#anyways hes like a little toddler toddling in front of anything that moves and goes click

[ratatatastic]

mikksy blowing smoke into the lens whilst muzzy and benny tinker with the cup oh hot girl shit she found the camera real fast i think i just found my manic dream pixie girl shes so quirky

edmonton oilers @ florida panthers game 7 postgame | 6.24.24 (x)

[unfoundhoney]

mother, father, and everything else ↠

↠ platonic!c!tommyinnit x older sister!reader ; fluff , angst

↠ masterlist

↠ a companion piece to a sister’s sacrifice inspired by this tiktok

“Tommy, come on,” you call.

You pull your youngest brother’s attention away from the strings of the apron he got distracted by. He toddles over to you as quickly as he can, reaching up and asking to be picked up silently. He started walking early and go the hang of it quite quickly. However, in talking he’s a bit of a late bloomer, nearing fifteen months but yet to say his first words.

You lift Tommy up into your arms, carrying him out the back door and into the backyard. You set him down to play in the grass where you can keep an eye on him then walk over to the array of clotheslines strung up across the yard, beginning to hang up laundry.

Wilbur is off playing with Niki as usual. He’ll likely return covered in dirt and grass stains, maybe with a captured insect or stories of a new, made up kingdom he’d been ruler of that day. Phil is still out with Techno; they’ve been gone for a while now, but that’s nothing new.

You’ve hung up a pair of Wilbur’s pants and two of Tommy’s shirts when you notice Tommy crouched beside the basket full of wet clothes. He reaches inside and pulls out a sock, squeezing it curiously.

“Do you want to help, Tommy?”

Tommy looks up at you, blue eyes wide and mouth slightly open. He nods his head once.

You giggle and ruffle his hair, “Alright, c’mere.”

You lift Tommy up again, resting him on your hip as you grab a clothespin with your free hand. You slip it over the clothesline.

“Put the top of the sock in the pin,” you tell him.

He struggles a bit, little hands still uncoordinated at his young age. He does eventually position the sock where you can close the pin on it and leave it to hang.

“Wow, good job, buddy!” you say.

You wrap him in a hug and spin around, shrieking laughter falling from his mouth at both your actions and your praise. You set him down and kneel down to be at eye level with him.

“You’re my official laundry assistant,” you say seriously. “Can you hand me clothes to hang up?”

Tommy nods eagerly and toddles over to the basket of wet clothes, grabbing a shirt from the top of the pile. He holds it above his head as he runs back over to you, holding it out.

“Good job, Tommy! We’re quite the team, you and I.”

Together, you and Tommy slowly hang the rest of the clothes up. Tommy eventually gets bored and goes off to pick dandelions and pull off their petals, leaving you to finish the chore, not that you mind. When you’re finished, you call Tommy over to get in the basket, carrying him and the leftover clothespin back inside.

“Y/N!”

The call of your name pulls you to a stop, turning to see who yelled for you. Tommy grabs onto your pant leg for balance, stopping as well. You find Puffy waving at you, hurrying over to you with her little boy Dream at her side.

“Hi, Puffy,” you say. “Hi, Dream.”

“Hi,” Dream says in a small voice.

“Tommy, can you say hi?” you ask the young boy clinging to your hand.

He’s chewing on his thumbnail, looking up at Puffy warily before hiding his face in your leg.

“Guess not,” you laugh.

“How are you, Y/N? I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever,” Puffy says.

“I’m good,” you answer. “Just getting some dinner for tonight.”

“Still the household cook, I see.”

“And just about everything else.”

You laugh and Puffy joins you, but you can tell that wasn’t a joke that went over her head. It’s no joke that you are mother and father to your younger siblings, as well as everything else. Your dad is gone too often; Wilbur doesn’t even call your father “dad,” he calls him Phil.

“Where’s your dad?” Puffy asks.

You shrug, “Around.”

“When’s the last time you saw him?”

You hesitate for too long, distracted as you attempt to remember the last time Phil came home.

“That hardly matters,” you brush off, “He’s busy doing important stuff and I can look after Wilbur and Tommy myself anyway.”

The look of concern on Puffy’s face is not missed by you. You do, however, elect to ignore it.

Dream tugs on Puffy’s sleeve, “Mom.”

“Yeah, buddy?” Puffy asks, leaning down.

Dream points into the market, where you see Sapnap with his father and his friend George.

“Go say hi, but don’t wander too far,” Puffy tells Dream.

When she turns back to you, keeping one eye on her son, you say, “I’ve gotta head home. Need to make dinner and all that.”

“Yeah, okay,” Puffy says. “I’m here if you ever need help. Or someone to talk to. Or... anything really.”

“Thanks, Puffy.”

You don’t notice at your side, Tommy trying to form the word that Dream used that so quickly got his mother’s attention.

“Look after yourself, Y/N.”

“I am.” You always have.

With a wave, you turn and head back home, Tommy walking slowly beside you. The walk from the market to your house takes about fifteen minutes and you end up carrying Tommy for most of it to speed things up.

When you arrive home, you find Wilbur and Niki sat in the front yard playing a hand clapping game. They stop when they spot you, jumping up and running to come meet you as you walk up the front path.

“Y/N! Y/N! Y/N!” Wilbur shouts your names repeatedly.

“Will! Will! Will!” you mimic.

“Can I spend the night at Niki’s?” Wilbur asks.

You like Niki. She’s sweet and a good influence for Wilbur.

“Uhm, as long as her parents are alright with it,” you say, doing your best to sound like a grown up despite only being sixteen.

“We’ve already talked to them,” Niki tells you.

“Alright, then,” you concede. “Behave while you’re there.”

“I will, Y/N!” Wilbur says, running off with Niki.

You watch them go for a few moments until you’re reminded of the toddler sitting on your hip. Tommy squirms around, wanting down. You set him on the ground and walk with him inside.

You set him up with some paper and crayons at the kitchen table. You sit across from him, watching as he carefully looks over his color options before choosing the red crayon.

“Looks like it’s just you and me, bud,” you muse.

You pet Tommy’s hair before you stand, moving to start on dinner. You season meat and chop potatoes, humming to yourself and keeping an eye on Tommy. Thankfully, your youngest brother isn’t a picky eater, which makes meals a lot easier than they could be, especially since he’s been in the solid foods stage for a while now.

The rest of the night is fairly quiet. You and Tommy eat dinner then you do the dishes while he waddles around the living room and plays with some of his toys. You can hear him experimenting with running, his footfalls surprisingly loud for such a small human. You hear him fall, as well, but without any crying then the return of his heavy footsteps, you don’t go to check on him.

You start composing your next shopping list and check the calendar for any upcoming events. There’s a festival next week that you’re meant to chaperone Wilbur and his friends at. Maybe you can team up with Puffy so Tommy can play with Tubbo, and Dream can join Wilbur. You’ll ask her tomorrow.

You hear Tommy enter the kitchen. He waddles over to where you sit at the table and crawls into your lap. He grabs your free hand and starts playing with your fingers as you continue writing down what you’ll need for your bigger grocery run in a few days.

“Mom.”

You freeze.

What?

“Mom.”

You look down at Tommy.

He looks up at you, “Mom.”

“N-No...,” you say weakly.

“Mom.”

“No, I’m not your mom.”

“Mom.”

“No...”

“Mom!” Tommy says happily. “Mom mom mom!”

“Okay, okay,” you say shakily, putting a hand gently over your little brother’s mouth to get him to stop. “Okay, good job.”

Your vision’s blurry. You want to cry. Your chest hurts. But right now, Tommy’s said his first word.

“Good job,” you repeat.

You pull Tommy into a hug and wipe at your eyes behind his back.

Tommy rests his little cheek on your shoulder, already tired but quickly drifting off to sleep in your warm embrace, “Mom...”

“Shhh,” you say, voice weak.

Tommy goes limp, asleep in your arms. As your tears begin to fall, you make sure not to let your sobs move you. How has this happened? Mom. No. You’re not a mother. Except you are. In every way that matters, you are Tommy’s mother. You’ve raised him ever since Phil brought him home that day.

You wish your family was normal. As normal as a family of four adopted children, a single father, and a non-biological uncle could be. You wish your dad was home more. You wish you didn’t have to be the only parental figure Tommy has ever known. It’s to the point he calls you mom. How could Phil let it get to this? How could he care so little?

You just want to have a normal family with parents who are adults and kids who are allowed to be children. You did not get to be a child, but Wilbur and Tommy will. You will always be there for them. You promise. You will give them what you had taken from you. Hatred for your father burns in your chest but it’s quickly snuffed out, doused by nostalgia that longs for a childhood you never had.

[cablesscutie]

Inspired by @hayleynfoster’s comic and some hilarious headcannons about the littlest steambaby with Hayley and @favlie​

Read it on AO3

1.

The day Avatar Aang comes to meet his second niece, Fire Lord Zuko refuses to let his youngest child out of sight.  Katara rolls her eyes, and reminds her husband that neither of their children had ended up psychologically disturbed because of their flights.  “Not,” she adds, pointing at Aang, “that I am allowing a repeat, but I think just holding her while firmly on the ground will be fine.”

“Mmmm,” Zuko hesitates, curling Kallik closer to his chest.  Her big eyes blink up at the adults guileless from her blanket.  “No.”

“You let Azula hold her!” Aang argues.

“She doesn’t do anything with the babies!” Zuko shoots back.  It’s not strictly true, he knows, but his sister’s ritual with newborns is unsettling in a much different way.  She simply stares deep into each child’s eyes upon being handed them, until some kind of understanding passes between her and the baby.  Results have varied, but the most important part is that there was no threat to life and limb.  

Katara’s raised eyebrow says that she also doesn’t believe Zuko’s words, but she doesn’t say anything.  They are, after all, a united front - to the children, to politicians, to their friends.  In the privacy of their chambers, however, he knows he will be hearing about this.

2.

Katara and Zuko take the kids to spend Kallik’s first birthday at the South Pole.  It’s a tradition they’ve observed with all three, and Zuko always looks forward to going to visit her family.  The house is loud and chaotic, full to bursting with people, the exact opposite of his own lonely childhood.  There is no posturing, and everyone loves and squabbles openly.  On this particular visit, they have overlapped with Aang’s stay with Sokka and Suki, so Gran-Gran’s house is in even more of an uproar than usual by the time Zuko and Katara arrive.

Kya immediately dashes off to coo over her little cousins as they toddle around behind Pakku, pretending to be otter penguins.  Satoshi runs to the kitchen to be showered in kisses and cookies from Gran-Gran.  Hakoda finds them barely out of their parkas and already thoroughly abandoned.

“I could’ve sworn you had at least one other child,” he tells Katara, scratching his head as he pretends to search for his missing grandchildren.  She laughs and hugs her father tight.  Neither of them let go for long moments, and Zuko’s throat feels tight when he notices his father-in-law’s misty eyes.  He looks down at Kallik, thinks of his other two children, and wonders for the thousandth time how Hakoda could ever forgive him for keeping Katara so far away.  It’s why he hands his daughter over easily when her grandfather waggles his fingers expectantly and says, “Alright, give her here.”

Hakoda settles Kallik on his hip with practiced ease, and pulls Zuko into a brief hug with his free arm.  “Good to see you, son.”  

Zuko clears his throat.  “You too,” he says, and Katara laughs softly at his awkward shuffling, amused by how he doesn’t know what to do with his hands without a baby in his arms.  She answers his question by lacing their fingers together as she leads him deeper into the house to find her brother and their friends seated around the hearth fire watching the kids run around.

Hugs are exchanged all around, and Zuko settles into their familiar company.  Hakoda joins them after taking Kallik to say hello to Gran-Gran and Pakku, and bounces the baby on his knee to make her laugh.  Aang makes silly faces at her that have her letting out piercing giggles and reaching out to try and grab at the wooden beads of his necklace.

“Well clearly she’s bored of me,” Hakoda says, making to hand her off to her uncle.  “Here you go -”  Zuko leans over and intercepts.

“Oh no.  No baby catapult,” he says, shaking his head.

Aang gives him a pout to rival Momo.  “Come on, we’re indoors!”  Katara clears her throat, and when Zuko glances over, her eyes are narrowed at him.  With a sigh, he holds Kallik out to Aang.

“Fine.  But I’m watching you.”

3.

Extended family vacations to Ember Island always sound like a good idea to Katara.  At first.  When her husband is burnt out and aching, and the kids are climbing the walls, and she just wants to lie in the sun with a book, it seems like the cure for everything.

And then they arrive.  Somehow, much like she forgets the excruciating pain of childbirth, she never recalls the onslaught of chaos and catastrophe that comes every vacation.  Like the time Sokka got stung by a jelly-ray.  Or the time Suki and Zuko got in a fight about disciplining each other’s kids.  Or the time every single one of the kids managed to get sunburnt and couldn’t sleep.  Every year, it’s always something, and somehow, it usually ends up being at least partially her problem to solve.

This year, though, is somehow turning out alright.  They reach day three without major incident, and almost entirely without tears - a near miracle for a vacation involving five children under the age of ten.

“I’m almost done with my first book already,” she tells Zuko as they rock slowly in a hammock on the deck, whispering in hopes of keeping any listening spirits from knowing that she’s gotten her hopes up.

“Good, you deserve the break,” Zuko says.  He looks on the verge of sleep despite the fact that the sun is still climbing in the sky.  The dark circles beneath his eyes are already faded almost to nothing.  She sighs happily and grabs her book, but before she can actually crack it open, she hears Toph cackling and her Mom Senses light up.  Zuko calls after her in surprise as she leaves the hammock swaying wildly behind her, but she doesn’t look back on her way to the beach.  

When she arrives, it is just in time to see Toph pick up Kallik, a wicked smile on her face.  Sokka and Suki’s twins are further down the beach standing beside Aang, both of them jumping up and down with excitement, waiting for something.

“Go long, Twinkle Toes!”  Katara’s eyes go wide, and faster than should be possible, she reaches them, yanking Kallik out of Toph’s hands.  “Hey!”

“Absolutely not!”  Katara says, scowling.

“I was gonna catch her!”  Aang shouts.  Katara shakes her head.

“This is not happening.  No way.”  Then, silently lamenting the loss of quiet time with her husband, Katara looks at the twins and asks, “Who wants to go get some ice cream?

4.

At Zuko’s request, his birthday is not a big deal with his family.  It’s a combination of the fact that the entire Fire Nation loses its mind about the day anyway, so he is all but forced to spend a day attending a festival in his honor, and the fact that he is used to his birthday being a marker of all the disappointments he has been in the past year.  It is a long-standing compromise with his wife that she is allowed to throw him a small, family-only party, to be kept within the bounds of the garden.  He enjoys the excuse to get everyone together without a barrage of meetings involved, and the rest of their family is so boisterous in comparison to him, he can almost forget that the day has anything to do with him at all.

For his thirtieth birthday, he makes the further concession of allowing Uncle to set up his new phonograph so there could be dancing.  Zuko is manning the crank, watching Katara and Kya swing each other around while Aang sits next to him, flipping through the records looking for the right song.

“Do you have a request too?” Zuko hears him ask, and turns to see Kallik has toddled away from Uncle Iroh and approached the Avatar.  She puts her hands on his knees and starts bouncing, flashing him a smile that shows all of her new teeth.  “You want upsies?” Aang coos, and reaches to scoop her up by the armpits.  Zuko clears his throat loudly, shooting Aang his best murder eyes, and the Avatar shrinks back into the collar of his robes a little.  “What about dance party?”  He lets Kallik grab onto his fingers and starts hopping around with her to the beat, hunched over and both of them giggling.

5.

“Oh Uncle Aaaaang!” Kya sings, striding out into the garden where Appa has just landed. She has Kallik on her hip, and Satoshi follows along at her heels, excited to see Appa and Momo again.  His pockets are already full of lychee nuts for his fuzzy friends.

“Hey guys!” Uncle Aang calls, his gangly arms waving excitedly.  “Are you the welcoming committee now?”  He lands in front of them on a gentle breeze, setting down his bag and grinning broadly.

“Mom and Dad are in a meeting,” Kya informs him.  “But somebody wanted to go for a little flight.”  She hitches the toddler higher and winks conspiratorially.  “If you catch my drift.”  Uncle Aang’s eyes go wide, and he looks between the kids with unease.  Satoshi feels terror grip his throat.  He knew his big sister was crazy, but would she really…?

“Oh I dunno, your Dad was pretty...adamant...that you all are grounded until further notice.”  Satoshi lets out a sigh of relief.

“Dad’s in a meeting,” Kya reiterates, as though being in a meeting involves entering another dimension.  She should know better, her brother thinks to himself.  Mom and Dad always find out when they’re up to no good, and as the sibling who’s usually leading the charge into trouble, Kya should definitely have that figured out by now.  Uncle Aang should absolutely know that by now, but with horor, Satoshi realizes that the Avatar is looking a little bit convinced.  “And we’re not gonna tell on you,” she wheedles.  Speak for yourself, Satoshi thinks, glancing around to see if there are any guards within earshot if he calls for their parents.  Sadly, it seems nobody has realized that the Avatar requires careful supervision.

“Well…” Uncle Aang considers, then comes to his decision, smiling once again.  “Alright, I guess one can’t hurt.  Who’s going?”  

Kya moves to offer Kallik to him, her tiny hands reaching out and making grabby motions.  Satoshi’s world goes into slow-motion.  There’s a roaring in his ears, and as if from outside his body, he hears his own voice say,

“I am.”  Kya and Uncle Aang blink at him, stunned.  Their uncle is the first to recover, and asks,

“Are you sure, kiddo?  I mean, you weren’t the biggest fan when you were a baby…”

“I want to try again,” he makes himself say, despite his sweating palms.  Uncle Aang grins and ruffles his hair.

“That’s the spirit!  You get that from your dad.” 

As his uncle’s hands grab him under the armpits, Satoshi hears Kya mutter, “It’s the self-sacrificing idiot gene,” and then he is gone.  As he soars through the air, he wonders if maybe his body hasn’t even left the ground yet.  He can’t feel anything.  Maybe he just died of panic and this is just his soul taking off for the spirit world.

Then he reaches the height of his arc and starts plummeting back to Earth, and the sensation of all his internal organs rattling around asserts the fact that he is very much still alive and experiencing this.  He closes his eyes before he gets anywhere close to the ground, so it comes as a surprise when he comes to a sudden stop, cradled briefly by robes smelling of hay and bison fur, before being deposited back on his feet.

“How’s the weather up there?” Uncle Aang asks him, patting him on the back.  Satoshi doesn’t know what the weather was like.  He doesn’t know anything except that solid ground beneath his feet may have replaced his mother’s hugs as his favorite feeling in the world.  He meets Kya’s eyes, and sees from her horrified expression that he must look like as much of a husk of a child as he feels.

A quiet, affectless “Thank you,” is all that he can manage to say, and then he is wandering back into the palace, where he shoves his head into the nearest antique vase and screams.

+1

“Psst.”  A small sound behind him has Aang on alert.  The Fire Nation Royal Palace hasn’t been a place of danger for years now, but with Toph and Sokka around, the probability of sneak attacks has risen a hundred fold.  He doesn’t see anything though, and goes to turn back around, only to be caught by a surprisingly firm grip on his cape.  About two feet below where he’d expected to find his assailant, Aang comes face to face with his youngest niece, Kallik.  Her expression is the same determined furrow of the brow that Katara and Zuko have shared for so long it is impossible to tell which parent bestowed the trait on her.  It has the eerie effect of summoning the terrifying force that is their combined will.  Aang already knows that whatever she wants from him, he’s going to cave, and it will probably get him in trouble.  “I hear you’re in the business of yeeting kids.  I want in.”

Aang sighs.  Zuko has been trying to prevent this day since the moment Aang met Kallik, and Kallik has been trying to evade her father’s overprotective tendencies since the moment of her existence.  It is a battle Katara has elected not to fight, likely remembering her own impossible stubbornness and the futility of trying to stand against it.  So it is with all of that knowledge that he says, “Okay.”

“Flameo!” Kallik cheers, punching at the air.

“Well ‘flameo’ was actually more of a greeting -”

“Let’s save the fun facts.  I wanna fly.”  With a creeping sense of dread, Aang follows the child pulling him along by the cape until they reach a courtyard.  Kallik turns to face him, plants her feet, and rubs her palms together.  “Alright,” she says, spreading her arms wide.  “I’m ready.”

“Here we go...I guess,” Aang says, glancing over his shoulder as he reaches out to scoop her up by the armpits.  The coast is clear, so he swings her around in circles a couple of times to get ready.  As his niece starts to giggle, the garden blurs, and wind ruffles his robes, Aang feels the giddy anticipation of liftoff.

He hoists Kallik, up, up, up.

And then her momentum carries her out of his hands, and the wind that has built up around them propels her even higher.  Her already small body shrinks until she looks more like the shadow of a bird in the night sky, clearing the palace roofs.  A happy shriek pierces the air.  Aang smiles, feeling her wonder as if it is his own.  This is always the best part of someone’s first flight - witnessing them discover the wind anew - and while taking Air Acolytes to glide at the Northern Air Temple is fun, nothing compares to sharing this part of his culture with his nieces and nephews.

Kallik tumbles back into his arms, eyes wide with wonder, ecstatic grin plastered across her face.  “Again!” she cries, the moment breath rushes back to her.  

Aang laughs and holds her on his hip.  As he always does, he asks, “How’s the weather up there?”

“The moon is huge!  And I could see the whole city!  And the ocean!”  Kallik’s pudgy hands move in broad, sweeping gestures so similar to her mother’s bending as she speaks.  He still remembers Katara’s delighted gasp the first time she flew, Toph’s bruising grip, Zuko’s shocked laugh.  This moment, too, will be another piece of the Air Nomad legacy living on.

As Aang tosses Kallik yet again, Katara finds Zuko leaning against a pillar at the edge of the courtyard, watching.  She approaches her husband, curious to find that he isn’t having a coronary at the sight of their daughter in freefall, and takes hold of his arm.

“You gonna yell at him?” she asks, feigning nonchalance.  He doesn’t look away from them, but he is smiling, serene.

“Eh, she seems fine.”

[c-is-for-circinate]

inauspicious-augury replied to your post: Fuck it, today has been confusing and annoying and...

Listen, I’m always down for FMA related anything

Let’s talk about the Ed-in-Ishval AU, then.  Let’s talk about Edward Elric, with all his stubbornness and certainty and impossible furious morals, sixteen years old in the middle of hell on Earth.  (Or at least, let’s talk about the path that gets him there, because it’s a long one and there’s more of this story yet to go).

Ed is born seven and a half years early.  Van Hohenheim leaves Resembool a couple of years late.  Nothing else changes, except in reaction to those two things--so everything changes.

Edward Elric is stubborn and fierce and golden and brilliant, and until he’s almost nine, he’s also alone.  He learns everything he can get his hands around, everything his mother can teach him, everything every adult in town can teach him, following everyone and asking questions until nobody can answer any more.  He reads every single book in his father’s study that his hands can reach, and learns to turn the floor into stepstools to reach for more, and he learns, and he learns, and he learns.

Al is born when Ed is eight and a half, and Ed loves him instantly, wholeheartedly, with everything inside of him.  Hohenheim isn’t there when it happens--off on another one of his mystery trips that he never explains no matter how much Ed asks.  Ed holds his younger brother before anybody else, before even his mother, because Sara Rockbell doesn’t quite manage to stop him sneaking in the door to the room in time.  His father doesn’t meet Al for another week and a half.  Ed spends every second of that time doting on his tiny miracle little brother, on his glowing tired miracle mother.

Ed’s mother keeps her house alone for three weeks out of every five.  His brother learns to sit, and then to stand, to hold things, to talk, to think, and Hohenheim is gone for so much of it.  Ed understands so much about the world, but there are things he still doesn’t get, mysteries he already resents for eluding him, and his father is the biggest mystery of all.  Hohenheim answers no questions, not ever, not about alchemy and not about where he goes, what could possibly be more important than this. Hohenheim watches this boy with eyes and hair like every dead soul from Xerxes, with alchemy sparking from his fingertips, with his ravenous hunger for knowledge and his bone-deep entitlement to every answer, his little boy’s surety and hubris, and is so very, very afraid for his child.

Ed runs away for the first time when he’s twelve, when he’s read every single book in his father’s study, even the ones on the topmost shelves, even the ones hidden behind locks that he has to transmute away, even the ones written in code so intricate it takes him weeks to break.  He kisses his brother and promises to write (Al is three, almost four, it’s more than old enough to be reading and learning and starting to figure out alchemical code), and leaves his mother a note.  He doesn’t say a word to his father, who’s been gone for a week and a half and won’t be home for another two, and doesn’t matter anyway. He spends four weeks on his own in the back country of Amestris chasing down rumors of a woman who can kill bears with her two hands and does alchemy without even a transmutation circle.  Izumi Curtis finds him on her doorstep, grinning and alone.  She keeps him for six months before Van Hohenheim shows up at that same door with a look of granite annoyance. Ed would stay, anyway, if Izumi didn’t throw him out face-first in the dirt outside her house to send him back to his mother.  He’d stay even then, find his own way, learn more and more and more, convince Teacher to take him back, but Hohenheim is still so much taller than him and his hand on Ed’s shoulder is a vise.  Ed’s learned enough from Teacher to throw him off, but--not skills to use on his father.  Not that. Hohenheim drags Ed all the way back to Resembool, never mind that he’d had plans, that the Dwarf in the Flask’s plans are drawing ever closer to completion, that he wants so badly to age and die.  Trisha has a cough that rattles deep in her lungs when he gets back, something it takes more power than Hohenheim ever would have predicted to heal entirely. Clearly it’s not safe to leave entirely.  Not quite yet.

Al grows up toddling after his big brother, reading every book Ed pours through and then passes over, as devoted and beloved as any younger brother has ever been in the world.  He and Winry are thick as thieves, Winry who’s too smart for the other kids in town too, Winry whose mother and father used to babysit Ed back when they were teenagers and expect him to return the favor.  Ed in all his skinny teenage gangliness roams around Resembool and its outskirts with a pair of toddlers who become small children who become older children, following him like ducklings the whole way. He doesn’t bother with the books in his father’s study any more, mostly, except to answer Al and Winry’s questions, to teach them whatever he happens to know about alchemy and engineering and metal, to answer every single question that nobody would ever answer for him when he was small.  He teaches himself, instead, tests and experiments, tries and tries again and learns, and learns, and learns. Al grows up with a treehouse just outside his home that his father tried to build by hand, ten years before he was born, that his brother fixed and enhanced and decorated with alchemy in ridiculous wooden gargoyles and spikes a few years after.  He hides there, sometimes, when he comes home and Ed and Father are shouting again. Ed shouts at everything in the world except for Al and Mama, and Father never shouts at anything at all except for Ed.  It should mean that Al would be able to get in between them, to make them stop, but he hasn’t figured out the magic words yet.  And maybe he shouldn’t have to.  Mama says it’s not his job, that Father and Ed are just too similar, that it’s up to them to figure that out.  Al thinks she’s probably right, but he’s allowed to be annoyed about it.

The second time Ed leaves, he’s sixteen and Al is eight, and this time Hohenheim isn’t the one to bring him back.

They scream at each other before they go.  Ed wants more, he has always wanted more, he has spent his whole life starving.  His mother has filled his every plate with oatmeal and stew and warmth and let him gorge himself on all of it, and she’s loved him, and he’s grown, just like a parent and child are supposed to do.  His father has refused his questions at every single turn and left him to scrounge for every scrap of knowledge he’s found.  So be it.  He’ll go off and find what he’s looking for on his own. His father tries to stop him with strong words and non-answers, yet more non-answers.  “There are things you’re too young and foolish to even realize you don’t want to know!”, he thunders, and Ed growls at him with glinting, golden Xerxian eyes. His mother cries, and it almost makes him stay.  “Promise me you’ll come back,” she says.  “Promise me you’ll find what you’re looking for and make it back to me.”

Six months later, when Hohenheim leaves, it’s for good.  He’s spent too many years already trying to temper his intemperate son, and there’s no helping him now. Al clings to his mother’s side, and she pets his hair and keeps him close, as days turn into weeks into months for both of them.  “There’s no keeping either of them, when they want to go,” she murmurs.  “But we’ll be here when they get back.”

Ed Elric, sixteen years old and so sure of himself, so very very sure, takes a train to Central and walks into the State Alchemist examination as the youngest test-taker in history.  If his father won’t teach him, then there are other experts.  There are other libraries.  He’ll find the best. There’s no risk in it, he knows, not for him.  He is smarter, faster, more powerful in his art than anyone he’s ever met besides Teacher.  He’s too good to waste on the front lines.  He’ll show them, and they’ll put him in a lab somewhere, to scour ancient tomes and try experiment after experiment, to unfold every alchemical secret the world has to hold. He transmutes a dozen different substances in his practical display, rock and wood, glass and ice and coal and air.  He moves from one to the other without a breath, without a blink, as graceful as a dancer, sketching arrays in the blink of an eye and daring the examiners to toss him anything more. He’s as hungry as Gluttony, in his own way, as possessive as Greed, as prideful as Pride.  He’ll do, the test proctors report to their Fuhrer, Wrath reports to his siblings, to his Father.  He’ll do.

.

The Quicksilver Alchemist shows up at Ishval Command sixteen years old and skinny, with a too-big uniform and an annoyed glare for the whole endeavor.  "I’m not a soldier, I’m an alchemist,” he complains to anyone who’ll listen. It is strange, Roy thinks, to have Elric here.  Not a scrap of him is military.  State Alchemists are given honorary rank, but most of the ones here so far have basic training and a legitimate military career to go with it.  Why Elric?  Why not set him to work in some lab, the way he clearly wants? He can transmute anything, the rumors say, any substance he’s handed.  He’s been researching cells and biochemistry: how to turn carbon and phosphorous and nitrates and water from base materials into plants, into meat, into food.  They call him Quicksilver because he shifts from one material to the next, one array to another, without a single blink as fast as it would take any other alchemist to find the right page in their own journals.  What is that worth right now, right here? It’s 1908.  The Ishvalan rebel forces are supposedly on the verge of surrender, say the half of the rumors that don’t have them overtaking the entire East in another month.  The war’s been raging back and forth for almost seven years, but it’s possible.  Maybe, Roy thinks, Quicksilver will get lucky.  Maybe he’s just young enough to’ve missed the worst of it already.  Maybe he won’t have nightmares about deserts.

Ed doesn’t fit in with the military alchemists, which it takes him about half an hour to decide is fine by him.  Grand and Comanche, who can barely transmute anything that isn’t metal at all, watch him with sheer disdain.  Major Armstrong gives him a big, beaming smile of encouragement and regales him for an hour with stories of Armstrong warrior-alchemists throughout the past four centuries.  Major Kimblee just watches him, quiet and considering and smiling.  It’s creepy as all fuck, but as far as Ed can tell, that’s how Kimblee watches everything. Kimblee and Mustang are the only ones here whose alchemy is interesting enough to catch Ed’s attention for more than a few seconds anyway.  Talking to Kimblee for more than five minutes makes Ed’s skin crawl.  Mustang just smiles, smug and enigmatic, and won’t talk about the secrets of flame alchemy at all, which just fucking figures. Ed can handle alone, though.  He’s been alone most of his life.  He writes Al, and his mother, and Winry.  He scribbles pages full of theories and ideas.  When Comanche and Grand sneer in his general direction, Ed sneers right back.

Lonely is easy.  Bored, though...bored is hard. Ed managed to squeeze three alchemy texts into his belongings besides his personal notes, which was two more than the orders sending him here suggested he’d have space to bring.  They’re the densest and most complicated-looking ones he could find in the week he had to pack, and he has the first one cracked before his train even delivers him to the Ishvalan front. He’s not a soldier, is the problem, and his new CO knows it, which means they’re not about to send him on missions like one.  Defend the encampment if insurgents attack, sure, Ed’s ready to do that, but what does he know about ferreting individual terrorist cells out of Ishvalan hidey-holes?  So far his only orders have been to wait. Fuck that, Ed figures.  Waiting isn’t exactly his game.

They’re stationed on the outskirts of a town five times the size of Resembool, on the edge of an orchard of date palms, where the whole horizon to the north and east is pale and flat with sand.  It’s one of the first places the Amestrian army took in the whole action, and it’s been subdued and cowed over and over again for seven years.  There are two bars where soldiers cluster and drink and sing, one for enlisted troops and one for officers.  There’s a house near the edge of town with no sign over the doorway where soldiers sometimes disappear, on leave, for an hour or four at a time; it takes Ed an embarrassing two weeks to realize it’s a brothel.  There are a handful of empty shopfronts down the main street of town, where soldiers don’t buy candles or sandals or childrens’ toys the way the town’s old residents used to, and an open-air market full of cloth-tented stalls where Ishvallans still try to sell fresh fruit and goat’s milk cheese and get by. It takes all of two days and a half before Ed slips out from the neat rows of soldiers’ tents in camp and loses himself, as fast as possible, in the clay tile and brick streets of the city.  If he can’t learn from books or the other alchemists around him--and he’s had years of that, years of finding ways to make his own lessons--he’ll find something else to challenge him.  The alleys are narrow and the houses are packed close together, nothing like Resembool or Dublith or Central or anywhere he’s ever lived. He’s got chalk in his pocket and all the hand-to-hand Teacher ever taught him, a white cloak over his stupid blue uniform, reflexes and a brain.  He’ll be fine.

This is what Ed learns, then, in his first three months in Ishval: The taste of pomegranates, sharp and sweet and juicy-red enough to drip down his chin and stain white robes much too brightly for blood until he figures out the right array to bleach it away again. Three different alleyway games played by children even younger and smaller than his brother, who don’t mind giggling and chasing around a blonde grownup who brings his own chalk for hopscotch and somehow always loses. The quickest way to cross four miles of desert in the middle of the night to surprise Yuiry and Sara in their clinic, and hang around fixing equipment and transmuting scrap metal back into usable ingots for new automail, and chat about home until they kick him out and he has to hightail it back to camp before dawn roll call again. What the stars look like, and the moon, in the widest sky he’s ever seen, in a place where clouds don’t form and it never rains.

He doesn’t kill.  Three months in Ishval, and Ed doesn’t make one single kill. He’s been on a handful of missions--patrol this secured area, establish that new outpost--all of them stupid and make-work, all of them pointless.  He wanders around the desert and scrapes lines in the sand with a stick to do basic construction because outposts and guard towers are annoying to build by hand.  For this they dragged him out of the library in Central.  They call it the front lines, but as far as Ed’s seen, ninety percent of the time it’s just a glorified camping trip. The other ten percent of the time is bad, sometimes.  He’s there when Cooper gets shot in the shoulder by an enemy sniper.  When Sayers falls asleep on watch, and a handful of Ishvalans almost overrun Outpost 37 in the middle of the night.  When the bloody, straggling remains of Captain Hughes’s team make it back to camp, two days late and missing three soldiers.  But... But Warren has pressure on Cooper’s shoulder in seconds, and Ed has a twenty-foot-high wall of sand between them in their attacker just as fast, and then another shot rings out from the guard tower behind them and Sergeant Hawkeye drops the other sniper anyway.  But he hates trying to sleep on overnight missions at Outpost 37 even more than he hates trying to sleep back at main camp, where there are at least a few raw materials that can be transmuted into something softer than solid rock under a paper-thin bedroll, and so do half the men stationed there, so everyone woke up before anyone died and most of the Ishvalans got away.  But General Fessler doesn’t put Ed on missions like Captain Hughes or Major Mustang, because he knows better.  Because Ed isn’t a soldier.

And Ed simmers, and Roy watches him, and Maes watches him, because who the hell puts a civilian kid like that in a place like this? Roy’s been a state alchemist for three years.  He’s been in Ishval for two.  Every day, he wakes up in a world that’s hot and dry and empty as far as the eye can see through to the horizon, and hopes that maybe there won’t be another mission today.  Another knot of insurgents to flush out and fry, and try to avoid looking in their eyes, and try to avoid recognizing how skinny, how young, how desperate they all look.  Another chance for those young desperate rebels to put a bullet through good men and women Roy’s spent two years fighting and serving and living shoulder-to-shoulder with. It all seemed so straightforward two years ago.  They’re tired.  They aren’t losing, but they’re not winning, either, and there’s news of fighting halfway throughout the East, and maybe the war just won’t ever end. “It will,” Maes says, and then he gushes about his Gracia some more.  To Mustang, who can be goaded into a smile if he works hard enough at it.  To Hawkeye, who can’t, but who sometimes relaxes her shoulders just that little bit and gets the twinkle in her eye that means she’s laughing on the inside.  To Elric, who’s a kid out here in the middle of the desert, stuck on the world’s most fucked-up extended camping trip in the most extreme game of high-stakes tag ever. Elric’s a good kid.  It’s worth trying to be there, to keep him from cracking.  It’s worth protecting him from what happens to deserters.  It’s worth trying to ease him into the slow discovery that war is always filthy, trying to show him how to keep a little piece of his soul clean even surrounded by blood in the sand.

Ed respects Captain Hughes, who’s willing to try him at hand-to-hand and doesn’t even always lose, in spite of Ed pulling out every move he ever learned from Teacher.  He respects Sergeant Hawkeye, who pulls him aside and teaches him poker before he can get sharked at the Lieutenants’ weekly game.  He even respects Major Mustang, who’s just as smug as ever even now that Ed’s figured out how to goad him out of his silence into argument after argument, daring Ed to try and figure out his array with every challenging smirk. Hughes brings his teams home bedraggled but more alive than dead again and again, and Ed doesn’t know what they do while they’re gone, but he knows Hughes’ only goal is to make it home alive again, and that’s fair, right?  Ed can respect that.  Hawkeye takes every single shot perfect and clean, like a hunter who doesn’t want their prey to suffer, and every single one of those shots goes through a human head, but that’s how war works, right?  Amestrian soldiers survive when she watches their backs, and nobody she hits ends up screaming and dying in agony on Sara and Yuiry’s operating tables, and maybe that’s actually mercy. He’s never seen Mustang use his array in a battle.  He’s seen scorch marks, precise and controlled and exact, and black-burnt corpses, but he’s never seen any sign of collateral damage.  A weaker alchemist might let flames run wild, but Mustang never hurts anyone or anything he doesn’t mean to, and that’s better, right?  That shows he has honor, or something, that he has a code and standards.  He won’t even let Ed have the secrets of flame alchemy without proving he can handle them by figuring them out himself, and right, that’s how it should be, that’s what’s right, and it’s fine.  It’s all just fine.

(And maybe Ed has nightmares sometimes, after he’s made it back to camp with an hour or two to spare for sleep after visiting Sara and Yuiry, nightmares about blood and moans of pain and seeing people he knows on those clinic cots, but-- And maybe he wakes up in a cold sweat sometimes, sure he’s heard another Ishvalan infiltration team creeping their way into camp, but-- And maybe he wonders sometimes, if he could kill, if he can, if he’ll be able to when he has to, if eventually he’ll have to, but--)

It’s okay.  It’s fine.  It’s all going to be fine.

Three months in, Fessler and Comanche are standing outside near the Command tent, Comanche looking even more self-satisfied and disdainful in Ed’s general direction than usual. “Not looking forward to dealing with more useless civilians like Quicksilver there,” General Fessler says, and Ed rolls his eyes right back. “Ah, who cares, sir?” Comanche asks.  “They’re finally taking the shackles off and using us right.  We’ll have the rats cleared out in no time.”

It’s 1908.  Ed is 17, barely, just a few days past his birthday, skinny and stubborn and much, much, much too smart, and the sky is wide and bleached pale blue, and the sands of Ishval are still golden and white instead of red.  For now. But it’s 1908, and order 3066 came down this morning, and nothing is ever, ever going to be fine again.

[superwholock-marvel-images]

Four years

Sam and Dean are out on a hunt. For the second month in a row you’ve missed your period, suspicious you ask Cas to get you a pregnancy test. “Sam and Dean are so going to kill me.” You say when you see the results are positive. So your brothers wouldn’t find the test you wrap it up in a pad wrapper and throw it away. You somehow get rid of the box that the test came in as well, then promptly break down crying.

“Hey what’s going on?” A familiar voice asks- Chuck.

“Think you already know Chuck. I mean you’re god after all.” You answer wiping away the tears.

“What do you want to do with the four of them?”

“Did you just say I’m having quadruplets?”

“Two boys and two girls.” You sigh, then ask if there is anyway to keep the five of you away from the supernatural world. “I can do that, if you really want to leave.” You nod- Chuck then snaps his fingers packing all your clothes, and personal items. He then snaps his fingers again transporting you and your things to a cabin in the woods- he also teleported your car.

“Thank you Chuck. This means a lot.”

“You’re welcome.”

A month after you fled from the only life you’ve ever known you change your phone number. It’s kind of nice not having supernatural things breathing down your neck- then again no creature in their right mind would go after someone that is protected by an army of angels and by God himself. Granted there are a few idiots… then there’s Garth, he falls into his own category.

One night there was a small pack of werewolves outside of the cabin, in the morning you wearily walk outside and find Garth and a few members of his pack stationed outside. They’re more or less guarding the place. “Jeez Garth, you gave me a small heart attack yesterday.” You say as you lean against your car looking at your werewolf friend.

“That was unintentional. I just saw your car. Figured you were on a hunt and weren’t done with it or something similar to that.” Garth replies. His eyes fall onto your stomach- you were starting to show. “Wasn’t expecting to find you here pregnant…”

“If you tell either one of my brothers about this I will shoot you.”

“You haven’t told them?” You shake your head.

“I don’t want my kids to be in the hunting lifestyle, besides if my brothers found out about this one of them would more then likely scream bloody murder.” Garth just nods in response. 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 “Hey Chuck…” You say one day.

“What’s wrong?” God asks in response, concern noticeable in his voice. You lightly chuckle to yourself.

“Nothing- I was actually wondering if you would be willing to be the kids’ godfather.”

“Why me out of everyone?”

“Because you’re going out of your way to help me. Besides, I doubt any supernatural being in their right mind would go after four children that are god’s godchildren.”

“When you put it that way then I don’t see any reason why I would say no.” A gentle smile forms on your face. “Decided on names yet?”

“Yeah… the girls are Ellie and Mary, and the boys are John and Bobby.” Chuck notices the distant look on your face and asks what’s wrong. You then tell him that you were worried about delivering the four of them- they’re due any day now.

“If you’re that worried about it, I can always snap some surgeons into existence to help deliver them.” Chuck says sitting down next to you.

“That’s if something goes wrong.” You counter. Chuck thinks about it for a second before agreeing. You grimace slightly as one of the four children in your womb kick you rather hard.

“What was that face for, do you hate me that much?” A certain archangel named Gabriel asks popping in as you do that.

“I don’t hate you- someone kicked me rather hard just now.” You reply. Over the last few months different angels have shown up to help you out- Cas, Gabe, and Balthazar are the three main ones (besides Chuck of course) that haven show up and lent you a helping hand or two. “How’s Sam and Dean doing?” Cas is normally the one that keeps tabs on your brothers for you, but today you asked Gabriel to do it.

“They just got done with a windigo hunt in Tennessee, miraculously they got out of that one with a few scrapes and bruises. Both of them have all but given up on trying to locate you.”

“That sounds like my brothers alright. I’ve been gone for seven months now and they are still searching high and low for me…” You trail off. The inside fabric of your pants is soaking wet- your water just broke.

“Y/N?”

“I think my water just broke.” You reply closing your eyes and taking a few deep breaths to calm your nerves.

You deliver Bobby on your own, the other three you’re having problems with. “Okay Y/N, I have to interfere here.” Chuck says snapping his fingers, less than two seconds later you’re on a gurney, with an i.v in your arm.

“Chuck?” You weakly ask. Chuck doesn’t say anything in response instead he just snaps his fingers again creating a small team of surgeons out of thin air. He then tells Gabriel something but you don’t catch it because you’re so disoriented. The archangel presses two fingers to your forehead rendering you unconscious. 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 When the quadruplets turn one, Chuck does something unexpected- he literally moves your family to a larger house. “You didn’t have to do that Chuck.” You say.

“You’re right I didn’t have to, but I wanted to.” Chuck replies. You laugh lightly. Considering you didn’t have a lot when you left the bunker, unpacking is relatively easy. Your neighbors are actually rather nice people and a few of them have kids around the same age as yours.

Days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months and months turn into years. It’s the day before the quadruplets fourth birthday- you ask Balthazar to babysit for awhile so you can get a few things from the store.

While at the store you unintentionally crash into someone. “Sorry, I didn’t see where I was going.” You quickly apologise, as (hair color) hair falls into your eyes.

“No harm done.” The person you collided with replies. Your heart skips a beat- you know that voice, it belongs to Sam. You move your hair out of your eyes hoping to see someone that just sounds like your brother; much to your dismay it is your brother. “Y/N?” Your brother asks surprised.

“Hi Sammy.” You answer sheepishly. Instead of your brother getting after you he just smiles at you. You know Sam has questions but he doesn’t get a chance to ask any because Dean shows up holding two different kinds of pie, not paying much attention to you.

“I can’t make up my mind so I’m getting both of them.” Your eldest brother says. “You going to get anything?”

“Right now I’m thinking of a hug from our kid sister.” Sam replies causing you to laugh. Your laughter causes Dean to look at you. His candy apple green eyes light up like a Christmas tree. You’re honestly expecting one of them to yell at you but that doesn’t happen; instead you get a bone crushing hug from each of them.

“You two aren’t mad at me?” You ask.

“I’m mad alright, but I’m also happy to see you.” Dean answers. “Where have you been for the last three almost four years?”

“Not hunting that’s for sure.” You answer.

“What’s with the toys?” Sam asks noticing the contents of your basket.

“The toys are birthday gifts for four troublemakers.” You reply. “I don’t really want to go into detail about this.”

“Come on (nickname), what’s going on?” You sigh, Sam just pulled out the puppy dog eyes.

“It’s easier to take you two back to my place than explain it…” 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 “You know when you said place, I wasn’t expecting a house.” Dean comments as he gets out of the impala. You laugh lightly as you unlock the front door and open it. You then invite your brothers in.

You groan when you see the mess, you also know who made the mess- Bobby. “Robert Adam!” You nearly yell. Bobby doesn’t answer- which is a little odd. Out of the corner of your eye you spot Ellie, holding her toy elephant. “Come ‘ere little elephant.” You say picking the toddler up and placing her on your hip. You call Ellie little elephant because of her name and because of the fact elephants are your daughter’s favorite animal.

“You babysitting or something?” Dean asks, making you turn around and look at your eldest brother.

“No… if anyone is babysitting it would be either Cas, Gabe, Balthazar or Chuck.” You answer. You then turn attention to your mini-me. “Have you seen your siblings recently princess?”

“U'cle Bath is playing wif them out slide.” The three almost four year old girl answers. Ellie has always had issues saying Balthazar’s name as well as outside. You set Ellie on the ground before kneeling down in front of her so you could look into her eyes.

“Mind getting them for me?”

“Otay mommy.” Ellie then toddles off looking for her brothers and her sister. You smile as you stand back up.

“Is that why you left- you were pregnant?” Sam asks. For a moment there you completely forgot that your brothers were there.

“Pretty much…” You answer, as you head to the kitchen to get something to drink. Sam and Dean follow you of course. You pull out the two beers that you hid in the back of the fridge, you also grab a can of soda. You give the beer to the boys. “Haven’t had much alcohol since the kids were born.” You explain.

“How many kids do you have anyways?” Sam asks as he opens his beer and takes a swig.

“I have quadruplets.” A look of horror flashes across your brothers’ faces. “Relax I always have a helping hand when it comes to the four of them.” As you’re talking to your brothers- someone clamps onto your right leg; John.

“Tag!” You hear Mary exclaim.

“Nuh-uh, mommy’s safe.” John argues. Mary sticks out her tongue- she also flips off her brother.

“Mary Louise… where did you learn that gesture?” You scold looking at Mary unamused.

“You don’t get after U'cle Gabe when he does it.” Mary pouts.

“Well Uncle Gabe is technically a grown up. Even if he doesn’t act like it.” When Bobby comes in he tries to slink away before you notice him- that doesn’t work too well. “Bobby, are you going to tell me why there’s a mess in the hallway?” You inquire causing the eldest quadruplet to look down at the ground.

“Sorry mommy.” He answers. You sigh before ruffling his hair. Confused he looks up at you- and spots your brothers. He then cowers behind you slightly intimidated. You don’t really blame him, Sam and Dean are skyscrapers compared to a toddler. His eyes widen. “Who are they?” He squeaks.

“It’s okay mini-moose, they’re not going to hurt you.” You say as you pick your son up and set him on your hip. “There we go, they’re not so gigantic from up here are they?” Bobby shakes his head shaggy (hair color) hair falling into his face. Bobby reminds you of Sam in more than one way; hence the nickname of mini-moose. You then introduce Bobby to your brothers.

“Mommy calls you a moose too?” Bobby asks Sam.

“She does actually. She’s weird like that.” Sam replies.

“Sammy.” You groan. Your older brother flashes you a smile. “Okay, you’re getting heavy.” You mutter as you set Bobby down. No surprise that he toddles over to Sam and does grabby hands wanting up.

“Y/N, you’ve only said three names while we’ve been here. I don’t know your other son’s name.” Dean comments.

“His name is John.” You answer. “Johnathan Daniel.”

“Am I in trouble?” John meekly asks in response.

“Now why would you think something like that?”

“You said my full name.”

“You’re not in trouble bud, I was just telling your uncle what your name is.”

“Oh.” 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 Once you put the kids to bed for the night Dean asks you about their names and who is the eldest out of the four of them. “Bobby was first, then Mary, John after her and Ellie is the youngest.” You explain. “As for their names- I named them after dad, Bobby, Ellen and your mom.”

“Not what I meant. I was wondering where Adam, Louise, Daniel and Jo came from.” Dean clarifies.

“Oh. Adam and Jo were my picks- Adam for our brother, and Jo for Jo Harvelle. Louise was Balthazar’s pick and Daniel was Gabriel’s.”

“I thought Gabe was dead…” Sam mutters to himself. “How have you managed to get out of hunting for almost four years now?” He sounds slightly jealous.

“One, Chuck’s the one that has made sure nothing supernatural comes near my kids; and two who in their right mind would go after the godchildren of god himself?”

“Fair point.” Sam rabbit trails slightly. “Why’d you threaten to shoot Garth?”

“He scared the ever loving crap out of me. How would you feel if you heard a pack of werewolves on your doorstep- yet none of them dared to enter?”

“When you say it like that, I don’t blame you for wanting to shoot him.” Dean checks his watch.

“We should get going. It was good to see you sis.” He says standing up.

“Dean wait… I want you two to stay here for a little bit. I mean I have two spare rooms completely furnished.” You counter. “Also the kids really like both of you- it’s also their birthday tomorrow.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to impose.”

“Trust me you won’t be imposing. My door is always open for you two- except when you have a creature on your asses.” Your brothers laugh.

In the morning you’re not surprised to find Dean in the kitchen. “Morning Dean.” You say.

“Morning (Nickname). I was tempted to make breakfast but I didn’t know if I was allowed to do that and I also don’t know what your kids like.” He explains running a hand through his hair.

“You can always use the kitchen.” You glance at your phone seeing what day of the week it is. “As for food it’s Saturday, which means pancakes.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I try and make pancakes for the kids every Saturday.” You answer as you start digging in the pantry looking for the dry ingredients for pancakes. You sigh when you can’t find them. “Guess pancakes aren’t going to be happening today.”

“Want me to make a supply run?” You tell your brother that you can go. “Are you sure? Seriously though I can go.”

“I need to get a few other things too, and I don’t want to make a list.” Eventually Dean gives in. 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 (Dean POV) I watch as Y/N grabs her keys and takes her leave. I’m still trying to recover from the fact that my little sister is a mom.

“U'nle De?” One of the kids ask tugging on my shirt pulling me from my thoughts.

“Yeah?” I ask looking down at the child. I’m pretty sure it’s Mary, but I might be wrong. It’s hard to determine who is who.

“Will you play with us?”

“Sure.”

By the time Y/N gets back from the store, Sam and I are being used as pillows. The girls are curled up against me while the boys are asleep against my brother. “They weren’t too much trouble were they?” Y/N asks when she sees the six of us. I flash a smile towards my sister.

“They were fine… they acted a lot like you did when you their age.” I reply.

“Is that good or bad?”

“Depends how you look at it.” Y/N airily chuckles. “How do you tell them apart?” She then explains to us that somehow all four of the kids got different color eyes. Bobby’s eyes are hazel like Sam’s, Mary’s eyes are green like mine, John somehow ended up with brown eyes and Ellie has (eye color) eyes. 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 (No one’s POV) “Please tell me that you two will stop by when you’re in town.” You tell your brothers as they’re getting ready to leave.

“Do you want us too?” Sam asks in reply.

“Like I said before my door is always open for you two- just don’t bring the family business in when you visit.” Your brothers laugh as they each give you a hug.

“See you around Sis.” Dean says.

“Don’t be strangers you two.” You watch as Sam and Dean get into the front seat of the impala and drive off into the sunrise. “Stay safe guys.” You say knowing that your brothers couldn’t hear you. You walk back to the porch and linger there for a moment, you then shake your head before heading inside then closing the door behind you. → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → @the-third-winchester-warrior @flannels-and-rocksalt @always-keep-writing-spn @winchesters-favorite-girl @caroldanversinatardis

[distant-rose-archive-blog]

By The Hook

Notes: Three fic ideas in the brain mill and what is the first piece of fanfiction that I write in two years - a one-shot. Anyway, I would like to thank @welllpthisishappening for encouraging me to write this and dealing with my nuisance self for the past two days as I banged this out and constantly asked for her opinion. All mistakes are mine because I am trash. Depending on how this one goes, might make a “Little Pirates” drabble series starring Harrison, Westley (Wes) and Elizabeth (Beth) Jones. You can read on AO3 here: [LINK]

Summary: Since the birth of his children, Killian Jones has kept his hook out of sight in order to keep from scaring his children. His fourteen-month daughter doesn’t agree with this policy.

Rating: T

Word Count: 3,000+

“One of these days, we’re going to finally call it a quits and move to the other side of the country where no one can find us,” Emma says, exhaustion filling every word as they limp up the front steps of their home. She staggers slightly as her foot catches on the wood, swaying into Killian.

Killian groans at the unexpected contact but lifts an arm sluggishly around Emma’s shoulders to help his wife find balance. He’s feeling every single one of his years in this moment and nearly every part of him hurts. Bruises are starting to form on his shoulders and torso where the beastie of the week slammed into him. He feels blood trickling down his brow where the griffin’s talons grazed him. He is hoping against hope that he isn’t going to need stitches…again.

Emma gently pats him on the arm in silent thanks and leans slightly forward to open their front door. Both of them groan as they move to push off their shoes. Killian toes his boots into a fine line while Emma is more careless, one of her shoes flying into the air and hitting the wall in the dull thud. Killian is too tired to even care enough to complain. He just wants to lay in his bed with his wife and sleep for week.

Killian hisses when Emma unexpectedly lays a hand back on his bicep. Pain travels hotly up his arm. Emma gives him an apologetic look before stepping away, pivoting towards the kitchen.

“How does rum, an ice pack and Advil sound, sailor?” She asks, giving him a sympathetic look over her shoulder. Killian offers her a grateful smile that comes off as more as a grimace than anything else.

“Sounds like heaven, love,” he replies while limping his way towards the living area couch calling his name. A part of him knows that if he sits down, he’s going to have trouble getting up again but he no longer cares. He just wants to rest his bones and quell the screaming of his abused muscles.

However, he soon discovers his trek to the couch is more perilous than he thought as his foot makes contact with a toy truck left behind by one of his sons. The wretched piece of plastic blares to the life, sirens, lights and all as Killian loses his footing and falls ass first on the floor, pain shooting up his spine. Killian lets out a loud groan as he lays the floor, too exhausted to get up. Instead he kicks the offending toy in retaliation, watching it with only moderate interest as it whizzes across the floor and crashes into the wall, red lights still flashing and siren continuing to wail. Killian has never hated David more for gifting his eldest son with the obnoxious thing.

“Killian, you alright?”

Though Killian can’t see her from his vantage point on the floor, he can hear the concern in her tone and can almost perfectly visualize the worried furrow in her brow. He licks his lips for a moment before answering, measuring his words.

“Swan, remember how you were saying that we should leave and relocate across the country?” He asks, letting his entire body sink against the wood. Now that he’s laid out, he feels no inclination to get up. That would require work.

Emma is silent, obviously waiting for him to continue. Again, he visualizes her in his mind’s eye; this time she’s leaning across the door, watching him warily. Regardless of how many times he’s insisted that he’s a survivor, she never stops worrying about him. He can’t necessarily blame her considering their track record.

“Well,” he starts, drawing out the ‘l’. “Let’s leave the little pirates behind. The three of them are just as likely to kill us as anything else in this town.”

“Har, har,” Emma replies and he can hear her feet shuffling away from the doorway and back into the kitchen. “If you can still make terrible lines like that, then you’re fine. Walk it off, Captain.”

Killian merely chuckles in response, lifting his hand to massage the ache out of his left shoulder. He sighs, wincing slightly as the muscles spasm under his fingers. Tonight had been a rough one as he and Emma had fought to get wild griffins under control and away from the residential areas. When they had received reports about pets going missing, they never imagined that three horse-sized creatures would be the ones causing havoc, but that the same time they should have expected it. Storybrooke never did anything small, regardless of the issue. Killian knows it’s nigh impossible, but he just wants an entire week of mundane living. He wants to finish the mountain of paper on their desks back at the station, have ridiculous amounts of sleepy sex in a bed, eat grilled cheese at Granny’s, FaceTime with Henry, teach Harrison and Wes how to properly tie sailor’s knots and figure out how to make his baby girl go to bed on time.

“Dada?”

The phrase “speak of the Devil, she shall appear” casually flutters through Killian’s mind as he cranes up to look at the tiny toddler, ignoring his protesting ligaments. His only daughter is perched on the fourth stair, peering down at him with curious but almost impossibly large green eyes. She adds flourish to her query by popping her thumb in her mouth and sucking on it, her gaze never leaving his. Killian doesn’t respond immediately, ignoring her temporarily to glance at the old beat up clock sitting on the mantle. It’s nearly midnight and Henry should have put her to bed hours ago.

He looks back his daughter, this time taking in her full appearance. She’s dressed in her bed clothes, atrociously pink items gifted by Snow complete with a bright bow holding back her wild mane of chocolate curls. He can tell just by looking at her that she hasn’t slept a wink since she was supposed to be put down at eight. His daughter loves to roll in her sleep, which often leads to the tidy bows being tarnished and torn from their adorning place upon her crown. The ribbon is far too neat to have been mussed in sleep.

“Miss Elizabeth Alice, you’re supposed to be in bed,” Killian admonishes her softly, careful to keep his tone light but firm. His daughter is at that age where she can throw a tantrum at the drop of a hat and the only thing worse than abused body and a mischievous fourteen-month old toddler is an abused body, an angry toddler plus cranky and awake five and three year olds. Not that his daughter has ever been a particularly even-tempered child. No, his little girl is a pint-sized tempest; colicky from the start. Neither of his boys, both affable and docile as babes, had prepared them for Hurricane Elizabeth.

The child in question doesn’t throw a tantrum upon being addressed however. She responds to the light reprimand with toddler giggles and a wide smile, showing off the small row of baby teeth that had been causing them hell for the past five months.

“Dada,” she repeats again, this time crawling down the stairs and starting to toddle towards him.

Killian tenses, readying his sore body to leap into action if she stumbles and falls, but for the most part watches her almost expertly maneuver the stairwell. He comes to the firm conclusion that Emma and he are going to need to baby-proof the house more than they already have. He has no illusions that Henry made a valiant effort to put her to bed in her crib and she had waited for the perfect moment to climb out of it, a feat both Harrison and Wes hadn’t accomplished until eighteen-months of age. (Emma will never stop taunting him that girls develop faster than boys.) The damn kids keep figuring out how to bypass all the child locks and safety measures they’ve been painstakingly trying to upkeep to no avail. His little pirates are just too clever and stubborn to be contained; a fact that both fills him with pride and frustration. (And regardless of what David says, his kids are little pirates. Harrison hoards and hides his toys like a pro, Wes is enamored with anything shiny and has a pair of sticky hands that drive Emma nuts, and then there’s his little girl who captains them all. Killian might be the Captain of the Jolly Roger, but he’s fully aware that he’s been demoted to First Mate as Captain Black Beth Jones takes control of the household.)

“Dada,” she calls. His title, the one he now holds with the most pride in, is a litany on her little lips. A larger than life smile etches itself across his face as he watches her walk towards him on cute chubby toddler legs. He really should put her to bed, she’s supposed to have at least eleven hours of uninterrupted sleep at her age, but he’s memorized by this little creature who stole his entire heart without his permission before she even drew her first breath. A tremendous feat he has no doubt she will top with countless others as she grows into the large personality he can already see arising her.

“Let’s have a cuddle, Little Beth,” he smiles at her. He outstretches his arms towards her; limbs trembling with effort. He’s beyond tired and really should get off the floor, but this is his little girl. He could be on the verge of death (again) and he would still ask to hold her.

It takes him a moment in his exhaustion to realize he’s still wearing his hook and he freezes almost immediately upon the realization.  Killian doesn’t wear his hook around his children, normally donning on a prosthetic to keep from frightening them. He made the mistake of wearing the hook around Harrison when he was a babe and the mere memory of his son’s terrified wailing is still enough to freeze the blood in his veins. He still has nightmares of his children running away from him, horrified of the hook attached to their father’s left arm.

Killian keeps the smile on his face, not wanting to alert his daughter to his internal panic, but lowers his left arm and hides the hook from view by sliding it behind his body. The hook and harness feel far from comfortable against his back but he can deal with the pain as long as Beth isn’t afraid of him. It’s a fairly small price to pay.

Beth, fortunately for Killian, seems to have not noticed his hook and clambers onto her father with the delicate and thoughtful discretion of any toddler. Though he’s five years into being used as a human jungle gym, Killian cannot but flinch as she jostles his injured ribs and plants her hands hard on his bruised collarbones. It’s rather painful, but nothing compared to the numerous times his boys have crushed his balls while carelessly climbing onto his lap. (With all the times that has happened, he’s vaguely surprised they managed to even conceived Beth.) Killian chuckles at the thought and curls an arm around his daughter’s tiny form, pulling her forward a bit so he can bestow a kiss on her brow.

“Dada,” she repeats, tugging on his clothes in an almost impatient manner.

“Aye, hello to you too,” Killian replies, giving her another kiss on the nose. Beth scrunches her face up adorably, her little nose, that looks so much like Emma’s, wrinkles as if offended by his whiskered kiss.

“Dada!”

This time her tone is sharp, almost Emma-like whenever she’s getting annoyed with him. Her little fingers curl into the sleeve of his left arm and tug more insistently. It’s then that Killian’s weary brain figures out that she wants something.

“What do you want, Little Beth?” He asks, his fingers absent-mindedly tracing patterns into her back. She’s a tiny canvas for his digits, but drawing little circles is soothing for him; it reaffirms that this wonderful part of his life is real.

She tugs again on his sleeve and looks at him with a determined expression that almost startles him because it’s the fiercest his toddler has ever looked.

“Dada! Up!” She demands with all the surety that only a small child can deliver and Killian finally realizes that she wants his left arm. She’s seen the hook. Beth wants to see the hook.

“No, little love,” he says gently, shaking his head in emphasis. Harrison’s cries echo in his mind once more. He isn’t sure if he could survive hearing his little girl emitting the same petrified screams and knowing he is the cause of it.

He watches Beth process the implication behind his words in the shifting of her facial expressions. It’s obvious that she understands what he’s saying to her and isn’t happy about it. ‘No’ is one of her favorite words to say, but she’s never happy to hear it from anyone else. Her face scrunches again and this time it’s not adorable. Hurricane Elizabeth is about to make an appearance.

“Alright, alright,” Killian sighs heavily. His exhaustion returns in tenfold as he slowly moves his arm out from underneath him and placing it at his side. Though his body is grateful for the reemergence of his arm, his mind is in panic mode and he can feel the adrenaline starting to pump back into his system, his heartbeat echoing in his ears as he mentally chants “please don’t scream, please don’t scream.”

Beth’s oncoming tantrum dissipates at the sight of movement and she scrambles across his body to look his arm, more importantly the hook. The expression on her face transforms back into the curious gaze that he saw while she had been sitting on the landing of the stairs. Killian’s breath stills as he watches her tiny fingers reach forward to touch the cool steel.

Almost without his conscious knowledge, Killian’s arm lifts to bring the hook closer to her inquiring hand and he wishes more than anything that he had some feeling in his hook as her dainty little digits brush against the metal for the first time. Beth’s mouth breaks into a large grin and the squeal of a pleased child emits from her throat. She’s fearless in her exploration to the point where her hand forms a tiny fist around the curve of his hook. Beth gives a small but hardy tug for a child her size and Killian cannot help the disbelieving laugh that escapes his chest.

“Careful there, Little Beth, don’t go breaking Dada’s hook,” Killian chuckles almost wetly. There’s no words to describe the emotions welling up inside of him at the sight of his fearless girl playing with the most dangerous element of his person like it’s a new toy.

Beth isn’t happy when Killian decides to maneuver himself into a sitting position so he can cradle her in his lap. Part of him isn’t happy either, bumps and bruises throbbing. However, he feels he can better facilitate Beth’s interactions with his hook in a sitting position. Her fingers have nearly grazed the sharp tip more often than he’s comfortable with, and while he’s more than happy that she’s so comfortable with his hook, he fears that cutting herself on it will ruin the wonder of this moment.

“Make sure she doesn’t put that in her mouth,” Emma comments from the doorway, humor lacing each word. “You know how she likes to put everything in there and your hook literally was inside a griffin tonight. I’m pretty sure Whale will throw a fit if we end up back in the emergency room again.”

Killian looks up from Beth to look at his wife, ripped away from the unnamable moment he’s having with his daughter. Emma is leaning back across the doorway that leads to their kitchen, watching them with a small smile and fingers absently tracing the handle of a cutesy ceramic mug in her hands. He can tell by her posture that she’s been watching them for awhile, but he’s been too wrapped up with their daughter to notice.

“I think she likes playing with my hook as much as you do, Swan,” Killian teases his wife, placing another kiss on Beth’s crown while taking his eyes off Emma. His signature smirk forms against Beth’s dark curls.

“Knock it off, tiger, we have company,” Emma responds with a roll of her eyes, gesturing towards the child in his arms with her mug.

“It’s not like she understands what I’m saying.”

Emma ignores the comment in favor of padding forward to crouch next to him. She places her slender hand on top of his larger one on Beth’s back, her thumb caressing his.

“You like playing with Dada’s hook, baby?” Emma’s voice rises a few octaves as she addresses the toddler. The corners of her eyes are crinkling as a radiant smile graces her lips. It sometimes amazes him how she can go from the battle-hardened Savior to Emma Swan-Jones, doting mother of four.

“Hook, Mama, ‘ook!” Beth replies with a delightful squeal, waving his hook around like it’s flag. Killian’s face hurts from smiling so hard at her antics. He doesn’t think his heart can handle the amount of love he has at this moment for his daughter.

Emma isn’t watching their daughter however. She’s watching the expression on his face and she’s laughing. She leans forward to place a quick kiss on the corner of his mouth.

“We are so screwed,” she says as she pulls away, laughing still echoing in her voice.

“Why do you say that, love?”

“Because your face right now. You’re so gone for her and there’s no way you’re ever going to tell her no. She’s got you by the hook…literally,” she replies, before gracing their daughter a quick kiss as well. “You got Dada wrapped around your little finger, Miss Elizabeth.”

“Aye, she does,” Killian replies, not even bothered by it. After all, it’s the truth. There’s nothing that Killian Jones wouldn’t do for his daughter.

[lillotte17]

Hi! I just read the almost-kiss between Aili & Uthvir from the General Lavellan AU and I have a question... When are these dorks finally going to get what's happening between them? Also Baby Fenris AU may be one of the most adorable thing EVER (Fenris was my favorite DA2 character

Gonna use this ask to kill a whole flock of birds with one stone!

The ‘normal�� GL AU is…sort of on hold at the moment. There were discussions of future plot points, but we kind of hit a road block in the form of Mythal and Falon’Din being a bunch of A-holes, and I am not sure if we are running with that being canon in that AU or what. So, they are stuck in Unrequited Mutual Affection Limbo until further plot ideas spring forth, unfortunately. :/

HOWEVER, Aili and Uthvir are most definitely a couple in the Baby Fenris AU! And I am very glad that you like it! I admit, it is one of my favorites as well.

As for a fill, here is the piece I promised @scurvgirl for Mother’s Day!

Tagging @feynites for Sunflower Uthvir!

Fenris is nearly three, and he thinks that he might finally be getting the hang of all this baby business. There are still several obvious disadvantages, of course, but at least now he can voice his opinion in something other than tears and incoherent babbling. And he is capable of toddling around largely under his own power. His parents are indulgent in his likes, and careful of exposing him to things he has shown an aversion to, like an over-abundance of magic and loudly cooing elves with grabby fingers.

He trusts them. He had not had much choice in the matter to begin with, but now he finds himself more readily turning to them for aid when something is troubling him, or when he finds something is beyond the reach of his current physical limitations. He still does not like nap time though, no matter how many times Aili attempts to sing its praises.

He had been loath to admit it at first, but it feels like…family. Or at least, what he had always supposed family must feel like. Similar to his little ring of friends in Kirkwall, though Hawke was much less likely to try and force him to eat his vegetables. Under most circumstances.

Aili and Uthvir do keep things from him, though. He knows that some of his ignorance stems from his own limited understanding of the language, but he has taken great strides on that front since he first landed here. And he has restricted exposure to things like politics and even the vast majority of the social structures of Arlathan, as no one is keen to discuss such things with a toddler. But it is hard not to take note of the differences between places like the large beautifully decorated suite of rooms that his little friend Tonlen lives in with his parents, and the colorless, cramped apartments of his grandparents.    

He deeply suspects that Elvhenan may yet have more in common with Tenvinter than an ostentatious layer of false beauty, and a penchant for using questionably large amounts of magic.  

It has also come to Fenris’ attention that a fair number of people…are not very nice to his new mother.

At the very least, they tend to be dismissive of her. Even a fair few of the people in the Tower where they live seem apt to run her over when she is not carrying Fenris in her arms. Not to say that Uthvir is held in any particularly great esteem among their fellows either, but Aili gets brushed off by almost anyone outside their little ring of friends and acquaintances.

He cannot say that he likes it, but given the district she and her family appear to be from, perhaps it is no great surprise.  

Some things are the same, no matter where you go.

She never seems to let it get to her, though he supposes that it is not something she would want him to bear witness to. Even when she is called away in service to her lady, which he has gathered that most elves with young children are generally excused from, she does her best to keep a cavalier attitude about the whole thing. Radiating calmness and assurance, even though he is fairly certain there is a faint curl of worry reaching out in his direction.

This morning is much the same.

They have set him up in his little corner with his silly little shovel-sword and his practice dummy, and assumed that he would be too distracted to pay much attention to their conversation, but he hears enough to be concerned.

“Are you certain you don’t want to wear any of my gear?” Uthvir asks, holding a thick, clumsy-looking leather chest piece as Aili tugs on a heavy pair of foot wraps that go half way up her thighs, “It is much nicer. I even have a few pieces with defensive magic woven into them.”

“I’d get in more trouble for wearing armor beyond my station than I’m likely to garner from any of the snakes,” she huffs out, “They aren’t aggressive. Ghilan’nain wouldn't be allowed to keep them in the city, otherwise. They’re just…big.”

“And spiky,” they point out with a frown, “Anything your lady deems strong enough to act as a sentinel for her estate should not be taken lightly.”

“I’m not taking it lightly, you just worry too much,” she grins, coming to claim her leathers from them and moving in to steal a kiss in the process. Uthvir snags her about the waist and draws her closer, coming back for seconds, and Fenris resolutely turns his gaze back to his toys.

After more than two years of watching them awkwardly tripping over their affections, he is glad to see that they have finally worked things out. But there are times he wishes that he had not been granted a first row seat to their intimacy. They generally try to be discreet, but… an average two-year-old would not be capable of recognizing some of the muffled sounds he has heard through the walls when he was meant to be napping, either.

He hears Aili giggle, and a few moments later there are light footfalls behind him and she scoops him into her arms. Peppering his face with his own share of kisses. He feels himself let out a little puff of surprise and delight, before common sense and dignity catch up with him and he lets loose a squeal of dismay.

“You’ll be good for Nanae, won’t you?” she asks as she walks towards the door with him, Uthvir trailing close behind.

He nods his head once at her, leaning up into her shoulder and curling a fist into her collar.

“Ah-lee be good, too,” he mumbles, some of his concern seeping out of him despite his best efforts, “Be safe.”

She wraps her arms around him just a little bit tighter at that, offering him a hug before reluctantly passing him into Uthvir’s waiting arms.

“You’ve got nothing to worry about, little man,” Aili smiles at him, eyes soft, “Mama is good at her job, and there is nothing in the entire Empire that could keep me from coming home to you.”

Fenris can spot a platitude from a good distance off, but he nods at her again just the same, letting her plant another kiss against his brow and offering a little wave as she slips out the door and out of sight.

He feels his body tremble just slightly as a sound sneaks its way out of him. Something dangerously close to a sob.

“She’ll be alright,” Uthvir tells him, though they don’t seem any more assured of that than he is.~They spend the rest of the morning working on a puzzle. A present from Haninan, three dimensional, with just a touch of magic. When their work is finished, they have a tiny palace, just a little smaller than Fenris himself, complete with dozens of faintly glowing windows with minuscule figures visible within. He watches them move from room to room, going about fictional lives, content and carefree.

How pleasant it must be, to be forever trapped inside a perfect world.

The thought has him putting a foot through the stupid thing, and melting into a mess of tears shortly afterwards. Uthvir decides that is the signal for nap time, and Fenris cannot even refute the argument. He does at least manage to calm down enough to ask a question before he falls asleep.

“Ah-lee home soon?” he mutters somewhere in the vicinity of Uthvir’s neck.

“She has to move a lot of big animals into their new home,” they explain softly, “She probably won’t be back until dinner time.”

“Uvir go see,” he insists, thumping a little hand against their shoulder. Not that he wants Uthvir in the line of fire either, of course, but they seem to have much more in the way of armor and weapons training. If something goes wrong, they can do something. Ensure that they all get back here, where they belong. “Go to be making sure. Making it being safe.”

“And who is going to make sure you are safe while I am on this mission?” Uthvir wonders with a faint smirk.

Fenris only grumbles blearily in reply, having had similar discussions before. There is probably no way of convincing his caretaker that he would be perfectly capable of looking after himself for a few hours. He means to make a try for it anyway, but his eyelids have grown heavy, and before he is even completely aware of it, they slide closed against his will, and he drifts off to sleep.

However, his desires have apparently not gone entirely unheeded. When he wakes up from his nap, Uthvir washes him up a bit and gets him into the proper layers of clothing for going out and about. Far more than what would be necessary just for travelling down to the dining hall for lunch.

“Goin’ out?” Fenris wonders, tugging a bit at his sweater.

“Well…” Uthvir begins, sounding as though they are still not certain about the whole thing, “I was thinking that, perhaps after we had gotten a bit to eat ourselves, we might take Mama something for lunch.”

“Ya!” Fenris agrees readily. He does not generally like going out into the city, but he is willing to put up with it for this. And maybe seeing Aili interact with him will get her stupid supervisors to leave her alone for a while.

“You have to promise to stay with either me or Mama,” Uthvir says solemnly, “There are a lot of big animals around Ghilan’nain’s estate. No wandering off alone.”

“I be good!” he promises with a determined nod, “We all be stayin’ close together. Bein’ safe.”

Uthvir plants a kiss against his brow and he makes a small noise of complaint, but decides that it is a fair trade for the favor they are doing for him.~When they get to Ghilan’nain’s estate, a little basket of fruit and meat pies in tow, it is completely swarmed with people.

People and very large rainbow-colored snakes.

There seems to be a newly made habitat for them along one side of the courtyard, where a few elves are still moving in bags of sand, and some hollow logs for the creatures to coil up in when they want some shade. A half a dozen more are tinkering with a small, gently burbling pool in one corner which keeps sputtering great shoots of water at random intervals. Spraying hapless passersby.

The rest of the workers all seem to be tasked with physically moving the reptiles from their pens up near the entrance to the estate and settling them in their new homes. The smallest ones are nearly as long as Uthvir is tall, and their scales look as sharp and deadly as a thousand freshly forged daggers. Fenris is not certain how one might train a snake to be a sentinel, but he supposes that looking fearsome might be enough to deter a fair number of intruders.

The beasts are calm enough in their handler’s care, however. Enough that Fenris’ grip on Uthvir’s shirt slackens a bit when he finally catches sight of Aili on the far side of the courtyard. The snake in her arms is the color of a clear summer sky, streaked with emerald and peppered with purple spots, and it is so long that its tail is still on the ground behind her as she walks. It blinks at her with sleepy golden eyes, and if he did not know better, Fenris might think she was cooing at the thing.

“Mama!” he calls out loudly, forgetting himself in his relief.

Aili’s face turns sharply in their direction, and so does the snake’s, and both of their eyes go wide. She makes an odd jerking motion with her head, possibly trying for some kind of signal, since her hands are currently occupied. Uthvir takes a step away in response, but it is not enough.

The serpent jerks violently from her grasp, lunging towards the pair of them as if suddenly incensed.

Aili does her best to get her arms around the creature, ripping her poorly-made leathers to shreds in the process. Her left arm is a bright vivid red. A long gash tears its way across her cheek. She manages to pin the snake’s head against the smooth stones of the courtyard, magic burning in her hand.

She spares a moment to look back at Uthvir, thoroughly mussed and covered in scratches and streaks of blood.  

“Get Fenris out of here now!” she bellows through gritted teeth.

And without another word, Uthvir presses his face into their shoulder and beats a hasty retreat.~It is hard to say which of them is more distraught by the time they get back to June’s Tower. Though Fenris is admittedly more verbose with his unhappiness. Uthvir is clearly agitated, however, tearing their way through the churning passages until they track down the General in her office.

Haninan is there, and Fenris is momentarily relinquished to him as Uthvir has a quiet, hurried conversation with their superior, panic written into the very lines of their body. Fenris tries to listen in, but finds that his current babysitter is set on distracting him. Talking to him in that slow even voice that always seems to make him sleepy. Telling him a story about dragons or some other thing. Wholly unimportant right now, but after all that crying on the way here, he feels himself sagging in the man’s arms. Falling into a deep troubled sleep.

He wakes sometime later to the sound of a door closing gently. If the nest of blankets is any indication, Fenris would hazard a guess that Uthvir had curled up with him on the couch, waiting for Aili to come home.

He thinks he hears voices from her room, so he carefully scooches himself onto the floor and toddles his way over. But the door is shut and he is still too short to reach. He knocks gently, not wanting to rouse her if she is resting, wondering if they will let him see her if she is still hurt.

“Really, I’m fine,” he hears Aili say, “You don’t have to keep beating yourself up about it. I’m the one who insisted they were docile. I should have warned you to stay away from the estate. You had no way of knowing it would be able to sense the truth about your vallaslin.”

Uthvir says something unintelligible and he hears her laugh in reply. And then the laugh turns into a painful-sounding cough.

“Ah-lee?” he calls uncertainly. There is more muffled talking, shortly followed by footsteps coming to the door.

“Hello there, little one,” Uthvir says softly, “Are you hungry after your nap?”

Fenris shakes his head.

“Want Ah-lee,” he insists, “She okay?”

“Mama will be fine, but she needs to rest,” Uthvir tells him, lifting him up into their arms and walking further into the room, “Be gentle with her, alright?”

Fenris nods solemnly, tempted to make some remark about knowing better than to rough up someone recovering from an injury. But he supposes it is hardly the time to be ornery.

“She need nap times,” he asserts instead, “I just…wanna see her. Being okay.”

“I understand,” Uthvir murmurs, pressing a kiss into his hair that Fenris does not even attempt to ward off.

Aili is laying in her bed, absolutely drowning in blankets and pillows, no doubt at Uthvir’s insistence. She does not seem to have any sort of scars or bandages, but she holds herself awkwardly, trying to turn the pages of a book with only one hand. Her face lights up when she sees him, though.

“There’s my baby,” she declares, setting her book down and holding out a hand for him.

Uthvir sets him on the bed and he crawls over to her, allowing himself to be petted as he takes his own inventory of her person. He thinks a good portion of her skin on the left side of her body seems pink and flushed, and strangely…shiny. As if brand new.

He touches the hand she is not moving, and she winces slightly.

“I sorry,” he mutters quietly. And then he says it again, hiccupping through a fresh onslaught of tears, “I’m sorry, Mama.”

“Here now,” she coos, pulling him into an awkward, one-armed embrace, “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for, little heart. I promised I’d come home, didn’t I? And here I am.”

He hugs her back for that, feeling foolish and frustrated and unimaginably relieved. He presses a rare kiss of his own against her cheek and she beams at him. Unabashed in her delight, even through whatever pain she must still be in.  

If he hadn’t been so childish, so needy with his desire to keep her close at hand, all of this might have been avoided. He has always liked to hoard his treasures, and it is hard to remember sometimes, that she is more than just his caretaker. That she has survived in this wretched city with its disparity and ugliness for who knows how long, and it has not broken her yet. He should trust her more, he thinks. There will be a time when he will have a more direct means of offering protection, if she needs it. But for now, he will have to put his trust in her, and in Uthvir, to keep their family safe.

Somehow, he thinks she can manage it, despite the odds.

She is, after all, his mother.