he would recruit professionals who might aid him in his work. It was the natural thing to do."

"Maybe, yeah. But would he have really needed me if you weren't already doing everything else for him? You've taken good care of him this long. I mean, the aftercare you gave his bullet wound was exceptional. I accused him of talking to other doctors."

Alfred busies himself with scraping his strawberry halves into a bowl, "It's basic knowledge. You learn that kind of thing in the service."

"Or when you invited me to watch you two spar. You know his body probably better than he does. You're fantastic, Alfred." You couldn't say you weren't also trying to butter him up to better his feelings toward you, but you were speaking truth all the same.

In a very British way, he rebuts your compliments and spoons some fruit into a glass, beginning to layer some yogurt over top them, "Regardless of reason, you are here now, and I'll have you know that every part of your contract covers this. Wayne Enterprises will exhaust every possible legal tool at our leisure if you speak of any—any—of this to anyone. Master Bruce's identity is safely guarded, and regardless of his trust in you, I will not hesitate-"

"Whoa, whoa, hey. I would never tell anyone. Not after all Batman has done for me." You press a hand over your heart for emphasis, "He is just as much my patient as Bruce Wayne is, and he didn't have to pay me to take care of him."

Alfred still stares you down like a guard dog, paring knife still clutched in his fingers. After a moment, he looks away from you and points at your plate, "Eat. It's getting cold."

So you do. It's good so you say as much, counting any point toward his affection as a good thing. If you could get Alfred to trust you, you'd call that a win.

The tension in the air dissipates over time, and after you've licked your plate clean, you and Alfred are sharing coffee together. "Bruce isn't joining us?"

"I've stopped expecting him to be awake this early." You glance at the clock that reads 10:12. "He has adopted a near-fully nocturnal lifestyle."

"The night that he crawled through my window, he was there at the hospital the next morning like nothing happened. He doesn't do that often?"

"Before last year, it was a rare occurrence. While he's dedicated himself to his role more recently, if he can avoid it, he will."

You think back to what knowledge you do have on Bruce's charity work and his friendship with the Mayor. You'd worked shifts just as long, but you couldn't imagine showing up to work mere hours after getting shot in the stomach and having to put on a brave face about it. You almost feel bad for calling him out on it in front of everyone.

But then again, if you hadn't, would you even be sitting here?

You swirl the last vestiges of coffee in your cup, trying to picture a world in which you'd gone and found that empty office to nap in instead of toddling behind Rudy and Em and Alfred and Batman. The Batman.

The novelty of it brings a fresh wave of dizziness over you. You had been exposed to so much information over the course of the last 12 hours that it hadn't fully settled in on you what Bruce was. You didn't think that your brain would process it even if he was standing in cowl and cape right in front of you.

"I suppose you'll be staying with us for the near future, if Bruce has anything to say about it," Alfred stands from his chair beside you and puts your dishes in the sink, "shall I inform your security detail or would you like to?"

You don't know what to say to that. "I'm... I think I should talk this over with Bruce first. It may not need to come to that."

The butler shrugs. "I'll be attending to some house duties for the rest of the morning. Should you stay for lunch, let Dory know, hm?" You give him a weak nod and watch as he makes his way from the sink and heads down another hallway out of sight.

Not too long after Alfred leaves you, you hear the doorbell ring. Bruce hadn't mentioned to you that any guests would be here today, but then again, the two of you had had more important things to discuss last night. You check your reflection in the glass of the kitchen window, wondering if there were any hidden doors in the bookcases that could hide you from whatever Wayne Enterprises exec that was coming to talk business, but you wouldn't trust yourself not to break something in the process.

You hear two pairs of footsteps approaching from the elevator and turn to see who it might be. You first recognize Dory, fluttering between frantic small talk and making sure not to trip in her kitten heels as she guides her guest into the living room. You stiffen as soon as you see him.

Detective Gordon catches your eyes instantly, his own widening. Dory says something about going to fetch Bruce before she quickly ascends the stairs, leaving you and James staring at each other across the distance. In one hand is a notepad and pencil, and the other fixes his tie, almost as if at a loss for words. He greets you, hesitantly leaving where Dory had left him to approach you, "I saw the boys out front but... I didn't expect to see you here."

"Me neither." You reply. "Is everything okay?"

James glances up at the stairs as he passes underneath, "That depends. I followed up on your request."

Shit. Of course a cop would do their job when you least expect it. You slip out of your chair and rush to meet him halfway into the kitchen, "Did... did you find something?"

"I can't say much right now. I'd like to talk to Mr. Wayne, but-" The sound of Dory's heels clacking against the wooden stairs makes James lower his voice, "-you being here complicates things."

Bruce is wearing a shirt this time, thankfully, though you're not expecting him to look as put together this early after what Alfred had said. He towers behind Dory's much smaller frame in a pair of loose black pants and a matching turtleneck, looking in a fashionable state of undress as he pads barefoot into the room. With hair slicked back and stubble freshly shaved, he doesn't look like someone caught unaware. He's fixing the sleeve of his sweater when he extends a hand to Detective Gordon, bright smile and all, "Detective James Gordon, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Mr. Wayne, I'm sorry for dropping in unannounced. If this is a bad time, I can come back." James gestures to you.

Bruce's look at you is empty, devoid of any detectable emotion or thought. It strikes you as unsettling, the same way a cashier at the end of their shift isn't really looking at you, "Oh, no. I was just on my way to work when I felt unwell. I called my doctor over but it was nothing to worry about. A little stomach bug, is all."

You do look like you'd just come over in a rush. You're still in your lounge clothes from the night before, and your medical supplies are still in the kitchen where Alfred had left them. James seems to notice, but he doesn't look any more relaxed. "That's good to hear. I don't want to keep you too long, but truth is, I have some questions I'd like to ask you if you have the time."

"Is something wrong?" James glances between you and Bruce, something the latter doesn't miss, "is it sensitive?"

"It's about the party you threw here the other night, Mr. Wayne. For Mayor Reál. I hear you invited quite a few Gotham politicians to celebrate the passing of the mayor's new bill, correct?"

"That's correct."

"And I understand you're quite invested in Gotham politics in general, much like your father."

"I am. My mother and father were very interested in the city, and Mayor Reál breathed new life into that for me after the election. I do what I can to support the cause."

"And that cause is...?"

Bruce takes the skeptical tone on the chin, smiling wider, "A safer, fairer Gotham. For everyone."

This Bruce was nothing like the Bruce you had all to yourself. He taps into that persona from the party with ease. Watching him is like watching a performance. "That's good, good. I notice you try to make an effort with charities in the city, donations and the like. You recently donated a new wing to Gotham General."

"I did. Increasing access to medical care for the citizens is important to me. My doctor, a talented surgeon at General, knows this well." You flash a timid smile when both Bruce and James look to you.

"And you also financially support politicians in Gotham."

"Occasionally. Anyone I feel has Gotham's best interests in mind."

"And have you found members of Gotham's political parties to be unusually forward in requesting your support, Mr. Wayne? Perhaps a little too pushy, maybe."

Bruce wears confusion well, "Not necessarily. I'm not easily pressured into doing things I have no interest in."

"Of course. How about any attempts to win over your support? Publicly or otherwise."

"I'm not sure what you're asking, detective. I'd love to help, but I don't think I have the information you're looking for."

James nods, holding his chin high, "My apologies. I should've been clear from the beginning. My question is: have any politicians or members of law enforcement offered you anything in exchange for your financial or public support? I have reason to believe there may be someone with high clearance exchanging confidential information with civilians. Especially ones who can pay. I'm just looking for a lead."

James frames his question well, even though any fat cat familiar with the cops could see the hidden question. Bruce frowns, tilts his head, shaking it slowly, "That's awful. I don't currently know of anyone doing such a thing, to me or anyone else. But I can keep an eye out. I can only imagine how dangerous that might be."

"Exactly. We'd like to nip it in the bud as soon as possible."

"Of course. Do you have a card? Perhaps I can contact you if I hear anything."

James fishes out his card and hands it over, "I don't want to put you in a bad position, only pass along what you know if you feel safe enough to do so."

You notice Bruce is flicking the business card between his fingers as a fidget, though he keeps his attention respectfully on the detective. "Absolutely. Thank you, detective. Dory can show you to the door."

The detective nods and follows Dory out of the room. As soon as the two are out of earshot, Bruce's expression softens as he presses his back into the counter. You wish you could sink into the floor. "To be fair," you begin, "I didn't think he'd find anything."

Bruce side-eyes you, "That was you?"

"I thought my criminal boss was going to blackmail me to keep his secrets."

"Criminal boss." You think he's trying to mock you, but his eyes are surprisingly guilty when he looks at you, "Alfred wasn't kidding. I really didn't handle this well."

"No, not really." You don't mean to kick him while he's down, but you can't lie either. Even now, you were still making meaning out of this whole thing.

By all means, you've gone from knowing nothing about him, to understanding even less, to fearing him, to this. With Batman on the other hand, you'd felt nothing but loyalty and trust in him up until the very last second. Now they were both the same person, and the meager hours of sleep you'd gotten hadn't cleared all that up just yet.

You wonder who you're supposed to see now. Batman or Bruce Wayne? Why was the line separating them blurring the more you thought of them?

"So, did you ever come up with a better idea?"

Bruce does not offer one. You'd dreaded that.

"You already know what I think. No matter how we go about this, there's going to be something. So what do you want to do?" Bruce's eyes follow your ever minute expression, laser-focused on you. "Whatever you choose, I will keep you safe. I promise you."

He feels so staunchly Batman in this moment, even with the soft voice of Bruce, watching over you. Through all your uncertainty, this you believe him on.

And you're exhausted, you find. Your arm is beginning to throb again. You crave the reprieve of a bed but not your own, to your surprise.

"I'm going to trust you, Bruce," your voice wobbles as you say it out loud, "I'm going to trust you like I trust Batman."

Bruce holds eye contact with you for a few moments, "Okay."

"Can I ask... why are you dressed so nice?"

"We're going to get the sedative."

"You're going as Bruce?"

"It's the middle of the day. Yes, I'm going as Bruce. I'm not letting you out of my sight."

You fluster, suddenly reconsidering this entire plan. You'd pictured Batman skulking on the rooftop while you Mission Impossible'd your way into the medicine cabinets for what you needed. Walking in with him—the real him—would draw attention you didn't need, "You're only going to make me look suspicious."

"I'm your patient, and more importantly, I'm a donor."

"You will stick out like a sore thumb."

"That means when people are looking at me, they're not looking at you." You open your mouth to argue but he's already cutting you off, "Do you want me to drop you off at your place or do you want me to send someone to get your things?"

You're aware of what he's really asking.

You heave a sigh, "Drop me off. I can't promise Judith won't hurt someone if she finds a stranger in my house."

a/n: mj stop having the reader move in with bruce when their life is put in imminent danger challenge impossible

[turnersverse]

with the exception of you i dislike everyone in the room.

a/n: this is my first fic and i have no idea what i'm doing so please bear with! please feel free to leave any feedback bc the last time i wrote was over a year ago sooooo ...

you discover alex's true feelings for you after finding his notebook he is always writing in but never shows anyone

friends to lovers, alex and reader have been friends for about 10 years !

you'd been in the studio all day with the band, even though you weren't apart of it you would often help with some of the guitar parts, seeing as you played it yourself. the monkeys already had about 4 songs for their new record, and you had a feeling this album could boost them to worldwide fame.

you were sat next to jamie, who was plucking at random strings on his guitar, his face scrunched up in concentration as he worked out in his brain the arrangement of notes. matt and nick were stood behind alex, who was hunched over his notebook that he wrote anything to do with the monkey's music in.

"al, mate, we need the lyrics. i don't know what i'm doing over here." jamie said, still looking at his guitar.

"just write a riff or something, i dunno." alex mumbled, before adding. "and can you two stop breathing down my neck? all i'm going to be able to write is how nick o'malley's annoyingly hot breath was gliding over the back of my head."

matt and nick just laughed as alex glared at them, nick starting to purposefully blow air at alex.

"right, stop it now." alex frowned, standing up from his seat. "i'm going for a smoke." and with that he left the room.

"he's got loads of songs in that stupid little book, he just doesn't want us to see them. i have a theory that he's just gonna start a solo project." matt said, sitting down on the sofa next to you. nick still hovered by alex's previous seat, looking between the notebook and the other three.

"no, nick, you can't." you said, knowing what nick was planning on doing.

matt caught on quickly, "i mean, it wouldn't hurt. al's not gonna know..."

"yeah but if he doesn't want us to see them, he'll have a good reason for it." you argued. jamie sighed and stood up, walking to the door.

"i'll go speak to him." the guitarist said before leaving the room.

you sat back, more comfortably, on the sofa. "why don't one of you write something? 'r u mine' is fairly based on the drums."

matt just scoffed, "yeah, i'll write summat, and then alex will come up with some lyrics that won't fit it at all." this had happened just the other day with jamie, who had written 'the best riff of his life' (as he'd called it) before alex showed the rest of the band the lyrics to a song he'd called 'mad sounds', which was much slower than what jamie had come up with.

"lets just have a peak.." nick said, inching closer to the notebook.

"nick, no." you said firmly.

"nick, yes!" matt said, a stupid grin on his face. the drummer looked at his mate, and a look was exchanged between the two. before you could even register their plan, matt had pinned your arms behind your back as nick grabbed the notebook.

you gasped in shock, looking between the two lads. matt was laughing whilst nick flicked through the book, until he stopped. you watched as his eyes scanned the page, before he spoke up. "hey, this is really good."

"let us see then." matt said, and nick handed the notebook to matt. you glanced over, although you knew your best mate would be fuming if he found out, the anticipation had got to you. scribbled at the top of the page were the words 'stop the world i wanna get off with you'. you read through the lyrics, finding that the song was obviously some sort of love song.

"that is really good." you said quietly, a few lyrics sticking out to you. a few phrases you'd heard before. matt hummed, and started tapping the floor with his foot. he flicked to the next page, where alex had written the guitar part.

"oh yeah." matt nodded, "this is similar to the tune we did the other day. 'why'd you only call me when you're high?'"

nick nodded, "yeah i noticed that. dunno who the lyrics are about but its pretty good." as he mentioned the lyrics, matt glanced at him, a certain look in his eyes.

you caught that, confusion written on your face. alex was your best mate, if something was going on, he'd tell you. but you felt like you were missing something here.

just as nick was about to say something, alex and jamie walked back into the room. you, matt and nick all looked between each other and alex, your eyes saying 'uh oh'. alex glanced at matts lap and saw the book.

"what the fuck?" he stormed over to matt and snatched his precious notebook up.

"alex, its good!" matt said, raising his arms up in defence.

"i dont want to do that one." he said angrily.

"why not?" you added in, looking at alex.

alex sighed, looking at you before sitting in the seat he had been in before. "lets just do something else."

"no, lets do this." nick said, his hands now on his hips.

"i wanna see." jamie said, walking to alex and picking up the notebook. alex didnt stop him, he just sat watching jamie's reaction.

after a few moments, jamie looked up with a smile, "this is really good."

"thanks." alex mumbled.

"we could do it. we could do a bit of.." matt stood up and went to his drums, picking up his drumsticks and drumming a bit of a beat. "we could do a bit of that."

alex nodded in approval, "yeah. i wrote the guitar as well. its on the next page."

matt smiled, now knowing that alex had given in as jamie flicked to the next page and looked at the guitar part. "yeahhhhh." he said, nodding his head. he put the notebook down and picked up his guitar, strumming the parts he remembered. everyone in the room collectively nodded, as nick picked up his bass and started playing stuff that would go along with the main guitar.

⋅˚₊‧ 𐙚 ‧₊˚ ⋅

the band finished up in the studio 3 hours later, with a demo recorded for the album. alex had offered for you to go round his for tea, and you had gladly accepted. this was something the two of you did often; you would get together and order some sort of takeaway and spend most of the night talking. this had been a sort of tradition ever since alex bought his first house, and you and him spent the first night in there talking until the sun rose.

alex put out his cigarette before unlocking his car as you finished locking up the building. you got into the passenger side, flicking the radio on when alex started the car.

'starman' by david bowie was playing, a song you had always been fond of. you hummed along the the melodies as alex sat in a comfortable silence.

"i was thinking of covering summat for the album." alex spoke up, his accent prominent in his words.

"yeah?" you glance over at him, knowing he probably had an idea of what he wanted to cover by the tone of his voice.

"i was thinking that poem, the one you really like."

"what, 'i wanna be yours'?"

alex nodded. "yeah. thought it would be nice."

you nodded, a small smile on your face. "if you could pull it off. whats all this about though, with the new song and that? a new lover maybe?" you said, wiggling your eyebrows at alex.

"what? no!" he said, looking at you and then back at the road. "stop wiggling your eyebrows at me, you knob."

you just laugh in response, shaking your head as you turned your attention to the road. after a few moments, alex spoke up again.

"did you like the song though? i thought the lyrics were a bit.. i dunno.. cheesy."

"i think it's really good, al. it's similar to the stuff you wrote for 'suck it and see', in a way." you commented, holding back the other thoughts you had.

"yeah, i havent been feeling very.. romantic, lets say, since me and alexa broke up." alex said quietly, knowing that for the past 10 years, there probably hadn't been a single day he hadn't felt that way.

the two settled into a comfortable silence for the remainder of the journey back to alex's house. when they arrived, alex unlocked the door and you went straight to his living room, grabbing 'your' blanket from the back of the settee before settling in the corner of his l-shaped sofa, where you always sat. alex came back into the room with two cans: a can of carling and a pre-mix malibu and pineapple. he passed the latter to you, a quiet 'thank you' leaving your lips.

"chinese or pizza?" alex said, holding up the menus he had also collected from the kitchen.

you hummed, thinking for a moment. "pizza. usual order?"

alex nodded, reaching for his phone to order the food. you got comfy in your seat, pulling the blanket over your legs. you took the tv remote off the coffee table and flicked through the channels, not really reading what was on as something else plagued your mind.

"alright, cheers mate." alex said as he ended the call. "pizza will be here in 45 minutes."

you nodded, your eyes still focused on the tv screen. alex came and sat down next to you, pulling some of the blanket on to his lap and watching you try to find something to watch.

"that sounds good." he said to a true crime series you had stopped your scrolling to read the description of. you clicked on it and placed the remote back down on the coffee table, now concentrating on the series.

alex watched you for a few moments before watching the tv as well. he felt as if something was off with you. usually you would rest your head on his shoulder. he also felt like you'd been a lot quieter today, which you never are.

"are you okay?" he spoke up, watching you turn to look at him.

"uh, yeah." you said quickly, turning your attention back to the screen.

sighing, alex reached for the remote and paused the series. "no you're not. whats up?"

you pull your legs up to your chest, avoiding eye contact. "nothing, its just.." you trail off.

"just..?" alex said, waiting for you to continue.

you sigh, just deciding to spit it out. "the new song.. the lyrics."

alex felt his heart drop, knowing that you knew. "yeah?"

"'with the exception of you i dislike everyone in the room'. you said that to me. at the 'suck it and see' release party." you say, quietly.

"y/n.." alex said, praying silently for you to look at him. "i'm sorry."

you look up at him, confusion written all over your face. "why are you sorry?"

"i dunno, i'm sorry for letting my silly old heart feel like this. i understand if you don't feel the same. but every word in that song is true. the meaning of it all.. and i've always felt this way. thats not the only one as well. so many songs have been inspired by you, and how i feel for you. i'm so, so sorry if you don't reciprocate these feelings, but i can't hide them anymore." alex said, and you could see it all in his eyes. the desperation for you to feel the same, the fear of rejection, the look of love.

you didn't know what to do. you knew you felt the same, and it scared you. it scared you that you'd always loved alex, but could never bring yourself to do anything about it. you never dreamed he would feel the same until today.

"please say something." alex said quietly, watching you.

"i feel the same way." was all you could say at first. you watched as the look in alex's eyes completely changed, how it softened.

"it scares me alex, because i dont want to lose you. i can't lose you. you're my best friend, but i've always felt more. i've always longed to be the one you write songs about. the one you kiss goodnight and wake up beside every morning. but i'm so, so scared. i'm scared i'll ruin it all and i'll lose you. i'm scared of love." you say quietly. the next thing you knew, alexs arms were around your waist, pulling you to his chest.

you clutched onto him, relishing in the feeling of being in his arms. "don't feel like that. don't be scared. you'll never lose me." alex said softly.

you look up at him, watching as his gaze flickered between your eyes and lips, your breath stolen away as he closed the gap between you and met your lips with his. and in that moment, you knew that had been where you were wrong. as your lips fit alex's perfectly like a puzzle. you knew you were made for each other, soulmates both platonically and romantically.

⋅˚₊‧ 𐙚 ‧₊˚ ⋅

another little a/n: i didn't really know where i was going with this, and i'm sorry if the endings shit😪

p.s if you noticed the miles reference ily

[acewritesfics]

Pretty Blue Eyes | Jay Halstead

⚠️ THIS IS A REPOST FROM MY MAIN BLOG @/DLMLUFICS. UNFORTUNATELY, I HAVE TO DO IT THIS WAY. MORE INFO IN MY PINNED POST.

Pairing: Jay Halstead x Reader

Request: From anon

Fic Type: imagine

Warnings: Fluff. Arguing. Formally titled those pretty blue eyes.

Word Count: 1,148

JAY HALSTEAD MASTERLIST || TAG LIST SIGN-UP

A loud knock at her apartment door interrupts Y/N from the movie she's just begun watching. Sighing, she sets the freshly popped popcorn on the coffee table and walks towards the door, wrapping her cardigan tightly around herself. When she opens the door, she is surprised to see Jay standing there, an angry expression on his face. He storms into her flat before she can say anything. 

She shuts the door as she turns around to follow him inside her small living area, confused and worried for her partner. 

He was in a good mood when she left the district earlier this evening, laughing and joking with her. She can't think of anything that would have made him angry in the time between then and now. He told her that he was going home to do nothing for the rest of the night. 

"Is everything okay?" She speaks up softly, unsure of where his head's at right now. 

"No, it isn't," his voice is filled with resentment and anger as he glares at her. She never imagined she'd be the one to face his unsettling glare he one gives suspects when he isn't taking any of their crap. 

When he reveals what he's angry about, she is overcome with guilt. "Voight just informed me that you've asked to be transferred to the homicide unit at district 27." 

'Shit,' is the first thing that comes to her mind. She wasn't sure how she was going to tell him that she had requested the transfer, but she didn't expect him to find out through Hank, who was refusing to sign the paperwork. S Shaking her head and lifting her palm to her face, she massages her temples, feeling her own anger at her boss. She should have anticipated him to going to Jay to persuade her to stay with intelligence. 

"Were you planning on telling me before you left?" His irritation was still evident in his voice.  

"Of course, I was," she tells him, her voice raising slightly. "Hank is refusing to sign the papers, so I don't know what's going to happen." 

"He doesn't want you to leave, and I don't want you to leave either," he confesses, his voice also rising. 

"Well, I have to," she frowns, her arms folded across her chest as if attempting to create a barrier between them, knowing he won't stop there. 

"Did I do something to make you no longer want to work with me?" 

"Of course not," she says, shaking her head. "You're the best partner I've ever had, and I trust you more than anyone. You've always had my back; you're honest, entertaining, and loyal. Even when you're being a pain in the ass with your Halstead sass." 

"So, what's the problem?" He shouts in frustration, his eyes still filled with anger and confusion. 

"The problem is…" she stops to take a long breath in and out, trying not to become overly emotional. "No one else can make me feel the way you do, and I hate that." 

Jay's stare changes to a shocked expression in an instant, his blue eyes wide and his mouth slightly ajar as his body is frozen in place. When he does not respond, she continues talking. 

"I hate it because I had one rule: never fall in love with someone I work with, especially my partner," she reveals. 

Everyone was aware of her 'no dating in the workplace' rule and where it stemmed from. Fresh out of the academy she'd been paired up with a cop who had left the academy two years before her. She'd fallen hard and fast for the guy only to find out he was engaged to a civilian. She broke it off as soon as she found out, but it was messy, and she ended up transferring to district 21. It took her three years to move up to intelligence where she was partnered up with Jay.  

The day that she met him, she knew she was screwed. After a week of working with Jay, she asked Hank, who she'd known since she was a kid since he worked with her father, if she could be partnered with someone else. Hank refused, having seen how well the two work together.  

Y/N tried her hardest to put distance between her and Jay but as they got to know each other on a personal level as well as a professional level, she knew she couldn't stop it from happening and all she could do was try and deny it. It seemed to be working out for her until Jay got shot multiple times in a shootout with a drug cartel two months ago. He almost lost his life, and it terrified her. Knowing she couldn't be with him, because she thinks he doesn't feel the same and even if he did there was Hank's dislike for in-house romances, she thought her only option to move past these feelings would be to transfer out and put actual distance between them. 

"You came along and drew me in with those pretty blue eyes and that smug little smirk," she laments, her arms at her sides. "And then I got to know you and worked with you, and you were so frustrating but also so kind, protective, and caring. "I was in love with you before I realized it, no matter how hard I tried not to be." 

Jay wraps one arm around her waist and the other on her face. His soft pink lips crash into hers in a passionate kiss as he pulls her body up against him. As she leans into the kiss, Y/N's eyelids close and her arms go over his shoulders as she gives into the feelings, she's tried so hard to deny. 

When the kiss is over, they are both out of breath. He kisses her on the forehead, leaving his lips to linger there for a moment.  "Don't go through with the transfer." 

"I have to," she sighs, smoothing his coat and concentrating on that so she doesn't immerse herself in those blue eyes she adores. "You know Hank dislikes workplace romances." 

"As I said before, Hank doesn't want you to go," he reminds her. 

"When he finds out about this, he could change his mind." 

"I doubt it," he says, taking a step back to look at her. 

"What are we going to do?" She wonders aloud, a little unsure. 

"Talk to Voight, keep it professional at work, and take it one day at a time," he says, as if he's given it much consideration. "But right now, I'm going to tell you that I love you and kiss you again," he adds, dipping his head to the side as he leans in. 

"I love you, too," she murmurs as their lips meet again in a kiss, this time softer and more tender than the first. 

TAGGED: TAGGED: @mrspeacem1nusone - @halsteadbrasil - @allisonargent144 - @rainydayteacups - @alexxavicry

To join my tag list, fill out this form: TAG LIST SIGN-UP

[morganalatina21]

Manipulating Death: Chapter Thirteen

Series Summary: When Harry discovers he has a twin sister that was hiding for years, he wants to know all about her, specially about her ability to bring people back to life.

a/n: i knoww it's been a minute, but i finally sat my ass down to write and I actually did it, I'm sorry it took so long, I was trying to meddle 2 universities, a job and a student organization, so i'ts been meltdown after meltdown. Anyways, hope you guys didn't gave up on me :)

Also for anyone that noticed, I did had to change the gif lol

Word Count: 2.5k

(Also, english isn’t my first language so I’m sorry in advance lol)

Last Chapter | Masterlist

"Please don't be mad. Although, y'all already are, probably. Did I anticipated it? Sure. Heavens know I'm sorry for not saying anything. Even if it's for the best. Lord Voldemort has to be stopped. Please don't worry, and DON'T come looking for me. Matter of fact, I shouldn't be writing. May we meet again soon."

That was all the letter, the only letter, said.

It arrived at the Grimmauld Place two and a half weeks after Y/n vanished from existence, leaving no trace behind except an incredibly disoriented family.

"How could she be gone?" Sirius mumbled for what seemed to be the twentieth time that morning, sitting in the living room, paper spread on the table as he wrote a letter to his godson; lying to him and saying that his sister was safe, yet again.

"This doesn't sound like her." Remus answered, exhaustion getting to him as he sat in front of the Black. "No little jokes, no funny tone, not even one who is clearly forced just to lighten up."

"She's in trouble." Guaranteed Regulus, pacing back and forth on the carpet like a lost cat.

The younger Black hasn't been able to sleep since he found the bed empty, desperately trying to find clues everywhere he looked. A string of her hair, her smell somewhere, anything! But no matter the effort, he'd always run into a dead end.

"We don't know that for sure, kid."

"I KNOW!" He spat, mad eyes looking at his brother.

"This could just be an attempt to get us out of the house, to go looking for her, so Death Eaters can capture us." Remus argued. "Which... is worse, because it would mean that they somehow know about her."

Regulus groaned, feeling sicker and sicker as he spoke.

"She could -possibly" Remus added, carefully stepping into the argument. "Be somewhere looking for a way to bring her parents back. I mean, she just died and got nothing on their end, she might be desesperate."

"Y/n wouldn't go without me." The young boy quickly dismissed it.

But really, he wanted to convince himself.

Was it that easy to abandon him? To leave him behind like nothing, and go run around like crazy? Because it sure wasn't easy for him to leave her.

"We should just... trust her." Sirius argued, calmly. "I trusted her enough to save my life and my little brother's, so I have to trust her enough to save her own life."

"She's too reckless."

"So we'd have to trust that she wouldn't leave us behind without a final goodbye."

Regulus swallowed thickly. The Black knew she wasn't selfish enough to survive just for herself, if it wasn't for him stopping her from bringing de death back left and right, the girl probably would've saved half the population without even thinking about the aftermaths on her health.

"We keep an eye on the news, magic and muggle, to see if we can find any clues. If she's out there messing with horcruxes, like you said before, it'll have an effect in the entire Wizarding world. If she's messing with the dead, the entire globe would feel it."

It wasn't enough for Regulus.

Staring at the news while she's out there somewhere, probably getting herself killed?

The Black sprinted downstairs, entering the basement again, trying to look for any clues, maybe a possessor he didn't notice at first, maybe a more convincing note.

He just wanted... something.

"Now that that's outta the way, keep him there." Sirius said, standing and reaching for his coat.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Save our goddaughter? And now, possibly my- my- my sister in law?" He chuckled, moving his hair into a bun. "Where else should I be going?"

"You don't actually think it's her, do you?"

The sand-haired man stared at the letter for a couple seconds, too vague, too cold. Not at all like Y/n, if it wasn't for them to go after her, as she clearly mentioned, why even bother writing a letter?

"It's a code, Moony!" He whisper-yelled, looking to the basement door, too afraid his brother would come out and ruin everything. "First letter of every sentence. It's one of the codes Prongs and I used to get each other out of trouble."

With eyes full of doubt, Remus carefully read the note again, putting letter and letter together.

"P- A- D- S- H - E - L -P - M -M " He listed. "Shouldn't it be, M and then E? Help ME?"

"No, Moons. It was always nickname, Help, and then some clue for our location."

"Did you manage to find words to spell Prongs?"

"No, I usually just scream for help."

"Makes sense." Remus shrugged, staring down at the piece of paper one more time. "So MM, stands for..."

Malfoy Manor.

A huge dark construction with dozens of rooms, in the middle of a forest, a house he used to visit when they were younger, to keep the bonds between the pureblood families alive. So much that his cousin, Narcisa, ended up marrying one.

"Never thought I'd step foot into this place again." He sighed, trying to be as careful as possible, getting inches closer to the house. "But anything for little ol Prongsie."

Truth be told, Padfoot was never one to make great plans, usually that was reserved for Prongs or Moony, he'd always be the lad to suggest just blowing everything to pieces and get on with it. But right now, he had to think carefully. If Y/n was really somewhere inside that god-awful house, possibly being held hostage, one false movement and she'd be murdered. Again.

There was a man standing tall, guarding the main door. If his eyes were correct, that was Antonin Dolohov, who he used to piss off when they were in Azkaban together, along with his oh so lovely cousin Bellatrix. That was a dead giveaway.

Lord Voldemort was there too.

"Great, we'll have a tea party while I try to negotiate my niece's life. The more the merrier." He mumbled, talking to himself, an old habit he got back after spending twelve years with basically no one to talk.

Sirius quickly transformed into his animagus form, judging it'd be safer if someone saw a dog walking around instead of a wizard who was part of the Order.

Sniffing around, he finally smelled something different from pure evil and expensive perfumes that wasn't Bella's stinky hair. The smell came from the back of the house, more specifically from a tiny window almost on the ground. The dark basement.

He yelped, keeping his distance just in case, but soon enough a forehead and eyes appeared.

"Pads!"

"What on Merlin's green underwear are you doing here?" The man whisper-yelled, now back into his original form, squatting down to take a look at her.

The girl was skinnier, with dark bags underneath her eyes, cuts with dried blood on her forehead, cheek and chin, but nonetheless there was a huge smile.

"I found my possessors!" She gestured, pointing behind her, to which Sirius could see their eyes glowing.

"That's great kid, but you still didn't answer my question."

"They still don't know about him, and they can not know." The girl said sternly. "But they do know about us hunting horcruxes down, and about me, and that's it."

So, Voldemort didn't know she could control death.

"Okay, what's the escape plan?"

Minutes later, the iron gate creaked. Sirius wasn't there anymore, leaving just a weak Y/n on a dark room with nothing but filth and oily ground.

"Y/n Potter." The man whispered, eyes wide open.

She hissed in response, "Wormtail."

"I didn't believe when they told me at first." The short guy was looking at her almost in awe, taking small steps forward. "But it really is you." Chuckling darkly, he tilted his head to the side. "I've seen that annoyed expression before, on your mother you know."

Sitting there, the girl barely blinked while looking at him. She wasn't nonchalant as usual, it was cold, stabbing daggers into his face with just her eyes.

"The dark lords demands to see you now."

His iron hand held both her wrists together tightly, bruising the already hurt flesh, to which she winced for a split of a second.

The main hall of the Malfoy Manor was mainly wiped away from the Potter's memory, hours of the Cruciatus curse making her memory blurry and unclear. Although she always remembered the arrangement: Voldemort was the only one sitting down, on what she assumed to be the fanciest armchair the Malfoys owned.

The rest of the Death Eaters stood in a parable, the dark lord being the highest point, leaving a huge empty space on the floor for her to be tortured while they hovered around her body.

"Let's try again, shall we?"

Peter dropped her arms and went to stand right beside his master's seat, opposite side to Nagini.

"I am not exactly patient, child." Voldemort started, the tip of his wand pointed right at her. "And you're not exactly giving us useful information. So if I were you I'd start talking. It wouldn't be the first time we'd torture someone until they can't move just to extract their memories, am I right?"

Just like brainless animals, the hord of wizards made laughing sounds the way they could.

"You don't even know the reason I'm here." The girl finally spoke, bringing silence to the room. "You just blindly trusted your followers that I have something important in me, but you don't have a fuck of a clue, do you? And I'm only assuming they can't explain it to you either."

"You are the sister of my greatest enemy, that is more than enough reason for me to keep you here."

"Your greatest enemy is a teenager with shitty eye sight? Man, I feel bad for you."

Her knees dropped to the floor as the sitting wizard whispered "crucio". Y/n threw her head back, gasping for air, refusing to give them the satisfaction of her screams. Bellatrix laughed uncontrollably as the girl struggled to not plant her face on the ground.

"Shut it, you insolent child." Voldemort ordered, not raising his voice. "I killed both of your parents already, and I will kill your brother, nothing is going to stop me from killing you when I think is convenient for me."

The Potter giggled like a child, hair falling in front of her face and air slowly going back to her lungs. That made the Lestrange stop her laughing and look at the girl as if she spat on her face.

"You are not going to kill me, Tom." Y/n could see a muscle twitch on Voldemort's face upon hearing that name, only expanding her smile. "I am important to you, you just don't know that yet."

"Nonsense you bitch." Busted Bellatrix, taking hard steps on her direction, wand ready, pointing at her. "The Dark Lord needs not a scavenger like you and-"

"Bella!" Was enough for the witch to stop on her tracks, a sour grimace spreading across her face as she slowly backed up next to her stop.

She's just like a puppy, a psychopath puppy, Y/n thought.

"And why are you important to me?" Voldemort asked, eyeing the girl still on the floor, slightly leaning on his seat.

"Because I am what you fear." The Potter smirked. "I can control who lives and who dies, I can reach into a dimension you're too afraid to discover, because you're frightened by death. You're frightened by me."

The Dark Lord stood up finally, raging fire behind his eyes looking down on her, and her shit eating grin on display only made things worse on his mind.

"Don't believe me?" She dared. "Choose anyone on this circle and I will kill them without using spells, and bring them back before you can say 'Crucio' again."

Suddenly, all the Death Eaters wanted to take a step back, noticing how their master was actually considering taking her word for what she could do.

Some, like Draco, did, ever so unnoticeable. Others, like Bellatrix and Yaxley, were skeptical of her possible power and stood still.

The young girl looked around, eyes scanning each one of them, landing specially on the brunette with hollow cheeks.

"Oh please, don't tell me Death Eaters are scared of death."

Infuriated, she stepped forward.

Bingo.

"I am not scared to die for the Dark Lord." Bellatrix announced, handing her sister the wand. "Do your worst."

"Oh I will." Y/n guaranteed as Voldemort took a few steps back, intrigued.

The girl reached her hand forward in the form of a claw right in front of the woman's face, in the best theatrical movement she could come up with. And with a twist of her wrist, Bellatrix Lestrange dropped to the floor without any second left, her body completely numb and frozen.

Gasps were heard all over the room, and Wormtail took three steps back. Narcisa, on the other hand, took three steps forward, squatting next to her sister. Turning her body to face up, silent whispers ran across the hall; Bellatrix's eyes were wide open, staring into nothing and not a single muscle twitched.

"She's dead."

In unison, all of the Death Eaters started taking steps back, it was magic without a wand and non verbal, without any weapons. Not a single person there had seen anything quite like it.

"Don't worry." Y/n intervened when Voldemort started gesticulating to Nagini. "I'll bring her back. That was the deal, right?"

Positioning both her forearms on each side of the woman's head, Y/n held her through the jaw and slightly opened her mouth. Getting their faces really close to each other, the Potter audibly inhaled through her mouth once, twice, thrice.

Bellatrix gasped.

Narcisa was quick to hold her in place as Y/n leaned back, smiling smugly as all the people surrounding them looked in shock. To them, the girl performed something close to a miracle right before their eyes.

Voldemort grasped his follower's face, squinting his eyes, looking for any sign that she might still be dead and it was all just a trick. But there was nothing

"I know you're probably wondering how." The girl spoke, smile not even looking like it would ever vanish from her face. "But I'm sorry. A magician never reveals his secrets."

As soon as the last word spilled from her mouth, the doors busted open, revealing a large Padfoot barking and growling next to an unconscious Dolohov, while dozens of dark figures ran around, assaulting the Death Eaters and knowcking them down.

Y/n sprinted as fast as she could, having a little help from something who just finished helping her with the theatrical demonstration. What no one had noticed, was one of the possessors Y/n owned, subtly placing himself as a dark cushion as she fell on the ground at the first Cruciatus. And with simple orders, he entered Bellatrix, killing her momentarily, just to get out moments later.

Running next to each other after being a menace, Sirius for sure missed that. He wasn't that young and prepared teenager anymore, but oh did he welcomed that adrenaline. Specially after hearing her laugh, he felt alive again.

Grabbing a piece of Padfoot's fur, they apparated far away from that horrid place.

Taglist: @intoanothermind @moonysupremacy01 @maraudersarelifee @elleraelockwood @darkenwolfie @hopesf @lukewearingbeanies @azuredgalaxies @klazina-couch-potato @goldensunshineshit @kaverichauhan @venomsvl @mrs-billyrussooo @mikadorbs @iavenderh6ze @wizardsgrace @reblog-princess @dittos-blog-dylanobrien @roroswitherose @s-we-e-t-t-ea @ok-boke @warcelia @danyxthirstae01 @b-tchymoon @lovely-maryj @the-sander-fander @regulusblackloverr @coffeeaddictednymph @quackitysdrugdealer @pansexualwitchwhoneedstherapy @teamspideyman @artemis-the-ace @theprettytragic @loidforgerishotashell @criminalyetminimal @amortyong @qualitywitchchaos @musicconversedance @xcharlottemikaelsonx @esposadomd @e1213 @certainyouthpeanut @voodoodol7760 @ireneop @lovermoment @avadakadabra93 @musicconversedance @wildtigerlili @csifandom @noah-uhhh-what

[horneybeach1]

Fists of fate

(a/n mattheo riddle x reader, professional boxer au, angst and fluff?)

In the gritty world of professional boxing, Mattheo Riddle was a force to be reckoned with. His raw power, combined with an enigmatic charm, made him an instant favorite among fans. But behind the hardened exterior, there was a vulnerability that few had the chance to witness.

As a talented journalist assigned to cover the boxing scene, you found yourself drawn to the allure of Mattheo's story. His rise through the ranks, his determination, and his complex personality intrigued you. Little did you know that fate had something extraordinary, yet bittersweet, in store for both of you.

One fateful night, you attended a high-profile boxing match where Mattheo was set to face a formidable opponent. The tension in the arena was palpable, the air electric with anticipation. As the bell rang, the two fighters engaged in a battle of strength and skill.

From your vantage point at ringside, you couldn't tear your eyes away from Mattheo. Each punch he threw, each dodge he executed, showcased his undeniable talent. The sweat glistened on his brow, his muscles rippled with every movement. It was an exhilarating sight, and you found yourself captivated by his every action.

But as the fight progressed, an unexpected twist of fate took place. A vicious blow connected with Mattheo's jaw, causing him to stumble. His opponent seized the opportunity and delivered a devastating punch, sending Mattheo crashing to the canvas.

Time seemed to stand still as the referee's count echoed through the arena. Your heart pounded in your chest, dread and worry coursing through your veins. The crowd held its breath, hoping for Mattheo to rise.

With a surge of determination, Mattheo pushed himself up, his eyes glazed with pain and determination. The fight continued, but you could see the toll the injury had taken on him. Each movement was strained, and his once fluid punches lacked their usual power.

As the final bell rang, Mattheo's face was bruised and bloodied. Despite his valiant efforts, the judges' decision didn't favor him that night. Defeat weighed heavily on his shoulders, and the disappointment in his eyes was undeniable.

You rushed to his side as he made his way back to the dressing room, concern etched across your face. Mattheo's breath was ragged, his body weary from the relentless battle. He slumped onto a stool, his gaze fixed on the floor.

"Mattheo," you whispered, your voice filled with empathy. "You fought with everything you had. I'm so proud of you."

His gaze lifted, pain and frustration mingling in his eyes. "It wasn't enough," he muttered, his voice laced with disappointment. "I let everyone down."

You knelt in front of him, your hands resting gently on his bruised knuckles. "No, Mattheo. You never let anyone down. You're a fighter, in and out of the ring. This loss doesn't define you."

Tears welled up in his eyes as he reached out, his trembling hand cupping your cheek. "I wanted to win for you," he admitted, his voice strained. "I wanted to show you that I could be the champion you deserve."

You leaned into his touch, your heart aching with understanding. "Mattheo, you don't have to prove anything to me. You've already shown me the strength of your spirit, the depth of your character."

His tears fell freely now, mixing with the stains of blood on his face. "I love you," he choked out, his voice filled with vulnerability. "But I don't want to hold you back, not when I'm so broken."

Cupping his face in your hands, you looked deep into his eyes. "You're not broken, Mattheo. We all have scars. It's how we overcome them that matters. And together, we can face anything."

In that moment, the weight of the loss faded, replaced by a newfound resolve. You and Mattheo clung to each other, finding solace and strength in each other's embrace. Despite the pain, the journey ahead seemed a little less daunting, for love had a way of healing even the deepest wounds.

With unspoken understanding, you leaned in closer, your lips meeting in a tender, heartfelt kiss. It was a moment of vulnerability and connection, a testament to the bond you shared.

As you pulled away, a sense of calm settled between you, the assurance that you were in this together. Mattheo's eyes locked with yours, and a gentle smile graced his bruised lips. "Thank you," he whispered, his voice filled with gratitude.

Taking his hand in yours, you led Mattheo out of the dressing room, the noise of the arena fading into the background. Together, you walked side by side, each step carrying you closer to the solace of home.

In the quiet of the night, you found solace in each other's arms. Mattheo's head rested against your chest as you traced soothing circles on his back, a gentle reminder that you were there for him, now and always.

As the moon cast its ethereal glow through the window, you whispered words of comfort and reassurance. Mattheo's breathing steadied, his body relaxing against yours, a testament to the healing power of love and companionship.

In the warmth of your embrace, the weight of the fight, the pain of defeat, and the uncertainty of the future dissolved into a sense of belonging. Together, you faced the challenges that lay ahead, knowing that with love as your foundation, there was nothing you couldn't overcome.

And so, in the sanctuary of your shared space, you both found solace, strength, and the belief that love could mend even the most battered of souls. The journey continued, but you faced it hand in hand, ready to conquer whatever fate had in store.

[lady-of-the-spirit]

Halfway through Lightlark, here's what we got so far

The Centennial is a serious deadly game. in which no one playing has been killed in 500 years and you don't even start killing anyone until 50 days into the game.

The Uniquely Wicked Curses on each territory range from "can't go outside at a certain time/place" to "everyone dies at 25." No it is never examined in depth how any of this, even the shallow curses, actually effect the kingdoms afflicted by them.

Isla has been trained as a perfect warrior and ruler since she was a child but she kinda sucks at everything she's put through. Examples include: her plan is to lay low and make the others underestimate her but she fights against Grim with full power and blows her cover. She doesn't have any plans for covering the fact that she doesn't have any powers. She did not know another ruler turned his kingdom into a democracy during his reign despite said ruler being 500 ruling for 500 years.

Speaking of her training, it's not even training it's just straight up abuse. Every time Isla has to do something new and challenging we're treated to some character backstory of her guardians putting her through absolutely horrific or mentally/emotionally damaging situations. It's unclear if she realizes how horrible this is or if she views it as tough but necessary, or if the story itself acknowledges how abusive this behaviour was.

I've said this already but EVERYTHING runs on Aesthetic/Vibes and what SOUNDS cool rather than what would actually be practical or make any sense whatsoever. See: my previous post about the golden sword, the gem encrusted sword, and the "thicker than her thigh" sword.

This is one book that would benefit from a world map because I don't know how I'm supposed to be picturing how this setting looks like.

The edgy night-themed bad boy Walmart Rhysand love interest is named Grimshaw, nicknamed Grim. Not even an attempt at a kinda sexy name. If he's the winner of the love triangle I'm expecting to happen I refuse it on the basis of his name alone.

There is not a single character I'm convinced does anything when they're not around Isla. It's rarely if ever even mentioned what anyone is doing when they're not physically present in the story. Not even Celeste, the best friend character who is Isla's ally and supposed to be just as active in the search for the Bondbreaker that's gonna break their curses.

(Celeste literally goes and finds a pair of magical gloves that are made of human skin and not only are we not involved in this search at all, Isla never asks if Celeste found the gloves or skinned a person to get them. She doesn't want to know but I sure do. We're supposed to care about her and their friendship. Give me something about her to care about.)

Speaking of which... this book's plot is basically a long list of tasks for Isla to accomplish. Either she's doing a Demonstration for the game or she's hunting for the MacGuffins.

The Demonstrations are set up by each ruler to show off their powers/skills/etc and be a basis for how each ruler will pair off for the rest of the game. Super important stuff. Each one takes up about one chapter and the demonstration itself maybe 2-3 pages.

The MacGuffin hunt is basically Isla going "this cursebreaker thing might be in this place. I'll check there." It's not there. She moves onto the next place 2 chapters later. And later on just going on forest expeditions with the second male love interest.

Even beyond all the story stuff, the writing itself... it tries very hard to be poetic and meaningful but it comes off as either cringy or unclear what the author is even trying to say.

The way sentences and paragraphs are formatted and broken up... i love a good fragmented sentence, of course I do, but even I know there are WAY too many of them. There are too many single sentence paragraphs, one after the other. It's trying to build anticipation and suspense but. It's not working.

As a bonus, I specifically wanted a book that was dumb and bad and wouldn't make me overthink it. I'm definitely not doing that with this one!! There's nothing of substance to overthink!

[crazychaoticizzy]

Pretty Portraits

What happens when you, Kugisaki and Itadori find that Fushiguro left his journal behind?

WARNINGS: none. just pure fluff. maybe a tiny bit of angst if you squint really hard.

Word Count: 4.6k

Masterlist

You were just about to leave the booth, only to pause at the sight of a black notebook waiting on the seat. You recognized it at Fushiguro's journal, and when you flipped the cover to see the name written on the inside your suspicions were proved to be correct.

"Hey, Fushiguro forgot his notebook," you said to Itadori and Kugisaki. They both looked away from whatever they were doing, eyeing the notebook in your hands. "Do you guys remember where he said he was going?"

"Uhh, I don't think he actually said where he was going," Itadori said. "If we don't run into him in the school hallways, then we can just leave it in his room."

"Or." Kugisaki drew out the word, sidling up next to you. "We could take a little look inside. See what kind of a person Fushiguro really is."

"Isn't that an invasion of privacy?" Itadori asked.

"Not if he doesn't know."

"I don't think that's how that works," you pointed out.

"Come on, it'd just be a little peek. Besides, he's most likely a really boring person. He probably takes notes on techniques and how he can improve himself. If anything, this will be a learning experience for us if we decide to look through it.”

Kugisaki was right, there was nothing embarrassing in there. You know because you asked one day when he seemed especially invested in his journal. He showed you pages full of notes for different classes and a couple small doodles in the corner. Despite knowing this, you still didn’t want to look through it because you didn’t want to invade his personal belongings.

You shook your head, holding it out to Itadori. “No, I still don’t want to look through it.”

Kugisaki shrugged, taking it from Itadori’s hand and sitting back down in the booth the three of you had just left. She opened it, flipping past the first page, the one with Fushiguro’s name on it. “Okay. Then I’ll look through it and you two can just so happen to look through my shoulder.”

Damn loopholes, you thought. In all honesty, you were curious about what Fushiguro had added since you last saw the contents of the journal.

Despite your better judgement, you sat down beside Kugisaki.

It was just as you had expected, notes about Fushiguro’s classes for a good chunk of the journal. When Kugisaki got tired of staring at Fushiguro’s neat handwriting, she let out a breath and closed it, opening it again to a random page.

More writing, but this page was accompanied by a portrait that looked eerily familiar. The name of the person drawn was on the top of your tongue when Itadori suddenly said something.

”Hey, that kinda looks like Y/n, don’t you think?”

You were way off. You were going to say it looked like a fictional character you had told Fushiguro about a while ago.

”Oh my gosh, this is a letter!” Kugisaki exclaimed. “Hold on it starts in the middle of it on this page.”

Kugisaki flipped back a couple pages, finding that the letter was longer than anticipated. She found the beginning, a grand three pages front and back away from the drawing, and started quietly reading.

”’Y/n, I doubt I’ll ever give this to you or say anything about this, but just know that this is for you.’ Holy shit is this a love letter?”

”Wow.” Itadori stared at the page in awe. “I didn’t think he’d actually write it.” He took the book from Kugisaki’s grasp, flipping through a couple pages.

”You knew about this and didn’t think to tell me?” Kugisaki yelled. She was shushed by a nearby waiter, and she quieted down.

”Fushiguro asked me not to tell anyone, so I didn’t.” Itadori shrugged. “He told me forever ago about this, said he wanted to give it to you when he finished it, but I guess he never did because look at the date.”

He pointed to the corner of the page, where the written date was almost exactly four months ago.

”Damn,” Kugisaki said. “He must have been super inspired about something to write this. Listen, he quoted a couple books. ‘You have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love, I love, I love you. I never wish to be parted from you from this day on.’ God damn, he really used that Pride and Prejudice quote.”

Itadori continued flipping through the pages, now laying the notebook flat on the table for the three of them to see it.

there were multiple pages filled with drawings of you. The pages filled with notes from class were almost completely gone, being replaced by your portraits and short writings accompanied by this reminded me of them to the side.

You stared as they continued flipping through the pages, watching as the drawings improved. The last one was of your side profile, laughing as you held a straw to your lips, about to drink from it. You realized it was from today, and softly ran your fingers over the drawing.

So that’s what he was doing this whole time.

Since that was the last page with anything on it, Itadori closed it and slid it across the table back to you. You didn’t move to touch it, only continued to stare at it.

”Y/n? You okay there?”

You nodded in the general direction of Itadori, moving your hand to grab the black journal. “Yeah. Uh, I’ll take this back to Fushiguro, if you don’t mind. I know you two are busy later anyways.”

Neither of them objected. You assumed this was a situation where they both knew something you didn’t and were most likely over the moon that Fushiguro was finally going somewhere.

You may not be the smartest, but you could definitely piece things together when you’re given enough. You were still unsure, though, so you didn’t want to confront him about it right away.

—

Your knuckles rapped against the wood of Fushiguro’s door, and you gently tapped your fingers against the surface of the black notebook in your hands as you waited for him to answer.

The noise of the door unlocking and opening threw you off guard. It was such a stark contrast to the quiet hallway, and your thoughts had drifted elsewhere completely.

You noticed that Fushiguro stood a little bit straighter when he saw it was you. You briefly wondered if he always did that, or if he only did it for you.

You pushed the thought from your mind not wanting to think about it now.

You took in what he was wearing—gray sweatpants and a black sweater. He looked like he was about to go to bed. It was still early, but you couldn’t blame him. Despite them being your best friends, hanging out with Kugisaki and Itadori could get tiring.

”Uhm, you left this at the booth earlier,” you awkwardly said, holding out the journal to him. “I wanted to bring it back.”

He gently took it from your grasp. “Thanks.”

He didn’t close the door. Instead, he tossed the book to his bed and stepped further outside his room, leaning against the doorframe.

”Where else did you guys go? After I left, I mean,” he said.

”Oh, we just kind of walked around Tokyo for a bit,” you replied. You hid your hands behind your back, playing with your fingers. “We went into a bookstore but didn’t buy anything. We kind of lost Kugisaki and Itadori was summoned by Gojo.”

Fushiguro nodded thoughtfully, putting his hands in his pockets.

You wanted to ask about the drawings in the journal before he continued talking, but you weren’t sure how to bring it up without making it blatantly obvious that you had gone through it. You decided to take a shot, letting your inner self decide what you said.

”Uhm, it fell and I saw some of your drawings,” you said. “Your notebook, I mean. They were really good. I didn’t know you liked doing that.”

Fushiguro’s eyes widened for a brief moment before he returned to his usual stoic expression. His face changed so fast you almost didn’t notice it, but the way he brought his hand up to scratch the side of his neck—one of his nervous ticks you had noticed—told you everything.

”Yeah, I picked it up a few months ago,” he replied. “I do it sometimes at the end of the day to wind down. It helps me relax.”

You nodded. You weren’t sure how to continue the conversation, but you still wanted to know if your suspicion about why he drew you so much was correct.

”Oh, that’s cool. Itadori saw the drawing and said it looked like me,” you decided to say.

”Did he now?” You had caught him with his pants down. He reached up to gently scratch his neck again. “Well, it might have been you. I draw you sometimes for practice. You have a pretty face for that.”

He paused at his own words, crossing his legs at the ankles. He hoped you didn’t notice his wording.

You did. And this time you were the one caught off guard.

”Thank you,” you said. “If that was a compliment. Thanks for saying I have a pretty face.”

He nodded once. “Yeah.”

Awkward silence ensued again. You weren’t sure how much longer you could beat around the bush for. This same routine had randomly started one day and continued almost daily for months. It was annoying, and you wanted it to end.

So you decided to take a leap of faith.

“Uhm, I actually brought that up because I think I know something, but I don’t want to jump to conclusions.”

An indirect leap of faith, but a leap of faith nonetheless.

Fushiguro was listening to you, you could tell because he was looking directly at you, into your eyes. It made you nervous, and you almost brushed off what you were about to say and walked away.

“So, I wanted to tell you my feelings first. And then you could decide how you feel about them. If you want to, that is.”

“Yeah, of course. Do you wanna come inside?” He motioned towards his room. “To get more comfortable, if you want.”

You nodded, following him in. “Sure.”

He gently closed the door behind you, leaving it open a crack before sitting on the bed with you. It was silent for a few moments before he motioned for you to speak.

You took a breath. “So, I’ve been debating telling you this for a while, I just haven’t. But with Kugisaki and Itadori earlier I decided that I should.” You paused for a moment, putting together the next sentence in your head before you said it. “I kind of like you. Like a lot.” You paused again, deciding that was all you needed to say and shrugging with your hands.

You seemed a lot cooler with this confession that you though you would be. You thought you would be a stuttering mess, trying to beat around the bush so much you wouldn’t even know what you were saying. But you didn’t, instead you feigned outward calmness, but you could feel your heart pounding violently against your chest.

Fushiguro’s eyebrows raised as he took in the information.

The action worried you, because he didn’t move for a few moments after that. You sat, waiting for his response. You almost apologized and excused yourself from his room, meaning to hide in your dorm for a couple days until you would be able to face him again, before he gave you a small smile. He stood up, sauntering over to his dresser and opening the top drawer.

When he closed it and turned around, he revealed a square of white paper and held it out to you. You took it, realizing it was an envelope.

“Open it.”

You did as Fushiguro said while he moved across the room, this time opening the bottom drawer of his desk and pulling out a stack of papers along with a small notebook.

You took the paper out of the envelope as he continued what he was doing, opening the folded sheet.

It was a letter. Addressed to you.

You started reading. It had a similar structure as the one you read from his journal earlier, using some of the same wordings and comparisons.

Fushiguro assumed his previous spot on the bed next to you, setting the papers and notebook down beside him. He watched intently as you read the letter, not saying a word as he took in your reaction to his written words.

You were speechless reading it. You didn’t know he could be so wordy and poetic. He never said much. You assumed that he was just a quiet person that didn’t have much to say. Someone that liked observing more than contributing to conversations.

Your assumptions were mostly correct. Except you didn’t realize he noticed or had this much to say. It shocked you, and you weren’t sure what kind of response would match his words.

You were genuinely shocked that he shared the same feelings. You assumed that the dry conversations between the two of you had started because he found out about you liking him. You thought he found that awkward.

But this letter, an explanation for all those awkward moments between the two of you.

Apparently he thought the same thing you did.

Your eyes quickly drifted over the words when you finished. You truly didn’t know what to say, and figured at least trying to form a response in your head would be best.

Your mind drew a blank on what to say. But you had to say something. You would see Fushiguro getting anxious for your response.

When you looked up to meet Fushiguro’s gaze, he was staring at you. You smiled at him, deciding to speak truthfully about what was going through your head.

“I don’t know what to say,” you whispered. “This is the most beautiful writing I’ve ever read. Do you really mean everything?”

“Every single word,” he responded. He handed you a piece of notebook paper from the top of the pile he had brought over. “This was my first drawing of you. I just did it without thought one day and continued. You’re really the only thing I draw.”

You gently took the paper from his grasp, looking it over, admiring the graphite lines, imagining the way his eyes might have followed his pencil, focused.

“Are all of these . . .” You motioned towards the stack of papers beside you, and Fushiguro nodded before you finished your question. “Wow . . .”

You were in awe, returning your gaze to the piece of notebook paper before looking at a couple more.

Fushiguro gently took the paper you held from your hand, putting it aside and taking both of your hands in his. He reached for your jaw, softly redirecting the way your head was turned so you looked directly into his eyes.

“I’ve liked you for a long time, Y/n. I want to be more than friends.” There was a small amount of fear in his eyes. He was terrified you would reject him, despite already knowing how you felt.

Your eyes were wide, your mouth slightly agape. He hadn’t even said anything monumentally heart-wrenching, but just the sound of his voice could leave you speechless.

“Do you really want that?” You quietly asked.

He nodded with complete confidence in his answer. “I do.”

You couldn’t help the smile that overcame your features as you gently squeezed his hand. “Okay. I want that too.”

He didn’t kiss you, and you didn’t kiss him. Not yet. It wasn’t the right moment, and he wanted it to be perfect. So he didn’t kiss you, even though he desperately wanted to. Wanted nothing more than to feel your lips against his, to run his hands through your hair.

Not yet, he told himself. He could wait just a little bit longer.

—

You and Fushiguro (you’re proud to call him Megumi now, even though you still get flustered when you say his name) had been dating for weeks. By now, the news of your relationship had spread to the other first years, who spent a short amount of time exchanging money before congratulating and bombarding the two of you with questions.

Tonight was the first night the two of you had alone since you had gotten together. Itadori and Kugisaki were out, and Gojo was currently over seas for a mission. You and your boyfriend spent the night in the middle of the training field on a couple blankets, snuggling as you stargazed. Though, you weren’t doing much stargazing, instead talking while he showed you his most recent portrait of you.

You were asleep in the drawing, your arm resting under your head as you gripped the blanket in your hands. You were embarrassed he had caught such a moment. He interlocked his pinky with yours, moving your hands from your face as he told you it was cute.

He left a soft kiss on your knuckle, pulling you to sit up with him as he grabbed his journal.

“Can you look at the sky for me?” he asked.

You obliged with a smile on your face, looking at the sky as you began counting stars.

Fushiguro had recently become more open when drawing you. He had asked you to pose for him more, occasionally gently nudging you into the exact position he wanted. He even sometimes did so in front of Itadori and Kugisaki without shame.

You listened as his pencil rubbed against the paper, enjoying the sound. You snuck a glance at him, turning your head to watch as his eyes followed his pencil along the page. Eventually he looked up at you, smiling before he put his hand under your chin, redirecting your gaze.

You apologized with a light chuckle. He continued his drawing, the sounds of his pencil returning. “You’re just so pretty when you draw,” you said.

You heard his pencil suddenly stop. You turned to look at him to find that he was already staring intently at you.

You peeked at the drawing in his notebook, noticing the vague background. “Oh, are you adding a background to this one?”

He moved his gaze to his lap. “Yeah, I like drawing you at night. The sky reminds me of you.”

“How so?”

He took your hand in his, rubbing his thumb along your knuckles. “Well, I realized that you weren’t the sun in my sky.” You raised your eyebrows at him. “I say that because I’ve only ever squinted angrily at the sun. I don’t do that with you. No, I stare at you in wonder and look away when you meet my eyes. I smile when I see you and watch your every action in awe of what you do. I want you to always be present. To be there to help me calm down because just seeing you lifts weight off my shoulders when I’m stressed. Before I met you it was the night sky that did that. It was the night sky that I wished would stay, that I wanted to see to help calm me down.”

Megumi Fushiguro was the only person in the world that could make you speechless, not knowing how to react. And he didn’t even know he was the only person that held this power.

You could feel your eyes burning with tears. He’s constantly moving the bar higher, constantly speaking his mind around you in the most beautiful, poetic way imaginable, constantly taking you by surprise with his words.

You feel bad for never having anything to say in response to him, but he understands how you feel. You usually find yourself replying to him with a tight hug, squeezing him as though if you let go he would disappear.

But tonight, you truly didn’t know what to do.

Watching as your hand moves to cover your mouth, your hand lightly squeezing his own, something in his brain decides that now is the right time. Now is the best time.

He takes a leap, moving his hand to cup your jaw as he gazes into your eyes. His eyes briefly flicker to your lips before he’s slowly leaning in, giving you a chance to reject him if you want.

You don’t reject him. You let him kiss you, freezing as his soft lips met yours. Your eyes were closed, but you didn’t know what to do.

He pulled away, a faint smile painting his lips. “You have to kiss me back, dummy.”

“Sorry,” you apologized. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

He hummed, leaning forward ever so slightly, his lips ghosting yours. “It’s okay.” He kisses you again. This time you kiss back, moving your hand to grip his bicep as if to pull him closer to you.

When you momentarily break the kiss he chases your lips, making you chuckle into the kiss.

“Megumi,” you whispered. He hummed, trying to reach your lips again, making you smile brightly. “Gumi, give me a second.”

He stopped, still holding your hand. “What happened?” Worry was laced in his voice, scared he had done something wrong.

“Nothing, just give me a second.”

You grabbed the notebook from his lap, moving the ribbon to mark the page he was drawing on, closing it and moving it to the side as you shifted closer to him, practically sitting in his lap. He tentatively placed his hands on your waist as you kissed him again, wrapping your arms around his shoulders to try and bring him even closer.

When the kiss broke, this time neither of you moving to kiss the other again, your foreheads rested together as you simply basked in each other’s presence.

He felt the overwhelming urge to say it, something he had been thinking about for a long time. He’s not sure what took possession of him, but the words, “I love you,” were slipping out of his mouth before he could even process it.

Your eyes snapped open, and you pulled away from him just a little bit. He did as well, bringing a hand to cover his face as he began apologizing profusely, saying that he didn’t mean to say that.

The smile that was slowly growing on your face fell. You knew that sometimes his thoughts got jumbled together, making it somewhat difficult to voice them. This had to be one of those situations, but hearing him say he didn’t mean it made your heart crack.

He seemed to realize his words, because he cut himself off, going into another tangent.

“No, that’s not what I mean. I do mean that, but I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” he admitted. “I don’t want to force you to jump into things too early. If you don’t feel the same way then don’t say it back. Tell me and I won’t say it again until you want me to, I promise.”

His words pulled at your heartstrings. All he wanted was to make sure you were comfortable with the relationship, but in the process he disregards his own feelings. It hurt you. You wanted him to be open, to allow himself to be vulnerable around you, even if it was just for a few minutes.

“Megumi, I want you to share your thoughts with me. It doesn’t matter what it is, if you want to tell me something then tell me. You won’t make me uncomfortable, I promise.” You leaned forward again, capturing him between your arms and squeezing him. “Because I love you, too. I have for a while. I want you to be comfortable with me. I want to be someone you can talk to, your rock. Please share things with me.”

You felt him wrap his arms around you, squeezing you with just as much force as you were. He rested his head in the crook of your neck, taking a deep breath. He loved the way you smelled—lavender, curtesy of the products Kugisaki had bought you for your birthday.

“I know your trying,” you said into his shoulder, “and I love that you’re letting your walls down for me. I’ll wait for you to open up for me, I don’t care how long it takes. I want to know everything about you, I want to love everything about you. Take as long as you need, I’ll still be here. I promise.”

The two of you stayed in your embrace. You felt your heart pounding in your ears as you awaited his reply, hoping you didn’t take it too far.

He gently kissed your collarbone, knocking both of you over so you laid on the blanket. You quietly yelped upon impact, not expecting the action.

“Thank you,” he said quietly. You smiled, readjusting your position so you faced him. You wrapped your arms around him, running your hands through his black hair.

“You smell so good,” he said suddenly, making you laugh. “I love the way you smell.”

You thanked him, feeling your eyes droop. You snapped them open, hoping to stay awake just a little longer, hoping you would be able to spend just a few more seconds with Fushiguro in this moment.

Alas, you fell asleep, but not before you quietly said, “I love you, Megumi,” into his hair.

He smiled at your words, repeating them before he realized you were already fast asleep. He grabbed a blanket from nearby, throwing it over the two of you as he admired your sleeping face before he dozed off as well.

—

You awoke the next morning to a blinding light being shone in your face, followed by the shutter of a camera. You groaned, opening your eyes and yawning before seeing what was happening.

It was no surprise when you saw Gojo, accompanied by Kugisaki and Itadori, standing above you and your still sleeping boyfriend.

“Oops, I forgot to turn off flash,” Gojo said.

You rolled your eyes before closing them again, resuming your previous sleeping position and closing your eyes. “Leave us alone,” you muttered.

You felt Fushiguro stir next to you, assuming he was awake when he let out an exasperated breath.

“See, we would leave you alone. However the second years need to train and you two love bugs are lying in the middle of the field.”

You groaned, forcing yourself to sit up along with Fushiguro. You shooed the other three away as you started picking up your things with your boyfriend, stacking the blankets and taking them from Fushiguro’s grasp as you stood. He followed suit, and the two of you ignored your classmates and teacher as you walked towards the dorms.

“We don’t have anything to do today, right?” you asked.

Fushiguro nodded. “It’s just a day off.”

You hummed in acknowledgment. “I think I’m just gonna go back to sleep, then.”

Fushiguro took hold of one of your hands, the one that wasn’t carrying the blankets. “Do you mind if I join you?”

You let out a fake, exaggerated gasp. “A boy in my dorm? How scandalous, don’t you think?” He chuckled, shaking his head slightly. “Of course you can. I’d love it if you did.”

He smiled at you, continuing the walk to your dorm. Upon entering, you plopped the blankets down in a random area o the floor, continuing to drag Fushiguro onto the bed and under your covers.

“Sorry, it’s kind of a mess,” you said as the two of you readjusted yourselves. “I’m normally the only one that comes in here.”

“It’s fine,” he whispered, kissing the crown of your head. “Just go to sleep.”

You nodded against his shoulder. “I love you.”

He smiled into your hair. “I love you, too.”

And the two of you would continue saying that. At every chance you got. You would never allow the other to forget that fact for as long as you lived.

This was a late birthday present for one of my friends. Anyways as i was writing I was seriously debating turning the fic in a different direction and going down an angst route. I don’t know I might add a part two to this or something because I do have ideas.

Idk what do y’all think?

Also this was copy and pasted from my notes app so I apologize if it doesn’t look right 💀

[staratdawn]

I thought about au with blind Regulus and deaf Sirius. It is not congenital, most likely acquired after 5 years of Sirius and 4 years of Regulus at Hogwarts. Their mother's unsuccessful punishment spell hit both brothers. Total blindness forever for Regulus, too much damage to do anything about it, even magic is powerless. Sirius rolled down the stairs, hitting his head on all corners, causing serious damage to the head, including the auditory cortex. The predictions of the Black' personal doctor were positive, of course, no one was going to upset them. But the hearing does not return to Sirius in a year or two.

And this difficult for them, almost impossible to make contact, despair splashes, their psycho-emotional state is not just a light wind, it's a fucking storm, like, they never can be ok again. They need more than a one year to talk to each other again. It's been hard before, don't think they don't love each other, we all know true, and yet their family didn't anticipate the possibility of healthy communication among its members. But now it takes a lot more effort to talk. Sirius can't hear, but he can speak. Regulus can speak and hear, but cannot see. So, Sirius speaks. Sometimes Regulus answers and Sirius lip-reads, it gets better and better with the years but never perfect the meaning of some phrases is inevitably lost, but that's something they can at least handle. Sometimes Regulus writes — he remembers good how it's done, but still a little awkward, not nearly as perfect as it used to be, and yet understandable enough. They learn to use it more often. Talk more often. It is important for them not to lose connect. They seem to have lost it all their lives and only learned to fix it when it was too fucking late.This was exactly the moment when Sirius runs away from home and starts living with James. And Regulus needs time, his parents are careful with him, they no longer try to be as cruel as they used to be, mostly just words, and over the years he managed to develop a good immunity, they do not hurt as much as they could. Sirius hates himself for not being able to take Regulus. They still didn't talk back then, it was so difficult for them and Sirius couldn't just ask Regulus to come with him, he didn't believe he could protect him and felt incredibly vulnerable. But he offers in a year and Regulus agrees.

When they get back to Hogwarts, things clearly change. Honestly, even too much. Regulus has a specially trained guide dog, this is a collie named Lyra (actually, in honor of the constellation, but he did not tell anyone about it except Pandora), she is big, soft and fluffy, and she is also smart and really very strong helps him. He also has a cane inlaid with many spells, so he knows Hogwarts quite well, much better than the first years (which is a dubious achievement, but nonetheless).

Sirius is trying to cope with his condition, mostly not really knowing what to do. I'm thinking of a spell he might have found one day to help take notes, literally translate the words spoken by the professor into text (I know there's nothing like that in canon, but it would be fair if there was, and generally, I just don't care about canon, I REALLY don't care, it's there because I made it up right now). He carries around a notepad and pen so that people can write what they want to say to him, but he also often understands what they are saying by watching their lips move. He can also talk, but he can't hear himself, so it's often very loud/very quiet, he prefers to write, but in the company of marauders, he doesn't care if he seems stupid or awkward.

I think Regulus, even after losing his sight, plays the piano, it is important for him to hear and feel the keys under his fingers, it grounds him, calms him down, makes him feel whole. Sometimes it is unbearable, but more often it gets easier than worse. (As he gets older, there are days when his hands shake too much and he can't find the right keys. Then Lily kisses his temple and James puts his hands over Regulus', they play slowly, making Regulus feel more, feel integrity, pushing the keys until he's finally okay)

And sometimes their duet with Sirius is also heartbreaking. Sirius can't hear but can guide his hands, he just feels, he has enough feeling, he doesn't really like to play. He desperately wants to help Regulus. And he sees the keys, he may be his eyes.

So, speaking of marauders. Honestly, James was the first to know. I think Sirius ran away to him somewhere in the middle of summer vacation, so James went to Hogwarts already fluent in sign language and actively continuing his studies. They met Peter during that time, so he definitely found out, even if Sirius didn't want to show it, and sign language was incredibly difficult for Peter, but he tried!! (damn, he tries so hard to be tactful, I just know it, he doesn't want to offend him, he doesn't even speak in his presence, but mostly writes on a notepad to make Sirius comfortable!!!)

Remus only finds out at Hogwarts, not because Sirius doesn't want to tell him, but because Sirius feels bad and doesn't want to appear weak in front of his boyfriend, ok. In this universe, there is no prank, so they are really happy together, but Sirius's disability is very difficult, and he wants to withdraw into himself and never share his burden with anyone. But he still has to do it when they meet on the train, and it's, well, never been easy, ok? Sirius also believes that he is much more fortunate than Regulus and feels guilty because people surround him with care, it seems to him that he does not deserve it. 

I also think that Remus KNOWS sign language very well (I headcanon him with a large family, several younger and one older sister, I think one of his sisters is deaf so he had to learn sign language for her, I can talk about his sisters, in case anyone is wondering, I just love the concept of a big family where Remus is the middle child, and he is the only wizard, except for Lyall, if we are not talking about the fact that Pandora could be his sister. He also suffers from lycanthropy, and I think one of his sisters might, but that's another TALK....but, you know, he'll never be alone and his family is, well, a little wolf-family-pack. ..okay, just let me know if anyone is interested, this isn't even about Remus, I should fucking shut up) so that makes things a little easier? Except that Sirius himself needs time to learn sign language, but it's absolutely in his best interest, so he's trying so hard. Remus really tries to take care of him, he shares his notes with him before Sirius finds that spell (he's never done this before and it was never needed, but now Sirius is so grateful) and he's definitely taking the translator's position a bit with people who do not know sign language, he really is not a burden, because Sirius will never be a burden for him. Never.

And also I think that Regulus has a spell that makes the book read itself, which makes life easier, magic is beautiful. And he definitely learns to read braille later, but I don't think it's very common among wizards (he probably isn't at all. but over time his life is so closely intertwined with muggle world, he can't ignore it)

Let's talk about girls! I like to think that Lily was fluent in sign language before that, as if she seems like someone who will know it, or at least try to learn it. Mary and Marlene absolutely don't know but they are really good friends so they try. And Marlene is in love with being able to write constant notes in a notebook (gives atmosphere. She puts Sirius notes between textbooks, very, very many notes in a day, they become less over time, but she was never going to throw constant gossip with her bestfriend, thanks, even deafness will not interfere with her). Mary also uses her notebook to write for Sirius when she wants to say something.

I also think that Lily absolutely cares about Regulus (platonically or romantically, your choice), but she doesn't know what she can do for him, she just goes with him all the time, almost seems to blend in with the Slytherins. She reads books to him aloud because he likes how soothing her voice sounds, he actually has an amazing memory, he quotes something from what he has read before or from what he heard from Lily.

Evan and Barty don't know how to act at first. But over time it gets easier. Like there's no problem putting things back where they belong so that Regulus can move around the room with ease, at which point they're very clean. They try to spend a lot of time with him, sometimes it's even annoying, he can say it, but honestly he is grateful.

(also Lyra is absolutely delighted with Barty and Pandora, when Regulus is in bed and she doesn't help him anymore, she often goes to Barty's to get her helping strokes)

Dorcas is so excited when she finds out about this, she is actually so mad at his family. One of her best friends will never fucking see anything else because of his family (Regulus never told them the reason but they know. They all know). She is very afraid of how unsafe he can be in his house, but she obviously does not show it, it would be inappropriate and not quite in her character. She tries to be tactful and act like nothing has changed. And she's also very supportive, actually, she's just not clingy like Barty and Evan, for example, she's just expressing help in the little things, I would say. Her help is usually silent, but also surprisingly eloquent.

I didn't say much about Pandora, I'm sorry. They have an amazingly cute duo and an interesting way of getting around, when Regulus assumes his animagus form, he is also blind, but he is literally cat, so she often carries him around in her arms to his destination. It's faster. Oh, and she was the one who helped him find the spell to read!!

Also, I think Sirius's hearing will start to recover at some point, but it will never be good enough, it's just... some sounds, more sounds than total silence. I didn't mention hearing aids before and I don't think they're common among wizards, but he'll definitely use them when they get out in muggle London and, well, it won't give him perfect hearing, but it's a lot better than nothing...

(little bonus: when Sirius wants to be kissed, but he doesn't want to write about it in a notebook or make gestures because it will upset the mood, he puts his finger on his lips or on his forehead or on his cheek, my boy just wants kisses. And he spreads his arms out to the side when he's waiting for a hug and doesn't want to initiate it first. when alone with Remus, sometimes he just reaches out his palms. Oh, and he claps his hands when he tries to get someone's attention. It's easier for him not to talk than to talk so he keeps the conversations to a minimum)

[tonydaddingham]

six months on (albeit, a bit late) part 1/3

part one | part two | epilogue (at some point)

hello would you like a stupid-length run down of the final fifteen?

idk about anyone else, but i kinda find myself regularly in a position where i don't know what to think about the final fifteen. i flit from one explanation or opinion to another; there have been so many facets of this sequence discussed that ive even found myself turned around on what i actually think was going on... was aziraphale threatened? did he do a complete 180 on his character development throughout both seasons? does he genuinely buy what metatron is telling him? how does he take crowley's rejection to return to heaven with him?

so back to basics, and because im itching to stretch the meta-writing legs that isn't solely an ask response or a purely batshit speculation - and because throughout writing this, i anticipate that i might surprise myself on how, overall, i interpret the whole scene... going back to basics and simply rewatching the scene (and making copious notes) is in order! just don't expect this to be anything you've necessarily not seen before - there are no revelations in this post.

please also note that this is an incredibly long, winding, and abhorrently lengthy post. no im not actually sorry about it, i needed to write it all out for my own bloody sanity

shall we begin?

so first thing's first: metatron saying his first line as he did indicates that aziraphale has expressed some hesitation. might be his body language, or possibly he's even said as such - something along the lines of, 'id need to discuss it with crowley', or something as simple as, 'im not sure, i need to think'. either way, aziraphale certainly responds to the metatron in a way that would suggest he is excited... but definitely incredulous and nervous.

and as for the metatron terming it as 'good news'; he seems to think that he and aziraphale are on the same page, that they hold the same opinion on whatever they've talked about. given what he later says about crowley, however - plus the borderline-disparaging remarks about going his own way, the Evil Glare™, and how quickly he just accepts that crowley isn't going - suggest that he a) doesn't want crowley in heaven, and b) that he anticipates that crowley will, in fact, consider the offer to return to heaven as very much Bad News Bears, and summarily reject it.

aziraphale starts making his way back to the bookshop, and boy do those expressions tell a story. that is not a happy angel. as soon as he steps off the pavement, his face falls, and his brow tightens in nerves, worry, and possibly even confusion; that to me is a, 'how the fuck am i going to explain this, how am i even going to word it?'. there's a quick, fortifying breath, and he's squaring the shoulders just as he moves out of frame. getting fanciful, that is an angel that is practically steeling himself to do battle; he knows crowley isn't going to like this, knows that it's going to be a hard sell. but what is key is that he does all of this walking away from the metatron, where he can't see - if nothing else, it's a very different expression to the 'excitement' he showed just seconds earlier.

but then he gets into the bookshop, and that expression is gone. for whatever reason, he doesn't want crowley to see it either. he doesn't want crowley to see anything less than joy, confidence, or excitement - he doesn't want to let crowley see that something is wrong/amiss. we then see the metatron, after establishing that muriel might be an adequate replacement to look after the bookshop, look across the street and presumably have a clear view of the two of them in the shop itself.

now, let's talk about crowley for a sec. crowley is equally nervous, and we can presume that it stems from the conversation with nina and maggie - that he needs to start opening communication with aziraphale, especially if anything is to move forward... and the best place to start, we presume (because, ultimately, we don't know for certain what he was going to say or how he was going to word it in this moment) is to propose that he and aziraphale - if nothing else - truly become an 'us'. maybe there's a love confession in there, maybe not. regardless, he's fidgety, but resolute; he even swipes off his glasses to show how committed he is to diving headfirst into this vulnerability that he otherwise keeps under wraps.

aziraphale, whilst crowley is word-vomiting, is immediately starting off with hand movements to get him to slow down, to quieten down, or stop talking altogether. as he does so, he's looking right back out of the shop window, as if he's aware of metatron's reciprocal gaze in. he's doing so with a pretty sincere smile on his face, and that to me is saying a couple of things:

aziraphale, i think, from the moment he set foot in the shop and saw nina and maggie coming back out, possibly already knew where crowley was going with the conversation. he's just watched as crowley practically offered up alpha centauri to gabriel and beelzebub as a refuge, somewhere he's already expressed that he and aziraphale could go to escape the apocalypse. so; to aziraphale's mind, in crowley doing so, a) crowley has chosen to remain on earth come what may - otherwise he'd have kept his chosen prospective bolthole quiet, and b) in the context where crowley offers it to them, as a safe place for two hereditary enemies just like them to love each other in peace, aziraphale recognises that that might have been what crowley wanted for them too. ergo, to my mind, crowley's confession is not necessarily a surprise to aziraphale - i daresay he likely saw it coming

aziraphale does not jump in straight away to interrupt crowley, and nor does he do it with any harsh or abrupt language. he wants to revisit this conversation - literally the meaning of 'hold that thought' - but what he has to say takes precedence. and to be fair, depending on how we interpret the preceding scene with the metatron (and what is revealed in the flashback conversation), it is arguably a more pressing matter to discuss, especially if it concerns their respective safeties... but it's a conversation he wants to return to

that being said, if aziraphale does know that the confession is inbound, the fact that he would treat it as somewhat of a joking matter - especially given how uncomfortable and fervent crowley's own demeanour is - is a bit... nasty? aziraphale has definitely, on previous occasions, expressed flashes of superiority over crowley, but i don't think this is a situation where he does feel superior... not at all. instead, again, considering how he quickly cheers up his expression when he enters the shop, this to me is aziraphale trying to mask his own discomfort, panic, and worry. he's keeping this whole thing as light and airy as he possibly can.

we then move on to aziraphale telling crowley he has some "incredibly good news" to give him... which, okay, sure, it might be that aziraphale is anticipating it to be good news. but again, the expression outside the shop? if he was that confident that crowley would be jumping for joy at the merest suggestion of returning to heaven, the conflicted expressions of worry and trepidation would, presumably, not have happened. so, i once again can only take this line to be aziraphale trying to dress it up with excitement. and i say dress it up because... we've seen aziraphale beside himself with excitement, right? and this is not it. this (first two snips) is aziraphale being giddy with excitement, or at least a job well done, not the latter clip:

aziraphale is barely able to get the words out properly after this point, he's nigh incoherent, and his hand movements indicate he's practically frantic... someone who normally, even when nervous or uncomfortable, keeps his hands quite close to his body, clasped comfortingly in front of him or stiff at his sides. we then furthermore have what he seems to mouth in the midst of this flurry of movement and mumbling, which, yes, is speculation but i rather much stand by it so far... and as such, seems to match his expression outside of the bookshop of, 'what the fuck am i going to say'.

also worth noting, to his credit, that crowley is being remarkably patient throughout all of this - i think he potentially does recognise that something is amiss? the 'somethings wrong' voice? recognises that despite himself being interrupted from something really quite important, aziraphale is evidently... not himself.

what intrigues me however, before we get into the meat of aziraphale and metatron's conversation, is how aziraphale words this particular bit:

because aziraphale catches himself before he says something potentially rather offensive, and then turns it back on himself. for example: "i don't think he's as bad a fellow as he came across", or "-as we thought he was", compared to aziraphale then backtracking and owning that it was his fault, "i think i might have misjudged him!".

what does it matter if he calls out the metatron for having been an arse in s1? it was a perfectly fair assessment to make, by all accounts, and presumably one that he and crowley had a laugh/bitch over post-s1... why would he recount that particular line? it wouldn't change the sentiment, ultimately - that aziraphale is trying to convey to crowley that the metatron 'is actually kind of alright!' - and it's not like crowley would be offended either way... so, are we to assume that even if the metatron can't hear what he's saying (although i have further speculation on this too, by the by, but this is a little more tentative) aziraphale perhaps fears that he can? in much the same way that he only let his expression truly slip once his back was turned, out on the street?

but then we move onto the offer itself, and the conversation between him and the metatron. aziraphale starts getting into his stride, probably because now he's just simply recounting what actually happened, all supported by the flashbacks we get. aziraphale isn't having to lie, as far as we can tell - he's simply going over the conversation he had. let's break that down:

aziraphale initially seems quite relaxed to be sat opposite metatron, insomuch that he doesnt look overly tense. frankly, he just looks bored, wanting to get this over and done with, likely so he can head back to the bookshop and be left in peace. as he said before they left; he has made his position clear, he wants nothing to do with heaven (at least as it currently is), and this is just a courtesy, to hear out whatever the voice of god has to say. of course, metatron then blindsides aziraphale by saying that - of course - the only option to replace gabriel must be aziraphale.

what is noteworthy is how aziraphale says, "and i said... "me?!"... and he said-". because when we cut back to the flashback, aziraphale's expression has not changed at all. there's no excitement, but more just bafflement and shock... and not one that indicates he's in any way enthusiastic about the idea. the fact that aziraphale chooses to recount that particular 'me?!' the way he does to crowley suggests that he's, quite possibly, putting it on, playing the part, and deliberately overstating his initial reaction - almost like he's trying to hype crowley up in turn. furthermore - aside from all the handwaving and nervous huffs of laughter - aziraphale does not even blink throughout this whole spiel to crowley. just an observation.

metatron gives his bullshit rationalisation for choosing aziraphale - and i say bullshit because from their last interaction in s1, aziraphale arguably did not display much of the qualities that metatron purports he has... if any at all - and aziraphale visibly starts to subtly panic. there's the glance away, his shoulders stiffen, he swallows nervously, breathes heavily. when aziraphale does speak, it's immediately to declare that he doesn't want the position, doesn't want to go back to heaven full stop (very reminiscent of his reaction to the promotion offer in the cut 1800 scene), and gives the excuse of the coffee.

metatron then brings out Les Big Guns. before the metatron says anything else, and without so much as a hint from aziraphale, metatron oh so casually remarks that aziraphale would have the final say on who he works with. he already anticipates that aziraphale's hang-up about going back to heaven may not be in fact the coffee, and tbh may not in fact be anything to do with earth itself, but everything to do with crowley remaining on earth. crowley is however a demon, and in his current form would not be able to go to heaven (which in turn begs another observation - does metatron not know that crowley infiltrated heavily pretty easily earlier in the episode?... hmm).

as such, the obvious solution for the metatron is to drop the fact that he probably knows a lot more about aziraphale and crowley's historic dealings with each other than would otherwise be anticipated. he mentions that he has had the chance to peruse over... recordings? reports? photos? that show the span of aziraphale's relationship with crowley - and unspokenly suggests that he knows everything. and then he offers a very neat, tidy solution to that small 'hes a demon' snag. he tells aziraphale he would have the authority to restore crowley, so he could come with him.

aziraphale, whilst metatron is revealing the scope of his intelligence gathering, looks like he's about to burst into tears. to me? that is horror, and fear - like a frightened animal being suddenly backed into a corner. his eyes start darting everywhere, his face - especially his jaw - tenses, and he looks like he's about to leg it out of his chair at any given moment. and namely, once metatron tells him he could restore crowley to being an angel, we don't see aziraphale's resultant expression at all. it immediately cuts back to the bookshop.

why would aziraphale fear metatron knowing everything about him and crowley? this isn't clear. it may simply be residue fear, muscle memory, from years gone by where their association has had to exist in utmost secret. alternatively, it might be that aziraphale is not comfortable in the knowledge that not only does metatron want something from him (to return to heaven), but that metatron has very accurately landed on aziraphale's pressure point (crowley). this is what i mean when i say, as i have in previous posts, that i don't think there's a missing, overt threat from the metatron that we've not been shown, but that aziraphale feels threatened.

compare this to nearly every spy movie you've ever seen - you want someone to do something for you, but they're resistant? just casually drop that you know that their partner has just had a new haircut, or that their child looked happy going into school that morning, or that their parent is struggling to pay for their medical bills... it's sufficient information enough to instill a sense of peril without being an unclassy, hamfisted, overt threat.

my last thought on the flashbacks; as was said brilliantly in this post (@fearandhatred), i don't think the flashbacks were disingenuous, and i don't believe that there are gaps missing that will be revealed in s3. but i do think that there are some key things that aziraphale might not have actually told crowley in his recount of the conversation. crowley responds in his next line specifically to the offer of restoration... so, did aziraphale even tell him about the metatron knowing all about them? their "de facto partnership", their "previous exploits"? because personally, i don't think he did. once again - the narrative irony that we as the audience have the full story, but crowley potentially does not.

but anyway; back to the bookshop.

...okay, aziraphale. right. i mean, first of all, crowley is just as taken aback, shocked, and incredulous as aziraphale seems to have been during the flashbacks. but aziraphale? everything has slowed down, almost calmed, like the eye of the storm has passed over. he almost looks less manic, less (frankly) deranged, and seems to actually be settling in the fact that the offer itself might actually be a good thing - something that crowley might in fact want. it's still not quite right, he's still not quite acting in a way that makes me think aziraphale's being entirely forthcoming with crowley.

the way he says that crowley could "come back" is soft and gentle, as if he's granting the most amazing, positively astounding opportunity - that heaven is doing something that it has never (as far as we or aziraphale, presumably, is aware) done before, and welcoming crowley back... like it's equal parts forgiveness towards crowley for having done whatever he did (im deliberately trying to keep this concept very vague and objective), and apology to crowley for a punishment that far outweighed any possible 'crime' he could have committed... like heaven is attempting to make reparations for what they did to him in the fall.

putting this outside the main body because it's another slight tangent. we know that crowley being good, nice, and/or kind is not necessarily indicative that crowley should or ought to be an angel. there are shades of grey. however, i do think aziraphale... still has issues with that. still has issues with aligning what he thinks good is, how intrinsically important being good is to him, and then where crowley sits in the midst of all of it - almost like aziraphale accepts that he himself may be in the grey, accepts his shortcomings, but where crowley is concerned aziraphale readily glosses over a number of his... not-so-nice bits. this might stem from aziraphale believing that it's more palatable to love crowley if he believes him to essentially be an angel in all but name, but i don't think it's quite that. more that aziraphale maybe thinks that 'good' is the ideal to hold, that heaven is the place that was meant to be good, and that crowley himself is good... so... well, isn't it the logical conclusion that crowley would want to return to heaven?

so going back to this bit of the scene: i don't think aziraphale ever wanted crowley to revert back to factory settings, never even considered the notion, nor necessarily thought that crowley would be better as an angel... but instead perhaps that being an angel again is what crowley would want. that it would be nothing more, really, than a rubber stamp in his personnel file. i think aziraphale was simply remembering the angel that was joyful in creating, surrounded himself in the exaltation of imagining new and wonderful things, bringing them to life; why wouldn't, in its most basic essence, aziraphale want that for crowley again? for crowley to be back where - as far as aziraphale likely remembers - he was at his happiest? and if he has the power to give it, like the metatron said, isn't that the greatest gift aziraphale could ever bestow upon him?

if we accept, as the whole final fifteen scene is intimating pretty strongly thus far, that aziraphale is trying to keep his panic and fear about the whole situation under wraps from crowley, it simultaneously makes sense that he would offer this to crowley as if he's saying:

'here's a wonderful thing that im pretty certain you've always wanted; please, just this once, don't ask questions about anything else, please just concentrate on this, i can handle everything else. just please say yes to coming back with me, i need you to come back. you can be happy, and i can sort out heaven, so that one day we can just simply walk away and never have to look over our shoulders. i'm scared, but i don't really have a choice, and tbh im even more scared what might happen if i leave you behind.'

but as metatron, i think, clearly anticipates, and as i think aziraphale truthfully does too as he first heads into the bookshop, this was never going to be something that crowley would accept. it's not something crowley wants. crowley - for whatever reason (again, in the absence of knowing anything concrete about the fall, keeping this deliberately vague) - was rejected by heaven in the most literal sense possible. slapping him with an angel stamp and dressing him in a white suit means nothing of value to him, and is the furthest from what he wants; in fact, actually, if anything, it's the biggest insult he could be afforded. because what has suddenly made him redeemable, palatable, 'forgiveable', in the eyes of heaven? nothing; just that he's a pawn in whatever bargain the metatron is trying to strike with aziraphale... and from crowley's pov, aziraphale has agreed to using him as a game piece. it doesn't confer value onto crowley, if anything it reduces it; in this equation, even if he were to accept the offer, he'd essentially be nothing more than a negotiated benefit for aziraphale to take the job.

(and that's all assuming that restoration would in fact mean crowley gets to continue being him, albeit in fancy white clothes - when there's the very real possibility that, if restoration as a concept even exists at all, heaven would just wipe him and set him off from ground zero all over again. aziraphale seems to have taken the metatron's word for it; that restoration even exists, that aziraphale would have the power to do it, and that it would mean he gets to keep crowley exactly as he is).

at which point... crowley knows that aziraphale didn't turn down the offer in the metaphorical room - "and you told him just where he could stick it, then?"... he's hopeful, possibly, but his expression suggests that he fully anticipates that aziraphale has bought into the crock of shit that metatron has spun him. that aziraphale took the job on the provision that crowley could join him, which crowley points out to be beneath the both of them, "oh, we're better than that- you're better than that, angel!".

aziraphale however, as explained above, sees it as being the best, safest, most opportune option for them both to take; "not at all", said with the tone of surprise that it is, suggests that aziraphale didn't ever consider the possibility of saying no, maybe because he feels that he can't, and never thought that crowley would say no, either. along with the surprise tone however, he says it with a very tense expression - the smile has frozen, and his tense are gritted. it might be that he genuinely thought that crowley would say yes, or because - again, if he's in fear of being overheard - he's worried about the implications of what crowley has just said.

crowley goes on to rant that he turned down hell when beelzebub made a very similar offer to crowley in ep1 (which, by the by, he... didn't. for whatever reason, crowley did not say no, nor any variant of a refusal, to beelzebub), and aziraphale remarks that that's a given, as "you're the bad guys".

now... i wince at this particular line every time i watch the final fifteen, as im sure everyone else does, but i don't think it's - at all - meant in the way that crowley likely receives it. certainly not in the way that the majority of the audience seems to have received it.

im not set to diminish or invalidate, on crowley's part, how it must feel to hear aziraphale still consider him a 'bad guy', simply because he's a demon. but from aziraphale's perspective, crowley is a demon, and demons are of hell. hell are not the good guys, as a collective - as has been proven time and time again - and, well, if heaven are meant to be the good guys, hell are by process of elimination the bad guys. once again, aziraphale arrives a rather binary conclusion of good vs. evil.

but equally consider that this is also the aziraphale that regularly compliments crowley on his niceness and his good deeds. that same aziraphale does not think of crowley as 'a bad guy'. he is blunt that crowley is of hell, who are the collective bad guys, because hell is the bad side to the heaven that was meant to be the good side. and as said above - crowley is good! he's a good person! he might be a demon, of hell, but he belongs on the side of good! which leads to this lovely little number:

throughout this whole part of their discussion, aziraphale has presented as more and more sure, less panicky and nervous - because i think this is something that he absolutely believes. he might have initially not wanted anything to do with heaven, but now? with the possibility that crowley could join him? suddenly then it's viable... lucrative, even - that he could fix heaven, that crowley could help him do it, they'd be together, and they'd get their happy, safe ending. his expression on "good" would suggest his confusion that crowley doesn't appear to share the same opinion - sure, heaven is shit now, but it was always meant to be good, right?* doesn't crowley see that?

crowley, however, justifiably illustrates that, the way he sees it (and has been demonstrated by the narrative), both sides are as flawed and redundant as each other; aziraphale can be as optimistic as he likes that heaven is redeemable, is fixable, but all crowley can see is that both are so inherently awful, so rotten to the very foundation, that there is no saving them... heaven least of all, for being the side that purports itself to be good. hell, at least, is aware of its very nature; heaven is insidious, and doesn't even have the good grace to acknowledge it, instead chalking it up to being god's will, and therefore whatever they do must be good.

and with that, i think crowley simultaneously starts to really panic - knowing that he's losing aziraphale - and yet hopes against all hope that he's gotten through to him, changed his mind, and begins pleading with him to tell him the exact thing he wants to hear; 'this is a bad idea, please don't do this, please-'

aziraphale is visibly struggling to even collect his thoughts, to even find the words to summarise why he's going to do this. simultaneously, aziraphale is dumbfounded. i think part of that is because he recognises the truth in what crowley is saying, but i also think that he's now in a position where his plan to get crowley to come with him has failed, and he's at a loss for what to do - what to say - next. he looks from crowley, looks out the window, his mouth is working to try and say something, even looks down at his feet, before coming up with the best way he can to explain why he's doing this. "if im in charge... i can make a difference."

*because once again (i'll die on this hill), i don't think aziraphale thinks that heaven as it currently is, is something that is good, light, or truth... but that heaven's intended purpose was to be those things, and is what heaven in essence stands for... irrespective of whoever is in charge. aziraphale has no allegiance to heaven as it currently is. michael, uriel, sandalphon, gabriel when he was supreme archangel - all of them have corrupted heaven to be something that it was never meant to be. but aziraphale has to believe that heaven itself is redeemable, has to believe that there is something salvageable; if it weren't, does that mean that aziraphale in turn is not either of those things too? does that mean that aziraphale is not good? heaven is capable of great things, that could benefit everyone involved; so couldn't aziraphale, from all of the experience he's gained, do something to make heaven exactly that?

it doesn't mean that aziraphale is any more correct for this more nuanced assumption, but i think it poses there is a very fine line in aziraphale's thinking. to my mind, aziraphale is not backtracking on the entirety of what he's learnt since the beginning, he's not suddenly heaven's man again - but instead is recognising that heaven is broken as it currently is... and that he could potentially fix it. if anything, that recognition that what he thought was faultless actually needs fixing, and that he may be able to do it, because it's the right thing to do... is exactly the character development i was expecting? an angel who has himself been rejected time and time again for being who he is, without even the finality of falling, could actually be the key to making heaven something worthy of the name.

he has to take that opportunity, to be that change, but he doesn't want to leave crowley to do so. not only because, of course, he simply loves crowley and wants both, but if he does leave crowley, what could happen to crowley without aziraphale being in a position to protect him? what, for me, it all boils down to is that aziraphale thinks going to heaven is the right thing to do, but only entertained it seriously when a) crowley's name, and their relationship, was casually mentioned in a way that felt like metatron would use it as leverage, and b) crowley could potentially come with him. ultimately, the fact remains that crowley more important to him than heaven is.

let's return to the specific wording of 'make a difference'. it's... fairly neutral, right? make a difference for whom? what kind of difference? the difference that metatron was talking about, or the difference that, in the most idealistic scenario possible, aziraphale and crowley both would probably want to happen? it's carefully worded - and coupled with eeeeverything that i've said about how aziraphale acts with the metatron, how he was hiding his expression as he entered the shop, and then how aziraphale seems to backtrack on bitch-talking the metatron... look, i don't necessarily buy that aziraphale is trying to speak in a riddle or code that he knows crowley would understand, but i do wonder if he's now hoping that crowley will read between the lines. he can't outright tell crowley his suspicions, and was possibly trying to get crowley to come with him in a way that wouldn't alert crowley to anything amiss whatsoever... but now? now that crowley is resisting? he has to edge slightly closer towards transparency.

in the hypothetical scenario that aziraphale is fearful that they may be overheard, or observed, aziraphale has to be careful. he has to word whatever he says in such a way that he appears to be heaven's man, that he genuinely wants to take the opportunity to run heaven and the 'enormous projects' that are in planning, in a way that doesn't disclose to the metatron that aziraphale is in any way suspicious of him. to crowley, however, he has to convey that he isn't heaven's man, that he wants to change things that would mean that it be for the better, and do all of that whilst not alerting crowley that there may be danger. 'make a difference' suddenly has a double-meaning, because for whose benefit does aziraphale truly want to change things?

crowley then, bless his heart, bravely launches into his confession that he tried to start at the beginning, and i think he does so in an effort to be completely transparent on why he needs aziraphale to stay - an effort to convince him to remain with crowley for no other reason than that he wants to be with him... and now? now he's not even sure it'll work. he's tried demonstrating where heaven isn't worth the effort, to no avail, so now he's going for full vulnerability mode. honestly, what a trooper, he was so so brave

aziraphale throughout the confession is practically motionless. the manic energy has disappeared, and from the subtle flickers in his expression, i think he saw this coming - saw it coming from the moment that he saw crowley offer up alpha centauri to gabriel and beelzebub, and saw nina and maggie very surreptitiously leave the bookshop. i think to some degree, aziraphale knew at least the nature of what crowley was going to say, and as a result, he gets very nervous:

at the sheer mention of "group", aziraphale pointedly (to me, anyway) looks out of the window. generally, he looks shifty - avoiding eye contact, eyes flickering, heavy breathing - but it's so deliberate that he looks out of the window where, we can surmise, is the general environs of where the metatron is still waiting. again - the metatron saying "de facto partnership", and all of his allusions to knowing the true nature and extent of aziraphale's association with crowley, seems all the more sinister if this line - "a team- a group!" - is specifically when aziraphale's eyes betray his concern. i don't think he's necessarily scared that the metatron will overhear this bit, because ultimately the metatron has intimated that he already knows this, but crowley is, potentially, and very much unknowingly, placing them in even more danger by vocalising the exact nature of what he and aziraphale feel for each other.

i also want to remark on aziraphale's look of confusion when crowley says, "spent our existence pretending that we aren't". ive had many a thought on why aziraphale would look so perplexed, and only one kind of makes sense to me - that actually, within the last few years, aziraphale... wasn't pretending at all. crowley told him that they were on their own side in tadfield, something that may have taken a while, but ultimately aziraphale in the "so did i" demonstrates that he was fully on board with, and he's now spent a good portion of s2 trying to make 'their side' all the more meaningful... crowley was no longer going too fast for him, but instead he was trying to show crowley that he had caught up - felt free enough to match his speed.

that, for me, would make sense with crowley's next line, where he himself clarifies that actually, no - the last couple of years they weren't pretending like they were before. something changed after armageddon, and that was that they both were removed enough from heaven and hell that they could finally explore what 'us' might mean for them. crowley is consistently taken aback by what aziraphale intended to be overtures of closeness and adoration - the frequent touching, the bentley, the ball - because aziraphale was trying to demonstrate it with actions, rather than words. crowley previously showed aziraphale how he felt about him - the rescues, the dinners, the books - and aziraphale was trying to speak to him in a language that he thought crowley would understand.

but crowley then plays the card that he played before, and that even under better circumstances aziraphale would never accept; "if gabriel and beelzebub can do it, go off together, then we can!". aziraphale didn't accept it - however much he might have selfishly, privately wanted to - in s1 under threat of armageddon, and it's certainly not an option now when the metatron is literally outside the door. again, if we accept that aziraphale has read the conversation he had with the metatron as some kind of subtle threat, legging it is absolutely not an option he can take. on one hand, he might not want to; aziraphale typically chooses, when his back is against the wall, to fight his way out, to push back. on the other... it's the same as the bandstand; where could they possibly go where heaven won't find them? if they even got that far, how long would they have to keep running? they would constantly have to look over their shoulders, and exist together as if it's something that should be hidden out of fear, and guilt, and shame.

it then makes sense that aziraphale suddenly finds movement as crowley in turn grows more frantic in them being "an 'us'!"; aziraphale starts quickly shaking his head, tearing up, at what crowley is saying. crowley tries stoicly to cajole aziraphale into agreeing, because surely this time he will. aziraphale however strides right up to him, and counters again that he and crowley can be together, can be an 'us', but why can't it be in heaven? neither of them are denying what they want from the other. aziraphale then goes on to lay out exactly how it could work, that he could "run it, [crowley'll] be [his] second-in-command".

i know that a lot of people take issue with this line, because it suggests that aziraphale is claiming superiority, and relegating crowley to the oh-so-lowly deputy position... but tbh, i just can't see it like that. i have no doubt that crowley might see it like that (re: what i said above about crowley potentially seeing the restoration as an insult, because it's only offered not in recognition of crowley himself, but instead as a consolatory benefit of aziraphale taking the offer) but i just simply cannot fathom that aziraphale would ever mean it like that. because look - they haven't even gotten out the door, and already aziraphale has it all planned out. he'd bypass the other archangels not only to take the top position himself, at the metatron's behest, but he'd immediately use that power to install crowley right by his side. he's not offering crowley to just return to his lab/office cubicle as an angel, and once-in-a-blue-moon see aziraphale when he maybe had the time; he's already scheming to give crowley one of the most powerful positions he possibly can. he wants to place crowley in a position not only where aziraphale can always protect him, but it also shows that he trusts crowley more implicitly than any other being, and is frankly offering to fix heaven to be one that crowley would want to see. that crowley could have direct input in building. one that is good enough to have him.

aziraphale solidifies this with "we can make a difference". note the pronoun shift from before? and how he half-whispers it to crowley, fervent and desperate for crowley to see exactly what they could do together? notice how aziraphale isn't scanning around him at the windows anymore? to me, this is the real motivation, right here. metatron is giving both of them an opportunity for them to play their own game; aziraphale is prepared to take it, but wants crowley by side - as a team - when he does... why wouldn't crowley?

okay im going to cheat here slightly and direct you to this, because my thoughts on this are pretty much still the same. it's apt that this is the nail in the coffin as far as this conversation goes, because for me it's the main (only?) instance in which the two of them are both entirely candid in what they're saying, hoping the other understands, and yet the two meanings miss each other completely. everything else has been a conflict in beliefs or ideals, but this? this is The miscommunication.

crowley is saying: 'this bookshop means so much to you, and it means so much to me too. you even said it was ours, not just yours; it represents where we both felt most safe, where we could be entirely ourselves and not fear or worry about anything going on outside it. you gave me a home in this place, with you - you can't just leave it like it's nothing, you can't just leave 'us' like it's nothing, you can't just leave me like im nothing.'

aziraphale is saying: 'this bookshop means so much to me, it's true, but in a thousand years - even maybe a hundred years - it will be little more than rubble. it represents what i used to treasure more than anything, because it was what i took pleasure in, and i could be myself. it was ours, but really all it is, is little more than paper, glass, and brick. you are my home, and you are more important than a building with windows and a creaky front door. being together, being safe, is all i want, and is all that matters.'

all of that is summed up nicely in crowley just... letting all the fight drain out of his body. tilts his head back, in that famous nod of, 'oh right okay, i see what you're saying'. wills the tears not to fall; to him, aziraphale has just rejected everything that crowley thought aziraphale held dear - including himself. nothing lasts forever, including them... when what aziraphale is saying is that nothing lasts forever, but they could.

crowley puts his shield back on, the sunglasses back in their usual place. aziraphale sees him do so, and has the faintest, hopeful smile on his face; because he thinks that crowley has finally gotten what aziraphale was trying to convey to him - and so, now, they're going to leave the shop together, go to heaven together, and work together to fix heaven into what it always should have been... and along the way, grant them the freedom to do whatever the hell they want to do, and do it in peace. crowley however shatters that; he steps out from around aziraphale, and wishes him luck... and aziraphale realises that they are not in fact on the same page, and actually now whatever was holding on by a thread might have finally snapped.

*

okay look if you've made it this far - first of all how and why, you madman, this was stupidly long and convoluted... but also many kisses of gratitude unto you for sticking it out this long. i'm planning (if the dopamine gods remain with me) on doing a part 2 where i look at the last bit of the domestic, and the kiss, again - to see what i unearth there too, but thoughts so far:

aziraphale feels under threat from the metatron, and has to prioritise acquiescing to his request on pain of [redacted]

but he also knows that if the metatron knows that crowley is his pressure point, his only option is to try to a) convince the metatron that he (aziraphale) is completely on board, and docile, and b) convince crowley to come back with him, not only for his safety but also so they can be together, and because actually, to aziraphale's mind, the offer is a good thing, possibly something crowley has always secretly wanted, and crowley deserves it

alongside feeling threatened, aziraphale is wary that the metatron may be able to observe/hear their conversation. he therefore cannot say anything that would antagonise the metatron, cannot say anything that would suggest that aziraphale knows that the metatron is a Big Bad, and cannot let crowley in on the truth because crowley would question it too hard and endanger them both

aziraphale knows that crowley is about to confess his feelings, or something of a similar sentiment. aziraphale wants to hear it, but only when he can be sure that crowley will come back to heaven with him, where he can be safe in a position of power, right by aziraphale's side

when crowley begins to resist the idea, and battles back with a plan of this own for them to be together, aziraphale a) has to impress upon him that going back to heaven, and potentially fixing it in their image (lmao god complex much, aziraphale?) is the right thing to do, especially if they are to have any kind of future together, and b) has to do so, again, in a way that won't alert crowley that something more nefarious might be going on. regardless, they both operate on the understanding that they want to be together

however. the one major miscommunication in the entire part of the first sequence is "nothing lasts forever" - this particular part is practically the repeat of the different exactlies from episode 1

ok bye

[andreal831]

In regards to your take about Katherine, I do agree with you about Stefan completely, and always put my foot down when it comes to rape and sexual assault. The only gripe I have is when people only call out Katherine for this, but always defend Damon and outright deny he ever raped and abused Caroline, when he literally used the exact same methods that Katherine did on Stefan. But somehow they think that because Caroline was the one who showed interest in Damon first, and that she gave consent only once that it makes her rape and abuse less valid than Stefan's.

Even if Caroline did show interest first and gave consent the first time, it doesn't mean she wasn't allowed to change her mind, after she saw Damon for what he was. And after that first time, she was compelled and couldn't give consent or have a say in the matter. Her autonomy was taken away just the same way Stefan's was. And the amount of victim blaming/shaming and slut shaming I see Caroline get for this, and the amount of excuses they make to defend Damon just because they find him hot and attractive and love the bad boy is just beyond revolting and disgusting to me.

As for everything else, like your points about how they should've shown evidence of that Katherine was living in fear of Klaus, or that Klaus had his own network of vampires to track her down, I agree with that. And this is one of many instances where I chalk it up to a writing flaw rather than a character flaw. Also an example of telling instead of showing, which was the writers biggest flaw on both shows.

I always see people applaud Elena for "being brave" and willing to sacrifice herself and choosing not to run, when the truth is, she shouldn't have been in that kind of a position to begin with. The idea people have that Katherine or Elena owed Klaus anything is absurd to me, because they didn't owe him anything. Neither one of them should've had to sacrifice their own lives and die just for his own selfish cause.

And as much as people blame Katherine for Klaus going after Elena, I really don't think it would've mattered either way. Klaus still would've found Elena, whether Katherine came to Mystic Falls or not, and just taken Elena himself.

TW: Rape/SA

I 100% agree with everything you said.

People are misogynistic when they talk about Katherine and Damon. I absolutely cannot stand season 1 Damon. He was meant to be a villain and was. There is no question that he raped Caroline. It doesn't matter that she was flirting with him or even that she initially wanted to be with him. As soon as she said no and changed her mind, it crosses over to rape. A person is allowed to change their mind at any point for any reason. She very clearly expressed it and Damon ignores it and continues to compel and use her for months.

Season 1 Caroline is why I will always have a soft spot for her, even when she made decisions I didn't like or annoyed me. What she went through at such a young age just broke my heart and I feel like the show never gave her the time to process it or even acknowledge it. Hell, even just having Stefan and Caroline be able to support each other and trauma bond.

I do not allow any slut shaming on my pages for anyone. I do see it a lot with Caroline. People often blanket it in a way that they are trying to defend another character, but it's still not appropriate. It's one thing to say that her having sex with a certain character was problematic, but it's completely different to just shame her for sex in general.

I do also agree that it was a writing flaw in how they portrayed Katherine's past. I indirectly said this in the previous post. I think it really has to do with the fact that they hadn't anticipated keeping the Mikaelsons on for so long. In TO they wanted to make the Mikaelsons look more sympathetic, which would have been harder to do if every flashback showed them mercilessly hunting down Katherine. Unfortunately, this made Katherine look cruel for how she used and abused people in order to stay "hidden." Again, I do headcanon that they had people looking for her and chasing her, but she still did things that weren't necessary and continued to do things she didn't need to even after the Mikaelsons were no longer chasing her.

I also agree that Katherine and Elena owed no one anything, especially not Klaus. I also hate when people blame one character for another's behavior. Katherine attempting to hand Elena over to Klaus, yes we can blame her. But we can't blame Katherine for the inevitability of Klaus seeking Elena out. If anything, like I said in the last post, Katherine could have sold out her ancestors earlier. She was the only one who knew she had a child and that more doppelgangers could have existed. I'm not sure when she discovered the lore of everything, but she did at some point and I like to believe she didn't immediately start trying to sell out her ancestor for her own freedom.

Thanks for the ask!

[iamawolfstarsimp]

Sup bitches

im back and today I'm trying something a little different

Now I know I've written with baby/younger Harry in at least one fic before but I've never written anything with teenage harry cause I'm not a fan of golden trio era obviously lol

But I thought I'd spice it up a bit and try it cause why not (also this idea is amazing or maybe i dont have any others lmao and I don't wanna waste it)

So yeah enjoy

There was never a dull moment in the ancient house of black, always some commotion or excitement going on.

But somehow Sirius always found a way to get bored.

Maybe it was because he was always cooped up here, or maybe the anticipation of the though or idea of being needed for a mission of sorts and then the disappointment when it doesn't happen led to him being almost constantly bored or moody, Remus would take bored over moody any day.

Thankfully, Sirius almost always found Harry to help cure his boredom as Harry usually was also bored out of his mind.

Unfortunately, Sirius almost always found Harry to help cure his boredom as Harry usually was also bored out of his mind.

He swore, those two would tear the house down one day. Sirius with his clever mind full of ideas for pranks and mischief alike and Harry's lean, younger body that could easily climb up onto and crawl into things.

When Remus heard noise coming from Harry's room he headed upstairs to see what the issue was, preparing himself for whatever mess the boy had gotten into.

His surprise must have shown on his face to find Sirius sitting on Harry's hips and squeezing his sides and ribs causing said boy to laugh, eyes shut tight in his mirth.

"Harry's ticklish!" Sirius exclaimed with a grin before returning to torturing helpless Harry. Memories of the times he himself had tickled Harry when he was a baby came flooding back to Remus.

He didn't bring it up but stayed and watched from the sidelines for a bit, silently observing the similarities in Harry and James. The way Harry threw his head back and cackled when someone went for a bad spot, how he snickered if you poked him in the ribs.

Remus soon left them (much to Harry's dismay) not wanting to get too nostalgic.

This started happening more often. Sirius would sigh something along the lines of "I'm bored", smirk and then trot off (quite litterly, he would usually transform into Padfoot), moments later you'd here loud gigging.

Harry didn't mind fooling around with his godfather, he actually enjoyed it alot (as far as Remus knew). But that didn't mean that he didn't crave a little revenge from time to time.

So Remus wasn't surprised when Harry came up to him asking for help.

"Hey, Remus?" Harry asked as he entered. Remus looked up from his book to answer.

"Yes Harry?" He watched as Harry sat down on the opposite chair to talk to him.

"I need some.. assistance."

"What with? Homework?" Remus was always prepared to help with homework, it was a bad habit he'd developed from back when he was at school. Plus becoming a teacher for a short time didn't help either.

"No, not homework." Harry shifted, a little uncomfortable.

"Uhm.. if it's something else, I-I don't think I would be the best-"

"Oh! Oh no! It's nothing like that!" Harry quickly shook his head. Remus sighed in relief.

"Oh okay, good. What can I help you with then?"

"Well, I need some help to get Sirius back for constantly t-tickling me." Harry grinned sheepishly when Remus smirked and nodded in understanding. "You know him the best out of anyone in the house so I thought I'd ask you."

"You came to the right person," A million ideas came to Remus on ways to get him back, some of them things Remus had even done.

"Did Sirius ever tell you that he himself is extremely ticklish?" Harry's jaw dropped and he shook his head.

"Sirius is ticklish?!" Remus let himself grin devilishly.

"Why don't I show you." Remus left his book in his chair as Harry followed him out of the room. "Oh, grab the cloak."

"What for?" Harry asked.

"Just trust me, I know what I'm doing." Harry shrugged and ran up to his room. He returned shortly with the cloak in hand.

He wordlessly put it on and followed Remus into the sitting room where Sirius was sat. Remus felt Harry linger by the door, waiting for a signal to take the cloak off.

"Hi." Remus said, sitting down on the couch nearby to Sirius.

"Hey, Moons." Sirius sighed, letting his head fall onto the back of the chair.

"You okay?" Remus let concern seep into his voice. Sirius shrugged. "You want a hug?"

Sirius nodded and hopped up from his armchair to crawl into Remus' lap and wrap his arms around him.

"Anything on your mind you wanna talk about?" Remus knew not to push Sirius for answers but also knew that Sirius liked to know that people cared enough to ask.

"No, not really.. just feeling a little down today, I don't mean to be a burden." Sirius looked up at him with his classic puppy dog eyes that he has when he's sad. Puppy dog eyes always cause Remus' heart to melt.

Remus kissed his nose and leaned his forehead against Sirius'.

"All better?" Sirius grinned and nodded.

"Yep, the world's problems were all just solved, nothing will ever be wrong again, thanks Moony." Sirius said sarcastically.

"Alright you snarky little sod-" Remus dug into Sirius' belly with one hand the other squeezing his thigh.

"Wahait!! Hold on, n-nohoho!! Remus!" Sirius exclaimed in shock as his arms were grabbed and held above his head

"Harry!" Remus called, using his longer legs to hold onto Sirius' so he couldn't kick.

Harry immediately dropped the cloak and rushed over, sitting down on Sirius' legs.

"Did you two fuckers plan this?" Get me distracted and then jump on me?" Harry laughed and nodded.

"You'll never break me! I have a stronger will than you think I do, even when you're using tortuous methods." Sirius shouted playfully.

"Softly scribble on his lower stomach." Remus instructed.

"NO!" Sirius arched his back, flopping in every direction.

Once Harry grabbed onto Sirius' belly and started lightly tracing, scribbling and scratching Sirius became less wiggly.

"Nooohohoho! I hahate soft tihihickles!" He whined, letting his head fall back onto Remus' shoulder.

"Soft tickles work really well on his stomach area, it drives him up the wall- as you can see." Remus smirked when Sirius hid his face in Remus' neck. "But, harder tickles work well down there as well, including digging, kneeding, raspberries-"

"What's a raspberry?" Harry stopped his tickling to look perplexed. Remus gasped at Sirius and dropped one of his hands that were holding onto Sirius' arms to dig into his exposed armpit.

"You've never showed him what a raspberry is!?" Remus said in surprise. "I'm ashamed of you!"

"I'm sohohohorry, I'm sorry!" Sirius laughed, his wiggling renewed.

"Harry switch spots with me." Sirius groaned as Remus grinned at him and sat on his upper thighs while Harry held onto Sirius' arms.

"Harry do not let go of him or he will hit me, okay?" Harry grinned and nodded. "Sirius, be good."

"I'll try. No guarantees I won't smack the shit out of you." Sirius said.

"Ready, Sirius?"

"Just do it." He mumbled.

"What did you say? Sorry I couldn't hear you, are you ready?"

"Yehes."

"Are you sure?" He teased.

"Yehehess."

"Are you really sure?"

"Mohohoony, stop!"

"Stop what?"

Sirius groaned and looked away. Remus saw his opportunity. He took a deep breath and quickly hiked up Sirius' loose shirt and blew a little below Sirius' naval, a sweet spot on himself.

Sirius went into a laughing fit, immediately trying to curl in on himself. Remus continued to raspberry across his torso to keep him constantly laughing before reluctantly giving him a break.

"That is a raspberry, Harry." Remus said as he and Harry went back to their original spots. "And Sirius' favorite thing, isn't it Sirius?"

"I ha-hate you both." He replied.

"I've barely done anything! Plus, you deserve this for all the times you've tickled me." Harry said indignantly.

"You guys still suhuHUCK!!" Sirius yelped. Harry had just experimentally poked his hips.

"Oh yeah, that's a bad spot." Remus said after see where Harry's hands were.

"Shut up!" Sirius shouted.

"I don't think you wanna be saying that in your position." Remus said up close to his ear, as teasingly as possible.

Meanwhile Harry had started pinching Sirius' hips to see what would get the best reaction. All of the methods he tried got Sirius to positively cackle but squeezing gave the best results.

Remus was still whispering teases in Sirius' ear and along with the hip tickles, Sirius was in hell.

"IT'S SO BAHAHAD!" Sirius knew his face had to be bright red. "P-PLEHEASE STOP!!"

With one final small raspberry to the neck Remus stopped and nodded at Harry to do the same.

"Learned your lesson? You gonna leave Harry alone for a bit?" Remus let go of Sirius wrists, using his arms to hug Sirius instead. Sirius huffed and nodded in response.

Sirius grabbed Harry and pulled him into their little cuddle pile, wrapping him in a hug.

"I'm tired, you two tickled the energy out of me." Sirius sighed. Remus kissed the side of his head.

"You'll live." Harry answered.

"Alright, Mr. Sass king." Sirius poked Harry's belly.

"Noho!" Harry turned onto his stomach to block the pokes. "No tickles!"

"Okay, okay! No tickles. Right, Remus?" Sirius turned to look at him.

Remus nodded from the crook of Sirius' neck. "No tickles."

"Good." Harry answered, letting his head rest on Sirius' chest and his arms return the favor and wrap around Sirius.

"Did you two date at hogwarts?" Harry asked after a few minutes of silence.

"That's a long story." Remus told him.

"I have time.." Harry said.

Sirius and Remus glanced at each other before silently agreeing to tell him. Harry deserved to know.

Sirius started off with how they met on the train station with Remus adding in little bits to the story as they went. By the time they made it to Remus' fourteenth birthday Harry was dozed off.

Sirius rested his head against Harry's, letting his body relax for the first time in a while. Remus kissed Sirius' shoulder once he knew he was asleep.

"Love you Harry, love you Pads.." Was the last thing he thought before drifting off to sleep.

This turned out to be a bit lengthy but finally one of my daydreams comes to life

Hope you liked

[normal-thoughts-official]

Do find it interesting how Copley's entire character is based on denial. Especially when it comes to his involvement in the key plot points.

He's in denial about his wife. Even if he admits that she is dead, he refuses to move on. It's been two years, and he still wears the wedding band. Just in that very short scene of him in his office we see two pictures of her (one of their wedding on the shelf and one of her right in between his PC monitors, so she's always in his peripheral vision at least). Someone who wanted to move on would have kept the pictures somewhere to look at when they felt the need, not exactly where they were before, as a constant reminder of her passing. And they definitely wouldn't keep wearing the wedding band.

What I'm trying to say is that even though Copley, obviously, knows rationally that his wife is dead, subconsciously he is still in denial because he refuses to move on. And because he refuses to move on, he keeps trying to find a way to do something about it. He obsessively follows the immortals and Merrick (who is specifically looking into making cures for the type of disease that killed Copley's wife) looking for a way to help cure her illness, because it is the closest he can get to curing his wife. To making up for not being able to save her. To rewriting what happened to his family. (And if he ever got that, he'd have to face the fact that he can't bring his wife back and actually process his grief instead of trying to Do Something To Stop ALS as a means of putting off facing her death).

The entire plot wouldn't have happened if Copley hadn't been in denial about the fact that there is nothing left for him to do about his wife. If he hadn't refused to process his grief by choosing to obsess over finding a cure to ALS instead, he wouldn't have found out about the Guard's immortality, and wouldn't have sold them out to Merrick.

But it doesn't stop there. Even his small decisions are driven by denial. I always laugh at the "there was an unanticipated amount of carnage" because Copley. James. Babygirl. They are immortal mercenaries who have fought in more wars than most people learn of in school. We know that they're trying to do good and don't like killing, but we also know they're willing to. And with a secret this big at risk of being revealed, there is no way they'd have left anyone get out of that room alive.

Which someone as smart as Copley, who's ex-CIA, for crying out loud, should have predicted. The only way Copley could have possibly believed that his little trap wouldn't end in a bloodbath is if he was neck-deep in denial of the fact that his plan would kill innocents. Because again, Copley desperately needs to believe that he's doing good, that he's working for the sake of humanity, that he will save his wife people

And sure, he could have been lying about not anticipating it, but judging by: the fact that he doesn't need to because Merrick doesn't give a fuck; the fact that the carnage actually got in the way of his plans, because he couldn't get DNA samples; and his horrified look as he watched the footage, I really don't think that he was. I think he genuinely, truly did not expect that it would be (so) bloody. Or, more accurately, didn't want to believe it would, or maybe didn't even want to think about what the consequences of his trap would be beyond "I get the samples, ASL is cured". He was laser focused on his goal, and he didn't see anything else. If Copley hadn't been in denial about this, his trap would probably have been set up differently, at the very least.

And then, of course, the entire second half is a parade of Copley being in denial about the obvious, completely unmistakable fact that Merrick is a piece of shit who could not care less about helping people. Merrick isn't even trying to pretend otherwise. Yet Copley is surprised by his complete lack of ethics. The way he screams "Mr Merrick!" when Merrick starts stabbing Joe, like anyone in the world didn't see that coming; his "this is about science, not profits, or sadism" like he truly believed that's what it was for them; warning him that "this would be murder" like Merrick cared; the genuinely shocked "for... ever?"; the "no, this is not what we agreed" when this is exactly what they agreed on. The agreement was that he would bring Merrick the immortals and he would experiment on them to make medicine. He had to have known forced experimentation and potential murder was what was going to happen, especially because Merrick took 0 efforts to not make that obvious. But somehow Copley had convinced himself that they would get DNA samples and then leave them alone, which is an insane assumption to make after everything Merrick's done and said.

But Merrick's company was working on a cure for degenerative diseases. They could, very soon, cure ALS. So Copley needed it to be him, needed him to be interested in doing this ethically, needed to believe that, once again, his brilliant plan wasn't actually just hurting more innocents in a desperate quest to save a dead woman.

Because Copley does believe in doing good. We know that because no one who doesn't actually, deeply care about humanity would go looking into what happened to all the people that the Guard saved. Just the fact that he researched that, tried to find out what happened to the victims, shows that he is a very compassionate person with a very humanized perspective on war and conflict. He went looking into generations of descendants of people saved by the Guard. I don't think most people would even bother to think of looking at what happened to them beyond being a footnote in the Guard's history, especially not anyone as obsessed with them as Copley was. But Copley did. He looked into every single person, and what happened to them.

Taking that into account, as well as the fact that Copley was genuinely fighting Merrick on his decisions, I think that Copley - unlike Merrick, Keane, and Kozak - does care about doing the whole thing ethically. The thing, of course, is that without their consent that is impossible, which Copley is too smart and compassionate not to know. But letting them go would mean facing that there won't be a miracle cure for his wife, and he cannot handle admitting that. So, he adds "trying to convince himself this could be in any way ethical and he can convince Merrick to do it that way" to the list of completely out of touch beliefs he's been holding because of denial.

The result is that even though he obviously knew that Merrick was a fucking piece of shit (just the fact that he added "or sadism" proves that), he didn't actually face that as a fact until the moment Nile confronted him and he said "they are in the lab, being tested" and then closed his eyes and went, "tortured". Again, denial made an appearance, but this time he made the conscious decision to take a deep breath and stop lying to himself. This is the first time he acknowledges what's actually going on there, and by proxy, his part in it. And all it took was being quite literally hit over the head with it, as well as possibly killing the single person who's made the most good in the history of humanity. But I digress.

It is also in that same confrontation with Nile that he finally admits the obvious - that he was trying to save someone who was gone. He says he wants to help humanity, but in the end he's only being truly honest about his motives when he says "she couldn't talk, my wife. In the end." This is also the first and only time we see him actually mourning his wife, because it is the first time he is in any way processing that her death was final. Up until then, he only talked about her detachedly, and kept all these mementos of her like she still lived in the house.

And that's why his confrontation with Nile is also the shift of his loyalties. Because it is the point in which he breaks his cycle of denial and admits that his wife is gone, he can't save her, and that in trying to do so he's hurt innocents and handed them over to a greedy asshole. And once he finally, finally faces that, he realizes he has to do something about it. Which is why he helps Nile and wants to storm the place with her, insists on it, admits that pharma CEO's are full of shit ("what kind of CEO walks around with his own personal army?" "these days? Most of them"), and agrees to help erase the Guard's footprints. And even though Copley was (or wanted to believe he was) good-intentioned, he wasn't able to do good until he stopped lying to himself.

So Copley's denial is what shaped the way the whole movie goes - if he weren't in denial he wouldn't have found out about the Guard's immortality, wouldn't have set them up the way he did, wouldn't have sold them out to Merrick specifically, and wouldn't have allowed Merrick to continue for as long as he did. And once he got over the denial, that was also a point that helped shape the resolution of the plot (I'm sure Nile would have found everyone anyway, but Copley's help did speed up the process). And I find it interesting how this one thread of how he chose to deal with his grief ended up not only defining his character, but the course of events in the movie - despite the fact that he's not a main character.

Which actually also ties off in a really interesting perspective where most of the things that happen over the course of the movie are dictated by the characters' refusal to try to get better. The whole movie would be heading towards a massive tragedy, Greek-style, if there weren't a character who is quite literally defined by her refusal to go with the tide - Nile. Unlike Andy, Booker, and Copley, who let their grief and self destruction take over their life, and Joe and Nicky (+Booker again), who let Andy make all the relevant family decisions, Nile refuses to let anyone or anything decide her fate for her. She doesn't defer to Andy just because Andy is the oldest and very clearly capable; she fights her at nearly every turn, even when it's impossible for her to win, because she is not willing to compromise her beliefs or let anyone dictate what she's going to do. She will do it if she believes in it, and only then. And Nile also isn't willing to listen to Copley's bullshit, which forces him to face what he's been trying to hide from himself.

So, you know - maybe this is the why Nile. Because she's young and strongheaded, and so she holds the hope and the possibility of doing things differently. Of choosing your potential future. And that's why she makes Andy realize that she's been doing a shit job of living, but she can do different.

Although this might be a different analysis altogether. My point with this one was - Copley's tendency towards denial was one of the most powerful forces shaping the course of events in the movie. And Nile's unwavering sense of morality and freedom of choice was the opposing force.

PS so there are no doubts about it: I'm not saying that what Copley did was justified or that you have to like him. This is a character analysis and nothing more, or less.

[ineffable-human]

Season 2 (potential) Clues

Get ready for another theory post y'all we don't have enough clearly

GIF made with help by @afhyer

Being a collection of things I found weird/noteable in Season 2 that could be potential Clues for Season 3. (and my theories, some sound, some crackpot)

Note 1: I use my dudes non-genderedly 

Note 2: I am not tech savvy enough to get screenshots from Scamazon or make gifs or anything so sorry for the low-quality phone images/lack of images in some cases

Jim and the God Possession

Jim and the whole memory loss thing was a great part of the show, but it did bring up some interesting moments when Jim got God-possessed (As I like to call it). These moments prove to be fairly crucial, especially the first one. 

It’s through the God-voice that Aziraphale and Crowley get to thinking about the Job job. Now I have oodles of theories about what this does to/for them, but ultimately I think it comes down to relaying two main ideas. 1. There’s always a work around to the main problem

2. Demons (and to an extent angels) have free will/a choice

Now the second one is less God-like but still leads us (and Crowley) into the minisode about the magic show. Here we learn two more important pieces of information.

1. There’s such a thing as a miracle block

2. Aziraphale and Crowley can pull off tricks without needing to use miracles

My (crackpot-ish) Theory: knowing Gabriel is commonly referred to as God’s messenger in many bibles/renditions, I think it’s likely that he got redirected to Aziraphale’s shop by God to deliver these messages.

Aziraphale’s reactions during the Beelzebub/Gabriel scene

They’re feckin’ weird, my dudes. 

I noticed two things right off the bat.

First. His lovey-dovey face. 

Okay, I know we all know that Aziraphale feels love and that he loves love, but that doesn’t seem to be the entirety of what’s going on here. Look at that face! LOOK AT IT! 

Extremely crackpot theory: Aziraphale knew about Gabe and Beelz’s relationship ahead of time.

Most likely theory: Aziraphale is happy seeing proof that it’s possible to find something more important than choosing sides

(couldn't get a gif but watch it cause there's certainly a thought pattern going on when this happens) Second. His reaction when Crowley tells Gabriel and Beelzebub about Alpha Centauri. He looks both saddened and regretful. WHY? Not just because he rejected Crowley once, but because (crackpot theory) he knows he’s gonna have to reject him again!!! Idk whatever way you look at it that’s QUITE the reaction to Crowley giving away their spot like that.

Crowley's reactions after

Let’s start with whatever Crowley is up to when the angles are all talking.

He’s just off, lounging in the chair. Doing nothing. Doesn't even RESPOND when Michael threatens to erase Aziraphale. Mr. I DID NOT CARE FOR IT, just sits there and lets that go unanswered. WHY??? Even if the book of life isn’t real like he claims, it’s still a little out of character for him to just do nothing at all. And the fact that he just sends Azirpahale off with the Metatron after is like…bruh really? 

Okay now, go look at Crowley AFTER Aziraphale goes for a chat with the Metatron. IDK about anyone else but this boy does not look happy. (couldn't get any clear shots SOB) He looks angry when he’s talking to Muriel about the breakfast. And when was the last time he mentioned needing an extreme amount of alcohol? When they were trying to stop the first apocalypse.

I know that everyone’s thinking he’s all excited and happy to go see Aziraphale and get together etc. But this all happened BEFORE Maggie and Nina walked over to tell him to confess.

My Theory: Crowley does know Aziraphale, and knows how badly he wants to work with heaven and be good and all that jazz. Which is why he’s anticipating Aziraphale coming back to say, hey I’ve been offered a job. He expects them to go talk it over at breakfast and is preparing to say goodbye/help him come up with a plan to stop armageddon pt2. But then he gets the idea to confess and Aziraphale hits him with the ‘be an angel again yay’ whammy, and he just loses it.

The Non-Acceptance Acceptance

Something just interesting to note…the Metatron sends Aziraphale into the bookshop with a ‘take your time, we don’t need an answer right away’ but then comes in right after Crowley leaves acting as if Aziraphale said yes all along.

Theory (potentially crackpot): The Metatron (potentially with the help of demon Maggie{I got ideas, my duded}) manipulated and orchestrated their breakup by getting them both to a heightened state of emotions and throwing them together. He knew Aziraphale would get into a fight with Crowley and that Crowley was the only reason he wouldn’t go with them.

The Coffee and the Embassy

Do I wish the coffee was super drugged and Aziraphale was not himself? Yes. But let’s put that idea aside and just look at the facts.

I’m gonna start with how weird it is that the bookshop is still an embassy. Aziraphale does call it an ex/past-heaven outpost, but it’s still his and still has heavenly power. Whereas Crowley lost his flat when he lost his job.

Why is this? It’s possible that the flat was owned by hell whereas Azirpahale bought the shop himself. But it still doesn’t explain why heaven was still ‘protecting’ the home of a ‘traitor’.

My theory for this does concern the coffee. But not the drink itself or what may or may not be in it. Rather, the way it’s presented to Aziraphale. 

First, the Metatron says some of the things in that weird way of his, like the “hefty jiggy of almond” and whatnot. It sounds very ‘hint-hint wink-wink nudge-nudge’ to me, like he’s talking in code to Aziraphale. 

Second, Aziraphale says that there’s nothing left to talk about, and he’s made his position quite clear. The only time we’ve seen them talk was in Season 1 when Aziraphale tries to talk to God. And in that conversation, Aziraphale didn’t say anything about his *position*.

My theory: Azirapahle and the Metatron talked at some point between S1 end and S2 end. Most likely very closely after S1 ended, and Aziraphale did something (perhaps made a deal) where he was able to keep the shop and maintain its embassy status.

Addendum HELLA CRACKPOT like so cracky it’s just a giant hole: Metatron secretly good guy come at me XD

The flow of the fight

So I won’t go deep into my big crazy theory about the fight being fake, but I will point out the strange things I noticed, why they feel off, and what I think it might mean…. I also could not garner the energy to take pictures of this scene sorry SOB

First, Aziraphale when he’s telling Crowley the ‘good news’. He keeps glancing out the window. As if checking that the Metatron is still watching. And if he’s watching, we don’t know if he’s maybe listening too. And Azirpahale’s whole attitude in this opening bit feels kind of like his stage-presence.

Next, we get the weird half-information about the talk with the Metatron. We don’t really see the full convo, which is part of the point, I believe. We don’t even know if that conversation happened at all. 

After that, Crowley gets thrown for a loop with the whole restoring angel status, obvs. But then they go right into their old fight of heaven and hell and good and bad. Which was, I think, the main thing that’s a little off here. And that’s because of how much Aziraphale noticed and was seen noticing those ‘light-grays’ of the world and of the whole situation. The entire graverobbing bit was him learning that the difference between good and bad and right and wrong are blurred/a matter of how you view things. 

Yes, the miscommunication is the main issue here, but the fact that the good/bad debate comes up again is interesting to note. Especially since it’s Aziraphale that pulls the hell is bad heaven is good card. If we go on the idea that this conversation is being bugged and they’re trying to talk between talking, it kind of seems like Crowley is throwing out the ‘I thought we weren’t choosing sides???’ and Aziraphale brings up the good/bad to indicate that it’s not about choosing sides but about doing what’s *right* (like saving goats and children).

Next, Crowley hits us with the line about heaven ending life on earth. Because he knows the angels were planning a second armageddon. Now I don’t believe that Crowley, for however hurt he is, believes that Aziraphale would willingly go along with that plan. But Azirpahale doesn’t know about it, right? This out of place line (in direct response to heaven being the side of truth light and good) is Crowley’s way of cluing Aziraphale in on the bigger picture. Note, specifically, the pause before Crowley speaks again as Aziraphale processes that.

Aziraphale didn’t say no, but he also didn’t say yes. I think this is the key point in the argument. Aziraphale just learned that heaven is still planning to try and destroy Earth. And he knows that if he does nothing, they probably will. So here he is, essentially accepting the job so that he can put a stop to it. And here he is trying to tell Crowley that’s his plan

Crowley understands what’s going on. And he decides to confess, right? This confession gets *interesting*. First, Aziraphale glances out the window when Crowley says they’re a team, yes? Because he’s still checking for Metatron’s presence. Second, Aziraphale looks confused by Crowley’s line of reasoning. Crowley is talking about them relying on each other and working together, but Aziraphale’s idea of that (in this situation anyway) would be him coming to heaven to help.

Crowley’s eyes wander a lot, but he also looks pointedly out the window at one point, while he’s struggling to get the words out. And I think that he’s trying to get his confession out while knowing that they’re being watched/listened to. I mean, gosh it’s tough enough to confess let alone when someone is watching.

As to why Crowley decided to confess: I don’t think it’s an act of desperation to get Aziraphale to choose him over heaven and just abandon everything. I think it’s his act of desperation to get Aziraphale to realize that going to heaven has BIG FUCKING TRAP written all over it and that they can do more to fix things together on Earth than anywhere/way else. And Aziraphale pulls a similar move by asking him to come with him. He knows it’s dangerous and he does need Crowley there to help.

Now this is another weird turn in the convo. After Aziraphale asks Crowley to come with him again, Crowley throws out ‘you can’t leave the bookshop’. And Aziraphale responds with the ‘nothing lasts forever’. Now I’m sure I’m missing something here because both of these lines feel so weird and out of place I’m gonna assume they are some kind of code or I’m dense about the line of reasoning here.

What’s really interesting tho is that Aziraphale looks kind of…hopeful? After he says it, right before Crowley walks away. Like he was expecting some kind of different reaction to that line. Maybe Crowley missed the Clue, too.

After that, it’s easy to see why Aziraphale would stop him from leaving and reharp on the point of them working together in heaven. He doesn’t know if Crowley fully understands the Plan, or if he’ll help when Aziraphale needs him. And he’ll definitely need him.

Then we get another little shift in the mood/convo. Aziraphale gets angry/frustrated, possibly because Crowley isn’t picking up on the idea. We’re so used to seeing Crowley get angry in their fights, but the few times Aziraphale does get angry he gets *angry*. Here, however, he’s clearly trying to mask it. 

Okay, the whole Nightingales line, imma be honest, made no sense. Like, in the fandom it makes sense because of the song, but like, in the depths of this conversation I was like ??? what a strange way to put it. But Aziraphale does react to it, so we have to assume there’s something about it that they both understood/knew. (I will touch BRIEFLY on my ‘the entire argument was a magic trick bit’ to say that this is Crowley letting Aziraphale know that the kiss/his feelings aren’t part of the scheme).

I don’t even know with the whole ‘I forgive you’ bit, man. There’s a lot of ideas, but the way Aziraphale’s face changes from shocked, to sad, to angry, to immediate regret after says a lot as well. Crackpot theory: Aziraphale trying to change Crowley to an angel early by ‘forgiving’ him as the new supreme archangel so he can kidnap him away to heaven.

After the Fight

NOW! An important thing to note after the fight! When the Metatron mentions the second coming, yeah Aziraphale get’s that OH SHIT face. But I don’t think it’s an ‘oh shit they are up to no good’ face. It’s an ‘oh shit this is a different beast than just shutting down another apocalypse’. And the way he looks at Crowley after is very much a ‘help me I’ve bitten off more than I can chew’ kinda look.

Also a potentially important thing. Crowley’s face is pretty blank during both that and the driving away. Which is weird because his face is usually so expressive you can tell what he’s feeling even with the glasses on. He looks more…pensive than sad to me but that Could Just Be Me.

Aziraphale's fucking smile at the end

I mean just look at that, lil bastard. That’s totally a hahaha I FOOLED THEM face. Enough said.

The miracle block and Aziraphale's failed Jedi mind trick

Putting aside the totally real possibility that Maggie is a demon (further evidence available upon request), I thought it was weird that Aziraphale’s little jedi mind trick to try and get her to leave/forget about the night didn’t work. 

Where else did we see miracles not work? The magic show!

My theory: Someone put a miracle block on the bookshop during the invasion. My addendum theory: It was Maggie

The weird music sting and Mrs. Chen

Furfur did mention that he could muster up a feel of illease/malcontent, but this moment when Mrs. Chen is heading in and we get that little music sting feels very weird. It’s such a noticeable/long cut that it just feels like it’s gotta be something more.

And it’s a very similar music sting as when the Metatron gives Crowley his lil evil snarl face My theory: I don’t even have one, but there’s something there.

Crowley not remembering people/the thing about not seeing their faces

Okay this one kinda gets a little iffy but stick with me for a second. Twice in the show we see Crowley not remembering someone (first, Furfur and then Saraqael). Now, someone asked Neil Gaiman about this and iirc his answer was something along the lines of ‘who says Crowley sees people’s faces?’

So, from that answer (if we can trust anything he says XD), we can gather that Crowley recognizes people based more on their aura/soul than their physical features.

Now then, this is an interesting thing to keep in mind when you see his reaction to new Beelzebub and Jim.

When he sees Beelzebub, he does immediately recognize a difference. But it’s important to note here: Beelzebub mentions they’ve had that face for ages. Remember this.

When he sees Jim, he recognizes him as Gabriel, even though we could suspect/assume that his aura/soul looks different since losing his memories and angel powers. 

But what’s the real kicker, is that Crowley recognizes the Metatron off the fucking bat when none of the feckin’ angels do, despite probably having seen his giant floating head during the trial.!!!! AND let’s not forget the the Metatron instantly recognizes him as a demon and calls him as such when the rest of the season has shown multiple times that angels can’t immediately recognize demons (at least not on Earth) 

Now, we can chock it up to, well yes Crowley would recognize their faces since he’s interacted with them more/more recently, but we should also keep in mind a very useful/common storytelling tactic: which is to make something important seem unimportant by playing it off as a joke.

A prime example is Jim and the fly. He tries to sway them with books, and makes a joke about gravity. But the fly did play an important role. The jokes distracted from the importance.

And both scenes of Furfur and Saraqael are played a bit as a joke from their reactions. 

My theory: Crowley is suffering some kind of memory loss from the great war.

Addendum/Alternate theory: Some/Most demons got themselves new faces when they fell, and the face Beelzebub has now was their old angel one. 

Gabriel and the Institutional Problem

I know the Scamazon subtitles were wrong BUT I WAS SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS AS A THEORY WHEN I FIRST WATCHED THAT I WANNA SHARE IT ANYWAY

When Jim is talking about what he remembers, he says “if it happens again, It can make it seem like an institutional problem.” But the og bad subtitles had him saying “if it happens again, *I* can make it seem like an institutional problem.” If the subtitles *were* correct it would put a pretty big disconnect between what the Metatron said in the trial and what Jim/Gabriel thought or said.

My now sadly discounted Theory: Gabriel was purposefully trying to expose the issues in heaven/lead to some kind of shenanigans that would shut down further apocalypse attempts. Crackpot Addendum: he was instructed to do so by God. ((And yes, if you're wondering, I did come back on Tumblr after like, 3 years of being gone just to post this nonsense thank you and goodnight!))