#but no it is only for those who 'stopped watching when Tennant left'

[expectiations]

"the Doctor has been running their whole life"

?????

[variousqueerthings]

okay I watched good omens s2 yesterday with my partner, and I was genuinely very surprised -- I think if you've grown up through superwholock/merlin/the 100/teen wolf type shows where (with the exception periodically of doctor who) you kind of had to make up the good show that something could have been in your head, that colours a lot of your viewing, and to be honest I thought season 1 of good omens was a fine little piece, honoured the book while modernising it somewhat, it was a nice, fun, low stakes time, with a couple of things I might have wanted a tad different but nothing overall awful.

so I was seeing all this meta and gifsets and discussion, while I was waiting to give s2 a watch with my partner and thought "ah, people have made up the good show in their heads again" not that I assumed s2 was going to be a bad show, but that people were taking extra deep plunges into possibilities, the way fandom does, and that was fine. I knew there was a big ol kiss, I had a sense of some kind of argument at the end, and that it was setting up a s3

I also knew that mainstream reviews were calling it (politely) self-indulgent and dependent on whether or not you enjoy david tennant and michael sheen having a good time for just under 6 hours

all in all, expectations of a somewhat mainstream show without too much to think about, a nice, fun low stakes time, moving on...

(EDIT: AND THEN I WROTE A LOT OF WORDS SO YOU CAN IMAGINE THAT MY REACTION WAS QUITE DIFFERENT)

as it turns out it seems these things that were being written on tumblr were discussing the actual text of the show and not things you could extrapolate if you squinted and tilted your head a little to the left as I'm so used to doing, so in fact there is much to think about!

and my first thought was "this is like when you read early discworld books that ask a question like a joke, only to find that over time the answer to that question becomes very serious (and also can be funny at times of course)." how terry pratchett would pick and pick at tropes and notions and social ideas and go "oh now hold on, this seems strange..." starting way back when he thought it was odd that women warriors always seemed to be dressed in metal bikinis and then realising he hadn't done a good enough job of subverting the trope, simply by depicting it and calling it a bit silly

why do goblins always get treated as the villains? what's with this divine succession of kings business? where are the female dwarfs? who do we treat as disposable?

good omens season one went: "haha what if heaven and hell were intensely incapable, bureaucratic, corrupt, and uncaring of the work they did, and we took an angel and a demon and had them actually care? wouldn't that be... a bit silly?" (and it was)

good omens season two went: "what are the consequences for caring when the people who have power over you are incapable, bureaucratic, corrupt, and uncaring? what are the forces that supersede systems built on fear, ignorance, and violent conformity? can people change and break out of/challenge/break down these structures by caring?"

and this was set up with a neat little sleight of hand (to reference aziraphale's switch-and-bait in the episode with the nazi zombies), because the majority of season 2 does feel a bit indulgent: hey, remember those two wacky angel-and-demon characters? watch some more wacky things they did through the ages, watch them take a sojourn through 1827 Edinburgh and do a magic show during the Blitz, and... stop the death of Job's and Sitis' children (actually maybe that whole segment ought to have been what they call "A Clue")

see them try to figure out a kooky mystery, all the while setting up a cute little same-gender romance on their street. watch as everything points towards a happy ending that's all about the two of them realising what they've been to one another all these thousands and thousands (and thousands and thousands) of years- but hold on. lest we forget - and the show has made this point over and over - there are powerful people who control them, who hurt them, and who plan on hurting others, throughout the whole season, and as it turns out they know what they've been to one another for far far longer, and know how to pull their strings...

season 2 then, has to show us these things, not because they're indulgent (well, maybe occasionally, but the apology dance is still important), but because in order to make the ending a tragedy, we first need to understand, properly, the impact that they have had on each other. we need to understand that Aziraphale relied heavily on Crowley to be his moral compass and leaned on black-and-white thinking in order to deal with things, because if it's all grey then where does he fit and what has it all meant and heaven has to be the good guys, even as Job's and Sitis' children are ordered to be killed, it's all he ever had...

and Crowley was always an anchor, needed to trust that Aziraphale was different, needed to bend to every whim that Aziraphale has, because otherwise what's his worth in all this? After having been already deemed worthless by the heaven that Aziraphale needs to believe in?

and that, simplistically described, is the narrative that we're seeing in s2, and alongside that the ways that the changes they have upon each other are noticed, and monitored, and placed under suspicion, and finally... broken up, not by the clumsy, brute force that's been attempted over and over again, but by a promise to return into a violent, controlling system and to "make it better from within"

and all of this is wrapped up in two queer relationships + a third queered-within-the-text relationship that creates the inverse of how it ends for Aziraphale and Crowley (so far). queer love -- whatever shape that has -- is explicitly the shape of non-conformity within this narrative, including within the symbolism of angel-and-demon love of Gabriel and Beelzebub, which in the context of the systems created is considered queer (and one can argue till the cats come home about casting cis actors, about angel-and-demon notions of gender/romance/sexuality, but the "queerness" comes from building something non-conforming to the systems they exist in), and enforced by the explicitly our-world-definition-of queer romance that Nina and Maggie have going on (which, while less high stakes, still contains the background controlling relationship that Nina initially is in)

all of this to say, that I disagree that s2 meanders, or that plotlines happen for the sake of showcasing Aziraphale and Crowley without purpose, or that characters get sidelined (I'd say it sets up a whole host of interesting characters to further get into actually), or that it's strictly mainstream easy-access narrative that's just an excuse for the main creators and actors to get back together.

the love is the point, and this show takes its time to show the love (and the unequal boundary-setting, and the fact that one of them has an undiscussed tragic backstory, and the desperation to belong again, and the fear instilled by oppressive systems, and and and), so that we understand why those last 15 minutes happen the way that they do

it's sleight of hand, and like all good magic, you don't notice until it's happened

[ihavenoideawhatiamdoingjustgay2]

PLEAASE WRITE A TENNANT REVERSE:1999 FICC THERES BARELY ANY

Touching you Between the Thorns

Notes : You were shot lol, not my best work but I had no more time to edit bc im being buried in homework, accidentally posted it when the post was unfinished, ik I said no smut but I would rate this E on AO3, first smut-ish thing I'm posting, Alexa play : More than a friend by girli, thx for the ask :D

Sypnoses : She was the first you could turn to. The closest. Who were you to refuse?

Words : To be added.

You lean against the brick wall, your head hitting it with a loud thud, it shortly distracted from the pain in your side, the blood gushing out in liters and galoons. If you`d look down, it would almost look beautifull, shining in the ligth. But it only hurt as of now. You took a sharp breath, going on to lean against the wall, using everything what was left of the earlier adrenaline. It is actually a suprise that you have made it so far withougth any medical attention. Must have something to do with your Arcanist mother. You cough. You would only need her to take the bullet out, nothing more. You would not stay for anything more. You took a sharp breath, continuesly pressing into the wound while your other hand was leading you towards a small alley, that led into a small square where there was only one house that had its ligth and music on. You went up to her door with your last strength left, lifting your fist against the door, and hammering it down as strong as you were able to. You leaned against the stone frame, trying not to crumble.

The music was turned of and the ligth turned on, shinning into your face. You listened to every footstep she took, they were so casual, she probably wasn`t expecting you to ruin her nigth. Or that you had known where she lived. Her shillouette was painted against the door untill the door clicked open with a broken sound, revealing her. The emotions on her face changed visibly, going from confusion to a teasing smirk in seconds.

„Good evening.“ you greet, as if you were her to ask if she had some damn salt or butter left.

She leaned against the frame, speaking in her low, sultry and sarcastic voice. „I wonder, what does lead an honorable officer like you into this part of the city?“

You grit your teeth, resisting the urge to shout at her how you were bleeding out and how you would appreciate this another time. But your vision blurred and it felt as if you could slip on your own blood. „I wouldn`t know, can I come in?“

She grinned, before looking back to the wound and swallowing whatever teasing words she wanted to say, instead she decided to help you in and you sit down on a long green couch instead. You switch to lying down while she pulls a smaller sofa closer. You really had the sligth feeling that she would be able to help you, she was still wearing that gun at her side. You grit your teeth when she pulls your hand away, exposing the fleshy wound. She looked concerned, her smirk gone and her eyebrows knitting together, thus her open hair. It made her seem older, in a way, or maybe you just haven`t seen her for to long.

„Wait here.“ she says, putting your hand back. She walked into the kitchen, opening cabinets, getting whatever she needed probably. You try to shift, look behind you, but are only meet with pain, so you stop, deciding to lay still like the corpse you migth become if that woman won`t come back soon. You look down, only realizing now how ruined your shirt was. It would probably be better to take it off anyway. She would probably ask you to take it off. You asked yourself which one of those you`d rather have, but she had already decided for you.

„Do take the shirt off.“ Ada said, standing behind you already.

You grab at the ends, roughly tugging untill she came to help you, her skilled hands just had the damn thing slip over your head as if it was made out of butter. She folded it, then put it on the small table, over a radio. You then watched the woman cross her legs as she dissenfects the tools carefully. To think she was doing this for `free`, she, odd wasn`t it? The woman that scammed other ladys, pulling the money out of their pockets. Your brows knit together, maybe she had something going on rigth now? You look back at Ada, the open hair, the half buttoned shirt. „So have you been up to something?“ you ask as casual as you can. „I did hear music, could I have interupted something perchance?“

She scoffed, freeing her hands to take one of yours, bring it to her lips. „You have been the only one on my mind, my rose.“

You pull your hand away. „I feel faint, you better get those hands to work so I won`t bleed out on your couch.“

She grinned, looking up at you, before taking the tweezers. „You have always been smart.“ her hands go to asses the wound with some tweezers, no warning, which makes you hiss and squirm away, but she holds you down as if you are only a leaf. „If you want me to do this, you will have to stay still, do you think you can do that?“

You hiss, staying still. If you wanted to heal yourself, you would need it out. Thank heavens above that Arcanists and half arcanists couldn`t die that easily. You feel her take a grip of it. „Less deep than the blood makes it out to be.“

„Still hurts like a bitch.“ you swear, shaking from the pain. „Why did you not give me alcohol?“

She chuckles and the bullet clatters onto the little plate she brougth. „There we go.“

You sigh, feeling the wound slowly close under your skill, it did not even leave a scar. „Thanks. I will have to go now.“ you go to stand up, but she is quick to be in your way, a fake pout on her face.

„What? Not even a thank you? I am insulted, my rose.“

You roll your eyes. „Thanks.“

„There we go.“ she pushes you back to the couch. „It is late and we have not seen eachother in so long, it would be a shame to not use this opportunity.“

You look outside. It was indeed dark...and they migth have followed you. But you could handle them.

„You have also been shot, I am worried about you, friend.“ something goes weak inside you then, her words, accentuated with her hand, putting some hair behind your ear.

„Alrigth then.“ you sit back down.

„Perfect.“ she goes back into the kitchen. „Do you still like your tea like back then?“

„My taste in it never did change.“ you sit back, relax. Your shirt would do no more, maybe that is why she would not let you go either. You were half naked. You could ask her for something later, it wasn`t as if she hasn`t seen you like this already. You take the fireplace in, in front of you, the shelves. It was all neat, trophies of travels, paintings, not half bad.

„I hope you don`t mind me putting some wine in this.“ she said, holding two cups as she approached you, handing it to you.

You snickered, stiring the dark fluid within. „I did always like to drink with you. Remember when I had my first one?“

She chuckled, her hand brushing your hair away, touching your face. You had the urge to lean in, imerse yourself in her hands, lips, whatever she`d give you. „You were so very cute, still are.“ her eyes seemed a bit distant, untill they sharpened with a grin on her face. „I have always had a weakness for your red cheeks, your babbling, the way you clung to me.“ she lets her fingers stroke it then, gently, she continues as you make no sign of dislike. Ada sighs. „It really has been long.“ she says in a breath.

„I missed you.“ the thougth that had lingered in you slips out like butter. And it changes something behind her eyes, her smile falters and she looks as if she has fallen into deep thougth, but only for a second, then she pulls back, sitting down in the brown chair opposite from yours, with an all to familiar expression. You follow her movements, even after, as she picks up her cup, but now she holds your gaze, looking at you through those slit pupils. Your cue to look away, drink from your own cup, have her chuckle at you. It was still warm, of course, and it was sweet, with only a hint of bitterness suggested by the alcohol. You were very sure that she could have completely covered it up though. You bite your lip, remembering when she did it the last time, where you have only taken a sip of it... „What if something more will happen?“ you look down, the dark brew mirroring your reflection.

„Hasn`t it happend before?“ you could hear her cocky grin, her dimples. How insufferable. How...attractive. You blushed, sinking down into your chair, sipping at your cup. She laughs, gently, you feel her leg brushing yours and realize how close she actually is. You could touch her.

„So...what have you been up to lately?“

She humms. „Haven`t you heard of my newest scam yet?“ she nudges your knee.

„I did. Your biggest one yet.“ you look around. „It is no wonder you hide here.“

„And I plan for bigger ones to come, but what about you?“ she crocks her head. „And while we are at it, you are the only one who knows my location, rigth?“ there was a sligth danger there, inside of her, but you knew it was only the fear of getting caugth. Getting exposed. How long has it been since she has seen her father the last time?

„Of course, what are you thinking of me?“ You snicker, enjoying some more of your tea, which was nearly emtpy now. You were left with a warm feeling in your cheeks. You saw her lips move, but had already forgotten what you had just asked. She explained it again, you acted as if you understood, staring at the fireplace flickering behind her. It reminded you of that one time, that other fireplace, you on your knees on some expensive couch, with Ada grinding her hips against yours, her hot breath on you, her hand already coated in your slick, playing with your clit. You downed the last bit of tea, crossing your legs., refusing the fire in your stomach.

„Finished already?“

You look at her outstretched hand ,your fingers linger a bit to long on hers as you give it to her. „It was good.“ your mouth was dry. „Like always.“

She put it to her side. „But as I was saying, how did you find me?“

You took a deep sigh, trying to conceal your desire„It was a coincidence, I was just getting back from some...business and saw you walk by. Funny, really.“

She looked away, then back at you, you couldn`t read her expression and were instead fixated on a loose strand. You interupted her talking, leaning over to adjust it, looking into her hellish eyes that were observing your every move, it made you feel naked, she saw rigth through you from the moment you appeared at her front step. You tried to brush some more hair away, but it only fell back.

Ada pulled you in closer by the waist, making you sit on her lap. „Someone is getting comfortable.“ she grinned, stroking your hot cheek. You lean into it.

„There we go,“ she praised „there is that blush.“ her other hand is tracing your spine meanwhile. Your naked spine, up to your brah clip. She circles around the place, her eyes drowsy, but hungry, yet she waited.

„Tennant.“ you whisper, hands on her shoulders.

„My Rose?“ she crocked her head at you, fauxing innocence.

All of your vocabulary leaves your mind. Your mouth is dry, so you lean down. „Yes.“

She grins, dimples showing. „What yes?“

You think, trying to find your words, but its hard when she is staring rigth at you while her fingers are teasing the space around your brah clip. „You know me...please touch me Ada.“

A genuine smile appears on her lips. She leans in to whisper into your ear. „Who am I to deny such a request from my Rose?“ A shiver runs down your spine. Her voice always did have this hoarseness to it. And you have always had a weakness for it. She kisses you, you return it, though it is more sloopy. How long has it been? She parts from you, leaning back, drinking the rest of her tea, not taking her eyes of off you the whole time. „We should take this upstairs.“ she side eyes the statues. „They creep me out.“

„The walls seem thin.“

„Did you ever really care?“

Well, the neighboors sleep would be ruined. You got off of her, took her hand and jogged up, with only a few inbetween breaks of kisses and some spare hickeys on your neck, around your collarbone. Her name left your mouth in prayers already. It did not take much for her, now did it? When you were struggling to open the door inbetween kisses, her shirt had already been unbottoned, exposing her bare chest. It wasn`t easy to focus with these factors in your mind, or her warm toung in your mouth. So she took this job from your hand, turning the knob and making you stumble back, but she catched you with a grin, of course. „It appears that you have fallen for me.“

You can not stop yourself from laughing, still giggling as she pulls you to bed, pushes you down. But she herself is grinning, even as she kisses you again, finally uncliping your brah. You sigh, taking it off with her help. She swiftly presses her lips on your jawline, leading them down your throath, more down until she closes her mouth around the hardened bud. Your body presses into her and a breathy moan escapes you. „Ada...“

Apperantly she likes your answer, her one hand travels towards your other breast, gently squezzing. You were sure that your underwear was ruined by now, just judging by that feeling in your stomach.

She takes your attention back as her lips continue to go lower, as she takes your pants off. You grin. She bites her lip at your wetness, before kissing your thigh to look back at you Yeah, you`d have a long nigth ahead of you.

***

Ada looked upon your sleeping form, the first rays of sunligth were scatered on you, your soft eyelashes, your naked body, bearing her marks. She crossed her legs, a proud grin on her face. She did usually avoid leaving traces, dissapearing to be never found again. But with you it didn`t work, and she ougth herself stupid for expecting it too. Considering your shared history. You`d always come to find her, and she would always leave traces. She leans down, kissing your forehead, asking herself if she would stay when you asked., as she stood up to leave. The idea scared her.

Untill there was a hand grabing at her wrist. When she turned, your angry eyes were looking between her and a letter on the nigthstand.“You are not leaving me to pay the rent again, are you?“

Ada grinned, holding the look in your eyes with no problem. „Oh. You know, I have always loved you for your brain, my rose.“ Your face changed from anger to shock in a matter of seconds, and with that shock came a loose hand. She took the oppurtunity, walking towards the door with a „I will see you soon, my rose~“

„Ada Tennant, you will come back into this room and face me now-“ she heard you shout as she jumped down the stairs, escaping something you threw at her, which she recognized upon further inspection as her hat. She threw a quick „Thanks“ at you before jumping down the stairs to escape your wrath.

[denimbex1986]

'The moment Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor regenerated will go down history as one of the great rug-pulls of modern Who.

There she was, standing on a rocky outcrop, ready to hand over the mantle to the next in line. But this time there was an extra twist for those watching. Instead of regenerating into Ncuti Gatwa, who was announced as the next Doctor in 2022 after rising to fame in Netflix's Sex Education, people instead saw David Tennant standing in his place, ready to reprise the role he’d last held thirteen years ago.

To quote the Doctor, as he reacted to this change of plans: what?!

With that catchphrase (can a word be a catchphrase? With Tennant, anything is possible), he was back in the TARDIS, and I was immediately reinvested – catapulted back in time to a version of my teenage self where long scarves were sacred and Converse magically looked good when paired with pinstripe suits.

I wasn’t around for original Who, but watched from behind the sofa as my father (a lifelong fan) turned on the telly for the reboot in 2005. Terrifying as the Daleks may be, this show is catnip for kids: the monsters; the prospect of entering a magic box and going for adventures in time and space; and above everything else, the knowledge the Doctor will ultimately save the day.

Heading up the first rebooted series, Christopher Eccleston came and went, with a brooding kind of mystique to him – a bit too dour for my nine-year-old self, but the baddies kept me hooked: the gas-mask zombies, the Slitheen, even (shudder) the return of the Daleks. And just as I was getting properly into the show, along came David Tennant.

For millions of fans like me, Tennant wasn’t just a version of the Doctor: he was the definitive Doctor. Taking the reins from Eccleston after the show’s excellent but troubled first season (Eccleston has talked about how leaving the show put him on a BBC blacklist and almost destroyed his career), he immediately breathed fresh life into the character.

Alongside the showrunner Russell T Davies (who himself has an impressive list of credits to his name, including It's A Sin and Queer as Folk) Tennant helped launch Who into the stratosphere: suddenly, watching the show was (wait for it) cool, something that both kids and adults would tune in for. In its prime, Doctor Who under Tennant pulled in as many as 13m viewers - a world away from Jodie Whittaker's swansong, which only pulled in four.

Davies’ combination of grounded characters – he always took the time to flesh out the companion’s families and make their lives feel meaningful – and tightly plotted episodes was a winning combination. Think The Parting of the Ways, where the Doctor and Rose tearfully bid farewell on a bleak beach in Norway; or the haunting Midnight, which must be among his bleakest.

Of course, a great script is one thing, but selling it is another. As the face of the show, Tennant could switch from cheeky chappie to ultra-serious blaster of baddies in a nanosecond; yes, Eccleston had the gravitas, but Tennant had that, plus sass. And clearly, he loved playing the Doctor: a lifelong fan himself, he once told GWR FM, "Who wouldn't want to be the Doctor? I've even got my own TARDIS!" It’s a fair point.

Needless to say, I lapped it up; even more so when Catherine Tate came on board as the permanently furious Donna. It was a golden era, but alas, all good things must come to an end. When both Davies and Tennant left in 2010, the show struggled. Matt Smith was charismatic and chirpy, yes, but the writing, under Steven Moffat’s tenure, was blander, the plots more slapdash. Where were the classics: the Blinks, the Empty Children?

As the years progressed, I stopped watching entirely – as did many others. Doctor Who was no longer cool; it was once again the domain of nerds and dedicated fans who were invested enough in the show's lore that the fiendishly complicated scripts made sense (or indeed the show's revolving catalogue of rebooted monsters from the original series). For some, the bad patches were worth toughing out. Which is fine, of course; I’m a nerd myself.

Something was missing; a spark, perhaps. Both Jodie Whittaker and Peter Capaldi’s tenures suffered as a result of poor scriptwriting; the plots were shoddy. The Doctor suddenly started sprouting mysterious incarnations. Why were the Weeping Angels suddenly everywhere? I would read the series reviews and roll my eyes at the screen, longing for the good old days.

I was just about ready to hang up my sonic screwdriver for good - at least until I heard that Russell T Davies was coming back as the series’ showrunner once more, along with Tennant and Catherine Tate as his companion Donna. The classic gang, back together again, and returning for one more bite at the apple before passing on the mantle to Gatwa.

Bringing Tennant back was a masterstroke from Davies. If my ears pricked up, so too did the ears of thousands of ex-Whovians, hungry for some sweet nostalgia. And we’ve been amply rewarded: that first sight of Tennant strolling around London in his revamped Tardis made me squeal like a child. As did the first mention of “Allons-y!”, his old catchphrase.

Watching him bounce around the universe with old companion Donna has been a joy; even better, this is a Doctor brought firmly into the modern-day universe. He’s still recognisably himself, but this time around he has crushes on Nathaniel Curtis’ Isaac Newton (“He was so hot... oh! Is that who I am now?”) and lets Donna and her daughter Rose (Yasmin Finney) school him on pronoun usage. You can sense the mischief in Davies’ pen, as well as the clear love he still has for the series, peppering his scripts with Easter eggs galore.

So as the third and final special approaches, I’m not ready to let Tennant go yet. How could I be? We've only just gotten him back, but wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey rolls on, and it's been a joy to see the show looking more invigorated than it has in years.

Job done? With Davies in charge, I'm optimistic that the soft reboot he and Tennant have kick-started will continue in style. Gatwa has big shoes to fill, but one thing's for certain about Doctor Who: it's all about change. Roll on the future... but if Tennant ever decides to make another guest appearance, I'll be there in the blink of a Weeping Angel's eye.'

[teetle-time]

Time Is All We Have

A Doctor Who x Rise of the TMNT Xover interest check/story prologue because i'm losing all control of my life lmao

Quick mini-primer for where in both timelines we are:

Non-teetle fixaters, you can just watch the first few minutes of the Rise movie. Bad future timeline shenanigans wahoo! You should probably also get a feel for the regular present timeline from the show if you can, though we won't be directly interacting with it for a quite a bit. Because Reasons. :)

Non-Who fixaters, we're rolling with David Tennant Doctor The First and the companion named Martha Jones. The name similarity to the Casey Joneses makes me giggle, especially now that I've watched through the (REDACTED) episodes where she ends up with some more Caseys parallels. Those haven't happened yet for her though lmao. Frankly, she's only had a few episodes'-worth of adventures with the Doctor by this point. :)

anyway. shoutout to my brother purpletango for having this idea. i believe what i hurriedly jotted down in my notepad app went like this:

the rise movie begins, mikey gets ready to send junior back in time- -and something goes wrong. welp, the gateway's there now. may as well use it. junior gets yeeted through (and my brain is now adding the idea of leo realizing something's up and going with him) and junior (and maybe leo) land…in the TARDIS. now they gotta get back to earth (hoping they're at least in the right dimension) to find the key and stop the krang. NO PRESSURE LMFAO

with a lil tweaking to the premise that just sorta happened as i was writing, i'm now at 26k words of combined fic and notes. it has been 2.5 weeks. i am nowhere near done. help lmao

gonna be doing something a bit funky with the tardis here just to get the ball rolling. idk if it's a canon thing that can happen but if it's not then shshshshshshsh just pretend with me. take my hand

〜

Almost exactly twelve hours prior to the moment he died, when the rest of what remained of the Resistance had been asleep and it had only been the turtles awake to keep watch, Michelangelo had looked to his big brother and said, "We can't beat them, can we?"

Last night, Leonardo had swallowed and given a slight shake of his head. "We can't."

"They've even stolen the night sky from us somehow," Michelangelo had said, lifting his gaze to the cloudless, crimson sky. "Look, there's no stars anymore."

"When did that happen?" Leonardo had asked under his breath. "We still had at least a handful last I checked…"

"Sometime since the last time we had enough peace and quiet at night to actually look up. I'd say…in the past few weeks?" Michelangelo had suggested.

There had been silence for a long moment after that, broken only by the quiet, deep breathing of the few who were left, as well as the shifting of Michelangelo's cloak as he scooted a bit closer to his brother.

Between the two of them, Leonardo and Michelangelo had enough organic fingers and toes to count everyone else who'd survived the past twenty-odd years. Then again, with only two toes on each foot, three fingers on each hand, and three organic hands left to use…well. Less than twenty wasn't exactly an army.

Casey had shifted in his sleep, eventually, mumbling something incoherent the way his mother always had.

Leonardo had swallowed.

Michelangelo had pulled his gaze back down to Earth and looked at him.

"The Krang won't give us the mercy of dying," Leonardo had said grimly. "Not if they can help it."

"They won't," Michelangelo had agreed.

"The others chose to fight with us. Humans, yokai, and mutants. Even Todd. Never would've expected him of all yokai to be so kickass, back in the day. But…this is all Casey's ever known," Leonardo had continued.

"It is."

There had been a shifting in the shadows off in the distance, then, and while it had turned out to be easily taken care of, it had still put a pause on the brothers' conversation for a bit.

When they'd gotten back, but before they'd woken the others and gotten moving again, Leonardo had nailed Michelangelo with a solemn look. "We can't avoid this forever, but Casey…"

"I know you're not talking about that thing we talked about never talking about," Michelangelo had said, raising the ridges of his brows for a deadpan look and a wry smile.

Leonardo had jabbed an elbow into his plastron with a thick snicker…but he hadn't denied it.

Michelangelo had sobered up, then. "Oh."

"Do you think you can do it?" Leonardo had asked as he'd knelt to shake April awake, pausing before he did to meet Michelangelo's eyes.

"I know I can," Michelangelo had said, remaining quiet about how 'it' would very likely be the end of him.

They'd both already known as much.

"When?"

"I-I don't know. When things look bleakest," Leonardo had tried. "If it comes down to us. If it's just you and somebody else. If…if it's just you."

Michelangelo had nodded, then put a hand on his brother's carapace. "The Krang'll get front-row seats to Earth's very own home-grown sun. And that's a Doctor Delicate Touch guarantee."

"Wouldn't expect anything less, little man," Leonardo had chuckled. "Give 'em a light show that'll have 'em running scared."

"I can fly, Leo. And 'little man' was always Raph's thing," Michelangelo had snickered, reaching down to wake Casey. "Hey, Casey, we gotta get moving. Mind waking up and reminding your sensei that I win all height contests forever, no take-backs?"

The noise had begun rousing the others, and Leonardo had scoffed. "Turning my own student against me, Mikey? Low blow."

"Nah," April had said from where she lay. "This is a low blow."

She had snapped an arm out to smack Leonardo's shin, and the rest of the survivors had woken to quiet laughter.

It had been nice.

The last moment of calm within the storm.

In the present, Michelangelo winced as the mystic energies swirling through him reached a crescendo, but still pushed further, digging his fingers into the fabric of reality and wrenching it apart.

With Leonardo wounded, everyone else outnumbered, and Krang closing in on all sides, it was definitely pretty bleak.

There was no better time to make a time gateway than when there was no time left, after all.

His heart pounded in his tympana, loudly enough he almost could have sworn it echoed, a thud-thud-thud-thud that wanted to shake him to the core.

For a moment, with the Krang bearing down on him, his brother, and his nephew, it felt like he was losing his grip.

Casey's voice managed to overpower the thud-thud-thud-thud: "Master Michelangelo, no! You're gonna-!"

He knew.

How could he not, with light cracking his skin and his scales into little flakes of dust on the wind?

But Casey…he was the future.

The best of all of them.

As long as Casey would be okay, Michelangelo could do anything. Would do anything.

He turned his head back over his shoulder for one last look.

Casey looked horrified.

Leonardo looked resigned.

There was no one else left.

(He didn't want to go.)

Michelangelo smiled and gave his family a cheeky little wink, then turned his attention to the time gateway in front of him, threw his arms out to his sides with one last heave-!

-and like Earth's very own home-grown supernova, like the very last star in the universe, he imploded into golden light.

〜

Leonardo felt himself shatter inside as Mikey disintegrated and the time gate stabilized, but the Krang were still closing in.

"Casey, when you're done saving the world, do me a favor," he said, putting a hand on the kid's shoulder.

Casey looked up at him with wide eyes. "Sensei, don't-!"

Leonardo just smiled sadly and shifted his grip from comforting to more of a ready to throw.

He ignored the fire in his side and the trickle of blood down his plastron as he hurled Casey into the gateway. "Grab a slice-!"

"NO!"

Casey's scream was the only warning Leonardo had before the wrist-strapped grapple (standard issue, at least before Donnie had gone out with a bang) streaked back out of the portal, latched onto Leonardo's good shoulder, and yanked him off his feet.

"Whoawhoawhoawhoawhoa-!"

The deafening thrum of a Krang laser and a flash of heat at his back told Leonardo exactly how he should have died, but the sensations vanished just as quickly as they'd appeared, leaving only the golden light of Michelangelo's ninpo and the silhouette a few yards away that told Leonardo where Casey was.

Leo almost let himself go limp in the rushing mass of energy as it faded from golden-orange to something more bluish-gray.

Almost.

Instead, however, he grit his teeth against the way his wound flared up and started swimming for Casey.

The light around them grew brighter with no signs of stopping.

By the time Leo reached the kid, he had to screw his eyes shut to avoid going blind.

He managed to grab Casey's hand, then wrap himself protectively around him-

-and then some kind of metal grating slammed against his carapace, his head snapped back, and he knew only darkness.

〜

The Doctor blinked at the sudden sound of beeping. "Oh? That doesn't sound right."

"Doctor? What is it?" asked Martha.

"I'm getting an alert," said he, darting over to one of the TARDIS' monitors for a look. "An alert that there's a lifeform catapulting through the timestream almost completely unprotected- two! Two lifeforms!"

Martha blinked. "What? How did that happen?"

"I don't know, but if we want to find out, we'd best get them onboard before whatever shielding they do have is eroded away." The Doctor studied the monitor for a moment more, then slid around the console and started throwing the appropriate levers and flicking the appropriate switches. "I need to focus on getting close- would you mind peeking out the doors to make sure my aim isn't off?"

"On it!"

The Doctor grinned, then turned his focus back to steering. "Aaalright then! They ought to be coming up just ahead, maybe a smidge to our left-!"

"I see them!" Martha called. "One of them- one looks human!"

The Doctor blinked, then looked up. "Only the one?"

Martha nodded, not tearing her eyes from the window. "The other looks almost like a turtle! Except, well, it's person-sized!"

"Curiouser and curiouser," the Doctor mused. Then, looking back down at the console, "Well, I think the simplest course of action would be to just…scoop them up!"

Martha glanced his way in confusion. "What, just open the door and grab 'em?"

"Exactly. You'll want to be quick and precise," the Doctor recommended. "Good to know we're on the same page."

After a moment to process what he'd said, Martha nodded slowly. "…right."

The Doctor carefully piloted the TARDIS close, and as he watched the energy readings of the two lifeforms get close enough, he heard Martha open the door, then yelp in surprise as something hard hit the metal flooring with a clang.

"Sensei?!" squawked the thick and emotional voice of a pubescent human boy.

"Oh, my," said the Doctor, skirting the edge of the console as he jogged over for a look.

Immediately, he could tell that whatever the circumstances were that had led to the two strangers being catapulted into the timestream, they had not been pretty. Between the apocalyptic fashion and weaponry, the fact that the turtle had seemingly been curled around the boy until losing consciousness, and the sight of tear tracks on the boy's face…well, a billboard would have been less obvious.

The boy glanced between the Doctor and Martha, wide eyes quickly shifting into suspicion as he slid off "Sensei's" plastron and placed himself between the turtle and the Doctor. "Who are you? What do you want with us? Are you with the Krang?"

Huh. He sounded American.

"Krang?" asked Martha, turning to him. "Doctor, what's a Krang?"

The Doctor frowned, mulling the word over. "Krang? Krang, Krang, KrangKrangKrang… Can't say I recognize the name. Bit of a shocker, really, and somewhat worrisome."

The boy's face spasmed, confusion clearly welling up, but the door chose to remind them all that it was still open by letting a tannish cloak drift through and land next to the two newcomers.

The sight of the cloak made the boy's eyes moisten further.

Oh, dear.

"Martha, could you get the door?" asked the Doctor, shifting his voice into something a little softer as he knelt next to the two strangers.

"Oh, uh- you got it."

As Martha did exactly that, the Doctor met the boy's eyes. "I'm the Doctor. Behind you is Martha, and this is the TARDIS. I don't know what it is you're running from, whatever this 'Krang' business is, but I promise you, you're safe here."

The boy's suspicion slowly lessened, the tension in his shoulders loosening some- though, notably, nowhere near completely. "And…what's a tardis?"

"My spaceship," said the Doctor modestly. "'S how I get around. What I want to know is, how did a humanoid teenager and a turtleman with a robotic arm end up hurtling through the timestream all on their lonesome?"

At that, the boy's gaze flickered to the cloak on the ground, and his jaw hardened in that way jaws tended to do when the only other option was to sob.

"…I see," said the Doctor quietly. "While I'd like to know the specifics, pushing this sort of thing never really seems to work out well. So I won't."

"You-" The boy's voice cracked, and he tried again. "You said you were a doctor?"

"The Doctor," corrected he.

"Though I've been training as one for quite some time, myself!" Martha reminded.

The boy visibly warred with himself for a moment, then grit his teeth and pulled slightly away from the turtle's side, revealing a nasty gash that had gone clean through his shell. "Help him. Please."

Martha gasped. "Oh, God-!"

The Doctor's eyes flew wide, but then he nodded firmly. "We'll do everything we can."

[a-swiss-and-a-spaniard]

Thank you so much for the tags @schumi-nadal and @yoellglia !!

Three ships: fedal, of course. I mean it when I say I will go down with that ship. dimidrey because I just love Grigor's bicycle energy and Andrey is a flirty, touchy boi on the loose. And aziracrow, ineffable husbands or whatever you wanna call them bc my obsession with Good Omens hasn't left since july and only got stronger with the season three announcement

First ever ship: I don't know which one came first anymore (no, I've never been normal about media). I'm gonna say johnlock (sherlock holmes/john watson) probably, though superbat (superman/batman) is quite close since my hyperfixation on those fandoms coexisted for a long while

Last Song: I've been blasting my Hozier playlist bc I'm excited about his concert next year. I think the last song I listened to was “Abstract (psychopomp)”

Last Film: I haven't sat down to watch a film in a while tbh. I think the last time I did was when Barbie came out rip. I've been busy with series (say hello to my doctor who obsession that's all david tennant's fault)

I'll give @schumi-nadal 's one a try since I like Louis Hofmann too!

Currently reading: Nothing lol. I'm about to switch books. I recently finished the good omens script book (by neil gaiman ofc) and will be going back to oathbringer by brandon sanderson. I left that on hold a few months back and I've only got around 1/3 left so I'll try to finish it before the year ends

Currently consuming: I last ate a coffee and a pastry

Currently craving: I can't wait for my Rublo order to arrive. I know I'm probably gonna get it after new years but that doesn't stop me from checking the tracking link every day hahaha

I've been a little MIA for a while so everyone has probably already done this, but if you haven't and just happen to see this consider yourself tagged by me :)

[roguemonsterfucker]

Is it like the newest season? I loved doctor who like years ago but the quality tapered

I just watched "The Power of the Doctor"

I stopped watching a few episodes into Jodie Whittaker's run and I'm only watching now because of David Tennant. That's the first episode he shows up in.

I hate to say I was one of those people that stopped watching when the Doctor regenerated into a woman but I swear that wasn't the reason lol. I haven't liked Doctor Who since Steven Moffat became showrunner. I had hopes for it when he left, so I binged all the seasons I missed and watched the first handful of episodes with Jodie Whittaker but uh... I didn't like it any better so I just didn't bother watching more.

Eventually I'll probably catch up on what I missed, but for now I just want to see David Tennant my beloved. 🥺

[some-anonymity-preferred]

Good Omens Is Sexier On Tumblr

I'm a Good Omens book fan if anything. As in, I first read the book maybe twenty-five years ago, and it became a comfort object for a long time. That ended, eventually, when I finally stopped being able to take having to enjoy it past certain racist, misogynist, and homophobic "jokes" in the text. And then I kind of forgot about it.

I only watched the first series for the first time a couple of weeks ago, round about when series two dropped. I didn't mind the spoilers. In fact, Tumblr is what made me decide it might be worth my time. (We'll come back to that.)

Not just Tumblr meta and gifsets, but also comparisons to Our Flag Means Death, which is 1000% my jam. So I dove in.

The first gut punch was nearly immediate. Casting Black actors as Adam and Eve? Brilliant. Perfect. No notes. Leaving intact Aziraphale's line that he told them "not to let the sun set on them" in Eden? I very nearly quit. I did pause, discuss it with my partner, and get us a drink.

And then... Good Omens continued to be Good Omens. With many, but not all, of the problematic bits, removed or altered.

And filmed with very British pacing. And blocking.

My partner left the viewing project after s1e3. As we turned it off for the night, I said, "It's like OFMD in that it's two older male-presenting actors in a reality-adjacent workplace comedy/opposites-attract rom com. But with all of the actual cute, sappy flirting replaced by painfully repressed bickering."

Foremost, that's because of how the source material treats homosexuality and gender identity: as a joke at best, with disdain at worst. Never with respect. Which could not be farther from what OFMD does if it tried.

That Neil Gaiman Is the writer adapting it for television does not help. Gaiman is no queer ally and never has been. Even leaning into the fandom that grew up around Crowley/Aziraphale feels tone deaf and like a cash grab.

Then there's the acting, and the directorial guidelines I can only assume Sheen and Tennant are working within. Michael Sheen acts his mf-ing ass off at all times, and I love it. David Tennant. I should love him. I mostly don't. Particularly not as present-day Crowley (barring the break-up scene), and not as Victorian Crowley either. Other historical Crowleys I'm kind of into, but those two are just so ... manic? Abrasive in ways that don't seem to serve the development of the relationship? Maybe they would make more sense if less of the relationship were left to subtext, but--there's still so much left to subtext.

And yes, I get that the whole problem that our angel and demon have is that they never say what's really on their minds. Their exactlies are different. They talk past each other. They talk in code. (Which is poignantly gay, yes, but only if you know to look for it. Subtext. The actual text doesn't give us much to work with there--just a couple hooks just barely big enough for us to hang our own knowledge on.)

Which, for me, results in the feeling that, despite The Kiss, Good Omens still treads thisclose to queerbaiting.

I think that's largely on Gaiman. With healthy side servings weirdly distant blocking, even when the actors are touching, and with a camera that lingers longer on jokes that fall flat than on the emotional beats in the central romance.

Huge, huge thanks to all the Tumblrinas who post GO meta. I don't think you're reaching, I think so much of what you've written is great. I wouldn't have enjoyed the show very much at all--I certainly would not have made it through the whole thing--without you. I do think that Gaiman is going to mine some of your work, should there be a series 3, and continue to cock it up.

And huge thanks to the Tumblrinas who make and post gifsets that let us linger on what the tv camera won't. You're doing god's work.

In short, Good Omens is sexier on Tumblr.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

[thedreamwraptwriter]

Snap

Tenth Doctor x Reader; Eleventh Doctor x Reader; 14th Doctor x Reader (David Tennant Version)

Prompt: inspired by the song Snap by Rosa Linn. The Reader deals with the aftermath of being the Doctor’s companion and unrequited love. Also, with the announcement of David Tennant’s return, I had to include his “14th” Doctor in this as well! 

Word Count: 5490

Warnings: brief mention of depression (nothing in detail)

Note: [Y/N] = Your Name; [D/N] = Dog’s Name. I apologize in advance about the Dalek section as I am not overly familiar with their history and am basing them/their lore off of the couple of episodes I’ve watched. 

It's 4 AM

I can't turn my head off

Wishin' these memories would fade

They never do

I rolled over in bed, restless, unable to sleep. Visions of space, a smiling man, and a blue police box swirled in my head. It felt like a dream, one that was just out of reach, and yet so raw and real at the same time. It had been six months to the day that the Doctor, a time travelling alien from Galifrey, had left. Six months since he decided I’d never see him again. Six months.

               The darkness outside reminded me of my own smallness in the universe. As a human, I was one of the most delicate species across the cosmos – and yet the Doctor somehow made me feel bigger than life. When I was with him, I was whole. We’d traveled all over the universe – from dangerous planets to places more beautiful than I could describe. The Tardis became my home. The Doctor became my life.

Flashback

               “[Y/N]! Come this way,” the Doctor’s chipper voice rose over the crowd of people around us. I looked up from the tapestry I was admiring and locked eyes with the Doctor. He sported his brown trench coat and modern looking suit, standing out like a sore thumb amongst the busy medieval market. I smiled and made my way to him. He took my hand, the warmth spreading from my fingers right to my heart. 

            “I’d like to show you something,” he said, gently leading me through the throng of shoppers. 

            “Is it a famous historical figure?” I asked, jokingly.

            “We already met one of those today! I can’t go around having you meet every important figure and confusing the history books,” the Doctor chuckled, looking over at me. 

            “Honestly, at this point I think we’ve done enough time travel to confuse every history book in the world,” I responded, only half-kidding. 

            The Doctor shrugged, laughing. His eyes crinkled and I smiled up at him fondly. How I loved him. 

            “Anyway, [Y/N], I wanted to show you this,” the Doctor helped me climb up a small embankment and pulled me to his side. I was so close to him I could hear his twin hearts beating in tandem.

            “Oh my – Doctor this is beautiful!” 

            Before me was a huge field of wildflowers, surrounding the giant castle overlooking the kingdom. Flowers long gone in my day stood bright and tall in the morning sun. Pink, yellow, and blue hues rippled across the fields as the breeze blew so slightly. The castle, a massive and elegant building, stood solemnly in the distance. It was like a fairytale. 

            “Isn’t it just lovely?” the Doctor said.

            “It looks like a storybook come to life!” I exclaimed. Though I had seen many incredible sights with the Doctor – from other planets to history-changing events, little things like this always made me pause in awe and admiration. The Doctor figured this out and now, every place or time we stopped in, he made a point of pausing with me to admire these views with me. 

            “A storybook with a beautiful princess,” said the Doctor, giving my shoulder a small squeeze. I blushed, looking away and trying to calm the nerves in my chest. I had to remind myself that no, he was not a human man, but an alien who was extremely old – romance was forbidden. Even then, I couldn’t stop the thundering in my chest.

End Flashback

Turns out people lied

They said, "Just snap your fingers"

As if it was really that easy for me to get over you

I just need time

            Click. Click. Click.

            I sat, absentmindedly typing away on my laptop. It was quiet in my office today. Most people were working from home, which left me with plenty of in-office tea. Though I enjoyed working at home too, that sometimes seemed to make my mind wander far too much, so I volunteered to come in more often than my colleagues. The job itself was fairly easy – a simple data entry job that consisted of me filling out spreadsheets and attending a meeting here and there.

            Mundane.

            Boring. 

            Normal.

            I stopped typing for a moment, staring off into the distance. It had been a year since I’d seen the Doctor. My wonderful, incredible Doctor. It’s funny – even though I knew it was a year for me, for the Doctor, he could jump into any part of my life and it would seem like just a second. Time was so confusing now. Was a year really so long? 

            I went back to typing, hardly noticing what I was doing. I had gotten this job a couple months ago after my parents begged me to try to do something with my life. After the Doctor had dropped me off, I spiraled into a depression. I felt nothing and everything at the same time. It was paralyzing. I wallowed for months, unsure of how to continue. I’d just been traveling through space and time, for goodness’ sake! However, as life began to move on without me, I realized that I couldn’t sit in my flat all day with nothing to show for it. My friends carefully pulled me back out into the wider world again, treating me gently and acting like I’d just experienced the worst break up of my life. In fact, they had met the Doctor a few times. To allay suspicion, he introduced himself as my boyfriend (though that made my heart race just thinking about it) and now that he was no longer coming around, they assumed (rightly so) that we’d broken up. Pretty accurate, I suppose.

            “You’ll be able to get over this hump,” said one of my friends on a particularly difficult night for me. “Life is full of mysteries and heartbreak, but I know you - you’re strong. And you have us.” 

            I was forever grateful to my friends for sticking by my side. It must have been odd – the Doctor had dropped me off during a time that was just a couple of months after he’d shown up in my life, so my friends probably thought I had fallen in too deep with a guy I’d known for a short time, even though to me, I’d known him for years. I smiled wryly. What a mess this was. 

            “Hey [Y/N]! Did you want to join us after work today for dinner?” one of my coworkers called from across the office, pulling me out of my reverie. “Boss said she’d pay!”

            I thought about it for a moment. It had been months since I’d gone out, much less socialized with a large group of people. I suppose I was feeling brave today. I smiled at him. “Sure, why not.”

            Trying to re-learn how to live a ‘normal’ human life was hard, but I was trying. Though I missed the Doctor more than life, I knew that my time as his companion was over. One step at a time. 

Snapping one, two

Where are you?

You're still in my heart

            Flashback

            “You look incredible, [Y/N]! I think you’ll definitely fit in,” the Doctor said, nodding in approval. I looked down at the huge, puffy dress, wondering if the Doctor needed his eyes checked. A large, powdered wig perched atop my head like some massive vulture. The Tardis hummed in approval, and I felt even more ridiculous. If the Tardis approved, then I knew I looked positively ludicrous.

            “Doctor, I know that this period of time involved this type of – fashion, but you don’t need to lie to me,” I grumbled, trying to keep the wig from toppling to the ground. “You can just tell me I look like an overstuffed cupcake.”

            The Doctor laughed. “You’re too much! I’m being serious – I think you look perfect.” 

            I rolled my eyes. “While I appreciate you, I also refuse to believe you.”

            The Doctor chuckled and walked over to me, poking my nose and smiling. “You always look perfect, sweetheart.”

            “Stop buttering me up and let’s get a move on,” I said, crossly. 

            “As you wish,” he said, bowing and holding out his hand as we started towards the Tardis’s exit. 

            I took his hand, trying to balance the wig and giant dress, while also attempting to be graceful. We managed to get outside – the Tardis had parked in an alleyway in 18th century Paris. I saw ladies in very similar attire as me walking about in the main road, their giant wigs seemingly glued to their heads. I envied how smoothly they walked across the cobblestone streets.

            “See, [Y/N]? You look like a French elite,” said the Doctor. “Told you that you look perfect.”

            “Well they look lovely, but I – whoa!”

            The heel of my shoe caught on a loose area of the cobblestone alley and I went tumbling. The wig, dress, and the many layers of undergarments went flying. The Doctor, caught off guard, came tumbling down next to me. We both hit the ground with a resounding oof.

            Panting, I laid there a moment. The wind had been knocked out of me. 

            “D-Doctor are you o-okay?” I gasped.

            I heard some grumbling and movement next to me. “Don’t worry, I’m good, it’s all okay,” he grunted. “I think your dress broke most of my fall, in fact.”

            “Oh so now I’m just a pillow for when you fall over?”

            “A very nice pillow, yes.”

            I laughed, though it came out more as a pained grunt. Pretty sure I landed on my tailbone – that would be sore for a couple days for sure.

            “Can you help your pillow up, please? I think I’ll change – era accurate fashion be damned for this trip,” I mumbled. 

            The Doctor jumped lightly to his feet. Surprising considering how far he’d fallen just moments ago. He held his hand out to me. 

            “Come on there, let’s get you changed up and then we can explore,” he said cheerily. “And I promise to never make you wear anything quite so… cupcake-like again.” He winked and I groaned.

            “You never cease to amaze me,” I said, grabbing his hand and getting on my feet. The wig lay forgotten on the cobblestone street. “It’s like you know exactly how to make me feel better and worse at the same time!” 

            He smiled, kissing my forehead. “It’s the power of the Doctor!” 

            I smiled back at him. “A special power indeed.”

End Flashback

Snapping three, four

Don't need you here anymore

Get out of my heart

'Cause I might snap

            It was a cold winter day. I was wrapped up like a little present against the cold. My puffy jacket, hat, and scarf were working overtime. My dog, a little corgi, shuffled ahead of me. I held on to her leash, keeping my hands shoved deep in my pockets. My parents had gotten her for me about two years ago, right after my first-year anniversary at my job. I was so excited – she was just the spark of joy I needed. 

            “Come on, [D/N]! I know you love the snow, but it’s freezing out here,” I said as she stopped to sniff another light post. “Let’s get ourselves home and warm, shall we?” 

            [D/N] looked up at me and wagged her tail. Though it was cold outside, my heart warmed me fully just looking at her little face.

            “Ok, fine, you can sniff a little longer,” I laughed, giving her a little more lead of the leash.

            [D/N] started to dig intensely in the snow, her face almost completely covered. I shook my head in amusement. Dogs were so silly sometimes.

            “Right, I’m sure there’s something really interesting in there, but I think you should probably stop digging on public land,” I said, giving her leash a little tug. 

            Suddenly, [D/N] popped out of the snow, a book in her mouth. 

            “What’s that you have there?” I said, kneeling down and carefully taking it from her. She wagged her tail and smiled at me, proud of her find.

            I looked at the cover. The Angel’s Kiss was embossed on the front.

            “Huh, The Angel’s Kiss, eh? Looks like one of those weird romance novels,” I joked to [D/N]. “I suppose we can put it on that bench over there. Hopefully someone can find it again.”

            “Excuse me! Excuse me I think you might have my book…”

            A cheerful voice suddenly rang out in the quiet winter air. I turned around to see a very tall man walking up the path. His hair was brushed over to one side of his face and his bowtie was slightly askew. 

            “Oh, this romance novel is yours?” I asked, holding it up and fully facing him.

            I noticed him do a double take, his face clouding over for a second, before the serene smile returned. “Ha, it’s no romance novel, but yes, it is mine. Well, kind of, I suppose,” said the stranger, reaching out for the book hurriedly. “But I can take it off your hands now.”

            I was startled by his sudden reach and the book fell back into the snow. “Oh, what’s the rush? Perhaps it is a spicy romance novel,” I said, half-joking. The man looked at me again for a long moment, before saying quietly, “No it isn’t,” as he leaned down and picked the book up from the snow. 

            “Thank you very much,” he said, and quickly turned away back up the path.

            As I watched him walk away my brow furrowed. He seemed so familiar to me. Though I didn’t remember ever seeing him before, there was something about him… I couldn’t quite put a finger on it.

            I looked down at [D/N]. She sat patiently, looking at me. “Well, I suppose my imagination can get out of hand sometimes, can’t it?” I said. “Come on, little one, let’s go.”

            As I turned away, back towards my flat, I heard a woman’s voice cry out “Doctor! Where have you been?”

            The Doctor? No, surely not here, not now…

            I whirled around. The man I’d just been speaking to was standing with two others now, a little farther down the path. A woman with red hair and a brown-haired man. The woman was tugging at the book I’d just handed back to him. Perhaps I’d misheard, maybe it was a mistake…

            “Doctor, what’s wrong? It looks like you’ve just seen a ghost,” said the woman.

            No, I hadn’t misheard. The familiarity, the odd comfort – it was the Doctor. Indeed, it wasn’t my Doctor, at least not as knew him, but it was still the Doctor. A rush of emotions hit me. I felt anger, sadness, pain, and hope all at the same time. Had he forgotten me? He didn’t seem to recognize me at all. And he had two new companions? When he’d left me, he swore he’d never take another person with him again – what was this hypocrisy? Was I not good enough?

            I felt my legs begin to move without me. I wanted to sprint to him, to demand answers, to figure out what was going on. Why did he look so different? Why did he act like he didn’t know me – was this another one of his kind? No, he said there were no Time Lords left. My brain was spinning. Four years. Four years. And he chose to show up now. Right as I was starting to feel whole again.

            “Doc –“ I began, but then, as though on cue, a massive gust of wind suddenly stirred up, causing the snow to dance into the sky and obscure my vision. I covered my eyes and quickly grabbed onto [D/N] to ensure she didn’t get lost in the gust. 

            The snow settled and there was no sign of the three figures. Still holding [D/N], I ran over to where they had been, hoping against hope I’d see one of them or the Tardis hidden amongst the bushes. Nothing. I blinked back tears, feeling an overwhelming sense of sadness and heaviness descend on my chest. I’d always wanted to see the Doctor again, but this felt wrong. He had new companions. He didn’t acknowledge me. He even looked completely different. The bubbling of emotions in my chest suddenly ripped through and I wailed in anguish. This feeling felt as fresh as the day he left me.

I'm writing a song

Said, "This is the last one"

How many last songs are left?

I'm losing count

Flashback

            I was shaking with fear. The Doctor stood in front of me, his arms spread to protect me. I could see his body quivering just a bit, but his voice held steady as he tried to reason with the Daleks in front of us. 

            “You don’t want to do this,” he said. “She is innocent – “

            “Exterminate.” Said the robotic voices, ignoring him. 

            “D-Doctor please, you need to g-go and save the others,” I whispered. “I can’t move and there are others who need you right now – please.”

            “Don’t speak, [Y/N],” he commanded. I could hear the fire in his voice. “I will protect you.”

            The Daleks had their blasters pointed at us, slowly closing in. I felt sick. This was all my fault. I had accompanied the Doctor on this mission to rescue some space travelers who had been captured by the Daleks. The Doctor tried to make me stay in the Tardis, but I insisted. Instead, all I’d done was gotten hurt and now the Doctor couldn’t continue with the rescue mission. I tried to stand but hissed in pain. A large gash on my leg prevented me from being able to move comfortably.

            “Don’t move, [Y/N], I don’t need you to be more hurt than you already are,” said the Doctor, his voice stern. Almost angry, I thought.

            I looked around wildly, wondering if somehow, I could help distract these beasts. We were pressed up against a wall, cornered. I felt the wall behind me. It was smooth metal. Hardly anything – wait! My hand hit a large bolt. It felt loose. I carefully began to untwist it, hoping to not draw attention to myself as the Doctor continued to speak to the Daleks. 

            Buy me a few more seconds, Doctor, I thought.

            Bingo! The bolt came off in my hand. Summoning all my courage and strength, I chucked it hard at the Dalek closest to me. It hit the dome of the robotic and it short-circuited. The other Daleks were momentarily distracted, so I grabbed the Doctor’s hand and pushed myself to move as quickly as I could despite the searing pain in my leg.

            “[Y/N]!” the Doctor yelped, surprised. “You’re brilliant.” 

            “I try to be,” I panted, concentrating on not falling as we made our escape. The Doctor grabbed me by the waist and half-dragged, half-carried me through the Dalek ship. 

            “Listen to me, [Y/N], I am going to get you back to the Tardis. Do you understand?” he said as we made our way back to the Time Lord’s ship. I nodded, weakly. On a normal day I’d protest, but with my leg and the mess I’d already caused, I accepted his judgement quickly.

            We made it back to the Tardis in one piece. The Doctor quickly got me inside and sat me down against a wall. He then typed something into the ship’s main interface.

            “Protective force field,” he said, without looking up.

            After he was done, he quickly came over to me. He gently grabbed my chin, raising my eyes to meet his. “Listen to me, [Y/N],” he began, his voice the most serious I’d ever heard. “You need to stay here, you need to stay safe, and you will not leave the Tardis. Do you understand me?”             I nodded; eyes wide. The Doctor was rarely this serious. 

            “Good.” 

            And with that, he left me there. The Tardis hummed nervously, and I did my best to patch my leg up as best I could. I hated sitting around while he was in danger, but I knew in this case I’d be nothing more than in the way. 

            It felt like ages, sitting in an empty Tardis, anxiously hoping the Doctor was going to come back to me in one piece. My mind started to race. What if the Doctor came back injured? I’d never treated him for any wounds before – would I know how to? What if…he didn’t come back? I’d only operated the Tardis a handful of times and wasn’t sure if I’d be able to escape. I pushed that dark thought out of my mind. He was the Doctor! Of course, he’d come back. 

            “Run!”

            I jumped as the Tardis doors swung open and the Doctor plus four spacemen came tumbling inside. The Doctor was furiously scrambling to the controls, shouting commands, and telling everyone to hold on. The chaos outside the Tardis swiftly disappeared as the ship started to whirl and we were off.

            The breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding was let out. The four spacemen huddled together, looking forlorn. I remembered the Doctor saying there had been eight. 

            “[Y/N], are you ok?” the Doctor was by my side, arm wrapped around my shoulders. “I’m so sorry you got hurt like this and I had to leave you. So sorry.”

            He looked at my leg, which was still seeping blood from under the bandage I hastily wrapped around it. I smiled wryly at him. “Just a scratch.”

            He shook his head and did not smile. I saw him gently touch my leg, though at this point the adrenaline that had been coursing through my veins was beginning to wane. The Tardis was getting darker and I felt my head start to fall to the side,

            “[Y/N]? Hey! Stay awake, [Y/N]! Stay with me. Please, stay with me!”

            I could hear the Doctor’s panicked voice but could not muster the strength to open my eyes again. I fell into a cloud of darkness, the world fading away.

***

            I woke with a start. Disoriented, I looked around the room I was in, vision blurry. My mouth felt so dry, and my head was pounding. 

            “[Y/N]? [Y/N]! You’re awake, good god, you’re awake,” the Doctor’s voice burst through the haziness and once again he was by my side. “Sit up slowly now, you’ve been asleep for a while.”

            “Sleep? What?” I mumbled, still trying to get my bearings. “Where am I? What’s going on?”

            “We’re in the Tardis,” he said. “Your body has been recovering from that wound on your leg.”

            I blinked a couple of times to get the Doctor into focus. His eyes were lined with worry and his hair was more tousled than usual. He looked haggard.

            “You look terrible,” I murmured. The Doctor shook his head, giving me a weak smile as he handed me a glass of water.

            “Happy to see you too,” he said quietly. 

            As I drank the water, the Doctor studied me intensely. His gaze burned my skin and I shifted uncomfortably under this scrutiny.

            “Doctor?” I began with uncertainty. “What’s wrong?” 

            The Doctor looked away, running a hand through his hair. He seemed to be steeling his nerves. Was he going to berate me for how I caused a massive problem on the Dalek ship? 

            Suddenly he snapped his head back to me and smiled widely. “Nothing, nothing at all, [Y/N]. Just glad you’re feeling better. Your leg wound should be all healed up after I cleaned and treated it. Since we’re parked near your flat, I figured you could get some rest in your own room once you finish your water.”

            Confused, I stared at him. Just moments ago he was incredibly somber and now he was acting as though nothing was wrong. I continued to sip my water, brow furrowed as I studied the Doctor. There was something up with him, but I decided not to press it for now.

            About a half hour later, the Doctor asked me if I could stand. I did so, carefully, noticing that my leg didn’t pain me any longer, but I still favored it. I was definitely sore.

            “So, how does the leg feel?” asked the Doctor. “Up to take a little walk?”

            I groaned as I stretched. “Fine, a little walk. After I get some things from my flat I want you to take me to the nicest alien spa there is in the universe.”

            The Doctor made a noncommittal noise and simply turned his back to me. “Come on, [Y/N], let’s go.”

            He guided me out of the Tardis. We walked a short way to the entrance of my flat. The Doctor got us in using his sonic screwdriver as I’d left my keys in the kitchen. As we entered the flat, I could tell there was some energy in the air that I could not quite put my finger on. There was something the Doctor wasn’t telling me. 

            “Doctor,” I said, suddenly turning around and staring at him straight in the eye. “What are we doing? What’s going on?”

            The Doctor avoided my gaze. “Can we please sit down in the living room to talk, [Y/N]?” 

            I frowned but obliged. As we sat down together, his hand resting gently on my knee, the Doctor looked me straight in the eyes and said, “[Y/N] you need to stay here now. This last trip I almost lost you, and I can’t lose another person.”

            The words seemed to echo in the empty flat, bouncing off the walls and assaulting my ears. 

            “Sorry, did you say stay here? As in, you’ll leave and not come back for me?” I asked, trying to understand what he was telling me. 

            The Doctor looked down. I felt his hand squeeze my knee slightly.

            “Yes. I promised myself that if one of my companions ever got hurt, or was close to getting terribly injured, I would never, ever, lead them to danger again,” he said. “And you, [Y/N], are the most important person in my life. Seeing you almost – seeing you pass out in my eyes I just – “

            The Doctor’s voice hitched. Instinctively, you reached out to comfort him, but he stopped your hand, gently lowering it back down away from him. “I refuse to be the reason you get hurt. I do not deserve to have a companion. You will be my last, [Y/N]. I hope you know how special you are to me”

            “N-no, don’t say this. You haven’t even asked me if this is what I want,” I choked out, tears welling in my eyes. “When we first met you said that we’d go everywhere together. You can’t just throw me away like trash.”

            The Doctor shook his head vehemently. “You are a treasure, [Y/N]. A treasure worth protecting. A treasure worth keeping far away to protect.”

            “Doctor no, I’m not delicate, I can help you – “

            The Doctor stood up suddenly. He didn’t look at me in the eyes as he said, “Goodbye, [Y/N]. Please stay safe. And don’t wait for me.”

            I grabbed for his hand, but he brushed it aside as he marched out toward the door of my flat. 

            “Stop! Doctor! DOCTOR!” I shouted, going after him. He paused for a moment in the entrance of my flat, and I hoped against hope he would stop. He turned to face me, a pained expression on his face. His mouth formed the words:

            “I love you.”

And he was gone.

Since June twenty-second

My heart's been on fire

I've been spending my nights in the rain-

Tryna put it out

            “Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday, dear [Y/N], happy birthday to you!”

            I smiled, surrounded by my friends and family as they sang to me. My birthday hat sat askew atop my head and a modest cake sat in front of me, the birthday candles glowing. 

            “Go on, blow them out and make a wish,” said my mum. 

            I thought for a moment, then blew out the candles. Ten years older. How time flies.

            “Well are you going to tell us what you wished for?” one of my friends asked, grinning. 

            Chuckling, I said what I repeated every year, “But then it wouldn’t be a real wish, would it?” My wish was silly – childish even, but I wished to see the Doctor one more time every year. At this point, it was a tradition I had to keep. The only soul who knew was [D/N] because she never judged.

            My friends and family shared the evening together, laughing, joking, and enjoying each other’s company. I endured the usual teasing of ‘when are you going to get a man? You can’t just work forever!’ and my mum and dad joking (with a hint of truth) about how [D/N] would be their only grand-pup. I was used to it by now and it didn’t bother me anymore. Yes, I threw myself into my career. It paid off as I was doing quite well for myself. Unfortunately, my job didn’t really give me a lot of time for dates, but I did try. It just seemed I was very unlucky in the dating scene. Nothing ever worked out. They all simply didn’t fill a void that seemed to constantly be in my heart.

            “You know, [Y/N], I have a new coworker who is super cute. I bet you guys would get along,” said one of my friends, whipping out her phone and showing me a picture. “Look he’s just your type!”

            I laughed. “Oh come on, you know I don’t have time right now! Besides, [D/N] and I are doing just fine, the two of us. She’s my best partner!”

            As the party started to wind down and people began to leave, I gave let everyone give one last pat to [D/N] on their way out. Her little tail still wagged furiously, though not as energetically when she was a pup. The grey around her muzzle was beginning to show more prominently, and I made sure to give her extra attention on days like today.

            “Hey girl, don’t think I forgot about your birthday treat,” I said once we were alone. I went the pantry and pulled out a little cake-shaped dog treat. [D/N] snagged it happily and curled up in dog bed, happy to gnaw on the treat. 

            I smiled. 

            “I’ll be right back,” I said to her. “Enjoy!”

            After tossing a few more things in my trash can, I tied up the full trash bag and I headed out of my flat. It was quiet outside. Peaceful. The summer bugs sang an evening song as I walked towards the trash receptacles in back of the complex. Street lamps illuminated my path. A man passed by me, his face obscured by the darkness.

            “Good evening,” said the man. 

            “Evening,” I said back, without much thought. 

            “Headed anywhere special?” he asked.

            Annoyed, I responded, “Yes, the trash. Isn’t that obvious from the trash bag in my hand?”

            The man laughed. “You never change, [Y/N].”

            “Sorry, do I know y –”

            My breath caught in my throat and the trash bag dropped from my hands. The man stood under a street light, revealing his face to me. 

   ��        “Doctor!” I exclaimed. I wanted to run to him, but I felt cemented to the spot. I was shocked. It was my Doctor, not the version I’d seen so many years ago. He looked almost identical to what I remembered, except that he was sporting a different color suit and looked a touch older.

            “I – you, what are you doing here?” I fumbled over my words, not knowing what to say or how to feel. 

            “I need you, [Y/N]. One last adventure for us to share,” he said. “I’ll understand if you say ‘no’, of course, but I –”

            I didn’t let the Doctor finish. I sprinted to him and wrapped my arms tightly around him. His familiar scent and warm embrace filling the empty space in my heart. 

            I heard him laugh, the wonderful sound giving me life. “I’ll take this as a yes.”

The familiar sound of the Tardis filled my ears and the Doctor, my Doctor, pulled me to his side once again.

            “Allons-y!” 

So I'm snapping one, two

Where are you?

You're still in my heart

[contraststudies]

Highlights from “David Tennant Does A Podcast With...” Neil Gaiman!

David Tennant called Neil Gaiman "one of those insufferable people who's entirely self-sufficient" after Neil confessed he’d been learning to bake during lockdown.

Neil Gaiman fought to keep the episode 3 cold open even when everyone else (producers, et al) wanted to cut parts of it out for being "utterly budget-busting." 

Neil Gaiman on writing the cold open: 

"I also knew [the cold open] would make everything else work... it would turn the [bandstand] from a scene that was a bit sniffly into one that would break people's hearts. You’d spent 28 minutes watching the ups and downs of these two on Earth for 6,000 years becoming the only important thing in each other's lives. Here is this moment where they have two utterly disparate philosophies of existing. Aziraphale cannot go off with Crowley and Crowley cannot leave without him, but he has to. The excitement that I had of writing that & the joy I had in knowing that we were going to watch a relationship open like a flower to us, ending in the 1960s with the handover of holy water, that there wouldn't be a dry eye in the house. I knew that because it did that for me. Watching what [David] and Michael brought to it, it became the most glorious, tentative friendship over thousands of years that becomes sort of peculiar and flirty and weird and prickly and funny. It was the one that won me the Nebula Award.

David Tennant on the cold open: 

"It's Michael and [my] favorite sequence as well. We've often said.“

Neil Gaiman on the Globe scene, after having to rewrite it due to budget and time constraints: 

"I'd never before seen a crew applaud at the end of a scene except for that Shakespeare scene... you had all of these jaded crew at 7 o'clock in the morning just clapping. It was amazing." 

Neil Gaiman on writing Good Omens with Sir Terry Pratchett: 

“Neither of us knew that what we were writing was saleable. We were writing to amuse each other. Our agents put it out for auction. And Terry, who at that time I don't think he'd sold a book for more than 15,000 pounds, phoned me in terror as the auction approached 100,000 pounds, and said, 'We have to stop this.'  I said, 'Why?' 'It'll come out, they're going to pay a lot of money for it. Then it won't sell enough to make up for it, and then I won't be able to sell my books anymore!' And I'm like, 'Terry, if the book doesn't sell, they'll blame ME.'”

Neil Gaiman on writing: 

“I believe wholeheartedly and utterly that writing is mysterious and spiritual and magical thing that is possibly the nearest I will ever get to touching the infinite. It was always that feeling that you had a huge block of stone and my job as the writer was to chip out all the bits that weren't what we were making, and we would be left with the statue that was already there in the marble. I believed that utterly, and I also believe that it was an absolutely utilitarian process. The most important thing in creation is that you start creating.”

[cherry-lipbalm]

survival of the fittest. spencer reid.

5.3k words.

masterlist

“ If they were to somehow get out of here alive, she was certain it would only be one of them. ”

three hours earlier

Y/N was ready to go home - more than ready. They'd gotten back from a hard hitting case in Boston, touching down by early afternoon meant they were expected back at the HQ, which henceforth meant piles of paperwork were in their future. Y/N knew her complaining would only go reprimanded by Hotch, so she kept to herself in her cubicle, shoved into the corner of the bullpen, and desperate to get the documents out of the way.

Over the scribbling of her pen, she heard the mutterings of Morgan and Reid's conversation beside the latter's desk not too far away from her own. She sighed in defeat, because she knew she wouldn't be able to resist joining them, especially when the opportunity arose to take the mickey at Spencer.

When it did inevitably arise, she pushed herself away from her desk and allowed the wheels on her chair to escort her over to the men. At the sound of jagged rolling, Morgan stepped aside to make space for her to insert herself, a snide smug painted on his face.

"Did I just hear the word 'Spencer' and 'girl' in the same sentence?" She asked, leaning on the armrest to shove her shit-eating grin into Spencer's face; he only rolled his eyes and gave an insincere 'ha ha'.

"Your ears did not deceive you, baby girl," Morgan said, receiving a smack on the arm from Spencer. The warning stare he gave him almost made Y/N stop pestering him. Only almost.

"Oh my! Spill the beans, who is she?" Y/N gushed, steering her chair even closer to the Doctor while Morgan watched on amusedly.

"There isn't a she," he grumbled, head bowed to his paperwork in the hopes that if he ignored the Agents they'd just go away.

"...a he?"

"No!" Spencer exclaimed, snapping his head upwards.

"Hey! It's no skin off my nose, Spence."

He groaned, then turned back to his work and allowed for Morgan and Y/N to exchange a glance as they both tried to hold back snickers at their friend's flustered existence.

She stayed huddled around with them for a few more minutes, but as soon as she saw the clock hit 5, she jumped from her chair and kicked it back to her desk. Announcing that she was off, she began to gather and pack her things. While she did so, she heard Spencer make the same announcement.

"You're off earlier than usual," she called back, "let me guess... Doctor Who marathon?"

Spencer's smile gave him away; Y/N chuckled and draped her coat over her shoulders, standing by his desk while he adjusted his satchel.

"Busy man," she commented, then proceeded to listen to whatever sci-fi related ramble Spencer was emitting, interjecting with exclamations of intrigue or surprise whenever she deemed suitable (they were all timed guesses, but she didn't waver once).

"...Christopher Eccleston is actually the second favourite, despite the fact that a lot of people skip his season, but he has a 52% popularity–"

"Wait, why do people skip his season?"

"Oh, because he preceded David Tennant. He's the favourite, with a 69% popularity."

"Ha, 69," Y/N muttered under her breath with a crude smirk. Spencer only gave a restrained smile and raised his eyebrows. The two fell into a silence, except from a 'thank you' Y/N said softly when Spencer opened the door for her.

The elevator button illuminated under her touch, and they stood in front of the steel doors, awaiting their opening. Y/N tapped her foot senselessly, and Spencer rolled on the balls of his heels.

In amidst the silence, Y/N looked up to Spencer and they exchanged a warm smile. The beep of the elevator distracted them, and after stepping aside to let people out, they ambled in and finally relaxed when the doors closed on them again.

"Today was relentless," Y/N sighed, checking her watch.

"Have any plans?" Spencer asked, out of courtesy.

"Well, I have to head to the repair store to pick up my phone, but after that there's leftover Chinese food in the fridge with my name written all over it," she chuckled.

"What happened? To your phone?"

"Morgan happened," was all she said. Spencer joined in on her judgement even though he didn't know the story, he did know that 'Derek Morgan' was simply a reason in itself that didn't warrant an explanation. Then, they lulled in the return of silence.

It wasn't until the elevator jerked and came to a sudden stop that the two spoke again.

"That's not right," Spencer muttered, and he immediately began to jab at the ground floor button before Y/N smacked his hands away, because she was already deep in a panic, so it was even worse when the next astounding jerk hit. She screamed when they were thrown off balance, and hoped she hadn't got a concussion from where she collided with the back wall upon the motion.

"What the hell?" She panted. They came to a still, but it made her even more nervous because she knew they hadn't been in there long enough to reach their floor. That, and the fact that they had just ripped through the air at about a hundred miles per hour.

Spencer's eyes furrowed, and he licked his lips in the way he did when he was focused on something. Judging by the way he assessed the doors, Y/N thought he was about to pull some thwarted stunt, or more likely reel off some facts about steel.

"I think something's wrong," he mumbled.

"No shit, Sherlock,"

"Ah, elementary my dear Watson," Spencer replied so quickly that Y/N was almost inclined to believe it made any sense.

"Did you know that Sherlock Holmes never actually said that? Sir Arthur Conan Doyle never wrote those words, they were only adapted into the movies years later-"

"Oh my god, Spencer, are we stuck in this elevator?" Y/N shrieked, her knuckles whitening under her tight clutch of the hand rails on the wall: half from fear and the other from frustration.

"Oh, uh, yeah, I think so."

Upon Spencer's bluntness, she stepped forward, desperate for any attempt of an escape plan, she began pressing the ground floor button repeatedly; when that didn't work, she resorted to aimlessly smashing all the buttons on offer. 

"That's– that's really not gonna do anything," Spencer said in the background.

"Do you have a better idea?" She snapped, turning to him with a glare before resuming her actions.

"Try the - try that one!" He pointed to the red button with an alarm bell engraved on it, and Y/N felt stupid under his stare for not noticing it before. She pressed it, and the ringing noise that emitted from it seemed to do nothing but that: ring. She was certain someone was supposed to come to their aid through a speaker, so she pushed it continuously, but derived nothing further. At least she gained some comfort in the panic of Spencer's voice that told her he was shitting himself as much as she was.

"It's not doing anything!" She cried, and when he leaned over her and pressed it too, she bit her tongue and raised her eyebrows to tell him 'see?', infuriated at the fact that he thought she could be somehow pushing a button wrong. But, then again, she'd have been even more angry if he'd done it and it had worked.

When it didn't, she alternated to the next best thing.

"Help!" She yelled, slamming her palms against the doors. She didn't know what floor they'd been wedged at (or even if they were just floating in some space between levels), but someone had to hear them; they were bound to...right?

Spencer seemed to think so at least, because he was joining her in pounding his fists on the steel. Sooner rather than later, the harsh echo made Y/N's ears ring, so she stopped and took a step back.

"Well, this is great," she sighed, slumping in a lean on the wall as she rubbed her temples.

"I'm gonna miss Doctor Who," Spencer whined, pouting.

Y/N just rolled her eyes at him and told him to call somebody. She was sure she'd seen JJ just before they left, still huddled in her office; hopefully she'd be able to call maintenance and they could be released from this death trap of a machine.

"I can't, my phone died. Use yours."

"What?"

"My phone's flat, can you use yours?"

Y/N just stared at him. She decided to give him the benefit of the doubt because the adrenaline rush of panic can make memories a bit hazy, but her skin was flustering under the rage she was feeling, her forehead was already beginning to perspire and the walls were so small and entrapping and - is it hot in here or just her?

"My phones at the store," she reminded him through gritted teeth, and watched his composure fall in both comprehension and defeat.

"Great," he remarked.

"Oh, like it's my fault?"

"Well, it's not mine."

"And it's not mine either so don't talk to me like that!"

It was only a short exchange, but it made Y/N's blood boil; if they were to somehow get out of here alive, she was certain it would only be one of them.

Spencer gulped, and Y/N was sure that had he the opportunity to he would be storming away right about now, but unfortunately for the both of them that wouldn't be happening anytime soon. The wonderful reality of this hitting Y/N, she kicked off her shoes and planted her bum down on the floor.

Spencer looked at her curiously while she did this, then quirked his lip and proceeded to do the same. He used his satchel as a pillow to support his head, and sighed loudly (it seemed deliberate just how exaggerative it was).

"No one is ever gonna find us here," Y/N said.

"We're not dying–"

"You don't know that. We could be suffocating as we speak-"

"Suffocation is impossible in elevators: the cars are designed not to be airtight and there's vents that allow air to move in and out," he pointed up at the grated opening above Y/N's head. At being proved wrong by Spencer and his big, unfathomable brain, she crossed her arms much like a stroppy toddler and even pouted her lip.

"We could still die," she mumbled.

"The statistics of that are still very unlikely; in fact, the people that die the most in elevators are elevator technicians themselves. An average of 26 people die in elevators every year in America–"

"And you're ready to be one of those 26?"

"We're not going to be. We won't suffocate, and it hasn't fallen."

"Yet," she said. "Plus, theres other ways to die. Like, I don't know, murder perhaps?" She said with a potent glare in his direction. He gave her a blank stare partnered with a sarcastic smile, one that only made Y/N more devoted to her other-ways-to-die initiative.

"We just have to wait a while... Did you know the longest duration of time someone was stuck in an elevator was 41 hours? Nicholas White. And all he had to eat was a packet of Rolaids."

More than accustomed to tuning out Spencer's rambles, Y/N barely heard what he was talking about, in a dazed trance where she was focused intently on where the paint didn't match the wall, she was so invested she almost missed what he said.

"Wait... oh my god. Do you have food?" She asked, sitting up from her subsided posture.

Spencer's face softened in dread, which didn't bring any aid nor optimism to their situation.

She watched him sit forward, shoving hands into the pockets of his blazer, coat, trousers and pulling out nothing but a few crumpled pieces of paper. Y/N matched him with an empty gum wrapper and a Walmart receipt displaying a concerning amount of pregnancy tests she had purchased last month.

"Do I even wanna know?" Spencer asked, chucking it back to the ground with a grimace as if it was riddled with germs (it probably was but, still).

"All you need to know is that I'm not pregnant," Y/N scoffed, almost amicably, but her eyebrows creased and she was back to a fuck everything this sucks expression in less than a second.

"Well we can't survive on this."

"You really haven't brought any food?" Spencer pestered.

"No, I had Chinese leftovers on the cards for tonight. And I don't see you offering anything up; what's your excuse?"

Spencer only groaned, again. He kicked his feet out and let his head fall onto the wall back in the same place. He ran a hand through his hair, and the scarce gel he had used to keep it in place disassembled around his face in random strays of curls. The sight of him relaxing like he was settling in for the night didn't appease Y/N one bit.

While Spencer closed his eyes, Y/N got to her feet and decided slamming on the door again was a better pastime. Spencer, however, did not agree.

At the banging, Spencer's eyes shot open and his body shook in alarm. His eyes darted around the space frantically until they landed on Y/N's figure aligned with the doors on which she was unleashing hell. If yelling could open an elevator, they'd have been out in a jiffy.

"I think we've established that doesn't help," Spencer said.

"Then you help!" She shouted, continuing the thrashing of metal.

"How?"

"I don't know!" Her shriek echoed, and she yet again gave up on the violence. "Use that big brain of yours and find us a way out of here."

"The 7 steps to surviving being stuck on an elevator are fundamental; we've already done them. They include pressing the open button, the alarm and call button. We still have our light source, otherwise finding one would have been number two. We've tried yelled for help. The only one we haven't done is stayed calm," he said with a heavy emphasis in her direction. Currently, she was the epitome of panic.

Y/N furrowed a brow at him, "That's six. What's number seven?"

She watched Spencer inhale deeply before he told her, "wait it out."

Y/N felt her heart sink. The possibility of her going insane while being confined within this space was only increasing as the minutes passed by. And with that, she felt like oxygen was depleting alongside it. She took a big breath to remind her that there was still air to breathe, and Spencer caught sight of it.

"Are... are you claustrophobic?"

"No!"

His eyes widened at her outburst, and he even raised his hands in defence should the situation present itself, which was looking pretty inevitable.

"I'm not, I just... get a little... panicked, that's all."

"You don't say," he murmured, and —with a grunt— got to his feet again. He treaded towards the damned doors. Y/N thought he was going to bang on them again, and she took front-row seat on the floor to watch the imprudent, futile attempt. Instead, Spencer's long arachnid-like fingers dug into the crevice of the doors and he tried to pry them open. This was an even vainer approach; his strained groans showed such.

"It's no use. We're gonna be here for a while. I can offer you a juice carton," Y/N spoke, making Spencer turn attentively at the word 'juice'. He looked down to where she was rummaging through her bag and depositing a few random objects while she did so. In a very Mary Poppins like fashion, the entities incessantly kept coming and coming, gathering in remarkable piles on the floor. There seemed to be more things than space available, but then they were trapped in an elevator and space was one of the many luxuries the agents realised they had taken for granted. Despite his astonishment at the growing belongings, there seemed to be a concerning lack of food present.

She was, however, holding out an apple juice carton, and Spencer figured that you get what you're given. So while her attention focused to the remnants of whatever was in her bag, Spencer punctured the carton with the straw, and began sucking. He made a squeal of surprise and relief when he saw her pull out a feebly wrapped, half eaten bag of crackers.

"Oh, I forgot about these," she announced, with the first smile Spencer had seen from her since the elevator had broken down.

He leaned down to grab the bag, dusting off the sprayed crumbs and then took a seat to Y/N's left. He left space between them for chivalrous purposes and also to allow space for the bag of crackers to sit.

They made attempts to ration the snack, but it soon developed into an every man for himself situation when Y/N noticed Spencer had started to take two at once.

She wasn't even hungry anymore, but the hunger for beating Spencer at something prevailed and disregarded any logical thought that they ought to save food, so she dove in again for another cracker. Unluckily, she did so at the same time as Spencer, so it made for an awkward encounter when their hands collided but neither was willing to give up their slot in the bag.

Eventually (because they didn't want the other to notice their blush), they gave up when time ran too long and reached a compromise with halving the cracker. Y/N gave Spencer the bigger half of her failed equal snap, but neither of them addressed it.

Neither of them addressed anything actually, for the next... god knows how long they were cooped up in there. They sat in a pleasant silence, free from any awkward glances or trepidations: it was both from the fact that they were in their own heads, and a serendipitous comfort in one another.

"I'm sorry you're going to miss your Doctor Who... thing," was what broke the silence.

"Oh, it's okay. I can just watch it on repeat tomorrow."

"Okay," Y/N laughed softly, and they floated into another quiet.

"I'm sorry you're stuck in an elevator."

"Ha! Me too."

"When we get out of here maybe we can go for Chinese food," Spencer suggested, craning his neck to look at her with a discreet smile.

"Sure," she agreed. "By the time we get out my food at home might have rotten anyway."

And then time after that just... passed. In Spencer's satchel he had an uncanny assortment of reading material to thrive on, and amid her odd collection of pretty much everything she had ever owned, Y/N found an old MP3 player and some earphones (only the left ear worked, but it was as good entertainment as she was going to get).

There comes a point, though, when one person can only listen to so much music from their teen years; Y/N's taste back then was... questionable, to say the least. And her earphone seemed to agree with her, because it gave out just when the unmistakable sound of an NSYNC song began.

"Ugh, just when it was getting good!" She complained, tugging the bud from her ear and throwing it onto the miscellaneous pile.

Spencer's head quirked to Y/N, but his eyes only followed after he had finished a sentence on his page. When he did, he saw her curiously leaning over his shoulder and squinting at the words.

"You can borrow it if you want," he said. "This is my third time reading it and I have others."

He gestured to his pile, which had evolved into a makeshift bookcase in the corner of the elevator. A few pages were torn, and the spines were so worn down that she could barely make out what the titles were. Not from a lack of TLC, but rather copious amounts of it; having been read over and over again. 

"No, it's okay. You continue, I'll just... meditate, or something."

"It's a good book," Spencer said, and he sounded like he was trying to persuade her, so she gave in and nodded. Readjusting her posture, she focused again on where the paint didn't meet the wall as she listened to the one thing she thought she wouldn't ever be able to stand: Spencer Reid's voice.

———

Which, to her and Reid's surprise, she found quite calming. Her hidden envy and not so hidden annoyance with his ability to reel off facts and wisdom like he was only recalling what he had for dinner hindered any fondness Y/N could associate with his voice. Until now, that is.

He was reading Strangers on a Train, supposedly his third favourite book, and they were reaching "the best bit" according to Spencer, but then every bit within the past forty five minutes since he'd started reading had been "the best bit", so Y/N wasn't sure.

But she's pretty calm, as calm as she can be stuck in an elevator, so she's actually thankful she has Spencer of all people beside her. She knew that if Morgan was in his place they'd have attempted murder at least a couple times by now; not to say that Y/N hadn't considered stabbing Spencer at all, but there's only so much damage a blunt pencil at the bottom of her bag could do.

So, she's calm. She's barely following the story because she only joined in halfway through, but she's grasped the basis of it because Spencer reads so eloquently and so well that he's practically painted the vividness of the narrative for her, even though he vouches it's down to Patricia Highsmith's words, which is true, but Spencer has a role in it too.

One thing Spencer recites makes Y/N wonder why she's never had him read to her before.

"People, feelings, everything! Double! Two people in each person. There's also a person exactly the opposite of you, like the unseen part of you, somewhere in the world, and he waits in ambush."

The story portrays an uncanny resemblance to the plots of the abundant crime scenes they analyse daily (Y/N wonders how Spencer comes home from work only to read about the same gory instances): the same mannerisms, behaviours and intricate understanding of criminal attitudes. It's accuracy is so astounding that Y/N asks if the author was ever a profiler of sorts.

Although it's selfish, because Y/N is not the real victim, she wished there was some way Highsmith's words could spring into real life and provide tainted rose coloured spectacles to which she could observe reality through. In some sick way, Y/N needed to see beauty in things like murder. She sometimes forgot that what they were doing had a purpose, and they tended to be the good guys. But there was no writing beautiful enough for Spencer to read and glorify the crimes with.

But even Y/N thinks Spencer's reading could help her see life through more of the silver lining rather than shrouded by the dark cloud that accompanied it.

The moment of rare serenity within Spencer's words is suspended, however, when he suddenly stops with no obvious justification. Y/N wonders if she's missed something profound within the story again so she goes to read over them on the page this time (because she's been rather entranced in Spencer's voice rather than the actual words), except when she looks up she sees a look of horror depicted on Spencer's face: one that doesn't register with her primarily because what's happening in the story is rather quite mundane compared to the dismay on his face. It's so poignant that she thinks something must be fatally wrong.

"What is it?" She asks, sitting up (and away because she thinks he may be about to vomit. But no, the real reason is even more horrific).

"I need to pee."

Y/N gasps; she hadn't even conjectured this predicament. It was a basic human necessity, how had she not anticipated this would happen? At first she thought, hey it's not that bad, better him than me— he can stand. Until she realises that there isn't really anywhere to stand.

"Oh no," she whispers, and he looks at her dauntingly. "You shouldn't have drank that apple juice."

"What was I supposed to do, bathe in it?" He scorns, and the two connect in an unwavering exchange eye contact with one another. Y/N dreads looking away in fear of what he'll do when she has her back turned.

So, like I said, Y/N was pretty calm, and I'd say Spencer was too; reading was a delight, and he found Y/N almost as endearing (almost). Life was bearable until Spencer needed to pee.

And it is here that they throw all peace out the window (if there was one) and give up on step number seven, and instead say hello to their old friend step number five: frantic yelling.

The energy pent up from lazing around reading and being read to is released fairly effectively. Y/N thinks she's never screamed so loud in her life, and Spencer knows he hasn't: entrapment and a full bladder can take one hell of a toll on a man.

And when the profusion of footsteps and the clanging of doors sounds, it is glorious. It is what they imagine heaven to sound like and more. Y/N collapses to the ground in relief, and Spencer throws his hands up in a prayer of thanks (even though he doesn't necessarily believe, but he is just so high on adrenaline and the discomfort of needing a wee that he'd just about believe anything now if it meant he could get to a bathroom).

"You guys okay in there?" A voice calls in from above them (Spencer genuinely thinks it's God) and Y/N has never been more happy to hear Derek Morgan.

"We're good! We're good! Oh my god, get us out of here please!"

"Right on it, baby. Bet y'all thought you were gonna die in there, huh?"

"Worse," Y/N called, "I thought I was gonna have to see Spencer's dick!"

Morgan laughed (music to their ears: any voice that wasn't each other's fit that criteria in that moment), and then told her he didn't want to know. Spencer and Y/N heard him holler behind him, and even more footsteps approached. Y/N couldn't see much from the slither between the doors that had just been pried open, since they had fallen a considerable distance from their floor. What she could see was only half of Morgan's face while he knelt on the ground.

"What happened?" Spencer asked, trying to gain some understanding for the reason behind missing his Doctor Who marathon.

"Power cut. The whole city's in blackout."

"You're kidding," Y/N replied, then turned. "A whole lotta people just risked that 1 in 26."

"Us included," Spencer said.

They recognised the voices of the maintenance team, and even a few uniforms of firefighters that worked on opening the doors with as much force as they could muster. Y/N looked again to the wall and paint mismatch, finding it too unsettling to look at their rescue attempt (that had way too much potential to go wrong) and even more unsettling to look at Spencer who was practically cradling his crotch.

"Ladies first!" A fireman called, and his hand reached into the space they had managed to (barely) increase, hoping that it wouldn't prove to be too difficult. From what Morgan told them, Spencer wouldn't have any trouble getting through it if they had halved the space ("the kid's a sherbet stick, I'm telling you").

"No, we've got a man here who's about to explode," Y/N joked, forgetting that the word 'explode' is a term one should use lightly within the headquarters of the FBI. She was blissfully reminded of this when the few surrounding agents brandished their guns. They almost didn't let them out until Spencer yelled that if he didn't get to a bathroom that instant he would give them a real reason to get their guns out.

So he was lifted out first, falling into Morgan's arms the chance he got to. He, somehow, managed to wait until he saw Y/N definitely leave the elevator before racing off down the hallway. Maintenance didn't even bother telling him that the doors have been locked because officially work finished three hours ago; they figured he had enough vigour in him to knock a wall down, never mind a door.

"Are you alright?" Morgan asked Y/N, lifting her up onto her own to feet. She's given a shock blanket, which is a pretty cool souvenir.

"I'm here, aren't I?"

"Miraculously. I don't know how you survived in there with him; I'd go insane."

"Eh," she chuckled, "he's not too bad."

———

After gathering their belongings, Y/N and Spencer make their way to leave work, again.

Morgan's nonchalant explanation of the blackout is in no way accurate to the genuine portrayal of, what Y/N can only describe as, a thriller movie come to life. She's looking out the wide scale windows in the bullpen room and can only see her reflection. It's creepy. Skittishly, she jumps when Spencer's image shows up behind her own. 

"Jesus, haven't I had enough near death experiences tonight?" She asks, holding a hand over her heart that she's sure just kickstarted (for various reasons).

"Sorry," he laughs. Placing his hands in his pockets, Y/N can sense he's more relaxed now that he's peed and no longer trapped within the restrictions of one metre.

They smile, then look out again to the darkened abyss before them. Y/N has never seen the city so quiet, yet she knows it's anything but. Once she steps outside it's bound to be hectic central.

"You normally get the subway, what are you gonna do?"

"Oh, I guess I'll just walk," Spencer shrugs.

"Absolutely not. I'll drive you home."

"Oh, no, you don't have to do that—"

"Spence, I just spent the last three hours in a confined space with you, I'm sure I can do twenty minutes more," she said. "Get your stuff ready, we can head off now."

She swung her bag over her shoulder and turned to walk out the bullpen, her heels reverberating throughout the room. Spencer watched her stride out by her reflection in the window, as to not be caught staring.

"If my car breaks down I'm gonna commit murder!"

Spencer laughed loudly, which made Y/N smile as she passed the kitchenette. When he continued to chuckle to himself he realised he wouldn't mind another three more hours stuck with her— at least he'd have an excuse if the car broke down. Maybe if he set off now he could get there in time to beat Y/N to her car and slash the tyres. He kindly reminded himself that that's illegal while he retrieved his satchel off the back of his chair and strutted out the office.

He wasn't too far behind Y/N when he suggested getting a Chinese on the way back.

"Is that a date?"

"If eating a Chinese takeaway in your car is your idea of a date," he sang.

"It very much is," Y/N grinned irrefutably.

He held the door open for her, she said thank you, and their giddy (dare I say lovesick) smiles dropped when they faced the elevator.

They've taken the stairs every day since.

fin.

[six-improbable-things]

Morrigan Watches: Doctor Who - The Day of the Doctor

So, this is the second time I'm typing this post, and I hope to God that I manage to get it all down this time and not have it all disappear like last time, but I just finished watching this episode, and the only thought that's going through my mind right now is AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, because even though I've seen this episode about 4 times now, it still makes me feel some kind of way.

I don't even know how to put into words how I feel about this episode. The way it shatters my heart and heals it all at once. They way it makes me laugh, and want to cry. In my mind, this episode means more to me than any episode of any TV show ever will. And not just because of the plot, or how it's written, or the fact that I get to see David Tennant and Billie Piper again, but because this is the episode that got me into Doctor Who to begin with.

Yes, that's right. It wasn't the first episode I watched (I started with Nine like everyone should), but it was the reason I started watching the show at all.

In elementary, a friend of mine was hosting a party to watch the 50th. Since I hadn't seen the show, I couldn't attend. (Was that shitty? Maybe, but that's not the point.) Not wanting to be left out, I started watching Doctor Who, and I fell in love. I'm still in love, and every few years I fall in love all over again. So, thank you to The Day of the Doctor for getting me here.

And of course, I can't make this post without noting that this year is the 60th anniversary of the show. Doctor Who, I love you, and I can't wait to see where (and when) the show goes next.

[long rambling essay about specific details under the cut.]

There's so many details about this episode that make me lose my mind, but I'll try and be at least semi-coherent.

Firstly, this episode is quite possibly my favorite episode of the whole show, because it does such a good job of tying everything together. Working the Zygon Invasion plot seamlessly into the War Doctor's decision. The effect that it has on all three versions of the Doctor. The way that, after 7 seasons of hints and mentions, we finally get to see the day the Doctor pushed the button. (and as an added bonus, after 4 seasons, we finally get an explicit reason why Queen Elizabeth the First was mad at the Doctor in The Shakespeare Code.)

And the way they tied Capaldi in, not just via his little cameo, but also by giving him The Zygon Invasion / The Zygon Inversion plotlines, which are a direct follow-up to this episode. So, he's still involved, still making his mark.

The fact that all three of them, even the one who forgot, and the one who could never forget, were ready to push that button, so that the War Doctor didn't have to be alone.

The way that Clara was the one who noticed, who knew that the War Doctor hadn't done it yet, even though Ten and Eleven assumed he had. The way she was the one who convinced them to go and help him, or maybe stop him.

The way the Moment took Rose's form, and therefore confirmed that she is quite possibly the most important person who ever has or ever will travel with him.

And the look on Ten and Eleven's faces when the War Doctor said "Bad Wolf Girl, I could kiss you!". You could see both of their hearts stop, their brains freeze. They didn't have much time to think about it, but I can guarantee that if Ten in particular had remembered that encounter, those words would have haunted him for centuries.

The way the War Doctor told Ten and Eleven that he was proud of the men they were, even though they became that way by believing they had burned Gallifrey.

And the way that Ten and Eleven, who had been so adamant that the War Doctor wasn't the Doctor, and never would be, called him Doctor, because they understood. They didn't hate him anymore. They knew he did what he could, and together they found a way to fix it.

And Ten's last words being "I don't want to go." nearly broke me, because I never wanted him to go to begin with, and now I got him back, if only for an hour, and I have to say goodbye again. (And as a bonus, Eleven saying "he always says that" because he remembers the regeneration.)

And the under-gallery being the Curator's TARDIS. (I mean, seriously, the hexagons on the wall and everything!!)

The way Ten and Eleven went from mocking each other to being so confident and synchronized when they were setting up the peace treaty, because they knew now, that they were the same man, and they could trust each other.

And of course, the infamous "You redecorated. I don't like it." and the bit about the round things, and you can just see the pure joy on David and Matt's faces, because they're having the time of their lives, one last time.

I love this episode more than I can put into words, and I could spend hours talking about it, but I love it dearly, and I just want to say,

Happy Anniversary, Doctor Who.

[doodledrawsthings]

Her Aim Was Getting Better

(Ahit ““““““Coffee Shop AU”““““““ rp log)

This is part of an RP between @displacedentities and myself detailing the meet-up between Luka and Vanessa, when she spikes his coffee with the curse. We did this a while back to get a feel for the characters and how that scene would go down, and they nailed it with how they wrote Vanessa. So I asked them if I could post it. Some of the stuff here was written before we had other things established, so some things like Hatties’s age and how long ago they split might be inconsistent with other posts I’ve made, but Enjoy!

(also forgive me for the way i write my parts, I’m not as practiced at writing rip)

(MysticDoodles) Despite the warm paper cup in her hands, Vanessa couldn't deny the chill in her bones. It had yet to go away since that day in court, biting at her skin and hovering just at the base of her brain stem. It always seemed to grow colder whenever she thought about how she got here... the things she'd said. What she almost did to that poor briefcase jockey in the courthouse.

But it didn't matter, anymore. If anything, her mom was happy she lost that case. Losing her husband and... child had stripped away all excuses she had not to throw herself into her work, and her mother was happy. 

Vanessa was not happy. 

In fact, she was seething. 

Luka took everything from her, that day. Her love, her place in their home. His adorable smile, his laugh... they weren't hers anymore. He only gave them to that- little gremlin. The parasite that took his love away from her, her precious nickname given to their daughter. 

Nobody got to be Luka's princess except Vanessa herself. Never again.

She lost the custody battle and her efforts to take Luka's obsession away from him, but she was going to make sure he lost so much more.

Vanessa waited in the autumn breeze, her fingers clenching and unclenching around the coffee cup. Chestnut-infused Columbian. His favorite. A sister cup sat opposite the table, waiting for him. If he was brave enough to show his face. .

(DeusExMakena)  He could see her from his car as he pulled into the parking space, sitting at a table by the large window at the front of the coffee shop. How long had it been now? Around five years, right? Hattie was barely a year old when they split.

He used to get so excited about meeting her, being in her presence, making her smile... and now the very thought of just getting out of his car and making eye contact with her left a pit in his stomach. As much as he'd loved this woman in the past, the way she treated their newborn daughter.... he had to stop thinking about it. Starting this meeting out in an angry mood wouldn't be a good idea.

With a sigh he finally willed himself to leave the vehicle, and just as he looked up their eyes met. The pit in his stomach deepened as he walked up to the cafe doors.

(MysticDoodles) The ice crept up her neck again. Vanessa forced it down, and put up a smile. No reason to start this off as cold as the ice in her veins. 

 Luka can see from her attire that she's doing rather well- financially, anyway. A thick coat against the autumn chill- or maybe from her heart, so closed off- and a scarf stuffed into her bookbag. Her mother must have improved her stipend, now that they split. What a beastly woman. It's pointless to ponder what-ifs at this point, but maybe if Vanessa's mother had been someone else... no. No point.

 With one hand, she gestures to the chair opposite her. Empty and waiting. "Hello, Luka. I got your favorite. You're doing well?" 

 ...the tenor isn't as friendly as it sounds, and feels more plastic than her smile appears.

(DeusExMakena) He hesitates, looking around the venue at the other tennants before wordlessly taking the seat across from her, mostly staring at the coffee cup in front of him.

Why is he having such a hard time looking at her?

"I'm... fine," he manages to force out as he takes the cup in both hands. Come on, man just get this over with and you can go home. "So uh, what brings you here?"

He wishes he could kick himself in the face for how out of place he feels, right now. What do you even say to someone you haven't seen in years, when the last time you saw them had been after an intense battle over the custody rights of the child you fought so hard to protect?

At least the warmth of the cup in his hands provides him with some reassurance.

(MysticDoodles) Something in Vanessa's smile twitches, but it's gone before he can really tell what it was.

"Oh- I just wanted to chat, catch up on old times, you know? I'm guessing the bar exam went well?"

...

Awkward silence, as Vanessa turns her smile away. She lifts her own coffee cup to her lips and takes a long drink, looking at the pavement.When she sets it down, there's a brief moment where her fingertips looked blue. It soon fades back into perfectly trimmed nails.

"...you know why I called you here, Luka. Don't make me lie to you." Her voice grows quiet, though pensive or frustrated is difficult to parse. "You were always better at lying, anyway."

(DeusExMakena) He squints slightly at that last remark and has to do enrything in his power to hold his tongue.

"I dont, actually. With the way things ended the last time we saw eachother, I was almost sure that would be it." he says, probably with a bit more venom in his tone than he should have used, but he was here for less than 10 minutes, now, and he could already feel his patience waning.

"But if you're really just here to reconnect, you'll have to forgive me" he takes a moment to swirl the cup in front of him before lifting it towards his mouth "I'm not very good at small-talk."

Chestnut-infused Columbean bean. Cream and Sugar. So nice to know that she never forgot.

(MysticDoodles) Vanessa smiles as he takes a drink. It's gone by the time he removes the cup again.

"...sorry," she says. Her stony expression shifts into a frown. This wasn't how she expected this conversation to go- but really, she had been expecting nothing, so no pain or gain thus far. "I'm not being very polite, am I? I guess I just- missed you, Luka. It's very different, going back to my mother's apartment after-... well. Being with you."

...

Another quiet sip. Vanessa runs her finger on the plastic cap.

"...do you miss the nights after we studied, when we'd just sit on the couch together and watch garbage movies?"

Before Harriet came along, she didn't say aloud.

(DeusExMakena) Of course he did, he loved her. And as much as he'd love to revisit those moments, to relive the sense of elation he felt when he got her to laugh over awkward acting and nonsensical writing... He just couldn't forgive her for what she did.

He sighs, opting to indulge in her to see where she's going with this.

"Yeah," He takes another sip, looking back down at the table "Sometimes I still wonder why that had to stop."

(MysticDoodles) There's no way he misses the way her fingers tighten on the paper coffee cup. Especially since it's accompanied by an audible pop of paper crumpling in a half inch, and liquid sloshing within.

"They did stop, Luka."

How could he be so blind?

"They stopped when you stopped spending them with me. You spent all your time with our daughter, and not with the loving wife who gave her to you. Don't you see how unfair that is? I deserved your time, too."

Vanessa sighs, her words almost chastising. It reminded of the times she shifted into 'disappointed mother' mode around Harriet. Their one year old, at the time, who didn't understand consequences for things like dropping a toy in the sink. She even had the nerve to sound hurt as she speaks those words.

(DeusExMakena) He is absolutely apalled.

"I-" he doesnt know why he cant find the words to respond. His eyes wide and his eyebrows furrow as he glares directly at her. He shouldnt be surprised by this, really, he saw this coming. Five years, and some things will just never change.

Luka pinches the bridge of his nose, he MARRIED this woman.

"I'm sorry, are we- are we really doing this again?" He sets his coffee cup on the table with a little more force than he wanted to, "You do realize you're getting jealous over a literal one-year old that we both agreed that we wanted to have. I'm her father, I'm sorry, again, for doing my job and raising our child."

(MysticDoodles) Vanessa's long-suffering expression hardens back into stone, pouting out her lip as once more, Luka shows no signs of budging on his stance. How very lawyerlike of him. To the bitter end, he would fight for his side of the case against the opposition. She wished they didn't have to be on opposite sides, anymore, yet here she was for the second time.

"Is it so wrong that I wanted to spend more time with my husband? All toddlers need to learn to share, anyway." Vanessa shrugs, as if this were no big deal. "You never spent evenings with me, anymore, Luka. Every night that you came back from graduate classes and networking with firms, you would go right to her. The honeyed words for me didn't come until dinner, if they came at all. And don't talk to me like I wasn't a good mother- I kept her out of trouble during the day, whenever I was out of rotation."

...

"How is my little Harriet doing? It's been so long since you've squirreled her away."

(DeusExMakena) No. No, no, no, he's not doing this again

"You..." He tries to hold his tongue, but peck, he doesnt want to deal with this right now. He feels his hands ball into fists "No. I'm sorry, no, you don't get to ask how my daughter is doing. You had every opportunity to join us, no one was stopping you from being happy but yourself! You wanna talk about sharing? Then why are you throwing a fit over a over a child spending time with her father?"

 ...

"She wanted a relationship with you, you know. It's... really hard having to explain to a five-year-old that she doesnt get to see her mother because she was too immature to realize 'oh hey! I could hang out with both my daughter AND my husband at the same time!'" He says that last bit in a mocking tone as he picks up his coffee and goes in for another sip, glaring straight at his ex-wife with pure exasperation.

(MysticDoodles) There he goes again. His daughter.

This time, Vanessa doesn't look away as she returns the glare. The medical graduate holds unflinching eye contact as she lifts her own cup and downs half the contents. Trying to make a statement, maybe? She always did have issues with competition.

"...so where does that leave us, then? You drink the coffee I got you, and walk away? Are you really so set on burning this bridge, Luka? Things can go back to the way they were, if you really want it that way. My stipend will get us through the rest of exams, and then we can live a good life together - high paying jobs, a comfortable apartment, as many dates and trashy movie nights as we want. Doesn't that sound wonderful?"

...she didn't say a word about five-year-old Harriet.

(DeusExMakena) Luka takes a moment to stare at her, eyes half-lidded and tired.

He picks up the cup and downs the rest of his coffee, before placing it back on the table and standing up from his seat, his eyes never leaving hers.

"Allow me to light the match for you."

With that, he turns towards the door, ready to leave. Why would he feel bad about burning a bridge that leads nowhere?

(MysticDoodles) Luka can hear the squeal of the metal chair legs as Vanessa stands abruptly from her seat. There's no click of heels on riverstone, but he knows she's got her fists clenched at her sides, watching him. She always did that when she was angry. Maybe this time she'd have some ice on her wrists, now that her abilities were public. She'd put less effort into hiding it after the court case, anyway.

"YOU'RE MAKING A MISTAKE!" Vanessa yells after him as he continues, stride unbroken. "You'll regret this! You won that case, but you'll always be my prince, and I'll always be your princess!"

But legally, she couldn't touch him, now. Luka and Harriet were no longer family. He knew that, and she knew he did.

...

Oh well.

The door closes with a crnk-ling of the bell, and the background noise of the cafe starts to fade back into her awareness. Or lack thereof. Everyone nearby was staring, not that she cared.

Stiffening her upper lip, Vanessa grabs her bag and loops it back over one shoulder. She pats the side, removing the scarf off the copy of 'Ancient Botanicals & You' she'd found at the antique bookshop, and tying the garment back around her neck. With one hand she picks up Luka's cup, and looks inside.

Empty.

A smile traces her lips as she takes it along with her own, and tosses them both into the trash can.

Now all she had to do was wait and see.

[fratboykate]

I thought they were bringing the original guy back to showrun DW? Idk his name.

OH YEAH......IT'S RTD COMING BACK...

Whomp Whomp...

I really disliked his era too. I can't fucking win lol. He didn't make DW. Tennant and Piper did. It wasn't the writing. The writing was HOT GARBAGE. It was their chemistry. Literally *everything* around The Doctor and Rose was kind of a Hot Mess Express. The episodes that were actual masterpieces were the ones Moffat wrote (Blink, etc) which is why he got the next tenure. Then Ten and Donna was all Tennant and Catherine's chemistry too. Martha is the second worst companion ever, only beat by fucking River. I just...you couldn't pay me money to watch Martha's episodes.

I mean.....COME ON! RTD was writing farting monsters. Pleaseeeeee. Anyone who prefers RTD to Moffat needs to find god because this didn't even become a serious show until Moffat took over. RTD simply hit the lotto with actors. If he hadn't that reboot wouldn't have lasted two years because the success sure as fuck wasn't resting on his writing. Eccleston and Piper were lightning in a bottle. Then when you thought it couldn't get better you got TENNANT AND PIPER. That is one of those "once in a lifetime" pairings. You can't dream of casting that shit. They dropped the ball HARD with Freema. She just.....can't act lol. And to add insult to injury her character was THE FUCKING WORST. Unbearable season. Then we're back to Tennant and Catherine which is again...lightning in a bottle. RTD got fucking lucky back then. Plain and simple.

I WILL SAY THIS THO...He stopped writing the show in…2009 right? That’s what it was I think. Because if Clara came in 2012 then that means Amy was 2010 which means he left in 2009. That’s 13 years of growth as a writer and in that time he *did* write one of my all time favorite shows. YEARS & YEARS is a fucking gem. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt but his tenure was also SO BAD. Bro...farting monsters and garbage cans that eat people? There was also the one who like ate the dude and the dude's face was in the monster's stomach cuz he wasn't fully digested or something? IT WAS SO FUCKING BAD. It was terrible.

[themalhambird]

Growing Up Broken: I Talk About My (A)sexuality For 4 ¼ Pages.

I am asexual.

No, this doesn’t mean that I’m some form of plant budding off copies of myself if I get enough water and sunlight. It’s a shame. I could do a lot with multiple copies of myself- get someone else to do the dishes, the cleaning, my schoolwork…

I am asexual.

Asexuality is the absence of sexual desires or feelings for other people. I say absence deliberately: sexual attraction is not something that I lack or am missing. I am not going without. I’m just a 23 year old who has never once felt the desire to have sex with another person, who couldn’t describe how it feels to “fancy” someone if there was a gun to their head, who thinks women and men and anyone in between can sometimes be stunningly beautiful, would possibly be nice to cuddle- but kissing on the mouth seems like it would be a really weird thing to do.

I am asexual, and it’s almost Pride Month, and so I want to untangle some of the thoughts in my head and spin them out on to paper, to try and lay out my feelings about my sexuality, or lack thereof, and what it’s like growing up when no one bothers to tell you that not experiencing sexual desire like, ever, is a thing. Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

It’s 2014. Puberty has doing stuff to me for the last two years or so: periods (urgh), breasts (neat!), underarm hair (why do I have to shave this? no one’s gonna see it), growth spurts (I’m getting taller than my older sister. I want to keep going till I’m taller than mum). The only thing not happening is wanting to have sex, something the nurse who came to Talk To Us All About Growing Up back in 2009 assured us Year Sixes would definitely happen as soon as puberty hit.

Still. It’ll happen soon, probably. Sixteen is still a bit too young to be having sexual feelings, right? The boys…really not interesting at all, but the other girls are pretty. I like their hair. I like the shape of their bodies. I just don’t fancy any of them. When we’re told to imagine our future husbands or wives in class (don’t ask my why, I’ve long forgotten the point of the exercise, I just remember that) I picture a wife.

(Lesbian is the first label I apply to myself. I stick it on tentatively- keep peeling it off my shirt and putting it back somewhere different like I’m not quite sure where it fits. It’s not wrong, necessarily. I’m just not certain it’s right. I like girls a whole lot better but I’m not saying I could never love a guy. I’m just not attracted to them. I’m not attracted to women, either- but I feel like I will be. When I’m old enough to feel that kind of thing. )

Sex Ed lessons are mortifying. We’re asked to list all the sexual terms we know on an A3 sheet of paper. I don’t know what half the things other people say mean- blowjob, 69, masturbate, porn . I don’t know how other people know these things either. We’re sixteen. It’s too young.

That summer I play Sebastian in an abridged version of Twelfth Night and it convinces me to take Drama at A-level, although I didn’t at GCSE. The drama classes teach me two things. First of all, I don’t like acting women. I prefer breeches rolls. I don’t know why. We’re talking about my asexuality, not my gender confusion, so let’s put a pin in that and move on to point two. My drama class teaches me that everyone my age is having sex, or wants to have sex, or is planning on having sex soon; sex is a constant, every class, every conversation. Sex, sex, sex, sex, sex. So apparently sixteen (seventeen) isn’t too young after all.

It’s like this. One day you wake up and you realise that everyone else is speaking a language you don’t understand. Suddenly, sexual feelings aren’t something that no one your age is having but you’ll all develop soon- it’s that sexual feelings are something that everybody your age is having apart from you. People your age are dating, kissing, fucking, and it’s not something you’re interested in doing, necessarily, but you still feel so horribly left out. Like you’re missing some kind of major milestone. You try not to let it bother you- you watch Buffy every Monday you get to see your dad. (You watch loss of virginity be portrayed as growing up). You read. (The books you pick up all involve love and love always seems to at least imply sex). You- google things. You google the words you didn’t understand in that sex ed class. You google “how to tell if you’re attracted to someone” in case there’s some secret signal your body sent you that you missed. You feel like you should know if you’ve ever felt sexual attraction but then maybe you’re just really, really dumb. Maybe there’s something wrong with you. The NHS website reckons that if you’ve got a low sex drive you ought to see a doctor. The girls in your drama class keep talking about boys and sex and sex and boys and you aren’t really interested in either of those things. You cling to the thought, lesbian and hope that when you get to university, you’ll stop being so repressed. Girls are pretty- but the ones at school are either your friends or kind of mean. Of course you don’t fancy anyone there. University. University will save you. (Boys are sometimes pretty too. There are boys at school whose personalities are nice enough- who are the type of man you wouldn’t mind dating one day maybe- but you can’t ever picture yourself having sex with one. Dicks seem weird and really not the kind of thing you’d want inside you. I mean for fuck’s sake- why? You can’t even get a tampon in.)

I don’t like looking back on this. Sixteen, seventeen year old me was starting to get pretty freaked out. I like looking back at the first year of uni even less, because if seventeen year old me was freaking out, eighteen year old me was buying alcohol. That’s how it goes, right? Sex and alcohol. You see it all the time on T.V. Fictional people get fictional drunk and fictional cheat while they’re on fictional breaks with their fictional partners. David Tennant is pretty. A man at work is handsome and more importantly intelligent, into Shakespeare, into good conversation. The label switches from lesbian to ‘bisexual but heavily skewed toward women’ and I cling to that as tightly as possible because after that, I’m out of options. It is impossible that I’m not feeling sexual attraction: the whole world screams about sexual fucking attraction all the fucking time, I’m obviously just too uptight, I obviously just need to relax-

I once drank a whole bottle of wine in what was essentially one go. I paused for breath, but that was about it- I don’t think I even bothered with a glass. My goal was to get myself drunk enough that I could feel sexual attraction. I thought that the best way to go about things- to finally ‘grow up’- would be to get super drunk, and then leave the flat and find someone who would screw me. I reasoned that I would enjoy it once I was doing it- after all, the whole world pushes sex as this wholly desirable thing for any normal adult to want, even need- so I would like it once I was doing it and then I would be fixed. Fortunately, drinking a whole bottle of wine when you’ve never had more than a single glass of champagne or a couple of glasses of rum and apple juice before in your life gets you past “lowered inhibitions” to “can’t walk straight or upright” very quickly. I got as far as the bathroom, threw up, a lot, and staggered back to my room. I woke up at 3 pm the next afternoon feeling stupid for drinking, and mad at myself for still being a virgin.

I had a lot of problems in my first year of university and not all of them were about my sexuality crisis. I was isolated, fairly friendless, and not really cut out for socialising with my housemates who were probably all lovely people, but I find new people painfully difficult and hiding away seemed easier. But the feeling that there was something broken inside me because I wasn’t experiencing what everything seemed to be telling me was one of the most vital parts of the human experience- sexual attraction to other people- contributed to my general feelings of self-loathing and disgust. I attempted to induce sexual desire in myself by drinking on several further occasions, although never quite to the same extent as the first time. I’m not sure whether this counts as self-harm, but it certainly wasn’t healthy.

I didn’t know asexuality was a thing.

I knew I wasn’t straight- I’d known that for a while. I learnt that I enjoyed reading, talking, even writing about sex, as long as it was sex between people who weren’t real, but fantasising about fictional characters having sex and fantasying about myself having sex are two very different things. The former happened fairly frequently. The latter didn’t happen once, and still never has. My second year at university was better than my first: I was living with friends, I was further away from campus which meant I had to walk more, which probably helped, I had also started to make several friends online with whom I could happily chat even when I wasn’t in the mood for ‘actual’ people. I used bisexual to describe myself because on the rare occasions I thought about romance, I couldn’t really see myself ruling out anyone who was willing to put up with me.

I’m not quite clear when I first heard the term ‘asexuality’. I became aware of it gradually. Someone I followed on Tumblr identified as ‘grey-ace’. Characters from my favourite fantasy series were being headcanoned as ‘asexual’. At some point I must have learnt properly what that meant.

It sometimes feels like there ought to have been a lightbulb moment- like I should have seen the word, seen the definition, and instantly seen myself. But it is very, very hard to delete the message- ‘sex is important- sex is what grown-ups do- sex is what you should want to do’ – that the world constantly sends to us: in advertising, in entertainment, in the conversations of a drama class that always circled back to that topic, to the detriment of the sole seventeen year old who wasn’t really bothered. To embrace asexuality seemed like I was giving up on trying to fix myself, on waiting for the right person to come and make everything better. On the potential of their being a right person. I can wrap my head around people having casual sex very easily. It’s romantic love without sexual desire that I’m scared won’t work- how am I supposed to know if it’s love without there also being physical attraction? No romance arc that I had ever seen was without an element of sexual tension. So, no lightbulb moment for me. No switch going off- “aha, at last, that’s what I am!”. Just a gradual thought washing across my mind every now and then, like the tide rushing up a patch of sand and drawing straight back, leaving only dampness to show where there had been a good half-inch of water only a moment ago.

I might be asexual?

And ‘I might’ becomes ‘I think I am’, and the tide starts coming in. ‘I think I am’ became ‘I am’ at some point or other.

I am asexual.

I find reassurance in knowing that there’s a word for what I am, for how I (do not) feel. I am asexual. Not broken, or damaged, or too uptight to properly feel, or too dumb to recognise what I do feel. I am asexual- I have an absence of any sexual desire for others and that’s perfectly okay. I might fall in love one day. I might not. I don’t know how you’re supposed to know if you have the capacity to fall in love before you find yourself doing it. It might be nice to have a wife. It would also be nice to have a cat. I could cope with it just being me, a cat, and good friends for the rest of my life. If I fall in love- if I am capable of falling in love- it will just mean I am asexual, but romantic, and I will have learnt something new about myself. The point is-

The point is, I am incredibly lucky that I stumbled across Asexuality before I got myself hurt trying to force something that wasn’t there. The point is, this world assumes that sexual desires are the norm, and maybe they are, but that just makes it all the more important that people know that they aren’t abnormal for not experiencing sexual desire. To all the people who need to hear it: You are not broken. You are not alone.

I’m not sure how to wrap this up. I feel like I should say something profound or something. But I think I’m just gonna leave it like this:

I am asexual. Asexuality is the absence of sexual desires or feelings for other people. I say absence deliberately: sexual attraction is not something that I lack or am missing. I am not going without. I’m just a 23 year old who has never once felt the desire to have sex with another person, who couldn’t describe how it feels to “fancy” someone if there was a gun to their head, who thinks women and men and anyone in between can sometimes be stunningly beautiful, and possibly be nice to cuddle- but kissing on the mouth seems like it would be a really weird thing to do. I am not broken. I am not ‘going through a phase’ or ‘looking for attention’ or ‘trying to be special’. Everyone’s special, fuck you. Knowing that I am not the only person to feel how I feel makes me feel like I’m standing on solid ground. May all people experiencing the same confusion and distress over their sexual orientation that I felt growing up find their way safely to the same solid ground: you are not broken. We’re not broken.

[dessarious]

Guilt and Consequences Pt3

Okay, so I am still working on my other stories I just haven’t been able to get much down. I’m working a crap ton of overtime at the moment and I’m just fried when I get home. I’d say hopefully I’ll be more productive on the weekends but right now I’m working Saturdays and and Sundays are becoming catch up on sleep days. So sorry for the delays, but I’ll try to get back into a headspace where I don’t just want to pass out whenever I’m not at work. Oh and I think I got everyone tagged who asked but let me know if I didn’t or you want to be added.

AO3   Beginning   Previous   Next

The silence stretched on and Lila could only sit there. She knew the others were likely staring at her. Wondering what she’d done to make her mother react like that. She just wished she had an answer for them. Even before everything with the schools they’d never been close. Her mother pretty much only talked to her to tell her what she needed to improve. As the atmosphere became more and more uncomfortable Lila finally broke the silence.

“So… would you consider that a yes or a no?” More silence before M. Dupain cleared his throat.

“Marinette why don’t you go with Lila to pack an overnight bag? We’ll get dinner and some treats started. Is there anything you can’t eat or something you’d like to have?” It took her a moment to realize that last part was aimed at her. When she managed to look up his expression matched the gentle tone of his voice and she just got even more confused.

“No sir. I’m not picky.” Her mother rarely made it home to eat with her and even then it was always take out. She’d gotten used to left overs or eating whatever random things were in the house.

“Make sure to pack all your medications as well.” Madam Cheng’s voice sounded a little strange but when Lila managed to look up at her she wasn’t glaring and she didn’t look annoyed. She was definitely more stiff than she’d been before though.

“It’s okay if you don’t want me here anymore. I get it. Even offering is more than most people would have done in your situation.” She still had no idea why they did either. After everything that had happened to their daughter because of her they should be throwing her out, at the very least. The woman’s expression turned to one of motherly concern and it honestly made her more nervous. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had aimed that kind of look at her.

“You’re welcome here, anytime you need somewhere to go, as long as you stop all this lying. There are better ways to deal with your problems.” Lila could only hang her head and mumble another apology. While she agreed that the lying in this situation wasn’t a good idea, it normally didn’t backfire like this and she had tried other things first. Maybe it was different for other people. She heard the woman let out a frustrated sigh. “You two go on, we’ve got to finish closing up the bakery before we start on dinner.” She let Marinette pull her out of her seat and down the stairs. She was still too busy trying to understand what was happening to even consider arguing.

“Did your mom really put you on medication just to keep you in school?” She glanced at Marinette. There was no accusation in the question. More like she just couldn’t understand how someone could do something like that.

“Yes but I don’t take it. Well, except one of the anxiety meds every once in a while when I can’t sleep. As she said on the phone, she thinks I should be responsible for myself so she just assumes I’m actually taking them.” She hadn’t understood at first why her mother would work so hard to get the meds and then not bother to monitor their use. She’d come to the conclusion it was so that when the school finally called about her ‘behavioral’ issues she would have a paper trail to be able to sell them on the fact that Lila was just sick and needed special accommodations. That or she really didn’t think Lila would disobey her on this.

When they got to the apartment building Lila wasn’t really paying attention. She heard something that sounded like a cough but kept walking towards the elevator until Marinette tugged on her sleeve. When she looked over at the other girl Marinette motioned to the side and Lila saw three rather annoyed looking staff members.

“Guests have to be signed in.” She blinked at the woman who spoke, not really processing the words.

“I’m sorry, what?” The woman just rolled her eyes.

“This is a high security building Mlle. Rossi. All guests have to be signed in.” Oh, right. She vaguely remembered something about that from when they’d first moved in. She just had never actually brought someone home before.

“Sorry, I forgot. Umm… how exactly do I do that?” The woman just looked exasperated now, but the man behind the desk offered a smile and motioned them over. There was a clipboard on the desk and he handed her a pen.

“You just need to put your name, apartment number, and your guests name.” He pointed to each column in turn . She filled them out as he asked and handed the pen back. “Thank you Mlle. Rossi, have a nice day.”

“Thank you, you as well.” She could still see the disapproving look on the woman’s face as they continued to the elevator and couldn’t help but wonder how she still had a job if this was how she normally treated tennants. Personally she couldn’t remember any of the staff and didn’t really interact with them. Generally once she was in the building it was a habit to keep her head down and get to her room as quickly as possible. She’d found that the less interaction she had with people the fewer things her mother had to lecture her about. Her social interactions were always lacking in some way and she could never be certain what her mother would latch onto.

When they entered the apartment Lila noticed Marinette frowning as she looked around. She couldn’t really blame her after seeing her house. The apartment was clean bordering on sterile due to the service her mother had come in daily. There weren’t any personal touches either. No pictures, no nicknacks, nothing that said people actually lived here. She didn’t really think about it. It had been this way as long as she could remember.

“Your place is nice…” Lila actually grinned as she watched Marinette try to come up with something good to say about it. “Lot’s of natural light.” Lila let out a snort of amusement. The girl was the essence of cheerful and that was all she could come up with. It was a bit sad really.

“My room’s this way.” When they entered Marinette perked up immediately. Lila could only assume it was due to all the pictures on the walls since it was the only real difference between here and the rest of the house.

“Wow, these are amazing! Do you collect them?”

“They’re not that good. Just pictures I’ve taken to remember where I’ve been.” She liked taking pictures, especially of nature. She found it soothing and having something to look back on made her feel a little less disconnected. Marinette was staring at her in what looked like awe.

“You took all these?” Lila just nodded. “These are amazing! I’ve seen professional photographers whose work doesn’t look this good.” Even knowing Marinette was just being nice, Lila couldn’t help but bask in the complement for a moment. But only for a moment.

“So what exactly should I be packing? I’ve never done the whole sleepover thing before.” Suddenly Marinette was looking at her like she’d kicked a puppy and she couldn’t figure out why.

“You’ve never had a sleepover? Ever?” Lila just shook her head. Wasn’t that what she’d just said? “Oh my gosh! We have so much to make up for. Obscene amounts of junk food and games and movies and makeovers and ghost stories and-” She just kept going. Lila had no idea what she was rambling about and it didn’t answer her question at all. Marinette finally paused to take a breath and she was able to break in.

“Okay, but what should I actually pack?” Marinette paused to think it over. The expression on her face seemed far too serious for such a common question.

“Your most comfy pajamas, whatever you want to wear tomorrow, and a toothbrush. I’ll take care of everything else.” Well that sounded slightly ominous. Regardless, she packed what she was told along with all her medications. Dumping those in the bag got a strange look from Marinette, but she wasn’t certain why. Maybe it was just how many there were. In less than ten minutes they were back out on the street, headed towards the bakery.

“Lila!”

“Shit.” She said the word under her breath as she looked behind her. Of course it would be Alya. They’d been on the street less than five minutes, only her luck could be that bad. She tried to use her body to block Marinette but she wasn’t quick enough. Alya’s expresion turned sour as she tried to reach around Lila.

“I thought we made it clear that we wouldn’t tolerate you bullying Lila anymore!” Lila grabbed the girls wrist before she could grab or slap Marinette. That stunned her enough to let Marinette get some space.

“You touch her again I’ll break the offending appendage.” Lila didn’t recognize her own voice in that deep threatening tone, but Alya just rolled her eyes.

“This is why we didn’t tell you what we were doing. You’re too nice and let people like her get away with anything.” She wanted so badly to just slap some sense into the girl but honestly she didn’t think it would work.

“I’m not nice, and you’ll find out exactly how not nice if you don’t stop harassing Marinette.”

“But if we don’t do something she’ll just keep bullying you!” Lila could only sigh. How many times was she going to have to have this conversation.

“Marinette is not now, nor has she ever bullied me. Which I already told you.” Alya let out a patient sigh, like she was explaining something simple to a small child. Yeah, someone was going to get hit before this conversation was over.

“She’s constantly calling you a liar and trying to turn everyone against you. Why would she do that?” Yep, the kindergarten teacher tone was definitely a good way to piss her off. Lila, of course, defaulted to sarcasm.

“Oh gee, I don’t know maybe because I was lying?” Alya looked like she was about to argue but Lila just kept going. “If you had bothered to look up literally anything I said you would know that.”

“An absence of proof is not proof of absence.” It took a minute for the words to penetrate as Lila was just getting even more annoyed by Alya’s self righteous tone but when they did she had to stop herself from lunging at her.

“Are you saying that you looked up my claims, found absolutely no proof and still took my word over Marinette’s?” Her voice was soft, more because her throat felt like it was closed in rage than anything else.

“There wasn’t any proof that you were lying either.” Alya’s smug tone finally snapped something inside her.

“Have you lost your damn mind?! Jagged stone has said in multiple interviews that he doesn’t even like cats. And in what universe would my mother’s PR team not have it in the news that I do charity work? She’s a public figure Alya, anything that can make her look good would have press releases for days. That in and of itself proves that I was lying.” The girl seemed to ponder this for a moment before she sent a glare to Marinette.

“What did you threaten her with to make her agree with you?”  Knowing that she’d been right about who Alya would blame for this was a small consolation.

“Lila you need to calm down.” Marinette’s voice was soft, soothing even but she was in no mood to pay attention.

“I will not calm down! This wanna be reporter couldn’t find the truth if she fell into a river of it. You should consider a career in fiction by the way since anyone with journalistic integrity will simply laugh you out the door.” Alya was still glaring at Marinette, like all this was her fault. What was wrong with people? Marinette actually grabbed her arms and forced Lila to face her.

“Please. You really need to calm down. Just breathe with me okay? You don’t want to get Akumatized again.” Those words acted like ice water. Yes, this was beyond stupid, but it wasn’t worth that. She calmed her breathing as Marinette asked but made sure to keep a line of sight on Alya as well. There was no telling what someone like her would do at this point.

“We should head back to your house, your parents will start to worry.” She had no idea if that was true or not but she hoped it would get Alya to back off. Pretty much everyone agreed that Marinette’s parents were great people, but they were also scared shitless at the thought of pissing them off. After their talk earlier she understood why. It did the trick too. Alya mumbled something about finding out what kind of dirt Marinette had on her so Lila could stop pretending she’d been lying as she left at a brisk walk. She’d read about willful ignorance but she’d never expected to encounter it to this degree. She was starting to hope it did have something to do with Hawkmoth, but considering some of the things people were willing to believe she wasn’t very optimistic.

AO3   Beginning   Previous    Next

Ko-Fi

Tag List

@readeracctagmepls @aestheticnpoetic @akana-sama @schrodingers25 @runestarchild @paradoxal-occurance @heaven428 @animegirlweeb @deepestobservationwombat @iggy-of-fans @yin-390 @thehufflepuffranger-blog @trippingovermyfeet @misslenamooney