#and she and solomon just dress the fucking same

[everythingelseisextra]

Come Home (Tommy's Perspective)

Part Fifteen: David and Goliath

Description: Tommy doesn't tell you everything. So much gets stuck in his mouth, including his business. Warnings: PTSD, language, Tommy being angsty I guess Word Count: 4796 (sorry) Tag List: @theshelbyslimited @ttaechi @weaponizedvirtue @Majesticcmey @Optimisticsandwichgladiator @zablife @princesssterek @mm0thie @callsignvenus @ay0nha @mgdixon @fairytale07 @dreamy-caramel @ce1iat @algae-tm @dragonsondragons @trentknd @nothingofsimplicity @babayaga67 @shelbydelrey @globetrotter28 @look-at-the-soul

12 Hours before the attack on the barn

When she leaves, my mind clears. I think differently when she’s here. Softer, like a spell cast to make what I’ve learned and what I’ve made myself less important. She leaves out the front door, and I walk back through the house. Footsteps echoing through the halls like a heartbeat. It’s easy to slip back into a routine, to abide by the list that creates itself somewhere in my head. I find the phone and dial the number without thinking about it. Pick it up, hold it to my ear, wait.

“Hello, Tommy.” Arthur, the usual rashness to his words drowned out by the phone’s crackling. His drawl is recognizable to me like I’d know my own hand, and it’s something of a comfort after the talk I’d had with her. “Why’re you calling me at this hour?”

I forget he’s not awake nearly as early as I am. My day, and her day, too, starts before the sun. I don’t give it any pause. He doesn’t care about the real reason I’m calling him. Wants his orders from his sergeant major and to put his head down and do it. “I need you to start what we talked about, Arthur. With the girls. Talk to ‘em, get what you can out of them, see if you can find any of the men who hold their leashes.” 

“On it, Tom.” A rustling of movement tells me he’s just finishing getting dressed. “That all?” 

“Tell John to do the same. Stay on the outside, don’t stick your nose in where it doesn’t belong.” I can smell breakfast in the air. All I want is a drink and a cigarette. Too early for that. Need to eat. “Tell me what you find.”

“All this for that woman who sprayed you with the hose, eh?” There’s amusement in his tone that I don’t like. Like he’s caught me on some trick I took, like he has something on me. Maybe he does. 

“Yep,” I say shortly, not inviting more questions. 

“I hope you know what you’re doing. Just looking out for you, Tom, that’s all.” 

“I know what I’m doing.” I pinch the bridge of my nose, then drop my hand. “Goodbye.”

“We’re worried about you here. Seems a bit soon, doesn’t it? After Grace and all that—”

“Goodbye, Arthur.” I put the phone down and huff out a breath. 

Seems a bit soon. Maybe it is. Maybe I’m all up in my head, afraid to be alone at night, so I attached to the first kind face I saw. Maybe our meeting was some mistake made by me to draw her into the dark. 

No. She carries the same burden as I do, in a different form. If our meeting was anything, it was mercy. If some cosmic mistake is what brought us together then it will take another one to tear us apart. 

—

Alfie Solomons leaves after the briefing on the Russians. The door remains open. My brothers stay. Their eyes flick down to the ground and stay there, and I slowly sit back down onto my chair. None of them want to be the first to talk. I look to Arthur, let him feel my gaze. If I feel something at their reluctance to leave, it’s too deep for me to be aware of it. I shy away from feeling too deeply. Nothing set in stone, and yet, everything a dirt road. Tread the same path too long and it will become the only path there is. I refuse to be limited by my own emotion. 

“So, Russians, hey?” Arthur tries at skirting away from whatever shames him. I stare up at him, unamused. “We— we uh— we fucked up, Tom.” Arthur stumbles over the confession and John shoots him a look of venom. “I fucked up.”

I raise an eyebrow, waiting. 

“One of the girls— well, you know how they are— I had some drink in me and she— she asked some questions. Shouldn’t have answered them, Tom. Should’ve kept my bloody mouth shut. It doesn’t matter now, they know. I told it to ‘em, and now they know. Nothing to do but—”

“What do they know, Arthur?” I keep my voice even. My head throbs where the stitches were taken out months ago, another sign of my dawning insanity. 

“You know how it is, they act all nice to ya and—”

“He told them about hose-girl.” John cuts in. “He told them that he knows about the one that got away.”

My eyes lock onto the drawer in the desk where my gun sits, hidden. “How much did you tell them?”

“Ah, well, it was all very— I mean, I told them—”

“Get to the fucking point.” Inside that drawer is a weapon I’ve held to the temples of many a man, myself included. Inside that drawer is the hope I have of protecting my own. Including her.

“I told them she has horses. That’s all. That she has horses and doesn’t live in town. All I said, I swear it.” His voice carries bravado, covering up for the anxiety I know he has. He doesn’t like displeasing me, and he certainly has. 

My words come short and quiet. “You gave them definitive information about a woman they’ve been trying to find for years.” 

His silence resonates. 

“Answer me, Arthur.” I tear my eyes from the drawer to pin him down, trying to lock onto his shifty eyes. 

“Yes, sir, I did.” He looks to John for support, pleading with him for backup. He finds nothing but a stony face. 

“And you didn’t think to inform me of this before I planned to meet with the fucking Russians?” My voice threatens to raise and his eyes grow furtive. 

“I thought—”

“I don’t give a fuck what you thought!” I stand, slamming a hand down on the desk in front of me. Arthur flinches. “Her blood is on your hands, and you’re standing there telling me what you thought?” 

“It was my mistake, Tom, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, you’re fucking sorry. We’re all fucking sorry.” I grit my teeth, grind them, and walk out from behind the desk. They turn on instinct, soldiers at attention, their eyes on my back. “We go to the Russians, and we go to save what’s left of her. Understood?”

“Yes.” John’s voice.

“Arthur?” His name is rancid on my tongue. I grow antsy, a green horse on its first ride, flinching and preparing to bolt. I should be by her side, getting her out of there. I should be hunting down the man who thought he could own someone like her. 

But I have business. The world slowly lowers down on my shoulders, and I am not Atlas. I cannot shrug. 

—

I leave the Russians with the scent of cigarettes, whiskey, and Tatiana’s perfume lingering on me, and the thought of Grace stuck in my head. I was careless, and now I’m hungover, disorganized. The night is still young, and we reach home before the moon is bright in the sky. First thing I do is pick up the phone and call Moss. I ask him about a woman in a barn outside of Birmingham, and he tells me they found two dead bodies with her. 

“She’s safe?” 

“She is for now. She won’t talk and she has no record, Mr. Shelby, we gotta take her in.” 

“No.” I shake my head. “Keep her. See if she’ll talk. I’ll come get her.”

I need an ally. I need help, with everything, not just the quiet things. I need someone who can stare down the barrel of a gun and keep their mouths shut. I need someone who ignores the urge to run, who knows that they’re a monster, too. Two dead bodies found at the barn. One smashed, one shot. When I close my eyes, I can see myself pulling the trigger, smashing the skull. When I think about it, I can feel her fear and determination. My brow furrows, my lips part. She sits alone in a cell while men she doesn’t know interrogate her. 

“Is that all, Mr. Shelby?”

“Don’t.” I shake my head, a headache stretching between my temples. “Don’t make her talk. Let her wait. I’ll be there.”

“Yessir, Mr. Shelby.”  

“That’s all, Moss. Goodnight.”

I put the phone down and make my way to the bathroom to clean myself off, to rid myself of the smell of other women and spirits and the taste of Grace on my lips. So that she doesn’t smell it, yes, and so that I can forget it ever happened. So that I can wash off the shame and fear and overwhelming sense of loneliness. So that the path I tread doesn’t become beaten. 

—

After I’ve cleaned the wounds on her head, after the blood has been washed off, after the sins of my war have been confessed, she sleeps in the bed next to me. I’m on my back, but my head is tilted. Her eyes flutter beneath her eyelids. Her lips part slightly. Moonlight shines on her skin. A swollen bump grows underneath her chin, skin broken. 

If I could love her, it would be heavy. Something to carry with me. My love, I’ve learned since Grace, has teeth. Maybe it isn’t love. Maybe possession, maybe control. I can grip with clenched, white knuckles. I can force someone to come back to me, not because they want to, because they have to. I want to love her but I doubt that I can. When I try, something hurts, and I cannot tell her where, only that it does.

A desperate part of me that I do not visit often wants to know what it’s like to be consumed. I am always the possessor, not the possessed. I want to be claimed. I want her love to have teeth, like mine, that can show me that my armor is only skin. If she was the one to cut me, I would bleed forever. That desperation believes that, even with Grace’s death, there is a person out there made exactly for me. That desperation believes that the war I fought in might be echoed in someone else’s. That desperation believes that I have found her and I am ruining it. 

I get up from the bed and my body aches. Faint bruises form on my trachea, where Tatiana pressed down. I look at myself in the mirror and empty eyes stare back. There is fear behind them. I want to lay back down with her and forget about last night and tonight and all the regrettable nights I will undoubtedly have until she is brave enough to touch me. 

In three days time I crawl back into a tunnel, deep underneath the earth, with the pressure of the world lying over me, precarious. I brave the underground for the sake of a robbery that could make or break my career. I promised Grace to stay legal. She’s dead. And the company runs.

—

“We have your son. Get in the car.” 

Rain patters on the outside of the car. I’m in a tinfoil box, and my son is out there. “First. Is he safe?”

“Of course he’s safe. All children are dear to me.”

Michael’s voice, his confession, speaks to me from memory. My son, in the hands of men who have little respect for physical boundaries. Who have little respect for children themselves.

“You have all the cards. Tell me what you want me to do, and I will certainly do it.” My words are choked at the ends, not broken, but holding anger and panic. 

“You ever drive one of these beasts?”

“I’m asking you to conduct business.”

“I borrowed it. Lent it. By a lord. For the duration of this business.”

My head bowed, my eyes unblinking, staring forward, waiting for the order that will save my son. I breathe heavily. I have no choice. I have to comply. “I will certainly do what you need me to do with no complaints.”

“We were forced into doing this awful thing. We did warn you that your son would be in danger if you deviated from the plan.” The priest speaks to me like I’m thick, words slow and gentle and pretentious. “It was you who made a mistake, you understand that?”

“Yes.” Anything. Anything to get him back. 

“What mistake did you make? Do you even know?”

Now it’s a game. A show of power. I have no choice. I must comply. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

“You made a deal with our enemies.”

“I will do what needs to be done.” “You went behind our backs to stop the Soviets from blowing up the train. But it’s alright. It’s alright. We’ve rectified your mistake. You ask me ‘what do I need to do?’ Well, here’s what you need to do, you fucking mongrel, you.” He hands me an envelope. I take it with shaking hands. “But since the Bolsheviks will not be blowing up the train, you’ll blow up the train yourself. It’s always been about the explosion. From the beginning. The bang. The outrage. Understand?”

I nod, unable to do anything else. A mechanical movement, trained into me, comply, comply, comply. 

“Those are notes and fragments for you to scatter in the wreckage. Implicating named officials from the Soviet embassy.” 

“I will scatter them. It will be done.” 

“Good. Our friends at the Time and the Daily Mail will do the rest. And once the British government cuts diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, that will be our mission accomplished. You’ll have been part of a fine adventure.” His eyes land on me. I can feel his gaze, despicably soft brown eyes, a red herring. “To help with the outrage, we need people to die in the explosion.” 

I feel nothing. I am an empty shell of a man, puppeteered by a God that despises me. “How many?”

“Let’s say; six? Rail workers, perhaps. Men from the factory.” 

I nod. That's all I can do. “And I want my son returned to me within an hour of the explosion.” 

“Oh, it’s conditions now, is it?” The amusement in his words sends chills down my back. I shift forward.

“We need to fix the handover in advance.” Firmness. Clinging to what little power I have. 

“I haven’t finished with you yet, Mr. Shelby. We also hear you’re digging a tunnel. Mining for precious stones under Wilderness House. I’m told they have a faberge in the strong room. The Lilies Of The Valley Egg, made in 1898. One of the Odd Fellows has a wife who’s obsessed with faberge. He wants to give her the egg for her birthday…”

“He will have it.” Comply.

“And the economic league will take all the jewels that you steal, to cover our considerable expenses. The fight against communism isn’t cheap, you know? So if you want to see your—”

“I will bring you all the jewels.”

“A bang first. Then bring everything you’ve stolen to your office at dawn.” 

I shake my head. “No. No. I’ll not be able to get the jewels to you by dawn. The tunnel has hit clay.”

“If the Saint Andrews clock strikes 5:00 am on the night of the robbery, and we don’t have everything that we’ve asked for, the bell will be tolling for your boy.” 

Thunder rumbles. I nod, closing my eyes. My son. The last piece of Grace I have. 

“Now get out of my fucking car.”

—

A day has passed since I’ve seen her. She has her horses. She’ll think of me when she has the time, wonder where I’ve gone off to. I have no doubt she’ll worry tonight. She’ll pace the room we share and think she’s made a mistake, some blunder that’s chased me away. I think as I drive that this might be the end. My disappearance, my lack of communication, my lies, might be the final straw for her. She knows nothing of the Russians or the Soviets, knows only little of the priest. I’m sure she expects me back when the sun starts to go down. I’m sure her sleep will be fitful or impossible without knowing where I am. 

I won’t be going home tonight. She will rise before dawn, when I crawl out of a tunnel, and she will wonder where I am. Perhaps she’ll call Ada, who’ll tell her nothing. I am Midas. When I touch her, she turns cold, so I don’t. I don’t tell her of the business I conduct because she doesn’t deserve to be part of this bloody fucked up world I’ve created. So, she’ll wake up, and I’ll be gone. No explanation, no contact. And I’ll come home when the sun has risen and I’ll explain nothing. I protect my own. 

I protect my own, but I’ve chosen Charlie over her, and of that I am guilty. 

There’s gray in the sky when I arrive at the tunnel. Johnny Dogs shouts at me, seeking an explanation for my sudden appearance. I shout back something about my boy and the priest and midnight, and before he can stop me, I climb down into the tunnel. 

I don’t feel. I try to chase away the ebb and flow of my head during daylight, above ground, when the danger separates itself from the soldier I used to be. I’ve built a dam between myself and whatever wave of emotion comes crashing in. I can see it come, but I am never drowned by it. Not when I’m on top of the world instead of underneath it. 

I am trapped in a birth canal of mud and the sound of picks against clay. I cannot move in any direction without being pressed against some wall. I watch the only way out disappear behind me. There’s no escape except to complete my mission and pierce through the earth. Some nightmare shakes the earth around me. My heart pounds in my chest. I’m covered by dirt and it staunches the blood from the abrasions; from the axes, from the rough stones, from myself, that mark my shaking body. 

The single lantern flashes shadows and I can hear the Germans against the barrier in front of us. A race against time begins. No apparatus supports us, all we have are pickaxes to eat away at the earth in front of us. Tunnel warfare springs to life, and my head pounds, and the dam is broken. My hands shake and my eyes are wide and there’s no doubt that I am terrified. Doesn’t matter. I can be scared and still work, still function, still complete the business I’ve forced myself into. There are men by my side that inch forward with every second, who I trust, who know the tunnels as damn well as I do. 

I am ripped into being alive. Sensations, doubts, fears, absolute terror, things I have not felt since the war. On hands and knees, chipping away at impossibility, the earth rumbling with soldier’s feet and mines exploding on the no-man’s-land I tunnel beneath. Strangely, there is fear, and next to it a sense of belonging. This is my grave that I dig, and I am meant to die here, underground. This is my home, the first place I learned to run from, the first place I promised myself I would never return. 

One of the men seizes and I do nothing to help him but send him out. On the edge of the shakes myself, I am wired to do nothing but dig. Forcing the wet clay apart, blood and sweat dripping from my forehead, inching forward bit by bit with the other men. 

I remember rot. I remember bodies buried in the clay. I remember the sun being a dream. I remember each shake of the earth a bad omen, each sound of picks on the other side a forewarning to our deaths. God watched idly as I buried myself and other men in a grave I dug myself. We told each other not to listen when we screamed, when we convulsed at night, when we broke from the pressure of the world on our shoulders. 

I can feel sludge beneath me, slipping, and I know I’m going too fast. My men build supports with timber to hold up the earth on weak substructures. Condensation drips onto me. The ground around us shivers, rocks tumble from around the supports, and we pause, waiting, expecting to be buried. Nothing. 

Gasping for breath. Body bruised and battered. Swimming in the suffocating pressure of the earth surrounding us. Trying desperately to dig upwards, to save our own lives. To survive. None of it real, just the sound my picks and the men building supports.  

I reach the end and plant an explosive. Backing away. Blinking the blood and sweat out of my eyes. It goes off, and I expect to be buried but have no time to fear it. Before the smoke clears, I’ve escaped the tunnel, and I can breathe, if only for a moment. My shaking hands scoop jewels into a canvas bag, giving no thought to what I grab, where I grab from. I take and take and take. 

There’s a shout that I don’t have much time. I suck in a breath, snatch blindly at the last few jewels. Crawl back into the tunnel, throwing the bag of jewels in front of me, following the men as they begin the creep back up. 

I’m the last out. The other men have gone to clean themselves up. Panting, I lie in the dirt where I belong, and roll onto my back to stare up at the black sky. My breath fogs the air. Bits of my body stings where the skin was scraped off. And I pant. 

I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. 

—

Somehow, I manage to drive. I don’t see the trees around me, don’t see the grass or the hills, just look straight ahead as my destination grows on the horizon. A single phone booth on the side of the road, resolute. I don’t turn off the car, stepping out and walking unsteadily over to it. I place a coin in, turn the handle, and wait. 

“Let me speak to him,” I say.

My son’s babbling fills the phone and I smile. “Hello, Charlie.” 

He’s unharmed. He’s safe. The nightmare, for now, is over. A lump forms in my throat and I don’t understand it. I’m smiling. I’m relieved. My hand shakes. There’s extra liquid in my eyes. 

“Hello, Charlie,” I say again. He responds with a quiet dadda and nothing else. 

“Can you hear me?” I sniffle and fend off the rising pressure in my chest, holding it off until I’m done, until I know he’s safe. 

He mumbles something about being tired and I smile again, heart simultaneously filling and being stabbed with something cold. “Yeah. You go to bed. Good boy.” 

The call ends and I put the phone down. Something in me bends and bends and bends and then, finally, snaps. My brow furrows and I squeeze my eyes shut and a small sob wracks my body. 

It was a success. My son is safe. The jewels are ready. I should be fucking grateful that I survived this. That we survived this. 

There’s a sense in me that there was no success, only what appears to be one. There’s a sense in me that tells me I’ve pushed those I want close further and further from me. There’s a sense that I will never be the man I hope to be because it’s hard when I’m always fucking unwanted. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel unless I blow it up. There’s no joy to be had unless I force it. 

And I sob, because I feel everything. There’s an ache in my chest and a hole in my heart. There’s pain through my body and a horrible loneliness in my head. There’s relief, pure and unadulterated, and there’s terror lingering from the tunnel, images flashing through my mind of what burned itself into my mind in France. Claustrophobia burns through me. I sob over what I’ve destroyed like I want to stop and worship it, and soon, I’ll be back with a pick in my hand and explosives waiting. 

My son has grown up barely knowing me because I’m consumed by business. My heart has been broken too many times and I fear that it will never be made whole. I am a soldier with only the cause of ambition to guide me. And I feel everything, even though I try to hide it. 

I take a breath, pressing my eyes closed, then pull myself together and straighten. I call her. I suspect she won’t pick up, but I try anyway. 

There’s a click and her voice, distorted by the distance, says my name in a tone I can only describe as fearful. “Tommy?”

“Yes,” I say, words still choked. 

“Where have you been?” Not steady, not brave, not the tone I know from her. 

“Business.” It’s the only explanation I can give. 

“Business? For two days straight?” 

“Yes. For two days straight. You need to know who I am.” I squeeze the earpiece, stopping my voice from wavering. “You need to know that I can’t give you what you want.”

There’s quiet on the other end of the phone. My hand continues to shake.

“What happened?” The fear is gone, in its place, worry.

“Nothing happened,” I lie. “Do you understand me? I can’t be the one you need. You think I’m going to change but those fuckers out there are worse than I am.” 

“I’ve never wanted you to change. I’ve never asked for that. And no one can be everything to someone. I’m not expecting that from you. I just want you to tell me when you’re going to be gone like this.” 

“They’ve issued an arrest for my family and I have to let it happen.” 

“What?” 

“For my brothers, for Pol, for Esme and Linda. I made the wrong enemies.” Please, forget about me, choose to leave. “You should go before it all goes to shit.”

“Tommy. I’m not going. I’m staying with you. You’ve made a mistake, that doesn’t mean I’m going to abandon you. I told you I would forgive your rottenness and I plan to keep that promise.” Her voice is strained. “Tom, just come home, we can talk—”

“I’ve gotten mixed up in something too big for me.” I close my eyes, a small tear dripping out. “I won’t have a family after this.”

“Thomas Shelby, I swear to God, if you don’t come home, I’m tracking you down and dragging you here myself. Okay? So get back in your car and drive your ass home. You’re gonna be fine, you’re not gonna end up without a family. You’re going to be fine.” Her voice softens towards the end and I feel myself drawn towards her, despite everything. “You won’t be alone.”

“I fucked another woman.”

“That doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. Quit trying to make excuses for me to leave you. Come home, we’ll calm you down, and we’ll talk about it.” 

“My brothers told them where you were. The attack was my fault.”

“I get what’s happening here. Something scared you, and you think you’re hurting everyone around you, so you’re self-sabotaging. Come home. That’s all I want. Don’t you want to give me what I want?” 

I do. I always want to give her what she wants. There are better men out there who could love her. There are better people who could protect her without making the mistakes I did. 

They’ll have to get through me, though. 

“I’ll come home.” I open my eyes and blink hard, ridding them of their bleariness. “I’m not the man you want, love.”

“So you keep saying.” Her words grow wry. “You forget that you don’t get to tell me what I want. And I want you. I don’t know how to make that any clearer to you.” 

I nod and give in to the words she speaks. “Okay.”

“I’ll see you soon, Tom. Yes?”

“Yes. Goodbye.” 

I put the phone down. This shallow world, this twisted and broken body I live in, this mind that I cannot control, somehow she is a master of all of it. Somehow she puts me at ease. Love, I think, is two people inspiring each other to live. And she gives me a reason, and she stays by my side. 

Dawn breaks, and I walk back to my car in silence. 

[my-names-angel-but-im-not-one]

Replaced or not?

Part-1 Part-2

Based on my mc!!

⚠️ Note ⚠️:

Not a replaced au!Obey me au!

Also belphie wasn't locked in the attic!!

We don't have pacts with brothers this all is new!!

Summary: Here not only you but one more candidate was called as two human was required to compare and diavolo didn't considered Solomon as a human.

You

Her . The girl you hate ,the fucking I'm cute , pretty n good at everything , from your school "run-hai".

Pairing: obey me characters x Mc!

"Run hai let's go play this game!!"

"run hai would u like to try this nail paint i got from mojolish!!"

"Run hai why don't u came and sleep with me instead or go to hells kitchen"

Run hai this Run hai that, Run hai , Run hai Run hai

' They're all so fucking entranced by her , just because of her looks AUGH I Fucking Hate this' you thought .

Run hai was another candidate that was bought to devildom to survive . Everyone thought of her as a cute rabbit trying to survive. But you knew her true colors. She was from the same school as you after all. She was the girl who'd put even her bff at the alter just to get boys after her . She'd act all shy and tiny but you know her better.

Run hai was not a rabbit but a bug that'll go into your brain and eat it inside out .

Run hai was pretty no doubt . With a baby face , long brown wavy hair, light brown pretty eyes pink cheeks , pretty pink lips and more than average boobs and ass. Some may call her an angel.

Whereas you , you were not so eye catching, sure you were pretty too some may even call you gorgeous but only if they look hard and clear.

Short black hair almost about above your ears, black eyes, pale color, and thin but pink lips. You were skinny, so much that one would think that your malnutritious , but you do have a hourglass shape though. And in contrast to Run hai's small and petite curvy body , your's were tall and less curvy giving you a rather mature look.

([A/N]: i have described in detailed because it's my mc )

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

You sighed thinking that how these bunch of demons are so easily getting tricked by a mere human .

They didn't ignored you , no ( that only made it hard for you to leave them on their own) they treated you okay but they do prefer her over you.

The only person who supported you more and absolutely tried their best stay away from her was Diavolo , Barbatos 'barbatos said it was a time thingy thing'

Simeon, luke as they're angels so know when they see an evil soul, and Solomon he said "it takes one to know one". Well according to Solomon she's super shady to which you agreed .

Satan also have his assumptions about her as to he can sense emotions very clear and he had seen Simeon flinched whenever she's near. What can a human do to make an angel flinch??

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

You were getting tired of their lovey dovey time so you slammed your book shut as loudly as you can and went upstairs.

"What's up with her ?" Asmo said .

"Maybe she's tired of you all neglecting her" satan said angry at everyone , you were the only one who saw him for him . He knew that run hai was a bad person whe she said "you're just like Lucifer so nice~"

"We're not neglecting her we all talk to her on daily basis" Levi said irritated.

"Yeah only when you have to wait in a line so you just ask her to be their , and Lucifer just talks to her about her grades , asmo only acknowledges her when he want her to model for his dresses , mammon continuosly ask for Grimm , beel just asks her for food, and belphie, let's not forget you hate humans , you think she's a pest!!!"

Satan bursted out and all the brothers started feeling bad and guilty....Run hai saw this and tried to get their attention back "uhh or maybe she's just overreacting , she'll be alright!!" she said but no one listen . She Failed in trying to get their attention but do succeed in making Lucifer suspicious of her .

'Something's wrong with her' (yeah GOOD MORNING Lucifer).

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

Satan reached your room and knocked

"you know you're allowed with knocking"

"how'd you know?"

"you always knock 4 times and in a rhythm"

".......sharp..."

"yeah cause you basically forced me to watch those detective movies with you"

He sat behind you watching your frown adorned face. "Don't worry about them they are idiots" you replied with a "i know....but still we can't just leave them to be a prey" " they're demons MC they won't be hurt ......at least not that bad" "hey!" . You then started to reason with him " You know she's not a good person" "i do....but stop worrying 'bout those who take you for granted "

"hmm....maybe you're right, I've my pride too yk!!"

"ehh don't say pride please..."

"ok huehuehue"

"what kind of laugh is that" satan laughed at your funny laughing style.

"it's called cat laugh!!"

"......wtf!!"

You both laughed a full bloom laugh , like kids in a playground. While Mammon was standing outside your door....,who heard all that......

To be continued.....

[A/N]: This is based on my dream i dreamt that i was summoned to obey me's world but the pick me bitch of my school was also there so i created it !! Hope you liked it!!

Also Run hai is pronounced as "Roon haaye"

Thanks for reading!!

[justrainandcoffee]

Invaluable (Alfie Solomons x fem!oc) + (Tommy Shelby) Part 2 of 2.

First part - Alfie x Rose masterlist

Summary: Alfie knows Father Hughes and makes a deal that it's going to end bad ||. Tommy learns that it's Alfie who betrayed him. || Mrs. Solomons goes to Arrow House.

Warnings: None. Although, it contains angst.

Words: 4k.

1924

Tuesday -4pm

Rose found her ring, the one she gave to Tommy and he gave to Alfie the previous day, inside her car under the seat. Probably it fell when she and Alfie had sex there the previous night.

She remembered very well the day he gave it to her as present. It was 1903 and it was a gift for their first anniversary together. They were still very young, only 15, and their first time wasn't even close to happen, and yet the love they had for each other was already there. Back then, Alfie was working in that old bakery and used part of his salary to buy that ring to her. Even at that age, Alfie always talked about how Rose deserved more than a cheap ring. Rose's response was always the same: she didn't needed that.

That ring was part of her for the last 21 years and she wasn't ready to lose it. Smiling, she put it on before returning to her house where Alfie was. He was out since midday and she was willing to spend some time with him alone in their house now they were together again.

"Did ya find it?" he asked watching her entering the house again.

"I did. I wonder how it ended under the seat," she said chuckling.

"The fairies. Because we definitely did nothing inside your car."

"Yeah," she smiled at him "That's what I thought."

Alfie opened his arms and she accepted the invitation to be next to him.

"I can't believe you're still having this," he said holding her hand in his and stroking her finger where the ring was. "It cost me around 20 pennies."

"So? You still have the vest I sewed for you also 20 years ago and you could punch anyone who says that's old and ugly."

"Yes, but's different, luv. You made it it's special. This one I bought it in an antique shop that no longer exists. I can buy you a bigger ring with diamonds in a rose, if you like, little diamonds shining like stars."

"Oh, Al, sweetheart… fuck. I love you. You did buy me several of those and I really love them because they're perfect. But sometimes it's not the price, it's the meaning."

"Yeah. I know. The meaning it's what matters."

Alfie held her against his chest in silence while he was thinking.

Father Hughes was a despicable man. For being a man of God his values were worse than his, at least Alfie wasn't outside in the world pretending to be a good man. But there were things worse than greed and thirst for power. And maybe, if Alfie had known the kind of man that Hughes really was, he wouldn't have talked to him.

But it was too late.

"What do you want, Mr. Solomons? Something tells me that you and I, we have nothing in common." Hughes stared at him. It was very unusual for a Jewish man make a deal with someone like him, especially if the Jewish man was the infamous King of Camden Town. "Isn't your wife member of a left political party, Mr. Solomons? The Independent Labour Party. The ILP, follows the ideas of Marx. Your wife is a fucking communist, Solomons. Do you know what that means?" Hughes mimicked a hangman. "I studied everyone around Thomas Shelby, including you. Gladly for you, your woman is barely an assistant."

Alfie pursed his lips. He'd feel the gun in his waist and it could take it just a second to shoot at the priest. 'Barely an assistant' was a stupid way to describe the active participation she had in the ILP. And even stupider to describe Rose and her love for political activities. But Alfie ignore that for his own good, but especially for hers.

"Ain't here to talk about women and their jobs, Hughes" Alfie said, "I'm here to talk about a robbery," he said to the priest "Thomas Shelby and his men are planning one."

Hughes was in front of him dressed as a priest. But the Devil took many forms, including the form of religious people. So when Alfie talked and shook his hand with him, the deal with the Devil was sealed.

"Where did you go today, Al?" Rose asked, noticing his silence. A silence that she knew very well and had nothing to do with a quiet moment in peace.

"I needed to finish some business."

"With the Russians?"

"No, I didn't see the Russians. I'm not going to ever again."

"Alfie. Where did you go today?"

Her husband sighed. "To a Church, okay? Since when do you ask me so many questions about my work?"

"Since I feel that something is very wrong."

"I know how to handle my own life, sweetheart. I'm a big boy."

"I hope so, Alfie. I hope so."

.

Friday - 3pm.

Tommy's world was upside down. It was worse than he imagined. It shouldn't have ended that way. His little son lost his mother and now he was taken away from him.

He felt the disgrace breathing on his neck. He never considered himself a lucky man, despite his efforts to climb to the top of the mountain, he knew lucky wasn't something that was in his own dictionary. He was powerful, rich, feared, smart but not lucky in any way. And Hughes and his people kidnapping Charlie was the proof of that.

All roads lead to Rome. Or in this case, to Alfie. His wife was right. Rose Solomons was right when she said that Alfie was a bomb ready to explode the moment Tommy put him near the Russians.

And also was right when she said he was an opportunist. Alfie saw the opportunity to have what he wanted and took it. Tommy asked himself, as he and Michael were going to see him, if Alfie knew from the beginning what he was doing.

It was always complicated to deal with Alfie but this wasn't just another day. This was way more serious than that.

Fucking Alfie Solomons and his long monologues. Tommy saw him in front of him with one of his men at his right. Leaning on his cane for support and acting as if everything in the world was okay. Yet, Tommy said nothing.

Business started the way they use to start: good. The usual.

The Londoner didn't mention a thing until Tommy started to confront him.

"… It was you who told them about the tunnel. You told them about the fucking deal with the Soviets. You gave information in exchange for a share…"

"Tommy, Tommy… there were things in that fuckin' treasury that God himself he spoke to me and he said ‘Alfie, you're meant to have those things’." Alfie looked at him and added "I told you I was going to find another way. She deserves it."

"You crossed the line, Alfie."

"You fucking what?"

"You crossed the line."

"The line?"

"They're using my boy!" finally shouted Tommy.

Alfie opened his mouth but said nothing. For a second Tommy saw the confusion in the other man's eyes and Tommy knew in that brief second, no matter what Alfie said later, that he didn't know about Charlie. He never knew. Yet, it was too late to stop it because the leaders were angry for very different reasons but that ended in the same point. Both were capable of doing everything for their beloved ones and both were equally dangerous, knowing what kind of game they were involved in. After killing Alfie's man, everything exploded and even when Michael tried to stop them, the tension between them reached the highest point.

"I do not want him to spare me because of some fucking peace pact. I want him to acknowledge that his anger is un-fucking justified! I want him to acknowledge that he who fights by the sword, he fucking dies by it, Tommy. So what, they took your boy did they, eh? They have got your boy? What fucking "line" am I supposed to have crossed? How many fathers, right, how many sons, yeah, have you cut, killed, murdered fucking butchered, innocent and guilty? You are going straight to fucking hell, ain't ya? Just like me! You fucking stand there, you, judging me, stand there and talk to me about crossing some fucking line. If you pull that trigger, right, you pull that trigger for a fucking honourable reason. Like an honourable man, not like some fucking civilian that does not understand the wicked way of our world, mate."

"Look, Tommy, the killing of Alfie Solomons is not going to help. This will be very bad for business." Michael, nervous, kept trying to keep the order.

"Michael, go and call Inspector Moss. Tell him it's Palmer. Well said, Alfie. Well said."

"I did not know about your boy, though."

"I know. I saw."

Alfie stayed there for some time alone with his thoughts and a dead man on his feet. The adrenaline was still running through his veins. He did what he had to do, because he wanted that necklace, even the Fabergé. But never wanted a little kid be abducted by some crazy priest that now he stopped to think, maybe he did more than teach them how to pray. Never.

Next Monday. 9am

Alfie raised his eyes from his papers when he heard his office's door opening. The figure of Thomas Shelby appeared in front of him and Alfie gestured to the free chair in front of him, inviting the man to take a seat.

Tommy lit a cigarette and drop a black velvet bag in over his papers.

Inside, Alfie found a precious diamond necklace. A real one and one of the most expensive that was in the vault. He put it in his hands to look at it more closely.

"Hope it's enough," Tommy said. "You don't deserve a shit, Alfie. But I understand that you want the best for your wife and I'm no one to judge it."

"How's your boy?"

"Safe and Hughes is dead."

"Good. I'm glad the little one is fine. Tommy, I never…"

"I know. But next time, instead coming to you with a diamond necklace, I'm going to do it with a bullet and I'm going to put it in your head."

"She'll kill ya."

"I know. That's the best thing that would happen to me. But if you don't want her to end selling her soul by killing me, better watch where you're stepping, Alfie."

Both men stayed in silence for some minutes. Alfie put the necklace in his pocket and Tommy finished the cigarette.

"Section D is after my family."

"Fuckin' hell, Tommy, what're you going to do?"

"Play their game. And make some dealings with powerful people. Even powerful than them."

"Go and save 'em, then."

"Yes. And you take care of Rose."

"I will. Tommy… Sorry."

Same Monday. 6pm

Alfie opened the bedroom and found his wife taking off her shoes ready to enjoy her time at home after a long day working.

"Al, you came. How was your day?"

"Better than expected, sweetheart. I've something for ya. Just closed your eyes, will ya?"

The woman smiled curiously at him "What do you have, Alfie?"

"Close your eyes."

His evident happiness, made her to smile even more and followed his orders. "Better you don't have a dead mouse in your hands, Alfie."

He couldn't help but laugh out loud. They were around seven years old when Alfie wanted to prank her but ended with Rose crying of fear and Alfie being reprimanded by his mother. Alfie understood that day for the first time the consequences of his actions and never again made her cry, not even once.

"I promise is something better, luv."

Rose felt him behind her and how first he placed some kisses on her neck and then the unmistakable sensation of a necklace over her skin. And in that moment her mind started to race.

"Alfie…"

"Don't ask."

Rose opened her eyes again when she felt that Alfie stepped back. The mirror in front of her showed a precious diamond necklace that she hated to admit it was too precious and looked really good on her. But she knew very well where that came from.

"How do you get it?"

"Deal with Tommy. Rosie, you look beautiful. I knew you'd even more beautiful than ever with one of these gems. I knew."

Alfie approached her again and kissed her. "It looks way better in you than in them. It's not like they're going appreciate it either. It was one of those they had in the bottom of the box. Too beautiful to be there, too beautiful. And now it's yours, Rosie."

"Tell me this has nothing to do with Tommy's boy, Alfie."

She knew what happened to Charles Shelby because Alfie told her, after she found him being a mess in the living room after the encounter with Tommy.

"Our boy would have been the same age as him today. Just a baby, Rosie. Just a baby."

Charlie Shelby and their unborn baby, Joshua, would have been friends even in the future. But that was something that never going to happen.

She wanted to yell at him for being so impulsive, so stupid to believe Hughes' intentions. She knew he was going to lose his mind because of the russians but she never imagined Alfie doing an alliance with a man who was ready to send to hell all people opposite to his beliefs.

"I didn't want to harm a baby, Rosie."

"I know. I know, but Alfie- what you did…"

"I fucking know, Rose! I don't need to be scolded right now! I almost killed a baby."

"No, Alfie… I don't think- Fuck, I don't know. But it doesn't matter now, the baby is fine. Isn't he? He's with his dad and family. Don't punish yourself, you didn't know. But, fuck, Alfie I need to say this: what the hell were you thinking?!"

"I just wanted the best for you."

It was a horrible situation because she couldn't believe Alfie went after a monster disguised as priest only because he wanted more than Tommy offered in the beginning and just because of her. But she couldn't be mad at him because her husband felt miserable and her heart ached watching him like that.

But the proof that Tommy accepted and Alfie got what he wanted was around her neck now.

"I shouldn't accept this, Al."

"Tommy took it. Not Hughes, not the section D, not Romanov…it's Tommy. He's my friend, Rosie. And he appreciates you, otherwise, he'd never done that."

"I'm not sure."

"Rosie, luv… it's for you."

She looked at him. His eyes were shining and this Alfie being happy in front of her was so different from the one she saw nights ago drowing in guilt that she nodded.

"Promise me, that this is the last time you risk everything just because of me, Alfie."

"I won't promise that. You know I can't promise that."

"I don't want to bury you, Al."

"You won't."

Rose nodded, still feeling a lump in her throat. Alfie hugged her from behind and kissed the top of her head. "Do you want to go to a restaurant so you can show this beautiful necklace to the world?"

"Yes. It'd be nice. It'll help us to think about other things, too."

One of the best restaurants that London had, received them that night. It's not like Rose completely accepted the gift, but understood that it was too late to do other thing. She needed to do something soon, but for now she decided to relax -it was well deserved after the mentally draining week she lived- and doing it in hands of her husband while dancing it was a good way to do it. And Alfie was happy and his good mood was enough for her to make her smile.

A week later. Early afternoon.

Arrow House seemed to be empty and quiet except for some birds chirping.

Rose parked her car in the entrance and walked to the door where an old housekeeper received her.

"Good morning, ma'am. Is Mr. Shelby, here? I'm Mrs. Solomons."

"Yes, Mrs. Solomons, please come in. I'm going to announce Mr. Shelby that you're here."

"You're too kind. Thank you."

Arrow House was very similar in size and decorations to her former manor and she didn't like at all. The house that Alfie and she had in London was big without being a manor and was enough for them. And soon, they were going to arrange everything to buy the house of their dreams in Margate, next to the sea. Honestly, Rose couldn't wait to leave the city and moved there for good.

The manor was invaded by ghosts, figuratively speaking. The ghosts of short happy moments and the ghost of eternal sadness and melancholy. Laughs and sobs mixed and trapped in the walls torturing everyone there. She wondered if Tommy was going to end losing his mind inside there because it was impossible to survive living there. Also hate. That house was full of hate. His family hates him, a voice in her head told Rose.

And that was probably true.

"I need to go outside," she said to Frances again. "There's a place I can sit there?"

Frances nodded, surprised by her requirement. "Is everything alright, Mrs. Solomons?"

"I just need fresh air, please."

"Yes. Of course, follow me."

.

Tommy found her sitting at the table he had in the garden. The trees full of reddish golden leaves were behind her and their branches move with the wind. A teapot and some biscuits were on the table but the woman didn't touch them, yet.

"Mrs. Solomons…"

"Mr. Shelby," she said extending her hand and Tommy shook it softly.

"I'm a bit surprised…"

"Yes, I know. I know. You know why I'm here."

"I suspect it, yes," Tommy sat in a chair next to her and lit a cigarette "you owed me nothing, Rose."

"It's not about owing or not, Tommy. It's about what happened. Alfie doesn't know I'm here. He's too fucking proud and that's probably his worst trait. I can only imagine what he said to you, but Tommy, he didn't know about your boy."

"I know. I saw it."

"Alfie can be difficult," Rose said stirring her tea "but he's not like the men I know you know. Or the men I also know. Those fucking assholes. When he knew about little Charlie, the only thing he imagined that your boy would've been ours. And that was horrible enough to mark him forever. And me too," she looked at the man in front of her, "I need to know, that this necklace isn't a way to remember him that he owes you something. I don't want Alfie looking at this fucking thing and remember constantly that Charlie was kidnapped because of him. Or because of me."

"That necklace is a way to say that I always deliver my promises. And it's not for him, it's for you."

Rose snorted " Is this a kind of threat?"

"No. I don't do that."

"You didn't promise me anything, Tommy."

"Just took that necklace as gratitude for your warning that Alfie was a time bomb. You were right. Your ring calmed him just when it was necessary."

"I have very bad feelings about everything. Just things that are in my mind and I can't let it go. I'm going to say this frankly speaking as the adults we both are, Thomas: if this necklace means Alfie is in danger because of you, then you can take it back and give it to someone else. Your aunt, some maid or the Virgin Mary. I don't fucking care. Some diamonds aren't going to buy my Alfie's life."

"It all depends on him, Rose. I warned him and I'm warning you, too. Next time he betrays me, I'm going to kill him and I know the consequences of it. If you came here just because a gift, I know you're going to come here to kill me and it's a risk I'm accepting very well."

"All actions have consequences."

"Maybe next time I should make business with you, Rose and not Alfie. Rumours say you're running to be a MP."

"I'm on it, but not yet. And if you want to make business with me you need to give me more than the promise of the balls of Churchill and the King themselves served in a golden tray, Tommy."

The man smirked "I'm going to think about it, then."

Rose stood up and took two cookies from the plate on the table "for the journey back," she said. "There's nothing more to say."

Tommy accompanied her to her car and both of them passed in front of the house.

"Beautiful place," she said "but bad vibes."

"It's just a house."

"Yes, but not a home. Goodbye, Mr. Shelby."

Rose started the engine and soon Tommy and Arrow House were left behind. The cold autumnal air entering through the window helped her to breathe again. She couldn't wait to see Alfie again lost herself in his arms. Maybe the ideas in her head could disappear as soon she was in London again.

But she wasn't sure and Tommy returning inside his house either. Mrs. Solomons was right, Arrow House wasn't what he dreamt of. And now that he was alone just with his son, could only think about it. The had lost his wife and probably his family, in certain way, too. The most invaluable things he had in his life.

When she finally arrived at London, she went directly to Alfie who was reading near the fireplace. For some minutes they kissed eachother, like they didn't see in ages. They only pulled apart when she heard something that sounded like someone was crying.

"Oh, my god…" she said, discovering the source of those sounds. A brown young puppy, was looking at her from a dog bed, near Alfie's sofa. "Sweetheart, you didn't…"

"I did, luv. It was time, right? After our ol'Fancy said goodbye I thought it was time to fill that spot. His name is Cyril. He's three months old."

Cyril wagged his tail when he heard his name and Rose couldn't help but smile. Suddenly, all those fears evaporated when she was there with her husband and their new dog. The rest of the day, suddenly, it was incredible better.

In Arrow House, Tommy kissed Charlie's head who was sleeping in his crib.

In his bedroom it was just him and his own regrets.

Luca Changretta was ready to appear in his life and indirectly, in Rose's life too. Because tragedy knows nothing about pain, Tommy was about to lose a very close beloved one. And for Rose, her most invaluable thing was going to be damaged forever.

[evita-shelby]

The Wandering

summary: the Nelsons visit the Wandering Jew on Halloween and Rose makes the mistake of asking Eva to investigate the ghost as well as the strange vibe the hotel has.

cw: mentions of injuries and blood, fascism, drinking and unsafe witchcraft, cheating

rose and alfie(as well as their stories) belong to @justrainandcoffee

Their first trip after the pandemic was to London to visit Katie and her husband.

Its Halloween and because they don’t want to make things awkward with his sister and her husband ---because Eva has baby fever after seeing his baby niece---, they stay at the Wandering Jew.

They knew the owners, Rose and Alfie even if neither Jack nor Alfie could stand each other. They were more Eva and Katie’s friends than his and suddenly he and Alfie are sharing a rum bottle because Rose swears there’s a ghost in this place and Eva dabbles in witchcraft.

Jack wouldn’t lie and say he doesn’t believe her if their room and the hall it was didn’t give him a nauseating sense of déjà vu.

The painting with a red bearded knight and the lady that reminded him of Eva had been the first, then the dent on the simple candleholder felt like he’d been the one to drop it and the bed board ,to top it all off, had their initials in a heart with today’s date.

“Do you think it’s safe?” Alfie asks Jack who he assumes knows the answer as he takes another candy from the obnoxiously huge bag of Halloween candy they’d brought from the States at Rose’s request.

“Fuck if I know.” Jack takes a swig of the rum bottle having no fucking clue what this will bring.

And then they woke up alone in the waiting room with a hangover. The Hotel looked the same when he went upstairs to his room expecting to find a sleeping Eva who’s going to tease him for getting blackout drunk last night.

The door opens to reveal a medieval castle, Eva dressed exactly like the woman in the painting and talking like she’s in a Shakespearean play. And because he thought it was just a crazy sex dream, he let Princess Eva led him to the bedroom only to find himself alone and back in the hall of the Wandering Jew.

Not only that he is wearing the heavy steel armor, but the red beard he’d kill to grow out like that and even worse, completely sober.

Had to be a dream, must’ve been the rum, the candy and the takeout they had last night.

“Fucking hell, what sort of ritual did Evie do?” Alfie, dressed in simple medieval clothes, appears from a different room.

One moment they’re trying to communicate with the ghost haunting the place and the next Eva’s the princess in the painting.

She’d assumed it was a dream and didn’t stop the Knight from trying to fuck her and calling her his wife. After all, it was Jack in the armor and of course she’d be turned on by him in 17th century armor. Then she went out the door to see the rest of the castle only to find herself dressed in the same clothes the knight was supposed to be taking off her.

A little disappointing, to be honest, Knight!Jack had promised to go down on her and it’s been so long since Jack had his beard that long.

“Am I dreaming? I was just in the most beautiful cottage, and I was going to go outside to see Alfie and now I’m back here, wearing this!” Rose is still dazed from whatever she saw. “Where are we?”

“I have no fucking clue.” The witch answered wanting to know if she can go back to that fantasy she just left. Taking Rose’s hand to try something, she opens Rose’s door.

It is not the medieval cottage she’d described. This time they are in none other than the motherfucking Titanic. They don’t even have time to admire their beautiful clothes as they run behind Alfie hoping to get off the fucking boat.

But they can’t get on that boat, they came through a door and any door there would return them to dry land in the haunted hotel. In a moment of confusion, they leave Alfie Solomons and stumble out of the hotel room wearing the clothes of high society women in 1912.

If there was a way to keep them, Eva would do it in a heartbeat. Still, she throws the jewelry into the vase just in case.

“I hope the next one is in the modern world.” Jack complains as they walk back to the hall from the magical woodland they left.

They were dressed in fantasy-medieval-esque clothing, it was not the steel armor but the American’s breeches were a little too snug and he looked like fucking Fabio complete with long flowing locks while Alfie looked more comfortably dressed.

Alfie doesn’t change much; Jack just moments ago had a sick ass beard covered in his normal body hair and now he’s as smooth as a fucking dolphin.

“Next time Evie does her voodoo shit, I’m kicking the two of you out of my hotel.” Alfie stares at his hand in amazement considering he’d been bleeding sparkly red blood from the thrones because the door chucked him straight onto the thorns.

“That’s not my fault, your wife convinced her to do it.” The Bostonian points out missing his scruff and buzz cut. “Should’ve booked a normal hotel room when she wasn’t looking, could’ve been making Gina a cousin instead of trapped in fucking limbo.”

“When did Katie have a kid?” Alfie asks, thinking they’d somehow missed that thanks to the pandemic.

Jack had been wonderfully spared Laurie’s second wedding and only seen his and Caroline’s IVF journey whenever he was looking at their Instagram over Eva’s shoulder.

But of course, they had to meet the baby for the baptism ---Jack was the godfather because Laurie has no real friends--- and Eva had to bring up having one of their own. After all they were pestered by everyone about the topic and then Eva later brought it up knowing he’d agree to give it a try.

“Laurie, my half-brother in New York.” Jack clarified as they headed towards the next door.

The doors on the left were Jack’s, the doors on the right were Alfie’s, or so they figured after they walked into Alfie’s fantasy shit.

“The racist one?” the Jew asks having heard what a piece of shit Jack’s older brother is from Katie and Rose who met him once in New York.

“What other brother do I have?” Jack doesn’t bother hiding it anymore, Laurie always opened his trap and ruined every first impression anyways. “Hopefully baby Gina won’t take after him.”

They enter the door; Jack is dressed like Laurie and has more pomade in his hair than when grandpa dressed him for church on Sundays as a kid.

A tall blonde woman looking eerily like Carrie with Laurie’s bad vibes takes him by the arm and introduced him to an English couple and Ada Throne, Eva’s museum curator ex-girlfriend who happened to be Tommy Shelby’s sister. As if they hadn’t seen the fucker in Alfie’s past doors twice already.

Alfie’s swing at the man and shoves off the blonde woman beside him calling him slurs.

“Where did you even dig up this thing, uncle? I thought you wanted to fascists in your pocket?” Gina asks and Jack drags Alfie back out the door wondering where the fuck Eva was.

“Nazis! Your niece was introducing you to fucking Oswald Mosely and his bitch of a wife, Lady Hitler!” Alfie is breathing hard and reeling from what went on inside the room.

How do you even begin to explain that?

“Why do you have a crucifix?” the American points at the last thing he expected Alfred Solomons to have.

Alfie looks at the thing in confusion before tossing it as far away from him as he could.

“Cutest fucking baby I’ve seen. Makes me wanna have one.” Eva talks Rose’s ear off as they open the door to Eva’s side and reveal a horde of screaming kids at a birthday party and Jack nowhere to be found.

The witch shuts the door and opens it again several times hoping to change the scene. But it doesn’t and instead both women brace themselves because at least they can get cake out of this.

It’s loud, Eva’s being hugged by several children who look like her and Jack and the calendar says 1930.

She knows this place, it’s in Cape Cod and the home to the political family that shares her husband’s last name. And sure, Jack looks like the guy who bought it and sired seven influential people that included two presidents, but it shouldn’t mean they are the same fucking people.

For fuck's sake Eva’s family was related to them. Well, had a common ancestor, Eva is no blood relation to the Nelson family. Evita Nelson ---whom she’s named after--- was her great-grandfather, Francisco Riley’s, first cousin.

But there it is, a portrait of the family with Eva wearing the same locket she has on now. She hadn’t noticed that on every door they step through it never changes, like Rose’s ring.

“These are our past lives. The hotel isn’t haunted, it knows us.” The witch turns to her friend who looks at the ring on her hand coming to the same conclusion. “It’s trying to tell us.”

“We’re soulmates?” Rose asks her, not meaning them but meaning their two respective relationships. “Like born to find each other in every lifetime, like the movies?”

“Only one way to find out.” They leave the seaside manor and return to the hotel.

The rooms are in chronological order, starting with the Renaissance Era and now in the 1930s. Eventually they would reach the modern era, and this would fucking end on November 1st, All Soul’s Day.

“Have you noticed Rose wears the same ring and Eva the same locket?” Alfie asks having formed a new theory after they left a beach house in Margate where his ex-boyfriend shot him in the fucking face.

“Shelby appears half as much, I know the two of you fucked the prick, but that can’t mean he’s your soulmate.” Jack points out, as they take a break between doors.

Jack had gone to his and woken up in the same bed with Eva wearing nothing but the locket and teasing him for carving their names in the hotel’s bed.

It had been October 31, 1924.

Then he’d found himself appearing on a beach with Rose clutching to a barely breathing Alfie. Had Jack not hauled the injured man to his house, Alfie Solomons from the 21st century would’ve died in 1924.

“An eternal thorn in my side, then.” The Jewish man jokes and looks in the mirror to find his face whole. “How did you end up in Margate with me?”

“Opened the bathroom door at the Ritz-Carelton in 1924 to take a piss and ended up inside the house. Apparently in Halloween 1924, I came to London on business and carved our initials on the bed board drunk as hell.” The Boston native answered and looked at the clock, it was just a few minutes shy of midnight.

Before that door he’d been an Irish immigrant in New York coming home with the candleholder that fell from his hands and dented right where the one in the hotel had it. Alfie claimed there had been floating subtitles, but Jack used what little Gaelige he knew from his grandparents to get by.

But that made them figure out they’re moving towards the present from the past, and because it was getting closer to morning, they’d soon end up back in 2024.

“The distillery in 1919 became your hotel, in 1924 you sold it and moved to the wherever the fuck that beach was---” the American goes over what they’ve learned so far.

“Margate, where I got some of the things at a shop there.” Alfie supplied and added to the list, “Even Rose’s ring. Where did you buy the locket?”

“Antique shop in Boston, had our initials on the back. Jack Nelson, who I was named after, was from the South End too, had a wife named Eva, and now I’m thinking these may have been our past lives.” Now that he says it out loud it feels obvious. All of them had the same names ---except Martin Feeney--- come to think of it.

“If we weren’t stuck in this place, I would’ve told you, you’d lost it, Yankee.”

They tried to sleep and see if they woke up and yet the door tossed them in the 1980s where they look great as hell and are, apparently, anarchists.

Since the jewelry from the Titanic hadn’t disappeared ---even if Eva forgot about putting it there in the first place--- Eva tossed the lighter she took from biker!Jack to keep as a memento from this never-ending night. She had taken several things each time and ,with any luck, would get to take them all home.

“We should be getting to the end; our present selves would be born less than a decade after that.” Eva yawns and wonders how their guys are doing. She’d be surprised if they hadn’t killed each other yet.

“Have you noticed Tommy is in most of mine, and in that one from yours in the 20s?” Rose asks, worried that Tommy may be Alfie’s soulmate just as much as she is.

“Yep, I wish he weren’t, but I guess he is also part of this.” the witch didn’t feel like racking her brain about this, she was tired, she wanted Jack to make her feel small and safe and keep her from feeling cold in this fucking weather. You’d think she’d get used to the cold now that her permanent residence is in Boston, but Eva can’t live without her human space heater at night.

“Did you know he tried to bribe me to get me to leave him?” Rose admits and Eva shook her head even if it didn’t surprise her.

He had been married when they dated, his long-time friend and mother to his daughter. Eva liked him, liked his sadness and expressive eyes and when he told her he was divorced, she believed him. She’s not a homewrecker, she steers away from couples with open relationships because it never ends well for anyone, and her mother’s reputation has everyone believing Eva is exactly like her.

So, when she found out about Lizzie and all the men and women he fucked with no consideration for anyone’s feelings, Eva ended things with him and found Alfie stewing over a break up with the same fucking guy.

And now they were friends, so at least some good came out of that.

“I’m glad you didn’t take the money; Alfie deserved a happy ending.” The witch assures her Shelby’s presence doesn’t mean what the Englishwoman fears it does.

“And I’m happy you found your happy ending too.”

They wait for the antique clock to chime at midnight before trying the doors again. Hard to believe they’d only been gone one fucking hour.

And sure enough, the doors reveal their rooms exactly as they had left them earlier that night. They try them several times until both are satisfied, they won’t change before running downstairs to see if their drunk husbands are still sprawled on the floor.

Both men are awake and, surprisingly, not at each other’s throats.

“Evie, I will ban you from my fine establishment if you ever do this shit again.” Alfie swears, holding his head in his hands feeling the effects of the hangover he and Jack share.

The witch pays no mind to his threats, not when she has a vase full of trophies from their time traveling this past hour.

[callmearcturus]

@icecreamvi replied to your post “Ok just finished rogue nation i think i liked...”:

I loved when they put the guy in the box

i loved when Ethan had a cute lil convo with the terminal agent at the start

i loved when ethan fixated on ilsa's shoes, and when ilsa tossed him the key but he couldn't fucking reach it so he just vaulted the pole, and the power of both of them barefoot and fighting in tandem

i loved every moment alec baldwin looked like an idiot

i loved all of Brandt's microexpressions (there are a lot)

i loved Benji just casually being able to completely clown on a lie detector test, the first of many hints that his competence has grown. also grown: his beard, and it looks amazing and soft

I loved "Hi Benji. Miss me?" like my god <3

I loved how Benji is GENUINELY INTO OPERA, we never get hints that he's a scifi or fantasy geek but we KNOW he is into classical music and live performance, that's so good

I loved Ilsa in the golden dress, esp the lil shorts underneath that are so functional

I loved Ethan vs a Tall Dude and how it genuinely alters how Ethan has to fight, and the desperation of his physicality, esp that double kick to the guy's chest, it's so GOOD

I love how Ilsa spots Benji once and saves his life bc everyone who lays eyes on Benji imprints on him

I love the car chase and how Ethan bodily searched Ilsa but it's not gross or weird, it's professional, I love it so much

I love the fucking scene between Ilsa and Solomon, the seething annoyance between them, the grit-teeth cooperation, I adore it. also just how she tossed the gun and how NOISILY it clatters on his sushi setting

(i'm gonna keep going )

I love that Simon Pegg pointed out that Benji is the only person allowed to yell at Ethan, and its GLORIOUS when it happens. i love Ethan's stunned little "okay" after and the microsmile he gives as he turns away.

I love Luther's role in the story, I really adore how Luther and Benji on paper have similar roles but in function they are just so different. Benji is a field tech, he has initiative and moves on his feet. Luther is better at the actual tech stuff, can do much more impressive feats, but doesn't have that same boots on the ground vibe. It's amazing.

I love Ethan and Benji's Morocco outfits. Ethan's in maybe his most colorful outfit of the series and I love it, and BENJI'S SHOOOOES.

I love Ilsa debriefing the boys and how cute they are and her expressions during it.

I love that Tom Cruise can hold his breath for fucking five to seven minutes and he freaked out the filming crew during the torus sequence.

I LOVE THE FUCKING WRITING CHOICE, THAT BENJI TELLS ILSA "I MISJUDGED YOU" RIGHT BEFORE SHE FUCKS HIM OVER. OH IT'S SO JUICY.

I love that in MI3, when Ethan came back from the bed he was immediately 'on' and ready, but in RN when he comes back from the dead, he's like. he's so fucked up l m a o.

I absolutely adore that when the script called for Ethan and Benji to get into the car, TC was like "I can't just get in the car" and then was like "I got it. roll cameras, I got it," and then improvised the moment when ethan faceplants off the car. And I love it bc I see myself in that technique, because it's a moment that had the potential to have Something, so he made sure it did. With a movie, you have 2 to 3 hours to tell a story and convey characters, and TC refuses to waste any of the moments, and I try my best to do the same with my writing, so I respect it.

I love the motorcycle chase but I'm a slut for all motorcycle scenes.

I love "Tell me you made a copy of that disk," "Of course I made a copy," the LOVE IN BENJI'S EYES. GOD.

I love Ilsa vs her shitty handler and the horror of how screwed she is, how you can watch the hope in her eyes die. Also the shake in her voice with "You bring me in," its amazing.

I love Brandt vs Ethan for the entire end of the story, the Bitchiness vs the Tiredness, it's tasty. Great chemistry.

The entire scene between Solomon and Ilsa in the graveyard is honestly gorgeous. The scenery, the camera pulled all the way back, the black slim look Lane has, Ilsa's amazing coat, the way they talk. I really adore that entire scene.

I love how Ethan doesn't think for a second about running away with Ilsa.

AND OF COURSE I LOVE THAT THEY TOOK BENJI. He's the damsel! And Ethan immediately loses it, he's out of his mind, yeah lets kidnap the fucking PRIME MINISTER, and how every time he tries to explain Lane, everyone else is like "ethan, u cray tho" I love Ethan's desperation, I feast on it.

I love how... Ethan memorized the fucking list. What a fucking batshit move. God.

I love Ilsa vs the Bone Doctor and how she rides his body the fuck down. THE WAY THAT RN KEEPS FUCKING WITH GENDER, like Ethan's play against Lane is a Wounded Gazelle Gambit, a very femme-coded move that fits with his MI1 history as a honeytrap, while Ilsa gets the extended fight scene.

I'M FORGETTING OTHER THINGS BUT I LOVE RN

not as much as I love Fallout tho

[rimeiii]

When an Arknights Doctor meets the WHB MC...

Summary: With tensions in Hell growing ever higher and the demons fighting from a disadvantage, even the descendant of Solomon Ryeomae finds herself desperate for a way to help. Her first aid lessons with Marbas have been going well and has proved to be valuable in a pinch, yet she feels it still isn't enough.

So when Leviathan somehow managed to pull three odd people from his coffin, one of them being a tactical commander, Ryeomae decides to take the opportunity to learn from them.

A question, though: How come Leviathan summoned an angel, a demon, and a little boy from what are usually worlds with Eldritch-like beings?

CW: Crossover with Arknights, purely self-indulgent. Potentially OOC. A product of malding over 12-20 Adverse as well as IS3 Ending 4, and a way to unwind before malding over Hortus de Escapismo's EX stages and the main story's H stages (need to clear those from Episode 8 onwards, end me now), because what do you mean the Damazti Cluster is in 3/4 of Episode 12's H stages.

For context, the enemy description:

As Uncle Kukki put it best: "Bro! Year 4 Arknights is fucked! What is this?!"

Back to the topic!

Using my own AK docsona (Dr. Requiescat) and WHB MC (Ryeomae). Suggestive themes up ahead considering WHB is an 18+ game, though nothing explicit is described. Regardless, please exercise caution.

Also, spoiler warnings for:

Arknights: Main story (up until chapter 12), revelations about the true nature of the Sankta, brief hints for Ending 4 of IS3 (Mizuki and Caerula Arbor)

WHB: Main story (up until chapter 4)

Waking up to yelling in Hades of all places was not something Ryeomae expected.

Leviathan's land has always struck the human as a refined one, after all. Never really outwardly violent and boisterous like other regions such as Gehenna, she always pegged Hades as the land of devotion towards its ruler, always maintaining the veneer of politeness that he always seems to exhibit. Restrained politeness it may be, as they are driven by envy, but politeness all the same.

Besides, the last time she heard panicked screaming was during their first aid operation when Leviathan was drenched by angel blood...

Oh, shit.

Bolting upwards from her bed (and ignoring the ache in her thighs), she immediately gets dressed before making her way towards the throne room, where she is certain Leviathan would be. She had half a mind to immediately go to the source of all that screaming, but she quickly reminded herself that she still doesn't know the castle's layout well enough to do so without getting hopelessly lost. Reporting to Leviathan would be the sanest course of action.

Walking briskly towards the demon king's throne room and giving customary polite smiles towards all the other demons passing by, Ryeomae wonders just how much work Leviathan is handling on his own. While it is true that demons in general have much more stamina compared to humans (how else would Leviathan still be awake while tending to her after multiple rounds with her), she still wonders how he still has the mental energy to complete paperwork - especially with the war against Heaven still going on.

It's probably just a demon king thing. Specifically Leviathan. Ryeomae concludes with a shrug. Best not to question it...hm?

Lost in her thoughts, Ryeomae now finds herself in front of Leviathan's throne room, her hands subconsciously already holding the doorknob. The imposing double doors, deep obsidian in color, never fails to send shivers down her spine - yet her trepidation immediately dissipates into thin air the moment she heard commotion beyond the door.

"Tell me. What other dimensions have you conquered, angel?"

"Oh for crying out loud-"

"At ease, Doctor. And technically speaking, she is not an angel, sir."

"And you're the one who summoned us, right?"

Ah. A summoning session gone wrong.

Yet something about all this seems off. Ryeomae can sense the aggression in Leviathan's voice, what with the low growl embedded in his normally silky smooth voice and the curt tone embedded in his speech. Which is weird - normally he is amiable with the Eldritch beings he summons into battle. What's making him be at odds with this group in particular?

No matter. Three sharp knocks on the door, and an announcement of her presence. "Leviathan, love, is everything alright in there?"

A beat of silence, before Leviathan's voice emerged once more. "Ryeo, go back to our room. I'll tend to you personally after I deal with them."

Wait, deal with them?!

"Leviathan, what's going on?!" Gone was the pretense of relative calm, with Ryeomae now desperately pushing against the double doors of the throne room. It inches forward bit by bit, which is the tiniest relief in what amounts to an emergency situation for her. "I'm coming in!"

"Ryeo, no! There's an angel-"

"What angel?! I'm a Sankta, Mr. Sarkaz sir!"

A lull, as everyone fully takes in the female's voice. An angel- no, Sankta, apparently. A term that even Ryeomae is unfamiliar with, coming from Earth, and a term she never heard any demon mention during her stay in Hell.

Ignoring Leviathan's bewildered response of "Sarkaz? What is that? I'm a demon king, miss," Ryeomae takes the opportunity to open the door fully, and freezes.

She comes face-to-face with the so-called Sankta - a young woman with a dark halo and similarly dark shards of light resembling wings extending from her back. Her hair, tied into a neat braid, is chestnut brown save for a stray tuft of black hair along her bangs - with a black cap covering the top of her head. Her eyes, hidden behind a pair of glasses, are blood red, resembling Satan's eyes without the inverted crosses as well as the constant anger and lust burning in his eyes. The sight of angels in Hell has conditioned Ryeomae to recoil somewhat at the mere sighting of a halo, but that wasn't even the scariest part about the Sankta.

What's perhaps most terrifying about her, in fact, are the shards of black crystals emerging from her skin. They extend from her collarbone, dark lesions peeking from beneath her shirt, extending upwards up her neck before dispersing into tiny crystals on her left cheek.

All of a sudden, Ryeomae is reminded of the screams and wails spilling from Ppung's mouth. The angelification process, while still being much more horrific than these crystals, still proves to her that having unnatural objects burst from beneath your skin is a terrifyingly painful experience. And this Sankta lady must have been living with it...

Ryeomae's healer instincts kick in, and she immediately starts barking out orders.

"Miss! Stay still, I'll get medical aid your way! Your Majesty Leviathan, the first aid kit, ASAP! Contact someone to help us take her to Paradise Lost as well!"

"Eh- huh?!"

"Ryeo-"

"Shush, Leviathan! Something's wrong with her-"

"Calm down, miss-"

"What do you mean, kid-"

"Deep breaths, miss. I am Logos, and as the Doctor's closest confidant, I shall explain everything."

~

Doctor. A title that holds so much meaning in Rhodes Island (and not the place on Earth, but a pharmaceutical company in another world called Terra), but one that only retains its dictionary meaning elsewhere. A concept that Logos, a Sarkaz of the Banshee bloodline, feels the need to explain to the demons and human before him.

Dr. Requiescat is not only a neuroscientist affiliated with Rhodes Island working to find the cure for Oripathy, a fatal illness originating from the world they came from that even she contracted herself, she is also the tactical commander for all of Rhodes Island's on-field operative work. The dark ores Ryeomae sees on the Doctor are physical signs of Oripathy, and she's on medication to curb the disease's development. A medication that Mizuki, the young boy that arrived with them, gently reminded the Doctor to take, the Sankta asking for a glass of water to down the few tablets of medication.

The Doctor is a Sankta, not an angel. Sarkaz who were chosen by the Law to live according to it, and thusly viewed as a traitor to their own bloodline by many a Sarkaz. A legacy long forgotten by the Sanktas themselves, and one that the Doctor had to relearn through Logos as well.

"And you, Logos? You're a Sarkaz, right? You're not bothered by it?" Barbatos asks, eyes widening in awe. At some point, Leviathan's nobles have showed up in the throne room at their king's behest, and as a result there are now an additional four demons getting to know the three newcomers.

Logos shakes his head, his gaze softening as a faint smile paints his lips. "The Doctor has always been someone I can talk to easily, even before the Chernobog incident. Harsh in the battlefield she may be, moreso before the Chernobog incident, but she is still merciful and kind outside of battle."

Leviathan's pale eyes narrow, still not willing to completely believe the Banshee King's words. But the Doctor, already sensing the demon king's doubts, heaves a heavy sigh.

"I know I can't prove anything to you, sir. You just give off that...vibe, I suppose, is the word." Dr. Requiescat murmurs eventually. "But give us a reason why you can't fully trust us, if not just me, at the very least."

Barbatos, once again, is the one who answers them, an apologetic smile adorning his bright features. "We're in the middle of a war against the angels, miss. And our angels are very cruel, needlessly cruel even. You'll have to forgive us for not being able to trust you easily, miss."

The Doctor shrugs, taking Barbatos's words in stride. "Fair. Not all Sanktas are good either way - I think Federico mentioned something about going after someone, most likely Lateranian."

Logos nods in affirmation. "To my knowledge, he did. And on the other hand, the situation with the Sarkaz is quite complicated. It would take a long discussion of Terran politics and history to explain to people unfamiliar with it, but all you need to know is that we have had...conflicts regarding our ideals-"

"Your Majesty Leviathan! Angels have launched an attack on the city square!" A lesser demon barges into the throne room, panting and out of breath. He pauses to collect himself, before noticing the three newcomers in the room. "Your Majesty, who-"

"People you do not need to worry about." Leviathan replies curtly, motioning for everyone within the room to follow him. "Now come, all of you - get ready to fight."

He then turns to face the Sankta properly, his eyes narrowed menacingly.

"And you. This is your only chance to earn my trust, miss battlefield commander."

Yet the Sankta remains unfazed, her gaze hardening at the mention of a battlefield. "Copy that, demon king."

~

Having a seasoned battlefield commander helping to organize the demons' forces worked wonders in keeping everyone as safe as possible while ensuring their angelic enemies were all eliminated. And Ryeomae had to admit, she may have started to have a little crush on the Sankta for the near effortless way she directs Hades's forces. Easily directing them towards the main enemy forces, executing flawless pincer attacks against the angels, utilizing enemy blind spots and the terrain for sneak attacks...it was enough for her to earn the trust of the human, Leviathan, and his demons alike.

"The key to issuing effective battlefield commands is information control." Dr. Requiescat explains when Ryeomae asked the Doctor for any battlefield command tips. The pair, perched inside the top floor of an abandoned building, enjoyed a relatively expansive view of the battlefield - much wider than her usual position behind the brunt of the fighting. Logos and Mizuki were loitering around the area, the duo being tasked to protect Ryeomae and the Doctor from any sudden attacks, especially after the human mentioned how she was marked by Gabriel, making her a prime target for the angels. "How do you scout for information about the enemy while keeping your own forces in hiding until absolutely necessary? Such a skill is necessary while fighting off large hordes of enemies with a limited fighting force of your own."

In the Doctor's hands is her tablet, transmitting footage from the surveillance drones she had launched during the start of the operation. She points out one particular screen, where Ryeomae could see Heaven's forces getting ready to attack the area where Glasyalabolas was stationed in. "Look here. They may be getting ready to attack that small shop, but their formation is messy. Take out the leader and their entire group falls - Glasyalabolas, enemies inbound at 10 o'clock! Leader at the front!"

"I see them. Engaging the enemies." Glasyalabolas's deep voice reverbs from Ryeomae's earpiece, and soon after, his large and imposing frame already has his coffin out, now engaging with the enemy leader. His own forces focus on picking off any other angels trying to get him off the enemy leader.

Ryeomae watches in awe as the angels' formation crumbles upon the enemy leader's defeat. This was far from the first time she saw the Doctor effortlessly dismantle a group of enemies, yet it never fails to impress her. Taking notes of the Doctor's tactics, Ryeomae figures she'd be able to apply them later on, in case she is needed to help command the demons.

"It helps that these angels are...sloppy." The Doctor snorts, a tiny smirk on her features. "Even Reunion's forces are much more organized than them - no offense to Patriot and FrostNova whatsoever, since their forces are actually pretty organized. And here I thought angels were supposed to be the organized forces..."

Ryeomae scoffs. "You'd be surprised, Doctor. But that means you're used to fighting in disadvantageous situations like this?"

Surprisingly, the Doctor's expression softens considerably, gaining an almost melancholic tone to it. "Yeah. In Chernobog, Lungmen, and now Victoria, we were always on the back foot. And down in the future, should the Seaborn invasion happen, we will always remain on the back foot. You...get used to it, eventually."

Seaborn...?

"Something that you shouldn't worry about, Ms. Ryeomae." Mizuki chimes in, a bright smile on his youthful features as he no doubt notices the confusion etched onto Ryeomae's expression. He then approaches the Doctor and pats her shoulder comfortingly. "And something that you also shouldn't worry about, Doctor. I have faith we won't stumble upon that terrifying future!"

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Mizuki." Dr. Requiescat smiles faintly, before diverting her attention to Ryeomae once more. "Anyways, it does help that most of these angels don't use a lot of different modes of attack. Most of our forces have long-ranged modes of attack to snipe their forces down as well, so..."

Ryeomae smirks, reminded of a certain fluffy-haired demon king of wrath. "If you thought this was long-ranged, you'd love seeing what the demons of Gehenna are capable of."

The Doctor shrugs, completely unperturbed, and Ryeomae finds it in herself to be offended in Gehenna's behalf. "We have people able to command drones that can attack at any point in the battlefield. And apart from that, we have snipers like Ambriel and Fartooth, able to hit the most unexpected of places. Fun fact: one of our drone users, Goldenglow, is a hairdresser."

Now it's Ryeomae's turn to fall completely silent, before erupting into confused yelling. "What do you mean, hairdresser?! I-"

"Get down, Doctor, miss!" Mizuki yells, summoning his tentacles to strike at something attempting to crash into the window in front of them. The Doctor curses under her breath, pushing Ryeomae behind her as she shields the human with her body. Logos is immediately beside her, his incantation Arts causing trails of light to flutter around them both.

But this 'something' manages to evade Mizuki's tentacles, deftly maneuvering around the neurotoxin-laden appendages. It forces its way into the building, coming face-to-face with Logos. Thankfully, the Banshee has already finished charging up his attack, launching it towards the infiltrator and sending him careening into the wall opposite them.

When the dust settles, Ryeomae could see that the crumpled-up angel had short white hair, bangs covering the right side of his face, his one visible eye sending her a murderous glare.

Ryeomae feels a chill run down her spine. Gabriel.

Her grip on the Doctor's shoulders unconsciously tightens, and she shrinks into herself, attempting to make herself as scarce as possible. Were it be any of the other demon kings who's with her right now, Gabriel likely wouldn't be targeting her, purely because of the sheer strength the demon kings have. Mizuki and Logos are strong, yes, but she's not sure if they're as strong as any of the demon kings.

And yet, the three newcomers to Hell are as unperturbed as ever.

"Huh. I can see why you hate the angels now. Reckless and violent little shits, aren't they?" The Doctor comments, frowning as she stares at the recovering Gabriel. "Still, though. Neither tact nor strategy. None whatsoever. Divebombing without a care, really? Who is he, Kevin?"

"Doctor..." Logos sighs, tapping the Sankta's shoulder blade insistently. "Focus. Please."

The Doctor had the decency to look the slightest bit abashed, at the very least. "Sorry, Logos. Force of habit."

Logos nods once in acknowledgement as he diverts his attention back towards Gabriel. Without missing a beat, he charges up another spell, allowing his Arts to form streams of light encircling them all. A shield of sorts, if you will.

And perfect timing, too, as Gabriel whips out his scythe and slashes forwards, the blade clashing with Logos's shield.

Gabriel's eyes are murderous as he holds the Doctor's gaze, boring holes into the Sankta's head. She keeps her cool and stares back at the furious angel, however. The lack of fear in the Doctor's eyes must have set Gabriel off even more as he growls menacingly, his arms applying even more pressure on the barrier Logos erected between them, muscles straining beneath his pristine shirt. Logos's Arts shield starts to emit sparks, causing anxiety to shoot up Ryeomae's spine - what if it breaks?

Yet the Doctor remains calm, stoic - unimpressed, almost.

And loathe as Ryeomae is to admit it, that scares the living shit out of her - even more than the potential of the Arts shield breaking, even more than Gabriel's presence in front of her.

"You are an angel, no?" Gabriel growls out, the darkness and malice in his voice unlike any Sankta the Doctor must've been familiar with, considering how one of her eyebrows shot up in disbelief. Yet he doesn't seem to notice her reaction, continuing on what he believes must be a righteous tirade. "Why, then, are you siding with these demons?"

Dr. Requiescat heaves a heavy sigh as her fingers twitch, desperately fighting off the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose in frustration - a bad habit she had described to Ryeomae during their downtime between angel attacks. "How many times do I have to explain to you all?! I'm a Sankta, not an angel!"

Gabriel doesn't seem to be too keen to inquire upon the unfamiliar term that confused the residents of Hades only a few hours ago. Instead, his growl grows even more murderous, pressing his scythe downwards even more. Logos narrows his eyes, his Arts struggling against the force Gabriel is applying onto the barrier.

And yet, as sudden as Gabriel's attack was, so was his sudden collapse at the hands of Mizuki's neurotoxin-laden tentacles.

The angel's mouth hangs open, a scream of pain lodged in his throat as he feels his body seize up involuntarily, muscles contracting so painfully it practically paralyzed him completely and inadvertently causing him to drop his scythe with a dull clatter. Amid the angel's fixation on the Sankta and Sarkaz duo, the young boy had managed to slip away unnoticed, stabbing Gabriel's body with his tentacles and injecting a paralyzing neurotoxin into the angel's flesh. He retreated his tentacles the moment he saw Gabriel go down, a smile on his boyish features as he looks down on his downed adversary.

"Get away from them, please."

Ryeomae can feel the shiver that ran through Gabriel's back at the threat, and even she feels terrified of the boy right in front of her.

Not just that. The calm yet eerie smile on Mizuki's features, the way the light seems to cast his face in an unsettling shadow, the gentle and borderline pacifying tone of his voice despite the damage he has done all on his own - all a sharp contrast to the seemingly bright and innocent boy he seemed to be mere moments earlier. She could've sworn she saw the silhouette of what seemed to be a large, jellyfish-like abomination eclipsing Mizuki for a brief second, but maybe that's just her fear talking.

"I would suggest listening to Mizuki." The Doctor replied, maintaining her cool facade. But Ryeomae could hear the slight change in the inflections of her voice, the slightest tremors creeping its way into her words - a sort of threatening contralto. "Wouldn't want him to completely destroy you now, do we?"

And it was at this moment that Ryeomae realized:

Perhaps these people's struggles were infinitely harsher than her own.

~

Not long after the skirmish, Leviathan found a way to transport the Terrans back to their home world - a revelation that brought much relief to the Terran trio. As far as the demons and the human were concerned, the three Rhodes Island personnel had their own wars to fight, most if not all requiring the assistance of the Doctor. With many unfamiliar terms such as "Seaborn threat", "Londinium Crisis", "the Damazti Cluster's spies", and more, Ryeomae can't help but wonder just how the Doctor was able to handle everything without breaking down.

It made her feel insignificant, in a way. Here she was, a defenseless human, whose only value she actively provides for the demons is the ability to break the pacts her late ancestor had formed with them. Sure, sometimes the demon kings defer to her to organize attacks, but even then she tended to lose sight of most sneak attacks. Dr. Requiescat's tips were necessary for her to be able to control the battlefield, she believes, but the fact that she even needed those tips in the first place...

It didn't help that the trio revealed several more bombshells about Dr. Requiescat after their skirmish with Gabriel, quickly leaving the area while the angel was still immobilized. She's an amnesiac, for one, and she was immediately forced into a commander role the moment she awakened from a coma. When the Doctor was out of earshot, Logos revealed, rather regretfully, that he never wanted to see the Doctor enter the battlefield, didn't want her to walk the bloody path of war ever again. But the reality still stands that she never had a choice to begin with, and he's infinitely grateful that her memories were locked behind the amnesia.

"I do not think she would be able to forgive herself if she were to remember the atrocities she had to commit prior to her amnesia." Logos smiled wryly, sadly gazing at the Doctor as she inspected the portal that would take the three Rhodes Island personnel back to Terra.

Ryeomae counts herself lucky that her life hadn't been filled with such cruelty and bloodshed. And ironically, unbeknownst to Logos, the statement eased the feeling of insignificance in her heart - her life was relatively more peaceful prior to everything, so it's perfectly fine to not be as prolific as the Doctor. Because the Doctor, despite her medical background, had her hand forced to become what seemed to be a truly despicable figure, all in order to achieve the things she and her faction sought to achieve.

Ryeomae should have been disgusted, yet she feels nothing but sympathy for Logos and the Doctor.

Not long after the two were reacquainted, Logos gave the Doctor a bottle of his own hand-crafted aromatics, made for her and only her. She uses it sparingly, keeping the bottle close to her at all times. He had already given several bottles to her prior to her amnesia, he revealed with a tiny, yet melancholic smile on his lips.

Ryeomae couldn't help the feeling that the Doctor meant so much more to the Banshee than she initially believed, with the reverse holding true if the Doctor's tiny gestures of affection were to be believed. A gentle hand on his shoulders, the subtlest hints of fondness as she gazes at him. Even in her amnesiac state, she still remembers the emotions, the affections she held for Logos.

It's as beautiful as it is tragic.

So, Logos's parting words for Ryeomae are this: for her to cherish the people she loves and the time as well as memories she has with them, as you do not know if they'll be ripped away from you without any prior notice. Ryeomae's eyes linger at Leviathan at his reminder, recalling the twisted yet somehow endearing methods he employed to get her to stay by his side - the initial threats and kidnapping, turning into her gradual acclimation towards Hades and the demon king of envy.

But deep inside, her heart lies with the man who became her lifeline after her parents' untimely deaths - Kim Minhyeok, who was surely waiting for her back on Earth, who was still worrying his ass off over her despite being worlds away from her.

With Minhyeok in mind, she decides to take Logos's parting words to heart.

Mizuki remains a mystery to Ryeomae, but one thing remains certain - the kid must've been some sort of Eldritch being from the deep sea, which would explain how Leviathan was able to access his world in the process. Yet nothing about how Mizuki normally carries himself reminds her of a monster, what with his bright smiles and genuine care for the Doctor. His constant reminders for the Doctor to take her medicine, making sure the Doctor is away from most harm, fighting beside Logos to keep her safe...perhaps he has seen the Doctor as an elder sister figure, someone who he wants to keep safe and well. Again, something that Ryeomae wouldn't even dare to expect from an Eldritch being, seeing as most of her experiences with Eldritch beings come from the monsters Leviathan summons from his coffins - terrifying, savage beasts capable of ripping through enemies with impunity. His parting words were a bright and energetic reminder to keep fighting for what is right, yet another confusing part about the boy. Of course, she would take his words to heart, but how can an Eldritch being be such a paragon of justice?

She doesn't feel like it's necessary to question it, however.

And finally, the Doctor, who already feels like an elder sister to her. All gentle smiles and knowing looks, she ruffles Ryeomae's hair affectionately and tells her to keep her advice close to her. That Ryeomae will succeed, and she will return to Earth all safe and sound, because she has good and strong allies that are willing to fight for what they believe is right. All they need is a gentle push from her, and they can achieve what they set out to achieve in the first place, whatever it may be.

"You have influence here. Use it well." The Doctor nods in the demons' direction. Barbatos catches her gaze, and he grins brightly in her direction. Seems like he enjoys the Doctor's more laidback personality, and Ryeomae had the same sentiments as him. "You told me you have someone to return to, and that the demons all genuinely do care for you. So fight for them, to complete your deal and repay their care for you. Fight, and return to the one you want to return to. Your home."

Ryeomae has to wonder if, truly, the Doctor really was an amnesiac. The way she talked had weight, a flicker of seniority despite her seemingly youthful features. Yet she was easygoing - certainly not to the point of abandoning her post like Beelzebub, but easygoing nonetheless. She seemed a lot like Satan, in a sense, yet she was always in full control of her emotions, masterfully wielding them to her own gain. There is simply no way someone who had so few memories of their life could speak in such a way, behave in such a manner.

Oh well. No time to ponder, as Leviathan announces that the portal is ready. Mizuki beams as he rushes over towards the portal, while both Logos and Dr. Requiescat trail behind him, all quiet murmurs and gentle smiles. The young boy turns around and waves goodbye enthusiastically, while Logos and Ryeomae say their farewells in a much more reserved manner.

"Bye, everyone!"

"Thank you for your hospitality."

"Who knows - there's a chance we might meet again in the future!"

Leviathan, at the very least, doesn't seem too opposed to the idea - a rare sight, considering how he's usually so prone to jealousy. Though perhaps, seeing just how much of an asset the Terrans were to Hades convinced him far more than words could ever serve to do. "So long as you come in support of Hades, we will welcome you with open arms."

The Doctor grins widely before turning towards Logos and Mizuki. "Ready, you two?"

"Ready!"

"Lead the way, Doctor."

Ah, they're really going now- huh?!

For the briefest of moments, while the Terrans hop into the portal, the Doctor's cap lifted from the top of her head, exposing a tiny pair of demon horns. And at the exact same time, a similarly dark, slim demon tail slipped out from beneath her shirt - so well-hidden after all this time.

But before she could call the Doctor back, the portal closed off completely, leaving Ryeomae, Leviathan, Foras, Barbatos, and Glasyalabolas in a shocked stupor.

Barbatos is the first one to recover. "Well...that might explain why she was so willing to help us."

Leviathan collects himself next, frowning contemplatively. "Maybe. Maybe not."

"I agree with His Majesty Leviathan." Foras speaks up next. "The Doctor was a mysterious person, and while she did help us, we never really knew of her true intentions. Was it out of duty? Kindness? Or perhaps, the threat from His Majesty?"

"And don't forget, their land doesn't recognize 'angels' and 'demons' like we do. She's a Sankta, and that Logos person was a Sarkaz." Glasyalabolas added, earning affirmative responses from everyone in the room.

All the while, Ryeomae is silent.

She does feel the kindness emanating from the Doctor throughout the skirmish against Gabriel and his forces, that much is true. It was easy to latch on to the Doctor as a figure worthy to look up to, as the mature yet laid-back Sankta she was. Easily commanding the battlefield, like a chessmaster thinking many steps ahead - yet laid-back when necessary, joking around with everyone around her. Shielding Ryeomae behind her despite not looking like she wields any sort of weapon for self defense.

But the demons have a point, and the Doctor herself is still shrouded in mystery. Sure, she may have acted off the goodness of her own heart, but doesn't that come into odds with how Logos described her, prior to her amnesia? Yet Logos still believes that the Doctor is kind at heart - was he blinded by his emotions, or was he truly being objective? And sure, she may have said she was a Sankta, but weren't demon horns and demon tails the signature features of Sarkaz? Shards of light for wings and a halo, with demon horns and a demon tail...both sets of features on the same person?

Just...who are you, really, Dr. Requiescat?

~

BONUS: a visual representation and brief description of the Doctor and Ryeomae! (neka link here)

1. Dr. Requiescat (Arknights Docsona, real name Luciel. Halo, wings, tail, and Originium crystals not pictured)

Doctor of Rhodes Island, presents herself as a Fallen Sankta due to a lingering sense of guilt, of having wronged someone she cared about back before the sarcophagus. Despite the sarcophagus seemingly resetting her body, in turn clearing her memories and healing her wounds, her Oripathy still remains - nobody knows why. She acts kind and upbeat, but she still questions if that's really her, especially as more and more revelations of her past comes into light. But, after the revelations about her identity (as revealed in Lone Trail), she holds a phrase close to her heart: I am me, just as I always have been.

2. Ryeomae

Solomon's descendant, a 24-year-old young woman who has a degree in literature and is currently working part-time as a barista while looking for a more permanent employment. She lives with Minhyeok, her childhood friend. They both secretly harbor feelings for each other - something her bandmate, friend, and ex Hana-chan easily takes notice of, considering he always sets them up. Both craves and is uncomfortable with the demons' overwhelming care and attention towards her.

(honestly they could really pass off as twins if not for the fallen sankta features the doctor has and their different colored eyes)

[lesbolordo]

G'day r u aight ? Cuz I'm not.

The Hogwarts Legacy fandom lacks something. Very much.

Where the fuck are my genderbent meow meows ??? I want to see Seb with big tatas and Ominis with pretty nice thighs in witch I can die between-

I want to see Poppy as a cute beast lover boy and Imelda as a hot Quidditch player wtf ?

Urh, so much potential wasted 😔

Anyway I tried genderbending Sebinis thinking about that.

I made several headcanons about them because I have nothing to do with my life but think about Women.

Sebastian :

If Sebastian was a girl, I'd have no name for her. Really. What is the female version of Sebastian ? Urh.

Anyway, if she was a girl Anne would be a boy, obviously.

I feel like Sebby would be a chubby-buff girl. She's strong in all third ways : Is a bit round and could beat your ass with and without magic.

She was very close to her dad and so she hates Solomon even more after her parents die.

I feel like one summer she suddenly got curves and took some weight and Solomon -being Solomon- was too awkward to ask her her new size of clothes so he just tried something : spoilers, all of her clothes are too small but she doesn't seem to care much and since she only hangs out with Ominis -blind mf- nobody really tells her that her shirt is begging for help, threatened by her big tatas.

Honestly, girl or boy, Sebastian would beat your ass -or try to. He's not one to differentiate boys from girls after all.

Often deemed unladylike, "behaves like a boy". She doesn't care, she never will, move on.

She's self conscious about her height -even Masc! Seb is to me- and so she lies about being 160 cms tall when she actually is 159 cms tall. I see some Poppy inside of her, small but feisty... I think that these two would be friends, boy or girl.

"Fuck around find out."

Hates dresses. Unpractical. Ugly. She will wear dresses only for Ominis. End of the discussion.

What is going on with her hair ? No one knows. Legend has i that in the morning if you pay enough attention, you can hear the birds that accidentally got caught in it

She'd wear the boys uniform.

Ominis :

Even as a girl Ominis is the mom friend. Always looks worried and tired, but don't worry she could very well beat your ass if she wanted to.

Unlike Sebastian she comes from an aristocratic family and so she behaves "properly" for a lady, but only because it's the only thing her parents await from her : As a woman she is deemed less important -Ominis hates it- but at the same time they leave her alone most of the time.

I do not have a name for Fem!Ominis but she could step on me either way.

Fabulous lashes™️.

She may be taller, but only because all of her damn curves went into her height : flat as a wall, no ass, and very much thin like her masc version. Her depression may be chronic, but her ass is microscopic.

Speaks well, could end your career with words, won't be afraid to do so. But don't you dare bring your fists to the fight, because Sebastian is always behind to save Ominis from breaking a nail -and committing murder.

Pretty hair in appearance, but do not touch it. Under. Any. Circonstances. I'll let you ponder why. Her mother loves to put ugly hats or accessories in her hair, Ominis hates it but apparently Sebastian finds it funny and pretty, so she leaves it on. Being blind, she learned very early one way to style her hair and now she ALWAYS uses it. Because she doesn't know any better.

Long elegant pianist fingers, just like her boy version. Can and will use them to either hurt you or make Sebastian cu- Cuts her nails short. More like Sebastian does it, Ominis lies saying that she can't see she can't do it herself -Sebastian believes it.

Doesn't mind dresses. Prefers comfortable clothes, may be girls or boys.

"God let me live another day. And I'm about to cry about it."

She's tall -both for a girl and a boy- but she knows Sebastian is self-conscious about her height so they don't talk about it.

She'd wear the girl's uniform.

Now that I'm done please do give me genderbent! HLC. Especially Fem! Versions because I love women.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

[nighthaterfrfr]

i don't bite (well, maybe that's a lie)

[it rotted my brain so much that i couldnt resist. thank u @jben073 for helpin me w the ending, my writing still sucks but wtvr... look lets make it modern bc im not doing research on old shit. my brains small so i dont wanna make it smaller. @wispexists made this beautiful art, check it pls pls pls its so good

anwho here it is

OH TW FOR BLOOD BEFORE I FORGET (vampire.. duh) ]

People's blood is a very sacred thing. In many religions, it's often considered the life of a human. Yet, it's something vampires need for sustenance. Most consider vegan diets, and some just become full on killers when too unregulated.

Stephanie Lauter is unfortunately, a vampire. From what she overhears, her dad made some deal with eldritch gods, and that's why she's here. Solomon Lauter hates his daughter, but she hates him back too. However, to not expose this secret to the public, he helps get Steph's cravings in check by supplying her with animal blood.

Yet, it's never a filling meal. She hasn't had a proper, enriching, bit of human blood in such a long time. Not since middle school. But never in a million years did she expect to drink the blood of the pastor's daughter, Grace Chasity.

Nor did she expect how delicious the blood would be.

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

Every other day, Steph spends her nights at the old Waylon Hall. Hearing all the rumors about the place, it doesn't seem so bad. It's just really fucking abandoned and creepy. Nonetheless, a few candles and fairy lights powered by battery packs make the house look a lot less evil.

This night, she decided to bring more and more of her belongings into the living room. Yeesh, it's a damn mess. She swept the floor with an old broom she found in a janitorial closet, suited most likely for a maid. The more Steph cleaned up the hall, the more she liked that it became kind of her own hideaway. A very eerie home away from home.

After a few hours of just generally cleaning and decorating the main room, she smiled. For once her life, Stephanie Lauter had made something she was proud of. How fun.

Suddenly, she heard an opening from the front door.

For the months she had spent going here, no one had dare even approach the Hall's grounds. So who the fuck seems brave enough to wander in the most "haunted" place in all of Hatchetfield?

Who the fuck..

Steph had hid in some big closet in the room, and took a look at the girl trespassing in her space. In which she was also trespassing in. The girl wore a light blue sweater and a white button up underneath. She wore a brown skirt, white socks and Black Mary Janes. She had rolled up the sleeves of both the button up and the sweater and had her hair in a side part.

Look, she was already in a silk dress meant for sleeping, and she did not want to be disturbed by some girl. However, something just... attracted her. Steph sniffed something good. Better than the "wagyu cow blood" her dad ended up getting to satisfy the urges. Shit, this came from the girl, didn't it?

God- it smelled so good. That feeling of hunger filled Steph's mind and triggered her vampiristic instincts. She need to feed, fast.

As the girl turned her back, Steph quietly came out of the closet she was hiding him. Walking towards the back of her, she saw that her neck was wide open. Thank god for people parting their hair sideways. As she was about to feed, she snapped back to reality, wobbling back and falling on the floor. Of course, the girl turned around, and looked right at Steph.

"Oh my- who are you? What are you doing out here so late?"

The girl put a hand out, and Steph took it. She quickly responded, "I suppose I could ask you the same question, but I don't think I'll get an answer. I'm Steph." "Grace. My father and I were seeing the house earlier, and I left my 'What Would Jesus Do?' bracelet here." Steph nodded as her eyes are remained on Grace's neck and forearms. They sure do look appealing.

Grace yawned, and ended up sitting on the floor. Steph had already placed some sort of old mattress on there, and simply covered with a bedsheet. "Man, I gotta bike back..." Steph looked at the girl while she complained, and smirked slightly. With an alluring look in her eyes, she turned Grace's head to look at her. "Ah, it's alright. Rest here for a bit, I won't bite."

Grace looked nervous at the offer. She had to go home, she wanted to go home. Yet, this girl... Steph, she just drew her in. Before she knew it, her mouth muttered the words yes, and the two kept on staring at each other. "Now Grace, I have to ask you a question. Do you know anything about vampires and the like?"

"...no? If it's some kind of like, band fans, then I have no idea about them."

Steph looked shocked at this admission, and tried to think through how she'll phrase this properly. In order to charm a human properly, you first need a good approach, don't you?

"Ok then. A vampire is.. a creature who preys on human blood. They usually hate the sunlight, garlic, and silver. Got it?" Grace nodded. "I do. How come you're telling me this?" "Will you believe me if I say that I am a vampire?"

Grace looked confused at the question. Was this girl playing some kind of cruel trick with her? But, like God commanded, answer truthfully. "Why would I? You sound kind of insane right now." Steph smirked, opening her mouth and baring her fangs. They're way too sharp and long to be just a regular humans, and she put her hair back behind her pointed, pierced ears. Grace looked a bit scared, she's never seen a person like this, but regardless, she wanted to know more.

Something keeps telling her she wants to know more.

"And look, Grace. I'm quite hungry right now. Would you mind if I.. just got a bit of your blood~?"

Steph asked, leaning closer towards Grace. The closer she got, the redder the other girl's face was. She then pushed her away slightly, hesitance in her voice. "I... I don't- will it hurt?" "Probably, Gracie. Do you want me to comfort your boo boo, then?" Grace blushed even more, unsure what this feeling is towards the mysterious girl and confused as to what's happening.

Look, Grace had some strong willpower. That's what you have when your dad's the town pastor, after all. However, when she offered her arm to Steph, who's presumably a "vampire," that might be the complete opposite fact. "Go- just take what you need..."

The vampire widened her eyes. From stories she's heard, people need a lot more convincing. But this pretty girl just offers up her arm and blood? Hey, at least it was easy to get a meal for Steph today.

She took Grace's arm gently, placing it near her mouth. Jesus, the smell of the blood really came out. Her mouth almost watered at simply the smell, but why sniff it instead of tasting it?

Steph's fang suck into the arm, Grace wincing slightly from the pain. As she sucked the blood, she couldn't believe the taste. She couldn't believe how energized she was. And she couldn't believe how insatiable the feeling was from getting this girl's blood was.

Grace watched as Steph sucked the blood out of her arm. It was a bit painful, but is it weird to say it somehow made her extremely tired and excited? She could see her blood dripping down her arm as Steph eagerly feasting on her. It's scary, but it's somehow so attractive at the same time. She could easily pull away- it's not even like she's forcing her too.

It's just that... the feeling in her stomach that she gets from simply seeing this girl means letting Steph doing whatever she wanted. After a few minutes of silence and blood sucking, Steph lifted her head from Grace's forearm, wiping the blood from her mouth with the back of her hand.

As Grace slowly put her arm down, Steph looked at her, longingly and hungry for more. Steph quietly said, "Do you- do you feel ok? Are you too hurt?" The other girl nodded no, and Steph stood up, walking around the room. On top of the fireplace, she rummaged through a little box and found a roll of bandages. Tearing a long piece of it off with her teeth, Steph began to tightly wrap the fabric onto Grace's forearm.

The feeling of Steph wrapping her arm with the bandage, hell the feeling of the wound itself? It all felt numb. Grace Chasity couldn't feel anything ever since Stephanie Lauter sucked her blood. All she knows is that it felt so damn good.

Finally tying the bandage off, Steph leaned back from Grace, letting her sit up. "Alright, let's see.." Steph stared into her eyes, rolling down both the button up and sweater sleeves, covering both of her arms. She stood up, offering a hand out to Grace so that she can also stand up beside her, "Now, I'm sorry pretty girl, but you can't remember this.. for a while. However," Steph paused for a second, twirling a big strand of Grace's hair.

"I have a feeling we'll meet again, won't we? You're of course, drawn to me, but somehow I am too. Even without drinking your blood, something intrigues me about you, Grace. Come back here next time, won't you~?"

As she let go of the other girl's hair, Grace simply smiled and started walking out. Steph hated the charm ability vampires had as she saw the girl leave. Sure, it benefits both her and the person who she charmed because now whoever she targets will have no recollection of what she's done. Yet, something about Grace made her want to have her remember tonight. She wanted Grace to recognize her face and know who left that mark on her forearm. Oh well, what can a girl like her do?

Sighing and lying on the mattress, she closes her eyes. That was good, no, great blood. That's settled. Great blood comes from the prettiest people. Who knew?

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

Grace Chasity woke up the next day, in her bed and feeling somewhat extra tired. It was.. 2 in the afternoon? Huh. As she stood up and walked to the bathroom, she looked in the mirror. She didn't change at all from when she came back home yesterday from school. Thank goodness it was a Saturday, or else she would've gotten in big trouble with her parents.

As she turned on the faucet, she rolled up her sleeves so that the water wouldn't soak the fabric. The more she rolled her sleeves up, the more she saw that on her right arm, bandages tightly covered her forearm. Well that's.. odd.

Stopping for a minute, she pondered over how she got the bandage on her wrist. Staring at the blood covered and hastily wrapped fabric, Grace shook it off and began to start washing her face.

Eh, she must've fell while riding her bike.

[vii-is-free]

Leona's Feldcroft Date

First of all, shout out to @silverxstardust for Sebastian's coat and scarf mod, because the biggest thing missing from this quest is Sebastian pouting in style

Look at hiiiiiiim :3

Anyways, apologies for the radio silence, in addition to personal stuff and finally taking a T break, I’ve been romancing Goatjo on Stardew Valley

HES BLUSHING

I love this mod. It's teaching me self love. BUT ENOUGH ABOUT GOJO

We’re here for a completely different breakout star side character that completely overshadows the actual plot

Nah, I’d kill his uncle

But seriously, THANK YOU MODDERS. Do you realize how pissed I was when, while playing on the switch, I got my mc all dressed cute and hair done only for Sebastian to show up in his stupid uniform?

Should have been the first red flag honestly.

Also, in case anyone is wondering,

We're still ignoring Duncan

So i show up to Feldcroft with my cute outfit and hairstyle and what do I see

HIGHLAND COW. It literally just walked up to me and sat down.

I fucking love highland cows. But do you know what I fucking hate?

Sebastians uncle lmao.

In all honesty I don't think Sebastian lives in the shed when he visits - he's more of a sleep outside on the hay, under the stars kind of guy.

Also, it's a fucking dump. Sebastian doesn't strike me as a messy person, and there's broken bottles everywhere. I think this is Solomon's "get drunk and think about how miserable my life is until I pass out" shed.

But seriously, he's HORRIBLE to them. And it's not only the "no cure for Anne" thing. That part I can understand. What I can't understand is this:

You're a former Auror, probably the only one in Feldcroft with the capability of protecting the hamlet and you're not doing anything about the goblins? Not one thing? Don't even have connections to the ministry to get some backup?

Which, I don't think is an oversight in the plot at all. I think it was intentional to show us that Solomon did not leave the ministry on good terms.

What I'm saying is...

Let our boy get away with murder, guys.

Anyways, idgaf about the keepers plot so have some screenshots of Sebastian and Leona sharing the same braincell posing

Also,

I need fanfics of mischievious Anne right now like right now.

EPILOGUE:

So we get back to Hogwarts and this happens....

But I ignored her because I'm tired and not interested in her weird vigilante shit. Also, how about a "Hi, hope you're doing well?"

So I go to bed and the next day, THIS happens:

Ominis: You're always going on adventures with Sebastian! I'm tired of being left behind!

Sebastian: *quiet for once*

Leona: You want to...go on an adventure? I have a treasure map right here.

Ominis: Ah - I mean --

Leona: Let's set off, then

Ominis: Now, don't get the idea that this is some kind of date, Hart.

Leona: What?

Ominis: What?

Ominis: Is that a...whirlpool?

Leona: Hm...seems like whatever this map leads too is at the bottom.

Ominis: Well, that's a shame -- WAIT

Ominis: WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

Leona: Keep watch for me, okay?

Ominis: Keep....watch!? Seriously!?

Leona: That was a fun.

Ominis: That wasn't fun at all! I spent 38 minutes in a damp cave wondering whether or not you were alive!

Leona: Do tell me what your idea of fun is, then.

Ominis: Shopping. Shopping is fun. Shopping is safe.

Leona: I'd hate to spend all the galleons we just found on something I can brew myself, though.

Ominis: Get what you want, I'll pay for it.

Leona: And if I want the whole store?

Ominis: Fine, I'll buy the store.

Leona: Ominis... is this a date?

Ominis: What?

Leona: What?

Meanwhile,

Sebastian: I cant believe they left me here with him.

Duncan: Has she found anything to, uh, prove my bravery yet?

[misc-obeyme]

Oh. The chibi is huge….. ANYWAY!!! OC Info dump part 2!!!

Jazz!!! He’s giggling his signature giggle ((Kekeke)) which is the best I can get for a fox’s laugh.

So, Twisted Wonderland is basically “What if Disney Villains weren’t as bad as the films made them out to be? MC gets pulled into this magical Twisted Wonderland and has to deal with these powerful and talented yet dysfunctional boys while they search for a way to get back home” it’s a rhythm/RPG battle visual novel. It’s made by the same author as Black Butler, if you know that anime.

The outfit in the chibi is what Jazz wears as his ‘casual’ outfit in the Devildom. It also has a matching jacket and many pockets! He keeps his magic-pen, which is a fancy ballpoint pen that has an enchanted emerald on the clip and a stylus at the end, ((basically his magic focus)) in the breast pocket of the vest or the jacket depending on if he has the jacket or not. In Nightbringer he adds a pair of black and white gloves, which are like artist drawing gloves for screen drawing tablets. So pinky and ring finger and that half of the palm are black while the rest is white.

He LOVES to make clothes, so much that was what he chose to make a sustainable business out of as the requirement to get access to his family’s wealth. ((5 times great grandma started a brewery that has become world famous, Grandma Takara is also the reason he’s not human, more on that later)) Will absolutely make stuff for Asmo and Levi if they ask him. his favorite fabric to work with is canvas and so he’s really strong for his small size. He can pick up demon form!Diavolo if he wants. He also really wants to make the dress from that one sticker for Dia, as he thinks Dia would absolutely rock it. ((Don’t ask Jazz to wear that dress as the frills to non-frills ratio is too high for Jazz’s tastes))

Speaking of Diavolo: won’t act on his crushes because his brain is mean >:( thinks that this prince and future king can do better than a humble tailor. And thinks that he’d fuck up the friendship they have by trying to romance him. Also thinks that being romantically involved with a literal prince would be too much of a spotlight ((ignoring the fact that dating the brothers and Solomon already puts a huge spotlight on him….)) ((same reasoning why he would not act on his crush on Barbatos)) But he really admires Dia. It will take somebody noticing the wistful stares and sighs and forcing them talk ((person: hey, Jasper, Diavolo, come to this dinner with me. Oh wait, I actually have plans but I don’t want the reservation to go to waste, so have fun you two!! ☺️))

So, the ‘human enough’. Grandma Takara wasn’t human at all. She was a fox fae from Twisted Wonderland that found herself on Earth and couldn’t get back home. She was basically a kitsune from Japanese mythology. And at the start of Jazz’s adventures he was 98% human, 2% fox fae. Then during Twisted the human and fox fae flipped, so he’s now 98% fox fae, 2% human. Which is just enough human for pacts and Earth sorcery to work.

Because of the kitsune stuff: he’s allergic to tomatoes. If he has them, then he’s in the bathroom for the next hour. Is a shapeshifter, but prefers to keep the form he had to begin with ((except for the female bits, those got shifted away to being male ASAFP)) but will change for pranks or safety.

Loves pranks, lives by the ‘confuse, don’t abuse’ motto ((has used a vodka bottle for a water bottle, has use chocolate syrup bottle for a water bottle, eaten vanilla pudding out of a mayo jar etc.))

HATES being underwater without a viable source of air, be that potions, spells, scuba gear, or just straight up shapeshifting himself some gills. So when in the Aquarium Event they all swam to the source of the poison, he was internally going “I hate this. I hate this. I am so glad for magic.”

Ending on a positive note: is poly lingual. Can speak native Japanese, English, German and French. And can add to that with a bit of magic, just straight up copies what the person knows about the language. So, he copied Celestial from Beel.

OMG so much loooore!!

Okay I'm so into the fox fae situation a;sldkfjdf.

He's just a mischievous little guy with a big ole crush on a demon prince!! I would be their wingperson. Let me be the one who's like oh oops I planned plans on top of my plans have fun see ya!!! LOL that's so cute though. I get why he would feel that way.

I love that he's a tailor and makes stuff for Asmo and Levi too!

I too am allergic to tomatoes alsdklfjf no not really but the only food I don't like is raw tomatoes. I don't know why 😭

Anyway, I love him he sounds so cute~ Thank you for sharing him with me!!

[justrainandcoffee]

Against all odds (Alfie Solomons x fem!oc) 2x03

Peaky Blinders - Hunger Games crossover

• First part masterlist - Second Part masterlist → 2x01 2x02

Summary: Two months and counting. That's the time that passed between the end of the games and the moment where they were. Everything but good news is all what people living in District 13 receive. || The Capitol finally shows its cards. || Mr. Van Trapp helps Alfie. || It's over midnight when a soldier wakes Campbell up with news.

Warnings: Mentions of death.

Words: 2.2k.

News about the finding of the missing hovercraft, took the victors and friends by surprise.

If it wasn't because of his father, Bonnie Gold was ready to kill Campbell for hiding such information. His girlfriend was dead and president of district 13 was lying to them to keep them happy.

Until Alfie heard what he shouldn't listen to and he spread the word.

That same day, Campbell allowed the Golds, Alfie, Samuel Coldwell go there along with a squad for protection.

The hovercraft was still there, rain helped to extinguish the fire and now it was nothing but a lot of wires and steal completely useless. Both bodies, were just charred corpses. Bones were the only thing that allowed them to know they once were people.

Alfie felt sorry for the kid. Bonnie was just a young boy and probably the girl was his first love. The teary eyes and his father hugging him, while the soldiers were burying her, was enough to leave them alone.

"Campbell is right," Samuel said next to him "Rose isn't here."

"No, she's not. But in middle of fucking nowhere, the only hope I have is that Snow captured her. Why? I don't know. I always thought that he had a soft spot for her…that's before he killed your family."

"Snow has a particular way to show his love for his people, right?" Samuel snorted kicking a rock on the ground. "We better go, Alfie, there's nothing here for us."

After burying both bodies, everyone there left back to district 13, where things weren't much better.

.

In fact, things in district 13 were horrible. For the first time in over a month, they had news from the Capitol. Until now, the faces of the last dead tributes were on tv almost all the time blaming the rebels for their deaths. News trying to calm down the spirits around the capitol were also frequent. But of course they didn't show the massacre committed by the Capitol around Panem. No news about the bombs in district 8 and 12. The killings of the injured people and the innocents. No news about the public executions.

Caesar Flickerman was there that day smiling as always with the lights illuminating his bright hair and white teeth.

Nobody knew who was the boy sitting next to him until Aurora yelled.

"Brad! That's my boyfriend! What's he doing there?! He was safe! They promised me he was going to be safe with our baby!"

The adults around her looked at the girl who was crying. Promises those days had no value, apparently. But that wasn't the worst.

"…no."

The camera showed now that next to Brad was a crib with a baby sleeping on it. It was a girl, around a year old. She was wearing a pink dress and was hugging a teddy bear, unaware of the the war around her.

"Today we can't make a lot of noise," Caesar said putting a finger on his lips to ask for silence. "We have the youngest victor with us and apparently she had a long day, right, Brad? Are you the father of the champion?"

"I am. This is Desirée, my baby."

"I notice that you called her 'my baby' and not 'our', what happened with Aurora, Brad? We all saw her in the Arena and then disappeared, probably with Iacubus Nelson from district 2. Do you think she ran away with him? Do you think she's part of the rebellion?"

"I think," the boy said "he forced her. And probably not just to ran away with him."

Around the tv in Campbell's office, Aurora was crying and sobbing while Lucy was hugging her. Jack Nelson, on the other hand, he was furious.

"I forced her?! I protected her! What the hell is he saying?! I'm not one of those! I'm not!"

"I don't think he meant that" Tommy interrupted, "we need to calm down a bit."

"Calm down a bit? What are you playing at, Shelby? Calm down? That's because your fucking name isn't the one mentioned in the whole country! Like a fucking rapist of a 17 years old girl!"

"He never said that!"

"You don't need a whole dictionary to understand what he meant!"

"Shut the fuck up! Both of you!" Campbell knocked his cane against the floor and they stared at him. "This is not the fucking place to behave like two kids! One thing about this damn interview is sure," he said "we need to rescue the baby."

"That's probably the only smart thing you said in a whole month, Campbell," Lucy said caressing Aurora's hair "She says that he doesn't sound like his boyfriend at all."

"It's true," the girl finally spoke to them. Crying, she seemed to be even younger that she already was. "His eyes, his voice… that doesn't seem to be Brad at all."

"If you ask me," Lucy continued, "the one who's forced to be there is the boy. Maybe he has a script, maybe he's doing that to keep Aurora and the baby safe."

"He's a good dad," Aurora confirmed, "Since I got pregnant and after Desirée was born he helped me at all hours. He could never say that."

"But he said it." Jack left the office towards the Nelson's compartment.

.

Even when the Golds were ready to kill Campbell, they were the only ones who knew the Capitol well enough to know how to infiltrate there. Especially because they knew the underworld of the city like no one else.

Although Aberama was sure that by now, Snow destroyed everything he knew. A month was enough to do it.

But it wasn't going to be easy to enter into the heart of Panem without ending with a bullet in the brain. And if they agree to do it, it was only because of Aurora and her baby. The world already lived enough tragedies and the idea of a reunion between a mother and her child sounded like a balsam healing a wound.

Three more weeks passed.

"I'm worried about him," Nina said during the lunch to her friends. "Alfie is locking himself like a seashell."

"I talked to him two days ago. Or I least I tried," Tommy said "He barely answer to me and as soon as he could, he went to his bedroom again. Samuel told me that he didn't speak with him either."

"We should… no, we must include him when we go out. Alfie is my friend, almost my brother, he helped me more than once. I can't stay still anymore!"

"Campbell won't allow it."

"Since when you care about Campbell's words, Tommy? He's your fucking friend and I know very well that the whole situation pisses you off, too. Fuck him. What's he going to do? Punish us? He knows he can't."

"You're right, Nina," a new voice said and they turned around to see Mr. Van Trapp standing next to them "Alfie can't be alone and he needs you all, but I don't think he wants to go out. And you can't force him, either. That's not what he needs. I will talk to him."

"Alfie won't talk," Nina said, clearly desperate to know what to do.

"They said that my girl wouldn't talk either again," the old man said, "they were right. But it's amazing how even in the worst circumstances, people can communicate. Maybe Alfie doesn't want to talk, but he's still a man. A person. And I'm sure he has something to say, you know, to express himself."

Van Trapp left the group and went in search of the solitary man.

"He's my grandpa now," Lucy said before continuing the lunch.

.

Alfie was in fact in his compartment. Just him and a book they allow to take from the library.

He clearly heard his name, but he ignored. He also ignored the second time and the third one. But he had no other option but to open the door the fourth time.

"Thanks for opening, Alfie," Van Trapp said, "you know, at this age it's hard to walk all the way to my own compartment."

Alfie raised his eyebrow, if something he knew about the man in front of him was that he was on better physical condition than he was. But he said anything.

"Can I sit down?" The man asked.

"I'm not going to forbid it."

"Well, thanks for your generosity, Alfie. You missed the lunch. They feed us with mushrooms and grass," the man chuckled. "I prefer dinner, at least I know you're the one in charge in the kitchens. Anyway, I heard of this book," Mr. Van Trapp said picking up the one that Alfie was reading and left over the table when he opened the door. "1984 by George Orwell. Is it good?"

"Yeah. It's good. A book written centuries ago in 1948. The author imagined a future civilization hyper controlled by the government. Nothing new, but I guess for people living back then, it was new."

"I don't think so. Governments never changed, Alfie. They always tried to control people, always. Some were more successful than the others, but none of them won. No one. Even the most powerful government collapsed. Even before the Roman Empire to a man called Hitler. People love freedom and oppressive systems, even those disguise as liberté, failed."

"Snow didn't create a shit, then."

"No. He just borrowed what others did first."

"Ruining lives."

"Yes. That's what they do best. If you think this is the last time we're going to see a tyrant, you're wrong. Definitely not me, not you and I hope the new kids who were born these last years, either. But humanity never learn and sooner or later, a new one will appear."

"Sad."

"Yes, but inevitable. But for now, we need to be grateful that this one is ending. Or it's about to end." Van Trapp left the book over the table and looked at the younger man in front of him. "Your friends want you to go with them in one of their 'adventures'."

"To do what? Make a soup?"

"They think you're alone here. You don't talk with your brother-in-law anymore, either."

"My brother-in-law…" Alfie snorted "Is he still my brother-in-law? To be my brother in law, my wife needs to be alive. And after two months…"

"You don't know if she's dead, Alfie."

"You don't know if she's alive, Mr. Van Trapp."

"Same way you don't know if she's dead. There's no confirmation. There's no way to confirm that. I don't know her, I never had the chance because all I learned about Rose it was thanks to the Golds who talked to me about her. But you do know her, right? Is she capable to evade Snow for two months?"

Alfie remained in silence. "She seems to be a good woman who can do whatever it has to be done to help you," Van Trapp said.

"Yes, she is. If she managed to spied the Capitol for over a decade, then she can evade Snow. I don't know if I deserve her, but… she's my Rosie."

Georg Van Trapp didn't smile but nodded his head. One more question and Alfie, after 60 days, spoke what he didn't speak that whole time. "Tell me about her, Alfie. How did you met? Was it love at first sight?"

And Alfie told him.

Success. Georg Van Trapp, managed to open the shell in which Alfie had been hiding. Not totally, but enough to help him to start again. Over thirty years taking care of a traumatized woman, gave him the tools to help others.

.

Three days later, it was over midnight and Campbell was sleeping when one of his men knocked on his door.

"Who's there? What happened?" he asked and a man on the other side of the door, answered.

Three words captured Campbell's attention and got out of his bed quickly as he could.

"She's alive, sir! Mrs. Solomons is alive! And she's here. With two other refugees. Well, three other refugees."

At those hours the hallways were almost empty except for those working in the night shift.

How, after two months, it was possible for her to be alive?

Campbell reached the last hallway and could see that the lights in his office were on.

Two women were in his office and one little girl. And a dog. Animals weren't allowed to be there, but that wasn't the best moment to complain about that.

He recognised Mrs. Solomons immediately but he also knew who the other one was. There in front of him was not just the most wanted person (dead or alive) in district 13, but also the black tall woman and victor, known as Aveline Young.

The little girl was sleeping over Aveline, who was holding her like the most precious treasure.

"Mrs. Solomons…welc-"

"Where's he?" Rose interrupted. "Where's Alfie?"

Next

[evita-shelby]

Incantatrice

Ch.16

Cw: death, guilt, feminicide, murder, mentions of sex(duh its an eva fic), whatever murder of a pregnant person is called

Taglist: @wandawiccan60 @thegreatdragonfruta @zablife

“I want you to be the last.” Luca had said when they met earlier yesterday, “I want you to be alive after your entire family is dead 'cause my mother says that is what will hurt you the most.”

A few days after John’s funeral, Elizabeth Stark is found dead in a canal.

Her autopsy revealed she was pregnant, barely two months along.

He hadn’t killed her, but he let Esme and Polly take their revenge.

Always loving the wrong women, Polly had said drinking to hide her shaking hands as she washed the blood from them.

When the police call her next of kin, Tommy pretends he is as shocked as they are to know his family is all she had.

He is alone at the cemetery when he sees a woman in black come with marigolds.

Perhaps a friend, he thinks, Lizzie was alone in the world.

Alone save for them and the baby she never even knew about.

“I warned her this would happen.” The woman said, an American with a voice like cool silk.

The hairs on the back of his neck rise in intrigue, fear and anger.

“Mrs. Changretta, I presume.” He said taking out a cigarette case Lizzie had picked out for him last Christmas.

He killed her like he killed Grace and Greta and Zelda.

The sapphire was not the curse, the curse was him.

“There was no curse, your women were not interesting enough to warrant one.” The woman answered reading his mind. “Just shit luck, hence why they fell in love with you.”

Like a real witch, like his mother once used to do before the tablets and the booze and the opium turned her into something unrecognizable.

She was good looking too, in that slightly unnerving beauty that beckoned you like a moth to a flame.

No wonder Luca had married her, with a woman like that, he was God himself.

“And rich to boot. Had I not gone to the opera that evening, I would have ended up here.” She adds, being pleasant company despite being the wife of the man here to kill them all. “Maybe even have had the misfortune of falling in love with you down the line.”

“What do you want?” he asks not wanting to think what game the witch is playing at.

“Just want this to be over, same as you.” She answered as if they didn’t have vastly different meanings. “Should have let her go instead of damning them all to die, Shelby.”

“They killed my wife.” He says, as if that makes it better.

“Your wife’s killer wasn’t one of ours, he hadn’t been lying, you know. Just like Lizzie wasn’t lying either.” The woman smirked. “You knew that, not then, but later when it was already done and no turning back.

First rule of this world is not to be taken in by appearances, and every damn time you fall for the veneer.

First Grace, then Solomons and Sabini, the shooter, the Russians and now Lizzie.”

“If you wanted her dead, you could’ve done it yourself.” He exhaled wishing nothing more than to take the revolver to his head, feel the cold steel on his temple and feel the thrill of pulling the fucking trigger.

But then he always remembers Charlie and Lizzie and he puts it down. Goes to them and remembers there are people he lives for.

This time there won’t be anyone to keep him from ending his miserable life.

The Changrettas wanted him to die even if he won.

“It's good strategy you have, even if you lose, you win.” He points out, as a man who likes competence, at least it’s a comfort to know his enemies are not winning by blind luck, but by skill.

Campbell only won because he didn’t know Tommy would have fallen for such a lousy spy in the first place.

Had Tommy not been so vulnerable when Grace came dressed in lies, everything would have been so different.

So many dead or gone from his life because he loved the wrong woman.

“Never caught your name, Mrs. Changretta.” He brings up when the woman turned to leave.

“Eva. Eva Changretta.”

“Polly’s lying to you.” Eva said the moment she smelled her on his clothes when he returned from the nightclub he met Polly Gray at.

He had a drink and a dance with her, and Eva had put flowers on the grave of Tommy’s lover and victim.

“This isn’t my first vendetta, you know.” He reminds her, trying to kiss her as she took off his vest.

“I know, but it doesn’t hurt to remind you.” The witch said moving out of the way before he could do so.

“Are you jealous, maga?” he asks recognizing fully well the telltale signs of her jealousy.

Luca will remind her she is the only woman he wants in his bed.

Could remind her right on the desk, or the chair, the door, anywhere they want without the children killing the mood.

Can’t remember the last time they had the luxury to be loud and go as long as they want.

They’re getting a nanny after this.

“You would be the same if I had been the one dancing so closely with Tommy Shelby.” Eva answered, knowing he could not fault her with such a good argument.

“If he even touched you, he’d be a dead man.” Luca nuzzled her neck, kissing and biting her so they know she is his property.

Only fair he gets to mark her after she marked him this morning.

“If you fuck the aunt, I will fuck the nephew.” The witch warns as things take their natural progression.

“You’re gorgeous when you’re jealous, it’s a good color on you, Evucca.” He smirked.

“Met his wife this morning. She claims the shooter wasn’t one of theirs.” Tommy lights another cigarette and offers Polly one of his.

“Luca said Lizzie was a taste of what’s to come.” Polly supplied with a sigh.

Hands hadn’t stopped shaking since that night.

Esme called saying Lizzie and her baby had been haunting her. Esme hadn’t known about the baby.

We killed an innocent, Polly, they made us kill an innocent, Esme had said in a panic.

Lizzie had not been lying, just as Vincente Changretta hadn’t either.

Now they pay the fucking price.

And what a heavy prize it is.

If she must choose between her son or Tommy, Polly knows he won’t blame her for it.

[thelibrarylesstrektraveled]

Nightingale Chapter Seventeen - All Around the Cobbler's Bench

Summary: Jensen Ackles seemed to have it all. A hit television series fifteen years running, a budding music career and a stunning wife. To the casual observer, his life was perfect. But it was a façade. No more real than the supernatural world created on a soundstage.

That day on the lake had started with uncertainty, but when he pulled you from the water everything became clear. The truth was, he’d been the one drowning.

Pairing: Jensen Ackles x Reader, Jensen x Reader, Jensen x You

Characters: Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, Genevieve Padalecki, Misha Collins, Reader

Warnings: Hurt/Comfort, Hospitals, Drowning, Fluff, Angst, Smut, unprotected sex

Chapter Seventeen: All Around the Cobbler's Bench

Word Count: 5279

Author’s Notes: This is a complete work of fiction about a real life person. The circumstances are totally made up and are in no way a commentary on the fantastic Jensen Ackles or his family.

This is also a unique reader insert story as I have given the reader a physical description including hair color, eye color and body type. Hopefully you can still lose yourself in the utter fantasy where Jensen is the hero and you are ripe for rescuing! Author's Additional Notes: This is it. The last chapter. The Conclusion to my story! (There will be an epilogue to follow) I started this over a year and a half ago, and here we are, finished!! There were plenty of times I wondered if I'd ever get there. But with the steadfast encouragement of all of you, I found the inspiration and the drive. Thank all of you who read this and showered me with love. I am forever grateful!

Masterlist

Nightingale Masterlist

     Jensen checked his watch again while he tapped his fingers against his leg trying to rid himself of the anxious energy.  You’d been in the restroom for fifteen minutes and while women tended to take longer in the bathroom, it was unusual for you.  Other girls had come and gone in that time, and he was beginning to worry.  Deciding to hell with it, he knocked loudly to announce himself and entered.

     “Y/N?  Sweetheart?  The play is starting…”

     The room was empty and something about the eerie silence sent an ominous chill down his spine.  Not a trace of you anywhere, as if you’d evaporated into thin air!  Desperate, he pushed open the stall doors and last one revealed a woman crumpled against the wall.  He recognized the scuffed sneakers as your favorites and the denim jacket with the frayed sleeves.  And the fall of golden hair.

     Frantic, he dropped to his knees, “Y/N!  Baby?!” 

     He grabbed hold of your shoulder and pulled.  Your head rolled back and revealed a deeply slit throat and a stranger’s face.

     Dead.  He could tell it at a glance, but it wasn’t you!  The poor soul had been dressed in your clothes and a very convincing blonde wig. 

     “Shit!”  Jensen scrambled to his feet and burst out of the room.  He frantically searched the crowd of people while dialing his emergency number.

      “Solomon.”

      “She’s gone!  She’s gone, you son of a bitch!  You said she was safe!”

     “We show Y/N in the ladies’ room on the east end of the pavilion.” 

      “Her clothes are there along with a fucking dead body!  He’s got her!  Fuck!”

      “Stay where you are,” the agent barked through the phone while people shuffled in the background. 

      He took off at a jog, trying to scan the faces for yours, “Like hell I will!”

      “That’s an order, Ackles!  I need details, not another missing person.  I have agents converging on your location.”

      Jensen ended the call and tried your number.  It rang several times then went to voicemail.  “Sweetheart, if you get this, just hang on.  I’m coming.  I swear to God… I’m coming to get you.”

       Consciousness came to you in fragments.  Different parts of your body were numb.  There was a pins and needles feeling that came with having been in one position for too long.  Your eyes felt dry and raw, although you hadn’t opened them yet.  Your throat felt the same and there was a really unpleasant smell coming from somewhere.  An artificial and over-powering cherry scent mixed with sour sweat.  Suddenly, your whole frame was jolted, and the side of your head connected with something cold and hard.  It was enough to pull you out of the semi-conscious daze you’d been in, your eyes popped open as your head bounced off the passenger side window. 

     You sat more upright with a groan and rubbed your head, “What…?”

     This wasn’t Jensen’s car.  The dashboard was faded blue and cracked from the sun.  An ancient radio with silver knobs played an old song from the sixties.  The cardboard cherry air freshener swinging from the rearview was at least partly to blame for the oppressive stench.  The man in the driver’s seat was to blame for the rest.

     “Pharmaceuticals have come such a long way, haven’t they?  That little trip was courtesy of a new and very effective benzodiazepine.  Administered through absorption through the skin.  Remarkable.  It’s hung up in clinical trials, but those of us with connections can still have our fun.”

     Your gaze slid to the man behind the wheel and your stomach knotted.  Now that he had his glasses on and his hair was brushed back from his face, he looked much like he did back in New York.  Large, hawk-like nose.  Sharp cheekbones, eyebrows like dark slashes over nearly black eyes. 

     “Of course, the best part is that although you looked like a drunk sorority girl, you were still wide awake inside,” his lips pulled into a disturbing grin.  “Hate for you to miss out.”

     He was right.  You’d been awake while he and that girl stripped you naked and dressed you in her clothes.  You’d been useless to fight them as they pulled a wig down on your head.  You were trapped in your own body, only able to witness the horror has he killed her right in front of you.  In your mind, you screamed while he seamlessly ushered you past Jensen and into the crowd.  Right under the noses of the undercover agents who were meant to protect you. 

     You forced your mind to focus.  Agent Solomon had gone over countless scenarios with you, and this was one of them.  You quickly took inventory and noted that every scrap of clothing had been removed or replaced.  Your tracking monitor, your cell phone, your pepper spray and pocketknife.  Anything that might have been useful was long gone. 

     Except the blue paisley tie Jensen wrapped around your wrist.  You could still feel the cool silk against your skin.  Your tether to him and a reminder that you still had access to one thing that might help you.  The fourth wall.  The stage was set, and this was just another part to play.  If you gave a convincing enough performance, you might just come out of this alive.

     “Where are you taking me?” you asked as you pulled the frayed seatbelt over your shoulder and secured it.

     “Tsk, Tsk!  Telling would ruin the surprise, and you know how much I love a good surprise.”

     You scanned the scenery whizzing past and found it unfamiliar.  A two-lane road cut through thick woodland as the sun began to set.  No signs other than the occasional mile marker and warnings about rockslides.  Your ears popped, confirming you were headed to higher elevation and farther away from civilization.

      Show time.

     “Why haven’t you killed me?”  You ripped the auburn-colored wig from your head and tossed it to the floor. 

     “Do you want me to?” he returned, patting the handgun in his lap.

     Panic tried to rise like bile in your throat.  You pushed it down and snatched the half full pack of cigarettes from the dash. 

     “What I want is to wake up safe at home with a beer and left-over pizza in the fridge, but we don’t always get what we want.”

     “Beer and pizza,” Arthur repeated with a scoff.  “Sophistication never was your strong suit, Y/N.  One of Colin’s many grievances about you.”

     “What I lacked in sophistication, I made up for in eagerness.”  You lit a cigarette and took a long drag, “I certainly never heard any complaints about that.”

     “Slut.  Useless whore.  No wonder you shacked up with a Hollywood scumbag like Ackles.  You probably fuck him for a weekly allowance.”  His fingers tightened around the wheel as he spoke, “Colin deserved so much better than you.”

     “Someone like you, I suppose.”  You barked out a laugh as Green turned red from the neck up, “Jesus, you’re not still carrying a torch for a dead man, are you?  That’s pathetic, Artie.  It really is.  You know he just kept you around out of pity.  Poor little Artie from the block…”

     He backhanded you right across the mouth.  Your lip split and you tasted blood.

     “Shut up!  Just shut your whore mouth!”  He grabbed your hair and bashed your head against the window, making you groan and slump in your seat.  Your vison went hazy, but you kept conscious.

     “You conniving bitch… you had to go to the feds!  If it wasn’t for that I’d have killed you quick and been done with it.  One last loose end… but not now.  Now, I get creative.  I’ll start with your little boy toy; carve his pretty face up so not even his own mother will recognize him.  Your bestie with those cute kids?  I’ll strangle her to death while they watch.”

     You didn’t say anything, waiting him out as he raged on, “Oh!  But what about your baby sister?  Frankie.  Well, let’s just say she’ll wish she’d died in that car wreck by the time I get through with her.”

     With Arthur’s rage distracting him, you saw your opening and you took it.  The cigarette was still clenched in your fist.  Your hand shot out and you crushed the glowing cherry into his face.  It sizzled and he screamed.

     He howled in pain, and you grabbed the wheel, yanking it with all your might!  The two of you fought for control and sent the truck into a spin.  The back end fishtailed, and the tires squealed.  The world went topsy turvy around you as the truck went careening off the road with a deafening crash.  Then, silence.

     “Black SUV, headed east on Market.  That’s the last we see of it until it popped up abandoned in the Whole Foods parking lot.”

     “We got the video from them?”

     “Nada.  Their surveillance system went down last week.”

     “Safe bet that was our perp.  Get the last recordings they have in the database, let’s see if Green shows his face.”

      “SUV registered to Mrs. Barbara Perkins, deceased.”

     “Naturally.  Get a trace on that name, address, bank accounts, the works.”

      Jensen had never felt more useless in his life.  While the FBI agents bustled around their make-shift headquarters, he was sitting in an office chair.  Waiting.  There was literally nothing else he could do.  They already knew what Green looked like, even disguised as a fangirl.  The pics of Jensen signing autographs went live on social media almost instantaneously.  There were all sorts of video surveillance of him walking around the park and walking a stumbling girl through the parking lot.  It was as if he was showing off.  Flaunting his deeds to the authorities who were oblivious to it all.

      Jensen felt sick at the thought of how close you were.  Green had walked you right by him and he didn’t even know it!  His mind kept going to the dead woman wearing your clothes.  Blood everywhere.  Running like a river from her slit throat.  It could have so easily been you.  It still could, and that thought chilled him to the bone.

     The video was good for one thing though, it confirmed that you had been very much alive when you left with him.  Jensen was holding on to that fact like a lifeline!  You were smart and you were a fighter.  You’d come back, you had to.  He had a whole life planned out and every day of it included you.  Marriage.  Children.  Big family Christmases.  Quiet date nights.  He even planned a proposal in Paris.  You told him you always wanted to go and making your dreams come true had become an obsession for him.  Nothing made him happy like making you happy.  His life wasn’t his own, it was forever intertwined with yours. 

      In the immortal words of his alter-ego, “There ain’t no me if there ain’t no you.”

      When his phone rang, his heart nearly stopped.  He didn’t recognize the number, but knew it was you.  “Y/N?!”

     “Jensen!  Oh God…!”

      Agent Solomon was on him instantly to hand the phone over, he refused.  But he did put it on speaker.  “Sweetheart, where are you?  Are you okay?!”

     The connection was tenuous, making your voice fade in and out. 

     “I’m okay… not… don’t know…. Arthur crashed…”

     “Crashed?!  What happened?”

      Solomon grabbed the phone, “Doctor West, are you with Green right now?”

     “No.  We crashed…. Left…”

     “Was he alive when you saw him last?”

     “…. Unconscious… don’t…. “

      “What kind of vehicle was he driving?”

     “Blue pickup… Dairyland.”

      “Dairyland?”  Jensen repeated. 

     “AJ… 677.”

      “Wisconsin plates,” Solomon signaled to his agents to run a search.  Even fragmented information would pull up something.

     “Doctor West, do you know where you are?”

     “Highway.  I don’t… mountains.  Jay!  Its… otter… Kimmy…”

     The agent locked eyes with Jensen, “What is she talking about?”

     “I don’t know,” he shook his head.  “Kimmy who?”

     “Kim… makeup… otter tattoo.”

     It clicked for him then.  The makeup artist who designed her own tattoos, Kimmy.  She’d been quite taken with Y/N when she went to the set that day.

      “It’s Mount Harvey, the snow melt on the south face looks like an otter playing baseball.”

      “Good.  Doctor West, we’re coming to you.”

      If she heard, she didn’t reply.  The phone screen showed the call dropped.  Solomon handed the phone to one of his team to pull trace information while he barked orders.  The well-oiled team shifted into their roles.  Dispatch communicated with local authorities on every level.  One of the advantages of working with the FBI, they were practiced in the art of the manhunt.  It wasn’t a question of if they would get Green, but when.  And would it be in time?

     “Ackles, you’re with me.”

     Jensen looked up in time to catch a bulletproof vest with FBI printed across the chest. 

     “I don’t have civilians on my tactical team as a rule,” Solomon informed him, zipping up his own vest.  “But you know Y/N better than anyone, I need your insight.  Let’s move.”

     You weren’t sure how far you’d gotten or how long you’d been walking.  It seemed like forever.  That ancient truck Arthur had been driving actually turned out to be a blessing.  The frame was good, old fashioned American steel and took the brunt of the crash without much damage.  The seatbelt did its job and prevented you from being thrown through the windshield.  Although, it dug into you with enough force that you likely had a broken clavicle and possibly a dislocated shoulder.  It throbbed like a son of a bitch, but you still made out better than Green. 

     He was going over sixty miles per hour when he crashed, and he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.  He was slumped over the steering wheel, bleeding from a deep gash on his scalp and covered in broken glass from the shattered windshield.  The doctor in you wanted to check for a pulse, but your visual assessment would have to do.  He was breathing, and that was enough.  You knew time wasn’t on your side, you needed to put as much distance between the two of you as possible. 

      You made a quick search of his pockets and found both a phone and a handgun.  The passenger side door was bashed in, making it impossible to escape through the door or the window.  With a quick glance to confirm your kidnapper was still unconscious, you freed yourself from the seatbelt and climbed over the dash and through the shattered windshield.  You ignored the pain of the broken glass tearing into your hands and legs. 

     You had to get out and make a run for it, it was your only chance!

     The charge on the cell was dwindling as it searched for a signal, but the fates were with you, and it connected.  The sound of Jensen’s voice nearly broke you.  You held yourself together enough to get as much information out as you could before the call dropped. 

     “No, no damn it!”  Your fingers shook as you tried to call again, only to be me with no service.  You looked around at the dense trees lining the two-lane highway and the rapidly setting sun.  Tears blurred your vision and the weight of your situation hit you in force.

     There was nowhere to go for help, you didn’t even know where you were!  The adrenaline in your system was fading and you could feel the effects of shock setting in.  Injured in a car wreck coupled with who knows what the side effects of that drug Arthur shot you up with.   You well and truly screwed.

     You bent at the waist; your hands braced on your knees as you fought the rising panic.  The blue patterned silk tied to your wrist peeked out from under your shirt cuff. 

     “Breathe, Y/N.”

     “I can’t.”

     “I’m right here, Sweetheart.  I’m with you.”

     “He’s going to kill me!”

     “You can do this, come on.  Deep breath.  In and out.”

     You closed your eyes and rubbed the silk between your finger and thumb.  Like magic, you saw the closet.  Warm and filled with color-coded clothes.  The scent of cedar and vanilla cologne and Jensen smiling. 

     “You’ve got this, Y/N.  Keep moving, keep fighting!  I’m coming for you.”

     The actor’s trick worked.  Your mind cleared and you focused.  Obviously, continuing on foot was only a decent option when you knew where you were going.  You didn’t.  Which meant it was a drain on your energy reserves.  Plus, it would make rescuing you that much more difficult for the people looking for you. 

     You eyed the woods.  It was risky, with nightfall fast approaching, you would have wildlife to contend with and falling temps, but then… so would Green.  If he came to, he’d be looking for you.  Best to make that as difficult as possible. 

     “Stronger together,” you muttered the motto that became a mantra.  Even though he wasn’t holding your hand, Jensen was still with you.  You could still count on him, to remind you what was worth fighting for. 

     With the gun heavy in your hand, you climbed down the embankment and disappeared into the forest.

     “R.C.M.P. clocked a vehicle matching Green’s heading north on 99.  Last spotted an hour ago just passing Lion’s Bay.”

     “Any confirmation on passengers?”

     “Two.  A male and a female.”

     “Given the timeframe of the crash, they couldn’t have gotten much farther than that.”

     “Any hits on the cell?”

     “No, sir.”

     “Keep trying.  If she’s on the move, we might get lucky.”

     Jensen kept quiet as he sat in the back of the SUV.  The flurry of clipped commands yielded no new information.  They were racing towards you, but there was no way to know if they would make it in time.  Jensen tugged at the tie on his wrist while his mind worked over-time.  Were you hurt?  Scared?  Running or hiding?  Were you alive? 

     God please, let her be alive!

     As if on cue, his cell phone rang.  Only once, before the call dropped, but it was your number.  And it was enough.

     “Got it!  Moving slow, heading north by northeast towards Tunnel Bluffs.”

     “We’ve got local law in the area about ten minutes out.”

     “All units converge on new coordinates, be advised our witness is currently on foot.”

     “The assailant is considered armed and dangerous, use of full and deadly force authorized for all personnel.”

     The trees on Mount Harvey were thick and grew to impressive proportions.  Massive, monolithic firs and pines that held the record for some of the biggest on Earth.  Tangles of undergrowth and roots covered every inch of the forest floor, you lost your footing more than once.  Every fall slowed you down and added to your injuries.  The sun dropped to just below the horizon and the temperature went with it.

     You leaned heavily against one of the pines to catch your breath.  Your physical reserves were nearly gone, and you knew it.  There was just enough daylight left to make out a tree a few feet away.  It had an unusual split in its trunk.  Limping and cradling your arm to ease the pressure on your shoulder, you poked around in the gap.  Mostly filled with decomposing leaves, but big enough to shelter you for the night. 

     You squeezed your body through the opening and bit back a grunt as the bark scraped your injuries.  It wasn’t comfortable, which was for the best.  Your exhausted body was already vying for sleep, anything to counter that was welcome.  The opening wasn’t wide enough to see much, but it was still a defensible position.

     Your frozen fingers flexed around the gun as your eyes worked to adjust to the darkness falling.  The weight of it in your hand was unfamiliar and uncomfortable.  You were a doctor, you saved lives you didn’t take them.  Your thumb clicked off the safety as you committed to the only course of action that would leave you alive.  It would be a long night and you were damn well going to survive it. 

     “All around the cobbler’s bench, the monkey chased the weasel.”

     Your eyes popped open.  When had you shut them?  The phone in your pocket died long ago, so it was impossible to tell how long you’d been in hiding.  The woods were still.  There was no wind or sounds of scuttling wildlife.  But a child’s song, so faint you thought you’d imagined it. 

     “The monkey thought was all in fun.”

     “A penny for a spool of thread, a penny for a needle.”

     “That’s the way the money goes.”

      “Pop!  Goes the weasel!”

     There it was again.  Singing.  You were sure you hadn’t imagined it, it had to be Arthur.  God!  It seemed like you were making a racket!  Your breathing, your heartbeat, your eyelashes blinking rapidly as you desperately scanned the inky shadows.  Why did sound amplify in the cold and the dark?  It all seemed to be announcing your location to the man who was coming to murder you. 

     “Up and down the London road.”

     “In and out of the Eagle.”

     “That’s the way the money goes.”

     “Pop!  Goes the weasel!”

     He was playing with you.  The monkey and the weasel.  Cat and mouse.  You should have kept running!  Should have kept to the road, someone would have seen you.  You would have stood a chance!  Now you were in a trap of your own making.

     “I’ve no time to plead and pine.”

     “I’ve no time to wheedle.”

     “Kiss me quick and then I’m gone.”

     “Pop!  Goes the weasel!”

     The echo of the woods distorted Arthur’s voice so that you had no clue where he was coming from.  Running now would do you no good.  It was too late.  The son of a bitch was closing in on you now.  Would they even be able to find your body?  Would Jensen ever know what became of you?  You should have ran the minute you remembered your name. 

     “All around the cobbler’s bench.”

     “Arthur chased the doctor.”

     “The doctor thought was all in fun…”

     God, please keep him safe from the psychopath.  And Frankie!  Make sure they know I love them!  No matter what happens to me… I love you!

     “Pop!”

     Arthur.  Blood, dirt, and broken glass.  A twisted grin split his grotesque face. 

     Time stopped; a shot rang out.  Then, nothing.

     Jensen stood with the small, second group of agents investigating the crashed truck.  Two sets of footprints disappeared into the woods and the first round of FBI had already spread out into the wilderness to join the Mounties and broaden the search.

     The report of a gunshot echoed all the way back to the road.

     His blood ran cold.  “Y/N.”

     A hand went to Jensen’s Kevlar covered chest before he could move.  Bruce, the iron faced agent assigned to the actor, held him in place.

     "Let me go!"

     "Not a chance."

     "That was a fucking gunshot!"

     "Yeah, it was.  You take off now, the next one might have your name on it."

     “I don’t care!”

     "Right now, every resource we have is focused on Y/N.  You go out there and those resources get split, cutting her chance at survival in half.”

     Jensen turned away, running his hands through his hair.  “Fuck!”

     "We've all got a job to do.  Yours is communication,” Bruce put a steady hand on Jensen’s shoulder.  “You want to help your girl?   Stay put.  Be here and be ready to answer when she calls."

     Knowing Bruce was right didn't make the next hour of waiting any easier.  It was agony.  There was no word.  Not a sound from anyone.  Radio silence, Agent Bruce called it.  He seemed to think it was a positive sign, but it was driving Jensen insane.  Each minute that passed brought a horrible new thought.  A potential nightmare that could play out right in front of him.  And he was powerless to prevent it.

     He was past the end of his rope when an ambulance came into view and sped past them.  Traveling at breakneck speed up the mountain. Flashing lights bouncing off the trees and rock face. 

     Bruce held a finger to the tiny Speaker in his ear.  A grim look passed his features.

     "Let's move."

     He said nothing more.  No word on if you were alive or dead.  No hint at who that ambulance was for.  An hour ago, Jensen would have sworn he'd reached his capacity for worry and stress.  But that was nothing compared to the five minutes it took to reach the clearing.  There was a mass of people milling around.  F.B.I. he recognized and a few others outfitted in uniforms for the R.C.M.P.  That ambulance was parked off to the side, the back door was closed but the lights were still flashing.  Several other official looking vehicles showed up, including one for the coroner’s office. 

     Jensen was out of the car before Bruce even put it in park.  He caught the slender build of Frank Solomon, casually talking to a couple of other agents by the rail guard.  The son of a bitch was acting like he’d completed a milk run!  Jensen’s nostrils flared with rage as he made a direct path for him.

     The young man looked up, seemingly unphased by the Texan’s aggressive approach.

     "Ackles.”

     "Where is she?!"

     Solomon’s mouth opened, but it wasn’t his voice that was heard.  A shrill, terrified scream came from inside the ambulance, cutting through the night.

      "Jensen!"

     He'd spent fifteen years stepping into the boots of Dean Winchester.  Fighting monsters.  Some you could see, some you couldn't.  But no matter how close he was to the hero he portrayed; it was still an act.  Though there were plenty of times he’d wished it were real.  Wished he were more like the enigmatic man in the ’67 Chevy.  The man who always knew what to do.  The man who always saved the day.

     And yes, he would let his ‘Dean’ show from time to time.  That was a blurred line that proved useful more than once.  But in that moment when you screamed for him, there was no line.  There was no Dean, there was clarity. 

     Solomon got exactly one word out, “Wait…”  

     Jensen pulled back his fist and punched him square in the face, knocking him on his ass.

     He ran to that ambulance.  On a mission and with one purpose, he tore the door open.  

     You were sitting on a gurney, struggling against the medic who was trying to keep you from bolting.  Bruised and bloody.  But breathing!  The second you saw him, you went still, your bottom lip quivered.

     “Jensen.”

     The medic proved smarter than the F.B.I. agents and moved out of the way, allowing Jensen the room to take you in his arms.  That was when you broke completely.  Sobbing and desperately clinging to him like a child.  You weren’t sure how you got there.  One minute you were in that tree being stalked by a killer, the next you were being bundled into an ambulance.  It was so surreal!  It wasn’t until you heard Jensen on the other side of the door that you snapped.  Reality crashed over you, and you couldn’t breathe. 

     Jensen tried to will his own panic away.  You were alive.  He had you.  Bloody and trembling, but in his arms.  He could hear himself telling you soothing things.  Comforting words that he would never be able to recall later.  He was sure you couldn’t understand him anyway, you were crying so hard that your whole body shook. 

     But his voice was a balm, the timbre of it washed over you.  After a time, the raw shock wore through to numbness.  You drew a shuddering breath and tried to speak. 

     “I’ve got you,” he said, his voice coming from just over your head.  “I’m right here.”

     You released your death grip on Jensen’s jacket and snuck a look at your hands.  There were burn marks there from the gun powder.  Across the clearing, two men were maneuvering a stretcher over the gravel.  A black body bag was strapped to the top.

     “I killed him.”

     Jensen gently brushed the tangled hair away from your face.  His gaze followed yours to the body being taken away.  It could have so easily been you.  He rubbed his hand down your back and tucked your head under his chin.

     “Don’t look, baby.  Don’t think about it.  Never again.”

     The EMT reappeared, insisting that you go to the hospital.  He listed a number of injuries that needed attention.  Including another fucking concussion.

     You managed a weak laugh, “Look at us, right back where we started.”

     “At least you didn’t drown this time, your average is improving,” Jensen said, kissing your forehead.

     With practiced efficiency, the medic had you secured and ready for transport.  Just as the door was about to shut, Frank Solomon appeared.  His jaw was discolored and starting to swell where Jensen landed his punch. 

     Jensen smirked, “Back for round two?”

     “The ambulance is already at capacity, let’s not chance it.”  Solomon’s dark eyes shifted to you.  The arrogance drained away, and he seemed softer.  Almost repentant. 

      “Doctor West, I wanted to let you know that the death of Arthur Green officially closes this case.  You are no longer under any obligation to the F.B.I. for any purpose and you are free to resume your life.”

     “You won’t need me to make a statement?”

     “We have everything we need.  And I have to say, without your cooperation and your bravery, we never would have gotten Green let alone shut down the drug ring.  This victory is yours.”

     “I shot a man.  Deserved or not, that doesn’t feel particularly victorious.”

     Solomon blinked slowly, “You didn’t shoot Arthur Green.”

     “What?”

     “Barely clipped his shoulder, but I hardly call that a shot,” the agent shrugged, his casual manner back in place.  “One of the Mounted Police got him… Roberts, I think.  One clean shot to the head.  Green was dead before he hit the ground.”

     You could have lived with the death on your conscience, knowing it had been self-defense.  But the fact that you didn’t have to, freed you.  Well and truly.  Lightness settled in where guilt had been only a moment ago.  Words failed you.  An astonished gasp left your lips, and you let you head rest against Jensen’s shoulder.

     “Goodbye, Doctor West.  Mr. Ackles.”  Solomon shut the door and thumped it twice. 

     The ambulance slowly rolled away to begin its descent down the mountain.  Jensen’s hand found yours under the emergency blanket tucked over your lap.

     “It’s over.”

     “Yeah, it’s all over, Sweetheart” he murmured, kissing your temple.

     You and Jensen would talk about the incredible circumstances of how you got together often over the years.  You would muse on the workings of fate and God’s grand plan.  You would wonder at the impossibility of it all. 

     Surely, there must have been an easier way for two lost souls to meet.

     But then, meeting wouldn’t have been enough.  The two of you were drowning; separately but equally.  The miserable details of your own lives were pulling you under like a riptide.  It was so all-consuming that you couldn’t break free.  You weren’t strong enough, not alone. 

     It was like Jensen said that day in your old apartment, make a different choice.  The two of you chose to save each other.  But you also chose to let yourself to be saved.  It wasn’t passive and it wasn’t by chance.  It was a decision.  Perhaps not always an easy one, but it had power. 

     Love does conquer all, but only if you choose it.  TagList @deans-baby-momma @muchamusedaboutnothing @peterpangirl21 @ficbreaks @teresa-67 @sacriceria @verytoadpapersoul @heartbreak-of-a-marauder @savspersonalproperty @deanwanddamons @jenwinchester40 @perpetualabsurdity @starryeyeseubyul @sexyvixen7 @katsbratsupernaturalwhore @agirlwithdemonblood @jerkbitchidjitassbutt @imthedoctorlove @roonyxx @smellingofpoetry @deanwinchesterswitch @thinkinghardhardlythinking @pink-sparkly-witch @barewithme02 @deadlynightshadeindustries @jc-winchester @mrswhozeewhatsis @kinderousmaster @lyarr24 @aphorism-001 @onlinecemetery @allonsy-yesiwill @myeagletoadmaker @panicking-outside-the-disco @haylie-spnfam4evr @lauraashley93 @foxyjwls007 @bluedragonflylady @foxyjwls007 @deans-spinster-witch @deanwwinchester

[trektraveler]

Nightingale Chapter Seventeen - All Around the Cobbler's Bench

Summary: Jensen Ackles seemed to have it all. A hit television series fifteen years running, a budding music career and a stunning wife. To the casual observer, his life was perfect. But it was a façade. No more real than the supernatural world created on a soundstage.

That day on the lake had started with uncertainty, but when he pulled you from the water everything became clear. The truth was, he’d been the one drowning.

Pairing: Jensen Ackles x Reader, Jensen x Reader, Jensen x You

Characters: Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, Genevieve Padalecki, Misha Collins, Reader

Warnings: Hurt/Comfort, Hospitals, Drowning, Fluff, Angst, Smut, unprotected sex

Chapter Seventeen: All Around the Cobbler's Bench

Word Count: 5279

Author’s Notes: This is a complete work of fiction about a real life person. The circumstances are totally made up and are in no way a commentary on the fantastic Jensen Ackles or his family.

This is also a unique reader insert story as I have given the reader a physical description including hair color, eye color and body type. Hopefully you can still lose yourself in the utter fantasy where Jensen is the hero and you are ripe for rescuing! Author's Additional Notes: This is it. The last chapter. The Conclusion to my story! (There will be an epilogue to follow) I started this over a year and a half ago, and here we are, finished!! There were plenty of times I wondered if I'd ever get there. But with the steadfast encouragement of all of you, I found the inspiration and the drive. Thank all of you who read this and showered me with love. I am forever grateful!

Series Masterlist

     Jensen checked his watch again while he tapped his fingers against his leg trying to rid himself of the anxious energy.  You’d been in the restroom for fifteen minutes and while women tended to take longer in the bathroom, it was unusual for you.  Other girls had come and gone in that time, and he was beginning to worry.  Deciding to hell with it, he knocked loudly to announce himself and entered.

     “Y/N?  Sweetheart?  The play is starting…”

     The room was empty and something about the eerie silence sent an ominous chill down his spine.  Not a trace of you anywhere, as if you’d evaporated into thin air!  Desperate, he pushed open the stall doors and last one revealed a woman crumpled against the wall.  He recognized the scuffed sneakers as your favorites and the denim jacket with the frayed sleeves.  And the fall of golden hair.

     Frantic, he dropped to his knees, “Y/N!  Baby?!” 

     He grabbed hold of your shoulder and pulled.  Your head rolled back and revealed a deeply slit throat and a stranger’s face.

     Dead.  He could tell it at a glance, but it wasn’t you!  The poor soul had been dressed in your clothes and a very convincing blonde wig. 

     “Shit!”  Jensen scrambled to his feet and burst out of the room.  He frantically searched the crowd of people while dialing his emergency number.

      “Solomon.”

      “She’s gone!  She’s gone, you son of a bitch!  You said she was safe!”

     “We show Y/N in the ladies’ room on the east end of the pavilion.” 

      “Her clothes are there along with a fucking dead body!  He’s got her!  Fuck!”

      “Stay where you are,” the agent barked through the phone while people shuffled in the background. 

      He took off at a jog, trying to scan the faces for yours, “Like hell I will!”

      “That’s an order, Ackles!  I need details, not another missing person.  I have agents converging on your location.”

      Jensen ended the call and tried your number.  It rang several times then went to voicemail.  “Sweetheart, if you get this, just hang on.  I’m coming.  I swear to God… I’m coming to get you.”

       Consciousness came to you in fragments.  Different parts of your body were numb.  There was a pins and needles feeling that came with having been in one position for too long.  Your eyes felt dry and raw, although you hadn’t opened them yet.  Your throat felt the same and there was a really unpleasant smell coming from somewhere.  An artificial and over-powering cherry scent mixed with sour sweat.  Suddenly, your whole frame was jolted, and the side of your head connected with something cold and hard.  It was enough to pull you out of the semi-conscious daze you’d been in, your eyes popped open as your head bounced off the passenger side window. 

     You sat more upright with a groan and rubbed your head, “What…?”

     This wasn’t Jensen’s car.  The dashboard was faded blue and cracked from the sun.  An ancient radio with silver knobs played an old song from the sixties.  The cardboard cherry air freshener swinging from the rearview was at least partly to blame for the oppressive stench.  The man in the driver’s seat was to blame for the rest.

     “Pharmaceuticals have come such a long way, haven’t they?  That little trip was courtesy of a new and very effective benzodiazepine.  Administered through absorption through the skin.  Remarkable.  It’s hung up in clinical trials, but those of us with connections can still have our fun.”

     Your gaze slid to the man behind the wheel and your stomach knotted.  Now that he had his glasses on and his hair was brushed back from his face, he looked much like he did back in New York.  Large, hawk-like nose.  Sharp cheekbones, eyebrows like dark slashes over nearly black eyes. 

     “Of course, the best part is that although you looked like a drunk sorority girl, you were still wide awake inside,” his lips pulled into a disturbing grin.  “Hate for you to miss out.”

     He was right.  You’d been awake while he and that girl stripped you naked and dressed you in her clothes.  You’d been useless to fight them as they pulled a wig down on your head.  You were trapped in your own body, only able to witness the horror has he killed her right in front of you.  In your mind, you screamed while he seamlessly ushered you past Jensen and into the crowd.  Right under the noses of the undercover agents who were meant to protect you. 

     You forced your mind to focus.  Agent Solomon had gone over countless scenarios with you, and this was one of them.  You quickly took inventory and noted that every scrap of clothing had been removed or replaced.  Your tracking monitor, your cell phone, your pepper spray and pocketknife.  Anything that might have been useful was long gone. 

     Except the blue paisley tie Jensen wrapped around your wrist.  You could still feel the cool silk against your skin.  Your tether to him and a reminder that you still had access to one thing that might help you.  The fourth wall.  The stage was set, and this was just another part to play.  If you gave a convincing enough performance, you might just come out of this alive.

     “Where are you taking me?” you asked as you pulled the frayed seatbelt over your shoulder and secured it.

     “Tsk, Tsk!  Telling would ruin the surprise, and you know how much I love a good surprise.”

     You scanned the scenery whizzing past and found it unfamiliar.  A two-lane road cut through thick woodland as the sun began to set.  No signs other than the occasional mile marker and warnings about rockslides.  Your ears popped, confirming you were headed to higher elevation and farther away from civilization.

      Show time.

     “Why haven’t you killed me?”  You ripped the auburn-colored wig from your head and tossed it to the floor. 

     “Do you want me to?” he returned, patting the handgun in his lap.

     Panic tried to rise like bile in your throat.  You pushed it down and snatched the half full pack of cigarettes from the dash. 

     “What I want is to wake up safe at home with a beer and left-over pizza in the fridge, but we don’t always get what we want.”

     “Beer and pizza,” Arthur repeated with a scoff.  “Sophistication never was your strong suit, Y/N.  One of Colin’s many grievances about you.”

     “What I lacked in sophistication, I made up for in eagerness.”  You lit a cigarette and took a long drag, “I certainly never heard any complaints about that.”

     “Slut.  Useless whore.  No wonder you shacked up with a Hollywood scumbag like Ackles.  You probably fuck him for a weekly allowance.”  His fingers tightened around the wheel as he spoke, “Colin deserved so much better than you.”

     “Someone like you, I suppose.”  You barked out a laugh as Green turned red from the neck up, “Jesus, you’re not still carrying a torch for a dead man, are you?  That’s pathetic, Artie.  It really is.  You know he just kept you around out of pity.  Poor little Artie from the block…”

     He backhanded you right across the mouth.  Your lip split and you tasted blood.

     “Shut up!  Just shut your whore mouth!”  He grabbed your hair and bashed your head against the window, making you groan and slump in your seat.  Your vison went hazy, but you kept conscious.

     “You conniving bitch… you had to go to the feds!  If it wasn’t for that I’d have killed you quick and been done with it.  One last loose end… but not now.  Now, I get creative.  I’ll start with your little boy toy; carve his pretty face up so not even his own mother will recognize him.  Your bestie with those cute kids?  I’ll strangle her to death while they watch.”

     You didn’t say anything, waiting him out as he raged on, “Oh!  But what about your baby sister?  Frankie.  Well, let’s just say she’ll wish she’d died in that car wreck by the time I get through with her.”

     With Arthur’s rage distracting him, you saw your opening and you took it.  The cigarette was still clenched in your fist.  Your hand shot out and you crushed the glowing cherry into his face.  It sizzled and he screamed.

     He howled in pain, and you grabbed the wheel, yanking it with all your might!  The two of you fought for control and sent the truck into a spin.  The back end fishtailed, and the tires squealed.  The world went topsy turvy around you as the truck went careening off the road with a deafening crash.  Then, silence.

     “Black SUV, headed east on Market.  That’s the last we see of it until it popped up abandoned in the Whole Foods parking lot.”

     “We got the video from them?”

     “Nada.  Their surveillance system went down last week.”

     “Safe bet that was our perp.  Get the last recordings they have in the database, let’s see if Green shows his face.”

      “SUV registered to Mrs. Barbara Perkins, deceased.”

     “Naturally.  Get a trace on that name, address, bank accounts, the works.”

      Jensen had never felt more useless in his life.  While the FBI agents bustled around their make-shift headquarters, he was sitting in an office chair.  Waiting.  There was literally nothing else he could do.  They already knew what Green looked like, even disguised as a fangirl.  The pics of Jensen signing autographs went live on social media almost instantaneously.  There were all sorts of video surveillance of him walking around the park and walking a stumbling girl through the parking lot.  It was as if he was showing off.  Flaunting his deeds to the authorities who were oblivious to it all.

      Jensen felt sick at the thought of how close you were.  Green had walked you right by him and he didn’t even know it!  His mind kept going to the dead woman wearing your clothes.  Blood everywhere.  Running like a river from her slit throat.  It could have so easily been you.  It still could, and that thought chilled him to the bone.

     The video was good for one thing though, it confirmed that you had been very much alive when you left with him.  Jensen was holding on to that fact like a lifeline!  You were smart and you were a fighter.  You’d come back, you had to.  He had a whole life planned out and every day of it included you.  Marriage.  Children.  Big family Christmases.  Quiet date nights.  He even planned a proposal in Paris.  You told him you always wanted to go and making your dreams come true had become an obsession for him.  Nothing made him happy like making you happy.  His life wasn’t his own, it was forever intertwined with yours. 

      In the immortal words of his alter-ego, “There ain’t no me if there ain’t no you.”

      When his phone rang, his heart nearly stopped.  He didn’t recognize the number, but knew it was you.  “Y/N?!”

     “Jensen!  Oh God…!”

      Agent Solomon was on him instantly to hand the phone over, he refused.  But he did put it on speaker.  “Sweetheart, where are you?  Are you okay?!”

     The connection was tenuous, making your voice fade in and out. 

     “I’m okay… not… don’t know…. Arthur crashed…”

     “Crashed?!  What happened?”

      Solomon grabbed the phone, “Doctor West, are you with Green right now?”

     “No.  We crashed…. Left…”

     “Was he alive when you saw him last?”

     “…. Unconscious… don’t…. “

      “What kind of vehicle was he driving?”

     “Blue pickup… Dairyland.”

      “Dairyland?”  Jensen repeated. 

     “AJ… 677.”

      “Wisconsin plates,” Solomon signaled to his agents to run a search.  Even fragmented information would pull up something.

     “Doctor West, do you know where you are?”

     “Highway.  I don’t… mountains.  Jay!  Its… otter… Kimmy…”

     The agent locked eyes with Jensen, “What is she talking about?”

     “I don’t know,” he shook his head.  “Kimmy who?”

     “Kim… makeup… otter tattoo.”

     It clicked for him then.  The makeup artist who designed her own tattoos, Kimmy.  She’d been quite taken with Y/N when she went to the set that day.

      “It’s Mount Harvey, the snow melt on the south face looks like an otter playing baseball.”

      “Good.  Doctor West, we’re coming to you.”

      If she heard, she didn’t reply.  The phone screen showed the call dropped.  Solomon handed the phone to one of his team to pull trace information while he barked orders.  The well-oiled team shifted into their roles.  Dispatch communicated with local authorities on every level.  One of the advantages of working with the FBI, they were practiced in the art of the manhunt.  It wasn’t a question of if they would get Green, but when.  And would it be in time?

     “Ackles, you’re with me.”

     Jensen looked up in time to catch a bulletproof vest with FBI printed across the chest. 

     “I don’t have civilians on my tactical team as a rule,” Solomon informed him, zipping up his own vest.  “But you know Y/N better than anyone, I need your insight.  Let’s move.”

     You weren’t sure how far you’d gotten or how long you’d been walking.  It seemed like forever.  That ancient truck Arthur had been driving actually turned out to be a blessing.  The frame was good, old fashioned American steel and took the brunt of the crash without much damage.  The seatbelt did its job and prevented you from being thrown through the windshield.  Although, it dug into you with enough force that you likely had a broken clavicle and possibly a dislocated shoulder.  It throbbed like a son of a bitch, but you still made out better than Green. 

     He was going over sixty miles per hour when he crashed, and he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.  He was slumped over the steering wheel, bleeding from a deep gash on his scalp and covered in broken glass from the shattered windshield.  The doctor in you wanted to check for a pulse, but your visual assessment would have to do.  He was breathing, and that was enough.  You knew time wasn’t on your side, you needed to put as much distance between the two of you as possible. 

      You made a quick search of his pockets and found both a phone and a handgun.  The passenger side door was bashed in, making it impossible to escape through the door or the window.  With a quick glance to confirm your kidnapper was still unconscious, you freed yourself from the seatbelt and climbed over the dash and through the shattered windshield.  You ignored the pain of the broken glass tearing into your hands and legs. 

     You had to get out and make a run for it, it was your only chance!

     The charge on the cell was dwindling as it searched for a signal, but the fates were with you, and it connected.  The sound of Jensen’s voice nearly broke you.  You held yourself together enough to get as much information out as you could before the call dropped. 

     “No, no damn it!”  Your fingers shook as you tried to call again, only to be me with no service.  You looked around at the dense trees lining the two-lane highway and the rapidly setting sun.  Tears blurred your vision and the weight of your situation hit you in force.

     There was nowhere to go for help, you didn’t even know where you were!  The adrenaline in your system was fading and you could feel the effects of shock setting in.  Injured in a car wreck coupled with who knows what the side effects of that drug Arthur shot you up with.   You well and truly screwed.

     You bent at the waist; your hands braced on your knees as you fought the rising panic.  The blue patterned silk tied to your wrist peeked out from under your shirt cuff. 

     “Breathe, Y/N.”

     “I can’t.”

     “I’m right here, Sweetheart.  I’m with you.”

     “He’s going to kill me!”

     “You can do this, come on.  Deep breath.  In and out.”

     You closed your eyes and rubbed the silk between your finger and thumb.  Like magic, you saw the closet.  Warm and filled with color-coded clothes.  The scent of cedar and vanilla cologne and Jensen smiling. 

     “You’ve got this, Y/N.  Keep moving, keep fighting!  I’m coming for you.”

     The actor’s trick worked.  Your mind cleared and you focused.  Obviously, continuing on foot was only a decent option when you knew where you were going.  You didn’t.  Which meant it was a drain on your energy reserves.  Plus, it would make rescuing you that much more difficult for the people looking for you. 

     You eyed the woods.  It was risky, with nightfall fast approaching, you would have wildlife to contend with and falling temps, but then… so would Green.  If he came to, he’d be looking for you.  Best to make that as difficult as possible. 

     “Stronger together,” you muttered the motto that became a mantra.  Even though he wasn’t holding your hand, Jensen was still with you.  You could still count on him, to remind you what was worth fighting for. 

     With the gun heavy in your hand, you climbed down the embankment and disappeared into the forest.

     “R.C.M.P. clocked a vehicle matching Green’s heading north on 99.  Last spotted an hour ago just passing Lion’s Bay.”

     “Any confirmation on passengers?”

     “Two.  A male and a female.”

     “Given the timeframe of the crash, they couldn’t have gotten much farther than that.”

     “Any hits on the cell?”

     “No, sir.”

     “Keep trying.  If she’s on the move, we might get lucky.”

     Jensen kept quiet as he sat in the back of the SUV.  The flurry of clipped commands yielded no new information.  They were racing towards you, but there was no way to know if they would make it in time.  Jensen tugged at the tie on his wrist while his mind worked over-time.  Were you hurt?  Scared?  Running or hiding?  Were you alive? 

     God please, let her be alive!

     As if on cue, his cell phone rang.  Only once, before the call dropped, but it was your number.  And it was enough.

     “Got it!  Moving slow, heading north by northeast towards Tunnel Bluffs.”

     “We’ve got local law in the area about ten minutes out.”

     “All units converge on new coordinates, be advised our witness is currently on foot.”

     “The assailant is considered armed and dangerous, use of full and deadly force authorized for all personnel.”

     The trees on Mount Harvey were thick and grew to impressive proportions.  Massive, monolithic firs and pines that held the record for some of the biggest on Earth.  Tangles of undergrowth and roots covered every inch of the forest floor, you lost your footing more than once.  Every fall slowed you down and added to your injuries.  The sun dropped to just below the horizon and the temperature went with it.

     You leaned heavily against one of the pines to catch your breath.  Your physical reserves were nearly gone, and you knew it.  There was just enough daylight left to make out a tree a few feet away.  It had an unusual split in its trunk.  Limping and cradling your arm to ease the pressure on your shoulder, you poked around in the gap.  Mostly filled with decomposing leaves, but big enough to shelter you for the night. 

     You squeezed your body through the opening and bit back a grunt as the bark scraped your injuries.  It wasn’t comfortable, which was for the best.  Your exhausted body was already vying for sleep, anything to counter that was welcome.  The opening wasn’t wide enough to see much, but it was still a defensible position.

     Your frozen fingers flexed around the gun as your eyes worked to adjust to the darkness falling.  The weight of it in your hand was unfamiliar and uncomfortable.  You were a doctor, you saved lives you didn’t take them.  Your thumb clicked off the safety as you committed to the only course of action that would leave you alive.  It would be a long night and you were damn well going to survive it. 

     “All around the cobbler’s bench, the monkey chased the weasel.”

     Your eyes popped open.  When had you shut them?  The phone in your pocket died long ago, so it was impossible to tell how long you’d been in hiding.  The woods were still.  There was no wind or sounds of scuttling wildlife.  But a child’s song, so faint you thought you’d imagined it. 

     “The monkey thought was all in fun.”

     “A penny for a spool of thread, a penny for a needle.”

     “That’s the way the money goes.”

      “Pop!  Goes the weasel!”

     There it was again.  Singing.  You were sure you hadn’t imagined it, it had to be Arthur.  God!  It seemed like you were making a racket!  Your breathing, your heartbeat, your eyelashes blinking rapidly as you desperately scanned the inky shadows.  Why did sound amplify in the cold and the dark?  It all seemed to be announcing your location to the man who was coming to murder you. 

     “Up and down the London road.”

     “In and out of the Eagle.”

     “That’s the way the money goes.”

     “Pop!  Goes the weasel!”

     He was playing with you.  The monkey and the weasel.  Cat and mouse.  You should have kept running!  Should have kept to the road, someone would have seen you.  You would have stood a chance!  Now you were in a trap of your own making.

     “I’ve no time to plead and pine.”

     “I’ve no time to wheedle.”

     “Kiss me quick and then I’m gone.”

     “Pop!  Goes the weasel!”

     The echo of the woods distorted Arthur’s voice so that you had no clue where he was coming from.  Running now would do you no good.  It was too late.  The son of a bitch was closing in on you now.  Would they even be able to find your body?  Would Jensen ever know what became of you?  You should have ran the minute you remembered your name. 

     “All around the cobbler’s bench.”

     “Arthur chased the doctor.”

     “The doctor thought was all in fun…”

     God, please keep him safe from the psychopath.  And Frankie!  Make sure they know I love them!  No matter what happens to me… I love you!

     “Pop!”

     Arthur.  Blood, dirt, and broken glass.  A twisted grin split his grotesque face. 

     Time stopped; a shot rang out.  Then, nothing.

     Jensen stood with the small, second group of agents investigating the crashed truck.  Two sets of footprints disappeared into the woods and the first round of FBI had already spread out into the wilderness to join the Mounties and broaden the search.

     The report of a gunshot echoed all the way back to the road.

     His blood ran cold.  “Y/N.”

     A hand went to Jensen’s Kevlar covered chest before he could move.  Bruce, the iron faced agent assigned to the actor, held him in place.

     "Let me go!"

     "Not a chance."

     "That was a fucking gunshot!"

     "Yeah, it was.  You take off now, the next one might have your name on it."

     “I don’t care!”

     "Right now, every resource we have is focused on Y/N.  You go out there and those resources get split, cutting her chance at survival in half.”

     Jensen turned away, running his hands through his hair.  “Fuck!”

     "We've all got a job to do.  Yours is communication,” Bruce put a steady hand on Jensen’s shoulder.  “You want to help your girl?   Stay put.  Be here and be ready to answer when she calls."

     Knowing Bruce was right didn't make the next hour of waiting any easier.  It was agony.  There was no word.  Not a sound from anyone.  Radio silence, Agent Bruce called it.  He seemed to think it was a positive sign, but it was driving Jensen insane.  Each minute that passed brought a horrible new thought.  A potential nightmare that could play out right in front of him.  And he was powerless to prevent it.

     He was past the end of his rope when an ambulance came into view and sped past them.  Traveling at breakneck speed up the mountain. Flashing lights bouncing off the trees and rock face. 

     Bruce held a finger to the tiny Speaker in his ear.  A grim look passed his features.

     "Let's move."

     He said nothing more.  No word on if you were alive or dead.  No hint at who that ambulance was for.  An hour ago, Jensen would have sworn he'd reached his capacity for worry and stress.  But that was nothing compared to the five minutes it took to reach the clearing.  There was a mass of people milling around.  F.B.I. he recognized and a few others outfitted in uniforms for the R.C.M.P.  That ambulance was parked off to the side, the back door was closed but the lights were still flashing.  Several other official looking vehicles showed up, including one for the coroner’s office. 

     Jensen was out of the car before Bruce even put it in park.  He caught the slender build of Frank Solomon, casually talking to a couple of other agents by the rail guard.  The son of a bitch was acting like he’d completed a milk run!  Jensen’s nostrils flared with rage as he made a direct path for him.

     The young man looked up, seemingly unphased by the Texan’s aggressive approach.

     "Ackles.”

     "Where is she?!"

     Solomon’s mouth opened, but it wasn’t his voice that was heard.  A shrill, terrified scream came from inside the ambulance, cutting through the night.

      "Jensen!"

     He'd spent fifteen years stepping into the boots of Dean Winchester.  Fighting monsters.  Some you could see, some you couldn't.  But no matter how close he was to the hero he portrayed; it was still an act.  Though there were plenty of times he’d wished it were real.  Wished he were more like the enigmatic man in the ’67 Chevy.  The man who always knew what to do.  The man who always saved the day.

     And yes, he would let his ‘Dean’ show from time to time.  That was a blurred line that proved useful more than once.  But in that moment when you screamed for him, there was no line.  There was no Dean, there was clarity. 

     Solomon got exactly one word out, “Wait…”  

     Jensen pulled back his fist and punched him square in the face, knocking him on his ass.

     He ran to that ambulance.  On a mission and with one purpose, he tore the door open.  

     You were sitting on a gurney, struggling against the medic who was trying to keep you from bolting.  Bruised and bloody.  But breathing!  The second you saw him, you went still, your bottom lip quivered.

     “Jensen.”

     The medic proved smarter than the F.B.I. agents and moved out of the way, allowing Jensen the room to take you in his arms.  That was when you broke completely.  Sobbing and desperately clinging to him like a child.  You weren’t sure how you got there.  One minute you were in that tree being stalked by a killer, the next you were being bundled into an ambulance.  It was so surreal!  It wasn’t until you heard Jensen on the other side of the door that you snapped.  Reality crashed over you, and you couldn’t breathe. 

     Jensen tried to will his own panic away.  You were alive.  He had you.  Bloody and trembling, but in his arms.  He could hear himself telling you soothing things.  Comforting words that he would never be able to recall later.  He was sure you couldn’t understand him anyway, you were crying so hard that your whole body shook. 

     But his voice was a balm, the timbre of it washed over you.  After a time, the raw shock wore through to numbness.  You drew a shuddering breath and tried to speak. 

     “I’ve got you,” he said, his voice coming from just over your head.  “I’m right here.”

     You released your death grip on Jensen’s jacket and snuck a look at your hands.  There were burn marks there from the gun powder.  Across the clearing, two men were maneuvering a stretcher over the gravel.  A black body bag was strapped to the top.

     “I killed him.”

     Jensen gently brushed the tangled hair away from your face.  His gaze followed yours to the body being taken away.  It could have so easily been you.  He rubbed his hand down your back and tucked your head under his chin.

     “Don’t look, baby.  Don’t think about it.  Never again.”

     The EMT reappeared, insisting that you go to the hospital.  He listed a number of injuries that needed attention.  Including another fucking concussion.

     You managed a weak laugh, “Look at us, right back where we started.”

     “At least you didn’t drown this time, your average is improving,” Jensen said, kissing your forehead.

     With practiced efficiency, the medic had you secured and ready for transport.  Just as the door was about to shut, Frank Solomon appeared.  His jaw was discolored and starting to swell where Jensen landed his punch. 

     Jensen smirked, “Back for round two?”

     “The ambulance is already at capacity, let’s not chance it.”  Solomon’s dark eyes shifted to you.  The arrogance drained away, and he seemed softer.  Almost repentant. 

      “Doctor West, I wanted to let you know that the death of Arthur Green officially closes this case.  You are no longer under any obligation to the F.B.I. for any purpose and you are free to resume your life.”

     “You won’t need me to make a statement?”

     “We have everything we need.  And I have to say, without your cooperation and your bravery, we never would have gotten Green let alone shut down the drug ring.  This victory is yours.”

     “I shot a man.  Deserved or not, that doesn’t feel particularly victorious.”

     Solomon blinked slowly, “You didn’t shoot Arthur Green.”

     “What?”

     “Barely clipped his shoulder, but I hardly call that a shot,” the agent shrugged, his casual manner back in place.  “One of the Mounted Police got him… Roberts, I think.  One clean shot to the head.  Green was dead before he hit the ground.”

     You could have lived with the death on your conscience, knowing it had been self-defense.  But the fact that you didn’t have to, freed you.  Well and truly.  Lightness settled in where guilt had been only a moment ago.  Words failed you.  An astonished gasp left your lips, and you let you head rest against Jensen’s shoulder.

     “Goodbye, Doctor West.  Mr. Ackles.”  Solomon shut the door and thumped it twice. 

     The ambulance slowly rolled away to begin its descent down the mountain.  Jensen’s hand found yours under the emergency blanket tucked over your lap.

     “It’s over.”

     “Yeah, it’s all over, Sweetheart” he murmured, kissing your temple.

     You and Jensen would talk about the incredible circumstances of how you got together often over the years.  You would muse on the workings of fate and God’s grand plan.  You would wonder at the impossibility of it all. 

     Surely, there must have been an easier way for two lost souls to meet.

     But then, meeting wouldn’t have been enough.  The two of you were drowning; separately but equally.  The miserable details of your own lives were pulling you under like a riptide.  It was so all-consuming that you couldn’t break free.  You weren’t strong enough, not alone. 

     It was like Jensen said that day in your old apartment, make a different choice.  The two of you chose to save each other.  But you also chose to let yourself to be saved.  It wasn’t passive and it wasn’t by chance.  It was a decision.  Perhaps not always an easy one, but it had power. 

     Love does conquer all, but only if you choose it.  TagList @deans-baby-momma @muchamusedaboutnothing @peterpangirl21 @ficbreaks @teresa-67 @sacriceria @verytoadpapersoul @heartbreak-of-a-marauder @savspersonalproperty @deanwanddamons @jenwinchester40 @perpetualabsurdity @starryeyeseubyul @sexyvixen7 @katsbratsupernaturalwhore @agirlwithdemonblood @jerkbitchidjitassbutt @imthedoctorlove @roonyxx @smellingofpoetry @deanwinchesterswitch @thinkinghardhardlythinking @pink-sparkly-witch @barewithme02 @deadlynightshadeindustries @jc-winchester @mrswhozeewhatsis @kinderousmaster @lyarr24 @aphorism-001 @onlinecemetery @allonsy-yesiwill @myeagletoadmaker @panicking-outside-the-disco @haylie-spnfam4evr @lauraashley93 @foxyjwls007 @bluedragonflylady @foxyjwls007 @deans-spinster-witch @deanwwinchester

[dragonmasterkaylz]

🐰Bunnie Shepherd🗡️

This is all about Teddy’s adorable little sister, Bunnie Shepherd. She is the leader of a gang in London, but she’s not to be messed with. This is a little blurb into how she does things during her meetings. She’s also a bit of a Yandere, but you’ll see that in later fics.

Tags: @hoodeddreams13

“N-No…! You can’t do this to me—!!!”

Darby gulped when a gun was pointed at him and he looked up at the holder. A young woman with blonde hair and dead blue eyes looked down at him. Wearing a pink dress made her look so innocent, but she was far from it. She was Bunnie Shepherd, the Leader of one of the main gangs in London. Despite her sheer innocence and sweet attitude, but she could be very cunning, mean and manipulative when she wanted to be. No one scared her, she was completely fearless.

“Oh, I can… and I will. You threatened my brother and tried to get all of our money. Would you like me, of all people, to humiliate you even further~?! Hehe~!”

As soon as he left, Bunnie sighed and said, “I’m tired. Please tell me I don’t have any more meetings”. “Yes, you do… with Thomas Shelby”. She then whined and mumbled, “Send the fucker in…!” Once the door had opened, she sighed and rolled her eyes. “Sit”. He did so and he pulled out a cigarette before humming. “I must say… I didn’t expect the boss of a new gang in London to be so young”. She gave him a cold stare before saying, “Get to the fucking point”. Bunnie lit her own cigarette and Thomas said, “I would like your protection. I heard from Alfie, and your brother, that your services are unmatched”. Then Bunnie smirked.

“Protection…? From Luca Changretta…? The Shelby Family…? Are you serious…?”

Thomas then said, “I lost my brother because of him. It’s better if I have more allies”. Then she stood up, as she leaned on the front of her desk, right in front of him. “What makes you think I’d want to help you? All of you Shelby’s are nothing more than pieces of shit that need to be taken care of. You should be happy I didn’t come after you. I may be cute but you have a reputation for double crossing people. Billy Kimber ring a bell? I only work with people who are going to be faithful to me. Also, they all work for me, Tommy”, she explained. He glared up at her, but nothing was intimidating her. “I also know you brought your brute of a brother with you~. If he walks in, my men will kill him. So… choose your next words wisely. … Or else~”.

Bunnie’s sweet voice was getting under Thomas’ skin and that didn’t happen often. Teddy could be brutal, yes. But he was cheerful and kind. His sister was just cold, calculating and very manipulative. A smirk then appeared on her face as he stood up, pointing a gun at her. Both of men did the same and he said, “All… I wanted… was your fucking protection!!!” “And, like I said, I don’t work with people. They work for me. So, unless you have something better to offer me, get… the… fuck… out”. Thomas put his gun away and said, “I know you work with Solomons”. “He’s family as far as I’m concerned. And, unlike you, he’s smart. He will not let Changretta get under his skin, unlike you. If you want to make a deal… go see him…”, Bunnie said.

“Fine”.

Thomas was escorted out and Bunnie rolled her eyes before asking, “Anymore?” “No, Miss Shepherd”. She blew out some smoke and then put the cigarette out before putting on her hat. “Alright then~! I’m going to see my big brother~! I’ll see you all tomorrow~”, she said to her guards in a cheerful tone. After she put on her coat and walked out of her office, she looked at her other guards. “Kill them”. As she walked away, all she heard was the screaming and shooting of two of Changretta’s men. “Didn’t think I’d find out, huh? You thought wrong, and you have made an enemy out of me… Luca Changretta”, she stated, leaving the place with a hop to her step. “Now…, let’s go see Teddy~!!!”

“Yes ma’am!”

Bunnie Shepherd was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. She was smart, cunning, always made deals in her favour, and she never let her guard down. She knew that the men she had employed were Luca’s spies, since she had spies of her own. She built her own empire and her own reputation, overnight, with her brutality. She wasn’t one to mess with. Not by the Shelby’s, not by the Italians, the Irish, not by anyone in England. She wasn’t invincible but she was smart and cunning.

Pray that you never get on Bunnie’s bad side.

END

[skulduggery-pleasant-bp9]

Part 1 – The Death Bringer is…

WARNING!: Mention of death, mention of suicide, mention of self harm, cursing, use of bad words AND MORE YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED !!!

Read THIS to understand why the reader has a name !

There he was again. Same location, same person…same memory. He stood in front of a black figure. They were both facing each other. The person dressed in black lifted their hand and moved their index finger, motioning him to follow them. He nodded and they took together a walk.

“Where did you go ?”, he asked the black figure.

They stayed silent.

“Please tell me this time where you went. I miss you.”

The black figure stopped and turned to him. They moved their hands and fingers. Sign language. He taught them that.

‘I am closer than you think.’, they signed.

He looked down at the ground.

“I want to see you again. I have a very bad feeling since a week.”, he said, looking back up at them.

‘Explain.’

“Valkyrie joined the Necromancers. She is very good in it and learns fast. Solomon Wreath teaches her, but he doesn’t want to open the Passage with her. He only wants to help and make it up with Skulduggery. Last time he didn’t help and Skulduggery suffered the consequences.”

The person nodded at that. Skulduggery lost his family because of it and that messed up his and Wreath’s friendship. Skulduggery asked of Solomon to help him and keep his family safe, but he said he couldn’t and they argued and then parted ways. Not long later the family died and so did Skulduggery. Solomon felt terrible after that, but never knew how to make up for it.

“The other Necromancers see her as the future Death Bringer.”, he informed.

The in black dressed person snapped their head up at that.

‘Does she know ?’

“About the Death Bringer ? Yes. About what it does and the Passage ? No.”

‘You think she will do it ?’

“No. Never. But she said that Cleric Craven acts out a lot. I think he is up to something bad. I think I need your help this time. I think he will have a Death Bringer, but far more dangerous.”

The person stared, then signed again.

‘I will keep an eye out.’

“Skulduggery said he saw you after Tesseract…is that true ?”

They nodded and he nodded as a reply.

“You gave him quite the scare.”, he said as they continued to walk.

‘I also hurt him, just to make him stop attacking me.’

“I heard you threatened him too, with Valkyrie’s life.”

‘I was only bluffing.’

“He hit you and you poofed away.”, he continued smirking.

‘I didn’t come to fight him. I came to save him from Tesseract. The Bastard would have killed him otherwise.’, they signed.

“You shouldn’t have threatened him though.”

‘I thought he would back off if I threatened his friend’s life.’

“That just makes him feel being pressed against a wall with no exit. He just attacks then. You should have known better.” , he scolded.

They hung their shoulders.

“Come on ! Wake up !”, Ghastly’s voice appeared.

He winced and looked at his partner.

“I have to go. See you soon.”

The black figure waved him a Goodbye and then he woke up. He opened his eyes in Bespoke’s shop.

“Good morning. What time is it Ghastly ?”

“It is 1PM. How long did you not sleep, Erskin ?”, Ghastly answered.

Erskin sat up on the couch he slept on.

“Almost a week. Sorry, there was so much stuff I had to do, that I had no time to sleep.”

Ghastly sighed.

“I think I need to tell Meritorius to give you a break.”

“Hell no ! Who would do all my work ? I’m the best person for my job !”, Erskin protested.

“All you do is spy and report.”, Ghastly deadpanned.

“Wrong. I spy, observe, report, await further orders, execute orders and then write the report, which is a fucking book all the time, mind you. All the things they did and all the details that are needed in ONE report of mine take me 3 DAYS to finish !”, Erskin puffed out annoyed.

“Then ask them to limit the reports more.”

“That would be a dumb idea. I made a short report once and it missed a lot of important stuff. It already IS limited to the only important shit, Ghastly.”

The tailor sighed in disappointment.

“At least I am free now. It is something, Ghastly.”, Erskin said with a smile.

“I suppose…”

Erskin elbowed Ghastly playfully, making the tailor smile.

“Asshole.”, Erskin insulted playfully.

Ghastly laughed. Then suddenly the shop’s doors were opened and in came Valkyrie and Skulduggery. Erskin gave them a warm smile and got up from the couch.

“Hello you two.”, he greeted them.

“What do I have to fix, Skul ?”, the tailor sighed.

“Valkyrie has a gash in her jacket. I’m fine.”, Skulduggery answered.

Erskin crooked his head to his right.

“Did Dragonclaw tell you anything ?”, he asked them.

“No. Just mentioned about opening a Passage.”, Val answered grimly.

She gave Ghastly her jacket and he took it, inspecting the damage. Erskin froze up, eyes wide in horror. The three of them noticed.

“Do you know anything about it, Erskin ?”, Skulduggery asked curiously.

Stiffly, Erskin nodded.

“You can NOT allow them to EVER open it.”, he told them.

“Why ?”, Valkyrie asked.

Erskin sighed and looked at Valkyrie in guilt.

“The Passage is an ancient Necromancy event that needs to be set in motion by the Death Bringer in order to stop death itself.”, Erskin explained carefully.

“That sounds nice actually. Why do I not know of it ?”, Val asked confused.

He sighed.

“Only those in the highest places of power in the Necromancer order were allowed to know. Before they threw me out, I was in that order. Lord Vile was in there too, first place of the most powerful Necromancers. We both knew about it.”

“Why were only the highest in power allowed to know ?”

“Because it may sound nice, but it isn’t at all. You see…in order for the Passage to occur, someone has to kill half of the world’s population. As you might know, Valkyrie, Necromancers believe that life and death flow into one another in a stream. The Death Bringer is needed to break that stream.”

She stared at Erskin.

“And they expected me to do THAT ?”, she asked in shock.

“Yes. Solomon doesn’t want that with you though. He just wanted to help you.”

Skulduggery clenched his fists.

“Was Lord Vile…?”, she asked softly.

Erskin nodded.

“They saw him as the Death Bringer. But he left before they could pester him about it. Then they came crawling back to me, but I refused. I had other things to worry about.”

“Could it be that he came back from the Dead to kill me ?”

“I doubt it. You would never do that. But maybe there is something else going on that made him come back.”, Erskin told her.

“Like what ?”, Skulduggery asked darkly.

“Well…Val, you said Craven was an asshole and he acts weird a lot, right ?”, Erskin asked.

She nodded. Erskin looked back at Skulduggery.

“What if Craven is up to something even worse ? Maybe Vile came back to stop him ? We don’t have any motive as to why he actually came back. Do you really think he would waste his time on Valkyrie, Skul ? She won’t be his issue. Something else is going on in that Temple.”

“We should tell Wreath.”, Valkyrie said.

“Solomon is not very liked. He will be way too obvious. I already sent someone on Craven’s tail. Let us hope they will find out what the hell he is doing.”, Erskin told them.

“So what will we do in the meantime ?”, Ghastly asked.

“You fix that poor jacket, I get a bit more sleep and Skul and Val can play a good game of UNO ?”, Erskin suggested.

“Erskin…”, Ghastly warned.

Erskin lifted his hands in the air and made an innocent face.

“I’m sorry ‘DAD’. I won’t say it again.”, Erskin mocked.

Ghastly gave him a glare.

“What ? You behave like a Father would and you scold me like a child. Maybe finally knock up with Tanith and get a fucking kid of your own.”

Ghastly went red in his face and threw a scissor at Erskin. He caught it and gave the tailor a shit eating grin.

“Try harder, Pussy cat~”, Erskin mocked.

“You are the worst, Erskin. Tanith would NEVER like someone that looks like me.”

“I beg to differ, my dear little tailor friend. As much as I can remember Tanith was head over heels for you when the Remnants were having a return party. And when the Grotesque almost would have made you turn to stone, she was worried sick for you. Oh ! And that one time where I saw her intently watch you suck a lollipop that I gave you. Oh she wished that would have been her that you licked and sucked on !”

Valkyrie spat her water out at that and then coughed. Erskin was howling in laughter, Skulduggery was dead silent and Ghastly blushed a deep shade of red, covering his mouth.

“Loosen up you two ! It is the twentieth century ! No one needs a fucking marriage anymore before some good old love making, nor to have a child ! You can have all that while you are a couple now and in the near future can still decide if you want to marry. My opinion to this is that it was about time it was made like this. Otherwise there might have been a lot of divorces after when one of them isn’t good in Sex.”

Ghastly stared at Erskin and Skulduggery just coughed. Erskin and Valkyrie guaffed at that. It was so true.

“Sex isn’t everything in love…”, Skulduggery then said.

“Of course not, but it is important. It is healthy and it keeps you healthy. Just don’t do it every day. That would be too much.”

“How would you know ?”, Ghastly asked him.

Erskin blushed slightly and chuckled.

“I had a fling way before the war. We didn’t give two shits about traditions. Their parents didn’t know and I didn’t have any, so we messed around whenever we could. Sad they were killed in the war.”

Ghastly and Skulduggery stared at him with open jaws. Skulduggery’s was so wide open that it looked like it was about to fall off.

“You dog, Erskin.”, Ghastly said playfully.

Erskin laughed.

“We did agree on it, just to make sure that if we still love each other after a while, we might marry. We wanted to tell their parents one day that we wish to marry, but then the war happened and the marriage never happened.”, Erskin ended saddened slightly.

He still had a smile on his face, but it was smaller, sadder. He gave a weak chuckle.

“I would give anything to see them again, just to say sorry. I was too late to help.”

Ghastly frowned and went over to Erskin, patting his shoulder.

“I’m so sorry for your loss.”, he said softly.

“I’m sorry for yours too. Your Ma was a great person.”, Erskin replied.

Ghastly gave a weak smile and then left the room, to fix Valkyrie’s jacket.

“What was their name ?”

Erskin looked at her with mischief.

“I won’t tell you. Not now. Maybe when you are older and I truly wish to die.”

She nodded.

“I will hold you onto that promise.”, she said and then sat on the couch.

“How was your last mission from Eachan, Erskin ?”

“Stressful and a lot of work. Messy too… I had to go without sleep for a whole week. Ghastly is not happy about it…”

“Maybe you need an assistant ?”

“No, thank you. The last few I had always fucked up and died. I gave up trying.”

“Then maybe one of the others ?”

“Well…I was considering annoying Dexter Vex, but I doubt he would want to help me with everything. Then I thought maybe Saracen would like to help, but with all the shit that is happening most of the time, he would be more in danger than me, considering his abilities… Anton has the Hotel Midnight to take care of, Ghastly has his tailor shop to take care of, you and Val solve cases all the time, Ravel can get easily into a random panic attack since the…you know, hopeless and Larrikin are dead, Deuce works in the sanctuary now, Fletcher is annoying, China is not to trust…No, I don’t have anyone.”, Erskin said grimly now.

He sat down on the floor like a child and was in deep thoughts.

“How come you all have new friends, you all can count on, and I don’t have any, that I can trust ?”, he mumbled out.

Now Valkyrie and Skulduggery felt bad. Erskin always had a hard time making new friends, so he rather stuck to the ones he had now for a few decades.

“I didn’t know that Erskine had random panic attacks. How come he got them ?”, Valkyrie asked softly.

“Well…when the war happened, they captured Erskine one day and tortured him. The Children of the Spider freed him and Torment was trying to brainwash him to get him on their side. They wanted to make him believe that he was a part of the Spider family now and that we deeply betrayed him, because we didn’t save him. He was almost there, almost believed all their lies, but then Ghastly, Rue, Vex and me broke into their hideout and got out Erskine. He did yell for the others to save him, but we dragged him back. Saracen found out that they mixed something into his drinks and food, to make his mind crumble, so I made an antidote with Anton and we force-fed him for over a week with it. Then he saw reason again and since then…he got randomly panic attacks.”

“Sounds like an aftereffect.”, Valkyrie said.

“It is not.”, Ghastly mixed himself in.

They all looked at him.

“Erskine, if we all can still remember correctly, was the only one who didn’t want that we parted from one another after the war. That we stayed the Dead Men. After he was captured, tortured, almost brainwashed to kill us and then healed from it, he got a lot of anxieties. Separation anxiety, he hates too loud and fast noises, he is scared of the dark, he has a lot of nightmares and he never eats the food nor drinks anything that any of us didn’t make. He only took what WE made and gave him. He was afraid of being poisoned again. He was afraid of losing us again, of being taken again. Sure he kicked Torment in the ass when he saw him again, but only because we were around. He did try to come for him again.”, Ghastly explained.

“But Erskine is with other people now.”, Erskin said.

“Erskin, he went to Sensitives and other doctors to get mental help, that didn’t help much. I think it even got worse. Erskine acts from time to time like a child. I think it damaged him further.”

“WAIT ! Hold up ! Erskine AGE REGRESSES ?! Oh shit…”

“It is rare, but he does from time to time. Kenspeckle said it is a mental defense mechanism, against the trauma he suffered through.”

“Fucking hell… I should have taken him in then. But he didn’t say anything ! I asked if he wanted to move in with me and he said he will think about it, but he never said anything ! God…this man will be my death one day ! I could have helped !”, Erskin yelled.

“He probably thought he would be just a burden.”, Skulduggery said.

“Oh, I will show him a burden…”, Erskin spat and pulled out his phone.

He dialed Erskine’s number, called and put him on speaker. It rang two times and then he picked up.

“Hello Erskin !”, Erskine greeted.

“Erskine Ravel…”, Erskin growled lowly.

“Oh oh…”, the other whimpered on the phone.

“Pack your shit and get some Teleporters to your house. You. Move. In. With. Me. Understood ?”

The other line gulped and Erskine breathed heavily.

“Y-yes… Sure.”

“Good. I’ll see you in 3 hours at my house. You remember my address ?”, Erskin said happily.

“Y-yeah.”

“Ravel, I’m not going to kill you. I worry about you. Now stop being scared. I would NEVER hurt you.”

“But I’m fine ?”

“I heard from Ghastly something else. I will make myself an image of it. Now get your ass over to my house.”

“O-okay.”

With that they hung up and Erskin grumbled frustrated.

“Stupid idiot, can’t ever listen, never thinks before acting, dumbass, stupid, stupid, stupid….”

Valkyrie decided to change the topic.

“Did you know that Craven took Melancholia under his wing ?”, she asked Erskin.

He stopped.

“No, why ?”

“Well…she is barely around anymore. When she is, she looks…far away.”

“This doesn’t sound good…”, Ghastly mumbled.

“For once I agree with you Ghastly.”, Erskin muttered.

Ghastly gave him a glare. That wasn’t the first time Erskin agreed with Ghastly on something. Such an ass…

“Keep an eye on her Valkyrie, yeah ? I have a nagging feeling that there is something BAD gonna happen…”

She nodded.

-A few days later-

They sat together in the house that once belonged to Gordon. Erskine was there, Erskin, Skulduggery and Ghastly too. Valkyrie called them all here.

“So, why are we all here ?”, Erskin asked, petting Erskine’s head.

Erskine had a huge panic attack in the car, thinking he was in trouble.

“Melancholia is apparently the Death Bringer.”, Valkyrie said.

Erskin froze and stared at her with wide eyes. Ghastly went stiff and Skulduggery faked a deep inhale. Erskine just sat there, with widened eyes.

“But she was way weaker than you and she never improved.”, Erskin said, recalling what Valkyrie told him.

“I know. That is what I find so strange ! She overpowered me today too ! She was hell-bent to KILL me !”

“This…doesn’t sound right…”, Erskin mumbled in deep concern.

“Can you make any rhymes out of this one ?”, Ghastly asked.

“A few, but they are all impossible… Lord Vile destroyed all the books that existed about anything of it before he left.”

“From where would you know that ?”, Skulduggery asked.

“Solomon told me, when they sent him to convince me to come back and become the Death Bringer.”

Skulduggery looked away at the mention of Wreath.

“You really need to work out your issues, Skul. Solomon doesn’t want to force Valkyrie into anything. She needed Necromancy in order to get you back from the Faceless Ones and she only continues to have it as an emergency backup. Wreath knows that. He doesn’t mind. Until now it helped you both immensely, don’t you think ? Stop being a stuck up Bitch about past events. It happened, you can’t change that, move the fuck on.”, Erskin said bluntly.

Ghastly sucked in a deep breath and stared at Skulduggery with caution, Erskine sat straighter and stared at Skulduggery with wide eyes and Valkyrie just looked at her friend and waited for his reaction.

“I’m not a stuck up Bitch, Erskin. You don’t KNOW what he did.”, Skulduggery said darkly.

“Skulduggery Pleasant, I am a Necromancer, I was with Solomon and Lord Vile in the same Temple, I talked to Wreath a lot, I saw a lot of him in war and outside of it too so don’t you dare to claim that I know nothing.”, Erskin venomously spat back.

There was a very tense silence.

“I know that you both were friends, I know that you asked for his help to keep your Son and wife safe, I know that he refused and that it ended up in them dying and you later on too, I know that Wreath felt since that day horrible, I know that he considered suicide since these days, I know that you are angry at him, I know that he knows that you hate him, I know that he helped Serpine to hide from you and that he pretended like you never were friends, I know why he did it, but the better question is…did you know any of it ?”, Erskin asked darkly.

With everything that Erskin listed off that he knew Skulduggery went more and more visibly stiff.

“I know that at least the half of what I just counted off, you had no fucking clue about. He considered many times to just end his own life, he still does.

What would it take for a height to make sure that when you jump off, you will break your bones and die ?

How many stab wounds does it take you to die ?

Where should you stab yourself for a long and painful death ?

How to recreate Serpine’s red hand to torture yourself with it to death ?

How do you get your once – has – been – friend to kill you ?

How can you hurt yourself without letting anyone see it ?”

Valkyrie’s and Ghastly’s eyes widened at that in horror. Erskine looked away, refusing to listen to all of it and Skulduggery didn’t move a bone.

“You always just thought about yourself. It was always just you, you and you. You never stopped and started to think about how others felt. Wreath KNEW he made terrible decisions and mistakes, but do you really think he can change that now ? He is trying this whole time to make up for them to YOU and to YOU only. He destroys everything that he built himself up over all these years, including himself, just to make his mistakes up to YOU. When have YOU ever done that, huh ?”

Dead silence. Erskin turned away.

“Maybe Vile was right about you all along. YOU never CARED to consider other people’s pain too. You still don’t. All you care about is hate, rage and anger.”, Erskin said bitterly.

Skulduggery’s head snapped over to Erskin, his empty eye sockets stared right at Erskin’s eyes.

“He TALKED to you ?”, he asked.

“Of course he did. He didn’t have much good to say about you. He said that you just don’t give a fuck about anyone or anything. You just care about your revenge and to take out your rage on other people. Vile was a bit more calculated than that. You should get some help from him, maybe you will learn to care about others too then.”, Erskin hissed and then left the house all together.

He left all four of them stunned and shocked.

“He KNEW Vile…”, Valkyrie whispered.

“He only chatted with him. No need to freak out.”, Erskine mixed himself in.

“Do you think he worked with him ?”, Ghastly asked Skulduggery.

He hesitated.

“I…I don’t know. He just talked with him. Who knows if he did.”, he then answered.

“Could he be Lord Vile ?”, Valkyrie asked.

The three men turned to her and stared.

“No. He couldn’t be.”, Skulduggery stated.

“Yeah he is not Vile.”, Ghastly agreed.

“Never Valkyrie.”, Erskine also answered.

“How would you all know ?”, she asked them.

“We saw him many times on the battlefield, fighting against Vile and the others. We saw him and Vile separated from each other on the field. If he would be one and the same person, then one of them would have been missing.”, Ghastly answered.

“And what if he duplicated himself ?”, she asked.

“He can’t duplicate himself, Valkyrie.”, Skulduggery said.

“He can. Don’t you remember ? Against Serpine ? He made a duplicate of himself ! The scepter was way out of your reach to just grab it and kill him, but suddenly it was near you. Erskin didn’t move, but the scepter did and I SAW someone bring it closer to you ! None of us can duplicate, leaves only Erskin.”

Erskine’s eyes widened at that.

“Oh god…she’s right. It could be him…”

“That is nonsense. Erskin is NOT Lord Vile. Who knows when he learned that technique. He could have learned it AFTER the war.”, Skulduggery protested.

There they all had to agree. It could have been after the war. They dropped the whole subject with that and left. Erskine went back to Erskin’s house, Ghastly to his tailor shop and Skulduggery went with Valkyrie on another small case.

-With Erskine-

When he was home, he saw Erskin sleep on the couch. He went to his own room and also laid down. He had too much in his head to just stay awake.

What he didn’t know was that Erskin had a little meeting.

-With Erskin-

They were in a cave this time.

“I have very bad news.”, Erskin said.

The person in black turned around and signed again.

‘What is it ?’

“I think Craven did something to a Necromancer girl, called Melancholia St. Clair. Valkyrie has reported that Craven took her under his wing, even though she was a weak, lost cause for a while now. Suddenly she started to change, not just in her abilities and strength, but also with her personality. Valkyrie is certain that there is something wrong.”

They crooked their head.

‘That does sound concerning.’, they signed.

“Also be careful, Skulduggery is onto you. He is definitely NOT happy that you are around. I also got word from Deuce, he wants us to sit this one out and let you do the job in killing whoever you need to.”

‘I can’t do that. I am not complete. I am just a fragment of my soul.’

“I figured that much. Otherwise you would have already done something drastic to scare the Necromancers off.”

They nodded.

“Now what do you need of me ? How can I help ?”

‘Just continue to observe for now and report to me whenever you can. I will see to the rest. We have a small lead, but not enough for me to interfere yet. Find out if Melancholia has been tempered with, with evidence, and then talk to me.’

“I will try my best. Valkyrie is still a little spy for now. We’ll see how much she can figure out.”

‘Don’t let her get hurt. Skulduggery is very protective of her.’

“Don’t tell that a person that already knows that. Tell that yourself so you won’t piss him off.”

With that Erskin left again and was awake. He made dinner ready and then got Ravel to wake up and eat too.

-Five days later-

“VALKYRIE HAS BEEN ATTACKED AND ALMOST KILLED !”, Erskine yelled at the black figure.

They snapped around and quickly signed.

‘By who ?!’

“MELANCHOLIA ! She just appeared out of nowhere and attacked her ! I have no idea if she will survive this !”

‘Is Skulduggery with her ?!’

“No. He is trying to arrest Melancholia.”

‘Wake up and we meet at Kenspeckle’s !’

Erskin nodded and then woke up. He quickly used his Necromancy to teleport to Valkyrie’s side. Then they appeared too and rushed to her side.

“The wounds are badly infected… I can heal her, if I don’t she might die.”, they whispered.

“Do it. Just do it.”

They nodded and then got to work.

Masterlist HERE !