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bump1nthen1ght · 4 years ago

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Thicker than Water (Demon x Reader) Chapter 1

Pairing: Female Reader x Gender Fluid! Demon

Genre: High Fantasy

Warnings: Arm Injuries, Several mentions of blood

Word Count: 1870 Words

Summary: A summoning gone awry ends up in your favor

Chapter 2

A/N: Alright, I know I literally just posted a demon story but this post showed up on my dash and my god if I have never been more inspired to write a fic. I legit wrote this in 2 hours in a frenzy. Also I plan this story to be multi-chap, but still rather short, so maybe 3 parts in total

Before that night, you had never known what nearly-passing out felt like.

Your mother had done it, once or twice, usually after a particularly stressful day at the shop. If you didn’t check on her between your studies she may forget to eat entirely, your father as well. But you had been lucky; Someone had always been there to catch her, to cradle her head and spoon-feed her strength back.

On the forest floor, surrounded by the smell of your own blood, you have no such luxury.

The black spots flickering in your vision blend into the desne canopy above you and your tears only muddle your sight. The iron and copper of the summoning circle drawn around you drown out the scent of fresh pine and grass, while your ears can only focus on your own heartbeat and the bickering of the four boys.

Oh, that’s right, they’re still here.

It seems you had lost more fluid than you realized, probably because of your incessant crying. You had tried to stop the flow, but your brain was losing coherent function with every second. The boys conversation sounds far away and hollow, bouncing off your eardrums and confusing your sense of direction

“You idiot, I told you not to go for the arm!”

“We needed a lot of blood!”

“But she needs to read the ritual dumbass! She can’t if she dies!”

Ah yes, the ritual, it all is flooding back to you now.

Having received a private education from your father at your family’s apothecary, you were already prone to isolation as a child. It didn’t help having no siblings, nor a lacking natural talent for friend-making. Although you had lived in the city all your life, the young people your age knew very little about you, and you them.

You knew they had rumors about you, The daughter the apothecary hides away; That your gaze can turn people to stone, that you can curse and poison people with a couple words and the right ingredients.

The truth was you weren’t so glamorous. You knew your way around a medicine cabinet, sure, but nothing about poisons or magic spells. You didn’t have any special abilities to compensate or explain your reluctance for socialization. Just some overprotective parents and a shy disposition.

So when the handsome postmasters-son began to pay you special visits, you let your guard down. You let him walk you to and from the market, memorizing your weekend route. You let him in for a bit of tea late at night, especially when it seemed so cold, and told him where the spare key was kept. And yes, you even told him about your favorite secluded spot in the forest, where the sounds of civilization were far away, where you could be alone.

And here, in these last moments of your life, you can’t help but feel so naive.

“Hey, hey!”

A boot taps your cheek, shaking you out of your revelry. Your glassy eyes look over to your right.

It’s one of the local merchant’s boys, you think his name is Nicholas? It doesn’t really matter. All you knew about him was that he was a bit rough around the edges; always nicking things from pockets, looking up ladies skirts, and skipping his lessons. That’s what your dad complained about anyway.

A page is shoveled in front of you, dangling over your face. Your eyes take a while, but focus on the words. Nicholas’ boot heel digs into your neck.

“Read it out loud, or we’ll kill you.”

Clearly I’m going to die anyway dumbass, why should I help you?

You might’ve retorted, if you were in such a physical condition to do so. But instead, you do as you're told, and start speaking.

To your left, the postmaster’s son, Richard, sucks in a breath with anticipation. Any false composure he had while luring you here is gone, his feet tapping with excitement as he holds your left arm and lef bound spread eagle.

Holding your right leg is Markus, another merchant boy. He picks at his teeth.

“What are you guys going to wish for?” He whispers. It goes in your ear and out the other, too focused on forming coherent sentences.

“A full-harem of babes, obviously.” Simpers Hunter, the son of a landlord. He isn’t ugly, only a bit plain, and has enough money to boot. Compared to the other bachelors in town however, he has had little luck in procuring a courtship.

“A million coins could get you that and more, idiot. That’s what I’m wishing for.” Whispers Richard.

“What are you going to wish for Nic?” Asks Markus

“Oh my gods, will you guys shut the fuck up?”

Nic snarls, unconsciously digging his heel back into your throat. You choke and stutter, but keep going. The runes around you, written in your own blood, begin to glow.

All of the boy’s eyes widen and they step back from you. Your limbs sink like dead weight as the words begin to flow out your mouth with no thought. The paper with the chant drops to the ground, out of your sight, but it's like your brain has been reprogrammed; You know the rest, know it in your bones.

The grass begins to simmer and burn under the summoning circle, smoke swirling into formation above you. When the final word whispers out of you, you feel your body go lax. You don’t even remember tensing up

I guess this is it. Sorry Mom, Sorry Dad.

You clench your eyes, just hoping the demon will be quick. That it will at least leave a recognizable corpse.

“Holy shit.” You hear muttered, unsure by whom.

Your eyes are closed, body teetering on the brink of unconsciousness, but your senses are still intact. A hot wave of breath washes over your face and the ground below you trembles with heavy footsteps. The boys are quiet but you can hear their hearts pounding. They thrum with life, while yours slowly fades.

“Why have you summoned me, mortal?”

Even half-dead, your muscles tense in fear. The demon's voice is deep and resonates like a crowd talking all at once. It reeks of inhuman power and cracks like thunder.

A brief silence passes, before Nicholas finds his courage.

“We have come to ask for a wish.”

Later, when recounting the story, you will mention that the demon looked over to Nicolas, unamused, despite never seeing it yourself. The demon huffs, the heat of it blowing over you once more.

“I don’t believe I asked you.” The demon mutters. The cacophony of voices blend together into one, bland and emotionless. Even in your state however, you are able to decipher a couple of louder tones which overpower the others. They seem...angry.

“But...you…”

“I asked….”

Your eyes snap open as a wet droplet lands on your cheek. Lingering above you, drool seeping from their unnaturally sharp teeth, is the creature. It’s face resembles that of a goat, but sharp fangs stick out from their lower lips. Their eyes are golden and shine in the night, piercing right into yours. Despite the part of your body screaming out in terror, another part feels oddly….comforted. It’s why you don't startle when they brush a hand against your cheek, their thumb wiping away your tears. Their palm is warm, not like a blistering flame, but like a thick quilt. Like hot chocolate on a rainy day.

“......What do you need of me, little one?”

Their hand, padded and calloused, slides down your arm, closing up the large gash on your inner bicep. In another movement, they do the same to the other. Power and vitality seems to sink back into your body, drip by drip.

Words escape you, but not Nicolas.

“Excuse me, demon, but we're the ones who summoned you.” The sarcastic tone of his does little to hide the quivers of his fear, especially when the demon's neck turns toward him at an unnatural speed. Still, he persists. “Not her. And we want-”

“Do you take me for a blind fool?” The voice bellows, sending all the boys to their knees. Markus clutches his ears while Hunter whimpers on the ground. Nicolas falls back to the ground, eyes widen. The demon stands to their full height, several feet above all of you. “Do you think I was born without smell, without sense?” The step away from your body, swiping at the ground with their fingers, taking a small bit of your blood with it.

The demon sticks their thumb and forefinger in front of Nicolas’s face, causing him to yelp and fall onto his back. “Is this your blood which forged the connection? Was it your words that spoke me into existence? Was it your body which came to the brink, wrenched open the door and pulled us both through?”

Nicolas, trembling like a leaf, shakes his head no. The demon’s eyes jerk up to the others. “And was it any of these young men?”

Richard furiously shakes his head, while Hunter stays collapsed on the ground. Markus pushes himself away, hands still clamped around his ears. The demon sneers, before turning and walking back to you.

The demon kneels before propping your upper body up with a gentle touch. A comforting claw rubs your lower back while another paw rubs the tension out of your shoulders.

“Now, mistress, what may you ask of me?”

Your muscles may no longer tire from blood loss, but your mind truly feels like it’s on the brink of breaking. The demon, with fearsome fangs and a soft look, looks to you for an answer.

“I-I…” You mutter as the demon continues to massage your back. They hum.

“Take your time, it is alright. Rituals are difficult, I can only imagine the toll your body feels.” The mass of voices have synchronized, fading from a hundred to a single, harmonious tune. It is cavernously deep, but pleasant. It reminds you of the portly older man who used to read stories aloud every holiday.

You feel your body unconsciously turn towards your captors. Nicholas stays stuck to the ground, the whites of his eyes almost glowing in the darkness. The others have slowly moved to their knees, all terrified with shaky limbs, and look like they might make a run for it. Markus is slowly inching towards Nicholas’ shoulders, trying to lift him up to his senses.

For the first time in your life, a deep, boiling hatred burns your skin.

Cowards. You sneer, with all the malice stored in your reserves.

“I want-I want…” You stumble as the anger bubbles out of your belly. “I want them to hurt. To feel humiliated.” Nails bite into the palm of your hand, letting out blood as you clench knuckles. “I want everyone to know what they’ve done, who they are, every fault they’ve ever been guilty of. I want them alive, but I want them to burn.”

The demon smiles, pulling you in for a hug. You collapse into their embrace, keeping your eyes locked onto the boys, those rats. The demon hums a contented tune as they rub your back.

“As you wish, my master.”

#monster romance #demon x reader #reader insert #monster x reader #female reader #my writing

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ollieofthebeholder · 4 years ago

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leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall): a TMA fanfic

Tumblr tag || Also on AO3

Chapter 43: Jon

There aren’t words to describe what being home feels like.

It’s not just the four walls of the house they’ve bought together, or the warmth and beauty of a March sunset, or the sounds of a London evening. It’s Charlie flying down the sidewalk to attack Jon with a hug and a bright smile and a flurry of words about how much they’ve all missed him and then coming back two hours later, pleased as Punch and bearing a “welcome home” cake he baked himself. It’s Sasha calling, not texting, to tell Tim she’s home safe and then asking to talk to Jon so they can reassure each other that they’re both okay. It’s Martin gently tending to the marks on his wrists and ankles, still raw from his desperate attempts to pull free before his strength started to desert him, and singing the song he remembers from when he was a little boy and his father came back from a voyage. It’s Tim cooking Jon’s favorite dinner, but serving him in small helpings so that he doesn’t overstretch his stomach after two weeks while still making sure he eats his fill. It’s the cool, clean sheets and the thick, warm quilt and the weight and security of Tim and Martin on either side of him as he falls asleep, and it’s Tim and Martin soothing and reassuring him, as much with their presence as with any actual words, when he wakes up screaming in the middle of the night.

Going back to the Institute is harder than he would have thought. Only the fact that he knows he can’t be away from it for long gets him to go back—that and the fact that he can’t, won’t, leave his team alone to deal with Elias. Once there, though, he slips back into the routine easily enough. Despite Elias’s snide insinuations, the Archives ran fine without him, but he knows they’re glad to have him back.

They take Tuesday morning to regroup and plan. It’s all very well for both Elias and Jon Prime to tell them to find Gertrude’s notes, but Gertrude was, in Tim’s words, a paranoid old bitch, and it’s not likely that they’ll find a conspicuous notebook with detailed plans on how to stop the Unknowing. More likely that whatever they find will end up being more memory aids than anything, cryptic jottings that only mean something to Gertrude, and sussing it out won’t be easy. But it’s a place to start nevertheless, once they figure out where those notes are.

In the end, Tim and Martin take to looking through the shelves of statements—Tim looking for anything to do with the Stranger, Martin looking for a few of the tantalizing little threads they’ve noticed weaving through the tapestry of their database. Sasha attacks the filing cabinets, with the logic that Gertrude may have pretended to file something important. And Jon takes his counterpart’s advice and goes through his office.

It’s not like he doesn’t know what’s in all the drawers of his desk, but he does his due diligence, pulling everything out of each drawer, tapping for false backs or false bottoms. He does find, stuck in the back of the drawer where he keeps the spare statement forms, a creased and faded concert program printed on green stock from 2003; it doesn’t seem to have any immediate significance, though, so he sets it aside with the intention of looking into it later. Perhaps it’s simply a concert Gertrude attended that she enjoyed, but it might also be a clue to the Unknowing. He’ll have to research.

It isn’t until Wednesday morning that he finds the laptop, hidden along with a key under a floorboard that’s been creaky as long as he’s been working in the Archives. There are scratches on some of the floorboards that Jon’s always hoped aren’t fingernail marks, but several of them are loose and one of them levers up fairly easily, revealing Gertrude’s hidden stash. He digs around a bit but finds nothing else, only the laptop and the key. He sets both on his desk next to the concert program and goes to tell the others.

The laptop is dead, of course. Jon vaguely remembers seeing a charger for it when he was in Gertrude’s apartment, but he didn’t grab it then and it’s far too late to go back now. Luckily, Sasha’s laptop is almost the exact same model, so she simply swaps over the cable and lets it charge while they go over what they’ve found so far. Tim has three statements he thinks might be Stranger ones, but hasn’t looked at yet to be sure; Martin found a third statement involving the Daedalus, which Tim seems positive is a Dark statement, and another statement involving Salesa. Sasha hasn’t found anything in the filing cabinets—yet—but she does have Elias’ schedule, so they’re able to plan their briefings when they know they won’t be observed.

She also kindly hacks into Gertrude’s laptop for him, once it’s charged, and he spends most of Thursday painstakingly going through the files, emails, and Internet history. The latter is by far the most voluminous. It almost makes him laugh to discover the account name “grbookworm1818”—how had he not figured out that was Gertrude, attempting to buy Leitners? She seems to have obtained three, one of them being the copy of The Key of Solomon he found fragments of in the tunnels and the other two being ones he’s never seen or heard of. There are also purchase reports for Archival supplies, airline tickets and travel bookings, and sporadic but suspiciously large orders for petrol, lighter fluid, pesticides, and high-powered torches.

When he comes out of his office at the end of the day, eyes bleary and with no clear plan, he finds a number of dusty boxes scattered about and his assistants attempting to find space for them, but they refuse to tell him where they came from or what they’re for. The next morning, however, Martin and Tim usher him into one of the storage rooms they’ve never really got around to sorting out the second they arrive in the Archives. It’s completely empty, save a table, four chairs, a low set of shelves, a whiteboard, and a corkboard, to which Sasha is tacking a large map of the world. The shelves hold fourteen boxes of the kind designed to hold photographs, a large box of pushpins, three different-colored balls of string, and a laptop cord, ready and waiting.

“We thought we needed a war room,” Tim explains, obviously trying to fight back a grin. “You know, somewhere we can keep everything together and not…get mixed up with the rest of the work we’re doing.”

“Allegedly doing,” Sasha says over her shoulder. “I’m still not sure how much of this job is what was presented to us when we took it and how much is the sort of thing we’re doing right now…can one of you give me a hand here?” she adds as the upper corner of the map flops over onto her head, just above her outstretched hand. Tim comes over to assist.

Jon looks around, surprised and pleased, and opens his bag to pull out Gertrude’s laptop. “Why did you pick this room, out of curiosity?”

Martin pulls the door shut behind him. “The molding.”

“What?” Jon frowns at him.

Tim gives the map a firm stroke to smooth out any air bubbles and presses the pushpin deep into the cork, then turns to give Martin a warm, approving smile. “You know how Elias always seems to know what’s going on in the Archives whenever it’s least convenient for us? Martin realized why the other day.”

“It was an accident,” Martin insists, face turning slightly pink.

“It was brilliant.” Tim claps him on the shoulder. “Those fancy decorations at all the joins in the molding? You know, those elaborate carvings at the top of the fake columns and the corners of all the doorframes and whatnot?”

“Not…I’ve never paid much attention to them.” Jon’s only five foot seven, and since he’s never had to worry too much about clearance or anything like that he’s never really looked too much at anything over his head.

“It’s at the corners of all the shelves, too,” Martin offers. “At least the ones where the statements are stored, the ones that are pretty obviously original to the Institute. You know, with what looks like a medallion in the middle?”

Those Jon has seen. “It’s the Institute seal, isn’t it? Or the Magnus family crest?”

“That’s what I always thought, too, but Martin got a good look at one the other day while he was getting down a statement for me.” Sasha’s eyes sparkle behind her glasses, which instantly puts Jon on edge; these days, anything that excites Sasha is likely to have bad ramifications for them. “It’s an eye.”

“And if he can ‘see through any eye, real or image’…” Tim spreads his hands out invitingly.

Jon sets the laptop down harder than he probably should, eyes wide. “He’s been watching us through the moldings!”

“Yep. It’s anybody’s guess whether or not Gertrude knew about it. I ran it down right after I told them and got a lot of stammering and profanity. Although not from who you might expect,” Martin adds with just the tiniest bit of a smirk. Sasha practically cackles. “Anyway, this room doesn’t have anything like that, we double-checked. So we just…cleaned out all the stuff that was in here and set this up. Give us a bit of breathing room, anyway.”

“At least until Elias comes down to the Archives to figure out why he can’t see us easily,” Tim adds. “But, you know, it’s a head start.”

Jon is six inches shorter than Tim and a full nine inches shorter than Martin, so there’s no way to make it look less than deliberate if he attempts to give either one of them even the most casual kiss on the cheek, but good Lord, he wants to. Instead, he just beams at them both. “God, you’re brilliant. Right, let me get a cup of tea and we can get started.”

“I’m on it.” Martin slips out of the little room.

Sasha smirks at Jon behind Tim’s back, but he does his best to ignore her and focuses on the boxes. “What are these?”

“Tapes. We made copies of all the recordings we’ve done so far of the real statements and sorted them by which fear they belong to.” Sasha taps the lid of one of the boxes and indicates the label on the front. It’s a bright yellow set of concentric circles—no, Jon realizes, it’s a spiral. “Tim did the labels.”

Jon glances up at Tim, both impressed and worried. “You didn’t—”

“Nope.” Tim pulls out a box and shows him the label, simply the word US in a rich, vibrant green. “I don’t know how detailed the ‘image’ has to be, but I’m not risking it. Everything else I tried to do the symbols they described, or…something that made sense. Like antlers for the Hunt.”

“And the ink colors? Is that corresponding to—it’s not the labels we use.”

“No. Those are the colors I’m pretty sure the fears are.”

Martin comes back in with four mugs of tea. Jon takes his with a grateful smile. “Actually, let’s start there. We’ve never really talked about the colors, beyond…”

“What I told Elias,” Tim completes.

“And the little bit you described when you took a look at all of us.”

Tim takes his own mug from Martin, and for some reason Martin’s ears turn slightly pink. Jon’s distracted for a moment until Tim muses, “It’s…weird. Some of them are obvious. Like I said, it’s super obvious the Eye is green and the Stranger is indigo, because I saw that one at the Trophy Room with no other colors interfering. And the Corruption being yellow-green is obvious because of—”

“Me,” Martin finishes.

Tim nods. “And the Spiral being yellow—Christ, that door. The others I…sort of had to guess. Even with…you know…it was hard for me to suss out. The Eye is everywhere. Looking at him is like looking at the shelves in the Archives. The scars are pretty obvious, but not completely.” He frowns. “Like the Hunt and the Slaughter. They’re really close in color. I think the Slaughter’s got a bit more orange in it, the Hunt’s a true red, but especially under the cover of the Beholding, it’s hard to tell the difference. And, actually, sometimes it’s hard to tell the Stranger from the Web at a glance. I mean, until you really start looking at them. The Web is purple, so if it’s not by itself…I mean, it’s a subtle distinction.”

Jon glances uneasily at the carefully-inked purple spiderweb, then turns away. It still bothers him.

They manage to get nearly two hours into their discussion, moving from the colors to the Stranger threads they’ve picked up to what Jon’s gleaned from Gertrude’s laptop. Tim is just jabbing a pin into Nairobi on the map when Sasha stiffens and glances over her shoulder. “Incoming.”

Jon’s about to ask what she’s talking about when the door opens and Elias pokes his head in with a patently false smile. “Knock, knock.”

Tim and Martin make nearly identical noises of frustration. Jon clasps his hands behind his back and gives Elias his best I’m-annoyed-at-being-interrupted-but-you’re-my-superior-so-I’ll-be-polite look, which is only partly put-on. “Can we help you, Elias?”

“I simply wanted to see how you were progressing with finding out about the Unknowing.” Elias looks around the room with interest, and Jon has to work hard to use the tricks Jon Prime has been teaching him to keep his excitement from being obvious. Martin and Tim are right; Elias can’t see into this room. “What have you uncovered so far?”

Jon is immensely proud of his team. They manage to weave an incredibly tight explanation of how much they’ve learned, within limits, that doesn’t let on how much information they were given ahead of time, listing steps without revealing that anything other than chance led them to it. Elias completely acts the part of the mildly interested academic and bureaucrat, but he’s also obviously fishing for information. Martin does a masterful job of acting like he’s falling directly into Elias’ traps while neatly sidestepping them, Tim cracks jokes at the appropriate times to distract him while putting just enough bite into them that Elias will assume they’re simply angry and sarcastic jabs, and Sasha throws a flurry of technical terms into the discussion that are certainly relevant to the topic at hand but serve to make Elias change the tack of his questioning. Like Jon, she knows the value of a well-placed info dump.

There is no redirecting him from the map, however. While he must have known about Gertrude’s travels, at least in a general sense, it’s clear he knew little about her actual movements. Jon masks his reluctance with annoyance and gives Elias a clipped version of his findings.

“Is there any significance to the colors of pins you have used?” he asks, gesturing to the map, where they’ve been marking out Gertrude’s travels. “Or is it random? Or for the…aesthetic?”

“We were trying to do it by what year she took the trip, but we only have so many colors,” Jon answers. “We’ve just switched over. Red are trips that were very definitely expensed back to the Institute, white are ones that were not, and yellow are the ones where we aren’t quite sure.”

“Mm…Gertrude did request a rather high travel budget, comparatively. Of course, if the Archivist job was as simple as it is in other institutions, she would have required no travel whatsoever, but in her capacity to stop the rituals…” Elias seems particularly fascinated by the pin on Beijing. “Why is this one in blue?”

“We just haven’t swapped the pin over yet. That’s one of the last trips we have a record of in Gertrude’s laptop.” Tim tilts his head at Jon. “From, what, six months before she died?”

“Closer to nine. Actually, Martin, can you change that one out, please?” Jon gestures at the box. “It’s a yellow one, I think.”

Martin mumbles an excuse me and switches out the pin. Elias purses his lips thoughtfully. “I don’t recall there being a ritual anywhere near Beijing at the time. What could have sent her there?”

“No idea. What’s bothering me is that we don’t know where she went from there.”

That draws Elias’ attention away from the map and back to Jon. “Surely she came back to London.”

“No.” Jon folds his arms over his chest. “Or at least, not that we can find. As I said, we’re largely tracing these trips from booking confirmations sent to Gertrude’s email address, and she largely purchased one-way tickets. Her last flight purchased out of London was to Paris, and then she booked a flight from Paris to Beijing. From there…I don’t know. I suppose she was buying tickets as she went along. It’s not like her credit card statements list where the flights went, only what airlines she flew and when she purchased the tickets. No hotel accommodations, though. Doubtless she paid cash, or else Gerard paid for those.”

“Gerard?” Elias says with interest. “Gerard Keay? Who told you he was traveling with Gertrude?”

Panic strikes Jon. Most likely it’s something he gleaned from Jon Prime—but on the other hand, did the Primes actually mention that? Flustered, he stammers, “I—someone must have—”

“No, no one told you. You Knew.” Elias sounds delighted.

“I probably just—gleaned it from the statements.” Jon glances at the shelves.

“No, Jon, this is a good thing. You’re getting stronger! It’s one thing to be able to—” Elias gestures vaguely and almost dismissively at Tim and Martin “—glean something from somebody in the room, but just Knowing something like that, that’s a big step.”

He sounds like a proud father, and it makes Jon feel incredibly uncomfortable. He balls his hands into fists, gathering up the cuffs of the sweater he definitely didn’t steal from either Tim or Martin, to stop himself from reaching out to one of them for protection. It’s stupid. Elias won’t hurt him, not here, not now; he needs him too much. He knows he’s safe. It just feels…dangerous, and he wants them to make him feel safer. Rather than risk Elias knowing how much he depends on them and doing something about it, he grips the sweater.

Elias practically beams at him. “It seems to me your next step should be obvious.”

“It should?”

“You should start retracing her steps. Are her notes from this trip on there?”

“Ah—no.”

“Then you’ll need to go where she was. Find out where she stayed, what she did.” Elias clasps his hands behind his back. “Where she went from there. How soon do you think you can leave?”

Jon blinks. This is going a bit faster than he expected. He turns to Tim and Martin. “Do you two have a passport?”

Martin looks a bit stunned. “N-no, I’ve never—never needed one?”

“Mine’s still in good standing,” Tim answers. “But if Martin needs one, that’d be—what, four weeks, at a minimum?”

“Jon, I asked when you would be able to leave,” Elias says, mildly enough but with a bit of steel behind it. “Your assistants need to stay here. We do need to get all of this straightened out still, and there’s research that needs to be done from here. You can relay whatever information you find back to the Archives, and I’m sure they can assist you if needed, but really, the Institute can’t spare the funds to reimburse more than one of you for an extended trip.”

Jon is pretty sure that’s a lie, but he knows Elias won’t reimburse them, and he also knows that neither Tim nor Martin can actually afford to pay their own way to come along, not with the house payments and Martin’s mother’s medical bills. He sighs heavily and fights to maintain eye contact with Elias. “I can get a flight out Sunday night or Monday morning.”

“Monday will be fine,” Elias says without batting an eyelash. Jon knows Sunday, statistically speaking, is the most expensive day to fly, so anything to save the Institute a few pence, he supposes. “Well, it seems you’ve all done marvelously well. I think you all deserve to take a half-day today. With pay. Finish up what you need to do here, and you can leave at twelve. Jon, do keep me appraised of your flight information.” He flashes them an absolutely terrifying smile, turns on his heel, and leaves the room.

The second the door shuts behind him, Jon sags, bracing himself against the table. “God.”

Sasha collapses into a chair, looking absolutely wiped out. “Tell me about it.”

“Hold on.” Martin picks up Jon’s mug, then Sasha’s, and slips out of the room.

Tim tentatively reaches out and touches Jon’s arm. “Sit down before you fall down. You look almost as bad as she does.”

“I’m all right.” Jon sits down anyway, grateful for Tim’s concern.

A phone buzzes from somewhere; Jon instinctively reaches for his pocket before remembering that he hasn’t replaced it yet. He spent longer than he should have trying to resurrect his shattered phone after Martin silently handed him its remains, but finally had to give up. “Is that yours, Tim?”

“No, I think it’s Martin’s.”

With that rare sort of timing that almost never happens, Martin comes back in, bearing two brimming mugs of tea; he hands one to Sasha, then one to Jon. He has to bend over to do it, and Jon brushes a quick kiss against his cheek as it comes past before he loses his nerve, then tries to play it off like he didn’t notice he did it. “Your phone went off.”

Martin’s ears are pink, and he goes to pick up his phone rather quickly. He actually snorts with laughter and shakes his head, a slightly amused smile on his face as he taps out a reply.

“Everything okay?” Tim asks with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, it’s from Melanie. Just says ‘Jet lag sucks balls.’ I’m guessing she’s back in town.” Martin slips his phone into his pocket and sighs. “What do we do now?”

“Unfortunately,” Jon mutters, “I think we do what Elias said. Finish up what we’re doing here, and leave early.” He looks over at Sasha. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Sasha manages a smile that even Jon can tell is fake, then drops it immediately and sighs. “I was trying to keep on top of how much he knew, or thought we knew. It’s a weird sort of balancing act…thing. Like keeping just the right tension on a rope.”

“Sasha.” Martin sounds upset. “You were reading his mind?”

“Just—skimming the surface,” Sasha protests.

Jon sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “You have to stop doing that. I know it’s tempting. God knows I know that. But you can’t just—and you knew he was coming. Was that intentional?”

“Sort of. It’s not like I’m constantly trying to read his mind or whatever, but…I don’t know. I just got a sense of…something.”

“All right, Gwen Stacey,” Tim says with a smirk. “Jon’s right, though, you’ve got to quit feeding it or it’s going to start feeding on you.”

Sasha sighs heavily. “I’m…trying to try.”

“Well, it’s a start.” Jon takes a sip of tea.

They get the room straightened up, then head back into the Archives. Martin keeps periodically replying to text messages on his phone, but the others don’t ask. It’s not until Jon, having brought his laptop out to join the others, is finalizing his booking that he frowns at his screen and looks up at the others. “Melanie wants to know if the rest of you’d like to join us for lunch, seeing as we’ve got the afternoon off and everything.”

Jon hesitates. On the one hand, he’d like to decline; he and Melanie tend to prick at each other whenever they interact, despite his best intentions. On the other hand, he admittedly wants to spend as much time with Tim and Martin as he can before he leaves on this trip. Heaven knows how long he’ll be gone and he’ll miss them, he knows that.

“If I’m included in that,” he says at last, “I’d be honored.”

They lock up at twelve and head to the pub Jon has begun to think of as “theirs”, even though they don’t go often. It’s cool and overcast, and there are definite signs it rained earlier, most notably the worms on the sidewalk. Jon notices Martin carefully avoiding treading on them and reaches over to take his hand comfortingly just as Tim throws his arm around his shoulders from the other side. It makes Sasha laugh, which makes them laugh, too, and at least gets Martin to stop watching his feet.

Pat waves when they come in and gestures to one of the tables, and Martin steps forward with a warm smile as Melanie King rises from a chair and meets him with a hug that would probably make Jon jealous if he didn’t know Martin was gay, and also if he had any right to be jealous. “God, it is…surprisingly good to see you.”

Martin huffs a laugh. “I’m not sure how to take that.”

Melanie actually laughs and gives Martin a friendly punch on the arm. Martin laughs in earnest as he reels back in an exaggerated manner, rubbing at his arm. “Ow! Hey, I need that!”

“Sure.” Melanie turns and offers Sasha a smile and her hand. “Sasha, good to see you.”

“Good to see you, too.” Sasha shakes her hand, then turns slightly. “Sorry, don’t think we’ve met.”

Jon turns, too, and his brain pulls up short. She’s changed up her hairstyle and shed her glasses, there’s a tattoo peeking out from under the collar of her t-shirt, and he’s pretty sure there are a couple additional holes in her ears, but the smile is unmistakable to someone who’s spent six years running from it.

“Georgie,” he stammers.

Georgie Barker’s smile gets a bit more uncertain, but there’s at least no hostility in her eyes. “Jon, hello. I didn’t expect to see you.”

“I, ah—” Jon gestures vaguely, either at Martin or at Melanie, he’s not sure which.

Melanie shrugs. “I did say the invitation was open to everyone. Kind of didn’t expect you to accept, to be honest, but—”

“Frankly, it’s been a shit month and we’re an all-or-nothing deal right now,” Martin says. He looks slightly quizzical and slightly worried as he eyes Georgie. “I—did I talk to you on the phone once?”

“Right, introductions. Georgie Barker, Martin Blackwood, Sasha James, and—” Melanie waves at Tim. “I actually haven’t got a clue who you are.”

“There are some who call me….Tim?” Tim quips with an arch of the eyebrows.

It’s the right thing to say to diffuse the tension, especially as Melanie and Martin both let out exaggerated groans as Georgie, who consumed every bit of media even vaguely associated with Arthurian legend during a time when she was obsessed enough to qualify as a minor expert on the subject, bursts into laughter. The six of them arrange themselves around the table as Pat brings over a tray of pints, then takes their food orders and heads off to get them together.

Martin takes a sip of his pint and evidently starts to speak three times before saying in a carefully neutral voice, “I hope you had a…successful trip.”

Melanie lifts an eyebrow at him. “You were a lot less cagey before. Is it them?”

“No, I’m a bit tired,” Martin says. “Like I said, it’s been…a lot.” He hesitates, glancing at Georgie for a brief second, then evidently gives up. “Remember how I said we all had…weird stuff we could do? My thing is that I can make people answer questions when I ask them. And if I’m tired or not really paying attention, sometimes I do it without meaning to, and that’s not fair to you.”

“I don’t believe you.” Melanie folds her arms over her chest. “Prove it.”

Martin hesitates. “Okay, um…what made you so upset when I asked if you wanted to come to lunch with me when we met?”

“If you weren’t a bloke, you’d be exactly my type and I had just a second where I wondered if I was actually a lesbian,” Melanie answers automatically, then blinks. “Fuck.”

Martin’s face catches fire. Tim grins and winks. “That just proves you’ve got taste.”

“Yeah, well, still.” Melanie presses her lips tightly together. “S’pose I can’t get too mad. I did tell you to prove it. Not your fault I didn’t actually expect it to work.” She snorts. “Successful? Yeah, I guess. I found out what I went to find out. And I didn’t die, so…promise kept?” She shrugs. “I owe you the whole story, but maybe not here.”

“Come by the Institute on Monday,” Sasha offers. “We can get your statement��oh, right.” She looks at Jon. “That okay with you?”

“No, that’s fine. Ah, take your pick on who you want to tell it to,” Jon says to Melanie, indicating the other three. “I promise you don’t have to deal with me.”

“I don’t mind all that much,” Melanie says with a sideways glance at Georgie. “You’re not…actually that bad to talk to. At least you’re trying not to be a prick.”

Georgie turns a laugh into a cough. Jon studiously avoids looking at her. “Thank you, I think, but I didn’t mean that in a ‘you can choose to talk to someone else’ way. I meant that as in ‘I’m leaving on a business trip Monday morning, so I won’t even be there.’”

“A business trip—for an Archivist? What, are you going to the Library of Alexandria or something?”

“No, the last one blew that up,” Tim says under his breath.

Jon kicks Tim under the table. “Beijing. My…predecessor traveled there some time before her death, but she didn’t leave any notes behind on what she may have learned there. So, lucky me, I get to follow behind her and try to pick up a three-year-old trail.”

“You can’t tell me the idea of piecing together something like that doesn’t appeal to you,” Georgie says, sounding amused. “What’s your—hang on, what was it called—your PFX count these days?”

“I haven’t—yes, all right, I suppose the idea of the hunt’s not altogether unwelcome,” Jon admits. “I just…would really rather not be doing it right now. For God’s sake, I only just got back from my last—unexpected absence.”

Martin’s hand tightens on his glass. Tim takes a huge swallow of his. Georgie looks back and forth between the two of them, then frowns at Jon. “So why are you leaving so quickly? If it’s been three years, it’s not like the clues are going anywhere.”

“Yes, but the situation is…somewhat time-sensitive.”

“Critical,” Martin supplies.

“Life-or-death, you might say,” Tim offers.

Georgie’s frown deepens. “You’re an Archivist. Which I’m still wrapping my brain around, by the way. You were a researcher, Jon. I know you don’t just have a degree in library science lying around.”

“No,” Jon says with a sigh. “The Archives at the Magnus Institute are…interesting, let’s put it that way. Library training in the actual Archivist is surprisingly less important than you might think. Besides, we have Martin, and what he doesn’t know about organizing and categorizing isn’t worth knowing.”

“Christ.” Martin buries his face one hand. Both Sasha and Melanie snicker at him. If the two of them are going to be friends, Jon thinks, God help them all.

Only Georgie can manage to frown while simultaneously arching an eyebrow in a knowing fashion. Jon tries very hard to pretend he doesn’t understand what she thinks she knows. “So you have a degree in library science.”

“No,” Martin says, voice still muffled by his palm. “I don’t have a degree. But I worked in the library at the Institute for ten years before I got assigned to the Archives, so I kind of know what I’m doing.”

“Right. Still. What do you have to do, as an Archivist, in China, that is life or death?”

Protect my team, Jon wants to say but doesn’t. The ritual, according to the Primes, can’t succeed; Orsinov’s Unknowing will collapse on itself. They’re probably going to try to stop it anyway, because he doesn’t doubt that Orsinov will survive the ritual’s failure and try again, and they can’t let anyone else fall prey to that. This world tour, retracing Gertrude’s steps, won’t give them any information to help them with that. But Elias doesn’t know they know that, and Jon can’t risk what he might do to the people he loves if he doesn’t obey orders.

“It’s…a long story,” he tries.

Georgie shrugs. “I’ve done my recordings for the week and I’ve got plenty of time for editing. And I thought you got off early today.”

Pat turns up then with everyone’s lunch. Jon waits until he heads back behind the bar to say, “I don’t…know where to begin, honestly. Trust me when I say it’s all pretty unbelievable.”

“You’re an archivist. We left believable behind a while ago.”

“Ha, ha.” Jon gives Georgie his best glare. As usual, she sticks her tongue out at him and rolls her hand for him to continue. “I—really, I don’t know where to—”

“Jon.” Martin sets down his glass, reaches over, and covers Jon’s hand with his own. Jon meets his eyes instinctively. “In thirty words or less, what is the story behind this trip?”

“There are monsters in the world, tied to different fears,” Jon answers immediately. “They’re trying to reshape the world in their own image and basically kickstart the Apocalypse. We’re trying to stop them.”

Martin sits back, looking miserable, and it’s only then Jon registers the wash of static receding from his mind. “Sorry, Jon. I really should have asked first.”

Jon grabs Martin’s hand before he can pull it away and squeezes. “I’d have sat here dithering to the end of time if you hadn’t. Thank you, Martin.”

Martin manages a tentative smile. Georgie’s frown has eased back a little. “Huh. How many of these things are there?”

“Monsters? Or rituals?” Jon blinks at Georgie. “You believe me?”

“Well, yeah.” Georgie waves a hand as if to say duh. “It’s not like I didn’t know there are monsters in the world.”

Sasha’s hand tightens on her fork, and she pushes back from the table abruptly. “Be right back. I—I need a minute.” She strides purposefully for the front door.

“Sasha, don’t—” Jon begins to call after her, but too late; she’s out the door.

“Did I say something wrong?” Georgie looks concerned.

Martin sighs heavily. “I’m going to go out on a limb and assume you’ve seen…monsters before.”

“Yeah? What’s that got to do with anything?” Georgie asks with a deepening frown.

“Oh…damn.” Jon looks at Georgie, and now he can feel it, too—the static building behind his eyes, an almost imperceptible itch beneath his skin. This shouldn’t be happening, he’s taken two statements already this week, first Michael’s and then Tim and Martin’s, and even if Sasha siphoned off most of that one…he can’t possibly need one this badly, not now. But it’s not need, it’s want, it’s a desire at this point, so he can fight it…

“The Institute serves one of those fear things we’re talking about,” Tim tells her, his voice subdued. “In our case, it’s about knowledge and secrets and…hidden information and stuff like that. We usually just call it the Eye, it’s quicker than most of the other names. But one of the ways it sort of feeds itself is with other people’s stories of their spooky encounters. Usually with something touched by one of the other beings.”

“You’ve got a story to tell,” Martin explains. “The Eye wants it. And Sasha and Jon can both…” He hesitates, looking at Jon. “Sense it?”

“Better than saying ‘smell it,’ I suppose,” Jon says softly. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, forcing the static back.

Georgie blinks. “I mean…I’ll tell you about it. If you want.”

“That…would probably not be a good idea. I can’t—we can’t take but so many statements in any given period of time.” Jon opens his eyes, feeling a bit calmer. “Not without wearing ourselves out, or hurting ourselves. And I’ve had two already this week.”

“And we’ve had one each,” Tim adds, gesturing to himself and Martin. “Right? You just read—”

“Statement of Manuela Dominguez, regarding her unconventional religious beliefs and their intersection with her project aboard the space station Daedalus,” Martin recites. “And you read yours yesterday, it was—”

“Not, as it turns out, a Stranger statement. The Web. Statement of Darren Harlow, regarding a failed psychology experiment at the University of Surrey.” Tim rubs his forehead and sighs. “Actually, I need to talk to you two about that one. We may have a problem.”

Melanie looks back and forth between the two of them, blinking. Jon sighs, too. “Anyway, yes, it’s…there’s a lot. The ritual we’re trying to stop right now is the Stranger’s. It’s—kind of the opposite of the Eye? The ritual’s called the Unknowing. We’re still piecing together what it’s all about, but anyway, that’s what I’m about to go haring off around the world about. Which I would really rather not do, but I don’t have much of a choice. Our boss made that perfectly clear.” He can’t keep the bitterness out of his voice.

Sasha comes back in, looking much calmer, and slips back into her seat with an apology. Melanie looks at Tim. “So what about you, then? If he can ask questions and make people answer, and they can tell when someone’s got a story—”

“It’s not quite that. It’s more—” Sasha spreads out her hands. “Less stories and more secrets. Things people haven’t told. At least, that’s how it is for me. The ones who come to make statements and will talk to anyone, they’re not as interesting to me. It’s the ones who just…don’t want to talk about it, I guess. Or choose not to. Sometimes I know things without meaning to, but I’m trying to throttle that back. Jon is more…all of it.”

Jon nods. “I have the—the question thing, too. And the knowing, although it’s not just hidden things, it’s facts or important information. It’s not as bad as it could be, but it’s getting worse. On top of that, there’s the compulsion to read out the statements, and…it’s just a lot.”

“None of which actually answers my question,” Melanie says. “What did you get out of all this?”

“Oh. I can…look at people, or things, and see if they’ve had anything to do with one of the fear…things,” Tim says. “They glow different colors.”

“You can see auras,” Georgie supplies.

“Not—exactly. I mean, I can’t say ‘oh, you have a calm personality’ or ‘you’re a very troubled person’ or anything like that. But if you’ve bumped into one of the powers, if I concentrate, I can see where it marked you and…usually figure out from there.”

Georgie folds her hands on the table and meets his eye. “What color is mine, then? Or am I making it up?”

Tim hesitates, then takes a deep breath. His eyes go slightly unfocused, and Jon feels the faint crackle of static—not quite the same as when Martin asks questions or Sasha blurts out a secret, but close, like the dial on a disused radio station turned a single click in a different direction. After a moment, Tim’s shoulders relax and he blinks. “White. Bright white. The one you’ve met is Terminus. The End.” He hesitates. “Death. Am I right?”

There’s a short pause before Georgie looks at Jon and says, “You’ve got a good bunch here.”

Jon looks at both Tim and Martin and says, softly, “I know.”

#ollie writes fanfic #leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall)#tma #the magnus archives #jonmartim #emotional manipulation tw #implied blackmail tw #slight misuse of beholding powers

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meowdymista · 4 years ago

Text

Van der Driscoll pt 4

idek how this is still going but here we are. I like to please people like our bae, I guess

Part 3 & Masterlist

Part 5

In this booth in some rundown town west of Lemoyne, you’re grateful to have Arthur’s thumb rubbing calm circles on the back of your hand. His eyes are azure in the sunlight pouring through the shutters, watching the road outside for the third day since you’ve arrived.

The sound of you pushing your plate away attracts his attention.

“You need to eat something,” he murmurs, squeezing your hand with a small frown. You shrug indifferently, although the voice at the back of your mind is nagging the same thing. Your stomach is a separate entity to you now - it will betray you at the drop of a hat by suddenly dropping through the floor and pushing bile up in its place. How are you supposed to eat when you aren’t hungry? When anything that does pass your lips tastes like dirt, and tastes worse when it passes them again?

He sighs heavily, kissing your knuckles before enveloping them beneath both of this own. It’s like you’re watching him jump forward and backwards in time. The lines etch deeper in moments like these, when you’re sat by the window waiting. They drove themselves in hoards when conversation pulled you into heated discussion about right and wrong.

“A baby shouldn’t be born on the run from the law.”

“What about the boy? Jack?”

“It was different then - there weren’t so many Pinkertons, and they weren’t so determined.”

“OK, so why is he still running with you?”

“It’s different - they’re safer with us than out there where they can be grabbed for ransom.”

“Who would hold a boy and his mother for ransom?”

A dark look reminds you of the ten dollar murder. “These guys are the law-”

“And the law hire bounty hunters, don’t they? And them bounty hunters are anyone that steps off the street.”

Despite some strong arguments that stir doubt in your already unsettled insides, you can’t help but see the twinkle in his eyes when the barman talks to you about his own newborn daughter, promising that the baby will be worth every second - although it could be the lack of sleep making him delirious.

You came to bed late last night to find him passed out on top of the blankets still fully dressed. Taking pity on him, you removed his boots, stirring him from his sleep enough to get underneath the quilt and hold it up for you to curl in next to him. You slipped in, gasping as his strong arms wrapped around your waist and pulled your back flush against his front, his nose buried in your hair.

“My lady and our baby,” he mumbled against the back of your neck as his palm flattened on your unchanged stomach.

“If you’ll have us,” you whispered in return, inhaling sharply as his grip tightened.

“I can’t be what I ain’t.” A kiss tingled your bare shoulder. “But I want you both more’n anything.”

“You promise?”

His warm breath chuckled over your back. “I ain’t lyin’ if that’s what you mean.” You turned your head, finding his heavy lids in the darkness of the room. “I’m sorry for how I acted - I loved being a father, and I’ve loved being with you. Best o’ both worlds but I know this world don’t work that way - for outlaws at least.”

“It’s worked for your brother.”

“Mm. That fool was always lucky.”

“We make our own luck in this world, Arthur. Have faith.”

He chuckled at that, burying his head deeper into his pillow. “A’ight. I’ll try.”

You push a piece of meat into your mouth and force yourself to chew. You’re sure this would taste amazing if you had found this place before you lost your appetite.

Arthur moves to his feet suddenly, eyes fixed outside. “He’s here.”

You follow his gaze to see a curt old man dismounting a stormy coloured turkoman. You recognise him instantly.

She can’t go free. Not with the Pinkertons after us.

"Arthur!" Hosea calls to the man half running off the wooden porch to meet him, hitching Silver Dollar on the side of the road. "Everything alright?"

"Hosea - you got the letter! I-" He moves his hat on his head, raking his hands through the mane of hair before setting it back down. "I didn't know who else to ask."

"Guess it fell through, whatever you intended to do?" The brown eyes drift to the window where you shrink out of view.

"Somethin' like that," he admits, rubbing the back of his neck. "I… we need to talk. I was hopin' you might be able to… to help in some way or at least lend another mind to workin' out what we gotta do now..."

"Is she worth it?" Hosea holds his son’s gaze steadily, tilting his chin towards the saloon.

"Yes. She's-" He breathes out shakily, looking over his shoulder to your peeping eyes. "She's important to me, Hosea."

A hand clamps on his shoulder, squeezing it reassuringly. “Let’s get properly introduced then.”

You hold your breath as the two men walk up to where you’re sat shrinking into the wall. Arthur slides in beside you, squeezing your leg with a small (albeit worried) smile as the stranger settles himself opposite you, his brown eyes bland and unreadable.

"So what is it you need to be telling me?" he asks calmly to no one in particular as he waves for a drink. "What's brought you all this way east for christ's sake?"

"I was gonna get her outta the country," Arthur explains lowly, his knee jittering again. "There're boats - ships that are taking people out of America. Get her away from Colm and us for that matter."

"But…?" He takes the whisky and throws it back, tucking a dollar in the garçon's pocket as he asks for the same again.

"But she- she weren't well."

"I'm pregnant." Your voice breaks, eyes blinking back tears. "Arthur's. I'm carrying Arthur's child."

He blows out his hollow cheeks, looking between the two of you as though expecting a cry of "April Fool's!" in June. Arthur's shoulders sag at his guardian's response.

"An' we ain't even told you the best part. Her cousin was on the ferry in Blackwater. Heidi. She's the one Dutch… you know."

He drags his hands down his face. "Could you bring us the bottle?" he calls before the barman can return. "The bottle and- two? Three glasses?"

“We owe it to her, Hosea!”

“Are you-” He waves his hand, looking between you. “What are your plans?”

“She’s keeping it.”

You nod in agreement, holding onto him for dear life as the man pours you each a glass and toasts. You try to follow suit, but the smell knocks your stomach before you can drink it. You set it back down, pushing the glass away as Arthur rubs your back understandingly.

“Don’t start this again,” growls Arthur, surprising you with his tired hostility. “Please.”

The old man’s voice is hushed, eager. “Think about it - this is an opportunity to get outta this life!”

“I can’t do that, Hosea.”

“This could be whatever deity is up there giving you a second chance! You’ve said it yourself, Arthur. We’re thieves in a world that don’t want us no more.”

“I ain’t leavin’, Hosea. You know I can’t, ‘specially now.”

Regret saturates his sigh, the twinkle in his eye extinguished as he leans his head against the back of the bench. “I know, son. Can’t blame a feller for hopin’.” Silence stretches out between you before the older man speaks again. “So what is it you’re wanting to do? We both know you ain’t dumb enough to want to bring her into camp.”

“What else is there to do?” Urgency cracks his voice as he tries to speak quietly. “Dutch killed her ticket outta here - we owe it to her!”

“He’s paranoid enough without introducing someone with motive. Morale is as low as it’s ever been right now - if word gets out that the girl was related to the new O’Driscoll? People will panic, Arthur. We’ve already lost too many-”

“I just want to keep the baby,” you interrupt, your eyes begging for him to find your honesty. “I know what it looks like, but I didn’t know Arthur was runnin’ with anybody.”

“How did you get caught again? After kidnapping Bill, wasn’t it?”

“That wasn’t me!” you cry desperately.

“But you were there when he was tied to a post?”

“I only went down to see what- what Heidi did. I just wanted to put a face to the story- Please believe me! I ain’t about revenge, and I ain’t about to do anything to put Arthur or the baby in danger-”

“Promises aren’t enough to vouch for you.”

“I won’t leave her side,” intervenes Arthur, squeezing you tight enough to fuse your sides together. “And if I do, you can watch her. Make sure she stays outta trouble.”

“And if both of us are away?”

His exhale is harsh, his mouth searching for words that can’t be found. Hosea tuts, more to himself than anything.

“I know I shoulda realised who I was gettin’ involved with,” Arthur says slowly, blue eyes begging. “But it’s too late for that. If there’s any way of keeping them with me, I gotta try. Please, Hosea. Help us?”

The bony man shrugs tiredly, shaking his head in defeat. "It ain’t me you need to convince, it’s Dutch."

“Do you think he’ll take it?”

“I don’t know anymore. Maybe if he sees how important she is to you.” He sighs, eyes searching the ceiling as though the answer might be hidden in the flaking white paint. “Like I said, he isn’t going to execute a woman carrying a child, and handing her back to Colm would be just that. Can’t hand her to the authorities neither in case she feeds them information.” Lips pressed together they all but disappear, he pours himself and Arthur another glass. “I suppose, until she proves herself to still be a threat we’re at an impasse.”

Arthur taps the glass with his free hand in time with the bounce of his knee. "I- I just don't wanna be the one bringing this gang to its knees."

“You won’t, Arthur.” A ghost of a smile dimples his cheek. “You know what you mean to us. Everyone knew something was happening with you - couldn’t not, knowing you as well as we do - and at the end of the day, you wouldn’t be fighting like this unless you trusted her. So… it’s time we trust your judgement.”

He throws the amber liquid into his mouth, wiping his hands over his thighs. “But - I will say this to the both of you right now-” He fixes you with an unforgiving stare, his neat voice hushed. “-if anyone in camp comes to harm as a result of your actions, I won’t hesitate to put a bullet in you. Baby or no baby.”

“Hosea-!”

“I mean it.” His gaze doesn’t flicker, holding you like a snake charmer. “We aren’t like Colm, we don’t pick people up to expand our numbers. The Van der Linde gang is family. What we have is thicker than blood. Don’t go shedding any. Understand?”

“Yes,” you croak.

“Good.” He drains your untouched glass and gets to his feet. “Arthur, you should go on ahead. Tell Dutch what’s happened, but leave out the family history. I don’t want to play that card unless we absolutely have to.”

“And Y/N?”

“We’ll be behind you in the cart. On Silver Dollar, you should get back in a day and a half at a push - if we aim for two and a bit, that should give him plenty of time to cool off and think rationally.” The older man squeezes his son's arm. “Don’t look at me like that, son. She’ll be safe with me.”

****

As promised, after two nights travelling with Hosea, you arrive back to the heartlands of New Hanover. He explains, whilst pulling out a book from his bag, that you’re waiting here until Arthur comes to fetch you both. No point walking into camp if the heat is still on.

“And if it doesn’t calm down?” you ask.

“Well, I imagine he’ll come get you and take you on to Valentine.”

You wait for a few hours - it’s only as the sun is beginning to dip lower towards the horizon that Arthur comes out from between the trees. He gives Hosea a look that can only be described as… terse. Understanding immediately, Hosea clambers down.

“Give me five minutes before coming in. No point in talking if nobody can hear what you have to say.”

The two men exchange a series of pats as they pass each other. The shadows under Arthur’s eyes are almost black as he climbs up beside you.

“How’d it go?”

Hesitating, he squeezes your knee, placing a deep kiss to your forehead before flicking the reins. “Well. Guess we’ll see if it was enough.”

He guides the wagon a little further down the dirt track parallel with the train tracks. You can see a glimmer of light through the trees for a brief moment, but it’s not until you turn down a narrow path you wouldn’t have noticed otherwise that you recognise quite how sheltered the camp is. You brace yourself for a sniper to take you out, but you make it through to the clearing without crossing anyone’s path.

Arthur parks the cart, releasing the horses before helping you down.

“How do we even know it’s his?” you hear Dutch cry from the all too familiar central tent.

"You saw how she came in, so she was telling the truth about that. Why would she bother with that get up if they knew?"

“It’s Colm! He’s been trying to take us out for years!”

“Arthur cares for her. We should give her a chance.” A hefty scoff sounds. "He isn't like you or John; they've been intimate. Of course he cares! And she’s pregnant - that baby could come out blacker than the night sky and he’d take it in as his own."

Arthur’s fingers weave through your hair, pulling your ear to his chest. His hammering heart alone almost blocks out the noise but a growl makes you lift your head.

“Herr Morgan!”

“Herr Strauss.”

“There’s a debt I need you to collect.” The man’s face is long and thin with small round glasses perched at the very end of his nose - perfect for looking down into the book he’s carrying. “A rather reluctant client by the name of Downes.”

You jump at the sinister snarl that curls from Arthur’s lips. “I’m busy.”

“You don’t need to go immediately, Mr Morgan, but the sooner the better. Fellow seems determined to die before paying his dues.”

“If it’s so important, get someone else to do it.”

“I’ve tried but Mr Bell was a little too heavy handed. We can’t collect debts from the dead.”

“Well it’ll have to wait. I got more pressing matters right now.”

His beady eyes gleam as he surveys you. “So I’ve heard. The O’Driscoll girl, isn’t it?”

“Git outta here!”

“Arthur! Y/N!” Hosea calls you both from the flaps of Dutch’s tent. With one last sneer at Strauss, Arthur leads you to the castle by the hand, his fingers interlaced with yours as he steps in front of you, entering first to take the brunt of the hostile atmosphere.

Dutch is stood, feet planted apart beside a gramophone, arms folded across his chest as his eyes burn into yours with a fierce intensity.

“What are you wantin’ from us, Miss? To kill us in our sleep perhaps?”

“Dutch-”

“Let her speak, son!”

You take a steadying breath. “Mr Van der Linde-”

“Miss O’Driscoll,” he returns sarcastically, lighting a fat cigar.

“Miss L/N, actually,” you sneer. “I’m not here to harm any one of you. We’re in a predicament, and we’d appreciate it-”

“We got a sayin’ here,” he interrupts brashly. “We save people as need savin’, shoot fellers as need shootin’ and feed those who need feedin’. Which is it you’re needin’, Miss?”

“Feedin’ if you can, Dutch,” Arthur growls, squeezing your hand as he throws you a look. “Savin’ us if you will.”

He scoffs, shaking his head in despair. “So it’s ‘us’ now?”

The apple in Arthur’s throat bobs, his chin still held high. “Yes. We’re in it together. Where she goes I go. You’re my family and I want to stay, but if you can’t accept her, I guess we’ll have to go somewhere else.”

“Come now, Arthur-!”

“She’s carrying my child, Dutch.”

“That didn’t stop John disappearin’.”

“I ain’t Marston. You know that.”

“I know you’re still holdin’ a grudge on him, that’s for sure.”

Arthur sighs harshly, pulling your body flush with his. “What’s it gonna be, Dutch? She needs to rest. Can she stay, or am I takin’ her to town?”

He takes a long drag of his cigar, casually blowing the smoke into your face. “What happened to you, Arthur? You got so sour in your old age.”

“I got tired of worryin’ about everybody else.”

“Worryin’ about everybody else? Son, you want us to take in another O’Driscoll! It’s suicide!”

His shoulders fall, his grip tightening. “Well then, I guess it’s time to thank you for all them years.”

He tuts. “You don’t mean that.”

“Dutch, I ain’t slept proper since I brought her here, an’ I’m gettin’ real tired of talkin’. I can’t risk losin’ her like I did Eliza and Isaac.” They stare at each other, both stubborn and unrelenting.

He takes another long slow drag of smoke and lets it cloud the air between them. “Fine. She can stay. But first sign of trouble and she’s out!”

“A chance is all I’m askin’ for.” Tugging you out of the tent, he keeps his body between you and Van der Linde. “Thank you, Dutch.”

“This is on you, Hosea,” you hear as Arthur leads you to a small cot a dozen feet away. “Soft, the both of you.”

#Arthur Morgan x Female Reader #Arthur Morgan x Reader #rdr2 fanfic #rdr2 fic #red dead fanfic #Arthur Morgan x O'Driscoll #meowdymista

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hopeisour4letteredword · 4 years ago

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personal furnace, ch3

Summary: Winter renovations at the inn in Zaphias leave Yuri in need of a warm bunk for the night. Good thing he can always count on his good buddy Flynn.

Read it below or at the link to AO3 in the notes.

When Yuri climbs in through the window again that night, Flynn looks up with some disbelief. He'd gotten the impression Yuri was upset with him that morning, or at least upset about being woken before he was ready. Flynn does feel guilty about that. He knows Yuri doesn't always fall back asleep after disruptions as easily as Flynn can. He should have been more empathetic to that this morning. "They still haven't fixed up enough of Mariam's rooms?"

"I know," Yuri says. He looks frustrated about it. "Sorry, man. I can find somewhere else to crash if—"

"No, you're always welcome here. I'm just surprised."

"Yeah. I don't know. I keep stopping by at the end of the afternoon to check with her and she said they're still getting separate rooms ready for the people who were forced to share before." The winter already seems harsher than usual this year, so it's not completely implausible that more folks than usual are seeking shelter from the elements. Yuri continues, "I guess I could at least try sleeping in my usual room for part of the night and see if it's tolerable."

"I just told you, you're always welcome here. You don't need to settle for tolerable, and you certainly don't need to risk worse. You can sleep here for as long as you're willing to put up with the inconveniences of sharing a bed with me."

"It's not that it's inconvenient," Yuri says. He's got the grim, irritated look he gets when he's about to say something sincere about his emotions. "It's just annoying to watch you work yourself to death."

Flynn pauses. "Oh. You're worried."

"I didn't use the word worried," Yuri snaps, cheeks flushing a darker pink that Flynn suspects has nothing to do with the cold he's just fled. It occurs to him belatedly that Yuri still hasn't moved away from the window to get himself a blanket or go closer to the fire. Maybe he's waiting for Flynn to indicate that he's welcome? But Flynn already said he was. He stands from the desk to grab a blanket from the bed and toss it at Yuri, who has the nerve to look surprised.

"Nobody says working yourself to death unless they're worried."

"Well maybe you shouldn't be giving me things to be worried about!" Yuri draws the blanket around himself in a facsimile of a cloak, as usual, and glowers at him. "It's one thing to get up early if it's standard for the Knights, but then what the hell are you doing going to sleep at the same time I do? And working right up until then?"

"Yuri—"

"I can't stop you from self-destructing if this is how you get your rocks off, but what the fuck, Flynn. If you're gonna live like this, at least have the decency not to turn around and act like I'm the one who needs to rest more."

"You do need to rest more," Flynn protests, weakly. He'd known Yuri was upset with him, but he wasn't prepared for it to involve actively combatting Flynn's attempts to look out for him. "At least I sleep consistently. You don't, always."

"Yeah, but at least I fucking try." Yuri tucks his hands close up against his own body. It's difficult to take the glaring seriously when he's swaddled in Flynn's quilt. "And I don't spend every second I'm not in bed working."

"I don't either," Flynn insists. "I usually—"

"Three nights in a row I've come here past eleven to find you still at your desk—"

"That's not—"

"So unless you're writing a fucking novel on the side—"

"Yuri, stop interrupting me." They both stop to take a deep breath. Flynn soldiers on. "I don't usually work this late so consistently. It's just a hectic time of year. There are a lot of bureaucratic deadlines that we—the Knights—need to be prepared for before the new year, but I won't be able to spend all of that time working because I have political and social obligations for the winter festivals. I'm trying to burn through this now so I don't have to worry about it at the last minute."

The tense line of Yuri's shoulders relaxes a little. He studies Flynn warily. Flynn adds, more gently, "I swear, I take some time to relax most of the time. You think all those books on the shelves are just for decoration?"

"Nerd decoration," Yuri mutters, but the fight slumps out of him. He makes no objections when Flynn closes the gap between them to take the edge of the blanket in hand and lead Yuri over to the hearth again. Their hands brush when Yuri adjusts the drape of the quilt around himself as he settles down, and Flynn jerks away on instinct. He's absolutely freezing to the touch.

"No wonder you're grouchy. You're like ice."

"A pipe burst in Ted's apartments right at the end of the evening," Yuri says, tiredly. Flynn takes the hand he'd brushed against back into both of his own and tries to rub some warmth into Yuri's cold fingers. Yuri redirects his glare from Flynn to the flames, cheeks flushing red again. "I got freaking drenched earlier while I was trying to help him."

Aghast, Flynn says, "You got completely doused in freezing water in sub-zero weather and you just threatened me with trying to sleep in the cold at the inn?"

Yuri smacks at him half-heartedly with the hand Flynn isn't massaging. "How is doing stupid things that only hurt myself threatening you?"

Flynn isn't even going to dignify that with an answer. He catches the hand Yuri bopped him with and tries to massage warmth into that one, too. "Is Ted going to be alright overnight?"

"Yeah, Hanks is putting him up for the night."

"That's good. Is someone—"

"Yeah, yeah, your people already have a plan for dealing with it." Yuri sighs. He gives Flynn an exhausted smile. "Don't go getting a big head about it, but you've got a pretty good thing going with the Flynn Brigade."

"You say that and then you refuse to make nice with Sodia."

"I am specifically talking about everyone except Sodia."

"Witcher?"

"...Yes. Fine. I'll include Apple-Head."

Well, at least that's something. Although Flynn is pretty sure the only grievance Yuri ever had with Witcher was in solidarity with Rita.

"Shall I draw a hot bath for you? Since you got soaked."

Yuri hesitates. That's a yes, then. If it's tempting enough to make him consider letting someone else take care of him, he's definitely cold enough to need it.

"I can do it," Yuri manages to say, without any sincere enthusiasm, when Flynn nods briskly and heads into the bathroom. "You've been working all day too—"

"I've been at the desk most of the day, aside from a training session," Flynn says. Yuri trails behind him and hovers in the doorway as Flynn opens the faucet to begin filling the tub. "And frankly, with all due respect, please do not try to do magic in any part of my quarters. Especially not fire magic. I have to live with whatever destruction you wreak."

"No faith," Yuri says, with a faint grin.

"Not for this." Flynn shakes his head, watching the water fill the tub. "Not before, and definitely not now that it's all mana."

"Rita says magic with mana is probably actually more intuitive for beginners to learn than magic with aer. She thinks it seems harder right now because everyone's trying to unlearn aer magic at the same time."

"If Rita is encouraging you to try fire magic, I'll have to have words with her."

Nonetheless, Yuri stays out of the way while Flynn uses careful application of fire magic to the porcelain basin to heat the water. He shuffles forward when Flynn steps back. Flynn takes the quilt back and leaves Yuri to disrobe while he goes to change into pajamas and fetch another set for Yuri.

He comes back in right as Yuri climbs into the bath, clothes in a pile on the floor. His hair pools on the surface of the water in inky swirls as he sinks deeper into the bath with a long, contented sigh. Flynn has to tear his eyes away before his gaze can follow the elegant curve of Yuri's neck below the water line. He turns to the bathroom counter.

"Better?"

"Yeah, lots. You're a hero."

"We're safe in my quarters at the end of the night. Nothing I need to save the energy for."

"Mm. Still." There's a gentle splashing sound behind Flynn, presumably as Yuri shifts. "Thanks."

"Maybe I should have been more careful," Flynn muses, more to himself than Yuri, as he reaches for his toothbrush. "In specialized climate training they always tell us you shouldn't put someone with hypothermia directly into a hot bath."

"I was not hypothermic," says Yuri, indignantly. "Just cold."

"Mm-hm. I don't know. You were more worked up than you usually get in your right mind."

"I get to be crabby when I can barely feel my hands without that meaning I'm on the verge of death," Yuri says, "And I was still right. If I find you staying up past midnight doing more paperwork after the new year, we're gonna have a real fight about it."

"Alright, alright."

"I'm serious."

"Hi, serious. I'm Flynn."

After a moment of furious silence, Yuri says, with deadly calm, "I am going to fucking drown you."

Flynn bursts into laughter. He had begun to put the toothbrush into his mouth, but now has to remove it so he doesn't choke. Yuri continues, "I'm going to have to explain to Cecelia why you're dead in the bathtub, fully clothed, and I'm the last person who saw you."

"Nobody else knows you're here," Flynn says, cheerfully. He glances at Yuri in the mirror. The mirror is safe. Yuri only exists from the shoulders up in the mirror. He glares sullenly back at Flynn. "You could get away with it."

"Yeah, nobody could solve that incredibly confusing riddle."

Flynn grins at him in the reflection and goes ahead with brushing his teeth. Yuri settles into the bath water up to his chin with another, surlier sigh.

"I take back everything nice I said."

"You can't take back being grouchy because you were worried about me. I'm going to remember that," Flynn says, around his toothbrush. He knows Yuri cares no matter how reluctant he is to put plain words to it, but it's still a treat whenever he slips up.

"I was grouchy because it's cold as hell," Yuri mutters. He rests the back of his head against the rim of the basin. He's quiet for a moment. Then: "You know in some places, people's whole concept of hell is a frozen wasteland?"

Flynn makes an interested sound. He had not known that.

"Estelle told us that," Yuri continues. "And I guess that's what they think in Dahngrest, because Karol was like, 'yeah, that's what hell is, what are you talking about?' And then we had to explain the concept of hell as a fire pit to him. He was so weirded out, it was hilarious."

"I can't believe you argued with a twelve year old about the concept of hell," Flynn says, except he can, actually. It's a very Yuri thing to do. He finishes brushing and spits into the sink.

"We weren't arguing," Yuri protests. "It was a cultural exchange."

"You can't just repeat Lady Estellise's euphemisms to me like I won't know that's what you're doing."

Yuri laughs. "Ah, fine. You got me there."

"I wouldn't mind hearing more about Dahngrest, though," Flynn says. He rinses his toothbrush under the faucet and puts it away, then turns around to lean back against the counter with his arms crossed. He's careful to keep his eyes on Yuri's face. "You started to say the other day that it's almost as though the citizens hibernate through the winter?"

Yuri lights up. He twists in the tub, water splashing dangerously, so he can face Flynn and rest his chin on his arms along the basin's edge. "Yeah. It's so wild. I mentioned the dawn's later, right? Well, the sunset's earlier, too."

"You're messing with me."

"No. It's dark a lot. And mostly people just sleep when it's dark, because it's colder there, too. So a lot of folks just stay inside and try to stay warm. Stay in their blanket nests or whatever."

How... gloomy.

"You'll never believe me, but I'm one of the most productive people in the city right now."

"You always seem to find plenty to keep yourself busy in Dahngrest," Flynn allows. Guild life is good for Yuri, after all. "But so does everyone else. It must be strange, for it to be a ghost town after dark."

"Not quite a ghost town, there's still a little nightlife. But it is weird. Good for Brave Vesperia as a business venture, I guess. There's less people taking jobs right now, so we're getting plenty."

"If it's colder there, are you staying warm enough? They aren't having the same issues as Zaphias?"

"Yeah. I mean, the Empire already restricted the Guilds' access to blastia, right? So the buildings are built better for the winter, already, because most of them couldn't depend on furnace blastia. Lots of fireplaces and ventilation systems. I just sleep with plenty of blankets and bundle up when I go out."

"As long as you're doing alright," Flynn says, doubtfully. He doesn't like to think of Yuri in the cold and dark, but at least it sounds like he's staying active.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm getting by okay. It being dark all the time sucks more than the weather, honestly. Anyway, I'm going to be in Zaphias for a while."

Flynn perks up. Yuri doesn't always stay in town all that long. "Really?"

"Really," Yuri says. His grin goes a little less smirk and a little more soft and fond. "Gotta be here for the solstice festival and then new year, don't I? Or Ted'll kill me. And I thought I'd stick around for a bit after that, see if there's any chance we can establish a little guild business in Zaphias."

Flynn beams at him. "Pleased to hear it."

Yuri shakes his head, still smiling, as he lifts his arms from the edge of the tub and sinks back into the hot water. "You'll be sick of me by the time I go, don't worry."

Flynn really doesn't think he will be.

---

Yuri doesn't leave fast enough in the morning to miss Cecelia bringing breakfast for two. Flynn and Yuri both stare at her, befuddled. Yuri's got one boot on.

"There were two sets of pajamas set aside on the dresser last afternoon when I left for the day," she says, flustered. Flynn had re-folded Yuri's set along with his own so that they wouldn't create an absurd amount of laundry when he could just wear the same ones again if he showed up. "Sir. Um. I'm sorry. I can take one of these back to the kitchens, if you don't—"

"I mean, I'll eat it," Yuri says, reaching out to take the tray from her. "But you really didn't have to. The renovations seem to be going alright, it should be done soon. And Mariam's always willing to feed me when I get back over to the Lower Quarter. I'm not your problem, Cece."

Completely red in the face, Cecelia says, "It's my job to maintain the Commandant's quarters and if he's decided you're to be included in them then yes, you are my problem. Good day."

She curtsies aggressively and sees herself out before either Yuri or Flynn can say anything about it.

"Well then," Yuri says.

"I've no idea what that was about," Flynn says, baffled. "She asked if she should bring two breakfasts after the first morning and I told her not to."

"Hope I haven't offended her by declining her hospitality or something," Yuri says, which is a new layer of social etiquette Flynn doesn't want to think about so early in his morning. Shouldn't he be the one dictating the hospitality levels of his own quarters? Is Flynn also in hot water for telling her not to be hospitable? "Well, whatever. Yay for free breakfast."

"Indeed." It does sound nice to take a meal with Yuri, instead of just having him hop right back out the window. And it is. Flynn enjoys it immensely.

#fluri #flynn scifo #yuri lowell #tales of vesperia #long post #original character

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thebibliomancer · 3 years ago

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Tides of the Dark Crystal liveblog pt 21

Tides of the Dark Crystal because Tavra is revealing her spidery fate to Tae!

Last times on book: Amri and co are on a quest to unite all the Gelfling against the Skeksis. They've managed with the Sifa and with the Dousan. They thought they managed with the Vapra since All-Maudra Mayrin was part of the big Gelfling conference call Aughra hosted but they've just received word that Mayrin has died. The group has come, finally, to Ha'rar to find the streets stalked by sinister Skeksis. They also find Tae of the Sifa and have gone off to regroup with her.

Chapter 21

Tae and the group catch each other up, then Amri tries to catch a sea monster.

At the far end of Ha'rar, the cliffs dropped away into the ocean. A narrow, carved stairway cut down the steep mountainside and deposited them at the wharf, a stretch of ice shelf held against the Ha'rar cliffside with stone pillars. Metal poles -- used for docking ships, Amri imagined -- stuck out of the ice and water like spines. But all were empty. What had probably once been a bustling marketplace and landing for the Sifa and other seafarers was now barren and silent.

There was only one ship in the harbor, a familiar Sifa craft with red, blue, and purple sails. Amri felt safer as soon as they were inside, cabin doors locked and the cushions and quilts surrounding them with the scent of Onica's herbs and Sifa fernsage.

Huh! Welcome back to Onica's ship everyone. Once they went to the desert, I didn't suspect they'd be back to it.

Tae explains that she accompanied Ethri to the maudra meeting and since they didn't know what to expect, they borrowed Onica's ship instead of bringing the Omerya. But she wants to hear their explanation first. She called dibs on hearing exposition.

So they recap how Tavra got taken over by Krychk the spider and used to infiltrate Team Naia, how Kylan dream-stitched Tavra’s soul to the spider when her body died, and how they sent the flower petal warning to the world. For good measure, they recap the part of the book after they left Cera-Na.

Tae is curious about the spider thing and asks what its like to do the crystal-singer thing.

“It’s sort of like dreamfasting,” Amri answered for them both. “You know how in a dreamfast, you feel like you’re someone else, just for that dream? It was like that. I felt like I was her.”

“And I was you,” Tavra finished in agreement. “Yes, it was like dreamfasting. I was able to see through Amri’s eyes. When we flew to save Onica from the Crystal Skimmers, it was as if for a moment...”

As if for a moment I was Gelfling again, she had been about to say. Amri frowned. He wondered how it must have felt, if even for a moment. To fly once more, only to have to go back to being a spider again.

Poor Tavra.

Tae asks why she didn’t reveal herself back at Cera-Na.

“What was there to say?” Tavra asked with a spider-size shrug. “My own sisters do not know I am still alive. If this state could be called living.”

=( =( =(

Are there Gelfling therapists?

Onica interrupts this sad line of thought by asking Tae to take her turn to explain whats been going on. She especially wants confirmation that the Skeksis killed the All-Maudra.

THIS is news to Tae but not a surprise and she has to shake off the anger with a sigh of frustration.

So Tae explained that Seladon sent out windsifters with pieces of the crown and a message that Mayrin had passed. No further information.

As was tradition, the maudra gathered in Ha’rar to crown Seladon and that’s when things got weird. Once the maudra were gathered, Seladon announced that Mayrin was a traitor and would not be given burial honors. Then she declared that the Vapra were loyal to the Castle and called for the maudra to bless her ascent to All-Maudra with the insinuation that to not support her was the same as declaring war against the Skeksis.

Ethri didn’t know what to do given this subtle ultimatum and with the Ritual Master and General in the city so wound up supporting Seladon for All-Maudra, figuring that the resistance could still be built in secret under cover of maudra unity.

So that’s the explanation for why Ethri supported Seladon in the All-Maudra election despite having come around to resistance in this book. Cool, cool.

However, Momdra Laesid withheld her support. Amri guessing that she wouldn’t support an All-Maudra swearing loyalty to the Skeksis when the Skeksis have named two of her children as traitors.

And Maudra Fara also withheld her support, I guess having changed her mind from Song of the Dark Crystal she didn’t want to rock the boat.

Maudra Argot didn’t attend the meeting, having important cave business but sent back her piece of the crown.

Maudra Seethi and Maudra Mera blessed Seladon and Tae isn’t sure whether its because they support the Skeksis or fear them.

So that’s a majority vote for Seladon for All-Maudra. One that bodes of a split among the Gelfling. Right when they need unity. Even if Seethi and Argo flip for the resistance, its not looking good.

After the vote, Maudra Ethri returned to Cera-Na to update the Sifa but Tae stayed behind.

Tavra tells her it was foolish to stay and analogizes the current situation to a storm.

“I know that. But the last time I faced a storm near Ha’rar, I could do nothing to stop it. You had to save me. This time, I will do everything I can to do the saving.”

Naia and Kylan glanced at each other and Amri remembered he was the only one who had seen Tavra’s memories and heard from Onica about her Far-Dream of the storm. Naia and Kylan had no idea what Tavra and Tae were talking about.

Hah.

Onica cuts the tension by saying there’s no point arguing about it when its already happened. Tae is here with Onica’s ship so they might as well accept it.

So Amri questions what Maudra Fara will do after denying Seladon as All-Maudra.

“The Stonewood are loyal and Maudra Fara is a fierce maudra for her people,” Kylan said. “I learned that much when she forced us to leave instead of offering us sanctuary. If she’s decided to stand with Rian, and knows that the Skeksis will come for her people first...”

“She may go to war with them,” Tae finished. “She said as much when she challenged Seladon. And Naia, you mother, Maudra Laesid. What do you think she’ll do?”

“Fight,” Naia replied without hesitation. “She didn’t lose her leg running away from battles... But this is wrong! Now isn’t the time that any of them should be fighting among themselves. We need to unite, not break apart!”

Tavra decides that this is why Mayrin was killed, because the Skeksis found out she was going to join the resistance and Seladon would be easier to manipulate.

Seladon has also gone dark since the crown ceremony and there’s rumors that she left Ha’rar or that the Skeksis killed her too. And the Vapra are loyal to a fault, like the Stonewood. They’ll follow their maudra but if their maudra isn’t given a voice, the Vapra will remain docile.

Everyone feels pretty down now with the situation being pretty dire and Tae announces that Tavra should be All-Maudra instead of Seladon.

“This isn’t fair, Tavra! It should be you leading the Vapra -- your voice that should be heard. It should be you standing against the Skeksis for the Vapra, not Seladon! Everyone has always known it should be you!”

Man. I cannot imagine that helped Seladon’s inferiority complex. Never able to live up to her mom’s standards and everyone thought her younger sister was a better All-Maudra prospect than her. Geez.

Despite Tavra shooting down her argument by saying that Seladon is the rightful successor due to being the first-born and that even if she had a body, its not given that she’d beat Seladon in a challenge since her lack of fortitude is what got her into this spidery predicament to begin with.

“And yet you fight on, like a true leader --”

“Because there is nothing else I can do!”

Aw geez.

“Of course I wish I could displace Seladon. Lead my people. But I can’t! The Vapra cannot see me. Ha’rar cannot hear my voice. I cannot wield a sword against the ones that killed my mother. I cannot even hold the one I love. So let it go, Tae. Let me go and find another hero to put your faith in.”

Aw geez again.

There’s only so much a stoic demeanor can hold when someone is piling on and making you feel how helpless you really feel.

Tavra does the thing she’s been doing when she’s done with a conversation and physically leaving the room. Its about the only thing she has control over so I get it. She just squeezes between the table planks and disappears into the room.

Onica changes the topic because she’s been really good at that. But she brings up that they need to try to unite the Vapra but that the Skeksis in the city makes that hard.

Tae tells her that the Skeksis requested that the Vapra gather on the steps of the citadel tomorrow night. Some believe that Seladon will finally make an appearance but others believe that the Skeksis will announce her death.

Either way, that gathering is their best shot to reach the Vapra but at the same time, having the Skeksis present makes it dangerous. Even if they get the Vapra to light the fire of resistance, the Skeksis will be there to see it and so much for uniting the Gelfling in secret, its instead an open declaration of war and one that the Gelfling might not be able to win. Especially with not all of the clans united.

Tae asks Onica to do the Far-Dreaming thing she does and ask for Thra for answers. Though Onica tries, no answer comes from Thra. “It does not always, and we must find peace within that.”

Darnit, Thra.

Although I wonder if this is one of the things like with the Dousan, where Thra isn’t going to answer because the answer is already there.

Onica tells them to get some sleep and immediately gets up and goes to bed.

There’s nothing really that everyone can do but follow her lead.

Amri is still awake as all his friends drift off, the poor protagonist nocturnal boy. And he thinks that what the Vapra need is something or someone to remind them that they’re not alone.

But he’s still stuck on Tavra being that something and he can’t wrap his head around a workaround to the whole she’s a spider thing.

He hears a CLUNK in the night. He thinks its the boat bumping against the wharf but it keeps CLUNKing followed by splashes so now he starts wondering about that story he heard about a water spirit that lures little Gelflings into the sea.

Gelfling or humans. If you live where theres a sea, you’re gonna worry that there’s something in it that will drag you in.

He tries to wake up Naia but she’s fast asleep. So Amri goes out onto the deck alone, in the middle of the night.

Oh, Amri. Never become a horror movie character.

You’re probably okay here because the book doesn’t switch POVs.

On the deck, he becomes distracted by the light of the Waystar up on the cliffs.

Amri walked out, staring up at it. It had guided ships into the wharf, had brought travelers north as they came to meet with the All-Maudra. To see the beautiful Ha’rar, a place whose name was known as far and wide as the Gelfling race had traveled. A place now as vulnerable as Domrak. As silenced as a Silverling in the body of a spider.

There’s still splashing and clunking against the boat, so like a smart person, he leans over the side to look into the water.

He sees a long shape with a long tail swimming and bumping into the ship. Amri calls for Naia or Tavra but neither his voice nor the collisions seem to wake them up.

So like a smart person, Amri grabs a coil of rope, ties a slipknot, throws the loop at the sea creature just as it breaches, snagging it. Giving him rope burn because this thing can pull.

“Naia!” he shouted. She didn’t answer. She didn’t come.

A loop of the rope came racing up behind him. Before he knew what was happening, it caught him around the ankle. He lost his footing as the line shot over the side of the rail, tangling around his legs. Then he was falling over the rail, crashing into the frigid ocean water below.

Well, Amri. You only have yourself to blame for this.

You Ahab’d yourself.

#dark crystal #the dark crystal #Tides of the Dark Crystal #liveblog #Amri #Naia #Kylan #Tavra #Onica #Tae #wanted to get this post out sooner but I've been on mandatory overtime and was too tired to liveblog

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grilledcheem · 5 years ago

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prompt : teen richie does something minor to piss eddie off and eddie gives him silent treatment all day but richie keeps annoying eddie to get him to talk to him which angers him more

this got away from me so uh it’s almost 2k. enjoy!

support me on my kofi

read on ao3

“Eddiebear has a teddy bear!” Richie’s voice rings out as he enters the clubhouse one summer afternoon, Eddie close behind him. The other Losers look up from the board game they were playing to watch the two friends argue.

“You asshole!” Eddie shouts, pushing Richie away as he tries to hug him from the side. “You said you wouldn’t tell anyone!”

Richie pouts a little, lip quivering in false shame. He sweeps his left arm in front of the two of them, gesturing to their friends. “It’s just us Losers, Eds, no need to get worked up about a silly toy.”

The look in Eddie’s eyes makes Richie regret his words as soon as they come out. There is anger there; blazing, heated, constant. There is anger and there is something that Richie could swear looks like sadness. He tries to backpedal, to apologize for teasing him but Eddie won’t look at him anymore. Eddie’s moved to sit between Bill and Mike, forcing his way into the circle. None of the other Losers say anything; they’re used to the two arguing but it’s never been this serious.

They all agree to start a new game so that Richie and Eddie aren’t just sitting there watching Stan win Monopoly. Richie suggests Twister and everyone groans; everyone except Eddie. Eddie is silent even though he usually speaks up against Richie’s insistence on playing that game. Richie sees this as his chance to tease Eddie, tricking him into speaking with him.

“Aw, Eds,” he coos. “No complaints about Twister? Guess you’ve finally succumbed to my charm.” He says this with a wink, wiggling his eyebrows at Eddie. Eddie’s face stays neutral as he turns to Bev and says, “I was thinking we could play Clue; does that sound alright?” Bev smiles, knowing that Eddie doesn’t want to talk to Richie right now, although she doesn’t know why. She agrees and soon the rest of the group, except for Richie, are all arguing over which character they want.

Richie hates Clue. He hates how he has to sit and think when games shouldn’t make you think, they should just be fun. There aren’t even enough characters for the whole group to play. He points this out and the look Eddie gives him tells him that that was the whole point of him picking it. A little hurt but mostly confused, Richie resigns himself to watching the game but it’s hard to focus when his mind keeps wandering to thoughts on why Eddie is so mad at him. He thinks back to when he saw the teddy bear, not seeing how anything that they talked about last night when he had snuck over could explain why Eddie reacted to weird. He wants to talk to Bill or Stan about it but they’re both so engrossed in the game and Richie doesn’t want to spoil their fun. To entertain himself and keep his thoughts from focusing on Eddie for too long, he starts commentating the game.

“Oh ho, my good chap,” he says, putting on a terrible English accent as Stan, who is playing as Colonel Mustard, brings Eddie’s character, Mr. Green, into the library. “Thank you for joining me in this wondrous library as we hunt for this mysterious killer who, by the way, is not me.” Bev and Mike chuckle under their breath as Richie carries on. “Quite right, quite right. Now would you do me the honor and the privilege of allowing me to bore you to death with a recitation of the facts?”

Eddie slams his hand down on the floor, startling the group and jostling some of the pieces. He doesn’t say anything but Richie can tell that it’s taking all of his willpower to not yell at him. Bill looks at Richie and gives him a sympathetic smile. “M-Maybe it’s best that you d-d-don’t commen-com-commentate, Rich.” Richie looks at Eddie for a moment, his hands shaking slightly as he realizes just how mad Eddie is with him. “Yeah, I guess you’re right, Bill.” He sits there for a moment, looking down at the board, at the game that had no room for him, and he sighs. “Actually, I’m just gonna head out. I, uh, just remembered something my mom wanted me to do.”

Everyone but Eddie murmurs their goodbyes as Richie leaves the clubhouse. Some part of him thinks Eddie will climb up after him, tell him to come back, tell him that he wasn’t really mad, he was just messing around. By the time Richie is on his bike and pedaling away, that part of him is gone.

It’s 7pm and the Tozier’s have just finished dinner; on any other summer evening, Richie would be running out the door to go sneak into Eddie’s room. Sometimes they’d just sit and talk for a while, maybe play a game or two. Sometimes Richie would spend the night, setting the alarm on Eddie’s clock so he can leave before Mrs. Kaspbrak finds them tangled in bed together. Platonically, of course, Richie’s mind reminds him and a hollow feeling takes over. He had been trying to decide whether to go over to Eddie’s tonight despite their argument earlier. It might give him a chance to apologize for real. It might set Eddie off again and he’d never want to see Richie again.

He’s washing the dishes from dinner in the sink, something that he does every night before heading to Eddie’s because he may be crass and make terrible “your mom” jokes but he loves his mother and he loves helping her out around the house. It makes him feel useful. Once the last plate has been washed, dried, and put away, Richie decides that if he doesn’t go over to Eddie’s tonight, he may not go over ever again. Dramatic, yes, but Richie knows it’s true. He hugs his parents before he leaves, being careful to not slam the door on his way out.

He gets to Eddie’s in just a few minutes, despite walking slower. He is nervous, more nervous than he’s been in a while. Eddie is his best friend and, somehow, some way, he really hurt him today. Richie bends over and picks up a small pebble, holding it gently in his palm before throwing it at Eddie’s window. At first, nothing happens. No one comes to the window; no noise comes from the house. Then, just as Richie’s about to grab another pebble, the window slides open. There’s no greeting, just silence and Richie takes that as his cue to climb up.

Once he’s inside the room, he looks around, eyes still adjusting to the slight difference in light. Eddie’s room is just like it was the night before; clean, not a speck of dust or a sock out of place. The only thing missing, Richie notices, is the teddy bear that had been sitting on Eddie’s quilt the night before. In its place sits Eddie, a scowl on his face.

“H-Hey, Eds,” he whispers, wincing when Eddie’s scowl hardens. “Look, man, I just wanted to apologize.” At this, Eddie’s gaze softens just a little bit. “I shouldn’t have told the others about the bear. I guess I just didn’t realize it was such a sore spot for you.” Richie chuckles, hands awkwardly hanging at his sides. “I still don’t understand why you got so mad but I won’t talk about it again, I promise.” He holds out his pinky, an offering of sorts. A pinky promise isn’t as sacred as a blood pact but it was the next best thing. Eddie sighs and grips Richie’s pinky with his own, pulling him close enough that Richie can see the wetness in Eddie’s eyes.

“There’s some things you don’t joke about, Trashmouth,” Eddie says, his voice thick and wet as if he had been crying before Richie arrived. Richie nods, smiling because damn, he had missed Eddie’s voice. He had heard it earlier today, when he was talking to the others, but there was something special in Eddie’s voice whenever he spoke to Richie, something different that wasn’t there for anyone else.

They spend the rest of the night playing games and reading one of Eddie’s new comics, each of them holding one side of the book so they could read it at the same time. Once they’re finished, Eddie sneaks Richie into the bathroom so they can get ready for bed. Eddie hides a toothbrush for Richie in his room so his mother doesn’t find out and this makes Richie feel special. Eddie is willing to risk making his mother mad just to be with Richie, one-on-one and outside of view of everyone else.

They’re in Eddie’s room now with practically no space between them where they lay, shoulder to shoulder, on Eddie’s bed. Their hands are resting at their sides and Richie fights down an urge to reach that one inch over and hold Eddie’s hand. He can tell that Eddie is still a little tense from earlier that day and he thinks about bringing it up again but before he can say anything, Eddie brings it up first.

“My dad gave me that bear,” he whispers, his voice so quiet that Richie almost doesn’t hear him. “It was right before he died so it’s the last gift I have from him. I just, it’s embarrassing but it’s the last piece of him I have so…”

Richie wants to roll over and hug Eddie tight, squeezing him until he can’t breathe. Of course Eddie would be upset about being teased for having the bear; it wasn’t just a bear, it was a memory of his dad. Richie felt more like an asshole than he ever had in his 17 years. “I’m sorry, Eds, it was really shitty of me to make fun of you for it.”

Eddie turns onto his side, facing Richie with a melancholic smile. “It’s okay, ‘Chee. You didn’t know.”

“That doesn’t matter!” Richie sits up now, too worked up to stay laying down. “It was shitty of me, no matter what. I-I don’t, I don’t know why I did it. I knew it would upset you but I was like ‘oh, but it’ll be funny and he’ll end up laughing too.’ Bullshit. I, god, Eds, I’m such a shitty friend.”

Eddie pulls Richie back down to lay beside him, gripping his face between his hands. “You are not a shitty friend, Richie. You made a mistake. People do that, you know.” He says this with a small smile, eyes soft and warm. Richie finds himself leaning forward on instinct, nose brushing against Eddie’s. “Thanks, Eds.”

Minutes pass by as they lay there, nose to nose. Richie’s almost worked up the courage to kiss Eddie when he yawns, mouth stretching wide. Eddie pushes him away, laughing quietly. “God, your breath smells even after brushing your teeth!” They both giggle and then Eddie yawns, making Richie snort with laughter. As they’re trying to keep quiet, hoping that Eddie’s mom is asleep already, Richie thinks about the bear again.

“Hey,” he whispers. “You know, if you want to go get your bear, I, uh, that’s okay with me.” Eddie tenses for a moment before hugging Richie tight. He gets up and goes to his closet, sliding open the door and wincing when it squeaks. A few seconds later, Eddie is climbing back into bed beside Richie, bear securely in his arms.

“Goodnight, Richie,” he hums, eyes already fluttering shut. Richie, his courage from earlier not quite gone, leans forward and kisses Eddie’s forehead.

“Goodnight, Eddie.”

#anon #writing prompt #writing request #reddie #it #it 2019 #it 2017 #Richie tozier #Eddie kaspbrak #fic #my writing #it films #it movies #it film #it movie #it (2017)#it (film)#it (2019)#it (movie)

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fictional-worlds-are-exquisite · 4 years ago

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i am out there!! i'm glad you liked it! i'm definitely trying out the recipe you left in the tags. it sounds way better than just banana and peanut butter. i always have to pay a lot of attention when i type banana because i've ended up with "bananana" way too many times

i was planning to run straight to your askbox the second i saw you replied but then the end of the semester happened and it killed me. hopefully i'm done with it now

i do exactly the same thing with height! if you tell me your height in feet i have absolutely no idea how tall that is. if you say that in centimetres that's easy. i mean you're 155cm so that's 12cm shorter than me. when you told me that in feet i was like okay cool i have no idea how much shorter than actually is

i love birds!!! so that seems awesome! i am now titling you the queen of birds. and i'm glad your vacation was good! i think i saw a couple of posts you made about it so it definitely does seem like a lot of fun! and did you ever figure out completely what that see through animal (?) in the sand was? i had no idea stuff like that even existed so now i'm invested in knowing what it is

i am 100% hiring you for my coming out party i'm throwing in a couple of years. it's gonna be fun. if we don't get immediately kicked out i promise good food and some spicy drama between my homophobic relatives and my accepting relatives! and my brother's, who i already came out to, dry commentary

i was definitely not the one you told about burma trails! but from the tags i'm just gonna say how is that allowed and why does it seem like a weird type of torture? i hate it, i probably would've had a heart attack 3 seconds in

oh yeah i actually can't tell most of the time if the memories from my childhood are actual memories or if it's just a combination of having seen photos and heard stories about it

my glasses prescription is fine i think. my eye doctor said that i get headaches from glasses because... well i tried to explain this and then deleted it all because it was a very scientific explanation when she said it and i zoned out pretty much halfway through and even the part that i did understand i can't translate to english! but it has something to do with the fact that with contacts it's enough to move my eyes in the direction i want to look at and with glasses i have to move my whole head and my brain got so used to contacts that it overdoes it with the eye movements when wearing glasses? i dunno. this is the best i can do in explaining it

i must admit i'm very jealous of the never snows part because while snow is pretty to look at it's absolutely freezing! for the past week i slept under a duvet, three blankets while wearing pants and a long sleeve shirt and i still woke up cold. because for a couple of nights it was around -22°C. it's great

ohhh you got pretty lucky as a kid then! my kid self would have absolutely lost it at getting the equivalent of 5/10 bucks. i probably would have bought so much candy

excellent!!! hope you’re enjoying the vague void from whence you came! i’ve never said whence before in my LIFE i wonder if i used it correctly. anyway. the actual recipe was way more specific but once i saw ‘2 frozen bananas’ and looked at all the sliced bananas in my fridge, having no idea how many there were, i just started improvising sdfkhsdfs. I’d be interested to try it with yoghurt though if I can get some dairy free plain stuff, I’m sure I can somewhere. Banana used to be my biggest problem when I was younger. Then I learnt words like occasion and necessary and embarrassed and I realised the more english I tried to learn, the worse my life was gonna get. And I was right. On the bright side, developing an inability to ever spell occasion correctly made banana seem a lot easier to handle.

that is fair. end of semesters are rough. i cannot function during them at all. i hope everything chills out for you!! i’m not sure how the school year is over there but maybe it’s break time? that’d be nice. but rest in peace anyway, enjoy being dead! they say necromancy is frowned upon in all societies but I reckon it’s just called making a friend when you’re dead so maybe you wanna take that up as a hobby! I’ve heard it’s nice this time of year!

yup! sometimes I’m like oh you’re 5 foot 4? that sounds way taller than me. but it...it really isn’t...it’s like an extra 8cm or something. which adds up! but in my head I was picturing a MUCH taller height. In my head I think I picture 6 foot and 5 foot 4 as the same height, now that I think about it.

!!!!! my first order as queen of birds is to meet a morepork face to face so we can chat about the price of pork these days. yes!! the first half was nice but the second half was really fun. my best guess is still that it’s a salp? Maybe? So many salp pictures are massive groups of them but like,, from what i can tell of singular photos,,, it was maybe that? I guess the only other possibility is it’s just some clear jellyfish but salp does seem more likely. At first I was like oh duuude boob implant for the ocean!! but then I realised it actually seemed kinda alive and was probably an actual creature. my bad.

excellent. i’ll break any tension by dropping the vampire act for the mouse act. will do backflips for cheese. will bite ankles for homophobic comments. Will pull a knife out of god knows where, not to threaten anyone, just to clean my nails with to make everyone nervous. I offer many services. I’m flexible. And I love me some good food.

I actually DON’T know the reason behind burma trails. I really don’t. The reason ‘it’s a fun activity!’ seems a little fake. if it’s a fun activity then why did Mrs. G. tell us a horror story about the forest before we went out to navigate said forest at night, blindfolded, surrounded by wildlife and parents supervising (*cough* waiting for the opportunity to jump out at you *cough*) with a teacher at the end waiting to scare us. So we can learn how to navigate the forest in the dark? So we learn how to follow a mysterious rope INTO the forest at night? seems dodgy to me. school camps be like [drives you out to forest] follow this rope and don’t take your blindfold off. like. bruh. i almost DID have a heart attack one time, I got stuck like something was holding my leg. First thought-ah, must’ve got my leg stuck in a big stick. Second thought-maybe this is one of the parents fucking around, it feels more like a grip than a twig. Third thought-I cannot get my leg free no matter what I do what the fuck is HAPPENING so I started crying out for help. When they FINALLY came they found nothing my leg was caught on so that was fun. love that for me. I was able to move as soon as they arrived. That’s not weird at all. anyway.

I think most of my early memories are just from stories I’ve been told and photos I’ve seen. My memory tends to be horrible I highly doubt I remember that one time I was eating dirt from the garden out in the yard gleefully. I just saw the photo evidence. mm spaghetti. bone apple teeth. my character hasn’t changed at all since I was a wee babe.

ohhhh okay. I think I get what you mean by that. Thank you for trying to explain! That’s really interesting. I guess I do move my head a lot with glasses. Although I have massive glasses so it’s probably easier for me to just move my eyes where I want. I reckon with smaller glasses I’d have to move my head way more.

the temperature comment is so funny because during the heart of winter i tend to sleep with a sheet, a blanket, a duvet, then 2-4 blankets on top while in a long sleeve shirt and long pants and sometimes bed socks and often a hottie (i’ve never realised how that sounds out of context...a hot water bottle...is calling it a hottie normal or is a my family thing? is this a nz thing? now i’m questioning myself). in my uni accommodation last year we didn’t have proper heating during most of winter and well. there was a quilt added to everything else. every blanket i could find. how cold does it get here in winter? rarely ever past 0 degrees celsius. I would literally die in your position, clearly. I could not survive that. Props to you for making it through aha.

yesss. Before when I found five dollar notes it’d be on the street and I’d be like oh no! Mum we have to hand this into the police station! It’s a lot of money, someone will be looking for it! Understandably she was like,, lindsey they might miss it but there’s not really any way you can find them,,, I still refused to spend it. That was like my first time really getting that much money for myself. The dairy on main street sold lollies for 10 cents each and they had like, 30 different lil glass boxes so you’d go I want 3 of 26, 5 of 7, ohhh and 5 of 13 please! I dunno if they’re still 10 cents each but I thought it was the best thing ever as a kid. I think I wanted to save the money though sfdjsdkfhs put it in my piggy bank to save up for something ‘super cool’. Aka probably like a neat soft toy to sleep with sdfsdkfs.

#Anonymous #i wrote the majority of this reason like a couple hours after you sent it #then i went to bed because it was late. thinking to myself. oh i'll finish the last bit in the morning!#but of course in the morning the lil 1 didn't show up above mail and it was located in my drafts now so my dumb ass was like ah yes #absolutely nothing to respond to here!#i should know by now i never remember if i save things to drafts sfjshkdfhsdf #anyway #i REMEMBERED. a few days late. BUT i didn't just forget entirely so! there's that!#now i'll finish the last bit of the response and edit the incomprehensible tired mumbling parts #although i'm currently overheating so now it'll be incomprehensible overheated brain parts! fun!#no i cannot handle cold temperatures no i cannot handle 'hot' temperatures i can handle like a one to two degree range #and nothing else. life is. a trip.#I still don't know what to call dairy's when talking to people outside nz #corner store? they're not always on corners. convenience store? maybe. small shop? idk dude #i don't quite know the correct thing to equate them to.#but they sell lollies sometimes. that's the main point here sdkjhskdf #now to decide what I'm doing tonight #play stardew valley. watch someone else play stardew valley on youtube. stare at my ceiling thinking about stardew valley. do the dishes #earlier today i was like maybe...maybe i'll watch a movie...add some variety to my life...#i wanted to rewatch whatever movie has that song that is like agggooonnnyyyyyy #that's the only word i remember from the song. so it's that. or...well...back to my obsession

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drkoestersmithrpg · 4 years ago

Text

But Obey?

Peter started a little, confused at the sound. He was certain he had never heard Tony knock before. He went to the door and opened it.

Tony entered the room with a tense and frightened look. Peter tried to smile in a comforting way as he took Tony by the hand and led him to the bed. Tony was nervous. But Peter already knew that. Knew it when Tony knocked instead of just entering. Peter thought they might kiss for a while, might hold each other before they talked. But it hurt Peter’s chest to see the worry in his friend’s eyes. There was no more putting it off. He sat down on the bed, but Tony chose to stand.

“All right. You want me to tell you why I asked you to meet me here. Although you didn’t have to knock on your own bedroom door…”

“Your bedroom,” Tony corrected softly. “This is your chamber.”

“…oh. Yeah… I guess… okay.”

Tony stood at attention, although his head a little bowed. He waited.

“Tony,” Peter said, his voice breaking. How he longed to just hide in his lover’s arms and forget about all of it, or else just hide under the blankets until it went away. But it was too late for that. He took a deep breath and plunged forward.

“Tony, I’ve been reading Abe Sexton’s journals for the past four days and I’ve… I’ve been learning things. Disturbing things. Like… the seal of Incêndio? When each Post Patriarch inherited you, they put you under a seal that would burn you if you disobey them? But each man had to one-up the Patriarch that came before him, so that his seal would burn you worse than the seals that came before? So the new Patriarch could force you to disobey old orders because the new orders hurt worse?”

Tony was watching his face carefully, warily. Now he was making tiny movements, shaking his head, just barely, to say “No.”

“No?”

“Yes…” Tony struggled to explain. “But the seals fade in time, after the death of each magician, the seals fade… the pain fades…”

“So they didn’t even have to… oh god… that makes it worse Tony, not better. All these seals… they’re just there to put you in more pain than the pain that came before. And that thing that Thomas Post did to you, when they gathered the three black animals to force you to tell the truth about what you did to Tom Dylan. That was to make it hurt three times worse than whatever command Tom Dylan gave you…”

“And to strengthen me three times,” Tony said, almost too quietly to hear. He clearly didn’t want to argue, but he also clearly disagreed. “To make me strong, three times stronger than Tom Dylan’s command…”

“That’s NOT what Abe Sexton said!” Peter argued. Although, secretly, he hoped it was true. Maybe Abe Sexton had gotten it wrong. “I’ve been reading his journals, Tony, and he said some terrible things.”

“Sometimes… novice magicians… make mistakes….”

“So… so if Tom Dylan had commanded you to not tell anyone what you had done, and then Thomas Post put you in the seal and commanded you tell the truth…”

“I would have spoken the truth.”

“And it would have hurt.”

“Yes, but I would be stronger within the seal.”

“And to disobey Thomas Post would have hurt worse…”

“To disobey Thomas Post, inside the seal, would have been impossible.”

“Because the most powerful magician is the one who can hurt you the most. Can hurt you so badly that you’ll be too distracted to notice your being punished for disobeying the first magician. That’s what all this is about, that’s what I wasn’t getting…” Peter almost doubled over with the pain of it all, his hands fisted on the edge of the bed. He had eagerly reached for Abe Sexton’s journal when he thought he recognized the name. Poured through blocky, perfectly spaced handwriting of dozens upon dozens of journals, benefiting from Abe’s compulsion to document everything that happened in his family. Peter thought he had discovered the ultimate treasure – until Abe turned 16.

Some of it was impossible to understand. Abe liked to write in German and Latin, and sometimes in a language that Peter suspected he made up himself. But his disgust saturated every page. He was livid as he described “magician’s duels” that, in essence, subjected Methuselah to various types of pain, forcing the demon servant to serve the strongest magician. And yet Abe also seemed hell-bent on becoming a powerful magician himself, in order to force Tony to defy his father to break… something. It wasn’t clear.

His revulsion filled up years’ worth of journals. And now, one hundred years later, Peter sat at his kitchen table and shared that teen’s outrage.

Tony, on the other hand, remained baffled.

“Tony,” Peter hissed, trying to make his friend understand. “Did you know how terrified all the Post girls were that Judah Post would someday use the 300 League spell to kill their father? And not because they were afraid he would die... but that they were convinced Judah had the power to force you to kill your master and then destroy you when you just refused? That they lived in fear of waking up to find him, or you, or both of you, were just dead?”

He was almost in tears now, and that wasn’t good. Because Tony was looking very compassionate about the tears. But not particularly concerned about the facts Peter had uncovered.

“Tony…” Peter took a deep breath and tried again. “When Abe turned 16 you were sent to his bedroom, do you remember?”

Tony nodded solemnly. “Yes.”

“And he tried to kick you out, but you said you didn’t have the authority to leave, and he wasn’t a powerful enough magician to hurt you enough to force you to leave. You had to stay and.. make him a man…”

Tony nodded. His face was gentle with the memory. “I could have taken any form he wanted, a woman or a girl or a man or a boy, but he wanted none of them. But I could not leave; his father tasked me to stay until it was done. Master Peter…” He moved as if to reach out and stroke Peter’s face, but changed his mind and turned to the book. With two hands he pulled the massive tome closer to them and opened it to a page in the middle.

As Peter leaned to look down at the woodcut, Tony reached out to stroke the back of his head. “We reached a pleasant accord. He and I. Why does this vex you now? Abe Sexton found it most satisfying…”

Peter recognized the hillock where the two boys lay on a quilt, looking up at summer stars. An odd looking boy with very wide eyes and old-fashioned clothes was lying on the quilt next to an identical boy in identical clothes. They were talking. Peter realized that Methuselah had found a “form” that Abe found pleasant, a boy exactly his age. The boy’s hands were laying very close to each other. Sometimes, Peter knew, their knuckles would brush against each other. Maybe, by the end of the night, they would be holding hands. Sometimes they smiled and pointed when they saw shooting stars. It was a lovely picture. No wonder Tony called it an “accord.” Both Abe and his companion looked perfectly content.

They were probably talking about outer space, Peter realized. Tony was probably explaining what he had been taught in the monastery and Abe was explaining what he had learned in his books.

“But…” Peter said, confused. It was hard to justify the picture he was seeing with the vitriol of Abe’s journals. “But he said… you couldn’t leave… until… until he had penetrated you…”

Tony smiled fondly. “It is a secret, Master Peter. Can I tell you? You bade me ‘Be polite and keep their secrets.’” But even as he spoke he turned the page.

On that page Abe, eyes wide, had his hand completely inside his doubleganger’s chest. Abe’s hand, Peter knew, was planted firmly on the quilt beneath them. Tony, having taken the form of Abe, looked back at the 16-year old calmly. Then Abe withdrew his hand, and Tony’s chest grew solid again. They would spend the rest of the night talking about the nature of solids, gasses and liquids.

“Oh,” Peter said. He took a breath of relief. Of course, he should have known. Following the letter of the law without actually doing what he had been ordered to do. It was an artform. And Tony was quite the artist.

“Can you… help me understand why Abe Sexton was trying to become a master magician himself? He seemed to hate all his… but he seemed to really want to learn how to be able to force you to break something, but I didn’t understand that part because he always wrote it in another language.”

Tony bowed his head. Still, he couldn’t help but smile fondly. “The Tongue of Jephthah’s Daughter, he called it. It is his own invention.”

“I should have known you would know. What is the ephod nodum? What did Abe want to force you to break?

Tony sighed heavily. His shoulders sank. He couldn’t seem to lift his head. He looked as weary as Peter felt. “It is a nothing. There is no nodum…” he said, shaking his head. He looked both broken and defeated, as if he were losing an ancient argument. “Abe Sexton forever tasked me to find the ‘bottle’ or the ‘ring’ or the ‘lamp.’ Insisted I was a djinn of Solomon and I had to be set free. It vexed him full sore that I knew nothing of djinn or Solomon. I tried to tell him. He did not like my answer. I tried to tell him that the only ‘bottle’ to break would be the books of Ezra and Nehemiah Post, but he would have none of it. He was my learned Doctor, but once he had learned, he could not be corrected…”

“But you did destroy those books. It took you until Evan Post to do it…”

Tony smiled wistfully. And not without a little pride. “Yes, Abe Sexton had tasked me to it. It took three generations, but I did succeed.”

Another deep breath, another stab at being understood. “Tony, When I was fifteen I heard you say, in this room, ‘When the master commands, what else can the servant do but obey?’ And…” Peter dropped his eyes. “...and that there would be no secrets…”

“Yes,” Tony said, nodding. “It is your chamber, Master. You have no secrets here.”

“And now I’m trying to make you understand my secret. Tony, please try to understand that I love you. And there are some things… I’m sure they made sense to the Post men and maybe to some monks in the 4th century but they do not make sense to me. I can’t… I can’t ask you to… do things with me in bed, or do things to me in bed, if you don’t have any choice. If it’s just one of your duties, like keeping me safe from snakes. I can’t ask you to do anything… intimate... if you can’t tell me ‘no.’”

Miserably he reached out and pulled the huge leather book to him. Grimacing, he tried to turn to the glossary at the back, where the words were, along with the definitions that made him tear up. But the book refused to cooperate. Instead the huge pages turned themselves until he was looking at the last picture he wanted to see, the picture of Nehemiah Post using Methuselah’s body before going to sleep.

“Tony,” he said as factually as he could. “When I was fifteen you asked me to ‘make me your beloved’ and I had no idea what that meant. I thought it meant ‘special’ like ‘a beloved poem’ or ‘a beloved story.’ I had no idea you wanted me to do that to you…” He shook his head in disgust. Just now it was occurring to him, in Tony’s world, offering his body to the horny fifteen-year-old was more normal than not offering up his body. Peter shook his head hard and tried to push forward.

“And then on the night before you left for the Dark Trinity, you asked me ‘Shall I make you my beloved,’ and you smiled like it might be a funny thing. A silly thing. I said ‘yes’ because I didn’t know what I was agreeing to. And you’ve made it clear that you… I mean you created a body part just for me just to do it… and I appreciate that Tony, but…”

Peter recognized the look on Tony’s face now. He didn’t look sorrowful anymore. He looked baffled. Baffled and frustrated. He didn’t understand, and he knew he didn’t understand. But he was trying desperately to understand.

“There’s a glossary in the back of this book. I found out that “beloved” and “lover” aren’t the same thing, but I guess I always knew that. Does this make sense? Can you know my secret? I don’t want to do that thing to you. And I don’t… I can’t ask you to do that thing to me if you don’t want to…”

Tony walked quietly up to the book and turned the pages. There, on the settee lounged Lysander and his two sturdy men with identical faces. He turned Peter’s chin to face him with gentle fingers.

“Lysander was my beloved. He made me his lover, made both of us his lovers. It was his desire… his desire that I should ‘do that’ to him...”

“And you couldn’t tell him ‘no!’ Peter insisted, almost shouted, twisting his face away from Tony’s hand. “That’s what I’m trying to get you to understand...Tony, how can I ask you to make love to me if you can’t tell me ‘no’?”

Tony no longer looked exhausted. Now it was almost angry. Maybe he did understand what Peter was getting at, and he just didn’t like it. He actually glared at the book, as if he wanted to destroy it. They stayed that way in silence for a while. Tony’s mouth was working, although he said nothing. His jaw was hardening and he was obviously trying to soften his expression, but couldn’t.

“Tony,” Peter said as gently as he could, “You were a slave in this house, in the Post house. That changes everything for me. I know Lysander tasked you to be his ‘lover,’ I figured that out,” he said, touching the book where three handsome men conspired. “And all the other Post-men tasked you to be the… to be the ‘beloved’ but that is not the right word for it. And I’m glad you and Abe Sexton found a way around all of that.

“But these are things they ordered you to do, Tony. And that’s why I can’t… we can’t… it was wrong for them to make you… what?

Tony had made a frustrated sound, so quiet Peter barely heard it. Only when he insisted did Tony speak.

His voice was very quiet. He spoke through a clenched jaw as he glared down at the carpet.

“You curse the poachers who commit crimes in Ethiopia, over 2,000 leagues away. And you curse the name of the men in your book whose crimes are more than a score of years old. Will you also now curse the generations as well?” There was no patience in his voice, no understanding. When he finally looked at Peter his eyes were dark. “My angry Master. Angry at crimes in far away lands. Angry at hunters in far away climbs. Now, will you be angry at the dead?”

“I have the right to be angry!” Peter shouted. “Mortally angry! I’ve read Malcom X, I know how this works. I inherited you, Tony, the same way I’m going to inherit the house some day. And that means I inherit all the debt, too. And yes, this is my debt. I have to take care of you, Tony. Not just because I love you but because it all falls on me now. That’s just the way it is. And now…”

Peter tried to breathe but his lungs were aching. He didn’t want to argue with Tony (dear god was he actually yelling just now?) All he wanted to do was bury his face in Tony’s neck and hide in the man’s arms, hide under the covers. He wanted it so badly it hurt. The temptation was overwhelming and making him sick. Still, he fisted the creamy-white covers of the bed and pushed forward.

“Abe Sexton was trying to free you. That’s what he keeps talking about in his journal, it makes sense now. He was writing it in a language he invented because he couldn’t let his family know. That’s what the ephad nodum was about. He must have thought you were a genie, like in the Arabian Nights. The genies were trapped by Solomon, that’s a legendary wizard from a long time ago, in bottles or lamps. When he told you to destroy the ephod nodum he wanted you to destroy your genie’s bottle, but of course there isn’t one. So you can’t destroy it. You did destroy the German books, but that didn’t set you free, did it? You still call me ‘Master.’ You still get hurt if you disobey me. I asked you why the noisy room was so noisy and you didn’t know the answer and still got hurt because you didn’t answer the question right. You’re still a slave and I guess there’s nothing we can do about that. There’s no ephad nodum to destroy. And that’s why we can’t be lovers… or lovers and beloveds or… whatever. That’s why.”

“Will you…”

Peter waited patiently. He didn’t look up at Tony as he waited for the words. He would have said something, but didn’t. He had never heard Tony sound so choked before.

“Will you send me into the ground?”

“No!” Peter said suddenly, loudly, startling them both. “No, no no that’s not… no. I never meant…”

“Will you cast me out?” Tony asked, his voice broken and pained. But he was looking into Peter’s eyes now, his jaw unclentched, his face filling with relief.

“No, no, of course not,” Peter said as gently as he could, realizing for the first time what Tony had been worried about. “No. Never. You’re my best friend, Tony. I love you. I always want you with me. Always. Oh god… you think that’s… Tony how could I even… Tony that’s not what free means…”

“He ordered me to leave, to leave Lysander and my princesa....to leave the land that I protected, the land I had made plentiful. He said someday he would have the power to cast me out and I would never return. I told him he would never have that power, that I would never let him inherit the spellbooks. He thought to best me for he had been chosen by Nana-Justina. He vowed to send me to the ends of the earth.

“But then the sheriff's son came to us, he who Lavern had healed and brought back from death. His body was healed but his mind was ill. When he left here Abe Sexton left with him. Left with him, and did not return.”

“But… didn’t he? Didn’t he live with the sheriff's son for 50 years, and then come back to live with his family?

“He returned, but he did not return. He lived on the land, but he never spoke to me again.”

His voice was quiet and relieved, but his face was solem. Peter could see it just as easily as if he saw the woodcut in the book; Tony’s relief that the man who seemed hellbent on casting him from the Homestead finally leaving the Homestead himself. Tony’s confused longing when the man who had frightened him so badly was now ignoring him.

Peter knew that feeling.

“Probably…” Peter said as gently as he could. “I think he was… Abe Sexton was an abolitionist. Like all the girls were. Abolitionists and suffragists went hand in hand. I think he was trying.. I know this must have sounded terrifying to you but I think he was trying to be kind to you. The words he was using… they meant different things to him. Damn! No wonder he made up his own language, sometimes there just aren’t WORDS for things! Tony, listen…”

And with that, Peter stopped talking.

Closing his eyes and bowing his head he pictured it. Thought it as hard as he could.

First he pictured the two of them holding each other in bed, the way they always did. Kissing and touching each other. Letting Tony feed until he fell asleep. Knowing Tony would feed again as he slept. Plotting together, working out spells and plans and schemes and sweet dreams and revenge.

But then he let his mind wander to his plans for the future. Tony as a small black dog that could walk in the woods with him in the mornings and evenings. Sitting on his lap beside him on the couch as they watched TV, Peter explaining all the jokes in his favorite cartoons. Or as a black cat, curling up in Peter’s lap, being stroked with Peter’s left hand while he did homework with his right. Visiting Peter in dreams as he attended college in New York City.

But so much more than that. Peter thought of the years to come, when he grew up and took responsibility for the house. Taking care of May and Ben in their old age with Tony at his side. Walking hand in hand through the forest at night, looking at actual stars instead of dream stars. Touching each other beside the lake-by-moonlight. Rebuilding the cottages so that artists could come and live and create, feeding their light to Tony. Creating works of art. Inviting painters to create paintings of the underground chapel. Rebuilding the South House.

He could picture it so clearly he could almost taste it. Someday the house would be his, and he could live opening with Tony. Talk about the days’ events at the kitchen table. Shout at politicians on the television as they snuggled on the couch. Build a huge back porch like the DeSlaughters where they could sit and watch the sunset like Matty’s mom and dad.

He saw it in his head, then he opened his eyes and looked at the man standing beside him.

“Do you understand?”

Tony’s face was calm and serene. He looked at Peter longingly, but he didn’t move from where he stood. “Yes, master. I will always serve you well, until the end of your days.”

“Please try to understand Abe Sexton was… oh nevermind. Maybe you can’t understand. The words we use and the words you use have different meanings, oh dammit…” He covered his eyes with both hands. He growled at the ridiculousness of it all, then said a few obscene words to boot. “But that’s the problem with all words, isn’t it?! Words just have lots of meanings, and it’s impossible to anyone to be understood,” he moaned.

He realized, for the first time, what it meant when Tony had been sent to “vex” people. The impossible storm in his brain was vexing him now

He took another deep breath and tried again.

“I always want you with me. I’ll always take care of you. And you can feed, and when you feed we will still kiss and touch, you can still make me feel good… I know you like that. But we can’t be… we can’t be lovers, Tony.”

He snuck a peek back up at Tony’s face, only to see that hopeless confusion again.

“I love you, but that can’t happen. Can you understand?” he said helplessly, knowing Tony couldn’t.

“Because there is no ephod nodum.”

“Yes! Yes, Tony, you get it!”

“There were the German books, and I have destroyed them.”

“Yes! But that didn’t set you free. You’re still the genie in the bottle, and there is no bottle to break.”

“But if there were, you would take me as your lover.”

“Yes. But there’s isn’t, so you can’t.” Peter said, relieved that his friend finally understood.

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thetravelerwrites · 6 years ago

Text

Verith’s First Halloween (Orc) NSFW

Rating: Explicit Relationship: Female Orc x Female Human Additional Tags: Exophilia, Orc, Orc Girlfriend, WLW, Halloween, Trick or Treating, Halloween Party Content Warnings: Pregnancy Mention, Corsets, Sex, Oral Sex, Tribbing, Strap-Ons Words: 4922

A special gift for @aelia-likes-monsters for being a wonderful friend, supporter, and bouncer of ideas for me and this blog. She’s the best and I hope this fic brightens her day! This is both a fic for Halloween and Orctober. An orc woman who has always lived in a closed orc community begins dating a human and starts participating in human customs. The first one is Halloween. *Note: "Samhain" is pronounced "Sow-in." Because Irish. Please leave feedback!

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“You’re not making your case very well,” Verith said as tucked the folded sheet down over the corner of the mattress. “I don’t understand this human holiday of yours, I never have.”

“Haven’t you ever celebrated it?” You asked her as you tucked the opposite corner down.

“No, of course not,” She said scornfully. “The gym is closed for human holidays and I stay in the community during most of them. Just watching about it on T.V. was mind-boggling.”

Verith was an orc and had lived in a closed orc stronghold community just outside of Willowridge for her entire life. The stronghold, called Willowshield, did a lot of things the old way, as in they made a lot of their own things themselves. You’d been there a few times with Verith to visit her family and was amazed by the weird mix of modern and medieval. They did have some modern things, like wifi and cell phones, but they had their own grocery, farmer’s market, butcher, home goods store, and even had a real blacksmith, cobbler, and glassblower. But they didn’t have a cafe or a crafts store or a gym, so many of the orcs took jobs in town to enjoy a few outside luxuries that Willowshield didn’t yet have.

Verith worked at the local gym as a personal trainer, and you were immediately attracted to her. However, knowing she lived in Willowshield made you feel hesitant to ask her out, fearing that perhaps she just wasn’t interested in humans. Even still, you took extra classes with her to the point where she suspected you were addicted to exercise, but in reality, you just wanted to spend as much time with her as possible, too chicken-shit to ask her out.

It wasn’t until she got annoyed with you following her like a wounded puppy that you were forced to admit your feelings for her. She was surprised, but open to the idea. It only took one date for you to fall in love with her, and she wasn’t far behind. In fact, it had been her idea to move in together.

You’d expected that she’d want you to live in Willowshield, as some non-orc mates had done, but she actually left the community and moved into your small apartment. She said she wanted to understand more about the human world, having been cut off from it most of her life. She’d lived with you for almost three months by this point, but she still struggled to understand human customs and cultures. The newest struggle was Halloween, which was just three days away.

“So people dress up, eat candy, get drunk, and act like assholes? That’s the premise you’re trying to get me to go along with?”

“Please, I’ve been to orc weddings,” You told her, throwing a decorative pillow at her. “I seem to remember a certain hot personal trainer who got drunk at her brother’s wedding and ended up wearing the ceremonial communal wine chalice on her head.”

“Hey, that is a well-respected tradition, I’ll have you know,” She protested.

“Sure, it is,” You said skeptically.

“Okay, well, explain it to me,” She said as she shook out the quilt. “It’s a holiday about being scared? That’s so unnatural to an orc. Orcs aren’t supposed to get scared; we see fear as weakness. Hell, we growl and make terrifying faces at our children when they’re infants to teach them not to fear anything that looks or sounds frightening. We certainly wouldn’t dedicate a holiday to being afraid.”

“That’s not exactly the point of it,” You told her. “See, it originated back with the celts. The Irish practiced Samhain, which literally means “summer’s end,” and they would have a three day revel to celebrate a successful harvest. It was all about the change of the season and prosperity.”

“So, what the hell happened? How did it turn into a glorification of fear?”

“Because Samhain was seen as the death of the year, as in winter, when things die. People are scared of death, so people began associating it with fear. They also saw it as the day when the veil between the living and the dead thinned and the dead walked the earth to haunt and terrorize the living. There was only two ways to prevent the dead from coming after you and playing tricks on you: one, you could leave gives of food or treats on your doorstep, or two, you disguised yourself as a ghost so they wouldn’t know you were part of the living.”

“I guess that makes sense. So why are there little kids running around dressed like Captain America and Disney princesses begging for sweets? Where did that come from?”

“Well, when the Christians tried to purge pagan holidays by appropriating them, they changed it to ‘All Soul’s Day,’ where children would go from door to door, singing songs or performing for the people inside, and would get small cakes, called souls, as a reward. That’s how trick or treating started. Although, nowadays, All Soul’s Day is observed on November 1st, and people just go to church.”

“How do you know all this?” She asked, flopping down on the newly-made bed, ruffling it a bit. “Do all humans know this?”

“No, no, I dated a witch in college. She was so obsessed with the history of Halloween that she often forgot to enjoy it. She saw it as a holy day and used it for remembrance and contemplation. I just wanted to hand out candy and wear cute costumes.”

She frowned and leaned against the headboard. You snuggled up against her very hard, muscled body and sighed.

“It’s fun, I swear. You get to watch scary movies, dress up, carve jack-o-lanterns, go to parties, give kids candy, go to haunted houses and ghost tours. Ooh! We should totally go to New Orleans one year. They’re ghost tours are second to none. Well, besides Georgia’s plantation ghost tours, I guess.”

“A lot of what you just said made no sense to me,” She grumbled, wrapping her arm around your shoulder.

You kissed her cheek. “Don’t worry. By the time Halloween rolls around, you’ll love it just as much as I do.”

“Promises, promises,” She said in a snarky voice.

The next afternoon, the two of you were at the store, trying to shop for a costume. Verith was being rather pessimistic.

“A lot of these are speciest, you realize that.”

“I’m not going to buy one of those, Vee,” You said, looking through the racks. “What about a slutty nurse?”

“But you are a nurse,” She protested. “Why not just wear your scrubs?”

“Because I don’t wear corsets to work, babe. Don’t you want to see me in a corset?” You asked her cheekily.

She snorted, but didn’t disagree.

“What about you? You need a costume, too.”

“Why?”

“Because, my love, it’s a costume party. That’s what one does.” You take two from the rack, examining them judiciously. “I’ll need two, actually.”

“Why?”

“For the trick or treaters! I’m not going to wear my sexy costume for a bunch of kids, that’s gross.” You held up a costume to her body, and she looked down at you quizzically. “No, that won’t fit,” You grumbled to myself.

“Honey, I highly doubt any of these will fit me,” She replied. “I’m 7’5” and built like a brick shithouse.”

“You need to stop listening to slang at the gym,” You said wryly. “Anyway, I think you may be right. We’ll just have to make something. Ooh! What if you wore your running clothes and we pin a number to your back and you go as a marathon runner.”

“But I am a marathon runner,” She growled.

“Fuckin’… I know that, babe… could you just… work with me here, okay? For fuck’s sake?” You groaned in exasperation, clutching her arms. She sighed and shook her head at you.

You ended up buying the sexy nurse costume for the party and a more demure scary Victorian ghost outfit for the trick or treaters. You figured you’d cobble something together for Verith when you got home.

The next day, you went out to a pumpkin patch to pick out a few so that the two of you could make some jack-o-lanterns.

“So what’s this all about?”

“What?”

“Carving faces into vegetables.”

“Oh, that,” You said, picking up a largish one. “It’s another tradition that originated in Ireland, but they didn’t use pumpkins, because they didn’t have pumpkins in Ireland back then.”

“So what did they use?”

“Turnips and gourds and things.”

“Wha…” Verith’s face pinched in confusion. “Ancient humans were so fucking weird.”

You chuckled. “You’re telling me a pregnant woman eating an entire raw horse’s liver in front of her entire extended family is supposed to be normal?”

“There is absolutely nothing weird about that. Pregnant women need the iron.”

You shook your head. “There are several versions of the story about jack-o-lanterns, mostly about warding of spirits and fairies, but a lot of them are about Stingy Jack.”

“Who?”

“Stingy Jack. He was a miserable old drunk who liked playing tricks on people. One day, he tricked the devil into climbing up an apple tree and then placed crosses around the trunk of the tree so that the devil couldn’t get down. Jack made the devil promise him not to take his soul when he died. The devil agreed, and Jack let him go.

“When Jack died, he went to Heaven and was told that because he was mean and cruel, and had led a miserable, worthless life on earth, he wasn’t allowed in, so he was sent to Hell. The devil kept his promise and wouldn’t allow him in, which meant Jack had nowhere to go and would have to wander Earth forever.

“Jack asked the devil how he could get out of Hell, as there was no light. The devil tossed him an ember and Jack hollowed out a turnip, which was the only thing he had with him and placed the ember in it to light his way. When the Irish immigrated to America, they discovered pumpkins were bigger and easier to hollow out than turnips, so they used them instead. Now it’s all anyone uses.”

“And we’re supposed to carve scary faces in these to ward off bad spirits?”

“Essentially.”

“I doubt spirits would find vegetables very scary.”

“And why is that?

She picked one up and put between her thighs, crushing it as if it were made of light cardboard. Pumpkin guts and juice ran down her bare legs and into her shoes.

You took a very deep breath and said, in as even a tone you could, “I see your point, but as hot as that was, and as much as I enjoyed it, we do have to pay for those.”

“Hmm,” Verith said, her lips pursed. “Can we buy some extra ones so I can crush them with my biceps at home?”

After a contemplative moment, you replied, “I think that would be… yes, please, let’s do that. But only if you do it shirtless.”

“Deal.”

That evening, you had a messy carving lesson that led to a pumpkin pie, toasted pumpkin seeds, a small fight of flung pumpkin guts, and kissing on the couch with a scary movie on T.V. and the snacks you’d made that night.

On Halloween afternoon, you had the genius idea of putting Verith in a slapdash scarecrow outfit to scare the trick or treaters. After she jumped up and roared at the first crop of kids and they ran off screaming, she laughed and admitted, “Okay, that was fun.”

She did it a few more times, but couldn’t bring herself to do it to the family with three small half-rabbit girls, hardly more than toddlers adorably dressed as the three little pigs, and she simply sat on the stoop with you, handing out candy to the kids. The father, a tall rabbit man dressed smartly in a white shirt and black slacks, handed us a treat bag full of cookies cleverly decorated like Day of the Dead sugar skulls before they left, their human mother winking as they walked away.

At about eight o’clock, when the trick or treaters began to dwindle, you left the candy bucket on the front step for anyone who came to help themselves, and they two of you went to get dressed for the party.

You ended up doing the marathon runner for Verith, insisting she wear the sports top with her midriff showing, and she huffed that she didn’t understand why she needed one at all as she laced you into the corset of the nurses outfit. You told her to stop griping and led her out of the house and down the street to the party at your friend’s place.

You were ashamed to know that there were “human only” parties going on in town, one of which your own sister was throwing, but the one you and Verith were going to was an open to all kinds party. Anyone who wanted to have a good time was welcome, regardless of tentacles, teeth, or temperament.

The party was huge, and you immediately sought out your best friend since highschool, Rachel, who owned the house with her girlfriend. She was also an orc, but she hadn’t lived in a community like Verith had; she had grown up on a cattle ranch that her family owned on the edge of town.

Her brother and all four of her sisters were at the party, too: dancing, drinking, and having the time of their lives with their various significant others. These orcs, at least, knew how to celebrate Halloween.

Rachel’s brother, Varik, was back in town visiting his family for the holidays, wearing a doctor’s coat. He had moved to the city a few years ago with his fiance and was the first orc in history to be accepted into an accredited medical university. You had worked with him in the hospital before; he was a really nice guy, and his fiance, Elena, who was currently dressed as a renaissance-era bar wench, was incredibly confident and capable, despite her disabilities. They were a really good fit for each other.

“Hey, you got Verith to come!” Rachel said as she came. “Awesome! Let’s turn this party into a huntcraic.”

“A what now?” You asked.

“It’s an ancient custom of throwing a week-long party after a particularly good hunting season,” Verith explained in an undertone. “We rarely have them anymore.”

“Girl, let’s show these tiny humans how orcs party,” Rachel said, grabbing Verith’s arm, who grabbed you in turn, and dragged her through the horde.

“Varik! Elena!” Rachel called, and the pair turned. “Look who’s here!”

“Hey!” Varik said, swooping down on you for a big hug. He was three sheets to the wind and in a great mood, and Elena looked at him with an exasperated smirk. After handing him off to Verith, you went to give her a hug.

“Hey, girl, good to see you,” You said.

“You, too,” She replied, squeezing your back with her forearms. “Got yourself an orc, too, huh? Aren’t they the best?”

“Definitely,” I replied, watching the three orcs talk to each other. Verith seemed to be more at ease since she arrived now that she was with familiar faces. “Is that his real doctor’s coat?”

She scoffed disgustedly. “He never takes it off. I swear, he’d wear it during sex if I let him.”

The two of you giggled.

“I haven’t met your girlfriend yet,” Elena said.

“Oh, that’s right. Verith!” You called, and her head came up. You beckoned her over. “This is Elena, Varik’s fiance. They’re getting married in the spring next year. Elena, this is Verith, my girlfriend. We’ve been dating for about half a year. She was my personal trainer.”

Elena held out her hand, covered by the long bell sleeve of her gown. Verith took Elena’s hand, and you saw a moment of confusion cross her face, but she said nothing and shook Elena’s hand gently.

“So, Varik likes the city?” You asked Elena.

“He does now, but it took some getting used to,” Elena replied. “He lived in the country for most of his life, so it was a bit of a culture shock for him. He eased into it after a while, and now it’s like he was born there.”

Verith’s face was thoughtful, but she didn’t say anything.

Another familiar face caught your eye: the librarian from your college, Holly, although she hadn’t worked there since last year. She’d also been in your creative writing elective several years ago. She was there in a ghost bride costume with another orc dressed like a mechanic you hadn’t met before. They were both looking a little anxious and out of place.

“Holly!” You called, excusing yourself from Elena and making your way toward Holly.

She looked up and saw you, relieved to see a face she recognized. She grabbed her orc by the arm and led hem over.

“Oh, hey, good to see you again,” Holly said, giving me a side hug.

“Yeah, you too. You sort of disappeared for a while, there,” You told her.

“Getting my life sorted out, is all,” She said, smiling. She gestured at her companion. “This is my boyfriend, Ravadhi.”

You shook his hand. “Haven’t seen you around.”

He shrugged. “I keep to myself, really. Or I did. Holly insists that we’re too isolated. That’s why we’re here, actually. She thinks we need to get out more.”

“I agree. It can help you get out of a rut, for sure.” You pointed at his outfit. “Nice costume.”

He laughed a little self-deprecatingly. “Actually, it’s my uniform from my last job. I just couldn’t find a costume that fit me.”

“Oh, yeah,” You laughed, pointing at Verith in her marathon outfit, who was laughing with Rachel, Varik, and Elena. “We had the same problem.”

“She’s community, right?” Ravadhi asked. “How did you get her to agree to celebrate Halloween? Communities turn their noses up at stuff like this.”

“Believe me, it was like pulling teeth,” You said. “How’s your sis?”

“She’s great,” Holly said brightly. “She’s going trick or treating for the first time in her life, and then spending the night with some friends. Now that she’s allowed to have friends.”

You smiled sadly. It was an open secret how Holly’s father treated her. You were glad that secret was out and over now.

“Well, good for her. And good for you guys, trying to get out more. It’s a chore getting Verith out anywhere besides the gym.”

“Talking about me, are you?” Verith said as she wrapped an arm around you, an open container of vodka in her hand.

“M-hm,” You said, pulling her down for a kiss. “Just talking about what a hermit you are.” You turned back to Holly and Ravadhi, who were grinning. “She loves to tell me the only reason to leave the house is for the gym and Chinese food.”

“And I stand by that,” Verith said, taking a swig from her bottle. Ravadhi nodded and chuckled and Holly shot him a dry look.

“Oh, my gosh!” Rachel called over the noise. “Tuck is about to tie a bottle rocket to one of his tusks, just to see what happens. I’m not going to miss this.” And she dashed outside.

Tuck was a troll married to Rachel’s sister, Keter. You didn’t know him well, but from what you did know, this was not out of character for him.

“That’s another Halloween tradition,” I said wryly as people began flooding out to the backyard. “People doing really stupid shit just for laughs.”

“Now that’s a tradition I can get behind,” Verith said, kneeling down so you could piggyback and carrying you through the crowd.

The party was as epic as you expected it to be, and you and Verith made your way home, only slightly tipsy, at around midnight.

When you got in the door, she grabbed you by your arms and held your back against her front, growling in your ear.

“Someone had a good time,” You smirked, reaching up to snake your arms around her neck.

“Despite myself, yeah,” She mumbled, kissing your neck. You bit your lip and moaned.

“So, did you enjoy your first Halloween?” You asked her as her hands traveled up the sides of your corset and over your breasts in the bodice.

“Don’t know,” She said seductively. “It’s not over yet.”

You turned and jumped up, wrapping your legs around her waist. She held you up and kissed you hard, kicking her way past every obstacle and taking you to the bedroom, where she laid you down on the bed.

You reached back to undo the laces, but she stopped you.

“No,” she said in a low growl. “Leave the corset on.” She bent down to take off your high heels, then kissed up your calves, using her tusks to split the pantyhose upward. You felt a shiver in your back as the cold, dry, sharp bone scraped up your legs. When she reached the apex of your thighs, she ripped off your hose with little effort and snapped your underwear off as well. The muscles of her arms barely twitched.

She flipped up your skirt while kissing your inner thighs and massaging the skin. Her tongue flicked out to press itself to your bud, and you moaned. She licked a long strip from bottom to top and teased you with her nose. You whimpered and wiggled, and she grabbed your hips to keep you still.

She put her whole mouth over your slit and sucked, gently at first but gaining intensity as she continued. You gasped and your legs shook, and you tangled your hair in the long mohawk style cut of her hair that she usually let fall over her left shoulder. She reached up and pulled the cups of the corset down and kneaded your breasts, pinching and rolling your nipples between her fingers.

One hand continued its massaging while the other came back down and stuck two fingers inside you, crooking them and rubbing that delicious place only she had ever been able to find.

You were almost crying over how good it felt. No one you’d ever been with was as good as Verith at finding all your sweet spots. She could have you cumming in less than two minutes, if she really wanted. But she was drawing it out, working up to the bigger event.

She pulled away from you and reared up, pulling off her pants and underwear and throwing one of your legs up across her torso, positioning herself so that her lower lips were touching your own. She began to rock against you slowly, sweetly.

You reached up under the sports top to grip her breasts and she moaned as the place where the two of you were joined got hotter and slicker. Looking down at it, it almost looked ask if they were kissing down there.

“Oh, fuck,” You moaned. “Faster, baby.”

She was more than happy to obey, grinding her clit into yours vigorously. You could feel the orgasm coming up hard and the wall of pleasure crashed into you that you nearly blacked out. He own pace slowed as she also came, shouting and grunting and biting your ankle gently.

As you were trying to catch your breath, she grabbed you and easily flipped you onto your stomach.

“Don’t you get cozy yet,” She said. “I’m not done with you.”

You grinned and looked up, watching her pull her favorite strap-on for your “special” drawer. She took off the rest of her clothes and climbed over you, kissing your shoulders and back, carefully scraping her tusks across your skin, enough to give you chills but not enough to harm.

She pulled your rear up forcefully and positioned herself against your entrance, and then leaned back down on her hands so that she could kiss your mouth as she entered you. You gasped and laughed. She’d chosen the big one.

Without warning, she sat back up and started ramming into you with enough force for it to hurt slightly, but god, it felt so good. You pressed your face into the pillows and screamed as she thrust hard and fast. You could hear the faint buzzing of the rabbit vibrator built into the strap on and knew she was ready to get hers, and all you could do at this point was ride her wave.

“Oh, fuck, yes,” you cried.

She grabbed your hair and yanked you up. “Couldn’t hear you, baby,” She said. “Does it feel good?”

“Fuck, yes,” you whimpered.

“You look so fucking sexy in that tiny little corset. I just want to rip it off with me teeth.”

“Fucking do it,” You snarled at her. You felt her bend over you and grip the corset in her teeth. You heard ripping, and the rather sturdy fabric of the corset was yanked away from your body as if it were made of paper.

You came. You came hard. You came screaming and swearing. You fell to the bed, and she pulled you back up by your hair. Her speed quickened even further until she finally came too, grunting and growling. She collapsed on top of you, and you collapsed back onto the bed, her body pushing you into the mattress.

But she still wasn’t done. With one hand she hooked an arm under your waist and used the other to cover your mouth, thrusting slowly, and then quickly, with the both of you laying flat against the bed. You cries were muffled against her palm, and her heavy breath blew across your shoulder. She bit down in the same place she always did, her mark, the one she’d left on you the first time you made love, and you came together, panting and growling and cursing. Finally, with the strap-on still planted firmly inside you, she became still and quiet.

You both lay there, gasping for breath. After a few moments, she got up and you felt the toy pull out of your body. You lay there on your stomach with your eyes closed and heard her busy herself with something, but you were so exhausted, you didn’t look to see what.

Not until she lifted you into her arms and took you to the bathroom, putting you in the giant tub she had insisted you install and got in after you, arranging you so that your back was against her stomach and your head was leaning against her chest.

“To answer your question,” She said as she stroked the midline of your abdomen up and down. “I had a great Halloween. Thanks to you.”

“See?” You said. “It’s really a fun holiday. I knew you’d like it once you warmed up to it a bit.”

“Yeah,” She said. “Going to the party helped, honestly. When I left Willowshield, I felt really isolated. There aren’t very many orcs in Willowridge, so I felt kind of alone. Seeing the other orcs not participating made me feel less… out of place.”

You turned to look at her with concern. “Is that what all this has been about? Honey, you should have told me that’s what’s been bugging you. What did we have that conversation about communication for if not for situations like this?”

“It’s different for orcs, babe,” She said. “Admitting you’re worried or nervous is the same as admitting that you’re scared, and to orcs, being scared is just about the worst thing you can be.”

“But I don’t think that way. It’s okay to be anxious about new things, Vee, that’s completely normal. Especially if you’ve always done things differently.” You straddled her lap and pulled her face down for a kiss. “Look, I get that you’re supposed to be this big, bad orc paragon to your people, but you don’t have to be that with me. If you’re worried or nervous about something, tell me and I’ll help you. That’s what I’m here for.”

She smiled sheepishly. “Yeah, I know. I love you.”

“I love you, too, Vee.” You took the loofah from the shelf and poured soap onto it. “Now hold still, you’re literally covered in glitter. Did Dinae hug you? She was dressed as the biggest, sparkliest unicorn I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Verith belly laughed, nearly dislodging you from her lap, and let you scrub her down.

Since my work is no longer searchable, please do me a favor and reblog this story if you enjoyed it. Help me reach a wider audience! To help me continue creating, please consider buying me a Kofi, becoming a Patron, or donating directly to my PayPal!

Thanks for reading!

My Masterlist

The Exophilia Creator’s Masterlist

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blankietaegi · 6 years ago

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J.JK

oKaY i need to stop making jungkook Drabble but i acc can’t help it. he can just be twelve different people and it’s a d o r a b l e. anyway here’s another with jungkook being a scary demon until he starts liking you for no reason. :) masterlist.

some say that lonely people like the rain because it gives them company.

the small but loud droplets hits your window with force from its long fall. you look up at the dark clouds that hang like a black cloth. the traffic is holding its breath, everything seems tense. you of all things, are tense.

you rustle around your bed, finding a comfortable position to read the book your english teacher assigned to you. you didn’t mind reading, you liked some books. but when it comes to How To Kill A Mockingbird, your taste in books contrasted.

so you lay there, in your bed with the quilt thrown off and the pillows by your feet. you look up at the ceiling and hope to be able to speed read till the end of the book, just so you could survive your next english class.

sighing loudly, you hear a knock on the window. your attention immediately switched. a knock? on your window? didn’t seem to make sense.

so you checked to see what it was. as you pulled back your transparent blinds, your eyes twinkled in hope for something. but sadly, you were mistaken, there was no knock.

still unsure, you open the window and poke your head out. your hair catches some droplets as you do. you sigh and look down at your feet. their cold, you should probably put on some socks. you sigh and realise you’re procrastinating, again.

so you began to sit back down and re-read page 33, for the sixth time after closing the window. but just as you sit down on your bed, continuing to stare out the window, you noticed the other side of the bed is heavier than usual.

“scream and i won’t hesitate to kill you.”

the voice is a low, male voice. it’s said in a hushed whisper with the sense of a smirk. your body reacts and tenses up. a million thoughts run through your mind but sadly, you don’t have time to execute any plans. so you stay silent and let this stranger stay.

“good girl,” his voice is laced with humility. he’s teasing you.

“w-who are you?” you ask with a dry throat. he chuckles for a moment before sighing. you can feel him fall back onto the bed and you flinch as he does it. he lays there, out of the corner of your eye, you see his hands above his head but that’s all. you’re scared to turn and face him.

“you can look at me, baby.” he says. a smirk play on his lips, as you slowly turn your head to face him, the first thing you noticed are his eyes. which are a glowing shade of red. startled, you try to figure out words but none come out.

“my name is jungkook, and i’m your guardian demon.” jungkook smiles yet again.

“h-h-how-“ you stutter.

“did i get in?” he asks, dismissing your own words in a controlling manner. “didn’t your mommy ever tell you to lock your windows at night?”

you nod your head, a sudden wave of scared comes over you. if this is real, and he is a demon. you’re practically playing a game with the devil. you quickly go to run but it’s not much use. like a magnet, you are pulled back into jungkook’s grasp. his arms wrap around your sides and hold you in a tight embrace.

“don’t try to run from me.” he startles you with his low toned voice. you gulp softly and try to sit back up.

“i’m guessing you have questions, and i probably have answers.” he tells you lying back on the bed. you sit on his thighs, unsure if you can move or not.

“so, i’ll give you three questions, since i’m feeling generous.” jungkook chuckles to himself as his red orbs stare up at you.

you open your mouth, instinctively wanting to ask the question- who are you?! why are you here?! are you really a demon?! - but these questions would get you nowhere.

“what does ‘guardian demon’ mean?” you put thought into your words.

“it’s hard to explain,” jungkook sits up and stares out for some explanation.

“like a guardian angel, i protect you. but guardian angels protect you from evil, i try and protect you from the good.” he looks at you, you’re still confused.

“my job is make sure you stay humane. if you didn’t have me, you’d be classified as an angel, which means you are no longer a human being. i keep the bad in you, where it’s needed.” jungkook says. you begin to understand a bit more.

“why haven’t I met you before?” you ask your second question without much thought.

“have you met your guardian angel yet?” he asks you as you shake your head. you sadden for a bit, knowing you wasted a question.

“that’s a good question,” jungkook chuckles, giving you the benefit of the doubt.

and that’s all you can hear before the sound of snoring ricochets off of your walls. you look back, startled, and catch sight of a sleepy jungkook. his eyelids are heavy and his head if lying to one side. this boy is something different. you couldn’t deny his red eyes, so you accepted him as what he said he was.

a demon.

after last night, jungkook stuck around for the next morning. not his greatest decision.

you were panicked. you paced around your room for the twelfth time that morning. jungkook wasn’t even sure you’d had breakfast. you were reading that dumb book all morning. since the moment you remembered it. and now you’re lying in your bed in your clothes, with no shoes on and reading the book.

jungkook groaned hearing you mummer the words as you read because you are sure that it makes you read faster. then you re-read said page because you “didn’t get anything out of it”. this set jungkook off.

in a snap of his fingers a bolt of lighting struck right outside your house. the sound startles you and you shoot up. but the lighting was gone and all you saw was an irritated jungkook sitting on a stool in front of you.

“what?” you ask defensively. jungkook proceeds to grab the book from your hands. you immediately reach to snatch it back but he raises it. higher than his head and out of his grip. now, your book was levitating above.

“jungkook! get that down! i need it for today!” you look jungkook dead in his red eyes. almost bored, he tosses it across the room. you then huffs and remains in a arms crossed position.

once your book hits the floor you go and grab it. you flick through the pages trying to find 115, where you left off. you speed read till the next chapter.

as a random change of emotion, jungkook hands go down by his side. he keeps his back to you but his head raises.

“you won’t need to read it.” he speaks softly. you look at him in confusion and scoff at his childish antics.

“my professor is expecting this read jungkoo-“ you explain but don’t get to finish his name before he interrupts you.

“unfortunately, your professor will not be attending class today,” jungkook turns to look at you.

“he’s gotten a bad case of the flu.” he has a sadistic smile. just then, you realise what he had done.

“jungkook!” you exclaim.

“how could you do this?! what the fuck!” you stare at him in anger while shouting and his eyebrows raise. he was wondering why you were angry at him.

“wait, hold up at second,” jungkook turns around at an abnormal pace with startles you. he looks you dead in the eye, confusion. you bite your inner lip, preparing for some kind of soul sucking or death. but jungkook just simply stares into your eyes, unbearably serious. you stare back, not to scare him back, but in fear. you just angered a fucking demon!

“y/n...” his low, deep voice trails off as he looks you up and down. you gulp, the sound so loud you wonder if you could hear it. considering how close he was, he probably did.

“how the fuck can you be angry at me?!” jungkook pulls back as it takes you a moment to process what he was saying. you smile and hunch over, your heart racing. jungkook, still comepltelt serious, is confused by your reaction. you catch his confusion and try to explain yourself while laughing.

“oh my god, i thought you were going to kill me!” you shout, giggling the entire time. jungkook, only noticing his tone now, smiles slightly and rolls his eyes. jungkook folds his arms and enjoys the giggling ball of mess in front of him, which was you.

it’s only now that jungkook sees the little dimples you have, that some people mightn’t count as dimples but are. he notices your eyes, how they close slightly when your show that amazing smile. jungkook only notices now that you cover your mouth when you laugh, and snort sometimes.

overwhelmed, jungkook whispers a soft “wow” while he stays there, staring at you. you wipe the happy tears from your eyes and look back up at jungkook, he’s in a daze. you tilt your head and wave your hand in front of him, taking him out of his world.

“jungkook? you okay?” you ask, concern dripping from your voice. jungkook’s smile widens after you show your concern, if that’s even possible.

“i’m perfectly fine.” he answers, all cuddly and soft inside. you sigh, tired after the late night and sudden laughter.

tirelessly, you fall on your bed, jungkook following you. you both lie next to each other, staring up at the same ceiling. that’s what you think, but sercretly, jungkook is staring at you, because he’s in such awe at your presence. without noticing jungkook’s gaze, you slowly drift asleep, mouth slightly open.

“what you do to a demon.” jungkook whispers, wishing he could tell you everything going in his mind about you. all the little details, all the new feelings he has just from making you laugh.

jungkook tries not to think on it to much. he’s here for a different purpose, not to fall in love with you...

although that does sound like a great idea.

#bts #bts imagines #bts au #bts x reader #jeon jungkook #bts fake texts #bts texts #bts x you #park jimin #kim seokjin #jungkook x you #jungkook x reader #jungkook imagine #jungkook bts #jungkook

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omoghouls-writes · 6 years ago

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(Aaaaaaaa oh my goodness ;0; 😭💖💖)

Rain's pace quickened, hurried feet echoing in the labyrinth of a hallway. He was late for his visit with the elder ghoul's. Although his impression on them had changed for the better, it would still be rude to be late.

Eventually the water ghoul arrived at the door, as he was about to knock, the door opened; the presumed leader of the small gaggle stood there, looking at the smaller ghoul.

"Good evening, Rain."

"Good evening, Elder," Rain began, a small smile on his lips from the firmiliar scent, one he had come to long for when he was back on the main level, "Apologies for being late I was," he paused.

"Getting the... the biscuits," his voice trailed, looking on his person before slumping his shoulders in slight disappointment with himself, "I, I forgot them in the kitchen, I'm sorry."

The white robed ghoul walked closer to him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"It is nothing to fret over, we all have our days of forgetfulness," the eldest ghoul explained as he guided the bassist into the room, "Besides, we have plenty here as is, and, all is considered a treat when you are here, young one."

Rain felt his face flush a light pink under his mask, thesd terms, they were used by the elder ghouls everytime the water ghoul came into their presents. However, today these pet names, they felt, different for him.

He brushed the heart flutter away as the others greeted him, eyes creasing gently from under their mask as he stood infront of the couch of ghouls.

"Good evening, Rain," the others said, in near perfect unison.

Rain wagged his fingers, scuffling over to take his designated seat between the former pianist and drummer.

"Were there difficulties on your embark?" The elder asked as he returned, placing a small tray of mugs and kettle on the table.

Rain thought for a moment, giving a nodding 'thanks' as he was handed the tea.

"Not really, Dewdrop had stolen my shoe laces " he said, showing the laceless shoes to the other, "And he said he isn't going to tell me the hiding spot, so, that made it a bit hard."

"Now, why is that? Was it out of malicious intent?" The pianist asked, tapping at the shoe.

Rain shook his head, "He said it was because he didn't want me tripping over them, again." He explained, squirming a bit at the off handed reminder of his clumsy nature.

The water ghoul felt his chest grow light and fluttery once more as the elder ghouls cooed, soft chirps in the ancient language caused Rain to feel, younger, out of the loop of what the 'adults' were saying.

"My, although it seems he has good intentions, perhaps he should be aiding you in keeping them securely tied." The drummer said as he finished stirring his tea.

Rain felt his heart skip a beat, he lowered his head, "I-I can tie my shoes!"

The ghouls chuckled, "We did not say you could not, pet. Rather, since Dewdrop is an, older era ghoul he should be giving you guidance rather than foolery."

Rain shrugged slightly, "That's just his nature, I guess."

The others nodded, continuing on with the conversations.

The water ghoul sat there, trying his best to listen, but, it was growing more and more difficult for him to do so. His mind was fuzzing over, thoughts of the previous days, the stresses of the upcoming tour were bubbling up.

All of this was coming up, because of the forgotten biscuits, the straw that broke the camel's back.

The elder ghoul noticed the silence of the younger ghoul, he glanced over and noticed how dangerously close to tears he was.

"Rain? Is everything all right?" He asked.

Rain looked up for a moment, stiffly nodded his head as his lower lip began to tremble.

The other ghoul's look with concern as they watched him starting to cry. The elder slowly stood up, a small brushing motion to the others as he picked up the water ghoul in his arms, taking the seat where Rain had been.

"Shh,shh, it's all okay," he murmured as Rain hid his face into his hands, tail tightly coiling around the nearest leg as he let out a watery gasp as the stresses of the week came rolling down his face.

It wasn't long until the water ghoul's tears subsided, leaving him silent, save for a small sniffles. From natural reflex, Rain ran his claws in his mouth, for comfort. Not even caring that the others were watching on in curiosity.

"My,my it appears that we have a small one in our presence," the former guitarist murmured as he watched Rain running his thumb along his bottom lip, tears welting in his eyes.

The elder ghoul quietly chirped and crooned as he shifted the water ghoul on his lap, resting the smaller ghoul's head on his chest.

"Hush now, it is all right little one, we do not want to see our lamb so upset," He said, his purple eyes soft and filled with genuine concern as his brethren leaned in closer, "What can we do to help you?"

Rain scrubbed at his eyes as he hiccuped, unable to find his words he simply hid his face into the ghoul's uniform, gripping tightly as he sniffled.

The elder looked to the water ghoul, then to his brethren for guidance to the next step, as if silently indicating what they should do. The drummer and pianist nodded and vanished into the hall.

The elder ran his claws in small circles around the smaller ghoul's back, gently coddling him with soothing chirps and ghoulish.

"It is alright to feel this way, to feel small," he began, watery blues meeting his lavish purples, "We only want you to feel comfortable and safe with us, you can trust us with this." He explained, wiping away the stray tears.

Rain blinked slowly, as if in thought. This was normally something he only shared with his bandmates, ones he was closest to. He looked to the elder ghoul, in the months of visits Rain felt the bond between the eras grow exponentially stronger with every conversation, every story. The water ghoul simply butted his horns into the chest.

"Stay," he quietly requested.

The elder ghoul nodded, leaning forward to nudge the ghoul in a den-father manner.

It didn't take long before Rain surcame to rest, falling asleep in the cradling arms of the bigger ghoul.

The elder looked to the door when the others filled back in, holding some ground iteams. He pressed a free finger to his mouth to motion them to speak quietly.

"We found a few things," the drummer began, setting a quilted blanket, soft toys and a soother on the table, "Suppose it is a benefit to be in reach of the nursery's storage." He added.

The elder reached for the soother, light blue in colour with a small sea creature on the guard. He looked to the sleeping ghoul, thumb latched firmly in his mouth. The ghoul gently pressed his finger in the space until he was able to slip the thumb out, replacing it with the item. Rain made a small face but soon relaxed, suckling on the soft plastic as he slept, fingers wrapping around the chain of the bigger ghoul's grucifix for added comfort.

The others cooed as they curiously watched, the pianist looked up.

"It has been a while since we have had a kit," he began tracing his finger around the stitching on the quilt before draping it onto the smaller ghoul.

"Do not worry, brother. We will go along with it, taking the lead of what he needs," he paused before looking back to the pianist, "Perhaps you could go see if there are other items we might need. Like, a bottle? Maybe for when he wakes he might be hungry." The elder said.

The pianist nodded and vanished once more. The drummer stayed back, continuing to watch, feeling protective of the smaller ghoul.

The elder chuckled, "He will not be going anywhere, if you could warm some milk, that would be a big help."

He nodded and stood up, occasionally glancing back to the two bodies on the couch.

His vision was blurry as his eyes fluttered open, the soft humming helping him wake up.

"Ah, good evening, Rain. Did you have a good rest?" The elder asked as Rain rubbed his eyes, sitting up.

He paused when he felt the soother in his mouth, not nessicarly wanting to take the comfort out, he nodded happily with a purr as he looked around, almost as if in new light.

"That is so good to hear." The elder said, gently booping the ghoul's nose.

Rain giggled when his nose was booped by the other ghoul, grasping gently to the diget.

The elder chuckled as he moved the finger a bit, knowing that it was good for kits to play. He paused.

"We can play, however, maybe you would like something to eat? That way, your tummy is full of energy to play, how does that sound?"

Rain thought for a moment, eyes lighting up when he saw the other ghoul walking over with the warm bottle. He reached out, making small grabby hands towards it.

"I will take that as a yes," the elder chuckled as he took hold of the bottle, looking to the drummer, "Erde? Would you like to help feed him?"

The drummer nodded quickly as he sat down besides the two. The elder slid Rain onto the drummer's lap. He held his head on the crook of his elbow,placing the soother to the side, replacing it with the teat of the bottle.

"There we are," He cooed as Rain began to drink, looking up at the two with soft eyes, "Can not be having our little lamb going hungry."

After a few minutes, the drummer placed the now empty bottle on the table, sitting Rain's head on his shoulder as he patted his back.

Erde looked to the elder and smiled, looking back down when he felt the small ghoul grasping onto his grucifix, playing with it with a happy giggle, tail thumping contentlly.

The older ghoul's felt a sense of joy when they saw the happy ghoul. This was going to be an interesting and fun time.

#ghost bc #nameless ghouls #rain ghoul #water ghoul #dewdrop ghoul #fire ghoul #drabble #mail #earth ghoul #air ghoul #akfkkd i hope this is okay i kinda wasnt sure how to start it lol

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crescentmoon223 · 6 years ago

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Two Worlds Collide Chapter 6

Read it on AO3 | Rated: NC-17 | Stella x Scully

As promised, here’s chapter 6 of my Stella/Scully fic, Two Worlds Collide. 7 and 8 will be along very soon! Oh, and if you’d like a little visual inspiration for Stella’s boss-turned-friend Fran, she was very much inspired by the fabulous Fiona Shaw as Carolyn on Killing Eve.

Chapter 6

May 2012

Scully arrived in London on a brilliantly sunny day, so different from the heavy, gray days she’d spent here fourteen years ago. Hopefully, it was an omen, a sign she’d made the right decision in coming here. Back then, she’d been hunting a vampire. Now, she was searching for a new version of herself, or something like that anyway.

She sat on the bed in her new apartment, bouncing slightly to test the mattress. It squeaked beneath her weight, and a smirk tugged at her lips as she imagined the noise it might make if it saw any action. She’d shipped several boxes of her belongings, but they hadn’t arrived yet—it took longer to clear customs than she’d realized—so all she had was the suitcase she’d flown over with. Thank goodness the rental came furnished.

She picked up her cell phone and dialed, listening as the line crackled across the Atlantic.

“Hello?”

She smiled involuntarily at the sound of Maggie’s voice. “Hi, Mom.”

“Dana,” her mom said, relief palpable in her voice.

“Just letting you know I got in safely, and I’m all settled in my new apartment.”

“And how is it?” Maggie asked. “Does it look okay in person? Clean? Safe?”

“It looks pretty much like it did in the pictures.” She glanced around the loft bedroom, open to her left with a low railing that overlooked the living room and kitchen below. A blue quilt covered the full-sized bed, with matching curtains on the windows. “I can’t wait for you to see it.”

“I can’t either,” Maggie said.

Scully would only be here for two months, and she’d insisted Maggie come for a visit before Scully started her fellowship next week. They were long overdue for a mother-daughter vacation together. The sad truth was, Scully was overdue for any kind of bonding time with another human being.

“I’m so lonely,” she’d whispered to Mulder one night as she lay beside him in their unremarkable house in the middle of nowhere. She’d breathed desperately past the tears clogging her throat, wondering how she could feel so alone when she shared her bed every night with the man she’d loved for most of her adult life, the man she’d thought she would spend the rest of her life with.

But as she’d lain there, waiting for a response that never came, she’d felt the truth of her situation. The man holding her wasn’t the same man she’d fallen in love with. He’d become a shell of the man he’d once been, retreating inside their house, inside his office, inside himself. Nothing, it seemed, could fulfill him the way the X Files once had, not even his love for her or the life they’d created together after they left the FBI. They’d become isolated in their little house, and despite her job at Our Lady of Sorrows, she was lonely. So achingly lonely.

What she hadn’t expected was that once she’d left him, once she’d gotten an apartment in Annapolis closer to work and her mom, she’d felt even lonelier, so lonely that when she lay in bed at night, she could hardly breathe past the emptiness inside her. Sometimes she felt like her chest might collapse in on itself.

Every morning, she got up and went to work. She fought for other people’s children, tried to fix them, tried to make them whole again. Sometimes, she succeeded. Sometimes, she failed. Never as greatly as she’d failed her own son. William’s absence felt like a missing piece of her soul, and losing Mulder only seemed to intensify it, until she felt like she was only a shell of herself too.

When she’d first heard about the opportunity here in London, she’d applied without thinking, desperate for a change. But when she received the call that she’d been chosen to study under Dr. Linenburger at The Royal London Hospital, she’d panicked. She was forty-eight years old. What the hell was she doing, considering yet another career switch and traveling halfway across the world to set it in motion? Was she having a midlife crisis?

In the end, she’d decided to go with the momentum she’d already set in motion. A few months in London might shake her out of the stagnant slump her life had fallen into. Maybe she’d find something here she’d been unable to find at home.

Once, a very long time ago, she’d found something here, someone here, who’d shaken her out of a similar—if milder—slump. Those two nights with Stella were a sparkling memory she’d carried in her heart all these years, a shining moment when she’d grabbed hold of what she wanted, when she’d shared something special, something wonderful with another human.

For two memorable nights, she hadn’t been lonely.

Smiling at the memory, she finished up her conversation with her mom and walked downstairs to the living room. Having already unpacked her only suitcase, she found herself at a loss for how to spend the rest of her first afternoon in London. She needed to grocery shop. And she should familiarize herself with her new neighborhood.

Deciding that was as good a place as any to start, she shrugged into a thin jacket, tucked her phone into her back pocket, and headed out. The sun still shone brightly overhead, and she squinted as she walked, taking in the buildings on her street, rows of two and three-story dwellings in aged stone. There was a sense of history etched into each elaborately carved façade that she’d missed since the last time she’d been here.

Spotting a café at the end of the block, she headed for it. A coffee might help clear the jetlag-induced fog from her brain. Tea, perhaps. She wasn’t a big tea drinker, but when in London…

What was Stella up to these days? Scully had hardly let herself think about her over the years, had semi-successfully convinced herself that her decision to accept a fellowship in London had nothing to do with the detective who’d once turned her world upside down.

She and Stella had kept in touch, albeit barely. Stella had indeed emailed to tell her when Ronnie Strickland was convicted and again after he mysteriously died in prison a few months later, having apparently starved to death despite receiving three meals a day. He’d been severely anemic at the time of his death, a fact Mulder had celebrated as proof Ronnie had indeed been a vampire, deprived of his usual diet of blood.

But a handful of emails and phone calls spanning more than a decade hadn’t given them any real insight into each other’s lives. She knew Stella still worked here in London, that she had climbed the ranks of the Metropolitan Police like Scully had known she would. But would she want to hear from Scully now? Would she want to see her?

And did Scully want to see Stella? That yearning deep in her gut said yes, desperately so. But after all these years, she could hardly expect them to share the same connection they’d shared then. It might be awkward. What if it somehow tainted the perfect memory Scully harbored of their time together? She couldn’t bear for anything to tarnish those moments.

Anyway, she had time to decide. She certainly wasn’t going to contact Stella on her first day in London. Scully entered the café and ordered a latte, figuring she’d been British enough for one day. She sat at a table by the window and sipped her drink, scanning local headlines on her phone. It grounded her somehow to know there was just as much murder and mayhem here as there was on her side of the Atlantic. Some things were the same no matter where you lived.

“Met Officer Attacked by Belfast Strangler”

The headline jumped out at her, although it took her a moment to realize why, and it wasn’t the headline at all. It was the photo below it, the photo of Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson. Scully quit breathing, nearly dropped her coffee, as she registered what she was seeing.

Attacked.

A sick feeling spread through her belly, and she gripped the edge of the table as she read the article, which told her little other than that Stella and another officer had been attacked by a serial killer while in police custody. Both had been treated at the hospital and released. It had happened almost a week ago.

Was Stella okay? Was she still in Belfast? Was she here in London? Is she okay?

Scully pulled up Stella’s email address on her phone and composed a message. They didn’t know each other well enough for Scully to ask the most burning question in her mind, so instead she stuck to the facts. She told Stella she was here in London for a few months studying pathology from a respected doctor at The Royal London Hospital and asked if she’d like to get together sometime to catch up.

Safe. Straight forward.

So much for not contacting Stella right away, but Scully wasn’t worried about protecting her feelings or her pride anymore. She just needed to know Stella was okay.

Before she could second guess herself, she hit Send.

***

“Are you sure you don’t something more to eat?”

Stella sipped from her tea. “I’m sure.”

Fran made a sound of disbelief as she bit into her steak sandwich, eyeing the empty soup bowl in front of Stella. She’d known Stella long enough to know soup wasn’t her lunch of choice and also not to question it, not to make her explain the soft diet that had her longing for the satisfaction of sinking her teeth into something, literally anything at this point, a hunger that grew steadily stronger with each passing day.

“Soup,” Fran muttered, eyes searching Stella’s for an explanation she knew she wouldn’t receive. Many years ago, Fran Kingsley had given Stella her start at the Met. She’d been Stella’s boss, had given her a leg up in a male-dominated world, and along the way had become one of her dearest friends. About ten years ago, Fran had been recruited into MI5, leaving the Met behind. Her short brown hair was shot through with silver now, but it only seemed to intensify the power of her presence. “So, how long until this bullshit inquiry is resolved?”

“Hopefully no more than a week.” Stella’s phone dinged with a new email, and she glanced at it instinctively, hoping irrationally that the inquiry into her handling of the Belfast Strangler case had been dropped and she might be allowed to return to the office this week after all. She swiped her finger across the screen, calling up the message.

Dana Scully, the sender’s name announced itself, and Stella inhaled sharply. There was a name she hadn’t seen in years, a name that stirred something warm deep inside her soul whenever she saw it. They rarely emailed, and when they did, it usually involved a case one of them was working on, but just knowing Scully was out there had always brought Stella a strange sense of comfort.

Today, it brought the opposite. Stella’s name had been in the news a lot over the last few weeks, for reasons she’d rather leave solidly in her past. She couldn’t tolerate the thought of any kind of “are you all right” message from Scully now.

So, she set her phone aside, returning her attention to Fran, who was watching her out of gray eyes as sharp as knives, ready to peel back Stella’s protective layers, an “are you all right” of her own. “You should at least drink something stronger than tea with that soup.”

Stella’s lips twitched. “Bit early in the day for that, don’t you think?”

“Never too early,” Fran said with a meaningful lift of her eyebrows. “Not in our line of work. Have you seen someone?”

Stella swallowed the question with another sip of tea. “I have an appointment on Friday.” A mandatory condition of her return to work.

“Good. Well, I’ve got to dash, but give me a ring if you need someone to have that drink with.” Fran was offering more than her company, and they both knew it.

“Thank you,” Stella told her quietly.

“Take care.” Fran’s hand rested briefly on Stella’s shoulder, and then she was off, striding toward the door as other customers in the café stepped to the side to let her pass. She was a force of nature, all right, and Stella was fiercely glad for her presence in her life.

She sat for a few minutes to finish her tea, fighting the growing sense of emptiness inside her that had nothing to do with the pitiful bowl of soup she’d eaten for lunch and everything to do with the week ahead. Without the prospect of work, it loomed impossibly long before her, almost overwhelmingly so.

Eventually, she left the café, stopping at the market on her way home to pick up a few things, including a fresh sleeve of flowers since the ones she’d bought at the airport two days ago had already begun to wilt. At home, she took Fran’s advice and poured herself a tumbler of whiskey, then set about putting away her groceries. She stocked her fridge and wiped down the counter before clipping the stems on the fresh flowers she’d bought and arranging them in a vase, a splash of red and purple against the otherwise muted tones of her kitchen.

She bent her head and inhaled deeply, eyes shut, lost for a moment in the intoxicating scent of fresh roses, until her cracked ribs spasmed, shooting bolts of fire through her chest. She froze, not daring even to exhale, one hand braced against the counter as she cursed furiously inside her head, waiting for the pain to subside.

Then she eased herself onto a barstool at the counter and took a hearty gulp of her whiskey. She reached absently for her phone, searching for a distraction, almost having forgotten the email waiting for her there. Dana Scully. Really, what was one more “are you all right” at this point? Stella had already fielded dozens of them. Even her mother had called, and they spoke about as often as she spoke to Scully.

I’m fine. Thanks for thinking of me. Just biding my time until I can get back into the office. She mentally composed her reply as she clicked on the message.

And then her breath caught in her throat again, but this time it had nothing to do with her cracked ribs. Scully’s email wasn’t an “are you all right” at all. She was here in London, and she wanted to meet. Stella set her phone on the countertop, taking measured breaths as she considered how to respond. This was the worst time to re-introduce herself to someone from her past, while she was bruised, physically and mentally.

Once upon a time, she and Scully had shared something incredibly intense and meaningful together, maybe the most intimate moment of Stella’s life. She’d been young then, so fucking young. But it wasn’t as if it would happen again. Scully had been with Mulder almost since she’d left London the first time, and while that wasn’t necessarily a hindrance for Stella, it certainly was for Scully. So, this would be dinner with an old friend, nothing more.

Stella desperately needed an escape from her flat, from the chaos in her brain, from the reality awaiting her at the inquiry next week. And right now, her escape had arrived in the form of Dana Scully.

***

Scully fidgeted in front of the mirror in the bathroom. What did you wear to have dinner with someone you’d once shared two of the most passionate nights of your life with? Someone you hadn’t seen in over a decade? She’d never been one for dresses. To wear one tonight felt disingenuous, like she was trying too hard to impress Stella. Instead, she put on dark wash skinny jeans and a black top, leaving her hair loose down her back. She touched up her makeup, adding a bit more eyeliner than she would usually wear.

And then she left the bathroom before she started overthinking things or second guessing herself. She headed downstairs, picked up her jacket, and set out. The restaurant Stella had suggested was only a few blocks away, so she decided to walk. She needed the fresh air to clear her head, because she had no idea what the etiquette for a night like this was.

Outside, dusk purpled the sky over the rowhouses on her street. The air was cool and refreshing, just what she needed. She started walking, heels clicking against the sidewalk, the knot in her stomach loosening with each step until it unraveled completely. Seeing Stella again tonight would be a good thing. She was almost sure of it.

She could use a friend here in London, and while she and Stella had never exactly been friends in the past, maybe they could be now. Maybe they could be more than friends. Warmth spread through her belly as she remembered the nights they’d spent together in their youth. Scully had been a single woman for over a year now. Whether or not she and Stella rekindled things, she was overdue to put herself back in the dating game.

It was intimidating at her age, especially after having spent over a decade with Mulder. It had been so long, so very long since she’d been on a date. Not since Stella, fourteen years ago. And here she was, on her way to meet Stella again. Maybe a date. Maybe just dinner with a friend.

That knot in her stomach tightened again, pinching at her ribs. She rubbed at it as she walked. What if she froze completely when she saw her? What if they’d changed too much to rekindle even a friendship? What if they were just two strangers trying awkwardly to generate enough conversation to make it through a meal together?

Scully huffed a breath, casting her eyes skyward. She was being ridiculous. She knew it but was powerless to stop herself. There was a reason she’d buried herself in work for most of her life, why it had taken seven years for her and Mulder to take their relationship to the next level. She wasn’t very good at this, at putting herself out there, at making romantic connections with people. She never had been.

Which was all the more reason for her and Stella to keep things platonic this time. A friendship would be more likely to last the duration of Scully’s time in London than any kind of romantic relationship, after all, and Scully was pitifully short on friends. After her case in Belfast, Stella might need a friend too.

Scully forced herself to keep walking as the restaurant came into view, not allowing her footsteps to slow until she was reaching for the handle to the heavy-looking wooden door. Inside, the restaurant bustled with activity, snippets of conversation in British accents drifting past her ears, but her gaze was locked on a figure standing to the left of the hostess desk.

Stella’s back was to her, but she’d know that stance anywhere. Her hair was shorter now, reaching just past her shoulders in perfectly coiffed waves. She wore a black pencil skirt with a blouse the color of a shiny penny, glistening beneath the restaurant’s track lighting. Scully sucked in air, heart racing, heat spreading through her like a wildfire, an instantaneous, almost overwhelming physical reaction she hadn’t experienced in, well…in fourteen years.

As if sensing her presence, Stella turned. Their eyes met, but the fresh-faced detective who’d swept Scully off her feet way-back-when was nowhere in sight. The detective superintendent who faced her now was older, hardened in a way that made Scully stand a little taller, her spine straightening almost involuntarily.

Stella still retained every bit of her ethereal beauty, azure eyes coolly assessing Scully as she toyed with the curve of her hair, fluffing it between her fingers before tossing it over her shoulder. Scully was so taken with the sight of her that it took several long seconds for her to register the bruising and stitches at Stella’s left brow, the discoloration over her cheekbone and her chin, carefully concealed with makeup but still visible to a doctor’s eye.

Scully’s stomach dipped, lust mixing with concern and the completely flustering experience of seeing her again for the first time in so long. The intervening years had strengthened Stella’s armor, her expression unreadable behind that icy stare. Scully hesitated for another moment before stepping forward, wrapping one arm around Stella in a brief hug.

“It’s so good to see you,” she breathed against her neck. She smelled the same, something fresh and feminine and uniquely Stella that had Scully’s head spinning through a whirlwind of memories, Stella’s bare skin pressed against hers, lips and teeth and more pleasure than she’d known possible.

Stella was stiff against her now, one hand tangling in Scully’s hair as she hugged her back before pulling free. “It’s good to see you too.”

Scully stood there, smiling nervously, hoping Stella hadn’t felt the frantic beating of her heart. They were older now, so much older, toughened and scarred by life. Scully felt a crushing pressure in her chest as she imagined herself trying to explain everything that had happened since she last saw Stella. And what things did Stella need to confess in return?

“Shall we get a table, then?” Stella asked, breaking Scully out of her spiraling thoughts.

She nodded, falling into step beside her as they approached the hostess. They were shown to a quiet table near the back of the restaurant, and Scully felt somewhat calmer once they were sitting across from each other with a bottle of wine between them. She sipped from her glass gratefully, watching as Stella seemed to settle as well, eyes softening as she looked across the table at Scully.

“So,” Scully said with a hesitant smile. I read all about Paul Spector this afternoon, and I’m so fucking sorry. But she knew better than to broach such an uncomfortable subject before they’d gotten reacquainted.

“So,” Stella repeated, the ghost of a smile on her lips. “Did you fly in today?”

Scully nodded. “This morning.”

“The redeye?” Stella’s eyes were sympathetic.

“Yeah. I got a few hours of sleep on the plane, but I’ll be glad to crash tonight.”

“I bet.” Stella sipped from her wine, eyes never leaving Scully’s. “And you’re here for work?”

Scully had forgotten the magic of her accent, that smooth, smoky voice, the way it crawled over her, melting her from the inside out. Stella’s voice was lower now than she remembered, somewhat scratchier. Scully found herself leaning in every time she spoke. “Yes. I’ll be working with Dr. Linenburger at The Royal London Hospital. He’s a noted forensic pathologist whose done some really interesting work in digital imaging that I’m excited to try my hand at.”

“You’re interested in pathology, then?”

She knew Stella was just making conversation, trying to get to know modern-day Scully, but the questions felt almost like an interrogation beneath her intense stare. She nodded. “I’ve been practicing medicine for the last decade, but lately, I’ve started to realize I miss being involved in the investigative side of things. So, yes, I’m considering a move into pathology.”

“Dr. Scully,” Stella said, tongue darting out to wet her lips. “I like it.”

Scully reached for her wine to cover the blush she felt rising to her cheeks. “A lot has changed since the last time I saw you.”

“Probably too much to cover during one meal,” Stella said, arching an eyebrow. She was playing coy, but also saving them both from diving too deep into personal territory tonight, and Scully was thankful for that.

“Yes. My life has been…I’m not sure there’s a word for it, really.”

Stella reached across the table, covering Scully’s hand in her own. “I’m so sorry about your son. I can’t even imagine.”

Scully felt the hot press of tears behind her eyes, her skin gone warm and prickly. She had foolishly mentioned her pregnancy during one of those occasional emails she’d exchanged with Stella, which meant she’d later had to explain William’s absence. She’d never had the words to describe that time in her life. Whenever possible, she tried not to speak about it at all. She cleared her throat. “Thank you.”

Stella’s brow wrinkled. “I shouldn’t have brought it up. I’m sorry.”

Scully shook her head, swiping beneath her eyes. “No, it’s okay.”

“Thoughtless of me,” Stella said quietly, staring into the ruby depths of her wineglass.

And Scully couldn’t bear her guilt, not over this, not over anything. She couldn’t let their evening turn sour because of her own sad history, barely ten minutes after they’d been reunited. “No, really. It’s…it’s gotten better.”

Stella met her gaze, uncharacteristically at a loss for words. Scully was torn between the urge to laugh or cry at the ridiculousness of it. Here they were, stumbling through the personal territory they’d both wanted to avoid tonight. Maybe the only way around it was to go through.

“I’ve seen pictures of him,” she told Stella, her voice hoarse from the lump of emotion lodged in her throat.

Stella’s eyes widened. “William?”

She nodded, willing herself to get the words out. “Once the charges against Mulder were dropped, things finally settled down. His life wasn’t in danger anymore, and neither was William’s. Last year, his adoptive parents reached out to us through Agent Doggett, the agent who’d helped me coordinate the adoption. They sent us pictures.” She closed her eyes, feeling the tears splash over her cheeks. “He’s happy. He’s growing up on a farm in Wyoming. He rides horses.”

Stella’s chin quivered slightly as she reached forward, brushing the tears from Scully’s cheeks. “I’m glad things have gotten better…that you have some peace.”

“I do.” Scully nodded as she blinked back more tears. “Not knowing was a living hell. Every day, I worried. I imagined awful things. But now…now, I know he’s okay.”

“And Mulder?” she asked.

“He’s still Mulder.” A wry smile curved her lips. “Actually, no, he’s not. He lost his purpose after we left the FBI. I went to work at the hospital, and he…he closed himself up in his office.”

“His purpose wasn’t loving you?” There was that arched brow again.

Scully dropped her gaze to her wineglass. She took another long sip. “He loved me. I think he still does. But the X Files were always his true passion. He didn’t know what to do with himself once he’d lost them.”

“It sounds like things have been very difficult for you both.”

“We broke up.” She glanced at Stella. “I moved out about a year and a half ago.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” If Stella had any reaction to learning Scully was single, she didn’t show it.

Scully blew out a breath, grateful to have it all out in the open. “Thank you.”

“Do you still love him?” Stella asked gently, eyes locked on Scully’s.

“I’ll always love him,” she said, “but I’m not in love with him. Not anymore.”

“I see,” Stella said, and Scully wondered if she did. As far as she knew, Stella had never loved anyone the way she’d loved Mulder, had never spent a decade living with someone she’d thought she would spend her whole life with.

Their waitress interrupted them to bring their meals, and they fell to lighter topics as they ate, Scully’s upcoming fellowship, her new apartment—flat, Stella called it, and Scully immediately embraced the term—things she should do and see while she was in London. Stella deflected Scully’s casual attempts at shifting the conversation in her direction.

This was hardly surprising. In fourteen years, Scully had barely learned more about her than her last name. But she knew parts of Stella few others had seen, understood her in ways she doubted many other people ever had or would.

It didn’t stop her from worrying about how Stella was handling the aftermath of the case in Belfast. Did she have someone in her life to confide in? A friend? A therapist? Anyone at all to share the emotional burden? Those weren’t questions she could ask, not tonight, anyway.

Still, they had to address the elephant in the room, so after they’d settled the check, she decided to just do it. “I read about what happened in Belfast.”

Stella went unnaturally still on the other side of the table, turning her head slightly to stare over Scully’s shoulder[RB1] . “I assumed you had.”

She touched Stella’s arm, offering comfort the same way Stella had done for her earlier. “I’m one of the few people in the world who can honestly say I’ve been there. I know what it feels like, and I’m here for you if you need a friend.”

Stella did meet her eyes then, just for a moment, gratitude gleaming in their crystalline depths. “Thank you.”

“Also, it’s not why I emailed you.” Scully sucked her bottom lip between her teeth as a smile threatened. “Or, it’s not the only reason, anyway.”

“No?”

She shook her head. “I had been thinking about you since I took this position, wondering…”

“Wondering?”

She shrugged, trying to keep things light. “Haven’t you ever wondered?”

Stella stood from the table, brushing a hand against Scully’s waist as she led the way toward the front of the restaurant. “Once or twice.”

[RB1]A shadow flashes in her eyes that makes Scully’s worries intensify. She’s afraid Stella’s keeping it all bottled up, and no one’s armor can be that tough all the time. It has to come out sooner or later.

#fanfic #Two Worlds Collide #stella and scully #stella x scully

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douxreviews · 6 years ago

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Arrow - ‘My Name is Emiko Queen' Review

“I’m not Oliver Queen.”

While that quote is true in the strictest sense, Emiko Queen is doing a damn good imitation.

From the cold open it was obvious The Powers That Be were going for an OG Arrow esthetic. From the voiceover, and (camera) shot selection to the little book of names, and a wounded Emiko going to Rene for help as Oliver went to Felicity. The similarities didn’t end there. She has just as many trust issues as Oliver and a stubbornness that up till now I had associated more with Moira’s side of the family.

There is one profound difference between Emiko and her half-brother. Where Oliver sought to bring justice to the people his father had wronged, Emiko wants justice on behalf of the wrongs done to her. This is neither surprising nor unexpected. Oliver grew up with every advantage. His time in “hell” taught him humility and gave him an appreciation for those without silver spoons. Emiko grew up with little except the unconditional love of her mother. Her loss would drive anyone to desire vengeance.

That is what we are talking about here. For all Emiko’s talk of justice, her war on crime in The Glades is not born out of benevolence. She has systematically eliminated everyone who had a hand in her mother’s death as she searches for the person who pulled the trigger. She can wrap it up in as much talk of the downtrodden as she likes. Revenge is not justice. I'm not judging. I'm just stating facts.

That knowledge aside we are left with a host of unanswered questions. Chief among them why would a woman abandoned and forgotten by her wealthy father imitate her half-brother? Unlike Oliver, she’d always known about the existence of her half-sibling and the “other” Queen family. And considering Oliver’s checkered past, he seems an odd choice for emulation. And how? I can see her learning to defend herself out of the necessity of growing up in a rough neighborhood. But I can’t imagine archery being her weapon of choice.

Oliver must come to grips with the fact that the latest person to don the Hood does so out of more than just admiration. Even after all the suspect deeds committed by Mama and Papa Queen, this is a new low. To know his father severed all ties to his own daughter makes Oliver question all of his father’s motives. Especially when he did so while knowingly raising another man’s daughter as his own. Although I doubt that realization has hit Oliver yet. Moira’s behavior is just as bad. It’s not surprising she resented Robert’s other family. But the idea she would go out of her way to ensure that Robert’s child was not only discarded like an old toy but deliberately kept poor is unbelievably spiteful. So why is most of Oliver’s anger directed at his father even after Felicity and by extension the writers repeatedly lay the blame for Emiko’s abandonment at both Robert and Moira’s feet?

Speaking of marriage issues, what is up with Diggle? After years of questioning Lyla’s morality, in large part due to her involvement with the “Ghost Initiative” AKA The Suicide Squad, he unilaterally decides to bring it back? And to force Lyla to defend a policy he knows she disagrees with is unlike him. Is his hatred of Diaz that intense or is his moral fiber fraying? Does Dig really believe Diaz will flush out Dante. And is that be before or after Oliver and Felicity find out that Diaz is alive and “free.”

While Diggle’s motives may not be clear, we clarified a few unresolved issues. Deputy Director Bell is indeed subordinate to Lyla. However, her superiors at The Pentagon have appointed him as their watchdog which not only explains his apparent autonomy but also the deference that both husband and wife have been giving him. It also explained Ben Turner’s appearance in Slabside. He saves Lyla’s life at the risk of getting his head blown off and she repays him by scrubbing The Suicide Squad and sending him to a Supermax prison. No wonder Ben was pissed.

That brings us to Rene, both present and future. In the present, Emiko’s pursuit of her mother’s killers dovetails with his desire to protect his neighborhood and Lord knows Rene can relate to her anger issues. Besides, partnering with her fills the void left by his former teammates and offers him the means to make a difference. However, the fact Emiko is neither part of the flash-forwards nor mentioned as part of Oliver’s Mark of Four pact leads to the suspicion that their partnership is short-lived. So it is not hard to draw a line from the current iteration of Rene adrift from his former teammates and frustrated by his inability to protect his home to the future Mayor bent on protecting The Glades at the expense of Star City at large. What is still in question is the identity of future Rene’s mystery friend and murderer of Felicity (IMDB has him listed as Kevin Dale)? Who does he represent and are they pulling Future Rene’s strings or do they just think they are?

To be honest, this episode left me with mixed feelings. I appreciated the old-school feel. And the explanation of Emiko’s abandonment gave more depth to the Queen family dynamics years after Robert and Moira’s deaths, and Walter’s departure. Yet Oliver’s anger troubled me. Not only because of its one-sidedness but because his anger on his own behalf felt petty and his anger on Emiko’s behalf felt unearned. More important than that, the episode meant to introduce us to Emiko gave us more questions than answers and spent far more time on the people affected by her existence than on the woman herself.

3 out of 5 quilt forts

Parting Thoughts:

How is Emiko bankrolling this little enterprise? Bribing mobsters ain’t cheap.

In that same vein, did Curtis borrow an A.R.G.U.S. van or does a tricked out van come with the secret lair and the Hood?

We won’t discuss the whole chain of custody issue of giving crime scene evidence to the wife of an SCPD deputy. Can we say inadmissible in court, boys and girls?

Emiko threatened to put an arrow through Rene. Oliver’s been there and done that.

It was a nice touch having Jamey Sheridan read Robert Queen’s letter. It was bizarre that it was the only time my close captioning specified who was talking - wrongly stating it was Oliver.

I could find no mention of Talis Global in the world of DC Comics. However, William Glenmorgan definitely exists. So does Santa Prisca.

Future Rene doesn’t have his scar. Did The Glades Mayor get plastic surgery?

The Archer program wiped out crime in The Glades. And somehow Zoe almost ruined everything when she got her hands on it. Color me curious.

And I meant to ask this in Unmasked. When did the Queen Mansion get destroyed? Was Isabel Rochev so vindictive that she burned the place to the ground?

Quotes:

Rene: “I guess stubbornness comes with the suit.”

Diaz: “Let me be real clear for the cheap seats. Screw you.”

Felicity: “Some husbands bring their wives home flowers, and mine brings me blood from a crime scene. They say romance is dead.”

Oliver: “My father was always very good at burying secrets.”

Felicity: “One more thing.” Oliver: “Just one more?”

Lyla: “Are you questioning my decision, Deputy Director?” Bell: “Of course not, Madam Director. That kind of radical out-of-the-box approach is exactly the shot in the arm A.R.G.U.S. needs. I’m sure the Pentagon will be very excited to hear about this.”

Emiko: “People can’t let you down if you don’t let them in.”

Rene: “At least as mayor, I’m actually getting things done, not wasting my time running around the city in a hockey mask pretending that it mattered.”

Lyla: “And here I thought I was the one in danger of becoming Amanda Waller.”

Curtis: “I can knock out the whole system – cameras, motion sensors, the whole shebang. But it’s up to you guys to deal with that army of terminators yourselves.”

Emiko: “I’m still not looking for a team.” Rene: “Ok, fine. Then how about a partner?”

Dale: “Star City is a cancer. The only way to get rid of a cancer is to destroy it.”

Diaz: When I agreed to this deal, no one said anything about sticking a bomb in the back of my head."

Shari loves sci-fi, fantasy, supernatural, and anything with a cape.

#Arrow #Green Arrow #Oliver Queen #Felicity Smoak #John Diggle #DC Comics #Arrowverse #Arrow Reviews #Doux Reviews #TV Reviews

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singledarkshade · 7 years ago

Text

Real World

Part Five

Rip kept one arm wrapped around Ali’s shoulders the other held a sleeping Jonas against his shoulder while he had Gideon’s carrier in his hand and the backpack with Jonas’ things on his back. He kept her moving through the corridors of the hospital finally finding the waiting room Captain Singh, Detective West and several other cops were occupying all looking worried.

He felt Ali stiffen in fear but kept her moving towards them hoping that they weren’t going to hear the worst.

“Ms Kingsley,” Captain Singh stepped forward, “We’re waiting for the doctor to come and update us on Katrina’s condition.”

“What happened?” Rip asked knowing Ali couldn’t.

Singh swapped a quick look with West before answering, “There was an attack downtown by a meta-human who could control electricity.”

“Like the Flash?” Rip demanded.

West shook his head, “No, this guy could siphon it out of anything but it was like a drug to him. He was crazed, sucking it in until he overloaded and exploded, in a manner of speaking. Officer Avery was moving people out of the firing line when a woman fell. Katrina went to help and was struck by debris.”

“How bad?” Ali spoke up finally, fear filling her voice.

“She was trapped under a concrete block,” Singh replied softly, “And unconscious when they managed to free her."

Rip pulled Ali into him murmuring in her ear, “It’s going to be okay.”

“Why don’t you take a seat?” Singh suggested.

Moving Ali to one of the rows of seats along the edge of the room, Rip waited until she was sitting before he placed Jonas in her arms. Still fast asleep, a brass band could march past his ear and he wouldn’t wake up, Jonas snuggled into the warmth holding him. The little boy also gave Ali someone to focus on and cuddle while she waited for news. Rip then slid Gideon’s carrier just under the chair beside her, relieved the puppy also hadn’t woken up and hoping no one noticed they’d brought her before he took the seat at Ali’s side.

He’d been woken by frantic knocking on his door barely a half hour before stunned to find Ali in tears when he opened it. Rip managed to work out that Katrina was hurt and in hospital. Not wanting Ali to be alone, or to drive in the state she was in, Rip put Gideon into her carrier, handed Jonas’ backpack to Ali after quickly adding some snacks for him before lifting the sleeping child, quilt and all, into his arms.

“Can I get either of you some coffee or something to eat?” West asked, coming over to them after a while.

Ali shook her head, “I’m fine.”

“You should eat something,” Rip said softly, “It’s getting close to breakfast.”

She looked at him and for the first time since he’d met her Ali didn’t look like the strong, brilliant woman he admired but a terrified child needing reassurance.

“Until we have news you have to remain positive,” Rip reminded her, “Katrina is strong and you know she will mock us mercilessly for being worried for no reason.”

Ali let out a small laugh resting her cheek against Jonas’ hair, “I know.”

“I’m going to go with Detective West to get us something to eat and drink,” Rip told her, “You look after Jonas and Gideon for the moment, I’ll be back soon. Okay?”

She nodded, “Okay, Michael.” He squeezed her hand before standing and catching up with West.

“Detective,” Rip said softly as they walked towards the canteen, “Tell me honestly, how bad is it?”

West let out a sigh, “From what I overheard from the paramedics it could be very bad.”

Rip took a deep breath, “Okay.”

“It was good of you to come with Ms Kingsley,” West noted when they entered the canteen.

“Well,” Rip replied softly, “Ali and Katrina have basically become my family since I moved here. I wasn’t letting her come alone.”

“How did you get the dog past the nurses?” West asked amused.

Rip shrugged, “She’s asleep and people only noticed the child I was carrying.”

West chuckled as they collected several coffees along with some sandwiches and snacks for everyone waiting upstairs.

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

Joe handed Singh his coffee watching Rip as he sat beside Alison Kingsley coaxing her to eat something after taking his son back into his arms. He rubbed his eyes hoping the caffeine would kick in soon because it had been a long night, a very long night and all he wanted was to sleep.

He smiled slightly seeing the little boy beginning to stir in his father’s arms, thinking back to when Iris was that age.

“Daddy?” Jonas let out a confused moan before shifting slightly against Rip’s shoulder.

Rip rubbed the little boy’s back gently rocking him, “Its okay. Go back to sleep.” Jonas murmured slightly but his eyes closed and he fell asleep again.

Joe felt his phone buzz making him jump slightly in surprise.

“Dad?” Iris demanded the moment he answered it, “Are you okay?”

Moving away so he could speak privately he quickly assured his daughter of his health.

“Did Cisco get anything more on our meta’s friends?” Joe asked softly.

“Nothing yet,” she told him, “What about the officer who was hurt?” “We’re still waiting,” Joe replied turning again to be sure he wasn’t overheard, “Rip Hunter is at the hospital so tell Cisco no appearing from nowhere and keep the Flash away. Emotions are running high so any information comes over the phone. I don’t want him to see anything to stir up his memories.”

“I’ll let them know,” Iris promised, “Just keep us up to date about Officer Avery.”

“I will. Tell Barry to be careful.”

“Doctor?” Singh spoke up making everyone turn to the woman walking into the room.

Before Rip could move West appeared, “I’ll take him for you.”

Hesitating for a moment Rip slowly transferred his son into the Detective’s waiting arms, “Thank you,” he said before wrapping his arm around Ali as they moved to the Doctor.

“I’m Dr Hayes I’ve been treating Officer Avery. It’s not as bad as we first thought,” she told them, “It appears that the heat from the explosion softened the concrete so it moulded to Officer Avery when it struck her.”

“What does that mean?” Rip demanded, “How hurt is she?”

“Amazingly,” Hayes smiled, “She only has a broken leg.”

Ali stared at the other woman, “That’s all?”

“That’s it,” Hayes confirmed, “You can see her now. I will warn you she’s a little groggy.”

They followed Hayes to a room and Rip smiled in relief seeing Katrina sitting there on the bed, she was pale and her right leg was in plaster but she was alive.

Ali moved instantly wrapping Katrina in a tight embrace, who gently stroked her girlfriend’s back.

“I’m okay,” Katrina soothed.

“Are you sure?” Ali pulled back and stared at intently.

Katrina smiled, looking a little stoned in Rip’s opinion, “I am although the bed feels like its spinning constantly.”

“That’ll be the painkillers you’re on,” Rip noted, making Katrina jump slightly that she hadn’t noticed him.

“Who has Jonas?” Katrina demanded when Rip moved to her side.

He hugged her tightly knowing she was surprised that he did so, “Detective West is currently watching him. I wasn’t letting Ali come here alone.”

The door opened and Singh walked in.

“Officer Avery,” he smiled at her, “You know I would have given you time off if you’d asked.”

Katrina chuckled, “That would have been the easy option, Captain.”

“Mr Hunter,” he turned to Rip only to be interrupted by Katrina.

“It’s Dr Hunter,” she corrected.

Singh nodded, “Apologies, Dr Hunter your puppy woke up,” he said, making Rip wince, “Officer Grayson took her for a walk.”

“Thank you,” Rip replied, “I’d better get her and Jonas home.” Ali quickly hugged him, “Thank you.” “Let me know if you need anything,” Rip told her.

Returning to the waiting room Rip found Detective West singing softly to Jonas who was still sleeping thankfully, the man had a pleasant voice and Rip smiled slightly when the man looked up seeing him there.

“Thank you for watching him,” Rip said, taking his son back into his arms.

West smiled, “It wasn’t hard since he slept the entire time. I’m guessing it’s not always that way.”

Rip nodded, “I wouldn’t have him any other way.”

“I know the feeling,” West replied explaining, “I have three kids, all grown up now but I remember that age. I know how tired I was.”

Feeling a little uncomfortable Rip shrugged, “Which is why I’m grateful to have Ali and Katrina. I should go. Thank you again, Detective.”

Turning he headed downstairs, finding the policeman who had taken Gideon for a walk he managed to get both her and Jonas in the car. Sliding into the driver’s seat Rip let out a long sigh of relief.

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

Jonas was a wonderful little boy, sweet and curious who Rip adored beyond measure but there were days when his adorable little boy became a complete and total monster.

Today had been one of those days.

He had no idea what the tantrum was about, there had been nothing unusual about the day but Jonas refused to eat his dinner, didn’t want to read his book or play with his toys then wouldn’t put his pyjamas on for bed.

Finally, after a lot of yelling and tears, Jonas was in bed and asleep. Rip dropped onto the couch utterly exhausted. He was relieved tomorrow was Saturday and, despite her broken leg, Katrina insisted they were still watching Jonas the way they always did. Gideon barked and bounced up beside him.

“Hey, Gideon,” he gently stroked her soft fur when she settled onto his lap, “At least you’re not trying to drive me insane today.”

She let out a soft bark nudging at him when he stopped stroking her.

He gently scratched her head, “I know it’s just one of those days but I really wish he didn’t have them.”

Rip let out a long sigh and continued to pet Gideon while staring at the TV, jumping slightly when his phone buzzed.

Seeing Isabelle was calling Rip grimaced. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to talk to her but after fighting all evening with Jonas he just didn’t have the energy so let it go to voicemail.

“I’ll talk to her tomorrow,” he told Gideon, “I’m not avoiding her.”

And he wasn’t, not really but since she’d kissed him the week before his dreams had been filled with a different kiss, a voice he was drawn to and a feeling that something wasn’t right. A feeling that wouldn’t leave him even when he was awake.

Part Six

#fic #Legends Of Tomorrow #Rip Hunter

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