#detective leah kingston

[lykegenia]

Unicorns And Mistletoe

The Wayhaven Chronicles Nate Sewell x Leah Kingston No warnings except, as always, Rebecca being parent of the year

Read it on AO3!

She’s three, and old enough to know it’s part of the punishment. She still has yet to understand what the punishment is for, but she knows that if she can just work it out then her mummy will come back and everything will be alright again. The people she left her with – kind, smiling, smelling of gingerbread – are nice, and their warm house is nice, and all the Christmas lights twinkle together in a confusion of reds and greens and golds, and they told her the guest of honour gets to add a bobble – no, bauble – to the Christmas tree. They clapped and smiled when she picked the sparkly plastic reindeer from the box and hung it on the highest branch she could reach, and told her that was the surest way to summon Christmas magic.

They’ve left her alone now, though, because she said that she wanted to look out of the window, and they’re kind people so they set her up with a cushion and a cookie and milk in a plastic glass with a fairy on it. There’s a creeping feeling in her chest that it was the wrong choice, that she’s not doing what she’s supposed to, because every so often she hears footsteps and then a pause, and then they shuffle away again and murmur between themselves in way she’s come to learn signifies pity. But nobody stops her, so she doesn’t turn around. She sits by the window and stares out and eats the cookie slowly and puzzles over how to make the Christmas magic work so that everything stops being her fault.

--

She’s seven, watching the rush of her classmates burst out into the playground like a torrent of water from a leaky dam, straight for the line of parents waiting just beyond the gates. She herself goes at a steadier pace, the better to observe the crush of adults huddled under scarves and thick winter coats just in case there’s one she recognises. She’s a clever child, however – all her teachers say so – and she learnt quickly not to expect too much. The others are shouting and laughing, and holding up the Christmas decorations they made for proud inspection. Her own pinecone, dangling from one gloved hand like a talisman, has silver glitter and blue sequins to represent snow – like a glass one she saw on the TV – and has a length of silver ribbon that she tied around the top of it herself so it can hang on the tree. The other children needed the teacher to do it for them.

As she tears her gaze away, she notices an older couple all smiles as they wave at her, and suddenly it feels like she’s walking in treacle. The Wrights are nice. She has to repeat it to herself. Mrs Wright wears a woolly hat shaped like a Christmas pudding, complete with knitted holly leaves and two red pom-poms for the berries, and Mr Wright’s puffer jacket is unzipped over a green jumper decorated with snowflakes and reindeer.

“Where’s Mum?” she asks when she reaches them, although the answer doesn’t really matter beyond the obvious.

“We’re sorry, Leah.” Mrs Wright shakes her head. “Your mum tried to get back in time, but you know work keeps her very busy. She should be here tomorrow, and in the meantime, we can have a sleepover! I need your big strong arms to help me stir the Christmas cake.”

“Did you enjoy your last day at school?” Mr Wright asks.

She shrugs one shoulder, her eyes on a robin foraging for worms under the nearby hedge. There’s one in her garden that will come so close that she can sit next to it while it gobbles up the bacon fat she cuts into tiny pieces and sets on the wall, but she hasn’t yet persuaded it to eat out of her palm.

Mr Wright tries again and points to her hand. “What’s that you’ve got there?”

She stuffs the pinecone into her pocket. “Nothing.”

“Ah, well. Let’s get you home to pick up your night bag, and then we’ll get the magic started.”

“We haven’t put up our decorations yet, you know,” Mrs Wright adds. “Would you like to help?”

She shrugs again. “S’pose.”

When they get to her house, she sneaks away and puts the pinecone on the kitchen counter, balanced on its end with the glitteriest side towards the door so her mother will see it when she comes in.

--

She’s thirteen. Dusty, cold, but pleased with herself. She’s spent the day scouring the house, teetering on the ladder up to the loft and digging through the junk in the garage, and now there are three boxes lumped on the living room carpet. They read ‘XDecs’ in unfamiliar handwriting, and they’re so old that the tape on the edges is starting to disintegrate, but she found them.

She unboxes the tree first, brushes the dust off the plastic branches and works out how the pieces fit together, then fishes about for lights and tinsel. The longest garland she takes to wrap around the stair banister, the second longest drapes over the mantle, and then – through trial and error and a lot of sideways squinting to make sure it looks right – she daubs the tree with ornaments in what she hopes is a tasteful array of festive cheer. The pinecone she made when she was little isn’t among the baubles, but it doesn’t matter. It probably would have spoiled the aesthetic anyway.

There’s just enough time to clear away the empty boxes and vacuum stray bits of tinsel of the floor before an engine growls to a stop on the slushy driveway.

“Leah?” her mother’s voice calls from the back of the house.

“In here!”

She stands in the middle of the room with fists bunched, waiting for the big reveal. The crisp click of her mother’s high heels slow as they reach the hall. When she appears in the doorway, her face is drawn into a frown as she watches her daughter sidestep awkwardly to one side with a vague gesture to the lit-up Christmas tree.

“Surprise!”

A pause.

“Where did you get all this?” her mother asks.

She shifts under the scrutiny. “… Found it.”

“Where?” When there’s no answer, her mother sighs. “From the loft? Leah, you know you’re not allowed up there. It’s dangerous. What if something had happened?”

“Well it didn’t,” she counters. “And I knew you wouldn’t have time to decorate, so I thought…”

She scuttles backwards as her mother strides into the room, glancing to the tree and back again as if it’s an unruly pet one accident away from being sent to the rescue shelter. The critical eye her mother casts over the decorations makes her sullen, but there’s something else there as well, a wistfulness as a slow hand reaches up to cup a sphere of clouded blue glass etched with the words Baby’s First Christmas in elegant gold cursive.

“It’s very… thoughtful.” Her mother sighs again and drops the memory. “It’s been a long day, and there’s shopping in the car. I need a shower – can you fetch it in?”

“I guess.”

Her mother gives a prim nod of acknowledgement and slides from the room like snow off an overladen branch, only to pause in the doorway. “Don’t forget, you’re going to the Wrights tomorrow, so make sure you have everything ready – and make sure all of this is unplugged so there’s not an accident. Those lights are far too old to be safe.”

She deflates, and doesn’t bother to answer, and after a moment lunges for the socket to cut off the lurid glitter of the Christmas lights.

--

She’s nineteen, and ignoring half-drunk texts from her friends asking why she isn’t at the campus party. She’d turn her phone off completely if not for the unlikely case of an emergency, but she’s not even bothering to open the messages anymore. Instead, she hunkers down in the armchair, annoyed to find that the hot chocolate at her elbow hasn’t magically refilled itself. She’ll have to buy another one soon or the café owner might throw her out. She decides it can wait until the end of the chapter she’s reading.

“No way – Leah?”

She looks up. The boy smiling at her is in her class. He’s handsome in a roguish sort of way, but they’ve never really talked.

“Couldn’t be bothered with the party?” he asks. “Shame. I hear WelSoc managed to get a boost for the budget.”

“Why aren’t you there, then?” she retorts, confused. She doesn’t hear about the antics of the Welfare Society – the university’s main student organisation – all that often, and she would have thought Bobby would have been there to report on it for the student newspaper if nothing else.

He shrugs and flops down in the armchair on the opposite side of the table. “I might go later. It’s always more fun to be fashionably late. Besides, by that point people will be nice and drunk and happy to spill all their secrets.”

“What secrets?”

“Oh, you know, gossip and stuff. Why aren’t you there?”

“I’m not really a Christmas person,” she answers, turning back to her book.

“Oh?”

“It feels like wasted effort most of the time.”

To her surprise, he smiles. “I’ve never looked at it that way, but you have a point. All that excess just to roll around with indigestion for a week.”

“Putting up decorations just to take them down again,” she agrees, wrinkling her nose. “And most of them are tacky anyway.”

“Ah, you’re a woman of taste, then.”

She doesn’t quite know how to respond to that, but he waves her away with a private laugh and jumps to his feet.

“I’ll not inflict my presence on you any longer, in that case, but if you do decide to go to the party I hope you’ll say hello.” He winks. “Merry Christmas.”

“Oh, yeah – Merry Christmas.”

Still confused, she watches him saunter back outside, only pausing briefly to pick up something from the barista before the clipped view from the café window cuts off the sight of him. A little while later, when she gets up for another hot chocolate to go with her book, the woman smiles and waves away her bank card.

“That guy you were talking to already paid,” she explains.

“What do you mean?”

“He paid for your drink – it’s on the house.”

She snaps her gaze to the window, as if Bobby might be standing there staring in, with a big sign informing her that it’s an elaborate prank. But all she can see are the indifferent shadows of passing shoppers hurrying about in the last of the daylight, wrapped up in their own concerns.

“Oh,” she says, and smiles at the barista because it’s polite, and takes the hot chocolate back to the rest of her things.

--

She’s twenty-six and alone in her apartment. Tina thinks she’s with the Wrights, and she told them she’s celebrating with Tina. She hasn’t even needed to invent an excuse to fob off Rebecca. In front of her is a spread of ingredients for homemade tacos, and a stack of DVDs that are old favourites. There’s not a bough of holly or the twinkle of a fairy light in sight.

She decides that she’s content.

--

She’s thirty-one. Staring at the monstrous fir Felix has somehow managed to sneak into the warehouse.

“How did you even get it in here?” she blurts. She has to crane her neck upwards to take in the full might of the thing.

“I didn’t,” Felix replies, proud. “I got some delivery people to do it while we were out – for the extra surprise factor.”

The rest of Unit Bravo sidle forward, as awed by the presence of the tree as she is, though the levels of enthusiasm vary.

“I thought we could decorate it together,” he continues, flinging open the first of several boxes that have been left at the foot of the tree, “you know, since we get so little time to do things as a family.”

That appears to be the magic word. Adam answers Mason’s pleading look with a minute shake of his head, and Nate is already striding forward to help unpack the ornaments. It leaves her with an uncomfortable itch between her shoulder blades, as if she’s suddenly wearing clothes that belong to someone else. Years of memories come bubbling up like rising damp under paint, phantom emotions she’s tried for so many years to bury and which now burrow so easily through her flesh.

“Leah?” Nate asks, with his hands curled around a string of coloured glass beads.

She smiles. It feels wooden. “Are you sure we can reach the whole way up?”

“I’m sure we’ll manage with us all working together,” he says, and beckons her to his side with a chaste kiss to her cheek.

Felix has already draped a length of tinsel around his neck like it’s a feather boa, and grins wide as he turns to her. “Where do we start? I bet you’ve had loads of practice.”

It stings.

“Put the lights up the centre of the tree,” she suggests, grateful for Nate’s touch. “That way they’ll reflect off the baubles.”

“Great!”

The vampires take to their task rather well. The military precision with which Adam lays the lights is matched by the haphazard way that Mason – obviously unhappy with the glow – drapes the outer branches in tinsel to hide as much of it as possible. Nate, meanwhile, is trying to bring a bit of coordination to the chaos that is Felix’s method of flinging baubles on the tree with no care for size or colour.

“But it’s festive,” the younger vampire protests, as a shiny green chilli pepper is swapped with a more tasteful globe of frosted golden glass.

“I just think it will look better up here, because it’s smaller.”

“You mean because it’s somewhere I can’t reach to move it somewhere more fun. I can get a stepladder, you know.”

She smiles at that, content to watch the banter. The variety of ornaments that have been procured cover a dizzying array of styles, from traditional to psychedelic to things like the chilli pepper that she knows Felix bought because he found them amusing. It’s not quite the same as the Wrights’ collection, which they’d once told her had been built up over years gathering trinkets on holiday or been gifted from friends and family, but the effect is similar.

“Leah, you agree with me, don’t you?” Nate pleads, his eyes wide and helpless.

She smiles. “A little disorder gives it personality, don’t you think?”

“But…”

“Ooooh I think that counts as a top ten anime betrayal,” Felix cackles.

“What’s anime?”

“Never you mind,” comes the haughty reply as the younger vampire holds out his hand. “I’ll be taking my pepper back now, thank you.”

There’s a groan as Nate passes it over, and she gets the feeling his defeat is not as final as he’s pretending, but before she can voice the suspicion, he comes to fold his long legs down next to her on the carpet.

“You haven’t put anything on the tree yet,” he notes, brushing a loose strand of hair back from her face.

She shrugs. The ornament turning in her hands is a tiny wooden reindeer with a bell around its neck. It’s not sparkly like the one when she was three, but it’s similar enough for a wave of guilt to wash over her for all the years she turned down the invitation from the Wrights because she didn’t want to be reminded of that pitied, unwanted little kid who was once dropped on their doorstep.

“Hey…”

“I’m not a big Christmas person,” she murmurs, though she knows the other vampires could easily listen in if they choose to. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I have horrible memories, but part of me always felt left out of that holiday magic, you know?”

With the Christmas tree lights reflecting off the sympathy in his brown eyes, he curls a gentle hand around hers and lifts her knuckles to his lips. “I’m sorry your past experiences weren’t what they should have been… though I hope you don’t feel left out now?”

It’s impossible to feel anything but dizzy with him so close, and yet as her gaze falls to his lips she wants nothing more than to be closer still.

“I’ve never felt more at home,” she tells him, smiling at the way confession makes his breath stutter.

The pad of his thumb brushes her cheek.

“You have no idea how much it delights me to – what are you doing?”

He pulls away to frown at Felix, who snuck up from behind to stretch out a bunch of mistletoe above their heads, the white berries and green foliage made richer by a ribbon of deep maroon.

“It’s Christmas,” the younger vampire explains. “Kissing under mistletoe is tradition.”

“You really think they need mistletoe to be going at it?” Mason calls from the other side of the room.

“Is that sort of language really necessary?” Nate demands.

“Not denying it though, are you?”

Mortified, he rubs a hand across his brow, and though her own cheeks are surely crimson by now, she keeps her fingers tangled into his to make sure he won’t pull away for good.

“You were so close you were practically on top of each other,” Felix offers, though whether he’s trying to be helpful or embarrass them both further is difficult to say.

“I was merely…” Nate clears his throat, tries again. “Why don’t you finish decorating the tree?”

Felix rolls his eyes, discarding the mistletoe on the sofa as he goes. The moment of heat has passed, but with attention gradually sliding off them, Nate inches close enough to wrap an arm around her waist. She snuggles into his side, ear over his heart, content to soak in the atmosphere of the room. Crackling fire, twinkling lights, and the good-natured bickering between Mason and Felix. She can feel Nate wince with every tacky bauble added to the tree, but torn as he is between protecting his décor and keeping her company, not even the glittery unicorn with the neon-pink mane and glowing horn stirs him to fully intervene, and she presses a kiss to the back of his hand to show her sympathy.

It's later, when the fire has burned down to embers and even the wind outside has fallen quiet, that she approaches the tree with the little wooden reindeer. There’s no ribbon loop to hang it on a branch, but she finds a bare spot in between a garish purple raspberry and an intricate crystal snowflake, and jams its legs on either side of the stem, like it’s leaping through a forest.

“It looks good there,” Nate murmurs, coming to stand at her back. He presses a kiss to the top of her head as his arms wind around her waist. “Are you sure I can’t just –”

“I’ll tell Adam it was you,” she warns. “Is it worth it for the wounded, puppy-dog look Felix will give you when he notices you’ve moved them?”

A sigh heaves through him that ruffles her hair. “For you, I suppose I can live with it, but I may have to stage a disappearing act in time for next year.”

“Even for the unicorn?”

“Especially for the unicorn.”

Chuckling, she turns in his arms. “It sounds like you could use a distraction.”

“What did you have in mind?” he asks, though with the way his voice lowers and his fingertips toy with the hem of her shirt, he already has some ideas of his own.

She licks her lips. His own part in response.

Instead of indulging him, however, she dodges the kiss and steps around him to where the mistletoe lies in a crumpled heap on the sofa. The room is warm, the lights in the Christmas tree like the glitter of a galaxy in the void of space, the weight of his gaze heavy enough to send a shiver across her shoulders as she plucks up the greenery with nimble fingers.

[apenapaperandadoofus]

Here’s my exchange fic for Leah Kingston, @lykegenia ‘s lovely detective! I hope you enjoyed it! I had fun writing for her and Nate, one of the LI’s I don’t really have much experience with so this was a great writing experience! I really hope I did our boy justice lol!! I hope you enjoy it!

Thanks @wayhavenficexchange for this fun activity!!! Thank you for taking the initiative, this was really great!!!

[dwellordream]

Wayhaven OCs

in honor of book 3 dropping tomorrow, and since it’s been like 2 years since i really engaged much with the fandom, i thought i’d do a round-up post for my detectives. 

Detective Kamala Batra

Kamala is my first and foremost detective, romancing Adam. Warm and charming, she is a natural people person, and her instinct is to try to keep everyone happy. She has the most positive relationship with Rebecca out of all my detectives - they have maintained a strong bond and hold a lot of trust for one another, despite the secrets and lies over the years. 

Kamala attended university for sociology, hoping to become a social worker or educator or some kind, but wound up working for Wayhaven PD while in between jobs, and ended up becoming an officer and then a detective. She has a wide social circle and many hobbies, and embraced Unit Bravo from the start as new friends and colleagues, though she has always found Adam the most difficult to gel with. 

Detective Holly Lin

Holly is my secondary detective, romancing Nate. Though she has a reputation for being calm and collected, she tends to overthink nearly everything, and is a lot more indecisive and sentimental than she’d like to let on. Her sleek, professional appearance is hiding a huge romantic and while she comes across as quite ‘refined’, even snobbish, she loves nature and the outdoors. 

She has a lot of loyalty and respect for her mother, but they haven’t been close since Holly was very small. While she was considered a bit of a ‘queen bee’ around town as a teenager, Holly is a bit more reserved and hesitant to make new friends since returning to Wayhaven as an adult. While initially training to become a psychologist, her best friend Tina convinced her to join Wayhaven PD, and Holly quickly became set on becoming a detective. Ambitious and a bit competitive, she is at her softest around Nate, who she feels she can truly relax around.

Detective Leah Greene

Leah is my third detective, romancing Mason. Guarded and snide, she has a wisecrack for nearly every occasion, and a pretty cynical view of the world, including the Agency and Wayhaven PD. She’s quick to point out hypocrisy and corruption, and extremely blunt at all times, though quick to apologize when she’s offended a friend. 

She struggled with drinking throughout her teenage and university years, and is pretty ‘straight edge’ as a result- she’s trying to quit smoking, her final ‘vice’. She has a very tense and hostile relationship with Rebecca, viewing her as a neglectful and self-absorbed parent who chose to have a child only to essentially abandon them for years on end in favor of her career. Both she and Mason are unwilling to categorize their relationship as anything more than ‘friends with benefits’, which they claim suits them just fine.

Detective Esme Kingston

Esme is my fourth and final detective, romancing Felix. Socially awkward and incredibly independent, Tina was the closest thing she had to a friend before Unit Bravo arrived. Esme prides herself on her organized, self-sufficient lifestyle. She doesn’t need anyone, but others need her, and that’s the way she likes it. She attributes her self worth to her career (previously, it was academics), and is civil and polite with her mother, but nothing more than that. Rebecca believes their relationship is healthier than it actually is, because Esme never introduces any conflict- she doesn’t see the point.

Esme has never had a successful romantic relationship before Felix. She struggles to communicate her feelings and can pull away and go radio silent for days on end while trying to articulate something to herself. However, she is deeply attached to her hometown and its citizens; she has only left Wayhaven once, to attend university, and returned immediately after, determined to join the police force. 

[laurelsofhighever]

I know your wayhaven stuff isn't on this blog but I would LOVE to know more about 'Wayhaven Murder Mystery. ft Kittens'

Thank you for asking!

I said a little bit about it here, but I’m really looking forward to planning this out and writing it, so here’s some more:

The story is going to explore bits of Wayhaven that we haven’t seen in the books yet, including the docks with its laidback tourism industry, the lighthouse that doubles as a nautical museum, and bits of the lake that Mishka mentions exists. My detective, Leah Kingston, is going to get to flex her skills as a detective, but since the victim is a supernatural she’s going to have to walk the line between doing her job as Wayhaven’s detective, and as the Agency’s liaison to Wayhaven.

There’s also going to be lots of fluff with Nate, and all of UB is going to fall in love with the kittens (with varying degrees of reluctance)

[lykegenia]

The Towel Started It

Fandom: The Wayhaven Chronicles Pairings: Nate Sewell x Female Detective (Leah Kingston) Rating: Explicit Warnings: None

So this art by @greyhands lives rent free in my head, and what follows is shameless smut. No regrets.

Read on AO3

--

Leah frowns as she takes in Nate’s empty bedroom, the leatherbound notebook she borrowed from him clasped in one hand. She’s sure she heard a muffled response to her knock, inviting her in, and yet…

“Nate?”

“In here.” His voice reaches her from the opposite doorway, where a lazy waft of steam billows into the main room.

“Oh – sorry,” she calls. “I didn’t know you were in the bathroom.”

A chuckle. “It’s quite alright.”

“I just came to give you back the research notes you leant me.” She waves the hand containing the journal as if he can see it, and casts around for a flat surface that’s not already covered in books. “Is there somewhere you’d like me to… put…”

Nate has emerged to lean in the doorway, his usual fond smile giving way to a smirk as he drinks in the strength of her reaction. She tries – she really does – to keep her gaze on his face, on the way his still-damp hair curls slightly as it falls around his ears, but the expanse of his toned chest, still glistening a little with moisture, draws her eyes like the pull of a magnet. He’s only wearing a towel. It’s tucked around his slim hips and conceals down to just below his knees, the fluffy white contrasting with smooth, tawny skin. She watches, and he brings one arm up to rub a hand contemplatively along the stubbled line of his jaw, the movement flexing his bicep in a way that she knows is entirely on purpose. The part of her brain still monitoring systems reminds her lungs to inhale as he apparently comes to a decision and pushes off the doorframe.

“You’re early,” he purrs, lazing across the floor of his bedroom.

“Um.” She shakes her head. “Yeah. The meeting with Agent Markham didn’t last as long as it was supposed to. I thought I’d…” Trailing off, she waves the notebook again, vaguely, aware of the burn climbing the back of her neck.

“The research notes, yes, you said.” His brown eyes don’t leave her face as he reaches for them, and a jolt goes through her as his fingertips deliberately brush against the back of her hand. “I’m very grateful.”

She wonders if this is how the vampires feel all the time, needing to consciously remember to breathe – but so close, it’s a mistake, because the clean, rain-fresh scent of his skin is all but overwhelming, the glitter of water droplets still in his hair dazzling.

“Are you alright?” he asks. “You seem a little flushed.”

She can see the smile he’s trying to hide beneath the play of concern he wears, bringing his hand to her forehead as if to check her for a temperature. As if he doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing.

“Fine – I’m – I just wasn’t expecting you to be so…”

“Informal?” He glances down at himself. “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before, rouhi.”

“You know that’s not the point,” she manages.

“Is it not?” His gaze is focussed like the sun through a lens – it’s a wonder she doesn’t actually burst into flames – and at some point he took the journal off her and spirited it away, but she only notices now because of the way his touch moves to the inside of her wrist. “Perhaps you could enlighten me.”

Her heart hammers in her chest as he leans down, but ghosts away from her lips to the exposed edge of her clavicle instead, warm breath chasing over her skin. Eyes closed, she has to reach out for his arm to keep her balance.

“I – you’re seducing me, aren’t you?”

There’s a pause, and then a laugh as he draws back to frame her face in his hands, a mutter in some foreign tongue that she can’t quite catch. Amusement crinkles at the corners of his eyes.

“I must be doing a poor job if you had to ask,” he says.

“No, it just – I mean –” she flounders, searching for the right thing to say “– it was good, but I really did just come to give you the notes. I didn’t expect… you know… anything else.”

With a sigh of fond exasperation his fingers skim down to twine with hers, his forehead a welcome balm against her embarrassment, because at least it means he can’t see the flare of crimson across her cheeks. But standing so close, there’s heat of a different kind brewing between them, one that makes her swallow against her dry mouth and clench her thighs together.

There’s no way that towel isn’t going to fall off.

“Ya rouhi,” he breathes. “Will you permit me to start again?”

It’s her turn to laugh. “Do you really think you need to?”

“Oh, yes.” He pulls back with a half-lidded look that has her smouldering. “I think I will need to make sure you are thoroughly” – an inch closer – “unequivocally” – a thumb brushing her bottom lip – “irredeemably seduced.”

A knock on the door makes her freeze. Her eyes flutter open to find Nate frowning, the look of a man searching for patience where there is none to be had.

“I hope you two aren’t up to anything in there,” Felix calls from the corridor. “Rebecca saw Leah turned up early and wants to brief us on tomorrow’s mission while we’re all here.”

She bites her lips together, bows her head.

“Library in five minutes!”

“There’s always something,” Nate mutters as the footsteps fade down the hallway. “I suppose we’ll have to –”

She dodges the kiss. “I don’t think so.”

“Wh–”

“You said you’d seduce me.” Grinning, she ducks out of his arms completely. “I’m not feeling very seduced.”

“Leah…”

The strangled tone of his voice almost makes her cave, but there’s a certain amount of perverse enjoyment to be had from knowing how much she affects him, from denying him what he hoped to get so easily.

“I only came here to drop off the research notes, remember?” she reminds him as she backs towards the door. “Besides, I think you might need a little more than five minutes if you’re going to be ready for this meeting.”

His brows draw together, and she casts a slow glance downwards to the tented front of the towel, which gives a brief, definite twitch.

“Don’t worry, I’ll save you a seat.”

Still smirking, cherishing the near-desperation her retreat has baited to the surface of his usually suave demeanour, she fumbles for the door handle, her heart bounding with the uncertainty of his self-control. The way he stutters towards her ignites anticipation in her gut, but instead of closing the space entirely his hands clench and he reels away, a harsh breath blown between his cheeks.

“Cruelty does not become you, you know,” he says, with a sidelong glance that shows off the perfect arch of his throat.

Unfair.

She swallows. “Maybe not, but it’s fun.”

A groan is the only reply as she escapes into the hall.

--

Leah still feels a little overheated as the team gathers in the living room, her forced calm betrayed by Adam’s glower, and the grin spread wide as a crescent moon across Felix’s face. That last sight of Nate as she closed the door, eyes hungry and every muscle coiled with want, kept her blood fizzing the whole way through the warehouse. She refuses to look Rebecca in the eye.

Five heads turn when the living room door opens.

“Finally,” Adam grumbles, without a slip in his professional veneer.

To his credit, Nate barely lets his gaze flicker over Leah before turning to Rebecca. “Sorry, there was something I had to take care of. What did I miss?”

He’s dressed in a regular shirt and jeans, and he seems to be in no discomfort as he slopes into the room. Felix’s gaze shifts between him and Leah with the anticipation of a pundit at a boxing match.

“We hadn’t started yet,” Rebecca says crisply.

There’s a pause while he crosses to the sofa, where Leah shifts in invitation and gives him room to settle against the cushions close enough to almost touch – but not quite – one arm stretched casually along its back.

“Nice of you to join us,” she murmurs.

“Now that we’re all here,” Rebecca interrupts, before he can answer, “there has been a change from your regular patrol routes. There have been reports of magical activity south of the lake, so you’ll be starting from Cairn Point to see if further action needs to be taken.”

From the corner of her eye, Leah watches him nod along to the brief, blithe and apparently unconcerned by her scrutiny, his presence buzzing against her skin like the noise of an unseen fly she’s determined to ignore, until after a moment of imagined, prickling heat caused simply by his closeness, a featherlight touch finds the back of her neck. She throws a sharp glance sideways as a shiver tenses across her shoulders, but he’s not looking at her, pretending instead to be oblivious to the reactions drawn out by the caress of his fingertips. To the shallowing of her breath and the uptick in her heartbeat.

Across the room, Mason rolls his eyes.

She swallows. Her body’s autonomic responses might be beyond her control, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to let him get away with it.

“What about the regular patrol routes?” she asks, shifting in her seat. Her knees draw up to tuck against Nate’s side, not quite inappropriate but it disguises her real aim, which is to slide her hand across the top of his thigh and rest it there, right on the inner seam of the denim. A breath hisses in through his teeth and she has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep the victory from showing on her face.

Somehow they make it through the briefing, neither breaking the veneer of composure despite their subtle attempts to one-up each other. None of the rest of Unit Bravo are likely fooled, and even Rebecca’s lips start to purse when Nate has to clear his throat and cross his ankle over the opposite knee to give himself more room, but nobody comments. Eventually there’s nothing left to say and Rebecca stands with a brusque instruction to have reports filed promptly by the morning, before she sweeps out of the room.

Leah watches her go with what she hopes is a polite expression. One index finger is tapping a faint rhythm against her lips, as if she’s pondering something innocuous and not bending all of her attention to the way Nate sits taut as an overwound spring next to her, unable to do anything except tighten his knuckles in his lap.

“Can the rest of us leave now too,” Mason demands, “or are we going to be treated to the whole fucking show?”

Her face burns, but she doesn’t rise to the bait.

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” Nate says.

“I need a cigarette.”

He stalks out. A silent conversation is raging between Nate and Adam, the team leader’s arms folded so tightly his shirt nearly bursts with the effort of keeping his disapproval contained. A moment passes where Leah contemplates leaving too – to give them more room for their little staring contest – but as if sensing the thought, Nate’s fingers give a minute flex on the back of her neck. Instead, she looks to Felix, who’s watching the scene unfold with open glee. She’s still in control enough to look down, bashful, her lips rolled between her teeth, when he throws her a wink.

Finally, Adam moves towards the door. “Felix, you wished to show me something in the training room.”

“I did?”

“Yes.” The word seems to cause Adam physical pain. “Now.”

“I don’t remember – Ohhhh, right.” Felix grins. “Well, if you really want me to show it to you now…” He rises from his chair with a dramatic roll of his eyes, only to turn with another wink when he reaches the far end of the room. “Hope you two don’t mind being left on your own!”

“We’ll manage,” Nate replies. “Thank you for the concern.”

The younger vampire dodges around Adam, who stands to cast one last meaningful look over his shoulder before pulling the door shut behind him.

“Well, that was about as subtle as –”

The rest of the words are consumed in the hungry crush of Nate’s mouth, the instant of surprise giving way to a whimper as need unspools through her limbs. She meets him, fingers dragging at his collar as the hand on the back of her neck winds into her hair, as the kiss deepens into a rough press of lips and tongues. Her legs are still folded across his lap – he winds around them, so close all she can feel is the warm, firm plane of his torso.

“Do you have any idea what you do to me?” he gasps against her mouth.

“Is it the reason you were late?”

He growls and slips a hand beneath the hem of her shirt, grinning when her back arches under the touch. It makes her laugh, to be so giddy, and when her head falls back  out of reach of his kiss he obliges by dropping his attention to her collarbone instead, peeking out from the edge of her shirt, and with a blunt scrape of teeth the sound deepens into a groan.

“You know why I was late.” His mouth lifts again to her jaw – not her neck, never her neck – and trails a path towards her ear.

“It’s – your fault.”

“How so?”

“You started it.”

“No, that can’t be right.” He pouts and draws back, his touch running down her arms until their fingers can lace together. “I’m sure I’m perfectly innocent in all of this.”

“I was trying to do you a favour by giving you your notes back!” she cries, playing up her outrage.

His expression turns lofty as he tilts forward again. “And I only wanted to thank you for such kindness.”

The moment hangs between them, teasing, her heart thundering in anticipation as she catches his face and brings him to her lips. “Then thank me.”

It’s easier said than done, despite Nate’s obvious enthusiasm. The sofa, generously proportioned though it is, is narrower than his bed, the back a hindrance to her limbs as they shuffle for a more comfortable position, but she’s too busy kissing him to care, too happy to have his fingers dancing over her ribs. When they finally get their legs untangled he finds his place between her thighs, weight settled deliciously over her, arms wrapping around her back to eliminate the last of the space between them. His hips roll and sparks fly behind her eyelids.

“Fuck.”

He smirks against her cheek. “That’s what I was thinking.”

She laughs again, breathless, clutching at his shoulders. “I can tell. I’m pretty sure everyone else could as well.”

“Was it too much?” he asks.

Her face is scarlet, the bare need of a moment before giving space to his concern, the worrying bright in his brown eyes. The scent of arousal is now so thick in the air around them that it overwhelms even her human nose.

“No?” she tries. She wants to reassure. “I’ve just never done anything that… public. God, in front of my mother.”

“Perhaps I should have been more restrained,” he allows, tracing her jaw. “But when I walked in and saw you sitting here, the thought of not touching you was unbearable.”

To emphasise the point, he leans forward and kisses the same path as his finger, little nips that tense her legs around him.

“Is that so?”

Instead of a true answer, he hums and covers her mouth again. She draws him close, seeking friction, arching into the brush of contact as he once more slips a hand beneath her shirt.

“We’re really doing this here?” she asks.

He stops. “We don’t have to.”

“I don’t want you to stop,” she breathes. “Though usually in my head – when I’ve thought about this – we’re the only ones in the warehouse.”

“Are we?” His eyes light up. “You’ll have to tell me more. But first…” A pause, and his touch falls to the top button of her shirt, his gaze dragging upwards to focus on her face. Waiting.

He really is beautiful. His hair is tangled from her fingers, his lips swollen from her kisses, his lashes a dark flutter against his cheek as he leans into her touch.

Compelled forwards, she shifts beneath him until they’re close enough to share breath. She hears him swallow, thrills with the power she has to hold him back.

“Don’t stop.”

He surges forward. Still mindful of her comfort, he holds the back of her neck as he slants his mouth across hers, the other hand already at work on her shirt buttons, and as she gasps and rolls against him, slow and deliberate. The last of her thoughts go out of her head.

“This is what I thought about,” he purrs, dipping to lap at newly exposed skin. “When you left me, I had to use my imagination.”

Her breath catches.

“Would you like to know what imagined?”

She gives a desperate nod, grounded only by the iron strength of his arms. His fingers drop to the button on her jeans and unfasten it with ease, and when he hesitates – deliberate, poised – she tries not to squirm.

“What might we have done if we hadn’t been interrupted…”

“Nate –”

“I’m here,” he tells her. “The way you respond to me, ya rouhi…”

Another undignified noise as he undoes the fly, her hips stuttering to chase the movement. Instead of giving her the friction she wants, however, he caresses upwards again, pushing aside the fabric of her shirt with a nonchalance she knows is being drawn out for his own enjoyment.

There’s an appreciative hum when he reaches her chest. He would never say he dislikes her sports bras, which provide many benefits for someone with a semi-regular acquaintance to peril, but even so he craves her in silk, in lace, in fine embroidery that glides beneath his palms. Not that she owns anything quite that fancy, but as he runs his hands over one breast and bends to tease the nipple of the other through the sheer fabric, she allows a flare of triumph for taking the time to change.

And he’s thorough. He maps her curves with patient fingertips, with a light graze of teeth that breaks into sharp counterpoint when he bites down. His hair is cashmere-soft in her fists, her lips clamped together to keep quiet, but even so noise slips out – bitten-off, broken throated moans that she can’t help, and which bring a smirk to his generous mouth.

“I could keep you like this for hours,” he confesses, like it’s a sin. He knows the rough edge to his voice does things to her, and no doubt catches the hitch in her breath as he pours the words into her ear, the tick in her pulse as desire throbs low in her belly.

Almost beyond speech now, she can only turn into him, arch into his palm, bracing against the taut muscle of his shoulder to keep herself from flying away.

“Fuck – Nate –”

His touch moves down again, slips beneath her jeans. She bucks, pins him there by the wrist as two fingers press in a slow, firm glide against her, and has to bite back a whimper. A brief thought passes through the haze of sensation that she’s not being very fair – his breath is as ragged as hers, after all, and he keeps shifting his hips to find relief – and so her hand drifts lower, seeking out the hard outline of his own arousal, and maybe a little bit of payback.

“Ah-ah,” he scolds before she can touch him, pushing her away. “Don’t distract me.”

Her laugh verges on a sob, her gaze half-lidded and flicking between his lips and the hand once again inching between her legs. His eyes are intent on her face, on her reactions, the rich brown of his irises swallowed by black. He doesn’t resist the curl of her fingers on the back of his neck, but before she can demand a kiss he chooses that moment to finally slip beneath the thin cotton of her underwear and suddenly there’s no space in her head for anything else. Her muscles lock, her eyes squeeze shut, and he’s whispering in her ear now, rocking his fingers just stubbornly shy of the pace she needs. As her breath shortens into harsh, hummed pants she feels him, too, straining against the rising tide of pleasure, trying to make it last. Cramp threatens in her calf – she ignores it, grinds harder against his palm, uncaring of the whine in her throat as sensation condenses into one bright, glowing point.

She feels the orgasm coming an instant before it crashes through her. Drawn tight, her back arches, lips bitten hard together on the moan that tries to escape her throat. Legs clench together. Nails bite into skin. For a long, lovely moment the waves of it carry her in suspense, and when it finally subsides Nate is there to catch her, with a kiss pressed to her temple and strong arms that run calming patterns along her side.

“Are you alright?”

Little aftershocks skitter across her shoulders. “‘m gonna need a minute.”

His chuckle blooms against her cheek. Turning, she presses a blind kiss to it, secure and safe, enveloped in his scent, with his pulse a focus beneath her fingertips. It’s this moment she loves as much as what comes before, the casual affection and assurance in gentle touches that tell her she won’t be left alone. In a minute, she’ll care again that they’re in the warehouse’s living room, wrapped around each other on a sofa other people have to use, but for now she’s content and absolutely does not want to move.

“Do you not want a turn?” she asks when she finally finds her voice again.

“I took mine earlier,” he rumbles. “We’re even now.”

Her laugh comes out more like a sigh, drowsy and replete. “Nobody said we only get one turn each.”

“True. Though perhaps the finer points of that discussion should be had somewhere with less chance of interruption.”

“You’re still the one who started this,” she points out.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“And you’re far too pleased with yourself.”

He hums and nudges a kiss against her cheek. “Should I not be?”

“I think you’re –”

A gurgle from her stomach interrupts. There’s a beat of silence before they collapse together into quiet giggling.

“I suppose that settles that,” Nate says when he’s recovered. “May I treat you to dinner?”

She nods. “Dinner sounds good.”

“And then… the rest of the evening is ours.”

[lykegenia]

Have you already answered the ship meme thing for Nate? If not, here's me asking about it! Or the actual shipping part of the ask game for Nate and Leah, whichever you prefer <3

Thank you for playing! I haven't anwered it for either of them yet, but I'll restrain myself and stick to just Nate x Leah ;D

When I started shipping it: Immediately XD Nate walked into Leah's office and I knew he was going to be the one she would romance, because he's the only one who was nice to her.

My thoughts: There are far too many to put here. I think about the pair of them every day, both in general and in the many plots and fics I want to write about them.

What makes me happy about them: Can I say everything? Nate is such a romantic and Leah is too though she pretends really hard otherwise, so they're great together. There's so much casual touching and affirmations, it's a great romance to be soft about, but there's still enough drama there to make it compelling to endlessly read and write about.

What makes me sad about them: They end up misunderstanding each other a lot, ironically because they're pretty similar. Both have feelings of inadequacy and reserve about being in a relationship even though they want so badly to be wanted. I'm worried about what Mishka has planned for the N route...

Things done in fanfic that annoy me: I haven't read a Nate fic yet that annoys me. The TWC fandom is excellent at writing Nate.

Things I look for in fanfic: The main themes I love for any Nate x detective ship is hurt/comfort, fluff, and dare I say a little bit of spice XD Writing Nate x Leah specifically, I love to explore them learning how to communicate with each other and just... learning how to be SOFT.

Who I'd be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: I choose not to think of it that way, as if the only source of happiness would be finding a specific partner. Even if they didn't end up together, Unit Bravo will always be there for them both as family.

My happily ever after for them: Leah becomes a vampire, and they spend a romantic eternity travelling and watching history unfold

Who's the big spoon/little spoon: Nate defaults as the big spoon and Leah is perfectly happy with that, but she moves a lot in her sleep so they often wake up the other way around (or she's just clinging to him like a vine)

What is their favourite non-sexual activity: At some point in long evenings of research they tend to move to the couch and cuddle while they read, and it's something they both cherish. Other than that, going to local museums while they're on assignments is their go-to kind of date, because they're both absolute nerds. --

Send me a ship or a character!

[lykegenia]

For the commentary track, I'm so curious to know about your thoughts during the Chapter 12 interrogation scene in Like Glitter and Gold :) (-wayhavenots)

Chapter 12 gave me such trouble XD I'd love to talk about it!

The difference between Samantha and her husband is stark as she sits on the far side of the table in the interview room, prim in her work blouse and heels, defiant rather than cowed. Leah watches in silence from the observation gallery, chewing the inside of her cheek. Mason and Rebecca work seamlessly together in their questioning, like a pair of collies herding sheep towards the inevitable gate at the end of a field. It must have taken them years to become so used to each other, and the thought sparks an unwelcome resentment in her chest, a twitch like a phantom limb. She stamps it out before it can fully form. That Rebecca’s colleagues know her better than her own daughter isn’t news, even if this is the first direct evidence she’s seen of it; the disappointment should have worn off long ago. Besides, she should be paying attention to the interrogation. Next to her, Nate stands poised, utterly still in the way she’s noticed vampires go sometimes. They don’t need to breathe, or fidget, but he at least only forgets to do so when something has captured his full attention. His arms are crossed, the knuckles of one hand pressed against his mouth as he frowns through the glass, as if it’s an effort to bite back whatever is on his mind. She spares a glance to look at him properly, but he doesn’t meet her gaze, and it worsens the discomfort dancing like static down her arms. Unaware of this small drama, Rebecca slides the photo of the murder weapon across the table. “You know what this is.”

So, first off, this whole fic was very inspired by crime dramas so there was a very cinematic quality I was envisioning when writing. In this scene especially, I was trying to split the focus between Rebecca and Mason doing the interrogation, and Leah and Nate reacting to it. There's not much to say about Rebecca and Mason because the emotional weight of the scene is with Leah, seeing how practiced they all are at this sort of stuff. In a way, the cuts back and forth were meant to feel disjointed because there's a lot of emotional turmoil going on: Leah is worried about the shadiness of the Agency (which I don't dismiss as easily as Mishka) and Nate is hung up on the fact that relationships between humans and supernaturals don't always end well. And of course there's the lowkey jealousy Leah always feels when one of Unit Bravo shows they know Rebecca better than she does - she doesn't want that familiarity, but she recognises that it's just a little bit fucked up.

“This is taking too long,” Mason huffs, and leans forward, reaches out. “Why don’t you relax?” A cold shiver crawls across Leah’s shoulders. The sterile scent of a blood lab, an iron grip around her forearm. Without meaning to, her thumb strays to the silver bump of scar tissue on her left wrist.

Leah likes to pretend Murphy doesn't affect her, but he does. I specifically went back to Book 1 to find Murphy's exact words to properly freak her out. It's not just her reaction to the pheremones that's important here, though, it's that Mason is so casual about using them to get what he wants. Is it simpler than due process? Maybe, but the ethics of it don't square away with her sense of justice.

“He thought I loved him. He thought I could love him after I found out what he was. How could anyone? I had to do it. God, I let him touch me. And the chain – when I –” Her hands come up clenching around imaginary iron links. “The chain was stuck to his skin. His eyes were so dark, just… staring. But I had to do it. I had to.” By now she’s nodding to herself, rocking on the chair as her lips press together and her arms snake around her middle as if otherwise she’ll shatter.

The whole process of weaving together the details of the mystery took a while, and I'm not sure when I decided who the murderer should be. The most important thing was the thematic parallel between that relationship and the one between Leah and Nate. There are obviously Dark Tragic Backstory things about Nate that we don't know about yet, but the idea of secrets and revulsion leading to rejection is something that's clearly on his mind.

This particular bit was tricky to get right, because I couldn't quite find the right level of despair in Samantha without her seeming to lack remorse for what she did. She's horrified by Russell, by what she did, and by what the aftermath looked like, and that was surprisingly hard to convey.

“Are you ok?” Leah asks. He glances up from the floor, but can’t quite break his face out of a grimace. “I can’t believe she did it.” “It’s not so surprising. People have committed murder for less.” “For less?” He says it like an accusation. “Leah, you don’t… you cannot think as she does.” “I can understand her motive,” she retorts. “Isn’t that the whole reason all of this is secret? Finding out there’s an entire world of supernatural beings hiding in plain sight isn’t something everyone’s going to be happy about, even without insane vampire serial killers wanting to hunt you down.” She thinks of Verda, of the way he hunched over his desk in the morgue and the deep, exhausted shadows under his eyes. “He hid a lot from her – lied to her. All I’m saying is I understand why she was angry.” His hand drops from her waist, leaving a cold echo behind. “Her reaction goes a little beyond anger.” “Yeah, well, maybe if Russell had told her what he was instead of letting her find out through someone else it wouldn’t have gone that far.” It’s a bitter point, spiteful, but the day has gone sour and he’s the only person left to take it out on. For a moment he just stands there, searching her face for something he cannot see. She recognises fear in his eyes. “Sometimes people have reasons for keeping things to themselves,” he replies at last, quietly, looking away. “And he did tell her in the end.” “Only when he was forced to,” she snaps. “Pretty familiar, don’t you think?” He reels at that, like it’s a physical blow. “It almost sounds like you blame him for what happened.”

They're misunderstanding each other so much here. The real point of the argument is so I can have them make up in the next chapter, but the heart of the problem is that they're talking about different things. As already mentioned, Nate is thinking about the things in his past he's worried about sharing, but Leah doesn't know that exists, and instead she's seeing parallels to Book 1 and the fact that it ended badly partly because everyone around her was so determined to keep secrets. The body language between them is important here as well - most of the time, Leah isn't a very touch-y person, but Nate is the exception, and it means something when he pulls his hand away. It's a fine line to draw between letting the dialogue speak (haha) for itself and detailing every little gesture, but I wanted to get the broad strokes of how they move towards or away from each other.

[lykegenia]

Character Songs Tag

Heyyy thanks for the tag @sillyliterature!

The game: Pick a character and then share some songs that represent them.

Time to give my N-mancing TWC detective Leah Kingston some love. I haven’t put together a proper playlist for her yet, but these fit her journey pretty well

War Of Change - Thousand Foot Krutch

It's a truth that in love and war Worlds collide and hearts get broken I want to live like I know I'm dying Take up my cross, not be afraid Is it true what they say, that words are weapons? And if it is, then everybody best stop steppin' 'Cause I got ten in my pocket that'll bend your locket I'm tired of all these rockers sayin' come with me Wait, it's just about to break, it's more than I can take Everything's about to change I feel it in my veins, it's not going away Everything's about to change

Boulevard Of Broken Dreams - Green Day

I walk this empty street On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams Where the city sleeps And I'm the only one and I walk a My shadow's the only one that walks beside me My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me 'Til then I walk alone

Runnin’ - Adam Lambert

'Round and around I'd go, addicted to the numb Living in the cold The higher, the lower the down, down, down Sick of being tired and sick of waiting For another kind of fix The damage is damning me down, down, down My heart's beating faster, I know what I'm after. I've been standing here my whole life, Everything I've seen twice, now it's time I realize It's spinning back around now, on this road I'm crawling Save me cause I'm falling, now I can't seem to breathe right Cause I keep runnin', runnin', runnin', runnin' Runnin', runnin', runnin', runnin' Runnin' from my heart.

Center Stage - Poets Of The Fall

So weave the world a play Such turns of fate To let you have your way Lest the only one betrayed Will be standing center stage Like a thread from a seam Drawn away to reveal That we all make this dream And sometimes it feels so real Do you see how it's your thoughts Come conjuring? Emotions show the world You keep within

Like Real People Do - Hozier

I had a thought, dear However scary About that night The bugs and the dirt Why were you digging? What did you bury Before those hands pulled me From the earth? I will not ask you where you came from I will not ask and neither should you Honey just put your sweet lips on my lips We should just kiss like real people do

The Call - Regina Spektor

Just because everything's changing Doesn't mean it's never been this way before All you can do is try to know who your friends are As you head off to the war Pick a star on the dark horizon and follow the light You'll come back when it's over No need to say goodbye You'll come back when it's over No need to say goodbye

Tagging forward, no pressure: @serenpedac @mutantenfisch @ellenembee @vhenad4hl @agentnatesewell

[lykegenia]

Like Glitter And Gold Ch.13

COMPLETE Fandom: The Wayhaven Chronicles Characters/pairings: Nate Sewell x f!Detective Rating: T Warnings: None Summary: Wayhaven has had its ups and downs in the past few  months, and  for Detective Leah Kingston, dealing with vampire serial  killers and mysterious plagues has become something of a routine. Good  thing, too.  The body of a murdered supernatural has just been discovered  in the   alley behind a local bar - and everything, really, just gets  weirder   from there.Between the search for the dead man's killer,  keeping the   Agency at bay, and trying to navigate the new, uncertain  waters of a   relationship with a very suave vampire boyfriend, Leah has  her work cut  out solving the mystery, especially when it beomes clear  she's hunting  more than just a murderer. Additional tags: murder mystery, fluff, angst

Read on AO3

--

If there’s one thing that can improve a shitty day, it’s a cup of fancy tea and a cinnamon swirl from Haley’s, which is why Leah suspects Tina was so desperate to get her out of the station. Instead of taking their usual corner, they’re eating in the car for better privacy, brushing flakes of pastry into the footwell and aimlessly people-watching as the sun sets behind the buildings of the square. It definitely beats staring at a computer screen – or hiding behind it, as Tina insists she’s been doing.

It’s been three days since official news of the arrest went public, long enough for Bobby to pen a grudging article about the case being solved. Thankfully he’s kept the salacious details to a bare minimum, a run-of-the-mill crime of passion next to the sensational reveal of the Pegasus’ lost treasure, which for him has the added bonus of inspiring reams of editorials and interviews with the bigwigs of the town.

He's welcome to the attention. There’s a lot missing from the bare-bones report she had to write for station records, everything from a fudged motive to the significance of the murder weapon, and Bobby’s flaunting creates an easy smokescreen to excuse the lack of detail. The Captain’s only thoughts when she emailed him the final forms were grief for the whisky, salvaged from the lakebed only to be squirreled away into the mayor’s private collection.

The separate report for the Agency has taken longer as it contains not only the full details of the case but also the measures taken to keep said details contained, with the assurance that none of the town’s residents are any the wiser about the existence of the supernatural. If she’s been more meticulous than strictly necessary, well, it just means she wants to do a thorough job – and it has nothing to do with wanting to avoid Unit Bravo and anywhere she might happen to run into them.

Tina, of course, knows her too well, and traces the line of her thoughts as if they were sketched out in front of her.

“So… what’s Nate’s opinion on all this craziness?”

Leah tears a shard of pastry from her danish. “He’s three hundred years old, he’s probably seen it all before.”

“Not what I meant,” Tina retorts. “And three hundred? Seriously?” She blows a stunned breath through her cheeks. “I meant about Samantha Harrs being the killer.”

“I don’t know…” She’s been trying not to think about it. “He wasn’t happy. But I’m not happy either – the Agency just sweeps everything under the rug like it doesn’t matter.”

“That’s probably not why he’s upset.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look,” Tina huffs, with an exaggerated roll of her eyes, “the murderer you just unmasked killed her partner because she found out he wasn’t human and it sent her postal, and you and Nate are in the middle of some weird disagreement. I don’t know how common it is for humans and supernaturals to be in relationships with each other where the human knows, but it can’t be a great reminder of how everything can go horribly wrong for him.”

Leah can only stare. Could that really be the source of Nate’s strange defensiveness the last time they talked? She’s been so busy trying to sort out her own feelings, the possibility never occurred to her.

“And they made you the detective,” Tina remarks, when the thought finally settles.

“You didn’t want the paperwork.”

“You should talk to him,” she says. “And not just because you’d be stupid to let someone who looks like that and who’s so clearly into you just walk away.”

It’s easier said than done.

“Sometimes I wonder what he wants.”

“Maybe ask him?”

“And what if I don’t like the answer?” Leah asks. What if it’s the answer she’s afraid of most?

Tina shrugs. “I guess you’ll be moping forever, then.”

Without the energy for a proper reply, Leah turns her attention to the passersby on the street. As much as she wants to protest that the situation is complicated, that she never expected her life to turn in this direction, or even that dealing with a relationship is by far the most stressful thing she’s ever done, the simple heart of the matter is that the path she’s walking is one she can’t see, and it’s terrifying. A conversation is inevitable – not least because she’s scheduled for a debrief at the warehouse in a few hours – but she has no idea what to say. How to explain herself.

--

“Is there anything else you want to add?” Rebecca asks, a few hours later. She’s sitting at the kitchen table in a charcoal grey business suit, prim as ever as she scans the contents of the manilla folder in front of her, like a teacher marking homework for an underperforming student. Adam hasn’t deigned to sit, and instead looms over her right shoulder, arms folded but otherwise at ease.

Leah shakes her head. At some point she’ll have to talk to Verda about the medical report, and hopefully persuade him to keep his silence once the case goes to trial. It won’t be a pleasant conversation, but that’s between them. The Agency has nothing to do with it.

Adam raises an eyebrow at her technically-not-a-lie, but says nothing.

“If that’s all, then it’s getting late.”

As she stands, Rebecca looks up from the file as if surprised her daughter doesn’t want to hang around for a cuppa and a nice chat. “Of course, I’ll need to file your report in any case.” She chews her lip for a second. “Leah? You did good work on this.”

“I did my job,” she replies. “I don’t need praise.”

The discomfort is better in the corridor without Rebecca’s scrutiny on the back of her skull, but now the final barrier has fallen away, the last excuse keeping her from Nate. He must know she’s in the building, but he’s nowhere in sight. It’s telling. Guilt twists deeper in her gut.

As she winds through the warehouse the feeling hardens into worry at what he’ll say when she finally finds him – if he lets her find him at all. A part of her wants him to be on patrol in a deliberately far corner of Wayhaven, avoiding her, because that would be easier; it would feel deserved, and then she could curl herself up and hide away somewhere in the hope that the problem would go away.

But how to make him understand the alarms that wake in her head every time he puts himself forward? It’s mean and it’s ridiculous, but his earnestness chips away at the protective wall she’s built around old scars. Still deep in thought, she nearly collides with Felix in the corridor, his arms full of cat food, and gets a worried, sympathetic look for her trouble.

“Nate’s in the library – he’s, uh, not busy or anything. Just so you know.”

“Thanks, I was looking for him.”

Sure enough, faint scales of classical music echo down the hallway as she approaches the library. The plush carpet has muffled her footsteps, but as she pauses outside the door to steady herself, there’s little chance he hasn’t heard her. And yet, she can detect no audible movement from inside. What if he’s hoping she’ll walk away? Perhaps… Yes. If he doesn’t want to talk, she can pretend she only wandered in to look for a misplaced hoodie, or a notebook, and bid him an impartial good evening – and then hopefully make it to her room before the tightness in her chest can overwhelm her entirely.

The doorknob under her palm is cool brass, its raised decoration pressing smooth bumps into the skin of her palm as she turns it and pushes into the room. Nate is over at the far end with a pile of books balanced on one hand, frowning down at a piece of card in the other as if it’s in a language e doesn’t understand. When she crosses the threshold, he glances up, his surprise feigned but his smile genuine enough, even if there’s more wariness than warmth hidden in its corners.

She doesn’t go closer, greets him instead with a self-conscious little wave. “Hey.”

“Hi… Have you seen Adam and Rebecca?”

“Yeah, I just submitted my report.”

“Good.” He nods, brittle. “It’s good that everything’s wrapped up.”

“For now.”

A shrug, and another silence falls between them, sharp enough that she fights the urge to tug her sleeves down over her hands, to shrink away from the inevitable blow.

“Look,” she starts, and rolls her lips together. “I just wanted to say, it was awful, what Samantha did. I – Tina said –” no, Tina’s not supposed to know “– it’s occurred to me that this case might have seemed a little… close to home, because Russell was a supernatural, and stuff. But doing what she did, I – the way she reacted wasn’t right.”

He sets the books on the shelf when her voice falters, turning towards her like a compass, but her courage falters and her gaze stays riveted on the pattern of flamingos on his socks.

“And… in case it was a concern, I just needed you to know I would never – I mean I couldn’t –” She shakes her head, waves off the unfinished sentence. “It doesn’t matter. Ignore me. I’ll get out of your way.”

She’s barely reached for the door when a hand catches her arm, light as a cobweb.

“Leah…” Nate breathes. “Stop. Did you really think I feared you capable of murder?”

She shrugs, doesn’t dare look at his face. “I don’t know? You were upset, I don’t know what to think, and in case you’ve missed the newsflash, I’m really bad at this.”

“At what?”

“This,” she replies, gesturing between them. “Being a normal person. Not fucking things up. Relationships are something other people get to have – I’m just the one who clears up the mess when they go wrong.”

A gentle finger curls under her chin and tips her head upwards, but she still refuses to meet his eyes. That way lies the ruin of the last fine thread of her control.

“You haven’t fucked things up,” he tells her gently, brushing the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip.

The gesture is what finally lifts her gaze to his face, every muscle tensed against her body’s urge to tremble. He looks pained.

“Whatever I have said to make you think so,” he says, “I wish you’d tell me.”

“You don’t get it.” She jerks her head away from his touch. “I don’t get to have things like you. You’re so… so nice. So interested in me. The way you look at me sometimes, it feels like I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop – wondering what you really want from me. It’s stupid but I can’t help it and it’s exhausting. I thought I could handle it and that I’d get over myself so you wouldn’t have to deal with it, but then Samantha turned out to be the murderer, and there was the picture in the paper, and then –”

The rest of the words are swallowed by the cashmere softness of his jumper as he wraps her in a hug. Stunned, it’s all she can do to breathe in his scent, to register the steady beat of his heart beneath her ear or the thread of fingers into her hair.

“Forgive me,” he murmurs after a long moment of silence.

“What?” She tries to push away. “No. I’m apologising. I’m the one who –”

“I thought I was being obvious,” he interrupts, though he loosens his hold. “It didn’t occur to me that my actions might be read as insincere.”

“Probably because a normal person can fucking read.”

Nate sighs. “It seems unfair to argue for normalcy in someone as extraordinary as you.”

She should have known he wouldn’t take her seriously. Annoyance hisses between her teeth as she tries to disentangle herself again, but he only lets her get to arms’ length before he catches her once more.

“Leah, stop. You’re right.” He turns a palm upwards against her cheek. “I’ve been so consumed by my own feelings that I didn’t take the time to make sure of yours. I wish you’d asked,” he adds, but quiet enough for it to not feel like an accusation.

“Nobody likes someone who’s clingy,” she snaps, her gaze once again drifting to the sofa, the rows of books that line the walls, anywhere but him.

“That’s not what I think of you,” he says, as if he can see right through to the wellspring of bitterness she’s buried deep. “You are brave, and driven, and one of the most intelligent people I have ever met. I hope you believe me.”

And just like that, he’s disarmed her.

“Well when you come right out and say it…” she grumbles, with another inelegant shrug.

“I think I’ll keep saying it,” he replies, with a crinkle of amusement in his smile. “Until you stop doubting it.”

She snorts. “Not sure it works like that. Ugh, I’m sorry. I want to be better, I just…”

With a hum, he draws her back into an embrace, tension easing out of him when this time she returns the gesture. “It’s alright… And I’m truly sorry, too, for failing to see how much you were struggling with this. We’ll work it out.”

“Is there a seminar I can attend?”

A deep chuckle rumbles against her cheek, chased by the brief press of a kiss to the top of her head. Leah, unable to remember ever receiving such a fond gesture, burrows deeper into his chest and tries to steady her breathing, to push away the conviction that he deserves better.

“I have something for you,” he says after a while.

Muffled against the soft scratch of what is probably actually cashmere, she grins. “That sounds like a Mason line.”

“I should hope I have a little more subtlety,” he teases. “And it’s two things, really. They’re in the kitchen.”

Despite not wanting to move, she lets him take her hand to lead the way. The corridors are empty, perhaps because the other vampires have picked up on the uneasy mood and decided not to get caught in any crossfire, but it’s nice to have the quiet, and Nate’s warm hand secure in hers even after she spilled all her fears to him. Every so often as they walk he glances to her, swinging their hands like they ought to be skipping through a field of wildflowers.

When they get to the kitchen, he leaves her at the island and crosses to one of the upper cupboards. A cacophony of sweet and savoury odours pours out from the rows of small, uniform jars that fill the shelves.

“Nice hiding place,” she comments.

He grins. “I like to think so.”

He takes down a small, oblong package and hands it to her. The plain brown paper comes away easily to reveal a simple A5 picture frame, already mounted with a photo.

She bites her lip. “This is the picture Bobby took.”

Even a second time, the vulnerability on display constricts unpleasantly in her chest, a curl of shame for how easily she got caught. And yet, something about this particular version of the image is off – its edges are crisper than they should be, with a gloss from high-quality photo stock.

“You didn’t cut this out of the paper.”

“No…” Nate has the grace to look abashed. “I went to see Bobby and asked him for the master copy, as well as any others he’d made.”

“And he just gave them to you?”

He ducks his shoulders in a brief shrug. “He might have needed a little persuasion. I also might have suggested that it would be better for his health if he refrained from running any more such speculative articles in the future.”

“You threatened him?” she checks. Leaving aside the fact that she’s pretty sure using pheromones on civilians is against some sort of Agency code, revealing anything supernatural to Bobby in particular feels like poking a leopard with a short stick. “Does Adam know?”

“No, Adam doesn’t know.” Another shrug. “I meant what I said the other day – he shouldn’t have done what he did.”

Underneath his concern, the ever-present gentleness he tries so hard to project, his voice is betrayed by a note of anger that rings like cold steel, the predator he could become if he ever let himself loose. Leah has to look away, unused to the idea of such an effort on her behalf.

“Why give it to me?” she asks.

Nate has stepped closer, one reverent hand playing with the stray wisps of hair around her face. “Because Bobby Marks’ photography skills far exceed his manners,” he says, “and it reminds me of a beautiful day spent in your company. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that the best way to avoid being hurt is to take an enemy’s weapons from them and turn them to a different purpose.”

With a heavy sigh, Leah considers the photo again. “Pretty and wise. How do you cope?”

He chuckles. Soft fingers trace the line of her jaw as he leans in, and with a nervous swallow her gaze drops to his mouth. Even after only three days – hardly an eternity – getting to kiss him again is like the prospect of rain in a desert, her heart a seed bursting into flower at the merest drop of water as she presses close and wraps her arms around his neck.

“I almost forgot the other thing,” he murmurs against her lips.

“Do we really need it?”

“I want to share it with you.”

This time, he reaches into one of the bottom cupboards to pull out a pair of cut-crystal tumblers, and then into another for a dark, scuffed bottle, which he presents to her with all the pomp of a waiter in a fancy restaurant delivering the wine list. The label is faded, crinkled into the rough texture paper gets when it’s been soaked and then left to dry, and instead of a modern plastic film around the neck, the stopper is held in place with a thick daub of bluish wax.

“Don’t tell me that’s from the Pegasus?” Her hand stretches out of its own accord, riveted by this small, insanely valuable piece of Wayhaven’s history.

“One of the salvage team owed me a favour,” he explains, and sets the bottle on the counter. “The mayor has agreed that a portion of the proceeds will go to Stanley Harris to make up for his great-grandfather’s treatment after the wreck, and the rest is going to fund various social projects around town.”

“No doubt with a healthy commission left aside for himself – Walter Greene must be thrilled.” She probably shouldn’t relish as much as she does the fact that, after fronting so much money for Russell’s diving equipment, the local crime boss won’t be seeing a penny from the proceeds. Even this single bottle is more than he’ll ever get to tuck away into his private stores.

And Nate is actually going to open it.

“You know,” she ventures, “that’ll probably be wasted on me. I’m not exactly a connoisseur.”

He offers her a smile. “The important part is not the whisky, it’s being able to share it with such excellent company.”

He even sweeps her hand up to kiss her knuckles. With lines like that, and those rich, doe-brown eyes drinking her in like she’s starlight, it’s hard not to sympathise with all those heroines of Victorian literature who had to keep piles of cushions within fainting distance. Strangely, it doesn’t bother her as much as it might have done a week ago. The talk they shared in the library has cleared the air enough to allow her the moment free of suspicion, easy and relaxed as he breaks the wax seal and pulls the cork with a faint pop. A rich, peaty aroma rises up from the dram of amber liquid he pours for each of them. She doesn’t say it, but philistine that she is, it hardly seems worth a hundred years of fuss.

“To successfully solving your case,” he says, raising his glass.

“To… clearing the air.”

The glasses clink with a pure, brilliant note. To her uneducated human nose, the smell of the whisky doesn’t impart any great epiphany on closer inspection, and if her face flushes with warmth it likely has more to do with Nate’s amusement at her caution than any particular effect of the alcohol. She takes a sip. At first, the taste is almost pleasant, mellow and smoky. And then the burning starts. She coughs, forcing it down, while Nate’s bites his lips together to keep from laughing at her grimace.

“Yeah, no,” she gasps. “I am not a fan of that.”

Rubbing a soothing line between her shoulder blades, he murmurs something she doesn’t catch and feathers a kiss against her hair.

“Are you alright?”

“I just choked on my whole salary.” Another cough. “I told you it would be wasted on me.”

“I wouldn’t call that performance a waste,” he teases.

“Ha ha. Aren’t you going to try it?”

One elegant eyebrow lifts, his gaze fixed on her as he sniffs, sips, savours the feel of it on his tongue. There’s rapture in his expression, a groan that falls from his lips in the brief instant his eyes slip closed. Her mouth goes dry.

“So, uh, is it good?” she asks, trying to ignore the flush of heat to her face.

He knows exactly what he’s doing, the bastard. His eyes open lazily, his smile lengthened into an easy smirk just shy of breaking into a full grin.

“It has some pleasant notes.”

Her weight shifts; her tongue darts out to wet her lips. “It sounds like there’s a ‘but’ in there.”

A hum. He takes her hand again and turns so that she’s between him and the counter – not trapped, but pinned all the same as he searches her face.

“I merely had a thought about what would make it sweeter.”

“Oh?” He’s close enough now that she can taste it on his breath.

“Mhmm. May I show you?”

[lykegenia]

Like Glitter And Gold Ch. 12

Fandom: The Wayhaven Chronicles Characters/pairings: Nate Sewell x f!Detective Rating: T Warnings: None Summary: Wayhaven has had its ups and downs in the past few  months, and for Detective Leah Kingston, dealing with vampire serial  killers and mysterious plagues has become something of a routine. Good  thing, too. The body of a murdered supernatural has just been discovered  in the alley behind a local bar - and everything, really, just gets  weirder from there.Between the search for the dead man's killer,  keeping the Agency at bay, and trying to navigate the new, uncertain  waters of a relationship with a very suave vampire boyfriend, Leah has  her work cut out solving the mystery, especially when it beomes clear  she's hunting more than just a murderer. Additional tags: murder mystery, fluff, angst

Read on AO3

The difference between Samantha and her husband is stark as she sits on the far side of the table in the interview room, prim in her work blouse and heels, defiant rather than cowed. Leah watches in silence from the observation gallery, chewing the inside of her cheek. Mason and Rebecca work seamlessly together in their questioning, like a pair of collies herding sheep towards the inevitable gate at the end of a field. It must have taken them years to become so used to each other, and the thought sparks an unwelcome resentment in her chest, a twitch like a phantom limb. She stamps it out before it can fully form. That Rebecca’s colleagues know her better than her own daughter isn’t news, even if this is the first direct evidence she’s seen of it; the disappointment should have worn off long ago.

Besides, she should be paying attention to the interrogation. Next to her, Nate stands poised, utterly still in the way she’s noticed vampires go sometimes. They don’t need to breathe, or fidget, but he at least only forgets to do so when something has captured his full attention. His arms are crossed, the knuckles of one hand pressed against his mouth as he frowns through the glass, as if it’s an effort to bite back whatever is on his mind. She spares a glance to look at him properly, but he doesn’t meet her gaze, and it worsens the discomfort dancing like static down her arms.

Unaware of this small drama, Rebecca slides the photo of the murder weapon across the table. “You know what this is.”

Samantha stares down at it for an instant before looking away. “I’m afraid I really don’t.”

“Lie.”

“What?” Her gaze snaps to Mason.

“That was a lie,” he explains, but doesn’t elaborate. Leah can imagine the wolflike smirk painted across his face for maximum impact.

“If you don’t know what this is, then you’re not very good at your job, are you?”

Tearing her gaze away from Mason, their suspect effects a nonchalant shrug. “I didn’t realise you worked for my manager.”

“He’s actually very pleased with your work,” Rebecca answers, as if the deflection is part of a script. “So pleased, in fact, that he made sure it was front and centre in all the promotional photos.” One by one, she lays a line of print-outs on the table, shots of the Pegasus exhibit that Felix found by digging through the museum’s website.

“There’s something interesting in these photos,” Rebecca continues smoothly, “or rather, they’re interesting if you can compare these two side by side.”

“I don’t see any difference.”

“Try actually looking,” Mason sneers.

“Maybe it’ll help if I told you this one –” Rebecca taps the left picture “– is from a the promotional photos taken last year when the exhibit was opened. This other one was taken yesterday. There’s something missing from it.”

It was Tina who caught the discrepancy, who stopped for a moment to wonder how the killer fixed on using a chain in the first place.

“I don’t know what you’re –”

“Lie.”

Samantha glares across the table.

“Let’s talk about something else,” Rebecca suggests.

“Is this going to take much longer?”

Mason cocks his head. “You and Russell Seakirk were fucking each other.”

For a moment, the bluntness of the statement cloaks the room in silence, and Samantha’s mouth works to form some kind of response that won’t be incriminating. Before she can find one, Rebecca jumps in with a warning, sidelong glance.

“We know it was more than that,” she says, more gently. “And we also know you were aware of his… true nature, shall we say.”

This time, there’s no reply. Samantha hunches inward and looks away, a sour twist to the corner of her mouth.

“Tell us what happened the last time you saw him. The truth, please.”

“I already told that pet detective of yours,” comes the harsh reply. “Don’t you coppers talk to each other?”

“Tell us again.”

“You don’t really think she did it, do you?” Nate asks, as Samantha continues to scowl down at the table. There’s a pleading note in his voice, disbelief and regret warring in equal measure.

“She had the means, and a motive.” Leah shrugs.  “Why are you so keen for it not to be her?”

“The way he spoke about her in the journal –”

A sharp bang makes them both flinch their attention back to the interview room, where Mason is flexing his hand above a smooth dent in the table.

“Lie,” he snarls.

Rebecca sighs. “I asked for the truth.”

“Your monster goon doesn’t scare me.”

“Also a lie.”

Leah frowns. It’s impossible to tell if it’s just Mason’s attitude that’s intimidating or if he’s using pheromones as well, but either way, none of what’s waiting behind Samantha’s sucked-in lip will be admissible in court – if the Agency even lets the case get that far. More likely, they’ll probably lock her somewhere without a trial, or wipe her memory and toss her out at the side of some leafy highway like a stray that’s worn out its novelty.

And the worst part is, Leah’s going to have to cover for that. She’s part of it. While she might convince herself that the most important thing is the protection of Wayhaven – might try not to think how easily the same could be done to her if she proves too troublesome – the scene before her now is not how justice should be done.

“The truth,” Rebecca repeats, when their suspect remains quiet.

How long had it taken her mother to accept the Agency’s lack of oversight? Had Rook, before it got him killed? She was so focused on trying to catch the killer she didn’t stop to think, either about where the trail would end or the fact that her bullheadedness has made Tina and Verda complicit in the Agency’s secrets as well – and far more disposable should it want to be rid of any loose ends.

“Are you alright?”

Startled, Leah jolts from her thoughts to find Nate’s gaze soft, a frown drawn in a pursed line across his mouth. Of course his senses picked up the spiral of her thoughts. Not that she deserves his compassion, after the absolute mess she’s made of this new, fragile thing between them.

“Just thinking,” she says.

“The Agency has dealt with crimes between humans and supernaturals before,” he tells her, as if he’s telepathic now, too. “There are procedures.”

She bites her lip. In the room, Rebecca is still speaking.

“You seem to be labouring under a false assumption. We know you know what Russell Seakirk was. You think it protects you, because you think we won’t want his true nature to become widely known, but you need to look around you. You need to ask yourself what else exists if people like Russell Seakirk do.” She gestures to Mason. “My friend here is a vampire. We have werewolves, fae, beings you can’t begin to imagine, and I am asking you for the truth out of courtesy. If necessary, I can have someone come in who will rip the memories from your skull.” There’s a pause. “But we prefer not to be so heavy-handed.”

Leah has never heard her mother sound so icy; she’s used to distant, not chilling.

“I can see your procedures,” she snaps, waving an irate hand towards the interrogation. “You don’t see anything wrong with this?”

“It’s a tactic, meant to intimidate,” Nate insists. “A mind reader is only ever a last resort.”

“But you do use them?”

“It’s not that simple –”

“This is taking too long,” Mason huffs, and leans forward, reaches out. “Why don’t you relax?”

A cold shiver crawls across Leah’s shoulders. The sterile scent of a blood lab, an iron grip around her forearm. Without meaning to, her thumb strays to the silver bump of scar tissue on her left wrist.

“Just relax, and tell us what’s on your mind.”

“I –”

“You’ll feel better once you tell us the truth.”

After a final moment of struggle, the last of the tension fades from Samantha’s features as the pheromones do their job, her arm going limp under Mason’s touch. Despite her own disgust in the method, Leah leans closer to the glass as curiosity overcomes principle, waiting for a confession, a justification, whatever might lead them to the final answer.

And then, the quiet collapses. With a noise so small it might have been a hiccup, Samantha’s face contorts behind the hand she brings up to shield the grief from those observing her, shakes her head, but fails to keep another sob contained.

“I dd it,” she confesses in a tiny voice. “Oh God, I killed him.”

There’s a collective sigh as the tension in the room eases. At Mason’s nod of confirmation, Rebecca slips the photo of the murder weapon back into its folder.

“What happened?”

“He – he wanted me to leave Stan. I told him I had to think about it, but then Stan showed me –” Samantha pauses, waves a hand in a vague gesture “– There was a video. I thought it must be a filter or something – some kind of trick, you know? But when I told Russell, he showed me. He showed me what he was. What he’d been all along. And I –” She swallows. “He was a monster.”

“And that’s why you killed him?” Rebecca prompts, unfazed.

“All I could think about was that Janet Whatsherface,” comes the shaking reply. “What happened to her. I couldn’t let it happen to me.”

“How did you know about the iron?” Mason asks.

“He burned his hand on the gate latch weeks ago. It’s an old one – cast iron.” She twists the wedding ring on her finger, the glint of gold the only warm thing in the room.

“You told Russell you would meet him outside the Swordfish and then you waited,” Rebecca confirms. “You used your husband’s phone so that it couldn’t be traced back to you. How did you get it away from him?”

There’s a scoff, a bare lip-curl of a sneer despite the tear tracks on Samantha’s cheeks as she rocks forward. “I can tell when Stan wants a drink. He thinks he hides it. A dose of Nyquil in a vodka bottle and he was out like a light. All I had to do was wait.”

“And then you went after Russell.”

“He thought I loved him. He thought I could love him after I found out what he was. How could anyone? I had to do it. God, I let him touch me. And the chain – when I –” Her hands come up clenching around imaginary iron links. “The chain was stuck to his skin. His eyes were so dark, just… staring. But I had to do it. I had to.” By now she’s nodding to herself, rocking on the chair as her lips press together and her arms snake around her middle as if otherwise she’ll shatter.

“We’re done here.” Mason spits the words. Disgust is clear in every line of his body as he rises from the table to leave Samantha to her grief, the hollow mantra that breaks with every reiteration.

In the observation gallery, the air has grown thick as molasses, so heavy on Leah’s chest that she practically sprints to meet the others in the corridor.

“So what happens now?” she asks, arms folded.

Rebecca’s frown suggests she recognises the stubborn tilt of her daughter’s jaw. “She’ll be processed.”

“What does that mean? You can’t just sweep this under the rug like you did with Murphy, you can’t make her disappear.”

“Her memory will be altered,” Mason supplies. “All evidence that Russell Seakirk was a supernatural will be scrubbed. That’s how it works.”

“And then her case will go to a human trial,” Nate adds, having followed her to lay a reassuring hand tentative against her lower back.

“Someone will be by shortly to start the process,” Rebecca says. “This is not the first time the Agency has dealt with something like this.”

The clipped tone clearly means this is the end of the conversation, and with a solid, warning glare to both Leah and Nate in turn, she stalks away with Mason in tow, her neat heels measuring pace along the polished concrete floor like a metronome, an uneasy silence dragged in her wake. A crease has formed between Nate’s brows, deep and marked as a thundercloud on a clear day.

“Are you ok?” Leah asks.

He glances up from the floor, but can’t quite break his face out of a grimace. “I can’t believe she did it.”

“It’s not so surprising. People have committed murder for less.”

“For less?” He says it like an accusation. “Leah, you don’t… you cannot think as she does.”

“I can understand her motive,” she retorts. “Isn’t that the whole reason all of this is secret? Finding out there’s an entire world of supernatural beings hiding in plain sight isn’t something everyone’s going to be happy about, even without insane vampire serial killers wanting to hunt you down.” She thinks of Verda, of the way he hunched over his desk in the morgue and the deep, exhausted shadows under his eyes. “He hid a lot from her – lied to her. All I’m saying is I understand why she was angry.”

His hand drops from her waist, leaving a cold echo behind. “Her reaction goes a little beyond anger.”

“Yeah, well, maybe if Russell had told her what he was instead of letting her find out through someone else it wouldn’t have gone that far.” It’s a bitter point, spiteful, but the day has gone sour and he’s the only person left to take it out on. For a moment he just stands there, searching her face for something he cannot see. She recognises fear in his eyes.

“Sometimes people have reasons for keeping things to themselves,” he replies at last, quietly, looking away. “And he did tell her in the end.”

“Only when he was forced to,” she snaps. “Pretty familiar, don’t you think?”

He reels at that, like it’s a physical blow. “It almost sounds like you blame him for what happened.”

“I don’t condone murder.”

“Of course not – I did not mean –”

But she’s had enough. At least at the station she has windows and a semi-functional kettle. “I also don’t condone having people’s minds wiped, but I guess I’d better get started on the paperwork anyway.”

“This incident proves why such a measure is sometimes necessary,” he insists, moving to block her. “The supernatural world is safest if it is kept secret.”

“Don’t worry, I understand.” She glares as she steps around him. “I learned a long time ago how much the Agency values its secrets.”

Enough to wipe someone’s mind. Enough to bury botched missions to retain the loyalty of its agents. Enough that it’s utter foolishness to hope she would be the choice made if the Agency snapped its indifferent fingers to bring one of its own to heel. As she turns and stalks away, determination alone keeping her shoulders from sinking forward over the lurch in her chest, it’s hard not to imagine that future order and the wreck she’ll be despite her best efforts when, like a stray, she’s left behind.

[lykegenia]

Like Glitter And Gold Ch.11

Fandom: The Wayhaven Chronicles Characters/pairings: Nate Sewell x f!Detective Rating: T Warnings: None Summary: Wayhaven has had its ups and downs in the past few months, and for Detective Leah Kingston, dealing with vampire serial killers and mysterious plagues has become something of a routine. Good thing, too. The body of a murdered supernatural has just been discovered in the alley behind a local bar - and everything, really, just gets weirder from there.Between the search for the dead man's killer, keeping the Agency at bay, and trying to navigate the new, uncertain waters of a relationship with a very suave vampire boyfriend, Leah has her work cut out solving the mystery, especially when it beomes clear she's hunting more than just a murderer. Additional tags: murder mystery, fluff, angst

Read on AO3

--

The Agency’s interview rooms weren’t part of the official tour during Leah’s first stay at the Facility, and with their drab, concrete walls and the low whine of the air being pumped down from more habitable levels they’re certainly less presentable than the common rooms or the prison wards. Still, there’s a disconcerting weight to all the layers of earth pressing down that makes her shoulders itch, something in the dead way sound travels through the halls bringing too easily to mind other corridors, dank and dark and stinking of rust.

Stanley Harris doesn’t look happy to be here either. His fear bounces his knee against the bottom of the table he’s handcuffed to, keeps his gaze skittering across the mirrored glass that separates the interview room from the observation gallery. In normal circumstances, she might read it as a guilty conscience, but having three vampires appear out of nowhere in the middle of a lake would be enough to make anyone jumpy. It complicates matters. The evidence in her hands is laid out like a map, snug in its manilla folder like just another report that can be filed away when all this is over.

“You know we have people who can read minds,” Adam says at her side.

She shakes her head. “He’s already having a bad enough day.”

“Agent Kingston –”

“We’ll follow Leah’s lead on this one,” Rebecca interrupts.

Her expression is stiff, and it’s difficult to take the statement as a peace offering when it still has the might of the Agency behind it. Secrecy is what matters here; the principles that Leah has spent her adult life upholding are little more than an afterthought. It’s all but guaranteed Russell’s murderer will be smoothed away like any other imperfection on the skin of the world that hints of supernatural existence, the broken furniture and the missing blood technicians and the burnt-down carnivals.

Still, she doesn’t have to just roll over and accept the lack of due process. She’s going to do this properly. Even if before now the most serious crime she’s ever solved was a case of errant graffiti.

Stanley jumps when she opens the door to the interrogation room.

“And what are you then?” he demands, trying for defiance.

“I’m human,” she tells him, as she takes the adjacent seat at the table.

“And the others? The ones who found me on the boat – how did they reach it in the middle of the lake?”

She lets out a breath. “They’re vampires.”

While he digests that information, she pulls out a notebook and places her phone on the table, taps open the voice recorder app.

“Interview with Stanley Harris begins 15:42.”

He stares at the table as she goes through the preliminary questions, answering in a monotone to his name, his address, and his relationship to the victim, and then, apparently emboldened by the lack of anything swooping down on him, shifts in his chair to get her attention.

“I want a lawyer.”

Not to be rushed, Leah finishes her sentence in the notebook before glancing upwards. “I’m sorry,” she says. “You’re not getting one. I’m the closest thing you’re going to have to an advocate.”

“That can’t be legal,” he scoffs.

“Do you really think that’s a concern to the people holding you?” She pulls the manilla folder closer. “You’ve already seen what they’re capable of. The nature of the case you’ve found yourself in the middle of is… complicated. Cooperate and things will be much easier.”

Stanley’s face crumbles. “Look, I – I won’t tell anyone. I admit to stealing the boat, but that treasure was mine by right, after all my family suffered.” A jab of his finger for emphasis. “I was owed that. But I have rights!”

“Let’s talk about the treasure,” she presses on, though she has to bite the inside of her cheek to do it. “When you found out Russell Seakirk was looking for the Pegasus’ treasure, how did it make you feel?”

“It…” He swallows. “It bothered me. But lots of people have looked for it over the years, no one ever found anything. I thought he was wasting his time.”

“And that’s why you were out in the middle of the lake in a boat that wasn’t yours, operating an ROV at the precise coordinates Russell marked in his journal?” she checks.

“Well… no… I mean, I know about it now – I didn’t see any harm in looking. He’s dead.”

She pulls out one of the printouts from the boat yard’s computer and lays it in front of him. “You had access to the GPS, you saw what he was doing, and I’ll bet when you realised he was onto something you didn’t feel too happy.”

“I didn’t know what was going on,” he insists.

“You knew he wasn’t going to share anything he found with you. All that treasure, all that money that should rightfully be yours…”

“No –”

“You could have used it to clear the debt on the yard, and he was just going to swan off with it –”

“That’s not how it happened!”

“It makes a very convincing motive for murder.”

“I –” He blinks. “What?”

“And then there’s the fact he was having an affair with your wife.” When there’s no response beyond a sharp glance back to the table, she leans back. “So you did know about that, then.”

“I knew,” he growls. “But I didn’t kill him. After what I saw, I… I couldn’t have.”

“What do you mean?”

A tremor worms in beneath the anger in his voice, fear from some other source than the dingy box room he’s trapped in. She can’t work out what it is, but she decides to wait, to let him work through whatever internal struggle is twisting through his fingers. Finally, with a grind of teeth and a heavy, muttered curse, he splays his hands on the table as if to ground himself on its polished surface.

“Look – get my phone, I’ll show you,” he pleads.

Leah glances over to the two-way mirror. An instant later, Mason comes through the door with the Ziploc bag of Stanley’s affects, his stride languid and deliberate as a tiger’s as he hands it over.

“Thanks,” she says, though she glares at the smirk he throws back over his shoulder on the way out. The threat was unnecessary – it’s not like Stanley could forget how he came to be in his present state.

To her surprise, however, he doesn’t let the vampire’s intrusion sway him. As soon as she passes over his phone, with trembling fingers he brings up a video and holds it out to show her.

“About a week ago, some men came to the yard – late.” He shakes his head. “Big, burly types. They cornered Russell by the gate and beat the shit out of him. No one else was there but I saw everything. I started recording in case he wanted to go to the police with it or something, but…” His voice fails him, and he leaves the phone to her as he scrubs his hands down his face. “Just. Just play it.”

She does. She recognises Walter Greene’s lackeys, even down to the heavy bling around their necks, and the panic in Russell’s body language as he clocks the threat. When he tries to run, the one closest grabs him while the other lands a punch with practiced efficiency that sends his victim to his knees. The camera shakes. Voices grate, harsh and indistinct through the phone’s cheap speaker, but a second later there’s a clear, breathy what the fuck as Russell rises back into view, his face no longer human.

“What would you do if you saw a monster like that?” Stanley asks, as the beating continues.

She looks up from the screen. “I’m more interested in what you did.”

“What I –? I didn’t kill him!”

“Where were you four nights ago?” she retorts.

He reels back, slumps. “At the yard. Alone. I got drunk.” He pokes at a plastic chip in the Ziploc bag in a morose kind of way. “I’ve been sober for ten years, only slipped once, but after that… Someone left a bottle of vodka lying on the pier. I got halfway through it and next thing I knew the sun was trying to crack my skull open.”

“You sent a text to Russell at 00:07 on the night he died.” She takes out the still from the Swordfish’s CCTV. “That’s three minutes before he walks out the back door into the ambush that killed him.”

“It wasn’t me!”

“The phone company shows it was from your number,” she insists. “What did it say?”

“I didn’t send a text!” He throws his hands up. “I lost my phone, I only found it again yesterday. I swear. I don’t know anything about this. I took Gillie Mhor out to find the treasure, that’s all.”

She’s pushed too hard. Tapping her pen against the table, she takes a moment to backtrack, hoping that whatever she says next won’t bring Adame storming in to demand she not do any more damage.

“Who else has seen the video?” she tries after a moment.

“No one.”

Such a quick answer rings like a sour note.

“Not even your wife?” she asks. “Hard to believe you wouldn’t want her to know what kind of person she was sleeping with.”

“You’re not bothered by any of this, are you?” Stanley snaps. A set of angry red blotches rises in his cheeks. “Vampires, whatever the fuck Russell was, how can you be so cosy with it all?”

I guess I touched a nerve. An instructor at the academy told her once that a deflection is as good as a confession, but one to be teased out carefully. A good detective knows when to push, and when to change tack. Hoping she’s judged him right, she opens the folder again.

“Why don’t we talk about this?” she suggests, and slides Verda’s photo of the murder weapon under Stanley’s nose.

“What is it?” he asks, sullen.

“You tell me.”

He clearly senses a trap. “A chain?”

“Does it look familiar?” she asks.

“No.”

“It was used to murder Russell,” she tells him, watching for a reaction. There’s a quick, terrified glance to the photo before she catches his gaze again. “The funny thing is, either the killer got really lucky, or they knew he couldn’t stand the touch of iron. I noticed there were a lot of chains lying around at your yard.”

“You think I –?” He lurches backwards, sucking in a panicked breath. “No! I keep telling you, I didn’t kill him! Anyone with access to the piers would have access to the yard – but it’s not like they’d find something like that one anywhere anyway,” he adds, sweeping a hand in a vague gesture across the table. “Modern anchors use galvanised steel – you know, so they don’t rust? If you wanted one like that made of actual iron you’d have to go to a mus–”

Blood drains from his face. His eyes go wide as Leah pushes back from the table.

“Thank you, Mr Harris. You’ve been very helpful.”

“No – wait!”

But she already slipping into the corridor, heedless to his shouted confessions.

Rebecca is already waiting for her, flanked by both Adam and Nate. The team leader’s expression is inscrutable, though the tight fold of his arms betrays his eagerness to get moving.

“The wife,” Rebecca confirms.

“We should go now,” Adam says, “before word spreads that we’re holding her husband and she has a chance to run.”

Nate shakes his head. “It makes no sense – what would be Samantha’s motive for killing Russell?” he gazes between the three of them, a strange pleading in his brown eyes. “They were soulmates. It shouldn’t be possible.”

“There’s no proof of that,” Leah replies with a shrug. “Besides, ‘crime of passion’ is a pretty common motive. Maybe she found out about the money, maybe she didn’t like being lied to.”

“It shouldn’t be possible,” he repeats, quieter.

Taking pity, Adam lays a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “It’s not always that things end well between humans and supernaturals. You know that.”

“Yes,” Nate responds, brushing the touch away. “I do.”

Something passes between the two of them, like the echo of a conversation no one else can hear, and though neither of them look her way, Leah has no doubt the traitorous skip in her pulse does not go unnoticed. It’s yet another thing they haven’t talked about, another barrier between them, another reminder that no matter how much they might want to pretend otherwise, the person she’s falling for isn’t human.

She’s not about to show such weakness in front of Rebecca, however. Shaking off the thought, she clears her throat and pulls out her phone again. “You bring her in,” she tells Adam. “I’m going take Tina to the museum to find a way to tie her to the murder weapon.”

[lykegenia]

The Lingering of Ghosts: Prologue

For other people, a romantic weekend away at a fancy hotel in beautiful, desolate Dartmoor would entail days of luxury and refinement. For Leah, however, still adjusting to the newness of her relationship with Nate, the supernatural always finds a way to ruin her plans. With a mysterious death and a string of disappearances to investigate, it's a race against time to discover what's going on before the veil between worlds thins too far with the turning of the year. Something is stalking in the dark, and the locals aren't the only ones with secrets. TWC Nate/Leah Rating: E Warnings: None Romance, Mystery, Angst, Fluff

--

The desk lamp flickers, the only source of light. In so isolated a place, the electricity supply is always fragile, but with the roar of the storm outside, there’s a good chance it’ll go out altogether. As long as it keeps up until the task is done…

Rain lashes the windows. There’s no time. Water drips from the figure’s ancient anorak, mud trailing a line of footsteps from the hall where the shovel has been left propped by the door, but the mess will have to be cleaned up later. The girl should not have come.

With a sigh, a sodden shoebox is placed delicately on the desk, sagging and disintegrating at the corners so that a gleam peeks through of reddish bone and yellowed, curving teeth, an almost eldritch awareness to it as the figure shuffles about the shadowed room gathering objects in a seemingly random order. Their fingers are chafed raw, gnarled and swollen with cold, crusted under the nails with dirt. When the tools are finally all assembled – candle, salt, pin, a plate of ash, and an old carrier bag of the same earth caking the shoebox – they take great care in lifting the skull free of its temporary prison. They raise it to the light, brush the caked mud from its eye sockets as gently as if it were a child.

The book containing instructions for the ritual stands open on a mount on the desk, with a transcript of the words scrawled below on a grubby bit of paper. The figure refers to it as a match is scratched to life to light the candle, their intonation wavery and uncertain, but not stumbling.

First, a circle of salt around the plate and the candle. Then the soil, tipped onto the pile of ash and mixed well with a pinprick of blood. The figure winces, but doesn’t pause speaking. Disinterested, the skull gleams in the flamelight as it is set upon the altar, as the candle is brought close enough to make the wax drip over its features in bubbling, translucent streams. The final words are uttered, the intention set.

For an instant, nothing.

Then, a wave of cold shudders through the room. Rain slams against the window with renewed force, rattling the glass in its frame. Without warning, the electricity cuts out. The figure holds their breath, then breathes out, gaze caught on the wilted spider plant at the edge of the sphere of candlelight that just a moment before was green and vibrant. A small price to pay. Taking another slow breath, the figure bends over the desk and blows out the candle.

[lykegenia]

Patience, And Words, And Waterfalls

And I'm back on my TWC bullshit

Nate x Leah, fluff and light angst

--

He knows she loves him.

He feels it in the way she seeks him out in a room, her smiles against his mouth, how she can’t help her grip tightening on him as they come apart together. He doesn’t know if her feelings match the depth of his, if she can even comprehend the ache of the eternity he’s waited for her – but no, that’s an unfair thought, because loneliness is something she wears like a cloak, weather-side turned out to deflect the wound of longing beneath. He catches her sometimes, on the cusp of saying it, untangling the words on the tip of her tongue like she’s translating a language she doesn’t speak. Her brow furrows, her heartbeat flutters, and then it’s gone, lost in a sigh like a desert dream of water as she hides against his shoulder.

He tries to lead by example, whispers the words into the curve of her shoulder, offers them over cups of tea, but it doesn’t have the effect he hoped. She shrinks away, minutely, guiltily, and tries to bluff her way into a change of topic. It hurts. It burns, to reach out and feel only empty air. Soon, too soon for his liking, she’ll find out what he really is, and then nevermore will there be a hope that those small words will fall on his desperate ears, but is it so wrong for him to want it just once? To feel assurance brush across his skin? It doesn’t take long to realise he’s never wanted anything so much.

Understanding comes eventually when, slipping back into the warehouse from a patrol along the town’s northern edges, he catches the strains of her voice coming from the kitchen. She’s there with Felix, of course, and he smiles at the thought of how close the two of them have become.

“I don’t know what to do!”

The words are explosive; the smile falls from his face.

“He keeps saying it, and he keeps expecting me to say it back – I know he does.”

Felix must be aware of his presence, even if her human senses haven’t yet picked up on the extra participant in their conversation, because his voice is tentative as he replies, “Do you want to?”

“Doesn’t fucking matter if my face refuses to work,” she bites back, and he can imagine the way her lips twist around the words.

“I’m sure it’s not that bad.”

Read the rest on AO3

[lykegenia]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love ❤️

Thank you for this ask! One thing it's made me realise is how many fics I have now - twenty new ones since I last counted - and I have no idea how that happened. My five favourites?

On Last Song - Oneshot, Dagon Age: Origins. The last stand of the Eleanor Cousland, the Seawolf. This one I love because it switches up the perspective usually seen in the Cousland origin and lets Eleanor have the hero moment she deserves. The fic actually started with the poem I wrote for the codex entry in the notes, and I'm still really proud of it.

Like Glitter and Gold - longfic, The Wayhaven Chronicles, Leah Kingston x Nate Sewell. The body of a murdered supernatural is found behind a bar, and Detective Leah Kingston must solve the crime (while dealing with the tempestuous budding romance between her and a certain suave member of Unit Bravo). This was the first murder mystery I've ever written, and it taught me so much about plotting and consistency. I also loved getting to explore the relationship between Leah and Nate as they both learn to open up and communicate. Also love for this one because you bound it for me so now it's sitting on my shelf where I can read it like a real book.

The Falcon and the Rose - longfic, Dragon Age: Origins, Rosslyn Cousland x Alistair Theirin. To the surprise of absolutely no one I'm still super proud of my AU where instead of a Blight, the only thing our heroes have to worry about is a civil war. The intricacies of Fereldan politics, the lore and worldbuilding, the relationships between Alistair, Rosslyn, and Cailan, and the fact that I actually finished it are all reasons why this is still my favourite of all the things I've written.

The Things We Hide - longfic, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Zutara. An AU where the Southern Water Tribe only fell to the Fire Nation with the help of Sozin's Comet, with Katara taken to the Caldera as a political prisoner where she works to undermine the rule of the Fire Lord from within. More political intrigue, Katara and Zuko both being awesome, classic enemies to lovers. Even if the title still hasn't grown on me, I'll always be fond of this one because I almost, almost didn't post it but people ended up loving it.

Unlocking The Door - oneshot, Dragon Age: Inquisition. An exploration of Cullen's (headcanoned) asexuality. This one I love because so many people responded to it so positively to say they felt represented, and as someone who also identifies as ace that feels important.

[lykegenia]

But as always, he twists from the unintended snap and reaches across the space between them, tucking a flyaway lock of hair behind her ear as he shifts closer.

“I didn’t mean to imply you aren’t capable,” he tells her. “One of your many talents seems to be the ability to tangle my thoughts into an inarticulate mess.”

“Really?” Sarcasm was always her strong suit. “But you’re always so charming.”

A smirk. “Do I charm you, Leah?”

Everyone look at the gorgeous commission I got from @javsarts of Nate and Leah from Chapter 7 of my Wayhaven murder mystery, Like Glitter And Gold. Isn’t it wonderful? I can’t stop staring at them. Go and grab a commission slot immediately

[lykegenia]

Fic Masterpost

My number of fics has breached containment, so I’ve split them into two. Peruse here, enjoy, and check out my Dragon Age fics on my other blog here, if you’re so inclined.

Avatar: The Last Airbender

The Things We Hide - In a world where the Southern Water Tribe didn’t fall to the Fire Nation, Katara must infiltrate the Fire Nation capital to bring an end to the war (Zutara, complete)

A Life, Together - A collection of oneshots based on Zutara Week prompts, all set in the same timeline (Zutara, complete)

Eventually Closer - Every nation has its own version of the Tale of Two Lovers (Zutara, complete)

Jubilant - Katara and Zuko train together (oneshot)

DOTA: Dragon’s Blood

The Dragon Knight’s New Clothes - Set after episode 2: Davion, Mirana, and Marci stop for the night at a farmstead, and Davion reflects on what he was - and what he has become (Miravion, oneshot)

And The Snow Reflects Back - Set after episode 3: A moment of reflection for Davion about his growing feelings for Mirana, while the blizzard rages outside (Miravion, oneshot)

Conversations In The Dark - With everything they worked for in ruins, Davion and Mirana reflect on how things went wrong - with some help (oneshot)

A New Dawn - Davion wakes, with Mirana at his side

Collide - Mirana, god-empress of the Helio Imperium, lost everything she loved to save the world. And yet, even in the depths of grief, hope is a fire that refuses to go out (oneshot)

The Wayhaven Chronicles

Trust, But Verify - Detective Leah Kingston suspects Unit Bravo isn’t all they seem to be, but when she goes back to investigate the warehouse with Tina at her side, their conversation about a certain tall, dark, and above all handsome agent might just be overheard. (Nate x Detective, oneshot)

Tea - With the investigation going nowhere, Nate and Leah bond over a cuppa. (Nate x Detective, oneshot)

Goodnight, Detective - Waking up in the middle of the night is far more interesting when there are vampires standing guard in your living room. (Nate x Detective, oneshot)

So Let Us Melt, And Make No Noise - The morning after rescuing Sanja, Nate wakes mostly heals, and finds Leah kept her promise to stay with him. (Nate x Detective, oneshot)

Haiku - It's become a regular thing, Nate cooking her dinner after sparring with Mason. She enjoys the time she gets to spend with him. But all it takes is one little slip to remember that having a vampire for a boyfriend isn't so easy. (Nate x Detective, oneshot)

Once More Around The Sun - Leah, as a rule, does not enjoy her birthday. (Nate x Detective, oneshot)

Like Glitter And Gold - There’s only one thing that’s going to shake the town of Wayhaven more than a murder, and that’s the murder of a supernatural. Pitted against crime bosses, deep secrets, and the mystery of what lies in the bottom of the lake, Leah can only hope this doesn’t go the same way as her last murder case. (Nate x detective, ongoing)