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hops-hunny · 3 years

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Distance Makes the Heart Grow

CHAPTER 7

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Mafia Boss!Neville Longbottom x Reader

Pronouns: She/Her

Word Count: 2.2k

Summary: (Y/n) lives a normal life. But that’s the issue, it’s normal, it’s plain, and it’s growing boring. Everyday she wishes for something, anything to spice up her life. But, when her old school friend (and crush) shows up at her bakery with a new look (and what looks like a new life), what will it bring for her? Will their puppy love grow? Will his big secret lead to the end of them or will it spark a new beginning?

Warnings: mentions of insecurity

A/N: I love and hate this chapter so much

Although this trip wasn’t for leisure, Neville was doing everything to treat it like it was. No matter how busy he was with planning the current mission or even seeing what else Italy had to offer money wise, he made sure to make time for (Y/n). Everyday had been a dream come true, from softer moments down to more...intimate moments.

He hadn’t taken her all the way yet nor had he asked her to return the favor but he didn’t need her to. Spending hours upon hours between her legs was more than enough for him. The small whimpers and whiny moans that would erupt from her plagued his thoughts during all times of the day. Most of the time he’d step away to take care of himself when he did but other times when that option wasn’t available he’d pray to Merlin that his obvious hard on would just disappear. It was 50/50 with whether that’d actually work and when it didn’t? The guys would never let him forget.

Today was different though. Instead of having to split his time between preparing for the big day or spending time with his beloved he got to do both. Today was the day before they’d put their plan in action, making it the safest day to bring her to the museum considering there was no risk. Because the museum received many visitors on the daily, no one ever questioned their consistent visit. Plus, their attire often made them look like the kind of people who admired art, which wasn’t an incorrect assumption. They did appreciate art, just even more so when it was in their home or being sold to some rich idiot.

(Y/n) looked around in awe at everything around her. Everything about the museum screamed class and money. There wasn’t just art on the walls, but the ceilings had been hand painted as well. However, her eyes fixated on the glass display in the center of the room. Inside was an array of jewels of all sorts, in crowns, in rings, in earrings, but also in the most beautiful necklace she had ever seen. It had the biggest diamonds she had ever seen, connected by a white gold chain. Reading the sign she saw it belonged to a queen of a country that no longer existed and it had clearly been kept in immaculate condition over the years. A matching set of earrings set on the other side of it.

“See something you like, petal?” she jumped at the sound of the voice, turning her head slightly to smile at the man. Neville smiled back, wrapping his arms around her waist as he came behind her. His eyes lingered on the way her reflection made it seem like she was wearing the necklace. He couldn’t help but think of how beautiful she would look in it.

“No, just looking.” she responded, turning around to wrap her arms around the man’s neck. However, she couldn’t help but feel as though someone was staring at her. Looking out the corner of her eye, she saw a womanly figure facing her direction. She went to look but her attention was turned to the warm cheek on her hand. Neville leaned down, pressing his lips to hers not even trying to fight the smile growing on his lips. She kissed him back, standing on the tip of her shoes before pulling him down to her height as she giggled. He went to say something but muffled voices started to come from his ear piece.

“Sorry, it appears our time has been cut short for now. But don’t worry angel, I’ll be back as soon as I can be.” he said, placing a kiss on her lips before pulling her into a hug. Over his shoulder, (Y/n) watched as the woman from before quickly turned back to the painting in front of her, as if she wasn’t just staring at her. Perhaps it had been her imagination? Giving him one last smile she waved as the tall man began to walk away.

Curiosity began to get the best of her, leading her to walk across the room to the woman. Looking at the painting she saw that it was indeed a beautiful painting! It showcased many people inside some sort of marble lookout point, gazing upon the sea. A gasp left her lips at the attention to detail, the wet appearance of the water, the reflection of the sun. Despite it not moving like the ones she was used to, she found that it didn’t need to be. The woman standing next to her gave her a side glance, a look on her face that she didn’t notice.

“Ti piace il dipinto?(“Do you like the painting?”)” the woman asked her, a mischievous look on her face. Gisele knew that the girl was sheltered just from her appearance. She wasn’t nearly as traveled as herself so there was no way for her to know even an inkling of what she had just asked her.

(Y/n) blinked at her, pondering what the woman had asked her before nodding. “È bellissimo. L'attenzione ai dettagli è incredibile! Non ho mai visto niente del genere.(“It's beautiful. The attention to detail is incredible! I've never seen anything like it!”)” she looked at the woman as she choked slightly, a concerned look on her face.

“You speak italian?” she asked in an offended tone, an unreadable look on her face. (Y/n) shrugged some, continuing to look at the painting.

“Not quite. I’ve only been learning for a few days. My boy- er, friend taught me but he says I’m a quick learner! I’m sorry if my translation was a bit off.” she said, offering the woman a kind smile. The woman’s eye twitched at the information, growling slightly. But, she remembered she had some “information” of her own.

“You mean Neville?” the strange woman asked, causing her to look up. She nodded slowly, offering her another kind smile.

“Do you know him?” she asked.

“Know him? Ha!” she sighed dramatically, putting a freshly manicured hand over her ample chest. “We were practically married! He and I were seeing each other for such a long time. I’m assuming you’re dating then?” she smirked to herself, watching as the girl shook her head no. “No? Well I guess that isn’t too shocking. I mean, why date a knock off when the real thing is still available. Oh! Where are my manners? I’m Gisele Bardot, Europe’s one and only top model.” (Y/n) felt her throat grow tight as she swallowed harshly. Neville had never once brought up Gisele to her. In fact, he had even gone as far as to say he hadn’t dated anyone, saving his heart for her.

“Knock off? What do you mean?” she asked her innocently, blinking back the tears that were threatening to form. Perhaps it was a simple misunderstanding. However, Gisele’s cackle of a laugh told her otherwise.

“Oh honey, are you really that naive? Look at you, you’re a lesser version of myself. Do you really think that’s a coincidence?” she stated as if it was a face. She took the time to look at Gisele and realized she was right. Gisele had all the same features of her, but better. Higher cheekbones, fuller lips, her hair was healthier. And when it came to her body? (Y/n) could only dream of a chest as nice as hers with a stomach so flat, so toned. Was it a coincidence or was Neville really using her as a replacement for what he couldn’t have. “Poor thing, anyone with eyes could see-”

“Could see what?” Twyla seethed, placing an arm around her shoulder as she walked up to the two. (Y/n) felt relieved from the familiar face, wiping the tears that had fallen from her eyes, much to her efforts of trying to get them to not do so. “What business do you have with my friend?”

“We were just chatting! Right..” her eyes widened at the fact she didn’t know the girl’s name. Twyla smirked, giving her an expectant look.

“Go on, what’s her name?” Twyla asked in a fake concerned tone. As the model stood there gaping, mouth opening and closing like a fish, the blonde scoffed, grabbing (Y/n) as she dragged her off.

“Come on (Y/n), we don’t associate with trash. Especially not trash wearing grandma’s pearls and perfume.” she turned around once more, looking her up and down. “It’s a good thing you’re a model because you sure don’t know how to dress.” and with that they were off, walking out to the garden of the museum. When they got there, the taller girl looked at the (e/c) eyed girl, a concerned look present on her face. “What was that? I don’t like her, she gives me bad vibes. Not like, sinister, just...petty. I’ve seen her in those magazines and stuff. What’s her name? Gizette?”

“Gisele. Apparently she was Neville’s....Neville’s ex girlfriend.” tears began to fall from her eyes as she sobbed softly, falling forward into her friend’s chest. Without hesitation, the blonde wrapped her arms around her, hugging her close. “She essentially said that I’m just a replacement for the real thing which is her and, it must be true! I mean just look at her, she’s gorgeous Twyla! Runway gorgeous. She’s an international model and I’m..I’m just me.”

“Oh honey, I hate to ruin this heart to heart, actually this is an awful heart to heart, but she’s definitely lying! I’ve seen the way Neville looks at you and so has everyone else. I’ve got this feeling that he’s lying and you know me with my feelings, they’re always right.” (Y/n) looked up at her, sniffling some as Twyla wiped at her runny makeup with her tissue. “Plus, that easily could be the other way around. How do you know she wasn’t just a replacement for you?” she froze at her words. She was right, it very well could be the other way around. How would she know unless she asked? As if she read her mind, the next words aligned with her thoughts perfectly. “You know, there’s only one thing to do.”

“Ask him about it?” she gulped at the thought. Neville had been nothing but kind to her since they reconnected. She had nothing to be scared about. Whether it was learning the truth or Neville himself she feared she didn’t know. Or, at least she didn’t wanna admit which one it was.

“Oh..I was gonna say find this bitch and replace her shampoo with nair. You know, maybe even give her some of that tea my aunt gave to her husband.” Twyla shrugged, leaning back some with a sigh. “Buut, that’s good too.”

(Y/n) gave the girl a questionable look. “Twy….didn’t your aunt use that tea to kill her husband?” the girl nodded, sitting up as she dusted herself off.

“Yeah. Your point?” Before she could respond, Neville came running up to the two of them with a smile. As he placed a peck on her lips, she gave him a weak smile.

“Hi, love. I missed you.” he said, a dopey lovesick smile on his face. He cleared his throat, ears tinted cheeks. “I-I was wonderin’ if uh, you’d like to go on a date with me tomorrow. You know, after the mission.” her eyes widened as she felt her face grow fuzzy. A date? She was sure he had something worse to say, especially after the fiasco from earlier. ‘Gisele must’ve not been able to find him.’

“I’d love to! I’ve never been on a date before.” she answered honestly, giving him a smile. “I can’t wait.” he looked surprised as she accepted, picking her up as he spun her around before setting her back down gently. Placing a peck on her lips, he stroked her cheek.

“Fantastic. Oh I can’t wait. I’m going to spoil you on our date tomorrow,” he leaned near her ear, resting his hands on her rear, “And tonight too. How’s bout you sit on my face again, yeah?” she nodded shyly, looking down at their shoes. Neville chuckled some, walking away before another pair of men’s dress shoes stopped in front of her. Looking up she saw Seamus who gave her a small smile.

“Don’t worry mini boss, I kept that stupid woman away from him.” her eyes widened as she went to speak. “How’d I know? I could tell something was up and plus I saw her enter as we were leaving. Thought she’d try something. Whatever she said wasn’t true.” He patted her back (a bit too roughly..) as he offered her a thumbs up. “But, I know you’d still probably rather hear that from him.”

“You know Finnigan, for someone who acts so stupid you’re kinda smart sometimes.” Twyla said, giggling as she intertwined her hands with Draco. Draco offered her a nod to which she returned before beginning to walk off with the rest of them. She smiled when she saw Neville waiting for her by the door, hand outstretched with the same look he’d always give her. As they got in the car, she watched as the beautiful buildings passed them in the distance. It was then she decided.

She’d ask him, no matter how scared she was of the answer. Neville was sure to give her an honest one, but was it the one she wanted to hear?

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#neville x reader #Neville Longbottom #neville longbottom x reader #neville longbottom x you #neville x you #Harry Potter #harry potter imagines #harry potter imagine #harry potter x reader #mafia!neville #mafia!au

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spencersawkward · 4 years

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switchblade faith // spencer reid - chapter 3

summary: one month after joining the BAU, Clea is still settling in. between solving murders and getting acclimated to DC, the only comfortable thing in her life is her friendship with Dr. Spencer Reid.

word count: 4k

content warnings: mention of rape and victim-blaming (talking about Clea's previous job in sex crimes— not her personal experience).

masterlist

this chapter is drawn from the season 1 episode 17 episode "A Real Rain," which is supposed to be in New York, but I didn't wanna write about New York so I changed it to Boston.

I drop a second sugar packet into my coffee before taking a tentative sip. my face twists in discomfort. previous to working here, I would bring my own thermos from home and it would last me all day, but I've had to up my caffeine intake to two or three cups.

"you get used to it." JJ walks over to me, steeping her tea. despite the fact that it's early, she's perfectly put together. her hair is tied up and her eyes are sparkling.

"how?" I laugh. she points to the coffee pot, which is fresh and yet somehow tastes slightly stale.

"when you've been up for twenty four hours, you won't care how it tastes."

I avert my widened eyes at this.

"you could do what Spence does and just add a bunch of sugars." she tilts her head towards Reid, who is rocking back in forth in his spinny chair with a huge volume open in front of him. he doesn't even notice us staring at him.

"ew, what?" I giggle. JJ nods.

"hey, Spence!" she calls across the office. his head pops up to frown at us.

"yes?"

"how many sugars do you use?"

"five. occasionally six." he says this without a hint of the shame it deserves. my eyebrows shoot up and I take another sip of the bitter drink, trying to ignore the taste. it coats my tongue.

"see?" she smirks. "just so you know, we have another case. meeting in five." she sashays away to the conference room, leaving me standing there with an overwhelming urge to sweeten my drink. I keep it at three and add a splash of creamer to drown out the bitterness, then walk briskly to my desk to grab a few of my things.

"we have a meeting, Reid." I say across the divider between our spaces. he holds up an index finger, slams the book shut, and grabs his things. I wait for him to get collected before we head up.

"what were you reading?" I ask, peeking at his workspace. books are lined up against the divider, loose papers scatter the surface, and there are three uncapped pens littered about. his disorganization surprises me.

"War and Peace." he replies, checking his watch.

it's not even nine am.

...

I'm staring out the window of the jet while Morgan and Prentiss battle out yet another card game with Reid. there's not much to see until we slice through clouds and fly over Boston, which is glittering in the early light. I sigh and turn back to my book, tucking my legs up beneath me.

"this is not how I planned to visit." Morgan notes, looks through his cards.

"I'm looking forward to seeing Boston." Spencer smiles softly. at this, all of us look up.

"you've never been?" Morgan asks doubtfully. Emily snorts.

"we've never had an unsub there." Reid doesn't seem to think this strange at all. Morgan and I share a glance before he speaks.

"Reid, it's an hour-and-a-half flight."

"I'll show you around if we have some time." Emily smiles reassuringly at the boy genius.

"it's an easy trip, man." Derek chuckles. Spencer isn't bothered by our teasing. instead, he draws another card from the deck and focuses on his game.

"I've never been either." I state. the team turns to me with surprised expressions, causing my cheeks to flush.

"you, too?" Morgan makes a face like I've disappointed him.

"I've been meaning to go." I shrug. "there's an exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts that I wanna see."

"what exhibition?" Spencer doesn't look up from his hand.

"uh, Titus Kaphar." I haven't had the opportunity to travel much, so a lot of the art I've seen has been from a computer screen or in class in college. it would be nice to actually get some experience seeing things face-to-face.

"Shifting the Gaze!" Spencer's face snaps up to beam at me, referencing the piece so vehemently that it makes me laugh.

"yeah, exactly."

"I went to his talk a couple years back."

"no way. really?" I shut my book and lean forward while he nods. Prentiss and Morgan are watching our conversation like a tennis match. while Reid rambles about all the things he heard at the lecture, I listen intently. it's good, because I don't really feel like talking right now; my head is pounding all over again, and this is distracting.

"do you ever go to the art museums in DC, then?" I ask once he's finished. Reid gets this crooked smile on his face like he wants to say a bunch of things, but is holding his tongue. his face is animated when he tells me about the other exhibits he's seen at the Smithsonian and apparently abandons his cards. Prentiss and Morgan have lost interest in our conversation; they start their own game and let us talk for the rest of the flight.

when we touch down, I immediately feel overwhelmed by the crush of people around us. our first crime scene is a taxi cab in Hyde Park, where the driver has been blindfolded, shot in the chest, and stabbed right through his ear. the blade, broken off from the handle, is lodged in his brain.

despite the fact that his kills are violent and seemingly random, the unsub definitely isn't disorganized. he carries his MO out the same way each time, which makes all of us question if we've missed a connection between victims.

"it's possible he's a sort of serial killer groupie." Spencer notes as he examines the inside of the cab, which is splattered with a mix of rainwater from the night before and blood. I shift where I'm standing to try to follow his line of sight.

"what do you mean?"

"Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris drove ice picks into their victims' heads and broke off the handle." he explains.

"well, if he's doing that, then he's presenting a mixed profile." I frown.

"exactly."

"mixed profile?" the police officer next to me asks.

"yeah. the fact that this guy is shooting his victims first suggests that he needs a quick and effective means of controlling the situation, which means that he probably doesn't think he can overpower them." I say.

"he could have a physical problem-- or maybe he's just not confident because he's small." Reid is still examining the taxi for any further evidence, but it seems sort of pointless.

"plus, he's organized and hunts at night. that tells us he most likely has a steady job."

"so," the cop stares between us with a perplexed expression. "we're looking for a small, angry white guy with a day job?"

the sarcasm in his voice makes me smile a little.

"I know it doesn't narrow down a lot right now, but we know that this guy isn't blitz attacking his victims. it's more of an execution."

the officer nods at this and my phone buzzes in my pocket. I turn to Reid.

"we gotta go."

Spencer nods curtly, straightens, and starts to immediately walk back to the car. I shake my head at his behavior, then follow after.

...

we get called to visit a new crime scene in the morning, this time in a church. Hotch holds the door open for me and I walk in to see a body laid out in front of the pews. an older woman sits towards the back, comforted by a nun.

"how'd they find him?" Prentiss asks the police chief as she leads us to the victim.

"night janitor." she nods to a man being questioned by cops in the corner.

"did he see anything?" I ask her.

"no, but he remembered a parishioner who was here earlier," we walk past the older woman. she stares at us expectantly as the chief talks. "so there could be a potential witness."

we stop at the body of a priest, his eyes covered and a blade lodged in his skull, unsurprisingly. Emily and I stare down at him, realizing the same thing.

"first public killing." she notes as she bends down to examine his wounds. "he's getting bolder."

"the presentation is just as important as the kill." I join her on the ground, snapping my gloves tighter on my hands and turning his head to the side to get a better look at the blade. semi-dried blood coats the tied fabric around his eyes.

"I'm gonna go talk to that woman." Emily leaves. the crime scene agent crouches down on the ground across from me, and I bite my lip before making a strange request.

"would you mind... sliding that thing out of his ear?"

the agent blinks at me in disbelief, probably not wanting to pry a knife out of someone's head, but nods and does so carefully. I squint down at the wound. then I realize something.

"Reid?" my voice carries across the room. Spencer is talking to an officer when he hears me and walks over.

"this doesn't look like a normal blade, but I don't know what it is." I point at the now half-buried weapon. it sits unpleasantly out, the blood catching warm light. Spencer gets down next to the crime scene agent and examines it more closely.

"this is flint." he says slowly, turning to me with a concerned expression.

"like the stone?"

"flint is the symbol for protection and retribution in Egyptian mythology. with hieroglyphics, they used to display dangerous animals like scorpions and snakes being cut with flint knives in order to render them powerless."

"oh." is all I can manage while I process what he's saying. Spencer waits for me to say something else, but instead I bend my head down to pull back the silk tie.

"there's no way that using flint is a coincidence." I reason. the blood is all on the inside of the tie as well, which gives me pause. Reid recognizes this a second later, his eyes lifting to mine. they look almost brown in the candlelight, flecks of gold sparkling in them while his mind whirs endlessly.

"I'm gonna call Garcia to see if any of the victims have been charged with a crime." he tells me.

"good idea." we both stand, the crime scene agent scurrying off to do something else. I head back over to Emily and hope that we're right about this. flint is too specific of a weapon for it not to be intentional, right?

...

we deliver the profile by the end of the work day, our unsub a serial vigilante with a personal edge to all of his killings. my body is slightly shaky from downing cups of coffee without any actual food, so the promise of eating out after we finish makes my stomach eager.

we go to a Chinese restaurant by the station and keep talking about the case, despite having promised ourselves not to do so. I sit between Prentiss and Reid while I dig into my dumplings. I like listening to them swap theories and past cases, how they weave together all their stories.

"you forgot to add something to the profile earlier today, Aaron." Rossi says as he piles more noodles onto his plate. our attention immediately focuses on the Italian.

"what did he forget?" Prentiss has a ghost of a smile on her face. I've noticed that she tends to speak like she's on the inside of a joke that other people don't understand. the intonation of her words feels like a secret.

"I didn't mention the possibility of our unsub being a cop." Hotch takes a sip of his ice water. there's a moment where we all reflect on this information before Morgan breaks the silence.

"I mean, they do know the system."

"they could easily take matters into their own hands, given what they see every day." Prentiss adds. I nod.

"when someone like our victim is killed, police refer to it as a public-service murder." Reid struggles to get the noodles onto his chopsticks, which I notice but don't say anything about. he tries again, the food slipping back onto his plate. Morgan notices this shortcoming of Spencer's and I see that he's about to start teasing him, so I change the subject.

"I saw a lot of rapists walk when I was in sex crimes," I put down my dumpling while I talk. Hotch watches me intently. I haven't spoken much about my previous job with anyone on the team, especially not him. in fact, he barely knows anything about me. "a lot of the victims didn't feel safe pressing charges, or the juries said they were asking for it. it's enough to make you wanna explode."

"it's a long way from feeling like that and actually committing a murder, though, don't you think?" Emily asks.

"not really." I turn my gaze back to my plate and start to feel nauseous. there's a clinking of plates and silverware as we continue in silence. Emily nudges my arm gently with hers and offers me a supportive smile.

I hear Spencer next to me, getting the attention of a passing waiter.

"excuse me," he says in a low tone. "can I get a fork, perhaps?"

Morgan snickers as the waiter takes off to get the utensil. at this point, there's a palpable tension as we wait to see who makes fun of Reid first. he drops his chopsticks into his bowl with a defeated clatter and Derek gently pushes his knuckles against Spencer's cheekbone.

"having some trouble, kid?" he asks. Spencer smacks his hand away.

"don't be mean." I giggle, reaching onto my wrist to grab a hair tie. "here, try this." I wrap the thing around the end of Spencer's chopsticks so that they're easier to use, handing them back to him.

Spencer tries again and it works-- if not somewhat clumsily. he gives me a little appreciative smile and I smile back before returning to my food, listening to the stories that Rossi doles out. he even pays for dinner despite our half-hearted protests.

the entertainment for the evening is pretty nice, but when I've stuffed myself with Chinese food, Emily leans over to me.

"do you wanna go to that museum you were talking about earlier?" she whispers. I peek at my phone to check the time.

"I doubt we'd have much time before they close, but yeah, definitely." excitement bubbles up in my stomach as I realize I might actually get to poke around for a while. Prentiss throws her napkin on the table abruptly.

"Clea and I are going to the Museum of Fine Arts. anyone wanna join?"

I look around to gauge some reactions.

"I'm interested." Morgan nods.

"I've already been several times." Rossi takes a sip of his drink as he politely declines. Hotch shakes his head.

"I have some paperwork I need to finish."

"again?" Prentiss complains.

"I'll go." Spencer sits up straighter as he looks at his brunette friend, folding his napkin neatly on his plate. my eyebrows raise a little, although I'm not surprised that he'd be interested in visiting any museum. we stand and get ready to go; Hotch warns us to be ready to go at seven in the morning tomorrow. a little weight is lifted off my chest as I realize that there will be some reprieve during this case, and then we're wandering out into the evening air.

we ate dinner sort of early, so the sky is still slightly aglow with a bruised shade, preparing to sink into its favorite darkness. after finding the route to the museum, we hop on the train.

Boston is lovely in the kind of way that aches of neat corners and airy lights. stores crammed with antiques and novelty products line the sidewalks, people wander about as they take in a pleasant night. somehow disjointed and cohesive all at once.

whatever bit of conversation we had on the way dissipates into breathlessness once we get inside the enormous entryway. it's cavernous, extravagant, gorgeous. we flip through brochures advertising different exhibits. Emily raves about Impressionism and decides that that must be our first stop, so we head off with the rest of the museum stragglers who have decided to feed themselves with art until they're forced to leave.

my head is constantly spinning to admire something else in the enormous white rooms. it's a bit overwhelming at some points, what with the gargantuan canvases that greet me at every turn. but it's impressive, too, and I find myself hungrily reading all the small plaques. I venture out of the Impressionism vein and into Korean art, my feet carrying me away from Morgan and Prentiss. Spencer broke off a while ago; to where, I have no idea.

I check out vases and pottery, sculptures, renderings of historical events. images from the crime scenes fill my head intrusively. there's no use in trying to shut them out; they've been in my dreams for a while now, the kind that wake me up in a cold sweat. I haven't told anyone about them— I'm sure others get them, too— and I don't want to seem like I can't handle it. every time I close my eyes, I begin to feel the pressure of a knife against my temple.

"a lot of these are from private collections."

the voice causes me to jump, my skin erupting in goosebumps as Spencer stands beside me. he holds his bag against his side and follows my line of sight to the 18th-century bookshelf screen.

"that's interesting." I reply. what else is there to say to that?

"really makes you think about what other art pieces won't ever be seen by the public." he turns and starts walking onto the next work, seemingly done with this conversation. my brow furrows while I watch him go, his posture miserable as a result of his skinny build. he's quite tall.

"what do you mean?" my voice comes out quiet, but it carries in the otherwise empty exhibit. Reid turns around and stops in his place, allows me to catch up briefly. we start to read another plaque by a silver basin.

"you could have a Cézanne just rotting in your attic and it would never be examined by the right scholars." he shrugs.

"I really doubt there's anything nearing that value in my attic." I laugh.

"you ever seen 'Antiques Roadshow'?" he asks non-sarcastically. I balk.

"sure."

"you never know." he's not a man of many words, apparently. I get his message regardless and we continue to walk, him setting out facts for me in neat rows, simple and easily taken in. he's definitely a know-it-all, but not in the way that makes me want to escape his presence. it's sort of comforting, having someone around who just understands everything. his absolute lack of social graces makes him easy to be around, too; I don't need to force conversation because he doesn't care.

we wind up in the mummy section, where the walls tingle with an energy that could only be described as magical.

"spooky." I nod to the domineering sarcophagus lid of Kheperra. a spotlight illuminates all of its intricacies and I make a beeline for it. Spencer trails behind me and we fall into silence as we peer at the exquisite details. it's intimidating, for sure, hulking and made of carved black stone. "you feel that?" I whisper to Spencer, who is enthralled in the image.

the way the spotlight spills over onto him is interesting; it emphasizes the shadow below his jaw and the delicate quality of his bone structure, his cheekbone prominent at the place where his ear meets his face. his lashes are long and lovely, his Adam's apple poking out of a slender throat. he turns to me with a curious expression.

"feel what?"

"the energy change," I smile. "from the ancient dead bodies."

"it's probably just the dark lighting and the media associations you have with mummies." but his eyes begin flitting about the room in a slightly panicked manner. I feel a smirk tug at my lips as I step closer to him.

"are you scared?"

"no," he scoffs and makes a face like I've made the world's most absurd accusation. "why would I be scared?"

"because we're all alone in here..." I use a lower tone to freak him out a little. "who's to stop them from coming out and... snatching us?" when my hand snakes around behind him to pinch his arm, he jumps.

"what the--" he catches sight of the devilish grin on my face. "don't do that!"

"sorry, Einstein." I laugh and turn in the other direction, him following me to the next piece. Spencer doesn't seem to have more thoughts to give on the exhibition, probably still a little creeped out. part of me begins to feel guilty for startling him, even though he constantly does that to me. his footfalls are weirdly soft.

I wonder what Spencer is like outside of work. what he does when he gets back to his apartment. how could someone like him entertain themselves? maybe he just reads books until his eyes glaze over. he definitely doesn't go out often, but maybe he has other nerdy friends. I hope he does. there's something in his eyes that's too viscous for me to grasp, something swimming and pocketed. I'd like to understand it, although that doesn't seem like a great idea to pursue. he barely gives his closest friends information about his life.

we end up at opposite ends of the room, him still examining an entombed husband and wife couple while I check out a canonic jar. the silence in this room is tangible. I wasn't lying when I felt an energy shift— it's like gold and clay and it smells like cracked cinnamon.

I'm trying to get a better look at the detailing when I feel a cold hand wrap around my forearm, easily encircling it. I jolt.

Spencer stands behind me with a playful smile, like he's quite pleased with himself.

"Reid!" I yank my arm away from his long fingers and see him let out that rare laugh. it's pleasant and fills the room with a warmer light as I rub my arm where his fingers held me. I'm surprised he was willing to touch me at all; it's pretty obvious that he's got a problem with germs, which is understandable.

"who's scared now?" he tries to defend himself with his palms when I reach out to gently smack his shoulder.

"you know, I was starting to feel bad for you." I laugh. he smiles brightly and keeps walking into the next room. I realize that the way we move is like two weighted ends of a string. he drifts out on his own, I follow, and vice versa.

I appreciate that he's beginning to loosen up around me, so much so that he smiles at a joke I make in the English Regency section. we walk quickly to absorb as much as we can before the museum closes, but we still don't get through all of it. Spencer isn't much of a conversationalist, and he doesn't really need to be. he listens to me talk, I listen to his erudite observations, smiling when he uses certain terms that sound like they're from someone much older.

by the time a curator tells us we have to go, we've completely lost Prentiss and Morgan and end up meeting back at the entrance. it's pitch black outside; Boston is still bustling, except my legs are tired and I'm ready to crash in bed. we have another packed day tomorrow.

#spencer reid #matthew gray gubler #dr. reid #criminal minds #mgg #fanfic #fanfiction #wattpad #friends to lovers #BAU #slow burn

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maxineswritingcenter · 4 years

Text

Bray Road - Fox Mulder x nonbinary!reader part 2

Agents Mulder and (Y/N) investigate mysterious killing on a forgotten road in rural Wisconsin. A connection to a case in the past brings the investigation to a whole new level.

—

The agents decided split up. Mulder went to go speak with the surviving victim and (Y/N) went to the coroner’s office so that they could look over the victims so they could get an idea of what could have done this.

Mulder entered the ICU where the boy was being held. Jason Mulligan, age twenty-two. He was a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. After getting directions from the nurse, he knocked on the door and made his way inside. Laying on the hospital bed, the boy looked like he’d been through the ringer. Any skin visible was covered in bandages, even his head apart from his right eye and mouth was covered. At his bedside was a woman he assumed was his mother.

“Pardon my intrusion, I’m special agent Fox Mulder with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” He flashed his badge.

“This was an animal attack though.” Mrs. Mulligan said.

“We were called in, it’s just procedure. I just came to ask Jason a couple questions if he’s up to it.” Mulder said, looking at the boy in the bed.

Jason sat up a bit, “I can answer questions.” He spoke in a hushed voice.

“I appreciate that, young man. Now how did you find yourself out on Bray Road yesterday evening.”

“A couple of my friends from school said they saw the beast. We wanted to find it, take pictures and I don’t know… get some money for it? I don’t believe in this type of stuff but-…” He paused, his hands tightening into fists.

“But now you do?” Mulder asked.

“Look, I’ve seen bears and wolves. That thing wasn’t either of those. That thing wouldn’t let us leave the road. It circled us. Picked us off one by one. I got thrown into a ditch and played dead. I stayed there and passed out. I woke up in the hospital.” He recalled the night before.

“The officers said that you were saying a word when you were found. Repeating it actually. You were saying “field” over and over again.”

“I mean, we were right by a field. That’s the only thing I could think of.”

Mulder’s cell phone began ringing in his pocket. He handed Mrs. Mulligan his business card, “Call us if he remember anything else.” He made his way back into the hallway and answered his phone.

“Mulder.”

—–

(Y/N) arrived at the coroner’s office and was led back to the autopsy facility. Dr. Andrea Sherman was the doctor beginning the procedure. Dr. Sherman got scrubbed in and began speaking.

“We’ve pieced together about five bodies. Or what’s left of them. This is the body that’s mostly intact.” She motioned to the body on the table covered in a blue sheet. Dr. Sherman pulled the top of it away revealing the head and torso of Zeke Bruins according to the tag on his toe. His left arm was torn to shreds by the creature’s claws. His right arm, seemingly torn off. The doctor began her physical examination of the body.

“I think this is pretty open and shut.” Dr. Sherman began, “We’ve had a few bear sitting recently. These kids were just there at the wrong place and the wrong time. Probably just a mother defending her cubs.”

“But it’s only October, cubs aren’t usually born until January.” (Y/N) said without thinking, like the words just flew from their mouth. The doctor looked up from the corpse and eyed them.

“I suppose.” She squinted through her safety goggles, “By the way, are you from around here? You look really familiar.”

(Y/N) shook their head, “Nope, just have one of those faces.”

“Well anyway, rabid bear, black bear, the rare grizzly, it’s probably nothing-” She stopped mid sentence, “What the…”

“What is it?” (Y/N) asked. Dr. Sherman was staring into the arm socket of the boy, she took a pair of tweezers. With a little effort, she jerked free something that was embedded in the bone. She dropped it in a metal bowl.

“Oh my god.” Dr. Sherman said. (Y/N) looked over her shoulder and their eyes widened. It was a human tooth. Their stomach dropped and their heart leapt into their throat.

“Could you sent the xrays to the field office in Quantico?” The doctor nodded, “Good. I’ll be in touch.” They made their way out the door and called agent Mulder. He picked up in the first few rings.

“Mulder.”

“It’s (Y/L/N). Listen, one of the victims had a tooth embedded in his shoulder blade.”

“A bear tooth?” He asked.

“No, a human tooth. But that doesn’t make sense.”

“Well, (Y/L/N) the human jaw is capable of biting off our fingers like a carrot, whose to say it can’t be lodged into your bone?” There was just a hint of humor is his voice.

“It’s impossible. The wounds sustained by the victims can’t be human. The average strength of our jaws are at about one hundred sixty pounds per square inch. The force that it would take to do this damage would have to be over two thousand.”

“I have a hunch. I’m meeting up with a local journalist on the case can you meet me there?”

—-

The address agent Mulder gave them was to a small townhouse closer to downtown. They parked in the driveway behind Mulder’s rental and met him on the porch where he seemed to already be talking with the journalist.

“Speak of the devil,” He smiled, “this is agent (Y/L/N).” (Y/N) met the pair and extended their hand to meet the woman’s.

“Linda Godfrey, a pleasure.” They shook her hand. Linda smiled at them.

“Have we met? I’m getting the strangest sense of deja vu.” She said.

(Y/N) shook their head, “Nope. Sorry.”

“Well, like I was telling your partner, back in 1991, I started working for The Week which is the local paper for the county. We were just getting siting after siting. So I started compiling and unraveling. I’m actually writing a book about it, I’m going to call it: The Beast of Bray Road: Tailing Wisconsin’s Werewolf!”

“So you think the beast is a werewolf?” Mulder asked, looking somewhat pleased.

“Well, I don’t know what else it would be. From the descriptions given that could be the only possibility. I even have the testimonies of the only survivor from the attack in the seventies.” Linda said excitedly.

“The survivor was a little kid, it was dark and they were scared. I don’t believe any testimony they give would be accurate. It’s the power of suggestion, this child lives in a town that makes its revenue from a cryptid like mothman or the Jersey devil.” (Y/N) rationalized.

“Even if that were true, Agent (Y/L/N), it’s all we have to go on. The child was placed with family in another state.” Linda said, “Now, if you would like, I could get you a copy of my research and all the evidence I have. You just have to promise to not let a single soul see it.”

“Cross our hearts.” Mulder made a crossing motion with his finger over the left side of his jacket coat.

“Well, come on in.” The agents followed Ms. Godfrey into her home. There were met by endless imagery of wolves and bears on almost every wall, figurines on the coffee table.

“I’ll be right back.” She said, leaving them in the living room.

“I never told you her name.” Mulder said, bending down to look at a figurine of a bear fishing.

“Huh?” They said, mind taken away from the portrait of a wolf howling at the moon.

“When I called you over here I never told you what the journalist’s name was. But you recalled it like it was someone you knew.” His green eyes seemed to look into their soul and to the core of their subconscious. They avoided eye contact, chewing on the inside of their lip.

“Look, Agent (Y/L/N), if you want me to trust you then you need to tell me what’s really going on here.” He said. They stood in silence for what seemed like forever. That is until Linda Godfrey came back with a stand of files.

“Here we are!”

Back at the hotel, Mulder had been in his room reading through the files that he had been gifted. Every first hand account of the creature. When he got to the killings in seventy-four he stopped. The name of the child from the case had the same first name as his partner, nothing strange about that. A coincidence more than anything. But that made him think. If he could find this person, who would be around his age at this point, maybe he could convince them to undergo regression hypnosis. He placed a call to the bureau to try and get the adoption records and went next door to share the findings.

A knock at the door pulled (Y/N) out of their thoughts. They hadn’t even realized the tears that were trailing done their face until then.

“Come in!” They called. The door opened and Mulder appeared in the doorway. He came inside, shutting the door behind him.

“I was looking through the records and I think the kid from the accident is our best bet of finding this thing. I got in contact with the bureau and they’re uncovering the adoption records.

“That won’t be necessary.” They said, finally meeting his eyes.

“And why’s that?” He asked. After taking a good look at them, he sat besides them on the bed, “Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not.” They paused, choking on back sobs. They cleared their throat and laughed a little.

“Mulder, it’s me. I was the child in the car.”

—–

Yay! Part 2! I’m really happy with how this is coming our so far. Thank you for reading!

Part 3 here!

Also just in case anyone is interested: Linda Godfrey is a real person who actually wrote a book about the Beast of Bray road. I only dramatized her for the sake of the story.

Shoot me a message if you like to be added to the tag!

Bray Road tag:

@theres-a-dog-outside-omg

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lifeisdabubbles-undersalmondean · 3 years

Text

La Pomme ~ Chapter Seven

Pairing: Sam x OC (eventual Dean x OC and Dean x Castiel. And I mean eventual.)

Series summary: George is a casual French-Mistake-universe Supernatural fan living in no-COVID 2020, who's life is upended when she's suddenly launched between realities, two years into the boys' past (S13E22). What begins as an insane, immersive fan experience turns into more when Jack goes missing and George offers up her AU information to help track him down. Soon it's discovered that she and Sam may actually have history. But that's impossible, right?

Word Count: 11,800

Warnings: {smut, fluff, angst, show level violence, swearing, mentions of suicide} ***Detailed warnings will be tagged for specific chapters.

A/N: Following the events of my prequel Paradise and second story From My Eyes Off. Reading those first gives context but isn’t necessary to start this one.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sam, Dean, and Castiel had been stomping around the bunker determinedly for the past hour looking for Jack.

After getting back from being Michael's pack mule the evening prior, Dean had gone to talk to him, but he wasn't in his room. He searched a few other places and when he came up empty, he went to Sam and Cas. When they joined the search and all three came up empty, they began to worry.

"Anything?" Sam asked as Dean and Castiel both returned to the map table room from opposite sides of the bunker.

"Nothing," Castiel admitted with a defeated tone.

"No one's seen him since yesterday. The few people I saw either saw him in his room playing video games or getting food from the kitchen," Dean added, his tone was worried-angry. He couldn't help but mutter in annoyance, "Can't believe you let him get video games."

"So, no one saw him leave?" Sam asked for confirmation, ignoring his grump brother, and the two other men shrugged in hesitant affirmation.

"Alright, well let's regroup. We'll do a quick full sweep together, talk to everyone we see, and look for any sign of him or an explanation," Sam decided. "If that comes up empty-"

"We'll hit the streets. Let's start in his room; if he did leave on his own, maybe he left a note and I missed it." Dean reasoned before the three of them went to search together.

They spent the better part of 15 minutes tearing the room apart and had yet to find anything useful.

"There's nothing here, guys," Sam shook his head frustratedly, setting the mattress back down on the bed.

"Certainly no explanation for where he went," Castiel added dejectedly, closing the dresser drawer he'd been searching through.

"The problem is, there is something here." Dean gestured to the room and said, "all of Jack's stuff. It doesn't even seem like so much as a pair of shoes is missing."

"Haven't found his phone yet," Sam pointed out frustratedly as he tried calling him once more, "not that he's answering it."

As the three stood there watching him call again, the door started to open and they all turned hopefully. When they saw Tim-one of the camp refugees-stick his head in instead of Jack, there was a collective shoulder slump.

Tim was in his late 40s but looked much older. He had a 80s punk style, with torn up, oversized dark pants, a black and white ragdoll band shirt, and huge black boots. Tim completed the look with a short green mohawk attop his head, long ZZ Top, salt-and-pepper beard, a spiked collar and matching spike through his nose.

Dean didn't like him.

"Tim?" Sam acknowledged the man when he spotted the group.

Dean watched Tim's surprised expression closely as he addressed Sam, "Oh, hey, Chief! What's shakin'?" He looked at the other two men and Dean noted a slight sweat begin to form on his forehead. He gulped and asked, "Jack here?"

Sam frowned, "No. Have you seen him?"

Tim seemed nervous, "Uhh, not since yesterday. He let me borrow his headphones," he reached into his pocket and held up the pair of headphones, "so I was just returning them."

"When exactly did you last see him?" Came the gruff follow up from Dean as Sam reached out and took the offered headphones.

"Late last night? He was playing video games with that dumpy, frigid gal."

"'Frigid'?" Castiel questioned. He thought it was an odd choice of descriptor. Sam wasn't pleased with Tim's choice of words either, but for different reasons.

Tim nodded, "Yea, ya know, tall, blonde, cute face but real icy, like she's better than you even though she's got a little too much junk in the trunk."

Dean and Sam shared a disgusted expression before Dean asked, "Full of opinions about her body but don't know her name, huh? Stay classy, Timmy."

"I assume he's referring to George," Sam offered with an annoyed tone.

"There's a woman named George?" Dean wondered.

"She's new, from the camps. She's been... connecting with Jack," Sam explained vaguely to his skeptical brother, though it came out a bit wrong.

Tim shrugged nonplussed, "Never caught her name, but she's always hanging around the kid. A little too much if you ask me," Tim gave them 'the eyes' and Sam narrowed his in disbelief at what the guy was insinuating.

"Wait, so first this girl is frigid and now you're saying she's… what? Lusting after Jack?" Dean asked dubiously.

"She's not a girl, she's our age," Sam corrected and then added, "Also, I doubt she was doing anything inappropriate." He didn't want to say why he doubted it, because it was none of Dean's damn business.

Tim hesitated and then said, "Look, all I know is I came by last night to borrow his headphones and the two of them were on the bed playing video games. They looked awful close to me. And she seemed pissed when I showed up, like I was interrupting something."

Of course Sam was not inclined to believe this story. Based on his own personal experiences with her, he was almost positive it wasn't Jack she was interested in. That was even more true if she was the woman he'd dreamt about so long ago. Which she obviously wasn't considering she was from an alternate reality. And she was real, whereas the dream, of course, hadn't been. So, it made no sense and he hadn't really allowed himself to entertain those thoughts since he first thought about it.

And, to be fair, he had been very wrong about women in the past.

"Interrupting what, exactly?" Sam demanded to know.

"I don't know, Chief. But when I left, I heard her asking him if he was 'ready to go'," His eyes were wide for emphasis and there was a creepy smirk on his face.

"Go where?" Castiel asked quickly, missing the innuendo. Tim just bounced his eyebrows in response and the three men frowned and shared curious expressions. Sam's expression was more doubtful than the others.

After a long pause Dean asked dubiously, "Jack doesn't even know how to do that… right?" None of them knew, and there was an awkwardly long silence before they realized Tim was giving them all a strange expression.

"Need anything else?" Tim asked, inching away from the doorway, "I'm supposed to meet up with Jules for a hunt."

"Tell Jules you need to sit this one out and don't leave the bunker," Dean demanded. "We might have more questions for you later."

Tim nodded in understanding, starting to back out of the room again, "And just, by the way, she isn't from the camps."

"Sorry?" Sam asked in confusion. "She's not?"

Tim shook his head, "No, sir. As second in command of third-shift security detail, it was my job to know everyone. I'd never seen her until I came here. Figured she was one of yours," with a shrug, he left.

"Alright, well we need to find whoever George is. Now!" Dean started to leave and Sam stopped him.

"Hold on, you believe his story?" He asked with a frown. He realized he barely knew her but… he felt connected to her. Dean and Castiel looked at him for a reason not to and he explained, "Listen, I know her-kind of. I-I've seen her with Jack and there's nothing that-"

"So, maybe Punk Rock Douche is wrong about things being inappropriate, but he says he heard her ask Jack if he was ready to go, and now Jack's not here, so..." Dean shrugged and Sam nodded begrudgingly. He couldn't disagree with that logic, so off they went.

As the three of them searched for George they became increasingly concerned. Just as Tim said, none of the camp refugees knew her, other than to say that they'd seen someone matching her description 'lurking' or 'sneaking' around the bunker after they showed up. They didn't know her name, they all swore she didn't come from Apocalypse World, and they had no idea where she was staying.

Sam became more and more deflated the more people they spoke to. On one hand, he didn't want to believe a word Tim had said about her, because most of them were awful. And in the admittedly limited amount of time he'd spent with her, he found her to be nothing but pleasant. And charming... Adorable. Incredibly kind hearted, but intensely competitive in a way that amused him. Had his instincts about her really been this off? Was she that good at duping him? Or, he worried, was he that good at being duped?

On the other hand, if she really was from this reality and just snuck into their bunker and lied to them about it, why? Certainly dreaming about her made a bit more sense now that she was of his reality, but was that a good thing or a bad thing? A happy coincidence or Gabriel's weird attempt at a long con? Or had the dream been real after all?

Why was he so bad with women?

Jack's phone had been blowing up with calls from Sam for the last two hours, so George figured it was time to return it. He had let her borrow it the night before when she'd mentioned wanting to listen to music. Really, though, she was trying to get in contact with Rowena regarding her trip home. She'd heard hide nor hair of the crazy redheaded witch since she'd left her there weeks ago, promising to find a way to get George home "in no time." She'd been here so long now that she'd DONE LAUNDRY. More than once! And-fun fact-the 70+ year old bunker didn't have an electric dryer! She'd have to remember to add that little factoid to Wikipedia when she got back.

Truthfully, though, being there had been like the world's best vacation from her normal life. Other than missing her friends and inexplicably worrying about the wellbeing of her students, she felt amazing. The meds she typically took to regulate her anxiety and depression had been left back at home but surprisingly she hadn't needed them. Maybe because the situation was so crazy exciting she didn't have time to be anxious or depressed? Whatever the reason, her new environment was strangely comfortable.

However, she knew the longer she was there the more dangerous the situation became. So, when Jack and her started to become friendly, she spotted an opportunity to try and get in contact with Rowena. Using the ruse of wanting to listen to music, he let her borrow the phone and made sure to give her the headphones. Which, she now couldn't find. Considering she had no way to replace them, she was kicking herself for losing them.

She checked the nooks and crannies of her tiny room one more time before giving up. Hoping Jack would take pity on her, she grabbed his phone and headed for his room. As she walked the now familiar path, her attention was on the phone, checking the messages again. She let out a frustrated growl when she saw that there were still no replies.

Texting Rowena once more to let her know that she was giving the phone back to Jack and not to respond, she added, "But DO get back here and get me home. NOW! Please?" before deleting all the texts she'd sent.

As George huffed frustratedly, she turned the phone off and looked up finally. The second her attention wasn't on the phone, all the hairs on the back of her neck stood up and she got a sick feeling in her stomach. She was being followed. As she took a sharp turn toward the kitchen, she caught a glimpse of Dean-turned-Michael skulking behind her. Her heart started beating faster, all the blood felt like it drained from her body and a cold sweat broke out on her forehead. The thought that this must be what true terror felt like briefly popped into her head. Just as her vision began tunneling, she found the strength to move her wobbly legs and dart into the kitchen.

Unfortunately for her, there had been a small bunker party the night before; beer bottles littered the floor. She just happened to kick right into a small pile, sending three bottles crashing across the room. The echoing clangs made her feel nauseous and dread began spreading through her chest.

Nice and stealthy.

A large cleaver sitting atop a cutting board on the prep table caught her attention. Thinking quickly, she lunged for it and then flung herself back across the room to the entryway. She slammed clumsily against the wall with a clear, obvious thud. The cleaver was clutched against her heaving chest. Doing her best to catch her breath quietly, she tried to listen for his approach. Unfortunately, the loud, obnoxious sound of her own blood rushing was muting her surroundings.

Aftering standing poised and ready for attack for what felt like a crazy long time, George finally-slowly-peaked her head around to check the hallway. From her vantage point she could see very clearly down the left hall and hadn't seen anyone moving since she got there. Her breath was held almost unconsciously as more and more of the right hall came into view. Her grip tightened on the cleaver and she slowly raised it on instinct, but it didn't take her long to see that Dean-Michael wasn't there.

Maybe he passed me while I was panicking? It didn't make much sense to her but she hesitated to put too much thought into it. Every molecule of her body was screaming for her to run back and hide, but she knew she had to find Sam and warn him.

Lowering the cleaver quickly, she shoved her hand in her pocket and ripped out Jack's phone. She'd planned to text Sam a 911. Just happened to turn her head half an inch at the right time when she saw a flash of plaid and scruff flying at her from inside the kitchen behind her. The phone dropped from her hand in surprise and she swiped the cleaver on instinct.

Her reaction was surprisingly effective as the blade connected and sliced the underside of Dean's arm. Unfortunately, it also came too late; he was too close. He grabbed her hand with his good arm and twisted the weapon out of her fingers painfully. Using his grip on her hand, he easily flipped her around, wrapped his-now bleeding-arm around her neck and locked both arms together.

As she struggled against the tight chokehold, she tried to fight the panic that was building. Scratching and clawing as his arm and struggling to breathe, she tried to drop her weight. When he followed her down without loosening his grip, she tried lifting her legs up off the ground in desperation. To her shock, he easily lifted her back upright. Almost without thinking, George kicked her legs out. When they connected with the opposite wall, she pushed with all her might.

Dean stumbled backward. When he made contact with the wall behind him, she felt more than heard a deep, rumbly-perhaps annoyed-groan escape him. Unfortunately, however, his grip around her neck didn't loosen and her vision was starting to tunnel. Digging her nails hard into his arm, she felt him grunt in pain again but there was nothing more she could do. With the lack of oxygen, George's body started going limp as she quickly began passing out.

He finally let go, just before she was totally out, laying her down on the floor. She was vaguely aware of some shuffling noises, a long stretch of silence, and then her limp body was lifted up and tossed over his shoulder like a bag of rice. Mercifully, air was flowing into her lungs again but she couldn't focus on much. He was carrying her through the hallways, at a determined pace, for a while. Turning into a room finally, she was aware of lights being turned on and metal scraping against the floor.

The next thing she knew she was being set down unceremoniously in a chair. It was an ancient, mostly metal chair with an old, worn leather seat. Her head flopped forward limply. As she struggled to regain her senses, Dean used her weakened state to affix her arms and legs to the chair with handcuffs. Then he stuffed a folded bandana into her mouth and tied it around the back of her head.

Suddenly, she felt him sprinkling her with something wet. Slowly lifting her head up, she saw him approaching her with a small, shiny blade. Normally, she'd freak out but she was still recovering from the lack of oxygen. Mercifully, all he did was press the blunt side of the blade against the skin of her arm. When she noticed the curious expression on his face, she realized what he was doing. Assuming the blade was silver, she realized the earlier liquid had probably been holy water.

The stars dancing in George's vision had finally cleared when Sam appeared in the doorway. As he walked in, her eyes went wide and her heart stopped. She started shouting incoherently behind the gag and there was a loud clanking sound as she tried to lift her hands and wave him out. Sam froze, looking at her in concern, then looking at Dean questioningly, then back to her.

The sight of George tied to a chair with a gag in her mouth registered slowly for him. He recognized her sitting there, dressed in a long sleeve black ribbed Henley t-shirt and khaki shorts. It took a moment of looking at her-perhaps distracted again by the bright artwork on the pale skin of her thick thigh-to notice the handcuffs and gag.

He jerked his head angrily toward his brother, "Really, Dean?! I told you to go easy! What the hell is this?!"

George stopped screaming in surprise when she heard Sam call him Dean, "'Ah'ss-eeennnn?!"

Dean raised an eyebrow, glancing over at George, and shrugged indifferently, "She had Jack's phone. And she has a secret hideout in our bunker that we didn't know existed." Sam looked shocked and turned to look at her quickly, then back at Dean when he lifted his arm to show off a bandage and added, "And she attacked me with a cleaver!"

"I-'hawt-ooo-err-'IKE-UHL!"

Sam listened carefully and then gave Dean an exasperated expression, "She thought you were Michael, you idiot. Of course, she attacked you! She probably thought you were going to kill her." Still, Sam hesitated to let her out of the cuffs immediately. He had to be sure.

Just then, Cas walked in with a piece of paper in his hand, "Other than a few clothes and food wrappers, her room was pretty bare. Like, Sam's room but with slightly more warmth. I did find this though. It appears to be a spell of some kind." George raised a confused eyebrow, watching them closely.

"A spell?" Sam was starting to get concerned. He definitely hadn't expected her to be a witch. A witch working with Gabriel would explain the dream situation though, he thought a bit disappointedly. He ignored that for that time being though. If the dream had been real, it wasn't a can of worms he wanted to open just yet.

Cas nodded, "I'm having trouble figuring out what it means, I think it's written in code. From what I can tell, the intended effect is to debilitate something called a 'pull out game?'" There was a muffled groan from behind the gag, as all the color drained from George's face.

"What?" Sam asked, confused. Castiel passed the paper to Sam to inspect.

"Some kind of a sports term?" Dean muttered with a frown, trying to read it over Sam's shoulder. "What's W-A-P?" Another loud groan escaped her lips.

Cas shrugged, "It's hard to follow because the context jumps around. I'm still trying to decipher it. I think it mentions some ingredients: weed-which I believe to be a colloquial reference to the plant cannabis, a king cobra-doesn't specify alive or dead-and something called 'punani Dasani'." As Sam scanned the page his eyes got wider and wider, then he quickly looked away from it.

George was struggling against her bindings even harder now, "Iss 'ought a ss'ell, iss a soo'g!"

Sam set the paper down on the table and walked over to her, taking the gag off. Dean quickly swooped up the paper and started reading.

As soon as her mouth was free, George shouted, "It's not a spell! It-"

"What's a 'Kegel'?" Sam, Cas, and George all turned to look at Dean's confused expression with a concerned look of their own.

Cas answered, "It's a type of exercise for strengthening pelvic muscles." Dean still looked confused. Sam and George looked surprised that Cas knew that and he added, "I assume it's used as part of the ritual for the spell?"

"Oh my god, it's NOT a spell!" George cried, blushing from head to toe.

Cas narrowed his eyes, "If it's not a spell then-"

"It's lyrics!"

"Lyrics?" Sam asked.

"Yes! Lyrics; for a song!" All three of them looked skeptical.

"A song by who, Chris Brown?!" Dean asked doubtfully.

George suddenly looked offended, "What?! No! It was written by women!"

"Written by women?!" Dean's head tilted questioningly and he stuttered, "'Beat it up, catch a charge?' 'Not looking for a fight, but I'm looking for a beating?' 'I want to gag, I want to choke, I-'" Sam rolled his eyes and reached out, snatching the paper away from him.

George struggled against her bindings more, waving her hands in surrender, "Dude, I refuse to sit here and explain or defend consensual rough sex for you…" She paused and looked in deep thought for a moment before muttering, "though I may have written fanfiction about doing that exact thing, actually…"

Dean and Sam shared a strange look and she said quickly, "The point is: that," she indicated toward the paper Dean was trying to annoy Sam into letting him read again, "is just a rap song, by Cardi B. I've had it stuck in my head since I got here but I can't listen to it because it doesn't exist. One night it was driving me nuts, so I finally just started writing out the lyrics hoping it would help somehow. I'm not a witch," She assured, and then looked at Dean, "and I'm not a demon! Or anything that's bothered by silver. I'm not anything! I'm just human!"

"With interesting taste in 'music'," Dean mumbled with some air quotes.

"And by the way, yes, I one hundred percent thought you were Michael! I saw you coming down the hall and nearly had a heart attack. If I'd known it was-" she looked him up and down with a strange mix of appreciation, awe, and terror, "really you… Dean Winchester." She thought for a minute and then shrugged, "Well, I probably still would have hid, but I definitely wouldn't have tried to stab you."

The guys were quiet for a moment before Cas asked them, "What do you think?"

"I believe her," Sam said definitively and George's stomach fluttered nauseatingly. "I know she thought you were Michael. We've been talking about it around here for weeks and you've not been back that long."

"Well, it's still feasible she heard about it…" Dean said but his tone indicated that wasn't what he really thought. "I've still got a lot of questions, but I'm inclined to believe her on these so called 'lyrics' at least," Dean said, begrudgingly, "I mean, what spell have you ever heard of that says 'if he ate my ass, he's a bottom feeder'?"

"Christ," George closed her eyes tight. If she weren't so terrified she would laugh. When she opened her eyes again finally, the smirk on Sam's face made her stomach do flip flops, so she closed them again.

"Alright," Dean addressed her again, "So, where's Jack?"

George's eyes flew back open and she frowned, "Jack?" She looked at Sam confused and then asked, "What do you mean 'where' is he?"

Sam was studying her, reading her reaction, before answering, "We can't find him in the bunker. He's gone, but nothing else seems to be missing."

"Except his cell phone, which was missing until I found you," Dean added accusatively, picking Jack's phone up off the table and holding it up. "So, when did you see him last?"

George frowned deeper, a concerned expression on her face, "Yesterday, but not for long." She looked over at Sam and explained, "As he's been getting better at the games, he's been more interested in single player. And seeing as how I'd rather gouge my own eyes out with a melon baller than watch a teenageish boy struggle to play video games that I could beat in my sleep, we've been hanging out less. He usually only comes to see me if he's really stuck or when he wants to talk about something that's bothering him."

Dean's brows furrowed curiously as he wondered who this woman was that seemed to be getting so close to his brother and his kid. "Why did he come to you yesterday?" He asked gruffly.

"I, uh… went to him, to ask if I could borrow his phone and listen to some music. I ended up staying to chat for a minute because he was pissed when I found him."

"Why?" Castiel asked with concern.

George smirked a bit, "Because he couldn't get a good picture of Gyrados in Pokemon Snap?" Dean looked confused and highly annoyed about it; Sam couldn't help but chuckle.

"Is that… another ambiguous song lyric?" Castiel looked confused.

"No, it's just a challenging video game," George explained. "So, hang on, are you sure he's gone-gone? Maybe-"

With a frustrated sigh, Sam nodded and cut her off, "We're sure, unfortunately. Can you just walk us through yesterday, when you saw him?"

George was getting worried; was Jack really in trouble? Was this another Big Bad trying to kill them? Was she going to have to hide in a small space again?! Did she have time to pee first? Where the hell was Rowena? Half of her was ready to go home, now, even if it had to hogtie and yank the other half with it.

After collecting her thoughts for a minute she said, "Sure. It was late evening. I went to his room to ask for the phone and found him chucking a controller at the wall," She and Sam shared a smirk and Dean narrowed his eyes curiously. "We talked about him being pissed at the game and I told him no one can get a picture of that fucking impossible pokemon, so not to beat himself up about it. Then I offered to play something multiplayer with him to get his mind off it. We played for a bit but the zombies were overwhelming him." Sam had to hold back a chuckle at the fact that she didn't seem very sympathetic. "I could tell he was just getting pissed all over, so I pretended I was tired of playing and we turned it off. He didn't feel like talking, so I made an excuse about being tired and told him I'd bring the phone back today."

"Where were you sitting?" Dean asked matter-of-factly and Sam flinched at the question.

"Scusi?" George didn't understand.

"When you were playing together, in Jack's room. Where were you sitting?" He asked again.

She looked at him like he had two heads, "What?! Why does it matter where I was sitt-" Her breath caught in her throat a little when she realized why he might be asking the question. All the blood drained from her face save for the deep, angry flush in her cheeks. She could see Sam fidgeting uncomfortably out of the corner of her eye.

The question offended her deeply and made her feel shame she didn't deserve to feel. She'd been sitting on the floor, per usual, and even so there was nothing going on between her and Jack. She doubted he'd even call her a friend; she'd helped him out with the games and listened when he needed someone to talk to a few times. That was it. Period. But the mere fact that Dean had asked the question had now planted the seed in everyone's mind. Even though she's innocent, and even after they find that out, she feared the question would always be there. She'd never be able to have a normal friendship with Jack, now.

You moron! You aren't going to be staying long enough to have any kind of friendship with any one of them, what. are. you. doing?! Just answer his moronic, misogynistic question and get this over with already.

She took a deep breath and unclenched her jaw to answer him, "I wa-" but then stopped and thought, although, when are you ever going to get the opportunity to put Dean Winchester in his place again?

Then she shook her head emphatically and, hands gesturing noisily, said, "No, ya know what? Fuck that. I honestly don't think it's any of your fucking business what square footage of space my ass was taking up inside of a room you weren't in. And I know for a fact that if I had a penis you would not be asking me this question at all, which is both ergregiously misogynistic and heteronormative. Unfortunately for you, I have a strict rule against answering such questions, sooooo thanks and g'fuck ya'self." She just told Dean Winchester to go fuck himself. She was proud but also felt like she might vomit.

Dean's eyebrows raised high. His expression slowly went from shocked, to pensive, to mildly agreeable. With an amused smirk, he gave a quick nod, "OK, you might have a point. But, I wouldn't be asking the question at all if certain people hadn't expressed concerns about the location of your ass inside the room."

"Dean," Sam was really uncomfortable with this line of questioning; though certainly not as uncomfortable as she deserved to be. He felt sure that Tim's accusations were baseless, but Jack's life could be on the line and there were definitely things she hadn't been honest about. He couldn't let his desire to believe her negatively affect Jack or their ability to find him. Still, he didn't think it was necessary to humiliate her, so he interjected gently, "George, while you were hanging out, did you talk about anything that stood out? What was his mood like?"

George swallowed hard and blinked back the shameful tears, before answering quietly, "We didn't really talk about anything special. Game shit-talk, mostly." Purposefully omitting the fact that she spent most of the time peppering Jack with questions about Sam. It seemed unnecessary to mention it now anyway, since obviously Sam felt she was being inappropriate with Jack.

"Did he say he was going somewhere? Or ask you to take him out again like with Gamestop?" Sam followed up.

George shook her head, "No. The only place he talked about wanting to go was hunting with you all. He wanted to find Dean, of course. But he wasn't worked up, just normal complaining. It wasn't anything new or concerning."

Dean asked gruffly, "Did anyone else see you two together?"

She frowned at him, "What do you mean?"

"Can anyone corroborate that you were with Jack or that you left him, alone? And yes, I would ask that question even if you had a penis," He finished with a smirk.

"Dean," Sam growled, shaking his head in frustration.

George stared daggers at him before swallowing back her snarky reply and smiling politely. At this point, no hogties were necessary; she was ready to go home. She felt mortified and ashamed, so she'd play the game if it meant being done with this. After a moment of thought she said, "Uhm… no, I don't think so. Well, maybe Tim?"

All three men shared an intrigued glance. "Blink-18Tim?" Dean clarified.

George couldn't help a wry chuckle, nodding affirmatively, "After I left Jack's room, he bumped into me in the hall. He didn't see me with Jack but he saw me alone after I left him."

"Did he know you'd come from Jack's room?" Castiel asked.

"I don't know, maybe? After I left I turned the corner, bumped into Tim-dropped the damn phone like a clumsy idiot. He picked it up and handed it back to me and then…" Pausing, she rolled her eyes to the ceiling and let out a begrudging sigh, "Well, lets just say, he wasn't respecting my personal space despite repeated attempts to create distance. So, I didn't stay long enough to explain my comings and goings to him."

"I'm sorry," Sam apologized with another deep frown. He was starting to feel like a massive tool. And he made a mental note to have a chat with everyone in the bunker about sexual harassment in the hunt space.

She clenched her jaw and looked back at Dean, shrugging, "I'm used to it." That only made Sam feel worse but George continued on, "Anyway, Tim probably can't corroborate that I was with Jack but he saw me alone in the hallway around midnight… with Jack's phone. I don't know if that helps me here, or not, actually," She finished with a deep sigh. Unconsciously, she tried to lift a hand to run through her hair, only to be reminded it was handcuffed to the chair. She huffed and gripped the arms tightly instead before adding, "Listen, I don't know what kind of information you're trying to get from me, but I can tell you with complete and total honesty: I do not know where Jack is. And my vagina and I have nothing to do with why he's gone missing," That was directed at Dean, to whom she gave a pointed stare.

Ignoring her snarky decree of innocence, Dean asked slightly more nicely, "Did you see where Tim was going when you left him?"

"I didn't. He turned down the hallway toward Jack's room…" She trailed off, thinking back to that night, "but I can't say for sure where he went. Like I said, the guy was giving me the creeps, so I left quickly."

There was a dense silence in the room as the three men digested her story. They huddled together and murmured to each other for a moment.

"So, do we believe Creepy Tim or Lil Kim?" Dean asked sarcastically motioning to George with a slight nod.

Castiel was unsure, "I don't know…" He looked the woman over with a skeptical eye, feeling inexplicably uneasy in her presence but he couldn't figure out why. "Something about her is… unsettling me."

Sam frowned, "What? You think she's lying?"

"No, no, it's more… Well, truthfully, I can't explain it. I don't think she's lying necessarily, but I think there's more than meets the eye."

"Is that just a fancy way of saying she's hiding something? Because, she's definitely hiding something," Dean said definitively, glancing back at the paper with the lyrics again.

"She's answered all our questions so far," Sam defended. "Even the ones that some could construe as offensive."

"Jack's missing and she was the last one seen with him. Just because you're sweet on her, doesn't mean she's not evil," Dean sneered.

"Historically speaking, it would make her more likely to be evil," Castiel added helpfully and Sam looked deeply offended.

With an annoyed huff, Sam grumbled, "She's the last one to be seen with him according to Tim. Obviously, their stories don't match up. Look, I'm not saying there isn't something strange about her," with a glance back at her he lowered his voice, "and obviously she wasn't honest about where she came from, but I really don't think we know enough yet to say she's responsible for Jack going missing. And Tim is definitely on my radar now."

Castiel seemed doubtful, "I don't know. Do we now believe her over Tim? The people of the camp fought beside us against Michael. Against Lucifer! He's our ally, isn't he?"

Neither was sure how to answer that. Sam thought for a minute, remembering something. With a brow furrow, he looked back at George suddenly, asking, "What music did you listen to?"

George looked confused, "What?"

"You said you borrowed the phone to listen to music?"

George's eyes went a little wide and she sputtered, "Oh… right, yea, the phone. Music." With what she hoped looked like a calm shrug she explained, "I didn't actually get to. Jack broke the speakers on the phone and…" she paused guiltily, "I might have... misplaced the headphones."

"Misplaced?" Castiel asked curiously as the three of them shared another look.

George rolled her eyes in annoyance at herself and said, "OK, yes, I lost them! They were attached to the phone when Jack gave it to me but when I got back to my room, I couldn't find them..." She trailed off guiltily.

Sam, Dean, and Castiel looked at each other with urgency and Castiel nodded before turning to leave quickly, "Tim. On it."

George looked confused but remained silent, watching them carefully. Dean and Sam spoke quietly to each other.

"Tim brought those headphones back when we first saw him at Jack's room, right?" Sam asked, even though he knew he was right.

Dean nodded and said, "And she said when she dropped the phone he handed it back to her. Probably swiped them then."

"You thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I'm thinking Tim is at the top of my suspect list now and I'm pretty close to pounding on his face, yea," Dean and Sam nodded in agreement and then glanced over George again.

"What about-"

Dean shook his head, unsure, "I don't know, man. You seem to be pretty sure she's innocent and based on what we know right now, I'm inclined to agree with you… but there's still something odd about her. And Tim was right about one thing: she obviously lied about coming from Apocalypse World. No one knew her. And she was hiding out in that room we didn't know existed until today, which is honestly kinda creepy. So, where did your little stalker come from and what is she doing here?"

Sam rolled his eyes and said, "Why don't we just ask her?"

Dean thought about it for a minute and then shrugged, "Alright, I will." He turned away from Sam and back to George, looking at her curiously, "So, George." The look she gave him was very done and he smiled, "Perhaps we got off on the wrong foot-"

"Oh? To which foot are you referring? The one where you strangled me or the one where you all but accused me of sexually assaulting a teenager?"

Dean smirked and gave her an apologetic expression, "Both. Mostly the first. I wasn't trying to hurt you, exactly-"

"Yea, I get it. You were just doing your job," George sighed, still annoyed about the sexist insinuation about her relationship with Jack, but understanding about the interrogation. If Jack really was missing, she knew they had to 'work the case.' It's just, so far as she knew, Sam was the only one who had ever seen her and Jack together and to hear Dean tell it, there were some concerns about their friendship. It hurt her more than she wanted to admit to think Sam was the one with those concerns.

"Right," Dean nodded slowly and then asked, "So, how did you end up here? At the bunker."

George's expression went from annoyed to surprised and then nervous, "Uhh, what… what do you mean?"

Dean shrugged, "I mean, Sam said you told him you came from Apocalypse World?"

George glanced at Sam and then darted her eyes around the room nervously, "I don't know if I said it so much as he guessed and I didn't correct him, but..."

When George didn't offer any further explanation, Dean and Sam exchanged a glance and Dean said, "Yea, and uh… Jules said the two of you were close."

"She did?" That was interesting.

Dean nodded emphatically, "Oh yea! Said the two of you fought together in Apocalypse World. Said you killed a lot of those giant squid aliens together?" Sam had to force himself to not roll his eyes at his brother's ruse.

"G-giant squ-?" George's eyes went wide and she muttered, "Holy-I really need to pay better attention to this show..."

"What?" Sam's brow raised.

George cleared her throat and said, "Nothing! Uh, just… yeah, I-I guess if that's what Jules said then… yup, I-I… I did that?"

"That sounds like a question?" Dean asked with an eyebrow raise. "Did you fight and kill giant squid aliens or not?"

George paused and then said slowly, "Whatever Jules said is exactly, uh-what happened."

Dean had to fight to keep his face expressionless, so he paused before saying, "Right. Well, hey, in that case I want to extend my condolences." Dean looked down and Sam tried not to react to whatever his brother was doing. "She told us how you lost your half human-half giant squid alien husband to the fight."

Her jaw dropped in surprise and a quiet chuckle of absurdity escaped her lips before she could stop it. As she struggled to keep her expression from showing the immense confusion she felt, her mind was drawing a complete blank at how to respond to this information. Was this in the show?!

Sam also struggled to keep his composure, lifting a hand up to rub his nose oh-so-casually, hiding a smirk.

When she couldn't respond Dean encouraged-slowly, as he was also struggling, "That must have been difficult? Losing Flurbert like that."

George grimaced and started nodding slowly, still looking very uncertain. She wasn't exactly sure how to feel about losing her imaginary human-squid alien hybrid husband. "Ye-eah… always hard to lose someone…" Finally sputtered out of her mouth.

Dean's eyes widened quickly in disbelief that she hadn't cracked at 'Flurbert'. With determination, he pushed forward, "Jules said it was real recent, too." George made an exaggerated noise of sad agreement, trying desperately to control the I-think-I'm-going-nuts laughter that was bubbling up. She was kind of nervous that the struggle might make her vomit.

With a sad shake of his head Dean continued, "I can't imagine what you're going through. I mean, I just don't know how you're going to do it all alone."

George narrowed her eyes a bit and managed a confused, "Do… what?"

Sam quickly turned away as Dean explained, "Raise all the babies." Luckily, he'd realized what was about to happen a split second before Dean said it, otherwise his face would have given them away.

"The fuck?" George blurted.

Dean's expression was innocent and he explained, "Yeah, Jules told us about the pregnancy, too." Sam couldn't turn back around, he was biting his fist to keep from laughing.

George's face twisted into a nearly crazed look of disbelief and asked, "Sorry-Jules... told you... that I was an ex soldier in a war against, er-giant squid aliens... who is also pregnant by her dead... human-squid... alien hybrid husband?"

Dean gave her a little 'oops' face and asked earnestly, "Oh my god, I'm so sorry. Were you not announcing yet?"

George was silent for a long time before finally, unable to stop it, she burst into the most insane laughter she's ever experienced. Between gasps she managed to get out, "What-the-fuck-is-happening?!"

Sam and Dean shared an amused look. Dean looked proud of himself and Sam rolled his eyes at his dumb brother. He could have easily just told her they knew she wasn't from Apocalypse World, but Dean loved the drama.

"Did you guys get new writers or something, what the hell!?" George managed to squeak out before another round of laughter. The look the brothers shared next was one of confusion. As she calmed down, tears streaming down her face, she said, "Oh my lord, I've gone beyond Oz at this point. Giant Squid Aliens?! That's Star Trek, not Supernatural!"

"Supernatural?" Dean asked and Sam whipped around to her, suddenly serious again. George saw them looking at her suspiciously and her laughter died away. She knew she had no choice but to tell them the truth now.

"Wha-" Sam furrowed his brow at her and asked dubiously, "Are you a fan of Supernatural?" His face fell suddenly and he swallowed nervously, "Did Becky send you?"

"Ha!" Came barking out before she could help it. With a pensive expression, trying not to laugh again, she said, "Um… Well, yes to the first question; hard no to the second."

Dean was getting angry and growled, "Explain."

George took a nervous breath and said, "OK… well, here's the thing: I wasn't lying about being from an alternate reality, I just was lying about which one I came from. When you ask if I'm a fan of Supernatural, I assume you're talking about the books. By Carver Edlund, right?" Dean and Sam both nodded affirmatively with a slight frown. "OK, so, I'm not a fan of the books. I've actually never read them because they don't exist in my reality," George looked guilty and paused again.

The brothers exchanged another confused look and Dean asked more than stated, "OK?"

"I'm confused," Sam took a step closer. "You're a fan of Supernatural but you come from an alternate reality where Supernatural doesn't exist?"

"I said the books don't exist…" George gave them a nervous smile, waiting for them to come to the conclusion on their own. They weren't, so she said, "Think back about six-ish years ago?"

Following her directions, Sam's face slowly went from confusion to disbelief and then shock. Dean's face did the same, on about a five second delay. George squeezed her lips shut to keep from laughing.

"Wait… Are you saying you're from that-that alternate reality where this is all a TV show?" Sam asked, extremely skeptical. Then again it certainly explained a lot of her little idiosyncrasies.

George winced guiltily and nodded, "Yeah."

No one knew what to say and they all felt equally as awkward suddenly.

"You think we're actors?" Dean asked finally.

George shook her head a little and shrugged, "I don't really know how to answer that question." A nervous laughter bubbled up and she looked queasy suddenly, "I'm in a new reality for fucks sake. When I first got here? I definitely thought you were all actors, yes. Which was incredibly embarrassing because I couldn't remember Rowena's real name-er, Rowena's actress' real name? You know what I mean. Anyway, it definitely took some convincing, to say the least, but I've been here a while now and I've kinda gotten used to it? I mean, I think I know that you're really Sam Winchester and you're really Dean Winchester and this is all really… real." With a pair of wide eyes, she let out a huff of apologetic frustration, "Still, it's not every day you're suddenly ON a television show. I still get embarrassingly nervous whenever I see another charac-person I recognize," she shook her head with a light blush. "Which is exactly why I was trying to avoid you all while I waited for Rowena to help me get back home. But then I kept fucking up and running into Sam and then I woke up in his room and then Jack found me there and-and-and then he found me in the kitchen and he looked so sad; I had to help! What was I supposed to do?! And then Gamestop and Sam had a beard and things just spiraled! I-I-I-" He near breathless rambling stopped short when she met Sam's sweet eyes and her blush darkened.

"She woke up in your room?" Dean asked with a curious look to Sam.

Ignoring him, Sam quickly interjected, "Er-Rowena? What does she have to do with all this? Does she have Jack?"

George shook her head vehemently, "Nono, no! I told you, my being here has nothing to do with Jack being missing. I'm not part of this story, I don't belong here; I'm just… like one of those little fish that stick to sharks. Just looking for a safe place to hang out, maybe mooch a little bit of food here and there, until I can get back home to my reality. I'm not here to mess with anything. In fact, I think it's best for everyone if you let me go back to my hovel and consider me not here! Just pretend I don't exist because I'm definitely not supposed to. Here, that is."

Sam frowned for a minute and asked, "How do you know?"

"Know what?" She asked in confusion.

"That you aren't supposed to be here?"

"Oh, well funny you should mention that. To add some glitter to the glue I've obviously been sniffing-if I may borrow a phrase," She shot a smirk to Sam. He furrowed his brow in shock, remembering having said something similar when he was without his soul some eight years prior. She then grimaced and finished apologetically, "I come from the year 2020."

Both the boys looked yet more stunned and exchanged dubious expressions. Even Sam was starting to feel worried about this woman's mental health.

"Those lyrics I wrote down? They're from a song that was just released a few months ago, which is why I can't listen to it here. All the shit you're going through right now-Michael, apocalypse world? Ya, all of that has already happened for me. On the show, I mean."

It hit Sam hard suddenly just how much she knew about them-him, and it felt like he'd swallowed cement. He was ashamed of all the horrible things he'd done, the pain he'd caused so many people. It wasn't reasonable to expect a partner to be understanding about any of it, which is partly why he'd been reluctant to pursue relationships more and more.

But he'd been really hoping that maybe she was meant to be part of h-the story, so he asked anyway, "But... how do you know this is supposed to happen? That you aren't supposed to be part of… the 'story?'"

George guffawed and said, "Look, I'm admittedly behind on watching these last few seasons-and maybe I wouldn't be considered the world's biggest Supernatural fan-but I'm pretty confident that I was never actually on it," She finished with a definitive nod. Was it her or did Sam seem strangely disappointed.

"OK, tell me something only a fan of Supernatural would know," Dean said dubiously.

She narrowed her eyes in doubt, "Like… something just about major events or something personal? I-I know you killed Hitler?"

The two men quickly looked at each other in shock and then Sam shook his head, "Wait, that does not count. He tells that story to anyone who'll listen."

"I know you can lift Thor's hammer!" She replied back to him, grinning at the memory. That was pretty hot.

Dean turned to his brother with a smug smirk, "You were saying?"

"Something more personal, then?" Sam asked sheepishly.

"Uuuuhhhh…" George was frozen, unsure how to answer until finally she blurted, "OK, how about I know 'Carver Edlund' is really 'Chuck Shurley' is really motherfucking GOD with a capital G! Huh? Or, ooh! How about Sam's imaginary friend person? I can't remember his name, but he was some kind of being called like Xanadu or Zanzibar or-"

"A zanna," Sam choked out, all the air missing from his lungs suddenly.

"Sure, right! A zanna! Honestly, I mostly remember that episode because of the mermaid. It was sad when she was killed; I love mermaids." Sam looked nauseous and Dean suspicious, but both their eyes were wide. The three of them were all staring at each other, unsure what to say.

Finally, Sam gulped, "Dean, no one knows about Sully."

"I don't know Sam, I'm just not convinced. A time traveling superfan? C'mon! She could have gotten this intell from... anyone…"

George thought for a minute and then said, "Well I know a few more personal things but it feels kind of… icky telling you about yourself like that." Dean and Sam exchanged nervous glances and then she said, "How about the fact that-in my reality-Castiel is played by a different actor because Misha Collins was murdered? And that, while the official word was robbery-gone-wrong, I think the three of us know the cause of death was a bit more Supernatural than that, hmm?" She looked at the two of them pointedly, with a small, sardonic smirk.

That one shook both of them and they looked very guilty, especially Sam. Then, looking at Dean, she kept going, "Like I said I'm not the biggest fan but if we're talking most recent seasons: I know you had the mark of Cain for a bit. I know you stabbed Death with his own scythe and released the darkness who started as baby Amara and then grew up real fast. And I also know you were kinda, sorta feelin' her for a while-no shame. She was hot," Dean gulped and George began listing off factoids like it was a grocery list, "I know she brought your mom back to life. I know that Sam got kidnapped and tortured by the British Men of Letters. I know they tried to kill you both but obviously they didn't know who they were fucking with and it didn't go well for them… I know that stuffy psychopath Ketch 'died'," she air quoted, "but then came back with some bullshit twin story which I don't really remember why because I was only half paying attention and I personally still think Ketch is a tool, but that's neither here nor there." She paused and Dean made a nod of agreement at her last comment, giving Sam a curious look. The young Winchester could do little else but blink rapidly and panic internally. Neither one could wrap their heads around this.

With a head shake and a frustrated eye roll, Dean asked, "So, let me get this straight, not only do you come from an alternate reality where Sam and I are just two douchey, Polish actor dweebs, but you're also from the future of that reality?"

"Well... I think only Jared's the only one who's Polish, but…" George shrugged helplessly, "essentially, yea." The deafening, dumbfounded silence returned.

Dean frowned and he asked slowly, "To do what? And how did you get here?"

George winced and deep sighed, "Yea, still working on all that. Honestly, I hadn't even thought about the 'why' of it; I was more focused on a general 'wtf' and 'how do I get out of here before I fuck it up and get the show canceled or something.' As for how I got here, I couldn't tell you. One minute I'm in my apartment, getting ready for a date, and-"

"Oh, a date?" Sam asked, a little too sharply, standing at attention. Dean snickered at Sam's doofy, fake innocent expression.

George nodded off handedly, "Yea, this guy I met online. We were supposed to meet up for the first time at Marin Headlands Park for a hike to watch the sunset." She finished wistfully, as though it was incredibly romantic. Sam and Dean looked at each other, eyebrows raised.

"Let me get this straight. You 'met' a guy online-so basically a stranger-and he asked you to go to a secluded, wooded area alone with him at dusk?" Sugar coating wasn't Dean's forte. "Can I get 'what is a thousand red flags' for $500 Alex?"

She narrowed her eyes defensively at him. "He's not a stranger, he's… he's… he's LuvsToHike79!"

"Oh my God," Dean's voice went high and Sam made an "oo, not good" face. Pulling his most smug 'told ya so' look, Dean held out his arms to an imaginary audience, "might as well be notaserialkiller19! No question that loser was going to club you over the head, drag you back to his basement, and chain you to the floor."

As George struggled to remember the guy's real name, she could feel her cheeks begin to burn. After a moment, she decided that she would not be accepting questions or comments regarding her barely-there love life from Jared Padalecki or Jensen Ackles…or Sam or Dean Winchester for that matter!

"Says the 'loser' who nearly suffocated me, carried me to the dungeon in his secret bunker, and handcuffed me to a chair?" Lifting her wrists demonstratively, the handcuffs clanged loudly against the metal armrests. Sam looked like he wished the floor would swallow him whole while Dean nodded his head in resignation at her point. "The point is, I was in my apartment and then… something strange happened, like loud music and a big shove, and then suddenly I was in the library with Rowena. After she dropped the alternate reality bombshell, she said she'd been casting some spells to help boost the power and keep the rift open for you guys to be able to get back. Somehow I came through the rift, too? When she left me in that hobbit hole-which by the way she conjured out of thin air. It was really cool-she promised to come back after she was able to ensure your safe return. That was nearly a month ago," She finished with an annoyed smile. "She certainly lives up to her reputation and I can't tell if that's comforting or incredibly annoying."

"Why not both?" Dean offered with a knowing smirk.

Before anything else could be said, they heard erratic footsteps approaching. All three of them turned to see Castiel leading a very reluctant and struggling Tim into the room. Tim started elbowing and slapping at him and, in frustration, Cas shoved him hard. George let out a yelp of surprise as the guy went crashing to the ground inside the dungeon. He landed at Sam and Dean's feet. Looking up at them slowly there was a panicked expression on his face.

He gulped when Dean grinned like a cat about to eat the canary, "Hiya, Tim."

Tim scrambled to his feet and tried to bolt but Dean tripped him. He stumbled and then turned around and swung at Dean hard. Dean dodged the punch and landed one of his own into the guy's gut. There was a loud clanging sound as George instinctively tried to bring her hands to her face in shock. When he started trying to get up again, Castiel elbowed him in the back and he crumpled to the ground with a disoriented groan.

Sam quickly picked up the keys to the handcuffs and walked over to her, "We're probably going to need that chair back now."

"Happy to oblige," George nodded enthusiastically and yanked on the handcuffs that were holding her down. Sam unlocked her hands and ankles in record time and she vacated the chair quickly.

"Sorry about that, we just have to be careful, you know?" He apologized, nervously watching her move away from the hot seat and toward the desk in the corner of the room. "Are you hurt?" Sam asked with some concern when she rubbed her wrists absentmindedly.

She shrugged and stopped, "Actually, no. Just habit."

"You get handcuffed a lot?" Sam joked, sounding relieved, while moving to help Dean haul the guy into the chair.

"Only when there's a safeword involved," She assured with a wink.

Sam let out an "Aheh!" and some silent chuckles followed as he locked the cuffs on Tim's wrists and ankles. George couldn't see his face but she pictured he was blushing and it made her smile.

Dean, who'd secured Tim on the other side, stood upright again. He gave both George and Sam a bemused once over, then said aloud to himself, "Yea, it's all starting to make sense now."

George's smile dropped and she asked curiously, "What?"

Dean chose not to answer. Sam finished snapping the cuffs and then stood upright, just as Dean tossed a flask of holy water at Tim. His skin sizzled and he was alert again suddenly. Growling in pain, he struggled against his bindings fiercely and his eyes flashed black. George shivered in shock, goosebumps covering her entire body.

Whoa, that's intense.

Sam turned toward George and warned, "So, this," He motioned toward Tim, "might get a little..."

"Intense?" She filled in the blanks, watching Dean set the flask down and pick a knife up off the table next to her. He gave the blade an appreciative once over that made her gulp. Nodding before Sam could even answer, she headed for the door, "Well, then, that's my cue."

Sam followed behind her a bit, walking her out. When they were almost to the door, they heard the demon formerly known as Tim comment, "Letting the chubby little slut go, hmm? Did she tell you where she's hiding Jack, yet? Someone do a thorough check between her legs?"

While Dean adjusted his grip on the blade and took a step forward, Sam unholstered his gun, cocked it, and aimed lazily, "Would you like to repeat that, Timmy? Didn't quite hear you."

The menacing timbre of his voice gave George goosebumps, yet she was barely paying attention, glaring at Tim with a white hot rage. After a beat, she forced herself to relax and cleared her throat.

Her finger raised in the air, as she took a step forward, looked at the demon with a polite smile, and began sweetly, "First of all, wow are you obsessed with my body. Sorry not sorry: even if you weren't a demon, hard pass. Second, you can aim all that tired slut shaming at someone who actually gives a shit, because it ain't me. Third," Sam lowered his gun, watching her take another step and gave Tim an expression of such pity that it made even Dean uncomfortable, "what kind of demon takes a shot at the Winchesters and misses? Hmm?" Dean, Sam, and Castiel watched, stunned and confused. They were poised to step in if she got too close as she took another step toward the suddenly confused demon and continued, "Oh wait, I know!" She placed her hands open on either side of her mouth and shouted, "EVERY OTHER FUCKING DEMON who's come before you, TIM! Far, far better demons than you. Meg? Dead. Abaddon? Dead. Alastair? Lilith? Ruby? You guessed it: dead. Well, OK, there was Yellow Eyes," she admitted, feigning resolve.

"Nope, actually, we got him too," Dean interjected helpfully, thoroughly enjoying this. Plus, as endearingly irritating as he found her, watching a confident woman verbal bitch slap a demon was hot. He could tell from the look on his brother's face, he felt the same.

George acted mock surprised, "Ope! You don't say! I have a hard time keeping track." She looked back at Tim and said, "You know, these guys have killed so many demons, that where I come from there's an entire wikipedia page just listing name after name of all the demons who came for them and died trying. I'm sure you realize that a lot of them were smarter than you. Yet for some reason, you, Tim-or Krampus or whatever the fuck your demon name is-"

"I-It-It's actually Cleetus…" Came a pathetic stutter.

George's neck snapped back and she shared a 'wow' face with Dean. After a moment she said sarcastically, "Catchy. Yet, I've already forgotten it. Tim, you actually thought you were going to be different, huh? Thought that you were going to be the one to finally get them, right? That your name wouldn't end up on that list? Yet, your cover story is some played out all-women-are-whores BS, accusing me of trying to seduce Jack and kidnap him or something? Really? Your big play was a poorly constructed red herring? That's it?" The look of pity was back and Dean was almost feeling bad for the guy. "You thought if you wanted it bad enough that you'd actually pull it off, hmm? Well, buddy, I've seen every episode of America's Next Top Model and I've got bad news: 'wanting it more' gets you squat."

"No kidding, otherwise Natasha would have won season 8 like she should have," Dean chimed in matter of factly.

George's adrenaline was pumping at this point, so she was unable to process the absurdity of that statement coming out of Dean Winchester's mouth-especially since he was wrong; Jaslene was far superior. The look on Sam's face alone nearly broke her, but she pushed forward and made a mental note to address it later.

With a shrug she continued, "Now, sure, you infiltrated their bunker, bravo! But, I'm looking around and seeing: you, special little demon snowflake you," Sam wondered if George had the urge to boop the man on the nose, as indicated by her tone in that moment, "helplessly tied to a chair. And I'm seeing both of them," She held her thumbs out at both brothers smugly, "decidedly not tied to chairs. Oh yea, and holding weapons." Then she pointed to Castiel and said, "Also, not only is that guy an angel but I think he's also kinda the dad of the kid they're looking for and boy does he look pissed." Castiel was quick enough to mask his confusion with the rage he was feeling and she continued, "Sure, he's not currently holding a weapon, but honestly I don't even think he's going to need one, do you?" She gave Tim an exaggerated grimace and motioned around to the room, advising, "Tim, look at your life. Look at your choices."

The demon, whose brow was suddenly damp, watched her with a confused, somewhat deflated expression and began to say, "Well, I-"

Cutting him off, she began to step backwards away from him slowly, "Anyway, I'm gonna go ahead and take off now. It's one thing to watch pretend torture on TV but another thing to see actual torture. So..." She let her words sink in before she turned around and started heading for the exit again. The demon looked nervously between the three men, who were all looking particularly puffed up and menacing by that point. Tossing up a peace sign as she left, she called out, "Better luck next time, Tim!"

The four of them remained in stunned silence for an incredibly long time before Dean finally said, "OK, if you insist, I'll say it: That was hot as shit."

Sam gave him a disapproving frown for his phrasing, then nodded begrudgingly in agreement.

“For the record, Natasha should not have won that season. Jaslene was the superior model," Castiel added, giving Dean a pointed look, almost unconsciously unsheathing his angel blade and stepping toward Tim.

Oddly, Tim nodded enthusiastically and agreed, "Yea, Jaslene was way bet-"

"Can we focus please?!" Sam said in exasperation. Dean and Castiel looked like scolded children with matching apologetic expressions.

When Sam turned away, Dean grumbled quietly to Cas, "We'll talk about it later."

"There's nothing to talk about. Jasle-"

"Guys!"

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cruddyborderlandstheories · 4 years

Text

this DLC has me FUCKED UP and i keep screaming

spoilers for Bounty of Blood under the cut, keep reading at ur own peril. Also some Guardian Takedown spoilers for anyone who hasn’t beat it yet

tl;dr: a comparison between something taken from BL2 and a thing taken from Bounty of Blood. more spoilery tl;dr below the cut.

also the siren thing is not spoilers so i’ll share it here for anyone curious, it’s just this: siren tattoos are blue but when lily absorbs eridium in 2, they turn pinkish/purple. just like how vaults do from bl1 to bl2. they’re white/blue in bl1, then purple-pink in bl2 (and tps), y’know, after Eridium begins erupting from the ground. just a neat little detail i noticed that im not entirely sure was intentional but im gonna believe it is.

tl;dr: Gythian Blood = Core and the Ruiner is of Eridian Origin even tho everyone in the DLC likes to say it was created with Jakobs’ bioengineering. disclaimer: idk if I’ve found every hidden ECHO so I may be missing a few things but I have done every side quest and took ample screenshots of all important dialogue in the DLC : )

“man i just sat here for like 15 minutes staring at my keyboard mentally comparing core and eridium like the dumb bitch i am.

it's not like we can do an actual comparison because we have no idea what the natural fauna of gehenna was like before jakobs came and mutated everything with core unlike pandora where we know what skags and rakk and shit were like BEFORE the eridium crust erupted.

altho!!! there's a neat comparison between joey ultraviolet and rose. like obviously he wasn't getting tattoos and was just doing lines of crushed up eridium but the point stands they both have glowy eyes and unique powers so i don't necessarily think this means rose is a siren just because she has magic powers especially when we know she got the whistling passed down to her from her grandmother.

especially because we've never seen a siren interact with core before. altho that leaves the question we have seen core tattoos now what are eridium tattoos like? actually rose's tattoos were on her right arm obviously she isn't a siren as we know them right now (I saw a post on reddit where people thought rose was a siren)

of course that brings up the point perhaps siren tattoos ARE eridium tattoos. but then we hear the general's log about how the devil riders were tattooing a man with core and blood so obviously they're not ‘naturally’ occurring unlike siren tattoos. so odds are they're probably not equivalents but something interesting i thought of while thinking about this is how well siren tattoos compare to the Vaults from borderlands 1 and borderlands 2″

anyway. this is all ive been thinking about. yes yes i know guardian takedown post but! >:( im still salty even tho this update has been lovely (outside of Blane not getting his correct damage scaling ‘till today......). so i’ll do that at my own damn pace. now let me elaborate so i can sleep at night lmao

Eridium

refinement produces slag, which weakens people and can mutate things

has mutating properties, mostly with imbuing elements into shit- possibly causes insanity

seems to be connected to another dimension, likely the one the Eridians are from

Core

has a secondary form of Infused Core

has mutating properties, mostly regarding a thing’s body and mind

apparently radioactive

there are some things i wanna note

1) People throughout the DLC say the Ruiner was created by the Jakobs corp (the company) thru bio-engineering but I’m 99% sure that’s not true. The paperwork seems to me like they found the egg somewhere on Gehenna and decided to roll and experiment with it like all corporations do when they find weird alien shit. so maybe they experimented with whatever was inside the egg, but I don’t think they actually created it entirely

“Excavated from [REDACTED] ... Local legends speaks of a [REDACTED]. This theory is not endorsed by our research personnel.

2) The Ruiner’s design reminds me a lot of the Warrior.

3) Core immediately reminded me of Gythian Blood from Guns Love and Tentacles and I don’t think that’s coincidence to have 2 back-to-back DLCs where the big bad is focused on green death juice. I think Gythian Blood and Core are of the same stuffs.

4) Therefore, I think the Ruiner is (mostly) of Eridian origin (if you haven’t already guessed).

This gives us an amazing look into how the Eridians actually create their beasts!!! And I’m so happy they showed us this.

(side note, Interitus Regina (the long name for Ruiner) literally means Destruction Queen and I think that’s beautiful <3)

i mean the idea that they plunge them from orbit to create an explosion similar to a nuke is fucking horrifying (but holy shit I love it so much ahhh it’s so cool!!!!)

the one side line from Oletta about how the company couldn’t control the Ruiner deffo makes me double down on this theory. I’m not entirely sure how Rose’s grandma knew about the whistling (I don’t think I’ve found every echo log in that area YET), but I would bet it was part of the testing given how many fuckin’ tape players they have throughout the facility. The Warrior was controlled by verbal commands via Jack, so it’s possible that the Ruiner was intended to be controlled similarly, but Jakobs intervention (or something like the way Rose hatched it) fucked it up.

now we know the Warrior was created to protect the Vault of the Destroyer (hmm.) so what the heck was the Ruiner created for? Ruiner is a name given to it by Jakobs/the people of Gehenna so we can’t really assume, but then again the monster names are pretty apt in this series even tho they probably technically shouldn’t be.

it was only an egg, so maybe it was another test of Core? A Vault Monster incubating until it was ready to protecc and attacc but was never hatched because the Eridians ‘sacrificed’ themselves before it could? (I’m still not convinced the Eridians are the good guys. Listen. LISTEN. The guardian takedown is something to think about, BUT it doesn’t disprove that theory and I’ll stand by it because I 100% trust the Overseer more than bitchpants mcgee over here who thinks he’s soooo special for no reason fuck you and your dumb ‘I did what the Watcher could not’ bull you haven’t done shit.) ok sorry im done he just angers me. stupid guardian man. your whip is stupid and you should feel bad. oh also I totally called us actually being Guardians thru Guardian Rank before the game came out aha yeah.

I definitely think Gythian was a test/use of Core from the Eridians. We see in Bounty of Blood that core seems to mutate more the physical (and occasionally mental) parts of people, like with the crew challenges u do for Juno with all the weird hybrid people and whatnot. Gythian had the whole ‘the heart still beats’ thing going on (which is definitely a physical mutation if i’ve ever seen one), plus the whole, you know, mind control and shit. Which is p similar to what the menta gnats can do when charged with Infused Core. And keep in mind in BLaT we see DAHL notes on what happens to test subjects when injected with Gythian Blood. They mutated physically and went insane.

What im saying is Sirens and Eridium and Elements are connected, so what does Core equal? body/mind sure but are there unique creatures for core (yes holy shit I’m not talking about h2o au for once and FINALLY they gave us a canon name for the green stuff!!!). If not, I’d love to see a Siren interact with Core to see what it does to them. seriously why hasn’t tannis interrupted us yet. horrible excuse for a science lover (kidding kidding, I love her). I’d also really love a fuller rundown on what the hell Rose’s powers were. Because the whistling thing seemed to just be her grandma’s thingie passed down to her from her mom

but the core stuff

her gun seems to be infused with it. So did her sword thing. I didn’t really get a good look at it i was too busy trying to see thru my blurry tears of LOVE for this DLC.

Strangely while her tattoos are (mostly) green I actually don’t know if they’re core infused bc look at this

n look back at hers. hers aren’t very lime.

anyway

her eyes

I’d love to know if the core gives her immediate future sight or just increased perception or reaction times. there’s a huge difference but she seemed to be able to shoot the gun outta the sheriff’s hand near immediately and it seems kinda implied its because of the core (or at least because her eyes are glowing green)

there’s a possibility she has some unique core powers/possibly implants because of her relations to the project in the first place, or as leader of the devil riders after looting the facility. it’s really hard to say without more info and like i said im not sure if i missed an ECHO or two or not regarding her backstory :(

Her hair is also green which I just noticed. Maybe she has core powers bc her grandmother got suuuuuuuuper irradiated/influenced working on project horizons and it passed down thru her n Rose’s mom, to Rose. Tannis does have a line about Sirens having unique hair colors and, if Sirens are linked to Eridium, perhaps those linked to Core also have unique hair color. Could also explain why only Rose seems to have those whistling powers. That said we don’t really see anyone else trying that whistling thing out afaik and idk if it was, like, a special ability or a certain tone/ditty or w h a t.

i know being vague with everything gives them more creative freedom to create amazing characters and scenarios, but dammit I want A N S W E R S.

All THAT said man I’m so glad magic is real in the borderlands universe. oh, sorry, “magic”. It’s magic. Science it, tannis, I dare you. either way, I win. Either it’s magic and H2O AU is canon, or it’s science and I finally get my goddamn answers. Hey gearbox can you make a book just explaining all the science and eridian stuff. please. I’d love you forever. please. pleaheheheheaaasseee it’s all i’ve ever wanted.

oh also can i just say, suuuper disappointed we didn’t learn anything about anshin. Really wish non-fan favorite corporations would get the spotlight/lore for once. Like, I like Jakobs as much as the next guy, and I get WHY they did it (can’t have a corporation looking too good!!!) but they now have 3 DLCs (Jakobs Cove, GLaT, and Bounty of Blood) and also a hefty chunk of the main game. Like... we all know Jakobs fuckin sucks, look at what they did on Pandora. I really just want info on a medical corporation 😭 I have to do everything my damn s e l f. but SERIOUSLY IMAGINE the possibilities that could come from a medical corp getting its hands on eridian tech. like, yeah obviously the weapons corps are gonna use it for weaponry and stuff BUT WOULDN’T THE MEDICAL CORPS MUTATING PEOPLE MAKE MORE SENSE??? ldfhgldfshg I have to do everything my damn self...

anyway all that aside, this is definitely by favorite borderlands dlc by a LONG shot. Nothing comes close. Ahhh the lore, the nuclear aspect, the a e s t h e t i c (seriously, have I mentioned how much I adore Trigun???), the art, the music, the cryoslinger, the fact I can bust out going beeEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAans like Ray Chase at any time and it will MAKE SENSE. I love all of it.

oh, also, Rose is totally not dead. C’mon, they couldn’t find her body. She pulled a Lilith. “Are you sure she didn’t just suffer a wound that LOOKS fatal, only for her to come back in a blockbuster sequel...?” is a line from mr Jones himself (the movie guy)

I just hope when she comes back she gets to meet Captain Scarlett. I’d love to watch their interactions plus pirates and or ninjas. That’s 2 DLC villains now that have vanished without a trace. And I like Captain Scarlett way more than Rose (seriously I spent the entire beginning of the DLC complaining about how her voice bothered me- I was so happy she was a villain, I was hoping that was the case).

oh yeah, reminder, the people of vestige were living next to highly radioactive egg for likely years. i feel really bad for them :(

also!!!

this made me smile

#im tired #good night #bl3 #borderlands #borderlands spoilers #spoilers #bl3 spoilers #borderlands 3 spoilers #bounty of blood #bounty of blood spoilers #dlc3 #dlc3 spoilers #dlc 3 #dlc 3 spoilers #i don't want to spoil anybody please lemme know if there's any tags i missed!!!!

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nadiaportia · 4 years

Text

Familiar Faces - A Past Tale

Summary: A fugitive plans her next move to leave behind her old life until she crosses paths with a magician who wishes to see behind the facade.

Starring Asra Alnazar and Ximena Rubalcada.

“Ha! You're very welcome, Kestrel, this's payback for last week!” The man laughed loudly as he took the coins of the table, much to the dismay of the other players.

“Oi, Viv, drink of their choice for everyone in here, my treat!”, he said to the smirking bartender. People around him cheered and even I lifted my empty jar of beer in acknowledgement before turning back to looking at the map laid out in front of me.

Several spots were marked; places I had traveled to in the last 5 years and ultimately never stayed longer than absolutely necessary. Technically my two month stay in this backwater town a five day journey away from Macawi Port had already been too long but I liked it here well enough and the people enjoyed having a magician among them. No one bothered to ask questions, something that wasn't the norm in places like this - the smaller the village, the more suspicious its inhabitants were of strangers.

But here I had been able to rent two rooms over a bakery, one for me to live in and the other to do business in - making wards and remedies for small maladies, casting protective charms and reading my customers' cards was run-of-the-mill stuff which I had already done before and always managed to be a hit with the locals. I had not been asked yet to do some of the shady stuff people with no morals would ask for, such as brewing love potions or cursing their rivals, and was more than glad for it.

Viv the bartender waved at me and pointed at the finished drink in my hand: beer with two vermouth shots. I nodded. My real alcoholic drink of choice - Cartagense liquor that tastes like herbs and vanilla - would've been too much to ask for in a place that on most days didn't even offer something besides beer. I doubted the people here had ever even heard of Cartagenth existing but the risk of getting discovered was something worth worrying about, no matter how small it was.

I eyed the city of Hjalle on the Western coast of the Strait of Seals. I had never gone to the South before; nothing about this place had any appeal for me whatsoever, be it the known lawlessness or the biting cold, but it was known that from Hjalle ships left to places much further away than from Nevivon, to the Far East and even to other continents. The language barrier would surely be a problem if I decided to take the jump over the ocean but I couldn't be the only traveler from here and lingua francas surely had to exist, which would make everything a lot easier. The bigger problem was that I couldn't tell how much money I'd need to take such a ship, especially if since I had to spend some coins to take the journey from Macawi Port to Hjalle first, and from what I heard it was a decently sized city - less than perfect conditions.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed the tavern door swinging open and saw two people entering. Both wore dark travelers' cloaks, which was exactly where their similarities ended. The taller and apparently older one of them had long flaming green hair, skin white like paper and their eyes hid behind orange glasses that made them look like an exotic insect and extremely out of place. The shorter one had a head full of white curls, golden brown skin, and… was that a snake that had just disappeared in his cloak? I raised an eyebrow. Strangers were not only a rare sight in here but extravagant strangers? That was downright fishy.

“Hey there, travelers, c'mon over! 'S always nice t'see new faces! Viv, two beer for these fine folks!” The lucky winner of the card game waved them over his table. The newcomers looked at each other, seemed to agree and approached them.

“Good evening. It's always nice to arrive to a place and have such a warm welcome.” The insect spoke with a high melodic voice. Both had their backs turned to me so I couldn't see their faces, and standing up to move would surely seem suspicious.

“What're your names? Mine's Cygni, that one over there’s Viv, and these are Kestrel, Alexei and Yelma.” He gestured to the other players.

Both travelers pulled chairs to the table and shrugged of their cloaks. “I'm Saray and my companion here,”, they put a hand on said companion's shoulder, “is Asra. We come from the city of Vesuvia on the other side of the Salty Sea.”

“Proper northerners, eh? That's pretty far away, has anyone here ever been t’Vesuvia?”

Various “No's” were said from all corners. I generally kept away from big places after unpleasant run-ins with Cartagense in Bizatena and Karnassos, and had kept an extremely low profile afterwards. Vesuvia wasn't exactly a place that screamed 'This is where you should hide!' to me and even though never having heard of any treaties between its sovereign and Cartagenth, this could have changed in the meantime.

“What 'bout you, Magali? You're from some place on the other side of the Sea.”

I felt a sudden rush of blood to my head and forced myself to take the deep breaths. There was nothing I wished more for the ground to open and swallow me whole. I looked up from the card to see the travelers and Cygni look at me with curiosity in their eyes. The insect's, Saray, eyes were still hidden behind glasses whereas their companion's, Asra, were a light purple and framed by long white lashes.

“Yes, from Nopal.” I said, keeping my voice as cold and uninterested as I could. I had no interest in speaking to these travelers or in them shoving their noses into my business.

The one called Asra perked up. “Oh, really? It's such a beautiful place, I've only been there once but it's breathtaking.”

I felt my eyelid twitch. “Yes, it is.” I pressed the words out more than speaking them and made a point to turn my attention back to the map in front of me. A single bead of sweat rolled down the back of my neck.

“Don't mind her, she's a very busy woman. Y'know, Magali is a magician who has settled down only a few weeks ago-” I tuned out the next of Nevil's words and fought against my rising desire to hex his mouth shut. Keeping my eyes glued on the map without really seeing what I was pretending to look at, I deeply wished to have the ability to disappear right here and now. Great, now the strangers' attention was on me without a doubt and my wish to bolt for the door when I saw the one named Asra get up from his chair and make his way over to my booth was almost suffocating.

“May I? I'm sorry for being so excited but it's just… it's such a coincidence to walk into a foreign tavern that far from home and meet another magician!”

If I had ever suspected the spirits that controlled the ways of the World had all come together in some shady backroom to conspire against me personally, this must've be the definitive proof of it. There was no way in hell that this could be a coincidence, I wouldn't have it or a friendly chat with this Asra.

“I suppose so. But as your new friend had already said, I'm quite busy and would like to be left alone.” I said coldly and cursed myself for never actually having gone to Nopal, otherwise I would've been able to learn the accent, but who would've known I'd meet someone who has actually been there in a village which most people have probably never left? After all, it was technically true, with the Rubalcabas originally coming from Nopal, but who was going to explain details?

Asra's shoulders slumped and his expression saddened.

“Of course, I understand. Apologies for disturbing you.” Something in his clothes shuffled and my eyes went wide when a snake crawled out of his left sleeve. It looked at me with the same curiosity its owner had given me and blinked.

Friend!

I jumped from the chair, hitting my kneecaps against the table in the process and gasped at the sudden pain.

“Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry!” Asra was at my side in an instant and put his hand on my back as I bent over in pain. “Faust usually knows better than to frighten people, I guess she was just as excited as I was.”

I waved away his concern and bit my lip and I sat back down while rubbing my knees.

“No, don't blame your familiar. Wasn't her fault. Mine's like that too-.”

I bit my tongue just as I realized what I had just said. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“You also have an familiar?” His eyes went wide and he beamed at me. Instead of an answer I coughed and tried to look at put together as I could.

“Of course, all true magicians have one. Now, please…” I turned my attention back to the map, feeling my heart flutter in my chest. But he didn't move away, in fact he didn't stop staring at me. Strangely enough, I didn't sense any danger from him and something about his youthful face and his eyes gave me the sensation of… trust. But spies could have any age; in fact the younger they were, the less people suspected them to be spies, and sometimes being unsubtle even played into their hands.

“Oh, that sure is true, but you don't need to be a trained magician to have one! All you need is to be decent at magic and have a connection to an animal.”

“Hmpfh.” Of course I knew that, did he take me for a fool?

“You certainly traveled very far, I see you have been to Prakra and Firent-”

I pulled the map away from the table and his eyes, rolling it together.

“Okay, I get it, you don't want people shoving their nose into your business.” He spoke with resignation and sighed loudly. I raised an eyebrow at him. “Yeah, I thought I made that very clear.”

Asra ran a hand through his hair in obvious frustration. “I know, but please, I- I can't explain it but-” Then he seemed to have an idea. “Do a reading for me.”

“Come again?”

“A reading. Let the cards tell you what to do.”

“I don't need cards to tell me what to do: I'm leaving.” Map in the hand, I stood up and passed by Viv, who opened their mouth to ask me why I was leaving even though I was just about to get my drink.

“Please, I- I came here for you.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. My heart stopped beating in my chest and blood freeze in my veins. Heat built around my fingers and I considered the situation I was in. Viv was still standing behind me, if I were to attack now they could get caught in a crossfire. The tavern was half full with more than enough witnesses and the door was too far away for my likening.

I slowly turned around “What?”

Viv, still standing between one, ducked and hurried out of our way, not before throwing me a wide-eyed look. Asra sighed, his face flushed from nervosity and also what I suspected to be embarrassment.

“Look, I don't know why but something called me to this village and I think it was you. I don't know who you are or what you do, I just felt something familiar when I looked at you.” He sighed. Now I had heard all kinds of talk about intuition and prophetic dreams, be it from other magicians or back home, but this right here just seemed a little too far-fetched - or painfully honest.

“I give you a reading, understood? Let me get my cards from my place, and don't try anything funny like following me.” I snarled but to my surprise, he held out his hand as if to stop me.

“Here, take mine.” He rummaged in his bag and pulled out a deck of dark blue tarot cards. I eyed them suspiciously and crossed my arms in front of my chest. “I won't use another magician's deck, I'm no fool.”

Asra shrugged. “Really? I didn't think there'd be people left who still believed in that particular superstition. But fine, get your own cards.”

I frowned. “I'm not superstitious.”

Asra sat down in the seat opposite the one I had occupied and put the deck in front of him. “Good, so let's get started. I'll let you get a feeling for them.” He winked at me and a mischievous smirk played about his lips. “How am I supposed to trick you by letting you use my cards? Hexing them? Besides, a true magician should be able to call the bluff.”

My face went hot as I made my way back to the table. “I know. I'm just being cautious.” The Vesuvian was definitely more at ease once I sat down and gave me an encouraging smile. I took the deck and looked at the cards. They were obviously self-made, the depictions of the Major and Minor Arcana unique, with the archetype being represented by humanoids with animal heads. The deck felt… friendly, and not in a false way. I shuffled the cards and laid out three in front of him all while not taking my eyes off him. Neither did he, and his smirk widened as I arched an eyebrow as if to ask him why he seemed to want to challenge me.

I took the card in the middle first. Two snakes were embracing and looking at each other lovingly. The Lovers, upright. I frowned, yet the words spoken to me by the two snake people were clear as crystal; in fact, they were the clearest reading I have ever done. There was no doubt what the cards were trying to tell me, they were incapable of lying to me.

“Oh, the Lovers! Most curious.” Asra said and looked from the card to me.

“You are on your path to begin a new relationship, but it can only be successful if you make yourself clear in what your intentions are. Once you manage to connect, it will only make both parties stronger through their shared bond.” I said the words half to him, half to myself, and looked inquisitively at the card. I half-way expected it to laugh in my face and call bullshit but nothing of the sort happened.

“So… there we go.” I finished, trying to ignore how unsure I sounded. “Good news to you, I suppose.”

Asra smiled. “Might I return the favor?”

I blinked. Here? No way.

“Not the best place.”

“Oh.”

There was an awkward silence between us, until I took a deep breath. Please, intuition, don't fail me now. If he does turn out to be a spy or an assassin, I'll never trust my gut and judgment ever again.

“My place is just a stone's throw away from here.”

The Vesuvian blinked in surprise and pursed his lips, then he seemed to realize what face he was making and instantly put on a more serious expression.

“Of course. Just let me tell my traveling companion that I'm… uh, gone for a bit.”

“Fine. But I don't want them to suddenly pop up there too.”

He nodded and walked back to the table where the insect and the card players were seated, all deep in conversation.

“Asra, my dearest, are you done with your magician business? If yes, join us for a game of cards, these fine people are most entertaining to be around with!” Saray said. They had still not taken off their glasses but from the accent in their speech I suspected them to belong to one of the many ethnic groups that lived in Prakra.

“Not yet, Saray, Magali actually wanted to show me her workplace.”

The card players looked at each other and smirked. The one called Yelma let out a wolf whistle.

“Let's be quick about it.” I murmured and snapped my fingers to get Asra's attention. Together we exited the tavern and I closed the door behind us.

We crossed the market place, passed by the small fountain in its center and reached the bakery. A brief fumble for my keys, a door being opened and we went up the stairs into the first floor.

“Guess your place always smells really nice.” Asra said.

“Yes. They also wake up at four in the morning to start working.”

He laughed as I entered the first room, the one where I usually worked in. A soft and questioning chirp got both our attention when I light up a candle from afar.

Segismundo looked at me from his usual sitting spot and tilted his head.

“Yeah, I know. Visitors that late are rare but don't worry about it.” I said to my familiar as he flew onto my outstretched arm.

“Oh, what a beautiful Quetzal! What’s his name?”

“Segismundo.”

“Very nice to meet you, Segismundo, my name is Asra and this here,”, he caressed the snake that had crawled out of his sleeve again, “is Faust. Sorry for disturbing you, you were probably sleeping.”

Segismundo looked from him to me and then to Faust, who herself was looking at him with pure curiosity. Ruffling his feathers, he shook himself and flew back to where he was before, right behind my seat.

“He doesn't take kindly to strangers.” I explained. I didn't mention that the fact that Segismundo didn't alert me but merely checked on who exactly was invading our space was a good sign... for them as much as for me.

“Familiars tend to be like their magicians.” Asra smirked and sat down at the low table where I would usually sit at with customers. “Quetzals are usually native to the rainforests beyond the Catclaw Desert so I guess you might be Nopali - even if Magali is a name I have heard a lot often when it belonged to people from Venterre.”

I said nothing and opened a drawer to get the tarot deck.

“Do you want something to drink or a snack? You didn't have anything at the tavern, if memory serves right.”

“A tea, but maybe for another day, I like to let it brew for a bit and I don't think you want me to be here longer than absolutely necessary. Snacks would be appreciated though, what do you have?”

“Hazelnuts and almonds.” The sooner I got rid of them, the better. These Eastern sweets had nothing on the deliciousness of roasted cocoa beans and maracuyas.

“Oh, why not?” All too happy I handed him the bowl on top of the drawer. “Since you used my cards to do my reading, I'd ask you to let me use me yours. You can decline, of course, but-” Wordlessly I handed him over my deck before he could continue and crossed my arms.

“Oh, thank you.” In the candlelight I got a much better look at the Vesuvian magician and studied his face as he regarded the cards. His hair looked soft to their touch and reminded me of cloudy summer days in Cartagenth. His skin was clean without any wrinkles but with a healthy glow to it, his eyes had a spark of mischief in them and a mysterious smile seemed to be his default expression. He couldn't be beyond his early twenties.

“Those are very beautiful cards, I don't think I have ever seen a design like this.”

“Thank you, they were a family heirloom.” Technically the truth. My cousin Agustín, the only close family member I had left who didn't hate me or wanted my death had given them to me in a back alley in Bizatena, shortly before I had seen him for the last time. He had previously stolen them from his mother's, my aunt, collection of magical artefacts and given them to me as a parting gift. You have a lot more use for them than if they were to catch dust, he had told me before I had wrapped my arms around his neck to embrace him.

“Your name.”

“Huh?”

“I need your true name. The identity you are the most attached to, and something tells me it's not Magali of Venpal.” He smiled at me as if to encourage me.

I didn't return the smile but merely exhaled a deep breath. All in or nothing, even though I felt no danger from this strange wandering magician.

“Ximena.”

“Ximena.” He repeated, as if to try out how it felt pronouncing my name. “I like it. It fits you more than the one from your disguise.” He winked, and I felt color rush to my ears and my face.

“Well, here goes nothing.” I murmured and broke our eye contact.

Three cards were in front of us. I felt a pull towards the one on the far left, and I knew that Asra did so too. Before he had even turned the card around I knew exactly what it was going to be.

“The Moon, reversed.” I whispered and felt Asra's, Faust's and Segismundo eyes on me as I looked at the card which showed a lobster looking up at a crescent.

“You're afraid. In fact, you have been afraid for a very long time, so long that you learned to live with your fear as it was choking the life out of you but as of right now it's threatening to overwhelm you and you don't know what to do.” Asra’s voice was calm and serene, but there was an unmistakable sadness in it too. For some reason, I felt extremely ashamed and embarrassed as he spoke. He leaned back and looked right in my face. “Take a closer look at those fears, analyze and combat them. Only then you'll know what to do next, and it won't be a rash decision but what's meant to be right.”

Neither of us said something. I was the first one who broke the silence after what seemed like a small infinity. “You should go.” My voice didn't sound as strong and steady as I would've wanted it to, but Asra nodded. “I did what I came here for, and you made it clear you wanted to be left alone afterwards. I respect that.”

He stood up and bowed his head. I followed his example. “Thank you.” It was all I managed to reply to that.

“I will stay here for perhaps a couple of days, I suspect we will run into each other again, since this place is small.” I nodded in response, that was very within the realm of possibilities. “Have a good night, Ximena. And you too, Segismundo.” He nodded in acknowledgement to Segismundo, who returned the nod with a tilt of his head.

“A good night to you and Faust too.” I fumbled with my hands. “Get some rest.”

“Thank you, we will.” Another small smile stole itself onto his lips and I stood up to lead him out of the room. When I closed the door behind him and we were once again alone, Segismundo regarded me with a curious look. Well, he was interesting to say the least.

“You don't say.” I sighed and made my way over to him.

He seemed like he knew you but at the same time didn't. The one named Faust had looked at me as if she had already met me, and I felt the same way.

“Have you ever-”

No. You know exactly I have never.

“Hm.” I put a hand to my chin. “I'm sure there is an explanation behind all this.”

What about the reading? You know he's right. Do you really think going to Hjalle will make our problems disappear just like that?

I blinked. “Of course not.” My words came out more sharply than I intended them too.

Good, because we had this discussion too many times now. Also, neither of us have a fondness for the cold.

I rubbed my temples. “I'm gonna have to sleep a night over this. Or two. Or seven.”

Segismundo took off and onto my shoulder. As he gently rubbed his head against my cheek, I caressed his emerald green plumage.

That's a good idea. The Moon is shining now, but tomorrow the Sun will.

#the arcana #asra the arcana #asra the magician #apprentice ximena #my writing #beta readers? never heard of them #two fics in less than four days? you love to see it!#i spent way too much time deciding which animal her familiar should be bc i was torn between two lol #the other choice was a giant ant eater but i figured that i should still have her have smth in common w the fam #wrt decisions... i know asra's card is painfully cliché so i had to think better abt the one ximena gets and good god that was a process #also: whoever finds the three easter eggs i built in that have to do w stuff i like or work w gets a smooch from ximena her familiar and me

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three-drink-amy · 5 years

Text

In the Eye of a Hurricane

I’m so sorry for the delay between chapters. Between my real life and other fic projects, this one just took a bit longer. I promise to not let it get that long after this one! Thanks for reading!

master list - AO3

Chapter Eleven

Claire stared down at the letter in her hands. Four words and an initial were all that graced the page, and yet it was seared into her brain.

It has been delivered.

-N

She knew for safety’s sake, he hadn’t put more detail. It could have ruined her if a longer letter had gotten lost or intercepted by the wrong person. The message was simple and informative for the person who knew what it meant. The papers had been delivered to Frank. What she wished had been added to the letter was his reaction. How did he take it? Did Ned have any feeling on how much longer this all would last?

But sadly, there were no answers to those questions. Just four words and an initial. Nonetheless, she couldn’t put the letter down. She kept staring at it as though it would change and reveal new information.

The staring continued even as Jenny pushed Ian and Jamie into the kitchen, trying to talk over their protests. “We have something to discuss as a family, aye?” Jenny yelled to them.

Both men looked over at Claire. Jamie looked concerned and Ian followed him as he walked closer. “Is everything alright, Claire?” Ian asked.

Claire nodded. “Yes.” She pulled her eyes from the note to look over at Jenny. “What will the discussion be about?”

“Christmas,” Jenny replied.

“Tis still a few days away,” Jamie reminded. He crouched down in front of Claire. “What’s the matter, a nighean?”

“Nothing,” Claire lied.

“Well something seems to be,” Ian maintained.

Claire sighed, looking back to the paper she’d dropped in front of her on the table. She handed it to Jamie. His brow furrowed as he read the short note. “Frank got the papers,” Claire informed the room.

“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?” Jenny asked, walking closer to the table.

“Of course, yes,” Claire agreed. “It’s just that my whole life now rests on what happens next.”

Jamie placed a soft kiss on her forehead. “Ye ken whatever happens next, we’ll support ye.”

“Aye, or defend ye from it,” Ian added. Jenny nodded in agreement.

Claire smiled at them, taking Jamie’s hand in hers. “Thank you,” she choked out. “It means more than you know.” She cleared her throat. “So why don’t we talk about Christmas? Something cheerful might be a good distraction.”

“Good idea,” Jenny said. She sat down at the other end of the table. Jamie sat down next to Claire, Ian next to Jenny. “So Christmas Day will just be the four of us and Jamie. And of course we’ll have our annual party on Hogmanay.” Everyone nodded in reply. “But I thought we could have a couple of people over on Christmas Eve for dinner.”

Jamie narrowed his eyes at his sister. “Which people?”

“Now before anyone starts giving opinions, let me just say that I’ve already invited them,” Jenny asked, clenching her teeth nervously.

Jamie sighed. “Let me guess. Tis Laoghaire ye invited?”

“Look, I talked to her about what ye asked me to speak wi’ her about,” Jenny started. “Twas an awkward conversation, but I think she understands.”

“Think?” Ian asked.

“I was as clear as I could be wi’out making things too uncomfortable,” Jenny corrected. “Anyway, twas just going to be her and Mrs. Fitz on Christmas Eve and so I invited them when I saw them at the market. The rest of the grandkids arena coming until Christmas Day and I hated the idea of them just being there alone,” she explained, flashing Jamie pleading eyes.

“I understand where ye’re coming from,” Jamie said cautiously, “but understand where I’m coming from. I dinna want my holidays to be spent wi’ a girl who constantly targets and offends the woman I -” he caught Claire’s look and cut himself off, “Claire.”

“The woman ye Claire?” Ian asked, giving Jamie a strange look.

“I won’t let him use the “L” word,” Claire explained with a small grin.

“Because of the divorce?” Jenny asked.

“No, because the bloody man won’t let me say it back if he’s said it first,” Claire told them.

Jenny stared at Jamie in confusion. Ian nodded beside the other man. “I suppose I understand that.”

“What are ye -” Jenny started before she cut herself off. “Never mind. Back to Christmas! Look, I will do my best to make sure Laoghaire is on her best behavior. And honestly, I dinna ken if she’d act that way in front of her grandmother. So I think it will be fine.”

“Better be,” Jamie muttered.

“Now, onto Hogmanay,” Jenny continued. “There will be lots of people coming from the village. Jamie, I’m sure they’ll all be too happy to see ye.”

“Will it be...safe?” Claire asked. “I mean, I don’t really go into the village just in case. Will it be safe for me to be at this party? I can always just stay up in my room.”

“Ye’ll do no such thing,” Ian insisted. “It will be safe. I promise ye. None of these people would do ye any harm.”

“More than that, I’m not sure they’d know who ye are just by looking at ye,” Jenny reasoned. “And if we just told them a different story, they’d have no reason to connect ye wi’ the woman people were looking for back in October.”

“So what would my story be?”

“How about mostly the truth?” Ian suggested. “Ye’re Jamie’s lass.”

Claire looked over at Jamie, noting the smile on his face as he reached for her hand. “I suppose I could go by my maiden name. No one’s heard of a missing Claire Beauchamp.” Jenny nodded in approval. “We could keep most of the details the same,” Claire continued, looking at Jamie. “We met in the war and were separated. Maybe we began corresponding after the war and you invited me here when war-torn London was too much and I needed a place to heal.”

“Sounds like something Jamie would do,” Ian mused.

Jamie shrugged before nodding. “That would coincide wi’ the vague stories we shared with Laoghaire and Mrs. Fitz as well. And explain why ye’ve stayed.”

“Well I’ve stayed because of you, fool,” Claire said, squeezing his hand.

Jenny smiled at the two of them. “Are ye excited for yer first Christmas together?”

Claire and Jamie looked at each other before glancing over at Jenny. “It’s actually not our first Christmas together,” Claire corrected. “Jamie was in the tent over Christmas of ‘43.”

“Aye, that’s right,” Jamie recalled with a fond smile. “Twas right after I got there.” He laughed as he was clearly thinking of that day. “Ye wouldna let me sit up yet -”

“Because you couldn’t,” Claire reminded.

“And yet ye brought me eggnog that someone had somehow gotten ahold of,” Jamie continued.

Claire laughed. “That’s right. That was a stiff eggnog,” she remembered.

“Aye, we ended up sharing it,” Jamie finished.

Jenny made a humming noise, causing them to look at her. She smiled at them. “Makes me happy to ken that at least one of yer Christmases away wasna terrible.”

“Well I’m obviously verra much excited for this Christmas, Janet,” he promised her. “Tis been too long since I’ve had a proper Lallybroch Christmas.”

“Then we should be getting everything ready,” Jenny said, standing up from the table. “Let’s go, folks.”

* * *

Claire was hiding. She’d finished her shift in the tent, but she knew that if she went to the mess tent, she’d find Jamie there. He was leaving the next morning and she had absolutely no idea what to say to him. It had been so sudden, the way he’d changed. There should be some logical explanation, but she couldn’t figure it out. They’d been close (closer than they should be) the entire time he’d been there. But then the flip had switched and he treated her like any other nurse. Like they’d never crafted an elaborate lie for his benefit together. She wanted to confront him and ask him why he was choosing to leave, but she never did. But she couldn’t deny, she was hurt.

Claire was sneaking between tents when she was discovered.

“Nurse Randall.”

Claire closed her eyes, sighing. “Yes?” She turned around to see Jamie standing in front of her.

“I wanted to thank ye,” he said.

“For what?” she asked exasperatedly.

Jamie took a small step closer. “For saving my life.”

Claire shook her head. “Please, I didn’t do anything.”

He raised one brow at her. “Ye did. More than most people think ye did.”

A silence hung between them, making her want to ask him all her questions. Why was he leaving? Why did he shut her out? Had she done something to offend him?

But she didn’t ask any questions. “Just be careful,” she whispered. “Or else it will have all been for naught.”

He laughed lightly. “I will.”

When another silence fell upon them, Jamie took it as his cue to part from her.

Instead of going to the mess hall, Claire went to her tent. She laid down on her cot but sleep wouldn’t find her. The whole night was spent worrying about Jamie and already mourning his absence, even when he was still at camp. When the sun was rising, Claire got herself up and prepared herself to go say goodbye to the person who’d meant so much to her.

The jeep was packed and ready for those departing. Jamie stood apart from her, seemingly unsure if he should say anything to her. Their eyes locked and he sighed, deciding to make his way over to her.

“Take care,” he said, bidding her farewell.

Claire could barely meet his eyes. “You too. I meant it, be careful. Don’t be a bloody hero.”

Jamie laughed. “I’ll do my best.” His hand reached out but dropped back to his side. “Ye be careful as well, Claire.”

She felt tears springing to her eyes. “I will,” she whispered.

A call from behind him meant it was time to go. Claire looked up to Jamie, trying with all her might to memorize the look of him. His hand shot out quickly, grabbing one of hers. He squeezed her hand and released it before she could even process it.

“Goodbye, Claire.” He walked off towards the jeep.

“Jamie!” she called. He froze, but didn’t turn. “Goodbye.” His body heaved with a sigh before he hopped in the jeep.

Claire curled her arms around her torso, shrinking a bit in her sadness. She watched as the jeep pulled away. Tears started to steadily fall down her cheeks as he got further and further away from her. When it was out of sight, Claire slowly turned and walked back toward her cot. She was close to sobbing and wanted to be as secluded as possible when the emotions within her finally broke free. Curling in on herself, she wept for the Jamie sized hole in her life, all the while ignoring how absolutely wrong it was.

* * *

When the knock on the door came, somehow Claire was the only one around. Jenny was putting her feet up after Ian, Jamie, and Claire had all insisted. Ian was upstairs helping Wee Jamie through an ill-timed meltdown over God knows what. And Jamie was putting the last touches on the Christmas tree they’d been decorating as a family.

Claire strode to the door and pulled it open, welcoming Mrs. Fitz and Laoghaire into the house. “Happy Christmas!” she greeted.

Mrs. Fitz pulled her immediately into a hug. “And Happy Christmas to ye, my dear! Ye look just bonny,” she said with a large smile.

“Thank you,” Claire replied with a dip of her head. “I’m so happy the two of you could join us this evening.” She leaned in closer to Mrs. Fitz. “I took charge of the meal, which I assure you was only because of your sage teaching.”

The older woman beamed, wrapping an arm around Claire’s shoulders. “That brings me so much joy, lass.”

A sigh from Laoghaire grabbed Claire’s attention. “I find it hard to believe that Jenny would just give away the Christmas meal.”

“Well, it wasn’t entirely willingly,” Claire admitted. “She was feeling quite tired and the rest of us made her take some time to rest.”

Laoghaire nodded, looking around the entryway. “Ye really fancy yerself part of the family, don’t ye?”

Claire bit back the retort she had at the tip of her tongue. Instead she shrugged with a fake smile. “I suppose so. It all comes down to them welcoming me into the family.” She saw her shot and she took it. “Especially after recent developments,” she added.

Mrs. Fitz raised an eyebrow. “And what developments would those be?”

Claire hugged her arms around herself, suddenly feeling a bit self-conscious. “Jamie and I have...rather, uh, taken up with each other.”

Laoghaire’s face showed fury while her grandmother squealed with delight, wrapping Claire in another hug. “Oh dearie, how wonderful. The two of ye make such a pair!”

“Thank you,” Claire replied, blushing.

“Where did ye say Jenny was?” Laoghaire asked.

“She should be in the sitting room.”

Without another word, the younger woman left them. Not long after she departed, Jamie walked into the room, his hand finding Claire’s waist. Claire looked over and smiled at him as he greeted Mrs. Fitz.

“Claire, here, was just telling me the good news,” Mrs. Fitz said with a wink.

Jamie looked at Claire, a bewildered expression on his face. “Sorry, I guess I was just excited,” she confessed.

He shook his head, a broad smile on his face before he leaned in and kissed her temple. “Well aye, I suppose it’s a verra Merry Christmas.”

“Indeed,” Mrs. Fitz agreed. “I’m so happy for the both of ye. I could tell the moment I saw the two of ye together that there was something.”

They shared a look before glancing back to their guest. “Well, I need to go check on dinner. I would never hear the end of it if I burnt Christmas Eve dinner,” Claire said, excusing herself. Jamie squeezed her hand once as she walked away. He turned to escort Mrs. Fitz into the sitting room where the fire was roaring.

The evening had turned out beautifully. Jenny had promised a nice night and it had delivered. The one comment at the door was Laoghaire’s only barb at Claire. After dinner, the group sat in the sitting room again, feeling the warmth of the fire as they imbibed and shared stories. Claire curled into Jamie’s side, clutching her glass to her chest. He placed a kiss on her head as his arm crept around her back.

Occasionally throughout the evening, one of the adults would get up to refill a drink. Jamie returned with a mug in his hands, switching from his typical whisky. Claire furrowed her brow but asked nothing. She sat up, allowing him to reclaim his seat before she curled back into him. He took a long drink before holding it out to her. “Tis a bit strong. Can ye help me finish it?” he asked, a reminiscent grin on his face.

Claire met his gaze before looking down to see the eggnog in his mug. She mirrored his grin, leaning up to kiss him quickly. “I’d be happy to,” she agreed, taking a sip of it. Coughing a bit, Claire looked back up at him. “Christ, you weren’t kidding. I thought that was just a joke.”

Jamie laughed, bringing her in closer. “Ye think anyone in this house would make less than strong eggnog?” he asked.

She nodded, chuckling. “Fair enough,” she admitted, taking another sip.

“This is a lot better way to share it, is it no’?” Jamie asked.

“I don’t know, there’s something about wartime and the fear of dying,” Claire disagreed. Jamie’s face filled with concern. She laughed, smacking his arm. “I was kidding.” She laid her head on his shoulder and handed the mug back to him. “Of course this is better. Every part of it is.”

When Young Jamie started to fade, Jenny and Ian both took him upstairs to tuck him in, leaving him with promises of Christmas morning. Claire felt the need to play hostess in Jenny’s absence and got up to put plates and cups in the kitchen. As she turned from the sink, Laoghaire walked into the kitchen behind her. Claire stood there silently, watching the girl.

“I wanted to apologize to ye, Claire,” Laoghaire said, shocking Claire to her core.

“Oh?”

“I havena been verra kind to ye, I’m afraid,” Laoghaire admitted. Claire’s eyes flicked to a point just over the girl’s shoulder where Jamie stood in the doorway, cautiously approaching. Laoghaire sighed with a shake of her head. “I’m no’ quite sure why I’ve been so harsh to ye.”

Claire narrowed her eyes a bit, taking a deep breath. “Well, I have an idea. But it’s alright.”

“I can see that ye’re important to the Murrays so I wanted to apologize for the way I’ve spoken to ye,” she continued.

“So ye’re only apologizing to Claire because Jenny and Ian care for her and no’ because ye feel bad that ye treated her like shite?” Jamie asked, revealing his place in the doorway.

She whirled around, looking at him. “Jamie, that’s no’ what I meant.”

“Well it’s how it sounded,” he pointed out, walking over towards the sink where Claire stood. “How about ye try again?”

“That’s not necessary,” Claire said, holding a hand in front of Jamie. “I appreciate the sentiment. I think - ” she looked over at Jamie “- and well, hope that we’ll be in each other’s lives for a long time.”

A dark look crossed the other girl’s face, but she quickly tried to cover it. “Of course. Grannie and I should be going. But thank ye both for a lovely evening. Please relay that to Jenny as well.”

Both Jamie and Claire nodded. “Of course,” Claire replied. “And we’ll see you for Hogmanay, right?” Laoghaire nodded before walking to the other room.

Jamie turned to appraise Claire. “Why were ye so nice to her?” he asked.

Claire shrugged, moving to put her arms around his neck. “I don’t really give a flying fuck what that girl says to me. I’m too happy,” she said with a sigh as she leaned in to kiss him.

Jamie’s hands found her waist, pulling her ever-so-slightly closer. “I like that answer,” he whispered against her lips.

* * *

The next morning, Claire was gifted the most special Christmas morning she’d had since she was a small child. A small kiss to the forehead roused her. Her eyes fluttered open to see Jamie looking down at her, a wide smile on his face. “Merry Christmas, mo nighean donn.”

Claire reached her hand up to ruffle through his hair. “Merry Christmas, Jamie.” Her hand tightened in his hair and she brought his head down for a kiss. “How long have you been awake?” she asked between kisses.

“No’ long,” he admitted. “I just couldna wait for ye to wake up. I apologize.” He laid back down in the bed, bringing her to rest against him.

Claire wrapped an arm around his torso, letting herself curl into him as she tried to wake up more. “I can understand that, I suppose.” She chuckled to herself. “Though you’re almost like a child on Christmas morning.”

“Well I must remind ye that it is Christmas morning, Sassenach,” he said with a quick kiss on her nose. Her nose wrinkled in reply as she laughed. “And I’ve something for ye.”

She opened one eye, looking at him speculatively. “Do you mean an actual gift or were you talking about -” she cleared her throat and looked down “- something else?”

Jamie laughed, running a hand along her stomach. “I mean an actual present. Though ye ken it wouldna take too long for that either, should ye be interested.”

Claire shook her head as she laughed. She sat up in bed, sitting against the headboard and pulling the covers with her. “Present first,” she grinned. Jamie nodded, jumping out of bed to go grab it.

She looked around Jamie’s room, trying to find the parts of it that made it his. Most nights since they’d returned from Edinburgh, they’d retired to separate rooms, but Jamie would sneak over to hers. Claire often gave Jamie a hard time for it. She figured Ian and Jenny knew what was going on. But for whatever reason, Jamie insisted upon it. Last night had been different though. Jenny and Ian had gone to bed while Jamie and Claire had been cleaning up the kitchen. They’d walked up the stairs hand in hand and Jamie had simply pulled Claire in the direction of his room. She’d raised a brow at him, but he only shrugged and kissed her.

Jamie walked back over to the bed, his hands held behind his back. “Okay, dinna be too hard on me,” Jamie started. “Tis been a long time since I gave anyone a gift.”

“You gave Young Jamie a gift just a month ago for his birthday,” Claire reminded him.

Jamie gave her a look. “Alright, let me rephrase then. Tis been a long time since I gave anyone a gift that I thought would really matter.”

She smiled brightly, holding her hands out for it. He stared at her before finally moving his hands and placing the long, skinny box in her palms. Claire looked down at it, noticing the careful wrapping. Her long finger hooked in the corner of the paper and she was tearing it open. His eyes were on her the whole time. Taking the top off the box revealed a silver locket in the shape of a heart. Claire gasped softly as she picked it up and looked at it closer. The heart was decorated with an intricate etching of thistles. She turned it over in her palm before opening it. There was an engraving on the back of it. Mo chridhe. She didn’t even know what it meant, but she was touched by it. Sticking a fingernail between the hinge, she peeled the locket open, letting out a breathy laugh at the picture inside. It was Jamie, likely just before he was initially sent off to war.

“Twas the only picture I could find,” he confessed.

Claire looked up at him, tears swimming in her eyes. “It’s perfect,” she assured him. “That’s who I met.” He smiled at her, his hand laying on her knee. “I only have one question.”

“My heart,” he answered before she could ask. He stared at her, his emotions clear on his face.

Claire beamed at him as she clutched the locket in her fist. She leaned forward and brought him in closer. “Thank you,” she whispered just before kissing him. Their heads rested together, taking a moment to just be with the other.

“I have something too,” she said, pulling back from him. “Let me go get it.” Walking back in the room, her arms were full with a large object wrapped in a blanket. She set it down on the bed in front of him.

Jamie looked at her curiously before he moved to pull back the blanket. It took some effort to get it untangled. He threw the cover behind him, gazing down at the present before him. It was a beautiful wooden chest with “Fraser” carved into the top. Jamie glanced up to her and then back at the chest. “Claire, this is gorgeous. Where did ye find this?”

She sat herself down on the bed next to him, her arm linking through his. “I found it in a shop in Edinburgh. I didn’t buy it when we were there, but I bribed Ian to go back and get it for me so I could surprise you. He’s actually the one who carved the name in there. I owe him. A lot.”

Jamie ran a hand over the smooth wood in awe. “It’s beautiful,” he said with a shake of his head.

“That’s actually not the whole present,” Claire added. “Why don’t you open it?”

He looked to her with an excited expression. Opening the chest revealed a number of books hidden inside. His mouth dropped open as he pulled ten different books out of the chest. His eyes were wide and curious as he looked over the titles and back to her.

“I remembered what you said you missed most,” she explained. “During the war,” she added. “You told me you missed home, but you also missed the simplicity of sitting down and reading a good book. So I found these in the bookshop in Edinburgh. Some of these are ones I’ve enjoyed and a few of them are some of Uncle Lamb’s favorites.”

Jamie hadn’t spoken as he looked through the books. Claire grew nervous at his silence. He finally looked back to her after he put the books back in the chest. “All that time, I hung on every word ye said,” he confessed. “I never imagined that ye might have been doing the same.”

Claire laughed, her hands landing on either side of his face. “Every bloody word,” she promised.

“I love ye, Claire,” he sighed. Claire rolled her eyes. Not a typical response. “Sorry,” he said with a laugh.

She shook her head with an amused grin. “One of these days.”

Claire leaned in and kissed him, moving closer to him. His arms wrapped around her, pulling her against him. She sighed into his mouth as his fingers wound through her hair. They were setting a slow pace. Jamie’s hands moved from her hair and roamed down her body, making her gasp as he pressed forward and laid her down on the bed. He hovered over her, looking down at her. A smile and a caress between them, they were kissing again, moving faster this time. Quietness was key with a small child around. Claire couldn’t help but keen a bit as Jamie’s hand ended up sliding up her nightgown, finding the very spot she wanted him.

His mouth crashed against hers as a way of quieting her. “Ye ken I love yer wee sounds, but we canna be heard,” he reminded her. She rolled her eyes and flexed her hips against his hand. His fingers were moving against her in delicious ways. He’d quickly sought out different ways to make her cry out. She fastened her arms around his neck, pulling him down to kiss her again. They only had so much time before the rest of the family expected them to be opening presents. Claire pushed down his pajama pants, taking him in hand. It was Jamie’s turn to make wee noises.

Their breaths were already heavy. Claire looked at him, giving him a nod. He took the hint and drove into her, kissing her to absorb her cry at their joining. She clutched him to her, moving eagerly against him. They rocked together, holding and encouraging the other. The sound of Jamie breathing Gaelic to her was all she could comprehend. He pulled the top of her nightgown down, making it bunch around her torso, before he kissed across her chest.

Jamie’s attentiveness and eagerness as a lover had brought her release faster than she’d expected. She fell apart around him, biting her lip to avoid crying out the three words at the front of her mind. She held him as he spilled into her. He rolled to the side and brought her with him, both of them staring at the other with sated smiles.

“Merry Christmas,” Claire panted.

Jamie leaned forward and kissed her. “Indeed.”

* * *

Christmas continued to be a wonderful day. There had been so many different reasons for joy that swirled together, leaving everyone content and pleased. Jenny felt joy at her first Christmas with both her child and her brother there. Jamie felt joy at being back with his family and having Claire with him. Claire felt joy at feeling like she was truly part of a family for the first time in a very long time. The peace of the day wasn’t lost on any of them.

But Christmas eventually passed and made way for Hogmanay. The peacefulness of Christmas led to a jittery excitement over the Annual Murray Hogmanay Party. Jenny wanted everything to look perfect. As Claire stood back and gave it a once over, she thought Jenny had accomplished her mission.

She’d never celebrated Hogmanay before and Jamie was more than happy to tell her all that she should expect. They spent every night between Christmas and Hogmanay, curled together, talking about the party. Claire smiled to herself in the dark as she picked up on how excited Jamie truly was.

The weeks they’d been back from Edinburgh had been just about blissful. She’d never felt this way with anyone but Jamie. It was easy and comfortable when not passionate and tender. Each facet of their relationship was a stark difference to her past. She clung to Jamie easily though nightmares, the occasional times she had them. He soothed her back to sleep and held her tight against him. Her dependence on him was growing and she knew it should frighten her. But it just didn’t. She loved him and she was excited for more people to know.

* * *

Ian watched as the party continued around him. Jenny astounded him every year with the amount she could pull off. Each decoration was perfect and each guest seemed to be having a wonderful time. He walked over to his wife and wrapped his arms around her from behind, his hands settling on her large belly. “Looks perfect, Mrs. Murray,” he mused.

She hummed in reply, her arms coming up to hold his. “Look at them,” she said in reply. He didn’t need to ask who she meant. He glanced over to see Jamie and Claire smiling like idiots as they talked over their drinks. “They’re just so happy.”

Ian nodded. “Aye, that they are.” He’d been certain by the look on Jamie’s face when Claire showed up nearly three months ago that there was something between them. But as he watched the two of them, blissfully happy with the other, he realized he had no idea just how much there actually was. Young Jamie ran over to the pair of them. Jenny and Ian watched as Jamie picked up the young boy and Claire eagerly spoke with him. It almost felt like looking to the future, with the two of them talking to their own child. They were so engaged with the boy, so attuned to each other, that it seemed like no one else was at the party.

“I need to refill the trays,” Jenny said all of the sudden, disturbing Ian from his observation.

“Aye, I’ll help ye.”

They walked into the kitchen, the door swinging shut behind them. While refilling the trays, they couldn’t help but comment on what they just watched.

“It makes me happy for him,” Jenny said needlessly. “To think that something beautiful came out of this bloody war.”

Ian nodded. “I ken just what ye mean. To look at them, ye can just feel how happy they are to finally be wi’ each other.”

“I just hope it lasts,” Jenny replied darkly.

Ian sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Aye. I think my two wishes for the new year are as follows: One, our new bairn comes happy and healthy. Two, Claire gets her divorce.”

Jenny sighed. “I think that’s a fair list. I just hope that Randall leaves Inverness, goes back to England, and doesna try to find her again.”

“I think we all hope that,” Ian agreed. The sound of a door closing made Ian whip his head around. No one had entered the kitchen. He was suddenly nervous that they’d been overheard. Walking to the door, he peeked through into the hall. No one was around. Releasing a sigh of relief, Ian walked back to his wife and helped her carry the trays back out.

* * *

Someone had heard Ian, though. She bolted from the kitchen after hearing enough. Trying to make herself blend in the crowd, she went over and pretended to be part of a conversation. Her eyes drifted, though, always lingering on Jamie and her. She’d always suspected something was off. Her stomach clenched at the sight of them laughing together and holding each other. It was wrong. Jamie wasn’t supposed to be with her. And worse than that, the bitch was still married. It was there at that party that she hatched her plan.

She couldn’t drive, so it took her a week to get enough rides to Inverness to find and meet the man she was looking for.

“You’re Randall?” she asked, looking the man over.

He scowled at her. “What do you want?” He seemed worse for the drink.

A smile spread across her face. “My name is Laoghaire and I ken where your wife is.”

* * *

Miles away, back at Lallybroch, Claire was curled in Jamie’s arms, feeling safe and secure. She had no way of knowing all hell was about to break loose.

Next chapter

#outlander #outlander fanfiction #outlander fanfic #my writing #in the eye of a hurricane

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nat-20s · 5 years

Note

Death and the Queen headcanon: for a few weeks after they leave Gorotania (or however the heck you spell it) Ten is very wary when Donna speaks to men because he’s shit scared she’s gonna end up leaving him again like she did with Rudolph. Yeah, I’m down for clingy/protective Ten basically 💁🏻

hey so you did NOT mean this as a fic prompt but my brain took it as a fic prompt anyway so please enjoy this almost 1.7k words of nonsense

The Doctor came up from behind so that he could wrap his arms

around her shoulders and rest his chin on her head, which should’ve

been nice and comforting and warm. However,

Donna could hear the pernicious grin on his face as he said, “Donna!

There you are, we were just leaving, weren’t

we?”

This had been the third goddamn

time this week he’s pulled

this sort of stunt, and, would you look at that, it’s once again

just as Donna was having a nice flirt after the danger had passed.

Never would’ve worked out,

not the least because Donna just isn’t a fan of that many eyes on a

face, but the interruption was far from welcome nonetheless. Two

instincts war inside her, but she ultimately decides that it will be

more productive to give The Doctor a right and proper talking to in

the TARDIS over just yelling right here and now. Matching the

(assumed) sharpness of The Doctor’s grin, Donna schools her gritted

teeth into an imitation of a smile and says, “That we were! Sorry

to take off so quickly, but you know how it is. Things to do, places

to see, running to tolerate, all that!”

Four of the alien’s eyelids

flutter rapidly with a loud clicking noise that, thank you TARDIS,

automatically translates to, “Ah, my apologies, Lady Noble. If I

had known you were already

partnered, I would not have made overtures. I hope I have not to

greatly offended your mate.”

Before Donna could open her mouth

to give a perfunctory “Definitely unpartnered,

not my mate,” The Doctor

comes forward and grabs her hand to pull her away, cheerfully telling

her conversational partner, “Oh, no offense taken old chap! We

really must be off

right now though, give us a holler next

time we’re in the solar system!”

Like that, he has her running again

despite the fact that they are not, at the moment, in any actual rush

that she’s aware of. Not able to really talk while being half

dragged back home, she settles for an incredulous side eye that The

Doctor willfully (?) ignores.

Luckily, they weren’t parked

too far away, so it’s only

a matter of minutes before they’re back in the TARDIS. The Doctor

is already talking a mile a minute and asking a million questions he

clearly doesn’t expect an answer to and Donna has had enough.

“What. The Hell. Was that.”

The Doctor freezes, one hand grasping a

mallet mid strike and the other hovering over a keyboard. In a

display of false innocence, he asks, “What the hell was what?”

Strolling over to take the mallet from

his hand before he hurts himself or, who knows, opens a sort of space

vortex or something to get out of the ensuing conversation, Donna not

at all calmly tells him, “That whole horse and pony show back

there! I mean, Christ, you can be clingy and melodramatic at

the best of times-

“Oi-”

“but this is a whole ‘nother level!

This is jealously whenever I so much as look at another

person, and I you don’t cut that out I swear to god I’ll-”

“Leave? For good?”

There’s a bitter flash of a smirk on

his face and it throws Donna completely off her rhythm. Not enough

for her to completely stop yelling, mind you, but enough that some

gears are starting to grind in the back of her mind. “What? No. I

was gonna say lock you in the TARDIS for a week so you can

think about your actions and I can actually spend time with people

that are not you without some hovering but I’m starting to think

that’d only exaggerate the problem.”

The Doctor sets about busying himself

with…something on the console and pointedly does not make eye

contact when he replies with, “Mmmm.”

For about a minute or two, Donna

passively watches him work, taking the time to connect the dots

before hollering, “Goritania!”

Still puttering about with who knows

what, The Doctor replies, “Huh?”

“You’ve been acting like this for

about a month, aka when we left Goritania. Considering that whole

speech you gave about oh how you’re so lonely and woe is me

everyone leaves, which, by the way, if you had let me get a word in

edgewise you would’ve known I wasn’t going anywhere, not

permanently, I’m guessing it’s not a coincidence that you’ve

been acting like anyone I make eye contact with is going to, I dunno,

whisk me away to some other planet for an interalien soul binding or

some other nonsense.”

The Doctor thwacks the side of the

monitor with a little more force than necessary and his breathing

gets heavier as he spits out, “Well it’s true isn’t it?

Everyone does leave, and just because “Rudolph,” he says

the name with a sneer, “wasn’t your person doesn’t mean that

you’re not going to find your person and run off and get married

and live a happy life just like you wanted.”

Funnily enough, just as the Doctor

starts to get riled up, Donna feels all the fight leave her. “I’ll

admit, there was a time where I did really want that big

fairytale wedding followed by, hopefully, a big fairytale marriage.

Somewhere along the line I had learned that’s what was synonymous

with a happy life. But then I got a glimpse of the universe and that

all fell to the wayside. For Christ’s sake, I think I had more fun

running around like a madwoman as my wedding reception got destroyed

that I did with the wedding itself. I mean, sure, I still think

having “my person” makes things better for me, but luckily, I’ve

already found them.”

The Doctor finally stops messing around

with instruments so he can actually look at her. His jaw works

back and forth a few times, and then he schools his face into

something that utterly fails to not be crestfallen. “Oh? Do I..do I

know them?”

“Oh no, you’ve never met them,”

She lightly flicks his forehead, “It’s you, stupid. For a

supposed genius you’re rather thick sometimes. How ave you survived

this long?”

“Oh! Also, I haven’t. I’ve

already died nine times Donna, keep up. Also also, supposed genius?

Who was saying that? I should send them a card.”

“Absolutely not. Your ego would

explode and we can’t have that. It’d kill you a tenth time.”

“Mmm. Suppose it’s for the best,

I’m out of stamps anyway.”

There’s a beat of silence before he

blasts her with the full force of the universe’s dopiest grin.

Voice filled with inexorable pleasure, he asks, “I’m really your

person?”

She could call him out on asking

questions he full well knows the answer to, but instead she gives a

one shouldered shrug and says, “Well, yeah. You’re my best

friend. Who the fuck else was it gonna be? I guess it’s a bit

odd that you’re a nine hundred and seven year old alien,

wouldn’t have called that in my 7th grade journal, but

I’ve accepted much weirder things at this point.”

The Doctor’s grin settles softly into

a smile, quietly replying, “I do love nothing in the world so well

as you- is not that strange?”

Donna gently elbows him in the side and

admonishes, “What did I say about Shakespeare quotes during serious

conversations?”

“Sorry,” The Doctor says, not sorry

at all. “If it helps, my best friend is an alien that’s not even

half a century old. So young. Pretty freaky if you ask me.”

“Oh for real? Do I know them?”

The Doctor gives Donna an unimpressed

look, but she luckily has had an immunity to all of his Looks from

day one. She bumps his shoulder with her own and says, “Seriously

though, you think I could ever trade seeing galaxies and

bringing hope to people and stopping the forces of evil for what? A

mortgage and office politics? My baseline state traveling with you is

joy. Even the miserable, horrible times aren’t so

miserable and horrible because, on a bone deep level, I’m

deliriously happy. That’s never been true before, and it means the

only way that you’re getting me out of this little blue box is in a

casket. So. You know. Something to think about when you get it in

that messy little head of yours that I’m gonna tell you to sod off

and run away with the nearest 6’ 3” vaguely humanoid person able

to lift me.”

“In my defense you did, in fact, once

tell me to sod off and ran away with a 6’ 3” Tree of Cheem.

Lovely woman by the way, you should’ve kept in contact.”

“It was for a day oh my god

chill out. It’s not our fault that we had better tastes in

amusement parks than you.”

“I see your point. I will…chill

out. And I’m sorry for how, uh,-”

“cloying?”

“overly protective I’ve been

these past weeks. Sometimes I just get so..”

Donna leans against him, pleased when

he leans back, and tells him, “Hey, I get it, I really do. I’m

plenty scared of losing you. Christ, I’ve had plenty of nights

working myself into sleeplessness convinced you’re gonna

ditch me for somebody who’s ‘better’ than me, whatever the hell

that means.”

“I wouldn’t ditch you!”

“I know that. Logically. Just

like you know that I’m not gonna trade you in for a white picket

fence and 2.4 children. Hence why, despite the occasional irrational

actions, I think we should move forward so we can be afraid of real

threats, like the many, many things that try to kill us on a near

daily basis. Speaking of, what thing trying to kill us are we gonna

go barreling into now?”

“I was thinking the mesmerizing

mountains of Yountor. They sing so beautifully as to be rumored to be

populated by angels.”

Donna raises an eyebrow at him. He

continues, “or maybe sirens.”

Sarcastic tone at odds with the grin on

her face, Donna says, “Ah. No way that could backfire. Let’s do

it.”

#replies #nat talks doctor who #nat drabbles #donna noble #ten-out-of-tennant

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jarienn972 · 5 years

Text

A Simple Spell - Chapter Eleven

A Captain Swan Supernatural Summer Tale

I managed to finish up this latest chapter of my @cssns story before the insanity of the holiday starts and it picks up right where the last chapter left off with Emma and David heading out to search for the missing Killian Jones. My original plan had this as part of Chapter 10, but I decided to expand it and make it a stand-alone chapter. Emma's anxious to locate Killian but there’s going to be a surprising clue along the way that may provide a link to the past.

Many thanks again to @cocohook38 for the amazing artwork above and to @lassluna for all of her beta reading assistance along the way

Read from the beginning on Tumblr: One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Also on AO3 and FF.net

In her short residence here in Storybrooke, Emma had only been this far down Highway 3 once - when she had been in pursuit of an intoxicated driver who struck a pedestrian in front of the church. She knew it was a narrow, two-lane road that meandered through the farmland on the outskirts of town before asphalt transitioned to gravel approximately three miles beyond Anton's farm. She was also well aware of the rumor that a fae community existed out here amongst the trees, but Emma was convinced that story was pure fiction. Even in this magical town, sometimes it as hard to draw a line between reality and fantasy.

Halfway into their drive out to the rendezvous point, Emma's phone rang with the return call from Belle. David asked if Emma would utilize the speakerphone so that he could hear the librarian's response as well.

"Good morning, Belle," Emma answered, immediately pressing the speaker button. "Thank you so much for returning my call so quickly."

"Of course, Emma. I would have called sooner but it took me a bit to find all of the information that you asked for," Belle replied.

"No problem," David assured her. "You're right on time. We're just about to meet with the search party, but since we're going to run out of cell service soon, what were you able to find?"

"Well, there are three registered properties with structures listed in the town records. There are a couple of other parcels of land with registered owners, but since they didn't have any dwellings or other structures registered, I focused on the ones that did," Belle explained over the growing static. "I emailed you and Emma the list with what details I could locate."

"Perfect. Any idea what sort of structures we're talking about?" David asked.

"They're listed as dwellings so my guess would be cabins or small houses. All were listed as being less than 1000 square feet," Belle told him.

"That's a huge help, Belle. I'll have Emma take a look at the email since I'm driving."

"Please let me know if you need anything else. Oh, and Emma - I'm still researching what you asked about your mother. I'll let you know if I can find that answer anywhere," Belle promised.

"Thanks for everything, Belle," Emma replied as she disconnected the call, her service signal down to a single bar.

"See if you can get that email opened up before the signal disappears," David instructed, as if Emma hadn't already thought of that.

"Already on it," Emma stated as she pulled up her work email folder and found the message from with its attachment. Her phone display still showed that single bar as she managed to download the file before service vanished. "Got it!"

She waited until David eased the Sheriff cruiser to the side of the gravel road in front of the Gardner's farmhouse since the tiny screen was too difficult to read while bouncing around on the crumbling road surface. When she could finally take a look at it, she hesitated for a minute, instead surveying the field and the people gathered in it. David was already scrambling out of the car to coordinate with the search party and she recognized most of the faces. Regina's boyfriend, Robin and his best friend, John Sherwood were here and she also spotted Leroy and a couple of the other miners. Graham pulled up and parked behind the cruiser in his 4x4 that would aid them with off-road capabilities.

"What did Belle's email reveal?" David asked her as he poked his head back into the car wondering why his sister was still sitting in the passenger seat.

"I'll know in a second," she replied. "It was kinda hard to hold onto my phone, let alone read the screen, when you were bouncing us all over the place. Did you try to hit every pothole on the highway?"

"Yeah, it was intentional," David huffed. "Seriously though, before we set off out there," he pointed his index finger in the direction of the treeline, "I want to know what sort of buildings we could encounter and where they are in relation to our search area."

"Just as Belle said, there are three dwellings listed. No surprise that one of them is John Sherwood's cabin. The second is a dwelling of unknown dimensions listed as under construction. Sounds like a potentially good place to hide somebody you don't want found…" But just as Emma made that comment, her gaze fell onto the third property listing, a moderately sized dwelling of approximately 900 square feet, but it wasn't the physical description or the location that drew her attention, it was the name of the registered owner.

Ozmund Welch.

She tried to shake off the coincidence, but she couldn't. Was there a correlation between this property's owner, Ozmund Welch, and her mother's mysterious suitor, Ozzie? Ava had described Ozzie as having vanished in a puff of smoke the moment she'd kissed him, but had he actually been real? Real enough to have built a cabin in the dense woods on the outskirts of Storybrooke or was the name similarity merely chance?

"Something wrong, sis?" David's question brought her back to the present. "You planning to stay in the car or are you going to get out of there and tell me about that third property?"

"I'm coming… Just had a little bit of weird deja vu."

"About searching the woods for your would-be pirate boyfriend?"

"Really, David?" Emma wasn't pleased with her brother referring to Killian as a pirate yet again. "Once and for all, he's not a pirate and no - that isn't what triggered it. This name… The third property owner listed is what caught my eye and gave me a weird feeling - someone named Ozmund Welch."

"Okay… what's so strange about that?"

"When I was leafing through mom's journal, she referred to the other man she was dating as Ozzie. He was the one she ended up choosing and caused her to lose the challenge, and of course, her powers. Ozmund. Ozzie. They sound a lot alike and it's a weird coincidence…"

"And you think there might be some correlation?"

"I don't really know," she sighed, knowing the probability was slim considering the rest of the information Belle had provided. "There's only one big problem with it - according to Belle, the structure was built and registered in the 1920s."

"I don't think your mother was really in to older men…"

"No. Certainly not based on the description she gave in her journal entries."

"Father and son maybe?" David suggested as Emma clambered out of the cruiser.

"I guess that's possible. Or it's possible that it really is just a coincidence." She tucked her phone away into her jacket pocket as she pushed the car door closed. "It's just weird…"

"Then why don't you and I take that particular property? If you've got any sort of suspicion about that property, we'll go with it."

"Okay. According to the property listing, it's located about a quarter of a mile from John's cabin. I copied all of the coordinates into my phone."

"Alright then. Let me go hand out assignments and get this search and rescue underway. That's in one of the more remote sectors so how about you go commandeer a couple of those ATVs?"

**********

Emma had never really considered herself to be the outdoorsy type so this trek through the forests of Eastern Maine riding an all-terrain vehicle was quite out of her element. By the time they reached the edge of the Welch property, they could both see the single-story wooden frame house that, at first glance, appeared well-kept, but vacant. As they got closer to the house, they began to see signs of recent occupation. Weeds had been cleared from the dirt road to the entrance as well as from a path to a small shed beyond the house.

With a reminder from David that they couldn't enter the property without permission from the resident or a search warrant, they parked the ATVs and started surveying the perimeter. Little seemed to have changed about the premises since it had been built nearly a century ago. They saw a neat stack of firewood next to the shed but no visible power lines connected to the building. Whoever resided out here definitely enjoyed living off the grid. The windows of the cozy house were covered with decades worth of grime, making it difficult to peer into the interior. If someone was living here, cleaning their windows to allow sunlight inside wasn't a priority which led credence to the probability that it was currently uninhabited.

"Looks vacant," David said as the siblings regrouped near the front door. "But it's almost impossible to see inside."

"Something isn't right," Emma insisted. "It may look vacant, but that wood pile over there isn't overgrown with weeds. There isn't any smoke rising out of that chimney right now, but my gut says there will be signs of a recent fire."

"Kinda hard to determine that from out here," David reminded her. "And one of the neighbors could be using the wood."

"Are you serious, David? Do you really think that someone out here would want to traipse through the woods to stack wood at an abandoned house? That makes no sense whatsoever."

"Just offering up possibilities."

"Well, it's pretty obvious that the bigger possibility is that someone has been secretly living here. It's rustic, but that doesn't mean it isn't livable. I don't know if Ozmund Welch is still living out here in the boondocks, but I'm quite sure someone is."

"Don't tell me - your gut is now telling you that this would be a good place to hide someone?"

"What? You don't think so? Come on, Dave - it's in the middle of nowhere and looks abandoned… Where would you hide a person you don't want found?"

"Em - you know the rules…"

"And this is a magical town where most rules don't even apply! David, my intuition is telling me that there's more to this place than meets the eye."

"You can feel your Captain boyfriend nearby?"

"I wish my instincts were that specific," she scowled at him, "almost as much as I wished that the locator spell came with GPS coordinates. I just know that there's something very wrong here…"

David pondered her plea for a moment. As Sheriff, he was tasked with upholding the law, not breaking it, but at the same time, if Captain Jones was here, being held against his will, rescuing the missing man should take priority. It was just that it all rested on his sister's gut feelings, not actual evidence…

"Okay, okay," he relented. "If you think this place is suspicious, let's go find out. Can you get that door open or were you planning to break it down?"

"Very funny," she scoffed as she withdrew her wand from inside her jacket. "Good thing I brought this along. Pretty sure a little magic can open that lock…" With a flick of her wrist and a swish of her wand, she recited the Latin phrase to open the door. "Recludo!"

David led the way once the door was unlocked, inching it open cautiously as he scanned the interior with his flashlight held in his left hand and his weapon clutched in his right. Emma followed at his heels, sweeping the beam of her flashlight around what looked to be a combination living room, kitchen and dining room. The room was sparsely furnished. A faded, but garishly upholstered sofa occupied a space facing the fireplace and a matching chair with worn wooden arms sat beside it. On the opposite wall, there was a makeshift kitchen featuring a sink with an ancient water pump, an old fashioned wood-fired stove and a two door cabinet hanging over the sink. At the other end of the building from where they stood, there was a wooden table with two flanking chairs and a narrow hallway leading to two doorways.

Emma took a few steps towards the fireplace while David immediately headed to the first of the two doors in the rear of the house. Her eyes were drawn to the mantle where a set of random books sat atop it, flanked by two heavy stone bookends. She recognized a few of the titles as books she'd been forced to read in school but there were others written in languages she didn't recognize. She also instantly noticed rectangular voids amongst the dust and cobwebs as though something had been removed recently.

She held no doubt that someone had been here.

David pushed open the first of the doors off of the rear hallway revealing a small, unoccupied bedroom containing only a spartan double bed and a plain, five drawer pine chest of drawers. He discovered the second door led to a primitive bathroom with a pedestal sink and an old claw foot bath tub. There was no toilet visible so the well-maintained path behind the house meant that the shed was likely an outhouse. In neither room did he find evidence of anyone being held unwillingly. Maybe Emma's instinct had been wrong…

"There's no one here," David announced as he strolled back into the living room area.

"Someone's been here," Emma assured him, pointing to the mantle. "Stuff has been recently taken off of that mantle. There are several areas with no dust."

"So? Someone might still be using the cabin, but Emma, there isn't anyone here right now, willing or unwilling."

"We're missing something," she insisted, combing her fingers through her hair in frustration. "We have to be…"

"It's a pretty small place, Em," David reminded her as he crossed through the center of the room toward his sister. "What do you think we might possibly be missing?" Emma shrugged as she turned to face the front door, ready to concede defeat - until David stepped onto the worn, heavy wool rug in the middle of the floor. He took two strides onto the rug when Emma's alert ears picked up a distinct change in the sound his footsteps were making.

"David - do that again," she ordered as she spun to face him.

"Huh? Do what again?"

"Take a step backwards, then forward again," she instructed her bewildered brother.

"Why?"

"Just humor me," she said as David rolled his eyes skeptically. He shifted his weight back one step and then another towards Emma, this time noticing the change in tone.

"There's something hollow here," he announced, tapping his foot a few times on the spot to confirm what they'd both heard.

"That's what I thought," Emma smiled as she hurried over to David. He kicked the well-trodden rug away to reveal a recessed trap door concealed beneath. "Well, well… what do we have here?"

"A trap door," David stated the obvious. "Maybe there's a basement or an old root cellar underneath?"

"What a great place to hide someone," Emma said, repeating her earlier words. David ignored her as he stooped to grasp the reinforced edge of the plank trap door. Emma kept her weapon trained into the void below as he raised the panel but there was nothing visible in the dark space except a rough-hewn wooden staircase leading deeper into the recess. Emma directed her light into the inky blackness of the stairwell, seeing that there was a narrow panel door at the bottom which was secured with a rusty padlock. "I see a doorway down there with a lock on it."

"I'm guessing you can open that one too?"

"Piece of cake," she grinned hopefully as they descended the steps. Reaching the bottom, Emma tucked her weapon into her hip holster, trading it for her wand while David maintained a tight grip on both flashlight and weapon. Her magic made quick work of the padlock and as David kept the flashlight beam trained on the door, she eased it open. A tiny room bathed in darkness lay beyond the wooden door and Emma crinkled her nose in disgust as the wafting odors of damp cement and moldy earth assaulted her senses. But she was also smelling faint traces of something else in the mix - the coppery scent of blood and the sweetness of the rum she'd partaken of last night. "Killian?" She called out to him. "Killian? Are you here?"

She heard no response as she retrieved her own flashlight, switching it on to find the limp figure curled up on the dingy concrete floor in the center of the room.

"Killian!" she exclaimed, dropping to her knees on the dusty floor beside her unconscious friend, placing the flashlight on the floor next to her knees. He was lying on his right side and even in the dim light, she noticed something shiny was protruding from his left shoulder. She wasn't entirely sure, but it appeared to be his hook.

"Is that Captain Jones?" David queried, keeping a watchful eye on the trapdoor above as Emma checked on the person locked in the dark cellar.

"Yes and I think he's hurt. It's too damned dark in here, though." She needed more light and she remembered one of the first spells Zelena had taught her. Grabbing her wand, she held it above her head and recited "Inlumino!" Instantly, a series of twinkling, floating orbs began to swirl overhead, illuminating the dank room so that she could positively identify Killian and take a preliminary assessment of his injuries.

"It's him!" she shouted to David.

"What's that sticking out of his shoulder?" David wondered, staring quizzically at the glint of shiny metal. "It looks like some kind of hook…"

"It is a hook," she stated. "Killian sometimes wears it as a prosthetic and somebody plunged it pretty deep into his shoulder." David wanted to make a comment so badly about a ship captain wearing a hook for a hand, but he held his tongue as he recognized the concern evident on his sister's face. She had carefully rolled Captain Jones into his back and was pressing her index and middle fingers against his neck. "He's unconscious. He's got a pulse, but it's weak and a little slow. His skin is pretty cool to the touch so I'm pretty sure he's been in this cold basement for hours."

"Is he breathing?"

Not sensing any rise or fall of Killian's chest, Emma leaned in closer to his face, hoping she would feel the warmth of his breath exhaled against her cheek. As she lowered her face above Killian's slightly agape mouth, for a split second, her lips brushed his and she felt a little spark. It wasn't unlike the static shock you'd get when touching a metal surface after running across a carpeted floor in your socks but in the heat of the moment, it never dawned on her that she shouldn't be experiencing any static electricity shocks down here. She mentally dismissed any thoughts of the shock as she felt a soft puff of air against her skin.

"He's breathing, but just barely," she informed David who was immediately on the radio calling for a remote rescue unit. There was no way the two of them were going to be able to maneuver an unconscious man out of that root cellar and back to the road without assistance from the other teams. "Hang in there, Killian. Help's on the way," she assured her friend as she gently caressed his stubbled cheek

#CSSNS #captain swan supernatural summer #cs ff au #cs ff #witch emma #a simple spell #the search and rescue chapter #also please forgive any incorrect Latin translations #I rely on my cousin and sometimes her college Latin recollections are a bit off

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sparda3g · 5 years

Text

Black Clover Chapter 223 Review

It’s October, the month of Halloween. It’s the time for kids to go outside and receive candies across the town. It’s also time for everyone to get spooked out. Asta and his friends are out for trick or treat, trying to obtain a new knowledge on the Devils. What better place to discover than a spooky home owned by Gordon’s family. The fun continues with amusing background reveal and a promising ending.

Right from the very start, Gordon’s face sets off the vibe of this chapter. It also sets off on which character will get the spotlight. I’m a little surprised that it is Gordon time, but happy to see more character depth. It’s only a little because I decided it’s best to not underestimate Tabata’s writing due to many welcoming and promising developments for other characters. When it comes down to it, Gordon is getting more fleshed out than that series’ near entire side character roster. But I digress.

It has a good reason to explore Gordon’s character as well as his background. This mini-arc has various slice-of-life moments that also advances the plot or rather, plant many seeds of new quests and targets. This works well to fans’ amusement and interest, hence why I’m enjoying every moment so far. Not to mention, it gives time to dive in deeper with these characters, so it’s a win on Tabata’s behalf. Now it’s Gordon’s turn to finally help Asta to prove he’s innocent by going back to his home: The Addams Family. Okay, it’s Agrippa Family

The house is haunting; Gauche already wants to bail out. If the house wasn’t haunting enough, the family takes a new level. His family’s face looks exactly like Gordon’s, with one exception of mustache from his father. Other than that, everyone is Gordon. It’s hilariously strange. It’s even more hilarious with the dog, who somehow has the same face. How is that even possible? Nanalee the dog takes a bite on Asta, which result to the family creepily upset that terrifies Gauche and Grey. Gauche makes an incredible valid point. One of them has to be married into the family; who started this bloodline.

The dinner scene continues the comedy with a funny self-awareness by Gauche. I am starting to see why he was voted top 10. Even he’s freaked out by this, which is really saying something. Asta is actually cool, thanks to delicious food with a disgusting outside appearance. Well, he did save a pairing, so he should be rewarded. Grey is in a nightmare; surprised she hasn’t passed out by this point. It’s a funny dynamic with Grey freaking out, Gauche with common sense, and Asta being targeted for stupidity and mishap, which one will happen soon.

In the midst of comedy, Tabata was very sneaky to include an important detail that raised many questions. Nilennia the grandma mistaken Gauche for her son, Nathan. As Jonna, her daughter, takes her to bed, she mentions a pact with their ancestors and hinted their connections with the curse of Megicula, the same devil that we learned last time. Only Noelle knows, so none of them took any consideration. It would have been a different story if she was there. That said, it makes me wonder what connection is there with Gordon’s family. I wonder if this suggests big development for Gordon. I never thought I would say it, but that’s what it seems to be hinted.

Gordon did abandon his family due to the family’s legacy of learning curse magic; scaring others before he can make friends. That explains his departure; simple and understandable. He only returned home to get any knowledge on the curse and the Devils, which Nathan agrees to help. It would only fascinate him for curse magic research is his pride and joy.

The research lab should come off no surprise by this point. It’s filled with dark and disturbing stuff. It’s as if it’s designed for Halloween Haunted House special, and Grey is the first victim. Nathan calls it beautiful, so it’s all good. He waited for so long for his son to return because of his poison magic. He begins to have sinister vibe, which was expected by this point. It doesn’t help when he speaks about life to end so quickly and points out ways to die. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’s a villain. Not to mention, his mother did say something about Megicula, so this was convincing me that something bad is about to happen.

He doesn’t hesitate to show off his “knowledge” with Curse Claw. Well, it was fun while lasted. Asta tries to block to protect his friends, but instead, gets stabbed through the throat. He seriously can’t catch a break. You would think Nathan has gone dark (or darker) or his fascination has no bound to experiment others. This is where you called “red herring” comes in play; a funny one at that.

Nathan uses his claw to examine Asta without any harm. In fact, he did so to demonstrate the opposite intended effect. It’s revealed that Asta has no curse, so that’s good news. The punchline is despite the appearance, the fascination of curse, and many other creepy vibes, he’s actually a healing mage. What a twist! It’s actually pretty funny with all the signs of trouble. You would think Gordon did the right thing for leaving. You can argue it was, but it’s not like the family is evil. It’s their poor communication that harmed the bond. That’s hilarious; the running gag actually has an effect outside of comedy. Irony.

Granted, the family did have history of evil deeds, but this generation won’t follow that trend. I wonder if their appearance is a trend though. It makes me wonder if Gordon would learn healing magic; essentially become the white mage of Black Bulls. That would be pretty cool with the ironic image to top it. As fun this chapter was so far, it does transition to more promising notes for what’s to come for the series.

Nathan has Black Oil Creation Magic, which is interesting to say the least, and uses Ceremonial Board of Curse Lights to pinpoint the location of curses. That’s really neat to use magic this way. The imagination appeals me. A flame indicates curse and one happens to land on Black Bulls’ HQ. It turns out Henry is cursed. That’s expected with his backstory, but now, we can hope for Black Bulls to remove it one day. However, that’s not the real twist to end on.

There’s another one located elsewhere and it lands on Heart Kingdom. That means we finally have a new destination. Is it time for road trip? It is ironic however. Heart Kingdom is said to be neutral, peaceful in compare to other kingdoms, and yet, there’s a devil’s curse lurking in there. What or who could it be? It is said that the range of magic can lessen the accuracy, so we only know it’s in that kingdom, but not exactly where within. For all we know, it could be their Magic Emperor. This is an interesting way to get us hyped for their next destination.

This was a fun chapter. I appreciated more of Gordon and his family was something else. It can’t be a coincidence for Tabata to draw a Halloween-esque theme around this time. Regardless, it was amusing to watch the family and their odd behaviors. The twist was funny and interesting; leaving a possibility for Gordon’s development down the road. The ending left me fascinated with Heart Kingdom to be their next destination. I look forward to a new landscape. The series continue to impress me.

#black clover #chapter 223 #review #spoilers

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sporddreki · 6 years

Note

"ive wrote an essay months ago about how sasoris puppets work but ive decided not to finish it does anyone want that" Ugh, I am so new to Tumblr, I was trying to figure out how to leave a comment just to say, yes, I would be interested in this.

alright here you go B) i havent touched it ever since so no promises

Guess what - I finally start writing down all the trivia I know about Sasori, because it’s been some kind of strange fixation a while ago and I will regret never having written all of this down, so… this time it’s about Sasori’s specialty: the Hitogugutsu or the Human Puppets. But only from the “mechanical” side rather than the psychological (that comes later). Some warnings: This will be dealing with gore and other pretty gross stuff, so be careful, also English isn’t my first language so excuse any possible mistakes. Without further ado, let’s jump straight into the rabbit hole!

So first things first, what are the Hitogugutsu? If you’ve read or watched Naruto Shippuden and you paid attention to what Sasori is all about, you’ll immediately be confronted by his obscure obsession with puppets that stems from his childhood. As the story went on Sasori has made his first puppet out of a human being, his best friend Komushi to be exact, and then went on with indulging in this gorey procedure for the rest of his life, leaving him with a total of 298 human puppets in his possession. In this analysis we’re going to look at the what rather than the why, how they’re created, how they’re used in battle and what distinguishes them from normal puppets.

As you heard, Hitogugutsu are made from human bodies, preserved and equipped with a bunch of puppet mechanics. His most famous Hitogugutsu, the Third Kazekage puppet, which he has built out of his former village leader, is a great example for what his creations have to be like to adequately perform their jobs - Hitogugutsu are mainly used as a weapon in battle and are a form of “eternal art” in Sasori’s eyes. Means the human puppet has to be 1) effective in physical fights and 2) match Sasori’s ideal picture of what he considers art. These are the two most important points and will become significant throughout the analysis.

Let’s talk about the battle efficiency first. The key part of Hitogugutsu is that they can contain the chakra and the kekkai genkai the “material” (the person the puppet has been made out of) used to have, which can be used by Sasori in battle. Throughout Naruto Shippuden this attribute has only been showed once by the Third Kazekage and his magnetic iron sand ability. We are left to speculate about the other 297 Hitogugutsu and whether they have kept their chakra/kekkai genkai or not - but counting on Sasori’s words, they did. Other than that they’re barely able to distinguish from normal puppets, at least fighting-wise. Keeping that in the back of our heads, the construction of Hitogugutsu will give us the following problems:

1) Easiest first - a bunch of mechanics, weapons and special attacks have to fit in them to be useful in battle. Hence the general puppet structure, which is the best way for Sasori to manipulate them as he pleases.

2) They have to be well preserved to not decay and be robust enough to not immediately break in battle. Proper preservation and a stable foundation is the key here. Additionally, they have to be immune to Sasori’s poison.

3) An intelligent ten-year-old needs to be able to make at least a simplified version of them. Sasori was only a child when he made his first one out of his friend Komushi and it looked authentic.

4) The chakra needs to not just be stored inside the body, but to be able to flow, to be released through physical attacks and to be regenerated. This is essentially the biggest problem of human puppets, since they lack the (functional) organs needed to create chakra in their own, personal chakra nature.

5) Another important detail is his “ultimate” Performance of a Hundred Puppets where he controls all of them individually with a chakra string coming from his chest, which means the mechanics of a puppet must be adjusted in a way to be able for Sasori to do that.

Sounds like a bunch of obstacles Sasori has to overcome, and we with him since that’s part of the analysis - but it’s possible, especially when calculating Naruto logic into it. Before the question comes up, I’m purposely not trying to be as exact to the canon as possible nor do I think all of this was Kishimoto’s masterplan, but i will try to find the most efficient way for Sasori to achieve all of this and stay reasonable at the same time.

*** Now heres the thing: As mentioned above, the main problem seems to be the whole chakra story and we have to question how chakra works and then how Sasori used it for his techniques. We are walking on eggshells here because nearly everything is speculation. Considering the Hitogugutsu kept their chakra inside of them and are able to release it (e.g. the Third Kazekage), they have to have some sort of modified chakra system inside of them. The problem is that this chakra is a consumable, means it’s not an infinite resource and since the bodies are dead there is no way for them to regenerate their chakra. However, Sasori is using it anyway and has pride in stating that he preserves people’s chakra in puppets eternally, so what’s going on here? Here’s the problem - the Naruto logic is completely broke here. I’ve spent days rummaging the Naruto Wiki but there’s no canon way for Sasori to do that, but we know he does it, so he somehow has found a way. If he made some kind of apperature or jutsu that can convert his own chakra to the human puppet’s nature, everything would make sense, but the canon has forsaken me here. However, there were some cases where that actually happened through some kekkai genkai or a ~fortunate coincidence~ so stuff like that is possible in the Naruto universe, for Sasori too, but sadly I can’t describe it here until now. For real, hit me up if you guys have an idea, otherwise I have no choice but to accept that as indescribable Naruto logic and get my own theories and speculation going. ***

Of course we won’t let that stop us - its just time to get our minds going and make some own theses. I’ve got two for you: One that prioritizes the battle efficiency and one Sasori’s view of art.

1) The Chakra conversion theory

The only “renewable chakra source” we have is Sasori himself. Means, if Sasori found a way to convert his own chakra to have the nature of the puppet’s chakra, it would pretty much be solved. This would require some sort of gadget or jutsu, but I won’t be understimating Sasori’s genius - **********

Assuming Sasori has built in a convertor of some sort into the puppet, it gets a little easier. To use chakra in the first place, Sasori has to store it inside of the puppet. Nothing as easy as that coming from a family that predominantly uses Fūinjutsu (or Sealing Techniques) - we’re gonna dig into the lore to make it possible that also a young Sasori could’ve used this technique with a certain effort.

May i present you: The Puppet Brigade of Sunagakure, with Chiyo as its head and a mighty forbidden jutsu in her hands - the One’s Own Life Reincarnation. You may have heard of that when Chiyo revived Gaara, but it was initially for a way different cause, and that is to give life to puppets. It works as following: The user takes their own life energy to revive a dead person, but dies by themselves in return. The brigade wanted to use it to “breathe life” into puppets for more efficiency in battle, but it was banned by Sunagakure for being unethical. You heard it - puppets, so it is possible to transfer life energy into a puppet to bring it to life, somehow. Fortunate for teen Sasori of course, who just began with his cruel passion of making Hitogugutsu. Let’s take a look at how the jutsu works:

Simple. Here comes the interesting part - Sasori could’ve modified this jutsu to store the living person’s chakra inside of the puppet, and even had access to the technique by being involved in the puppet brigade himself. He just needed to rummage through the forbidden files in there. Once you think about it it seems pretty plausible, right? Now let me explain how a modified jutsu would work:

The sealing technique stays the same, but with an extra step, which uses Sasori as its “medium”. He prepares the body as the shell and later seals the person’s chakra into it. The scroll is just a placeholder by the way, Sasori puts the energy in whatever aperture its later kept in and builds it into the puppet. It never got shown in the canon, but maybe it looks similar to his core. I believe the step of sealing the chakra away before preparing the body is important; otherwise the person would die and lose their chakra before Sasori is finished. So that’s how the chakra gets preserved inside of the puppet.

Next step, what happens to the chakra? Since Sasori was fond of collecting rare kekkai genkai users as his material, his puppets need to use their abilities in battle somehow. Not just that, here’s an extremely efficient option of navigating puppets and we can connect that to the Performance of a Hundred Puppets problem.

Each of the Hitogugutsu has an internal chakra “skeleton” (similar to those that you use for Blender models + it’s probably more complicated), which Sasori is able to manipulate using his own chakra. If the convertor idea is correct, he has the ability to let his chakra flow into the puppet to start a circulation inside and trigger the conversion.

How’s that related to the Performance of a Hundred Puppets? When we see Sasori opening his chest lid, a hunded chakra strings pop out at once and every single of them gets connected to one of his puppets. The key part is that Sasori needs only one string to control a puppet with its full range of mobility. And an efficient way to achieve that is by giving them a chakra skeleton he can manipulate, which only needs one point of connection to get the flow going.

Another thing that bugged me was the fact that he only used taijutsu when fighting with all of his puppets at once. If his puppets had their own chakra preserved infinitely and eternally inside of them somehow, he could’ve just bombarded Sakura and Chiyo with all of their jutsus at once but instead he focuses on hand-to-hand combat and weapons. The chakra conversion theory simply explains this with Sasori not having enough chakra to pour into his puppets, since he was at the very end of his battle.

This theory prioritizes the “eternal art” point, since the Hitogugutsu do stay eternally functional and usable. So tldr; the human puppets have an internal chakra skeleton that can be manipulated by Sasori letting his own chakra flow through a theoretical convertor (which might as well be the seal he revamped from Chiyo’s old reanimation jutsu), which turns it into the puppet’s chakra nature and can then be used in battle.

2) The disposable puppet theory

Now, personally, I’m not very fond of this theory since it pretty much dumps the whole “eternal art” point into the garbage, as much as the psychological aspect - but it’s way too legit and rational to ignore. The main idea is that the puppets Sasori used for his technique were “empty” Hitogugutsu with their chakra already consumed which had no choice but to fight without ninjutsu. Meaning once Sasori has preserved their chakra it cannot be regenerated and the puppet is left behind as an empty shell. The reason why I’m still going with this theory is because the Third has a special gadget in his chest that makes him special and that got me thinking - the magnetic apperatus he uses for his Iron Sand abilities.

First of all some information about the Third Kazekage - he’s known for his kekkai genkai that is the Magnet Release, which he inherited through his bloodline. The Iron Sand technique is an adaptation of Shukaku’s (the One-Tails) abilities, which he created himself. When Sasori transformed him into a puppet he kept his abilities, but noticably weakened. Sasori has been using him as his “favorite weapon” ever since he was a young man and he has shown no sign of missing chakra. At the same time he has the (so far) unique apperatus that lets him use his magnetic abilities. So why isn’t the Third emptying out?

Now here’s the thing: The chakra we’re seeing in this picture isn’t the Thirds - its Sasori’s. The puppet has an unique appeatus that artificially creates the Thirds abilities, thus making them weaker than they originally were. Since the Third is both the only puppet we’ve seen keeping all of his abilities and the only one having the apperatus, he’s basically the only actual “eternal” puppet owned by Sasori. His inner chakra system just needs to get flowing by Sasori’s input and activates the magnetism, so it works similar to electricity.

Carrying on, we can see Sasori having holders attached to his back, four in total with the first one already being used in the picture (to shoot fire out of his palms). The second one is for the Performance of a Hundred Puppets, the fourth one is for shooting water out of his hands and well… the third one? No one knows. If we follow the theory of empty and full puppets, the third scroll can be used for puppets that still contain their chakra, while the second holds the empty ones, of course. This could explain Sasori’s reckless fighting style, the empty Hitogugutsu are pretty much “waste” and serve no purpose other than overwhelming the enemy by numbers - not just in the battle against Sakura and Chiyo, but also in the attack of the Land of This. So theoretically Sasori still had an ace up his sleeve but didn’t decide to use it.

As I’ve mentioned above, this theory is logically reasonable but at the same time signs Sasori off as, well, pretty much a liar when it comes to his view of eternal art. After the chakra of one of his puppets is worn off, their special abilities become unusable and the effort of making Hitogugutsu in the first place seems over-the-top to me personally. While their bodies stay “eternal”, their abilities get lost by usage, and later recklessly destroyed by a Performance of a Hundred puppets attack. So tl;dr - chakra regeneration in human puppets is impossible, their abilities can be used once or twice before their chakra runs out, Sasori later only uses them for taijutsu and contradicts his own view of art.

#answered #sasori #naruto #naruto shippuden #fan theory #akatsuki #third kazekage

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