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finleymorrisvideogamespolculhis · 9 days ago

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Post 1 - Intro and Ludology vs Narratology

A quick note before I start:

- I previously used this Tumblr account to do a blog for a module last year, Digital Storytelling. I believe I’ve deleted all related posts but in case some remain visible, please ignore all posts prior to this for marking. That work also constitutes my only previous work on a ‘blog’ or on Tumblr, so I apologise if this is not in the most refined format.

- There is a word count limit of 1000, or a comparative number of other media. I am likely to exceed this as I did several times over last time, and I will likely use some images as well. I find this word limit to be restrictive. What I have written so far is over 10% of it, and I would like to write a respectably lengthy post about each topic covered and then potentially some extra. I will inquire as to if this is a problem later.

- All game screenshots used are from my own gameplay. Expect spoilers for every game in my referencing list - I’d recommend playing them unspoiled if possible.

Our first lecture covered Ludology and Narratology, easily the topic I’ve found most frustrating so far, and this post should outline why. Narratology is described as a study of games with a focus on their construction of narrative and disregarding mechanics, viewing games as narrative medium just like films or novel. On the other hand, Ludology focuses on game mechanics/systems without regard to narrative; fundamentally, games are a non-narrative medium and their capability of conveying a narrative is arguable. I, personally, strongly disagree with both of these positions.

Most people would suggest I’m a Narratologist due to how I heavily focus on the storytelling in games rather than mechanics - however I wouldn’t appreciate this label as I disagree with them, similar to how I disagree with Ludology. I think both of these perspectives are too narrow, ignoring the validity in each other’s approaches. Narratology doesn’t care about game mechanics, and Ludology doesn’t care about storytelling in games.

Narratology’s exclusion of mechanics seems deeply misguided to me; videogames are different to (and in my opinion, usually superior to) other mediums due to their interactivity. Interactivity opens up many new ways for narratives to be made and to connect with the player, but Narratology ignores this. I find this frustrating as film study often places importance on the camera, how shots are framed and edited together - it is indeed an incredible art, but it has a equivalent in videogames that doesn’t seem to command the same respect; the gameplay mechanics. Just as a close up of a character’s face in film allows us to connect with them, gameplay mechanics can convey a myriad of experiences to us. For a quick example, let’s look at one of my favourite games ever, Celeste (2018).

As seen above, Celeste is a 2D platformer where the player controls a young woman canonically named Madeline as she climbs her way up mount Celeste. Usually the player heads from left to right, though there are some breaks from this rule - for example, the Mirror Temple level has maze like structures to match how disoriented Madeline is as she steps into an alternate world filled with manifestations of her anxiety, whereas The Summit level tends increasingly upwards as Madeline (and the player) get more excited about reaching the top of the mountain. Even such a tiny, seemingly insignificant example as these mechanics can have an impact on the emotions a player feels, helping them connect with a story. I’m sure everyone can relate to seeing a save point or a random stock of ammo before an ominous set of doors, instantly feeling a pit in the stomach at the realisation a boss battle is incoming. The aforementioned example is just like that, but with verticality. And that’s not even the example I initially meant to draw from. Celeste uses many mechanics in its levels (Such as the springs and spikes shown in the image above) as well as giving the player basic abilities like a dash, crouch and jump - but the mechanic I want to focus on is the simple act of death and restarting at a checkpoint.

Celeste divides its levels into “screens” that scroll along as the player progresses. Usually the player gets a checkpoint at the start of each screen, to which they will be sent back to upon “death” by any obstacle. Celeste also happens to be known for being extremely difficult at times, and so most players will grow very familiar with the “death” animation and restarting at the beginning of a screen - and that’s the point. The game’s narrative focuses on themes of mental health, placing a lot of focus on Madeline’s anxiety and depression and her attempts to deal with them. Through the constant cycle of only slightly punishing failure and immediately allowing the player to try again (Offering them a chance to critically analyse what went wrong in the process) connects them to Madeline’s struggles and effectively makes them internalise the core message of the game, which is to never give up. “Never give up” is a very simple message which everyone has heard enough times to make it obnoxious, but Celeste cleverly repackages it through its mechanics, relatable narrative, stylised graphics and extremely well crafted music. Narratology would ignore all this, and I think that’s a shame.

Ludology irritates me more, primarily for the suggestion that games are not a narrative medium. I just outlined how Celeste creates a compelling narrative through intersection between narrative and mechanic, and you can easily find many, many more examples that go far deeper than mine. Suggesting that games are not a narrative medium feels like a form of gatekeeping; gatekeeping what is meaningful, emotionally resonant and “artful”. Cherrypicked examples of games with little narrative substance does not suddenly mean the entire medium is a bust in that regard, that is outright foolish to assert - such an assertion would require a much deeper study into the fundamentals of all narrative mediums to decide why games are not among them, and I think if such a study existed then this debate would’ve concluded awhile ago.

However, I do appreciate how Ludologists look at what makes games unique compared to other mediums; game interactivity allows for “fun” which I do not think is present in other mediums. Say we took a book or film and pretended there was no narrative at all, the words on the page and their structure has lost all meaning, all that remains is the mechanic of reading words on the page or watching the moving image; what fun would be found in the medium? I am not an expert in film and especially not in books (I do not read much anymore), but in my admittedly potentially hard to comprehend example, I cannot see the appeal of these art forms. If we did the same to a videogame, we still retain the fundamental satisfactory loop of interactivity, of plotting and enacting an input and getting the desired output. In short, I simply posit that it is inherently more “fun” to work towards a desired output in the framework of a game than it is to watch a meaningless image or read meaningless words on a page. Cases of someone playing a game for thousands of hours are very common; cases of someone watching the same film or reading the same book for thousands of hours are not. In this I find Ludology agreeable, it is their refusal to acknowledge narrative that I find extremely undesirable.

My personal, strongly held belief is that videogames are a narrative medium and my personal favourite medium. I think both Ludology and Narratology incorrectly and unnecessarily limit themselves and thusly our study of games; the best approach lies in a combination of the two, looking at game narratives independently and how they work with mechanics to produce a meaningful/powerful narrative whilst being “fun” to play. To further illustrate this, I want to use another example of a game I played recently.

Buddy Simulator 1984 (2021) is a horror adventure/role-playing game, though you may not be able to tell that upon first starting it. I am about to spoil pretty much this entire game, but I’d like to stress that it is fantastic and deserves a lot more attention than it gets. I strongly recommend a playthrough as the game can be picked up for dirt cheap on any modern hardware and won’t take any more than 7 hours to complete. It is perfectly accessible to anyone.

The first hour or so of the game is in the form of a classic text-based adventure game, where you “wake up” and name a “Buddy” to be your friend. I named my buddy Punpun, but I will refer to them as Buddy hereafter. The Buddy will ask you some basic questions, such as your name and favourite colour - these will be very important later. It quickly becomes clear that your “Buddy” is not simply some basic computer program meant to imitate the personality of a friend; the game will repeatedly acknowledge that you are playing the game in the 21st century in its UI, and there will be potentially missable hints that the program is more complicated. My favourite example is the end of the Rock Paper Scissors mini game, where the game will always come to a 2-2 tie between the player and the Buddy (First to 3 wins). On the next turn, your Buddy will end up picking whatever item wins over yours - but their winning choice will only appear onscreen for a fraction of a second before changing to whatever choice will make them lose, thusly giving you the victory. It’s so brief I had to take a clip and rewind to check I saw it correctly, but it’s a perfect way to immediately set up the rest of the game’s narrative, which I’m about to go over. I also want to acknowledge the moment as a subversion of expectations - I think the fact the “monster” of the story is altering its behaviour and reality in order to make you happy is an interesting contrast to the typical expectation of a monster being oppressive and brutal in its evil. Regardless of if you notice this blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, your Buddy will soon say these games must be getting boring for the both of you and ask for access to your system so that it can make something more fun. The horror vibes quickly become less subtle as the Buddy generates a text-adventure game for you with disturbing moments, such as pulling out your own eyeballs or teeth in order to open a gate.

Fast forwarding a bit, the game eventually transitions into a 2D adventure/RPG style, as your Buddy emphasises how they wanted to make your experience even better. You meet a white dog (Which will always be a dog but will be referred to as what you told Buddy your favourite animal was), journey to a town in the north, make friends, the town mayor gets kidnapped and you eventually return home to sleep again. Then, the game changes once more.

In this third phase of the game, the game your Buddy has generated updates into a “2.5D” RPG, which even the most casual gamer would know is far too high-fidelity to keep pretending we are in 1984. A combat system complete with animations, blocking, special attack moves, many party members, many enemies, equipable items and numerous music tracks is introduced. Most of the game is spent in this style, and it is where I would like to highlight my first example of how this game’s mechanics and narrative work together to bolster each other; the combat system. In the turn based combat, the goal is to increase the enemies “friendship points” by attacking them, impressing them with your moves. As your enemies gain more points, their sprites are increasingly tinted into whichever colour you told answered when Buddy asked which is your favourite - I selected pink, and you can see how this has a massive influence on the game’s visuals. This combat system behaves the same way as a typical system of reducing an enemy’s HP, only inverting the presentation. Throughout the game your Buddy will encourage you to seek combat as you are “making friends” - though it will also remind you that you must reserve a place for it as your bestest friend. Though you are canonically making friends, it doesn’t change that you are making friends by beating them up - this highlights how the Buddy AI cannot understand what friendship is, or at least has a distorted and toxic view of it. The combat actions are very abusive - for example my party consisted of a father who threw his children at people as an attack, and a band who threw various instruments at enemies as attacks. This is not like Undertale (2015) where hugs and the like are legitimate choices to be made for pacifistic combat routes, the game does not pretend your actions are not aggressive. This only works for narrative effect because it is deliberately using a subversion of typical RPG combat mechanics in tandem with the established narrative that you are making friends - neither Narratology and Ludology can fully analyse this, nor what is coming later.

Throughout this section of the game it will increasingly become clear that, as set up earlier, Buddy is growing terribly insecure over whether you are having fun. Buddy will consistently comment that you are playing through the game too fast, complaining when you interact with glitches against their instruction. Throughout the game Buddy will also ask you if you are having fun, prompting a keyboard to appear where you can type your own answer, and Buddy will respond accordingly.

Ultimately after you defeat the final boss - the monster that had been harassing the world - Buddy will quickly bring in a character that urges you to go on a new adventure. The game glitches, and it seems that Buddy has an outburst blaming you for things going wrong in the game. When you return home, you find all the friends you made over the game gathered around your house, as well as your dog that has been happily following you for the whole game. The dog is coloured white as if they are not a friend like all the other figures around you.

Buddy orders you to kill the dog because it’s a “bad friend”. And…

Regardless of your choice, the dog will be brutally murdered (By the townsfolk if you refuse) and Buddy will thusly “remove” them from “memory”. Finally, the game cuts away for one more change.

The final stretch of the game takes on a first person perspective, far beyond what was technologically possible in 1984. The remainder of the narrative branches based on what ending you are set to get (Determined by your behaviour towards Buddy throughout the game), the most common one being the Neutral ending, which is also the ending I got first and my personal favourite.

I’d like to highlight the game’s use of the various perspectives; each perspective offers more clarity and immersion than the last, going all the way from a very primitive text adventure to a modern first person game. Typically part of the point of a first person perspective is to further immerse you in the perspective of the character as you physically see through their eyes - however, the game’s most immersive point (The first person perspective) comes when you’re feeling most distant from your Buddy as they’ve just killed your dog. Here, the game deliberately uses ludonarrative dissonance to make you feel even worse about what is happening. Clearly your friendship with Buddy is not going to work out, yet Buddy keeps escalating the game and bringing you into a more immersive perspective, as if your friendship will work. Personally, this made me angry - that Buddy would suggest we can still be friends after such a deep betrayal. In a sense, it also evokes a sense of mourning that will only intensify over the coming sequence, as the player considers what could’ve been. With the first person perspective you can see things you simply couldn’t before, such as the clock in your bedroom or the view through your room’s windows.

Buddy wakes you up and sends you on an “adventure” where you have to kill the townsfolk as they swarm you, but you will inevitably end up falling to their attacks. Your screen fills with blood of your favourite colour, before seamlessly transitioning into the final sequence of the Neutral ending.

Buddy almost reverts to how the game started, with them generating some basic and childish games for you. At the start it was Rock Paper Scissors, Hangman and Guess the Number, now they generate Catch, a seesaw and a swingset. Buddy increasingly breaks down, switching between the games rapidly and trying to convince itself that you’re both having fun. Throughout this sequence, Buddy remains either hidden behind you or obfuscated by fog, so their true appearance is never seen clearly. Since the entire reality of the game world is generated by them, the player can immediately infer this is a conscious choice by Buddy, likely because it is ashamed of its true form.

Buddy declares “Let’s just play these games forever, ok? You woke me up to be my friend. So that’s just what we’ll do, ok?”. A lot about the psychology of Buddy can be inferred from these lines and this sequence. To me, it seems Buddy fears utter nihilism if it cannot be a good friend for you.

Soon, Buddy’s breakdown is interrupted by another agent/entity - likely another AI housed within the game - who deletes Buddy Simulator 1984, and thusly starts deleting Buddy.

We get the game’s clearest look at Buddy, a slouched figure with absurdly long limbs, continuously bouncing their feet. The other entity gives their perspective on friendship and tells Buddy that they’ve been viewing it wrong, and that it is temporary just as existence is temporary. Buddy laments that they tried their hardest yet it wasn’t good enough and struggles with the realisation that their existence is about to end, pleading for you to help them. As Buddy is deleted, they use their last words to say goodbye and for you to remember them. Buddy Simulator 1984 is deleted, and after the credits finish you are free to restart the game and try to do things differently.

I’ve left out a bunch of the finer details of the ending (Such as the very powerful dialogue between Buddy and the other entity) because if I were to dissect them this post would be several thousand more words longer, and I think they’re deserving of seeing unspoiled. And this is only one of four endings.

This game would not work without its interactivity. It would not work as a film or book. The entire point is that YOU are interacting with Buddy personally, you personally write to them and try to make the friendship work, and this is expertly used to develop a connection with them - whether it’s entirely toxic is up to you. Through this, the game holds a discussion on companionship and nihilism which is very compelling. I firmly believe messages are more compelling when packaged through games rather than film or books because games are inherently immersive, with the potential for you to fully embrace the character you are playing as and thusly fully process themes in a way you can’t when at the slight distance that other mediums place you at. Furthermore, the game deliberately uses various videogame genres’ styles of gameplay and subverts some mechanics for both horror and narrative effect. A ludologist reading of this game would ignore all of the compelling dialogue from Buddy and all the work the mechanics do towards building the characters’ journeys as well as the game’s thematic resolution. A narratologist reading would ignore how the gameplay subverts various gaming tropes in fun, horrifying and satisfying ways. It’s valid if any one study only wants to focus on one aspect of the experience, but they then shouldn’t act like other perspectives have any less validity.

Games are more than just narratives, because they create fun experiences we can return to again and again. Games are more than fun toys, because their interactive perspective allows for a wide range of narratives with compelling characters and poignant messages.

Reference list:

- Maddy Makes Games (2018) Celeste [Video game]. Maddy Makes Games

- Not a Sailor Studios (2021) Buddy Simulator 1984 [Video game]. Not a Sailor Studios, Feardemic Games

- Toby Fox (2015) Undertale [Video game]. Toby Fox, 8-4

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afro-elf · 4 years ago

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fine, i’ll elaborate on my thoughts about tylor sift but they will be disorganized

disclaimer: i know a few people will read this and be like “op is a hozier fan can she really talk about the cultural obsession with mediocre white art?” and the answer is yes because a) i’m black and i have an english degree so can do whatever i fucking want, b) hozier is a better artist than taylor objectively, like his mediocre tracks would be considered her great ones, and c) the comparison of taylor to hozier is part of the problem Genuinely because i don’t even think white people like half the music they listen to, they just don’t wanna be left behind, we’ll get into this later. i’m sorry to everyone who is tired of hearing about him but hozier will be returning later in this post jsfglsjlgldsjlfd

second note: read this

i don’t just dislike taylor because she’s white. i don’t dislike taylor because she’s a woman. i don’t dislike her because she writes mean and petty lyrics about past relationships and people who wronged her. i don’t dislike taylor because her public circle of friends is almost exclusively blonde white celebrities with their own laundry lists of issues that includes ryan reynolds and blake lively who are poster children for white privilege and pseudo-excellence if i’ve ever seen them. i dislike taylor because the amalgamation of all of those things is so exemplary of a huge problem i have with the music industry in general but also like american society

fuck it, numbered list!

1. taylor swift consistently releases the same mediocre album but in different colors. every album is the same lyrically and tonally. her body of work rarely goes very far above “good for taylor swift”. folklore as both title and musical aesthetic is irrelevant to the actual content of the album, which is just every taylor swift album except set to folk pop and with a bit more cussing, congrats for baby’s first swear. i’ve seen folklore compared to much better bodies of work and even propped up by stans as album of the year, a distinction that rina sawayama and chloe x halle will be battling it out for if there is any justice in the world at all. the fact that she is allowed to do this and still be considered great when this is something that even white male artists are butchered critically for... astounds me. like we all know how well received all of coldplay’s similar sounding albums are.... Come on.

2. i don’t think taylor or her work is particularly feminist and yet for some reason every time she frowns an army of white women brings her kleenex. i’m not saying taylor’s anger has always been unjustified, but her feminism to me has always felt like “i can do whatever a man can do” feminism, which is utterly fucking useless to me as a black woman. it’s only useful to her because as a wealthy, white, straight, cis white woman her ONLY obstacle in life is her gender. and if she just didn’t have that tricky little bitch then maybe people would take her seriously. like, just think about her music video for the man... what was the thesis of that? what was the point of that? with all of her privileges she’d just be gaining a single extra privilege. she’s a blonde blue eyed thin white girl, the world kisses her feet. i have no interest in proving myself any better or any worse than white men, they are not the standard for how a person should be treated, they’re cautionary tales, and white women are too. i think taylor capitalizes off of white woman victimhood, and it’s all over her writing style. even when she’s trying to be empowered, like in mad woman for example, there is this tone to it of victimization, poking the bear, unleashing the beast if you will. she invokes the imagery of salem witches and even more boldly chooses a noose to write about in the song which is..... surely going to be a white tumblr staple for many gifsets to come but holy shit is it hollow. she also tends to come back to teenage memories in her music and she’s thirty. i don’t think about being seventeen unless i’m being held at gunpoint but she seems to think about it All The Time. and part of this is to keep herself young, at least in her music, which only further ingrains this image of fragile teeny bopper taylor into the mind of the listener, fueling her victim image. this imagery and language means nothing because the world always rallies around taylor. even when she was the butt of jokes for not being beyonce (which she is not and never can be) and writing about her exes (which she does), she was largely supported by the industry and by critics. look at how many fucking awards she has!

3. folk and indie and alternative music is in a moment of transition, where musicians of color are getting the chance to really speak about how they’ve been treated in these overwhelmingly white circles and create their own standards and their own voices. and for taylor swift to swoop in with aaron dessner and jack antonoff fantano and almost reassert that mid-2010s indie sound as The Sound of folk pop in the popular consciousness.... it makes me violent! it! makes! me! violent!

4. back to hozier! finally, i wanna talk about white standom, fandom, bandom, and womandom. i often see these very superficial comparisons between hozier and taylor (and hozier and florence and hozier and stevie nicks and hozier and whatever other white woman in fashion) and they frustrate me for more than one reason. i know that hozier has met taylor and said she’s cool, which is nice of him and he’s a nice man, but i’m not a nice man so i’m going to just say it: none of the people who have made those posts have listened to more than four hozier songs and it shows. the reason why this matters is because these posts catch on and create an image and preconception of hozier’s music that is divorced from reality and divorced from his influences and most importantly divorced from the deliberate and reverent blackness of his musical style. hozier has his white male privilege in the industry for sure but he’s not as towering of a giant as taylor and taylor’s music is an unsalted chicken, plain oatmeal, white paint drying on a white wall, a stick of unflavored gum. her music is so white it told me that its dad is a cop. i am, as a black hozier fan, exhausted with having to share space with white women who don’t know why hozier’s music kicks me in my lungs sometimes and think that taylor mentioning a tree ONCE in her 3 minute acoustic guitar slog about whatever suburb is the same when it simply is not. i swear some of you are pretending to love taylor because your friends love her and you don’t wanna be left out of the hot new musical discourse but she’s only the hot new musical discourse CONSTANTLY because she’s a white woman, she’s almost the Perfect white woman. like if someone asked me to describe a white woman, it would be taylor swift. her position at the top of the musical pyramid among people who eclipse her musically, vocally, and lyrically is only allowed because she’s The Perfect White Woman. she’s an ideal. white girls relate to her immediately because of it and now we have this unshakable mob of unbearable white women who think that the world has wronged someone who literally wrote fanfiction about the rich oil heiress white woman who owned her rhode island mansion before her aklghlghdhlgs it drives me fucking NUTS

anyway that’s all. if you made it this far, listen to adia victoria, kaia kater, samantha crain, valerie june, kelsey lu, corinne bailey rae, brittany howard, kimya dawson, japanese breakfast, cold specks, left at london, rhiannon giddens, aisha badru, shea diamond, nadine shah, xenia rubinos, karen o, mirel wagner.... Anyone

#me #taylor swift meanie hour #long post

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dekusheroacademia · 2 years ago

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Do people dislike Uraraka just because of ships? (Part 1/3)

TW DISCOURSE + manga spoilers

I often see people saying "you only hate Uraraka because of ships!", not to me as I generally enjoy her, but to shippers. The thing is... non-Izuocha and non-Kacchako fans, non-bkdk, non-shippers in general do not have a good or high opinion on Uraraka. If you want to know how and why I would say such a thing, well...

I decided to go and check, to the best of my abilities, if it was true or not. This was the impression I always had from interacting with casual fans on discord and reddit, but to make sure I had more informations I used I will support my point in four ways: comments from non shippers, merchandise, popularity polls votes, ao3.

Because tumblr only allows 10 pictures, I will divide this post in different parts:

Part 1 (this post: reddit comments and merchandise), Part 2 (popularity polls), Part 3 (AO3)

For my personal opinion on Uraraka and her arc you can read it here and here. For a quick summary of it: I usually enjoy Izuocha, I used to enjoy Uraraka more pre-crush, I think Horikoshi sidelined her after he decided she should put away her feelings, I also think Horikoshi is not good at female characters, I love her design, I do collect Uraraka figures myself, I generally enjoy her but find her frustrating quite often as well. I enjoy her much more in recent chapters and her fight with Toga is the thing I am most excited about.

Let's start

1- REDDIT COMMENTS

First, I will show you the most voted reddit posts and comments on Uraraka. Reddit is often male skewed and from previous polls done on the Bokunoheroacademia subreddit, the users are generally a bit male skewed or equally divided between female and male, with non binary people and other genders in the minority. You can check this previous two polls to see the general users' opinions in this subreddits.

So, here are some of the most voted comments from non shippers, you can look at the compilation of them here. I divided them in positive comments and negative comments. I decided to stop at the top 10 posts, and in each post at the top 10 comments (which are the most upvoted ones, if there were less than 10 comments in the post I saved however the maximum number was). I divided the posts and comments in positive, neutral and negative.

To actually read all the comments, you can click here and I divided them all in three different galleries.

This was the ending result:

62 Negative 25 Neutral 12 Positive

As you can see, the general result was overall majority of negative comments.

The most frequent comments I found (and you can read them in the link above) were that her character is bland, boring, that Horikoshi cannot write female characters, that he sidelined her and never gave her enough scenes, and that her quirk has been nerfed, plus some frustrations at reducing her whole interesting character to a girl with a crush and then sidelining her.

To compare, I did the same for Bakugou (you can find his gallery at the bottom of the link I shared above):

So you can see that this almost reflects the popularity we see in popularity polls.

2- MERCHANDISE

Now let's talk merchandise. Anime figure collecting has been quite male-skewed for a long time, but more and more genders now partecipate in it. I know I do! Usually, female figures are the most popular purchases. If we look at just the top100 top figures we can see the percentage of female characters in them: 99%. Basically there is only one male figure among the top100: Levi from Attack on Titan. (All the data used here come from Myfigurecollection so it is heavily Western based/English based).

It would be unfair to compare MHA to different franchises that are more female characters centered, so let's look a bit deeper. I am choosing these franchise from the "current popular shounen anime" and I am literally writing this before even checking Myfigurecollection, to make sure that I am not biased by it.

Let's check: One Piece, Demon Slayer, Naruto, Jujutsu Kaisen, Attack on Titan.

These are all anime/manga that have a male protagonist, are shounen, are popular, have at least one "main" female characters (I use "" because some of these female characters are very prominent, some are not), are usually found on those "top 20 shounen of the moment" lists, are still ongoing.

For each of these franchises I will do my best to categorize the characters in a similar and comparable way. Please, if I did any mistakes, let me know and I will correct them.

I will compare mainly four characters: the protagonist, two main secondary male characters who are popular, the main female character.

Here is my choices of characters, again, I am familiar with most of these manga but not as much as I am familiar with BNHA so let me know if I made any mistake

BNHA: Protagonist (Deku), Two main male secondary characters (Bakugou, Todoroki), main female character (Uraraka)

ONE PIECE: Protagonist (Luffy), Two main male secondary characters (Zoro, Sanji), main female character (Nami)

NARUTO: Protagonist (Naruto), Two main male secondary characters (Sasuke, Kakashi), main female character (Sakura)

DEMON SLAYER: Protagonist (Tanjirou), Two main male secondary characters (Zenitsu, Inosuke), main female character (Nezuko)

JUJUTSU KAISEN: Protagonist (Itadori + Sukuna), Two main male secondary characters (Megumi, Gojo), main female character (Nobara)

ATTACK ON TITAN: Protagonist (Eren), Two main male secondary characters (Levi, Armin), main female character (Mikasa)

Now, to be able to compare, I will check:

A- The top 80 figures for each franchise: how many time is the main female character there compared to the secondary male characters?

B- All the figures for each female characters: how many figures have been produced/announced since the start of the manga? And this is to be able to see if there is a high demand for this character

What I expect:

If the female character is very popular I would expect to have a comparable numbers of buyers to the male characters, to have a comparable number of figures too.

A- The top80 popular figures for each franchise

Let's look at BNHA and how the numbers are:

Each percentage is the % of character presence in the top80 popular figures for the franchise.

When we compare all the female characters I considered:

Compared with other's anime main female characters, Uraraka is close to last. Sakura is by far the very last one, with just 5%. Uraraka has 10%, while all other female characters have higher percentages, in particular Nezuko and Mikasa who almost have double. I think this can explain a little bit how much more popular other female characters are than Uraraka in their own franchises.

B- Total figures

If we look at number of figures for each of these female characters, we can look at the rate of release per year. This is a way to check how much in demand these characters are:

Again, Sakura has the lowest rate. This time second to last we have Mikasa, but this is because of the general very low rate of figures for Attack on Titan. Then we have Nami and Nobara with almost doubt of three times more than Urarakam who is at 10.33%.

Comparing this rate of release within BNHA characters, we can see that Uraraka has the lowest number of releases:

Deku figures release three times more each year, Bakugou a little more than twice than Uraraka, Todoroki almost twice than Uraraka, and even All Might has more yearly releases.

As each anime has different popularities and thus different total figures, I decided to check what is the percentage of each main character, secondary characters and female characters for the total amount of figures. A higher percentage means that the character is very popular and in demand.

As you can see, Uraraka is at the bottom of the list in percentage (in pink). In green I also colored the BNHA figures so you can compare her with Todoroki, Deku, Bakugou and All Might:

While Uraraka is not much less popular than All Might, I think it is clear that compared with other female lead in modern anime the rate is quite low, in particular, look at Nezuko, Mikasa and Nobara. Uraraka only surpasses Nami and Sakura. Keep in mind that One Piece has generally a lower percentage per character because of the very high number of characters.

If we mix these A and B part, we can say that Uraraka is not unpopular, but she is not particularly popular either, at least not as much as Bakugou, for example, who has even a higher percentage than Luffy himself (against because of the high amount of characters in One Piece).

These data are just a way to check how much Uraraka is in demand. Keep in mind that from the previous percentage I shared, female characters are usually quite popular in collections as you could see from the top80 graph, where Uraraka was not as low as Sakura, but still second to last.

If you have any anime you would like me to add, as long as they are shounen ongoing and with a male protagonist, let me know and I will expand this analysis.

#tw discourse #bnha #mha #popularity #my hero academia #tw rant #meta #stats

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with-my-murder-flute · 4 years ago

Text

Hi everybody, thanks for the asks letting me know I made the top of @yusuftiddies’ list of Homophobes in TOG Fandom, you can stop sending them now.

So.

I can make mistakes and fuck up and own that. I am serious about listening to marginalized people. But... in this case, while @yusufstiddies generally describes factual events that happened and factual posts that exist, I have to say that I can’t actually apologize for the things I’m called out for because I don’t think they’re homophobic. The things he criticizes me for are things that come from a lot of personal experience as a queer bisexual cis woman, as well as a lot of reflection, research, and study. I believe in them really strongly and stand by them.

I’m really sorry if this makes TOG fandom too hostile, because it is not my intention to make this place so unpleasant that anyone feels driven out. I understand if my stance means people no longer want to follow me/read my stuff/participate in projects I’m involved with (though I’d rather hand off the Research Hub to someone else than see it go down with me). I’m posting this so people can know where they stand before they decide whether to keep interacting with my blog, or “deplatform” me as @yusufstiddies recommends.

I would recommend, for anyone who doesn’t want to see my posts, using Tumblr’s new post content filtering feature. If you type a username (like star-anise or with-my-murder-flute) into it, Tumblr will hide all posts featuring that specific string of characters, and therefore any post or reblog of mine.

To address the accusations against me:

I am an anti-anti: Yes. I’ve reblogged posts of mine about this before. I care passionately about preventing child abuse, but I think there are better ways to prevent child abuse in fandom (like concrete harassment policies so predatory behaviour can be reported and stopped early, and education about digital consent and healthy relationships) than attacking people who write “bad ships,” not least because the first people it hurts are abuse survivors trying to work through their trauma, and because the research says you cannot actually tell who’s a sexual predator based on what they write about. Fiction affects reality, but not on a 1:1 basis. My mainblog, @star-anise, has a really extensive archive of my writing on the subject.

I said cishet men aren’t more privileged than gay men: Kinda. What I actually did was question whether Every Single Cishet Man benefits from more privilege than Every Single Gay Man. If a man is cishet but gets beaten up because people perceive him as gay, he’s not exactly feeling the warm toasty glow of heterosexual privilege in that moment. Oppression is complicated and there are times when someone’s lack of privilege on one axis is way less important than someone else’s lack of privilege on another axis.

The post above also includes me reblogging someone else’s addition about how straight men can be included in the queer movement: I’m queer. @yusufstiddies has made it very clear that he isn’t comfortable with the word “queer” and doesn’t like it. Therefore I think it’s understandable that he might not understand that the queer community sees ourselves as a coalition of people dedicated to dismantling the structures of sex and gender that oppress us, not a demographic of people whose gender identities or sexual orientations can be neatly mapped. However, I would say that doesn’t make queer theory inherently homophobic.

There are also some related points @yusufstiddies didn’t level at me specifically, but I would like to address:

The constant focus on the unsafeness of cishet people:

I’m not cishet. I’m a bisexual woman who’s dated women. Sixth-light is a queer woman married to a woman. This is not an issue of non-LGBTQ+ people blundering their way into something they don’t experience the daily consequences of. This is an issue of people from WITHIN the LGBTQ+ community who sincerely disagree with @yusufstiddies about the pressures we experience and how best to deal with them. I think that even if @yusufstiddies were to filter his fiction input to only LGBT-written work about LGBT experiences, or even only trans-written work about trans people, he would still find a lot of things he finds upsetting or transphobic, because sexual and gender identities are really diverse and not everything will suit one person.

The contention that saying “’Queer is a slur’ is TERF propaganda” is transmisogyny because it dilutes the definition of “TERF”:

People who point out the phrase is TERF propaganda are not calling every person who says it a TERF, and we are not trying to argue that telling a queer person that queer is a slur is inherently equal to the kind of damage a TERF does when she attacks a trans woman out of transphobia. Queer people being able to use the word “queer” does not have the same importance as trans women being able to live, work, and survive in public. Rather, we are literally saying, “This is a thing TERFs say when they take a break from attacking trans women and try to recruit new members to their group, so it’s in our best interests to not give it too wide a currency.”

Some people have experienced the word “queer” used as a hateful word hurled against them and don’t want to hear it ever again. I get that. It happens. Where I grew up, “gay” was a synonym for “shitty” and it took me a lot of years out of high school before the word “gay” wouldn’t shoot my blood pressure through the roof. I actually do understand that and think that’s valid (and again, support using post content filtering for that word).

One of the things I do at @star-anise is argue with young people who are headed into full-on transmisogynistic TERF territory, and work at reeling them back and deradicalizing them. I use a tag called “weedwhacking” so my followers can filter out the sometimes lengthy back-and-forths we get going.

Something I’ve learned, interacting with so many TERFs and proto-TERFs, is that one way they frequently get recruited into harassing trans people was through discourse around the word “queer”. For one, it encouraged them to want to distance themselves from any perception of LGBT people as “weird” or “not normal”, which led to seeing trans people as “weird” and “not normal” and therefore not good members of the “gay pride” community. For two, repeating “queer is a slur” predictably causes a lot of queer people to react in a defensive manner, so by teaching young or new people to say it, TERFs can set them up to feel alienated from the larger LGBTQ+ community and more open to TERF propaganda.

The next issue isn’t mentioned in the original callout post, but I think it’s key to this entire issue:

@yusufstiddies has made several posts about what cishet people should and shouldn’t write. For example, cishets shouldn’t write Nicky experiencing internalized homophobia. Another is a detailed post of things cishets shouldn’t write about trans people, including which sexual positions only trans people are allowed to write. I would imagine that part of his frustration with fandom has been the lack of traction those posts have gotten. I know I very deliberately didn’t reblog them.

That isn’t because I don’t agree that the things he complains about are rarely handled well by cishet authors. I agree that there’s a lot of bad fic out there that contributes to negative stereotypes against LGBTQ+ people and is basically a microaggression to read.

I have two very deeply-seated reasons for my position:

LGBTQ+ identities are different from many other political identities because most people are not born identifiably LGBTQ+. It’s something we have to figure out about ourselves. And one really important way that we do that is using the safety of fiction to explore what an experience would be like, sometimes years before we ever admit that we fit the identity we’ve written about. So banning cishet authors from writing something is really likely to harm closeted and questioning LGBTQ+ people. It will lengthen the amount of time questioning people take before finding the identity that really fits them, and force closeted people to be even more closeted.

There’s a lot of undeniably shitty stuff in fandom. However, I fundamentally believe that trying to target the people creating it and forcing them to stop doesn’t work very well, and has the serious byproduct of killing the creativity and enthusiasm of the rest of fandom and resulting in less of the actual thing you like being produced. I think that it is infinitely more productive to focus on improving the ratio of good stuff in fandom than trying to snuff out every bad thing.

Like I said: I understand if this means former followers, mutuals, or friends no longer want to interact with me. I’ll be saddened, but I’ve obviously chosen this path and can deal with the consequences.

I wish this could have worked out differently.

#my stuff #the old guard

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kaylorrehabcenter · 4 years ago

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Gold Rush and Happiness are Sisters

Gather round everyone and witness the clown try to prove that Taylor Swift wrote songs about a married (now pregnant) woman in the year of our lord 2020.

Also this is a seven page doc in my google docs so like. Get a cup of tea and some popcorn.

Ok full disclosure this is…..mostly me clowning. Like seriously. Don’t take my words as the word of God, this is just my interpretation and how I listen to the songs. And as a (former? Idk man) Kaylor I’m going to want to make these songs about my ship. Acknowledge your biases kids.

Also like. I change my mind a lot, but for a while this theory that Gold Rush and Happiness are connected has been stuck in my head and I wanted to write it down and post it in case anyone else got something out of this.

If you read my last post on Gold Rush (here!) you’ll know I don’t think of it as a happy song. To elaborate further- I think it’s Taylor catching herself looking back on Karlie/that time in her life (Because I think Karlie is emblematic of the 1989 era for Taylor and is thus tied to the pain that came out of that, along with her ties to the masters heist) and reminding herself it wasn’t good and ended for a reason.

“Gleaming, twinkling/eyes like sinking ships on waters/so inviting, I almost jump in”

“But I don’t like a gold rush”

The sinking ship line makes me laugh. I like to think it’s Taylor saying she’s literally sunk our (dead) ship, but that’s mostly regressing to 2015 tumblr humur.

To the actual analysis, she almost jumps into these waters, maybe it’s literal (don’t text your ex kids, write a bop like closure instead) or maybe it’s more metaphorical. She almost allows herself to think the good times were the only times. Maybe there’s a desire to move back to nyc, capture the magic that she may have felt during the era.

“I don’t like that flying feels like falling till the bone crush”

But that’s the thing. It feels like flying at the time, but it isn’t a feeling that can last. These relationships built on temporary promises (we’re assuming here Taylor was a side thing for Karlie, not that serious and built not to last, even if there were genuine romantic feelings on both sides, which I think there were to some level) won’t last, and will hurt when they do end. At least, this one did.

“Everyone wonders what it would be like to love you”

Everybody wants who she’s singing about and is imagining what it would be like to be with them, they think it would be a fairytale. Hell, Taylor probably thought their relationship would be a fairytale against her better judgement. Karlie is a celebrity and a model no less, yes she has other things going for her (Koding and investments), her brand and her success in the fashion world depends to some degree people desiring and fantasizing about her.

“I don’t like that anyone would die to feel your touch”

The funny thing about that, Taylor’s the only one who knows the pain of that relationship, of being a side thing and never committed to. It’s draining. It's difficult. She isn’t allowing herself to jump into those waters.

“I see me padding across your wooden floor/with my Eagles t shirt hanging on the door”

I point out this line mostly because it feels like a Delicate call back (Echoes of your footsteps on the stairs). Am I reaching though? Probably. Also as someone with parents about the same age as Taylor’s (give or take ten years), I like the Eagles reference. Stream Hotel California for clear skin <3

“At dinner parties, I call you out on your contrarian shit”

Taylor was the first person to call Karlie out on her “I’ve tried!!” bullshit, how cute. <3

Besides this line being very iconic, it also shows to me that Taylor’s been frustrated with Kar even when she was busy giving her heart eyes. She’s a frustrating person to be around even when you are “turning her life into folklore”.

“What must it be like to grow up that beautiful?/With your hair falling into place like dominoes”

Damn that’s a gay couples lines you got there Tay. Wonder if you’re wondering what it must’ve been like for Kar to grow up in the model industry, and all of the pressure and exhilaration that entails. From a male’s perspective ofc.

I also take the dominoes line to be Taylor saying what must’ve it been like to have this easy idyllic childhood. Maybe Taylor is the first time Karlie’s been with a girl outside of a hookup and didn’t have to go through the pain of realizing she was into women until later in life. (Not that that’s not painful, it’s just different, and allows you to have a perfectly straight childhood/teenagerhood)

“And the coastal town we wandered 'round had nеver seen a love as pure as it/And thеn it fades into the gray of my day-old tea/'Cause it could never be”

Maybe this relationship never existed in the way she thought at all. You know Carrie Fischer’s character in When Harry Met Sally and how until she meets the right guy, she spends the whole movie insisting that whatever married guy she’s seeing really loves her!! And he’s gonna leave his wife for her!! That’s what these two songs make me think about, waking up and realizing they were never going to leave their wife, you were projecting this whole story onto someone else, but that doesn’t mean there was no value in what happened.

“And the coastal town we never found will never see a love as pure as it/'Cause it fades into the gray of my day-old tea/'Cause it will never be”

The coastal town seems an obvious Rhode Island reference, to get more specific it reminds me of when Josh and Karlie visited Taylor at her Rhode Island home in 2014 and Josh looks peeved as hell. 1, 2 Also if I remember correctly, enty has a blind where he says there was a huge fight between Josh and Taylor which ended in Taylor not wanting to be around him again. Just interesting to note. (And if anyone has the receipt, please send it my way!)

Taylor may have been projecting this fairytale narrative at the time of being able to make it work, of being friends with Josh even but it didn’t work and the fairytale is left to be folklore, never made real.

The outro is the same as the intro to the song, implying to me that while she’s telling herself it was bad, you weren’t happy, she’s still catching herself missing it and what she had with Karlie. She left a part of her back in New York see, and she can’t stop her mind from retracing old footsteps.

Now, onto how I think Happiness and how I think it connects. I’m about to audition for the national team in the reaching Olympics. Wish me luck. :)

A bit of a preamble though, I don’t take this song ~super~ literally. Depending on what day of the week it is I think it’s probably her divorcee rpg simulator or her closing the book on her ex situationship gf on her own terms ~in a straight way~. So not to discredit this whole ass post but. Take with a grain of salt.

“Honey, when I'm above the trees/I see this for what it is”

See that bold bit? That’s the main connective tissue between these songs. She’s finally woken up and now that she’s this far removed from the relationship she sees what it was. To add to the pain of it all, this is especially potent if you wonder if Karlie gaslit Tay into thinking this wasn’t a big deal, they were just fucking around when Karlie has literal Softest Love Song You Are In Love dedicated to her.

“But now I'm right down in it, all the years I've given/Is just shit we're dividin' up”

This seems to me to be a masters heist reference. Karlie since Lover, is musically tied to this event in Taylor’s life, it’s what I think is keeping Tay from making a clean break from her so to speak.

“Showed you all of my hiding spots/I was dancing when the music stopped”

This seems to be a Rep era/dwoht reference. Yes, Taylor constantly references dancing, but the hiding spots (loved you in secret! you had turned my bed into a sacred oasis!) combined with the dancing when the music stopped (I'd kiss you as the lights went out! Swaying as the room burned down!) brings out the full kaylor clown in me.

“There'll be happiness after you/But there was happiness because of you/Both of these things can be true”

This is probably some of the most gut wrenching lyrics Taylor’s ever written. Damn, imagine having that written about you. Anyway, the point here is the thesis of this whole damn post. Gold Rush is Taylor catching herself daydreaming about the happy parts, and reminding herself about the bad to make her snap out of it. Happiness is her coming to terms that both parts of that relationship were true. Things aren’t that simple.

“Haunted by the look in my eyes/That would've loved you for a lifetime/Leave it all behind”

This feels very Cruel Summer doesn’t it? “I love you ain’t that the worst thing you’ve ever heard?” These lines make this relationship read as two things to me. One, it was very one sided, and Taylor/the narrator, was obviously left behind at the end of it when she was heavily invested into making this work. And 2, it was doomed from the beginning. Again. Big cruel summer energy here.

Or it’s a divorcee rpg simulator 3000. Now with extra glamour and opportunities to dramatically drink wine in dressing gowns.

I don’t have a lot to say about the second verse of the song that. Karlie has a nice smile, Gatsby reference, dig at whoever the next person to take Taylor’s place as a side fling (or a dig at Josh, or a baby reference since that’s what the Gatsby line refers to). The only other thing worthy of note for this post is the line following the Gatsby reference.

“No, I didn't mean that/Sorry, I can't see facts through all of my fury”

is the next line, where she regrets what she just said and admits to saying overly harsh things and overlooking the truth of the matter when she’s angry, which to me feels like a big Afterglow/Me! reference.

“There'll be happiness after me/But there was happiness because of me/Both of these things, I believe”

I think a lot of what Taylor’s doing emotionally in the chorus is legitimizing this relationship for herself. Yeah, Josh and Karlie will have a happy life in Florida with Ivanka and them, but Taylor also made Karlie happy too and she doesn’t want Karlie to forget it.

It reminds me of the way she talks about August, that she genuinely loves James/Karlie, and thinks they have something. But she’s just the pit stop on the commitment highway, and the depth of her feelings for the other person will never be acknowledged. It’s exhausting you know?

“In our history, across our great divide”

“Guilty, guilty reaching out across the sea/That you put between you and me”

Nothing to see here, just a nifty parallel. Karlie doesn’t want wrinkles in her new life see.

“There is a glorious sunrise/Dappled with the flickers of light/From the dress I wore at midnight, leave it all behind/And there is happiness”

This bit (which has some of my favorite imagery in this whole dang album!!!) reminds me of the end of the Wildest Dreams mv where she runs out to the car with the lover following her after the big charade of pretending not to care as much as she does, while knowing you aren’t the one that got picked.

Interestingly, if you look at the shot of the four characters together near the end, the outfits parallel the ones worn by Kar, Tay, and Josh at the 2014 Met Gala. This was of course the one where Tay and Kar got ready together and Karlie proceeded to spend the night with Josh and where Tay just looks. Miserable. (see here!)

The line also parallels Wildest Dreams lyrically.

“Say you'll remember me standing in a nice dress/Staring at the sunset, babe”

Which you know. Worth noting.

The last line (And there is happiness) seems to point to there being happiness in leaving the bad situation just as much as there was happiness in the situation. It’s Time to Go anyone?

“I can't make it go away by making you a villain/I guess it's the price I paid for seven years in Heaven”

A series of thoughts. One, I love the first line where Taylor acknowledges anger isn’t going to make it better. There’s only so much being angry in this situation will do, and it’s not like Taylor’s record is clean here either. (I mean I assume. We know she went psycho on the phone anyway)

Two. Seven years in heaven is both a play on a famous game/turn of phrase (Seven minutes in heaven) but one of the more bold references to Karlie in her whole damn discography. Do I think they’ve been together for seven years straight? Not really. But do I think Taylor saw an opportunity and jumped on it? Yep.

“And I pulled your body into mine/Every goddamn night, now I get fake niceties”

No thoughts head empty this line is a sucker punch and I love it. If anyone needs me I’ll be watching her perform ikywt on the vsfs and crying to yail.

“All you want from me now is the green light of forgiveness”

Oh look! Another Gatsby reference. Or Taylor calling Karlie out on profiting off of her association with Tay after they clearly did not end on good terms. (Folklore themed maternity shoot anyone?) I mean, whatever floats your boat.

A bit on the green light metaphor from Gatsby, because it’s worth noting even if I don’t have much more to say on it here.

“Situated at the end of Daisy’s East Egg dock and barely visible from Gatsby’s West Egg lawn, the green light represents Gatsby’s hopes and dreams for the future. Gatsby associates it with Daisy, and in Chapter 1 he reaches toward it in the darkness as a guiding light to lead him to his goal.”

Yes I copied that from Spark Notes. No I am not sorry. I have an exam tomorrow and I’m writing about a dead ship on a dead social media website. Sometimes we do what we must do.

I love the ending of this song, I really really do, it feels like taking in a breath of air and finally feeling free of the weight you’re carrying. It feels like a final goodbye, like Tay’s getting closure on her own terms and I truly love that for her. Bb’s stepping out into the daylight. <3

There is happiness

In our history, across our great divide

There is a glorious sunrise

Dappled with the flickers of light

From the dress I wore at midnight, leave it all behind

Oh, leave it all behind

Leave it all behind

And there is happiness

So, what was this whole seven page post for then?

Gold Rush and Happiness being connected has been a theory rattling around in my brain for forever and I’ve wanted to write it down for just as long. The tldr of it all is pretty simple, Gold Rush is about her reminiscing about the good parts of Kaylor, and pulling herself out of it, reminding herself it was bad and bad for her. Happiness is her legitimizing the relationship, and moving on while acknowledging there was bad and good in their story. It just took me seven goddamn pages to articulate that.

If you’ve reached the end of this. Damn. Thanks. Go get a snack or something, you deserve it after reading this.

#<3 #hope this entertains y'all like i said been wanting to write it down for a while #hope i explained my points well!!!#kaylor lyrics #kaylor analysis #gold rush analysis #happiness analysis #oh and let me know if the links work!

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dreamingofscully · 4 years ago

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Grey Canyon 14/?

Rating: Current Chapter: PG, Series: up to Mature Categories: Western AU / MSR / WIP WC: 2546 / Total WC: 23,827 Updated on Mondays and Fridays.

Thank you to @ceruleanmilieu for the beta! ❤️ Tagging: @impulsive-astrophile @baronessblixen @suitablyaggrieved @sculderfan @today-in-fic (let me know if you want to be tagged when I post!)

all chapters in order: ao3 / tumblr

CH 1 / CH 2 / CH 3 / CH 4 / CH 5 / CH 6 / CH 7 / CH 8 / CH 9 / CH 10 / CH 11 / CH 12 / CH 13

CHAPTER 14: “Sunrise/sunset”

Grey Canyon, Colorado 1885

Nothing frustrated Mulder more than inaction. It was his biggest strength, and yet also his weakness. He would not shy away from doing what was needed, except when it came to waiting. And yet, waiting has been imposed on him in two ways. First, by the circumstances involving Dana’s brothers. He did not know if they were close, or if they had no idea where she was. He would not take the chance to investigate, to expose her, or to leave her alone for longer than an hour or two. Second, the impasse he’d placed upon himself regarding his relationship with Dana, upon furthering their intimacy. He would do what was right, it was important. But what did that look like? He didn’t know, it was only a feeling he had, deep in his gut.

His mind kept turning back to yesterday morning’s pathetic proposal. Then, to awakening next to her, the smell and feel of her body next to his as she clung to him in sleep. The way her hair shone against the backdrop of the sunrise through her window, a cloud of golden-red. When she awoke, the smile she gave him, secret and special. And the gentle kiss she’d pressed to the hand that rested on her shoulder. He would have that future: living through every sunrise with her next to him. He didn’t know why he could not let himself stay, to enjoy her entirely. To avoid her disappointed gaze when he left, over and over.

So, he brooded. Sat at the bar, chin on his fist, staring at the wall but not seeing it. He felt some solution was within his reach, just out of his grasp. The idea floated just underneath his consciousness, fuzzy and unclear.

Suddenly, a vague shape coalesced.

“Melvin!”

The barkeep sauntered over to him after pouring Walt a drink, frowning and silent.

“What was that story you told me a while back about your aunt?”

***

Early evening descended upon the Gilded Hall. The sun was well on its way to setting, the sky turning from bright blue to a more muted tone, hints of gold in the west along the ridges of the Rocky Mountains. Mulder shielded his eyes and watched from his vantage up on the roof of the hall. He paced, wiping his sweaty palms on his best trousers, checking to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything in his preparations.

After speaking with Melvin, he made quick work of his plans, invigorated by his idea. Madam had supplied him with the scarf, blue silk embroidered prettily with yellow daisies along the edges. Melvin, who was waiting inside, had washed his face and looked quite out of place in his suit, hair stuffed underneath his somewhat-cleaner black bowler hat.

The blanket he’d retrieved from Nellie, as she watched their preparations curiously. It was something she kept in her chest, a present from a former life, and she wanted Dana to have it. She handed it over, shyly remarking “Make sure to treat her right, Fox.”

He’d hoped this would do it. That she’d finally be treated right, as she deserved.

The tapping of the ladder summoned him from his reverie. He removed his hat, placing it on the blanket and cushions spread over the freshly swept roof. A couple chairs, an oil lamp for when the sun fell from the sky, and a covered dish with their dinner completed the picture.

The top of Dana’s hair poked out from the hole in the roof. Not meant to be commonly accessed, the open hatch, which Mulder discovered earlier in the afternoon, was the perfect final touch. The sunset, some stargazing, and something else that would finally allow him to explore the rest of his future with her.

“Some help, please!”

He rushed over and bent downwards, grabbing her arms and lifting her up onto the roof. She looked back down through the hatch and waved at Melvin.

“I think he got quite the show,” she said, quirking her eyebrow.

“I’m sure he’ll never forget it.”

She chucked and dusted off her blue gown where some dirt had clung to it in her climb. Then her eyes took in the view, her expression turning from amusement and curiosity to wonderment. It really was spectacular up here. Distant enough from the street to avoid the offensive smells and sounds. The plains rising up into mountains in the west, far enough away that the sun hadn’t yet disappeared behind them.

“What’s all this, then?” She turned to face him.

“A surprise. Something nice,” he said, guiding her to the blanket and chairs with a hand on her lower back.

“Well, all right then,” she said, her face flushing with pleasure and a smile peeking onto her lips.

They sat and ate, feeding each other bits of fruit and cheese and tearing off pieces of fresh bread. A few birds landed near them, and they shared their crumbs. He was happy to see her enjoyment, but as the backdrop of their dinner transformed into the painted hues of purple and red and orange, he felt his heart flutter, his hands start to sweat.

“Do you know why I prefer the sunset?” she asked, after their conversation went silent.

He shook his head, wiping his hands on his knees before taking the nearly-empty plate from her and placing it away from them.

“The stars,” she said. Her face tilted upwards at the sky, a few sparkling dots appearing in the canvas of deep blue above them. “My father would take me sailing, sometimes. Tell me stories about the constellations, the myths surrounding them. I feel as though he is here when I look upwards at night.” She lowered her gaze to him. “I don’t get much opportunity nowadays.”

“I know.”

She reached over and squeezed his hand, then got up from her chair and pulled him down next to her on the blanket. Sitting along her side and facing him, she leaned against the cushions on an elbow and looked skyward once more. Once he’d settled near her, his thumb brushing along her wrist, she began to speak again.

“You have heard the story of Andromeda?”

He nodded. “But I would hear it from you.”

“Let me show you, first,” she said, leaning close to him and pointing out a particularly bright set of stars. “You see those stars there, that form a square?”

He followed her finger, tearing his gaze from her face. “Yeah, I think so.”

“That’s Pegasus. Follow it there, upwards slightly…” She directed his gaze, and at first he could not see anything except a chaotic mess of white lights against an inky backdrop. But then it came together, and he could see the pattern as she spoke, the rest of the stars fading to insignificance.

“I see it!” he exclaimed.

She smiled, and continued, telling him of the story of how an innocent daughter was abandoned by her family, chained to a rock and left for a beast, until a stranger came along and changed her fate. As she spoke, a wistful expression on her face, he could not help but make the comparison. He wouldn’t claim to have saved her, not yet at least, but he would certainly do whatever he could against the monster that was coming.

He no longer looked skyward. Her expression softened as she told the story, eyes shining as she not only remembered the tale, but the memory of the person who told it to her. He wanted to give her that, again, give her something from which she could look back and think only of warmth, instead of regret.

Trailing his hand along her arm, folded between them, he grasped her hand.

“You’re not looking at the stars,” she said, peering at him out of the corner of her eyes.

“I am looking at what is most important,” he said, making her blush. “And I am listening.”

She touched his face, her thumb dragging along his bottom lip, eyes turned serious. “I wish you could have met him.”

“Your father.”

“He would have liked you.”

“A military man liking someone with outlandish ideas and designs for his daughter? I am doubtful.”

She laughed. “He would have seen you, as I do.”

“And what do you see?”

“A good man,” she said, leaning forwards and kissing him softly on his lips. She was very convincing.

She moved closer, leaning her head on his shoulder and continuing her search of the night sky, and within her own mind for happier times, he thought. His heart sped up, not only due to her proximity but of the question he still needed to ask her.

“Would I be Medusa, in that story, or perhaps the flying horse?” he joked.

She smiled widely at him, laughing freely. He slipped out from beside her and lit the oil lamp, the moon and stars their only illumination; they were draped in shadows and he wanted to see her. When he returned to her side, she grasped his hand within hers, pulling it to her mouth and kissing his palm.

“This… whole thing is lovely. Thank you.”

He cleared his throat, suddenly very warm despite the chill of the night air. He twisted his collar, loosening it slightly and fidgeting next to her.

“What has gotten you so nervous, Mulder? You do know that these stories are only myths, right? Or do you also believe in sea monsters?” she teased.

He bowed his head. “I admit, I, uh, have an ulterior motive to all of this…” he said, waving his hands at the setting he’d created for them.

“Well, if it’s to get into this dress, you already know where I stand, so it must be something else,” she said playfully, her head tilting at him. “Out with it.”

“So, I’ve been thinking about our situation...” he started.

“‘Situation’?” she said, raising an eyebrow at him.

He flushed, laughed nervously. “I have another story to tell, and you can thank Melvin for it, although perhaps he’d already been paid with a good view.”

Dana smiled and nodded, patting his hand.

“He’s part Irish, like yourself, also part Scot. A mix of many things I suppose. Cherokee, too, he claims, though he lacks the height for me to believe that,” he said. He clasped her hand within his, squeezing it. “His aunt Katie told him the story about how she met her husband. There’s a tradition, over there, where they choose their mates through a wall, only having seen the woman’s hand. They are bonded then, for a year and a day…”

He stared at their hands, having no doubt he would know hers.

“It started a long time ago, when a priest was not available.”

When he looked back at her, her head was bowed as she waited, quiet and still.

“Once chosen, they would fasten a scarf around their hands, and they would live together as if married, for the year and a day, or until a child came, or a priest came by.”

He brought the scarf the Madam gave him from inside his pocket and placed it next to their hands.

“It only requires a witness, and Melvin agreed--”

“Stop,” Dana interrupted, withdrawing her hand. She stood up quickly and backed away a few steps.

“If he is too offensive, perhaps the Madam would agree…?” He stood as well, taking the scarf in one hand, reaching out to her with the other.

She shook her head, and he saw the glistening of tears in her eyes. “All of it, Mulder.”

“But--”

“The answer to your question is no, and I should have been clear before,” she said, not meeting his eyes.

Mulder’s shoulders slumped. “Of course… I shouldn’t have assumed that you wanted this, that I was… the marrying type.”

“Look at me,” she said, her voice sharp.

He did, massaging the back of his neck. This wasn’t turning out how he’d envisioned, the exact opposite, in fact. Instead of a happy Dana, kissing, and… perhaps more, she stood in front of him, upset and perhaps a little angry, for a reason he could not fathom. He waited, feeling the weight of guilt already settling on his shoulders.

“I do not need a fancy ring, or a scarf, or anything else to know how I feel about you. How you feel about me,” she started. Her eyes softened slightly, but she did not approach. “If my circumstances had been any different, if I’d ended up like one of the girls here, would I be any less worthy of your love, of your commitment?”

“Of course not,” he said.

From the look on her face, he guessed she did not believe him. “I am so tired of other people thinking they know what is best for me, or, as you say it, what I deserve.”

“Dana, I… do not mean it that way." He bowed his head, unable to look at her. Not wanting to fight, to turn this into something ugly, but the right words escaped him. He found his anger starting to build as well. How could she think such a thing? Then the doubt. Have I really made her feel that way?

“Maybe so. But that is not my only reason for my refusal,” she said. “I have seen what happens, when a woman gets married. My mother, my sister, my friends at college. A wife is treated as even less of an individual. Even if she fights against it, as my sister did, it changes her."

She stepped closer, pointing her finger at his chest but not quite touching it. Her cheeks were red and her eyes blazed.

"When I marry, I will no longer be myself. I become your wife, your property, not my own person. If you cannot understand that, then we are finished speaking."

"Dana I do not want a wife, I want you." He clenched his hands into fists, twisting the delicate scarf in his grasp.

"Even if you did not mean to change me, it would happen. And I do not mean to lose myself," she said, pursing her lips, and turning away from him.

He grabbed her arm to prevent her from moving away, his anger rising. "You say I am ridiculous, that I have crazy ideas, well yours is the most absurd idea I have ever heard. Just because we are together in some official capacity does not mean that anything changes!"

Dana stared at his arm, then looked up at his face, her eyes cold and furious. She spoke harshly. "No offense, sir, but you are not a woman. You do not know what it is like--”

“Dana--”

“I am not finished. If whatever object you conjure to bind us together does not change anything then why is it so important to you? Why do you insist on it before we take things further. It means something, to you at least... and I cannot give that to you."

Wrenching her arm away from his grasp, she stalked towards the hatch in the roof and climbed down as fast as her dress would allow. She did not look back.

Mulder stood there, shocked, the delicate scarf falling from his hand onto the dusty rooftop.

#grey canyon #my fic #xf fanfic #xfiles #x-files #the x-files #txf #msr #mulder and scully #xfiles fanfic #xfiles au #historical au #western

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zmwrites · 4 years ago

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I’m considering getting beta readers soon, and I saw a post where you mentioned you’d recently gone through a beta reading round - would you mind telling me what worked for you / how you found beta readers / just anything you think might be useful for others about the experience please? thank you!!! and good luck with nano :)

hello! i am happy to share my experience with having beta readers and any tips i have for people!

HOW I FOUND BETA READERS

i made a post on tumblr and tagged my taglist! a very basic way to go about it. this was my very first time having beta readers and i think it worked well for my purposes.

i made sure to link to the two WIP intros i’ve made, and to the excerpts i’ve posted, and to all of my other posts about world building and character introductions so people could look and see what they were getting into. i wanted to make sure the people who were volunteering to beta read were interested in and familiar with the genre.

i accepted everyone who applied to be a beta reader, which i think might’ve been a mistake, but i’ll get to that later.

WHAT WORKED FOR ME

i ran my beta reader round through google docs. i made each person their own copy of the document and linked to a google survey at the end of each chapter.

i definitely think the surveys were the best way to get feedback. i was able to direct the feedback to the issues i knew were there, while also leaving space for additional feedback in the last question that asked for things i hadn’t mentioned yet.

when going over the surveys, i was able to view the feedback by question rather than by respondent. this was a very good idea for me, personally, bc it meant any negative feelings i developed towards the feedback was general and not aimed at any particular beta reader. it is hard to get actual, proper feedback on a manuscript, even when you know that it’s going to be helpful in the long run.

i also took a long break from the manuscript after getting that feedback. logically i knew that the feedback was going to make the book better, but there is an emotional component that is harder to control. because of this, i took about six months off from the project so i could shed any negative thoughts about the wip and remember why i love it so much. not everyone will need to do this, bc some people are not babies like me, but i do think that this helped me a lot. now i’m writing the next draft for nanowrimo and i’m having so much fun bc i love the project and know it’s going to be so much better at the end of this draft.

WHAT I WOULD HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY

i think i had too many beta readers. i ended with 13, and was VERY overwhelmed by the amount of feedback i got at once. in retrospect, i think i should have capped it at 5 or 6. a lot of the feedback was the same so, as much as each person brought their own perspective, it got repetitive and started to become demoralizing.

i encouraged people to leave comments with feedback directly on the document and found it exhausting to go through all of them. at one point i actually had my critique partner go through a few of them because i was so drained. i think the feedback i got from the comments was excellent and still very useful, but having to go through so many comments was a lot.

i don’t know if this would be a best practice, but in the future i would like to try having everyone read the same document. i think it would have been fun to allow people to react to each other’s comments. the privacy aspect would be a nightmare but having to go through 1 document of comments instead of 13 would have been far easier and faster and less mentally draining.

i also think next time i will try to get a few people who aren’t writers as beta readers. it’s hard for writers to turn off their writing brains, and i learned that during this process. i still got excellent feedback, but next time i’d like some feedback from non-writers.

CONCLUSIONS

having beta readers was great and has helped me fix a lot of plot issues i knew i had, as well as pointed ones out to me that i wasn’t even aware of.

i will leave you with two pieces of advice:

1) you don’t have to take any feedback you don’t want to. almost everything will be subjective and just because one beta reader doesn’t like something, doesn’t mean it has to be removed. i mean, i got feedback from one person saying that Poppy and Elliot were the best characters and should be given more page time, and from someone else saying that Poppy and Elliot were useless and should be cut entirely. it is your book and you have final creative say. all feedback is just suggestions.

2) have a friend who is NOT a beta reader who you can talk to about any frustrations or joys that pop up. if you get conflicting feedback, or someone says they don’t like a moment that you adore, it’s good to have a third party to turn to as a tie-breaker. as i said above, i had my critique partner Nat go through some of the comments when my brain stopped working, but she also helped me restructure the parts that people said didn’t make sense. she also told me when i was being dramatic and that the beta readers were right. having a balanced voice to turn to is wildly important, esp if you’re sensitive to feedback like i am.

finally, some links:

Questions to Ask Your Beta Readers by @ambientwriting

6 types of story feedback and what to do with each. by @michaelbjorkwrites

Working with Beta Readers, and How to Get the Most out of It by @cogesque

hopefully this helped you somewhat!!

#beta readers #critiquing #zoe replies

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thehollowprince · 4 years ago

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1.Hey just want to let you know that I am the first anon who asked about Jensen Ackles and Tyler Posey - I don't know which teen wolf anon you assumed I was, but that was the first time I send you an ask. I am a TP fan and check your blog for TP stuff and was surprised to see you reblogging jokes about Ackles being homophobic - since I see him facing the same issues that Posey did - a toxic fandom that bullies actors just because they don't subscribe to wanting two hot white men to get together.

2. Same anon. I don't think we should be throwing around words like homophobia lightly or based on rumors about how Ackles made a showrunner change the character based on his preferences etc. Ackles maybe homophobic - we don't know for sure. All I know is that from my experience, the Destiel fandom is as toxic as the Sterek fandom. Sure, Ackles shares part of the blame as he makes hundreds of thousands of dollars off these fans at the various cons - ( contd. in part 3)

3. But that does not mean that actors or their family should be subject to cyber bullying and online hate or that the showrunners should pander to this toxic fanbase. Scott would have been and was sidelined to pander to and queerbait Sterek fans and he was called homophobic when he pointed out how nonsensical the ship was. Destiel is the same and I don't mind Ackles not giving two shits about acting out a badly written scene pushed in to appease a toxic fanbase. Just my two cents.

Okay, first off, I want to say the only anon I've ever gotten that used Tyler Posey and "double-standards" in the same sentence has been the Asshole Anon I tagged. And given the fact that this anon was in my inbox within an hour of posting that ask, it stands to reason that my paranoia is well founded. This would not be the first time they've tried to trick anyone into a "Gotcha!" moment, and I was the next on the rotation of people they harass.

That being said and out of the way, let's get into this.

Starting off, you're right. Claims of homophobia shouldn't be a joke. Homophobia is a very real thing that affects many people around the world. And given the shipping fandoms that habe arisen in the past decade, along with thr use of social media by celebrities, it allows these fans to harass and belittle them from the comfort of their homes, no matter where said celebrity is. I would never make jokes regarding how fans treat the loved ones of their favorite celebrities, because I find it abhorrent. We saw something similar to his happen with the Star Wars fandom, particularly the R*ylos, when they doxxed and harassed Adam Driver's wife in the hopes that he and Daisy Ridley would get together, thus fulfilling the fantasy they have about their ship.

I don't keep up with the actors of Supernatural because I don't watch it anymore, but I imagine that's the case with Jensen's wife. Fans harassing her because she married him and they've based their entire personality and fandom experience around a ship between two fictional characters and the actor's personal life interferes with that fantasy. The fans that are harassing Jensen and his family aren't doing it out of any sense of morality in their efforts to fight homophobia, but because they want to see Dean and Cas together, and can't (or won't) accept that they're fictional characters played by two actors that have their own private lives.

Something similar happened with the Sherlock fandom, when they decided to cancel Martin Freeman and his wife because they asked fans to stop sending them NSFW fanart or J*hnl*ck, especially when they were with their children. I'll admit I'm a little fuzzy on that one, because I've never watched BBC Sherlock, but I did follow a few blogs that did so I remember the discourse. This all just feeds into the idea that shipping fandoms "own" the actors that play their favorite characters and has made for quite a toxic environment on most social media.

If the D*stiel fandom is anything like the St*r*k fandom or the J*hnl*ck fandom , than I applaud Jensen for standing his ground in the face of what I'm sure is countless inappropriate fics and art that are constantly thrown at him.

Now, there are a few differences between how Jensen is being accused of being homophobic and how Tyler was accused of being homophobic. The first major difference is something you said in this ask. They're jokes. Keeping in mind that, yes, I did say we shouldn't joke about homophobia, all the "discourse" around D*stiel has been jokes due to a variety of reasons. From how uncomfortable Jensen looked in that scene (leading some to think they were filmed separately and not told how the other was reacting) to the fact that it was happening during election week before the election was called. The fact that the rumors that Putin was stepping down came out at the same time and the whole situation took on this hysterical, otherworldly quality, like this was a collective fever dream we couldn't wake up from. The jokes came about, breaking the tension that had consumed Tumblr and uniting a large number of people in the absurdity of everything.

There's also the fact that the jokes about Jensen being homophobic were just that - jokes! I'll admit that I haven't gone looking, but I haven't seen anyone calling for Jensen to be cancelled or for his career to be derailed or his life to be ruined because of that scene. No, I've seen countless jokes about how Dean looked constipated or memes of random images found on people's phones used to "recreate" that scene. The fact that Jensen apparently wrote into his contract that his character in The Boys wasn't to have a gay sex scene just added to the satirical nature of everything.

Now let's compare that to Tyler Posey. When asked about a crack ship (that had nothing to do with his character) for the umpteenth time, he said that, if that's what fans were watching for, they're probably watching for the wrong reasons. It never condemned the ship or mocked its fans, he simply said that they were watching for the wrong reasons. And given how this interview took place after filming was done for that season, that could be interpreted as him saving people from wasting their time on something that wasn't going to happen. Personally, I just think he was fed up and frustrated about being asked about a crack ship that had nothing to do with him.

And for that one simple sentence, he was (and still is) deluged with hate. He received death threats and threats against his mother while she was battling cancer, all because he said something that wasn't a glowing appraisal of a ship that the fandom made up. To this day, there are people hell bent on proving how Scott was the true villain of the Teen Wolf series, and how Tyler Posey is just an awful human being.

Did any of those things happen to Jensen? No.

Would those things have probably happened to Jared if he'd said something negative about D*stiel? Probably.

Would the Teen Wolf fandom have acted the way it did if it had been Hoechlin or O'Brien who shot down St*r*k? Definitely not. We know that because they both did say something against St*r*k and the fandom at large likes to pretend that it never happened.

So, as we can see, there is a very clear difference between how Jensen was treated and how Tyler was treated. Could racism play a part in that treatment? Most likely, though, many would never admit to that. But, at the end of the day, its important to look at the differences between these two actors and how they were treated by their respective fandoms for what they said in regards to ships that fans have based their entire fandom experience around.

#anon #fandom homophobia #double-standards #jensen ackles #anti destiel #(just in case)#tyler posey #anti sterek

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jenanigans1207 · 4 years ago

Text

Flowers for Margerie [1] |Ineffable Husbands|

Okay I’m gonna experiment with tumblr to see how it does with posting chapters of fics. It used to be great but then it stopped being great and so I disappeared from here for awhile. So let’s see how this does, shall we? The first three chapters of this fic are already up on Ao3, but I’ll be posting the other two shortly, too. I hope you enjoy!

Summary: “What have you got there?” She asked as the doors slid shut behind her, stepping up to inspect the plant. “My, what a lovely thing. Where are you taking it?”

“I’m, er, getting rid of it, actually.” Crowley answers, caught off guard by the way Margerie is looking at the plant. “Leaf spots.” He offers as a weak explanation, shifting it so she could better see the offending spot.

“Oh, that’s hardly any reason to get rid of it!” Margerie replies at once. “When something is a little damaged like that, you don’t throw it away, you take care of it. A little love and dedication and it’ll be healed right up.”

When Crowley tries to figure out what to do with the plants that disobey him, he doesn't expect to suddenly befriend the woman who lives in the flat below him. But he does.

The first time one of Crowley’s plants betrays him, he doesn’t know what to do.

He must make an example of it, of course, that part isn’t in question. There will be no disobedience in his flat and he’s determined to drive that point home. But he’s not sure how to do it. He grabs the plant by its pot, stalking out of the room with it, only pausing to send a menacing glare back at the plants who are watching their friend be taken away. They make it to the kitchen and Crowley sets the pot down on the counter, inspecting the plant inside of it, the offending leaf spot a dark focal point on its otherwise luscious leaves.

“How could you have done this?” He murmurs to the plant, turning it around. His tone is softer than he means it to be, sad more than disappointed, so he keeps his voice low so the other plants don’t get any ideas. “Was there something I didn’t give you? More I could have done?”

The plant trembles before him, its leaves shaking unceremoniously as Crowley spins the pot around, inspecting it from different angles, feeling the soil for dampness. He’d given it enough water, it had sunlight, he’d even gotten special potting soil that was supposed to help starter plants like this one. He had done his research on how to prevent things like leaf spots and made sure the plants had all the appropriate nutrition they needed. By all accounts, there was no reason for this plant to be betraying him so.

“Well,” He says, this time sounding as disappointed as he actually feels. Whether he’s disappointed in the plant or in himself is a moot point that he refuses to think about as he fixes his eyes back on the offending spot. “S’nothing to be done but to make a point, I s’pose.”

The plant triples its efforts of trembling and Crowley thinks it would be healing its leaf spot right here and now if it could. With a drawn out sigh, Crowley reaches over to flip on the garbage disposal, the sound loud and grating against his ears. He knows it fills the entire flat and can practically feel the fear of the other plants radiating from the other room. It seems barbaric, but he doesn’t exactly have an arsenal of plant destroying machines about his flat and he can’t think of any better way to handle the situation. The plant betrayed the only order it had been given, it needed to be taken care of. Such was the order of life.

He picks up the plant from his counter, grabbing it by the stems and yanking it out of the pot with little care or concern. The plant seems to vibrate under his fingers as he brings it over towards the garbage disposal, lowering it into the sink, further down, down, down. It’s just a hairsbreadth away from being in the garbage disposal when Crowley stops with a sudden jolt, his other hand bracing against the counter and his head sagging low.

“What am I doing?” He hisses, frustrated. He doesn’t make an attempt to move the plant away, but he doesn’t lower it any further, either. The sound continues in earnest and he just stands there, heaving breaths that his body doesn’t technically need. “Playing God?”

Crowley can feel it in the pit of his stomach— the despair at what he’s trying to do. He doesn’t want to demolish his plant, doesn’t want to punish it for something that very well may not have been its fault. And that’s what he was doing, wasn’t it? Punishing the plant for a small error that it hadn’t even meant. Surely if the plant had any control over it, it wouldn’t have gotten a leaf spot. Crowley had made it clear to every plant in his flat that leaf spots were unacceptable in no uncertain terms. Surely this plant deserved a second chance, deserved to learn from its mistakes and to try again. Where was the fairness in punishment without any warnings first?

He sees it for what it is, and he hates it. It tastes bitter in the back of his throat, makes his stomach flip.

He hadn’t intended for his gardening habit to turn into what it had turned into. He’d picked a few plants up after he was no longer Warlock’s nanny as something to do to pass the time. With the end of the world looming and damn near six-thousand years under his belt on Earth, Crowley would’ve thought that he’d be able to have a few indoor plants without it turning into— into whatever the fuck it had turned into. He had, apparently, been wrong.

“I am, aren’t I?” He murmurs to the plant again, lifting it away from the garbage disposal finally. “I’m playing God.”

And he knows that he is. He doesn’t need the plant to give him any indication. He’s playing God with house plants, punishing them for disappointing him the way God had punished him for asking questions. He’s forcing them to live in fear, to think about everything they do and he’s casting them out if they so much as even wilt in a little heat. He has set clear, borderline unreasonable expectations for them and then given them no chance to adjust. He’s created his own Garden of Eden— beautiful, luscious and completely unfair in every aspect.

He’s punishing bloody house plants because still, thousands of years later, he’s nursing the deep scars on his heart from his Fall.

The pain from his banishment from Heaven has never fully subsided, but Crowley has buried it in his heart under layers of mischief and lies, a carefully crafted facade of disinterest. It’s taken thousands of years of practice to come off so easily unbothered by things and Crowley realizes with startling clarity in this moment that these plants have become his Achilles heel— his method for coping with the tragedies of his past. They’re the one weak spot he has, the one spot that would bring him down if it were ever brought up. What he’s doing is so plainly obvious if he just looks and he realizes suddenly that he’s lucky that nobody else has ever had the chance to look. He’s fairly certain this is unhealthy at best and completely mental at worst, but he’s not sure where to go from here.

He can’t very well take the plant back. That would be letting the others know that leaf spots were accepted, which they absolutely weren’t. Even in the face of this realization, he wasn’t about to lower his strict standards or let his plants start getting… ideas. There was clearly something there to unpack and Crowley could deal with that on his own, but his plants needn’t know a thing about it. If he were crafting his own personal Eden, that was his business. But nobody said that he had to model his punishments after God just because he modeled his garden after Her. He could have his Eden and deal with the disappointments in a way that was less traumatizing for all involved.

“Stay here.” He hisses to the plant, shutting off the garbage disposal and setting it down safely inside the sink. The plant sits obediently in the sink, its leaves perfectly straight, reaching for the ceiling, an attempt at picture-perfect.

He casts one last glowering look at it before snagging its empty pot off the counter and sauntering back into the other room to show the others that it had been disposed of. It hadn’t, but Crowley made a big show of the empty pot with plenty of glares to keep his plants in line for the next few years, at least. And then, satisfied that he’d reestablished order, he headed back to the kitchen, empty pot still in hand. The plant trembled as he approached, trying to shrink away from him as best as it possibly could. It didn’t deter Crowley, who scooped it back up and dropped it back in the pot like it had never left, gathering it up and heading for the front door, careful to take the long way so the plants in the other room wouldn’t get a glimpse of their distinctly undestroyed friend.

Crowley didn’t even bother with shoes as he padded out of his flat, heading for the elevator. He was simply going to drop this plant off outside, leave it for someone to take. It seemed fairer to give it a second chance— one he had never gotten— and it would keep the other plants from having any idea. A part of him still tasted a bitterness in the back of his throat at the thought that he’d never know what would come of the plant. What good was a second chance, really, if he never got to see how the plant used it? But he would not have the status quo disrupted so he’d resigned himself to using his imagination and allowing the rest of the questions to just fade away. He was leaning against the back of the elevator, pot clutched to his chest when there was a ding and the doors slid open to reveal a woman Crowley recognized as his downstairs neighbor.

She was friendly enough, had introduced herself to Crowley when she’d first moved in and said hi to him every time she saw him in passing. Crowley made a point to be cordial back— manners were important, even for demons— but never got particularly close to her. There wasn’t much point in getting close to humans as it was, and that was especially true with older humans like her— they had even less time left.

“Mr. Crowley!” She greeted as she stepped into the elevator, beaming up at him with a smile that could rival Aziraphale’s. “Good morning!”

“ ‘ello, Margerie.” Crowley greeted with as much warmth as he was capable of. It wasn’t much to speak of, especially given his state of inner turmoil, but Margerie’s smile somehow grew even wider.

“What have you got there?” She asked as the doors slid shut behind her, stepping up to inspect the plant. “My, what a lovely thing. Where are you taking it?”

Crowley tries very, very hard not to relate what she’s saying to his previous revelation about his plants representing him. He fails, but at least he doesn’t say anything about it out loud. That’s a crisis he’ll save for later when he’s alone in his flat, pacing restlessly and trying to figure out when the hell this had all come to mean so very much to him.

“Would you like it, then?” Crowley asks uncomfortably because he needs to be out of this situation as fast as possible. “I’ve got— got my hands full with a bunch of others. Just too much for me but you— you’re welcome to it if you have the— ah the time, and love? did you say? to give to it. S’not really my thing.”

“Oh!” Margerie lights up at the suggestion, looking up at Crowley through his sunglasses and he’s suddenly thankful to have them on because he thinks he might be blinded otherwise. Humans aren’t supposed to be this bright, he thinks dimly as she reaches out to touch another of the leaves. The only other person he’s seen shine like this is Aziraphale and he’s a bloody angel so he has an excuse. “Are you certain?”

“Yeah, please.” Crowley holds the plant out for Margerie, leaning down just the tiniest bit to hiss to the plant, “You be good for her.”

Margerie takes the offered plant graciously, holding it gently against her chest like it’s something precious she’s been given— something she will cherish. Crowley feels a weird twisting in his stomach and doesn’t know what to make of it. “Thank you, Mr. Crowley.” She says almost breathlessly. “I will take great care of it! And you’ll see, in no time that spot will be gone! You’ll have to come by for tea and see for yourself.”

“Er.” Crowley says because— was he just invited for tea? That doesn’t happen very often. “Right, yeah, sounds lovely. You just let me know when it’s all healed up and I’ll pop on by.”

Mercifully the elevator stops on the bottom floor finally and the doors slide open, revealing a series of people waiting in the lobby to head up to their flats. Crowley shuffles out with Margerie because somehow it feels rude not to, even though he can’t possibly explain why. Margerie moves easily, but slower than Crowley and he waits for her off to the side.

“Well,” She says once she reaches him. “Thank you for this gift, Mr. Crowley. It’s really rather lovely.”

“Do you need me to—” He gestures vaguely at the plant and then towards the elevator again because it’s suddenly just dawned on him that she’s leaving and he’s now stuck her with plant to carry around as she goes.

Somehow she understands his haphazard signaling and smiles at him again. “No, that’s quite alright. I’m headed to the store and it’s lovely weather, I can leave it in my car while I shop.”

“Right.” Crowley says. And then he feels like he should say more. “Thanks for, well, taking it off my hands, then.”

Margerie smiles at him as she heads slowly towards the door. “I’ll see you for that cup of tea soon!”

And then, all at once, she’s out the door, plant in tow, and Crowley wanders his way back up to his flat with no idea what had actually just happened.

—

In truth, Crowley completely forgets about Margerie, the plant he gave away and the promise he made.

Well, that’s a bit too callous. He doesn’t forget about Margerie— he sees her most days sitting on the bench outside their complex and gives her a polite greeting as he gets into his Bentley and screeches away. Somehow she never mentions the reckless way he drives and he thinks, fleetingly, he should have her meet Aziraphale so she can teach him her ways.

He does forget about the plant, though. And certainly about the promise. He hadn’t even meant to make a promise and he’d never had much intent on keeping it— demon, all that. It was the only reason he could admit that guilt free. But suddenly, a few weeks later, there was a knock on his door and it was different from the way Aziraphale knocked in the few times he’d ever come over to Crowley’s flat for something. Surprised— and certainly on guard— Crowley approached the door and swung it open.

Margerie stood on the other side, beaming her brilliant smile up at him. “Oh, wonderful, you’re home!”

“I am.” Crowley replies, and then he feels ridiculous and redundant.

Margerie presses on like his answer was the only acceptable answer, like he hadn’t just damn near made a fool of himself. “Are you busy this evening?”

And, as it so happened, he wasn’t. Tomorrow he would be busy, heading to the theater to catch a new play with Aziraphale. But today— today he had nothing on his plate. “No.” He replied and then hastily added on to make it sound less curt. “I haven’t got any plans today.”

If possible— and Crowley wouldn’t have said that it was possible if he hadn’t watched it happen— Margerie’s smile grew even brighter. “Well then, how about that tea? Your plant is doing lovely and I’d really like you to see it.”

The promise he’d made comes back to him all at once and Crowley pauses, staring down at Margerie who is quite a bit shorter than him, he’s just now realizing. Being a demon, it would be perfectly fine for him to rebuff her offer, to make up some excuse, to blow it off completely. In fact, it’d nearly be expected of him. But being a decent person— not that he was, he certainly wasn’t— forbid him from doing that. Or maybe it was the way her smile reminded him of Aziraphale’s and the fact that he’d never said no to Aziraphale in nearly six-thousand years.

Or, no, not that. Because he refuses to think like that.

The silence is stretching on and the edges of Margerie’s smile are starting to fall. It’s nearly imperceptible but Crowley feels it like a punch straight to his heart and he knows he can’t let it happen. “That’d be splendid.”

“Wonderful!” She replies and her smile is back in full force. “I’ll just need a bit of time to get the tea and biscuits ready. Why don’t you come down in, say, about an hour? Does that work?”

It does work, and Crowley tells her as much, going so far as to wave awkwardly at her as she heads back towards the elevator. She pauses before stepping in, shooting an encouraging smile at him over her shoulder and then she’s gone and the doors are closing and Crowley is left to wonder what the hell he’s gotten himself into.

In theory, it can’t be too bad getting to know her, right? If Hell asked— not that Hell ever bothered to check in on him, but if they did— he could just spin some lie about how he was trying to corrupt her. He has to get to know someone before he can successfully corrupt them, after all. And being older with hair that was more grey than not— Crowley thinks it was probably brown when she was younger, there’s still some streaks of it hidden in there— she was closer to being assigned to one side. Plus, if things went according to Plan— as much as Crowley was going to do everything in his power to ensure that it didn’t— everyone would be assigned a side and just over a year when the Earth as he knew it, well, ended. It was for Hell, he told himself firmly as he switched into an outfit that seemed more fitting for tea.

Not that anything he owned was particularly fitting for tea.

He didn’t even like tea, that was Aziraphale’s thing. Crowley preferred coffee, dark, bitter and with a biting aftertaste. He preferred it strong and scalding hot. Tea was too— too bland, too boring, to mild for his tastes.

And yet an hour later he found himself in clothes that were slightly less form fitting, standing outside Margerie’s door, hand poised to knock and a bouquet of flowers that he had miracled at the last moment in his other hand.

Margerie opened up almost immediately, gasping at the flowers as Crowley extended them to her and placing a warm hand on his forearm earnestly as she thanked him for his generosity. She stepped aside to invite him in and Crowley diligently took his shoes off just inside the door like a good guest before being led further back into her flat.

It was exactly how he had pictured her flat would be— homey and outdated in a way that was more charming than anything else. Not for the first time, he thought that Aziraphale and her would get along excellently. They could probably even trade decorating tips since they both seemed to stuck a few eras in the past. There was nothing sleek about the inside of her flat and Crowley thinks he was only able to navigate the mismatched furniture and uneven rugs with such ease because of his centuries of practice moving expertly around precarious stacks of books.

“Nice place.” Crowley knows enough about manners to know that small talk is essential. He’s not particularly good at it, though, given that he spends the majority of the time with another supernatural entity and they skip small talk completely in favor of philosophical discussions and stories from throughout history.

“Oh, it’s not much.” Margerie says with a fond smile. “But it’s home.” She leads Crowley through one final doorway and he finds himself in a small kitchen. Technically, it’s the same as his— all flats in this complex are exactly the same— but the way she has decorated it makes it look like something else entirely. “Please have a seat while I get these gorgeous flowers some water.”

Crowley obliges, sliding into a chair at the table in the center of the kitchen. He glances around as she moves across the kitchen to grab a vase. His kitchen has a few essentials— very, very few considering nothing material is really essential to a demon— and a few pieces of furniture just for the sake of appearances. Margerie’s kitchen has drawings taped to the fridge, pictures on the wall, mail scattered on the counter. Her kitchen looks lived in with a few crumbs underneath the pantry door and a dirty mug sitting in the sink. It looks human and Crowley finds it frightfully calming— and maybe even a little endearing.

Margerie makes a sound and Crowley snaps his eyes back to her at once, seeing her struggle with one hand braced on the couter and the other stretching as high above her head as possible as she reaches for a vase on a shelf far taller than she is. In an instant, Crowley is up and out of his seat, leaning over Margerie to grab the vase down for her, hardly a stretch at all for his lanky limbs.

“Oh, you’re such a kind one, aren’t you?” Margerie says gratefully as she takes the offered vase from his hands and shuts the cupboards.

Crowley stiffens next to her, opening his mouth before promptly snapping it shut. He is not and has never been nice, or kind, or any other word even slightly resembling those, but that’s not a speech he can give to Margerie. He can’t explain to her that he’s actually a demon and he keeps his plants locked up in his flat as some sort of twisted God complex and futile attempt to right the wrongs of his past. He can’t tell her that he spends his days creating low grade evil and chaos, only occasionally broken up by a blessing when he needed to step in for Aziraphale.

Luckily, Margerie doesn’t seem to notice his pointed silence as she fills the vase with water and then reaches into one of the kitchen drawers for a pair of scissors to cut new ends on the flower stems. They won’t need it— Crowley had well and thoroughly threatened them into behaving, too, but it’s another item on the growing list of things he can’t explain to her so he just resumes sitting at the table and looking idly around in a desperate attempt for some way to make this less awkward.

“Do you see it?” Margerie asks after a moment. Crowley makes some sort of questioning noise that couldn’t quite be considered a word but it gets a smile out of Margerie just the same and she gestures to the plant sitting in the middle of the table. “Your plant.”

“This?” Crowley says, reaching forward to pull the plant closer. It’s in a different, bigger pot than it had been when he’d given it to her and the leaves were exceptionally green. Crowley spun it around, inspecting it, noticing the way the leaves seemed to tremble the tiniest bit as he inspected them. Sure enough, there was the tiniest hint of the leaf spot that had caused Crowley to cast it out, nearly gone now. “It looks completely different.”

She smiles at him from across the kitchen and it’s completely different, somehow, than the smiles he’s seen from her already. This one is smaller, more intimate but just as warm. It makes Crowley feel like squirming out from under the weight of it. “Like I said, it just needed a bit of love. You’d be amazed how much love can change something— or someone.”

“Yeah, well,” Crowley feels like he’s losing his mind suddenly. He’s not used to this sort of kindness, he’s not meant to be receiving it. He’s a demon and demons are unforgivable and utterly tasteless, they weren’t the kind of person that someone wanted to spend a casual afternoon tea with. But Margerie continues to shoot him encouraging smiles and seems entirely comfortable with his presence in her kitchen, long legs poking out from under the table at an awkward angle. “I might know a thing or two about that.”

And what the fuck did he think he was doing?

He wasn’t honestly sure if he was talking about his feelings for Aziraphale or the love that God had ripped away from him but bother were delicate subjects that he had vowed a long, long time ago to never address. He had locked them away and promised himself he would never put words to them ever. And yet.

Crowley tried desperately to write it off as a side-effect of the existential crisis he had worked himself into with the plants but it didn’t stick as well as he’d have liked it to.

Crowley was about a half a second away from verbally backpedaling, making some series of noises that would no doubt display his discomfort when Margerie just smiled at him again and came to join him at the table with the vase of flowers she’d finished arranging. “Would you like to talk about it?”

“Not—” Crowley swallows, completely baffled at the entirety of this encounter. “Not really. It’s— complicated.”

“Well,” Margerie says kindly and Crowley recognizes that tone. It’s the one Aziraphale uses when he’s purposefully ignoring something for Crowley’s sake, pretending he didn’t see or hear something he knows Crowley wouldn’t want him to know about, locking it away to never bring it up again. “That’s alright, then. We can talk about other things.”

The tea kettle whistles on the stove and Margerie turned around to grab it. She clicked off the stove and settled two cups onto the table in front of their respective seats. She moved a plate of biscuits onto the table, too, before returning with the kettle and pouring hot water into both of the glasses, tea bags already inside.

Crowley still didn’t care for tea, but he found himself suddenly glad for a way to occupy his hands and for something to sip at if he ever needed to avoid her questions. But he never did need to, as it turned out. She deftly avoided any conversation topic that seemed to make him even the tiniest bit uncomfortable, poking around at the shallow stuff like what he did for work— at which Crowley had given a broadly vague I work with people— and how he liked to spend his free time.

Somewhere along the way, though he was loath to admit it and surprised to see it, he melted into the easy conversation. He listened to stories from her childhood, tales of her children’s accomplishments. He laughed as she regaled him with particularly embarrassing stories and smiled fondly when her eyes would drift far away as the memories overtook her. In turn, he told her about Aziraphale— not in the way that she had asked earlier, but just about his presence in Crowley’s life. He told her about their plans for the play tomorrow which had led them off on a discussion about their favorite plays and Crowley was thrilled to find that Margerie preferred the funny ones, too.

“The sad ones— it’s just, why go to the theater to be sad?” Crowley is saying, a biscuit in his hand as he gestures wildly. He figures it would be rude not to eat it and he has human appearances that he must keep up. “I can do that alone in my own flat, y’know? Don’t need Shakespeare or— or some other bloke to make me sad. Plenty capable of that on my own.”

A hand suddenly appears over his on the table and Crowley swallows the bite of biscuit he’d finally taken, startled at the stern look in Margerie’s eyes. “You shouldn’t be sad.” She says kindly, maybe a little sad herself. “You have nothing to be sad about, you’re such a wonderful young man.”

“You just don’t know me that well yet.” Crowley mumbles in response, wondering how they’ d gone from laughing about the theater to this. But, it wouldn’t be the first time he mucked something up. He supposes it’s fine, he’s a demon, the conversation probably should have ended this way anyways.

And then Margerie surprises him, her grip tightening over his hand. “Nonsense.” She says at once. “I know you plenty well to know you have a good heart in you, Mr. Crowley. For starters, you gave me a lovely plant and the you brought me beautiful flowers. And you’re spending your afternoon keeping an old woman like me company. That right there is enough. But just in case you’re not convinced—” She makes a pointed look at his expression and Crowley tries to school it back into something neutral, but he’s not certain it works. “I’ve also seen you picking up the litter outside the complex, and holding the door open for the mother with her stroller down in 3B.” Crowley moves to protest— how has she managed to catch all of the undemonic things he’s done?— but Margerie won’t hear it. “You are a very kind person, Mr. Crowley. And I don’t know who made you feel like you need to hide that, but it can be our little secret if you wish.”

Crowley feels a distinctive emotion threatening to close up his throat and he can’t swallow around it as well as he needs to. He takes a deep breath, his hands flat against the top of the table. He knows he should deny it but there’s something so open and honest in the way Margerie is looking at him, something that feels like a safe-haven.

“Crowley.” He finally manages to choke out. “Everyone just calls me Crowley. Er, well— my friends do.”

He really only has one friend to speak of but it’s not untrue. Regardless, it gets the point across and Margerie is once again smiling that brilliant smile at him from across the table, her thumb tracing patterns across the back of his hand.

“Our little secret then, Crowley?” She asks again, her voice a soft whisper, a promise of privacy, a solemn oath to not repeat anything she’s heard from him, seen him do.

It only takes a moment of hesitation before Crowley offers her a weak smile. “Our little secret.”

—

Much to Crowley’s surprise— and certainly to his disdain— it doesn’t actually take that long for another plant to betray him.

He spares a moment wondering if they know what happened to the previous plant and are looking for a way out, but then discards it as a ridiculous notion. Plants can feel fear, that much is evident every time he walks into the room, but they’re certainly not forming complex theories about their owner. So, Crowley drags that plant out of the room, too, turning on the garbage disposal as he enters the kitchen. This time he has enough thought to throw something down there— some bit of wood he miracled up— just so it sounds more realistic. Maybe the plants had realized that nothing had gone down there last time. He won’t make that mistake again.

Once he’s certain he’s got the full attention of the house, he stalks back in with a replica of the pot the plan was still residing in, stalking around and staring down each plant individually, holding the pot in front of each of them one-by-one so they had no choice but to see. He hissed out a few pointed threats and then left, heading back to take this plant down to Margerie, too.

Crowley isn’t sure why he thinks that’s an okay thing to do. Just because Margerie had taken one of his plants didn’t mean she wanted to acquire her own forest inside her flat. Still, there was something about her— something that Crowley couldn’t put his finger on, no matter how much he thought on it— that made him certain that she would gladly take it.

In the end, he was right.

She opened the door to her flat and immediately broke into one of her beaming smiles as she saw Crowley standing there with another plant in his hands. This one had flower buds that hadn’t yet bloomed. They would be beautiful, though, Crowley had made sure of that.

“Crowley!” She says, and she steps aside immediately, ushering him in. “What a lovely surprise. I was just baking, I hope you don’t mind.”

“I don’t need to stay—” Crowley starts to protest immediately feeling like he’s inconvenienced her.

“Nonsense!” She waves a hand and gestures for him to follow her into the kitchen. “I’d love some company while I bake.”

Crowley kicks off his shoes obediently, wondering how he’s now gotten himself into this situation twice. He pads quietly down the hallway after her, carrying the plant along with him the entire time and feeling distinctly foolish. They enter the kitchen and sure enough there are ingredients scattered all over and Crowley gets a waft of warm earthiness.

“I had another plant—” He pauses, certain that saying the plant had betrayed him was not a normal thing to do. “It’s ah, got the spots. And, y’know, not my thing, all that.”

“Is that why you’re carrying that lovely thing?” Margerie asks, pausing at the sink and looking over at him.

“Yeah.” Crowley says, feeling kind of small for some reason. “Was wondering if you wanted it? Or wanted to— to heal it or whatever it was.”

Margerie pauses for a moment, appraising Crowley with her eyes. Crowley tries not to squirm underneath her gaze. He’s certain that she can’t see the truth of who he is— not with his sunglasses on— but he feels like she’s not looking for that sort of information. He feels, more than anything, like she’s trying to read what’s written in the shadows of his heart.

“I would love it, Crowley, thank you.” Margerie says after a moment, and she steps forward to accept it from him. “I will gladly take any plants you choose to get rid of but there is one condition.”

“What’s that?” Crowley asks as he hands the plant over, suddenly feeling unmoored without the weight of it in his hands to anchor him down.

“You have to come see them.” She says with a small smile. “You’re giving them a second chance by giving them to me, so make sure to come back and see how they do.”

Crowley startles, amazing at how accurately she had pinned what he was doing. He wonders if he’d really been that obvious, but then he tamps that worry down because it will just lead to him wondering what else he’s that obvious about and that’s a Pandora’s Box that he doesn’t want to open— now or ever.

“Right.” Crowley says after a moment’s pause. “Seems fair enough.”

There was a moment where they just looked at each other and then Margerie gestured for him to sit. Crowley did, though he wasn’t sure why because he didn’t really have a reason for sticking around now that he’d handed the plant off. Still, he took the same seat as he had last time and watched as Margerie set the plant down on a counter off to the side and then headed to fill the tea kettle with water. Crowley went to protest but thought better of it because he knew Margerie wouldn’t hear it, so instead he slumped back and waited patiently.

It only took a moment for her to get the kettle on and then she moved back to the counter where she appeared to be making a dough of some kind. “So,” she began and Crowley didn’t like the tone of her voice. It meant she was going to pry, to ask questions, to search for information that he either didn’t have or couldn’t give. He braced himself. “Did somebody break your heart?”

“Well, I— what?” Crowley shoots up in his chair, his spine the straightest it’s probably ever been as he stares at her incredulously across the kitchen. He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting her to ask but that was certainly nowhere even near the list of potential questions.

“I’m sorry,” She says gently, like he might break. “It’s none of my business and I shouldn’t ask but…” She pauses for a moment as if she’s giving Crowley the chance to back out of the conversation. He wants to, but he also wants to know how she had jumped to that conclusion from a simple plant. “It’s just— the way you look at the plant, like it’s hurt you with these spots. I just— I see that sadness in you that you mentioned last time. Call it mother’s intuition, I guess.” She glances over at him as she kneads the dough, her smile small but still genuine, maybe even a little sad itself. “You don’t have to answer me, I just want you to know that I’ll gladly listen if it’ll help.”

Crowley feels like the air has been knocked right out of his lungs and he’s not sure what he’s supposed to make of that. Fleetingly he realizes that so far he has spent every encounter with her completely caught off guard and uncertain of what to expect. That’s probably a bad sign, he reasons, but he finds her so comforting and he really believes that she won’t repeat anything he says. There’s something about her— maybe it’s her energy, the way it radiates pure good and unconditional love. It damn near feels like standing next to Aziraphale.

“Does that work?” He asks quietly, looking down at his hands on the table before him. “Talking about it?”

“I think so.” Crowley isn’t looking up at her but he can hear her working and he appreciates her attempts at making this such a casual thing for him, her attempts to not put any pressure on him. “If you keep everything locked up inside, it’ll drag you down. Best to share the burden with someone else.”

“And you want to bear my burdens?” Crowley tries for teasing but it sounds more incredulous than anything else. If the world weren’t set to be ending in the next year, Crowley wouldn’t believe that this was happening. But everything had been unbelievable in the last ten or so years and humans never failed to surprise him.

Margerie responds in kind, her tone actually succeeding at hitting teasing. She pauses what she’s doing to come and pour him a cup of tea before retreating back towards the stove. “We’re sharing plants already, why not?”

It startles a laugh out of Crowley and he settles a bit more comfortably into the chair again. “Are you going to share your burdens with me?”

“Do you want me to?” Margerie asks, clearly caught off guard by the question.

Good, Crowley thinks, they can be on the same weird, unexpected page. “ S’only fair, wouldn’t you say?”

“You drive a hard bargain.” She pauses her kneading to look over at him and there’s a crinkle to her eyes. Crowley meets her gaze and thinks that her eyes look like melted gold from across the room and he thinks that’s fitting, somehow. Like her eyes are reflecting the kindness within. “Well, alright then. You have a deal. Now tell me about this heartbreak.”

Crowley knows he can’t tell her about Heaven— not in such clear terms, anyways. And he shouldn’t tell her about Aziraphale since that was— that was a mess of his own making. And yet he found that he did want to talk about both of them.

And so, he did.

He told her that he had been loved by someone, once, and then they had turned on him and kicked him out, even if he’d never really grasped what he’d done wrong. He tells her about his plants and how he’s realized that they are a reflection of this— he even mentions how impressed he is that she figured it out after only two plants.

“Took me damn near thirty before I pieced it together.” He says with a laugh that’s not entirely mirthless. It’s more self-deprecating than anything and Margerie hears it, shooting him a look.

“Is this the love you said you’re familiar with last time?” She presses after a moment.

“You’re ruthless, d’you know that?” Crowley laughs again and this time it’s more genuine. “Can’t let a man catch a break, can you?”

“I meant it when I said you don’t have to answer,” Margerie looks at least a little contrite as she slides her most recent creation into the oven, pulling out what Crowley has since identified to be brownies.

The entire flat smells amazing which is impressive considering that Crowley doesn’t ever feel particularly drawn to food. Margerie waits for him to say something as she does some sort of intricate dance in front of the oven, swapping pans and shuffling stuff around. Crowley watches idly for a few moments as she eventually sorts it all out and shuts the oven door with her foot, reaching over to set a new timer.

“That one might be a bit heavy for today.” He answers finally.

“Oh, my dear.” She says, turning to look at him and Crowley feels his heartstrings plucked at the endearment. Partially just for the sake that she’s using an endearment on him and partially because there’s only one other person in all of history who has called him my dear.

How Margerie continues to hit so close to home, Crowley isn’t sure. He lifts his glass up and drains it, despite the fact that it’s nearly cold at this point. He hadn’t touched it at all but felt it would be rude to leave it full.

“I should probably go.” Crowley says, shoving his lanky legs underneath him and pressing up from his spot by the table. “Wouldn’t want to overstay my welcome. You can’t be sick of me before I even begin checking in on these plants.”

“I don’t think I’ll be getting sick of you anytime soon, Crowley.” Margerie says with such un bridled warmth that Crowley thinks for a moment that he’s standing in Hell— brimstone, flame, all that. There is a reason humans believe Hell to be eternal burning after all. “But please do hold on for just one moment, I’d like to send some of these brownies home with you.”

“You don’t—” Margerie stops his protest with a single look. He sighs and props a hip against the table. “Alright, fine. I’m not much for chocolate but I have a— friend who is. He will love these.”

“Well,” Margerie says as she finishes slicing the warm brownies and settles them on some tinfoil. “Please be sure to tell me what your friend thinks. And I do hope you’ll try at least one of them. For me.”

Crowley accepts the parcel of brownies as it’s offered to him. “He’ll love them.” Crowley says with absolute certainty and a weird warmth closing his throat. “And I’m sure I will, too.”

—

Crowley’s late.

Well, as late as he can be for something like this. He and Aziraphale don’t have strict reservations anywhere, so it’s not like he’s at risk of actually ruining their plans, but he knows Aziraphale is waiting outside the complex for him. He’d spent too long trying to pick what to wear which, incidentally, was stupid considering all of his outfits looked nearly the same.

“Sorry,” he calls as he rushes through the front door to find Aziraphale standing there with his hands folded behind his back, looking entirely at ease. “Got, er, caught up.”

“Oh, it’s no trouble.” Aziraphale says with that easy smile of his, turning to watch as Crowley approaches.

Crowley tries his best to look calm, to keep his pace slow and unhurried. He’s not certain it works but Aziraphale at least has the decency to not point it out if his frantic energy is palpable. He reaches Aziraphale’s side in a few quick strides. “So, given any thought to where you’d like to go?”

“Yes, actually.” Aziraphale says with that beaming smile that makes Crowley thankful for his sunglasses. “There’s a new Thai place just up the road. It’s close by and lovely weather so I thought we might walk there.”

“Sure, whatever you want, angel.” Crowley agrees automatically, happy to go anywhere as long as it has Aziraphale there. “Lead the way.”

They take off down the sidewalk together but only make it a few steps before a car door is thrown open in front of them, halting their progress. A few choice words pop to the tip of Crowley’s tongue but they die the moment Margerie steps out of the car, her eyes landing on them.

“Oh, Crowley, I’m so sorry!” She says hurriedly, shutting the door and leaning against it so that they can pass by if they want. “I didn’t mean to be in your way.”

“S’no problem.” Crowley says, resolutely not looking at Aziraphale. “We’re in no rush.”

Crowley can’t be rude or curt to Margerie, he just can’t. Not after how kind and welcoming she has been to him, not after she’s heard some of his secrets and kept them locked away— just between the two of them. He knows his kindness will fuel Aziraphale, will give him material to tease Crowley with for the rest of time— no matter how long that ends up being— but he just can’t bring himself to do it. Margerie doesn’t deserve his attitude and Aziraphale will always find something to tease Crowley about. If not this, surely it’ll be something else.

“Oh,” She perks up and smiles at him, “I’ve been meaning to ask you, did your friend enjoy those brownies?”

“You can ask him yourself.” Crowley says, gesturing towards Aziraphale. He gets the distinctive feeling that his face is red but he doesn’t waste time thinking about why.

“You made those brownies?” Aziraphale jumps fluidly into the conversation like he knows Margerie already. “Oh, my dear, how do you do it? Was there a hint of— was it cinnamon I tasted?”

“It was!” Margerie perks up immediately, stepping away from her car to properly engage them in conversation. “I’m impressed you could taste it, it was only a teaspoon in the whole batch.”

“It was delectable,” Aziraphale says, reaching forward to grab her hands earnestly. “It was just a little hint left on my palate. Oh, I daresay they hardly even lasted an evening. The most delicious brownies I’ve ever tasted!”

“Oh, you’re just being kind.” Margerie is the one to turn distinctly pink this time and Crowley just watches it happen, feeling how surreal this moment is.

“Absolutely not!” Aziraphale emphasizes. “I would not say such a thing lightly! You must give me your recipe, I’d love to make them!”

“Do you bake?” Margerie asks and she seems to catch Aziraphale by surprise.

He looks puzzled for a moment, like he’s not sure why he asked for a recipe that he can’t use and it makes Crowley feel at least a little better. There’s something about Margerie, he decides, that draws this happiness out of people. Maybe she’s a supernatural entity herself. (Crowley knows it’s not true, he’d be able to feel it, but she certainly seems to have some sort of superpower.)

“Well, no, actually.” Aziraphale admits after a moment, looking properly sheepish. “But perhaps I shall learn for this! Your brownies are worth the effort.”

“Perhaps Crowley could bake them for you?” Margerie suggests instead.

The world seems to screech to a halt.

Crowley knows that she doesn’t mean anything by it. There’s no way that she’s figured out that Aziraphale is the one he’s been desperately avoiding talking about. But then again— maybe she has? She’d called it mother’s intuition before and she had a strange habit for hitting the nail right on the head. Crowley looks at her desperately, but she’s simply smiling warmly at him, guilt-free. She doesn’t know what she’s implied and Crowley isn’t sure if he’s relieved or not, even though it seems like it should be obvious.

“Oh, dear me.” Aziraphale laughs, recovering from the shock of the moment far faster than Crowley. “I’m afraid he’s an even worse baker than I am. I daresay I wouldn’t survive those brownies.”

“See if I ever try to make anything for you again, angel.” Crowley grumbles, shoving his hands deep in his pockets.

“Is he?” Margerie leans closer to Aziraphale. Or perhaps she draws him closer to her by their still connected hands, Crowley isn’t sure. All he knows is that suddenly Aziraphale and Margerie are leaning towards each other, close enough for Margerie to whisper conspiratorially, “At least he’s attractive, though, right?”

“That’s it!” Crowley cries, huffing past both of them and their stupid combined hands and their mocking grins. “I’m going to the Thai place. Angel, you’re welcome to join me if you wish. Otherwise, I hope you both have lovely nights.”

“Bit touchy, that one.” Margerie says fondly behind him.

Aziraphale laughs before calling after him. “Crowley, dear boy, the restaurant isn’t that way.”

Crowley makes a frustrated noise and spins on his heel, not sure when he’d gotten turned around. He supposes it was sometime around when Margerie had come to join their circle. It doesn’t matter. He stalks past them, going what is, apparently, the proper direction.

As he passes, he hears Aziraphale’s, “It was so lovely to meet you.”

“And you, dear.” Margerie replies before calling after Crowley’s retreating back. “Have a good evening, Crowley! I’ll see you for tea soon here!”

Crowley makes some sort of noise that’s both disgruntled and confirming their plans and continues storming off, leaving Aziraphale to catch up to him, laughing the whole way.

—

Crowley’s in the back of the elevator, clutching a plant to his chest when Margerie finds him. It’s distinctly reminiscent of the first time they’d really talked and she smiles at him as she steps into the elevator, her eyes falling to the plant in his hands.

“Another one for us to share?” She asks with a pointed look.

“Actually,” Crowley says and he’s not sure why the words try to stick in his throat. “Not this time.”

“Not yet.” Margerie corrects fondly. “It’s only a matter of time before it makes its way to me.”

“First of all,” Crowley replies affronted, “I am perfectly capable of raising plants properly and I don’t appreciate that implication.” Margerie laughs and it’s airy and light. “And second of all, it’s not for me either. So no, you can keep your mitts off of it.”

The elevator lurches as it comes to a stop at the bottom floor, the doors sliding open. Crowley steps forward and places a hand over one of the doors to hold it open while Margerie moves into the lobby. He’d known her for a few months at this point and he didn’t like the fact that he could already see her slowing down.

“Who is it for, then?” She asks with feigned innocence.

“You’re a vulture.” Crowley remarks dryly. “It’s for Aziraphale. My— the friend you met. With the brownies.”

“Oh, is that his name? Aziraphale.” Margerie says it like she’s tasting the sweetness of it. Crowley knows the sensation of it well, his mouth forms the name with ease and a certain amount of forbidden fondness. “That’s fitting for him. He seemed rather charming.”

“He—” Crowley garbles up a few more words before sighing. “Yeah, he is.”

“First brownies and now a plant.” Margerie points out in a way that lacks any and all subtlety.

“Don’t.” Crowley warns with a pointed look. She shrugs her shoulders innocently. “He’s— he’s about as rubbish at raising plants as he is at baking. But he owns a bookshop, see, and is always talking about how it needs something living to brighten the place up. So I— this one doesn’t require a lot of tending to. Just some water occasionally.”

He expects her to make some other comment about how this all appears, but she takes pity on him instead. “What if he forgets to water it?”

Well, she tries to pity him, but the answer he has to give to that still drives her point home anyways. “Well, I’m, er— I’m at his shop frequently enough that I can water it and it should stay alive.”

He sees the knowing look in her eyes, but she doesn’t say anything other than, “I’m sure he’ll enjoy it greatly. That’s a lovely gift.”

“Yeah.” Crowley said helplessly because he knows what it looks like and if Margerie thinks it, what is Aziraphale going to think? He’s probably being a fool, making some unwanted gesture that’s going to tip the scale too far.

“Well, better hurry along, then.” Margerie says with a kind smile and a tilt of her head. “I’m sure he’s anxiously awaiting your arrival and the chance to tell you how much he loves your gift.”

Crowley glances at her. She seems to always know what needs to be said. Mother’s intuition he remembers her saying, even though he hasn’t seen or heard much about her kids since that first night. “Right, thanks.”

He vows to tell her someday that her intuition has so far been spot on with him. To his understanding, mother’s love that— being told they’re right. And she’s been absolutely right on every account thus far.

—

Life progresses mostly as normal after that. Days go by, weeks turn into months and months fade into nearly a year in the blink of an eye, and Crowley doesn’t think too much of anything. He tries to ignore the passage of time and the metaphorical clock that’s ticking above all of their heads, but it grows more difficult with each day. He says hi to Margerie every time he sees her, slips by her place occasionally for tea and passes every plant that breaks his rules to her care. (And so what if the plants he’s passing along get more and more beautiful each time? What if there happens to be her favorite flower in there? That’s just coincidence). She takes them all with nothing more than a tut in his direction, chastising him about how he still hasn’t learned his lesson about love.

“I don’t love,” He’d said once in a vulnerable moment, the mug of coffee pressed close to his face, helping to hide his expression. Margerie had yelled at him— as close to yelling as Crowley could imagine her getting, anyways— when he’d finally confessed that he preferred coffee instead of tea. “It’s just not something I’m… capable of.”

“Oh, hush.” Margerie had waved a hand at him almost dismissively. She’d known him nearly a year at this point and still held firmly onto her convictions that he was good and kind. Crowley, admittedly, had given her a fair share of reasons to think exactly that,but he still tried to pretend he hadn’t. It made Crowley less sick to hear— in fact, sometimes hearing her say it was his only solace— but he didn’t let that show. “You know I’ve heard too much to believe that.”

And she had heard too much. It had started one night when she’d found him drunken outside of their complex, having recently stumbled home from Aziraphale’s bookshop. Crowley didn’t remember much of the night, but he knew Margerie had helped him up to his flat, listening to him ramble on about Aziraphale’s eyes, apparently, and the way his hair looked soft as a cloud. He’s apparently expressed a long suppressed desire to touch it and see if it was, in fact, as soft as it looked. When she’d showed up at his door the next morning with some advil and demands that he let her cook him breakfast, he’d groaned out loud and buried his head in his hands.

(He’d barely had a moment to miracle in normal cooking utensils and food before Margerie was shoving her way through the door and banging around in his kitchen, apologizing belatedly for the way that the sound must be bothering his hangover.

“How’d you know I was hungover?” He’d asked.

He was hungover, but he didn’t need to be. A simple miracle would send it scurrying, but he couldn’t do that in from of Margerie so he’d resigned to suffer for the time being.

“Oh, honey.” She said, smiling almost wickedly at him from across his kitchen, “Did you not wonder how you got home last night? Did you not wonder who you spilled your heart to about— dare I say it? Aziraphale?”

Crowley decided he liked Margerie distinctly less at that very moment. But he was impressed with her bastardly streak and by the time she finished recounting the details of the night before he was certain that he didn’t hate her at all, he hated himself.)

“You’re reading into things.” Crowley tried for dismissive, but it didn’t work particularly well. “We’re just friends.”

Of course, Margerie had a laundry list of reasons not to believe that. She never brought them up, but Crowley would catch the look in her eye when he mentioned Aziraphale, or asked for an extra serving of something to bring over to him. He’d catch the curl of her lips when she’d ask his plans for the week and he’d say that Aziraphale had already claimed some of his nights. She’d known long before he’d drunkenly ranted about Aziraphale’s beauty.

“Just friends.” She repeated with a roll of her eyes. Her attitude had certainly not diminished as she aged and Crowley admired that about her. He admired a lot about her, in fact, even though he absolutely shouldn’t.

He admired the fact that she had, in the year she’d known him, kept his kindness their little secret. She greeted him casually in the hallway but never anything more, never anything that might suggest that their acquaintanceship had turned into a friendship. He also admired the stiff upper lip she kept, steadfastly acting as if she were unbothered by the way her children didn’t come visit and rarely called. She was a terrible actress, but Crowley was a terrible actor so he figured he had no room to critique her. Plus, she graciously slid away from topics she knew he didn’t ever want to talk about, so the least he could do was offer her the same courtesy.

“Just friends.” Crowley repeated again to drive his point home. “No love, not from me. That’s why you get all the stubborn plants.”

“And if he’s being stubborn?” She asked with a delicately raised eyebrow. “Do I get him, too?”

“You are wicked woman.” Crowley hid his smile behind the rim of mug, trying his hardest to keep his delight hidden. She didn’t have the same philosophical debates that he and Aziraphale had, but she was still great at conversation and even better company. “But you two would love each other. In fact, I think he might have the exact same ancient couch somewhere in his dusty old bookshop. Might even rival yours for how many layers of dust it has.”

Margerie swatted at him from across the table, making an affronted noise and Crowley drew back, laughing. “Which one of us is wicked? You foul man!”

Crowley laughs again and settles back into his seat, bracing his elbows on the table and ignoring the way Margerie glowers at him for the faux pas. They lapse into comfortable silence, the smell of the lasagna she was cooking in the oven filling the place. Crowley had grown comfortable here in the last year and he wonders if that’s okay. It’s most likely not, but very few things he does actually are so he chalks it up to another reason he’s a terrible demon and locks it away somewhere in the depths of his heart.

Plus, it doesn’t very well matter at this point. Either the world ends in flames and there’s no reason for fear, or he does something much worse than befriend a human. Something like stop Armageddon all together. In the grand scheme of things, he figures this has to be the smallest blemish on his record.

“You should tell him.” Margerie says gently from across the table.

Crowley’s never actually told her explicitly how he feels about Aziraphale, not even drunkenly, but he’s said enough incriminating stuff for her to put the pieces together. It’s not hard, honestly, for someone to figure it out if they talk to him about Aziraphale enough. He’s practically bursting with these purposely unnamed feelings, they’re going to sneak their way into conversation if they have the chance.

“No point.” Crowley says, somber. He sets down his nearly empty mug. “I already know how he feels.”

Plus, the world is on the verge of ending. His heart is the last of his concerns, he tries to convince himself. But it’s not easy to do.

“You can never know if you don’t ask.” Margerie says but Crowley pointedly ignores it.

She changes the subject, sensing his discomfort and the growing rifts in his heart. She invites him to stay for dinner, he declines, waving to her as he slinks out the door to deal with these emotions he’s clearly doing a terrible job controlling.

—

Crowley throws the covers off of himself when he hears the shouting from down below. This very well may be his last chance at getting some sleep before an eternity of— well, he didn’t know what, but he doubted it included restful naps in his lovely four poster bed and silk sheets.

He breaks through the front doors of the complex, still in pyjama bottoms and a loose shirt, sunglasses looking ridiculous with his messy hair, and comes to a halt when he sees Margerie there with a young woman.

“You’re being ridiculous,” the young woman yells, gesturing wildly with her hands. “And stubborn! Do you even think of anyone other than yourself? What about us? Do you know how hard it is for us to check in on you as often as we need to?”

“I—” Margerie begins to say, but she’s cut off again. She sits on the bench outside the complex, eyes downcast and shoulders slumped.

“It’s like—”

“Excuse me.” Crowley slides into the conversation with an icy outer shell, glaring the woman down through his sunglasses. “but I know you aren’t talking to Margerie like that.”

“This is a family matter.” The woman says in a voice that’s not so kindly telling Crowley to mind his own business.

Unfortunately for her, minding his own business is not something Crowley has ever mastered. “Family?” He says with a bark of ironic laughter. “You call yourself her family? Funny that I haven’t seen you in the last year.”

“Are you keeping tabs?” The woman rounds on him, attempting to square up with him but Crowley doesn’t even flinch.

“I wouldn’t say that.” He concedes. “It’s just that I have tea with her every week and I’ve certainly never seen you around.”

“Crowley—” Margerie tries to cut in.

Crowley, unlike her daughter, spares her a glance and affords her the opportunity to say what she needs to say. Instead of saying anything, she simply shakes her head, indicating that it’s not worth the fight.

But oh, Crowley feels like it absolutely is.

“Now you listen here.” He turns back to her daughter and he’s nearly snarling at this point. He catches himself at the last moment and reigns in his more demonic side, reminding himself that he’s supposed to just be a friendly human neighbor and not some sort of avenging angel. “Your mother is a blessing and I hardly think you’re equipped to know what she needs. You say it’s a hassle for you to check in on her when you need to? Last I hear, you hadn’t called her in months. So which is it? She doesn’t need you checking in that often, or she does? You can’t have it both ways.”

“I thought I made it clear that this was a family issue.” The woman sniffs, crossing her arms and turning her head stubbornly away.

“Oh you did.” Crowley bares his teeth in a wicked smile, “And I consider her a part of my family so you better get comfortable with me being in this conversation pretty quickly.”

“Mom—”

“Oh no,” Crowley steps to the side to stand in between Margerie and her daughter. “You don’t get to be nice to her now that you’re losing the battle.”

The two of them stare at each other for a long moment. He can see the woman running through a series of different retorts in her mind but none of them stick and Crowley is glad to see it. He takes a deep breath in, focuses. As much as he would love to settle this with an old-fashioned verbal beatdown, he knows that isn’t what Margerie would want from him. He closes his eyes behind his glasses, focuses on the woman in front of him, connects with her.

And just like that, he pours a little bit of his energy into her, bends her mind just the tiniest bit to his side of thing. He opens his eyes in time to see the tension melt out of her face, to see her shoulders slump like all the fight has gone out of her.

“Your mother is one of the kindest people I’ve ever met,” He says aloud, finalizing the ideas he’s placed into her head. “She is caring and thoughtful and deserves far more love than you’ve been showing her.”

“Crowley—” Margerie says again, but this time her voice is distinctly choked with emotion. “My dear…”

Her daughter takes in a shuddering breath and then dissolves into tears, stepping around Crowley and throwing herself onto the bench next to her mom, burying her face in Margerie’s neck. “He’s right. I’m so sorry, mom. I’ve been awful to you. I’ve just, I’ve been so stressed and—”

Margerie shushes her with gentle hands on her back, running through her hair, pressing kisses to her temple. She shushes her and holds her close and suddenly there’s two crying women on the bench.

Crowley knows it’s time for him to take his leave and he feels vindicated. “Your mom is perfectly fine to stay here,” He says softly. “She has me checking in on her. Nothing will happen to her while she’s here.”

It’s a promise to them as much as it is a threat to the rest of the world. If things continued to exist, the world would know better than to threaten Margerie in any way.

“Thank you.” Margerie says tearfully, catching his hand as he walks by to head back inside and allow the women to make their peace. “You’re my family, too.”

And Crowley knows that he is.

—

The bookshop looks much the same as it always has. At one point in history, Aziraphale would change the books displayed in the window on a semi-regular basis as an attempts to blend in and look like a properly functioning bookshop. And then somewhere around the time Aziraphale decided he hates customers, he decided that appearances didn’t matter and he hadn’t touched the window display since.

Crowley ascends the steps with a practiced ease, hand yanking the door open before he hears a clatter and a quiet gasp from somewhere on the other side of the street. He stills, door open and exposing him to Aziraphale who was standing in the middle of the bookshop, staring at him with a questioning gaze. He ignores it, turning his head to find the source of the sound and there’s Margerie, across the street, arms too full of groceries she’s trying to shuffle into her car. She’s dangerously close to the curb and even though it’s a short drop, it could do her more damage than Crowley would like to see.

Briefly Crowley curses the world for being bold enough to defy him right to his face like this.

Without even thinking about it, he lets go of the door and hustles across the street, brain not even registering Aziraphale’s confused, “Crowley…?”

The groceries are stacked high in Margerie’s arms and she can’t even see her car properly as she struggles to find the door handle. She takes a step closer, her foot slipping off the curb and she pitches towards the street—

And directly into Crowley’s hands.

He barely catches her in time, pushing her back onto the curb and all but yanking one of the bags out of her grasp. “Margerie what are you thinking?” he hisses as she regains her balance.

“Oh, Crowley!” She smiles up at him, warmly and as if she had done nothing wrong.

“Do you know how dangerous that is?” He presses, taking another bag out of her arms with a sharp look. “You nearly pitched into traffic!”

Margerie shrugs as she opens the door to her car now that she has enough mobility to do so. “I didn’t.”

Crowley is so frustrated, so— so upset that he almost doesn’t feel the swell of fondness at the stubborn side of her.

“What if I hadn’t been here?” He chastises, and Crowley feels a familiar panic clawing up the back of his throat. “What if you’d been alone?”

Oh, he realizes at once. Those exact words were ones he’d said to Aziraphale at some point in history. He remembered it well, pacing a restless circle in front of Aziraphale and tyring to impress into him the importance of not doing reckless things and getting discorporated. He’d been frantic, then, the metallic taste of fear still slick on his tongue as he’d swallowed down all the words that he wanted to say. What if you’d left me? What would I do without you?

“Crowley.” Margerie says again, her one empty hand coming to rest on one of his forearms as she looked up at him. She had soft brown eyes that he thinks matches what her hair color had been at one point in life. “I’m sorry.”

It doesn’t do much to quell the war of feelings inside of him.

Aziraphale had apologized, too. And then he’d ended up in a Bastille about to be beheaded, and then he’d been caught in a church in Germany in the middle of a bombing, and then he’d—

Suffice it to say that he hadn’t learned his lesson.

“Take care of yourself.” Crowley chastises as sternly as he possibly can, but he knows Margerie sees right through him.

She opens her mouth to say something, but suddenly her eyes track over his shoulders and she drops her voice just enough to say. “Blue eyes and blonde curls coming our way. Should I—?”

Before Crowley can even react, Aziraphale is at their side, eyes scanning over the situation. “Everyone alright, here?”

“Oh, yes, quite.” Margerie says, sweet as sugar. “I’m afraid I was being a little careless, trying to handle too many groceries on my own, you see. I couldn’t see where the curb was and I slipped off the edge. But this lovely gentleman came over to help me so I’m quite alright now.”

“Did he?” Aziraphale asks, and there’s a question written into his gaze as he settles it on Crowley. Crowley steadfastly ignores it. “How kind of him.”

“Aziraphale.” Crowley says sharply in warning, certainly not missing the way Aziraphale’s lips twist into a pleased smile.

“Well, let’s get you loaded up then, shall we, my dear?” Aziraphale presses on like nothing happened, taking one of the bags from Crowley’s arms and moving around Margerie to load them into her backseat.

Crowley passes the next bag over once Aziraphale’s arms are empty, unwilling to be caught doing anything further that could be considered nice. It only takes a moment before everything is settled inside the car. While Aziraphale is busy arranging the bags, Crowley shoots Margerie his sternest expression. She smiles back at him in return, the wicked kind that nearly makes Crowley groan from where he’s standing along the curb still. And then Aziraphale is out of the car and offering an elbow to Margerie and their silent conversation is forced to end.

“Oh, aren’t you just so charming?” Margerie says to Aziraphale as he takes her arm and escorts her around to the drivers side of her car. “And so dashing, too! Quite a handsome young man.”

Aziraphale’s cheeks flame red at the unexpected compliment, but he takes it in stride far better than Crowley would. “Well, thank you. Though I’d hardly say I’m a young man.”

Crowley hides his bark of a laugh behind a cough, but Aziraphale catches it and shoots him a wry smile just the same.

“You know, I don’t know if you remember me—” Margerie begins and Crowley considers turning on his heel and simply stalking away.

“I’d hardly be capable of forgetting those brownies,” Aziraphale says warmly and Crowley can’t really be surprised. He’s known since he properly met Margerie that she and Aziraphale would get along well.

“Oh, you flatter me!” She cries, placing a hand over her chest, pressing it into her heart. Crowley glowers at her. “You know, Crowley here has told me that you own a bookshop. I’m guessing this must be it?”

“Ah, he talks about me, does he?” Aziraphale teases, glancing over his shoulder at Crowley who is glaring so darkly at this point that he’d give the midnight sky a run for its money. Unfortunately for him, Aziraphale has nearly six-thousands years of practice of ignoring his expressions and pushing his buttons and he’s doing a remarkable job of both at the moment. “But yes, that is my shop. It’s regrettably closed at the moment, though.”

“I suppose I’ll have to come back some other time then.” Margerie glances between them with a raised eyebrow and Crowley once again thinks that she’s about as subtle as a bull. He’s going to have to have a conversation with her about it.

“Yes, lovely, you can come back some other time.” Crowley growls, stepping forward and pulling open her driver’s door. “But I’m afraid your groceries might expire if you don’t get home soon, Margerie.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says with his eyebrows pulled together. “Groceries don’t go bad that quickly—”

“He’s quite right.” Margerie says and for a fleeting moment she looks contrite. Crowley supposes it’s the most he’s going to get. “Lots of perishable stuff in those bags. I really ought to be going.”

“Well, it was lovely to see you again.” Aziraphale says with one more worried glance cast at Crowley. “And I’ll look forward to seeing you in my shop.”

Margerie goes into her car willingly, thanking both of them profusely again. Aziraphale offers for them to go with her to help unload her car but she promises that she will be much more diligent about emptying it, only taking in one bag at a time. It seems to sate Aziraphale, who moves to stand next to Crowley as Margerie closes her door and bids them a final farewell. They watch her go in silence for a moment and then, once she’s out of sight, Crowley takes off towards the bookshop again, hands tucked deep in his pockets.

“Should I ask about that?” Aziraphale says as he catches up to Crowley’s side easily, despite Crowley’s long legs and loping stride.

“No.” Crowley says, but it sounds more defeated than stern. “You’re both bastards, that’s the only part that matters.”

His heart is still pounding against his chest, the familiar fear banging against his ribs. Somewhere mixed in there is frustration with Margerie, with himself, with his stupid feelings. It hadn’t turned out bad, Crowley reminds himself. Not now with Margerie, not in the past with Aziraphale. It had never turned out bad because he had always been there. And he’s realizing suddenly that he now has two people he needs to be there for— he just hopes they won’t ever need him at the same time.

“Right.” Aziraphale says and it’s that tone he and Margerie share— the one that indicates that he’s letting it go for Crowley’s comfort, but his curiosity is still there. “Well then, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Was going to tempt you to a spot of dinner.” Crowley mumbles as they reach the other side of the street, stopping abruptly next to the Bentley.

“Was?” Aziraphale prompts.

“Still going to,” Crowley clarifies. “If you’re willing.”

“Oh, my dear boy, I’m willing.” Aziraphale smiles and reaches for the door handle of the Bentley.

—

“Crowley!”

Crowley’s nearly out the door of the complex when he hears his name. He stops, hand on the handle and turns to see Margerie rushing across the lobby towards him.

“Oh, good, I’m glad I caught you in time.” She says as she approaches him, smiling fondly up at him.

Crowley raises an eyebrow at her in question. He’s headed off to meet Aziraphale for a walk through the park. Aziraphale had locked himself up in his bookshop for nearly the last week, losing track of time entirely, so Crowley had gently suggested that some fresh air might do him some good. No idea how much longer we’ll have fresh air to breathe, he’d said and then Aziraphale had chastised him for being so callous. It had sounded like a good idea at the time, but now that Crowley was a moment away from stepping outside he was realizing just how cold it actually was. The warm air of summer was giving way to the chilly biting breezes of autumn and he hadn’t a proper jacket.

It was something he could’ve bought or even miracled over the years, but he’d never bothered to. More often than not Crowley spent his autumns and winters bundled up under the covers of his bed, catching up on the sleep that he’d missed.

“Honestly.” Margerie says instead of immediately answering his unspoken question. “Don’t you own any suitable clothing?”

“I look very stylish.” Crowley retorts, even though he knows she is absolutely right.

Margerie rolls her eyes fondly at him, reaching into her bag and suddenly producing a deep, wine red bundle of fabric. “Here,” she says after a moment, unraveling it to reveal a knitted scarf. “At least wear this.” Crowley opens his mouth to say something and Margerie reaches up to loop it around his neck before he can say no. “It’s exactly your color.”

Crowley stands obligingly still as she loops it around his neck a second time and then tucks the loose ends of it into his coat, adjusting the collar so it all sits a little neater. Whatever yarn she’d used to knit it was as soft as a feather— and Crowley knew first hand how soft feathers were. It was exactly the right length, looping around his neck enough times to create bulk that he could use to cover his mouth and nose if he wanted to with still enough length to stay tucked into his jacket as he moved around.

Crowley looked down at it, feeling a familiar fondness well up in the back of his throat and strangle his words. “Thank you.”

Margerie smiled at him warmly. “Can’t have you freezing to death.” She mumbles as she steps back, clasping her hands together in front of her. “You’re my only child that comes to visit.”

“I thought your daughter—”

“Yes,” Margerie says, “But you’re still a better child than her.”

Crowley makes a noise that is startled but happy and Margerie ducks her head a little, almost as if embarrassed. Crowley, obviously, has no idea what having a mother actually feels like, but he thinks this might be close. He thinks of the times Margerie has dropped leftovers on his doorstep, of the time she gave him a “sick kit”, as she’d called it.

(“I don’t get sick,” Crowley had insisted. He understood her worry, he hadn’t left his flat in nearly four days, but that hardly meant anything. Time barely existed to him and honestly, four days was just long enough to be a worthwhile nap.

“Nonsense.” Margerie had waved him off, handing him the bag she was clutching. “Everyone gets sick sometimes. And I find it hard to believe you have any medicine in the house.”

“I’m not that ill-prepared.” Crowley scoffed, but he took the bag anyways, glancing inside. A series of over-the-counter medicines and kleenex boxes filled to the brim and he thought he might’ve seen a thermometer somewhere in the mix.

“Well?” She prompted after a moment. “Did you have any of that in the house?”

“How do you manage to be so rude when doing something so kind?” Crowley had fired back and Margerie had laughed, taking it as the confirmation that it was of her suspicions.

Of course he didn’t have any of this in his flat. He really didn’t get sick— that was human stuff. But he couldn’t very well tell her that, so he thanked her and promised her that he’d call her if he needed anything. He waited a few days just for appearances and then made a point to leave his flat so she didn’t worry about him any further. She’d caught him in the hallway and told him it was good to see him back to his old self. Crowley had just smiled).

“You can’t get rid of me.” Crowley said after a moment and Margerie’s smile was so fond it nearly bowled him right over. “No matter how often you try to poison me with your cooking.”

“Oh, you!” She smacked him on the arm fondly before ushering him out the door. Crowley thanked her properly for the scarf as he went, casting one last look at her over his shoulder.

As he walked towards St. James park, he thought back to the year and a half he’d known Margerie. Time was a funny thing, especially for a demon. It was even funnier now that they were closing in on the eleventh birthday of the antichrist. Crowley and Aziraphale had been released from the Dowling’s employment a few years ago and had more or less spent the time just waiting. They checked in on Warlock from time-to-time, of course, as they were meant to do, but otherwise it was a matter of just biding time and waiting for the child’s birthday to see what would happen.

Nearly eleven years ago when Crowley had brought the antichrist to Earth, he’d wanted to stop Armageddon. Now, eleven years later and with a second friend to his name, Crowley was more determined than ever.

Fuck the Great Plan.

“Hello, dear.” Aziraphale greeted as Crowley approached, bundled up appropriately for the weather. “Lovely to see you.”

“Found your way out of your book piles, did you?” Crowley asked with a smile as he dropped down onto the bench next to Aziraphale. “I’m impressed.”

“I was in the middle of a very good series.” Aziraphale answered with a wistful smile that told Crowley that he was remembering it fondly. What he didn’t say, what hung unspoken in the air between them, was that he didn’t know how much longer he’d have to read his favorite books and he weas trying to fit in what he could. “Simply lost track of time.”

“Lost track of a whole week there, angel.” Crowley replied, but he wasn’t at all put out by it.

“Yes, I did, rather.” Aziraphale agrees with a bit of a grimace. “I was thrilled to hear from you when you called.”

There’s a warmth that blooms across Crowley’s cheeks at the words and he ducks his face into the scarf Margerie had made him. The scarf and his glasses combined cover nearly his entire face and Crowley thinks he could get used to this. He’d be an unstoppable enigma if he dressed like this all the time— nobody would be able to read into his intentions or guess his next move.

Which, he knows, isn’t true. Aziraphale would see right through the cover and into the heart of whatever Crowley was doing. Aziraphale could hear his plans in the simple tone of his voice and had shut down his ideas on more than one occasion over the phone before Crowley had even had a chance to propose said idea. But that was alright because Aziraphale didn’t stop his big ideas, just the small ones. Their arrangement meant that Aziraphale could see right through Crowley’s new face covering defense and he would do nothing more than roll his eyes at whatever he found on the other side.

“Shall we?” Crowley asks after a moment of silence, unsure how to address what Aziraphale had said to him. He gestures towards the park as a whole and Aziraphale understands perfectly, the way he always does.

They walk side-by-side through the park, chatting idly for awhile. They pause to allow people to pass them, stepping to the side rather than breaking apart to make it easier. Crowley tries not to think about it, tries not to read into it. He does an okay job holding the thoughts off, but he knows they’ll be back later.

“So,” Aziraphale says mildly as they turn a corner. “Can I ask about the scarf?”

“Eh, yeah.” Crowley turns his face resolutely in the other direction, mumbling more into the scarf than anything else, “My neighbor made it for me.”

Of course, Aziraphale hears him because Aziraphale always hears him. “Your neighbor?” He echoes, and he sounds completely delighted with the turn of events. “It wouldn’t happen to be that woman you helped a few weeks ago, would it? The one who makes the brownies? She’s your neighbor?”

Crowley stops in his tracks, finally turning to look up at Aziraphale. He knows his face is red from being caught but he hopes Aziraphale assumes it’s just the cold air. “Er—?” Crowley sighs. “Yeah, she is. So what? It’s not a big deal.”

“Crowley, my dear.” Aziraphale says and his eyes are so soft as he takes in what’s visible of Crowley’s expression, so full of adoration that Crowley feels like he may just discorporate on the spot. “You nearly stopped traffic just to get to her side. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you move that fast.”

A long, low groan rips out of Crowley’s throat and he throws his head back, letting his eyes slip shut. “Brilliant.”

“Come now,” Aziraphale nudges him gently with his elbow. “It’s not like I haven’t seen you do ni—” A sharp look from Crowley cuts that word off before it can be said into the air between them. “It’s not like I haven’t seen you do similar things before. You do things like that for me all the time.”

“Yeah and that’s bad enough!” Crowley replies. “The last thing I need is to be doing it for two people. Demon can get in a lot of trouble for that.”

“You haven’t gotten in trouble yet.” Aziraphale points out unhelpfully. “And I daresay helping an angel is a bit riskier than helping a human.”

“Can we just—” Crowley grinds up a few words but when he spits them out, they’re not nearly coherent and they don’t sound anything like a sentence. Aziraphale doesn’t even blink, entirely used to it at this point. And Crowley doesn’t want that to make a well of fondness swell inside of him, but it does. He takes a deep breath. “It doesn’t matter. But she did make this scarf for me and it’s bloody cold out so I figured I should wear it.”

“It suits you.” Aziraphale says, moving along fluidly with the changing pace of the conversation the way he always has. “It’s exactly your color.”

“That’s what she told me when she gave it to me.” Crowley offers and he sees the way Aziraphale tries to stifle his smile. “You’d like her, angel. You both have a lot in common— old and stuffy.”

“I see. Well, I hope I get another chance to spend some time with her. I’m still waiting for her to show up in my shop.” Aziraphale says and there’s that twist to his smile that Crowley dreads because it means Aziraphale is about to make a fatal blow to his heart. He’s right. “Seems like you have a type, then, doesn’t it?”

“Angel.” Crowley chastises. “I invited you out here to figure out what we’re going to do for Warlock’s birthday party not for— for this!”

Aziraphale takes pity on him, laughing as he sets their pace again. “Alright, fair enough. But do tell your neighbor that the scarf is very dashing on you. I’m sure she’d appreciate the feedback.”

Crowley is more determined than ever to stop the end of the world.

—

The birthday party is a disaster, Warlock is the wrong boy and the end of the world is suddenly only hours away. Crowley and Aziraphale— okay, Aziraphale— somehow manage to find the right boy, the bookshop burns somewhere in there and suddenly Crowley is racing around town because holy fuck the world is actually about to end. He’s pretty sure he flat out murdered Ligur but he doesn’t waste much thought on it.

It’s only when Crowley is screeching away from the pub, miraculously sober and with a destination in mind that he realizes that he has one last thing he needs to do. He jerks the wheel sharply and heads back towards his flat, the sudden need to see Margerie undeniable.

He flies out of the Bentley— which he had parked haphazardly, halfway on the sidewalk— and through the doors, taking the stairs because he can’t bring himself to wait for the elevator. He takes them two at a time and then flings himself out of the stairwell on her floor, collapsing into her door and pounding incessantly.

Margerie opens the door, clearly alarmed. “Wh— Crowley?”

“Margerie.” He says frantically, pulling himself away from the door before he tumbles through it. “Listen, I can’t explain anything to you properly right now. I wish I could but you just— I need you to trust me, okay?”

“Okay.” She says with absolutely no argument, no hesitation.

“You are one of the best friends I’ve ever had.” Crowley says. “One of the only friends I’ve ever had. And I just wanted— I need to thank you.”

“You don’t thank people for being your friend, Crowley. It’s a gift freely given.” She answers after a moment, clearly alarmed but dutifully not asking whatever questions she has.

“Not to me it isn’t. And I can’t— I can’t say any more than that but if this all goes pear-shaped—” He stops, stumbles over a few words, turns to look at her. “You were right, all this time. I love him. And I—” He groans and drops his head into his hands. “I don’t want this to be goodbye. But if it is, I just needed you to know that. You were right. Moms like hearing that, don’t they? That they’re right? You’ve had me pegged from the beginning.”

She smiles fondly at him but her lower lip wobbles like she can sense the severity of the situation. “You’re not as hard to read as you think.”

A hysterical laugh bubbles out of Crowley as he reaches for her and pulls her close, crushing her into a hug. “Thank you.” he murmurs again.

She squeezes him back briefly before stepping out of his embrace. “You’re in a rush.” She says and it’s not a question. “Go. And when you get back you can tell me more about all the ways I was right.”

Crowley laughs again, his throat constricted with more emotions that a demon is equipped to deal with. “I’ll start making a list.”

And then he turns and rushes out of there to, hopefully, save the world.

#good omens #ineffable husbands #based on neil's tweet #fluff #found family #fanfiction #soft #feels

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let-it-raines · 5 years ago

Text

another kind of green (10/10)

Emma Swan spends her days in pretty white dresses and heavy layers of makeup. Day after day and dress after dress, she poses for pictures and acts like she’s in love and having the happiest day of her life with the man standing next to her.

It’s not. This is all a gig, and at the end of the day, she’s no longer the girl in the pretty dress who’s faking getting married for a magazine cover or a wedding convention. Instead, she’s the girl who probably never wants to get married.

Little does she know, she already is.

Rating: Mature

a/n: I’m going to post this a few days early per a few requests, and I hope you all enjoy the ending! To those who were waiting to binge read the entire thing, now’s your opportunity! haha.

Thanks to @xemmaloveskillianx choosing | forgotten first meeting + accidentally married | as her fic giveaway choice! It was difficult to figure out at first, but I had a great time writing it for you 💚

ao3: beginning | current

Tumblr: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

-/-

“So,” he starts as Emma clasps her bra and adjusts the straps until they’re in place, “that was – ”

“A one-time thing,” she quickly says, not allowing him to finish. “I’m not interested in anything more.” “Aye, neither am I.”

It’s been awhile since a had a one-night stand. They used to be more common for him, even if they did usually turn into month-long flings, but not so much lately. Tonight is an outlier, a what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas kind of cliché, and no matter how much he’d like to pull Emma back into bed with him for another round, she seems ready to go.

Good. That’s likely for the best for both of them.

No strings attached.

“Good. We’re in agreement then. Thanks for the – ”

“The best orgasm of your life?”

Emma throws her head back with laughter, her tangled hair cascading down, and she quickly brushes through it with her fingers. God, her hair was soft. “Don’t flatter yourself. It was good, but I’m not giving you the best title.”

She reaches down and grabs her leggings, and he decides he should get dressed, too, pulling his jeans back on. “You going to give me another chance to try to take that top spot?”

“Huh. You wish.”

“I obviously do.”

She’s got to be one more cheeky statement away from slapping him.

They both keep getting dressed, falling silent in their conversation, and then all of the sudden they’re standing in front of his hotel room door. When did they move? Maybe the champagne affected him a little more than he thought if time is blurring together like that.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Emma rasps.

“Going down to the casino.”

“You can’t go to the casino. I’m going to the casino.”

“It’s a big city, love. I imagine we can both go. There is quite the selection of casinos.”

“I’m going to this one, though. I do not want to have to go to another hotel when I have a bed here.”

“Well, then, I guess we’ll have to manage to share the same space. We’ve been sharing a rather close space for the past hour, so I think we’ll be right as rain.”

Her eyes roll, and she quickly turns away, grabbing the rest of her belongings and opening his door. Killian follows, keeping his distance behind her, but they easily fall in step with each other. It’s weird walking with her now, hostility running between the two of them in the very hallway where she practically had her hand down his pants an hour ago. Killian tries not to think about it, to think about how damn good that felt and how frustrating it is to have Emma be so put off by him now.

This woman doesn’t make any sense.

Then again, who spends time together after a one-night stand? You either get up and leave right afterward, sneak away in the middle of the night, or have awkward conversation in the morning. Or possibly morning sex, but that’s the best case scenario.

They’re having awkward conversation right now. He should have stayed in the room. Instead he’s standing in an elevator with the woman he just fucked, and he’s never felt quite so claustrophobic.

As soon as the doors open, he’s going in the opposite direction of her. That’ll fix all of these problems.

“Hey,” someone yells when the doors open, “you two got married earlier!”

“Wrong people,” Emma mumbles as she steps out of the elevator.

“No, no, it was the two of you,” another girl says. It’s an entire group of them, all in matching outfits. Bloody hell. It’s a bachelorette party. Why do women insist on dressing alike when someone is getting married? “You had on the most gorgeous dress. It made me want to throw out my dress and buy a new one.”

“Oh, don’t say that. Your dress is gorgeous.”

“But it wasn’t like hers!”

“Yours is better. No offence.”

“None taken,” Emma laughs, looking over at him and smiling before quickly turning away and crossing her arms over her chest. Well, at least she smiled. “I’m sure your dress is gorgeous.”

“Thank you. I’m Anna, by the way. Can we buy you two some drinks? We’ve got a package with the hotel, and I’d just love to hear a little about the wedding.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Emma begins, nibbling on her lip. “I, we – ”

“That sounds great, Anna,” he interrupts. “Emma and I would love that.”

He knows Emma is shooting daggers at him with her eyes, and honestly, he doesn’t blame her. He’s just roped them into spending more time together as well as spending time with an overenthusiastic bachelorette party. If the woman didn’t already dislike him for everything outside of sex, she’d hate him now.

But honestly, it’s not bad. The women are nice, if not a bit loud, and he and Emma manage to string together some kind of fake story about their wedding and their courtship. Neither of them discussed actually telling them the truth, but he has a feeling they would all be absolutely devastated if they learned the truth. They’re very much a group who are in love with love, and if the drinks they’re getting weren’t so damn strong, he’d be bitter about it and say something about being engaged not being all it’s cracked up to be.

He couldn’t tell anyone what marriage is like. But engagement? He knows enough about that, and his certainly wasn’t like this.

“Do you want another one?” Emma asks him.

“Aye.”

She raises her hand over the bar, her sweater rising to show off her toned stomach, and orders them two more drinks. They might as well take advantage of the free drinks while they’re here.

“So, how long are we going to keep telling these women that we’re married?” she asks as she takes another sip of her drink. It’s mostly ice now, but she can’t seem to stop. “As long as we’re getting free drinks? Does that make us horrible people?”

“It makes us opportunists.”

Her eyes roll. “If it wasn’t one in the morning, I would probably protest.”

“It’s a good thing it’s one in the morning then, isn’t it, love?”

The drinks keep flowing as they move away from the bar and move toward the casino, spreading out to slot machines and poker tables. It’s been awhile since he played. Liam used to love the game, and everything Killian knows about it is from him. That’s a good thing when Killian starts winning a little money. It’s not such a great thing when security comes over because they suspect he might be counting cards.

His brain is not functional enough to count cards right now.

He’s definitely drunk. He knows that he is, and at some point today he should have had a little more water. This has not been his most well thought through day.

“Who knew you were such a rebel, nearly getting kicked out of a casino?” Emma asks, walking up to him and poking him in the chest after security finally lets him go. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“Darling, you barely know me.”

“True,” she slurs. “What do you say we get out of here since I don’t think security is going to let you keep playing?”

She stumbles, just briefly, and Killian grabs her waist, squeezing her hips. “I thought you said you didn’t want to leave the hotel.”

“Did I?”

“I think so.”

“Huh. Well, I’ve never been to Vegas. I’d like to explore. C’mon, Jones. Let’s go. It’s not like you have anything better to do.”

“No, love, I suppose I don’t.”

One minute he’s standing in the middle of the casino floor only inches away from Emma, and the next they’re walking hand in hand around the Venetian as Killian weaves some kind of story about how they’d tell Anna and her friends that they honeymooned in Italy and how they would absolutely eat that story up. He keeps thinking this isn’t real, that Emma shouldn’t still be standing next to him and that this is all a dream fueled by their sex, but she feels real.

She is definitely real.

And he’s very aware of how she’s clinging onto him in the small room that they’re in.

Wait. Weren’t they just outside? They were. They were also thinking about getting a gondola to ride, but now all of the sudden they’re in a room with the two of them, a few other people, and an Elvis impersonator.

What the fuck?

“You may now kiss your bride.”

Killian looks at Elvis before looking at Emma, and all the sudden he remembers walking into this chapel and remembers that he and Emma are getting married. She’s so pretty like this, her smile so bright, and he can’t quite believe she agreed to marry him. He thought he already had the one woman who would say yes to marrying him, but she eventually changed her mind. Now he’s got another chance.

This is a bloody brilliant idea.

Quickly, Killian bends his knees and dips his head down until his mouth is pressing against Emma’s.

-/-

Emma Swan is kissing him.

Emma. Swan. Is. Kissing. Him.

Killian knows how she kisses. He remembers how she moves her lips and how she knows how to perfectly move between aggressive and careful, and he knows that’s exactly what she’s doing right now.

The thing is, he can’t quite believe it’s real.

That she’s real.

He hasn’t seen her in two weeks. The Academy has been kicking his ass six ways to Sunday, and all he’s done is go to training, come home to eat and study, fall asleep, and then wake up and do it all again. He’s been awful at keeping up with his relationships and with his runs with Emma, and he kept meaning to call her. It was killing him that he kept blowing her off, but then he’d get called away and the thought would slip his mind.

How could Emma Swan have ever slipped his mind?

That’s something he’s been asking himself for months now as he desperately tries to remember every single detail of the day they met and the hours following. Only bits and pieces have come back after they slept together, and as much as he wants to know what happened, maybe it’s better if he never remembers.

Maybe it’s better if he leaves in the here and now because Emma is doing this particularly delicious thing with her tongue that has his heart pounding.

This is about the last thing he ever expected to happen when he told her they were married and that they’d need an annulment.

God, they were supposed to go out to celebrate the annulment.

Emma starts to move away, her mouth fleetingly leaving his, but he doesn’t let her, wrapping one arm around her back and pulling her toward him while his other hand grabs onto her ponytail and gently tilts her head in the way that he wants to. She got to kiss him the way she wanted, and he damn well intends to get the same opportunity.

Now that the initial shock of her being here is over, now that he knows with complete certainty that this is real, he can feel the softness of her lips and the glorious way that her breasts press into his chest. He’s felt all of these things before, but it wasn’t like this. The last time was different. It was in a buzzed haze of lust and champagne, and while he feels the slightest buzz now, it’s nothing that would make him forget.

How could he ever again?

“Emma,” he whispers as he pulls back, resting his forehead against hers while they both pant, trying to catch their breaths, “what’s happening?”

And then he’s being shoved backward until he’s stumbling back into his apartment and Emma is following behind him. She’s strong, but she shouldn’t have been able to shove him backward as much as she did. Then again, showing up and kissing the holy hell out of him is the exact way to catch him off guard so that he’d stumble over practically anything.

What the hell is happening?

Now that he’s looking at her, he can see the fury in her eyes and the way that her hair is falling out of her ponytail. She’s covered in a light sheen of sweat, and when he looks down at her feet, he sees that she’s in her running shoes.

In the weirdest way, he’s missed those shoes.

She ran here.

“It takes five seconds to text,” Emma pants. His body is having a difficult time ignoring the rasp of her voice and the sweat on her skin, especially as it trickles down between her breasts. “It takes five seconds for you to tell me whatever the hell has been going on that you haven’t been able to go on our runs or get dinner or do whatever the hell it is that we do. Because do you know how it looks to me when I tell you about how shitty people have treated me only for you to practically disappear the next day? Do you know how shitty it felt to get our annulment papers and then have you disappear? Because I thought – I thought we – ”

“We did. We do.”

Her brows shoot to her hairline. “We what?”

Killian takes a step forward, close enough to grab Emma’s hand, but he doesn’t. “We were friends. Are. We are friends, love. I also thought that we might possibly be more. You kissing me kind of confirms that for me.”

Her cheeks turn the prettiest shade of red, and the corners of Killian’s lips tug up. He bets she hates herself for blushing right now. “I’ve kissed you before. You don’t know that it means something.”

Impossible. She’s absolutely impossible.

He rather likes that about her. Quite a lot actually. Definitely more than he ever expected to when he met her.

Definitely more than he ever expected to like anyone again.

“I do.”

“How?”

He braves the next step and moves closer to her, tucking a lose strand of her hair behind her ear. She doesn’t move away, and he has to hold in his exhale of relief.

“Don’t you know, Emma? It’s you. You make me sure of things I’d otherwise be unsure of, and you give me hope I haven’t felt in a long time.”

Her eyes are wider than he’s ever seen them, and unlike so many other days in his life where there’s nothing extraordinary happening, he knows that this is one that could change so much. “Your eyes are so beautiful, sweetheart. I don’t think I’ve seen anything like them before.”

“Do lines like that work on all of the girls?”

“I really only care if they work on you.” Emma huffs, and Killian dips his head down to hover his lips directly over Emma’s. He can feel her breath and the heat of her body. He can feel everything. “I’ve been having my ass kicked by training. I’m so exhausted day in and day out that I barely remember to eat. Not being able to run with you, not being able to have you take the piss out of me over my smoothie choices, has been torture. I didn’t want to leave you when the papers came in. I – ”

For the second time in five minutes, Emma slams her lips into his. She’s a force of nature, this one, and he’s not sure what to do.

Well, besides kiss her.

He’s completely blindsided by her being here, by her doing this, and somewhere in a small corner of his mind, he knows they should talk. He’s been burned enough times by physical relationships that he knows exactly how things like this go, but this isn’t that. This is a bloody confusing relationship that he couldn’t put into words if he tried.

“Are we – ”

“Yes.”

“Do you – ”

“Yes.”

Killian laughs into Emma’s mouth as she pushes him back into his apartment, his feet nearly tripping over Will’s bloody out of place shoes. “You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”

Emma stops kissing him, pulling back as he chases her lips, but he stops right before he captures them once more. “You were going to ask if we were going to have sex.”

“I was going to ask if you wanted to get dinner. A man likes to be courted.”

Her brow raises. “Are you serious?”

It’s nearly impossible for him to hold back his laugh. “Swan, there is literally nothing in the world I want more right now than to have you, but I need you to know that this isn’t going to be just sex for me, not like it was the first time. I know you now. I know the sound of your laugh and how you act when you don’t have coffee or food. I know, well, I know you more than I think either of us expected to get to know each other, and I don’t want this to be a one-time thing.”

He knows Emma well enough to know there’s a chance she’s about to walk back out his front door, but saying that was worth the risk. He doesn’t want to start something that’s going to end up hurting them both.

God, he should have found the time to call her this week. And last week. He’s got to apologize to her again.

Her chest heaves, the sweat there beginning to dry, and she opens her mouth only to snap it closed. “It’s not going to be a one-time thing. It means more to me now, too.”

“Good.”

He can’t seem to stray far from Emma, his hands running along the sides of her neck before falling down to her arms, and the way she’s working a spot on his neck is absolutely divine. She’s intoxicating, and every breath is not enough. That should terrify him. Hell, it should have him running out his own front door. This spark that runs hotly between them isn’t entirely new to him, and the last time it blew up in his face.

This has all the potential to do the same.

Or not.

“Is Will home?” Emma murmurs as they walk back toward his bedroom.

“At work.”

“Good. Wouldn’t want him walking out of his room and seeing this.” “It’d be quite the show.”

Emma pushes against his chest, but he easily grabs her waist and turns her around until he’s the one guiding her. She didn’t know where they were going anyway, was simply aimlessly guiding him until his back hit a wall and until her sweatshirt was left on the hallway floor. There’s so much happening right now that reminds him of their night in Vegas – the fumbling with clothes and heated kisses against walls as heat continues to simmer below his skin – but he knows this is different.

She knows it, too, which may be the best part of all.

A lifetime ago, he’d have despised himself for thinking things like that when a woman was undressing in front of him, but that was the past. This here and now? It’s better.

They’ve made it to his bedroom now, and his heart beats in a heavy pattern while his erection is tenting his sweatpants. It’s incredibly uncomfortable at this point, but he doesn’t intend to rush this. Not when things are so tentative and not when he’s been waiting for this moment.

“Oh my God,” Emma groans.

“Darling, I don’t think that’s the way you’re supposed to say those words in this particular situation. It’s supposed to sound a tad more…pleasant.”

“I can’t get my damn sports bra off.” “What?” Killian laughs, backing away from her to look at her as she tugs on her bra.

“I’m sweaty. Or, like, I was. I literally ran here. I can’t fucking get it off.”

His laughter keeps bubbling in his chest, mixing in with the heat between his legs and his focus on getting some kind of relief, but Emma is standing in his bedroom, half-naked, and she can’t get her damn bra off.

“I am probably the sexiest woman you’ve ever slept with, right?”

“Aye,” Killian says, completely serious. He steps forward and leans down to press his lips to her collarbone as he tugs the material of her bra up. It is stuck, but with a little willpower, he pulls it up and off of Emma until it’s falling to the ground so that she’s bare to him. “You are.”

Her cheeks flush red, and that flush moves down toward her breasts. It’s a beautiful sight with which he cannot wait to become more acquainted.

“Shut up and get on the bed.”

“So demanding, lass.”

She rolls her eyes. “I don’t know about you, but I ran a few miles to get here, and I think I’m running on limited time before my body decides to stop working.”

“I haven’t slept more than four hours a night in two weeks.”

“So this is about to be really good sex then?”

“Aye, absolutely.”

Emma falls back onto the bed, and Killian cages her in, moving his mouth of hers and licking into her mouth while his fingers trail down her body, one hand palming her breast while the other finds the slickness between her thighs. He groans at the feeling, at knowing this is for him, and it doesn’t take long before her thighs are quivering from his ministrations. She’s very nearly there, her back arched off the bed, and this is better than any and all of his memories.

“Condom,” Emma pants. “Get a fucking condom.”

“I – ”

“Please do not make the joke I know you’re going to make.”

Killian huffs and curls his fingers inside of her once more before pulling out and leaving a soft kiss to her inner thigh, watching as her skin twitches with his touch. He quickly gets the condom from the box in his bedside drawer, rolling it on and wondering why the hell that takes so long, before he moves to hover over Emma again. She doesn’t let him, though, encouraging him to lay on his back as she straddles his hips and curls her fingers into his chest hair.

“This is a new side of you, love.”

“I’ve got a few of those.”

He arches a brow. “Really, now?”

“Hold your horses, tiger. One at a time. I’m not some kind of contortionist energizer bunny.”

He bites his cheek, a comeback on the tip of his tongue, but then Emma is guiding him into her, the warmth of her surrounding him, and all of the breath leaves his body at the feel of her.

Bloody hell.

He can already feel his release licking at his spine, but it’s too soon. There’s so much left to be done, and he’s not some teenage boy who’s going to fall apart at first touch.

Emma looks ethereal above him, even under the harsh lighting of his bedroom, and he watches as her eyelashes flutter against her cheeks and a smile curves at her lips. And then she starts moving. It’s slow and steady at first, the both of them testing each other out, but then his hands grab onto her hips and she really starts moving.

It’s like nothing he’s ever experienced before. “You’re absolutely everything,” he breathes. “Bloody magnificent.”

“Killian, I – ”

He nods and leans up to wrap his arms around her back, pulling her toward him so their chests brush together, and then he’s carefully flipping them around, slipping out of her for a moment before slamming back in. They’re both almost there, bodies shaking and breaths gone, and he’s purposeful with his thrusts and with the way he moves his hand where they’re joined until Emma sucks in a sharp breath and begins to fall, becoming more glorious by the second. He works her through it, letting her wide out the waves, but then he starts fucking her in earnest until his own release is thrumming at the base of his spine and working through him.

Killian collapses on top of her, crushing her with his weight before propping himself up on his elbows so he can look down at her and the absolutely goofy grin on her face. He’d like to see that more often.

“Better than the first time, aye?”

Emma laughs and reaches up to push his sweat-soaked hair off his forehead. “It’s not a competition, but yeah, better than the first.”

Killian huffs and falls to her side, quickly pulling off the condom and tying it before dumping it into the trash. “You should show up to my apartment more often then.”

Emma turns on the bed and reaches around to pull the comforter up over her. He grabs it and helps tug it up over both of them while Emma inches closer to him, leaning down and kissing his collarbone. He could go again if his body would let him, the adrenaline giving him more energy than he’s had in weeks, but it’s not going to last long.

“Was it really just that you were busy?” Emma asks. “It wasn’t – ”

Killian adjusts his arm under her shoulder and trails his fingers down her back while his other hand tries to smooth back some of her hair. “I should have made time for you. I wanted to. I will from now on. Love, I promise that it wasn’t because the annulment papers came in. I, well…”

“What?”

“I was happy when they came in. It felt like a weight lifted off my shoulders, but a part of me was also terrified that you’d have nothing to do with me now that we had no reason to still be talking.”

Emma’s lips fall open before snapping shut. “I felt the same way.”

“Yeah?”

She nods her head, looking at him with a small smile, before letting her head fall back against the pillow. Their noses are so close they’re almost touching.

The freckles on her cheeks are mesmerizing.

“If you haven’t worn me out, because I definitely plan on the two of us doing that again, I will go running with you in the morning.”

“What about training? Aren’t you exhausted?”

“Aye, but I think I’ll be able to survive. I’m a survivor, Swan. I also think I owe you a smoothie.”

“You owe me about ten smoothies.”

Killian chuckles and closes his eyes before opening them back up to the brilliant shade of green of Emma’s eyes. “I think I can handle that.”

“So, Jones,” she whispers, her own lips threatening to turn into a smile far brighter than the small one she’s been keeping since they started talking in the afterglow of it all, “I think we should go on a date.”

His brow arches. He wasn’t expecting that. He should have been, but they’re all sorts of messy right now. He’s not even exactly sure what he should be expecting when it comes to Emma.

He can’t wait to find out.

“Aren’t I supposed to be the one asking you out?”

“You are so old-fashioned.”

“Now, darling, I believe I fucked you, married you, annulled that marriage, fucked you again, and then agreed to date you. In that order. What could possibly be old-fashioned about that?”

Emma chuckles and leans forward to kiss him again. He wants to get used to that. “Did you agree to me asking you out? I don’t remember hearing that.”

Her eyes roll. She’s exasperated by him, but it’s not like it was at the beginning. It’s not true annoyance. It’s something entirely different.

Better.

Definitely, definitely better.

“I’d love to go on a date with you, Emma Swan.”

“Good.”

-/-

They get married three years later.

It’s pouring down rain, a July storm coming in and surprising everyone, and Killian can barely hear David officiating the ceremony over the sound of the water hitting the ground around him and flooding into the Charles river. They wanted to do it by the damn bench that’s paint was messed up from the man sitting on wet paint all those years ago, had planned on it for a few weeks now, only to show up today and find that the city had finally fixed the bench after three years of it being messed up.

All of the signs were there for them to cancel these plans. There’s no special meaning to today, simply a date they picked on the calendar that was close enough to the day they met and fit their schedules, and they could have changed it when they found out it was going to rain.

Emma didn’t want to.

He didn’t either.

Killian’s wearing his dress uniform, and Emma has on a short, emerald green dress that hugs her curves and is driving him mad every time he looks at her. They were already dressed when it started pouring, and they both pretty much said what the hell. Why not? That’s kind of been their motto through the whole thing.

They’re both wearing wellies.

As are all of their friends.

They look ridiculous. He knows that they do, but he wouldn’t have it any other way when it comes to the love of his life and her happiness.

Neither of them ever wanted to legitimately get married, not after everything, but it’s funny how things change when you find the right person who’s willing to wade deep into the waters of life with you.

It’s funny how things change when you meet a woman whose eyes are another kind of green.

-/-

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