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inspirationdivine · 4 years ago

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Metamorphosis || Regan and Lydia

Timing: Before the Morgue scream Characters: @kadavernagh and @inspirationdivine Summary: Regan comes to bring a sick Lydia soup, and sees more than she bargained for.

Lydia still lay on her stomach most days, reclining on her futon as she read a book. Well, that wasn’t entirely accurate. She read a paragraph, and her mind drifted off into a fixed distance, and then she’d read it again, having already forgotten what had happened on the previous page. All the same, Lydia was determined to enjoy it. She was saved from her efforts when the doorbell rang, and Lydia pulled up her phone to see through the camera that it was Regan. She looked over at The Mime. “Can you let her in, please?” Meanwhile, Lydia squeezed her eyes shut, focusing on carefully reconstructing her glamour. She no longer limped, nor was her face bruised, but glamours had gotten harder ever since, well, ever since. Regan was the only visitor Lydia knew she wanted to see and had to keep it up for. The last thing she needed was another Banshee scream.

So many people thought colds only came along in the winter, but rhinoviruses were actually fairly equal-opportunist. Part of Regan suspected that Lydia’s “sickness” was a little stranger than a typical cold, but she couldn’t help but hope that this was something she’d encountered before. And there was something different about Lydia’s house -- it took her a second to spot the difference. The cameras. She’d had security cameras installed, or at least more visible ones. And the other difference: it wasn’t Lydia who answered the door. It was a mime. Regan jumped backwards, nearly dropping the soup and medicine she’d brought over. “Get away from Lydia!” She shouted, a scream starting to churn in her lungs. “I know what you’re capable of! You--” But all the mime did was raise a single finger to his mouth, shushing her, his make-up caked eyes crinkling in what looked like amusement. Then, he beckoned into the house. And she noticed the firearm at his side, along with a walkie-talkie and some other gadgets. Was the mime… security? Was he actually supposed to be here? Regan swallowed most of the scream back, but if it weren’t for Lydia being somewhere inside, she would’ve run back to the car. “Lydia?” She called out, reluctantly following the mime indoors. Usually Lydia was right there, ready to greet her. She could feel her, the bugs biting at her skin. But maybe Lydia was trying to rest. This was a surprise visit, after all. Regan turned to the mime, still keeping a safe distance. “Should I, uh, leave this with you to give to Lydia?” No answer, of course.

Lydia immediately cringed as she heard Regan’s voice raise into a yell. “It’s okay!” She yelled through. “He’s friendly! Regan?” Lydia called, standing up to greet her guest, moving slowly to disguise that her back was immovably stiff. There were no crutches anymore, her foot had healed perfectly. Hopefully she would soon be able to say the same thing about her wing. “No, you can come on through. Please don’t mind my security. He’s friendly. Lu Jing is around somewhere too. Do you want anything to drink?” Even with the glamour, Lydia carried the strain around her eyelids, taut and thin around her red eyes. She still wasn’t sleeping much these nights. How could she, when the nights were only getting longer and more dangerous?

Friendly? The thought of a friendly mime was even more alarming than Lydia languishing on the couch. A fresh wave of prickles ran across Regan’s skin, and she watched cautiously as Lydia rose from where she lay. There was something off with her gait. Something stiff, like she had a spinal injury that she was trying to hide. She probably would have succeeded with someone else. The mime, meanwhile, simply stood by at attention. Regan kept an eye trained over him, scanning for the glint of a knife or any twitch of movement to the gun. “You hired a mime for security?” And apparently others, including someone named Lu Jing. “I heard you were sick, so I brought you some things, but you--” She met Lydia’s sallow, sunken eyes, and the full impact of how bad Lydia looked struck her. This wasn’t the flu, or even a cold. She wasn’t sure what it was. “You look like you haven’t slept in weeks, are you-- what happened?” No longer fearing anything contagious, Regan approached, a hand hovering over Lydia’s arm but hesitating, and pulling away. The security. The lack of sleep. The injuries, whatever they were. “Were you attacked? Or did someone break in?”

“I hired a group from an agency. That said, The Mime has certain benefits,” Like being off putting to a very specific hunter that Regan was dating, and a distinct lack of idle chatter when he was driving her around. Everyone in this town was terrified of mimes, and Lydia enjoyed the distance it created around her in public spaces too. “That’s more than kind of you, Regan,” Lydia said with a soft smile, unable to placate the worry on Regan’s face. “Yes.” Lydia admitted quietly. She looked to the kitchen, and wished Regan had at least answered whether she wanted a drink. Then Lydia would have something to turn her hands and mind to, rather than just the memories of those gleaming, terrifying eyes. “A little over a month ago now. I’ve been healing faster than you would believe, but… these things take time. Are you sure I can’t offer you a drink?”

“I don’t believe there are any benefits to mimes,” Regan muttered, not missing the striped glance that the well-muscled mime shot in her direction. “I’ve seen what they’re capable of.” In any other town, that would have sounded insane. And for a moment, just an instant, Regan wondered if White Crest had polluted her, too. She set the bags she’d brought down on the table near the couch, and caught Lydia’s furtive glance toward the kitchen. Right, water. It seemed unimportant in the face of whatever had happened to Lydia. She had been attacked. And badly, it appeared, if she looked like this even a month after it had happened. “Technically, you already have offered me a drink. I just don’t want one.” Although… she’d be able to get a better opportunity to observe Lydia’s gait. No, best to just ask. Regan plopped herself down on one of the chairs, indicating that she wasn’t going anywhere, and glared at the mime again until he backed off slightly, hovering by the door. “What happened? I mean, you were attacked. How badly? Are you-- was your back injured?”

“What they’re capable of is rather the point,” Lydia replied, raising her eyebrows. “They’re bound to keep me and my guests safe.” She didn’t point out that The Mime wasn’t even her most dangerous guard. Perception was everything, though. Lydia pursed her lips slightly, disappointed at the lack of distraction, and carefully sat back down herself. “So I did,” she agreed, and braced herself for questions. “Badly.” Lydia said, and carefully set her gaze past Regan, speaking in a clipped, clinical tone, as if this was how her doctor had described her injuries. Regan would want to know, and she was too observant to hide much. Perhaps this could also be a lesson. God, Lydia didn’t want this to be a lesson. “Fractures along my cheek bone, ankle, sternum. Some… adverse cognitive effects. I was- I was drowned. And I- I lost- no, he removed, tore off-“ pauses a moment, swallowed, and finished, “He tore off one of my wings. So, it was rather serious. However, I’m already most of the way healed.” She looked back at Regan with a small, sad smile. “Due to the nature of my injuries, I haven’t talked about it much. It’s been difficult to admit to.”

Lydia’s eyes seemed to flip in and out of focus as she looked past Regan, remembering something. Regan steeled herself, unsure what to expect. Something had shaken Lydia so much that she’d gone and hired a team of security guards, and she looked like… well, this. Lydia, of all people, who Regan had always viewed as unyielding and unbreakable, despite her refined and genteel disposition. Even preparing to hear the worst, it still made Regan’s marrow freeze and her eyes widen in concern and fear. “Do-- Lydia, do you want me to look at anything? I’m so sorry. That’s very serious.” There was little to say that could make her situation improve, especially at this point. She was healing, had already checked out of the hospital. But Regan wouldn’t forget that Lydia had been there for her, repeatedly, when she needed it (and even when she thought she didn’t). She would offer the same, both as a friend and a doctor. But there was more. He tore off a wing. How-- that was the very thing Lydia and Deirdre had warned her about. Don’t try to pull them off. In the end, she couldn’t fight the pain to do it, but she had tried. Had tried enough to know that it felt like someone trying to remove your spinal cord through a small incision. How had her assailant known about the wings? How had she hid this injury from her doctor? Had a doctor even-- that final question was like a punch to her gut. Had someone examined Lydia’s back? She budged closer to Lydia, her heart softening at the weak smile on Lydia’s normally proud face. “Lydia, you recall that I’m a doctor, right? I could have-- I can help you, if you want me to. Please, let me help you. You’ve done so much for me.”

And then, the lingering realization. Regan had been about to ask if Lydia’s assailant had been caught. Of course, he hadn’t. That was why she’d hired a mime. And why she had warned Regan of someone in town who would do her harm just for being what she was. She had been blind to not realize it sooner. “Is he… still out there? Do the police know? Lydia, do you need somewhere else to stay?”

“I’m… alright. My doctor is very good. She’s been seeing me frequently, to monitor everything as much as possible. Well worth the cost, I-“ Lydia paused, refocusing herself back on the task at hand, maintaining a glamour. Looking down at her wrists, the little veins that she normally maintained as part of her glamour had completely faded away, which meant she was losing track of the other imperfections in her features. It hopefully wasn’t the kind of thing Regan would have noticed, but Lydia brought the detail back to her skin all the same. Once she could see the veins again, Lydia looked back up. “Sorry, I- What was I saying? Right, my doctor has been very good. Most things are healing as expected.” Please let me help, Regan had said, and the truth was that Lydia knew her true appearance would frighten Regan more than anything else. How could she ask her doctor friend to help her heal when she couldn’t even show her her true face? “You being here already means so much.”

“He is. I have told… a detective. However, the situation is complicated.” Lydia eyed Regan as she rubbed at her temples, and hoped the other would perhaps understand that Lydia was in no mood to be argued with on the possibilities of what she was about to explain. “I can’t explain to the police that I lost a wing, nor that he broke several of my bones but now they’re fully healed. Even if I did, he… is unusual. He’s- stronger than you would believe, faster. The local police force isn’t equipped to handle someone like him. But he also has peculiarities, a little like our difficulty with lying. He won’t ever be able to enter my home again. I have done everything possible to keep myself safe.” She frowned, pinching the bridge of her nose, before softening her expression. She hadn’t invited Regan here, the fae had come of her own accord, and it wasn’t a kindness she’d expected. Their relationship wasn’t always the smoothest, especially when it came to things related to their nature. Even if maintaining her glamour was exhausting, Lydia was glad for the company. “Not that I don’t appreciate the offer. I just… need to feel at home.”

At least Lydia had a doctor. So many people in this town seemed to think they didn’t need one, even in their worst hours. Regan’s head sank as she processed what Lydia was saying -- most things were healing as expected? That meant something wasn’t. Or perhaps Lydia was just distracted, and lacking the normal caution surrounding her words. She seemed it, her eyes flitting from her wrist and back to Regan. “I would have come sooner,” Regan admitted, “if I knew something had happened. I’m sorry for that, too.” She offered a cold hand to Lydia, bracing herself for a swarm of insects biting into her skin should Lydia decide to take it. “It’s not-- even when a situation is complicated, there’s always a solution. I’m certain the police can still do something.” But with the way Lydia looked at her, the hollowness of her expression, Regan knew this wasn’t to be discussed just now. They could revisit it later, once Lydia had some rest. “You’re positive that you’re safe here, Lydia? Let me know if you change your mind, alright? You’re welcome in my apartment. There’s even--” She thought, briefly, of the empty third floor of her building. When would her landlord start looking for another tenant? Not that she expected Lydia to pack up and move from her beautiful home, and not that she was ready for the rest of what remained of Nadia in her life to be replaced. “You’re welcome, okay?” Silence stretched for a moment. She had to know. And, if she were being honest, she wanted to see it. “Your wings… the one that’s missing. Does it heal?”

Regan hadn’t expected any of this when she was bringing soup over, but now that she knew Lydia wasn’t contagious, and that Lydia seemed to enjoy having her present there, she figured there wasn’t any harm in asking a question that had been lingering in her mind. “I had a question for you, actually. Um, not related to any of this. It’s about -- you know, the p-word.” The one she’d exchanged with Deirdre. For a second, the ivy seemed to skitter up one of her legs. “Just how strong are they? What are the… limitations? You had me stand up from a chair before, which was, well -- it was frightening, but it was harmless. I’ve done worse things with them by mistake.” She thought of Erin, nearly drowning herself. “I made one to Deirdre. One that I thought was specific, but that I’m now realizing was somewhat vague. And I don’t know how far it… reaches.”

“I’ve been… reticent to tell people,” Lydia admitted with a sheepish look. She hated not feeling in control. Her loss of concentration, the fears that kept her up at night - Lydia prided herself on being put together at all times, and being like this made her more vulnerable than she had ever been. “I blamed myself, for a long time. I still do, although to a much lesser degree. You don’t have to apologise for not knowing.” She listened to Regan’s protests with a dull nod, recognising them and being unwilling to do anything more than telling Marley. She had no love for humans, but sending them into a death trap would only cause her more problems down the line, and having experienced his wrath now, Lydia was unwilling to do anything to catch the vampire’s attention again. “I would let you know if I changed my mind in a heartbeat, Regan. I’m incredibly grateful.” She took Regan’s hand in her own, giving her a gentle squeeze as if to reassure her that it was fine. It wasn’t, but it could be, eventually. At Regan’s question about her wing, Lydia couldn’t fully hide the bitter smile that she replied with. Of course Regan would ask. “It is growing back. Very, very painfully.”

“Limitations? As long as it is an action, there are none. If you promised not to speak again, that would hold. If you promised not to leave a place, you would never move again. One could even go so far as being promise bound into dying… although I’m sure you didn’t miss-speak that much.” Lydia smiled, reassuringly. “Deirdre is a reasonable, honourable fae, and you are still learning. You can talk to her about rewording the promise, or being relinquished from -“ Lydia frowned, the world drifting out of focus again. “What were we talking about?” It wasn’t just the conversation that had slipped her mind. Without noticing, Lydia’s eyes had turned brilliant blue, her skin had lost all flaws, her ears stretched up to the top of her head, and her wings unfurled behind her, immobilised by the thick brown pupa that covered her back. In an instant, her whole glamour was gone.

Lydia, Blanche, Kaden. So many people in Regan’s life seemed to blame themselves for things outside of their control. It was maddening at times. Illogical and painful to see. She wanted to grab Lydia by the shoulders and shake her until she realized it wasn’t her fault for being assaulted, but that seemed like a terrible idea given her present state. “You shouldn’t blame yourself at all,” she said earnestly, though as someone else who internalized guilt, she knew that there was nothing she could say to truly lift that burden. “Hopefully one of your heartbeats and not mine,” she added, before her eyes ticked down to Lydia’s back. There was nothing to see. Lydia had mentioned she had a way of hiding her wings, similar to the necklace, but Regan couldn’t help but look, as though she could see past the shirt and illusions. “Is there anything I can, um, do?” She squeezed Lydia’s hand back, biting her tongue at the needle-like tingling that shot through her hand and up her spine.

“W-what?” A pit formed in her stomach, quickly overtaking it. Somehow, even through all of the accidental and intentional promises made, the binds forged, Regan never considered that they could be so wickedly lethal. If Lydia were to be believed, someone could promise to-- “Are you saying it’s possible to bind someone into taking their own -- no! It was nothing like that! Never. It was just about, well, training.” But Lydia seemed to drift away for a moment, carried off by whatever tides of pain she was still suffering, both physical and psychological. When it came to matters such as this, Regan wasn’t sure which kind of pain was worse. “Lydia?” She asked softly, “Do you want me to--” But when she looked into Lydia’s eyes, she was practically blinded. They flashed a vivid blue, once, twice, then remained that impossible shade. Regan released Lydia’s hand, stumbling backward, watching with horror as the pinnae of her ears spread upward and her skin seemed to almost glow. Large wings protruded from Lydia’s back, but Regan could barely get a good look at them. She couldn’t pull her eyes away from Lydia’s, or from the… thing that had taken Lydia’s place. Panic bloomed inside of her, and the scream exploded out without a thought or hesitation.

“So I’ve been told,” Lydia replied softly, with a fond smile as she reflected back on Morgan and Remmy, and her many other friends who had told her just the same. But Regan didn’t know what Lydia had done, why she had gotten the vampire’s wrath so keenly. She smiled at what she assumed was a joke when Regan made the quip about her heartbeat. When Regan asked her if there was anything she could do, Lydia paused, wanting to give Regan something to do, but unsure what, if anything, there was to do. Lydia didn’t need food delivered, nor fae specific medical expertise that frankly Regan was lacking in (although she’d never say that to Regan), nor more skulls. Luckily, Regan had a question to ask about promises, and Lydia followed her there. Although Lydia’s answer wasn’t well received, panic flashing through Regan’s face. Hm, yes, it probably would have been smart to phrase that differently, wouldn’t it?

Panic filled Regan’s eyes and it took Lydia a moment to work out why, before looking down at her glowing skin. She reached into her magic to pull it back on, but before she could, Regan opened her mouth and screamed, and anything resembling composure vanished. Lydia shrank in on herself, the scream piercingly painful, shooting right into her head. “Please don’t scream, please don’t-” Lydia cradled her head as she whimpered, eyes squeezed shut. She’d heard a couple of windows crack, but nothing crashed to the ground. Lu Jing the kitsune and The Mime were there all at once, glaring at Regan as they stepped close to Lydia. “It’s okay- she didn’t- wasn’t on purpose. Regan, Regan, it’s me. Please- stay calm?” Her voice fragmented as she tried to push her glamour back on, her ears temporarily shifting shape before snapping back to full size. Her head pounded like the scream was still rattling around inside her. “Please.”

The room would have been plunged into darkness if it weren’t for the large, expensive windows that had shattered, light and chilly air pouring its way inside. Mortification flooded Regan, but her attention was still glued to bright blue eyes and ears that looked to be almost a foot long. The scream still rattled inside of her skull, another one loading itself into her lungs, but Lydia’s familiar, frazzled voice cut through Regan’s panic. She turned, catching movement, and saw the mime and another individual charge into the room, hands twitching for sidearms. Regan froze. And there was Lydia’s voice again, coming from -- well, she did look like Lydia, except for the-- “Lydia?” She asked, swallowing the coalescing scream back into the recesses of her lungs. She didn’t dare step closer, but she also didn’t want to be anywhere near that mime, weapon or not.

Regan scuttled awkwardly to the side. The new viewing angle didn’t help. Lydia still looked like something out of a children’s fantasy show, and her ears were long one moment, and short the next, flicking between the two in a way that brought bile into her mouth. How was that possible? Physiological changes, Lydia had said, the last time they’d met. She didn’t expand on what she’d meant. Now, Regan was coming to understand. She didn’t know what to make of Lydia’s appearance right now, but it was… it was Lydia. Which meant-- “Lydia? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-- I was surprised, and that happens when--” She pressed her hands to her forehead and groaned, causing one last shard of glass to fall off an overhanging light bulb. This was still a problem. All the breathing exercises in the world wouldn’t have prevented it. “Are you okay?” Her stomach sank again. Lydia had already been injured, and she potentially just made it worse. “Your hearing. Can you hear me? Lydia?” But even accepting that the person she was staring at was Lydia, she was afraid to move even an inch closer. “What… what is this?”

Yes, it’s me, Lydia wanted to snap, but for both their sakes reigned it in. Her eyes were still squeezed tightly shut, but enough glass had tinkered to the ground that she knew this was going to be a pain to sort over again. Her cleaning staff deserved a raise. “I know, I know it happens when you’re scared, I’m sorry, just please- please don’t do it again?” Lydia replied, trying not to be short with Regan even as her head pounded. The scream’s echo didn’t fade in her mind, only transmutated into pure pain, like her head might collapse in on itself. She hesitated at Regan’s question, frowning around her hands. “I can hear you. I will… be able to cope. Lu Jing, can you - Can you get my spider tea and a tylenol, please?” Treatments both magic and mundane for the sharp headache clogging up her mind. Lu Jing nodded, walking over to the kitchen, and The Mime retreated as well. Lydia sighed deeply, not quite able to look up at Regan yet. “This is what I really look like, that I- that I normally hide from you so I don’t frighten you. Like your necklace, right? I just… I need to be able to concentrate to maintain it. The glamour, I mean.” Much in the same way she couldn’t reglamour, Lydia couldn’t quite hide how much Regan’s horror stung. Lydia was considered universally beautiful. Her skin was flawless, she was perfectly proportioned. Her wings were perhaps not at their prime, and Lydia found the cocooning skin as hideous as anything else, but deep down, it stung that Regan had screamed, and that she was keeping her distance now.

Lydia was in pain. Regan had hurt her, like so many others. Again. She wanted to vomit, and then when she looked at Lydia again, she wanted to scream again, and that made her want to vomit some more. She probably should have just left the soup on the doorstep. Regret had become a pillar of her life over the last few months. “I-- I won’t scream again. I understand, I think. As much as I can. In the sense that there’s no way to actually understand any of this at all.” People didn’t look like this. They just didn’t. She’d seen people of all shapes, sizes, colors, and ages. None of them had ears or eyes or wings like this. What made her eyes that color? Would she be able to figure it out by dissecting one of them? What about her pinnae? Was there any evolutionary benefit to such an alien mutation?

“Your back,” Regan said, once she was finally able to tear her eyes away from Lydia’s horrific neon blue irises. Her gaze sank down to the thick, brown shell that protruded even from underneath her shirt. “Is that-- what is that? I knew you had a back injury by your gait, and you mentioned your wing, and--” She couldn’t see it well, but it looked like a giant scab, larger and harder than any she’d seen before. Medical curiosity and fear of the unknown continued to war inside of her. Lydia had said one of her wings had been pulled off. Was this what happened? Or was that how she usually looked? This was all so unbelievable, she wanted to scream again. Regan opted to keep her distance, repulsed by what she saw when she looked at Lydia. She knew it was a more subjective than objective thought, and that made her stomach sink. “Has your doctor seen-- have you had that examined?”

Lydia’s smile was sad and understanding when Regan replied. “I really appreciate that. I know this is… alarming.” Describing her own appearance like that made Lydia’s stomach turn. She carefully pried her eyes open as she was handed her drink and pills, taking one and chugging the other with a grimace. Immediately, the headache didn’t dissipate but shrank, enough for her to think a bit again. Despite all the pain, Lydia didn’t blame Regan. It was all Sean’s fault Regan was struggling with this still, that she didn’t have control. Lydia was, once again, glad she’d killed him. For all of Regan’s suffering now, it would be better in the long run. “I told you it was… torn off. This is the healing process.” Lydia watched as Regan walked around her carefully, and almost smiled at her curiosity, expecting the question. “Yes. It’s part of the regrowth process. Inside it, my wing is regrowing. My doctor knows. It’s all… normal. I won’t know how well it has regrown until it comes off. Do- do you want to see my whole back?” Lydia asked softly.

“Yes,” Regan said, automatically. How could she turn that down? Her heart felt like it was beating almost as quickly as it used to, and she couldn’t bring herself to get any closer to Lydia, but still, she wanted to see it. This was something that so many medical scientists could only dream of having their eyes on, wasn’t it? And even though Regan couldn’t publish or autopsy or dissect it, her curiosity got the better of her. It always did. And just as frequently, since moving here, she regretted it. “Does it hurt? Is it… what does it feel like? How long has it been like this? How long will it take to-- has this ever happened to you before? What doctor said this was normal?” Her hand reached out, as though she could put a glove on, lift Lydia’s shirt, and give her an examination. But she didn’t move. Regan stayed planted in place, her eyes boring a hole in Lydia’s back.

Nodding, Lydia began to unbutton her shirt little by little. Her movements were stiff and slow, constrained by a near inability to move her back. Her blouse fell from her shoulders, revealing in full the hard, aggressive looking pupa, all the way down her back and stretching half way around her ribs. “Normal for people like us,” Lydia corrected herself. “Which it is, in terms of wing loss and regrowth. It is- ah, exceptionally painful. It is hard to sleep without medicines to help.” She shifted in her seat, so that Regan had better access. “You may touch it, if you are exceptionally careful.” Lydia said carefully. “I should finish healing in a couple weeks. Considering the severity of my other injuries, the healing process is taking longer than one would expect, but I am nearly done. Only then will we see how bad the damage truly is.”

No, it wasn’t quite like a scab, Regan decided as she took a single, very cautious step toward Lydia. It was easier now that she wasn’t looking into those eyes, but she still couldn’t quite pretend Lydia looked the same as she usually did. The thing on Lydia’s back was more like a… cocoon. It swaddled her spine and puckered her skin. Never had she so badly wanted to touch something that she couldn’t bring herself to approach. There were a few moments, just seconds, where she thought she might be able to will herself to do it, but when she caught sight of Lydia’s ears, or the single, hard beetle-like wing cover hanging from her back, her feet refused to move. Still, she stared. It was so… brown. If not a scab, was it still colored by dried blood? And, she couldn’t help but wonder again, what doctor in their right mind said that this was normal of any stripe?

Regan’s mouth fell open as Lydia invited her to touch the-- the growth, or scab, or thing on her back. “I--” She wanted to touch it. “I’m not sure that’s--” She really wanted to touch it. But she didn’t want to go near Lydia. But. She wanted to touch it. Regan closed her eyes and sighed, silently fishing a pair of nitrile gloves from her pocket. “You may not believe it, considering how many of your windows I’ve broken, but I’m always exceptionally careful.” Especially where medicine and pathology were involved. And whatever was on Lydia’s back… there was no doubt it wasn’t healthy. “This doesn’t look nearly done to me,” Regan said with a frown, as she slipped effortlessly into pathologist mode, taking several brave steps toward her fear. Carefully, she gave the growth a light tap with her fingertips. It was as hard as it looked, with a scab-like consistency. Next to the growth was a single wing cover, likely with a healthy wing underneath it. The thought sent a shiver down her spine -- or maybe that was just a byproduct of being close to Lydia. “What does it feel like? Did that hurt?”

“I wouldn’t let you touch it if I thought you were at real risk of doing harm. I’m just…. nervous.” Lydia’s head throbbed heavily, and a scream while Regan was right by her back…. would be awful. “What do you think it ought to look like?” Lydia asked openly, careful to keep judgement from her voice, to let Regan feel comfortable. Well, as comfortable as possible, considering how terribly human she was. Lydia shivered. There was something deeply intimate about letting anyone touch your wings, a cultural sacred taboo. Wings were both so fragile and so powerful, status symbols that all fae coveted. Letting someone touch the area where hers should have been felt fundamentally wrong, but it was like how you let small children break social norms to cultivate their sense of wonder. “Not more than it normally does. I don’t have much sensation on the surface of the pupa. It’s the internals that are painful. Breathing, walking, moving my back at all is… deeply uncomfortable.”

“Not like this,” Regan said simply, grazing her gloved hand lightly across the… what Lydia had incorrectly called a pupa. “This isn’t… I’ve never seen something like this before, not on a decedent and not on a living patient.” She wanted to take a skin scraping, see if she could get a good sample of whatever substance was responsible for the scab-like appearance of this thing, but she had a feeling that would be where Lydia drew a line. She was clearly uneasy about all of this -- her skin shuddered away underneath Regan’s fingers. A sample, and her eyeballs, would have to wait. “Do you need a prescription for it?” Regan finally asked, lifting her hand away from the injury site. “I can’t write you a script, but I can communicate your need for one to one of my contacts at the hospital. They may not even need to examine you in person, if that’s a concern.” What had her life become, that she was hovering over some horrifically malformed scab denoting a healing wing, on the back of someone she’d come to consider a friend, and she wasn’t even pushing to send Lydia straight to the hospital? Nothing good. “I…” But as Lydia turned, and Regan saw the piercing blue of her eyes and the length of her ears, she fumbled backward, away again. “I’d be remiss if I didn’t give you my medical opinion, and that’s that you should have samples taken to rule out a--” fungal infection. Lydia wouldn’t take kindly to that. “--A risk of long-term damage.”

“That’s alright. It’s rare for a fae to lose their wing. Normally, culturally, you wouldn’t share an injury like this beyond those helping your recovery,” Lydia replied softly, as if it was Regan who needed comforting, over and over again, more so than Lydia. But, well, Regan was hardly known for her tact, and Lydia did still want to mentor her, to slowly lead her into this world that would welcome her in a way no human world could. It was slow, and this wasn’t the way Lydia wanted to introduce Regan to her appearance without glamour, but it would have to do, wouldn’t it? Even as Regan was visibly repulsed. “No, no, I have all the prescriptions I need from my doctor.” Regan would be surprised to learn how much more effective potions and fae remedies were for this specific pain than any human drug would manage on its own. Regan shifted backwards, away from her in unease, which stung as much as the fresh muscles growing alongside her spine. “I’ll keep that in mind, thank you, Regan. You have been ever so good to me today.”

How could Lydia be so cavalier, talking about fae and wings and that thing on her back? Regan supposed she had grown up with it, that this was just as natural to Lydia as it was to Deirdre. But the word natural, even in her thoughts, felt entirely wrong. She looked once more to the mass of brown stretching across Lydia’s skin, and her frown sank even further. No, it was wrong. Abnormal in every respect. “I… I should let you rest.” Lydia barely looked like she could keep her head up, though maybe it was because she noticed the way Regan kept flinching away from looking at her. Regan wasn’t proud of that, but the problem was greater than Lydia’s eyes and ears. She gestured to the soup and medicine on table, “I’d still like for you to have this. It won’t help with the-- with what’s on your back, but maybe it can still alleviate some of the pain. I’m sorry, Lydia. About the scream, and--” That she couldn’t meet her friend’s gaze right now. “Next time, I’ll-- I can do this, for you. Next time, I’ll be able to look you in the eyes. I promise.”

Lydia smiled in a small relief when Regan said she was going to go again. As much as she cared for Regan…. Everything about this had been draining. Her head still rattled with the distant scream, the pain had only been eased, not taken away. “I really appreciate you bringing it, and for your company. I know it’s a lot, but I do like having you around.” She winked. “Even when you scream.” Not that Regan would see her wink, when she wouldn’t even look at her. Lydia snorted at her words. “Wait! I relinquish you from that. Regan, come on, you need to be more careful with your words.” As she spoke, she sank slowly and more deeply into the couch, already getting ready to nap. “You never know when someone will use them against you.”

#no one saw that #wickedswriting #para #chatzy #regan #lydia

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ashintheairlikesnow · 5 years ago

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Bad Things Happen Bingo: Worked Themselves to Exhaustion

Heeeey, @badthingshappenbingo is finally underway! @burtlederp asked for Worked Themselves to Exhaustion with Ryan as our POV/Main, so here it is!

Bloodstains = requested, puppy sticker = completed

This is set post-rescue and post-trial. Tagging the crew: @spiffythespook, @bleeding-demon-teeth, and @special-spicy-chicken!

CW: Very little, actually! Some references to parental abuse and implied/references past assault/violence, but mostly this is just Ryan being Ryan

Ryan woke up with a start to discover he’d fallen asleep sitting at the kitchen table, forehead resting on one arm and the other simply hanging loose down at his side.

He still had the mug of coffee he’d been drinking sitting next to him, his fingers loosely curved around the handle. He dragged his free hand up and over to find the ceramic had totally cooled, the coffee no doubt cold and stale inside.

He blinked, lifting his head slowly, wincing at the crick of pain in his neck. What time was it? How long had he been asleep? His phone was buzzing on the table next to him and he blinked, blearily looking over at it. Must've been what woke him. Fuck, was it really 9:45 already?

When he saw ‘MOM’ and the photo he’d set of he and Corrine at the beach a couple of years ago lighting up the screen, he groaned, hit the button to silence it, and let his head drop back to the table.

He was so fucking tired and he did not have the energy to deal with his mother right now. Maybe not ever again, not where Danny was concerned.

She would tell him to get an aide, she was always telling him to get an aide. Move out (you can move right back in the house with Dad and I until you find a place, no reason to linger there wasting your twenties), leave him and Vandrum with a full-time home health care aide.

You shouldn’t feel obligated to take care of him, Ryan.

But he did, and maybe if Mom had ever felt obligated to really care about Danny, he wouldn’t have ended up wearing a goddamn dog collar in western Canada.

Not that it was Canada’s fault, or anything. Ryan hadn’t ever realized how fucking huge Canada was, before he’d flown into Edmonton on the fastest flight he could find, rented a car, and then drove and drove and drove and fucking drove to the police station his brother was waiting in - only to realize it had been more hours upon hours of driving for Nate to get Danny there in the first place.

That cabin in the woods had been literally in the middle of fucking nowhere, and Ryan couldn’t possibly have known, right?

He should have, though. He should have, and maybe none of it would ever have happened if his mother and father hadn’t said all that shit to Danny five years ago about regretting adopting someone who didn’t want to be part of the family business, and therefore part of the family.

They might not see their obligations, but Ryan did. He was obligated, because while Danny had been up in those woods suffering, learning to believe that Denner fucker's lies that he isn't a person, that his body belongs to Denner to use however he wants, learning to call himself a puppy and give up his name and his body and his humanity to stay alive, Ryan had been looking in all the wrong places trying to find him.

He had looked for four straight years. He'd started looking the day Danny didn’t come home from his weird meetup with the older guy he was either just crushing hard on or actually dating, no one seemed to know, and he'd kept looking until the day the cops called and said We’ll know for sure once we’ve done the DNA test, Mr. Michaelson, but we’re pretty sure this man is your brother. He had never, ever stopped looking.

He had leveraged his parents’ wealth and influence to pull together private searches long after law enforcement had given up. He had kept looking even when the cops and the FBI stopped helping them find a living man and started focusing on recovering a corpse one day, maybe decades from now, when some dumbass hiker might trip over his brother’s bones in the woods-

Stop it. He survived. You brought him home. You couldn't have known where Denner would take him. You couldn't have done more.

Yes, he could have.

He had been looking, but he hadn’t looked hard enough. He'd looked in the wrong spots, he had missed clues, somewhere, somehow. What if there had been a white hair in the bloodied car they missed? What if Denner had left a fingerprint on Vandrum's apartment building? What if what if what if.

What if none of it would ever have changed a thing?

No, his mother didn't understand, but he couldn’t ever give enough of himself to Danny's recovery to make up for what he had lost, for what he was still losing. For time suffered and time spent trying to heal.

His mother’s photo blinked away and the phone went back to empty black. Ryan sighed in relief… only to watch it light right back up as she tried a second time.

“No, fucking no,” He groaned, fighting the child’s urge to answer just because it was her, because he loved her, because she loved him. Him, but not his brother. The eternal hidden truth of the Michaelson family - one child loved, the other left out, chased off, and lost. "Leave a goddamn voicemail, Mom, come on."

He'd been up all night, for the third night in a row, and Ryan was tapped the fuck out.

One super fun discovery Ryan had made about bringing home two people who had lived in nonstop fight-or-flight-or-freeze mode for four years was that they never stop getting sick.

Danny's immune system had apparently just checked out at some point and left, and Ryan could usually handle it, but this virus or whatever it was... was bad.

Vandrum usually did his best to help, but he had caught the bug, too, this time. Which meant two grown men reduced to middle-of-the-night coughing fits and all-day fevers, two grown men essentially helpless, two grown men Ryan had found himself in charge of.

Ryan wasn't only taking care of his traumatized older brother who refused to let him touch him, even just to check to see if his fever had broken, but also his brother’s equally traumatized maybe-boyfriend who never flinched or pulled away but who instead stared at Ryan with glassy, frightened green eyes and gritted teeth as he simply put up with Ryan’s clumsy attempts at caretaking in silence, only breaking it with the occasional pl-please let Red sl-sleep, he can’t d-d-do chores today, I’ll d-do his chores f-for him, please...

One more day of this and Ryan might crack.

He's stocked the fridge with all the stuff he remembered Mom buying when they were sick as kids - ginger ale and Pedialyte (did adults drink that shit? Vandrum and Danny hadn't put up a fight when he brought it to them and God knew they weren't keeping any food down yet), chicken soup from the deli in little microwave-safe containers, some Gatorade. There were saltines open on the counter, from the only experiment with solid food either man had attempted since they first got sick.

Ryan had never seen someone throw up saltines before, but at least Vandrum had seemed decently ashamed of himself for it. Danny hadn't even tried them.

It's 9:45 in the morning and all Ryan wants to do is crawl back into his own bed and drift, but if he does he knows one of them will need him, and the only thing worse than not sleeping is finally, finally getting to sleep only to be almost immediately woken up by grown men so knocked out by some kind of virus that they could hardly stand on their own.

Ryan slowly sits up straight, feeling pops along his spine from having been slumped over the table for so long, wondering if twenty-four was too young to have his fucking bones crack when he moves, like an old man.

“One hour,” He says out loud, to no one in particular. “If they don’t need anything in the next hour, I’m giving up and going to fucking bed.”

He pours himself a fresh cup of coffee, which does absolutely nothing to alleviate his exhaustion. He listens to the voicemail his mother eventually leaves, after her third and fourth attempts go unanswered.

Here’s to hoping you’re sleeping, Ryan, and don’t worry, I was just wondering how you were doing and if you had any updates on how Danny and his, um, friend are doing. I can have Mrs. Verona over there to give you a break, poor dear, just say the word.

I was sleeping, Mom, Ryan thinks bitterly, rubbing at his forehead with the heel of one hand as he listens, ignoring for the moment that technically he had fallen asleep sitting at the table like a parent with a newborn and not an adult with a sick brother. Your fucking phone calls woke me up, congratulations, Corrine Michaelson, you’re a gold-star mom today.

No, that wasn’t fair. She was just worried, Mom knew he wasn’t sleeping enough since Danny came home. She was just trying to help, with the offers of an aide or of sending Mrs. Verona over for a day.

She wasn’t trying to chase Danny off again, she wasn’t trying to make him feel like less-than even when he’d only just really started to get his feet under himself again. She just wanted to help Ryan, like always, and was so blinded by it that she missed that what helped Ryan sometimes hurt Danny.

She’d never meant to be awful to Danny, really, it had always just… happened.

Why do you always make excuses for her? Why don’t you just admit it, give it a name, and try to protect him from them while he’s still so fragile and so easily torn apart all over again? He needs someone who can stand up for him this time, and you never have, you always, always let them blame him. You let him run to Eureka to get away from them, so he was in this stupid town when that fucking psychopath came calling to pick his ex up again.

You let them chase Danny away, and it’s your fault he was here when Abraham Denner wanted a new victim. It’s your fault, Ryan, and you have to fix it, so stop whining to yourself about being tired and take care of the brother you couldn’t save when it counted.

You can start by calling what Mom and Dad do to Danny what it is, by calling it-

“Ryan?”

He’d been so lost in his thoughts he hadn’t heard anyone coming, but he looks up now to see Danny leaning against the open-framed doorway to the kitchen, staring in at him with stark surprise written across his face.

The wavy red hair is sticking to his forehead and the back of his neck and his blue eyes are fever-bright, two bright red splotches mark his cheeks. His face is otherwise chalk-white, freckles and the ring of half-healed scarring standing out in garish, nearly neon red in a perfect outline of that fucking thing Ryan can barely stand to think about.

“What’re you doing up? You look dead on your feet, man.” Ryan stands up, slowly so he doesn’t surprise him - Danny still doesn’t like it when people move too fast around him, and the fever definitely doesn’t help with that problem - and sets his coffee mug on the table. “Let’s get you back to bed.”

“I’m not s’posed to, to be in th’ bed.” Danny glances over his shoulder, then back, putting a finger to his lips. “Ssshhh. He must’ve… told Nate it was okay...” Danny’s eyes drift, aimlessly, to the side, looking with confusion at the window above the kitchen sink, with the faded, ancient little pleated floral curtain that had been in the apartment when Danny moved in. “That’s not right. What d’you think he did to earn me getting to sleep in the bed?”

Something in Ryan cracks a little more, the way it always does every single time Danny says something else like this, some new piece of heart-deep horror that Danny doesn’t even seem to recognize for what it is.

“I don’t suppose it would help to tell you you’re home,” Ryan says, wearily, thinking longingly about the last few swallows of hot coffee left and whether it’s worth drinking it if it’s not going to even touch the fatigue. “Would it?”

“I wish I could go home.” Danny speaks the words so softly Ryan nearly misses them. “I wish, but there isn’t one anymore. I know all the rules. I’m so fucking tired, Ryan. Are you still looking for me?”

“Danny?” He’s so exhausted that it takes too long, far too long, for it to really sink in that Danny isn’t talking to him at all, but to some memory he’s having, that Danny’s lost in the woods again.

“I wish I got to keep my name.” Danny whimpers the words more than speaks and then slides straight to the floor in one swift motion. Ryan can’t cross the distance in time to stop him and Danny thumps to the ground nearly bonelessly, still braced against the door frame, closing his eyes slowly and resting the side of his head against it. “You have to look in the woods, Ryan. We’re in the woods.”

When Ryan crouches in front of him, reaching out one hand, he doesn’t flinch or pull away, not when Ryan’s palm presses against his sweaty, boiling-hot forehead, not when he feels the rabbit-fast flutter of his pulse in the side of his neck.

“Whatever you want,” Danny mumbles, eyes half-opening, then closing again. “Do whatever you want. I’ll be good.”

He’s going to have to stand Danny up, and he can barely find the energy to straighten his legs for himself. Three days - three days of the fevers that come and go, the coughing that wakes him up when he does sleep, his mother’s worried phone calls, Vandrum being fucking useless because he’s sick, too.

He just.

It’s just too fucking much and Ryan never realized how hard it would be to do all of this totally alone.

“Danny, I’m so goddamn tired,” Ryan says out loud, near tears himself. “I can’t keep doing this, I can’t keep taking care of you-”

“S’okay,” Danny slurs back to him. “Go back t’bed. I can make breakfast. I need to do chores… s’time, he can’t see I’m late, he can’t, can’t see-” Danny starts trying to push himself back to his feet, and Ryan is half-impressed, half-horrified when his desperately ill brother manages to make himself stand back up, knees locked, glittering, distant eyes fixed on the sink. Ryan stands with him, slowly, his hands out but uncertain what to do next. “Do dishes. Start with dishes. He has to see I’m still working…”

Danny takes a step and simply collapses forward, but this time Ryan is there to catch him under the arms in an awkward half-hug, and Danny shudders at the touch but he’s too weak to pull away or fight back, too weak to even try.

“Look in the woods,” Danny mutters, and his forehead falls against Ryan’s shoulder, thumping into it hard enough to make Ryan wince. “Look in th’ woods for us. Sssshhhhh… everything’s so fuckin’ loud…”

“You’re the only one talking here, buddy,” Ryan murmurs, closing his own eyes just for a second, feeling himself sway a little, a sort of dip in his brain where the white fog of tired takes over before his eyes jolt back open. “Shit. I, I have to sleep, Dan, or I’m gonna die.”

“Don’ die,” Danny mutters, without moving even an inch. “Don’ die. Mom’ll be mad at me.”

Ryan laughs, and after a second Danny huffs a sound that might be laughter, too, and finally Ryan braces himself, pushing Danny back up to where he’s taking at least a little of his own weight. “Okay, okay. I got an idea. Go back to my room, okay? We’ll lie down in there.”

“I have to start chores,” Danny protests faintly, his eyes dancing around aimlessly again, then landing back on Ryan’s face. “Can you tell Mom to call me in sick today? There’s no way I’m going to school. Abraham’s gonna be so mad at me... I can’t go t’school today...”

“You’re twenty-six years old, big brother,” Ryan grunts as he manages to get Danny’s arm around his shoulder to hold him up, taking his weight, his head pounding. He just had to get to bed. Just that far, not too far at all. “You haven’t been in school for a long time.”

“Oh.” Danny frowns, confused, and when Ryan starts trying to walk, he drags his feet along beside him, nearly shuffling. Their progress down the hallway is slow, but damn it, it still counts as progress, and Ryan can see his bedroom door getting closer with every step. “Did I graduate? I don’t remember that.”

Ryan sighs, taking a pause to redistribute Danny’s weight. He’s going to fall over right here in the hallway, pass out and sleep for a week. Right there on the floor. Maybe someone will drop an omelet or something for him to eat while he’s down there.

Who would make it, though, if Danny and Vandrum are both totally useless? Maybe if he called his mother, she’d send Mrs. Verona over with, like, a fucking honeyed ham or something.

“No, Dan, you didn’t. You were still one semester out. They sent you an honorary degree, though, I have it stashed somewhere.”

You know, when they thought you were dead, when everyone but me gave up.

“Honor degree.” Danny giggles, the sound eerie and unfamiliar, a high-pitched noise he’s almost never made in Ryan’s entire memory. “Degree for honor. What’s honor when you fuck like I do now?”

“If there is a God, may you never say anything like that ever again.” Ryan manages to get his door open, although only barely, and he stumbles a few feet into the room before simply letting Danny fall right into the bed, breathing hard.

“May I have permission to sleep?” Danny mumbles, eyes already closing as he mostly crawls his way further into the bed. Ryan’s heard him ask Nate Vandrum that question every fucking night since they brought him home, with the occasional lapse when he remembers he’s a human being and grown-ass humans don’t have to ask permission to fall asleep.

Just like they shouldn’t have to ask permission to shower or bathe or sit in a chair and not on the floor or eat with a fork or…

No. Too tired to be angry right now.

“Yes,” Ryan says heavily. “Yes, you can sleep.”

“Thank you for letting me sleep, Ryan.” The voice is soft and fuzzy, gentle and grateful, and Ryan fucking hates Danny’s stupid fucking rules and his stupid fucking puppy voice. And he hates that he’s so tired that he can’t stop himself from being angry that Danny still uses it rather than focusing on the fact that sometimes, for whole days, he doesn’t.

“No problem, buddy. Get some rest.”

He watches Danny curl up, turning his six-foot-two body into something shockingly small. His knees go to his chest and his arms curve over his head with his hands loosely splayed over his hair, a defensive position to ward off the blows that might be coming at any time.

He never slept like that before, he’d said to Vandrum one night early on, when they’d both woken up and caught Danny curled up like that on the floor next to the couch.

Yeah, w-w-well, your p-parents didn’t w-w-wake him up with head t-trauma, did they? Nate had said, and Ryan had hated him a little less, in the moment, when he’d seen the guilt written across his face. Nate was always guilty, and he damn well should be, but Ryan had plenty to be guilty about, too.

Plenty to make up for.

And he’ll be right back to that as soon as he gets some goddamn sleep.

Ryan sighs, swaying a little, and finally climbs in, sliding under the covers, unruly black curls falling over his face. He watches Danny, already out, curled up and ready to be kicked awake at any moment.

He falls asleep with one hand out, resting on top of the comforter within inches of Danny, not quite touching him.

#Daniel Michaelson's story #Bad Things Happen Bingo #bthb Daniel Michaelson's story #whump #trauma recovery #angry caretaker #broken whumpee #deconditioning #conditioning #dehumanization #pet whump #recovery whump #hurt/comfort #h/c #sick fic #of a sort #I suppose #ryan michaelson is a good brother

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snowfall-fanfictions · 5 years ago

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Ice, Fire, and Shadow

FFN link

Ao3 link

A dragon, a soldier and an assassin. When Elsa's missing and Arendelle has no one else to turn to, teaming those three up seems to be the answer - if only they didn't try to kill each other. Crossover with CallenAmakuni, @snowdragon4, and @snowfall-in-summer.

“I’m not paid enough for this.”

A long sigh heaved from deep within Garret’s chest while he ran a hand through his crimson hair. He had been standing in front of the door for little more than half an hour – the ants he felt walking all over his legs were starting up a colony, apparently. He brought his gaze down to his shifting feet.

“Could have put out a couple chairs, at least,” he said, his annoyance growing with every minute he spent fidgeting on his spot, waiting for a colonel that might very well have left home.

The latter had asked for him, yet he still didn’t know where, when and for what. Garret had resorted to waiting in front of his office and had considered knocking once or twice.

“Better not to try my luck.”

The colonel had always been considerate, but Garret’s teammates always told him stories of subordinates getting in disproportionate trouble for the tiniest mistakes. When hierarchy was involved, safe wasn’t only the better choice. It was the only choice. He finally clasped his hands behind his back and dejectedly decided to wait some more – he had already gone that far.

Standing alone with his mind, his thoughts inevitably went back to the fiasco.

“God-freaking-dammit.”

The instructions were simple: he wasn’t supposed to use the asset outside direct orders. It had more or less been a tacit accord of his strike team’s commander with the higher staff and he knew that. Then why did he have to disobey that command the only time it was explicitly specified? Why did he use it the only time when it was not only unnecessary but also detrimental to the mission? Why was he so stupid?

He angrily clapped his boot on the cold wood beneath him in a tentative attempt to evacuate some of his frustration – he couldn’t let his superior see that he was angry at himself. And of course, that same superior had chosen that exact moment to open his office’s door.

“Got something under your foot, soldier?” the colonel asked with a lifted eyebrow. His proud bushy mustache was one privilege among the plethora of perks his rank inferred. Among those perks was the ability to reprimand his men. “Want some rocks to step on?”

Garret immediately stood upright and saluted sharply. “No, sir. Squished a bug, sir.” Bluff seemed to be his strategy.

The colonel kept his eyebrow up. “Do I want to ask you to lift your boot, soldier?”

The strategy was quickly proving ineffective.

“N-No, sir.”

The colonel breathed a sigh that made his entire body sink down. “Come in, son,” he said, stepping aside to leave Garret enough space to go into his small office. The room was well-lit, perfectly organized and without any embellishment. A fitting setting for the man. The colonel sat at his desk and clasped his hands together over it. Garret stayed on his feet – he hadn’t been invited to sit.

“Do you know why I called you in?” the older man said once he finished examining him.

“I have an idea about it, sir.”

“All right, then. That saves you some uncomfortable small talk. You know you fucked up.”

“I do, sir.”

“And you know how sensitive it is that your…abilities…remain a secret.”

“Yes, sir.”

The colonel dropped his arms to rest on the table. His gaze visibly hardened. “Then you’ll understand our decision to send you away for a little while.”

Garret’s felt his heart fall. “Send- Send me away, sir?”

The colonel somberly nodded. “Exactly. For at least four months.”

“Two months? What am I gonna do for four bloody months?” Garret blurted out without thinking, forgetting the protocol in the process.

The sanction was instantaneous. “Watch your tongue, soldier, or I’ll make it a whole year.”

Garret immediately got his bearings back, realising how out of line he was. “Sir, yes, sir.”

“Officially, you’re going to investigate a creature sighting in foreign territory,” the colonel explained once his glare softened a bit. “Unofficially, I don’t give a cow’s tit what you do. You’re to leave the country tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? B-But I have to say farewell to…”

“It’s an order, son. Order from him,” the colonel finished with an insistent glance. “I wouldn’t discuss anything further. The boat’s waiting. Report at London Port first thing in the morning. See you in two months. Dismissed.”

The words were final, ringing in Garret’s ears like the blunt impact of the hammer that had just fallen.

“Un-Understood, sir.”

As he turned around to leave, he heard the colonel’s normal voice, the one that sounded warm and welcoming, the one he would usually never use when wearing his uniform. “Sorry, soldier. Wish we could have handled this any differently.”

“Yeah. I know,” Garret answered before closing the door behind him.

—:0:—

The morning’s atmosphere was chilly, humid and heavy. The port was starting to wake up even though the sun was still nowhere to be seen, its light replaced instead by the faint glow of smelly oil lamps. Bringing his coat closer to his body, Garret adjusted his small satchel over his shoulder. He sighed when he noticed the dense fog escaping out of the sailors’ mouths, lifting up to blend into the vapor of the buzzing docks’ heavy machinery. He’d have to look like he was feeling the cold.

“All right, fellas?” he greeted when he reached the hull of the vessel he had been assigned to.

Nobody answered him, but a young one disappeared into the deck and came back accompanied by a man with a hat that seemed to be the captain. “Cheers, mate. You the special cargo?” that same man called.

Garret rolled his eyes. Of course, they would call him that. “That’d be me, yeah.”

“Come on-board,” he said as he threw a rope ladder his way. “We got instructions to get you out of here.”

Garret climbed in, quickly getting used to the slight swaying of the ship. He could tell she was military in design, civilian in aspect. “So where are we taking her?” were his first words.

The captain removed his hat and started wiping the dust off its edges. “You are not takin’ anythin’ anywhere. You just sit tight. We are droppin’ you off where the brass told us to drop you off.”

Garret’s shoulders slightly slumped down. The trip was going to be fun. “And where would that be?” he asked.

The captain put on his hat again, his gaze fixed on the horizon. “A small place up North. They said it’s called Arendelle.”

—:0:—

Eryn downed another tankard of ale. This was at least his third one today. He always found himself back in Karnisvarne after each successful kill. This time it was some medium ranking general in the Southern Isles army. He couldn’t be bothered to remember the details, he normally stopped caring about that after he was paid. And he was handsomely rewarded for the kill, even securing a bonus for shifting the blame onto some fresh private. It may not have been the most honorable thing, but money is indeed money.

He was still in his travelling attire; his brown travelling cloak draped over his shoulders like a fancy cape, covering his plain looking shirt. His boots were still caked with dirt from the quick escape he had to make when he put a bullet between the general’s eyes. Eryn’s raven black hair was windswept from when he and Magni bolted out of the camp to the nearest port. Now in the calm of the tavern, Eryn looked like a disheveled mess compared to everyone else

Eryn sat at the bar, carefully studying the other patrons. There were only a few other people in the tavern along with him. Everyone else was busy toiling out in the fields for meager pay, or up in the city for some festival. Eryn could care less about what happened in Arendelle proper, since they seemed not to care about anyone but themselves. He nursed another tankard in his hands while he listened to some of the conversations happening.

“There’s a nip in the air. Not good for crops…”

“Lyin’ whore. Kid obviously ain’t mine.”

“Bullshit! Snowmen can’t talk…”

“Ya hear about the queen bringing in one of them ‘Dragon Knights?’”

Eryn perked up at that last conversation. Dragons? You have my attention. Two men were seated a few seats away from him at the bar, hunched over with their own tankards. Eryn leaned in closer to listen in on their conversation.

“Hell’s a dragon knight?” One of the men asked.

“Agh. Warriors from buttfuck ‘who cares’,” his friend replied. “One of ‘em’s here for the festival.”

“What’re they doing here?”

“Probably for the queen, but who cares? Freaks of nature the lot of them. The whore’s magic could easily make her a target for the likes of them…”

Eryn contemplated this information for a moment. If the Dragon Knights were renowned warriors, what would people think of a man who could kill a Dragon Knight? That’s when a spark of inspiration hit him like-

A Dragon Knight?! Are you out of your mind, Odrikson?! a familiar voice rang in his head.

Eryn pulled his dagger out of its sheath. It was an ancient looking blade, with an ebony grip and a rough looking edge. Etched into it were a series of runes which currently glowed bright red.

C’mon! An opportunity like this comes once in a lifetime! he mentally retorted.

That’s what at least three of your predecessors said before they all met their ends. Dragon Knights are not meant to be taken lightly, Odrikson, they-

How hard can it be?

THEY ARE DRAGONS, BOY!

Bah, that’s probably just some propaganda to scare folks into respecting them. Like ‘Winged Hussars.’ And since when have you been an expert in ancient knighthood orders?

Since when have you been an idiot? I assure you, that title is not simply honorary. If you try to fight a Dragon Knight, you will die!

You said that for at least three different jobs we took.

Yes, and if it weren’t for me, you would be dead! Besides, didn't we just get done with a kill not a few hours ago?

Well, Adrenaline is still pumping. I guess.

Odrikson….

Bah, quit blabbering. We’re off to Arendelle proper.

Eryn sheathed the dagger and got up from the bar. He fished around in his pocket for a few gold coins and made his way out of the tavern. This was a perfect opportunity! If he killed this “Dragon Knight,” the whole damned world would know who Eryn Odrikson was. It would be impossible to go anywhere and find someone not talking about how a master assassin killed such a prestigious warrior. Eryn wasn’t quite sure what a dragon knight looked like, but he was certain he would know as soon as he saw one.

Entering the stables, Eryn saddled up Magni, his horse, and readied up. With the shout of “Magni! Beveg seg!” the black stallion darted out of the stables onto the north road.

That Dragon Knight is mine, Eryn thought to himself as Karnisvarne disappeared behind him.

—:0:—

The Great Thaw Festival Observance, or GTFO as Princess Anna put it, was to be a new tradition in Arendelle after the events that took place one year ago today. After what seemed like hours of pleading, Queen Elsa finally relented to her sister’s wishes to host the festivities. The contrast in the sisters' personalities had never been more evident than when the festival was decided on. Elsa saw it as the day she lost control and the kingdom found out about her secrets, Anna saw it as the day they became sisters again and the gates to their kingdom had been opened.

Either way she looked at it, Elsa couldn’t help but feel a little excited about the upcoming events. Even her advisors were looking forward to it, and they were never happy about anything.

Looking over the fjord filled to the brim with ships, Elsa took a few deep breaths of the ocean air, allowing its calming and salty breeze to settle her nerves.

I can do this. This is for Anna. Anna and I, but still mostly Anna. As much as she wanted to enjoy the gates being open, she still wouldn’t be what most people would call a “people person”. She left that to her sister.

“There you are!” Speaking of which. Elsa felt the arms of her sister wrap around her shoulders. “Are you excited about the festival?”

Elsa’s eyes drifted from the harbor to the town square where her people were setting up banners, food, tables with goods ready to be sold, and an all around merry atmosphere.

A smile ghosted her lips. “As excited as I’ll ever be.”

Anna gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Oh don’t be like that. This is gonna be a blast and you know it.”

Elsa barked a laugh. “You're just saying that because you're excited for yet another party.”

“Well, the gates are open and we’ve got a lot of time to make up for.”

Elsa reached up and grabbed her sister's arm tenderly. “I know, and little by little we're making up for it.”

“Then let’s go!” Grabbing her by the arm, she tugged, pulling her sister through the castle at top speed and Elsa’s arm from its socket. Before her brain could register what was happening, she found herself in the castle courtyard still being towed behind her sister.

Suddenly Anna stopped. “OH! Before we go too far I have to show you what me and Gerda made.”

“Gerda and I,” Elsa corrected.

“No.” Anna pointed to herself in an exaggerated fashion. “ME! And Gerda.”

Elsa’s expression was as blank as stone and with a deadpan expression she responded. “That joke never gets old.” Anna disappeared back into the castle and with impressive speed, returned only a few moments later.

“We had a bunch of this made up and are being hung around the city.” It was an exquisite banner made from gold, green and purple fabrics with stitchings of the letters GTFO. “What do you think?”

Elsa tilted her head. As much as she loved the banner and her sister’s creative talents, something about it seemed off. Unable to think of it she gave her sister a large wide smile. “It’s beautiful.”

Squealing excitedly, Anna all but sprinted into the town, Elsa making sure to keep her arms behind her back so that Anna didn’t pull them off.

Sure enough the banners were being hung throughout Arendelle, and no matter how many of them she saw, Elsa couldn’t remember what it was that was off about them.

“Good work guys!” she heard Anna say. Kristoff, Sven and Olaf were helping hang the banners over a few of the consignment tents. While Anna gave the boys a hand -and by giving a hand meant barked orders about how they were doing it wrong- Elsa meandered through the town. She nodded and smiled to the various merchants, townsfolk, children, and those visiting from other countries.

After exchanging a few words with someone there from France, out of the corner of her eye she spotted an old friend wandering through the square. She almost didn’t recognize him dressed in a dark green suit, a high collared shirt with a tie, grey trousers and nice black leather shoes. Even his dark brown hair was combed to the side. Had it not been for the glowing teal necklace he wore, she wouldn’t have known it was Drake Daniels, Dragon Knight.

She excused herself from the French dignitary, and made her way to the dragon warrior.

He held his arms behind his back as he aimlessly meandered, clear that he was either lost or wasting time pretending to be interested in what was going on around him. Luckily for him Elsa was closing in, giving him a reprieve from his feigned interests.

He bowed at the waist with his hand over his heart. “Her Majesty honors me with her presence.”

She chuckled at his sarcastic, teasing tone, and with a curtsy responded. “You should be so honored.” He laughed as he stood up straight, his fingers casually tugging at his collar. “Um, what are you wearing?” Elsa asked.

He looked at himself like he had done something wrong. “A suit? Am I not supposed to wear one?”

She shook her head quickly. “No, no, no. It’s just I’ve never seen you so, dressed up?”

He released a breath of relief. “Well. This is a festival. I don’t see the need to be geared up in all my hunting gear. Although,” he lifted his suit a bit to show a belt littered with a variety of pouches, “I never leave the house unprepared.”

“Ha. So much for no hunting gear.”

“Hey! I said ALL my hunting gear. This is only some of it.”

“Some of what?” Seeing that Elsa was chatting with someone, Anna had removed herself from her supervising duties to see what her sister was up to. Her mouth dropped with surprise and she wrapped her arms around his neck. “Drake! It’s so good to see you.”

He returned a gentle friendly hug. “You too, princess.”

“When did you get here?” she asked when they stepped away from each other.

“Well, actually I arrived a few days ago, but I kept myself out of the way so as to not interrupt anything you ladies were doing. And yes, I flew, no boats for me please.”

“Well neat! Now that you're here, you can help us hang these.” Drake looked at the banner she had flashed to him and his smile changed to a twisted, uncomfortable grimace. “What? What is it?”

“Um, heh, you do know what GTFO means right?”

Anna shook her head. “The Great Thaw Festival Observance?” Drake sucked in a breath through his teeth, before leaning forward to whisper into her ear. Anna’s expression changed from confused to downright horrified. “Oh god! KRISTOFF, TAKE THE BANNERS DOWN!!” She sprinted to stop him, leaving Elsa to watch her with her brows lowered.

“What was that?”

Drake couldn’t help but chuckle. “I’ll tell you as we help her take those things down.”

Just as he took his first step, he stopped when he felt a tickle in the back of his neck. He was a monster hunter, who knew never to ignore those hairs. He threw a quick glance at his surroundings, his ears and nose twitching.

This is still a bad idea, Odrikson.

The voice was faint, ghostly, almost ethereal but with a rasp and menacing tone.

Hush, I’m concentrating.

This one was less otherworldly, more grounded but no less hostile. Drake furrowed his brows. “Your Majesty, I’m going to have to check on something real quick.”

Elsa simply shrugged in response. “As you wish,” she answered. “But first, tell me what those lette-” She turned around, noticing the surprising absence of the Dragon Knight. “Huh. Where did he go?”

—:0:—

Drake crossed the main square, the outer city’s rim, then the first glades, and as fast as he moved he was no less on edge. He walked deep into the woods, the two voices following him with impressive stealth. He had to control his pace so as to not go too fast and lose them, or two slowly and alert them.

Where do you think he’s going?

Did mortals get dumber over the millennia or am I just cursed with you?

You know what they say. You can't land a shot you don't take.

I'm sure they say lots of things. You know what they also say? Listen to the Lord of Shadows before doing something reckless.

What intrigued Drake most was the clear absence of footsteps. If it weren’t for the voices exchanging quips every now and then, he wouldn’t have detected them. He stopped in the middle of a clear and open meadow far enough away from the kingdom and turned around.

“Is there something you want from me?” he called loudly.

He’s talking to himself, now. Pff, what a nutjob.

I’m not going to dignify that remark with an answer.

A vein popped on Drake’s forehead at the jab. “You two might as well show yourselves.”

Wait. Two?

“Yeah. Two. The demon and the guy who’s stupid enough to follow me.”

What a surprise.

He can hear me?

“Yes, I can, “ Drake huffed in annoyance. “Now, we gonna do this or what?”

A shadow slithered on the barks, jumping from tree to tree. It approached rapidly, stopping a few feet away from Drake before briskly lifting off the ground, transforming into a black leathered young man holding a dagger in his right hand in a reversed grip. “Your head,” he hissed.

With that, he leaped with incredible speed, aiming at Drake’s neck. The latter barely had time to register that he had moved before he leaned away and felt a vicious snarl below his right ear and his suit ripping out from over his shoulder. He jumped away with a swift step, holding the location where the blade had apparently scratched his skin.

“Okay, first off, this is my only suit that you just tore. So, thanks for that. And what’s this about wanting to kill me?”

The young man slowly walked to the side while twirling his ebony blade between his fingers. “No hard feelings, boy. This is business. When your head rolls to my feet, your reputation will only add to the reverence of my name.”

Drake waited a moment before his head lowered in a “seriously” stare. “I'm sorry, I’m a little slow here. So you’re attacking me... to become famous?”

See?! Even HE knows how stupid your plan is.

Shut up! I’m in the middle of the pre-fight banter.

Drake didn’t wait for an answer. “Well, who are you?”

Eryn slightly puffed his chest out. “Eryn Odrikson! Master assassin and your executioner.”

Drake blinked a few times. “Okay maybe you should kill me, cuz I’ve never heard of you.” He removed his hand from the wound on his shoulder, noting the small specks of blood. “Although this is concerning.” He narrowed his eyes at the dagger in Eryn’s hand. He had never seen anything like it before, nor the writing on the metal, but if it was talking it couldn’t be good.

Drake examined his attacker. “Well, I’ll cut you a deal. Leave now and I won’t kick your ass back to wherever you came from.”

Eryn sneered. “Yeah, how ‘bout—“

—yes!

“—no.”

Drake heaved a sigh. Looking over his shoulder at the kingdom, he knew he really didn’t have time to deal with this, so he might as well end it quickly. “Alright then. There’s no honor in this, but just so you know, you were warned.”

With that, Drake bent forward. The necklace he wore glowed and he let it engulf him in it’s pure blue. He felt his wings grow, his fangs bare and his throat burn. He let out a deafening roar, lifting his now thick and long head to the heavens.

And he’s a dragon now.

I guess this DRAGON Knight is full of surprises.

Why didn’t you tell me he could actually turn into one?!?

The assassin plunged to the side to avoid a spray of ungodly blue-hot fire that left only carbonised grass in its wake.

I know this might sound obvious, but do not let the fire touch you.

Gee, thanks for the advice!

Eryn darted forward at his top speed, avoiding another fiery breath and closing the distance with the dragon’s belly.

Is it...glowing?

Now is not the time, Odrikson!

He prepared a strike, cocking his arm back and twisting his feet to accumulate enough force behind the hit. However, Drake interrupted his attempt in an instant and Eryn had to dodge the heavy and scaly tail that stomped the location he had been in a fraction of a second before. He continued dashing back, closely avoiding a rapid claw aiming at his legs and parrying a hit of that same tail that sent sparks in the air and him flying away. He glided a bit on the slippery soil when he landed, bringing himself low and at the ready should another attack come his way.

I don’t care what it takes, we’re doing it. We’re bringing it down.

It’s a dragon, you moron. You think YOU can take it down?

"Oh, you're gonna burn," the dragon boomed in his enhanced voice before he opened his mouth and sparkles started flying dangerously around it.

Before they could both unleash their wrath, they instinctively brought a claw and a dagger to their sides to deflect arrows that had been aiming at their heads. The two projectiles softly landed in the middle of the space between them. Examining them with curious eyes, they both noticed the pale reflection they were emitting. They were made of crystal ice.

The dragon and the assassin whirled their heads to their left, where a strange man wearing a large maroon coat and a simple traveler’s garb stood with his right arm outstretched. Among the light mist that was surrounding him, his crimson hair stuck out from afar.

A frozen spear appeared in his hand almost instantaneously. He gave it a quick twirl and planted it in the ground below him with a resonating thud.

“Hello there,” Garret simply greeted with a smile. “And here I thought the colonel was making a monkey out of me. Mind if I join in?”

A/N: CallenAmakuni: Hello and first of all thanks for reading! This has been a blast to write - I had lots of fun - and I hope you enjoyed it. We each wrote a part of this chapter and the blend is IMO very harmonious, so I’m very proud of it and us!

Now, a few precisions for those of you who are already familiar with Patience and Time. The Garret you see here is not the same one as the one in PaT. This is an AU - from an AU, yeah, but still - where he is younger and never went to Arendelle before. Everything that happens here will have no repercussions on PaT. See this as a rather self-indulgent Avengers-style crossover where we have fun with our characters.

And if you haven’t already, please go check Snowfall’s Beware The Frozen Heart (both on AO3 and FFN) and Bearhow’s Hungry Moon (on FFN only for now), I assure you it’ll be worth your while!

We’re really excited to bring you what’s coming next. Thanks again, and see you next time!

A/N: Snowfall_In_Summer: I agree, this was incredibly fun to write!

Likewise, for those familiar with “Beware the Frozen Heart,” This is a non canon story to that fic. The Eryn here isn’t the same Eryn that’s in BtFH. If Garret and Drake interest you, check out CallenAmakuni’s Patience and Time and Bearhow’s Hungry Moon series (Like CallenAmakuni said, Hungry Moon is on FFN only for now. Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13314313/1/Hungry-Moon)

Hope you enjoyed this little experiment!

A/N: Bearhow

Bearhow here!

I’d like to echo what my partners in crime have already said m. This was a blast and it's only going to get more amazing as the story goes on. Also this is a different continuity from “Hungry Moon” and “the Snow queen's champion”, but Drake does know our favorite Arendellians.

Enjoy the show!

#original character #frozen fanfiction #OC collab #Eryn Odrikson #Drake Daniels #Garret #blood tw

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cotillion-the-rope · 4 years ago

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Not Hollow Chapter Five: Resting Grounds

I'm still not completely happy with this chapter, specifically the latter half with the Seer, but sometimes you just gotta accept that something ain't gonna be as good as you'd like it to be and just let it be good enough and upload it so you can move on to work on other things instead of continuing to stress about it.

On the way back to the Teacher’s Archive, Hornet filled Quirrel in on the specifics of the situation and what she needed his help with. She didn’t want to share that much information about her siblings and their suffering but Quirrel knowing the specifics might be important to his search. It was best not to takes chances with that kind of thing especially since she didn’t know how much he already knew or had regained memories of. He asked a few clarifying questions but tactfully didn’t press on anything sensitive such as Hornet’s connection to it all which he didn’t need to know.

When they arrived, he wasted no time. “I’d offer to teach you Monomon’s code so you could help but it’d probably take a while so… it might just be faster for me to look by myself,” he said before heading off to get to work, not even giving her time to reply if she’d wanted to.

That left her with nothing to do but wonder the halls with Grimmchild. … Maybe she should free him from the leash and muzzle. … Had he learned his lesson though? She couldn’t say for sure and she didn’t want to risk getting caught in an explosion to test it so no, she’d keep him leashed for now. She’d made sure nothing was tight enough to hurt him or cause any real physical discomfort so he’d be fine as he was for a while longer. If nothing else it should hammer home the point that he shouldn’t attack things that explode when hit and that he should listen the first time when told to do or not do something.

***

Quirrel wanted nothing more than to leave his old life behind, start new and fresh somewhere else. He’d been in the process of trying to get Lemm to join him, mostly for the sake of a companion because he was tired of traveling alone. But it seems, he wasn’t quite done with Hallownest yet.

The vessel, Ghost as Hornet called them, was someone he’d grown to consider a friend. He’d thought they had everything handled, they certainly seemed more than capable enough, but it seems they hadn’t. They’d cracked too. Which was bad enough by itself but Monomon had died to allow them that opportunity to fix the Infection. Quirrel couldn’t let her death be in vain and he couldn’t leave his friend to suffer if he could help it.

And so, he scoured through the Archives, looking for any mention on how to enter the Dream Realm in a way that would allow one to kill a god there. Luckily, despite his spotty memories, his ability to read Monomon’s shorthand was still intact. His vague memories of his time working in these halls came in handy; he knew for sure which places not to look and had some ideas on where to begin.

He started with everything that had been archived about the Dream Realm itself. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, there wasn’t much, certainly nothing even speculating on how to access it. Next he looked into the Radiance herself because the Dream Realm was her domain. There was a lot more about her, more than even Hornet had told him on the way up here. Though he quickly found out that most of it had to do with research done on the Infection and how to contain her in a vessel. He’d have to shift through that to find anything else. It’d take a while but he didn’t have any other leads. At least it was an interesting topic.

***

“I found something!” Quirrel called as he rounded the corner into the hallway Hornet was headed down. That had taken longer than she would’ve liked but not as long as it could’ve.

She picked up her pace to quickly met up with him. “What is it?” She didn’t dare get her hopes up too high yet but hopefully he’d found something substantial.

“Well uh… it’s not a huge lead and might actually be a dead end now that I think about it,” well, wasn’t that just great? “but… there was apparently a tribe of moths that used to worship the Radiance before the Pale King arrived in Hallownest. There were rumors that they had a way of reading people’s minds and entering the Dream Realm. Alas, there’s not any information on how they did that or even if it’s true or really much about them at all. So uh… I might’ve gotten a bit excited over nothing substantial. It is rather fascinating though, so if nothing else at least we learned more of Hallownest’s past.”

Hornet had heard of the moth tribe before of course but never known that they had a way of supposedly entering the Dream Realm. If she had, her earlier connection about Ghost gaining that ability after she’d lost track of them of them in Crystal Peak would’ve lead her to a different part of Hallownest. “Actually, that might be huge,” she said. It might not be but she was tired of wondering the Archive’s halls regardless.

“Uh… really?”

Not bothering to reply, she took off towards the exit, trusting him to follow or not as he pleased. She just wanted out of here and to finally doing something again.

As much as she was in a rush, she did pause outside Fog Canyon to finally free Grimmchild of the thread. He’d been tethered and muzzled more than long enough and they would hopefully not have to venture back into Fog Canyon any time soon.

As soon as he was free, he hissed at her before flying in a large circle, spitting a few fireballs at nothing. He then flew back to start hovering behind Quirrel’s shoulder as he caught up with her. She was his aunt and he had the audacity to follow someone else just because she’d rightfully disciplined him? … Let him then, she didn’t care.

“Ah, hello little Grimm,” Quirrel said with small hand wave. “Nice of you to join me. Now uh… Hornet, I’d appreciate an explanation. The moth tribe is long gone so even if they could…”

“They have graveyard,” Hornet interrupted. “And I’m almost one hundred percent positive Ghost went there during the time period they gained the ability to travel to the Dream Realm.”

“Oh uh… yeah, I guess that’s a good lead then.”

Without further word, Hornet took off again.

Hornet had been to the Resting Grounds before of course – she’d had a long time to explore all of Hallownest – but she’d never really thought much of it. It was a graveyard of bugs she’d never known, what could there possibly be here that would be of interest to her? Nothing unless there was something here that could get her into the Dream Realm. She didn’t fancy the idea of graverobbing to get it but she’d do what she had to.

First, she had to wait for Quirrel and Grimmchild to catch up. Which thankfully they did fairly quickly.

“Are we going to be digging up graves?” Quirrel asked. “If so, we might want to go get some shovels first.” Well, he apparently didn’t mind the thought of doing such a thing so at least they wouldn’t be having an argument about it if it was necessary.

“I don’t know yet, let’s just explore the place some first.” Hornet resumed walking, going much slower now. She wanted to continue rushing but she didn’t know what they were looking for so slow going and careful examination along the way it was. “Tell me if you spot anything interesting, you too Grimmchild.”

Looking much more closely than she ever had before during her brief prior visits, Hornet couldn’t help but notice that the graves, though old enough for the lettering to be starting to wear away on more than a few of them, seemed to be well tended. Odd, why would anyone bother to take care the graves of a people long gone? Especially in a kingdom so devoid of life. … It also had to mean someone lived nearby that Hornet didn’t know about, right? A discomforting notion considering how long she’d watched over the land while thinking she knew of everyone who inhabited it.

Eventually after reaching and climbing most of the way up a vertical cavern, it was starting to look like they weren’t going to find anything without doing some digging. She was not looking forward to digging up a bunch of graves. She was determined though so…

“Ah, about time you should up!”

Hornet jumped, whipping out her needle to point at… a little old moth using a cane to walk as she approached out of the shadows of a smaller cave. She looked harmless but one could never know for sure so Hornet didn’t dare lower her needle yet.

“I’ve been expecting you,” the old moth continued, seemingly unphased by the needle pointed in her direction.

“Who are you?” Hornet didn’t like this. “And what do you mean you’ve been ‘expecting’ us?”

“You can just call me Seer. And what else could I mean by ‘I’ve been expecting you’ than exactly that? I knew Hallownest’s princess would find her way here eventually. You’re looking for a way to access the Dream Realm, correct?”

Hornet flinched a little, she didn’t like someone knowing who she was and what her goals were when she knew next to nothing about them. Before she could reply though, Quirrel stepped forward to stand beside her.

“Yep, that’s what we’re here for,” he said, seemingly unbothered by this whole situation. “I’m Quirrel, this is Hornet, and this,” he pointed up to Grimmchild still hovering just behind him, “is Grimmchild. We’re looking for a way to enter the Dream Realm so we can kill the Radiance. She’s been causing problems for far too long and there’s a friend of ours that we wish to save from her. I assume since you know what we’re looking for, you can help, right?”

“Yes, I can. Follow me.” Seer turn and started back into her cave.

Quirrel started following her with no hesitation. With a sigh, Hornet forced herself to relax and sheathe her needle at last and follow suit. She was still not a fan of this situation but it probably wasn’t dangerous and if this did lead to a way to kill the Radiance, putting up with it would be more than worth it.

Inside the cave was obviously Seer’s home. Most of the space was taken up by a nest of pillows that the Seer had already settled on. Quirrel sat down in front of her, resting his nail down on the ground beside him, he kept a hand near its hilt though so he wasn’t quite as nonchalant about all this as he seemed on the surface. Grimmchild settled on the pillows, the furthest from the Seer though so he wasn’t completely chill either. Hornet however was far too anxious to sit down so she stayed standing for now.

“How do get into the Dream Realm?” she asked as Seer started pulling out a tea set as if she were planning on serving them tea of all things.

Unphased, Seer continued her tea preparations. “The most efficient way to get into the Dream Realm for the purposes you wish to enter is by using a Dream Nail on an unconscious or near-unconscious bug.”

“Great, where do we get one?”

“Or two,” Quirrel added. “I’ve already come this far in this quest, I’d like to continue if possible.”

“I can give you each one but only in the Dream Realm.”

“That doesn’t help much then.” Hornet didn’t bother trying to hide her displeasure.

“No need to get feisty dear, that’s what the tea is for. I said the Dream Nail is the most efficient way into the Dream Realm, not the only way.”

“So, you’re going to drug us?” Hornet interrupted before she could say more. That wasn’t a pleasant idea but… there probably wasn’t any other choice.

“Yes. It’s mostly harmless though, you should come out the other side feeling nothing but a little groggy. My people used it frequently with little consequence.”

“Your people being the old moth tribe that worshipped the Radiance?” Quirrel asked, seemingly more fascinated by that than the fact that Seer was planning on drugging them.

“Yes. I’m the last.” Suddenly Seer sounded a lot more somber.

Like with Hornet, Quirrel had the tact not to press any further, staying silent instead. Holding back a sigh, Hornet lowered herself to sit beside him.

“Watch her while I do this,” she said. “Make sure she doesn’t do anything she’s not supposed to while I sleep.”

“Hmm… I’d love to but, like I said, I’d like this Dream Nail thing too. How can I assist in killing the Radiance without one after all?”

Hornet was tempted to object; perhaps she didn’t need his help with that part after all but… even if she didn’t want to admit it, she might. Killing a god wasn’t something to be taken lightly after all. And besides, he had very good reason to want the Radiance dead too; he’d been close to Monomon – in what way Hornet wasn’t sure but definitely very close – he wouldn’t want her death to be in vain just like how Hornet didn’t want Herrah’s to be. And the questions he’d asked about Ghost while she’d explained things to him suggested he was fond of them and possibly even consider them a friend. So she couldn’t deny his help, when he was actively offering it.

“Little Grimm can watch over us though, can’t you buddy?” he continued looking over at Grimmchild on the pillows, watching the three of them. He chirped what sounded like an affirmative in reply.

“Good,” the Seer cut in. “With that settled, it’s nearly tea time.”

Hornet rarely remembered her dreams and even when she did, they were never vivid. But here, if she didn’t know better she’d think she was still awake. She was standing on a platform, floating in a bright sky and surrounded by clouds.

“This place is actually quite lovely.”

She snapped around to see that Quirrel was standing beside her. Which actually made sense, they’d come here together so why wouldn’t they remain so. Grimmchild was flying just behind him though.

“Grimmchild, you’re supposed to be keeping watch,” Hornet said, giving him a stern look.

Grimmchild paused for a second before turning to look at her. He then made an apologetic sounding chirp before vanishing, leaving behind a few red symbols in the air that quickly faded too. As suspected though, he could come in and out of the Dream Realm as he pleased.

“Now let’s figure out what we’re supposed to do.” Hornet grabbed Quirrel’s wrist again and started dragging him towards the edge of the platform. Before the reached it another one appeared a short distance away. They both easily made the jump and the next one after that and so on until they reached a platform with a glowing moth on it, presumably Seer even if it didn’t look much like her.

“Here,” she said. “It’s long past time this stasis came to an end.” She lifted her arms and two bundles of light shaped like nails appeared before them.

Without hesitation, Quirrel grabbed the hilt of his. He vanished with a flash of light, presumably returning to the waking world. Not letting herself hesitate, Hornet followed suit; there weren’t any other options available.

She woke feeling rather groggy and sluggish, looking up at Quirrel standing over her. Wordlessly he held out a hand, offering to help her stand up. She wouldn’t normally accept such an offer but whatever, they were allies in this so she might as well.

Back on her feet, she glanced around the cave. They were in the exact same spot they’d been in when they’d gone to sleep. Seer was there too, looking up at them.

Hornet reached for the Dream Nail, instinctively knowing there was no physical component to it, making it more a spell than anything else. She still wasn’t sure how to use it but asking Seer to explain the ins and outs of it shouldn’t take too long. Then they’d be off to kill the Radiance at long last.

#My writing #hollow knight #Hornet & Quirrel #the Seer

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clarenecessities · 5 years ago

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Widow

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Word Count: 4093 Summary: When Papillon tries to akumatize Chat Noir, Ladybug gets in the way. No one is prepared for the consequences.

(A what-if fic of Chat Blanc, wherein Ladybug is akumatized instead).

baby’s first one shot

read on AO3

She had barely made it to the rooftops before a hole opened up in the sky.

“Bunnix?” she managed, gaping, as the older version of Alix emerged from the portal. “What are—”

“No time!” she said, somewhat paradoxically, ushering Ladybug into the portal. “Come with me, quick! You have to fix this!”

“Fix wh—whoa!” said Ladybug, stumbling into the burrow. She listened to Alix with half an ear, mostly absorbed in the windows through time. “Wow!”

“Focus!” said Alix, snapping in front of her eyes. She produced a bowl from somewhere, using it as a makeshift blindfold. “You can’t look at any of this. You could mess up the timeline.”

“Right,” she said sheepishly. “What am I fixing?”

“This.”

Alix led her, still blindfolded, through one of the windows. She kept her eyes closed, determined not to see something she wasn’t supposed to, until Alix gently removed the bowl from her head, and revealed—

Revealed—

The whole world was green. They were in an area she barely recognized as Montparnasse, skyscrapers held together by twisting trees like banyan vines made of steel and glass. The air was muggy and hot around her, uncomfortable even in her suit, and below them…

Below them, Paris was gone.

“What happened?” she gasped. Alix shook her head, grim, and pointed down, to the forest below. She could just make out the outline of the Seine through the canopy.

“I have to go,” said Alix, waving her suddenly-incorporeal hand through her face as explanation and stepping back towards her burrow. “Please, Minibug, fix this.”

“But—”

The burrow closed, replaced by miles of green.

For a jungle, it was deathly silent. She wrapped her yoyo around a branch, rappelling down the side of the building and contemplating the uneasy stillness. She hadn’t been to many jungles, true, but—there should be noise, right? Bird calls, the drone of insects, leaves rustling as wildlife stampeded through. But all she could hear was the creaking of wood and her own feet tapping off the side of cracked windows.

Whatever Alix wanted her to find, it was down there somewhere.

She slowed her descent as she breeched the canopy, landing on one of the highest branches that could support her weight to scout out what she was dealing with. Hopefully Alix would be back with Chat Noir soon; whatever this was about, it wouldn’t be easy.

Huge furrows and craters lined the forest floor, like an animal had been digging in a frenzy only to become distracted and begin again. Some of the shorter trees had been ripped up, and a few larger ones had strange pockmarks at their bases.

She slid the rest of the way to the ground, carefully inspecting the bole of an especially huge tree, holding her fist out to compare heights.

Someone had punched a tree the size of a building into woodchips.

She looked up sharply at the sound of shifting dirt, dropping into a crouch on instinct alone.

Slowly, as slowly as she dared, she crept across the uneven ground, careful not to disturb what few leaves remained. The dirt was strangely bare of them, as if the leaves hadn’t had a chance to fall beyond whatever fresh ones had been knocked loose by a superpowered blow.

Someone was digging.

Frantically, but methodically, dirt was being hurled backwards out of a gaping hole in the earth. Ladybug inched nearer, craning her neck to see who—or what—was creating this strange, pocketed landscape.

It was a human, or least shaped like one. Dressed mostly in black, with black hair falling in a curtain in front of their face and no shovel in sight, whomever it was seemed to be digging by hand. Was it an akuma? Could they be reasoned with? What were they looking for?

Ladybug grimaced. If it was an akuma, she’d never find out what to break just watching them dig. From the way Alix had been acting, there probably wasn’t time to wait on Chat.

“Excuse me,” she called. The figure went rigid, hands curled into a loose approximation of claws as loam slid between its frozen fingers to the ground. “Who are you?”

The figure turned slowly, wiping their hair out of their face, and—

But—

That was… her?

She had the same domino mask, though it too was stained black, and her hair was loose, but that was definitely her. There was a strange, sharp red hourglass splayed across her torso, partially obscured by mud.

“Ladybug,” she said, strangely emotionless. “I thought you might come. I am Black Widow.”

“But I—you—what happened?” Ladybug stammered, eyes skating over her, struggling to understand.

Black Widow laughed, high and cold. “What do you think happened? You ruined everything, and now you’re going to make it worse.”

Ladybug flinched back. “What?”

She climbed out of the hole she’d been digging, stomping over to Ladybug, who scrambled to her feet. “You. Ruined. Everything. If you had just—just listened to Chat, or Tikki, or your heart, we wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be—this.”

“Black Widow, what happened?” she asked desperately. “Where did the trees come from? How did you get akumatized?”

“I protected him,” she bit out. “He’s saved me so many times, and what did I ever—I never—”

Unexpectedly, she swiped at the air, and Ladybug had to dive to avoid being wrapped in the string of Black Widow’s yoyo.

“Get out of here!” she screamed at Ladybug, stamping her foot. “You can’t fix this! You can’t fix me!”

“Let me help you,” Ladybug pleaded. “I don’t—I don’t understand. Who did you protect?”

“Chat,” said Black Widow, mood shifting abruptly. She shrank in on herself, tears filling her eyes. “He was… I was trying to protect him.”

“Wh—”

“I was trying to protect him. I can fix this myself. Get out of here, Ladybug.” Her mouth twisted unpleasantly around the name, like it had a bad taste. “I don’t want to look at the face of the one who killed him.”

“Killed—?” Ladybug started, breaking off when Black Widow unleashed another blow from her yoyo. She tumbled out of the way, barely safe, and had just rolled back to her feet when she was slammed against a tree trunk by a giant… chess piece?

“What?” she wheezed, wriggling free of the knight’s lance. “I thought your theme was spiders. What’s up with that?”

“I don’t need a theme,” said Black Widow. “I have all the powers of creation. Did you think only destruction could end the world? Everything exists in a delicate balance, and I,” she stepped forward, yoyo scything menacingly through the air, “upset it.”

“You can’t,” said Ladybug, glaring at her as she got back on her feet. “I’m you—you’ll die.”

“You’re not me,” said Black Widow curtly. “You’re an ignorant little bug that’s gotten herself wrapped in a spider’s web. You don’t even know who you’re in love with.”

“Yes I do!” Ladybug protested instantly. Not this again. She loved Adrien! Not Chat!

“You don’t know what it—what it feels like,” said Black Widow, arms wrapping around the hourglass on her stomach as if it were an open wound. “To be in love. To see his—his own father—”

“What are you talking about?” asked Ladybug, taking another step towards her, reaching automatically to comfort someone in pain. Black Widow didn’t look at her, eyes welling with tears again.

“I admired him. I thought—you think—he’s—he doesn’t deserve it,” she bit out as the tears began to overflow. Vines curled from the ground where they fell, and Ladybug took a step back. “His own son—and he knew—”

“Black Widow,” Ladybug said slowly, “Listen to me. You need to calm down. If you let me cleanse the akuma, we can fix all of this. We can—we can bring him back. We’ve done it before, right?”

“Not when it’s my fault,” moaned Black Widow, curling in on herself further. “Go away. I’m going to fix this myself, and if you try to stop me, I’ll—I’ll kill you.”

Ladybug blanched. “But I’m you,” she stressed again.

“If you die, then none of it will ever happen,” said Black Widow, finally looking up at her. “And—and if you cleanse the akuma, none of it will ever happen. So it doesn’t make a difference to me. I’m going to fix it.”

“But—”

She didn’t get more than a word out before the yoyo sliced towards her again, this time scattering a spray of blades that she only just managed to avoid. Tendrils of something red and threatening writhed from the ground like maggots, growing swiftly into pillars and vines that all seemed trained on her.

“Time out!” called Ladybug, running full tilt from the storm enveloping the trees behind her. “Time out time out time out!”

She tripped on something and went down hard, only to look up and find herself in the burrow, Alix and a confused-looking Chat Noir frowning down at her.

“My lady?” asked Chat, moving immediately to help her up.

“I should have figured,” said Alix, grimacing. “It’s always like this with you two. Do you know where the akuma is?”

“I—I think it’s in her yoyo,” said Ladybug, accepting her partner’s hand. “Chat, listen—how much did Bunnix tell you?”

“Purractically nothing,” he said, with an exaggerated shrug. She didn’t have it in her to pull her hand free just yet. “Just that you needed my help. That was enough for me!”

“Well—you might not be crazy about how,” said Ladybug, frowning to herself as she looked him over. There. He wasn’t dead. Maybe—maybe in Black Widow’s timeline, but—her Chat was okay. He was here. He was okay. “It seems I’ve been akumatized.”

“What?” gasped Chat, drawing back to look her over, hands resting on her shoulders as if searching for a butterfly. “But, Ladybug—”

“In an alternate timeline,” she said wearily. “Or at least, it had better be alternate. I kind of destroyed Paris.”

“What? What could have—why would you—”

“Oh, and apparently you’re dead!” she added, laughing a little hysterically. His hands tightened around her biceps, and a complicated play of emotions washed over his face. “So that’s—that’s going to be upsetting, for everyone.”

“How can I help?” he asked. His expression wasn’t something she’d call serious (Chat was never ‘serious’) but it was definitely determined. She could always count on him.

As long as he was alive.

“I… am not sure,” she said carefully, pulling him a little closer in spite of herself, arms snaking around his waist. “She won’t listen to me. She keeps… changing moods, changing subjects, until I’m not sure who she’s talking about anymore. I think maybe seeing you will help keep her focused long enough to be predictable.”

“Maybe?”

“Well, she could freak out and kill you.” Yeah, she was definitely getting hysterical. She thunked her forehead against Chat’s chest. “Promise you won’t let her kill you while you’re trying to think of a pickup line, okay?”

“I purromise.”

Good old Chat. His puns always did get worse when he was nervous.

“Are you not coming with me?” he asked gently, no expectation. She shook her head.

“I’m going to wait here in case… in case. Is that okay, Al—Bunnix?”

Alix shrugged wordlessly, the picture of stress.

“Time for Plan C,” said Chat, squaring his shoulders and pulling away from her, moving towards the window she’d tumbled out of. “The C is for cat.”

“The C is for Can’t Believe It’s Come to This,” muttered Alix as he joined the timeline in a ripple of magic, rubbing her temples. “Ladybug, put the bowl back on. No spoilers.”

********************************

Chat wasn’t sure what he had expected when Ladybug said she ‘destroyed Paris’, but this—wasn’t it.

A forest sprawled in front of him, with trees so huge he didn’t understand how they could support their own weight. Green curled from every surface, except long furrows in the earth and a series of blades embedded in a tree trunk, in a shape that suspiciously mirrored Ladybug’s own stature.

Nothing for it, then: Time to turn on the charm.

“My lady!” he called, swallowing back his apprehension, ready to run at the slightest sound. And there it was—a faint rustling in the bushes.

The akuma that was once Ladybug didn’t look especially menacing, as akuma went. No fangs or extra limbs, no furious scowl. She looked nice—pretty, even. Her hair was down, and her eyes were still that beautiful sky blue, and they were wide with apparent shock as she stumbled blindly towards him.

“Chat?” she asked, barely above a whisper. He grinned at her, going for reassuring.

“Ladybug,” he said warmly, raising his arms to fend off the inevitable blow.

He was still too slow to dodge when she hurled herself into him, having been expecting a yoyo, or perhaps one of those large knives she could apparently make on command.

She wrapped her arms around him, squeezing so hard he was briefly worried she was trying to snap him in half, her face buried in his chest. She was mumbling something unintelligible into his sternum.

“I didn’t quite catch that,” he said gently, allowing his arms to settle around her shoulders. This… wasn’t so bad, actually. He could always use a hug. Maybe she actually could be reasoned with. Ladybug was always the more rational member of their partnership.

“I thought I’d never see you again,” she said more clearly, looking up at him, and oh. She was crying. “I thought—I thought I—”

“My lady, it’s alright,” he said, as soft as he could. He rubbed her shoulder blade with the side of his thumb, careful not to catch his claws in her loose hair. “I’m here now. I’m not going anywhere, not now and not ever.”

When she loosened her grip, he wasn’t sure what to expect. Maybe an attack, but she didn’t seem—aggressive. Just desperately sad and remorseful of what she’d done, however accidentally.

He wasn’t expecting her to grab his face and pull him into a kiss.

He definitely wasn’t expecting to like it.

His eyes closed almost automatically, leaning into her embrace. It shouldn’t feel good to kiss an akuma, right? They should have cold lips, or venomous spit, or something, but all he felt was warm and soft and she even smelled like Ladybug still. And she was cradling his jaw so gently, and it was everything he’d ever wanted, but—

But she needed his help.

Breaking away felt like coming up for air after being underwater. The humidity, which had been uncomfortable before, felt cold and bracing against his skin where he could feel a blush spreading over his cheeks. His eyelids were so heavy—and when he opened them and saw her face, it took everything he had not to just pull her into another kiss.

“Ladybug,” he managed, after he remembered how to speak. “We need to cleanse the akuma.”

Hurt flashed across her face, always so open, painting the tears still rolling down her cheeks in a different light. Chat ached to apologize, but—they needed to. They had to fix this. There would be time for kissing later.

“No,” she said, her hands trailing down his jaw, his neck, his shoulders, all the way down until their hands were joined. Chat shivered. “We need to fix this first.”

“What? But—”

He cut himself off abruptly as she yanked on his ring, nearly getting it off his finger before he sprang back. Now it was his turn to be hurt.

“Ah,” he said, trying to smile the shock and betrayal away. “So it was just to distract me, huh? That’s fair. You always were great with plans.”

She wiped the tears off her face, but she still looked—broken. Like the world had ended.

Well. It sort of had.

“Don’t be stupid,” she said thickly. “I’ve been in love with you since practically the day we met.”

Chat blinked, stupidly.

“I’m from your future, remember?” she asked, laughing. She turned her face to the sky, as if she could keep the tears in her eyes with gravity alone. “We’re—we were dating.”

“Then—in the future, you—you love me back?” he heard himself ask, as though from far away.

“I told you,” she said, smiling at him, and he’d never seen a smile look so miserable before, “I already do. I’ve always loved you, Adrien.”

Chat stiffened, ears going flat against his head. He wanted to deny it, to protect his identity, but—

But—

“Don’t you see?” she pleaded, stepping towards him. “If you cleanse the akuma, we’ll forget. I’ll forget who you are, all the time we spent together. I’ll forget about—about—”

She faltered, expression darkening as she seemed to be suddenly overcome with fury.

“I’ll forget about your father.”

“My father?” asked Chat. He’d been holding his breath. That probably wasn’t good for him. “Uh—what about my father?”

“Specifically? That I tried to kill him.”

“You wh—”

“I mean, I guess technically I did kill him,” she said, perfectly casual under her scowl, as if she wasn’t pulling the world out from under him. “But that was—that was a mistake. If you want, we can bring him back too.”

“But why would you kill my father?” asked Chat. He felt a bit like he’d been clubbed over the head. “Why did—is that why you were akumatized? He made you angry…?”

Her scowl deepened, until her entire face was contorted with fury. “He made me a lot of things, yes, but—I wasn’t his target. I thought… I thought I could save you, for once.”

“You—Papillon was after me?” asked Chat, tail lashing. Ladybug had been right, she was so hard to keep up with when her mood changed. Whose target? His father’s, or Papillon’s?

“You were so scared, and he just—he just kept going,” she continued, ignoring him completely. “He kept trying to make you listen, and when you wouldn’t he tried to force you, and I couldn’t—I couldn’t just stand there and let him—”

“Ladybug,” he said, raising his hands pleadingly. “Slow down, who are you talking about? Papillon thought he could—”

“You’re always saving me,” she whispered, the fury abruptly melting off her face, and she just looked drained, now. “But I’m not Ladybug anymore, Chat. I’m Black Widow. It was my turn to save you.”

“Well, now it’s my turn again!” He stepped towards her, hands still raised, encouraged when she didn’t flinch away. “Please, my lady. You must be so tired. Let me help you.”

“You can’t,” she insisted. “Adrien, you can’t. You’ll be alone again—you’ll be stuck in that stupid house and—and—”

“And you’re alone right now,” he said, taking her hand in both of his. “Do you think I could leave you in this world to bear this weight alone? Come back with me. I found you once; I can do it again.”

“But everything—everything we had will be erased. I can’t let that happen, Chat. If you just give me your ring, I can fix it. I can put everything back how it was, and we’ll be together again, and I can tell you how sorry I am, and how much I love you—”

How could the sweetest words he’d ever heard hurt so much? He felt like he was being torn in two.

“Listen,” he said softly, clutching her hand tighter. “It’s like—it’s like a save file in a video game. Just because you erase it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. You might not remember, but I will. I’ll remember everything you’ve told me, and I—I won’t be alone.” His voice cracked. “With your words to keep me safe? Never.”

“It’s not a save file,” she murmured, leaning her forehead against his chest, body swaying. “It’s my whole life, Chat. I’d be erased.”

“But if I give you the ring, what happens to me?”

She flinched against him, arms curling up between them. He dropped her hand to wrap his arms around her shoulders protectively.

“Right,” she said, as if just remembering. “It can only be one timeline. Only you or me.”

And if it were that easy, he would give himself up in a heartbeat. But all of Paris was at stake—all of the world, maybe. He didn’t have all of the information, but he had enough to know that he couldn’t throw his life away for once.

But how was he supposed to choose between everything he’d ever wanted and the whole world?

There was really only one way.

“It’s your decision, Ladybug. I trust you,” he murmured into her hair, holding her closer.

She took a deep, shuddering breath against him, then drew away, taking his hand.

The one with the ring.

Her face was running through expressions so quickly he couldn’t even begin to parse them, but a thread of agonizing guilt seemed to psuh through.

“It’s okay,” he whispered. “I trust you.”

“And it’ll get you killed if you aren’t careful.” She pressed her yoyo—sharper than her usual one, almost an hourglass itself—into his hand. “Alright, Chat Noir—go save me one more time. Just…”

She stared into his eyes for a long, searching moment, and he held his breath.

“Just remember that I love you, okay? Remember that you aren’t alone. You and I were made for each other.”

His throat suddenly too thick for words, he nodded.

“And tell Ladybug to beat up your dad, okay? He really, really deserves it.”

“I’m not going to do that, my lady,” he chuckled.

“I hope… I hope you find out differently, next time. What he’s like.” She turned her head away, expression shuttering off. “It’s selfish, but—I don’t think I should tell you. I don’t want to see that look on your face ever again.”

He crooked a finger under her chin, turning her face back towards his so she could see his smile.

“Thank you, Ladybug,” he said sincerely. “Thank you for saving me.”

*************************

“One yoyo, for the lucky lady in red,” said Chat’s voice.

Ladybug tore the bowl from her head, leaping to her feet. “Chat! Are you okay? Did she hurt you?”

“Only emotionally,” said Chat, with a big grin and a thumbs up. “Say, you never told me you were in love with me.”

“That’s because I’m not,” she groaned, taking the yoyo when he offered it. “Seriously, are you okay? You look…”

He looked like he’d been crying, but he didn’t have any noticeable bruising. Didn’t seem to be impaled on anything. No blood that she could see.

“Dashing? Debonair?” he asked, flexing, tail curling into a heart behind him.

“Better than I did, I guess,” she sighed. “Did you sneak up on her?”

“No. She gave it to me.”

“Oh my god,” muttered Alix, running a hand over her masked face. “You two are going to be the death of me.”

“She gave it to you?” Ladybug asked incredulously.

“It’s happened before! Nino’s little brother—” he started.

“She tried to turn me into an entomology project!”

“It must have been my irresistible charm and good looks,” said Chat, preening.

“I’m just glad you’re okay. I was really…” she trailed off, watching him pose theatrically. “I was really worried about you, Chat.”

He stopped, blinking in surprise, and gave her his softest, sincerest smile.

“Don’t worry, my lady,” he said. “I’m right here.”

“I guess I had better go take care of whatever started this in the first place before I cast the cure,” said Ladybug. She sighed to herself; she had a feeling she knew what that might be. “Are you going to be alright?”

“I am,” he said, nodding. She almost believed him, but the red rims of his eyes stood out against the green. As hard as it was for her to see that, it must have been even harder on him—he was in a future where he died, for crying out loud.

She threw her arms around him, just to feel the confirmation that he was there, and breathing. “Bien joue, Chaton,” she murmured into his chest.

He wrapped his arms around her, and she could hear the smile in his voice when he said, “Bien joue, my lady.”

#miraculous ladybug #chat blanc #chat blanc spoilers #uh #mlb #clare's writing #damn how do tags work

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ginnyzero · 4 years ago

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Completely Harmless Ch. 40

Completely Harmless An SSO SilverGlade Re-imagining Story (Or Fix it Fan Salt fic) By Ginny O.

When Lily and her friends wanted to buy horses and were directed to the Silverglade Manor and its myriad of problems, they didn’t expect to start a revolution. They were just a bunch a stable girls. Completely harmless. Right?

A/N: Things are only canon if I say they’re canon. Pre-Saving the Moorland Stables compliant for the most part. Posted in its entirety on my website. Posted in 2000 to 4000 word bits here. Rated T for Swearing Word Count 177,577

Chapter Forty Onward to Firfall!

Lily nodded at the foreman of the North Link site and looked curiously past him at what they were doing in the hills. It looked like a tunnel. Hadn’t there been a perfectly fine road around here? She pursed her lips and shrugged. There was too many boxes and debris for her to really tell what was going on.

“What do you want now?”

“To give you payment for work with actual permits,” Lily said. “And cookies.”

The foreman’s brow furrowed. “Are you trying to bribe me?”

“Fresh baked cardamom cookies,” Lily opened the box and waved them towards him. “I mean, I can eat them all myself.” She reached into the box.

“No!” The foreman shouted and then flushed catching himself. “What do you need?” His eyes strayed to the cookie box with longing.

“Bulldozers and excavators. We’ve got skips on route from Jorvik City. We need equipment.”

The foreman rubbed the back of his neck. “I can’t keep loaning you our equipment.”

“Then no cookies,” Lily pouted and shut the box getting ready to tuck it back in her saddlebag.

“Where?” The foreman barked.

“North of Dundull,” Lily smirked. She had him now. “The road to Firfall has had an avalanche. We want you to help dig it out for shillings and cookies.”

He plucked at his lip and eyed the box of cookies. “That is more than one box of cookies type of job.”

“How many boxes?” Lily asked.

“Ten,” the foreman said firmly.

“Done,” Lily grinned. She handed over the box in her hands. “We’ll lead your men there. Linda, come give this guy half his payment!”

Linda was on the phone with the Baroness. She handed over a sack of shillings to the foreman. “Other half on completion of the work,” she said as she nodded to whatever the Baroness was saying.

The foreman took the shillings, juggling the box of cookies into his other arm.

“Do you want your cookies now, or would you like to wait until we stop for lunch?” Lily asked. “Ten boxes of cookies is quite a bit.”

The foreman bit his lip. “I’ll wait,” he said as he rummaged in the box and ate half a cookie in one bite. His eyes rolled upwards. “I’ll go get the men together,” he said around the cookie and jogged off.

They made quite a parade as they left North Link, turned east at Silverglade Village, and crossed the bridge to get to the Fire Path to head towards Mistfall. The Silver Drakes on their horses were in front and to the sides of the machines. The Baroness’ car and Bjorn’s truck followed in the rear.

Meeting the Flying Foxes near Dundull, they turned North up what was little more than a logging road. At the site, there were several Rangers. They weren’t happy to see the G.E.D. uniforms. But there were several skips already in place for the debris.

Agnetha got out of her truck and revved her chainsaw. “Girls, latch onto the bushes and drag them away as I cut,” she said.

The girls took ropes out of their bags and the work began. The bulldozers treads were able to get up and over the broken stones and dirt and pushed it towards southern Mistfall. From there, the excavators picked it up to dump it into the skips. If there were bushes or brambles, Agnetha and Bjorn took them with their chainsaws, while the girls dragged them to the skips and dumped them in.

They broke for lunch. The Silver Drakes brought out the promised cookies for the G.E.D. workers.

After lunch, they went back to work. By evening, the Baroness was able to drive through Rovar’s Gap. The lights of the car hitting the forest trees on the other side.

Linda paid them and it was another odd parade back to North Link.

The Baroness insisted on inspecting the North Link work site herself. After being given cookies, and being paid a fair amount for a day’s labor, the foreman couldn’t refuse her. Not that it was wise to refuse Baroness Silverglade. They were right next to her lands and if she cared to not look the other way, they’d be gone like the oil field was gone. And they well knew it.

The road continued northwards as it should while G.E.D. were digging into the mountain towards the west. Their equipment and the debris from the tunnel blocked the road more than their excavations did.

The Baroness gave the foreman a look and ordered him to keep his workings to one side of the road so people could pass and put one of the trainees on directing the traffic. She would send someone back to make sure her orders were being obeyed.

The foreman didn’t bother trying to bluster. He hung his head, nodded, and that was that.

It had been an interesting day. Maybe they’d get some answers tomorrow about what had happened by the Weeping Widow. But no one was betting on it.

Pauline made a schedule about who was to take care of Techno each day. It was another addition to their daily chores. Not that any of them minded. Techno was a friendly dog who enjoyed the horses’ company.

The contractors were setting the walls up onto the footings they’d put into the concrete floor when they’d poured it. This apparently required a small crane. Things were moving right along and the Riding Arena hadn’t been vandalized for the second day in a row.

The grapes took priority over Firfall though. They spent the morning helping Agnetha spray the moldy grape vines (masks on, safety first) and planting roses at the end of each row of grapes. Like Agnetha had explained to the Baroness, the roses were more sensitive to fungus and rot and the like, so they’d be affected by any blight before the grapes. They’d just have to be inspected.

“Like everything else,” Elsa drawled.

Once the grapes, the Manor’s livelihood, were done. They took the transport to Dundull so they could ride up to Firfall with the Flying Foxes.

The road was long and littered with logs.

“We’ll have to clear those,” Sonja said. “If we want traffic between the towns.”

Lily nodded.

The road went between two lakes and between those lakes and another one to the north, they found the town of Firfall nestled in a fir forest. It had stone houses with large logs as bracers. In fact, it reminded Lily of a mix between Valedale and Firgrove architecture. Though it had a Tudor flair to it that those two villages lacked.

There was a stable of course.

The stable master waved at them and introduced herself as Genevieve Goldtooth. “Welcome to Firfall! You’re the first visitors we’ve had in an age.”

“That’s what happens when Rovar’s Gap has an avalanche over the winter,” Sonja said. “I’m Sonja, this is Luciana and Rania. We’re of the Dundell Flying Foxes Riding Club.” She gestured at the rest of them. “And these are our friends the Silver Drakes Riding Club.”

“Lily,” Lily said and held out her hand. “I’ll let the others make their own introductions.”

“My, there are a lot of you,” Genevieve murmured looking at them all dazed.

“Well, we’ve never been to Firfall,” Lily said cheerfully. She sobered. “Actually, as much as we’d love to explore your village. I’m here on a job from the Baroness. Dark Core has an illegal mine site to the mountains north of here. We’re worried that their dumping is putting toxins into the water. I’m here to take samples for Professor Hayden.”

“Oh, you must see our Medieval Faire first and we’ve got a pub with great food and a bunch of little shops and even a medieval market. We also have Irish Draught horses if you’re interested.”

“That sounds great,” Pauline said.

Genevieve was happy to show them around. Lily slipped away and took her samples and the north and southern sides of each lake. She capped them and labelled them for Hayden and snuck back in time for chips and burgers at the pub.

There were a couple of farmers around, Gary Goldtooth was the biggest and he kept pigs.

There wasn’t a lot of arable land around Firfall. So they relied on keeping animals like sheep, pigs, cattle, and chicken, for which they traded for grains. They kept vegetable plots of course and there were berries in the woods. Along with truffles, that’s why Gary kept pigs.

They all nodded.

“Central Jorvik is Jorvik’s breadbasket,” Genevieve dropped the information casually.

“That makes sense,” Lily said.

They thanked her for her time and rode back to Dundull.

“Well,” Luciana said. “That’s all very interesting.”

“I bet it won’t take long for word to spread that there’s a stable open in Firfall.” Pauline grinned.

“And I’m not going to take that bet.” Lily rolled her eyes.

“Why not?” Pauline pouted.

“You’re emailing pictures to Linda. I’m off to Valedale.” Lily smirked at Pauline and caught the first transport to Valedale.

Linda and Alex were talking with Professor Hayden as she approached. Starshine, the white and grey stallion, huffed alerting every one of her presence.

Linda smiled up at her. “Lily!”

Lily leaned down and passed her water and soil sample vials to Hayden. “Samples from Firfall, Professor.”

He grumbled but took them. He set to work checking them both for contaminants. All the while he muttered that he loved bugs and this wasn’t his job.

“Yes it is,” Lily said. “I’ve watched Bones.” She paused and tilted her head. “Okay, maybe he had more than one degree, but he was a bug and dirt guy and you have to know whats in the water and dirt because that’s where your bugs live. Healthy water and soil, healthy bugs.”

Hayden glared at her. “Young whippersnapper, don’t tell me how to do my job.”

“I wasn’t telling you how to do it. I was merely pointing out contrary to you whining which is very unbecoming, that it is in fact your job.”

“No respect these days, none.”

Lily sighed dramatically. “You have a valid coping mechanism in place for it. Who am I to stop you from complaining?”

Linda and Alex restrained laughter.

Hayden finished and slapped the new reports onto Linda’s clipboard. “These are for the Baroness. Not that she’ll know how to read them.”

“Then write notes in proper English so everyone can understand,” Lily looked up at the sky as if she could read the future in the clouds.

Hayden grabbed a butterfly net and stomped off.

“You shouldn’t be so mean to him,” Linda scolded.

“I’m barely being mean. He rants about youth all the time and wants us to respect him.” Lily snorted. “He’s a grouch. If he was nicer, I wouldn’t poke at him so much.”

Alex glanced about for Avalon and lowered her voice. “Is there a place that’s secure where we can all meet?”

“All?”

“I guess, we want to talk to all the riding clubs.”

“You do know that’s close to 150 girls at the moment. I’m not sure even the Council house in Silverglade can hold that many. Let me get on the phone.” Lily pulled her phone out and sent a President wide text about places to hold a meeting that was secure and could hold everyone.

Ingrid volunteered the Flea Market building in Firgrove. No one was using it at the moment and it was big enough to hold over two hundred people.

“Okay, when?” Lily asked.

“Is now all right?”

Lily sent out more texts. “Now seems good. Though Loretta says she’s got an argument in Moorland about which thirteen girls are forming a club in Firfall.” Lily muttered. “Handle it, Loretta. No. This isn’t my fault.”

“Are there any campers left?” Linda asked and cocked her hip.

“I’m not sure,” Lily rubbed her forehead. “I mean. Mr. Moorland could be replacing them as fast as they go.”

Alex chuckled. “Maybe.”

Lily’s phone kept buzzing and presidents checked in with saying they’d bring chairs or snacks or drinks.

“There isn’t room for almost two hundred horse at Firgrove,” Lily muttered as she texted exactly that.

The Timber Wolves were already on it setting up a temporary paddock out near the Fire Trail past the mine. They had rolls and rolls of fencing and poles.

“Usually we only convene the Presidents,” Lily explained. “And Vice Presidents.”

“We want to clear the air all at once.”

“Then if you want to get there first, we better go now.” Lily tucked her phone away.

They took a transport over to Firgrove and got their horses settled with Felicity at the stables. She looked baffled. “Are we having a convention?”

“Yep,” Lily said.

“Huh. Well, I’ll have Ma Anna send pastries and a bunch of hot drinks.” Felicity smiled at them.

“Thanks,” Alex said. “You think anyone will bring Cheetos.”

Linda rolled her eyes. “You and your Cheetos.”

The Firgrove Flea Market was a huge log building among all the different cottages. Ingrid waved them inside. “The others are walking up. We’ve got more chairs coming and we put up some tables for refreshments.”

It took a bit for everyone to arrive and actually get settled. Most of them goodnaturedly help set out chairs and made sure there were enough cups for beverages.

Ginny apologized to Lily that Elise Kemball couldn’t make it. She hadn’t yet moved to New Hillcrest to join the Club.

“You can fill her in later if you need to,” Lily said. “I’m not sure what Linda wants to talk about anyways.”

Alex did get a bag of Cheetos. Maya had sent them with Tan.

Linda clutched her clipboard looking slightly nervous.

“Okay ladies,” Lily spoke up. “Welcome to Firgrove. Thank you Ingrid and the Timber Wolves for hosting all of us. And there are a lot of us. Horse girl power!” Lily shook her fist.

The girls cheered at that and laughed.

“Now, I understand that there are going to be more of us soon as the road to Firfall has opened up and more girls from Moorland Summer Camp want to form a club near its pristine lake and quaint medieval style town complete with it’s own medieval fair and tourney! Which all sounds very exciting to me.”

The girls clapped and cheered more.

“More girls to join our horse army!” Lily gestured. “But, we all know that were stable girls, completely, perfectly, prettily, eh, mostly harmless. We’re a sisterhood that while we compete with each other, when push comes to shove, we ride together. Now, this isn’t my meeting. May I introduce to you, the lovely Silverglade Equestrian Center Manager, Linda Chanda and her friend Alex,” Lily paused.

“Cloudmill,” Alex supplied in a low voice.

“Alex Cloudmill, whose little brother James is part owner of Fort Pinta stables. But she’s the better sibling.”

More laughter.

“Linda, Alex,” Lily gestured and stepped to the side.

Linda cleared her throat again and shuffled her clipboard and book holding them to her stomach. “When Lily said almost 150 of you, I didn’t expect it to look like so many.” She shifted up her glasses. “Um, I should have prepared notecards. I guess we need to start at the beginning and there are a lot of different groups you’ve noticed on Jorvik. You’ve no doubt run into G.E.D. or Dark Core or the Keepers of Aideen as you’ve been working or riding about. They aren’t hard to miss.”

The girls settled in and nodded.

“So, um, you might not know that G.E.D. stands for Global Energy Domination. Not very subtle, pretty much what they say on the tin. They’re trying to take over Jorvik and the rest of the world’s energy resources. So, they’ve been mining and searching for things around the county and probably all around the island.” Linda fiddled with her clipboard.

“Like in Hillcrest,” Ginny spoke up. “They’ve got the entire town barricaded off.”

“They’re searching for things around Jarlaheim too, crystals,” Josefina said.

“And we chased them out of Moorland and the Silver Fields,” Lily nodded.

“They have dump sites all over too,” Ingrid added.

“They’re currently digging west into a mountain by North Link,” Lily said. She crossed her arms. “They barricaded of the West Jorvik Highway northwards. The Baroness has ordered them to keep one lane free going forward to restore traffic to the North Golden Hills Valley area.”

Loretta spoke up. “So, I’m going to have more girls fighting over making clubs up there next?”

“Probably,” Lily said dryly.

“G.E.D. are easy to spot. They’re as unsubtle as their name. The other group that has been causing trouble is Dark Core. Especially on the Moorland South Beach and South Hoof Peninsula North Beach, and in Valedale. Their motives are murkier than G.E.D.,” Linda said and shifted again. “Before I explain more about Dark Core, I need to explain the Keepers of Aideen.”

“The druids,” Melissa said sourly.

“The Keepers of Aideen aren’t druids in the way that other cultures understand druids. They don’t worship nature in that fashion though they are supposed to be fiercely protective of it and the horses of Jorvik.” Linda bit her lip.

Alex snorted. “Supposed to be.”

“What the Keepers are, are the protectors of the knowledge of Aideen, the Goddess of Jorvik. I’m sure you’ve seen her statue in Aideen’s Plaza if you’ve gone to Jorvik City. The Keepers of Aideen believe that Aideen gave life to Jorvik and that she bestowed magical powers upon her chosen ones and they are her Soul Riders.”

FOR THE ACCOMPANYING IMAGES PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE MY WATERMARK AND CONTACT INFORMATION. THANK YOU. I get it. Some of you might get excited and want to see this stuff in the game, especially the clothes, tack, and pets. However, the only way I want to see this in the game is if I get paid for it. If I see it in the game and I’m not paid for it, there will be hell to pay. You think I’m salty. I’d be angry. Personally, I’m not going to send this info to SSO. If you do, leave my contact information there! Don’t give them any excuses to steal.

Now, I’ll know you haven’t read this note if you leave me comments about how ‘salty’ I am about the game and if I hate it so much I should do something else. I am doing something else. It’s called Mystic Riders MMORPG Project. Mystic Riders however is a very baby phase game. You can check out our plans on the game dev blog. (Skills, Factions, Professions, Crafting, Mini-Games, 25+ horse breeds!) If you know anyone who would be interested and has money or contacts about game making, direct them to the blog.

#star stable #star stable online #sso #fan fic #jorvik reimagined #star stable salt #completely harmless #silverglade reimagined #many nods to ruth westside #i hope I remembered everything they've said in game about firfall #it'd help if they stop changing their minds

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tippitv · 5 years ago

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TippiTV recap: SPN 15.01 “Back and to the Future”

First a quick note on the format of this recap: I'm dealing with some neck/back/shoulder pain so I'm not going to make a bunch of captioned screen shots and diagrams and other visual aids like I usually do. That stuff, while hugely fun to do, is time-consuming even under ideal conditions. I will instead attempt to provide you with mental images of graphics I would have made.

Now, let's get on with things.

Welcome to the 15th and final season of Supernatural, everyone! If the show were a person we could give it a Quinceañera.

[Graphic: The Impala in a beautiful taffeta gown and tiara and like... satin mudflaps instead of gloves.]

It's been 5140 days since the show premiered. That's 123,360 hours. Our solar system travels around the center of the galaxy at 490,000 miles per hour. This means we have moved through 6.04464e10 miles of space since this show premiered. I don't even know what that means. Once numbers start getting letters in them, I'm lost. But it's got to be nearly as many miles as are on the Impala's odometer.

[graphic of our solar system and the Chevy Impala zooming through space together, perhaps in friendly competition]

The road so far: Man, I do not remember a lot of this. Relevant to this episode is God throwing a hissy fit, killing Jack, and releasing all the souls and/or demons from Hell.

Currently: Jack's eyeless corpse is lying around as corpses are wont to do. The surviving members of Team Free Will are fighting a lot of freshly risen dead bodies that were possessed by the released souls. If it were me just out of Hell, I wouldn't waste time in a rotted corpse. I'd just fuck off as quickly as possible and possess someone who's eating a deep-dish cheese pizza.

The risen dead are polite enough to mostly attack the Winchesters one or two at a time, so they get to grab Jack's corpse and run into a mausoleum for shelter. Okay I understand why the souls can't get through the iron doors but what's stopping the disembodied ones from just going through a window? Or through a stone wall, for that matter?

Sam asks Castiel if he can bring Jack back but he sounds like he already knows the answer. A mid-level angel without all his original powers isn't gonna be able to undo what God's done unless the plot requires it.

[Graphic of Sam's incredibly sad face as he says or thinks "maybe the plot will require it later?"]

Everyone tries to figure out what they're going to do next. Dean snarkily wonders if they're going to starve to death. I mean, no, because the ambulatory corpses will break in before long. Failing that, they'd die of thirst unless Castiel has like a TARDIS bladder that holds Dasani, and then they could eat Jack. Mmm nephilim jerky....

Proving my point for me, a resident of the mausoleum or perhaps a neighbor tries to bust through some of the loose stones just as Sam starts chipping away at them in search of an escape route. Castiel smashes its head with a big rock, causing the ghost to flee? I guess? Whatever it is looks like a glowy skeleton and ghosts usually look like their living selves for the most part.

"What the hell are we gonna do now?" Sam asks.

Ol' Eyeless Jack pops up and says in a friendly tone of voice, "Hello!" Nobody's super shocked by this turn of events.

[Graphic of Jo and Ellen saying "nobody stays dead on this show except us"]

It's just Jack's bod with a demon in it, though. Was he the one that looked like a glowy skeleton? Whatever. He happens upon some budget sunglasses on the floor nearby. No seriously they're sunglasses to save the budget because it wouldn't be cheap or timely to have to CGI empty eyes for the whole episode.

He introduces himself. "My name is Belvegar." The fuck? That sounds like a horrible portmanteau for shipping Mr. Belvedere with Garfield the cat.

[Graphic of Buckleming: "We'd write that!"]

I suppose I should check IMDB to see how that's spelled...

BELPHEGOR???

Oh okay apparently Belph is a prince of hell and "Lord of the Gap," which is like half a step up from being Lord of Old Navy. I'm looking this up on regular Wikipedia not Supernatural Wiki so the show didn't just make him up. It says here he seduces people by suggesting inventions that will make them wealthy. One time I came up with an idea for pills that would turn people's urine into toilet cleaner. I was going to call it Vita-Wiz. And that's why I've never been able to seduce anyone with my inventions.

Anyway Castiel shoves Belph up against a wall, as is customary on this show, and demands he leave Jack's bod. But Belph says he has some mojo that will get rid of all the hellish souls and demons currently trying to get into the mausoleum. Much like how Vita-Wiz gets rid of hard water stains and leaves your toilet with a minty fresh scent!

[Graphic: a colorfully jaunty ad for Vita-Wiz with Sam's endorsement a la the "Changing Channels" Herpexia ad. "I've got powerfully clean urine."]

Belph knows all about the Winchesters but is slightly surprised this latest fuckery is God's fault. He makes himself out to be a low-level demon so either he's lying or the show's not going with the prince of hell backstory. Judging by his delivery and mannerisms he thinks he's auditioning to be in Goodfellas: The High School Years.

[Graphic: High School Musical promo poster but make it mobster]

He goes on to say that, like the Winchesters, he wants all the souls back in Hell where they belong and he can get back to torturing them. "I like my job!" Unrelatable. He can't fix the main shitsplosion that's going on but says he can get them all out of the cemetery safely.

Using some "graveyard dirt" from the floor and angel blood from Convenienstiel, he works a little spell that turns all the risen dead back into just... dead. Unoccupied corpses litter the ground by the dozens. Man, what a mess. You know who isn't gonna like their job in the morning? The groundskeeper.

Also, that sure is a useful spell. I wonder if it will ever come up again...

"Where are all the ghosts?" Dean wonders.

Cut to two teenage girls somewhere else acting like teenage girls Dabb has seen in Troom Troom videos. One of the girls sees herself as a ghost in the mirror and claws her face clean off. Man, that ghost's wig is terrible. Is she Bloody Mary? I don't remember her wig being this bad. I can't believe they couldn't afford a better one even with the Budget Sunglasses.

Back to Three Men and a Belphy. Riding home in the Impala, Sam checks the news. So far, no mention of any kind of worldwide Ghostpocalypse. It seems like you're mostly safe in this universe as long as you don't live in middle America. Belph suggests they may be able to contain the ghosts before things get too out of hand and he just happens to know the right magic.

"Imagine a salt circle a mile wide," he says. Castiel points out that Harlan, Kansas is less than a mile from the cemetery so Dean hatches a plan to get everyone out so as to not trap them inside with the ghosts and demons. Is it gonna be a lame plan that would never work in reality?

But first they stop for a wrecked car on the side of the road. There's blood on the inside of the windshield but no body. "This look familiar to you?" Dean asks Sam. It looks like a lot of wrecks where someone got wanged on the head and wandered off in a daze, but they figure it's the Woman in White. "If she's back then they're all back," Dean goes on. "Every last one that we ever killed."

Okay shout out to everyone who answered my post where I asked if ghosts used to be obliterated rather than going to Hell. The consensus seems to be that the Winchesters didn't really know one way or the other early on and were guessing.

Cut to a woman running through a house with her young daughter in her arms. The aftermath of a destroyed birthday party can be seen. How late in the day were they throwing this kid's party?? To make a long story short, the ghost of John Wayne Gacy is chasing them. I'll just reiterate my hatred of this character, not because Gacy is a serial killer obv, but because it lacks internal logic! Why is he dressed like a clown?? He wasn't executed in his old clown outfit!

Suddenly it's daytime. It's like Bugs all over again. Sam, in a jacket with an FBI decal on it approaches what must be the dumbassiest dumbass sheriff in three states. He convinces the sheriff to evacuate the whole town because of a benzene leak and the sheriff just... takes his word for it. Like, he's never heard of a benzene pipeline in his hometown but doop de doop this handsome giraffe in a cheap jacket said to evacuate so it must be true!

Also why isn't the sheriff down at the cemetery?? Someone would've called that in by now! You know what I don't really care.

Meanwhile, Dean is in the car and tells Castiel to take Belph to go get supplies for the spell. Cas says he can't do it, he can't even bear to look at him. And Dean! Rolls! His! Eyes! Like, Jack's the closest thing Cas will probably ever have to a child. He was with Kelly through her pregnancy. It's only been like eight hours since the kid died horrifically. Don't roll your dang eyes!

Cas leaves and Dean puts the Equalizer gun in the glove compartment along with a copy of The Complete Works of Anton Chekhov.

Belph notices that everyone walking down the street is good-looking. Yeah, that's casting agencies for ya. He says back in his ancient penis-worshiping days, people were uglier. Belph appears to be an equal-opportunity ogler. He turns to Dean. "I mean look at you. You're gorgeous!"

[Graphic: Belphegor replacing his penis-shaped rock altar with that Skittles poster of Jensen Ackles.]

"So who was he anyway?" Belph asks, referring to his meatsuit. "He was our kid, kinda," Dean says. The show manages to resist making a Gay Dads joke that I feel like it would've given into in an earlier season. So, yay progress I guess?

Sam and Castiel split up to check every house for ghosts. That seems super time-consuming. How many Reapers are left besides Billie? I feel like they should get one on the horn unless they're all dead. Anyway, Cas's house is where the Troom Troom girls were killed. The ghost's wig looks even worse in daylight. Do they get their wigs from the Hobby Lobby doll crafting aisle or something?

Sam's house, meanwhile, is where John Wayne Ghosty went on a sartorially illogical rampage. Somehow the mother and daughter are still alive. Dumbass ghosts can't see behind a shelving unit, I guess. The instant Sam gets them safely down, Ass-Clown immediately slices him across the belly. Castiel shows up to blast the ghost with rock salt.

Meanwhile, Belph is fanboying over Dean's torturing skills. Gasp! The show remembered Dean was in Hell. It'd be nice if they were consistent about it but whatever. Belph casually mentions that all the doors in Hell opened and Dean realizes this means the cage, too.

[Graphic: That dancing gif of the actor who played Adam that says "Still in Hell" but now it says "Maybe not in Hell."]

Castiel heals Sam's wound and the fabric of his jacket! The mother and daughter are still standing there seeing all this. Cas is like, "Whatevs, I'm an angel of the Lord & Taylor." The mom is pretty flabbergasted, and even more so when Sam mentions the wound he sustained after shooting God. Castiel can't heal that one, though, because it's probably gonna be a recurring plot point judging by the flash of Evil Sam we see.

The sheriff is making a final sweep through town when he happens upon the Woman in White. The sun looks to be setting, which means it's probably been 16 hours since all the souls and demons escaped, but they're still basically within a mile of the cemetery? Even I, burdened with an easily exhausted flesh body with shitty joints could have gotten farther than that.

Anyway, Belph needs a fresh human heart for his spell so it's pretty handy of the sheriff to die! That way none of the mains need to do the morally objectionable thing of murdering someone.

Dean senses a sudden drop in temperature. "Winnie the Pooh, right now!"

WHAT THE FUUUUCK??

Hold on. I'm watching this at 1.2x speed. Let me rewatch it at 1x.

Okay he says "we need to move, right now." My apologies to Mr. Pooh for thinking you could ever be a part of this.

[Graphic: Winnie the Pooh chipper as anything. "I CRAVE THE BLEAK ABIDING COMFORT OF DEATH AND HUNNY."]

At the same time, Sam and Castiel are walking the two survivors through town. The little girl pauses at a badly placed fish pond because she sees a woman in it. Is it Bloody Mary? What's she doing in a pond? Seriously though putting a pond right on the street corner is just asking for trouble even without spectral shenannigans. How many people have driven over the curb and right into that thing?

Okay I gotta stop getting hung up on landscaping issues. Even if they are HIGHLY IRRESPONSIBLE AND NONSENSICAL.

Dean is attacked by the Woman in White. Ass Clown goes after Sam and the others, and is soon joined by... a tall ghost and... Lizzie Borden? Sam accidentally shoots Cas full of rock salt when Lizzie vanishes, which is pretty funny although move ya pretty self out of the way, Cas. When she pops up behind him, she tries to choke him with the ax handle. It reminds me of that lesser known poem about Miss Borden.

Lizzie Borden had an ax Gave her mother 40 whacks Tried to choke the angel Cas 'Cause axing would've been too fast

In the ensuing fisticuffs, everyone has time to throw punches while Belph performs the spell. All he does is put the heart on a little pile of salt and chant some Latin. Is like the thing Ruby 1.0 did with that poor virgin girl's heart a million years ago?

Oh sweet Jeebus the sight of these ghosts chasing everyone on foot is... bad and funny. Y'all are ghosts! You can just blip in and out of wherever you want to go! One of the only upsides to being dead has got to be not having to do cardio anymore and here you are running the hundred yard dash like it's 6th grade PE class. They come screeching to a halt where the spell has created an invisible boundary. This might be worse than Hell.

[Graphic: Parisian street mimes trying to escape an invisible box]

But wait... Why wasn't Belphegor affected by this spell? Did he write in an exception clause? Or is it only for ghosts and not demons?

The Good Guys plus Belph bring the mom and daughter to the high school down the road where all the evacuees are sheltering. With no sheriff to coordinate things, isn't it all just gonna... fall to pieces now? How are they gonna convince everyone to stay away from their homes? What if someone needs their prescriptions? ("Oh no my Herpexia!") They can't get rid of the ghosts as long as Hell isn't in business anymore, right? This is a mess. Dean seems to know it.

Dang why are Castiel and Dean on such icy terms? Why do I not remember last season?

Now that they have a five second breather before the shit hits the fan, Dean wants to see Sam's godly bullet wound. It looks a little crusty but not too bad except... "There's no exit wound," Dean notes. He gives it a swipe with some alcohol which will surely kill whatever supernatural E. coli is in there.

"So when Chuck said this was the end I guess this is what he meant," Sam says. Yes being trapped in a high school with my neighbors seems like end times to me, too. Tonally, things seemed a lot more dire in All Hell Breaks Loose 2.

Dean's feeling a bit embittered about discovering they didn't have as much free will as they'd thought, that everything was part of Chuck's personal lab experiment. "What did it all mean?" he wonders. "It meant a lot," Sam says. "We still saved people."

But what even are people, man? I'm going to have an existential crisis and I can't drink as much as Dean because I have that "Asian flush" gene thing. One drink and I turn super red and hot and queasy and then I pass out.

Sam thinks God has fucked off to who knows where because he hasn't seen the promos for episode 2 yet. "He gets bored and starts another story." Ah yes like me and my WiPs. Relatable. Overall, Sam is feeling much more optimistic. "Once we win this, God is gone... and it's just us. We're free."

Dean catches his optimism cooties. "I like those odds," he says of fighting billions of evil souls. You know what that means? We got work to do. Quick intercut of Baby Winchesters with Middle-Aged Winchesters saying the same thing and closing the trunk of the Impala.

[Graphic: Impala with the solar system again. This time the Impala is pulling ahead. "ONE MORE TIME AROUND, SONS O' BITCHES"]

So there we are at the first episode of the final season. Reblog or reply with what you thought of the episode and thanks for reading!

One final note:

You can read more about my writing and general life situation and GoFundMe here: https://tippitv.tumblr.com/post/188224749207/supernatural-final-season-recaps-and-assorted

If you enjoyed the recap and are able, please visit my virtual tip jar: paypal.me/TippiBlevins or https://ko-fi.com/A4017DA

Henry Hound and I could use the financial help!

See you next week.

#spn recap #supernatural #spn #tippitv #my recaps

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graequeen · 5 years ago

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Chapter 1

‘So this is what it’s like to be cheated on?’ I thought to myself as I watched my “fiance” Danny, and my coworker, Veronica, make out. They didn’t even try to hide it; they were in the corner of the empty “break room” barely behind a coat rack. It was pathetic really…their moaning and high pitched giggling could be heard throughout the adjacent dining area. It wasn’t long before the noise gained the attention of the rest of the servers.

My best friend Caden appeared next to me. Though I didn’t turn around to see him, I recognized his perfume. I could imagine how his face must have been: twisted and contorted into disgust, shock, and anger. And knowing how his personality was, I knew that his emotions would push him. Before the two had a chance to realize they had been caught, Caden had removed his favorite hoop earrings, pulled back his white button up sleeves and lunged at the two. Even with a fresh manicure set, Caden managed to fuck up both of their faces, and rip their uniforms. All without breaking a single nail.

The two managers, who were on duty, had rushed over to the break room once they heard the commotion. Worried parents, and a few older guests were outraged over the entire thing, and began to complain. By the time the managers arrived, the remaining guests, and part of the back-of-house staff had joined the viewing.

“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?!” Jack yelled, running between the group, forcing them to stop. He was the youngest manager in the restaurant, and by far the most annoying. He had this gnack of irritating people with his lack of common sense. He had started as a bartender two years ago, and managed to worm his way up to the top. He walked around like if he was higher up than anyone else, despite the fact that there were servers older than him. He would play favorites; only honoring those who chose to entertain his crack-pot ideas. It was just amazing to see how far ass-kissing can get you…

“Oh, I will tell you what the fuck is going on here!” Caden said, his shrieking voice carried throughout the entire restaurant. Caden attempted to swing again,but Jack held him back. Though Caden was very skinny, he had a lot of power; Jack could barely hold him back from attacking.

“You three, into the office NOW!” Ryan exclaimed as he ran inside the break room. He was a lot older than Jack; having been the manager of the Spanish restaurant since the beginning. If there was one person the staff and crew listened to, it was him. He was like the older grandpa in the group that everyone loved, and hated getting upset.

The staff and guests had dropped their heads, as if they were in trouble, and returned back to their places. It was at that moment that Danny noticed my presence; I could only picture how I looked that very second. My hair, as always, was pulled into a messy bun that was unflattering. Working three jobs a week can do that to you.

My average, black, watery eyes were hidden behind an old pair of aviator glasses that once belonged to my grandpa. My tan skin began to turn pale and ugly from the tears that would not stop falling. I could feel my nose begin to run, just adding onto the masterpiece that I called my face.

I could feel my breathing quicken, as I tried to desperately regain my composure. It was futile though; the more I tried to fix myself, the more tears fell down. Ten years of a relationship, and engagement flushed down the toilet within a matter of minutes. Every beautiful moment that we shared was quickly tainted by the image of Danny and Veronica, and my body desperately needed to be washed from it.

Had this been the first time? Was it something that I had done? Was there something wrong and unappealing about me? I mean, compared to me, Veronica was a stunning beauty. She was tall and thin, had long, wavy brown hair. There was not a pimple in sight, yet on my face, I could count half a dozen Mount Everests. Other than the blotchy makeup, and cat scratches on her face, she was the definition of an Instagram model.

Danny stood there, his mouth left wide open. He looked like he was trying to find an excuse. He kept opening his mouth, as if to say something, but no words came out. It was hard to stay angry with him when we normally argue, but the smeared lipstick on his face was the fuel to the increasing fire. Danny’s black hair was disheveled, and his apron was nearly torn apart. He looked like he felt guilty for getting caught. His eyes kept running between my own and the floor. That was one thing about him...that no matter how he was acting, I could tell how he felt by looking into his eyes.

“I SAID MY OFFICE NOW!” Ryan screamed. The three of them began to make a slow walk towards the exit. Jack led the group out, not bothering to look at me. Caden followed, looking at me with pitiful eyes, secretly promising that this wasn’t over. Next was Veronica, who gave me a cocky smile, as if she would’ve done more if given the opportunity. And finally Danny...Danny didn’t even bother looking at me. His eyes were glued to the floor, as he quickly exited the break room.

‘He couldn’t even look at me.’I thought. ‘The bastard couldn’t even look at me…’ I began to play around with the plain silver ring that he had given me last Christmas. He had saved up his tips for months to buy a simple wedding band. Though everyone criticised him for buying something so small, I loved it. I loved simple designs. I loved the thought behind every present anyone ever gave me. But as I continued to play with the ring, I couldn’t help but feel anger for the far fetched future that would never come true. I couldn’t help but feel that the simple wedding band became heavy, as if all of my insecurities, that were brought to light at this moment, focused onto that one object.

Ryan was the last to leave. He stopped as he reached me, extending a hand to my shoulders. He looked at me with worried eyes. I tried to look at him, but my mind flew far past him. My never-ending questions began to drag me away. I tried desperately to focus on his voice, but it was so hard.

“Rockey...are you ok?” Ryan asked. I couldn’t bring myself to answer him, though I had a feeling he wasn’t expecting much of an answer. The burning sensation in my eyes intensified, and I knew it was a matter of seconds before I began to wail. I hated the sympathetic look he was giving me.

“Rockey...I am so sorry this happened to you. I would understand if you need to take the rest of the day off.” He said in a low voice. “But please stay and talk to me for a bit. I don’t like seeing you like this.” All of a sudden, there was a large crash in the kitchen. Apparently Jack was not able to control the group, and Caden had begun swinging again. Ryan quickly ran out of the room, leaving me alone.

I was finally left alone to my thoughts, or what was left of it. It was a highway of scrambled emotions. I couldn’t get a handle on anything. What did I want to do? What would happen next? Do I stay with him? Would I trust him again? What if this happened again? I had moved into his apartment a few years ago, and the closest relatives I have are in the next state over. He has a car, and I don’t. What would I do if I left him?

I had a mixture of anger, sadness, confusion, violence, and rage ravaging through my mind. And as if by magic, everything became clear. It was as if I had snapped a pencil in half. There was only one thing that I could think of at the moment.

Before I left the restaurant, minutes after the chaos died down, I stopped by the kitchen. A group of servers and cooks had gathered around and began gossiping. They became silent as soon as I entered. My face was still a mess, but I remained focused on the task at hand. I found Jack standing by the office, trying to listen to the conversation that was being held inside. Apparently, he was supposed to get the servers to go back to work, but became interested in the conversation going on.

I walked up to him, ignoring the bombardment of questions from my coworkers. I ripped the ring off my finger and gave it to him. I didn’t have to tell him what to say; he knew almost instantly what needed to be done. As I turned around, I grabbed something off the counter. I managed to do so without anyone noticing. I ripped off my apron and strutted outside to the parking lot.

I never popped anyone’s tires before. I always imagined it to be loud, and that the sudden pop would scare me. But I found out that I actually liked it. The four tires popped with such ease, that I couldn’t help but take the same knife and run it through the doors. I was determined to fuck up Danny’s 2010 black Mustang GT. Then, I would aim for Veronica’s bright red bug. I knew that it would not help me feel better, but it was one hell of a good start.

Within minutes, I had managed to destroy his car. I used the handle of the knife to break through his windows, and create a handful of dents. I was surprised by the energy I had, despite working two jobs today alone. A small group of guests and servers had gathered by the front door, recording my handy work.

Once I was satisfied with my work, I turned to the group and bowed. “You guys haven’t seen anything yet.” With that, I turned around and began walking back to his apartment. It would take about an hour, but I knew he wasn’t going to come back tonight. I had all the time in the world to have fun in the apartment. Thank God I was not under the lease agreement...

#short story #good reads #romance #my writing #writers on tumblr

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fandomsphere · 5 years ago

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Hey everyone! Welcome back to the FANDOM-sphere! Here is our (late) post for #fanfictionfriday the final part of Carried Away.

We also wanted to announce that for the time being, our podcast episodes will be taking over the Friday slot of our postings. We hope to eventually bring back our original fanfic posts, but for the time being want to focus on getting the podcast out to you guys. We hope you enjoy the epilogue of Carried Away, and be on the lookout for our post about episode 2 of FANDOM-sphere hoping to have the technical difficulties worked out by early tomorrow.

-Luci

Carried Away: Epilogue (Read it on ao3)

Adrien stifled yet another yawn. It was barely 7:30 and he was already trying to determine the best way to sneak out of the gala his father had required he attend. Unfortunately, from the look on Nathalie's face as she eyed him from across the room, that would not be an option.

At least, if he had to attend another one of these boring events, this time he got to bring his girlfriend. Girlfriend. He still couldn’t believe it. He had been dating Marinette Dupain-Cheng for two entire weeks and every moment had been amazing. He watched as she took a careful sip from her glass of red wine. He had to admire her poise, she was the image of perfection in her mint green dress with her hair pulled back into a braid. Her eyes were sparkling as she listened to the other guest chatter away about some runway show he had attended in Spain.

He remembered to nod when a comment was directed his way. Fake a smile. “It was lovely seeing you again. I’m afraid we must see a few more people at my father’s request. Pardon us.”

He placed a hand on Marinette's arm and led her away from the other guests. They stepped through a doorway into a back hall no doubt used for the staff to carry in trays of food.

“Sorry about all that,” Adrien said with a sigh. He tugged at his tie that so perfectly matched her dress. “Some of these people will just talk endlessly if you let them.”

Marinette shook her head. “It’s fine, really. I’m having a good time.” She swirled the drink in her glass, watching it carefully instead of looking at him.

He laughed then turned it into a cough. “Are you really?” he asked, eyebrow raised.

She looked at him then. “Okay, well, not good necessarily. But,” she looked through the doorway out at the other guests. “It is a good opportunity. Most of the guests here are people I'd never get the chance to meet otherwise. So, I’m hopefully making some good connections.” Her eyes returned to the drink in her hand. “And I enjoy being with you.” A blush dusted her cheeks and suddenly the hall was much warmer.

He looked away, reminding himself he really couldn’t be caught making out with his girlfriend at an event like this. No matter how tempting her lips looked.

He had just started to contemplate the idea of sneaking away from the party for a more enjoyable date when Nathalie appeared in the doorway. “Adrien, your father has a few more guests he’d like you to greet for him.”

He sighed. “Of course, Nathalie.” He took a step forward and followed his father's assistant back into the party, careful to make sure Marinette stayed close by. If it was connections she needed. Then connections she’d get.

____________________________________

Marinette had to admit, she’d thought these types of parties would be more fun. A room full of people who were influential in the fashion industry: designers, investors, models, the wealthy people who bought the latest designs. And yet, she was tired of it already.

She had to assume it would be more enjoyable if she was actually one of those influential people, but then again, maybe not. Maybe they all were just very good at pretending.

She glanced sideways at her date. Adrien Agreste. She held back a sigh. No swooning here, Marinette Dupain-Cheng!

Her thoughts were quickly sobered by the expression on his face. A forced smile, tired eyes, no signs of his usual playfulness. She wished she could do something about it, but with Nathalie leading them around to every person Adrien was supposed to greet… that wouldn’t be happening easily.

“It is great seeing you again as well, M. Moreau.” Adrien shook hands with the man standing before them.

M. Moreau chuckled and shook hands enthusiastically. “No sign of Agreste senior, I see.” His eyes landed on Marinette and he gave Adrien a smile that Marinette didn’t fully understand. “And who might this lovely young lady be?”

Adrien placed a gentle hand on Marinette’s lower back, guiding her forward slightly. “This is my girlfriend, Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

Marinette nodded politely and accepted the handshake from the older gentleman. She waited for what would happen next. The conversation would turn back to Gabriel fashions or Adrien and the future of both. Then after the mandatory length of polite conversations, they would move on to the next person.

This time surprised her.

“Dupain-Cheng?” Moreau asked. “Why does the name sound familiar?”

Marinette could feel the surprise on her face. Nobody at these events recognized her name. The shock dissipated quickly though as she remembered that it was more likely people knew her parents, not her.

“Perhaps you know my parents,” she offered with a smile. “Tom and Sabine, of Tom & Sabine Boulangerie Patisserie.”

Moreau looked thoughtful. “Perhaps…” he tapped his chin.

Adrien took the silence as an opportunity to jump in and Marinette briefly wondered if he was going to reign in the conversation. Instead he began with something she hadn’t expected.

“Marinette’s parents run the best bakery in Paris. If you haven’t stopped by, you should make sure to do so before returning home, M. Moreau.”

Marinette could feel her face grow warm at the praise of her family. She knew they had the best bakery in Paris and most of her classmates (especially Adrien) loved coming by for treats, but it was different to hear Adrien praising her parents so openly.

Moreau nodded, seemingly impressed at the information. But apparently Adrien wasn’t done.

“Although, you may have recognized her from my one of my father's shows. She designed a piece for Gabriel a little while back.”

Marinette could almost die. Why was Adrien bragging about a hat. A single piece that wasn’t even an entire outfit. Just an accessory. She could practically feel her face turning red.

Her eyes met Adrien’s and she could see the sparkle of mischief she'd grown used to recently. But before she could do anything to remedy the situation, Moreau's eyes lit up and he nodded enthusiastically.

“Yes! That’s where I heard your name. At the show when Audrey Bourgeois returned to Paris. One of her writers did an article about it and mentioned you by name.” He looked at her with admiration. “I had assumed Gabriel had hired a new designer, but for someone so young to have so much talent, that is amazing.”

“Oh, no. Thank you, M. Moreau, but really I-"

He cut her off mid-sentence as he looked through the crowd. “Would you mind speaking with my daughter? She loved that hat and I’m sure she'd be interested in having you design a piece for her.”

Marinette glanced at Adrien who nodded encouragingly. Then she turned back to the man before her and smiled. “Of course!”

______________________________________

An hour later, Marinette had finished talking with several people in attendance. She had exchanged contact information with a few promising clients after they saw samples of her work that were saved to her phone and was now ready for some fresh air.

“Adrien,” she tapped his shoulder, gaining his attention. “I’m going to go to the bathroom. I’ll be back in a bit.”

He nodded then taking her hand he placed a kiss on the back of it. “I’ll await your return, My Lady.”

She giggled and headed off up the stairs. Once making it down the hall towards the bathrooms, Marinette continued walking. She opened a few doors, looking inside before closing them. Nothing was right for her plan.

Finally, she found an office that would serve her perfectly. She slipped inside and shut the door behind her. “Tikki.”

The red kwami poked her head out through the top of the purse, “Is everything all right, Marinette?” she asked.

Marinette nodded then flashed the kwami a smile. “Everything’s great, but I think Adrien and I are both a little tired of the party.”

Tikki giggled, “And I’m assuming you have a plan to fix that?”

“I do. But I’ll need my phone and you in order to accomplish this.” Marinette accepted her phone from Tikki and typed out a quick message. She returned it to her purse. “Okay, Tikki, spots on!”

___________________________________

Adrien felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He tried to force himself to ignore it as he listened to Nathalie discuss a new line with another guest. He had enjoyed helping Marinette make some connections earlier, not that she really needed his help, but now that she had stepped away he was bored again.

He pretended to pick up another glass from a nearby table and pulled open his jacket slightly to peer down at Plagg. “Hey, who’s the text from?”

Plagg yawned dramatically. Then the cat kwami reached into the pocket and pushed a button. It lit up and he looked back at Adrien. “It’s from your bug.”

Adrien’s eyes widened. Why would Marinette be messaging him when she could just come talk to him? Unless it was because she needed Chat Noir. He hurried back to Nathalie.

“I'm going to the bathroom. Not feeling well,” he lied.

She eyed him suspiciously but nodded. “Do make sure you return.”

Adrien only made it as far as the hall at the top of the stairs before pulling out his phone to check the message.

Marinette ♡♡♡: meet me on the second floor. There’s an office across from a painting of the Seine. Go in and wait by the window.

Adrien felt his mouth go dry. He struggled to swallow down the thoughts that flooded through his mind. Really Marinette was not likely to be inviting him upstairs for an impromptu make-out session.

He went ahead and shoved a couple of mints into his mouth just in case. No sense in not being prepared, he told himself, ignoring Plagg snickering in his coat pocket.

Adrien followed the directions Marinette had given him and quickly found the room in question. But when he stepped inside, he realized that to his dismay the room was very empty.

He glanced towards the door briefly, wondering if maybe he’d gone in the wrong room. “Plagg, she did say this one, right?”

The kwami groaned from his hiding place. “I’m not your messenger. Let me sleep!”

Adrien took a few steps further into the room. He looked around, it was dark. Maybe he had misunderstood the text. He reached into his jacket for the phone when he heard a quiet whirring sound from behind him.

“That’s not exactly the window, y'know? That’s more of the middle of the room.”

He spun around, fumbling and nearly throwing his phone across the room. His eyes went wide, “Ladybug?!”

There suspended just outside the window hanging from a yo-yo string, was Ladybug. Spots and all. She laughed. “You seemed like you could use some fresh air. It can get kind of stuffy inside parties like these, can’t it?”

He took strides to the window, eager to close the distance between them. “So, does that make me your damsel in distress?” he teased, unable to keep the Chat out of his voice.

She rewarded him with a roll of her eyes and a tap on the nose. “Maybe more of a handsome prince trapped in a tower?”

He grinned. “Then please rescue me, fair knight.”

Ladybug beamed at him. “I was hoping you’d ask.” Before he could blink, an arm had shot out and grabbed him by the tie, pulling him out onto the window sill. Ladybug stepped up onto the sill, pressing them close together. She wrapped an arm around his waist. “You ready?”

He struggled to regain his words so he could answer, but finding they were long gone, he simply nodded.

Ladybug leaned closer, allowing her lips to press against his. “Then let’s go. Gotta get you back by midnight, right?”

Adrien laughed, “I think you’re mixing fairy tales now, Princess. I expected bette-”

His words were interrupted by Ladybug suddenly pushing off of the window and swinging them off into the night air. The only sound following Adrien’s outcry of surprise, was his Lady's laughter echoing through Paris as she carried him away.

#fandomsphere #marauderluverz #emerywrites #miraculous ladybug #miraculousladybug #podcast #ao3 #fanfiction #fanfiction friday #carried away

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moviegroovies · 5 years ago

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you know, i saw flatliners (2017) when it came out, but i never got around to watching the original until tonight. now that i HAVE seen it, i think i can safely say that the original was really good! it also, unfortunately, made me like the remake a little less than i did before.

i’ve been on a kiefer sutherland kick, if you can’t tell from all the fuckin’ lost boys posts. in that movie, and in a pretty big chunk of his earlier roles, sutherland plays an aggressive gang-member type, the express antagonist for the film. flatliners was a departure from that for him... but not that much of one.

the thing about kiefer sutherland is that i’ve yet to watch a movie where his character isn’t loud and aggressive at some point. even young guns, which has him play the softest & most affable of the guys in the gang, has some uncomfortable scenes where he’s just altogether frightening toward a girl with some obvious trauma, made worse by the fact that she’s ostensibly his love interest. i’m not here to pass judgement on how that translates to kiefer’s behavior in real life; it’s just something i’ve noticed. well, in flatliners, that trend wasn’t exactly kicked to the curb. his character in this movie is nice enough, an ambitious doctor with a calling to break the next great barrier of our time, and also... kind of a terrible person.

i’ve never been one for the “ambition is evil” trope, but this movie definitely plays with it. kiefer’s character nelson isn’t evil, not really, but he has a troubled past that is revealed as the movie goes on: apparently, at age 9, nelson’s bullying of another boy from his neighborhood saw him responsible for the child’s accidental death, as well as the crippling of his own dog. nelson was taken away from his family for this, and, though he says he thought the punishment he suffered after the fact had been atonement enough for what he did, it’s clear that there was an element of guilt attached to the act that never left him alone. in fact, the common thread that binds together the four main characters who flatline over the course of the film is that guilt--one way or another, each of them has done something they have to carry with them, and when they “die,” they come back unable to repress or excuse these things like they were once able to. aside from nelson’s manslaughter, the film also deals with joe (william baldwin) filming his sexual encounters with women without their consent, rachel’s (julia roberts) feelings of culpability in her father’s suicide, and david’s (kevin bacon) history of bullying a black girl who went to grade school with him.

the way that the remake treats the guilt/“crimes” each of its protagonists are carrying with them is the major point on which it departs from the original. in the original, two of the characters, david and rachel, deal with pain relating to people in their lives who are dead--whether they are actually culpable (as david is) or not (like rachel). additionally, joe’s guilt, while it does involve people who are still alive, deals with something that, for most of the film, only he knows about--how can you atone for something that no one holds you accountable for? the only one of the characters in the remake dealing with a similar guilt is ellen page’s character courtney, who feels responsible for the death of her sister in a car crash. the thing is (spoiler!), ellen page’s character is also the only character who dies.

now, i’m going to be upfront with the fact that it’s been a while since i watched the new flatliners, and unlike the original, i’ve only seen it once, so the details are fuzzy. if i get something wrong in my recollection, please be gentle and ascribe the error to human imperfection, lol.

that being said, i feel like the remake fundamentally misunderstood what made the original a great film, trying to remake it in a genre it was never meant to occupy, and as a result, it turned what should have been a suspenseful, thought-provoking story of error and redemption into... just another cookie-cutter horror movie with a nostalgic name. the ways the two movies deal with the guilt their characters face are fundamentally opposed; in the original, only one of the four characters who flatline face the person they wronged physically and apologizes. david, yes, goes to winnie hicks and tells her he was wrong for doing what he did to her in their youth, and when she accepts his apology and sees that he’s genuinely a changed person, he gets a moment of catharsis that’s similar to the one that seemed to be repeated in different forms throughout the remake. however, joe, nelson, and rachel have no such opportunity. in the remake, neither does courtney... and courtney dies.

that’s the difference that bugs me. never mind the way that the remake changed the nature of flatlining itself (as far as i can remember, unlike the 1990 flatliners, the 2017 version has actual demons/monsters/creatures/ghosts/whatever follow the protagonists out of their trip, which always felt like a strange turn from what started as a psuedo-scientific film, and seems even stranger when you compare it to the scene in the original where david finds nelson struggling against himself in the van, implying that the manifestation of billy mahoney that we and nelson had encountered was, in fact, a product of nelson’s guilty conscience), the thing that really fucking gets me is that the remake gives its characters one way to make amends: apologize to the person you wronged, and if you can’t, then you die.

honestly, the nuance the original showed, the way that joe couldn’t ever really fix what he did to those girls, the way that nelson didn’t easily give himself over to regret, even mocking billy mahoney at his grave (“wake up, you little shit, you’ve got company!”), the way that rachel had no real reason to feel guilt for her father’s death except for the fact that it’s easy for a child to take the blame for something that’s out of their hands; all of that was what made the film good for me, and all of that is what i think the makers of the remake sort of missed. a 2017 reimagining of flatliners could have been really incredible; i’ve seen many posts praising the inclusivity of the cast (and yeah, after the original’s sausage party with one token female and no people of color whatsoever, the cast of the remake is a breath of fresh air), and i think that advances in science in the 27 years between the two films could have made the psuedoscience the original thrived on a little more believable. however, when it came down to the heart of the thing, the same understanding of them human psyche just wasn’t there--and honestly, i don’t think it was ever supposed to be.

in comparison, flatliners 2017 just felt cheap.

that’s just my two cents in hindsight, though. i think, coming out of the theater, i really did like the film... it just didn’t hold up the way i feel flatliners 1990 has.

i don’t want to end on a bitchy note, so let me just say a few more things i admired about the original while i’m pouring my heart out. basically: i loved julia roberts’ hair and general Look in this film, i liked the subplot with david the atheist reaching a point where he rallied against god for nelson’s life at the end, and i really enjoyed nelson’s entire plotline, the way he teetered on the edge of batshit crazy without ever quite taking the plunge. from the beginning nelson is set up as an ambitious genius, a real victor frankenstein type, and his pride definitely gets the better of him multiple times throughout the film. despite being a promising student in their medical school, nelson is never very professional in the resuscitation when anyone else is flatlining; he pounds joe’s chest when he doesn’t immediately respond to the cpr, he goes on a little bit of a power trip and plays with david’s life, and he very nearly injects rachel with a fatal dose when the defibrillators short circuit. additionally, when rachel insists on getting a try at flatlining and is backed by the rest of nelson’s handpicked team, he accuses them all of being tourists riding his coattails. he’s kind of messy, and never exactly nice. it fucking ASTOUNDED me that he got to live at the end of the movie, but honestly, i’m really glad he did. as we got to know more about him, it was clear to me that nelson was generally a person with his heart in the right place, acting out of residual trauma and a pretty obvious dose of jealousy. there were always signs that he wasn’t all bad, though: he let the others take over with joe when his way wasn’t working, he listened to steckle and david and refrained from injecting rachel with the stuff he was certain would save her, and by the end, his remorse for his act which killed billy was so genuine that he was willing to kill himself to make amends. in general, i think that nelson was clearly a more troubled and gray-moraled person than page’s courtney, but he was a character in a movie with more forgiveness for wrongs done, and the end product was kind of fantastic.

anyway, fuck all of this. must a movie be good? is it not enough to see kiefer sutherland, unhinged?

#flatliners #flatliners (1990)#flatliners (2017)#text post #okay so i shat on 2017 a LOT but i will say i fucking love diego luna he can do no wrong okay goodnight #full disclosure i think that by the end kiefer was looking SO sexy in that movie so if you're like #'did you really think it was a better movie or do you just want kiefer with all those facial scars to fuck your brains out'#i don't honestly. have an answer for you #'that's the wrong reason.' 'it's the right idea'#lol

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ladywritesthings · 6 years ago

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The Parts of You, ch37

AO3

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‘I must be hallucinating,’ thought Nino vaguely, blinking away the after-effects of the bright pink glow that had faded nearly as quickly as it had come. ‘The pain must be getting to my head.’

Faint spots still danced across his vision but he ignored them for now. There were two things demanding his immediate attention at the moment, and neither of them made any sense.

Ladybug was… right there. And now she wasn’t, but… she was. Because in her place stood a quivering Marinette, disheveled hair barely caught in Ladybug’s loose ponytail, staring back at him with the expression of a deer caught in headlights.

“Oh no,” she squeaked.

“Oh dear,” murmured the second of the metaphorical elephants in the room, flitting out from behind Marinette’s head. “This is unfortunate,” the thing said, and tsk-ed quietly.

“I’m sorry!” whispered Marinette, although whether the sentiment was on behalf of or directed towards the bug-thing floating around her head was unclear and, frankly, he didn’t really care. “I’m sorry, oh my God, I’m so sorry, I messed up…”

“Oh, Marinette,” sighed the thing in a voice that sounded like bells, swooping down to nuzzle at Marinette’s cheek. “It was an accident, we’ll figure it out!”

‘Marinette?’ thought Nino dimly. ‘Ladybug? Marinette is Ladybug? Ladybug is Marinette is…’ He was starting to feel dizzy, yet also terrifyingly, vividly sane.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” said Marinette, whirling on him, eyes wild and desperate. “You weren’t supposed to find out like this, you weren’t supposed to find out at all, oh, and now we’re stuck—” Tears were forming in her eyes, spilling unnoticed down her cheeks in thick streams, all traces of her former Ladybug confidence gone like, well, magic as the color suddenly drained from her face. “Chat,” she breathed. And then she was going berserk, pounding and screaming at the unyielding door, the thuds of her fists sending tremors through the spindly wooden shelves lining the walls, lightbulb boxes and paper towels shuddering and bouncing.

“Marinette, stop!” yelled the tiny creature, trying vainly to calm the now-feral Marinette, whose fists were surely bruised and bleeding by now from the sheer force of her repeated blows.

And still Nino sat, staring unblinking at the scene unfolding before him, unable to do anything but… process.

“Nino!” cried the tinkling voice, and he was snapped from his daze as he suddenly found himself face-to-face with the bug-thing, its big blue eyes wide and urgent. “Help me,” it said. “She won’t listen to me.”

He opened his mouth automatically at the command but words wouldn’t come, his throat had closed in on itself and what could he possibly say to help a superhero on the verge of total collapse — no, not just a superhero, but his friend…

“Nino,” said the creature again, more gently this time but just as authoritative. “I know this must be quite a shock, but she needs you right now. Please.”

He swallowed, cleared his throat, and tried again. “Mari,” he croaked. She couldn’t hear him. “Marinette,” he tried again, louder.

Her screams of her absent partner’s name had subsided but her sobs and her desperate lunges at the door had not. Gritting his teeth, he summoned all his strength and lifted himself from his precarious perch on the stool, wincing as he limped clumsily the few steps to the door. “Mari,” he croaked again, a tentative hand reaching out to grab her fist before the next blow.

That simple touch seemed to sap all her remaining strength and she stood there, tears still streaming from wild eyes as she wavered and shuddered on the spot. And then she wasn’t anymore, because she nearly knocked him off his bad leg as she dissolved into fresh sobs against his chest, burying her face against his t-shirt as he clutched her close, awkwardly patting her hair in the most soothing way he could muster. It seemed like the only thing he could do.

The bug-thing hovered silently beside them, a grave expression on its face. “I’ll try to find something to eat,” it muttered, mostly, apparently, to itself. “People live here, don’t they? There must be food.” To him it added, “I’m sorry we had to meet this way, Nino. This is turning out to be a very… intense day, isn’t it?”

“Um,” said Nino, cradling a still-sobbing Marinette in his arms.

“I’m Tikki, by the way,” it said. “How silly of me to forget my manners, but you’ll have to excuse me.” It flitted towards the door, and paused. “If she asks,” it said, “just tell her I’ve gone to recharge. I’ll be back momentarily. And then we can see about fixing that door, shall we?” And then it went through the door — Nino blinked, sure he must have missed something — and was gone.

It took a few moments for Marinette’s hiccupping sobs to calm enough for her to catch her breath. “He needs me,” she whimpered into his chest, eyes bloodshot. “He’s waiting for me and he needs me, I was only supposed to be gone a few minutes…”

‘He?’ Nino stumbled blankly for a second before supposing with a sudden jolt: “he” would mean Chat Noir. Of course it would, because who else had she been screaming herself hoarse over? Chat Noir, the wild, flamboyant boy who was much more of a real person to Marinette than to the rest of Paris’s much more vague symbolic ideal; Chat Noir who, at this very moment, would be dodging bombs and biding his time while waiting for backup that wouldn’t — couldn’t, presently — come. A cold lump of horror slid its way into the pit of his stomach and settled there, hard and heavy as iron. “I — I’m sure he’ll be fine,” said Nino as his voice cracked, unconvincing even to himself.

She straightened, taking tremulous breaths as she sought to collect herself. “Oh, this day just keeps getting better and better,” she muttered, rubbing her eyes, mascara collecting in ugly rings under them and smearing on her skin. She glanced at him finally, a softer sort of concern tinging her expression now. “How’s your leg?”

He shrugged a one-armed shrug and winced as he did. “It’s been better,” he managed.

She took his arm and guided him gently back to the stool, careful not to disturb his ankle more than absolutely necessary. “I’m so sorry you got mixed up in all this,” she said quietly, kneeling beside him as he situated himself as comfortably as he could. “I never wanted any of you to find out this way. Or, y’know, at all, but…” She let out a weak, semi-hysterical kind of half-laugh that didn’t quite land.

He had a million things to say, a million wildly roiling thoughts fighting to be verbalized first, but when he looked at her all he could see was his friend, tired and scared, buckling under a kind of weight he could barely understand. “Yeah,” he said finally, pushing aside the Other Things for later. “Yeah, this sucks.”

She broke their held gaze, fidgeting without direction, looking haggard. “I’m sorry,” she said again, voice barely above a whisper.

“It’s not your fault.”

“I should have been more careful,” she said viciously, lips pressing together in a harsh line. “I should have picked a better spot, I should have paid attention—”

“Hey, Marinette, this isn’t your fault!” he cut her off firmly. “You wouldn’t even be trapped in here if it weren’t for me.”

“You were my responsibility!” she spat, rounding on him with anger in her voice, but her eyes were nothing but regretful and terrified. “Everyone is my responsibility! Paris is my responsibility! And Chat…” She took a long, slow breath and looked at the ceiling, in an apparent attempt to quell any more rising tears. “He can’t handle this by himself, and I’m — I’m not there right now because I was stupid and careless…”

He gripped her shoulder before she could start crying again. “Hey,” he said softly. “Keep it together, yeah? We’ll figure this out.”

“Nino,” she whispered, voice wavering dangerously. “What if somebody dies?”

The question hit him like a punch to the gut but she kept going. “We’ve never had an Akuma this bad before — I mean, Jesus Christ, an actual terrorist? What if somebody dies because I was stupid enough to get locked in here and I couldn’t save them? What if Chat—”

“Hey now,” interrupted Nino shakily. “Don’t think like that, okay? We’re going to be fine, you hear me? They’re all going to be fine.” Through the sudden, violent barrage of intrusive thoughts racing through his mind — Alya’s broken body crushed under a pile of rubble, eyes unseeing behind cracked glasses; Adrien, burning; the mangled corpses of Kim, Alix, Rose, anyone he’d ever known, strewn across the sidewalk like ragdolls — he squeezed her shoulder in what he hoped was taken as a comforting gesture, despite it rapidly becoming more of a stabilizing gesture for himself than anything else.

She sniffled weakly and nodded, wiping at her nose with a half-hearted swipe of a fist as her gaze flicked across the room. “Where’s Tikki?” she asked.

It took a moment for “Tikki” to connect to “weird magical bug-thing that flies through walls” in Nino’s head. “Oh,” he said. “It, uh, said it needed to… ‘recharge’? It went through the door a few minutes ago, it said it’d be back soon to fix the door.”

“But I have cookies in my—” She stopped mid-sentence and groaned. “I told her to stop eating them unless there’s an Akuma, she promised! Those are for emergencies only!” She raked an exasperated hand through her hair, inadvertently yanking strands loose from her already haphazard ponytail. “I hope she’s back soon.”

“…She?” said Nino tentatively.

Marinette glanced at him, a tired half-smile quirking the corner of her mouth. “Yeah,” she said. “Tikki’s my kwami, she’s the one who gives me my power.”

He took a moment to consider this factoid. “I see,” he said, not really seeing at all.

Her smile turned sad. “We’re going to have a lot to talk about after this, aren’t we?” she said rhetorically.

He met her gaze. “Yeah, I guess so,” he agreed.

Marinette glanced up at the ceiling, expression hard as the faint smile slipped from her face. “It’s awfully quiet out there,” she said.

Nino tried not to think too hard about the implications of this.

Their attention turned suddenly to the door as a sharp clunk broke through the silence, and the bug-thing — Tikki — finally reappeared through the door. “I did my best with the lock,” it — she — said. “I’ve never actually tried to do that before, but dear Lucretia was quite handy with a hatpin, and she showed me a thing or two — of course, it’s been nearly 200 years—”

Marinette stood up as Nino’s train of thought stumbled over “200 years.” “After this, you and I are going to have a serious talk about what ‘emergency rations’ means,” she said sternly.

“Won’t happen again,” said the now-sheepish kwami.

“Tikki,” Marinette said, and her voice changed somehow as she did, “spots on!”

The bright pink light filled every inch of the small room. Nino squeezed his eyes tight but it permeated his eyelids, pressed past his shielded gaze, a flicker of warmth washing over him with the light. And just as suddenly, it was gone, and Ladybug had returned. Only, it wasn’t just Ladybug. Not anymore.

Nino stared at her with bare-faced wonder; ogling, really, barely even registering the embarrassment that would usually accompany such boldness. It was like something had snapped in his head — it really was just Marinette in spots. He couldn’t understand how he’d never seen it before.

She flexed her fingers and aimed for a kick at the door. It held fast, but only barely, a clear dent by the lock now. “C’mon,” she whispered as she kicked again.

The door buckled off its hinges on the third try, flying open with a bang. “Oh thank God,” she breathed, unhooking her yo-yo. She paused in the doorframe, glancing back on him briefly with an expression he couldn’t place. “I’ll be back for you,” she said, and then she was gone.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, staring vacantly at nothing with unseeing eyes. So many thoughts raced through his head, he didn’t know which part to focus on first, so he simply let them come. Marinette’s odd behavior and flimsy excuses over the years; mysterious disappearances whenever an Akuma showed up, finally explained. Her muscles, less “jacked,” as he had described them in the past — that description made her sound like a body builder — but clearly those of a gymnast, or else an agile superhero who spent more of her time sprinting over rooftops than down on the ground; defined, but lean, not bulky. Her quick defense of Chat Noir, especially if debating with classmates who was “better” between him and Ladybug; why would she sing her own praises when the partner who she relied on so heavily was right there?

A magical bug-creature, who could phase through walls and gave Ladybug her magic. Marinette risking her life, right now.

Alya.

Alya, constantly worried for Marinette’s safety and considering it paranoia. Alya, betrayed. Alya, rushing away from an exploding building, crushed to death under falling rubble…

There was some yelling, somewhere on the outside, a familiar female voice he would now recognize anywhere. A thump. Some quiet. And then the unmistakable shout of “Miraculous Cure!”

Tiny, glowing ladybugs swept through the building, gently wiping every trace of destruction away. The door, leaning weakly on its own hinges, was righted in a second, balanced innocently on the stupid, insecure bucket that had started the whole incident. They washed over him, clearing away the grime and the sweat, warming his ankle and suddenly the pain was gone. He flexed his foot experimentally. Completely healed. He stood, grabbing the step stool he’d been perched on, and replaced the bucket with it.

Honestly, who thought a bucket with wheels would be even slightly secure against such a heavy door? The bucket, now moderately warped from the weight of it, rolled innocently away. He stepped out.

The apartment was actually quite nice, once it wasn’t half-destroyed. He made his way down the modest staircase, the simple front door no longer a twisted hunk of metal and broken glass. Pushing it open, he saw hordes of people, immaculate and unhurt, swarming around the distant figures of Chat Noir and Marinette-Ladybug, looking slightly more out of breath than before but with an otherwise press-friendly smile gracing her face. He stood for a moment, watching the crowds milling, hesitating. Should he wait for Marinette? Should they walk together back to the park, or return separately?

…The park!

Adrien.

Alya.

He fumbled for his phone.

The line rang twice before she picked up. “Are you okay?” she demanded, not waiting for or offering a greeting.

“I — yeah, I’m okay,” he said, and suddenly he began to shake, his knees threatening to collapse under him at the sound of her voice. ‘She’s alive,’ he thought dazedly, taking long, quivering breaths through his nose. ‘She’s alive, she’s alive, she’s alive…’ “Where’d you go? I lost you.”

He hadn’t meant for it to sound like an accusation, but she sounded nearly as relieved as he felt and ignored his tone. “I went home,” she explained in a voice that wavered with barely-restrained emotion. “After we lost each other, I-I ran into my sisters — they got separated from maman and I didn’t know where else to go… It was close enough to get to on foot but far enough away that the Akuma hadn’t touched our street yet…”

His heart fluttered and sank at the same time. “Your parents,” he said. “Are they…?”

“They’re fine,” said Alya roughly, and he breathed a sigh of relief. “They were the first people I called, Ella and Etta were crying so hard… Dad’s on his way right now, and Mom should be here any second.”

Nino collapsed against the brick wall behind him, dragging a hand across his face. “Good,” he said finally. “That’s… that’s good.”

“What about your parents?”

“They’re out of town,” he said, sinking slowly to the ground on his haunches as he squeezed his eyes shut. “Anniversary trip, they left this morning, thank God.”

“Thank God,” she echoed. “You should probably still call them. They’ll be worried sick once they hear.”

“They’ll probably hop on the next plane back,” he agreed. The thought of how anxious he’d been to get them on their way that morning, the relief he’d felt when they’d finally left and he had the house to himself for a rare week… How strange to think that had only been a few scant hours ago.

“Have you — hold on.” Alya’s voice cut off as the sound of her phone being shuffled around took over, and then a muffled chorus of “Maman!” and the shriek of relief from a grown woman’s voice filled Nino’s ears as the distant reunion could be heard in indistinct snippets over the phone line. Nino let it play out, the happy sobs of Alya’s little sisters filling him with a calm he couldn’t ever remember matching, and just as he’d begun to let himself drift the shuffling phone sounds were back. “Maman just got home,” Alya clarified unnecessarily. “I’m on my way back out. Have you heard from the others yet?”

“Ah — huh?” He snapped back to reality, and with him came a sudden rising dread. He hadn’t thought this far ahead.

“I can’t get through to Marinette or Adrien,” she explained urgently. “You either, until now. I’m heading back to the park, but you haven’t heard from them?”

“Um,” said Nino. When Marinette left him, she’d said she’d be back, but had failed to specify when. Or how. Or what he could and couldn’t share. His thoughts briefly turned to what Alya had said about Miraculous magic the other day and panicked. How much had she gotten right? What would happen if he accidentally slipped? Why hadn’t Marinette at least hinted at what to do when faced with the prospect of The Alya Inquisition? Why couldn’t there have been more time?

“A missed call from either of them? A text? Anything?” Alya prompted. Her voice was becoming increasingly worried, and Nino’s panic was rising.

And then, like an angel, he glanced around and there she was.

“Marinette,” he said.

“Marinette?” repeated Alya anxiously. “What about Marinette?”

“I — Marinette’s here. With me.” He gestured wildly and she made a beeline for him, hurrying over from the opposite direction from where he’d seen her and Chat last as he brandished the phone at her. “Here, prove to Alya you didn’t die.”

“Alya?” Marinette brightened instantly and grabbed the phone, running her fingers through the hair she now loosened from her wild ponytail. Her hands had been healed. Of course they had. “Oh, thank God… No, we’re fine. Did you…?” A pause. “Yeah, we’ll be there, we’re only a few blocks away. But…” Another pause. Her face paled slightly. “Are you sure?” she asked quietly, and then Nino was hit by it at nearly the exact same moment.

Adrien.

She seemed to read his thoughts as her phone was already out of her purse by the time he had the presence of mind enough to think to ask for it. She unlocked it quickly without looking, and Nino punched in the numbers without bothering to try scrolling through her contacts.

Three agonizing seconds ticked by as he held her phone to his ear.

A click. “We’re sorry, but the number you have dialed is unavailable at the moment. Please leave a message or try again later…”

He hung up and redialed. “We’re sorry, but the number you have dialed is…”

Again. “We’re sorry…”

Nino looked up and met Marinette’s waiting gaze, a sick pit in his stomach. Her expression steeled as he forced himself to shake his head. “Nino will keep trying,” she told Alya. “We’ll see you soon.” She hung up without saying goodbye.

He kept calling as they walked, each step increasing the icy feeling in his gut until the emptiness spread to his toes, his fingers, clouding his gaze. ‘Pick up,’ he willed Adrien silently, as Marinette gently steered him over curbs and around lampposts. ‘Pick up, pick up, pick up…’

In what seemed like hours and yet only seconds, hard pavement gave way to soft, springy grass, and still there was no answer other than the robotic, vaguely feminine voice on the other end of the phone. He’d lost count of how many times he’d tried — a dozen? A hundred? His fingers were numb, and still he hit redial…

“Mari! Nino!” And suddenly he wasn’t dialing anymore, because a sudden death grip around his neck and fiery hair in his face knocked the air from his lungs and the phone from his lungs as Alya rocketed across the park and folded him and Marinette together in a rib-crushing hug.

“We’re here, Alya,” soothed Marinette in a strangled voice as Alya sobbed openly onto their shoulders. “It’s okay, you can let go…”

“Bullshit, I’m never letting either of you go ever again!” came her muffled voice, buried somewhere in Nino’s shoulder, although the pressure around his neck mercifully lessened slightly. “God, I was so worried! The whole time I was with my sisters, trying to calm them down but the whole time I was thinking of you but now you’re here and you’re okay—”

“It’s all right, Alya,” said Marinette soothingly, petting her hair. “We’re fine. And you’re fine.” She gently but firmly loosened Alya’s death grips on them and turned to face her. “Is your family all right?”

“Yes, and so’s yours, by the way. Your mom called when she couldn’t get a hold of you.”

“I couldn’t get through,” lied Marinette, looking concerned and relieved all at once. “I guess the lines were all jammed up or something.” Nino watched her silently out of the corner of his eye. There wasn’t a trace of deception in her face, not that even Alya would have noticed right now.

“You didn’t hear from Adrien on the way back, did you?” asked Alya anxiously, looking between them as she wiped the residual tears off her face. “I’ve been texting and texting…”

“I… No, not yet.” He cleared his throat and tore his gaze away from Marinette, jumping back into the moment with some difficulty.

Marinette’s face fell, and that sinking, icy feeling in Nino’s insides returned. “Nino’s been calling, but… we hoped he might be with you,” she said.

There was a tense silence — Marinette biting her lip, hands wringing; Alya, suddenly looking ashen and small. Nino picked up Marinette’s discarded phone from the ground by his feet with fumbling fingers. “I’ll try him again,” he managed finally.

Alya’s phone was already in hand. “Nothing,” she said after a few seconds, looking sick.

“Well, try it again.”

Nothing.

“Okay,” said Marinette, pale but her face set with a determined calm. “Let’s just… stop for a moment. Breathe. Where would he go?”

“Home?” suggested Alya. “You know his bodyguard will have been scouring the city…”

The girls’ voices faded around him as Nino retreated into himself, weighing the possibilities. It could only have been, what? Ten minutes since the Lucky Charm cleared away the rubble? Twenty? Hardly enough time to do a full sweep of the city, even factoring in the limited area in which the Akuma had time to attack before Ladybug and Chat Noir put him down. There could be bodies all over the place, in forgotten alleys or empty apartment buildings; wherever people had retreated for cover.

Clearly they weren’t the only ones worried about loved ones either, considering everybody around them on the streets and in the park were on their phones or clinging to each other with sobs of relief. And Marinette said herself that she didn’t know the extent of her city-healing abilities…

Alya was by his side again, looking anxious as she tried the phone again. He felt his arms tighten around her automatically, feeling the warmth from her body trying and failing to ease some of the tension in his body, the monotonous tone from the phone still rattling around in his head; ‘We’re sorry…’

Through the sea of her hair, a familiar, stupidly tall blond head edged through the crowd, bobbing around like it was looking for something…

“Adrien!”

He was running before his brain caught up with his body, nearly knocking the girls over in his haste, tripping over his own feet and uneven ground and—

“You stupid idiot!” he yelled, nearly knocking Adrien to the ground as he squeezed him tight on impact.

“Dude,” protested Adrien in a wheeze, arms hovering only a split second before returning the hug. “What gives?”

“Answer your damn phone, dumbass,” said Nino, finally feeling the tears he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in flooding down his face. He didn’t even notice the girls following him until Alya crashed into them as well, Marinette in hot pursuit. “You stupid, goddamn idiot.”

Adrien let them dogpile him for a while before gently untangling himself to answer Alya’s clamoring demands about where the hell he’d been. After they’d got separated, he’d holed up in a clothing store a few blocks away, but hadn’t realized he’d dropped his phone in the confusion. He’d had to retrace his steps once the coast was clear, which was why he was the last one back, and had only just found it, kicked under the edge of a dumpster across the street from the park. Nino didn’t care how or why he hadn’t answered now. The only thing rattling around his head as he dried his face was the constant ‘He’s safe, he’s safe, he’s safe…’

“So, what now?” Adrien finished, glancing between them. “I… uh, don’t suppose there’s much call for the movies now, is there? Especially since I can’t imagine anything will be open just now.” The ghost of a grin flitted across his face and died.

“I want to hear about you guys,” said Alya, turning to Marinette and Nino. “What happened to you?”

“Oh, um, I just did a lot of running,” said Marinette sheepishly. “Kind of just… going wherever the Akuma wasn’t, you know? I found an apartment building and stuck around there for a while, and then I ran into Nino when Ladybug and Chat Noir caught the Akuma.”

It was so… strange, hearing her refer to herself like that. To Ladybug, knowing she was Ladybug. Nino felt a new level of appreciation for how difficult keeping the lies straight must be, and keeping herself from saying “I” or “we” when referring to the protectors of Paris.

“What about you, Nino?” said Adrien.

And then he blanked.

“Uh, well… I kinda ran around for a while when we got separated,” he stuttered after a moment. “I broke my leg—”

“What?” exclaimed Alya.

“I — um…” Marinette was watching him quietly, not pointedly, but he could see something behind her eyes; something willing him to please don’t fuck this up.

He couldn’t do it.

“Turned out,” interjected Marinette brightly after a few agonizing seconds, “we ended up hiding in the same building!” Alya and Adrien turned to look at her as Nino stared, partly grateful, partly shocked. “Yeah, Ladybug found him and dropped him off at the same apartment building I was in toward the end. ‘Course we didn’t find out until after it was all over and we came out of hiding, but isn’t that crazy?”

They all turned back to look at Nino, who coughed. “Yeah,” he said finally. “Crazy, huh?”

“Too bad she didn’t bring you to the same floor, right?” said Marinette lightly, nudging his leg with a toe. “Would have saved us a lot of panic, huh?” The gesture was casual, disguised as a playful act of camaraderie between two people who’d been through a harrowing ordeal — only he understood the hidden implication: ‘Play along.’

He coughed again gracelessly. “I was pretty glad to find you,” he admitted. “Since you never answer your phone and have a worse sense of direction than Alya, we might never have seen you again otherwise.”

“Hey, not cool,” protested Alya. “Too soon.”

“I’m just… glad you’re all okay,” said Adrien. “Sorry I freaked you guys out.” He looked between them all, a warm smile on his face, but… Was that Nino’s imagination, or did he seem… distracted? He wanted to shake himself. Of course there he was. They’d all just survived a terrorist attack, and a super-powered one at that. None of them were okay.

They were quiet for a moment, just savoring the fact that they were alive, that their families were alive and okay…

“So… what now?” said Alya quietly.

“I guess…” began Marinette, and then trailed off.

“Well, I’m pretty sure Nathalie and the Gorilla are looking for me,” said Adrien with a weary sigh, “so I should probably get a hold of them before they tear the city apart. Again.”

“I just wanna go home,” said Alya in a small voice, looking suddenly nearly as tired as Nino felt. “My mom didn’t want me coming back out so soon after she got back, but…”

“Me too,” agreed Marinette softly. “I guess, just… Stay safe?”

“We’ll talk later, yeah?” said Adrien with a half-hearted smile, and in the group hug that followed Nino pulled them all as close to him as he could, wishing to preserve the moment for as long as humanly possible.

But then the moment passed, and one by one they took their leave until only he and Marinette remained.

“So…” he said awkwardly after a pause.

“So,” she agreed with equal discomfort.

He cleared his throat with some difficulty. “So,” he began again, “when should I expect this… talk?”

Marinette looked down at her toes. “I have to see my parents first,” she said, “obviously. And—” She dropped her voice low, “—I… I have to see Chat, y’know, because we didn’t really get a chance to do… this after the fight.” She gestured vaguely at the teary civilians, and their own recently-disbanded reunion. “But I’ll stop by later, if that’s all right. Or you could come to my place, if you want…?”

“My place is probably better,” he said wearily. “My parents are out of town.”

She blinked. “Oh. Oh, I see.” She bit her lip. “D’you want to come to my place anyway, after I see Chat real quick? So you don’t have to be alone, I mean, I can meet you outside the bakery—”

“No, no,” he interrupted distantly. “Nah, I’ll be fine. I need to call my folks anyway.” A beat of silence. “Thanks, though,” he added hastily.

There was something behind her eyes, a deep sadness he tried very hard to ignore at present. “Are you… sure you’re all right, Nino?” she asked quietly.

Was he? Was anyone, right now? “I’m fine,” he lied.

She didn’t look like she believed him. “I’ll see you later, Nino,” she said, and then she, too, was gone.

He stood there for an indeterminate amount of time, just surrounding himself with the collective relief of Paris, the sudden and inexplicable peace after such a violent event. He kept his mind carefully blank, if only for that one moment, where he could pretend that none of it had ever happened, that nothing was wrong.

He opened his eyes and began to walk.

Time seemed immaterial at the moment. If he’d been asked, he’d have been hard-pressed to tell anyone how long it took him to get home, or which route he took. All he knew was that at some point, he found himself standing in front of his apartment door, and a few moments passed before he remembered to fish out his keys.

The apartment looked exactly as he had left it. Of course it did; why wouldn’t it? His laptop, snoozing on the kitchen counter. His breakfast dishes still piled in the sink. He’d left the bathroom light on by accident.

Nino sank into the couch, gazing blankly at his faint reflection in the darkened TV screen.

It was all… too much.

Calling his parents would be pointless — they probably hadn’t even landed yet, and if they had they hadn’t heard what happened, given the fact that they hadn’t blown up his phone yet; what would be the point in worrying them and ruining their vacation? So there was nothing to do but sit until Marinette-Ladybug showed up at his door.

He came to the sudden, terrifying realization that that was the last thing he wanted in the entire world.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want — no, need — answers; he did, desperately. As the silence of the apartment pressed in around him all he could see was the pink flash of light, all he could hear was Marinette’s terrified voice, ‘You weren’t supposed to find out like this…’

‘You weren’t supposed to find out at all…’

How long, exactly, had she been planning on keeping something like that a secret? Did she think she could just continue with this massive lie of a double-life for as long as she held the mantle of Ladybug, before quietly retiring an indeterminate number of years in the future without a word? Had she even thought that far ahead? Not like what happened today was in any way predictable, but still.

He didn’t want to know, didn’t want to have such knowledge forced upon him. He didn’t have Alya’s drive, her insatiable need to learn every dark secret Ladybug and Chat Noir had hidden away. He was content to live in the dark, let them live their lives as they wished. And yet here he sat, and all he could think about was Marinette Dupain-Cheng, clad in the red and black of one of Paris’s most prominent protectors.

He squeezed his eyes shut, but that only made the image brighter.

Marinette, her Ladybug suit melting away into jeans and sneakers.

Marinette, talking to a magical bug.

Marinette, beating herself bloody on the immovable door, screaming for her partner with a furious desperation he’d never seen the likes of before.

Everything Alya had told him swirled around in his head, mixing and matching with everything he could remember about Ladybug, everything he’d ever known about Marinette. Little quirks in Ladybug’s speech, half-remembered from Ladyblog streams past. Marinette’s every disappearance, and every Ladybug sighting moments later. Flustered excuses and panicked distractions melded together into one truth so brutal he could hardly bear to acknowledge, but knew he had to accept.

Marinette was a superhero, and she could have died today.

Even more so than any of the rest of them, and that scared him most of all.

He snapped back to reality at the sudden knock on the front door.

Opening it, he shouldn’t have been surprised to see Marinette standing there in the hall — looking tired, of course, and nervous, but more put-together than before — and yet he was, slightly, anyway. “You got here fast,” he commented.

She looked at him quizzically. “It’s been two hours,” she said.

Really? Glancing behind him out the window, he finally noticed how the light had shifted, the shadows longer than they had been the last time he checked. Huh.

“…Can I come in?”

He looked back at her, hovering in the doorway, and blinked. “Sorry,” he said, moving aside, and she flitted past him into the living room.

“Um,” he said as he closed the door, suddenly hyper-aware of his surroundings and the situation and her, “d’you, I don’t know, want something to drink?”

“Oh,” she said, looking almost as uncomfortable as he felt. “No, thanks, I’m fine.”

They stood there in awkward silence for what felt like an eternity, both staring at anything that wasn’t each other.

Well, there were no two ways around this; might as well rip the Band-Aid off and get it over with. “So,” he said to the floor. “You’re a superhero, huh?”

She surveyed the bookshelf in the corner. “Yeah,” she said.

“Fighting crime,” he continued at a lamp. “Saving the day. Kicking ass.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re… Ladybug.”

She reddened slightly. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

It was a struggle, but he forced himself to meet her hesitant gaze. “So,” he said. “Parkour, huh?”

The split second of silence as she processed his remark was deafening, but then she cracked a grin, a relieved, genuine smile that seemed to melt some of the tension away. “To be fair,” she said, “it wasn’t exactly a lie.”

He gestured to the couch and they both sat down, albeit a bit farther apart than they might have before. Baby steps. “How are your parents?” he asked, picking imaginary lint off his jeans.

“Fine,” she sighed. “Dad cried a lot when I got home. They didn’t want me coming out again so soon, but I told them you were home alone and I wanted to make sure you were okay. You may or may not be expected for dinner until your parents come home.” She side-eyed him. “That wasn’t a lie either, you know,” she added softly. “Wanting to make sure you were okay, I mean.”

He cleared his throat. “Do they, uh, do they know?”

She looked away. “No,” she said. She sounded almost ashamed. “No, you’re the only one.”

He looked up in surprise. “The only one?” he repeated. “Doesn’t Chat Noir know?”

Her ears went red, and there was definite shame in her voice when she admitted, “No.”

“How — but why?” A thought struck him. “Do you know who he—”

She shook her head, picking at a loose thread in the seam of a couch cushion. “No,” she said quietly. “We can’t know. We’re not supposed to. Nobody is. Maybe someday, but—” She cut herself off and shook her head again. “We shouldn’t,” she reiterated. “It’s too dangerous.” She fiddled with the thread, a bundle of nervous, directionless energy, and sighed again. “It’s like,” she began again, and stopped.

Nino let her collect her thoughts, his own mind tripping over itself with questions and exclamations and the need to scream, but he let her figure out the words first. It was her secret, after all. Her life.

“The whole time I’ve been Ladybug,” she said finally, “protecting my identity has been, like, the most important thing. The most important, even more important than stopping Hawkmoth, because we can’t fight him if he knows who we are, y’know? He could just… find us, send Akumas after our families, take our Miraculous. It’s like this constant cloud over our heads. We can’t tell the people closest to us, because they might get Akumatized. And we can’t tell people who’ve already been Akumatized, because they might get Akumatized again…” Her fist clenched. “We don’t even know if we can get Akumatized — that’s the scariest part. And even if we can’t, he’s been controlled by them enough that… I can’t even trust him with that part of myself, and I trust him more than—” She cut herself off, exhaling as the fist slowly released its grip. “We argue about it sometimes. And I’ve been so paranoid for so long…”

“…You don’t know what to do,” finished Nino quietly. “Now that I know.”

She looked at him. “It’s not that I don’t trust you,” she said.

“Of course not. But I’m a problem now.” It wasn’t meant as a jab, just a statement of fact, but she winced anyway.

“I wouldn’t say ‘problem,’ exactly…”

“No, I get it.” He shrugged lopsidedly. “Trust me, it’s a problem for me, too. Like, how am I supposed to cover for you? Because I can’t lie, you know that.”

She opened her mouth, closed it, looking lost.

“Of course I will,” he continued, less to her now and more to himself, “obviously. But I won’t like it.”

She reached for him hesitantly, but couldn’t quite seem to bring herself to touch him. “I’m sorry, Nino,” she said.

He sighed. “Don’t be,” he said. “Honestly.”

“You shouldn’t be in this position,” she said, and to that he had nothing to say. So they sat in silence for a while, both lost in their own heads.

“Where’s your… uh, friend?” he asked delicately, as a way to break the awkward lull in conversation.

“My… Oh, you mean Tikki?” She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “She’s, ah, in my my purse. We figured it would be better that way, I guess. Easier.”

He frowned. “Why did you bring it — sorry, her, then? If you didn’t know if I could take it?”

“She’s always with me,” said Marinette quietly. “She has to be, y’know? Because of the Akumas.”

Of course. What a stupid question. Nino kicked himself mentally and cleared his throat. “You can… You can come out now, um, if you want,” he said, a little too loudly. He felt like an idiot, but then he heard a soft zipping noise and looked down to see Marinette’s purse opening on its own. As if by magic, or so it would have seemed were it not for the tiny paws reaching up through the zipper to move it. He stared.

The little bug thing — he had to stop calling her that, she had a name — poked her head out. “Hi, Nino,” she squeaked.

Nino blinked. “What’s hangin’, little dude?” he said faintly. He could feel himself beginning to detach at the sight of her. It wasn’t right, wasn’t real, he couldn’t take this — but he did. He could. He forced himself to stay present.

He’d turned into a supervillain controlled by a butterfly, after all. For daring to believe his best friend should have a birthday party.

This should be a piece of cake.

“Do you guys want anything?” he asked suddenly, jumping to his feet. “A snack? A drink? I think I have some Pepsi in the fridge…” He was babbling. He could handle this. Of course he could. He just needed to… move. Around. Sitting was boring, anyway.

“Oh,” said Marinette. She and Tikki exchanged glances. “I’ll have some water, I guess. Since you’re offering.”

“Great,” said Nino, clattering around the kitchen aimlessly. Glasses, where were the glasses? He felt like a stranger in his own home, and it took him two tries to open the right cupboard. The tap sounded awfully loud as he ran a fumbling finger through the stream of water, checking the temperature out of habit without really feeling.

“Do you have any cookies?” asked the tinkling voice of Tikki. He nearly dropped the glass in the sink.

“Cookies?” he repeated shakily.

“She prefers sweets,” explained Marinette from the couch.

He rummaged through some more cabinets to fish out a half-filled roll of Oreos. ‘Do kwamis need plates?’ he wondered uncertainly. He brought one anyway, the tiniest tea saucer he could find, although it was probably still larger than her entire body. On the way back, he hovered for a moment in front of the fridge before grabbing a can of soda for himself. Normally he’d have a Red Bull or some other highly caffeinated sleep-substitute, but he was high-strung enough as it was. He didn’t really want the soda, either, but at least now he’d have something to do with his hands.

He set everything down carefully on the coffee table, arranging everything meticulously in front of them. However, there were only so many ways one could stack Oreos on a plate before it started to look weird, and his stalling time ran out. There was nothing else for it but to sit back down and face the music. “There you go,” he said unnecessarily, not quite settling back down into the cushions.

“Thank you, Nino,” said Tikki brightly, fluttering over to the pile of cookies and perching on the rim of the plate. She took one — it was nearly as big as her head — and bit down in the tiniest bite he’d ever seen. He knew it was rude to stare, but he couldn’t help it. She certainly seemed to take no notice.

“You might want to let go of that Pepsi,” suggested Marinette quietly, “before it explodes on you.” He looked down to see his knuckles were white around the can, and there was already a dent in the metal from his thumb. He hastily set it down, but the dent remained.

“So…” he said awkwardly. “You’re… Tikki.”

Tikki swallowed with a delicate gulp and smiled. “Yes, I am.” Nino opened his mouth to say something, hovered for a moment, and closed it again. Tikki’s smile turned matronly, or as close to it as her strange features allowed. “I’m sure you have questions,” she prompted gently. “It’s alright. I answered them for Marinette.”

Nino glanced between them uncertainly, taking in Tikki’s strange patience and Marinette’s nervous encouragement, and swallowed heavily. “What…” He gripped the knees of his jeans, fingers tightening on the loose denim until the knuckles went white again. “What are you?” he asked quietly.

Tikki settled back on her pile of Oreos. “I am a kwami.” Nino looked at her blankly and she considered for a moment. “A sort of demigod, I suppose,” she said. “Marinette can call me to her Miraculous and access some small part of my power, when she needs to.”

Nino’s gaze slid back to Marinette, who was looking at him carefully. “What’s your Miraculous?” He paused. “I mean, where is it?”

Marinette gestured to her earrings, angling her head so her hair fell away. The studs were plain, dark stones — she’d been wearing them forever. Since collège…

Of course. He’d never been as into the Ladyblog as Alya would have liked, so it took him a second to put it together, but when he did he felt silly for not doing so sooner. His stint as an Akuma was vague, the memory faded by time and post-cleansing amnesia, but he’d seen enough attacks since to remember the manic demands from Hawkmoth’s henchmen. Ladybug wore earrings too, red and black like her suit. Like Tikki. Because Tikki…

“How long have you known?”

Marinette considered her cuticles. “I’d only had my earrings for a day or two when Ivan was turned,” she said. “They just… turned up in my bedroom. I found them when I got home one day. I had no idea where they came from. And then there was this… bug-mouse flying around, telling me I was a superhero and I had to fight an actual supervillain…” Her voice softened. “I didn’t know what I was doing. It was… just so much.” Nino could sympathize. She paused for a moment and smiled. “You’re taking this very well,” she said. “When I first met Tikki I tried to attack her.”

That was… understandable. “Wait, really?”

She chuckled. “Threw everything at her but the kitchen sink.”

“And then you trapped me under a water glass,” added Tikki in an amused tone.

Nino blinked. “But you can go through walls.”

Marinette looked embarrassed. “Well, I didn’t know that at the time,” she said.

His hands were still trying to shake, so he released his death grip on his jeans and folded them carefully into his lap. His mind, however, was surprisingly calm. Tikki spoke in measured, lilting tones that were surprisingly calming, Marinette interjecting occasionally with a clarification or anecdote. He found himself asking fewer and fewer questions even than before — he didn’t even know what he didn’t know, so he simply let them take the reins and allowed the revelations to wash over him. An explanation of Ladybug’s powers and transformation. A brief rundown of what Alya had already figured out about the magic, with an added clarification here and there. Marinette reliving the first Akuma attack. A quiet smile as she recalled literally running into Chat for the first time.

And that was another thing.

“How’s he going to react to this?” Nino asked, speaking for the first time in what felt like hours. He rubbed his neck awkwardly. “I mean, you have to tell him, right? This is kind of… big.”

Marinette went quiet for a moment, a cloud passing over her expression. “I… I don’t know,” she admitted haltingly. There was silence again as she pursed her lips, picking at the loose thread again absently. “It was an accident, I’m sure he’ll understand that. But…” She trailed off.

“Marinette?” he prompted, but she stayed silent. “Mari,” he said again, more insistent this time as he finally understood her expression. “You can’t just not tell him.”

“Of course,” she said, but she didn’t sound happy about it. “I couldn’t keep this from him, even if I tried, I know that, it’s just…” She slumped forward slowly, hands dragging down her face before coming to rest on her chin as she stared blankly into space. “It’ll be hard,” she said. “You don’t understand. It hasn’t even been a week since…” She trailed off again, a flush starting creeping up her ears, still frowning at nothing.

“Since what?” he prompted when she didn’t finish her sentence.

She sighed and slumped back instead, sinking into the cushions. “We had a huge fight,” she said. “When that rainstorm hit the other night. It was horrible. There was this whole—” She gestured vaguely at nothing as she searched for a suitable description, “thing about a girl who triggered the magic for him, in his civilian life, I mean, and he told me about it, and it was… It was a mess.” Her expression twisted. “And then there was an Akuma attack in the middle of it all, and—”

“An Akuma?” interrupted Nino. “There wasn’t anything on the Ladyblog about it.”

Marinette shrugged. “It was late,” she said, “and absolutely pouring. The streets were deserted — I don’t know why that woman was out driving in the first place, you could barely see a thing. There were apartments and stuff, so I’m surprised nobody saw us from their windows, but if they did I’m honestly glad nobody tried submitting any pictures. That whole night was…” She sighed, running her hands over her face, through her hair. “It was something, all right. We don’t need that all over the internet.”

Nino frowned. “That was Tuesday, though,” he said. “You guys seemed pretty chummy on Wednesday. Not like you’d been fighting.”

“You noticed that, huh?”

She was hiding something. He squinted at her. “What?” he asked.

Her ears were well and truly red now, even though her expression betrayed nothing. She looked down, away, pursed her lips, fingers absently worrying at the loose thread. “We… kissed,” she said finally, almost embarrassed.

“What?”

“Well, I kissed him first, but then, well…” She trailed off, blushing furiously. “You know how it goes,” she mumbled.

“You kissed Chat Noir?” Nino didn’t know what to do with himself, reeling at the admission. Conflicted on whether to slump back or jump to his feet in shock, to yell or sit in silence, never mind what to do with his hands… He settled for clutching his hair.

“What, like I couldn’t pull a hot blond guy after what happened?” said Marinette, her voice laced with a defensive tone.

“What? No! I mean… what?” He was wringing his cap in his hands with no clear memory of how it got there. On a day that had felt like getting punched in the stomach multiple times in a row, somehow this was the revelation that had sparked the most reaction. Magic? Sure. Secret identities? Whatever. Marinette getting some with her partner? Stop the presses, hold the phone. Madness. He’d sort through his priorities later.

“It’s not that weird,” she said, sounding slightly miffed.

He waved his cap dismissively. “It’s not that,” he said impatiently. “It’s just… Chat Noir.” She looked at him blankly. “Chat Noir,” he said again for emphasis.

“Oh, that’s right, you don’t actually know him,” she said. “He’s just a giant dork, honestly.”

“A celebrity superhero giant dork,” he corrected her. “Who wears a leather catsuit and has fangirls and gets cosplayers at fetish conventions. That Chat Noir.”

“Who also regularly stops patrols to pet stray cats and who cried on my shoulder for an hour and a half after I made him watch Titanic for the first time,” countered Marinette, the tiniest hint of a smile quirking up a corner of her mouth. “Really, it’s not that big of a deal. Well,” she amended, her cheeks turning slightly pink again, “it’s not not a big deal, but just not like that…”

Nino finally sank back into the cushions, puffing out his cheeks as he exhaled and put his now severely wrinkled cap back in place. “Boy, you sure can pick ‘em,” he said, finally cracking the can of Pepsi with a soft hiss.

She smiled bashfully. “Tell me about it,” she agreed.

“How does something like that even happen?” he said. “I mean, you fight, kick ass, then, what, make out in an alleyway in the rain? With your superhero partner? Like, what?”

She paled. “I thought there weren’t any pictures,” she breathed.

“What? No, I just mean…” He reached for the gently sweating Pepsi can and cracked it absently. “Is your life an actual movie or something?” he said. “What the hell?”

“I wish it wasn’t,” she said dully. “Not that I don’t love Tikki, or care about Paris or anything, but I just wish—” She stopped. Sighed. “Everything’s so complicated,” she said.

He couldn’t disagree.

“I tried to give them to Alya,” she confessed finally, through the silence.

Nino nearly choked on his soda. “Give—” he spluttered.

“My earrings,” she clarified unnecessarily. “I tried to give them to Alya. After everything went so wrong with Ivan.” Curled up on the cushions as she was, she looked smaller somehow, as if the admission had shrunk her down to a child again.

Nino set the can down carefully, wiping soda off his chin. “Why?” he said after a moment.

She didn’t answer immediately. “She was so… confident,” she said finally. “So sure of herself, and so unafraid. Not like me. And she loves superheroes. She was so… excited when everything started happening. No powers at all, and yet she hurled herself into the middle of it all anyway. Just imagine how she’d be with magic.” A small smile twitched up as the image settled over them both. Of Alya, with her wild hair and righteous sense of justice, raising hell in black and red.

Alya.

He glanced at her as she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, eyes cast down, lost in thought. “I thought a lot about it afterwards,” she said quietly. “Even after I decided to stay. About how different things would have been. They would have been easier…” She shook her head. “No, not ‘easier.’” She paused. “Simpler, I guess.” She hunched down lower, arms wrapping around her knees as if that could protect her. “I’ve never told anyone that before either,” she said.

He didn’t know what to say, but he had barely been able to keep up all day anyway. “She would have been a good Ladybug,” he agreed slowly. “But she wouldn’t be you.”

She blushed at that, frame relaxing a little. “Thanks, Nino,” she said. “It’s still one hell of a mess, though.”

“True,” he said.

“And that’s why telling Chat is gonna be a nightmare,” she continued. “Tuesday was the biggest fight we’ve had about it, and then… things…” She trailed off, embarrassed. “I don’t know what we are anymore,” she admitted in a small voice, “but I don’t want to ruin it.”

“It was an accident, though. It was out of your control.”

“Yeah.” She sighed. “But I don’t know if that makes it better or worse.”

“Would it… help if I talked to him?”

She glanced at him, a mixture of confusion and vague surprise on her face.

“I mean—” Nino swallowed, hardly believing the words about to come out of his mouth, “—if you’re worried about him getting mad, I mean, or blaming you or something, would it help if I was there? I could explain the situation, y’know. And maybe it would help to meet me for real, if he’s worried I might talk or something…”

“That’s…” She smiled a little, relaxing in her seat. “That’s really nice of you, Nino.” She took a thoughtful sip of her water and set it down again carefully, lips pursed. “I’m not really worried he’ll be mad, exactly. I think he’ll just be disappointed. Hurt, maybe.” Her expression twisted and she looked back at him out of the corner of her eye. “Could I keep you on retainer?” she asked jokingly. “I think I should talk to him alone first, but, like, just in case…”

“Anything you need.” The promise came automatically, and just like that, it was settled in his mind. Marinette needed him. There was no question; of course he would help her in any way he could.

She smiled again. “You might get a visit from him anyway,” she said. “Just… be warned. Even if he isn’t mad or anything, he’s still pretty protective of me. He’ll want to make sure you can be trusted.”

“I can take him.”

He absolutely couldn’t, but he made her chuckle, at least.

“And anyway,” he added, “Alya would want someone to interrogate the boyfriend. Make sure he’s good enough for you.”

She started laughing for real then, a faint blush coloring her cheeks. “He’s not my boyfriend,” she said. “At least, I don’t think he is. He’s just… my partner. Who I like a lot. And kiss sometimes.”

“You’re right, my mistake, sounds completely platonic to me.”

“But…” And here she sobered a little, mid-laugh, the pink fading slightly from her skin. “I’m sorry about Alya, I know you hate lying to her.”

The reminder made his chest tighten, but he shook it off. “She doesn’t know I know anything,�� he rationalized. “I won’t have to lie if she doesn’t ask.”

“I know, but her investigations…” Marinette sighed, massaging her temples with a finger. “She promised she’d drop it, and I want to believe her, but you know how she is sometimes. Especially lately…”

“I won’t say anything,” he promised. “Honestly, I don’t know if I can.” He glanced at Tikki out of the corner of his eye, who was now on her third Oreo. Once he’d gotten over his initial shock, he was surprised to find she looked kind of cute. Like a living stuffed animal, with unsettlingly large eyes. “Can I?” he said.

Tikki swallowed delicately. “You could,” she said. “But the magic knows it’s not your secret to tell.”

“What does that mean?” asked Marinette.

“It means,” said Tikki, “if you slip up on accident, you won’t reveal Marinette as Ladybug. But I’d be—” And here she paused a moment, considering, “—careful about what you say, or how much. The magic can have… consequences.”

Marinette and Nino exchanged glances. “Cool,” he said, in a voice slightly too high. “That’s cool. Cool, cool, cool.”

“You’ll… you’ll be fine,” said Marinette encouragingly. She wasn’t fooling anyone. “Just, like, don’t say anything, I guess.”

“Oh, yeah, sure.” His hands were starting to sweat as he picked up the Pepsi can again. “Just don’t be suspicious around Alya, that’s all. No worries.” The soda was gone before he realized he’d been chugging it.

“I-I’ll talk to Chat tonight,” said Marinette finally in the silence. “Or maybe tomorrow, I guess. I need to plan out what I’m gonna say.”

“Great,” he squeaked. “Sounds great.”

“Hey,” she said suddenly, standing up, “let’s get out of here. You hungry?”

“Hungry?” The concept seemed foreign to him over the crushing sense of existential dread that had just settled over his shoulders, but his stomach rumbled in spite of himself.

She smiled and beckoned to Tikki, who swooped up and into her open purse, zipping it after herself. “My dad’s making some major comfort food tonight; he always cooks when he’s upset.”

He shook himself, setting the can down with exaggerated care. It was slightly crushed now, and tilted awkwardly to one side. “You sure?” he said. “I wouldn’t want to impose.”

She fixed him with a look. “Of course not,” she said. “And honestly, if I showed up at home without you, I’m pretty sure my mom would march right back here and drag you home herself. I told you, you’re expected.”

Seeing her standing there, looking down at him with an expression of such warmth that simultaneously left no room for argument, he let out a half-hearted sigh and got to his feet. “Alright,” he said. “Let me grab my stuff.”

“I’m sorry again, Nino,” she said as he cleaned off the coffee table and dumped dishes in the sink.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, grabbing his jacket. “I’m okay, really.”

“I know this day didn’t turn out how any of us wanted, but…” She smiled a little sheepishly. “I guess if it had to happen like this, if it had to be anybody but Chat… I’m glad it was you, and not some stranger.”

“A ringing endorsement.”

“Sorry.”

He remembered to switch off the bathroom light before they left.

#ml tpoy fic #fanfiction #LadyNoir #Lady writes things #miraculous ladybug

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