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avecorviidae · 5 years ago

Text

Fic: nor any more youth or age than there is now

Fandom: The Magnus Archives Rating: T Relationship(s): Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims Word Count: 6512

Ao3 Link

The rumour started with Mary Fleming, who volunteered with her son’s Primary five class every Tuesday, and who had become close enough with most of the P5 teachers that she was considered a mostly reputable source, as far as these things were concerned. She had mentioned it to Katy Hooper over tea, who had texted it to her playdate group, who had repeated it in scandalized whispers and concerned murmurings and oh-have-you-heard phone calls until the news had thoroughly saturated the entire village:

Mrs. Cunningham, the stern older woman who had taught Primary two for as long as most people could remember, had quite suddenly and without warning or reason, retired and left town. Being the only Primary two teacher at the school, this was something of a concern.

For a few days, the Primary two class was shuffled awkwardly between other classrooms, taken largely by whoever had enough empty chairs or floorspace to accommodate them. On Wednesday, they sat cross-legged on the colourful carpet of the nursery room, the sudden shock of being absent a teacher and the abounding well-my-maw-said rumours being quite enough to keep them occupied and mostly out of trouble. By Thursday, the children had realized that they were free of the bounds of formal education, and attempted to turn poor Mr. Bone’s Primary one classroom into a Lord of the Flies recreation, leading to a few pupils being sent home early with a stern warning. On Friday, they were firmly instructed to sit quietly with the Primary sevens, who were watching a documentary that day. During said documentary, a wolf killed and ate a deer, causing Molly Brown to become inconsolably upset.

The situation was clearly becoming desperate.

In this part of the country, formally trained teachers were in short supply, and for the most part, it was a life term. A post was vacated when the individual retired, or, well, retired.

On Monday morning, the parents of the Primary two class were invited with a strained enthusiasm to join their pupils in the classroom to meet Mr. Sims, who had apparently agreed to take the job on extremely short notice, and who would be teaching the P2s for the rest of the year, or until the school could track down a more suitable, more permanent replacement.

Mr. Sims, perched delicately on an office chair at the front of the classroom, put one to mind of a particularly bedraggled crow. Small frame, narrow face, narrow shoulders, scar-riddled skin, and he peered at the gaggle of children in front of him with flat black eyes, long fingers fretting at a crease in his trousers. His hair, dark as the rest of him, hung in a limp ponytail at his neck, and was streaked through with grey that didn’t quite match the cowed, nervous youth of his face. There was a trepidation to the way he was braced, to the way he glanced, quick and furtive around the room, and it was reflected back in the way the parents watched him carefully, fingers twitching, ready to snatch away their offspring at the first sign of trouble from the odd, scarred little man. The children were immediately fascinated, to the point of being entirely enamoured, having never seen a grown-up quite so openly strange.

The head mistress was stood at his side, waiting with a mild impatience for the chatter to settle. The crease of concern on her forehead had, sometime over the weekend, started to become a permanent wrinkle.

She made brusque introductions, stiffly thanked Mr. Sims for stepping into the role, made some half-hearted assurances to the parents about an environment of stability, an attempt to smooth over the frazzled discontent that hummed through the room.

Mr. Sims coughed, blinked in surprise when he seemed to realise that the head mistress was done with platitudes, that he was, presumably, expected to speak for himself.

“Ah, right,” he mumbled, and pushed his glasses up his nose with two fingers. He cleared his throat, addressed the room at large, though his eyes were skittish, seemed to avoid lingering in one place for long. “As Mrs. McMillan said, my name is Jonathan Sims – though, I suppose Mr. Sims will do, for the classroom. My training is primarily based in academic research, not, ah, education, and while I will be unable to provide the proper curriculum and teaching that experience and time would have afforded my predecessor, I can assure you that I will attempt to fill this role to the best of my ability, and would welcome any input you may have over the rest of the year.”

Mr. Sims turned his attention to the circle of cross-legged little gawkers at his feet, then, and his voice gentled a touch when he addressed them, a rueful smile on his face.

“I know it must be strange to have a new teacher so suddenly, in the middle of the year. And I may not be very good at this. So I do hope you’ll all tell me if I do anything wrong.”

Directly under his nose, Finlay Robinson’s hand shot up into the air.

Mr. Sims blinked. “Yes?”

“Do you know the Queen?”

Another blink. “I- No?”

Finlay’s hand remained up. Mr. Sims nodded for him to continue. “Then why do you sound so posh?”

In one of the chairs at the back of the room, Mrs. Robinson went rather red. Mr. Sims just laughed quietly to himself, however, and replied, “Ah, I suppose that would be because of my grandmother.”

Molly Brown’s hand went tentatively upwards.

Mr. Sims looked at her with a slight apprehension. “Yes?”

“Is your Gran the Queen?”

<0>

Heather tended to get nervous, at the end of the day.

The playground was just – big. Not big the way it was during break, when her and Molly would chase each other laughing and squealing across the pavement like little wild things, but big in a way where the iron bars of the fence around the school loomed horribly, and as her class was slowly picked up by their mums and dads and teachers stalked around like wolves looking for straying soft things to hunt, Heather always became certain that she had to stand very—

very—

still.

Or else it would see her. And if it saw her, it would get her.

Last year, Mr. Bone had held her hand, at the end of every day, had let her stand close to his comforting largeness until Dad waved at her from the gates, and she could run the short and awful distance to his arms. Mr. Bone was bald, and very tall, and outdoors his head always looked very shiny, and she had been sure that as long as she was stood beside him, his big fingers tight around hers, it wouldn’t be able to see her.

Mrs. Cunningham had been smaller, hunched and unassuming, but Heather had thought that it might not be able to see through the drab brown folds of her skirts. But Mrs. Cunningham had told her not to be silly, to go and play with the rest of the class until she was picked up, to grow up and behave like a big girl. And the Primary ones got out an hour before the Primary twos, so she couldn’t hide at the side of Mr. Bone anymore, so it was going to see her. So she had gotten very good at walking to a spot beside the bins, trying to keep her footsteps soft, quiet, and holding herself in their shallow shadows, and keeping very, very still.

Mr. Sims was not too much like Mrs. Cunningham. He did not snap at them for talking a little during individual work time, and hadn’t even told off Logan for getting up to sharpen his pencil, even though he hadn’t raised his hand to ask, and didn’t hold a ruler to his open palm like a threat, like he was looking for any excuse to use it. But when he’d read them a story, Heather had watched him frown, mutter to himself that Bea and Arthur were silly for going exploring without telling their parents, and by the time the last bell rang, Heather was quite sure that if she asked to hold Mr. Sims’ hand, he would frown at her, and think she was being silly, and tell her that she was too big to need to hold hands in the playground.

The class lined up at the big front doors to go outside, and Heather stood at the very back. If everyone else went outside first, it would watch them, and might not notice her as she went to her spot by the bins.

Mr. Sims was waiting for her when she finally reached the doorway. She had been thinking about how she was going to walk, looking at her feet and practicing making them be quiet, so she almost bumped right into his legs. He was frowning, and she felt her lip wobble, a little. She didn’t want to cry, even if he called her silly. She was too grown-up for that.

“Miss Lewis?” he said. It was odd, to be called that. Last year, there had been another Heather in her P1 class, so she had been Heather L, and the other one had been Heather M, but Miss Lewis made her feel grown up, and she smoothed her palms down the front of her pinafore, suddenly embarrassed of the holes in the knees of her tights and the scuffs on the toes of her shoes.

She looked up at him. He wasn’t as tall as Mr. Bone, and he was leaning down towards her, peering at her over his thin glasses. She didn’t want to start crying. She didn’t want him to think she was silly.

“May I ask who’s coming to pick you up?” Mr. Sims asked softly, just like how the pupils were supposed to ask, like Miss may I go to the bathroom—

“My dad,” she said, softly, back. Out in the playground, she heard someone squeal. She didn’t look over Mr. Sims’ shoulder, sure she’d see it looking for her, even though she’d never seen it before. Mr. Sims wasn’t as big as Mr. Bone, no, but his jacket was big and thick and rough, with soft leather patches at the elbows, and all of him looked there enough that she thought it might not be able to see her hiding behind him.

“Your dad,” he said, and it sounded different the way he said it, fancy. Like the Queen. “Well, Miss Lewis. Would you—do you need to—Damn, how to… Would you prefer to wait with me outside, until your dad gets here?”

Heather realised quite suddenly that Mr. Sims knew about it too. Knew that it was going to get her, that it couldn’t see her when he was there. She nodded, and gripped the leg of his trousers as tight as she could, and felt all shaky in the knees with fear and relief as she walked outside with Mr. Sims, his hand near her shoulder, not quite brushing her jumper.

She looked up at him, and he was watching the playground, frowning, but not angry. Not afraid, either. So she copied him a little, since it couldn’t see her if she looked for it now, and looked around at the big game of tig that always went running around at the end of the day, and at Stuart and Duncan wrestling by the big wall, even though Mrs. Cunningham used to shout at them for getting their uniforms dirty, and at Molly, who was skipping at her mum’s side, skirt and pigtails bouncing, and at Tom Mackenzie, who was picking grass out of where it sometimes grew up from between cracks in the pavement, looking up now and again at the big front doors, waiting for the S3 class to be let out so his older sister could walk him home. And it—

wasn’t—

there?

She looked up at Mr. Sims, suddenly, not sure why. He looked back down at her, and smiled, then. “Better to be a watcher, than the watched, I suppose,” he said, very quietly, and she wasn’t sure he was speaking to her, not like he was when he then told her, very firmly—

“It doesn’t like to be seen. And I can see it. You’re safe, while I’m here, Miss Lewis.”

And she had the funniest feeling that she’d known that was true, even before he said it.

She felt his hand nudge her shoulder lightly, and he nodded towards the gate. “I believe that’s your father, now.”

Dad was there, smiling broadly and waving like he did every day, and she smiled back at him, even though she was still feeling a little wobbly, because otherwise he’d worry, and think she’d had a bad day, and try to take her for ice cream, and she would feel bad, because she’d had a good day, she was just scared. He held out his arms, open and waiting for her, because she always ran right into him, running quick enough until she was safe with him, until it couldn’t get her anymore. But if Mr. Sims was watching—

She let go of Mr. Sims’ trousers, and took two careful, tentative steps forward. Still, it wasn’t there. She looked back over her shoulder at Mr. Sims’, and he was still watching her, still there. “Have a good afternoon, Miss Lewis,” he said, mildly, but he was smiling a little, still, and she smiled back, and turned around and skipped into Dad’s arms.

<0>

Underneath the desk, Robbie pressed his knee to Emma’s. He felt her press back, and she smiled at him, but it was strained, nervous.

“It’ll be fine,” he told her, with a confidence he wasn’t sure he felt. “Your wee brother has Sims, right?”

Emma shrugged, nodded. “Yeah, likes him well enough. Better than that hag Cunningham, anyways. But that doesn’t mean he’s—”

Sims shouldered into the room just then, arms full, and Emma’s mouth snapped shut. He was smaller than Robbie expected, honestly. Then again, he’d only really seen him in the hallways, trailed by twenty tiny wee five-year-olds, so he had probably looked tall just by comparison. Between the tweed and the glasses and the greyish hair, he had a bit of a librarian vibe, but up close, he could see all of the scars that Emma’s mum had been talking about, after all the P2 parents got to sit in and meet him. You could just about write off all the pockmarks on his face and arms as some properly rough acne, if you were ignoring how big they were, but one of his hands was a shiny pink mess of skin, like one big blister scar.

He was probably in a nasty accident a long time ago, Mrs. Mackenzie had said to Tom during tea, after the third or fourth question about his new teacher. It’s not polite to stare at that sort of thing. Just you act like he looks completely normal, alright?

Emma’s mum was a practical lady, and Robbie quite liked her. It was good advice, and he should probably take it to heart. Or at the very least, he wasn’t planning on being too obvious about trying to get a better look at Sims’ hand.

Sims tossed a glance at the room as he set his things down on the desk. “Sorry, everyone,” he said, with a tight smile. “Short notice, I know, but apparently Mrs. Sinclair has come down with something, and my class is on a field trip, so I was the only one available. I have some, er, notes for your class – apparently you’re working on a midterm project?”

The class made some unenthusiastic assenting sounds, which Sims took as confirmation. “Well, very good. I’ll just leave you to work on that, then, once I’ve taken attendance.”

Robbie felt Emma go stiff at his side. He hated this, properly hated this, the resigned dread on her face as she prepared herself to be embarrassed. He remembered how often she’d looked like that last year, when they were still sneaking around with it, him helping her change into a pinafore in the toilets in the mornings, trying to ignore it when her dad and Mrs. Sinclair and that fucking hag Cunningham had tried to suggest that she get a haircut, the way she winced every time someone called her the wrong name.

Sims went down the attendance sheet with clipped professionalism, quick and brusque, and Robbie was so nervous on Emma’s behalf that he almost forgot to say anything when his name was called. They got to the Ms, and Robbie found Emma’s hand under the desk. Her palm was a little sweaty, and so was his, but she grabbed on tight and squeezed, and Robbie wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to that, to her soft fingers between his.

It was Andrew Macintyre right before her on the sheet. Sims nodded at him when he called out a here, looked back down. “Ti—Hm.” Robbie watched Sims frown, cut himself off. Robbie wasn’t exactly sure what happened, what changed about Sims’ expression, except that his eyes seemed to go a little unfocused for a few seconds, before he blinked, in a properly weird way. “No, I don’t believe that’s correct.” He looked up and around the class. “Miss Mackenzie?”

Emma went a little pale, her fingers flexing in Robbie’s, but after a few seconds, she quietly said, “Here, Mr. Sims.”

Sims looked over at her, nodded, businesslike. “Right. And your name was…?”

“Emma,” she answered faintly. Sims just nodded again, checked her off on the sheet, moved on with the list, calling out for Toby MacLeod.

It felt like him and Emma must’ve let out a breath at the same time, slumping back into their chairs, her hand still in his. All that worry for a few seconds’ worth of talking. What a nightmare.

“Tom must’ve told him,” Robbie whispered to her. “Mentioned that he had a big sister, or something.”

“Don’t know why he would’ve,” Emma whispered back, but she was smiling, all faint giddy relief. “I don’t really care, yeah?”

Robbie smiled, squeezed her hand, smiled some more when she squeezed back. “Yeah. Miss Mackenzie.”

“Oh, shut up, Rob.”

<0>

Jen always went to the Co-op after Molly’s swimming lessons on Saturday, even though it was always pushing seven by the time they finally got home and started making tea. Easier to take care of the shopping while they were already out, rather than make another trip into town.

Molly had wandered off to pick her crisps for next week’s lunch, so Jen was alone when she saw the man by the dairy, squinting at a tub of butter, and it took her a moment to place him as Molly’s new teacher. She didn’t think she could be blamed for not recognising him at first; whenever she picked Molly up from school, he always looked much the same as he had during the parent meeting, put-together and buttoned up. He clearly hadn’t put quite as much effort into dressing to go to the shops, his hair pulled up in an untidy bun, neat jacket replaced with a faded sweatshirt that seemed to be about five sizes too big for him.

Ah, she thought, a moment later. Of course. The true owner of the sweatshirt seemed to have made an appearance in the form of a blond man, taller and more broadly built than Molly’s teacher, walking up behind him and pressing himself close against his side, poking at the butter in his hands. It looked rather a lot like a golden retriever bothering a magpie.

Jen had been ready to leave well enough alone, but that was the moment that Molly came skipping up behind her, already calling out. “Mr. Sims!”

Both men startled, but the teacher – Mr. Sims – seemed to recover quickly when he caught sight of Molly, bending down a little towards her. “Ah, hello Miss Brown. How are you?”

Molly beamed. “Good! We just went swimming at the baths. I’m doing back stroke now, and the teacher says I’m pretty fast.”

Mr. Sims nodded along well enough, seemed genuinely interested in Molly’s little story, but Jen noticed he was shooting quick, nervous looks between the three of them, seemed caught between stepping closer to the man standing beside him, or pulling away.

It was a fair enough worry, and maybe ten, even five years ago, he would have been right to have it. The village had been a different place, back then. But these days, just about everyone knew that Helen and Mary up the road had been waiting out their husbands so that they could spend their widowed years together, and Jen had her suspicions about Hugh from the corner store, and frankly after everything with the Mackenzies’ oldest, everyone had become a good deal more comfortable with quite a lot, lately.

So Jen put a hand on Molly’s shoulder, held the other one out to him, smiled warmly. “Mr. Sims, right? Jennifer Brown, I’m Molly’s mum.”

Sims took her hand firmly, handshake as brief and professional as his strained smile. The feeling of it lingered on Jen’s palm, though, the slick-smooth of scar tissue, and the distinct impression that her fingers had slid into the grooves of his marred hand perfectly, like a key slotting into a lock.

��Jon, please,” he said, “at least outside of the classroom. Good to properly meet you, Ms. Brown. We won’t keep the two of you, though. It is rather getting on.” It was a clear dismissal, as bluntly polite as the English ever managed to be, and Jen didn’t take particular offence to it. It was, after all, getting on, and chatting with her daughter’s primary teacher and his mystery man in a Co-op was not her idea of an ideal Saturday night.

“Of course. Goodnight, Jon,” she said, hand on Molly’s shoulder already gently nudging her towards the tills. “Come on, Molls.”

“Good evening, ladies,” Sims said, and nodded primly down at Molly. “See you on Monday, Miss Brown.”

Jen supposed she understood, now, why the class was so taken with the man. She had no fondness for poshness and stuffiness, but Sims wasn’t necessarily posh in that way that demanded poshness in return, and sniffed up its nose at you if you dared not to have an Oxbridge degree and speak in perfect RP. It was more a quiet, self-imposed dignity that reminded Jen of her own grandmother, like the way that he held himself, conducted himself, was important to him, and it made you think just a bit about how you were holding yourself, made you want to rise to meet it. Molly’s shoulders straightened a little under Mr. Sims’ attention, and she walked to the tills with a look on her face like she felt like a well-mannered wee lass, like a proper Miss Brown, and Jen snorted to herself quietly, glanced over her shoulder at the man himself.

His boy was saying something close to his ear, smiling, and he was softer-spoken than Jen might’ve expected for being the size he was, just the sound of his voice carrying a bit, a hint of a tease in his tone.

Sims’ laugh carried far more, deep and full, and he pushed the man’s shoulder gently, a gentleness that kept in his voice when he said, “Oh hush, Martin.”

“Mum,” Molly said, tugging at the trolley insistently. The limits of her put-upon properness had apparently been pushed by her appetite, and she kicked her heels and whinged. “Come on. What’s for dinner?”

<0>

Contrary to what some of his mates might have attested after seeing him a few pints in down at the local, Colin did, in fact, possess a sense of shame. So it was red-faced and sheepishly that he ducked back into the Primary two classroom after his fourth or fifth failed attempt at putting Ally down for a nap.

Maybe it had been overambitious of him and Vera, to assume they’d be able to both go to the kids’ sports day, hand off the babe and the nappy bag throughout the day depending on whether it was Cath with the P7s or Stuart with the P2s who had a race next, no need to pay one of the neighborhood girls to nanny, with the added bonus of getting wee Ally used to being around a lot of strange people. Not that Ally was a pet that needed to be socialized; Vera liked to tease him for that, the way he sometimes talked about her like she was a feral kitten that needed accustomed to handling. But the point still stood.

After Stuart’s class had finished with their last egg and spoon race, the teacher – Sims? – had herded them all, sweaty and exhausted, back into the classroom, and they were all sat around chattering and playing in informal groups, working their way through the impressive pile of snacks that the volunteer parents had brought in. He’d told them to do as they liked when one of them asked if they had to still sit in their usual seats, so a few of them were in wee clusters on the floor, half-watching the film that one of the other parents had managed to set up on the old projector. Colin appreciated Sims’ attitude, overall. Not that a good work ethic and a bit of discipline weren’t a good thing to have, but kids that age weren’t really made for sitting still and working quietly, he didn’t think, and the wee ones seemed quite happy amongst themselves. Unfortunately, it meant that they were making far too much noise for him to be able to get Ally to sleep.

Fool that he was, he’d sent Vera off to Cath’s relay race alone, having thought that when the afternoon rolled around and Ally started to yawn and scrub at her eyes with chubby wee fists, Colin would be able to give her a naptime bottle, bounce her on his shoulder for a bit, and she’d drop off straight away, just like at home. Instead, she had gurned and whined around her bottle, cried and wriggled when he tried to rock her down, and for the last hour, she’d quite solidly refused to close her eyes for longer than it took her to blink, and she seemed properly angry about needing to do even that much. It seemed like every time he got her to relax for a few minutes, someone in the class laughed a bit too loudly, made her startle and blink and try to wriggle out of his lap to go see what all the fuss was about. So he’d kept trying to bring her outside and walk her up and down the hallway where it was quieter, but it was chillier out there, and his footsteps echoed strangely, so she hadn’t much liked that either.

Sims glanced up at him as the door clicked shut behind him, and Colin gave him an apologetic grimace. Sims hadn’t complained or shot him any dirty looks yet, but Colin couldn’t imagine that anyone much enjoyed having a fussy baby in their room.

To his surprise, Sims stood from his desk, shooting him a sympathetic smile. “Want to hand her off for a bit?” he offered quietly, nodding to where Ally was still squirming, propped on his hip. “She might need a change of pace, to help settle her down.”

Colin wasn’t the sort to hand his baby off to just anyone, really, he wasn’t, but Ally was exhausted, and it was making him exhausted, which she was feeding off of, and all in all, he was desperate enough that he all but dumped her into Sims’ arms.

He took hold of her a little awkwardly, jostling and shifting her with the bewildered caution of a man clearly unfamiliar with the weight of a moving, heavy baby, and Colin hovered anxiously, waiting to catch her if Sims—dropped her? Turned her upside down? He wasn’t sure what his worry was, exactly, just that he was worried.

Sims got her settled eventually, though, one hand propped under her bum and the other resting on her back, and he murmured, “All right, hello, little one. Let’s see if we can’t give Dad a break, hm?”

Sims lowered himself carefully into his desk chair, shifting Ally on his lap, and she stared at him, momentarily distracted from her awful mood by the new man with the funny voice. Sims kept a steadying hand on her wee back as he leaned forward, fussing with some of the papers on his desk. Colin watched as he nudged aside a stack of worksheets covered in scrawling crayon, and plucked out a manila folder, stuffed with papers and pockmarked along the top with paperclips and binder clips. “I think this one is relatively tame,” he said, rather matter-of-factly, presumably to Ally. Ally, by all appearances, was listening to him very intently.

Ally only started to fuss a bit when Sims leaned back in his office chair, the open folder propped up on his knee in one hand, and Ally shifting to tuck close against his chest under the other. She made a small, angry noise as he tried to coax her to lie down, and he tutted, said with a stern, gentle firmness, “Yes, I’m aware I won’t be quite as comfortable as Mum, but do try to sit still. I prefer not to be interrupted, once I’ve got going, and it doesn’t take kindly to interference after the introduction.”

To Colin’s great and unending shock, Ally settled with a little huff, her cheek resting on Sims’ brown jumper, one little fist coming up to clutch at the collar of his shirt, poking out from the neck of it. Sims patted her back primly, said, “There we go, thank you.”

Colin was always one to admit when he was outclassed, and was quite willing to go find himself a seat and defer to Sims’ apparent magic touch with the wee ones, but then Sims cleared his throat, and began to speak.

“Statement of Callum Thompson, regarding an uninvited party guest. Original statement given February twenty-first, 2001. Record recalled by Jonathan Sims, the Archivist, retired. Statement begins:

I didn’t invite her. I’m sure of that. I know my mates, and I know my mates’ mates, and all their birds and sisters and that, and I didn’t know this bird, so she weren’t invited, right?”

Sims… told a story. Colin didn’t really know how else to describe it. Put on a proper voice and all, this Callum character speaking high and thready, Sims’ crisp, proper public-school accent giving way to something a lot harsher, more “street”.

It was about some girl that showed up to the kid’s house party uninvited, acted a little strangely while she was there, and for all that he talked about her, the odd twist of her joints, the stare that set his teeth on-edge, he never seemed to actually getting around to describing what she looked like. It was like, anything properly tangible about her, her hair, her eyes, her clothes, just slipped off the mind, oil-on-water. It gave Colin the proper shivers, the way a good Steven King used to when he was younger, and he blinked himself out of a daze when Sims stopped, coughed lightly, said, “Statement ends.”

Ally was fast asleep against his chest, and Sims had one hand stroking absently down her back, eyes still skimming the folder in front of him. “Poor girl,” he murmured into Ally’s wispy hair. She didn’t stir from her doze. “She must have been quite lonely. Still, no harm done to anyone, it seems, and nearly two decades on and outside the purview of the Institute’s resources, there’s not much to be done, hm?”

Quite suddenly, and all at once, Sims seemed to remember that the rest of the world existed, and he blinked owlishly up at Colin. “Ah, seems as though she finally wore herself out. Did you want to-?”

Colin couldn’t help it—he laughed, just a bit, at how sheepish the guy had gone, now that he’d snapped out of his wee trance, and that he was trying to hand off the little one, even as he was still patting her back, curled around her protectively, sitting carefully still so as not to jostle her.

“Nah, she’s all yours, pal,” Colin said, grinning. “Just you get comfortable, and I’ll come save you when she starts crying, alright?”

Sims sighed, smiling back. “Doesn’t seem that I have much choice in the matter. Do try and make sure the class doesn’t stage a mutiny while I’m incapacitated, Mr. Ferguson?”

“Deal, Sims.”

<0>

Jon didn’t take nicely to Walt Whitman, liked to say that if Martin was going to subject him to the nineteenth century Americans, he could at least have the decency to make it Dickinson. Martin would then usually make a case for Emerson, which would make Jon recoil in only partially-feigned offence, and in the ensuing rant about the damned transcendentalists, the argument would usually be dropped.

Privately, though, despite the somewhat overenthusiastic patriotism of the man, Martin had a soft spot for Whitman, for the loping rhythm of his words, for the way he talked about people, about love, almost as a thing that he was, rather than just a thing that he felt. And it was always Whitman he thought about when he saw Jon, these days, Whitman’s insistent and unapologetic love springing to mind when he caught sight of him amongst the sea of bright blue uniforms as Martin slipped into the playground. He was stood by the school doors as he usually was, Heather Lewis tucked close to his side, holding his hand. It was Whitman that best put words to this nurturing thing that had taken root in Jon, turned him soft and watchful over his little brood, and Martin smiled softly to himself, heard the quiet click of a tape recorder in the back of his mind. Maybe he would remember to write that down, but no harm done if he didn’t. It was enough to watch, he rather thought.

He remembered, all of a sudden, one of the first times he’d ever properly seen Jon, storming through the research bullpen in the Institute, crisp white shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, showing off the sharp lines of his forearms, his wrists. His hair had been shorter, then, slicked back away from his forehead, tucked no-nonsense behind his ears. He’d been all angles and scowls, the kind of look that had barely brokered a friendly tap on the shoulder from a colleague, let alone any kind of gentleness towards a child.

Here, though—

Well, Jon had changed, had let himself be changed. Everything about him was soft-touch, these days, the gentle maroon of the cashmere jumper, and the loose hairs that strayed from his braid and fell around his face, and the easy delight of his smile as he caught sight of Martin. So much about him was gentled, yielding to the herd of little ones that tended to crowd around his legs, yielding to Martin as he stepped into Jon’s space, head tilted back to kiss him with a murmured, “Oh, hello, you.”

“Hello, yourself,” Martin said, pulling back just enough to take hold of Jon’s other hand, the one not already occupied with Heather.

“Hello, Mr. Blackwood,” she said, quite politely, considering she’d just had to watch her teacher snogging someone, and he smiled, inclined his head to her. Jon had been grumbling the other night about the trials of persuading the little ones to zip up properly when they went out to the playground, but Heather, at least, was quite solidly bundled up, wearing a puffy anorak over her uniform and wool tights underneath it, topped off with a cozy hat that had a rather silly pompom on the top. It had been getting chillier, Martin supposed, though he was less inclined to notice the cold until his fingertips went numb, so he had just taken to keeping his hands in his pockets – or Jon’s, as it were.

Jon, too, was bundling up a little more, and he grinned when he saw that he was wearing the scarf Martin had finished knitting last month. It was an awful, hideous thing, knobbly garter with more than a few holes where Martin had dropped a stitch or two, only actually making it to completion under the careful eye of Mrs. Robinson, who had sewn in all his ends and frogged back a few of his particularly egregious mistakes. Nonetheless, Jon had it wrapped snugly into the collar of his peacoat, mouth and windburnt pink nose tucked into the chunky wool, away from the worst of the wind. Mrs. Robinson had given him a pattern for some matching fingerless gloves, and judging by his progress so far, they would be equally as ugly, and Jon would quite as equally insist on wearing them.

Jon’s class drifted off piecemeal, calling out to him as they went. There was a steady stream of, “Bye, Mr. Sims,” “See you tomorrow, Mr. Sims,” as they trailed off out of the front gates, holding hands with parents and grandparents and each other, rucksacks and lunchboxes swinging, and Jon called back to them, wished them a good night, reminded them about spelling lists and worksheets and whatever whatnots they had been working on that day. As the older forms were released, one of Jon’s went off swinging between two of the older teenagers, and all three of them cheerfully and dutifully chorused, “Good afternoon, Mr. Sims,” as they wandered by.

“Robert, Emma, Tom,” Jon recited, nodding to the three of them. Heather went next, skipping off towards her father, waving at Jon and Martin from the gate, and Jon waved back, with a smile that was all fondness.

Mrs. Robinson had been… unsubtle, with her knitting lessons. He always seemed to find himself with skeins of big, chunky, soft wool, and when she went digging in her folders upon folders of ancient, yellowed patterns, the ones that found themselves spread on the coffee table for Martin’s perusal had a bit of a theme. Garter stitch booties, baubled newborn hats, lap blankets.

Urge and urge and urge, he thought, a touch wistfully. Always the procreant urge of the world. Maybe Whitman had had a point.

Still, it wasn’t a question he’d asked, yet. Not a question he knew how to ask, of himself, really, let alone of Jon. For now, he rather thought he was content to wait. Content to be content, to help watch over Jon’s little flock until they were bundled up and sent home safe, and after, to find their own way up the winding road home.

#/#//#///#////#/////#robin fic #tma fic #fic: nor any more youth or age than there is now

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juniperwindsong · 5 years ago

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Necessary Monsters (3/16)

Summary:

"Brought her in on my shift, they did. Thought she were dead! Pale as a corpse - like there weren't no blood left in her - but twitching, like. The way I used to see 'em back when...You-Know-Who's followers were torturing people left and right. You'd see 'em twitch like that when they'd had the Cruciatus Curse used on 'em too long."

It takes twelve and half minutes to walk the road leading from the Hogwarts grounds into Hogsmeade, then a matter of seconds to apparate outside the Leaky Cauldron in London. Add four more minutes to enter the crowded pub, climb the stairs, and wind down the hall to the room at the very end, and Felix has had just enough time to work himself into a respectable frenzy.

Felix has never been able to pinpoint the exact date he fell in love with Juniper Windsong, so he can't say definitively just how long he's been planning their reunion. But it's been the highlight of his thoughts for almost a year. The perfect evening, carefully orchestrated to show Juniper how he's come to feel about her and persuade her to feel the same. Gone to pieces.

He slams the door, the parade of ruined moments and wasted opportunities building enough furious momentum behind his arm to rattle the frame. Throwing his cloak over the room's mouldy winged armchair, Felix runs his fingers irritably through his hair. He should have been more direct, he berates himself, kicking petulantly at one of the chair's wobbly legs. It gives an indignant "Oi!" and scoots away from him, nearer the fire. He had hoped to let his actions explain his feelings for him, even thought he'd done a halfway decent job in spite of the evening's rocky start. But replaying their conversations in his head, Felix fears he wasn't obvious enough.

Regret beats a heartless rhythm against the inside of his skull as he perches on the edge of the rickety bed. Juniper did want to see him over the summer, he consoles himself, that's something. And she had seemed genuinely excited at the prospect of visiting him. And there was that moment in the common room, their fingers intertwined, faces so close Felix could almost feel the nervous excitement radiating from her. He's positive Juniper had been waiting for him to lean in just a bit more, even imagines her eyes had flicked for a moment to his lips.

Felix falls back against the lumpy mattress with a groan. All that means nothing if she gets herself killed next year. Felix had so hoped finding Jacob Windsong alive would finally put a stop to her amateur investigations. But he knows with a sinking certainty, in spite of her assurances that she wants to leave the Cursed Vaults behind, Juniper will never be able to escape their web while her brother is still caught in it.

And even if she survives her last year of school unscathed, he thinks miserably, there's always her excessive number of male friends. Juniper may have little interest in them now, but Felix knows better than anyone how much a relationship can change in one term.

His brain bruised by the weight of all the things he cannot control, Felix pulls his wand out from underneath him and points it in the direction of his valise.

"Accio," he mumbles.

The bag sails halfheartedly across the room and stalls at the foot of the bed. Felix uses the tip of his shoe to edge it closer to him, his hand fumbling for the catch. He reaches in without looking and, as he does whenever he feels anxious, pulls out a sheaf of parchments wrapped in a leather tie, heavily frayed and dangerously thin in places.

He tugs at the crude binding carefully, toying, as he often does, with the romantic notion of finding a ribbon, preferably Juniper's, to replace the leather. But he's never known her to wear any kind of ribbon in her hair. And anyway, Felix thinks as he pulls out a particularly worn piece of parchment, he doubts a hair ribbon would wrap all the way around their collected years of correspondence. He settles back against the pillow and lets the words he knows by heart soothe its anxiously racing beat.

Since his graduation, Felix has received more letters from Juniper than he can count. This by itself isn't exceptional. He's received many letters, far more than he expected. Former classmates write occasionally with updates on their lives, Barnaby writes regularly for advice, and even his mother sends the sporadic note pleading with him to return home. But it's Juniper who writes with questions about him. Juniper, to whom Felix recounts his days, even the most boring and difficult bits. She has the uncanny ability to read past his affected formality, and Felix soon discovers there's no one else with whom he can truly be himself.

After months of rough tenting with bad food and very few actual dragons, it's Juniper Felix complains to, and Juniper who both sympathises and challenges him to stay his course. When he's forced to kill a dragon for the first time in defence of himself and his team, it's to Juniper Felix relays the entire gut-wrenching affair, complete with the horrid guilt he feels and the nightmares he cannot shake. And it's Juniper who comforts him with words like a balm, that he reads through each night to lull himself to sleep. Her letters become the best part of every month, and he begins counting the days until they arrive.

It's after the end of his first and only relationship, nearly a year ago, that Felix begins picking Juniper's letters apart, studying them as intently as if he'll be tested on their contents. He re-reads everything she's ever written, parsing each word for hidden meaning, anything that might indicate she cares for him as more than a friend or confidante. Some days Felix is convinced he can read love plainly in her words, then the next day he's sure he imagined it. The uncertainty drives him to distraction, until admitting the depth of his feelings actually seems like the less painful option. But it has to be done face to face, Felix decides, that’s the proper way. And after the Quidditch match on which so much of her school reputation is staked seems like the best time; when she'll either be full of high spirits or in need of comfort.

Felix sets the worn letter aside in agitation. It's no good. He's reached a level of anxiety he's only ever been able to soothe by writing to Juniper about it, which he can hardly do in this case.

An idea appears in Felix’s head fully formed, and he sits up abruptly. Why not just tell her in a letter? Felix had convinced himself love was something that must be discussed in person, that the month spent waiting for a response to such an admission would be unbearable. But he's no longer at the mercy of inter-continental post. Her return letter might even reach him before he left England. And he's always been better able to express himself in writing.

Perhaps his prose can do what his actions couldn't and convince her to keep herself safe. For him.

Reinvigorated by this new plan, Felix scrambles off the bed. He pulls parchment, quill, and ink from his bag, and seats himself at the spindly-legged stool in front of the room's token writing desk. A small window looms behind it, the darkness outside transforming the glass into a black mirror reflecting his face, every line quivering with purpose.

Felix dips his quill in ink and pauses briefly at the top of the parchment. The ink drips slowly from the quill tip after one minute, and then another, and then several pass without him pressing the point to the page, as it dawns on him that he has not the first idea how to begin such a letter. Which seems impossible; he's composed snatches of letters like this in his head for a year, waiting for the perfect moment to pen them. But now it's time, words seem to have deserted Felix, just as they did in the common room and out on the grounds.

Because it has to be perfect. That's key. Whatever he writes has to convince Juniper to put aside a quest that's become an obsession, persuade her his love is worth such a sacrifice. And Felix is positive it is. There isn't a person alive, including her brother, who cares for Juniper more than he does. Felix is certain of that.

A small, confident smile flickers to life on his lips, and Felix begins to write. Haltingly at first. But he finds as he focuses on Juniper’s smiling face, the memory of her cheek pressed against his fingers, the words come easier, and it isn't long before he's pouring his heart onto the page. He confesses to the parchment everything he's felt for Juniper since he was seventeen, allowing emotion to choose his words instead of adherence to any literary form. Felix writes until his parchment is exhausted, then leans back from the desk.

He holds the letter close to the yellow candle illuminating the desktop in uneven patches and reads what he's written with a critical eye; and then again, trying to see the words from her perspective. With a slight shake of his head, Felix sets the parchment back down and picks up the quill again, crossing out lines and adding words in, until any ordinary candle would have melted into its iron holder and sputtered out.

By the time the sky outside the window lightens to a steely grey, Felix has finished a draft he likes. Perhaps it would be hubris to call it perfect, he thinks immodestly, but it's certainly close. He folds the parchment with extreme care, as though excess creases may cause her to simply throw the thing away without reading, then tucks it delicately into an envelope and seals it before he can reconsider.

Flushed with excitement, Felix stands, stretching his cramped fingers. The thought of waiting to deliver the letter is intolerable, but, as he glances out the window at the predawn light, he knows the Post Office in Diagon Alley won't yet be open. The rational voice in his head suggests timidly that he ought to get some sleep, but there's too much adrenaline coursing through him and he's itchy for action. He'll wait in the pub, he decides, have a quick bite to eat and then set off as soon as the hour strikes.

Felix tucks the letter carefully into the pocket of his rumpled robes, and walks with a bounce out of the room and down the cramped and winding stairs.

Felix wasn't overly familiar with the Leaky Cauldron before two days ago. Necessity has forced him to rent a room there while in England. His father, astonishingly tolerant up till now of what he considers Felix's "rebellious dragon phase", has made it clear in his last correspondence that a transfer to the Romanian Reserve is the final straw, and until Felix is willing to return to his family obligations, he will no longer enjoy any Rosier family benefits. Namely money and a place to live. Since Felix has expected this since he first introduced his chosen profession to his parents, he's only moderately hurt.

This is the second morning Felix has spent in the inn and pub, but he’s learned he enjoys its sleepy silence as the regulars engross themselves in their papers before ingesting enough food and news to begin chatting with their neighbors. It makes for a pleasant start to the day, and Felix pushes open the door looking forward to a quiet breakfast before he completes his life-changing post.

Instead, a low thrum of excited muttering fills the room, emanating from the fireplace where nearly all the pub’s early-morning patrons, and even its proprietor, have congregated. Tom has not yet bothered to set down all the chairs from their night-time perches on the tables. He's standing just behind a witch in lime-green robes who seems to be the center of the whispering crowd.

Felix seats himself on a stool at the bar, casting surreptitious glances over at the furtive group, trying to catch snippets of their conversation. But they insist on speaking in hushed tones, as if their subject is too dangerous to be discussed at a normal volume. Felix finally catches the eye of the barman, who breaks reluctantly away and trots over.

"You'll be wanting breakfast, then, sir?" Tom asks, his voice friendly, though he continues to shoot longing looks behind him. "It was coffee you took, in't that right?"

"Yes, thank you," replies Felix distractedly. "Is everything alright?" He looks pointedly at the fireplace and Tom's eyes light up with the thrill of the gossip.

"Oh, I'm afraid not," says the barman with enthusiasm. "There was another attack up at Hogwarts school last night!"

All Felix's animated energy freezes in an instant, leaving his limbs stiff and his hand quite unable to lift the cup Tom sets in front of him.

"You mean... someone else was petrified? I thought that was all over."

Tom shakes his head happily. "Not petrified no. Apparently, the student was brought to St Mungo’s. The school professors weren't sure what happened, but they’re trying to keep it awful quiet. Winn," he jerks his chin over at the witch in green robes. "Was on duty and just happened to see them bring her in."

"'Her'?" Felix asks, his throat so dry it comes out a croak. There's hundreds of students at Hogwarts, he reassures his racing heart, there's no reason for it to be -

"The Windsong girl. You know - the Cursebreaker? Her brother's that one expelled some years back, you might remember him - Master Rosier?"

Felix vacates his stool and stumbles over to the fireplace where the witch in lime-green robes continues to murmur under her breath to her captive audience.

"Excuse me," he somehow manages to say.

The witches and wizards around the fire all look up at him.

"Did you...did you say you saw a Hogwarts student brought into St Mungo’s last night?"

The witch called Winn nods vigorously. "Not just any Hogwarts student! Jacob Windsong's sister! The one what's been opening all them cursed vaults up at the school the last few years!" Her voice is subdued but shaking with excitement. She shuffles her chair around to face Felix, clearly pleased for an excuse to retell her story.

"Brought her in on my shift, they did. Thought she were dead! Pale as a corpse - like there weren't no blood left in her - but twitching, like. The way I used to see 'em back when..." She clears her throat and her eyes dart about as if searching for hidden spies, before she continues even lower than before, "Back when You-Know-Who's followers were torturing people left and right. You'd see 'em twitch like that when they'd had the Cruciatus Curse used on 'em too long."

One of the wizards by the fire shakes his head and says something about the mad goings-on of teenagers these days, but Felix isn’t listening. He’s already moving away, lurching between tables and knocking into chairs as if drunk. Ignoring the pub patrons' affronted looks and Tom still calling to him from the bar, he trips out the front door and apparates as soon as his feet hit the pavement.

Felix hasn't been to St Mungo’s since he was a child, and his current visit does nothing to improve his ill-feeling about the place. The lobby is packed, which seems strange to him for so early in the morning. The seats are full of witches and wizards tapping their feet and sighing with poorly-hidden impatience. Healers in lime-green robes walk swiftly to and fro, all headed in different directions, and the queue for the help desk is a dozen people long. There's a sign above it informing those who can read which types of maladies belong to each floor of the hospital. But, Felix realises, since he doesn't know exactly what's happened to Juniper, he has no idea where she might be.

Blood pumps thickly in his head, making the sounds in the lobby seem oddly muffled as though he's underwater. Felix walks briskly to the information desk and brings his hand down harder than intended on top of the counter. The smacking sound has no visible effect on the bored-looking help witch beyond a quick flick of her eyes away from the hiccoughing wizard in the queue and toward Felix.

"I'm looking for Juniper Windsong," he says, his voice shaking with some emotion he doesn't have time to identify.

"Excuse me, sir,” the help-witch drawls tonelessly. "But if you have a question you'll need to queue up like everyone else."

She gives a barely perceptible jerk of her chin at the line of people now glaring at Felix. One woman's entire face is a vivid shade of pink, and a small child standing with his mother seems to have steam emitting from his nostrils. But none of them appear in any immediate danger to Felix, and he turns back to the help-witch belligerently.

"This cannot wait. Juniper Windsong. She was brought in last night."

The help-witch blinks dubiously at him, but something in Felix's voice or face seems to convince the girl her life will be easier the sooner she gets rid of him. She drags a clipboard across the desk toward her with two fingers and glances down at it.

"I don't have anyone by that name here," she announces, her tone still bored but a slight curl at the edge of her mouth.

"Yes, you do! You must!" he insists, now almost shouting. Because if she's not here, then that means....

"Mr Rosier."

A cold, quiet, and all too familiar voice stops Felix's rising panic in its tracks. He whips around to find Professor Snape standing by the entrance to a stairwell. "What are you-"

"Professor!" Felix interrupts, abandoning the help desk and hurrying over to Snape.

"Is it true?" he asks, suddenly breathless. "Juniper. Is she-"

Before Felix can finish, Snape grips his elbow tightly and drags him into the stairwell, slamming the door shut behind them. The Potions Master casts his dark eyes around as if making sure they’re alone before answering in a crisp whisper:

"Kindly do not bandy Miss Windsong's name about in front of so many witnesses. It is important that her presence at this hospital be kept entirely secret. Which is why,” his eyes narrow at Felix, “I must ask how you came to know she was here."

"I - she - " Felix tries to breathe normally, but the air catches against his ribs, constricting his chest. "A healer. In the Leaky Cauldron. She...she said she saw her - Juniper - last night. She said, she was attacked. But-"

"How do you know the person speaking was a healer?"

Thrown by the question, Felix casts his mind back for the details of the conversation that he realizes with a lurch was not fifteen minutes ago. It feels more like hours.

"Tom! He said she was a healer. And she had the robes, the same color green that the healers wear."

Snape closes his eyes briefly, nostrils flaring in forceful exhalation. Felix has seen this look on the Potion Master’s face before when dealing with exceptionally dim-witted students, but whether it’s himself or the healer in question with whom Snape is exasperated he doesn’t know, or care.

"Professor, what's happened to Juniper? Is she alright? The healer said she was attacked, but she didn't say...I mean...she wasn't sure..." Every ending Felix can think of to this sentence causes his throat to convulse.

Snape considers before answering, his words tinged with frost. “Miss Windsong is alive for the moment."

A flood of warm relief washes over Felix almost tangibly.

"But," Snape continues. "she has been very gravely..." He pauses, tongue between his teeth, as if choosing his next word carefully."...Wounded."

"Why? What happened? Is it something to do with the Vaults? Is she going to be alright?" Felix asks every question that comes to his mind all in a rush.

Snape says nothing. He scrutinizes Felix closely, and Felix gets that uncomfortable prickle he sometimes feels around his former head of house, as though the professor can see right through him. He averts his gaze, and stares instead at his ink-stained hands.

Snape's voice, still frigid, but not quite as icy as before, breaks the silence.

"Follow me, Mr Rosier."

Snape turns on his heel and ascends the staircase without a backward glance. Felix hastens to follow.

At the fourth floor landing, Snape throws open the door and proceeds into a corridor crowded with harried healers. Felix, who cuts a much less intimidating figure than the Potions Master, has to push through the lime-green crowd forcefully in order to keep up. Snape turns down a side hall, and then another, longer one, until they reach a deserted corridor with a dirty window marking a dead-end. Snape forgoes the doors on either side, stopping instead in front of the window, daylight just peeking through the streaky glass. He taps the pane on the lower right with his wand, and Felix can hear a very soft click, like a lock being turned. The window swings inward, and Snape and Felix step quickly inside.

The room is small, only slightly larger than the Hogwarts Artefact Room, with no windows and no other doors. There's just enough space for a solid looking bed, a rather high bedside table covered in potion bottles on one side if it, and a chair pulled up to the other. Felix can see the outline of legs tucked under a white sheet lying on the bed, but the rest of the occupant is hidden by the bulky figure in the chair, who stands quickly and revolves to face the two intruders.

The man raises his wand directly at Felix, who flinches, though for once it has less to do with the wand itself and more to do with the heavily scarred face of the person holding it.

"Password," the man grunts. Snape does not bother to conceal his eye-roll.

"Dragon Heart-String,” he pronounces with very slight disdain, and the strange looking person lowers his wand a fraction.

All Felix’s attention is caught up in the man's one electric blue eye that swivels eerily over both newcomers, then rolls right back into his head as if checking on the patient in the bed behind him. He's so distracted by this display, Felix doesn't notice the man's other eye inspecting him suspiciously.

"Who is this?" the man asks in a gruff voice. "I thought you were bringing back one of the trainees."

"It seems as though the healers cannot all be trusted,” Snape replies loftily. “One is already blabbing the attack in the pub."

The other man swears under his breath.

"This is...a friend of Windsong's,” Snape continues.

Felix isn't sure, but he thinks there's a slight pause before Snape pronounces the word 'friend', and a careful note to his words. But he's too preoccupied to give this further thought. The shock of the room's strange guardian has worn off enough for Felix's attention to return to the bed. And as the man steps toward Snape, the head on the pillow becomes visible.

If Felix hadn't known it was supposed to be Juniper, he might not have recognised her straight away. She looks like an entirely different person from the vibrant young woman laughing and flirting with him only hours ago. It's as though all the blood has been drained from beneath her skin, leaving her as pale and lifeless as the healer in the pub described. The only part of her with any colour is the uncountable number of angry red cuts decorating her face and the visible portion of her neck and arms. She's so eerily still Felix would be terrified Snape was mistaken about her condition, if it weren't for the slight twitching of her fingers, curled strangely and lying on either side of her.

Bile rises in Felix's throat and he has to swallow hard to keep from being violently ill. He’s known Juniper to be injured many times before; she’s famous for it. He’s seen her battered by Devil's Snare, half-frozen to death by cursed ice, knocked about by a dragon. But his memories of those admittedly deadly injuries all include her face set in grim determination or flushed with success. Felix has never seen her like this. Broken and beaten on a hospital bed.

"What happened to her?" he asks, his voice hoarse.

"Tortured," the man with the strange blue eye replies matter-of-factly. "Cruciatus curse by the tremors. And the cuts are one of R's signature curses.”

"R?" asks Felix vaguely, fumbling for anything that will keep his mind from creating a mental picture of Juniper being tortured.

The man explains irritably as though this should be common knowledge. "R is the organisation after the vaults. They're the ones have been threatening Miss Windsong the last few years."

"But...how could they get to her while she's at school?" questions Felix, his voice rising. "Surely, there's spells and wards set up to protect the students?"

"Of course," Snape responds coolly from behind Felix. "But it's been well-established that the defences surrounding school grounds can be penetrated. One has to be inside the school itself for the Headmaster's greater protections to be of any effect. And Miss Windsong was found outside on the grounds. Do you have any idea why she might have been out there, Mr. Rosier?"

Felix's knees buckle abruptly. He grabs the back of the bedside chair to keep himself from falling to the floor. If his display of weakness elicits any reaction from the other men, Felix doesn't notice. His eyes are shut tight against the emotions threatening to overwhelm him. His voice cracks as he rasps:

"It's my fault."

"Excuse me?" The man with the swiveling blue eye whips around to face Felix again, normal eye narrowed. His wand is still pointed aggressively, and Felix half wishes the man would just curse him.

"I - she - was with me," Felix tries to explain, nausea churning his stomach sickly. The chair is now the only thing keeping him upright.

"You were with her on the grounds?" the man demands, his blue eye now fixed on Felix as well. "What happened? What did you see? Who else was there?"

"There wasn't anyone. There was...it was...just us. "

The weight of the guilt causes something in Felix to snap. He cranes his neck around searching for the eyes of his former head of house, desperate for assurance that this isn't his fault; that Juniper isn't half-dead because of him.

"I told her not to, Professor, I swear! She wouldn't listen, I couldn't stop her! But...everything was normal. There wasn't anything strange or-or suspicious on the grounds. I didn't - I mean, I - I thought..."

Snape wrenches his gaze away from Felix, as if his pleading is something painful to watch. But Felix is beyond embarrassment for the moment.

"Mr. Rosier," Snape responds, still looking decidedly anywhere but at Felix. “I am all too familiar with Miss Windsong's particularly obdurate determination to do whatever she pleases. However, I think we both know you exerted little effort to dissuade her. And it cannot be denied that you are the reason Miss Windsong was out on the grounds alone last night."

Each of Snape’s words cuts deeply into Felix, like a mirror of the wounds decorating Juniper’s arms. All his defensiveness bleeds slowly out of him, and he sags further against the chair.

"If," Snape continues, "you would like to make amends for your foolishness, then perhaps you would be willing to help us now."

"I - Yes! Of course, anything, what-"

"At the moment, Miss Windsong appears to be under an enchantment of some kind. Discovering what exactly happened to her and who attacked her may enable us to wake her. We need to investigate, but we also need to keep a guard over her. It is not unlikely that whoever did this may return when they realize their work is unfinished."

"I'll stay," Felix answers, a semblance of strength returning to his voice. The idea that he'll be allowed to help is entirely unexpected, but a set task goes a long way to reasserting his focus.

The strange-eyed man looks from Felix to Snape, his face, a map of scars and craters, alight with skepticism.

"You sure he's up to it?"

Snape stares hard at Felix until that uncomfortable prickling begins to resurface, but Felix is determined to keep his gaze, to prove he can be trusted.

"I believe so," Snape answers. The other man gives Snape a disparaging look before lowering his wand to his side.

"Fine. If anything happens to her, it'll be on your heads then." He crosses the small room in two long strides and looks back at Felix as he reaches the door.

"You. No one is to enter this room without the password. The healers assigned to her know it, and they're the only ones I trust. Anyone else tries to get in, stun them and call for backup. Do you understand?"

Felix nods in affirmation, not trusting himself to speak.

"Do not take this lightly, boy. Miss Windsong's life may depend on your vigilance."

Felix straightens with as much fortitude as he can muster. He directs his words to the man in front of him, but they’re really a promise to himself.

"I won’t let anything happen to her."

Read Chapter 4 | View all stories on the Masterpost

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darveyfics · 7 years ago

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A Terrible Twosome

Prompt: Anon: A costume office party with Donna in a really hot outfit getting lots attention to Harvey's dismay.

mrgaretcarter: Donna wears a sexy costume for a Halloween party and drives Harvey nuts, they can already be together or not --

Donna was sitting in her office, reviewing the budget from quarter three when the tell-tale signs of Harvey's boredom let itself be known.

"Sexy nurse and hunky doctor," his voice rang out through the intercom on her phone.

She sighed internally. This idea is the fourth iteration of a couples costume he's brought up. One was a pregnant nun and sexy priest. Another was all the list of couples in Marvel comics. And the last had been Ariel and Prince Eric. That one had been last night when he thought she was taking too long in the bath and he told her if she stayed in there any longer, she'd turn into a shrivelled prune mermaid. Clearly, he had a one-track mind lately.

"Don't you have a meeting or court to prepare for?" Donna asks as she eyes the intercom.

"Court," Harvey says. "But I have time, and you know it. I always get five minutes of your time on court days since I haven't gone to trial without doing our thing for the past thirteen years."

"Our thing is now you fantasising about couples Halloween costumes before trial?" Donna asks as she scrolls down the page and sighs aloud as she finds Louis's track changes. There's a lot of justification for the extreme expenditures of the quarter, and he's promised the billables will cover expenses by year-end.

"You and Louis are the ones that organise the party each year," Harvey reminds her. "It's not my fault Louis told me there's a prize for best costume. You know I like to win."

"There is a prize every year and I have won it for the past eight years so I don't see what that has to do with a sexy nurse and hunky doctor," Donna says as she keeps her laugh from bubbling over. She knows exactly what she's doing. A smile makes it to her lips, but since he's not here, he can't see it.

"Are couples not supposed to have the same themes at these things?" Harvey questions.

She can imagine the look on his face right now. He's probably furrowing his brow with his lips set in a line masking his confusion. He may be new at this, but he knows how the game is played from all the themed parties they've gone to through the years in which she's planned out every detail of what they both wear.

"I mean, that's kinda true, but Rachel and I were planning our Halloween costumes long before you and I became a couple," Donna reminds him.

"And you still haven't told me what you are planning, so I figured," he trails off.

"Nope," Donna says as she can't keep the laugh in anymore. "Plus, I've already planned your costume. It will be in your office on Halloween just before the party," she lets him know.

"How long have you been planning that one?" Harvey wonders.

"All professional Halloweeners start solidifying plans in July," Donna reminds him. Because she always asks for the day off in July. This year was no different. And, she knew if she didn't give him a costume, she'd see him sulking in his suit he'd wear to the office that day.

He makes a noise of acceptance, and when he doesn't say anything down the intercom line, she thinks she can get back to reading.

Ten minutes later, she hears a slight shuffle and rustle of his suit, and she looks up as he enters her office.

He comes around her desk, leaning against it, and she moves from her chair and steps between them with a brow raised and her head tilted ever so slightly.

Her fingers reach for his tie as his aim for her waist. She sets the knot without a dimple at the centre of his starched collar. She softly smiles as she looks him over and finds he meets approval. With the slightest of nods, she indicates her approval. His fingers tighten on her hips and bring her closer as he stands before slightly tilting his head and leaning down and presses his lips to hers. The newer ritual had been a callback to their earlier days in the DA's office when they had been flirtier and far less serious than they had been the last thirteen years since then. She had always enjoyed cleaning him up a little more since he was a reflection of her, she always reminded him. So, the can opener stayed in her file cabinet, and she cleaned him up a little.

"This would be so much more fun with whipped cream," he says as he pulls back and gives her a small, gloating grin.

"Mmh, whipped cream is only for winners," she reminds him as her fingers run along his lapels before she steps back and leans against her windowsill runner.

"Oh and everything, Donna," he reminds her as he rounds her desk and heads for the door. "Oh and everything."

Donna's cheeks puff as she lets out a long breath as she leans back against the window and watches him meet Rachel Zane at the elevators for their case. His hands are in his pockets, and he's got a little smirk playing on his lips. He's apparently re-opened the Harvey Specter University of Gloating, and she only has herself to blame. -- As usual, she takes Halloween off to prepare her elaborate costumes that tend to win her the "best dressed" award. This year is no different, but at least she has a buddy while Kurtis Dam-Mikkelsen does her hair and makeup for her costume. And, Rachel will join in the fray as soon as she sees the detail and how ridiculously gorgeous Donna looks and wants to look as put together as her best friend.

They're at Donna's condo with a bottle of Prosecco and berries shared between the three of them. Rachel also snacks on the fun size M&M's that Donna threw in the shopping basket when she and Harvey were at Target looking for replacement light bulbs for her place, and Halloween decorations for the office as Donna gets her hair and makeup done. And, maybe the young lawyer takes videos and pictures of the process to be posted later.

Once Rachel's hair and makeup are done, her Halloween costume is complete. Unlike Donna, she had all the materials needed for this particular costume adventure. Donna couldn't get them all without raising suspicion, so they have one last stop to make before they head back to the office for the party.

Her shoes tap out a familiar click on the hardwood as she moved to his bedroom and opened his closet to stand at his tie rack. Once she selected a beloved black tie, she moved to the other side of the room where a tall dresser and mirror sit, and she ties the Windsor knot--his favourite knot of his choice--and Rachel watches her smooth down the collar again.

"Huh," Rachel says as she looks around the room.

"What?" Donna answers back as she looks at Rachel in the mirror as she opens a few drawers and pulls out the final little details of her costume to put on.

"Well, I've never been in Harvey's bedroom," Rachel shrugged, and at Donna's questioning look, she clarifies. "Mike and I were here for wedding venue planning. And then my dad visited with me, and he went in here, but it was too weird for me."

"And?" Donna asks.

"Honestly, I didn't expect it to be so... bright and homey," Rachel confesses as she looks around. She notices familiar pairs of Donna's heels are on the floor of the open closet. Some of her dresses and coats also hang on hangers near familiar bulkier ones.

"Come on," Donna says as she finishes off her outfit. "We've got jaws to drop."

Rachel laughs and follows Donna out of the condo and down to the street where Ray idles, waiting to deliver them to Pearson Specter Litt. -- To any party, she's fashionably late. When she's his plus one, which has been quite often in the past fifteen years, she let him in on that secret. So, its no surprise he and Mike arrive on time, and the ladies arrive eight minutes late with all eyes turning to the doors for their dramatic entrance.

When she walked into the Pearson Specter Litt library with Rachel Zane at her side, he did a double take. Triple, if he's honest with himself as she and Rachel step in line to get their photo taken.

"You okay, buddy?" Mike Ross asks as he slaps Harvey on the back. For anyone else, it would be considered a comforting gesture. For Mike Ross and Harvey Specter, it's less sympathetic and more 'oh, shit; you're in trouble; it was nice knowing you; or Mike's personal favourite--here lies Harvey Reginald Specter: the cause of death is Donna Roberta Paulsen.'

Harvey would recognise a Tom Ford anywhere. The suit is perfectly fitted, looking sharp, flattering, and remarkable on her frame. There's only one man she'd trust with tailoring a suit and she wonders if he should send René a shipment of the finest scotch money could buy. And perhaps bribe his tailor to make more matching suits for them.

She'd taken the charcoal coloured O'Conner three-piece suit designed for men and tailored it to her frame. He's pretty sure that suit is a favourite of hers that he owns so it's not a stretch that he recognises the same peak lapels that aren't too high nor too low at her shoulder. He doesn't have to be looking at her intimately to know the buttonhole is a classic handstitched raised hole, separating hers from any other suit jacket.

Since its a three-piece suit, she naturally wears the vest that matches with the rest of the O'Conner suit. He can see it peeking out between her single buttoned-up suit jacket.

The pants are a plain, tailored slim fit that somehow René has tailored to fit her long legs. The pants themselves are not pleated but have an ironed crease that gives them an extra classy look. He notices she foregoes heels for his favourite Tom Ford black leather brogues.

His favourite has to be her hair, though. Its coifed into some magic updo that looks remarkably similar to the way he styles his hair. By the end of the night, he's definitely going to figure out how many bobby pins are holding that together. He'll bet somewhere in the high thirties.

She has his look and attitude down, but that's no surprise to anyone.

Peelings his eyes away from Donna so he doesn't hurt his jaw from keeping his face impassive as Mike continues to watch him watch his girlfriend, he turns his introspection to Donna's best friend.

Rachel wears a pitch black Zenga suit like Mike does on occasion. Her lapels are notched just below her shoulder in the same pattern as Mike's suits. Much like her fiancé, Rachel opts for a two-piece, meaning no vest, and has a throwback to Mike's better senior associate days with a softer collar, white Zenga, and a light gray J. Crew skinny tie.

Her hair isn't styled as much as Donna's but it is up in some sort of updo that makes her hair look short compared to her typically long hair.

"Need a drink?" Mike Ross asks, already knowing the answer is going to be yes.

When they get to the drinks table, Mike watches his boss/friend and hides his smirk behind his tumbler. The three fingers of scotch Harvey pours himself is his way of coping with the whole "look but don't touch...much" rule he's favoured up until now. -- He has a thing for three-piece Tom Fords. He has a thing for Donna. So, naturally, Donna wearing a three-piece Tom Ford suit tailored to within millimetres of her size, it was only natural he clenched his jaw and broods in the corner as she went around the room without even acknowledging him as he leans against a table in the back of the library. She's ridiculously popular with the associates tonight, and everyone seems to enjoy taking pictures with Pearson Specter Litt's COO and newest associate.

He sits up a little straighter as she meets his eyes after talking with Katrina dressed as Tchaikovsky's Odile, the Black Swan ballerina, and she walks arm in arm with Rachel as they head over to where he and Mike sit.

"Happy Halloween, boys," Donna gave an exaggerated wink to Rachel and Donna clinked her flute of champagne with Rachel's own as they adopt a classic Mike and Harvey stance of being good cop, bad cop.

"Wow," Mike got out as he continued to stare. "You look... wow."

"Donna tied it," Rachel shrugs, as Mike looks at the small four-in-hand knot of Rachel's slim light gray tie.

"You know how to tie a tie like me?" Mike asks somewhat warily as he looks at Donna.

"I was one of those kids who got to pick out dad's tie when I was little," Donna shrugged. "And, you tie a surprising amount in theatre troupes."

Mike suddenly picture Louis in his costume that Harvey had shown him last year and he shakes his head. Briefly, he wonders where the hell Louis is because he hasn't seen him all night.

"I'm confused," Mike announces after a few minutes of watching the party going on around them. "I mean, I get why Harvey is a Yankee because he bleeds pinstripes but why am I, Robin?"

"Michelle Ross, please inform this pleb who you are," Donna says as she gets an air of Harvey Specter arrogance about her as she looks between Harvey and Mike.

"Michelle Ross is pretty much a legal superhero," Rachel said as she lifted her chin, daring the two men to defy her. “I can recite the Constitution frontwards, backwards, and sideways because I read it once when I was seven.”

Its a few minutes of quiet pondering by Mike as he makes the connection.

"I get it," Mike laughs. He turns to Harvey. "You're some closer because Harvey Specter...er, Harriet Specter, is the best god damn closer this City's ever seen. I'm Robin because I'm, uh, Michelle Ross, is a legal superhero and also the best damn sidekick."

"Four for you, Glen Coco," Donna dips her chin in acknowledgement of his successful connection of the themes within the themes. "But, as you can see, Harvey's a little dumbfounded you have no idea who he is. I mean, that's a replica straight from the team presses this afternoon."

The group waits for Harvey to explain who the hell he is but he's busy having a staring contest with Donna, so Mike and Rachel look to one another and then to either half of the older couple with small grins.

"I'm thirsty," Donna says as she dips her chin to Harvey and then turns to Rachel. "Let's go be badasses over there."

Harvey's hand clenches the glass he holds.

"Shitttt," Mike laughs as he realises their champagne glasses were quite full. "She's good." -- It had gotten worse for his sanity when she had taken off the suit jacket somewhere in the second or third hour of this shindig.

She's alone when she steps up to his side as he leans against a unit of shelving in the library, watching the festivities, he gives her a not-so-subtle once-over now that they're well and truly alone since Mike and Rachel are sitting and eating food at a table.

The vest itself if a classic single-breasted v-cut with six buttons. Since she's left her suit jacket on the chair next to Rachel, he counts the six buttons with the last button left undone like he typically wears. Her button-down is a familiar looking white, stiff collar Brioni that has french cuffs he assumes are buttoned neatly with cufflinks. She foregoes a belt as this particular suit has the side adjusters. And he's confident if she's had it tailored for her size to this degree, they also took care of the adjusters, too.

When she subtly takes the glass tumbler from his hand to drink from, he notices the H.S. on the cuff of her shirt. And, it was the only time the flush on her cheeks wasn't because of the heat of the room or the alcohol in her hand which hasn't entirely gone to her head but makes her a little more approachable in the associates' minds.

"My shirt, my tie, my cufflinks, and my pocket square," he lists as he takes stock of her custom costume again. He looks closer and notices his Cartier Tank is on her slender wrist. At least she hadn't taken out links to make it fit her wrist. "My watch. Did you also steal my underwear and are you going to tell me that's actually my suit?"

"What's mine is yours," she says as she laughs. "Render unto Caesar, and all that."

"That's an evasive answer," Harvey counters.

"Undergarments are my own, and the suit is my own," she says with a saucy wink. "As far as you know, at least."

He watches her walk away, and she looks back this time with a grin. He only notices a few minutes later that she stole his drink. -- She's sitting at a table alone, eating the mini sandwiches, pasta salad, and various desserts she and Louis ordered for tonight from the café down the street that knows how to make the best turkey sandwiches when he sits down and takes one of her pickles and steals her fork and spears some pasta salad.

"So, does this count as a couples costume?" He asks as she looks over at him with a sandwich in her hand. "See, that's funny because I'm wearing a Mariano Rivera replica and you're Harvey Specter, the best god damn closer the City's ever seen. So, we're a couple of closers."

"Mmh," Donna says as she drops her sandwich on her plate and reaches for her drink. She extends a finger as she holds her scotch glass in her hand. Its a prop but also works very well as a bring-your-own-glass considering she swiped it from Harvey's office minutes before she and Rachel arrived in the library. "I'm Harriet Specter."

"Who is your alter ego when you go drinking with Rachel at happy hour," Harvey clarified. "Who is modelled after Harvey Specter. Ergo, you are Harvey Specter."

"I'm not answering that on the grounds that I don't want to," she says with a shrug of her shoulders.

His fingers slip into hers under the table, and she smiles as she takes her fork back from him as he steals the sandwich she had dropped on her plate to put him in his place. -- He had followed her to the washroom in his condo as they finally got home at two in the morning. He was exhausted but also remembered he wanted to see how many bobby pins held her hair in his signature style.

"Only seven bobby pins?" Harvey asks as he watches her take down her hair from its coifed volume.

He leans against the doorframe, and his head hits the wood as she runs a brush through the product.

She meets his eyes in the mirrored reflection and laughs.

"Were you expecting more?" She asks. "I mean there would probably be more if I went to another stylist, but Kurtis is a go-to miracle worker."

She washes her face, and then they brush their teeth, and she's briefly debating a shower when he wraps an arm around her waist.

"So, first Halloween in the books," he says as he looks at her in a mirror.

"It'll be hard to top," she notes. "I promise next year we'll have a real couples costume."

"I kinda liked this one," Harvey says honestly as she turns and he unbuttons her suit jacket.

"One last thing," Donna says as she stands on her tiptoes and wraps her arms around his neck.

He raises a brow.

"I'm going to close the shit out of you," Donna says as she manoeuvres them from the washroom to the bedroom and he sits back on his mattress.

He chuckles, and she carefully settles her knees on either side of him, leaning in close and presses her lips to his.

He briefly wonders if, since she's a winner, he should get the whipped cream to celebrate her ninth year of domination. Instead, he sheds her suit jacket to the floor and she begins her closing statement.

#darvey #darvey fic #donna x harvey #author: harrietspecter #prompt #one shot #rated t #halloween prompts #sorry if this isn't a sexy costume but my aesthetic is ladies in suits???

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wildefiction · 5 years ago

Text

L’Appel du Vide

WORD COUNT: 4,677

CHAPTER SUMMARY: With little to no information on what they could be hunting, Sam and Dean take to what they know best -- Sam to his books and Dean to the road. Madeline meets up with an old relative and Gregory realizes that whatever they're hunting is now hunting them as well.

CHAPTER WARNINGS: Swearing, Captured Dean, Crass-Attitude

THREE

Fingering the uneven strip of leather wound around her left wrist, Madeline glanced down at her own talisman, the single bear claw the sign of her ancestors. Everyone in her family had one, they acted as a sort of calling card if you could call it that. Old-world Europe and the countries of Scandinavia were home to several major clans, each of which had a certain look to their amulets - similar to how the Celts had family crests. You could tell a lot about a person by the talisman they wore - if you knew what to look for.

As long as Madeline had been alive, she'd yet to fully develop hers; the process of cultivating one known to take decades.

Most people in the modern world thought it was just some edgy charm bracelet if they bothered to say anything at all. Madeline let them think what they would, there was no use trying to explain something as complex as what was essentially her family lineage and traditions passed down through generations to people who couldn't focus on one thing for more than half a minute. Fucking technology bleeding people dry of what little intelligence they used to possess.

Rising from her squat, Madeline stilled as the fine hair on the back of her neck stood at attention. Curling her fingers into fists, she turned, bracing herself for seeing him - the first time she'd done so in years.

Madeline was not a short woman, her five-foot, nine inches rather tall for a female in this country.

Still, when she turned, it was into the broad chest of a man who towered over her by nearly a foot.

A throaty growl reverberated through the man's body, his lips turning up into a grin. Rather than a smile, it was more a baring of teeth and Madeline couldn't decide if she felt threatened or not.

"What are you doing here Einar?" The words were terse, but not entirely disrespectful, even she had more sense than to assume she'd win if it came down to an argument. Better to proceed with caution…

The man spoke with a heavy accent, but Madeline noted with interest that he responded in English rather than insisting on using their native language.

"Likely the same as you. I assure you, I wouldn't be in this Gods-forsaken country if it weren't entirely necessary."

"I assume you found it?" Einar looked down at Madeline with his pale eyes, the wild mane of hair framing his face and falling to just past his shoulders a striking mix of dark chocolate, silver and a true black.

Nodding, she side-stepped his large frame and sauntered back over to what remained of the woman who'd lived in this cottage. Even this far removed from civilization, it had found her. Though, to be fair - once you were this things' target, there seemed to be no escape. It mattered not how far you ran, or how well you hid or who you knew or what you could do - you couldn't cheat fate the way you could occasionally cheat death.

The pair walked back across the threshold, searching again through the rubble. Maybe there was something here that she'd missed, Madeline thought to herself. Even if not, perhaps the hulking man next to her could shed some light on the situation.

"Any ideas?" The woman watched as Einar peered closely at a dried substance flaking from the deep furrows of the splintered wood. Rubbing a bit of the charcoal through his fingers, his forehead creased in concern, disbelief clear on his face.

Rounding on her, Einar wrapped his free hand around Madeline's wrist and with a sharp tug, pulled her from the wreckage.

"You need to leave. NOW!" Get as far from this place as you can, if these signs point to where I think this world is fucked."

"You'll know if I find anything else. Tell those humans you love so much goodbye and come home - they don't deserve your loyalty."

With that, Einar turned, disappearing into the woods surrounding them.

For the first time in a while, Madeline was actually, truly afraid. If Einar was concerned enough to bring her home - something bad was on the horizon.

Still, it didn't feel right to just up and disappear. Sure, she'd sometimes go weeks without speaking to the Winchesters, but they'd saved her hide once or twice - the least she could do was warn them...problem was, she was no closer to having any real answers than she had been yesterday.

*****

Several thousand miles away, Gregory reclined in one corner of a dingy tavern, the sickly glow of a half expired tallow candle sputtering as a chill gust of wind swirled through the room.

Leaning forward with a sigh, he stared into the bottom of his empty glass - debating whether he wanted another.

The low hum of his phone vibrating in the pocket of his blazer distracted him from the stranger who'd just pushed through the crowd, a heavy fur cloak drawn about his shoulders, the oversized hood shielding his features from the patrons gathered around their own tables.

Slipping from his chair, Gregory ducked into the narrow hallway leading to a rickety staircase. The wood groaned under the weight of his polished black shoes as he climbed to the cluster of rooms the establishment offered to road-weary travelers.

Turning the iron knob and taking care to make no excess noise, Gregory closed himself in the room he'd rented.

Rented might've been the wrong word, as it insinuated he'd traded money or services for it. But, the wench at the bar apparently had a thing for preternatural patrons. All he'd done was quirk an eyebrow at her, his citrine irises swirling with gold and burnt amber. The tendrils of darkness playing about his feet had slid around her ankle, and climbed her leg, constricting around one of her thighs as she stared, open-mouthed, at his audacity.

In the end, he'd gotten the room he was after. Not that he slept, but having some semblance of privacy away from nosy strangers was welcome as he stewed. So far, he'd found nothing. Not a single hint of the devastation that had ransacked the small village he now stood in. Sure, it had been a few hundred years, but it appeared as if the people of this place had forgotten to include it in their history books. Forgotten...or simply chose to omit it. After all, ignorance was bliss.

Long fingers wrapping around the phone, he pulled it from his pocket. The screen illuminating his pale features, Gregory flicked through the stack of notifications; ignoring the several missed phone calls from the Winchesters. He'd been just about to respond to Madeline's text when a low rumble shook the floorboards beneath his feet, a shower of dust raining down upon his inky hair.

Narrowing his eyes, he took a step towards the single window on the far side of the room, the glass stained with years of inattention.

Flames licked along the frame of the tailoring shop next door, the carved wooden sign hanging by a broken link of rusted chain.

A group of people sat huddled outside, the wailing of a woman piercing the night as the rumble sounded again, the east wall of the building exploding in a shower of splinters and crashing beams.

“Great, this is just fuckin’ perfect.” Gregory turned and crossed the room in three-wide steps, the door slamming shut behind him as he went to investigate. The humans he could give a shit less about, the reason why the only tailoring shop for miles had just exploded out of thin air was far more interesting.

*****

Dean was on his fifth beer, Sam still trying (unsuccessfully) to get a hold of Gregory. Or Madeline. Hell, he’d take Crowley right about now. The witch was known for being aloof and not terribly forthcoming with her information, but if her text had referred them to Gregory, it didn’t bode well for the brothers.

Along with the text, Madeline had sent a couple of image files - but either she hadn’t had enough data for them to transfer properly, or the wifi in the bunker was being unusually spotty; the files were blank - tiny white text alerting Sam that the files were downloading. Problem was, there had been zero progress in the several hours it had been since he’d first received her message.

Shoving back from the table, Dean stood - the screeching of the chair against the polished floor alerting Sam. Frowning, concerned, when his brother reached for his jacket and took off towards the garage - Sam followed along behind, a book on ancient beings still clutched in his large hands.

“Did you, uh..-- where ya headed?”

Dean didn’t stop or turn around but instead threw some back-handed comment over his shoulder about figuring this damned situation out.

“I’ll be damned if I just sit here and wait for people to bring us information. Sure, Gregory has been helpful. And the girl has her uses too - but I can’t just sit here and wait for the world to implode - AGAIN.”

“I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

The heavy steel door closing behind the eldest Winchester left Sam in the bunker with nothing but his books and his thoughts - neither of which had helped up until this point.

Scrubbing his hands across his face, he yawned - dropping the book of lore on the war table, the tea-stained pages falling open to an entry on Berserkers. Sauntering off to his room, Sam had convinced himself that sleep was the answer and perhaps that’s all he needed to gain a fresh perspective. Hell, maybe he’d wake up and this entire situation will have just been a bad dream.

Problem was, Sam lived his nightmares every day - and he doubted any of that was about to change.

“SWEET HOME ALABAMA BUH DUNNA DUN DUNNA!.... HM HM… HOME TO YOU!” Dean was thumping his hands against Baby’s steering wheel as he sang, his head bobbing as the rain outside slapped against the outside of his beloved car and her tires sending sprays of icy water toward the sidewalk that was abandoned in the storm. Dean had been driving for nearly ten hours now, and while he had no true destination in mind, he had been checking his phone at least once an hour for an update from Sam, or perhaps an answer from Gregory. “Son of a bitch…” Dean swore and tossed his phone in the place where his brother usually sat. He had no idea where he was going or what he was planning to do, but he hated sitting in idle waiting for someone else to solve his problems. Turning down the music now, Dean straightened himself in his seat as he drove and turned off county road that merged onto a highway that was eerily barren of travelers, his granny smith eyes narrowed on the dark stretch of asphalt ahead when a chiming from his phone took his attention away from the road for the briefest of moments.

[Good Witch]: Hey, sorry for the disappearing act. I need to go for a while. Back home. Keep out of this and lay low for a while. Something big is coming. Something bad and I think it knows we’re on to it. Take care of yourself, Deano

Narrowing his eyes, Dean swore and turned his attention back to the inky black stretch ahead of him, his foot heavy on the pedal and a roar sounding from beneath the Impala’s hood. “Lay low. Right. You can lay low, Witch. I’m going to find whatever’s doing this and I’m going to fucking kill--”

SCCCCREEEEEEEECH! CRASH!

A direct hit from the driver’s side of the Impala sent the vehicle flipping and spinning across the four-lane road and crashing through the guard rail on the other side. Dean’s head cracked off of his window and darkness loomed before his eyes, the last view of light was a pale hand reaching through the window and gripping the front of his jacket. He felt the pressure of being pulled briefly but the pain wracking his body and colours dancing before his vision quickly had Dean losing his state of consciousness.

Two hundred some odd miles away, Sam was nose deep in a book that was very roughly translated from an archaic, long dead language to English. It had been transcribed by the Men of Letters but whoever had done it hadn’t done a very good job of it. “This is nothing but… vague guesses and assumptions.” Sam sighed as he spoke to himself and let the weathered tome slap shut, the smell of aging parchment filling his nostrils as he did. Standing up and stretching from where he’d sat in one of the library’s plush leather chairs; Sam groaned and turned his head from side to side, the satisfactory popping of joints easing the tension in his neck and shoulders slightly, he was getting far too old for all of this shit. Easing his phone from his pocket again, Sam checked the screen and frowned. No missed calls and no new texts, this wasn’t like Dean and it had him worried.

“Dammit Dean... fuck it, maybe Ro knows something.” While Rowena hadn’t always been on team ‘Free Will 2.0’, after she had died, and then came back she’d adopted a vaguely different tune. While Sam didn’t completely trust her, it was better than relying on Crowley or trying to find Madeline again. If Sam knew Rowena, which he did, he knew that texting her was a moot point and thus opted to call, the phone held to his ear as a ringback tone that sounded like a rusty bagpipe screeched in his ear to the point that he held the phone away slightly. “And here I thought those things went out of style in 2006,” Sam muttered under his breath and sighed in relief when the melodic voice on the other end was more than just a voicemail.

“Ah, little Sammy, how are you darling?” Rowena’s voice was a purr, though it was far from sensual; if anything she was taunting him, trying to poke the proverbial bear.

“I’m fine Rowena. I need your help.” Sam knew he wouldn’t live down asking her for help but he’d run out of options since Madeline had stopped answering her phone hours ago after one very vague text about needing to go back home for a while.

“Ooh, is Sammy asking for my help? How delightful, of course, I’d absolutely love to help you. What with after you saved my wee little sausage and slammed the devil back into his box how could I not? What seems to be the problem, petal?”

Sam could hear the mirth in Rowena’s voice and he wanted nothing more than to hang up on her after offering the witch some very choice words, but as the old word went -- desperate times called for desperate measures, even Bobby -- who had come with them through the veil of the world that Dean not-so-affectionately called the ‘upside down’ -- had agreed to work with the witch on the condition that she stop calling him ‘Bobbykins’.

“Dean left a few days ago to try and track down that freak of nature that Crowley calls his nephew Gregory. I didn’t even know that Crowley had siblings in which to give him a Nephew but that is beside the point. I can’t get a bead on him and Dean stopped answering his phone. We’re up to our waist in deep shit and I’m worried that whatever we’ve been hunting might have found him first.”

Sam spoke in one large rush of air and when he finished he was greeted by the tinkling sound of Rowena’s ever-amused laughter, her accent lilting and soft. “Ah, I see, so Dean’s on a hunting trip and hasn’t been home in a few days, is that it, darling?” Rowena knew the words would slap Sam in the face and so she continued before her jab could really sink in.

“I can scry for him and that beast of a car that he drives. Are you at the bunker? I can be there in ten minutes. Bye, for now, ~” Before Sam could even ask her questions, the line had gone dead and he was left to swear and shove his phone back into his pocket before he grew the urge to throw it across the room.

“Perfect. Just perfect.”

As the flames licked into the obsidian sky, Gregory stood before the shop, gaze narrowed in suspicious scrutiny, rolling his eyes as a woman near him ran over to claw at his arm, he turned to meet her face and lifted a lip in a mocking snarl.

“What, woman. What?”

Startled by the clearly inhuman eyes that had met her own, the woman stumbled and tripped over her words, a tongue dragging nervously over cracked and bleeding lips. Even in the dark Gregory could see that she was filthy, her teeth the colour of tombstones and her eyes sunk into her skull.

“Please! My child is in there! You have to get him! Can’t you hear him crying?!”

The fact that Gregory had not picked up on anything other than the crackling fire and exploding support beams even with his keen hearing told him that whoever this woman was, she was lying and all it took was the flashing of his eyes to read the deception that played within her own.

“You mistake me for one of these humans, and doubly as someone who gives a shit about what’s happening here. This entire town could burn to cinders for all I care. But you, you’re not a human, you’re just hiding in the skin of one. Demons I can deal with but you fae will do all manner of nasty things to get your rocks off, won’t you? Make yourself scarce before I throw you into that burning building you set alight. And here I thought I had a clue.”

Sighing as the glamoured creature hissed and took off at an odd loping jog, Gregory narrowed his eyes at the rising flames and looked around; the humans that had once stood outside of the building had returned to their homes, the village small enough that the fire wouldn’t leap to another building and the fall season wet enough that the heavy clouds in the sky would open up with rain and douse the combustion before it could cause more harm. Glancing down at where the Fae had gripped the arm of his suit, Gregory was dismayed to find the material charred and blackened, a grip that would have normally seared a human to the bone.

“Always has to be the suit. Why is it always the fucking suit.”

Kicking a chunk of burning embers back toward the billowing inferno, Gregory turned and made his way back toward the inn, shadows enveloping him as he walked until he had disappeared from view -- leaving any who had seen the act full of questions that would never be answered.

“AHHHHHHH!” THUD

“Oh… god, my spleen. Why.”

Gregory landed on the other side of the summoning ring with a painful thud, a bruising ache blooming throughout his lower back and ass. Staring up at where he was, he noticed the intricate devil’s trap carved and gilded into the ceiling. Someone took their demonology very seriously.

“...Fancy meeting you here, Sam. Ugh… I think you broke my ass.”

“I’ll be breaking a lot more unless you tell me where my brother is and what your part in this hunt we’re stuck doing is. It’s funny how every time a new body pops up, you’re right there with it.”

Sam’s baritone voice echoed throughout the hidden holding cell within the bunker, pacing around the large devil’s trap that duplicated the one that had been carved into the ceiling with the help of Madeline’s magic several months ago.

“You think I’m killing all of these lily assed humans for shit and gigs? Really? Oh jesus, that smarts… ah..” Rolling onto one hip, Gregory slowly pulled himself to his feet. He was definitely way too old to be getting yanked around like a yo-yo without consent.

“All I know is it ain’t human and it’s not from my neck of the woods. Fae maybe, something extra fuckin’ spooky, even for your thrill-seeking asses.” Dusting off the tail end of his suit jacket, Gregory sighed and gave up on saving it, pulling the expensive silk-lined piece off and letting it fall to the floor, the sleeves of his black button-down rolled up over his elbows to reveal dark, surreal tattoos that covered every inch of his arms -- Sam was willing to bet that the demon before him was covered completely in ink like that.

“Alternatively, if you hadn’t ripped me halfway across the globe I probably could have texted you that there’s high supernatural activity even in Ireland where I just was before you -- again, I’ll repeat myself -- ripped me through a portal like a fucking lesser demon!” Gregory rarely raised his voice, but when he did it left an impact; Sam’s hair on the back of his neck standing up and a gut-deep spike of fear causing goosebumps to cover his arms. Gregory’s face had briefly morphed, a fearsome visage having replaced the almost boyishly handsome features he generally had.

“That being said. Sure, Sam, I’ll try to help you despite your utter lack of respect. But first, why is Rowena wearing a swanky ball gown in your dungeon? I’m not one to judge kinks but… well.” The impish smirk on Gregory’s face earned him a roll of Sam’s eyes, but from the corner, he heard Rowena choke back a small laugh, and that was good enough for him.

“Wakey wakey…that’s it, good boy.”

Dean’s eyes rolled and twitched beneath fluttering eyelids and he slowly regained consciousness, a bright light searing into his pupils when he finally opened them completely. “Sonova…” His voice was lacking its usual bravado in exchange for a hoarse, barely-there whisper and his windpipe felt like he had swallowed fire.

“Ah, the prodigal son returns to the land of the living.”

Glancing around as panic and anger set in, Dean growled and forced himself to sit up, his joints and muscles screaming at the pain that followed his hasty movement. “Where am I?” This time when he spoke, his words were a bit clearer; the pain in his chest ignored in lieu of glaring angrily out at whatever had been speaking to him. He couldn’t see in the dim lighting of the corridor but the walls were made of packed earth and the musty smell in the air told Dean that he was somewhere deep underground.

“Where are you? Oh, ah, a cave, of course, or… whatever it is you humans call these things. I would have taken you somewhere more open but the King gets what the King wants. Not sure what he wants with you, though, you’re awfully...pale.”

From the depths of shadows that strained against the torch-light, a tall creature with a complexion that was obsidian in it’s darkest form allowed himself to be seen. Eyes the colour of violets with the pupils of a serpent shone from the depths of black sockets and in the jumping light of the fire, Dean could see that this creature, whatever it was, had trails of opalescent, oil-slick scales highlighting his face, shoulders, and arms.

“You a shapeshifter? Never seen one be so ugly, gotta say.” Dean grunted out the insult and finally used the bars in front of him to pull himself to his feet. “Why am I here?” Dean had a sneaking suspicion but he preferred to play dumb in times like these, if for any reason than to rile up his captor.

“A shape...what? Ugh, you humans are so close-minded. Do I look like some skin-swapping mongrel from up above? No, I do not. You are here because you are very nosy, and his highness does not like it when nosy things stick their ugly little noses into his affairs.”

“Who are you calling’ ugly pal? You look like a piece of burnt toast and a pile of crap had sex and shit you out.”

Dean’s insult only served to make the creature laugh; the sound elegant and laced at its edges with a quiet, rasping hiss.

“You are a feisty one. I am beginning to see why he is so interested in you. In fact, sit tight, I will fetch him so that I can be rid of your fleshy stench.”

Dean watched as the willowy creature slipped back into the darkness, straining to hear and waiting for the sound of its footsteps to fade away completely.

“I’m getting too old for this shit,” Dean grunted and ran his hands over the makeshift cage, a knuckle-rapping against one of the bars, brows shooting up when he realized it was hollow. “Bamboo?” Shaking his head at the idea, Dean lowered himself to the floor and braced his weight with the palms of his hands before lifting both of his legs and striking his boots against the joints of the cage. It took several blows but slowly, the bamboo reeds snapped and splintered under his force. Shoving what he could out of the way, he scrambled to his feet and groaned as the real paint set in and shot its way through his weary legs. No matter how badly his body felt, he forced himself to keep moving, his hands used as a guide to lead him through the bowels of the dark caverns.

***

Just over four thousand miles away, Madeline shivered and pulled a thick, fur lined hood up and close to her features. The fur smelled of sage and cedar; most likely to hide the stench of the archaic methods of tanning used in the village that she stood in.

“Well girl, get inside, middle of fuckin’ winter and you’re out there shakin’ like an arctic hare hidin’ from an osprey!” Einar’s voice was deep and booming, a rare lilt of amusement dancing on the edges of his words. “Here, supper.” A heavy thud alerted Madeline to the large wooden bowl that had been set on an equally large table in the center of Einar’s tent. He had the largest in the village, the arcing supports made from the bones of whales and something even larger that had gone black with age.

“Right, yeah…” Shoving herself away from the entrance of the tent, she let the thick deer hide fall back over the opening and slowly shrugged herself out of the large fur coat that she had been given upon arriving.

“Everything looks exactly the same, like out of a picture. Gosh, it feels like it’s been forever since I’ve been here.”

From the other side of the table, Einar snorted and puffed at a carved bone pipe that was clamped firmly between his lips. “You’re barely over a century, girl, blink of an eye. Of course, nothing has changed. Now sit down and eat and we’ll talk about how to save those humans you seem to be so enamored with.”

Madeline wanted to argue and defend her friendship; she wanted to tell her grandfather that they were hardly friends, let alone something worth being enamored with but she knew if she told him that, their discussion would be off the table. Einar reserved his knowledge for those he thought were worth it, and if he caught air that Sam and Dean were hardly considered her friends, he’d sooner talk about the weather, or ask her when the last time she’d gone hunting for caribou was so with a sigh, she lowered herself into the hand made chair and pulled the bowl of rabbit stew closer to her. It smelled delicious -- she could at least give him that much.

“So, tell me about how these boys stumbled across something this old and angry?”

CHAPTER FOUR

TAGS: @jamielea81 @wings-of-a-raven

#WildeFiction #WildeHeathen #Original Fiction #Supernatural Fanfiction

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