#anyway I hope you all like how I handled the memory and Hysteria

[victorluvsalice]

Forgotten Vows Friday: Forgetting You Chapter 5 -- Director’s Cut Edition

NOBODY PANIC I’M NOT ABANDONING EVERYTHING TO GO ON A WILD EDITING SPREE AGAIN. This is simply the addition of a single scene to Chapter 5 of “Forgetting You.” So why am I going back and sticking new scenes into an old story again?

Well, you can blame my new fan/buddy MartyrFan, an Iced Tea (Alice/Jack Frost from Rise of the Guardians) fan who recently got into my Valice stuff and started binge-reading a lot of the Forgotten Vows Verse. He recently wrote a slew of reviews for “Forgetting You,” and one of them contained this quote:

It's a little late for me to be asking about this, but what about Hysteria? Alice uses it for the first time after the first memory of the fire. I think that being to do THAT was definitely worth writing about, no offense. 

Seeing that made me remember something -- I actually HAD written a scene showing off Alice’s first use of Hysteria, which also introduced the “burning Liddell doors” memories (aka the plot-important memories you have to see to progress). For some reason I don’t remember, though, I never put it in the finished product. With MartyrFan asking about, and me knowing that it was probably WAS a little weird that Hysteria and mentions of it appeared later in the fic as normal, I figured it was worth going back, rewriting the scene up to my current standards, and slapping it in Chapter 5. It comes between Alice collecting the Victor memory and Alice finding the Hatter (as Alice gets the tutorial on Hysteria right before she meets up with him again). I’ve touched nothing else save the first couple of lines of the “meeting the Hatter” scene to help it merge in a little better.

Chapter 5 on FF.net

Chapter 5 on AO3

Chapter 5 on my website (formatting went funny there though, and I still haven’t managed to change my theme)

One of the things Alice hated about the human brain, and her brain in particular, was its tendency to associate certain innocent objects and events with rather less-pleasant ones. White sheets with her bed in Rutledge, for example. Old keys with Bumby's hypnosis sessions. Red-and-white stripes with Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum.

Or, like at the current moment, the front door of her house with her first fight with the Jabberwock. She glared at the portal before her – familiar white wood tarnished with gray ash, flames leaping behind the decorative iron flowers in the window, LIDDELL written in charred letters across the top. What it was doing here, set into a pile of old junk cogs and springs in the depths of the Lost and Found, she couldn't say. But it was there nonetheless – and, annoyingly, appeared to be the only way forward in this maze of clockwork and steam. "Come on, Alice," she scolded herself. "You mustn't dillydally. You saw the Jabberwock's skeleton blow away on the breeze. He's not a threat anymore. And this – it's just a door. It can't hurt you."

Her right hand ached from a long-healed wound, reminding her that yes, when the door was on fire and the knob blazing hot, it could hurt you, and very well. She sighed. "I'm wearing gloves this time – well, most of a glove," she corrected herself, wiggling her bare fingers. "And there's metaessence galore in all those boxes and barrels scattered about. I can heal myself in moments. We've barely started our journey – there's no point in stopping now."

Evil yellow eyes, thick sharp claws, a boiling furnace that poured out streams of flaming death – Alice shook the image away. "He's gone. I can't spend my life afraid of something I've already defeated." She squared her shoulders. "And if anything like him lurks behind that door, it'll have to face my Blade and my Grinder, and fall like all the rest." As encouraged as she could possibly get under the circumstances, she stepped forward and grabbed the knob, twisting it quickly and wrenching it open to reveal –

The library.

Alice stared as she stepped inside. The room was just as she remembered it, back in happier times. Shelves on almost every wall, filled practically to bursting with books old and new. Papa's photography equipment, lovingly spread out over a nearby table, filling the air with a chemical stench. Toys scattered across floor and chairs (including a jack-in-the-box – that explained a lot about where the Jackbomb had come from). The family portrait at the head of the room, showing all four Liddells in their Sunday best. And beneath that – the fireplace, blazing away to chase off the early November chill. Alice swallowed as she took it all in, only too aware of how little effort it would take to turn pleasing heat into a raging inferno. A single malignant spark, as her mother had said. . . . "Our lovely library was a fire trap. A conflagration waiting to happen!"

. . .Which I already knew, so why on earth are we belaboring the point?

Alice put her hands on her hips, letting out a frustrated growl as the memory faded back into darkness, leaving only the flame-licked door behind her. Wonderland was playing games, and she didn’t like it. Why dress up such a simple reminder so? She'd just had a memory from Mama about how dangerous her father's "unnatural devotion to printed paper" was to them. Granted, Lorina's tone had been more jocular, equally a playful complaint about her husband's hoarding habits and a hidden warning to be careful when in the room, but still. It had delivered the same message. What had been so special about this brief image that it warranted further dressing up from the little crystal house? Was there a clue she was supposed to have seen – a little thing out of place that hinted at the true cause of the fire? But everything had seemed in order. . . . If you want me to get to the bottom of things, Wonderland, you have to give me more than that!

Well, at least she hadn't had to shed any blood in her family home this time around. She turned and opened the door again. More heaps of rusty junk greeted her eyes – but they were different heaps this time, at least. Apparently she'd been taken just that bit closer to the Hatter. Which is the absolute least Wonderland can do to help – oh damn!

She burst into butterflies, just barely avoiding the steaming, oozing hand. The Insidious Ruin flapped its china jaw and waddled after her. Alice turned and sliced it to ribbons with the Blade, but more were already forming, thick black puddles rising up through the junk. . .she darted around the trash piles, trying to keep track of them all without taking a hit. Two – three – four – five – “Ah!”

She stumbled, pinwheeling her arms wildly as she teetered at the edge of a sudden drop. The Ruins (two more, seven now, she'd never faced so many at once) took advantage of her distress and charged. Alice butterflied out of the way again, but a straggler managed to sear her side as she reformed. She went to slash its hand off, only to be knocked off-balance by one of its friends scorching her back. And then another rammed into her, sending her to hands and knees. . .she butterflied once more, looking for free space, but they just followed, an inescapable black wall of pain. . .she got her feet, but another hand came out and she was stumbling backward again, terrifyingly close to the edge. . .a leap took her over them, but they turned with distressing speed. . .one tore at her hair, another grabbed her arm, and she couldn't get to one without opening herself up to another. . .it hurt, it hurt, it all hurt so much. . .so much pain, so much fear, so much – so much –

So much anger. Her jaw clenched as the Ruins kept up their attack, chipping away at her life bit by bit. She could have returned to the Home by now. She could have just gotten the stupid pills and been back in time for lunch. She could have found a book to read, or told another story to the children, or gone for a walk with Victor. She could have even been doing more chores like a normal person. But no, Wonderland couldn't let her have that, could it? It had to drag her away from reality and torture her with happy memories gone sour and never give her a straight answer to any of her questions and try to bloody goddamn KILL HER EVERY TIME SHE TRIED TO PROGRESS – Her entire body throbbed with pain, and it was too much, too much, too MUCH –

The scream exploded out of her throat, a shockwave of sound that sent the Ruins flying back. Moments later, her Blade was in her hand, and she was slicing and dicing with a fervor she hadn't felt since the last time she'd been hit with a Ragebox. "How fine you look when dressed in rage," Cheshire purred across her memory, and she did, she was a goddess of destruction in black and white and red and the Ruins were screaming, doll heads tumbling into the abyss, pipes and pulleys crashing to the ground, and it was all glorious she could do this forever kill and kill and KILL –

And then, suddenly, brown and gray and brass were back in her vision, and she had no idea how she was even staying upright.

She braced herself against a junk heap, looking around. Not a Ruin to be seen, but a whole field of metaessence roses, glittering in the dim light leaking through the ceiling. Alice collected the nearest, shaking as it broke apart into red mist and soothed her pain. She was glad that the threat was gone, but – how was she capable of such intense fury? Had some somehow managed to internalize that horrible sprayed poison from the boxes? Or was that rage just an essential part of her being? I know I can be moody, and snappish, and just plain mean, but. . .oh God, I hope I haven't hurt anyone in reality. She wiped the sweat from her forehead. Probably just proved all those doctors who liked to call me "hysterical" right. . .actually, thinking about it, "Hysteria" wouldn't be a bad name for that. . . .

She took a deep breath and steadied herself. It's over with now, she thought as she circled around the battlefield, touching each rose in turn to regain her strength. And to be fair, it got me out of a very bad situation just now. Hopefully it only triggers when I'm that near death. And, doubly hopefully, only here in Wonderland. Otherwise. . . .

She didn't want to finish that thought. She picked up the last rose and brushed off her skirts. "Over and done with," she repeated. "And I don't think Wonderland would keep me if I'd actually killed someone. Just have to keep a close leash on it." She ran her fingers through her hair. "Come on. You'll feel better when you find Hatter." I hope.

[mochegato]

Even the Losers

Chapter 18

Chapter 1     Chapter 17

Mari waved up at Nightwing before turning toward the café.  He grinned and waved back.  No sense of embarrassment at getting caught like Red Robin had the day before.  She didn’t know enough about him to know if it was because he wasn’t hiding, Red Robin had given him a warning that she knew someone would be there, or because he had no sense of embarrassment, or most likely, a combination of all of those.

Adrien looked up and grinned too.  “What time did he take over?”

Marinette shrugged and cut through the café’s outdoor seating.  “Later than yesterday.  When did Dick leave?  It was some time after that.”

Adrien looked at him for a moment and shook his head. He looked back at Marinette before the memory of sleep deprived Marinette hit him.  He grimaced.  It was hit or miss whether she would be funny, emotional, or a danger to herself. If Batman was the same… “I really hope Batman doesn’t have a day job because with all the all-nighters he’s pulling, he would have to be a zombie at work.”

Marinette giggled at the idea.  “Can you imagine Batman with a day job?  What do you think he does?  Like, could you imagine him as a kindergarten teacher?”  Marinette’s giggles grew into full blown laughter. She finally was able to gasp out, “Batman complimenting some little kid’s rainbow and assuring them that making the entire rainbow the same color was extremely creative and beautiful.  Or trying to guess what animal they drew.”

Adrien laughed and patted her arm to get her to stop.  “Wait, wait. Batman crouching next to a toddler and explaining for the eighth time in the last three minutes that Pete the Cat is in fact a cat, not a dog before patting them on the head and walking away to scream into a nap mat.”

Marinette Laughed hard enough she almost missed the door handle.  She jumped when Adrien suddenly grabbed her arm.  She turned to him wide eyed but she immediately relaxed.  He was bouncing on the balls of his feet with excitement.  “No, no, no.  A PA to some… NO, to M. Wayne!  Batman as M. Wayne’s PA.  Oh my God, can you imagine?”

Marinette giggled and shook her head at him, pushing through the door.  Well, that would certainly explain why the bats seemed so close to the Waynes.  She spotted Duke and waved.  He jumped up and waved them over.  “Hey, Duke.  I hope you don’t mind that I brought Adrien.”

“Not at all,” Duke gave them both a hug.  He looked toward the bathroom with a smile. “Good to see you again, man.  I hope you don’t mind that Cass and I both brought someones too.”  Cass and Stephanie were walking toward them with a red headed woman in a wheelchair. Duke leaned toward them and lowered his voice so the women approaching couldn’t hear him.  “Brought is a really liberal term for what happened.  I am so sorry.  I knew we shouldn’t have mentioned meeting with you in front of Stephanie.”

“Hey Cass,” Marinette called out.  She and Adrien waved at her.  “Good to see you again, Stephanie.”

Cass waved back and nodded with a wide smile. “Marinette!” Stephanie chirped. “I’d say what a coincidence we ran into you guys here…”

“But that would be a lie,” Barbara finished for her. “Hi,” she held out her hand for them, “I’m Barbara.”

Marinette smiled and stepped forward to shake her hand. “It’s nice to meet you.  I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Well yeah we crashed,” Stephanie rolled her eyes and dropped into a seat across from Marinette.  She sent a playful glare toward Duke.  “You guys have been keeping her all to yourselves all week.  It’s our turn to hang out with her again.  Not to mention I wanted to catch up with the woman who fed the Riddler’s own balls to him for everyone to see.”

“And we wanted to see how you’re doing after it,” Barbara added with a chastising look to Stephanie.  She turned to side eye Duke.  “We tried to check with the boys but they were less than helpful.”

Marinette shrugged and leaned back slightly, not enough for anyone else in the café to notice but everyone else at the table picked up on it.  “I’m fine. It wasn’t bad.  More embarrassed he caught me in the first place.”

Stephanie waved her off.  “Please,” she scoffed.  “He had to knock out like an entire block just to get you.  That’s better than some of the bats.”

“Well, you look like you’re healing well,” Barbara nodded with a supportive smile.

Marinette smiled as naturally as she could and tried to control how much she was shifting in her seat.  She really, really hated talking about the whole thing with not only people who didn’t know she had been a superhero, but with the Waynes after that dinner, so that was two strikes against discussing this right now.

She’d been able to joke about it and moan about how contrived the whole setup with Alya and Nino.  They’d laughed all night about the audacity.  Not only had he thought he could stump her with a question about Chat Noir, he thought he would win against her in a game that relied on luck or rather bad luck not striking.  It was almost enough to make her forget the way the dinner had ended.  It was exactly what she had needed.  But she couldn’t do that here.

“Yeah,” she chuckled anxiously.  “My cheek seems to be doing well.  I’m hoping I can cover it with makeup by next week.”

“How’s your shoulder?” Duke asked motioning toward the shoulder she’d rammed into the doorframe when she was running away.

Marinette blinked at him a few times before she quirked her head to the side, her face scrunching in confusion.  “How did you know about that?”

She could see the rest of the table tense up, Adrien included but for the same reason as her, confusion on how he’d known. She had no idea why the rest were tensing up.  Duke chuckled awkwardly, sending looks over to the women at the table.  “He’s covering for me,” Barbara finally spoke up.

“Why is… what is he covering up for?” Marinette asked cautiously.

“My father is the police commissioner,” she said quietly.  “I may have snuck a look at the police report… slightly illegally… and read about your injuries.”

Marinette shook her head.  “But, I didn’t tell them about that.”

“No,” Barbara acknowledged, “but Signal did.”

Marinette nodded, trying to process that information. “Huh,” was all she managed to eke out. Her mind raced trying to figure out what to say next.  She was saved from trying to figure out how to move the conversation along by the waiter. The topic seemed to fade away naturally as everyone put in their order.

As soon as the waiter left, Duke clapped his hands with a bright smile.  “So, Steph, you said again.  I take it you guys have met before?”

“At the gala,” Adrien nodded.  “Only briefly though.  We,” he motioned between him and Stephanie, “spoke for a little bit, but Marinette only spoke with her for a few seconds.”

Stephanie grimaced at the reminder.  “Yeah… not exactly the ideal meeting.”

Marinette waved her off.  “Not your fault.  Don’t worry about it.”  She sent her a sincere smile.

“No,” Stephanie agreed.  “It’s Bruce’s.”

Cass pulled out a credit card with a wicked grin. “On Bruce.”

Barbara nodded.  “Exactly.  Therefore, this lunch is on Bruce.  Maybe we should go shopping after this too?”  She raised an eyebrow at Marinette.

Marinette giggled and shook her head.  “No, thank you.  That’s okay.  I’m good.”

Stephanie’s eyes lit up.  She leaned closer to Marinette like she was sharing a secret. “Speaking of the gala, how did you get tickets to the gala anyway?  We never figured it out.”  Barbara groaned lightly and smacked her on the shoulder.  They had just changed the subject.  Marinette probably did not want to talk about the gala, where they raved about their family and the newest member, which was not her and did not did not include her.

Instead of freezing up or withdrawing, like Barbara worried she would, Marinette started laughing.  Her eyes were sparkling with mirth.  She leaned closer to them over the table and lowered her voice. “I pimped out my friend,” she confided with a smirk.

The rest of the table froze until Adrien groaned and Stephanie and Duke started laughing loud enough to draw disapproving looks from neighboring tables.  Cass raised an eyebrow, but her lips were quirked up in amusement.  “Say that again,” Barbara prompted.

Marinette shrugged and took a sip of her drink.  “I don’t know if it counts as pimping if he did it willingly.  He was willing to do it for Max.”

“Oh my God, Marinette.”  Adrien ran his hand over his face in exasperation.

“What exactly was he willing to do?” Barbara’s voice was now less amused and more wary.

“That was the worst possible way to say it,” Adrien groaned.

“You know, maybe I don’t want to know the answer to that…” Barbara hedged.  She leaned away from Marinette cautiously.

Marinette laughed at Adrien’s frustration and bumped his shoulder with hers.  “I offered up a date with Luka Coffaine to Audrey Bourgeois’ PA in exchange for the tickets she turned down,” she explained.

There was absolute silence for a few seconds until Stephanie broke the silence.  “You know Luka Coffaine?” she yelled.  

Everyone in the café turned slowly to look at them. Marinette’s eyes widened and looked around at them.  She gave them an awkward smile and a wave before turning back to the table.  Before she could chastise Stephanie, Cass was already on top of it.  She pointed sternly around the restaurant and back at Stephanie.  Stephanie nodded guiltily.  “Yeah, yeah.  Sorry.” She turned back to Marinette excitedly. “I just…” she lowered her voice and leaned closer to Marinette.  “You know Luka Coffaine?”

Marinette rolled her eyes at her excitement.  It was always so bizarre to see people’s reaction to Luka.  It was Luka. Just Luka.  Calm, reserved, laidback Luka.  The hysteria around his name just never seemed to fit.  “Yeah, I mean, we dated for a while so… yeah.”

“You dated Luka Coffaine!” Stephanie yelled again, receiving glares from everyone at the table.  Marinette shrunk down in her chair and gave a strained, apologetic smile to the rest of the café.  Cass slapped Stephanie’s shoulder and shook her head.  Stephanie waved her off and focused back on Marinette.  “Yeah, yeah.  Discretion.  Whatever. She dated Luka freaking Coffaine,” Stephanie insisted, motioning to Marinette.

“You dated Tim Drake,” Duke pointed out.

Stephanie snorted.  “That’s just Tim.  He’s just a big dork.  She dated…”

“Yeah we got it,” Barbara cut her off.

“Really, so is Luka,” Adrien shrugged.  “Probably more so, just about music.”  Marinette cocked her head to the side in thought for a few seconds before nodding in agreement.  He really was.

“Holy shit.  Did he introduce you to his dad?”  Stephanie was bouncing in her seat at the idea and the potential for an inside scoop on Jagged Stone.

“No,” Marinette answered.  She smiled internally at the way all their faces, except for Adrien’s fell, just a bit, almost imperceptibly, as if trying to hide their disappointment.  “I already knew him.”

“You know Jagged Stone?” Stephanie yelled. Marinette cringed as she sent the other patrons another apologetic smile.

Duke leaned over closer to her so he could whisper in her ear, though his voice intentionally carried across the table. “Maybe we shouldn’t talk about this anymore.”

“No!” Stephanie screeched, before catching what she did and settling down, a mask of composure settling on her face.  “I’m fine now.  I just needed to get that out.  I’m calm.” She stared at them for a few seconds before almost lunging across the table.  Adrien deftly moved his and Marinette’s drinks before she knocked them over in her zeal.  “Please tell me more.”

Marinette’s eyes widened and she started laughing.  “You realize you’re basically a daughter to the richest man in the world.  If you wanted to meet Jagged Stone, you could.”

Cass shook her head.  “Different.”

Barbara nodded.  “She’s right it is different.  You dated his son.  That’s a different type of knowing someone.”

“So you met Luka through Jagged?” Stephanie pressed.

Marinette suddenly looked uncomfortable.  She was not really excited to talk about their family dynamic and secrets.  It was a little too close to her own and she really, really wanted to move past that, not dwell on it more.  “No… I met Luka through my friend Juleka, his sister.  We went to school together for ages.  They’re both some of my best friends.”

“And she introduced you to Jagged?” Duke asked curiously.  He could tell something was off about this based on the way Marinette responded, but he wasn’t sure what.

“No… um…” she stuttered.  “I met Jagged through a school project.  Designed some sunglasses for him and we’ve been close ever since.”  Adrien grabbed her hand and squeezed it under the table

Stephanie looked between the two of them and plastered on a bright smile.  “So what I’m hearing is you can hook us up with some tickets next time he comes into town.”

Marinette laughed lightly.  “Either one of us could, yes.”

“Or for Clara Nightengale,” Adrien added in. “She loves Marinette, too.  She wanted her in one of her videos.”

“She wanted you in it too,” Marinette reminded him.

“No,” he corrected her, “Gabriel got me into it. She just had to deal with it.  She didn’t choose me.  She chose you.  She worked to get you in the video.”

Marinette opened her mouth to refute that but snapped it shut quickly as the words resonated in her head.  She meant more because Clara chose her.  He was thrust on Clara.  But it didn’t mean he was unwanted.  She looked down at her food and took a bite, trying to cover her sudden inability to breathe.  Trying to give herself time to process.  She needed to pack that away for later when she could properly unpack that statement, deconstruct it, and then finally reconstruct it in some skewed, perverted version of the original situation.

Adrien immediately froze seeing her reaction. He opened his mouth to say something but Marinette squeezed his hand under the table before he could, a silent message they could talk about it later, when they were alone, or at least not with an audience comprised of Waynes.

“So how did you meet Mons…” she stuttered.  It felt strange to call him M. Wayne when everyone else at the table was calling him Bruce.  Should she call him Bruce too?  Like they did.  Like Dick did?  Or B, like Jason did?  “…M. Wayne?” she finally settled on.

Duke grimaced.  They had a cover story, but was he really going to give Bruce’s daughter the cover story?  The truth involved Batman.  But Bruce hadn’t told her about that part of their lives yet, and even if he had told her, he certainly hadn’t told Adrien.  “It’s a long story…”

Marinette smiled encouragingly at him.  “We have time.” She saw him falter and felt her own smile falter.  She took note of the way the women had frozen up as well.  God, what was she doing?  M. Wayne had said how they met.  Why was she bringing that up now?  What was she thinking?  Even if he was okay discussing that trauma, he probably didn’t want to open up about it with a stranger.  

“You don’t have to tell me,” she assured him.  “It’s… it’s fine.”  She looked around desperately for something else to talk about, a change of topic to make the conversation not so awkward.  “You graduate from school next year, right?”  Duke blinked a few times before he let out a breath and nodded.  She let out a breath as well when the rest of the table seemed to relax at her question.  “Do you have plans for after you graduate?  Are you going to take a gap year or go to university or get a job?”

“I haven’t really decided yet.  Go to Gotham University, I guess,” he shrugged.

Marinette smiled disarmingly at him.  “You don’t have to decide now.  You have time.”

The waiter interrupted Marinette’s response with their food.  They gave their thanks and started eating.  “So what have you missed the most while you’ve been here?” Barbara asked.

“My parents’ cooking definitely,” Marinette grinned as she looked at her food. It didn’t look bad, but compared to her parents’ cooking… well not much compared.  “And the atmosphere.  Gotham is…” she looked around them as she thought of an unoffensive way to end that sentence.

“Dreary as Hell,” Stephanie finished for her.  “Yeah, we know.”

“I swear you guys have more gargoyles than we do though, which is just strange to me,” Adrien added.  “We were supposed to have the market cornered on gothic architecture.”

“Oh, you still do.  We just took the most depressing, dismal, gloomy, nightmare inducing parts and ran with it,” Duke grinned.  “But I would like to see Paris sometime.  Go see the Eiffel Tower… and jump off it.”

Barbara, Stephanie, and Cass all groaned at him.  Barbara gave him a stern look and pointed a warning finger in his face. “Not during the day.”

Duke laughed at her.  “Well I’m not going to do it at night.”

“Do it at sunrise,” Marinette advised.  “Less gendarmerie around then and if you angle it correctly, you get the most gorgeous view of the sunrise.”

“Bring sunglasses if you jump that way though.  I didn’t and I saw spots for hours.  Oh, and stretch first too,” Adrien added.  “You’re going to have to parkour for quite a while to try to ditch the GN.”

The rest of the table stared at them, jaws dropped in shock.  There was absolute silence at the table except for the sounds of Marinette sipping her drink and Adrien chewing his food. “You’ve…” Duke started almost too in awe to be able to finish the sentence.  “You’ve jumped off the Eiffel Tower?”

Marinette nodded and motioned between the two of them.  “Both of us have.  Both during an akuma attack and not.  Not was much preferable to during.”

“Isn’t that illegal?” Stephanie asked slowly.  She was like 90% positive it was but during akuma attacks, who knew what was legal anymore and Hell, maybe they had days where they gave exceptions. Stranger things have happened.

Marinette speared a bit of food and pointed it at her.  “Only if you get caught.”  She popped the food in her mouth with a triumphant grin.

Barbara blinked at her a few times and shook her head because dear God, there was another one.  She was going to fit right in.  No wonder she and Duke got along so well.  Both creative, smart, kind, thrill seeking, dumbasses.  “I’m pretty sure that’s not how that works,” she deadpanned.

Adrien shrugged and took a sip of his drink.  “I don’t know.  We didn’t get arrested, so I’m pretty sure it is.”

Duke and Stephanie started laughing hysterically.  They looked over at Cass with raised eyebrows when they settled down. Cass stared intently at Marinette and Adrien for a few seconds, staring into them like she was reading their souls. Marinette and Adrien looked at each other with identical unsure looks and subconsciously leaned back at the same time, shuffling in their seats.  Cass stared at them for just a few more seconds before she nodded.

“Holy shit,” Duke muttered in awe.  “You were telling the truth.”

Marinette looked back over at Adrien for an explanation he clearly didn’t have, judging by the blank look on his face before looking back at Duke.  “Uh… yeah?”

“What just happened?” Adrien asked tentatively.

“Sorry about that,” Barbara sent them a disarming smile.  “Cass is kind of like a human lie detector.  She is exceptionally good at telling if someone is lying.  She just confirmed that you two were not.”

Marinette blinked at Barbara a few times before turning to Cass and blinking at her.  “Huh… good to know,” she nodded slowly.  Her eyes stayed on Cass but it was clear her mind was running a mile a minute behind them.  After a few seconds she spoke up again.  “Can you tell the lies people tell themselves too?”

Cass quirked her head to the side and studied Marinette for a moment and shook her head.  “Have to know.”

Marinette nodded and silently took a bite of her food. “Well, that has to come in handy,” Adrien chirped.  “Remind me to take you with me when I meet people.”

Marinette could feel eyes boring into her.  She looked back over at Cass and raised a curious eyebrow at her.  “Hero,” she finally said.

Marinette coughed for a second and looked back at her with her most convincing blank look.  “I’m sorry.  What?”

Cass nodded toward Marinette.  “Eiffel Tower.”

Marinette chuckled disarmingly and shook her head. “You think I’m a lot more honorable than I am.  You think it’s more likely that I was a hero than that I knowingly, intentionally, purposefully violated the law for fun.”  She leaned closer to Cass with a smirk.  “But I can assure you, I regularly did.”

The others at the table looked to Cass.  She quirked her head to the side and gave a small smile before nodding.  “Truth.”  Cass pointed to herself.  “Next time.”

Marinette grinned and nodded excitedly. “Absolutely.”

Duke cleared his throat.  “And Duke,” Cass added.

Marinette chuckled.  “Of course.  We can make a New Kids Club event out of it.”

“And me!” Stephanie chirped.

Barbara sighed and turned to Adrien.  “Dick said you had a job interview yesterday.  How did it go?”

Marinette beamed at Adrien as he responded. Adrien’s face lit up.  “It went well I think.  I think I’d really enjoy working there!  I met the department chair and other professors.  It looks like a really supportive department and University, very research oriented.”

“Where is it?” Duke asked between bites.

“Metropolis,” Adrien answered, his fondness he’d already developed for the city bleeding into his tone.

“Oooh, Conner lives there.  If you’re still deciding if you want to live there or if you need a tour guide, or recommendations on where to eat, he’d be more than happy to help,” Stephanie offered.

Marinette’s smile turned into a pointed smirk and Adrien groaned quietly.  “Conner, did you say?”

Stephanie looked between them, her brow furrowing in confusion.  “Yeah?”

“That wouldn’t happen to be Tim’s single friend would it?”  Her eyes never left Adrien as she asked, her smirk somehow getting even sharper.

Adrien groaned even louder when he looked over and saw Cass’ smile matched Marinette’s and Duke and Stephanie both had devious, familiar looking glints in their eyes.  This was clearly payback for all his attempts to set Marinette and Chloe up with different people.  “Why yes, yes it is.  How about that,” Duke grinned.

Cass pulled out her phone and moved her finger around the screen for a second then finally looked up with an innocent looking smile.  Adrien groaned and dropped his head into his hands.  “I’m not even in this family.  Why am I being punished?”

Barbara laughed and popped a bit of food in her mouth. “That’s funny.  You think just because there’s no paperwork, you haven’t been adopted already.  I made that mistake at first too.”

Chapter 19

Tags:

@maribat-bdbwm @jayjayspixiepop @redscarlet95 @alice-hazelwood @deathssilentapproach-blog @unoriginalmess @alyssadeliv @emotionalsupportginger @frieddonutsweets @when-no-wings-do-broomsticks @toodaloo-kangaroo @colorfulmongerpsychicranch @iloontjeboontje @wolf-for-life @maribatserver @aespades @prettylittlebutterflie @imarivers8  @ certainmuffinbagelcalzone @ritacrow-blog @unoriginalmess @demonicbusiness @kking13 @lady-bee-fechin @blur-of-colours @kittenmywaythrulife @kashlyn @loysydark @nerd-nowandforever

[smells-like-mettaton]

Rating: T (for inherent neutral ending angst)

Summary: Toriel's old house feels like a mausoleum. She will gladly ignore chisp crumbs and lumpy mattresses for a place that feels more like home.  (Queen Toriel ending fic for Soriel Week 2021.)

Word Count: 5211

XXX

The bedroom was exactly how she left it. Her bed pushed up against the gray wall. A book about snails on the wooden desk. A knit sweater with the embroidered words "Mrs. Mom Lady" in the wardrobe.

Even after all this time, she could barely look at it without her soul splitting in two.

She'd known this wouldn't be easy. She hadn't seen this house in over a century. Still, she wasn't prepared for how Asgore had sealed up her old room like a tomb, a photograph of the day that everything went terribly, horribly wrong.

At least the last child was safe. They should not have had to take a life to save their own, but she doubted Asgore had given them a choice.  Her own soul felt more numb than anything.  To her, Asgore had died a century ago.

What was done, was done. And as usual, she was too late to do anything but sweep up the dust.

She backed through the doorframe, shutting the door with a quiet click. She would have to return eventually, but for now, she yearned for a place with fewer painful memories.

"Hey, Your Majesty." A voice startled her as she attempted to escape the foyer. Luckily it was a voice she would always recognize.

"Hello, old friend." She turned and smiled at the monster leaning against the stair railing.

He was smaller than she expected, with that deep voice. Not that that was a bad thing. As for him being a skeleton, that had been apparent from the abundance of bone puns.

"You know the formality is unnecessary," she told him softly.

"Is it?" He shuffled from foot to slippered foot. 

In all her time of joking with him through the door, she had never expected him to be so cute. 

"Didn't want to assume, old lady."

He winked, and she felt a weight lift from her chest. At least one monster would still treat her like a person, and not like a mythical figure returned to save them.

"Toriel," she introduced herself for the first time. He had to have heard already, but between rushing to the palace, scattering Asgore's dust, comforting their—her people… she hadn't had time to seek out her friend.

He seemed to feel comfortable walking right into her home, though. Did he ever visit Asgore when he was here? Her friend seemed like the type of monster who went wherever he felt like, and Asgore, for all his flaws, had never turned a monster away from his home.

"Sans." He held out a bony hand. "Sans the skeleton."

"Nice to meet you, Sans," she tested out the name and clasped his hand with her paw.

A loud pthbbbbbt echoed through the empty hall. Her eyes widened.

"Wow, Toriel. That's, uh, some way to make an introduction." He winked.

She squinted down at the inflatable object in his hand, the source of the farting noise. Then she pretended to ignore it.

"It certainly is. I was not aware that skeletons were capable of flatulence."

His eyelights gutted for a moment before he burst out laughing.

"Your jokes are even better in person," he said once he composed himself.

His laugh set her soul fluttering. In all their conversations through the door, he'd never laughed like that. Maybe she should have tried fart jokes sooner.

"I am always happy to tickle your funny bone." She smiled, and his face tinged blue.

"Happy to be tickled. But, uh. I guess that's not all I'm here for?"

Her breath caught in her lungs. Of course he would not visit without a reason. 

"I suppose not. Would you like to have a seat?"

"It's nothing that serious," he assured her quickly. "I just thought you'd want an update on the kid."

"You've spoken with them? They are still here?"  She tried to keep the hysteria from her voice.

How could they have taken Asgore’s soul and not returned home?  Had the Barrier proven too powerful?

"No—geez, I'm making this sound worse." He ran a bony palm down his face. "They’re definitely gone.  Papyrus tried to call them nonstop.  Besides that, you know the big stuff. The king's dead."

Her lips drew to a thin line, pulling tight across her fangs.

"I can hardly fault them for that."

"Right." He stuck his hands back in his pockets. "I gotta be honest. The way the kid looked when I last saw them… I don't think they did it."

Her brow furrowed. She was inclined to hope that the child had not chosen violence.  They had been so sweet, so eager to talk and joke with the monsters of the Ruins, so quick to hug her even after she’d fought them.  It was hard to imagine them striking down Asgore.

"But… then what do you think happened?"

Sans shrugged. "Wish I knew. I kept watch best I could, but…"

"I could not expect you to come between them and your king." As much as she wished he could have. She had hardly expected him to agree to watch over the human at all.

“Couldn’t have even if I wanted to.  These bones aren’t as sturdy as they look.  Maybe I shoulda listened to my bro and drank more milk...” He grimaced and glanced away.  “Anyway.  Like I said, I don’t know what happened.  Just.  Be careful, okay?”

“Careful?” She blinked.

“Yeah.  You never know.” His gaze flickered to a potted golden flower on the end table next to the stairs.

“Sans.  If I did not know better, that would sound like a threat.” She crouched down, so she could better meet his eyesockets. “Is there something you are trying to tell me?”

“Man. First I rip one in front of a lady, then I threaten her.  I’m makin’ a great first impression.”  He rocked back and forth on his slippers. “Look. Toriel. I don’t wanna scare you, ‘specially since today must’ve been hard. Real hard.”

His eyelights bored into her irises. She found herself needing to look away.

“It has certainly been… interesting. Moreso than any day since I last saw this place.” She suppressed a shudder.

Change. Her life had been constant for so long.  There would be no more of that, now. Hopefully that would be for the better, but only time would tell.

“Yeah. Being flung away from everything you’re used to… don’t imagine that’s a cakewalk. Don’t want you to worry about freaks hiding in the shadows on top of that.”

Somehow, she felt he made more sense when he was on the other side of a door. Knock-knock jokes had a formula. Just another normalcy she had forfeited, she supposed.

“Please, Sans. If you believe I am in danger, you may say so.”

“Fine. So.” He grinned, and she couldn’t help a snort.

“Alright, I suppose I walked into that one.” She smiled, despite his warning. “Under normal circumstances, I would say I could handle myself. But I must admit you are more updated on the state of the kingdom than I.  Do you have any information that could help?”

“...Not really?” His grin turned sheepish.  “You look like a tough lady. I bet my bones are rattling over nothing.”

“I would still humer-us you.”

He gave her a funny look. “You’re actually taking me seriously?”

“Why would I not? You are my friend.  Perhaps… my only friend, at this point,” she admitted.  It would be foolish to ignore a warning, even if it was based on gut feeling. Or, whatever skeletons had in place of a gut.

“Well.  Uh.  If someone, something, was behind the king’s… yeah. If it wasn’t the kid, whoever else it was might still be around. So.” He coughed. “Sounds stupid when I say it like that, huh.”

“It does not.  I think it is sweet that you are worried.” He wouldn’t be able to see her blush, thankfully. It had been a long time since anyone had looked out for her.

“Geez, Toriel.” He rubbed the back of his skull. “You’re gonna ruin my reputation.”

“What reputation? Are you typically a monster with a heart of bone?” she teased.

“Nah. I just don’t worry. Too much work.”  It was difficult to tell if he was joking.  “Guess I can make an exception this once, though.”

“Why, thank you, my friend.”  She had the sudden urge to reach out and squeeze his hand.  It would be more for her own comfort than his, so she did not act on it. “To be honest, your words are a relief. I do not mind the excuse to avoid this place.”

“Oh.” He sounded surprised. “You got somewhere else you’d rather be?”

She both did, and did not. How could she explain without sounding like a clinging child?

...Perhaps that was the wrong metaphor. She would have preferred her children to be a little clingier.

“‘Cause, uh, if you don’t mind a bit of mess… my door’s always open.”

She blinked at the offer. Had he felt the thoughts stirring in her soul?

She didn’t want to be alone. Not again. And she had told him the truth: there were unlikely to be any other monsters she knew still around. Perhaps Gerson; she and Asgore had always joked that he would outlive them.

That joke seemed awfully morbid now.

“Sorry. Was that too forward? Our friendship’s built off closed doors; guess we should just take 'em one at a—"

"No," she interjected too forcefully. “No. I would love to visit your home.”

Though she had never set foot there, she already suspected it would feel more like a home than this place.

“You really—? Great.” His skull tinged the faintest blue. “Just, uh, know that it’s nothing fancy.”

Toriel smiled. “‘Nothing fancy’ sounds wonderful at the moment.”

Perhaps wherever he lived would be out of the way enough that news of her return would be delayed. If she could be lucky enough to pass for an ordinary monster… well, that was likely too much to wish for. It certainly wasn’t becoming of a queen to hide from her subjects.

Stars, there was so much to get used to. So many formalities to reacquaint herself with.  She hoped such things would wait until tomorrow.

Sans returned her smile.

“In that case, I know a shortcut.”

XXX

She handled the shortcut well for a first-timer. No stumbling on the other end, no complaints of nausea or dizziness. Of course, she was a Queen. A Boss Monster. Why would a magic trick ruin her composure?

Sans wanted to laugh. All this time, he'd been joking with the Queen. She didn't seem to mind, but she could just be “humerus”ing him.

...Nah. She had every excuse to ignore him if she really wanted to. Instead she'd actually taken him up on his offer.

He almost forgot to drop her hand once their feet landed in the soft snow. Heh. Who was he kidding? It was just nice to feel her fur under his fingers. To touch her, and know that she was real.

"Oh!" Her eyes lit up, reflecting the gyftmas lights strung haphazardly around the house's columns. "I remember this place!"

"You do?" Sans's browbone furrowed.

"I saw it while travelling from the Ruins to…" she trailed off.  To stop the kid from fighting Asgore.

Sans felt stupid for not trying to stop them himself.  Not that a kid that determined would’ve listened, anyway.  Still… he’d believed in them.  Hoped that by some miracle, they’d get ‘em out of this mess.

Heh. That was too much pressure to put on a kid, even a determined one.

"Yeah." He coughed quietly. "Guess we're hard to miss. Papyrus did something to the Gyftmas lights—even when the CORE lights go out for the night, ours stay on. Never figured out how he pulled that off."

Toriel laughed before seeming to realize something.

"I will get to meet your brother!" She clasped her hands together. "I wish it had not come about for such an unhappy reason, but I am excited nonetheless."

He chuckled. Her excitement was contagious. That was something she and Papyrus had in common already.

He pushed the door open, called out for his brother—and noticed the monster sprawled out on his couch.

"Oh." Sans blinked at Undyne, who was snoring so loudly, he should've heard it from outside. Guess he'd been a little distracted. "Uh. This is awkward."

"What is it?" Toriel hung back, her head ducking through the doorframe. "Is your brother sleeping? I would not wish to wake him. You said he rarely sleeps, did you not?"

"Nah, it's not him. Forgot his pal's house burned down. Actually, I'm sure you met her. Undyne? Captain of the Royal Guard?"

"I… yes, we met." Toriel edged inside, closing the door behind her with a soft click. "She looks far more peaceful now than she did this morning. From what I understand, my ex-husband was something of a father to her."

"Something like that." Sans nodded in agreement. There hadn't even been a Royal Guard until Asgore created the position for her. Sans wondered if Toriel would keep it around now that Asgore was gone.

Welp. It wouldn't hurt, what with his suspicions about Papyrus's friend "Flowery." 

(Maybe Sans should let Toriel sleep on the top floor rather than the couch anyway. No dirt for stray flowers to get into up there.)

"Should we be staring?" Toriel said with a soft chuckle.

Sans shook his thoughts away. "Sorry. Just thinking. I, uh…"

There wasn't room on the top floor. Sans's lumpy, crumb-dusted mattress was out of the question. That left only Papyrus's bed, which while rarely in use, had too much sentimental value to give to Toriel without asking. Where was Papyrus, anyway?

"Undyne!" His brother practically kicked in the door. "I have returned with nutritious—oh!"

Papyrus's sockets blinked at Toriel. Then at Sans. Then at Toriel again.

(Undyne let out another loud snore.)

"Sans?”  Papyrus dropped his groceries on the table next to the pet rock. “Why didn't you tell me we had another guest??"  

Because he was an idiot who hadn't planned past one impulsive offer. His face went a little blue.

"I guest you would figure it out," he managed to joke. 

Toriel let out a bleating laugh at that. The suddenness of it was enough to jolt Undyne awake.

"NGAHH!!" She tried to leap off the couch, but ended up rolling onto the floor. "I'm here, Asgore! I won't—oh."

Her single eye blinked up at Toriel. 

"Papyrus?" Undyne hissed through her teeth. "Why didn't you tell me the Queen was coming??"

"Because I didn't know!" Papyrus replied brightly. 

"I, uh, promise I'm usually more professional than this." Undyne summoned an energy spear and used it to push herself to her feet. The attack left a small char mark on the carpet. "I am at your service, Your Majesty."

Sans thought she looked real professional in a pair of Papyrus's MTT-brand crop top pajamas. Toriel didn't comment on that though, instead opting for a matronly smile.

"There is no need for that, Captain. I am not here on business, but as a friend."

That smile turned towards Sans, and he fought back a blush.

"Yeah. I was just gonna, uh, make some dinner. Y'know, welcome our queen back with some Snowdin hospitality."

"Dinner?" Papyrus squinted suspiciously. "You don't cook dinner. I cook dinner."

"First time for everything, right?" Sans winked to hide his embarrassment. 

Of course Papyrus wouldn't buy his excuse. But he really didn't want his brother and Undyne worrying on top of Toriel. Granted, it was Undyne's job to worry about security threats… but she'd tear up the house's foundation if she thought an enemy might be hiding anywhere in a five-mile radius. 

"Sans," Toriel chided him. "You do not owe me that."

"Wowie! You must be a great influence on him, Bald Asgore!"

Toriel blinked before bursting out laughing. Sans's grin widened. 

"Her name is Toriel, bro."

"Of course!! Where are my manners?" Papyrus bustled past him to shake Toriel's paws. "I am the Great Papyrus! It's an honor to meet you, Queen Toriel!"

"The honor is mine. Sans has told me so much about you," she said, and Papyrus blushed pink.

"You? Know the new queen?" Undyne whispered to Sans while Papyrus and Toriel got acquainted.

"You know me. I know everyone." He winked.

"She came out of nowhere."

"Yeah. My bro and I know what that's like."

Undyne huffed, but Sans didn't offer a more thorough explanation.

Papyrus's affronted shout signalled that Toriel had dropped her first pun.

"I take it back! This is the worst day of my life!!" 

Sans met Toriel's eyes, and they both laughed.

"I suppose I will have to help Sans in the kitchen as my pun-ishment," she said with a coy wink.

"Normally I would object to a guest cooking, but in this case I will make an exception!" Papyrus turned on his heel and grabbed Undyne's arm. "We will clean up the living room in the meantime! Try not to corrupt the queen any further, Sans!!"

"Wouldn't dream of it, bro."

He gave a quick wink to Toriel behind Papyrus's back, and they moved to the kitchen.

"Did I actually upset him…?" She asked once they were out of earshot.

"Nah. He's just dramatic like that. He'll drop three puns per sentence when he thinks I'm not listening."

He turned away, rummaging through the fridge for something edible they could cook.  Discreetly, he tucked his empty chisp bag behind Papyrus’s spaghetti-filled tupperware.

“Oh, good.  I would not want to make a bad first impression.”

“Pfft. You’d have to try real hard to do that, Tori.  My bro sees the best in everyone.”  He smiled and pulled a “pupperoni” pizza out of the freezer.  It wasn’t anything fancy, but at least it would be edible.

He turned around, pizza in hand, and found Toriel staring at him oddly.

“What?”  His sockets widened.  “Uh, you’re not vegetarian, are you?”

She shook her head quickly, her gaze skimming off of his like oil from water.

“Pizza sounds lovely.  It has been quite some time since I had one.”

Sans didn’t pry, but he couldn’t help wondering what her expression had meant.  Had he said something weird?

...Oh.  He’d called her Tori, hadn’t he?  He should know better than to use nicknames without asking.  Papyrus hated them.

“Please, allow me.”  She held out her paws, so she couldn’t be too upset.

He handed over the pizza, and he jumped when fire flared to life in her palms.  For a moment he thought the fire would scorch the pizza beyond recognition, but the flames were just pleasantly warm.  He’d never known a monster other than Grillby to have such careful control of fire magic.

“Heh.  I didn’t know you were so hot, Toriel.”

As soon as he said it, he clamped his jaw shut.  Geez, how stupid could he be?  Making bad jokes was one thing, but flirting with bad jokes?

The fire went out.  She looked up abruptly—er, looked away from the pizza.  He was still a good two feet shorter than her.

“Tori was fine,” she said, her voice soft.

“Uh,” he replied intelligently. 

She suppressed a giggle, and he was pretty sure his face burned hotter than her fire had.  He could stand to take notes from Alphys and throw himself in the trash.

“Or not.  Whatever is comfortable for you,” she reassured him.  “Now, should we eat dinner before it gets cold?”

Eating was hardly something he could screw up at.

“Sure,” then after a pause, he tested, “Tori.”

Forget her fire magic.  Her smile could’ve heated the pizza all on its own.

XXX

For once in a hundred years, dinner was a warm and energetic affair.  In addition to the pizza, Papyrus had tossed together a salad from his fresh groceries, and Sans had briefly stepped out to grab a few orders of wings and fries.  In the end there was plenty of food for four hungry monsters.

Papyrus apologized for the lack of seating, but Toriel didn’t mind sitting on the couch squeezed between Sans and Undyne, eating off of paper plates.  She couldn’t imagine anywhere she would have felt more comfortable.

Before long, though, the day’s fatigue caught up with her.  She supposed it was to be expected—she wouldn’t regain her social stamina all at once.  

Sans caught her eye, and he nodded towards the stairs as Undyne and Papyrus “owned” each other in an MTT-Brand fighting game.

“Sorry.  I know they can be a bit much.” Sans rubbed the back of his skull.  

“They’re lovely.  I wish I had the energy to keep up with them.”  She smiled.

He leaned against the banister, smiling down at them.  Papyrus had gotten the upper hand this time, and was punching the air with joy.

“Me too,” Sans said, still looking away.  “I was thinking.  If you want a place to rest for the night, my bed’s open.”

She blinked.  Her face seemed to catch fire.  That was rather more… forward than she was expecting.  Sure, she had enjoyed his lighthearted flirting, and much as she tried to deny it, feelings had been growing in her for a long time.  But to have him return those feelings? And so boldly? It was as unfathomable as it was unlikely.

“I can get ya some fresh sheets, and I’ll crash in the shed.  My bro set up an, uh, guest room there when the human was in town.”

Oh.  She rubbed the heat from her face while he wasn’t looking.  How foolish could she be, to think he would be implying…? Well.

“I would not force you out of your room,” she said.  “If your brother prepared a guest room, I am sure that would be adequate.”

He let out a quick laugh.  “Uh, you’re not used to my brother’s… decorating.  Seriously, I don’t mind.”

She sighed.  If he insisted, she supposed it would be rude to deny his hospitality.

“Alright.  Thank you very much, Sans.”

“Great.”  He smiled back at her, then went into his brother’s room.  She waited patiently, and only jumped a little when he suddenly reappeared from the right hand door.  Perhaps the two rooms were connected in the back by a bathroom.

“Hotel Sans, one vacancy.”  He winked while holding the door open.

She chuckled behind her hand.  “You really did not have to resort to this.”

“Heh, I wouldn’t call it much of a resort.  The bed’s not even queen sized.”  He rubbed the back of his skull.

The bed was smaller than she was used to, but it did have fresh sheets.  That was the only fresh thing about the room.  Chisp crumbs had been brushed under the dresser, and… that was a tornado.  A self-sustaining trash tornado.  Though at least there was a pine-scented air freshener suspended in it.

“Sorry, it’s… really not much.  Uh.  Probably kinda insulting, expecting the Queen to sleep—”

“It’s perfect.”

He blinked.  “Huh?” 

“I am no stranger to a few crumbs, Sans.”

She remembered days that bled into weeks that bled into months.  Months where she couldn’t bring herself to clean, could hardly bring herself to care at all.  Months that had grown fewer and farther between since she’d met a friendly voice behind a door.

“I would’ve vacuumed,” he said sheepishly, “but I suck at it.”

More embarrassingly loud laughter burst from her.  In front of Sans, though, she didn’t feel the need to curtail her joy.

“Thank you.” She poured as much sincerity as she could into her voice.  

“‘S no problem, Tori.”  A light blue tinge warmed his cheekbones.  How could he possibly look so adorable? “Bathroom’s down the hall if you wanna wash up or anything.  And Undyne’ll be on the couch, so this is probably the safest place in the Underground right now.”

Her brow furrowed.  Sure enough, there was no bathroom door inside the room—he must have used one of his “shortcuts” to move from his brother’s room to here.

“So, uh.  I’ll be in the shed—uh, guest room if you need me.”  He flashed one more tense grin before turning to leave.

“Wait.” She stepped towards him without thinking.  

He looked up, one brow ridge raised.  She found herself biting her lip, wondering if she dared ask what her soul wanted.  It was silly, really.  She’d been on her own for years, decades.

Maybe that was why she was so hesitant to lose this one taste of companionship.

“I would feel… safer, if you would stay too.”  Her face burned beneath her fur, but she projected her usual composure.

“...Welp. Can’t say no to that, huh?”

She was about to reassure him that he could say no—that she was asking as his friend, not as his queen—but the soft smile on his face told her he already knew.  

He briefly left to grab a few things, then returned with a few pillows and, for some reason, a dog bed.

“You are not going to sleep on that,” she said in disbelief.

He flopped the dog bed in the middle of the floor and started fluffing it.  “Why not?  Gotta throw a dog bed a bone, right?”

“Sans.”  

The outdoor lights dimmed, as if at her command.  Only the colored Gyftmas lights outside and one dim indoor bulb lit the room.

Her confidence waned with the light.  What had she expected him to do?  She’d asked him to stay.  Unless she wanted to…

Oh, to hell with it.  She was too old to be so shy about these things.

“If you are not opposed,” she swallowed, “we could… share this mattress.”

When he looked up, she couldn’t make out his eyelights at all.  Their glow returned slowly, like the rising of the sun from her memories.

“Heh… you sure?  You don’t even know if I snore.”

She laughed and sat on the bed, patting the space beside her.  “You do not know if I snore, either.”

“Fair enough, Tori.”

They took turns cleaning up in the bathroom—she was imposing on Sans enough without adding the smell of dirty fur to his bed.  Then she did her best to ignore the flutterings in her soul as he slipped off his hoodie and climbed up onto the mattress.  She insisted he stay under the sheets; her fur would keep her warm enough with just the light blanket on top.  

The sheets were a barrier in name only.  There was only so much space on the mattress, so no matter how he adjusted and apologized, she could still feel the curve of his spine against hers.

It felt amazing.  It felt terrifying.  It felt like a mistake.  It felt like the only thing she’d ever done right.

The one saving grace of the whole situation was that it didn’t stir memories of Asgore.  Her royal beds had been triple the size of Sans’s lumpy mattress. She and her ex-husband had rarely slept back to back, and if they had, the feeling would have much different.

“...Tori?” Sans’s voice was just above a whisper.  “You, uh, still awake?”

As if she could sleep while enduring the wonderful agony of friendly touch for the first time in a century.

“Yes,” she replied softly.  “Am I taking up too much space?”

“No, ‘course not. I was just, uh… geez.” He sounded embarrassed.

Risking their precarious balance, she rolled over to face him.  Or to face the back of his skull, at least.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

“Doin’ sans-sational.” He chuckled to himself.  “Sorry.  Never got to use that one with you before.”

She would have laughed, had she not worried about shaking the whole mattress.

“It was sans-tastic,” she joked back, and he laughed again.

Then abruptly, his laughter cut off.

“Thanks, Tori,” he said in a quiet but firm voice.

“What for?” She wished she could take his hand, see his face, learn what thoughts were passing through his skull.  Instead she gave him as much space as physically possible… which still was not much.

A long, silent moment passed.  Had he fallen asleep?

“I know it’s not how you wanted,” he finally said, “but I’m glad I got to meet you.  So.  Thanks.”

Warmth spread outward from her soul to fill her whole body.  Sans could probably feel it radiating from her.

“Thank you, Sans.  If I had to return, knowing no one…”

He rolled to face her.  His eyelights were mere inches from her pupils.

“You would’ve been fine.  All you had to do was tell a few of your amazing jokes, and the whole Underground would’ve been linin’ up to be your pals.”

She suppressed a laugh.  “I hardly think that would be appropriate, under the circumstances.”

“Eh.”  He shrugged.  “Plenty of monsters in town cope with jokes.  You’d just be relating to the common folk.”

She stared into his sockets a little too intently.  At this distance, it easily made her dizzy.

“Would you be included in that demographic?” she couldn’t help asking.

“When I first met you?  For sure.” His gaze darted away.  “But it’s crazy.  Between you and the kid… I’m startin’ to think there’s more to life than good food and bad laughs.”

“Really?”  She and the child had made such an impact on him?

“I know.  Don’t tell Papyrus.  He wouldn’t believe you, anyway.” He winked.

“My lips are sealed.” She smiled.

Silence hung between them.  It should have felt awkward, but she couldn’t bring herself to turn away.  In the end it was Sans who yawned in her face and then hurriedly flipped back onto his other side.

She laughed, and clearly she was exhausted too, because she pressed a kiss to the back of his skull without thinking.

He froze.  She froze.  There was no way to play that off gracefully.  And there was no way she could fall asleep and pretend that it had not happened.

“Heh… those didn’t feel very sealed to me,” he finally rasped out.

It took her a moment to process what he meant.  Meanwhile her embarrassment only burned hotter.

“I am so sorry—”

“I’m not.” When he rolled back to face her, his face was bright blue.  “You’ll still be here when I wake up, right?”

His question was tinged with desperation.

“Of course,” she answered automatically, despite the many responsibilities that she would have to attend to in the morning.  She was the Queen once more.  If she had to, she could adjust the schedule of meetings and speeches to accommodate… this.

Whatever this was to be.

“Remind me in the morning,” he squeezed her hand, “that this is real.”

His hand quickly went limp.  She was worried for a moment, before she heard the faint snore escape his nasal cavity.

She gave him a fond smile, and allowed her own eyes to close.  She did not know if sleep would come or not.  She did not know what challenges the new day would bring, or what old challenges would continue to rear their heads.

But she did know that she was not alone.  For tonight, that was enough.

[harrisonstories]

Above and below: George Harrison and Sir Jackie Stewart at the Gunnar Nilsson Memorial Trophy meeting in Donington Park, England, Middle: George driving the Lotus 18 at the same event (3 June 1979)

NOTE: This is a rather long but refreshing read about a side of George’s life which doesn’t get talked about much. Here is an interview George and Jackie did at the Gunnar Nilsson Memorial Trophy. 

A Beatle’s new mania

George Harrison, former lead guitarist with the legendary Beatles pop music group, talks to Chris Hockley about his passion for Formula 1, fast cars and a private life

IT’S PUZZLING in a way why George Harrison has such a fervent passion for fast cars and motor racing. For since the mind-boggling days of the Swinging ‘Sixties, when as one of The Beatles he was swept towards super-stardom and super-richness on a tidal wave of hysteria, the pace of his life has slowed to a virtual crawl.

Gone are the days when he had to make a run for it through thousands of screaming pop fans. Today, you are more likely to find him in his wellies, gently pushing a wheelbarrow towards carefully-tended flower beds in the vast grounds of his palatial country mansion.

Gone are the days when he lived out of a suitcase and wasn’t sure if he was in London, New York, Tokyo or Cloud Cuckoo Land. Today, he meditates silently for hours in his own temple.

Gone are the days when girls scratched each other’s eyes out as they fought to touch a fragment of his clothing. Today, he is happier to stay at home with his wife Olivia and their 10 month-old son, Dhani.

Yet there is still one public side to the private Mr. Harrison. For as well as being one of the world’s most famous pop stars, he has gradually become the world’s most famous motor racing fan.

“I’m getting too well known at motor races now,” he grins – as he is beseiged by a swarm of autograph hunters who have just rushed past Mario Andretti. “It was my hobby, now it’s getting like work again.”

George’s lean and craggy features are a frequent sight at Grand Prix meetings around the globe. His name is enough to ensure him VIP treatment, but he reckons he repays all the behind-the-scenes privileges he enjoys by attracting publicity for the sport.

Though he is often to be seen in the midst of a cluster of photographers, he does not go out of his way to court glamour. Harrison goes motor racing to see and not be seen.

He has been a genuine enthusiast since the days when he was just another poor kid from the streets of Liverpool, digging deep into his pocket to get into the city’s Aintree circuit during its heydey in the ‘Fifties.

He loves talking about racing. To him it represents a refuge from never-ending questions like: “Are the Beatles ever going to get together again, George?” Or, “Is it true that Paul McCartney once had a bunion on his right foot?”

In his slow, deliberate – and knowledgeable – Scouse drawl, George will tell you about oversteer, understeer, gear ratios and why he hopes Jody Scheckter will be world champion this year.

And he will rave about Fangio with the same 12-year-old’s wide eyes that watched the great Argentinian dominate the 1955 British Grand Prix at Aintree with Mercedes team-mate Stirling Moss.

“I can’t remember why I started going to Aintree – I think I just saw a poster advertising a race,” he says. “Anyway, I used to go there whether it was a big or small meeting, take my butties and sit on the Railway Straight embankment to watch the race. I went to a lot of bike meetings as well – I was a big fan of Geoff Duke!

“I had a box camera and went round taking pictures of all the cars. If I could find an address I wrote away to the car factories, and somewhere at home I’ve got pictures of all the old Vanwalls, Connaughts and BRMS. All that stuff got lost when I went on the road with The Beatles, but I’m sure it’s still in my dad’s attic.”

Such was his enthusiasm that it was a question of whether cars or guitars would dominate his life. He couldn’t afford both…he couldn’t afford either, really. because he had to borrow the £2 10 shillings he needed to buy his first guitar. Luckily for him, he opted for pop.

“By the time I got any money at all I was 17 or 18, getting a couple of quid a week from a few concerts in Liverpool. But I got so involved with rock ‘n’ roll and The Beatles – we were on our way to making records and all that – that to tell you the truth I completely lost touch with motor racing apart from watching the odd bit on TV or reading magazines.”

As the Fab Four became the world’s top pop stars, so they were able to call the tune and ease up on their stamina-sapping schedule. George found himself free to head back to the tracks once more…and in true showbiz style aimed straight for Monaco.

It was there that he met the man who helped him to step backstage of big-time motor racing – Jackie Stewart. George found an instant affinity with Stewart, not least because Jackie wore his hair long and was an outspoken critic of the established order, two keystones of the “rock revolution” of the late ‘Sixties and early ‘Seventies of which Harrison was so much a part.

George said: “Jackie did such a lot for the sport and was criticised for it. People moaned and groaned when he wore fireproof suits and talked about safety – things which are so obvious and practical now but at that time were being put down.

“Another thing was that he always projected the sport beyond just the racing enthusiasts which I think is very important.”

It is Stewart, always a big Beatles fan, who has given George an appreciation of the finer points of the racing art, often driving him around circuits – he scared the pants off Harrison at Interlagos this year – or showing him the best places to watch from “inside” of the track.

“I always enjoy the last session of the qualifying best,” says George. “Jackie taught me how to get the most from it by wandering around the circuit to watch from different places. That way you really get into how cars are handling gear ratios, the whole thing.”

The rapport between the two was vividly illustrated at the recent Gunnar Nilsson Campaign meeting at Donington, where both took part in a demonstration of classic Grand Prix cars. Afterwards, Harrison changed into jeans and sweater, while Stewart stayed in his racing overalls plus the mandatory black corduroy cap. As they walked into the royal enclosure to watch the afternoon’s racing, Stewart turned to Harrison and said: “I don’t know why I am dressed like this.” “Because you’re a twit,” came the reply.

Friends say that of the four ex-Beatles, Harrison is the one who has kept his feet closest to the ground. He seems to have retained the “love and peace” message of the flower power era and has refused to be swayed by the cynicism of the ‘Seventies.

His easy-going manner has made him a popular figure among the Formula One drivers, and he has become friendly with many of them.

“It’s obviously an advantage for me to be sort of independent,” he says. “I’m not like a spy from Ferrari or Lotus or anything like that. It’s a very nice position to be in – I am no threat to anyone so they are friendly towards me.”

His close contact with the drivers has also changed his attitude to them. Like most race fans, he has had his idols – Fangio because he was top dog in his childhood. Graham Hill because he was “a very English gentleman,” Jackie because he was Jackie and so on.

Now, there are no more heroes. “It’s difficult to single anyone out because I’m much closer to them. I mean, there’s people like Jochen Mass who might never be world champion but is such a nice person.

“But I want Jody Scheckter to be world champion this year. It would be good if Grand Prix racing was like the music business, where you can have a No. 1 hit and then get knocked off by your mate for his turn at No. 1. But unfortunately it isn’t like that. There is a point where you are just ‘ready’ to be a world champion, and if it doesn’t happen, it could be all downhill from there.

“Jody is ready – he’s got the car and the team, and mentally he’s right there. To get in the right team at the right time is almost impossible. It happens, like Mario last year – he was very fortunate in having that car.

Take Villeneuve. He’s very good but he’s still a bit young and more prone to making mistakes than Jody. He’s got a lot of years ahead of him, though. That’s why I’d like to see Jody get it now.

“Alan Jones is another one who’s ready. He’s great, he’s mature and he’s ready to win. And now he has got a really good competitive car. Maybe next year Alan Jones will be right at the head of the championship.”

Harrison is no sluggard himself. He drives a Porsche Turbo and what he calls an “old” Ferrari Dino Spyder. There are whispers about 140 mph tyre-squealing burn-ups on a 10-mile “circuit” around his incredible home – Friar Park, near Henley-on-Thames.

Certainly it is not difficult to imagine a glorious road circuit winding through the 33-acre wooded grounds. Nothing would come as a surprise after the mansion itself – a £2 million fairy palace that would do credit to Disneyland – and other amazing features of the grounds like three lakes built on different levels, a series of caves filled with distorting mirrors, model skeletons, glass grapes and hundreds of the proverbial garden gnomes…and an Alpine rock garden including a 100ft high replica of the Matterhorn!

But George though he admits he sometimes has “a spin through the woods,” insists that the burn-up stories are exaggerated: “It’s all very slow speed around the garden – you know tractors and wheelbarrows and things like that…”

He has, however, had a go at the real thing. He took his turn at the wheel of a Porsche 924 in a 24-hour run for the Nilsson campaign at Silverstone, organised by his local sports car specialists, Maltin’s of Henley.

He drove Stirling Moss’s famous Rob Walker Lotus 18 at the Nilsson’s day at Donington, where Jackie Stewart managed to frighten him yet again by blasting his Tyrrell around at full pelt at the same time.

And he has even managed to get his hands on a modern generation Formula One car. It was at Brands Hatch two years ago, the time when former world motorbike champ Barry Sheene, another good friend, was thinking of moving into car racing. Sheene took George with him when he tried out a Surtees TS19 with a view to having a crack at the British Aurora Formula One series.

It was an occasion which George remembers with more than a slight grin…

“Barry persuaded John Surtees to let me have a go. But John said: ‘He’s got no gear.’ So Barry rips off his fireproof vest and says to me ‘Here y’are, you can wear this.’ I just slipped on this sweaty old thing and borrowed John Surtee’s crash helmet. I got in the car and said: ‘I’m not going to go fast because I haven’t even walked around Brands Hatch, let alone driven round.’ So he said: ‘Oh shit, you had better get in my road car.’

“Well, we went bombing off round the track in his Mercedes and he was saying things like: ‘Keep it over to the left here, make sure the tail doesn’t flick out too much here, and so on. I was just hanging on for dear life.

“I got in the F1 car and thought ‘Now, what did he say?’ Then, while I was pulling away in the pit lane, trying not to stall it, I was thinking ‘God, it’s windy in this car.’ I hadn’t even remembered to close my visor!

“Still, it was a great feeling. Although some people have told me it wasn’t a very good Grand Prix car, believe me if you hadn’t driven one before it was fantastic. It was like, wow…those wheels just dig in round the corners.

“I didn’t go very fast. I just signed the chitty saying that if I killed myself it wasn’t John’s fault!”

George, now 36 years old, is unlikely to do a Paul Newman and turn his hand to serious racing. He is honest enough to admit he is apprehensive of the dangers.

Neither is he likely to become involved in large-scale sponsorship, despite a reputation for generosity (it is said that he once gave the landlady of his local pub three rubies for her birthday).

He has dabbled in a small way with bike racing – last year he backed Steve Parrish, who he knew through Barry Sheene, when Steve lost his works Suzuki ride. But this year he has turned down an approach for £185,000 to run a BMW M1 in the Procar series – and has no intention of following in the footsteps of Walter Wolf or Lord Hesketh by setting up his own Grand Prix team.

“What with living in England and the tax I pay, it takes a long time to get some cash anyway, and the last thing you need is just to give it away. You need too much money to do the job properly in Formula One. If I had £3 million to give away, which I haven’t, there’s probably better things to give it to than motor racing. Like the starving, for example.”

The last comment reflects Harrison’s continued commitment to the impoverished parts of countries like Bangladesh and India. All the royalties from one of his albums go into a foundation, and from there the cash is handed out to various charities.

There is a chance that in the years to come, George’s enthusiasm may rub off on his son, and we may yet see a Harrison out there on the track. After the usual parental head-scratching, George concedes that he would not stand in the way if Harrison Junior opted for cars instead of guitars – “though by that time they’ll probably be driving missiles or something.”

But for the time being at least, George will stay on the outside looking in. A weekend at the races will go on being the noisy, urgent, smelly and exciting contrast to the gardening and the meditation.

And a brief glimpse of the one public side to the private Mr. Harrison.

-  MOTOR magazine (28 July 1979)

[ladylynse]

Happy Halloween, everyone! Here’s the last of my Star-centric Ectober 2018 fic, Helpless, in honour of Day 31: Breathe.

(Day 13: Help / Day 15: Explain / Day 19: Mistakes / Day 26: Sanity)

How come it seems like the more she finds out, the less she knows?

Danny’s hand clamped over her mouth.

Star did the natural thing: she twisted in his grip, and when she couldn’t break free, she bit him.

Hard.

He yelped, loosening his grip enough that she was able to get away. “Why did you bite me?”

She watched him shake out his hand, wondering how much he’d even felt that. She hadn’t managed to draw blood. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. “Because you grabbed me.”

“Because you screamed!”

A door banged open, and Danny lunged for her. She didn’t manage to pull away before he had a firm grip on her wrist. Someone—Valerie’s boss, maybe?—looked right at them.

And then past them.

And then he went back inside.

Screams were fairly common in Amity Park; even the locals still got spooked on occasion, and anyone would scream if the Fenton RV was barrelling towards them. It was good practice to see how close the latest ghost fight was to your backyard, too, to see if you needed to head for cover or if the ghost was harmless enough that you could toss a box at it and be done with it.

Star was used to that. Everyone was used to that.

She was not used to being looked through as if she wasn’t even there.

Danny dropped her hand. “No more screaming, okay?”

Star swallowed. She doubted it was supposed to sound like a threat, especially coming from Fenton, but…. “No more screaming,” she whispered.

“Right. Okay. We probably shouldn’t stay here. Let’s walk.”

She wasn’t about to argue—she didn’t want to stay here, and even if she wasn’t keen on being alone with him, running wouldn’t get her anywhere—but maybe…. “What…what about Sam and Tucker?”

“They’re used to me having to ditch them. I’ll fill them in later. They’re going to kill me for this anyway.” He caught her expression. “That was a joke.”

Phantom hadn’t popped up behind her and yelled surprise!, so she had a sinking feeling that that was the only joke.

Danny didn’t try to talk to her for a while. Frankly, Star was happy to trudge after him in a daze. What he’d done….

She couldn’t have imagined it. She didn’t imagine it. That had been intangibility. And invisibility. She couldn’t see how it could be a trick. The timing was too perfect. This was Danny’s doing, except that was impossible, because he was human, not a ghost, and—!

“Just breathe, Star,” he murmured, slowing down so that he was in step with her again.

Easy for him to say.

There wasn’t any way to sugar coat what had happened. She wasn’t mixing up intangibility and invisibility with anything else. He’d actually—!

Danny reached out to tug her into the park, and she flinched away. He looked hurt but didn’t try to touch her again. That made her breathe a little easier, and she followed him. When he left the path and headed for the bushes, she didn’t object. She knew where he was going now. Besides, if he’d wanted to silence her, he could have done that by now. He just wanted to talk somewhere private. She could handle that.

Probably.

“Look,” Danny said when they finally stopped in the recently-made clearing she’d hidden by not half an hour ago. “I thought you said you’d figured it out.”

She could still smell the freshly scarred earth. The remains of Skulker’s suit were on the far side, thawed now but covered in leaves and snapped branches from the fall it had taken. She knew it was just an empty shell, but it felt like a skeleton now. If Danny hadn’t known she’d witnessed the fight, why bring her here specifically? Didn’t he think someone—Skulker himself, maybe, or Technus, or a ghost with a similar affinity—would come back to clean up?

Is that why they were here, so he could catch whoever tried? Prove that this was exactly how he had been helping Phantom all along? And why she’d never seen him do it?

She wouldn’t have thought he’d dare come back when the first ones to show up could very well be his parents.

She still hadn’t answered his question, so she took a steadying breath. “I lied.” It felt strange to admit that so plainly. “People do that. You included.”

He stared at her. “But…but me being a halfa. And Phantom. You said—”

“Obviously, I added it up to the wrong conclusion!” snapped Star. She regretted the words instantly, but she didn’t think she could show weakness right now, so she squared her shoulders and stared him down instead, trying to appear more brave than she felt.

“Right,” he said in a small voice. “So what were you actually thinking?”

“Not whatever this is!” She crossed her arms, hoping he wouldn’t realize that she’d started shaking. She couldn’t seem to stop. “I just…. So it’s definitely not a title?”

Danny blinked. “You thought it was a title?”

“Like…like teacher, or mayor, or…or captain. I don’t know. Nothing made sense. I thought you’d tell me if you thought I already knew.”

Danny snorted. “I walked into that one.” He took a deep breath. “Promise me you won’t freak out.”

“Don’t think I can do that.” Was her voice higher than normal? She couldn’t tell. Maybe. It was definitely hard to keep it from quavering. She wasn’t sure if she was successful in that, either. This was…. She didn’t even know what this was. “Especially after whatever you did at the Nasty Burger.”

“I just phased the chocolate off of you. Or rather you off the chocolate. So it didn’t stain.”

“Sure. You just made me intangible. And then you just made me invisible.”

Danny winced. “At least now you know why you need to keep this a secret?”

Star let out a strangled laugh. “As if anyone would believe me if I tried to tell them. ‘Guess what, guys? Danny has ghost powers!’ Just because we live in Amity Park….” She shook her head. “Is this because of your parents? Or because of Phantom?”

For some reason, Danny smiled. “You really don’t get it, do you?”

Fantastic. Something she’d said had amused him. Good thing one of them felt like laughing about this because she felt like crying.

This was insane.

To think she’d doubted his sanity when it was her own she’d needed to worry about. This was impossible. People didn’t just have ghost powers, not even in Amity Park. What else could he do? Float? Fly? Make an ectoblast without burning his flesh? Oh, wait, training with this Frostbite ghost. Could he have been sending ice rays right back at Icebreaker if she hadn’t been there? Is that what he’d done once he’d gotten rid of her while waiting for Phantom to show?

“I’m a halfa. It’s kinda hard to explain. Ectoplasm mixed with my DNA or something like that. Just think of it like half a ghost. That’s what Poindexter told me.”

“Who’s—?”

“Not important right now. Just…. Star. Don’t freak out.”

She opened her mouth to make some smart retort about him telling her not to freak out just making her freak out more, but then—

Then she saw the light. The rings. Watched them pass over him. Change him. Found herself staring at Phantom. At Phantom. Amity Park’s infamous ghost boy. Paulina’s crush. The one who’d saved them all countless times.

“Star. Breathe. Trust me, it’ll help calm you down.”

Calm down? Calm down? He was a ghost—he was Phantom—and he expected her to calm down?

She didn’t want to ask how this had happened. Knowing might make it more real. And she could guess. Except this shouldn’t be possible, how was this actually possible?

The light returned, bringing Fenton back, and she wondered if she could chalk this up to hysteria. Maybe she could talk herself into it being a trick after all. If Fenton and Phantom worked together, maybe their timing really was just that good. And maybe they thought a trick would get her to stop digging into things she shouldn’t. Or maybe Phantom—

Wait.

Danny Fenton? Danny Phantom? He’d barely even changed his name. Or, come to think of it, his appearance. It was just so…. Who would expect Phantom to be human? Absolutely no one. Including—

Star covered her mouth; if her knees weren’t locked, she probably would’ve fallen. “Your parents—”

“Yeah. Don’t tell them.”

“Then….” She swallowed. She didn’t mind leaving the other topic; she could panic over what that meant later. This one wouldn’t necessarily be any easier to hear, but she wanted to know. “I heard Phantom…you…mention Valerie.”

Danny frowned. “When?”

“With Skulker. Here. I followed the fight.” Danny’s expression tightened, but he didn’t say anything. “You…you know how much she hates ghosts. Everyone does. But why—?”

“Ask her, not me. Just don’t…. Don’t tell her, either. Don’t tell anyone. Star, I could have the government breathing down my neck if they realize what I am. And that’s almost more frightening than everything with my parents because my parents might stop. If they realize it’s not a trick. If they believe me. But the Guys in White? They won’t. Ever. Because they won’t care.”

She wanted him to scoff, to tell him to be serious, but she knew they were beyond joking. This was…. “This is crazy.”

“Welcome to my life.” He gave her a sheepish smile, one she was used to him offering Mr. Lancer. “But, uh, since you know…. Can you help me?”

“Help you?”

“Keep this a secret. From everyone else.”

She closed her eyes. It did nothing to help calm her nerves. She couldn’t shut out the memories of what she’d seen or felt, couldn’t forget what she knew, even if she couldn’t understand it all. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Honestly? Because I thought you already knew it. And because after I blew my secret, you deserved more of an explanation, as much for your safety as mine.”

She looked at him again. No smile. No joke.

That wasn’t exactly comforting.

“I’m not asking you to fight with me. Just…just do what you can. Cover for me if you see that I need it, don’t tell Paulina or Valerie or anyone else, that kind of thing. It’s better that no one else knows halfas exist.”

The thought made her chest tighten. “There are more of you?”

Danny cringed. “Um, forget I said that. I can’t tell you that right now.”

“Ever?”

He shrugged.

He didn’t want to tell her more than he thought he had to. That was okay. She wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know more, especially right now.

Once, she would’ve been delighted to help Phantom in any way she could. Now that she knew he wasn’t really a ghost? It was…less delightful. Knowing Fenton was the town hero was disquieting. It’s not that she didn’t think him capable of it—he obviously was—but she just…. Did half ghost also mean half human? What was he? And how could there be others?

It made her skin crawl.

“Look, Star, just because you know my secret, it doesn’t change who I am. I’m still the same kid you were stuck in detention with last week. I deserved it. You didn’t. I think Youngblood was just trying to get me into trouble anyway.” He started rubbing the back of his neck. “Do you think…. Do you think you’ll be able to look at me the same way, even knowing what you do?”

She shook her head, not trusting herself to be able to lie right now. “This is insane, Danny. How do I even…?”

“You can talk to Jazz if you think it’ll help. She knows, too.”

Star realized she was finger combing her hair, one of her nervous habits, and forced herself to stop. “Right. So Jazz knows. And Sam and Tucker. And all the ghosts. Isn’t that, like, counterintuitive to the whole secret identity thing, your enemies knowing exactly who you are anyway?”

“For most of the ghosts,” Danny said carefully, “I’ve been able to call truces outside of Christmas. When I really need it. When we really need it.”

He didn’t see them as his worst enemy. That was reserved for his parents. Or maybe the government. Crud, why had she ever looked into this? Ignorance would’ve been easier than knowing Danny was Phantom!

She took a deep breath and tried to focus. “Let me tell the others that you know Phantom.”

“Star—”

“Hear me out. Not that you work with him, not if you don’t want me to say that, but that you know him. That you and Jazz, I dunno, take his thermos whenever it’s full and release all the ghosts back into the Ghost Zone again. They’ll believe that.”

“I don’t want more attention, Star. Or to give my parents another reason to ground me. Or to try to force me to wear the Spectre Deflector.”

“It’ll keep you from being Dash’s punching bag if he thinks you can introduce him—properly—to the ghost boy. And Paulina will stop any and all bad gossip about all three of you in its tracks. They have social power, Danny, power I don’t have. But I can get you protection if I—”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’d rather be a punching bag than tell them a half lie like that. Because even that much is risky. Star, after the Guys in White were in town, Tucker went through the school. They’d bugged our lockers, the classrooms, even the bathrooms. If they think I have more of a connection to Phantom than any other kid out there, I’m just putting myself in more danger.”

The Guys in White—what kind of name was that, anyway?—was the government organization he’d mentioned earlier; no one else would have that kind of power. Or the motive. Not that she was really convinced the government would care so much about high school kids, but maybe they knew more about the truth of Phantom than she had until now. Or maybe Danny was just thinking the worst, though she couldn’t really blame him for that when she could imagine how bad the worst was. “Really? Don’t you think—?”

“I’m not exaggerating. And I’m not overreacting. I’ve given up on a normal life, Star. With the way my grades are, I’ve pretty much given up on my dream of being an astronaut. I’m not normal. My high school experience definitely isn’t normal. Doing something like that to get a pass isn’t worth it. Tides turn fast. The beauty pageant taught me that.”

Star rolled her eyes. “I still can’t believe you picked Manson. I mean, I can, because it’s you and her, but—”

“She wound up in the Ghost Zone because of that,” Danny interrupted. “That whole pageant, me being the judge…. It was all a setup. You want to use your social influence to help me? Trust me when I tell you something’s bad, and spread the word. I don’t care if I wind up the butt of some joke if it saves lives.” A beat, then, “I can’t afford to care.”

Star raised an eyebrow. “And what does your sister think when she hears you talk like that?” She was glad the conversation had drifted. She was on familiar ground now. Talking about Danny’s social life, even his safety, seemed more normal than him talking about what being a halfa really meant. She really didn’t want to think about that right now. Focusing on consequences she could understand was a lot easier.

Danny huffed. “When I accidentally do, she gives me a lecture. And a hug. It’s annoying.”

Star didn’t need to have a sibling to know that it wasn’t annoying. Not really. If it was, it was at least annoying but appreciated.

He wanted to change the topic; she could see that from his body language. She sucked in a breath and obliged. “Okay. So. You’re…you’re actually Phantom. A halfa. Probably because of your parents, but you don’t want to share details, and I get that. Huge secret, at least from the humans, with potentially bad consequences if something gets out.” He opened his mouth, probably to correct her, but she held up a hand. “Let me finish, okay?”

“Okay,” he mumbled. He started tracing lines in the dirt with the toe of his shoe instead of facing her, but that was fine. This was almost easier to work out when he wasn’t staring her in the face.

“You don’t want to tell anyone anything, not even something small, like that you help Phantom. Even though that’s what you told me.”

“That was only because you kept asking questions,” he muttered. “I had to tell you something to get you off my back.”

“Right. I’ll help you come up with better lies later because obviously no one else is any better at it than you are.” Star took another deep breath and tried to gather her thoughts. “You could have tried lying again, you know. I might not have believed you, but I probably wouldn’t have pushed it. That was…. It was freaky. I would’ve told myself that you and Phantom were just trying to mess with me or something. I still tried.”

Danny looked up. “And how long do you think you would have believed that before realizing that you were just lying to yourself? How long before you decided the curiosity was driving you crazy and you started taking bigger and bigger risks to find out the truth? You’d be good with one of my mom’s Fenton Utility Weapons, but I’m pretty sure you don’t already have one. Which would be a problem if you accidentally poked the wrong bear. Some of these guys have multiple sets of teeth, and their bark definitely isn’t worse than their bite.”

He thought she’d run out after ghosts on her own. “You think I’d be stupid enough to do that?”

He snorted. “You followed me and Skulker, didn’t you? After you almost got hit by some of his missiles?”

“I didn’t tell you that until after you told me.”

“Doesn’t make me wrong. It just proves my point. Not telling you now would be dangerous. If you hadn’t seen me use my powers, sure, I probably would’ve tried to come up with something again, but I can’t…. I can’t cover that up, Star. That’s why I’m trying to be more careful about it. Especially now that I can control it. I couldn’t off the start. It was rough. That’s why I kept dropping stuff in chem.”

Star blinked. “That’s when this started? Way back then?” But he was right, of course. Before Phantom was called Phantom, even before he’d been dubbed Invis-o-Bill….

“That’s when everything started. When my parents finished the portal. When all the ghosts started coming through. This is my fault. I’m just trying to fix my mess. Sam and Tucker got sucked into it. Then Jazz. Now you. And I really don’t want you caught up in this. So just…. Trust what I tell you. Keep your head down. Cover for me if Sam and Tucker can’t. Pretend you don’t know, and hopefully the ghosts will leave you alone.”

Star stared at him. “You think I’m going to be a target now? I thought you said telling me was safer!”

“It is.”

“Not if I have ghosts after me!”

“You won’t! Or you shouldn’t. Not more than normal. Just…trust me.”

It was the same thing he’d told her back in the beginning of all this. He hadn’t wanted to tell her anything then, hadn’t wanted to let her in on this. Even now that he had, he didn’t want to tell her everything. She wasn’t even sure if this was half of it. She’d been left with questions then, and she definitely still had questions now, but—

Star took a slow, steady breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Calm down. Think clearly. Figure things out.

“Please?”

She hadn’t really trusted that Fenton could help her when she’d been trapped with him, but he had. And she certainly trusted Phantom to save her in the past. So if it came down to it, knowing they were the same person, knowing what Danny was really capable of—

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll trust you. And I’ll keep your secret. But you’ve gotta do something for me, too.”

He looked worried now. “What?”

“I don’t want to go out and fight ghosts all the time, but if I’m caught in another attack, especially if I might be a target, I don’t want to be helpless like that again. I hate that. So get me a weapon and show me how to use it.”

She wasn’t lying; she did hate feeling helpless. It wasn’t just to get Valerie off her back, either, even though Star knew Valerie wouldn’t drop the subject until she at least agreed to think about learning something. Of course, Star was happy to let Valerie think her influence was the reason behind it all. It was a lot easier than explaining how she might find herself targeted by more ghosts than she had in the past.

Besides, if learning some weapon—not the lipstick thing; that really would be too dangerous for her—helped clear up whatever Danny wasn’t telling her about Valerie, then all the better. Not that Star would push if it didn’t. One earth-shattering revelation was enough for this week. Not that she thought it was that bad, whatever it was. The venom in Valerie’s voice whenever she talked about ghosts definitely wasn’t faked. There was no way Valerie was another one of these halfas Danny didn’t want to talk about.

Hopefully, she didn’t actually know any of the others.

Not that Danny made it easy to believe that when he purposefully didn’t tell her anything else.

It made her think she did know more of them.

She didn’t want to.

Danny smiled, his relief helping to soothe her nerves, just a little bit. “Deal,” he said, offering his hand.

They shook on it.

She didn’t know what she was getting into, what she’d already gotten herself into. Not really. But at least…at least she’d be a little more prepared for whatever Amity Park decided to throw at her next.

(see more fics | bonus chapter)

[eleanor-writes-stuff]

all the rituals between you and me [one-shot]

moodboard courtesy of @rileybabe

Rey has messed up three summoning spells in her life.

The first time, she managed to fix it by herself. The second time, the leader of her coven smoothed things over. The third time, she finds herself face to face with the devil himself, and she soon learns there’s no exorcising Kylo Ren.

(Which… isn’t the worst thing in the world, maybe. It turns out the devil’s an excellent kisser.)

For Day 4: Mythology of @reylo-week-2018.

A while ago I came up with a witch/demon AU idea that I was reminded of when I saw the sub-prompt ‘creature AU’ for today’s theme.

It’s probably quite a stretch - the original list of creatures included witches and there’s a witch in this, but that’s about it. I hope you guys enjoy this odd little piece about witch!Rey and devil!Kylo anyway.

Also available on AO3. UPDATE: now with bonus teeny-tiny sequel-ish post.

Rey has messed up exactly three summoning spells in her life.

The first time it happens she is six and starving and acting completely on instinct, barely even aware of her powers yet. All she knows is that sometimes, if she closes her eyes and wishes really hard for something, it will magically appear. (It never works when she wishes for her parents, and after a while she starts thinking maybe it’s her fault, maybe she isn’t wishing hard enough, maybe that’s why they gave her up.)

Young and scared and so hungry her vision is starting to go blurry at the edges, little Rey squeezes her eyes shut and wishes for someone to bring her food. There’s a yelp, and then the awful racket of someone stumbling into boxes of trash, and when she opens her eyes a terrified nineteen-year-old McDonald’s line cook is standing in the middle of the alley she’s taken refuge in for the day. He’s still holding the burger he’d been about to wrap up, and he gives it to her in exchange for a safe return.

The second time she is fourteen, with significantly more knowledge of and control over her powers, and it’s her first time performing an actual summoning spell. The entire coven gathers to watch their youngest draw her first binding circle, and they all wait with bated breath as her magic manifests into a cocoon of shimmering tendrils, slowly coalescing into–

The mailman, instead of the coven’s familiar. Luckily, Amilyn steps in and handles the situation with significantly more grace and expertise than Rey had eight years ago, wiping the man’s memory and sending him off on his merry way with a smile on his face.

The third time Rey messes up a summoning spell, she is twenty-four, one of the most powerful witches of her generation, and finally ready for answers.

She draws her circles – three of them, just in case – and reads the spell a dozen times in her mind beforehand so that she won’t stumble over any of the words. Her energy manifests – it’s taken on a distinctly vine-like appearance over the years – and curls into a thick, blooming pillar of greenery that unfurls to reveal someone who is most decidedly not Maz Kanata.

It is, although Rey doesn’t know it yet, the most significant mistake she will ever make in her entire life.

Rey blinks, opens her mouth to say something only to find that no words come to mind, and then blinks again.

The unexpected visitor – a man, human-looking though probably not human judging by his (lack of a) reaction – bats at the lingering remnants of her magic and grimaces at a particularly stubborn lily that leaves a smear of orange pollen on his black tunic before disappearing into thin air. He’s tall, almost too tall for her tiny apartment, and the leather cords braided into his hair swing about wildly as he waves away the last of her spell.

Finally, his eyes fall upon her, prompting her to speak. “You’re not Maz.”

“Maz Kanata?” the man asks, his voice low and smooth even as he quirks an eyebrow at her in disdain. “No, I am most definitely not that old… whatever she is.”

Rey bristles at that. Maz might be a little… esoteric, but she’s older than time and she deserves some goddamn respect. “Who are you, then?” she demands, glaring at the intruder as she crosses her arms over her chest.

His eyes flit down to the low neckline of her tank top for all of three seconds before he suddenly snaps his head back up to look at her incredulously. “Are you telling me you accidentally summoned me?”

“So what if I did?” she retorts defensively, giving him a critical once-over. So maybe he’s a higher-level warlock, possibly even a demon, but certainly no one of any real significance in the Underworld. The man could pass for a totally normal human – a quick prod at her circles confirms that there’s no glamour involved – and it would be extremely rare for someone that important to be free of the markings the higher-ups are usually cursed with. “Accidents happen. Now who the hell are you?”

The man’s lips twitch. “What’s so funny?” Rey snaps, making a conscious effort to remain calm as he moves closer to the edge of the innermost circle. Either he’s really stupid for underestimating her power, or he’s confident in the knowledge that no circle can hold him. She really, really hopes it’s the former.

“Nothing,” he shrugs, and her heart begins to pound as he easily smudges her salt circle with the toe of his shoe. Shit, it’s the latter, and this is it, this is how Rey Niima dies: a fucking summoning spell gone wrong. “Just… you asked who the hell I am,” the man says, smirking at her as he steps past the salt circle entirely.

“So what?” Rey distantly hears herself saying because Finn was right, she has no survival instincts whatsoever. A goddamn demon is about to break out of her binding circles and kill her, and she’s still glaring at him.

Breathe, Rey. Think. What would Amilyn do? What would any sane, competent witch do? She has to identify him if she wants even the tiniest shot at surviving this, and it shouldn’t be that hard to narrow it down because he’s moving again, confidently stepping towards the second circle of dried Angelica, and there can’t be more than a dozen demons powerful enough to bypass two circles and avoid the cursed markings of the Underworld–

“So… well, I lied,” he hops over the second circle, that cocky son of a– “I suppose something is funny, because it just so happens that I am the King of Hell.”

And with that, Kylo Ren confidently strides towards her third circle of black tourmaline, each jagged shard painstakingly smeared with a drop of her blood.

Rey watches, catatonic with shock, as he steps forward. She’s really done it this time; who the hell accidentally summons Kylo Ren into their home? The most powerful and stupid witch of her generation, that’s who. And she won’t even get a chance to rub this in anyone’s face, because she’s about to die.

If there’s one thing to be said about Rey’s life, it’s that at least it has been consistently awful. Oh sure, there were bright spots like bumping into Finn after just a week of living on the streets, and being adopted by Amilyn’s coven, and scoring this really nice apartment in the city for a reasonable price, but her life started with one colossal, life-ruining mistake and now it’s going to end with one.

How’s that for poetic symmetry, Finn? she finds herself thinking just as she closes her eyes and braces herself for the worst. It’s not like she’s going down without a fight or anything, she just needs a moment to choke down this all-consuming hysteria building up within her. Just a little mini freak-out, and then she’ll fight to keep her miserable life from Kylo Ren’s clutches.

But she never gets the chance to fight, because one second the King of Hell himself is confidently advancing upon her and the next he’s blown straight off his feet and back to the center of the circles.

“What,” Kylo Ren snarls, leaping up to his feet as if he hadn’t just landed on his ass, “is in that circle?”

Like an idiot, Rey actually answers his question instead of getting the hell out of there and calling for help. “Um, black tourmaline? I’m just as surprised as you, truth be told. I mean, everyone always says it’s the most powerful of stones but I really wasn’t expecting–” Goddess, near-death makes her babbly as fuck.

“It’s not the stone,” Kylo Ren cuts her off with a scoff. “I could wear a fucking crown of black tourmaline and still be fine. What did you do with it, witch?”

“First of all,” Rey glares at him. “I have a name. It’s Rey. Stop being a rude asshole.” If Finn were here to witness this, he’d be torn between tears of laughter at her being her usual self and tears of frustration at her total lack of self-preservation.

“Answer the question, Rey.”

“Fine,” she rolls her eyes – more at herself than him, really, because why the fuck is she still talking to him? “I, um, I may have smeared my blood on each and every piece.” It’s stupid for her to sound so sheepish, so ashamed of it, but she still remembers the looks the rest of the coven had given her when they’d stumbled upon her doing so, the cautionary tales about blood magic they’d all taken turns sharing with her.

There’s a reason she doesn’t live with the coven anymore.

But it’s not like the devil himself has any room to judge her for using blood magic, so fuck it. If anything, he seems… impressed, actually. “Well. That’s a surprise,” Kylo Ren murmurs, seemingly to himself. He eyes the shards of tourmaline before his gaze moves back to her, and this time there’s an obvious glint of appreciation in his dark eyes as he studies her anew.

It’s uncomfortable, the way he lingers on every part of her, but not entirely in a bad way. Somewhere, Finn is throwing his hands up in the air and stomping away from her. Zero sense of self-preservation, this one. Zero, I tell you. Maybe even somewhere in the negatives, because what kind of idiot takes the time to note how attractive the devil is?!

Here’s the thing, though: he’s tall, and broad, and the way he looks at her is just…

“In that case… I think the better question would be, who are you, Rey?” he asks, his head tilted to the side in a questioning manner and his voice somehow lower than before. “It’s not every day that a little witch’s blood is enough to keep me bound, let alone send me flying.”

“And landing on your ass, let’s not forget that,” Rey snorts, much to her horror.

Kylo bristles at the reminder. “What did you want with old Maz, anyway?”

Right. Maz. And the spell – the one she’d fucked up like some kind of amateur. “Information,” Rey says curtly, unwilling to give away too much.

“What kind of information?” he asks, a sudden look of intrigue gleaming in his eyes, and Rey knows exactly what’s going on in that head of his. If the devil thinks she’s stupid enough to make a deal with him, he’s in for some major disappointment.

“The kind that’s none of your business,” she snaps, finally moving to consult her grimoire. There has to be something in here about banishing the devil, right? A text to Amilyn would probably prove more helpful, but she’s going to exhaust every other possible avenue before she admits to accidentally summoning Kylo Ren.

Speaking of whom, the idiot is actually moving closer. He confidently strides past her first two circles, but has the good sense to keep a wide berth from the third. “I can give you anything Maz can, and more. You know I can give you everything.” He’s all lowered lashes and challenging smirk and seductive voice, as if any witch would be stupid enough to fall for it. Sure, it probably helps that he’s got a voice made for sin, and his hair looks softer than any demon’s has a right to be, and–

Damn it, Rey, Finn’s voice sighs in her head. You were doing so well.

“Yeah,” Rey scoffs, keeping her side angled towards him as she consults her book. “For a price.”

Undeterred, Kylo shrugs. “Maz would have charged you too,” he points out. “Nothing is free, not in this or any other world.”

Rey looks up momentarily to find him watching her. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’d rather pay whatever ridiculous price Maz comes up with than yours.”

“You don’t even know what I’m asking for,” Kylo huffs, his careful mask slowly cracking at the edges as he grows frustrated with her.

“Let me guess,” Rey quips, rapidly flicking through increasingly irrelevant entries in the book. “My immortal soul? An innocent sacrifice? The blood of a baby?”

“All very tempting,” he says almost approvingly, and it hits her all over again that this is the devil she’s talking to. “But no. I think a kiss would suffice.”

“What, like the kiss of death?”

Kylo laughs, and she can’t resist the urge to look up and watch him do so. He’s grinning at her when she meets his eyes, a lazy thing that looks more like a smirk. “You’re a little dramatic, aren’t you?”

“And you’re a bit of an asshole, aren’t you?” Rey retorts almost instantly. “Coming into my house to proposition and then insult me. Besides,” she mutters, returning her eyes to the book. “I thought all those tales about the devil trying to seduce young witches are supposed to be rumors.” Tempt, yes, but she’s never heard of him actually trying to seduce someone. Even the devil sounds more bearable than my last Tinder date, her fellow witch-in-training Rose had murmured to her the day Amilyn taught them about him.

“They were,” Kylo shrugs. “I take professionalism very seriously. But I’d be willing to make an exception for you, sweetheart.”

Rey scoffs. “Am I supposed to be flattered by that?” she asks, suppressing a groan of frustration as she reaches the end of the book. If she figures this out, she’ll add a page to the damn thing herself. No witch should have to put up with accidentally inflicting the devil’s presence upon themselves.

Kylo hums distractedly, his eyes slowly exploring her apartment. “If you’d like,” he murmurs, turning towards her heaving bookshelf with interest.

“No thanks,” Rey pretends to grimace at the thought and pushes down the tiny bit of glee that spikes through her system when she realizes he’s flirting with her. This is in no way a good development, and she should not be in any way pleased by it. “Can you please just… go back to hell?” she turns to Kylo with an almost hopeful look on her face. “Literally. Go back to hell. Please.”

They lock gazes, and Kylo stares at her for the longest time, almost as if committing her to memory or weighing the possible pros of staying or something. Finally, he says, “All right.”

Rey thinks she might sob in relief, and she’s definitely going to do a little happy jig once she’s sure she’s gotten herself out of this bind.

But then–

“For now,” Kylo warns her, and with one final smirk he disappears.

There were many things she did not see coming about the devil – seriously, his hair is unreal – but she should’ve known he’d be a pain in her ass.

From then on, every single summoning spell Rey tries ends with Kylo Ren in her home.

Summoning Maz? Kylo Ren. Summoning Finn? Kylo Ren. Summoning a random sewer rat? Kylo fucking Ren.

And every time, every single time, he tries to talk her into making a deal.

“You’re looking a little low on demon’s blood there, sweetheart. You know I would happily bleed a dozen demons dry for you.”

“That book doesn’t look particularly helpful. I’ve got an entire roomful of the most powerful grimoires in existence just lying around. You could have your pick of them.”

“Lifetime supply of pizza, all for a single kiss,” he says one day, and when she finally stops laughing Rey looks over at him and realizes he wanted her to laugh. It wasn’t a desperate, last-ditch attempt to get her attention; it was some much needed comic relief after a really shitty day. And goddess, the way he lights up when he manages to make her laugh…

After that day, she simply leaves her tourmaline circle in place at all times, essentially offering him a standing invitation to pop into her living room whenever he feels like it. It’s not like she ever has company over anyway, and they’ve established that he can’t overpower her blood no matter how hard he tries.

It does mean that she occasionally comes home to find the devil himself sitting cross-legged in her living room, poring over a stack of vellum with a quill in hand.

“You know, I never realized just how much paperwork the King of Hell has to deal with,” Rey says in lieu of a greeting one day, kicking the door shut behind her as she juggles two bags of groceries.

“Some would say it’s by choice,” Kylo tells her, looking up from his work to give her a smile. “My predecessor never dealt with any of this himself, but I like to think I learned from his mistakes.”

Rey pauses in her task of putting away groceries. “What happened to him?” She knows he was murdered, knows Kylo was the one to do it, but she’s never thought to wonder how one goes from being the devil to the pathetic, miserable excuse of a creature who was killed by his most trusted right-hand man.

Kylo shrugs. “He was blinded by arrogance, I suppose. All he did was sit around and issue threats, really. He thought fear was all a man needed to stay in power, and he assumed everyone around him feared him so much they’d never even think to wonder if there was real cause for that fear. And then one day he slipped up, and I realized I’d been tricked into serving a manipulative weakling for decades.”

Storing away the last of her purchases, Rey grabs two apples and heads over to Kylo. She tosses one into the circle and he catches it easily, nodding in thanks as she leans against the back of her couch mere feet away from him. “If he was so weak, how did he become King in the first place?”

He’s been visiting her for four months now, long enough for her to have learned that there are no such things as lines of succession in Hell. You kill for the throne, and eventually you get killed for the throne. That’s just the way it’s always been down in the Underworld, apparently.

“Snoke wasn’t always weak,” he tells her now, biting into the apple the way any normal person would. Rey knows that she should stop cataloging all the little things about him that make him seem normal, knows that she’s tricking herself and that this pointless exercise can only end in disappointment and maybe even heartache, but sometimes he makes it so hard to remember that he’s not just some guy who occasionally pops by and sits on her floor to keep her company.

“Drawing on the darkness comes with a price, and he paid it,” Kylo says. “You’ve seen how disfigured most Underworlders are, right? It’s a brand, the darkness’ way of marking you as its own. By the end, Snoke was nothing but a shriveled-up walking, talking advertisement for the darkness. They say he was actually decent-looking once, but I’ve never met anyone who remembers that.”

She looks at Kylo, tries to imagine his admittedly handsome form all twisted and mangled by the darkness. It makes her sick to her stomach and tugs at something in her heart, something she’s not quite ready to acknowledge yet. “So how come you look normal?” Rey asks, impressed by how casual her own voice sounds.

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about me,” Kylo grins knowingly, and she resists the urge to throw her apple core at him, settling for an eye roll instead. “I don’t really use the darkness.”

“Why not?”

“I just… rarely ever need to, I guess. I do have some powers of my own, you know,” he reminds her with a smirk. “Usually those are more than enough for me to get by.”

“Well, good,” Rey says, masking her relief behind their usual friendly ribbing. “Because I wouldn’t want some scaly, dozen-horned creature in my living room. You’d scare my plants to death.” She walks off to dispose of the apple core, which means her face is – thank the goddess – hidden from him when he tosses out a retort.

“Sweetheart,” Kylo drawls, and she really should ask him to stop calling her that. “We both know you wouldn’t kick me out even if I turned into the ugliest monster in existence.”

He’s right, but there’s no way she’ll ever let him know that.

A month later she’s soaked through with rain and her lungs won’t stop shaking long enough for her to catch a breath and she’s so, so scared.

Kylo appears the second time she calls for him, and he instinctively tries to reach for her when he sees her tear-stained face. “Rey, what is it?” he asks, eyes wide and wild as he searches for the cause of her distress. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

She sobs his name and his face twists in pain. “It’s Finn, he’s lycan and they shot him, oh goddess, Kylo, they shot him and I can’t take him to the hospital because they’ll know he’s not human but I’m not powerful enough to heal him on my own, they shot him so many times, please, Kylo, he’s the only family I’ve got, I’ll do anything, I’ll give you anything, please, just–” She’s crying too hard to speak, to breathe, to see.

“Let me out, Rey,” Kylo orders quietly, and she doesn’t even think, doesn’t even try to set a price before she kicks aside the tourmaline and breaks the circle. He lunges forward, wraps her in his arms and touches her for the very first time. It shouldn’t be this comforting to be held by a stranger, it shouldn’t be this comforting to be held by the devil, but with his hand rubbing soothing circles into her back she can finally breathe again.

Kylo wipes her tears away. “Come on, let’s save your friend,” he says gently, taking her hand and prompting her to lead the way to Finn.

Her sheets are soaked through with blood and Rey wants to cry all over again because no one can survive that much blood loss, no one can survive seventeen fucking silver bullets to their chest and neck and goddess, she thinks there’s one in his head too.

For all his constant nagging about her supposed lack of self-preservation skills, Finn ended up being the idiot who unknowingly chose a hunting forest to transform in for the night.

“It’s going to be okay,” Kylo tells her, pulling the chair from her vanity to her bedside and guiding her into it. “I’m here, Rey. Whatever you need, it’s yours. You’re not going to lose him, okay?”

She tugs on his hand, and Kylo immediately gets down on his knees to bring himself closer. The stool is low, and even like this he comes up to her shoulders.

The devil is on his knees, offering her everything, and Rey doesn’t even care what happens after this as long as Finn makes it through the night. Even if the price is her soul, she’ll gladly pay it for what she’s about to ask of him.

“Your blood,” Rey manages to croak, her voice hoarse from all the screaming and crying. “I need your blood to help me.”

Blood magic may be frowned upon, but the use of a demon’s blood to augment her own powers? Amilyn would never speak to her again. She’d be cast out, exiled, shunned by her entire community. In this moment, Rey doesn’t fucking care.

She waits, her heart hammering in her chest. Kylo looks up at her, wars with himself for all of five seconds before he nods and draws a dagger from thin air. This is the most vulnerable he can possibly make himself, this is the most reckless thing he can do, to give a witch – to give anyone – his blood.

But Rey isn’t just anyone, and he doesn’t hesitate before he cuts a thin line across his palm and hands her the dagger to do the same. They clasp their bleeding hands together – the most intimate of ceremonies, in another world, in another life – and he holds her all through the night as she draws strength from him to murmur spell after spell, directing their life force into her dying friend.

Even with his blood it’s slow going; demon blood is potent, his most of all, but to heal rather than harm, to give life rather than take it, is unnatural. Rey bends the magic to her will, fights against every last bit of it, harnesses more power than any witch should be able to, and the beauty of it all is that he can’t tell if she’s naturally that powerful or if it’s by sheer virtue of stubbornness and love for her friend that she breaks every rule in the book.

By the time she lets go of his hand, the first rays of dawn are seeping into her room. He supports her as she staggers to the kitchen, putting together a potion to help Finn handle the blood loss. After she’s forced it down his throat, after his breathing evens out and his fever breaks and his pulse stops wavering, Rey leads Kylo out of her room, closes the door behind them and falls into him.

“He almost died,” she cries, her tears warm as they seep through the fabric of his tunic. Kylo holds her close and runs a hand through her hair, letting her cling to him and cry herself out. “I don’t know what I’d do without him– I don’t know what I would have done without you–”

At this she pulls back to look at him, eyes full of awe and gratitude and wonder. “Kylo, what you did for him… what you did for me…” Rey takes his hand, determination flashing in her eyes. “Name your price. I said anything, and I meant it. I’ll give you anything you ask for.”

Everything, he wants to say, I want everything with you, but this was never about striking a deal with her. Not this time, not like this. Kylo shakes his head. “Nothing,” he tells Rey, watching her eyes grow wide and her lips part in surprise.

“I don’t understand–”

“This was never about making a deal, Rey,” Kylo says patiently, gently, raising their joined hands to kiss her blood-crusted knuckles. “You were in pain, and I had the power to take that pain away. I did this because I couldn’t stand to see you hurting, not because I wanted something from you. I won’t do that to you, I promise you I’ll never take advantage of you like that–”

Rey wrenches her hand out of his, throws both arms around his neck and kisses him through a fresh wave of tears. It’s tired and desperate and everything he’s ever wanted, everything he’s dreamed of since the day he found his equal in a little witch from nowhere.

But– “Rey,” he gasps against her lips, “Rey, I told you, you don’t owe me anything–”

“I know,” she murmurs, hushing him with a feather-light brush of her lips. “I wanted to.”

She leads him over to her tiny couch and climbs into his lap, kisses him a few more times until her movements turn sluggish and her eyelids grow heavy. Finally Rey settles her head on his shoulder, her eyelashes fluttering butterfly kisses against his neck as she drowsily clings to him and asks him to stay.

Kylo holds her until the sun is long gone, until she wakes up in his arms like something out of a dream, until Finn starts stirring in the next room and she runs off to tend to her friend without so much as a goodbye.

After that day, the circle is always broken within seconds of him showing up.

They don’t talk about it – about the fact that he gave her his blood, about the fact that she kissed him – but they start spending a lot of time squished together on her tiny couch.

Why she doesn’t just move to the armchair and let Kylo have the couch to himself, she’ll never know. (Well, he’s warm, and winter is slowly settling in, and why waste money heating the apartment when she can just sit next to a living, breathing furnace?)

Today Kylo arrives while she’s in the middle of brewing her upstairs neighbor’s monthly order, and Rey quickly returns to her task after breaking the circle. Rather than head for the couch with his stack of paperwork, he follows her into the kitchen and simply watches her.

“Poe used to play football throughout high school and college,” she explains as Kylo leans against her kitchen counter, arms loosely crossed as he observes her potion-brewing process. “Had his hopes and dreams prematurely crushed when he suffered a bad injury to his knee, and even though it’s been ten years it still hurts every once in a while. I whip up a batch of this for him every month, and in return he’s renting this place to me below market value.”

“Do a lot of people know, then? About you being a witch, I mean,” Kylo asks, a small crease forming between his brows. “I thought most light witches live by a strict code of secrecy.”

“Well, I never claimed to be a light witch, did I?” Rey points out, returning jars and vials to their rightful places while she waits for the potion to cool down. “Besides, Poe’s been in the know for most of his life. His parents were friends with Leia Organa, one of our Councilwomen, and when they died she arranged for the community to watch over Poe. That’s how I met him, actually – he lived with a lycan family for a few years, the same one that took Finn in after his birth parents gave him up. Finn introduced me to Poe after he realized I’m a witch, and Poe introduced me to Leia, who found a coven for me.”

Kylo stares at her, his shoulders suddenly tense. “You know m– Leia Organa?”

Rey frowns. “I’m a practicing witch within her district, of course I know her. Why, do you two have history or something?”

“Or something,” he mutters, looking out her window at the dreary afternoon sky. It’s late November in Alderaan, and winter is taking its own sweet time getting here. The days are short and dark while the nights are long and cold, but experience tells Rey they won’t be blessed with snow for at least another two weeks. In the meantime, there’s only an excess of rain and an absence of sunlight.

“Can you go outside?” Rey finds herself asking, watching Kylo watch the rain. “I mean,” she clarifies when he turns to her. “If I wanted to go for a walk or something, could you leave the apartment with me?”

“The devil can go anywhere he wants,” Kylo tells her with a smug little smile, shaking off his odd behavior. “You didn’t think I spend most of my time trapped in the Underworld, did you?”

Rey scoffs, turning her back to him to hide her slight flush. “Of course not,” she claims, berating herself for the fact that she constantly forgets who she’s talking to. This is Kylo Ren, not some lower-level demon. Of course he has the power to surface whenever and wherever he wants. Hell, he doesn’t even actually need her to let him out of the circle; it’s only out of sheer courtesy that he hasn’t just materialized down the street and come knocking on her door.

So the devil is polite, on top of everything else. It’s no wonder she finds herself enjoying his presence, really. And even Finn had grudgingly admitted that anyone willing to help her save his life at no cost can’t be that bad.

“So, are you and Councilwoman Organa close?” Kylo suddenly asks, his feigned nonchalance painfully transparent. Or something, he’d said earlier. Leia Organa is one of the most influential figures in the magical community, so it wouldn’t be completely out of the ordinary for her and the devil to have crossed paths at some point, but this seems… heavier, somehow. It’s unlike Kylo to try digging for information this way; this is the man who once asked her point blank what her relationship with Finn is, after all.

“I’ve known her since I was a child,” Rey answers as she bottles up Poe’s potion. “I think she’s one of my favorite people. What about you two?” she asks, sneaking a quick glance at Kylo from the corner of her eye. “How do you know each other?”

“She’s…” Kylo straightens up and starts pacing the length of her kitchen, tugging at his hair as he does so. “She’s my… I mean, she was–”

Rey’s seen pictures of a young Leia, of how beautiful she was when she looked to be around Kylo’s permanent age. That must’ve been a hundred years ago, but she supposes even the devil can get hung up on an old flame. “Your ex-girlfriend?” she supplies helpfully, watching him stutter on potential explanations. Maybe more, she thinks, recalling something about the Councilwoman having been married once – or is she still married? Goddess, if she kissed a married man, and one married to Leia at that–

Kylo comes to an abrupt halt, turning to her with an utterly stricken expression. “No! Fuck no. That is the most… fuck, Rey, that’s the most disturbing thing I’ve ever heard. Why would you even–”

Stunned by his outburst, Rey steps towards him. “Hey, calm down. I just… I mean, there’s nothing wrong with it. Sure, it’s unorthodox, and it’s okay if you don’t personally agree with it–” though that would really, really suck, given how she’s starting to feel about him, “– but demons and witches get together all the time. It’s not entirely unheard of.”

“Sweetheart,” Kylo shakes his head, his lips twitching as he gives her a pointed look, “trust me, I have absolutely no problem with witches and demons being together.”

“Um, okay,” Rey says faintly. “Good,” she adds, her eyes darting away from him for a second as she tries to hide her relief. “But then why–”

Kylo sighs, and then he reluctantly offers her an explanation: “It’s disgusting because Leia Organa is my mother.”

She must be sleep-deprived. Or maybe she’s been cooped up indoors for too long. Plus it’s almost winter, and all the plants are dead, that definitely messes with a nature witch’s sanity, right? Because there’s no way Kylo Ren, the devil, just admitted to being Councilwoman Leia Organa’s son.

“Would you mind repeating that? I think I must have misheard you.”

“No, you didn’t,” Kylo tells her, almost as if he wishes that were the case. “It’s just… a really, really long story. And it’s one I’d rather not talk about right now. Or ever, really, but if you want to know then I’ll tell you someday. Just… not now.”

In the little time that they’ve known each other, Rey has seen a variety of emotions on the devil’s face – anger, when he rants about his incompetent subordinates; happiness, when he makes her smile; concern, when she pricks herself on a thorn; tenderness, the night he stayed by Finn’s bedside with her; awe and reverence and wonder, when she kissed him; even peace, when she woke up the next day to find him watching her.

Up until today she’d never seen sorrow on him, never seen the way his eyes grow dark with ancient grief.

“Okay,” Rey says as she steps forward and wraps her arms around his waist, resting her head against his chest as his hands hesitantly come to rest on the small of her back. “We don’t have to talk about it.”

They hold each other the way they had the night she kissed him, a whole month ago. And because it feels right, because muscle memory is an odd thing, because she’s missed it, Rey moves her hands up to his chest, braces her weight against him as she balances herself on her toes to reach his lips.

It’s soft, and slow, and everything she wishes their first kiss could have been.

And now that she knows how it feels to kiss Kylo just because she wants to, now that she knows how it feels when he smiles into a kiss and whispers her name tenderly and ghosts his lips along her neck, Rey doesn’t know how she’ll ever stop.

“You know,” Kylo says one day after she kisses him hello, “at this point I probably owe you a hundred deals.”

“That’s not what this is,” Rey shakes her head, taking him by the hand as she leads him out of the circle. “I don’t want these to be kisses traded between a witch and the devil. I don’t want what we are individually to define who we are to each other.”

It keeps her awake sometimes, the thought that maybe she’s just another silly little witch to him, that maybe it’s stupid of her to think they could ever be anything more than two people randomly brought together by the universe.

(“So ask him,” Finn suggested with a shrug when she confided in him two nights ago. “Sure,” Rey rolled her eyes, “I’ll just go up to him and be all, Mister King of Hell, sir, Your Devilness, am I your girlfriend or what?”)

Kylo smiles, one hand reaching up to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. Sometimes he’s so gentle, so affectionate, that Rey thinks bringing it up might not actually end with her heart shattered into a million pieces. “Okay,” he agrees simply, and she loses what little courage she’d managed to gather in the last minute or so.

She’s never been one to push her luck.

“So I’ve been thinking,” Kylo says after a moment, leading her towards the little work corner where she keeps all her spells and books and plants. “It really doesn’t make any sense that you could have messed up a summoning spell so much that you ended up with me instead of Maz. As happy as I am to have met you, this never should have happened.”

It’s been months since she last found herself thinking about the spell, longer still since she gave up on ever contacting Maz again. “What are you suggesting?”

Kylo lets go of her hand so that she can look for the spell, stashed away in a drawer somewhere with all the foreign incantations she’s obtained from outsiders throughout the years. “Maz has always been a bit of a meddler. It wouldn’t surprise me if she had a hand in us meeting each other.”

“But why would she–”

“Well,” Kylo ducks his head, prompting Rey to pause in her search and turn her attention to him instead. “I may have forgotten to mention that Maz is close to my family. And that we were pretty close when I was growing up.”

“Really?” Rey asks, smiling at this unexpected bit of information.

“I used to actually have fun hanging around her cantina,” he nods, his face twisting into a scowl just seconds later. “But then I grew up, and it was always Ben Solo, when are you going to find a nice girl and introduce her to me, hmm?”

His impression of Maz is spot-on, and Rey can’t help the surprised laughter that bubbles past her lips. “Oh goddess, Kylo, that was–” She gasps between laughs, tears pricking at her eyes as she leans against the wall for support.

“Like I said,” Kylo shrugs, and the motion of it jostles his hair just enough for her to see the flushed tip of his right ear. She feels a swell of affection at the endearing sight. “We were close. What’s the point of spending all that time with someone if you can’t get an accurate impression out of it, right?”

He attempts a grin, but Rey can tell he’s painfully embarrassed and takes pity on him. “So, Ben Solo? Is that your real name?” she asks gently, stepping forward to lace their fingers together.

“You realize you can never, ever tell anyone that,” Kylo tells her, dead serious as a hint of fear flickers in his eyes at the realization that he’s shared his name with her. “Leia did her best to bury that name when I turned, and so far no one has figured it out. No one can ever figure it out, Rey.”

“I promise,” she assures him, squeezing his hand. “I swear I’ll never tell anyone your true name.”

Kylo nods, the tension seeping out of his shoulders. “I believe you.”

Rey leans forward for a chaste peck before she returns to her drawer of loose papers; she really does need a better system for these. She turns to Kylo when a thought occurs to her, silly and girlish but irresistible all the same. “Can I call you Ben, though? Only when we’re alone, of course.”

He stares at her for the longest time, long enough for her to regret saying anything. “I’m sorry, that was too much, you don’t have to–”

“I think I’d like that,” Kylo interrupts quietly, smiling at her almost… shyly.

This man will be the death of her, with his shy smiles and his red ears and the way he looks at her when he thinks she’s distracted. “Okay... Ben,” Rey says just as her fingers brush across a familiar piece of parchment, the chalky texture of the ink instantly alerting her to her find.

“Got it,” she tells him before he can react to her first use of his name, and Rey triumphantly pulls the spell out of her drawer as Kyl… Ben steps closer to read over her shoulder.

“Why did Maz give this to you, again?” Ben asks as Rey re-familiarizes herself with the spell.

“I asked her if she knew anything about my parents or where I came from or who I am. She gave me this and told me to use it when I was ready to find the belonging I seek. I always assumed it meant she would give me the answers when I was ready to hear them but…” Rey frowns, scanning the text for the fourth time. Now that she’s really paying attention to the wording, she doesn’t know where she got that idea from. The spell doesn’t say anything about summoning Maz, or even answers. Just as the old woman had told her, it’s all about belonging.

Ben reaches for the parchment, and she hands it to him in a daze. “This isn’t about getting answers,” he frowns, easily translating the long-dead language the spell is written in. Of course Leia’s son wouldn’t have any trouble with dead languages; his uncle is a mage who’s dedicated the better half of his life to learning and preserving such things. “This is a spell to find–”

“Belonging. Home. Destiny,” Rey rattles off the only three possible translations, her voice distant even to her own ears.

“Rey…” Ben takes her gently by the shoulders, turns her around and tries his best to hide his alarm at the closed-off expression she knows she’s wearing.

So it was never a mistake – and somewhere in her mind she notes that this means she’s only ever messed up two spells, not three – and Kylo, Ben, the devil was meant to crash into her life all along.

She’s not ready for this, she isn’t prepared for the inevitable demons don’t do love talk they’re going to have to sit down for if Ben thinks she’s going to get ideas from this spell.

“Are you hungry?” Rey asks, taking the spell from his hand and stuffing it back into the drawer, which she slams shut for good measure. “I haven’t eaten all day. We should have lunch, I’ve been meaning to try out this new recipe–” she babbles, taking Ben by the hand and leading him away from the spell.

Later that night, after he’s gone, Rey takes the spell out and sits with it under the light of a waning moon. “Is this a gift or a curse?” she asks the stars, barely daring to hope that maybe–

Hope, Rey should have learned by now, only ever ends with her getting her heart crushed.

Ben returns just two days later, and as he helps her trim her plants in preparation for spring and their return to the balcony, he goes off on a tangent about how the Underworld isn’t all that bad, really.

A month later he starts talking about the amount of power there is to be found in the old ways, and she drags him to bed just to shut him up.

He tells her all about everyday life in the Underworld, about the many similarities between grey witches and dark ones, about the empty castle he lives in. It gets worse when the bribery starts, when he tries to tempt her with all the rarest ingredients and herbs that can only be procured using Underworld connections. He calls them gifts, even comes up with a particularly painful line about how you’re supposed to bring presents to those you care about.

A year passes like this, passes with him constantly trying to remind her that theirs is a purely professional and convenient arrangement, that this was never anything more than the devil trying to seduce a witch to the darkness after all.

Sometimes, on days when he’s being particularly clear about his true goal, Rey thinks of retrieving that thrice-damned spell and setting it on fire for the pure satisfaction of watching it crumble into ashes the way her heart has.

Through it all Rey returns his kisses, holds him painfully close when he sleeps, calls him Ben as if it still means something. But the day after Finn and Poe confront her and make her realize just how hopelessly in love she is with the devil, Rey breaks.

“Please,” she cuts Ben off in the middle of his latest pitch about how the use of blood magic might help her find her family. “Please, just stop. I can’t take this anymore.”

A perfect mask of concern greets her when Ben gently places two fingers under her chin and tilts her face up to meet his. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

She backs away from his touch. “Look, I get it: the Underworld is great and the old ways are mighty and you really, really think I should turn. But I’m not going to let you trick or seduce or charm me into turning, Kylo Ren, so you can stop now.”

The flash of hurt in his eyes when she calls him by his other name for the first time in a year is almost enough to stop Rey, but now that she’s finally gotten the courage to do this she has to see it through. Clean break, Rey, Finn had advised, and that’s exactly what she needs. “I’m sorry I wasted almost two years of your time, but it’s not going to happen. So, you know, you can move on to the next witch now. I’m sure it won’t be hard to find another one to charm–”

“The next–” Ben scowls, his concern giving way to a thunderous expression reminiscent of their very first meeting. “Rey, what the fuck are you talking about?”

Does he really have to drag it out? “Look, I’m not an idiot, okay?” she sighs. “We find out the universe thinks we’re fated for each other and suddenly two days later you’re doing everything you can to make it clear that this isn’t a real relationship, that all you’re interested in is getting me to turn and move to the Underworld.”

Ben stares at her in stunned silence, eyes wide at being caught in his act.

“I thought I could just go along with it and pretend everything’s okay, or I don’t know, lie to myself about this. It was stupid,” Rey mutters. “I was stupid to think this was ever about anything other than you recruiting me–”

“This was never about recruiting you,” Ben growls, hands moving forward to curve around her neck, to force her to look him in the eye. “Rey, you are the most amazing person I’ve met in all my centuries of life. How the fuck can you be this oblivious?”

She reaches up and slaps his hands away, glaring at him as she puts some distance between them on the small couch. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Ben runs a hand through his hair and pulls at the ends in frustration, his entire form shaking with nervous energy. “I never said anything about wanting you to turn, Rey. I’ve never even thought of recruiting you.”

“Then why the hell do you keep talking about how great the Underworld is?” Rey demands, her heart in her throat. She asked the stars once if the spell was a blessing or a curse, if her heart was right to hope, and ever since she’s paid the price for it. If Ben isn’t trying to turn her then there’s only one explanation, but it can’t possibly be–

“Because as my wife you’d be Queen of the damn place, and I thought maybe if you realized it’s not that bad you’d say yes when I ask you to marry me!”

The past year slams into Rey with all the force of a backfired hex. “When you what?” she chokes on a sob, her vision swimming with tears.

Ben softens at the sight of her tears, hesitantly reaches out for her and swipes them away when Rey doesn’t flinch from him. “I love you, you know that? I probably should’ve said it earlier, and more often, but after the way you reacted when we found out about the spell–”

Rey throws herself into his arms, kisses him with tears and relief and desperation the way she did the very first time. “I love you too,” she admits between kisses, curling her fingers into his hair. “I love you so much, and I thought you didn’t feel the same way and that finding out about the spell would scare you off, and Ben, you idiot, you don’t need to convince me to marry you–”

“Can I at least ask you first?” Ben asks teasingly, his face lighting up with a smile. “I had this whole speech prepared, and all these plans about how we’d make it work with two homes.”

“You’re my home,” Rey murmurs, marveling at the truth of the words, at the sense of belonging that settles into her very bones at the realization. “That’s all that matters to me.”

Ben smiles and gently cups her face, brushing their noses together in an Eskimo kiss. “You’re my home too, sweetheart.”

. . .

Somewhere in the depths of Rey’s closet, a piece of parchment flutters in a non-existent breeze – once, twice, and then it returns to its master, its purpose served.

“Leia!” A wizened old woman calls across her cantina, waving the spell at the Councilwoman. “You won’t believe who finally found a nice girl!”

Look, this was supposed to be 5000 words at most. The idea was to have them exchange kisses and gifts until they realize they're basically courting - short and sweet and more magical than this.

This happened instead. Why do I even bother plotting fics when they all end up spiraling out of control anyway?

If you enjoyed whatever the heck this is, please don't hesitate to leave a comment/reblog/etc. It's always nice to hear from you guys.

I'll be back this Saturday for Day 6; the prompt is 'soulmates'. Until then, thanks for reading and see you around!

[theworldsmosthatedakacr7]

Title: The Day When He Wasn’t The Best In The World

Chapter title: Goodbye

Characters: Cristiano Ronaldo, Hayley Carrighan (OC)

Warnings: some cursing

Category: F/M, romance/friendship/humour

P.S.: There will be one last chapter after this that I hope to write very soon. Sorry for the terribly long delay. Hope whoever still reads it, is going to like it xx 

Some more one shots here

READ ON AO3

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

PART 4

PART 5

Tiny little hands pressed against the glass walls and with one last painful smile I turned my back to him, a single tear falling down my cheek. This was not supposed to play out this way. I was never supposed to be stuck here for so long. How could I fool myself and think everything was alright, natural? There was nothing right about this. I was supposed to gather some money and go back to college after a year, two on the top. But things rarely ever happen how we plan, take the most adorable kid on the planet, a bornt charmer as his father and you easily find yourself in my shoes.

2 WEEKS EARLIER

I sat in front of the tv with a box of Haagen Dazs in my lap, and a bowl of homemade potato snacks besides me. My hair was pulled into a loose knot on the top of my head, my pink fluffy sucks peaked out from under the blanket, the crown on my attire was the over 6 years old worn out Real Madrid shirt. People started to appear on the bright green carpet and I put a huge spoon of ice cream into my mouth. I was supposed to be among those people by Cristiano's side. He proposed me to accompany him. First I questioned his sanity. If we'd been to show up together, not only the media but fans would have gone crazy too. He said he didn't care, and this was a great event for me to dress in that gown I always complained not having an occasion to wear at. In the end I said yes. What woman would have said no, right? In the last couple of weeks things have gone back to normal after our kiss except for a couple of minor changes. Junior spent way more time with Dolores what I found rather odd but Cris reasoned it was so he could concentrate more on getting ready for the derby against Atleti. We had dinner together every evening, many times just the two of us, and he cooked. We talked, and argued and laughed, he even watched my favourite zombie films with me, not without constant complaining of course. I felt a slight shift in our relationship but it happened so slowly, and so quietly, my own feelings blindsided me.

Last night Cristiano came home late, with Selma on his side. I didn't want to believe he was serious. After all that woman put him through, hestill took her back when she crawled to his front door and cried that her current boytoy screwed her over. It was like a slap in the face to see her in my home again. Of course, she wanted to go to the award show, they should show the world they belong, no matter what happens, I could still hear her sickeningly sweet words in my mind. I stood there, unable to even shape a coherent sentence, my knuckles turned white, I was grabbing the kitchen island so tight. My hair was covered in all of the colours of rainbow, sparkling in a way even Edward Cullen would have been envious after Junior figured it'd be a great idea to try and turn me into a unicorn to impress the little girl he planned to marry. I smelled like onion and cabbage, wanted to surprise Cristiano with his favourite dish as a good luck for tomorrow present. I felt destroyed. I was utterly humiliated not only by him taking that whitch into our home all over again but by my own feelings as well. I was jealous, so jealous I felt like the raging emotions were going to break my bones.

My phone's ring brought me back from the unwanted memories. I glanced at the screen and sighed softly.

“Hey dad,” I answered the call, putting some effort trying not to sound too miserable. My dad could always tell when something was off with me, even from across the ocean.

“Is something wrong? You sound off,” he commented, slight concern coloured his words.

“All is fine, no worries.” I smiled softly. They said mothers had a sixth sense when it came to their kids, maybe because my father raised me alone, he developed it too.

“I always worry when you say no worries,” he chuckled lightly.

“Dad, I'm fine. However, there's the question why are you calling anyway? I thought you have a date with Connie.” It really would be time for the old man to confess his love and just marry the woman who he'd been dancing around for over 20 years.

“Your man is getting that award, what do you call it...”

“FIFA Best, dad and Cristiano is not my man,” I sighed with a shake of my head. He was old fashioned, if a woman lived with a man and his kid for years, they were a couple, end of story.

“The boss man then,” he corrected himself and I laughed. The boss man, Cris would hate to be called that. “Why are you not there? I thought you were going too?”

“Yeah, I changed my mind. You know I've never really been into the whole fancy dress up thing.” I wasn't about to tell my father Cristiano screwed me over. If I did, he'd be on the next plane to Spain, sending threatening messages that he would break Cris' legs.

“I don't like this,” he stated with a hard voice and I could tell he was having a hard time believing me.

“Yeah, dad, listen, I'm tired and you should go and dazzle your lady instead of using me as an excuse to bail on her again.” I deflected the topic, unable to deal with sharing my feelings with anyone.

“You'd tell me if something was wrong, right?”

“Yes, dad, I would tell you.” I sighed. “Go, enjoy your date.”

“Alright. I will call you tomorrow. And tell that boss man of yours I said congrats for his new award.”

“I will, dad. Have fun.” I ended the call and dropped the phone on the couch. My eyes moved back to the screen where I saw Messi and Antonella arrive. Not long and Cris would be there too, with Selma. You are pathetic, Hayley, I laughed at myself, hysteria slowly but surely sneaked up on me. What the hell was I doing? I was in my early twenties and I wasted my time on a man who used me as a rebound each time he got dumped. You worth more than this, Hayley. I switched off the tv and stared in front of myself. When did I become so sad? Things needed to change. I needed to get control back over my life. I stood from the couch with shakey legs, grabbed the laptop and headed out to the chilly October air in the yard. You can do this, Hayley I kept telling myself as I started writing my resignation.

Next morning I woke with a start when I heard the door opening. My eyes hurt from all the crying and my back ached terribly after I passed out in the chair last night.

“Hayley?” I rubbed my eyes, stood from the chair and went inside. “You look awful, are you okay?”

“You are home early.” I ignored his question and headed to the kitchen to make a coffee for myself.

“Yes, I wanted to talk to you about...”

“Me first,” I cut him off quickly. I didn't want to have a conversation about anything before I told him I was leaving.

“Okay.” He nodded slowly and sat to the kitchen island.

“I'm leaving,” I exhaled quickly. It wasn't that hard, was it? Just don't start sobbing now.

“What? Is your dad okay? Is there a problem? Can I help anyway?” He asked, concern deepening the line on his face. No wonder it took me years to realize what a foolish mistake I made.

“You don't understand, Ronaldo.” I shook my head, and closed my eyes. “I quit.” I opened my eyes and moved my gaze to him. The silence was so heavy it was almost suffocating. He stared at me with a completely blank expression on his face. “Did you hear me? I...”

“You tell Cristianinho,” he stated with a hard voice before he jumped from his seat and disappeared into his room.

For the last days of my stay we remained civils but we hardly said more than two words to each other. There wasn't anything to say. I could have blamed him for fooling me, he could have blamed me for staying too long when I knew I'd leave eventually but what would have been the point? It seemed we had nothing left to say to each other. Even Junior turned awfully quiet after I told him about my departure.

“It's time for me to go. They always pick me at security check.” I tried to joke with Dolores but she wasn't laughing.

“Can't you just stay a bit longer?” Junior stared up at me with his huge puppy eyes and I needed all of my strength not to break down in tears.

“I stayed too long as it is, buddy.” I sighed softly as I knelt down in front of him. “But you're always going to be my favourite human, and my best friend, and I'll call you everday. We will stay in touch.” I explained, but my own heart was in million pieces.

“I don't want you to go, Hayley,” he cried, his tiny arms wrapped tight around my neck.

“I'll always be a call away, pumpkin,” I patted a kiss on his tearsoaked cheek before I unlaced his arms from my neck and stood up. “He isn't coming home, is he?” I looked at Dolores. Maybe it was best that Cristiano wasn't here. It'd have made this even more difficult if possible.

“I'm sorry, sweety, I don't think so,” she said quietly and I nodded. It was for the best.

“Thank you for everything,” I told her as I stepped to her for a hug. “Cristiano, thank you for being my best friend for all these years.” I looked at Junior with a serious face. “It was an honour to be at your service.”

“Don't go, Hayley, please.” He sobbed and I swallowed hard.

“Just a call away, baby, never forget that.” I said him one last time before I took the handle of my suitcase and walked out of the house. This was right thing to do, I kept repeating to myself. Then why did it feel so wrong?

[hellomissmabel]

The Red Queen (1/3)

MASTERLIST

Pairing: Nat x reader, Bucky x reader

Warnings: Car crash. Someone being called a bitch.

Word count: 1.754

Summary: A small yet skilled art thief is drawn to the French Riviera to settle a score, only to be met with the surprise of a lifetime.

The prompt: The reader can erase memories, or so she thinks. In reality, she merely misplaces them. But those misplaced memories have to go somewhere, the only question is, where?

A/N: This is a mini series I’ve written while on the road. It’s not an AU (surprise surprise!) and I feel like I’m a bit rusty writing something else. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it @jurassicbarnes <3

This isn’t how it’s supposed to go down. It was supposed to be quick, an easy in and out. These past five weeks, you had meticulously studied the entire estate, including the stables, mansion and its occupants. You didn’t leave any room for mistakes or miscalculations, simply because you didn’t make any. Something else must’ve triggered the alarm, or rather, someone else.

“I am unarmed,” you state plainly, carefully turning towards to the three guards now in front of you. They are all carrying a handgun, two other knives stashed away in their monochrome uniform. Number one is already distracted, speaking into his walkie-talkie, muttering something about a young woman getting caught in the drawing room. The second guard has his eyes all set on you. He is a little overweight and therefore makes an easier target, unlike the third man who appears to be as agile as a figure skater and as strong as a body builder.

All in all, you have a 50% chance this goes sideways.

“Don’t move!,” the sturdy guard shouts, his finger ready to pull the trigger.

“It’s alright, Fred.” The third guard eyes you, his hand on the other man’s gun as he lowers it very slowly, still untrusting towards you. “Craig,” he says to the man on the walkie-talkie, “Tell Jean it’s nothing. She’s a guest, I checked her invitation upon arrival. She just got lost on her way to the bathroom, right?”

He winks shortly when his gaze lands on you again. You quickly nod, swallowing away the lump in your throat. You know for a fact he’s lying. He didn’t see you come in and he didn’t check your invitation, even though you did take the main entrance and you did have a skilfully forged invitation. But in the current situation, you don’t have the luxury to call his bluff. So you just go with it, trying not to blow your cover.

With a fake accent, you explain in perfect French that you asked one of the waitresses for directions but that you must’ve taken a wrong turn. “I simply wanted to reapply my lipstick.” You point towards your lips, painted in a deep red. “My husband... He’ll be worried, wondering why it’s taking me this long.”

You can see the shoulders of the first guard relax but the second man, Fred, still remains a stiff posture. In an attempt to make yourself sound more genuine, you add a touch of hysteria to your already high-pitched tone, nervously fidgeting with your Balenciaga.

“I didn’t know this room was under surveillance,” you say in broken English, laced with a thick, fake French accent. “Please,” you continue to plead, “I did nothing wrong.”

Fred and Craig both exchange looks with the third man who never, not even once, averted his eyes. You catch a glimpse of a smirk when he waves the men away, stating he will escort you back to the festivities. “I’m sorry for all the trouble, madame. But surely you must understand that with such an extensive art collection, the host, mister Valois, doesn’t want to take any risks.”

By now you’re sure you’re dealing with another thief, one that has wormed his way into the family’s security personnel and undoubtedly has his eye on the entire collection. Nobody goes to such great lengths for a small score. It must’ve cost him a great deal of money to get his identity together and a great deal of effort to gain the family’s trust.

He’s a professional, but so are you. “Yes,” you exhale in a long breath, still true to your act as the upset French wife. “Yes, I completely understand, monsieur.”

As he is walking you back to the garden where the party is taking place, one hand on your lower back and the other by his side, he eventually confirms your suspicions. “What piece of the collection are you after, hm?,” he hums under his breath.

When you have made sure no-one is eavesdropping on the conversation, you answer honestly. “The Monet. You?”

“My men are outside waiting for my signal. At midnight, there will be a diversion,” he nods in the direction of the ice sculpture. Behind it, people have gathered in anticipation of the fireworks. “Make sure you’re gone by then.”

“No problem. Still have enough time to secure my pay check and steal that Monet.”

He chuckles darkly, his hand on the small of your back curling around your waist in a vice-like grip. “You can forget about that, missy. The Monet belongs to my employer. And thanks to your little stunt back there, nobody will suspect me now.”

“Let go of me,” you hiss through clenched teeth. “You triggered the alarm on purpose!”

You’ve immersed the heart of the festivities and he finally lets go of you. “I’m the puppeteer,” he grins as he takes a bow. “And I believe my reputation proceeds me.”

“The puppeteer,” you mull the name around in your mouth like a bad taste.

He is one of the most wanted thieves in the art business, a well-known name on the black market. He can get you anything, from a long-lost Picasso to a highly desired Ensor from a private collection. But this kind of service also comes at a price, one only a very select clientele can afford to pay. He also likes to take his time, creating elaborate alibies as well as eliminating any competition.

He’s seen your face, so you’re as good as dead. But you’ve got a couple tricks up your sleeve, too.

Inching close enough, your lips hovering over his in a small smile, you cup his face and look into his eyes. “My name is Y/N Y/L/N. I believe my name must ring a bell.”

For a moment, disbelief is written all over his face. But as soon as you’ve uttered those words, they have been erased from his mind. His eyes are locked with yours as you search his mind for any traces of your encounter now and earlier.

He blinks a few times and you release him, pressing a chaste kiss to his cheek. “This is for Monaco,” you whisper into his ear as you repeat the gesture, cradling his face in your hands and keeping his eyes on you until they turn expressionless, all memories wiped away. You’ve made him a blank slate.

“This is for ruining my life,” you tell him as you take a step back, “It was me you ran off the road while you were being chased by the police for stealing that Van Gogh. This is your judgement day.”

Taking out your cell phone from your clutch, you dial the number of the French police. Again in impeccable French, you tell them you’ve seen masked men enter the premises, followed by a description of the security guard that let them in. Immediately hanging up afterwards, you toss the phone in a nearby fountain, certain they will never trace it back to you.

At the makeshift car park, your eyes scan for an easily accessible car. Your heels click against the concrete floor as you find yourself an easily accessible car that will blend in nicely. It’s sleek and black and unlocked, one of the biggest mistakes made my rich people who think that the valet will take it all off their hands. Unfortunately for them, this valet didn’t even bother pressing that one little button. Luckily for you, you’ve got yourself a getaway car now.

Opening the door to the driver’s side, you slide into the seat and attempt to start up the ignition. Once the right wires have been crossed, the engine roars under your awakening touch, purring like a cat being caressed once your rest your hand on the steering wheel.

“Let’s see what this baby can do,” you smirk to yourself, pulling away and pushing the engine to a greater and greater speed until the houses and the city flashes by in an imperceptible way. Everything has become a blur and so has your life’s purpose. Dissolved. Erased.

Turning the radio up, another pop song blasting through the speakers, you block out the oblivion tingling your mind. But not long after you’ve put the party behind you, a charcoal grey motorcycle turns up on your left side, approaching fast. It’s impossible to discern whether the driver is male or female, the leather blending seamlessly with the darkness of night. This sets off an alarm bell, but it’s nothing you can’t handle.

You decide to take an unexpected turn, spiralling down more narrow streets where the car poses a tight fit. It’s a silent drive down an unfamiliar track, with no GPS signal to guide you to the other end. But you know the French Riviera like the back of your hand and all roads eventually wind up together. You’ll find your way back in the nick of time. At least you’ve lost that fishy motorcycle.

A loud thud forebodes the screeching tyres that follow as your hands claw at the steering wheel. The motorcycle has returned and has now proceeded to push you off the road. If this were your own car, you’d always keep a gun at your disposal. But now you’re left completely defenceless, your only option the safety of this car. Nevertheless, the person on the motorcycle is already one step ahead of you, pulling out their own gun and shooting at your tyres. The car spins out of control and if not for your seatbelt, you would’ve flown out of the vehicle within seconds before the crash.

Your head feels like it’s no longer attached to your neck and your eyes are falling shut under the impact of the collision. The lead taste of blood fills your mouth as a dark figure shows up in the corner of my eye, the motorcycle parked not far away from the crash site. You’re about to pass out when the car door, already unhinged by the accident, is ripped from the vehicle by a strong and swift hand. The person controlling the motorcycle is not a man, but a woman. A woman with red hair and sharp eyes like the daggers attached to her thighs.

“Who the fuck are you?,” you whisper with the last of your strength.

She smirks and grips your hair in a fist, pulling your head back so I’m forced to look at her. “I’m Black Widow, bitch,” she snarls before slamming your face into the steering wheel, knocking you out instantly.

Part 2

Tagging: @avengerofyourheart @a-little-hell-to-raise @marvelingatthewonder @mrshopkirk @hardcorehippos @knittingknerdy @winterboobaer @italwaysendsinafightt @viollettes @myserium @feelmyroarrrr @justareader @austinamelio @volklana @4theluvofall @bovaria @themcuhasruinedme @theoneandonlysaucymo @caplanbuckybarnes @nenyakj @amrita31199 @emilyevanston @minervaem @howlingbarnes @buchananbarnestrash @youandb @you-and-bucky @fvckingsteverogers @thatawkwardtinyperson @that-sokovian-bastard @abovethesmokestacks @marvelrevival @marvel-fanfiction @justanotherbuckydevotee @barnes-heaven @heartmade-writingbucky @buckyywiththegoodhair @captnbarnesrogers @mellifluous-melodramas @its-not-a-phase-hux @melconnor2007 @ivvitm1109 @toofuckinfabulous @ailynalonso15 @jurassicbarnes @hollycornish @delicatecapnerd @camigt1999 @learisa @curlyexpat @palaiasaurus64 @fanndas-snow-goddess @crisssivonne @yourenotrogers @tomhollandzs @xbergiex

[ragnorfellintomyheart]

Responsibilities - Malec/Dad Magnus

“Alec… please don’t leave. Please, we can sort this out together. We always do, right?” Alec sighed, turning to face his almost distraught looking boyfriend. “I’ve told you, Magnus. We’ve talked about this. I’m sorry, but I can’t keep putting it off any longer. I need to go.” This conversation had been happening all day and each time, Alec’s will power diminished a little more. It wasn’t happening again, this time he was going for sure. A small whine escaped from Magnus’ throat, his face falling even further. Raziel, he was such a drama queen. “You’ll be fine by yourself, you’ve done it before. I’m sorry, but I have to work.” “Could you at least leave a manual? One of those books, you still have them right?” 

“Magnus…” Alec sighed again, deeper than the last. “He’s a baby, you’ve looked after a baby before. What makes this one so different?” “He’s our baby and I don’t want to mess this up. Yes, I have looked after multiple babies before in my past, however not one that was solely my responsibility. What if he doesn’t like me by myself?” It had been almost 3 months since the pair had taken in Max, the warlock baby abandoned on the Shadowhunter Academy’s doorstep and so far, everything had been done between the two of them. The Clave hadn’t exactly granted paternity leave, so to say but had rather given a brief period of time to let Alec “get adjusted” to the new circumstances.  A period that was ending today, leaving Magnus to look after their son by himself. It had been a tough day for both of them, there was always a risk of danger when Alec went on patrols, they were aware of that but now there was a child involved. Could Magnus be a single father? Alec pulled on his gear, it was slightly too tight against his arms, confirming that the training he had been doing in his free time wasn’t going to waste. Magnus had definitely missed that more than he thought he had. Alec chuckled softly “He won’t hate you, Mags and anyway, he’s asleep. It’s late so I doubt he’ll be waking up anytime soon.” That made Magnus feel slightly better, he could handle a sleeping baby. Right?

It was almost an hour before Alec finally left for his patrol, Magnus had been very reluctant to let him go. After all, he really had missed that gear. The apartment now seemed oddly silent without his presence. Alec was right, Magnus could look after a child. He had looked after plenty throughout the centuries his life had spanned, of all different species, it didn’t stop the anxiety spreading through his chest however. Magnus pulled on a pair of his pyjama shorts, paired with one of Alec’s tshirts, the combination was oddly calming, the contrast of rougher cotton and smooth silk perfectly describing them. After dressing, Magnus crossed the hallway into the spare bedroom that had now become the nursery. Max was still asleep, swaddled in the blankets in his crib. He looked so tiny, a small blue figure against the white sheets and with his eyes closed all of his features seemed to blend away, the perfect little blueberry. Magnus smiled at his son before sitting on the floor in front of the crib, the opportune spot to watch everything. He had bought a couple of spell books with him, nothing major or harmful of course, he wouldn’t make that mistake again. Anxiety welled up again as the memory started to resurface itself.

Barcelona 1693

When Magnus was rudely awoken by a loud banging at his door, he had been very prepared to tell whoever it was that they could go away and come back at a more reasonable time. He was not, however, prepared to find a young woman carrying a basket on his steps. The woman was crying, almost hysterically and when she looked up to address Magnus, her face was red and swollen. “You are Bane, correct? Magnus Bane?” Magnus could tell from the way her voice sounded that she had been crying for an awfully long time. It was raspy, breathless and very young. She must not have been older than 16, he guessed. “I am Bane, yes. Is there a reason you woke me before the sun has even woken?” The woman flinched at the words. What had happened to her? Magnus thought to himself.

“Please, take this. I cannot do it myself.” She held the basket she had been carrying out towards him, when Magnus didn’t take it, she placed it on the floor by his feet. Her crying had gotten worse now, past the point where the words she was speaking were intelligible. Magnus could make out words such as “monster” and “child” within the hysteria. Before he had a chance to question what the basket contained, the woman was running away from his doorstep, leaving the mysterious parcel behind. The sun had started to rise, turning the sky a fierce red that broke the night time darkness. Magnus knelt down by the basket with caution, ready to ward off whatever might be inside. There were layers upon layers of cloth, off to the side was a small rattle made of wood and as he peeled back the first layer of cloth, a small baby woke up from his sleep.

A child. She had left him with a child. Magnus didn’t know how to look after a child, how was he able to provide milk for it? What about his clients that day? But regardless of these questions he was now rocking a crying baby in his living room, desperately attempting to get it back to sleep. After trying for hours, Magnus finally managed to magic up a bottle, not that he was going to discover how he did it anytime soon, feed the baby and put it back to sleep in the basket. Almost a second after the baby was wrapped back up in fresh blankets that Magnus was going to have to replace after this situation was sorted, the doorbell rang for his first client of the day. “Come in!” Samuel was a young warlock, older than Magnus though his client wasn’t aware of this fact. They had become acquaintances when Magnus had moved into Barcelona, becoming the first other warlock he had encountered. Occasionally they would help each other with spells or summons, which is why he was now standing in the doorway, a small goat swung over his shoulder and a bag of rocks in his hand. Samuel grinned, showing his two rows of pointed teeth before throwing his cargo to the ground. “Good to see you again, old friend. I hope you have everything prepared.” He took a quick glance around the room, eyebrow slowly raising higher as he took notice of the lack of preparations. “I will take that as a no then… are you slacking?” “Hardly.” Magnus replied, waving his hand absentmindedly. “I had an unexpected client at the early hours of this morning. It had to be dealt with.” Samuel’s eyebrow raised higher, obviously expecting more of an explanation. His silent request was ignored as Magnus began drawing pentagrams into the floor.

The demon summoning was going to be a difficult one, possibly the most difficult Magnus had ever taken part in. It was a greater demon, Samuel’s father to be exact and as much as his friend did not wish to summon him, it was necessary for another of his clients. The demon had taken the child of a king, who had demanded Samuel retrieve him back and the price was worth more than he could imagine. How could he refuse an offer that big? Magnus sat back as the spell began to work, it would be Samuel’s job to carry on the rest of the summoning, he was now simply a spectator. “Who dares summon me?” The demon was big, bigger than Magnus had been expecting. Despite dealing with the Downworld for over 50 decades there were still aspects that simply astonished him. “It is me, father. Your son, Samuel.” The demon seemed amused, a small smile crept over his lips and Magnus could see the same teeth that he had seen on his friend just earlier. Definitely a family resemblance. “What can I do for you, my child? I doubt this is a family reunion.” A sharp laugh escaped from the demon’s throat, a very unpleasant sound. “I am here for a client. You took their child months ago and I am here to get it back for them.” Another laugh, louder this time. “You fool, did you really believe that child would still be alive? I feel ashamed to have you as my son for having such stupidity.” Samuel frowned, it would be a weakness if he showed any sign of emotion towards the statement. Demons were known liars, they would do anything to get out clean and both warlocks were aware of that fact. Samuel opened his mouth to speak, but the noise heard wasn’t his voice. It was a cry, more specifically a baby’s cry and Magnus cursed himself for not moving the infant into another room. The sound threw Samuel off guard, causing him to turn around and identify the source. What happened next was something reminiscent of a nightmare. Samuel’s distraction caused the pentagram to break, shattering the hold it had on the demon. Once free, the demon suddenly seemed to grow twice the size he had been inside of the pentagram and looked twice as deadly. Without even lifting a finger, Samuel was thrown against the wall and Magnus was horrified at the sound of his friend’s body against the stone. It was unlikely that he would ever get up from that.

Suddenly, the demon turned towards Magnus, black eyes focused on the basket where the baby was still crying softly. Magnus threw his hands up, blue sparks turning red as the magic turned from friendly to aggressive. The baby may have been thrust upon him, but God forbid anyone tried to hurt it while in Magnus’ care. It was his responsibility now. A ball of deep red hit the demon in the chest, burning through the skin almost too easily. Within seconds the hole had begun to heal itself, tendrils of black joining together. Another ball struck again and it was met with the same affects. The demon itself hardly seemed phased by the magic, a small smile playing on his lips. Magnus pulled his arms back, ready to unleash another strike but found himself unable to move them from their position. Orange lines snaked their way up from his fingertips like lava passing through charcoal. The further up they went, the hotter they got and Magnus soon found himself yelling from the pain. Orange had now become black as the lines made their way across his chest, neck and face. All Magnus could focus on was the pain that was coursing through his entire body and the lines that were now impairing his vision. He didn’t have long left, he would either pass out or die from the spell cast on him and both options seemed inviting to him as long as the pain would stop. The black seemed comforting By the time Magnus awoke, the sun was the same red as it had been when the woman had appeared on his doorstep. His outfit was still the same, it was the same room but the atmosphere was completely different. The scorched remains of the pentagram had stopped smoking long ago though the smell still lingered, Samuel’s body was still slumped against the wall unmoving, the basket where the baby had been was now on its side completely empty. Magnus cursed himself. A child was dead because of him. It had been his responsibility and he had failed.

The sound of a small cry snapped Magnus out of the daydream he had been in. His cat eyes widened slightly, the memory seeming more real than ever before. The cries were still continuing, surprisingly soft compared to others Magnus had heard. He sighed deeply before wiping away the tears that had fallen and reaching into the crib. “Oh, my blueberry… I’m so sorry. I didn’t hear you.” Max reached up as Magnus’ arms curled around him, gently lifting him out and onto the floor in his lap. The younger warlock cuddled into the embrace, small fingers latching onto the silk shirt as the cries slowly silenced themselves. Magnus smiled, already feeling the anxiety leave him as he felt the warmth of his son against his chest. Sitting on the floor right now, with a small head of blue hair nestled into his neck, Magnus began to wonder why he had felt nervous to begin with. He was hardly a young warlock anymore, his skills had improved far beyond the level of most warlocks his age, his list of life experiences far outnumbered most people alive on the Earth and surely this was just one more bulletpoint to add to it. A wonderful, brilliant bulletpoint that he could hardly wait to check off. Magnus felt the small head move and he looked at his son with one of his biggest smiles. “Max, how about I show you a magic trick?”

[wristwatchjournal]

Counting Seven Million Seconds in Quarantine With The Jaeger-LeCoultre Geophysic ‘True Second’

Marin County’s shelter-in-place mandate was formalized at midnight on Thursday, March 19th, 2020. By then, the news cycle around the Covid-19 pandemic had already become a dangerous cocktail of science-based fact and rationale mixed with what we now know to be hysteria-driven clickbait and misinformation. Hiding from the cacophony meant a break from the source of discomfort, but this also meant fully sequestering oneself from even digital contact with the outside world and any steady stream of reliable information, ultimately exiting any real timeline of the madness. Little did I know that I was already grieving the loss of normalcy and human contact. Many grieved the loss of loved ones. In a moment, it was the world who grieved. All of us, at once, together.

After returning home on Day Zero with a full tank of gas and enough groceries to last the next few days, I took off the G-Shock I was wearing and set it on my desk. Something about the bristling “end-of-days” capability it implied felt a little too on-the-nose. I started the teakettle and reached back into my safe, popping open my Halliburton watch case and retrieving my Jaeger-LeCoultre Geophysic “True Second.” After a few turns of the crown, it jumped to life. Tick. Tick. Tick.

The Geophysic True Second is a rare bird. Not because it is a limited edition of any sort — on the contrary, actually, as it has been in production since its introduction in the Fall of 2015. It is rare because the “deadbeat seconds” complication is a staggeringly uncommon one in modern mechanical watchmaking, particularly at this price point. Austrian independent Habring2 has the Jumping Second Pilot, which is built around an impressively reverse-engineered Valjoux 7750 gear train, but that and the JLC are more or less your only options under $15,000. For true aficionados of the complication, the next logical *ahem* jump is to a Gronefeld, or an A. Lange & Sohne, either of which will set you back an additional $24,000, give or take.

The days quickly started to blend together. It didn’t matter to the world whether or not I dressed or made the bed every morning, but in an effort to establish a sense of normalcy, I did anyway. Grabbing the Geophysic off the nightstand and snapping the deployant clasp shut after completing these mundane tasks became part of the same routine wherein I tried my hand at latte art with oat milk. I fed my hummingbirds. I let a pregnant doe nibble on our rosebushes every afternoon until weeks later she was joined by a wobbly-kneed fawn. One bright morning after a heavy rain, I watched a coyote cautiously emerge from the bramble to snooze in a warm patch of sun. I pulled the fast, cotton-cased road slicks off my Specialized Roubaix bike and swapped them out for fat tubulars with file treads and a bar bag — the perfect setup for long adventure rides into far west Marin. Out of habit, I once switched to a G-Shock for an afternoon hike, but after returning home, its implications still didn’t sit well with the situation at hand. I returned it to the Halliburton and retrieved the Geophysic.

I’ve always loved the Geophysic’s dial. I mean, how could you not? As the physical expression of the movement beneath, it’s a portrait of simplicity and restraint, but one whose intent is only fully revealed under a loupe. And it’s here, where the striping on the white gold markers, the sharply faceted handset, and smooth graining of the silver dial reflect a deep integrity of design to produce something that can only be appreciated by the wearer. From the details in the dial to the behavior of the movement itself, the Geophysic, as a whole, is a love letter to watch geeks — it is not an outward expression, but an inward one, meant to communicate something very specific to its wearer, and its wearer only.

As the weeks went by, I started to notice things. I stopped thinking about my watch box — my daily ritual of agonizing over its contents fading like the memories of standing shoulder-to-shoulder next to the bar on the canal whenever Phil Lesh would show up and play a surprise set, or my favorite Burmese restaurant in the Outer Sunset where the air, thick with spicy pepper and sesame oil hung lazily between tables spaced inches apart. I stopped opening and closing the strap drawer like it were the refrigerator, hoping that I’d somehow missed a leftover wedge of cheese. I started taking more stock of habits that I never found myself able to break. Less was absolutely more at such times. A moment in history when time itself remained important, partially because routine was important, but also because every day needed to count for something — anything, as we inched toward a conclusion that may never come. Ultimately, the aesthetic of time mattered less. It only mattered that friends, family, and neighbors remained healthy as we all did our part to flatten the curve — a duration being measured by a simple watch, reliable and running. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Unlike the dial, which I’ve always found easy to love, I didn’t fully appreciate the many subtle complexities of the Geophysic’s case until I handled a Polaris. In a similar manner, its short, sculpted lugs appear to be stretching the dial width to its absolute maximum before terminating in stubby, but sharp downward pointing angles. Its lines are restrained and elegant, while simultaneously sporty and aggressive — just as the prototypical mid-century tool watches once were. “But does it bother you that it ticks like a quartz watch?” It’s a question I’ve grown all-too accustomed to answering. What the inquirer is really asking is, “Does it bother you that this expensive thing could be easily mistaken for something very cheap?” The question, in and of itself, is both complicated and simultaneously revealing because, if you have to ask, this watch isn’t for you. Generally speaking, most luxury watches belong in one of two camps: watches you wear “for them,” and watches you wear “for you,” and the Geophysic True Second is without question the latter.

Predictably, and like clockwork every two weeks, the shelter mandate was extended by another two weeks. “Mid-April” first became “late April.” April became May, then May became June. And what lies beyond June remains anyone’s guess, though it’s quite safe to assume that the routine that settled in after the first few weeks is looking a lot like a sneak preview of the summer of 2020 for many of us in the United States. I grew a “quarantine mustache” as a silly measuring stick of sorts with some friends, but the joke had run its course by week six. I shaved it off.

The Geophysic doesn’t just “tick like a quartz” watch, though. To understand its functional design intent, you have to first understand the period after which it was named: specifically, the International Geophysical Year in 1958, an era defined by the concerted exploration and study of a number of key earth sciences (gravity, oceanography, meteorology, and seismology, just to name a few) on a global level, with over 60 countries pooling knowledge and resources toward the collaborative aim of better understanding the planet. During this unique period in history, the availability of precise, accurate timekeeping instruments upon which researchers could depend for synchronization or various time-related measurements (particularly in navigation, where exact demarcations of each second are required) was paramount. But I’m not studying geomagnetism and how it pertains to the migratory instincts of the flycatchers that are building nests in the fragrant eucalyptus at the edge of the yard. I’m perched on my steps, binoculars in one hand, KSA Kölsch in the other, bathing in the early evening’s warm glow as I wait for the family of quail to make the rounds. Even without making eye contact with my wrist, I can hear each second being announced between the four-hertz oscillation of the automatic movement. As many of these moments soon blended into each other, I began to realize that the watch on my wrist wasn’t just displaying a specific time when called upon; it was quite literally telling the time, audibly articulating its passage, second after second, minute after minute. And though I did not feel the movement of time between the many days spent at home, I witnessed its movement with my eyes and with my ears. And for three months, this was good enough. Tick, tick, tick.

I got to know my neighbors. To be fair, we’ve always been cordial, but our daily check-ins became the only human contact any of us would have for weeks on end. A conversation about the weather here, a cup of sugar for the hummingbirds and an extra pineapple there. I started making chicken soup on a weekly basis, making sure there was enough for all three households. The first batch was excellent. The second batch was terrible, but no one complained. Ellen is a longtime human resources professional whose hours had just been slashed by her employer. She is studying to be a meteorologist on the side, just because. Jonathan is a Native American and a Vietnam War veteran — one of the Marines’ earliest Force Recon operators who would later apprentice under the legendary San Francisco photographer Jim Marshall. On a cloudy day in April, I used a long lens to shoot his portrait as he stood on the steps of his porch wearing Apache regalia. “Make me look old,” he asked. “…And make it like a grainy black-and-white photograph.” I did my best.

Flip the Geophysic True Second over to be treated to a jarring contrast in complexity: This is the exquisitely finished Calibre 770, an automatic movement that goes to great pains to make the seconds hand strike each marker, 60 times per minute, theoretically enabling its wearer to record or synchronize a specific time, right down to the exact second. The movement is also equipped with JLC’s then-new Gyrolab balance, which is engineered around an unusual, open-ended shape (visually, it was designed to look a bit like the JLC logo) to reduce air friction, theoretically mitigating energy loss and preserving the watch’s long-term accuracy when compared to a traditional circular balance. Granted, I’m neither scientist nor picky about accuracy, but I appreciate what this watch represents on a spiritual level: the pursuit of knowledge as it pertains to our physical world and the long traditions of haute horlogerie all wrapped up in a deceptively simple, uncomplicated package. And on a functional level, I also quite appreciate the fact that the calibre features an independently adjustable hour hand, making for a neat travel watch — which will again, presumably, come in handy, should we ever return to the skies.

But then something happened in late May. It happened after a custom leather strap I’d ordered for a different watch prior to the quarantine period finally arrived, and in trying it on said other watch over the course of a weekend, the Geophysic’s meager 38-hour reserve ran dry. The ticking stopped. For nearly three months, its reassuring hum had been my constant, simultaneously offering clarity in its patterned simplicity. I paused in front of my desk where it patiently lay idle, debating whether or not I should wind it back up. For a moment, it felt as though time itself had also stopped. I closed the drawer, instead, taking its stoppage as prophesy that I, along with the world outside would be ready for change — precipitously, as it were, despite not yet arriving at any formal conclusion to the shelter mandate. We were all Chilean miners, finally rescued months after a cave-in but forced to prolong the blackness, wearing dark sunglasses even after our emergence from the gloom.

The goats are back, dotting our tinder-dry hillsides to help manage vegetation growth ahead of fire season. Baby jays squawk from the leaves above my kitchen. The fawns are starting to lose their bright white spots. Summer is imminent. I’ve just made an appointment with my barber, who’ll be among the very last to be allowed to resume business. The police tape and orange cones haphazardly cordoning off park benches, trailhead turnouts, and shoreline parking lots across the county have been quietly disappearing. Northern California is slowly filling in its outline with the vivid colors we once knew. But I’m still buying groceries once a week. Still never far from a pocket-sized bottle of hand sanitizer. Still going on long, head-clearing rides into far west Marin. What was once a frightening new reality quickly settled into routine, and what we now wistfully define as the “new normal.” In many ways, everything has changed, while time itself remains just as it always was. Tick. Tick. Tick.

For more on the Jaeger-LeCoultre Geophysic True Second, visit jaegerlecoultre.com.

The post Counting Seven Million Seconds in Quarantine With The Jaeger-LeCoultre Geophysic ‘True Second’ appeared first on Wristwatch Journal.

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[theoppositeofadaydream-blog]

Call Me. URGENT.

There is a moment in everyone’s life that becomes special to them for some reason. Not a moment in the relativity of life, but an exact moment in time. For me that moment is 11:47 pm. At 11:47 almost every night my eyes find the nearest clock and I sigh. This exhalation is the physical signal that my mind has hit my mental wall. There is nothing more I can do this evening, all that’s left is to is take an Ambien and go to sleep, hoping for a dreamless night. At 11:47 pm, the world is too quiet, the lights too bright, and my mind too busy. At 11:47 all the tragedy comes rushing back to me and I no longer have the brain capacity to deal with the bad events. At 11:47, my day is done.

July 8th, 2016

“Call me. URGENT”

Whenever I see those three words come from contact “Momma”, my stomach turns inside out.

“Call me. URGENT” was the text I received on the most heartbreaking days of my life.

“Did you get this text from Mom?” I asked my sister. More frequently than not, Mom texted us both at the same time.

“Yeah…” came the reply. We puzzled for a moment over what it could be, then had a little back and forth on who would call. Sometimes an URGENT text from Mom meant someone was in trouble. We decided I would call Mom, but my sister stayed close to listen. After one ring, Mom picked up.

“Sweetie?”

“Hi, Momma, what’s wrong?” I immediately  asked. I could hear the strain in her voice as she asked me to put her on speaker with my sister.

“It’s your Uncle…” she finally managed out, “They- They found his body this morning… H-he jumped off the Bay Bridge.” The world stopped as I tried to process what had just happened. Dead? My Uncle? I couldn’t believe that this could happen. But, I also could believe it.

My uncle had been sick. Physically he was perfect -- he played tennis, hiked, ate healthy, and kept his mind sharp. But none of it was enough to help him later.

Last December Mom had given us the family gossip that he had admitted himself into a hospital for suicidal thoughts. Twice. He was at his ranch up near Sacramento when he called his aunt to take him to the hospital. She did, and he was admitted for 72 hours. After the three days were up, he got picked up and began to head home. But it was still too much. He freaked out and needed to go back, before he even got a chance to see his house. My grandma flew in from Colorado the next day to see him and take care of him.

At Christmas that year, he was his usual self -- happy, cheerful, slightly flustered. But it was all normal. He brought my cousin and everyone had a great time. We were all together and it seemed the worst was behind us. He spoke openly about what had happened and how much better he felt now that he was taking medicine for his troubles. It seemed like a bout of depression, more stress than he was able to handle. But it all turned around.

A few months later, we heard that my uncle was “going off the deep end”. My sister and I were warned to keep an ear out and tell Mom if he called us. He had had a schizophrenic break. He fully believed the government was out to get him, and that his father’s death (also suicide) was a government ploy as well. He thought my grandparents were gun and drug smugglers, he thought my aunt wanted to take his son away, he thought his whole family was in on the conspiracy. As heartbreaking as hearing the accusations was, it was even more heartbreaking hearing how much he believed them. If anyone tried to convince him to see a doctor, he would repeat his hollow mantra, “I am fine. I am absolutely fine.”

On Christmas he said those words. When we came to him as a family, he said those words. On the night he died, he said these words. These were the words he gave to the people he cared about. These are the words he gave to himself as he drove to the bridge, parked his motorcycle, and jumped.

“I am absolutely fine.”

The next month was a flurry of emotions and consolations. Every night we went to my grandmother’s house to comfort her. She became frail and weak with grief as she attempted to process. Both of her children were dead -- taken by the most cruel ways a child can be taken. Her daughter, taken by drugs, her son taken by mental illness and fear. We could not begin to imagine the pain she was going through.

As we helped her move forward, we began to heal as a family. I took up the position and responsibility of helping my aunt with my cousin. It was difficult to believe that such a huge influence on my life would no longer be there. He was the man who stepped up as a father figure to my sister and I when my mom had cancer. He taught me how to play tennis, and got us one of the best coaches. He helped with homework, and took us on trips. The only silver lining is that we still have the man we knew, instead of the man he became, forever in our memories.

September 21, 2016

“Call me. URGENT”

When I woke up that morning, nothing could stop me. I went to my therapy appointment after which my boyfriend surprised me by skipping class to take me to breakfast. It was a beautiful morning, a perfect day to get my homework done outside and enjoy the sun. As we were driving back from breakfast at my favorite cafe, I got the text.

But the text isn’t what set me off that morning. It was the follow-up phone call from my grandma. When I saw “Nanny” pop up on the screen, I assumed she just wanted to check in about my plans for the day and evening (I lived with her, so we had constant communication).

“Hey Nanny, what’s up” I began, not knowing what was in store.

“Have you talked to your mother today?” She immediately asked.

“No, why?” I replied. As I said this, I felt the all too familiar uneasiness of a bad situation start up in my stomach.

“You need to call her.” Nanny said, “Your sister is in the hospital.”

“What, why? How? What happened?” I began to cry as the hysteria began to set in. My chest tightened and white noise filled my ears as Nanny tried to tell me what happened.

“She was at a friend’s house, I guess, and they found her not breathing this morning,” I heard her say through a fog. “It looks like a drug overdose. Your mom is on the way to the hospital now, I’m on the way home.” By this time my boyfriend had pulled over to try to comfort me as I sobbed. I hung up with nanny and my world caved in. And I screamed. I had never before understood why people screamed when bad things happened in movies. What was the point when nothing was hurting? But in that moment, I understood. The pain of the thought of my baby sister in a hospital, dying, was too much for me to take. So I screamed. And screamed and screamed. What felt like an eternity was only really a minute or two, until my brain turned back on into crisis mode. That’s when I finally saw the text.

“Call me. URGENT” And so I called.

When my mom picked up, I began to sob again.

“Sweetie,” came the quick reply to my tears, “Do you have any idea who she was with or what she was doing? She was in Vacaville? Does she know anyone there?” I have never heard my mom so desperate for answers before.

“I have no idea, Momma,” I sobbed back, “Is she going to be okay?”

“We don’t know yet, honey. She’s in really bad shape. Wait for Nanny then come up here. Don’t drive. I’ll text you the name of the hospital.”

I felt like a switch had turned off on my mind. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t react. I heard my boyfriend trying to talk to me, but I couldn’t hear the words. I felt like I was sinking down a dark hole that not even light could escape from. All of my optimism and positive energy was useless as I pictured my sister lying in a hospital.

Finally I snapped out of it and was able to respond. My voice sounded as if it was coming through a tunnel.

“We need to wait for Nanny,” I finally managed to choke out. “Can you drive us?” I turned to him with pleading eyes. I knew he had to go to work and had things to do, but I also knew it wasn’t safe for me to be alone or driving.

“Of course,” he replied, “Anything you need.”

He took me back to my house to wait for Nanny and my dad, who were both coming from San Francisco. While we waited I sat on my sister’s bed and looked around her room helplessly for anything that would give me a clue to what had happened. With nothing to show from my search, I hugged Tabby’s favorite stuffed animal to my chest and cried. I packed her favorite (and my least favorite) pair of boots, some pajamas, and her stuffed animal to bring with me to the hospital.

Finally, we got the word that my dad and grandma were at Bart ready to be picked up. The drive to Fairfield usually takes a little over an hour, but we made it there in 45 minutes. The longest 45 minutes of my life passed before me as I frantically texted all of Tabby’s friends trying to find out more. Her friends told me about her drug use, and how they had become a little worried. By this time, her toxicology screen had come back. She was full of Cocaine and another unspecified opiate. My world caved in a little more. She should know better! Drugs were a constant negative theme in my family. I was taken away from my birth parents because of drug use, my dad had been an addict, my mom’s sister had died from drugs. The swirl of emotions was overwhelming as I tried to piece together what happened.

After the most agonizing 45 minutes of my life, we arrived at the hospital. My grandma and I sprinted in to find my mom. I ran into the waiting room we were given, and flung myself into my mom’s arms. I began to cry once again with her as we mourned for my sister. Mom filled us in to what happened as best she could.

My little sister had gotten way in over her head. She had gone over to a friend’s house, someone none of us knew. She was drinking, smoking, doing drugs, and it all went too far. The last contact anyone had from her was a text I received from her at 12:03 AM saying “Don’t look at my snaps”. Once I realized what had happened, I tried to look, only to find out she had blocked me from seeing them anyway. At 10 AM, her friend woke up and tried to wake her up. He noticed she was “gurgling” and was unresponsive. He immediately called 911. When the paramedics got to her, she was declared dead. Her heart had stopped and she wasn’t responding. They performed CPR for 7 minutes until they got a thready pulse from her. They put her on a breathing tube, adrenaline, and all the monitors they could. She died three more times in the ambulance.

 Once she got to the emergency room and did a scan, they discovered one of her lungs had popped, so a tube was placed in her side. Her chances of living were 50/50 at best. She had more vomit in her lungs than anyone thought possible to come back from. 

When the doctor came in to give us the news, the only sound was my mother’s desperate “Oh, God…” We huddled together, waiting, waiting, waiting. We waited while they put her in a coma and lowered her temperature to as low as they could. As we sat, Mom clung to the stuffed animal I brought for my sister, using it as a surrogate for the daughter she couldn’t hold. We all sat nearly silently as we processed and grieved in our individual ways. My dad sighed, my mom cried, and me… I didn’t even know what to do. I clung to my boyfriend as fresh waves of emotion crashed over me. He was my beacon, my floatation device that prevented me from sinking down into my despair. I cried, I paced, and I cried some more. Every time someone spoke, fresh tears welled in my eyes.

When the doctors finally finished getting my sister on a bed and hooked up to all the machines, we were allowed to go see her. The image of my baby sister on that bed will forever haunt me. There was blood on her face, her eyes were swollen. But the most horrifying part was her skin. It was one thing to know what had happened, but to be able to physically see it was terrifying. Her skin was grey with a blue tone. She looked dead already. I gently put her stuffed animal under her hand and kissed her forehead before they wheeled her away to the Intensive Care Unit.

Leaving her room, the shock really set in. It really was my sister in there. There was no mistaken identity, no mix-ups. My little sister was lying in the hospital on Death’s doorstep. My mom, dad, and I huddled together outside of her room and held each other up as we cried. Never before have I seen my parents so broken. Never before have I felt so lost. There was nothing we could do but wait.

“When is it going to get easy?” I heard my mom wail through her tears. “When do we get to catch a break?” All I could do was cry and hug her, because I had the same questions. When would it get easy for us? After everything we had been through, why couldn’t we catch a break?

For six days we waited in the ICU. For six days we took shifts, making sure she was never alone. For six days we prayed and hoped and waited for her to wake up out of her coma. Every day the nurses yelled at her, trying to get her to open her eyes. Every day I read to her and held her hand, holding back tears so she wouldn’t hear how sad I was. For six days, we lived at the East Bay Medical Center of Fairfield, surrounded by nurses and doctors, hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. For six days I called my therapist, called my friends, and fought the notion that I was the worst sister in the world. For six days, we waited.

The morning my sister woke up, her dog jumped onto my bed. I had been staying with my dad for the past couple of days since his house was less of a drive than mine. At 10:13 on a Tuesday morning, Ginger woke up minutes before my dad knocked on the door. He came in and shook me lightly as he said the most wonderful words I could have hoped for.

“She woke up!”

This time when I cried, the tears were not bitter with loss, but sweet with the hope of recovery. My baby sister had woken up! After six days in a coma, she was going to make it. Then relief I felt was indescribable. The weight that had been sitting on my chest finally lifted and I felt like I could take a breath for the first time.

The next few days only looked up as we met with neurologists, speech therapist, social workers, and cardiologists. They all said the same thing. She was lucky to be alive, and even luckier to have the minimal damage she had. I had never before been so overjoyed to see my little sister’s green eyes glaring up at me when I wouldn’t let her use my phone. I had never been so thrilled to have my hands swatted away when I tried to fuss over her blankets. She was back. My baby sister was back with us.

At 11:47 PM, the world slows down as I think about the past three months and all the trials it brought me.

Although these horribly tragic things happen, we must grow and learn from them as best we can. My uncle taught me that family is the most important thing. That no matter where in life we all stand, we have each other to rely on. His death gave us the one thing he always would have wanted -- unity. We came together in a time of grief and held each other up in our movement forward.

My sister taught me to appreciate my mortality and how to prop myself up when faced with heartbreak. I never would have thought I could get through something like this, yet I did. The strength I showed to myself surprised me, and taught me how much I can handle in my struggle forward. She showed me how I can make smarter choices and live my life to the fullest.

We still have a long way to go in recovery. My sister, my mom, my dad, me. We all have places we need to get out of, and directions we need to change. Though my sister’s will be the most eventful recovery, we all have a road to take. All we can do is support each other and do our best as we continue together.