#I’m too tired to remember other good prophecy’s / prophets from other things but you get the idea

[t3a-gh0st]

Nothing cooler in a media than a sick ass prophecy / haunted prophet character.

[the-girl-in-the-box]

Not Today XXVII

A/N: This... this is entirely fluff. That is all this is. Fluff, and some hurt/comfort. I will not apologise for that. Skål.

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

Masterlist

--

The return to Kiev was easy enough, though it was rather revealing. It was still day when they returned, but the journey had been long, and Ivar and Asta had grown tired. Igor had been taken by servants in the Palace to find his new chambers, which relieved them of having to do anything for the boy. Not that it was their job, per se, but they wanted to do things for him. Becoming like caretakers to him, they would become trusted by him, and closer to him than Oleg. Ivar had seen many animals grow closer to those who cared for them than their owners in his life, and could people be much different?

Regardless, neither he nor Asta were feeling much up to it that day. They had a habit of sharing a bed, certainly, but sleeping entirely on top of each other, that they were not used to. It hadn’t been very comfortable sleep, and not truly very restful, either. Especially not considering Oleg had woken them so much earlier than they’d wanted to wake.

As they were walking to their room, and Ivar was reflecting on why he was so tired, he was reminded suddenly of soft, dark hair in his hands, a warm hand at the back of his neck, gentle yet demanding lips pressed against his.

It occurred to him as they walked that they hadn’t, actually, been alone since that happened.  Ivar wasn’t an idiot; he knew people didn’t kiss the way they had unless there was something there, something between them, and he also wasn’t blind. Not anymore, at least.

If he looked back over their travels from Kattegat, at some point their act of being an adoring couple had become less of an act, and more their reality. He could say with certainty that he loved Asta. She had changed much during the Siege of Kattegat, he knew that, and those changes had concerned him for her for a while. But the longer they travelled, the more she seemed to really come back to herself. He’d been glad to see it.

Really, it seemed she’d become herself again after she let him have it over Freydis that time. Not that he hadn’t deserved it. That incident, though, and the changes he’d seen after it, had made him wonder if perhaps she had needed to release that pent-up emotion about her. After all, it hadn’t been as though they’d gotten to take time after Freydis’s death to sit and mourn her. Hadn’t Ivar even said as much to the woman? His own words echoed in his mind. Later, when I have time, I will sit and weep for you. They’d had to escape. There had been no time to weep.

It was uncomfortably quiet between the two of them as they reached their room, and Ivar went immediately to undo the braces on his legs. Asta knelt beside him and began to undo one so he’d have less work to do. And there it was again, another sign that they had not been pretending for a long time. His hand slid down into her hair, brushing slowly through it as he watched her.

Asta looked up at him, noticing the strangely thoughtful look on his face. But she leaned into his hand, and offered him a small, warm smile. He returned it, and brought his thumb to brush over her cheek. Seeing how she leaned into that touch…

Truthfully, it scared him. It scared him how he felt a warmth spread through his chest that he’d not expected to feel again. He really was in trouble, wasn’t he?

“What did you think of Oleg’s ‘prophecy’?” he questioned. His voice was soft, his tone not quite matching the words he spoke. Asta sighed, and sat his brace to the side once it was off.

“I don’t believe at all he’s a real prophet, that’s what I think of that,” she answered, and moved to sit beside Ivar. “He explained how he knew about Dir’s wife, and truthfully? His prophecy about what happened if we didn’t take Igor, he could have made come true himself. ‘Something bad’ is awfully vague. Maybe Oleg would have unleashed an army against Dir, we’d have taken Igor, and his ‘prophecy’ would have been proven true, thus proving to everyone that he’s a prophet. He couldn’t lose, really.”

Ivar hummed a little as he thought it over, and then nodded. “That makes sense,” he agreed. “And so it was all in his favor…”

This drew a sigh from Asta, who dropped her head to his shoulder. “For the time being, it is,” she said. “But I have seen power shift… overnight. As have you. I think it’ll shift again here, before all is said and done.”

“Mm, I agree,” Ivar said. "But I am not sure, yet, in what way things will shift..."

Asta considered this, and he turned to watch as she laid back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. She was silent for a good while, long enough that Ivar ended up laying beside her, his eyes focusing on her face which reflected the thought in her mind.

"I think we could take this place," she confessed. "Oleg said it himself, didn't he? Igor is the heir. If we gain his trust, all that's left is to get rid of Oleg. Then we'd be happy and comfortable here."

Ivar smiled a little bit as he imagined this. It reminded him a bit of the conversation they had had upon their initial arrival to Rus, when she had suggested they make a life for themselves there. He couldn't help but wonder now if she'd already realized the way she cared for him, or if it was the beginnings of her realization.

"You think you could be happy here, with me?" he asked her, and she looked to him immediately. Her hand slipped into his, and she gave it a soft squeeze.

"I know I could be," she confessed. "I don't... love the circumstances which have brought us here. I wish Freydis was here, or perhaps that we were still in Kattegat. I wish my family weren't all dead except for Alfred. I wish so many of your family weren't. But everything has led to this, led us to be here, together, for a reason." She shrugged a little, and offered him a small smile. "Whatever that reason is, I don't know. Not yet. But I trust it'll be good. And... however it goes, I trust we'll be happy one day. Maybe we'll even be safe. Maybe we are now, who can say? But yes, I know I could be happy with you. Whether that's here, or we go somewhere else. I'm happy with you."

"Asta..." he said softly, and brought his hand up to cup her cheek. She smiled softly at him, reminded unbidden of strong hands, holding her close, a deep passion bleeding into her, desperation on his lips for something, perhaps for her. She hoped, for her. The Shieldmaiden leaned into his hand.

It seemed there were many things Ivar wanted to say, and Asta watched each of them cross his face. I'm happy with you, too. I want to be where you are. I wish our families weren't gone, as well. None of those thoughts passed his lips, and the one which did surprised her.

"I wish my mother could have met you."

She blinked a few times with his words, and tilted her head just slightly. "Why is that?" she questioned.

Of course, it was obvious why someone from her culture, from her world, would have wanted to introduce someone to their parents. But Ivar had chosen and taken a wife without any input of his parents. Why would he have needed his mother to meet her? Had he wished the same about Freydis, perhaps?

"I think she would have liked you," is how he answered. "I believe she always pictured I would meet someone strong one day, but someone who was still gentle enough with me, that she would not... that she would be able to tolerate me."

Even as he chuckled, he was surprised to feel Asta curling into his side, slipping her head up under his arm and resting it against his chest, her hand coming up to lay against his side. "I do more than tolerate you," she said. "You know I do."

"I know you do," he confirmed, nodding a little. "And she would have liked that. There would have been... concerns, she'd have had, concerning how you were raised. But she would have liked you anyway, I think."

Asta smiled a little, and snuggled up to Ivar closely. "Tell me about her?" she requested. Ivar smiled.

"She was beautiful," he said. "And very good. At least, she was to me. She was strong, too. In her faith, her convictions... everything. But I think I may have seen a side of her which my brother's did not see so much."

"How so?" Asta questioned.

"I think she paid more attention to me than to them." He gave a small chuckle. "Sigurd always held that against me."

"Wasn't your fault," she said. "You... well, you had... more specific needs, than they had."

"I was a cripple, you can say it," he quipped. "We both know." He wiggled his legs a bit on the bed, and earned a soft giggle from Asta.

"Alright, you were a cripple," she said. "That wasn't your fault, and truthfully, you needed more attention, more consideration. It sounds as though she might could have... done a little better, explaining that to your brothers? I don't know, wasn't there." He chuckled a little and nodded, not remembering that age well enough to know, himself. "But even so, if that weren't the case, and it was nothing more than favoritism... It still wasn't your fault. Your mother is the one who was responsible for who she gave her attention to. Not you. Sigurd shouldn't have been angry with you."

Ivar gave a tight-lipped smile, and a single nod. "I suppose you are right," he said. "If only he could have heard you, then perhaps he would not have given me Hel for how close I was to her, and I would not have killed him."

Asta couldn't help but choke at how casually he said that. She'd known, of course, what Ivar had done, but to hear him put it that way was another thing in its entirety. She could have never expected that.

"Ivar!" she gasped, sitting up a little and turning to look at him. He was grinning, laughing at her shock. "Good Lord, he was your brother! I know you killed him, but must you be so crude about it?"

He only laughed harder at her words. "How else am I supposed to cope with that, huh?" he asked her. "Most people do not kill their brothers, I have to handle the fact I did somehow." He reached up to tap the side of her head, as if he'd just made a very logical point.

She sighed, and laid against him once more. "You are like no one I have ever met," she told him. Ivar chuckled more at how she almost seemed put out as she settled back down. "Joking about killing your own brother..." A comfortable silence fell over them for a few moments, until she finally whispered, "I'd give anything for a few more minutes with mine."

"With Alfred?" he questioned immediately, proving to her that he hadn't fallen asleep as she'd believed he had.

“No,” she said. “Aethelred.” Ivar hummed softly, nodding. "I can see Alfred again one day, I think, assuming I don't... lose him, too, while I'm away. But Aethelred..." She sighed softly, and Ivar brought his hand up to start brushing it through her hair. "I've spoken of him before, I know, but I don't think I've ever mentioned just how close he and I were. My grandfather sent Alfred to the Vatican when we were young, and so I was suddenly without a brother. That was how it felt, at least, and our father had gone with him. Aethelred and I became very close during that time, and it never really changed. Alfred was often with Grandfather, I was often with Mother, and Aethelred was often with Father. But in our spare time, while Alfred was still occupied, we'd end up together."

A small smile formed on her lips as she thought back to her childhood, playing in the castle with her older brother, who had indulged her every strange whim growing up. "When we left Wessex, when your army came through, he grew more distant. We had lost so much, knew we had much still to lose, and it was... it would have been a lot weighing on his mind. He'd been the heir apparent for so many years, if anything had happened to our father, he'd have been King. And at such an age..." Asta fell silent for a few moments. "I was happy when we returned home. He seemed to come back to himself there, and the stress was relieved from him a bit just by being sure we were all safe. I had so many long talks with him, so many good ones, in the time before I left, and I doubt it'll ever feel right with me that I never got a chance to say goodbye to him, before he passed."

"You did not say goodbye?" Ivar questioned, frowning a bit.

"Well, I did," she said. "But not really. I didn't know I'd never see him again. I thought, one day, I would return to Wessex and be reunited with my family in its entirety. I never imagined only Alfred would remain. Sudden as it was, maybe none of my family were able to say goodbye to him, but I'd give anything to have one more conversation with him." Asta paused to chuckle a little, before she confessed, "I often consider what he'd make of you now."

So, Ivar realized, she also thinks of my meeting her family.

"What do you think he would have made of me?" he asked her curiously, and she giggled.

"He wouldn't like you," she said, and though her tone was teasing, it sounded as though she were serious. "You're a man my age, unmarried, and I am also still unmarried. Aethelred was always protective, I was always his baby sister, so he'd have seen you as someone who may have wanted to be a suitor, and before he'd have let you near me, he'd have interrogated you within an inch of your life. If you met whatever criteria he had for that, which... I doubt you would have, then he still wouldn't have ever let you know he liked you. Not until we'd been wed."

Ivar put on a falsely stunned expression. "Why would I not be a suitor he'd have approved of, huh?" he asked, playing at offense. "I have always been good to you, and he would have known how I cared for you, hm?"

"Well, you and your brothers also killed our grandfathers," she pointed out with a giggle. "I don't know he'd easily forgive that."

"Ah, your grandfathers murdered our father," Ivar said. "And King Ecbert took his own life, we did not kill him."

"He took his own life because you made him choose a way to die."

Ivar grimaced playfully, taking in a short breath which almost made a hissing sound. "That.. is true," he said. "But if he had not handed my father to your other grandfather, we never would have come to kill him."

Asta chuckled and shook her head. "Have you always got an answer for everything?" she asked, turning her head so that her chin rested against his chest.

"Of course I do," he said. "I am Ivar the Boneless. I always have an answer."

"Then I have a question," she told him. He hummed expectantly, tilting his head back just a bit so he could watch her more closely. "In another life, where your father hadn't been betrayed by my grandfather, if perhaps our people had better relations with each other, do you think you would have pursued me?"

He smirked and sat up a little. "Hm, would I, a Viking Prince, have pursued the beautiful Saxon Princess?" he asked, and she giggled softly, nodding. "No."

Clearly, that hadn't been what she was expecting to hear, and the shock and disappointment that registered on her face made Ivar eager to clarify. "Not because I would not have wanted you, but because I would have doubted if you wanted me. You would have seemed... unreachable, in that life. If my legs worked, then I would have pursued you, but I would not have believed a Saxon Princess would have wanted the crippled Prince. I think one of my brothers would have been trying to win you over, perhaps multiple of them, and they might have won you before I could have ever convinced myself to make an attempt."

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained," she said, and he hummed.

"Nothing ventured, nothing lost," he replied. "I had ventured, once, and she embarrassed me to the entirety of Kattegat." When Asta's eyes widened, before her brows creased in concern, Ivar sighed.

She deserved to know. There was clearly something happening between them, and if he did want to pursue it, just as she seemed to want to, then she deserved to know. He couldn't take it if they came together, and then she learned what Margrethe had learned, and she left. Freydis was in Kattegat. She would have known. Asta could not have known.

So, he told her. He told her of the disgust he’d seen in her eyes, of how he had failed, how she’d promised to tell no one, and immediately told Sigurd. He told her of the embarrassment he had felt ever since then, the way he had eventually, because of this, known Baldur could not have been his son. He told her of the heartbreak he had suffered, because he wasn’t like any other man, and that Margrethe had been right about one thing, if nothing else. Being Ivar the Boneless was hard.

And, she listened. She listened to every heartbreak, every pain, every trial he shared with her. She listened even as her heart ached and broke for him, even as it sank into her stomach at what he’d lived through. But in the end, she swore that pain was over. She swore to him he would never hurt like that at her hand, and he could rest now. He could rest from that vigilance, from the fear that he was fated to be betrayed again and again.

If Ivar wept that day, Asta never told anyone, and she never told anyone how she crawled under the blankets which covered the bed, and lifted them so he could join her, letting him lay his head against her so she could wrap her arms around him tightly and hold him. She never told how she let his hair down from their braids, and began to play with his hair just as she had on the Silk Road, until they fell asleep curled up that way.

And so no one ever heard how, that day, Ivar the Boneless became a little less broken.

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[halothenthehorns]

MAYHEM AT THE MINISTRY

Remus did not look pleased one little bit about accepting the book. He hated how they'd grown almost content, getting so many pleasant chapters in a row and then the huge finale of the Cup, just to have such a terrible one right after. He was terrified the trend would continue, but being afraid of something had never actually stopped him from doing anything, let alone in regards to a book, so he kept going.

Arthur woke them all very early the next morning, packed down the tents with magic, and only gave a vague wave to Mr. Roberts as they passed, while he called out a cheerful 'Merry Christmas!'

Lily's mind flickered back to her earlier worry that to many memory charms couldn't be good for him, and to have something so powerful taken away as well, oh she really hoped he would be okay.

Mr. Weasley spotted Harry's concerned look and promised he would be fine, some people got a little hazy with such a large memory being altered. When they reached the sight to collect their Portkey, there was already a huge queue all clamoring to get out of there at once.

"Cannot blame them," Remus sighed.

Arthur managed to get his way to the front, have a quick conversation with Basil, and returned back with a Portkey to take them home.

"Least they didn't have to wait on the Diggory's," Sirius sniffed.

    They walked back down the hill with little spirit, too tired to do much of anything, but were all caught off guard by a shrill voice shouting in gratitude they'd returned.

"Molly," they all muttered in surprise, considering the time it was a wonder she was awake, but even more surprising was that this reaction meant she knew what had happened already.

Upon reflection though, the four of them weren't that surprised, the Daily Prophet was known for staying on top of the news, though not always in the best light.

Molly was sprinting up the drive towards the lot of them, colliding first with her husband and dropping her newspaper in the process, which fell to the ground letting Harry read the title explaining that terror had happened at the Cup, including a photo of the Dark Mark.

Mrs. Weasley was still sobbing into her husband's shoulder, but quickly turned watery eyes to check and make sure all were still present, before her eyes caught sight of the twins and she latched an arm around each neck and pulled them in, crashing their heads together.

"Ooh," Lily sighed, completely understanding why she'd feel particularly awful for those two.

"Think now would be a good time to drop the bomb they won a gambling bet," Sirius smiled weakly, "I don't think they'd get in quite as much trouble for it."

Lily shot him a look, but as his joking tone hadn't quite smothered his own happiness at the scene, she didn't say anything.

The twins tried to protest their treatment, but Molly kept crying into them now that she felt terrible the last thing she'd done before they'd left was yell about their O.W.L.'s!

"This is really sweet," Remus smiled widely without a trace a humor.

"Bet it only lasts a day before they find some new way to tick her off," James chuckled, not really able to pick up his own poking fun at the situation.

Arthur finally managed to detach his wife from her kids and convince her to come inside so he could explain things to her, muttering at Bill as he passed to grab that paper so he could read it. Once Mrs. Weasley had calmed, Arthur did indeed read the print and found it full of the wrongdoings on the Ministry's part at the Cup.

"All the standard tosh of the paper," Sirius snorted.

He demanded of no one who had written it, then seemed to catch sight of the name Rita Skeeter.

Harry felt a vile shot of annoyance at once, a scowl appearing when he heard that name, but it was diminished as always when Remus kept reading so he chose not to pay it any attention.

Percy at once jumped in at how furious that woman made him, how she'd gone on about his useless report and had instead been trying to say they should be out hunting down vampires, going on to list the Guideline specifically explaining why this wasn't even a thing, when Bill cut him off by politely asking him to shut up.

Causing all four boys to crack up laughing, they were all liking Bill more and more as this kept on.

Mr. Weasley hadn't even been listening and had kept at the paper, stating in surprise he'd been referenced. Mrs. Weasley choked on her tea in shock, saying she hadn't seen that, and Arthur quickly corrected it hadn't been by name, just his passing comment saying that nothing had happened that night.

"There was no more information to give," Lily scoffed.

Rita Skeeter had added her own thoughts to that saying it probably wouldn't be enough to squash the rumors about bodies later being removed, causing Arthur to scoff that now she'd said that there certainly would be rumors.

"Why do I get the feeling Arthur has previous experience with this writer?" Sirius asked.

"She certainly sounds more like a tabloid then a reporter," Remus grumbled.

Arthur gave one last heavy sigh before telling his family he'd have to run into the office because of this. Percy agreed he'd come, he could hand Crouch his report on cauldron bottoms in person.

"I'm sure that'll be the highlight of his day," James sneered.

Percy sprinted up the stairs without another word, while Molly tried to protest Arthur's leaving, saying he'd just gotten home, and this had nothing to do with his department. Arthur gently corrected her he may have made things worse.

"No one in the Ministry would know it was Arthur who said that," Lily arched a brow in surprise. "This Rita person could have pulled that comment out of the air."

"Arthur really doesn't have a reason to feel so responsible," James nodded in agreement, "he didn't do anything wrong."

Arthur left for a quick change of clothes, and Harry couldn't hold in the question anymore of whether he'd gotten mail while he was away.

They all eagerly shut their trap in hopes Molly would say yes to that one.

Molly distractedly said nothing had come in.

Then they started to get a little fidgety, all eyes flickering to Sirius and away. Sirius tried for a scoff, scolding all of them, "oh relax, just because I haven't responded already," he hesitated for a moment, wavering and trying to come up with a reason for himself, before asking Harry, "how long did it usually take me to reply?"

"Less than two weeks," Harry gave a shrug he didn't really feel.

"See," Sirius really did relax back this time. "I haven't even gotten his letter yet, are you lot really going to be freaking out the day I'm late?"

'Yes' was the collective mental answer all of them had, but none of them bothered to answer him aloud. They'd take the paranoia and be wrong with relief every time than think for even a second Sirius had been captured, none of them could stand another year like the last one.

Harry's two friends looked curiously at him, and he heavily suggested he go dump his stuff in Ron's room. Ron and Hermione agreed that would be a good idea and came along.

"Absolutely subtle," Sirius started to snicker, then switched to scowling at his two friends when they wouldn't quite watching him with unease. If they didn't lighten up he was going to have to start doing something drastic.

They waited until they reached the privacy of Ron's room before demanding of Harry what that had been about, and he finally told them of his scar hurting a few days ago. Their reactions were near perfect to how Harry had predicted them.

"It's good you know your friends so well," James muttered, finally turning away from Sirius. He wasn't done worrying about him yet, and frankly he wouldn't be until his name was cleared, but at least this was a mildly entertaining distraction.

Ron began demanding to know that You-Know-Who hadn't been around Harry this time, right?

Lily really did start laughing at that. Harry's spot on imaginary Ron had been perfect.

Harry agreed he was sure no one was there who shouldn't be, but it was strange. His dream had been about Wormtail,

Remus managed to spit out that name with the same amount of contempt he would have with the word Mudblood, or werewolf, or a number of things he wished he'd never in his life have to mention again.

saying he couldn't clearly remember details anymore, but they'd been talking about murdering...someone.

"I get the feeling they could have filled in that blank," James mumbled, wiggling just that little bit closer to his son no matter how stupid he may have deemed it in retrospect.

He hadn't been able to say the word 'me' because Hermione looked more than terrified enough.

Lily was doing a remarkable reenactment of that expression now, and she had the knowledge Harry was going to be fine. It was still making Harry feel just as bad for his mum as his friend, but was unable to help soothe either of them.

Ron tried to comfort all of them it had just been a nightmare though, nothing to worry about, but Harry disagreed. Stating how odd these coincidences were, his scar had hurt, and three days later Voldemort's sign appeared in the sky.

"Why, why on earth can't we just have one year where we don't even have to mention Voldemort's name?" Remus groused.

"Because my life would be too boring otherwise," Harry muttered.

Ron snapped at Harry not to say You-Know-Who's real name, but Harry ignored him as always. Reminding them of Trelawney's prediction last year.

"Haven't been able to forget it yet, but thanks for the reminder," Sirius muttered, that prophecy had nearly been his undoing, and even when he'd found out it hadn't related to him it was not a pleasant look back.

That finally distracted Hermione from her fear, giving a huffy laugh at Harry for believing anything she said.

"You never told them she made a real prophecy?" James asked in surprise.

"Never got around to it," Harry shrugged, giving Sirius an absent nudge as he said, "had some other stuff on my mind that night, and then I was trying to forget about it there at the end."

Sirius though had something much more entertaining to say as he gave his best friend a superior smirk and demanded, "so you do admit prophecies are real now?"

"Can't hardly deny it when Harry had one smacked in his face," Remus sighed, already being able to tell where this was headed by Sirius' pompous tone.

"Then you owe me years of apologizes for calling me a loon in believing in them," Sirius crowed, his smile stretching wider every second as he glanced from one friend to the other. "Go on, I want to hear you say it now. Prophecies exist!"

"Oh knock it off Snuffles," Harry sighed, for some reason the idea of Sirius talking about this was setting him on edge, but even as he finished he ended on a pained hiss and went cross eyed, trying to understand why he'd call Sirius that. After blinking away a few bright spots, he saw he wasn't the only one.

"Now why would you know that name?" Remus asked first. "I only called him that a half a dozen times, back in our fourth year."

"I've never heard this one," James raised an even more surprised brow at his two friends.

Sirius shrugged with nonchalant as he said, "it was during our Christmas break, and I got a head cold. Kept sneezing and body parts kept randomly turning into a dog, we didn't master our transformations until fifth year," Sirius added on for Harry. "Remus kept laughing about it every time and started calling me Snuffles all week. By the time you," he broke off with an old wince at the fact he couldn't add on the other name without substituting a swear word, "got back, the joke had died off."

Harry nodded in understanding, but none of this answered their original question, why on earth Harry would know any of that. The whole matter had successfully distracted both Sirius and Harry though, so Remus decided to keep reading now while he still could.

Harry defended the Divination teacher though, saying it had definitely been a real prediction this time, even quoting the parts about the Dark Lord's return, reminding the end results had been Wormtail's escape that night.

Now Remus regretted it and wanted to go back to admitting Sirius had been right about something, it was certainly easier to stomach then thinking on that. Through a red haze he glanced up and saw the other four were a mask of boiling hatred again, so Remus collected himself and put on the most tragic face he could muster as he said, "alright Padfoot, I admit, you were right about prophecies. Never again shall I argue with your unending knowledge, about this," he quickly tacked on, already knowing he was going to regret giving in the moment Sirius attempted to replace his bloodlust with a satisfied smirk. It didn't really work, his jaw was still clenched too tightly for the expression to look natural, but the fact he even attempted a smile made it feel worth it to Remus.

No one could think of anything else to add until Hermione again asked about Hedwig. Harry said he'd written a letter to Sirius asking about this, and Ron agreed at once that was a great idea, he'd have an answer for them.

"Why on earth would they think that?" James demanded at once, far more up for pestering his best mate then giving in to him. "You hardly know the difference between Devil's Snare and Mandrakes."

"Oi," Sirius hooted. "What's those evil little plants got to do with knowing about this Dark stuff? I know plenty about that, more than you."

James looked like he was about to keep pressing in, with a highly amused audience of Remus and Harry, but Lily gave Remus a hard nudge and waved him on, still wanting to get through this chapter more then watch them snip at each other no matter how much it made her feel better.

Harry agreed, though expressed he was worried he'd thought Sirius would reply by now. Hermione reminded they had no idea how far away he was, it would take longer than just three days. Harry agreed with a heavy sigh.

James kept his superior expression in place even as that feeling of jealousy returned, still wishing in vain he could have replaced that sentence with his own name.

Ron quickly changed the subject by offering Harry to come play Quidditch, he knew all of his brothers would join in, and Harry could try the Wronski Feint.

"Oh that's a brilliant idea," Lily sighed, "because one life or death experience isn't enough for you in a twenty-four hour period."

"Stop exaggerating Lily," Sirius snickered, "Quidditch is good for him, helps him work out the nerves."

Hermione snapped at him in a 'I-don't-think-you're-being-very-sensitive' sort of voice

"I get the feeling she has to use that voice often," Remus chuckled.

by saying Harry didn't want to play Quidditch now,

"Oh yes he does," Harry laughed, the idea of trying out that move again now still present.

that he should want to go to bed, but Harry interrupted that a game sounded fun.

"Best to cut her off before she could keep going like that," James snickered, "she'd be tucking you into bed before you knew it."

He went rummaging for his Firebolt as Hermione stomped out muttering about 'boys.'

"I'm sure there were some other things mixed in there," Lily rolled her eyes, on complete agreement with Hermione on that.

The narrative jumps in by saying that for the next week, neither Percy nor Arthur were home much. Percy could be heard saying over dinner the Sunday before they were due back at school how the place was in an uproar in a pompous, superior tone.

"I swear that's the description you give after everything he says," Sirius snorted.

"And he doesn't deserve it one bit," Remus agreed.

People kept sending Howlers complaining of what all had happened, and wanting reimbursement for their stuff. One Mundungus Fletcher was wanting compensation for his twelve-bedroom tent that had been destroyed, but Percy knew for a fact he'd been sleeping under his own cloak.

"What an idiot," Lily scoffed, "did he really think he could get away with that?"

"I've heard of stupider things he's tried," James shrugged.

Unlike before, where he'd still felt to unsure to hardly even speak up, Harry had no qualms this time inserting himself into the conversation and asking, "how do you guys know him?" In hopes to ease some of the pressure in his skull telling him he should know that name anyways.

"He's an old friend of Dumbledore's," Remus shrugged, "does a lot of things for the Order most members either can't, or won't do because they don't have the same ah, connections."

"Friend is putting it lightly," Sirius snorted. "Dumbledore keeps bailing him out from the stupider crimes he gets caught doing, so Mundungus does whatever he asks." Then he turned to Harry and put much more bluntly, "he's a criminal, never made an honest living in his life, but he's pretty fun to have around. Dung's always been good for a laugh, and he can get you some really cheap things most won't normally go after."

"You are not endearing me," Harry finally laughed to show he'd gotten the message. All of this helped somewhat, he was now quite sure this was the same way he knew the same man, but there was still something missing. A connection he was sure he had to the name, but of course that wouldn't come to him.

Molly was not paying attention to the conversation, glancing repetitively at the clock where all of the Weasley family's names had replaced the hands, and instead of numbers it indicated such things as work, traveling, or home,

"I love that," Lily said instantly, her eyes brightening with want.

"I wonder how they got ahold of that," James ruffled up his brow thoughtfully, his mind already spinning with the idea he'd like to recreate that for his family, that nasty little pang reminding him of the count of hands he'd have now rather than if he'd heard about this just a week ago.

"It was an anniversary present for Mrs. Weasley," Harry said, "I think Mr. Weasley made it, though I have no idea how."

"Fascinating," Lily said honestly, adding this to her growing list of things she had a mind to say to the Weasleys when she planned to meet them in person.

"I do wonder though," Remus said with some surprise, "why she was so worried about her family if she had that. It would have said whether anything bad had happened to them."*

"There's a difference in a clock telling you, and seeing them in person," Lily said mildly.

"Besides," Sirius shrugged, "considering the time they arrived back, I'll bet you she just saw that paper and sprinted out the back to wait, I don't think that would have crossed her mind till later, and they came back soon enough she didn't have time to check."

as well as lost, hospital, prison,

Lily couldn't help but snort, thinking 'oh that's lovely.'

and, mortal peril.

"Sounds handy," Sirius snickered.

"That's where your hand would be all year," Lily shot back.

Sirius went wide eyed and pressed his hand to his heart as he cooed at her, "awe, Lily, you'd put my name up there?"

"Don't flatter yourself," she tried to say with a straight face, though the effect was ruined by her twitching lips.

All of the hands but Arthur's currently pointed at home, while his was at work. Mrs. Weasley gave a heavy sigh as she said to no one in particular that he hadn't been working this much since the time of You-Know-Who.

"Why would Mr. Weasley's job be involved in that?" Harry asked in surprise. "If he just informs people about what Muggle stuff is?"

Lily wasn't a hundred percent sure herself, as she'd personally never even spoken to Arthur in real life, and only had a vague idea of where his office even was in the Ministry, but she knew for a fact she had to send owls down there all the time for other things besides just what a Muggle object was so she offered, "it's a bit more than that dear. I don't think you quite realize how often wizards, mistakenly or not, involve themselves in Muggle affairs. Whatever any department does, Arthur would have to make sure to check it over and make sure it doesn't interfere with anything to do with Muggles. This Dark Mark business," Lily heaved a huge sigh in sympathy for the Ministry falling into even a portion of the pandemonium it was on a daily basis to her in this timeline, "it causes all sorts of mayhem at the Ministry to keep that sort of thing under wraps from the Muggles no matter how far away they were. All those wizards panicking and fleeing the scene for instance, apparating away in their panic and landing in Muggle neighborhoods for instance, could have shocked any number of them, you see where I'm going?" She finished with an expectant look.

Harry nodded in understanding, his sympathy for the Weasley patriarch suddenly doubling.

Saying his job was working him to hard, and his dinner would be ruined by the time he got here. Percy said that his father had brought this on himself with his mistake.

James's mouth opened with a little pop as he gasped, "is Percy really agreeing with the Ministry over his own father with that nonsense?"

"What a little prat," Sirius nodded with a heavy scowl in place.

Saying he shouldn't have said anything until he'd spoken with his Head of Department about the press,

"He is the Head of his Department," Remus snapped, stunned that he was defending Arthur from one of his own kids. Bloody hell, he remembered this random snap of information from when Ron had said it two books ago! How could Percy be acting like this?

Lily had always had the most sympathy for Percy, she found his position in the family more sad than annoying like the rest of the boys seemed to, but even she was getting a little fiery over the way he was acting now, there was no excuse of taking your jobs side over your family's.

Harry's thoughts were in perfect alignment with his mother's, wondering why on earth all of this Percy talk felt like a bad omen.

but Molly cut him off with a snap that Percy was not going to sit there and blame his father for whatever Skeeter had caused! Bill agreed with his mother, saying if their dad hadn't said anything, Skeeter would have just said no one at the Ministry had bothered to give a comment, all while keeping his eyes on the chessboard he was playing with Ron on.

That was a quick distraction, all of them vividly remembering the last time Ron had been mentioned playing chess, at least this time the pieces weren't life sized.

Harry gave a happy smile at this, saying, "Bill was the only one who could play Ron and actually be a threat to him."

Still going on to say that she didn't like anyone, she'd done some interviews of the Curse Breakers once, and she'd called him a 'long-haired pillock.'

"Well this woman's just getting more and more charming," Remus scoffed.

Molly couldn't seem to help herself as she did agree it was getting a bit long, but Bill cut her off with a quick no.

"I get the feeling that must be a daily occurrence," Sirius snorted, brushing his hair out of his own face.

Rain was pouring down outside, the cozy little scene in the living room displaying all of them sitting around in comfort working on something. Charlie was currently tending a fireproof balaclava,

"Why would he need to fix a fireproof anything?" Harry asked in surprise, having been too invested in his own project at the time to ask.

"It can still get worn out even when it's not set on fire," Lily shrugged, "I'm sure Charlie has to do that on his own all the time, considering how little he's home."

Harry was polishing his Firebolt, and the twins were off in the corner muttering over a piece of paper.

"Subtle," James snorted, thinking they'd at least have the sense to make more order forms outside of their mother's point of view.

"I think they're just asking for another argument," Remus nodded.

Molly seemed to notice this at the same time as Harry, as she snapped at her twins what they were up to? Fred responded at once with homework.

"Right," Sirius exaggerated the word to the extreme.

Mrs. Weasley scolded they were still on holiday, and George agreed they'd just left it a bit late.

"Now that I'll believe," Lily snorted.

She was still glaring at them as she demanded to know if those were more to do with Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes?

"Can't restart what they never gave up on," Remus smirked, as clearly no matter what their mother said, those two had this in the works for some time.

Fred turned hurt filled eyes on her, reminding that if the Hogwarts express crashed tomorrow and they died, did she really want to pick an argument with them about this?

Lily gave a small sigh, she didn't really think it was right to pick on their mother for that reaction she'd had, but it didn't erase her own laughter blending in with the boys at their picking.

Even Mrs. Weasley laughed at her son's picking, but then she quickly turned to excitement when she saw Arthur's hand finally switch from traveling, and then seconds later, home. She was already bustling towards the kitchen before Arthur could call out, and he came into the living room looking haggard. He picked listlessly at his meal as the told those around him that Skeeter was still causing all kinds of problems, now she'd found out about Bertha and that was going to be another Ministry blunder headline. Percy agreed Crouch had said weeks ago someone should go looking for her.

"Did he really need to add that?" Sirius muttered, fighting down the compulsion more with every line he spoke to smack Percy.

Arthur grumbled back they were just lucky Skeeter didn't know about Crouch's involvement with that Dark Mark business, that would be a headline for weeks.

"If that did happen, his grounds of clothing his elf would make a bit more sense," Sirius quirked a brow in surprise, "so I guess if you think about it, he was just doing that preemptively."

"I cannot believe you're really going back and saying that was okay," Lily balked at him.

Sirius rolled his eyes at her and said, "What? I still think they were over the line treating her like that, but we all know Crouch has such a large stick up his arse it's not really surprising he'd think that way. If you consider the way he is now, I wouldn't be surprised one little bit the second something Dark is connected to his name he'd throw it to the wolves."

"You're depressing me," Lily sighed, slumping back into the couch without argument for that.

Harry was getting a bubbling feeling in his gut, something in him telling him Sirius was very close to the mark and none of them realized it, but of course he couldn't begin to imagine details of what this was.

Percy was getting a temper now as he said everyone here had agreed Crouch had nothing to do with that!

James scoffed as he snapped, "I wouldn't be surprised if Percy just said that and no one argued with him. While yes he's right," he rolled his eyes, "you don't need to go shouting at them for it."

Hermione shot back Crouch was lucky the Prophet didn't know how he treated elves!

Sirius couldn't help a surprised little snort of laughter, that's what Hermione had caught on? No one else would bat an eye at that part.

Percy sighed at her, trying to defend his boss that such a man couldn't have disobedient servants, but Hermione hotly cut him off and corrected slave!

"Eh," James waved his hand vaguely, "I think Hermione's exaggerating the term a bit."

"I don't," Lily snapped at once. The more she heard about this, the more she was kicking herself or never having looked farther into it. "What's so different with house-elves, and treating people that same way?"

"The practice of house-elves being attached to wizarding families goes back centuries," Sirius rolled his eyes, "it's practically as common as wizards themselves."

"Just because it's old and traditional doesn't make it right," Lily ground out. "You're saying that these beings that are clearly as human as Remus shouldn't be treated the same."

"Hey," Remus yelped, "don't drag me into this." His eyes were getting wider the longer this dragged on, he actually began edging away from Lily as he sensed a true fight coming on and he did not want to be in the middle of this.

Sirius was clearly getting angry now, his glare actually holding some real threats of violence if she kept this up, she shouldn't have dragged Remus into this! His voice came out more of a growl now, "that's not fair and you know it. Don't you take a shot at him when they're two completely different things."

"How?" Lily insisted, her eyes narrowing clearly showing she wasn't going to back down one bit. "You tell me how treating something as lesser than you as a slave isn't that far off the mark how werewolves are treated, like a pariah."

"OKAY!" James finally got out louder than them. The baby in Lily's lap, already squirming in agitation at all of the raised voices, actually began wailing then, causing Lily to break away her glare and begin soothing her son, admittedly still more flushed than usual. James wasn't looking much better himself, alternately scowling at his wife for making Remus clearly so uncomfortable, and Sirius refusing to back down and just let the matter go. "You two knock it off, there's no since acting like this towards each other. Let Remus finish this chapter, then you two can have it out somewhere where we don't have to hear it."

Lily finally convinced baby Harry to stop crying by then, sitting back into her seat, and still throwing haughty looks at Sirius, which he was returning. Harry and his father exchanged an uneasy look, James had been hoping that someone cutting them off would make one of them admit it was time to let this go but that clearly wasn't the case. Remus still looked a little shell-shocked, but at a nod from James he decided to keep going.

Reminding that Winky hadn't been paid. Molly cut into the argument by telling her children to go upstairs and make sure everything was packed.

'I should take notes' Harry mentally thought, still frowning at all four of them. He'd seen them argue before, and he never liked to watch it.

Harry got to his feet and followed Ron up to his room, where Pigwidgeon set up a flutter when they came in. Ron threw him an owl treat to get him to shut up, and Harry watched the little owl with worry as he said it had been over a week since he'd seen his own.

"You said yourself she normally takes twice that long," James sighed, running his hand through his hair in agitation, as if he needed another thing to worry about.

"Well yeah, but I don't know. I was kind of hoping since this one was kind of urgent, he'd find a way to get a reply quicker," Harry offered with a shrug.

Harry then asked Ron with real worry if Sirius had been captured.

Lily's skin tone went back to normal, and then a few shades paler in shock. This was not the first, nor certainly the last, time she'd been ticked off at Sirius for some careless comment he made, but she was suddenly struck once again by this horrid future they were listening to and realizing these little spats they had may be numbered. It didn't completely erase her agitation towards him, but it certainly made the want of cursing him lessen.

Remus flinched as he got that out, but Sirius quickly jumped in and soothed them all with a smug smile, "oh please, those numbskulls couldn't find the broad side of a barn. There's no way they're going to find me."

"You're confidence is instilling," James muttered, unable entirely to stop his leg twitching in agitation.

Ron scoffed at the idea, saying that news would be plastered all over the papers.

"And there's that," Harry sighed, trying to show that had comforted him a lot more than it had. He really didn't like to think of Sirius being captured, it set him on edge in the worst way, though thankfully he wasn't getting any kind of feeling about this. So this must mean it never happened to him, right?

Harry agreed for now, and went about packing away his stuff, most of which were his new school books and some supplies Mrs. Weasley had gotten him while he was away, grateful she'd remembered his potion ingredients as he'd been running low on some.

Lily just couldn't seem to erase a frown from her face this chapter, the expression only increasing as she got her own shot of envy at Molly doing all of this for her son. She'd have loved nothing more than for the simple task of going to Diagon Alley for her son while he and his father went to that Cup, and this little reminder it had been someone else smarted more than she'd been expecting it to with her current mood.

Ron was at his own trunk, and made a disgusted noise of surprise as he pulled out a maroon dress with lacy cuffs.

That was such a random thing that Remus finally broke the bad vibe of the room with a snort of mirth, all five of them cracking a real smile at Ron for some deranged reason being handed a lacy dress-robe.

Molly entered at that moment with some last minute clothes for them, and Ron tried to hand the dress to her, saying he'd gotten something of Ginny's by mistake, but Molly corrected that it was for Ron, his new dress robes. Ron yelped in shock, and Molly said that's what their school supplies list had said they'd need this year.

"Wonder why," James said just a tad too loudly, hoping to keep on this laughing mood as long as possible. "Think Hogwarts is hosting a dance?"

Harry felt a buzz ring through him, somehow knowing his dad wasn't too far off, but also getting the impression it wasn't an event he was fond of.

"I think it would be a nice idea," Lily couldn't help a little smile now, warming to the idea the more she spoke. "Perhaps a Valentine's day thing, I always said Hogwarts should indulge in more school events."

"From memory, every time they've tried, it's been a disaster," Remus snickered. "I've heard tale of this one time they tried a school play over some fairytale novel, that didn't end well."

"Won't know until Harry gets there," Sirius cut in, perhaps still being a little more surely then was called for, but still too agitated to admit it.

Lily shot him another glare, she had been trying to play nice, but clearly Remus took that as a hint to move on now while he still could.

Ron was still balking at the material, stating he'd never wear a thing like this! Molly cut him off by saying everyone wore them, his own father had some.

"Just like that eh?" James raised a brow in surprise, forcing some good mood at Sirius whether he wanted it or not. "I'd like to see that, I'm sure seeing his father in lace would make Ron feel better."

Harry gave a happy laugh at the image, while Sirius did crack a smile for James's benefit.

Ron grumbled he'd show off his bum before he put that on.

"That'll be a day at Hogwarts," Remus snickered.

Mrs. Weasley snapped he was being silly, Harry had gotten some too.

Causing Sirius to really laugh this time, along with the other three, while Harry went beat red in surprise and fear for what this could mean.

Harry began digging through his stuff in surprise, but came up with something much closer to his school uniform, except it was dark green.

"Which is how most dress-robes look," James cackled. "So I don't know what was running through Molly's head with Ron in mind."

The smile trickled off of Lily just a bit though, not having to think hard on why the idea of Molly picking out that for Harry would give her a pang of sadness.

Ron saw it and snapped why he hadn't gotten something that looked more like that, and Molly couldn't help a faint blush as she said she hadn't a lot of choosing on her budget for Ron's.

Causing all of them to stop smiling at once. It wasn't so funny now that they realized that.

Harry looked away in shame, knowing he'd happily split all his money with the Weasleys,

"Wish I'd just done it, they couldn't argue the point once it's in there," Harry muttered, fidgeting in place.

but he knew they would never take it.

"That's why you don't ask permission," James smirked.

Ron snapped he refused to wear his, and Mrs. Weasley snapped he could just go ahead naked then. Asking Harry to make sure he got a picture, she needed a laugh!

"It's nice to see Molly with a sense of humor," Sirius sighed.

She stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind her, and at that moment Pigwidgeon began choking on a too large treat. Ron was grumbling that everything he owned was rubbish as he went to go unstick his beak.

Remus closed the book uneasily, looking between Sirius and Lily like he still expected a bomb to go off, being as clear and silent as he could the chapter was over, then looking longing at the door like he wanted to make a run for it while he could.

HPHPHPHP

Forewarning you guys now, the next chapter won't actually be a chapter, but an actual argument between Lily and Sirius about the house-elf topic. I set it up to much to just have them keep avoiding it, and since it keeps coming up so much in this book I decided I'd get their views up and as clear as possible now.

Thank you all as always for your endless support of this fic! No spoilers but, Oh My God The Cursed Child! I'm thinking about waiting until the next reading chapter and posting my opinion on it, or do you think that's a little cocky? Do you guys even really care what I think about it?

*Question offered by maana999. If you guys have any questions, even from one of the older books, or just something you'd like to point out and seen discussed, I implore you to say something, I love them all!

[keepyourpantsongohan]

Ayesha Liveblogs Cardcaptor Sakura S2-S3

“If you had called me, I would have fixed it for you” Get u a man who wants to fix ur bike’s flat tires

“I wonder which teacher will be in charge of us this year” I’m going to hazard a guess that it’s the one that you keep having prophetic dreams about battling in the moonlight

“Ms. Mizuki is kind, is pretty and she makes me all dreamy” lmao @ this criteria for justifying whether ur sensei is up to no good

U know, Sakura melting like 10 feet of snow bc she lost a present from her crush is exactly the type of emotions I expect from these preteens

Syaoran liking Sakura is also very funny because she’s very observant of other people so it’s like [Syaoran blushing and glancing at Sakura] [Sakura glancing back in befuddlement]

“But when you do, it means you’ll see him as well” WILL U STOP THIS OMINOUS MOONSHADOWING 

Does EVERYTHING Mizuki says have to be some kind of prophecy

Syaoran is really just becoming progressively more infatuated and embarrassed with every scene

“You’re always watching over Sakura, aren’t you?” Tomoyo doesn’t need a voice to call people out LOL

You see this is exactly my point what is the reason for having a voice card if you have a song card or vice versa what’s your logic Clow

LMAO I SHOULD’VE KNOWN:

Sakura: Why r u both here

Toya: It’s Take Your Boyfriend to Work Day

“Sakura is cheerful as usual today” “That’s all she has going for her” Very older brother kind of statement

That shot of Syaoran showing his strawberries to Yukito (and Sakura, by extension) cutting to Toya, cutting to Ms. Mizuki.... the interpersonal dynamics at play here

“You know her from before, right?” THAT’S ONE WAY TO PUT IT

**Go to jail Mizuki

“I’ll tell you in a little while” Toya is not prepared to have discussion about his Relationship History at this time

I mean I’m not an expert but isn’t Sakura’s main magical item a key wouldn’t that help with this Lock situation

YFDHSKHFKJSHFK Mizuki could you be more threatening

I assume the wind will cover up the noise of this loud magical chant

“Don’t tell dad I have a fever” 😭😭😭😭😭 Sakura you’re so little someone needs to take care of you

“If I do [stay home], I’ll trouble everyone else” SAKURAAAA 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

“It was about Sakura” TOYA’S BIG BROTHER MODE ACTIVATED

LOL TOYA’S SUSPICIOUS GLANCES ARE EVERYTHING JHDJKHFKJ HE CAN SENSE THE “GHOST” IN KERO

Well if the living plush toy didn’t give it away, the fact that Toya has already met and identified Mirror as a ghost will

Ddfhjkdhfkj Toya didn’t even pause he was just like [Sigh] ‘Guess I’m gonna feed a ghost now’

“I have a vague idea of what she’s up to” OH MY GOD TOYAAAAAA

Awww Meilin holding Sakura up to capture the Clow Card you know what that is? Growth

This kind of domestic shopping nonsense is the shenanigans I NEED

Syaoran is physically winded from running away from his feelings

OMG STOP THESE PRE-TEEN DREAMS ARE SO CORNY AND GREAT LMAO @ SYAORAN FANTASIZING ABOUT HIM AND SAKURA BEING THE LEADS IN A MOVIE TOGETHER WITH HIM GIVING THE CLOW CARDS AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR A WEDDING RING

Gljlgkdjlkgjlkf I still cannot believe they let 11-year-olds roam this freely they don’t need an adult to BOARD A TRAIN??

“They’re foretelling dreams” So if we believe this, here are the future facts:

1. Sakura’s gonna do a fashion show for Tomoyo 

2. Syaoran is going to give Sakura all the Clow Cards and maybe propose 

3. Yukito and Toya will definitely know Kero is a living creature and they’re gonna be chill with it

4. Normal battle prophecy stuff

“Seeing Ms. Mizuki... it makes me all dreamy”

*Sakura really only crushes on people that her older brother had feelings for first this is like when I was into Yugioh and Beyblade bc my brother was into them first 

**Go to jail Mizuki

“I don’t want to be the prince” Will u want to if it’s u and Sakura tho

This was pointed foreshadowing I could not have predicted

[Chanting] ALL DRAG FAIRSTYLES ALWAYS

“I just woke up” u LIAR Toya you wanted to make your baby sister breakfast

SYAORAN WHERE WERE YOU EVEN KEEPING THAT BIG OLE MAGICAL SWORD TASSLE

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS TEAMWORK COMBO ATTACK WE LOVE A PARTNERSHIP OF POWERS

“Isn’t that a guy playing the Queen” are you in any place to make a judgment Toya

“Please, seal us together” Light and Dark confirmed as Lesbian Icons

“The final decision rests with Yue, but please do your best” LMAO IS THE REASON THAT YUKITO IS ALWAYS CHILL HANGING OUT WITH HIS FIFTH GRADE BEST FRIENDS IS THAT HE IS SCOUTING THEM OUT FOR YUKITO’S NEXT DRAG SUPERHERO

U know if I did not have very hazy memories of who Yue is I could be tricked into thinking it was Mizuki lol (but then again TSUKIshiro soooooo maybe it’s obvious always lol)

“That bath sponge” “Kero is at Tomoyo’s house” ‘BATHSPONGE’ MEILIN PLS

AW rescuing lost birds turns out Syaoran has always been a sweetheart

Meilin finally gets to use her martial arts skills and help again!! Good for her

“I’m your fiancee until you find the girl you like the most” Not to put a damper on ur cousin marriage dream (stop) but that ship has sailed twice over Meilin 

“There’s another person” WELL WELL WELL HOW THE TURN TABLES MOON MAN

“Being with you is rather useful when capturing Clow Cards” is Syaoran’s way of saying “<3 <3 <3″

Syaoran is really conflicted bc he likes Yukito and he likes Sakura but when Sakura likes Yukito he wants her to like him instead this is truly a broad range of emotions for Fifth Grade Romance

Ddfjhdskfhk Kero looks so serious scouting out the intentions of the Toya’s Magical Exes Club but his face is like “>:[”

“You’re the one that uses the powers of the moon” What does this MEAN that’s supposed to be Yukito???? I am confused

“There’s no such thing as a coincidence...” “...There’s only inevitability” So now Toya’s joining the prophecy game? This is A Lot

Omg I do love the big lion version of Kero I forgot what he looked like

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH BIIIIIIIIIIIITCCCCHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

“Too lenient as always” “And your personality is as bad as always” I don’t think I care for Magical Yukito he’s being a little harsh

“He completely cuts all ties between his disguise and his consciousness, so that the candidate doesn’t sense him until the Last Judgment” so his subconscious just happened to feel like being a 17-year-old boy who wanted to date Sakura’s brother LOL

DON’T BE A BITCH YUE YOU’RE FIGHTING AN ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD WHO PERCEIVES YOU AS SOMEONE SHE CARES ABOUT

Oh my god NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO I DON’T WANT ANYONE TO FORGET WHO THEY LOVE

This is so fucked up kjhgkfhdg Sakura’s family forgetting her mother, Sakura and Toya forgetting Yukito, Tomoyo forgetting about caring about Sakura, Syaoran forgetting about caring about Sakura ahhhhhhhhhhh

WELL WELL WELL MS. MIZUKI CAME THRU THANKS WEIRDO

**Still jail tho

OH SHIT NEW MAGICAL STAFF I LOVE THIS AHHHHHHHHH

“I want you to be friends with me, nothing like Masters or stuff like that” SAKURAAAAAA

“You knew that Mr. Tsukishiro wasn’t a human” “Yeah” TOYA WHAT!!!

The fact that Yukito doesn’t know his other half is kind of a bitch has very Yami Bakura energy I can’t believe what I needed in my life was Yugioh but less Heterosexual

iii

“If you leave that early, Yuki won’t be there yet” So... is Toya just chill with the fact his boyfriend is the moon

I don’t want Syaoran to leave!!! He is a sweetheart and I love him

“He seems like a nice boy” is thiiis the rude boy I remember from watching this when I was a kid bc ngl I was confused when Syaoran was nice bc I remember someone being a little shit

“I didn’t mean to surprise you” said Eriol, after popping out suddenly from behind a tree

Syaoran said ‘I will only share Sakura’s affection with one (1) boy and that is Yukito’ 

“I’m not going back. I’ll be here for a while.” I can’t tell if this is a New Magical Person thing or a ‘I love my friends and don’t want them to forget me’ thing

DHJKGHKJHG this random girl just clinging to Toya’s back and eyeing Yukito like “WHATCHA GONNA DO ABOUT IT MISTER”

I guess since Meilin’s gone Nakuru’s going to fulfill the role of Unrequited Crush Gal Who Cannot Read The Emotional Room

Clow Reed really appearing to just throw Sakura’s entire life in disarray

“This is the first chance to film you in a while!” Tomoyo you have filmed Sakura going strawberry-picking and playing whack-a-mole since when do u need an excuse lmao

“I don’t think we made plans like that” again Toya since when do u and Yukito need plans aren’t you together like 22/7

Syaoran refuses to show Sakura that he’s feeling anything beyond blushing and yet he gets mad when other people are more forthright with their emotions and honestly what a teen mood

“I.. you” rude I can’t tell if Nakuru interrupted a love confession or a I Know You’re the Moon confession but either way rude 

“You don’t know? Then I’ll take him” WHAT DO U MEAANNN THAT’S NOT HOW IT WORKS

“Eriol is a kind person” [Thor meme voice] Is he though?

As much as the jury is still out on Yue I really do love these magical girl transformations

These group meet ups have gotten even less subtle you might be able to hide some cosplay and a plush toy but a full grown man and a lion with wings??? Gjkghkjdhgk how did they get to Penguin Park with no one noticing

There is some satisfaction in there finally being an adult (or at least a kind-of-18-year-old) on their team

Oh my god??? OH MY GOD? WHAT A POWER-UP I LOVE IT SAKURA GETTING HER OWN CHANTS AND CARDS GOOD FOR HERRRR

Poor Toya it’s worrisome when ur baby sis is a magical superhero

It’s interesting and hilarious that Yukito’s appetite is proportional to his alter ego’s use of magic

“Because she’s like you” Toya IS trying to tell Yuki that he’s a moon person awwwwwwww

If we’ve learned anything from Tomoyo’s choir recitals it’s just that perhaps singing is more dangerous than any of these kids would prefer it to be

Nakuru aside from the fact I’m pretty sure you’re a new Big Bad leave Toya alone he doesn’t want to be touched and he’s with someone already

I like that no matter how many times Yamazaki lies, Sakura always takes it in good faith

I have given up on this show having anyone have a normal relationship with their teacher (except Wei who has done nothing wrong ever in his life)

“I’m sure that the person you like is happy” shout-out to Tomoyo for being semi-well-adjusted I guess 

“The kid is being controlled by something” GUESS WHO JUST BOUGHT STRINGS FOR PUPPETS IT’S SUSPICIOUS NEW KID 

If I know my shojo manga tropes it seems like this Friend vs. Friend battle is going to lead to a Hug of Passionate Restraint

Psych it was a Hug of We Are Tired From Magical Force

Who are you British Bitch Boy with your Bitch Cat haven’t they been through enough

“I’m surprised you’ve held out this long without a single bite” do NOT eat TOYA

“And I’m not a human in the first place, so gender doesn’t really matter” I am so tired of anime creating non-binary characters only to make them evil and/or inhuman blah

I DON’T CARE FOR ANY OF THIS WE DON’T NEEEED AN EVIL ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD AND AN EVIL KERO AND AN EVIL YUE NOBODY ASKED

“Why did I buy this thing anyway” u know why Syaoran 

LMAO YUKITO DRINKING OUT OF A FULL SIZE MILK CARTON KILLS ME

“The only times I turn red or feel like my heart will explode is when I see him” Incredible it has taken Syaoran like... 18 episodes to realize his feelings for Sakura. Bisexuality be like that sometimes

SCREAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM DID YUE COME OUT JUST TO GIVE SYAORAN BACK HIS TEDDY BEAR

“The reason why you are confused when you see Yukito is because of the magic powers from the Moon that you feel from Yukito” did Yue just say ‘ur not bi ur just confused’ kjhkjdhdgkj Yue confirmed for biphobic

Really how many things does Eriol have to ruin before Sakura realizes he’s evil? The piano.... thread... a teddy bear

OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG SAKURA HAS WINGS IT’S A REAL MAGICAL GIRL TRANSFORMATION AFTER ALL

You know if Elementary School Clow is NOT evil this is a really fucked up way to be teaching a lesson

Toya come help ur boy Yukito is exhausted and he doesn’t know why :(

Ahhhhhhhh this tree leaning scene is the exact and only thing I remembered about the interactions between these two before watching this now

“I don’t want you to disappear” THE ROMANCE RETURNS

“Are you doing this on purpose” Toya has had it up to here with his confessions being interrupted

BOOO Toya was right I don’t want Yue-kito to disappear either

“There is someone suited to this, but Yukito...” KJHGKJDHGJHDKJ IS TOYA GONNA BECOME THE SOURCE OF YUE’S MAGICAL POWER I’D DIE

“You knew this would happen if you called Tomoyo” I mean... Kero’s right

I don’t know that Erase in particular was necessary for the sheep but it does make me giggle to see Sakura lift playground structures

I was gonna say I’d wager ten dollars something happens to that bike after Eriol touches it but then I remembered this episode is called “Sakura and the Panicky Bike” so it’s not really even worth betting

Of course your family members are going to worry if you suddenly develop magical narcolepsy Sakura 

I LOVE that Toya’s magical powers seem to be developing more as well

I feel like not enough people are giving Sakura credit for the fact she is like 11? She hasn’t had a lot of time to work on this stuff

“I can’t let [the cards becoming ordinary] happen! I finally got to be friends with all of them” 😭😭😭😭😭 Sakura’s good heart always gets me

“What are you going to do?” SHE’S GONNA PUT HERSELF IN A MAGICAL COMA 

Cell phones are a hilarious addition to the plot and I love that they are like top of the line bc it’s the 90s lmao and that Li is include in the phone tree 

“If you collapse, I’ll catch you” KERO NO. 1 SAKURA STAN (tied with Tomoyo and Syaoran)

Lmao these siblings would be born on a Leap Day and April Fool’s respectively

SCREAM at least it’s on brand for Eriol to be a pathological liar (also RIP Sakura and Syaoran for their gullibility still)

TOYA PLAYING HIS MOTHER’S SONG REST IN PIECES MY HEART

Sdkhkhkjdhkd Toya failed confession count: 4 this time feat emotional piano ballad

Also also I will say it’s not like Yuki doesn’t come to your house VERY frequently Toya couldn’t you just tell him what you need to say the numerous times he is visiting or going with you to school

Oh hey! I share a birthday with Sakura’s great-grandfather that’s funny

“Nadeshiko was only 16 years old” YEAH SO WHY ARE YOU APOLOGIZING GRANDPA UR NOT THE ONE TRYING TO DATE TEENS U R TEACHING

I know Kero being seen on the TV is for giggles but the implication that magic makes you playable on VCR... incredible

I want to know what Toya’s gift was!!! 

Hahaha I guess that the Alice and Wonderland size-shifting would have more of an impact on Sakura’s empathy than most people 

“Two-thirds of all cats on earth right now are aliens” I mean... if we go by the cats we have met in this show.... Yamazaki’s right

“Actually, I have a rather mischievous personality” NO KIDDING ERIOL

“Where are you going” “To where the queen is” I will DIE if the Queen is Toya but I assume the Queen of Hearts will be Sakura’s mother actually since that’s the kind of anime trope that u should expect

Yue dropping Sakura like a hot potato is a little funny he can stay 

What is more ridiculous Syaoran hiding the sword behind his back or the fact it worked

“Then... it’s not Yukito?” that was one whole crush ago keep up Sakura

“I am the Queen” WELL THAT’S NOT WHAT I WAS EXPECTING AT ALL KJFHGKJHGJHGJKFHG

Current list of things that Eriol has ruined: Pianos, threads, teddy bears, sheep plushies, bikes, leaves, 

The transition to Eriol’s deep adult voice always trips me up

“Don’t hug me” “I’m going to hug you” Respect! Toya’s! Boundaries! Nakuru!!!!!!!!!!!

LOL @ Spinel’s drunken tirades I won’t lie I love this erratic behaviour

Guess Syaoran is over his Yukito crush for real but boy cannot stop running away from his feelings for Sakura poor guy

AWWWW THIS TEDDY BEAR MONTAGE OF SYAORAN BEING AT PEACE WITH HOW HE FEELS NOW

LMAO DID ERIOL JUST TRAP THESE TWO IN AN ELEVATOR TO WORK OUT THEIR INTERPERSONAL PROBLEMS THIS SHOW IS IN SUCH A WEIRD EMOTIONAL PLACE

“I’m glad for you,” said Eriol/Clow, who has repeatedly mildly traumatized these kids but seems to be like ‘it all evens out if I do some preteen matchmaking’

“Hey, can I call you Syaoran too?” Awwwwwwwwwwww that’s cute also it’s wild that in the pacing of this show despite like probably at least thirty episodes of them being friends THIS is the first ep (Ep 57!!!) that they address each other by first name

HJGJHGDHGFHJG AMAZING HOW IS SAKURA GOING TO HIDE A FULL GROWN MAN (WHO SHARES A BODY WITH THE PERSONALITY HER BROTHER LIKES!) AND A WINGED LION IN HER BEDROOM

OHJFKJSDHFKJSHDKJFHKJHFKJHKJHDKJHF I CANNOT CONVEY THE COMEDY OF THIS MOMENT IN WORDS SO:

“So that even if [my dad] was reincarnated, he would still fall in love with [my mom]” Interesting reveal that Yue was actually in love with Clow (makes sense; he’s the ‘I’m gay I’m homophobic we exist’ meme) but the only romance I will accept for Yue is if he ends up in a Greedlingfan-esque triad with Yukito and Toya and that’s that on that

Poor Yukito he must think he’s going nuts he just appears places with no memories 

Well this is hardly a fair match up Syaoran can’t be expected compete with a reincarnated ancient wizard

GOOOOOD WHY DOES ERIOL DELIVER HIS CRYPTIC MESSAGES OF ADVICE THROUGH SPORTS GAMES

“It feels more like [Eriol] is watching over someone very dear to him” Tomoyo correctly discerns that Eriol is the bearer of fucked up magic lessons

Wow Tomoyo is really here to talk Syaoran through a whole journey of emotions 

“I.. you...” OH MY GOD SYAORAN AND TOYA START THEIR CONFESSIONS IN THE SAME WAY JHHJSGFDSGJH WOW 

It’s okay Syaoran you did your best no one in your immediate social group can finish a confession it seems

“You were trying so hard so hard to confess your love for Sakura last night” Tomoyo really doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to her romantic pep talks huh

Awww Syaoran wants to tell Meilin how he feels about Sakura first 

Uh oh post-battle Meilin has taken note of Syaoran and Sakura’s use of each other’s first names

“If something happens, please think of me” AWWW Tomoyo looking out for Meilin’s feelings that’s my girl

“What makes me even madder is that I still can’t grow to hate Ms. Kinomoto” awww Meilin  

“You’re a tardy little monster” suspicious Toya is one of the best parts of this show   

The fact that Sakura doesn’t think Toya knows because he’s not making fun of her... tru sibling energy

Failed confession count: 

Toya: 5...6

Syaoran: 2

TOYA IS SUCH A SWEETHEART BUYING PRESENTS FOR THE CARD THAT PROTECTS SAKURA AHHHHHHHHH AND OMG HOW DOES HE KNOW WHAT MIRROR LOOKS LIKE

Sakura loves the cards and the cards love her I love one (1) Cardcaptor

“But now, he helps me out a lot” “That’s why I don’t like him” AWWW TOYA 

“I will see you again in your dreams tonight” could you be a bit less creepy Eriol

OH NO CURSE OF THE DISAPPEARING BOYFRIEND TOYA YOU GOTTA HUG THE MAGIC BACK INTO YUKI

Tomoyo is an impeccable wingman for Syaoran she has had his back at every step

WE LOVE A POOL PARTY EP YEEHAW 

"I don’t ever want you to disappear” Toya’s declarations are getting more passionate with each failed confession (also I see that when he grabs Yuki’s wrist he stops fading)

“If you use magic in here, you don’t know who might see you” so they’ll notice her hiding behind a half rock wall but somehow a glowing waterslide will escape their notice???

“If Sakura had used her card any later than when she did, you were going to stop your magic” I feel like that is the LEAST Eriol could do

“Do you dislike swimming now” OH HOW NICE TO CHECK IN WITH RIKA AFTER YOU ALMOST DROWN HER

“You’re just lacking experience now. I’m sure that you will be able to do it. Skiing... and other things.” “You said that before! What does that MEAN” Syaoran is tired of Eriol’s Cryptic Sports Advice too

Dghgfjdgfjhg Sakura crossing herself in preparation for hearing a scary story lmao

Current failed confession counts:

Toya: 7

Syaoran: 3

Eriol confirms he will not kill preteens in an avalanche just to teach them magic I guess they had to draw the line somewhere

“I know the truth... that in reality you are...” Does it count as a failed confession if it’s for a scene?? Also are they the leads of this student film bc if so wow

“I know what’s really going on. That you are...” Well we’re definitely up to 8 now

:(((((((((((( It really hurts Toya to see Yukito like this SAVE HIIIIIIIIM

“At this rate, Toya’s important thing will be taken away” like what his love virginity LMAO

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH IT’S HAPPENING THE FACE TOUCHING THE REVEAL HFDUHFKJHFJDHFKJHDJGHJKHGJHG

“If I don’t see you, I can’t give you what I want to give you” a kiss?? LOL

“I want you to protect Sakura, and also protect yourself” OH OH OH 

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH TOYA YOU’RE SO SELF-SACRIFICING THIS IS SO SWEET U WANT TO PROTECT UR SISTER AND THE LOVE OF UR LIFE SO UR GIVING UP SOMETHING THAT’S A PART OF YOU THE MELANCHOLY THE INTIMACY I’M WEEPING

“It’s obvious that you, a child, can’t support all of it” Ahhhhhhhhhh so many reveals at once poor Sakura, Toya was only helping

In truth I did not think the power exchange would happen all at once I thought it would be like recurring boyfriend whack-a-mole:

Yukito, sleepy: I’m off to battle

Toya: K bye Yuki [intimate embrace]

Yue: [Catches sleepy Toya]

“I want Yukito to know my true feelings” I mean I’m gonna tell you right now Sakura I think he’s in love with your brother and also you’re like 11 but u do u I guess

“It doesn’t matter what you are. As long as you don’t disappear and are at my side, I don’t care about anything else” Toya ur so romantic

“I’m all right. Just a little sleepy.” Oh how the narcolepsy turntables.....

I know all I want to talk about is Toya right now but he is so PATIENT and GENTLE with his sister’s feelings god

“But the person that you like the most isn’t me, Sakura” why do both halves of Yukito feel the need to moonsplain people’s feelings to them jkhfgkjjhfjhfjkh

HAHAHAH I was wondering how Yuki was going to handle this preteen love confession and he just went ‘No. Family-zoned.’

“You realized this because you have someone you like the most as well, Yukito?” 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

“Is it my big brother?” “Yeah, it is” AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

“Though I think that Toya is my number one, I’m not sure of his feelings” HE GAVE UP HIS MAGICAL POWERS FOR YOU TO BE AROUND HIM FOREVER YUKITO HOW MUCH MORE REASSURANCE DO YOU NEED

Omg the vowing to yell at each other’s future boyfriends khkdhfkdhfs I love this friendship good for them 

Eriol really DOES trap people in enclosed spaces to work out their interpersonal problems this reincarnated 11-year-old relationship therapist my god

“But if I cry or make a sad face, I’m sure Yukito would be troubled” poor sad Sakura but also I’m kind of glad she didn’t abide by Yukito like... telling her how she felt? It would’ve felt a little insincere to walk ALL of it back but I think she was mostly doing it so Yukito and Toya could be together in peace

“It’s all right. I’m sure you will find him” SYAORAAAAAAAAAAANNN

Awww Syaoran is so happy about this Grand Gesture scarf <33333333

“I knew that Sakura’s feelings for me weren’t completely the same as her feelings for her father... But I can’t delay her finding her true number one because of her feelings towards me” no shit Yuki but also maybe it was an okay call it gave Sakura a simple out

Toya’s gentle head touch as he gives Yukito reassurance aaaaaah

“He’s going to steal away something that I’ve been cherishing all this time” this is Toya’s weird way of saying he gives Syaoran and Sakura his blessing lol (lot of these blessing going around lately)

Toya’s love language is touching Yuki somewhere from the shoulders up

“I feel like he’s still alive and he’ll come to make fun of us at any moment” ur not wrong Kero

“But I’m still not you, Mr. Clow” U JUST BE URSELF SAKURA!!

What we have learned from this trip to the past so far is that Mr. Clow has always loved to give people cryptic messages and then disappear

I DID NOT EXPECT A MONTAGE OF BLOOMING FLOWERS TO BE WHAT MADE ME SHED A TEAR IN THIS ANIME BUT THE SYMBOLISM - CLOW’S WORDS - SAKURA UR SO GOOD THIS IS A NICE SHOW

“It’s Clow Reed’s fault,” said Clow Reed, eleven years old, about himself

“Why did he have to trouble Sakura so much?!” Kero said FRIENDSHIP ENDED WITH CLOW REED SAKURA IS MY NEW BEST FRIEND

I appreciate that Yue was like, ‘Gotta bring Toya with me to the battle I can’t just leave him in the street’ 

Sidenote: What made them start running in the first place was it the loss of light or was it just Yukito/Yue going ‘MY SAKURA SENSES ARE TINGLING’

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH FINAL BATTLE KERO VS. SPINNEL, YUE VS. RUBY MOON, SAKURA VS. CLOW???

OH SHIT TRANSFORMING EIGHT CARDS AT ONCE WHAT A POWER UP 

Make that six cards but STILL

“Light and Dark are the first cards under our jurisdiction” I AM RIVETED 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

SCREAM THE TEAM SUN MOON STARS GROUP HUG MY CHEST WILL BURST

OH FINAL WAND!!!!!!!!! MAGICAL FRIENDS EDITION

SYAORAN HELPING HER TRANSFORM THE CARDS TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAMWORK

“We are friends with you, right Sakura?” KEROOOOOOOO YUEEEEEEEEE 💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖

“I like you” [Cut to classroom] Oh awkward seems like Sakura kind of verbally left Syaoran on read for that one

“Wouldn’t conversation be more pleasant when there are tasty sweets around” Sdfhkjshfkjshfkj unbelievable Eriol-Clow wants to have his final words of wisdom delivered via tea party

“There were a couple of things that happened that weren’t expected by myself or Clow Reed” LOL he means Syaoran and Sakura and also probably Yukito and Toya jhjhdfjkh fair it’s just the never-ending charisma of these siblings 

Oh hey Ms. Mizuki what are you doing at this weird tea party (go to jail)

If Mizuki was in college when she met him he was what???? A baby??? How old ARE you Eriol

“You’re not going inside, Yue?” I was WONDERING why Yue wasn’t part of this ridiculous gathering lmao

“But I can talk of old memories... If it suits your fancy, I will talk whenever you want me to” Ahh Eriol trying to provide Yue some closure 😬

WOW ERIOL EXPLICITLY EXPLAINING THAT HE DID NOT EXPECT THE ROMANTIC DYNAMICS AT PLAY JDHJHFDGHKDHGKHDKFJ 

Omggg Sakura created a new card for Syaoran ahhhh they’re really very cute

“That bear... Can I have it?” The way these confessions were written is really VERY GOOD

What a WEIRD SHOW but u know it did something to my heart 

[foxtophat]

in chapter 3, nick brings john some food and tries to interrogate him, but it doesn’t go quite as planned. john sure is acting weird! i mean, weirder than usual. i mean, usual for john, anyway. i mean... well, let’s just say that nick is as in control as he can be in today’s update!

WHEW i really like this chapter actually, i had fun editing and writing it and all that. soooo i’ve been doing weekly updates but for the sake of consistency i’m going to be changing that to a bi-weekly schedule instead. gives me more time to flesh out these thinner chapters before i get them out to you, the viewer!

speaking of viewers, DAMN thank you guys for the warm ass welcome for this story! i’m so glad to see that people are enjoying my self-indulgent mess. i’ve had so much fun working on it by myself but i’m having even more fun now that i know other people like it!

hey, i’ll slap the text of this chapter below the cut so you don’t have to go off-site if you don’t feel like it. if you read, please consider reblogging, as that’s the best way for me to get this update out there :) otherwise, just like, have a good day and junk!

John is, unfortunately, still alive when Nick goes to check on him. He even seems to be aware of his surroundings, unsurprised when Nick opens the door and downright guarded as Nick approaches him with a plate of vegetables and some smoked venison. The role reversal doesn't sit right at all with Nick, but at least he knows he's in control of the situation for now. Give the bastard a couple of nights of good rest and John will no doubt attempt to get back on top, but tonight he's too sick to do anything but cringe away as Nick unceremoniously drops into a crouch and drops the plate in his general direction.

Tense, with his fingers twisting in the blanket below him, John rasps, "What's this?"

Nick frowns. "Food," he snaps, trying not to let his own rudeness bother him. He doesn't have to feel guilty being short with John — it's fucking John . Nick should be mad at himself for not being more of a dick! Being in a position that would earn a normal person sympathy doesn't mean squat when the guy is a murdering, violent psychopath wearing the thin veneer of a human being! He doesn't deserve anything Nick gives him, besides a swift and merciless kick to the temple.

Nick exhales heavily and reluctantly adds, "You look like you need it."

It's only once Nick rises to his feet again that John reaches for the plate, dragging it into his lap and proving Nick right as he quickly begins to inhale his food. It's alarming to watch John cramming jerky and vegetables into his mouth hand-over-fist, and despite himself he warns, "Slow down, you're gonna choke."

John stops eating like a switch has been flipped, dropping his hands to the plate as though he's been physically restrained. He doesn't say anything, just twists his fingers against the rim and stares at Nick's boots.

Okay.

This, uh. This is weird.

Nick feels his unease chewing at his nerves. "Well?" he snaps, trying to bluster his way through it.

"Well, what ?" John asks in return. There's an edge of annoyance in his voice, an old-world relic of John's normally nasty attitude, but it's not enough to reassure Nick.

"You know what. You're supposed to be dead . Rook put you down almost a decade ago, and I dunno if you noticed, but there's been a nuclear apocalypse since then. There's no way I'm putting you in your grave before you tell me how you got this far in the first place."

It's a lie, but the important part is that Nick sounds tough when he says it.

John clenches his jaw in response and finally meets Nick's glare with his own steely gaze. "They shot me," he says, his ragged voice still managing to scrape together enough attitude to sound vaguely condescending. He touches his gut, fingers prodding gently. "Then, the deputy left me for dead. I assume they returned to your welcoming arms."

Ugh, it is so fucking weird to hear John's passive-aggressive bullshit. Eight years apparently wasn't enough time for him to get over his nasty infatuation, if he's still bitter about Rook picking the Ryes over his own family.

"All of us were happy you were gone," Nick says, unwilling to indulge in John's creepy pity-lust for the deputy. "So, what then? How did you find that bunker? How'd you even know it was there ?"

John picks up a piece of jerky, bending it between his thumb and index finger. "It was my backup plan."

"What, in case the Cult backfired on you?" Nick scoffs loudly as John silently pops the piece of meat into his mouth. "I bet your brother would be real pleased to know you tried to weasel your way out of his prophecy."

John chews and swallows. "I doubt Joseph survived the Deputy at close range. I doubt I'll survive the second round myself. Where... is the Deputy, anyway? Shouldn't they be here casting down judgment, too?"

Nick sets his jaw. "I don't know," he says, folding his arms over his chest. "Nobody knows. They went to confront Joseph, but with all the Bliss in the air... I don't know. We lost track of them in the chaos. If they've had access to a radio, they haven't used it to contact anyone."

If John has any insight into what might've happened, he doesn't share it. He picks at a few pieces of carrot but it seems like he's lost his appetite again. "I see," he says, too pensively for someone who seems half out of their gourd.

"So, you survived being shot down, crawled into a hole with a gut full of buckshot, survived that , and then... what?"

"You saw what," John sighs. He looks tired — all this talking must be wearing him out. It's hard to believe John Seed is too weak to hold a conversation, considering how hard it used to be to get him to shut the fuck up. Nick tries not to spend too much time thinking about it.

"You want me to believe that you spent eight years just sitting there ?" Nick asks. The disbelief in his voice doesn't come close to the incredulity he's feeling. There's no way that John spent the last eight years in a quiet limbo. Hell, Nick's bunker life wouldn't make for riveting television or anything, but he still did more than exist . Even if he was on his own, John had to have some kind of — of backup backup plan, a plot to manipulate the nuclear apocalypse in his favor, something . Right?

"What do you want me to say? The bunker was lacking in entertainment. I was trapped alone, miles away from the Project, with nowhere near enough supplies. I was certain I would die before the first year was over, and from then on I assumed every day would somehow become my last. My being here is as much a surprise to you as it is to me."

He glances up, watching Nick's reaction with a wariness Nick isn't comfortable with. It's too much like a wounded dog, and John has to be playing some kind of angle to be using it.

"I had a radio, but no microphone," he says. "All I could do was listen."

Nick remembers what the radio channels were like for the first couple of months after the bombs dropped. Everyone going through every step of the grieving process over the world they'd known, screaming, begging, arguing, crying all the time. Lots of repentant Peggy idiots cursing Eden's Gate, even more innocent people sending out their last painful goodbyes. Kim would talk to them, sometimes, but for a while, it was safer to just leave the damned thing off.

"Eventually, the radio died," John mutters. "I thought it would be... better, somehow, being isolated. After all, that's how Joseph spoke to God, and I had a lot of questions that He might have answered."

"The last thing we need is another hallucinating prophet," Nick warns. He hopes John tries to sell him on some new-wave Josephism, though — he'd love to shoot the guy on principle and be done with everything. Boy, would that take a load of ethical weight off his back!

John's lips tighten wryly. "Apparently I don't possess the same qualities that made Joseph such an inviting disciple," he says. "I was alone. For... seven years, eight months, three days. Give or take."

"You keep a calendar down there?" Nick snaps, as if he and Kim hadn't quickly sorted time out themselves.

"I did," John replies, somewhat smugly. "Long enough to know when I ran out of supplies, at least. After that, it wasn't long before I had to leave the bunker. I couldn't... I couldn't take it anymore."

Nick waits for John to continue, but he doesn't. There must be more to it than that, Nick's sure of it, but John doesn't seem capable of handling the conversation.

John drops his line of sight to the pistol holstered at Nick's hip. He seems to be waiting for something.

"What happens now?" he asks, once whatever he's waiting for fails to happen. No doubt he expects Nick to brandish the gun in his face, to intimidate him or threaten him or... whatever. Shoot him, probably, because not even John Seed would be stupid enough to give himself clemency for all his crimes.

"Now?" Nick repeats. "Well, I guess that depends on you." He crouches down once more, sure that he's well out of John's grasp as he does so. He wants John to look him in the eye. "See, it's been a while, but I still really fuckin' hate you. After everything you've done, to me, my family, my home ... Honestly, I should've probably put you down the moment I recognized you."

John meets Nick's hard glare with the resolve of a condemned man. "Why didn't you?" he asks.

"Because I haven't had to kill anybody in nearly a decade, and y'know, I'd like to keep that streak." Nick jabs a finger at John, inwardly pleased when he recoils to avoid contact. " You're the one who came to Hope County looking for a fight. So I'm not gonna kill you. Not yet."

Nick figures he sounds pretty intimidating, but John doesn't seem moved by the indirect threat. Of course he isn't. The guy built half a religious movement out of his sadomasochism — he's not going to feel threatened by Nick, not even if he were holding a pair of pliers to his teeth. He doesn't even give Nick the satisfaction of asking what he means — he only stares and waits for Nick to hand down his sentence.

"First, we gotta see if you're gonna make it through the night," Nick says, gesturing towards the abandoned plate. "After that, I'm gonna put you to work. Kim and I, we got a list of things we need to get done. It's back-breaking manual labor, and you're gonna be the one whose back breaks." Nick rises to his feet, trying to seem tough when in reality, his knees are starting to ache, and he can't afford to throw one out over a show of force. "You do what you're told with no back-talking, and I guess we'll find a way to keep you fed."

"And if I don't?"

"I don't think you're in any position to refuse, jackass. Nobody else is going to think twice about shooting you around here. The cult, your followers, family, they're all dead and gone. Anyone left who knows your face is gonna want to smash it to bits, and they aren't going to be inclined to be as generous as Kim and I are being. So it's either this, or I throw you back in that bunker where you belong."

For a moment, Nick thinks that John might try to turn him down anyway. He hopes he does — it'd be nice to get to punch the guy without feeling guilty for hitting a seriously ill man. But John's pale face belies how desperate he is to avoid that bunker of his, and eventually he gives in with a slow, resigned nod.

"You're right," John replies, voice hoarse from exhaustion. "Joseph — the Project — it's all gone. And I..."

John trails off with a heavy, resigned sigh. He looks up at Nick through a thick clump of long, tangled hair that's fallen over his face. "I'm at your mercy," he finally says, dropping Nick's gaze immediately after as though he doesn't expect much mercy at all.

"What, that's it?" Nick asks, honestly fucking confounded at the lack of backtalk. He'd made a good argument, sure, but — what? "No arguing? No negotiating, no defending the cult? No trying to deflect blame?"

"What good would it do?" John replies. Despite everything, he manages to scrape together enough attitude to look unimpressed by Nick's entire deal. It's the first time since realizing John was alive that Nick feels a twinge of that old-fashioned irritation that used to make shooting John seem so appealing. "I have nothing. You've won, Nick. I hope you've been enjoying the prize."

"I ought to punch you," Nick snaps. "Lucky for you, I'd feel bad for giving you a beat-down in your sorry state." He nudges the plate with his boot, sliding it closer to John. "I'll be back with some water so you can clean yourself up. You stink enough to put me off my own dinner. Anything else, well..."

He gestures to the ratty, mildewy pile of junk that they've been collecting in the room, as if any of it could be useful. Broken picture frames, mouse-torn bedding, broken down cardboard boxes and more all piled innocently away in what was going to be Carmina's room. Looking at it fills Nick with a sense of profound sadness that he shoves right back down where it belongs.

"You can figure something out," he tells John, who doesn't seem capable of making another dig at Nick's new position as prison guard. Unwilling to be moved by John's labored breathing as he simply nods in return, Nick quickly about-faces, storming from the room with just enough anger to hide the retreat for what it is.

[ciestessde]

Phantasma Magica Ch. 10

STORY SUMMARY

Clockwork and the Observants send Danny to Hogwarts on a special mission. But, cryptic as ever, that Old Stopwatch never actually told him what would happen on it!!! “All you need to do right now, Daniel, is stay focused on your mission. And remember, the-” “‘The Lions with the time-turner, lightning-bolt scar, and hair like fire are friends; watch out for the rat; and the black dog is not a threat.’ Yeah, you’ve only repeated that a few dozen times today.”

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*Knock-knock* “You may come in.”

Lupin entered. Dumbledore stopped his pacing and sat behind his desk. … He was frowning.

“Thank you for coming, Remus.” “I assume this is about Danny,” Lupin sat in the chair Dumbledore provided him. Dumbledore nodded, his eyebrows furrowing. “I’ve given much thought to what you’ve told me about him. You claim the phantasm is… friendly. However, you also acknowledge that phantasms survive--” his tone darkened “--off of eating souls.” “Yes. That’s what Danny told me. However, Danny eats substitute souls…” Lupin trailed off. Dumbledore was nodding.

“... I… understand your sympathies for the boy. And I agreed not to pursue him. However.” Dumbledore’s eyes seemed to actually burn. “Unlike a werewolf… a phantasm is a continual threat to my students’ safety. What if he were to run out of these ‘substitutes,’ for example? Would he hunt the dementors and break our tenuous peace with them? Eat the Hogwarts’ Ghosts?” Lupin didn’t have an answer for him. “And as you have said yourself, this is the first -- the only -- time we know of that anyone has had a remotely civil interaction with a phantasm. I trust your judgement that the boy does not MEAN us any harm. But we have no way of knowing that that will last.” They sat in silence for a while.

Dumbledore sighed. He looked pained. “... I’m sorry, Remus. I won’t attack the boy. “But I cannot allow him to remain here unsupervised.”

Few things felt better than floating lazily through the air on a warm Spring night. Danny felt sorry for the humans: stuck inside, having to study for exams. When the weather was just turning warm… Not that he was able to completely relax. His meal trips for Sirius and 2nd-Hermione took up a bit of time. But on the whole… Danny was actually getting bored again. … As in, REALLY bored! Which was NOT something he thought he’d be when he first arrived at this crazy school. But he’d explored every inch of it! Or, he thought so, anyway; the place was practically a maze. But if there was any part he’d missed, he’d have to congratulate whoever built or hid it (if he ever met them). Because of that boredom, though, Danny resorted to something he never thought he would: He had started studying school subjects for fun. Which, granted, magic subjects were inherently more entertaining, but the textbooks were still somehow just as boring to read as normal ones! The two subjects that interested him most were Astronomy (of course) and History of Magic. (The teacher of that class -- aside from being a ghost??? -- was still extremely boring, but the history itself was actually pretty neat.)

He also started visiting Buckbeak to get the hippogriff more comfortable around his presence, just in case the appeal didn’t work out. The chances of which were… pretty good, if Draco’s returned good mood was anything to go by. Turns out the bully’s father really was influential, and he certainly didn’t keep it a secret that the creature’s execution would be because of that influence. In fact, he seemed pleased by it. Danny had gotten tired of pranking Draco himself, but the boy’s attitude about Buckbeak grated on his nerves so much that he bribed Peeves (with some items from the Hogsmeade joke shop) to do it for him. … It worked… for… a few days, anyway. ...Which was pretty good concentration, for a poltergeist. When a letter arrived saying that an executioner would be attending the appeal, Danny took that as a sign that his plan would probably have to be used, after all. He made sure there was a space ready for the creature in the big room under the castle (called the “Chamber of Secrets,” he found out from Hermione), destroying the basilisk carcass and making a nest for him. He hoped the trip through the ground and walls wouldn’t freak Buckbeak out too much when the time came…

But really. An executioner? To an appeal? For the “crime” of scratching a kid’s arm?! It was like this “Ministry of Magic” WANTED him to hate them!

The Trio, oddly enough, actually seemed to think their chances of winning the appeal were pretty good. He wished he could share their optimism. They were visiting Hagrid almost every evening at this point -- using Harry’s invisibility cloak, of course. If nothing else, the company and constant reassurance was keeping Hagrid’s spirits up.

The appeal took place the same day of the students’ last exams. Which meant that they wouldn’t find out the ruling until after they had finished. Or, in Danny’s case, that he had to keep one eye on Hagrid’s hut during the Divination exam. He would have just floated next to the hippogriff for the whole day, waiting to make their escape, but… It was just too tempting!

He actually sat in on two other, earlier, exams: The Astronomy test, to see how he compared. (He might not actually have been able to take it -- but he was proud to say that, if he could’ve, he would have gotten “top marks!”) And the Defense Against the Dark Arts exam -- because it was a magical obstacle course, which… it was just FAR too entertaining to pass up watching!

But he didn’t watch the Divination exam for the entertainment value. He needed to know whether it was actually possible for humans (magical or not) to see into the future. Because if they could… it meant that the Observants -- Clockwork’s bosses -- weren’t the only ones with that power. He wasn’t sure how, but he thought that might be useful information, in the future… 

But, uh… The answer seemed to be a resounding “no.” Every student that came up to tell her what they saw in the crystal ball… A few of them took it seriously, but most seemed to just be making stuff up. And the teacher, “Trelawney”… was falling for the stories hook, line, and sinker! Danny stayed until the last student ONLY because it was Harry. Who, indeed, did what everyone else did and made something up.

”Well? What do you see?” prompted Trelawney, dressed in her usual ridiculous beads, bangles, and spangled shawl -- looking like a glittery insect with her giant, thick glasses. “Er -- a dark shape… um…” “What does it resemble? Think, now…” “A hippogriff.” “Indeed!” She scribbled something on her parchment. “My boy, you may well be seeing the outcome of poor Hagrid’s trouble with the Ministry of Magic! Look closer… Does the hippogriff appear to… have its head?” “Yes,” Harry stated firmly. “Are you sure? Are you quite sure, dear? You don’t see it writhing on the ground, perhaps, and a shadowy figure raising an axe behind it?” “No!”

‘What the heck is with this teacher? She’s been leading the students into “making”  these doom-ridden predictions the ENTIRE exam!!!’ “No blood? No weeping Hagrid?” “No! It looks fine, it’s -- flying away…” ‘C’mon, Harry. I know you want Buckbeak to be fine, but if you’re going to make something up to pass, make something up that will, y’know -- get her to pass you.’ But the teacher sighed and said, “Well, dear, I think we’ll have to leave it there. ...A little disappointing,” ‘Really, though? Are ALL predictions bad? Can’t the Universe give GOOD visions?! What kind of “prophet” ARE you?!!!’ “... but I’m sure you did your best.”

Harry packed up and turned to leave, Danny about to phase out through the wall, when-- “IT WILL HAPPEN TONIGHT.” Danny reeled around, almost attacking her -- The lady’s voice had become loud and harsh, and her body had gone rigid. Her eyes were unfocused, and her mouth sagged. But as soon as Danny realized what was going on -- he paid extra close attention!!!

“THE DARK LORD LIES DORMANT, TRAPPED BEHIND LIGHTNING. HIS SERVANT HAS BEEN CHAINED THESE TWELVE YEARS. TONIGHT, BEFORE DUSK… THE SERVANT WILL BREAK FREE AND RELEASE HIS MASTER. THE DARK LORD WILL RISE AGAIN WITH HIS SERVANT’S AID, BRINGING TERROR WITH HIS LIGHTNING PRISON. TONIGHT… BEFORE DUSK… THE SERVANT… WILL RELEASE… HIS MASTER…”

Trelawney’s head fell onto her chest, then snapped back up, and like that -- it was over. Harry tried to get some kind of explanation from her, but she didn’t seem to remember what had just happened. And Danny was inclined to believe she wasn’t faking it, because during that little episode… She had been radiating time aura.

… Also, it was just the kind of vague, unhelpful wording the old Stopwatch LOVED to use when giving any hint or warning. Because, really? “Trapped inside lightning”? “Release his master”? How was that helpful?!?! ‘Well…’ Danny tried to decode the message on his way to Hagrid’s hut. ‘I guess this means my vacation is over. “Lightning prison”... ‘That probably means Harry. The “servant” MIGHT be Pettigrew…?’

Deciding it would be better to keep a closer eye on Harry for the night, Danny turned around. If he had learned anything from his training under the Master of Time, then he knew that prophecies were meant to be broken! But when he got to the Gryffindor common room, it was to see the Trio headed out with grim looks on their faces. He whispered to Hermione (who was used to him appearing at her ear), “What’s going on?” “Buckbeak lost the appeal,” she whispered.

He followed them down to the hut. ‘I have a bad feeling about this, but… No point trying to change things until I know what to change…’ Hagrid was trembling and pale when he answered the door. “It’s us,” Harry hissed. “We’re wearing the Invisibility Cloak. Let us in and we can take it off!” “Yeh shouldn’ve come!” But he let them in, anyway. Rifling through his cupboards, he asked, “Wan’ some tea?” “Where’s Buckbeak, Hagrid?” Hermione asked hesitantly. “I -- I took him outside.” His hands were trembling as he poured, spilling milk all over the table. “He’s tethered in me pumpkin patch. Thought he oughta see the trees an’ -- an’ smell the fresh air -- before --” The milk jug slipped from his trembling hands and shattered on the floor. “I’ll do it, Hagrid,” Hermione offered, moving to clean up the mess. “There’s another one in the cupboard,” he said, sitting himself down in one of his giant chairs.

While Hermione cleaned, Danny decided to help in the little way he could. He couldn’t steal Buckbeak away just yet -- he needed the officials to see it was him, or they might -- no. Or they WOULD just accuse Hagrid of hiding/freeing the creature. So for now, all Danny could do was find the spare milk jug in the cupboard. But when he looked-- There, hiding inside an empty jug -- in a place NONE of them would’ve thought to look (the man’s specialty, it seemed)... Was the rat form of Peter Pettigrew. ‘Knew I had a bad feeling!’

Danny snatched him, quickly phasing outside so that no one could hear his squeaking. “Don’t even think about it,” he growled to the invisible, writhing rat in his hand. It just writhed harder. “If you keep squirming…” He let his hand get colder and colder, “I’ll just have to freeze you in place.” The squirming stopped, but the rat still trembled.

Danny heard voices. It was Dumbledore, a couple older men (one of whom he recognized as the Minister) -- and a man with an axe. ‘Oh, great…’ He would have to steal Buckbeak AND keep hold of Pettigrew, now. Danny took a deep breath. ‘Okay. I can do this. We have a plan… Please stick to the plan, guys…!’ They did. He heard the backdoor of the hut open, and the Trio’s footsteps quickly moved to a place farther away from the hut. The officials were almost there. Dumbledore’s presence made Danny a little nervous, but… No time.

He turned visible with a roar. The four wizards jumped, drawing their wands, and Hagrid stumbled out of his hut. Once he had their attention, Danny wasted no time in freeing Buckbeak. He burnt the rope tethering him to the pumpkin patch, grabbed the hippogriff around the neck, and was just spreading his energy into him to turn them both intangible when-- -- Dumbledore snapped out of his shock.

“Irretio idolon!”

It was just like he remembered -- though the memory was fuzzy. Except he noticed something about the spell he didn’t have the chance to last time. He wasn’t holding anything last time.

It wasn’t just as though he were trapped in a net -- he was trapped in a net that kept him from touching anything else.

Which meant he was forced to let go of Buckbeak… And Pettigrew.

~~~~~

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[marigoldbaker]

very really married (14/15)

read it on ao3!

i'm just going to pretend that i didn’t almost forget to post this extremely important update today. that���s what’s going to happen.

The moment Giles realized what the Codex said, he felt as though some final, vital part of him had shattered. Losing Jenny had always been an inevitability, but losing Buffy—he couldn’t contemplate it. This bright, brilliant child who stared death in the eye and laughed on a daily basis…he could not lose her too. Not so soon after he had broken Jenny’s heart.

He would check his translations, he decided, even as the earth shook and broke under his feet. He would check and double-check and triple-check and demand answers from Angel, and he would not tell Buffy about any of this until he had found a foolproof way to keep it from happening.

Everything in the Codex comes to pass, said a thoroughly unhelpful voice in the back of his head. Giles leaned against the checkout desk and stared at the semi-wrecked library, dazed by how rapidly it all seemed to have fallen to bits.

Giles threw himself into research. Buffy came in, the next morning, and he could barely register her presence through the haze of cross-referencing and recataloguing and attempting to repair the damage done by the earthquake on top of everything else. He was on autopilot, thinking only in terms of conjugations and typos and misprints—maybe the Codex meant fall, not die? Fall was more general, certainly, and could mean anything from death to the loss of Giles’s good opinion—but no, no, it translated to she will die—had he calculated the date incorrectly?

“Rupert,” said a voice. “Rupert.”

“Quite busy,” said Giles, not looking up from his books. “Library’s closed. Come again later.”

“I’m playing the wife card,” said Jenny firmly.

That made Giles look up. “Please don’t,” he finally managed.

Jenny flushed, ducking her head. “Okay,” she said. “Yeah. I guess if you’re living in a hotel, you don’t really get to play the wife card anymore, huh?”

“No, Jenny, I just—” Giles exhaled, frustrated. Why on earth couldn’t she have done this before Buffy’s impending death? “I am under a lot of stress,” he said. “I don’t think now is the time for you to—to reenter my life.”

“So I’m a stressor?” Jenny looked a mixture of indignant and hurt.

“You are someone I love who I hurt very deeply,” said Giles, “and I am terrified I will hurt you again. Please, Jenny, I-I am in no condition to even attempt at tactfulness—I am tired, and I have quite a lot of work to do—”

“I know,” said Jenny. “I thought that maybe I could help.”

This took Giles aback. “I’m sorry?”

“Buffy checked in with me today, and she said you seemed pretty seriously out of sorts,” said Jenny tentatively. “And I knew it had to be pretty bad if Buffy was concerned enough to check in with me about it, and—and the only things I could think of that might upset you enough to keep them secret all had to do with death and destruction and—”

“Buffy is fated to face the Master,” said Giles.

Jenny blinked. “The who now?”

“The Master,” said Giles unsteadily. “He is a very powerful vampire who trapped himself underground a very long time ago, and he has taken a particular interest in Buffy since her coming here. I discovered a prophecy yesterday that suggested—” He swallowed, then shook his head. “That explicitly stated Buffy would face the Master, and that she would die tomorrow night.”

Jenny studied him for a long moment. Softly, she said, “I’ve never once seen you so undone.”

“How can I not be?” said Giles helplessly. “She’s my—” He didn’t quite know how to describe what he felt for Buffy. Slayer seemed too clinical a term, suddenly; he would have been able to send his Slayer to die without hesitation. “I care very deeply for her,” he said. “And she is only a child. Sending her to die at the hands of a master vampire is, is something I could never do.”

“Your predecessors didn’t seem to have much of a problem with it,” said Jenny a little coolly.

It was then that Giles realized that Jenny had almost certainly read the same Watcher diaries as he had. Not only had she found out of his calling from a secondary source, she had received her only information about it from callously indifferent, utterly detached idiots, all of whom had prioritized their mission over love, family, and the life of the girl they had been charged with protecting. “I am not my predecessors,” he said. “I have no intention of letting a little girl die for the sake of the world, not if I have any way of stopping it.”

Jenny nodded. “Okay,” she said. “Okay. Then let me help you.”

“Are you sure?” said Giles uncertainly. “You said you wanted distance—”

“Yeah, well, I think I can put that aside until we figure out how to stop this prophecy from going down,” said Jenny, giving him a small, tired smile.

Not for the first time, Giles was struck by how very remarkable Jenny was. “Thank you,” he said softly.

Jenny hesitated, then reached out, awkwardly squeezing Giles’s shoulder. Giles, who hadn’t been touched since the nightmare incident, couldn’t suppress a startled gasp, but she didn’t seem to notice. “You weren’t lying about…everything, were you?” she said. “Not about—not about hating computers, or, or liking tea, or—”

“Loving you?”

“Yeah,” said Jenny.

“I lied about being a Watcher, Jenny, but that is the only thing I lied about,” said Giles quietly.

For a brief moment, it seemed as though Jenny might kiss him; her eyes flitted down to his mouth, and she leaned in very slightly. But she seemed to think better of it, letting her hand drop and stepping back, and Giles found himself longing for the days when she would grab him and kiss him just to make a point or make him squirm. “Let’s, uh, get back to the Buffy thing,” she said somewhat loudly. “Where did you get the prophecy from?”

“Angel, actually,” said Giles.

Jenny looked startled. “Seriously?”

“Yes, he, he was very helpful,” said Giles awkwardly, raising his hand to straighten his glasses. “He did save my life last week.” Jenny drew in a sharp, pained breath, and he blinked. “Are you quite all right?”

“Your hand,” said Jenny.

Giles raised the hand in question, remembering belatedly that he had sustained a rather bad burn from his attempts to shut off the gas valve. But there hadn’t been time to doctor it properly—there never did seem to be time for that sort of thing. “Oh,” he said, and grinned a bit sheepishly. “Quite a lot better than it looks, actually. I can hold a pencil—”

Jenny looked as though she was about to cry. “Okay,” she said. “Yeah. Um, we should—we should really start in on the research. Can you maybe call in Angel and see if he can help us out?”

“Certainly,” Giles agreed, both bemused and concerned by Jenny’s reaction. The burn certainly would be healing better if he’d paid proper attention to it, but there truly wasn’t time to do such a thing when one was focused solely on the care and keeping of one’s Slayer. “If you could double-check my translations?”

“Sure,” said Jenny. “Sure,” and picked up the Codex, hurrying it out of Giles’s office. Giles watched her go, feeling a rather confusing blend of emotions, and then turned back to the phone. Angel wouldn’t be able to go outside till sunset, but calling him at least gave Giles something to do.

Angel arrived only a few minutes after sunset. Upon seeing him, Jenny stiffened, but her eyes were wide with an almost childlike curiosity. “Angelus,” she said.

Angel turned, studying her thoughtfully. “Ms. Calendar,” he said. “Buffy mentioned you, once or twice. You’re Giles’s wife?”

Jenny hesitated. Then she said, “My family’s kind of the reason you have your soul.”

It was a mark of how surprising the news was: Angel looked visibly taken aback. “What?”

“I, um, moved to Sunnydale to watch you,” Jenny hedged. “Technically. I feel like I should tell you because literally everyone else knows at this point and it feels weird for you not to? My family really wants to make sure you’re perpetually suffering. It’s kind of their thing.”

“Is that your thing too?” Angel asked carefully.

Jenny seemed to seriously consider the question. “I feel like I don’t know you well enough to make that assessment,” she said.

This seemed to satisfy Angel. “Okay,” he said. “Well. Nice to meet you. Giles, is this why you called me down?”

“Actually, um,” Giles picked up the Codex, now triple-checked by both him and Jenny, “there is something else about which we needed to inform you.”

Angel directed a slightly wary look at the Codex. Smart fellow. “Okay,” he said again.

Jenny stepped forward, placing a quiet hand on Giles’s elbow. “Um, Rupert and I have gone over the Codex…quite a few times,” she said. “And we—should I tell him?”

“I think that would be best,” Giles agreed. He wasn’t sure if he had the emotional energy to break the news to another person.

Gripping Giles’s elbow as if trying to support herself, Jenny continued. “We went over the Codex,” she said, “a-and we came across a prophecy regarding, regarding Buffy. And the Master.”

Angel stared blankly at him. Slowly, he said, “You’re not trying to tell me—”

“The Master will rise,” said Giles unsteadily, “and tomorrow night, the Slayer will die by his hand.”

Angel’s expression didn’t change. “Check it again,” he said. “It’s got to be wrong.”

“We’ve spent the last five hours checking it against all of Rupert’s prophetic volumes,” said Jenny quietly. “If we’re wrong, then so is this entire library.”

“There’s got to be some way around it—”

“Some prophecies,” said Giles, “are mutable. Buffy herself has thwarted more than a few of them. But there is nothing in the Codex that does not come to pass.”

“Then you’ve been reading it wrong,” said Angel fiercely.

“I wish to god we were!” Giles shouted, completely and finally losing his temper. “But there is no other way to interpret it! Tomorrow night, Buffy will face the Master, and she will die!”

“Have you—” Angel began, but the rest of his words were cut off by quiet, unsteady laughter.

Giles looked, horrified, over Angel’s shoulder. He knew that laugh, though he had never heard it in quite that cadence, and his stomach dropped when he saw Buffy standing in the library doorway. “So that’s it, huh?” she said. “I remember the drill. One Slayer dies, the next one gets called. Wonder who she is.” She turned to Giles, eyes almost too bright. “Will you train her, or will they send someone else.”

“Buffy,” said Jenny softly.

“They say how he’s gonna kill me?” Buffy’s voice broke. “Do you think it’ll hurt?” Angel moved forward to hold her, but she jerked back before he could reach her. “Don’t touch me!” she shouted at him, then turned accusing eyes on Giles and Jenny. “Were you guys even going to tell me?” she asked.

“We were looking for a way to stop it,” said Jenny.

“Here’s how,” said Buffy, shaking. “I quit.”

“It’s not that simple,” said Angel.

“No, I think it should be,” said Giles.

Buffy, Jenny, and Angel all turned to stare at him. “Rupert,” said Jenny, a warning note in her voice. “Remember all those prophecies we checked? Buffy’s supposed to be the only one—”

“I think I’ve had rather enough of this,” said Giles, not really to anyone in particular. “I think I am thoroughly bloody sick of having to live in a world where the people I care about are put deliberately in harm’s way just by virtue of cosmic chance. And I think I am entirely done sitting passively by and letting it happen.”

Buffy looked suddenly frightened, anger and misery forgotten. “Giles,” she said. “What are you—”

“Buffy, you are not going to face the Master,” said Giles. “Don’t worry yourself about it. It simply is not going to happen.”

“But you said—”

“I don’t care what I said,” said Giles. “If it comes to pass, it will come to pass no matter what we do about it. The least I can do is make sure I have done everything I can to stop it from happening.”

He couldn’t quite understand why Buffy didn’t look comforted, or why Jenny had gone ashen, or why even Angel looked a little concerned. All he knew was that preparations needed to be made, battles needed to be fought, evil defeated—

With a sudden sob, Buffy raced from the room, not looking back.

Giles didn’t have time to worry himself about what Buffy thought of him. He had plans of his own to finalize. “Jenny, thank you for staying, but I believe I would like to be alone right now,” he said. “Angel, the same applies for you. If you would just—”

“Rupert,” said Jenny, a warning look in her eyes. “If you’re about to do something stupid—”

“I am going to research,” said Giles, because it was true. He needed all the information he could to go after the Master.

“Then I’m going to help,” said Jenny. “That hasn’t changed.”

“I can help too, if you want,” said Angel uncertainly.

“This is married-couple stuff,” said Jenny flatly. “Thanks, thought.”

Angel got the hint. Quietly, and without protesting, he left the library.

“Wow,” said Jenny. “Buffy really picked a good boyfriend, huh? That guy takes directions like nobody’s business—”

“If you’ll look online, Jenny, I think I shall turn to my books,” said Giles loudly. He didn’t really feel like making conversation when Buffy’s life was at stake, and especiallywhen Jenny was smart enough to figure out what he planned to do from only a few context clues.

Jenny hesitated, then nodded. “Okay,” she said. “Okay,” and hurried to the computer.

They spent the entire night researching, and then some. Jenny called in sick the next day, and napped in Giles’s office when Snyder came around to ask Giles, in accusatory tones, where exactly Ms. Calendar was. Giles caught up on sleep only when he began to feel dizzy, and only in short fifteen-minute naps; he was a strange mixture of anxious and driven, and couldn’t bring himself to sleep for longer.

They heard over the intercom about three students found dead in the AV room, but by this point Giles was too tired and too resigned to mysterious deaths to really take much notice of it. It did sting, however, to notice that Jenny’s reaction was similarly minimal, save for a small flinch and an indrawn breath when it was revealed that Willow had found the bodies.

Buffy came in around sundown, wearing an oversized leather jacket over a long white dress. Prom was that night, Giles realized. Somehow, she looked older and harder than he remembered; the news of the prophecy seemed to have aged her beyond her years. “Hi, guys,” she said.

“Buffy,” said Giles. “Good. Stay here with Jenny. You’re not going down to fight the Master tonight.”

“Who else is gonna?” said Buffy simply. All the vindictive fury of the night before was gone, no sign of it remaining.

“I am,” said Giles.

Buffy didn’t look at all surprised by this pronouncement. Jenny, however, did. “No, you’re not—” she began hotly, storming forward.

“You’re right,” said Buffy. “He’s not.”

“There isn’t anything you can say to talk me out of this—” Giles objected.

Lightning-fast, Buffy moved forward, landing an uppercut to Giles’s jaw. Right about then was when everything went black.

Giles came to with Jenny slumped against his side, a bruise blossoming on her cheek. His jaw stung. Looking around, he saw that Buffy was gone, and he felt a rush of complete and utter panic. “Jenny,” he said, shaking her. “Jenny—”

“Rupert,” mumbled Jenny, nuzzling into his side.

“Jenny, Buffy is gone,” said Giles thinly.

That woke Jenny up. “What?” She blinked, then raised a hand to her bruised cheek, wincing. “Shit. She knocked you out, and then she said she was going to go down before anyone else got themselves hurt, and I said I wouldn’t let her, and then—uh.” She winced again. “That’s when it gets kinda fuzzy.”

“She’s going to get herself killed,” said Giles, already standing up. Jenny tugged, hard, at his arm, and he shook her off. “Don’t try and talk me out of this,” he began, crossing the room to grab a broadsword.

“Rupert, you’re going to get yourself killed—”

“Hell of a way to go, isn’t it?”

“You’re scaring me,” said Jenny. Her voice broke. “Please. We need to figure out what to do about the apocalypse before we go running off after Buffy.”

“I’ll let the children handle the research,” said Giles. “You can stay with them and supervise. I need to—” He swallowed. “I need to find Buffy.”

“And what happens if the Master takes you down?” Jenny demanded. “You’re the only other person with supernatural experience—”

“Go find Angel, then,” said Giles flatly. “I’m sure you can talk him into saving the world for Buffy’s sake.”

“Rupert—”

“Jenny,” said Giles. “This is my fault. I am going to go fix it.”

“How the hell is this your fault?”

Giles stared at her for a long second. Then he said, “I don’t know, but I think I should like it to be,” and turned to hurry away.

“Okay, genius,” said Jenny, and grabbed his arm, harder this time. Giles turned, a retort at the ready, but all intelligent thought left his mind when he saw the way she was looking at him. “It’s clear to me,” she said, “that there is absolutely no talking you out of this idiot idea, because when you get an idiot idea in your head, you cling to it like it’s one of your precious volumes. But I am not letting you charge down there without thinking—”

“Try and fucking stop me,” said Giles, attempting to shake her off. It didn’t work quite as well this time.

“Let me finish, asshole!” snapped Jenny, cheeks red. “I am not letting you charge down there without thinking, so I am obviously going to have to come with you.”

Just like that, Giles’s fury was gone. “No,” he said. “Jenny, no, that is out of the question—”

“It’s not up for debate,” said Jenny fiercely. “If you’re going down there, I’m going too.”

“You’ll get yourself killed—”

“What, and you won’t?”

“I can’t lose you,” said Giles, his voice breaking. “It’s bad enough to know I’ve broken your trust, Jenny, I cannot lead you to your death—”

“What’s going on?” said Xander uneasily.

Giles and Jenny turned. Xander and Willow were standing in the middle of the library. “We came to tell you that the faucet at my house started running blood,” said Willow, “but, um, it looks like you two are…” She squinted at Jenny’s bruised cheek, then at Giles’s jaw. “Trading punches?”

“No, that was Buffy,” said Giles without thinking, then winced. “A-and anyway, we really must be going—”

“Where is Buffy?” Willow asked, a note of worry in her voice.

“Somewhere,” said Giles. “Don’t worry about it. Jenny, why don’t you stay with the children and brief them on the situation?” Before Jenny could respond, he finally managed to shake free of her grip, hurrying out of the library without looking back.

He heard running footsteps behind him, and turned, infuriated. Sure enough, Jenny had sprinted out of the library after him. “No,” she said. “You are not getting off that easily. First of all, lead me to my death? As if I would follow you anywhere! If anything, I’d be leading you, because you clearly don’t even know where you’re going! Second, you are not throwing yourself into a suicide mission just because you feel like I’m never gonna trust you again, because that is so fucking stupid and you seriously need to get your priorities straight. Third—”

“She’s just a child, Jenny,” said Giles, a catch in his voice. “She doesn’t know what she’s getting into, and she’s down there all alone.”

“I can’t—” Jenny scrubbed a hand across her face, shaking. “I can’t lose you,” she said. “Do you get that? I can’t lose you on the same day the Master kills Buffy. You’ve been the one constant in this fucked-up town, and if I lose you—”

Giles stepped forward, almost unconsciously. Jenny looked up at him, eyes bright and wet.

“Wait,” said Xander from behind them. “Wait. Buffy went after the Master?”

It suddenly and unpleasantly occurred to Giles that the time they had spent arguing was time during which Buffy might have already gotten herself killed. “Yes,” he said. “She did. And Jenny and I are going to go down and find her.”

Xander didn’t relax. Neither did Willow. “Do you guys seriously think that’s a good idea?” she said.

“Well, I definitely don’t think Jenny should come with me,” said Giles, “but I think I’ve wasted enough time trying to talk her out of it, and lord knows that is a futile endeavor.”

“We’ll go and get Angel,” said Jenny. “He’ll know how to get us to the Master. You kids need to research anything and everything that might lead us to where the Hellmouth’s gonna open up.” Her eyes were on Willow when she said, “I trust you know your way around the library?”

“What if you guys get killed too?” said Willow, voice wobbling.

“Counterpoint: what if we don’t?” Jenny stepped forward, pulling Willow into a tight hug. Over the top of Willow’s head, she said to Xander, “And if you follow us down there, I will kill you myself. Capisce?”

Xander didn’t look very happy about this, but he nodded. “You guys better bring her back alive,” he said.

Giles didn’t know how to make that promise. “Come on, Jenny,” he said instead. Without a word, Jenny let go of Willow, falling into step with him as they hurried out of Sunnydale High.

They arrived at Angel’s apartment in record time, thanks to some utterly reckless driving on Jenny’s part, and burst in without knocking. Without preamble, Jenny informed Angel, “Buffy went after the Master.”

Angel blanched. “He’ll kill her,” he said, horrified.

“That’s what we’re intending to stop,” said Giles matter-of-factly. “You know the way to the Master’s lair, I assume? We’ll need someone to take us there.”

Angel hesitated, studying Giles. Then he said, “You love her, huh?”

The Rupert Giles who had left England with thoughts of an obedient, dedicated Slayer would have balked at such a foolish question—or perhaps he might not have. Perhaps, Giles thought, this sort of love might have been in him all along, whether or not he had known it. “Very much,” he said.

Angel seemed satisfied with this. “He’s underground,” he said. “I can get you there.”

The tunnels were dark and dank, and Giles couldn’t stop thinking about how terrible a place this was for bright, brave Buffy to meet her end. Buffy had been nothing but light and youth, and the thought of her rotting away in some moldy enclave—

“Hey,” said Jenny, very softly, and he felt her hand slip into his, their fingers entwining. Belatedly, Giles realized that he was crying, and scrubbed hastily at his face, doing his best to regulate his breathing. Lord, and in front of Angel—

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Okay,” said Jenny, bumping her head against his shoulder. “Well, maybe the hand-holding isn’t to help you.”

Giles wanted rather badly to appreciate the possibility of a reconciliation with Jenny. He wanted rather badly to return to the time when it was Jenny’s leaving that had had him absolutely miserable. Then, at least, all the people he cared about had been alive, and there had been no chance of anything but that—

A bright light shone from a tunnel up ahead, and a ripple passed through the air. Instinctively, Giles knew what had happened; dropping Jenny’s hand, he ran.

“Giles, it’s too late, he’s gone up!” Angel was shouting after him, but Giles was running down the slippery tunnel, turning the corner, clambering down and into the Master’s lair and Buffy—

Buffy was lying, facedown, in a pool of water. Giles half-fell down next to her, pulling her clumsily out and into his arms. She was cold and wet, her hair falling in lank tendrils around her face, and she wasn’t—and she wasn’t—

“She’s not breathing,” said a voice that didn’t sound anything like his own. He could see Jenny and Angel scrambling to reach him, and turned his attention back to Buffy, her eyes closed. She had been so still and calm, when last he saw her. Always, she had been loud and lighthearted, never carrying herself like she was battle-worn. God, had he been foolish—thinking that her destiny didn’t weigh on her, thinking that she didn’t take it seriously, what had he been thinking? Buffy, dead—Buffy, dead and gone—

“Not breathing,” said Jenny, “does not necessarily mean gone for good.” She pointed to Angel. “We’ve got a walking, talking example of that right here.”

“The prophecy—”

“Fuck the prophecy,” said Jenny fiercely. “If she drowned, then there’s a chance. Do you know CPR?”

“Yes,” said Giles dizzily. “Yes, I—” He removed his jacket, setting Buffy’s—setting Buffy down on it as gently as possible, and was reminded of a time, months ago, when he had done just this in a science laboratory. He would do anything to protect this girl, he knew, and he knew that she could beat incredible odds— “Prove me wrong,” he whispered, and began the compressions, counting clumsily. He felt certain that he wasn’t strong enough, precise enough, enough—

Rescue breath. One, two.

“Shut up,” he heard Jenny saying to Angel, and he tried not to think about Jenny, or Angel, or Buffy, or the apocalypse around them, or how much time he might be wasting, trying to bring back a dead girl just because he loved her—

Rescue breath. One, two.

And what would he tell her if she was alive? That he loved her? He felt sure that she would laugh it off, and the thought of her laughing it off—of her laughing—made Giles smile, despite himself. She would laugh it off, and then she would give him that bright, sweet grin, and something would solidify between them—something not quite Watcher-Slayer, he supposed, something more along the lines of—she had a father, he knew, but—

Buffy coughed, and spat up a rather impressive amount of water all over Giles’s sweater vest.

“Oh my god,” said Jenny, and laughed, punching Angel’s shoulder. Angel winced. “Oh my god—”

Giles pulled back, taking Buffy’s hands in his. Buffy blinked up at him as if not quite sure who he was, coughed again, then sat up, staring at Giles with wide eyes. “Giles?” she said in a tiny voice.

“Buffy,” said Giles, and almost started crying when she pulled him into a crushing hug.

After that, the apocalypse really did feel like nothing at all. The Master was defeated, the Hellmouth beast retreating back from whence it came (Xander would inform everyone, proudly, that he got a good few hacks in with Giles’s battle-axe), and Cordelia Chase had somehow managed to destroy a respectable number of vampires with a rather expensive car—along with some school property, but Giles was off the clock and really didn’t care all that much anyway. He had more important things on his mind.

“—and then I flipped him through the roof,” Buffy was informing Xander and Willow, who were listening with rapt, adoring attention. “But you guys saw that part, obviously. I’m pretty sure almost everybody saw that part—Giles, you saw me flip him, right?”

“I did see you flip him,” Giles agreed, grinning. “You did excellently tonight.”

“Aww, you’re just saying that ‘cause I died,” Buffy teased, leaning into Giles’s side with cheerful ease.

“Absolutely not,” said Giles emphatically. “Never assume I praise you for anything other than your stellar achievements.”

“You know what?” said Buffy to Willow. “If this is how he acts after I die, I’m gonna die every day for the rest of my life.”

“Um,” said Willow, “logistically—”

Giles took this moment to tuck his jacket a bit more securely round Buffy’s shoulders. “I won’t have you catching cold,” he informed her. “That long in sewer water—it’s a wonder you’re not ill already.”

“You’re such a helicopter Watcher,” said Buffy, snuggling into the jacket. She buried her hands in the pockets, then stopped, a strange expression on her face. “Uh, Giles?” she said. “You, uh—want your jacket back?”

“Keep it,” said Giles. “Just till you’re a bit drier—”

“No, Giles, I really think you should take your jacket back,” said Buffy, and directed an extremely significant look first at Jenny, then at the left-hand pocket of Giles’s jacket.

“Wh—” The penny dropped. Wincing, Giles took the jacket back, took out the ring box as subtly as he could, then firmly tucked the jacket back round Buffy’s shoulders. “You still need to stay warm,” he said.

“It’s totally ruining my look!” Buffy protested.

“As you would say to me, deal,” said Giles, smoothing down Buffy’s hair. She grinned. “I really would have gone down there in your stead,” he informed her, grateful that the loud music of the Bronze muffled his words from the rest of the group.

“I know,” said Buffy, and her grin softened into the trusting little smile that, a very long time ago, Giles had seen directed at Jenny. “You did come running after me.” She reached forward, hugging Giles. “Thank you,” she said into his shoulder. “You’re the best Watcher I’ve ever had.”

“The bar was set rather low, then, wasn’t it?” Giles quipped, hugging her back.

“Shut up,” said Buffy, pulling back to just keep smiling at him.

“Hey, uh, Buffy?” Angel was shifting from one foot to the other, looking uncharacteristically nervous. “Um—if you’re not too busy—there’s a nice song on, I thought maybe—”

“Why, Angel, are you asking me to dance?” said Buffy, sounding positively delighted by the concept. She hopped up, giving Angel a big, smitten grin before turning back to Giles. “Love you,” she said, as easily and effortlessly as if she hadn’t had to think about it at all.

Giles found himself a bit overcome and had to polish his glasses. Buffy didn’t seem too surprised by this. “I—I love you too,” he said, though he supposed he didn’t really need to say it for her to know it. There wasn’t much else that could have motivated a Watcher to fight against a recorded prophecy.

Buffy’s smile was just as bright and sweet as Giles had imagined it to be—more so, in fact, now that he was seeing it. Tucking her arm into Angel’s, she let him lead her onto the dance floor.

“You know what?” said Willow. “Let’s cut a rug. Xander, you wanna come dance?”

“Uh, Will, I don’t know—” Xander began.

“Not with each other,” said Willow, rolling her eyes. “It’s gonna be a fast song soon!”

Xander considered, then grinned, following Willow into the crowd.

It took Giles a moment to realize that this left only him and Jenny. About to stammer out some excuse and head home alone, he opened his mouth, but was cut off when Jenny held out her hand. “Dance with me,” she said.

Heart pounding, Giles stood up. “All right,” he said, and took her hand, following her lead.

There was an empty space by the refreshments, and that was where Jenny draped her arms around his neck, looking up at him with all the affection he had been so afraid of losing. It left him all but speechless. “So you were a total stubborn idiot tonight,” she said. “Really reaffirmed some pressing questions.”

“Oh?” said Giles.

“Yeah,” said Jenny. “It was kinda hard for me to picture you as a Watcher till I saw it in action, you know? All those diaries I read had Watchers as self-serving bastards who talked about their Slayers like commodities, and that just…” She trailed off. “That didn’t fit with the guy I fell in love with,” she said. “But this night really, really does.”

Giles stared at her. Slowly, he said, “I don’t—I don’t entirely follow—”

“I love you, Rupert,” said Jenny, and oh, Giles had never dreamed hearing it from her might ever feel like this. Now he understood why she had looked at him like he was a treasure, after Angel; the head-to-toe feeling of being loved, of being known in one’s entirety and still being loved, was overwhelming. “I was so scared,” she said unsteadily, “that you made yourself up as some kind of a cover story. And it made so much more sense than this sweet, annoying, ridiculous librarian just falling into my life completely by accident.”

“I never lied about the important bits,” said Giles quietly. “I never could.”

“I know that now,” said Jenny, giving him a small, wobbly smile.

The slow song had transitioned into a fast one, but they remained swaying quietly to the music, Jenny in Giles’s arms. Jenny Calendar, well aware that her husband was a Watcher, somehow looking at him with just as much love as she had when he was just a clumsy librarian. Giles couldn’t comprehend how lucky, how happy he was.

“And I would never dream of lying about loving you,” Giles whispered. He needed to make sure she heard it, properly, with no secrets or hurt separating them. “I—I don’t know how I can possibly express—all the things I want to tell you, now that I can—”

“So save a few for tomorrow,” said Jenny, her smile widening. “We’ve got more than enough time for you to butter me up.”

Giles let out a watery laugh. “More than enough time?”

“All the time in the world,” said Jenny.

“Wait,” said Giles. “So—”

“Yes, Rupert, I want us to get back together,” said Jenny, looking up at him with that exasperated amusement that he had missed so much. “What does it take to get that through to you?”

“Possibly a formal dissertation,” said Giles, not very seriously, which made Jenny start giggling as he leaned in.

There was then a series of very loud cheers. Well aware that the children were almost definitely watching their reconciliation, and that he was most certainly going to be teased by his audience if he continued the kiss he had initiated, Giles…was distracted by the flutter of Jenny’s eyelashes, and her slowly-spreading smile, and kissed her anyway.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Cordelia was saying to someone in the background. “Those two are weird. But they’re at least weird together, you know? Less trauma for the rest of the dating pool, probably.”

“Cordelia, please shut up,” said Buffy.

Jenny broke the kiss, resting her forehead against Giles’s with a happy sigh. “I love you,” she whispered again.

Giles felt as though his sheer, dizzying joy might send him flying off into space. “I love you too,” he whispered back, struck with the knowledge that he got to say those words, and mean them, for as long as their marriage lasted.

That line of thought reminded him of something important. Keeping one hand on his wife’s waist, he fumbled in his pocket. Jenny looked somewhat bemused by this. “Rupert, what—” she began, and then stopped, breath catching in her throat, as Giles opened the ring box.

“Wait,” said Cordelia. “But they’re already married!”

“You’re a little behind the times, sweetie,” said Xander, and attempted to pat Cordelia’s shoulder. Cordelia stepped very hard on his foot.

“I can’t really go down on one knee,” said Giles, giving her a small, apologetic grin. “Partially because I feel fairly certain I fractured my kneecap in the sewer—”

“—after this, we’re going to the ER,” Jenny informed him in a somewhat wobbly voice, directing a shaky smile at the engagement ring.

“—yes, of course, dear, but please don’t detract from my point,” said Giles.

“Are you seriously correcting me in the middle of this?” Jenny asked, raising her eyes to Giles’s—and oh, her eyes were full of love.

“Of course,” said Giles, his grin becoming more smitten than nervous. “It’s rather our MO, isn’t it?” He removed his free hand from her waist, using it to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. She turned her face into his hand, smiling back up at him. “Jenny, I love you,” he said softly. “No part of this arrangement was what I ever imagined, but I don’t think I could ever have anticipated falling into the life of such a terrifying, stubborn, bitingly intelligent woman completely by accident. It’s me who’s the lucky one, darling.”

Jenny preened. “You can say that again.”

“And I want to,” said Giles. “And I will. Every day, and every week, and every month, and every year. Jenny, will you—” He stopped, realized the problem with proposing to the woman he had already married, and rather wished (for the first and hopefully last time) that he had listened to Cordelia Chase’s snide side commentary. “Um.”

“Take your grandmother’s engagement ring and not divorce you till death do us part?” said Jenny helpfully, looking very much like she was trying not to laugh. “Because I will definitely do both of those things.”

A very long time ago, Rupert Giles might have cared about the fact that proposing to his fake wife in the middle of an American high school prom was absolutely not what the Watchers’ Council would call respectable. A very, very long time ago, he might not have grinned, tears in his eyes, as Jenny donned his grandmother’s engagement ring, draped her arms back round his neck, and kissed him like it was their wedding day, the children starting up a new round of cheering.

“Are we seriously cheering on a couple of newlyweds deciding not to get a divorce?” said Cordelia. “Someone better explain this to me at some point.”

“She’s right,” murmured Giles, pulling back just enough for his lips to still brush Jenny’s as he spoke. “This whole affair is horribly unromantic.”

“Just my style,” Jenny whispered.

Giles smiled, soft and slow. “Mine too, I think,” he said, and leaned in, tenderly kissing his wife.

[trlawneys]

bubble bubble toil and trouble / have you seen [ sybill trelawney ] ? i heard that they are [ neutral ] to the war or avoiding it all together ! [ she/they ] is/are [ agender ] and [ twenty three ] ! they are often mistaken for [ jessica sula ] and known to be [ individualistic and gloomy ] ! i wonder if they’ll survive the war.

LINKS: pinboard, stats page

HISTORY

sybill trelawney’s parents were not in love. in all truth, they barely knew each other --- her father, a wizard, and her mother, a muggle, met at a university party. one thing led to another, and a few months later, odin trelawney received a phone call from a girl he didn’t really remember. shit. “i’m pregnant,” she said. “and it’s yours.” and odin, you see, was a honourable man, of some sorts, and drove over there ( he’s an halfblood, quite well versed in the ways of the muggle world ) and discussed their options.

he would take care of the child, they decided, become the main caretaker. that was what he wanted --- mary had no drop of magical blood in her veins, and it’d be easier for their child, should she grow up with a magical parent. and so it was decided. sybill trelawney was born, named after a famous seer from the middle ages, and grew up with her father alone.

and from him she learned about their family’s history. about cassandra, and how her sight might reappear in her. how he hoped it would. how she should tell him when it did. sybill tried to predict, tried to see into the future, to touch that realm. she often failed. she made small predictions to see if they’d come true. they often didn’t, they sometimes did. she wanted to make her father proud, to make sure the trelawney legacy would not pass another generation and come closer to dying out

growing up, sybill attended muggle elementary. she saw her mother every now and then. she drove in her dad’s car and was surrounded by both muggle and magical culture through her whole life. she liked that. she liked finding balance in both those things, she loved combining it. sybill was a happy child, but a thoughtful and quiet one. withdrawn, always fussing about her decisions, always trying to be what she thought the people around her wanted of her.

hogwarts rolled around, and she was sorted into ravenclaw there. a house that fit her perfectly ( and the hat didn’t take long to decide because of that ). sybill was once again quiet and reserved, but eccentric in her ways when she was not. she was adequate at her classes, excelling at divination, astrology and charms, and not much more.

she learned that she did possess the gift, at hogwarts. that it was fickle and hard and not always as present as it could be, but it was there, inside her. she became more vocal about it, started calling herself a seer, reminding people of her relation to the cassandra trelawney. she’d make up predictions, learn how to make ones that would most likely come true, just so people would believe her more. and if they didn’t, that was on them.

sybill learned soon, too, that all the predictions that hit her were negative. she saw death all around her. tragedy. pain. loss. it swallowed her whole, and made her more reclusive, made her more determined to make her sight grow and her mouth sewed shut when she was about to make a more gloomy prediction. sometimes the line between thought up and true predictions became blurred. she wanted to become better at this, but there was no getting better at it. her sight was just that --- limited, but there.

she had nightmares about people dying and wasn’t sure if they were nightmares or visions. she wasn’t sure. she couldn’t be sure, not ever. her self doubt she never voiced --- she just kept making small predictions that often came through, because that was the way the world spun. glasses break. horrible things happen. if people wanted to believe in the things she said, they often happened.

[ alcoholism tw she became dependent on bottles of sherry and red wine in her sixth year, slowly growing more used to the dulling sense of alcohol on her brain. she felt more clear headed, when she wasn’t sober, as if she could distinguish her thoughts better. she knew she shouldn’t, but it worked, and she was so tired of all the fatalistic thoughts swirling through her head all the time. end of tw ]

after graduation, sybill didn’t know what to do. she sought for jobs, using her ancestry and slight skill as a selling point. she washed dishes for a while, read tealeaves for a small price on the side, wrote the astrology section for the daily prophet for a while. nothing felt right. nothing was right. there should be more that she should be doing with the little gift she did have, especially with the horrible things happening in the world, but there were little opportunities, too much cynicism.

her lies grew. she made up more predictions, grew unreliable. her sight became clouded by her own dishonesty. people kept dying and she wondered if those were the people she dreamed about or if those were just others. sometimes, she even doubted if she was truly a seer, or if she was just lying to herself as well.

her father was proud, at least. he believed in her sight. he believed that all she said was true. he beamed and patted her head and told her that the whole family was so proud of her. sybill just smiled and nodded and kept going.

she was married, for a short while. it lasted shorter than kim and kris’ marriage. i’m not joking. they kept it going for two months and then filed for divorce, because sybill had not taken her husband’s last name ( higglebottom, i mean ) and he wasn’t very pleased with it. of course, there were other issues --- sybill had romanticised what was happening between them, and martin, her now ex-husband, was disillusioned ( which isn’t strange, considering the amount of lies sybill tells ). 

it did definitely break sybill’s trust in love. she’s a romantic, but that made her cynical, too. a cynical romantic seer, who constantly feels the deaths of people coming --- no wonder that she feels like she’s spiraling. she doesn’t see martin much any more, these days, and their divorce was almost three years ago now.

[ alcoholism mention right now, she has her hopes set on working at hogwarts. she’s been owling with dumbledore, has been trying to work on her resume, to make herself more credible. she’s trying to stop drinking, to become clearer of mind. she’s trying, trying, trying, because she wants to do something that makes her feel whole, because she’s never really felt whole at all end of mention ]

so as we all know, once sybill’s interview rolls around, she will make her famed prophecy and end up working at hogwarts ( good for her tbh, she deserves it ), but we’re not just yet there. nearly, though. it’s coming.

CURRENTLY AND PERSONALITY

sybill is a Character, let me tell you that. she’s very good at being on her own, and in all honesty, quite an independent being. she longs for many things, but doesn’t dare say them out loud. 

i think the main problem is that sybill never really felt like she belonged. she comes from a broken home, and while she loves her dad, home was always so empty and quiet and lacking. elementary school was a place where she didn’t fit in, and even at hogwarts, she struggled. she sometimes feels like a ghost of a being, moving through the world invisible, head in the clouds.

she’s not shy, though, not per se. reserved, yes, and quiet upon first glance, but once she gets talking, her dramatics and eccentricity do show up. she’s enthusiastic about the things that make her heart beat faster --- art and poetry and the stars and divination, too.

runs an astrology instagram, lmao. will make up your astrology chart. she’s a pisces sun, libra moon herself!!

Aesthetically Pleasing as hell. she loves fashion and combining muggle and wizarding fashion and she’s trying to learn to sew a little so she can make more original outfits. she’s got a bit of a quirky style, but a solid one. loves mary jane’s and cute socks, mostly.

sybill’s agender because in all honesty, she thinks gender is a sham. she just doesn’t connect with any identity but agender, with subscribing to absolutely nothing. she’s still figuring it out, mostly goes by she/her pronouns in public, but she has many days where she prefers they/them.

makes a mean sangria

very often wears sunglasses, even when inside. for the aesthetic, against headaches and ‘because not wearing them tires out my inner eye’

has a dry, stupid sense of humour that we all stan

loves stargazing. hopeless romantic.

a bit of a chameleon. sybill is a very skilled liar, and can be whatever you want her to be, and she has no trouble adjusting to that. her sense of self is a bit limited, but she doesn’t mind. she doesn’t know if she’d like the real her.

lmao she loves playing the sims that’s that on that!!!!

this is my first time playing her and im scared bYE

[itsomgitsgreenblogging]

Break My Heart: Chapter 1  (A Solangelo Fanfiction)

Imagine you take your average “Three Days in the Infirmary” fic, and then add a twist. This would be your fic! And the twist is a prophetic dream that throws Will Solace into turmoil. 

I hope you all enjoy!

Read on AO3

Preview: 

“Okay, but in all seriousness. What are you going to do?” Cecil asked him, resting his chin on his hands. “Not all of us get dreams to give us forewarnings about the treacherous nature of the dating waters, so how will you use your newly acquired powers?”  

“Well, since starting anything with Nico di Angelo obviously isn’t going to go anywhere, and I had no idea why, I…I guess I’m just not going to go for it. If I tried it would be a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Will said as he waved off Cecil. “I mean, how hard could not falling for one boy be?”

It was a dream.

A caveat being that it wasn’t just a dream. Demigods, as Will Solace had learned early on, don’t just have casual viewing experiences. Especially if the demigod in question was a child of Apollo, who was indeed the god in charge of prophecy despite all of Apollo’s notoriously bad decision making. That didn’t mean that Will couldn’t have your run-of-the-mill weird trippy nonsensical dreams, or other dreams that tended to be inappropriate for young impressionable demigods. But that did mean that Will had to be able to tell the difference between the two, and the difference was always this: in regular dreams the scenery would be foggy, whereas the prophetic dreams were sharp, colorful, and loud.

And that was what this dream was; it was vivid, it was real, it was prophetic…it was about Nico di Angelo?

They were sitting together at the end of the dock, the autumn breeze crisp and clean as it flitted from the lake carrying with it the scent mist and strawberry. The sky was almost blindingly bright and blue, while the trees were just tinged with just a blush of color. Will turned to the boy next to him, noting his leather jacket and feeling a thrill that nearly set his heart on fire. The Will who was a part of this dream welcomed it, while he succumbed to his confusion.

“Will…I…” Nico was saying to him, looking up at him with eyes wide and…was that a blush staining his cheeks? And he looked healthier than any time that Will could ever remember Nico di Angelo being, his cheeks filled out, the dark bruises under his eyes only shading them, his hair pulled back in a little ponytail, and his skin had color to it versus the warmed-over-corpse white shade he had been on Half Blood Hill during the battle.

And Will was holding his hand (how had he not noticed that was beyond him, but somehow it felt natural, so natural), and Nico’s fingers were curled with his own instead judo-flipping him and killing him with a well-placed strike. On that note, why were his own nails painted?

“Am I…is this…alright?” Will’s mouth moved and asked, and Will could feel his own cheeks heat up in return. He was just wearing a flannel and jeans but he felt entirely too warm, as if he would explode from nerves. Nico didn’t move, something guarded in his expression, before he met Will’s gaze evenly. It was intense and dark, and Will could feel his stomach twist up in a hundred knots.

“Hey Will?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t think we should do this anymore.”

Will woke up with a start, his heart racing in his chest. He felt like the rug had been pulled out from underneath him, he felt the sickening feeling in his stomach as if he had just missed a step on the stairs and his foot had fallen through the air, he felt the recoiling blow of rejection like a slap to the face. The dream was there, and he replayed it in his mind again and again as his heart rate fell, trying to parcel out some sense from it but finding nothing.                                                                                          

“What in the name of the Gods?” Will asked himself, before looking around his mostly empty cabin. Thankfully the younger kids were still asleep, not disturbed by his sudden outburst. Kayla and Austin were probably still in the infirmary with Roman children of Apollo who had accompanied the legion to Camp Half Blood. And it was still before dawn, probably too early for him to be getting up. But if Will was good at one thing, it was avoiding his own problems by helping to solve other people’s. And this dream was something he definitely wanted to avoid before being more awake to deal with it (or possibly never).

And so Will crossed the camp in the dark after throwing on some fresh clothes and a sweatshirt, and walked into the infirmary. Phoebe looked up from the desk at him in confusion. She was the leader of the Roman medics, and had been nice enough once they had gotten past the initial awkwardness. That awkwardness being attributed to an unfortunate relative of both of them named Octavian, and though Phoebe had definitely not been a fan of the guy, there was also the principle of the matter. Will supposed they both had inherited Apollo’s protective nature in the end, and death wasn’t easy for either of them. So they had mostly agreed to focus on their work, and leave everything else to fall as it would.

“You are here early,” Phoebe observed stately, taking another sip of her coffee.

“Anyone I can help?” Will asked, sitting himself up on the desk and looking through a chart. With his general level of sleep deprivation and dyslexia, he barely made any progress before the words began shifting on the page.

“You know that you should be sleeping, you need the rest,” Phoebe pointed out to him, running a hand through her hair.

“I had a weird dream is all, I’m not going to be falling back asleep anytime soon,” Will dismissed her, shoving the dream as far back as he could in his head for the moment.

“Well, if you must, check out Alicia’s leg, you know, the child of Mercury. She was awake and groaning about it earlier, but I also have a feeling she was trying to pickpocket Kayla and she isn’t awake enough to ward off attacks,” Phoebe told him with a huff, standing up to go to the coffee pot and pour him a cup with a splash of cream and sugar. She handed it to him, and Will smiled back gratefully before going to do just that.

Alicia’s leg was in good condition and healing well, and Will managed to avoid any wandering fingers. Ellis Wakefield’s broken ribs were on the mend, and Will knew that because Ellis could hiss out insults after being poked and prodded with minimal gasping. Lacey from Aphrodite was sleeping soundly and the cut on her forehead was looking fine, while Nyssa from Hephaestus’ fingers were looking much less swollen. And Suzuka Yamato, a Mars legacy, reported her head was feeling better by communicating with both him and Ellis Wakefield in a series of expletives in Japanese, Latin, and English.

He continued to do the rounds, scooting his tired siblings who had done the nightshift out of the infirmary to get some rest, and tugged at his sweatshirt’s sleeve absently. The sensation reminded him of what he was working so hard to avoid, and eventually he had to say something to someone.

“Hey, Phoebe, has Nico di Angelo come in at all?” Will asked Phoebe, trying to be as nonchalant as possible, as he returned to the desk with the excuse of making a fresh cup of coffee.

“You mean the son of Hades?” Phoebe asked, her eyebrows drawn. “I haven’t seen him. Why? Should I have?”

“Well…I told him to report to the infirmary for three days,” Will excused quickly. “I guess this means I have to go get him.”

“Well, I would rather you not die. I will talk to Chiron about it,” Phoebe said with a sniff. “I’m sure he’ll corral him and have a conversation about the importance of healing wounds.”

“Nico wouldn’t—“

Phoebe’s look was enough to get Will to do the smart thing and shut up. And maybe she had a point. After all, Nico had apparently been the one who would break up with him, so maybe the guy secretly hated him and would try to fight him if he approached. But that still didn’t mean that he should let Nico be injured, the more rational part of Will’s brain pointed out, and if they had at least had a thing or would have a thing then maybe Nico also liked him somewhat. (And Will had to admit, after the birthing and just running into the field of battle, he had been hopped up on adrenalin and had probably been more forceful then he had needed to be, and he had been previously hoping the days in the infirmary would give him a chance to apologize.) But the whole thing didn’t make any sense to begin with, Will tried to reason back. Everyone knew that Nico had had a crush on Annabeth Chase. Maybe Nico was bi? Maybe Will would have just been the unfortunate rebound. Or maybe Will had been making the moves on him and was about to be rejected—

Will’s head hurt, and he desperately needed council. So Will went to sit next to Cecil who was nursing a pulled tendon and a sprained ankle. He poked his very good friend awake, and like a true friend Cecil blinked awake, groaned, and then immediately turned over.  

“Bro…no…just no…” Cecil groaned dramatically, trying to dig himself back under the covers like a bear attempting to return to hibernation. Will wasn’t having it.

“Cecil, please, I need to talk to someone I think I’m going crazy,” Will told him as he pulled off the covers, Cecil sat up to snatch them back and Will let them go.

“Yeah you have to be pretty freaking mental to be up so early, and making me be up so early!” Cecil snapped back, before seemingly giving in and laying back down. “Alright, alright, I’m awake. What do you need?”

“I had a dream, but it wasn’t just a dream it was a prophetic dream,” Will tried to explain before realizing that had not been an explanation and groaning.

“Okay? And? You get those sometimes right?”

“Well yeah…but this one was different…it…” Will trailed off before shifting uncomfortably. Cecil did not look amused by Will’s fidgeting and rolled his eyes as he reached over to swipe Will’s coffee.

“Alright Will, seriously spit it out—“

“Nico di Angelo was breaking up with me,” Will blurted out.

Cecil immediately choked and coughed out the liquid, and after getting through the worst of his coughing fit, Cecil stared at Will with something akin to disbelief as he set Will’s coffee back on the side table.

“You’re joking, that’s supposed to be funny right,” Cecil said as he wiped his face with his arm, and when seeing the suffering look on Will’s face he broke out into a grin, “wait you aren’t joking? Seriously? Damn Solace you’ve got so much game you see it ending before it even starts.”

“Okay seriously I’m having a moment so I would appreciate some concern,” Will groaned as he let his head fall into his hands. “You can at least pretend to be my actual friend.”

“Why would I do that when this is so much more fun,” Cecil noted before humming as he laid back against the pillows, “that’s crazy though, seriously.”

“I know, you’re telling me!” Will said as spun on his chair absently.

“And you are sure it was a prophecy, and not just some weird lucid dream?” Cecil asked seriously, a brow quirking in his favor. Will dismissed it with a glum shake of his head.  

“Yeah, I can tell the difference. It was prophetic, very prophetic, with the sense of impending doom and everything,” Will explained nervously as he continued to spin, until he got dizzy and settled with nervously tapping his foot to the frantic rhythm of his panic instead.

“Well tell me what happened,” Cecil said as he crossed his arms over his chest.

And so he did, recounting the plot of dream, every little detail he remembered, and the state that he woke up in. Cecil hummed and nodded along, only interjecting once or twice for clarification. At the end, they both sat quietly for a moment, the infirmary coming to life as Roman demigods did their rounds. Cecil finally broke the silence,

“We’re pretty sure that Nico was breaking up with you. Or at least rejecting you. And the way you describe the dream…well…it sounds like it took place a few months from now. It had to at least be September or October-ish.”

“So what should I do?”

“Well, I don’t know. Do you like Nico di Angelo?” Cecil asked curiously without judgment.

“I…he’s cool, and heroic, and he’s pretty attractive. You saw him in the battle, and I do want to help him. But I don’t know, it’s hard to like like a person I don’t know. And I don’t really know him,” Will said in return with a noncommittal shrug.

“Apparently, you are going to get to know him pretty well,” Cecil pointed out and he flipped to laying on his stomach. “Well enough that you are going to start dating, or at least making moves on him.”

“Don’t be a douche,” Will told him with a sigh.

“Okay, but in all seriousness. What are you going to do?” Cecil asked him, resting his chin on his hands. “Not all of us get dreams to give us forewarnings about the treacherous nature of the dating waters, so how will you use your newly acquired powers?”  

“Well, since starting anything with Nico di Angelo obviously isn’t going to go anywhere, and I had no idea why, I…I guess I’m just not going to go for it. If I tried it would be a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Will said as he waved off Cecil. “I mean, how hard could not falling for one boy be?”

“Infamous last words,” Cecil noted as he lay back down completely. “Don’t worry there are way more fish in the sea.”

“What am I? Percy Jackson? I—at least get your leg elevated,” Will muttered as he pulled pillows from the side and helped Cecil get readjusted with a small piece of ambrosia, not bothering to address the implications of Cecil’s previous comment.

Will left Cecil’s bedside soon after that and Phoebe immediately looked towards him.

“Chiron’s going to bring Nico di Angelo in later,” Phoebe reported without any preface. “He said he was going to have words with him, so, let’s hope for the best.

“Alright,” Will said before putting on his best smile, which felt oddly placed. “Better get to work then.”  

[feelingsdusk]

Thanks for the wonderful fanfiction! When you read so much as I had it's such a treat to find new author who writes everything excellently! I just scroll new steter on ao3 and then "hey, so good, is it a new author?" and then "nope, it's again feelingsdusk!“. I also saw a post about promts... It's idea from “runes and...". That Stiles is meant all his life to help Scott. What if Stiles thought so, but then time-travel with Scott, human!Scott and "nope, my turn to be awesome!“

So as you can see, I completely failed and didn’t manage to complete the prompt challenge I issued for myself. In my defense, I was up to my ears with work and these damn prompts aren’t collaborating with me. Seriously, this is more than 12k and another one is already at 10k and I’m not even halfway! Sigh* Anyways, I’ll keep working on them till I finally finish them, however long that takes.

—

Inevitable

Prophecies are tricky things. They are vague, short and can have three or more different meanings that apply to things already past that followed the prophecy to the letter and may make it appear already fulfilled, but in the end may refer to something completely different altogether. They're also as incredibly rare as the existence of the seers that can vision them and more often than not the ones on the receiving end don't even acknowledge them as the prophecies they are.

Not that Stiles knows any of this when he's a seven year old kid and witnesses the announcement of two prophecies on the very same day and mere seconds apart. But, then again, he doesn't know anything about the supernatural world, period, so it's not surprising that he won't think the words prophetic for a very long time.

He's on his way to school with Scott on a Tuesday morning, both of them on the same bike because Scott's has a flat tire. It's starting to drizzle and Stiles is trying to pedal faster so they can escape the storm that's rapidly approaching, if the dark clouds and distant thunder are anything to go by. Scott is the one that notices the red light, Stiles too focused on controlling a breath that is already coming in short gasps, and shout at him to stop. He startles so badly that he screeches to a halt at the crosswalk so abruptly that they nearly fall from the bike. They start bickering and aren't really paying attention to their surroundings, so to them it happens so fast that neither of them will never have a clear memory of how it occurred, but suddenly there's a car swerving at the corner and Stiles is pushing Scott out of the way and then both of them are screaming for help terrified.

When they approach the heavily smoking car, there's a dead man at the wheel and two identical twins strapped at the backseat. Both of the kids look younger than Scott and Stiles and aren't responsive to their frantic calls even if they're clearly still alive. Scott's mom is a nurse, so they know better than to move them, but that doesn't stop Stiles from grabbing their hands and holding on tight.

(Gingers, hazel eyes, a long line of freckles over their upturned noses. Bloody. Their faces won't blur in their memories for a very long time afterwards.)

"Change comes in red," chokes out one of them, face bloody and eyes dangerously vacant.

"A true leader, the catalyst-" starts to whisper the other before his eyes roll to the back of his head and his head falls forward limply.

Both of them die before the ambulance arrives, joining the man at the front, whom apparently had had a stroke while he was driving and had died almost instantly upon impact. Scott cries for a week, Stiles stops talking for two. After that, both of them try to consciously forget about everything that happened.

But change starts to come in red for Stiles and he can't.

Stiles' mom is wearing a red cardigan the first time she loses sight of reality and he never can feel secure when he's alone with her ever again. She's also wearing red pants the last time she tries to attack him, right before his dad decides that she has to be interned at the hospital. A red car rams into his dad's cruiser when he's taking them both to visit her at the psychiatric ward, forcing his dad into bed rest for two weeks and Stiles to visit his mom alone during that time. Red is his mom's blood when she dies and red is his dad's face every time he shouts at Stiles drunkenly for the next six months. Red, red, red. Always the unavoidable red.

"Stop it, Stiles," Scott scoffs at him for insisting he remembers what he buried deep down a long time ago. "I don't want to talk about this!"

"But look at what's happening!" Stiles protests, desperate for a companion in this impossible belief. "Didn't you say your dad was wearing a red sweater when-"

"I said stop it! Besides, if you're so afraid of red why do you wear it all the time, huh?"

"Because if change comes in red then I'm gonna bring my own change!"

If red inevitably brings despair to his life, why not harness that power as his own and take the reins?

"That doesn't make any sense! And I said I don't want to talk about it!" Scott shouts. "And if you can't respect that, then leave!"

Over the course of the next two years, they have this argument six times and Stiles inevitably leaves angry and hurt, stays away for a week, vowing to never bring it up again, and then ends up breaking his word every single time when red brings a tempest into his life once again. Every single time, that is, until that sixth time, when he finally follows through. Until, years later, Peter Hale comes with his alpha red eyes, bringing change with him and Stiles has to bring it up again, because surely Scott can see it now? Unsurprisingly (sadly), he gets rebuffed again, stays away a week and he comes back with his mouth shut about the issue no matter what happens.

And then the alpha pack with their red eyes comes, Scott turns out to be a true alpha, with his own set of red eyes, and he can't deny it anymore.

(Stiles doesn't say I told you so.)

So they work together through it all, coming always on top but just by a hair's breadth, Scott struggling to be the true leader and bring his change in red towards the better, and Stiles striving to help him in any way he can and manage to survive through it all as intact as he possibly can. But their efforts aren't enough in the end and they fail, losing everything they love (and themselves) in the process.

Stiles, who has never taken anything quietly (not even when he's truly at fault), searches for a solution. Because there are werewolves, mermaids, shamans, druids, witches, sparks! There are charms and spells and rituals, so there must be something! Anything! Anything, because they've lost almost everything and they're about to lose the only thing they have left, which is their lives. And, to be honest, at this point it's not like they care about living anymore, but they're not going to make this easy for their enemies. They're going to take them with themselves when they go down and die knowing that they avenged their pack, their family. So Stiles searches.

And when Stiles searches, he more often than not finds.

It's a stupid plan and they know it. Stupid, crazy and nonsensical, but they're out of options and they don't give a damn about personal harm at this point as long as they kill the bastards. So they prepare everything, they implement the plan flawlessly and they go out with a glorious bang, managing to catch their furious, incredulous faces as they die, right before fire and brimstone rains on them too.

(Change started with red fire a long time ago and now it finishes with red fire again. The irony isn't lost on them.)

---

They are in burning agony one second and then completely pain free the next. It's jarring and they look at each other wide eyed and confused, clinging to each other. Besides the overall discordant change in appearance, Scott can tell immediately that he's human again when he gets assaulted by an asthma attack that he doesn't know how to react to any more, and it takes Stiles a fraction too long to frantically search for an inhaler, only to find one in his own pocket. Panic claws at Stiles' throat for a moment when he finally realizes that the constant pain in his lungs is as gone as the tattoos and scarring in his body and he fights to control his own breathing. Before they can even regain their footing, a howl that brings back a barrage of memories pierces the night, and they realize that they're fifteen years old again, out in the woods the night they went in search of a body and found something else entirely.

After all that's happened, they're used to reacting immediately when faced with impossible decisions that they have little time to ponder about and this time is not any different. And so, Stiles lets himself be caught by his dad while Scott chooses to get bitten this time.

Afterwards, they spend about two days trying to grasp what the hell has happened, because travelling in time was not the intended result when they went on this self-appointed suicide mission. Then, with no answer in sight but not willing to look a gifted horse in the mouth, they move on. So, armed with the advantage of having so much information about everything (the timeline, their enemies, their allies), they think themselves unbeatable this time.

(Spoiler alert: they're not.)

They know the pain of being burned alive now, so when they finally decide, after a lot of deliberation, to kill Peter (unsurprisingly, Scott was all in while Stiles had a lot of reservations), they go for the painless route. And so, they poison Peter before he can be any more of a problem, thus proving what they already knew beforehand: killing the creator won't make a werewolf human again. Part of Scott mourns that truth even though he has been a wolf for more than ten years and he had come to terms with the loss of his humanity a long time ago, which was more than proven already with the fact that faced with the option of being human again, he chose to get bitten without even thinking anyways. Part of Stiles (the part that secretly enjoyed their research sessions) mourns the death of the man even though what they have killed isn't even a shade of the Peter of the last few years. They bury him in the preserve and vow to take care of Kate and Gerard Argent in his place.

When Kate makes an appearance, they go the same route as with Peter and simply poison her drink one day at the mall. It turns out she's with Allison, and the poor girl, who is still her classic Disney princess self at this stage and not the battle hardened one, has to suffer through seeing her aunt suffer a heart failure in front of her. Scott is horrified and paralyzed on the spot, and Stiles has to sweep in instead to covertly knock the table down and grab the incriminating glass as he makes a 911 call and he tries to help.

Derek never turns Isaac, Erica, Boyd and Jackson, and he also never kills Victoria Argent. He mysteriously disappears after he (not so) coincidentally hears them talking about how the police files say that another Hale escaped the fire and which were her suspected whereabouts. Ironically, when the alpha pack inevitably appears, their hostages are Derek and Cora precisely and both Scott and Stiles want to bang their heads against a wall in frustration. Knowing where they would be hiding in advance, though, they had already prepared a trap for them, so rescuing both of them is easy in any case. Scott tries talking to them to make them see reason against Stiles' opinion and it goes spectacularly bad, even if he manages to become a true alpha again. It's a messy affair that leaves them both feeling sick and makes the Hale siblings flee out of town the moment they're free of their mountain ash prison. There's still the problem of hiding the mess in the vault and their resident darach, so they don't have time to dwell on the near disaster, though. They clean the vault first, and then Scott insists that they talk to Jennifer Blake, because they've achieved what she wanted in the first place, so there shouldn't be any problem.

There is.

(Surprise, surprise.)

Alpha pack or no alpha pack, her power has corrupted her soul and they nearly die trying to fend her off. Stiles leaves the site frustrated and angry, but he doesn't speak about it with Scott. They avoid each other for two days, not acknowledging the problem, before going back to normal like nothing happened.

In the interim, Stiles fakes a ton of evidence against Isaac's dad to make an anonymous report to the police and also takes the opportunity to drag Deaton and Marin Morrel to help purify the Nemeton under the threat of denouncing her to the druid council. Knowing what will happen to her if he does, they comply. With two druids and spark performing the ritual it goes without a hitch. As for the nogitsune, it tries to posses Stiles again, and since the only way to cleanse it is to give him a corporeal form first, he lets it. It's a disgusting experience that leaves him vomiting black goo for hours before he can set it free.

Stiles is still only halfway recovered from the entire ordeal when Scott comes back with Allison in tow. An omega attacked her so he has told her everything, he says, and for a moment Stiles wants to scream. Then it turns out that everything means just everything about the supernatural world not about the time travelling thing and his fury abates. He nods to her and she nods back unsurely. Stiles sighs internally, hoping it all turns for the best but somehow suspecting it won't, because there's still psycho grandpa Gerard to take care of and he doesn't know how Scott has thought he's going to wade through that. Never mind the secret assassination of her favourite aunt that Stiles just knows that is going to make her fall off the rails of the original timeline look like a walk in the park if she ever catches wind of it. This just can't end well.

What's done is done, though, so they can only move forward now and somehow use this to their advantage (if they can, which Stiles doubts by the way). So with the threat of the druid council over their heads still, Stiles makes Deaton and Morrel look into Eichen House too and when they have the information they need, they go to the Argent's house to get them to facilitate a way to contact the Tribunal. Before the end of the week, Stiles' dad is grumbling about some special division of the FBI that has invaded the BHP station and looking into Eichen House.

At this point, they're convinced they're going to make it easily because everything is going perfectly. No crazy Peter, no kanima, no Alpha Pack, no darach, no nogitsune, no dread doctors and no werejaguar Kate (because Peter never killed her with his alpha claws). Everyone is still alive, and even if they will never have the relationships they used to have with some of their peers (Erica, Boyd, Jackson, Lydia, Liam, Parrish...) they're fine with it so long they're safe. They only have four more things to take of (Gerard, Malia, the desert wolf and the bastards that forced them through all this journey) and all will be over.

And of course, inevitably, everything starts going to hell when Kira comes into town.

Scott chokes on his own spit where he's sitting holding hands with Allison and Stiles does a double take. Not only they didn't expect her to appear yet, but this is not the Kira they knew. She's darker, angrier, with a wall of fury and resentment separating her from the rest of the world. Her eyes zero on Stiles almost immediately and he has to control the urge to flee right this instant. She purposely sits on the empty seat at his back and he spends an entire hour feeling her glare at the back of his head and wanting to flee to the toilet for a reprieve. With ten minutes to finish the lesson, he can't take it anymore and he does just that.

He nearly dies in that toilet.

She follows him there and closes the door behind her. He doesn't understand what's happening and he tells her so. It only serves to make her more furious and she screams at him that he killed her mother so she's going to take his life in exchange. Scott intervenes at the last minute, saving his life, and she leaves, saying it's not over.

Scott is furious. Why didn't he kill the nogitsune? Why of all times did he choose to talk to it? What was he thinking when he freed it? Stiles is enraged because Scott precisely doesn't have the right to recriminate him for that.

Everything deteriorates even more. Kira is relentless and after two failed attacks, she doesn't care about collateral damage. Stiles' dad has to get involved when an entire building explodes, finally learning about the supernatural, and gets seriously hurt, ending in a coma at the hospital. As if things weren't complicated enough, Gerard arrives into town, just like he did the last time (even if later in time compared to the original timeline), and he targets Scott, wanting the bite, again, like the last time. He captures him and Allison calls him to let him know. They quickly devise a plan and she feigns sharing her grandfather's ideals to get him out.

Except he has the security feed of the mall of the day Kate died and he tortures the truth about her death from Scott, making Stiles' predictions about involving her come true.

Stiles manages to smoke the house out and to free Scott, leaving the enraged Argents behind. They hide.

They don't know what to do now. A social worker is hounding Stiles because his dad is not looking like he will make it, Kira wants to kill him and the Argents are after both of them. Also, they've completely closed up the ally route with Morrel and Deaton, there is no pack and Scott's mom doesn't even know he's a werewolf. They're completely doomed.

And, of course, the bastards choose to appear now, right when they think that nothing else can go wrong, that they have reached rock bottom in a one swift move, and it somehow leads them to that very same clearing, with the very same stupid desperate plan.

And fire and brimstone rains on everyone.

---

They come back to consciousness with a gasp. Again in the woods, again fifteen, again untouched. They sit there with shaken souls and trembling bodies, unable to let go of each other despite the anger and resentment that had been filling them to the brim mere minutes ago.

A howl pierces the night and they tremble even more, but they force themselves to let go, Stiles to get caught and Scott to get bitten.

They sit silently in the cafeteria the very next day. They haven't talked about it, but by tacit agreement, Scott has made no move to make contact with Allison.

(They both secretly wonder if they're inevitably doomed to fail, if that was what the prophecy was really about.)

They poison Peter, they leak Cora's information, they poison the alpha pack (Scott again becoming an alpha in the process) and they kill Jennifer. They debate about what to do about Kate and end up following her one night and nearly dying trying to kill her. They report Isaac's dad and force Deaton and Morrel to purify the Nemeton and then trick the nogitsune into agreeing not to kill its original jailer in exchange of its freedom. They take care of the omega before it can attack Allison and then slip into the night before she can even notice them. They already have the information they needed about Eichen House and a way to contact the Tribunal, so they don't coerce Deaton and Morrel this time and they just inform the organization about the dread doctors through a burner phone that they get rid of afterwards. Stiles' dad grumbles again about his station being invaded a week later.

At this point, they've reached the part when everything went to hell last time and nervous can't even begin to cover how they feel right now. They don't talk to each other either, because they're still smarting about what happened in their last timeline and they only interact when out of necessity.

A subdued Kira appears. Her mom got into an accident and she's been confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life. They have a lot of medical bills so his dad had to accept the first moderately well paying job he could get his hands on despite having to move for it, she explains shyly to Scott, whom glares at Stiles the moment she's not looking. Gerard also comes into town and ends up abducting Scott again. When Stiles is trying to liberate him once again, he ends up setting the house on fire without meaning to. He frantically calls 911 but only Allison survives the fire. Scott calls him a monster and won't talk to him. After a week he comes to Stiles and tells him he can't live with his conscience just as deputies invade his room to arrest him.

His dad won't even come to see him, to hear what happened exactly, no matter how many times he begs.

Stiles gets screamed and insulted as he's being moved to a police van. Monster, monster, monster, they chant furious, the sound even coming through the closed doors. The van never makes it to its destination, though, because it gets attacked. Allison points a gun to his face the moment she gets the doors to open, uncaring of the two police officers already dead at the front part. She forces him to get into her father's SUV and then drives back into the preserve, holding him at gun point.

He tries to explain what happened once and she hits him with the gun. He grabs her hand and wrestles for it. She loses control of the car and they fall out of the road. When the world finally stops spinning, she's dead and he's not.

He cries.

He takes her phone and starts dialling his dad's number. He cries even more when he picks up, because his dad is trying to convince him to give himself up instead of listening to him. He tells him so and his dad says he'll listen, to please talk to him and he'll help him. Stiles explains. Or he tries to anyway, because halfway he realizes that his dad is just trying to keep him on the phone enough to track the call. Stiles calls him a traitor, says he's not surprised that he's not there for him, because he never was, so why would this be any different? He hangs up, throws the phone to the ground and runs.

Scott finds him just at the same time the bastards appear.

Inevitably, fire and brimstone rains.

---

Stiles is still crying when they come back to themselves .

When the howl pierces the night, by mutual accord, they decide then and there to sit this one out because there's no use in trying when their defeat is so obviously set in stone. They don't want to talk to each other either, their friendship is over. Stiles bites his tongue, but Scott doesn't. He says Stiles is a monster, that the nogitsune just enabled what was already there, that he let go with Donovan too, that he'll be watching and if he gets out of line, he'll intervene. Stiles punches him just as his dad catches them, angry tears sliding down his face. Scott has an asthma attack just then, and to his dad's utter astonishment, Stiles takes out the inhaler of his pocket and throws it at him just as he leaves. When John tries to stop him, he shakes his arm, throwing such an angry and hurt glare at him, that he's left at loss of words.

At this point, Stiles doesn't care about anything. He lets time pass, ignoring everything he sees. To hell with it, let the world inevitably burn to ashes, see if he cares. That is, until he suddenly can't because his dad disappears and he has to ally himself with Scott, whose mom has disappeared too. Stiles cuts Jennifer Blake's throat in front of everyone in that cellar and then proceeds to set Deucalion on fire. Peter, who is apparently still the alpha in this timeline, takes the opportunity to take care of the rest of the alphas with his pack. Stiles spies Derek, Cora, Isaac, Erica and Boyd as he helps his dad to the jeep, but he's tired of prophecies, the inevitable and being hurt all the time by the people he's been burned alive to protect thrice, and he's sitting this one out, dammit, he just doesn't care. As he's rounding the car to get into the driving seat, Scott tries to say something and he simply flips him the bird. He catches Peter looking at him hungrily and he flips him too. He leaves and doesn't look back.

John confronts him when he can finally move enough to corner him. Stiles explodes and brings up everything that he kept pent up through his childhood and three different timelines. His mom, the alcoholism, he doesn't leave anything out. He's crying angrily by the end and his dad is horrified. Stiles goes to his room and changes clothes, because despite everything he rushed after his dad clad just in his batman pyjamas. As he goes to the door, he spies his dad filling a tumbler in the kitchen, and he feels sick. He slams the door with all the force he can as he leaves.

Peter finds him at the park. He stops right in front of the swing Stiles is sitting at and just stares, alpha red eyes shining in the dark. Stiles sneers at him, fed up with true leaders and change that comes in red already, and simply tells him that if he doesn't leave him alone, he won't give two shits about setting him on fire. He's courting death, he knows, but he simply doesn't care at this point. However, Peter just smiles that dangerous smile he used to sport when they researched together and they ribbed each other out to the point of contemplating the other's very painful demise. The familiar sight makes him subconsciously relax and Peter arches an eyebrow at his reaction.

"I quite like you, Stiles," he says, like he did once, a long time ago. "Do you want the bite?"

"No," he answers, this time completely sure of his decision, "I don't."

And, again, just like he did once, Peter leaves.

When Stiles comes back home, his dad is still sitting in the kitchen with a full glass. He seems to snap out of it when he sees his son's back and then, quite pointedly, he gets up to throw the alcohol through the drain. Stiles simply climbs the stairs to his room and closes the door behind him, because punctual gestures mean nothing to him.

The next day, Isaac, Erica, Boyd and Cora sit with him at lunch and Stiles sneers, gets up and throws his food to the trash on his way out. He's not that hungry anyways. Except they repeat it the next day, and the next, and the next, and the next... By the seventh day this happens, he throws a disgruntled glare at them but doesn't leave. He spends lunch throwing fries at them whenever it strikes his mood, but they have wolf reflexes, so they just catch them and eat them, or in Isaac's case, he passes them to Cora so that she can have them.

They continue trying to insert themselves in Stiles' life relentlessly for almost two weeks, not reacting at all when he retaliates out of pure unadulterated irritation, and finally he snaps. He finds out where Peter lives and goes there one afternoon after school. Unsurprisingly, it's what used to be Derek's loft and everyone is there. Luckily Stiles doesn't give a damn about the audience.

"What the fuck is your game?" he snaps, arms crossed and glaring.

"My, I don't know w-"

"Cut the crap," Stiles snarls. "You think I was joking when I said I would set you on fire? Newsflash, I wasn't. So tell me what the hell do you want from me, right now."

"You're such an angry little thing, Stiles, maybe you should look into getting help for that?"

"You went on a killing rampage that ended with five deaths, one of them your own niece, you don't get to lecture me about anger management issues, Peter."

"Ah, so you do know about that. I had wondered," he muses calmly, throwing Stiles off balance at the unexpected reaction. "In any case, I was left packless and trapped in my own mind after nearly burning alive, what's your excuse?"

An abusive sick mother, an alcoholic father, a traitorous best friend, years and years of supernatural bullshit that included one possession and several tortures, and three deaths in which he was burned alive by fire and brimstone, he wants to say. And guess what, he didn't go on a killing spree after all that.

"Don't dodge the question," he snaps instead.

Peter looks at him thoughtfully for moment, as if he can somehow feel the weight of what Stiles has left unsaid. "I want you in my pack, of course," he answers simply instead of pursuing the matter.

"And I already said no," Stiles snarls, hands now fisted at his sides to help control the temptation of resorting to violence.

"You said no to the bite. And in all honesty, I'll have you in any form or capacity."

Stiles gapes for a moment, caught off guard, before he recovers his footing. "I said no to everything! Engrave that into your mind," he snarls furiously. "I only intervened because that bitch took my father."

"Understood then," Peter replies placidly and Stiles feels even more off kilter.

"Then stay away," Stiles snaps finally as he turns to leave.

And they do.

For a week.

Isaac is the first to come back to his lunch table. He's silent and Stiles can see he still has a lot of unresolved issues. Somehow, even though Stiles tries to make him leave with his sharp tongue, they end up snarking back and forth, both of them throwing painful jabs at each other that would leave others in tears. Isaac seems to relish in having someone that won't tiptoe around him, that somehow seems to understand the abuse he went through and doesn't think him made of glass because of it, but of hard diamond in spite of it.

Then one day one of the basketball team tries to make fun of Isaac, because in this timeline, Peter never let him go into sports so as to not expose himself and he's still a loser, and Nathan Jones and his little clique are nothing but the epitome of the stereotypical jocks. They crowd on him outside the gym and threaten to throw him into the dumpster. Now, Isaac is a werewolf with enough force to power lift all of them together but Stiles doesn't need to be a genius to know that he's in some kind of flashback with the way he freezes up.

There's a very good reason no one messes with Stiles in this school and those jocks get reminded of it when he intervenes before he can really think of it. Afterwards, he grabs Isaac's hand and pulls him towards the toilet first and then, when he has snapped out of it, to the rooftop to skip the rest of the afternoon classes.

The rest of the pack join his lunch table again the very next day and Stiles just sighs resigned to accept the inevitable. When Cora talks casually about how Nathan Jones and several others got caught with weed in their lockers and how they got suspended and kicked out of the team for it, Isaac's lips twitch and Stiles sighs again, knowing there's no way he can get rid of them now. Erica's smirk and Boyd casually exchanging his water for his own pineapple juice (which Stiles loves but they were out when he picked his lunch) just confirms it.

Scott glares at him from beside Allison and Stiles simply pops the straw inside the juice box and sips.

It's obvious now that sitting it out won't work, because change in red still comes to Stiles (he eyes Isaac's red scarf), whether he likes it or not. When he was a kid he used to wear red all the time, convinced that by doing that he would control what change came into his life. Why did he stop? Maybe it's time that he starts harnessing red as a weapon again.

When school ends, he drives to the loft again, Isaac on the passenger side, languidly flipping through the channels of the radio, never seeming to find anything he likes enough to settle on. Stiles is too immersed in his own mind to care, though, so he lets him do as he pleases.

Stiles glares disgruntled at Peter when he spots his self-satisfied smirk, which only makes it widen into a smile.

"We're going to blackmail Deaton and Morrel," he states simply after a moment.

"We are?" Peter muses placidly.

"We are. But just because I need your red eyes to move it along and plucking them out of your sockets would be too much of a hassle," he grunts and he would swear he just heard some muffled snickers in the background, but he ignores them in favour of maintaining eye contact with Peter.

"Hmmm... And what do I get out of this? Have you changed your mind about joining the pack then?"

"You get a purified Nemeton that stops attracting all this shit towards Beacon Hills and some psycho bastards that will cause a lot of trouble taken care of. How about that?"

Peter blinks slowly.

They blackmail Deaton and Morrel and purify the Nemeton. Peter spouts something about nogitsunes being needed for the balance, so, against his better judgement, Stiles decides to try again to save it, but this time he extracts a promise from it to not kill or harm its original jailer in exchange of its freedom. Peter is against it (even though he reluctantly sees the practicality of it), but they contact the Tribunal to take care of the Eichen House problem again.

Somehow, at one point between hearing his dad grumble awkwardly about his station being invaded by the FBI and Gerard's appearance, Stiles becomes part of the pack without even realizing it. It gets somehow driven home when he finds himself holding a gun to Gerard's temple while the rest of the pack releases Peter. Scott, who apparently was having dinner with them is horrified, but not by finding Peter detained precisely. He can't believe that Stiles is saving him and this time Stiles is the one to call Scott a monster, shocking him speechless.

The Tribunal is still managing the fall out of Eichen House, so Stiles finds it incredibly easy to make all the dirt he has on Gerard get to them with the surprising help of his dad, whom is still trying to make amends. News of Gerard Argent being arrested by the FBI travel like wildfire through their small town two days later.

Kira comes to town in a wheelchair herself, her dad dead and her mom looking older and more worn down than Stiles ever seen her and he despairs that he's been out-thought again. Scott is furious once again and he tries to confront Stiles about it. It nearly evolves into a full out war between the pack and the hunters, whom Scott is now part of. Only the presence of the Tribunal dissuades the situation.

Stiles ponders about what to do next when the whole issue finally dies down. Despite the situation with his dad and Scott and the surprising fact that he's crazy Peter Hale's emissary, he likes this new timeline.

Peter is sassy and has a very dark humour that matches Stiles' to the tee. He looks forward to their research sessions, to when Peter surprises him with a new ancient tome that he has gotten from who knows where. He likes that Peter isn't afraid of doing what needs to be done for the safety of their pack and that he doesn't look at Stiles as if he's a monster for exactly that same reason. He also likes that the man listens and treats his words as something valuable and important. Isaac looks up to him, comes to him when he needs help and effectively treats him like an older brother, bickering included. Derek has somehow found his peace and Stiles doesn't know how it happened (even if he suspects that it has to do with Cora's appearance), but his presence is calming now. He's still a little dour but more in a exasperated way, and Stiles loves when he manages to get his huge nerdy side to come out and play. Also, his protective side is of the size of the sun, and being on the receiving end is heart-warming. Cora's humour is wicked and she's super competitive, which matches Stiles' own competitiveness and makes their Mario Kart tournaments with Erica a sight to behold. Just like her brother, she's really protective of her own and will go to great lengths to keep them safe, even if she'll call them idiots all the way. Erica is a spitfire lady that brings life to Stiles' life. Again, she has a wicked humor that's somehow in the middle ground between Peter's and Cora's. She's a cuddler too and Stiles secretly loves when they are watching a movie and she shamelessly moves into his personal space and pulls Boyd, who is also a secret cuddle lover like Stiles, into it. Boyd is Stiles' source of calm. When he's stressed, he will pick up a book or simply lie in the couch beside him. Stiles will inevitably wake up hours later, not even remembering when exactly did he nod off and with his head on his lap. If he's lucky enough, Boyd will be absently running his hands through his hair (which is going through the awkward stage of being spiky and not long enough as he's trying to grow it out) and both of them will feign that Stiles is still asleep.

This is what he has now and he doesn't want to lose it, but apart from Malia and the desert wolf, there's only the bastards to take care of, and this is the fourth timeline both Scott and Stiles have gone through and they still haven't found out who the hell they are and why they are attacking them. It leaves Stiles nervous and unsettled, but he can't do anything about it except to keep an eye out and to be careful.

They find Malia on an outing Stiles suggests to bond, and Peter is floored. For a few weeks, Stiles (and the pack in general) is constantly amused by their dynamics and Peter is equally constant in the disgruntled glares he shoots at Stiles for his cheek. They retrain Malia to be able to act as a human again and join society, and Stiles is reminded of how sharp she is (as sharp as her dad) when she's ready in a little over a month to join them at school.

Then, one day, the FBI comes knocking at their door in the form of Raphael McCall, who asks Stiles to come with him none too gently. Stiles, who still can't stand the man even though now he can't stand the son, refuses. The next moment he's being dragged outside, pushed against the wall and handcuffed. Peter is there less than a second later and Stiles finds out it's Derek the one who is keeping Stiles uptight as he's trying to wait the ringing in his ears and the dizziness out minutes later.

McCall is pointing his gun at Peter, who looks like he's calculating how to drag the man inside and then dispose of the body. Stiles loves what he has now and he won't lose it for anything in the world, so he has to talk everyone down before everything slips through his fingers. He doesn't even have time before more agents bust through the windows and before he can even count to ten they have all the pack subdued and arrested.

They drag them to the police station and push them into the cells. Stiles pleads to Peter silently to just bear with it until they can understand what the hell is happening. They let them sweat it out in the cell, but Stiles has lived through a lot by now and he isn't even fazed, so he uses the time to calm Isaac, Cora, Erica and Boyd, who don't deal well with being confined in tight spaces anymore.

Much later, they forcibly pull Stiles out of the cell and from under Derek's arm, and into an interrogation room down the hall. Before they can even start, Stiles' dad bursts into the room and demands an explanation, because, for starters Stiles is a minor and he received news of the arrest through his own deputies. They grudgingly let John stay in the room.

They ask him about what has he been doing as of late. Stiles is confused about the line of questioning but answers truthfully, because apart form the supernatural aspect of it all, he really hasn't been doing much else than helping Malia, doing homework and playing with his friends the last two, nearly three, weeks. They drill him on that and he still answers truthfully, again with nothing to hide. Then McCall gets in the room and slams some pictures in front of him.

There's a ring in his ears and he can't breathe and then he's puking his guts out into the ground while John shouts at the agents enraged. The next thing he knows is that he's calling for his pack because his father is not enough. He needs Peter, Malia and Cora's vicious protectiveness, Derek and Erica's fierce one, and Isaac and Boyd's powerful one. He needs them now. The next thing he knows is that someone has let Peter in and he's talking him through his panic attack while Derek simply holds him.

Afterwards he's left violently shaking and crying, because Scott is dead. McCall found him, Melissa and Allison torn to shreds and Stiles' name had been written on the wooden floor, as if Scott had used his last strength to write it with his own blood. Everyone knows that lately they hated each other for some reason no one has been able to find out, so the next logical assumption was that Stiles did it.

Stiles turns into a vicious creature that lashes out when he's hurt and scared, so he doesn't waste a moment to tell them how stupid they are for thinking that, and, among other things, did they get their badges in a raffle? John tries to curb his tongue but Peter joins in on the unstoppable train that is Stiles' verbal abuse, with Derek doing what he does best, which is glower at them darkly, until they call defeat and let him go, because he has a solid alibi for the night of the events.

It doesn't end there, because like the last three timelines, when something goes wrong, everything else follows in tow inevitably right into hell.

Stiles is in Peter's car after they leave the station, sitting on the backseat with the man close while Derek drives, when a shot comes through the window and blood splatters on his face. Derek screams as the alpha power transfers into him but hits the gas before jumping into the backseat, grabbing a screaming Stiles and pulling them both out of the still moving car. They land on Derek himself with a grunt, but he doesn't let it stop him and pulls Stiles into the safety of the woods.

Stiles tries calling the pack as they run but no one picks up. He contains a sob and he dials his dad next. When he does pick up, he rushedly explains what's happening and he hears him calling to the FBI agents because apparently he hasn't left the station yet. He's still on the phone with him when they reach a clearing, and it's a no moon night and completely dark, but he would recognize it anywhere and he knows what's inevitably coming. He closes his eyes to contain his tears and breathes in deeply. He tells his dad that he forgives him for everything, that he loves him despite everything that has happened between them and then hangs up.

Derek is wolfed out and trying to keep Stiles behind him, but they're coming from everywhere and it's just not possible. Stiles hugs him and tells him he's sorry, that he's so happy that he gave him a chance (that they gave it to each other, really) this time and that he loves him like a brother and he always will, no matter what happens.

Inevitable, as set in stone now as the fire and brimstone rains on them seconds later.

---

Stiles gasps into consciousness to the sight of a bewildered Scott that is trying to keep him upright and failing. Despite everything that has happened between them, Stiles pulls him into a hug right there sprawled on the forest's floor.

"Oh my God, you're alive," he chants trying to keep himself from having an anxiety attack.

"What are you talking about?! Of course I'm alive!" Scott exclaims confused and for some reason, dread starts to pool at the bottom of Stiles' stomach at the tone.

"Scott?"

"Oh my God, you're pale as a ghost! Are you going to faint? Tell me you aren't going to faint," Scott pleads.

"What happened?"

"What?"

"What happened at your house, Scott?"

"What are you talking about?! You're not making any sense!"

Stiles' throat closes on him just as a howl pierces the night. When his dad finds them, Scott is simultaneously trying to fight an asthma attack and to help Stiles. Nothing John says can calm him, so he ends up having to rush him to the hospital and they have to sedate him.

When he wakes up, Stiles is disoriented at first, but then he remembers everything and he can't stop crying. His dad begs him to tell him what's happening but he won't talk. Then, the most baffling thing happens when Derek Hale comes through the door and both of them look at each other as if they move first the other is going to disappear.

"Brother?" Derek finally grumbles awkwardly, looking ready to bolt or remain depending on Stiles' response.

"Derek," Stiles whines softly, bursting into tears again as he extends his arms towards him.

Derek springs forward and pulls him into a tight hug as Stiles spouts things that he shouldn't be talking about in front of his dad but he can't help himself. His dad looks speechless and like he doesn't know what to do, especially since Derek seems to be calming Stiles quite effectively while John has failed on every attempt. When Stiles can finally breathe without bursting into tears, he makes up a hasty explanation about how they met. It's a little sketchy but it won't make any alarms ring on his dad's head. They met on the Internet in a help group for people with anxiety issues. They helped each other, ended exchanging numbers and then Stiles met Laura, because she was important to Derek.

It seems to make sense to John (even if he's not happy that Stiles talked to strangers through the Internet, especially when he was so vulnerable), but he wants to know what happened on the woods, what made him break down and why the hell is Derek here if he lives in New York.

Laura wanted to come back to find closure, he explains, and Derek didn't want to ever have to set a foot in Beacon Hills again, so they decided that Derek would wait for her in Sacramento. Except that she hadn't answered his phone for two days, and while at first Derek thought it might be a coincidence, by the second day he knew something must have happened, so he forced himself to come back to Beacon Hills to search for her. And then Stiles went to the woods searching for a body and found one. Except he recognized Laura and he panicked. He called Derek but then it was too much and he had an anxiety attack.

It works.

Days later, Derek comes through the window late at night and Stiles tells him what happened and about the different timelines. They both agree that they want their pack back, so Derek tells him what happened on the part of the last timeline when he still was adamant on sitting it out.

Stiles is fed up with the whole time travelling thing, and true leaders that bring change in red. So he decides to go back to what he decided when he was just a kid and ended not maintaining, and dons his red hoodie to bring the change he wants and be his own true leader, no matter what the prophecy says or not.

First stop is Peter. Remembering what he did to Laura still makes Derek rage, he tells Stiles on the car well on their way to the hospital in the middle of the night, but he's older now, has come to terms with it and more importantly, he has died agonizingly slow in a fire now and knows how it feels. That Peter went through that and then had to suffer through years of slow recovery right after his pack abandoned him makes him feel so ashamed that he almost can't stand it. When Peter was shot and the alpha powers transferred to Derek, his first thought was to protect his pack. He reached for Stiles first because he was there, but the rest were in his mind too. He loves Laura and he always will, but she left Peter to rot when he needed her the most. And while at first she could do nothing else, they stayed away years, so part of the fault of what happened lies on her shoulders too. And his too, because he was so immersed in his own pain that he never spoke against it, and he has come to accept that. So now, subscribing to the whole better later than never adage, they go for Peter first.

It's awkward having to deal with a Peter that doesn't think twice about killing his nurse right in his own hospital room as opposed to the more controlled Peter they left behind on the last timeline, but they manage. It helps that Derek shocks him speechless when he tells him exactly the same that he told Stiles in the car (minus the time travel detail, of course) on the way to the hospital. Peter snarls enraged and squeezes Derek's throat while Stiles hovers behind worriedly. When Derek makes no move to free himself and simply averts his eyes, Peter lets go.

Slowly but surely, as time passes and the case about the mysterious attacks goes cold, Peter gets better. He arranges his come back to the living so to speak and leaves the hospital and the bafflement of the doctors and nurses alike behind. At some point he fakes leaving town to get plastic surgery and comes back a two weeks later looking as good as new.

Scott goes gaga over Allison when she appears and Stiles keeps his distance. Scott is hurt by it but Stiles, who remembers first being thrown aside in favour of others, being reduced to almost begging for scraps, being called a monster, betrayed and hurt by him or, more exactly what he can become, doesn't let it sway him. It's not fair to this Scott that has been nothing but a good friend, but Stiles won't chance it again, prophecy or not.

He tries approaching his dad after what happened in the last timeline, but the man's suspicions about his motives hurt Stiles to no end, and he accepts that he never will have the relationship he wants to have with him. He mopes for days until Derek forces him to sit through a horrendous chick flick whose argument they both end up verbally destroying not even twenty minutes in, to Peter's amusement.

When Kate comes, Stiles thinks a plan to let Peter have the final blow, but it's Derek who kills her, to everyone's surprise. Peter looks at his shaking nephew appraisingly and then squeezes his shoulder before hoisting her body to dispose of it.

He later finds Derek sleeping with Stiles in his room that night. He approaches the bed slowly and when Stiles, whom is still awake but just barely, merely blinks at him, he then squeezes the back of his neck gently, almost as if experimentally. When Stiles just sighs contented he repeats the action with Derek. He seems baffled when Derek subconsciously welcomes the gesture even asleep, and Stiles grins at his expression, prompting an eyeroll from the man.

Things progress after that, Peter becoming more grounded as time passes. When Stiles thinks he's ready he goes to speak to him about turning others and expanding their pack, his eyes glued nervously to his red sneakers.

"If you wanted to be turned," Peter says smiling indulgently, "you just had to ask, sweetheart."

"Me???" Stiles squeaks flustered, prompting an amused snort from Derek. "No, I mean others. Not that there's anything wrong with being a wolf, of course," he backtracks hastily at the man's raised eyebrows. "I'm your emissary, Peter! It would be a waste of my spark to turn me!"

"What."

"I mean, from all the research I've done, sparks lose their powers for some reason if they get turned and-"

"What."

Stiles looks at Derek wildly and he snorts. "I think we forgot to mention the spark thing, Stiles."

Stiles blinks. "Oh, sorry about that. I guess I kinda forgot?" he says sheepishly and Derek snorts again, earning a dark look from Stiles. "So yeah, me spark, turning is no no. A big no no. Anyways, here, I have a list of people that would be good wolves."

Derek snorts again at Peter's blown expression and unceremoniously proceeds to drag Stiles into the kitchen. He can't cook to save his life and he's craving pancakes now. Stiles whines about forced labour even as he takes the necessary ingredients to make them.

Over the next two weeks Isaac, Erica and Boyd choose to be turned. At first it's jarring that the people Stiles loves so much see him as a virtual stranger but he copes with it as well as he can. Both Derek and Stiles become so immersed in showing them the ropes that they forget about everything else they know is coming down the road. They get reminded of it abruptly when Erica and Boyd go missing, which is how they find grandpa Gerard is back in town. Stiles is more than fed up with him, so he doesn't even hesitate to set a trap with Peter as a bait to lure him out and blow his brains out with the man's own gun. Peter, who had been a little skeptic about the whole plan (because he didn't know that grandpa wanted to be bitten to cure his cancer because they couldn't explain how they knew) but had gone along with it anyways, confident in his ability to salvage almost any situation that may arise, is as delighted by the outcome as he is by Stiles' viciousness.

As he did with Kate, the man leaves to dispose of the body and when he comes back he finds everyone in a pile in the living room, still shaken and awake. He starts with Stiles, like he did last time too, and goes on to squeeze the back Derek's neck next, then Erica's, Boyd's and, finally, Isaac's.

Stiles and Derek vow to not get caught unawares again, but the alpha pack comes into town and Isaac goes missing. Stiles has never been more furious and Peter looks fascinated by the sight, which makes him want to slap some sense into the man but he refrains. He decides to poison them again, and because mountain ash is his bitch at this point they get it done in just one night and get Cora out of the whole ordeal.

On that very same night, Stiles sneaks out to kill Jeniffer alone, not wanting to give her the chance to kill anyone in this timeline. He comes back to the loft dizzy from blood loss at the same time Jennifer's house in the outskirts goes up in flames aided by an accelerant that no one will be able to identify. Everyone is angry at him, but Peter is beyond furious. Even more so when Stiles won't back down and accept he did wrong going alone.

He leaves the loft with the help of his mountain ash and stays away. He avoids everyone at school, he doesn't go to pack meetings, he lines his house with mountain ash. Everything is going to inevitably end in fire and brimstone anyway, he decides, so why the hell shouldn't he try to do everything alone this time and save himself the heartbreak?

He blackmails Deaton and Morrel, and purifies the Nemeton and the nogitsune with them. Even feeling like shit and having to stop to vomit black goo continuously, he bargains with Ikari (his name, apparently) the conditions of his release. He won't harm or kill Noshiko or the Yukimura family, but he will take her powers from her as compensation for all the years spent in captivity, being leeched from by the Nemeton. As for Stiles, he will destroy Eichen House for him in payment for the cleansing and for releasing him.

Stiles agrees to the terms, hoping that he hasn't overlooked any catch this time, and then crawls his way out of the preserve and right into Peter's presence. And then, before they can even start arguing again, Stiles proceeds to vomit on his probably very expensive shoes and faint.

"You're an ass," Derek growls when he comes back to consciousness at the loft, on what he guesses to be Peter's bed.

"Can it," he manages to snap back through his pounding headache.

"No, I fucking won't," Derek snarls back even as his hand circles Stiles' wrist and he starts leeching off the pain, dark veins crawling up his arm. "You're an ass," he repeats again.

"I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself! And besides, you of all people know why I had to kill her!"

"Of course I do, but that's not the problem! Put yourself in our place, Stiles! What would you have thought if I had gone alone?! Or Isaac or Erica or Boyd or Cora?! What would you have done?!"

Stiles' breath catches in his throat, because he would have been worried sick first when he noticed them gone and then utterly furious when he found they had gone to face Jennifer alone, capable or not.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, deflating, and Derek sighs, reaching to pull him into an embrace. "I'm so, so sorry. I just wanted to-"

"I know," Derek sighs against his shoulder, tightening his arms around him.

Even though everyone heard the conversation between Stiles and Derek, things are still tense for a while afterwards, right up until Isaac decides to sit with Stiles at the cafeteria again and to irritate him into a bickering match, even though Stiles is trying to play nice. Then the thing with Nathan Jones happens again and Stiles doesn't even hesitate this time to ruin the entire clique by planting weed in their lockers once again, which prompts an appreciative Cora to join them and to drag Erica and Boyd with her.

Still, Peter remains distant and cold, especially when Eichen House becomes rubble in just one night and he suspects Stiles has gone solo again. Stiles puts on both his red hoodie and red sneakers (to make sure) and tracks him down to apologize for the way he did things with Jennifer. He also explains what happened with the Nemeton and the nogitsune, including the bargain with him. Afterwards he waits nervously for Peter to talk but the man only drags him forward to scent him and squeezes the back of his neck gently.

Things return to normal slowly afterwards and finally Stiles gets his wish granted when he gets back his research binges with Peter, his movies with Derek, his Mario Kart tournaments with Cora and Erica, his bickering sessions with Isaac and his silent cuddling with Boyd. He's really happy about it but at the same time he's wary, because he's again at the point where only finding Malia and taking care of the desert wolf and the bastards remains. And again, another timeline and he still doesn't even know who they are or what they want.

This is also the point where things inevitably go to hell.

There's no use in panicking, Derek reminds him, and, with red sneakers on Stiles' feet, they go in search of Malia under the guise of a bonding outing through the woods. They find her again and this time around they go directly to what motivates her the most to ease her into socializing again. After a month, she joins them both in their classes and the extremely aggressive Mario Kart tournaments and it's bliss for Stiles.

Then they get invaded by pixies and both Stiles and Derek are thrown off kilter, because this hasn't happened ever before. They try to exterminate them but they reproduce faster than they can kill them, even after they grudgingly strike a truce with the Argents because they are as overwhelmed as the pack is by the invasion.

In the end, the Argents decide to call the Tribunal and when they arrive, Stiles finds himself pulled into hiding by Derek, to everyone else's astonishment even if they hide too at Derek's insistence.

"It's them," he hisses frantically and Stiles' eyes widen, catching on immediately.

"Are you sure?!" he whispers back, equally frantic and Derek nods curtly. "Fuck."

He observes them from his hiding spot, trying to process what's happening. He realizes suddenly that in every timeline, the bastards started hunting them after the Tribunal had been called to help in Beacon Hills for some reason or another. Every single time. But why? Why would they target Scott and Stiles? Was it because Scott was a true alpha? Because he doubted it was because Stiles was spark, as rare as sparks might be too.

He gets part of his answer a few days later, when they're staking out the Argent's house and Scott comes to have dinner, nearly giving Stiles a heart attack. Except he leaves a couple of hours later unharmed and days pass and Scott remains that way. He suddenly remembers what Scott wrote in blood red on his wooden floor that made the FBI think him the culprit. It's Stiles. Is it? Is Stiles what they have been hunting all this time? But if that's the case, why? It's ridiculous!

He's not. He's not losing everything again because of them, he doesn't fucking care about the reason. He has his red something on and the support of his alpha, with his own red eyes, along his whole pack.

He calls a pack meeting and explains everything he has found out and, after a slight hesitation, the time travelling issue, backed up by Derek. He's floored that they trust him so much that they believe him immediately and just ask what's the plan.

"So, mighty leader, what's the plan?" Isaac asks to everyone's amusement and unaware of how his words make Stiles' mouth go dry.

"What did you call me?"

"Peter might be the alpha, but you're always the one with the plan everyone follows," Malia explains with her usual matter-of-fact attitude, no tact at all, and Peter snorts amused, but doesn't correct her.

"It was that or red riding hood with your penchant for red hoodies," Erica mocks. "Or red everything, really."

"Our leader in red," Cora joins in.

"That sounds so wrong," Erica protests. "Our red leader? The true leader? We really need to work on that."

"Stiles?" Boyd inquires softly, leaning in to run his hand through his hair and effectively grounding him.

"I-I, yes, everything a-okay," he manages to stammer out, finally letting the hand that is squeezing the life out of Derek's thigh relax. "So, the plan." He launches into an explanation about the fire and brimstone and how he can change it so it doesn't take him this time. "But even if it does," he vows, "I'll repeat everything again and again until the pack is together and I find a way so they can't hurt us anymore."

(Fuck the inevitable.)

Later, he finds himself in that clearing again, except this time he's alone, because everything has gone horribly wrong and the plan has been shot to hell (he doesn't know why is he even surprised at this point, to be honest). Back straight and unafraid this time, he makes fire and brimstone rain on them once again.

Just as he's falling to the ground with his clothes on fire, Peter bursts into the clearing, and Stiles wishes and wishes and wishes that he reaches him in time to get pulled back in time with him, because despite what he said at the loft (home, his home now), he doesn't want to do this alone again.

---

He wakes up in the woods, clutching at Scott and desperately trying not to cry. He hopes that the Peter lurking not far from here is his Peter, even if he feels incredibly selfish because that will mean that he'll remember dying on fire again.

He trembles.

"Stiles?"

Except that's not Scott's voice but Peter's and he ends up crying anyways, because fire and brimstone rained on him but Stiles is still here and hasn't lost everything and gone back to the starting point once again.

Everything hurts and he can already see blisters forming on his arms. His legs feel no better and there are some spots on his face that feel like they are still on fire, but he throws himself at the man again anyway, and clings to him as his body shakes violently. It's going to be hell when the adrenaline leaves him but he doesn't care because he's still here (here!) and he would endure everything for that, even fire and brimstone a thousand times more.

Peter hugs him back, equally tight.

Days later, the doorbell rings at the loft and Stiles, who had stubbornly insisted that he could get to the kitchen on his own and is deeply regretting his decision right now, is the one that opens it and he regrets it even more than getting up from the couch and away from his silent cuddles with Boyd in the first place, if that's even possible, because if the woman on the other side isn't from the Tribunal, he'll eat his own red shocks. The only people at the loft with him right now are Malia and Boyd, and Stiles' mind goes into overdrive thinking a way to kill the hunter before she can get to them.

"Stiles?" Malia inquires, popping up from behind just as the woman takes a step back and raises her hands placatingly. He'd bet his ass that Boyd is out of sight but equally close, and has probably Peter or Derek on the phone already. "Your heart is tap dancing, everything ok?"

"Everything a-okay," Stiles replies, mind still running a hundred miles per hour.

"You're lying," she frowns. Then she takes in the woman and starts growling at her.

"She's leaving," he states coldly, glaring at her and setting his tattoos into motion.

"I am," the woman says simply and Stiles blinks, thrown off kilter. "I'm not here to harm you, just to relay a message from the Tribunal."

"She's not lying," Malia pipes in helpfully.

"Indeed," she nods. "The Tribunal wants to me convey their deepest apologies for what happened with a rogue faction that acted against our Code, and an explanation too."

"I don't know if I care for either of those at this point, to be honest," Stiles growls, suddenly incensed instead of wary.

"I understand," she nods, still keeping her hands up. "Just know that no repercussions will come from what happened at the forest because we understand you acted purely on self-defense, then, and I'll be on my way."

"Wait," Stiles says sharply and she stills. "Why me? What did they want from me?"

"They were deranged fanatics, Mr. Stilinski, and sadly there was no real reason why they chose you as their target."

"Bullshit," he snaps, because it can't be anything else.

She sighs and he sneers uglily at her. Five. Five completely different timelines and they inevitably went for Stiles in every single one of them, so there must be a very specific reason (deranged or not, nonsensical or not) why they targeted him.

"Nine years ago," she finally speaks, "a man that was imprisoned for crimes I'm not authorized to share the information of, suddenly went into convulsions when he was going to be moved to the court room to be judged for them. He started crying the same words again and again, then went into shock and died on the spot before medical help could come. The incident and the hunters involved in the move were investigated but there was no evidence of foul play, so the matter was let go and what happened was forgotten." She shifts minutely in place, clearly uncomfortable. "Or that's what we thought, in any case. Apparently, the hunters involved in the incident started noticing that things that happened to them followed the words that the man cried in his delirium and, over time, they were convinced they were prophetic." She can't quite contain the sneer that twists her features momentarily before smoothing out. She doesn't notice how Stiles' breath catches at her words or how he reaches to squeeze Malia's hand, prompting her silently to not comment on it. "From our investigation this last week, we've found out that they visited many... seers," she sneers again, "to consult them about what they were sure was some kind of prophecy. Mostly they simply got assured that the words were so vague that they could mean anything, but a witch passing up as a non supernatural seer gave them a completely different and much more detailed interpretation. Our guess is that she wanted to make profit out of selling to some idiots protective charms or potions, but it backfired on her. Not only they didn't buy anything from her but they ended up killing her without contemplations. And what's even worse, they also left the store thinking that a leader would bring the end of the Tribunal in a bloodbath and having a lot of false details that she had made up about said leader to identify them."

"And I match the description?"Stiles asks incredulous.

"Yes, sadly along the more than thirty people they've killed over the last six years," she nods curtly.

"So all of this happened because of a prophecy?"

"All this happened because some hunters got obsessed about the words of a delirious man about a true leader in red that would be the catalyst of change to the court, then got tricked by a witch, created an entire faction of fanatics within the Tribunal and went on a crazy killing spree that spanned over years." She visibly takes a fortifying breath before regaining her cool attitude. "Let it not be said that we don't learn from our mistakes, though, because the Tribunal will cease to exist by the end of the week." Stiles blinks surprised and she smiles chagrined. "We already knew that our method wasn't perfect, but we believed that it was a good enough one that worked, that it was the best we could get. When you defended yourself and uncovered the dirty faction of the Tribunal, you brought to our attention (quite spectacularly, I might add) that we were wrong. Apart from fanaticism, this happened because of ignorance, so if we want this to work, we have to work together with the supernaturals. So this is why the new organization will be formed in equal parts by humans and supernaturals."

"A lot of people aren't going to like that," he can't help but snort.

"To put this simply, they can suck it or face the repercussions of going against the Court's code."

"The Court?"

"A name to remember what brough us here," she explains simply.

She leaves after that and Stiles closes the door, letting his forehead rest against it as he tries to take everything in. He opens his eyes and looks at his red clad feet.

(Inevitable, huh.)

When Boyd starts pulling him towards the couch, he doesn't resist. He makes himself a ball and automatically relaxes when Boyd's hand finds its way into massaging his scalp. He sighs contentedly and smiles, feeling completely at ease for the first time since he got abruptly immersed in the supernatural world a long time ago.

Prophecies are tricky things. They are vague, short and can have three or more different meanings that apply to things already past that followed the prophecy to the letter and may make it appear already fulfilled, but in the end may refer to something completely different altogether. They're also as incredibly rare as the existence of the seers that can vision them and more often than not the ones on the receiving end don't even acknowledge them as the prophecies they are.

Stiles is seven years old when he receives two prophecies and nearly sixteen when he finally fulfills them.

(Or, hopefully, that's the case, but only time will tell.)

(And also hopefully, if it comes down to that, this time without fire and brimstone inevitably raining on him.)

[akotowaa]

Yeah, fam, so life is beans. You don’t need to be told. But, as a whole, there are a few things that make it a bit more bearable for me. They aren’t actions per se, more like lifestyle adoptions. They may not be dramatic, but they have been life-changing in their own ways. So, I decided to just share a few of the things that have helped and are helping my life be slightly less beans.

My name.

I like it a lot. I let go of my first name, Ivana, fully in 2016, and that was very refreshing. Sometimes names are associated with too many unhealthy things. I still cringe when I’m called Ivana. When someone does it, I either have to admit myself that they aren’t very close to me, or have to convince myself to be patient and forgive them. My middle name, its meaning, the story behind it and cultural relevance it holds are far more significant to me as a human being and as a Ghanaian storyteller, than my Slavic name. I mean, there are trade-offs in life. I’ve traded “Ivana…like Ivana Trump?” for “Ah-ka-two-ah?” But I’ll survive. It feels nice to wear the name Akotowaa. It feels like clothes that fit in a wardrobe of mostly inappropriately sized things.

  My filtered social media.

Honestly? I’ve learnt to do what I must to recover. I remember during high school, feeling incredibly outcast whenever school went on break (and even sometimes when it wasn’t on break) and I would open my Snapchat, and see about 50% of my classmates at some social event, all posting at once, so that it was as if I was getting different pieces of a full mosaic scene. The sense of exclusion was a bit of a paradox, and an unnecessary one, since most times, I did not want to be at the event in the first place, and would have felt even more outcast if I had been present than in my absence. But it was taking a major toll on me, and since it made no sense, I deleted my Snapchat and started a new one. I didn’t tell anyone except my ex-roommate. My psychological state improved a lot when I was simply not receiving the information that would have stressed me out. Out of sight, out of mind, heart at rest. I know it takes me a long while to follow some of the people I know in real life on social media, and I know it gives me a horrible reputation. I have no doubt a lot of people think I’m a stuck-up girl who thinks she’s better than her former classmates since she got signed on a record label or whatever, but to be honest, their lives are probably way litter than mine, and I’m just trying to be sane in the knowledge that they are comfortable in a social world I have never belonged in. (Which might be difficult for them to understand, since they, of course, belong – or I assume they do.) And I swear, the filtration of my social media has eased me much more than a lot of things ever could have. My tolerance fluctuates. Some things take time, and it is important to give yourself time and grace, especially if nobody else will give them to you.

My hair.

I really love locs. They are my favorite category of hairstyle ever. (On black people, of course.) The decision to get dreadlocks is one of the best I ever made. These are things that actually get me to look into the mirror and smile because wow, I have locs, and they’re nice. Perhaps it is vanity – but it is the healthy kind. I feel like it might be useful for everyone to have at least one part of their body that they can smile at when they look into the mirror. My hair makes me very happy. It feels good to catch myself in envy, for instance, when I look at pictures of people with gorgeous locs online and go, “Wow, I wish I had dreads.” And then I brighten all the way up because guess what – I do! I suspect that once you start liking a part of you more, you begin to like all of yourself more, even if just marginally.

Can we just take a moment to appreciate the growth between my 2015 twists and 2017 locs? It’s lit, isn’t it? Yah, yah.

(Can we just take a moment to marvel over the growth between my 2015 twists and my 2017 dreads? It’s lit. 🙂 )

My projects.

I am very much familiar with the experience of feeling like a wasteman. A lot of the time, I am. But a lot of the time, I’m also not. The ability to at least temporarily separate emotional sensation from substantial evidence is a useful one. I may feel like a wasteman sometimes, but then I’ll remember that I went and wrote a whole novella in 2015. It might not have been a great or even good novella, but it’s something I started, finished, and was bold enough to share. So, apply the same thought process to every piece of work I’ve ever put on the internet, and keep putting on the internet, and it’s a bit of a marvel. I may be a wasteman now, but I have not always been a wasteman. And it is very likely that I will not always continue to be a wasteman.

My best friend.

Having a best friend that loves you a lot can help you learn to love yourself. I know I talk about Tronomie a lot. I can’t help it. He’s currently the best thing about my life. He makes me very happy. He also makes me sad a lot, and he’s really awful, as like, a human being. And I think we’re both as messed up as each other. We have very little in common, and our friendship, frankly, doesn’t make a whit of sense to me. But it’s blessed. Immensely, incomprehensibly blessed. He’s my spiritual twin. And he shows me my reflection when I forget what it looks like and reminds me that it is worth loving (…on the days that he’s not simply tired of saying things to me over and over again that fall on deaf ears). I hope I do at least half of what he does for me, for him. I probably don’t. I love him though. To crazy high levels. And when I finish fumbling around and figuring out what the best way he can benefit from my existence is, I’m putting 110% of myself into it.

  Understanding where my worth comes from.

The world is a salesman. It’s a top advertiser, selling a lot of things that won’t give me what they promise. My worth is in my Creator and Him alone – and God gives no grades, nor project ratings, nor reviews. I understand this, even when I forget it. Whichever scale says I can’t or haven’t, is irrelevant in comparison. My worth is unchangeable because its source is. And if I link my worth to performance or achievement, I’m always going to be in serious trouble.

  “Sometimes it takes years to learn how to be comfortable in your own skin…”

https://soundcloud.com/akotowaa/to-be

Likewise, sometimes it takes a while for your own words to become your own reality. They are written in the state of discomfort, for a future self whom, when becoming comfortable, will find that her past self has already provided the equipment to facilitate the process. To Be is almost prophetic – or an act of faith – as a description of a facet of self-love. And I cannot say I have in any way reached “there” yet. Some days I’m there. Some days I’m not. And that’s how life is. To Be is never fantasy; at any point, it is either prophecy or reality.

What helps you? 😊

-Akotowaa

P.S. my Snapchat username is akotowaa.

6 Little Things That Help Yeah, fam, so life is beans. You don’t need to be told. But, as a whole, there are a few things that make it a bit more bearable for me.