#and the way you can deal with the demon (bargain trick or fight) could have paralleled the way we deal with solas at the end | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

nothing-but-dreams · 4 years ago

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Raised From Darkness, We Deserve the Light

SPNDBCC (By @foundfamily4eva): Part 6- Destiel / Part 8- Love Confession Dean/Cas, 2.9k, Love Confessions, First Kiss, Angst to Fluff Summary: On the heels of losing Cas, and not being able to speak his truth, Dean goes on a mission to rescue Cas from the Empty. Things quickly go awry, and Dean has to fight to save the man he loves. AO3: Link

It was pitch black, the roar of thunder filled the nothingness like a cosmic being screaming a warning, and Dean felt like he was falling through time itself. He should’ve expected such, seeing as the Empty was, in fact, a cosmic being, and it was pissed that it couldn’t be left alone.

Dean took a shot at a spell he found in one of the old Men of Letters books. They said they used the spell to resurrect a demon who they needed information from. It wasn’t super specific, but Dean figured if it could get a demon out of the Empty, it could also work for an angel.

As he lit the ring of holy oil, a rift appeared, similar to the one that let them travel to purgatory and apocalypse world, but this one was black. Before he could figure out the next step, he was sucked into the void, and found himself falling endlessly through the Empty.

He hit something with a thud. He’d call it the ground, but it wasn’t. Everything around him was darkness. It fell silent. There was no more wind, no thunder, no distant calamity. Dean wished he had a map. Or a flashlight. Or a more thought out plan, because he really only thought this through up to the point where he got here. All he cared about was finding Cas, and bringing him home. He figured he’d make the rest up along the way.

Dean stood up, unable to see or hear anything other than his own breathing.

“Cas!” he shouted, hoping maybe, somehow Cas would be able to hear him. There was nothing. So he shouted his name again, and again, and again, calling out into the void, hoping something would shout back. He was about to give up when he heard a whoosh.

“Dean?”

Dean turned around, and sure enough, in front of him stood Castiel. It was overwhelming, the sudden rush of emotions that shot through his body. There was so much he wanted to say, so much he needed to say, but he didn’t know how. He was just as shocked standing before Cas now as he was when the Empty took him.

“Cas? Is it … is it really you?” Dean was skeptical, it seemed too easy to call out his name and that was enough to summon him.

“Yes. Are you really you?”

Dean tilted his head, waiting for an explanation.

“The Empty has been playing tricks on me ever since I got here. It’ll manifest as you and then make me think you were here to save me. Much like you are now.”

“No, it’s really good ol’, 50% scar tissue and cholesterol, me.”

“That’s good to hear. Well, not objectively, because the number one killer of humans is heart disease, and if you’re 50% cholesterol, that’s not-”

“Look,” Dean interrupted, realizing there was a very real possibility of Cas going off on a 30 minute tangent, “I don’t know how much time we have, so let’s try to figure out a plan to bust you out of here.”

“I don’t really know how to get out of here. Do you?” Cas asked, eyebrows raised.

Dean was flying by the seat of his pants. He realized, yeah, he really should’ve done a little more research on how to escape the Empty, but when an angel confesses their love to you, it can make you do crazy things.

“Not exactly. I kinda figured we’d go out the way I came in. Whatever, we’ll figure it out, but right now, we have to go.”

Dean went to grab Cas’s wrist, and in an instant, Cas’s body melted into a pile of black goo, and reemerged in the image of Meg, sitting on her throne.

“Dean, long time no see.”

“Meg?”

“No, this is just the face I’ve taken a liking to. But I figured you’d connect better with a certain lovesick angel. Gotta say, I’m pretty pissed you had to go and ruin my fun, because I could’ve toyed with you all day.”

“Where’s Cas?”

“All business, no play. Got it.” The Empty snapped its fingers and Cas appeared next to the throne. He was unharmed, but his eyes went wide and his jaw fell slack as soon as he saw Dean.

“Cas!” Dean tried to run to the angel, but he was frozen in place. It didn’t seem like Cas could move either.

“Ah, ah, ah, not so fast there lover boy. I know you want E.T. here to return home, but since I have him, I want to make a deal.”

Dean’s jaw tightened and his nostrils flared. Evil sons of bitches always wanted to make deals, and every time Dean said yes, he’d end up screwed over in the long run. But what the hell? This was for Cas.

“What do you want?”

“I’ll give you your precious angel, if you hold up the bargain that Death promised me.”

“And what was that?”

“It’s loud.” The Empty waved its hand and a cacophony of tortured screams echoed through the void. “They were all sleeping. And when they sleep, I sleep. But you, and the angel, and God kept coming in, and dragging people out. Now all they do is scream and I’m sick of it.”

“Sorry about your beauty sleep, but I don’t really see how that’s my problem.”

“Oh, you don’t?” With another snap of the Empty’s fingers, Cas fell to his knees, hunched over in pain, and started vomiting up blood. “Because I can do this for the rest of eternity, Dean.”

Unable to watch Cas suffer any longer, Dean gave in.

“Fine, I’m in. What do you need me to do?”

The Empty snapped its fingers, and Cas went back to normal.

It explained to Dean that in order for there to be peace in the Empty, there needed to be no more unwelcome guests, and no more resurrections. The Empty would be the only one with the power to let things in or let things out. In order to do that, he would need to close the rift to the Empty, forever.

It was a simple spell, in that it was only a few ingredients, but Dean didn’t want to put his trust in another bad guy. Cosmic entities were high up on his don’t-mess-with list.

In order to close the rift, Dean would have to take the Empty’s plasma, mix it with holy oil and demon blood, use the mixture to draw a devil’s trap around the rift while it was still open, then set the sigil on fire. It seemed doable, but there was a catch. There was always a catch. The Empty wouldn’t return Cas back to Earth until the spell was complete.

If he agreed, there was a risk that the Empty would keep Cas trapped in there forever. That just wasn’t a risk Dean was willing to take. Luckily, he had a plan B.

“No deal,” Dean said, pulling an angel blade from his pocket.

“Is that your plan? Attack me with an angel blade? That’s cute, Dean. But I’m the Empty. I rule over fallen angels, remember, that’s not going to work on me.”

“That might be so,” Dean said, throwing the angel blade at the Empty, watching as it landed in its chest, “but an angel blade bonded with pieces of Death’s Scythe? That’s Kryptonite.”

When Dean found the spell that would let him into the Empty, the Men of Letters also included a section on how to slow the Empty down. If you were able to cut the Empty with the blade of Death’s Scythe, it would send the Empty back to the depths of its abyss where it would have to reform. When Billie attacked him and Cas, she broke off a couple small pieces of her blade, which Dean later found in the hallway. He figured if he could weld the two metals together, it would work.

As the Empty melted and vanished into the void, Dean stared, shocked. His plan actually worked. It wasn’t a sure thing, about a 50/50 chance, and considering the other option was him and Cas being murdered, he was glad to see his gamble paid off.

“Alright, let’s go.” Dean grabbed his blade, and ran with Cas in a direction he could only hope was correct. They didn’t get very far before the ground began to quake beneath them. “What the hell is that?”

“What the hell is right,” a voice grumbled as it materialized into a human form. It was followed by another, and another, appearing from nowhere.

“Demons,” Cas said, turning in circles, realizing he and Dean were quickly becoming surrounded. “Run.”

Both men sprinted into the darkness, but were quickly tackled by a group of demons. Dean and Cas fought, punching and wrestling the demons. It seemed like every time they escaped and were able to cover some ground, more demons found them.

They ran and fought their way through the Empty, until they found it. They could see the glow of the rift in the distance, they were so close, but demons kept finding them, and they were intent on keeping them trapped in the Empty forever.

Cas fought the best he could, but with his powers all but gone, he didn’t have much to draw from. The odds were against him. Luckily, Dean was able to kill the demons, with the help of his blade, but not before they pummeled Cas.

Dean kneeled down next to Cas, terrified by the sight of blood spilling from his mouth. This was bad. Dean tried to help Cas get back on his feet, but Cas shook his head, staying put.

“I’m too weak,” Cas said, wincing as his words emphasized the pain of his bruised ribs. “You have to go without me.”

“Cas, don’t do this.”

The ground rumbled again, and the pounding of demon footsteps drew closer. There wasn’t time to argue.

“This is where I belong, Dean. You still have a chance to save yourself.”

“No. Not this time. We’re so close. I’m not leaving you behind.”

“Must you be so stubborn, Dean? You can still make it.” Cas’s voice rumbled with frustration. “Go.”

Dean recognized instantly that that was not a request, but an order. He didn’t care. He knew how this played out once, saw first hand the miserable fall out of it all, and as long as he still had his own free will, he wasn’t going to let it happen again.

“Not without you,” Dean said, reaching his hand out again to try to help Cas. Cas knocked it away, overcome with anger.

“Damn it, Dean, why won’t you just go!”

“Because I love you, Cas!” Shock hit Dean as the words left his mouth. Even though he knew Cas felt the same way, it still somehow felt too heavy, too intimate to actually speak into existence. It felt like his soul was an open wound, raw and exposed. He turned his gaze to the ground, trying to compose himself. He had to keep it together if he was going to get them back to Earth. “So don’t you ask me to leave you, because I can’t do that. We’re both getting out of here, or we’re both dying here, and those are the only two options, got it?”

Cas nodded, the faint hint of a smile forming. “Got it.”

Two demons caught up with them, and set their sights on Cas. Dean could see the bloodlust in their eyes, and attacked them before they could make their move. He made quick work of them, stabbing them and sending them to wherever demons go when they die in the Empty. He didn’t care. All that mattered was that they were gone, and he could get Cas to safety.

Dean slid his arm around Cas, lifting him up. Cas was right, he was weak. He had a limp, and he was bleeding, but Dean could handle it.

“I got you, buddy. Don’t worry.”

Dean picked Cas up into a fireman’s carry, more demons charging toward them in the distance, and with the last bit of strength he had, he ran into the rift.

They landed back in the bunker, and Dean knew he didn’t have much time. He grabbed the container of holy oil he used earlier and poured it into a bowl. He pulled the altered angel blade from his pocket and used it to stir the mixture. It had both plasma from the Empty, and demon blood on it. Two birds with one stone. Hopefully.

“Hang in there, Cas, alright. It’s almost over,” Dean said, drawing a devil’s trap with the oil around the still open rift. He struck a match, and dropped it on the oil, watching the sigil burst into tall flames.

The devil’s trap began to glow before shooting a beam of light up to the ceiling. The light pulsed for a second, then swallowed the rift as it contracted and disappeared. The fire went out, leaving nothing but the faint wisps of smoke in its wake.

The bunker was quiet. Dean and Cas looked around, there was no sign of the Empty, no sign that any angels or demons had followed them back. It was just the two of them, alone.

“Alright, let’s get you cleaned up.”

Dean grabbed some bandages and rubbing alcohol, despite Cas’s objection to leave him be and that he didn’t need to be fussed over. He carefully cleaned his wounds, and bandaged up the really bad cuts.

As Dean cleaned the blood from the corner of Cas’s mouth, his hand resting gently on his chin, the pricking tickle of peach fuzz against his fingers, he looked into Cas’s eyes, and swore he could see the rest of his life right there.

“Cas, there’s something I have to tell you, man.”

“No, Dean, it’s fine. You don’t have to-“

“Just let me say this.” Dean took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and tried to focus on all the reasons why he needed to say this, instead of the voice telling him to keep his mouth shut. “When you told me you loved me, I didn’t know what to say. There was so much happening, and there just wasn’t enough time.”

There was a tightening in the back of Dean’s throat, and God damn it, he didn’t want to cry, but when you’re unearthing something that’s been buried for decades, it hurts like hell.

“Cas, you mean more to me than I can even say. It’s so hard for me to admit that, because everyone I care about dies, and I can’t handle losing you again. Every single time you left me, I fell apart. And I know you don’t think that’s true, because I never told you, but honestly, it was just because I was scared. I was scared of my own feelings, I was scared you wouldn’t feel the same way about me, I was scared you couldn’t feel that way about me. And then you said it, and it was like my world turned on its head. It was everything I wanted, and everything I was so sure I couldn’t have all at once. I didn’t even have a chance to process any of it before you were just… gone.”

Dean took Cas’s hands into his own, both of their eyes brimming with tears. This time Dean knew in the back of his head that no one was coming to ruin his happiness, even if his heart couldn’t fully accept it yet. He knew he was safe with Castiel, the angel, who out of many options, chose to love. The angel who gripped him tight and raised him from perdition. The angel who saw the best in him, when he only saw the worst in himself. The angel who gave up an army, rebelled against heaven, gave up his own life so many times for one man.

“So, say it to me again, so I can give you the answer that you deserve.”

Cas smiled, tears falling down his cheeks. He had hoped for years, that this moment would be a reality, but he, much like Dean, didn’t think it possible. But here he was, holding hands with the human who made him question order and obedience. The human who felt things so deeply, and loved with all his heart. The human who changed him, and how he saw the world, and the world itself.

“Dean,” Cas began, happiness filling his being. His smile, full of pure joy. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Cas.”

Without hesitation, and because he felt like he couldn’t hold himself back even one more second, Dean pulled Cas in close and kissed him. The too-rough passion of it, as if their lips found their soulmate, was so much better then what either of them imagined. The wax and wane of their breaths slipping between tongues— a song to say “yes” to when a lover asks if they can have this dance. It was a gentle surrender to bliss, a white flag they both wished to wave for far too long.

In that moment, with nothing more between them, no more lies, no more doubt, they both got to experience a moment of true happiness. They got to experience each other. No consequences. No punishment. Just true, honest, peace.

Their voices were no longer silenced by the forces they thought held dominion over them. This was not the end of their story, but the beginning. They were two magnificent beings, brought together not by fate, but by free will, finally being able to live the life they deserved— one full of hope, endless possibilities, and knowing that the person they loved, loved them in return.

#Destiel #Fanfic #DeanCas #Supernatural #Fanfiction #SPNDBCC #Dean Saves Cas From The Empty #Hurt/Comfort #Love Confession #First Kiss #THEY GET TO BE HAPPY #Dean Is Bi #Dean Loves Cas #Cas Loves Dean #REQUITED Love #Major Character Undeath #Writing

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danganronpasurvivoraskblog · 4 years ago

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Mémoire (Part 2) [End of Arc]

You’re engaged!?

Yep...Sora asked me to marry her and...I said yes.

Awesome! I-I’m so happy for you!

So am I. You two deserve happiness after all you’ve been through.

I think there’s a lot of people who deserve happiness after what’s been going on lately...

...

Ra-Ra? You feeling alright?

Huh? Oh, yeah...

Don’t worry about me...I’m feeling a lot better since...you know...

Yeah...

Sora, listen. I said this before and I’ll say it again.

Nothing you do could ever make us hate you, or spite you, or be mad at you. You don’t need to chastise yourself...

...I know...Sorry Teruya I just...

It’s was a tough experience...I really don’t want to go through something like that again...

...

I...I don’t think I want to remove my shackles again...I’d like to keep them on forever if I can...

Well...I respect that...

Also...I just want to let you know...

Sora and I don’t really want to have a ceremony when we get married...we kind of just want some time to ourselves.

That’s fine. I get it.

Take all the time you need.

Mikado Sannoji is dead...

Ouma, Hashimoto and Nijiue have escaped...

And it’s likely they’re all hiding within Future Foundation jurisdiction areas, so we can no longer touch them...

That’s the report...sir...

I see...Thank you...

Sorry Tsurugi...Things looked to be going really well and then...

Oh, don’t worry about it Mikako...I’m not upset...

To be honest...I really wasn’t betting on catching Syobai and Iroha...And I don’t think Saihara intended to let us either...

What do you mean?

All Saihara really cared about was saving his friend Keebo...to do that, he used them as a bargaining chip...

But it’s clear now that he never intended to allow us to capture them...

So he tricked us!?

Possibly...but even if he did...I’m not too terribly upset...

You’re not?

No...There haven’t been any reports of people matching Iroha and Syobai’s descriptions committing crimes...

So...I’m under the assumption that Ouma tried to put them on the straight and narrow...

So long as they stay away from the limelight...I’d gladly consider it a rehab...

I see...Well, I respect your decision on that account.

Truth be told...I can’t bring myself to spite the Future Foundation over this anyway...It’s only thanks to the Fujisaki Family that Zetsubou’s hacker didn’t breach our system...

But it’s only going to get crazier from now on...

There’s one thing that I’m not that sure about, and that’s why didn’t the Zetsubou Hacker try and save Mikado from the firewall blocking him inside of Keebo?

If he was skilled enough to hack into our system, then...

You almost tracked his or her exact location, so I think they wanted to avoid that...

That, or hacking into our system was merely a test of his skill...

I can’t accept that...

I have no way of contacting them professionally as of right now, but I’d like to at least let the Future Foundation know I’m changing my stance in this matter.

Changing it how?

I just want to inform them that I’m willing to stand by their side in this fight to stop Zetsubou...but to do so, I need their trust...

I don’t blame them for withholding information or not trusting me, but my intentions are always good, even if my methods aren’t...

Tsurugi...

“Heaven’s net is wide, but it’s mesh is fine...”

Huh?

A quote by Lao Tzu, a Chinese Philosopher. I’m saying that no one gets away with anything sneaky in the end...

Oh...they don’t do they?

Huh?

*A light smirk appears on Tsurugi’s face.

What are you saying?

Rei, I really appreciate that you remain professional even when office romance is there to distract you from hard work.

For that, I’m extremely grateful...

What are you-!?

Haha...What did I tell you...? It’s hard to get these things by me.

Easy, easy, I don’t intend to spread the word from the rooftops or whatever...

Take some time to yourselves. You’d earned it.

I don’t know what-

Ah!?

...

*Rei is cut off as Mikako grabs her arm.

...

A-Alright...Thank you sir...

Haha...No problem.

Mr Ouma!

Ah! Hey you guys!

*Kokichi returns to his cabaret club, greeted immediately by a worried Iroha and Syobai.

How’d you’re little “shopping trip” go? If that’s really why you left.

Actually, I did grab some supplies while I was out...Just went to go seal the deal with a few old friends now...

I see...

Say...You’re trying to stop these “Organization Zetsubou” asshole’s that Sannoji was working with, right?

Yes? Why?

I know it probably ain’t my place but...

Count me in. If you need an army, I’d be happy to join it.

I...

I would too! I-I’m not that strong or useful, b-but if Mikado was working with these people, they must be bad people!

I-I don’t want something like a killing game to happen again!

...

It’s good to know you guys have my back but for now...

All I’m really concerned about is that it’s getting late and we open soon! Chop chop!

You got it!

Heh...Sorry. I’ll get everything ready...

So you’re Chihiro’s dad, right?

Yes, he’s my son. One I’m very proud of at that...

...Thank you...

You were part of the Demon Hunting Game too, right?

Yes...I got out with some injuries, but I got out nonetheless...I see the same happened to you?

Yeah, but...Hey, a metal arm’s pretty badass, don’t you think?

Haha...I suppose so.

Actually, now that this whole spat is over, the two of you are free to do what you want...So...what are you going to do?

Well, I was actually thinking of moving back to Towa City and finding a job there...

Really?

I know the place should probably bring back a load of bad memories, but...It’s not a nice place when you think about it.

Besides, Toko and Komaru are there. I should probably drop in and say hi every once in a while.

Well, if that’s your decision, then fine. I can help you get settled in for a few weeks if you want?

That sounds great. Thanks.

What about you dad?

Um...A-Actually, I’ve been meaning to talk about that...Hey, Chihiro?

Yes...?

Would um...

Would you mind terribly if I were to ask for a job? To work in your branch I mean?

...!?

I-I would be honored!

...

Hey! Shuichi!

Hey.

*Kaede comes up with two boxes of packed lunch, and they sit down on a park bench. She hands one of the boxes to Shuichi and they dig in.

Thanks for the food!

Kirumi made these for us. I told her she didn’t need to worry, but I changed my mind when I saw how delectable it looked.

My advice would be to not ask too much of Kirumi, but don’t try to stop her when she goes out of her way to do you favors.

Oh, I know...I remember having trouble with that in the past...

Ah, it’s so good to have my memories back...

Even if...most of them are pretty tragic...We’ve sure been through a lot, right?

We sure have...Though, I’m not sure if you’re talking about the killing game, or this past week that feels like it’s been several months.

Shuichi...

Yes Kaede?

I don’t know if I said this already but...Both during the killing game...Before the killing game...And after the killing game at the Hairdressers...

We’ve met each other 3 times now...and each time...I’m really glad that we did...

I agree...You’re a really special person to me...Not everyone gets to meet a “Kaede Akamatsu” after all...

Are you sure about that? Kaede’s a pretty common first name...

*They laugh together, and instinctively, Kaede shuffles along the bench until her shoulders touch with Shuichi’s.

You know...I always one day thought I’d be able to see the real sky with you...

I guess some dreams really do come true, huh?

I’d call this a miracle more than a dream coming true to be honest...

Yeah, I guess...

Oh, and Shuichi...There’s one more thing...

What’s that?

...

You really do look a lot cooler without the cap on...

...

[End of Arc]

[END OF SEASON 1]

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bewaretheidesofmarchyall · 5 years ago

Note

Dukexiety on Halloween?

Ooh, this sounds cool!

Dukexiety, Halloween

TW: Death, blood, at least one demon

-Let’s start off with the assumption that ghosts can cross to our world on Halloween.

-Enter Virgil and Remus, two young ghosts looking to have some fun.

-A little background information: Virgil was murdered in an unsolved case thirty years ago, and no one knows how Remus died because he has a gorier story every time. They do know that there was a fair amount of blood.

-They’re dating, but a relatively new couple (still, Remus has like 3,573 nicknames for Virgil).

-More background information: Halloween is the time when ghosts can cross over to the land of the living, but it’s not the “ghosts and ghouls running wild” that it used to be in the old times.

There are rules and regulations! Tickets to be purchased, tour groups to join, and gift shops to be set up in the graveyards! I went to the land of the living, and all I got was this lousy engraved lamp.

-Remy is a tour guide. He’s also a demon. He’s also 100% done with the tourism business. His job is to make sure the spirits of the dead stick to their approved areas.

-Remus and Virgil are determined to not stick to their approved areas. Halloween only comes once a year, and it’s their first time haunting the world as a couple! Virgil’s weirdly insistent on not staying with the group. But they’ve been planning for this. They execute their master plan (which also contained a fair amount of blood) and escape from the tour group into the evening.

-Now we have a main plot of Remus and Virgil haunting this small town, and a subplot of Remy trying to Stop Them.

-The couple decides to go make a haunted house more...correctly advertised.

-The haunted house, by the way, is run by the resident troupe of theater kids, led by Roman and Janus. It’s very low budget, but everyone’s trying their best.

-Virgil clouds several rooms in darkness and lets his eyes glow from the corners. Remus tears off his own arms and waves them around. Stuff like that.

-The theater kids are all really freaked out because they’re in charge of the acts and this was not on the list. They’re all ready to abandon the project, when Janus points something out: This is AMAZING for business! The buzz of satisfied customers is spreading down the hills, attracting more people!

Finally, finally, THE DRAMA DEPARTMENT WILL GET FUNDING!!!

-However, Virgil and Remus have gotten a little bored and are ready to move onto the next thing. So off they go, laughing and still trying to reattach Remus’s arms. It’s Virgil’s turn to choose what to do, and one of the things he missed the most about being alive was going to the movies.

-The drive-in is showing Beetlejuice that night, so they go to that.

-Logan runs the local drive-in movie theater. He can see ghosts, and he’s made some payoffs to the demonic higher ups to keep the spirits of the dead out of his business.

-But Virgil and Remus are just teenagers, and they’re being total dorks, and they’re doing that thing where you rest your hand close to the other person and the ever so slowly take it....god, it’s adorable. So, Logan turns a blind eye to it and continues making popcorn, resolving to only kick them out if the bloody one starts making a mess.

-Meanwhile, the theater kids realize that their ghosts are gone, and business is starting to decline again. Janus decides desperate times, desperate measures, and starts summoning.

Roman: Do we really need to make a Faustian bargain to get funding?

Janus: In this economy? Yeah.

-Remy had been hot on the trail of the duo, and almost caught them before they got into the drive-in. However, he feels his form being yanked across town like a worm on a string. He’s been summoned by the theater kids.

-He doesn’t even stop to bargain because this night has been LONG and he needs COFFEE. He just kind of possesses Janus and runs back towards the drive-in.

-It’s towards the end of the movie when Remy gets back, and Virgil’s head is on Remus’s shoulder at this point. Remy’s about to catch them when Logan spots him.

-Logan doesn’t want the spirits of the dead in his drive-in. He paid to have the spirits of the dead not be in his drive-in. There is not going to be a demon in his fucking drive-in.

-He grabs some popcorn salt and smiles. There won’t be one for long.

-Fight scene! In one corner, we have “Remy without his morning caffeine”! He is full of spite! In another, we have Logan! He has worked concessions long enough to know which foods have high salt levels!

-The fight ends in a stalemate when Remy notices that the sounds of “Jump In The Line” have long faded, the credits are over, and the boys have escaped to god knows where else.

He is so fired.

-For the next thing, Remus wants to go classic and haunt a house. A house of someone sweet and a little lonely preferably.

-Patton has just finished giving out candy to the little trick-or-treaters. His house is semi-famous to Halloween candy seekers for the wonderful snacks! He closes the door and decides he’s going to go read something nice.

-Before the duo go in to scare Patton, Remus notices that Virgil seems nervous. He asks him what’s wrong, and Virgil eventually admits that he heard through the underworld grapevine that his little sister, now in her thirties, just had a kid. He really wants to get a glimpse of his niece, but he’s worried that something will go wrong or something will prevent him from getting there or-

He’s just kind of freaked out.

-They go in to scare Patton. Virgil peers with glowing eyes from corners while Remus rattles the furniture. Patton barely reacts.

-Here’s the thing about sweet and a little lonely people: a good deal of them own a lot of cats.

-Patton is immune to eyes in the dark, loud bumps in the night, far away screams, scratches on the walls, blood stains on the carpet, heads rolling across the floors, cold spots, the fireplace suddenly roaring to life, and levitating figures (he has some weird cats).

-Remus and Virgil try more and more ridiculous things to get Patton to pay attention to them, until they’re both (figuratively) dying of laughter.

-MEANWHILE Roman arrives at the drive-in on the verge of tears. He knows that Janus was headed vaguely in this direction. He also knows that Janus is possessed oh god no this wasn’t how this night was supposed to go. Logan finds this teenager wandering around and panicking, and asks him what’s wrong. Roman tells him that that his friend (who he totally doesn’t have feelings for) is possessed and has he seen him?

-Logan has, indeed seen a possessed teenager with a ridiculous bowler hat. He just emptied popcorn salt on his head. Lo agrees to help Roman search and possibly exorcise.

-Back at the house, Virgil is literally levitating Patton and he isn’t noticing. After all, you can never know when you’re being haunted when you have cats as weird as his.

-The doorbell rings. Patton opens it, not noticing the drop to the floor, and expecting a trick-or-treater up far too late. He was not expecting a sixteen year old in a bowler hat and sunglasses to barge past him, empty a bag of coffee grounds into his mouth, and start yelling at thin air that it almost got him fired.

-Remus and Virgil say something along the lines of, “Oh shit, Remy” and run. But Remy contains coffee now, and nothing will stop him.

-They realize that they won’t be able to both escape. Remus lets himself be caught so Virgil can escape and see his sister and niece.

-Virgil’s sister is at a Halloween celebration in the world famous corn maze. Yes, this town has a world famous corn maze. Virgil searches the maze, still equal measures worried for and in love with his boyfriend.

-Remy (still possessing Janus) isn’t that far behind him, but he’s slowed down immensely by Remus’s superpower: being the worst travel companion ever when he wants to be. Remy oh so desperately wishes he could kill dead people and that this night was over.

-Roman and Logan track Remus and Virgil because if you can see ghosts, it’s really easy to know where Remus is, due to the near constant trail of blood. They ask some questions to Patton, who still blames everything on his cats, then keep following the trail towards the corn maze.

-Virgil eventually finds the center of the maze. And there’s his kid sister, who isn’t a kid anymore. He wonders if she kept up playing piano and who she married and what her life was like after he left it. And the baby! It’s like a loaf of bread with eyes!!!

-Virgil’s calm, for once. He starts to move toward the exit, when he bumps into Remy (Remus is clinging to Remy’s leg and lying on the ground to try and slow him down. It isn’t helping much, but it helps a little). He sprints in the opposite direction.

-Virgil’s chased by Remy, who’s chased by Roman and Logan, and they’re all very, very lost in this world famous corn maze.

-Remus is continually yelling at Remy, who tries to explain that he’ll lose his job if he doesn’t do this. Remus’s pleas are kind of effective, however, and Remy is starting to feel like a terrible person demon.

-Virgil reaches a dead end in the maze. All parties round the corner and stand in the same dead end (except Patton, who’s at home reading his book).

-An exorcism is attempted. The exorcism fails because Remus’s blood trail ruins the salt circle.

-The exorcism gives Virgil the time to climb up a corn stalk and begin running across the corn.

-Once the exorcism fails, Roman is desperate. He takes Janus’s hands and confesses everything, asking him to come back.

-It works! Whether that’s because of the power of love or the demon feeling socially awkward is anyone’s guess.

-Remus also escapes, scales the corn, and runs across the stalks. Virgil and Remus run like the wind across a world famous corn maze.

-Remy considers catching them. He probably still could. But...he can probably think of some excuse to not get fired. Or something. He’ll think of something, and lets the boys get away.

-Virgil and Remus, grinning from adrenaline and an amazing night, walk back toward the graveyard together, hand in hand as the sun comes up and drives away the shadows.

Thanks for the prompt!

I might end up changing that names and making this an original thing one day

This was really fun to write!!!

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vesuviannights · 5 years ago

Audio

Violet, Lilac, Wisteria, Amethyst: Part 1

Asra x Reader. Gender neutral, no pronouns, 100% lemon-free.

The night before you are to be wed, you make one final desperate attempt to save yourself by summoning your Patron Arcana to make a deal. But what - or rather who - answers your call is not what you expect.

Featuring: demon Asra, softness, soffftt.

In just twelve short hours, you are to be wed.

The bells will toll, the people will cheer, and the last piece of your raging soul will be trodden into the ground by the approving looks of those you once held dear.

Because you know none of it is for you. This engagement, this marriage, this life set out for you is not of your design. It is only to please those in power, and to give your partner-to-be more of it, and you have caught yourself more times than you can count just wondering if any part of who you were would contribute to your partner’s happiness, or if it were all merely a cosmic joke.

You have tried many times for freedom, for even an ounce of control. Every frustrated cry, every attempt at a bargain you have thrown out into the universe: they have all fallen on deaf ears.

The Gods, the wind, the magical realms: they do not wish to hear you.

In the witching hour you are on your knees, surrounded by herbs and bloodied marks and chalk outlines on the floor of your shop.

Waiting, always waiting, the seconds ticking by as you watch the space where the magical being you have summoned is to appear.

But they do not.

You growl. You scream. You lash out at the nearest things and send them scattering around you in a fit of quickly collapsing rage.

And then: a voice from behind you.

“I have always enjoyed the fiery passion of the human race.”

You turn. It’s…you don’t know what. But he is the most beautiful being you have ever seen, in all your years of traveling the world.

High cheekbones kissed by golden skin. Plumes of white hair that fall into his deep violet eyes which, even half-obscured, seem to shift in hue as they take you in. Two sleek horns curve back from his hairline, and you can spy a flicking obsidian tail with an iridescent spike at the end that seems to shift along with his eyes.

He is watching you with an inscrutable gaze, arms folded as he leans against the frame just in front of your very closed, very locked shop door.

You swallow and stand, feigning your boldness. “How did you get in here?”

He just smiles at you.

You shift on your feet and take a step closer. “I asked you a question!”

“And I don’t suffer questions the answers to which are already known.”

You hesitate. Your eyes scatter over him once more, before slowly, very slowly…

…going to the array of magical items at your feet.

The corners of his lips flick up. “There we go.”

“You’re not the Arcana I summoned.”

“Actually, you’ll find I’m not any of them.”

“Then how did you—?”

He steps further into the room, eyes traveling over the items placed out for sale. He plays with a few of the nearby trinkets as he walks, nimble fingers glancing over them as he answers you.

“I’ve been known sometimes to intercept messages from mortals that…pique my curiosity.”

He stops in front of one of your many shelves, lined with herbs and powdered flowers and every other manner of ingredient.

You bite down on your tongue when he begins picking up bottles, reading the labels and giving indecipherable hmmms as he places them back. When he picks up a particularly expensive and rare one, you take an emboldened step forward.

“If you break it, you buy it,” you snap.

This brings his attention back to you. He turns to glance you over his shoulder, his eyes a new shade—lilac, you think—as his lips curve into a smile.

He places the bottle in question back, then with a slow drag of his eyes down to your balled fists, he continues his perusal of your shop.

“I would rather you leave,” you tell him, watching as he approaches your collection of tomes and novels. He fingers the spine of a forest green one, the words inlaid in a bright gold. “I was actually busy before you barged in here. Uninvited, might I add.”

“Oh, I’m never uninvited, cherub,” he answers.

Your cheeks heat at the name, an angry flush that you quickly cover by turning away and beginning to gather your things.

“Well, you were this time,” you mutter angrily under your breath.

Your fingers fumble on the dried rosemary, the bottle of Elk blood, as you stuff them all into your linen satchel. Somewhere behind you, the click of his boots stops, and you can feel his searing gaze on the back of your neck.

“Were you not after someone to save you from your looming, impassive marriage?”

You freeze, fingers grasped around the edge of your book. Your gaze becomes a little unfocused, barely able to see the words on the page before you.

It didn’t matter now. You had tried many times to save yourself, and no mystical being or god or any of the Major Arcana had deemed you worthy enough to answer your calls.

You were not worthy of being helped, it seemed. You should have realised it from the beginning.

“Cherub?”

He repeats the name softly, tentatively, breaking you from your thoughts.

You shake your head, clearing the haze and stuffing the book into your satchel. Rising to your feet with a shake to your limbs, you sling the bag over your shoulder and begin toward the exit.

“Please make sure you lock the door when you leave,” you tell him.

Your hand is inches from the handle when he appears before you, blocking your escape. His hands are tucked behind his back, and his eyes—those damned eyes—have changed their shade once more.

Amethyst, swirling with shadows as they take in your expression: the bags under your eyes, the twist of your lips, the tightness of your jaw. All the empty hollows inside of you that had been left by your pathetic fight, always doomed to fail.

“You called for help, yes?” He asks. His voice is so quiet, almost inscrutable. You nod. “Then allow me to help.”

You swallow, then immediately back track with a soft shake of your head. Your gaze drops away as you speak, a whisper you can barely force out.

“I can’t pay you,” you tell him. “Every offering I had was for—”

“We will figure out payment later. You wish to be free of this impending marriage. You wish to be happy. Free to choose?”

You hesitate. Of everything you have learned in all your time dealing with the Arcana, with all things magical and otherwise, one of the first was what to look for in the makings of a murky bargain.

No bargain without explicitly outlined payment was ever worth making. The payment could come at any time, and in any form, and more often than not the being in question was merely after a profit—the payment was always too steep for the reward.

And you’re about to shake your head and deny his offer. About to take the safer option; perhaps you can summon your patron Arcana after the vows, perhaps there is still a way out after you have been wed.

But…

Your eyes flicker up to his. They are a deeper amethyst now, no shadows, with flecks of wisteria. You are quickly coming to understand that each colour means something, and a strange part of you aches to know you might never understand exactly what.

“Why?” You ask, finally breaking the silence.

You watch his expression shift again, some of the lightness clearing from his eyes as his brows pull down to cast shadows over them.

“Why what?”

“You said you intercept messages that pique your interest. Why was mine so interesting?”

The corners of his lips flicker up as he tilts his head at you, and you feel another flush coming to your cheeks, though this one is not angry. In your mind, you begin creating a list for the shade of his eyes: lilac, amusement.

“I said ‘sometimes’,” he corrects you softly. “And sometimes, when I don’t choose, the choice is made for me. The universe has been known to be more of a trickster than I, and this time…”

He trails off, his eyes dropping to your lips.

Wisteria: lust.

“…this time,” he murmurs. His eyes move back to yours. “It was less of a trick and more of a catastrophe.”

You swallow. He has come close, so close.

“A catastrophe?” You whisper.

He nods. One hand comes up to push the hair from your face, then dips down to trace your lips. You watch the movement, breath held in your throat.

“In that, I’m afraid that if you say no to my bargain,” he says. “I may just pretend I did not hear you, and whisk you away to your freedom anyway.”

Your eyelids flutter shut as he shifts forward, and you are enveloped in the scent of him. Lavender. Sage. The musk of incense, ones you’re sure you’ve been burning in your room since you could light a fire at your own fingertips.

A shiver envelopes your entire body when his lips make contact with your forehead. They linger there, warm and soft, with his hand cupping the back of your head.

“Please, cherub,” he murmurs against your heated skin. “Honour me by letting me take you away. You will only be with me for as long as you are happy.”

“And then?”

“And then I will take you to wherever you need to be to be happy still.”

Your eyes open as he pulls back to find him already staring down at you. A new colour, one that is so barely there you have to search for it.

But the answer comes to you after a moment, almost as easily as breathing. You can feel it swirling in your chest as it shifts, wisteria into orchid, and you know: power. A promise.

He will not force you into his bargain. But, should you say no, he will still watch over you. From his knees, he will still do whatever is necessary to keep you you, to stop you from becoming suffocated and lifeless.

Nothing is beyond his power, and you are the being at its helm, allowed to direct it in any way you so need.

“I don’t even know your name,” you tell him. You receive a soft laugh in response, a twinkle to his gaze as it lightens.

“I am Asra.”

“Well then, Asra…I should like to make a bargain.”

“Mmmmm. I thought you might.”

He kisses your forehead once more, and then dips down a little lower to capture the tip of your nose. You crinkle it, and he laughs, and at the sound of it you quickly realise that the payment might not be the part of the bargain that undoes you.

“We will seal our bargain with a kiss,” he tells you. “Would you allow me to kiss you? Properly?”

You nod.

You loose a breath.

And then he kisses you.

And it’s the softest, the most glorious, his power and desire and affection wrapping themselves around your very soul as he cups the back of your head and swirls his tongue through your mouth.

You gasp against his lips, a hand to each of his wrists, as though that might steady you.

But the world still spins.

And your heart still sings.

And before he whisks you away in plumes of shadows to a better world, you add one final colour to the list in your mind.

Amethyst: love.

On to part 2 --->

🍑 Requesting | Masterlist | My Ao3

#the arcana #asra #asra alnazar #asra x reader #the arcana asra #the arcana asra alnazar #gender neutral reader #gn reader #lemon-free #nnn #writing #demonverse

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minijenn · 5 years ago

Text

Universe Falls Chapter 79

Ayyyyyy its here fam, the chapter right before RMD is finally done which means I’m ALMOST ALMOST THERE AHAHAHHAHAHAH IM SO FUCKIN HYPE! But for now, enjoy this fucking preliminary angstfest, which I also really like even if it is a teeny tiny lil chapter. Just as well since RMD are all boutta be fucking monsters in terms of length. Anyway enjoy!

Previous: https://minijenn.tumblr.com/post/618035050504732672/universe-falls-chapter-78

***

Chapter 79: Alone on the Lake

TN XBAVUSA SUL ZUSALLZF GSL ZLZBKX IFK AJUWLK DPNZ BWMSL LUZ OACM HV YW KLKHXJ GGBZ EKBIJK?

“Ok, Lapis, we’re almost there!”

“I think I’m starting to guess the surprise, you two,” Lapis noted with a small smile, still keeping her aquatic wings wrapped over her eyes as she followed Steven and Mabel’s enthusiastic lead.

“Your eyes are supposed to be closed!” Steven reminded brightly.

“Sorry,” Lapis chuckled, following his instructions this time as the pair continued to guide her onward. “Are you still back there, Dipper?” she called, glancing over her shoulder behind her, though keeping her eyes shut all the while.

“Hm?” Dipper looked up, his hands shoved away in his pockets as he kept pace quite a bit behind the trio as they traveled down the dock. “Oh, uh, yeah, I’m here.”

“Mind telling me where we’re going?” the blue Gem continued addressing him with a small, playful smile. “I have an idea, but these two aren’t giving me any hints.”

“Cause that would be cheating!” Mabel pointed out, resolute. “And it would ruin the surprise.”

“Speaking of surprises, wait here just a second.” Steven and Mabel both relinquished their holds on Lapis’ hands, running over to join Greg and Stan near the edge of the dock before unveiling what they had in store for the day. “Surprise!”

Lapis let her wings retract, opening her eyes to see something that she didn’t really know what to make of at first. The wide lay of Lake Gravity Falls spread out before the group from the small dock they were all on, its murky waters dully glistening in the mid-morning sun. And resting on that lake, tethered to a post, was a moderately large boat, one that looked rather fancy and modern, aside from the bizarre, out of place skull and crossbone flags draping from its sides and hanging from its flagpole.

“We bought a boat!” Steven proclaimed excitedly.

“Correction, we rented a boat,” Greg chimed in. “I may be rich, but buying a boat would be going a bit… overboard!”

“Ugh, please someone make him stop,” Stan groaned insincerely. “He’s been making lame boat puns ever since we picked this thing up from the rental place. I’d fire him for them… if he still worked for me.”

“What can I say, Mr. Pines?” Greg let out a small chuckle. “I just keep reeling ‘em in!”

Steven and Mabel were quick to join in on the former rock star’s amused laughter, and though it took Stan a moment, he ultimately folded with a bit of a wry smirk himself. “Uh… what’s with the pirate theme?” Dipper spoke up as he looked over the boat.

“Er, the rental place was out of the “Family Friendly Day On the Lake” boat package,” Greg explained. “All they had left was the “A Pirate’s Life for Me” package, which is really just those flags. Oh, and I think there’s a stuffed parrot and a set of decorative swords on board.”

“There’s also a bunch of peg legs, pirate hats, and eye patches stored under one of the seats,” Stan added dryly. “So, ya know, you kids can knock yourselves out with those.”

“Ooo!” Steven mused, intrigued.

“I call the eye patch!” Mabel quipped, raising her hand.

“Oh no, ya don’t,” Stan pulled said eye patch out of his pocket and slipped it on. “I already beat ya to it, pumpkin.”

“Aw, dang it! Not again!”

“Steven, Dipper, Mabel,” Lapis spoke up, glancing over at Stan and Greg, somewhat confused. “Who are these people?”

“Ah, Greg Universe,” Greg introduced himself, holding out a hand for her to shake. “You, uh, busted up my van trying to use the lake to fly back to your homeworld?”

“Lapis Lazuli,” the blue Gem offered him a somewhat awkward smile though she didn’t return his handshake. “Nice to meet you.”

“And Lapis, you remember Grunkle Stan, right?” Mabel asked as she came to stand alongside the conman.

“Oh right!” Lapis nodded. “You’re the guy who looks like Ford, but isn’t Ford.”

“Ugh, if I had a nickel for every time I heard that one when I was a kid...” Stan rolled his eyes, disgruntled.

“That’s ‘cause Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford are twins,” Mabel informed the blue Gem with a smile as she suddenly pulled Dipper close beside her. “Just like me and Dipper!”

“Ugh, Mabel! Knock it off!” Dipper huffed in annoyance as he quickly pulled away from her. He paid no mind to the curious looks the others were sending his way as a result of his sudden harshness as he instead went to take a seat at the far edge of the dock instead.

“Aw, c’mon, bro-bro, I was just… aw, ok…” Mabel sighed in quiet defeat as she watched him sullenly walk away.

“Yeesh, he’s acting even more Dippery than usual,” Stan remarked bluntly before oblivious moving on. “Anyway, we’d better get a move on. The ice in that treasure chest-shaped cooler on deck is only gonna keep those sandwiches cold for so long.”

“Good point,” Greg agreed, trailing after the conman. “Let’s get the boat started.”

As the pair headed aboard the rented vessel, everyone else hung back on the dock for a bit, particularly Lapis as she hardly even seemed to be focused on the boat at all. “What’s going on with Dipper?” she asked Steven and Mabel with newfound concern. “He seems… upset about something.”

“I don’t know…” Steven frowned. “Yesterday he seemed so excited about our plans to bring you out here to spend the day with you, Lapis, but now…”

“I-I think I might know what’s up,” Mabel said, glancing down apprehensively. “Last night I overheard him talking in his sleep--which he only really does when he’s having a nightmare--a-and it must have been a pretty bad one cause he said something about… a-about you know who…”

“No,” Lapis shook her head, confused. “Who?”

“Oooh…” Steven immediately understood, however, his expression quickly turning grave. “Again? I thought he stopped having those kinds of nightmares after we put up the unicorn shield around the shack.”

“The what?” the blue Gem tried interjecting once more, completely out of the loop.

“Yeah, well… you know Bill,” Mabel said, her tone and expression both taking on an air of disdain. “He never quits, even when he really should. And if he can’t mess with us for real anymore, I guess dreams are the next best thing for him.”

“Wait, slow down,” Lapis said, putting her hands up. “What are you guys talking about? Who’s this Bill person? Someone who’s been messing with Dipper?”

“Messing with all of us, actually…” Steven rubbed his arm. “He’s this really powerful, really mean demon who we’ve been fighting against all summer. We’ve been up against him a bunch of times, but the worst was when he-” The young Gem stopped short at this, particularly as he met the sight of Mabel silently shaking her head, her lips pressed in a thin line and her eyes wide with worry. Steven was quick to understand her intent, however, when he happened to glance between Lapis, who was looking to him with expectant curiosity, and Dipper, who was still sitting alone, forlorn as he stared into the lake from the edge of the dock. “Uh… h-he, um…” Steven stammered, unsure of how to explain exactly what had happened what felt like ages ago now. Especially to Lapis, of all Gems, who cared so much for Dipper and had, at least in some way, been the very driving force for him striking the dangerous deal with the dream demon that he had back then. A deal that was clearly still leaving it’s heavy, painful mark on him, even long after it had ended.

“L-long story short,” Mabel cut in just in time with a brief, largely safe explanation. “Bill tricked Dipper into making a deal with him that went pretty sour pretty fast and it, uh… m-may or may not almost got him, um… k-killed,” she winced, a familiar pang of guilt filling her as she so much as said the dreadful word.

“W-what?!” Lapis exclaimed, aptly alarmed.

“O-oh, but don’t worry! It didn’t actually, o-of course,” Steven rushed to interject. “A-and my healing powers helped patch up everything else‒eventually. So, everything’s fine now! W-well… almost everything…” The young Gem frowned as he looked in Dipper’s direction himself, wishing there was more he could do to help heal what was an entirely different kind of wound now.

“B-but, I don’t understand,” Lapis shook her head, her expression awash in immense worry. “Why would Dipper make a deal like that anyway? Even if he was tricked, I know he’s smarter than to fall for something like that.”

Steven and Mabel exchanged an uncertain glance at this, knowing that the last thing Lapis needed was to know exactly why Dipper had taken a chance on such a risky bargain in the first place. “Uh… w-who can say?” Mabel shrugged, forcing out a harsh, fake chuckle. “It doesn’t really matter anymore anyway since it’s all said and done and we can forget about it and move on with our lives! S-so instead of talking about all that depressing junk, let’s talk about something way more fun instead! Like this boat! What do you think about it, Lapis?”

“Oh, uh… it’s… nice,” Lapis said somewhat absently as she finally pulled her gaze away from Dipper. “But... I don’t know…”

“Look, Lapis,” Steven took a deep, steadying breath, noticing the hesitation in the blue Gem as she turned her attention to the lake in particular. “We know you spent a really long time fused with Jasper at the bottom of the lake, but… you’re not Malachite anymore. And water is part of who you are. You can’t let one bad experience take that away from you!”

“It was more than one…” Lapis sighed, crossing her arms.

“Well… maybe we can turn all those bad times around and make a brand-new good time instead!” Mabel encouraged warmly. “We promise that this is gonna be the most fun you’ve ever had!”

“Thank you, but I… I don’t deserve this…” Lapis shook her head fretfully.

“Of course you do!” Steven insisted. “We even named her Lil’ Lappy!” He nodded over to the boat, where Stan and Greg were attempting to tape a banner with this new name to the side of the boat, only for it to slightly slip off to reveal the vessel’s true title: the S.S. Misery”.

Despite this, Lapis was unable to hold back a snort of an amused laugh at such a ridiculous sight, one that told just how hard the kids were working to put all this together for her. “Ok, I’ll give it a chance. But just one.”

“That’s the spirit!” Mabel beamed. “Now c’mon! We better get on board before Grunkle Stan hogs the rest of that super cool pirate gear to himself!”

“Too late!” Stan called from on deck, clad in the eyepatch, captain’s hat, and fake peg leg alike.

Even so, Mabel and Steven hurried on ahead to climb aboard, though Lapis stayed behind, largely so she could go over to join Dipper as he remained at the edge of the dock. Along the way, she couldn’t help but let her thoughts wander, both to the deepest concern for the boy himself, and quiet, yet fledgling fury for the mysterious demon who had apparently put him through so much lingering distress. “H-Hey,” she greeted him as casually as she could manage, despite all this. “Aren’t you coming along?”

“Oh! Y-yeah,” Dipper was quick to stand, though he made no move to go over to the boat as he offered Lapis a concerned glance instead. “Are… are you sure you’re ok with this? I tried telling them that taking you out on the lake might not be… the best idea, considering… well…”

“N-no, it’s ok,” Lapis assured him with a small smile. “I think it’s really… sweet that you guys went to all the trouble to put all this together for me. Even if it might be a bit… too much.”

“It’s always too much when Steven and Mabel are involved,” Dipper finally let out a small chuckle, one that set Lapis’ worries to ease as she hoped that maybe he wasn’t as upset as he seemed. At least for now.

“Need a lift?” she asked, summoning her wings as she extended a hand out to him.

“Sure.” With this, Lapis easily swept Dipper up off the dock, giving him an easy landing on board the boat alongside Steven and Mabel before she came down to join them herself.

“How do I say it again, Mr. Pines?” Greg’s voice echoed from the ship’s intercom on the bridge. “Mighties?”

“It’s ‘maties’, Greg,” Stan deadpanned, not realizing the mic was already on either.

“Got it; maties,” Greg actually turned to the intercom so he could properly address the group on deck. “Uh, ahoy, maties! Are ya scurvy land-lovers-”

“Landlubbers,” Stan corrected once more.

“...What the hey is a lubber?”

“Ugh, gimme that!” the conman promptly took over the intercom at this. “What he’s trying to say is, are you all ready to take off or not?”

“Aye, aye, captain!” Mabel and Steven proclaimed in unison, both of them presenting dramatic salutes.

“...Yes,” Lapis said simply as Dipper nodded his agreement as well.

“Good,” Stan said simply, hanging up the intercom line. “You do know how to work this tub, don’t you, Greg?”

“Uh… w-well… It can’t be that tricky…” Greg looked over the ship’s rather complicated control deck, though he did manage to find its starting clutch. “Aha! Full speed ahea-” The former rock star was abruptly cut off as the entire boat jolted hard as it began to take off, knocking everyone on board about. However, as it did, the force of the vessel’s abrupt movement suddenly ripped the post it was tethered to, one that neither Greg nor Stan had thought to untie it from before climbing aboard. “Aw, geez…” Greg shuddered upon glancing back to see the post skimming behind the boat as it ventured out onto the open lake. “You think anyone will notice?”

“You better hope no one does,” Stan remarked. “Trust me, Greg, you do not want a run-in with lake police. I learned that the hard way…”

Despite the pleasant, late summer weather, not too many other boats were out on the water, meaning the group largely had the lake all to themselves. As soon as the boat had settled into a more relaxed pace out near the center of the water, Lapis and the kids went to join Greg and Stan up in the bridge, largely to inquire about the wooden post still lagging behind the ship.

“Yeah, I-I think I did a number on that deck,” Greg scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. “Maybe someone else should take a shot at being captain instead…”

“Ya think?” Stan deadpanned.

“What do you say-” Greg grinned as he took his captain’s hat off and turned it over to Lapis instead. “Captain Lazuli?”

“I-I shouldn’t…” Lapis winced fretfully.

“Go for it, Lapis!” Steven encouraged.

“Yeah! You’ll make a great captain!” Mabel chimed in enthusiastically. “You can even use this spare eyepatch I stole from Grunkle Stan when he wasn’t looking!”

“Wha-” Stan took pause, reaching near his eye to find that his eye patch wasn’t covering it anymore. “When did you-”

“Don’t put me in charge!” Lapis suddenly snapped, agitated. She drew in a small, anxious gasp as she realized just how intense her refusal had been, to the point that all three of the kids were sending concerned looks her way.

“Lapis…?” Dipper spoke up, by far the most worried of the already very worried trio. And as soon as Lapis caught his concerned gaze, she made a very rushed effort at righting herself, more for his sake than anyone else’s.

“Oh, uh… s-sorry,” the blue Gem shook her head to clear it. “I mean… y-you shouldn’t trust me with the boat.”

“Uh, that’s ok,” Steven said, trying to brighten the tense mood once more. “Don’t worry about it. We can all be first mates, so there’s no pressure. Only fun stuff today!”

Lapis nodded, allayed by this plan, even if she was still discreetly trying not to pay too much mind to the wide lay of the lake all around them. “Lapis, you can still wear the hat if you want,” Greg held said hat out to her again.

“Thanks,” Lapis smiled. “But I’m not putting that on my body.”

“What about the eye patch?” Mabel asked, eagerly offering it to the blue Gem until Stan intercepted it instead.

“Give me that!” he swiped the patch, proudly placing it over his eye once more. “Ah, now that’s better.”

“Ok, everyone,” Greg grinned, putting the captain’s hat back on as he took the boat’s wheel once again. “Let’s set a course for fun!”

Though Lake Gravity Falls was quite sizable, it was still a rather small lake compared to the boat itself, which was why there really weren’t too many places it could go upon it. Still, that hardly stopped the small group aboard from enjoying themselves in whatever ways they could. They snacked on their small stash of cold cut sandwiches alongside a bottle of sparkling orange juice served in fancy glasses (a ritual Lapis didn’t quite understand and didn’t really know how to indulge in even as everyone else did). Still, Lapis watched on the sidelines as Steven and Mabel engaged in a pretend “pirate duel” with the decorative swords on deck (a duel Greg was quick to put a nervous stop to when he realized the swords, however dull they might have been, were still made of actual metal). After that, they all took a break to lounge out on the boat’s open deck, soaking in the rays of the warm summer sun, though most of the while, though Lapis found herself preoccupied with two other completely different sights instead. The first was the lake, its calm, quiet, cerulean waters practically taunting her with thoughts of the dark, empty prison she knew lay just beneath them. But then there was Dipper, who was hardly engaging in the activities Mabel and Steven had planned as he instead leaned against the boat’s railing to stare out at the lake himself. Lapis took a break from “sunbathing” to join him, hoping to ask him more about what Steven and Mabel had only hinted at before. And yet, before she could get as much as a hello out, the aforementioned pair rushed over to pull them both back into more of the “fun” they had in store.

That next bout of fun was up on the bridge, namely in the form of the ship’s pull horn. Though Lapis didn’t understand the appeal at first, she quickly did upon giving it a small, experimental tug, only for the horn to loudly blare out, echoing across the entire lake. The blue Gem couldn’t help but be completely charmed by the rather grating noise, letting out a full, genuine laugh as she pulled on the horn over and over again, much to the kids’ delight and Stan and Greg’s chagrin. Even Dipper couldn’t help but muster a small, warm chuckle upon seeing just how much Lapis seemed to be enjoying herself through something so simple, even if it wasn’t the easiest on the ears.

After about an hour or so, the nearly-nonstop bellowing of the horn finally fell silent, a relieving change of pace for Stan and Greg in particular as they continued fishing off the far side of the boat. “Oh thank god, they finally stopped,” the conman let out a sigh of relief as he uncovered his ears. “I thought I was gonna go deaf. Well, even more deaf,” he said, tapping his hearing aid.

Greg let out an amused laugh at this, though as he did, he happened to notice Lapis and the kids coming down from the bridge to join them. “Oh, hey, you guys!” he greeted them with a smile. “Finally get enough of that horn?”

“...WHAT?!” Steven shouted obliviously, his ears still still blaring with the lingering noise of the horn.

“What are you doing?” Lapis asked, curiously eyeing the pairs’ fishing rods.

“Catching fish,” Greg explained, casting his line out into the water once more.

“Or at least we’re trying to,” Stan grumbled, boredly leaning against the railing. “Those suckers just aren’t biting today…”

“Oh, maybe I can help!” Lapis volunteered, her tone surprisingly eager. Taking in a deep breath, she easily connected with the body of water before her, calling upon a massive swath of it just below the surface. Everyone else watched in apt awe as she easily pulled that swath up, an immense mass of water rising up into the air just above them, one that encased more fish than they could have ever hoped to catch swimming inside.

“Whoa…” Dipper said, quite impressed. “Lapis, that’s amazing!”

The blue Gem practically beamed upon hearing this, more than happy to meet the bright smile he was sending her way. A smile that she unquestionably treasured, yet unfortunately hadn’t seen enough of today, as much as she wished she had.

“That’s a pretty… uh, fancy way of catching fish…” Greg noted with a bit of a nervous chuckle.

“Fancy?” Stan scoffed. “Pfft, some might call it overkill.”

“Grunkle Stan!” Mabel chastised, hoping that the conman’s rather callous remark didn’t offend the blue Gem.

“That’s ‘cause Lapis is supa strong!” Steven proclaimed with a dramatic flex.

“Well, uh… I appreciate the gesture,” Greg said, trying to be as tactful as he could. “But I-I think it would be safer to stick to the old-fashioned way of doing it…”

“Oh, uh… sure.” Flustered, Lapis was quick to pull her “catch” back down into the lake itself, creating a sizable wave in the process, one that shook the entire boat before the water settled itself back down. “So… how do you fish the old-fashioned way?”

“Oh, it’s pretty simple,” Greg reeled his line back in so he could demonstrate. “You start with a rod, and you put a hook at the end of your line. And then, when you feel a nibble, you reel it in. And there it is; you’ve caught yourself a fish to eat!”

“Or to sell if you manage to catch a peppermint angelfish or a freshwater polka dot stingray,” Stan piped up. “Those kinda puppies will land you the big bucks, whether you’re sellin’ em legally or not‒n-not that I would know.”

“But why would a fish ever bite a hook?” Lapis asked, confused.

“You got to bait it,” Greg said, reaching into his nearby tackle box. “Put something on it you know it wants, like a worm or a $20 bill.”

“Now that’s my kind of bait!” Stan grinned greedily.

“We’ll keep that in mind the next time we need to fish you out of a lake, Mr. Pines,” Greg chuckled alongside Steven and Mabel. At the same time, he cast his baited line out into the lake to properly show Lapis how fishing was usually done.

And like how fishing usually went, the group ended up waiting quite some time for even a nibble to become apparent. Stan had all but fallen asleep in his sunchair, his own fishing pole completely forgotten as Greg minded them both instead. Lapis and the kids lazily leaned against the boat’s railing, keeping an eye on the water, even if there was no sign of any sort of underlying fish to be found.

“So when does the fish part happen?” Lapis asked boredly.

“Well, sometimes it isn’t about the fish you keep, but the company you catch,” Greg said with a sly wink, though none of the others really caught his drift. At that exact moment, however, a sharp, sudden pull on his fishing pole caught the former rock star’s attention instead. “Whoa! I got a bite!” Greg tightened his grip on the fishing rod as whatever it had caught began to pull aggressively against it. “Lapis, here! Give it a try!” he offered the blue Gem the pole, and though she had her reservations, she took it.

“Like this?” she asked, starting to reel the line in.

“You got it!” Greg grinned as the kids crowded close to watch. “Looks like it’s a big one!”

Lapis set her focus on her rod as she continued to steadily reel it in, though whatever was on the hook quickly tugged hard on the line, abruptly yanking the blue Gem forward along with it. Lapis stumbled forward, but fortunately everyone else was quick to respond, calling out to her in concern as they hurried to help hold her steady so she could keep the struggle going.

“Y-You got this, Lapis!” Steven encouraged with a loud grunt as he and Mabel clung onto the straining blue Gem. “Reel it in!”

“It’s… pulling… so hard!” Lapis shouted, pulling back against the unseen fish or force that she was so, so close to landing. So very close to the surface, yet still so far away.

Just as Malachite had been all that time.

Lapis gasped just as the fishing rod suddenly snapped under the immense pressure completely. Its other half flew into the water as whatever it had caught got away, leaving everyone to run to the side of the boat to see if they could catch so much as even a glimpse of it. Lapis in particular kept a close eye on the lake as it calmed once more, her sudden panic starting to die down as she realized the only reflection she saw on the water was her own.

“Dang it, Greg!” Stan fussed as he finally awakened from his brief nap. “We weren’t supposed to break any of these!”

“Yeah…” Greg winced as he looked over the broken rod. “Looks like this pole rental just turned into a pole purchase. But, you did a great job tangling with that beast, Lapis.”

“Yeah! I totally thought you had it!” Mabel added, hands on her hips.

“B-but don’t worry about the one that got away,” Steven encouraged with a small smile.

Lapis simply returned their praise with a terse, unreadable nod as she realized that their party was now one short for some reason. Mostly since that missing one among them had quietly slipped away long before her fight against that unknown catch had even begun.

“Welp, that’s my adventure quota for the day,” Greg concluded as he began putting the tackle box away. “I’ll be at the controls. Holler if you need me.”

“And I’ll be raiding that cooler to see if there’s any of that fancy orange juice left,” Stan said as he also began to head out. “Fishing’s thirsty work; it’s got me parched.”

“But Grunkle Stan, you were just napping most of the time,” Mabel pointed out.

“Yeah, well napping’s thirsty work too.”

With the adults heading off to their own devices, Mabel and Steven were more than ready to keep their excitable plans for the day going, even if fishing had gone somewhat awry. “Ok, Lapis, what do you…” Steven trailed off as they both realized the blue Gem had also stepped away at some point. “Lapis?”

For her part, Lapis had returned to the main deck, where it didn’t take her very long to find Dipper. He sat on one of the lounge chairs, his chin perched against his hands as he silently watched the dark clouds that were starting to roll in over the lake. And as the blue Gem slowly came to take a seat alongside him, she noticed just how tense and apprehensive his expression really was. She had every reason to suspect why that was, and couldn’t help but feel guilty that she hadn’t done more to try and change that. Though still, she figured now was better late than never.

“Dipper?” Lapis spoke up, finally breaking him out of whatever thoughts he had been distracted by.

“Oh! Lapis!” he started, quickly turning to her as he put on a clearly fake smile. “H-how’d fishing go?”

“It… went…” the blue Gem glanced down. “Why’d you leave?”

“Ah, I-I… just wanted a little peace and quiet, is all,” Dipper said, offering an excuse Lapis could see right through the moment he said it.

“Oh,” she replied, though this time, she refused to simply leave it there. “Dipper, a-are… are you all right?”

“What?” Dipper blinked, caught off guard by the question. “Y-yeah, of course I’m all right. Why wouldn’t I be? Are you all right, Lapis?”

Lapis flinched, not wanting to face such an inquiry, especially as she accidentally stole another small glance toward the lake once more. “I-I… l-let’s focus on you instead,” she countered as evenly as she could. “You’ve been so quiet all day. I know something’s wrong-” she hesitated, not wanting to give specifics about how or what she knew just yet. “So… if you want to tell me about it, then I-”

“No!” Dipper said, a bit too fast and a bit too forcefully. “I-I… I mean, it’s… seriously nothing, Lapis. You don’t have to worry about it. It’s really not important.”

“It’s important to me,” Lapis said earnestly, knowing, practically feeling that he was lying to her. “If something’s bothering you, then… maybe there’s some I can help somehow. I want to help.”

For a moment, the most Dipper could do was look to her in disbelief before he shook his head almost bitterly. “Lapis, I-I appreciate it, but really, I don’t need any help. Besides, today isn’t supposed to be about me; this whole lake trip was supposed to be to help you.”

“B-but I don’t deserve help!” Lapis argued far more fiercely than she had meant to. “Everyone’s so worried about making me feel better, but we should be worrying about you! Especially after what you went through!”

“After what I-” Dipper stopped short at this, confused. “Lapis, what are you talking about?”

The blue Gem faltered at this, knowing that the last thing she wanted to do was openly bring up what was obviously such a painful memory, but she couldn’t help herself. He needed to know just how much he needed this. “T-the deal, Dipper! I’m talking about the deal you made with t-that… that Bill guy that almost got you killed!”

Dipper froze, completely taken aback, upon hearing Lapis mention that terrible deal. A deal he’d done all he could to keep her from finding out about ever since she returned, for more reasons than one. “W-what… h-how do you know about-”

Before he could even get another stunned word out, the entire boat was suddenly rocked as something seemed to crash hard into the side of it below the surface of the water. Just as the ship seemed to settle once more, it took another heavy hit, one that nearly knocked Dipper and Lapis off their feet completely as they wondered to themselves about what was happening.

Mabel and Steven wondered the same thing as they took a detour on their way back to the main deck to stop by the bride to check in with Stan and Greg. “I-is everything ok, First Mate Dad?” Steven asked, concerned.

“Shh!” Greg quieted, glancing up from the boat manual he’d been pouring over. “You hear that?”

The group paused to listen for any further disruption below the boat, but strangely, they were only met with silence on all sides. “Uh… no?” Mabel frowned, confused.

“Maybe whatever it was is gone now,” Steven theorized.

“Well, at least that’s one good thing,” Greg sighed. “I think something’s wrong with the boat.”

“Augh!” Stan growled, trying his hardest to move the boat’s otherwise stiff wheel. “Nope, something’s definitely wrong with the boat. The rudder won’t move for anything. Something down there must be throwing it off.”

Mabel let out a sharp, dramatic gasp at this. “Maybe it’s the Gobblewonker!”

“Or Mr. McGucket’s Gobblewonker robot!” Steven added just as zealously.

“Would you two pipe down?” Stan rolled his eyes as he began fiddling with the ship’s control panel. “It’s not a robot or some stupid lake monster. We probably just hit a rock or something. What’s that manual of yours have to say, Greg?”

“I-it’s really not any help,” the former rock star frowned as he flipped through the book. “It’s mostly just advice on sun tanning and what crackers go with caviar!”

“Well, what crackers go with caviar?” Steven asked.

“Water crackers!”

“Ayyyy!” the pair exclaimed, exchanging a set of wry, playful grins. The levity was immediately broken, however as the boat violently shook once more, this time accompanied by a small, yet prominent explosion from somewhere inside the ship itself. The group wasted no time in rushing down to the boat’s small engine room, though as soon as Greg pried open the hatch, thick, dark smoke immediately started pouring out from it.

“Oh, crud! The engine!” Greg exclaimed, distraught. “I-I don’t know anything about fixing an engine! Do you, Mr. Pines?”

“Er… I can take a swing at trying, but I can’t make any promises,” Stan said as he began looking over the busted engine. “But either way, we’re gonna be out here for a while…”

Mabel and Steven exchanged a fretful glance upon hearing this, but all the same, they left the pair to work on the engine so they could relay the unfortunate message to the boat’s other two passengers. In the aftermath of the explosion and how it shook but the boat once again, Lapis was in the midst of helping Dipper back up onto his feet, checking over him to make sure he was unharmed as Steven and Mabel arrived.

“Uh, guys?” the young Gem spoke up. “We have some… not-so-great news. There’s trouble with the engine and… it looks like we’re stuck out here for now…”

“Great…” Dipper muttered as Lapis let out a low, disappointed sigh. “As if anything else could go wrong today…”

“W-well, let’s try to look on the bright side!” Mabel chimed in. “At least it’s not raining!” Almost at that exact moment, however, raindrops began sprinkling down from the dark, dreary skies above, growing more steady with each passing second. “...How did I do that…?” Mabel wondered, amazed by her apt timing.

“I-I’m sorry!” Steven professed to Lapis in particular. “This whole thing is our fault! We just wanted you to have fun, but everything’s turned into a mess. We shouldn’t have made you come on this trip…”

“No,” Lapis spoke up, her tone cold as she turned to face the side of the ship. “It’s my fault. I’m the one to blame.”

“What?” the young Gem shook his head. “No, it’s not-”

“I’m really trying to enjoy it out here, but… I can’t stop thinking about being fused as Malachite,” Lapis confessed, not even noticing Dipper tense up beside her at the mere mention of the twisted fusion. “How I used all my strength to hold her down in the lake, and how I was always battling against Jasper to keep her bound to me…”

“Lapis…” Steven began, though Dipper was quick to interject before he could say anything else.

“W-what does any of that even matter anymore?!” he countered harshly, clearly agitated by the mere discussion alone. “That’s all over now! Malachite’s gone. You don’t have to be with Jasper ever again!”

“T-that’s not it…” Lapis said quietly, shame filling her expression as she finally glanced back at the kids behind her to reveal the horrible truth. “I… I miss her…”

“What?!” All three of the kids exclaimed, shocked by the very thought.

“W-we were fused for so long…” the blue Gem practically whispered, shaken as she wrapped her arms around herself tightly.

“But… she’s terrible!” Steven protested anxiously.

“I’m terrible!” Lapis argued, fully turning to the trio. “I did horrible things! I left Ford behind on Homeworld! I stole the lake! Go on! Tell me I’m wrong!”

Steven and Mabel were more than prepared to try and do exactly that, but once again, Dipper beat them both to the chase on a seemingly different tangent entirely. “You miss her…” he began, letting out a bitter scoff as he did. “Even after everything she put you through, after everything she did?! After everything I did to try to help you?!”

“Dipper-” Lapis tried to counter, though he was far too incensed to back down now.

“I know what you went through was awful, I get that. But you have no idea what I put myself through to just to get you back!” he practically shouted, outraged that she’d make light of all the sacrifices he’d made by so much as hinting that she wanted to go back to what he’d only barely managed to help rescue her from. “I was ready to do nothing else but sit on the shore for the rest of the summer waiting for you! I stayed awake for nights on end trying to figure out a way to help you! I risked my life several times against Malachite and you did basically nothing to stop her! And worst of all, you asked me about that deal I made with Bill earlier? Well, you wanna know why I even did that in the first place?”

“Dipper, stop-” Mabel tried to interject, especially as she noticed the growing, fearful alarm in Lapis’ eyes brought on by his outburst. Yet even so, he kept going with the truth he could no longer keep buried under the surface, even for as horrible as it was.

“For you, Lapis!” he finished, tears starting to brim in his eyes even against his immense fury. “I nearly lost my body, my life‒all because I wanted to save you! And what do you want, even after all that? To go back to being with Jasper, back to being Malachite, like the rest of us‒like I don’t even matter!”

For a moment, the most Lapis could do in response to such a harsh accusation was remorsefully accept it, largely because she had no idea how to argue against it. Because really, if all that was indeed true, if Dipper really had almost lost so much in a last-ditch effort to help her, then that was just another reason--perhaps the very worst of all--on the already substantial list as to why she didn’t deserve any sort of kindness or support at all after every terrible thing she’d done.

Once again, Steven and Mabel wanted to speak up to try and ease the heavily palpable tension between the pair, yet before they could, that tension was broken altogether by the boat heavily jolting once more. This time, however, the steady tremors didn’t stop as something heavy latched onto the ship’s anchor chain, lurching the entire vessel to the side as something, or rather someone, began to climb up it. For a few breathless, uncertain seconds, the group on board glanced around frantically, unsure of what was happening. That is, until that someone finally reached the deck itself, the last Gem any of them could have expected--or wanted--to see: Jasper.

The orange Gem easily heaved herself onto the boat, ignoring the shared gasps of shock from everyone else as she rose to properly stand, a wide, almost demented grin spread across her face as she set her sights on Lapis in particular. “Finally,” she said, a burst of heavy thunder crashing over the lake at the exact same time. “I thought I’d never catch up to you!”

“J-Jasper…” Lapis barely managed to choke, though at the same time, she instinctively held a protective arm in front of the trio of kids behind her. “You… you’ve been following us?”

“I’ve been following you,” Jasper’s menacing grin deepened as she took a bold step forward.

Lapis flinched back in apt fear at this, though Steven was the first to step forward, his shield already formed over his arm. “Stay back!” he shouted bravely as he came to stand between the two Gems. Likewise, Mabel brazenly joined him, even without her grappling hook (which she hadn’t brought along on the trip) in hand. Dipper, on the other hand, hung back behind Lapis, taking a small step backward as he watched the frightening situation unfold carefully, quietly. Just out of Jasper’s notice all the while.

For her part, Jasper let out a twisted, amused laugh as she glanced down at the young pair before her haughtily. “This dulled-down version of Rose Quartz works for you now? Along with one of her dumb human pets?” she sneered callously as she nodded back up to Lapis. “You’re pointing that shield the wrong way. She’s the one you should be afraid of.”

“T-that’s not true,” Lapis tried to protest, though there was no conviction behind her words.

“You can’t lie to me,” Jasper asserted. “I’ve seen what you’re capable of. I thought I was a brute, but you… you’re a monster.”

Lapis froze, terror filling her entire form, though it was hardly aimed at Jasper. Instead, it was fear reserved solely for herself, for what she knew she could do, what she had done. Fear that what the orange Gem had just said was true; that she really was a monster after all. “I-I…” she trailed off, unsure of how to argue against that blatant truth. Even if Steven and Mabel were more than ready to do that for her.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” Mabel defended, resolute.

“Yeah! Lapis doesn’t want anything to do with you!” Steven added just as firmly as he held his shield steady.

Jasper let out a severe, aggravated growl at this show of resistance, one that she didn’t hesitate to remove from her path through sheer force alone. “This is between US!” she shouted, brutally lashing out at the pair. Fortunately, Steven’s shield took the brunt of the heavy blow, but it was still enough to send them both flying across the deck, resulting in them roughly landing quite a ways behind the orange Gem.

“Steven! Mabel!” Lapis anxiously called, aptly alarmed. Likewise, Dipper nearly made his first move to join the confrontation, though he stopped short upon seeing that Steven and Mabel were largely fine, if not a bit disoriented from the attack.

At the same time, Jasper stopped Lapis in her tracks, tightly grabbing her by the wrist with both hands as she fell to her knees before the blue Gem. And then, she looked up to her manically, almost desperately even as she made her horrific proposal. “Let’s be Malachite again!”

Needless to say, Lapis was completely caught off guard by such a bizarre, demented request as she practically felt the orange Gem’s obvious madness from the tightness of her clinging grip alone. “Why… why would you want that?!” she dared to ask, unable to imagine why anyone would willingly, eagerly desire to go back to being chained down and trapped like Jasper had been with her.

“I was wrong about fusion!” the orange Gem professed with an unhinged smile. “You made me understand! Malachite was bigger and stronger than both of us! We could fly!”

“L-Lapis!” Steven shouted as he began to help Mabel back up. “Don’t listen to her!”

“Stay out of this!” Jasper barked back at him as she stood once more.

At the same time, Lapis shook her head incredulously, her thoughts racing far too fast for her to even try to keep up with any of them. “I… I was terrible to you…” she began, her voice shaking just as much as her entire body was. “I liked taking everything out on you. I needed to‒I hated you! Malachite hated existing so much! It was bad!”

“I-it’ll be better this time!” Jasper argued, taking her hands once more, even as she tried to pull them away. “I’ve changed! You’ve changed me! I’m the only one who can handle your kind of power! Together, we’ll be unstoppable!”

Somewhere in the distance, thunder echoed off the lake once more, though Lapis barely heard it as she let Jasper take her hands once more. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as everything else grew hazy and distant, save for the orange Gem and what she was trying to promise her, what she was trying to get from her. And for the briefest of moments, that offer, that plea, almost sounded tantalizing. Because if Jasper was right about anything, it was that Malachite was powerful, that she had felt powerful while they were together. That, for the first time in centuries of being trapped and lost and alone, she had felt strong, she had felt like she had actually been in control of something, even if that something was a twisted, self-loathing mess of a fusion. It was an appeasing kind of control, even if it came at the expense of someone else and even herself. And for the briefest, tiniest of moments, she honestly considered taking that control for herself once more.

And yet…

“And what do you want, even after all that?” Dipper had asked her just moments ago, tears in his eyes and anger in his voice. Anger that made complete and perfect sense, all things considered. “To go back to being with Jasper, back to being Malachite, like the rest of us‒like I don’t even matter!”

Is that what she wanted? Did she really want to tear herself away from people who she genuinely cared about, who cared about her in return‒people like Dipper and Mabel and Steven‒just to go back to someone she unquestionably, deeply hated like Jasper? Was whatever kind of demented control she had as Malachite really worth it to betray their trust, to turn away from their kindness, to do the very thing Dipper had accused her of by making his own sacrifices for her completely meaningless in the end?

All it took was the smallest of glances at Steven and Mabel far ahead of her, and perhaps most importantly of all, the most discreet look at Dipper still standing behind her, for Lapis to make the choice she knew she’d always stand by from here on out. Because she knew, above all else, what truly mattered to her most of all.

“No!” she exclaimed firmly, tearing her hands out of Jasper’s as she glared up at her bravely.

“What?” Jasper hissed, narrowing her eyes down at the blue Gem.

“What we had wasn’t healthy!” Lapis said, resolved and unshaken. “I never want to feel like I felt with you. Never again! So just go!”

“But Lapis!” Jasper tried to argue, though she didn’t get very far before someone else stepped in between her and the blue Gem instead.

“She said no,” Dipper began coldly, sending a relentless glare up at the much larger orange Gem as he came to stand protectively in front of Lapis. “So leave her alone!”

“Dipper… I…” Lapis trailed off, unsure of what to say. Yet even so, Dipper briefly glanced back at her with a small, assuring smile, one that carried the promise that he was on her side, no matter what happened.

Briefly, genuine surprise filled Jasper’s expression at this intrusion, until sharp, sweeping rage rushed in to take the place of that surprise instead. “You again…” she growled hatefully, recognizing the continually interloping human before her immediately. “You always have to come to her rescue, don’t you? You may have ruined Malachite for me before, but I’m not about to let you take her away from me this time!”

In an instant, Jasper latched out, though this time, it wasn’t toward Lapis. Instead, she abruptly grabbed Dipper by the arm and roughly yanked him toward her, pulling him out of Lapis’ reach even as she made a panicked, yet failed attempt at saving him. Of course, from the very moment Jasper latched onto him, Dipper began struggling against her heavy hold, though all his attempts to pull away and free himself did little against the orange Gem’s immense strength as she found a way to turn the tables on Lapis completely. “Listen, Lapis, you “care” about this human, right?” she asked, sending a disgusted, disgruntled nod down at Dipper as he beat against her arm with his free hand as hard as he could. An effort that she easily ignored, despite how desperate it was.

“L-leave him alone!” Lapis begged, her hands held up in tight, shaking fists as she looked between Dipper and Jasper anxiously. “Please, Jasper, this is just between you and me. He isn’t part of this. Let him go!”

“I’d say he is part of this since he’s the reason you even agreed to fuse with me in the first place! And he’s gonna be the reason why we fuse again,” Jasper retorted, tightening her grip on Dipper’s arm to the point that it felt like it was going to snap right in two. Lapis winced as she heard him let out a small, involuntary cry of pain, one that shook her to her very core, especially as Jasper continued her cruel demands. “Either you form Malachite with me right here, right now, or…”

“O-or what?” Lapis practically whispered, her eyes wide with terror all the while.

“Or I take your precious human here somewhere you’ll never be able to find him,” Jasper finished, her tone deadly serious.

“Dipper!” Steven and Mabel both exclaimed, aptly horrified upon hearing this. Without hesitation, they both acted on the same beat, joining hands as they prepared to form Maven so they could take Jasper head-on and save him. And yet, just before they could, Dipper managed to glance back at them, the fear in his expression obvious, though something else was there too. A certain sort of steadiness that came paired with him putting a silent hand up to stop them, almost as if he was sending them the unspoken message that he had a plan. Which, by all accounts, he did, especially as he noticed one of the decorative swords that had fallen by the wayside earlier lying on the ground just a few feet away from him.

“I… you… you can’t do that to him!” Lapis shouted at Jasper, furious yet deeply afraid all at the same time.

“I can, and I will,” Jasper coldly assured. “It’s either gonna be you, Lapis, or your human. Your choice.”

By this point, Lapis was nearly on the verge of tears as she glanced down mournfully. Because without even thinking twice, she knew what she had to do. She had already made the choice against becoming Malachite again on her own volition, out of her own desire to. But if it was for Dipper, if it could keep him safe now just as she had once thought it had before, then she would gladly, readily make that choice to give up her freedom again for him. For him, she’d do just about anything.

“O-ok…” Lapis whispered softly, sadly, as she prepared to return to the prison she’d hoped she’d never see again. “I… I’ll fuse with you.”

“Perfect,” Jasper said with a beaming, leering grin. Lapis simply closed her eyes as Jasper extended her free hand out to her once more, and yet just before it could reach the blue Gem, her approach was brought to a literal swift stop.

It happened in an instant so quick that Jasper didn’t even catch it until after it happened. A blade that was otherwise completely dull came down on her hand with such a great amount of force behind it that it sliced through her wrist completely. Her hand instantly vanished into particles of the light her form was composed of, and as she let out a startled gasp by the unexpected amputation, her other hand just so happened to release its firm hold on her captive that had done this to her in the first place.

Jasper only briefly paid any attention to her now stub of a wrist as she instead noticed Dipper, now free and armed with one of the decorative swords, taking his place between her and Lapis once more. The orange Gem glared daggers down at him, but Dipper met her ire evenly with his blade in hand, ready to use it in an instant if need be. “You will never, ever fuse with Lapis again,” he told her, his tone icy and unyielding. “Not as long as I’m around to help her.”

Jasper let out a loud, infuriated shout at this, her helmet forming over her head as she easily reformed her missing hand. “Then I guess that means it’s time to get rid of you ONCE AND FOR ALL!” she yelled, raising her head to bring down a vicious attack. Yet it was one that never landed, even though Dipper was brazely ready to face. For instead, at that very moment, Lapis reacted to rush to his rescue instead, throwing her hand up swiftly into the air. Along with the movement, a massive, powerful fist of water also burst through the boat itself, breaking through the boards just under the orange Gem’s feet before striking her hard. The incredible force of the blow was more than enough to send Jasper flying, not just off of the boat, but away from the lake entirely as she was helplessly flung far away into the surrounding forest. Her threatening presence gone for now, but hardly forgotten.

In the immediate, newfound peace that followed, Dipper let out the breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding in as he lowered his sword and turned to Lapis with a small, relieved smile. “Lapis, that was-”

She immediately cut him off as she swiftly pulled him into a tight, protective embrace, her form still trembling with remnant terror as she rushed to check over him. “Are you ok? Did she hurt you?” she asked him frantically, holding his face in her hands so she could inspect it for any sort of injuries.

“N-no, I… I’m fine,” he assured her, placing a comforting hand against her arm. Lapis responded by loosening her grip on him, letting out a small, tired sigh though she hardly returned his allayed smile.

“Dipper!” Almost out of nowhere, the pair was caught off guard as Mabel suddenly crashed into Dipper, wrapping him up in a tight, elated hug. “What you just did was totally awesome! I mean, cutting off Jasper’s hand? That was like the most metal thing I think you’ve ever done, bro-bro!”

“Heh, thanks,” Dipper chuckled somewhat bashfully.

“And Lapis, you were amazing too!” Steven chimed in brightly, beaming at the blue Gem. “The way you stood up to Jasper was so brave! Not to mention how you sent her packing at the end there.”

“Yeah…” Lapis frowned, glancing away in shame. “Brave…”

“I-is everyone all right?!” Greg called as he and Stan turned the corner to arrive on the main deck. They were quickly met with a surprising sight, however, as they noticed the gaping hole in the center of the vessel, one that was quickly causing it to sink lower and lower into the water with each passing second.

“Geez, I probably could have fixed the engine in like, an hour or two,” Stan remarked, hands on his hips. “You kids didn’t have to go and just trash the thing like this.”

“W-wha… what happened?” Greg asked, aptly distraught by the irreparable damage.

“Uh… It’s… kind of a long story,” Steven said, leading the way to the highest edge of the boat. Lapis was quick to create another large hand of solid water, one that most everyone was easily able to fit on for the ride back to shore. The blue Gem stopped Dipper short of hopping on it however, as she instead silently offered him a different mode of transportation as she summoned her aquatic wings instead. He took the hint and climbed on her back, holding on as she took flight and guided the watery hand she’d made for the others across the lake, leaving the now abandoned, defunct vessel behind as it sunk into the water entirely.

“I guess I bought a boat after all,” Greg sighed as he watched the boat disappear below the depths.

“Yeah, one you can’t even use,” Stan remarked. “What a ripoff! Oh well, at least I managed to snag the treasure chest-shaped cooler on our way out.” He grinned, holding up said cooler for everyone to see.

“Ooo, well that’s better than nothing, right, Dad?” Steven said with a small grin.

“Yeah… I guess it is,” Greg agreed, fondly ruffling his son’s hair.

It didn’t take long for Lapis to get everyone safely back to the dock they’d started from, though instead of landing upon it herself, she instead took flight once more with Dipper in tow. “Huh, I wonder where they’re going,” Mabel said as she watched them take to the skies. “Maybe we should follow them? Just to make sure they’re ok?”

“...I think they’ll be fine,” Steven assured, keeping his sights set on the pair as well. “Looks like they just need some time to themselves.”

At the same time, Dipper couldn’t help but glance back at the dock they were leaving behind from his spot on Lapis’ back. Instead, she seemed to be taking him up toward the falls above the lake, something that couldn’t help but confuse him given her relative silence since the boat had sunk. “Lapis, what’s going on? Where are we going?” he finally asked her a moment later.

“...We need to talk,” was all the blue Gem said as she kept going, not even bothering to so much as even look back at him. The rest of the flight was steeped in silence on both sides, even as they arrived at the top of the waterfall cliff. Yet almost as soon as Lapis set Dipper down on solid ground, that silence swiftly, suddenly came to an end.

The moment Lapis landed, she was quick to turn to face him, her manner and tone quite severe, even though the underlying hints of fear and worry were clear in both as she spoke adamantly. “What in the world were you thinking, Dipper?” she asked. “What you did back there… Standing up to Jasper like that… you could have gotten yourself killed!”

“W-what was I thinking?” Dipper countered in disbelief at such a question. “I was thinking about how I was willing to do whatever I had to to keep you from fusing with her again! You’d already told her no, but then, when she threatened me, it was like suddenly none of that even mattered anymore!”

“It didn’t matter!” Lapis shot back fiercely. “Why don’t you understand that all that matters to me is keeping you safe?! Why else do you think I even fused with her in the first place?!”

“Oh, so what Jasper said is true, then?” he countered angrily. “The only reason you became Malachite to begin with was because of me, right?!”

“Ye--no!” she quickly corrected herself. “No, of course that’s not true! I… I just…” she sighed, bitterly. “I fused with Jasper because I thought it was the only way I could keep her as far away from you as possible. That’s why I was ready to do the same thing again today. I… I don’t want you to get hurt; I never wanted that…”

“Well, it’s way too late for that,” he scoffed coldly, crossing his arms as he turned away from. “When you fused with her, when you trapped yourself at the bottom of the lake, it did hurt me…” He paused, shaking his head remorsefully as he tried his hardest to fight back tears. “It hurt me so, so much because I knew, right from the very beginning, that it was all my fault. You were gone, a-and I missed you, and you were just down there suffering non-stop and… and I couldn’t do anything to help you. A-and every time I tried… I… things always just got even worse…”

For what seemed like ages, Lapis was silent as she watched Dipper take a solemn seat on the edge of the cliff. Not knowing what else to do, she joined him, waiting an hesitant moment or two before posing a question she knew she shouldn’t even ask. “W-what actually happened?” she began slowly. “W-with that Bill guy, I mean. Steven and Mabel told me a little, a-about how he tricked you into making a deal to help me, but… I don’t know much else outside of that.”

Dipper let out a long, weary sigh, placing his face in his hands as he finally decided to come clean. “It was stupid…” he muttered crossly. “I was stupid. He promised he’d help me figure out a way to save you in exchange for a puppet. But what he didn’t tell me was that I was actually the puppet he had in mind. So he stole my body, took it for a joy ride, intentionally hurt it--practically killed it, and nearly did the same to Mabel and Steven too until they barely managed to kick him out of it so I could take it back. But even then, i-it’s taken me a really long time to recover, both inside and out. Sometimes I wonder if I ever really will at all”

Lapis didn’t initially say a word in response to this tale of incredible woe as she let it sink in, along with the heavy wave of guilt that came along with it. “Y-you… went through all of that… because of me…” she said, her voice barely a whisper, though it was heavy with shame all the same.

“N-no, Lapis, I… I shouldn’t have said that earlier,” Dipper quickly countered. “I-I didn’t mean it, I was just upset-”

“And you have every right to be!” Lapis interrupted sharply. “You were right, Dipper; you did so much to try and help me, a-and what did I do? I nearly went and fused with Jasper all over again like it was nothing!”

“But you were going to do it for me,” he retorted firmly. “And that’s not nothing.” Unsure of what else to say, he sighed once more, lying back to lay in the grass as his feet dangled over the edge of the cliff. It didn’t take Lapis to join him, and for a long, quiet, almost peaceful moment, the pair rested in silence, watching as the stormy clouds above began to clear out for sunny skies once more. “Isn’t that messed up?” Dipper finally said with a small, yet bittersweet laugh. “How we both put ourselves through something so terrible just so we could try to help each other?”

“Yeah…” Lapis muttered fretfully. “It is…”

“Maybe… maybe that’s not how this is supposed to be,” Dipper continued, his tone sincere. “There’s gotta be better ways to protect your friends out there than losing your body to a psychotic demon or trapping yourself in an unstable fusion deep below a lake.”

“Well, if there is, I’d love to hear it,” the blue Gem remarked as she rested her hands behind her head.

“...Sword fighting was what helped me,” Dipper said as he sat up once more. “It gave me a better way to keep the people I care about safe, a-and best of all, it finally helped me feel safe again when I wasn’t sure if I ever world. So… maybe we just need to find something like that for you too.”

“We could always start with fishing,” Lapis joked, eliciting a small, warm laugh from Dipper that she couldn’t help but join in on. Once the beat of much-needed levity passed, however, there were still hints of worry lingering in the air between them.

“Lapis…” Dipper began earnestly. “Are you alright after… well, everything?”

“Yeah,” the blue Gem nodded as she properly sat up herself. “I think I’ll be ok. What about you? Steven and Mabel mentioned something about you having… ‘nightmares’?”

“Oh, those…” Dipper frowned, wishing that the pair hadn’t been so presumptive, even if they were correct. “They’re just… I-I… I don’t know where they’re coming from. I mean, Bill is a dream demon so I guess it makes sense that he keeps showing up in my dreams, but, it’s not like he can really do anything since Grunkle Ford and I put that barrier up to keep him from getting into the shack. Still, I-I don’t know, it’s just… weird. Nobody’s even heard anything from Bill in a really long time and now suddenly, right out of nowhere, he keeps popping up in my nightmares again when he hasn’t in weeks? I know I’m probably wrong‒I hope I’m wrong, but… I can’t help but feel like something really… bad is about to happen soon…”

“Well, if this ‘Bill Cipher’ does show up trying to hurt you again,” Lapis began with a hint of firm resolve in her tone. “Then you better believe I’ll make sure he never gets the chance to again. He won’t mess with you again, not as long as I’m around.”

Dipper couldn’t help but smile upon hearing this, knowing that this comforting promise essentially echoed his own to the blue Gem. And perhaps, if the need ever arose again, then they could both find better ways to keep those promises than they had before, in the hopes that they would never need to be so cruelly separated as they’d been before ever again.

A beat of gentle, contented silence passed between the pair just as the late afternoon sun started to set beyond the distant cliffs. It cast a bright, almost golden glow upon the waters of the lake far below them, a lake that had once been a place of such strife for them both, but now, only seemed to radiate peace and tranquility instead. “You know,” Dipper said with a soft, easy smile as he enjoyed the view. “The lake really is beautiful from up here.”

“Yeah,” Lapis earnestly agreed as she gently, affectionately ruffled his hair. She had no doubts she’d always treasure moments like these, because even if they’d been so hard fought for by sacrifices and guilt and grief on both of their ends, they were moments they’d finally managed to somehow win at long, long last. “It is.”

#again pelase read this on ao3 or ff.net instead dumblr is blueh #jen writes #universe falls #steven universe #gravity falls #steven universe gravity falls crossover #crossover fanfic #au #alone on the lake #lapis #dipper #mabel #steven #jasper #greg #stan #alone at sea #keyword is fishing

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chroniclackofselfpreservation · 4 years ago

Text

Creatures of the Night

Chapter 5 - or did i snag you on my sharper edges

Back to the Beginning < Previous chapter / Next chapter >

AO3

Masterlist

(TW: some negative thinking and graphic(ish) imagery)

(The title for this chapter comes from "Secrets" by Lola Ridge.)

The rain came down in torrents, drenching everything in sight—including Roman. The serpent was silent, deliberating his words. Roman fidgeted in the snake's hold, simply wanting the ordeal to be over. He paused. What was going to happen once the deal was made? They'd sit a talk for the rest of the night? What about after that? Simply being told how to break the curse didn't mean he'd have any way readily available to do it. How long would it take? Would he still have to fight the demon every night until he figured it out?

Roman began to shiver with cold. The slick, metal-like scales wrapping around him weren't helping either. The demon didn't radiate any heat, in fact, it seemed to be seeping what little warmth Roman's body had been clinging to with every passing second.

"Very well," it hissed, releasing him. Roman collapsed to his knees from both relief and exhaustion, mud and water soaking through his clothes. Being terrified took a lot out of a person, he found. Looking up, he pushed his wet hair up and out of his eyes, watching as the serpent coiled in on itself, forming a tight ball. A hair-raising crack split the air, and for a moment Roman thought lightning had struck, but there was no flash of light.

The snake was gone.

Roman blinked a few times, wondering if the darkness was simply playing tricks on his eyes. He thought he saw...

"Haven't been in this body for... at least a few centuries. How do you all stand it? So restrictive," a new voice tutted from the direction the demon had once been. A figure cloaked in shadow approached Roman, footsteps squishing through the muddy grass. A quick snap, and an orb of golden light erupted into being. Roman gasped, and shielded his eyes. The sudden light startled him, and it took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust. Blinking, he saw a man standing before him, glowing sphere of amber light bobbing above his outstretched right hand, illuminating only half of his face. He wore a fancy suit and caplet about his shoulders that looked perfectly dry despite the torrential downpour around them. Atop his head sat a bowler hat as black as the night around it, and thin yellow gloves covered his hands.

"Where did... who are...?" he muttered, still trying to wrap his foggy head around what had just happened.

The man approached him and, crouching down, brought the light to his chest. Roman gasped as the rest of his face came into view.

He smirked and tipped his hat. "You may call me Dorian. Now, let's make this deal, shall we?"

* * * * * * * * * *

Roman held his hands out to a sputtering fire, sitting in tense silence across from the stranger who had once been a demon. Firelight flickered across the strange scales plating the left half of his face. His outfit was odd as well. Roman hadn't seen anything like it anywhere... in modern times at least. He didn't know the last time he—it? Dorian?—had interacted with the outside world.

"Are you sufficiently warmed?" Dorian asked, looking him over with that terrifying eye that only reminded Roman of what this apparent human once was. What he really was.

He nodded.

"Don't lie to me," Dorian chided, "I will not be making a deal with a child halfway to the grave with hypothermia."

"I'm n-not a child," Roman said, wishing his teeth hadn't chattered as he did. Truth be told, his clothes were still soaked, and the fire only did so much for the front half of him. The wind whipping through the cave still drew heat from his back. Sighing, Dorian flourished a hand his direction, and Roman shrieked, in a very manly way, as warm air suddenly buffeted him from all sides, drying him instantly.

"Better?"

"...Yes," Roman said, even managing a small noise that somewhat resembled "thank you."

"Very well, if that's all in order," the demon said as if he were arranging important papers on a desk, "Let us discuss the terms of this contract. First, my side of the bargain: I do hereby swear to reveal all knowledge regarding the dissolving of said party's current magical restraints—what's wrong? Am I going to fast?"

"What? No, it's just..." Roman grappled with what he was trying to say without getting himself killed. "This isn't how these things usually go."

Dorian cocked an eyebrow. "And how many magical contract signings have you been a part of, pray tell?"

Roman's ears grew red and he stammered, "Well... one, but it wasn't—I mean, I guess they don't all have to be the same, I just assumed that it would—that you'd do it like Ursula with the whole blood ritual... thingy."

The demon's face twitched with an emotion that Roman couldn't have named if you'd put a gun to his head. Maybe it was a magical demon thing? Regardless, Dorian shook his head ever so slightly and took a breath.

"No. This contract will not contain any blood rituals. Just parchment and ink—and a little magic for binding purposes, of course." Another wave of his hand, and a scroll of yellow paper that Roman would have sooner seen in a museum than in someone's hand and a bottle of ink with a large black feather sticking out of it appeared on the ground next to him. He picked the scroll up and unfurled it. "Now, back to what I was saying. Where was I? Ah, yes..." he rambled on, explaining the contract with a bunch of strange magic-jargon, and Roman hadn't the slightest clue as to their meaning. He could have Roman agreeing to pull out all of his teeth and make them into a necklace for all he knew. Dorian paused once more, looking down his nose at Roman with exasperation.

"What is it now?"

"I have no idea what you just said," he admitted.

The man sighed and set the scroll down. "Okay, listen. I will tell you everything you need to know to break this curse, and how to keep it from happening to anyone else, but in return I need you to kill the immortal witch-traitor Ursula."

Roman paled. "You're joking."

Dorian rolled his eyes, "While I doubt a truth-telling spell necessary, if you insist..." He held out his left arm and the sleeve of his suit pulled up, revealing more scales like those on his face.

"What are you talking about?"

Dorian scoffed, "What am I—what are you talking about? Are you really going to keep up this charade even now? Honestly, I thought it was insulting earlier, but really... wait you're serious? You don't know about your powers?" He looked genuinely taken aback.

Roman laughed. "Yeah, because if I had powers, I'd definitely not use them while fighting a giant snake-demon."

Dorian's previous unintelligible expression degraded into udder disbelief. "You're telling me she didn't even tell you?"

"Obviously not."

He pinched the bridge of his nose, "Okay... okay, okay, okay, this is fine. I can work with his. An heir with no knowledge of his power. This is.... this is a disaster."

"Your vote of confidence is overwhelming," Roman grumbled.

Dorian stood, and Roman felt his fear return. He'd almost forgotten who he was talking to. It was easier when he looked semi-human.

"This dawn is almost here. Return home, little prince, and tomorrow, we'll finish this conversation... We've got a long way to go."

* * * * * * * * * *

"Blackbird singin' in the dead of night," Patton sung softly to himself as he waltzed around the kitchen looking for a spatula. Pancakes rose tall and fluffy on the griddle and if Patton didn't hurry, they'd get a little more brown than golden. He located the plastic utensil after a few seconds of looking, finding it in the wrong drawer. Virgil must have emptied the dishwasher, the little angel. Patton found it more endearing than annoying. At least he'd tried to help, right? Glancing at the clock on the oven face as he flipped the pancakes, he found it was nearly eight o'clock. Roman would be out of the shower soon, and Logan would be—

That's right, Patton thought with a soft smile, stealing a look at the figure passed out on the couch. Fallen asleep studying again. Honestly, what was the point of having a bedroom if Logan was going to stay up into the unearthly hours of the night and just sleep on the couch? Truthfully, however, Patton found it just a smidgen adorable, but he wouldn't tell Logan that. He was sure Logan would sooner eat his fork than be told he snored like a kitten. He looked out the kitchen window, and sighed. It was raining—he suspected it had been through the night given how flooded their garden was. He hoped it wouldn't affect his herbs too much; he was planning on making spaghetti tonight and if he only had wilted oregano, what was the point?

"Take these broken wings and learn to fly..." The pancakes were done. Time to figure out where Virgil had left the syrup. "All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to ar—Roman!" Patton squeaked and nearly dropped the powdered sugar container, finding him leaning against the bottom of the banister, a strange look on his face. "I didn't hear you come down," he chuckled, a little embarrassed.

"What song was that?"

"...You don't know Blackbird? It's pretty popular, or, I guess, it was. I'm not too up-to-date on my music, kiddo."

Roman considered for a moment, then shook his head. "No, I've definitely heard it before, I guess it just sounds different when you sing it." He walked over and pulled out a stool, still lost in thought. Patton watched him with a hint of concern as he plated and served the pancakes.

"Will you do me a favor, Ro, and go wake Logan up? He's just over there on the couch."

"He's on the—oh, for crying out loud," he groaned, standing and sauntering over. He leaned forward and flicked the tip of Logan's nose. "Rise and shine, Sleeping Nerdy." Logan jerked awake, cracking his forehead against Roman's. They both curled in on themselves, hissing and blinking tears from their eyes.

"You did that on purpose," Roman grumbled, stumbling back to the counter.

Logan squinted at him, "You're home."

"Yes, of course I'm home, Logan. Where else would I be?" he snapped, in a little too much pain for patience at the moment.

"Logan, if you don't start going to bed at a reasonable hour in your own room, I'm going to have to ground you," Patton said with a smile.

Logan sat up, rubbing his head. "You do know you're not actually my father, Patton. Right? I'm a year older than you."

"Don't you go talking back to me, young man." Patton waved the spatula Logan's direction, and couldn't help but notice the small smile gracing his face at his words.

Roman speared a piece of pancake and ate it viciously. "I can't believe you stayed up again."

"Oh, that's figuratively rich, coming from you," Logan retorted.

"Hey, hey, what's going on, guys?" Patton said, unplugging the griddle and setting out Logan and Virgil's plates. The latter had yet to show face this morning, but Patton figured he'd be down any minute. "Did something happen between you two?"

Roman snorted, "You could say that."

"It's nothing to concern yourself with, Patton. Thank you for your concern, but we can deal with it on our own."

"...Okay," he said, a little put out. He understood that it really wasn't much of his business whatever they were arguing about, but he couldn't help wanting to assist in some way. Otherwise, he felt sorta useless. It wasn't like he did much else around here other than cook and clean and work with his mom at the nursing home. There, it was his job to help people with their problems, or talk things out with them, or keep them company. There, he was needed.

The backdoor opened suddenly and a sopping wet Virgil stepped over he threshold, trembling like a leaf.

"Virgil!" Patton cried, rushing forward. "Oh my—why were you outside? How long have you been—" he stammered.

He numbly tried to pull away from Patton's worried hands. "I'm f-fine, Pat. I'm fine, I just—let go!" he barked, and Patton jerked away, shocked.

"I... I'm sorry, Virge. I was only trying to help," he said, his voice small and quiet. Why was everyone so angry all of a sudden? Was it something he'd done? Virgil looked immediately regretful, his expression softening.

"I know, Patton, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have yelled, it's just... I lost something really important to me last night."

Do you wanna talk about it? Patton wanted so desperately to ask, but didn't. He simply nodded, took Virgil's wet jacket from him and watched as he retreated upstairs to his room. Patton took a breath, put on a smile, and turned back to his other two roommates, who were having a silent conversation with their eyes. Swallowing, he placed Virgil's jacket in the laundry room to dry, then returned to the kitchen and ate his breakfast in silence.

* * * * * * * * * *

Virgil didn't want to come back downstairs to eat after what had happened, even if he was ravenous. He'd spent the rest of the night searching with no results. He knew what he had to do, but dread sprouted in the pit of his stomach even thinking about it... and then he had to go and snap at Patton like that. He groaned and ran a hand down his face as he tossed his sopping clothes into his hamper and pulled on some clean, dry ones.

What am I going to do? he thought to himself, standing frozen with his hand on his doorknob. He'd have to go downstairs eventually, but what would he say? What could he say?

Reluctantly, Virgil exited his room and padded down the stairs in his socks. Logan was gone, presumably for work. The school year hadn't officially started yet, but all of the teachers were expected to come in and begin setting up their rooms and submitting their curriculum for review—something Logan found very tedious, and would talk any one of the roommate's ears off about. Roman sat alone at the kitchen, a bowl of cereal milk sitting in front of him with a few stray pieces of cereal evading his spoon.

Patton was nowhere to be seen.

"Hey, Ro," Virgil said, approaching. "How're you holding up?"

"I'm fine. Why do you ask?" he replied, his smile just a little too perfect. Virgil wouldn't have been able to see through it, however, if he didn't already know what was really going on. It was strange, though. Roman usually had this hollow look in his eye, the hopelessness Virgil had only seen in those on their way to the gallows. Now... it was different. Still tired—tired beyond belief—but somehow...

"No reason," he said around the lump in his throat, forcing a small smile. Roman's brow knit together ever so slightly. Virgil swallowed and continued, "Where, uh... where's Patton?"

Roman's expression relaxed, as if he'd figured it all out. He jerked a thumb toward the back door. "His sitting out back."

Virgil nodded, expressing his thanks, and made his way outside. The breeze was in that in-between stage, where one could tell it had once been stifling and hot outside but the rain had cooled it like a burn under cold water. Patton sat on the end of the porch, his legs crossed and a mug of steaming tea cradled in both hands. Virgil closed the door as quietly as he possibly could, and stood in the doorway awkwardly, not knowing how, or really wanting to, break the silence.

Patton sighed, and tapped the space next to him with a hand. Virgil felt his throat close up, and briefly considered bolting back inside before steeling himself and taking the few steps forward and sitting next to his friend.

"Patt, listen, I'm really sorry about what happened this morning. I was really stressed, and I know that isn't an excuse for being mean, but I just—"

"It's all right, Virge," he said, gazing into his mug of tea with an expression that Virgil doubted meant: it's all right, Virge. But what could he do? He doubted there was really anything at this point that he could do besides keep talking and digging himself a little deeper into the hole he'd begun this morning. He wasn't good at words. Well, he had been quite the smooth-talker all those years ago, but ever since...

No. You promised not to think about that again, he scolded himself, tugging his jacket even tighter around him. That wasn't what he needed right now. Right now, he needed to make things up to Patton, and find what had been stolen from him.

He had to find his button.

* * * * * * * * * *

Everyone but Virgil was gone. Patton had gone to work after a few more minutes of sitting in silence and pondering, and Roman had expressed a need to "clear his head" and had taken his truck out nearly thirty minutes ago. Finally with the privacy he so desperately needed, Virgil rummaged through the cupboards and drawers in the kitchen. Where did Patton keep all the herbs? He could never figure out where anything was in this blasted place. Eventually, he found it:

Rosemary. Or, as many from the Witchlands referred to it, Queensleaf; it was named after the first Witch Queen herself. Roman absolutely despised the smell, claiming it made his nose itch. Virgil found this quite ironic, but kept the comments to himself.

Dumping a pinch or two into the palm of his hand, Virgil replaced the lid, put it back in the cupboard, and headed outside to the backyard. Normally, he wouldn't take such precautions, but without his button, who knows what could happen? Sure, it was just a simple tracking spell, but one could never be too cautious... right? Biting the inside of his mouth—a habit he'd yet to shake, unfortunately—he approached the old pine tree and scattered the small sprigs around the dirt he'd hastily refilled last night before heading out on his frantic search. Hopefully, that would do the trick. Using Queensleaf during spell-making was considered paranoid and somewhat superstitious, but Virgil had seen things that would make even the most stoic witch stuff rosemary up their nose at the slightest hint of magic.

"Bid the earth till its ground, thus what's been lost soon is found," Virgil muttered, feeling the magic flow out of him in a sort of jerky, detached way. He withheld a shudder. He really needed his button back, and soon. Regardless, the Queensleaf seemed to do its job and the spell came out just as it should. The air around him stilled and everything went silent, as if he'd stepped into the shadow realm. His gaze was drawn downward by an unseen force and he watched as the imprints of a pair of feet made their way across the grass from around the side of the house. They stopped in the middle of the yard, turning around a few times. The top half of the right footprint disappeared and reappeared rapidly, as if the owner had been tapping their foot. A pause, then the footprints made a beeline for Virgil. He stepped to the side and watched with growing distaste as the footprints stopped right above the spot where they box, with his button, had been buried.

A small indentation appeared in the dirt next to the prints, and the thin lines of invisible fingers digging into the soil began scoring the ground. The thief had dropped something in the dirt before digging. Virgil stepped over the prints and squatted down to inspect the small disturbance more. Perhaps he could discover what it was they'd dropped? Unfortunately, the dirt hadn't acquired anything close to a clear imprint, and the pine needles scattered everywhere didn't help. From the looks of it, the object was about the size of a quarter, give or take a little, of course.

The faint click of the metal box's latch being undone snapped Virgil out of his thoughts. In the air, hovered the now empty metal box he'd reburied. Unknown hands hefted it, shaking it a little, then slowly opened the lid. Virgil watched, not having to imagine too hard to realize that this was the moment his button had been taken. The subsequent tossing of the box back into the hole and the sloppy foot shoving the dirt back on top then tamping it down for good measure didn't help his mood much, either. The prints did a little dance, then jerked to a stop. The ghosts of fingers frantically dusted away pine needles and pinched something up out of the dirt. A small puff of dust appeared in the air.

Virgil nearly shook with rage. They'd dropped his button in the dirt, and blown the dust off like it was some—some measly piece of plastic. As if it was just that, and not an important talisman literally tying all but the most basic of his magical abilities to his body.

Lips pressed together in barely contained frustration, Virgil followed the now obviously gleeful footprints across the lawn and around the house. It wasn't until he reached the edge of the front lawn, that he realized a major problem.

Footprints didn't exactly show up on cement and asphalt.

"Charge me now to seek the thief, let light shine forth and seal their grief," he muttered. Again, the magic came out halting and shuddering, but came out all the same. No one would be able to see the spell but him, so he wasn't too concerned about following a pair of now glowing footprints making their happy way down the street.

Virgil followed the trail in circles around town, ignoring the strange looks he got from the fellow townspeople going about their day. A few times, he almost got hit by a car when he became too focused and the path veered suddenly into the road. Was this thief drunk, or something? Surely, they'd stolen his button for a reason other than to prance around town with it. He still couldn't be sure Ursula was behind it, though. While she'd seem pleased at his misfortune, he couldn't prove it was more than that. Besides, while she seemed the most likely to do something like this, she was the least probable suspect. She was halfway across the world, for crying out loud.

But who else could possibly know about it?

Actually, he thought sourly, there are quite a few people that come to mind. A witch, a hobgoblin, a few sprites... The list grew quite extensive the more Virgil thought about it, so he conveniently stopped thinking about it and focused on the task at hand. The prints wandered down the alley behind the Chinese restaurant, illuminating the otherwise dim surroundings. Virgil's nose wrinkled at the rancid smell of rotting food and watched with disgust as the glowing footprints—and now hand-prints—rummaged through the trash for, he assumed, something to eat.

The invisible hands picked up a styrofoam takeout box and...and took a bite out of the box itself.

Virgil's temper didn't boil over. No, rather, it simmered, and reduced down into a thick syrup of pure, white-hot rage. Fists clenched, he turned his back on the alley, and ended the spell with a furious wave of his hand.

"...Remus."

#sanders sides fic #sanders sides fanfiction #sanders sides #graphic #tw graphic imagery #graphic imagery tw #creatures of the night #chroniclackofselfpreservation #fanfiction

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packsbeforesnacks · 5 years ago

Text

Blank Space || Darwin & Winn

TIMING: Wednesday, July 1st, 2020, Late Afternoon LOCATION: Fine Print (Darwin’s Bookstore) PARTIES: @wardinasrani & @packsbeforesnacks SUMMARY: Winn visits Winston’s contact, Darwin, hoping to find answers about his hidden memories. When Darwin looks into Winn’s mind, the answer shocks them both. WARNINGS: Brief depiction of an anxiety attack.

Truth be told, Darwin wasn't too keen on coming out of hiding. The ritual a couple of weeks back had drained him, and it had taken him days to even feel like himself again. He wasn't an idiot, he knew the Asrani probably had people on his trail, and he'd decided to disappear at least until his magic came back. Now he could feel his energy flowing through his veins once again, power crackling at his fingertips, but did he feel safe from the Asrani's reach? Not really. Still, this was a favor to Winston, the kid he'd doomed with a cursed eye, the kid that had allowed him to perform the ritual that had stopped what could very well have been an apocalypse. Darwin owed Winston, the whole town owed Winston. White Crest might not be aware of its debt to the kid, but Darwin wasn't going to forget the part Winston had played in keeping the world safe. He'd help their friend, even if that meant coming out of hiding. When he heard the bell on the store ring, he raised his head and offered a polite smile. The door was open, even though the sign outside said closed. “Welcome. You must be Winston's friend, correct?”

It had taken a minute for Winn to find Fine Print, especially given the gaps in his memory (ha) he was still filling in with regards to the town’s twists and turns. Each new street could have hidden shops he’d never been into — and that was even before you started thinkin’ about all the magical shit that Winn couldn’t see, or could only see part of. Winston had put a lot of faith in this guy, so he hoped their bet paid off. Fine Print was louder than any bookstore Winn had ever been in (admittedly, not many), noises echoing from behind each shelf as he made his way to the only other person in the store. Winn considered Darwin’s question longer than was really appropriate, given its straightforwardness. “Friend, yeah, that’s me.” Winn wasn’t sure if Winston considered him a friend, but he’d let that last worm of anxiety wriggle its way around his head when there wasn’t a hole in his head — memories, whatever. “You’re the, uh,” he glanced around, knowing full well that there wasn’t another soul — well, maybe he shouldn’t go that far — in the store, “specialist that they mentioned, right? Darwin? I’m Winn.” Should he sit? Should he shake hands? His normal social graces weren’t applicable here, in the mage’s home territory. And God forbid he pick up a book just to make himself feel less awkward.

Darwin smiled as he studied the newcomer. Part of him, the part that he tried to hide from himself, enjoyed his nervousness: as an Asrani he'd been taught to use other people's anxiety, wield it as a weapon in order to get the best bargain. It was the reason behind the villainous mustache, the dark silk shirts, the haunted noises in his domain and the theatricality in everything he did: it created expectations in other people minds, tricked them into thinking he shouldn't be messed with. But this particular meeting wasn't about scoring a good deal, it wasn't about covering his own ass... Winn was no threat to him, and Darwin had nothing to gain from this except the warm, satisfying feeling of a good deed done. It was worth it: he had much to atone for on behalf of his family, any small step to improve his standing in this community and his karma was worth the risks. He walked over to Winn and nodded, offering him his hand. “Darwin Asrani, yes. The... Specialist.” That word sounded a bit cold to his ears: mental magic wasn't surgery, it wasn't something anyone could ever truly master: each mind was different, each spell simple at its core but presenting unexpected turns and surprises at every corner. Darwin gestured toward the small door at the end of the store, leading to the basement. “It's a pleasure to meet you, Winn. Tell me, are you the type that would prefer some small talk before getting into the reason for your visit, or would you rather jump straight to the point? I can make tea.” He was aware that, to someone who didn't know him, anything he said probably sounded sinister, but nevertheless Darwin tried to keep his tone friendly and casual.

Winn took Darwin’s hand in his own and shook it firmly before letting go. “Um,” he said, frown on his face, “I don’t mean to be rude, but… smalltalk afterwards, maybe? Sorry, it’s just… if the problem can get solved, I’d rather get it over with. It’s been a pain.” He looked towards the door, humming a bit in the back of his throat. “Some tea could be nice, though? I’m, uh, a little nervous?” It wasn’t the first time Winn had met a spellcaster, sure, but magic was all still so new to him. That mystery, ironically, kept Winn comfortable. The more he knew about it, the more scenarios his mind would play out, trying to figure out what could be possible. He’d already lost two years of memories to magic — albeit of a different origin, apparently. Winn had seen Nell summon, what, hellhounds? Winn might be a scary story, but magic was a fairytale, and, save for demons, was the hardest thing for Winn to accept about the supernatural world. Even Otto’s assertion that his father had protected his office hadn’t eased Winn’s anxieties around it. “I, um, don’t know how much they told you, about me, but to cut to the chase… I can’t remember everything in my past. For two years, there’s a… blur. I thought that I had been,” turned into a wolf, “preoccupied, during that time. But some folks say they saw me during that time… and I don’t remember ever seein’ them. My, um, my friend threw me into a tree, recently, and I slipped into a, like, almost a fugue state? Not the kind from any sort of identity disorder, but I couldn’t remember — can’t remember — the next five minutes. I came to, but… Yeah. I don’t want that to happen again. Someone,” how to phrase this delicately? “... could get hurt.”

Darwin nodded and offered Winn another smile. “Nervous is exactly what you should be,” he murmured solemnly. Jumping into magic with no fear, no doubts, that was reckless and stupid. Winn's concerns were understandable, wise even. Then again, Darwin reminded himself, doubts could also become obstacles when it came to magic. “My tea is terrible,” he concluded with a shrug, hoping the joke would ease the tension as he led his guest to the room. Darwin opened it and walked downstairs. Walls covered with libraries, a small altar in the middle of the room, runes and circles scribbled and carved everywhere, and a small electrical stove, along with some kitchen supplies. The room wasn't well-stocked enough to live there, but it had enough supplies to make some tea, and while Winn shared his tale, Darwin listened carefully, keeping himself busy with the stove. At the end of the tale, he turned around, arms crossed as the water boiled. “Mh. I see. Two years is quite a long time. My first guess would be, well...” He paused and bit his lip, stroking his mustache as he stared at Winn, deep in thought. The young man wasn't sharing everything: vague words like 'preoccupied', the awkward pauses... Darwin sighed. “Actually, I have a couple of theories. I'm going to assume you already tried regular medicine. When people come to me, they're usually at the end of their rope.” There he went again with the villainous talk. He shook his head and continued “I mean... Messing with magic can be dangerous, I'm sure Winston told you, and people don't always trust a perfect stranger with their mind, and who can blame them? But you need to understand... If you want my help, you'll have to be honest with me, no lies, no omission, or someone could get hurt.” He chuckled after echoing Winn’s own words, trying to show the guy he wasn’t threatening him, just offering Winn the same honesty Darwin was demanding of him. “So before I share my theories, I have to ask... Are you willing to do that?”

The room was about as Winn imagined a sorcerer’s would be, somethin’ out of Arthurian legend or the study of Freyja, but with modern edges, and an… altar? Some sort of centerpiece, definitely, and Winn didn’t know nearly enough about magic to begin to guess at what the placement, the runes, the shapes meant. It was enough to send his head spinning, so he focused on Darwin, ignoring the thrum of energy in the air. He’d known, of course, that he’d have to admit what he was to the mage, but… Well, he wouldn’t lie and say it didn’t make him a bit uncomfortable, what seemed like every spellslinger in White Crest knowin’ about the werewolf with the broken memory. In the wrong hands, that information could be dangerous. But… Winn trusted Winston, knew that they wouldn’t intentionally steer him into a trap. “I’m willing. Um. I’m goin’ to assume you already know about… shapeshifters. Selkies, bugbears, and… werewolves.” He paced, careful to avoid stepping on anything not recognizably English. “I’m a werewolf. Bitten, not born. I, um, it’s been almost a decade. I have a friend whose parents trained him to be a hunter and we’ve been researchin’ for weeks — or, well, he has. Nothin’ we’ve found has been useful. Until a couple of months ago, I had just thought I was… transformed, for a really long time. Thought maybe the animal didn’t know… didn’t feel the passing of time? But I called up an old packmate after I got into a… fight, with another wolf. I’ve always been fairly in control of my emotions. But this was… different. And then, later that month, my friend tossed me into a tree while I was shifted, and I almost killed her. I pulled back, barely, but… My dad, he’s, um, a huxian? He suggested it might be magical, and then pretty much everyone else has thought the same thing. So… Tada. Here I am.” He gave a weak smile. “If you have any questions, I’ll answer them. Sorry, just… y’know, I’m not human, technically. Some folks aren’t big on that.”

“I know of shapeshifters, know they exist, but nothing really specific.” Darwin replied. The natural curiosity that had pushed him to explore the Asrani library even before his father was ready to begin his training was throbbing inside him, and it took all of Darwin's willpower not to ask Winn about a dozen questions. When he mentioned a Hunter friend, though, Darwin couldn't keep a small snort at bay. Talk about unlikely friendship. After a pause, Darwin moved his hand toward Winn's shoulder in an attempt to squeeze it to reassure him. And, well, the guy had amazing shoulders, Darwin couldn't deny it. “Don't worry. This here? Judgement-free zone. An amnesiac werewolf doesn't even score in the top five dangerous creatures that I've dealt with.” The loud whistling noise let Darwin know the tea was ready, and he quickly poured two cups, offering one to Winn. He took a sip from his own, squinted and then abandoned the cup on a small desk, mumbling something about needing more sugar. “Magic can erase memories. Or, rather... Make them inaccessible. Though I don't know why someone would do that to you. There's a chance they wanted to hide something else. Maybe you witnessed something a caster wanted to be kept secret. Maybe they even manipulated you and then blocked those two years out so you wouldn't be able to go after them.” Darwin started circling the room, pacing back and forth, talking more to himself than Winn. Then he suddenly stopped and turned to stare at the werewolf. “The wolf. Is it... A separate entity within you? Does it have wishes and urges that are different from yours? Is 'it' even the right pronoun? What I mean is... Are we dealing with one or two minds, here?”

The squeeze to Winn’s shoulder was comforting, if slightly too long. He resisted the urge to waggle his eyebrows, knowing that him being serious was the most important thing here, not flirting to ease tension. “Maybe sometime I’ll ask you ‘bout that list, man.” Winn sipped the tea after a moment, wincing at the bitter taste. Hm… Okay, so. Darwin hadn’t been lyin’, that was crap. Rather than be rude, he let it cool down. It would be water soon enough. There were theories, but Winn, not unkindly, didn’t want to hear them without knowin’ the truth. Darwin could deal with the magic; Winn would deal with whatever was waitin’ for him after he broke through. Winn gave the question some thought. “I… I mean, it’s me, right? I am the wolf, the wolf is me. It’s…” Winn sighed. No judgment, Darwin had said. “It was easier, when the wolf had blood on its claws, to act like it was… separate from me, in some ways. After a while, it became a habit.” He picked up the tea again, took a sip, made the same exact face. It’s not like his memory had been great before he’d had them taken from him. “But… I don’t know, when I’m transformed, even on the bad nights — near the Moon. I remember everything. I have since the end of that first year or so. Average, from what they tell me, for Bitten. When I almost attacked Blanche?” Winn gave a thoughtful hum. “It was… almost like an instinct, one that overrode my senses and consciousness. I… a defense mechanism? Could that be somethin’? I mean, I know for… humans, their minds can develop responses to trauma that can’t really be… explained, with a simple answer. So, maybe it’s just… my mind tryin’ to protect itself? Maybe there’s somethin’ down there that I shouldn’t touch? I don’t have any answers… well, except the original one, I guess. No. The wolf isn’t different, or, uh, isn’t supposed to be. Just a turn of speech.”

“Oh, it's a fascinating list, one better enjoyed in front of dinner.” The invitation in Darwin's words wasn't subtle at all, but he didn't push any further than that: they were having a Serious Conversation™ . “Defense mechanism, mh. Makes sense. You know earlier, when I asked you if you'd explored different venues before turning to magic? That's what I meant. Trauma can block memories, and that's as mundane as it gets, something I couldn't help with no matter how deep I dug. But from what you're saying...” Darwin hesitated, not sure how to phrase things. He'd never really discussed the nature of werewolves with anyone, let alone with an actual werewolf, so he wasn't sure what would cross the hypothetical line of werewolf etiquette. After a few moments, he decided he'd deal with this not unlike a medic: clinically, detached. But damn if he wasn't curious. “Well, from what you're saying, you normally remember what you do in wolf form, even if you can't always control it. So either what you've blocked is bigger and worse than any other stuff you remember, or there's something else at play.” There was only one way to know for certain, but Darwin wasn't sure how to bring it up: 'Hey, can I look inside your mind?' wasn't exactly a first meeting offer. Then again, it had been Winn seeking him out, so... “There's a spell I can do. It would allow me to take a peek under the hood, so to speak, catch a glimpse of what's going on in that head of yours. But I have to be honest: it's a one way show, I'll see some shallow thoughts, but you won't be able to see inside my head. It might feel... invasive, I suppose. But it's the quickest way I can get an idea of what's going on and at least narrow it down. On the bright side, it would only take a couple of minutes. And, ah... to even the score, I'll answer truthfully any one single question you may have about me. And, of course, any questions you might have about the process.”

Unlike his tryst with Jimmy, Darwin’s invitation didn’t make Winn feel quite so… gross. He was happy to flirt, but… well, after. Regardless of what Noah and he decided to do, bein’ charming was, well, part of his charm. “That sums it up,” Winn said, popping the p. Even for a werewolf, there were things Winn could comfortably say he didn’t know much about — subspecies that he’d only heard about in whispered rumors, whatever hybrid monsters Adam had spoken about. But this was different. “It gets… harder to control, near the Full Moon, yeah. And on,” the three days of, “the Full Moon, we transform. Bam, the legends are true. Some of them.” He laughed, but there wasn’t much humor in it. “Let’s do it,” he said, immediately. Winn wasn’t one to wait, even if — when — waiting was the best option. When he saw somethin’, he needed to go and handle it. His memory had been weighin’ on him for too damn long, and he wanted to know. Curiosity, though typically noted of cats, called Winn to think hard about the question he’d ask Darwin, too. “Man, I’d have questions, if I knew what questions to even have. Um, will it… hurt? I guess? It doesn’t matter, I’ll take the pain, just… preparing myself, y’know. Werewolves and gettin’ hurt don’t always go great together, so please… I know you said I wasn’t dangerous, but I can be. So, I don’t know, maybe have a sleepin’ spell in your back pocket, in case you need to Sleeping Beauty me. If that’s a thing.” It had to be a thing, right?

“Wow, I give you a free pass at any personal info, and you don't go for my digits straight away? That tea must have been really bad. That, or I've lost my charm.” Darwin joked, adding a playful wink to the end of it for good measure. It seemed like Winn was more at ease whenever he assumed a less formal tone, so Darwin switched his posture to a more casual one. Yet, no matter how relaxed he wanted to keep it, he realized what Winn was saying was a real concern. Being trapped in a basement with a bloodthirsty monster was not something Darwin wanted to try any time soon. Sleeping spells existed, of course, but to check Winn's head he'd have to get close to him, so close that he wouldn't be able to even utter abracadabra before being ripped to shreds if the werewolf decided to appear. How quick did the change happen, anyway? Darwin shook his head to chase those distracting questions away, and looked at Winn, this time serious. “It will only hurt if you push me away.” The times he'd seen the ritual performed, when his father had done it to some unwilling rivals to steal their secrets, it had looked mighty uncomfortable at best and hellishly painful at worst. But Darwin himself had also done it with friends and lovers alike, using it to get closer to each other when words just wouldn't cut it. “This sort of spell can either feel invasive, or... Well, intimate, but that's up to you. It's why I offered you a question: trust will make it easier, on both of us.”

“Ah,” Winn said, an easy laugh coming out of his mouth. “I’m… goin’ on a first date with this guy, Saturday. I tried to… burn off some tension, if y’catch my drift, and it was a little weird. Given you’re about to poke around in my head, I feel like I should just come clean… If he and I had DTR’d or were open or whatever? Well, I know an easy way to help us both relax. That said, you could always steal a kiss away. Door’s open, Darwin.” He let that hang in the air for a moment, giving the man time to consider the offer. Sex? Definitely off the table, not even a little bit alright. But… one kiss? That wasn’t that bad of an idea. “So, ‘m not gonna be sorry if you see some colorful details in there, dude. You’re stacked and I have eyes.” He winked. “‘Sides, I’m fine with intimate. I’m tryin’ this new thing where I just tell folks shit that they might want to know. I won’t push you away. Hell, get as close as you need.” Winn thought through Darwin’s ask a little more carefully. It seemed, almost, like askin’ something would make the other man more comfortable. And, hell, he’d been thinkin’ a lot on the subject lately, so there was… one question that occurred to him. Winn was just the brand of shameless to ask. “What’s it like for you, when you fall in love?” he said before he could stop himself, though he quickly followed it up with, “I know you said… anything, but if that’s too, uh, personal, I get it. Really, I do. I can always get your number.” He smiled, this one a little more real, and left himself open to Darwin’s best… or worst.

Darwin seriously considered the offer: Winn was extremely attractive, and one way or another he was about to be inside him anyway. The way he licked his lips made it abundantly clear that the temptation was there, but ultimately Darwin shook his head, albeit a little reluctantly. “I'm not the sort to steal kisses, Winn. No way to enjoy the build up and the aftermath of a kiss if it's stolen and tinted with guilt. More importantly, I'm not a home-wrecker. Or, well, an opportunity-killer, if things aren't that serious. You seem pretty into this guy, and I'm not gonna jeopardize that.” Again, a wink, followed by a low chuckle. “That said, if come Saturday you two have defined things and the door's still open, I'll let you have my number anyway.” Winn's eagerness to share was refreshing; the people that usually came to Darwin were secretive at best, with far too many things to hide for Darwin's taste. Hell, Darwin himself had his fair share of secrets, but he only kept those because he knew they'd scare most people off, not because he really wanted to keep them hidden. What Winn asked, though? That wasn't scary, and Darwin let out a relieved sigh when he heard the question. “Not too personal at all. Could've asked way worse shit. But it is a... Difficult question. I could wax some poetry, feed you some lines like 'it just feels right', but truth is... I don't know.” With his father keeping such a close eye on him, Darwin had never gotten the chance to grow close enough to someone to fall, he'd barely had the time for the casual one night stands he'd somehow managed to keep a secret from his legacy-obsessed family. And once he'd finally left them, he'd been too busy moving from place to place, following demons summoned by the Asrani and fixing their mess. Wow. Up until that particular moment, Darwin hadn't really thought about how much his family had taken from him. “Never been in love, I don't think. Been in lust, had some intense friendships, but love? Never had the chance. I can only assume it feels... like home. Not my home, mind you, my home was a mess, but like... a not fucked up home. One that accepts all of you, one where you feel comfortable and safe and can be simply yourself and walk around in your boxers, one that smells like your favorite food and... Sorry, I guess I am waxing poetry now. What can I say, I'm a romantic at heart.” They were getting off topic, but it had been a while since Darwin had just had a pleasant chat with someone, one that wasn't necessarily about dark pacts, obscure rituals and potential apocalypses. Again, refreshing. “Why that question? Of all the questions you could have asked, you went for the love one right after sort of” another wink, the last in what felt like a long series for such a brief meeting “turning me down. Sending some mixed signals here, buddy.” Before Winn could have the chance to answer, Darwin placed a finger on his lips to silence him. “Actually… Perhaps you should answer that after Saturday, mh? After all, you did turn me down. I’m guessing that date is related to the question, and we don’t want you focused on all these confusing emotions right before I dive into your head. Besides, I’d like to talk more, get to know you. Platonically, I mean. Haven’t had the chance to meet many friends here, so… Let’s not burn all the steps with the deep personal love stuff just yet, mh?”

Leaning forward, Winn settled in for Darwin’s explanation. He couldn’t find it in himself to be… disappointed, per se, but Darwin’s decision to stay out of his and Noah’s dance — or, well, Twister game — only confirmed that Winn could trust this man, even if the man had a story, a past, and plenty of secrets. If he wasn’t relaxed before, the last coil of anxiety had been taken from his gut. When Darwin explained, Winn couldn’t help but smile a bit. The honesty was nice; Darwin reminded him almost of Rio in that way. Romantic at heart, a big apologetic for when he rambled, but ultimately kinder than… well, what White Crest could turn people into, if they let it. When Darwin’s finger left Winn’s lips, he nodded. “I’d like that, too,” he said, after a moment. “But,” he clapped his hands together, “leeeeet’s do this. Spread me open, bro.” Wow. Talk about an innuendo. There was an energy to this interaction, and Winn wasn’t sure if it was the magic coursing through, what, Darwin’s veins? Or if it was simply the chemistry of two future friends. Either way, Winn was diggin’ it. Felt better than wiggin’ about his memories. “How do you want me?”

Darwin tried to keep a straight face. Seriously, he gave it his best shot, he bit his tongue and winced at the pain of that. But in the end, he just couldn't keep it in, and his loud, baritone laughter echoed in the basement. “That was... so bad,” he finally let out with a gasp, shaking his head. “I've used some terrible pick up lines, but you've got me beaten.” Again, he patted Winn's shoulder, this time the relaxed gesture of two buddies sharing a good laugh and nothing more. Well, almost nothing more, the guy still had incredible shoulders, and Darwin's hand lingered there. He used the contact to cop a feel, sure, but also to lead Winn toward the desk where his tea had been abandoned. With his leg, he pushed the chair, to give Winn room to sit, and then he gently pushed the man on it. “At the cost of being just as cheesy as you've been, I'll need you to relax, it'll make it easier. I'm also going to look like one of those evil hypnotists you see on TV, but no pocket watch or swirling spirals. Just some intense eye contact as I try to establish a... a connection with your mind.” As he spoke he lowered his voice to a soft whisper, and put both his hands on Winn's temples, tilting his head slightly so he could look in his eyes. “Just focus on my breathing, and try to match it. Slow and easy. Take me in as you inhale, let your worries out as you exhale. Like meditating, but we're doing it together.” For a moment he wondered if his sandalwood cologne would smell chemical to a werewolf this close, and if he could sense Darwin's natural scent, but instead of dwelling on that — more questions for their potential friendly outing — he started gathering his energy. He didn't need words for this particular ritual but he kept murmuring, to give Winn something to follow as Darwin visualized his own conscience enveloping his hands. He couldn't see auras, but he liked to think his right now would look like a bright ball of energy surrounding Winn's head, warm and almost electrical as his essence moved around, gentle, tentative almost, looking for an opening, hoping Winn (more importantly, his wolf instincts) would feel safe enough to make his job easier.

Even if it had been an accidental joke, Winn still was happy to hear Darwin laugh, even slightly at his expense. “Only terrible,” he said, with another friendly wink, “if it’s never worked.” He allowed Darwin to put one of his big, warm hands on Winn’s shoulder — and, hm, okay, heel boy — and guide him to sit. Darwin was close, and he was right, this was intimate. Winn could think of partners whose face he hadn’t gotten this close to. Winn snorted at the joke, but tried his best to relax. In, out. Darwin smelled like cologne, sandalwood one of the few scents that Winn enjoyed, but if Winn inhaled deeper, and he did, he could smell something… like a burning, almost, but it was faint. Underneath, though, Darwin’s scent reminded him of… Ricky’s, almost. Saltwater and the outdoors, someone perpetually destined to be a wanderer. Unlike the mountain scents that Winn associated with pack, this one was, admittedly, a little strange to him. Not… bad, but strange. In, out. Darwin’s hands on his head buzzed, almost, and it wasn’t painful, not quite, but the feeling was… too much, almost. His mind had only ever had Winn in it, that he’d remembered, but. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. His eyes, though open, lulled to a half-closed state, his gaze lost in Darwin’s dark ones. There was so much on Winn’s mind, at all times, but here, like this, the cores rose up to meet Darwin. Winn wouldn’t describe it, except that his mind was… light. Noah, his friends, his newfound purpose, all lived there, linked together and shining out from Winn. Without thinking, his lips slid into a smile. Inhale. Exhale. The light, though, cast… a shadow. And within that shadow, concealed from vision, was a hole. The shadow, his mistakes, his anxieties, the ways in which he’d failed, time and time again, to make things right. And, if Winn followed Darwin’s energy, he could almost feel the absence in his mind. It hurt, more than he could describe, but it wasn’t… physical. It was grief, loss, unnamed things and unremembered things. And then, Winn’s eyes glassed over, as Darwin looked into what his mind refused to see.

Winn's mind was not what Darwin would have expected when looking into what people often described as a savage beast. While the spell was too superficial to really put faces to the soft feelings swirling inside Winn's head, it was clear that those bonds meant a great deal to the man sitting in front of him. That was the mind of a protector, not a monster. Like demons, perhaps werewolves were misunderstood, and people should focus more on their deep sense of family and pack rather than their fangs and claws. Then again, this might just be Winn, not a werewolf thing. Darwin had learned long enough not to generalize when it came to these things. Feeling Winn grow more comfortable with what they were doing, he dove deeper, moving past the superficial thoughts, those that were either so ingrained in Winn's core or so fresh that the man had no trouble remembering them on his own. The painful memories, the doubts and fears weren't unexpected; everyone had dark corners in their mind, and Darwin did his best to move past those as quick as he could, to let the man have as much privacy as he could give him. But what he sensed next... Darwin's spell was meant to let him reach within for things he'd lost, things that might have been locked away. And once he'd found those cages, he'd just open them and return the memories to Winn. Simple, clean. Except there were no cages. What he saw was... a void. Like a puzzle missing a few pieces. Darwin paused, so baffled that Winn would probably be able to sense it through their temporary connection. Winn's memories weren't trapped, they weren't hidden under a hazy fog, or lost in an endless sea. They were just... a blank space. Darwin moved his thumbs' on Winn's temples, trying to soothe him as best he could as he lingered in his head, searching for something that wasn't there. Perhaps it was the fact he was dealing with a wolf, but the longer he spent looking, the more he felt like a dog chasing a ball that'd never been thrown. He spent minutes hunting, each moment everlasting, but no matter how much he tried... Nothing. Finally Darwin gave up, and he slowly pulled back, his hands releasing Winn's face as the last remnants of his conscience left him. He gave Winn a few moments to recover before opening his mouth to speak. And then he closed it again, not sure how to break the news to him. The silence, coupled with the grim expression on Darwin's face, spoke volumes, and when he finally made a sound it was tentative, guilty almost. “How are you?”

The fuzz from Darwin’s temporary confusion stung at Winn’s temples, almost like brain freeze, and he felt himself wince even if he was practiced enough at weathering pain to not break the connection. In, out. He bit into his lip, so hard he was half-sure it was bleeding. Darwin spent more time in his head, looking for what he wasn’t sure. Winn trusted the spellcaster — or, trusted that Winston trusted the spellcaster — and knew that, if he could just wait, just be patient, then Darwin would ever be able to put his fractured mind back together. But, the longer Darwin looked, the more Winn began to sense that… that maybe his mind wasn’t fractured, so much as missing something. That hole, the one hidden beneath the shadows, was that… was that an actual hole and not just a place where things were hiding in wait? He felt a spike of anxiety run through him as Darwin pulled away, and Winn searched his face. When the silence didn’t break, when Darwin’s mouth just kept opening, shutting, and the look grew even more grave, Winn started to ask… and found he couldn’t. How are you? Well, panicking, if Winn was going to be honest. He took a few breaths, trying to calm himself down, but he knew the signs of an anxiety attack like the back of his hand. Winn hadn’t had one in years, had grown to an expert at managing them between therapy and becoming a counselor-in-training himself. But something about this one was different, and Winn felt himself burying his face in his hands, blocking out the light, blocking out Darwin’s pained expression. There was a part of him that wanted Darwin to touch him, to reach out and say something. And then there was the part, equally as strong, that was sure that would make him lash out at someone who didn’t deserve it. And so Winn took shuddering breaths as he tried to wrap his head around what he sensed was true. Finally, a whisper, “... They’re not there.” It wasn’t a question.

Darwin could only watch in silence as emotions danced on Winn’s face, and he felt like some sick peeping tom, even more so than when he’d been inside his mind. He watched as doubt turned to fear and then into terrible certainty, and he felt powerless to help Winn. The selfish part of him was glad at least that the werewolf seemed to have grasped the situation, it kept Darwin from struggling with how to break the news to him. As things stood now, there was nothing his magic could do for Winn: nothing to release, nothing to fix. Maybe, maybe Darwin could help if only Winn had a vague hint about where the memories had gone. Who’d taken them. But this whole situation was obviously something Winn didn’t fully understand, and Darwin assumed if he’d had some vague suspicion he’d have shared it with him. Darwin could maybe tell him that, should the memories be found, it would be possible to put them back where they belonged, but right then, staring at Winn’s chest rising and falling with deep breaths as he tried to calm himself down, Darwin didn’t have it in him to offer his new acquaintance (possible friend?) any false hope. So, after a long, endless pause, he just lowered his head and sighed. His hand moved once again to Winn’s shoulder, this time not to feel the muscles there, but just to offer a small anchor in this moment where the rug had been pulled from under his feet. He opened his other arm in a silent invite, and simply whispered… “No. No, they’re not.”

#wickedswriting #para #Darwin #Blank Space #Chain of Memories

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docholligay · 5 years ago

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Ace High

@amberlilly asked for “Michiru being given a choice in some situation to change something in the past. What does she do?” 2100 words and I hope you like it, Lilly!

You cannot draw the card. That is a known rule.

The cards are drawn for you, dealt in a pile, and the hands that are played come only down to luck, as some would say. Some would say it comes to skill, to a certain inclination of what the dealer might play, a knowledge of the rest of the table, but it had been the observation of one Michiru Kaioh that those players were often the ones who had royal flush in their blood before they ever sat.

No, there is no way that the rules allow for the drawing of the cards, no way for your fortune to be arranged and rearranged and though you may always throw something away, that in no way guarantees that anything better will fly to your hand from the cruel dealings of eternity’s gam master.

But there is, of course, cheating.

Michiru Kaioh considered herself a keen observer of humanity, in the way she had studied all arts, and so she was no often at a loss, or taken by surprise, when someone offered her something. It was easy to spell out a lie, when you were Michiru. Generally.

Her eyes flashed back to Mina and she hated herself for the crime immediately. Why should she presume that if Michiru did not know whether the demon told true, Mina would know any better?

In any case, it did not matter. Mina’s face held neither confirmation or denial of the statement itself, but a simple, straightforward: No.

Of course it would be that way, and Michiru was foolish for thinking otherwise. None of the rest seemed even vaguely interested in the offer.

“This card,” the voice was deep and garbled at the edges, cruel and cold as the first snowmelted rivers of spring, “will give you one change. Anything. A different family. A won war. A saved life.”

“It’s a trick,” Mako grumbled, “You can’t do that.”

“Oh but I can,” there was laughter now, like a roaring rapid, full of static, “and the only cat’s-paw is life itself. No more harm could come to you than would in this life.”

It was telling the truth. It had no need to lie, for it was just as likely it could kill us all with its own power. It cared not for the fate of the earth, it cared not for power, it only wanted that crystal, for some reason it had certainly told them but Michiru had pointedly ignored.

They all wanted it eventually, and it was in everyone’s best interests for Michiru not to be brought to decide if it was any better or worse than the Moon Kingdom having it.

And it wasn’t even asking them to bring the crystal to it. Only to lend it their power, to let it move with the stormy sea of Neptune and let them take over for just a moment, just long enough to take the crystal for themselves.

One change. What would she even do, with that sort of power? How could she see into the past, and know what would move into the future? It was impossibility to ask of her, and maybe this was why it was easier for Mako to pretend that the power was a lie. Maybe she didn’t know what her life would look like, if not like this, if her parents hadn’t died, if the world had left her with literally anyone but Usagi.

It was never easier for Michiru to lie, at least to herself. The monster spoke true, and the power was real, and Usagi might die in the bargain, but then again, Michiru wasn’t sure that would involve the earth as much as everyone claimed. This was, and had always been, for the good of the moon, and so far as Michiru was concerned it could stay a dead rock.

Would she dream for herself? Who would Michiru Kaioh even be, if she had not be raised with a steel to her back from her toddling days, if she had not been raised with a sense of decorum and noblesse oblige? What if she had tumbled down a hillside in a park, thrown her arms around the neck of her dog, and laughed loud? What if she had never been a prodigy, but merely a child? Who might Michiru Kaioh have been?

As with the most of us, Michiru found this hypothetical person she might have been to be a nearly impossible thing to consider, and so, chose not to. It was not her general inclination to think too deeply about that anyhow. Michiru had survived her childhood, and if the person she wa now was not exactly ideal, she was functional, and she had divorced herself so entirely from the idea of being a loved object to many that the idea seemed strange.

She looked to her left, Haruka narrowing her eyes and ready to pounce. She had never considered the offer. Michiru could see it in her eyes. She might, if she thought it out, but it would be some self-sacrificing thing where she would wish that it had never come to this planet, which would backfire on her entirely in a way she would not be able to see. Or her offer would simply be rejected, this was not some sort of fairy story where one can undo Rumpelstiltskin with a clever word.

Michiru might have been a broken thing, but she was rather one of those repaired art pieces, covered by so much restoration and knowledge that only the most closely trained eye could see the patches, could see the spots where the brushstrokes changed. But Haruka was rather a junkyard dog, who had been set to fight, and her wounds set across her in easily-seen patterns, every chunk taken out of her marked with the shining pink of a tight scar.

Who might she have been, if she had been more loved? If her grandmother hadn’t died, or better, if she were born to a family who all deeply longed for her, where there was always food on the table and warm, clean clothes? What if her boisterousness and eagerness to please had been harnessed instead of being hurt? What if she had been driven into sports young, and told she was talented and good, and hugged, and wanted?

Michiru saw what she thought that girl might have been like, sometimes, in the dark. When Haruka reached for her hand, and held it softly, when she whispered words of love, when she snuggled gently against Michiru, and relaxed under her gentle caress. Haruka might have been so many lovely and soft things, so easily, if she could have been safe. She might be so happy, if her parents had taught her to love herself, to see the good in herself, to accept tenderness instead of mocking her for it.

She nearly extended her hand, then, knowing what she would ask it to do, what she would ask it to give.

But what of Michiru? It was a selfish thought, though that in itself did not surprise Michiru, for she was often selfish. What would become of Michiru, if Haruka had always known she had worth and value? If she felt no compulsion to throw herself in front of things, die for something? What if she felt she was already good, and did not need to hurt herself in the service of something greater? What if Michiru’s touch hadn’t been the first gentle one she had in years?

Michiru knew what would happen. Michiru was a strange thing, and no normal person would be saddled with her if they could find another. That Haruka, whose life was kind, would have a sweet girlfriend already, and nuzzle with her in some cafe, drinking with two straws in the same glass, and Haruka would laugh, and they would kiss. It would not be with a creature like her, that Haruka would know an easy life, full of warmth.

There was a simple truth, the ugliest Michiru’s heart could hold:

If Haruka’s life hadn’t been cruel, if she hadn’t been a senshi, they never would have met. They never would have fallen in love.

She could stand, and pretend to be brave and resolute. Perhaps they would win the day anyhow, it had happened enough times. She could pretend that she could think of nothing worth giving over her power for, no thing she loved more than to serve the moon and her princess. She could be a good soldier, and no one would ever have to see the poisoned rose in her heart.

Or she could be kind, instead of selfish. She could turn traitor, for Haruka’s sake, and give her up into the world that would treat her with kindness, that would love her and make it easy for her to love. She could lose everything but know that Haruka was safe. That for one day in her life, she had made a choice for Haruka instead of herself.

She had loved Haruka for her own sake. She had died in the cathedral so she did not have to bear Haruka’s loss. She was a selfish thing, and she knew it, but here was one chance to be something better. To serve the princess she loved the most.

“I will take that bargain.” She did not look at Haruka when she said it. However much Haruka hated her now, however much Haruka was trying to make it in a clever plan, Michiru did not want to see. Haruka would forget her in a moment’s time anyhow.

The other senshi yelled behind her, and their voices became one clamor, and Michiru did not care to pick out each instrument in the symphony, content in knowing that she understood the general theme. She was a traitor, for she was in love, and her beloved deserved this.

Michiru loved her. She would be kind, for her.

A mirror slipped out of her hand, and into it slipped a card, the queen of hearts, and she stared and stared and stared.

And stood on a street in the middle of Tokyo. Her district, filled with fashionable shops and sweet cafes, people hurrying around her, some staring into the windows and chattering over the finest goods. Michiru looked in the window of the Cartier. She was dressed in the same sort of neat navy dress she often wore, handmade Italian leather on her feet. A transformation ring on her finger. Everything was very much as she left it, and Michiru wondered for a moment if it hadn’t been all some sort of hallucination brought on by poor eating habits.

Then she saw her. She was taller even than she had been in the timeline where they loved, doubtless due to better nutrition as a child. Her hair was the same soft mob of blonde, cut neatly with her hair falling just to the edge of her eyebrows. She smiled brightly, and waved to a little girl in pink, bending down to properly greet her. Haruka seemed to radiate comfort and joy, tall and butch and happy enough with alll of it. Michiru wanted to go to her, to kiss her and tell her they had done it and Haruka would not ever have to hold that hurt and sadness in her eyes.

Then she was her. A cute little thing with her hair piled in a neat bun at the top of her head, sunglasses perched next to it. She laughed, and her face crinkled up, teeth showing garishly, as she hooked her arm around Haruka’s. Her clothing was bright and her hair was dark and she was utterly artless and terribly charming. They must have come down here for lunch, and Michru’s heart broke just a little bit, something she could not have dreamed, as Haruka put an arm around her and kissed the top of her head.

The girl noticed Michiru staring and cocked her head to the side. She glared deeply, her arm protectively around Haruk, and pulled her the other way, kissing her, making sure Michiru could see her do it.

Of course, Michiru laughed to herself, she thinks me some sort of gawking homophobe. She looked back in the mirror, surprised to see a tear rolling down her face.

Cheating was the only way to win the game. And cheaters never prosper.

Michiru had not known both could be true.

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mybookstorecarlovinghusbands · 6 years ago

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Oh, the Irony Part 2 (Crowley x Female! Reader)

Part One Here

Summary: As Armageddon is underway, the demon, Crowley’s relationship with demon hunter, Y/n is tested and certain flashbacks of their history together unfold even further than before.

Fandom: Good Omens, Supernatural

Warning: Angst, tiny fluff, the usual

Notes: As requested! Also, should I possibly turn this into a fanfic on Archive? I have so many ideas for it than just these two parts. Let me know!

((REQUESTS OPEN!))

~~~~~~~~~

AMERICA, TEN YEARS BEFORE THE END OF THE WORLD

Of course, Sam and Dean Winchester were worried about her after she and Crowley showed up. Scared that she might have sold her soul to the demon to help them find Michael’s sword, the brothers were rough to Crowley and interrogated him with no remorse. The entire time Y/n tried explaining the situation, Crowley had kept cool and as usual, cocky, which didn’t help the situation. Y/n thought the only reason Dean didn’t kill the bastard was because of their love for cars. Meanwhile, Y/n and Sam hear a distress call from Jo and Rufus and when they all get there, they were all tricked into thinking that each other were possessed by demons, illusions created by a member of the Four Horsemen, War. By the time they barely escaped with their lives, Y/n reported this finding in to Crowley, who stiffened at the mention of War and suddenly became serious, explaining Armaggedon to the rest of the hunting crew. It was then did everyone agree to put the past aside and help each other out by working together to find a solution in stopping Lucifer and finding God.

After meeting a Cambion named Jesse Turner in Alliance, Nebraska, Crowley starts getting anxious to go back to London. He gets snappy and tries irritating Y/n to no end to try and get her to leave with him so the two of them could hurry up and stop Armaggedon, but Y/n had always put her foot down whenever her friends were concerned and refused to leave. She even threatened to exorcise Crowley if he tried taking her away. After a threat like that, Crowley had to give in and help. He offers to give them another weapon. It’s not Michael’s sword, but it’s powerful, maybe even powerful enough to stop Lucifer. He tells the Winchesters about the Colt, the same weapon the brothers had lost awhile back. After they demanded he tell them where it is, Crowley willingly gives them the Colt with the promise that they don’t miss when trying to kill Lucifer. A battle ensues, a battle that ends with Jo and Ellen dead, but Lucifer is still very much alive. It wasn’t a victory, and all it did was make Y/n feel heavy and defeated. After losing her friends, she knew that Crowley had held up his end of the bargain and so there was no reason to stay in America anymore.

And so, without accomplishing anything, Y/n watches as the two silhouettes of Sam and Dean Winchester slowly fade into the fog of that rainy morning before disappearing completely in the side mirror of Crowley’s Bentley. Leaning back in her seat, she practically glares at the dashboard in front of her.

Crowley doesn’t say a word as they drive off, thinking about London and was ready to whisk the car, the woman, and himself back there when said woman suddenly opened her mouth, “Thank you, Crowley.”

He turns his head at her, the car nearly swerving off the road as he does so. Y/n didn’t seem to notice as she meets his gaze underneath his glasses with sincerity, “Thank you for sticking around. You could have stabbed me in the back at any time and take off, but you didn’t.”

Crowley stares at her for several minutes before turning back to the road, frowning, “I don’t think I like you when you’re nice.”

Y/n snorts, “That would be the appropriate answer of a demon.”

“Well, maybe not every creature with black wings and a handsome complexion is evil. After all, your angel friend, Castiel, has black wings.”

“Yeah,” Y/n’s eyes are distant while thinking about it, a hint of a smile on her lips while thinking. Crowley watches the wonder sparkle in her eyes and he decides to look away before the sight affected him.

“Don’t actually take that to heart,” he quickly defends, clutching the steering wheel, “So! As we are about to head into my territory, are you going to try and stab me in the back and back out on your side of the deal?"

Y/n’s lips tighten, the moment passing while pointing him with a knowing look, "Not unless you give me a reason to."

Crowley grins.

~~~~~~~~~

LONDON, THE LAST DAY OF THE WORLD

Out of all the things Y/n imagined Crowley doing on the last day of the world, she wasn’t expecting to walk into the apartment after work to find him looking over old maps and checking off places on the globe he keeps on the desk.

“What are you doing?” She asked, setting down some groceries she grabbed on the way home while walking over to the desk to look over the maps herself.

Crowley looks over at her and takes off his glasses, throwing them onto the desk and watch them skid into a halt before talking, “Where should we go?”

“What?” Y/n frowned while tilting her head in confusion, staring into his golden hue eyes for an answer.

“England’s out,” he continues while grabbing the small globe and letting it float in the air between his hands, watching it spin, “America’s out.”

Y/n steps closer to notice a new place on the globe near Africa, reading off its name with utter shock, “Atlantis?”

“Didn’t exist yesterday,” Crowley thought she was suggesting places and continued to list off others, “It exists today. Still out.”

He tosses the globe aside and lets it float in the air on its own while he slams down The Extremely Big Book of Astronomy onto the desk, startling his girlfriend in the process. Hastily, he flips through the pages, muttering under his breath, “The moon. No atmosphere. No nightlife. Unless you plan on wearing a space suit for the rest of your life, it’s out of the question.”

“Crowley, what are you-?”

As Crowley flips through the pages, they spring out of the book and fly all around the room, causing Y/n’s hair to fly around her as she watches in wonder. Crowley plucks a certain page from the air and reads it off, “Alpha Centauri! That’s always nice this time of years. Beautiful nebula, look at that,” he pushes the floating paper in her direction, and as she holds onto the page to read it, he shrugs knowingly, “I helped build that one.”

“It’s lovely,” she comments, letting go of the page to watch it fly off before eyeing her boyfriend, “But I still don’t see what this has anything to do with the Antichri--”

“I only ever ask questions,” Crowley continues, and the whine he lets out afterward made Y/n wonder if he had been drinking, “That’s all it took to be a demon in the old days.”

Y/n’s face softens, sadly watching Crowley mope around his throne while staring up at the ceiling, groaning, “Great Plan? God, you listening? Show me a Great Plan. Okay, I know you’re testing them, you said you were going to be testing them. You shouldn’t test them to destruction,” Crowley eyes the floating globe beside them, “Not to the end of the world.”

He bats the globe aside like a cat with its toy, only to watch the globe float back into position. When the room is silent, Y/n finally found a moment to talk without being interrupted, “Crowley, again, what is going on?”

“We need to leave,” his voice lowers now that his episode was over, pushing himself off the throne to walk over to her, “Alpha Centauri. You’ll love it there. Pack your things and then we can go off together. Aziraphale wants to stay, but if we leave now maybe we’ll run into him again before taking off. Tempt him to dinner or the cinema maybe then we can all go-?”

“And leave Earth?” She finished his sentence, understanding finally crossing her mind while straightening her shoulders, crossing her arms, “We’re running away?”

“Call it what you like. But we can’t win this. Heaven and Hell, they’re going to win. It doesn’t matter which of them wins because, by the time they do, humanity will already be gone. The world will end with the victor on top next to the Antichrist. They and the Four Horsemen are going to rule the world and there will be nothing left here for you, do you understand?”

Crowley places his hands on both of her arms, “All I know is that I can save you... and Aziraphale once he gets that stick out of his arse. Now come on. Let’s get you some clothes and food and we can take off. There won’t be any monsters left for you to fight so we can leave all you weapons and gear behind--”

Y/n steps out of Crowley’s grasp, staring down at her feet with defeat in her eyes when she looks up at Crowley’s confused expression, “As long as there is still time for me to do something, I’m going to do it.”

“Y/n, there isn’t any time left! Armageddon starts today! Not tomorrow, not next week--”

“I’m not an idiot,” Y/n hisses back, “I heard you the first five hundred times you’ve said it since the day we met or did you forget that you wanted me to help you stop Armageddon? Well, I told you I wasn’t going to step out of the deal and I won’t start now.”

“I’m sorry, but did I just so happen to make up the part about where we’re more than just partners now or did you make that bit up because it would make the deal we made easier?” Crowley snapped, and Y/n realized too late that what she said came out wrong to him as hurt was practically blazing from his snake eyes.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Are you still telling me that you want to hold your end of the bargain? Because I thought we threw that deal out the window the moment we decided to be together because the deal didn’t exactly matter by then.”

“It matters to me,” she snapped, “I promised to help you. Us being together only made it even more crucial that I keep up my end of the bargain because it meant that much to you. Together or not, I want to help the world, and I will.”

“Even when I’m asking you not to?” Crowley’s voice cracks to a higher pitch as he’s desperate to get a move on.

“If we just find the boy then we can--”

“For Heaven’s sake, Y/n, we need to leave!”

“I’m not leaving!” Y/n suddenly screams, “I am going to stop Armageddon in any way I can. Even if you’re too scared to do it--”

“I’m not scared, Y/n. I’m terrified!” Crowley curses under his breath and paces the room, before turning on his heels to waltz right back up to Y/n, “How long have we been together? Five years?”

Y/n went tightlipped as Crowley desperately tries to persuade her, “Please, darling. I’ve never begged you to do anything before but I’m begging you now. Come with me. We can run away together and live out the rest of our lives among the stars. Lots of spare planets up there. Nobody would even notice us.”

“You’re asking me to leave Earth! To leave my friends and family to die here. After all the friends I’ve lost to monsters, demons, and angels, I think it’s time I do something to make sure that never happens again,” Y/n’s voice cracks, taking a deep breath before she starts walking towards the door while grabbing her bag, “Sam and Dean expect me to visit next week to tell them everything about how I helped save the world... I don’t intend on disappointing my boys.”

“Darling, wait!” Crowley moves to grab Y/n but the female hunter was faster. After years of fighting and hunting demons, she’s learned how to avoid and even kill them of course. Before Crowley could reach her, Y/n took out a small tin of salt she had in her bags of groceries and before he could blink, Crowley was stopped by a line of salt inside the front doorway, with Y/n already on the other side, dropping the salt canister with a huff of air. She stares at Crowley with sad eyes, the two of them standing on either side of the salt line, silent, a look of betrayal in the demon’s eyes. Y/n wills herself to look away and she did.

“Goodbye, Crowley.”

“Y/n!” He cries after her as she leaves, and for all that he knew, it would be the last time he ever sees her.

~~~~~~~~~

At first, Y/n didn’t know where to start. Her first idea was to go to Aziraphale and help him figure out how to stop Armageddon. When she got to his shop, he was desperate to tell her everything. The angel had felt guilty for lying to Crowley about finding out where the Antichrist is and so he told Y/n instead. After telling Y/n the whereabouts of Adam Young, Aziraphale said he had work to do and so the human left him to his own devices. Now it was Y/n’s turn to get ready for her trip to Tadfield.

She takes the bus to the nearest cemetery, looking both ways before crossing the street towards the iron gate and climbing over it. Once she’s sure no one saw her, she makes it towards the large tomb overlooking the whole graveyard at the very center of all the stones. She fiddles with the lock and once the door opens, she makes her way inside. Without a second thought, Y/n throws the lid to the coffin in the center of the room aside, only to reveal that instead of a body, there was a spiral staircase heading down. Y/n hops inside the coffin and makes her way down the stairs, taking two steps at a time.

Like I’ve said before, Y/n had a network of hunters working for her outside of London for the very long years she has lived here. And during this time, a sophisticated hunter such as her needed to build a lair in which all sorts of weapons, traps, and other supernatural gear could be hidden away from prying eyes. Not even Crowley has been here since the tomb itself is riddled with traps for all sorts of beings. Y/n had even used blood magic so that only she could access the lair. Once inside, she turns on the light to find everything just where she left it. Guns were propped up onto the walls, and in the center was a glass case of other objects meant for the unreal monsters of the night. Salt, holy water, holy oil, dead man’s blood, Enochian puzzle boxes, the list goes on. She grabs a sawed-off double-barrelled shotgun from off the wall, loading it with a couple of rock salt shotgun shells before blowing a strand of hair from out of her face.

“Right then. Off to work.”

~~~~~~~~~

(Part 3?)

#good omens #good omens imagine #crowley #crowley x reader #crowley imagine #imagine #supernatural imagine #dean winchester #sam winchester #aziraphale #ineffable husbands #aziraphale x crowley #crowley x aziraphale #crowley x fem!reader #crowley x you

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bigskydreaming · 6 years ago

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Comic book Zatanna is VERY different from YJ Zatanna. To such a degree that rather than look at YJ Zatanna as an adaptation of her, I pretty much just think of them as entirely different characters. Like YJ Zatanna is named after her older cousin or something, who’s too busy dealing with mystical threats to ever show up onscreen. Its pretty significant what a difference changing a character’s age and what generation they’re a part of can make.

(Its also why I don’t ship Dick/Zatanna in YJ. My go-to Zatanna will always be the comics one, who’s like....dated his DAD. Its like how a couple of adaptations have tried to pair Bruce/Babs as a nod to like waaaaaaaaaaaaaay early versions of Batgirl, when like...no, Babs has dated Dick, his son, in way too many comics and cartoons what are you even doing, I DISREGARD YOU, FALSE CANON. Anyway.)

So, in the comics, Zatanna is the same age as Bruce, or near enough. And she and Bruce have a long history together, (including at times a romantic one) because in some continuities, before he was Batman, when he was still traveling the world and learning from every teacher he could, he frequently visited circuses and carnivals and the like. They were where he learned escape artist tricks, picked up things from magicians’ acts like Zatanna’s (such as sleight of hand and misdirection, etc), and acrobatics. Its literally been given as a reason he was at Haly’s Circus the night Dick’s parents died - he was scoping out their act to see if there were any tricks he could learn from or incorporate into his own repertoire.

What I’m getting at is Bruce knew Zatanna even before he was Batman for the exact same reason he met Dick. He inserted himself into the circles both of them traveled in as members of performer families with a generations long history with circuses and Vegas and carnivals and the like.

Which means....take Bruce out of the equation, and there’s still every chance that Dick and Zatanna’s paths could have crossed while they were both still performers. And that their families could have known each other.

So! AU where Zatanna was in Gotham visiting friends at Haly’s the night the Graysons died. And rather than watch Dick get shoved into an uncaring system when they took him away from the circus and refused to let him stay with them, the Mistress of Magic spirited Dick away and took custody of him herself.

Leading to Dick being raised by Zatanna instead of Bruce, continuing to work as a performer alongside her but now her magician’s assistant instead of an acrobat - though he still kept up with his acrobatics thanks to Zee’s acrobat friends letting him train on their trapeze whenever he had the itch to fly again. Dick grows up learning escape artist tricks and all the misdirection and sleight of hand Bruce learned from magicians, but straight from the source this time rather than via Bruce.

And eventually, Dick - child prodigy that he is - discovers that Zatanna’s act is the equivalent of hiding in plain sight, the perfect misdirection to cover up that she is a real magician, a homo sapiens magi, born naturally gifted in the mystic arts and one of the most powerful sorceresses in the world. Dick might not ever have her natural aptitude for HER type of magic, but there are many kinds of magic in the world, and thanks to her work (both professional and as a reserve member of the Justice League and occasional superheroine herself). Zatanna knows all the best and most talented magicians and sorcerers in the world. And many of those, Dick CAN learn from.

All of which leads to him eventually sneaking out as a vigilante on his own, combining his acrobatics with things like knife throwing and flashy misdirection that disguises his actual conjurings and spellwork when in the midst of battle. His specialties are illusion magics, spells of disguise and manipulation of shadows, vanishing into smoke and conjuring temporary doubles out of mirrors, etc. Just enough of what he does isn’t real that villains never see it coming when he conjures a real fireball right after they’d identified enough of the previous ones as harmless illusions and thought it was safe to stop dodging. Instead of it being just about raw power, he builds upon his ability to craft and sell an act.

Eventually he forms the Teen Titans with other sidekicks like Wonder Girl, Speedy, Kid Flash and Aqualad...as well as Barbara Gordon aka Batgirl, protégé of the Batman. Even his best friends couldn’t say how much he’s actually capable of - though with them, its not because he doesn’t trust them though, merely because he’s a troll. He always dismisses any talk of him being a sorcerer or calling what he does magic. Instead he just grins and winks and says he knows a few tricks, is all. What he considers ‘a few’ or how far he stretches the definition of ‘a trick’, well, that’s anyone’s guess. His entire hero career and reputation spins out of the fact that he COULD be one of the more powerful sorcerers to walk the earth....or he could simply be a great actor who makes the most out of a relative handful of lesser spells within his capabilities. Even his own teachers can’t say for sure. Every time someone thinks they’ve got his range figured out, he mischievously pulls out a new spell his previous shows of power have never hinted he’d be capable of, just to keep people guessing.

And maybe Zatanna and Dick are back performing in Gotham one winter, and Dick’s off visiting Batgirl while they’re in town, and Zatanna takes a stroll through town and passes through Crime Alley. No particular reason, its just an expedient route and she hardly is someone to take its reputation as a reason she of all people should be concerned.

Which is when a homeless street kid named Jason Todd tries to pick her pocket. Naturally, it doesn’t exactly work out for him, given who she is, but Zatanna Zatara is one to appreciate the irony of someone trying to pick HER pocket...as well as impressed at how close he comes to actually managing it. She takes him to a diner to feed him, coaxes enough of his story from him to figure out he has no one to look out for him and will never trust Gotham’s foster system (not that she’d blame him, given what she saw of it when she first took custody of Dick and had doubts about whether she was doing the right thing for him)...and figuring since it worked out well for her the first time she went down this road, offers Jason a fresh start elsewhere with her and Dick.

It isn’t long before Jason’s intellect and skilled hands prove equally effective at sleight of hand and magician’s tricks, as well as an eager student for every bit of actual magic his new big brother shares, along with what he learns from the teachers Zee and Dick both introduce him to. Over time, he gravitates towards different tutors specialties than Dick though. Illusions and mindgames, smoke and mirrors...that fits Dick’s natural showmanship and performer’s nature, but its not Jason’s style. Oh, he can bluff the hell out of anyone, never play poker with him, and his natural bravado easily translates into working a crowd and playing a stage alongside Zee and Dick when working. Its just not his preference is all.

No, he goes more for practical magic, straightforward approaches to achieving his intended results. Cut out the bullshit. Spells of primal force or elemental magicks, charms and runes of strength, healing and protection to augment his capabilities when he wades into a fight fists first and just starts brawling. He’s not afraid to summon a demon or two and make a bargain to achieve his ends - he’s even got the names of a couple inked into his skin as tattoos, a summoning shortcut that lets him call on his personal faves in a moment of desperation. Even demons have trouble circumventing a summoning or breaking free of its parameters when those things are etched permanently onto his body.

Dick does tend to have a few elemental spirits always nearby and easily summoned without much notice or prep time, but Dick being Dick, in his case its just because he made friends with them. There’s a couple of wind sprites always hanging around on the off-chance he gets into a fight and might need their help. They find such instances to be extremely fun and exciting, and also they’ve adopted the fun little bird human who flies as a kindred spirit.

In contrast, Jason comes home one day and Zatanna catches him trying to change the coverings on a new tattoo without her noticing. She's not mad because he's fifteen and not supposed to be getting tattoos. She's not exactly thrilled about that either, but no, of greater concern to her is the fact that the tattoo is a name written in a long dead alphabet. A name she recognizes as that of a primordial demon she was extremely clear about being one of those forces beyond her teenage son's ken, and which he most certainly was not supposed to be messing around with.

Jason's expression tightens mulishly and Zatanna longs for the days when that was just purple prose she read in books sometimes while wondering vaguely how that even worked and what that actually looked like.

"Dick said I had to," her younger son says. He folds his arms across his chest defiantly. Zatanna closes her eyes and counts to five.

"I did not!" her older son yells right on schedule. The air shimmers like heat waves rising off pavement on a hot summer day and Dick drops the cloaking spell he's been using to eavesdrop. She's not sure why he even bothered with the thing; they both knew he was there the whole time. Not because his spell hadn't been text book perfect and beyond even her ability to pierce mystically, but because Dick tended to forget all the magic in the world can't keep predictable behavior from being predicted.

"You literally said Jason, you gotta do the thing," Jason insists, doubling down. Dick's arms flail like an anthropomorphic windmill tripping on shrooms.

"No, I literally said Jason, don't do the thing," Dick shrieks, cartoonishly outraged. Zatanna fights back a small smile despite the situation. She's seen her eldest smoothly engage a minor deity in a verbal chess match as the fate of his fellow Teen Titans hung in the balance, all without once breaking a sweat. One blatant lie delivered straight to his face by his younger brother though, and he went zero to sixty in two point five seconds, skipping straight past the realization he was being played. Zee still had every intention of grounding her youngest for the next decade for being so dumb as to ink himself with a mystical tether to a demon that once ate an entire civilization - yes, ate - but that didn't mean she couldn't also be impressed at Jason's attempt at finessing himself out of this situation. He'd jumped straight to the only thing that had even had a prayer of distracting Zee from his teenage idiocy - Dick at Defcon Five. Now if only she could get him to apply that same level of forethought to things like oh, the possible longterm consequences of giving a supernatural Being of Mass Destruction a direct dial up connection to him....

Dick turns desperate eyes on her. "Seriously Mom, I swear. I said the actual words 'Jason NO.'"

"See?" Jason flings his arm at his brother in triumphant vindication. "Have you met me? Everyone knows that's code for 'Jason YES.'"

"Oh my god, I will curse you to rot the pages of every first edition you touch," Dick hisses dramatically. Jason pales briefly, but rallies.

"And really, how is this any different from when you slept with Batgirl and I said that was a really bad idea and its totally gonna end up biting you in the ass, and then you said that I shouldn't have told you to do it then?"

"That's completely different," Dick howls, reverting back to Windmill, Drunk In A Windstorm. "You said 'Don't be mad, but that new scrying spell I was trying accidentally locked on to Batgirl instead of Batman and I saw her walking home from school out of costume just for a second before I shut off the spell but spoiler alert, she doesn't wear a wig while in costume, she really is a redhead even with her cowl off, which means now you gotta sleep with her, like, we all know its gonna happen anyway now. PS its Barbara Gordon, that's the punchline, you're already obsessed with her, oh crap now you're gonna be insufferable huh.' Which by the way, I so am not. Jerk."

"Yes," Jason says slowly and with exaggerated patience. Zatanna's migraine builds and builds. "And then I said, 'Dick, no, stop, I was making a joke, you don't actually have to...' and you said 'No, but I gotta'. Your shirt was practically already off by the time I finished saying 'redhead.'"

"Well, duh! Of course it was! Have you met me?" Dick volleys back in what Zee really hopes is her eldest making a deliberate callback to her youngest's earlier crack, and not some bizarre teenage superstition that has him actually thinking nope nope those thoughts are in the Bad Place, Zatanna, its absolutely believable that Dick is actually still twelve and the boys are just using embellishing language to feel grown up. C'mon, if you try hard enough you can milk a good thirty more seconds of denial about your son's sex life, you're literally magic, you can do this.

The ludicrousness of it all is so effortlessly identical to his brother's idiocy just moments prior, Zatanna has a brief, uncharitable thought that the Graysons had a second child they gave up for adoption and nobody ever told either of the boys. She opens her mouth to put a stop to the nonsense, but what comes out:

"You slept with Bruce's protégé?"

Dick pauses mid-rant and fidgets uneasily. His eyes dart around the room as if expecting the Batman to appear, summoned by the power of his name. "Umm. Only a couple times?" he says slash asks, warily.

"On several different occasions," Jason adds gleefully. Zatanna rubs her temples and rounds on him before Dick can return fire.

"And you tried to scry Batman?"

"Umm," Jason stutters. Stops. Aims an accusing finger at his brother again. "Dick dared me to!"

"That's it! Curse coming right up," Dick snaps, fingers crooking into arcane gestures.

"Enough! Both of you!" Zatanna feels slightly guilty when both boys fall silent and hunch over, metaphorical tails between their legs. Even when they were being obnoxious, it was still weirdly charming in a way - eww, who even was she right now? Maternity was a mistake. Still, she couldn't find it in herself to bring down the full force of her ire when all they were doing really was being....ridiculous boys being ridiculous brothers. She sighs and contemplates telling them just to go to bed, they'd discuss it in the morning after she'd had time to cool off and think about it....decides god no, that risks all of this happening all over again. Splits the difference and calls it a night.

"Jason, you're grounded for a month for whatever you did to even get someone to give you a tattoo while under eighteen without parental approval. And you're grounded from any spells outside of lesson plans and homework assigned by one of your tutors until you can tell me in detail why I'm concerned your choice of tattoo was an absolutely terrible idea, and you can present me with no less than three different wards or counterspells that prepare for the possibility of that absolutely terrible idea becoming an absolutely terrible catastrophe. Not a word," she finishes sharply with a pointed finger, when he starts to protest. He sulkily subsides again.

"Dick, one word answers only, no explanations, excuses or qualifiers. You made sure Barbara knew exactly who you were and that you knew exactly who she was before you both....made it extremely awkward for me to look Bruce in the eye at the next Justice League meeting?"

"Yes," Dick says wincing.

"You used protection....each time on each different occasion?"

"Yes," her eldest says, examining the floor as if weighing the likelihood of it opening up and swallowing him whole.

"You're not being every gross stereotype of teenage boys as normalized by Hollywood, using or objectifying girls in the name of toxic masculinity - you actually have feelings for this girl?"

"Yes," he says firmly, meeting her eyes again. Zatanna nods, letting that linger as she absorbs both his sincerity and the passage of time. Where did the last decade and that little eight year old with the baby fat and chipmunk cheeks go? But then, this is good too, she decides, and she nods, satisfied. Course, a little embarrassment is good for the soul, she figures.

"You understand that the world is full of other smart, beautiful redheads you could have chosen to pursue with far less complications?"

"Be right back, have to go die now," Dick announces loudly, and Zatanna chuckles and takes pity on him. Jason's paler Irish skin goes red at the drop of a hat, but it takes a much higher level of mortal humiliation for Dick's darker skin to betray any kind of blush.

"Nothing to get all red in the face about, sweetheart," she says because look, her kids had to get it from somewhere. Jason cackles, doubling over with mirth and Zatanna makes her exit while her youngest is too busy being amused at his brother's expense to remember he's ticked about being grounded.

She lingers on the other side of the wall, drinking in the sound of Jason's laughter and Dick's sulking, long enough that she's still there to overhear when Dick silences his brother's entertainment:

"Saved your ass, you manipulative little shit. Don't think I didn't know what you were doing there. You owe me for playing along."

"Yeah, yeah, all hail Benevolent Big Brother Dick," Jason grumbles, but there's gratitude beneath the grumbling. Zatanna's eyes narrow as she reflects on how much lighter a sentence Jason ended up with, compared to what her first instincts had intended. Well, crap. Dick hadn't been the one oblivious to all the layers of that little episode at all, had he? That was annoyingly humbling. Still, Zatanna shakes her head at herself and goes to bed with a smile. She respects the art of the con too much to be upset her children learned more from her teachings than she'd realized.

Well played, boys.

The brothers' respective preferences in summonings aren't the only places they differ. Where Dick has a half a dozen spells of invisibility or intangibility on stand by in case he needs to sneak into a heavily fortified place, Jason stays stocked up with an equivalent number of spells capable of just blowing the front door off its hinges.Of course, Tim Drake being Tim Drake, his inclusion into their little family happens exactly as you’d expect.

He literally follows them home one day.

His neglectful absentee parents are archaeologists, after all. Spending more of their time away at dig sites than at home with him. When they are home though, they make a show of caring, take him out to the circus and to shows, parading him in public so everyone can see what a nice family they all are and how much they dote on their only child. So just like in canon, Tim’s there at the circus too, the night the Graysons are murdered. And in the years to follow, he’s at a number of the Zataras’ magic shows, and easily puts together that Dick and Jason are the two masked mystical teen superheroes that spend as much time doing flips and punching and kicking villains as they do weaving actual spells.

And his parents, being the kind of archaeologists who grew up as rich bored white Gotham elites who picked archaeology as their field of study because its not like they actually needed to work and they’d watched Indiana Jones so often, they were like, yes, excellent, I will model my life adventures and career path after this movie and its depiction of archaeology....

Like, so clearly, they’re the dumbass kind of archaeologists who have no actual respect for the artifacts they dig up and just like how they look in their home or behind glass museum cases with plaques about who donated them.

Tim however, is not dumb, way better than his parents, and has a lot of free time and a hobby of researching EVERYTHING. So eventually he discovers the real origins of a lot of artifacts his parents have around the house, and determines that a) they really shouldn’t be here, and b) some of these have spiritual and even mystical reputations and power and are possibly very dangerous in the wrong hands or even just from being removed from their resting places or lands/cultures of origin, so they REALLY shouldn’t be here.

So the next time the Zataras’ magic show comes to Gotham, he (carefully) stuffs his backpack full of as many as he can carry, and sneaks out to go watch the show. And then he follows them back to where they’re staying, introduces himself and says he knows who they are and could they please help him return all these artifacts to where they belong and also hurry because some of them might blow up the world if they’re gone too much longer and that’s not WHY he wants to return them, like they should just because its the right thing to do, but he thought he should mention it because it seems like its an important factor. He’d do it himself, but he’s not allowed to go on a plane by himself, but he did write apology notes to go with each artifact for taking them without asking, and also could he have their autographs?

Dick blinks cartoonishly large eyes, sweeps the ten year old off his feet into a giant hug and announces, “We’re keeping him.”

Zatanna tries to do this in an orderly fashion, of course. “Tim, where are your parents? Do they know you’re here?”

Dick sniffs. “Irrelevant. We’re keeping him. Look how adorable he is, is there really anyone who could possibly appreciate his adorableness more than us? No. Ergo. We’re keeping him.”

Jason rolls his eyes. “He’s not a pet, asshole. And adorableness isn’t a word, stop making up words, I will punch you I swear. But also yeah, we’re keeping him.”

Tim’s heart is having a full on meltdown at the thought that two of his heroes want him to stay, but he’s a Drake and Drakes are very big on Proper and protocols and decorum, and he’s pretty sure this isn’t how things work. “I’m not actually supposed to be out by myself, so I definitely should be home before nine cuz that’s my bedtime...”

Dick takes him into his bedroom, drops him on his bed and says: “There you go. You’re in bed and its not even eight o’clock yet. Problem solved.”

“...I think it only counts if I’m in bed in my bed?”

Dick snaps his fingers and the headboard is mystically inscribed with “Tim” in a flourish of colorful sparks. “See? Its your bed now, it has your name on it and everything. This can be your new room and I’ll bunk with Jay. We can’t have you share a room with him, he snores and you’re too adorable to inflict that on. Growing boys need at least eight hours of RESTFUL sleep.”

Tim chews his lip. He’s not entirely sure the older boy’s logic is sound, but when laid out in that fashion, it doesn’t sound completely unreasonable, right? He makes one last token attempt to get up. Jason sits on him. Gently, but still.

“Oh no, we’re holding him against his will. We’ve officially kidnapped him at this point,” Jason says cheerfully. “Mom, you better go find his parents and tell them their son is missing and being held hostage and won’t be released until they can explain to the police why their son’s kidnappers had to notify them that their son was missing and had wandered all the way through Gotham at night alone.”

Tim protests. “Its not a big deal. I do that all the time!”

Jason and Dick look at him. Look at each other. Look at Zatanna. Arch their eyebrows expectantly.

Zatanna sighs. As ridiculous as her boys are being, this has played out about how she expected it would the second she realized the ten year old was completely on his own and used to it. And let’s face it. They’re only like this because she’s like this. She regrets everything except also she regrets nothing. Not that she’ll tell them that right now. They both look a little too smug in her opinion. Let ‘em sweat for at least a few hours. “I’ll go see what the situation is and figure out what to do next. Stay here and don’t let him eat too much sugar. And if you watch TV, nothing R-rated.”

Dick rolls his eyes. “We know. We’re not gonna scar the kid in like, the few hours you’re gone.”

“You made your brother watch The Babadook when he was eleven.”

“Well that’s different. He was being an ass. Timmy’s being adorable. Completely unrelated situations,” Dick says in the tone of someone who thinks they’re being reasonable. Jason scowls.

“Wow, are you seriously victim blaming me for the nightmares I got from that shit? Way to make fun of my psychological trauma, asshole.”

“Hey, I didn’t MAKE you watch that movie. I TOLD you to go to bed.” Dick idly examines his nails. "You’re the one who said you were too old to have a bed time and you could stay up as late as I could and anything I could watch you could watch too.”

“Oh please. That’s basic reverse psychology. You knew exactly what you were doing.”

“But Jay-jay, I thought you were too smart to ever fall for my tricks the way all my dumbass friends always do! Are you saying that’s not true? Did I actually manipulate my brilliant little brother who has always been much too clever and much too observant to ever be tricked into doing exactly what I wanted him to do? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Hey good news, Tim, neither of us will have to share a room after I murder this assface in his sleep.”

“Don’t worry Timmy, that’s just Jason for I love you.”

Zatanna sighs again and leaves before they can see her grinning. She enables their antics far too much as it is.

Within a week, the Zataras officially have custody of Timothy Jackson Drake. The boys are pretty sure that’s way too quickly for it to have happened legally, and there might have been a spell or two speeding up the process. But they don’t actually care, so. Yeah.

Unlike his brothers, Tim is the only one to fully embrace the titles of magician or sorcerer. His mind is his strength, research is his specialty, and its just inefficient in his opinion to waste time with acrobatics and brawling that comes naturally to them but would need to be acquired skills for him. Instead he just devotes all his learning to the mystic arts, learning from teachers of all kinds of specialties, but also just as much from his research of old texts and his theorizing on the natures of various forms of magic and how they interact. He happily spends hours poring over a dozen different translations and scribbling notes as he goes, distilling complex rituals into new forms that allow for the substitution of more commonplace ingredients and thus greatly widen the scope of his repertoire. He has a talent for doing all the legwork on a dozen different spells of incredible complexity and then leaving them ‘hanging’, with just the last bits incomplete, easily stored in his eidetic memory for him to call upon and trigger in mere moments as he finishes the last bit of any given spell with just a few words, thus doing in the heat of battle what other sorcerers would require hours to replicate.

All three end up gravitating to different superhero teams as they grow older, but all of them have their reputations with the hero community at large. Its generally expected that if you have a problem that needs a magical solution, and you’ve got enough time for preparation and planning - you call Tim. If you need to blow shit up and in a hurry - you call Jason. And if you’re just plain fucked and need a Hail Mary - you call Dick.

You’re usually gonna get all three anyway though, so whatever.

At some point when Tim's around fifteen or so himself, the Court of Owls ends up trying to get their Talons on Dick, because they suck and are terrible and entitled and their only real possible value comes from being a wasted potential metaphor for how often everyone seems to have their own ideas or expectations for what Dick should be doing or saying or feeling at any given time, with most of the things others get pissed about him for in the comics essentially boiling down to Dick doing or saying or feeling things that don't match up to their expectations or presumptions, and that people wouldn't bat an eye about anyone else doing or saying or feeling, its just Dick's supposed to be different, he's doing (x) wrong, ugh he can't even be traumatized properly without him usually ending up apologizing to other people for the fact that he was the one who was just screwed over, weird, its almost like these things are connected. I mean whoops, this is story time, not meta about all the thoughts and feels I, the dastardly fourth wall breaking narrator, have whilst butthurt on behalf of Dick. My badness.

Ahem.

Yes, when last we left our intrepid heroes, rich entitled bastards with a pervy penchant for nursery rhymes and child assassins had set their sights on claiming Dick and turning him into their mindless zombie bird-themed killing machine.

In all fairness, they did lead with the extremely persuasive argument of 'look we totally called dibs before he was even born, so.....step off??'

Then they kidnapped him and attempted to turn him into their mindless zombie bird-themed killing machine.

Compelling argument though that may be, Dick's brothers are not impressed. They are, however, magical, hyper-competent and extremely petty slash vindictive.

All of which is to say, Tim turns the Court into a bunch of actual owls. And then Jason summons a giant murderous hawk-demon from another dimension that eats all the owls.

And then they wait for Dick to wake up from all the drugs the Court pumped him full of in preparation for The Ritual of Zombie Assassin Making. And Tim just has to ruin it, that asshole.

"You know, hawks aren't naturally the enemies of owls," Tim says out of nowhere. Well. Not out of nowhere so much as out of concern, because Tim's natural physiological response to being worried is to get pedantic.

"What," says Jason flatly. Which is his natural physiological response to Tim being. Y'know. Tim.

Tim shrugs, his eyes intent on their older brother, who is still making like Sleeping Beauty and sooooo gonna get razzed by them for that later, once the Worry and Anxiety have all exited stage right. "It just felt like you were going for a theme. Which is fine, I'm just saying, owls don't actually have natural predators. One might occasionally get killed by a hawk, but usually that's more of a territorial dispute and still pretty much an outlier in terms of statistics."

"Why would you even say that to me right now," says Jason flatly. Not asking, because its a rhetorical question and he's currently glaring the answer to it straight at Tim's back, and that answer is ugh you are such an annoying little shit sometimes.

Which is why when Dick groggily starts to come to, he's greeted by a soundtrack of:

"God, I'm so sorry, I'm just the worst for giving you information that you didn't know before, since clearly if you had you wouldn't have gone with a hawk!"

"Well what the fuck should I have gone with, a demonic taxidermist? Like excuse me for being in such a rush to heap vengeance on the pretentious shits who kidnapped our brother, I didn't have time to go to wikipedia and figure out the most appropriate dramatic irony!"

"First off, why would you ever go to wikipedia as a source, we have literally had this exact argument several dozen times - "

"First off, are you seriously giving me bullet points right now. Seriously. Bullet points. Right now. That's a thing that's happening."

"You are such an infant. How are you older than me? I make one little critique and you bite my freaking head off - "

"What's happening?" Dick croaks out into one of the few synchronized pauses for breath. "Where are we?"

"The secret underground lair of an evil society of ornithologists who kidnapped you because your milkshake brings all the weirdos to the yard," Jason says crankily, still glaring at Tim.

Not that fuzzy, barely conscious but always guilt-prone Dick could possibly know that its not actually him Jason's ticked at. Tim face palms at his middle brother because what are bedside manners, clearly.

"A bird-themed cult calling themselves the Court of Owls pre-selected you to be turned into the general of their elite zombie assassin army," Tim recites quickly, predicting Dick's likely request for further information.

"Well that's rude," Dick frowns. He cracks open one eye experimentally, winces when even the dim lighting is enough to give his pounding headache a booster shot. Tries the other eye. Nope. Both eyes are in agreement. Light is the enemy of all that is good right now. Ugh. Definitely rude. He likes light. How dare someone incite this unforgivable betrayal from his BFF, light? "I don't think I care for their recruitment strategy. Although at least they wanted me to be the Boss Zombie Assassin I guess."

"Yes," Tim replies dolefully. "That does appear to be the silver lining here."

Despite their antagonism of thirty seconds ago, Jason snickers. They're nuanced like that.

"Well his usual priorities seem to be in place, so I think its safe to say we got to him before they could do any actual brainwashing," Jason says. "All in favor of blowing this popsicle stand?"

"Wait, there are popsicles?"

"No, there aren't popsicles in the evil cult's secret underground murder lair. Its a figure of speech, dumbass."

"Hey," Dick pouts. He coughs once, weakly, but Jason's eyes narrow in sudden suspicion of Milking It Syndrome. "Be nice to me. I was just kidnapped and almost made an Elite Zombie Assassin Boss and my head hurts and is all fuzzy and you know how I feel about popsicles. You shouldn't joke about them if you don't have any, that's just mean. But uh, should we be rushing? If the bad guys are coming back soon I do vote for the not being here option, like, just in case turning me into the Zombie Apocalypse is still on the evil cult agenda."

He would manage to latch onto the Elite and Boss part of that info dump, wouldn't he, Jason muses. What's the timeline for how long you have to express sympathy for your almost-brainwashed brother before you can yell at him for being insufferable about it? Is half an hour long enough?

"No, its fine," Tim assures their brother. "We uh....were slightly miffed about the whole kidnapping you thing, and so we were.....efficient? I guess you could say? About making sure they wouldn't do it again. I turned them all into owls."

"And then I summoned a hawk demon that ate them. You're welcome," Jason adds, not about to be left out. Even if he's going to have words later about being characterized as 'miffed.' The walking almanac knows more words in more languages than anyone in human history, pretty much, and he goes with miffed. The fuck, Timmy. The actual fuck.

"Aww, you guys, that's so sweet." Dick beams at them. Albeit at somewhat lower than his usual wattage. Then his forehead wrinkles slightly in confusion. "Why a hawk demon? Do owls not like hawks or something?"

Tim smirks at Jason viciously.

"I hate you with the searing intensity of a thousand suns," Jason tells his brat of a younger brother. "Also, gonorrhea."

Zatanna then teleports into the middle of the room with a flash of light and a hurried rush to the side of her lying-on-the-ground, suddenly flailing eldest son.

"Gah, evil light is evil! Curse your betrayal!" Dick wails dramatically, flinging an arm across his face despite the visible effort movement is still taking. Because he really is just that invested in keeping his Melodrama Game on point, willing to play through the pain if necessary. Jason rolls his eyes. If nothing else, he can at least respect his older brother's ability to commit.

"What happened here?" Zatanna wastes no time before asking, even as she begins running her hands lightly over Dick and muttering chants to divine for unseen injuries or influencing substances. Tim catches her up to speed with another dry recitation of the day's events. It doesn't sound any less ridiculous the second time around.

"And you two decided to just rush right into the heart of a criminal organization's secret headquarters with no plan, no way of knowing what you were jumping headfirst into and no back up?" Zatanna snaps out in a biting tone that's 70% Frantic Motherly OMG I Could've Lost All Three Of You I Don't Know What I Would've Done and 30% How Are You Seriously This Dumb, No, I Really Want To Know, You Boys Share Zero Genetics So It Can't Possibly Be Mutually Inherited Dumbness And Yet Here You All Are Being This Dumb, How, Why, I Strenuously Object.

At least, Jason's pretty sure its 70/30.

Eh. Maybe 60/40.

He looks at Tim and they both shrug. "We left a note," Jason offers lamely.

Their mightily miffed mother - and Jason totally gets it now, good call on that one actually, Timbo, Miffed can totally be intimidating, turns out - is not even slightly appeased.

"Yes, I did see your note," Zatanna says, slow and dangerous, an ominous cold front that's frosty enough to reverse global warming. Jason shivers. "The one that read 'Dick kidnapped by crazy bird freaks. Went to go get him. Somewhere in Gotham's sewers. Ugh why is it always sewers, I fucking hate sewers. Be back later. Love, Jason and Tim.' That note?"

Jason's honestly not sure what the problem is. All the relevant information was there. Tim glares at him.

"I knew I should have written the note," he hisses like an angry cat. Jason rolls his eyes again, because really, what other weapon does he have against his brothers' Drama?

"We had time for me to write a note, Tim. We didn't have time for you to write an essay with fully annotated footnotes all properly accredited according to MLA approved guidelines."

"I can be brief!"

"Name one time that you have ever been brief about anything. Ever."

Tim hesitates.

"Just because I can't think of anything right this second doesn't mean it didn't happen! You're just putting me on the spot," he sulks.

"Whatever. I'm not going to apologize for being in a rush. We had an older brother to save from evil brainwashing birdwatchers, remember? Would everyone prefer we took our sweet time and got here and found Zombie Dick instead?"

Tim wilts. Their mother thaws. Jason savors the moment. He so rarely gets to enjoy the moral high ground. Its nice, really. He can kinda see the appeal from up here, actually.

"That's Elite General Zombie Dick to you, peon," Dick chooses that moment to interject. Jason inhales through his nose. Five seconds. Five whole seconds that lasted.

"Seriously?" He asks his older brother. Dick blinks innocently.

"I am very traumatized by my near undeath experience," he explains. "That's just my coping mechanism."

Jason's eye twitches.

Later still, Jason somehow winds up getting into it with the Joker of all people, in Ethiopia of all places. Seriously, what, he still doesn't understand how or why any of that happened. His life, man. So fucking random.

But that's a story for another day. It doesn't end all that badly, all things considered, not nearly as bad as it could've. The moral of the story is essentially that six out of seven days, Jason is still the brother best avoided in dark alleys, but on the seventh day....Dick and Timmy are perhaps best avoided as well.

And later still, some jackass with a Wizard of Oz fetish decides that Tim-napping isn't just the worst colossally bad fucking idea any misfiring synapses have ever conceived. In this AU though, we stan brothers who check, double check and triple check before calling a time of death, because like the saying goes, fool us once, shame on you, fool us thirty seven times in just any single given decade, then yeah, that's probably on us at that point....

But non-brother approved Tim Tormenting is highly frowned upon in this universe, so Dick and Jason make like the Brothers Grimm, sharpen their spells and go questing down a literal yellow brick road that Dick conjures to lead them straight to the mysterious Mister Oz. And one of these days, Jason would really like to know where Dick gets some of his spells, he really would. Because. Yeah. Never mind, that's best unpacked another day, he figures.

Truthfully, that's all a story for another day as well, as Dick and Jason and Tim probably need to compare notes first and clear up a few things among themselves. None of them are entirely sure they even get what all of that was even about at all. It all seemed very strange and unnecessary, the standard villain monologues were a lot less explanatory than usual, nobody ever really satisfactorily explained Why You So Creepily Interested In Our Baby Bro, Bee Tee Dubs, and the deeper down the rabbit hole they all went, the more every reveal seemed to lead to an increasingly smaller Russian nesting doll hidden inside in the previous one.

And maybe the bad guy was Superman's dead dad from Krypton, which...okay, weird, whatever. And maybe he was just a patsy and the real monster all along was this giant glowing blue guy who seemed to have every power imaginable except for the power to put on a freaking pair of pants? I mean, everyone needs a gimmick, I guess. And then behind that funhouse mirror they found maybe the real villain all along was some rando in a toga who called himself Ozymandias and claimed to have been a hero, and nope, nuh uh, Jason isn't buying that for a second, he says you named yourself in reference to a line that literally says Look Upon My Works O Ye Mighty And Despair and you're saying everyone just went yup, that checks out, we've got ourselves a hero here, pure intentions through and through? Nope, sorry, not buying it.

And Ozy's face got as purple as the costume that would've gotten him in the door to any frat party but not much else, and honestly, as much as it flaps in a firm breeze its not even a step up from Dr. Moons Over Manhattan's permanent residency at a nude ranch he takes with him everywhere he goes, more of a lateral move really....

And he opened his mouth to say something suitably villainous and to do something no doubt dastardly, but that's when Dick cut him off with a yawn and a "Oh my god I have never been this bored in my life, I honestly don't care. Literally nobody asked." And he conjured up his yellow brick road again, told them he had no idea which of them needed the brain, which the heart and which the courage, but like...discuss among yourselves, and then he and Jason punted all three losers off to see the Wizard except Dick shrugged after shutting down the spell and said that guy died, like, five years ago. Its just no one else there has figured that out yet. Whoops. Oh well.

Look, its as clear and understandable a resolution to that particular adventure as anyone else might have doled out over an unnecessarily padded number of weeks until the patience of everyone involved was stretched well past the point of reason, so....whatever. That's what happened, the end.

And then Jason blows some shit up until he feels better about how obnoxiously pointless all that was and there's lots of yelling about worst bad guys ever, is there no vetting process anymore, are the inmates running the asylum, has the whole universe gone mad. Which somehow segues into Tim yelling about is Jason seriously upstaging him at his own Dramatic Rescue, how is this about him, oh my god, can't I even get five whole minutes to angst without you carjacking the family Waah-mobile.

Meanwhile Dick leans back contentedly against the one wall still standing as a convenient backdrop, and watches the baby bros go. And Mom says they don't have any family traditions.

He actually really enjoys these moments. At least the ones where nobody's yelling at him.

But again, as I said....really all that's a tale for another day. On this day, what remains of significance is the universal truism that no matter the universe, the timeline, the place or the time or the people.....

If there be a Bruce, then that Bruce is gonna Bruce.

And we all know what that looks like.

That is to say:

Meanwhile, back in Gotham, events unfold in strangely familiar ways. Even if some of their usual players are currently preoccupied sojourning their way back across the dimensions before they're late for dinner and Momma Zatara has their heads. Adopted though her kids may be, Zatanna is still an Italian mother. And you do not fuck with an Italian mother's family dinner plans.

That's how people die.

But fractionally less dramatically than Zatanna sits awaiting her boys' late arrival to dinner with a A Damn Good Explanation For That If They Know What’s Good For Them, Bruce meets Cassandra Cain and rescues her from her father.

He’s still Bruce Wayne, even if events played out differently for his first three canon kids. So he does what any Bruce would do and adopts her.

And then Cass brings Stephanie home and says she’s a runaway and her dad was a villain and well, what’s Bruce gonna do, not adopt her? Don't be absurd.

And then Talia shows up on Bruce’s doorstep and shoves a ten year old Damian at him and says "Congratulations, its a boy. Please take care of him while I go and try and kill my father and sister without getting killed by them first. I’m not sure how long that will take but my father has managed to last six centuries despite countless betrayals so I suspect it might be awhile."

I imagine these events all happen roughly in the span of a month, because there is no such thing as a world where Bruce knows how to pace himself.

There’s also no such thing as a world where Bruce knows how to gracefully ask for help. But even at his most stubborn he’s capable of recognizing when things fall outside his skillset and his best move is to seek advice from experts in fields outside his expertise. Like parenting.

And his old friend Zatanna has raised three boys who are well loved and respected by the entire hero community, so she must know what she’s doing. Yes, absolutely, his frazzled mind decides. Zatanna will have all the answers. His logic is sound. He's double checked his math and everything. Yes, he has equations for this sort of thing. No, they're not scientifically or empirically accurate, but just because one has arbitrarily assigned numeric values to various events, decisions and possible outcomes in order to justify to oneself that one's intended course of action is Endorsed By Data and Scientifically Derived Conclusions, like....that doesn't mean those values are all arbitrary and the conclusions and data that derive from them are fictitious and meaningless.

Shhh, shhh, don't question that last sentence, just nod and smile and accept that you're just not quite brilliant enough to understand the genius that is Brucenometry, and that's totally understandable and the real reason Bruce hasn't shared the math system he invented with the rest of the world. We just wouldn't get it, you see?

(And yes, he absolutely calls it Brucenometry in his head, because despite what the Batmen of other universes would have us believe, all the eight year old incarnations of Dick Grayson are naught but a scapegoat for the emotionally stunted manchild who absolutely devised the labeling system of 'what if I put Bat in front of every word tho and that's how you knew it was mine, yes, good, this is obviously the most logical and efficient taxonomy possible, its practically the Occam's Bat-Razor of nomenclatures, huzzah I am the smartest in all the land, eat my Batshit I mean guano I mean crazy I mean shut up no you're dumb.' And if you don't think Bruce sounds like that in his head you're just drinking the Kool-Aid, dear reader. Pick up any issue where Bruce is having an emotional fight with someone and skip to where he insists on having the last word before sweeping dramatically into the darkness, and substitute that last word with 'nuh uh, your face'. It reads practically the same, I swear.

Anyway, thus Brucenometry is only Brucenometry instead of Batnometry because he came up with the math first. The math is literally how he calculated that combining crime fighting with his fursona was by far the most expedient route for building a better, brighter Gotham? Duh? Like if you don't get it, he really can't explain it any more clearly than that, and this is possibly one of the reasons he doesn't let the Martian Manhunter in his head. Well, that and all the equally Scientific Ponderings on how accurate a label 'Buns of Steel' is for Superman's butt, and how might this best be tested. Y'know. For Science.)

It's possible I've gotten off track here. I blame Bruce. Bruce blames Clark's ass. Its this whole thing.

Ahem.

So Bruce decides Zatanna has all the answers to all his questions, clearly. Because you see, Bruce knows practically everything that's worth knowing, so anyone who knows something Bruce doesn't already know, ergo, ipso facto, must therefor in conclusion be smarter than Bruce. And if they're smarter than Bruce, as smart as Bruce already is and knowing as much as Bruce already knows, well then, they must know literally everything.

Bam. You've just been Bat Logic-ed.

Bruce sends a message. He waits. He's expecting something along the lines of a call back, but one minute he blinks and the next minute Zatanna's in the middle of the disaster his new brood of three have made of his living room, hands on her hips, shaking her head as she looks around.

“What did you do?” She asks, exasperatedly.

He really doesn't understand why so many people take that particular tone with him. All of his choices are excellent and backed by Brucenometry. He can show his work and everything.

Bruce would respond, but he’s distracted by the three unknown variables. He admittedly had not expected her to bring all three of her boys along with her. Then again, they're magicians and magic always messes up his calculations. Its the worst. Stupid magic. He keeps himself from glaring at the teenager, practically still a teenager, and fully grown man chugging down a Pixie stick while playing what sounds like Candy Crush on his phone with his free hand.

Zee just shakes her head at him when Bruce tries to turn her question back on her with a pointed look.

“They were with me when I got your message and they wanted to come. Given how non-informative and vague the information you gave me was, it seemed plausible they might have a helpful perspective. Don’t change the subject. What did you do.”

“In all fairness, I should clarify that we were mostly just bored,” Tim says dryly.

“Also, this sounded amazing,” Jason adds, smirking.

Dick bounces up and down. “I’m very excited to be here for this! By the way, what is this, what's happening, what's going on? I was not totally paying complete attention, maybe. Oooh, does this place have an indoor pool? I bet it has an indoor pool. God, I love how completely unnecessary old rich people houses are, its amazing.”

That’s when a ten year old mini-Bruce wanders in, parentage apparent in every premature scowl line on his face. “Father, who are these people?”

Dick emits a gleeful sound that lends credence to his spirit friends’ theory he’s not entirely human and just appears right next to Damian, sweeping him up into a hug. His brothers blink, unsure if he had a teleport spell they didn’t know about, or if his natural ability to seek out anyone in need of a hug like a heat-seeking missile could actually allow him to move faster than the eye can see. Could go either way, to be honest.

“Oh my god, he’s like a tiny baby bat, he’s adorable,” Dick says, words rushing out at a speed normally achievable only by speedsters.

Damian has frozen at the unexpectedness of his behavior, but the outrage swiftly sets in. “What did you just call me?”

“A tiny baby bat!”

“Not that, the other thing.”

“Adorable!”

“How dare you!” The ten year old produces a knife from somewhere and attempts a stabbing that results in said knife being transmuted into a Twizzler. Dick twists in that unnatural way only his body is capable of and somehow mid-hug still manages to eat the Twizzler, because why not, apparently.

“I’m keeping him,” Dick declares, right on schedule. "He is my new brother and also now my weekend favorite, sorry not sorry. Jason is now my Monday and Friday favorite and Timmy is my Tuesday and Thursday favorite. Wednesdays can be my me time."

"But Dick," Tim deadpans in a lifeless monotone, now absorbed in doing something with his own phone. "How can I not be your Wednesday favorite? On Wednesdays we wear pink."

Jason rocks back on his heels, rolls his head back on his neck and stares up at the room's high, vaulted ceiling despairingly. "I hate that I get that reference. I hate that so much. I just don't know if I hate Tim for saying it, Dick for being the reason he said it, or me for hearing it and getting it. Quick, somebody tell me who to punch, I can't make this decision, its too hard."

Zatanna pinches the bridge of her nose and exhales. Cass and Steph lurk in the doorway and stare at the scene, bemused. Bruce is statue still. It’s possible his complete inability to process anything that’s happening right now has computer-crashed his every system. See kids, this is what comes of spending too much time trying to emulate a robot. Don't do drugs. Stay in school. Emote.

“Dick, I know that worked out for you the last two times you tried that, but its not going to fly here. This child actually has an emotionally invested parent capable of providing for him, and I don’t believe the Batman is likely to relinquish his claim without a fight,” Zatanna says, her exasperation now redirected at her eldest.

Dick remains unphased; merely diverts his attention from Damian to the boy’s father, raking his eyes up and down Bruce as the older man reenacts the pose of Rodin's lesser known work: The Oh God, What Was I Thinking.

He sniffs. Once. Pointedly unimpressed. “I am willing to work out a shared custody agreement,” Dick says regally.

Bruce gradually twitches his way back into the realm of actual human activity and motion.

“What?” He shakes himself all over, a bit like a dog. Then he seems to reboot his higher cognitive functions as he draws up to his full height and towers over the younger man. “I’m not sure what you think you’re playing at here, but this is not why I called your mother and I do not need some boy barely out of his teens to tell me -"

Dick cuts him off, rolling his eyes even as Bruce, Steph, Cass and Alfred’s eyes all widen at the sheer novelty of that. Even Damian goes silent and still, no longer fighting Dick’s octopus like limbs as he’s too busy flicking his attention back and forth between Dick and Bruce like he’s a spectator at a tennis match, watching it unfold.

Jason and Tim just smirk knowingly. Zatanna regrets everything.

“Yes, yes, we’re aware the Batman has a million contingency plans for any given scenario. We’re all very impressed. Your IQ is huge,” Dick says flatly. “Quick question though, how many of those contingency plans involve hugging?”

Bruce blinks. “What?”

“That’s what I thought,” Dick continues smugly. “Now, in your history as a crime fighter and a benefactor of numerous children’s charities, do you dispute that all children at certain times need to be hugged?”

“No?” Bruce answers uncertainly. He…has no precedence for this. What is happening right now.

“Mmm,” Dick hums, nodding. “And in your personal self-assessment and in light of all your established behavior to date, would you say with confidence that you are capable of always recognizing when a child is in need of a hug, as well as being able and willing to provide that child with said hug yourself?”

Bruce frowns. Everyone in the room takes that as a no. Seals in Antarctica look up and take that as a no, without any idea why they just did that or what it even is they just did. Also, what the hell is a no, they have no clue. They still somehow know the answer to that question was no.

“Exactly,” Dick says. “So, to sum up, we’ve established that your children need hugs, you need to be taught when and how to identify when your children need you to hug them, and until such a time as you’re capable of that, your children still need hugs. In conclusion, my services are direly needed and I am willing to teach you everything I know about providing adorable children with emotional support in exchange for the role of their designated Hug-Giver for the time being. Do you accept my offer?”

“I…” Still stuck on the unprecedented feeling of being at a total loss for words, Bruce is slow to answer. Not that it matters.

“Trick question!” Dick announces cheerfully. “There was no offer, its already been decided. I can start immediately. You're welcome.”

He shifts Damian to his hip with one arm and raises the other to offer the boy his hand for a shake. “Hi Damian, I’m Dick, I’m your official Hug-Giver for now. Nice to meet you!”

Damian shakes Dick’s hand, more out of confusion than anything else. Clearly, nothing in his training or experience offers him any obvious alternate response to Dick’s behavior. “Father, who is this man? What is happening? I don’t understand.”

“That makes two of us,” the goddamn Batman says helplessly. They can all see his face spasming, his muscles twitching as if periodically glitching while he tries to compute and come up with a course of action that adequately counters Dick’s….whatever the hell you describe Dick and his entire….essence, as.

Gods have tried and failed to accurately describe Dick and his whole….Dick-ness. The Batman never stood a chance.

Tim takes pity on him. He’s mostly preoccupied hacking the Manor’s wi-fi on his phone, trying to see if he can backdoor from there into the famed Batcave’s computers. No real reason, he’s just curious. But even barely paying attention, he can still tell the difference between Dick’s more generic ‘oooh a squirrel!’ ADHD reaction to all adorable children or animals in his general vicinity, and the genuine emotional attachment his brother has clearly already formed with the confused child assassin. It’s too late now. Whether he’s even realized it or not, Damian stopped trying to escape Dick’s hug practically from the word go, even if he is unconsciously using his confusion to blind himself to how he’s already started to sink into it. Not even Superman himself could pry the kid out of Dick’s arms at this point.

“You can try all you want to come up with ways to keep this from happening, but you’ll just be wasting your time and energy,” Tim advises, still intent on his phone. Two passwords down, nice. Only….ninety more to go? Jeez. Oh god, if he’s this redundant about his cyber security, he’s gonna try and be stubborn about this, isn’t he? Ugh, how inefficient.

“Look, no matter how many plans you come up with, it doesn’t matter what you throw at him or how convoluted or well-crafted it is. At a certain point Dick’s just going to say screw it and dig his heels in, and no offense, but I’ve seen him out-stubborn demons. He once got a Duke of Hell to release a claim on Jason’s soul by committing to “I know you are but what am I” until the ageless being composed of pettiness and spite got frustrated and gave up. My brother on a mission to dole out affection is an actual force of nature. Like hurricanes. Even Jason lets Dick hug him. And Jason hates everything.”

“Die screaming,” Jason says conversationally.

“See a therapist about your Cain complex,” Tim returns, equally pleasant.

“I thought I told you boys to be on your best behavior,” Zatanna says. Either exasperated again, or just still. Hard to say.

Jason cocks an eyebrow at her quizzically before looking around the room. “Umm, we are, aren’t we? I mean, we’ve been here for at least five minutes and nothing’s on fire or broken yet. You gotta admit that’s like, a record for us.”

Zatanna sputters helplessly for a moment before collapsing onto the couch with a sigh. “The bar is too low,” she mutters. "And don't think I didn't catch that bit about a Duke of Hell having a claim on Jason's soul at some point. We will be circling back to that later, at home."

"Dude," Jason hisses, glaring at his little brother. "Spoilers!"

"Sorry," Tim says distractedly, with a distinct lack of sincerity. "In my defense, we lie about a lot of stuff and I forget to keep track of it all."

"You have an eidetic memory."

"Okay, so I forget to care about keeping track of it all," Tim amends, shrugging.

"That's just because you never get in as much trouble as me and Dick. Helps to be the baby of the family," Jason grumbles.

Tim hums softly in agreement, tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth as he peers intently at his screen. "The perks are nice."

Zatanna interjects as she eyes her two younger sons, a slight edge in voice. "Exactly how much stuff am I being lied to about? Ballpark figure."

Jason glares at Tim again. "You're a goddamn menace."

"I should probably be stopped," Tim agrees.

“Nonsense!” Damian’s aggrieved voice cuts over everyone else in the room. “I am an al Ghul, and heir to the Batman. If this tournament you speak of were truly a contest of champions, I would certainly have heard of it before now.”

Dick returns his glower with his usual beaming grin. “I swear by every being of both the higher and lower planes to ever lend me power or aid. Super Mario Kart is a test of manual dexterity, hand-eye coordination and reflex agility. Any true warrior should be more than capable of defeating all competitors at it.”

Damian stays trained on his face for a good minute, searching it for any hint of deception. Finally he turns and sweeps his imperious gaze around the room, jumping back and forth between his father to Jason and Tim, though the latter is still absorbed tracking to crack the thirty-sixth password to the Batcomputer. “Is this true?”

“Technically yes,” Jason says with the smirk to end all smirks. Sometimes his older brother is a total toolbag, but sometimes it really is like watching a master at work. How to Lie Without Telling a Single Lie by Dick Grayson-Zatara.

Damian harrumphs like the eighty seven year old that he is at heart, but with a secondary affirmation and no one speaking up to offer a counter-claim, his pride seems to allow him no alternative to accepting Dick’s challenge.

“Very well,” he says grudgingly. “I will engage you in this competition of supers and carts. But when I inevitably prove victorious, as consequence for your failure you and your babbling are to be banished from my father’s estate, never to return.”

“K!” Dick grins. “But if I win, you have to initiate three hugs a day for a solid week straight, at which point you may challenge me to a rematch and reclaim your honor.”

“Preposterous! One hug a day. No more.”

“One hug a day, but after two weeks I can challenge you to a rematch at my home instead.”

“I shudder to think what you might consider an acceptable abode. No, if I must vanquish you twice before you realize the folly of challenging an al Ghul, you shall return here only for the purposes of engaging in this ‘rematch’, and only after two months have passed, so that you may reflect on the futility of such.”

“One month, final offer.”

“Tt. Your terms are acceptable,” Damian decides at last. Dick’s already brilliant smile grows impossibly more blinding, as it is wont to do. The whole defiance of physics thing he does so well. Unprepared for it, the startled boy blinks, corners of his mouth twitching ever so slightly upwards before he regains his normal stern countenance. “Now lead me to these carts at once. I wish to see you defeated before supper, so I do not have to suffer your presence through my meal.”

“You got it, lil D!” Dick chirps happily, bouncing through the doorway and down the hall, where Cass and Steph exchange glances that condense an entire conversation to thirty seconds of back and forth facial expressions. They then race down the hall after the two. Damian’s outrage drifts back behind them.

“My name is Damian al Ghul-Wayne, you buffoon! It is a name of power and significance, heavy with meaning and intent. How dare you reduce it to a simple reference to physical stature!”

“Aww, I’m sorry bud! It was meant as an endearment not an insult. I give nicknames to all my friends and family. What if I called you Dami? Is that better?”

“….I suppose if my full name is too difficult for you to manage, Dami is at least marginally more tolerable. But only if it is understood that we are hardly friends!”

“Whatever you say, Dami!”

Their voices fade into the distance after that. Jason puts his hands in his pockets and strolls casually after them.

“That was amazing. My faith in humanity has like....risen reborn from the ashes. I might even believe in Santa Claus again? Not sure yet about that last part," he muses to no one in particular. "I’m so happy right now.”

Tim shrugs and trails after him. If everyone else is going, well. No reason he can’t finish hacking the Batcomputer from wherever they end up.

Bruce watches them disappear down the hallway before staggering over to the couch and dropping down onto it next to Zatanna. He stares blankly at the wall.

“What.” He utters helplessly.

Zatanna pats his leg. “You get used to it. Eventually.”

And that’s how even when Dick’s adopted by Zatanna Zatara instead of Bruce Wayne, he, Jason, Tim, Damian, Cass, Steph and those to follow all still end up siblings in every way that matters.

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pass-the-bechdel · 6 years ago

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Marvel Cinematic Universe: Captain America: Civil War (2016)

Does it pass the Bechdel Test?

No.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Seven (30.43% of cast).

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Sixteen.

Positive Content Rating:

Three.

General Episode Quality:

Exciting and full of strong fodder for discussion and debate; by the same token, potentially frustrating.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) UNDER THE CUT:

Passing the Bechdel:

Natasha directs comments to Wanda in Nigeria, but Wanda addresses her response to the team as a whole.

Female characters:

Wanda Maximoff.

Natasha Romanov.

Maria Stark.

Mrs Spencer.

Sharon Carter.

Mrs Zemo.

Aunt May.

Male characters:

James Buchanan Barnes.

Steve Rogers.

Sam Wilson.

Brock Rumlow.

Howard Stark.

Tony Stark.

T’Chaka.

Vision.

Thaddeus Ross.

James Rhodes.

Helmut Zemo.

T’Challa.

Everett Ross.

Peter Parker.

Clint Barton.

Scott Lang.

OTHER NOTES:

My immediate thought on the concept of the Avengers being directed by a United Nations panel is the Rwandan genocide; follow from that, any number of other major atrocities that have taken place while the rest of the world sat back umm-ing and aah-ing over whether or not they should intervene. Anyone who knows a speck of history should be very reticent about the idea of being shackled by such political whims.

Ross refers to the unknown locations of Thor and Bruce Banner as being like ‘misplacing a couple of megaton nukes’, as if they’re objects and not autonomous sentient beings who can go where they please without having to declare their intentions, and that should really be the first major red flag to everyone that this guy ain’t on the level.

Vision’s equation about causality is a false equivalence, and an irrelevant one anyway, since oversight doesn’t do anything to hamper his theory about strength inviting challenge. You’re not actually reducing your strength, you’re just making yourself less able to meet those challenges as they come. I feel like Vision should be a Hell of a lot smarter than this absence of logic (also, looking at the threats themselves in previous films, the only ones which can be considered ‘strength inviting challenge’ issues in which the actions of any Avenger characters have ‘bred catastrophe’ are the Iron Man films, and Age of Ultron, all of which are examples of Tony’s hubris coming back to bite him, specifically. The conflict of every other film stems from either 1) trouble predating Iron Man (most of it SHIELD/Hydra related), or 2) other-worldly overspill where Earth becomes the battleground for something uninvited (Asgardian and/or infinity stone bullshit). And even when Tony is the one creating his own demons, he usually doesn’t do so actively through his Iron Man tech or persona (Obadiah Stane’s villainy is what led to Iron Man’s creation, not the other way around; yes, Tony’s grandstanding did directly invite competition in Iron Man 2, but he didn’t make an adversary out of Ivan Vanko, that was his father’s legacy; and Tony’s particular cruelty may have incited Aldritch Killian, but that event predated the creation of Iron Man by nine years, so it’s not a response to that strength. Only Ultron was genuinely a catastrophic consequence of Tony’s (and Bruce’s) abuse of power, but hobbling the Avengers’ ability to operate does nothing to prevent that sort of thing from happening again, it just stymies their ability to halt the onslaught after it begins. You solve that one with legislation limiting what anyone can recklessly create and unleash (which includes Vision himself, incidentally)).

And see, Steve is right; the Sokovia Accords just shift the blame when things go wrong, functionally it makes the Avengers less accountable for their actions by allowing them to play the ‘just following orders’ game. And the point he makes about the panel still being run by people with agendas is exactly what I’m talking about in that first dot point; when decisions are being made on a political basis instead of according to need, you get atrocities, and any person working for the United Nations is a political agent by default. Sokovia is actually a great example of the kind of place that falls through the cracks on the political stage, as it was noted to be ‘nowhere special’, i.e. not politically valuable, and therefore unlikely to receive a swift response from powerful nations who have no vested interests in the good of the country.

Tony’s argument here is extremely personal and emotion-driven; it’s all his own guilt about Ultron and Sokovia and his decision to stop manufacturing weapons, etc, and none of that is relevant to the rest of the team’s situation or their choices. He’s also utterly oblivious to his own privilege here, in that it’s super easy for him to handwave the particulars of the Accords, because he’s a filthy-rich white American whose main ‘thing’ is new technologies, which are not being restricted at all by these Accords; he has the luxury of just signing on and hoping to negotiate amendments later (and also, of having the resources to be able to thwart anything he disagrees with and just do what he wants regardless if he decides he’s right). He’s not taking a moment to consider what the Accords really mean for those members of the team with powers they can’t just ‘put down’, who don’t have the kinds of options and opportunities he has, up to and including the bargaining power to have the Accords ‘fixed up’ later. I really do my best to see both sides of this situation because there IS merit in the idea of the Accords, but no one in favour of it makes a good argument for it and it’s really frustrating.

Who tells someone that a close beloved friend is dead in a fucking text message??? The real villain of this film.

It goes without saying but I’m gonna say it anyway: it’s very hypocritical of T’Challa to support the Accords while also donning his super-suit and taking matters in foreign countries into his own hands. All of the destruction that occurs in Romania after Bucky escapes from his apartment building is because of T’Challa’s involvement (because he was trying to commit a literal murder!), and that kinda gets glossed straight over here.

Tony falls for Ross’ trick by referring to Wanda as a ‘weapon of mass destruction’ in the process of his efforts to justify her internment. It’s all really solid writing, really, vernacular choices that highlight the dehumanisation at the rotten core of the Accords and how good people can be suckered into it without realising until it’s too late (even when things like, say, denial of legal representation should definitely be red-flagging up the wazoo right now). But honestly, it’s such a wild leap from ‘Wanda can’t go on missions anymore’ to ‘we’re going to forcibly deny her the ability to go out in public’. Keep trying to tell yourself that’s not a fucked up situation, Tony.

Steve Rogers holding down a fucking helicopter is just...peak Captain America and I’m so glad.

The part where Tony recruits an actual child who is not involved in this situation at all, spiriting him away to another continent to fight supersoldiers, that’s just...beyond, honestly. I hate this as an introduction for Spiderman because it’s so wildly irresponsible of Tony, it’s an unforgivable thing to do. He’s a kid. This has nothing to do with him. This is where Tony officially loses me in this movie. You can take your self-righteous attempts at justifying your actions and shove ‘em, buddy. You’re actively endangering a child.

We really don’t need Steve to kiss someone every Cap movie. We didn’t need him weirdly mackin’ on his recently-deceased ex-love’s niece. Seriously.

Spiderman’s particular brand of quipping while fighting really irritates me, also. It’s altogether a big no from me on the Spiderman front.

Still love Ant-Man, though. He’s delightful. I also enjoy Hawkeye so much more here than I have in the Avengers films.

C’mon, T’Challa. You can’t attack and attempt to kill a guy outright and then play the ‘you must be guilty because you ran away’ schtick. Do a brain about it.

See, everyone else knows why they’re there and what they’re fighting for, they know the stakes. Scott is the only one on Cap’s side who isn’t already part of the situation anyway, but he’s read in on why he’s being asked to get involved and he’s a grown adult person making an informed decision. Peter doesn’t have that, he’s there fighting because Tony said so, and that’s just fucked up.

Heavy sigh. And here we go with the emotional Tony thing. Yeah, he just saw how his parents were killed by the Winter Soldier. That’s rough. It’s really rough. But he doesn’t just have an immediate emotional outburst, he has a sustained homicidal rage, which includes not only trying to kill Bucky, but also beating the Hell outta Steve, who, y’know, did not kill Tony’s parents. The fight scene lasts way too long and involves too much opportunity for cooler thought to prevail (both in problem-solving and in conversational moments), and someone whose emotions can send them reeling so completely out of control - even when they actively know they’ve been manipulated into it! Zemo literally just told you to your face that this was his plan! - someone with so little impulse control should never be given the power to make decisions for others or wield anything over them. This is all just a really, really great case for why Tony is ill-equipped to be an Avenger at all.

Watching Bucky digging the repulsor out of Iron Man’s chest with his metal hand is...so exciting. Rest in peace, awesome metal arm.

Zemo’s just a regular human, but he gets locked up under utterly inhumane circumstances. Again, the Accords involved a deal with a pretty insidious devil, and they didn’t actually have to prove that Steve’s position was the correct one to such a strong degree (we could have had a more nuanced conversation about the subject of accountability if the two sides were more evenly presented), but damn, the red flags, guys. It shouldn’t have taken Tony until he was horrified seeing his friends in the raft prison to finally clue in.

Ok, so, I know I already played the ‘I’m pregnant’ card to explain away my meandering commentary for Ant-Man, but it’s still true and only getting more significant as time goes on, so I regret to announce that - despite having looked forward to disassembling this movie since I started on this Marvel adventure - we’re now only a day out from publication and I haven’t written anything yet. I know, the deadline isn’t exactly set in stone and I could just hold off publishing until I’m ready, but that’s a slippery slope and if I start telling myself to just ‘get to it when you get to it’, who the fuck knows when it’ll happen. This isn’t supposed to be stressful, so I’m just gonna ramble a bit and see what comes out. There’s a thing wriggling in my guts and I have a house to paint. I’m doing my best.

First things first: my stance re: Accords is that the best method of oversight is the one which emphasises accountability, rather than permission (with acknowledgment that this is a fictional universe with threats and powers which do not reflect the real world). The kinds of issues our Avenger characters get involved with are typically of the sort which has to be nipped in the bud right-quick before it becomes untenable, and also not infrequently, the types of problems which do not offer them bountiful evidence to present to a board for evaluation before they get the ok to counter it. Faffing about with diplomacy and bureaucratic carrying-on is a great way to, say, allow Hydra to launch the Insight helicarriers and wipe out all dissenters to their rule before you have the chance to stop them, or (if Zemo’s apparent plan with the Winter Soldiers had been his real plan after all), to be stuck mopping up the global damage as an elite death squad roams around destabilising governments. I’m not a supporter of the adage ‘it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission’ in the real world, but in a comic book universe, with the supervillains and the world domination and the plots which consistently include chronic time-sensitive action and little if any concrete evidence? The Sokovia Accords are woefully inadequate. By all means, the Avengers should be answerable to someone, and being required to submit reports justifying their actions (and face disciplinary measures or even criminal charges if they cannot explain themselves to a satisfactory degree) is a completely reasonable thing to convene a United Nations panel to oversee. Maybe Tony can hop down off his high horse and face actual consequences for the Ultron fiasco. That’s fine with me, and it’s a logical thing for the world to clamour for. Shifting responsibility to a panel of UN politicians who will then no doubt be reticent to send the Avengers into anything pre-emptively (or within any kind of useful time frame) for fear of backlash is a terrible solution, and even more so when you’re being pushed into it without any time to evaluate and amend the original document before it becomes law.

(It’s worth noting that the person most likely to appreciate how easily the UN panel could be hijacked by political machinations not in the interest of the public good is Steve, owing to his personal role in uncovering and thwarting Hydra’s plans; Sam was roped into the Avenging world through that event, and thus it’s unsurprising that he would have the same concern chief in mind when refusing to sign. While Natasha does sign on to the Accords, she explicitly does not do so because she thinks the Accords are a good idea; she’s playing the political game and ‘reading the terrain’, as she says, and that’s consistent with her character. Tony being impulsive and dangerously emotion-driven is also unfortunately consistent, as is his self-righteousness about imposing his will on others to assuage his own guilt. Vision really has no excuse for being so bad at logicking his way to signing the Accords, but it’s no surprise to me that the most clear-headed staunch Accords supporter would be Rhodey, since following orders from others and unquestioning trust in your governing body is dead-on character for him as a career military man. I think he’s categorically wrong, yes, but I’m not mad at Rhodey for being a True Believer any more than I am at Natasha for being mercurial; both are in-character choices and ones which involve evaluative thought processes, and while ‘in-character’ may still be in play for Tony, evaluative thought processes are not, and that does make me mad. As I’ve noted before, he tends to work as a likable character despite his MANY flaws when he’s in his own movies, because acknowledging those foibles and working to fix them is a core part of his personal arcs in each Iron Man film; it was an essential quality missing in Age of Ultron, and one which made a monster of the character which I AM glad this movie is addressing with fallout; still, there’s a lack of tangible self-reflection and making amends from Tony in this movie, alongside some of his worst personal decisions, and I sincerely do not love him by the end of it.)

The good thing is, despite a few lazy elements - Vision! You tool! - and despite some very frustrating decisions, the central dilemma of the film is a strong and nuanced conversation-starter (and perhaps, argument-inducer). Even though the specific scenario and the people involved (Ross (both of them) and the floating Guantanamo, et al.) skews the narrative definitively against the Accords by the end, there is still fodder there for an intelligent debate about the merits of the concept if not the execution. And, most importantly, Steve’s position on the matter is the MCU’s Captain America to a T - a political story about the appreciable and essential difference between doing one’s duty to a concept, vs adherence to a moral code. Disobedience is a core part of Steve Rogers’ dilemmas - not that disobedience IS the dilemma for him, but that it is at odds with the patriotic good-ol’-boy image he is expected to inhabit from outside. Every Captain America film carries with it the idea that to do the highest good can mean rejecting everything that the people and institutions around you try to insist is right; refusing to play a role that has been prescribed to you; always making the choice for yourself, by your ethos, no matter how hard it is. Refusing to compromise when you see the compromise as an evil; planting yourself like a tree, and saying ‘No. You move’ (a great way of keeping Peggy’s influence alive and moving in the plot, by the way, and a key demonstration of how she and Steve met on the same wavelength. Lots of strong details in this movie, tbh).

My primary complaint, however, is that this is also too much like an Avengers film; nearly all of the other major characters are there, and Tony especially gets a LOT of screen time, and since Cap and his films are my uncontested faves I am pretty salty about having to share the stage for his last outing. The tone and the subject matter are still totally on-brand, but the focus is split, and that’s particularly annoying for what it leaves behind. While Bucky is made central to the drive of the plot, Steve finally being reunited with him, bringing him in, getting the cathartic other side to what was so exquisitely set up in The Winter Soldier, it falls by the wayside a bit and comes off underdone. Sam is certainly there, being wonderful as always, but he doesn’t get a lot to actively influence, he’s mostly just That Other Guy, and it’s a real shame since he was a highlight among super-stiff competition in his introductory film. The touch of Peggy that shines through the film is poignant, but Sharon Carter gets the bad end of the stick with under-developed characterisation and a very ill-advised zero-chemistry attempt to stir a speck of romance in a story with no room for it, and altogether, the kinds of quiet character moments which added so much depth to The Winter Soldier are very much lacking here. We’ve got so many other characters on deck already, plus the introduction of two new major players (T’Challa has a solid, sombre presence which suits the film, and even his hypocrisy fits snugly into the plot so as not to be a barb against him, but as I’ve mentioned already, I am squarely against Peter Parker’s squeaky excessive comic-relief inclusion and the dire implications it has for Tony Stark’s moral compass), and we’re already spending so much time on beefing up Tony’s side of the Civil War. I don’t personally think the movie is bloated, overlong, or incoherent, but it definitely wanders close to all three and I wouldn’t be inclined to argue very strenuously with anyone who wanted to denounce it on any of those fronts. It has a lot going on, not quite too much for an ensemble movie, but more than it should as a story with a single character’s name in the title. I’m still mostly-satisfied by it, and consider it one of the stronger MCU films to date, but as a third Captain America, specifically? A bit of a let-down.

#Marvel Cinematic Universe #Captain America: Civil War #Bechdel Test #female representation #MCU #Captain America #Civil War

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