#Nobody tells him until drew shows him a picture of her as a kid or something and suddenly he’s like ‘?????’

[cryptvokeeper]

anyway I’ve continued to cope with everything by thinking abt the secret Saturdays today and have decided I love the idea of trans Drew Saturday and all the silly things that could come with that headcanon

[ckret2]

Chapter 32 of human Bill is convinced he's the best prisoner ever and does not deserve this abuse from the Pines:

Bill gets his fingernails painted! 💅🌈✨ Look at his fingernails, I drew this week's picture just to show them off. They're fun.

Bill also gets bound to a magic poppet that can control his every move.

It's hilarious for Dipper and Mabel, but not for Bill.

The early morning still was broken by Stan's wails of despair.

At some point during the night, the egg-and-toilet-papering kids had come back to Stan's car.

And they'd brought rocks.

####

Bill woke up with a sheet tossed over him and a cupcake sitting on the window seat. The cupcake was pink with green frosting and decorated like a happy jack-o'-melon. It was sitting on top of a note:

"Sorry I didn't mention I had plans tonight! Robbie's mom made cupcakes for everyone so I grabbed you one. The music video's gonna be AMAZING! I'll show you when Robbie posts it!" Mabel had signed with a shooting star.

Bill decided he hadn't been mad at Mabel last night at all.

He battled gravity to heave himself vertical, trudged downstairs to the bathroom, stuck his face under the faucet until his mouth tasted less like sour sandpaper, agonizingly dragged himself back upstairs to his makeshift bed, and collapsed under the sheet to wait until his head stopped hammering.

####

Sprawled on the living room floor, Mabel said, "What should I draw?"

"Draw me." Bill was sitting cross-legged on the sofa, watching the news and nursing a glass of Mabel juice. In an effort to counteract the lingering queasiness from overdosing on sugar and chocolate, he'd spiked the juice with two ground-up Elderly 60+ Vitaman™ brand Man Vitamins (khaki flavor) stolen from a bottle that Ford had bought for Stan and that Stan forgot to take.

"Okay!" Mabel turned around and squinted up at Bill. "Strike a pose!"

"Not like this!" Bill shoved a hand in Mabel's face to force her to stop looking. "Draw me how I really look."

"Bill, that's illegal. Remember?" Mabel pointed at the TV. Bodacious T was reporting on a child who'd dressed up for Summerween as "that weird out-of-towner who bothered us last year, you know the one," and who, under the Never Mind All That Act, had been fined fifty pieces of candy. The child's mugshot showed his crying face, but blurred out his yellow costume.

"He'd be the coolest kid in town," Bill said, "if he wasn't such a crybaby in front of the cops. Draw me anyway."

"I don't wanna get arrested!"

"Do you see any cops?" Bill grinned. "Just don't sign your name, nobody will know it was you."

Mabel considered that. "I can sign it someone else's name." She pulled out a few crayons.

"That's what I'm talking about! Do anything you want forever and frame the innocent!"

"What do you want me to draw you doing?"

"The coolest thing you can think of."

Mabel considered that, and got to work.

The news was boring now. They were talking about the weather, and it wasn't even interesting weather. "So hey, you were gonna tell me about filming last night?"

"Oh yeah!" Mabel said. "Did I mention the part where the dead rose from their graves?"

Bill muted the TV. "And I missed it?"

Robbie had decided the cemetery at his place would be more atmospheric than the trick-or-treater-filled streets (and less likely to have their shots ruined by passersby that didn't appreciate the depth of Robbie's lyrics). It went great, until the vibrations of angsty rock-and-roll stirred the slumbering corpses and they clawed their way from their graves. It turned out Gravity Falls had been having off-and-on invasions of the undead for the past year, ever since somebody decided to reanimate every corpse in town for fun, Bill.

"You can't prove it was me, I'm not the only one who knows how to raise the dead!" Bill laughed. "Hey—you're not drawing this body, are you? You said you wouldn't."

"I'm not, I promise!"

"Then why do you keep staring at me?"

"Um."

"Let me see!"

"No! Don't ruin the surprise!" Mabel picked up a glitter pen with feathers glued to the end and waved them in Bill's face. "And no cheating with your eye-bleeding psychic magic!"

Bill smacked the pen away. "Fine! So what did you do with the zombies? Feed one of the teens to them?"

"No! I chewed like four packs of gum me and Dipper got from the weird homeless dentist and made a fake baby brain. We used it as bait to lead them into an open grave," Mabel said. "And then we realized we could use the brain to train them to do tricks! So now we have dancing zombies in the music video. They actually learned the choreography pretty easily."

"Makes sense," Bill said. "I did fill the space where their souls should be with an insatiable hunger to party."

Mabel grinned. "I thought you said they weren't your fault."

"If they're good at dancing, I'm taking credit!"

"They were pretty good—especially considering how many limbs they were missing," Mabel said. "I'll show you when Robbie's finished editing the video."

"And I'll get to see you playing a creepy ghost kid, right?"

"Yeah! We were the greatest ghosts ever! Check it out, we were like—" Mabel fixed Bill with a dead-eyed slack-jawed stare and whisper-sang, "'We're the things that you have lost. Childhood joy, dead as a ghost.'"

"Chills."

"Dipper tried so hard to get in character as a ghost that he completely zoned out for a minute! When we shook him out of it, he said he felt like he had an out-of-body experience!"

####

At his computer, Robbie clicked play on a clip of the twins standing side-by-side in front of the cemetery gate. As they sang the chorus, Dipper's face went still; and then a spectral gray form rose out of his head, still singing in sync with Mabel.

"Whoa," Robbie said. "Sick. I'm keeping that in."

####

"So, it turns out my bro is an expert method actor," Mabel boasted.

Bill thought back to Dipper drifting up and down the stairs in the middle of the night. "Yep. Sounds like he's got quite a talent."

Mabel set down her crayons and held out a paper. "Okay—what do you think?"

Bill accepted the drawing. "Am I riding on the back of a rocket ship?"

"Like a bucking bronco! See the rocket flames doing a loop?"

"Sure do. Why am I holding a fish bowl?"

"It's like a cowboy waving his hat, but, you're in space. So that's your astronaut helmet."

"It's beautiful," Bill said intensely. "It's the best thing I've ever seen."

"Aw, really? Thanks!"

"When I take over the universe, I'm rearranging the constellations to look like this."

"Don't do that, though."

"Fine, but I'm hanging it up in my throne room." Bill set down his empty glass so he could hold the picture with both hands, beaming at it as proudly as though he'd made it himself. Big change from his lukewarm reception of her house drawing yesterday. She should draw Bill more often. Being a good artist meant understanding what your audience wanted.

Unfortunately, now that she'd finished her drawing, she didn't have anything to distract her from staring at Bill. And she'd taken about as much of seeing him as she could stand. "Bill. I say this with non-judgmental love. But you look sooo terrible."

"Yeah, I know. I think I'm shaped about as nicely as a human could ask for," he pantomimed drawing a triangle in front of his torso, "but let's be real, there's only so much you can do when you're working with a human bone structure. And there's way too much neck—"

"No! Bill, your body is beautiful just the way it is, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I meant your hair looks awful."

Bill had taken a shower yesterday morning, emerged with his hair all wet and tangled, and done absolutely nothing to detangle it. And then, with it still half damp and totally disheveled, he'd shoved it under a cheap acrylic wig for the rest of the night. And then he'd fallen asleep on the floor still wearing the wig.

And now, with the wig removed, his hair looked like a bird had plucked out half a scarecrow's straw brains and made a nest out of it.

"It sure does," Bill said, with the slightly forlorn air of someone complaining about a war in a far-off country over which one had no power.

"So brush it!"

"No. Never. You can't make me."

"Why not? I thought you wanted to keep your hair all triangly!"

"Not enough to touch it. Either it'll figure out how to straighten out on its own or it won't, I'm not messing with it. I've got enough going on in my life today." By which he meant he had the last lingering traces of a hangover, which was a valid excuse to get out of all social, moral, and aesthetic obligations.

Mabel groaned in frustration. "I can't take looking at it anymore! If you won't brush it, can I?"

Bill gave her a skeptical look; but then he flung his hands out dismissively. "Sure, why not? If it bothers you so much. Have at it."

"I'll be right back!"

She got her brush from upstairs and a spray bottle from the kitchen, and directed Bill to sit on the floor so she could get on the couch behind him. After making such a fuss about brushing his hair, Bill was surprisingly well-behaved with somebody else brushing it for him. He didn't even complain when Mabel accidentally yanked on some nasty snarls a little harder than she meant to.

"I feel like a corpse getting prettied up for my funeral," Bill said. "Grooming each other is how humans bond, isn't it? This is one of your little social rituals? If all you wanted was to make sure we're still friends after you ditched me last night, you could have just asked."

Mabel shoved her foot between Bill's shoulder blades. Wise guy. She joked, "Yeah! We're bonding now! After this we're gonna paint each other's fingernails and talk about what kind of boys we like."

"I want rainbow spiral fingernails."

Mabel really should be used to this—but she still kept getting surprised that Bill was interested in the stuff she liked. And not even in a patronizing sure-I'll-play-along way. He'd turned to look at her. There was a gleam in his eyes. He really wanted rainbow spiral fingernails.

And now she wanted rainbow spiral fingernails, too. "Fine! But look forward until I finish your hair." One way or another, Mabel vowed, she would reform Bill into a proper good guy—even if she had to drag him there kicking and screaming. Fun dress-up partners were hard to find, and she couldn't afford to lose Bill.

####

Soos wandered to the living room to find somewhere to hang up his and Melody's "Best Couple Cosplay" award, but stopped in the doorway.

Bill, Mabel, and Waddles were sitting on the floor, watching some kind of cartoon psychedelic fairy princess lecture a spider on the importance of colors, with a bowl of popcorn between them. Bill and Mabel both had bright multicolor fingernails and were eating the popcorn with chopsticks to avoid touching their nails. There was more popcorn on the floor than in the bowl. Waddles had taken no such cares to avoid dragging his freshly painted hooves through the carpet. 

"Truth or dare," Bill said.

"Dare!"

"Dare you to assassinate the..." Bill trailed off. "I can't have the mayor assassinated, he runs Rainbow Club. And the sheriff and deputy invited me... There aren't a lot of public officials in this dumb town, are there?"

"I'm not killing anybody, Bill. Truth."

"Fine, coward. What's your favorite toxic fume fragrance?"

"That's easy! Gasoline!"

"Hey, mine too! At least on this planet. It smells like—you know that smell that heralds the coming of rain? Gasoline is the smell that heralds a really fun time."

"Yeah! Like going on a road trip!"

Bill paused. "Right! I was... I was definitely thinking about road trips. That's exactly what I meant."

Mabel added, "And it looks so cool when there's a little bit spilled in a parking spot—"

"The rainbow puddles! Yes! Big fan of the rainbow puddles—"

"I love parking lot rainbow puddles! It's like surprise happiness in the most boring place on the planet!"

Soos mumbled, "Girl talk," decided to hang his award up later, and left.

####

Dipper heard the bedroom door open and Mabel call, "Hey Dipper!"

"Hey." He didn't look up from his journal, where he was documenting last night's zombie adventures. "Oh, hey, bad news—Wendy said she got a text from Robbie, it sounds like all the footage from the cemetery last night is ruined?"

"Aww! What? But we worked so hard to train those zombies!"

"Yeah, it's just static. But everything we shot outside the gates is fine. I wonder if it's something supernatural that interferes with electronics?"

"Something supernatural? In the cemetery? Full of zombies? What are the odds of that!" Mabel laughed. "But heyyy, I've got some good news!"

"What?"

Mabel stuck a hairbrush full of gold hair between Dipper's face and his journal. "I got a replacement for the Bill hair sample we gave Pacifica!" She grinned and whispered, "Wanna make a poppet?"

####

It would have been really cool if the first full moon of summer vacation had come on Summerween. But the calendar gods were unkind that year, and instead, it came the next day, on June 23.

Which worked out, in the end, since it meant they didn't have any scheduling conflicts on the one night they could make a poppet.

They had the ritual space set up in their bedroom—a chalk star drawn on the floor with a black candle at each point—and the doll representing Bill—which Mabel had upgraded with button eyes and a miniature version of his favorite knit hoodie. They collected all the shed blonde strands off Mabel's hairbrush, wrapped them around the doll's neck, and tied them on. They set the doll in the center of the star; Bartholomew talked them through the ritual; the flames on the candles leaped a foot in the air, turned a pale blue, and then went out; and the binding ritual was complete. The doll was now connected to Bill Cipher.

"Weird," Bartholomew said. "Usually the flames turn black. I've never seen them turn blue before."

Dipper said, "That's not a problem, is it?"

"No, no. I've just never used the binding ritual on an alien before! I guess it works a little different!"

Dipper picked up the doll and eyed it skeptically. "Mabel, I know we said we're saving this for emergencies only, but—maybe we should test it out just to make sure it actually works?"

"I guess we should," Mabel said, grimacing. "Just—don't do anything that'd hurt him. Okay?"

Yeah, Dipper should've expected that. Whether he liked it or not, Mabel didn't just see Bill as her weird experiment in criminal rehabilitation—she saw him as her friend. He sighed. "Okay. But is it fine if we do something that would embarrass him?"

Mabel shrugged. "I don't see why not!"

####

As they crept from their room, Mabel whispered, "What if we stick him in a box and shake it up? And then tell him there was an earthquake!"

"I thought you were the one who didn't want to hurt him."

"Oh right."

Bill wasn't on his cushions under the window, so they crept downstairs. Halfway down, Dipper stopped, putting a hand on Mabel's arm. Bill was sitting at the kitchen table, chin in his hand, staring out the window.

"This is perfect," he whispered. "He's completely vulnerable. He's got his back to us, he's looking at the moonlight—even if he turns around, he won't see us because his eyes will have to readjust to the dark."

"I don't know if his eyes need to adjust," Mabel said. "Have you ever noticed he never turns the lights on when he goes into a room?"

Dipper considered that. He hadn't noticed—but now that Mabel mentioned it, Bill did have a tendency to lurk in the dark. "Well—okay, but he's still not looking at us. Let's see how this works..." He studied the doll; then turned it around and gently brushed a finger through its yarn hair.

For a moment, nothing happened; and then Bill swatted at the back of his head and looked around, as if he was trying to find what had touched him.

"I think it's working," Dipper hissed.

"Are you sure? What if there's actually a fly in the kitchen?"

Could be. "Let me see if it can control him."

"Careful—"

Dipper grabbed one of the doll's arms and tentatively lifted it.

Bill's arm shot up. He stared at it in bafflement. "Wh...?"

Mabel bit her lip. Dipper waved the doll's arm.

Bill's arm waved. After a pause, he tentatively asked, "Hello?" As if he thought maybe his arm was waving at someone and he should play along with it.

Mabel and Dipper clapped their hands over their mouths, fighting to keep their giggles quiet. Mabel elbowed Dipper, "Hey Dipper Dipper Dipper, get him to stand up, let me control his legs, I have the best idea—"

Bill knocked over his chair and had to flail his arms for balance as he abruptly jerked to his feet. He looked around, eyes wide and wild, an edge of panic to his voice as he hollered, "WHAT'S GOING ON!"

Dipper held the doll out to Mabel. "Okay hurry!" Mabel took it by the legs—

—and Bill started doing the cancan. He shrieked. "WHAT?!"

Dipper shoved his shirt over his mouth to muffle his hysterics. Mabel was letting little wheezy squeaks out through her nose. Bill's voice was almost an octave higher as he screamed, "WHEN I FIND OUT WHO'S BEHIND THIS, I'M GONNA SHRED YOU—" and they both got so close to bursting laughing out loud that they had to pause to punch each other's shoulders for self control.

Still holding one of the doll's legs up, Mabel hissed, "Dipper do you remember the bottle dance. Where they crouch down with bottles on their heads. Can we—can we get a tiny bottle for the doll—"

Bill was failing both arms to avoid falling with one foot held in the air. He grabbed the counter for balance. And then, with a grunt of effort, he wrenched his foot down and stomped it to the ground.

The doll's leg yanked out of Mabel's hand.

Dipper and Mabel fell silent, staring at the doll. They looked at each other. Mabel whispered, "It shouldn't be able to do that, right?"

They looked at Bill.

Bill's face was burning red, and he was so far past fury that his expression was perfectly blank. His eyes were huge, and round, and pointed straight at them.

They bolted up the stairs.

Bill charged after them.

They screamed in terror. They weren't loud enough to drown out Bill: "WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON YOU BRATS—"

Mabel grabbed Dipper's arm. "Dipper, do something!"

"Uhh—!" He tossed the doll in the air and caught it.

They heard an alarmed yelp as Bill was launched in the air and then a crash as he landed on the stairs again.

They scrambled into their room and slammed the door. "Safe!" Mabel said.

"Yeah," Dipper said, panting for breath. "Can't get us here."

The doll's head twisted 180 degrees to stare up at them.

They yelped. Dipper tossed the doll to Mabel. Mabel held it out at arm's length, threw it in her nightstand's drawer, and slammed it. It tried to open again and she leaned against it with her full body weight. "Dipper, the duct tape! In my craft supplies!"

"Which craft supplies?!"

The tiny knocking inside the drawer was echoed by the pounding at the door, accompanied by a string of creative death threats: "—and when I'm finished the coroner won't know which corpse was which! I'll make a belt out of your spinal columns—!"

"We didn't do anything," Mabel shouted, "it wasn't our fault!" She took the duct tape from Dipper and frantically wrapped it around the night stand. Dipper added, "It was someone else! And we'll never do it again—"

Sleepy and muffled, Soos's voice drifted through the door, "Dudes? What's all the hubbub?"

Dipper and Mabel gasped, "Soos!" "Save us!"

His voice the perfect tone of righteous indignation, Bill declared, "I'm being assaulted, that's what!"

Stan's voice joined in from downstairs: "BILL! If you don't leave those kids alone I'll cave your nose in!"

"THEY'RE THE AGGRESSORS," Bill screamed, half hysterical. "They are! I'm the victim here! I'm being victimized!"

Stan shouted, "Kids, good work! Bill, you can go to—" He grumbled as he self-censored, "—sleep! Shut up and go to sleep!"

"You can go jump in the bottomless pit, Stanley Pines! I'll tear you all apart with my teeth if I have to! NOBODY in this stupid junk heap of a shack is getting any sleep until I get my—"

From just outside the attic door, Stan roared, "BILL!"

There was a dull thud as Bill leaned against their door; a lot less shouty, he quickly said, "I'm going to bed, I'm going to bed, I'm going to bed."

"That's what I thought," Stan snapped. The kids heard his footsteps retreating downstairs. Soos said, "Um... night," and his door shut. After a moment, there was the creak of footsteps retreating from the attic door.

Dipper and Mabel slowly, softly snuck across the room to the door, and pressed their ears to the crack. No sound.

They stayed there for several minutes, barely breathing, listening to the silence.

Finally, Mabel pulled away and looked at Dipper. They both nodded, and Dipper opened the door a crack to check if the coast was clear.

Bill's eye stared in. "Hey, kids!"

They yelled. Dipper tried to slam the door; but Bill had already shoved his hand through. Fingernails painted with neon colors and black spirals clawed at the doorframe. He shouldered through the gap in the door, and then he was in the room, smiling much too wide and eyes fixed on them like helicopter spotlights on two wanted criminals. There was blood on his teeth. "Wow! Playing with poppets?"

Dipper upturned his suitcase and held it up like a shield. Mabel pointed a can of spray paint at Bill's face. Bill took a step closer and they took a step back.

"Pretty advanced trick for a couple of children your age," Bill said conversationally. "Not bad, not bad at all. Heck, I'm impressed you pulled it off! Although you didn't make a very smart choice of test subject." He stomped a foot twice.

Something in the nightstand thudded twice. The twins jumped. Bill laughed at them.

Mentally cursing himself for having flinched, Dipper straightened his back and glared at Bill. "You're just mad you got jerked around like a puppet! What's the matter, Bill—you can dish it but you can't take it?" Mabel looked at Dipper like he was crazy.

Bill's indulgent smile cracked, dropping into a snarl of rage. He shifted his weight toward them. Mabel dropped into a judo stance and Dipper sucked in a breath to shout for Stan.

Before anyone could launch a full attack, Mabel took a shaky breath in, forced a nervous smile, and said, "Bill, hey..." (His eyes snapped to her face like a predator that just heard a twig snap.) "This was—just a funny prank, and we're all cool? Right?"

"Mabel," Dipper muttered. "Shhh!"

But Mabel kept looking at Bill. "Right? Buddies?" She held up her arm, showing Bill her friendship bracelet.

Bill stopped and rocked back on his heels. He gave Mabel a long, hard look—like he was seriously considering whether to accept the reality she was inventing. "Yeah. Real funny." Smiling through grit teeth, he said, "You know—it's been a while since I've had my energy strung between two vessels. I didn't even know what that experience felt like for a human! Very interesting. Educational. And it was nice to feel weightless again for a second. Even if the landing was a little rough." He licked the blood off his teeth. One of the teeth shifted. "So—thanks so much for spicing up a boring night. It's been a real blast. Hasn't it." He stared at them like he expected an answer—and possibly like he planned to strangle whoever answered first.

Dipper and Mabel exchanged a look. Dipper shook his head slightly. Mabel looked Bill in the eyes again. "Yeah! Big blast. So, you're not... mad. Right? Nobody's mad!"

Bill stared her down for a moment longer; and then said, "Sure, kid! It's all fun and games!" He forced a laugh—and then another, longer one, hahhh, like he was exhaling all his rage. And just like that, he was back to normal. "I'll admit it—for a second there, you almost got me good! Not bad at all." He held out his hand insistently. "And now the game's over, so you're gonna give me that toy so I can neutralize it. Aren't you?"

Dipper bit his lip, looking past Bill toward the stairs. He could yell for Stan; there was no way Bill could kill them before reinforcements got here—

Mabel elbowed Dipper's side and whispered, "We can't keep it."

And she was right. Now that Bill knew about the doll, he'd be spending all his time plotting how to get past them to take it, and they wouldn't have a second's peace. Either he got it now, or he got it later. Bill wouldn't rest until the doll was out of their hands.

Because he was terrified of it. Why wouldn't he be?

"Yeah," Dipper sighed. "Game over."

"I'll get it." Mabel peeled just enough duct tape off the night stand to wiggle it open a crack and try to squeeze her fingers in. Bill stretched his hand toward Mabel, and the doll stretched an arm out of the drawer. Mabel flinched in surprise, but grabbed the arm and yanked the doll free.

"Ow." Bill grabbed his shoulder and rolled it gingerly. "Careful, kid, are you trying to dislocate my arm? I don't mind popping it back in, but eventually that socket's gonna wear out."

"Sorry! It was a tight squeeze." She held the doll over Dipper's suitcase shield. "Here."

Bill snatched it from her hand. "Thanks a million, star girl." He favored them both with his most nearly-charming, far-too-wide smile. "Good night, kiddos. Have sweet dreams."

"You too," Mabel said weakly.

Bill left. Dipper shut the door. He and Mabel both heaved a sigh of relief.

From the loft over the attic, Bartholomew called, "Is he gone?"

"What are you doing up there?" Mabel asked. "Barty-mew-mew the scaredy-cat."

"I'm not fighting that guy, I'm porcelain and he's crazy."

Dipper flopped on his bed and stared at the ceiling. "Welp. I'm gonna have nightmares about Bill chasing me up the stairs."

Mabel sat on her own bed. "He just wanted to terrify us. And to keep us from seeing we'd terrified him." She fingered the star beads on her friendship bracelet. "He wouldn't have hurt us, I'm sure of it."

"Wh—seriously? You don't think Bill—"

"I know! But he's changed a tiny bit! He'd hurt anyone else, but he won't hurt us," Mabel said. "Or—well, me, at least. But I think he'll leave you alone too if I'm with you!"

Dipper pushed himself up on his elbows to look at her. "If he'd caught us on the stairs, do you really think he wouldn't have tried to tear us apart?"

Mabel considered that; and then reluctantly admitted, "He wouldn't hurt me as long as he remembers he doesn't want to hurt me." 

"Yeah, well. I wouldn't count on him remembering when he's mad." Dipper slid under his covers and rolled over. "Barty, can you get the lights?"

"Sure, one second." All the lights and lamps in the room flickered ominously; and then, with a sinister pop, snapped off without being touched.

"Thanks, man."

Mabel didn't climb into bed. She was staring at her fingernails. She'd painted them the same colors as Bill's; but she'd used a black marker to draw spirals on his, and he'd drawn stars and sloppy tiger stripes on hers.  In the dark, the colors were all faded.

This time, just once, maybe she and Dipper were the bad guys. He might disagree—he'd actually been puppeted, maybe he saw this differently from Mabel—but that probably didn't make it okay to do it back to Bill just for fun. They should've saved the poppet for an emergency. And the cancan, she decided, was definitely too much.

She smoothed out her covers; then she pulled up her knees to her chest, hugged them, and stared thoughtfully down at Bill's face in the middle of her zodiac blanket.

####

In the dark and quiet of the downstairs bathroom, Bill sat cross-legged on the toilet lid. He held the doll in his cupped hands. Soon, he'd disassemble it—but not yet. Tonight, it was his tool. He shut his eyes and focused on it.

There was the thinnest thread of energy, channeled through his shed hair, connecting this doll to him. He studied the thread, feeling it in his mind, exploring it, strengthening it—until he could almost feel it tugging on him.

And then he started psychically groping for similar connections.

He set the doll on the floor, on top of the drawing Mabel had given him.

His other eyes—the billions of depictions of his face scattered across this planet—weren't meant to be used in this dimension. They were designed like windows he could peer through from the Nightmare Realm; here on Earth, he was on the wrong side of the windows to see through them. And he wouldn't be surprised if the Axolotl had somehow found a way to blindfold them on top of that—after all, he seemed to have done the same to most of Bill's other abilities.

But Bill was resourceful, he was stubborn, and he didn't have anything better to do.

He focused all his energy on trying to feel the drawing the same way he felt the doll, searching for a connection between this body and that face—and he searched, and searched, and searched.

He wasn't sure how long he tried. At least a couple of hours. Straining, straining—for nothing. His head hurt.

What was the difference? The doll was shaped like him, the drawing was shaped like him. What did the doll have that the drawing didn't?

The hair. A bit of his flesh.

Bill knelt over the picture, studying it in the dark. He opened an eye wide, wiped a fingertip across the surface of his eyeball to collect his tears, and pressed it to the drawing's eye.

He could feel a thread of energy stringing from his eye to the paper.

He climbed back on the toilet lid, shut his eyes, and focused on that thread. With an effort that threatened to split his head in two, he pried open his inner eye. And then he was staring up at his own human form from the drawing on the floor.

His body was shaking. His head was throbbing. He wobbled dizzily on the toilet; and as he saw himself topple off, his trance broke, the vision disappeared, and he blacked out. White spots burst behind his eyes.

When he next opened an eye, the room was spinning. He shut his eye. It was several minutes before he could sit up without being sick. He leaned against the wall and let the sweat on his forehead and cheek soak the old wallpaper.

The white spots he'd seen as he passed out were his distant all-seeing eyes. 

He'd done something tonight. That was good. But there was no way he was seeing through any other pictures like that. He needed something he could focus his power through, like an antenna.

He needed gold.

####

(Last chapter of the year!! If you enjoyed, I'd love to hear y'all's thoughts & comments! Thanks!)

[fruitcoops]

I think it would be really interesting for leo and sirius to talk ab how they both didn’t go to college and how they both joined the nhl at 18 but had v different upbringings

Ooo, I like this one! I’m always down for some Cap and Knutty bonding. SW credit goes to @lumosinlove!

TW for mentioned bad parenting

“Kinda weird, isn’t it?” Leo said, breaking the nighttime silence after many long minutes of just their breathing. Sirius hummed in question. “Starting all this so young.”

Sirius made a noncommittal noise and Leo shifted, never taking his eyes off the sky. There was too much light pollution to see the stars properly in Gryffindor, but the roof of the rink didn’t have a bad view; the planes flying overhead brought pinpricks of brightness to the indigo blur.

“Was it hard for you?”

He heard Sirius’ coat move. “Was what hard?”

“Starting the NHL at eighteen.”

There was a long beat of silence. “Sometimes.”

“I didn’t know if I would make it,” Leo confessed, still barely above a murmur. Nobody else was around, but it didn’t feel right to talk in normal voices. The whole world was muted, save for the noise of the city below them. “There was just so much to do.”

Sirius laughed softly. “I hate to break it to you, rookie, but that doesn’t change.”

“How do you deal with it?”

“Before, or now?”

Leo thought for a moment. “Both.”

“Before, I would go home and shoot pucks until I was too tired to stand up. Sometimes I would read.” It wasn’t a secret, but it still made Leo’s heart hurt to remember. Nobody as kind and hardworking as Sirius deserved that. “Now, I make myself some food, take a shower, and steal Re’s softest hoodie.”

Leo could hear his smile in the dark—it echoed his own. “Nothing better, huh?”

“Nope.”

“Finn’s fit me best,” he mused. “But Lo’s smell better.”

“Ah, he finally discovered deodorant?”

“Shut up,” Leo teased, elbowing his ribs. Sirius laughed a little louder; in the light of the streetlamps and the absence of his granite-hard focus, it was easy to remember that he was only 26. Leo had worshipped him as a kid, but now he just saw Sirius for what he was. His captain, who guided him through the playoffs even when his personal life was crumbling apart. His older brother, though Sirius certainly wouldn’t think of him that way. His friend.

“Really, though, it’s important to have those connections,” Sirius said when they both calmed down. “Being alone is good, but only if you know you have people to talk to when you need them.”

“Was it easier when you weren’t living with someone?”

“No.” The answer was immediate.

“Sometimes I want the apartment to myself.” Leo lowered his voice unconsciously, then sighed. “It’s not because I don’t want them there. I just need to be alone. Wash the dishes. Clean my room. Call my mom.”

“You should tell them.”

He turned his head slightly; Sirius was still scanning the sky. “Is that what you did?”

“It took a couple hiccups, but yeah. If one of us needs some alone time, the other will go to the grocery store or take a walk, maybe hang out with friends. You just have to make sure your boys know that it’s not personal.”

“You’re freakishly good at sage advice.”

Sirius snorted. “Merci, rookie.”

“I’m not a rookie anymore.”

“Yeah, you are.” He raised his hands, as if outlining a marquee. “The Eternal Rookie, starring Leo Knut.”

Leo stuck his tongue out, feeling rather petulant about the whole thing. “Watch it, Cap, I’m gonna sic Dumo on you.”

“My own father?” Sirius gasped dramatically. “How could you?”

“Did you ever get homesick?”

The question was out of the blue—he didn’t blame Sirius for faltering. Honestly, Leo was kicking himself for asking in the first place, though he had been keeping it in for ages. Unspoken rule of the Lions #1: Don’t ask Cap about his childhood.

“I…” Sirius fell silent once more.

“I’m sorry,” Leo apologized, and he meant it. “That came out of nowhere.”

“I missed Regulus,” Sirius continued carefully without acknowledging him. “But no, I didn’t get homesick. I didn’t have time, or a real reason.”

Alone in a new city, finally out of a horrible living situation, but desperately missing the little brother he left behind… Leo couldn’t even begin to imagine going through it when the NHL by itself was already overwhelming to his teenage brain. He scooted an inch closer until their shoulders touched. “I get homesick every couple of months.”

“You have a kind family.”

“Have you even met them?”

“At the party.” Sirius’ smile was practically audible. “Your mother was very excited to see me.”

“Oh, god,” Leo groaned. “What happened?”

“She—“ He broke off with a laugh. “She was very nice, I promise, but I think I surprised her because she squeaked when I said ‘hello’.”

Leo shook his head. “Did you sneak up on her?”

“I’m six two, I can’t sneak up on anyone!”

“You walk like a fucking ghost, dude! It’s creepy!”

“Okay, rude.”

“I swear, you and Loops need to be belled like cats,” Leo huffed.

They lapsed back into comfortable quiet for a few more minutes as a train rattled past on one side and the metro busses rolled down Main Street on the other. It had taken Leo a long time to figure out Gryff’s layout, and even longer to get used to the sounds of the city.

“What does it feel like?”

Leo blinked, unsure if he had heard correctly. “What?”

“Being homesick.” Sirius shifted again and folded his hands over his stomach. “I didn’t notice much of a difference in practices when I started the NHL, and going back to my parents’ house wasn’t my exactly a highlight of my year.”

Curiosity overrode his tact and reasoning skills. “You never asked Logan?”

“Non. It was different, with him. He had already left to go to college before I knew him, and spent four years away from his family.”

“Right.” Leo forgot about that on occasion. That Finn and Logan might be five years older than him, but they had only been rookies a year or two prior. Not everyone went straight from their city select team to an official draft. “It’s hard to describe.”

Sirius made an understanding noise, but he couldn’t entirely mask his disappointment. Leo licked his lips and tried again.

“It’s like a piece of you isn’t where it’s supposed to be. And it keeps tugging on your chest, but you never know when it’s going to start and stop so you just… deal with it. You ignore it some days and you think about it other days.” He swallowed around the lump in his throat. “The hard days are when you remember you can’t go back to the way things were before. I don’t even call my mom sometimes, ‘cause I know it’ll make me sadder.”

“The way things were before?”

“Yeah, like—like all my classmates are in college, and I’m laying on a roof with one of the most famous hockey players in the history of forever.” That drew a light laugh from them both. “I’m gonna go back to my reunion in a couple years and have literally nothing in common with the people I used to be friends with.”

“Sometimes I wish I went to college,” Sirius said. “But I would have missed so much if I did. I don’t think I would have been happy there.”

“Finn and Logan get weird about college.” Maybe he shouldn’t be talking about it, but Leo had the feeling none of their conversation would leave the rooftop. “It was hard for them, with all their shit.”

“Re does, too.” He recognized the sad edge in Sirius’ voice; it was the same as his own. “For a different reason. It started good, and ended bad.”

“I’m glad I missed out on that,” Leo said, biting down the urge to scream at the universe for putting their significant others through so much hardship at an already-difficult time. None of them deserved the pain they went through. “Besides, it’s not like we need degrees to play hockey, and we’ll have plenty of money afterward.”

“I never thought about my life after hockey until my ankle.”

“My parents always pushed me to make sure I wanted to do the NHL instead of more school.”

“You’re lucky to have them.”

“I wish you did.”

The words hung suspended between them before Leo could swallow them back down, somehow dangerous and calming at the same time. It wasn’t like he had never thought about it before; he just hadn’t said it out loud. The first time he had seen Sirius’ parents across the rink had given him a case of the heebie-jeebies so strong he had to shower twice. All the times after that just made him angry.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Sirius’ voice was quiet, but not upset. “You’re not the first person to say it. I’m glad you feel like you can be honest with me.”

Leo frowned. “Well, yeah. Obviously.”

“I try really hard to not be an asshole captain, so it actually does mean a lot.”

“I don’t think you could be an asshole if you tried.”

The barking laugh that split the night startled Leo so bad he nearly jumped out of his skin; Sirius clapped a hand over his mouth, though he was still snickering. “Sorry, sorry, I just—holy shit, I forgot you didn’t know me before. Mon dieu.”

“You weren’t that bad,” Leo protested. “Pots said you used to be grumpier, but that’s it.”

Sirius shook his head, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. “I was such a dick. There’s not a single picture of the whole team where I’m smiling for about two years and I was such a stickler for the rules.”

Leo gaped at him. “You followed rules?”

“To the fucking letter. It was awful.”

“What happened?”

Sirius shrugged. “I got friends. Idiot friends who did things like showing me the easiest way onto the roof. Pots used to drag me up here every Friday.”

“Really?”

“Ouais.” Mischief flitted over his face. “He skipped date night with Lily once on accident, and she tracked us up here like a bloodhound. It was terrifying.”

“What did you do?” Lily was one of the nicest people Leo knew, but he knew better than to get on her bad side.

“Lied to her face while James hid behind that strobe light.”

“Did it work?”

“Are you kidding?” he snorted. “She called me a liar and suggested getting a better best friend. That was after she told James he’s better have something nice planned for their next date if he ever wanted to get in her pants again.”

“And yet you didn’t listen to her.” Leo tsked. “Of all the people on the team, you chose the hot mess.”

“Trust me, rookie, James had his whole life figured out compared to me.”

“Did you…” Leo trailed off and but his lip. He had pushed his luck a lot already; who knew if one more question would be the tipping point? “Did you ever think about coming out? Even just to Pots.”

Sirius didn’t hesitate. “After every single game.”

“For seven years?”

“Up until the day those pictures were leaked. Even more after Re and I were together.”

“How old were you when you knew?”

“13. You?”

Leo exhaled slowly. “I’m not sure. I think I had an idea of it as a kid, but didn’t really get it until I was in high school. My parents were even more worried about the NHL after I told them.”

“They worry a lot about you.”

“Only child, and I was going for a wildly unstable career path with no guarantee that I would ever see the ice.”

“They’re proud of you. More than you know.” Sirius’ watch beeped. “It’s ten o’clock. Are you supposed to be home?”

“I should probably make sure my boys haven’t burned down the apartment.” Neither of them made an attempt to move. “Can we do this again sometime?”

“Of course.”

You’re like a brother to me, he wanted to say. I don’t know who else I can talk to like this. “Thank you.”

“Any time. We don’t have to do extra practice beforehand, either.”

Leo nudged him gently. “You’re the best captain ever.”

“You’re the best rookie, rookie.”

“I’m not a rookie.”

“Yeah, you are.”

Yeah, I am, he thought as they laid side-by-side in silence once more with the past behind them and the future ahead. And if I end up like you, it means I did something right.

[angelicamerlinbarnes]

Severus Snape being an awesome teacher and human being

Au Volant - Elsa & Emilie

He makes sure to let students work on their own when they brew Amortentia. They only have to pass in a list of things they smell and he draws little smiley faces on them because he knows a lot of kids are very insecure about their feelings. (Once a kid passed in a list that just said, I’m sorry Professor but it doesn’t smell like anything, and on their paper Severus drew an ace and aro flag and a time for the student to be at Mcgonogall’s office that weekend for tea, along with a smiley face and an O grade.) (The student was Newt.) (Hailee’s just read, People are gross and if I fall in love with one I want you to kill me, to which Severus responded, Valid, and drew her a picture of a turtle.)

He makes fake batches of Felix Felicis and gives one to every student secretly before their O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s so they feel extra confident going into the test but aren’t actually cheating.

He knows his area is Potions, but he teaches defense spells to students who come after class or report bullying anonymously. Severus Snape does not fucking stand for bullying in his classroom or outside of it. If you dare to pick on one of his students, he will burn you so hard with his mere words that you will wish you were dead. Do not fuck with Severus Snape’s kids.

On parent-teacher day, he drinks different batches of Polyjuice Potion to imitate certain students, all of whom hide away in their dorms after drinking a fine batch of invisibility potion. He then follows these select parents around and endures their horrifying, demeaning remarks about their “failure of a child” so his students don’t have to. He makes sure to give these students glowing praises to their parents when it’s his turn to offer feedback (after making up an excuse to go to the bathroom as the student), and takes mental notes of the parents’ most prominent criticisms so he can be sure to compliment those parts of his students during their next assignments (and also just because).

He brews sleeping potions for students he knows stay up all night studying and sometimes slips it into their drinks if they refuse to take it willingly. He then gives them back their (usually almost flawless) tests with the note that if they want a full O they need to sleep more.

He invites kids he knows don’t have many friends to have dinner and lunch and breakfast in his classroom whenever they’d like. He tries to make friends with some of them too, hoping to make their lives a little less lonely than his was.

He keeps an eye out for abusive home situations. He does his best to come up with excuses for those unfortunate students to stay at Hogwarts over breaks or to visit often over the summer. He tries to find them friends that will help them the way James helped Sirius and Regulus, and speaks to Mcgonogall about opening a home for these kids on campus. He does his best to be the parent he knows these kids don’t have, and is open about his own horrid past in hopes of getting some of them to fess up so he can help them better than he can without hearing it explicitly from their mouths.

He uses his Pensieve to collect happy memories of and for his students to reflect on when they need to and they sit in the corner of his classroom. (Among them are his wedding day to James and Lily, the day Harry was born, a couple playdates with the other Marauder children, Sirius and Remus’ wedding day, studying with Remus, pranking James with Sirius, Sirius and James asleep cuddled together with Remus on the couch in ugly Christmas sweaters, his son and many nieces and nephews playing dress-up, reading with Hermione and exploring with Luna and Newt, dancing with Draco (he likes to dance but was always ashamed to do it at the Malfoys), going on long drives with Regulus, the Blacks’ funeral (Regulus and Sirius performed a very gay stripper dance on top of their graves, it was beautiful), and many, many more.) Sometimes he can see his saddest students watching them and smiling, and their sad eyes twinkling make him smile.

He brings in a box of small kittens, puppies, and bunnies one day and lets them wander around the classroom. Some kids start crying because they haven’t felt this loved in years. After an incident with a bad potion and a rainbow puppy, he stops bringing them all out during class, but they’re there on the weekends and whenever a student needs to hug one (or borrow one, much to Mcgonogall’s chagrin).

He works to break down House biases and help students develop inter-House relationships and friendships. He wants every student to be proud of their House and not to treat anyone differently because of theirs. He creates (with Dumbledore, Sirius, and Regulus’ help) an annual House Pride, in which every student dresses up in their House colors and has their nails and skin painted and everyone is smiling and laughing and waving flags with their House emblems in the air. Even the teachers get in on it.

He stresses the importance of friendships, communication, and choices. He urges students not to make his mistakes by treating their friends well, talking about their feelings even if they’re ugly, and making the right choices in life for you and your loved ones, even if those choices are hard. He invites Lily in to talk about this too sometimes.

He sends out his Patronus every night to wander around the school. Often it comes back to him with nothing, but sometimes he can hear a student crying through it. He’ll instruct his doe to sit with the student until he gets there, and then he’ll walk around the castle, pretending to “accidentally” happen upon the crying student. He’ll sit with them until they’ve calmed down and listen if they want to talk and then take them to their dorm, bidding them goodnight and get well soon.

He gives students hugs when they want them. He didn’t want to originally, but Harry would greet him every class with a hug, and then one day Draco came in crying and attached himself to Severus like a sloth, so he patted him on the back and continued to hug him. Not long after, Hermione couldn’t figure out a potion and burst into tears out of frustration, turning and burying herself in his chest. After Luna wrapped her stick arms around his neck for no reason, Severus just accepted his fate and let his students hug him.

A lot of first years get scared in the hallways, since the staircases move and everywhere is incredibly crowded and they are oh so very small. Severus will often hold the hand of the most anxious ones for the first few weeks and walk them to class. Eventually they become more confident with the castle and themselves and stop needing it, but the occasional sixth year will slip their hand into his just because sometimes.

He walks around campus with students sometimes. He can tell when they’re nervous or sad or angry and he takes them on walks around the outskirts of campus and lets them vent. He also teaches them how to throw curses at the Whomping Willow just because (it’s for Remus but nobody’s gonna say it out loud).

He teaches students how to walk dramatically (as he should). He puts on student drag shows in the Great Hall with James’ help (who always kisses him way too enthusiastically because of it) and Dumbledore’s permission (so long as he gets to be the finale). The students work with Sirius on their drag looks and Sirius and Remus both join in the drag show for the opening act. Sirius’ job is to design and create the students’ looks while Remus tells them they look pretty and tames their stage fright. Severus just sits in the audience smirking while Lily screams in delight. (Regulus also shrieks with excitement eventually, though he does usually spend the first half trying to look disinterested.) (Peter’s job is to get the cookies and sweets (and underage alcohol).)

He turns into his snake Animagus form sometimes without warning when his students aren’t looking and just slithers around the classroom scaring the crap out of people. His favorite students are the ones brave enough to pet him. Harry and Newt are the only ones brave enough (and allowed) to wind him around their shoulders. Severus and Harry sometimes have conversations in Parseltongue.

He invents spells to help with dyslexia and other learning disabilities in his spare time. When he’s done with that he plans to try looking into some cures to mental illness. He’s thinking possibly a potion that treats PTSD by replacing traumatic memories with pictures of puppies, unicorns, bunnies, cats, and parrots. What do you think?

He tries hard to come up with solutions and modifications to his lessons for students with ADHD. He often talks to James about what the best steps to take are because James has ADHD. (So does Sirius, but his insecurities are bad enough that he won’t talk about it with anyone but Remus and James.)

He plays the violin sometimes during tests and uses Sonorus to make it echo throughout the classroom. Occasionally he cancels class and just plays until most of his students fall asleep. Those who want to work on extra work can, but he tries to keep their stress and general teenage angst to a minimum. (Though he encourages the emo phase.)

One of the first things he does after the Prank is get to work on a lycanthropy solution for Remus. After a couple years he invents the wolfsbane potion, but it doesn’t quite do the trick. Eventually he manages to figure out the cure, and when Remus finds out he cries so hard he can’t breathe right for days. (Sirius also cries. So does James. And Peter. And Lily and Regulus and Mcgonogall. Seriously, everyone cried and everyone hugged him and Severus tried to get away by transforming into his snake form but toddler Harry just grabbed him and refused to let go, so that didn’t work.) (He also helps Remus become a wolf Animagus when he asks almost a year later.)

He teaches certain kids Occlumency and Legilimency after school. It’s strictly for kids he knows come from abusive homes, whether they’re open about it or not, so they can tell when it’s going to be a bad night and get away or protect themselves. He teaches Occlumency for those who need to hide things from their parents (like Sirius and Regulus used to) and Legilimency to all, just in case. He focuses on stealth and untraceable versions of the craft to earn the kids as much time and protection as he can.

He figures out how to remove the Dark Mark from his own arm after the war. The next person he calls is Regulus, whose he also removes. He writes down the entire process and when the war starts up again, he keeps an eye out for students suddenly wearing long sleeves. He speaks with those he does find and helps them to make the right choice and join the right side of the war, starting with removing that horrid tattoo. (Draco bawls uncontrollably when Severus removes his.)

When they do the lesson on Veritaserum, he’s extra careful to make sure students don’t test it, especially on themselves or their friends. It, along with Amortentia, is the most guarded potion in his stash. The only times he uses it is when a student from an abusive home is too scared to tell him what’s going on, in which case he finds them somewhere private, asks them if they’d be okay with it and if so which teacher they want to be there to ask the questions (usually Remus, Sirius, or himself), and then administers the potion and leaves or begins to ask yes or no questions. It’s helped a lot of kids escape their families.

He tries to ease trepidations about himself early in the school year, since he’s aware he can be intimidating and the rampant stories regarding his time under Voldemort (though entirely as a spy) do not help. His friendships with Remus and Sirius often serve to alleviate students’ fears though, as they tend to tell embarrassing stories about him from their own Hogwarts days that make him seem more human (and make him want to strangle them, but that’s neither here nor there).

Every year, he works with Remus and Lily to arrange Muggleborn Pride. It’s an incredibly popular event with tons of Muggle inventions and artifacts floating through the air over students’ heads. At any time they can reach up and pull one down to study it. Many students dress as their favorite Muggle icons and characters. Because of this, Muggleborn students are more comfortable being who they are than ever before. (Some have even reclaimed the word Mudblood by setting up mud pits during their Pride.) (They also have more Slytherin Muggleborns now than any other time in recorded history.)

He tells Regulus’ story to every class of students, to teach them what true bravery is and how love and family, even if not blood, can change the course of history. Regulus survived his encounter with the Horcruxes and worked to destroy them and eventually Voldemort, but now lives away from the public eye in a secluded part of Muggle London. He and Severus are friends and visit often, and Regulus will occasionally come back to Hogwarts to say hello to his brother and mum (Remus), but for the most part he keeps his life intensely private. He allows his family to tell his story because he wants other kids to know they are not alone and that there is a way out, and that you are not a bad person for things you did in your childhood. Severus does his best to do it justice.

He has incredibly loud arguments with Dumbledore until he finally agrees to implement sex ed as a mandatory class at Hogwarts. Severus works with the other Marauders on the curriculum and they try to include multiple angles and identities in their lesson plan. At first they try to trust Remus with it, but Remus doesn’t go anywhere without Sirius who is less than tactful and Remus himself has some deadpan sarcasm and a lack of shame to rival James Potter’s, so. They try Lily. She can’t stop giggling. Finally they beg Regulus to come back and teach it. He’s surprisingly… perfect for the job. (He steals parenting books from Amir, that’s his secret.)

When James visits, everything becomes chaos for a bit. While he mostly hangs out with Sirius and Remus and causes trouble with them, he certainly seems to enjoy sitting in the back of Severus’ classroom and bothering him during lessons. The only way to get him to leave is to turn into a snake and wind himself around his shoulders, which makes James shriek and sputter and run away (James has always had an irrational fear of snakes; odd that he married one then, innit?). But when James isn’t causing chaos, he’s following Severus around adoringly and grabbing at his hand, whispering jokes in his ear and kissing his cheek. Despite all of the times he’s a pain in the ass, there are always these little moments that remind Severus why he fell in love with him in the first place (entirely unwillingly and with much stubborn pride on both ends, but, well. It is what it is and they got here eventually, so that’s all that matters).

When Lily visits, everything is calm. She reigns all of the Marauders in and forces them to have picnics under the tree where they all used to do homework. She often holds Severus’ hand and dances with him there, turning his insides to useless goo. She’s always full of laughter and fairy bells, and though she makes every student question their priorities and life decisions, she’s a favorite of them all. Not a day goes by that someone doesn’t pull him aside and say, “You’re a lucky, lucky man.” (Or, in James’ case: “Fuck, love, how’d we bloody manage that?” (Severus just shrugs. It’s not like he knows.))

He helps kids with autism feel more like they belong. He also works to educate non-autistic students how to better socialize and respect those who are, and takes extra care to dispel myths about autism and its causes, effects, and characteristics. Lily helps when she can.

Above all, Severus tries to give his students the education he never had. Anything he can provide for them he will. He’s been given a second chance and by Merlin is he going to bloody use it.

[ketchupqueenboiiii]

Timari Jan. day 8: childhood friends

@timari-month-event

The Culpa family were Waynes of Europe. They own Culpa Consolidated, a company rivaling Wayne Enterprises in not only their income, but reputation. C.C. owns many establishments across Europe and is spreading to Asia and the Americas. It's is known for their funding of causes, well payed employees, and its 'puts-up-with-no-bullshit' CEO, Felix Culpa.  

Every business person knows the rules of making business with C.C.

1. No Touching

2. No Getting Off-Topic at Meetings

And most of all,

3. No Talking About The Culpa Family

Everybody knows that Felix is a widow, raising his daughter by himself, with only the help of his in-laws and mother. The first time a potential client brought up his family, they ended up getting fired from their company for ruining a business deal. There are no pictures or information on his daughter on the internet, everyone in the building has signed an NDA.

Anyone who thinks that Felix's cold exterior would make him a bad parent is wrong. Felix would sooner stab himself in the eye with a fork than ever treat his little flower as anything less than a princess.

He used to catastrophize to Bridgette, late at night when she was pregnant with Marinette. He was terrified that he'd be a horrible father.

'Just like his.' The bastard who left his mother when he was just a child and then returned later when he was a teen to harass her.

But Bridgette always made sure he understood that he'd never be that man.  That wasn't Felix's problem right now. It was taking Marinette to her first publicized gala.

~

"Little Flower, you remember the rules, correct?" Marinette nodded yes for the third time that night. She understood her papa wanted to keep her safe, she wanted her papa to be safe too, but she's 9! She's a big girl, she can take care of herself.

All of her martial arts teachers made sure of that.

"If someone tries drag me away I yell, if everything gets to much I come find you, don't cause trouble, don't let anyone see Tikki or Kaalki or Trixx. I got it, Papa." Marinette was wearing her favorite fancy dress. She saved it just for today, her first gala. She'd been asking her Papa to go to one since she was 6.

"Okay then, Little Flower, we're here." They step into the Wayne Ballroom.

~

Tim was no stranger to gala's. He had been going since he was a baby. His parents basked in the attention they got from other attendees who coddled him in 'oh look how big you  are.' and 'look at you. Such a handsome young man.' And when the pampering stopped he just spent the rest of the night in the kids room, taking pictures with the camera he smuggled inside.

Tim knew almost all of the kids who regularly attended galas, they understood that he didn't want to play, so they didn't try to wrap him into their mischief or games. It's not that he didn't like having fun, ever kid did. It's was because his parents made it explicitly clear that if he caused a scene, there would be consequences.

So it confused him when he saw a girl his age he didn't recognize. His parent's made sure he could recognize and name anyone important he might ever meet, including their kids.

She wasn't trying to recruit him into a scheme, so he ignored her and it seemed like she was too.

Until she walked up to him.

~

Mari really didn't like how all of the people at the gala kept touching her. When her checks weren't being pinched, her hair was being petted. Thank the kwami her Papa excused her to the kids room.

She started drawing him her picture diary. She didn't finish the page, she had a feeling her night had yet to reach it's climax.

She noticed a boy her age on the other side of the room and decided to introduce her self. Her Papa's protectiveness had left her in need of friends. Her cousin Adrien was not her friend, he let Chloe bully her and told her that she had to be nicer to Chloe, if you're extra nice to her she'll be nice to you, that's what the friendship advise videos Natalie shows me say. At least her Papa let her go to school. It was maximum security and he made sure all of the faculty signed NDAs, but it was something.

"Hi, I'm Marinette!" She had a mix of English and French accent, English from living in London with her Papa and Nan, and French from her conversations with Grand-mère and Grand-père.

The boy hesitated to answer, "I'm Tim." His disinterested tone would have discouraged most other kids but Marinette was determined.

"Hi Tim! What are you doing?" She sat next to him on the couch.

"Taking pictures." He really wanted to tell her he didn't want to play but his parents would have his head if she ran off in tears because of him.

He really didn't like how she was staring at his camera, if she was the 'steal from other kids' type he was ready to throw hands, despite how small they were.

"That's a Nikon D760 DSLR, right?"

Well, that was unexpected.

"Yeah... How'd you know that?" Tim didn't mean to be stereotypical but she didn't look like a camera expert. She looked more like someone likely to be caught on the other end to be honest.

"My Uncle Claude uses the same model, he's a photographer for my Papa."

"Cool," He noticed the book under her arm and couldn't contain his curiosity, "What's that?"

She looked down at her book. Mari didn't usually let other people look in it, it was one of the only things she had from her Maman. It was a magically endless and her Maman had written a letter for her in on the first page. She rarely even let her Papa see it, but Tim was, for what reason she did not know, special. She could trust him, she didn't know why but she could.

"It's my picture diary. I on each page I make a drawing that sums up my day. Here's yesterday's." She opened the book to the page she drew on the day before.

~

They had spent the rest of the night talking about whatever they could. They were so deep into their conversation they didn't even notice their parents walk into the room.

"Tim." Janet's voice surprised him, he froze.

Mari didn't seem to notice his parents, she was distracted by trying to catch glimpse of her Papa in the crowd of parents. "I'll be back in a second, Tim." Great, now his parents could rip into him without worrying about someone hearing.

"What do you think your doing, talking to some random nobody girl? You should be making friends with children of important icons, it's important to make friends with people like that. It will make business better when you're running a company and you have friends in high places." Jack scolds.

"I better see you on better behavior next gala or so help me-" Janet was interrupted by Mari's introduction.

"Tim! This is my Papa!" Well Tim really didn't expect this, and from the looks of it, neither did his parents.

From first look Mari and Felix look nothing alike. But if you stare long enough you see that even though Mari inherited her eyes and hair from her mother, her posture and bone structure matched Felix's. It was clear that Felix had taught his little flower to be a lady, while keeping her personality intact.

"Mr. Culpa! What a surprise! I didn't know this little angel is your daughter?" Janet's personality change would have given an unprepared fool whiplash.  Luckily Tim was neither.

"Mr. and Mrs. Drake, a pleasure as always. It seem my Marinette has made friends with Tim." He smiles a little.

"I hear you'll be staying in Gotham for some time. We should plan play dates for them! Timmy here doesn't have to many friends, it would good for him to spend time with someone his age." Jack proposes.

With a little convincing from Mari's deadly puppy-dog eyes, Felix, Jack, and Janet plan met up times for the kids.

"You're off the hook this time. Don't mess this up." She whispers to him that night at home.

Tim was genuinely happy, for the first time in to long. He actually looked forward to the days ahead. Nothing could mess that up, Mari and Tim had something special, they just don't know it yet.

[gladerwolfstarkimagines]

Zuko x female reader series: Part Two

A year after your reunion with Zuko the avatar is *dead* and Zuko returns to the firenation a hero, the crowned prince again. You’re thrilled to have your best friend back by your side but soon start to notice something about Zuko and your friendship feel different. After getting Zuko to open up you figure it’s just all he’s seen in his banishment but it soon becomes clear that is not the case at all. 

Tag list: @taeeemin  @tiny-dragon-uwu @creation-magician​ @strawberiicreme

Part one here

Part three here

Part four here

Part five here

Part Six here

Your POV

Finally after years of banishment Zuko had earned the right to be welcommed back home and you were thrilled. You knew Zuko’s airship was arriving very early in the morning so went to bed early with a plan to wake up and see him off the ship. Instead you overslept and punched Zuko when he tried to wake you up. "Ouch y/n" Zuko cried and you squinted at him still half asleep "well what were you doing sneaking in here in the middle of the night..." you trailed off seeing bright sunlight and realised it was more like midmorning. "Ow...well still never wake a girl up by leaning over her life that, it would be weird if i didn’t punch you" you explained and Zuko rolled his eyes "some homecoming". You grinned and Zuko smiled too. You launched yourself out of bed straight at him. You knocked him over messily but Zuko did push you off, instead he hugged you back. "You’re here" you smiled at him "finally Zuko you did it!" you grinned just staring at him and it made Zuko blush. "How does it feel?" You asked oblivious and Zuko sighed. "Weird". You frowned "not as good as when we were kids huh?". Zuko paused but nodded "it’s not what i remember". You nodded "i had the same thought when they made me come back here after my father died, it’s okay it gets better...kinda" you frowned. “I’m sure it will” Zuko smiled "it'll be better now were both here, just like old times". You nodded scrambling off him and offered him a hand to pull him onto his feet "totally and now you've woken me up i’m hungry so were going for food". "Ow i was really only stopping by..." Zuko started but you fixed him with a look "you woke me and won’t give me food? Some prince! Some best friend!" you cried "and after all the time waiting around for you, missing you..." you carried on dramatically and Zuko rolled his eyes "fine fine! We'll go just shut up!". You laughed and winked before hurrying to get changed.

Zuko’s POV

Zuko waited outside your room for you and stared out the window thinking. Everything it seemed had changed apart from the things he’d wanted to change. His sister and father were the same, Mai was still just nice and you still seemed oblivious to the effect you had on him. He thought back to that moment a year ago on his ship where he’d come so close to telling you how he felt but didn’t get the chance. Would things be different if he’d told you? Would they be better or worse than this? He knew there was only one way to find out but now he was back home the thought of telling you how he felt was just as terrifying as it had been all those years ago. A thump drew Zuko out of his thoughts and he turned to see you almost fall out of the door as you attempted to pull your boot on and walk at the same time. "Here" you said tossing Zuko some clothes. "What?" Zuko asked before realising you were only half dressed. "Y/n!!!" he said looking around but you only smirked "it’s just my overshirt and jacket Zuko calm down” as you pulled your other boot on. Zuko passed you your shirt and you pulled it over your tank top and buttoned it up rapidly. "Why do i feel like you’re always rushing around like this?" Zuko asked as you tugged your jacket on and adjusted your hair using the reflection in a golden picture frame. "Because you know i’m always late to everything even my own birth" you smirked tugging your hair into a ponytail "but it’s just how i work" you smiled fixing a stray piece of hair and turned back to Zuko "plus my system works doesn’t it?" you smirked opening your arms finished. Zuko looked at you and blinked, it was true. Most fire nation girls took hours getting ready, paid so much attention to their hair and outfit but you just pulled something on flicked your hair up in pins and looked well like you did right now. Zuko stared for too long before he coughed and carried on walking hoping you didn’t notice. You caught up with him and ruffled his hair. "Stop it" he snapped but was smirking as he batted away your arm. "I can’t your hair looks amazing by the way, i never really liked the ponytail but this raggedy style really suits you" you smiled up at him. You reached out to touch his hair again but Zuko caught your hand and pulled it upwards. As Zuko was taller than you this caused you to lurch forwards and have to grab onto his arm for support. "Zuko" you pouted as he held it higher forcing you to stretch on your tiptoes to not have your arm yanked out. Zuko didn’t stop walking either so it was a weird bob as you fought for your arm back. "Zukoooo" you whined and he smirked "maybe next time you’ll leave my hair alone! We can’t all get out of bed and look amazing" he grinned. You were only half listening as you were waiting for a chance to break free. As soon as Zuko finished speaking you jabbed his side in his ticklish spot and Zuko bucked away from you. "What was that about me learning to behave?" you asked and Zuko let you go. "I bet nobody else knows the great fire prince is ticklish" you smirked stepping closer to him. "Stop it" Zuko said blushing "y/n i mean it!". You grinned and leapt for him. Zuko cried out and tried to fight you off. You were a mess of limbs when you tripped Zuko and then promptly fell over him. You both tumbled to the floor and laughed. Zuko smirked before quickly looking around to make sure nobody saw that but of course they did. You’d by chance stopped in full view of the gardens where Mai, Azula and Ty lee were stood staring. Zuko blushed slightly as Mai looked at you both and Zuko felt the familiar guilt he remembered from so many years ago. Not realising who was watching you jumped up and leant down over Zuko to attack his hair again. Zuko caught your arm and stopped you but you didn’t get the message. You carried on playful as ever until Zuko muttered "y/n stop" and you followed his eyes to Mai. You paused and released your hands from Zuko immediately and he dropped his away from you. You walked on in silence and you looked at Zuko worried you’d gotten him into trouble. "It’s not your fault" Zuko said suddenly "Mai's just wary of you". You rolled your eyes annoyed the resentment between the two of you had returned the second Zuko was back but paused "she is...so are you two back together?". "I don’t know" Zuko admitted "i didn’t ask her out again but then again we never really broke up i just got banished". You nodded "so you’re maybe back together?". Zuko shrugged "i don't know but she kissed me on the ship". "Then that’s a yes you dumb headed boy" you smirked punching his arm. "I guess" Zuko shrugged "but it’s...i don’t want to be looking over my shoulder whenever i’m with you, i don’t want all that hassle and guilt again". You sighed and nodded "well we could just...". "No" Zuko said "we are not avoiding one another, i have just gotten you back y/n i an not distancing myself from you, i don’t care what the gossip is, Mai either trusts me or she doesn’t". You were suprised at the intensity Zuko said those words with and were slightly confused, you didn’t think he put you before Mai. Why would he? Sure you were best friends but him and Mai were childhood sweethearts. You were shocked but managed not to show it. "How very mature of you" you nodded "what did working at a tea shop do to you?" you asked peering at him and Zuko pushed you but smiled. "I’m really glad you’re back” you smiled up at him and Zuko grinned “me too”.

Your POV

After breakfast Zuko disappeared to his royal duties and you figured he had so many jobs you wouldn’t see him again that day but right before bed he showed up at your door. "Why won’t you let me sleep today" you cried throwing the door open dramatically but smiled leaving the door open so Zuko could come in. "You literally got up just over 12 hours ago...” Zuko muttered closing the door behind him. "Yes well being in the fire nation is exhausting" you smirked joking but Zuko nodded seriously "yes it is". You frowned and laid a hand on Zuko’s arm "how was your first day?". Zuko’s jaw tightenned and you nodded "that bad?". Zuko nodded and you winced. This was not a happy Zuko expression, it wasn’t even a neutral Zuko expression, he was sad. That wouldn’t do, not one day back, the fire nation wouldn’t get him down this early if you could help it. You shot up plan ready "okay i know what we can do!". Zuko stood up too confused, one minute you were sleepy eyed and now you were bounding around your room pulling on shoes and things out of cupboards. You passed a basket to Zuko and started filling it with things. "What are you doing?" Zuko asked when you stoved a hat on his head and it all made sense. Zuko smiled. It was the hat he wore whenever the two of you would sneak around the palace grounds at night. Sure it was a bit small but it still fit. You grinned seeing Zuko got what you were planning and finished packing the basket. "Now i know you’re rusty at this prince boy so just follow my lead and i’ll keep you safe okay?" you asked and Zuko smiled, he'd follow you anywhere "okay". You grinned and tugged his arm. You checked up and down the hallway outside your room and then pulled Zuko out with you. In truth if anyone did see you they wouldn’t say anything. The servants were taught not to question anyone and the nobels weren’t likely to stop the future fire lord and ask him why he was out so late. But still it was fun pretending to be on a mission and where disguises even if they were just hats. The only people you actually had to worry about was Azula and Ozai. Ozai never wandered the palace and Azula...well you’d gotten good at avoiding her. You soon reached your favourite spot hidden in the gardens and started distributing your food stash between you and Zuko. "How do you always steal so much food?" Zuko asked and you smiled "it’s a secret". You knew Zuko didn’t always eat well that’s why you always had spare food and fed him any chance you could. You finished your food and Zuko smiled watching as you laid down looking up at the sky. You sighed happily "see this i don’t mind, when everyone’s inside and it’s quiet". Zuko nodded coming to lay next to you "i agree". You frowned and turned onto your side "do you want to tell me what’s wrong now?". Zuko frowned looking anywhere but at you "i don’t want to, i’m worried you’ll think less of me...you’’ll think i’m a failure". Zuko’s tone hurt because it sounded so small, so afraid, did Zuko really think you’d ever think badly of him? "Zuko whatever it is it’s okay you can tell me", no judgement” you smiled "nothing could ever make me dislike you". Zuko still didn’t reply so you sighed "fine i’ll tell you one of my secrets and then you tell me yours, yes?". This was how you always used to get secrets out of Zuko growing up and it seemed aging hadn’t changed that. Zuko nodded and you frowned "hmmm...okay well it’s not really a secret but General Hown’s son has been stalking me". "What!" Zuko cried and you smirked "calm down Zuko not literally! Well i mean he does appear anywhere i go but he’s not like scaling my walls or anything". Zuko frowned "why?". "Because i’m an amazing person who easily captivates men" you smirked. Zuko didn’t disagree, he hardly could, but you carried on "and he knows if he marries me he gets my father’s titles now he’s gone so there’s that". Zuko frowned "has this happened a lot since your dad died?". You shrugged "yeah kinda...guys try to impress me hoping i’ll say yes to courting and then they’ll get my navy, not a bad bonus prize hey? Here’s a girl and as a special treat a whole fleet of boats too!". Zuko frowned "that’s not right, they’re probably just interested in you, no fleet of boats needed to make them like you". "Yeah yeah i’m sure they’ve got hearts of gold" you brushed away Zuko’s comment misunderstandings his meaning "now tell me your secret, i know it’s a big one i can tell" you smirked and Zuko frowned. He looked around and then scooted closer to you "if i tell you then you can’t tell anyone, yes?". "But what if i’m at a big fancy dinner party and run out things to say?". Zuko paused and you smirked "i’m kidding Zuko, of course i won’t tell anyone". He nodded and frowned "i didn’t kill the avatar". "What!" you yelled and Zuko clamped his hand over your mouth "shhhhhh" he hissed. "Sorry" you said bashfully "that’s just wow...that outdoes my secret, you didn’t?". Zuko shook his head "Azula did, if he’s even really dead". "You don’t think hes dead?". "No i mean he’s the avatar, plus his friend had this special water...it was all very confusing". You frowned "and you’re worried he'll pop back up and everyone will know". Zuko nodded and you frowned "well best case scenario he is dead and nobody will know...worst case he comes back but we'll figure something out, just kill him again or sneak you out of here". "Sneak me out of here?' Zuko asked and you nodded "i didn’t take your last punishment with you i’m not letting that happen again, plus maybe if i get involved they’ll banish me with you and i think that’d be pretty fun, we can roam the seas together! Make friends with pirates". Zuko stared at you as you spouted plans of how you’d get away and what you’d do on the spot. He knew you were half joking but he’d also heard the determination in your voice, the sincerity in it when you told him he wouldn’t go through this on his own, you didn’t intend for any punishment to leave Zuko alone again and he felt the familiar swell of emotion for you build up as he looked at you. You carried on with wild ideas and Zuko could only stare at you wondering how you made the idea of banishment sound inviting but figured it was probably just because it was with you. Zuko smiled as you took a breath to launch into another idea and cut you off  “Okay okay stop sounding so excited that’s a last resort option okay". You smirked seeing Zuko’s smile but them frowned "thank you for telling me" you told him "i’m sorry you’ve had to carry that around with you for so long". You laid a hand on Zuko’s arm and leant in to hug him when something happened. You felt him tense at your touch instinctively and paused looking at him. He was blushing and you frowned wondering why he was embarassed. You were sat close to one another but you were best friends...you always sat this close before. Zuko could see you noticed his reaction and stood up suddenly "come on we should go back". You shook away the moment convinced it was just a trick of light and took Zuko’s outstretched hand. He helped you up effortlessly and you smirked shocked "wow you've gotten stronger". Zuko blushed again and you smirked, blushing must just be something Zuko does now you figured and carried on. "What you have! Good to know banishment didn’t make you sluggish, now you’re going to have girls stalking you too, what a pair that’d make us" you laughed and Zuko smiled. "I can take care of General Hown’s son if you want?" Zuko asked. "Ow yeah and how would you do?" You asked expecting Zuko to joke but his face was serious. "I’ll tell him to leave you alone and if i ever see him hanging around you i’ll give him a scar worse than mine". The fierceness in Zuko’s voice shocked you for the second time that day and you saw him notice and blush "or something like that". Zuko was definitely acting differently around you and it wasn’t just the blushing. "It’s okay, if i wanted him burnt i’d do it myself, plus now you’re here i’m sure all the guys won’t dare bother me". Zuko couldn’t even pretend that wasn’t the best news he’d heard since he’d gotten home.

1 week later

It had taken some getting used to having Zuko back around but it was a welcomed change having your best friend always there if you needed him. You and Zuko had spent lots of time together, if he wasn’t on royal duties he was usually with you and you loved spending all your time with him and even when seperated you would end up back together again soon enough, like currently. You’d heard some gossip about one of the war lords and couldn’t wait to tell Zuko, your disdain for the man was only shared by Zuko so you’d regularly vent to one another. "Zuko you've gotta hear this" you cried rushing into his room before pausing to see Zuko wasn’t the one there, it was Azula. "Ow i thought..nevermind" you shrugged and went to leave but Azula smirked "zu zu isn’t here he’s out with Mai, you know his real girlfriend?". You rolled your eyes “I know who Mai is Azula but thanks". "What are you even doing with him?" Azula asked "you deny you’re doing anything sneaky but we all know that’s a lie, I mean moonlight dates by the pond, that’s blatantly obvious even for you y/n". You knew you shouldn’t take the bait but always couldn’t resist arguing with Azula. "For the, self pronounced, smartest woman in the fire nation you sure can be dim. Me and Zuko are friends...hear that? Friends!! That is all, Stop perverting it into something it’s not, i have no interest in Zuko that way". "Sure ..." Azula smirked "that’s the excuse you’ve used since you were a kid but you’ve never dated anyone right, atleast not while Zuko was around. Now you’re of marrying age too but you’ve never entertained any suitors, have you? The only man in your life is zu zu, why is that?". You shrugged "i don’t know why don’t you tell me since you know everything". Azula smirked "it’s because you’re in love with him". You jumped at that before laughing "that’s ridiculous? I love Zuko but i’m not in love with him! How could i be when we’ve never dated?". Azula smiled "aw y/n you’re so naive, you and Zuko are far closer than a normal friendship...way closer than him and Mai and you know it. I think deep down you know your feelings for him but you don’t want to tell him. What if he rejects you? What if you ruin your weird friendship? What if he prefers Mai?" Azula grinned and you glared. "There’s nothing to confess, Zuko is like family to me, probably more so than he is to you". Azula shrugged in agreement "ow i have no doubt you care for Zuko more than me". "Why is it any business of yours anyway?" you said angrily "just because your love life is non existent, and rightfully so considering the type of human you are" you chuckled "doesn’t mean you should poke around in Zuko’s or create trouble for me, get a life of your own" you glared and Azula glared back. "How dare you..." she started but you rolled your eyes "whatever i don’t have time for this" and strode from the room.

You realised the second you left the room you’d done a stupid thing in challenging Azula and couldn’t help imagining what she’s do in retaliation. Your thoughts followed you around all day and even seeing Zuko didn’t help.  Zuko wasn’t supposed to leave the palace but since being children you’d broken that rule many times and made a monthly deal to always get away to your favourite restaurant. You hadn’t done it in over 3 years but now Zuko had returned you were back at your favourite spot in the fire nation with your favourite person thinking about how his sister was plotting your death. Zuko of course noticed there was something bothering you. "What’s wrong?" Zuko asked as you pushed your food around on your plate and you sighed "nothing". Zuko raised an eyebrow and you frowned "if i tell you, you have to promise not to interfere, okay?". Zuko frowned "maybe....". You scoffed and Zuko grabbed your arm as you went to turn away "okay fine! You know i hate doing that though". You nodded "but it’s necessary, i can’t have the prince fighting all my battles" you smirked "people will talk". Zuko rolled his eyes "stop stalling and tell me". You sighed and looked down "i was pretty rude to Azula and i’m just waiting for her to get even". As soon as you said it you saw Zuko tensed and he went to stand. "Zuko no!" You cried grabbing his hand "you promised". Zuko breathed out through gritted teeth "but i didn’t know Azula was involved, y/n my sister can be a big problem". "Trust me i know that" you sighed and Zuko modded "yes i know you do! That’s why we ignore what she says and don’t rise to it, what did you say to her?". "Ow come on like you don’t rise to!” you said rolling your eyes and Zuko glared. "Don’t avoid the question! What did you do?". You sighed "i basically told her nobody loved her and to get a life". Zuko’s eyes widenned and he paused "can i ask why you said something so bold to my evil little sister?". You sighed looking down again "she was saying things about you and Mai and....me, cruel untrue things about you and it made me angry...i couldn’t help it Zuko! I was so sick of her causing trouble between us! Between you and Mai, i had to say something”. Zuko sighed and reached across placing his hand ontop of yours making you look up at him. "I understand" Zuko nodded and you frowned "you’re not mad?". Zuko shook his head "you’re right i’d snap back too if she said similar things...i’d not be as harsh as that but then again you’ve always had a sharper tongue than me" Zuko smirked and you laughed "that is true". Zuko grinned before becoming serious again "Azula won’t forget this but maybe if you lay low for a bit...her anger will lessen". You frowned "yeah i figured i’d have to do something as unappealing as that”. Zuko looked at you "but you've thought about it? You'll do it? Stay out of Azula’s way?". You hated avoiding anyone and were never one to back down from a fight but Zuko’s stern look made you sigh "fine, yes". Zuko smiled "thanks y/n" and squeezed your hand which was still in his. You pretended not to notice but the waitress certainly had. "Sir do you or your girlfriend want any dessert?". You jumped and expected Zuko to wrench his hand from yours or yell at the waitress but he didn’t. He didn’t even seem to hear the sentance properly. "No i think we should be going" Zuko said and the waitress nodded going away. You thought it odd Zuko hadn’t reacted to what she said when you felt him slowly retract his hand from yours and looked across at him meeting his eye. He blushed but didn’t say anything and so you didn’t. The awkwardness was there but neither of you wanted to acknowledge it.

The next day Zuko arrived at your room to inform you he would keep you company in your Azula isolation. He knew unsupervised you would just wander out of your room within 24 hours so took it upon himself to make sure you kept out of sight, his royal duties cast aside so he could help you. He brought snacks and entertainment and soon ended up pretty much living out of your room with you. You didn’t mind, you and Zuko often did this as kids and you were never bored of Zuko’s company. On the evening of Zuko’s third night at yours you started a competitve game of Pai sho lounging on your sofa when the door went. You stood up warning Zuko not to move any of the piece while you weren’t looking and opened the door. "Mai" you said suprised and immedietly looked to Zuko who sat up quickly. "Erm i’m guessing you’re here for him" you said awkwardly and Mai nodded smiling slightly to show you she came here in peace "yes i’d just like to have a word". Zuko scrambled off your sofa and rushed to the door. You side stepped past him as Zuko followed Mai outside but left the door partially open. You couldn’t hear what they were saying and didn’t want to but it didn’t seem to take long. Mai said whatever she needed to and her and Zuko said goodbye. She kissed his cheek and you saw Zuko hesitate to kiss her properly but he didn’t. He said goodnight a bit too loudly and Mai nodded walking away. Zuko came back inside and sat across from you again. You could see the flush on his cheeks and the way he was fiddling with his hands. "Is Mai okay?" you asked and Zuko nodded "yeah she’s fine she’s just double checking some plans for tomorrow". You nodded and went back to the game. "Does she...she knows why you’re spending so much time with me right? You explained i was laying low and stuff?". Zuko shook his head "no, i don’t think Mai needs to know why i’m seeing you, you’re my best friend". You saw Zuko’s point it was true he shouldn’t have to go to Mai everytime he saw you but at the same time you’d want to know if your boyfriend had been camped out at his best friend’s room for days. She had to come to your room just to find him. You felt the guilt you’d often felt as a child and saw Zuko watching you. "You okay?" Zuko asked and you nodded fake smiling "yeah you’re right, you don’t need to tell Mai” you agreed but even as you said it felt guilty.

You woke up and saw your room was still dark so smiled knowing you could go back to sleep. You’d been having a really nice dream and couldn’t remember what it was about just that it had been one of the best sleeps you’d had in a while. Eager to get back to it you closed your eyes again but felt something strange. You opened your eyes again to see Zuko was right beside you asleep. Again nothing about this was new, you were best friends and had many sleepovers as children and teenagers. This was different though because you were cuddling. Your head was resting in the crook of Zuko’s neck and he had both of his arms wrapped around you, resting by your waist. How did you end up like this? You’d gone to sleep on seperate sides of the bed, not even touching and somehow had ended up like this? Your cheeks flushed at the position you were in and Mai filled your mind. Sure Zuko didn’t have to tell her every time he saw you but this...this wasn’t what friends did. The way he was holding you, the way you’d moulded into him, the way you liked how it felt. You wriggled out of his grasp and sat up with a sigh. You looked back at Zuko who hadn’t moved, his arms limply open and frowned. Why did he look so inviting to you like that, you’d never wanted to be close to Zuko in that way before but now you did. You shook the thought out of your head at what this might mean and told youself it was just because you hadn’t seen him in so long...and that very nice hair style. Ridiculous, but you told yourself it was just the new look attracting you to him, that was it, just a superficial appreciation of how he looked. You didn’t really like Zuko, you couldn’t...could you? You gingerly laid back down, making sure to keep clear distance between the two of you. This didn’t have to change anything, you told yourself, you’d just fallen asleep and ended up like that.The fact you liked it didn’t mean anything, you hadn’t done anything wrong. But when you woke up the next morning you were wrapped against Zuko again. As before his body was wrapped around yours, his chest against your back and your arm over his where it lay on your stomach. You didn’t even remember moving around that much, it was like you’d both moved on your own towards one another. You sighed unable to get over how natural this felt, maybe Azula was right? Maybe you did like Zuko. You couldn’t deny how in this moment you didn’t want to be anywhere else. If this was what it was like for Mai you were jealous. You gulped realising what liking Zuko meant for you, how it would change everything, your whole outlook on your life forever. But you were tired and that was a problem for future you. You ignored the guilty feeling in your stomach and closed your eyes resting your head back against the pillow and sinking deeper into Zuko’s arms. You’d deal with this in the morning, for now you’d just enjoy this.

---

And that’s part 2! It’s not just me who thinks Zuko would defo be a cuddler right? Also just to clarify I do NOT think Azula is evil or unlovable but it made sense for the reader to see her this way being Zuko’s best friend. 

Hope you enjoyed it, thanks for all the support guys!!

[myhauntedsalem]

19 Parents Share What Their Kid Remembered About Their ‘Last’ Life

1. He showed us his grave

When my brother was about 2 or 3 he told us his name used to be Austin. One day we were picnicking right along side a cemetery, when my brother took off running towards the gravestones, my dad and I followed him and found him touching a large headstone that simply read “Here Lies Austin” no name, no date. My brother did not learn to read until he was 6 and this headstone wasn’t even right out visible from where we were, yet he ran right to it

2. We don’t watch firefighter things

my son told me a few months ago he “used to be a firefighter, and we got called to a fire. There wasn’t any family inside the house, so we just put the fire out. Then the fire truck caught on fire and I died”. A few nights later, he elaborated he was taken to a hospital, where he died. We don’t watch firefighter things.

3. Her “other” mother’s name was Sally

I was talking to my four year old when she began to freak me out. She was telling me a story about her “other mother” and that she “died a long time ago on a Thursday.” I tried to brush it off, you know, whatever, shes a kid, they have wild imaginations… but then she started to go further into detail about the death of her “other mother,” whose name was apparently Sally. She has never met anyone named Sally, and I can’t recall any shows on TV she watches where “Sally” is a character. She told me that she was playing with her father’s gun that she found and accidentally shot and killed Sally while she was walking upstairs. It’s pretty weird. There are no guns in this house, I haven’t even really told her what guns are all about and how they can hurt or kill someone, shes only four! I think I am beginning to understand now why when I try to tell her when someone dies, they go away forever, she tells me that, that is not true. “We come back, mommy!” I’m only 23, I had my daughter very young and despite not being prepared, I don’t think I could have ever prepared for a conversation like that!

4. “When she lived before she was born”

My daughter did the same thing at the same age. She told me about her life “when she lived before she was born” and described herself as a woman with long hair who lived in an apartment with a long flight of stairs outside of it. She drove a VW Bug and wore long skirts. She then told me that she fell down the stairs and died. Her stories were startlingly vivid and always consistent. Quite spooky. She is now 19 and doesnt remember it. My advice would be write down everything your daughter tells you on the subject. Everything! Record her stories if you can.

5. Roanoke?

I would tell my older sister about my death. I told her my husband was captured and fire was everywhere. I took my young son and ran. I told her my son couldn’t run fast enough. I knew we would get killed and I had my husbands knife on me, I wanted to leave a clue. I wrote in capitals “CROATOAN” I told her we were caught and how my son was killed before I was killed. I told her how I was stabbed in the stomach with a knife. Then, I went about playing with dolls. I can still picture the scene and my son to this day.

6. “She used to come visit me”

my son says he remember his great grandmother (my grandmother) and can describe her in perfect detail (how she looks, how she acted, even what brand of cigarettes she smoked) , although she died 11 days before he was born. He says that she used to come visit him in his dreams.

7. Conchon

Apparently beginning around the time my friend could form sentences until he was little more than 2, he would go on and on about how he was a Native American named Conchon and that after his wife and son got sick and died, he moved to a mountain to live by himself with his horse. He died of a broken neck when he fell into a ravine.

8. “My real mom and dad were killed when the bad men came.”

when I was 2 or 3 I was talking to my grandmother and told her that my mom and dad weren’t my real mom and dad. My grandmother, knowing this wasn’t true, said they were. I calmly explained that no, my real mom and dad were killed when the bad men came. I had lived because my mom hid me behind a rock. I then went on to describe white men with guns and us “dark” people with long hair. When I was done, I went back to eating my ice cream.

9. Jesus

My cousin, approximately 3 years old and riding in the car with my mum and dad, pointed out a random house that they went past and declared “I died there”.

10. Included because, WHAT?

I did something sort of similar I guess. When I was about 3 my mum and I were driving over a bridge on which there’d recently been a major accident that resulted in a car bursting into flames and the driver dying. Anyway, I asked my mum who the man in the front seat was and when she told me to describe him I said, “Well he’s on fire and he keeps looking back at me.”

11. I drowned

My mother told me about a story I told her when I was 2 or 3. I told her she was the best mommy I ever had, to which she replied, “I’m the only mommy you’ve ever had.” “nu-uh, I had another mommy.” I said that my older sister and I went out to a pond in the woods behind my house. Around the pond, all of the trees were the same type: skinny with white paper-like bark. (I had never seen a poplar tree before in this life.) We put some logs together to make a raft, and put it into the water to play boat captain and climbed aboard. The raft fell apart, and I didn’t know how to swim. I tried to grab a log, but my hand slipped off. I could see my sister freaking out from underwater. I drowned.

12. My war memories

one of 6 hopping out of a helicopter into a field, it’s hot as shit, humid, daytime, two house/buildings smoking and heavily burning straight in front of me (to the side of the chopper), and there’s firing from the woods and field to my right. It’s chaotic a noisy, lots of firing and helicopters, my guys are firing back crouched next to the back building, one guy runs out of the other building with a kid he pushes forward and yells at to run, the kid gets shot from out of nowhere, and drops. I see a few of my guys advancing from another chopper behind me duck down in the grass as their chopper leaves, I crouch in tall grass about 10 feet from my chopper, fire my rifle twice from just above the grass line, and my chopper starts to take off, and is taking fire. I get up to move forward, panicky, and am shot dead – I feel a hard thunk, see part my chest explode, fall forward go black, and zoom out above my body. I also drew this later (still have pics, mom saved them). To me, it’s clear as day, still. Mom said some of my first chatter was about “heavy fire” “zip em boys” (don’t know what that means) and I would ask “Where are the hueys?” I was born in the early 70s, and my family was NOT military (very anti, actually). I err on the side of thinking it’s media (news footage?) I absorbed at some point from the Viet Nam war, but I also wonder if it’s not a past-life dream.

13. “That’s why I don’t like water now”

When my kid was 4, we were watching a docu on the Titanic. The scene was a picture of the schematics of the boiler room and the camera panned from left to right over the plans. He pointed at the tv and said, “That’s wrong. The boilers were on the Other side. And I was right here.” And he pointed to a small space in the boiler room. “That’s where I was. And that’s why I don’t like water now.”

14. My family’s farm, burning

When I was younger I would have dreams of living in colonial american. I remember bits very vividly and only when I was older did I realize what they were about and how accurate they were. Most of the dreams consisted of me being in my late teen years and centered around my family’s farm being set on fire during the night. I never dreamed past that night, nothing about the aftermath of the fire, and I haven’t had one in years.

15. “Nobody scroofs me there”

Getting my two and a half year old daughter out of the bath one night, my wife and I were briefing her on how important it was she kept her privates clean. She casually replied “Oh, nobody ‘scroofs’ me there. They tried one night. They kicked the door in and tried but I fought back. I died and now I’m here.” She said this like it was nothing. My wife and I were catatonic.

16. Nope

“Before I was born here, I had a sister, right? Her and my other Mom are so old now. They were ok when the car was on fire, but I sure wasn’t!”

17. “Their screams are keeping me up”

I was in my room on the computer at about 11, which is late for my sister to be awake even now. I was thinking about bed, but then my sister knocks on the door. She was maybe 10 at the time, so not so young that she doesn’t know when she’s dreaming. She wanted to sleep in my room because she was sad and scared. I asked her why, and she said, “I watched your sons burn up in the fire. Their screams are keeping me up.”

18. Role reversal

My three year old said, “Remember when I was the grown-up and you were the little boy?” to his Dad.

19. When he was a grown up

My father used to hate policemen when he was a kid, he used to tell my grandmother that they came to his house and shot him when he was a grown up.

19 Parents Share What Their Kid Remembered About Their ‘Last’ Life paranormal ghost and hauntings

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May 26th, 2019

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19 Parents Share What Their Kid Remembered About Their ‘Last’ Life1. He showed us his grave

When my brother was about 2 or 3 he told us his name used to be Austin. One day we were picnicking right along side a cemetery, when my brother took off...

19 Parents Share What Their Kid Remembered About Their ‘Last’ Life

1. He showed us his grave

When my brother was about 2 or 3 he told us his name used to be Austin. One day we were picnicking right along side a cemetery, when my brother took off running towards the gravestones, my dad and I followed him and found him touching a large headstone that simply read “Here Lies Austin” no name, no date. My brother did not learn to read until he was 6 and this headstone wasn’t even right out visible from where we were, yet he ran right to it

2. We don’t watch firefighter things

my son told me a few months ago he “used to be a firefighter, and we got called to a fire. There wasn’t any family inside the house, so we just put the fire out. Then the fire truck caught on fire and I died”. A few nights later, he elaborated he was taken to a hospital, where he died. We don’t watch firefighter things.

3. Her “other” mother’s name was Sally

I was talking to my four year old when she began to freak me out. She was telling me a story about her “other mother” and that she “died a long time ago on a Thursday.” I tried to brush it off, you know, whatever, shes a kid, they have wild imaginations… but then she started to go further into detail about the death of her “other mother,” whose name was apparently Sally. She has never met anyone named Sally, and I can’t recall any shows on TV she watches where “Sally” is a character. She told me that she was playing with her father’s gun that she found and accidentally shot and killed Sally while she was walking upstairs. It’s pretty weird. There are no guns in this house, I haven’t even really told her what guns are all about and how they can hurt or kill someone, shes only four! I think I am beginning to understand now why when I try to tell her when someone dies, they go away forever, she tells me that, that is not true. “We come back, mommy!” I’m only 23, I had my daughter very young and despite not being prepared, I don’t think I could have ever prepared for a conversation like that!

4. “When she lived before she was born”

My daughter did the same thing at the same age. She told me about her life “when she lived before she was born” and described herself as a woman with long hair who lived in an apartment with a long flight of stairs outside of it. She drove a VW Bug and wore long skirts. She then told me that she fell down the stairs and died. Her stories were startlingly vivid and always consistent. Quite spooky. She is now 19 and doesnt remember it. My advice would be write down everything your daughter tells you on the subject. Everything! Record her stories if you can.

5. Roanoke?

I would tell my older sister about my death. I told her my husband was captured and fire was everywhere. I took my young son and ran. I told her my son couldn’t run fast enough. I knew we would get killed and I had my husbands knife on me, I wanted to leave a clue. I wrote in capitals “CROATOAN” I told her we were caught and how my son was killed before I was killed. I told her how I was stabbed in the stomach with a knife. Then, I went about playing with dolls. I can still picture the scene and my son to this day.

6. “She used to come visit me”

my son says he remember his great grandmother (my grandmother) and can describe her in perfect detail (how she looks, how she acted, even what brand of cigarettes she smoked) , although she died 11 days before he was born. He says that she used to come visit him in his dreams.

7. Conchon

Apparently beginning around the time my friend could form sentences until he was little more than 2, he would go on and on about how he was a Native American named Conchon and that after his wife and son got sick and died, he moved to a mountain to live by himself with his horse. He died of a broken neck when he fell into a ravine.

8. “My real mom and dad were killed when the bad men came.”

when I was 2 or 3 I was talking to my grandmother and told her that my mom and dad weren’t my real mom and dad. My grandmother, knowing this wasn’t true, said they were. I calmly explained that no, my real mom and dad were killed when the bad men came. I had lived because my mom hid me behind a rock. I then went on to describe white men with guns and us “dark” people with long hair. When I was done, I went back to eating my ice cream.

9. Jesus

My cousin, approximately 3 years old and riding in the car with my mum and dad, pointed out a random house that they went past and declared “I died there”.

10. Included because, WHAT?

I did something sort of similar I guess. When I was about 3 my mum and I were driving over a bridge on which there’d recently been a major accident that resulted in a car bursting into flames and the driver dying. Anyway, I asked my mum who the man in the front seat was and when she told me to describe him I said, “Well he’s on fire and he keeps looking back at me.”

11. I drowned

My mother told me about a story I told her when I was 2 or 3. I told her she was the best mommy I ever had, to which she replied, “I’m the only mommy you’ve ever had.” “nu-uh, I had another mommy.” I said that my older sister and I went out to a pond in the woods behind my house. Around the pond, all of the trees were the same type: skinny with white paper-like bark. (I had never seen a poplar tree before in this life.) We put some logs together to make a raft, and put it into the water to play boat captain and climbed aboard. The raft fell apart, and I didn’t know how to swim. I tried to grab a log, but my hand slipped off. I could see my sister freaking out from underwater. I drowned.

12. My war memories

one of 6 hopping out of a helicopter into a field, it’s hot as shit, humid, daytime, two house/buildings smoking and heavily burning straight in front of me (to the side of the chopper), and there’s firing from the woods and field to my right. It’s chaotic a noisy, lots of firing and helicopters, my guys are firing back crouched next to the back building, one guy runs out of the other building with a kid he pushes forward and yells at to run, the kid gets shot from out of nowhere, and drops. I see a few of my guys advancing from another chopper behind me duck down in the grass as their chopper leaves, I crouch in tall grass about 10 feet from my chopper, fire my rifle twice from just above the grass line, and my chopper starts to take off, and is taking fire. I get up to move forward, panicky, and am shot dead – I feel a hard thunk, see part my chest explode, fall forward go black, and zoom out above my body. I also drew this later (still have pics, mom saved them). To me, it’s clear as day, still. Mom said some of my first chatter was about “heavy fire” “zip em boys” (don’t know what that means) and I would ask “Where are the hueys?” I was born in the early 70s, and my family was NOT military (very anti, actually). I err on the side of thinking it’s media (news footage?) I absorbed at some point from the Viet Nam war, but I also wonder if it’s not a past-life dream.

13. “That’s why I don’t like water now”

When my kid was 4, we were watching a docu on the Titanic. The scene was a picture of the schematics of the boiler room and the camera panned from left to right over the plans. He pointed at the tv and said, “That’s wrong. The boilers were on the Other side. And I was right here.” And he pointed to a small space in the boiler room. “That’s where I was. And that’s why I don’t like water now.”

14. My family’s farm, burning

When I was younger I would have dreams of living in colonial american. I remember bits very vividly and only when I was older did I realize what they were about and how accurate they were. Most of the dreams consisted of me being in my late teen years and centered around my family’s farm being set on fire during the night. I never dreamed past that night, nothing about the aftermath of the fire, and I haven’t had one in years.

15. “Nobody scroofs me there”

Getting my two and a half year old daughter out of the bath one night, my wife and I were briefing her on how important it was she kept her privates clean. She casually replied “Oh, nobody ‘scroofs’ me there. They tried one night. They kicked the door in and tried but I fought back. I died and now I’m here.” She said this like it was nothing. My wife and I were catatonic.

16. Nope

“Before I was born here, I had a sister, right? Her and my other Mom are so old now. They were ok when the car was on fire, but I sure wasn’t!”

17. “Their screams are keeping me up”

I was in my room on the computer at about 11, which is late for my sister to be awake even now. I was thinking about bed, but then my sister knocks on the door. She was maybe 10 at the time, so not so young that she doesn’t know when she’s dreaming. She wanted to sleep in my room because she was sad and scared. I asked her why, and she said, “I watched your sons burn up in the fire. Their screams are keeping me up.”

18. Role reversal

My three year old said, “Remember when I was the grown-up and you were the little boy?” to his Dad.

19. When he was a grown up

My father used to hate policemen when he was a kid, he used to tell my grandmother that they came to his house and shot him when he was a grown up.

[hello-im-not-a-possum]

Hell's Studio fic idea: A pipe bursts and Sammy becomes a toon Imp like Snowflake and Bendy, and Joey doesn't know how to reverse it ASAP, so Sammy is stuck as a toon Imp and Sammy decides to hangout with Snowflake until Joey can reverse the ink's magic (Bonus points if: Sammy gets a uncontrollable stutter as a toon Imp, Susie cooing her small boyfriend, and Sammy drawing with snowflake)

I am So sorry that this took so freaking long, but here you go!

Wally slapped his forehead in exasperation as he heard the pipe bursting from the music department's break room. Then proceeded to go in there, with Snowflake following close behind just in case he needed someone small to check in any holes in the wall that the pipe made in the process.

The sight was familiar, but unwelcome to the pair; a pile of thick ink sliding down onto the floor through the broken pipe peeking through the ceiling. Snowflake was only thankful that it had spilled to the floor instead of the pool table.

“I’m startin' ta think dat eitheah we should completely tear down da music department to put in a betteah pipe system, or just stop fixin' the dang things so dat they at least stop surprisin' us."

The Janitor grumbled as he started mopping up the mess.

"A-at least nobody got caught in it this time."

As soon as Snowflake said that, something under the pile began to move.

“Mmmmh?"

"Yikes, spoke too soon, kiddo."

Wally stated calmly as he started to scrape the excess ink off of what looked exactly like Bendy, except the imp's tie lacked the fun patterns Bendy often wore, and more importantly, he was missing his mouth. So the obvious conclusion the pair made was: The ink ruined his tie by dying it black and also stole his mouth.

"M-mr. Bendy?! are you okay?!"

The formerly buried imp looked at the other one with a perplexed expression before mouthing something, realized that he wasn't saying anything, patting his face where his mouth should've been, and looking like he was about to panic.

"MMMMmmPPHH?! MMMH!! MMPHH!!!"

"Looks like the ink erased your pie hole, boss."

The imp rolled his eyes at stared at Wally in a very sarcastic manner before leaving the room, most likely to visit Joey about this issue.

"...Do you think he's not going to want to do that drawing lesson later?"

"What, Bendy? not want ta draw with ya overah somethin' like this? Nah. It's nothin' fun to wake up to, but I don't think it'll eat at him like it will if it happened ta Sammy."

----------------------

"MmMMmMMM?!?! MMPHH!! MMMPPHHH!?"

Sammy hopped up and down while wildly gesturing to the blank white space on his face where his mouth was supposed to be while Joey flipped through heavily ink-stained spell books. Meanwhile, the real Bendy was still gawking at his doppelganger, still not quite sure whether he should feel flattered or offended that the ink pulled this on Sammy. But also not saying anything because he couldn't find any jokes to lighten the mood with.

It would be one thing if the ink also gave Sammy Bendy's trademark smile (that could make other expressions too). If it did that, Bendy would be making so many mirror and twin related jokes. But it didn't.

"It's going to be fine." Joey repeated almost more to himself than to the hopping mad imp. "Just because an ink flood took out some of my reversal spells, doesn't mean that you're going to be stuck like this forever. Best case scenario, it'll take a few hours for me to find the right one, worst case scenario I'm going to need to order a new book, and that might take a while."

"MMm MmhP?"

"I don't know how long! Some of these are the rarest on the market! Goodness knows how long it'll take to replace if it's ruined and has the correct cure in it..."

The music director let out a heavily muffled, frustrated sigh.

"Yes, I'm annoyed too." Joey sighed as well. "But at least it's not going to be forever."

'Easy for you to say.' Sammy thought to himself as trying and failing to talk was starting to hurt his jaw. 'You're not the one dealing with this! how am I supposed to do my job when I can't speak to anyone?!'

He must've been gesturing as he thought this as Joey snapped his fingers in realization and handed Sammy a notebook and a pencil.

"I know it won't help with the more vocal aspects of your job, but it's better than not having any way to communicate. And much easier than trying to learn sign language in less than a day and with only four digits on each hand."

He tried to write down 'Thanks Joey' but his hands refused to obey him. Confusingly, he instead drew a thumbs up.

"Why thank you! Glad to see that you're taking this better than expected Sammy. I'd better get to work on looking for that spell..."

As Joey left the room, Sammy frowned at the notebook, trying to figure out why he did that. Bendy also peeked at the drawing and felt something click.

"So..." the copied imp awkwardly tugged at his tie as he avoided making eye contact with Sammy. "Just outta curiosity sake, does Snowflake know about this? At least, the fact that it's well, you instead of me?"

Sammy gave Bendy a funny look but nodded anyway.

"Okay, follow up question: ...Is now a bad time to tell you that before you burst in here trying to tell us to fix this that Joey and I were arguing over whether I should go to this meeting with GENT or to give drawing lessons to Snowflake like I promised to, and literally right before you came in I said: 'Well dang it Joey if I could be in two places at once, I would!'?"

Sammy frowned as he saw the guilty yet pleading look in Bendy's eyes, calmly took the newspaper off of Joey's desk, rolled it up and smacked Bendy right upside the head.

"Hey! What gives?!" He sputtered as he rubbed the back of his head.

The Mute music director drew a series of pictures: Bendy putting something in the ink, the ink rising up and flashing him the 'ok' hand sign, Bendy giving it a thumbs up in return and leaving on his merry way, a shift in perspective revealing Sammy as a human having seen the interaction but shrugging it off, Sammy (still human) playing pool with Jack, Grant, and Johnny, the four of them having a good time, the ceiling above them creaking and rumbling ominously, making the four opt to leave, Sammy coming back into the pool room slightly later and keeping an eye on the ceiling, Sammy taking what he came back into the room for, the ceiling above him suddenly bursting and covering him with ink, and the last picture; a bunch of puzzle pieces being fit together, with the picture on the pieces being a lit light bulb.

After showing Bendy his work, he crossed his arms and tapped his foot on the ground.

"What?! You can't seriously blame me for- Okay, yes. I did kinda make a request... but I figured I'D be the one getting drenched! Not you!"

Sammy raised a single eyebrow as Bendy let out a frustrated sigh.

"Look, if I knew that this was what would happen, I wouldn't have done it! But now that it's happened ...would ya help me out with this?"

Sammy's next drawing was his current form with an intentionally bad scribble of Bendy's mouth on the space where he was supposed to have a mouth to indicate it was (poorly) drawn on, and he was trying and failing to do Bendy's job for him as he couldn't speak.

"Of course I'm not going to shirk my responsibilities to make you pretending to be me look like an idiot in front of those big wigs at GENT. I mean, goodness, if this thing flops, who knows what'll happen."

The Musician then showed Bendy a drawing that was so horrible and cold that he wouldn't even dare grace it with a description.

"WHAT KINDA DEMON DO YOU THINK I AM, LAWRENCE?!" Bendy quieted down and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I get it, Damned if I do the thing, damned if I don't do the other thing. I can't let down Snowflake, but if I'm not at that meeting, the studio's relationship with GENT could get bruised! This is why I tried this stunt in the first place!"

He sighed as Sammy just continued to tap his foot in annoyance. "Tell you what, help me and I'll give you anything you ask for! A raise, me not pranking you for a month, more paid vacation days, magic-repelling acetone, name it and it's yours!*"

*Within reason. I'm a demon not a miracle worker!

Sammy showed Bendy an intentionally shaky 'Ok' sign, the closest thing he could think of to a picture version of a hesitant and unwilling 'fine, I'll do it...'

"Oh Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" Bendy practically crushed his doppelganger in a spine-breaking hug. "I really owe you this one Sammy!"

'I hope you realize how goddamned lucky you are that I like that kid.' Sammy thought to himself as he patted his double on the back. 'Otherwise I'd hang you out to dry for doing this...'

------------------------

The music director had no interest in deceiving Snowflake; even if he wanted to follow Bendy's plan to the spirit of his deal, he knew too well that the studio and it's ink would always drag any secret up to the surface. So it would just be easier to come clean at the start before lies had the chance to spiral into something that could completely break the poor kid.

"Hi Mr. Bendy! Are you ready for our lesson?"

Sammy nodded, but gestured for his pupil to wait a second before he flipped through the pages of his sketchbook and showed him a series of pictures: some showing the origin of his new condition, and the others showing his deal with Bendy.

"Oh." The child imp seemed sad, and slightly disappointed, but also not surprised. "So Bendy couldn't make it today either..."

The older imp sympathetically patted Snowflake on the back and tried his best to draw out an explanation, but it's kind of hard to put 'He really did want to make it, in fact, he wanted to so much that he was willing to split himself in half for it! But as you can see, it kinda backfired...' into picture format, luckily he got the message across fairly well.

"I-it's okay, I understand. Thanks for filling in for him Mr. Lawrence!"

Snowflake pulled out his own notebook and pencils.

"Do you think you can show me how to do hands that well?"

Sammy eagerly nodded and flipped his book to a blank page.

[burnsopale]

Ashen, excerpt 2

Last time was mostly a big tease. This time, Boris returns to the abbey for the first time in years. It doesn’t go well.

Working title: Ashen Characters in this clip: Takao, Kai, Max, Boris and Kinomiya Tatsuya Setting: 7 years after season one, Russia, the abbey Summary: Volkov has escaped from prison, attacked PPB headquarters and taken back Black Dranzer. The Russian boys have been living with the PPB, and were used and hurt in the attack. Yuriy left with Volkov for unknown reasons. Daitenji Kogoro has gathered the troops and sent them to Russia to find out what Volkov is up to. Meanwhile, Kai’s grandfather is on his deathbed, and Kai is struggling to deal with it.

A stray wind mumbled and whined through the colonnades of Volkov Abbey. In that desolate courtyard no summer lived, only barren winter. The stones were black, the shadows cold, and doorways yawned like sucking mouths while broken windows gave a sharp, jagged edge to the scene.

 For a while, Takao, his dad, Max, Kai and Boris stood silent in the middle of the open courtyard, a little overwhelmed by the sheer depressive atmosphere, wondering what on earth they were supposed to find here.

 “Home sweet home!” Boris exclaimed suddenly, before laughing uproariously at their startled expressions.

 A door opened up ahead. Takao vaguely recalled it leading to the mess hall where the BBA had eaten on their first visit here, years ago.

 “That’s probably our liaison,” Dad said and headed towards the young woman who had just stepped outside and was waving.

 “Hello, everyone!” she said as they came to meet her. “My name is Myrna Lebedev. I’m supposed to show you around this place?”

 She didn’t look much older than the boys. With her ash-blonde hair and glasses, turtleneck sweater and long jeans, she seemed a big-sisterly type.

 They shook hands with her in turn.

 “You worked here after it was shut down?” Dad asked.

 She nodded, gesturing for them to follow her down the pillared walkway towards the fat, looming tower where Takao and Zangief had battled.

Where was Zangief now? Takao wondered. Was he happy?

 “I was on the team that mapped this place out, initially. Strangest job I ever did. The police had been here and cleared out all the kids and those cultists of course, but when we first went down to explore, someone almost died; there were traps everywhere!”

 “Not traps,” Boris said. “Training gauntlets. You had to be ready all the time.”

 She stopped. “Oh. I’m so sorry. Were you ...?” She looked at them in turn.

 Max and Takao shook their heads and pointed at Kai and Boris. “Not us.”

 Myrna looked at them all a little longer. “You are strange. I was told a group from Japan wanted to see the abbey, so I thought you’d be like the usual tourists.”

 “This place gets tourists?” Boris asked, and then started laughing again. “Oh god. Can I work here too? I could be an attraction.”

 Kai frowned at him. “We’re not here for pleasure,” he said firmly, voice a little hoarse from his long silence in the car. “The man who ran this place, Vladimir Volkov, has escaped from prison and is in possession of an old weapon of his. We’re looking for any clues as to what that weapon is capable of.”

 “Oh!” Myrna’s dark eyes grew very big behind her glasses. “I see. That ... wasn’t really in my instructions ... I’m not supposed to let you wander much on your own or ... well, go that deep, but ...”

 “If you need to, we can shut you in one of the cells while we look,” Boris suggested, possibly seriously. “If you need an excuse.”

 Myrna certainly thought he was serious, and if her eyes grew any bigger now, they would pop out.

 “We won’t do that,” Max said quickly. “But we would be very grateful if you’d let us explore a bit. We won’t tell anyone. It’s very important that we stop Volkov from using the weapon.”

 She cocked her head to the side. “But why do you have to stop him?” she asked innocently. “Who are you?”

 Kai’s impatience got the better of him then, and he strode past her towards the door.

 Boris watched him go, his jesting finished. “We are the ones who let him have it in the first place.”

 It grew immediately colder as they plunged into the darkness of the abbey, and more so when they began to descend underground. Takao wished he had worn a proper sweater, like Myrna, but Dad had told him to bring one and he hadn’t done it so he couldn’t complain or Dad would say “I told you so”.

 Myrna told them a little bit about the history of the place as they walked, how Borg had purchased the abbey from a group of monks that might, in hindsight, actually have been forced to part with it and silenced afterwards, and how these hallways, once cellars for storing food and other things, had been dug out until they encompassed a labyrinth of rooms and tunnels, where Borg could carry out their clandestine plans.

 “What does clandestine mean,” asked Boris, and once Max had explained it, he declared it his new favourite word. “Holy shit, we were so clandestine. Clandestine is now my middle name. You can call me Boris Clandestine Kuznetsov.”

 “And now it’s lost all meaning,” Max said.

 Kai was continually a little ahead of them, and eventually Takao’s dad called after him. “Kai, where are you leading us?”

 “To Volkov’s office,” he replied.

 “Really?” Boris said. “Then you’re going the wrong way.”

 Kai came stalking back. “I am not going the wrong way; it’s down here and to the left. Don’t fucking mess with me, Kuznetsov.”

 Boris grinned wickedly. “That’s Clandestine Kuznetsov to you.”

For a moment, Kai’s face was white with rage, but he only turned on his heel and walked on. Takao looked to Max and found him looking back in concern. Kai’s reactions were way out of proportion lately.

 “Sorry about him,” Takao said to Myrna.

 “Oh, don’t worry about that.” She shook her head disarmingly. “It can’t be easy being back here.”

 “I don’t know,” said Boris. “I’m getting the warm fussies myself.”

 “Are you sure Kai-kun should be down here?” Dad asked Takao in an undertone.

 “Leave him to us,” Takao whispered back. “You just look for whatever it is Daitenji-san wants you to find.”

 When they caught up to Kai, he was waiting in front of the door which, as it turned out, did indeed lead to Volkov’s office. Myrna unlocked the door with her bunch of keys, and they stepped inside.

 It was empty. Not just nobody’s-here empty, but stripped completely bare. It was just a room, panelled in green and beige, with pale squares on the walls where pictures had hung or cabinets stood and preserved the original colours.

 Kai made a dissatisfied sound.

 “Did you check for hidden rooms when you were emptying the place?” Dad asked Myrna.

 “Yes and no. We had the building’s blueprints, and we did find some discrepancies and discover some rooms that weren’t noted, but we didn’t go knocking on every wall to find sliding panels or things like that.” She laughed a little.

 “Then that’s what we’ll do.” Dad said, looking at Kai for confirmation. “Seems the most likely place he’d hide any particularly sensitive information, right?”

 Kai inclined his head. “That was my thought.”

 “You two do that,” Max said. “Boris can show me and Takao around meanwhile.”

 Myrna came with them, and for a while they wandered from room to room. As Boris led them past dormitories, communal showers, training rooms, recreational facilities and secret corners, he seemed increasingly to veer between high and low spirits. He’d stand for a long time staring at the place where his bed had once stood, and then he’d crack jokes while they walked to the next place.

 They came around a corner and were faced with a row of rusting cells, some with their doors ajar. Takao remembered Kai saying he had seen Zangief in a cell all those years ago. Maybe it had been one of these.

 “I wonder what happened to Zangief?” he said out loud, idly moving the nearest door back and forth and making the hinges scream and creak.

 “He was probably rescued by the BBA,” Max said, eternally optimistic.

 “Zangief ...” Boris said slowly. “He was lucky. If he had beaten you, he would have advanced, gone to train with Baba Yaga.” As Takao moved on, Boris took over the door he had left, swinging it back and forth, back and forth, creak, creak, creak, creak. “He would have regretted that fast.” A bit of laughter, low in his throat. His face was lost in shadow. “Zangief was weak.” Creak, creak, creak, creak.

 “Boris?” Max was watching him warily.

 “Baba would have eaten him alive.” The ceiling light glinted off the edge of his sharp, sharp smile. “Then again, they say that’s what she does to the ones in the cells to.” Another laugh, like quacking. Creak, creak, creak. And then he stopped and stood very, very still. Trembling.

 Suddenly, Max grabbed Myrna and Takao and shoved them into the nearest cell, slamming the door behind them. Takao shoved at it, but the lock had sprung; it was shut fast.

 “Max!”

 “Stay there!” he said, giving them a warning look.

 Boris had twitched when the door banged shut, and now he turned slowly towards Max.

 “Max, why did you do that?” Takao pressed himself up against the bars.

 Myrna was going through her mess of keys and muttering stressfully to herself. “Is it this one or this one or this one? Not that one. Okay, this is scary. This one? No, no ...”

 “Be quiet!” Max commanded. He drew a careful breath, inhaling and exhaling. “Boris? Boris, please step into the light for me.”

 Boris didn’t move, but Takao could hear him breathing now, a harsh whistling sound like he was in pain.

 “Mama told me that you usually get a bit manic before an episode,” Max said gently. “That’s how I knew.”

 “Max,” Takao hissed. “Get out of here!”

 But Max shook his head. “No. Boris, you said you would be okay, and I believed you. I still believe in you.”

 Boris’ hand fell from the cell door to hang limply at his side. It twitched.

 “What is happening?” Myrna whispered.

 Max took a step closer to the other boy. “When I talk to Mama on the phone, all she talks about is you. How far you’ve come, how strong you are, how proud she is of you. She laughs about your terrible jokes. She says you are so clever.”

 Boris sucked in a breath. He was trembling all over, hands closing slowly into fists like he was holding himself back desperately.

 Max took another step forward. “Boris-”

 Boris’ lunged, grabbing Max by the front of his sweater and slamming him up against the bars. The light caught his face and revealed his eyes huge and staring, and a weird, cruel twist to his mouth. Max clenched his teeth and held still as Boris’ knuckles dug into his throat.

 “Max!” Takao cried, reaching through the bars, but unable to touch them. “Boris, don’t you dare! Don’t give Kai a chance to gloat about being right! Come on, fight it!” He turned back to Myrna, who seemed to be frozen in shock. “Find the key!”

 She startled and began to fumble again.

 “It’s okay, Takao!” Max said, straining. “Boris, it’s just you and me. I have Draciel, but I won’t use it. It’s your choice; you can hurt me, or you can come back to us. I already know what you’ll do, because you said you’d be alright, and because I know you want to make Mama proud of you.”

 “Make ... Baba ...” Boris muttered, seeming confused for a moment.

 “No,” Max said. “Mama Judy. My Mama ... and yours.”

 Another hard shiver went through Boris, and then he sank to his knees in front of Max, letting go of him. His face relaxed until he was pale, but calm.

 “The stupid door,” he muttered. “The stupid sound. Every night, all night, our metronome from hell.” He stumbled to his feet and moved a few paces away, sniffing and wiping at his nose. “I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely. “Kai was right about me.”

 “No, he wasn’t,” Takao said quickly as Myrna finally moved past him to put the right key in the lock. “You came back.”

 “Let’s rejoin the others,” Myrna said a little hysterically as the door swung open. She hurried down the corridor without waiting for them.

 “Would you like that hug now?” Max asked Boris softly.

 He didn’t say anything, but lifted his arm, and Max slipped under it and wrapped his own around him.

 “She’s your Mama,” Boris said, almost whispering. “But I like her too.”

 “I don’t mind sharing,” Max replied, smiling as he let go again. “I already share her with Emily, and honestly she could use the extra practice.”

 Takao grabbed them and pulled them into a double hug. “Don’t scare me like that!”

 “Sorry, Takao,” Max laughed.

[americasass81]

Make Her Mine - Chapter Two

Tony Stark x Reader Warnings: Dark!Tony, mostly just mild swearing and stalker behavior here.

A/N:- Also re-editing this chapter from original female character to reader. 

Word count: 2000 approx.

Letting yourself into your room, you locked the door behind you before heading towards the bedroom.  Sitting on the bed, your accountant's brain began to work through your survival plan for the next seven days.  You knew a week wasn't a long time, but since credit cards could be tracked, you knew that cash was the only safe way to stay under the radar and you were now woefully low on that.  You also figured your sister might be the first port of call for tracking you down, so that left your best friend.

Calling Sabrina, you gave her a very brief account of your predicament and that if she was willing to help, she really only had until about four o'clock to get what was needed from your apartment.  Being better to you than your own sister, you told her where to find your getaway bag and also asked for some basic workout gear, figuring you didn't need anything fancy to outrun an Avenger.  Then you told her where to find you and the name you were using before hanging up to wait for her arrival.

One hour later, a text message told you she was outside your room, and upon opening the door you checked to make sure no one else was there before you pulled her inside and locked the door again.

Dropping your bags, she pulled you in for a warm hug before stepping back to give you the once over.  "Angel, what exactly is going on and why do you look like crap?" she asked, taking your hand and leading you to the nearest couch.

Sighing heavily as you sat down, you stared at your hands before speaking.  "Do you remember the reservation I had Monday night for La Scala?"

"Is that the Italian place you've been going on about for the last three months?"

"Yes.  Well it turns out that when they were switching over reservation books, they lost my booking and the best they could offer me was a seat at the bar until a table became available.  Obviously I was fine with that, until I drew the attention of Tony Stark and had to turn down his offer to join him."

"Wait, are you telling me you said no to THE Tony Stark?  The same Tony Stark who probably doesn't even know the meaning of that word."

"Exactly, and whether or not he knows the meaning of it, he definitely doesn't like hearing it.  Apparently he's had Happy Hogan trying to find me since then, which was made kinda redundant when my boss sent me to deliver reports to one of his meetings this morning."

"Well damn, Y/F/N, that must have been some shock.  What happened, if you don't mind me asking?"

"No, it's fine.  I mean you have a right to know, since I may or may not have put you in harm's way."

"You what now?"

"Look, I think it's safe to say that Tony Stark is not the hero he appears to be and I think I may have pissed him off a lot more than I should have."

"Y/F/N, what did you do?"

"I barely gave him any information when he questioned me before the meeting, and when he had me threatened and brought to his office afterwards, I said I'd report him to Human Resources."

"Wow, you never do things by half, do you?  But that doesn't explain why you're hiding out here or why you think I might be in danger?"

Refusing to look at your best friend, you took some deep breaths before continuing.  "Well because when a meeting with Steve Rogers interrupted us, he told me to go back to work and then wait for Happy to drive me to his place afterwards.  Obviously I didn't do that and I don't know if he's willing to let this go.  If not, I don't know who he's willing to hurt to get to me."

"Fuck Y/F/N, all this because his ego couldn't handle the word no."

"I know right.  I'm so sorry for putting you in the middle of all this, but I didn't know who else to trust.  I love my sister, but you and I both know she'd sell me out in a heartbeat."

Wrapping her arms around you once more, Sabrina held you tight as she thought through the situation.  "You know Y/F/N, this situation might not be as dire as you think.  Considering who my husband is, do we really believe that Tony Stark is willing to go up against New York's mob boss just to get to you?"

"I don't know, Sab, and that's the worst part.  I don't know what he's capable of.  I mean Happy threatened to have me arrested for stealing money from the company if I didn't go to his office.  You really think Sebastian can protect you?"

"Oh Angel, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt Seb won't let anything bad happen to me.  But what about you?  Should we see what he can do for you?"

"No Sabrina, you've done more than enough.  Hopefully I'm just overreacting and this will all blow over.  If not, then I have my getaway bag and more than enough cash to start over.  Your husband would be proud of me." you finish with a chuckle, hoping to ease the tension lines you could see appearing on her forehead.

The next hour was spent with a bottle of wine and some girly chit-chat until Sebastian texted Sabrina to let her know he was in the lobby.  Giving your best friend a smile and a hug, you said goodbye and decided to head for a relaxing bath, not knowing the shitstorm that was about to kick off at Stark Industries.

*************

No pun intended, but upon arriving at your desk ten minutes before clocking off time, Happy was not a happy camper.  After finding your desk empty, he made enquiries from Melinda who informed him that you weren't feeling well and had gone home early.  Deciding that it was best not to upset Tony unless absolutely necessary, he brought up your employee file and got a hold of your address.  Getting in the car and driving to your place, he was pissed to discover that it was locked tight and no one had seen you all day.  Swallowing his anger, he headed off to Tony's to relay this development and see if he really was serious about pursuing you.

Upon walking in, Tony told him to take you to the living room and he'd be right out.  However, on entering said room and seeing only Happy, Tony was full of questions.  "Happy, would you care to tell me what is wrong with this picture?"

"I know Tony, I can't explain it.  From what I've been told, shortly after you sent her back to work, she complained about not feeling well and no one has seen her since."

"No one?  Are you fucking kidding me?  Nobody just disappears without a trace.  F.R.I.D.A.Y. I want a trace put on all credit cards in the name of Stark Industries employee 2474789, back timed to two months ago.  I want to know where she's been and where she might go."

"Tony, don't you think all this might be a bit excessive over someone who clearly wants nothing to do with you?"

"You know I was kinda resigned to not knowing who she was, but my god, when she walked into that meeting room and I discovered that I've technically been supporting her for three years.  I can't explain it, Happy but she's awoken something in me.  F.R.I.D.A.Y. what's the status of recent activity?"

"Nothing Boss.  The last credit card purchase was Tuesday at the cafe in the lobby of Stark Industries.  Mint flavored hot chocolate with whipped cream, around lunch time."

"Damn, how does one disappear and go over twenty-four hours without financial support?"

"Um Tony, I don't want to state the obvious, but do you think she might be using cash?"

"Cash?  Seriously Happy, people still do that?"

"It would explain how she's getting by, while staying off F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s radar."

"Ingenious.  My little girl's a clever one, it seems.  Thanks Happy, but I think I can handle her from here.  You can show yourself out?  F.R.I.D.A.Y. pull up any footage you can for Y/F/N's apartment for the last forty-eight hours." Tony ordered, as he headed towards his lab.

Sitting at his workstation, Tony combed through all available footage from your apartment, starting from half an hour before he knew you left work.  Noticing nothing out of the ordinary, he was prepared to try some other approach when he saw a young woman exit your building carrying what appeared to be two black duffel bags.  Watching her deposit them into a black SUV, he waited to see if her face became visible.

"BINGO!  F.R.I.D.A.Y. freeze frame 17a and run facial recognition on that individual."

"Facial recognition scan identifies the young lady as Sabrina Stan.  Wife of Sebastian Stan.  Current head of the New York mob."

"New York mob connections, huh?  Well that could explain her ability to fly under the radar.  Still, let's try this without starting a war.  F.R.I.D.A.Y. I think it's time I stopped fooling around, run Miss Y/L/N through facial recognition and let me know the second you find her."

"Will do boss."  Fifteen minutes later, he heard a beep and looked up from his desk to see footage of you walking through the lobby of the famous Waldorf Astoria towards the elevators.

"Well I'll be damned, either my girl has expensive taste or her mob connections go deeper than a passing acquaintance.  F.R.I.D.A.Y. do a complete, deep data scan.  Cross reference everything to do with Y/F/N Y/L/N, the Waldorf Astoria and the New York Mob.  I need to know if I have to mobilize the Avengers."

Two hours later, having torn himself away from his pet project to play Iron-Man, Tony barely gave himself enough time to rehouse his nanoparticles armor before harassing his A.I.  “F.R.I.D.A.Y. do you have the results of that search?"

"Indeed Boss.  It appears the connection is nothing more than an acquaintance.  Mrs. Stan and Miss Y/L/N were both part of the same book club and writing group a year and a half ago.  It seems a friendship developed out of it."

Though it bugged him, all the bother you were putting him to, this new information coupled with you appearing to be somewhat of an introvert, gave him renewed confidence in his plan.  Having so far found you utterly fascinating, he knew that once he had you, he would make sure you never said no to him again.

[rfaromance]

HyunHyun

Take pictures of your precious moments-- they last longer.

Memories were fleeting, but a photo could last for eternity, transcending the limits that human bodies faced and living for lifetimes.

Thus, as an actor, as an artist, and as a friend, Zen held an immense amount of respect for the work of Jihyun Kim, or as he called him, V. V was a rather modest, mellow, mild-mannered man, but one didn’t need to have an eye for composition to be able to tell from first glance that he was insanely talented. His photographs captured not only colors and figures, but emotions and energy. They touched so many hearts and minds, and it was that ability to strike deep into the core of a person that had actually led to V finding the love of his life.

Unfortunately, their fairy tale came to an abrupt ending, when sorrow and the sea swallowed Rika whole, leaving nothing but her memory, her photos, and her legacy.

Everyone in Rika’s Fundraising Association had taken a hit when Rika passed, but V had suffered the most of all. That was natural, that was expected-- the two of them had promised their lives to each other.

For the longest time, V had been unable to pick up his camera again, and he had withdrawn into his solitude and despair. The RFA had all struggled with how to handle him, how to help him, how to heal him. Only time could heal some wounds, but… surely they could at least extend their hands and show that they would be there for him, in the same way he had supported them in their lowest moments and brought them together?

V saved Zen’s life-- that was no overstatement. Zen would not be here today if not for V’s persistence, V’s dedication, V’s curiosity, V’s kindness. If V could bring him back from the brink of a physical demise, then as his friend… didn’t Zen have a duty to bring him back from his own spiritual death?

These were the thoughts swirling in the young actor’s head as he stood at V’s doorstep, a bouquet of daffodils in one hand and a 6-pack of beer in the other. He had hit a personal roadblock in his own career; while he had managed to land a minor role in this latest play, he was struggling a lot with delivering his lines. Memorization was rarely a problem for him, but he was having an unusual amount of difficulty grasping the tone and the character that he desired. A lovelorn man was nothing new, but a lovelorn man who was lusting after his taken best friend? How much desperation should he employ, and how much support should he balance with it? He had to strike that precarious balance between desire and restraint, between yearning and withdrawing, between lust and level-headedness. Imagine being in love with your best friend!

Zen hadn’t even had a girlfriend since he could remember. He was dating his job, in a sense. This harsh reality only made the time he spent with his friends even more valuable.

Therefore, even though he was going to be working while he was with V, using V to recite his lines, he was still rather excited to stay overnight. V’s house was a considerable distance from his, over by the sea; why did artists have to live in such bizarre, eclectic places?

At least he had brought some beer to help them unwind when they were done.

As the white-haired young man rapped on the door, he was a little afraid of what kind of state he would find V in. Some days, he seemed to be calm and collected; other days, he was completely lost in his thoughts, and his eyes looked so misted and faraway, as if he could hardly see what was directly in front of him. Would V be at peace, or would he be tormented, when he came to the door?

The sea-blue eyes that greeted him twinkled like aquamarines. The pale face before him was aglow like the sun. The smile that greeted him was warmer than a hearth.

“Hyun.” Even his voice felt lighter than usual, like he were breathing fresh air instead of trying not to swallow water. “It’s a pleasure to see you. Thank you for coming all this way.” As refined and polite as ever, but still somehow… more casual. More relaxed. More… at ease.

“You’re the one doing me a favor,” Zen reminded him with a small chuckle. “The pleasure is mine, V. I rarely get to see you these days. How have you been holding up?”

A dark shadow flitted across his gaze, albeit briefly. “I’ve been… better,” he confessed, and he rubbed the back of his head a little sheepishly. He then ran his hand through his bangs--he had allowed his hair to grow out ever since losing Rika a few months prior, and his minty bangs now reached his chin. Getting a closer look at him now, Zen contemplated making a note to bring V some of his special shampoo; he shouldn’t let beautiful hair like that get either too greasy or dried out from improper treatment. “I’ve really been looking forward to seeing you, though,” he added, probably hoping to lighten the mood and alleviate Zen’s concerns.

Zen was still going to worry--he had a bit of a mother hen’s nature--but he would try to keep himself in check and not dote on V too much. They were friends, equals, companions. And besides, V was someone whom Zen respected immensely. Someone whose artistry, and whose beauty (both inside and out), rivaled his own. “I understand,” Zen told him with a puff of his chest. “I’d be excited to see me, too.” He gave his friend a flirty wink and his trademark smile that he flashed to his adoring fans.

If he had done that to Yoosung, the blond boy would have probably complained. If he had done that to Jaehee, the young woman probably would have melted. If he had done that to Seven, the mischievous hacker probably would have winked back. If he had done that to Jumin, the trust fund kid probably would have rolled his eyes.

He wasn’t sure what he had expected from V, but it certainly wasn’t the soft blush on his cheeks and the small giggle that escaped his thin lips. “Never change, Hyun,” he murmured, and then he returned a slight smile of his own, with his upturned mouth and small dimples shining brighter than the sun.

Oh. That’s why Rika had called him her sun.

“R-right,” Zen mumbled as he entered with a respectful bow. After he kicked off his shoes, he turned to V to ask him where to put the beer. “Hey, I brought these for later. Where should I put--”

Why was V gazing at him so intently?

“Yes, you’ll be perfect for this,” he declared at last with a firm nod and a slam of his fist into his open palm. “Hyun, I… Will you accept my apology?”

Always so considerate of others. He was apologizing before Zen even knew what reason he had to be sorry. “Tell me what’s going on, first,” the actor insisted. “I just got here. You haven’t done anything wrong here, or quite frankly, anything wrong that I can remember.” Was this an old wound that V wanted to close? An unresolved situation that needed closure? Zen tried to sort through the jumbled memories in his mind; V had never done anything to truly upset him. He had gone silent and pulled himself away from the RFA for a while, but Zen wasn’t about to chide him for how he chose to cope with his grief.

Zen, after all, had been prone to taking extreme, dramatic actions when he was feeling emotionally charged, too.

“I promise, we will practice your lines,” V continued, as Zen tried to piece together the different elements of what he was saying. “I have a request first, though, if you would be willing to indulge me.”

A request? Zen raised his eyebrows, but he found himself nodding nonetheless. He had no reason to doubt V, to question him, to suspect him. “Whatever you need,” he promised, with another quick wink and a snap of his fingers. “Let me guess. You needed an otherworldly beauty to model for you, right?” He propped one leg up onto V’s dining room table and leaned forward with one arm leaning against his knee, as if he were a ship captain looking out at the sea. “I understand. God made a mistake when creating me, so nobody else quite compares.” Of course, he knew that couldn’t be the case. As far as he knew, V rarely picked up his camera these days, if he even took pictures at all. When Rika died, his muse had died, too. His creative spirit, his inspiration, his drive, his passion… they weren’t necessarily dead, but they were on emergency life support. Zen wasn’t sure what kind of presence, what kind of power would be able to spur V to take photographs once again. He eagerly awaited that day, though.

“You’re exactly right.”

Zen didn’t even realize his mouth had fallen agape until V walked up to him, one hand outstretched to gently cup his chin and clamp his jaw shut. “You’re a marvel, Hyun. I… I’ve been thinking about what drew her to you in the first place.” His voice dropped, choked for a second, when he mentioned his former fiancee. But he kept speaking, pushing forward. “It wasn’t just your looks. It wasn’t just your talent. It wasn’t just your charisma. It was…” He furrowed his brow, as though searching for the proper words to describe what was on his mind. “Your aura.”

Aura?

Burning blue met confused crimson as V stared intently into Zen’s eyes. “You exude an aura of kindness, but also one of intensity. You’re naturally gifted, but you also work remarkably hard. You have a relaxed, likeable, comforting quality to you that draws people in, but when you get immersed in your work, you’re serious, stern, and disciplined.” His fingertips slid down Zen’s neck to his shoulders, and the tender touch sent a shiver racing through Zen’s spine. Was… V always like this when he got into work mode? This was a side of the photographer that he had never seen.

Why did a voice in the back of Zen’s mind whisper to him, “Did Rika ever see this side?”

“You’re a star, Zen, even if you don’t see it yet.” Now V gave him a pat on the shoulder and took a step back. “I want to help you see it, and perhaps expose others to your light as well.” He turned to a bag on his couch and shuffled around for a moment before withdrawing an exquisite camera-- one of the fancy ones that Zen only ever saw paparazzi use. “Would you allow me the honor?”

Only one possible response came to Zen’s brain and to his tongue:

“The honor is all mine.”

~~~

A can in one man’s hand, a glass in the other man’s grip.

While Zen guzzled beer, of his wine V would take a small sip.

A flick of a white ponytail, a shake of minty bangs.

When these two became tipsy, musical numbers they sang.

As their lips became loose, their thoughts began to spill as well.

Some words, some secrets, some things they never had meant to tell.

V was weaker to his wine, and so he was first to speak,

And the sentence he uttered made Zen’s tender heart grow weak.

“I’ve always admired you, though for a while ‘twas from afar.

You have always had the radiance of a shining star.

At first I was jealous of the way Rika admired you,

Until I realized that I felt the same way she did, too.”

He put his glass down on the table, and then bowed his head.

“I was afraid to ask you to model, so full of dread.

Imagine my delight when you agreed with a whole heart.”

And that’s when he moved a bit closer, giving Zen a start.

“I want to remember this day, the time we spent as friends.”

Why did that word seem to rip Zen’s heart into little shreds?

Hyun and Jihyun were friends, and dear to each other for sure,

But would it be a crime if the two of them wanted more?

Zen put his own drink down, then turned to face V’s minty eyes.

“Say what you’re thinking,” he demanded, much to V’s surprise.

“You always hold back, and today I was happy to see

That you were unafraid to ask for a favor from me.”

V looked hesitant, then finally emitted a sigh.

“Promise not to leave me? Promise not to bid me good-bye?”

Zen reached forward and planted his porcelain hand atop V’s.

With his signature wink, he gave his friend’s hand a firm squeeze.

“I shouldn’t speak, not when Rika’s memory is still fresh.

But I’m bearing a large sin that I think I must confess.”

Zen tilted his head to the side, but gave V a brisk nod.

He wanted to hear this confession, no matter how odd.

“Rika was my first love, the light of my entire life.

But life goes on, despite our ongoing turmoil and strife.

If Rika was my sun, then I must find another star.

And it appears to me that I needn’t search very far.”

Before Zen could question what the mint-haired man’s words could mean,

In towards Zen’s face, the photographer started to lean.

A peck on the lips, a delicate brush of skin on skin.

This was V’s secret, this was the young man’s heavy burden.

V tried to pull away as quickly as he had appeared,

And him leaving was the thing Zen discovered he most feared.

So the actor pushed forth, biting onto V’s rosy lips.

He scooted a tad closer, with a shuffle of his hips.

One might have imagined the kiss tasted of beer and wine,

But on the contrary, it was of a flavor divine.

The tastes of elegant mint and a hearty red bean bun.

A flavor that was mature, but in a way, also fun.

Edges of salt and smoke coated this unexpected kiss,

One marred by sorrow but also decorated with bliss.

When the two finally were forced to breathe and break apart,

They were of two bodies, but now bore only one shared heart.

“I…” V began, but his usually level voice trailed off.

“I think you should go,” he whispered, his voice eerily soft.

Zen jumped to his feet, ready to spit out many protests.

But judging from V’s expression, he now needed to rest.

“Thanks for helping me with my character,” Zen said at last.

“I’m sure I’ll remember this day when the stage comes to pass.”

And with a fond farewell, V waved to his friend as he left.

But as Zen closed the door behind him, his heart felt bereft.

His fingers traveled to his lips, where he still felt V’s touch.

Maybe the actor had just walked in there wanting too much.

“Take a picture to preserve moments,” is what he’d been told,

but no photo would last as long as this memory would.

[firaknight]

I’m going to explain my entire crossover AU (Fountain of Dreamstone AU) up to what I’ve got so faR AND NOBODY CAN STOP ME— /lh

Aight so—

This AU is basically a very selective crossover of Mario and Luigi: Dream Team and Kirby. That’s breaking it down to the bare fucking essentials.

The long version is this:

Shits going down in Dreamland. Nightmare Wizard is back (somehow) and the bitch stole the Star Rod again. All of Dreamland begins to experience frequent nightmares, including Adeleine and Ribbon. For a while, Ribbon is able to make a type of fairy dust that can stop nightmares, but she’s got an extremely limited amount of it. Before long, there’s no longer enough to share between the two. Adeleine lies and states that she’s been nightmare free for a few days (that’s a giant lie) and that Ribbon should keep using the fairy dust. Ribbon, who doesn’t realize Adeleine is very obviously lying, agrees and starts using the fairy dust on herself from then on. Adeleine starts staying up for days on end, only sleeping for short periods of time (30 mins-1 hour) to stave off total exhaustion. Whenever she does sleep, it’s incredibly light and the slightest things wake her up (it’s to make sure she doesn’t sleep deeply enough to cause a nightmare). Nobody’s able to really do anything about it either. Kirby, MK, DDD, and a bunch of the other Star Allies have mysteriously gone missing, with Kirby and DDD being the only two to know where the Fountain of Dreams is located. Without them, nobody knows where to look to put a stop to Nightmare.

At some point, Ribbon decides her and Adeleine should go on a walk. Clear their heads, take a bit to relax. Adeleine, who is clearly exhausted, agrees and they head out. During their walk they come across a strange stone buried in the depths of the woods just by their house. The stone is shaped like a pillow and it sure as hell doesn’t feel like a stone. Ribbon, jokingly, dares Adeleine to try and sleep on it to see what happens, and Adeleine, who physically can’t refuse sleep at that point, takes the dare.

(Pictured above: Art I drew of that exact scene)

Adeleine flops down onto the “stone” pillow and within moments she’s out cold. Ribbon is shocked she managed to conk out that fucking fast and realizes that maybe, just maybe, Adeleine had been lying before about “getting good sleep and not having nightmares,” but it’s too late to say anything now. All she can do is wait until Adeleine wakes up.

Cut to Adeleines POV and she “wakes up” in a very strange place. It’s a void of melded together colors and she appears to be floating in midair. There’s a voice that calls her over to a strange swirly portal and, being the exhaustedly curious kid she is, she follows it, diving through the portal and ending up in a weird dreamscape that looks nearly identical to where she was before she fell asleep, except things are funky because she’s pretty sure it’s a dream. That same voice calls out again, but somewhat louder and clearer, and she follows it, eventually coming across this giant, purple, almost crystalline rock. The voice appears to be coming from it, and it looks like something is stuck inside, although the rock isn’t clear enough to see through. She attempts to ram into it and the rock cracks! Surprisingly, she’s completely unharmed (normally that act would leave her with a bruised shoulder at the least)! She rams it again, and again, and again, and the rock breaks! Whatever was stuck in there flies out, reforms into god knows what (she can’t see it because it flew up above her and she barely had any time to react to it), and before she can even begin to comprehend what happened, the portal she came through widens, creating a vacuum-like force that pulls her in without warning.

Cut back to Ribbon, who’s been timing how long Adeleine is out for (if she passed an hour without any sign of waking up, Ribbon would’ve taken matters into her own hands). She’s starting to get worried, up until she notices the “stone” Adeleine conked out on starts moving, with Adeleine showing signs of waking up. Within moments, Adeleine opens her eyes and sits up, a little frazzled. They exchange looks and Adeleine gets spooked by something appearing behind her, whipping around to find some small prince, probably a little taller than Ribbon, floating behind her. He’s got a pillow shaped head (which could be his clothes, she’s not entirely sure), looks kinda human-esc, and is very small compared to her. He gives his thanks for rescuing him and asks if Adeleine was the one to free him of his prison. Adeleine, who has no idea what just happened, answers with a meek “maybe” while she tries to process the situation.

This incredibly tiny man tells them his name is Prince Dreambert, and that he was sealed away by Antasma many years ago. He hails from a place known as Pi’illo Island, and has no idea where he is, how he got here, and why he’s here. Adeleine and Ribbon give their names, tell him he’s in Cloudy Park, part of one of the far corners of Dreamland, which is nestled on Planet Popstar. They mention that everyone’s been having nightmares recently and ask if he’s got anything to do with it. Dreambert brings up Antasma again and mentions he might be a cause, giving a detailed description of what he looks like.

(Pictured above: Antasma using the power of the Dark Stone)

Adeleine realizes that the description fits the criteria of a reoccurring figure multiple people have spotted in their nightmares and mentions it, adding in that a villain from their world, Nightmare Wizard, may have teamed up with Antasma. Dreambert realizes that this world could be in grave danger if those two aren’t stopped and asks to join up with Adeleine and Ribbon to help them find Antasma and Nightmare and put a stop to them before it’s too late. The two agree and the three of them venture out to put a stop the the baddies.

🪐Here’s some extra notes:

Combat has to happen, of course, and I wanna style the roles after M&L:DT so it’s a little more streamlined. Real world combat functions as normal, with Adeleine and Ribbon functioning like Mario and Luigi, partnering up for some attacks but able to fight on their own. Dreambert kinda hangs back and gives assistance when in dire straights. Dream World exploration and combat are wildly different. Adeleine takes the role of Mario (with similar abilities to Dreamy Luigi), venturing through the Dream World, but she’s asleep instead of jumping into a portal whilst awake. Dreambert functions like Dreamy Luigi, giving Adeleine his powers whilst in the Dream World and helping in combat. Ribbon takes on the role of Starlow during those segments, staying in the real world and interacting with Adeleine and the things around her to trigger things in the Dream World.

Giant battles would still be a thing, just triggered and handled differently. Adeleine can’t conjure up dreamy copies of herself (she has no idea how to do that), and relies heavily on Dreambert for help in combat. When an enemy too big to fight approaches, she winds up cowering in fear, going into self-preservation mode to try and keep herself alive. Her real world body yanks her beret over her eyes in fear, probably crying. Ribbon, who’s worried for her, attempts to comfort her, triggering a reaction in the Dream World. Magic swirls around Dreamy Adeleine and allows her to size up to the enemy. During this time, a small Dream portal opens and Ribbon is able to fly in to provide assistance. She functions like Mario during the giant battles, using her abilities to double up attacks, but requires time to recover from pushing herself to help. Once the fight is over, Ribbon is forced out of the Dream World while Adeleine turns back to normal and finishes whatever she was doing there. It’s unclear why a Dream portal opens when Adeleine is in severe distress, but Dreambert theorizes its a reaction triggered to get help from the outside world, possibly from someone who could enter and help, like Ribbon.

During the fight with Antasma, who can take away Dreamy Luigi in the canon game, Dreambert winds up being the one taken from Adeleine. He’s probably just held onto and Adeleine simply needs to hit Antasma hard enough to make him let go, in contrast to Antasma sealing Dreamy Luigi in a nightmare orb and forcing Mario to figure out which one Dreamy Luigi is being kept in so Mario can break it.

Idk what the other bosses would be (including the giant fights), but the final fight is Nightmare Wizard and Antasma teamed up.

Also, it looks like the other Star Allies met a similar fate to the Pi’illos, like Dreambert. How they’re going to be rescued is a mystery... ;)

[fandom-imagines-stories]

When He Came Home

Frankie “Catfish” Morales X Reader

Words: 2375

Summary: Your husband returns home from a ‘spontaneous vacation’ with a couple of his military friends, but you notice something off about him. While you already had suspicions, his unusual silence confirms that more happened than he let on. 

Notes: Yup. All the Pedro characters shall have imagines. (I’m also thinking about writing one for Oscar Isaac’s character Santiago ‘Pope’ Garcia)

-

You were pissed. It didn’t take a mind reader to guess that. Frankie sheepishly put down his duffle bag and stepped into the apartment. 

“Hey, babe.” He greeted, taking off his cap and running his fingers through his hair nervously. 

“What. The. Fuck?” You whispered, making sure that the baby didn’t hear you. Frankie stepped towards you, but you kept to the corner of the kitchen, sending daggers with your glare. “Five fucking days. You don’t answer your phone. You don’t call. I have no idea where you are for five fucking days. I tried calling Santiago, I tried calling Tom-” You didn’t notice the way he flinched when you said his name, “No one answers. Jullian had a fever and I had to take him to the doctor and you weren’t here!” You threw the rag in your hand across the counter, the sudden motion scaring Jullian. His shrill cry filled the kitchen and you sighed with frustration, moving to pick him up. 

“I got him.” Frankie crossed the apartment to Jullian’s booster seat, lifting him up into his arms. “Hey buddy,” His voice was soft and comforting as he rocked the baby back and forth in his arms, bouncing on his heels. Jullian continued to cry. “I know, I was gone too long.” He leaned in, giving you a side glance as he whispered. “Momma’s mad at me.” After a few more minutes of bouncing, Jullian calmed down, laying his head on Frankie’s shoulder. 

“He only stops crying when you hold him.” All of the stress and worry you’d felt over the past five days just fell away, replaced with the relief of having him home. Frankie held out his free arm and you stepped into him willingly, letting him wrap it around you. 

“I’m sorry.” He kissed your forehead, his breath warm against your skin. After everything that had happened in those god-forsaken days, he held onto the two of you with all of the strength he had left. 

-

To make up for the distress, Frankie cooked dinner while you could relax in the living room, slowly swaying to the music on the radio. Your feet lightly grazed the wood floor as you moved, Jullian’s delightful giggle mixing with the music. He was sitting on the couch, reaching out to you with his fat little fingers. You picked him up and continued dancing, swooping him up and down to make him laugh more. Frankie peeked around the corner and smiled, wiping his hands off on a towel. This was the life that he wanted. Sure, the thought of reliving those days with Pope and the other guys was part of what got him to agree to the heist, but now that he was back here with you and his son, he couldn’t think of why he would ever risk it. 

“Dinner’s ready.” He announced, almost sad to break up the little party. When you looked over at your husband, there was something about his smile that was off. Something almost sad. Like he was afraid that everything in front of him was only a dream. You set Jullian down in his booster seat and felt a hand gently rest on your hip. “Hey…” Frankie started, pulling you close to him. “I am sorry. I should have told Santigo to go without me-”

“No, I get it.” You draped your arms around his neck. “A little vacation with the guys sounded fun. You needed to spend some time with everybody from the ‘old days’.” His lips formed a tight smile. 

“Right.” He pulled back and took off his hat, playfully placing it on Jullian’s head. The baby laughed and squealed as the far-too big hat flopped down in front of his eyes. Frankie smiled. “Come on, let’s eat.” 

A few hours passed and Frankie was able to get Jullian to sleep twenty minutes sooner than you would have been able to. The two of you opened some beers and turned on a soccer game. Frankie loosely draped his arm around your shoulders and you curled up next to him. During commercials, a trailer for some new action movie came on, showing a group of men robbing a bank with automatic rifles. You weren’t really paying attention until you felt Frankie’s shoulders tense and the arm around you pulled you closer. His breathing was fast and his eyes were unfocused. At the climax of the trailer, a round of gunfire went off and he flinched. 

“Baby?” You said softly. He hadn’t had this problem in years. “Frankie, honey, it’s okay.” You placed a hand on his chest, feeling his racing heartbeat. The commercial ended and he snapped out of it, looking at you as if nothing had happened. 

“I’m going to get some ice, my beer’s warm.” He announced, kissing your cheek and walking out into the kitchen. 

You didn’t say anything about it for the rest of the night. You figured that hanging out with the boys maybe just brought up some bad old memories. But deep in your gut, you had a feeling it was something else. A sudden vacation with a bunch of ex-military buddies? The more you dwelled on it, the more and more suspicious it became. 

You tried to call Tom, the most responsible of the group, to ask him some questions, but nobody answered. So you called Santiago.

“Hey Y/N.” His voice was pleasant and you could practically picture that smug smile on his face. “It’s good to hear from you.” 

“Santi, it’s been too long that I’ve had one of those cocktails of yours.” You laughed. You remembered Santigo being Frankie’s best man at your wedding, both of them all grins like a couple of high school boys. If anyone knew what was going on with Frankie, it would be Santiago. “I was just calling to ask how the vacation went. Frankie seems a little… off.” 

“Oh, um…” There was silence on the other end for a moment and the rustle of him switching the phone to the other ear. “The vacation was great. He’s probably just jet-lagged.” There was something fake about his laugh that did little to comfort you. While he was damn good at what he did when it came to his friends he was a terrible liar. 

“Right…” You sighed, running your fingers through your hair. “Thanks, Santi, talk to you soon.” 

“Take care, Y/N.” His voice was suddenly sincere, almost guilty. “Give that kid of yours a hug for me.” 

“Will do.” You hung up just Frankie came out in his shorts and a toothbrush in his mouth. 

“Who was that?” He wondered curiously. 

“Just one of the girls gossiping about her ex’s new wife.” You shrugged. He stepped into the light of the bedroom and you gasped. Covering his arms and torso were scrapes and bruises, some of which looked pretty damn serious. “A fucking vacation?!” You shouted, wincing when you heard Jullian wake up crying. Frankie moved to go get him, but you stomped out furiously. “Don’t. Fucking. Move.” 

Of course, being the least favorite parent, you couldn’t get him to stop crying despite any of your efforts. You tried rocking him back to sleep, feeding him, changing him, but nothing ceased the wailing. 

“Babe, let me get him.” Frankie sighed from the doorway. 

“I’m fine.” You snapped, although your son’s shrieking was starting to give you a headache. 

“Y/N,” Frankie held out his arms and you reluctantly handed him Jullian. Almost immediately, he began to calm down. 

“I can’t…” You let out an angered growl and went to the kitchen for a glass of water to try and cool your head. You let the anger boil out of you until all that was left was the sheer panic and worry from seeing those marks. Slowly, you walked back to the nursery. 

“Shhh,” Frankie cooed, sitting on the floor next to the cradle. Jullian’s tiny hand held onto his finger through the bars Jullian’s eyes slowly closed and Frankie drew his hand away but he didn’t stand up. He just sat on the carpet, looking at his son. “I heard you talking to ‘Pope’. You’re right. We weren’t on vacation.” He hung his head, his shoulders heavy with guilt. “He called us in for a job. A drug dealer down in Columbia that he’s been hunting for years had a house out in the jungle where he kept all of his money. ‘Pope’ wanted to take him down and we’d get a fair share of whatever money we took. He…” Frankie shook his head. “He needed a pilot.” 

“Frankie tell me you didn’t.” You knelt down beside him, putting a hand on his bruised shoulder. After he got busted carrying his buddy’s coke, he lost his license. 

“That money could have set us, baby.” He muttered angrily. “We never would have needed to worry about rent, we could send Jullian to any college that he wanted, hell we could live in an actual house instead of this shitty apartment.” You ran your hand up and down his back, careful to avoid any sore spots. 

“So what happened to it?” You wondered. You weren’t mad about the money. You were pissed that he put himself in danger again. He kept his eyes trained on the floor. 

“Everything went so wrong.” His words seemed to choke him as he spoke. “We took so many bags full of cash that the helicopter couldn’t make it over the mountains.” He motioned the bruises and scrapes. “These are from the crash.” 

“God, Frankie,” You cried, wrapping your arms around him from behind, laying your forehead against his back in between his shoulder blades. Your hands rested on his stomach and he put his hands on top of them. 

“We were too damn cocky. Thought we could actually pull it off. But things just got worse and worse and the only way to get the rest of us out alive was to ditch most of the cash.” The rest of us. Things started to click in your head and you felt disbelief turn inside you like a sickness. 

“Frankie…” You moved around him so that you were looking at his face. “Why hasn’t Tom been answering the phone?” Your voice cracked because you didn’t really want to know. You wanted to pretend that it was just a stupid vacation. Frankie screwed his eyes shut and spoke quietly like if he said it soft enough then it wouldn’t be true. 

“Tom’s dead.” His eyes opened, glossy and lost. And just like that, the stoney expression shattered, the numbness of everything fading and allowing for the sting. Frankie’s lip trembled and he tried to choke out something else. His friend was dead. He’d watched him die. Watched his brains splatter against the rocks of that godforsaken mountain. Tom was a good man. A father. 

You didn’t say a word, instead pulled him into you, his head falling onto your shoulder, cradled by one hand as the other rubbed his back. His breathing was ragged and labored. And he clung to you like you were keeping him together, his arms wrapped tightly around your waist. You stayed like that in silence for seemed like an eternity before the too of you went out to the kitchen for a glass of whiskey you’d been saving for a rainy day. 

He told you everything. From the walls full of cash to the villagers trying to take it. He couldn’t look you in the eye when he talked about the ones he killed. 

“I shouldn’t have pulled the damn trigger, but I thought that they were getting too aggressive. Nobody knows if I shot first or if Tom did, but he’s the one that paid for it.” He drank his glass in one gulp and put it back on the counter. “That kid should have come after me.” 

“Frankie, you can’t think like that.” You sighed, running a hand through his messy brown hair and resting it on his cheek. “What would I have done if you didn’t come back?” 

“Tom’s kids lost their father that day.” He snapped, pulling away from you. “No amount of money is going to change that.” 

“And those girls don’t deserve that.” You agreed. The thought of their loss made your heartache. You made him look at you again. “But would Jullian have deserved to lose his?” You didn’t fight the tears as they fell, watching them build in his eyes as well. “Who would get him to stop crying?” You both laughed through the sadness. “Because God knows I can’t.” 

Frankie finally smiled and pulled your lips up to his. His fingers found their way to the nape of your neck, tangling themselves in your hair. He thought about every time that he didn’t think he would make it back. That hazy blur when the helicopter crashed and he thought he was dead. That he would never see your face again or hear you yell at him. He would never get to see Jullian grow up. To teach him how to drive or watch him graduate. 

The two of you knew that you wouldn’t be getting any sleep so you reclaimed your spots on the couch and turned on some late-night talk show. You laid down with your head in his lap and one of his hands played with your hair while the other rested on your hip. 

“Hey, Frankie?” You started, rolling over so you were looking up at him. He hummed in acknowledgment and smirked down at you. “If Santiago ever needs anything ever again…” You lifted yourself up to give him a sweet and semi-seductive kiss. “Tell him he has to go through me.” He chuckled and grabbed your waist, deepening the kiss. The couch became a kind of sanctuary for him. The only thing that existed was you with your smile and your voice and your soft, unscarred skin. You were his reminder that there was still good in the world from the light you brought to the beautiful life that the two of you had created. 

He was here. He made it out of the hellhole alive. And he was never risking the life he built again.

-

Group Chat(s)Tag List (You know who you are!): @rae-gar-targaryen​; @jnniferjreau​; @ladamari68​; @libellule2001​; @c-ly-g​; @lovingtheway​; @anevrismes​; @cyarika-darling​; @caffinatedstudyspace​

[littlemissagrafina]

Comfortember Day 16. Protective

You Know Each Other? Yeah, We're Dating

@comfortember

Read On AO3

Peter hadn't known that a single comment on a Tumblr post could lead to this. Could lead to such a close and real relationship. He hadn't known but he is so grateful that it did.

He knew that people would say it was just young love, that it wouldn't last and that he and Harley didn't know what they were talking about when they said 'forever'. But they did know. They felt it with every message, every video, every call.

It was a connection that had happened almost instantly. They started talking on Tumblr after Peter had roasted someone who was spouting very distasteful views in the replies on a post where the OP said they had finally come out to their family and they were happy because they were accepted and supported. Said post turned out to have been posted by the one and only Harley Keener. Harley sent Peter a message, thanking him for jumping in to defend him even though they didn't know each other.

Peter answered with "Nobody should be put down and hated for who they are. I was just doing what I hope someone would do for me."

After that they started speaking once in a while, interacting on posts, tagging each other in games and asks as they got to know each other more and became closer.

Eventually they started talking on Discord instead of tumblr messaging. The change of platform seeming to boost their relationship a bit more with them now talking everyday. They shared parts of their lives, sending each other pictures and memes. They both favoured spamming each other with wholesome posts that they would find sometimes.

Harley sent Peter a selfie, saying that he wanted Peter to know what he looked like so that he had a face to connect the person to.

Peter loved that Harley trusted him enough to show him who he was and he said as much. But he also said that he wasn't ready to do the same.

Harley's answer was what made Peter realise that he had a crush on a boy that lived hundreds of miles across the country.

Harley had said, "That's okay, city boy. You don't have to do anything that you aren't comfortable or ready for. Oh! Ya wanna see my latest potato gun Mark?"

The text was so Harley that Peter couldn't help but smile. There was a seriousness to it from Harley recognizing and respecting Peter's boundaries before Harley diverted to something lighter.

It was a trust and openness that Peter only shared with a few people and it meant the world that he could have it with Harley as well.

---

When Peter eventually did feel comfortable to show himself to Harley, he decided that the best way to do it was a video call. They had called before but never video and he wanted to actually see Harley as face to face as they could get living so far apart.

What Petet didn't expect from the call was Harley's reaction. The other teen had blanked when he saw Peter, mumbling that he was cute before a flush spread across his cheeks when he realised that he had said it out loud.

"S-sorry." Harley had stuttered nervously. It was so endearing and unlike Harley but it made Peter happy to realise that maybe he wasn't the only one crushing on someone who lived more than ten hours away.

Peter opened his mouth to say that it was okay but he was cut off before he could by Harley speaking again.

The blue eyed boy fidgeted slightly, not quite looking at Peter. "Peter, I really like you. Like, like you. And I really don't wanna ruin us or make things weird but I didn't wanna hide it either. Seeing you just made me want to say it more and I'm really sorry if I made you uncomfortable or anything."

Peter had gasped at him, a slow, shy smile spreading across his face. "You… you like me too? I was so worried that I was the one who would mess things up but we actually both like each other!" Pete had murmured shyly but excitedly and Harley's face had lit up.

"Yeah, I like you! You're just… you're Peter and you make me feel happy and that I can be me."

"You make me happy too." Peter smiled back. It was entirely too sappy and felt like it was from a movie scene but it was a moment that was theirs.

It was Harley's turn to get shy now. "Do you- would you maybe wanna try and be together?" He asked before rushing to speak again. "I know it'll be weird and hard at times but if you want to, I'd really like to try."

"Yes," Peter had beamed. "I'd love to try!"

And so they did.

It was strange to Peter how little actually changed between them. They still talked like they did, they still interacted and did things as together as they could online but they just felt closer somehow. They didn't change, they just became more in a way they didn't know how to explain.

Harley and Peter just both wished they could actually see each other in person. The calls and messages were amazing but they wanted nothing more than to finally be able to just hug each other and do things together.

It would be a surprise to them both that that wish would come true a lot sooner than later.

---

Harley was excited. He hadn't seen Tony in years, not since just before the Accords happened, but the man had surprised him and told him that he had called Harley's mom and spoken to her about Harley coming up to New York for the summer after school finished.

Not only was he excited to see Tony again, he was excited about Peter. Peter who lived in Queens, in New York. Peter who he could finally meet for the first time in person.

He couldn't wait.

---

Tony had it all planned out. He was going to fly Harley out on one of his jets and Happy was going to pick him up and bring him over to the tower.

He would show the kid his room that had been made up when Tony had made Peter's for him. They would eat dinner before they could disappear to the lab and tinker until Peter would join them after his evening patrol so that Tony could introduce them.

Although neither Peter or Harley knew that the other would be there that night. They knew of each other in passing, of course, but Tony hadn't told Peter that Harley was flying up (and neither had Harley, who wanted to surprise his boyfriend).

So you could imagine Tony's surprise when Peter walked down to the lab and all but froze when he spotted the other teen.

"Harley?!" Peter had yelped, surprise written across his face, at the same time that Harley did.

"Peter?! What are you doin' here?"

"What am I doing here? What are you doing here? You're supposed to be in Rose Hill."

"Yeah and you're supposed to be in Queens where I was going to surprise you later but now it's ruined." Harley pouted.

Before either of them could carry on with their back and forth, Tony broke out of his shock and spoke up. "Wait, you two know each other?"

They turned to him, speaking in sync. "Yes. He's my boyfriend."

"So lemme get this straight," Tony said, ignoring Peter's mumbled I'm not. "You, Mr. Potato Head Keener, are in a relationship with my kid and didn't tell me?" Tony felt his protective side surge to life. It wasn't like Harley was a bad guy, not at all, but he was still dating Tony's kid and no matter how much he liked him, Tony still worried.

Harley smiled sheepishly at him. "In my defence I didn't know that he was the Peter that you always speak about."

"Me neither." Peter piped up. "I only realised that he was the potato gun dude from the Mandarin thing now when you called him the nickname." He turned to Harley. "Okay, I don't know how I didn't connect that last part, you speak about potato guns way too much."

Tony could only watch in slightly disturbed horror as Harley looked at Peter with what could only be heart eyes personified. "Yeah, you're pretty oblivious though, Darlin'."

"Whoa whoa whoa, can we get back to the part where you're dating my kid?" Tony felt like his brain was about to short circuit. Maybe he should have gone to sleep when Pepper actually told him too.

Harley looked at Tony, softening when he saw the obvious bewilderment and slight hardness in the man's eyes. "I won't hurt him. I can't promise that I won't accidentally or inadvertently hurt him but it will never ever be intentional. I never want to hurt anyone that I love, least of all Peter." Harley said firmly, a fire and determination in his eyes.

It gave Tony pause because he'd seen the same look in Pepper's eyes. They're so young but they already found their one.

It scared Tony but he was also grateful that they had found who they found. The both of them could and would definitely be good for each other, he couldn't deny it.

Realising he had been quiet a bit too long, Tony answered Harley. "I know, Harley, I just worry. I don't want either of you to be hurt in this."

Peter suddenly surged forward, pulling Harley with him so that he could hug his dad and boyfriend at the same time. "We know, Mr. Stark. Thank you for caring."

"Ditto." Harley murmured from where he was tangled with Peter and Tony.

"Always. I love you too, you know that right?"

"Yeah, we do."

Tony stood, content to hug the two boys he had come to care for much more than he had ever thought he could. Eventually they drew away from the hug and Tony looked at them.

"Now that that bombshell has dropped, you wanna get to tinkering?" He asked them and laughed when a chorus of Yes's rang out.

Peter dragged Harley to his workbench, immediately going into a mile a minute explanation about one of his projects laying on the workspace. Harley would chime in occasionally with a question or suggestion but otherwise he listened intently to Peter.

The heart eyes still firmly in place.

Tony rubbed a hand over his face. This wasn't the weirdest thing to happen to him but it was definitely up there.

Well at least I don't have to worry about them getting along, Tony thought to himself.

[miraculousmarifan]

Felinette Month 2020 - Day 13: Haunted House Hunting

Another late night @felinettenovember prompt. I’m almost on the correct day though!

Around 1200 words

No miraculous but some supernatural things are afoot and Marinette is great about it

Felix had always seen things that nobody else could. When he was young, he would point them out to his mother and she would laugh about his imaginary friends. When they were terrifying to the young boy, she assured him that it was only an active imagination, not anything real.

It didn't take more than a few years in school to learn that he was the only one seeing them. Once he had described a thing he had seen in an outdoor stairwell near the school they attended to a boy he was friends with. The boy cried, claimed it wasn't real, and was assured by angry adults that Felix was just trying to scare him. Felix got an angry lecture about bullying the other kids and moved to the receiving end of the other children's ire. He didn't tell people about what he saw anymore, branded the things in his mind.

Some of the things looked like people, others like beasts, and the remaining were somewhere in between. Unfortunately the ones that looked like people were hard to identify as "not real" people and that left Felix with few choices on how to appear normal. He ignored the voices talking to him, avoided looking at anything or anyone without an icy glare, and closed himself off. He waited until others that he knew were alive spoke to someone before accepting that they were real. He begged his mother to homeschool him, so he would always know that it was a real person. He was told that he would grow out of his imagination some day.

He began to draw the things he saw, in hopes that it would help him keep track. The times he drew girls in his school that he hadn't met yet resulted in the boys mocking his many crushes. He labeled those drawings and hid them away for more studying. His studying also involved investigating different mythologies so he might recognize some of the things as they appeared. He had identified the hell hound equivalents of multiple different belief systems. He found that almost intriguing.

Moving to a new school early in high school reset his work. A new place, with mostly new things, and entirely new real people. He would need to avoid speaking to anyone until he figured out who was real and who was not. Thankfully his mother had escorted him to meet the principal of his new school, the principal to his homeroom teacher, and the teacher to their class representative. And the class representative did her best to make him feel welcome.

Marinette took it upon herself to introduce him to each member of the class, then encouraged him to eat with her. He stayed quiet more than before the move, focusing on ignoring the things that had come from the Paris catacombs. He tried to focus on the bright side, at least he could start drawing his study cards that night because of Marinette’s help. On the way to and during lunch, she introduced him to a handful more people and Felix mumbled to her that he wasn’t going to remember this many at once. She laughed and told him to stick with her and she’d make sure he always could figure them out. When he took to a more isolated spot to begin drawing as many of his schoolmates’ faces as possible with the remainder of lunch, Marinette happened to notice his artistic skill.

She decided the best way to help him make more friends would probably be to introduce him to various members of the art club and see if he was interested in joining. She casually mentioned her involvement with the club and invited him to stick around to hang out with her after school. He initially declined, stating that he still had a lot of unpacking left. She expressed her disappointment but let him know it’s a standing invitation. He took her up on it after a few days.

Felix found that Marinette knew everyone in the school and was on good terms with most. It gave him the opportunity to draw each and every face and determine which were the things. He also learned that by shadowing her, he didn’t need to worry about speaking up most of the time. As time passed, he became a fixture in the art room after school, sketching near the window while Marinette worked on projects. It was the first time he had been fully comfortable around others. 

This Friday afternoon was no different than usual, with Felix and Marinette working in the art room after school. Suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder blade.

“What’s up, M?” Felix asked her, without looking up.

“What was that, Felix?” she looked over, putting down her sketchpad.

“What did you need?” he asked again, before looking up, where he felt the hand. The girl standing behind him was not Marinette. “Oh! I’m sorry. I thought you were Marinette. Did you need something from me?”

“Who are you talking to Felix?” Marinette spoke up, studying the space he was looking at. “Are you okay?”

Felix glanced at Marinette, then back at where the girl had just been standing. Oh… a thing… How do I explain this to Marinette without sounding crazy? He opened his mouth to speak, then shut it for a moment before starting again.

“Do you want to come visit my house today? I have something to show you that might help explain this…” his voice shook a little, fear creeping in. He knew he needed to get out of here if he was going to calm down.

“Yeah. Let me text my parents quick to make sure they don’t need me back right away,” she replied, concern evident from the way her eyebrows furrowed and her lips pressed together.

The two had made it to his house shortly after and, with a short introduction to his mother, he led her to his room. There he pulled out the folders from each separate school and separated the sketches into the two respective files. He then pulled out the notes and printed images from his mythological research.

“You know that I’ve drawn many of the people at school right?--” a quick affirmative nod from Marinette and Felix continued, “-- I do that for a very specific reason. I see certain things that most others don’t see. For example, I’ve seen things like this one for quite a while.” He handed her a beastly drawing from the thing pile, then held up one that appeared human and one that was somewhere in between. “Or like these. I can’t really distinguish the human looking ones from other people, real people, so I make notes to remember who I can and can’t talk to…”

Marinette had never seen him look so scared. She also couldn’t imagine Felix pulling a stunt like this, especially with the amount of time that would have gone into making and researching everything in the files. She had two options that made sense: he was crazy or he was right. After meeting his desperate eyes for a moment, she glanced down and gestured at the piles, murmuring a request for permission to examine his work closer. She noticed the classifications on each picture, names on most of the real ones and the mythological names to reference on some of the beastly drawings. A few minutes passed in tense silence before Marinette set down the last drawing back in its pile and made her decision.

“Does this mean you’re the perfect weapon for finding the best haunted houses to explore?” She smiled warmly at him, sitting on the edge of his bed.

Felix was speechless.

[yet-another-fan-girl9]

Inhuman (2)

Summary: All beings in the universe have a soulmate except for Midgardians. People can hear their soulmate in their heads. For almost five hundred and fifty years, Loki believed that he had no soulmate until 1513 when a Midgardian princess was born. Will fate be kind to them or will the universe tear them apart?

Warnings: violence, language, hella historical inaccuracies (I tried to do research but then got lazy), maybe some AOS season 2 spoilers(?)

Word Count: ~3600

A/N: Not a lot of Reader in this chapter. Please tell me what you think! I love hearing from you guys and it keeps me motivated!

[New York, March 2024]

“We can’t find her,” Steve said as he walked back into the flower shop. Everyone else followed the Captain in.

The flower girl took a quick gasp at the heroes in her shop but Natasha gave her a soothing rub on the back. Nobody wanted to deal with a hysterical flower girl. Luckily, the woman who had killed Anderson hadn’t knocked over any plants in her hurry and the shop was still in one piece. Nat stood up and gave the woman one last look to make sure she wasn’t about to break down again and then the Avengers filed out of the shop.

There was a small crowd when they walked out onto the street. People were taking photos and videos of the ruined cafe. Their phones turned to the heroes, though, when they were spotted.

“Stark, can you get the security video from the cafe?” Steve ordered. “Wanda and I will talk to the baristas. Everyone else either deals with the crowds or examines the cafe.” Everyone nodded and went off to their respective jobs.

Inside the cafe, Anderson lied dead in a large pool of his own blood. Nat started to snap pictures of the bodies and damages. Behind the counter, she found a pair of plastic gloves and made a small show of putting them on. Bucky just picked up the bullet casings with his metal hand.

Nat gingerly moved Anderson’s head to get a clearer view of his neck wound. He had definitely died of blood loss due to the wound which was definitely inflicted by a knife. She looked around the room and her eyes landed on one of Anderson’s goons. A simple, black knife sat in his forehead. Nat walked over to the body and pulled the knife from his head and held it up to show Bucky.

“Think we can run this for prints?” She asked.

“Yeah, there might be some bags behind the counter.” There were. “Have you seen the bullet wounds in each of the security guys? All straight through the forehead.”

“Same with the fourth guy with this knife.”

“There are plenty of bullet casings from the securities’ guns but only three from another. She fired three times, each one hitting its mark.”

“So she’s a good shot,” Nat surmised.

“Are you guys done in there?” Sam asked through the broken window. The two ex-assassins rolled their eyes and joined everyone else outside.

“I got the security feed, obviously, but Cap also got a video from one of the baristas, right?” Tony reported.

“She just wanted to get Steve’s number,” Wanda laughed.

“Okay, we can go back to the compound to compare notes,” Steve suggested.

They all nodded and went back to the quinjet, the sounds of excited civilians and their cameras following them.

🌹

"Please let me come with you to see your home," she begged at the end of one of their meetings. They stood in the forest. Far enough in where they wouldn't be spotted but still close enough to the edge to be safe from wild animals.

"I wish I could. I really do. But I can’t.”

“Why not?” She knew how she sounded. Her mother always warned her against whining. Still, she could not help the doubts clouding her mind. “Are-are you ashamed of me?” Her eyes watered at the thought as her cheeks burned from the absurdity of the question. Of course, he wasn’t ashamed of her. Right?

“I could never. You are perfect.” He kissed the top of her head. “The only thing stopping me is the Asgardians. They disapprove of you Midgardians," Loki explained.

"But I am sure if you tell them I'm your soulmate," she paused.

"I do not think that an Asgardian has ever had a Midgardian soulmate. You are the only ones in the Nine Worlds without soulmates." She huffed and nodded like she understood, although she honestly didn't. "Thank you for being patient. I believe that you will, one day, have the privilege to see Asgard. It is not as beautiful as you."

“I don’t want you to leave me alone here.”

“You will never be alone. I will never leave you, my dear.”

What a load of shit that had turned out to be. It had been so long since Loki had dreamed of her. He supposed that’s what he got for being back on Midgard. He couldn’t think about her. It hurt too much, knowing that he couldn’t have her.

Now, what had woken him up? Oh, the fucking AI. Apparently the Avengers had returned from their escapade.

“Is everyone here?” Stark asked when Loki walked into the conference room from earlier. Why was he always the last one to enter? “Okay, we have some videos to watch. F.R.I.D.A.Y. hit the lights.”

The lights in the room dimmed and Loki sat down at the table. The screen at the front turned on and a security feed began to play. Loki recognized the Midgardian Senator when he entered despite the tinted glasses on his face. Four men followed him in and spread out across the small cafe. He sat down with his back to the camera. The video skipped a couple of minutes and resumed when a woman with pink and green hair walked in.

“That’s obviously a wig,” Wilson snorted.

Loki narrowed his eyes. The woman reminded him of (Y/N) somehow. Maybe the body shape or the way she held herself. It obviously couldn't be (Y/N), though. He couldn’t even see her face because of the hat and camera angle. Loki brushed off the familiarity to the recent dream. He was seeing her in everything.

They talked briefly, but the security feed had no sound. The woman showed the man something on her phone and the Senator put a briefcase on the table. He opened the briefcase and the Avengers only caught a brief glimpse of its contents before the woman turned it to face her. She smiled and dramatically rubbed her hands together.

“What was that?” Thor raised his eyebrow at the screen.

“Probably to get the knife out of her sleeve,” Romanoff said and sure enough a moment later, the woman stabbed the Senator in the neck.

Loki tried to hide his smirk when she removed the knife and the Senator’s blood squirted like a fountain. The four men converged on her and drew their guns. She flipped the table as the men fired on her. Loki found himself rooting for her, even though he knew the outcome. The woman popped up and shot three of the men. Then she threw the knife at the fourth man. Once he went down, the cafe’s window broke and she left the cafe.

“And then we arrived, she ran into the next door flower shop where we lost her,” Stark continued once the video stopped. “The next video is from one of the baristas.”

The video changed and this time it had sound.

“Dude, that’s a Senator or something, right?” one female voice behind the camera asked. The video shook and the Avengers watched the woman walk in.

“I don’t know, shut up.”

“Senator,” the woman said.

The dream must really be getting to Loki’s head because the woman even sounded like (Y/N). Even after all this time, he would never be able to forget what his soulmate’s voice sounded like. Could it be a descendant? A relative? He knew she never had children.

“You can’t possibly be the one I talked to,” the Senator replied. “You’re just a girl.”

“I would have stabbed him too if he said that to me,” Romanoff joked. Maximoff snorted  and nodded in agreement.

“Well of course I couldn’t be. My boss is too busy and smart to meet you in public.” 

The Senator made no sign of noticing her tone, but the Avengers sure did.

She pulled out the phone and showed him the screen. “Now, I’m also busy so if we can get this over with?”

“Sure, darling.” He put the briefcase on the table.

“Open it.”

The Senator followed the order and this time, the Avengers could see the money that filled the briefcase. She nodded and rubbed her hands together.

“Thank you, Senator. That will be all.”

The following chaos ensued and the video stopped when the girls ducked down behind the counter to hide. The lights came back on.

“We have a couple more presentations before we get into the group discussion,” Stark said and the majority of the people at the table rolled their eyes.

“We’re not a fucking kindergarten class, Stark,” Barnes grumbled as he and Romanoff went to the front. The screen now showed various pictures of the bodies.

“We recovered the knife used to kill Anderson and one goon,” Romanoff held up the knife. “We found prints on it, but we found no records to match them.”

“There were many bullet casings on the ground, mostly from the security,” Barnes continued. “Only three came from the woman, I assume. That means she has a lot of practice shooting people in the forehead.”

“Is this the same group that Anderson had hired?” Barton asked. “Cause there were no white roses.”

“We got a closer look at what was on the phone, and it looked like text messages. This was a meeting for the payment. And it seems like this lady is in charge.”

“Thank you, kids,” Stark stood back up with his eyes glued to his phone. “But apparently Senator Anderson’s house was robbed around the same time he was murdered.” He tapped the phone and flicked his wrist and new photos appeared at the front. “They took everything of value and—”

“Left white rose petals everywhere,” the Captain sighed as he studied the pictures. “This white rose organization has been growing under our noses for too long. I think we have to end it.”

They needed time to come up with a solid plan. If they scared them off, it could be years until they had another chance to catch them.

🌹

Thoughts of (Y/N) ran rampant in Loki’s mind. After the meeting, he had gone up to Bruce to inquire about her. She had been a princess, a queen, right? He had to know about her.

“Queen (Y/N)?” Bruce raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re asking about Queen (Y/N), eldest daughter to King Henry VIII?”

“Er, she had a sister named Mary,” Loki supplied.

“Bloody Mary?”

“Maybe? Can you just give me a quick Midgardian history lesson?”

“I’m not the most well versed in sixteenth-century English history. Maybe you could search it up online? Or go to a museum?”

Bruce had done a quick search with the help of Stark’s AI and had learned that a museum down in the capital, Washington DC, was having a special exhibit on English history. He had also suggested Thor go along with him. Just in case Loki decided to do something stupid. So now, Loki was being trailed by the very obvious God of Thunder as he walked through the museum.

Crowns, jewelry, and clothes from the sixteenth century were displayed in glass cases as humans milled around reading the descriptions. A tour guide was leading a group of teenagers around, pausing every once in a while. Loki couldn’t get past the group and stuck to listening to the tour.

Fucking finally. They had made it to the monarchs and family trees. Loki could see (Y/N)’s painted portrait. It was an accurate image of her, yet it still could not capture her true ethereal beauty. Delicate white flowers filled the empty space behind her.

“(Y/N) was the infamous Bloody Mary’s older sister and eldest surviving child to King Henry VIII,” the tour guide said to the teens. “Born in 1513, she married Phillip II of Spain when she was twenty-five. After her death, Phillip II would remarry her sister, Mary. She was a benevolent ruler, especially compared to her sister and successor. After her father died in January of 1547, she, along with fifteen others, perished in a suspicious fire that was never solved.”

What? Loki stood staring at (Y/N)’s portrait as the group moved on. The museum must have it wrong. (Y/N) had died seven years earlier in December of 1538. Loki’s mind spun. Was she actually alive for seven more years? Why was the connection shut off? She had to have died that day. It was painful but was it better than him seemingly abandoning her? Because he did abandon her, and his choice haunted Loki ever since.

🌹

[San Juan, Puerto Rico, December 1538]

You could see the land up ahead. It was a vague outline of a coast, but it was more land than you had seen in four weeks. The ship creaked under your feet as Agnes brought you to your new husband’s study. He was going to show you the reason you were sailing across the ocean.

In the study, a strange metallic object sat on a thick cloth on the desk. It was about the length of your forearm and it had many geometric sides, causing it to look bent.

“We found a case of these in Portugal,” Phillip told you. “We managed to get most of them out, but it cost a great many people’s lives.”

“It was guarded?” you asked. The many surfaces were not smooth. You wanted to touch it. When you reached a hand out for it, Phillip grabbed it and pulled you back.

“Not in the way you would think. The men who directly came into contact with them were quickly turned to stone. But when they did,” Phillip opened a drawer and pulled out a piece of parchment, “the strangest symbols appeared on its surface.”

On the parchment, seemingly random lines and ellipsis. You looked at your husband for an explanation.

“The locals told a story of blue angels who fell from the heavens to Earth. Some called them the… Kree? Yes, I believe that was it. We are traveling to Puerto Rico because there are similar stories there. I believe we found where this belongs.”

Loki, you asked your soulmate. Have you heard of the Kree?

“You said there were more?” you asked Phillip while you waited for Loki’s reply.

“Moving more than one is too dangerous. This… object. It is a weapon.”

The sound of ringing bells made both of you look up. You were here. As you were disembarking from the ship, Loki finally responded.

The Kree are a very advanced militaristic race. I know of them, how do you?

Have they ever been to Earth? You looked around at your new surroundings as the warm air tickled your skin.

Not that I know of, but I can do some inquiring. He went silent.

“Right this way, your majesty,” a man said with an accent. He led you to a carriage and opened the door for you.

“Where are we going?” you asked before entering.

“To the site, your majesty,” he replied.

You supposed you were already in your traveling clothes and you didn’t want to get any of your fancy dresses dirty. Agnes joined you in the carriage.

“What did the King want?” Agnes asked. All formalities between the two of you had already been dropped by the third week of knowing each other.

“He showed me this,” you paused. You didn’t know what it was. “It was this object that he believes belongs here or more specifically, where we are going.”

The ride was, thankfully, over quickly, but Loki had not gotten back to you yet. You and Agnes left the increasingly stuffy carriage and watched men with shovels linger around the giant hole in the ground. You walked closer and a tall, thin man with spectacles fell into step next to you. He gingerly held a box in his hands.

“Is it in there?” you asked looking at the box out of the corner of your eye.

“Er, yes. Yes, it is, your majesty,” he stuttered.

“What is going to happen?”

“W-well, a team of men are going to go down and th-they will find where it belongs.”

A man walked up to the thin man who opened the box to display the mysterious object. With gloves on, he wrapped the object in its cloth and removed it. You should be the one to take it. Where on Earth did that come from? You shouldn’t touch it lest you want to turn to stone.

You followed the man with the object as he joined a group of six men with torches, armor, and swords. They began to climb down a ladder that led deep into the ground. You needed to go with them. Why, though?

“I’m going as well,” you turned and began to descend the ladder.

“Your highness,” the tall man rushed to the edge and yelled down at you. “I-I wouldn’t advise—”

“You are not my advisor.”

“Your highness!” Agnes shouted.

“Nobody else follows,” you ordered. “Or tell Phillip.”

The rest of your descent was silent. Goodness, this went down much further than you had thought. The closest man’s torch barely illuminated the rungs where you were. It still felt as if you had made the correct decision.

Loki? Are you there? He remained silent.

Sounds of pained screaming and concerned shouts erupted below you. What now? Then the shouts became more fearful and the sound of metal hitting metal reached your ears. You got to the bottom and gasped when you saw four of the seven men dead on the ground, blood seeping across the ground. One torch was still lit so you picked it up and followed the sound of the last three.

The ceilings were high above you and the walls were solid rock, not dirt as you had first expected. Out of the darkness, a man ran at you, his face contorted in panic.

“Your highness,” he said with an accent. Then he spoke in rapid Spanish as he caught his breath. Someone yelled down the hall and you took a step back. “Run!” the man yelled.

Then another man came out of the darkness and impaled the first with his sword. You jumped back with a small scream and clapped your hand over your mouth. Your breathing was heavy as the second man straightened his back and looked at you with terrifying red eyes.

To your surprise, he didn’t attack you. After a minute of stillness and silence, you realized that he was beckoning to you. You took a tentative step closer and he took one back. You took another step and he moved back again. He wanted to lead you somewhere.

The first place the man brought you was just a few meters down the hall. He pointed to the object on the ground next to a statue. No, not a statue. The man must have touched the object and he turned to stone. You took in a shaky breath and looked at the red-eyed man for confirmation. He only continued to point.

You couldn’t see the cloth it was wrapped in before so you made the insane decision to pick it up with your bare hands. You winced and waited to turn to stone but when nothing happened, you looked at it. The same pattern that had been on the parchment Phillip showed you had popped up, covering the object in a glowing red-orange light.

With renewed confidence, you followed the man through the maze-like halls. The next stop was a large, circular room that was lit from above. A stone pedestal was in the center and when you walked over to it, you saw it held the patterns as well. The walls around the room began to move, leaving you trapped alone in the silent room.

Loki? You couldn’t feel his presence.

The object moved in your hand and you instinctively let it go. It didn’t fall to the ground but floated to the pedestal. Were you shaking? The object opened and started to fold in on itself, revealing rising, dark blue crystals.

Loki, please. Where are you? You felt a tear slip down your cheek and you quickly wiped it away. The crystals began to glow and then a wave of mist exploded outward. It exploded outward and knocked you backward. Loki!

I’m sorry, my brother was bothering me. What’s wrong?

Your breath was quick and it shook in time with your body. I-I don’t know. I’m scared, Loki. Your body tingled and you saw a dark layer of stone spread across your body and around your clothes. Tears freely dripped down your face now. S-something is happening Loki. Please, I’m so scared.

I’m sorry, I can’t do anything.

You couldn’t move and the layer reached your face. You could see it creeping up on you out of the corner of your eye. You were stuck. You couldn’t do anything as your vision was obscured but mentally call out for Loki.

It felt like you were in darkness for hours, but it was probably only a minute. Eventually, the crust around you began to crack and you were able to move your fingers. The stone layer kept falling away and the moment you could, you collapsed to the ground. Silent sobs racked your body.

The walls opened up again and the red-eyed man still stood, waiting.

You wanted to scream. You wanted to cry until you ran out of tears. You wanted to give up and lie on the stone floor forever.

You knew that something had changed. When you were waiting in the darkness, you knew. You felt empty inside. You knew it wouldn’t work but you still tried to call out to Loki.

He was gone.

He had promised he would never leave, but he was gone.

And you were alone.

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