#Never thought too hard on how the jones thing worked for strife

[bigbossmaker]

He likes him as is!

[spartanguard]

even death won’t part us now (1/?)

Summary: Two covens, both alike in dignity, / In fair New York, where we lay our scene, / From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, / Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes / A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life; / Whole misadventured piteous overthrows / Do with their death bury their sires' strife. (Captain Swan + West Side Story + vampires. But not as sad. Probably.)

rated M | AO3 | 1.2k words

A/N: So this story has been in the works for quite some time and been through numerous variations. I was originally going to do it for @cssns last year, but couldn’t get it to work. When things got going for this year’s event, @kmomof4 asked if I’d give it another shot and...it clicked this time! It’s been fun to work on (and see how many Hamilton references I can squeeze in). Hopefully you all enjoy it!

thank you to @thesschesthair for that GORGEOUSSS banner!! she’s made some incredible pieces for this and I can’t wait for you all to see them! and thank you to the best beta ever @optomisticgirl for looking this over!

for your listening pleasure

part one—overture

There's a lot of romanticizing when it comes to vampires. The eternal youth, the perfect looks and body, the heightened senses—all are excellent perks. 

But no one mentions the absolute mania when a vampire is new. Suddenly, everything is brighter, sharper, clearer, louder, smellier, more detailed than before, and it's a sensory overload—it's impossible to hear your own racing thoughts over the cacophony of everything else. 

So you try to run, but that's a whole other revelation—where to run when you never tire? When adrenaline is pumping so hard that it would probably be easy to scale a skyscraper? (At least it would be quiet up there, right?) And when your new instincts are telling you to find people—to find food—but the thought of being near all those scents and sounds is enough to turn your stomach and make you lose your last meal as a human. 

(Except you already did that—when you somehow managed to fight back against the asshole who turned you and accidentally shoved him into the jagged point of the wood that used to be your dresser and watched him bleed out in front of you until nothing was left but gore and dust.)

Which brings you back to running, but it doesn’t take you far—not until you’re crashing into a pair of arms that are far too strong (inhumanly so) and are somehow connected to a pair of unnaturally blue eyes that you briefly drown in so deep that nothing else about this individual registers. And the whole thing is so surreal you wonder if it’s even real, or just a mania-induced hallucination.

Regardless, you somehow end up at the doorstep of who might be the nicest people who have ever walked the earth (and they’ve walked it for quite a while, and people probably isn’t the best description, not anymore) and memories of your ocean-eyed savior get pushed to the back of your mind. Because, in case you hadn’t figured it out yet, this couple confirms what your wildest thoughts were telling you:

You’re a vampire now.

Welcome to eternity.

★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★

2005

Killian Jones let out a completely unnecessary sigh as he watched the door close behind the fledgling. Honestly, he was lucky he got there when he did; any later, and the newbie would have likely gone full mad, risking not only the safety of any mortals nearby, but also exposure of their world. 

That, and Gold probably would have killed him. For real this time. (It had been threatened often enough that it was likely empty, but after nearly 250 years, Killian knew what the beast was capable of—what had put him in this position in the first place—and therefore knew not to write off the possibility completely.)

It had been a fairly routine assignment: take out Walsh, one of the most conniving members of the Coroza coven with a penchant for turning his mortal girlfriends, and take out said girlfriend if he had turned her.

Killian hadn’t managed to get there in time to prevent the transition—Walsh’s paramour, one Emma Swan, apparently didn’t want to be found—and by the time he’d arrived on the scene, the freshly-turned vampire had already managed to kill the idiot, but was in shock.

He caught her in the alley behind the apartment building; despite their hysteria, new vampires are relatively weak compared to elder statesmen like him, so it wasn’t hard to subdue her.

And he should have ended her right there. He had a blade on him; it would have been incredibly easy to put it through her heart and let her wither away.

But there was something in those bright green eyes of hers—something behind the fear and anger and madness—that made him stop. It was familiar, but like a long ago memory; he couldn’t place it, but it was enough for him to second guess her elimination.

He couldn’t bring her back to Aurum, though. He’d spent too many years working his ways up the ladder to be accused of succumbing to a pretty face and disobeying direct orders from Gold. If he could hide her, though…

He knew a couple from Coroza who lived not far away. Despite being on different sides of this rivalry, he knew them to be respectable, and wouldn’t turn away a new vampire in need of some stability.

It was hard to tell if Emma was aware of it, but he quickly scooped her up and ran the few blocks to the Nolan’s Hell’s Kitchen townhouse, depositing the girl on the front stoop, buzzing the doorbell, then dashing off across the street as fast as possible (the blink of an eye to the average mortal). He was deep in the shadows of an alley when he saw the door open, Emma guided in, and then both the door and the case were closed. 

Which only left one thing: what to tell Gold. Outright lying wouldn’t work; but perhaps a white one would cover it. 

That was what he went with when he returned to the man’s penthouse in Chelsea. “It’s all taken care of, Mr. Gold,” he’d assured his boss—a rather reptilian man he’d long ago started referring to as “Crocodile” in his head and had somehow managed not to slip in the ensuing centuries. 

“Fantastic; always good to hear, Mr. Jones,” Gold said, rising from his throne-like chair in his office. “I know that it’s a bit soon, but I do have another assignment for you, if you’re amenable,” he continued. (It was a bit sadistic for Gold to act as if Killian had any choice in the matter; it was nigh impossible to go against an order from your sire, though Killian had long ago figured out how to work the system—and Gold’s typical vagueness—in his favor; this order might be too direct for that, though.) “It’s in England, and I want you to go tend to some business of mine. It might take a while. I don’t trust anyone else to handle this; please go and be my representation.”

“Of course, sir,” he answered respectfully, having figured out how to hide the resentment in his voice many decades ago.

“Splendid. I’ll see to it that your affairs here are tended to in the meantime. Enjoy your trip.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Not an hour later, he was at LaGuardia (because apparently Gold was too much a cheapskate to pay for him to fly direct out of JFK), in line with luggage, passport, prosthetic hand, and one-way ticket to London. One perk to never sleeping was that taking a red-eye flight didn’t affect him much; but that didn’t make getting through security any less painful—thus, the false hand rather than his preferred hook. (Also annoying: having a layover in Chicago—in the opposite direction, seriously; he should have paid himself.)

He at least let himself zone out once they were off the ground at O’Hare; he didn’t actually sleep but he could at least rest. 

He let the sounds of the plane lull him into something of a hypnotic state, but one thing persisted in his mind’s eye: those green eyes, and whatever it was that sucked him in. 

(They would do that often over the next several years.)

It wasn’t until he was lumbering up the jetway at Heathrow that he realized what it was: the look one got after being left alone. It’d been years since he’d seen it, but it used to stare back at him in his own reflection. (Which, as the polished metal of the luggage carousel reminded him, he hadn’t seen in centuries.)

Hopefully, she wouldn’t have that anymore. Too bad he couldn’t (ever) say the same.

★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★

thanks for reading! short intro, but longer chapters from here. tagging some peeps (let me know if you want on/off the list!)  @kat2609 @xpumpkindumplingx @shipsxahoy @amortentia-on-the-rocks @mryddinwilt @cocohook38 @annytecture @shireness-says @ohmightydevviepuu @profdanglaisstuff @wingedlioness @word-bug @distant-rose @wellhellotragic @welllpthisishappening @let-it-raines @pirateherokillian @bleebug @its-imperator-furiosa @fergus80 @killianmesmalls @sherlockianwhovian @ineffablecolors @laschatzi @ive-always-been-a-pirate @nfbagelperson @stubblesandwich @lenfaz @phiralovesloki @athenascarlet​ @ilovemesomekillianjones​ @whimsicallyenchantedrose​ @snowbellewells​ @idristardis​ @scientificapricot​ @searchingwardrobes​ @donteattheappleshook​

[autumnblogs]

Day 5: Imaginary Friends and Repressed Subconsciouses

https://homestuck.com/story/836

We open to Dave having the shit - and the softness - beaten out of him by Bro.

https://homestuck.com/story/838

These are exactly the sort of things a void player would say. This page lends itself to the interpretation that Rose is inverted and acting more like a Witch of Void than a Seer of Light, exactly the same way that Jade is acting like a Seer of Time. (Of course, Rose is either being sarcastic or placating herself. The reality is that, as she pretty much immediately demonstrates, she can’t help but pry for the true underlying meaning of what Jade is saying, grasping at information, and with it, power over her situation.)

I’ve already called attention to the dearth of conversations between these two characters - they’re not going to talk a lot between now and when Rose goes Grimdark. I think it’s just a shame. I wonder if it’s because Rose feels like Jade has her life under control, yearns for that, and in typical Rose fashion, decides that Jade is judging her for her lack of control? She is remarkably cool toward Jade, and I expect that to at least some degree, it’s because she feels inferior to her.

@volatileleporegina​ and I had a discussion on Discord where they guess that this is like, the dichotomy between Seers and Witches.

Rose probably envies the fact that Jade has her shit together. Witches are at their best and their happiest when they can go apeshit, seize control of a situation, and act completely on instinct. Seers are at their best and their happiest when they have inner peace, control of their situation, and control over their emotions.

More after the break.

https://homestuck.com/story/845

More speech patterns here. John does not use a lot of prepositions, and his language is very hesitant - he rarely asserts anything important, and has a pretty strong tendency to use phrases like “I guess, I figure, I think, I might” and so on and so on.

John also talks like he’s from the west coast of the USA, at least in a caricaturish way - he uses a lot of old school surfer slang that got co-opted into generic cool culture, like rad, although not nearly to the same extent as later parody character Latula.

https://homestuck.com/story/855

As a character who will eventually be revealed to be a Hero of Hope, Grandpa Harley dwells in the realm of fantasy. While he fills the mould of the idealized adventurer-hero - a true Pulp Fiction Macho Genius Archaeologist in the mould of Doc Savage or Indiana Jones, his relationship with other human beings is more... theoretical.

I wonder if it says anything about Hope in general that all of the Heroes of Hope in the story are practically incapable of having positive relationships in their lives? Before I tended to chalk Jake’s failure up to being a Page, and simply needing more time, but Eridan and Cronus sabotage all of their relationships as well.

Perhaps I’ll come back to this train of thought in the future. For now, Grandpa and Jake alike are characters who I consider wretches, and pitiable wretches at that. I have far less patience for Grandpa though. More of that as we go.

I should be open about the fact that, while I’ve been a bit more forgiving with Mom Lalonde, the fact is that, with the exception of Dad Egbert, I consider all four of the Beta Guardians to be abusive parents; Nanna is an exception as well if she is counted to be one of the guardians). Their conduct in raising their children is at the very least inexcusable, although if they demonstrated any repentance, it would perhaps be forgivable; in all their cases, by the end of the comic, it is too late for that (although they get another lease on life through the Alpha Kids, which if you don’t mind me showing my hand, I think is the entire point of the Alpha Kids from a storytelling perspective- reconciliation of the parents with the children.)

https://homestuck.com/story/859

One thing I have always liked about Jade is that she does not negotiate with terrorists. You go girl :)

https://homestuck.com/story/874

Rose lives in either Ontario or Upstate New York. I think someone found that the coordinates of her house are in Rainbow Falls.

It seems odd to me for no reason at all that Rose would be a Canadian when all of the other characters in the comic are ambiguously American, and there are a number of other reasons it would fit for Rose to be from upstate NY, not the least of which is that it is a part of Lovecraft Country, and the home of the principle madman from HP’s “Beyond the Wall of Sleep,” a story about a hick from Upstate New York who has insane dreams that he cannot express with his limited vocabulary. It turns out that this unassuming crazy person is actually a mortal manifestation of an extra-dimensional star-god, and he forms a friendship with the viewpoint character, an intern at the hospital where he has been institutionalized. While the magic dreams ultimately prove to be too much for the mortal frame and give him a heart attack, he contacts his friend the intern via a dream to express to him that he dearly hopes that the two of them meet again one day beyond the wall of sleep.

Another reason is that I’ve always viewed Rose as being an extremely affected person. Nobody talks the way that Rose talks - her words are all extremely deliberately chosen in a way that doesn’t fit the pattern of the other characters’ more stream-of-consciousness writing styles. Rose thinks in Prose, whereas her friends all write like they talk. I like to imagine, for this reason, that Rose has a transatlantic accent like Katharine Hepburn, which is to say, a learned accent. Back in old-timey times, actors, newscasters, the wealthy, and so on would take classes to learn how to pronounce words in a sophisticated way that nobody naturally spoke in - a bit like Received Pronunciation on the other side of the pond. It’s long since died out, but it fits the sort of affected, stuffy, faux-aristocratic manner that Rose styles herself with. It’s a blend of Manhattanite and Londoner pronunciation, and I think it suits her.

Anyway, there you go. There’s something that you just learned about my inner life and how I think way too much about tiny details like “What would Rose’s voice sound like?”

https://homestuck.com/story/876

Dave lives in Texas. For this reason, I have decided that he sounds like a cowboy. No particular cowboy, just some cowboy.

Jade lives in the Pacific Ocean, and I have a very specific head voice picked out for her - Anna Paquin, particularly young Anna Paquin who portrayed Sheeta in Castle in the Sky, although I’ve always imagined Jade to have a much broader kiwi accent.

https://homestuck.com/story/879

I wonder if Nanna’s oven works at all like Biscuits’?

https://homestuck.com/story/893

Nothing ever really came of Dr. Brinner’s mail. Law of Conservation of detail tells us that he might be one of pipefan413′s coworkers (maybe fedorafreak?) but we’ll never know.

https://homestuck.com/story/905

It’s not totally clear to me exactly what’s going on here, but I have a couple of theories.

Theory #1: This is Mom Lalonde’s childhood room from when she grew up. It makes sense to me that the Lalonde House and the Lab might be a package deal, especially since we see Roxy growing up in a similar setting, but with far more prolific modular structures.

Theory #2: As theory #1, but this is also Mom Lalonde’s current accommodation. Tea parties and tea seem to be shorthand in Homestuck for immaturity and avoidance in particular - characters like Nepeta, Mom, and Grandpa use Tea Parties to retreat into childish fantasy instead of confronting the real, hard problems they have to deal with.

https://homestuck.com/story/919

Jade’s strife with Grandpa might lend some credence to the idea that she uses imaginary friends (who are also us, the audience!) to cope with her loneliness.

https://homestuck.com/story/926

Even the extraordinary cynicism and antipathy of Rose Lalonde can’t resist adorable kittens.

https://homestuck.com/story/935

Jaspers’ secret seems to be the genetic code of a First Guardian, although whether Rose actually got it from this mysterious kitty-cat, or whether it was buried in her subconscious all along is probably a coin flip. (I would put my money on the subconscious thing.)

https://homestuck.com/story/938

For all her pretension, Rose Lalonde is a sad thirteen year old girl whose mother spends too much time sozzled to help her make sense of a confusing and chaotic world. It would be nice for her to be able to make sense of the world and get some sense of constancy, but then part of the point of Sburb is to teach its players that nothing in life is constant.

https://homestuck.com/story/949

Resolving some of the uncertainty around his Dad will allow John to consciously perceive the graffiti he’s been subconsciously scribbling around his room. You knew that already, but it doesn’t change the fact that this is a big deal for him. I’ll take a stab at why this is the case - one of the recurring motifs in Homestuck is characters avoiding uncomfortable truths through avoidance and stagnation - if they don’t want to think about something, they really really don’t think about it, to the point of not being able to perceive it at all. Here, John magically gains the ability to see some of the graffiti drawn by his dream self by being confronted with the truth about his Dad. For other characters, I think, it will be less magical.

https://homestuck.com/story/965

Calling attention to John’s lexicon again, I feel like it’s an overlooked fact that he uses turn of the decade hacker slang a lot too - just peppers his language with it.

https://homestuck.com/story/980

Jade, like John, actually has two separate Guardians - her deceased bio-parent, and this devilbeast. The terminology for these white-and-electric-green monsters, First Guardians, suggests that from a mythological perspective, they function as Ur-Parental figures, raising a civilization to adulthood so that its members can go on to play Sburb, participating in the reproductive cycle of the Universe.

https://homestuck.com/story/988

The fact that Mom Lalonde’s “Room” is full of booze supports my hypothesis that she still lives in her little girl’s lab bedroom.

Rose doesn’t make a big deal out of what’s in her Mom’s bedroom the way that John is, but I think that her exploration of the laboratory serves as effectively a long-form version of the same experience that John has just had. They’re both learning plenty about their enigmatic guardians.

Rose is a smart girl. She’s figured out what is going on, even if she hasn’t thought about it at the surface-level of the narration yet.

https://homestuck.com/story/1004

John Egbert is a young man who does not really like himself very much.

https://homestuck.com/story/1023

The very first time Rose shows genuine vulnerability to pretty much anyone in the comic. “Maybe I am just being a friend?”

https://homestuck.com/story/1028

Dreams in Homestuck are material events than can have material effects on the characters’ reality - but on the other hand, spending loads of time dreaming can prevent you from having a meaningful effect on your session.

Homestuck is a little ambivalent about dreams but I think it’s safe to say that something close to is stance would be to say that what goes on unacknowledged inside of your head is still a part of you even if you can’t perceive it. Characters who spend all of their time in dreams though, paradoxically won’t make all that much progress toward actually understanding it. Tavros and Jade both spend loads of time in their dreams on Prospit, and while Jade does it because she has Vriska-induced narcolepsy, I think we’re supposed to draw a line from one to the other.

Neither of them is in an emotional state to tough out the process of digging up what’s beneath the surface, and resolving the tension between what’s inside of them and what’s outside of them.

https://homestuck.com/story/1049

This creepy little guy is here because Gamzee sent him. I’m going to pay careful attention to the sequence of events that leads him here, because I have a hunch that John’s weird clown fixation somehow leads to Gamzee’s.

https://homestuck.com/story/1064

The fact that the Joker only has two holes in his punchcard suggests that clowns come very close to being elemental in the Homestuck universe.

That is not a surprise.

https://homestuck.com/story/1069

We’ll conclude the day with John’s alchemy session, and come back tomorrow where I’ll finally get around to stating another one of Homestuck’s major throughlines. For now though, I’ll point out that pretty much everything John has created here has some kind of Dad imagery or another (Although all the Cosby gags have aged incredibly poorly, don’t forget that at one point he was America’s Dad!)

With the possible exception of the Bunny Wizard hat which combines some Rose imagery with some John imagery! No wonder she thought it was as cool as he did.

For now, Cam signing off, something something not alone.

[imagine-darksiders]

Would make a short of Strife rescuing a tiny human? Please ?

Short?

Hi guys, so I was writing this reply when it suddenly occurred to me that I’ve been neglecting you and I owe you, at the very least, a 6000+ word, Strife centric Christmas present. So although it’s isn’t a Christmassy piece per se, it all I have at the moment. 

Thank you so much for being patient with me. XXXX 

—

The photograph stands on a tiny, pink dresser, its edges cut back just enough so that it fits inside a silver frame, out of which peer three humans, their grinning faces never changing as they keep a quiet vigil of the bedroom and its otherworldly visitor, who – in turn – finds his sharp gaze frequently returning to the little, paper snapshot.

A pair of eyes, golden and glowing in the lightless bedroom, screw themselves shut tightly for a moment as their owner heaves a sigh and tries not think about what had happened to the trio of humans. He especially refuses to dwell on the youngest; the little boy in overalls and wellington boots who rides happily on his father’s shoulders in the photo, but who also so, so closely resembles the tiny, emaciated corpse twisted up in a wardrobe nearby.

These are the moments during supply runs that Strife hates the most – where he stumbles across the sad, broken remains of humans, all whilst he rummages through their homes and helps himself to what was once theirs with his only consolation being the humans back at the maker tree, who would survive just a little longer thanks to his pilfering.

If he thought too hard about it, he would be troubled, and the horseman could not afford that. Best to put it from his mind and move on, as he always has. As experience has taught him.

Peeling his eyes open again, Strife turns his back on the photograph and continues stuffing a dishevelled, cuddly pony into one of the leather pouches that hangs from his side.

’Just the essentials,’ he reminds himself before every supply run. ’Food, water and ammunition being top priority.’

But then, Ulthane had brought that kid to the tree and she’d cried all night, asking where her caretakers were and complaining how she couldn’t possibly sleep without a ‘Mister Bear’ and…

The horseman strokes a finger over the toy’s stringy mane before he withdraws his hand and fastens the pack up again, safely sealing it inside.

’In this instance’, he reasons, ’a soft toy is an essential.’

Besides, he’s already gathered plenty of food for today at least, and if he doesn’t get back soon, Ulthane and the other humans will start to worry where he is.

“Where Jones is,” he corrects himself aloud with a bitter frown.

He’s beyond the point of believing they’d care about Strife the horseman in the same manner they care about his human disguise.

Casting one last, solemn glance at the corner wardrobe, Strife once more finds himself fighting to put the humans’ fate from his mind.

It was so much easier when he thought – as many other species still do – that humanity was little more than a savage society with no ambition beyond killing and consuming to survive. Then, he actually met the little species and found everything he thought he knew about them to be a lie. His eyes had been opened, and he’d been left sadder, but wiser.

Humans had been treated like dirt for so many centuries.

And he hadn’t really cared.

Deciding that he’s spent more than enough time among ghosts, Strife steps back over the bedroom’s threshold. 

Moving towards a set of rickety stairs, he reaches out to place a hand on the banister when he suddenly freezes in his tracks, his keen senses honing in on a sound coming from somewhere further down the landing.

A scuffle, then a snort followed by the scrabble of claws on a hard surface.

For several moments, the horseman remains at a standstill as he listens with rapt attention to the pants and growls he’d pin to a Goreclaw, if he had to take a wild guess.

The damn thing sounds as though it’s stuck. That, or it’s looking for something. Either way, it will be sufficiently distracted and chances are likely it doesn’t even know a horseman is in the vicinity.

Mercy’s grip sticks invitingly up from within its holster and Strife runs a thumb over the smooth surface, thinking.

He could just leave. It is only one demon after all.

But then…

The horseman’s mind drifts back to the little body in the wardrobe and his jaw immediately sets.

No way in Hell is he about to let that thing get at it. Dead or not, a kid doesn’t deserve to be reduced to marrow by a hell-dog. Strife could spare him that, at the very least.

Shaking his head and wondering when he’d become so sentimental, he draws his pistol and steps back onto the landing. Following the sounds of guttural snarls, he stalks through the crumbling apartment until he comes upon a broken doorway, torn off its hinges at some point by a hand greater than a human’s. Strife halts just shy of the entrance and presses his back up against the wall before inching his head around the corner, golden eyes narrowed dangerously as he scans the room beyond.

Far be it from him to err on the side of caution but he is curious to know what the demon is up to. His earlier assumption had been spot on. It’s a Goreclaw alright, currently in the midst of trying to shove its long talons underneath a chest-of-drawers, teeth snapping and drool flying from its snout.

“What the Hell are you doing?” he wonders quietly, observing while it retracts its foreleg and presses its nose up to the slim gap beneath the furniture.

He’s only ever seen the dogs get this excited when they’re on the trail of prey.

For a split second, the horseman’s blood runs cold at the thought of a human being trapped under there, though he soon shakes that notion off. No matter how tiny, there isn’t a human alive that could stuff themselves underneath there. Not with barely two inches of space between floor and wood.

Through the window, he’s distantly aware that the sun is no longer shining through a gap in the curtains, having sunk well below a building on the opposite side of the street, heralding the swift approach of night.

Aware that he’s burning daylight, and desperate to put a bullet in something, Strife obnoxiously clears his throat, rounds the corner and aims a cocksure grin at the startled demon when it whirls about to face him.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he says cheerfully, “Just wanted to stop by and tell you, there’s something on your face.”

A roar of outrage shatters the relative peace as the demon crouches, ready to pounce. It barely manages to plant its hind legs however, before a bullet tears out of Mercy’s chamber and buries itself directly in the Goreclaw’s skull.

“Ope, never mind, I got it,” Strife gloats, a smirk lifting his lips. The demon crumples to the ground, gurgling and twitching for a moment until it eventually lays still, dead on the floral print carpet. “Huh…I was hoping that’d be a little more satisfying.”

With his grim duty taken care of, the horseman turns on his heel to leave. However something nags at the back of his mind and he stops mid-stride, a frown pulling at his brows.

Just what had that demon been so desperate to get at?

Beneath his helm, Strife chews pensively on his lip, turning back to face the unassuming chest of drawers. After a moment’s deliberation, he gives in to curiosity, a newfound trait he wholly blames on the humans he’s been sharing a tree with for the past several weeks. Every one of them has a penchant for sticking their noses into strange situations, and it seems their behaviour has rubbed off on the horseman somewhat.

An obnoxious huff escapes Strife as he grabs each side of the dresser and picks it up effortlessly, as if it weighed no more than a feather and moves it aside to peer down at the dustless rectangle that had been left in its wake. It isn’t long before his sharp gaze lands on something out of the ordinary, a patch of colour in the otherwise murky grey.

“What the?…” Dumping the chest of drawers down to his right, the horseman squats to get a better look at what appears at first glance to be just another child’s toy.

“All that fuss for a doll?” he wonders aloud, reaching slowly down with a finger to prod at it.

Just then, before he can utter anything further, he almost jumps out of his skin as the ‘doll’ springs to life.

Rather, it suddenly leaps to its feet and darts sideways, gunning straight along the wall’s skirting with two, little legs pumping along like a steam engine.

“Hey! Woah there!” Caught off guard, Strife doesn’t think before he shoots out a hand towards the fleeing creature.

It can’t quite skid to a halt in time to keep from colliding with the horseman’s gauntleted palm that abruptly slams to the ground in front of it, and with a soft ‘plink,’ the human-shaped thing collides with his hand and falls back onto its rump so jarringly, Strife can’t suppress a wince. “Oooh, sorry about that,” he says, wasting no time in pinching his thumb and forefinger against the collar of a thin, brown shirt and plucking it up off the floor. “Now, what do we have here?”

Dangling his prize in front of his silver helm, he squints, head tipping to one side so he can get a good look at what he’s caught.

He very nearly drops it again when he realises what he’s peering at.

It’s a human. A boy, to be precise, and a fairly young one at that, clothed in nothing more than a ratty shirt and a pair of equally dishevelled shorts that hang low on his waist, too baggy to fit on his near skeletal form. They’ve even been tied in place by a strip of green twine.

Hanging limply from the horseman’s grasp, the little human tries to work his shirt loose, twisting this way and that but impeded by violent trembles that wrack his body. Realising that thrashing is doing him no good, he opts to reach up with miniature fists and attempt to tear the shirt free, tiny grunts leaving even tinier lips.

“You’re a human!” Strife blurts out, eyes flashing interestedly.

At the sound of his booming voice, the boy flinches and cries out, abandoning his prospects of escape in favour of clamping both arms over his head and curling in on himself, a meagre method of protection against his titanic captor.

Standing back up to his full height, the horseman continues to study his handful whilst planting his free hand on a cocked hip. “Well damn me, I didn’t think human kids could get this small,” he murmurs. Suddenly, his ears perk up at the sound of a diminutive squeak that emanates from the boy currently hanging from his fingers. ”What was that, kid?”

Shivering, his arms still shielding his head, the tiny boy swallows and raises his voice loud enough to be heard. “I-I ain’t a human!” he claims shrilly. Then, after a small pause, he adds, “And I ain’t no kid neither!”

“Not a human, huh? Well, you sure look like one.” Strife chuffs and raises a claw-tipped finger, prodding the boy in his stomach and eliciting a squawk of indignation. “Sure sound like one too…Kind of on the skinny side though, aren’t you?”

His words cause the boy to turn rigid and his arms peel back slightly to give Strife a view of ebony hair and wide, brown eyes. “What…what’s that s'posed to mean!?” he whimpers, “You’re not gonna…you’re not gonna eat me, are you!?”

“Mmm, haven’t decided yet,” the horseman playfully responds, tapping his chin in mock thought. “Doesn’t look like you’ve got much meat on you…Then again, I am pretty hungry.”

Behind his mask, he grins, though the expression promptly blinks out of existence when he notices a wetness has gathered on the boy’s cheeks.

“Uh oh.” That wasn’t supposed to happen. He’d been sure human kids loved jokes! Hell, Ulthane had playfully threatened to eat some of the younglings back at the tree and they’d all thought it was a great game, even laughed their heads off when he made a slow swipe at them with one of his meaty paws.

“Oh, hey, no – I – Ah, damnit.” Like a flipped switch, Strife’s tone loses its teasing lilt and slips to something gentler. “Hey, ease off the waterworks, okay, pint-size? I was kidding.” Borderline desperate, the horseman lowers his catch into a sturdy palm and lets go of his shirt, even smoothing down the back of it with the pad of a careful finger for good measure although as he does, he becomes aware of just how prominently the boy’s spine protrudes. Human anatomy varies, sure, but that doesn’t feel right.

Jerking away from the encroaching finger, the ‘not’ human swipes furiously at his eyes, smearing tears across reddened cheeks. In spite of the horseman’s reassurance, he doesn’t appear convinced, eyeing the palm beneath him with about as much trust as he’d give a hungry snake, half expecting it to spring to life and squeeze the soul out of him. Truthfully, he hasn’t seen much of the world, even before monsters fell out of the sky, but he knows enough to tell that this metal-clad behemoth is most assuredly not human.

Human eyes don’t glow like liquid gold.

In the meantime, Strife gives himself a mental kick for making the child cry.

“So, uh,” he clears his throat awkwardly, “You… got a name, kid?”

“What do you care?” the boy sniffs, all pretence of bravery made redundant by his trembling, “You’re just gonna drop me or – or squash me or something.”

Drawing his head back, the horseman frowns. “C'mon, you’re like – what? - three inches tall? Be kind of a dick move for me to hurt someone smaller than my thumb.”

Cautious surprise flickers across the youngster’s face and he swipes the back of a wrist under his nose, chin lifting to shoot a suspicious squint at his captor. “But…but ain’t you one of them demons?”

Strife bristles despite his best efforts. “Do I look like a demon to you?”

Ducking his head, the boy gulps but still balls his hands into fists and squeezes out, “Well, I dunno… You big'uns all look alike from down here.” He risks a mistrustful glare at Strife’s luminous eyes. “Like monsters.”

Apparently the Horseman has been spending too much time around humans because that sent an unpleasant pang bolting through his chest.

“Yeah, well…Speaking from experience, not everyone who’s bigger than you is a monster, kid,” he murmurs gently.

The boy blinks, caught off guard by the sober tone of voice he hadn’t expected to hear from this gargantuan, metal man. All his life, he’d had drummed into his head the mantra that if a big one caught him, they’d more than likely kill him. And those that didn’t would shove him in a jar or underneath a microscope - that last one had happened to his great, great grandfather. Or so he has been lead to believe.

And yet so far, there’s no jar, no microscope, and although he knows it’s far too early to be letting his guard down, the longer he goes without becoming a sticky mess under the heel of a boot, the more his nerves relax the strangle-hold they have on his heart.  

Outside, the city grows steadily darker and with the absence of sunlight, a chill seeps its way through the broken window.

Drawing up his knees and hugging them to his chest, the boy falls victim to an involuntary shudder.

“Cold?”

The suddenness of the giant’s voice reverberating overhead causes him to jump and snatch his gaze up from where it had wandered down to his shoeless feet. On impulse, he blurts out a stubborn, “No,” and clenches his jaw shut again to stop it from quaking.

Strife raises an eyebrow and though his skepticism is hidden under a helm, it manages to saturate his voice. “Uh huh. I can see you shivering, kid.” Slowly, his fingers creep a few centimetres closer to the boy. 

“I told you, I’m not a kid,” his handful mutters, “I’m nearly eleven.”

A snort of laughter bursts out of Strife before he can catch it, earning himself an icy glare. “Now, I’m no expert,” he chuckles, bouncing his hand slightly, much to his passenger’s horror, “But I’d’ve said eleven was well in the range of what a ‘kid’ oughtta be.”

“Kids can’t take care of themselves,” the boy explains, agitated, “I can.”

Strife draws his head back in mock surprise. “Oh hoh! Can you now? S'that why I found you seconds away from becoming a demon’s snack?”

Huffing, the boy averts his gaze from the dazzling yellow eyes overhead and mumbles, “I’d have been fine.”

“Whatever you say, half-pint.” The corners of Strife’s lips tilt up as he inspects the boy’s grumpy pout. “You know, you’re pretty feisty for such a little guy. Didn’t your parents ever teach you not to go picking fights with demons a hundred times your size?”

Despite his far larger stature, the horseman can pinpoint the exact moment he’d said the wrong thing. The word 'parents’ has barely slipped off his tongue before the boy’s eyes suddenly clamp shut and his back goes rigid against Strife’s fingers. Understanding dawns at once and the horseman’s eyes lose some of that preternatural glow as he exhales softly through his nose. “Oh….Your folks’re not in the picture anymore, huh?”

Face now pressed into his knees, the boy shakes his head.

“Was it a demon?”

This time, Strife receives a slow nod, confirming his suspicions.

Blowing out a puff of hot air, he scratches at his neck and offers, “Damn. I’m…. sorry, kid.”

What else could he possibly say?

“…Hamish.”

Strife blinks, lifting the youngling closer to his eyes and peering down at him. “What’d you say?” he murmurs, giving the boy a gentle nudge with his thumb in the hopes of coaxing the words out again.

Luckily, he’s rewarded when his passenger finally looks up at him with a pair of drooping, brown eyes, their edges tinged red. “My name,” he tries, louder this time, “It’s not kid. It’s Hamish.”

The metal mask does little to conceal its wearer’s pleased grin.

“Hamish, huh?” He decides not to make a fuss about the tears rolling down the kid’s cheeks. “S'good to meet you. Name’s Strife.”

Confusion sweeps across Hamish’s features and he carefully extracts himself from his knees, scrubbing away the fresh teardrops. “Strife?” He hesitates for a moment to scrunch up his nose even further, and the horseman can’t help but notice that when he does, he bears an uncanny resemblance to Yarin after the humans tried explaining the concept of a computer to him. Strife’s grin widens of its own accord at the fond memory whilst its wearer waits patiently for Hamish to finish scrutinising him.

Eventually, the boy appears to come to some sort of conclusion as he huffs and rubs tiredly at one of his eyes, though Strife suspects it has more to do with not wanting to meet the horseman’s gaze when he says matter-of-factly, “That’s a weird name.”

Glad that his little acquaintance has at least stopped crying, Strife feigns offence. “It’s a Nephilim name,” he explains, “and - for the record - how do you know I don’t think Hamish is a weird name?”

The boy gulps, apparently mistaking the giant’s playful banter for real displeasure, after all, he had just insulted an unstoppable behemoth’s name. Eager to move the conversation along, he stammers out, “U-Uh, what’s a…a nephilim?”

The horseman, making note of Hamish’s renewed trembling, softens his tone. “A Nephilim is…It’s, uh…” Something stops him mid-sentence. Is he really about to tell this kid about the Nephilim? A brutal race of bloodthirsty, world-conquering titans? Of which Strife himself was a member? The horseman clamps his mouth shut. What if explaining who the Nephilim were prompts Hamish to start asking questions? Creator forbid the boy discover that the man holding him in his palm was one of four responsible for the total eradication of their own species.

With a hard blink, Strife focuses back on Hamish and notices the boy’s eyes are nervously darting all over his mask. The suffocating spell of silence had lasted longer than the horseman intended. Thinking quickly, he stumbles over an answer that he hopes will satisfy the boy. “It’s…Well, s'just what I am.”

Perhaps it’s only because Hamish has spent his entire life keeping his existence a secret, but the giant’s vague response doesn’t bother him half as much as it ought to. He gets it. The man probably doesn’t want anyone knowing about his existence. Hamish finds the feeling is mutual.

So, instead of calling Strife out on his blatant avoidance, the boy simply offers him a nod and says, “I knew you weren’t human.”

“Ha, only when I need to be,” the horseman chimes secretively, and before Hamish can ponder what he means by that, he’s unexpectedly bounced up into the air, letting out a startled yelp before he lands in the centre of the giant palm again.

“Anyway,” Strife begins, shooting a cursory glance out the window and wincing upon finding it utterly obscured by the ink of night, “There’ll be plenty of time to get to know each other once I get you to safety.”

Hamish’s fingers twitch against the tough gauntlet, a trickling cold slipping into his stomach. “Wait, what?”

“Well, today’s your lucky day, kid!” Strife puffs out his chest and jabs it with a thumb, proudly declaring, “I am gonna take you someplace safe.” Pausing for a moment to let that sink in, he watches the boy’s eyes grow wide, feeling a sense of accomplishment at seeing what he imagines can only be excitement, so he carries on, “It’s warm, away from demons, there’s lots of humans and enough food to last you a lifetime.” He stresses his point by poking Hamish’s belly with a careful fingertip. “By the looks of things, you could use a good meal. So, what do you say? How’s that sound?”

The boy remains silent for several seconds as he processes what he’s being told.

Then, to the horseman’s shock, rather than elation or relief, he’s met with a face full of horror and before he can ask what’s wrong, the boy leaps unsteadily to his feet and bellows, “NO!” at the top of his lungs.

Taken aback, Strife snaps his other hand up to close Hamish in a loose fist when it looks as though he’s about to jump off the horseman’s palm. “Hey! Easy there! What’s the matter?”

Hamish begins pounding ardently on the fingers holding him hostage, kicking his legs to no avail. This hulking stranger wants to take him away from his family home – the place he’s lived and loved and known his whole life - and dump him with a bunch of humans? Not a chance. “Let me go!” he cries, terrified at the prospect of being uprooted, “I’m not going with you!”

Baffled, the horseman tips his head to one side and frowns at the ferocity behind each blow on his metal gauntlet. “Stop that, you’re gonna hurt yourself!” He reaches up and catches one of the boy’s arms, holding it gingerly between two fingers. “Why don’t you want to come with me?”

“Because! This is – It’s my home!” Hamish all but sobs, pushing furiously at Strife’s metal thumb.

“Kid, this is gonna be your tomb if you stay here much longer,” the horseman tries to reason, “I mean, look at you, if a demon doesn’t get you, something else will. You’re skin and bone.”

“I’d rather take my chances out here than be surrounded by humans!” Hamish gives a final heave before collapsing over the enormous thumb, with one arm still held above his head, caught in a firm but gentle grip.

“That’s what you’re worried about?” Strife almost laughs aloud at the thought of the humans at the tree hurting anyone. Three of them had actually cried after they discovered a dead bird outside the entrance. But even still, he has to put the boy’s mind at ease. At last relinquishing his hold on the skeletal arm, he sighs, “Listen, kid. Nobody’ll hurt you, okay? They’re good people. Besides – no offence – but I think they’ve got more important things to focus on than antagonising you.”

Unfortunately, Hamish either isn’t listening, or he just doesn’t care.

Glancing up at the giant, fresh tears streaming in a never-ending torrent down his face, he puts on the bravest voice he can muster and yells, “I’m staying here!”  

“No, you’re coming with me.”

“No, I’m not! You can’t make me!”

Golden eyes flash brightly at the challenge. “Oh, you don’t think so?” Strife smirks, and without warning, begins to lower Hamish towards one of the pouches on his belt.

As soon as he spots where he’s headed, the boy’s struggling becomes increasingly wild. “No, no, no!”

“Sorry, kid,” the horseman murmurs, steeling his heart against the frightened wailing, “M'not leaving you here.” Using his free hand, Strife fumbles with the pouch’s leather strap and is just about to get it open when Hamish suddenly cries out, “Wait, wait! Just – I’ll go with you, okay? Just stop!”

The horseman pauses, considering the boy for a moment before lifting him back up to his helm. “What’s up? You claustrophobic or something?”

Little fingers dig imploringly into the gaps of Strife’s gauntlet as Hamish shakes his head. “No, I – I just…If you have to take me, then….at least let me get my things first.”

“Your things?” he echoes, squinting down at the kid and noting, with some semblance of relief, that he’s no longer putting up a fight. “Where are they?”

Shrinking underneath the giant’s dazzling stare, Hamish swallows noisily but manages to raise a shaking finger and points it over his shoulder. “In the walls.”

Puzzled, Strife glances to where he’s indicating. “You….lived in the walls?” He sees Hamish nod from the corner of his eye.

“There’s an, um…like a little crack in the skirting board, over there.”

Once again, the horseman follows a tiny finger as it points down to the bottom of the wall, where there is indeed a hole, just large enough to grant entry to a mouse, or perhaps someone else who stands just a few inches off the ground.

For several seconds, Strife deliberates the situation, his gaze flicking between the dark window, the hole and Hamish until eventually, he blows out a huff and shakes his head, turning back towards the doorway and lowering the boy to his hip once again. “Sorry, kid, but whatever it is, it can’t be that -”

“There’s something in there that belonged to mum and dad!”

Strife’s steps falter and he squeezes his eyes shut with a sigh.

Sensing his captor’s hesitation, Hamish prods, “Please? I don’t want to leave without it! It’s all I have left of my family…”

Family. The word plucks insistently at Strife’s heartstrings and he briefly laments the younger, colder version of himself that wouldn’t have flinched if he’d heard it. For some time, the horseman wrestles with himself, teeth grinding together until at last, he lets out a groan and stomps over to the hole in the wall. “Alright, fine.” Pausing to lift the boy up to his mask again, he levels a stern glare at him and adds, “But you gotta be in and out of there in one minute, okay?”

Hamish’s face brightens and he squirms restlessly as Strife lowers himself onto one knee and places his hand on the ground.. “O-okay, mister!”

Barely even waiting for the appendage to stop moving, Hamish all but dives off as soon as the fingers uncurl themselves, landing on the ground and haring for the wall, but before he can get too far, he finds himself jerked to a halt when the waistband of his trousers is pinched between two, enormous fingertips. Craning his head back, he stares anxiously at the horseman, flinching when a gruff voice booms, “I mean it, kid. In and out.”

“I-I got it!” Hamish replies hurriedly, desperate to put some distance between himself and the metal giant.

After giving him one last, calculating look, Strife finally relents, letting the boy go and leaning back to watch him scurry into the wall as fast as his little legs can carry him. Snorting softly, the horseman eases back onto his haunches, content for the time being to wait for his discovery to reemerge. “And here I thought I’d seen everything,” he muses.

——-

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Strife, a similar thought is occurring to Hamish as he races through the intricate maze of tunnels his ancestors had dug out of the house’s stone foundations. Spiderwebs threaten to catch the boy’s flimsy shirt and hold him back, but a lifetime of memorising every twisting, dust-choked tunnel meant that Hamish could navigate his way through each obstacle without even having to slow down. In almost no time, he’s scaled up the wall’s interior and burst through the tiny, wooden door that leads to his family home.

Slightly winded, Hamish takes a moment to collect himself, peering about at the candlelit kitchen and trying to decide where best to hide because he has no intention of going back to the clutches of that giant. To do so would be in complete violation of everything his family had ever taught him, and if he could do nothing else, at least Hamish could carry their lessons with him. Perhaps his mother would even be proud of him for tricking the giant into letting him go free, had she still been alive. Pressing his lips together, Hamish slumps heavily against the doorframe and exhales roughly through his nose, determined not to cry again.

All of a sudden, his whole world shudders as a thunderous boom hits the wall beside him, threatening to knock him off his feet. Crying out, Hamish drops instinctively to his knees whilst two more booms follow the first, one after the other, rocking the entire foundations of his home and raining dust down into his already grubby hair. Fear of being crushed by falling debris compels him to move, so he crawls across the still shivering room, every now and again having to doge pots and pans that are flung from their hooks on the ceiling until he gets close enough to the kitchen table to throw himself underneath it.

Then, as soon as they’d begun, the booms stop and everything grows silent, save for the clinking of a cup that rolls across the ground before coming to a stop just beside Hamish’s hiding spot.

“Hey, kid! You get the stuff yet?” Strife’s muffled voice calls from outside.

To his irritation, the horseman sounds entirely oblivious to the abject terror he’d just put him through – is still putting him through. Unaware that he’s balled his hands into fists, Hamish aims a harsh scowl at the wall, behind which the voice had come from and, in as brave a tone as he can summon, yells, “GO AWAY!”

There’s a pregnant pause, a heavy stillness that hangs in the air like a lead weight over his head and Hamish is just beginning to wonder if Strife had actually obliged him, when the horseman’s voice cuts through the brick again, considerably softer this time. “You know I can’t do that, little man.”

The boy scoffs aloud. “Yes, you can,” he retorts, “You just have to turn around and leave.”

“Hamish.” The pointed use of his name isn’t lost on the boy. “I am trying to look after you. Now would you come back out here so I can actually do that?”

The voice sounds closer now, as though Strife is speaking directly next to the wall outside his hiding spot and Hamish realises too late what a stupid move it had been to shout and give away his position. So, with lips pursed and arms crossed, he offers the horseman a stubborn silence. A full minute passes before he hears a low sigh from the other side of the wall.

He expects Strife to continue banging on the wall until the sound becomes so annoying, it drives him out. He expects the horseman to at least pretend to leave, then snatch him up again the second he steps from the mouse hole. What Hamish doesn’t expect, however, is for the wall of his kitchen to suddenly explode inwards.

A cacophony of sound beats on his eardrums and in a desperate bid to avoid being deafened, Hamish throws his arms over his head and presses himself into the floor, his scream swallowed by chunks of plaster and brick showering down all around him. When the dust settles, he still doesn’t move, not even when silence is all he can hear aside from the blood pounding through his eardrum.

Then, movement. Not from Hamish, but from the gaping hole that has appeared in the brick and cement, exposing his kitchen – his home – to the world outside. Choking on the fear that weighs down on him as surely as the ceiling above, Hamish raises his head and peeks out between trembling arms to see a colossal fist slowly dislodge itself from the tight confines of his kitchen wall, fragments of which tumble down around it, plinking off metallic plating and leaving a coat of dust in their wake. With a final tug, the fist breaks free, retreating enough so that what little light is left can spill through the gap and illuminate the hovel. As Hamish watches, too rigid with anxiety to move his limbs, a familiar pair of luminous, yellow eyes loom out of the dust and peer inside, swiftly finding him cowered underneath the kitchen table. Their gazes lock and they stare at one another, the boy’s eyes widening as a direct contrast to Strife’s, which narrow at the sight of him.

“You know, I don’t appreciate being lied to,” the horseman grumbles before adding curtly, “I thought we had a deal?”

Pinned helplessly beneath that glare, Hamish attempts to shuffle backwards further under the table, though his limbs have locked up and refuse to cooperate with his intentions. However, his mouth hasn’t suffered the same petrification. “I-I don’t make deals with giants!” The words tumble out before he can catch them. “I’m not going, so just!- Just leave me alone!” As he speaks, he continues to shimmy away until he emerges from beneath the table, all the while his every move is followed intently by an unwavering, yellow gaze.

An entrance to one of the many tunnels his family had built into the walls is just to Hamish’s left – shrouded in darkness and invitingly safe. If he could just reach it, he’d be able to disappear into the brickwork.

Taking a fairly solid guess on the boy’s next course of action, Strife growls out a warning steeped in thinly veiled concern. “Come on, kid. Don’t make me do this.”

With the deliberate slowness of one who doesn’t wish to provoke a predator, Hamish gets to his feet and in utter silence, they stare each other down, one defiant and the other dejected.

Then, the horseman eyes squeeze shut just for the briefest of instances, as if in pain.

It’s all the opening Hamish needs.

Like a rabbit with a fox at his heels, he bolts sideways in a mad dash for the tunnel entrance, his mind fixated on one thing only: Escape.

Although he’d always been the youngest family member, he could boast an impressive swiftness, outpacing even his mother and father as they raced through the apartment in playful capers.

His father had once said that Hamish’s speed would keep him safe.

His father was wrong.

The enclosed doorframe comes within reach and another round of adrenaline fizzes across his brain at the the tantalising prospect of freedom, so close it puts a hopeful smile on his face. He would not be made to leave his home. Fingers grasp the wooden edge of the door and Hamish readies to propel himself those last, precious few feet through the gap. He’s so focused on where he’s going, he doesn’t notice the rush air that whizzes past him, nor that it’s soon followed by a large, ominous shape sliding past his body in the darkness and curling into his path. However, he does notice when he slams against a solid wall of metal and leather - a wall that begins to gently scoop him backwards, away from the door, away from the safety of the apartment’s labyrinthian tunnels and straight towards a home-wrecking giant.

“No!” he shrieks like a banshee as strong fingers fasten around his midsection, ensuring him that this time, there will be no escape. The horseman will not be duped again. All too soon, Hamish finds himself dangling back in front of that avian mask and shying away from the palpable disappointment radiating from beneath it.

“Okay,” the low, unimpressed voice chimes, “I can tell there’re gonna be some trust issues between us.” Before continuing, Strife holds an admonishing finger up right in front of the boy’s face. “But you need to understand that you can’t just run off like that, kid! What if you’d gotten hurt?”

Reflecting on what he’d said, the horseman has to suppress a shudder. ’Shit, I’m starting to sound like Death.’  

“What do you care if I get hurt!?” the boy challenges, “You’re the one who’s kidnapping me!”  

Bridling at the accusation, Strife sets his jaw and snaps, “You got duskwings in your belfry, kid? I’m trying to protect you!”

“I don’t need you protecting me! I was doing just fine on my own!” Hamish bellows, balling his hands into fists and throwing them wildly in the direction of Strife’s mask, more as a show of defiance than anything else. He’s borderline hysterical now, barely sucking down enough air to keep himself conscious during the throes of panic.

Meanwhile, the horseman watches his display, taking in the boy’s skinny frame, the shorts that barely cling to his narrow hips, the dark bags hanging under his eyes and the grime covering his skin and clothes. “No,” he says with an air of finality, “You weren’t.”

There’s no further opportunity for Hamish to retort because he’s promptly swept in a downwards arch towards the horseman’s pouches once again. No amount of pleading, thrashing or crying garners a reaction out of the stone-faced giant who has turned a deaf ear to his tiny captive. Only when he lifts the flap of his frontmost pocket and lowers Hamish inside does he speak, simply to say, “This is for your own good.”

The boy’s backside touches something soft and fuzzy and he balks, inadvertently grasping at the fingers that unfurl from around him, as though they would pull him out of the very prison they’d slipped him into. The last thing he sees before his world is plunged into darkness is a now familiar pair of amber eyes gleaming down at him and pulling a whimper off his lips.

—

Strife expels a hot breath as he fastens the clasp on his pouch and finally allows himself an indulgent second to relax. Then, giving the bottom of the pouch a few, gentle pats, he turns once more towards the pitch black hallway, smirking when a minuscule foot kicks against his palm. 

[goofygoldengirl]

Ok Everyone I’m On A Roll Today

I’m gonna give you a proper explanation as to why we’ll never get a Led Zeppelin movie.

Buckle up cause this is gonna get long. 

We, as classic rock fans live in an age of reminiscence. We take out our records, cds, mp3s and sit back, relax, and think of the glory days that we’ve never experienced if we’re under the age of 50. Even though we’re decently mainstream, The Queen movie Bohemian Rhapsody took interest in classic rock to new heights. It was critically acclaimed, Rami Malek won an oscar, and fans of other bands of the 60s-80s stirred with anticipation for the day they would get their band in the limelight. A fan, like myself, and many others, knowing that 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of Led Zeppelin’s (also referred here as LZ) creation (although they officially got together in 1968) perhaps are wondering if they are going to get a surprise biopic announcement in the near future.

However, I have come to crush everybody’s dreams. The answer is never as long as the remaining band members are still alive. Now before y’all get out your pitchforks, let’s focus our attention to the most important member of this debate: guitarist James Patrick Page, also known as Jimmy Page, Pagey, and Jimmurs back in the deviantart LZ community in 2010.

Although Led Zeppelin arose from the planning and careful selection of the higher ups at Atlantic Records (mostly manager Peter Grant although Jimmy was the one who went out to find members) Led Zeppelin, is Jimmy Page’s masterpiece, his opus magnum, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he thought of his band to be like one of his children, perhaps his favorite. Understandably, he was devastated when the band broke up after drummer John Bonham’s death from alcohol poisoning, and everybody knows he wants the band to be back together in some shape or form. This of course sparked a feud with singer Robert Plant, who also understandably was doing well in his solo career and wanted to move on. Depending on who you talk to, it’s never really been officially resolved despite the 2007 concert and Robert’s final declaration that he will never do anything Led Zeppelin related ever again, Jimmy has focused on other matters such as remixing LZ albums and releasing concert dvds. In addition to that, there are several other matters worth pointing out. In the past, and even to this day, it was extremely difficult to get ahold of LZ songs to use in tv and movie soundtracks because Jimmy, unofficially “in charge” of LZ music distribution is overprotective of how his music is used (probably stemming from LZ’s hatred of concert bootleggers but that’s a different story). We also have a long history of lawsuits that accuse LZ of plagiarism and ripoffs stemming from the 70s, that have taken a hit to LZ’s musical reputation. Looking at Jimmy’s defensive stance over the band’s music and public image, we segway to our next question.

Can a Led Zeppelin movie give an authentic and enjoyable experience for audiences?

We know from the nearly ten year saga to create a Queen movie that there was a lot of contention between the remaining band members and directors over portrayal of the members’ personal lives within Queen, and Queen pushing for a more family friendly image. In the end, the movie earned a PG 13 rating, an acceptable negotiation for both parties, and a good rating to draw in an audience. Assuming that using this model will bring in the most amount of money and recognition for future biopic movies, we shall apply it to the band Led Zeppelin.

A PG 13 rated Led Zeppelin movie would be impossible to do. No offense to Queen (they’re my second favorite band behind Zep so I’m allowed to say this) but they are tame compared to the antics that Led Zeppelin got up to back in their heyday. We’re talking about what you imagine when you think of the rock n roll lifestyle. Loud music, jet setting, partying all night, sex, drugs, trashing hotel rooms, groupies, more drugs, more sex, getting trashed at the club, pump it up baby a whole hecka lotta YOW times10! Led Zeppelin were a bunch of party animal freaks (Bassist John Paul Jones is debatable but there was New Orleans)and well you could attempt to focus directly on the music, but a lot of the music in the later years ties into that crazy rock n roll lifestyle (Sick Again from Physical Graffiti and For Your Life from Presence) and Jimmy Page’s descent into heroin addiction and John Bonham’s gradual and tragic deterioration from years of alcohol abuse had a profound affect on how the band members got along during the In Through The Outdoor sessions and is the reason why it still has a very mixed reception and is ranked low on favorite LZ albums.

A rated R movie could work, you may say. I mean look at the Doors movie. Yeah but even though The Doors got trippy and Jim Morrison was a character man, a Led Zeppelin rated R movie would be a very hard rated R. Again, this goes back to all the tour commotion, where especially in the early years, a lot of sordid stuff happened. And I know you’re thinking, I can live watching a couple of sex scenes. Oh sweet summer child who has not gone through the threshold of transitioning from a Led Zeppelin fan who strictly listens to their music to searching out their history, inspiration, stories from the countless biographies out there, we are talking about some fucked up stuff that I am not gonna even talk about in this post for fear of invoking the wrath of the tumblr flag gods, and that the more sensitive leaning people might consider to be NC17 stuff. And there is a difference between detailing this information in a niche book that only diehard fans will pick up, and putting it in a movie intended for everybody and no shit sherlock you will get controversy. 

And you may ask, who are the subjects of such controversial tales? Basically everybody, although as we said JPJ falls into bassists are usually boring category, Robert Plant had a pretty good amount of moments because no shit he was hot back then and who wouldn’t go wild over him. And our main offenders of depravity and strife? John Bonham, Jimmy Page, and special mention to tour manager (and subject of much controversy within the Led Zeppelin fandom itself) Richard Cole. And if based on director’s tendencies to capture the authentic even if it involves shock content, the depictions of these three men will garner a lot of attention. While John Bonham is dead and cannot speak for himself, the other two can. Based on Richard Cole’s tell all contributions to the classic 1980s publication that detailed LZ’s rise and fall, Hammer of The Gods, he’ll probably just pop up out of the woodworks and bask in the next 15 minutes of fame. But Jimmy? James Patrick I will do anything to keep Led Zeppelin’s reputation in a good light Page? Oh he’ll have a field day alright. And it’s not just bracing ourselves for the inevitable telling directors what they can and cannot put in, it’s also opening the huge, sticky, labeled with a giant TRIGGER WARNING can of worms what exactly Jimmy was doing that would be so controversial both then and now. Now, I know that everyone in the Led Zeppelin fandom knows what I’m about to say, probably some in the classic rock fandom in general who knows things here and there, too, but this is for everybody who doesn’t know. Jimmy Page in the 1970s dated teenage girls. And to clarify, I’m not talking about that gray line that people debate about of 18 technically signaling adult years, yet is still a vulnerable age, I’m talking about girls, minors, who were14-16 when he was nearly or in his 30s. And the relationship that is the most documented (Lori Maddox for the LZ fans reading) oh my god, it is just messed up. Like basically stalked and kidnapped her so they could meet, and in the relationship locked her up in hotel rooms while he was in concerts messed up. You might say it was the 70s, they just turned a blind eye well honey it’s 2019, and a topic as dicey as a grown ass man going after children is not gonna be ignored in this day and age where people are starting to pay more attention to issues like these. I know that if a director decides to devote a segment of that movie to that part of Jimmy’s past (and present if you think about him going out with 20 something year old women when he’s in his 70s) it will basically destroy his own reputation. Which is very, very much intertwined with Led Zeppelin’s. So if he takes a hit, LZ does too, and he cannot afford to let that happen. And if this means having to decline an offer for a biopic in order to preserve a sliver of integrity that is just dangling by a thread as old news becomes common knowledge, so be it. 

Oh yeah the christians will probably get wound up again about LZ being satanic or some shit due to Alestier Crowley and the whole playing Stairway to Heaven backwards thing but hey they’re irrelevant to this discussion

So the TLDR: We’re never getting a Led Zeppelin movie. Reputation is everything to Jimmy Page and a movie that goes into some hardcore detail about band “shenanigans” will serve us a whopping discourse for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, that will get the movie, and the band slammed hard. 

[1stunseeliefaelass]

Warning!!!! Y'all gonna be crying, maybe.

Here's a headcanon I have regarding Strife if he found out about Death being dead. Obviously this would be taking place around the time Haven was being set up and such. I also will be adding an OC version of the Arthurian character Mordred, since I'm shipping Morgen and Death it only makes sense that he's their kid. Mordred just happens to be a small toddler during these events in particular. He's only on Earth by complete accident because he was playing around with teleportation magic and his Mother Morgen was placed in a coma by Lilith around the time too. So yeah sucky all around. This whole spiel will be added into my headcanons later on, but I just wanted to get this little tidbit of the future out to see your guy's reaction.

Strife found himself confronted by one of The Suffering, a large beast that often took a long time to kill. He noticed however, that it's attention wasn't even on him, it was on a small shape trying to escape from under a tarp. Fearing the worst, Strife went into his ultimate form and opened fire on the thing. Not taking chances in the slightest. The beast chose at the last moment to flee, but didn't get far fast enough. Once he was sure it lay dead, shooting it once in the head to double tap, he approached the tarp. He heard child like whimpers from under it and gently lifted it away. Strife was awestruck by the little one he found. A tiny white haired lad with only a single but beautiful wing on his back. This wing and the pointed ears told Strife all he needed to know,

"Mordred?!" He asked surprised.

The small child nodded confirming his identity but remained where he was like a frightened fawn.

"You probably don't remember me, but I'm your Uncle. Here see?" Strife stated calmly before removing his helm.

He gave a goofy smile which Mordred giggled at. He then paused and looked up at seemingly nothing before finally huddling into Strife's arms. Strife minded his little wing and gently scooped him up, noticing him again looking back at his spot again. Confused he finally asked Mordred,

"Hey kiddo, what you lookin' at huh?"

Mordred got excited and pointed towards the spot, "Dada!"

Strife stood there shocked as he saw nothing standing there. But Mordred continued to say that word, indicating that Death should've been there. He finally dared to call out,

"Death?......Bro?"

Getting no response he sighed and went on his way back to Haven, taking Mordred with him. Mordred kept insisting, "Dada!" but Strife blocked him out now. Simply telling the kiddo,

"Mordred, I don't think he's here right now. He'll be back soon though, maybe. For now I need to get you home, if that's even a possibility right now."

Mordred continued his insistence however, "Dada here, he come now. Watching"

Strife found it plain creepy now and convinced Mordred to finally hush. Only for the kid to get a bit huffy. Sighing he picked up his pace to return to Haven. Once within the grounds, he turned into his disguised form of Jones. Making Mordred promise to keep quiet, he then finally went inside. He was welcomed by Ulthane readily, along with a few of the humans inside. They predictably gushed over Mordred and the doctor of the group quickly examined him. He found nothing wrong by human standards, but Ulthane explained that he'd be fine,

"He may be a wee lad, but he's a Faerie. I can tell by that wing. The boy should be fine enough. Though normally Fae don't come to Earth, wonder where he came from."

Jones then spoke up, "I can answer that I think, in private though."

Ulthane obliged him and let Jones follow him to a secret spot. From there he transformed back and placed Mordred down on a stool.

"So how did de wee lad get here Horseman?" Ulthane asked sternly.

"It honestly beats me, figured we could ask him. I doubt Morgen would've sent him here of her own accord after all. Oh wait.....fffffffffffffuuudge." He stated before quickly censoring himself for Mordred's sake.

"I know only one Morgen from de Fae Realm, that being the Lady Le Fay herself. I've heard rumors, as many in creation have. But to have it confirmed, now that's surprising."

"Death is gonna kill me, but yes he and Morgen did....have a thing going. Mordred is the result of that."

Strife suddenly felt something hit the back of his head. He could've sworn it felt like his elder brother whenever he smacked him upside the head. Course Mordred giggled before saying, "Again Dada!"

Strife made an annoyed face before sighing, "Did I forget to mention that kid seems convinced that Death is always around?"

Ulthane thought for a moment and observed Mordred briefly. He only giggled to himself seemingly before Ulthane noticed a bit of his hair move. He had no proof beyond this however, so he'd keep quiet for now on the matter. Only shrugging in response to Strife's inquiry.

"Uh huh, well I'm heading back out. Think you can watch him for now? Or send him home for that matter?" Strife requested simply.

"I don't think we have de ability to send him home yet. But I can certainly keep de lad safe for ye." Ulthane replied.

Strife nodded at this and headed off to make more rounds for survivors. Mordred in the meantime began to play with a piece of wood nearby. Rolling the log between his hands with little care. Ulthane shrugged once more and went back to his work. He had to make sure this gateway was finished before too long. Course Mordred eventually asked a question, one Ulthane didn't catch as his hammer struck the anvil. However, he did catch a faint whisper on the breeze. Pausing, he waited until hearing an unmistakable voice. He couldn't make out what it replied with, but did catch a low chuckle towards the end. He decided to reply back,

"Ye mocking me Horseman? It's not like I can deal with the dead readily."

He heard the voice whisper again, but Mordred translated this time, "Dada says he's taaankful for you watching."

"Ah, well you're welcome Horseman. Ye'd best find a way to get him home though. This is no place for wee ones anymore. And maybe let yer brother know what's become of ye, assuming I'm correct."

Mordred translated his next reply, "Dada says he's trying. But can't take me home. Veil...broken?"

Ulthane nodded, "I see, the veil around the Fae Realm must still be strong on their side. Don't ye worry though Horseman, this portal should be finished soon enough. Though again, you ought to let Strife know."

Mordred replied in his place, "Dada says Uncle Strife'll get mad. And he can't....materializ.....?"

Ulthane chuckled along with the voice, "I think ye mean 'materialize' lad."

Mordred nodded, "Mmhmm. What's dat mean?"

"It means your Da's soul can't appear right now. He's stuck bein' invisible and barely heard. If he could materialize, we'd be seein' and hearin' him." Ulthane explained simply.

Mordred cocked his head a little but seemed to understand. Ulthane noted his reaction, figuring Death must've explained why his soul is all Mordred can see of him right now. Suddenly a loud caw sounded in the air, then a black crow came down the above. In his feet, he carried Death's mask. This he dropped in front of Mordred before landing in the boy's lap. Dust cawed in annoyance as Mordred grabbed him in a hug, but didn't fuss too much. Only pecking the kid when he squeezed too hard. Mordred then let go and settled for stroking Dust as the mask was picked up by who Ulthane assumed was Death. Watching closely, he saw a force beginning to materialize before them. Before long it formed into a shadowy ball of energy with eyes the same color as Death's own. Ulthane chuckled before hearing Death's voice clearly this time,

"Don't get used to this look and don't....ah...laugh. This form actually isn't all that great...ugh....but it's all I can manage for now....woah....I just really hate the erratic movements this form has."

Ulthane watched trying not to bellow in laughter as the Horsemen's current ghostly visage spun in place and jerked about. Death soon landed on Mordred's shoulder, before confiding in the Maker.

"It wasn't easy, knowing Mordred could see me outright after I found him. He still hasn't quite grasped what me being like this means yet either."

Ulthane only nodded, "I won't pretend I know yer pain Death. But I can imagine it's not pleasant."

Death only nodded before saying, "Strife should be able to understand now though. Give my mask to him when he returns, as I can only materialize for a short time before I need to rest my energy. If I overdo it I'll get stuck in the well again. I'm only here in the first place thanks to Azreal noticing me."

Ulthane froze at the name, but quickly regained himself, "I see, yer probably right about him though. Strife may not believe me at first."

"I know he won't. But I attached myself to my mask. He'll take with him, and likely begin hunting for me. I'll appear to him when I feel the time is right." Death says simply.

With that he dematerialized and the energy went inside the mask. Mordred picked it up and hugged it. Already missing his Daddy. Dust made a few quiet sounds to comfort Mordred. Nudging his head against the kiddo.

Strife returned with a batch of more humans sometime later, and found Mordred eating a little depressed while Dust watched him keenly. Seeing that bird surprised him, and then Ulthane stepped forward.

"Yer brother asked that I give you this."

Strife eyed the mask in Ulthane's hands, and quickly took it, "He never takes it off, where'd you get it?!"

"Horseman calm down, yer brother's bird came by with it just a few hours ago. He's been watching your Nephew since then." Ulthane said raising his hands.

Strife eyed the bird suspiciously before telling him, "Dust, lead me to him. Where is he bird?!"

Dust despite being a bird, knew as much as Ulthane did how useless this was. But he flew regardless after snapping playfully as Mordred. Strife hurried after him despite Ulthane calling to him. Ulthane sighed before turning around to see Mordred sniffling to himself. He figured someone had to explain where his Daddy was, and what exactly all of this talk meant. Meanwhile Strife kept following Dust, memories of Death flashing through his mind.

"I'll be damned if I lose you now you son of a bitch! I just started to understand you! I need to know more about you! There's so much I gotta say! It can't be too late now! I won't believe that!" He shouted to himself, Death could tell he already understood clearly.

But the elder allowed Strife to keep running nowhere in particular in search of someone he'd not be finding. At least, not alive anyway. He waited, watched, and listened as Strife grew more and more desperate. He could hear fear in his voice being mixed with sadness as Strife began trying to choke back tears. Death would not judge him for this, how could he given the circumstances. Sure Strife was a turd, but Death still cared deeply about him and the other two. They were his family, and always would be even if he couldn't be there now. Finally, Strife began to make a sorrowful and slow trek back to Haven. Having finally realized that his brother truly was gone. He made it to a small clearing near the great tree and collapsed to his knees. Both exhausted from running all over the place, and just forced down by the weight of the implications that came with Death's demise. His voice was nearly lost due to screaming his name so much. As Strife broke down, Death finally made an effort to appear to his brother. This time he used more energy to appear as his true self instead of that silly, erratic ball of shadow. He waited a few seconds longer still as Strife hugged himself in his pain. Only then did Death hug his younger sibling, doing all he could to hold back his own rising pain. Strife didn't look up, but sensed the presence of his brother. His arms wrapped around Death's ethereal waist, and he sobbed deeply. Death remained steadfast for Strife's sake, trying his best to remain calm. Death's heart only began to break when hearing Strife venting apologies to him. Death hugged Strife tighter at this,

"This isn't your fault. I made the choice to sacrifice myself. For War, for you, and for Fury. You've nothing to be sorry for Strife."

Strife choked out his reply, "I-I still owe you one. For being such an asshole! For being the worst brother ever! For not recognizing your pain sooner!"

"Strife, we're brothers. We'll always get on each other's nerves. I don't blame you for anything you've ever said to me. If anyone should apologize....it's me. I was the worst brother, to all of you. I was wrapped up in my own pain....that I failed recognize pain in you. I failed to see what you were all becoming. War was losing himself in his rage, Fury was becoming bitter towards us in her jealousy, and you....I can't even begin to guess. How fucking sad is that?" Death stated, clearly angered at himself.

"Death, you do so much shit for us. We just didn't notice enough. I....didn't notice it...until it was too late." Strife said beginning to calm down a bit.

"Then we've all failed as a family then. But maybe, I can fix that now. Starting with you. I may not be capable of much anymore, but I can still protect you and Mordred. I can speak to you whenever you need me. Whatever you need from me, I'll do my best to accomplish it. I just need you to be strong Strife. Not just for me, but for Fury and War too. You don't even have to tell them what's happened to me. Just do what you can to begin mending our bond as family. And do what you can for Mordred, since I can't be there for him. At least....not truly."

Strife finally looked up, and removed his visor before wiping away at his eyes, "You know what, you're right. You're always right. I'll be strong for the others, lead em in the right direction. I'll do whatever it takes to help em out. I'll make sure Fury grows past her resentment, that War has a better chance to make it out of this shit. And I promise....I swear on my life...that Mordred will be safe. I'll watch over him like a fucking hawk damn it. I'll do anything for the tyke."

Death smiled and finally let Strife go, "Then I guess that's settled. Let's get back, you have work to do after all. Just remember that I am watching, and don't hesitate to ask what you will of me."

Strife nodded, "Yeah, I'll get on that. All of it. Maybe sometime soon, we can talk to Mordred about what's going on with you? And maybe we can also talk about what you've been through? I want to start getting to know you like I should've been, to know your pain, how you've been feeling."

"The first option for sure, but I don't think it's neccessary for you to take on my pain alongside me." Death said before dematerializing back into his mask.

"Bullshit. If we're gonna start acting like the family we are, then one sibling's pain is our pain too." Strife declared.

Death chuckled at this, "Very well, but only when I feel up for it. Right now, I still have some thoughts to put together. If you really want to know so badly."

[divagonzo]

Knight’s Side Castle - Ch. 4 of Beloved

Ch. 1 - Bishop’s Castle Ch. 2 - Pawn Ch. 3 - Knight

Ao3 // FF.net

A/N: In light of the lovely Ace followers, this is the PG-15/15 version of the story. Ao3 has the unedited version for appreciation.

Tagging Tagging @xweasleyfraserx, @remedial-potions ,@weasleymama @kingronw @vivithefolle @austenpoppy @melimelrockswell1204 @ashleopardd @hillnerd since people asked to be tagged when this first went around. (Sorry @justsaya for the extra tag.)

Tags: There’s some serious rowing in this one. So if you’re easily upset at intense arguments, you might want to IM/ask me so I can summarize for you.

“We came as soon as I heard,” Percy and Audrey slipped into the room with the rest of the family. “How is he?” Audrey kept back, looking splendid in her pale blue mind healer robes. “If I’m late for work so be it,” Percy spoke up.

“Alive, thankfully,” Arthur stood up first and went to give his middle son a hug. It wasn’t as awkward like it was years prior but tension filled the room. He hugged Audrey too, smiling at her. They hadn’t been engaged a month yet. “But that’s all we know for now.” Percy bent over to hug his Mum firmly, whispering something in her ear before she said something back too quiet for the others to hear.

“He got hurt on the mission,” Harry added. “We were out chasing a werewolf and – “

“The Healers will try to wake him later,” Molly interrupted, dry washing her hands on her lap.

“The Healers don’t know if he will wake,” Hermione wiped her eyes, for what looked like the hundredth time this morning. “It’s bad, Percy.” Audrey came over and hugged Hermione, whispering in her ear before the younger witch nodded back.

Percy turned and took a long, hard look at his youngest brother. He took his glasses off, pulling a kerchief from his pocket and cleaned his glasses. “How? I mean, how did he get hurt?”

“Our forth was on loan from the Welsh office. He cocked up,” Harry spoke up.

“You never said that git Trowbridge was on loan from the Welsh office.” Hermione’s dark eyes turned towards Harry and he felt the first instinct to recoil. She turned back to Percy. “That git hurt my husband accidentally.”

“Well, he was and it was, Hermione. He screwed up his wand movements and misaimed. It wasn’t intentional. We knew he was not the best but he was all we had available at that time. It’s not like we can ask a loose werewolf to go curl up and sleep while we try to scare up someone more competent than a troll.”

“And you just now thought of telling us, that Ron might die because you couldn’t be arsed to speak up and say, No, that git isn’t going with us.” Some of her hair escaped the wrap around her hair, covering her face before she tried to swipe it away before falling back in her eyes.

“It’s not like we have a choice in the matter, Hermione. It was a werewolf on the loose in a mostly muggle village. We took who we had and went with it. How was I supposed to know that he was completely incompetent? We thought he was only half-way incompetent.”

“Oh, I dunno, maybe tell that witch Jones that you’re not having someone who could kill my husband going out on the mission with you. Did you ever think of the others on your team?”

“This isn’t some cushy desk job where you sit and write legislation all day to protect others,” Harry snarled.

“Enough!” Audrey’s firm voice interrupted. “Harry, take a walk. Go eat something but go take a walk.”

Piercing green eyes turned on his eventual sister-in-law. “I am not – “

“I’m not asking, Harry,” Audrey kept her voice light and jovial but the edge was underneath it. Everyone in the room was watching, much like when he first faced the Norwegian Ridgeback way back when.

“Fine,” he stood and grabbed his jacket. “Rowing with Hermione isn’t how I want to spend my hours worrying about my best friend,” he slid past Audrey and to the door. “But I’ll be arsed if I’m the one to blame for this whole fucked up situation.” He slipped out, leaving it ajar.

“I’ll see if I can sooth his ruffled scales,” Arthur got up, “Maybe get some tea and scones for us,” He slipped out of the room silently, leaving the others behind.

An audible sniff broke the tension in the room.

Percy bent over the end of the bed, holding his head between his hands, saying something under his breath. When he stood up, he pushed his glasses back on. His eyes were puffy and red. “I can’t stay but I’ll be by after work. If anything changes before then, someone let me know,” his eyes fell on Hermione and she nodded in silent agreement.  She sniffed before raking the back of her hand across her face.

Percy went to the head of the bed and leaned over, making sure to not touch his brother’s head. Cracked lips were an inch from the Quidditch helmet covering the bandaging around Ron’s head. The contusions on his face clashed with the bright ginger hair on Percy’s head. He spoke quietly, so quiet that no one could hear him before he stood up and went to give hugs for the others. “I’ll let the Minister know,” his voice was rough.  Percy found Ron’s size 12 feet and squeezed them once. Percy left the room, leaving the women behind.

“Healer Cattermole, how long have you been on duty?”

The junior healer looked up from her expansive parchment at the older woman. “Since 8 last night. Things have been touch and go since Midnight with Auror Weasley.”

Audrey glanced around at the others. Molly was looking at Ron, trying to hide the tears leaking down her face with the handkerchief from her housecoat before tucking it back in and then pulling it right back out. Hermione had her head in her hands, shaking without making a sound.

“Why don’t you take an hour and grab a bite to eat or take a kip?”

“But I am supposed – “

“I’ll cover for you for an hour.”

“But Healer Greengrass and – “

“Nonsense. I can cover for an hour. I don’t want you exhausted and make a mistake. I promise to wake you if anything changes.”

“Yes, you’re right,” She slumped in the chair. “I’ll go get a kip.” The junior healer left her parchment and quill on the desk. She slipped out of the room, leaving the Weasley wives behind.

Audrey picked up the parchment and scanned it. She stopped, looked over the top of it at Ron in the bed and then went back to it, scanning it again.

“What does it say?” Hermione asked.

“Most of it is medical jargon. It’s quite boring,” Audrey looked back at the parchment.

“Rubbish,” Hermione spoke up. “What does it say?”

“Hermione, I – “

“Audrey, my parents are dentists. I read their medical books as a child. I have some understanding, even if it’s not as detailed as you might have.”

“You would,” she muttered under her breath. “You’re not going to like it.” The two women shared a long look, not bothering to look at Mrs. Weasley.

“Please,” Hermione begged.

Audrey pierced her with a hard look before relenting. “Don’t say I didn’t try to protect you.”

“That passed years ago and you know it.”

“I know.” She took a deep breath. “The Healers, including the junior healer, laid out their diagnoses and what they hope they can accomplish.”

“And?”

“Everything in this says to keep him comfortable and pain-free. They,” her voice broke a moment, “they don’t expect him to wake and eventually succumb to his injuries.”

“They did not,” Molly interrupted. “They said he would wake.”

“They said he probably would,” Hermione spoke over her. “I can’t believe they fed us a line of rubbish.”

“They aren’t, Hermione. What this is discussing is what reasonable outcomes they consider. Of course they want the best outcome. We all do. They aren’t going to give up on him. And it also discusses options when he does wake. You’re getting bent over normal medical information.”

“But that’s not what the junior healer wrote there.” Hermione came over to demand the parchment.

“I can’t let you read it. If you did she would be fired immediately and I would too. I can’t share this.”

“But you said – “

“I can discuss generalities. I can’t discuss specifics.”

“Bullshit,” She snapped. “This is all bullshit. I want answers and you’re feeding us Dragon dung. We need some Neurologists brought in. I’m going to call my parents and get the name of the best one in London.”

“Hermione,” Audrey tried to calm Hermione down.

“No, I won’t. We need them. We need another opinion. Or three. I will not stand by waiting for him to perish when I could do more than sit on my arse waiting on him to wake when it’s not guaranteed, much less expected.”

“Hermione, please, he’s getting – “ Molly tried to quell her.

“No,” she screeched. “He has to get better.”

“Hermione, I’ve read everything on the page, including what happened to him. The prognosis for what they had to do to save his life, it’ll be a bloody miracle he will wake.”

“He has to wake!” She shouted. “I’m not going to sit on my arse and do nothing to help.”

“Hermione, hush. That’s enough. I know you’re -”

Hermione cut across Molly. “No, I won’t. I can’t lose him. I refuse to sit idly by when he’s in this state. He’s come so far,” she yelled. “We’ve come so far.” She turned and yelled his way. “Don’t you dare leave me, Ron Weasley! You promised!”

“Hermione, yelling at him won’t make him wake.”

She turned, snarling. “Yes, it will! It worked for me.” She went up near his head. “Ron, wake up! Ron!” She grabbed his larger than life hand, dwarfing her own. “Ron, please, wake up!”

Molly went to hug Hermione from behind. She shrugged her off, twirling on her. “Don’t you tell me to calm down.” She turned back to Ron and pulled his hand to between hers, squeezing off and on. “He got to wake! I can’t do this without you!”

“Why do you think you’re alone in this, Hermione? We’re here. It’s not like – “

Hermione huffed, trying to regain her composure and failing. She turned on Molly. “Oh, like how you had no qualms listening to liars trying to cause strife and not asking me? How you were more than happy to send Harry and Ron monstrous amounts of sweets at Easter and barely anything for me, all because of that dung beetle Skeeter writing rubbish about me.” Hermione started shaking. “How about when I sent my parents off to Australia and when I arrived at your home you barely acknowledged me for the first week and only when Harry arrived that you deigned to speak with me? And I won’t even discuss how you intentionally kept me apart from Ron then, when nothing was happening between us, thinking me a scarlet woman already?

“If anything did happen to Ron, I would not be welcome anymore. You’ve shown me that time and time again.”

“That’s not true,” Molly hissed.

“Really? I remember you screaming at me to not hurt George when he was pissed at Harry’s birthday party, or how you branded me a scarlet woman, chasing me off because you couldn’t cope with Ron choosing me over you. And let’s not forget you telling Ron to abandon me to come live at home with you and Arthur and Ginny when he’d already told you what he was going to do and it wasn’t that. Or don’t you remember those terrible things you told me the week before we left to go to Australia to find my parents? Don’t you remember those horrible things when we came back? Or how you didn’t give a damn about me, only the rules of your home?”

Audrey stepped between the two witches, feeling the animosity bouncing off of her. She chose to focus on Molly. “Molly, how about I join you for some tea and then you run home to get changed? I know you want to be here today and wearing your housecoat and slippers won’t be that comfortable.” how about I join you for some tea in a moment and we can leave Hermione here with her husband a bit?”

Molly ignored her sodden handkerchief and focused on Audrey’s suggestion. “Yes, I think I will do that, and come back in an hour or so too.” She stared past Audrey, seeing Hermione falling apart. “Maybe having some tea and toast this morning will help.”

When she turned back, Hermione was bent over the edge of the bed, slowly soaking the white blanket covering his feet. Audrey understood that the two witches with her were on edge but the two of them would break if they kept at it.

Molly wiped her face before stuffing the linen handkerchief back up her sleeve. “Tea and a shower would be nice. Yes, I think I will.” Molly picked up her purse and slung it up onto her shoulder. She opened her mouth to say something but closed it, shaking her head in grief.

Audrey went behind Molly, closing the door yet leaving a crack. “Hermione, you’ll call us if anything changes? I will be back in five minutes.”

She ignored them when they left the room.

Hermione moved to the side of his bed, taking his left hand and rubbing her fingers over the hand-carved goblin silver band that he never took off. “Please, come back to me.” Hermione knelt down at the side of his bed, holding his hand. “I can’t lose you.” She kissed it gently before taking his hand and placing it on her face.

“Ron, I’m going to be late!” Hermione tried to throw Ron’s arm off of her but he held her tight, snuggling closer under the covers.

“Ten more minutes. I just got here.” His face was muffled in her hair but she learned to understand him with a mouthful of her hair in his face.

“It’s been two hours, Ron. I have to get up.”

“Call in, Hermione. I’ve not seen you in a week.”

“And I’m in the middle of a project for work.” She slid out from under his arm to the edge of the bed. “I’m due to present it Friday morning. I’ll take off after and spend the next few days at home with you. I’ll take off three days for you.”

He groaned. “Don’t bother. I’m being sent out Wednesday on a mission and don’t know when I will return.” Ron pulled the pillow over his head. “I get it. Isalright,” he mumbled before drifting off to sleep, missing her stricken expression and a tear falling down her face.

Hermione collapsed on top of him, completely satiated. It had been a week since they’d done this and her heavy breathing betrayed how much she did need him that way.

An enormous hand worked its way down her spine, resting low on her hips. “Do you have any idea how much I needed that shag?”

“Probably more than I did,” she replied back, trying to gather her wits about her from such an energetic session and failing miserably.” Hermione looked up at the blue eyes she loved and saw mirth dancing over his face.  “Then again, I did miss your hands on me.” She blushed and turned away from his face. “They are amazing hands, so talented.”

She lifted her head and saw his other hand pulling the hair away from her face and threading it behind her ear. “Oh so you liked that earlier when I  - “

She looked away. “That was different, absolutely.”

His eyes creased. “You, you didn’t like that? But I saw you reading in that book and – “

“That? And you read it too?”

“Well, yeah. I even made note of the bookmarked page so I could read that. Last Mission was bloody boring when I wasn’t on surveillance. So I thought I’d pluck up a copy and see what was so fascinating to you. Once I read that, I said why not try it and see?”

Hermione blushed hard. “It wasn’t like that, Ron.”

“It wasn’t?” His voice cracked and blanched.

“No,” she dropped her eyes to his chest and toyed with the smattering of gold hairs cresting his chest. “I was reading up on it because of something Gi – “

“Please don’t mention anyone in my family right now,” He groaned. The pillow exploded under his head, compressing down. “It’s not that I don’t know you compare notes with the others but damn, that’s barmy.”

“Anyway, someone we both know mentioned something interesting happened and it got me curious so I found that book at the local library and was reading up on it while you were away the last time. I found it academically interesting, not necessarily something I did want to try. I thought about it and discarded the idea. I didn’t realize that it might be something that would interest you.”

“So I nicked that book and read that rubbish, thinking that was something you wanted to try and it wasn’t?” He tossed his head back into the pillow, groaning from what happened. “And it was your curiosity to get you to read it? Merlin, I’m such a tosser.”

“Ron, it’s fine. It surprised me. That’s all.”

Ron lifted her arm off of his body to sit on the edge of the bed, shaking his head. “No, it’s not. I should have asked instead of trying to surprise you with something like that.” He looked at her, sitting on the edge of the bed with him. “I know you aren’t fond of surprises or anything you don’t bring up first.” He got up and went to the loo. Moments later, the shower turned on, leaving Hermione boggled at what just happened.

“Oh good, you’re still here.” Ron popped his head into her workspace known as an office. Books and parchment were stacked everywhere. “Want to pop over to the Leaky for a bite before I go on shift?”

“I’d love to but I have to finish this report tonight. We busted an elf smuggling ring and brought in a dozen elves that had been trafficked in from Belgium. My report to Cutcliffe is due in the morning.”

“Oh.” Ron’s face fell.

“But I can bring dinner by for you once I finish with this. It won’t be but an hour or so.”

“No, it’s fine.” He sighed. “Jones has us out for a training session tonight. I dunno when I’d return so don’t wait on me in the morning.” Ron disappeared before Hermione could move her chair back from the desk. By the time she got to her door, knocking over half a dozen sheets of parchment Ron was already in the lift at the end of the hallway, looking forlorn before the doors closed with a thud.

“Ron?”

“Hmmm.”

“We’ve been invited over to my parents for brunch today.”

“Hmmm.”

“Would you come with me? I don’t think I can handle Mum right now. She’s on a tear and I dunno if I can cope with her criticism today, not after the week I had. At least with you there, you know when it’s time to fake an emergency and we have to go.”

Ron put down the morning edition of the Daily Prophet, scanning the Saturday Quidditch scores. “Sorry, Hermione but I can’t.” He picked the paper back up and continued to read.

“Why? You actually love my Mum’s cooking. Dad enjoys spending time with you, too.”

“I promised George I’d be at the shop at 10 to work today so he could take the day off. He’s not had a day off in three weeks.”

“Ron,” she whigned. “An hour then?”

“I can’t, Hermione. I wish you’d have asked me Thursday. I could have told George no or made other arrangements with him.”

“I didn’t find out until Thursday evening. It slipped my mind until this morning.”

“Sorry, love, but I promised.”

Ron got up from the couch, pointed his wand at the wireless to turn off the Quidditch recap. He folded the paper back up the way she liked and put it on the coffee table. “Maybe next time, perhaps?” She was left standing in the living room, wondering where she went wrong.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

Harry kept writing, trying to finish his thought for the report due in an hour.

“Harry, when is he coming back?”

Harry kept his eyes on his parchment, writing while also considering what Hermione asked. “I dunno, Hermione. He was called into Robard’s office along with Williamson and they were in there a while. When they did come out, Ron went home, was gone maybe ten minutes tops before returning with his Ruck. They left this morning and I’ve not heard a thing since.” He kept writing, hoping to finish with -

“It’s not like him to not tell me when he’s sent off on a mission.”

Harry finally looked up, tossed his quill down on the desk and pushed his chair back. “These things happen from time to time.”

“But he always tells me when he’s sent off. He knows I go mental if he leaves without saying something.”

“I dunno what I can tell you, Hermione. I don’t even know what he was sent off for. It’s not like they run every mission by me, you know? I’m only a junior Auror myself. I have no control over who is sent off on a mission, much less knowing everything happening outside of this department.”

“Yes, I know,” she huffed. “I wish he’d at least have sent me a memo.”

“Maybe there was no time? They did leave in a hurry from the portkey office.”

“Maybe,” she looked over at his desk, seeing how organized it was and tidy, too. “It looks like he won’t be back for a while, the way his desk looks.”

He saw Robards starting out from his office. He was on a short leash today it seems. “I dunno, Hermione. Sometimes we plan on being gone a month and its two days. Sometimes it’s 2 days and turns into weeks. We just don’t know until we get into the situation. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

She sighed again. “Dinner then, after work?”

Harry grimaced. “Sorry but Ginny is back from Berlin and I promised her a fancy dinner date in Soho. Who thought being a professional Quidditch player would change your tastes in food?”

“Oh, ok. Well, have a good time tonight.” She picked up her briefcase and walked out of the department while trying to hide the tears that were falling down her face.

Hermione jumped into Ron’s arms, peppering his face with a plethora of kisses. “You were gone so long,” she cried into his neck. “You never sent word while you were away.” She burrowed into his neck absorbing the sweat, stink, smoke and just how Ron naturally smelled.

Ron lowered her to the ground and buried his nose in her hair. The weight of the cocked up mission fell off of his shoulders. “I couldn’t. Robards forbid us from making any contact with anyone who wasn’t an Auror, and even then, only him or Jones. I couldn’t even tell Harry about it.”

Hermione pulled back from his jumper and looked at him with concern. “Ron, you smell of fire and of blood. What happened? Are you hurt? Is Harry hurt?”

“I… I can’t talk about it.”

“But I’m your – “

“Mission orders, from Kingsley himself.” He slumped slightly. “Merlin knows I want to tell you. God knows I do. But I can’t talk about it. I just can’t.”

“That bad?”

“Yeah, it was.” Ron threw his cloak and jacket off. “And I need a shower. It’s been too long without one.” He pulled the jumper off and grimaced.

“You’re hurt.” She looked up at him, studying his face.

“Yeah, I am. But I’ve been checked out by a healer and I have a few days off. It’s nothing a few days of rest won’t help.”

“Well, let’s tend you in the shower and see how badly you’re hurt.” She reached her hands to the vest on his body and he caught her hands, holding them like you’d hold a baby kneazle. “As much as I’d love a leg over tonight in the shower, I’m completely knackered. So if you want to scrub my back and let me sleep the next sixteen hours, I’ll make it up to you in the morning.”

Hermione bit her tongue to keep from screaming. But if that’s what Ron needed, she’d do that for him, even if it meant missing him for another week.

She couldn’t bear to tell him that she was leaving in the morning for a conference in Florence and would be gone until Friday evening.

Audrey held two cups of tea, one fresh and one tepid. The day old scones, freshened up slightly for crème tea were her second favourite for breakfast but in this case, anything is better than nothing. She bumped the door with her hip to quietly slip into the room and froze for a moment, thinking that everything went to hell. Hermione was laying her head under his hand, crying. “I can’t lose you. I need you. We need you. You have to come back to me, to us.”

[itstimetowatch]

Normal is the Watchword

So Veronica is working a normal, almost certainly less potentially lethal job. Makes sense. If my last job had me almost burned alive or killed via smoke inhalation, I probably wouldn’t want to do that job anymore either. However, it was made pretty clear during Season One that Veronica was a fairly vital part of Mars Investigations, that she would often handle a lot of work for her dad while he was out running down bail jumpers. How is Keith managing to either do all of this himself or pay all the bills with a reduced workload? Veronica’s minimum wage plus tip sharing almost certainly isn’t offsetting the work she was doing at Mars Investigations, especially given that Keith ended last season in the hospital.

It feels strange to see Veronica turn down a case. I mean, I can only assume it’s just a tease, but it’s still weird.

So in addition to losing his Nancy Drew, Keith has also spent time away from his detective work writing a book? Like that’s some easy thing to do in one’s spare time? The spare time that a hard working PI obviously has a lot of? Sure, the advance would have potentially been huge (A-list celebrity murderer, sex scandal, institutional incompetence… y’know, all the things that made it a compelling season of television). It would have been huge, that is, if Keith was in any way an established writer, which he wasn’t. Once again, Hollywood writers don’t understand how money works.

Also, there’s no way something like that gets written, edited, and published over the course of a summer.

Does Julie Chen as Herself on a fictionalized episode of her show count as me recognizing a guest star from something else? Feels like a cheat to me.

So it wasn’t Wallace at the door. Why on Earth is Logan not at the hospital?

Did we finally get a name for the bike gang? Did he say PCHers? As in like Pacific Coast Highway? Or does it stand for something else?

Okay, fleeing the scene of a murder? Well, that would certainly be a reason not to go to the hospital but going directly to your girlfriend’s house isn’t the best place to hide. So this is the new season-long mystery, I assume?

Wallace is back to his Afro. I think it’s a better look for him, anyway. And a conspiracy of failed drug tests is the mystery for the episode.

Dick and Beaver are in the main credits? Ugh! You guys could have warned me.

As is Tessa Thompson (from Dear White People and Creed and Westworld and soon to be Thor: Ragnarok), apparently.

So how is Jake allowed to leave town while under indictment? Oh, wait, of course, he’s a billionaire. Nevermind.

So I think Veronica’s being a little self-centered there, thinking she’s the sole reason for Duncan and Logan’s strife. I feel like Logan’s father murdering Duncan’s sister probably plays a slightly larger part in their beef.

So Veronica has given up her life of crime-solving but she still carries around her enormous PI camera, what, just in case?

WHAT? Veronica and Meg are feuding? Over Duncan? *Sigh*

Glad Keith and Alicia are still going strong, though.

Um, nosey-ass Veronica doesn’t know that Clemmons has a son who’s a classmate of hers? That seems unlikely. I mean, I guess he’s an underclassman, a sophomore to Veronica’s senior, but still, he would have been at Neptune last year. Last season, she seemed to know (or at least know of) almost everyone at the school.

“I avoid knowing freshmen” seems fairly arbitrary, but I guess she didn’t know anything about Justin in “Meet John Smith” last year either, so arbitrary or not, it is at least consistent. 

I wouldn’t necessarily expect Veronica to know this but a dose of a drug so small that you never feel the effects of the drug would almost certainly not show up on a drug test.

So is Shelley Pomroy named after a family member of one of the writers or the crew? I only ask because they seem to love mentioning her name without ever actually making her an actual character on the show. I think she’s had one scene during the flashbacks in “A Trip to the Dentist” and she was a non-speaking extra.

This is really early in the episode to have figured out the mystery. Okay, the connection is circumstantial right now, but this isn’t a procedural show, it’s a mystery show. Once the mystery is solved, then you have a limited amount of time that you can continue the story before it becomes tedious. Are we going to spend fifteen minutes of episode working on the season-long mystery? And if Logan’s already cleared, isn’t it a job for Sheriff Shithead?

So, Class Warfare has now turned into Actual Warfare over the summer? Well, that’s… terrifying.

That is Charisma Carpenter as (one assumes) Dick and Beaver’s step-mom? Or their dad’s girlfriend or something?

Okay, so they played the pronoun game with Veronica’s love life to avoid revealing that Veronica is back with Duncan rather than Logan, okay fine, but now that previous scene with Veronica and Wallace seems a lot harsher in hindsight. Duncan missed the first day of school to go visit his father (who’s presumably in some white collar jail because his lawyers negotiated him a sweetheart deal). Veronica and Wallace said they didn’t understand why he would want to do that, because they were trying to imply that they were talking about Logan and his dad, who slept with and then murdered his girlfriend, as opposed to Duncan and his father, who attempted to cover up said murder because he thought he was protecting his son from prison or an institution. See the difference?

And it’s Krysten Ritter! From Breaking Bad and Jessica Jones.

Why is Logan getting defensive about the fact that someone has already been killed in this clash of classes? It wasn’t an 09er who died.

What has this bus trip got to do with anything? Did they forget they were an hour long show and suddenly write a half hour worth of material? They’ve worked out the mystery. The bad guys have been caught. What’s going on?

Steve Guttenberg? Where on Earth did they find him?

Where was this field trip to? Last season Neptune was right outside of San Diego which (at the time) had the Padres, an MLB team which was name-checked often last season. Now they’re visiting a team called The Sharks at what appears to be a really nice stadium. This is no minor league team… especially not in the immediate suburbs of the major league club’s hometown.

So is this meant to be, like, LA? But then Guttenberg is running for mayor of Neptune? This all makes no sense.

And what does any of this have to do with anything?

Also, Krysten Ritter as the vapid, girly girl? HA!

A fortune cookie? That’s what wins Veronica over?

And they have to stop for gas? In a school bus? That is designed to drive all over town, making frequent stops? Where the hell is this baseball stadium and how does the team owner get to run for mayor of Neptune if he doesn’t live or work in Neptune? I mean, I guess technically he doesn’t have to live near the stadium to own the team, but in most cases, the owner is expected to be a frequent fixture at team’s home games.

Um, Lilly’s ghost? Okay, first of all, they wrapped her story up at the end of the last episode. Is she going to keep showing up?

Ah, Weevil’s not too pissed at her. You’re still a good man, Eli.

Um, holy shit!

Okay, so that’s was the point of the bus trip. It still had nothing to do with anything else in the episode. 

I don’t know about Veronica’s comment that nothing happens by accident in Neptune. I mean, just off the top of my head it’s a lucky accident for Aaron that the Kanes thought Duncan killed Lilly and covered up Aaron’s murder for him. I take the comment to mean that this is also going to be an ongoing investigation this season.

This episode is very poorly constructed. Like they should have established the field trip much sooner, and honestly, it really should have been the entire plot this episode (or at least the frame on which to hang all of the flashbacks) and then save the Wallace’s Failed Drug Test plot next episode that way you get at least episode out of the “I’m not a detective anymore” storyline, instead of having her give in immediately. 

As is there are two distinct parts to this episode and they are completely at odds tonally and content-wise. It’s really jarring and after having finished it, the first two-thirds of the episode now feels almost completely irrelevant… which, generally speaking, is a bad thing, especially for season premieres.

Also, the thing where Lilly’s ghost saved Veronica’s life? Veronica had several interactions with Lilly’s ghost last season but it was always either a dream or it was a fairly obvious manifestation of her subconscious. It’s never provided her information she didn’t already know, so this is weird and inconsistent. I mean, she could have just looked out the window, seen Weevil for herself, and then decided to go talk to him.

Then there’s the whole Veronica/Meg thing. I loathe with the power of a thousand blazing suns the tired cliche of female friends fighting over a boy. First of all, I don’t buy it from Meg. She started dating Duncan when he was Veronica’s ex without so much as an “Are you okay with this?” and now I’m supposed to think that she’s going to pull this on Veronica? Secondly, I don’t really buy Veronica trying this hard to make things okay between them again. That’s not really her thing. This all feels like out of character behavior to create forced drama just as an excuse to keep Meg on the bus... because apparently, Veronica can’t have female friends. (I mean, seriously, Dick and Beaver are fulltime but not Mac?)

Is Tessa Thompson going to be the next version of Miss Dent? The black woman whose name is in the credits but almost never actually appears in the show?

[scapeartist]

@handypolymath put out a general tag for anyone wanting to play the top/bottom 5 kudosed fics on AO3. Thought I would play along. Trying to get back into a fic frame of mind.

Starting with the sad and lonely bottom:

Odin's Emissary (0 Kudos): A character study of Eric from the Sookie Stackhouse series. I loved early Eric from the books. Sigh.. 

Being a former soldier, Ocella still found it difficult to stay away from combat, and when Ocella was set on going, Eric could not refuse him even if he had wanted to. Besides, following a large army on the move provided so many opportunities for steady meals it was hard to resist. Eric, too, would feel a rush at the thought of the thousands of beating hearts all converging on one place ready to be stopped by spear, sword, bullet, or fang.

Slice of Strife (1 kudos): Based on the prompt "Captain Hook & Pizza." This takes place during season 2 of OUAT after Emma leaves Captain Hook in a storage closet in NYC when he attempted to kill Gold.

He’s not sure how long he’s knocked out, but when Hook awakens, his head is throbbing and he cannot see. The floor beneath him is smooth underneath the thin layer of grit, and he’s sure he’s never smelled anything like what’s assailing his nostrils right now. It’s overpowering, burns, and leaves an oily feeling in the back of his throat. He coughs trying to clear it, but all that does is send a shooting pain through his skull.

Dead Men Don't Tell Tales (3 kudos): This Farscape fic takes place during the season 3 hiatus and was my take on how Crichton and the gang would take down Scorpius. I was right about at least one part, so go me! 

She hadn't been down there since before he died in her arms. Aeryn had watched helplessly as Stark and Crais had carried John's body away, still covered in the red blanket they shared. They had taken him to the med bay to initiate the cryogenic process to keep him until they found Moya again, and then they placed him in the cryo pod stored at the back of the cargo bay. It was hard not to think of him back there alone in the dark-it was even harder to think of jettisoning his body into cold space. But now, she would have preferred he was floating millions of metras away than used as a decoy to fool Scorpius, whom she secretly doubted could be deceived at all.

Bicorne (3 kudos) Based on the prompt "Liam Jones & Uniform." It’s a short, dialog only bit about a special occasion between the brothers during their Naval days. 

“How do I look?”

“Ridiculous.”

“Looking for a flogging are you?”

Ascension and Dissension (3 kudos): Another short piece based on the prompt "Lt. Jones and Apprehension." Filler for the flashbacks of “Good Form.”

“It’s doom,” the boy said, and something in his tone of voice gave Killian pause.

Perhaps it was the unwavering certainty of the pronouncement, perhaps it was his choice of word, but no matter what the reason, every part of Killian tensed like a line being pulled by a desperate fish at the end of a hook.

And now on to the top 5:

Time and Again (114 kudos): Part 9 of the Drinks with the Prince series, takes place during "Snow Drifts" and "There's No Place Like Home." Killian and David chat at Granny's before and after his and Emma's time traveling adventures.

The Prince moved slowly through the crowd, as if looking for something, while Hook approached him from the far end of the counter where the alcohol was being set up. He had tucked a mug of beer for himself into the crook of his hooked arm, the mug he'd procured for David in his hand. They met in the middle of the room, guests of the party maneuvering around them to get a glimpse of the royal child.

As You Don't Wish (115 kudos): Emma Swan buys a ship in a bottle and gets more than she bargained for in the shape of a genie pirate. (Based on a short story by Neil Gaiman.)

Emma Swan didn’t know what possessed her to buy the dusty, old, ship-in-a-bottle at the dimly-lit antique shop downtown, but she couldn’t resist the perfect, billowed sails, nor the cheery yellow trim along its rails and hull. It was a ship fit for the open seas.

She had no idea where she was going to keep the thing.

20 Questions and a Bagel (141 kudos) Captain Cobra. Takes place early in season 3b. Henry and Hook have a conversation while waiting for Emma. (Yes, there are 20 questions in it.)

Henry closes the door behind Hook and walks over to the small coffee table in front of the couch he had been sitting at. There are bags and napkins and cups strewn about the surface and Henry points at a lumpy bag. "Wanna bagel? They aren't as good as the ones we have at home, but they're better than nothing."

"I am feeling a bit peckish. Thank you, lad." Hook sits down on the couch and picks up the bag, peering into it. It smells heavenly—the scent of cinnamon most prevalent—and the bread is still slightly warm. He grabs the first one he can reach and pulls it out, sniffing it with his eyes half closed. It’s been far too long since he’s had sweets of any kind.

Sit, Stay, Feel (157 kudos) Modern AU: Emma Swan is the owner of Pet Savior — a dog training/walking/sitting service. Killian Jones, and his dog Gale, are her clients.

The blonde human and the sleek black canine had been a team since Gale started with Pet Saviors as a 12-week old rambunctious ball of fluff about a year ago. In that whole time, Emma hadn't met Gale's owner. They communicated by notebook — he would leave instructions or training requests and she would write a little something about Gale's day — but they had never crossed paths. Their "conversations" amused Emma more often than not because they frequently pretended to write as if they were Gale. It was silly, but once it (he) started there was no going back. Some days those notes were the only thing worth laughing about. Nonetheless, Emma never felt a need to get to know Gale's owner since the whole point of Emma being with Gale was to break up the dog's lonely day and give her the exercise she needed to not be a furniture eating lunatic. People weren't Emma's thing anyway, so notes and the random email worked just fine for Emma and Gale's "Dad," Killian Jones.

Laundry Day (161 kudos) CS Smut. That’s really probably all I need to say, and explanation for why this is my top kudosed fic. But here’s the description anyway: Hook's doing laundry and Emma needs to see it for herself.

Emma rolled her eyes at her father and attempted to refocus on the paperwork in front of her, which was futile, because, seriously. How does a three-hundred-some year-old pirate do laundry? Washboard? Pounding his clothes on rocks? Mmmm...pounding…. Stop. She tried not to picture it (in any more detail) because in every scenario that arose, he was buck naked, and, well, she was still sharing office space with her father for Pete's sake. Blowing an errant hair from her face (definitely not trying to cool the blush blooming across her face), and shifting in her seat (because the uncushioned chair was uncomfortable, not because anything down below was beginning to tingle or heat up or in need of relief), Emma rattled the papers again pretending she was being productive. Jesus Christ.

And there you have it. The good, the bad, and the kudoed. Consider yourself tagged if you want to play. 

[seriouslyhooked]

So Close (The CS Mixtape) Part 143/?

Series of CS oneshots inspired by music. Collection on FF Here.

A/N: This is a reader requested EF AU somewhat based on the dance sequence in ‘Enchanted.’ Emma and Killian knew each other before and fell in love, but Emma is in an arranged marriage (of sorts) when this story takes place. Killian comes to the palace dressed as a prince and they share a dance. You can all probably guess what happens next (and yes I managed to throw a proposal in here, because it’s me and I live dangerously). Inspired by the song ‘So Close’ by Jon McLaughlin.

Once upon a time I would have loved this, Emma thought to herself as she stared out into the sea of people from her kingdom who were enjoying the royal ball this evening.

It was a familiar site for Emma, with the grand fashions and the measured steps of people’s movements against the backdrop of sweet playing music. There were guests enjoying food and drink, laughing in merriment, and celebrating the good news that a new day was coming to Misthaven, one without any more war or strife. Yet while everyone else was in the mood for rejoicing, Emma lacked the ability to enjoy the evening. Where others felt relief, she felt nothing but the subtle pang of loneliness even surrounded by admirers as she was. For even if it seemed like she had everything, there was something – or rather someone – who was noticeably missing.

“You look so beautiful tonight, Emma,” her mother said, pulling Emma from her thoughts and back into the fray of her family once more where they stood above the people. “It’s such a striking red, but I really do think it might be your color.”

Emma looked down at the gown she was wearing, noticing just how different it was from her once usual fare. Years ago she’d been lighter, softer, and more prone to muted colors. Her world was filled with rosy pinks and pale yellows, and she’d been content with that, but then she’d been awakened as if from a lifelong dream, and suddenly she realized there was more to life than what she’d known. There was vibrancy and passion, lust and love, but just as quickly as it had come it was gone, and Emma was left searching for a way to grasp the memory of it all as close as she could.

Don’t go there, Emma, not tonight, she counseled herself before responding to her mother in a feigned, hopeful tone.

“I can’t take all the credit. The dressmaker worked her magic. I merely get to wear it.” There, that seemed convincing enough. She might not seem overjoyed, but she likely didn’t sound as torn up about tonight as she felt inside.

“Don’t sell yourself short,” her mother insisted. “Real beauty starts from within, and you have that in abundance.”

Emma appreciated her mother’s words, but tonight she didn’t feel so lovely. Instead she felt ashamed and guilty, for this was the day when an announcement would be made that Emma was to marry a foreign prince, a man in line for the throne in another kingdom. He was a suitable match, perhaps a little arrogant but not unkind to her, and Emma knew she could theoretically do far worse. But his not being terrible didn’t make this something that Emma wanted. It was simply expected, and despite what she’d once thought, she didn’t have any other alternatives, not when the man she once believed would be her one and only was gone and hadn’t been heard from in over a year.

“I think I’ll take a lap around the room. Stretch my legs a bit,” Emma said before leaving her mother without another word and hoping to get out of this ballroom and into the night air outside. Maybe then she wouldn’t feel so stifled, and she could breathe again.

The truth was that Emma hadn’t breathed easy since the morning he left, the man she’d fallen in love with, her Killian. Years ago when their paths first crossed they were really only children, both of them searching for meaning in the lives that seemed so meticulously planned out for them. Emma was a princess in line to inherit, and Killian was a Lieutenant who served in another king’s navy alongside his brother. But time past, things changed and one day after years apart, Emma and Killian found each other again in a wholly different situation.

This time he was a Captain on the seas, and a pirate to boot, having forsaken his old flag after losing his brother, but it hadn’t mattered. Circumstances had brought them together again and love had grown from the friendship and infatuation they once shared. Slowly but surely Emma fell for him and she knew Killian had fallen too. There was no denying that what they’d shared was real, and Emma spent many nights slipping past the castle walls to find Killian somewhere quiet and peaceful. For a few hours at a time she could pretend that things were different. In that life she dreamed she wasn’t a princess and he wasn’t a pirate. They were just two people who against all odds had found true love that they could share forever.

But that happiness that they had, the one Emma held dear to her heart and kept a secret for so long, fell away in the blink of an eye. Killian had come to her one night, breaking with tradition, and arriving at the palace to tell her that he had one last voyage, one last mission before he’d come back to her and stay forever. He was hell bent on procuring some treasure or other before he promised to return and seek a blessing from her parents.

“I know you want to wait, love, and I’ve tried to be patient, but we deserve more than this, more than stolen moments that disappear when the witching hour comes. Whatever happens, whatever the fall out when the world discovers the truth, I won’t let any of it touch you. It’ll all be all right. You have my word.”

“How can you be sure?” Emma had asked, already knowing she trusted him no matter what. Killian had never broken a promise, and in all the time she’d known him he had never once lied to her.

“That’s easy - true love always wins.”

Killian had given her those assurances and those painfully sweet words as well as a few last kisses before having to return to his ship. When he left Emma missed him immediately, but she thought he would return to her in a matter of days. Yet days turned to months and months to a year and he was still gone. No letters, no word, no trace of Captain Killian Jones or his ship to be found.

Emma had scoured high and low. She’d asked as discretely as she could for information from the people in the nearby port, used her magic in all sorts of ways, but the trail went cold and Emma was left to fear the worst. She knew he was alive, her magic had been able to ascertain that much, but either Killian was lost in some unknown turmoil, or he didn’t want to be found.

A year went by and for so many months Emma never let her faith in him die. She remained vigilant and consumed with finding him while still trying to carry a façade of being okay with her family and friends, but eventually she realized that either way she’d been left behind. Whether or not Killian wanted to hurt her he had, and she was left to pick up the pieces and try to make sense of a world she no longer recognized.

All of this, all the heartbreak and pain and the sorry situations, should have allowed her to feel better than she did. Emma argued with herself in her rational mind that when Killian had left he’d chosen something other than her. His treasure mattered more to him and that cut her to the core. Maybe it wasn’t fair to think that way, but with every day her heart had been crushed a little more, until one day she realized it was broken all together. She had lost her hope and her trust had been tarnished, leaving her a princess of marrying age who the world was watching and waiting to wed.

“Doesn’t the princess look lovely tonight?” A passing guest proclaimed while on the arm of another.

“Indeed she does. A real ray of light she is.”

Emma could have offered them both a smile or some thanks, but she ignored the praise and pushed forward. She was getting closer to the doorway, but in this sea of people it was hard to cut through. She felt caught at so many moments, even when people moved out of her way to let her by. Emma just needed to get out of there and have a moment when the whole kingdom wasn’t looking at her to sacrifice her happiness for the sake of an arranged marriage.

For a long time she’d been lucky and her parents hadn’t pushed. Even as the years passed by and Emma grew older, they never insisted that she visit other kingdoms or hold dances for the sake of meeting a husband. But then a few months ago that changed. She woke up one morning to her mother’s announcement of a new treaty to be signed between their kingdom and another, and a prince was mentioned who was young and spry and ‘suitable’ as her father had put it. Just the thought of him had been enough to put a bad taste in Emma’s mouth, and then when she actually met him two days ago upon his arrival to Misthaven she felt even worse.

It made her sick to even consider a life where she swore vows to someone who wasn’t Killian, no matter that he’d left her. She might be heartbroken but she also didn’t want to settle for something loveless and convenient. Maybe it was foolish of her, but she’d thought since she was little that love would be her path too. After all her parents had found it, and she was the product of true love, a child born in magic with magic of her own. It had seemed certain that she should find love, but now it seemed that chance was gone before it even had the ability to start.

Not looking where she was going, Emma suddenly walked into an approaching figure dressed in fine garb that screamed of some sort of wealth and stature, and she was pained. Please don’t let this be the prince, or any prince for that matter, Emma thought. Just let me be. Let me go.

“Emma,” the man said and the voice of the stranger stopped her in her tracks. It couldn’t be – no she had to be hallucinating. This was her final stop on a voyage to insanity. Now she was hearing Killian’s voice, when it couldn’t be him.

But then a hand came to clutch hers, and Emma knew in her heart who it was. Her whole body lit up from a simple touch, and the only person who had ever had such an effect on her was Killian. Glancing upwards and into the man’s eyes Emma saw it was him, and she couldn’t understand it. He was here! He was alive and he was really here! But he was… altered.

Gone was the black leather she was used to seeing Killian in and instead there was the tailor-made showings of a prince. Emma didn’t understand it. What was going on? Why would he even risk coming here – and where had he been all that time? This wasn’t the way she ever expected him to come back and she had a million feelings and questions and unanswered emotions roiling inside, but then Killian smiled at her that same hopeful, impossibly sweet smile from a man who was so strong and commanding with everyone else. In that expression she saw her Killian, her sailor who’d gone and stolen part of her heart with him across the seas.

“Killian?” she said, still not fully believing that he was real or that he was here. He had to be a dream, a beautiful, heart-wrenching figment of her imagination.

“Gods it’s good to see you, love,” Killian said, forgetting himself a bit more as he stepped towards her, taking her other hand in his.

Emma was so tempted to lean into this and to let the rest of the world fall away. Even after all this time she knew the comfort of his arms would remain. She’d fit in his embrace perfectly and all her fears and worries would drift away just as they always had. He’d make her feel whole again, and help her heal from the torment of the past year. But a stronger part of her was unable to yield. He’d been gone too long. Too much had changed. She couldn’t just give in, not if she had any hope of staying strong when he left again.

“What are you doing here?” Emma asked, the words harsher than either of them were used to and for a second she saw a flash of pain in his blue eyes, but Killian persevered, and what remained wasn’t any sort of animosity but an understanding. He wasn’t mad at her for being angry. In fact, it appeared he totally expected it.

“That’s simple, princess. I’m here for you.”

The way he said those words, with an unwavering promise that Emma wanted so desperately to believe, tore at her. Killian had always been honest with her, and she had the ability to sense a lie better than anyone else in the kingdom, so she knew he meant that proclamation now. But that didn’t change the fact that he’d been gone so long and that a year had past where she thought him gone forever. He’d hurt her, whether he meant to or not and now she was wary where she’d never been that way with Killian before.

Add to that the fact that he was risking too much by being here at all with her parents looking on and Emma was a frenzy of worry. She was alert to the fact that the whole point of this evening was for eyes to be on her. For the moment no one seemed to recognize Killian, but if Emma had any hope of protecting him she should probably play along to some extent and not act out in the flurry of emotions she was feeling.

“Well you’ve seen me. If you’ll excuse me,” she said, turning back around but not getting very far before Killian had chased around to see her again, not letting go of her hand.

“Actually I was hoping, if you’re not otherwise engaged, that I might ask for this dance.”

Emma’s heart constricted in her chest and she felt this flooding of emotion that had been gone for so long. Killian was here – he was actually here – and she was close enough to touch him after months of missing him. She knew she should say no. Hell she should probably slap him or yell or scream or… something! But she couldn’t, instead she nodded and let him lead her to the dance floor and pull her in close.

At the start of the waltz that was playing, there was an element of edginess to Emma’s manners. She was wary of the eyes on her and Killian as they danced and cautious of her parents who Emma knew would be tracking all her movements as they so often did. Her whole life she’d been looked after so carefully, with the entire kingdom fretting over whether the Evil Queen might finally make good on all those threats she’d bestowed on her parents years ago. Emma was used to that by now, but in this moment she hated that feeling. What she wanted more than anything was to be free, but she was trapped in so many ways.

Then there were Emma’s ever-present doubts about Killian’s intentions. Here they were reunited again and he was silent, not bothering to plead his case in any way. Shouldn’t he be telling her everything or making some sort of excuse? But no, he was just standing here, holding her, moving through the dance and acting as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening.

Well that wasn’t exactly true. Honestly Killian was looking at her like he was seeing the light for the first time, and that gaze as well as the feeling of his hands on her had an unanticipated impact. Emma’s musings about all of her other concerns faded to nothing but an almost imperceptible hum in the face of her love being back again, and for a moment she willfully let go of the sadness and the hurt she was feeling.

Soon it was just the two of them and everything else was forgotten as the beautiful melody filled the space around them. This was a familiar song to Emma, one she’d learned to dance to as a little girl with her father, and been asked to dance many time since with interested suitors, but this time it felt different. This time each note sent a zing of pleasure coursing through her and each brush of her body against Killian’s was a spark that ignited something bright and hopeful. Emma felt a connection to this moment in time that she’d never felt before, as if there was this impossible form of clarity garnered from the movement of her and the man she loved across the dance floor.

Yet it was impossible for Emma to ignore the fact that this was technically their first dance. She’d loved Killian for what felt like forever, but this was a world he was never supposed to be in. She was a princess and he was a pirate, but tonight, dancing here together, those labels fell away. Emma was just Emma and Killian was simply the man her heart had chosen to love.

“I know I likely shouldn’t say this, love – it isn’t strictly polite - but holding you in my arms again… nothing can compare to this form of pleasure.”

Emma knew the feeling. She’d been wandering this castle for over a year lost in so many ways. The ghost of his touch had haunted her and part of her had hollowed out slowly over time the longer he’d been away, but so many nights she lay awake picturing this moment when they’d be back in each other’s arms. At night she’d dream of him, and every time he was so close but then so far away. With the morning would come the reminder that he wasn’t there and she was left lonely and without the love he’d promised he would always give.

“You left me. A whole year came and went and you never came back,” Emma whispered, the words barely carrying over the music, but Killian heard her, and he winced as if she’d slapped him at the point she made.

“Aye I did, but I was never really gone, love. I left everything of me worth having here with you. My hope and my heart, they’ve been yours since the first moment I met you, Emma. You have to believe that.”

Emma felt tears stinging her eyes as he said that, making pretty promises that didn’t mean to hurt her but pierced her all the same. She loved the thought that she’d had his heart, but where was the proof? The facts were he’d gone away with no details or anything. She didn’t even know where the hell he’d been sailing for or what he hoped to find. Just that Killian said it was paramount to anything else.

“Was it worth it?” Emma asked, her voice warbling again with the sadness in her soul. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Yes. It nearly killed me a thousand times to be so far from you, Emma, but in the end it had to happen. I found the final piece to secure our happiness and now we can have our chance.”

Emma looked away again, unable to handle his continued hopes for her. She could feel his genuine want for them to be together, but even if he had a reason to be gone so long, it couldn’t happen. Even if she was slowly caving to her old desire to be with Killian and only Killian, she was promised to another and…

“You were always with me, Emma, every second of every day. You’re the only thing that got me through,” Killian vowed, his voice washing over her like a wave upon the shore.

“Through what?” she asked, not understanding. “Why did you even go in the first place? Why did you stay away so long? Why did you…,”

“Why did I break your heart?” He filled in, and Emma looked back at him again, willing herself not to lose it when all she wanted to do was break in this moment. “I’ll never forgive myself for hurting you, Emma, and I’ve no explanation for it except to say that this wasn’t the plan. I was supposed to be away from you days, a week at most. I never dreamed it would take so long. There was a mix up that cost us dearly and if I could have avoided it you must know that I would have. But I also don’t regret it. The only thing I regret is that I made you doubt my love for you.”

This was too much for Emma to bear and as she looked away to try and collect her self, she made eye contact with her parents who were looking on with curious glances. The pang that hit her in that moment was the final blow to her lessening control and Emma found herself pulling away from Killian and hurting the both of them as she did. It felt wrong to move back from him when the monumental amount of wishes she’d made for his safe return had been answered, but she couldn’t do this. She wasn’t strong enough to stand here and hear this anymore and she wouldn’t dishonor her family by breaking down in front of everyone.

“I can’t,” she said with a tautness in her voice as Killian reached for her.

“Emma, wait!”

Despite his plea and his quick movements, Emma was faster and she dodged his attempt to keep her there, leaving Killian in the middle of the ballroom and moving swiftly from the gazes of everyone else to somewhere she could think and wrap her mind around all of this. By the time she was out of the ballroom she still hadn’t processed anything, and it was only after she’d broken into a full run and made it outside to the gardens that she felt any kind of relief. Finally some quiet and the chance to think this through.

There in the full moonlight under the lanterns that her parents had set out for tonight, Emma paced through the hedgerow, ignoring the roses that had often brought her comfort, and straining for some sort of sign of what she should do. Her head was saying that she had a duty to her family and to the crown that she was supposed to inherit. Her parents had set up a match for her, and going back on her word would be dishonorable. But her heart was clear out here in the solemn quiet and away from the crowds of people inside that that wasn’t an option. No matter what had happened, no matter what his reasons were for being gone as long as he was, her heart still belonged to Killian and it would never be easy unless she was honest with herself and with her parents. She had to tell them, and as bad as the timing might be it had to be tonight.

Turning to head back into the festivities once more, Emma felt stronger now than she had in the first moments of finding Killian again, but surprise came again when she found her parents waiting for her there amongst the greenery. They had left the fray of the party to seek her out, and while that would make her job of finding a private moment easier, it did spike her nerves into turbulence again.

“Mom, Dad… I have something I have to tell you,” Emma said, trying to find the words that would express how much Killian meant to her but how much she loved them and wanted to make them proud too.

“Emma we know,” her mother said, surprising Emma and cutting through her sadness. “We know about you and Killian. We’ve known a long time and Killian had already spoken with both of us about his intentions with you before he went away.”

“He…what?” Emma asked, none of this making sense. Her mother then came over and took her hand in hers, patting it gently.

“More than a year ago we had a visitor. A man who assured us that he loved you more than anything and that while he wanted our blessing, he did not require it for he believed you loved him too. He was very blunt with it all, and he told us in no uncertain terms that he had no plans to walk away as long as you cared for him in any way. How did he phrase it again, Charming?” Her mother asked and Emma’s father offered a small smile.

“’Piracy be damned.’ He was definitely colorful.”

“And you just accepted that?” Emma asked, looking at her father.

“Of course not, but Killian made us see that what he said was true. There’s a real love between the both of you and that’s something to be cherished, not fought against,” her father said as he came to place his hand on Emma’s shoulder gently.

“He also told us that he had no want to hide from us, but that his first aim would always be to make you happy. You weren’t ready to tell us, and Killian wanted you to be the one to come forward. We promised him we’d keep the secret, and he promised something in return, something he was just as desperate for as we were,” her mother said.

Her parents then went on to explain to Emma that there was an enchanted item a realm away that was in essence a failsafe. It would protect Emma from any danger the Evil Queen might ever wield, and while that threat had felt less and less as the years went on, there had always been that feeling of uneasiness in the air. Regina wanted revenge and now, according to her parents, Killian had found a way where she could never have it and where Emma would never have to look over her shoulder for that woman’s dark shadow.

“So all this time you knew and you never told me? Did you know he was alright?” Emma asked, angry at the idea that perhaps they might have known and not released her from her suffering.

“We had no idea Killian had returned until we saw the two of you dancing tonight. We prayed he’d come home for your sake, but we had no word from him since the day he left port a year ago,” her mother promised.

“And what about the prince?” Emma asked, hating that she even had to consider another man when the one man she wanted was here and holding out his heart to her so easily.

“What about him?” her father asked.

“The deal with his kingdom. I thought… I mean people said I was going to marry him. You even said he was ‘suitable.’”

“Oh Emma, no!” Her mother affirmed, pulling Emma in for another hug. “We would never do that to you. Not when someone else already has your heart.”

“When I said he was suitable I only meant in terms of an arrangement. Some kingdoms have wealth but no honor. It was a simple statement of trust that he’d live up to his end of the bargain,” Emma’s father said and Emma closed her eyes, feeling the waves of relief wash over her as she told her parents her intentions without delay.

“I’m marrying Killian.”

“Has he asked you already?!” Her mother asked, an element of undeniable excitement in her voice as she did and Emma shook her head smiling.

“No. I’m going to ask him.”

“Oh, well… what are you waiting for then?” Emma didn’t have an answer for her mother’s question other than to say that she was tired of waiting, and with a quick kiss to both her parents’ cheeks she was off, intent on finding the man she’d nearly let get away from her own fears and mistakes.

Emma would carry that regret of not telling her parents from the start as long as she lived, if only because there was so much time Emma and Killian had remained a secret when they should have had their days in the sun, but she swore as the familiar poof of her white magic transported her to her heart’s truest desire that she’d make it up to him. No matter what it took, Emma would convince Killian that he hadn’t been wrong in trusting his heart to her, and that there was no cause for worry in keeping it with her forever.

There came a small moment of pause, however, when Emma realized where she’d ended up, as it was just a few twists and turns away in another part of the grounds. It was the very same spot by the fountains where they’d said their goodbyes before and shared their last kiss too long ago, only this time Emma had hope that she’d never have to face another tomorrow without Killian being at her side.

“You came back,” Killian said, the relief in his voice more than evident as he stepped to her and Emma cut the distance between them just as fast, not stopping until she was in his arms again and sharing a kiss that breathed every bit of life and hope and wonder back into her that had been missing the past year.

It was a truly miraculous feeling, and a moment where Emma knew that everything was finally as it should be. This would be their fresh start and Emma was positive that nothing should come between them again. She was done doubting love and ready to hold onto it and never let go as long as she lived.

“I love you,” Emma said as she pulled back from the kiss and the grin that he bestowed upon her gave Emma the courage to say the next part. “And you’re going to marry me someday, Killian Jones, because you love me too.”

“Aye, love, that’s true enough. But just for the sake of tradition, and because I’ve spent a year aboard my ship dreaming of this moment, allow me to do this the right way.”

With that Killian dropped down to one knee and pulled out a gorgeous ring right then and there with a beautifully cut diamond and a sea of stones around it. Emma should not have been surprised that he had a band selected already, but the fact that he was so sure of her as to bring this tonight made her heart ache in the most beautiful way. She was so full of love and happiness and the tears that formed in her eyes were a sign of that and a hint of just how right this moment that was about to come to pass felt to her.

“Emma, there has never been a moment since the first day that we met when you weren’t the best part of my world. You were the light when all I had was darkness, the strength I clung to when I lacked my own, and you remain the hope in my heart for a future worth living. I love you with everything I am and I promise that there will never be a moment for the rest of our lives when you don’t feel that love. Will you make me the happiest in all the realms and marry me?”

“Yes,” she promised, reveling in the feeling of that cool metal gracing her finger and then the subsequent embraces that came with their new understanding.

Since the fear and the resistance had been cast aside, Emma let herself give over to this need that surged between her and Killian. Her actions were hardly those expected of a princess, and their kisses and touches dangled on the edge of something not befitting any sort of semi-public space, but Emma didn’t care. She was done denying herself and she was ready to give into this and stop fighting this happily ever after from now on.

Emma could have spent forever out there in the gardens with Killian, sharing their continued promises that nothing would ever again separate them or question this love. Yet the party soldiered on despite their happy reunion, and her parents, understanding and supportive as they were, did make a reappearance to ask both Emma and Killian to return to the ball. The two of them were happy to oblige, for though they’d love more of their quiet, private moments, they were now assured of many, many more to come.

……………..

You're in my arms And all the world is calm The music playing on for only two So close together And when I'm with you So close to feeling alive A life goes by Romantic dreams must die So I bid my goodbye And never knew So close, was waiting Waiting here with you And now, forever, I know All that I wanted To hold you so close So close to reaching That famous happy end Almost believing This one's not pretend And now you're beside me And look how far we've come So far we are, so close Oh how could I face the faceless days If I should lose you now We're so close to reaching That famous happy end Almost believing This one's not pretend Let's go on dreaming For we know we are So close, so close And still so far

Post-Note: So first and foremost I really want to thank my lovely reader who asked for this chapter. I am a sucker for CS and dances, and as much as I love them, I don’t actually write that many EF AU fics so that in itself is always such a nice change. And then of course there was the slight angst and the eventual proposal, and it just all culminates in the usual fluff I’m trying to peddle here. So thank you for this recommendation, I loved it. As for everyone else thank you so much for reading, and if you have requested a song, no worries I am trying to make my way through the many prompts I have gotten and I will find a day to write all of them. Thanks again and hope you have a great rest of your day!

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10,Part 11, Part 12,Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21, Part 22, Part 23, Part 24, Part 25, Part 26, Part 27, Part 28, Part 29, Part 30, Part 31, Part 32, Part 33, Part 34, Part 35, Part 36, Part 37, Part 38, Part 39, Part 40, Part 41, Part 42, Part 43, Part 44, Part 45, Part 46, Part 47, Part 48, Part 49, Part 50, Part 51, Part 52, Part 53, Part 54, Part 55, Part 56, Part 57, Part 58, Part 59, Part 60, Part 61, Part 62, Part 63, Part 64, Part 65, Part 66, Part 67, Part 68, Part 69, Part 70, Part 71, Part 72, Part 73, Part 74, Part 75, Part 76, Part 77, Part 78, Part 79, Part 80, Part 81, Part 82, Part 83, Part 84, Part 85, Part 86, Part 87, Part 88, Part 89, Part 90, Part 91, Part 92, Part 93, Part 94, Part 95, Part 96, Part 97, Part 98, Part 99, Part 100, Part 101, Part 102, Part 103, Part 104, Part 105, Part 106, Part 107,Part 108, Part 109, Part 110,Part 111, Part 112, Part 113, Part 114, Part 115,Part 116, Part 117, Part 118, Part 119,Part 120, Part 121, Part 122, Part 123,Part 124, Part 125, Part 126, Part 127, Part 128,Part 129,Part 130, Part 131,Part 132, Part 133, Part 134, Part 135, Part 136, Part 137, Part 138, Part 139,Part 140, Part 141, Part 142

[imagine-darksiders]

How bout a lil scenario with the horsemen getting up at night instead of their s/o to calm their fussing child?

Xx

Strife: It wasmostly upon his insistence that you had the baby’s cot in your bedroom. Youknew Strife had some underlying separation anxiety when it came to you, but didn’t think it would extend to your one-year old daughter as well. She wasn’t even his, but apparently that mattered little to the sharpshooting horseman.

It was around midnight when the ambulance drove past, sirens blaring and bright, blue lights piercing the slight gap you’d left between yourcurtains. While it hadn’t woken you up, the same could not be said for your daughter,nor the horseman laying in bed beside you. At the first sound of her distressed whimper, Strife’s eyes snap open, glowing vivid yellow in the pitch-black and he lifts his head to glance across the room, staring attentively at his newcharge’s cot.  

In another moment, he’s skilfullyextracted himself from the duvet and slipped out of bed, almost tripping over his armour scattered about on the floor as he pads softly towards the baby, leaning over the side and grinning down at her. “Hey there, small fry,” he coos, using the affectionate nickname he learned from one of your friends, “That Earthautomobile woke you up too, huh?”

In response, she screws up her face to convey immense displeasure.

“Yeah, I thought it might’ve,” he murmurs.

Another hum that usually precedes a crying fit works its way out of her mouth and behind him, you roll over, beginning to stir. Quick as a flash, Strife reaches into the cot and gathers the baby up into his arms, blanket and all. 

This is a moment in his life he hadn’t realised he would come to cherish so much. He’s a horseman of the apocalypse, playing life fast and loose. He likes guns, hunting demons, galloping at full tilt across a grassy plainwith you clinging to his back and whooping delightedly at the dangerous speeds.And now, apparently, he likes the feeling of holding your child in his arms too.So much for his reputation.

“Hey now,” he murmurs, “No crying, Y/n’s trying to sleep.”

He’d never had to exercise such gentility with any creature before, even the humans at the maker tree hadn’t been this fragile. Still, tosee him interact with a human infant, one would think he’d been around childrenall his life. With a hand on her back and the other supporting her rump, the horseman copies what he’s seen you do a hundred times. He wanders aimlessly around the bedroom, alternating between stroking her back and bouncing her gently on his palm. ‘This would be so much easier if I was still Jones,’ helaments. If ‘Jones’ dropped a baby, it wouldn’t have as far to fall. If she’s dropped by a horseman who exceeds seven feet however….Strife stops that train of thought it its tracks, shuddering. It took a lot of assurance from you before he trusted himself with holding something so precious.

Tiny fingers stretch up determinedly to feel the stubble growing on his chin and he tucks it in to look down at her, his luminous, yelloweyes softening under her contented gaze.

Even long after she falls asleep against his chest, the horseman cradles her to him, only putting her back into her cot when you awake and tell him to.

 War: Crying - The sound he’d come to dread – not because he finds it irksome – but because his mind immediately jumps to the worst possible scenario. Most interactions he’s hadwith humans has led him to believe that when they cry, they’re either afraid or they’re in pain. Both of these concepts with regards to the baby human down the hall send him into a near frenzy and it’s all he can do to restrain himself from tearing through your walls to get to them faster.

“The baby’s fine, War,” you mumble into your pillow as he heaves himself up from the bed and the springs give an audible sigh, relievedat the loss of his immense girth. You know there’s little point in trying to convince him that; Yes, sometimes babies do wake up and cry during the night, and typically return to sleep after ten minutes or so. However, nothing short of a nuclear explosion could stop the overprotective horseman from checking the entire house for demons. So, letting out a heavy sigh, you roll over and let him get on with it.

A low rumble makes its way up his throat as he enters the darkened room just across the hall, dazzling blue eyes sweeping left and right for any sign of an intruder. Once he’s satisfied that the vicinity is clear, he tromps over to the baby’s cot, looming over it like a monumental juggernaut, snowy-white eyebrows furrowed in their typical fashion.

And as per usual, the baby inside takes one look at his glowering, grim visage and immediately stops crying, it’s face splitting into a clumsy grin and it raises its arms into the air towards him.

Personally, War would love to know at what point he stopped being intimidating to human younglings and started to become amusing.

With a gruff sigh, he drops a hand into the cot and gently works his armoured fingers underneath the baby, scooping it far too easily up into his gauntlet, marvelling that such a tiny thing can fit in the palm of his hand. Sometimes, a gruesome thought creeps up on him and he realises that it would take no more than a mere flex to end the precious life-force.

The moment he lifts it up to his face, the baby’s arm flies out and it grasps a fistful of his white-blonde hair, tugging on it whilst staring up into his eyes, transfixed by the unusual, otherworldly shine. 

After some time spent simply observing each other under the glow of the nightlight, the babystarts to squirm, kicking out with its stubby legs and gurgling noisily.

It’s strong. Well, as strong as a human can be in it’s first year of life, and War finds his lips trying to lift in a fond smile. He quickly schools his face back to its neutral expression though and instead, gives the baby an accusing glare, informing it, “You are too small,” as if it’s the baby’s fault that it’s so helpless.

Unexpectedly, it gives another hard kick and lets go of his hair, only to tip forward and clumsily curls its fingers around the tip of hisnose.

Consequentially, the horseman freezes, his eyes slowly growing wide.

Suddenly mesmerised, it’s his turn to watch as it gurgles and croons, stroking down his nose to pat his upper lip and let out a happy squeak as he peels them back to show off his sharpened canines. War huffs a gust of air from his nose, amused at the little human’s courage. 

Your genes, no doubt.

Fury: “The baby’s crying.”

Fury rolls over, untangling herself from your arms to grab a pillow and stuff it over her head, only to receive a sharp jab in the back.

“Fury, the baby’s crying,” you repeat groggily, a little louder, “Can you go check on him?”

Grumbling into the mattress, she replies, “Why should I have to go?”

“Because I’ve been the past seven times.”

“Well, you made it.”

For her trouble, she earns herself an almighty kick to her back. You stubbornly keep the pressure up, pressing your feet into her spineand slowly managing to slide her towards the edge of the bed. Valiantly, she digs her heels in, but can’t find any purchase and before long, she lets out a loud snarl and relents. “Ugh, very well!” And with that, she throws the covers off and swings her legs out, muttering grumpilyabout giving the baby ‘something toreally cry about.’

You’ve learnt by now that with Fury, you can’t take everything she says too seriously. She’s gruff, certainly. But you’re all too aware that when your baby is with her, it becomes the safest baby in the universe, and she’d nomore harm him than she would harm you. The horseman hadn’t meant to fall in love with a human, much less a pregnant human in the maker’s tree, but after you all went through the reflecting pool and she helped you deliver the tiny thing, she hadn’t really been able to avoidit.

Fury doesn’t know who the father is, you’ve never really told her. However, you did say that the baby looked nothing like him, and youseemed rather glad about it, so she didn’t ask.

As soon as she leaves the room and is no longer under your gaze, her face morphs from agitated to worried in a matter of seconds, and if her feet carried her a little bit quicker towards the nursery, she would later deny it.

Pushing open the little door and entering, she immediately spots the source of all the crying.

Your son – ‘Our son,’ she reminds herself – has stood up in the cot and is clinging to the frame, his legs quivering with the effort of keepinghimself upright. Large, round eyes peer up at her as she approaches, though his cries only quiet down somewhat whereas the tears continue to stream ceaselessly down his rosy cheeks.

“What’s wrong with you this time?” she sighs, feigning boredom whilst checking behind the door, then striding over to the wardrobe andthrowing it open, moving several hanging clothes aside to see if anyone has concealed themselves right at the back. All the while, the child watches her curiously until she finishes doing a sweep and eventually turns her attention onto him just in time to see him plonk back down onto his blanket.

Shaking her head, she stubbornly forces the amused smirk off her face and stalks over to him. “You are perhaps the most vocal human I’ve ever known, crying and complaining about nothing. Honestly, you’re worse than the Watche-... “ Fury hesitates, swallowing thickly as he cocks his head, wondering why she suddenly froze above his cot, her grip on the rail tightening until her knuckles turn even paler. “- Worse than Envy, I mean...” she corrects herself after a moment too long of silence.

Refocusing on the child, Fury realises that he’s tipped his head down and is gazing at her feet through the bars. Cocking an eyebrow, sheglances down, following his line of sight and lets out a subdued chuckle when she sees the cause of all his fuss.

“Ah, and therein lies the problem.” 

Resting just a few inches to her right is a tiny, stuffed horse. Its coat is black as night, rendering it almost lost in the darkness of the nursery. There’s also a tail and mane that had once been stark white, but following an incident with a blue sock in the washing machine, are now a soft, baby blue.

Fury had wanted to laugh and weep at the irony, even more so when the horse became your baby’s favoured toy.

“Is this what you’re after?” she asks needlessly, bending down to retrieve the toy and holding it over the cot. In seconds, his eyes light up and he coos warmly, lifting one, chubby arm into the air and making a grabbing motion with his hand.

Sharp, pale eyes softening ever so slightly, Fury allows a thumb to stroke gently over the horse’s mane before she blinks, remembering herselfand passing the toy down to the baby, who takes it off her and crushes it against his chest. 

At last, Fury’s lips twitch into a genuine smile and she leaves it there, too distracted by the sight before her. 

Filled with an abrupt swell of affection, she reaches down and places a hand gently on top of the child’s head, smoothing his hair back and guiding him til he’s lying on his back again with the horse on his chest. Then, pulling the blanket up to cover him, Fury takes a second to simply remain leaned over the cot, eyes locked in the gaze of the most innocent life she’d ever beheld.

“Who gave you permission to touch this heart of mine?” she breathes, “Hmm?”

She only returned to your shared bedroom much later, once your son had finally dropped off to sleep.

Death: The eldest horseman doesn’t sleep. Never has, likely never will. That isn’t to say he won’t spend long nights laying on his back and gazing up at the glow in the dark stars on your ceiling whilst you sleep peacefully beside him.

Peaceful….Death’s life has been anything but.

Then, along came a human and a baby to offer him a port in the storm and just like that, he’d known a modicum of peace.

Although not tonight, evidently. He knew the baby was about to cry even before the sound reached his ears, a long-forgotten instinct buried deep in his psyche that hadn’t surfaced since his younger siblings left their own stages of infancy.

Of course, no sooner had the sound slipped underneath the bedroom door, you lift your head from the pillow, taking in a deep breath and mumbling, “M’on it…”

Your attempts to roll out of bed are thwarted however by the horseman, who wraps his fingers over your shoulder and pushes you back down.

“You need to rest,” he rumbles softly, “I’ll see to it.”

Without waiting for you to offer a groggy argument, he rises from the bed and as soon as he vacates his pillow, a large, black mass offeathers flutters down off the headboard and lands on the soft surface.

“Dust,” he sighs, “Don’t get too comfortable, I’ll be returning shortly.”  

Absently, you stretch an arm across the bed and scratch a few fingers over the crow’s chest. “Hmm, hey boy,” you mumble. The crow shootsDeath an insufferably smug look, as if to say, ‘My bed now,’ and settles himself down on the pillow, warbling gently at the attention you’re giving him.

Death, meanwhile, simply harrumphs, spinning on his heel and slipping quietly from the room, making a bee line for the little door adjacentto your own. Quiet as a ghost, he pushes it open and steps inside, raising a hand to conjure a ball of light only to pause when he remembers that humans invented a nifty little thing called ‘electricity.’ Sighing, he lowers his hand andinstead flips the switch on a lamp as he passes, bathing the room in a soft, pink glow.

The sound of crying becomes more urgent, so he wastes no more time in prowling up to the cot. Stopping beside it, he gazes down at thetiny life nestled within a pile of blankets.

Eyes golden and orange as wildfires meet the watery blue of a tiny, human girl, barely out of her first year of life and already too curious for her own good, just like you – a fact that unsettles Death somewhat. He has a hard-enough time keeping you out of danger that seemed to consistently find you. And now, with a baby thrown into the mix, his job has just gotten a whole lot more complicated. Privately, Death dreads her learning how to walk, or generally moving at any speed faster than a crawl where he can’t simply snatch her off the ground and out of trouble.

An incomprehensible murmur draws his attention back to the baby and when he looks, he realises she still hasn’t moved. Forever and a day the horseman would wonder why she calms down when he’s in the room. Death isn’texactly a calming influence. She doesn’t seem to be afraid of him, incredibly. Maybe she’s curious about his mask, wondering if its actually his real face. Or she could be curious as to why this strange, cold-skinned man had suddenly started to appear in her life in the place of her other parent, the one who’ddisappeared one day without any warning. Then again, perhaps she – like several other children he’s met in his time – can sense that, when it comes to babies, Death is something of a soft touch.

Muttering a soft apology for the temperature of his hands, the horseman scoops her up, ensuring he brings the blanket along too, and holds her to his chest.

‘She used to love hearing my partner’s heartbeat,’ you told him when you first introduced him to her, ‘It would send her right off to sleep.’

For the first time, suddenly Death knew the sting of inadequacy. No heart beats in his chest, but he’d soon learned of other ways tosoothe a human infant. Her chubby fingers latch onto his cowl and hold fast as he uses the back of his knuckles to rub carefully up and down her fragile back.

It’s been untold millennia, and he’d forgotten how much he missed this.