#So I decided to dust off my display tablet again... | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

androidcharles · 2 years ago

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My tablet pen decided to fucking CRAP OUT ON ME, so if this looks awful, I apologize...

Anyway, third chapter incoming! With the N.E.R.Ds still at large and Amelia and Charles' new deal, just how long can they keep things up. And more importantly, what kind of trouble are the Toppats getting into...

ALSO would be a good time to note that it maybe the Wednesday after this next one when this story will update again. Apologies in advance, but the next one maybe a long one XD

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A month had finally passed since Charles had talked to Amelia. In that time, a few more robberies had occurred, some of them involving the N.E.R.Ds and some of them involving Amelia herself. While Charles had decided to meet up with her, part of their agreement was that when it came down to it, when they weren’t meeting up, they had to at least look like they weren’t friends. Which meant fighting seriously when the time came.

Even still, Charles felt a sort of bitter resentment towards her as she laser blasted a few holes in his arm and leg to prevent him from chasing her down as she got away with another dozen jewels and necklaces. It was all part of the plan; keep suspicion off of them so it wouldn’t be suspected that they were meeting up and secretly chatting.

Meanwhile, Henry was growing a bit antsy. He didn’t know why, but he felt like something was going to happen. Something that he didn’t quite understand or even comprehend, so today, of all days was when the three of them decided to visit the maximum security prison that Reginald and his right hand man were being held in.

“I’m surprised you want to meet up with them,” General Galeforce said as he placed his eyes over the scanner to confirm his identity, “You guys are lucky I managed to pull some strings and get you in here.”

IT FEELS GOOD NOT TO BE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BARS, IN ALL HONESTY. BUT I JUST HAVE TO CHECK SOMETHING… Henry signed as he looked down the hallway, feeling a bit antsy.

“Hey General, they can get mail in this place can’t they?” Charles asked.

“Yes, they do actually. But it has to be heavily reviewed. Our team of crypto analysts, as well as security background checks for all addressees often take place before mail is distributed.”

AND PACKAGES?

“Heavily reviewed as well.” Henry let out a small ‘hm’ as they finally reached the end of the hallway before General Galeforce opened the door, revealing two cells with a clear glass window displaying the Toppat Leader and his Right Hand Man like two animals at a zoo.

Reginald’s cell couldn’t have been cleaner, with his bed neatly made, toilet completely scrubbed, the floor seemed to be devoid of dust and dander as his sink was completely organized, right down to the floss. The Right Hand Man’s cell, however, was less than clean. Other than his toilet, his cell was a complete mess, toiletries scattered across the sink, his bed a wreck as he stared coldly at the Triple Threat team.

“Can they hear us?” Ellie asked softly.

“Nope, not without this.” The general approached a button and pushed it, speaking into an intercom.

“Hello there boys, how are you feeling?”

“Just fine, thank you! Trying to make myself at home and what not!”

“You’re lucky I’m in here so I don’t STRANGLE YOU STICKMIN! YOU HEAR ME?!” The Right Hand Man bashed his hands against the plastic cell window, Charles flinching as Ellie instinctively got in front of the two.

“Charming…” The general walked towards the door, standing at attention, “Get what you need done and get out alright?” Charles sheepishly approached the intercom, looking at the Right Hand Man before changing his mind and turning to Reginald, pressing the button nervously.

“Um, hi! I, uh… just wanted to ask a few questions about you know… um…” Charles said nervously.

“Questions questions questions… that’s all you government dogs have been asking since we gotten here. I hate to admit it, um…”

“You don’t need to know my name,” Charles muttered.

“Either way, mister, I can’t help but think you’re barking up the wrong tree. We’ve been behaving ourselves in here and the fact that you think otherwise is quite shocking,” Reginald said.

“There’s a girl in town that’s been robbing jewelry stores. We don’t know her name, but maybe you know something about her,” Ellie said, “She has dark curly hair, bright blue eyes, and she wears a navy blue top hat-”

“AMELIA?!” Reginald shouted, “Oh, thank goodness she’s safe…”

“Who?” General Galeforce suddenly said, stepping forward.

“I… she’s my daughter… well adopted daughter anyway. She was apparently a lost android from some former government program called Project SAI or whatever. That’s what she called it at least,” Reginald said.

“How did you manage to get your hands on an android?” General Galeforce asked, a bit of panic in his voice as Charles suddenly shrunk back.

“I told you, she was lost. She ended up mixed up in one our heists back in the day and well, since she didn’t trust you lot, we felt it necessary to take her in,” Reginald said. General Galeforce glanced at the Triple Threat team, who just shrugged at him.

“You told us not to keep an eye on her,” Ellie said, “So, you know…”

“If I had known she was an android, I would have made it a much higher priority. She could come in any minute and bust you guys out!”

“That would be nice… I wouldn’t have to rot in this cell…” the Right Hand Man muttered, pressing his hands against the plastic wall.

“Oh, I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t know where we were,” Reginald said, “When we were arrested she wasn’t even around. She was helping get everything ready for the Grand Plan…”

“Wait a minute. If she’s your daughter, how come she wasn’t the leader of the Toppat Clan when we stopped the rocket?” Ellie asked.

“She didn’t want the position. And in all honesty, I would think that pressuring your kids to do something they’re not comfortable with is bad parenting,” Reginald said.

“Got me there. Anymore questions kids? I’d like to wrap this up…” General Galeforce said.

“Just one. It’s about the letters you guys have received,” Charles said, “You have been getting mail right? Maybe from some… former associates?”

“No, just from my mother on the English countryside. Despite my criminal history, I have a loving mother. I’m sure you guys can relate, hm?” Reginald said.

“Nope…” Henry said softly.

“Can’t say I do,” the Right Hand Man said.

“Eeeh…” Ellie and General Galeforce said in unison.

“Uh, don’t look at me, I was built by a bunch of crackpots I don’t remember,” Charles said.

“Hang on then… you have an inseam on your neck… you’re an android, too?” Reginald asked.

“Uh, well actually-”

“Don’t worry Charlie, he can’t do anything about it, even if he does know,” General Galeforce assured him.

“Ah, well you must know my darling Amelia now, don’t you?” Reginald asked hopefully. Charles thought back to what he and Amelia had been talking about during their secret meetings; how she remembered how close they were and how they were best friends before his memories got wiped. She would tell stories about the trouble they got in (and how apparently he was a huge crybaby back than as well). Should he be honest and say he knows? No, not in front of the general. At least not now...

“Uh, no, actually, not at all,” Charles lied.

“It’s not surprising. Charlie’s memories were completely wiped when we found him,” General Galeforce said.

“Well, I suppose that’s just how computers work. Anyhow, I haven’t had the time to write back just yet, but I’m hoping that I will be able to soon. Just as soon as this gentlemen trusts me with something sharper than a pencil.”

“Do you still have those letters?” Ellie asked as General Galeforce narrowed his eyes at him.

“Well, no, they were all confiscated after I received them. I was only allowed to read, nothing more,” Reginald said.

“Do you still have them on file, general?” Charles asked.

“Of course. You can access the system and take a look at them from there. We also have the physical copies in case you want to look at those,” General Galeforce said.

“Well, we’ll take the physical copies. Charles can look at the digital ones,” Ellie said, “Ready to go Henry?” Henry gave a thumbs up as the four of them headed towards the door.

“Come back and visit!” Reginald called out.

“If you dare…” the Right Hand Man muttered menacingly. They waved sheepishly at them as they finally headed out of the door and the general locked it behind him.

“I guess we’d better get started looking at those letters,” Ellie said.

“I don’t know why you’d want to look at the letters. Our specialists have already looked at the letters already,” General Galeforce said.

“It can’t hurt to take another look,” Charles said, already accessing the database.

It seemed fruitless however, to take another look as the three looked over the letters in the cafeteria. Ellie and Henry put them together side by side as they compared them, trying to look for a pattern while Charles was practically in his own little world, with full access to the scans with the tech needed to identify any inconsistencies.

“If this is supposed to be a code of some kind, than it’s the lamest code in the world,” Ellie said, “All it talks about is stuff she’s doing at her cottage or whatever. Charles, this address is accurate isn’t it?”

“Mhm,” Charles said, “Someone with the last name of Copperbottom does live there. In fact, several calls were made to confirm that the person on the other side of the line was indeed as put here… ‘a sweet old lady who seems very delusional.’”

“Explains why her letters don’t make much sense. Maybe that’s the code…” Ellie muttered, “But they seem pretty normal.”

NO BOLDED LETTERS, NO PINHOLES, NO OBVIOUS CODE WORDS. THIS IS VERY CONCERNING… Henry signed nervously, THIS IS JUST TOO NORMAL…

“Maybe we’re blowing this out of proportion. One Toppat, one who’s very dangerous, managed to get away… OK yeah, we have to be concerned.”

“Maybe they’re working with the N.E.R.Ds,” Charles said, “That’s the only working theory I have at this point…”

“Than that’s all the more reason to worry…” Ellie said, “We put these guys away… how did it come to this?”

“Who knows,” Charles said, “Alright, well, I’ve scanned the letters ten times over. There’s no invisible ink, no pin holes, and there’s no obvious hidden inscriptions so…” He put his hands together, “What should we do at this point?”

“Well, all we can do is keep an eye on Amelia,” Ellie said, “You think you can handle that Charles?”

“She put a couple of holes in my limbs so I think I can manage that…” Charles muttered, trying to seem like he was upset about it. In the end, he had no choice, but he felt a strange pit in his stomach as he promised it.

- - - - -

Amelia’s eyes lit up as she looked at the screen on Burt’s laptop.

“Well, what do you think?” Burt said, “With the help of those techy geeks or whatever, we managed to convince the Wall to load up the Toppats being held there to head to this location here.” He did some more typing and soon a location about five miles from the city popped up. A bit secluded, but still close enough to the city to cause some trouble.

“It sucks that we won’t be able to do much until we get our airship back,” Amelia said, “But I can’t wait to say goodbye to this dump! How long until launch?”

“T-minus twenty four hours from now. We can head out to the area now and get it prepped for everybody. I can’t wait to see everyone again,” Burt said.

“Yeah, me neither. This is gonna be the longest day yet,” Amelia said, before suddenly feeling something in her gut.

“Um, hey, I’m going to go ahead and take a walk,” Amelia said.

“Why? What’s up?” Burt said, “If you’re nervous about the move, you don’t have to be. We don’t have much to move. And besides, the lease on this place sucks, so we can leave anytime and I’m pretty sure they won’t notice.”

“I just have to clear my head,” Amelia said, “Don’t worry I’ll be back in about an hour or so.”

“Whatever you say,” Burt muttered, continuing to type away at his laptop. Amelia smiled as she opened the door to their apartment, closing it behind her as she headed out into the night. After a few neighborhoods, she managed to finally find herself near Charles’ apartment as she sent him a message. They didn’t meet on the roof of the apartment now; instead they met in a much more secluded location about a few blocks away.

It wasn’t long before Charles headed out the door, rambling some excuse to Ellie and Henry, who were only looking at him with great concern in their eyes. He shook his hands at them as he insisted it would only be a few minutes before he dashed down the stairs and down the street to make it look like he was headed somewhere else.

Amelia waited a few minutes before she heard the rustling of bushes behind her.

“I think I fooled them, but I don’t have much time. What did you want to talk about?” Charles said. Amelia turned around and saw Charles’ eyes flicker with concern as she sighed.

“I’m fine, it’s just… it may be harder for me to meet up with you. I’m gonna be busy with a lot of stuff for the next few weeks or so,” Amelia said.

“Why? What’s happening?” Charles asked.

“I just have some stuff that I need to take care of. That’s all,” Amelia said, hoping that was vague enough to prevent further questioning.

“Ah… well, I guess I can’t argue with that,” Charles said, “How was your day?”

“I was in sleep mode for most of it,” Amelia said, “I’m not used to being asleep during the day and doing heists at night. I mean, you know-”

“It’s alright, I already know you rob banks. It’s not the end of the world if I know it. I’m just upset that you keep getting away,” Charles muttered.

“We have to keep people from believing we’re meeting up like this. After all, the more people that know this, the harder it’ll be to keep it a secret,” Amelia said.

“Yeah. I don’t know if Henry and Ellie have caught on, but they seem to be pretty skeptical of our last few visits. If they’re not gonna happen as often, maybe they won’t suspect anything,” Charles said. The two were silent as they stared at the night sky above, wondering what kind of life was on distant planets beyond even their comprehension.

“Do you think people on other planets have to deal with this kind of thing?” Amelia looked up and saw Charles’ eyes flickering with a bit of sadness as he looked at Amelia.

“I mean, we’re only doing this because we knew each other back than but in the end, we’re still on the opposite side of a war we can never really win. I mean let’s just face it, even if we do manage to do everything in our power to prevent it… I can’t help but get this gut feeling that the Toppats are actually going to return whether we like it or not,” Charles said.

You wouldn’t be wrong, Amelia thought to herself as she shifted a little.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’ll try to be your friend as long as I can, but in the end, I think I’m going to get into some serious trouble for doing this…” Charles said.

“Hey maybe if you do… you could become a Toppat?” Amelia said. Charles looked at her with a strange curiosity as she giggled.

“I mean think about it; most of the people who are in the Toppats were former security guards, policemen, and even politicians. It wouldn’t be too shocking for you to join.”

“I don’t know. I might consider it,” Charles said, “But no promises.”

“I’ll go ahead and take your word for it,” Amelia said. They were both silent again as they sighed, feeling almost guilty about their circumstances. Charles wondered if this was going to get him in trouble or not, but maybe if he didn’t give away too many details, it should be fine.

“Uh, by the way, I uh… talked to your dad today,” Charles said.

“So you found out my dad is the former leader of the Toppat Clan,” Amelia said softly.

“Yeah. Why did you say anything?”

“I was afraid I guess? You know that you would treat me differently than anyone else…” Amelia glanced to the side as Charles shook his head, shrugging.

“You’re still the same Toppat to me. I don’t see why your dad being the leader would change that. He’s doing fine for the most part. As well as someone who’s in prison should be. I’m not telling you where he is though!” No need, Amelia thought. She was perfectly aware of his location, so it’s not like she needed to pump him for information on that front. Not that he should.

“Anyway, I’m glad you were able to talk today. I hope Ellie and Henry understand if they catch you. They won’t get you in trouble, will they?” Charles glanced to the side before shaking his head.

“I mean, they do work for us, but that doesn’t mean they’re obligated to us. As far as things are concerned, they could go back to being criminals. I don’t really care either way. But in the end, I don’t think they’d rat me out,” Charles said, “What about your gang? Won’t they be angry if they find out you’re talking to a government dog like me?”

“My dad would be disappointed in me but… I have a feeling he’d get over it eventually,” Amelia said, “Probably force me to try to get you join or pump you for information.”

“If that happens, just give him fake information! I mean, uh, you know… I could… this really isn’t the best thing we could be doing, huh?”

“Yeah. But don’t worry. We won’t get caught as long as we stick to the agreement, right?” Amelia looked at Charles hopefully as he nodded his head, a bit of uncertainty in his eyes.

“Sure,” Charles said.

“Alright. Well, I’ll see you in a couple of weeks. Or more, depending,” Amelia said. She headed off into the night as Charles sighed, walking back to his own home as he knocked on the door. Ellie opened it, a smug smile on her face.

“Enjoy your ‘walk?’” Ellie asked.

“Why the air quotes around walk… where’s Henry?” Charles asked.

“Behind you.” Charles jumped and saw Henry, a smug look on his face as he shut the door behind him. Charles shook as Ellie shook her head at him.

“Charlie, Charlie, Charlie… and here we thought we were gonna be the ones that betrayed the government’s trust, but you were the last person I thought was capable of that,” Ellie said.

“W-w-wa-wait! I can explain! Please don’t tell the general! I promise, I’ll do whatever you want!” Charles said, getting on his knees to beg.

“Charles, we weren’t gonna snitch anyway,” Ellie said.

YEAH, WE’RE NOT THOSE KIND OF PEOPLE, Henry signed at him, a reassuring look on his face, BUT CAN WE ASK WHY YOU’RE DOING IT?

“I… well… Amelia is really nice… for a Toppat anyway! And I just thought that you know… I would like to get to know her better. I don’t like her that way in case you’re wondering! I just… I don’t know. I don’t know why I keep doing it, I can stop you know-”

“Alright, Charles you’re rambling at this point. Sorry, we didn’t mean to be all smug about finding out. It’s really cool that you have a Toppat friend and all, but you have to consider the circumstances right now. The Toppats might be planning a comeback and we can’t exactly afford any mishaps. You can keep meeting with her, but just know what you’re costing us,” Ellie said.

AND WE WILL KEEP QUIET. JUST DON’T BE SURPRISED IF THE GENERAL FINDS OUT, Henry said.

“You guys won’t be there to back me up?” Charles asked softly. Ellie shrugged and Henry glanced to the side nervously.

“We can’t exactly afford that either…” Ellie said. Charles felt a little upset, but than realized that these two had been pretty much criminals their whole lives. They wanted to turn themselves around now and if they backed him up on this, they may never work again.

“I understand. I’m sorry…” Charles said.

“So, what are you gonna do?” Ellie said.

“I mean… I don’t know. Leave me alone,” Charles said, running to his room.

“Geez. If he keeps meeting with her it won’t be easy to keep his secret…” Ellie said, “I’m not justifying his behavior at all.”

WELL, THERE’S NOT MUCH WE CAN DO TO CHANGE HIS MIND. THE ONLY THING WE CAN DO IS HOPE THAT HE DOESN’T GET CAUGHT, Henry said.

“He won’t get caught… I hope…” Ellie said, “We’re experts at lying. We’ve done it our whole lives, but Charles? I have a feeling that if he had a self destruct function, it would activate the minute he tried to tell a lie.”

I’M GLAD HE DOESN’T HAVE A SELF DESTRUCT FUNCTION. WHAT WOULD BE THE POINT OF IT?

Ellie nodded her head in agreement as she headed towards her own bedroom, wishing Henry a good night.

Amelia, meanwhile, was finally heading into her own apartment as she closed the door behind her quietly, noticing it was dark and letting out a sigh of relief that Burt was probably asleep by now. She saw a shadow on the couch and suddenly felt a strange feeling her gut as it reached over to the nearby lamp and turned it on, revealing Burt, who had a very disapproving look on his face.

“Welcome home, Amelia. Or should I say… dog whisperer…” Burt said. Amelia gasped as he looked at her with scorn in his eyes, almost a little out of character for someone who was usually so relaxed.

“What are you talking about?” Amelia said. She was familiar with the term; it was often used to describe former Toppat members who had decided to make friends with government officials. To be called one herself made her feel a little queasy.

“I mean, I have ways to track you, you know. And I couldn’t help but notice that your escapades outside led to a certain group of people who were responsible for the Toppat Clan’s lockup at the Wall,” Burt said, “What the heck, Amelia?! Do you realize what your dad would say if he saw all this!?”

“OK, OK, I get it, it doesn’t look right… I’m sorry,” Amelia said, “It’s just that Unit CC… well Charles is really important to me. He was basically my first and only friend during the whole of Project SAI. He was like a little ray of sunshine for me and… I don’t know. I know it’s wrong to talk to him, but I just have to! Even if he doesn’t remember me!” Burt let out a sigh as he closed his laptop, shaking his head.

“I hate to say it, but this whole situation isn’t about feelings. Let me remind you that this the same helicopter pilot who helped our worst enemies take us down. What if he starts pumping you for information?”

“He said he wouldn’t.”

“He could change his mind at anytime. Especially if his superiors find out. Or his friends.”

“He said his friends would back him up.”

“What if they don’t?”

“I… I don’t know! I trust him, OK?”

“YOU SHOULDN’T TRUST HIM!” Burt gritted his teeth, Amelia’s face a little stunned as he continued.

“Seriously, you’re willing throw everything away just so you can reunite with someone who doesn’t even remember you? What about the other clan members? What about the clan itself? HELL, what about your DAD!?” Amelia had never, in all her life knowing Burt, heard him raise his voice. Amelia gulped as she looked down shamefully, trying to come up with another excuse.

“I… I don’t know. I’m sorry. I trust him and I want to watch after him. He even said that if he gets kicked out because of what we’re doing… he might join the clan. So maybe it might be a good thing I’m meeting up with him,” Amelia said. Burt sighed, rolling his eyes as he tapped the side of the couch.

“I mean, that’s one thing, but you have to understand that what you’re doing is still wrong,” Burt said.

“You’re not gonna say anything are you? Please don’t tell anyone. I’ll give you eighty percent of what I get from heists. NO ninety percent! And I’ll help with your exercises and walking and-”

“Calm down, geez…” Burt said, “I can’t be bought. Now Carol… Carol can be bought. I’ll keep your secret for you. Free of charge. But don’t be shocked if you have to start pulling shares when the other clan members find out. Especially your dad.”

“My dad will never find out. I mean he’s in a prison cell, he can’t exactly find out,” Amelia said.

“He will in due time. And when he does… what are you going to say?” Burt asked. Amelia pursed her lips as Burt pulled himself up from the couch, grabbing his cane and heading towards the bedroom.

“C’mon, princess. We have a long day ahead of us. I highly suggest going into sleep mode now…” Burt said.

“What about the Triple Threat?” Amelia said.

“Those tech geeks will distract them with a heist across town,” Burt said, “While we secure the Toppats at our new location. Once we’re there, we’re gonna have to lay low for a few weeks before Operation: Cottage Break.”

“Right…” Amelia said, “Got the last letter ready?”

“Mhm. Just gotta mail it out tomorrow,” Burt said. Amelia sighed, feeling a bit bad about all this. But than she slapped herself. That’s just her hanging out with Charles talking. She was doing this not only for herself, but for her clans sake as well. And plus, they promised each other they wouldn’t say anything to each other, so it wasn’t bad if he didn’t know about this, right?

“Right. Have a good night.”

- - - - -

Charles hovered the helicopter at a steady height, trying to concentrate as Ellie and Henry made their way to the top of the building. He was currently assisting them in another mission across town. According to a tip off from an anonymous source, the N.E.R.Ds were planning on stealing a very important computer part from this company. So Ellie and Henry were apparently going to steal it first and take it to a secure location.

The only problem was the security for the part was very tight, almost impossible to get through… almost.

“Alright guys, there’s another guard up ahead. Oh, hey I can see them from here! ….You know, I could always…”

Henry looked in his sight to see what Charles meant by that. And it was just as he thought; Charles would try to ram the helicopter into the building… again.

I don’t know why you keep encouraging him.

It’s so cute when he’s hopeful…

Henry had another plan though. He asked Charles to just send out his mini helicopter to distract the guard while Ellie and Henry slipped by him. It was met with a bit of a disgruntled sigh from Charles, but he begrudgingly accepted, hovering the mini helicopter in front of the window while the guard took a look.

Ellie took him out from behind while Henry ran through the door. As Ellie quickly joined him, they were met with the final corridor.

“You’re at the end of the line, guys. Don’t worry too much, but this next part is very complicated. Let’s see… I’m uh, detecting a laser grid security system. And there’s a glass case covering the part behind a huge safe. About three locks, um all of them different. I can hack the locks on the glass case and the uh, safe I guess, but you guys are gonna have to focus on getting through that hall.”

“Can’t you just override security grid?” Ellie asked.

“I, uh, start to overheat if I focus on too many hacks at once. Sorry guys. You’re on you own on this one,” Charles admitted.

“So much for high tech,” Ellie muttered as Henry got his thinking face on, “What do you have in mind, Henry?”

Teleporter? Henry didn’t even need to know that was a bad idea. It was a terrible idea. Why did he still have this thing?

A Reflector 3000? Another Gadget Gabe approved gadget that could supposedly reflect any light and bend it to your will. It would work only halfway before malfunctioning and refracting the light to high capacity, setting Ellie’s hair on fire AND setting off the alarms.

I would be more worried about how angry she’s going to be than getting caught.

Ditto…. Maybe a disco ball. Seemed a bit simple, but it was better than the teleporter idea. He set it up and started to roll it as he and Ellie crouched on the ground behind it, the disco ball precisely reflecting each and every laser away from them as they finally reached the end of the hall.

“Alright, I’ve managed to run an override on every lock except the one in the glass case,” Charles said, “You guys are gonna have to figure out how to get past it.” Henry and Ellie opened the heavy safe door and looked inside to see a plastic case inside of the glass case. The glass case had three heavy bolts holding it down on all sides, making it impossible to lift up.

“Don’t think about unscrewing the bolts. Any tampering will cause the case to go down and lock up. And… the uh alarm will go off as well,” Charles told them.

“Hm. This reminds me of the time I had to steal some uncut diamonds. They were in the same exact case. However, it wasn’t like this… maybe we should just call it quits,” Ellie said. Henry shook his head. They had come this far, they were getting case out of there, even if it meant getting a little tricky.

What are my options universe? Henry thought, his eyes glowing. Just as he was about to see his options, suddenly the safe closed behind them.

“Uh… Charles!? What happened?!” Ellie shouted. A red light engulfed them as the glass case came open, laughter on the other side of the safe.

“It couldn’t have been the guards. Other than that one guy, there haven’t been many…” Ellie whispered, running towards the safe and banging on it.

“Nice try, Triple Threat! Why do you stay in there and guard that useless item while we make our hasty escape!”

“You’re just gonna trap us in here!?”

“No…” Henry said softly before starting to sign.

THEY’RE GOING TO LEAVE US IN HERE TO TAKE THE BLAME FOR TRYING TO STEAL THE OBJECT.

“But that’s what you guys were planning on doing anyway, so what’s the big idea!?” Charles shouted, panicking as well. He was already starting to head towards the building, not to crash into it, but to safely land on top so he could find a way to help his friends.

“Maybe this thing isn’t actually something worth stealing. At least to those N.E.R.Ds,” Ellie said, grabbing the case.

“It’s a computer part, I can guarantee you guys that. Look I’ll try to get down there to help you guys before security comes and gets you. I promise!” Charles said.

“Charles, it’s gonna be OK, I think we can find our own way out!” Ellie said, “Right Henry?” Henry gulped as he considered his options. A shrink ray could get them through the small vents, but if they didn’t know where they were going, they were going to end up taking a huge nasty fall.

They could use the Opacitator, but a past life of his would tell him that was the worst idea.

There was the teleporter… It was their only shot.

“Hang on,” Henry said, grabbing Ellie’s hand and pulling the teleporter from his belt. He reluctantly pressed a few buttons on the teleporter as it whirred before they felt their molecules being bent before they finally teleported outside about a few meters above the roof.

“What the heck!?” Ellie shouted as they landed on top of the roof, where Charles was already landing as the alarm went off.

“Do you have the computer part?!” Charles shouted over the helicopter’s whirring blades.

“Yes! I don’t know what it is, but we have it right here!” Ellie shouted.

“I don’t know how you guys got out, but get in right now! Before the security guards arrive!” The two of them ran towards the helicopter and hopped in as Charles lifted off quickly, heading towards a secluded part of town as he landed again, a little more rough as Ellie and Henry let out a small sigh.

“I can’t believe we stole this thing just to keep it safe…” Ellie muttered, “More importantly, why would General Galeforce want us to steal it? It doesn’t seem like him to tell us to steal something.”

“Um, guys…” Charles said, getting up from his seat, “General Galeforce said he didn’t want us to steal anything. In fact, when I gave him a briefing on the computer part, he told me he had no idea what I was talking about and even said that we were gonna be in some big trouble…”

“Wait, than how did you manage to get a helicopter to do this?” Ellie said.

“I mean, I did manage to get keys for the helicopter, but hearing that I took a military helicopter on a non-government sanctioned mission… yeah he’s pretty upset now,” Charles said.

“Wait a minute… we got a call from HIM about this mission. What the heck?” Ellie said, “We’re in trouble for what he asked us to do?!”

“I don’t know, but we’re supposed to stay here until he gets here so he can chew us out about it,” Charles muttered.

“I’m still confused. How did General Galeforce forget about telling us something that we were supposed to do?” Ellie said.

“Henry, when you answered the phone, did it sound like the general on the other end?” Charles asked. When Henry nodded his head, Ellie agreed.

“It was on speaker, we all heard him. Loud and clear. A bit fuzzy, but he was there…” Ellie said, “I figured he was in a part of the base that doesn’t get good reception maybe?”

“Ellie, the phone we use to get official calls from the government is a landline!” Charles said, “There’s no way any interference could have occurred unless the wires got faulty.”

MAYBE IT WASN’T GALEFORCE WHO CALLED US. MAYBE IT WAS A PRANK CALL, Henry said.

“Henry, that’s ridiculous. That’s a high security landline connected to a government facility, it would take a brilliant mind to hack into it and use it. Especially for prank calls,” Charles said.

“Don’t we know some brilliant minds that are good at hacking? You know, the ones that we’ve been chasing recently?” Ellie said. They all exchanged glances as they suddenly realized the same thing.

“The N.E.R.Ds must have tricked us into doing their dirty work and stealing this whatever it is from that place. I can’t believe it!” Ellie shouted.

“The question is… is the general gonna believe it?” Charles said. The three of them were sure that if they told General Galeforce, that he would be convinced and at least take their word for it. However, he didn’t seem too sure.

“That’s a very high tech security landline. It’s connected to a government facility and the numbers that are used for the line are very private. There’s no way that just anyone could hack into it,” General Galeforce said. They were now headed back towards the building they had stolen the part from, to have the general explain the situation.

“I don’t know, general, these guys seem pretty smart. Besides, if that’s the case, than how come I was able to borrow a helicopter? I can’t do that without your permission and even if you say you didn’t give it to me, someone must have…” Charles said.

“Hm…” General Galeforce stroked his gray beard as Henry and Ellie got a little nervous.

“It could possible… there’s a mole in the force…” General Galeforce said.

“Ugh! I can’t believe that!” Charles said, “I knew the guy who was handing out the keys didn’t look familiar. He said he was filling in for Barney, but Barney NEVER takes a day off unless he’s sick. And he wasn’t sick two days ago when I borrowed the helicopter so-”

“Charlie calm down,” General Galeforce said, “Whoever they are, we’ll find out and we’ll stamp them out. In the meantime, I think I’m gonna be making all government sanctioned calls from Charles from now on. So if you don’t hear it from him, it’s probably not a secure operation.”

“Understood. So are we in trouble?” Ellie asked.

“This isn’t a normal circumstance, but if we manage to explain the situation without getting in too much trouble, we’ll just let you off with a warning,” General Galeforce said, “You didn’t damage anything while you two were in there, did you?”

“No. We might have broken a few windows… No dead bodies were involved trust me! ‘You’ ordered us not to use excessive force,” Ellie said.

THAT’S IT THOUGH, NOTHING MAJOR, Henry said.

“So, if we have to reimburse them it’ll be about a few thousand dollars.” General Galeforce let out an exasperated as Charles landed the helicopter, “Alright than, Ellie, Henry, front and center. You’ll need to be out there to explain the situation.”

“What about me general?”

“You can just stay here Charlie. This won’t take long…” Charles relaxed a bit as a couple of security guards stood on the roof, shouting at General Galeforce as Henry and Ellie walked forward shamefully, trying to keep their composure as the general tried to explain the situation to the already enraged security guards.

Charles, looked forward and saw what must have been the two N.E.R.Ds who locked up his friends. Even if they couldn’t see him, he gave them a cold stare as the general pointed at them. Ellie gave back the computer part as the security guards waved at them, the N.E.R.Ds being forced to follow Henry and Ellie as they headed back towards the helicopter.

“Alright, Charlie, get this bird airborne. We’ve got two N.E.R.Ds to interrogate,” General Galeforce said as they whimpered. Charles started up the helicopter, heading upwards back to the military base, just glad they weren’t in too much trouble.

- - - - -

Amelia squinted her eyes as she scanned the big empty main hall, a little disappointed as she looked at Burt, who was very carefully making his way to the elevator.

“They’re almost here. Don’t you wanna greet them?” Burt asked.

“This is a lot more underwhelming than I thought. Plus I thought we’d have this place a little more cleaned up by now,” Amelia said.

“Don’t worry, it’ll be fine. The house upstairs will be a bit cramped, but it’s gonna be a lot cleaner than sleeping down here for now. I can’t believe the owners of this house turned this into a nuclear bunker because they lived in the middle of no where.”

“I don’t blame them. Considering the CCC…” Amelia stopped herself, remembering that not everyone knew about the CCC before Burt let out a small chuckle.

“Well, wanna head up?” Burt asked, brushing off Amelia’s statement completely. She nodded her head as she headed towards the elevator.

In a few minutes, they surfaced above a very ordinary three story house, exiting into the foyer and outside, taking a look at the yard.

“I miss the old manor. And the airship… and the train…” Amelia said softly.

“We’ll get those back eventually,” Burt said, “We just have to get our money back… speaking of which, I was talking to Sven about our finances and well… since I’m gonna be getting my old crew back anyway, it would be best if we broke the deal with our geek friends.”

“What?” Amelia felt a pit in her stomach. The deal was the whole reason Charles was safe. She didn’t want to risk the N.E.R.Ds kidnapping Charles again to strip him for his parts. Not after months of caring for him to ensure that he didn’t deteriorate while he was down in “USE FOR SPARE PARTS” room of the Project SAI facility…

“Um… well, maybe we shouldn’t,” Amelia said.

“According to Sven, we can’t afford to keep paying shares to the N.E.R.Ds while running our operations. We’re gonna need a lot of extra money if we’re going to get all the stuff you miss…” Burt said. Amelia sighed as she pondered the situation. She was just going to have to find a way to keep an eye on Charles. If she could anyway. But something in the back of her mind told her she was going to be far too busy helping the clan with rebuilding to keep an eye on him.

Maybe messaging him every now and again would help, she thought, as a truck pulled up to the gate of the house. It was followed by two more trucks, obviously carrying more clan members and the supplies they needed as well; the supplies that were confiscated by the Wall.

The trucks carefully parked themselves on the worn lawn as the back of one opened and dozens of clan members began to pour out, talking amongst themselves, stretching, and running out as they took in their new surroundings. Amelia suddenly forgot all about her secret friend and began to grow excited as Burt started to weave through the crowd.

“Long time no see squirt!” She felt a powerful force slap her back and immediately knew who it was as she turned around.

“Hi Carol…” Amelia muttered, almost wanting to hug her. Carol gave her a big grin as she studied her for a second, as if trying to figure something out.

“What’s wrong?” Amelia asked.

“It’s just that… you look like you’ve grown taller,” Carol said, “Is that normal for androids?”

“What?” Amelia blushed as Carol started to laugh a little.

“I’m just teasing you know. Any word from your dad, princess?”

“Not yet. We sent the last letter of Operation: Cottage Break today. I don’t know how soon Sven wants to bust him out, but I hope it’s soon enough,” Amelia said.

“Nah, Sven will probably want to take a second crack at being leader. I don’t blame him for being so tough, but you have to admit, he didn’t take to being leader well,” Carol said, “I bet he’ll be relieved once Reginald and the Right Hand Man get out.”

“I mean, he was so stressed he didn’t even name a right hand himself…” Amelia said. Although, it did help that she and Burt had pretty much watched him twenty four seven to ensure that he wasn’t over exerting himself.

Amelia let her gaze fall onto the crowd and finally spotted Sven. A navy blue cape flowing behind him with a golden badge perched on his top hat, combined with his smart looking blue tuxedo, he didn’t seem to look like the nervous leader who was forced to step up when both her fathers were arrested. He almost had this stride of confidence as Burt followed closely behind him.

“This is everyone they could get. There were some soldiers they couldn’t get and even a couple of higher ups,” Burt was telling him as Sven went up the steps of the house.

“I guess this is as good as it’s going to get, than,” Sven said before suddenly looking up, “Amelia!”

“Hi Sven!” Amelia rushed towards Sven, hugging him tightly. She didn’t mind giving him a hug because he was like an older brother to her, considering he was the first Toppat she ever befriended.

“It’s good to see you again. I’m… sorry I left you behind…”

“In all honesty, if you hadn’t, than we wouldn’t be sitting here talking right now,” Amelia said.

“Yeah, but I was still a terrible leader. I don’t even know if they’re gonna be willing to give me a second chance…” Sven turned to the crowd as they gathered at the steps, waiting for him to speak as Amelia patted him on the back.

“Sven, if they don’t want to give you a second chance, than… I’ll be the leader,” Amelia said.

“What? You said you didn’t want to be the leader though,” Sven said.

“I know, but I’ve spent enough time around my dad to know the basics. And plus, you guys will help support me. I mean, that’s what the clan is supposed to do,” Amelia said.

“I know… I don’t mind doing it, but if they’re going to give me a hard time, I can step down…” Sven said, “It’s the least I can do.”

“Well, you won’t have to step down. I’ll back you up,” Amelia told him as he turned to the crowd, “I’ll be with you every step of the way, no matter what…” Sven smiled and patted her back.

“Thanks Amelia…” Sven looked up at the crowd, who were breathlessly waiting for his first orders.

“I understand that the accommodations are not to everyone’s liking. This is definitely not the best scenario we could be in. We could have been in space right now, orbiting the Earth, stealing whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted. But instead we’re here, in a broken down manor with an underground bunker. It’s a pain in the ass for sure.

“But we didn’t get where we are now by sheer luck. We got here with hard work, by talking to the right people, and buying the right people as well. We are not just some lowly criminal group, we are the Toppats! And we will ALWAYS come out on top! No matter what!” The crowd began to murmur as Sven cleared his throat, a nervous look on his face.

“Now I understand that I was never the best leader. The only reason I stepped up was because no one else wanted the job. And than I let my stress, my anger, and my frustrations almost ruin this clan. I understand if you do not want me for this job anymore. I’ll be happy to willingly step down to anyone who wants the leadership.” There was dead silence over the crowd as Sven fidgeted nervously.

“I still think Sven is the best choice for a leader. He may get nervous easily, but I think it’s because he worries so much for others and tries to look out for them is the reason he makes a good leader. He was pushed onto the position when he wasn’t ready but I still believe in him,” Amelia said, “So if you guys still want Sven to be the leader, until we rescue my fathers, I will be happy to be his right hand until they come back.”

“Uuuhhh… And they will serve as the leaders AGAIN once we do rescue them,” Sven said. The crowd began to murmur in agreement as Sven sighed, shaking his head.

“Don’t worry, you’ll do great. I promise,” Burt said softly.

“Whatever. I was just kind of hoping someone else really wanted this job,” Sven muttered, “Oh well…” Sven clapped his hands to get the attention of the crowd once again.

“There’s going to be a lot of work that needs to be done in order to get this place into tip top shape. The bunker down below has at least three sub levels, each with it’s own maintenance problems. Meanwhile, the main house is huge disrepair. I want to make sure that the house is at least presentable before the old leaders come back. So I will be speaking to everyone personally about their assignments and where to put everything we managed to salvage from the Wall, as well as where to get started on repairs. It’s been a long trip for all of you, but the journey is far from over.”

“We’ll need to find some supplies in town, right?” one of the Toppats spoke up. The crowd began to chuckle, because they knew exactly what they meant by “find.”

“No. No stealing. Not yet, anyway. I know that’s not exactly in our nature, but we have to lay low for the next month until we can go forward with Operation: Cottage Break. We’ll find ways to get supplies without stealing them. Until than, be careful and help out as much as you can. And don’t over exert yourselves either please! We don’t need you guys working to exhaustion! Now get to work!”

“Pots calling the kettle black there,” Burt joked as Sven groaned, rolling his eyes.

“Don’t say anything. I need you to help me round up the higher ups so we can have a much more concrete meeting. Than we need to get started helping out the soldiers with their work.”

“OK, I’ll help as much as I can,” Burt said.

“NO! No no no, you’re not in any condition to build or to do anything at all!” Sven said, “You can help by organizing teams and assigning them to certain parts of the manor. In the meantime, please take it easy.”

“You should as well. I have a feeling you’ve been going non-stop since you got out of the Wall,” Burt said.

“It’ll be fine…” Sven said, “C’mon, help me find the higher ups and we’ll get a headcount on who’s missing and what we can do from here.”

“Alright squirt, that’s us,” Carol said, patting Amelia on the back. Amelia was a bit confused before she realized her own self promotion and suddenly ran up to join Sven.

Things are finally going back to normal… sort of...

#the henry stickmin collection #henry stickmin #charles calvin #ellie rose #sven svensson #burt curtis #amelia copperbottom #the narrators stories #katie's stick drawings #i'm not tagging all the charas but reginald and the RHM are there as well as galeforce

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jeonggukieandcream · 4 years ago

Text

I see red // Dracula x Reader // comfort.

Summary: On the very edge of tears and not knowing where else to turn, you go to Dracula for comfort. You don’t expect anything, you don’t even know how he’ll take this, but the sight of your pain is somehow too great for him to take and he enfolds you into red.

Or, the fic in which you ask for and receive a hug from Dracula.

A/N: This fic is a mood, honestly. I’m going Through It and Dracula hugs sound really good right about now. Dracula anything sounds good right about now, tbh...👀

Requests are open; modern era Dracula because the purple/blue light in his home is a really soothing vibe idk?

Word count: 1, 631.

You had known, going into your... relationship with the Count, that things wouldn’t be conventional. There could be nothing normal about the bond the both of you shared, though its origins and reasoning eluded you both. You had known that there would be no dates, only very late night walks through the empty, dark streets which ventured out into the graveyard. Or, if he was in a romantic mood and if the full moon was out, then he would walk with you along the beach with your hand tucked into his elbow. You had known that nothing would be as you were accustomed to and that going out to eat would involve a meal for one and Dracula staring at you from across the table, even though he knew it bothered and unnerved you (you suspected that that served as motivation more so than as a deterrent). You had known what you were getting into across the board, Dracula himself having warned you multiple times to make sure that you knew what you were agreeing to.

But that didn’t mean that it was easy for you, especially in moments like this when it seemed that all you could think about, all you craved, was Dracula himself. It didn’t matter what he was or wasn’t doing or whether he had or hadn’t fed recently. You just wanted him in whatever state he was in, and the thought of not getting that only made your nose wrinkle against the urge to cry, your eyes stinging from the same. You had always enjoyed affection, though you could manage just as well with the piles of blankets and pillows on your bed, but now did it seem to be almost a primal urge to go to Dracula and to ask him for something which would likely confuse him. That was not to say that he was naïve or to say that he knew not what affection was, for he had had sons many centuries ago whom had tragically returned to the dust whence they came, but you knew that the vampire would be baffled as to why you had sought him out for something you could ask any other mortal.

Frequently did he undermine or underestimate just how special he was to you, and you had yet to figure out why. You knew enough about yourself and about Dracula to know that you wouldn’t like the answer, whatever it was.

In the end, it took you not long to decide that you simply had to give yourself what you most desperately wanted. Life was easier when you were on your own side, this you knew, and you also knew that the longer you stayed away from Dracula and denied yourself what you needed, the longer you would feel the way that you currently did. Everything which was running through your mind in this moment, like a whirlwind of emotion with little rhyme or reason, could be boiled down to one thought, pure of intentions and gold of heart:

I want my Dracula.

The endearment even within your own thoughts made you smile and you slid off the bed, moving through your home in search of the prince of vampires. You adjusted your clothes as you walked, trying to somehow disguise or perhaps even rid yourself entirely of the tension which wracked your entire body.

You. Needed. A hug.

No, you shook your head, as if to physically correct your thoughts, as if you made to remove your own distress from your body. No, you needed Dracula’s hug. No one else and nothing else would do. The thought of him for all that he was only made you walk faster, your body alight with tension. You were beyond the point of being able to deny yourself anything and like a string was tied to his ribs and connected to your own were you pulled to him, your feet moving without any input from your conscious mind. You found him easily, sat upon the sofa in his impressive apartment. The blue light of the tablet he held cast a harsh light across his aristocratic face and you could only stand and stare. It was rude and you knew he could feel you, but he didn’t acknowledge you. You wondered what he was doing; choosing a meal? Reading a book? Sending Zoe a taunting yet somehow candid email? You knew not but it mattered not, for you only wanted one thing and you hoped you were going to get it.

As you crossed the threshold of the living room, the heart achingly familiar blue and purple lights only increased your need for cosiness and you longed to fold yourself into Dracula and to truly become one with him. You were safe when you were with him, a fact which never failed to make him chuckle. He could snap you like a twig if he so chose and you both knew it, but where Dracula found that to be most commonly met with fear, you only found safety in it. He could kill you in a heartbeat, crave your heart out until it was bleeding in his hand, rivulets of red running down the slender curve of his wrist, or... he could hold you and protect you, fond was he of what was his. You had always found an odd sense of comfort in knowing that Dracula could kill you, and so quickly you wouldn’t be aware of it, but instead he chose to keep you safe.

Dracula inhaled deeply and you knew he could smell your wants in the air. “Oh, my dear,” He glanced up at you from his tablet, his dark eyebrows raised, “There’s a shadow on your heart.”

You smiled humourlessly. “That’s one way to put it.” You sniffled and swiped a hand over your face, bidding yourself to not completely lose control around the vampire even though that was what you craved in this moment.

The display of vulnerability caught Dracula’s attention and he put his tablet to the side instantly, not even bothering to finish up whatever he was working on.

“You’re in pain.” It wasn’t a question but instead was it a statement of fact, spoken with utter confidence, so well did he know you. You were surprised by the emotional intelligence displayed by the centuries old war lord, though you knew that you shouldn’t be. You could only nod as you moved a hand across your face to wipe away your tears with little care for your own self; you were so sick of crying and yet that was all you could seem to do. “Come here a moment, Y/N,” One step and Dracula nodded in encouragement to coax you forward. In this moment were there no games, no plans, no ulterior motives.... there was nothing but vulnerability from both parties. “Come closer, come closer...” Every step birthed another encouragement and you kept going, one foot in front of the other. When at last were you within arms’ reach, Dracula leaned back in his seat and allowed you to take the initiative.

While he was by no means stupid, he was most definitely at a loss when it came to the expressive nature of modern society. It was hugely disorientating, one experience which Dracula had managed largely on his own before you had figured out that he was experiencing culture shock of a sort, and you had done your best to help him with everything. It was this assistance which had largely led to the relationship which the two of you now shared. You stood before him now, your eyes fixed on his knees. “Can I - “ be held by you? Become one with you and never be my own person again because everything’s too much right now and I need you? Have a hug? All these and more ran through your mind and you almost choked on a sob before Dracula sighed and reached for your wrist. Long fingers wrapped cleanly around your wrist and you were pulled forward, forward, more and more... you sank gratefully onto Dracula’s lap.

Immediately did you bury your face in his neck. You pressed a kiss to where his pulse should echo from within and Dracula chuckled as an arm wrapped around your shoulder. He had always appreciated the irony of you doing that, and when you left little mock bites along his neck, that, too, made him smile. You had always been an odd little thing and you showed your love and affection for him in strange ways but he adored that about you.

“Will you tell me, Y/N, or do I need to work it out for myself?” Dracula’s voice rumbled through his chest; despite the smoothness with which he spoke, it seemed as if the words grated through his vocal chords, like metal on metal, and you shuddered as danger crept your spine. You pushed it down, you pushed it back; Dracula was the safest danger you had ever known.

With your eyes closed, your arms around Dracula’s broad shoulders and the scent of him surrounding you, you told the vampire all. You spared not a sentiment, you left no thought unspoken... you bared your soul to the vampire and when you were done, when you had taken yourself to the point where words ran dry, he pressed a kiss to the top of your head, held you tighter, and simply allowed you the comfort you had so desperately been craving. All the while, his mind worked on helping you in any way that he could, for he was more than a beast and he would do all for the only person who could see him for what he truly was:

One of a kind.

The last of his kind.

#bbc dracula #bbc dracula x reader #bbc dracula imagine #dracula #dracula x reader #dracula imagine #dracula 2020 imagine #dracula 2020 #dracula 2020 x reader #claes bang

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yandere-daydreams · 5 years ago

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OH MY GOD THEYRE OPENED! Um, can I get something with Kenma with a darling who he considers as “troubled” or “needs help” and how he deals with that?

This is an idea I’ve been playing with, for a while. Kenma’s just so soft, he’d barely be able to train his Darling properly… He still gets the job done, though. Assume this takes place somewhere after the current time-skip.

TW: Emotional Abuse, Sleep Deprivation, and Implied Suicidal Ideation.

This was supposed to teach you a lesson.

That was the part that got to you, the part that hurt. You knew Kenma didn’t think much of you, but every passing minute only cemented the idea that he saw you as a stubborn child in need of instruction, or failing that, a pet who wouldn’t obey his commands. As disorienting, deafening sounds cut through the silence of Kenma’s apartment, whatever game he was playing set to a blaring volume, you couldn’t help but settle into the groove you’d formed in his sofa, resting your head on his thigh. You’d lost track of how long the two of you had been there, Kenma playing the newest survival-release in the same crossed-legged, hunched over position and you laying at his side, squirming uncomfortably whenever his attention strayed from the task at-hand. It must’ve been hours, and it was getting so late…

As soon as your eyes closed, nimble fingers were rooted in your hair, jerking you upward and forcing you to brace yourself on unsupportive cushions. His grip was so tight, so unrelenting, your scalp beginning to ache in a matter of seconds, but your quiet whimpers and murmured excuses did little to satisfy him. Instead, he took to staring, gaze prying through the darkness to better burn into you, only letting up once Kenma had gotten his fill. You could never be sure what he was looking for, but he must’ve found it, letting you go and frowning as he watched you fall back into place. “You’re not allowed to go to sleep,” He explained, bluntly. “Not until you admit you did something wrong.”

“I haven’t done anything,” You spat, not bothering to hide the distaste in your tone. One of you had to be human, and Kenma’d never been very good at it. “I already said I’m sorry, isn’t that enough? If you just told me what you’re mad about--”

“That’s not the point.” He sounded impassive, rational. You wanted to tear his vocal cords out of his stomach and hang yourself with them. “You have to figure it out, or you won’t remember not to do it, next time.”

You sighed, going over the events of that day, as you had countless times already. You’d woken up before Kenma, and started making breakfast while he slept in. You two had talked about nothing in particular, and then he’d left for an interview and you’d began your self-imposed daily chore list. It was a way to drive away the boredom, Kenma’s tablets, consoles and laptops all locked with a passcode you couldn’t seem to guess and books only providing so much entertainment, when you had more than enough time to spare. You’d cleaned, dusting and sweeping and sanitizing until the apartment was as spotless as it’d been before you started, and took a nap before Kenma got home. He was already mad, by then.

You didn’t like thinking about your life, too often. Captivity made everything dull, repetitive, and the tracking chip embedded in your ankle could only keep you on-edge for so long. Most days, you tried to focus on what you’d do when you got away for Kenma. When you found a savings account he hadn’t drained or a friend who wasn’t turned against you, and you finally got to do something without his permission. But, that wasn’t going to happen today and thoughts so hopeful wouldn’t do anything to get you out of tonight. You were too tired to come up with anything new, honestly.

“I don’t know,” You admitted, shrugging half-heartedly. “I just… I don’t know.”

He blinked once, twice, but he didn’t pause his game. “We’ve got time.”

His character snuck up behind one of his blandly designed opponents, the third-person perspective focusing in on both men as one drew a knife across the other’s neck, ending his life in an anti-climatic act of meaningless violence. You couldn’t help but wish Kenma would do the same to you.

You’d woken up an hour before noon, thirty minutes before Kema’s alarm went off. You didn’t bother changing before making breakfast, just brushing your hair and washing your face. You couldn’t remember what you made, something with eggs and bell-peppers, but Kenma liked the recipe. You were happy he did, even if you cursed yourself for it. He said he had an interview for Bouncing Ball that he was going to be late for, but still clung to your side and sulked until you kissed him goodbye. You’d dusted, then you swept, then you sat by one of his windows and stared down at the street until your legs went numb. You remembered your old job, the one you’d been eager to leave when Kenma offered to support you, and you cried for a few minutes. You tried to sleep, but gave up when Kenma burst in to tell you how ungrateful you were.

Did he use the word ungrateful? He might’ve said selfish. That sounded like something he would say.

“Baby,” You whined, picking yourself up. You were so exhausted, it was all you could do not to collapse back into a confused, resentful heap. Still, you drapped yourself gingerly over his shoulders, clinging to a bent arm and nuzzling into his back. You didn’t care what you were pressing against, as long as it got his attention. “I’m bored, Kozume, I’m tired. C’mon, let’s go to bed. We can cuddle, if you want. Don’t you want to cuddle?”

Your display earned a glance from the corner of his eye, a slight shift to let you better slot yourself against him. But, if he was sympathetic, he wasn’t going to admit it. Suddenly, you were aware of just how loud the clicks and snaps from his controller were, how desperately you wanted to smash the thing to bits. “I want you to behave. I don’t care if it takes all night, neither of us are going anywhere until you stop being such a brat.”

You could’ve sobbed. You’d woken an hour before noon. Kenma was next to you, slotted against your back, and you waited for him to roll over before getting up. You thought about changing into street-clothes, but abandoned the idea as soon as you made it back to your closet, just putting on something you’d never leave the house in and making breakfast. Kenma told you about a conversation he’d had with Shoyo and asked if you wanted to go to a match being held nearby, and you pretended you hadn’t heard him. He’d been happy, with that, and changed the topic. When he was getting ready to leave, he threatened to lock you in the supply closet again if you didn’t kiss, laughing like he still believed it was a joke. You kissed him. You dusted the living room, cleaned every surface of the kitchen and polished whatever you could polish, before sitting by the window and crying your eyes out. You got up, after that, passing the front door on your way to the bedroom, and tried to handle to see if it was--

Oh. Right.

You tried the handle.

You almost smiled, melting into Kenma’s sleeve. “I’m sorry,” You mumbled, squeezing his arm affectionately. “I shouldn’ve tried to open the front door. It… It wasn’t nice to make you worry.” You paused, more for yourself than for him. You felt him relax, finally pausing that awful, awful game, but you didn’t stop. “I’m not going to leave you, I promise.”

Slowly, he turned towards you, cupping your cheeks and kissing your forehead gently, lowering you down onto the plush surface before standing up. You closed your eyes and curled into yourself as he switched off the over-sized monitor, casting the room in blissful, merciful darkness. You didn’t bother trying to go to bed, just listening as Kenma’s footsteps faded into the distance, silently thanking whoever could hear you when those finally stopped, too.

You’d need as much rest as you could get, before he decided it was time for your next lesson.

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rpbetter · 4 years ago

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Sorry if this isn't the place to ask but I'm in need of advice. I have a canon character I truly adore, but I haven't gotten muse or any opportunity to write them at all. My blog is collecting dust and the fandom is kinda dead at this point. Not to mention, it's hard to find compatible writing partners, especially with how picky I can be. I'm honestly considering deactivating the blog (for the nth time), but I don't want to lose the writing I have. I know I could archive, but I hate having blogs just sitting around.

In short, I really want to write the muse/keep the blog but I'm not getting any incentive to do that.

Hello, Anon, it’s totally the place to ask!

I will say, though, that since finding and keeping muse can be flavored rather personally, I can’t promise that what works for me is going to work for you. I’ll even confess that in over two decades, I’ve never personally lost muse. I don’t know if it is due to underlying, neurodiverse style, fixating, or if it is due to keeping myself continually invested in both my muse and writing regardless of what else is going on. (Probably a combination of both, though, and the things I do to keep myself highly in touch with my muse I’ll be recommending.) I’m definitely happy to try to help, however.

That really is a very frustrating spot to be in, wanting to write the muse and keep your blog active, but logging in every day to be reminded of what little reason you have to do so. Since we’re drawn to the characters we are for reasons of personal appeal and writing in itself is a pretty personal form of art, it can also feel depressing on top of the frustration.

However, that’s also the good news, in my opinion, because your incentive here is, or can be, yourself.

You were drawn to this character because you connected with them. They mean something to you, you can relate to them, maybe they have qualities (good or bad) that you wish you could experience. Whatever it is, there’s a reason why you had this draw. Writing is like that as well, there’s a reason why this is a hobby that drew you, that you get enjoyment out of. Again, though all art (it doesn’t matter if it is a hobby) has personal bits of the artist in it, writing is uniquely personal. When you write, you’re exploring thoughts and feelings, giving them life in a character that matters to you. I know, all of that sounds really convoluted and hokey, but it’s true.

And it’s good! That means you always have a reason to write and that you have the tools necessary to find and keep muse without any outside push necessary.

I’d say, firstly, work on getting muse back.

Get back in touch with your muse the next time you feel a particularly strong urge to write. Instead of spending time trying to find people in a silent fandom or forcing yourself to write something you don’t want to, just do some exercises that will help you get back into your muse.

I don’t know what media type your character comes from, but especially if it is something like movie or show that you can have on in the background of what you’re doing, do that. If it’s a comic or a book, think about your favorite scene and read it over first. If you’ve ever made some playlists for writing/your muse, you can always do that instead or as well. The point is to do something passively inspiring while you actively create. Now, that creating...

You want to do something that requires you to think about your muse so you can get in touch with them, not something that is going to make you feel overwhelmed and shut down. So, maybe don’t pick writing prompts for this - you can work up to that. Try out headcanon and character development memes and other question lists instead for right now. Things you can scroll down a list of, find questions that jump out as interesting (or even simply answerable to you at this point, you’re jump-starting a dead battery, it’s alright) and answer them. You can also do something as simple as write down what you like best about the character or their story, or put down the basics of filling in missing information that has always bugged you.

The beauty of this is that it is all on your own terms, your only objective here is to answer what you want, as much as you want. You can stop any time, but you can also answer a single question for three hours, making it eight pages long if the inspiration strikes you. It’s only about recharging your inspiration and establishing a connection with your character again. (This is also going to help you with getting back into writing, or approaching it for the first time, with a more internalized focus of interest.)

When you feel like you’ve done that, you can branch out on these exercises more. Answer the memes more in-depth, answer more of them/the ones you don’t have immediate answers for. You can also try writing out scenes from the character’s canon from their perspective, if it wasn’t already so, adding in their thoughts and feelings, or changing the scene in some ways that would be interesting to write out. This is the point where it’s a good idea to try a writing prompt or two, as well! Take the prompt as a sort of starter sentence from a mutual, you’ve got the situation, fill in with your muse.

Write when you feel like writing. The RPC is great at saying this when it comes to muns not wanting to write, but kind of ignores the other side of the equation. The side where you want to write, have the inspiration and muse to do so, but it might not be the best time. As in, you’re not home/wherever you usually write, with whatever device you tend to write on accessible. No, you’re not going to be able to get as much done, but you can write without the usual situation and device regardless. You can write a scene or ideas down using your phone or tablet, or go old school and use a notebook. If you’re at work and your job isn’t applicable to being able to get down a single sentence, that still doesn’t mean you have to wait 8+ hours to get home; while you’re taking your break, write a little bit. It is a break, and writing is your hobby, it isn’t work. It’s good to do things you enjoy on breaks, and far more fulfilling to have also accomplished something you happen to enjoy.

Not writing when you have the drive to do, putting it off and holding it in until “the perfect moment,” is a great way to lose your inspiration and never actually have that moment. If you feel like doing it, that means it is the perfect moment. Life is restricting, don’t impose even more restrictions on yourself by having to be at home, in a specific spot, with a specific device, at a specific time, on a specific day. Was that annoying repetition? You’re right, it was. And that’s how your creative mind processes all the crap piled onto it that doesn’t allow for creativity.

Now, the other problem, the fandom situation.

There isn’t anything you can do about that, to be absolutely honest. I’m not going to blow smoke and tell you to be positive, wait it out, maybe the fandom will spring to life again. You know, maybe it will...but you could be waiting literal decades for that to happen. Not cool. Please, take my word for that, it’s personal experience that it blows even more than you imagine it will.

What you can do is take the matter into your own hands in other ways; putting yourself out there with more availability in multiple ways.

Are you a single-fandom blog, or are you crossover friendly? If you’re not crossover friendly, try to think of a single, relatively popular fandom that you enjoy. Don’t look at it like a hassle, but rather, just another creative exercise. A serious pitfall of creating alternate universe versions of muses is to take the simplest route, merely picking something you want from that other universe and applying it to your muse with no relevant changes that would naturally occur from it. It isn’t just reductive as hell, it’s not remotely creative, it’s like sticking a sticker on your muse’s forehead and saying that’s a whole different muse. It’s neither attractive to potential partners nor going to sustain your own interest for long. You want this to be a passionate investment on your own end, for yourself.

What not to do:

Let’s say the fandom you picked to do crossovers with is based around magic, the main characters are witches, and they are divided into factions based on how their magical talents display and develop. Not only do you decide to make your muse a witch, you pick the most badass faction. It’s the one full of assassins and action and (metaphorically or literally) sex appeal. Well, that’s also going to be the most popular faction in the fandom. That means there will not only be plenty of big name canons there but also that there’s going to be a plethora of OCs designed just for this universe...and other crossovers from other currently active fandoms.

While that might sound like it’s great for maximizing interaction chances, it’s really not when you’re just starting somewhere new with a character from another fandom that might not be known or liked. It can also take a minute in another fandom’s RPC to identify where the good partners are. Every now and then, it is the most popular and over-populous era/faction/etc., but most of the time, it isn’t. People who write with considerable dedication and talent fairly rarely are in the popular kids club even in their fandom choices. By inserting yourself into that area, you might be bypassing (and being bypassed) by better partners on the assumption that their characters are simply going to bore you to death since they’re not within the scope of your focal point.

It’s not a situation of not being allowed to be picky, you not only have that right regardless of your situation, you also should be. This is not a “beggars can’t be choosers” situation, you’re not beholden to anyone on the basis of being new and bored. However, some of my best, and longest lasting, writing partners over all 23 years I’ve been RPing didn’t/don’t fit with all the exact surface details that automatically draw my interest. It is as true within my own fandom as it is in dealing with crossovers. Opposites (with enough similarities) really do attract and work out well together!

Don’t judge and write people off for anything that isn’t an issue of compatibility with your muse, your writing, or yourself. Decline someone because they do one line only and you are novella, they write topics that are upsetting to you, you can see no way your muse and theirs can interact without instant murder, or because you cannot stand writing with someone who is pulling 90% aesthetics and purple prose. Not because their muse is a witch who uses life-based magic, loves nature, is a healer, and into their health...while your muse in this AU is all about the death, only appreciates an urban environment and is grossed out by animals, kills as an occupation, lives on cheeseburgers and caffeine. You see what I’m saying? Don’t limit yourself unnecessarily!

What to do:

Did you consider if, in that hypothetical idea of a fandom, your muse based on their purely canon self would even fit into that faction? Or is it just something you wanted to see? If you didn’t consider this, or it was the latter, fix that. That’s bad.

If you’re not absolutely dead set on that and only that, think about what really does fit the muse better. Maybe, they would be better as a healer, someone who messes with the very fabric of reality, or someone who manipulates natural elements at will. Then again, they might not even be a witch. They could be more mundane in terms of power, but more accurate and interesting as a normal, human (or whatever). They could even be greatly opposed to the use of magic and witches. Use your muse’s original canon as a base to decide these things.

If you are absolutely dead set on it, though, you have a lot of work to do making the character into what amounts to a markedly different one while still retaining some recognizable aspects of themselves. Consider what events, in this new universe of fandom, might have happened to alter the character thus. Keep in mind that even small changes can have great consequences in a character’s development, and you might need to think about the myriad ways in which that can display, how it changes still more things for this character.

While that job becomes so much more intense when you haven’t planned out a path that matches your muse’s canon characterization at all, it is still an important part of constructing an AU, of any kind, in general. Ask yourself what experiences led to the character you know as you already know them (including your own headcanons, yes). Then, find similar possible experiences within your new fandom verse that can have the same effect. Again, though, it’s important to understand that you are never going to have an identical set of experiences, so you need to explore relevant changes still.

When you do this, you’re allowing your muse to more seamlessly fit into this other universe in a fleshed out, interesting way. Interesting both new partners and yourself.

Okay, next obnoxious question from me! Do you have multiple verses, or are you single-verse?

Whether you are already exploring new fandoms or not, by creating a variety of verses for others to interact with, you’re increasing your chances for interest and activity. When you have a verse from a different fandom you can then, additionally, advertise your presence in both that fandom’s tags when you do a promo or applicable open starter and on active RPer lists for that fandom.

Every popular fandom has such lists. You can get on them by messaging/sending an ask to the blog or by reblogging their post to be added, following the directions. I haven’t seen one yet that doesn’t allow for crossovers. You simply have to tag it as stated in the post, such as “your canon’s name here - original fandom name - crossover.” By tagging your open starter or promo as “-insert fandom here- rp” and “-fandom here- open starter” you allow people in that fandom to find you to interact. Either way is excellent for getting started in totally new places with a character others might be unfamiliar with.

Please remember that if you tag a promo as “promo,” it’ll not show up in searches off of your blog. You know, where it actually needs to be searched. Thanks, tumblr, for being janky! Being more specific as to the fandom and character will help others actually find you. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot by tagging it as “promo.”

Make your verses accessible on your blog itself, in the nature of those verses, and how you set up your page or post that lists them.

Don’t put any page behind an impossible or complicated aesthetic. You really shouldn’t anyway, but when you’re needing interactions, it’s actively hurting your chances. Many people don’t want to have to play a game with your theme, it’s a turn off. Try a pinned post that lists all of your links to important pages like rules, verses, and bio instead. It means that, even from the dash, that information can quickly be found while other muns are first interested, and also that anyone who might be using the app can access it more expediently. (I’m genuinely not a fan or big supporter of doing google docs for rules, verses, bios, etc., as it forces people off site, so I can’t personally say, in good conscious and honesty, that I’d recommend it, but you do you!) You want to keep things quickly accessible is the idea here; when people are interested, you want to catch them right then and there before they have a chance to forget and lose your blog.

As to the nature of the verses themselves, give people real options. Don’t have 20 verses that all read same way. Same themes, plot possibilities, and backstories, or incredibly similar names. Have a diverse list of verses that can act as foundations for a variety of different muns. As many fandoms as you can reasonably have a good portrayal of, and different types of fandoms; not all the same genre (all fantasy, all horror, all scifi). Verses where your muse has substantially different goals, occupations, and other life situations that will involve another muse; don’t make your muse A Warrior™ in every verse, you can keep plenty of those aspects without being that literal. People love “modern” verses set in our own universe and, usually, in our own era. That doesn’t mean you have to go stereotypical or otherwise bore yourself by doing the standard “high school/college verse,” for instance. You don’t even have to designate that sort of thing, let alone make it the focus; simply create the verse by considering what your character really would be like if they existed within your reality.

As a final note on verses as pertains to this point, when you’re doing crossover verses, it’s alright to do some verses where your muse from their own canon existence somehow ends up teleported or whatever to another fandom’s reality, or even our own. Just don’t make every verse like this, it puts the onus of a great deal of creativity and effort onto the other mun by default; your muse has cluelessly dropped into the universe, and while it is high drama time for you, the other mun has to babysit, educate, deal with fallout, etc.

On making the list of your verses accessible, you want to focus on ease of browsing and not being overwhelming. People tend to look through a verse page and not read every verse listed, rather, they look at the titles and breakdowns to see if it is of interest, then read it. Don’t try to make everyone read them all, it isn’t going to happen, and shouldn’t change your effort any as the right people are going to find the verses that interest them...if you make it clear and easy enough.

Have a basic format you stick to, firstly. I do it this way: small verse banner, title of verse (linked to its overall tag so that muns can look through the tag at headcanons, aesthetics, pictures of the FC, and threads), muse age/age range, small blurb, possible triggers found uniquely or just heavily within this verse. In that order, one following the other in a simple, but pleasing way. Below that, is a more in depth breakdown of the “verse canon.” Sometimes, that is giving a brief rehashing of canon itself and anywhere my muse differs, be it in this verse only or overall, ending with where my muse is in this verse. Not literally where. I mean their present occupation, emotional and general state in life. At the very end, I provide any other relevant links and/or an expansion on the triggers mentioned at the top of the verse description if they’re that serious/recurrent so that muns can decide this isn’t the verse for them. I happen to have a potentially triggering muse, triggering verses, and writing triggering topics, though. That’s not something everyone needs to do.

Secondly, group your verses in a sensible way. I do my short list of default verses first. (And, I do mean short, you don’t want this be any more than four or five, it is overwhelming right out of the gate.) For me, that is two default verses of canon at different points on the timeline, one default AU that is a bit of a reversal of canon, and one default “modern” verse. Then, I list the verses that are in line with the altered canon one, just different possibilities, changes, points in history. After that, the different “modern” verse options. Then, verses for other fandoms, the crossover verses. And so on. This way, a potential partner can find the type of verse that might appeal to them and have an easier time picking from those possibilities and getting ideas.

Lastly, don’t be so succinct that you give too little information and underwhelm, but also don’t be so excessive that it takes all of the mystery of interaction away and overwhelms someone. It can be a difficult balance to strike, and some verses require more information than others, just experiment a bit. Additionally, it’s fine to link to pertinent information for the other mun to view aside from this, but don’t just link people to a fandom wiki as your “description/bio.” That isn’t giving information on how you write this muse, approach this fandom, or what another mun can otherwise expect. Keeping your descriptions interesting is important, you’re not giving a boring lecture, you’re trying to inform someone while making them hyped for their choices. It’s more interesting, and informative, to read if you do them with an ear to the “tone” of your muse in that verse. Is it a sad one? Sound that way. These can, indeed, function as snippets of your writing, so be sure you are writing them with the same care you should be giving your replies; spellcheck, good word flow and use, mind the grammar, and read over what you’ve written for common, easy mistakes.

Again, by giving a genuine variety of verses to choose from, you’re allowing for a greater reach in potential partners. Everyone from those still in your original fandom to those in new ones, all the way to fandomless muses will be able to interact with you this way.

Finally, in regards to what you can change or do when you’re in a dead fandom and seeking interactions; make sure you are increasing your reach by using proper tags, being honest about what and how you write, and don’t wait for others to stumble across you.

When you use tags properly, you’re increasing your chances of being seen at all. Every time you post something at all applicable on your blog, tag it with relevant things. Tag as described above with whatever fandom it is and “RP,” your character’s name, “open RP,” character name and RP, indie RP, open starter, and so on. Be sure you are optimizing your tags by placing the most relevant to finding you in the first four, those are what show up in site-wide searches only. Anything after that isn’t going to appear in a search across all tumblr.

By tagging your character’s name, as a canon, you should know that you are likely to get personal blog interaction. I’m pretty against being nasty to personal blogs for no reason, as I don’t appreciate personal and fandom blogs being shitty to me for the sole reason that I am an RPer. Please, use clear, short, attention getting directions for them. If you want no interactions with them, put right in the description of your blog “RP blog, does not interact with personal blogs.” When you say things like, “personals dni,” or “personals blocked,” you’re not doing anyone any favors. Personal blogs often don’t even know what the hell a personal blog even is! They do not denote themselves this way, to a personal blog, they’re just a blog. By designating first that you are an RP blog, you’re making it clearer that they’re the personal; they’re obviously not an RP blog, so that must make them a personal. Follow this up in a pinned post, right on top. Give a note to personal blogs that describes them as “any blog that isn’t an RP blog” first, then either tell them in brief what they can and can’t do or that you don’t interact and will block.

I don’t recommend taking your blog off of being findable, however. That’s alright once you have the RP activity you are looking for, but until then, it’s working against you. Other RP blogs cannot easily find you either, they will only find you if you’re on a list or appear in their recommended blogs, if you interact with a mutual, or are recommended by a mutual. You’re not just lessening your chances of personal blogs finding you, so if you have that turned off, turn it back on.

Don’t entirely rely on others finding you regardless, though. You can’t be 100% passive when you have no interactions, and by relying solely on serendipity you’re far less likely to get them. I know that everyone here is terminally shy, but seriously, you have to do more than put your silent will into the universe that someone perfect find you. You have to make this happen. Once you get a few people, you can afford to be more passive. Not only do you have some people to write with, you will be more visible to their mutuals, and more established as a presence. I’m not saying this is easy, or that it will become easy, not awkward or stressful, if you have a legitimate issue behind the shyness. Just that it is the only way to really proceed, and I believe you can do it!

So, go looking for interesting blogs. Be crossover and OC friendly (again, this doesn’t mean “accept everyone,” there are valid reasons for not accepting people you won’t work out with that have nothing to do with their fandom or being an OC), and search those fandom’s RPCs, following any blogs you think you might work out with upon reading their rules and other pages. Search for fandomless OCs and do the same thing. Fandomless OCs aren’t just floating around in the ether, they just weren’t created expressly for a particular fandom and within its confines. What is excellent about that is their ability to have a wide variety of verses and many possibilities to fit into any fandom or verse. So, don’t count them out solely on the basis of being an OC and fandomless. It doesn’t mean what people seem to think it does!

Do not stop at having followed 50 blogs. I mean, other than that you probably should stop following people for a bit. That you should do, as you need to be building writing relationships here, not following so many people that you cannot get to them. Don’t just stop at the follow, though. Since you’ve read their rules and information like a good RP partner, you should have some idea of what their interests are and where they align with yours, as well as how they prefer to be approached, if they accept memes right away to start, need plotting, have a rules password. When they’ve followed you back, proceed with interaction!

Ask if they’d like to plot when they have time, you’re really looking forward to writing with them. But...have some idea of a plot, please. It is a serious turn off to have someone message you wanting to plot, only to reply and get “lol I don’t have any ideas, anything works for me/whatever you want to do.” That isn’t plotting, it’s one party coming up with ideas and constructing a plot while they’re being told “I’m fine with anything.” That may be true, but it’s disheartening and a red flag for many people. If you genuinely can’t come up with anything, pick verses that match up well and suggest doing something within them.

“When you have the time, would you be interested in discussing writing? I was looking at your verses, and I think your verse -name- and mine, -verse name-, would mesh well.” Is a good way to start. Once you have a discussion flowing about the verses meshing and the muses, it’s typically easy to organically develop some plot ideas to go off of.

If both you and the other mun are alright with plot-free interaction and memes, you can send a meme any time. If you can’t find any memes on their blog, look for a wishlist or navigation page that shows you the tags for memes/wishlist. Still can’t find it? Ask them if they’ve got a wishlist or meme tag you can look through.

Additionally, if open starters are a thing you both do and are alright with, find some of theirs and respond. Post your own, tag it appropriately to be found in general and on your blog, and reblog it once or twice. Don’t excessively reblog it, and don’t get upset on the dash if no one interacts with it or any memes you reblog. Both are demanding to outright guilting, and not a good way to get partners. Just provide them with the ability to easily interact by making the posts available in the first place and by making them findable on your blog search and navigation.

Provide something for potential partners to see. Since you said you already do have writing, that’s great! That’s content on your blog that your partners can view. However, since you’re also having the issues you’ve stated, it’s likely that you haven’t many new posts. Show that you are active, interested in being here, and how you write your muse (and in general) by posting some newer content. For original content, do a headcanon or some meta, or post about new verses you are adding, the changes on your blog, a promo. For reblogs, things pertaining to your muse like canon imagery, fanart, quotes from canon or that generally express your muse, and aesthetics relevant to your muse are all excellent things to queue.

Use that queue. Not only do very few people appreciate having dash spam of similar content for the comparatively short time you might be around, but also, running these things on a queue means you spread that out for maximum view. While there are hours of heavier activity, you’ll have mutuals who are on at unusual hours due to their life and preferences or their timezone. This way, you’re not appearing inactive, if not outright invisible, to those mutuals. It’s not a bad idea to use a queue tag so that people know if they interact with a post that’s been queued, you might be here to quickly respond.

Ultimately, to fix your fandom and lacking partners problem, you just need to up your availability and reach beyond that fandom alone. Be proactive in following and approaching, decline blogs based on not working out only, utilize tags and fandom RPer lists, have everything on your blog easy to follow and not overwhelming, and have your verses meet as wide of a range of people as possible while also not being overwhelming.

Try updating your promo, as well, by the way. They’re not dead, they just really tanked when people kept making them based solely on aesthetic principle instead of being at all informative about the muse. They do seem to be coming back, so it’s a thing to consider.

Yes, make it visually appealing, it will draw people to reading it. No, do not just use a song lyric or quote with words highlighted linking your rules, verses, bio. Tell people basic info like the age of your muse and yourself, if you are multiverse and multiship, your muse’s canon verse and a couple of big interest verses of other major fandoms or themes that tend to be of interest to people, and what kind of RP you write - one line/para/multipara/novella. Absolutely give links to rules, verses, bio, and either memes, wishlist, or open starters, but give them just like that; make it very clear what this link is to. Put a very short statement of interest on there denoting that you’re expanding to new fandoms and looking for writing partners.

Do not sound desperate, demanding, or devaluing of yourself. Don’t say shit like “because my fandom is dead,” “trying this before I give up and delete my blog,” or “I suck at interaction/writing/ooc interaction/being a person but welp giving it a try, so follow and hit that heart.” (Conversely, calling yourself derogatory things and implying that your partners are too, such as the “we’re all just losers here” shit.) All of the above are not attractive, and they’re not even surprising enough to stand out anymore. It’s another reason to scroll right by that promo because nothing at all was different or of interest.

And as a wrap-up/rehash of the first topic, getting muse back: try starting over at the beginning by approaching the media involving your muse that has really stuck with you emotionally over the years, and exploring and developing your muse again.

Don’t tell yourself you can only write, for example, at home, on the laptop, after 7pm, and with a pop toy staring at you. The best thing about writing, as opposed to so many other hobbies, is that you can do it anywhere! So, do that. Do it any time you both feel the inspiration to do so and aren’t going to get fired or expelled for it. This isn’t work, it’s something enjoyable that does take effort (like literally all creative activities and skills do), but approaching it as though you need to follow novel writing advice from someone who has never published anything of note and isn’t you on the internet, with strict rules for success makes it feel that way. So does being frustrated with a dead fandom, no interaction. It’s disheartening, feels as annoying and fruitless as work often does. You probably need to break out of that mindset, and you can only do it by beginning to allow yourself to be creative on your own terms, entirely for yourself.

Do write simple things at first that you are inspired to do (you can’t get a scene out of your head, or a bit of dialogue), and/or headcanon/character development memes and question lists. Build from there as you get back in touch with your muse, writing things primarily or entirely for yourself still. Expanding on headcanons, doing some meta, or maybe writing out a missing piece of canon or what you’d be interested in seeing happen in canon if some event was altered.

Doing this sort of thing, you are getting in touch with your muse again and back into the real spirit of writing creatively, simultaneously.

Whatever you find most inspiring, do it. If it’s watching the movie or show again, do that, have it on while you write or simply think on the character’s actions, thoughts, and emotions during those scenes. If it’s reading the material again, do that, and read snippets of personal importance before you write. Maybe it’s some past playlists you can have on while writing, or even while you’re cleaning, walking the dog, driving or riding somewhere. It could even be your own previous writing! Go ahead and re-read that, it sounds like you still appreciate it, and that’s truly promising. If you find that you’re horrified by some of the things you’ve written in the more distant past, hey...that’s not just valid as hell, it’s natural. You know what else it is? An inspiration. You can clearly see that you could do better, that means you now know how to do better and are ready to do so. Validate yourself, prove it to yourself by rewriting or fixing something.

Don’t delete the blog or archive it. It is unpleasant to have a dead blog around, but don’t keep it dead. Use the same blog and simply transition it into wider things that will net you more partners and the interactions you deserve.

Look, even if you weren’t the most popular blog in your fandom before it went quiet, you really appreciated the blog, muse, and writing you were doing. You’ve defined that it wasn’t something you did to cause this situation, you just had the shit luck we all run into eventually of being in a fandom that ran out of material or interest. People are really fickle, so by taking a wider approach and fixing on the writing and muse instead of fandom now, you’re stopping this from repeating. Seriously, on a long enough timeline, every fandom dies or goes into hibernation. If you make a whole new blog with a different muse, it is going to happen again eventually.

So, don’t feel like you’re ridiculously clinging to the past and need to move on, you’re just sticking to something and can continue to stick to it through the next five fandom deaths. Just because it is the most popular thing to do to drop muses, constantly add new ones, and have this attitude that you can “blog refresh” your way out of recurrent, and inherent, problem doesn’t mean it is actually the right thing to do. It’s not even the most sensible, and certainly not the best thing to do with anything you’ve spent time and effort on.

That’s your incentive; yourself, the time and care you’ve put in, and your continued interest in writing and the muse. You’ll find good people, and bluntly, everyone else can fuck right off when you’re incentivized by yourself. It becomes a self-fulfilling activity at that point, I swear, and it feels really nice.

Just get back in touch with your muse and writing itself so that you can begin to expand and start interacting again!

#rp advice #rp problems #rp help #muse loss #dead fandoms #rp better #Anon E. Mous #answered

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chaoslordjoe · 4 years ago

Text

Bloodlines AU - Rolling Thunder

Dominick Schnee and his family were all gathered in the courtyard, with the young heir looking over a set of weaponry for him to try out. In front of him laid broadswords, hammers, pikes including a basic staff. Weiss stood next to her son, curious to see what would be his calling and future best friend in combat.

“Now Dominick, remember that you shouldn't pick a weapon purely on a whim. It has to match up both the fighting style you want to develop, so think carefully.” Weiss advised. “But there's no shame in trying out more than one. If you find two or more you like you could combine them but it all depends on your preferences."

"I know, mom." He replied. "It's just that since dad uses a trident, part of me feels comfortable starting out with a staff. But you use a rapier, so part of me is wondering if I should be a swordsman instead." Nick sighed, raising an eyebrow and adjusting his glasses at the two options he just mentioned.

"What I'm saying is, we shouldn't influence your choice. This is up to you, but if you really want to pick a weapon like ours I won't stop you." Weiss replied.

"Just go with what feels right." Willow insisted.

Deciding to start out simple, Dominick picked up the staff. Klein served them a spot of tea after filling Misha's food bowl.

"Well, this is a sight for sore eyes, mum." The butler said towards Willow. "You hadn't picked up that staff since Weiss was born."

"For obvious reasons.” Willow frowned. “But somehow I'm glad to have moved on from those days. Let's see if Nick received the same Schnee talent for weaponry.”

"Wait a sec, you remember that thing?" Neptune asked.

"It's the only bloody good thing that Jacques ever mentioned about her." Klein replied in his angry persona before switching back as Nick began swinging the staff around.

Remembering Sun's display of prowess, Nick twirled the staff. So far, so good. No bumbling yet as he practiced jabbing the wood forward.

"Little basic, but not bad so far." Neptune observed, turning towards his mother-in-law. "So you used that old thing before switching to your dad's LMG?" He guessed.

Willow nodded. "Yes, before I decided to take after your great-grandfather a bit more."

"What do you think so far, Snow Angel?" Neptune asked his wife.

"He's getting there. But I don't think he's quite found his calling yet." Weiss answered.

Swatting the staff down against the marble surface, Nick twirled it again then slowed down to catch his breath.

"A little heavy, but nothing I can't handle." The heir said.

"Why don’t try some more difficult weapons? See if you have a preference for them." Weiss suggested.

"Okay." He nodded, setting the staff back into the weapons case settling on the war pike next.

"Don't go too hard! You don't want to strain yourself" Willow advised.

"Wouldn't dream of it." He reassured her. "So I just thrust? Is that it, dad?"

"Sure, but you gotta do more than that, pal." Neptune said walking up to his son and positioned him to be holding the pike downwards. "See, you can't have your guard up all the time with one of these. But you also gotta be ready to dodge or parry." He instructed.

Nick squinted. "That sounds counter-intuitive to using a pike."

"Yeah, but it gives you room to strike where your target least expects it. I prefer this stance when practicing before I put 'em up." Neptune answered, heading back to his seat.

"Give it a swing, Dominick." Said Weiss.

"Alright..." And with that, Nick began thrusting, stabbing, and pretending to hit a target with the butt of the weapon.

"Hmm, could use a better form but not bad for a practice swing." The CEO observed.

Thrusting a couple more times, Nick accidentally threw the pike into a shrubbery making Weiss flinch. Walking over and grumbling, Nick took the pike and inhaled sharply pinching the bridge of his nose.

"I...Guess throwing weapons aren't for me, then." He remarked.

"It's trial and error Little Yeti, you'll get it in time." Willow coaxed.

"I know, Oma." He said, settling the weapon's butt on the ground. "I think I could use some target practice."

"Klein. Would you mind setting up the targets?" Weiss requested.

"Right away, Weiss." He said, typing into his tablet and summoning several Knight dummies centered around Nick from the cobblestone. "There you are, sir!"

"Thanks, Klein." Nick stated, readying his pike and practicing his block before taking a swing at the blue Knight.

"Take your time, use your time blocking to read your enemy" Willow called out.

"Right!" Spinning around again, he jabbed green.

The droid was dazed before he landed several weak slashes and attempting to block yellow's punch. A little too late, which the teen shook off before wrestling with the brighter droid's grasp on the pike. He kneed it in its metallic gut before dropping it to the floor and piercing it with the tip.

"You got it, pal! You got it!" Neptune cheered with him dodging and tripping the pink Knight.

Weiss rooted for her boy next. "Well done Nicky, keep it up."

"Give them what for, sir!" Klein went next as Nick hoisted and threw up the red droid into brown. Followed by withstanding some brutal jabs from purple.

"Watch your blind spots." Willow continued.

With a roar, Nick tripped the black droid next, shanking it with the pike before getting ambushed by orange. The droid continuously pounded at his back as he held the pike up, blocking it and trying to find an opening from its onslaught.

"Think Nick, find an opening." Said Weiss.

Hearing his mother's words, he circled around orange which raised its mechanical fists. It's footsteps whirred and clanked while it circled around the makeshift arena with the family watching cautiously, while Misha whimpered for her master crouching down next to Willow.

Willow reached down to pet the Whippet speaking softly. "He'll be okay"

And that's when the young man found an opening. With orange giving a 'come-at-me' hand gesture, the bot was greeted with Dominick charging at it. He was met with a jab to the right cheek, but he knocked the bot down with his shoulder, then curb-stomping it with his foot...

CRACK!

Until he noticed a crack in the ground across the snowflake sculpture's base. The bot was taken out from his bootprint, but Nick curiously eyed the crack.

"...That wasn't- -"

But before he could finish, the sculpture's base gave out, collapsing and rolling towards the family's seats.

"Bloody hell! Mum, get down!" Klein shouted, tackling Willow as Misha ran around barking wildly.

"WEISS!" Neptune shouted next, tackling his wife with all of them ducked down.

Nick ran towards the snowflake in an attempt to grab and halt it.

But it was quickly stopped, rolling in place before landing flat on the ground before it could hit anyone. Neptune was the first to look up, while Willow dusted herself off from that roll. Weiss ran up to check on her son who was currently catching his breath.

"Are you okay? Are you hurt?!" Weiss shot off.

"I-I'm fine..." Dominick replied when everyone got up. "What the hell was that?"

Weiss was too shocked to correct her son's language. "I'm not sure"

"Are you hurt, mum?" Klein asked the matriarch.

“I’m alright.” Willow answered. “Neptune?”

"Yeah!" Neptune replied, noticing Misha still spooked and barking her head off. "Uh hey, Willow? I think the dog needs your magic touch!" He observed.

Willow noticed, clapping her hands towards the Whippet.

"C'mere Mish-Mish." She cooed, making kissing noises which the skinny dog immediately took notice of. Ducking cautiously before running at full speed, Misha sat in her place, rubbing her head against her mistress' leg and licking her hand.

"That's a good girl." Willowed hummed, petting behind her ears.

"Sir, what in blazes happened?!" Klein began.

"I- -I stomped on the bot and when I did, the ground cracked," Nick explained, grabbing his shaking hands. "It must've hit the sculpture." He stammered.

"Calm down Nick, we'll figure this out.” Said Weiss. “Now are you sure it was you that caused it?"

"I'm pretty certain, considering it happened as soon as my foot hit the ground." He answered.

Willow walked over to where the statue stood then to the boot mark before turning to her daughter "Darling, his semblance."

Weiss surveyed the destruction "This definietly isn’t the work of Glyphs. Are you positive, Mother?" She then asked.

"Well, that's up to Nick, what do you think honey?” She said.

"Nick, try accessing your aura" Weiss followed up with.

Gulping, the heir did so. Inhaling deeply with his family's Aura color pulsating through his body. Even if it was a cool Spring evening, he still felt the warmth of his soul’s manifestation washing over him which the Schnees noticed with shock and awe.

"...Holy- -" The words died in Neptune's throat when he finally sat down.

"It IS his semblance…!" Weiss gasped.

"I guess so." Dominick concluded with the shimmer fading back to it’s normal state.

Willow smiled proudly. "Congratulations, Little Yeti." She hummed.

“Bang-on job, sir!” Klein added next.

"Uh, thanks." He said, sitting against the damaged base. "I think we should clean this up before we party." He then suggested.

"I'm afraid I'm not really that flexible as was before you were born, sir." Klein remarked with a cringe.

Weiss smiled. "We'll hire someone to take care of it. For now though, we're getting you your favorite drink and a hot bath." She said, pinching his cheek when he stood up. "And strict training to control it so that this doesn't happen again."

“Okay, mom." He said with a flustered smile and giving her a headpat.

Weiss grinned at her taller son’s affection. "That's better. Now hurry up, we have a celebration to get to." She ordered.

Nick left to hit the bath, with Misha following while the family left from the wreckage of their statue.

#rwby #rwby au #weiss schnee #neptune vasilias #iceberg #klein sieben #willow schnee #rwbaby #rwbabies #rwby next gen #rwby future #Dominick Schnee #schnee dust company

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capnjay21 · 5 years ago

Text

A House is Never Still 4/6

Five years ago, Emma Swan disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Killian Jones’ disappearance, well, not so mysterious – given the denizens of Storybrooke all but blamed him for her murder. Drawn back to town by a series of strange events, he soon realises the story of what really happened the night she vanished is beginning to unravel, and what’s more: it isn’t over.

A/N: and here is chapter four! thank you so much for all the support so far, this chapter actually has one of my favourite sequences I’ve written for this fic. but I’m not telling which it is!

again, heaps and piles and many fancy vases full of gratitude for @hollyethecurious for creating this amazing aesthetic, without which this fic would not exist.

Rating: T

Warnings: mentions of suicide, canonical character death, and some Spooky Business™.

starting a tiny taglist since I got a request for one, so I am ~tentatively~ tagging a handful of people I think might want to read this - NO obligation to, and feel free to drop me a message to say hell nah if you would prefer! I won’t be offended in any way, shape or form!

@snowbellewells @carpedzem @kmomof4 @optomisticgirl

AO3 | one | two | three

-/-

4 – an unearthly hand

Present Day

The clouds parted for the first time since Killian’s return to Storybrooke on the day he brought Regina to Brooke House, lifting the feeling of grey that had cast its blanket over the town. For days, it had warmed itself in open doorways, prowled after townsfolk around street corners and crept beneath windowsills, and Killian was relieved to be granted something of a reprieve from the fog of autumn in New England.

The house stood, as it had the day before, in the north woods just a brisk, ten-minute walk away from the well-trodden track of the White Pine trail. He didn’t need the faded pieces of string to guide his path to the house anymore, and it had become so present in his impression of the town that he had forgotten that Brooke House, as it looked at that moment, had not always been there.

Regina had stopped twenty paces from the door, expression unreadable but for her parted lips.

It seemed almost unusual to see it in the sparkling sunlight of the morning, like something had been taken right out of it. Here it was white brick and rotted wood and barren, where at night it positively brimmed with something far more than any one person could comprehend. Even at a shell of its normal, terrible self, Regina had taken a little time to process.

“It really is here,” she had said finally. “How about that.”

She said how about that the same way you would say it if you found out an old classmate had gone on to become a movie star, or you discovered your local grocery store was lifting its embargo on branded products.

Not like a house that was sometimes there, sometimes not there, was today, decidedly, there.

It had been a bit more of a laborious journey than he was used to, but Killian’s Chevelle could only take them so far and he had a lot of equipment to bring with him today, cramming everything he could as delicately as possible into his rucksack. Regina, too, had brought a duffle bag full of materials, and Killian could spot the heavy corner of her book of shadows poking out from within, begging to be noticed. The previous times he had visited Brooke House he hadn’t been properly prepared, but this time around Killian was determined to leave the house with something he could quantify, rather than just the deep, sick dread that had left with him every other night.

He had entered the house ahead of her, the novelty of its return long since worn away, and moved into the living room just to the right of the hallway. It was far brighter in the light of day, the long, Victorian windows allowing a brilliant glow from the outside, and Killian could now even spot a few holes near the top of the front wall where the mortar had crumbled away, as dapples of sunlight trickled directly in from above painting yellow specks on the floorboards. Even still, he was not entirely comfortable being there. He walked twice around the edge of the room, every unexpected creak making his heart lurch uncomfortably into his mouth, and even once whispered Emma’s name out into the dust.

Nothing stirred.

Today it was bricks, and rotted wood, and bare.

He was just setting his camera atop its tripod when Regina finally entered, the heels of her boots clicking loudly on the old wood.

“It’s like walking back into high school,” she commented drily, clearly taking in the discarded scarf, the Apollo chocolate bar wrapper. “Is that my Ouija board?”

She looked almost indignant, as if Brooke House were an old friend who had borrowed a CD and never bothered to return it, but Killian wanted her attention focused elsewhere.

“Here, come and feel this.”

He led her by the hand (amid protests) to the centre of the room, a ring of dust slightly newer than the rest just barely visible on the floor. It was the place he had been standing the night prior, when Emma had dug her nails sharply into the back of his jacket.

“Palms out. Doesn’t it feel colder here than the rest of the room?”

Regina looked unconvinced. “Maybe a little.”

“It is,” Killian insisted. “I’m sure of it. Stay right there.” He darted back to his rucksack and pulled out two identical aluminium rods, bent at a right angle six inches from one of the ends. When he returned, he held them out to Regina so she could hold the shorter end, and although she pursed her lips in displeasure, obligingly she took them. “Hold them loosely, like this.” He adjusted her grip to match.

Regina looked unamused. “And what, in God’s name, are these?” She arched an eyebrow. “I better not get struck by lightning.”

Killian returned to where he had been squatting by the camera, tilting the tripod so it could capture the spot Regina was standing in. On the infrared display, she was a warm scarlet and gold storm.

“They’re dowsing rods.”

“You’re joking.”

“Couldn’t be more serious. Hold them steady – like that.” Regina reluctantly obliged. “Tell me if they move.”

Killian had experienced limited success with dowsing in the past – it had been shown to him by a farmer in Iowa who had used it to find buried metals and ores underneath the ground, and admittedly actually had a lot to show for the results. Killian himself had been sceptical, and given how intermittent his own successes were, there was no way to tell if they could be attributed to any real sense of divination or sheer blind luck. Still, he wanted to throw everything in his arsenal at Brooke House.

“I don’t have to tell you about the ideomotor response, do I?” Regina said flatly. “Unconscious involuntary movement. Dowsing is bullshit.”

“Says the woman brewing potions in her living room,” Killian shot back. “I mean it – even if it’s a little, tell me if they move.”

Satisfied with the positioning of the camera, he plugged in his tablet and left it set to record before returning to his rucksack. After some deliberation, he reached for the electro-magnetic field reader he had tried to cushion in the bag with a thick scarf. It was blocky and old, and looked like something that had been lifted from a 60s Star Trek set, but it had become one his most valued instruments over the years.

Regina had been craning her neck to see what he was holding, and once she realised, she let out a noise of frustration.

“Killian, if you wanted an EMF reader I would’ve brought mine – at least it’s not a hundred years old. And that’s clearly a single axis meter.” Single axis meters were notoriously more difficult to use than a tri-axis, as they required significant coordination in order to measure the information recorded across all three axis ,while also trying to move the instrument to gather more data; a tri-axis allowed for much more detailed data acquisition. You could only point Killian’s meter at one thing at a time, slowly, whereas Regina’s could probably handle something far more intricate.

Even so, Killian had far more faith in his own device.

“Believe me,” he informed her, “this is better.”

He could practically hear her rolling her eyes.

“Where did you get all this stuff anyway?”

“Ebay, mostly.”

She scoffed. “You look like a quack.”

Killian laughed. Quack was probably the most positive way Regina had ever described him. “And you’re listening to a quack,” he pointed out, “so what does that make you?” He glanced over to see her still standing where he had left her, holding the two dowsing rods outstretched. It didn’t look like they had moved. “Let me know if they cross.”

He was just tweaking with the settings on the EMF reader when Regina carried on.

“Where’s David today, anyway?”

She said ‘where’s David today’ as if she were enquiring which films her old school friend had starred in, or when branded products would be making their way onto the shelves at her local supermarket. Mild disinterest and a characteristic neutrality. She didn’t fool Killian for a second.

She carried on. “I was sure we’d be joined by the witless wonder in no time.”

Killian had sent David just one text message last night, a simple I’m sorry. David had read it, and not replied. He had to remind himself it was better off this way.

“He’s… busy.”

Regina looked surprised. “It’s been three days. How have you already fallen out with him?”

Killian tried to make his shrug as blithe as possible. “It’s a gift, I suppose.” He could just add David Nolan to the long list of people in Storybrooke who really didn’t want him to be there. Deciding finally that the dowsing rods weren’t getting anything from the cold spot, or perhaps weren’t getting anything from Regina, he crossed back over to her and swapped them for the EMF reader. This was something Regina was far more familiar with, and immediately began spinning slowly in place even as she wrinkled her nose disdainfully at the antiquated design.

“And, why, exactly, are we here?”

“We’re looking for Emma.”

Help me, Killian. Let me out. Please.

He had thought it over constantly over the last day. Maybe those words hadn’t just been spoken by that dark, terrible spectre of the house. Maybe that had been a little of Emma, their Emma, bleeding through. He had to find out for sure if there was anything but darkness left, and these were the only ways he knew to look for ghosts.

“We’re looking for Emma,” Regina repeated, in a strange tone.

It gave him pause, so he turned to look at her. She looked unfairly doubtful, and it made irritation flare within him. “The house is here, isn’t it? Where it wasn’t before. It stands to reason she could be here too. David saw her. So did Ruby. You said it yourself, something is changing. Why can’t it be her?”

He’d seen her, he wanted to say. But something held him back. Something private and longing and scared beyond his wits.

“Why can’t it be her?” he repeated, a little more forcefully when she didn’t immediately reply.

Regina bit her lip, as if trying to work out how best to proceed. She took a few steps forward, the wood underneath her boots creaking loudly.

“You and I both know… Emma wasn’t the only thing there that night. In the dark.”

Black lightning. Her wrist stained red, angry welts erupting across her forearm. Eyes as dark as obsidian.

Killian – Killian, don’t –!

A wave of nausea rose within him.

“Is it wise for us to start messing with stuff we don’t understand – again?” To her credit she looked like the suggestion made her almost as miserable as it did him, but her nature dictated she give voice to the thoughts that cut everybody to the quick. “I mean, what if this is something else, just taking the shape of Emma? And appealing to those made most vulnerable by the sight of her?”

So good of you to come and see me.

First David, then him. After all, Mary Margaret hadn’t reported any ghostly sightings, and neither had Regina – and she had practically drenched herself in the supernatural.

Killian shook his head, clutching the dowsing rods tightly.

“But what if it is Emma?” he said finally. The crux of the thing was that he could never ignore her, no matter how sensible the suggestion that he do so. He knew he looked weak, that the confidence he had projected toward Regina since returning to town had crumbled and he must look stupid next to her now, seventeen again and blithering and hopeful beside her world-worn pragmatism. “We have to try.”

He begged her, pleaded with her silently to support him.

Regina was quiet for a long moment, and the EMF reader let out a low zinging noise from where she was pointing it. After a while she sighed.

“Alright,” she said briskly, and Killian visibly sagged with relief. “But I’m going to need much more sage.”

-/-

October 24th – Five Years Ago

“Killian, it’s creepy here,” whined Mary Margaret. “When can we go?”

Emma watched as Killian laughed from where he sat across the room, drawing something onto the floorboards in thick, black marker.

“I’m sorry, Mary Margaret. Just indulge me a little longer.”

Brooke House wasn’t nearly as scary the second time Emma had visited it. They had come virtually straight from school, the sky starting to fade from bright blue to soft pink, but while Emma still didn’t exactly relish the idea of being there after dark, it had lost something of its harshness from the last time she’d been there. Somehow, by bringing Regina and Mary Margaret too, expanding their nervous trio out into a confident fivesome, it took power away from the old walls of the house. Regina had laughed when they showed her the spinning wheel, kicking it into an aggressively fast spin while they all gaped and cried for her to stop. Mary Margaret had removed the sheet from one of the armchairs in the sitting room, declared it looked comfortable enough to sleep in and confidently sat herself down – only for a large spider to creep out of the seams of the cushion, and crawl onto the edge of her dress.

Her shriek had nearly brought them all to tears, and Emma hadn’t been able to move or breathe for laughter for at least ten minutes.

Ever since Killian had asked them all to come to the house, and David had taken great pleasure in informing them it was probably haunted, Regina had been saying she would bring something to match the occasion, and she did not disappoint. Currently she, David and Mary Margaret sat on the floor (the latter with her skirts bunched up around her, casting nervous, fearful glances around for anymore creepy crawlies) surrounding what Regina had called a Ouija board. Emma recognised it only as something she’d once seen on television.

It was an old, polished wood surface ornately decorated, with all the letters of the alphabet and the numbers 0-9 beautifully calligraphed across the top. The symbol of the sun had been drawn in one corner, and a crescent moon in the other. The board came with a planchette, a triangular pointer with a glass circle in the centre to allow you to see the characters underneath. The idea, as Regina explained, was that spirits were supposed to speak through the board, by directing the planchette around its surface to spell out words and wishes.

All three held the tip of a finger on the pointer, and Emma watched with mild interest as it inched across the board. It was all bullshit anyway, but it did add to the atmosphere.

“Mary Margaret, you’re moving the pointer,” Regina scowled.

“I am not,” she replied, affronted. “David’s moving it!”

“I’m not! I swear I’m not!”

Regina brushed her hair from her face impatiently. “At least wait until we’ve asked it a question.”

“Where’d you get the creepy board, anyway?” Emma asked.

“My mom was keeping in in the attic, I found it last year when I was looking for Christmas decorations. She was so pissed when I brought it down, made me put it straight back. I always knew she was a bit nuts.” Regina grinned smugly. “So obviously I had to get it out again now the occasion called for it.”

David cleared his throat loudly, drawing their attention back to the board. “Let’s start.” He raised his voice, projecting it around the room and inserting as much grandiose as he could muster. “Are we alone in this house?” The planchette slid across the board, and David sounded out the letters it landed on. “N… O. It said no.”

“David, you’re clearly moving it.”

“I’m not!”

Leaving them to bicker, Emma turned her attention back to Killian. He had finished what he had been drawing on the floor, and was now scattering salt in a circle around it. Completely entranced in his work, his attention flickered between the salt in his hand and a few battered pieces of paper he had lain flat against the floor. Emma recognised one of them as the one etched with doodles and a few scribbles that they had found in Liam’s toolbox. Somehow, that only increased her feeling of unease.

“Hey,” she said, after crossing the room to sit beside him, hugging her knees to her chest. She was careful not to let her trainers disturb the circle he had made. She also wondered if Archie knew where all the salt at the group home had gone. “You okay?”

He had joked around with them while they let the others explore the house, but had soon retreated to his work. Which, Emma now realised, was a five-pointed star drawn on the floorboards in thick black marker, with each tip touching the edge of the salt circle.

“Yeah,” he replied, flashing her a smile. “I’m almost done.”

Emma bit her lip. “Remind me what it is you’re hoping to achieve? Do you really expect to, uh… summon some kind of ghost?” The look he gave her was unimpressed, but Emma shrugged. He hadn’t exactly given them a lot of clues. “What? I was there with Belle, remember? ‘Do you believe in magic?’”

Emma most certainly did not believe in magic.

The five-pointed star and the circle of salt were telling her something else about Killian, though.

“All I want is to understand. To just – get in his head, I don’t know. He was working on this house for weeks, but it looks like all he did was start peeling off the wallpaper. And why did he go and see Belle? Why did he –?”

Drive his car into a ravine? Emma couldn’t count the number of times Killian must have asked himself that.

He shook his head.

“It has to have something to do with this house. And look, these were in his toolbox.” Killian stepped carefully over his handiwork so he could crouch beside her, showing her the piece of paper, curling at the edges. “He drew the pentagram, right there.” He pointed out an image identical to the one Killian had just drawn on the floor. “I was doing a little research into the symbolism, and a lot of Satanic cults use it for, uh, stuff.” He trailed off unconvincingly, and Emma tried not to look the equal parts amused and creeped out that she felt.

“And like he’s done here, I’ll light a candle at each point. The notes he’s actually written are brief so I just had to interpret as best I can – ‘salt circle’ and ‘curvy dagger’. Did you bring your fishing knife like I asked?”

Emma leant forward so she could reach into the back pocket of her jeans to retrieve it. She held it close to her chest for a moment, thinking about all the comfort it had given her back when she was a kid – in a world where she could control so little, she had liked how powerful it made her feel. The first time she had showed it to Killian was when they were fourteen, and his eyes had grown so round that she hadn’t been able to stop herself from giggling.

After a moment of hesitation, she handed it over.

Another of David’s noisy questions out into the room drew their focus.

“Will I become rich and famous one day? Oh – Y… E… S.” He smirked triumphantly. “Well, better start sucking up to me now guys.”

Mary Margaret laughed. “It’s for talking to spirits, stupid, not predicting the future.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Regina purred. “Will David get a smack if he keeps moving the pointer? Yeah?”

There was a loud thump as she swatted him on the arm.

“Looks like it tells the future just fine.”

“Regina!”

They joined in the laughter with the others, the indignant surprise on David’s face just too funny to ignore; he protested loudly at all attempts of maltreatment, and started entreating the spirits in the house to retaliate on his behalf.

“They think this is a joke,” Emma said quietly, careful to keep her voice low so the others wouldn’t hear her. “Please don’t let it get to you when… if this goes nowhere.”

Killian had started wandering down a dangerous rabbit hole – she just didn’t want him to get hurt.

“Don’t worry,” he assured her, as he started placing candles at the five corners of the star. “Summoning an evil spirit? I have my expectations really low.”

“E…M…M… Emma, it’s spelt your name!” Mary Margaret squeaked.

Emma rolled her eyes, growing more tired by the minute of the game Regina had started. “Cut it out.”

“C…O…M…E.”

David narrowed his eyes at Regina suspiciously. “You’re moving it, right?”

Regina glowered back. “No, you are.”

“Guys,” Killian called over, “I’m ready.”

They left the Ouija board where it was, planchette resting atop the E, and came over to join them in the centre of the room. Killian directed each of them to sit at a point on the star, David and Mary Margaret giggling to each other but trying to keep a straight face, before he followed the line of the circle with some matches, lighting each candle. David jokingly blew on his, causing the flame to flicker wildly, and Emma shot him a warning look.

She only wanted them to take it seriously for a few minutes, just for Killian.

“What exactly are we trying to do?” Regina asked, looking bored as she played at dabbing the tip of the flame with her finger.

Emma had been about to bark a rebuke, but Killian beat her do it with an indulgent grin.

“We’re trying to get results.”

“I think I saw this ritual on an episode of Ghost Hunters,” Mary Margaret whispered excitedly. “See, the wife had murdered the husband, but they found a second body buried under the…” She seemed to sense the atmosphere starting to shift to something a little more sombre, and let her sentence trail off.

Killian stepped outside the circle to take his place at the final point of the star, placing the knife carefully in his lap once he was settled. Then they waited.

For a beat, nothing happened at all. The candles flickered in place, they exchanged uncertain looks. The shadows inside the sitting room had grown longer the closer the sun inched behind the trees, and it made the dappled light from the star in front of them look a little more ominous now that daylight was fading.

Regina huffed loudly. “Now what?”

“Erm,” Killian scratched the back of his neck, “I don’t really know.”

“Maybe we should hold hands?” David suggested quickly.

Emma felt that suggestion was probably more to do with the hand he would be holding than wanting to increase their chances of success – and she knew Killian agreed from the amused glance he sent her, but they consented all the same. Mary Margaret blushed as she slipped her hand into David’s.

Killian’s hand in Emma’s was warm, and a little clammy. It didn’t feel like it had the day of her birthday, when he had walked her back to the Nolan house from Granny’s. They had held hands the entire way, continuing to talk with enough forced nonchalance that they both knew the other was also clearly trying to pretend it wasn’t a big deal, hiding their smiles with glances out into the road. Then, it had made her feel dizzy with possibility, the gentle move of his thumb on the back of her hand sending her stomach spinning with delight.

This afternoon it didn’t thrill her the same way. She could feel how nervous he was in the slight tremor of his hand, and as she glanced at Regina on his other side she could tell the other girl could feel it too. Whether it was a sense of compassion for him or a desire to just get it over with, Regina slipped smoothly into control.

“We’re talking to the spirit in this house,” Regina said clearly, firmly, looking up into the ceiling. “Are you there?”

They all waited with bated breath.

“Can you hear us?”

All at once Emma was struck by the old, kind face of Belle Gold, wide eyed and fearful.

He found – he found a house, in the woods – and he thought it might make him strong.

Something thumped inside her chest. Like static from a radio, she could hear something crackling at her ear, but every time she turned her head toward the sound it disappeared. Twice she cleared her throat to try and speak but no sound came out. She knew, she knew, but she didn’t know how she knew, and Killian had turned to look at her, concerned, as her hand tightened on his.

“The knife,” she blurted out, and he raised an eyebrow. “It should be in the middle.”

Killian didn’t question her, merely stared at her curiously as he let go of Regina’s hand to slide the knife into the centre of the circle. It clattered against the floorboards before rolling to a stop in the middle.

But it felt – wrong.

“Wrong,” Mary Margaret echoed. Her eyes were closed.

David, too, had shut his eyes, and after Killian had once again completed the circle, Emma did the same. Regina didn’t speak again. Emma sensed she felt the same as she did; they had asked whatever they meant to ask, and it would be cheap to do so again. Only for show. Outside was nothing but stillness, not a sound to drown them out – in fact she had only become conscious of noise in the absence of it, and she now wished she had been playing closer attention to what it was that had stopped dead when they formed the circle.

They had been heard.

“I’m here,” Killian whispered quietly, so quietly Emma couldn’t be sure she hadn’t imagined it. “Find me.”

It had grown colder, gooseflesh beginning to erupt along her arm. Everything began to feel much farther away, as if her ears had popped, and a faint buzzing replaced the quiet that had blanketed them before. Oxygen was taking longer to reach her lungs, like the pressure in the air had changed. She could feel hair rising from the back of her neck and the thought suddenly entered her mind with a shuddering fear that she was about to be struck by lightning.

A rumble sounded from above, the rumble of something trapped beating against impossibly old doors.

The wardrobe.

It was all – wrong.

Come.

Listen.

Static zinged through her grip on Killian’s hand, and they both yelped and broke apart.

“What?” David spoke first, but the other three were all giving them baffled looks. Both Killian and Emma nursed their injured hands with matching grimaces. “What happened?”

“Electric shock,” Killian answered, shaking his hand out. “Bloody hell, ouch.”

“It’s the weather,” Regina offered. “I saw the forecast earlier. It always gets like this right before a storm.” Finally tired of the whole affair, she blew out her candle with an air of finality. “I think we can safely say this house is not haunted.”

Emma was willing her racing pulse to slow, trying to process what the fuck had just happened, but everyone else seemed to be carrying on as if nothing had occurred at all. David was helping Mary Margaret brush cobwebs from her hair while she asked if he wanted to come over to the Blanchard’s for dinner. Regina stood up and began to pack up the Ouija board. Killian stared at the flickering wick of his candle, looking despondent and a little frustrated. All like nothing in the world had taken place.

“Wait,” Emma said, looking around them all at confusion. “Are we really not going to talk about what just happened?”

They all turned to stare at her.

Killian was the first to reply. “What do you mean?”

“The – you know. It went quiet. The, uh, atmosphere.” She realised with frustration that it was amazingly difficult to describe, that breathlessness. The sense of standing on the edge and peering out into the dark. “You said it,” Emma pointed at Mary Margaret, remembering now that the girl had spoken. “You said ‘wrong’.”

Mary Margaret frowned. “No I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.” When Mary Margaret again shook her head, Emma grew indignant. “You did!” She hadn’t goddamn imagined it, so why was the other girl bothering to deny it?

“Emma, she didn’t say anything,” David said cautiously. “Nobody said anything until you guys did.”

When she opened her mouth to retort Killian put a hand on her arm. It made her hesitate long enough for them all to brush past the moment.

“This place is creepy,” Mary Margaret declared, “and I’ve got to get home. David, are you coming?”

As Mary Margaret collected her stuff, David looked torn. Emma merely smiled at him weakly, but nodded her head – he should go. She was just… she was overtired. She probably shouldn’t have stayed up so late the night before studying for their calculus test on Monday. And she was letting the feeling of that house, of Killian’s hopefulness in that house get to her, and she’d let herself get carried right along by something else altogether.

They finished helping Regina pack the board away, but Emma stayed behind to help Killian clear up, promising to see the others at school the next day, and David that night once he got back to Ruth’s. The pair of them worked mostly in silence, using the old bucket and sponge Liam had left and a bottle of water to wipe the black marker away from the floorboards. Even amongst the disrepair of the house, it felt dishonest to leave the markings on the floor.

Or perhaps they just didn’t want to leave any permanent evidence of their being there.

“I believe you,” Killian said quietly. “I didn’t hear her, but I believe you. I think these things have to affect all of us differently.”

And by ‘these things’, he meant the supernatural. Ghosts. The movement of the planchette across Regina’s spirit board.

Things Emma definitely, categorically did not believe in.

Right?

She dismissed him. “You only think I heard something because you want me to have heard something.” It wasn’t true belief in her, it wasn’t because he knew her to be honest or trusted her. It was because something else was what he had come here for, and her ramblings had been his only glimpse of it.

Killian’s wanting, longing, was palpable in his every hopeful inhale.

“That’s unfair.”

Emma chose not to reply.

“What else did you feel? In the circle?”

“Killian, stop.” She made sure her voice was firm. “You promised not to let this get to you. We tried, okay? Nothing happened.”

They had been heard.

“But you said –”

“I didn’t hear anything, alright? Just forget it.” She stalked over to the window and picked up her rucksack. If she said it forcefully enough to him, she could make it just as true to herself. “Do you want to grab some dinner somewhere?”

She knew she sounded irritated, and Kilian didn’t respond, just watched her from the centre of the room. He was not impressed with her brushing him off, clearly wanted to continue down that line of questioning, and was waiting until she felt ready to talk about it. Suddenly irritated with his saintly level of patience, Emma huffed.

“Fine. Stay here by yourself. See if I care.”

Without waiting to see if he would reply, Emma barged out of the front door and stomped down the rotted steps without another word.

-/-

But she couldn’t sleep that night.

Every time she shut her eyes, drifted near enough to something dreamless, images so vivid they felt more real than the bed she lay in assaulted her. Killian’s disappointed expression from the centre of the room, expectant, waiting. The scrape of the pointer across the board. The knife, lying still in the middle of their circle. Firelight flickering. Regina blowing out her candle with a whoosh that seemed to extend for minutes at a time.

The nothing she had felt as she sat and breathed in the circle. That terrible, absence of anything.

She had realised too late that she had left her fishing knife in Brooke House. It was altogether likely that Killian had picked it up, and after a quiet dinner with Ruth she considered going around to the group home to retrieve it from him. Instead, a wave of annoyance had risen in her. If Killian had picked it up, he should have brought it round to her. And after the brief spat they’d had before she left the house, she decided, really, he should be the one putting effort in for her. Her resolve had strengthened, and she had announced to Ruth that she would be going to bed early.

She had lain awake for a few hours, ears pricked for any noise downstairs. David had come home a little later than expected, had spoken with Ruth for a long time before retreating to his own room. Ruth had stayed in the living room for a while, likely catching up on a few chapters of the novel she had been reading, before Emma heard the creak of the stair indicating she, too, had gone to bed. Killian had not come round. Still the night wore on, and Emma found herself no closer to sleep.

Downstairs the refrigerator hummed, and the electric heater on the landing rumbled, with the occasional clank she had grown used to. On her first night, all the odd sounds of the Nolan house had unnerved her. Much like tonight she had stayed awake for hours, worried she would never be able to sleep, certain the Nolan’s would want to send her back before too long, missing Killian terribly. The further her anxiety had skyrocketed, the more restless she became.

Tonight the noises included the sliding pointer, the squeak of Killian’s pen on the floorboards, Mary Margaret’s quiet whisper, wrong.

In Brooke House, something clattered in the attic. The wardrobe doors bumped and groaned.

Emma’s eyes flew open.

Something was trying to get out.

Her heart began to thump wildly.

Come.

Listen.

She threw back the duvet and reached for her trainers.

Which was the last thing she could remember before she found herself stood in front of Brooke House.

Emma stumbled backwards, as if she were just now falling back into her own body and her knees felt weak with the strain of it, and dry leaves crunched underfoot. She was wearing her trainers. She was also still wearing her pyjama shirt and shorts, but had thrown a hoodie and a coat on over the top. Her legs were bare, and cold. In one hand she held a torch and the other was clenched into a fist at her side.

Why had she come here?

Something loud crashed inside the house, a shadow darted across the upstairs window.

Yes, Emma remembered now. She had come for her knife.

She always felt safer with that knife.

Climbing the front steps, slowly, her shoes sounded more muffled than usual. Before she had a chance to touch it the front door creaked open, beckoning her to step inside. She felt foggy, all – all lost, and what time was it, anyway? A dazed search of her pockets told her she hadn’t brought her cell phone. Why had she left without it? Why couldn’t she remember?

The by now familiar creak sounded from the landing. Emma was halfway up the staircase before she remembered setting her foot on the first step.

For a moment she felt Killian’s hand resting on the small of her back again, ready to steady her if she lost her balance, and she began to lean backwards into it – before it vanished and she had to jerk herself forward to avoid toppling down the stairs. Her hand was so tight on the banister that her knuckles had turned white. Right, Killian wasn’t there. Killian was at home, asleep.

Emma was in Brooke House.

The second floor was lit with tendrils of moonlight, dirty white and shapeless, crawling up the walls and stretching across the floor. The creak sounded again, and Emma gently opened the door to the room with the spinning wheel. As expected, the spinning wheel lay turning slowly on its axis by the soft press of the pedal underneath, except this time a man sat there, steadily feeding in pieces of straw until they came out as spun gold twine, which then pooled into a basket at the end. His face was obscured by the shadow of the windowsill, but he raised a hand in greeting before returning to his work.

She shook her head to try and confirm what she was seeing, and realised with a start that the door to the spinning wheel room was closed, and her hand was still poised above the handle. Had she opened it at all? She couldn’t remember. The old wood of the spinning wheel groaned behind the door and, firmly this time, Emma swung the door open inwardly. The wheel spun slowly – but on its own. Gone was the man, the spun gold, the straw. Only the empty dark and the dancing moonlight remained.

An odd noise jerked her attention away from the wheel, just as the light from her torch winked out. Now concerned, Emma smacked it against her palm a few times to try and knock the device back into working, but it did not respond. The sound came again, and to her ears it seemed like –

No, there it was again. She was sure.

It was a giggle.

High-pitched and delighted, something was laughing at her.

“Who’s there?” she said. Or did she?

She might have said: “I’m coming.”

Uncertain which she had said and which she had not said, Emma reached the end of the corridor and stood on her tiptoes so she could begin to scrabble with the door to the attic. The metal ring which would allow her to pull it down was just out of reach, but after she asked politely the panel dislodged from the ceiling by itself, and with it came the ladder. She rose one cautious step at a time, up into the black, and tried to remember why she was there.

Her knife, yes. She was coming for her knife. She had been just thirteen when she took it, lifting it from a set of tools a dockworker had left abandoned while he helped unload a seiner, and it had made Emma feel so dangerous to be holding it that she had immediately cradled it with both hands before making her escape. The blade was deadly sharp, far sharper than any knife she had seen in the group home or otherwise, and she had cut her hand while examining it later.

It had reminded her of herself. All along she had been afraid that one day someone might fall on her, and get hurt on all her sharp edges.

Another banner year, right?

What?

We’ve all got ghosts here.

As she reached the top her pulse began to race, and her heart turned her head and waited for her body to catch up. She ignored the desk, the vials, the shattered glass on the floor; like a string had been tied to the centre of her chest, made of hope and sadness and something wild, it propelled her forward to the darkest corner of the room. There, tucked into the downward slant of the roof, stood the wardrobe. It rattled in place, as if someone were stood behind and shaking it back and forth, and she could feel it.

She could feel it wanting, could feel it longing for her, and she longed for it right back. Breathless and exhilarated, she crossed the room in three short steps and knelt before it, hands reaching for the ornate handles on the doors. Darker swirls of colour spun out from the handles and almost seemed to move, curling delicately around her fingers.

Yes, they whispered, come.

Listen.

Emma tugged open the doors.

Which was the last thing she could remember before she found herself in her bed at the Nolan house, blinking against the hazy light of morning.

Once realisation struck Emma bolted upright, glancing wildly about her room. Her trainers were tucked against her dresser, her coat hung on the back of her door. There were leaves in her hair. Once she registered it was morning she scrambled for the clock at her bedside, which read 6.03am. Almost time to wake up for school.

Had she – had she dreamed it? The house?

It was already beginning to turn foggy and fade, the corners curling in on themselves with greater speed the more she tried to remember, like clutching at the tendrils of a dream that was vanishing out of sight. Everything was as it was.

Except for the knife.

Emma blinked, realising her left hand had been curled around the hilt of a very strange, very ornate knife – no. Dagger.

The hilt was black as pitch, and cool to touch, but the blade was what interested her the most. It’s edge was curved, as if it were blurring in and out of sight in the nature of a mirage, and was ornately patterned with twisting black shapes reaching all the way to its desperately sharp point. It was heavy, and unlike anything Emma had ever seen before.

But perhaps what intrigued her the most was the name emblazoned across it, written in an almost medieval cursive.

Weighty in both heft and emotional damage, Emma could scarcely believe it. What did it mean?

For written on it was a name she recognised. One they were all familiar with.

Liam Jones.

-/-

2nd May 2015 – Seven Months Later

David was the last to arrive by a couple of minutes. Although the air that night was cool, the day had been hot, and he was still dressed in the same t-shirt and shorts he had been wearing earlier. Killian couldn’t be more grateful for the drop in temperature – he could remember a time he had been a fan of the immortal summer, of scorching afternoons and ice cold drinks, it made him think of fly fishing in the lake in the middle of Memorial Park or setting off cheap fireworks by the docks that fizzled and burnt with the whole year’s lost potential. Last year he and Emma had borrowed Archie’s car and driven all the way to Portland, just so they could track down a lobster restaurant a traveller stopping in at Granny’s had told them about. They spent the entire afternoon searching until, tired and hungry, they’d picked up a few sandwiches from a convenience store and perched at the edge of the harbour, watching the boats roll in, and roll away again.

The whole day had been a bust. Killian couldn’t remember it being anything but perfect.

As the days stretched and he found himself looking for her amongst the sun-soaked streets of Storybrooke, summer became just one more thing he wanted no part of anymore.

“Is this going to take long?”

Mary Margaret’s voice jogged him back to the present, and Killian quickly jerked his head around to check nobody else was nearby. They had met at their usual spot, just a little ways into the north woods. Far enough that they would go unnoticed by any stray observer near the edge of the forest, but near enough that the distant sound of cars zooming past on the street could still be heard. Most of them were reluctant to venture any farther in now, if it could be avoided. Especially after dark.

Regina scoffed. “Why, are we keeping you from something?”

“My mom doesn’t like me being out late anymore,” Mary Margaret replied defensively. “I had to sneak out my window.”

“Well, our apologies for the inconvenience.” Unsurprisingly, Regina did not sound that sorry at all.

“Would you just stop?” David groused.

“Guys, please,” Killian interjected, wanting to cut them off before they could start getting too snippy. He turned his attention to Regina. “By the way, are you alright? I hear Humbert gave you a hard time yesterday.”

Regina had been collected from the school gates by Sheriff Humbert, in full view of everyone. He liked them to be observed when he decided to bring them in for another interview; it was one of his favourite tactics.

“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” she shrugged. “It was the same questions as always.”

Why were you out in the woods? When did you see her last?

Is there anything you’re not telling us?

Smooth, long exhale.

Nothing, Sheriff Humbert.

“Good,” Killian answered, nodding slowly. “That’s good. And you, Mary Margaret? Did you get a chance to look for the house this week?”

They had been taking it in turns for the last few months, always making sure that they weren’t spotted together heading down the White Pine Trail, to investigate the place Brooke House had once stood. Ever since the first time they had been caught by Sheriff Humbert there, they had realised the man had started watching their every move in the weeks that followed Emma’s disappearance. Killian, especially, had scarcely been able to get away with taking an unusual route home from school without the sheriff picking up on it. The more time marched forward the less observed they felt, but they still stuck to the same precautions just to be sure.

It had been seven months since Emma had disappeared. Graham Humbert never let him forget it.

And with Emma, Brooke House had also vanished. Nothing stood at the end of the orange string trail Killian had once left anymore, only silence and torment.

Finding it again had to be their best chance at finding her. It was just that these days, finding felt a lot more like waiting.

Mary Margaret hadn’t answered him, so Killian flicked his eyes over. He could see her eyes were averted, jaw clenched. One of her shoes kept stringing up a restless beat on the floor for a few seconds at a time.

“Mary Margaret?”

She let out an almost irritated sigh. “No, Killian, I have not gone looking for the damn house.”

Killian blinked. “And what’s with the tone?”

“I have to study,” she burst, “I have AP tests in two weeks, and if I don’t pass I probably won’t be able to go to college. And instead, I’m disobeying my parents, standing in the middle of the woods and thinking about how much I don’t know about environmental science.”

Regina looked the way Killian felt; completely dumbfounded. “You’re thinking about exams right now?”

“It’s not just exams, Regina,” Mary Margaret insisted. “It’s my life. I want to make something of it one day, and I suggest you do the same.”

Something still had settled between them, as if Mary Margaret had started to lift the lid on something they had sworn to keep closed, and even the night around them was stiffening with anticipation. It was sacred ground on which their harsh words steered them, and it was impossible to discern where the line could be drawn between how to move forward, and how to avoid moving backward. At times they seemed to be the same thing, but somehow it was impossible to think of them the same way.

Emma had wanted to pass her exams too. Desperately, in fact. It had been so important to her that she be able to push off into the rest of her life in better straits than how she had been brought into it, and to that end she had often stayed up long into the night studying at the group home so she could avoid the noise and the steady stream of interruptions that came during the day. It was that which had prompted her to accept Ruth’s offering of a fostering, even after deciding long ago never to hand her heart out again to somebody she was sure would just return it later.

Killian had encouraged her; he had hoped she might find more at the Nolan house than a quiet place to work, and she had. She had found David, and with David came Mary Margaret, and Regina had fallen in as easily with them as she had with Killian and Emma years earlier. They had been a haphazard band, and for a year everything was warm and gold.

That was over now, and they had begun to splinter.

Killian – Killian, don’t –!

He heard her, always. Always, always.

“What about Emma?”

It was David who spoke, and he looked stricken to have even needed to say the words.

What about Emma? Was holding onto this, meeting clandestinely in the middle of the night to yet again swap how little progress they had made in getting her back – was this moving forward? Or was this trying so desperately not to move backward that they couldn’t keep their focus on anything ahead? Brooke House was never there when they looked for it. But Killian didn’t care about school, anyway. He’d had enough credits to graduate at the end of his junior year, before all of this. Every AP class he’d taken he had since dropped. Archie had barely been able to convince him to go to school for much of the year.

It didn’t matter to Killian, not a whisper; but was it okay for this to matter to someone else?

“Emma is gone,” Mary Margaret said, quietly. As if scared that they might hear her and yet desperate for them to. “And it’s…” She sucked in a sharp breath before continuing. “It’s devastating. But it’s – it’s been seven months. We have nothing. And more importantly, the police have nothing.” Killian could tell from a subtle movement in her fist that she was trembling. With fright, anger, sadness. Who could know for sure? “Finding Emma, if she can be found, should be up to them.”

Killian felt as if he’d been slapped. “How can you say that?”

“It’s their job, isn’t it?” she bit back. “And the more I think about that night… the more we feed into that – that hysteria, or – or whatever we thought we saw – the less help we’re being to them. The police, I mean.”

Killian felt his temper rising. He knew what he had seen – they had all seen it, although for reasons Killian couldn’t fathom, it had become a matter of spirited debate between Mary Margaret and David, and he and Regina.

“We never should have lied,” Mary Margaret continued firmly. “We should have told them everything from the start, about the house, about all of it.”

“They would have told us we were crazy,” Regina pointed out. “Hell, I would have called you crazy if I hadn’t seen it myself.”

“But at least I wouldn’t feel like this!” Mary Margaret’s voice cracked on the last syllable, and the bite in her expression had crumpled. She was all melancholy, draped in it like an old cloak, where in their group she had always been warmth. Everything was twisted now, like none of it could ever be light again. “Like I have this weight, poised above my head, and I’m just waiting for it to – to fall and crush me. And it hurts.” She clutched at her throat, eyes wide and sad. “And I’m breathless, and scared. All the time. And sometimes – sometimes I don’t realise I’ve forgotten that it’s there, but then I look up –”

David had taken a few steps closer to her, and put his arm around her shoulders. She curled into it and buried her face into his chest for a few moments, shaking, while he murmured something neither Killian nor Regina could hear. They couldn’t find the words to interject.

After a few long moments she gathered herself, her fist clenching into David’s shirt.

“It’s this lie,” she said fiercely, speaking into the solidness of David’s form, sounding as wretched as she looked. “And this feeling that if – if we’d just told the truth then they would have found something, and they would have found her.”

The accusation was softly cushioned, and gently aimed, but Killian felt it with the keen force of any blow.

“They wouldn’t have found her,” he answered evenly. They couldn’t. “It’s up to us.”

She let out a bitter laugh. “Of course you would say that.”

Killian’s temper flared. “Excuse me?”

“It clearly doesn’t bother you, Killian, but I’m just saying – if I could do this again I wouldn’t lie.”

I wouldn’t tell the lie you told me to tell.

The lie he had told them tell to protect them.

Humbert’s hard expression flashed in front of him.

Your friends say she was with you when she went missing. That you were the last one to see her.

“I wouldn’t either,” David added quietly.

Disbelief marred everything, it made everything black as tar – was this really what it was all coming to? Rounding on him?

“And what would you have told them?” Killian shot back. When David grimaced he pressed on. “No, really, I’m interested to know what you would have told the sheriff about the haunted house and the magic dagger.”

“Stop that,” Mary Margaret snapped, “it’s not magic.”

“Then how the bloody hell do you explain it? Explain this?”

With intent, Killian reached into his jacket and pulled out the dagger. Its curving edges glittered dangerously in the dim light, and in a movement so quick he might have imagined it he thought he saw Regina reach out a hand to take it, before snatching it back. The intricate pattern engraved onto the blade was one he had memorised from long nights spent staring at its edges, begging for it to reveal its secrets. The inky black writing crafted beautifully on top spoke of everything they had lost – the truth they all knew, and the only tangible proof that forces greater than themselves were at work.

The name carved across it was clear: Emma Swan.

Like a spell, it brought with it an almost supernatural quiet. Mary Margaret had begun to weep silently, and she shrugged away from David’s touch this time. Regina watched but did not speak. David couldn’t bear to do more than glance at the dagger, a pained expression on his face clear before he turned to look out into the forest.

“This is how we know she’s still out there,” Killian insisted fiercely. “We can’t give up now. Not after everything we’ve been through.”

For a little while, the only noise was Mary Margaret, trying to suppress a gasp or wiping her eyes with the edge of her sleeve. After some time, she sank down to perch on a nearby log and Regina joined her, threading their fingers together tightly. In the distance Killian could hear the rumble of the road, the sound of an engine increasing in volume before skittering away. Although reluctantly, he slipped the dagger back into the inside pocket of his jacket, and the blade was cool against his chest even through the fabric of his shirt. A cold comfort, but a comfort all the same.

“The truth is,” Mary Margaret began quietly, staring at the mossy ground at their feet. “I want to grieve. I loved Emma. I want to treasure her memory… I want the chance to miss her.” She lifted misty eyes and looked at each of them in turn. “But it’s impossible around all of you. For you she’s still here. But I want to keep moving forward.” She brushed a hand across a tear-stained cheek. “Will you – will you let me do that?”

With quiet strength, she dug the stake into the earth. Beneath it, they cracked.

She stood. There wasn’t anything else to say.

She looked impossibly guilty, and Killian searched for something to say that would deliver her from that, but all of it felt brittle and fake. The honest truth was that he loved her and wanted nothing but her happiness, but he might never forgive her if she walked out of that clearing now.

Mary Margaret looked to all of them, but it was Killian’s gaze she sought most eagerly. He couldn’t give it, staring stonily at the ground instead.

“I’ll… I’ll see you.”

She didn’t say at school, since he wouldn’t be going anyway and they both knew it. Recklessly, he thought that without it there might not be another excuse for their paths to cross. If she wanted to keep moving forward and leave all this in the past, then Killian would not be going with her. Dry leaves crunched as she departed, slowly receding until the only sound was the breeze whistling by.

“I’m not giving up. No way.”

It was Regina who had spoken, and Killian felt a wave of unreserved tenderness for her.

Her face softened, and she stepped over to lay a gentle hand on his arm.

“She’ll come around.”

She wouldn’t, but it was easier to pretend.

After Regina had gone Killian sat on the damp earth underneath him, leaning his head back to stare through the canopy. The trees had clustered together here, dark shapes towering over through which he could spot the stars winking in and out.

David shifted from where he stood. “Are you okay?”

Killian let out a long breath, one that he felt like he had been holding onto for a number of days. His chest felt tight, and he could feel a familiar tugging sensation behind his nose as the stars started to swim before him.

“Belle died. Yesterday.”

David let out a soft expletive. “I’m so sorry, Killian.”

“It was peaceful,” he nodded to himself, like it made everything fine. “In her sleep.”

Belle had been a great source of comfort for him. She talked in circles and remembered very little, but she remembered Liam and often asked after Emma, and had lived a deep and fulfilling life she loved to tell him about. It did her good to talk, the nuns had said, which was why they let him come. Every character in all of her stories was long gone now, but it didn’t cause her any pain. She spoke only of the joy in having known them and the colours with which they had brushed her soul. It didn’t matter how lonely it looked now, or how sad everyone else thought she must be to be alone; she had assured him many times that she was lucky, and wanted for little else.

He wanted desperately to feel like that, even if only for a heartbeat.

Sometimes, she had said with a smile, the best books have the dustiest jackets.

“It just feels like everything is slipping away.”

Mary Margaret, Belle. Liam. Emma. Everything he touched was dust.

Don’t tell me – it’s hot cocoa, with cinnamon, and you’re about to hand it over.

A hot tear spilled down his cheek and he angrily swiped it away.

He cleared his throat loudly, mostly to try and cover the sudden rush of emotion, but he knew that David had seen it. “Sometimes I can’t help but think… maybe it’s all in my head, you know? The more I think about that night the hazier it gets.” Like trying to remember a dream after you’d woken from it, every single day more details faded into nothing. “I just hear her.” That final, startled scream. It would never leave him, he just knew it. “All I can hear is her.”

Killian – Killian, don’t –!

“Me too,” David admitted quietly. “I hear it too.”

“I’m leaving,” he said suddenly, and with the confession came a twinge of relief, and he forgave himself a little more for it. “Right after graduation. I have to find an answer, and there isn’t one here.”

He’d go as far as needed, for as long as it took. He’d walk the stretch of the Earth if he had to.

For a moment David looked crestfallen, but he mastered it quickly. “I understand,” he said. And he might think he did – but David would never be looked at the way Storybrooke looked at Killian. In their eyes he would never be blameless, not the way the David Nolan was. Emma was his sister; she was just Killian’s victim.

“I’d go too,” David continued, “but my mom… it’s just hard, you know? I feel like there’s so much she doesn’t know. And I couldn’t…”

“I know,” Killian assured him, “it’s alright. I wouldn’t ask you to come.” It was something he would rather do alone.

A few moments of stillness passed, before David let out a low whistle.

“So. Right after graduation, huh?”

Killian nodded. June twenty-third, 18:00.

There was a bus to Augusta that he had promised he would not miss.

-/-

Present Day

As night fell, Killian again returned to Brooke House.

He had already spent much of the day there with Regina, taking readings, burning herbs and mumbling variations on familiar incantations from her book of shadows. There were a few key vocabularic differences, but the intention behind a few spells seemed similar to some he had seen from the coven in Pennsylvania. Just once they had let him sit in on a cleansing ceremony, a practice of healing for the soul, and he could recognise some of the actions as Regina guided him through a ritual for cleansing the air in the house. Smudging, she called it. But by the time they had departed in late afternoon, visibly nothing had changed within the house.

After grabbing a quick bite at Granny’s Killian had spent the remainder of early evening categorically working through all the other data he had been able to gather over the course of the day; and not one instrument had indicated anything outside of the realms of a normal abandoned house. In fact, most of the anomalous readings one could expect from a long period of constant use (a sudden spike in electromagnetic radiation, a noise in static on a recorder where there had been none aloud) were completely non-existent. Brooke House was as silent as the dead other than the sounds he and Regina made. It were as if they were measuring nothing at all.

No doubt, that was its intention.

He expected much to be different in the dark.

Again, he left the dagger rolled up in his scarf in his car, not wanting to bring it any closer to Emma – or to whatever Emma was. They were clearly linked, the spectre of the house and the dagger, and he had to believe that somewhere buried in there was his Emma. She retained the same memories, even if she warped them for her use. She recognised him. It was her name on the dagger.

He had taken the dagger to three different psychometrists over the years, seeking insight. Each one had only been able to tell him that its origin was evil, that its master was lost.

Even Killian could have surmised that much.

“Emma?” he called, as he stepped over the threshold. Only creaks of old wood answered back.

He lingered briefly in the sitting room, checking his old tape recorder that he had left running, tucked under the sheet of one of the armchairs as gently as possible. He wanted to avoid the possibility of muffling any sound while also trying to prevent its detection from any nefarious spirits that chose not to make a sound while he and Regina were there. All he needed was some kind of proof that something in the house moved when it was left to its own devices. In the morning he would return for it and listen for any erroneous sound.

As if reading his thoughts, an audible thump came from above him. He headed back out into the hall. For now, Killian decided to pocket the recorder and return it after he’d come to say what he meant to.

Again Killian called Emma’s name, mounting the stairs slowly. Once he reached the top he spotted the flash of white fabric trailing along the floor, disappearing into one of the rooms on the landing. Aside from the room with the spinning wheel that never faltered, Killian hadn’t spent much time in the other two rooms. One was a bedroom and the other a study, boasting only a desk and a wall lined with ancient, brittle bookcases, the tomes atop them turned grey with age with faded and illegible titles. It was into the study that he had seen her go, so Killian opened the door cautiously so as not to startle her away.

The bottom shelf of the bookcase nearest the door had collapsed, the books falling into a haphazard clump onto the floor. A dust cloud still lingered so he imagined it couldn’t have happened too long ago; he wondered if that was the noise he had heard from downstairs.

Emma stood with her back to him, the rustle of pages the only indication that she was moving. Then, without warning, she swung her right arm back and hurtled the book against the wall. The binding tore with a snap, and in pieces it clattered down onto the ground. Killian, reluctant to become a target for one of those heavy missiles, cleared his throat to announce himself, but quickly tucked the tape recorder subtly into one of the bookcases as he did so. He didn’t want her to catch it on him.

Emma turned, her jade eyes sharp in the gloom. As always, they cut right through him.

“Have you decided?” she said, her voice as heavy as stone.

Killian didn’t answer immediately, but tried to look at her more critically. What was he seeing? Just what he wanted to see, or something more?

Regina’s warning repeated itself over and over. What if this is something else, just taking the shape of Emma? And appealing to those made most vulnerable by the sight of her?

“Why didn’t you show yourself to Regina?”

They had been at Brooke House all day, there was ample opportunity. Not a creature had stirred out of place, as if the house had been holding its breath and waiting for them to leave. That meant one of two things – Emma did not think Regina could help with what she wanted, or there was nothing of Emma to show.

Emma lifted a shoulder in a half shrug and turned back to the bookcase. She picked up another book, and began lazily flipping through its contents.

That, too, found itself tossed to the edge of the room.

“I didn’t feel like it.” She reached for another.

“Come here,” he said, before he felt he’d truly made the decision. “Let me look at you.”

She turned slowly to stare at him; it was clear in her expression that she was unaccustomed to receiving orders, and was flirting with the idea of being furious, or going along with it. Keeping her eyes locked on his she discarded her final book, letting it flutter onto the floor, and started to walk towards him. It felt distinctly like being stalked by a predator, and he resisted the urge to step back when she came to a stop in front of him, looking up.

Instead he steeled his resolve, and lifted his thumb and forefinger to her chin. Her skin was glacial to the touch, pale and smooth. Like marble.

Applying a little pressure, Killian turned her head first to one side, then to the other. She allowed him, her eyes continuing to follow him intently. Up close, she looked human. With a little more colour in her cheeks she would look just like he remembered her. Would it even be possible, he wondered, for him to conjure up something so near to perfection? Was he capable? Could he really have imagined this?

“I’m so sorry,” he sighed sadly, brushing his fingers along her jaw, stilling them when they reached the tip of her neck.

Emma tensed underneath him. “What for?”

The list was unending.

“All of it.”

Something flickered across her expression, but it had moved too quickly for him to notice it. A blackened petal dropped from the circlet around her head, and became tangled in her hair. Without thinking, Killian gently tugged it loose.

“You don’t need to be sorry.”

A cold hand came to rest over his. Then, to his surprise, she lifted herself onto her tiptoes and leaned forward. Too shocked to move, Killian froze in place as she reached him. Like the rest of her, her lips were icy to touch, and moved gently against his like the purl of the ocean against the sand. His eyes stayed open but he could see hers had fluttered closed – she looked unarmed. Gentle. Like a girl.

She pulled back because he did not know how to keep her, and he could feel now that he was trembling. He was cold, his heart ached with grief, and he was furious.

That was a kiss that he had been saving, and she had taken it.

He opened his mouth to rattle off a rebuke, but something in her manner had changed. Her brows had knitted a little closer together, her lips parted – even her eyes looked as if they might have dulled from their usual startling shade.

Recognition fluttered across her features. She blinked slowly. “Killian?”

Killian’s heart began to hammer against his ribcage. Hope stuttered to life with every beat, but he tried to remain cautious. Something was different, he was sure of it, and now he wished he had been paying closer attention to her before so he might able to more clearly see now what had changed.

He watched her warily. “Emma?”

It happened in painfully slow motion. Her eyes glazed over, she turned herself away, something that had been out of alignment clicked back into place. In an almost unnatural way her head tilted, and began to stare at him with those new, wide eyes.

Her lips curled in a snarl. “That’s enough of that.”

A rush of air blew past him and she was gone, but Killian, exhilarated and almost breathless, couldn’t let her go.

“Wait, I –” He caught her in the hallway, her hand resting on the door to the spinning wheel room. She whirled around to face him expectantly, eyes ablaze. “I’ll do it. I’ll help you.”

The corner of her mouth curved upwards, a smirk rising into place.

Killian swallowed. He’d been at her mercy since the moment he laid eyes on her.

“Just… tell me what you need me to do.”

#jay writes #a house is never still #cs role reversal #cs fic #cs ff #captain swan #cs au #cs halloweek #gonna go ahead and still tag those #killian jones #emma swan #I hope you guys like this!#also those on the taglist must feel free to tell me to jog on #hahaha

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missmalice202 · 5 years ago

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Designing Your Melody: Chapter 05 - Hands

Chapter 01 - Chapter 04

Nose scrunching up to combat the savory scent of freshly baked bread tickling her nostrils, Marinette groaned and burrowed deeper under her blanket, blocking out the bright rays of sunlight streaming through the skylight above her bed. Desperately clinging to her slumber, she rolled over in an attempt to find a more comfortable position- only to feel gravity take hold as she rolled right off the side of her bed.

Hitting the floor with a muffled THUMP, she struggled to free herself from her blanket burrito. With a gasp as she finally freed herself from her downy prison, she rubbed her head to soothe the ache where it had connected with the floor. It was days like this that she was glad that there were still guard rails around her loft to prevent her from rolling right over the edge and plummeting down to the main area below. Now THAT would be an awful way to greet the day.

Her eyes widened when she glanced up at the skylight and saw how late in the day it was. She was supposed to be helping her parents out this morning down at the bakery, not sleeping the day away like a tranquilized sloth! Clamoring to her feet, she grabbed her comforter and threw it back on her bed, haphazardly shaking it out to make it look at least a little presentable. She rushed down her ladder, missing a rung in the middle and fell the rest of the way down into the main living area of her room. She made a bee-line to her closet and took out the first two articles of clothing she laid her hands on before stumbling down her trap door and ricocheting off the wall, finally making her way into the bathroom to change her clothes and brush her teeth.

With a final slide down the bottom half of the stairs, she landed in the bakery on her butt, causing her parents to look over at her and chuckle.

“Maman, Papa! Why didn’t you wake me up?! Didn’t you say that you had a big order to complete for a bridal shower or something?”

Sabine Cheng dusted the stray flour off her apron and strode over to her clumsy daughter. She gently grabbed her hand and helped up back to her feet. “Sweetie, you’ve been working so hard lately; you deserve a break. Your father and I can handle it ourselves, so you just worry about your own responsibilities.” She reached up to stroke her hand over her daughter’s disheveled hair.

“Besides,” her father, Tom, interjected with his booming, cheerful voice, “didn’t you say something about a fitting today?”

Walking over to the peg where her own apron hung, Marinette slipped it over her head and tied it behind her back. “Yeah, but that’s not until later this afternoon. I can help you guys out until then.” She smiled as she grabbed a tray of warm, flaky croissants and strode around the workstation to the front where the display case was located. Luckily, it seemed that the morning rush had ended and there was a lull in customers. She took this opportunity to replace anything that was running low in the display while her parents stayed in the kitchen and worked on the bridal shower order.

Times like these - where she could spend a lazy Thursday morning with her parents in the bakery - were some of her favorite. Over the years, she had come to truly appreciate how lucky she was to have such a loving and supportive family. Especially considering that she knew someone very well who didn’t have that kind of relationship with his own father.

It came as no surprise that with how tight knit her friendship with Alya, Nino, and Adrien was, there had been many times over the years that Marinette had dragged Adrien home with her after a study session so he could have dinner with her family instead of sitting down at an empty table to eat in solitude. She couldn’t get away with it very often considering how strictly his father monitored his son from a distance, but when she could, she made sure that the lonely boy who had captivated her young, naïve heart wouldn’t be alone to wallow in his own sadness.

And her parents had been absolutely wonderful and opened their home to Adrien and always made sure that he knew he was welcome at their table whenever he wanted to join them. For the longest time, they had been supportive of their daughter’s infatuation with the handsome, blond boy and had secretly hoped that he would eventually become a true member of their family.

When Marinette had eventually put her schoolgirl crush on him behind her, her parents had encouraged her to keep bringing Adrien home with her to join them for dinner from time to time. They truly cared about him and wanted to take care of him, as much as they could.

So it wasn’t a surprise to Marinette that when she heard the bell above the bakery’s door jingle, she saw her blond friend stride through the door.

“Good morning, Marinette. Helping your parents out today?” Adrien walked over and leaned his forearms on the countertop.

“Yup. They’re getting ready for a bridal shower delivery, so I’m manning the counter for them since I’m done with the sample for Jagged’s new look and I’ve got some free time until I have to bring it over for his fitting.” She wiped down the counter and watched a grin creep over his lips.

“So, it’s a simple matter of give and ‘bake’ then?” He chuckled at his own pun.

Marinette rolled her eyes and shook her head at her ridiculous friend. “Wow, Adrien. That was just painful. Just… don’t.”

“What ‘dough’ you mean, Mari?” He leaned even closer, fluttering his eyelashes as he grinned playfully and he watched his friend try to suppress her laughter.

“God, you’re awful. How can you stand to be so corny? If your fangirls knew how horrible your puns were, they’d turn in their fanclub membership cards.” she giggled and covered her face so she wouldn’t have to watch him continue to make exaggerated faces at her.

With one final chuckle, he backed away and perused the display case, inspecting the wares for sale. “I’m no worried about that happening any time soon. I just stopped in to grab something to eat before I went to class. Can I get a couple of croissants for the road?”

She grabbed her tongs and placed a few croissants in a bag for him. “Here you go. It’s on the house. You know your money is no good here.”

Taking the bag from her, he smirked. “How do you expect your parents to make any ‘dough’ that way?”

Slapping her hand over her face, she just groaned. Sometimes she wished he hadn’t gotten so comfortable around her. His puns sometimes were really bad.

“By the way, when do you have to be over at Roth Records for the fitting?”

Marinette peeked through her fingers at Adrien. Apparently, he was done being silly. “Actually, in about 45 minutes. You just caught me as I was about to get cleaned up and head over to the studio.”

He glanced at the watch on his wrist. “I have a little bit of time before I have to get to class. Would you like a ride so you don’t have to get a taxi or take the metro with your precious cargo?”

She hesitated for a minute, then relented. It would be much more convenient to accept his offer. After all, she felt like he owed her for having to endure his terrible jokes. “Sure. That’d actually be a big help. Give me a few minutes to get ready and we can head out.”

After she hung up her apron and started up the stairs to her room, Adrien leaned over the counter to call after her, “Take all the time you… ‘knead’.” He laughed when he heard her groan echo down the stairs.

-xXx-xXx-xXx-xXx-xXx-xXx-xXx-

In stark contrast to Marinette’s busy morning, Luka was enjoying a leisurely day off. Sitting on the couch in the main cabin of his houseboat, he lazily plucked the strings of his guitar, not really playing any song in particular, just enjoying the feeling of the strings beneath his fingertips. Eventually, though, the tune that had been burrowing through his brain couldn’t be ignored any longer.

He carefully plucked the strings, coaxing the melody out into the open where he could flesh it out and tweak it until it really started to resonate with his soul. He felt like he was on the verge of some sort of breakthrough when he was jarred back to reality by the shrill ring of his cell phone.

Carefully setting his guitar next to him, he looked at the display: Penny Rollings. He briefly wondered what Jagged Stone’s agent could possibly want with him so soon, then accepted the call.

“Hey, Miss Rollings, what can I do for you?”

He heard her sigh on the other end. “Luka, I’ve already asked you to call me ‘Penny’,” she admonished. “The reason I’m calling is because we need you in the studio again. Apparently, when Mr. Roth listened to the recording we did yesterday, he wasn’t satisfied with the final cut and wants you and Jagged to go over it again. Do you have any time this afternoon?”

Mentally saying goodbye to his ‘day off’, Luka replied, “Sure. What time should I come by?”

He heard rhythmic tapping, letting him know that she was tapping on her tablet, probably checking her artist’s schedule. “Can you make it around three o’clock? Jagged has a fitting before then, but it shouldn’t take too long.”

He agreed to the meeting and ended the call. Tucking his phone into the back pocket of his ripped, black jeans, he grabbed his signature leather riding jacket and threw it on over his slashed white Jagged Stone band tee. Carelessly shoving his feet into scuffed combat boots, he slung his guitar over his shoulder and headed out. He had some time to kill and decided that busking in the park would be a bit more productive that continuing to obsess over his mystery song.

-xXx-xXx-xXx-xXx-xXx-xXx-xXx-

“Marinette, my awesome girl, you’ve outdone yourself this time!” Refusing to stand still as he admired himself in the mirror, Jagged stone yelped once again as Marinette accidentally poked him with yet another pin as she tried to adjust the fit of the toxic purple lapels of the rock god’s jacket. From the moment he had donned her latest creation, he hadn’t stopped complimenting Marinette’s handiwork. She had managed to properly fit the sample she had brought of the pants she had made for Jagged without too much bloodshed, but she supposed that was only due to the close proximity of sharp objects to the man’s family jewels.

Apparently, once he was no longer in danger of being stabbed in his delicates, the amped up rock star decided that standing still for a proper fitting wasn’t necessary. Hoping to distract him, Marinette asked him how the progress on his next album was coming. “I’m impressed that you’re already working on your next album before the one you just finished is even released.”

Her subtle distraction worked. He gazed fondly at the top of her head as she made a minute adjustment to the hem of his jacket. “Music’s in my blood and rock ‘n roll is in my soul. You know how it is to be a slave to your craft. I can tell just by lookin’ at the awesome art you create that you have that same passion inside your soul.”

She stilled her hands for a minute as she thought about what he had said. “You know, you’re very right.”

With a final pin placement, Marinette announced that she was done with the fitting and he could take of the sample clothing she had brought as long as he was careful not to knock off any of the pins.

Once he was clad once again in his signature sequined blazer, he flopped down on a couch pushed against one of the fitting room walls. Delicately packing her creation in it’s designated garment bag, she jumped when she heard a knock on the door.

Jagged Stone’s agent poked her head into the room and announced, “Jagged, if you’re done here, you’re needed in studio four.”

Groaning, he flopped his shaggy head against the back of the couch. “Can’t I get a break, Penny? You’ve got me runnin’ non-stop since I woke up. You’re stifling my creative juices,” he complained.

Not wanting to witness the inevitable argument between the temperamental artist and his fed up agent, Marinette quietly gathered her things and snuck out of the room, not bothering to interrupt the other two to say her goodbyes.

She made her way through the labyrinth of hallways toward the elevator so she could head back home. But she stopped in her tracks when she heard… something.

It was the most beautiful song she’d ever heard. The simple guitar playing tugged at her heartstrings in a way nothing had before and she was captivated. She’d never heard anything like it. This song spoke to her and demanded that she listen.

Following the sound, she made her way down the hall until she found the source of the music: a young man sitting in an empty recording studio.

She wiped away the sudden tears that gathered in her eyes and gazed into the room at the musician. His head was bent over his guitar, his teal tipped black hair obscuring her view of his face. His lips wore a soft smile and he touched her heart with his song. She watched as his hands danced over the strings of his guitar, effortlessly bringing to life his hypnotic tune.

She continued to stare in wonder at his hands. She could scarcely believe that those black tipped digits could evoke such emotions within her with just a guitar. The longer she looked at them, taking in every detail, from the ring he wore on his left index finger to the rugged leather cuff he wore on his right wrist, the more she suspected that she’d seen those hands before.

Shaking her head to clear her mind, she reached up and slowly wrapped her fingers around the door handle.

In the distance, she could suddenly hear the sounds of Jagged Stone and Penny bickering as they approached.

She quickly backed away and took off toward the elevator, once again not wanting to get caught in the awkward situation of listening to them fight.

Not realizing that the slight sound she had made when she released the doorknob was enough to catch the attention of the guitarist she had been watching. He jerked his head up just in time to see midnight blue hair streak in front of the window as she ran off. Shrugging it off, he returned his attention to his instrument and continued to play his secret song.

Chapter 06

*Ooooh, so close, yet so far. You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you? Nope. Our sweet baes are going to have to suffer a little longer, don’t you think? mwahahaha! But, I will say that we’re getting warmer.

Until next time, lovelies XOXO*

#lukanette #lukanette february #mlvalentines2k20 #marinette dupain cheng #luka couffaine #lukanette fic #ml fanfic #slow burn #so close yet so far

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meimikana · 5 years ago

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random silliness i wrote to cheer up my friend from twitter yesterday, too short and plotless to post to ao3 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

---

"I'm bored."

Yusaku did not look up from his tablet, not that he needed to. As soon as he'd decided to curl himself up at the head of his bed in lieu of getting another backache from his desk chair again (he was just going to have to bite the bullet and get a new one soon), Ai had ever so gracelessly flopped himself across the foot of the bed. Even now the twit was half hanging off the side, both legs straight up in the air, waving to and fro in the exact position that would put them at the center of his view if he looked up from his work. And if he did so, Yusaku would be required to make a comment on them, otherwise Ai would start poking him both verbally and physically until Yusaku kicked him off the bed or something. Which wasn't a bad idea. There would be screeching, there was always screeching, but he was kind of used to that by now. The only time he ever really needed to worry about anything was when Ai got quiet. Which was definitely not happening at the moment.

"Yu~sa~ku, I'm booooooored."

Oh, he almost sounded plaintive there. He really must be bored. Tragic. Truly.

"Are you even listening to me?"

And there was the slight hint of annoyance. Like clockwork. "No."

A low level growl filled the bedroom as Ai very exaggeratedly rose from his ungainly sprawl, slithered up the bed, and gripped the top of the tablet none too gently. Those stunning golden eyes were glowing with barely concealed ire, but Yusaku completely ignored them and focused instead on the expertly polished nails that were now on display for his appraisal. Gold. With little purple metallic hearts painted on them. "Nice color," Yusaku remarked blandly as he nudged one of those fingers out of his way, "Goes well with your eyes."

There was a moment of silence then, and Yusaku knew that if he looked up right about now that he'd be witness to the epitome of frustration. Because while Ai might be bored, he was also very, very easy, and a compliment like that tended to send him off swooning like a shoujo manga heroine. With the requisite flowers and bubbles. Because, yes, it was Ai, and he was so very adept at those holograms of his. But no, the fingers merely tightened further, then pushed the tablet down and out of the way. Ai flopped face down into his lap immediately afterwards, arms slithering up as those fingers gripped at Yusaku's hips instead. A muffled "Pay attention to me." issued forth, and really, this was quite the setup. Yusaku almost felt like he should pull out a golf clap or something.

"If you wanted sex, you could have just said so," Yusaku pointed out as he moved his tablet even further out of the way.

Ai shifted around a bit, just enough so that he could turn his head and glare balefully up at Yusaku with one of those still glowing golden eyes. "I don't just want you for sex," Ai grumped while sporting a petulant pout.

"No, you don't," Yusaku agreed easily enough as he buried his own fingers in the dark golden mane splayed out over his lap, "but it is one of the perks you really like." Ai really was ever so pretty. And so very easy. A satisfied smirk crossed Yusaku's face as he started lightly scratching at Ai's scalp in the exact way he knew would have his exceedingly difficult partner melting into a puddle of purring mush in no time at all.

A hint of rosy heat climbed up Ai's visible cheek before he hid his face back in Yusaku's lap again. "Maybe."

Yusaku quirked an eyebrow at that and carefully considered his next step, then very deliberately removed his hand from Ai's hair and started reaching for his tablet. "Well, in that case, I really do need to finish this up."

The fingers grasping at his hips clamped down even further, hard enough that Yusaku was pretty sure that he'd be sporting handprint shaped bruises tomorrow, and then Ai shot up, golden eyes sparking with pure indignation as he pinned Yusaku back against the wall. "Don't ignore me!" Ai hissed as he leaned forward, practically plastering himself against Yusaku even as he pushed him further against the wall.

It was an uncomfortable position, but he knew it wouldn't last very long. These games never did. Instead, Yusaku merely smiled, tilted his head up, and gave Ai a quick peck on the tip end of his nose.

Ai squeaked and jerked back in response, his hands flying up to cover the offended extremity. He sulked like that for a minute or two, then shot an even more indignant glare at Yusaku. "Why are you like this?"

"Because it's me," Yusaku stated matter-of-factly as he reached up and pried Ai's hands away from his face, swiping his fingers tenderly across rose dusted cheeks, before reaching back further to wrap them around the back of Ai's neck. "And that's what you want," he murmured knowingly as he pulled Ai in slowly, lips meeting at the last in the gentlest of kisses, a contented sigh chasing away the gold-tinted frustration and giving way to a happier glow. There were multiple ways to make Ai melt, and Yusaku knew every single one of them.

#aiballshipping #YuAi

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skia-oura · 6 years ago

Text

The Pros and Cons of Surviving an Unstable Pocket Dimension

A/N: I haven’t worked on any Bentley & Co stuff in almost a year. And yet, I found myself wiping the dust of an old WIP a few days ago. Enjoy.

Ao3

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“All right, we’re going to need to take you aside for further investigation,” the security agent said, gently guiding Bentley to another room. “Your luggage will also have to be searched through.”

The first time this had happened had been in a grocery store, and Bentley had just about fled the scene after they were done checking for stolen items. He and Torako had also decided to never go to that particular store again—not that it mattered much, because it was closed a week later. Dipper denied any involvement. Bentley knew Alcor better than to believe that particular declaration. Torako had been seen discreetly high-fiving the perpetrator. Bentley had pretended not to see it. Life went on.

The second time, he’d entered a museum exhibit on the rise and fall of civilizations and how their technology had influenced their lifespans and lifestyles. The alarms had blared, he’d been pulled aside and interrogated about what piece he’d just stolen from the museum. When he said he’d just come in, it took two hours and an extensive check of their inventory to decide that he was telling the truth. In all, he’d just been incredulous and frustrated.

Now, on the third major incident—he was just numb to it.

“I have a doctor’s note,” Bentley said. He gestured back at the luggage checking terminal. “It’s on my phone, in my bag.” He’d gotten it after the museum incident.

“We’ll bring it to you after we’ve checked everything out,” the security agent said, frilled ears fluttering. The door shut behind them, and Bentley pushed down hard on the nerves that it caused. His therapist, who had not been told nearly everything that had occurred and was under the strictest of non-disclosure agreements as concocted by Torako and Dipper, said that it was fine to react poorly to being shut in a room. Bentley understood that. So did Torako and Dipper, who often took to leaving the doors in their new home open. Sometimes they even took it a little too far. Unfortunately, understanding it was fine to react poorly didn’t really change the fact that he was reacting poorly—heartrate up, breathing short, patchwork hands gripping the fabric of his long skirt.

The door opened. “Can I see some ID, please?”

“Of course.” Bentley worked his fingers out of their stiff grip on his clothing. “It’s on my phone, however.”

The agent squinted at him with her three eyes. “Why do you keep asking for your phone so much?”

“All of my important information is on it,” Bentley said. He was really going to have to look into analogue options, apparently, if he wanted to have any kind of expediency in his life. “Usually I have my phone on me to clear up misunderstandings.”

She continued to squint at him, but nodded and left the room. The door clicked shut behind her. He couldn’t tell whether or not it was locked. Bentley closed his eyes and tried to regulate his breathing. It actually halfway worked, which was pleasantly surprising. He opened his eyes, and looked at the room. The room which was bare, save for a lonely, somewhat drooping poster in the corner about alerting the authorities to suspicious behavior in the terminal. It was faded. The section visible behind the poster was darker than the surrounding wall.

The door opened. Bentley turned his attention away from the sad poster to the agent, who passed his phone over. “Please pull up your identification.”

Bentley complied, pulling up the code that would allow the agent to access his public ID. She passed a fancy new flat scanner over it, shimmering with magic, and it chirped before lighting up his ID in hologram form. He had a second to think everything will be fine before the next half-second, in which he saw his photo and thought oh right fuck.

The agent squinted her already squinty eyes further. “…skin tone seems different.”

“There was an accident.” Bentley made a mental note to get his photo updated. Soon. As soon as possible.

“Face is also differently shaped.”

“Accident included weight loss,” Bentley said, frowning. He’d been very comfortable at his previous weight, thank you, and putting it back in a healthy way was taking much more time than usual. The wardrobe situation was unideal. Over by the door, a corner of the poster suddenly gave up and drooped down. Bentley empathized.

“One of your eyes is…gold now?”

“Same accident. It’s very frustrating.”

“I’m sorry, I’m not sure this is sufficient,” the agent said.

She dug out an attachment to her scanner and passed it over to Bentley. “Please rest your right forefinger on the print scanner.”

That should work. Maybe now he’d finally be on his way to his work conference, where he could take out his frustration by tearing apart presentations by people who made mistakes they should have known better than to make. Bentley pressed his forefinger to the screen. It played a jaunty, tinny tune while it analyzed the results, and then beeped ominously. Bentley stared at his finger in betrayal.

The agent peered at the screen. “…fingerprint also seems slightly off the record.”

Bentley tried one last time to turn her attention where it really belonged. “Can I please show you my doctor’s note?”

She huffed and put away the scanner and its fingerprint reading attachment. Energy like dust motes trailed in its wake before fading into nothing. “Sir,” she said, folding both of her arms, “I’m going to need you to stay in here while I call terminal police to get to the bottom of this situation.”

“Okay,” he said, screaming on the inside. “I understand.”

It took him five hours, several phone calls, and a set of lackluster apologies from all parties involved before Bentley was through security. He had missed his transaction time by a long shot, but still managed to be on his way quickly thereafter.

The fourth time a similar event happened was two days later, at the terminal he’d transacted into. It took him seven hours, that time, and three different translators who tried to disagree on fiddly translation bits.

The following day, Bentley went down to the police station. He updated his biographics, his address (which had also been an issue), received analogue documents in duplicate, and endured a lot of awkward small talk from Officer Akuapem. There, he thought to himself. Nothing bad will happen now.

Then he entered a nearby bookstore, having remembered Torako’s birthday coming up, and single-handedly sent the entire store into siren-blaring lockdown.

One thing that Bentley hadn’t anticipated about constantly emanating magical energy was that his phone never lost charge as long as it was in his hand. He noticed this a week after they’d moved into their new house, having confused and possibly terrified the poor realtor in charge of their case.

“Huh,” he said aloud in the living room, lounging about after work with Torako—who was not lounging around, and instead was researching leads into her very first case as a private investigator. She’d moaned about the piles of paperwork the whole time, but had done it anyways. Such were the perils of working for yourself.

“Huh?” Torako echoed absentmindedly. She twirled the tablet stylus between her fingers, energy become solid. Bentley knew that if he lifted his special reading glasses, it would be shimmering with magic more than it already was.

“How long have we been sitting down here again?”

“About two hours, I think?” Torako underlined something, then slid the tab out into thin air to interact with the 3-D image attachment. She mumbled something to herself about plausible cause and environmental influences and then worried at her lips.

Bentley stared at his phone battery. It was at 97%. He’d been doing some heavy-duty stuff on his phone, like watching dumb videos between watching relevant TADtalk clips about things like the impact of magic on people’s lives or one argument against non-disclosure agreements. He was currently paused on a video discussing Alcor the Dreambender. It had some very strange ideas about how many souls Alcor consisted of.

“Huh,” he said again. Then he opened his mouth and said, “You know, I think I’ve actually charged my phone sitting here.”

If it had been one of his coworkers, they might have challenged that notion, or laughed it off as a joke. Torako, on the other hand, paused, turned her attention away from her case, and raised an eyebrow. “Charged your phone? Where’s your charging pad?”

“In our room.” Bentley frowned at his phone. The percentage ticked up from 97% to 98%. “It…literally went up just now.”

Torako gasped and rocked up from sitting to standing. “You’re the charger!”

Bentley pursed his lips. “The phone is a bit on the old side, the software might be going buggy. I doubt it’s me.”

Instead of seeing sense, Torako thrust her tablet into his face. He leaned back a little and blinked the brightness out of his eyes. “Do mine next!”

He looked at the display. 11%. “You should really charge this more often, you know,” he said, like a person who put his phone on its charging stand every night before bed.

“It runs until it dies,” said Torako, who often forgot to charge hers and therefore had a stash of portable energy clips stashed in odd places around the house. Why she needed two in the bathroom was a mystery. “Or rather, it runs until it is resurrected by your literally magic hands.”

Bentley sighed. He took her tablet in his ‘literally magic’ hands and stared at her with the most deadpan expression he could muster. In response, Torako stared very intently at the percentage icon in the top right corner. In the space above the tablet, an image of a fairly normal looking townhouse loomed over them, apathetic to the tension of the moment.

Two minutes later—Bentley kept an eye on the clock as well—Bentley sighed. “Look, Torako. Nothing has happened.”

“Keep holding it, buddy,” Torako said.

“But nothing has happened. I told you, it’s a quirk of faulty software on my phone.”

He’d just shut his mouth when Torako let out a whoop of victory and punched a fist into the air. “Take that, it went up!”

Sure enough, when Bentley glanced over to check, the battery icon was displaying a damning 12%.

“Your software is bad too,” Bentley said, weakly.

“My tablet is seven months old,” Torako cackled.

“It’s faulty,” he tried. “Bad tech. You should get a refund.”

Torako ruffled his hair. “It’s top of the line and you know it. I ain’t afraid to spend money on quality things.”

“Good things sometimes don’t work right?” he said, knowing he had lost and still unwilling to face reality. The gleam in Torako’s eye scared him.

“Give it up, sucker. Your magic hands are magic charging hands now.” She sat down on the couch right next to him and turned the tablet around in his hands. “Now, keep still so I can keep working longer.”

Bentley dropped the tablet and felt vindicated by the way she squawked. “Can’t have my hands if I’m using them,” he said, and promptly walked away to go take a shower.

The next day, he came home having mostly forgotten about the incident and felt tired enough to take a nap on the couch. When he woke up, Torako’s tablet was propped up against his bare stomach, and she was working again.

“You’ll be pleased to know,” she said, grinning and scribbling down some notes in a tab laying across her legs, “that the more direct contact a magitech device has against your skin, the quicker it charges.”

Bentley smacked her with the couch cushion. She cackled, smacked him back, and very soon the tablet was forgotten on the couch as they hurled pillows at each other like children.

Lucas Onderon was a smart person. Very smart; it’s why he had a job in the thinktank of one of the first viable sigils research centers. He churned out ideas and made connections at a speed that sometimes made Bentley feel jealous. Unfortunately, whenever he tried to apply his theories, things inevitably went wrong.

Bentley, glasses perched on his forehead, pointed at a sigil combination that was sparking dangerously to his left eye. “That’s going to explode in your face if you don’t change it.”

Lucas rolled his eyes and flapped his hand in Bentley’s face. “I get it, you think you’re all hot stuff with your special face and your special eyes, but I know what I’m doing! Everything’s fine. Go pay attention to your own souped-up basic shit.”

Across the room, very far away, Ziyi flicked her very large, very sensitive ears and looked up from her own work. “Uh, you might actually want to listen to Bentley? The Bentley Farkas? Who literally has a magic eye now and therefore is extra listenable to?”

Bentley very carefully did not react to the thought that he was surrounded by people who called his body parts magical. Torako had very suddenly wondered aloud at how the magic affected his reproductive system was before freezing and hiding her face in her hands. The fact that it had embarrassed her as much as it had embarrassed him was the only thing that saved her from some nasty prank later on.

On the other hand, Dipper had cackled for all of five seconds before Bentley snapped that he had Dipper’s sister’s soul, and did Dipper really want to think about that? Dipper shut up very quickly after that. Dipper had also woken up in the middle of the night to ice-cubes being slipped down the back of his neck. The screech was very satisfying.

“Who even cares?” Lucas said, consulting his notes for reference as to where he planned to set the severance line. He drummed his painted nails against the surface of the table next to the special sigils testing paper before him.

Bentley sighed. It was his job as supervisor, he told himself. He had no room to judge right now, he told himself. “Seriously. It’s going to explode, and you will not be happy. At least move your notes to a safer range so that you can review them later?”

Instead of listening to Bentley’s very good advice, Lucas stuck out his tongue and started to draw the line. Bentley, because he wasn’t a saint, shut up and moved to a safe distance as he watched the magic spark higher and more violently with every other second. Ziyi groaned and slid one four-fingered hand up her face. Lucas faltered right before crossing the problematic sigil combo, but then continued. Incompletely cut sigils had even odds of either just going dead or exploding with energy, so Bentley felt it was a pretty fair call. Except for the part that, you know, he had told Lucas not to in the first place.

As he thought, the moment the line cut through the sigil combo, the magic pulsed, Bentley closed his eyes, and there was an explosion that shook the room. Bentley felt the hum of the room’s containment sigils as they absorbed most of the shock and prevented structural damage. He counted to two, then opened his eyes.

Lucas blinked, eyes wide, freckled face red from heat exposure and pink-dyed hair blown into disarray. He looked so utterly surprised that Bentley couldn’t help snorting in laughter. When Lucas’s attention snapped over to him, Bentley turned around and tried to muffle his amusement in his hand.

“Stop laughing!” Lucas said. “This was—this was—this was terrible! A disaster!! My work is all gone!” The explosion had damaged his notes, as well, and Bentley wouldn’t be surprised if they were largely illegible now.

“He warned you, you know,” Ziyi said.

“He probably made it worse by standing so close!” Lucas said. Bentley’s laughter faded in his chest. “If he wasn’t here, it probably wouldn’t have even exploded.”

“Holy shit, dude,” Ziyi said. Bentley’s hand stayed over his mouth. Guilt roiled in his gut—what if it had been his fault? What if he’d influenced an already unsteady sigil combination into instability? “Stop blaming your explosion on the dude who tried to help out?”

“You know he’s throwing magic out everywhere, all the time,” Lucas argued.

Ziyi scoffed. Bentley wondered how fast he could make it out the door. “And you know that you have a tendency to think too fast and overlook important factors! You should check over your own damn work after letting it sit for a while.”

This was true, Bentley thought. Lucas did think too fast, and he didn’t proofread nearly enough for his own projects. From his sputtering, Lucas was also aware of this shortcoming, and that gave Bentley enough strength to compose himself and turn around. And not head straight for the door like he wanted to. Anyways, that was behind Lucas, and he didn’t want to go past Lucas at this point.

“Hopefully,” Bentley said, burying his insecurity and slipping his glasses back down onto his nose, “this finally teaches you to take a bit more time with your work. You really are smart, Lucas. Just take more time.”

Lucas blinked, and then his youthful face clouded over with resentment even under the exposing white lights of the sterile room around them. “That’s easy for you to say,” he sneered. “You’re already established and important.”

“And it took time to get there,” Bentley said. He held his hands behind his back to hide how they were trembling. “Time, and care, and a lot of frustration.”

“Lucas has got that last one pinned down,” Ziyi snarked. Bentley threw an exasperated look over to her, and she ducked her face with a sheepish grin. The white lights of the room slid over her single giraffe-like horn, dulled by the overlying coating of stubbly fur.

In response, Lucas threw up his hands and stood. “I’m done! You have what you want! I’m leaving the practical testing room and going back to where I belong, on the drawing board.”

“Okay,” Bentley said, because there was no reasoning with Lucas when he was acting like this. “You go do that.”

Lucas swiped the remains of his notes up and glowered at Bentley on his way out. If the door hadn’t hissed shut, he might have slammed it. There was silence for a long moment, during which Bentley stared over at the wisps of burned paper, ashes spread over the table and the floor. He didn’t want to see whether or not they glittered with magic.

“I’ll go get a vacuum,” Ziyi said, finally.

“No, no, I’ll go,” Bentley said. He smiled over at her. She didn’t look like she thought it was sincere, which was unfortunate because he was trying very hard to seem sincere. “I have to…think,” he said.

Ziyi leaned back in her seat and folded her arms. Scales glittered iridescent along the curve of her cheekbone and down the bridge of her nose. “He doesn’t actually hate you, you know,” she said. “He’s just…frustrated and jealous. Don’t stitch what he said into your soul, yanno? It’ll just give your reincarnations inferiority issues or something.”

Bentley smiled again at her. “I think my reincarnations are already screwed,” he said, thinking of Alcor.

“Hey, I know plenty of people who think having a magic eye would be cool,” she said, unfolding her arms and leaning forward. “Your reincarnations aren’t screwed for that, silly.”

“I don’t think that’s how reincarnations work,” Bentley said dryly. Otherwise, he’d be a lot more like the Original Mable Pines (or whoever was first, if there was a first). “I’m going to go get that vacuum, okay?”

If it took him twenty minutes and a fifteen minute rapid text exchange with Torako in a supply closet several doors down, then that was clearly a lie and never happened. No, his eyes were not red and he wasn’t suddenly congested, thank you very much. And yes, he was wearing gloves because he was just conscientious about keeping his hands clean, not for any other reason.

He couldn’t resist lifting his glasses and glancing at Ziyi’s current project, though, trying to make something that shrinked and unshrinked on command. “Ah,” he said, pointing his finger. “You sure you want to make that combination there?”

“Is it going to explode?” she asked, peering at the combination in question. “It’s just longevity and size, you know. It won’t stick it there, will it?”

“But linking it to that change sign might not be the best idea—look, that change is also the one used for instability, isn’t it? It might make something that’s been made small suddenly become large again.” Bentley stayed very carefully as far away as he could while still looking at the sigils.

Ziyi groaned and slapped her hands on her face. “Nooo, no you’re right, I completely forgot about that change sigil.”

“You might want to combo fluctuation up with a standard kind of sigil with a mid-level small sigil, and then link it to longevity.” Bentley suggested.

“That’s so many though,” Ziyi said, fingers dragging down on her cheeks enough that Bentley could see the pink skin under her eyes. For a moment she was silent, staring down at her sketchpad. Then she jerked up straight, dragged her sketchpad towards herself, and started scribbling down unbroken sigils and ideas. “But if I—Bentley you’re a lifesaver—if I set the combo up concentrically, then—”

He grinned a little. “I’ll leave you to it,” he said. Bentley turned around, tiny vacuum in his hands, and narrowed his eyes at his worktable a few steps away.

Time to wrestle with the basics again.

One quiet Sunday evening, when Torako was gone to speak with a client, Bentley sat in the living room on the couch they’d had since college and stared down at his hands. Ostensibly, he was supposed to be relaxing, or cooking, or getting the garden outside started as Torako and he had planned. That obviously wasn’t happening. Instead, he sat in the golden-orange light filtering in past the translucent inner curtains hung over the French doors leading outside and stared down at his hands.

They were patchworked in different tones, in slightly different textures that didn’t quite blend into each other seamlessly. When he turned his palms over the patchwork wrapped around, crossed his palmar creases and rounded through the whorls of his fingerpads. His fingerprints weren’t the same as before, he remembered. How deep down did the changes really go? How far had the pocket dimension embedded itself in him, in his DNA, to change the smallest parts of his body so subtly? The doctors had said there was nothing physically wrong with him but—he was so cold, and his fingerprints were different, and his eyes were different his skin was different he could feel magic—

He curled and uncurled his hands, slowly, watching the light slide over his skin, watching the shadows bloom before creeping away. Bentley bent his head closer, brought his hands up, and inspected the beds of his fingernails, ran his thumbnails over the surfaces of them. He’d never paid this much attention to his hands before, he thought. That being said, he was—pretty sure that they had never glittered before. When he shut his left eye, the glittering disappeared. A sudden lump in his throat, Bentley closed both his eyes and leaned back. The sun shone dim through his eyelids until he squeezed his eyes shut and counted the seconds for each inhale and exhale.

There was a sudden thrum of energy, like friction skittering over the exposed skin of his arms and setting his hair to stand on end. Bentley opened his eyes just as an arm settled slowly over his shoulder. Only the knowledge that it was Dipper stopped him from jumping, and even then he couldn’t not stiffen just a little.

“Hey Ben,” Dipper said. “It’s been a while?”

“It’s been seven hours,” Bentley drawled. “How was it at Batoor’s new place?”

“Peaceful,” Dipper said. “He’s doing well, excited about college life next month and all that. Haji says to say hello. I also stopped to say hello to the Pines, and they were wondering when you and Torako were going to come out next. Lata especially.”

Bentley pursed his lips. He flexed his fingers, then gripped his legs with his hands and stood. Dipper’s arm slid off him in a rasp of not-quite-real fabric. “I’m going to take a shower.”

“Bentley?”

He threw a quick smile over his shoulder, but Dipper looked far from convinced. “It’s fine, I just was reminded I needed one.”

“Bentley…”

Fortunately, Dipper didn’t follow him into the bathroom. He didn’t protest when the door shut, or the lights turned on, or when Bentley said nothing else. Bentley chewed at the inside of his lip and looked at himself in the mirror.

Haji had never apologized, he remembered. Not in words, at least. Bentley leaned forward, putting his weight on his arms, and traced the contours of his face’s reflection. Haji didn’t seem to want to look at Bentley for very long, the two times that Bentley had interacted with him after the pocket dimension incident. Not that Bentley blamed him for that, he thought. His face wasn’t exactly his anymore.

The thought struck his breath in his chest for a few seconds before Bentley gritted his teeth and shoved it away. He thought he’d been over this. He’d thought that he’d come to terms with his new look. With the new needs that came with it, in the forms of two kinds of moisturizer and an extra delicate facewash. His gaze flicked between both of his eyes, the dark eye he had inherited from his parents, the light eye he had inherited from his trauma. Magic sparkled over nearly everything he saw. He suddenly wanted his glasses, wanted to try to forget that his body was no longer one he recognized. Bentley stared at himself in the mirror and was hit by a longing for the him of last year that had him biting his lip and ducking his head against the tears in his eyes.

Bentley sunk to the cold tile floor, the heels of his palms digging into the wells of his eyes and wiping away the water springing forth from them. He curled his body into itself, bare feet dragging against ceramic patterned like ocean waves. Torako had loved them when they’d first looked at the house. The breath sucked into him was almost immediately dispelled. He ran his fingers through his short hair and tugged as hard as he could, baring his teeth against the pain in his chest. “I’m still me,” he whispered into the stillness of the bathroom. His heart beat out, no you’re not, no you’re not, no you’re not, and he curled in tighter on himself.

“Bentley just—let me in, please.”

“No,” Bentley just managed to say. “I’m taking a shower.”

“No you’re not,” Dipper said. The door opened, and Bentley did his best to hide his face, but it didn’t help. “I can read auras, you know.”

Bentley hated Dipper, very suddenly. It wasn’t right to, but he did. “Go away!”

“No,” Dipper said. He slid down the wall to sit next to Bentley, close enough that Bentley could feel the heat of him but far enough that they weren’t actually touching. Bentley wasn’t sure what he would do if Dipper touched him right now. “You need somebody. You don’t need to be left alone with your thoughts.”

“You wouldn’t understand,” Bentley said like an absolute child.

“Try me,” Dipper said, echoing that age-old reply. “I’ve lived for like, millennia, I’ve experienced a lot. Maybe it’ll help.”

Bentley sniffled loud and wet and tried to calm down by counting breaths again. “I don’t like talking about it,” he said.

“Take your time,” Dipper said. He shifted. When Bentley sneaked a glance, Dipper had stretched out his legs, one ankle crossed over the other, the hems of his pants cut a few centimeters above his ankles and tailored tight around his calves. The fabric shimmered blue—not with magic, but because Dipper was a showboat.

So Bentley nodded, pressed his face into his knees and covered his ears, and just tried to be. He counted his breaths—one to three in, one two three out, over and over. He focused on the pressure of his knees against his forehead, the coolness of the tile against the soles of his feet, the subtle hum against his skin that he always got now when Dipper was around. He was there. He was alive.

It was strange to think that, all those months ago, he had planned to never be alive again. It was even stranger to think that he’d made it out of that death hole. He never managed to talk about this with his therapist for obvious reasons. Maybe he should have, just—in the barest terms.

“Better?” Dipper asked.

He sighed. “Don’t just read my aura, will you?”

“Can’t help it,” Dipper said. “I barely remember when I couldn’t.”

The thought that Dipper wasn’t able to at one point shocked Bentley just enough that he lifted his face and looked Dipper in the eye for the first time since that morning. “You couldn’t?”

Dipper grinned, shark-teeth sharp. “You know I was human once, back before the Transcendence. Even fewer humans could read auras then, and I certainly wasn’t one of them.”

That’s right, Bentley thought. He looked over Dipper’s features again, eternally young and smooth. Dipper was human once, too. He’d had a human sister, human parents and friends and relatives. He hadn’t had sharp teeth, or black sclera, or brown hair—or maybe he had? How much of his appearance was rooted in reality? Had he had brown eyes, back when he was human?

Bentley sniffled again. Maybe Dipper could understand. “Remind me how you became Alcor again?”

“That old story?” Dipper’s eyebrows raised up a bit higher than most human eyebrows did. “There’s not much to it.”

“Humor me.” Bentley crossed his arms over his knees and rested his head there, face turned towards Dipper. “If you want.”

“I mean,” Dipper said, bending a knee and slinging one arm over it. “It wasn’t on purpose. We—my sister, my friends, my Grunkles and I—were trying to stop a demon from starting the apocalypse. It eventually became the Transcendence, but it was better than it would have ended up. Long story short, I got into a tussle with Bill, the demon, and—somehow, I won. Then everything changed.”

When Dipper didn’t continue immediately, Bentley pressed on gently. “How? Did it change, I mean. For you.”

Dipper hummed and tilted his head. “I guess the best way to describe it is that things stopped and happened all at once to me. Time was—I was always going to look thirteen unless I took it upon myself to look different, for one. The eyes and the wings and the teeth were definitely different. I didn’t used to have gold blood, obviously. I was also just…mentally different.”

Bentley blinked, slow, eyes tired. “Oh.”

“Parts of me were changed completely,” Dipper said. He looked down at the tile at Bentley’s feet. “Bill became part of me even as his soul was excised from the energy that made me become a demon. His proclivity towards formal clothing, the knowledge he had of the universes, his masochistic and sadistic streaks, his disregard for life and his desire for chaos are all a part of me, now. Demons are not kind, and I’m no different.”

“Yes you are,” Bentley found himself saying. “Because otherwise you wouldn’t be in here, helping me.”

“Would I?” Dipper asked. He smiled at Bentley. His face became just a little rounder, eyes just a little wider in his features. “I’m not sure. You are Mizar, after all.”

“Would you care about Mizar if you were just Bill?”

Dipper laughed a little. “Not in any good way, so I guess no. I guess you’re right. Why are you asking, anyways?”

Bentley worried at the inside of his cheek. “Would you say that you’re trapped in a body that isn’t…isn’t yours? That you don’t recognize yourself in the mirror anymore?”

After a second, understanding bloomed over Dipper’s face like the summer sunset outside. “Not often, no,” Dipper said. “Maybe once every few years, at most. But I’ve also had a long time to get used to my situation. It was much worse at the beginning.”

When Bentley didn’t respond apart from looking away, Dipper reached out to slide his hand over Bentley’s cheek, slow enough that Bentley could move away if he wanted to. Instead, Bentley leaned into the warmth of his palm and closed his eyes.

“But it got better,” Dipper said into the quiet of the bathroom. “It got better, and it will get better for you too.”

Bentley tugged his lip inside of his mouth and found himself blinking back more tears. “Sometimes it doesn’t feel that way. I feel like I was stolen from me, you know?”

“I did,” Dipper said. He shifted closer, and Bentley turned to press his face into Dipper’s chest almost eagerly. “And you have a right to feel angry. But it will get better. I promise, it will.”

Bentley wrapped his arms around Dipper, and tried his best to believe that it would.

The sun beat down warm on his skin through his gauzy overshirt and the wide-brimmed sunhat on his head. His hands dug down into the rich earth, moist and cool from the previous day’s summer storm. Bentley pulled away more loose soil from the hole he’d just dug, before tugging the decomposable plastic from the base of the tomato plant and setting it into the ground. He piled cool soil back around it and patted it down just firm enough to hold without restricting. The plant was barely tall enough for the cage—which he picked up and snapped into three-dimensions before setting it down into the ground. It ground, metal against dirt until the lowest ring of it was a mere seven centimeters above the earth. Bentley smiled down at it, then shuffled past a basil plant over to the next spot—the last spot for their tomatoes—and dug in his spade.

“How’s it going over there, Ben?” Torako called from the other side of the house with Dipper.

“Fine!” he said, pushing up his glasses. “How about you?

“It’s going peachy!”

“But you’re planting apples?” He dug a well big enough and deep enough into the ground, and then set the spade aside. He couldn’t help touching the earth with his bare hands, feeling the natural energy of it thrum up into him. It was like he was all the more alive for it. It was—it was rejuvenating.

“Exactly!” Dipper yelled, which either meant that things weren’t going nearly as well, or that they were settling for a weak pun on the basis that peaches were fruits too. There was a clang, and Torako cursed. Bentley set the tomato plant in the ground and piled the dirt over it, shaking his head. Standing, he winced at the crack of his knees before shaking out another cage and setting it down.

“How has it even taken you this long to get that taken care of?” he yelled over. Squinting his eyes against the glare of the sun, he set his dirty hands on his hips and surveyed the small plot they’d just developed. Basil interspersed between tomato, beyond them two lines of carrots. Peppers and chives just beyond those, all the vegetables ringed by a protective barrier of nasturtiums and marigolds. “You just had three trees!”

“Don’t sound so high-horsed, you only planted the tomatoes and nasturtiums today,” Torako hollered back. “Don’t think I don’t see you standing over there like you’re surveying all of your work.”

Bentley laughed, heart light in his chest. A pleasant breeze blew by, sweeping the hem of his overshirt up. He turned around. “Do you need my help over there?”

“Sure,” Torako said, wiping her brow with the back of her arm. She grinned at him, dark eyes warm under the shadow of her arm. “You’ll do more good than Mr. Dipper himself here.”

“Hey!” Dipper protested, feet flat on the ground, eyes white and brown and black and ears rounded. He stuck out his tongue past (slightly too sharp) human teeth at Torako and leaned on the shovel he’d shoved into the ground, gardening glove thick on his hand. “I’m plenty helpful. This casing is just being more difficult than the others.”

“Let me see,” Bentley said, walking over and wiping his hands off on the apron he had on.

Behind him, though he didn’t know it and hadn’t seen it, the magic from inside of him had seeped into the ground. It would travel slowly up into the roots of those plants, soft and imbued with care, the desire to grow and grow well. Those plants would grow into abundance, tomatoes ripening sweeter despite being planted just a little too late, chives taller, peppers longer than they would have otherwise—if only by a little. The marigolds and nasturtiums would bloom brighter and longer. The carrots would dig into the ground, greedy for more until they were pulled up in the fall. The apple tree Bentley helped plant would be just a little hardier than the other two. Torako would look at him slyly, tell him that his green thumb had certainly improved in leaps and bounds and was he sure his hands weren’t magic, before getting a pillow to the face and falling down to the floor laughing. Dipper would cackle and join in, and they would fight until the morning, when Bentley would get up and go to work for his first full day since being kidnapped.

But he didn’t know all that yet, so Bentley went over to Dipper and Torako, took the apple seedling by its base, and tugged the wrapping off in a couple quick motions.

Torako stared. “You really do have magic hands.”

“Oh shut it,” he said, reaching out and smearing his dirty hand down the side of her cheek. She gasped in false affront, hand on her chest. Dipper laughed, Bentley crouched down to set the seedling in the ground and cover it, cool dirt on his hands and the life of the earth trembling up into his skin.

#transcendence au #tau #gravity falls au #bentley farkas #torako lam #dipper pines #featuring bentley's coworkers #hurt/comfort #mostly comfort #magic #fantasy #my fic #fic

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imaginetonyandbucky · 7 years ago

Note

imagine tony removing bucky's metal arm because it's hurting him and bucky being really insecure about his shoulder and being armless so tony does his best to show bucky how sexy and handsome and beautiful he thinks bucky is, with or without the arm

Between Pains (1 of 3)

Also on AO3

"Bucky! Sunshine! Love of my life, how is my favorite super-soldier doing?" Tony strolled into the room, flopped onto the couch and latched onto Bucky's arm, the tiny wince his boyfriend made didn't escape him. "Something wrong?" He rubbed his face against Bucky's shoulder feeling the cool and smooth metal on his cheek.

"Nah, babe just got startled. How is my favorite genius?" Bucky leaned down and pecked Tony's lips, then went back to the science magazine he was reading.

"My head is feeling like it's about to explode, finished the new repulsors though, and I added the handles to the suit I've been talking about, so you can hang on more easily when you fly with me." Tony snuggled closer and tried to wrap his entire body around the cold metal appendage and Bucky tensed slightly. He did stretch the arm out though so Tony could cling on to it better. It really was no secret that Tony loved the arm and maybe he displayed that love a little too often, to Bucky's annoyance.

Tony sneaked a hand up to Bucky's neck and started tangling the small hairs there around his finger. "Why are you reading about possible black holes produced in the Large Hadron Collider?"

Bucky chuckled. "Because not everybody is a fucking genius who magically knows about every possible subject on earth."

"Excuse me, it's called research, not magic. I'm offended." Tony huffed and crawled over his boyfriend like a clingy spider, causing Bucky to put down the magazine. A paper magazine of all things, like he didn't have a perfectly fine tablet with subscriptions to every science magazine on earth. Where did he even get that from? He cupped Bucky's face with both of his hands and smooshed his cheeks, looking him deep into the eyes. "You take that back! My genius got nothing to do with magic, those three PhDs didn't write themselves."

Bucky didn't take back anything and just stuck out his tongue between his squished cheeks looking absolutely adorable. Tony couldn't hold the stare for long while looking at that face, he burst into laughter, then proceeded to ravish his boyfriend until they were just a bundle of limbs and covers.

----

Robots were on the loose again, as they were about once a week. This time they were coming from the sewers and Bucky and Clint had little to no sniping to do so they joined the ground crew this time. Tony was in the air, tracking the robots under the surface and predicting their next exit point. They had split into teams to cover more ground and Tony gave the closest team - Bucky and Steve - a warning when he saw another five robots approaching their location.

The fight was going well, the robot herds were thinning and collateral damage was being kept to a minimum for once. Tony was flying another round, checking on the teams and it was pure luck that he witnessed how Bucky was hit by one of the robots. He blocked the punch with his metal arm, standing his ground for a moment but then was thrown back against a parked car. He crumbled to the ground as Steve swooped in and decapitated the robot with his shield.

Bucky wasn't unconscious, that much Tony could see, but he wasn't getting up as fast as Tony would have liked either, he was holding his left shoulder. After a moment Steve was at his side and pulled him up and he seemed alright again after dusting himself off. Tony decided to open a private com channel.

"You alright, sunshine?"

Bucky looked up and they made eye contact, as good as one could make eye contact when one was wearing a metal helmet and the other opaque goggles and a mask. "Yeah, fucker was tougher than I thought, don't worry."

Tony did worry though and when everybody was rounded up after the fight and back in the Quinjet he approached Bucky, who was absentmindedly rubbing his shoulder, having taking off his armored jacket. He looked up when he noticed Tony and smiled.

"Hey, babe."

"Everything alright? Is the arm okay?" Tony had left the suit in the back of the jet and let himself drop into Bucky's lap when the other opened his arms for him, he didn't miss how Bucky's smile faltered a little when he mentioned the arm. Something was definitely not right.

"Arm's working perfectly, just a couple of bruises on the fleshy bits." Bucky's chuckle sounded a bit forced to Tony, but it might have been Tony's imagination. To appease his paranoia he would have to run a few tests the next couple of days, just to make sure the arm was fine. It was still mostly HYDRA tech with a few of Tony's upgrades. Tony knew the arm inside and out, knew there was nothing that could harm Bucky in any way, no hidden switches or poison or anything, but technology could fail no matter how advanced it was and some of the pieces in Bucky's arm were certainly several decades old by this point.

-----

"Okay, stop."

Bucky flinched and quickly pulled his sweater over his left shoulder. "Stop what?" He was sitting cross-legged on the bed and had been poking at his shoulder where the metal arm attached until Tony had come in.

"Stop pretending everything is okay." Tony swept into the room and built himself up in front of Bucky

"What?" Bucky looked, for what it's worth, like a puppy that got caught with his nose in the treat bag.

"The arm's hurting you," Tony said matter-of-factly and Bucky looked away.

"No, it's fine."

"I said stop! I can clearly see it, the way you flinch when you do an unexpected movement, you barely use it when you think nobody is looking and you keep holding your shoulder. You're hurting."

Bucky squared his jaw, looking defiant. "The arm is fine, you ran tests last week."

"I know the arm is fine." Tony sat down next to Bucky's right, placing an arm around his boyfriend. "But you are not. I've seen what this thing is doing to you, I see the bruises aren't fading. Your improved healing can't keep up with the damage the arm is causing to your system. At this point, the damage might be permanent. I think it's time we replace it."

"No." Bucky stood up so fast Tony almost lost his balance and toppled off the bed. "I couldn't do any more missions! I'd be useless, no, I don't... I can't, Tony, I can't!" Bucky turned away, breathing heavily, he had wrapped his good arm around himself, holding the metal arm awkwardly. The first admission to the pain he was in.

Tony stood up and approached his boyfriend slowly. "It would only be for a few weeks until I can finish the replacement."

Bucky sucked in a shaky breath. "Can't you finish the replacement first?"

"Not like this. Maybe if you told me when this first started, but now... This is hurting you too much, Bucky." Tony carefully placed a calming hand on Bucky's shoulder who still didn't look at him. "Besides, I need the arm in the lab with me to get the fitting perfect anyway, certain parts I can't replace. The entire artificial nervous system that translates your nerve signals into movement would take months to develop. Even if I had an entire new arm ready to go now, and trust me, I'd rather I did, I could kick my ass for not noticing sooner, you'd be without it for a couple of days minimum." Tony felt soft tremors running through Bucky's body under his palm and he moved closer, enveloping him in a hug.

As soon as his arms surrounded Bucky, the other man broke. He buried his face against Tony's shoulder, shaking his head vigorously. Tony stayed were he was, holding his boyfriend and riding out the waves of the break down that followed. He could not let this go any further, he could not stand seeing Bucky in pain, Bucky needed to heal.

In the end, Bucky agreed and they scheduled the surgery for the next week.

#winteriron #tony x bucky #tony stark #bucky barnes #bucky barnes' metal arm #prompts #james prince #Anonymous

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furashuban · 7 years ago

Text

Practical Jokes

Alright dudes, I finished my fanfic based on @jenhedgehog‘s adorable concept ! I did my best but I still hope you guys like it.

Words: 2.0K

Summary: A whoopee cushion that Lapis learns about drives her and Peridot into tricking each other with it for the day.

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14255283

The coffee table in the temple's living room was holding a scattered pile of prizes normally found in human gift shops and arcades. And surrounding the clump of items were two gems, randomly inspecting each of them for their amusement and curiosity. Lapis was by Amethyst’s side while they were putting on bizarrely shaped glasses and testing slingshots that barely hurt people. They looked like things that belonged strewn in the barn somewhere. At least that’s what the blue gem thought and wanted. One other thing she also thought was where Pearl was able to find them so she could quire such novelties.

“So these are things that Pearl gives to Steven when he finishes training?” Lapis inquires.

“Yeah, but she keeps leaving ‘em in the sky arena so I stole everything just to show you.” Amethyst replies jokingly. “Maybe you can use them for your meep morps or whatever they’re called.”

“Thanks, but wouldn’t she notice?”

“Nah you’re good. I mean, just look at how much of this junk I managed to pull out in that fanny pack over here…”

While scavenging some more, the last thing Lapis found was something she knew couldn’t possibly fit in Pearl’s fanny pack, only she was completely unsure on what it was. It simply looked like a deflated pillow painted red, or maybe an expired cinnamon bun. She picks it up and examines it carefully but found absolutely no clue on what it could be. “Hmm…What the heck is this supposed to be?”

Amethyst glances and chuckles inaudibly. “I didn’t know that was in there.” she says and takes the object out of her hand. “Okay, this here is called a “whoopee cushion”, and you kinda use it to make ‘physical’ jokes or something like that.”

Lapis did not want to ask any more questions during her stay in the temple. But she was sure that Amethyst understood how she was fresh to all this. “In what way exactly…?” she asks while scratching her hair. “It looks like the LAST thing you would want to use to make jokes with…”

The purple gem suddenly stood up and needlessly cleared her throat. “Observe, Lapis.”

She gently lay the whoopee cushion on top a part of the couch and dusted off the crest. Afterward, she faced the opposite direction of the pad, presenting her poised grin to Lapis’ view. The purple gem later bounced slightly from the ground and coarsely landed bottom first onto the whoopee cushion, revealing the effect of the item. The thump caused the two gems to perceive an absurd clatter that sounded disgusting, and yet oddly amusing.

PLLBBBBBBBBBBGHH

Lapis’ eyes widened from the noise until it slowly finished with silence. It was definitely surprising to hear loudness come out of something seemingly unusable, and the noise triggered her into hilarity and tried visibly to hold her grin soon after. But out of nowhere, she snorted and uncontrollably brought out a firm round of laughter while Amethyst joined in. Now the blue gem understood what it was for; fart jokes, possibly the best and easiest humor to exist on Earth.

“And the best part is…there’s no smell, just the sound.” Amethyst says and gets off the whoopee cushion. “Wanna give it a go?”

Lapis snorts one more time. “No, maybe later.” She replies. The whoopee cushion was taken out of the couch as the blue gem examined it again, imagining how priceless it would be to test it on someone else. It was like how she and Steven could make the same noise with their hand pressed on their mouth but it was WAY funnier. Anyone who sat on it would be more shocked than how Lapis was, hearing a fart come out of dead balloon. “You know what Amethyst, I think I want to bring this whoopee cushion with me to the barn…” she says.

“What are ya gonna use it for?”

The blue gem gaped at her and grinned. “…I’m going to trick Peridot into sitting down on this.”

Amethyst wheezed and chuckled hysterically. “Ah man, she’s going to freak out hard!” she exclaims ecstatic, secretly proud of the blue gem for wanting to prank her roommate.

“Mhm.” Lapis nods. “It’s going to be fun...for me at least.”

“Dude, you should come back here later and tell me how she reacts.” Amethyst says. “You’re completely allowed to take the whoopee cushion with you, since I won’t tell Pearl about it anyway.”

… … … … …

After Lapis’ visit to the temple, she flew home shortly with the whoopee cushion hidden behind her back. She entered the barn and looked all over the place. Peridot wasn’t seen anywhere, but she overheard her and Pumpkin being busy with their farm outside. So that gave the blue gem enough time to figure out how she was going to use her new jesting armament.

When would the two gems normally sit down? She imagined convincing Peridot to use the tractor and the seat had the whoopee cushion on it, but it could be too late since she was already in the farm. And who knows? It was probably dangerous, too. She hummed and ambled across the room, until spotting the olive green couch she and her roommate normally used to watch the TV indoors. “I could go for another marathon right about now.” She utters.

She flew to the second floor and plants the object onto Peridot’s seat. Her grin was already appearing and could hardly be contained. If only she knew that whoopee cushions existed before so she could elusively tease her partner and capture amusement in hearing the repulsive sound it made. Her snare of a joke was prepared, and glanced at the barn’s open doors to see a shadow closing in. Peridot had just arrived, and definitely just in time.

“Oh, hey Lapis!” Peridot says immediately when she saw her favorite roommate from above. “When did you show up?”

“I uh, just came now.” Lapis replies and tries not to act suspicious. “…So Peridot, do you want to watch some more Camp Pining Hearts today?”

“But we just finished binge watching season’s three to four of CPH yesterday.” Peridot retorts.

“Well do you want to do it again…?” Lapis proposes.

The green gem gasps from excitement. “I never thought you’d ask!” she exclaims. “I’ll go set up our TV. Stay where you are, Laz.”

Now everything was going according to plan, and in fast pace too. Peridot rushed to the second floor and picked up the numerous VHS tapes holding the episodes she and Lapis have watched for a million times now. As the TV was being set up in front of the couch, Lapis took a seat down on her part of the couch and waited patiently for Peridot to finish up. Her finger was tapping repeatedly against the armrest while the green gem finally inserted the tape on the VHR. The intro and a preview of the previous episode displayed. Now Peridot could finally sit down and snare herself into Lapis’ prank.

“Alright Lapis, get ready to stay up and finish all these¬¬–––” Peridot says and sits on her part of her sofa, completely unaware of the add-on on her seat. The whoopee cushion ultimately set off the moment the green gem relaxed on the couch. Hence forth, the noise returned. PLLBBBBBBBBBBGHHH

Peridot screeched from fear and immediately jumps out of her seat. She accidently crashes on the floorboards while trembling slightly, quickly shifting her facial expression from overjoyed to frighten. “What the heck was that?!” she loudly inquires.

She gawked at Lapis, who was suddenly bursting with laughter and glee. Her eyes were tightly shut and her fist lightly bashed the armrest as she let her awaited comicalness emit. She snorted and chuckled every second while Peridot was still in shock and confusion. The sound of Peridot screaming promptly with the fart noises practically killed her.

“Um, that wasn’t me that made the sound, Lapis.” Peridot says a little flustered.

The blue gem panted and took time to calm down. “Of course I know.” She says. “You just fell into my trap, Peri.” She grabs the whoopee cushion and reveals it to the still muddled gem on the floor. Peridot stands up and scrutinizes the maroon pad. She was having the same thoughts Lapis had back in the temple. “You mean that deflated pillow creates a farting noise when I sit on it?” she asks.

“Yep. And you should’ve seen how precious your face was.” Lapis replies playfully. Peridot was mesmerized by Lapis’ deviousness, catching the same sense of cheerfulness. She giggles mortified and asks for the whoopee cushion to be stowed away for now.

“Are we still going to finish our marathon?” she inquires.

“Let’s just watch Season 3 for now…” Lapis replies.

“Aghh darn…”

… … … … …

The green gem realized that two could play at this game. If an intellectual gem such as Peridot was gullible enough to sit on a whoopee cushion, it was time for a little payback to be brought against her favorite gem…The CPH marathon was over after an hour, Lapis rose up and went out the truck, deciding to fly around the area a bit for fresh air. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” She said before taking off. When she wasn’t looking, Peridot recognized she left the whoopee cushion on her seat. It was there that she shiftily grasped the item and ambled downstairs to Lapis’ hammock. “It’s my turn now, Lapis.”

She sloppily places the cushion on the weaved bed and rushes across the room to hide behind one her meep morps. Chuckling was emanated as she knew her own plan was fool proof. Lapis could take a nap any minute now, and she passed the time by using her tablet on mute. This wasn’t the first time the two gems have bantered with each other and this wasn’t the first time they having fun with it either.

Lapis came back inside eventually, yawning and stretching while she made her way to her hammock. Peridot on the other hand watched from the distance and anticipated the gag to commence. The blue gem silently put herself at ease and got on the hammock. But just like Peridot, she fell right into some gem’s ruse and almost woke herself up. PLLBBBGHH, the whoopee cushion went off the third time today. Peridot held her hilarity to see Lapis’ response, only to see how the blue gem was also on the verge of chuckling. She once again let out an outburst of laughter and unable to control herself yet again. And slowly, Peridot was charmed hearing her partner chuckle in delight. And as she kept watching, it was matter of time until Lapis had fallen from her hammock and impacted the floor.

The green gem gasped and went out of her hiding place. “Oh my gosh!” she shouted, racing across the room and rushing to her roommate. “Lapis, are you hurt?” but she only replied with more laughter. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t think you were going to fall–––“

All of a sudden, the noise of the whoopee cushion came again. Peridot discovered the pad under her foot and must have inflated quickly. Hereafter, Lapis’ laughter erupted deeply to the point where she was crying and curling on the floor. Peridot, awestruck by her lawless enjoyment, found herself also gradually grinning and snickering. The whole barn suddenly blew up with the enjoyment of the two gems. Peridot soon fell to the ground abruptly and landed next to Lapis. They gawked at each other as they continued to chuckle unceasingly. Who would think that such a repulsive noise from a simple gag novelty was able to give exploding energy in the barn? But as they lay giggling, Peridot pulled Lapis closer to hear her amiable laughter better. Lapis then grasped one of her hands until both of them could calm down. The noises released from them caused Pumpkin to rush into the room, too bemused to even bark at them to stop. The two gems just happened to share the same, senseless sense of humor.

#steven universe #lapidot #fanfiction #my works #lapis lazuli #peridot #amethyst #a fic almost about fart jokes #i did my best

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donvex · 7 years ago

Note

you said you take prompts right?? how about a richie that doesn't see the point of art and a eddie whos a artist, and somehow they fall in love?

Here you go, anon! This prompt hit me with inspiration in the middle of... Well, let’s just say I was in a situation pretty similar to Eddie’s.

I Don’t Like Art, But I Do Like You - AO3 Link

It doesn’t matter that he goes to an art school -

Richie Tozier does not respect art majors.

He just doesn’t, not when they’re all pretentious and useless. The dance majors spend every night partying, and then meet up with the musical theater majors in the morning to dance on the tables in the cafeteria. The crafts majors are a joke before you even get past their name. There’s literally no use for a degree in fucking drawing.

He doesn’t respect them, not when they’re all useless.

Richie actually puts work into his craft. Woodcarving is difficult work that keeps his hands occupied and actually produces something useful in the end. His pieces, if not sold after turning them in for a grade, he can keep and use. Most of the furniture in his apartment is his own - which really saves him money.

And he’s dedicated enough that instead of going out on Saturday night to get wrecked, he tucks himself in early so that he can go into the studios at 6:30am on a Sunday.

Yeah, he’s a pretty great student.

The only downfall to going into the studios early, and on an off-day, is that almost every room is locked. The facilities are shit, to say the least, considering they’re only open twenty four seven during the last two weeks of each semester. And now he’s going to have to scope out the building to see if any floor has an already open room; Otherwise he’s going to have to go down to the security desk again and wait for twenty minutes for someone to bring a key.

Things aren’t looking great when he reaches the fourth floor and finds all the woodshop studios locked tight, but he doesn’t actually need the woodshop today. It’s just some prep work for his final project. There’s a whole lotta work to put down on paper before he’s ready to start building. So, since he doesn’t need the woodshop he decides to scour the rest of the building for an empty room.

The fibers floor isn’t even split into a bunch of studios. It’s just three long hallways that are, in themselves, studios - and all three hallways are locked. The illustration floor, two up from fibers and proudly displaying a glistening display case filled with art work, is equally useless. But snugged in between, past a small gallery and the lightbox room - is the guillotine. Richie doesn’t typically have need for the paper cutter, save on rare occasions where he needs to mat and display his blueprints, but he knows it’s there. And, to his surprise and pleasure, the light in the room is on.

Which means it’s open.

Which also means someone must be inside.

Richie’s first thought upon opening the door is fuck, I got beat out. That thought is quickly followed by a string of I was right, there is someone inside and oh god, it’s gonna be a useless visual arts major.

And, again, he’s right.

The single, large table in the room is covered in a stack of objects. Sketchbooks are flipped open to thumbnails and references, larger printed sketches with value are taped down beside that, and neon colored pencils spill out from a lavender colored tote. Several plastic containers are laid out, filled with water, watercolor tablets, and some remnants of paint mixing. A laptop is angled between them, the screen filled with photos and the speakers quietly playing music.

And, the crowning jewel - there’s a cute boy at the center of it all, frowning in Richie’s direction.

“You’re covered in fucking dust.”

Oh. Oh no. Richie likes that.

But, he reminds himself, he also likes his dust.

“Yeah, that comes from hours of working hard, short stuff. Using the whole table?” Richie leans against the doorframe, making it clear he isn’t going anywhere. He crosses his ankles, his scuffed up boots dragging across the floor. He would be going for a kind of rugged look, if it wasn’t for the fact that his denim jacket was hand-dyed to be bright pink.

“What’s the point of not utilizing my space when no one else is here?”

“Well, it didn’t take long for someone to show up, did it?” Richie is grinning, feeling like he holds the upper hand. There’s no real reason for him to be an asshole right now, but according to him, it’s part of his charm. It’s supposed to be endearing.

The kid does not seem to find it endearing in anyway. He just snorts and fixes a pointed look on Richie.

“It took sixteen hours.”

Richie is visibly confused, and the kid laughs at him. It’s more of a bark, but Richie hesitantly labels it as, well, endearing.

What he’s supposed to be, right now.

“I’ve been here since 3pm yesterday. You wanna share the table? Sure. You wanna be a dick about it? I’ve been staked out here on and off for the past five nights, you can go back to your own floor.”

Richie is...floored. Astonished. Confused?

This kid, this visual artist, has been here for sixteen hours. Sixteen hours on a Saturday night. Into a Sunday morning. And more than that, this isn’t even the first night.

“You gotta be a wreck.” There’s something new in Richie’s voice, something eerily close to a begrudging respect.

“Yeah, most of the illustration students are.”

Oh. Oh no again.

This kid isn’t just cute, he’s funny. He’s got a spark. Richie doesn’t think he can stand for that, not if he still intends on disrespecting visual artists.

“When are you going home?”

“God, you’re that desperate to take this room from me? I’ll probably go home around noon, but I’m coming back tonight. I need this done for my six hour studio tomorrow.”

Richie finally pulls out a stool and leans directly into this kid’s space, actually looking at what he’s working on. It’s a series of record covers, from what he can tell. He’s actually kind of fascinated by the layout, there’s obviously a lot of planning gone into it. Even the lettering is styled, pages of calligraphy and designs laid out next to the finalized sketch. The kid doesn’t push him away, either. He lets Richie take it all in, and after a few moments, quietly starts pointing out his favorite parts.

It’s quiet and soft. It’s still the early hours, when most people aren’t in the studios to begin with, and they have the room all to themselves. Richie thinks of a few questions to ask, and the more he pushes, the more interested he is. This kid has an answer for everything, and a good one. It’s not as bullshit as Richie thought it was.

Eventually this kid points to the sunrise, and Richie thinks for a moment that he’s going to take it all back if he has to pause for a picture, but again, he’s surprised.

“Look at that piece of shit,” Eddie grumbles. “That goddamn orange dot is supposed to make staying up worth it? Who cares that I just gave up an entire night of sleep when I get to see the fucking sunrise! Yeah, sure.”

Richie thinks he’s gonna piss himself from laughing so hard, or at least fall off the stool.

It’s still early, to be fair. And he hasn’t had coffee or breakfast. And he was immediately thrown off his game when he met an artist who’s actually competent. So he doesn’t think he can be completely to blame when his filter isn’t as strong as it should be.

“I think I’m in love with you. I think I’m in love with you and I don’t even know your name.”

He gets pushed off his stool.

(It’s worth it, though, when he looks up to a pair of shining eyes and the words “It’s Eddie.”)

#reddie #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #it 2017 #my writing #Anonymous #answered asks

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rachembol · 7 years ago

Text

Dust in the Wind (Part 2/?)

Pairings: Sam x Reader (Eventually)

Genre/Warnings: Self-discovery, vengeance, grief, absentee father, typical Supernatural violence, cursing, fluff, shitty writing, idk probably typos?

Words: ~2.2 k

Summary: Life as a post doc was stressful, but your typical norm: lecturing in the morning, working in the lab in the afternoon, and finally grading homework and working on your publications in the evening. Of course, that life came crashing down the day the sheriff of your hometown called telling you of your mother’s brutal murder. As the only child of a single mother, you had to return to your small Midwestern town to bury the only person who supported you and pushed you through everything. While sorting through her belongings, you had come across a small box whose contents had you switching your title from Doctorate in Biology to Hunter. What would become the search of your lifetime will not end the way you expect it.

a/n: This is my first attempt ever at writing fanfiction. You know it’s garbage, I know it’s garbage, we all know its garbage. Just trying to get the writing part of my brain semi functioning while also enjoy the interesting universe that is Supernatural. Please feel free to leave constructive criticism!

Series List | Part 1 | Part 3

Foreseeing Dean’s reaction, Sam had already packed for the coming trip to Michigan as had Jack due to Sam’s suggestion. After returning from the food run, Sam informed Dean and Cas about the now developing, very personal, case.

“Say what?” Dean yelled, his voice echoing off the concrete walls of the Bunker. His face displayed many emotions: anger, concern, sadness, and the most common expression he wore when talking about Bobby, grief. It had been six years since their father figure died thanks to Dick Roman, but the Winchester boys always found his death the hardest to grieve.

“This doesn’t make sense,” Castiel stated, tilting his head in confusion. “Bobby is in heaven, why would someone be looking for him?”

“That’s the point Cas, the only ones who would be concerned about him is us. Bobby had no other family.” Turning to Dean, Sam continued. “I know this screams ‘Trap’ all in caps but I don’t think we can ignore this. What if there’s a shapeshifter, or a- a- I don’t know something else pretending to be him?” He ranted.

“He’s right. Someone looking for a dead man is not normal, especially one as reclusive as Bobby was. So, I say we pack our bags and follow this fishy smell all the way to Michigan.” Dean declared.

“Fishy smell? Did you guys buy fish at the store or something?” Jack question hesitantly.

Out of not wanting to embarrass Jack directly, Dean turned his frustration to Sam, “Really dude? You’ve had so much time to teach him, yet the kid still doesn’t understand basic idioms!”

“Honestly, I’m surprised you even know what an idiom is Dean.” Sam retorted, choking down his laugh before it escaped.

Dean pulled the Impala into the lot of the motel that Sam had found from a quick internet search in a town over from their destination. All four men agreed that staying away from the precinct as much as possible would be the best move, as they were all cautious to not spring the inevitable trap laid before them. The several hour ride had been extremely anxious, to say the least. Both Sam and Dean refused to talk about Bobby, as they didn’t want to have to relive the emotions that they had fought so hard to bury. Jack was filled with curiosity, wanting to know more about this “Bobby” and why it was upsetting the brothers, but Castiel continued to give him an expression that read not now.

Once the car came to a complete stop, Dean immediately hopped out and went straight to the motel office, not without first turning to Sam and tossing the keys. Sam grunted as they landed in his hands, knowing that this was Dean’s way of saying “Get the shit out of the car, I’ll be back.”. He knew that his brother was going to be upset during this whole fiasco, Sam just didn’t expect it to be this bad. Determined to keep moving forward, as it was usually best to ignore Dean’s moods, he moved towards the trunk of the Impala and began unloading.

“-don’t ask questions, it will just make it worse.” Castiel said as he opened his car door, apparently ending a conversation with Jack. He didn’t know what the whole conversation entailed, but Sam could assume from their expressions of concern that Jack hadn’t been able to hold his questions in any longer and Castiel had tried his best to silence the young Nephilim.

Soon, Team Free Will 2.0 was setup in their newly booked rooms and began the process of planning their next move. Sam had easily hacked through the typical - poorly written - state issued firewall that the precinct had and began accessing any digital files related to Bobby. The weapons stash from the Impala had been unloaded and sprawled out across one of the two beds in the room. Dean cleaned the guns and inventoried their ammo while Castiel sharpened angel blades and other weapons of the sort. Not really knowing what else to do, Jack took out a tablet he had in his bag and began memorizing the surroundings of the precinct. Silence fell as they all focused on the job at hand.

After about two hours, the first to break the silence was Sam. “So get this… There is no other mention of Bobby in their entire network, there are even key documents missing that should have been processed before the alert should have been issued.”

“So someone is covering their tracks?” Dean asked as he tossed the barrel of the .45 he was currently cleaning onto the bed. He walked over to the cheaply made table his brother sat at and peered down at the computer screen. Castiel followed suit after he was satisfied with his work on the blade in his hands.

Flipping through the windows he had open, Sam began showing Dean the lack of documentation. “Yeah, normally you have an initial report and then then deputy or sheriff get involved to approve it. It’s supposed to be a multi-step process, you know, to prevent fake reports from flooding the national system. The only document that has Bobby’s name on it is the final product of this process, the one that gets released nationwide. It’s actually the same exact document that Jody sent us.”

In attempt to contribute, Jack spoke up. “That means the only way to find out who made the initial report is by having the officer who released the alert to identify them?”

“Look’s like it’s time to put on the FBI attire.” Dean nodded. “I’ll go grab the badges from the glove box.” His mood was destined to not improve.

The next afternoon the Impala drove into the precinct parking lot. Within it, two salty hunters, one half angel kid, and a guy that came back from the dead (again!) sat well dressed and well equipped. Due to the circumstances, both Dean and Sam agreed to wear silver rings and carry silver knives in their interior jacket pockets. Castiel tucked his angel blade within the sleeve of his jacket, always preferring his heavenly blade than anything else. Due to lack of training and his still growing powers, Jack decided he would only carry a silver blade in the same fashion as the brothers but for emergencies only.

Before they exited the car, Dean restated the plan. He and Sam would go question the sheriff while Castiel and Jack obtained security footage dating from two days before the alert was released all the way to the present. If the brothers are unable to get any information out of the sheriff, the security footage may have been fortunate enough to capture a shapeshifter.

They entered the dimly lit station and immediately caught the attention of the receptionist. It wasn’t everyday that four well dressed and handsome men walked into a small town of roughly two thousand, let alone into the police station of maybe 20 staff. “Hello! How can I help you?” He asked sweetly. The youngest one beamed at the receptionist, obviously being the most enthusiastic of the entire group. Cute as a button he thought to himself.

“Ah, yes. We actually need to speak to your sheriff.” Sam stated flatly as he flashed his FBI badge. The receptionist’s eye grew in shock as Sam continued. “There was a missing persons alert released from here a few days ago that, well, let’s just say shouldn’t have been.”

God that came off so fucking rude. Sam said as he mentally slapped himself. Even though he was nearly as upset as Dean was, he had to keep his cool or this whole plan would fall apart. Fortunately for him, the receptionist immediately got up to get the sheriff.

Thirty minutes later, Dean and Sam were finishing up their unhelpful conversation with the Sheriff, who didn’t even know about the alert. As they exit the sheriff’s office to go look for the Castiel and Jack, a scrawny, frantic man crashed right into Sam.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry!” He gushed as he starts to pick up the filing on the floor that he was once holding. “You must be the FBI agents. I’m the deputy here, names Sullivan. Were you able to get things straightened out with the Sheriff?”

There was a pause as the brother’s assessed the man; Sam’s gut feeling kicked in. Remembering that missing persons alerts could be approved by a sheriff or deputy, he began interrogating the man.

“Um, actually we were getting ready to come speak with you.” He said, earning him a questioning glace from Dean.

The Deputy hesitated until finally saying, “Oh! Well, no problem! Follow me to my office?”

Your nerves seemed to increase the closer you got to Sioux Falls. The anticipation was killing you; you were finally going to talk to someone who has actually seen the Bastard in the flesh. Not wanting to waste any time, you immediately drove to the tipper’s address. Before pulling into the driveway, your phone went off. What the hell do you want, Sul?

“R,

Don’t want to spook you but uh, the FBI just showed up and are questioning the sheriff. What the hell do I do if they start questioning me?

-Sullivan”

Anticipating that this would happen, you dug through your center console for a small wooden box. You had only started hunting about three years ago but thankfully in that short amount of time you had met a few helpful hunters along the way. One particular hunter had been extremely helpful in teaching you a few useful magic tricks. The ever-so-lovely Kelsi was a hunter that grew up learning witchcraft from her mother and, fortunately, had been taught to only use it for good. You would always try to keep stock of some “backup magics” she taught you for situations like these. You finally found the box you were looking for that contained a memory altering hex bag. This bag’s effect is that it would keep the affected individual’s brain short term memory from functioning properly; meaning you could interview her and she wouldn’t remember it later. Kind of like shutting off the recording part of the brain. This allows the hex bag to be removed but the desired affect remains.

It wouldn’t be too long before Sullivan would be handing himself over and those FBI agents would be on your tail in South Dakota. You promised yourself that after you interviewed the tipper you would destroy your burner phone. Stuffing the box into your pocket and tucking your gun into your waist band, you exited your car and headed towards the front door of the tipper’s house. As long as you stuck to your plan, you would find out where the Bastard was and then the real fun would begin.

Fuming as he walked out of Deputy Dumbass’ office, Dean chided, “This is fucking great. R? That’s really our only clue?”.

“It’s not our only clue, Dean. I have copies of the messages and emails, as well as access to Sullivan’s email should he be contacted again. We also may be able to locate the phone that was used, or uh- maybe logons with that email. It’s a very dying trail, I’ll admit, but it’s still a trail. Just calm down a bit De-“ The youngest Winchester was cut off by the sounds of crashing paperwork behind them. Sure enough, the Deputy was running towards them.

“Okay, for some reason I totally forgot about this.” He huffed, placing his hands on his knees to catch his breathe. Dean rolled his eyes while Sam said something encouraging to the clutter-brained officer.

Sullivan held out a sheet of paper as he finally spoke. “There was a tip called in about eighteen hours ago, some old woman from South Dakota, near Sioux Falls. I’ve already sent it to R, and I’m sure he is on his way.”

Dean snatched the report out of Sullivan’s hands. This is a real clue, Sammy. He read it over quickly, while Sam peered over his shoulder. Sure enough, in a town about thirty minutes outside of Sioux Falls a woman in her mid-50’s called in, saying something about a junk yard owner. Dean was half way out the door to call Jody before Sam could even say thank you to the Deputy.

He stood just out the door of the station beginning to dial the Sioux Fall’s sheriff’s number as he told Sam to go find Castiel and Jack. She answered just after the first ring.

“You better not be dying Winchester, what’cha got?” Jody asked.

Dean began his rambling, “An anonymous person paid off a Deputy to release the alert. Of course, Deputy Dumbass got a tip from someone near Sioux Falls, and its already been sent to the individual looking for Bobby. The tipper said she is willing to meet with officials, she even mentioned something about the salvage yard.”

Series List | Part 1 | Part 3

#supernatural #Sam Winchester #sam winchester x reader #sam winchester x you #dean winchester #castiel #supernatural fanfiction #spn reader insert #bobby singer #Jack Kline #dust in the wind #sam winchester x y/n #spn fanfiction #jody mills

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